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 By the 12th of February, 1915, however, the Germans had taken these positions and the Russians had withdrawn to the narrow passages among the lakes before Lyck.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.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
TIGHTENING OF THE NET—REPORT OF THE BOOTY
The Russian right, retiring to avoid envelopment, sought the natural line of retreat along the railway to Kovno. In executing this movement it turned toward the northeast, and exceeding in speed of movement the corps to the south of it, the Twentieth, under the command of General Bulgakov, the latter was left out of the line. In consequence its right wing was turned and it was pressed down toward the south with the enemy on three sides of it. It speedily became a broken force in the forest north of Suwalki. The Russians endeavored to reach the protection of their great fortress of Grodno. It was the task of the German division coming down from the north in forced marches to cut off this way of escape and prevent the Russians coming out of the forest toward the southeast.
The march of these German troops carried them through great woodlands, amid frozen lakes, when suddenly a thaw set in. The sleighs which had been used had to be abandoned and wagons requisitioned on the spot wherever possible.
An officer with these troops relates that infantrymen were sent forward on wagons, and on the night following the 15th of February took Sopozkin, to the east of Augustowo, on the line of the Russian retreat, capturing the baggage of an entire Russian army corps. "The morning," he writes, "presented to us a unique picture. Hundreds of vehicles, baggage carts, machine guns, ammunition, provision and ambulance wagons stood in a vast disorder in the market place of the town and in the street. In between were hundreds of horses, some harnessed, some loose, dead Russians, dead horses, bellowing cattle, and sounding over it all the words of command of our troops endeavoring to create order in this mad mix-up, and to take care of the rich booty. Many an interesting find did we make—'mementos' which the Russians had taken with them from Prussia and which now were to find their way back."
A German commander tells how, in their efforts to cut off the Russian retreat, the artillery were compelled to cross many brooks running through deep gullies, so that it was necessary frequently to lower guns and wagons by means of ropes on one side and pull them up on the other.
One of the German leaders, describing this encircling movement to the southeast from the north in which he played a part, says: "The roads and the weather were beyond all description—twelve to fifteen degrees Reaumur, with a cutting wind and driving snow, with nothing to eat, as the field kitchens on these roads could not follow. During pauses in the march one could but lean against the wall of a miserable house or lie down in the burned-out ruins, without straw to lie on and no covering. Men and horses sank to their hips in the snow, and so we worked our way forward, usually only about two kilometers an hour. Wagons and horses that upset had to be shoveled out of the drifts. It was a terrible sight, but we got through. We had to go on without regard for anything, and the example of the higher officers did much."
Two Russian corps from the southern wing of the army retreating by the Suwalki-Sejny causeway and by the Ossowetz Railway, according to accounts from Russian sources, made their way out of the trap under heavy rear-guard fighting.