ere in a strange and often hostile country. In spite of this,
however, the German advance, taken all in all, could not be denied,
and in practically every one of the cases just described, the final
outcome was in a very short time defeat for the Russians and a
successful crossing of the watery obstacle by the Germans. This was
true also at the banks of the Zelvianka, where the Germans on
September 9, 1915, stormed successfully the heights near Pieski,
capturing 1,400 Russians. This success was followed up by further
gains on the next day, September 10, 1915, that again yielded a few
thousand prisoners. A few days later the crossing was forced and the
Germans began to attack the Russians behind the next Niemen tributary,
the Shara.

Farther to the north especially heavy fighting occurred for a few days
around Skidel, a little town just north of the Niemen on the
Grodno-Mosty railroad, and it was not until September 11, 1915, that
the Germans succeeded in storming it. On the same day German
aeroplanes attacked the important railroad junction at Lida on the
Kovno-Vilna railway, and also Vileika on the railway running parallel
to and east of the Warsaw-Vilna-Dvinsk-Petrograd railroad. In a way
this signified the opening of the German offensive against Vilna.
Concurrent with it the fighting on the Dvina between Friedrichstadt
and Jacobstadt waxed more furious. Farther south the Germans advanced
toward Rakishki on the Kupishki-Dvinsk railroad and between that road
and the River Vilia they even reached at some points the Vilna-Dvinsk
railroad. Without any lull the battle raged now all along the line
from the Dvina to Vilna, and from Vilna to the Niemen. South of this
river the attack of the Germans was directed against the Russian front
behind the Shara River. By September 14, 1915, Von Hindenburg stood
before Dvinsk with one part of his army group. The other parts were
rapidly pushing in an easterly direction from Olita and Grodno with
the object of attacking Vilna from the south, but they encountered
determined resistance, especially in the region to the east of Grodno.
With undiminished vigor, however, the Germans continued their advance
against Dvinsk and Vilna. To the south of the former city they pushed
beyond the Vilna-Petrograd railway, taking Vidsky, just north of the
Disna River, in the early morning hours of September 16, 1915.

At that time the fall of both Vilna and Dvinsk seemed to be
inevitable. On September 1