Von Hindenburg now returned to his old battle-ground near the Masurian
Lakes. The Russian forces, which, at the end of January, had made a
forward movement in East Prussia, had been quite successful. Their right
was close upon Tilsit, and their left rested upon the town of
Johannisburg. Further south was the Russian army of the Narev. Von
Hindenburg determined to surprise the invaders, and he gathered an army
of about three hundred thousand men to face the Russian forces which did
not number more than a hundred and twenty thousand, and which were under
the command of General Baron Sievers. The Russian army soon found itself
in a desperate position. A series of bitter fights ensued, at some of
which the Kaiser himself was present. The Russians were driven steadily
back for a week, but the German stories of their tremendous losses are
obviously unfounded They retreated steadily until February 20th,
fighting courageously, and by that date the Germans began to find
themselves exhausted.

Russian reinforcements came up, and a counter-attack was begun. The
German aim had evidently been to reach Grodno and cut the main line from
Warsaw to Petrograd, which passes through that city. They had now
reached Suwalki, a little north of Grodno, but were unable to advance
further, though the Warsaw-Petrograd railway was barely ten miles away.
The southern portion of von Hindenburg's army was moving against the
railway further west, in the direction of Ossowietz. But Ossowietz put
up a determined resistance, and the attack was unsuccessful. By the
beginning of March, von Hindenburg ordered a gradual retreat to the East
Prussian frontier.

While this movement to drive the Russians from East Prussia was under
way, von Hindenburg had also launched an attack against the Russian army
on the Narev. If he could force the lower Narev from that point, too, he