crossing was forced over the
Muchavka and Lukoff was occupied on August 11, 1915.

One of the most awful consequences of the Russian retreat was the sad
plight in which the civil population of the stricken country found
itself. In the beginning of the retreat the Russians forced these poor
people to join in the retreat. This itself, of course, meant untold
hardships and frequently death. But as the advance of the Germans
became more furious and the retreat of the Russians more rapid, it
often happened that these unfortunate persons--irrespective of age,
sex or condition--were forced by their Russian masters to turn around
again and thus place themselves squarely between the two contending
forces.

With the fall of Lukoff an important railroad leading into
Brest-Litovsk had fallen into the hands of the invading enemy. Along
this line, which is part of the direct line Warsaw-Brest-Litovsk,
Austro-Hungarian forces now progressed rapidly in an easterly
direction and by August 14, 1915, had reached Miendzyrzets.

In spite of the heaviest kind of bombardment and of almost
uninterrupted infantry attacks on Kovno and Novo Georgievsk, both of
these fortresses still held out. By August 1, 1915, however, the
German lines had advanced far beyond these places and it became clear
that their next chief objective was Brest-Litovsk. Each one of the
three main army groups directed strong parts of their forces toward
this Russian stronghold. From the northwest detachments of Von
Hindenburg's group, coming from Lomza and Ostroff, had crossed in a
wide front the Warsaw-Bialystok section of the Warsaw-Vilna-Petrograd
railway. After taking Briansk they had forced the crossing of the
Nurzets, a tributary of the Bug, and the only natural barrier in front
of Brest-Litovsk from that direction. They were rapidly approaching
the Brest-Litovsk-Bialystok railway. The central group's
front--Lukoff-Siedlets-Sokoloff--had been pushed forward to Drohichin
on the Bug, only about forty-five miles to the northeast of the
fortress. Parts of Von Mackensen's southern group under the Archduke
Joseph Ferdinand had even reached Biala, less than twenty miles west
of Brest-Litovsk, and still other detachments from this group were
advancing along the eastern bank of the Bug. Three railroads leading
out of the fortress were still in the hands of the Russians--to
Bialystok to the north, to Pinsk and Minsk to the east, and to Kovel
and Kovno to the south. This con