Nelson's history of the war. Vol. XI., The struggle for the Dvina, and the great invasion of Serbia

STRUGGLE FOR DVINSK AND RIGA. gg

that country it was all but impossible to bring up sufficient guns to give the infantry proper artillery support. On the right at least six attempts were made to cross the Dvina. Kekken, at the mouth of the Brze, still resisted, but about the Oct. 28 28th of October the enemy managed to cross one channel of the Dvina, and effect a lodgment on Dahlen island. But he could not get his guns over in any strength, nor could he silence the concealed artillery on the eastern shore. He made a futile effort to cross the main channel, which was easily repulsed, and presently he was blown oft the island itself.

By the end of October the great assaults on Dvinsk and Riga had come to nothing. The Germans were left with no better front on which to endure the rigours of the coming winter. Indeed, their position was the worse, for they were now entangled in the marshes of the Misse and the lakes west and south of Dvinsk. Small wonder that after this failure the Russians noted a growing depression in the prisoners and deserters who reached them. The wearied armies of the East, having been promised a comfortable winter after their heroic exertions of the summer, had found themselves condemned to a prospect compared to which the East Prussian and Polish lines of the year before had been a life of ease.

We must glance briefly at the general situation at the end of October on the Russian front. We have seen that Ivanov’s counter-attack 0 of September had recaptured Kovno and e731 Dubno in the Volhynian Triangle, had taken for a moment Lutsk, and had pushed back von Pflanzer