The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Russian Campaign, by Stanley Washburn, Illustrated by George H. Mewes

THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN
APRIL TO AUGUST, 1915

HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE TSAR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS.

THE
RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN

APRIL TO AUGUST, 1915, BEING THE
SECOND VOLUME OF “FIELD NOTES
FROM THE RUSSIAN FRONT”

By
STANLEY WASHBURN
(Special Correspondent of
“The Times” with the Russian Armies)

WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY GEORGE H. MEWES

LONDON: ANDREW MELROSE, LTD.
3 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.

The illustrations in this book are from the photographs of Mr. George H. Mewes, who accompanied Mr. Washburn in all his tours. They are reproduced here by courtesy of the “Daily Mirror.”

Dedication.
To
Lord Northcliffe and the Editors of “The Times” London
In Appreciation of a Year of Loyal Support
and Co-operation.

INTRODUCTION

Many of my friends have urged me not to publish this, the second volume of Field Notes from the Russian Front, on the ground that the fortunes of Russia and the Russian armies were on the wane, and that the optimism which I have always felt has proved itself unfounded by the events of the past few months. It is for the very reason that conditions in Russia are momentarily unfavourable that I am glad to publish this book at this time, as a vindication of my faith and belief in the common soldiers and officers of an army with which I have been associated for nearly a year.

During the advances and successes in Galicia and Poland a year ago I found the Russian troops admirable, and now in the hour of their reverses and disappointments they are superb. I retract nothing that I have said before, and resting my faith in the justice of the cause, the unflinching character of the people, and the matchless courage of the Russian soldiers, I am glad in this moment of depression to have the chance to vindicate my own belief in their ultimate victory in the East.

The Russians for more than a year have laboured under innumerable difficulties. Without munitions, and handicapped in a hundred ways, they have held themselves intact before the relentless drives of the most efficient army in the world. Though they have fallen by the hundreds of thousands, their spirits have not been broken. The loss of Warsaw and numerous other positions has not shaken their morale. History will record this campaign as one in which character fought against efficient machinery, and was not found wanting. In the final issue I have never doubted that character would prevail. When the Russians get munitions and their other military needs, they will again advance, and no one who knows the Russian army doubts that within it lies the capacity to go forward when the time is ripe.

Nothing is more fallacious than to judge the outcome of this campaign by pins moved backward or forward on the map of Europe. There are great fundamental questions that lie behind the merely military aspects of the campaign; questions of morals, ethics, equity, and justice. These qualities, backed by men of tenacity, courage, and the capacity to sacrifice themselves indefinitely in their cause, are greater ultimate assets than battalions and 42-centimetre guns. That the Russians possess these assets is my belief, and with the fixed opinion that my faith is well-founded, and that the reverses of this summer are but temporary and ephemeral phases of this vast campaign, it is with equanimity and without reservation that I have authorized my publisher to send these pages to the printer.

The defects of hurriedly written copy are of course apparent in these notes, but, as in my first volume, it has seemed wiser to publish them with all their faults, than to wait until the situation has passed and news from Russia has no moral value.

STANLEY WASHBURN.

Petrograd, Russia,
September 3, 1915.

CONTENTS

THE FALL OF PRZEMYSL

CHAPTER I
THE FALL OF PRZEMYSL

Dated:
Lwow, Galicia,
April 1, 1915.

I

The news of the fall of Przemysl reached Petrograd on the morning of March 23, and the announcement was given out by the War Office at noon. The spring is very late in Russia this year, and so much snow and such intense cold have not been known so late in March for more than a hundred years. On the 23rd it was snowing heavily in Petrograd and a biting wind was sweeping through the streets. Save for an occasional street car and foot passengers the Moika and even the Nevsky Prospekt were at noon almost as empty as at midnight. And then came the announcement that the great fortress in Galicia had fallen. In an hour the news was all over the town and in spite of the inclement weather the streets were thronged with eager Russians, from Prince to Moujik, anxiously asking each other if the news which had been so long promised could really be true. The fall of Przemysl it must be remembered had been reported at least a dozen times in Petrograd before this.

There are people in as well as out of Russia, who like to say that the man in the street over here cares nothing for the war and knows less, but on this particular day these people were silent. It was no wonder. If ever a people genuinely rejoiced over good news it was the citizens of all classes of Russia’s capital when it became known that Przemysl was at last in Russian hands. By three in the afternoon, crowds had organized themselves into bands, and with the Russian flag waving in front, and a portrait of the Czar carried before, dozens of bands marched through the streets chanting the deep-throated Russian National anthem; one of the most impressive hymns in the world.

Though the snow was still falling and a nipping wind blowing, thousands of the crowds that now perambulated the streets stood bareheaded in the blast as each procession passed. Old retired generals of seventy and more stood at rigid attention as the portrait of their monarch and the flag of their nation was borne past. Moujiks, princes, men and women, the aged and the young alike, displayed the same spirit of ardour and enthusiasm as each demonstration came down the street. While it is true that there is not in Russia what we in the West call public opinion, yet a stranger living here during this war comes to feel that there is growing up a spirit that is uniting all classes. This is the great hope for the war. It is also Russia’s hope for the future. In another generation it is destined to bring forth greater progress and unity than the Empire of the Czar has ever known.

Occupation of Przemysl by the Russians. Austrians leaving as prisoners. The Russians entering the town.

The people of Petrograd have followed the war much more closely than one would have believed possible. Over here there has been action from the day the war started, and hardly a month when gigantic movements of some sort or other have not been under weigh. Petrograd has been called on again and again to furnish new troops, and from September until to-day there has not been a week that one could not see new troops drilling in the streets. Russia has had great successes and great setbacks, but each alike strengthens the same stubborn determination to keep pressing forward.

There was great disappointment when the Russian army withdrew a few weeks ago from East Prussia, but it began to abate when it became known that the German advance was checked. The Russians, as is their habit, had pulled themselves together, and slowly but surely were pushing back the invader just as they did in the dreary days following the Samsonov disaster in the first days of the war. Then came the news of Galicia and the greatest single success that the war has brought to any of the Allies, or for that matter to any of the belligerent powers. When the details of the numbers of the captured began to leak out, the importance of the success was first realized, and not without reason did the Russians begin to allude to the fall of Przemysl as a second Metz. It was generally believed that the garrison shut up within the fortress did not total above 50,000 men, and none were more surprised than the victors, when they learned that more than 131,000 soldiers and nearly 4,000 officers had fallen into their hands, not to mention a number of guns of all calibres amounting probably to above 300. These unfortunately have been rendered useless by the Austrians and must be charged as a heavy loss to them rather than as any direct military asset gained by the Russians.

Austrian prisoners leaving Przemysl.

Russian occupation of Przemysl. Austrian officers pay a last visit to the Russian head-quarters before leaving for Lwow.

Well may the Russians take pride in what their new army has accomplished, for one must go back to the taking of Plevna to find any such landmark in the history of Russian siege operations. The last great siege in Muscovite history was that of Port Arthur, and one cannot but contrast the state of matters in Russia ten years ago, and now. Port Arthur fell after a long series of disasters to the Russian arms, and the people all over the Empire received the tidings without interest and with that dumb resignation to disaster that is characteristic of their fatalistic temperament. A spirit of hopelessness and despondency and pessimism pervaded every class of Russian society. Announcements of new defeats were heard without surprise and almost without interest. “Of course, what do you expect?” one would hear on all sides, “Russian troops never win.” But now there is quite a different point of view. Even the moujik has come to feel a pride and confidence in his army and in its victories. Their successes are his successes, and their defeats are his defeats.

One who takes interest in studying the psychology of countries comes to realize that pride of race and confidence in one’s blood is the greatest asset that any nation can possess. Throughout Russia, the cause in which her Armies are engaged has come to be more nearly understood than any war she has ever engaged in. It is not true of course that the peasant knows as much as does the British Tommy; nor is there anything like the same enlightenment that prevails in the Western Armies. But in fairness to Russia she must not be judged from a Western standpoint, but compared with herself ten years ago.

As has been written by a dozen writers from Russia in the last six months the new spirit was crystallized when the war began. It has had its ups and its downs with the varying reports from the Front, but as each defeat has been turned into a stepping stone for a subsequent advance, public confidence has gradually mounted higher and higher, until, with the fall of Przemysl, we find Russian sentiment and confidence in Russia at probably the highest point that has ever been reached in the history of the Empire. The dawn of the new day of which we hear so much over here now, bears every indication of being the beginning of the much heralded new Era in this country.

II

Galicia is still under martial law, and one cannot even enter the new Russian province without a permit issued by the General Staff. It is of course even more difficult for one to get into the actual theatre of war. A wire, however, from the Staff of the Generalissimo to the powers that be in Petrograd, made the way to Przemysl possible, and a few days after the fortress had fallen the writer reached Lwow. The Russian-gauged railroad has been pushed south of the old frontier line to the town of Krasne, famous as the centre of the battle-line of Austrian defence in the days when the armies of Russky were pushing on toward Lwow.

Cossack patrol entering Przemysl.

Russian occupation of Przemysl. Governor’s bodyguard entering Government House.

It was originally intended to widen the Austrian tracks to take the Russian rolling stock, so that trains might proceed direct to the capital of Galicia; but it was found that the expense of carrying on operations which meant the widening of every bridge and the strengthening of every culvert and elevated way, to take the heavier equipment, would involve time and expense scarcely less than building a new line complete. The result is that one still changes carriages some distance out of Lwow, a handicap that is trifling for passenger traffic, but involving very real inconvenience and delays in the handling of the vast amount of freight and munitions that go to supply the huge armies in the field in Galicia.

Lwow itself is no longer the dismal place that it was in the early autumn when almost every public building was a hospital, and the station a receiving depot for the thousands of fresh wounded that poured in by train-loads from the positions on the San and from the trenches before Przemysl, which was just then undergoing its first investment. Where stretchers and throngs of wounded formerly filled every available foot of ground in the huge terminus a few months ago, all is now orderly and very much as in the days before the war. The hotels which in October were filled to overflowing with officers and Red Cross nurses, are now comparatively quiet, and the city itself, barring troops going through and prisoners coming from Przemysl, is not far from normal. A few hours after arriving the writer was received by Count Brobinsky, who frankly expressed his delight and relief at the capture of the Galician fortress.

There are of course a large number of Austrians in Galicia, and ever since the Russian occupation in September a pro-German-Austrian propaganda has been kept up here. Every reverse to the Dual Alliance has been minimized as much as possible, and every effort was subtly made by the German-Austrian agents of the enemy to prevent the peasants and that portion of the population here which sympathizes with the Russians, from co-operating in the new régime. They were assured that soon the Austrians would be coming back, and fears of reprisals when the day came have no doubt restrained a large number of Little Russians, Poles and others from openly supporting the efforts of the new government to restore Galicia to its normal state. But with each month it has become increasingly difficult for the Austrian sympathizers to make the public believe that the Russian occupation was only a temporary wave that would shortly recede. Austro-German advances in Bukowina, and the really serious aggressive attempts through the Carpathians no doubt helped to render conditions unsettled. Then came the check of the Austrian advance in Bukowina and the gradual reclaiming by the Russians of the ground lost at the first impetus of the enemy’s offensive. This was followed by the failure of the relieving column to make satisfactory headway toward its objective at Przemysl.

In spite of all these very obvious failures to achieve any definite advantage over the Russians, the spirits of the anti-Russian element were kept buoyed up by the spectacle of the great fortress in Galicia still holding out. “As long as Przemysl stands out there is hope,” seems to have been the general opinion of all who wished ill to the Russians. Thus the fortress, which at the outset might have been abandoned with small loss of prestige to the Austrians, gradually came to have a political as well as military significance of the most far reaching importance. In the general crash after the battle of the Grodek line, the loss of a town which until then had never been heard of in the West, outside of military circles, would have escaped anything more than passing comment. Not until the Russian armies had actually swept past its trenches and masked its forts, did the world at large know that such a place was on the map; even then the greatest interest manifested was in the vexed question as to how its name was pronounced, if indeed it could be done at all, an opinion which was held by not a few people. This place which could have been given up earlier in the war without any important sacrifice was held tenaciously and became one of the vital points of strategy in the whole campaign. An army which turned out to be a huge one, was isolated from the field armies of Austria at a time when she needed every able-bodied man that she could get; and Przemysl, which, as we see now, was doomed from the start, was allowed to assume an importance in the campaign which made its fall not only a severe military loss but a blow to the hopes of the Austrians, both at home and in Galicia. The fall of this fortress has gone further towards shattering any hopes of ultimate victory that have been entertained than anything that has occurred since the war started.

Destroyed by the Austrians before leaving Przemysl.

Principal street in Przemysl.

As Count Brobinsky, who for six months now has been straggling to readjust Galicia to the normal, said, his task has now been enormously simplified, and there is scarcely an element left here that now believes there is any chance of Austria winning back her lost province. The Austrian agents have abandoned hope, and the Russian sympathizers are now openly declaring their loyalty to the new régime. There is, however, a class of bureaucrats left here aggregating, I am informed, nearly 40,000 in number. This class is composed of Poles, Austrians and others who for generations have been holding the best offices at the disposal of the Vienna government. These are of course, almost to a man, out of their lucrative posts, and represent the element that has most vigorously, if quietly, attempted to undermine the activities of the government installed here by Russia. But even these see in the collapse of their great fortress the evaporation of their chief hopes.

As Galicia is still under martial law, all the motor cars have been taken over by the military authorities and so, even armed with passes and permits, we found it all but impossible to reach Przemysl. The best horses here are in the army service, and the few skinny horses attached to the cabs find it difficult even to stagger from the station to the hotel, and it was out of the question to go by carriage the 94 kilometres to Przemysl. But when we told Count Brobinsky of our difficulties, he solved them by promptly placing a huge military touring car at our disposal; he further paved the way for a pleasant trip to the scene of the Russian achievement by giving us a personal letter of introduction to General Atrimanov, the new Russian commandant of the captured fortress.

III

The spring is late here as it is throughout Russia this year, and it was snowing heavily as our big touring car, with a soldier as chauffeur, threaded its way in the early morning through the narrow streets of Lwow and out into the open country which was now almost white. Before we have been twenty minutes on the road we begin to pass occasional groups of dismal wretches in the blue uniform which before this war was wont to typify the might of the Hapsburgs, but which now in Galicia is the symbol of dejection and defeat. Through the falling snow they plod in little parties of from three to a dozen; evidently the rear guard of the column that went through yesterday, for they are absolutely without guards, and are no doubt simply dragging on after their regiments.

Austrian and Hungarian prisoners en route to Lwow.

