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taken these positions and the Russians had withdrawn to the narrow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 ueber 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 L

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 loos