attack began at the same hour and it was
impossible for the enemy to shift his troops from one quarter to
another, as our attacks were being pressed equally at all points.

"The most important fighting has been in the sector between Rovno, and
here we have made our greatest advances, which are striking more
seriously at the strategy of the whole enemy front in the east.

"If we are able to take Kovel there is reason to believe that the
whole eastern front will be obliged to fall back, as Kovel represents
a railway center which has been extraordinarily useful for the
intercommunications of the Germans and Austrians.

"That this menace is fully realized by the enemy is obvious from the
fact that the Germans are supporting this sector with all the
available troops that can be rushed up. Some are coming from the west
and some from points on the eastern front to the north of us.

"In all of this fighting the Russian infantry has proved itself
superb, with a morale which is superior even to that of 1914, when we
were sweeping through Galicia for the first time. This is largely due
to the fact that the army now represents the feeling of the whole
people of Russia, who are united in their desire to carry the war to
its final and successful conclusion."

To the question how he had been able to make such huge captures of
prisoners the Russian general replied:

"The nature of modern trenches, which makes them with their deep
tunnels and maze of communications, so difficult to destroy, renders
them a menace to their own defenders once their position is taken in
rear or flank, for it is impossible to escape quickly from these
elaborate networks of defenses.

"Besides, we have for the first time had sufficient ammunition to
enable us to use curtain fire for preventing the enemy from retiring
from his positions, save through a scathing zone of shrapnel fire,
which renders surrender imperative."

CHAPTER XXII

IN CONQUERED EAST GALICIA

Another very interesting account of conditions along the southeastern
front can be found in a letter from the Petrograd correspondent of a
London daily newspaper, who spent considerable time in Tarnopol, a
city which had been in the hands of the Russians ever since the early
part of the war:

"We are in Austria here, but no one who was plumped down into
Tarnopol, say from an aeroplane, would ever guess it. Not only are the
streets full of Russian soldiers: all the names on the shop