e to make a stand in his second line of trenches and overrunning
this, by night began to enter the third Russian defensive line.
Przasnysz was flanked in the course of twenty-four hours and could no
longer be held. A fine rain was falling as the German columns marched
through the deserted, smoke-blackened city, a melancholy setting for a
victory.

On July 14, 1915, the German troops had broken through on both sides
of the city, met to the south of it and forming a mighty battering
ram, on the next day, forced the next Russian line, the last, to the
north of the Narew. This ran through Wysogrod-Ciechanow-Zielona to
Kranosiele. The Russians here made a desperate defense and the German
advance pushed forward but slowly. The effect of the German artillery
fire seems not to have been as striking as on the first day of battle.
The German report of the attack on this line points out that the
regiment of the Guard holding the right wing of a division which was
to attack the heights to the south and southeast of Zielona was
impatient to go forward, and was allowed to advance before the
reserves which were to be held in readiness to support the move had
come up.

However, confident of the accuracy with which the "black brothers"
(shells from the big guns) struck the enemy's trenches, the riflemen
leapt forward through fields of grain as soon as they saw that a gust
of their shells had struck in front of them. By means of signs which
been agreed upon they then signaled their new positions and the guns
laid their fire another hundred meters farther forward. The
infantrymen then stormed ahead into the newly made shell craters. Thus
they went forward again and again. Neither Russian fire nor the double
barbed wire entanglements were able to check their assaults.

As the German shouts rolled forth the Russians ran. A neighboring
division consisting of young men who had enlisted in the course of the
war, in a brilliant charge took a bastion at Klosnowo. The effect of
this first penetration of the Russian main position made itself felt
in the course of the afternoon and night along the whole front.
Further German forces were thrown into the breach and strove to widen
it.

The Russians at many points resisted obstinately, but under the
pressure from the front and in the flank they were finally unable to
hold their ground. The German account speaks with admiration of the
ride to death of a Russian cavalry brigade which attacked the G