Minor engagements between scouting parties and outposts were the rule of the day on May 5, 1916. These were especially frequent in the region of Tzartorysk on the Styr, just south of the Kovel-Kieff railway and south of Olyka station where Austro-Hungarian troops were forced to evacuate the woods east of the village of Jeruistche. A slight gain was made on May 6, 1916, by Russian troops in Galicia, on the lower Strypa River, north of the village of Jaslovietz. Extensive mining operations, which, of course, were carried on at all times at many places, culminated successfully for the Russians in the region northwest of Kremenets on the Ikva and south of Zboroff on the Tarnopol-Lemberg railway. In the latter place Russian troops crept through a mine crater toward a point where Austro-Hungarian engineering troops were preparing additional mines and dispersed the working parties by a shower of hand grenades. Throughout the balance of May operations along the southern part of the eastern front consisted of continued artillery duels, of frequent aeroplane attacks, and of a series of unimportant though bitterly contested minor engagements at many points, most of which had no relation to each other, and were either attacks on enemy trenches or attempts at repulsing such attacks. Equally continuous, of course, also were scouting expeditions and mining operations. None of these operations, however, yielded any noticeable results for either side, and the story of one is practically the story of all. The result of the artillery duels frequently was the destruction of some advanced trenches, while occasionally a munitions or supply transport was caught, or an exposed battery silenced. Mining operations sometimes would also lead to the destruction of isolated trenches, and thus change slightly the location of the line. But what one side gained on a given day was often lost again the next day, and the net result left both Germans and Russians at the end of May practically where they had been at the beginning. Most of these minor engagements occurred in regions that had seen a great deal of fighting before. Again and again there appear in the official reports such well-known names as Tzartorysk, Kolki, Olyka, Kremenets, Novo Alecinez, Styr River, Ikva River, Strypa River. Inch by inch almost this ground, long ago drenched with the blood of brave men, was fought over and over again--and a gain of a few hundred feet was considered, indeed, a gain. CHAPTER XVIII THAW AND SPRING FLOODS