General Brussilov.
General Brussilov.
The unfortunate army of the Dunajec, whose commander and number are as well known in England as here, began then to fall back with what there was left of it on the San, tearing up railroads and fighting a rearguard action with what strength it could command. In the meantime the army of Brussilov, which up to this time had never been defeated, was well through the Carpathians and going strong. The crumbling of their right neighbour left them in a terrible plight, and only skilful and rapid manœuvring got them back out of the passes in time to get in touch with the fragments of the retreating centre, which by the time it reached the Sanhad got reinforcements and some ammunition. Brussilov’s right tried to hold Przemysl, but as the commander assured me, there was nothing left of the fortifications. Besides, as I gather from officers in that part of his army, further retirements of the next army kept exposing their flank, and made it imperative for the whole army to commence its retreat toward the Russian frontier.
I have good reason for believing that the Russian plan to retire to their own frontier was decided on when they lost Przemysl, and that the battles on the Grodek line, around Lwow, were merely rearguard actions. In any case, I do know that while the fighting was still in progress on the San, and just as Przemysl was taken, work was commenced on a permanent line of defence south of Lublin and Cholm, the line in fact which is at this moment being held by the Russians. My belief, then, is that everything that took place between the San and the present line must be considered inevitable in the higher interests of Russian strategy. The interim between leaving the San and taking up what is now approximately the line on which they will probably make a definite stand, will make a very fine page in Russian history. I cannot at this time go into any details, but the Allies will open their eyes when they know exactly how little the Russians had in the way of ammunition to hold off thismass of Germans and Austrians whose supply of shell poured in steadily week after week.
Next to the army of Brussilov is that army which had been assaulting and making excellent headway in the Eastern Carpathians. They, too, were attacked with terrible energy, but taken independently could probably have held on indefinitely. As it was they never moved until the retirement of all the other armies west of them rendered their position untenable. The German and Austrian communiques have constantly discussed the defeat of this army. The world can judge whether it was demoralized when it learns that in six weeks, from Stryj to the Zota Lipa, it captured 53,000 prisoners. During this same period, the army of Bukovina in the far left was actually advancing, and only came back to preserve the symmetry of the whole line. The problem of falling back over this extremely long front with five great armies, after the centre was completely broken, was as difficult an one as could well be presented. In the face of an alert enemy there were here and there local disasters and bags of Russian prisoners, but with all their skill, and with all their railroads, and superiority in both men and ammunition, the Germans and the Austrians have not been able to destroy the Russian force, which stands before them to-day on a new and stronger line.The further the Russians have retired, the slower has been their retreat and the more difficult has it been for the enemy to follow up their strokes with anything like the same strength and energy. In other words the Russians are pretty nearly beyond the reach of enemy blows which can hurt them fatally.
The Austrians have followed up the Eastern armies and claim enormous victories, but it must be pretty clear now, even to the Austrians and Germans, that these victories, which are costing them twice what they are costing the Russians, are merely rearguard actions. In any case the Austrian enthusiasm is rapidly ebbing away. After two months of fighting the Germans have finally swung their main strength back toward the line of Cholm-Lublin, with the probable intent of finishing up the movement by threatening Warsaw and thus closing up successfully the whole Galician campaign, which as many believe, had this end in view. But now they find a recuperated and much stronger Russian Army complacently awaiting them on a selected position which is in every way the best they have ever had.
As I write there is still much doubt as to whether the Germans will try and go further ahead here, for it is pretty clear that they are checked at this point, and that the Galician movement has reached its low-water mark as far as theRussians are concerned. The next blow will no doubt fall either north of Warsaw or possibly on the much-battered Bzura-Rawka Front itself, which for so many months has stood the wear and tear of many frantic efforts to break through.
THE FRONT OF IVANOV
Dated:Galician Frontier,June 28, 1915.
InRussia it is not a simple matter to change one’s “front.” For many months I have been associated with the group of armies over which Alexieff presides, where I have been able to move about from army to army with the utmost freedom. When I decided to change my base to the head-quarters of Ivanov and the front of Galicia I found myself surrounded by difficulties. For more than a month now, one could enter Warsaw without a permit or travel on the roads or pass to and from any of the towns in the area of war. I applied to my army friends in Warsaw and they, by permission of General Alexieff, kindly lent me a young officer whose duty it was to deliver me into the hands of the staff of the Galician Front.
