The Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes is the final event in the account of a Hussar lieutenant whom Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov had wounded before the war. Recalled by the Count during a later conversation, the battle clarifies the distinction between the lieutenant’s earlier injury and his eventual death: after recovering enough to resume command, he was killed in combat by an Austrian dragoon.

Background to the Battle

Before the war, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov shot the lieutenant. The lieutenant survived, but his right arm was left lame, and he had to surrender his Hussar commission. After the lieutenant’s father filed an official complaint, the Count’s grandmother sent the Count to Paris, as custom required.

Return to Command and Death

Later that summer, war broke out. Despite the injury that had ended his commission, the lieutenant insisted on returning to his place at the head of his regiment. At the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes, an Austrian dragoon knocked him from his horse and killed him with a bayonet.

Retrospective Significance

The battle enters the narrative through the Count’s recollection of the chain of events surrounding the shooting. The lieutenant’s death in combat does not erase the consequences of the Count’s earlier action: the wound had already left him lame and forced him to give up his commission. But the lieutenant later chose to return to his regiment, and it was the battle—not the original gunshot—that ended his life. The distinction gives context to the Count’s sense of responsibility and to his companion’s judgment that he had assumed more than his share of guilt.