FIELD HOTES FROM
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
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STANLEY WASHBURN
LIBRARY
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA
PRESENTED BY
ROBERT WESSON
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive
in 2008 witii funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
littp://www.arcliive.org/details/fieldnotesfromruOOwasli
TRAILS, TRAPPERS,
AND TENDERFEET.
By STANLEY WASHBURN.
Demy Svo., Cloth, Fully Illustrated.
Price 10s. 6d. net. Second Edition.
The Times —
This vigorous and charming book.
Westminster Gazette —
Makes the reviewer forget his functions, and
turns him into a boy who can stomach any
amount of rhetoric if only he is allowed to
bear a hand in building that wonderful raft.
The Nation —
A fresh and vivid account of conditions that
will have disappeared with the present genera-
tion.
The Times —
(A second review.) A dehghtful record by
a true lover of the wilds who has the gift of
writing.
Evening Standard —
A remarkably fascinating Hfe is this to which
Mr. Washburn introduces us.
LONDON: ANDREW MELROSE, LTD.
"A Fresh and Inspiring Story."
TWO IN THE
WILDERNESS.
By STANLEY WASHBURN.
Price 6s. Fourth Edition.
The Times —
The reader is never wearied with the excess
of music upon one note.
The Morning Post —
A fresh and inspiring story.
The Observer —
A romance of rare reaHsm.
Westminster Gazette —
Well done ; very well done, in fact.
Pall Mall Gazette —
Differs entirely from the ordinary novel. . . .
Has a peculiar fascination.
Liverpool Post —
Wholly enjoyable and conspicuously fresh.
One of the sweetest and most wholesome
romances we have read for a long time.
Saturday Review —
A more than ordinarily attractive novel.
LONDON: ANDREW MELROSE, LTD.
FIELD NOTES FROM
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
Other Books by
STANLEY WASHBURN.
Trails, Trappers, and Ten-
derfeet
Price 10s. 6d. net. Second Edition.
Nogi
Large crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. net.
The Cable Game
Price 4s. 6d. net.
Two in the Wilderness: A
Romance of North-Western
Canada
Price 6s. Fourth Edition.
London : Andrew Melrose, Ltd.
'MOrC Er RECORO PRESS. :. fETTEH L»-»E t.C
GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS.
|FIELD NOTES FROM
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
By
STANLEY WASHBURN
(Special War Correspondent of the
" Times " with the Russian Armies)
Illustrated by the Photographs of George H. Mewes
THIRD IMPRESSION
LONDON : ANDREW MELROSE, LTD.
NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
a
4:
Co
LORD NORTHCLIFFE
IN APPRECIATION OF HIS EFFECTIVE SUPPORT AND
CO-OPERATION WHICH ALONE MADE POSSIBLE
MY WORK WITH THE RUSSIAN ARMY
PUBLISHERS' NOTE
WHEN Mr. Washburn sent the original
t3rpescript of the notes that make up
this volume, he accompanied it with a letter in
which he said he depended on the writer to exer-
cise his judgment as to whether the matter should
be published in book form or not : and in case
of publication to give it careful and if need be
drastic revision. The writer's judgment being
that there was in these notes a sincere and even
valuable book, there remained but to take advan-
tage of the free hand which the Author gave him
in the matter of revision.
The result is a considerably compressed book,
but owing, however, to the limitations of time and
knowledge on the part of the writer, and the
impossibility of submitting proofs to the Author,
there are no doubt technical and literary crudities
which Mr. Washburn would have made right in
normal circumstances. For the present they
must remain, and if in trying to improve a passage
which bad typescript made difficult to under-
stand, the writer has made "howlers," he hereby
absolves Mr. Washburn and accepts full blame.
A. M.
— II —
PREFACE
NO one realizes better than the writer the
ephemeral character of the rough notes
which form the bulk of the matter contained
in this volume, and it has been with some
hesitation that the material has been placed in
the hands of the publisher for reproduction in
book form. Much of the contents has already
appeared in The Times (London), and various
leading influential newspapers in America. It is
by permission of the proprietors and editors of
these journals that they are now reproduced, and
to them the author extends his thanks for this
permission.
The excuse for having these articles reprinted
now is that the subject matter is still of
current interest. The author is well aware that
it is impossible to write authoritatively of oper-
ations so recent and of which at best he has
been able to see but a trifling portion. He
believes, however, that in Russian Poland will
be decided the ultimate issue of the great contest
— 13 —
PREFACE
that is now shaking the civihzed world, and of
Russia and the Russian armies there is less
known perhaps than of any other of the factors
now in the field. These Field Notes may be of
no vast importance, but it is with the belief that
impressions gained at first hand of this army and
of their operations, of which so little is known,
may be of interest, and perhaps of encourage-
ment, to the Allies and the sympathizers of the
Allies in neutral countries, that the writer is
having them published in book form.
In justice to the writer it should be remem-
bered that these notes were for the most part
written during the period he was with the Russian
army in October and February, 191 4-1 5, and were,
almost without exception, turned out under great
pressure. Many of them were written on trains,
and many late at night in hotels between opera-
tions. A few days in Petrograd between trips
have been available in which to throw these notes
together in the too loose form in which they
are now presented. The intention of holding the
material for a more serious and painstaking work
has been abandoned in the interest of immediate
publication, in the hope that the subject matter,
such as it is, may be in print early enough to
convey to England, and those in America who
are in sympathy with the Allies, the impressions
of the Russian armies by a neutral observer at a
— 14 —
PREFACE
time when any good news from Russia must
have more usefulness than finished hterature
published after the smoke has cleared away and
the crisis is past.
The illustrations are from the admirable photo-
graphs taken by George H. Mewes, of the Daily
Mirror (London), who was the only English pho-
tographer officially attached to the Russian army
and who accompanied the writer throughout
the trip described herein.
S. W.
Warsaw, Russia,
February i, 1915.
15
CONTENTS
Publishers' Note
Preface
CHAP.
I The New Russia
II A Day with the General Staff
III What the Russians are Doing in
Hospitals ....
Their
IV The Russians in Lemberg.
V The Psychology of War .
VI A Cross-Section of Galicia
VII On the Path of War
VIII The Women in the War .
IX The Russian Conquest of Galicia
X Warsaw
XI The First German Invasion of Poland
XII A Rearguard Action.
PAGE
II
13
25
41
51
61
69
79
91
lOI
109
127
135
149
XIII A Religious Service on the Field of Battle 159
— 17 — B
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
XIV Scenes on the Road in Poland . . 167
XV The Taking of Kielce .... 177
XVI The Fighting Around Ivangrod . . 191
XVII The Romance of War .... 209
XVIII Warsaw during the Second German Ad-
vance ....... 227
XIX A Night Attack in a Snow-storm . . 237
XX A Visit to the Trenches . . . 249
XXI Inspecting the Warsaw Front . . 261
XXII The North Bzura Front . . 275
XXIII Conclusion 285
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE
PAGE
The Grand Duke Nicholas. {Photo by Record Press) Frontispiece
A Russian Airship near the German Lines . -32
Russian Infantry on the March .... 36
Russian Wounded at a Base Hospital in Poland . 52
Times Correspondents' Car in Difficulties : Austrian
Prisoners help to Rescue Car . . , .62
Austrian Prisoners by the Railway .... 64
A Russian Grave in Galicia ..... 70
Austrian Grave in the Trenches (Galicia) ... 72
Stanley Washburn talking with a wounded Austrian . 74
A Russian Artist sketches a Spy who has just been
arrested ........ 80
Bridge over the Dneister destroyed by the Austrians
during their Retreat ...... 82
Railway Bridge over the Dneister destroyed by the
Austrians before retreating. . . . .84
Bridge over River Dneister destroyed by the Austrians 86
GaHcian Village destroyed by Russian Artillery. Note
how the Churches have been spared ... 92
HaHcz ......... 96
Correspondents' Special Train . . . . .105
Gahcian Peasants . . . . . . .112
Transport fording a River in Poland : remains of de-
stroyed Bridge can be seen in the Foreground . 114
Transport crossing a River in Poland, the Bridge having
been destroyed by the Germans. . . .118
Cross with Figure partly shattered by SheU Fire . 120
— 19 —
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Church destroyed by Artillery. Note the Cross un
touched .......
Austrian Prisoners with their Russian Guard
A Cossack Patrol entering a Pohsh Village during the
German Retreat .....
Stanley Washburn chatting with German and Austrian
Prisoners in Poland . ...
Graves of Russian Officers killed during the Fighting
near Warsaw ......
Uhlans captured by the Cossacks
A Battlefield in Poland ....
German Prisoner and his Russian Guard .
Service on the Battlefield : a Prayer.
Service on the Battlefield : Soldiers at Prayer .
Service on the Battlefield : placing Prayer-Book on
Bayonets .......
Service on the Battlefield : Priest showing the Cross to
the Troops ......
Transport passing through a Polish Village
A Cossack Patrol ......
Occupation of Kielce by the Russians during the Ger
man Retreat in Poland ....
Russian Field Gun in Action (Poland)
Russian Field Gun in Action (Poland)
Austrian Prisoners resting by the Road-side
Russian Infantry passing through Kielce, following up
the German Retreat from Warsaw
Transport in Marsh Land. ....
Russian Advance Guard occupies Kielce .
Ammunition Wagon left by the Austrians after the
Battle of Avgoustow .....
A Russian Grave near Avgoustow
Villagers in Poland searching amongst the Ruins of their
Homes .......
— 20 —
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE
PAGE
Russian Soldiers Entrenching (Poland) . . .216
A Siberian Pony in Difficulries. . . . .222
Correspondents' Car in Difficulties : Russian Soldiers to
the Rescue . . . . . . .228
A Russian Soldier writing Home from the Trenches . 238
Times Correspondent (Stanley Washburn) and Maj.-
Gen. Sir Hanbury Williams .... 250
A Soldier's Dug-out. . . . . . -254
The Colours in the Trenches . . . . .256
— 21
THE NEW RUSSIA
CHAPTER I
THE NEW RUSSIA
Petrograd, Russia,
September lo, 1914.
WHEN Wilhelm H of Germany signed the
declaration of war against Russia, the
hour struck throughout this vast empire which
the future historian will register as one of the
great epoch-making moments in the history not only
of this month and year, but in that greater narrative
on whose great white page the rise and fall of races
and the ebb and flow of civilizations as registered
by centuries are traced. For in this hour there
dawned in Russia a new era, and from the
twilight of the ten years of chaos and uncer-
tainty which followed the Japanese war there
can now be traced the rising of a great light in
which the world shall see a New Russia revealed,
a country alert and ready to take its place
among the progressive nations of the world.