From Lwow almost due west runs the line of the highway to Grodek where we get our first glimpse of prisoners in bulk. Here, at the scene of some of the fiercest fighting that the war has produced, is a rest station for the columns that are making the journey to Russian captivity on foot from Przemysl to Lwow, and I know not how far beyond. As we motor into the town the three battalions of the 9th Hungarian regiment of the 54th Landsturm brigade are just straggling into the town from the west. With a few Russians who seem to be acting as guides and nurses rather than as guards, they file through the streets and into a great square of a barracks. Here they are marshalled in columns of four, and marched past the door of the barracks where an official counts the individual fours and makes a note of the number that have passed his station. Beyond in a grove the ranks are broken, and the weary-looking men drop down under the trees, regardless of the snow and mud, and shift their burdens and gnaw at the hunks of bread and other provisions furnished them by the Russians.

It is hard to realize that the haggard despondent rabble that we see has ever been part of an actual army in being. Most of them were evidently clothed for a summer campaign, and their thin and tattered uniform overcoats must have given but scant warmth during the winter that has passed. The line is studded with civilian overcoats, and many of the prisoners have only a cap or a fragment of a uniform which identifies them as ever having been soldiers at all. The women of the village pass up and down the line giving the weary troops bits of provision not in the Russian menu. All the men are wan and thin, with dreary hopelessness written large upon their faces, and a vacant stare of utter desolation in their hollow eyes. They accept gladly what is given and make no comment. They get up and sit down as directed by their guards, apparently with no more sense of initiative or independence of will than the merest automatons. We pause but a few minutes, for the roads are bad and we are anxious to get over the muddy way as quickly as possible.

The western portion of Grodek was badly knocked up by shell fire during the battle in September, and the barren walls of charred buildings remain to tell the story of the Austrian effort to stay the tide of the Russian advance that swept them out of position after position during the first weeks of the war. Grodek was reported to have been utterly destroyed at the time, but as a fact, not more than one-fifth of the buildings were even damaged by the artillery fire.

Austrian prisoners resting by the roadside during their march from Przemysl.

Just east of Sadowa Wisznia, the scene of another Austrian stand, we come upon a regiment attached to the 54th Landsturm brigade. This is the tenth regiment, and, with the exception of a few non-commissioned officers, is composed entirely of Slovaks and Hungarians. They are resting as we motor up, and for nearly a mile they are sitting dejectedly by the side of the road, some with heads resting wearily against tree trunks, while dozens of others are lying in the snow and mud apparently asleep. As nearly as I could estimate, there is about one Russian to a hundred prisoners. In any case one has to look about sharply to see the guards at all. It reminds one a bit of trying to pick a queen bee out of a swarm of workers. Usually one discovers the guard sitting with a group of prisoners, talking genially, his rifle leaning against the trunk of a tree near by.

We stopped here for about half an hour while I walked about trying to find some prisoners who could speak German, but for the most part that language was unknown to them. At last I discovered a couple of non-commissioned officers, who, when they heard that I was an American, opened up and talked quite freely. Both took great pride in repeating the statement that Przemysl could never have been taken by assault, and that it had only surrendered because of lack of food.

One of the men was from Vienna and extremely pro-German in his point of view. He took it as a matter of course that the Austrians were defeated everywhere, but seemed to feel a confidence that could not be shaken in the German troops. He knew nothing of the situation outside of his own garrison, and when told of Kitchener’s new British Army, laughed sardonically. “It is a joke,” he said, “Kitchener’s army is only on paper, and even if they had half a million as they claim to have, they would be of no use. The English cannot fight at all.” When told that over two million men had been recruited in the British Empire he opened his eyes a bit, but after swallowing a few times he came back, “Well even if they have it does not matter. They can’t fight.”

The other man whom I questioned was mainly interested in how long the war was going to last. He did not seem to feel any particular regret at the fall of the fortress, nor to care very much who won, as long as it would soon be over so that he could go home again. As for the rank and file I think it perfectly safe to suggest that not one in a hundred has any feeling at all except that of hopeless perpetual misery. They have been driven into a war for which they care little, they have been forced to endure the hardships of a winter in the trenches with insufficient clothing, a winter terminating with a failure of food supplies that brought them all to the verge of starvation. The fall of the fortress means to them three meals of some sort a day, and treatment probably kinder than they ever got from their own officers. They are at least freed from the burden of war and relieved of the constant menace of sudden death which has been their portion since August.

The road leading west from Sadowa Wisznia is in fearful condition owing to the heavy traffic of the Russian transport, and in places the mud was a foot deep. The country here is flat with occasional patches of fir and spruce timber. It is questionable if there ever was much prosperity in this belt; and since it has been swept for six months by contending armies, one cannot feel much optimism as to what the future has in store for the unfortunate peasants whose homes are destroyed, and whose live stock is said to have been taken off by the Austrians as they fell back before the Russians.

IV

One’s preconceived idea of what a modern fortress looks like vanishes rapidly as one enters Przemysl. In time of peace it is probable that a layman might pass into this town without suspecting at all that its power of resisting attack is nearly as great as any position in all Europe. Now, of course, innumerable field works, trenches, and improvised defences at once attract the attention; but other than these there is visible from the main road but one fortress, which, approached from the east is so extremely unpretentious in appearance that it is doubtful if one would give it more than a passing glance if one were not on the lookout for it.

Przemysl itself is an extremely old town which I believe was for nearly 1,000 years a Russian city. From remote days of antiquity it has been a fortress, and following the ancient tradition, each successive generation has kept improving its defences until to-day it is in reality a modern stronghold. Why the Austrians have made this city, which in itself is of no great importance, the site of their strongest position, is not in the least obvious to the layman observer. The town itself, a mixture of quaint old buildings and comparatively modern structures, lies on the east bank of the river San—which at this point is about the size of the Bow river at Calgary, in Canada—and perhaps 3 kilometres above the point where the small stream of the Wiar comes in from the south. The little city is hardly visible until one is almost upon it, so well screened is it by rolling hills that lie all about it. Probably the prevailing impression in the world has been that the Russian great guns have been dropping shells into the heart of the town; many people even in Lwow believe it to be in a half-ruined condition. As a matter of fact the nearest of the first line of forts is about 10 kilometres from the town itself, so that in the whole siege not a shell from the Russian batteries has fallen in the town itself. Probably none has actually fallen within 5 kilometres of the city. There was therefore no danger of the civilian population suffering anything from the bombardment while the outer line of forts held as they did from the beginning.

Austrian prisoners leaving Przemysl.

The only forts or works which we were given the opportunity of seeing, were those visible from the road, the authorities informing us that they had reason to believe that many of the trenches and positions were mined, and that no one would be permitted in them until they had been examined by the engineers of the army and pronounced safe. If the works seen from the road are typical of the defences, and I believe they are, one can quite well realize the impregnable nature of the whole position. The road from Lwow comes over the crest of a hill and stretches like a broad ribbon for perhaps 5 kilometres over an open plain, on the western edge of which a slight rise of ground gives the elevation necessary for the first Austrian line. To the north of the road is a fort, with the glacis so beautifully sodded that it is hardly noticeable as one approaches, though the back is dug out and galleried for heavy guns. Before this is a ditch with six rows of sunken barbed wire entanglements, and a hundred yards from this is another series of entanglements twelve rows deep, and so criss-crossed with barbed wire that it would take a man hours to cut his way through with no other opposition.

To the right of the road runs a beautifully constructed line of modern trenches. These are covered in and sodded and buried in earth deep enough to keep out anything less than a 6-inch field howitzer shell unless it came at a very abrupt angle. To shrapnel or any field gun high explosive shell, I should think it would have proved invulnerable. The trench itself lies on a slight crest with enough elevation to give loop holes command of the terrain before. The field of fire visible from these trenches is at least 4 kilometres of country, and so perfectly cleared of shelter of all sorts that it would be difficult for a rabbit to cross it unseen. The ditch and two series of wire entanglements extend in front of the entire position. This line is, I believe, typical of the whole outer line of fortifications, which is composed of a number of forts all of which are tied together with the line of trenches. The outer line is above 40 kilometres in circumference, from which it may be judged to what great expense Austria has been put in fortifying this city. I was not able to get any accurate information as to the number of guns which the Austrians have on their various positions, but the opinion of a conservative officer was, that, excluding machine guns, there were at least 300 and possibly a greater number. The inventory has not yet been completed by the Russians. These are said to range in calibre from the field piece up to heavy guns of 30 centimetres. I was informed that there were a few 36 and one or two of the famous 42 centimetres here when the war started, but that the Germans had borrowed them for their operations in the West. In any case it is hard to see how the big guns, even of the 30 centimetres, would be of any great value to a defence firing out over a crest of hills in the distant landscape behind which, in an irregular line of trenches, an enemy lay.

After a few experiments against the works, the Russians seem to have reached the conclusion that it would not be worth while even to attempt carrying the trenches by assault. Indeed, in the opinion of the writer neither the Russians nor any other troops ever could have taken them with the bayonet; the only method possible would have been the slow and patient methods of sapping and mining which was used by the Japanese at Port Arthur. But methods so costly, both in time and lives, would seem to have been hardly justified here because, as the Russians well knew, it was merely a question of time before the encircled garrison would eat itself up, and the whole position would then fall into their hands without the cost of a single life.

The strategic value of Przemysl itself was in no way acutely delaying the Russian campaigns elsewhere, and they could afford to let the Austrian General who shut himself and a huge army up in Przemysl, play their own game for them, which is exactly what happened. There was no such situation here as at Port Arthur, where the menace of a fleet in being locked up in the harbour necessitated the capture of the Far Eastern stronghold before the Russian second fleet could appear on the scene and join forces with it. Nor was there even any such important factor as that which confronted the Germans at Liège. To the amateur it seems then that the Austrians, with eyes open, isolated a force which at the start must have numbered nearly four army corps, in a position upon which their programme was not dependent, and under conditions which made its eventual capture a matter of absolute certainty providing only that the siege was not relieved from without by their own armies from the South.

The lesson of Przemysl may be a very instructive one in future wars. The friends of General Sukomlinoff, the Russian Minister of War, are claiming with some reason that what has happened here is a vindication of the Minister’s theory, that fortresses in positions which are not of absolute necessity to the military situation should never be built at all, or should be abandoned at the inception of war rather than defended unwisely and at great cost. It is claimed that if the Warsaw forts had not been scrapped some years ago, the Russian Army to-day would be standing a siege, or at least a partial siege, within the city, rather than fighting on a line of battle 40 kilometres to the west of it. Port Arthur is perhaps an excellent example of the menace of a fortified position of great strength. So much had been done to make that citadel impregnable that the Russians never dreamed of giving it up. The result was that a position, which was doomed to succumb eventually, was made the centre of all the Russian strategy. For months the army in the North was forced to make attempt after attempt to relieve the position, with the results that they lost probably four times the number of the garrison in futile efforts to relieve it. A fortress which has cost large sums of money must be defended at any cost to justify the country that has incurred the expense. Forces which can probably be ill spared from field operations are locked up for the purpose of protecting expensive works which, as in the case of Przemysl, yield them little or nothing but the ultimate collapse of their defence, and the consequent demoralization of the field armies which have come to attach an importance to the fortress which, from a strategic point of view, it probably never possessed.

V

The last few kilometres of the road into Przemysl was alive with Russian transport plodding into the town, but the way was singularly free from troops of any sort. With the exception of a few Cossack patrols and an occasional officer or orderly ploughing through the mud, there was nothing to indicate that a large Russian army was in the vicinity. It is possible that it has already been moved elsewhere; in any case we saw nothing of it.

Between the outer line of forts and the Wiar river are a number of improvised field works, all of which looked as though they could stand a good bit of taking, but of course they were not as elaborate as the first line. The railroad crosses the little Wiar on a steel bridge, but the bridge now lies a tangle of steel girders in the river. It is quite obvious that the Austrian commander destroyed his bridges west of the town because they afforded direct communications with the lines beyond; but the bridge over the Wiar has no military value whatsoever, the others being gone, save to give convenient all rail access to the heart of Przemysl itself. The town was given up the next day and, as the natural consequence of the Austrian commander’s conception of his duty, all food supplies had to be removed from the railway trucks at the bridge, loaded into wagons, and make the rest of the journey into the town in that way, resulting in an absolutely unnecessary delay in relieving the wants of the half-famished garrison within. The only bright spot that this action presents to the unprejudiced observer is that it necessitated the dainty, carefully-shod Austrian officers walking three kilometres through the mud before they could embark on the trains to take them to the points of detention for prisoners in Russia. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the rank and file of the garrison were actually on the verge of starvation, and that the civilian population were not far from the same fate. As near as one can learn the latter consisted of about 40,000 persons. I am told that the prisoners numbered 131,000 men and some 3,600 officers, and that perhaps 20,000 have died during the siege from wounds and disease. This, then, makes a population at the beginning of nearly 200,000 in a fortification which, as experts say, could have easily been held by 50,000 troops. One officer even went so far as to declare that in view of the wonderful defensive capacity of the position 30,000 might have made a desperate stand. The fortress was thus easily three times over garrisoned. In other words there were perhaps at the start 150,000 mouths to feed in the army alone, when 50,000 men would have been able to hold the position. This alone made the approach of starvation sure and swift. The fact that in this number of men there were 3,600 officers, nine of the rank of General, indicates pretty clearly the extent to which the garrison was over officered. Kusmanek, the commander of the fortress, is said to have had seventy-five officers on his personal staff alone.

As far as one can learn there was no particular pinch in the town until everything was nearly gone, and then conditions became suddenly acute. It is improbable that economy was enforced in the early dispensing of food supplies, and the husbanding of such resources as were at hand. When the crisis came, it fell first upon the unfortunate soldiers, with whom their officers seem to have little in common. Transport horses were killed first, and then the cavalry mounts went to the slaughter house to provide for the garrison. The civilians next felt the pinch of hunger, and every live thing that could nourish the human body was eaten. Cats I am told were selling at ten kr. each and fair-sized dogs at twenty-five kr. The extraordinary part of the story is that according to evidence collected from many sources the officers never even changed their standards of living. While the troops were literally starving in the trenches, the dilettantes from Vienna, who were in command, were taking life easily in the Café Sieber and the Café Elite. Three meals a day, fresh meat, wines, cigarettes and fine cigars were served to them up to the last.

One of the haggard starved-looking servants in the hotel where I was quartered told me that several of the staff officers lived at the hotel. “They,” he said, “had everything as usual. Fresh meat and all the luxuries were at their disposal until the last. Yet their soldier servant used to come to me, and one day when I gave him half of a bit of bread I was eating, his hands trembled as he reached to take it from me.” My informant paused and then concluded sardonically, “No, the officers did not suffer. Not they. It was cafés, billiards, dinners and an easy life for them to the end. But the rest of us. Ah, yes, we have suffered. Had the siege lasted another week we should all have been black in the face for want of food.”

