The Russians recognized the danger of the concentric attack directed at them and fought with great bravery. They strove to keep open the road of their retreat toward Kovno as long as possible. However, the ring of the German troops closed swiftly. At Koslowa Ruda, in the southern part of the forest, they found at night a sleeping army; something like 3,000 Russians had lain down exhausted in order on the next day to find the last opening through which to make their escape. They were now saved the trouble and were led away prisoners. The great forest was cleared of Russians. The German move had served to insure the safety of the lines connecting the troops in Courland with their bases to the south of the Niemen. In an official announcement of the 18th of March, 1915, the German Government sketched the line held in the east by the German troops northward of the front covered by joint German and Austrian forces. It read: "The line occupied by us in the east runs from the Pilica, along the Rawka and Bzura to the Vistula. North of the Vistula the line of our troops is continued from the region to the east of Plozkz by way of Zurominek-Stupsk (both south of Mlawa). From there it runs in an easterly direction through the region to the north of Przasnysz--south of Mystinez, south of Kolno--to the north of Lomza, and strikes the Bobr at Mocarce. From here it follows the line of the Bobr to northwest of Ossowetz, which is under our fire, and runs by way of the region to east of Augustowo, by Krasnopol, Mariempol, Pilwiszki, Szaki, along the border through Tauroggen to the northwest. This is from beginning to end entirely on hostile soil." This long line, it appears, was under the supreme command of Von Hindenburg, while Von Mackensen had charge of the great drive to the south. The statement here quoted was issued as reassurance to Germans who had been made nervous by reports of a Russian invasion of East Prussia, and was connected with the Russian raid on Memel. Until June there was practically no change in this great line, except that on its northern end it was swung outward into Russian territory to include a large part of Courland, the River Dubissa roughly forming the dividing line until the front swung eastward toward Libau, in the line of the Libau-Dunaburg Railway. The tasks of both German and Russian troops were similar. Comparatively weak German forces held the front in the region of the Niemen, the Bobr, and the Narew, safeguarding such Russian territory as had been seized by the Germans, and protecting East Prussia against invasion. Opposed to them lay considerable Russian forces whose task it was, supported by the fortresses of the Narew and the Niemen, especially Grodno, to protect the flank and rear of the Russians standing in Warsaw and southward in the bend of the Vistula, with the Warsaw-Vilna Railway behind them, while great decisions were fought for in the Carpathians and Galicia.