The philosophy of the Teutons has completely
misjudged the psychology of the Russian
— 25 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
nation. There seems small doubt that the Ger-
mans believed, if worse came to worse, that by-
raising the old familiar cry of the " Slav Peril "
the sympathy of the world would be immediately
gained. But the reasoning of the diplomats
has proved of no avail. The cry now falls upon
deaf ears, because the world is just beginning
to realize that the menace of the Slav is a
gradually disappearing bogey. When the history
of this war is written, it will be seen that the
hour that the Kaiser had intended for the de-
struction of Russia proved in fact to be the
hour in which she entered into her own among
the modern nations of the world.
Ten years ago the misery and mortification of
the disastrous war with Japan hung like a cloud
over the whole of Russia. It was the privilege of the
writer to be in Russia five times during the period
embraced by that Russian national calamity.
In Petersburg every form of civil and economic
disorder was rampant. In the provinces riots and
confusion of all sorts and descriptions abounded.
The Press of the world screamed aloud in letters
six inches high, that the dissolution of the empire
was at hand, that Russia would collapse ; and
indeed nothing that could spell impending dis-
aster was overlooked in the lurid reports of the
observers in Russia. All over the land there
were protest and unrest. Chaos and anarchy
— 26 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
seemed the order of the day, and the outlook
was gloomy indeed. As we look back now we
can see that from that dismal period great good
has come, for in the hour of gloom and disaster
the ground was broken for the new and better
Russia that just now is looming bigger and
bigger before the world each day. Out of the
darkness has come light, and from travail and
agony has come the birth of a new spirit and
a unity in Russia such as its centuries of his-
tory fail to record.
No doubt this seems effusive and exaggerated
to English and American readers, who know of
Russia only as a mysterious and traditional
menace ; but that this change is a definite and
realized fact, no one who knew Russia ten years
ago and sees it now can for a moment doubt.
Perhaps the best means of illustrating the altered
spirit in this war, and the spirit during and after
the Russo-Japanese war, is by the narration of
two incidents, pictures, as it were, of the heart of
the Russian people ten years apart.
In January, 1905, after the fall of Port Arthur and
the collapse of the Russian programme, rebellion
against, and hostility towards, the Government
were everywhere manifest. On the historic day of
January 22, 1905, an army of peasants, bearing a
monster petition, moved down the Nevsky
Prospekt and on towards the Winter Palace to
— 27 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
present their grievances to their monarch in
person. They were met with machine guns and
Cossacks, and in a few minutes the streets ran
red with blood. For weeks there was martial
law within this district, and by day and by night
patrols of Cossacks could be seen riding up and
down, patrolling the silent, snow-clad streets of
Russia's greatest city. The Czar was threatened,
and the Grand Duke Sergius was assassinated.
Threats of all kinds of violence were openly made :
many were carried out ; and such a thing as unity
in Russia was a dream.
Since those dreadful days a new leaven has
been working throughout the whole empire, and
slowly, subtly and unseen, the great forces of
progress and new light have been working. This
neither the Germans nor perhaps even the Rus-
sians themselves fully realized until the declaration
of war with Germany, when overnight there crys-
tallized a national spirit of unity such as few
countries have ever seen. And on that day we
have almost in the exact spot as the incident of
January 22, 1905, another picture. Let the two
be contrasted.
Before the Winter Palace, the great red home
of the Czars, stretches an enormous semicircle,
which forms one of the greatest arenas in Europe.
This is what we see now : More than 100,000
people of all classes and of all ranks standing
— 28 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
for hours in the blazing sun before the build-
ing within which is their monarch. Quietly
and orderly they wait, without hysteria and
with the patience so characteristic of their race.
At last the Czar, moved by the magnitude of the
demonstration, appears upon the balcony over-
looking the square. Instantly the entire throng
sinks upon its knees and with absolute spontaneity
sings the deep- throated anthem of the Russian
race. For perhaps the first time since Napoleon's
invasion of Russia the people and their Czar were
one, and the strength that unity spreads in a
nation stirred .throughout the empire, from the
far fringes of the Pacific littoral to the German
frontier.
The observer of a day might perhaps have said,
" Ah, yes, 'tis ever so in war. But it will pass."
Now the great thing, and the significant thing,
is that the unity has not passed, but has grown
steadily from that day. And its growth has not
been at all of the spectacular kind, but of the
deep and fundamental order which is expressed
by millions and millions of humble individuals
gladly giving their mite and making their sacrifices
on the altar of the new nationalism that has
swept the country.
Here in Petrograd one sees changes in senti-
ment that are almost incredible. The first night
I arrived I wandered round to a favourite
— 29 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
restaurant where on many previous visits I had
taken my meals. The great dining-room was
closed, and the brilliantly uniformed band that
used to play was no more. The halls and cor-
ridors that ten years ago were filled with gay
Russian officers were now abandoned. When
I at last found the manager I asked him of the
change. " Come with me," he said ; "I will
show you what the war means to us." Then he
led me through a back corridor into the other
bemirrored room where light and gaiety reigned
of old till daylight. In the dim illumination
of a few sprays of electric lights I recognized
the former pleasure pavilion. All was dust and
dirt, the hangings were gone and mirrors boarded
up.
" What does it mean ? " I asked curiously.
The manager smiled, and turning out his palms
deprecatingly answered, " War. It is because of
the mobilization of our reservists. The morning
after war was declared, comes here a policeman
at eight in the morning and tells us that the
Government occupies my dining-rooms at 8.30
for the mobilization of its troops. For many
days they come here and take their arms and
their uniforms. Now it is finished. They have
all gone to the front — nine hundred from this
room."
" But your business ? " I asked. "It has
— 30 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
been ruined. No doubt the Government paid
you for your rooms ? "
He turned sharply as he replied, " Paid ? What
for? It is our war, and each man must con-
tribute what he can. We are all doing it, and
gladly."
And this very same sort of business was going
on, so he assured me, in ninety-five other halls
and restaurants in Petrograd alone, and all done
freely, gladly, and heartily.
" But how about the reservists themselves ? "
one naturally asks, as the mind brings back the
stories of another mobilization ten years ago when
the peasants were driven almost at the point
of the bayonet into box cars for shipment to
Manchuria. Ah ! it's a different story now.
From all Russia they have been hurrying eagerly
to the colours without murmur and without
regret. The women, from peasant to princess,
send their husbands to the front, with tears to be
sure, but with a willingness to serve that means
national greatness in the years to come.
And with the striking of the hour has come
other great changes in the method of doing things.
From the lessons learned in years gone by has
come experience. The war in Manchuria was
enteied into lightly, one might say even gaily,
by the officers. How different in 1914 ! The
day after the declaration of war, every vodka
— 31 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
shop in the empire was closed by Imperial decree
during the mobilization, and since then, the shut-
down has been further extended for the duration
of the war.
In a cold climate where the drinking of vodka and
other strong drink was almost universal, the signifi-
cance of this action is immense. From Siberia to the
Baltic there is not a public house open, and, further,
the order is enforced to the letter ; and greater
even than that, it is accepted patiently and
without complaint by the entire population of the
country. The result is that the army and the
people are serious and sober as they face the
task that has been imposed upon them. The
day of rioting and dissipation at the front and in
the capital is a thing of the past, and every man
is taking up the responsibilities of the great struggle
with a seriousness that one who has known Russia
and the Russians before, can scarcely credit.
Here in Petrograd, which we have always known
as the gayest of capitals, all is quiet and earnest
to a degree. The restaurants and cafes that
in the old days were barely awake for business till
midnight, and were running until daylight, are
now closed promptly at eleven. In the face of
Russia's greatest war there is no room left even
in the capital city for the fashionable customs of
peace. Dress clothes in the evening have almost
vanished even from the hotels, for, as one man
— 32 —
o
C3
0)
8
15
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
told me, " No one thinks now of dress or appear-
ances. Russia is taking her task too seriously for
that." In the streets the splendid uniforms of
the various regiments of the Russian army have
given place to simple khaki tunics, with httle
and unobtrusive insignia of rank to distinguish
the general from the youngest subaltern.
In London we should never have known that
there was a great war on foot, but here one sees
manifestations of it everywhere. Nearly all the
great squares are filled with troops of the re-
serves, drilling and marching and counter-marching.
Many of these have not even yet had uniforms
issued, and in some of these companies every other
man is clad in his ordinary suit, with only a belt
and mihtary cap to distinguish him from the peace-
ful citizen of yesterday. Long fines of carts bear-
ing ammunition, with a soldier sitting on each
wagon, file through the Nevsky Prospekt which but
a month ago was one of the world's greatest
avenues of pleasure. Yesterday I noticed a great
siege train of artillery passing through the great area
before the Winter Palace. Huge guns of position
they were, freshly painted in their sombre coats of
grey, and looking horribly evil as they were moved
slowly from the arsenal to the station whence they
are going to the front.
What a contrast it seemed ! These silent,
cynical-looking engines of destruction, that in
— 33 — c
FIELD NOTES FROM
another fortnight will be launching shells against
a human wall, seemed strangely out of place as
they slowly moved past the gilded gates of the
giant edifice over which now floats the eagles of the
Czar of all the Russias. Even now the streets are
full of soldiers, clad in their campaign clothes,
with set faces and determined eyes; and yet I
am told that the mobilization is all but com-
pleted, and that what we see to-day is but a
small fraction of the troops that swarmed in
the streets a month ago. Truly, were the enemy
to spend a day in Petrograd, or any other Russian
city, he might well shudder at the tide that has
been let loose, and tremble at the prospect of
final conclusions with an empire of 170,000,000
people, that steadily, earnestly, and with set pur-
pose, is putting its entire soul and its whole
intelligence and thought into the struggle that is
just now barely under way. No one who stays
here long can doubt that Russia is in this war to
win, aye, even if it takes ten years. The Germans
have sown the whirlwind, and one recoils at the
outcome that they must eventually face, when the
arbitrament of the sword has reached its final
conclusion.
That this war is a war of the people of Russia,
and not one of any faction or party, is obvious to
the most casual observer who takes the trouble
to question people he meets, from cabdriver to
— 34 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
noble. I have talked with many during the past
week, and so far have heard no word of protest or
dissent. With patient unanimity they accept the
war, with all its sacrifices and ghastly losses. It is
not known here definitely what price is being paid
in the field, but that it is large goes without saying.
Each day there is posted in the immense outer
chamber of the offices of the General Staff a list
of the casualties, and each day anxious inquirers
for dear ones at the " front " assemble there.
