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Thence he struck south towards the railway from Krasne to Tarnopol which supplied Bothmer's left, while Bothmer's right was being simultaneously threatened by Lechitsky now that the floods on the Dniester had subsided. On 7 August he recaptured Tlumacz and reached the Dniester near Nijniow; on the 10th he forced his way into Stanislau, while Scherbachev attacked on the north bank of the Dniester.
In the region northwest of Stanislau to the south of the Dniester, after artillery preparation, Russian advance detachments pressed back the Austrians in the Jamnica-Pasechna sector and occupied their trenches. South of Bohorodszany Russian advance detachments defeated an advanced post of the Austrians. The Russians also occupied Sviniuchy and repulsed the enemy's counterattack.
The next objective of General Lechitsky's army was Stanislau, about thirty miles farther northwest than Kolomea, on the Czernovitz-Lemberg railway. On July 1, 1916, in the region west of Kolomea, the army of General Lechitsky, after intense fighting, took by storm some strong Austrian positions and captured some 2,000 men.
Before forcing this line it was necessary to capture Stanislau, an important point on the Czernowitz-Lemberg railway. Between the Bug and the Dniester lines of defense Lemberg was secured in the east, and still farther by a third line of natural defenses. This was formed by a series of northern tributaries of the Dniester, of which the most important were the Sereth, Strypa, and Zlota Lipa Rivers.
Led by Alexander Kerensky, the revolutionary minister of war, and observed by American army officers, they forced the Teutons to evacuate Brzezany, and then captured many important positions, including terrain west and south of Halicz and strongly-defended positions northwest of Stanislau. On July 11 Halicz was taken, thus smashing the Austro-German front between Brzezany and the Carpathians.
Toward midnight the Russians, without artillery preparation, endeavored to advance south of Brzezany. They were repulsed. During the night the artillery fire declined, but it revved the next morning. The artillery duel extended northward as far as the middle Stokhod and south as far as Stanislau.
Austrians also came from the Tyrol and the Balkans, and Ludendorff was sent to restore confidence in the command. Kovel was the southern key to Brest-Litovsk; the northern flank could look after itself since Ewarts was making little progress, and Bothmer had barred the way for the time to the other essential points at Lemberg and Stanislau.
By April 8, 1916, they had been forced to take their line back to the west of Nizinoff-Tysmienitsa-Ottynia, or within a few miles east of Stanislau. The Russians on that day crossed the Koropiec, drove their opponents out of their fortified positions, and themselves occupied the left bank up to the point of its juncture with the Dniester.
Closer and closer to Stanislau the Russian forces came, until on July 30, 1916, they were well within striking distance. In the north, too, General Kuropatkin displayed greatly increased activity against Von Hindenburg's front, although as a result he gained only local successes. Midsummer, 1916, then saw the Russians once more on a strong offensive along their entire front.
On September 6, 1916, the Russians attacked southeast of Zielona, about thirty-five miles southwest of Stanislau, and on the Bagaludova west of the Kirlibaba Valley, on the border between the Bukowina and Hungary. Both of these attacks were repulsed. The Austro-Germans promptly replied with counterattacks near Zielona and west of Shypoth on September 7, 1916.
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