Concurrent with these engagements, fighting took place both in the south and north. On April 2, 1916, a Turkish camp was stormed by Russian battalions near Mush to the northwest of Bitlis. Still farther south, about twenty-five miles southeast of Bitlis, the small town of Khizan had fallen into the hands of the Russians, who drove its defenders toward the south. The Russian advance to the southwest of Mush and Bitlis continued slowly but definitely throughout the next few days, with the town of Diarbekr on the right bank of the upper Tigris as its objective. Beginning with the end of March, 1916, the Turks also launched a series of strong counterattacks along the coastal front. The first of these was undertaken during the night of March 26, 1916, but apparently was unsuccessful. It was an answer to a strong attack on the part of the Russians during the preceding day which resulted in the dislodgment of Turkish troops holding strong positions in the region of the Baltatchi Darassi River and in the occupation by the Russians of the town of Off on the Black Sea, thirty miles to the east of Trebizond. This success was due chiefly to the superiority of the Russian naval forces, which made it possible to precede their infantry attack with heavy preparatory artillery fire. By March 27, 1916, the Russians had advanced to the Oghene Dere River, another of the numerous small rivers flowing into the Black Sea between Rizeh and Trebizond. There they had occupied the heights of the left (west) bank. During the night the Turks made a series of strong counterattacks, all of which, however, were repulsed with considerable losses to the attackers. Another Turkish counterattack in the neighborhood of Trebizond was launched on April 4, 1916. Although strongly supported by gunfire from the cruiser _Breslau_, it was repulsed by the combined efforts of the Russian land forces and destroyers lying before Trebizond. During the next few days the Turks offered the most determined resistance to the Russian advance against Trebizond, especially along the river Kara Dere. This resistance was not broken until April 15, 1916, when the Turks were driven out of their fortified positions on the left bank of that river by the combined action of the Russian land and naval forces. The Russian army was now, after almost a fortnight's desperate fighting, within sixteen miles of its goal, Trebizond. On April 16, 1916, it again advanced, occupying Surmench on the Black Sea, and reaching later that day, after a successful pursuit of the retreating Turkish army, the village of Asseue Kalessi, only twelve miles east of Trebizond.