I have seen dead and wounded in previous
campaigns, and for weeks at Port Arthur watched
the daily procession of stretcher-bearers going to
the rear. Later, for three weeks in a field hospital
in Manchuria I saw the dismal aftermath of war,
and the patient acceptance of the fate of mangled
limbs and shattered bodies that shell and
shot had meted out. But in pathos and appeal
to human sympathy, all this was nothing com-
pared with the scene that one sees daily in
the places throughout Russia where the list of
the fallen is posted. Great crowds of women
gather daily to scan these lists, and it is a
heartrending sight to watch the faces of the tide
going in and coming out. Peasant women with
shawls over their heads jostle and crowd their
sisters who have come in carriages. As they go in,
one reads the great question in the haggard eyes
of each, and as they come out the answer requires
— 35 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
no interpretation. You see them with trembUng
hands turning over the huge sheets of the Hsts.
Some who fail to read the name of husband, son,
or sweetheart, turn away with sighs of rehef ; but
hardly a minute passes that some poor soul does
not receive the wound that spells a life of loneliness
or an old age bereft of a son.
I paused but for a moment within this dismal
chamber, where even gilded aides move softly and
respectfully as in the presence of death. But in
this brief moment two faces stand clearly in my
memory. One, a peasant woman with shawl
fallen about her shoulders, her face dead white,
her eyes in barren vacancy staring into space as
she reeled against the wall. No sob, no sound was
there to indicate that the iron had entered into her
soul ; but the tragedy of a life still to be led, with
none to share the responsibilities of poverty, was
written in letters that none could fail to read.
Like one walking in sleep, she moved slowly
across the room, her eyes blind to the respectful
sympathy that made a pathway towards the door ;
and thus she passed out and away to take up her
burdens and her lonely life.
My eyes turned from her to another picture.
In the antechamber is a small table where an orderly
generally sits. Now he stands respectfully by while
in his chair there sits a young woman. Her neatly-
cut garments and smart fur collar speak of her better
-36-
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
position in life. She, too, has made her offering
on the altar of the nation's hfe. Too proud to
show her feelings, she has almost without visible
sign, read her fate within those ghastly columns,
and has reached the door only to sink into the chair.
I saw her but for an instant and turned hastily
awa}^ but the picture remains ineffaceable. With
head resting on the blotter, and hands clasped
tightly beneath her small white forehead, she sat ;
deep, gasping sobs shaking her small girlish body
through and through. And as she sobs her
costly fur slips from her slender shoulders to the
floor, and the great rough soldier, picking it up,
gently places it about her neck. With an effort
she stands up, speaks a courteous word to the
gentle soldier, and then she too passes through the
throng and is gone. Who is it she mourns, one
wonders ? Sweetheart or young husband, prob-
ably, who but a few short days ago left her in
the prime and beauty of manhood and who to-
day sleeps in a far-away grave, with hundreds
of others of his race and kind.
And yet through it all one hears no murmur of
complaint and no vain regrets. It is " their war,"
and cost what it may, and be the sacrifices never
so great, they will give and continue to give.
And in all this spirit one cannot but read the
signs of a new future for Russia. For nothing
can be truer than this — the greatness of a
— 37 —
FIELD NOTES FROM THE RUSSIAN FRONT
nation's future is established in the direct ratio
in which its units, humblest peasant and highest
noble alike, are willing to make the supreme sacri-
fice for a national ideal. And when any people
are united in such an ideal their triumph is assured.
Now one sees and feels the tragedy of it all, a
pathetic chaos of blood and human misery ; but
beyond and above, one feels the conviction growing
that from it is to come a new and greater Russia,
a nation united by storm and stress, a country
whose new progressive spirit will utterly destroy
the tradition of the Slav peril.
38-
A DAY WITH THE GENERAL STAFF
CHAPTER II
A DAY WITH THE GENERAL STAFF
Russian Headquarters,
October ii, 1914.
THERE is no romance about modern war
The picturesque features, which formerly
were so much beloved of the journalist and so
valuable to him as copy, are rapidly disappearing.
The headquarters of a great army during important
actions is supposed to be a place alive with gallop-
ing aides and vibrant with excitement. One likes
to picture the commanding General haggard and
worn, leaning over his map-strewn table ; while
muddy aides within, and panting horses without,
await his bidding, to accompaniment of the roar
of cannon and the crackle of musketry. But
these days are entirely of the past. War is now
a huge business enterprise, and the presiding
genius is no more apt to go to the firing line,
than the chairman of a railway company is likely
to put on blue overalls and take his place on an
engine.
— 41 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
Here in Russia, under the command of a single
individual, there is assembled the largest army
that has ever been mustered in the field of war,
and one beside which the Persian expedition into
Greece conducted by Xerxes fades to a mere
reconnaissance. All the huge and compHcated
mechanism of this gigantic organization centres
in one secluded spot on the plains of Western
Russia. It is a lovely country, and but for
the variation of architecture and the difference
in the population, one might easily imagine one-
self in Western Canada. In a grove of poplar
and small pine, a number of switches connecting
with the main line of a certain railway have
been laid, and here in railway carriages,
living, quietly and peacefully, the group of a
hundred or more men who compose the General
Staff. A few panting automobiles dashing here
and there, and a couple of hundred Cossacks,
are apparently the only additions to the ordi-
nary life of the village which is the nearest regular
station on the railway.
Beyond, and hundreds of miles from this scene
of tranquillity, extends the enormous chain of
the Russian front, every point of which is con-
nected with this train of carriages by the telegraph.
Here, detached and with minds free from the
hurly-burly and confusion of the struggle, the
brains of the army are able to command a per-
— 42 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
spective of the whole theatre of war which a
nearer position might utterly destroy.
The small group of correspondents whom the
General Staff have permitted to join the army,
were first taken to this rather remarkable head-
quarters. Here we were received by the Chief
of Staff, who met us in his saloon carriage, and
for half an hour pointed out what was expected
of the journalists and what was forbidden. The
point of view expressed is a perfectly simple
one. The value of publicity and the approval
of pubhc opinion is not in the least overlooked,
but it is perhaps considered to be a prospec-
tive one. The danger, however, of the func-
tions of the Press is a very real one, and the
results, if unfavourable, are immediate. Here
in Russia they are grappling with the most serious
problem in their history. An unwise word or
the revealing of a critical situation, even if invo-
luntarily and by induction, might result in the
most disastrous consequences. In modern war,
where the wireless and the telegraph play such
important parts, it takes only a few hours from
the handing in of a journahst's message until
it may be in the hands of the enemy for his
guidance, and perhaps help, though this is the last
thing that the writer imagined when he wrote
his dispatch. Where so much hinges on the
outcome, and millions of lives are at stake, there
— 43 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
is no margin for the war correspondent ; and it is
perhaps safe to say that this will be the last war
where even such an innocuous party as ours will
be allowed to move about the field of operations.
The Chief of Staff, whose name is not to
be mentioned in our letters, although it is per-
fectly well known both in Petrograd and Eng-
land, outlined to us exactly what we could
do and why we could not do more. For the
present, at least, we are not going to run any
risk of being shot by German expert riflemen.
His reasons for the policy enforced, though dis-
appointing to us, were none the less convincing
in their logic. The gentleman who gave us
this little talk, impressed me as one of the ablest
soldiers intellectually that I have ever met.
Keen, shrewd, restrained, and well-poised, he
strikes one as quite the ideal of a strategist and
organizer. How much he has had to do with
the planning of the campaign I cannot say, but
that he has been the centre of the web of strategy
and reorganization is the generally-expressed
opinion in Russia. In any event, if ever I saw
a man who impressed me as being quite able to
do this kind of work effectively and efficiently,
it is this Chief of the General Staff of the Rus-
sian Army.
After he had talked to us we were presented
to the Grand Duke, who, under the Czar, is in
— 44 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
supreme command of all the armies of Russia.
He is a huge man of certainly 6 ft. 4 in., and im-
presses one greatly by his absolute lack of affec-
tation and his simplicity. He spoke rapidly
to us in much the same vein as his lieutenant,
and as he did so one got the impression of a shy-
ness and diffidence which was entirely pleasing.
His dress and mien were as simple as that of
any of his numerous aides. His expression was
that of a serious, sober man giving his entire
thought and effort to a task the importance of
which he thoroughly realized. This, then, is the
supreme head of an army which is nearly ten
times the size of the Grand Army that Napoleon
led across the Niemen a little over a hundred years
ago.
After meeting these two interesting individuals,
we were taken over to the Staff dining-room,
in one of the dining-carriages that has been
snatched from the de luxe service of the Imperial
railways to serve as a restaurant for the officers
of the Staff, and entertained to luncheon, and
later to dinner. The carriage itself was formerly
on the line between the Russian frontier and
Petrograd, and was attached to the Nord Express,
the train we used to travel by from Berlin to
the Russian capital. Now, all the signs of tourist
travel are gone, and the walls are hung every-
where with war maps and general orders of the
— 45 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
Staff ; while the tables where the travelhng pubhc
used casually to dine are now crowded three
times a day with officers of every arm of the
service, each intent on hurrying through his
meal and taking up the task that absorbs every
waking hour.
Perhaps the most significant thing here is the
simplicity in which all are living. The show
and dash and display that one often imagines
as pertaining to the Headquarters of a Staff are
here entirely absent. I have already spoken of
the absence of display in the uniforms of great
officers. There are three Grand Dukes in the
party, and all but the Generalissimo himself live
exactly hke the rest of the Staff, wandering into
the dining-carriage for their meals and mixing
equally with lieutenants and general, neither ex-
acting nor receiving any more recognition than
officers of inferior rank.
Though Russia is an autocracy, there is more
social and civil equality in it than in any country
I know, and the greatest men in position are
the most democratic in action. As long as one
does not meddle in politics, one can do exactly
what one pleases without the slightest objection
from any one else. The nobility are far more
democratic than American millionaires, and are
received, here at least, with far less ostentation
than is exacted by the nouveaux riches of Eng-
-46-
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
land and America from their subordinates. The
fare is simple, and the order forbidding strong
drink is applied to these Staff officers with the
same emphasis as to the peasant or to the cab-
driver of Petrograd. Vodka, champagne, and
the liqueurs that have always been so dear to
the heart of the Russian gentleman, have utterly
disappeared, and the Grand Duke himself per-
mits on his own table nothing stronger than
claret or white wine. When the men at the
very top of the organization deny themselves
the refreshment of alcohol, it is perfectly obvious
that no one else in the army is getting any;
and I think it may be taken as a positive fact
that there was never a more clear-headed or
more sober army in the field than that which
is now facing the hordes of the Teutons at this
present moment.
— 47
WHAT THE RUSSIANS ARE DOING
IN THEIR HOSPITALS
CHAPTER III
WHAT THE RUSSIANS ARE DOING IN
THEIR HOSPITALS
RovNO, Russia,
October 12, 1914.
NOT the least interesting aspect of the war
here is the manner and efficiency with
which the Russians are taking care of their wounded.
