After the loss of their commander the regiment began retreating towards Marijampolė. On the night of February 14–15, German forces retook Alytus. Towards the end of 1918 the officer Povilas Plechavičius, together with his brother Aleksandras, began organizing partisans in Skuodas. On February 9 the partisans took an oath, and on February 16 they paraded in the town square. A partisan unit commanded by army officers was also organized in Joniškėlis. The movement of the Bolsheviks towards East Prussia worried Germany, and they sent volunteers (Brigade Shaulen) commanded by General Rüdiger von der Goltz to free the railroad line linking Liepāja, Mažeikiai, Radviliškis, and Kėdainiai. At the end of February the Lithuanian partisans, supported by German artillery, took Mažeikiai and Seda, and pursued Bolsheviks to Kuršėnai. On February 27, 1919, German volunteers supported by Plechavičius' partisans and Joniškėlis' partisans, defeated the "Samogitian regiment" in a battle near Luokė. By that time the regiment had been incorporated into the Red Army's 2nd Latvian International Riflemen Division. On the same day the Lithuanian–Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Litbel) was declared. On March 7, 1919 the Germans took the town of Kuršėnai, on March 11 - Šiauliai, on March 12 - Radviliškis. On March 14 Lithuanian partisans and German forces captured Šeduva. The German troops were active in Lithuania until May 31, 1919. In Kėdainiai a stationed volunteer regiment had secured its positions; in March it started small "expeditions" into nearby towns. Local volunteers with good knowledge of the location succeeded in driving Bolshevik supporters out of Ramygala, Truskava, and Krekenava, but these areas were soon recaptured by the Bolsheviks. These expeditions into several towns were successfully carried out until the end of March. As a reward for its successful operations, the volunteer regiment was given a name on March 22: the "Separate Panevėžys Volunteer Regiment". Due to a succession of losses, the Bolshevik forces stationed in Panevėžys and Kupiškis rebelled, and were quelled only by a Red Army Division from neighboring Latvia.