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Updated: June 20, 2025
While the Germans, using to the best advantage their net of railroads for the swift accumulation of troops, had gathered large forces on the Mazurian Lakes line, they had at the same time strengthened the troops standing on the southern boundary of West and East Prussia.
Feb. 16 Germans capture Plock and Bielsk in Poland; French capture two miles of German trenches in Champagne district. February 17 Germans report they have taken 50,000 Russian prisoners in Mazurian lake district. Feb. 18 German blockade of English and French coasts put into effect. Feb. 19-20 British and French fleets bombard Dardanelles forts.
But they were again beaten back by Von Hindenburg on September 10-11, 1914, and, four days later, on September 15, 1914, suffered another serious defeat in the Mazurian Lakes. The Galician invasion, however, was meeting with great success. By September 16, 1914, the important Austrian fortress of Przemysl sixty miles west of Lemberg had been reached and its siege begun.
There were ninety thousand of them bagged in one battle in the early days of the war, at the Mazurian Lakes! The Russians are for the most part simple, honest fellows, very sad and plaintive, and deserving of better treatment than they have had.
In this sense it is to be considered as beginning on the 7th of February, 1915, and ending on the 16th, when the German Great Headquarters reported that the Tenth Russian Army, consisting of at least eleven infantry and several cavalry divisions, had been driven out of its strongly fortified positions to the east of the Mazurian Lake district, forced across the border, and, having been almost completely surrounded, had been crushingly defeated.
"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.
The capture of the fortress was the first personal triumph of the "old man of the Mazurian lakes" since the great Austro-German campaign in the East was inaugurated. The six great forts defending the city from the west and southwest were simply blown to pieces by the incessant pounding of Germany's great 42-centimeter guns and a host of minor pieces.
Memel, Tilsit, Insterburg, Königsberg, and Allenstein to name only a few of the more important cities of East Prussia were either threatened with occupation by the Russian forces or had actually been occupied by them. The entire Mazurian Lake district in the southeast of the Prusso-Russian border region was overrun with Russian troops.
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