The last remaining wild European Bison (Wisents), found in Russian Poland before the war, were wiped out by gun- and shellfire during the Winter Battle in Masuria, and by later hunting by German troops. The bison here are pictured after their reintroduction in a nearby forest in the 1950s.

February 16 1915, Augustów–The situation for the Russian Tenth Army had only become more dire over since we last checked in on the 10th. Ruzski, commanding the Northwest Front, remained unaware of the extent of the German threat for days, believing the only threat to be the German Eighth Army on their left. He still did not know about the German Tenth Army on the Russian right, the army that was pulling off the bulk of the envelopment. He planned to have the Russian Twelfth Army counterattack from the south, and on the 11th told the Russian Tenth Army to stand firm so as not to interfere with these plans. By the time the Russian Tenth Army did begin a retreat three days later, the Germans had already slipped around behind the XX Corps in Tenth Army’s center and cut off the roads available to them.

By February 16, the Russian XX Corps was surrounded in the forest of Augustów by four German corps. The Russians on their right had fallen back towards Kovno in disarray days earlier; those on their left that escaped had little idea they left the XX Corps behind. Over the coming days, XX Corps was pressed tighter and tighter, and attempts to break out were defeated. At one point, two divisional staffs had to share a single forester’s hut for the lack of room. The heavy fire from all sides quickly took its toll on both the Russians and the native wildlife. One of the last herds of wild European bison was wiped out during the battle; the remainder (just over the border in Russia) were hunted to extinction by German soldiers later in the war.

Sources include: Norman Stone, The Eastern Front 1914-1917; John Keegan, The First World War. Image credit: “Jan Jerzy Karpinski zubry” by family collection - family collection. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.