over 200
guns fell into the hands of the Germans. During the night of August
18, 1915, Kovno fell, after having been defended most valiantly
against the ever-repeated attacks on the part of the Germans under
General von Eichhorn. It was one of the strongest Russian fortresses,
with eleven outlying forts on both sides of the Niemen, commanding
this river at the point where it turns from its northerly course
toward the west and defending the approach to Vilna from the west.
Over 400 guns and vast quantities of supplies and equipment as well as
about 4,000 officers and men made up the booty. On the same day
additional forts of Novo Georgievsk fell, although the fortress itself
still held out. The fall of Kovno, expected and discounted as it
undoubtedly was by the Russians, was a serious blow. It now became
absolutely necessary to withdraw all their forces in that sector
beyond the Niemen, in order to avoid their being cut off by German
columns advancing from Kovno to the south along the east bank of the
Niemen. This need found expression in the immediate withdrawal of the
Russians from the line Kalvarya-Suvalki. For the Germans an additional
advantage arose in their ability to establish contact between Von
Hindenburg's forces in Poland and Von Buelow's army in Courland and
thereby remove all possibility of having the latter's right wing
enveloped.

As if the fall of Kovno had given a new impetus to the Germans, their
attacks on Novo Georgievsk were now renewed with redoubled vigor. On
August 20, 1915, this last of the important strongholds of the
Niemen-Nareff-Vistula line fell, although the less important
fortresses of Olita, Grodno, and Ossovetz were still in Russian hands.
There, too, large numbers of men and guns and immense amounts of
equipment and supplies were the rewards of the victor. It is said that
the total number of men taken before and in Novo Georgievsk aggregated
85,000, while the number of guns exceeded 700. While the town was
still burning from the final bombardment--in which some of the famous
Austrian mortars of heavy caliber participated--the German Emperor,
accompanied by Field Marshal von Hindenburg, General von Falkenhayn,
Chief of the German General Staff, General von Beseler and many other
high officers, entered this latest conquest of his victorious armies,
over which he later held a review.

The continued retreat of the Russian army and the menacing and
ever-increasing pressure of the advanc