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The greatest menace was on the north-west along the Narew and beyond in Courland where Von Buelow was preparing to strike behind the base of the triangle. On 10 August Von Scholtz breached the line of fortresses by storming Lomza, but Kovno was a much more critical point.
This fortress of Kovno, for which the Germans were making such a tremendous drive and which the Russians tried to hold with all the resources at their command, occupies in respect to the Niemen line the same position which the fortress of Lomza occupies in respect to the Nareff line, only in a much greater measure.
Bavarian troops under the command of Prince Leopold carried the forts of the outer and inner lines of the city's defenses, where the rear guards of the Russian troops made a tenacious resistance. The German armies under Gen. von Scholz and Gen. von Gallwitz advanced in the direction of the road between Lomza, Ostrov and Vyszkoy and fought a number of violent engagements.
In an earlier part of this work we heard at some length of the arrangement of Russia's girdle of fortresses which to repeat only the most important stretched from Kovno in the north through Oliha, Grodno, Ossovetz, Lomza, Osholenka, and Novo Georgievsk to powerful Warsaw and from there to the south and east to Ivangorod and Brest-Litovsk.
It read: "The line occupied by us in the east runs from the Pilica, along the Rawka and Bzura to the Vistula. From there it runs in an easterly direction through the region to the north of Przasnysz south of Mystinez, south of Kolno to the north of Lomza, and strikes the Bobr at Mocarce.
Those detachments of Von Hindenburg's army group which had forced a crossing of the Nareff between Bialystok and Lomza pushed on rapidly to the south and threatened as early as August 18, 1915, the northern section of the Bialystok-Brest-Litovsk railway. On the same day Prince Leopold's forces reached the south bank of the Bug, north of Sarnaki.
Meanwhile, to the north Gallwitz had forced the Russians from Prasnysz towards the Narew on the 14th, and crossed it himself on the 23rd between Pultusk and Rozhan as well as between Ostrolenka and Lomza; and by the 25th he was on the banks of the Bug, within twenty miles of the railway connecting Warsaw with Petrograd.
Each one of the three main army groups directed strong parts of their forces toward this Russian stronghold. From the northwest detachments of Von Hindenburg's group, coming from Lomza and Ostroff, had crossed in a wide front the Warsaw-Bialystok section of the Warsaw-Vilna-Petrograd railway.
Under him there were four armies, each under a German general: that under Von Bülow in the extreme north; that under Von Eichhorn to the south of the former and facing the Niemen River and the fortress of Kovno; the two other armies under Von Scholtz and Von Gallwitz the latter the farthest south were to attack the Nareff-Bobr line between Novo Georgievsk and Lomza.
On August 10, 1915, the Russians attempted an unsuccessful sortie from Kovno. Farther south, as far as Lomza, the Russian forces continued their retreat, fighting continuous rear-guard actions for the purpose of delaying the hard-pressing enemy, who, however, gradually came closer and closer to the Nareff-Bobr line.
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