n the whole front between the Pissa and the Vistula,
toward the Narew.

The German summary of the fighting during these days reported the
capture by the army of General von Gallwitz of eighty-eight officers,
17,500 men, thirteen cannon (including one heavy gun), forty machine
guns, and seven mine throwers; and by the army of General von Scholtz
of 2,500 prisoners and eight machine guns.

This great attack in the north, to which may be ascribed the final
breaking of the lines that had so long protected Warsaw, had been
carefully planned and undoubtedly was timed in coordination with the
movements of Mackensen's armies on the south, striking the Russians
just when Mackensen and the Archduke Josef, having had time for
recuperation and preparation for another push forward after the check
administered at Krasnik, were in readiness to inflict a heavy blow on
their side of the Warsaw salient. When it began the German lines all
along the front burst into fresh activity. It was the signal for a
simultaneous assault along nearly a thousand miles of battle front.

In the Mlawa sector to the north of Przasnysz the Russians had
developed an exceedingly strong system of fortified positions between
their advance lines and the Narew fortresses. For miles, to a depth of
from fifteen to twenty kilometers, there ran some three or four and at
certain points even five systems of trenches, one behind the other.
Hundreds of thousands of thick tree trunks had been worked into these
defensive works and millions of sand bags piled up as breastwork.
Bombproof dugouts had been constructed deep in the ground. Everywhere
there were strong wire entanglements before the front, sometimes sunk
below the level of the earth, arranged in from two to three rows.
Projecting bastions and thoroughly protected observation posts gave
these systems of trenches the character of permanent fortifications.

The country in this region is hilly, with here and there steep
declivities and peaks of considerable elevation. The Russians had cut
down whole stretches of forest in order to afford them a free field
for their fire and an opportunity to observe the advance of their
opponents. Enveloping tactics on the part of the Germans were here
quite excluded as the two lines ran uninterruptedly close to one
another. Przasnysz which had become a heap of ruins had been converted
virtually into a fortress by strong defensive works built while the
Germans and Russians lay opp