Probably no greater or more sudden strain was
ever thrown upon the medical department of
an army, than fell to the Russians immediately
after operations began against Austria. Not
only were they called upon to look after their
own stricken, but to as great an extent they
were obliged to care for and treat the tens of
thousands of the enemy's wounded that fell
into their hands. Here at Rovno is one of
the big hospital bases, and here for weeks
could be seen the great multitude of the
wounded that is the price of victories gained as
well as of defeats. Eight huge barracks have
been remodelled into hospitals, in addition to
— 51 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
one large establishment operated by the Red
Cross of Russia. The management of hospitals
in time of war is always significant of the
general efficiency of any army in its organiza-
tion, and often one finds this branch of the ser-
vice far less prepared to exercise its important
functions than the other portions of an army in
the field.
The most significant aspect to me was the
obvious democracy of the whole management.
But for our guide's statement to us from time
to time, it would have been impossible to tell
when we were in the officers' wards and when
in those of the private soldiers. All have the
same equipment in beds, blankets, etc., and all
are apparently treated exactly the same by
the Sisters of Mercy who nurse them.
Each one of these huge establishments that
we visited was as complete in equipment, though
not perhaps so luxurious, as a city hospital. Opera-
ting rooms, pharmacies, rooms for the X-ray
apparatus, and, in fact, all the auxiliaries of the
modern plant were in evidence. That the work
done by these hospitals is effective is best indi-
cated by the percentage of deaths resulting from
wounds after the hospitals have been reached.
In one hospital I was informed by the doctor
in charge that more than 2,600 patients had been
received, and of these there had been only forty-
— 52 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
two deaths. In another of smaller size, 300
patients had been accepted from the front and
eighteen deaths had been recorded. This evidence
indicates pretty clearly that the modern rifle bullet,
unless it kills outright, inflicts a wound from
which the soldier has more than a fair chance of
recovering completely.
As one wanders about these limitless wards
of the stricken, one is increasingly impressed with
what the . human being can stand and yet, with
modern medical treatment, recover from. So
delicate is the human body that it seems in-
credible that it can stand such dreadful usage and
still recuperate and eventually be as good as new.
One man that we saw had been shot through the
head. The wound was clean and in two weeks
he was nearly well, and obligingly walked about
the room and smiled cheerfully to prove to us
that he was a perfectly " good " man once more.
Others shot through the stomach, bladder,
lungs, and, in fact, almost all parts which
were considered vital twenty years ago, were
recovering as easily as though to be shot were
a part of the ordinary man's day of work.
Here among the wounded were a number of
Austrians and Germans who had been captured,
and in each case they seemed cheerful and well
satisfied with their treatment. One young Ger-
man, who told me he belonged to the 25th Regi-
— 53 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
ment of the German line and came from Pilsen, was
very enthusiastic in praise of the Russians for their
kindness. His regiment in a certain operation, he
informed me, had been kept in an exposed posi-
tion after all ammunition was exhausted, and
had finally been dislodged by a Russian assault,
and while retiring he was shot through the blad-
der. He was picked up within a few minutes
by the Russian first-aid, received immediate
treatment, and is now on the high road to re-
covery. He seemed secretly relieved to be safely
out of the firing line, and his only anxiety was
to communicate his situation to friends at home.
An Austrian soldier spoke in much the same
strain.
One rather interesting case was that of one
of the Austrian doctors who were captured in
the fighting around Lemberg. He was at once
taken to the hospital and installed there as a
surgeon and placed on a salary and footing iden-
tical with his Russian colleagues. In no case
does one hear of any complaint as to cruelty,
or even roughness, on the field of battle. The
faces of the men and their general condition
and fare make it unnecessary to inquire as to
their treatment while in the hospital itself. Thou-
sands of men have been received from the hos-
pital trains in this town alone ; but already, scarcely
a month after the first flood of war's effects
— 54 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
struck them, the hospitals are manifestly becoming
sparsely populated. Thousands have recovered
entirely, and others have improved sufficiently
to return to their homes, while more have been
sent into the interior of Russia and widely
distributed for further treatment. With the
experience of the first weeks of the war to
stiffen them up, each of these organizations is
now a perfectly trained medical institution, and
it is clear that when the next great battle comes,
the wounded will receive even more adequate
and successful treatment than the first batch got.
The Red Cross hospital here is in charge of
one of the Grand Duchesses, the sister of the Czar,
who every day ministers in person to the wants
of the wounded, private and officer alike. And
here as in the General Staff all is absolutely demo-
cratic. The Grand Duchess dresses exactly like
her more humble sisters, and performs all the
tasks that the others do. In fact not one
soldier in ten knows that he has met the sister
of the Czar in the kindly attendant who has
waited on him each day. It is this aspect of
simplicity and democracy among the high-born
that is most significant for strangers.
One feature which impresses one strongly in
going through the hospitals is the comparatively
rare cases of amputations that are necessary,
and the few cripples that are left to drag out
— 55 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
their lives in misery. The modern bullet usually
either kills, or makes a wound from which
ultimate complete recovery is quite possible.
With the exception of shell wounds, and cases
where treatment has not been available till
too late and blood-poisoning has set in, there is
small need for amputation.
The Russian soldier is not highly nervous, and
hence I believe he is little apt to die of
wounds which would kill a more sensitive man
merely from the nervous shock. I have in mind
the case of a man who was struck in the face
with a fragment of an exploding shell. From
his eyebrows to the ears there was nothing left.
There remained practically nothing but the skull
and the back of the throat, yet this unfortunate
man actually lived for twelve hours before he
succumbed to death. Another man was pierced
through the right lung with a bayonet which left
an aperture sufficiently large for the hand to be
inserted to the wrist ; yet this soldier, by last
accounts, was actually on the way to complete
recovery. The percentage of recovery from
shrapnel wounds is greater than ever before.
One hears a good deal of the peculiar effect of
the high-velocity shells, which, as far as I know,
have received little mention before this war.
Men whom these big projectiles pass near are
struck down, though they may not actually be
-56-
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
touched at all. Many of them are paralysed for
several days, while others are so affected nervously
that they become insane. It is said that there
are several thousands of these cases alone in
the Russian hospitals, and I have personally
seen a number of them.
The hospitals at best are extremely depressing
places, and one is glad enough to pass quickly
through them. But in the midst of all the chaos
and misery engendered by war, it comes as a relief
to know that all that human care, skill and
kindness can do to alleviate the suffering of the
afflicted is being done here in Russia during this
terrible time.
57 —
THE RUSSIANS IN LEMBERG
CHAPTER IV
THE RUSSIANS IN LEMBERG
Lemberg, Galicia,
October 14, 1914.
LEMBERG is so off the line of general travel,
that the general public perhaps have failed
to reaUze what a very important prize the Russians
captured when they defeated the Austrians and
triumphantly entered this most beautiful city.
Broad streets, numerous parks, and shops equal
to those of most of the big capitals of Europe,
and half a dozen big first-class hotels, make this
one of the most attractive cities in Austria, and
one which will doubtlessly prove a great asset
to the Russian Empire. With the possible ex-
ception of the Belgian cities, there is no prize
of war taken by any other of the belligerents
in this conflict so far, equal to this town.
Just now the whole city is steeped in the atmo-
sphere of war, and every street and corner reveal
the presence of the ghastly cloud that trails over
all Europe.
From the time that one steps off the train, it is
— 61 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
impossible to forget for a moment that one is in
the zone of active operations. The huge Imperial
station, over whose main portal is emblazoned
the name of Franz Joseph, is entirely in charge
of the military. The instant one arrives, one is
greeted by the Russian police with requests for
information as to one's business here, and if
some good evidence is not presented forthwith
one never gets out of the station at all. In fact
I do not think any person without a military
permit can either get in or out of this place at
present. The station itself is a huge structure,
and is now filled with soldiers.
We arrived at three in the morning. The
great waiting-room was packed with sleeping
soldiers, while the dim light revealed the various
baggage-rooms crammed with scores of coated
figures sleeping beside their stacked rifles. The
first-class dining-room is a hospital, and filled
to the doors with stretchers and cots on which
the wounded are waiting to be transferred from
one train to another, or else to be removed to
one of the local hospitals in the town. From
the second-class waiting-room all benches have
been removed, and there only remains one big
table, used for hurried operations that cannot be
delayed. At every door and in every passage
sentries stand with fixed bayonets, and he would
be a clever correspondent indeed who ever got
— 62 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
half-way through this edifice without being
arrested, not to mention the difficulties that would
await him without.
There is just one spot in all the building that
is not used now for military purposes, the palatial
room reserved for His Imperial Majesty the
Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary when
he deigns to visit his city of Lemberg. The
Colonel in charge of the station kindly showed
us this apartment, and the incongruity of it
all made one shudder a httle. On the track
before it stood a Red Cross train which had just
brought wounded in from the front. The whole
platform was alive with soldiers. We stepped
out of this chaos of human activities into a dark-
ened room. An obliging orderly switched on
some electric hghts, and we found ourselves in a
suite equal in every way to the Emperor's private
apartments in his own palace. Heavy carpets,
richly tapestried walls, daintily concealed electric
lights, and rich and heavy furniture, completed
as luxurious an apartment as any potentate
could desire. A hundred feet away beyond the
partition lay the soiled and dingy figures of the
wounded — the men who pay the price of empire.
Every street in the town is dotted with
Russian soldiers, while Cossacks on their shaggy
little ponies are riding about in every direction.
Transport carts, wagons bearing wounded prisoners,
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FIELD NOTES FROM
strings of cattle driven by Cossacks, and in
fact every other form of military activity,
abound.
The people of the place seem little disturbed
by the hordes that have suddenly come to dwell
among them, and every one seems to be taking
the Russian occupation quite easily. There is
little doubt that the incoming army has been
in excellent restraint from the day it entered ;
and even the factions of the community most
opposed to the Russian sway, admit grudgingly
that the army has behaved extremely well, and
that the troops have at all times been under
perfect control. Considering that the Russians
entered this town after desperate fighting that
took place only a few miles away, it speaks very
well for their restraint, in the first flush of victory
after heavy losses, that their entrance was marked
by no abuses of any sort whatsoever. From all
the people that I have talked with I hear the same
story. Even without this it is perfectly obvious,
from the friendly way in which troops and popu-
lation fraternize in the streets, that there has
been no cause of complaint here.
There is, however, a good deal of sympathy
for the Austrian prisoners, and I witnessed a
scene this afternoon which made this quite clear.
