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"The chief reason is that he has this very morning of his own accord released Captain Alexis Barakoff, of the Dragoons of Grodno." "It is true," said Barakoff, who had come out of the house. "He captured me this morning, and he released me upon parole rather than take me back to the French army, where I should have been starved."
Prompted by greed and by the desire to distinguish himself, the sergeant declared himself ready to substantiate his testimony from Jewish literature, "if the chief Government will grant him the necessary assistance." The results of this "secret investigation" were laid before the governor of Grodno and reported by him to St. Petersburg.
The German airmen on this day reported the Russian columns on the march through the forest in full retreat toward Grodno all along the line from Giby to Sztabiz, far to the south. On the 11th of March, 1915, the German troops vigorously pushed the pursuit. They occupied Makarze, Froncki, and Giby. On the same night a German cavalry division took Kopciovo by assault.
At my instructions we have allowed the Colonel leave, and he returned to Vilna to meet the woman, who had, at our orders, written to him. She, acting upon our instructions, offered him a sum of money to betray certain plans of the defences of Grodno, agents of secret police being concealed during the interview.
At one other point the Russians had fought back inevitable retreat with special stubbornness, and that was due west of Grodno, in the neighborhood of Augustovo, which had seen such desperate fighting during and following the Russian invasion of East Prussia. But there, too, now the Germans began to make headway and were advancing against the Niemen and the last Russian stronghold on it, Grodno.
The same fate was, in 1783, meted out to Moses, a Jewish tailor, for refusing to accept Christianity, and in 1790 a Jew was quartered in Grodno, though the king had declined to sign his death warrant. In some places Jews had to contribute towards the maintenance of churches, and in Slutsk the law, enacted there in 1766, remains unrevoked to this day.
Parts of this unhealthy and very difficult region are located in five Russian governments: Mohileff, Kieff, Volhynia, Minsk, and Grodno, and these swamps therefore are the border land of Poland, Great Russia, and Little Russia. A comparatively small section of them has been thoroughly explored and their exact limits have never been determined.
He had an idea that he owed the consideration he received to Lieutenant Sazonoff. He was quite sure that General Mikail Suvaroff had nothing to do with it! And his journey, which might have been one of acute discomfort, was made more than tolerable. It was late when the train in which he rode after the border was reached arrived in Grodno. Here the army was in complete possession.
But, a few years later, Russia was invaded by Charles, who in 1708 almost captured the Czar at Grodno, defeated his army near Smolensk, and was expected to advance to Moscow. But the imprudent Swede turned southward into the district of the Ukraine, there to be joined by Mazeppa, the "hetman" of the Cossacks, who led them in revolt against Peter.
A great forest region lies to the east and north of Grodno, and between the Niemen and the cities of Augustowo and Suwalki which the Germans, after their successful offensive, used as bases for their operations. A strip of country including these forests, and running parallel to the Niemen was a sort of no-man's land in the spring of 1915.
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