[2] The 3rd Army initially consisted of the XI and XIV Corps, based in Lemberg (modern day Lviv, Ukraine), and Innsbruck, respectively.

Thus the Austro-Hungarian line had to retreat back to the Carpathians, losing the country's territory east of the mountain range to the Russians.

[5][6] In September 1914, in the aftermath of the defense of Galicia, Bruderman had been replaced as the army commander by Svetozar Boroević von Bojna.

[7] Under his command the 3rd Army spent the remaining winter months of that year defending important mountain passes throughout the Carpathians.

By then it had been built up to include fifteen infantry and four and a half cavalry divisions for the assault, which began on January 23 with the goal of securing the rail and communications hubs of Medzilaborce, Sambir, and Sanok.

Despite some early successes against numerically inferior enemy units which allowed them to advance about 38 kilometers, the Habsburg troops suffered from a lack of reinforcements and logistical problems.

The mountain winter weather also turned for the worse as the overstretched 3rd Army had to defend its line from Russian counteroffensives, as it occupied a large gap between two important passes on January 26.

By early February, the Austro-Hungarian offensive had stalled without reaching the besieged Przemyśl fortress, and the Russians remained in control of the strategically important passes while 3rd Army divisions had been reduced to the size of brigades and lower.

The remaining men of 3rd Army were subjected to below freezing temperatures and other environmental dangers, lack of supplies, and no possibility of relief.

The Serbs entered Montenegro in an attempt to reach Allied ships on the coast, and Austro-Hungarian supreme commander Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf gave the 3rd Army orders to not stop and to invade the small country as well.

[4] In the spring of that year, Hötzendorf decided to attempt an offensive in a part of the front away from the Isonzo river area where the main fighting had been occurring.