Stationed in Warsaw during peacetime and thus spared most of the court ceremonial assigned to the Guard Corps, yet drawing on the pick of the officer corps and draft pool, the Russian 3rd Guards Division considered itself the best fighting division in the Imperial Army. Sent forward to shore up Second Army's crumbling left flank, the Keksgolmski Guards Regiment faced an entire German division by itself. The Guardsmen dug rifle pits and fox holes behind a thick cavalry screen, and awaited the Germans with professional indifference.

For once, the Russian cavalry did its job, making it difficult for the Germans to approach the main line of resistance in an orderly fashion. When they did, they met a wall of rifle and machine-gun fire that inflicted massive casualties at little loss to the Guardsmen. The Russian officers, using all the lessons won in 1904 and 1905 at such great cost, had laid out interlocking fields of lire and instilled strict fire discipline in their men.