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In combination with this movement, and strictly synchronizing with it, Brussilov was advancing from the Sereth River. Both these movements were being carried out full during the last days of August.
Ivanoff was now compelled to draw reenforcements from other parts of the line to strengthen his front at Rawa-Ruska. This meant weakening Ewarts's against the archduke and Brussilov against Boehm-Ermolli.
The cause was fairly clear; the occasion was provided by the failure of the Germans at Verdun, the success of Brussilov, the apparent likelihood of Turkey's collapse before the Russian advance in Asia Minor, and the promise of an Entente offensive from Salonika. Turkey, indeed, had exhausted the credit she had won at Gallipoli and Kut.
But from the nature of the Russian advance, Russky, upon von Auffenberg's left, perpetually threatened this railway; and Brussilov, upon his right, pressed the rapidly-melting mass of the varied contingents opposed to him through the difficult, hilly, and woody country of the foothills.
Generals Gurko and Brussilov also sent in their resignations, and a few days later Minister of War and Marine Gutchkov, wishing to precipitate the impending crisis, also resigned. Complete anarchy now threatened, for the council still insisted on its right to guard the interests of democracy in the army as well as among the civil population.
Though both sides claimed local successes, they appear to have fought each other to a deadlock, for very little fighting occurred in this zone after April 14, 1915. Henceforth Brussilov directed his main efforts to the Virava and Cisna-Rostoki sector.
Far to the south below the Pripet marshes which divided the Russian front into two, the Germans and the Russians under Brussilov engaged in thrust and counter-thrust along the Styr which caused Czartorysk to change hands again and again, and earned for these operations the nickname of "the Poliesian quadrille"; and the fluctuations on the Strypa were equally indecisive.
For a mountain pass is like a river bridge-head; one may often possess it without being able to debouch. The Austrians experienced that difficulty in their winter offensive against the Russian flank in Galicia. They made little progress against Brussilov at the Dukla and Lupkow passes, but farther east they seized most of the mountain routes, and Alexeiev was pressed back in Bukovina.
Still Kerensky achieved some success with his impassioned appeals, and Brussilov, who had become commander-in-chief, reported that the army was recovering its moral. The Government determined to gamble on the chance of a successful offensive. It had, indeed, no other means of checking the growth of disorder, and an attack on the front was not entirely hopeless.
Presently the Hungarians threatened also the Lupkow and Uszok passes farther east; but reinforcements arrived, Brussilov closed the passes, and Dmitrieff's left swung forward again. It did not, however, advance beyond the Biala, and the Russians spent their Christmas as far from Cracow as the Germans did theirs from Warsaw.
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