Down the street came a handful of Cossacks driving
before them a flock of weary Austrian prisoners,
-64-
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
perhaps three hundred in all. The Cossacks were
riding among them in all directions, like cow-
punchers herding cattle. Crowds of the inhabi-
tants ran alongside, handing the sadly haggard,
blue-clad Austrians apples and bits of bread;
I saw also one well-dressed man, in a bowler
hat, shove himself under the very nose of a
Cossack pony and dump the entire contents
of a well-filled and monogramed cigar-case into
the hands of the outstretched soldiers. Women
from windows threw down bread and bits of
food, which the Austrians struggled for as hens
scramble for a few crumbs thrown them by their
feeder.
The Austrians strike one as a very sad and
gloomy-looking lot. Most of the men look
sickly and delicate, and nearly all the prisoners
and wounded look weakly and undersized. It is
hard to believe that any of those that I have seen
have had any heart or interest in the present
campaign. It is certain that many of them do
not care at all for their cause, if indeed they
know anything of what the war is about. One thing
that impresses one very curiously, is the consider-
able number of Red Cross Austrian prisoners to
be seen about the town. None of these appear to
be under any restraint, and you see them walking
about the streets saluting the Russian officers as
respectfully as they would their own; and they
— 65 — E
FIELD NOTES FROM THE RUSSIAN FRONT
are also working with the Russian surgeons in the
hospitals all over the city.
I am increasingly impressed with the enormous
effort that the Russians have made to care for
their wounded, and believe that in no previous
war has anything equal to their establishments
been achieved in scale or equipment. In this
town alone there are forty- two military hospitals.
Every public building and many of the hotels are
filled with wounded. Libraries, museums, muni-
cipal buildings, and dozens of others, now fly
the Russian and Red Cross flags side by side.
These hospitals, however, as in the case of those
at Rovno, are graduafly being emptied, and the
first great crop of wounded from the earlier opera-
tions is being moved elsewhere for convalescence.
The Russian j ournalists with our column are perfectly
delighted with their new city, and all seemed as
pleased as children with new toys, and spent a day
driving about the town looking at "our" public
buildings, " our" station, and "our" parks.
— 66 -
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR
CHAPTER V
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR
Lemberg, Galicia,
October 15, 1914.
AS a preliminary to seeing actual war itself,
we are being given an excellent opportunity
to study its effects. Possibly the Russian author-
ities hope that if they show us enough of the
human wrecks that war has created, we shall
lose our present strong desire to get to the front
and that we shall all go peacefully home and
forget that we ever asked to be led to the firing
line. The one phase of the hideous game that
all who have ever experienced it try to avoid,
is the aftermath of it all, and this is the particular
and only aspect that we are seeing now day after
day. In any event, be the motives what they
may, we are living these days in the atmosphere
of the hospitals, and every morning, bright and
early, we go and look at a new one and inspect
more wounded. When this great war is over
the journalists composing this party may well
-69-
FIELD NOTES FROM
consider themselves something of experts on
mihtary hospitals and wounded soldiers.
The incongruity of the whole game of war
strikes one particularly in the hospitals. In the
army we have two classes of men, both extremely
clever. The one devotes its time exclusively
to devising ways and means of shattering and
annihilating its fellow-men ; and the other, with
equal diligence, plans and studies how it may
save the victims that the first class has
provided for its attention and expert services.
Everywhere we see the two classes mingling —
the soldier and the doctor. The man who destroys
and the man who repairs. The general comes to
the hospital and admires the doctor, and the latter,
when free, goes to the front and congratulates
the soldier.
On the road the same curious aspect of these
two classes presents itself. One passes a battery,
for instance, moving into action. Here it goes
clinking and clanking to the front with its eight
dangerous-looking guns with the neat leather caps
over the iron lips ; the whole reminds one of
the dangerous dog that is muzzled lest it bite
the unfortunate stranger who encroaches on
its presence. With the guns go the long string
of caissons, each loaded with its death-dealing
shrapnel cartridges that the careful inventor
has designed in the hope that each may realize
— 70 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
its theoretical efficiency, and destroy dozens
of human hves. Even the fragments of the
shell, it is anticipated, will kill and mangle at
least a few soldiers. The men that minister to
the wants of the iron monster are all trained and
drilled with the one aim to make their charge as
murderous as possible. We see the battery pass,
its every feature pregnant with intended death and
destruction, its every attendant eagerly anxious to
make its mission successful in the highest degree.
Just behind comes a Red Cross train, wagon
after wagon. Each is loaded to the breaking
point with chests of medicine, surgeons' imple-
ments, cots, tents for the field hospitals, and
operating tables for the wounded. Here are
men whose sole object is to save and repair. Per-
haps this very day, perhaps in an hour, the guns
will be in action. By nightfall in some wood
yonder there may be hundreds of the enemy
dead and mangled. The guns are now silent
after a successful action. The gunners, the day's
work done, are sitting about in their positions
chatting merrily, or playing about with each other
like overgrown boys. Their shelling has been
successful and their officers have congratulated
them on their excellent practice. It has been a
good day for them.
In their quiet hour of complacent rejoicings
over a good day's work, the Red Cross men
— 71 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
who came just behind them on the road to-
day are over in the wood or field, picking up
the wounded of the enemy that their brothers
with the guns have just laid low. The hospital
tents have been erected, the operating tables
have been polished, and the surgeon, now in
white apron and with rolled-up sleeves, is doing
his best to repair the wastage of the morning.
Perhaps a particular shell has fallen well in the
fight — so well that the officer in charge of the
battery has rubbed his hands gleefully at the
excellence of his ranging. No doubt at this very
moment he is relating to his pals in the mess
how he dropped one in the very angle of a trench,
which he picked out with his high-power bino-
culars, and is describing the confusion created. At
the same moment a tired surgeon and two haggard,
white-faced, blood-stained nurses are probing for
the shell fragments that have lodged in some torn
and lacerated human body.
When the work is all over, no doubt the surgeon
meets the battery commander, and listens appreci-
atively to the tale of the effective artillery fire
of the morning skirmish ; while in his turn the
man of the guns attends sympathetically to the
tale of the Red Cross man who describes how
by a delicate operation he has saved a man with
a shrapnel ball in his brain. Each congratulates
the other, and both go to bed rejoicing in a suc-
— 72 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
cessful day's work. Truly war is a strange game,
and the psychology that it breeds puzzles one not
a little.
The hospital that we visited this morning is
without doubt the best military establishment that
I have ever been through. It was complete
to the last detail, clean as a new pin, and would
have done credit to any up-to-date city as a
municipal institution. I talked with many of the
wounded, and all seemed as contented as possible
under the unfortunate conditions. But even
taken at best, mihtary hospitals are dismal
places. Here we see, in hundreds and thousands,
the men who pay the price of war. It is dreadful
to contemplate the responsibility of the individuals
who have precipitated this terrible disaster.
Surely if the statesmen of Germany who so
blithely entered into this war could see the suffering
that their mistakes in diplomacy have scattered
all over Europe, their nights would be sleepless
or troubled for many years to come.
I am daily more and more impressed with the
complacency with which the Russian soldiers
accept their lot. There is no doubt that they
have been deeply stirred by this war, and though
they bemoan the misery that it has brought,
nearly all seem to accept it as something that
had to happen. It is certain that they hate the
Germans and are fighting not unwillingly, but
— 73 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
the case of the Austrians is quite different.
This morning I talked with a young Austrian
reservist who has been lying now for weeks
with a desperate wound through the body. I asked
him if the war was popular in his country. He
told me his pathetic story with tears in his eyes.
He was a carpenter living near Prague. On the
25th of July he was called to the colours without
even knowing what the war was about, and caring
less when he did learn. " I left my wife and
children weeks ago," he said, " without any warn-
ing. They had no money. Since then I have
not heard a word from them, and have no idea
what has happened to them or how they are
managing to live at all without me. Why is it ?
I am an innocent man. I have no dislike of the
Russians. They are a very friendly people.
Yet we are still called away from our families
and sent over here to attack men whom we have
nothing whatever against. All the men in my
regiment who came as reservists feel as I do about
it, that is, all that are left. Many have been
killed. We were sent forward after being told
by our officers that we were marching against a
thousand Russians, and we found fifteen thousand
instead of one. I was shot through the back as
we were withdrawing. After I fell into the hands
of the Russians, everything was easy for me. I
am quite satisfied here. They are very kind and
— 74 —
"OXI
G
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
the nurses are very good to us. But always and
always I am worrying about my wife and my
children. Not a word since I left. How can
they Hve with nothing ? " And as he spoke, his
brown eyes filled, and turning his face to the wall
he wept softly. In Austria to-day there are thou-
sands of similar cases, and every one of the forty-two
hospitals here are fihed with the same type of
prisoner.
The longer I remain in this town the more
impressed am I with the order and peace that
prevail. Every one is off the streets by ten, and
the bulk of the population seems perfectly in-
different to the change of masters. Even the
Austrians here are not particularly hostile to
Russia, and one of the anomalies of the situa-
tion is that the new regime has retained many
Austrian policemen to preserve order in the town,
pending the arrival of officials who will eventually
come from Russia to take their places.
75 —
A CROSS-SECTION OF GALICIA
CHAPTER VI
A CROSS-SECTION OF GALICIA
Halicz, Galicia,
October i6, 1914.
WE left Lemberg early this morning to make
an inspection of the country which is
now occupied by the Russians, and over which
the Russian Army under Brussilov moved in
the early phases of the campaign. While it is
true that one would rather see actual battles in
progress than spots where there was fighting six
weeks ago, it is also true that the first day of
this tour through Galicia has been an extremely
interesting one. The news that one gets from
such a trip is not picturesque reading, but the
facts obtained are in their fundamental impor-
tance quite as useful as details of battle opera-
tions. After all war itself is but the culmina-
tion of events that have preceded, and is vitally
important only in that it presages other changes
that are to come. The battles are merely the
visible outcropping of much greater forces.
— 79 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
Here in Galicia we have the first opportunity
that has come, to study the conduct of a Russian
occupation during the present war ; and the time
that has passed since the actual fighting took place
is sufiiciently long to give one a httle perspective
of the Russian Army itself, both in its battles
here and in its conduct since these battles. On
so huge a scale is everything being conducted,
that it is perfectly futile to do more than
generaHze at this time ; the detailed story will
require a lot of assembling before anything like
an accurate narrative can be given. I shall not, there-
fore, attempt now to give anything but a very
superficial account of impressions. I do believe,
however, that the country through which we
have to-day travelled may be fairly taken as a
typical cross-section of the general situation all
over Eastern Galicia, and as such it is not without
interest.
We left Lemberg a little after seven o'clock on
as perfect an autumn morning as one could
wish to experience. The air was fresh and
bracing as a clear Indian summer day in North
Dakota or Southern Manchuria. The frost was
still on the grass, and the leaves all turning
made a gorgeous picture of autumn colouring in
this beautiful landscape. At the station we found
that our colonel had provided a special train for
us in which to make our tour.
