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Updated: June 16, 2025
The door had been kept from closing on Russian armies seeking to escape from the salient between Lida and Molodetchno, while the Germans were squeezed out of that which they had made to the north. They were driven out of Vileika, and gradually the lines were straightened and stabilized so as to run almost due south from Dvinsk by Postavy, Lake Narotch, and Smorgon.
On the following day, March 18, 1916, the Russians started a series of violent attacks. The first of these was launched in the sector south of Dvinsk. This is the region covered with a number of small marshy lakes that had seen a great deal of the most desperate fighting in 1915.
Even though, in that respect, Russky was undoubtedly still far behind his German opponent, Von Hindenburg, yet he was at that moment in a much better position than any other Russian general. Dvinsk had to be held at all costs the Russian General Staff apparently had decided and to Dvinsk, therefore, were sent all available guns and munitions.
From the Stokhod to the Baltic the activity of the artillery increased occasionally. It reached special intensity between Krevo and Smorgon and at Dvinsk. At this critical point the Provisional Government again decided to make a change in the command of the Russian armies fighting in Galicia. Early in June, 1917, General Gouter had been placed in supreme command in this section.
Four times they came rushing on against the German barbed-wire obstacles without being able to break through, but losing some 3,000 men just the same.... On March 24, 1916, 6,000 Russian shells were counted in a small sector on the Dvinsk front." In the latter sector and to the north of it, heavy fighting had developed on March 22 and 23, 1916.
In spite of this the Russians attempted local advance on April 13, 1916, in the region of Garbunovka, northwest of Dvinsk and south of Lake Narotch; however, though their losses were quite heavy, they could not gain any ground. This was also true of another local attack made against the army of Prince Leopold of Bavaria near Zirin, on the Servetsch River northeast of Baranovitchy.
South of this river the attack of the Germans was directed against the Russian front behind the Shara River. By September 14, 1915, Von Hindenburg stood before Dvinsk with one part of his army group.
Aeroplanes of the latter also resumed activity and dropped bombs on the stations at Dvinsk, and Vileika, as well as along the Baranovitchy-Minsk railroad. Russian artillery carried death and destruction into the German trenches on March 27, 1916, before Oley, south of Riga, and before the Uxkull bridgehead.
Similarly unsuccessful were German attacks made the same day between Lakes Sventen and Itzen. German artillery still kept up its work along the entire front, especially at Lake Miadziol, south of Dvinsk at Lake Narotch, and at Smorgon, the little railroad station south of the Viliya River on the Vilna-Minsk railway.
The German fleet attempted to assist him on the Gulf of Riga, but was defeated by the Russian Baltic fleet with heavy losses. A bombardment turned out a failure and the German armies were compelled to retire. A more serious effort was made against Dvinsk but was equally unsuccessful and the German losses were immense.
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