An Austrian sister who had been working in the hospital confirmed the story. “Is it true that people were starving here?” I asked her. “Indeed it is true,” she told me, “the soldiers had almost nothing and the civilians were little better off. As for us in the hospitals—well, we really suffered for want of food.” “But how about the officers?” I asked. She looked at me sharply out of the corner of her eyes, for she evidently did not care to criticize her own people, but she seemed to recall something and her face suddenly hardened as she snapped out: “The officers starve? Well, hardly. They lived like dukes always.” More she would not say, but the evidence of these two was amply confirmed by the sight of the sleek well-groomed specimens of the “dukes” that promenade the streets. While the soldiers were in a desperate plight for meat, the officers seemed to have retained their own thoroughbred riding horses until the last day. I suppose that riding was a necessity to them to keep in good health. The day before the surrender they gave these up, and 2,000 beautiful horses were killed, not for meat for the starving soldiers be it noted, but that they might not fall into the hands of the Russians. Perhaps I can best illustrate what happened by quoting the words of a Russian officer who was among the first to enter the town. “Everywhere,” he told me, “one saw the bodies of freshly-killed saddle horses, some of them animals that must have been worth many thousand roubles. Around the bodies were groups of Hungarian soldiers tearing at them with knives; with hands and faces dripping with blood, they were gorging themselves on the raw meat. I have never seen in all my experience of war a more horrible and pitiable spectacle than these soldiers, half crazed with hunger, tearing the carcasses like famished wolves.” My friend paused and a shadow crossed his kindly face. “Yes,” he said, “it was horrible. Even my Cossack orderly wept—and he—well, he has seen much of war and is not over delicate.”

I can quote the statement of the Countess Elizabeth Schouvalov, of whom more anon, as further corroborative evidence of conditions existing in the town. The Countess, who is in charge of a distribution station to relieve the wants of the civil population, said to me: “It is true that the people were starving. Common soldiers occasionally fell down in the street from sheer weakness for want of food. Some lay like the dead and would not move. But their officers!” A frown passed over her handsome features. “Ah!” she said, “they are not like the Russians. Our officers share the hardships of the men. You have seen it yourself,” with a glance at me, “you know that one finds them in the trenches, everywhere in uniforms as dirty as their soldiers, and living on almost the same rations. A Russian would never live in ease while his men starved. I am proud of my people. But these officers here—they care nothing for their men. You have seen them in the streets. Do they look as though they had suffered?” and she laughed bitterly.

I had not been above a few hours in Przemysl before it was quite clear to me, at least, that Przemysl surrendered for lack of food, and that while the officers were living luxuriously, their men were literally starving. That they let them starve while they kept their own pet saddle horses seems pretty well established from the evidence obtainable. One wonders what public opinion would say of officers in England, France or America who in a crisis proved capable of such conduct?

In my comments on the Austrian officers I must of course limit my observations to the types one sees, and hears about, in Przemysl. Out of 3,600 officers there must have been men of whom Austria can be proud, men who did share their men’s privations, and these, of course, are excepted from the general observations.

Russian Governor of Przemysl.

VI

Immediately on reaching the town we sought out the head-quarters of the new Russian Commandant of the fortress. Over the door of the building, in large gold letters, were words indicating that the place had formerly been the head-quarters of the 10th Austrian Army Corps. At the entrance two stolid Russian sentries eyed gloomily the constant line of dapper Austrian officers that passed in and out, and who were, as we subsequently learned, assisting the Russians in their task of taking over the city. General Artimonov, the new governor, received us at once in the room that had been vacated only a few days before by his Austrian predecessor General Kusmanek. On the wall hung a great picture of the Austrian Emperor. The General placed an officer, Captain Stubatitch, at our disposal, and with him our way was made comparatively easy. From him and other officers whom we met, we gathered that the Russians were utterly taken by surprise at the sudden fall of the fortress, and dumbfounded at the strength of the garrison, which none believed would exceed the numbers of the Russians investing them; the general idea being that there were not over 50,000 soldiers at the disposal of the Austrian commander.

Three days before the fall a sortie was made by some 30,000 Hungarian troops. Why out of 130,000 men only 30,000 were allotted to this task in such a crisis does not appear. Neither has any one been able to explain why, when they did start on their ill-fated excursion, they made the attempt in the direction of Lwow rather than to the south, in which direction, not so very far away, the armies of Austria were struggling to reach them. Another remarkable feature of the last sorties was, that the troops went to the attack in their heavy marching kit. Probably not even the Austrians themselves felt any surprise that such a half-hearted and badly organized undertaking failed with a loss of 3,500 in casualties and as many more taken prisoners. One does not know how these matters are regarded in Austria, but to the laymen it would seem that some one should have a lot of explaining to do as to the last days of this siege. Officers who have been over the ground state that in view of the vast numbers of the garrison, and the fact that they were well supplied with ammunition, there would have been great chance of an important portion of the beleaguered breaking through and getting clean away to the south; but no attempt of this nature seems to have been made.

Russian occupation of Przemysl. Head-quarters of Staff.

The night before the surrender, the Austrians began destroying their military assets, and for two hours the town was shaken with the heavy explosions of bridges and war material of all sorts. Every window facing the San river was broken by the overcharge of the explosives that destroyed the bridges. Simultaneously the work of destroying the artillery was going on in all the forts with such efficiency, that it is doubtful if the Russians will get a single piece that can be used again. The soldiers even destroyed the butts of their muskets, and the authorities, who were evidently keen on this part of the work, arranged for tons of munitions to be dumped into the river. Others were assigned to kill the saddle-horses.

By daylight the task seems to have been completed and negotiations for surrender were opened by the Austrians. Our guide, Captain Stubatitch, was the first Russian to enter the town as a negotiator, and through him the meeting of ranking officers was arranged—a meeting that resulted in the unconditional surrender of the fortress. The original terms agreed on between Kusmanek and General Silivanov, the commander of the Russian forces, did not permit the Austrian officers to carry their side arms; but a telegram from the Grand Duke spared them the humiliation of giving up their swords, a delicate courtesy, which it seems to the writer was quite wasted on the supercilious Austrian officers. In the first place there has been no formal entrance of Russian troops, Silivanov himself not yet having inspected his prize. The first Russians to enter came in six military touring cars absolutely without any escort, and went quietly and unostentatiously to the head-quarters of the Austrian commander where the affairs of the town were transferred with as little friction as the changing of the administration of one defeated political party into the hands of its successor. Following the officials, small driblets of troops came in to take over sentry and other military duties, and then came the long lines of Russian transport bringing in supplies for the half-famished garrison. All told, probably there have not been above a few thousand Russian soldiers in Przemysl since its capitulation, and these were greeted warmly by both prisoners and civilians. There has been no friction whatever and everybody seems well satisfied with the end of the siege. The greatest task at first was the relief of the population, both soldiers and civilians. Countess Schouvalov, whom I have mentioned before, came the second day and immediately began feeding the population from the depôt where she organized a kitchen and service of distribution which alone takes care of 3,000 people a day. The Army authorities arranged for the care of the soldiers and much of the civil population as well, and in three days the situation was well in hand and practically all the suffering eliminated.

Feeding Austrian prisoners en route to Lwow.

I have talked with many people in Przemysl, and civilians and prisoners alike speak of the great kindness of the Russians from the ranking officers down to the privates, all of whom have shown every desire to ameliorate the distress. The difficulty of feeding so vast a throng necessitated the immediate evacuation of the prisoners, and an evacuation office was at once organized. Batches of prisoners started toward Lwow at the rate of about ten thousand a day, which is about all the stations along the route can handle conveniently with supplies. The officers are sent out in small blocks by rail once a day, and are, I believe for the most part taken directly to Kiev, where they will remain until the end of the war.

General Kusmanek himself departed the first day in a motor car to the head-quarters of Silivanov and thence with the bulk of his staff to Kiev. Those who have seen him describe him as a youngish man looking not over forty, but in reality fifty-four. A man who saw him the day of the surrender told me that he had accepted the situation very casually, and had seemed neither depressed nor mortified at the turn events had taken. The ranking officer left in Przemysl is General Hubert, formerly Chief of Staff, who is staying on to facilitate the transfer of administrations; the head-quarters is filled with a mixture of officers and orderlies of both armies working together in apparent harmony.

The fall of Przemysl strikes one as being the rarest thing possible in war—namely a defeat, which seems to please all parties interested. The Russians rejoice in a fortress captured, the Austrians at a chance to eat and rest, and the civilians, long since sick of the quarrel, at their city once more being restored to the normal.

General Hubert, Chief of Austrian Staff in Przemysl.

WARSAW IN APRIL, 1915

CHAPTER II
WARSAW IN APRIL, 1915

Dated:
Warsaw, Poland,
May 1, 1915.

With the sunshine and balmy weather of the beautiful Polish spring, there has come to Warsaw an optimism and hopefulness that is deeper rooted and certainly more widely spread than the feeling of relief that swept through the city in October last when the Germans, after their futile effort to take it, began their retreat to their own frontier. On that occasion the population had barely time to get its breath, and to begin to express some optimism as to the war, when the news came that the Germans were advancing for a second time on the Polish capital.

Warsaw, as I have seen it in nearly a dozen visits here since the war began, is a little panicky in disposition, perhaps with reason; and there have been such a continuous ebb and flow of rumours good and bad, that for months no one knew what to expect. All through December and January one heard every few days that the Germans would take the town almost any time, only to be told the next day that all chances of Teuton success were forever gone. Tales of German raids, aeroplanes, Zeppelins on the way to destroy the city were circulated so persistently, that perhaps it was not strange that genuine optimism found the soil of local public opinion a difficult one in which to take root. The end of the first week of February left the public here greatly encouraged, for had not the stupendous German attack failed on the Bzura-Rawka line?

But following close on its heels came the news of the movement in East Prussia and Russian retirements, and once more confidence fled. Later still the enemy’s advance on Przasnys and the threat to the Petrograd-Warsaw line made conditions even worse. This was the low-water mark. When the terrific attacks began to weaken and at last the columns of the Kaiser began to give place, conviction that the worst was over for Warsaw began to be felt generally, until to-day, May 1, I find a buoyancy and hopefulness here that I have not seen in any part of Russia since the war started.

The reasoning of the people here is something like this. In the attacks of January and February the Germans were putting into the field the best men and the most of them that they could lay their hands on, and still not weakening their position in the West. The onslaught on the Bzura-Rawka line is believed to have been one of the fiercest efforts that the Germans up to that date had made on any Front. Six corps and, as it is said, 600 guns were concentrated on a short front and almost without interruption they attacked for six days. The net result was nothing save a few unimportant dents in the Russian line, and the German loss is placed at 100,000 men. The Russians certainly did not lose half that number, and some well-informed people who have been on this Front for months think it may have been little more than a third.

The East Prussian attack and its corollary movement against Przasnys raged with the same fury. For nearly a month Poland was taking an account of stock. Now it has become the opinion of practically every one, even down to the common soldiers, that the whole German movement has proved an utter failure and at a cost to the enemy of not under 200,000, a figure from two to three times as great as was the decrease of the Russian forces. Even the East Prussian retirement which was so heralded abroad by the Germans has been gradually shrinking, until now it is said that the total loss to the Russians was only 25,000 to 30,000 against the 100,000 which the Germans claimed. “How is it possible,” people say here, “for the Germans to accomplish something in May that they could not do in February?” Certainly they can never be materially stronger than they were when the first attack on the Bzura line was launched in the end of January, and the chances are that they are greatly weaker.

The Russians, on the other hand, are stronger now by a very great deal than they were on February 1st, and are getting stronger and stronger with every day that the war lasts. It is probably safe to say that there are 25 per cent. more troops on this Front to-day than there were when the Russians threw back the Germans two months ago, and the feeling that Warsaw will never be taken has become a conviction among the Poles. The rumour-mongers, and there are hundreds here who wish evil to the Russians, find it more and more difficult to start scares; and even reports of Zeppelins and air raids create little comment. So common have bombs become that the appearance of aircraft above the city creates no curiosity and very little interest. I have been especially impressed with the determination with which the Poles are planning to combat the German influence in the future. Though Poland has suffered hideously through this war, there is small cry here for peace at any price, and the opinion voiced a few days ago by one of the leading papers seems to be that of all the practical and most influential men of the community. This view was that the war must be fought out to a decisive issue, and though Poland must suffer longer thereby, yet anything short of complete success would be intolerable. While the Poles are still thinking a great deal about their political future, they are perhaps more keenly alive as to their industrial and economic future. As one well-informed individual expressed it, “With economic and industrial prosperity we may later get all we want politically. But without them mere political gains will profit us little.”

A Russian officer inspecting eight-inch gun.

What the Poles want most perhaps in the final peace is a boundary line that will give Russia the mouth of the Vistula at Danzig. With an absolute freedom of trade with England, America and the outside world, Poland will have a prosperity which will go a very long way toward helping them to recuperate from the terrible blow that their nation has received in the war. That this is serious no one can doubt. Conditions within that portion of Poland occupied by the enemy are said to be deplorable beyond measure. It is difficult to know here exactly what the truth is, but it is probable that the suffering of the unfortunate peasants, who are for the most part stripped of their stock and in many instances without homes, is very severe. With the war lasting all summer and no chance for a crop, their plight by autumn will be serious. What is being done about putting in a crop for the coming year is uncertain, but it is said that there is practically no seed for sowing, and that the harvest this year (where there is no fighting) will be very small. In the actual zone of operations there will probably be none at all.

Reports are coming from a dozen different quarters of the condition of the Germans. A story from a source which in many months I have found always trustworthy indicates that the soldiers are surrendering to the Russians in small batches whenever a favourable opportunity offers.

The reported complaint is that their rations are increasingly short and that there is growing discouragement. There are dozens of similar stories circulated every day. One does not perhaps accept them at par, but the great significance is that they are circulating here now for practically the first time. When I was last in Warsaw I questioned many prisoners but never found one who would criticize his own fare. This condition seems to have changed materially in the past ten weeks. No one however must dream of underestimating the stamina of the enemy on this Front; for however one’s sympathy may go, they are a brave and stubborn foe, and months may elapse, even after they begin to weaken in moral, before the task of beating them will be an easy one. Their lines on this Front are reported to be extremely strong, and I am told by an observer that they are employing a new type of barbed wire which is extremely difficult to cut, and presents increased difficulty in breaking through.

The condition of the Russians is infinitely better than at any time since the war started. Their 1915 levies, which are just coming into the field now in great blocks, are about the finest raw fighting material that one can find in Europe. Great, strapping, healthy, good-natured lads who look as though they never had a day’s sickness in their life. I think I do not exaggerate when I say that I have seen nearly 100,000 of these new levies and I have yet to see a battalion that did not exhale high spirits and enthusiasm. They come swinging through Warsaw, laughing and singing with a confidence and optimism which it is hard to believe possible when one considers that we are in the 9th month of the war. Surely if the Germans, who are straining every effort now to raise new troops, could see these men that Russia is pouring into the field they would have a genuine qualm as to the future. And these are but a drop in the bucket to what is available in great Russia that lies behind. Over here there will never be any lack of men, and the Czar can keep putting troops just like this into the field for as many more years as the war may last. After nearly a year on this Front of the war, one just begins to appreciate the enormous human resources which Russia has at her command in this great conflict.