— 80 —
05
O
a
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
There is a tendency among the correspondents
here to bemoan our fate in not being actually
in the firing line; but personally I am impressed
with the extraordinary effort that is being made by
the Russian authorities to give us all that they
can, without endangering what they believe to
be their best interests, which, after all, is their
own business and not ours. To-day, for instance,
when engines fitted to the Austrian gauge, and
cars to go wdth them, are about as scarce as hens'
teeth, a train composed of a Russian locomotive
altered to Austrian gauge, and two cars snatched
from the service for the wounded and urgent
communication with the front, was placed at
our disposal for this journey. A third-class
carriage, filled with soldiers as a guard, was
attached, and, with sentries with fixed bayo-
nets in our own car (all the country is still
an enemy's one, nominally at least), we set out.
Our first stop was at Sichov, just outside Lem-
berg, where there was one of the redoubts in the
line of resistance that surrounds this town. This
was one of the points made untenable by an
enveloping movement, and hence it was abandoned
without any effective resistance. It was a text-
book fortification, with all the frills of barbed-wire
entanglement that the military professors recom-
mend so highly.
Next we stopped to look at an ancient castle,
— 8i — F
FIELD NOTES FROM
but the polite information of our guides that
it was five hundred years old failed to arouse any
enthusiasm among correspondents who were look-
ing for blood only. Hence we proceeded to Cho-
dorov, where there is a junction with a line run-
ning south-west towards Stryj. We were then
run out a few miles on this line to a point where
there was a very fine railroad bridge, which the
Austrians, in their retreat, with the aid of dyna-
mite, quietly dumped into the turbid waters
of the Dniester, a river which in volume and colour
suggests the Saskatchewan at Edmonton, or per-
haps the Lio above Yincow in Manchuria. I
must say that the Austrian engineers did an
excellent job here, for their beautiful steel bridge
lay a heap of tangled strands in the river, with
the centre pier torn up by the roots.
After having carefully inspected this view
of the enemy's handiwork, we returned to Cho-
dorov and were taken to a near-by estate which
was the property of an Austrian general, whose
duties, and possibly inclinations as well, took
him along with the army. This gentleman, it
seemed, was not particularly popular with the
peasants ; and in the period that elapsed be-
tween the departure of the Austrians and the
appearance of the Russians, the inhabitants of
the neighbourhood visited the great man's house
and paid him the compliments of many years of
— 82 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
distaste for his person. They certainly did a
complete job in house-wrecking. There was
not in one room a whole piece of furniture.
Every picture was destroyed, and the piano was
a dismal chaos of keys and strings on which
some local artist had been operating with an
axe. After this visit we took our train and
proceeded on our way to Halicz, where we are
now resting in our handsome train for the night.
We learn that this town formed the ex-
treme left of the Russian army of invasion, and
the troops only reached here after two sub-
stantial checks. Near here the Austrians had
an unusually strong position, and when they
finally evacuated it after severe fighting, a large
number of them came this way. Their haste
was evident from the fact that they blew up
the wagon bridge across the river in such
a hurry that a number of the engineers who
were putting on the last touches of preparations
for their explosive enterprise, were blown up
by some of their more enterprising comrades,
who were anxious to be off. The explosion was
not as near as the other was, but sufficiently
effective to drop two spans of the bridge into the
stream. The Russians were hot on their trail,
however, and threw a pontoon bridge across
the river just below the old bridge, and continued
the pursuit. I am informed that no less than
- 83 -
FIELD NOTES FROM
three divisions of Cossacks passed over this
bridge ahead of the main columns of infantry.
Here we have a situation where excesses might
be looked for, if anywhere. Cossacks pushing
forward after a pretty stubborn fight in which
substantial losses have been sustained, are not
generally supposed to be over-delicate in their
attentions to the natives of the occupied country.
What any one can see for himself is, that the
town, excepting a few buildings near the depot,
is intact. What one hears from the officers
and natives, is that they behaved with perfect
propriety and paid for all that was taken. Gen-
erally speaking, one must take official versions
as liable to prejudice, and naturally one cannot
look for the inhabitants to abuse the Russian troops
to a correspondent in khaki who is accompanied
by an officer. I am inclined to believe the ver-
sion as already given, for in every yard there
were chickens, and on the outskirts of the town
one noticed stock grazing in neighbouring fields.
Evidently then, there had been no pillaging
here. Besides, the manner and faces of the
people showed neither fear nor suspicion of the
troops quartered about ; and with the possible
exception of the Jews, there was not a hostile
look. The Jews, one must admit, looked pretty
sulky, though on all occasions they were effusively
polite.
-84-
Railway Bridge over the Dneister destroyed by the Austrians
before retreating.
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
It is true, of course, that the population here
is thickly studded with Little Russians, and
the Russian language is widely spoken; and
as there was no resistance offered by any of
the people, perhaps undue excesses were not
to be expected. It is equally true, however,
that an enormous army, even in its own country,
is not much better than a swarm of locusts in
a wheat field. All to-day, however, I have been
greatly impressed with the condition of the
country. With the exception of a few villages
where fighting took place, everything seems
absolutely normal. Geese, pigs, chickens and
ponies are numerous in every town and village,
while the whole vaUey seems to support the stock
which one sees in almost every field. Much
of the grain is still in the stack, and the fields
are full of women working on the fall, ploughing,
and gathering in the corn. There is nothing to
suggest that a ravenous army, numbering hun-
dreds of thousands, has swept through here,
and this fact is significant of the restraint and
discipline of the invaders.
It is clear from the preparations made in the
vicinity, that the Austrians had intended to make
a stand here, but thought better of it in the end ;
for many of their gun positions were never used
at all, nor were their trenches ever occupied
against the Russians. A number of modern
-85-
FIELD NOTES FROM
quickfirers of the latest model had been aban-
doned in such hot haste that even the delicate
sighting apparatus and the breech-blocks were
perfectly intact. A whole trainload of these
was on the siding when we came in, awaiting
shipment to Russia as tangible evidence of the
victories in Galicia.
At the station there were a few Austrian and
Hungarian prisoners who had just been captured.
It seems that they were relics of the early fight-
ing, who had been hiding since the battle. They
looked extremely cheerful, and were conversing
happily with the Russian soldiery, with whom
they fraternized with the greatest possible friend-
liness. With them, however, had been taken a
remarkable-looking individual in skirts and buck-
skin shirt and a straw hat. He, it seems, was
forty miles off his beat, and the experts decided
that he was a Hungarian and belonged to the
other side of the Carpathians ; his association
with the captured soldiers so far from his local
environment seemed to impress the Russians
unfavourably. This gentleman, be it said, did
not evince any signs of enthusiasm, though he
consented to be sketched and photographed.
Possibly he was aware of the fact that he was
under suspicion as a spy, and that his chances of
an early execution were excellent, for his ex-
pression was not cheerful.
— 86 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
The country here is perfectly beautiful, and
the towns, with their varied architecture and
more than varied population, are picturesque to
a degree. Certainly none of these quaint vil-
lages ever had a definite conception of modern
war, or of anything outside their peaceful valley,
until this world storm swept through their town
a few weeks ago.
-87-
ON THE PATH OF WAR
CHAPTER VII
ON THE PATH OF WAR
Special Train, en route Lemberg,
October 17, 1914.
WE were up at six this morning at our stop-
ping place in Halicz. A heavy frost in
the cool, still, morning air presaged the glorious
day that followed. All in the vicinity was peace-
ful and quiet, with only the Httle half-noises of
birds and animal life stirring in the early day-
light to break the stillness that lay Uke a
blanket above this wonderfully serene valley.
It was hard to realize that such a thing as war
existed, and that we were going out to view
a field where but a few weeks ago thousands
of men were intent on nothing less than mutual
destruction.
After breakfast we left the station with a
cavalry escort and proceeded some five miles, to
a hill where the Austrians had prepared a rather
pretentious gun position. Bombproofs, trenches,
positions for heavy guns, and the usual advance
trenches and barbed-wire entanglements, gave
— 91 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
evidence that a strong defence had been planned.
The position swept the whole valley, which lay
below us like a map in the bright sunshine, with
here and there the little villages dotting the
plain. The main defect of this position seems
to have been that the guns were so placed that
at a slight flank angle they could not be used
at all. As an amateur in military matters, it
was a mystery to me why all this work had been
done with such an obvious disadvantage. Per-
haps some one knows the answer, but certainly
it is not this writer. Evidently the Russians
declined to come in the expected direction. In
any event the Austrians never had a chance to
use their guns, and left with such dispatch that
the position remained exactly as they had left
it. Here it was that the new field pieces were
taken, their breech-blocks so nicely oiled that
they slipped in and out as smoothly as a key
in a good-working lock.
From here we circuited the hills for a few miles
and then descended into the village of Bots-
zonce, a point not far from a really important
position vigorously defended by the Austrians.
The whole heart of this little town was cut out
by shell fire. It seems that when the Austrians
abandoned their position farther on, many of
them came this way. Retreating troops gravi-
tate towards a village as iron filings to a magnet,
— 92 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
and here the residue from the disaster beyond
began to accumulate. One can well imagine the
officer commanding the Russian advance watch-
ing all this through a field-glass, and tersely
giving the order to unlimber a battery and
stir those fellows out of the village. No doubt
fifteen or twenty minutes sufficed to lay the
centre of the town in ruins. The significance
of the whole, however, is perhaps in the fact
that in about ten acres of wreck and ruin
there stands conspicuously alone the town
hall with a spire Hke a church. Immediately
beyond are two churches also intact. It is
clear that the Russian artillery practice was
advised and efficient, for one building not ten
feet from the supposed church was completely
wrecked, while apparently not a shell struck
the churches themselves. This would seem
manifest evidence that the Russians, at least,
are able to distinguish, even in the heat of
action, between sacred buildings and those that
are not. I was particularly interested to note
the care with which the fire, not only here
but in the few other villages affected, has
been concentrated on big buildings, while the
humbler quarters of the peasants have been spared.
In this town not one was touched by shell fire,
and the few destroyed were burned by the spread
of adjacent fires.
— 93 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
From this little town we pushed on to the
ridge of hills again, where the Austrian position
had been. This place, we were told, was but
one link in the great line which extended from
Hahcz on the south to Rawa Ruska on the
north, hundreds of kilometres away. The de-
fence here was obviously stubborn and hard
fought, and fighting continued for several days.
