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Containing battles were fought along the Strypa and the Styr, and Czartorysk passed once more into Russian hands and Kolki was added to their gains. But the main object was not attained. The Russians seized the heights between Toporoutz and Rarancze and threw some shells into Czernowitz, but they failed to capture the crucial point at Uscieczko on the Dniester.
From the Pinth in the south at the Rumanian border to the outrunners of the Pripet Marshes near Kolki and the bend of the Styr in the north the battle raged. At many points along this line the Russians achieved important successes, with unusual swiftness they were pushing whatever advantage they were able to gain. But not only swiftness did they employ.
Again and again there appear in the official reports such well-known names as Tzartorysk, Kolki, Olyka, Kremenets, Novo Alecinez, Styr River, Ikva River, Strypa River. Inch by inch almost this ground, long ago drenched with the blood of brave men, was fought over and over again and a gain of a few hundred feet was considered, indeed, a gain.
About thirty miles south of Kolki, just to the east of the village of Olyka the Russians had succeeded in maintaining a small salient, the apex of which was directed toward their lost fortress of Lutsk almost twenty miles to the west, while the southern side passed very close to that other fortress, Dubno, even though it ran still some distance to the east of it.
Southwest of Buczacz, after heavy fighting at Koropice Brook, the Austrians recaptured their line. General Von Linsingen saw himself forced to abandon on July 6, 1916, a corner of the German lines protruding toward Czartorysk on account of the superior pressure on its sides near Kostiukovka and west of Kolki, and new lines of defense were selected along the Stokhod.
Assisted by the cooperation of German troops west of Kolki and by the Polish Legion near Kaloda, the movement was executed undisturbed by the Russians. In the region of the lower Styr, west of the Czartorysk sector, the Russians were closely pressing the Austrians. After the battle they occupied the Gorodok-Manevichi station on the Okonsk-Zagorovka-Gruziatyn line.
Its southern part, up to about the village of Trojanovka, forms a salient, with its apex on an almost straight line drawn between Kolki on the Styr and Kovel on the Turiya.
In Volhynia the German counterattacks against General Brussilov's army extended now along the front of almost eighty miles, stretching from Kolki on the Styr River to within a few miles of the Galician border near Gorochoff.
Farther to the north, along the Styr, to the west of Kolki, in the region of the Kovel-Rovno Railway, General von Linsingen's Austro-German army group successfully resisted Russian attacks at some points, launched strong counterattacks at other points, but had to fall back before superior Russian forces at still other points.
The number of prisoners the Russians took on July 4 and 5, 1916, during the fighting which still continued on west of the line of the Styr and below the town of Kolki, totals more than 300 officers and 7,415 men, mostly unwounded. The Russians also captured six guns, twenty-three machine guns, two searchlights, several thousand rifles, eleven bomb throwers, and seventy-three ammunition lights.
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