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It not only held, but managed to force the Russians to continue their retreat, and during this process captured large numbers of them. General von Eichhorn's army, the actual conquerors of Vilna, and Von Hindenburg's center reached Osmiana, thirty miles southeast of Vilna, on September 20, 1915.
In September, 1916, the German staff, profiting by the lessons of the Somme campaign during which its aviation forces had been so terribly scourged, resolved upon an almost complete reorganization of its aëronautical service. Hindenburg's program arranged for a rehandling of both the direction and the technical services.
I betcher there's a lot of German bein' spoke in hell these last two or three days. "Oh, you ain't heard the big news, have you? Bein' off your dip and out of commission like you was. Well, we busted old Mister Hindenburg's line in about nine places and now it looks like maybe we'll eat Thanksgivin' dinner in Berlin or Hoboken one."
I was now beginning to see the sights and view the atrocious system and regularity of wilful destruction which had obviously been planned months before by the Huns to carry out Hindenburg's orders and make the whole land a desert.
On September 2, 1915, Grodno was taken by Von Hindenburg's army after a crossing over the Niemen had been forced. The Russians, however, again had managed to escape with their armies. The entire lack in the official German announcement of any reference to the Russian garrison of Grodno suggests that there was no garrison left by the time the Germans took the fortress.
Slowly but steadily the force of Von Hindenburg's offensive in the north increased. On the day on which Czernowitz fell attacks were delivered at many points along the 150-mile line between Dvinsk in the north and Krevo in the south.
While Von Hindenburg's army group was occupied with the drive on Vilna and Von Mackensen's forces advanced against Pinsk, Prince Leopold's regiments, as we have learned, fought continuously in the sector between the Niemen and the Jasiolda Rivers.
Their gloom was relieved by the halo which shone round Hindenburg's head. Rennenkampf was gone and all the faculties of the University of Königsberg conferred degrees on the victor to celebrate its escape. Reinforcements were sent to the frontier, and on 7 September Russia was invaded.
I received instructions from my paper about this time to leave New England and join General Wood's forces, which had crossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania, where they were battling desperately with von Hindenburg's much stronger army.
On the same day on which Vilna's fall was reported, part of Von Hindenburg's army, its left wing, was reported at Vornjany, Smorgon, and Molodechno, all places east of Vilna, the last about eighty miles on the Vilna-Minsk railway. In vain did the Russians try to pierce this line, which, by the very nature of the advance, must have been exceedingly thin.
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