ing Germans, of course, could
have only one result on the fate of the few positions which were still
held by the Russians by now west of the Vilna-Grodno-Bialystok line.
Unless they were willing to risk the loss of large numbers of troops
by having their lines of retreat cut off, it became necessary to
withdraw as many as their means of transportation and their efforts to
delay the Germans permitted. As a result the fortified town of
Ossovetz on the Bobr was evacuated and occupied by the Germans on
August 23, 1915. A few miles south, beyond the Nareff, Tykotsyn
suffered the same fate. In the latter instance the Russians lost over
1,200 men and 70 machine guns. Still farther south, near Bielsk,
Russian resistance was not any more successful. East of Kovno the
German advance was not as successful; at least the Russians were able
in that region to delay the enemy to a greater extent, although the
delay had to be bought dearly. But considering the short distance at
which Vilna was located and the great importance of that city as a
railroad center for the safe withdrawal of the Russian main forces,
any effort that promised success was well worth even heavy losses.
Throughout the following days the forces of the northern group pressed
on relentlessly to the east and south, delayed here and there, but
succeeding in forcing back the Russian troops step by step.

CHAPTER XXI

THE CONQUEST OF GRODNO AND VILNA

With the fall of Olita, Bialystok, and Brest-Litovsk, which took place
on August 25-26, 1915, and is described in more detail in another
chapter, the northern group under Von Hindenburg immediately increased
its activities. In Courland, south of Mitau, near Bausk, heavy
fighting took place, and the Russian lines, which had held their own
throughout the entire retreat of the Russian armies in Poland, began
to give way. At one other point the Russians had fought back
inevitable retreat with special stubbornness, and that was due west of
Grodno, in the neighborhood of Augustovo, which had seen such
desperate fighting during and following the Russian invasion of East
Prussia. But there, too, now the Germans began to make headway and
were advancing against the Niemen and the last Russian stronghold on
it, Grodno.

At about the same time that considerable activity developed at the
utmost southern end of the line in eastern Galicia, operations of
equal extent and of great importance took place at the extreme
northern