With the Russian First Army falling back toward the frontier, the German cavalry corps moved to unhinge its left flank. First Army command ordered its own cavalry to screen the retreat and stop the German horsemen from penetrating. The German 8th Cavalry Division, made up of the Royal Saxon Army's cavalry regiments, considered itself the finest unit in the Imperial Army's mounted branch and intended to prove it. The hussars and Don Cossacks of Huseyn Khan Nakhchivansky's Russian 2nd Cavalry Division, stationed just over the border at Suwalki during peacetime, would have to stop them.

Initial Russian resistance held up the German advance, but as the day wore on the Saxons gained the upper hand. By afternoon the Germans had taken the key crossroads town of Goldap and the Khan's division had fallen back away from the neighboring 2nd Guard Cavalry Division. The Saxons would ride through the gap on the 12th and saber the First Army's supply columns, sowing panic amid the rear echelon.