Lomzha, would depend the strategic, as against the tactical results of the whole enterprise.
The " Winter Battle of Masuria " therefore may be regarded; if not as the first great battle of the latter-day type, at any rate as in a transitional style. Although an open flank existed and was utilized to produce the tactical envelopment or " Can- nae " of pre-war theory, yet the effective victory was intended to be gained from a break-through 1 , tactically difficult, but aimed in a strategically favourable direction.
The attack of the VIII. Army began on Feb. 7, that of the X. Army on Feb. 8, in the midst of snowstorms which, during the battle, changed to rain the worst conditions for the carrying out of the scheme and notably its strategical part, which de- pended on the marshes of the Bobr being frozen hard. In sum, the X. Army drove the Russians southward without intermission from the first day. By the roth the northern portion of the Russian line was being taken down with all speed, and by the 1 2th the German X. Army stood on a line from Ludwinow to Rominten Heath at right angles to the VIII. Flank guards were put out toward Pilwiszki and Mariampol against intervention from Kovno, but neither then nor later did anything more seri- ous than threats by light forces develop on that side. Meantime, however, the VIII. Army's attack (XL. Res. Corps and parts of the I. Corps) from Johannisburg Heath and Lotzen on Lyck was brought to a standstill in front of Lyck by the fierce resistance of the III. Siberian Corps, which not only suspended the advance eastward, but led the German forces that were to the S. of it to swing north-eastward on Rajgrod so as to envelop the Lyck position. The expected Russian counter-attacks from Lomzha and Osowiec proved too feeble being absorbed chiefly by the ad- vance of a division of the XX. Corps farther W. to interfere seriously with this tactical manoeuvre. But thenceforward the Osowiec portion of Ludendorff's scheme was doomed. The battle became the purely tactical " Cannae." As such, it was brilliantly successful. By Feb. 14 Lyck had fallen and the VIII. and X. Armies had made good a semicircular position from Rajgrod, by Raczki and Seyny to the N.E. corner of Augustow forest. In the forest the Russians (no longer able, for want of routes, to withdraw with speed) fought with despera- tion to gain time for orderly withdrawal to Grodno, the one remaining avenue of escape. But by the i8th, forces of the XL. Res. Corps from Rajgrod reached the Bobr about Krasnybor, and, on the other wing, part of the XXI. Corps from E. of Seyny drove down at all risks, parallel with the Niemen and within range of the guns of Grodno, to Lipsk, thus closing the ring round four Russian divisions left in the forest. In this extraor- dinary situation, the German X. Army slowly completed the destruction of the encircled Russians, who resisted for several days and made fierce efforts to break the ring, while small German forces, fighting back to back with the encircling troops, held off relief attacks from Grodno and the Bobr. Finally but some days too late for the realization of Ludendorff's plan the remnant of the four divisions in the forest surrendered. In all, this astonishing victory gave the Germans 110,000 pris- oners, over 300 guns, and a vast quantity of stores which the Russians could ill spare.
Even before the end, Ludendorff had attempted to extricate enough forces from the W. and N.W. portions of the ring to form the attack on Osowiec and the Bobr. He reconstituted the management of the mixed-up armies as best he could by putting all forces W. of Augustowo under Below (including the XX. Corps) and all engaged in and N. of the forest of Augustowo under Eichhorn. But most of the troops destined for this were involved in the forest battle, and the Osowiec groups had to be made up chiefly out of the troops that had been crowded out of the line as the wings converged. Of the XX. Corps only one division was available, and this had advanced no farther S.E. than Stawiski and Lipniki since it moved from its concentration area three weeks before. The other division was engaged on the Omulew river, and was connected to Lipniki by a thin screen of Landsturm. In sum, it was impossible with exhausted and scattered troops to force the now sodden marsh-valley of the
Bobr or to reduce Osowiec. Hindenburg therefore ordered the attacks to be discontinued.
Moreover, the position of the X. Army, far ahead of regular supplies, had become untenable, and as soon as the battlefield had been cleared it began to withdraw, just in time to secure good conditions for meeting a Russian counter-offensive from Grodno and Olita. There the Grand Duke, " by stamping his foot on the ground " as it seemed to his opponents had called into being a new X. Army.
This counter-offensive penetrated through the Augustowo forest, almost to Augustowo, and, to the N. of the forest zone, it reached and passed Seyny and Simno (March 5-7). But, thinking that at Simno it had found the flank of the German defence i.e. miscalculating the promptness of the German decision to regroup on a rear line the Simno force swung in to the S.E. toward Lozdzieje (March 8), exposed its own outer flank to counter-attack from Eichhorn's left, which stood between Simno and Kalwarja, and on March 9 fell upon the flank and rear of the Russians, at the same time as the frontal defence in and north of the forest turned to counter-attack. The Russians thereupon withdrew behind the Niemen again. The German X. Army now returned to its prepared line Augustowo-Krasnopol- Kalwarja-Mariampol-Pilwiszki-Szaki.
But the real crisis of the second half of Feb., which lasted till mid-March, lay not on the Niemen, but on the front of the new German VIII. Army and more particularly on that of Gallwitz. Here with his XII. Army (Plehve) the Grand Duke had all along intended to make the main effort of his Russian offen- sive, as geographically dictated; and the advances of Gallwitz and of the German XX. Corps, as diversions and flankguards for the Masurian battle, had merely put back the Russian preparations in time and place. Anger at the disaster to the X. Army, and fears for the safety of the " corridor " at its sensitive point N.E. of Osowiec, caused the Grand Duke to divert forces from the XII. Army to form the new X., but without affecting the mission of that army, which accordingly took the offensive against Gallwitz about the same time as the struggle in Augustowo forest came to an end. At the same date the attempts of the German VIII. Army against Osowiec and the Bobr line were dying out, and the division of the XX. Corps north of Lomzha was pinned by heavy counter-attacks from that place, while the other division of that corps was making head on the Omulew against similar efforts from Ostrolenka, and the Landsturm screen between them was holding its ground with difficulty against other attacks from Novograd. The crisis, from the German point of view, was so grave that even in Ludendorff's memoirs, written four years after the event, satisfaction in the " Cannae " of Augustowo is almost completely smothered in the remembrance of anxieties, makeshift reenforcements, and critical decisions concerning the S. front. All energy on both sides was now focussed on this front.
In the winter of 1914-5, light forces of the Germans had been advanced, originally as an element of the battle of Lodz, a considerable distance S. of Strassburg and Mlava, and the reenforcement of these troops to the strength of an army group had taken place on this forward line. Gallwitz had then advanced, in conjunction with the Masurian offensive, deep into the concentration zone of the Russian XII. Army (Feb. 13). In a few days he had reached the line Plock-Racionz-Przasnysz. But by about the 24th, Plehve's interrupted concentration was sufficiently near completion for him to advance. Pressing the front of Gallwitz on each main route, he developed his greatest strength in the Orzyc and Omulew valleys. In the latter, the division of the German XX. Corps above mentioned engaged the Russian advance in a series of combats which in the event were undecisive; but in the Orzyc region the Russian blow upon Przasnysz succeeded in driving back three divisions under v. Morgen (I. Res. Corps) with very heavy losses (Feb. 25-27). The whole centre and left of the 1 German line then fell back, pur- sued by the Russians, to the line Radzonovo-Mlava-Chorzele. On and about this line fighting remained severe till about March 19, kept alive on the German side by successive reenforce-