We left Warsaw in my motor, not even knowing where the staff of Ivanov was, for at that moment it was on its way to a new destination, the retirementsfrom Galicia having thrown the commanding General too far west to be conveniently in touch with his left flank armies. Stopping at a point about 100 versts from Warsaw, we learned our destination, and two days later motored into the quaint little Russian town not too far from Galicia, where the presiding genius of the Eastern Campaign had arrived that very morning with his whole staff. Here we found Ivanov living on a special train with his head-quarters in a kind of old museum. As the staff had just arrived, everything was still in confusion and nothing had been done to make the room, which was as large as a barn, comfortable. In the centre were two enormous tables covered with maps, before which sat a rather tired-looking man with a great full beard. He arose as we entered, and after shaking hands bade us be seated.
General Ivanov.
General Ivanov.
My car in a Galician village.
My car in a Galician village.
General Ivanov is a man of about sixty, with a kindly gentle face and a low and musical voice. It is impossible to imagine him ever becoming excited or ever making a sudden movement. Everything about him suggests calm, balance, poise and absolute self-control. As he speaks only Russian I was obliged to talk with him entirely through an interpreter. He has very deep blue eyes with a kindly little twinkle in them that one suspects might easily turn to a point of fire if he were roused. Since meetinghim I have known many of his staff, and find that his personality is just what his appearance suggests. A great-hearted, kindly, unselfish man, he is worshipped by all whose duty it is to work with, for and under him. It is not etiquette according to the censor to quote anything that the General said, and I deeply regret this as I talked with him for an hour, and after the first thirty minutes felt as much at home as though I had known him a lifetime. His work and his army and the success of Russia make up his entire life. He impressed me as a big, earnest man, giving all the force of a powerful intellect to a very big job and doing it with the simplicity that is characteristic of all big men.
After a few commonplaces he asked me what I wanted. I told him quite frankly that from a news point of view, Russia, and the Galician campaign especially, was little known in the West. That the public in the West were depressed over the Russian reverses in Galicia, and that all of the friends of Russia wanted to know as accurately as possible what the conditions were in his armies. He leaned back in his chair and studied me closely for fully a minute, and then smiled a little, and the interpreter translated to me: “The General says that you may do what you like in his armies. He will detail an officer who speaks English to go with you. You mayvisit any army, any trench, any position or any organization that you wish, and he will give you the written permission. He will suggest a plan which he thinks advisable, but if you do not care for it you can make one up for yourself and he will give his consent to any programme that you care to suggest.” The General smiled and then bent forward over his maps, and with his pencil pointed out to me the general arrangement of his armies, and after some discussion advised that I should start on his extreme left flank, the last division of which was operating in Bukovina not far from the Roumanian frontier. We were to stop as long as we cared to, and then visit each army in turn until we had covered all in his group, when the officer who was to be detailed to accompany us would deliver us to the first army next to him that belonged to the Alexieff group.
He then sent for the officer who was to be our guide, and presently there appeared a tall, handsome young man who was introduced to us as Prince Oblensky, a captain of the Chevalier Guards, now serving as personal aide-de-camp to General Ivanov. From the moment that we met him the Prince took charge of us completely, and for two weeks he was our guide, philosopher and friend. In passing I must say that I have never known a man of sweeter disposition and amore charming companion than this young Captain, from whom I was not separated for above an hour or two at a time in fourteen days. The Prince took me around and introduced me to a number of the staff, and all of them talked freely and with very little reserve about the whole situation.
The point of view that I found at Ivanov’s staff was this. Russia with her long front could not be strong everywhere at once. Her railroad system and her industrial organization were in no way equal to the German. Their sudden concentration was irresistible, and almost from the start the Russians realized that they would have to go back. It was hoped that the Germans could not maintain their ascendancy of ammunition and strength beyond the San. Indeed, for a few days there was something of a lull in which the Russians made gains in certain places. Then the flow of ammunition was resumed, and from that time it was pretty well understood that the Grodek line, and Lwow, would be held only as rearguard actions to delay the German advance, and to take from them the maximum loss at the minimum sacrifice. This particular staff, in whose hands rested the conduct of the whole manœuvre, had then the task of withdrawing these armies over this vast front in such order and symmetry that as they retiredno one should overlap the flanks of the other, and that no loopholes should occur where an enemy could get through. With these numerous armies, operating in all kinds of countries with all sorts of lines of communications, falling back before fierce assaults from an enemy superior in guns and men, the performance of getting them safely back on to a united line where they could once more make a united stand, must, I think, take its place in history as one of the greatest military manœuvres that has ever been made.
