INCREASED STRENGTH OF THE RUSSIAN DRIVE

As the month of July approached its end the Russian assaults became more and more violent. Along the entire front the most bitter and sanguinary fighting took place day after day and night after night. Artillery bombardments such as never had been heard before raged at hundreds of places at the same time. Troops in masses that passed all former experience were employed by the Russians to break the resistance of the Teutonic allies.

The latter, however, seemed to have their affairs well in hand. At many points they lost local engagements. At other points advanced positions had to be given up, and at still other points occasional withdrawals of a few miles became inevitable. But, all in all, the Austro-German lines held considerably well.

During the last two or three days of July, 1916, however, the German-Austrian forces suffered some serious reverses. On July 21, 1916, General Sakharoff had succeeded in crossing the Lipa River and in establishing himself firmly on its south bank. This brought him within striking distance of the important railway point of Brody on the Dubno-Lemberg railway, very close to the Russo-Galician border, and only fifty miles northeast of Lemberg.

In spite of the most determined resistance on the part of the Austrian troops, the Russian general was able to push his advantage during the next few days, and on July 27, 1916, Brody fell into his hands.

Less successful was the continued attack on the Stokhod line with the object of reaching Kovel. There the German-Austrian forces repulsed all Russian advances.

In the Bukowina, however, the Russians gradually pushed on. Slowly but surely they approached once more the Carpathian Mountain passes. The same was true in eastern Galicia. After the fall of Kolomea in the early part of the month, the Russian advance had progressed steadily, even if slowly, in the direction of Stanislau and Lemberg. Closer and closer to Stanislau the Russian forces came, until on July 30, 1916, they were well within striking distance.

In the north, too, General Kuropatkin displayed greatly increased activity against Von Hindenburg's front, although as a result he gained only local successes.

Midsummer, 1916, then saw the Russians once more on a strong offensive along their entire front. How far this movement would ultimately carry them, it was hard to tell. Once more the way into the Hungarian plains seemed to be open to the czar's soldiers, and a sufficiently successful campaign in Galicia might easily force back the center of the line to such an extent that they might then have prospects of regaining some of the ground lost during their great retreat.

Interesting details of the terrific struggle which had been going on on the eastern front for many weeks are given in the following letter from an English special correspondent:

"I reached the headquarters of a certain Siberian corps about midnight on July 15, 1916, to find the artillery preparation, which had started at 4 p. m., in full blast. Floundering around through the mud, we came almost on to the positions, which were suddenly illuminated with fires started by Austrian shells in two villages near by, while the jagged flashes of bursting shells ahead caused us to extinguish the lights of the motor and to turn across the fields, ultimately arriving at the headquarters of a corps which I knew well on the Bzura line in Poland.

"Sitting in a tiny room in an unpretentious cottage with the commander, I followed the preparations which were being made for the assault. The ticking of the instruments gave news from the front, the line of which was visible from the windows by flares and rockets and burning villages. By midnight ten breaches had been made in the barbed wire, each approximately twenty paces broad, and the attacks were ordered for three o'clock in the morning. "Rising at 5 a. m. I accompanied the commander of the corps to his observation point on a ridge. The attacks had already swept away the resistance of the enemy's first line.

"Thousands of prisoners were in our hands, and the enemy was already retiring rapidly. He therefore halted but a few minutes, pushing on to the advanced positions. The commander stopped repeatedly by the roadside tapping the field wires, and giving further instructions as to the disposition of the troops.

"As we moved forward we began to meet the flood from the battle field, first the lightly wounded, and then Austrian prisoners helping our heavily wounded, who were in carts.

"Before we were halfway to the positions a cavalry general splashed with mud met the commander and informed him that six guns were already in our hands. The next report from the field telephone increased the number to ten guns, with 2,000 prisoners, including some Germans.

"At quite an early hour the entire country was alive, and every department of the army beginning to move forward. All the roads were choked with ammunition parks, batteries, and transports following up our advancing troops; while the stream of returning caissons, the wounded, and the prisoners equaled in volume the tide of the advancing columns.

"The commander took up his position on a ridge which but a few hours before had been our advanced line. Thence the country could be observed for miles. Each road was black with moving troops, pushing forward on the heels of the enemy, whose field gun shells were bursting on the ridges just beyond.

"Here I met the commander of the division and his staff. Plans were immediately made for following up our success. Evidently the size of our group was discernible from some distant enemy observation point, for within five minutes came the howl of an approaching projectile and a 6-inch shell burst with a terrific crash in a neighboring field. Its arrival, which was followed at regular intervals by others ranging from 4-inch upward, was apparently unnoticed by the general, whose interest was entirely occupied with pressing his advantage. "So swift was our advance that nearly half an hour elapsed before the newly strung field wires were working properly.

"The fire had become so persistent that our group scattered and hundreds of prisoners, whose black mass could be seen by the enemy, were removed beyond the possibility of observation. Then the corps commander, stretched on straw on the crest of the ridge, with his maps spread out, dictated directions to the operator of the field telephone who crouched beside him.

"Before and beneath us lay the abandoned line of Austrian trenches, separated from ours by a small stream, where since daylight the heroic engineers were laboring under heavy shell fire to construct a bridge to enable our cavalry and guns to pass in pursuit.

"Leaving the general we proceeded. Our troops had forced the line here at 3 a. m., wading under machine-gun and rifle fire in water and marsh above their waists, often to their armpits. The Austrian end of the bridge was a horrible place, as it was congested with dead, dying and horribly wounded men, who, as the ambulances were on the other side of the river, could not be removed. A sweating officer was urging forward the completion of the bridge, which was then barely wide enough to permit the waiting cavalry squadrons to pass in single file. On the opposite bank waited the ambulance to get across after the troops had passed. A number of German ambulance men were working furiously over their own and the Austrian wounded, many of whom, I think, must have been wounded by their own guns in an attempt to prevent the bridging of the stream. A more bloody scene I have not witnessed, though within a few hours the entire place was probably cleared up.

"Passing on I, for the first time, witnessed the actual taking of prisoners, and watched their long blue files as they passed out from their own trenches and were formed in groups allotted to Russian soldiers, who served as guides rather than guards, and sent to the rear.

"Near here I encountered about fifty captured Germans and talked with about a dozen of them. Certainly none of them showed the smallest lack of morale or any depression. "By noon sufficient details of the fighting were available to indicate that this corps alone had taken between three and five thousand prisoners and twenty guns, of which four are said to be howitzers. When one is near the front the perspective of operations is nearly always faulty, and it was, therefore, impossible to estimate the effect of the movement as a whole, but I understand that all the other corps engaged had great success and everywhere advanced."[Back to Contents]