It is over now by weeks, but the position with
its gruesome relics and numerous newly-made
graves tells its own story. For miles the line
extended, and every trench spoke the story of
the Austrian resistance. Heaps upon heaps of
empty shells, broken equipment, fragments of
burst shrapnel cases, coats torn and rent by explo-
sions, and hundreds upon hundreds of knapsacks
and cartridge boxes. Here and there the posi-
tions were occupied by the quickfirers, now piled
deep with the big brass cases of the field artillery
cartridges. Scattered through the field beneath
were caissons and artillery relics that had been
left high and dry in the stubble of cornfields
in the retreat. It was a strange picture to see a
peasant quietly gathering stacked corn in a
wagon ten feet from a wrecked caisson that
looked as much out of place in the peaceful scene
as a ship high and dry on the seashore.
All the way back to Halicz the soldiers' effects
were strewn, abandoned in their flight from
— 94 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
this position. It is extremely difficult to get
an accurate story at present of any of these
operations in detail, as the men who fought
them are either dead or are still fighting at
the front now hundreds of kilometres away to
the west. The villagers have nothing but hazy
ideas, and out of the confusion of their bewil-
dered minds one gets little or nothing of fact.
All the Russian officers and soldiers now here are
of the reserve, and they have only general ideas as
to the details which have come to them indirectly.
It is useless, therefore, to try and picture or
analyse any of these operations along this front.
What puzzles one most, perhaps, is the contem-
plation of what must have been the feelings of
these villagers throughout this valley. Take
Botszonce or Halicz as an example. One could
hardly find a more isolated community in Europe.
Their little valley is on the road to no place that
any of us have ever heard of, and probably not
one Westerner a month ever passes this way. Here
in the midst of their isolation the population
suddenly find their whole familiar countryside
filled with armed men. Their trees are felled
and their fields dotted with trenches and gun
positions, while they behold their hills torn open to
emplace heavy guns, and the whole countryside
stretched with barbed- wire entanglements. Then
while they are still dizzy with watching preparations
— 95 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
of which they understand nothing, their peace
and quiet are torn asunder by the tumult of
rifle and shell fire.
The quiet little streets, where their people
have for centuries bargained and gossiped, are
now filled with the flotsam and jetsam of defeat,
and intermittent streams of wounded men are
poured into their public buildings. Finally comes
the first wave of retreat, and for hours their
country roads are choked with artillery, trans-
port and angry drivers belabouring the sweat-
ing horses. They see their town clogged with
weary and exhausted men pausing for a moment's
rest ; and then suddenly hell breaks loose in
the centre of their village, and they see their
buildings falling in ruins, with bricks and cement
flying in every direction, as the shells of the bat-
teries on the hills miles away come pouring into
their town.
That too passes away, and in the still deadness
of the cessation from tumult, they wander about
their ruins like ants about a broken hill. Then
comes the vanguard of the Russians and for
days they see nothing but cavalry and infantry
in strange uniforms pouring through their streets.
And now they too are gone, and the echoes of
war have died away. Even yet these people
are wandering about the streets in a sort of be-
wilderment.
- 96 -
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
But even in this little town which had the misfor-
tune to be in the path of war's desolating march,
there seems no hostility towards the soldiers.
No one here was apparently treated badly, and
save for the destruction of the centre of their
town, which took place in a few minutes, nothing
further befell them. As one looks it all over, the
pathos of it sinks in. Yet the destruction of a
town sheltering troops must, of course, be a mili-
tary necessity, and as such accepted as legiti-
mate. But it certainly is hard on the peaceful
inhabitants.
After lunch with the commandant at Hahcz
we take train for Lemberg, and expect to sleep
there to-night.
— 97 —
THE WOMEN IN THE WAR
CHAPTER VIII
THE WOMEN IN THE WAR
Vladimir Valensky, Russia,
October 21, 1914.
EVERY cloud, so the proverb runs, has
its silver lining. Surely there can be
no greater cloud than the ghastly shadow of
war which lies all over Europe to-day, but equally
true is it that this one also has its silver lining,
a side filled with human sympathy, love and
the best instincts of which the race is cap-
able. This, of which I would write a few lines,
is the world of devotion and beauty supplied
by the sisterhood of the Red Cross in Russia
at war to-day. For several weeks now we have
travelled constantly amidst scenes of war and
the wreckage that man has created among his
fellows, and there has not been a day in all
these weeks that the picture has not been softened
by the presence everywhere of the gentle woman-
hood of this country, ministering to the smitten,
and alleviating the suffering of those who have
fallen before the tempest of shot and shell that
— lOI —
FIELD NOTES FROM
has swept across this great zone in which we have
been travelUng.
As the troops have responded to the call to
the colours, so the women and girls have given
themselves broadcast to the work of alleviating
the misery of the wounded, and of speaking the
last low words of love and sympathy to those
whose minutes upon this earth are dragging to
their appointed end. Most significant of all to
the stranger who has been led to believe that
Russia is a land of two classes — the aristocrat
and the peasant — is the democracy of the women.
In response to the appeal to womanhood, there
is here no class and no distinction, and one sees
princess and humble peasant woman clad in the
same sacred robe of the Red Cross. On more
than one occasion I have discovered that the
quiet, haggard- faced sister, whom I have ques-
tioned as to her work among the wounded, was
a countess, or a member of the elite of Petro-
grad's exclusive society.
As my mind runs back over the past days, a
number of pictures stands clear in my mind as
typical of the class of selfless, high-minded women
whom the exigencies of war have called from
their luxurious homes to the scenes of war's
horrors. In Lemberg, just at twilight, I spent
two hours in one of the huge barracks of misery
in which were crystallized all the results of man's
— 102 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
ingenuity to destroy his fellow. There went with
me the round of the wards a woman whose pale
face and lines of sadness bespoke the drain on
nerve and sympathy that weeks in the hospitals
had involved. In her uniform frock and white-
faced headgear, with the great red cross of mercy
on her bosom, she seemed to typify womanhood
at its very best. As we entered each ward every
head was turned in her direction. At each bed
she paused for a moment to pass a smooth, white
hand, soft as silk, across the forehead of some
huge, suffering peasant. Again and again the
big men would seize her hand and kiss it gently,
and as she passed down the line of beds every
eye followed her with loving devotion such as
one' sees in the eyes of a dog.
And in each bed was a story not a detail of
which was unknown to the great-hearted gentle
woman. Here was a man, she told me, the front of
whose head had been smashed in by a shrapnel
ball which had coursed down and come out at the
back of the neck. " Two weeks ago," she said, " I
could put two fingers up to my hand in this man's
brain. Yet we have fixed him up and he will
recover," and with an adorable movement she
stooped quickly and patted the great, gaunt
hand that lay upon the coverlet. And so we
went from bed to bed. When she at last left
me I asked the attending surgeon of her. " Ah,
— 103 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
yes/' he said, " she is here always, and when
there is a rush, I have known her to spend fifty
hours here without sleep and with little food.
Who is she ? Countess . There are many,
many like her here."
Again comes to mind a picture at Rawa Ruska.
The street from the station is lined on both sides
with hospitals. As I was returning to the hotel
last night I paused beside an open window. In-
side the room was an operating table, on which,
beneath the dull rays of an oil lamp, was stretched
the great body of one of Russia's peasant soldiers.
This point is near the battle line now, and many
of the wounded come almost directly here from
the trenches. The huge creature that now lay
on the table was without coat, the sleeve of
the left arm was rolled to the shoulder, and
over him hovered two girls as beautiful as a
man could wish to see. The one sitting on a
high stool, held in her aproned lap the great, raw
stump of bloody flesh that had been a hand, and
even in the dull light one could see the smears
of red upon her apron. As she tenderly held the
hand, she spoke in a low and gentle voice to
the soldier, whose compressed Hps showed the
pain his wound was costing, although no groan
or murmur escaped him. The other girl, kneeling
by his side, was sponging the hideous member
with the gentleness of a mother handling a baby.
— 104 —
CO
«
■a
c
o
a
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
As we stood out in the darkened street and viewed
this picture, framed by the window-sash, of the
two girls, unconscious of observation as they
tenderly cared for the broken hulk, there came
the realization of the sympathy and tenderness
of woman, a sympathy akin to the divine, which
lies ingrained deep, deep down in the fibre of
every woman.
Down by the station when we went aboard
our cars, and on the adjoining track, was a hos-
pital train, just in from the front. The day's
wounded had been transferred to the hospital,
and through the little square window, by the
light of a candle in a bottle, we saw two tired
Red Cross girls eating a sandwich before going
out again on the night train to the front. These,
and hundreds and thousands of such, are all over
the districts where fighting has occurred. This
is the real womanhood of Russia, and he who
sees them in their thousands cannot but feel a
great and earnest confidence in the future of a
country that produces such women.
105
THE RUSSIAN CONQUEST OF
GALICIA
CHAPTER IX
THE RUSSIAN CONQUEST OF GALICIA
Headquarters of the Russian General Staff,
October 22, 1914.
(^More particular identification forbidden by
Censor.)
HAD Russia been fighting Austria alone in
this war, the whole world would have
been ringing for the last two months with the
account of vast operations, magnificent strategy,
and battles which in size and extent have
never before been known in the world's history.
But with the coming of the war here, there
broke also the great cloud all over Europe, and
the details and scope of this remarkable cam-
paign have, as it seems to me, been completely
overshadowed by the nearer and better under-
stood operations in the country of Western
Europe, which is much more intimately known
to Englishmen and to Americans. While Eng-
land and the United States were hanging with
bated breath on the invasion of Belgium and
— 109 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
the subsequent movements in France, the situa-
tion in Galicia received scant attention, and bar-
ring occasional reports of the capture of towns,
the names of which were hardly familiar to us,
very little news came from this zone.
It seems, therefore, appropriate at this time
to sketch briefly and simply what has been done
down here by Russia and how she has done it.
But before beginning the narrative, in justice
to th« writer it must be explained that he is
still attached to the General Staff of the Russian
Army, with such regulations governing written
matter sent out, that nothing like a definite story
of movements of troops can be written even now.
If in this chapter I can show merely the greater
strategy and plan so as to make intelligible the
general scope of the movements, all that at this
time and from this place is now possible will
have been accomplished. It must be remem-
bered, however, that numbers of troops, army
corps, exact positions, and anything, in fact, that
can possibly be of the smallest benefit to the
enemy, have been ruled out, and any possible
ambiguities in what follows must be charged
by the reader to the exigencies of the case, \^'ith
the mere statement that the operations against
Austria involved the movement of more than
a million of Russian troops against about a million
of Austrians and Hungarians, it will be under-
— no —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
stood that the scale of the campaign was enor-
mous.
