. Some of his descriptions of the territory
across which the Russians' advance was carried out, as well as of
actual fighting which he observed at close quarters, therefore, give
us a most vivid picture of the difficulties under which the Russian
victories were achieved and of the tenacity and courage which the
Austro-German troops showed in their resistance.

Of the Volhynian fortress of Lutsk, as it appeared in the second half
of June, 1916, he says:

"This town to-day is a veritable maelstrom of war. From not many miles
away, by night and by day, comes an almost uninterrupted roar of heavy
gunfire, and all day long the main street is filled with the rumble
and clatter of caissons, guns, and transports going forward on one
side, while on the other side is an unending line of empty caissons
returning, mingled with wounded coming back in every conceivable form
of vehicle, and in among these at breakneck speed dart motorcycles
carrying dispatches from the front.

"The weather is dry and hot, and the lines of the road are visible for
miles by the clouds of dust from the plodding feet of the soldiery and
the transport. As the retreat from Warsaw was a review of the Russian
armies in reverse, so is Lutsk to-day a similar spectacle of the
Muscovite armies advancing; but now all filled with high hopes and
their morale is at the highest pitch.

"Along the entire front the contending armies are locked in a fierce,
ceaseless struggle. No hour of the day passes when there is not
somewhere an attack or a counterattack going forward with a bitterness
and ferocity unknown since the beginning of the war. The troops coming
from Germany are rendering the Russian advance difficult, and the
general nature of the fighting is defense by vigorous counterattacks."

Of the fighting along the Kovel front he says: "The story of the
fighting on the Kovel front is a narrative of a heroic advance which
at the point of the bayonet steadily forced back through barrier after
barrier the stubborn resistance of the Austrians, intermingled
occasionally with German units, till at one point the advance measured
forty-eight miles.

"After two days spent on the front I can state without any reservation
that I believe that the Russians are engaged in the fiercest and most
courageous fight of their entire war, hanging on to their hardly won
positions and often facing troops concentrated on the strategic points
of the line outnumbering them sometimes by