Farther north another army under the Austrian General Boehm-Ermolli encountered determined resistance along the line Zlochoff-Bialykamien-Radziviloff, where the Russians were supported by very strongly fortified positions. Still farther north the attack progressed in the direction of the strongly fortified town of Lutsk, on the Styr River, less than fifty miles west of the fortress of Rovno, in the Russian province of Volhynia. This fortress, together with Dubno, farther south on the Ikwa, a tributary of the Styr, and with Rovno itself formed a very powerful triangle of permanent fortifications erected by Russia in very recent times. The purpose for which they had been intended undoubtedly was twofold; first, to offer an obstacle to any invasion of that section of the Russian Empire on the part of Austro-Hungarian troops with Lemberg as a base, and secondly, to act as a base for a possible Russian attack on Galicia. In view of these facts, it was surprising that on August 31, 1915, only three days after the resumption of actual fighting in Eastern Galicia, the fall of Lutsk was announced. The very form of the official Austrian announcement rather indicates that the Russians must have evacuated Lutsk of their own accord, possibly after dismounting and either withdrawing or destroying its guns. For the report states that only one--the Fifty-fourth Infantry--regiment drove the Russians by means of bayonet attacks out of their first-line trenches and then followed them right into Lutsk. This, of course, could not have been accomplished so quickly unless the Russians had already withdrawn at that point as well as everywhere else. At the same time their line was also pierced at Baldi and Kamuniec, which forced their withdrawal from the entire western bank of the Styr. German troops, fighting under General von Bothmer in cooperation with the Austro-Hungarian army of General Boehm-Ermolli, on the same day (August 31, 1915) stormed a series of heights on the banks of the Strypa, north of Zboroff, although they encountered there the most determined resistance on the part of the Russian forces. The immense losses in men, guns, and materials which the Russians suffered throughout the month of August, 1915, in spite of their genius for withdrawing huge bodies of men at the right moment, will be seen from the following official statement published on September 1, 1915, by General Headquarters of the German armies. These figures do not include the losses suffered by the Russian armies which in Eastern Galicia were fighting against Austro-Hungarian troops. "During the month of August the number of prisoners taken by German troops in the eastern and southeastern theatres of war, and the quantities of war materials captured during the same period, totaled more than 2,000 officers and 269,800 men taken prisoners, and 2,000 cannon and 560 machine guns.