On June 16, the Russian offensive had progressed to the Galician frontier, and terrific fighting marked the advance along the whole line south of Volhynia.  Two German armies went to the aid of the Austrians in the region of the Stochod and Styr rivers, and German forces also made a stand before Kovel.  The mortality on both sides was described as frightful, but the Russians continued to make headway and the capture of thousands of Teutonic prisoners was of almost daily occurrence, the total reaching 172,000 before June 18.

Czernowitz, the capital of Bukowina, fell into the hands of the Russians at midnight of June 17, after the bridgehead on the Pruth river had been stormed by the victorious troops of the Czar.  One thousand Austrians were captured at the bridgehead, but the garrison succeeded in escaping.  The invading troops swept on, crossed the Sereth river, and soon gained control of about one-half of Roumania’s western frontier.  By July the Austrians were retreating into the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, hotly pressed by the Russian advance.  The German army around Kovel continued to make a stubborn resistance, but could not prevent the Austrian rout, and as the Russians approached the Carpathian passes the Austrian prisoners taken by them during the drive reached a total of 200,000 officers and men.  Immense quantities of munitions of war also fell into their hands.

On July 4 Russian cavalry patrols advanced over the passes into southern Hungary, and General Brusiloff’s army neared Lemberg, which was defended by a combined Teutonic army under General von Bothmer, along the River Strypa.  The losses of the Austrians and Germans, in killed and wounded up to this time, were placed at 500,000 men, the Russian offensive having lasted one month, with no evidence of slackening.  General von Bothmer then began a retirement westward, while General Brusiloff advanced between the Pruth and Dniester rivers, and a concerted push toward Lemberg was begun.

“BIG PUSH” ON THE WESTERN FRONT

After many months of preparation by the British, during which “Kitchener’s army” was being sedulously trained for active service, a new phase of the great war began on July 1, 1916, when a great offensive was started on the western front by the British and French simultaneously, after a seven-day bombardment of the German trenches.  In this preliminary bombardment more than one million shells were fired daily, and the prolonged battle which ensued was the greatest of all time.

This offensive proved that the Allies had not been shaken from their determination to bide their time until they were thoroughly prepared and ready for the attack, and were able to co-ordinate their efforts in genuine teamwork against the powerful and strongly-entrenched enemy in the west, while the Russian offensive on the eastern front was also in progress.  This long-awaited movement was no isolated attack, costly but ineffectual, like those of the English at Neuve Chapelle and Loos, but “a carefully studied and deliberately prepared campaign of severe pressure upon Germany at each of her battle fronts.”  It proved that the war-councils of the Allies held in Paris and London, in Petrograd and Rome, were no mere conventional affairs, but were at last to bear fruit in concerted action that might decide the issue of the war.