During the winter there was a pretty widespread apprehension of conditions which might result among the soldiers when the spring and warm weather came. As far as one can learn, the authorities have made a great effort to improve sanitary conditions at the Front, and there is very little sickness in the army at present. Those who are in a position to know, seem to feel confident that such steps as are necessary to maintain the health of the men at a high standard during the summer have been taken. It is certain that there has been a pretty general clean up, and that there is less disease now, even with the warmer weather, than there was in February.

In the meantime, the Spring has come and the roads are rapidly drying up. The occasional rumours of the Germans reaching Warsaw are becoming more and more rare, and the gossip of the town now is as to what date will be selected for the Russian advance.

Russian bath train.

The life of the city is absolutely normal, and I am told that the shopkeepers are doing a bigger business than ever before. The restaurants are preparing for their out-of-door cafés, and the streets are bright with the uniforms of the Russian soldiery. A German officer who came through here the other day (as a prisoner) could not believe his eyes. “Why,” he is reported to have said to his Russian captor, “we supposed Warsaw was abandoned by everyone who could get away. But the town seems as usual.” And the officer was right. The casual observer finds it hard to realize that there is a line of battle only 30 miles away.

AN AMERICAN DOCTOR IN THE RUSSIAN ARMY

CHAPTER III
AN AMERICAN DOCTOR IN THE RUSSIAN ARMY

Dated:
Warsaw, Poland,
May 3, 1915.

It is a far cry from the city of Seattle in the State of Washington, U.S.A., to the little village of Sejny in the Polish government of Suwalki, but this is the jump that one must make to follow the career of Dr. Eugene Hurd, the only American surgeon attached to the Russian Red Cross working in the field in this war. Inasmuch as the story of the Doctor is a good one in itself, and as from him one learns not a little about the Field Hospital service of the Russians, it seems quite worth while to devote a chapter to this very interesting and useful individual.

Up to August last Dr. Hurd was a practising surgeon in Seattle, a member of the State Legislature and spoken of as coming Mayor of the town. When he strolled casually into my room at Warsaw in the uniform of a Russian Colonel, who spoke not a word of any language except English, I was naturally somewhat surprised. “How on earth,” I asked him, “do you happen to be in the Russian Army?” Unbuckling his sword and sprawling his six feet three of brawn and sinew in an armchair he began his story.

“Well, it was this way. I’ve never had much time to follow politics in Europe, as my time’s been pretty much occupied cutting off legs and arms and such, out on the Pacific Coast. But my people have always been regular Americans, and some of us have been in every war the U.S.A. ever pulled off. My great-grandfather fought in the revolution; my grandfather in the Mexican war, and my father in the Civil and Spanish-American wars. Well, I was raised in an army post, and ever since I was a kid I’ve heard my father talk about how Russia stuck with us during the Civil war. When things looked blue and bad for the North she sent her old fleet over, and let it set right there in New York Harbour until required, if needed. During the war in Manchuria we were all for Russia on just this account, and when she got licked Dad and I both felt bad. All right. Well one day out in Seattle I read in the paper that Germany had declared war on Russia. I remembered that business, back in the ‘60’s,’ and what the Russians did for us, and I just said to myself, ‘Well, I’m for Russia anyhow,’ and I sat down that very day and wrote to the head of the medical department at Petrograd, and just told them straight that we had always been for Russia ever since that business of her fleet, and that if I could serve her in this war I’d come over even if I had to throw up my own practice, which by the way is a pretty good one.

“Well, a couple of months went by and I had forgotten all about it when one day the Russian Consul blew into my office with a cable from Petrograd, a bunch of money in one hand and a ticket over the Siberian in the other. So I just locked up my office and came right over. In Petrograd they ran me around in an auto. for two days, and then shipped me down to Grodno, where I got a Colonel’s uniform and went right out to the ‘Front’ in charge of a Field Hospital, where I’ve been now for three solid months, and you’re the first American I’ve seen and you certainly look good to me,” and the Doctor smiled genially.

I have got more information about the Russian wounded from Hurd than any man I have met since I came to Russia, and though he does not speak the language he sees everything. He was at once placed in charge of an outfit of sixty-one men and five wagons which formed a Field Hospital. “I have my bunch well organized,” the doctor said. “You see I handled it this way. I divided all my outfit, medicine chest, instruments, etc., so that they went into the five wagons. Each wagon was painted a certain colour and every box that went into that wagon had a band of the same colour around it and a number. I had a man for each box and each knew exactly what to do. I can halt on the march and my men are so well trained now that I can commence operating in ten minutes after we make a stop. I can quit work and be packed up and on the march again in twenty. I like these fellows over here fine, and when I once get them properly broken in, they work splendidly.” [The Field Hospital to which he was attached was up in the rear of the Russian lines all during the recent fighting in East Prussia.] “I never worked so hard in my life,” he continued. “One day I had 375 men come to my table between sunset and morning and I was working steadily until the next night, making twenty-three hours without intermission. It was a tough job because every little while we had to pull up stakes and move off to the rear with our wounded. That made it hard for us and difficult to do real good work.”

The Emperor with his Staff.

Russian nurses attend to the feeding of the soldiers.

The work and experience with the Russian wounded have given this American doctor a remarkable insight into the character of the peasant soldier. “These moujik chaps,” he assured me, “never make a complaint. I never saw anything like it. Sometimes they groan a little when you’re digging for a bullet, but once off the table and in the straw (we are without beds as we move too fast for that) a whole barnful will be as quiet as though the place was empty; one German, on the other hand, will holler his head off and keep the whole place awake. The Russians never complain, and everything you do for them they appreciate remarkably. I do a lot of doctoring for the villagers, and every day there’s a line a block long waiting to get some ‘American’ dope, and they’re so grateful it makes you feel ashamed. Everybody wants to kiss your hands. I tried putting my hands behind me, but those that were behind were just as bad as those in front. Now I’ve given up and just let them kiss.”

The vitality of the Russian soldier is amazing according to the evidence of this observer. With the exception of wounds in the heart, spine or big arteries there is nothing that must certainly prove fatal. Many head wounds that seem incredibly dangerous recover. “I had one case,” he told me, “which I never would have believed. The soldier walked into my hospital with a bullet through his head. It had come out just above his left ear and I had to dissect away part of the brain that was lying on the ear, Well, that fellow talked all through the dressing and walked out of the hospital. I sent him to the rear and I have no doubt that he recovered absolutely.”

In the hundreds of cases operated on not a single death occurred on the operating table and not one lung wound proved fatal. Many of the abdominal wounds of the worst type make ultimate recoveries, and it was the opinion of the surgeon that not above five to ten per cent. of the patients who reached the first dressing stations died later from the effects of their wounds. That the war was very popular among the common soldiers was the conclusion that my friend had reached. “The old men with families don’t care much for it,” he added, “but that is because they are always worrying about their families at home, but the young fellows are keen for it, anxious to get to the ‘Front’ when they first come out, and eager to get back to it even after they have been wounded. Some of them as a matter of fact go back several times after being in the hospital.”

In discussing the comparative merits of the Germans and Russians, it was his opinion that though the Germans were better rifle shots, they could not compare with the Russians when it came to the bayonet. “When these moujiks,” said the doctor, “climb out of their trenches and begin to sing their national songs, they just go crazy and they aren’t scared of anything; and believe me, when the Germans see them coming across the fields bellowing these songs of theirs, they just don’t wait one minute, but dig right out across the landscape as fast as they can tear. I don’t think there’s a soldier in the world that has anything on the Russian private for bravery. They are a stubborn lot too, and will sit in trenches in all weathers and be just as cheerful under one condition as another. One big advantage over here, as I regard it, is the good relations between the soldiers and the officers.”

One extremely significant statement as to the German losses in the East Prussian movement was made by this American surgeon. The church and convent where his hospital is located were previously used for the same purposes by the Germans. According to the statement of the priest who was there during their occupation, 10,500 German wounded were handled in that one village in a period of six weeks and one day. From this number of wounded in one village may be estimated what the loss to the enemy must have been during the entire campaign on the East Prussian Front.

GENERAL RUSSKY’S SUCCESSOR

CHAPTER IV
GENERAL RUSSKY’S SUCCESSOR

Dated:
Warsaw, Russia,
May 10, 1915.

The two most simple personalities that I have met in this war are the Grand Duke Nicholas, and the Commander who has come to the Northern Armies to take up the post made vacant by the retirement of General Russky. Certain business relating to desired freedom of movement in the zone of operations took the writer to the head-quarters of General Alexieff, which is situated in a place not very far away. Without giving away any figures it is perhaps safe to say that the command of General Alexieff is twice the size of that now under Field-Marshal Sir John French on the continent. The territory occupied by the armies commanded by him covers an enormous area, and probably up to this war there has been no single individual in the history of the world with such a vast military organization as that over which General Alexieff presides as supreme dictator, subject only to the Grand Duke himself. The whole aspect of the headquarters of which he is the presiding genius is, in atmosphere, the last word in the modern idea of a commanding general’s place of abode. The town in which he is living is perhaps a model one from the point of view of the gentlemen who write the textbooks and sketch the details of the programme and course which should be adopted by military chiefs. The theory in the Japanese Army was that the brains of the army should be so far away from the actual scene of operations, that the officer would be absolutely detached from the atmosphere of war; and that between himself and the Front there should be installed so many nervous shock absorbers that the office of the great chief himself should be the realm of pure reason with no noise nor excitement nor hurrying aides to impair his judgment.

I recall a conversation I once had with Major (now Lt.-General) Tanaka, Oyama’s personal A.D.C. “I should have liked to have been with the General Staff,” I remarked to him, “during the Battle of Moukden. It must have been an exciting time with you.” My friend laughed and answered, “You would have had a great surprise, I imagine. There was no excitement at all. How do you suppose Oyama and his staff spent much of their time during the battle?” One naturally imagined that it was spent scrutinizing maps and making plans, and I said this to Tanaka. “Not at all,” he replied, “when the battle began, our work was largely finished. It was but necessary to make an occasional change in the line here and there, and this too, for only a few minutes of the time of the Field-Marshal. Most of the time he and Kodame (Chief of General Staff) were playing croquet.”

Much the same atmosphere of detachment from the activities of the campaign may be seen to-day in the little Polish city where Alexieff has his head-quarters, except that no one here has time for croquet. It is a safe venture that outside of his own staff there are not fifty soldiers in the whole town. It is in fact less military in appearance than any city I have ever seen since I have have been in Russia. In front of his office are a couple of soldiers, and a small Russian flag hangs over the door. Nothing outside would lead one to believe that within is the man in the palm of whose hand lies the fate and movements of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of men, and at whose word a thousand guns will spread death and destruction. In trenches miles away, stretching through forest and along hilltops, numberless regiments and brigades await the curt order from this building to launch themselves against the German lines.

The man himself is as quiet and unobtrusive as are his surroundings. Perhaps fifty-eight or fifty-nine in years with a very intellectual face and an almost shy manner, is Alexieff, the man whom current gossip credits with the keenest brain in the Russian field armies. As Ivanov’s Chief of Staff, he is said to have been a great factor in the planning and the execution of much of the Galician campaign, and those who know him well, believe that under his direction great things will be accomplished in Poland. The General is very quiet and retiring, and from a very brief observation one would say that he was primarily a man of strategy, more at home solving the intellectual problems of a campaign than in working out tactical puzzles in the field.

The staff of the quiet unostentatious Russian who is commanding this enormous front consists of about seventy-five members (about the same number as Kusmanek of Przemysl fame had on his personal staff for the defence of the city), and taken as a whole, they are most serious and hard-working men, if their looks do not belie them. “You would be surprised,” an A.D.C. informed me, “to know the enormous amount of work that we all get through here. There is a lull on this front now, and it is comparatively an easy time, but in spite of that fact we are all of us busy from morning until night. When there is a movement under way we do not get any rest even at nights.” One comes from Warsaw where rumours are flying thick and fast as to German advances and Russian mishaps, to find everything serene and calm and the general opinion of the staff one of great optimism. For the moment the Russians are in the trough of the sea, as it were, and all of the late news from Galicia is not particularly favourable; but if the attitude of the staff is any criterion, the situation is not felt to be of a critical nature, and for the first time in months one hears officers expressing the opinion that the war will end this year.

There is a tendency to welcome the German impetuosity of attack, for each fresh irruption means a weakening of the enemy. The Russian theory is that Russia can stand the losses, large as they are, almost indefinitely, and that she is willing to take the burden of breaking the German wave again and again if need be, knowing that each assault of the enemy is bringing them nearer and nearer to the end of their tether. Since the latest irruption into Galicia we hear less talk of a Russian advance in the near future, but certainly not a sign of discouragement in any of the high quarters. One may well believe that this last outburst was not anticipated, but the Russians over on this side are as ready to “play” the fish now as they were when the war first started. It was hoped after the January-February attacks, that the enemy was exhausted and the time was in sight when the gaff might be of use. Now the fish has taken another spurt, and the Russians are letting out the line again and are prepared to let it have another fling in their waters. But they believe none the less that the enemy is firmly hooked, and that it is merely a question of time when from sheer exhaustion he will tire and they may begin to drive home their own attacks.

The Russian attitude is very philosophical, and though a people who are temperamentally not without a vein of melancholy, they take this war with much more equanimity than one could have imagined possible. Retreats and shifting of lines no longer create panics over here. People are sorry. They had hoped that the Germans were nearer the point of exhaustion, but there is not the slightest indication of discouragement. Probably their attitude is due primarily to the fact that they had never anticipated an easy victory nor a short war. They knew from the start that they were in for a terrific ordeal, and what goes on day after day, with its ebbs and its floods, is merely a matter of the day’s work with them. They have seen again and again the irruptions of the Germans gradually absorbed by their troops, and each set back now is accepted as only temporary. The movement of the Germans in Courland has hardly made any impression at all in Russia generally, if the reports one hears are true.

Russian soldiers performing their native dance.

The Russians had practically no troops in that province, which itself offered no great strategic advantage to the Germans. Taking advantage of this weak spot, the Germans with a number of corps—it is placed as high as three—poured into the almost unprotected country.

The Russians say that the German motive is first that they would be able to announce to their people that they had occupied enemy territory, and second that the rich province would give them certain much needed supplies. For a day or two the progress seems to have been almost without interruption, but now we hear that it has been checked and that the enemy are gradually giving way before the Russians, who have shifted troops to that front to prevent further advances. The occupation of Libau does not seem to worry any one very much. “What good will it do them?” one Russian officer said to me? “No doubt they will fortify it and make it as strong as possible. Probably we will never try to get it back while the war lasts. Why should we? It is of no great value strategically, and it is not worth the price of lives and troops detached from other points to retake it. When we have won, it will naturally come back to us without our having to spend a single extra life in getting it.”

