On the very left flank of the Austrian advance, 3rd Cavalry Division pressed up the right bank of the Vistula River seeking out the Russians. Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim and his Guards Cavalry Brigade raced southward with orders to hold the town of Krasnik and the heights to its south "at all costs." The Austrians had already reached the high ground when the Russians arrived.

Mannerheim's horsemen dismounted and fought the Austrian infantry for Krasnik, holding the town and claiming 600 prisoners taken. The Austrian cavalry failed to intervene, and despite some success by their artillery — which knocked out the Russian battery — the infantry lacked the strength to overcome the Russian Guards.