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Updated: June 16, 2025
This supreme importance of Dvinsk was understood equally well by both sides. On the part of the Germans this understanding resulted in unceasing attacks by all available means and forces, while the Russians on their part were prepared to defend their positions with a stubbornness and determination unequaled by the case of any other fortress with the possible exception of Riga and Rovno.
From there the line followed almost exactly the east bank of the Dvina, passing through the important towns of Friedrichstadt and Jacobstadt, from where it bent due south, gradually drawing away to the west of the Dvina River and passing west and southwest of Dvinsk at a distance of about ten miles.
The fighting in the north, along the Dvina front and south of Dvinsk in the lake district, had settled down to a series of local engagements between small detachments and to artillery duels. German detachments which penetrated Russian positions south of Kekkau brought back twenty-six prisoners, one machine gun and one mine thrower.
There was strong Russian firing activity along that whole front. In the north the fighting, too, was severe. In some places the Russians made decided gains, only to lose them again by the refusal of certain troops to obey their commanders. Southwest of Dvinsk Russian detachments, after strong artillery preparation, occupied German positions on both sides of the Dvinsk-Vilna railway.
The other parts were rapidly pushing in an easterly direction from Olita and Grodno with the object of attacking Vilna from the south, but they encountered determined resistance, especially in the region to the east of Grodno. With undiminished vigor, however, the Germans continued their advance against Dvinsk and Vilna.
The blow was struck at Friedrichstadt, where the river is crossed by the only practicable road between Riga and Jacobstadt, but the design was to turn the whole front as far as Dvinsk; and Von Buelow held out to his troops the alluring prospect of winter quarters in Riga and a march on Petrograd in the spring.
On the Riga front and near Uxkull bridgehead there was an artillery duel. Against the Dvinsk positions, too, the Germans opened a violent artillery fire at different points, and attempted to take the offensive north of Lake Sventen, but without success.
Near Jacobstadt, Dvinsk, and Smorgon, along the Stokhod, and from the Zlota Lipa to south of the Dniester, the artillery activity increased considerably. Advances and reconnoitering operations often led to local engagements. Near Novica, on the Lomnitza front, new strong Russian attacks were repulsed with sanguinary losses.
Another correspondent in writing to his paper, the "Vossische Zeitung," describes the fortifications of Dvinsk as follows: "Every rod of land is covered with permanent trenches, roofed securely against shrapnel and shell fragments and connected with so-called 'fox holes' small shelters in which the garrisons are safe against the heaviest shells.
The harder the Germans drove their armies against Dvinsk the harder the Russians fought to repulse them. The latter were greatly assisted in this by the fact that strong reenforcements had been sent to this crucial point from Petrograd and from other interior points. Still more important was the beginning of considerable improvement in the Russian supply of guns and shells.
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