t this version of the affair, and pointed to the fact that
within a few days their troops were again threatening Przasnysz,
and that since giving up the city they had captured on the battle
fields between the Vistula and the Orczy no less than 11,460 Russians.

The city of Przasnysz itself suffered heavily in these attacks and
counterattacks. For days and nights it had lain under bombardment
and repeatedly fierce, hand-to-hand combats had been fought in its
streets. Most of the houses of the place were left mere heaps of
smoking ruins.

From the German point of view this offensive just north of the
Vistula which included the temporary capture of Przasnysz was a
success, especially in this, that it had prevented the big Russian
forward movement against the West Prussian boundary which the impending
great Russian offensive had foreboded. It had been impossible for
the Russians seriously to endanger the German flank in this section,
while the Germans had struck to the east in the "winter battle,"
and had definitely spoiled the Russian appetite for invasion from
the Kovno-Grodno line.

As though determined to avenge their defeat to the east of the
lakes, the Russians now continued to direct a series of fierce
attacks in the direction of Mlawa, intending apparently to break
through the German line of defense between Soldau and Neidenburg.
It was said that the Russians believed General von Hindenburg in
person to be in charge of the German forces in this sector. In
consequence the German troops for the most part were forced to
stand upon the defensive. In the beginning of March the Russian
attacks increased steadily in violence. They broke against the
German positions to the east and south of Mlawa, according to German
reports, with enormous losses. At Demsk, to the east of Mlawa, long
rows of white stones mark common graves of masses of Russians who
perished before the German barbed-wire entanglements. The Germans
point to these as dumb witnesses of the disaster that overtook
forty-eight Russian companies that assaulted ten German ones. The
cold weather at this time had made possible the swampy regions in
which the Orczy rises, and had enabled the Russians to approach
close to the German line of defense.

The Russian attack at this point in the night of the 7th of March,
1915, was typical of the fighting on this line in these weeks.
After a thousand shells from the Russian heavy guns had descended
upon and behind Demsk