battle of Dec. 26 1806 had been fought and a more important outer system of well-organized trenches, which rested its right on the Narew at Chmielewo, traversed the Pelta at Szwelice, curved southward at Wojty Trojany, followed an affluent of the Przewodowka stream to Przwedowo, and a line of woods thence to Winnica, where it turned E. to rejoin the Narew 5 m. below the town. Except along the marshes of the Narew itself, the country inside and outside this line is largely wooded, with low sandy heights and small streams.
The weight of the attack was concentrated on two fronts: that adjacent to the Narew, where it was hoped to establish bridges and start an enveloping movement E. of the river as soon as the front Russian defences had been stormed; and that of the N.W. bend, where the super-heavy artillery, limited as it was to the good roads, could best take part. To the first of these attacks the ist Guard Res. Div. near to the river, and the soth Res. Div. above the village of Szlachekie, were assigned; and to the second the Landwehr and Ersatz units of the 86th Div., assisted by an active regiment lent by the 38th Division. The 85th Landwehr Div. and Pfeil's Bde. S.W. of'Golymin Stary, was to flank-guard and eventually to take part in rolling up the Russian defence after the breach had been made. On the morning of July 23, after five hours' artillery bombardment, the assault was delivered. The ist Guard Res. and soth Res. Divs. carried all their objec- tives, after heavy fighting and in some of the units of the 5oth Res. Div. fearful losses, and by noon had occupied all the area N. of the Pelta river. Here it was expected that the Russians would stand, but in the meantime the successful assault of the Landwehr and Ersatz on Wojty Trojany had broken down the left flank of such a defence, and the Russians were driven back, fighting with their characteristic group-stubbornness and lack of ensemble, to the inner line by nightfall. Here von Pliiskow called a halt, suspending the storm of the forts till dawn on July 24. Meantime the 8$th Div. and Pfeil, coming into the battle suc- cessively as planned, had made good a line from the right of the 86th Div. at Mosyn, on the Przewodowka brook, within the captured defences, to the Ciechanow-Novogeorgievsk railway near Klukowo, facing S.; and the ist Guard Res. Div., falling out of the line as soon as the Pelta line had been reached, was crossing the Narew at several points both outside and inside the outer fortified line (Gnojno, Chmielewo, Lida) and forming bridgeheads and pontoon bridges for artillery. This threat of envelopment here induced the Russians to give up all hope of holding their last footing on the right bank, and during the night of July 23-24 they evacuated the inner line and the town, so that soon after dawn on July 24, the pioneers of the soth Res. Div., instead of being engaged in wire-cutting before the forts as had been anticipated, were at work on the broken river bridge.
This crossing of the ist Guard Res. Div., and its entrenchment of a large bridgehead in the Szygowiec loop, was only part of a large programme. To the left of it the 38th and 36th Divs. of the XVII. Corps effected passages at Zambski, Kalinowo and Rowy, without any great difficulty save at the first named, where the direct effort failed and the defence had to be dislodged by a flank movement from the Kalinowo crossing-place. The construction of artillery bridges was put in hand at once, in spite of the inter- dictive fire of the Russian artillery, for it was urgently necessary, from the defensive and the offensive standpoints alike, to push the XVII. Corps and ist Guard Res. Div. southeastward so as to seize the line of the little river Prut which makes a barrier from the E. end of the Bagno Pulwy to the lower Narew, and incidentally to cut off as many of the defenders of Pultusk as possible. By the night of July 23, the 38th and 36th Div., like the ist Guard Res. Div., had been able only to establish their bridgeheads firmly, but by that of July 24 the artillery bridges were mostly completed, and the German outposts to the right of the Bagno Pulwy stood on the line Rzonsnik-Sadykierz (3 8th Div.) -woods E. of Bartodzieje (part soth Res. Div.)-E. of Gladczyn (ist Guard Res. Div.)-N. of Drwaly (86th Div.), whence the protective line of the 8sth Div. and Pfeil, W. of the river, ran to near Nasielsk. East of Pultusk in reserve was the newly arrived Menges Division. Meantime, on the German left
the 36th Div., from its crossings at Kalinowo and Rowy, had proceeded due eastward, in concert with an advance of the 3$th Div. along the N. of the Narew, and by the evening of July 24th these units, guarded on their right by the Guard Cav. Bde. in the Bagno Pulwy, stood E. of the Narew between Adamowo and Ostrykol inclusive.
