The Soviet breakthrough in Belorussia made the German Army Group North withdraw a large portion of their troops from Narva to the central part of the Eastern Front and to Finland.

[8] On 12 July, Infantry General Johannes Frießner the commander of the army group proposed the plan to Hitler whose reaction was to stand or die at the Narva Line.

[5][10] However, the Soviet headquarters were unaware of the recently constructed Tannenberg line, granting the army detachment "Narwa" an element of surprise.

[1][14] Forces of the 117th Rifle Corps reached the headquarters of the I.Battalion, 1st Estonian Regiment who still resisted by heavy machine-gun fire in circular defence.

[1][13] The support of the anti-tank weapons of the 14th Company, I.Battalion and the aid provided by the “Nordland“ Division helped to seize the main front line back to the control of the I.Battalion.

[1][2] Subsequent attempts by units of the 8th Army to break through were repelled in a similar way, causing them to lose 3,000 men[10] and 18 tanks, compared to the loss of 800+ troops of the 11th Infantry Division.

[5] The Soviet attack at Auvere and Sirgala forced the III SS Panzer Corps to a hasty withdrawal from their positions in the Ivangorod bridgehead on the opposite bank of Narva.

The 131st and the 191st Rifle Corps were ordered to cross the river on boats and rafts, accompanied by "Svyaschennaya Voyna" and the anthem of the Soviet Union playing from the loudspeakers.

[12] The focus of the Soviet attack drifted to the II.Battalion, 2nd Estonian Regiment causing it to lose coordination and retreat to the estate of Peeterristi on the highway nine kilometres outside Narva.

SS-Obersturmbannführer Alfons Vilhelm Robert Rebane had saved the unit from the Soviet bombardment by ordering them to dig into new trenches on the night before.

In the estate of Peeterristi, Major Friedrich Kurg reassembled the 180 troops remained of the II.Battalion, 2nd Estonian Regiment to keep the 131st Rifle Division away from the highway and counterattacked.

[2][4][10] The main German casualty of the retreat to the Tannenberg Line were the 700 troops of the SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Regiment 48 General Seyffardt.

Encircled in the swamps between the highway and the railway, the withdrawing General Seyffardt Regiment was pinned down by the ground-attack aircraft of the 13th Air Army and annihilated by the 191st Rifle Division.

While the Soviets celebrated victory, their strategic goal – the encirclement of the III SS Panzer Corps and the destruction of Army Group North – remained unreached.

The SS Reconnaissance Battalion 11 and the ferocious counterattack of the I.Battalion, Waffen Grenadier Regiment 47 (3rd Estonian) at the night before 28 July, subsequently collapsed under the Soviet tank fire while the I.Battalion was destroyed.

This enabled the I.Battalion, 1st Estonian Regiment to launch a fierce counterattack led by Hauptsturmführer Paul Maitla, re-conquering the Grenadier Hill to the hands of the SS troops.

The Stavka demanded the destruction of the army detachment "Narwa" and the capture of town of Rakvere more than a hundred kilometres from Narva by 7 August.

The 2nd Shock Army was back to 20,000 troops by 2 August, while their numerous attempts pursuing unchanged tactics failed to break the multinational defence of the "Narwa".