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Toward the end of August, 1916, the Russians again attempted at various times to cross the Dvina. In no case, however, were they successful. Even when they succeeded in launching their boats, as they did on August 26, 1916, near Lenewaden east of Friedrichstadt, they were driven back by the German fire.
It was transferred to the Dvina after the fall of Brest, and had since been engaged before Dvinsk. The Reserve Guard Corps was in the central group of the German armies, and the other, the Third Division, was still in Galicia. The British and the Prussian Guards had made each other's acquaintance in the Battle of Ypres.
The handful of American sailors from the "Olympia," the crippled category men from England and the little battalion of French troops, which had boldly driven the Red Guards from Archangel and pursued them up the Dvina and up the Archangel-Vologda Railway, were threatened with extermination. The Reds had gathered forces and turned savagely upon them.
Rather would I drown in the Dvina than a drop of the baptismal water should touch my forehead. To be forced to kneel before the hideous images, to kiss the cross, sooner would I rush out to the mob that was passing, and let them tear my vitals out. To forswear the One God, to bow before idols, rather would I be seized with the plague, and be eaten up by vermin.
It was especially intensive in the Jacobstadt and Dvinsk sectors of the Dvina front, as well as in the Ziriu-Baranovitchy sector in the south and along the Oginski Canal, still farther to the south. At two other points the Germans, after extensive artillery preparation, attempted to launch infantry attacks, but were promptly driven back.
On September 27-28, 1915, and the following days they were fighting on the shores of Lake Drysvidly, about ten miles east of the Dvinsk-Vilna railroad, and at Postavy, ten miles south of the Disna River, a southern tributary of the Dvina. Again on October 1, 1915, the Russians attacked north of Postavy, as well as south on the shores of Lakes Narotch and Vishneff, but without success.
On the Dvina near Smorgon and on the Shara there was spirited fighting, and also west of Lutsk there was a temporary revival of activity in consequence of reconnoitering thrusts. In describing the capture of Kalusz the "Russky Slovo" says that the Russian cavalry entered the town at noon and found it abandoned by the garrison.
And it was this episode in the early fighting that caused the frantic radiogram to reach us on the Arctic Ocean urging the American ships to speed on to Archangel to save the handful of Allied men threatened with annihilation on the railroad and up the Dvina River.
I left the wounded in the care of the inhabitants of the village near which we had spent the night, and took to the road to rejoin Marshal Oudinot, with whom I caught up that same evening. The Marshal gave me a hearty welcome and complemented the regiment on their conduct. 2nd Corps continued its march up the left bank of the Dvina and in three days arrived opposite Polotsk.
German aeroplanes successfully attacked the railway station at Zamirie on the Minsk-Baranovitchy railway line, dropping as many as sixty bombs. An attempt to cross the Dvina made by weak Russian forces west of Friedrichstadt on July 11, 1916, and attacks south of Narotch Lake were frustrated.
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