On July 25 the German forces E. of Pultusk advanced to the line of the Prut, while the Guard Cav. Bde. spread across the Bagno Pulwy, and the two divisions of the XVII. Corps pushed forward their bridgehead position of Adamowo-Ostrykol some- what; on the left of these, the 26th Div. of the XIII. Corps extended the line to the Orz river. But at all points resistance to the advance became ever stronger, and it was evident that for further progress yet another break-through battle would be necessary. The Germans therefore halted, to gain time for their artillery and their transport to overtake the fighting line.
Rozhan and Kamionka (July 22-25). The bridgehead of Roz- han possessed an inner line of permanent forts, more modern than those of Pultusk, and an outer line which, beginning at the river edge N. of Dysobaba, followed a sinuous trace by Miluny, the wood N.W. of Podbora, and Point 132 S. of Podbora, and re- joined the river opposite Prystan. But it differed radically from Pultusk in being smaller and also segmented internally by several switch-lines. The German XIII. Corps headquarters, therefore, in spite of the need of rapid action, decided to take the segments by successive efforts in each of which the whole artillery could be employed. Already, on July 20, the first of these efforts had carried the salient of Hill 132, as recorded above, before the Russian counter-attack suspended operations. On July 22, after a day's delay, the 4th Guard Div. made the next effort against the Miluny works, which, with the village behind them, were carried by assault before night. On July 23 it was the turn of the woods N.E. of Podbora, which fell to assault by the 3rd Division. Thus on the morning of July 24 all the outer segments were in the hands of the Germans, and the assault of the main line (lying in front of the fort-line) was prepared. But here also the Russians evacuated the bridgehead without standing an assault, and fell back into the woods lying E. of the Narew. Thenceforward the line from Prystan to Chelzy continued thence northward by the dominant heights of the left bank to Ostrolenka and beyond formed a position in which the Rus- sians meant to make a prolonged defence.
The sudden cessation of resistance at Rozhan seems to have taken the Germans unawares, for, although the place was occupied in the early hours of the morning, no real effort was made to win a passage until late in the day, in spite of the command of the right bank over the left and the presence of three divisions of victorious infantry. The 26th Div., hitherto investing the S. front of Rozhan, was ordered to cross the Narew between Dzbondz and Bruzie Wielkie, but, being repulsed with heavy loss in an attempt at Dzbondz, it crossed further down at Bruzie Wielkie and so passed away into the scope of the XVII. Corps operations, divided from those of the XIII. by the marshes of the Orz -Narew confluence. The 3rd Div., pursuing through Rozhan, found, late in the day, a Russian bridge S. of Dysobaba, and be- gan passing small forces over towards the wooded heights S. of Dombrowka. But it was not till daylight on July 2sth that three battalions had been assembled on the other side, and a sharp action was necessary before the line Prystan-Dombrowka was secured at nightfall. The 4th Guard Div., after fruitless attempts on the afternoon of July 24 to cross at Dysobaba and at Sielun, passed small detachments over during the night of July 24-25, and gradually made good the line Dombrowka-Point 121 with an artillery bridge at Sielun, before daylight on July 26.
Above the Rozhan battle-field, on the front of the German I. Corps, the wide extent of the front (Sielun-Ostrolenka), and the commanding positions on the wooded left bank, made a crossing on a broad front impossible. The Germans had reached the river on July 20, unaffected by the Russian counter-stroke of that day, which did not extend N. of Rozhan, and after recon- naissance fixed upon a bend above Kamionka as the main crossing-place. Here the 2nd Div. was to make the venture,
