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The bulk of Russia's forces were concentrated in the Polish triangle of which the apex was at Warsaw, the base ran from Kovno by Brest-Litovsk to the Galician frontier, the north-western side in front of the railway from Kovno to Warsaw, and the southern in front of that from Warsaw to Lublin, Cholm, Kovel, Rovno, and Kiev.
The great Russian fortress of Kovno was captured by the Germans August 17. More than 400 cannon were taken. The fortress was stormed in spite of the most stubborn Russian resistance. The capture of Kovno was the most important German victory in the East after the taking of Warsaw. Kovno fell under the eye of General von Hindenburg.
And a year later she wrote from Kovno in 1914: "The approach of this anniversary has been taking me, despite of myself, over every minute of those dreadful, dreadful days a year ago.
The unexpectedly rapid fall of Kovno and Grodno had enabled the Germans to threaten the envelopment of Ewarts' army both on the south and the north, on the Niemen towards Mosty and Lida and farther north towards Vilna. The struggle for Vilna was decided at Meiszagola, a village about fifteen miles north-west of the old Lithuanian capital.
During the next few days the divisions intended to form the advance moved down towards the Niemen, which marked the frontier, and on the 24th of June three bridges were thrown across the river near Kovno, and the passage began.
Finally the young sister who has to go there now, and who reiterated for days that she would rather wash dishes for the rest of her days than go there, after a frank talk of half an hour, said she would, and that I wouldn't hear another word from her. I was reduced to real tears of gratitude and admiration for the effort." Kovno 1914. "My head I know is not as strong and clear as it was."
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.
In this movement of the right wing the Tenth Army, which was pressed by heavy hostile forces and threatened with being surrounded from the right, was forced to make a rapid change of alignment in the direction of Kovno. In this rapid movement a corps was separated from the rest of the army.
On the following day Von Gallwitz cut the line between Kovno and Brest at Bielsk, and on the 19th Novo Georgievsk fell to the howitzers of Von Beseler, the expert of Antwerp. Ossowiec, which had stood so well against the earlier German invasions, followed on the 23rd, and Von Beseler was brought up to give the coup de grâce to Brest.
In 1806 a disastrous fire broke out and destroyed three-fourths of the city, but in spite of this disaster and others which followed, the city recovered and gained a certain importance in a political way, when in 1842 it was made the capital of the newly created government of Kovno.
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