to
their hips in the snow, and so we worked our way forward, usually
only about two kilometers an hour. Wagons and horses that upset
had to be shoveled out of the drifts. It was a terrible sight,
but we got through. We had to go on without regard for anything,
and the example of the higher officers did much."

Two Russian corps from the southern wing of the army retreating by
the Suwalki-Sejny causeway and by the Ossowetz Railway, according
to accounts from Russian sources, made their way out of the trap
under heavy rear-guard fighting.

The escaped portions of the Russian army crossed the Bobr toward
Grodno. From the direction of this Russian stronghold a desperate
effort was made to relieve the four corps which were endeavoring to
escape toward the fortress from the forest southeast of Augustowo
into which they had been pressed by the Germans from the west and
north. On the 21st of February came the final act in the great
drama. The German troops pushed forward at their best speed from
all directions toward the forest. The help that had been intended
for them came too late. Concerning the captures of this day, the
German Great Headquarters reported: "On the 21st of February the
remnants of the Tenth Army laid down their arms in the forest of
Augustowo after all attempts of the Russian commander of this army,
General Sievers, to cut a way out for the encircled four divisions
by means of those parts of his army which remained to him after
escaping over the Bobr to Grodno failed with extremely heavy losses."

Summarizing the results of the entire battle in an announcement of
the 22d of February, the German Great Headquarters said: "The pursuit
after the winter battle in Mazurian Land is ended. In cleaning up
the forests to the northwest of Grodno, and in the battles reported
during the last few days in the region of the Bobr and the Narew,
there have been captured to date one commanding general, two division
commanders, four other generals, and in the neighborhood of 40,000
men, seventy-five cannon, a quantity of machine guns, whose number
is not yet determined, and much other war material.

"The total booty of the winter battle in Mazurian Land, therefore,
up to to-day rises to seven generals, more than 100,000 men, more
than 150 cannon, and material of all sorts, inclusive of machine
guns, which cannot yet be approximately estimated. Heavy guns and
ammunition were in many cases buried by the enemy or sunk in the