The situation in Galicia is still something of a puzzle, but those in authority do not seem to be taking it over seriously. There is reason to believe that it is a repetition of what has occurred again and again on this and other fronts. The Germans, by means of their superior rail facilities made a sudden concentration and hit the Russian line with such energy as to force its retirement. Each mile of the Russian retreat has strengthened their army by the additions of reserves, while it has probably seen an increasing weakening of the enemies’. The sudden advance of the enemy has forced the withdrawal of the Russians pushing through the Dukla, who were obviously menaced in their communications. I am told now that the German attacks have already passed their zenith, and that the Russians reinforced by new troops are confident of checking any further advance. Over here it is but a question of breaking the first fury of the attack. When that is done we can count on the Russian muoujik slowly but surely to force his way back over the lost ground. The end of the incident sees the Russians stronger and the Germans weaker. It is futile for any one to attempt to estimate how many more of these irruptions the Germans are capable of, but we are certain that be it this summer or next there is a limit to them. When that limit has been reached the Russian advance will begin.

CHECKING UP THE SITUATION IN POLAND

CHAPTER V
CHECKING UP THE SITUATION IN POLAND

Dated:
Warsaw,
May 24, 1915.

A few weeks ago the writer expressed the opinion that a permanent optimism had come to Warsaw. For several weeks this impression seemed to have every justification in fact, but since the commencement of the Galician movement in the south the confidence felt by the saner members of the community has been utterly submerged by the pessimism which in waves has swept over the town. One finds it impossible to know definitely from what exact quarters all the false stories start, and if one tries to run them down the trail speedily vanishes. The explanation is that the Jews in Poland are so unfriendly to Russian interests and Russian successes, that the slightest set-back, or rumour of bad news, is seized on by them, and in a few hours is spread all over the town, exaggerated grossly with every telling. It is really extraordinary, after ten months of war, how persistent these hostile factions are in their hope of German success. There are, besides the Jews, probably many Austrian agents, who use the slightest pretext to start stories in the hope of creating a panic.

Within the last two weeks every imaginable tale has been current. Last week there was so much vagueness in regard to the news coming up from the south of Poland, that it seemed wise to make a quick tour in the rear of the Russian positions in order to get some opinion of the real situation. The collection of war news falls very definitely into two classes, descriptive writing and material which is merely indicative of the situation as a whole. The former is of course more interesting to the average reader, but the latter is far more important from every other angle. After ten months of war, the vital question now is whether the Germans are advancing or retiring, and not so much how the battles themselves are conducted, or what sort of a picture is presented in the different actions. So my trip of yesterday, though not in the least picturesque in its happenings, was extremely interesting in that it offered an emphatic contradiction to practically every adverse rumour that had gained currency in Warsaw for the week previously.

The Polish Legion. Note the small boy in the ranks as mascot.

We left Warsaw at six in the morning in our racing car, and as soon as we were clear of the town and headed in the direction of Radom, on the fine macadam highway, we were able to develop a speed that no express train in Russia has made since the declaration of war. This highway has been the artery of travel and communication over which ammunition, transport and guns have moved almost without interruption for ten months. That the Russians have kept it in good condition, is apparent from the fact that we were able to make above 65 versts an hour on many stretches of the way. I passed over the same road many times during the first months of the war, and its condition now is infinitely better than it was in those days.

On every hand are evidences of increased Russian efficiency. The war now has become strictly a matter of organization, and everything goes on now without excitement and without confusion of any sort. Road gangs have been organized, and these highways are maintained with as much care as the permanent way of a railway line. One sign of the times is the new departure of the Russian authorities, in building at intervals of about every 5 versts a boiled water station, which is distinguished by a special flag. Here in a shed closed on three sides is a great boiler with numerous taps on it. When troops are passing in any quantities the water is kept hot that the soldiers may always get boiling water for their tea. When there is small movement on the road, they can always get it cold for drinking purposes.

As it was Sunday we found the road practically free of transport. Barring occasional soldiers sauntering along the highway there was no sign of war until we were within a few miles of Radom, when, perhaps 20 versts to the west, columns of smoke, drifting lazily off in the still air, indicated where some German battery had been shelling some unfortunate village. Away off on the horizon a few faint puffs of white in the blue showed where our batteries were breaking shrapnel under a speck of an aeroplane, which had evidently been on a morning tour of inspection. I was rather curious to see Radom, because for a week we had been told in Warsaw that a terrible panic prevailed here, and that the population were leaving in a frenzy of terror to avoid the sweep of the Germans on Warsaw, that same old story which has for so many months been circulated by the Jewish population. But Radom itself was as quiet and casual as a city of the same size in far off America might have been on a Sunday morning. The streets were crowded with the population in their best clothes going to church, and the panic so widely discussed in Warsaw was conspicuous by its absence.

I talked with a number of the townspeople, and they were as surprised as they could be to know that they were all (according to Warsaw) in full flight for the other side of the Vistula. What astonishes one most is the absolute lack of information in one place of what is going on in the next town. Kielce is but 30 miles from Radom, yet I could find no one, neither officer nor civilian, who could say positively whether on this particular day it was in our hands or in the hands of the enemy. We did learn however from an officer that the road had been badly cut up, and that fighting had taken place near Kielce, with destruction of bridges, which would make it impossible for us to get there in a car. As a fact, I learned later in the day that the road for perhaps 15 versts north of Kielce was held by German cavalry, and so was just as well satisfied that we had not gone that way.

Radom I found was outside the army group which I had a special permit to visit, and it was therefore necessary to call on the General commanding the army before I could with propriety pay a visit to any of the corps commanders in this theatre of war. It was necessary, therefore, to motor to a certain point east of the Vistula to pay our respects to this gentleman. Well on in the afternoon we motored into the beautiful grounds of a Polish villa and spent several hours with one of the men who, with a number of corps, was able to contribute an important part to the defeat of the Austrians on the Grodek line in the fall of last year. Here we were cordially received both by the General and by his staff, two of whom at once ordered refreshments for us and remained with us until we started back for Warsaw late in the day.

From this point we were in touch with the sources of information flowing in from both Southern Poland and the great battlefield in Galicia. All the Russian corps in Poland, with the exception of one that lay next the Vistula, had been inactive during the past weeks, and after shifting their position to the new line, made necessary by the retirement of the Galician army, had been ordered to remain strictly on the defensive. The corps lying next the Vistula, however, was only across the river from the great action going on south of them, and after days of listening to the roar of their brothers’ cannon to the south, they were in anything but a placid or quiet mood. The whole line, in fact, was figuratively being held on the leash, but this last corps had been so infected by the contagion of the action to the south that it proved very difficult to keep the units in their trenches. At the first feeler of the German advance, which came up on their side of the Vistula, they at once jumped at the conclusion that the best defensive was a strong attack, and with this idea in mind they considered, no doubt, that they were strictly in accord with their defensive orders when they attacked the Germans.

The Vistula (winter).

Soldiers are seen in the picture destroying the broken ice. This is a great danger to the bridges when carried away by the current.

The ball was started, as far as I can learn, by a cavalry colonel who, with a small command, attacked a pontoon bridge train that, in some incredible way, was poking along in advance with only a meagre escort. The advance of this small unit of horsemen served as a spark in the Russian powder magazine, and within a few hours the whole corps was engaged in an attack on the German infantry. It is hard to get any accurate details of the operations, but this fighting lasted probably two to three days. The ardent Russian regiments fell on the centre of a German formation, which was said to be the 46th Landsturm corps, smashed its centre and dissipated its flanking supports of a division each. The Russians claim that 12,000 were left on the field and that they took 6,000 prisoners. In any case there is no question that this action put out at least one corps from further activity as an efficient unit.

The German prisoners captured expressed themselves as greatly surprised at the Russians attacking them. They had been told that the Russians had all crossed the Vistula and were in rapid retreat to the west, and that the probabilities were that the road to Moscow would be open in a few weeks. From various members of the Russian Staff I obtained many details as to the fighting in Galicia, which all agreed had been terrific but was going extremely well for them on the line of the San river. It is too soon to attempt a detailed account of this action, but it will form one of the greatest stories of the whole war when the returns are all in. Suffice it to say that the Russians had been aware of the impending attack for several weeks, and had been preparing, in case of necessity, a retirement on to a position upon the San river with Przemysl as the salient thereof.

This Russian retreat did not come as a surprise even to the writer. As far back as a month ago he was aware of feverish activities in rehabilitating the Przemysl defences, and though at that time the object was vague, it became clear enough when this crisis broke that the Russians had foreseen the possibility of the failure to hold the Dunajec line. The Germans carried this by a concentration of artillery fire, probably greater even than that of the English guns at Neuve Chapelle. So fierce was this torrent of flying steel that the Russian line was eaten away in the centre, and in the Carpathian flank, and there seems reason to believe that the army on the Dunajec was cut in three sections when it began to retire. That it pulled itself together and has been able to hold itself intact on the San up to the time of this writing is evidence of the resiliency of the Russian organization.

The Russians having had the alternative in view, withdrew with great speed, destroying bridges and approaches in order to delay the Germans. In the meantime both their reserves of men and munitions were being pushed up to await them on the San line. When the Germans came up in strength with their tongues hanging out, and their formations suffering from lack of rest and lack of ammunition, they found the Russian line waiting for them. It is futile to estimate the German losses at this time, but they will be in the hundreds of thousands, and a final count will show them to be at least two to three times greater than the Russian sacrifices. A German prisoner is said to have made the complaint that the Russians fought like barbarians. “Had they been civilized people,” he is reported to have said, “they would have stayed on the Dunajec and fought like men. In that case we would have utterly destroyed their army.” Instead of that they went away and fought on the San. What seems to have happened is that the Germans were not actually short of ammunition, but in extending their line to the San they could not bring it up with the same rapidity as in the Dunajec and Carpathian attacks; the result was that they were unable to feed their guns according to their new artillery programme begun on the Dunajec line, a programme no doubt borrowed from the west.

A VISIT TO THE POSITIONS

CHAPTER VI
A VISIT TO THE POSITIONS

From:
Somewhere on the Rawka Line,
May 25, 1915.

During the comparative lull on the Bzura-Rawka-Pilitza line I have been trying to go about to certain important salients on our front and have a look both at the terrain, and the positions which we are defending.

Leaving Warsaw by motor we ran out to the head-quarters of a certain army where we found the General living in the palace of a Polish noble. Beautiful avenues of trees gave access to a wonderful garden with a little lake before an old mansion dating back to the eighteenth century. Here in the quiet seclusion of a little forest lives the general, who presides over the destinies of perhaps 150,000 men. We are received cordially by the Chief of Staff who, with exemplary patience, reads over the twelve permits of various sorts which complete the constantly growing collection of authorizations for me to come and go on this front. After careful scrutiny of all he sighs heavily, for perhaps he is not an admirer of the press, but none the less he inquires cordially what we would like to do. “Heavy batteries and observation points” is always my reply for reasons already explained. A smart young aide is sent for who, it appears, speaks English fluently, having lived for some time in America. The staff offer us an additional automobile, and while this is being brought round we sit out under the trees in the garden. Just behind the house, in a bower, is another officer of the staff sitting in an easy-chair behind a table before which stand a group of Austrian prisoners whom he is examining for information. After a few minutes our young aide comes back, and with two automobiles we start for the positions.

We must first go to the head-quarters of an army corps. This is distant 25 versts, and as the roads are for the most part short cuts across the fields, it takes us more than an hour to reach a very unpretentious village where we meet the General commanding the — Corps. This man is distinctly of the type that war produces. He was only a minor general when the war started, but efficiency in action has given him two promotions. Shabby and war-worn he is living in a mere hovel, still wearing the uniform and shoulder straps of two grades back when he was a somewhat humble officer in the artillery. By him we are supplied with a soldier guide and go off to the head-quarters of an artillery brigade where we find the commander of the guns who provides us with a member of his staff. This officer joins our party, and directs us to the head-quarters of an artillery unit composed of a number of batteries. I say unit because it is all controlled from one point of observation.

By the time we pull up between a couple of ruined peasants’ homes, only the walls of which are standing; it is after seven in the evening. From a kind of cave among the debris there emerged three or four tired-looking artillerymen who are in charge of the guns in these positions. The country here is flat and rolling, with a little ridge to the west of us, which cuts off the view into the valley beyond, in which are the lines of the Russian and German trenches. Leaving our automobiles in the road, we stroll through a wheat-field toward the ridge, distant perhaps 1,000 yards. In the corner of the field is a hedge, and behind the hedge is a battery of field guns. One notices with each passing month the increasing cleverness of the Russians in masking their batteries. Though this is no wood, we walk almost on to the position before we discover the guns at all. They are well dug in, with small fir trees borrowed from neighbouring bits of woodland stuck in the ground all about them. Each gun is separated from its brother by a screen of green, and boughs above mask the view from an aeroplane. From the front one would never see them at all unless one were looking closely. To-night the last red rays from the setting sun just catch a twinkle of the steel in their shining throats, as their long sleek snouts protrude from the foliage. The shields are painted a kind of green which helps still more to make them invisible.

This particular battery, so its Colonel tells us, has had a great laugh on the enemy during the past few days. What happened was this. A German Taube flew over the line several times, and it kept coming back so frequently and hovering over the battery, that the officers who were watching it became suspicious that they had been spotted. When darkness fell the entire personnel of the battery became extremely busy, and by working like bees they moved their guns perhaps 600 yards to the south and by daylight had them in the new positions and fairly well masked. Shortly after sunrise back came the aeroplane, and when over the old position it gave a signal to its own lines and then flew back. Almost instantly hell broke loose on the abandoned spot. In walking over the ground one is amazed at the accuracy of long range artillery fire, for in the ten-acre lot in which the old position was the centre there was hardly ten square yards without its shell hole, while the ground was a junk heap of steel and shrapnel fragments. Six hundred yards away the men of the battery watched it all and laughed their sides out at the way they had fooled the Germans. This particular battery had bothered the enemy a great deal and they were on the look out for it. Probably there will be further competitions of wits before the week is out. From glancing at the field torn up with shell fire one begins to realize what observation means to the enemy. With modern methods a single signal from an aeroplane may mean the wiping out in a few minutes of an unsuspecting battery that has been safely hidden for months.

