t a country, von Hindenburg massed men upon his right near
Soldau. This move had two objects: first, by pushing the Russians back
there to make them lose the only good road and railway by which they
could retire south upon their communications into the country whence
they had come; secondly, to make them think, in their natural anxiety
for those communications, that his main effort would be delivered
there to the south. As a fact, it was his intention to act elsewhere.
But the effect of his pressure along the arrow _a_ was to give the
Russian line by the evening of that Wednesday, the 26th of August, the
form of the line 1 upon Sketch 73.

The advantage he had thus gained in front of Soldau, Hindenburg
maintained by rapid and successful entrenchment; and the next day,
Thursday, 27th August, he moved great numbers round by railway to his
left near Allenstein, and appeared there with a great local
superiority in numbers and in heavy guns. By the evening of that day,
then, the 27th, he had got the Russian line into the position 2, and
the chief effort was being directed along the arrow _b_. On the 28th
and 29th the pressure continued, and increased here upon the north;
the Russian right was pushed back upon Passenheim, for which there was
a most furious fight; and by the evening of the 29th Samsonoff's whole
body was bent right round into the curve of the line 3, and vigorous
blows were being dealt against it along the arrow _c_, which bent it
farther and farther in.

It was clearly evident by that evening, the 29th of August, that
Samsonoff must retreat; but his opportunities for such a retreat were
already difficult. All he had behind him was the worst piece in the
whole country--the triangle Passenheim-Ortelsberg-Niedenberg--and his
main avenue of escape was a defile between the lake which the railway
at Ortelsberg uses.

His retirement became hopelessly congested. Further pressure along the
arrow _d_, during the 30th and 31st, broke that retirement into two
halves, one half (as at 5) making off eastwards, the other half (as
at 4) bunched together in a hopeless welter in a country where every
egress was blocked by swamp and mire, and subjected to the pounding of
the now concentrated ring of heavy guns. The body at 5 got away in the
course of the 1st and 2nd of September, but only at the expense of
leaving behind them great numbers of guns, wounded, and stragglers.
The body at 4 was, in the military sense of the word,