RUSSIAN CAPTURES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 11644, 11 August 1916, Page 6

RUSSIAN CAPTURES.

PRISONERS NUMBER 121, T2P. j VAST HAUL OP GUNS AND I MATERIAL. j Brusiloff is reported to have 1,500,000 men nuder him, and he is making good use of them. He has made great breaks in the enemy’s line, and his artillery, as one writer pots it, “has chewed into bits the fortifications of the Austrian front for 200 miles.” This writer, Mr William Philip Simms, has sent to the United Press of America a vivid account of . the Russian thrust. He saj’a: — T?he Russians are fighting as they never fought before. Regiment after regiment of*'' young, fresh troops, some never before in action, jumped out of their trenches like tigers, and charged r the Austrian lines. With Cossack-like fearlessness these Russian infantrymen formed human waves upon waves. The Russian artillery had done its work ; barbed wire, as thick as the index finger in places, woven together to a depth of 500 yards, had been literally tofu into hits by the hurricane of Russian shell fire. Hidden pits with spiked bottoms (caltrops, the device of Bannockburn) hampered the advance, hut these the charging Russians traversed by using planks of rough sapling ladders, white their artillery threw a curtain of steel between them and the Austrians. The Russians undoubtedly suffered heavy casualties, but the masses of blood and steel did not falter. Sweeping over the enemy’s foremost defences, they dashed on ovd - : the second and third. Even at the first mad rush the Austrians had to fall back. The Tsar’s c avalry then took up the work; divisions of Cossacks and lahcors threw their hardy mounts into the chase, and the fleeing enemy was utterly disorganised. Battered brigades, companies and regiments were cut.off by these horsemen, and surrendered to the Russian infantrymen, who had followed close on the hoofs of the Russian quadrupeds. WHIRLWIND ADVANCE.

Cavalry swept on, cutting off and disorganising more of Jhe fleeing Austrian units —wbo surrendered as Lst as tbe Kussian soldiers could advance andfpost guards over them. Such events happened on many scales at many points of the im petuous Russian . drive. . At once three notable ruptures were made in the Austrian first line crashed througli with such force that the Tsar’s troops now form a serious menace to the Gentian army before Piusk. This record drive of the offensive carried the Russians twenty-two miles in two days through the rupture of the enemy’s Jines near Olyka. This advance has transformed the great triangle of Yolhynia into Kussian territory for the first time in a twelve month. Tbe capture ot the fortified town of Luck enabled the troops to press on towards Kovel. The second definite b eak in the Austrian line.was made in tbe direction of Stanislaus, where _ the Russians penetrated fourteen miles. The third was before Czernowitz, enabling them to occupy the highly important strategic hoe. Those three important inbreaks span a front of 125 miles, which a week ago was a highly fortified Austrian line of aggression. In addition the Russian artillery nas chewed into bits the fortifications of the Austrian front for 200 more miles. Every detail of Brusiloff’s strategy has worked out. Aside from the prisoners taken by the Russians, the war booty is mountainous, and the whirlwind advance continues to develop.