Leaving the guns, we saunter across the wheat-field toward the ridge, the great red ball of the setting sun dazzling our eyes with its aspect of molten steel. On the very crest of the rolling ground is a grove of stunted firs, and through this lies a path to the observation trench which is entered by an approach growing gradually deeper until, cutting through the very ridge, it ends in the observation trench dug out of the earth on the western slope. For the last couple of hundred yards before we enter the approaches, we are in plain view of the German gunners, but we had supposed that at the distance a few men would not be noticed. Evidently, however, our observers in the German line have had their eyes glued on this spot, for we had barely entered the trench when a shell burst down in front of us. The writer was looking through the hyperscope at the time, but imagined that it was at least half a mile away. An instant later came the melancholy wail of another shell over our heads and the report of its explosion half way between us and our motor-car in the road. Behind it came another and another each one getting nearer our trench. The last one passed a few feet over our heads and burst just beyond, covering us in the trench with dust and filling our nostrils with the fumes of gunpowder. Another shortening up of the range might have landed in our delightful retreat, but evidently the Germans became discouraged, for we heard nothing more from them.

Through the hyperscopes one could look out over the beautiful sweep of the valley studded with little farms, the homes of which are mostly in ruins. This point from which we were studying the landscape was only 100 yards from our own line of trenches, which lay just in front of and below us, while not more than 75 yards beyond were the line of the German trenches. So clear were they in the field of the hyperscope that one could actually see the loopholes in the ridge of earth. Our own were, of course, open from the back, and one could see the soldiers moving about in their quarters or squatting comfortably against the walls of the trenches. Away to the west were ridges of earth here and there, where our friends of the artillery told us were reserve trenches, while they pointed out groves of trees or ruined villages in which they suspected lurked the German guns.

Russian officers in an artillery observation position.

After the report of the shells had died away and the dust settled there was the silence of absolute peace and serenity over the whole valley. Not a rifle shot or a human noise broke the beautiful calm of the May sunset. Off to the west glimmered the silver stream of the Rawka. To look out over this lovely valley in the falling twilight it seemed incredible that thousands of men lay concealed under our very eyes, men who were waiting only a favourable opportunity to leap out of their trenches and meet each other in hand-to-hand combat. On the advice of our guides, we waited in our secure little trench until the last red rays of the sun were cut off by the horizon in the west, when we returned by the way we had come to the waiting automobiles.

The whole valley in this section is very flat, and the ridges such as the one I have described are very scarce. The Russian lines are extremely strong, and one gets the idea that they would require a good deal of taking before the Germans could occupy them. Our artillery seemed to be in excellent quantities, and the ammunition situation satisfactory if the officer may be believed. The rears of all these positions have been prepared for defence, and there are at least three lines or groups of trenches lying between this front and Warsaw, each of which would present as strong a defence as the line which now for many months has defied all efforts of the enemy to get through.

I was especially interested in looking over this locality, because in Warsaw it has been mentioned as a point where the Russians were in great danger, and where they were barely able to hold their own. The truth is that there has been little fighting here for months excepting an occasional burst of artillery, or now and then a spasm of inter-trench fighting between unimportant units. I told our guide of the dismal stories we heard, and he only laughed as he pointed out to me a level stretch of country on our side of the ridge. A number of young Russian officers were riding about on prancing horses. “See there,” my friend told me, “we have laid out a race course, and the day after to-morrow the officers of this brigade are going to have a steeplechase. You see they have built a little platform for the general to stand on and judge the events. We are only 1,000 yards here from the trenches of the enemy. So you see we do not feel as anxious about the safety of our position as they do in Warsaw.” He lighted a cigarette and then added seriously: “No, the Germans cannot force us here, nor do I think on any of the other Warsaw fronts. Our positions have never been as strong as they are to-day.”

A few minutes later we were in our motors speeding through the twilight to the village in our rear where the Chief of Staff of the — Corps had arranged quarters for us.

A SUMMER DAY ON THE RAWKA LINE

CHAPTER VII
A SUMMER DAY ON THE RAWKA LINE

From:
A Certain Army Corps Head-quarters Not Far from the Rawka.
May 26, 1915.

The month of May in Poland, if this season is typical of the climate here, is a period to dream about. When we turned out of our camp beds early this morning, the sun was streaming into our little whitewashed room, while the fragrance of lilacs blooming in a near-by garden drifted in at the open window. In the little garden behind our house are a dozen colonies of bees, and already they are up and about their daily tasks. The sky is without a cloud and the warmth and life of the early spring morning makes one forget the terrible business that we are engaged in. The little street of the town is lined with great horse-chestnut trees now in full bloom with every branch laden deep with the great white pendent blossoms. For a moment one stands drinking in the beauty of the new day and the loveliness of the morning, with one’s mind drifting far, far away to other scenes where flowers too are blooming at this season of the year. But as our eyes wander down the street, the thoughts of gentler things are suddenly dissipated, and with a jolt one’s mind comes back to the work-a-day world whose daily task now is the destruction of an enemy in the line of trenches not so many miles away.

What has broken the peaceful tremor of our thoughts is the sight of some soldiers pulling into the town a half-wrecked aeroplane brought down by artillery fire the day before near our lines. Its wings are shattered and its propellers twisted into kindling, while its slight body (if one can use that expression) is torn and punctured by a score or more of shrapnel holes, with several gashes where bits of the shell case had penetrated the thin metal frame. Here at least is one example of artillery practice which has been able to cripple the bird of ill omen on the wing. After a generous breakfast, provided by our kind host the General, we are in our motor-cars again and in a few minutes are speeding down one of the roads westward to the head-quarters of a certain artillery brigade who over the telephone have consented to show us particular choice sights that they have on exhibition on their front.

Every village that we pass through is full of soldiers bestirring for the day, while already the main arteries of travel to the trenches are filling up with the activities of the morning. It is a perfectly still day, and with each advancing hour it is growing hotter. There has been no rain for a week or two, the dust is deep upon the roads, and as our cars hum along the highways we leave volumes of the thin cloud in our wake. Now and again we pass small columns of infantry marching cheerfully along in the sunshine, each man in a cloud of dust. Yet every face is cheerful, and almost without exception the men are singing their marching songs as they swing along the highways. In the villages and on the road everything suggests war, but now with quite a different atmosphere from that of last autumn. Then it was war also, but of war the novelty, the new and the untried. Then all faces were anxious, some apprehensive, some depressed. They were going into a new experience. Now, however, it is war as a tried and experienced profession that is about us.

The conduct of the campaign has become as much of a business to the soldiers and to the officers as the operating of a railroad to men engaged in running it. The deaths and the wounds have become to these men we see now simply a part of their profession, and they have seen so much of this side of the business that it has long since been discounted. The whole atmosphere of the front as we see it in May is as that of a permanent state of society. These men look as though they had been fighting for ten years and expected to be fighting for the rest of their days. War has become the commonplace and peace seems the unreality.

At brigade head-quarters we halt a few minutes and are directed to proceed slowly along a certain road, and advised to stop in a cut just before passing over a certain crest. When we learn that the enemy’s guns command the road over the crest we inquire with the keenest interest the exact location of the ridge mentioned, for something suggests to us that this is a bit of interesting information that the artillery officer is handing out to us so very casually. They are all casual by the way; probably they have all got so used to sudden death and destruction that they feel as nonchalant about their own fate as they do about others. Half an hour’s run over very heavy and sandy road, brought us on to a great white ribbon of a highway that ran due west and dipped over the ridge.

This was our place, and stopping the cars we climbed out to meet a few officers sauntering down the road. They seemed to be coming from nowhere in particular, but as I learned later, they lived in a kind of cave dug out of the side of the road, and had been advised by telephone that we were coming and so were on the lookout for us. The ranking officer was a colonel of artillery—one of the kind that you would turn about in the street to look at and to say to yourself, “Every inch a soldier.” A serious, kindly-faced man in a dirty uniform with shoulder straps so faded and frayed that a second look was necessary to get his rank at all. For six months he had been living in just such quarters as the cave in the side of the road where we found him. He was glad to show us his observation. One could see at a glance that his whole heart and soul were wrapped up in his three batteries, and he spoke of all his positions and his observation points with as much pride as a mother speaking about her children.

The country here is a great sweeping expanse, with just a few ridges here and there like the one that we have come up behind. The country reminds one of the valley of the Danube or perhaps the Red River Valley in North Dakota, except that the latter has less timber in it. We are ourselves quite uncertain as to where the enemy’s position is, for in the sweep of the valley there is little to indicate the presence of any army at all, or to suggest the possibility of hostilities from any quarter. I asked one of the officers who strolled along with us where the German lines were. “Oh, over there,” he remarked, casually waving his hand in a northerly direction. “Probably they can see us then,” I suggested. Personally I felt a mild curiosity in the subject which apparently my companion did not share. He stopped and offered me a cigarette, and as he lighted one himself, he murmured indifferently, “Yes, I dare say they could see us if they turned their glasses on this ridge. But probably they won’t. Can I give you a light?”

I thanked him politely and also commended the sun for shining in the enemy’s eyes instead of over their shoulders as happened last night when the observer in the German battery spotted us at 6,000 yards and sent five shells to tell us that we were receiving his highest consideration. On the top of a near-by hill was a small building which had formerly been the Russian observation point, but the Germans suspecting this had quickly reduced it to a pile of ruins. Near by we entered a trench cut in from the back of the hill, and worked our way up to an observation station cut out of the side of the slope in front of the former position.

A first-line trench in Poland.

It was now getting on toward noon and intensely hot. The view from this position as one could sweep it with the hyperscope was perfectly beautiful. Off to the west twinkled the silver ribbon of the Rawka, while the whole plain was dotted with fields of wheat and rye that stretched below us like a chess board. Here and there where had been houses were now but piles of ruins. The lines here were quite far apart—perhaps half a mile, and in between them were acres of land under cultivation. I think that the most remarkable thing that I have seen in this war was the sight of peasants working between the lines as calmly as though no such thing as war existed. Through the glasses I could distinctly see one old white beard with a horse ploughing up a field, and even as I was looking at him I saw a shell burst not half a mile beyond him near one of the German positions. I mentioned it to one of the officers. “Oh yes,” he said, “neither we nor the Germans fire on the peasants nowadays. They must do their work and they harm neither of us.”

On this part of the line the war seems to have become rather a listless affair and perfunctory to say the least. I suppose both Germans and Russians have instructions just now to hold themselves on the defensive. At any rate I could distinctly see movements beyond the German line, and I am sure they too must have detected the same on our side. One man on a white horse was clearly visible as he rode along behind the German trenches, while I followed with my glasses a German motor-car that sped down a road leaving in its wake a cloud of dust. Yet no one bothered much about either of them. Now and again one of our big guns behind us would thunder, and over our heads we could hear the diminishing wail of a 15-centimetre shell as it sped on its journey to the German lines. Through the hyperscope one could clearly see the clouds of dirt and dust thrown up by the explosion. One of these shells fell squarely in one of the German trenches, and as the smoke drifted away I could not help wondering how many poor wretches had been torn by its fragments. After watching this performance for an hour or more, we returned back through the trench and paid a visit to the Colonel in his abode in the earth by the roadside. For half an hour or more we chatted with him and then bade him good-bye.

A bit to the south-west of us lay a town which a few days ago was shelled by the Germans. This town lies in a salient of our line, and since the bombardment has been abandoned by all the population. As it lay on the German side of the slope we had three miles of exposed roadway to cover to get to it, and another three miles in view of the German line to get out of it.

Russian General inspecting his gunners.

As we sped down this three miles one felt a certain satisfaction that one had a 95 horsepower Napier capable of doing 80 miles an hour. A third of the town itself was destroyed by the German shell fire. The rest was like a city of the dead. Not a human being of the population was to be seen in the streets, which but a week ago were swarming with people. Here and there a soldier from the near-by positions lounged on an abandoned doorstep, or napped peacefully under one of the trees in the square. The sun of noon looked down upon a deserted village, if one does not count an occasional dog prowling about, or one white kitty sitting calmly on a window ledge in the sunshine casually washing her face. As ruins have long ceased to attract us, we did not loiter long here, but turned eastward along the great white road that led back in the direction of Warsaw.

There is one strip of this road which I suppose is not more than 4,500 yards from the German gun positions. Personally I am always interested in these matters, and being of an inquiring turn of mind I asked my friend the Russian officer, who was with me in the car, if he thought the enemy could see us. “Oh yes,” he replied quite cheerfully. “I am sure they can see us, but I don’t think they can hit us. Probably they won’t try, as they are not wasting ammunition as much as they used to. Won’t you have a cigarette?” I accepted the smoke gladly and concluded that it is the Russian custom to offer one a cigarette every time one asks this question about the German guns. Anyway, I got exactly the same reply from this man as I did from the other in the morning.

Ten miles up the road we came on a bit of forest where the unfortunate villagers who had been driven out by shell fire were camping. Here they were in the wood living in rude lean-to’s, surrounded by all their worldly possessions that they had the means of getting away. Cows, ducks, pigs, and chicken roamed about the forests, while dozens of children played about in the dust.

One picture I shall not forget. Before a hut made of straw and branches of trees a mother had constructed a rude oven in the earth by setting on some stones the steel top of the kitchen stove that she had brought with her. Kneeling over the fire she was preparing the primitive noonday meal. Just behind was a cradle in which lay a few weeks’ old baby rocked by a little sister of four. Three other little children stood expectantly around the fire, their little mouths watering for the crude meal that was in preparation. Behind the cradle lay the family cow, her soft brown eyes gazing mournfully at the cradle as she chewed reflectively at her cud. In the door of the miserable little shelter stretched a great fat sow sleeping sweetly with her lips twitching nervously in her sleep. An old hen with a dozen chicks was clucking to her little brood within the open end of the hut. This was all that war had left of one home.

Telephoning to the battery from the observation position.

A hundred yards away a gang of labourers was digging in the forest. It is no wonder that the mother looks nervously from her fire at their work. Perhaps she wonders what they are about. We know. It is another line of trenches. From what we have seen of the front line we believe they will not be needed, but it is not strange that these poor fugitives look on with anxious eyes with the question written large on every face. Probably to them the war seems something from which they cannot escape. They came to this wood for safety and now again they see more digging of trenches going on.

Another hour on the road brings us back to the head-quarters of the army and our day in May is over.

THE CHANGE OF FRONT IN POLAND AND THE BATTLE OF OPATOV

CHAPTER VIII
THE CHANGE OF FRONT IN POLAND AND THE BATTLE OF OPATOV

Dated:
Opatov, Poland,
May 31, 1915.

For the last three days I have been with a certain army of the Russians that occupies the strip of Poland between the Pilitza river and the Vistula on the south. I feel intense regret that the restrictions of the censor proscribe the identification of military units or of their definite location. These wonderful corps, divisions and battalions should, in my view, have all the honour that is their due, but the writer can only abide by the wishes of the authorities by whose kindness and courtesy he has been able to visit these positions.

Leaving Warsaw in a motor car in the evening, and running until an early hour in the morning, we found ourselves the next day at the head-quarters of one of the really great army commanders of Russia. With him and the members of his staff we spent the chief part of the morning, when every opportunity was given us to study the situation within his jurisdiction. To go to the Front, as I have often written before, means a two to three days’ trip, and the inspection of a single detail of the vast operations that have been conducted. At the suggestion of the Commander we decided to visit a certain army corps in the south, whose success in the operations attending the change of front had been so extraordinary, that everyone at the staff was filled with pride and eager to have its work appreciated. Before going on to describe the work of this particular corps it is proper to mention a little more particularly the work of this one army as a whole since the beginning of the war.

