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Three railroads leading out of the fortress were still in the hands of the Russians to Bialystok to the north, to Pinsk and Minsk to the east, and to Kovel and Kovno to the south. This continuous offensive against all the Russian lines, of course, cost both sides dearly. The attackers, however, seemed to have had the better end of it.
Just as the Russians maintained their attacks against Lemberg, they continued their drive against Kovel, farther north, in September, 1916. On the first of that month fierce fighting occurred east and south of Vladimir Volynsky, about twenty-five miles south of Kovel.
The first signs of a possible Russian drive against Lemberg and Kovel became evident on June 22, 1917. On the mountain front and in Volhynia Russian artillery fire was revived. Additional proof of the revival of the Russian fighting spirit was furnished by the detailed report of a small engagement on the historic Stokhod River. In the bayonet fighting that followed some Germans were killed.
As the result of a week of costly onslaughts by the Austro-German army between the Stokhod and the Styr Rivers in Volhynia, the Russian forces had now been forced back a distance of five miles along the greatest part of the front before Kovel. In the region of Issakoff, on the right bank of the Dniester, southeast of Nijniff, the Austrians took the offensive in superior numbers.
This is a southern tributary of the Pripet River, joining it about thirty miles west of the mouth of the Styr. It is cut by both the Kovel-Rovno and the Kovel-Rafalovka railways, and forms a strong natural line of defense west of Kovel.
Its southern part, up to about the village of Trojanovka, forms a salient, with its apex on an almost straight line drawn between Kolki on the Styr and Kovel on the Turiya.
Kovel was even threatened, but the pressure was not maintained. Sarny, Rovno, and Tarnopol were saved, but Lutsk and Dubno reverted to the Germans, and the line in the east was stabilized with the Volhynian triangle and the railway from Vilna to Rovno divided between the antagonists.
It was a peril to which the German prospects at Verdun and forebodings on the Somme were secondary considerations; and both the Western allies profited from Brussilov's campaign. One German corps was hurried from Verdun to Kovel in six days, and others followed at a less exhausting speed.
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