e Russian advance had progressed steadily,
even if slowly, in the direction of Stanislau and Lemberg. 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. How far this movement would ultimately carry
them, it was hard to tell. Once more the way into the Hungarian plains
seemed to be open to the czar's soldiers, and a sufficiently
successful campaign in Galicia might easily force back the center of
the line to such an extent that they might then have prospects of
regaining some of the ground lost during their great retreat.

Interesting details of the terrific struggle which had been going on
on the eastern front for many weeks are given in the following letter
from an English special correspondent:

"I reached the headquarters of a certain Siberian corps about midnight
on July 15, 1916, to find the artillery preparation, which had started
at 4 p. m., in full blast. Floundering around through the mud, we came
almost on to the positions, which were suddenly illuminated with fires
started by Austrian shells in two villages near by, while the jagged
flashes of bursting shells ahead caused us to extinguish the lights of
the motor and to turn across the fields, ultimately arriving at the
headquarters of a corps which I knew well on the Bzura line in Poland.

"Sitting in a tiny room in an unpretentious cottage with the
commander, I followed the preparations which were being made for the
assault. The ticking of the instruments gave news from the front, the
line of which was visible from the windows by flares and rockets and
burning villages. By midnight ten breaches had been made in the barbed
wire, each approximately twenty paces broad, and the attacks were
ordered for three o'clock in the morning.

"Rising at 5 a. m. I accompanied the commander of the corps to his
observation point on a ridge. The attacks had already swept away the
resistance of the enemy's first line.

"Thousands of prisoners were in our hands, and the enemy was already
retiring rapidly. He therefore halted but a few minutes, pushing on to
the advanced positions. The commander stopped repeatedly by the
roadside tapping the field