This army stood before Lublin during the crisis in the early days of the war, and by uniting with that of Plevie, and the two joining with Russky to the east of them, there resulted the first great crash to the Austrian arms in Galicia. Later, this same army came back north and was engaged in the terrific fighting around Ivangorod, which resulted in the defeat of the enemy and their expulsion from Poland last autumn.

In the advance after the taking back of Radom and Kielce, the army came under the very walls of Cracow, and in all of its divisions and brigades there was scarcely a battalion that did not distinguish itself in that terrific fighting. When the Germans began their second invasion of Poland last autumn, this army regretfully fell back to its positions on the Nida river, and when the last storm broke in Galicia and the retirement of the army of the Dunajec rendered a change of the Russian-Polish line a strategic necessity, the army with all its numerous corps was again called upon to fall back in order that the Front as a whole might be a symmetrical one.

During this change of front we heard a great deal in Warsaw, from people who delight in circulating false stories, of Russian disasters in Southern Poland. I have been particularly interested, therefore, in checking up this movement on the ground and getting at the actual facts of the case. As a fact, the Russian retirement was made amid the lamentations and grumbling of the whole army. The private soldiers, who do not follow strategy very closely, complained bitterly that they, who had never met defeat, and before whom the enemy had always fallen back when they attacked, should be called upon to retreat when they were sure, regiment by regiment, that they could beat twice their numbers of the enemy. The Germans and Austrians advanced with great caution for several days. Knowing, however, the location of the new Russian line, they imagined that their adversaries would fall back on it in a few big marches and await them there. Besides this, both Germans and Austrians had been carefully fed with reports of the Galician movement to the effect that the Russians were retiring in utter defeat, that even in Poland they were panic-stricken and would probably put up but a feeble fight even on their line.

I could not in the brief time which I had for this trip visit all the corps involved in this movement, and at the suggestion of the General of the army, visited only the — corps, whose operations may be regarded as typical of the whole spirit in which this front was changed. Regarding the movement as a whole it is sufficient to say that in the two weeks following the change of line in Poland, the corps comprising this one army made the enemy suffer losses, in killed, wounded and prisoners, which the General estimated at nearly 30,000, of whom about 9,000 were prisoners. All of this was done at a comparatively trifling loss to the Russians themselves. From which very brief summary of the change of front it will be realized that this particular army has neither lost its fighting spirit nor has its moral suffered from the retirement to another line.

In the trenches near Opatov.

There are so many big movements in this war that it is utterly impossible for one observer to describe more than a trifling fraction of the achievements that are made here. Since the General Staff have given me what appears to be a free range in the north-eastern armies, I have had so many interesting opportunities that it is difficult to pick any one in preference to another. What I am writing in this story is merely the narrative of a single corps during this change of front, and I think it a significant story, because I believe it typifies not only the corps of this particular army, but practically all the corps now in the field on this Front. General Ragosa, who commands this corps, and who has entertained me for the best part of three days, has given me every opportunity to study his whole movement and permitted one of his officers to prepare sketches, illustrating his movement. The General himself, like most men who deal with big affairs, is a very modest and simple man. To talk with him one would not guess that the movement which has resulted so successfully for his corps and so disastrously for the enemy, was the product of a programme worked out in the quiet of a remote head-quarters and carried successfully through under his direction by means of the field wire stretched through the forest for the 30 kilometres that separate his head-quarters from the fighting line.

When I suggested to him that his fighting around Opatov made an extremely interesting story, he only shrugged his shoulders and replied, “But in this war it is only a small fight. What is the operation of a single army, much less the work of one of its units?” Yet one feels that the success of this war will be the sum of the work of the many units, and as this battle resulted in the entire breaking up of the symmetry of the Austro-German following movement, and is one of the few actions during the recent months of this war which was fought in the open without trenches, it is extremely interesting. Indeed, in any other war it would have been called a good-sized action; from first to last on both sides I suppose that more than 100,000 men and perhaps 350 to 400 guns were engaged. Let me describe it.

General Ragosa’s corps was on the Nida river, and it was with great regret that the troops left the trenches that they had been defending all winter. Their new line was extremely strong, and after they had started, it was assumed by the enemy that they could leisurely follow the Russians, and again sit down before their positions.

Second-line trenches, Opatov.

But they were not counting on this particular General when they made their advance. Instead of going back to his line, he brought his units to the line running from Lubenia to and through Opatov to the south, where he halted and awaited the advancing enemy who came on in four divisions. These were the third German Landwehr division who were moving eastward and a little to the north of Lubenia. Next, coming from the direction of Kielce was the German division of General Bredow supported by the 84th Austrian regiment; this unit was moving directly against the manufacturing town of Ostzowiec. Further to the south came the crack Austrian division, the 25th, which was composed of the 4th Deutschmeister regiment from Vienna and the 25th, 17th and 10th Jäger units, the division itself being commanded by the Archduke Peter Ferdinand. The 25th division was moving on the Lagow road headed for Opatov, while the 4th Austrian division (a Landwehr formation) supported by the 41st Honved division (regiments 20, 31, 32 and one other) was making for the same objective. It is probable that the enemy units, approaching the command of Ragosa, outnumbered the Russians in that particular portion of the theatre of operations by at least forty per cent. Certainly they never expected that any action would be given by the supposedly demoralized Russians short of their fortified line, to which they were supposed by the enemy to be retiring in hot haste.

General Ragosa wishing to finish up the weakest portion first, as usual picked the Austrians for his first surprise party. But this action he anticipated by making a feint against the German corps, driving in their advance guards by vigorous attacks and causing the whole movement to halt and commence deploying for an engagement. This took place on May 15. On the same day with all his available strength he swung furiously, with Opatov as an axis from both north and south, catching the 25th division on the road between Lagow and Opatov with a bayonet charge delivered from the mountain over and around which his troops had been marching all night. Simultaneously another portion of his command swept up on the 4th division coming from Iwaniska to Opatov. In the meantime a heavy force of Cossacks had ridden round the Austrian line and actually hit their line of communications at the exact time that the infantry fell on the main column with a bayonet charge of such impetuosity and fury that the entire Austrian formation crumpled up.

At the same time the 4th division was meeting a similar fate further south; the two were thrown together in a helpless mass and suffered a loss of between three and four thousand in casualties and nearly three thousand in prisoners, besides losing a large number of machine guns and the bulk of their baggage. The balance, supported by the 41st Honved division, which had been hurried up, managed to wriggle themselves out of their predicament by falling back on Wokacow, and the whole retired to Lagow, beyond which the Russians were not permitted to pursue them lest they should break the symmetry of their own entire line. Immediately after this action against the Austrians, a large portion of the same troops made a forced march back over the mountain which had separated the Austrians from their German neighbours and fell on the right of the German formation, while the frontal attacks, which had formerly been feints, were now delivered in dead earnest.

The result was that Bredow’s formation was taken suddenly in front and on its right flank, and on May 18 began to fall back until it was supported by the 4th Landwehr division, which had been hurriedly snatched out of the line to the north to prevent Bredow from suffering a fate similar to that which overtook the Austrians to the south. After falling back to Bodzentin where it was joined by the supports from the north, the Germans pulled themselves together to make a stand. But here, as in the south, general orders prevented the Russians from moving further against their defeated foe lest in their enthusiasm they might advance too far and leave a hole in their own line. Thus Ragosa’s command after four days of constant action came to a stand and their part in the movement ended.

But the trouble of the enemy was not over. Ragosa at once discovered that the 4th Landwehr division that had been hurried up to support retreating Bredow, had been taken from the front of his neighbouring corps, and this information he promptly passed on to his friend commanding the — corps who gladly passed the word on to his own front. The regiments in that quarter promptly punched a hole in the German weakened line, and with vicious bayonet attacks killed and captured a large number of Germans, also forcing back their line. Something similar happened in the corps to the south of Ragosa’s corps who were in a fever of excitement because of the big fighting on the San, which was going on just to their left while Ragosa’s guns were thundering just to the north. The result was that out of a kind of sympathetic contagion, they fixed bayonets and rushed on the enemy in their front with a fury equal to that which was going on in both corps north of them. Thus it came about that three quarters of this particular army became engaged in general action by the sheer initiative of Ragosa, and maintained it entirely by the enthusiasm of the troops engaged. These corps even in retreat could not be restrained from going back and having a turn with the enemy.

A second-line trench near Opatov.

The change of front in Poland resulted in losses in killed, wounded and prisoners to the enemy, approximating in this army alone between 20,000 and 30,000, with a loss to the Russians probably less than a third of that number, besides resulting in an increase of moral to the latter, which has fully offset any depression caused by their retirement. In talking with their officers, and I talked with at least a score, I heard everywhere the same complaint, namely that it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep their soldiers in the trenches. So eager is the whole army to be advancing, that only constant discipline and watching prevent individual units from becoming excited and getting up and attacking, thus precipitating a general action which the Russians wish to avoid while the movement in Galicia is one of fluctuation and uncertainty.

Little definite information was available on this Front as to what was going on further south, but certainly I found not the slightest sign of depression among either men or officers with whom I talked. As one remarked, “Well, what of it? You do not understand our soldiers. They can retreat every day for a month and come back as full of fight at the end of that time as when they started. A few Russian ‘defeats,’ as the Germans call them, will be a disaster for the Kaiser. Don’t worry. We will come back all right and it cannot be too soon for the taste of this army.”

WITH THE ARMY IN SOUTHERN POLAND

CHAPTER IX
WITH THE ARMY IN SOUTHERN POLAND

Dated:
A Certain Army Corps Head-quarters
Somewhere in Southern Poland
June 1, 1915.

To-day has been one of the most interesting that I have spent since I came to Russia last September. The General commanding this certain army corps, which, while the war lasts, must not be identified, carefully mapped out an ideal day for us, and made it possible of fulfilment by placing two motors at our disposal and permitting a member of his personal staff to accompany us as guide, philosopher and friend. This very charming gentleman, M. Riabonschisky, represents a type which one sees increasingly in the Russian Army as the war grows older. M. Riabonschisky served his term of years in the army, and then being wealthy and of a distinguished Moscow family, went into the banking business, and the beginning of the war found him one of the leading business men of the old Russian capital. With the first call he instantly abandoned his desk and sedentary habits, and became again a subaltern, which was his rank twenty odd years ago; when he came to the Front it was as aide-de-camp of a General commanding an army corps.

In a shabby uniform and with face tanned to the colour of old leather one now finds the Moscow millionaire working harder than a common soldier. Our friend had by no means confined his activities to routine work at head-quarters, but as the St. George’s Cross on his breast indicated, had seen a bit of active service as well. Though he talked freely enough on every known subject, I found him uncommunicative on the subject of his Cross denoting distinguished merit in the face of an enemy. A little persistent tact, however, finally got out of him that before Lublin, in a crisis on the positions, he had gone to the front line trenches in a motor car loaded with ammunition for the troops who for lack of it were on the point of retiring. With the return trip he brought out all the wounded his car could hold. This, then, was the former banker who now accompanied us on a tour of inspection of the army of which he was as proud as the Commanding General himself was.

A Russian first-line trench near Lublin.

The companion picture shows the German position through loop-hole.

German position near Lublin.

Photo taken through loop-hole in trench.

Leaving our head-quarters we drove south through a beautiful woodland for nearly two hours, to the headquarters of that certain division of the army which has covered itself with glory in the recent fighting around Opatov, where we were received cordially by the commander. Telegrams sent ahead had advised him of our arrival, and he had done his part in arranging details that our trip might be as interesting as possible. After a few minutes drinking tea and smoking cigarettes we again took cars and motored for another 16 versts to the town of Opatov, where one of the brigade head-quarters was located. This quaint old Polish town with a castle and a wall around it has been three times visited by the tide of battle, and the hills about it (it lies in a hollow) are pitted with the caves made by the uneasy inhabitants, whose experience of shell fire has been disturbing. One imagines from the number of dugouts one sees that the whole population might easily move under ground at an hour’s notice. However, in spite of the tumult of battles which have been fought around it, Opatov has not been scarred by shell fire.

From here we went directly west on the road to Lagow for perhaps 5 versts, when we turned off suddenly on to a faint road and down into a little hollow where a tiny village nestled in which we were told we should find the head-quarters of a certain regiment that we had come to visit. As our cars came over the crest of the hill we noticed assembled on a flat field, that lay in the hollow, absolutely concealed from the outside world, a block of troops standing under arms. My first impression was that this was a couple of reserve units just going back to the trenches to relieve their fellows. We were delighted at such a bit of luck. On pulling up our cars by the side of the road we found ourselves greeted by the Colonel and staff of the regiment, to whom we were introduced by our guide. After a few words in Russian my friend turned, his face wreathed in smiles, and said, “The Colonel is very kind; he has ordered a review for your inspection.”

With the staff we strolled up to the centre of the field, where on two sides we faced two of the most magnificent battalions of troops that it has ever been my fortune to see, while on the third side were parked the machine-gun batteries of the regiment. For a few minutes we stood in the centre of the three-sided square while the Colonel, with unconcealed pride, told us something of the history of the regiment that stood before us. Its name and its corps must not be mentioned, but it is permissible to say that it is from Moscow and is one of the oldest regiments in the Russian service, with traditions running back for 125 years. It is one of the two formations of the entire Russian army which is permitted to march in review with fixed bayonets, a distinction acquired by 125 years of history marked by successful work with cold steel.

March-past of the Gonogoriski Regiment.

I have written in a previous chapter of the fighting around Opatov and of the wonderful work done by the troops of this army corps. Now we learned from the Colonel that it was his regiment that made the march over the mountain, and fell with the bayonet upon the flank of the 25th Austrian division with such an impetus and fury that every man had killed or captured a soldier of the enemy. That we might not minimize the glory of his men the Colonel assured us that the Austrian 25th was no scrub Landwehr or reserve formation, but the very élite of the élite of the Austrian army, embodying the famous Deutschmeister regiment from Vienna, which was supposed to be the finest organization of infantry in the Hapsburg realm. What we saw before us were two of the four battalions of the Moscow regiment who were in reserve for a few days’ rest, while their brothers in the other two battalions were 4 versts forward in the fighting line.

Suddenly the Colonel turned about and in a voice of thunder uttered a command, and instantly the two thousand men became as rigid as two thousand statues. Another word, and with the click of a bit of well-oiled mechanism, two thousand rifles came to the present. Another command from the Colonel and the regimental band on the right flank, with its thirty pieces of brass, burst forth with “Rule Britannia.” A moment’s silence followed, and then came the strains of the American National Anthem, followed in turn by the Russian National Anthem.

