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The fighting on the banks of the lake continued during the next few days, but bore no important results. Smorgon, the small but important railroad station on the Vilna-Minsk railway, just southwest of the Vilia River, which so many times before had been the center of furious fighting, again was made the scene of attacks on the night of August 2, 1916.
German planes bombarded many places south of Dvinsk, and attacked the railway establishments at Molodetchna, on the Vilna-Minsk railway, at Minsk, and at Luniniets, in the Pripet Marshes, east of Pinsk on the Pinsk-Gomel railway.
May 4, 1916, brought especially intensive artillery fire along the entire Dvina front, in the Krevo sector south of the Vilna-Minsk railway, and along the Oginski Canal, particularly in the region of Valistchie. The Dvina front along its entire length was once more the subject of a violent artillery attack from German batteries on May 5, 1916.
Similarly unsuccessful were German attacks made the same day between Lakes Sventen and Itzen. German artillery still kept up its work along the entire front, especially at Lake Miadziol, south of Dvinsk at Lake Narotch, and at Smorgon, the little railroad station south of the Viliya River on the Vilna-Minsk railway.
In the light of future events this remarkable condition might well be called ominous, especially if one connects with it a decided increase in Russian aeroplane activity, which resulted in two strong attacks on June 1, 1916, against points on the Vilna-Minsk and Sarny-Kovel railways.
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.
It thus passed just east of Lake Drisviaty, crossed the Disna River at Koziany, then ran through Postavy and just east of Lake Narotch, crossed the Viliya River and the Vilna-Minsk railroad at Smorgon, and reached the Niemen at Lubcha. From thence it passed by the towns of Korelitchy, Zirin, Luchowtchy and entered the Pripet Marshes at Lipsk.
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