activities in the south by a general offensive
along the Dvina line had not developed beyond increased artillery
bombardments which apparently exerted no influence on the movements of
the Russian armies in Volhynia, Galicia and the Bukowina.

The only hopeful sign for the fate of the threatened Austro-Hungarian
armies was the fact that the daily number of prisoners taken by the
Russians gradually seemed to decrease, indicating that the Austrians
found it possible by now, if not to withstand the Russian onslaught,
at least to save the largest part of their armies. Even at that the
Russian General Staff claimed to have captured by June 12, 1916, a
total of 1,700 officers and 114,000 men. Inasmuch as it was estimated
that the total Austrian forces on the southwestern front at the
beginning of the operations were 670,000, of which, according to
Russian claims, the losses cannot be less than 200,000, including an
estimated 80,000 killed and wounded, the total losses now constituted
30 per cent of the enemy's effectives.

How the news of the continued Russian successes was received in the
empire's capital and what, at that time, was expected as the immediate
results of this remarkable drive, secondary only to the Austro-German
drive of the summer and fall of 1915, are vividly described in the
following letter, written from Petrograd on June 13, 1916, by a
special correspondent of the London "Times":

"As the successive bulletins recording our unprecedented victories on
the southwestern fronts come to hand, the pride and joy of the Russian
people are becoming too great for adequate expression. There is an
utter absence of noisy demonstrations. The whole nation realizes that
the victory is the result of the combined efforts of all classes,
which have given the soldiers abundant munitions, and of an admirable
organization.

"The remarkable progress in training the reserves since the beginning
of this year was primarily responsible for the enormous increase in
the efficiency of our armies and the heightening of their morale. The
strategy of our southwestern offensive has been seconded by a
remarkable improvement in the railways and communications. Last, but
not least, it must be noted that the Russian high command long ago
recognized that the essential condition of the overthrow of the
Austro-German league, so far as this front is concerned, was the
completion of the work of disintegration in the Austrian armies, in
which R