Just as in the Vilna-Niemen sector to the north, the German advance in the region bounded in the north by the Niemen and in the south by the Jasiolda was halted during the last week of September, 1915. And the line of positions which had been reached by the German forces was maintained throughout the rest of the fall and the entire winter, excepting a few minor changes. In a rough way, that front extended as follows: Starting south of the junction of the Beresina with the Niemen, it followed the course of the latter river through the town of Labicha for about thirty miles in a southeasterly direction, then bent slightly to the southwest at Korelitchy, passing to the west of Tzirin, crossed the Brest-Litovsk-Minsk railway about halfway between Baranovitchy and Snoff and about ten miles farther south the Vilna-Kovno railway between Luchouitchy and Nieazvied, at which town it again bent to the southwest, along the Shara River, passing east of Lipsk, and then along the entire length of the Oginski Canal to its junction with the Jasiolda, northwest of Pinsk. Along this line both the Russians and Germans dug themselves in, and throughout the winter a bitter trench warfare netted occasionally a few lines of trenches to the Russians and at other times had the same results for the other side, without, however, materially changing the position of either.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XXIII
THE STRUGGLE IN EAST GALICIA AND VOLHYNIA AND THE CAPTURE OF PINSK
The fall of Ivangorod and Warsaw was the signal for advance for which the southern group under Von Mackensen had been waiting. General von Woyrsch's forces pressed on between Garvolin and Ryki, northeast of Ivangorod. Other forces threw the Russians back beyond the Vieprz and gradually approached the line of the Bug River. Still farther south, on the Dniester, Austrian troops, too, forced back the Russians step by step. On August 11, 1915, Von Mackensen's troops attacked the Russians, who were making a stand behind the Bystrzyka and the Tysmienika. This hastened the Russian retreat to the east of the Bug.
Throughout the following days the story of the Russian retreat and the German-Austrian advance changed little in its essential features. As fast as roads permitted and as quickly as obstacles in their way could be overcome, the forces of the Central Powers advanced. With equal determination the Russian troops availed themselves of every possible, and quite a few seemingly impossible, opportunities to delay this advance. Every creek was made an excuse for making a stand, every forest became a means of stalling the enemy, every railroad or country road embankment had to yield its chance of putting a new obstacle into the thorny path of the advancing invader. Whenever the latter seemed to ease up for a moment, either to gain contact with his main forces or to rest up after especially severe forced marches, the Russians were on hand with an attack. But just as soon as the attack had been made the Germans or Austrians or Hungarians, or all three together, were ready to forget all about the temporary let-up and were prepared to meet the attack. Then once more the pursuit would begin.
During the drive on Brest-Litovsk, covering practically all of August, 1915, after the fall of Warsaw, the operations of Von Mackensen's southern group were so closely connected and intertwined with those of the central group that they have found detailed consideration together with the latter. During all this time the extreme right wing in Eastern Galicia did comparatively little beyond preventing an advance of the Russian forces at that point. With the fall of Brest-Litovsk, however, and the beginning of the Russian retreat along the entire front, activities in the southeastern end of the Russo-German-Austrian theatre of war were renewed.
On August 28, 1915, German and Austro-Hungarian forces under Count Bothmer broke through the Russian line along the Zlota-Lipa River, both north and south of the Galician town of Brzezany, about fifty miles southeast of Lemberg, and in spite of determined resistance and repeated counterattacks drove the Russians some distance toward the Russo-Galician border. At the same time other parts of Von Mackensen's army successfully attacked the Russian line at Vladimir Volynsky, a few miles east of the Upper Bug and somewhat north of the Polish-Galician border. The combined attack resulted in a gradual withdrawal of the entire Russian line as far as it was located in Galicia, aggregating in length almost 160 miles. These operations alone netted to the Austro-Germans about 10,000 Russian prisoners. This attack came more or less unexpectedly, but in spite of that was carried on most fiercely. By August 30, 1915, the right wing had forced the Russians back to the river Strypa and was only a few miles west of Tarnopol.
Farther north another army under the Austrian General Boehm-Ermolli encountered determined resistance along the line Zlochoff-Bialykamien-Radziviloff, where the Russians were supported by very strongly fortified positions. Still farther north the attack progressed in the direction of the strongly fortified town of Lutsk, on the Styr River, less than fifty miles west of the fortress of Rovno, in the Russian province of Volhynia. This fortress, together with Dubno, farther south on the Ikwa, a tributary of the Styr, and with Rovno itself formed a very powerful triangle of permanent fortifications erected by Russia in very recent times. The purpose for which they had been intended undoubtedly was twofold; first, to offer an obstacle to any invasion of that section of the Russian Empire on the part of Austro-Hungarian troops with Lemberg as a base, and secondly, to act as a base for a possible Russian attack on Galicia.
In view of these facts, it was surprising that on August 31, 1915, only three days after the resumption of actual fighting in Eastern Galicia, the fall of Lutsk was announced. The very form of the official Austrian announcement rather indicates that the Russians must have evacuated Lutsk of their own accord, possibly after dismounting and either withdrawing or destroying its guns. For the report states that only one—the Fifty-fourth Infantry—regiment drove the Russians by means of bayonet attacks out of their first-line trenches and then followed them right into Lutsk. This, of course, could not have been accomplished so quickly unless the Russians had already withdrawn at that point as well as everywhere else. At the same time their line was also pierced at Baldi and Kamuniec, which forced their withdrawal from the entire western bank of the Styr. German troops, fighting under General von Bothmer in cooperation with the Austro-Hungarian army of General Boehm-Ermolli, on the same day (August 31, 1915) stormed a series of heights on the banks of the Strypa, north of Zboroff, although they encountered there the most determined resistance on the part of the Russian forces.
The immense losses in men, guns, and materials which the Russians suffered throughout the month of August, 1915, in spite of their genius for withdrawing huge bodies of men at the right moment, will be seen from the following official statement published on September 1, 1915, by General Headquarters of the German armies. These figures do not include the losses suffered by the Russian armies which in Eastern Galicia were fighting against Austro-Hungarian troops.