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The following day, the 28th, saw intense and often confused fighting all along the line. François continued to press around the Russian left in hopes of gaining Samsonov's rear and cutting off his retreat; while Scholtz's XX Corps was, in the opinion of Ludendorff, almost "exhausted" by the past several days of continuous battle, Mackensen, after a slow start, again engaged with the isolated VI Corps and drove it back further, while Below reached Allenstein and threatened to separate the Russian center and right entirely. Samsonov himself, demoralized by the collapse of I Corps on his left, which he had counted on to stabilize the rest of his army, traveled to the front and attempted to personally direct the fighting in Martos' sector; by nightfall, though, he had concluded the situation was irretrievable, and issued orders for a general retreat.
The following day, the 28th, saw intense and often confused fighting all along the line. François continued to press around the Russian left in hopes of gaining Samsonov's rear and cutting off his retreat; while Scholtz's XX Corps was, in the opinion of Ludendorff, almost "exhausted" by the past several days of continuous battle, Mackensen, after a slow start, again engaged with the isolated VI Corps and drove it back further, while Below reached Allenstein and threatened to separate the Russian center and right entirely. Samsonov himself, demoralized by the collapse of I Corps on his left, which he had counted on to stabilize the rest of his army, traveled to the front and attempted to personally direct the fighting in Martos' sector; by nightfall, though, he had concluded the situation was irretrievable, and issued orders for a general retreat.
Though much of the broken I and VI Corps, being already partially driven from the field, would in fact be able to escape on the 29th, there was little chance of retreat for the XIII and XV Corps in the center. Below had succeeded in breaking through at Allenstein, and with Mackensen was able to link up with François near Neidenburg, effectively surrounding those two corps. Martos' and Klyuev's men desperately floundered through the forests and swamps inside the pocket, looking for an open path to escape, but there were few passable roads, and on all of these the Germans had already posted machine guns to mow down anyone in sight. Moreover, the troops had run completely out of food, in some cases for several days, and were growing physically incapable of further resistance. Through the day and night more and more of them were rounded up; Martos and Klyuev were themselves captured, and by the following morning, except for a final attack by a regrouped portion of the Russian I Corps, all fighting was at an end.
Samsonov himself had also been trapped in the surrounded pocket. Rather than face the shame either of being taken prisoner or of telling [[Tsar Nicholas II]] that he had lost his army, the general walked into the forest about 1:00 a.m. on the 30th and shot himself. His body was later discovered by the Germans and returned to Russia.
==References==
==References==