I had just come from Petrograd where the greatest gloom prevailed in regard to the evacuation of Lwow, and I was surprised to find that no one here attached any great importance to Lwow. One officer of general’s rank remarked, “We do not believe in holding untenable military positions for moral effect. Lwow is of no great value to us from a military point of view, and the way the line developed it was impossible to stay there without great risk. So we left. By and by we will go back and take it again when we have more ammunition.” This was the first time that I heard this statement, but since then I have heard it at least a hundred times made by officers of all ranks from generals down to subalterns. All agreed that it was disappointing to come back after having fought so many monthsin taking Galicia, but I did not find one man who was in the least depressed; and from that day to this I have not heard in the army an expressed fear, or even a suggestion, that there might be a possibility that Russia would not prove equal to her task. The Russians as a race may be a bit slow in reaching conclusions, but once they get their teeth set I think there are no more stubborn or determined people in the world.
This retreat with all its losses and all its sacrifices has not, I think, shaken the courage of a single soldier in the whole Russian Army. They simply shut their teeth and pray for an opportunity to begin all over again. All eagerly assured me that the Germans and Austrians had lost far more than the Russians, and I was told by a high authority that the Germans estimated their own losses in two months at 380,000 killed, wounded and missing. One man significantly put the situation, “To judge of this movement one should see how it looks behind the German lines. In spite of their advances and bulletins of success, there has been great gloom behind their front. We know absolutely that every town and even every village in Eastern Silesia is filled with wounded, and in Breslau and Posen there is hardly a house that has not been requisitioned for the accommodation of wounded. Sincethe enemy crossed the Dunajec there has been an unbroken stream of wounded flowing steadily back across the frontier.Thiswe do not see in the papers printed in Germany. The Russian game is to keep on weakening the Germans. We would rather advance, of course, but whether we advance or retreat we are weakening the enemy day after day; sometime he will be unable to repair his losses and then we will go on again. Do not worry. All of this is but temporary. We are not in the least discouraged.”
Another statement which at first struck me as curious, but which I have since come to understand, was that the morale of the Austrians has been steadily decreasing since the capture of Przemysl and the fighting on the San. Since visiting Ivanov I have been in six armies and have talked in nearly all with the men who have been examining the Austrian prisoners. Their point of view seems to be pretty much the same. And when I say the Austrians, I mean, of course, the common soldiers and not the authorities or the officers. The Austrian soldiers’ view is something like this: “We have fought now for a year, and in May we had practically lost Galicia. The end of the war, for which we have never cared, was almost in sight. We hoped that soon there would be some kind of peace and we could go home. We had lostGalicia, but the average man in the Austrian Army cares little for Galicia. Just as the end seemed in sight, the Germans, whom we don’t like any way, came down here and dragged us along into this advance. At first we were pleased, but we never expected the Russians to hold out so long. Finally the Germans have given us back Lwow, and now little by little they are beginning to go away. It is only a question of time when they will all be gone either to France or against some other Russian front. Then the Russians will come back. Our officers will make us defend Lwow. They will make us defend the Grodek line, Przemysl and the Carpathians. The Russians are united. We are not. They will beat us as they did before. In the end we will be just where we were in May. It is all an extra fight, with more losses, more suffering and more misery. We owe it all to the Germans. We do not like it and we are not interested.”
I think this point of view is more or less typical, and it accounts in a large measure for the fact that even though they are advancing the Austrians are still surrendering in enormous blocks whenever they get the chance of doing so without being caught in the act by their Allies.
For the most part the men that I talked with here thought that the army had retired about as far as it would for the present. But one feelsconstant surprise at the stoicism of the Russian, who does not apparently feel the smallest concern at withdrawals, for, as they say, “If they keep coming on into Russia it will be as it was with Napoleon. They can never beat us in the long run, and the further they force us back the worse for them. Look at Moscow,” and they smile and offer you a cigarette. I have never in my life seen people who apparently have a more sublime confidence in their cause and in themselves than the Russians. Their confidence does not lie in their military technique, for I think all admit that in that the Germans are their superiors. It lies in their own confidence, in the stamina and character of the Russian people, who, when once aroused are as slow to leave off a fight as they are to begin it.
