at night. With special fury the battles raged in the neighborhood of
Jednorozez. This attempt to break into Prussia was also unsuccessful,
and in the last week of March the Russian attacks slackened, quiet
ensuing for the weeks following Easter.

For six weeks the armies had struggled back and forth in this bloody
angle, fighting in cold and wet, amid snow and icy rains. The Germans
asserted that in these six weeks the troops of General von Gallwitz
had captured 43,000 Russians and slain some 25,000. They estimated the
total losses of the enemy in this sector during the period at 100,000.
Countless graves scattered about the land, and the ruins of cities and
villages were left to keep awake the memory of some of the fiercest
fighting of the war in the east.

CHAPTER LII

FIGHTING BEFORE THE NIEMEN AND BOBR--BOMBARDMENT OF OSSOWETZ

The winter battles of the Mazurian Lakes had forced the armies at the
northern end of the Russian right flank back into their great
fortresses Kovno and Grodno, and behind the line of the Niemen and the
Bobr. A great forest region lies to the east and north of Grodno, and
between the Niemen and the cities of Augustowo and Suwalki which the
Germans, after their successful offensive, used as bases for their
operations. A strip of country including these forests, and running
parallel to the Niemen was a sort of no-man's land in the spring of
1915. Movements of troops in the heavily wooded country were difficult
to observe, and the conditions lent themselves to surprise attacks.
This resulted in a warfare of alternate thrusts by Russians and
Germans aimed now at this point, now at that, in the disputed
territory. Several actions during the spring stand out beyond the rest
in importance, both because of the numbers engaged and their effects.
In what follows will be described a typical offensive movement in this
district undertaken by the Russians, and the way it was met by the
Germans.

A new Russian Tenth Army had been organized by the end of February,
1915, with Grodno for its base. General Sievers, his chief of staff,
and the general in command of the Third Russian Army Corps had been
demoted from their commands, and three new army corps (Two, Three, and
Fifteen) had been brought to Grodno. The ranks of the remaining corps
that had suffered in the "winter battle" had been filled up with fresh
recruits. Hardly had the German pursuit in the forest of Augustowo
come to an end when t