Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich favored Nikolai Ruzsky's plan to invade Silesia on 14 November, with the Russian Second, Fifth, and Fourth Armies.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff had moved the German Ninth Army to the Thorn area, in an attempt to defend Silesia.

The enlarged Ninth Army would then attack the Russian right flank,[26] cutting Łódź off from Warsaw, and eliminating any troops thus encircled.

[24] Grand Duke Nicholas's primary objective was saving Second Army and avoiding a repeat of the disaster at Tannenberg.

On 16 November he ordered Wenzel von Plehve's Russian Fifth Army to abandon the proposed offensive into Silesia and to move northward towards Łódź; they marched 116 km (72 mi) in only two days.

Plehve smashed into Mackensen's right flank on 18 November in bitter winter conditions (at times the temperature dropped as low as 10 °F (−12 °C).

Yet, Mackensen still ordered his XX and XXV Reserve Corps to continue their effort to outflank the Russian Łódź defenses.

Only the German 19th Dragoon Regiment opposed this Russian threat to Friedrich von Scholtz's XX Corps rear, whose front faced southwest, south, and east.

[24] The German Ninth Army's right wing was XXV Reserve Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Reinhard von Scheffer-Boyadel, a 63-year-old who had been recalled from retirement.

With Lieutenant General Manfred von Richthofen's, great uncle of the flying ace, cavalry in the van, they were pushing southeast between Łódź and the Vistula.

[29] Once over they attacked the weakly defended side of the corridor extending south from the German frontier to their advancing spearhead.

In the pocket, Richthofen's cavalry, which had been leading the advance, reversed direction to screen the rear of three infantry columns Scheffer formed along the roads for the retreat back northwest.

Swamped with conflicting accounts of German movements, and with the weather too foggy and the days too short for aerial observation, Ruzsky issued a series of orders, each contradicting the one before.

[32][24] Scheffer's left column, led by Karl Litzmann's 3rd Guards Infantry Division, had reached Breziny on the morning of 24 November.

[24] Inconclusive fighting continued until 29 November when at a conference with his front commanders Grand Duke Nicholas ordered his forces in Poland to withdraw to defensible lines nearer to Warsaw.

According to Buttar, "The encirclement of XXV Reserve Corps was broken for several reasons: lack of coordination by First, Second, and Fifth Armies; the extraordinary muddle of command in the Lowicz detachment; and Ruzsky's oscillation between his deep-rooted caution and his almost impulsive issuing of orders for all-out attacks."

[34][35][36] The Germans themselves, e.g., Max Hoffmann and Ludendorff, admitted that the battle was not successful for them in terms of achieving operational and tactical objectives.

"[39] Hindenburg and Ludendorff were convinced that if sufficient troops were transferred from the Western Front, they could force the Russians out of the war.

[35] [North to South] Northwestern Front – Gen. Ruzsky [41] Media related to Battle of Łódź (1914) at Wikimedia Commons