e interior of Germany; the equivalent of three corps from other
sections of the eastern front; and a reserve corps of the Guard. The
German official description of the battle credits the Russians with
having had in this sector of the battle front in East Prussia at the
beginning of February six to eight army corps, or about 200,000 men.

For months the heavy fighting in the east had centered on other
sections of the immense battle line, running from the Baltic to the
Carpathians. The second general Russian offensive, the great forward
thrust of the Grand Duke Nicholas toward Cracow in the direction of
Berlin, aimed through the center of the German defense, had been met,
and the German counterthrust toward Warsaw had come to a standstill in
the mud of Poland and before the stone-wall defensive of the Russians
on the Bsura and the Rawka. Attacks launched by the Russians against
the East Prussian frontier, centering at Lyck, in January, 1915,
seemed to forebode a fresh Russian offensive intended to sweep back
the German armies in this section whose position on the Russian right
wing was a continual threat to the communications of the Russian
commander in chief.

The Germans, disposing of comparatively weak forces, estimated at
three army corps, were compelled to yield a strip of East Prussian
territory, and had fallen back to positions of considerable natural
strength formed by the chain of Mazurian Lakes and the line of the
Angerapp River. They reported their forces standing on the defensive
here as 50 per cent Landwehr, 25 per cent Landsturm, and only 25 per
cent other troops not of the reserve. Repeated attempts of the
Russians to gain possession of these fortified positions had, however,
broken down. They had been directed especially against the bridgehead
of Darkehmen and the right wing of the German forces in the Paprodtk
Hills. Wading up to their shoulders in icy water, the hardy troops of
the Third Siberian Corps had attempted in vain to cross the Nietlitz
Swamp, between the lakes to the east of Lyck.

At the beginning of February, 1915, finally Von Hindenburg had been
able to obtain fresh German forces and to put them in position for an
encircling movement against the Russians lying just to the east of the
lakes, from near Tilsit to Johannisburg. With the greatest secrecy the
reenforcements, hidden from observation by their fortified positions,
and the border forces maintaining the defense, were gathered behind