The German left wing at the same time fell overwhelmingly on the northern end of the Russian line. On the 9th they took the fortified Russian positions stretching from Spullen to the Schorell Forest and nearly to the Russian border. They had here hard work to force their way through wire entanglements of great strength. Having noticed signs of a retreat on the part of their opponents, these German forces had on the preceding day begun the attack without waiting for the whole of their artillery to come up. The Russians retreated toward the southeast.

Swinging forward toward the Russian border, the German left wing now exerted itself to the utmost to execute the sweeping encircling movement for which the strategy of Von Hindenburg had become famous. The Russian right wing had been turned and was being pressed continually toward the southeast. The German troops rushed forward in forced marches, ignoring the difficulties which nature put in their way. By the 10th of February these columns reached the Pillkallen-Wladislawow line, and by the 11th the main highway from Gumbinnen to Wilkowyszki. The right wing, up to the capture of Stallupoehnen, had taken some 4,000 prisoners, four machine guns, and eleven ammunition wagons. The center of this army, at the capture of Eydtkuhnen, Wirballen, and Kibarty, took 10,000 prisoners, six cannon, eight machine guns, numerous baggage wagons, including eighty field kitchens, three military trains and other rolling stock, a large number of gift packages intended for the Russian troops, and, of chief interest to the fighting men, a whole day's provisions.

On the afternoon of February 10 some one and a half Russian divisions had come to a halt in these three neighboring villages: Eydtkuhnen, Kibarty, and Wirballen. Although it was known that the Germans were approaching, it was apparently regarded by the Russians as impossible that pursuers would be able to come up with them in the raging snowstorm. So certain were they of their security that no outposts were put on guard. Only thus could it happen that the Germans, who had not allowed the forces of nature to stop their advance, arrived right at the Russian position on the same day, though with infantry alone and merely a few guns, everything else having been left behind, stuck in the snowdrifts.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XLIX

THE RUSSIANS OUT OF GERMANY

It was evening when the Germans made their surprise attack on Eydtkuhnen and midnight when they fell upon Wirballen. On the roadway stood two Russian batteries with twelve guns and a considerable number of ammunition wagons. The German infantry approached without firing a shot until they were within fifty yards. Then all the horses were shot down and the guns and ammunition seized. The men of the battery fled. In both these towns there was street fighting in the night, lit up by burning houses which had been fired by the Russians in their retreat.

One of the captured trains was the hospital train of the czar. This was utilized as headquarters for the night by the staff of General von Lauenstein.

By the 12th of February, 1915, the German troops of the left wing, sweeping down from the north and pressing the Russians back from village to village, were entirely on Russian soil. Wizwiny, Kalwarja, and Mariampol were occupied on this day. The number of guns taken by these troops had been increased by seventeen, according to German reports. The German Headquarters Staff declared that by this time the Russian Seventy-third and Fifty-sixth Divisions had been as good as annihilated, and the Twenty-seventh division nearly destroyed. The Russians lying before the Angerapp line and the defenses of Lötzen had in the meantime also begun to retreat toward the east. German troops, consisting chiefly of reserves of the Landwehr and Landsturm which up to this time had been held back within the German fortified line, now advanced to attack the yielding army, whose long marching column could be observed by the German flyers. While General von Eichhorn's troops, coming from the neighborhood of Tilsit and making their way through snow and ice, were advancing upon Suwalki and Sejny, and the German right wing was fighting its way through Grajewo, toward Augustowo, the center of the troops of General von Bülow for several days fought the Russians in furious battle in the vicinity of Lyck. From all sides the Germans were closing in. To protect the withdrawal of this main army to Suwalki and Augustowo, the Russians endeavored by all means to hold the narrows of the lakes before Lyck, where they were favored by the nature of the ground and aided by strong defensive works, for the most part well provided with wire entanglements. The best of the Russian troops, Siberian regiments, here fought with great energy under a determined leadership, and the Russians, in fact, at some places took the offensive. By the 12th of February, 1915, however, the Germans had taken these positions and the Russians had withdrawn to the narrow passages among the lakes before Lyck. The battles around this town were carried on under the eye of the German Emperor. The German soldiers were still occupied in hunting through the houses for scattered Russians as the emperor stepped from his motor car. He was received with hurrahs, and the soldiers surrounded him, singing "Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles." The emperor, standing amid the blackened ruins of burned homes, delivered a short address to the soldiers gathered about him, giving special recognition to Infantry Regiment No. 33, an East Prussian unit which had especially distinguished itself and suffered great losses. On the same day the Germans advanced beyond Lyck, and by the 15th of February no Russian remained on German soil.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER L

TIGHTENING OF THE NET—REPORT OF THE BOOTY