As the last strain died away there came another sharp command from the Colonel, and once more the mechanism clicked and two thousand guns came to the ground as one. Then, stepping out from the little group of the staff, the Colonel addressed the regiment in a deep melodious voice in words that carried to the furthest man. I have written much of the rapidly growing feeling of friendship and affection between England and Russia. For six months I have noticed a gradual development of this sentiment, but I have never realized until this day that it was percolating to the very foundations of the Russian people. In Petrograd and Moscow one naturally expects the diplomats and politicians to emphasize this point to a member of the press. But out at the Front these men who deal in steel and blood are not given to fine phrases, nor are they wont to speak for effect. For ten months their lives have been lives of danger and hardships, and in their eyes and in their faces one sees sincerity and truth written large for those who study human nature to read. The speech was to me so impressive that it seems well worth while to quote the officer’s stirring words, words which found an echo in the heart of the writer, who is an American citizen and not a British subject at all. With his hand held aloft the Colonel said:—

Men of the Gonogoriski Regiment cheering King George V.

“Attention,—Gentlemen, officers and soldiers: We have to-day the honour to receive the representatives of the great English nation, our faithful allies now fighting with us for the good of us all to punish our common treacherous enemy. They are dear to our hearts because they are conducting this war with such sacrifices and such incredible bravery. It is a great pleasure and privilege for our regiment to see among us the representatives of the country where dwell the bravest of the brave. This regiment, beloved of Suvoroff, will always do its uttermost to uphold the reputation of Russian arms, that they may be worthy to fight this battle shoulder to shoulder with their noble allies in the British army. Officers and soldiers, I call for a hearty cheer for the great King of England. Long live George the Fifth.”

The response came from two thousand lungs and throats with the suddenness of a clap of thunder. Out of the misery and chaos of this world-disaster there is surely coming a new spirit and a new-found feeling of respect and regard between the allied nations, a feeling which in itself is perhaps laying the foundation of a greater peace movement than all the harangues and platitudes of the preachers of pacificism. Before this war I dare say that England and the English meant nothing to the peasant soldier of Russia. This is no longer true, and to stand as I stood in this hollow square and listen for five minutes to these war-stained veterans cheering themselves hoarse for the ally whom they have been taught to consider the personification of soldierly virtues, was to feel that perhaps from this war may come future relations which the next generation will look back upon as having in large measure justified the price. The Colonel raised his hand and instantly the tumult died away. The Colonel courteously invited me to address the Regiment on behalf of England, but as a neutral this was an impossible role.

Men of the Gonogoriski Regiment.

Afterwards the Colonel ordered a review of the two battalions, and in company formation they passed by with their bayonets at the charge and with every eye fixed on the commander, while every officer marched at the salute. I have never seen a more impressive body of men. Dirty and shabby, with faces tanned like shoe leather, and unshaven, they marched past, the picture of men of action. In each face was the pride of regiment and country and the respect of self. As they passed, company after company, the beaming Colonel said to me, “When my men come at the charge the Austrians never wait for them to come into the trenches. They fire on us until we are within ten feet and then they fall on their knees and beg for quarter.” As the writer looked into these earnest serious faces that passed by, each seamed with lines of grim determination and eyes steeled with the hardness engendered by war, he felt an increased respect for the Austrian who waited until the enemy were within ten feet. Somehow one felt that a hundred feet start would be an insufficient handicap to get away from these fellows when they came for one with their bayonets levelled and their leather throats howling for the blood of the enemy.

After the infantry we inspected the machine-gun batteries of the regiment, and with special pride the Colonel showed us the four captured machine-guns taken from the Austrians in the recent action, together with large quantities of ammunition. After the machine-guns were examined, the heroes of the St. George’s Cross, decorated in the recent battle, were brought forward to be photographed. Then the band played the air of the regiment, while the officers of the regiment joined in singing a rousing melody which has been the regimental song for the 125 years of its existence. Then, preceded by the band, we went to the Colonel’s head-quarters, where lunch was served, the band playing outside while we ate.

The head-quarters of the Colonel were in a schoolhouse hurriedly adapted to the needs of war. Our table was the children’s blackboard taken from the walls and stretched between two desks, the scholars’ benches serving us in lieu of chairs. The only thing in the whole establishment that did not reek of the necessities of war was the food, which was excellent. The rugged Colonel, lean as a race horse and as tough as whipcord, may in some former life when he was in Moscow have been an epicure and something of a good liver. Anyway the cooking was perfection.

In conversation with a number of the men who sat at table, I heard that their regiment had been in thirty-four actions since the war had started. The Colonel himself had been wounded no less than three times in the war. One Captain of the staff showed me a hat with a bullet hole in the top made in the last battle; while the Lieutenant-Colonel laughingly told me that they could not kill him at all; though he received seventeen bullets through his clothes since the war started he had never been scratched in any action in which he had been engaged. The tactical position of a Colonel in the Russian army is in the rear, I am told, but in this regiment I learned from one of the officers, the Colonel rarely was in the rear, and on more than one occasion he had led the charge at the very head of his men.

AN AFTERNOON AT THE “POSITIONS”

CHAPTER X
AN AFTERNOON AT THE “POSITIONS”

Dated:
Somewhere in Poland,
June 2, 1915.

Provided with carriages we left our hospitable Colonel for the front trenches 4 versts further on. As we were near the Front when we were at regimental head-quarters it was not deemed safe to take the motor-cars any further, on account of the clouds of dust which they leave in their wake.

The country here is spread out in great rolling valleys with very little timber and only occasional crests or ridges separating one beautiful verdant stretch of landscape from another. It struck one as quite obvious in riding over this country that the men who planned these roads had not taken war into consideration. Had they done so they certainly would not have placed them so generally along ridges, where one’s progress can be seen from about 10 versts in every direction. As I have mentioned in an earlier chapter, this particular army had not fallen back on its fortified and prepared line, but was camping out about 25 to 30 versts in front of it in positions which were somewhat informal. In riding through this country one has the unpleasant sensation that every time one shows up on a ridge, an enemy of an observing and enterprising disposition might be tempted to take a shot at one just for practice. My friend the banker soldier explained, however, that we should be difficult to hit, and anyway he rather enjoyed shell fire. “It is a sort of nice game,” he told me with a charming smile, “one finds it very entertaining and not altogether dangerous.”

However his insouciance did not prevent him taking the precaution of forbidding the use of motor-cars with their clouds of dust, and he was quite content that we should take the carriages, which made less of a target on the dry roads.

From regimental head-quarters we went up into a little gulch where we again found that we were expected, and a genial Colonel of a howitzer battery was waiting to entertain us. Five of our guns were sitting along the road with their muzzled noses up in the air at an angle of about 35 degrees waiting, waiting for some one to give them word to shoot at something or other.

Howitzer battery in Poland.

Batteries are always peculiarly fascinating to me; they always appear so perfect in their efficiency, and capable of getting work done when required. These five were of the 4-inch variety, with an elevation of forty-five degrees obtainable.

At a word from the Colonel they were cleared for action and their sighting apparatus inspected and explained. As usual they were equipped with panorama sights, with the aiming point a group of trees to the right and rear of the position, and with their observation point 3 miles away in a trench near the infantry line. The sixth gun was doing lonely duty a mile away in a little trench all by itself. This position the Colonel informed us was shelled yesterday by the enemy, who fired thirty-five 12-centimetre shells at them without scoring a single hit. After looking at the guns we spent an hour at tea, and then in our carts pushed on up the valley, where we found a regiment of Cossack cavalry in reserve. The hundreds of horses were all saddled and wandering about, each meandering where its fancy led. Everywhere on the grass and under the few clumps of brush were sitting or sleeping the men, few of whom had any shelter or tents of any kind, and the whole encampment was about as informal as the encampment of a herd of cattle. In fact the Cossacks impress one as a kind of game who have no more need of shelter or comforts than the deer of the forest. When they settle down for the night they turn their horses loose, eat a bit of ration and then sit under a tree and go to sleep. It is all very charming and simple. Our guide informed us that when they wanted their horses they simply went out and whistled for them as a mother sheep bleats for its young, and that in a surprisingly short time every soldier found his mount. The soldiers are devoted to their horses, and in a dozen different places one could see them rubbing down their mounts or rubbing their noses and petting them.

From this encampment the road went up to its usual place on the crest of the hill. The soldier driver of our carriage did not seem to feel the same amount of enthusiasm about the “nice game” of being shelled, and protested as much as he dared about taking the horses further; but being quietly sat upon, he subsided with a deep sigh and started up over the ridge in the direction of a clump of houses beyond another rise of ground at an astonishingly rapid speed. From the crest along which we travelled we had a beautiful view of a gently undulating valley lying peaceful and serene under the warm afternoon sun. A few insects buzzing about in the soft air near the carriage were the only signs of life about us. We drove up at a good round pace to the little clump of trees which sheltered a group of farm buildings. As we were getting out of our carriage there was a sharp report to the road on our right, and looking back I saw the fleecy white puff of a shrapnel shell breaking just over the road to the north of us. Like the bloom of cotton the smoke hung for an instant in the air and then slowly expanding drifted off. A moment later, almost in the same place, another beautiful white puff, with its heart of copper-red, appeared over the road, and again the sharp sound of its burst drifted across the valley. The Austrian shrapnel has a bit of reddish-brown smoke which must be, I think, from the bursting charge in the shell.

Cossacks on the Dniester. Officers’ quarters in the woods.

Our guide was quite delighted and smiled and clicked his heels cheerfully as he ushered us into the little room of the officer commanding the regiment in the trenches just ahead of us. Even as he greeted us, the telephone rang in the little low-ceilinged room of the cottage, and he excused himself as he went to reply to it. In a few minutes he came back with an annoyed expression on his face. “These unpleasant Austrians,” he said in disgust. “They are always up to their silly tricks. They have been shelling some Red Cross carts on the road. I have just ordered the howitzer battery in our rear to come into action and we shall see if we cannot give them a lesson in manners.”

After a few pleasantries he asked what it was that we would most like, and I replied in my stock phrases, “Observation points and trenches, if you please.” He stood for a moment studying the tip of his dusty boot; evidently he was not very eager about the job. However, he shrugged his shoulders and went back to the telephone, and after a few minutes conversation came back and said to us: “It is a very bad time to go into our trenches, as we have no covered ways, and in the daytime one is seen, and the enemy always begin firing. It is very unsafe, but if you are very anxious I shall permit one of you to go forward, though it is not convenient. When the enemy begin to fire, our batteries reply, and firing starts in all the trenches. The soldiers like to fight, and it doesn’t take much to start them.”

Put in this way none of us felt very keen about insisting. So we all compromised by a visit to a secondary position, which we were told was not very dangerous, as the enemy could only reach it with their shell fire and “of course no one minds that,” as the officer casually put it. We all agreed that, of course, we did not mind that, and so trooped off with the Colonel to the trenches and dug-outs where the troops who were not in the firing line were in immediate reserve.

The group of dug-outs was flanked with trenches, for, as the Colonel informed us, “Who knows when this position may be attacked?” And then he added, “You see, though we are not in the direct view of the enemy here, they know our whereabouts and usually about this time of day they shell the place. They can reach it very nicely and from two different directions. Yesterday it became so hot in our house that we all spent a quiet afternoon in the dug-outs.” He paused and offered us a cigarette, and as he did so there came a deep boom from our rear and a howitzer shell wailed over our heads on its mission of protest to the Austrians about firing on Red Cross wagons. A few seconds later the muffled report of its explosion came back across the valley. A second later another and another shell went over our heads. The Colonel smiled, “You see,” he said, “my orders are being carried out. No doubt the enemy will reply soon.”

His belief was justified. A moment later that extremely distressing sound made by an approaching shell came to our ears, followed immediately by its sharp report as it burst in a field a few hundred yards away. I looked about at the soldiers and officers around me, but not one even cast a glance in the direction of the smoke drifting away over the field near by. After wandering about his position for half or three-quarters of an hour, we returned to the cottage. It consisted of but three rooms. The telephone room, a little den where the officers ate, and a large room filled with straw on which they slept at night, when sleeping was possible.

Here we met a fine grey-haired, grizzled Colonel, who, as my banker friend informed me, commanded a neighbouring regiment, the — Grenadiers. He is one of our finest officers and is in every way worthy of his regiment, the history of which stretches back over two centuries. The officer himself looked tired and shabby, and his face was deeply lined with furrows. We read about dreadful sacrifices in the Western fighting, but I think this regiment, which again I regret that I cannot name, has suffered as much in this war as any unit on any Front. In the two weeks of fighting around Cracow alone it has dwindled from 4,000 men to 800, and that fortnight represented but a small fraction of the campaigning which it has done since the war started. Again and again it has been filled to its full strength, and after every important action its ranks were depleted hideously. Now there are very few left of the original members, but as an officer proudly said, “These regiments have their traditions of which their soldiers are proud. Put a moujik in its uniform and to-morrow he is a grenadier and proud of it.”

The Colonel, who sat by the little table as we talked, did not speak English, but in response to the question of a friend who addressed him in Russian, he said with a tired little smile, “Well, yes, after ten months one is getting rather tired of the war. One hopes it will soon be over and that one may see one’s home and children once more, but one wonders if——” He paused, smiled a little, and offered us a cigarette. It is not strange that these men who live day and night so near the trenches that they are never out of sound of firing, and never sleep out of the zone of bursting shells, whose every day is associated with friends and soldiers among the fallen, wonder vaguely if they will ever get home. The trench occupied by this man’s command was so exposed that he could only reach it unobserved by crawling on his stomach over the ridge, and into the shallow ditch that served his troops for shelter.

Leaving the little farm we drove back over the road above which we had seen the bursting shells on our arrival, but our own batteries, no doubt, had diverted the enemy from practice on the road, for we made the 3 versts without a single one coming our way.

It was closing twilight when we started back for the head-quarters that we had left in the early morning. The sun had set and the peace and serenity of the evening were broken only by the distant thunder of an occasional shell bursting in the west. From the ridge over which our road ran I could distinctly see the smoke from three different burning villages fired by the German artillery. One wonders what on earth the enemy have in mind when they deliberately shell these pathetic little patches of straw-thatched peasant homes. Even in ordinary times these people seem to have a hard life in making both ends meet, but now in the war their lot is a most wretched one. Apparently hardly a day passes that some village is not burned by the long range shells of the enemy’s guns. That such action has any military benefit seems unlikely. The mind of the enemy seems bent on destruction, and everywhere their foot is placed grief follows.

The next morning for several hours I chatted with the General and his Chief of Staff, and found, as always at the Front, the greatest optimism. “Have you seen our soldiers at the Front?” is the question always asked, and when one answers in the affirmative they say, “Well, then how can you have any anxiety as to the future. These men may retire a dozen times, but demoralized or discouraged they are never. We shall win absolutely surely. Do not doubt it.”