Throughout Russia to-day the strength of the war idea is growing daily. Every reverse, every withdrawal and every rumour of defeat only stiffens the determination to fight harder and longer. Time is their great ally they say, for Germany cannot, they are certain, fight indefinitely, while they believe that they can.
These opinions are not my own but the opinions of Russians. These men may be unduly enthusiastic about their countrymen, but what they say I have since heard all over the army at the Front; whether they are right or wrongthey may certainly be taken as typical of the natural view.
When I left Petrograd I was not cheerful as to the outlook in Galicia. When I left Ivanov’s head-quarters I felt more optimistic than I had been in six weeks.
HUNTING FOR THE ARMY OF THE BUKOVINA
Dated:Tlust, Galicia,June 30, 1915.
Thetown where General Ivanov lives is in Russia proper, and one may realize the scope of the military operations when one learns that the head-quarters of the army of his left flank is nearly 200 versts from the commander, while the furthest outpost of that army itself is perhaps 150 or 200 versts further still, which means that the directing genius is not far from 400 versts from his most distant line. After leaving the head-quarters we motored for 40 or 50 versts along the main line of communications of the whole group of armies, passing the usual endless train of transport and troops moving slowly forward to fill the ranks and replenish the supplies of the vast force that lies spread out ahead of us. For eleven months now, first in one part of Russia and then in another, Ihave been passing on the roads these endless chains of transport. Truly one begins to get the idea that there is nothing in the world nowadays but soldiers, guns, caissons and transport. One wonders where on earth it has all been kept in the days before August, a year ago, when a dozen transport carts or a battery of artillery was a sufficient novelty on the road to cause one to turn and look at it.
Forty versts from the head-quarters, we turn from the main road and strike off to the east and south toward Tarnopol, which though not the head-quarters of an army (if it were I could not mention it) is not too far away from the same. The road we follow is an excellent one as far as Kremenetz, a wonderfully picturesque little town tucked away in the hills, not far from the Russian-Galician frontier. Its quaint streets are now filled with the inevitable paraphernalia of war. From here by a road of lesser merit, we wind up a narrow road to one of the most picturesque spots I have ever seen, called Pochaief. This is the last town on the Russian side of the frontier. Here is a monastery a thousand years old, a Mecca to which come thousands of the devout peasantry from all over the Empire. The building itself is one of the greatest piles in Europe, and on its hill towers above the surrounding country so that it is visible for 20 versts withits golden dome shining in the summer sun. We reached the place late in the afternoon and learned that all the regular roads stopped here as it has apparently not been considered policy by either the Russian or Austrian Governments to have easy highways across the frontier. At this point we were perhaps 12 versts from the nearest good road in Galicia, a very trifling distance for a car that has been doing 70 or 80 versts an hour. The head of the police in Pochaief kindly lent us a gendarme, who assured us that we could get across the 12 intervening versts in an hour. So with this placid-faced guide we started about nine in the evening. This amiable gendarme, who had more goodwill than brains, in half an hour had led us into a country of bluffs, forests, bridle paths and worse that defy description. I neglected to say that General Ivanov had kindly given us an extra motor to carry our baggage, and extra chauffeurs, etc. The moon was just rising and we were digging ourselves out of difficulties for the tenth time when our guide announced that the road was now a perfectly clear and good one, and saluting respectfully left us in the wood with our cars groaning and panting and staggering over bumps and ditches until one came to have the most intense admiration for the gentlemen that design motor-cars. It is a mystery to mehow they ever stand the misery that they have to undergo.
By midnight we were sitting out on a ridge of hills stuck fast in a field with our engines racing, and the mud flying and the whole party pushing and sweating and swearing. No doubt our guide had foreseen this very spot and had had the discretion to withdraw before we reached it. This was the exact frontier, and with its rolling hills and forests stretching before us in the quiet moonlight it was very beautiful. Our Prince, who never gets discouraged or ruffled, admired the scenery and smoked a cigarette, and we all wished for just one moment of our guide, for whom we had sundry little pleasantries prepared. While we were still panting and gasping, a figure on horseback came over the hill and cautiously approached us. He proved to be a policeman from the Galician side who had come out as the Prince told us because he had heard our engines and thought that a German aeroplane “had sat down on the hill” and he had come out to capture it. He was slightly disappointed at his mistake, but guided us back to the village whence he had come. Near here we found a beautiful Austrian estate, where we woke up the keeper and made him give us “my lady’s” bed chamber for the night, which he did grudgingly.
