With the crossroads town of Ortelsburg back in German hands, Lt. Gen. Otto Hennig of the 35th Infantry Division determined that it would remain that way. When aerial spotting reports passed on word of a large Russian column approaching the town, Hennig took personal comiriand of the small garrison and told them that he and his staff would fight alongside them to the last round. Meanwhile, the rest of his division wandered aimlessly through the woods to the south, bereft of direction.

Hennig managed to find a pair of small reinforcing groups that helped hold off the Russian attack, but those additions only delayed the inevitable. Instead, German and Russian moves elsewhere saved the German general from his own stupidity. Just as the Russians were about to finish off the small German force, the Russian VI Corps received orders to pull back over the border into Russian Poland. Meanwhile, XVII Corps commander August von Mackensen, despairing of convincing Hennig to follow one of the corps' repeated direct orders to return to his post, finally ordered 35th Division's component units to march on Ortelsburg and retrieve their commander.