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The first American permitted to witness actual battles near the eastern frontier of Germany was Karl H. von Wiegand, who wrote as follows from the firing line near East Wirballen, Russian Poland, October 9: "The German artillery today beat back, in a bloody, ghastly smear of men, the Russian advance. "Yesterday I saw an infantry engagement. Today it was mostly an artillery encounter.
At Wirballen the police evoked a throb of gratitude from our relieved hearts. No one seemed to suspect that the American government owned a consul in Berlin who could write his name on our huge parchments, which contrasted so strongly with the compact little documents from other lands.
The center of this army, at the capture of Eydtkuhnen, Wirballen, and Kibarty, took 10,000 prisoners, six cannon, eight machine guns, numerous baggage wagons, including eighty field kitchens, three military trains and other rolling stock, a large number of gift packages intended for the Russian troops, and, of chief interest to the fighting men, a whole day's provisions.
Ivan Botkine, the trusted secret agent of the Prime Minister Kokovtsov, who had left Berlin on the twenty-second for Petrograd, had been found dead in one of the sleeping compartments on the arrival of the train at the frontier station of Wirballen. His pockets and valise had been rifled, and an inquiry had been opened.
It was evening when the Germans made their surprise attack on Eydtkuhnen and midnight when they fell upon Wirballen. On the roadway stood two Russian batteries with twelve guns and a considerable number of ammunition wagons. The German infantry approached without firing a shot until they were within fifty yards. Then all the horses were shot down and the guns and ammunition seized.
It was he who put papers into their baggage, and then telegraphed to the police at Wirballen. Neither of the men was dangerous as far as I could see, but our friend Evno believed them to be; hence he deemed them better out of the way." I could see that the young woman had some scruples regarding the dirty work for which she received money from the Ministry of the Interior in Petrograd.
After a brief interval the Grand Duke came out of the hotel and entered the first car, followed by the stout rubicund officer I had seen in attendance on him at Wirballen. A merry little man he seemed, and as he settled himself in his seat he said something which drew a laugh from the Duke.
In addition, at these dinners, followed by the secret conferences, there attended a certain smart, well-set-up officer named Miassoyedeff, a colonel stationed at Wirballen on the East Prussia frontier, and who had received gracious invitations from the Kaiser to go shooting and to hob-nob with him. This man afterwards became a spy of Germany, as I will later on reveal.
"And, over and above all this, we have reached the sea and are within a few miles of England's shores. Furthermore, Russia's army, which we lured into East Prussia until it fancied it was about to invest Königsberg, has been driven back beyond Wirballen far into Tsardom, with appalling losses of men and material.
On the afternoon of February 10 some one and a half Russian divisions had come to a halt in these three neighboring villages: Eydtkuhnen, Kibarty, and Wirballen. Although it was known that the Germans were approaching, it was apparently regarded by the Russians as impossible that pursuers would be able to come up with them in the raging snowstorm.
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