Emboldened by First Army's seeming inability to mount a serious assault against the outmoded Fort Boyen, the small garrison took the fight to the Russians. Informed that the fort would form a jumping-off point for the German Eighth Army's planned offensive against First Army, on his own initiative the garrison commander, Col. Busse, gathered his mobile forces and set out to widen the bridgehead for this future operation.

The sheer, unbridled idiocy of Busse's attack took the Russians by surprise, and the Landwehr somehow managed to push them back several kilometers from Fort Boyen. Over the coming days regular troops from XVII Corps would pass into the zone cleared by this impetuous attack. But the Landwehr failed to advance to the trench lines the Russians had been digging for days; the regulars would still face a serious challenge in breaking Out of the Lötzen Gap.