Our troubles were now over, for after one breakdown in the morning we were on a good highway which ranviâPotkaimen down to Tarnopol. At Potkaimen we were again on the line of travel, with the line of creaking transport and jangling guns and caissons. I have never passed through a more beautiful or picturesque country in my life, and wonder why tourists do not come this way. Apparently until the war these villages were as much off the beaten path as though they were in the heart of Africa. Rolling hills, forests, with silvery lakes dotting the valleys, extend for miles with wonderful little streams watering each small water-shed between the ridges. The roads are fine, and the last 60 versts into Tarnopol we made in record time. A few miles from the city we began to pass an endless line of carts bearing all sorts and descriptions of copper. It was evident that many distilleries and other plants had been hurriedly dismantled, and everything in them containing copper shipped away less it fall into the hands of the copper-hungry enemy.
Here, too, we passed long lines of the carts of the Galician peasantry fleeing from the fear of the German invasion. It strikes one as extraordinary that these inhabitants, many of whose husbands, brothers and fathers are fighting in the Austrian Armies, should take refuge inflight at the rumour of their approach. It is a sad commentary on the reputation of the Germans that even the peoples of their Allies flee at the report of their approach. The name of Prussian down here seems to carry as much terror to the Galician peasant as ever it did to the Belgians or the Poles in other theatres of war. The peasantry are moving out bag and baggage with all the pathos and misery which the abandonment of their homes and lifelong treasures spells to these simple folk. Even ten months’ association with similar scenes does not harden one to the pitifulness of it all. Little children clinging to their toys, mothers, haggard and frightened, nursing babes at their breasts, and fathers and sons urging on the patient, weary, family horse as he tugs despairingly at the overloaded cart weighted down with the pathetic odds and ends of the former home.
Tarnopol itself was a great surprise to me. It is a typical Austrian town with a lovely park in the centre and three hotels which are nearly first class. Paved streets, imposing public buildings and a very fine station, besides hundreds of lovely dwelling houses, make a very beautiful little town; and with its setting in the valley, Tarnopol seems an altogether desirable place. Here as elsewhere troops are seething. The station is a military restaurant and emergency hospitalcombined. One of the waiting-rooms has been turned into an operating and dressing-room, and when there is fighting on at the front the whole place is congested with stretchers and the atmosphere reeks of disinfectants and ether fumes.
We stopped here only overnight, for we are bound to the furthest stretch of our front to the south-east. In the evening there came through battalion after battalion of troops swinging through the streets, tired, dirty and battle stained, but, with it all, singing at the top of their lungs. These men were moving from one front to another, and most of them had been fighting for weeks. The first glance was sufficient to make one realize that these troops were certainly not down-hearted.
In strong contrast to the Russians was the sight of the latest haul of prisoners which passed through the next morning—several thousand Austrians and two or three hundred Germans.
In spite of their being caught at the hightide of their advance movement the Austrians had the same broken-hearted expression that I have seen in tens of thousands of Austrian prisoners for ten months. I have now seen Austrians from every quarter of their Empire, and I must say I have never seen a squad of prisoners who have not had the same expression of hopelessness and resignation. These were well-clothedand for prisoners moderately clean. The critic may say that prisoners always look depressed and dejected, but to judge the Austrians, one must compare them with the Germans, and it was possible to do so on this occasion, for directly behind the troops of the Hapsburgs came two or three hundred Germans. I have never seen such spectacles in my life. Worn, haggard, ragged and tired they were, but in contrast to the Austrians, they walked proudly, heads thrown back, glaring defiantly at the curious crowds that watched them pass. Whether they are prisoners or conquerors the German soldiers always wear the same mien of superiority and arrogance. But the significance of this group was not their self-respect and defiance of their captivity but their condition. I have never in war seen men so nearly “all-in” as these prisoners. Two in the line had no shirts, their ragged coats covering their bare, brown breasts. Some had no hats, all were nearly in rags, the boots of many were worn thin and many of them limped wearily. Boys of eighteen marched by men who looked a hundred, though I suppose they were under fifty actually. One saw a giant of 6 feet 5 inches walking by a stripling of 5 feet 2 inches. Their faces were thin and drawn, and many of them looked as if one might have hung hats on their cheek-bones. These men may be wrongand they may be cruel, but one must admit that they are object lessons in fortitude, and whatever they are they are certainly soldiers. In wagons behind came wounded Germans, mostly privates. Later I discovered that a number of these troops had just come from the French front. As one said, “Arrived at noon, captured at three.” Their explanation of their capture was that their officer lost the way. Further examination brought forth the information that nearly all their officers had been killed; and that the bulk of the company officers were now either young boys or old men who knew little of maps or military matters, which accounted for them getting lost and falling into the Russian hands. The Austrians were captured because, as usual, they wanted to be. The numbers of the prisoners seen here, that is 2,000 Austrians and 200 Germans, is just about the proportion in which morale and enthusiasm in the war exists in the two armies.
