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On June 13, 1914, the progress of the Russian armies continued along the entire 250-mile front from the Pripet River to the Rumanian border. The capture of twenty officers, 6,000 men, six cannon, and ten machine guns brought the total, captured by the Russian troops, up to about 120,000 men, 1,720 officers, 130 cannon and 260 machine guns, besides immense quantities of material and munitions.
But the counter-offensive was spent by the end of the month, and early in July the Russians resumed their advance. North of the Pripet Ewarts was no more successful than he had been in June; German divisions were made of sterner stuff than the Austrian, and Hindenburg knew well enough what was at stake.
There are considerable tracts of land in what once was Russian Poland, the population of which, owing to the havoc of war, is abnormally sparse. Some districts, like that of the Pripet marshes, which even at the best of times had but five persons to the kilometer, are practically deserts.
On the rest of the front as far as the region of the Pripet Marshes there was an exchange of fire. On the same day General von Linsingen's forces stormed and captured the village of Linievka, west of Sokal and about three miles east of the Svidniki bridgehead on the Stokhod, and the Russian positions south of it.
But the central armies, retiring upon Vilna, were nearly trapped and once were actually cut off by German cavalry. By September the great campaign approached its end. The Russians at last took root on a line from Riga, through the Pripet Marshes to Rovno and thence to the Rumanian boundary.
It did not, however, at any time or place assume the same strength which it had reached by that time at many points along the Russo-German front, north of the Pripet Marshes. Nor, indeed, did the Russians duplicate in the south their attempt at a determined offensive which they were making then in the north.
Between the Baltic and the Pripet the activity of the fighting increased only at Riga and Smorgon; there was heavy artillery fighting on the middle course of the Stokhod, where, however, Russian local attacks on the Kovel-Lutsk railway line failed with heavy losses, and also on the Zlota Lipa. During the night following there was lively artillery fighting from the Stokhod to the Narayuvka.
According to a very rough estimate the Pripet Marshes are approximately one-half as large as the kingdom of Rumania; only one river of importance runs through them, the Pripet, from which, indeed, the marshes take their popular name.
Of course, there were a number of other generals under him in charge of the various sectors of this long line. But on account of the comparative inactivity which was maintained most of the time along this line, their names did not figure largely. South of the Pripet Marshes General Alexeieff was in supreme command.
Fighting also developed now in the Pripet Marshes and the territory immediately adjoining. Weather conditions were rapidly changing for the worse all along the eastern front. Thaw set in, and all marsh and lake ground was flooded. Everywhere, not only in the southern region, but also in the northern, the ice on the rivers and lakes became covered with water and was getting soft near the banks.
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