At this point the Germans resumed their offensive at daybreak on April 15, 1916, after strong artillery preparation accompanied by the use of asphyxiating gas. Concentrated fire from the Russian artillery, however, prohibited any noticeable advance. During the following day, April 16, 1916, both sides restricted themselves more or less to artillery bombardments, which became especially violent on the Dvina line, around the Uxkull bridgehead, and in the neighborhood of the Russian positions south of the village of Garbunovka, as well as between Lake Narotch and Lake Miadziol.
Two days later, on April 18, 1916, German detachments temporarily regained some of the ground lost about a week before south of Garbunovka. Again on that day the guns on both sides roared along the entire northern sector of the eastern front. On the 19th the bombardment became especially intense at the bridgehead at Uxkull and south of lake.
The artillery attack against the former was maintained throughout the following two days. German scouting parties which crossed the river Shara, north of the Oginski Canal, on April 22, 1916, were surrounded in the woods adjoining and practically annihilated. On the same day a German squadron of ten aeroplanes bombarded the Russian hangars on the island of Oesel, a small island in the Baltic across the entrance to the Gulf of Riga.
As if both sides had agreed to observe the Easter holidays, a lull set in during the next four or five days. Only occasional unimportant local attacks and artillery duels were reported. Aeroplanes were the only branch of the two armies which showed any marked activity. Dvinsk was visited repeatedly by German machines and extensively bombarded. On April 26, 1916, a German airship dropped bombs on the railway station at Duna-Muende, at the mouth of the Dvina, and caused considerable damage. Other railway stations and warehouses at various points, as well as a number of Russian flying depots, were attacked on April 27, 1916.
The end of April, 1916, brought one more important action, the most important, indeed, which had occurred anywhere on the eastern front since the Russian offensive of the latter half of March, 1916. On April 28, 1916, at dawn, German artillery began a very violent bombardment of the Russian positions south of Lake Narotch. There, between the village of Stavarotche and the extensive private estate of Stakhovtsy, the Germans had lost a series of important trenches on March 20, 1916, during the early part of the short Russian offensive. Part of these positions had been recaptured a few days later on March 26, 1916. Now, after a considerable artillery preparation, a strong attack was launched with the balance of the lost ground as an objective. Large bodies of German infantry came on against the Russian positions in close formation. They recaptured not only all of the ground lost previously but carried their attack successfully into the Russian trenches beyond. The most fierce hand-to-hand fighting resulted. Losses on both sides were severe, especially so on the part of the Russians, who attempted unsuccessfully during the night following to regain the lost positions by a series of violent counterattacks, executed by large forces of infantry, who, advancing in close formation over difficult ground, were terribly exposed to German machine-gun fire and lost heavily in killed and wounded. The Germans officially claimed to have captured as a result of this operation the remarkably large number of fifty-six officers, 5,600 men, five guns, twenty-eight machine guns and ten trench mortars. During the same day artillery attacks were directed against Schlock on the Gulf of Riga and Boersemnende near Riga, as well as against Smorgon, south of the Lake district. An infantry attack, preceded by considerable artillery preparation, near the village of Ginovka, west of Dvinsk, was met by severe fire from the Russian batteries and the Germans were forced to withdraw to their trenches. In the early morning hours German airships bombarded railway stations along the Riga-Petrograd railroad as far as Venden, about fifty miles northeast of Riga, and along the Dvinsk-Petrograd railway as far as Rzezytsa, about fifty miles northeast of Dvinsk. At the latter point considerable damage was done by a dirigible which dropped explosive and incendiary bombs.
Throughout the last day of April, 1916, artillery duels were fought again at many points. Once more the railway station and bridgehead at Uxkull was made the target for a most violent German artillery attack. Along the Dvinsk sector, too, guns of all caliber were busy.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XIX
ARTILLERY DUELS
With the beginning of May, the weather became warmer and the rain and watersoaked roads more accessible. In spite of this, however, conditions along the eastern front throughout the entire month of May were very much the same as during April. Continuously the guns on both sides thundered against each other, with a fairly well-maintained intensity which, however, would increase from time to time in some places. Frequently, almost daily, infantry attacks, usually preceded by artillery preparation, would be launched at various points. These, however, were almost all of local character and executed by comparatively small forces. Even smaller detachments, frequently hardly more than scouting parties, often would reach the opponent's lines, but only rarely succeed in capturing trenches, and then usually were soon forced to retire to their own lines in the face of successive counterattacks. Again in May the story of events on the eastern front is lacking in sensational movements, accompanied by equally unsensational success or failure. But, nevertheless, it is on both sides a story of unceasing activity, of unending labor, of unremitting toil, of endless suffering, of unlimited heroism, and of unsurpassed courage, the more so, because much of all that was accomplished was counted only as part of the regular daily routine, and lacked both the incentive and the reward of widespread publicity, which more frequently attaches to military operations of more extensive character. Not for years to come will it be possible to write a detailed history of this phase of the Great War as far as the eastern front is concerned. Not until the regimental histories of the various Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian military units will have been completed will it become practicable to recount all the uncounted deeds of valor accomplished by heroes whose names and deeds now must remain unknown to the world at large, even though both perchance have been for months and months on the lips of equally brave comrades in arms.
The new month was opened by the Germans with another intensive artillery bombardment of the Uxkull bridgehead. Farther to the south, before Dvinsk, and also at many points in the Lake district to the south of this fortress, the Russian positions likewise were raked by violent gunfire. An attempted offensive movement on the extreme northern end of the line before Raggazem, on the Gulf of Riga, broke down before the Russian gunfire, even before it was fully developed. German naval airships successfully bombarded Russian military depots at Perman, while another squadron of sea planes inflicted considerable damage to the Russian aerodrome at Papenholm. A Russian squadron was less successful in an attack on the German naval establishment at Vindau on the east shore of the Baltic Sea.