Next morning having obtained the necessary permits we took our motors and headed south for the army lying on the Dniester with its flank in the Bukovina.
THE RUSSIAN LEFT
Germanikowka, Galicia,July 3, 1915.
Thearmy of the Bukovina, or the extreme Russian left, is probably the most romantic organization operating in one of the most picturesque countries in the whole theatre of this gigantic war. In the first place the left is composed very largely of the type of cavalry which I think no other country in the world can duplicate, that is the irregular horsemen brought from all parts of the East. Tribes from the Caucasus, Tartars, Mongols, and I know not what others, are here welded together into brigades and divisions, and make, all told, nearly two complete army corps with only a sprinkling of infantry and regular cavalry. It was this army that gained such headway in its advance toward the Hungarian plain, and it is this very army that is credited with so alarming the Hungarians that they threatened independent peace unless something was done for them. That something we know now was Austria’s wail to Germany and the resulting Galician campaign.
During all the first part of the great German drive, this army with its hordes of wild cavalry was proceeding confidently “hacking its way through” all resistance, and capturing thousands upon thousands of Austrians or Hungarians that came in its way. For nearly a month after things were going badly in the West, it was moving victoriously forward until it became evident that unless it stopped it would find itself an independent expedition headed for Buda-Pest and completely out of touch with the rest of the Russian line which was withdrawing rapidly. Then came a pause, and as the flanking armies continued to retreat, the army was very unwillingly obliged to retire also to keep in touch with its neighbour. My own impression as to the spirits of this army, especially of the cavalry corps, is similar to the impression one forms when one sees a bulldog being let loose from another hound whom he has down, and is chewing luxuriously when his master comes along, and drags him away on a leash. So these troops have retired snarling and barking over their shoulders, hoping that the enemy would follow close enough to let them have another brush with them.
G. H. Mewes.
G. H. Mewes.
There has been fighting of more or less acuteness, especially where German troops have been engaged, but taken on the whole this portion ofthe Russian front cannot be considered a serious one and their withdrawal has been forced by the greater strategy. I found many of the younger officers of the opinion that they could advance at any time if they only had the permission from the powers that be. As for the soldiers—a single look into those set swarthy faces was enough to satisfy one that they would willingly advance in any event regardless of policy or orders either. I have never seen such fierce looking men in my life. Many of them do not speak Russian, and to them the war is a real joy. Heretofore they have had to be content to fight among themselves for nothing in particular; now that they have a chance to fight for something really great they are in their element. I question how valuable troops of this character would be under different conditions, but here in this rough Bukovina country they are nearly ideal for their work, as is manifest from the manner in which they have swept the enemy before them.
On leaving Tarnopol we came directly to the head-quarters of one of these corps, where we spent three extremely interesting days. The position which this army was holding is, in a rough way, from the junction of the Zota Lipa and the Dniester, down that river to a point perhaps 20 versts west of Chocin, and thencein an irregular line 40 or 50 versts through Bukovina in the direction of the Roumanian frontier. The Dniester itself is a deep-flowing river lying between great bluffs which for miles skirt the river bank on both sides. These bluffs are for the most part crested with heavy timber. In a general way the Russians are holding one bank, and the Austrians the other, though here and there patches of Russians have clung to the South side, while in one or two spots Austrians backed by Germans have gained a foothold on the north bank. The first afternoon I arrived, I went out to a 356 metre hill from where I could look over the whole country. I discerned easily the lines of the Austrian and Russian positions between which was the valley through which flowed the Dniester. There are any number of young Petrograd swells here who have left their crack cavalry corps, many of which are dismounted and fighting in the trenches in Poland and on other fronts, to put on the uniform of the Cossack and lead these rough riders of the East in their romantic sweeps towards the Hungarian plains. I have been in some armies where I found hardly any one who spoke English, but in this one corps I found nearly a score who spoke it, many as well as I did, which indicates pretty clearly the type of young men that Russia has here, and is onereason, no doubt, why the army has done so well.
