, 1915, Berlin announced the capture of those fortifications
of Ostrolenka lying on the northwest bank of the Narew River. This was
one or the strong places designed to protect the Warsaw-Grodno-Petrograd
railway. The threatened fall was highly significant. To the south
of the Vistula the Teuton troops had advanced to the Blonie-Grojec
lines. Blonie is some seventeen miles west of Warsaw and Grojec
twenty-six miles south of the city.

Farther eastward and to the south troops of the army of General
von Woyrsch had completely turned the enemy out of the Ilzanka
positions, having repulsed the counterattacks of the Russian reserves
which had been quickly brought up, and captured more than 5,000
prisoners. Von Woyrsch's cavalry had now reached the railway line
from Radom to the great fortress of Ivangorod, the objective point
of this army, and Radom itself had been seized.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XLVII

BEGINNING OF THE END

So uncertain had grown the positions of Lublin on the southern
railway line leading to Warsaw that the Russian commander in chief
had issued an order that in case of a retreat the male population
of the town was to attach itself to the retiring troops.

On July 21, 1915, the Russians throughout the empire were reported
to be joining in prayer. "Yesterday evening," telegraphed the London
"Daily, Mail's" Petrograd correspondent on the 21st, "the bells in
all the churches throughout Russia clanged a call to prayer for a
twenty-four hours' continual service of intercession for victory.

"To-day, in spite of the heat, the churches were packed. Hour after
hour the people stand wedged together while the priests and choirs
chant interminable litanies. Outside the Kamian Cathedral here an
open-air Mass is being celebrated in the presence of an enormous
crowd."

The chronicle of the closing days of July, 1915, is an unbroken
narrative of forward movements of German armies on all parts of
the great semicircle. The movement now, however, was slow. The
Russians were fighting desperately, and the Germans had to win
their way inch by inch. By the 21st the Russians were withdrawing
in Courland to the east of the line Popeljany-Kurtschany, and the
last Russian trenches westward of Shavly had been taken by assault.
To the north of Novgorod the capture of Russian positions had yielded
2,000 prisoners and two machine guns to the Germans on the 20th.

Farther south on the Narew a stro