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Updated: June 22, 2025
The next day, June 9, 1916, the troops under General Brussilov continued the offensive and the pursuit of the retreating Austrians. Fighting with the latter's rear guards, they crossed the river Styr above and below Lutsk. In Galicia, northwest of Tarnopol, in the regions of Gliadki and Cebrow, heavy fighting developed for the possession of heights, which changed hands several times.
Some local successes were gained by the Germans, but generally speaking this offensive movement failed in its chief purpose, namely, to lessen the strength of the Russian attack against the Austrian lines. A more substantial gain was made by the combined German and Austro-Hungarian forces, opposing the Russians west of Lutsk, in order to stop their advance against Kovel.
There the pressure from the Russian army of General Brussilov had become so strong that the Austrians had found it necessary by June 6, 1916, to withdraw their forces to the plain of Lutsk, just to the east of that fortress and of the river Styr. This represented a gain of at least twenty miles made in two days.
In Galicia Ivanov was pushed back to the Strypa and then the Sereth, and on the upper reaches of those rivers Brody was captured and two of the Volhynian fortresses, Dubno and Lutsk. Rovno itself was threatened, and with it the southern stretch of that lateral railway from Riga to Lemberg on which the Germans had set their hearts.
The news from the battle-front began to show improvement. On September 8th General Brussilov, further in the south, had attacked the Germans in front of Tarnopol, and defeated them with heavy loss. More than seventeen thousand men were captured with much artillery. Soon the news came of other advances. Dubno was retaken and Lutsk. The end of September saw the German advance definitely checked.
Further south, west of Lutsk, from the southern sector of the Turiya River down to the Galician border near the town of Gorochoff, the Teutonic forces likewise succeeded in resisting the Russian advance. This increased resistance of the Teutonic forces found expression, also, in a considerable decrease in the number of prisoners taken by the Russians.
To the west of Lutsk in the direction toward Kovel, now apparently the main objective of General Brussilov, the Austro-Hungarians had received strong German reenforcements under General von Linsingen and successfully denied to the Russians a crossing over the Stokhod and Styr Rivers. June 17, 1916, was a banner day in the calendar of the Russian troops.
The forts are not as numerous as at Lutsk, but are more advantageously located and, therefore, proved more difficult for the attacking Austro-Hungarian-German troops.
In defending the former the Austro-German armies had made a determined stand on the banks of the Stokhod River. This bit of water has its origin some ten miles west of Lutsk, from which point it winds its tortuous course for about one hundred miles in a northerly direction toward the Pripet River, of which it is a tributary. Its northern part flows through the Pripet Marshes.
To the west of Bohorodszany, on the Grabovka-Rosolna-Krivicz front, the Austrians taking advantage of the extremely intricate terrain, succeeded in holding back the Russian advance. Near Riga, Smorgon and Baranovitchy the artillery fighting was again spirited. Near Lutsk and in the East Galicia fighting area the firing also reached a point of considerable intensity at times.
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