Stanley Washburn, Prince Oblensky, Count Tolstoy, Count Keller.
Stanley Washburn, Prince Oblensky, Count Tolstoy, Count Keller.
Here I met Count Tolstoi, son of the novelist; Count Keller, whose father was killed by Japanese shrapnel on the Motienling Pass in Manchuria, and many other men whose names are well known in Russia. Count Keller was the ranking Captain in a squadron (sotnia, I believe they call it) of cavalry from the Caucasus, and carried us off to his lair in a valley not far from the Dniester. Here we met a courteous old Persian who commanded the regiment, and dined in a quaint old castle where they had their head-quarters. Deep in its little valley, the castle was not seen by the Austrians, but had long since been spotted by the aeroplanes of the enemy. The result was that every afternoon a few shells were sent over the southern ridge of hills, just to let the regimental staff know that they were not forgotten. The day before we arrived twelve horses were killed in the garden, and while we were cleaning up for dinner, a shrapnel shell whined through the yard bursting somewhere off in the brush.
After dinner the dancers of the regiment came up and in the half-light performed their weird evolutions. In long flowing coats, with their oriental faces, emitting uncanny sounds from their mouths, they formed a picture that I shall long remember. Count Keller told me that inspite of all their wildness they were fine troops to command, for, as he said, “They have very high ideals of their profession. I may be killed or wounded, but I am always sure that my men will never leave me. They cannot speak my tongue, but there is not a man in my command who would not feel himself permanently disgraced if he left the body of his officer on the field of battle. They are absolutely fearless and will go anywhere, caring nothing whatever for death, wounds, hardship or anything else that war brings forth. I am very fond of them indeed.”
The positions at this point were about three versts distant from our little isolated valley, and as they were out on the crest of the bluff it was impossible to visit them until after dark. So on the great veranda of the castle we sat late after our dinner, until darkness fell and a great full moon rose slowly above the neighbouring hills flooding the valley with its silver rays, bringing out the old white castle as clearly in the darkness as a picture emerges from a photographic plate when the developer is poured upon it. It was just after midnight when Count Keller and I, well mounted on Cossack ponies, rode down into the valley and turned our horses on to the winding road that runs beside the little stream that leaps and gurgles over the rocks on the way to the Dniester. For a mileor more we followed the river, and then turning sharply to the right, took a bridle path and climbed slowly up the sharp side of the bluff. For fifteen or twenty minutes we rode through the woods, now in the shadow and now out in an opening where the shadows of the branches swaying softly in the moonlight made patterns on the road. Suddenly we came out upon a broad white road where the Count paused.
“We are advised to leave the horses here,” he remarked casually, “Shall we go on? Are you afraid?” Not knowing anything about the position I had no ideas on the subject, so we continued down the moonlit road, and while I was wondering where we were, we came out abruptly on the bluff just above the river, where the great white road ran along the crest for a mile or more. I paused for a moment to admire the view. Deep down below us, like a ribbon of silver in the shimmering moonlight, lay the great river. Just across on the other bank was the Austrian line with here and there spots of flickering light where the Austrians had fires in their trenches. There was not a sound to mar the silence of the perfect night save the gentle rustle of the wind in the trees. “The Austrians can see us plainly from here,” remarked the Count indifferently. “Gallop!” The advice seemed sound to me, but not knowingthe country I was obliged to reply, “Which way?” “Right,” he replied laconically.
It is sufficient to say that I put spurs to my horse, and for the mile that lay exposed in the moonlight my little animal almost flew while the Count pounded along a close second just behind me. A mile away we reached the welcome shadows of a small bunch of trees, and as I rode into the wood I was sharply challenged by a guttural voice, and as I pulled my horse up on his haunches a wild-looking Cossack took my bridle. Before I had time to begin an explanation, the Count came up and the sharp words of the challenge were softened to polite speeches of welcome from the officer in command.
We were in the front line trench or rather just behind it, for the road lay above it while the trench itself was between it and the river where it could command the crossing with its fire. Here as elsewhere, I found men who could speak English, the one an officer and the other a man in charge of a machine gun. This man had been five years in Australia and had come back to “fight the Germans,” as he said. For an hour we sat up on the crest of the trench under the shadow of a tree, and watched in the sky the flare of a burning village to our right, which was behind the Russian lines, and had been fired just at dark by Austrian shells. Ifound that all the Russians spoke well of the Austrians. They said they were kindly and good-natured, never took an unfair advantage, lived up to their flags of truce, etc. Their opinion of the Germans was exactly the opposite. One man said, “Sometimes the Austrians call across that they won’t shoot during the night. Then we all feel easy and walk about in the moonlight. One of our soldiers even went down and had a bathe in the river, while the Austrians called across to him jokes and remarks, which of course he could not understand. The Germans say they won’t fire, and just as soon as our men expose themselves they begin to shoot. They are always that way.”
Cossacks dancing the Tartars’ native dance.
Cossacks dancing the Tartars’ native dance.
I have never known a more absolutely quiet and peaceful scene than this from the trench on the river’s bluff. As I was looking up the streak of silver below us, thinking thus, there came a deep boom from the east and then another and another, and then on the quiet night the sharp crackle of the machine guns and the rip and roar of volley firing. It was one of those spasms of fighting that ripple up and down a line every once in a while, but after a few minutes it died away, the last echoes drifting away over the hills, and silence again reigned over the Dniester. The fire in the village was burning low, and the firstgrey streaks of dawn were tinging the horizon in the east when we left the trench, and by a safer bridle path returned to the castle and took our motor-car for head-quarters which we reached just as the sun was rising.
The positions along this whole front are of natural defence and have received and required little attention. Rough shelter for the men, and cover for the machine guns is about all that any one seems to care for here. The fighting is regarded by these wild creatures as a sort of movable feast, and they fight now in one place and now in another. Of course they have distinctive lines of trenches, though they cannot compare with the substantial works that one finds in the Bzura-Rawka lines and the other really serious fronts in Poland and elsewhere. In a general way it matters very little whether the army moves forward or backward just here. The terrain for 100 versts is adapted to defence, and the army can, if it had to do so, go back so far without yielding to the enemy anything that would have any important bearing on the campaign of the Russian Army as a whole. From the first day that I joined this army, I felt the conviction that it could be relied upon to take care of itself, and that its retirements or changes of front could be viewed with something approaching to equanimity.
WITH A RUSSIAN CAVALRY CORPS
On the Dniester,July 4, 1915.
Itwould not be in the least difficult for me to write a small volume on my impressions and observations during the time that I was with this particular cavalry corps on the Dniester; but one assumes that at this advanced period in the war, readers are pretty well satiated with descriptive material of all sorts, and there is so much news of vital importance from so many different fronts, that the greatest merit of descriptive writing in these days no doubt lies in its brevity. I will therefore cut as short as possible the account of my stay in this very interesting organization.
The General in command was a tough old cavalry officer who spoke excellent English. He was of the type that one likes to meet at the Front, and his every word and act spoke of efficiency and of the soldier who loves his profession. His head-quarters were in a little dirty village, and his rooms were in the second storyof an equally unpretentious building. The room contained a camp-bed and a group of tables on which were spread the inevitable maps of the positions. This particular General as far as I could gather spent about one half of each day poring over his maps, and the other half in visiting his positions. Certainly he seemed to know every foot of the terrain occupied by his command, and every by-path and crossroad seemed perfectly familiar to him. Without the slightest reservation (at least as far as I could observe) he explained to me his whole position, pointing it out on the map. When he began to talk of his campaign he immediately became engrossed in its intricacies. Together we pored over his map. “You see,” he said, “I have my — brigade here. To the left in the ravine I have one battery of big guns just where I can use them nicely. Over here you see I have a bridge and am across the river. Now the enemy is on this side here (and he pointed at a blue mark on the map) but I do not mind; if he advances I shall give him a push here (and again he pointed at another point on the map), and with my infantry brigade I shall attack him just here, and as you see he will have to go back”; and thus for half an hour he talked of the problems that were nearest and dearest to his heart. He was fully alive to the benefits that publicity might givean army, and did everything in his power to make our visit as pleasant and profitable as possible.