At the commencement of the war the invasion
began from three different directions, and the
Russian troops were formed into three great
groups, each composing many army corps, the
total aggregating twenty. These movements
started from three bases. Brussilov from the
extreme east, with his base on Odessa, crossed
the boundary formed by the river Zbrucz (local
spelling), with his central corps on the Hne of
the railroad at Wotocczyska, and commenced
his march on Lwow (Lemberg), which is the
strategic centre of central Galicia. Simultane-
ously Russky's army started with its innumerable
army corps and auxiliary troops, having Kiev
for its base. These divisions crossed the frontier
with their centre on the line of railroad running
from Radziwitow through Brody and Krasne
to Lemberg.
The last great group of army corps, commanded
by Ewerts, had its base on Brest-Litowsk, and
moved south via Lublin to drive out the opposing
Austrians in their front, and take the whole in
the flank. This, in a very broad and general
way, was the movement planned and the general
scheme of strategy, which, it may be said, was
carried out to the letter. The greatest weakness
of Russia at the start of the hostilities was in
— Ill —
FIELD NOTES FROM
her lack of strategic lines of railroad. If one
takes a map of Galicia, it will be observed that
the Austrian Government has numerous lines
which run to the frontier of Russia and then stop.
This enabled the Austrians to mass troops almost
instantly. The Russians, on the other hand,
had few such lines, and the result was that
the initial operations were much more difficult
than they would otherwise have been. Time, in
war, is the chief factor of the whole enterprise.
Had Russia had more railheads at the frontier,
she would no doubt have swept Eastern Galicia
before the Austrians could have concentrated in
any great force. But the lack of such facilities
enabled the enemy to prepare defences hurriedly
at many points, and to contest the Russian ad-
vance at every step. The opinion in England and
in the United States also, seems to have been
that the Austrian troops were inferior, and that
Russian advances were due largely to the weakness
of her enemy. Those who have travelled over
the field of operations, and read in the page of
abandoned battlefields the tale of stubborn re-
sistance, must change their views about the Aus-
trians, and at the same time admit the remarkable
impetuosity and courage of the Russian troops,
who, against enormous obstacles, tore their way
through a clever and ferocious resistance. The
army of Brussilov was the most distant from the
— 112 —
Galician Peasants.
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
strategic centre aimed at (Lemberg), and hence
had the farthest to go, and perhaps in the early
days the hardest fighting. The Austrians, with
their superior raihvay facihties, were able to
prepare a preliminary line of resistance to this
army, along the bluffs and high ground between
the forks of the stream known on local maps
as Ztota Lippa, and here they made their first
stand, a battle which in any other war would
have taken columns to describe, but which in
this struggle falls into the class of a mere
skirmish.
From this point the Austrians fell back on a
second line of defence, and one which was, in
fact, an extremely strong one. This was the
hills and ridges east of the river called Gnita
Lippa. By the time this position was reached
by the Russians, Brussilov's left was in touch
with Russky's right that had crossed the
boundary around Radziwitow. The position now
defended by the Austrians extended from the
town of Halicz on the Dniester river, which
was the Russian southern flank, in a practically
unbroken line through and north of Krasne.
The battle which was engaged over this extended
line lasted for periods, in different parts of the
position, of eight to ten days in the south, to
nearly two weeks on the Krasne position itself.
The Austrian line was a very strong one and
— 113 — H
FIELD NOTES FROM
was defended with an intelligence and vigour which
for days on end promised to thwart utterly
the Russian efforts to break through. Trenches
by the mile, with bombproofs, barbed-wire en-
tanglements, and all the other devices of modern
field fortifications had been erected to block the
advance of the invading troops. Modern field
guns, machine guns and field howitzers were
all turned against the Russians, and their losses
were undoubtedly very heavy. Some of the
details of the general line were contested for
eight and nine days, being now taken by one
side and now by the other, with each assault
and counter-assault leaving the piled-up heaps
of the dead and wounded in its wake. All this
time Ewerts' numerous army corps were slowly
pressing down from their base on Brest Litowsk,
driving back heavy forces of the Austrians. But
these columns were not determining factors in
the first big fight before Lemberg. It was the
collapse of the Austrian defence towards the
south of the line that broke down the first big
Austrian stand on their main line of defences.
Heavy masses of them fled via Halicz, blowing
up a fine steel bridge in their retreat. But the
Russians, in spite of their days of incessant marching
and heavy fighting, were not to be denied, and,
throwing a pontoon bridge over the river, fol-
lowed up their victory.
— 114 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
This movement threatened to envelop the
whole Austrian right, as a glance at the map
will show, and rendered the defence still going
on around Krasne no longer tenable. Orders were
therefore hurriedly given for the abandonment of
that hard-fought field. It must be understood
however, in justice to the Austrians, that, even
after thirteen days of resisting the Russians,
their line in this part of the field was not broken,
nor even severely shaken ; and their retirement was
due to the strategical exigencies created by
Brussilov's enveloping movement on the south.
The Austrians then evacuated their base at
Lwow (Lemberg), and without offering any fur-
ther resistance in the city, retired to their newly-
created and even stronger position extending
through Grodek and north to Rawa Ruska.
Here, for the first time, all the Russian armies
were in touch, as all the Austrians were also. Ewerts
and his numerous corps had forced back his
antagonists to the line between Rawa Ruska and
Bitgoraj. This then presented an enormous
front, with all the armies of both sides in touch
with each other, and all engaged practically at
the same time. It is difficult to form more than
the merest approximate estimate of numbers en-
gaged, but it is safe to put the total on both
sides as above 2,500,000.
This battle, the details of which are so little
— 115 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
known, was without doubt the hardest fought
struggle, and on the most gigantic scale that
the war had seen up to the time when it took
place. Ewerts on the north would not be denied
his advance, and his repeated assaults on the
Austrians resulted in bending in their left day
by day until their line was bent into a right angle,
with Rawa Ruska on the north-eastern corner.
Here for eight days a battle raged which the annals
of history certainly cannot up to this time dupli-
cate, for the ferocity and bitterness of attack, and
the stubbornness and courage of the defence. The
Austrians, let it be said, were in an extremely
strong position round this quaint little town,
and were prepared to defend themselves to the
last ditch, which in fact they did to the letter.
At the extreme corner of the defence, which I
suppose one might call the strategic centre of the
whole battle — if one place in so huge an amphi-
theatre can be picked out — they fought for six
days with an endurance which was almost
incredible.
Here there are no less than eight lines of defence
in little more than a mile. Each of these was
held to the last minute, and some of them changed
hands several times before the Russians came
finally over them. Each trench tells its own
stor}^ of defence. Piles and piles of empty
cartridges, accoutrements and knick-knacks are
— ii6 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
heaped in every ditch. Right across the field
between their positions, is written their hurried
change of line, with new graves and hun-
dreds of haversacks scattered in between. Then
comes another trench with the same signs of
patient endurance under shot and shell. The
last and strongest position of all before the final
collapse is a place to make the blood curdle.
By this time the Russians had brought up their
heavy field howitzers, and when they finally got
the range, they literally destroyed the whole
position. One can walk for hundreds of yards
stepping from one shell hole into another, each
five feet deep and perhaps ten feet across. One
can pick up the dirt of the trenches and sift the
shrapnel balls out in handfuls. And yet even
here the Austrians hung on for a time, as the
mute evidence of the field too clearly tells. In
every direction from each shell hole is strewn
the fragments of blue cloth of the Austrian
uniform, torn into shreds and ribbons by the
force of the explosive ; and all about the field
are still bits of arms, a leg in a boot, or
some other ghastly token of soldiers, true to
discipline, hanging on to a position that was
aUve with bursting shells and flying shrapnel.
Beyond this line was the artillery position of
the Austrians, and here again we find heaps upon
heaps of brass shrapnel shells, with shattered
— 117 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
wheels and splinters of caissons in every direction.
This last stand finally caved in, and the next
field, dotted with dead horses, shows where the
remnant of the Austrian artillery took its way.
The Austrians never had a chance to make a
stand in the town itself, and with its loss came
the dissolution of the whole defence along the
entire line of battle, and what was really an over-
whelming disaster to the cause of the Dual Mon-
archy. The Austrian army here split in two.
While it is an advantage for victorious armies
to have separate bases, it is anything but desirable
for an army in defeat, for naturally each frag-
ment falls back on its own line of communica-
tions. This is what actually happened here at this
time. The Hungarian corps on the Austrian
right retired through the Carpathian passes,
while the Austrians fell back in confusion on
Cracow, with the Russians taking Yaroslav on
their heels. This, then, was the first great phase
of the invasion of GaHcia. The Russians at
the conclusion of this part of the campaign held
Galicia up to the river San and Yaroslav, and
had swept everything in this zone before them
with the exception of the fortified position of
Przemysl, which as I write still forms a strong
position in the present Austrian fine. So much
for the purely mihtary aspect. Let us now
turn to the methods of the Russians and the
— iiS —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
manner of their behaviour while in a conquered
country.
The Russians, after six weeks of campaigning,
were left in absolute control of the whole of
Galicia, up to a line running from the Carpathians
on the south, through Przemysl and along
the river San to the important town of Yaroslav.
If one goes back over this campaign and studies
out the movements from the start of the war,
one cannot but be enormously impressed with
the remarkable achievement accomplished by the
Russian Army in a comparatively short campaign.
Starting from widely separated bases, with meagre
railway facilities, they manoeuvred three giant
armies, each composed of many corps and all
working in general union, and achieved, without one
effective setback, a series of victories of enormous
magnitude. They did this in the face of an
enemy whom history will show to have been
by no means weak. The theory that Aus-
tria was a web of factions that would dissolve
at the first impact, and the belief that her troops
would not fight, has been absolutely disproved ;
and it serves to magnify the achievements of
the soldiers of the Czar, when we accord to the
Austro-Hungarian Army the credit which is due
to its courageous defence and the stubborn
resistance put up at every favourable oppor-
tunity.
— 119 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
My opinion is that no troops could have made
a braver resistance than was offered in many
instances by the defeated army. I walked over
one position which the Austrians held for a day
in a stubble field with no defences whatever save
the few inches deep pits that each man dug out
for himself. For a mile the pathetic evidence of
their determination to stick was visible on every
hand. An unbroken line of accoutrements and
fragments of shells mark the position where they
held on absolutely without any shelter. Right
in the centre of this hideous zone was a crossing
of the roads, and there stands to-day a moss-
grown old cross which for a centur}^ per-
haps has received the reverence of the passing
peasant. All through this terrible day, the
carved figure of the Christ upon the cross
looked down upon the dying and wounded.
The top of the wooden upright was shattered
with a bit of shell, while one arm of the figure of
Christ was carried away by a shrapnel fragment.
Could anything be more incongruous than this
pathetic figure of Him, who came to spread peace
and goodwill among men, looking down to-day on
a field sown with mangled corpses ? At the very
foot of the cross is a newly-made grave and a rude
wooden sign nailed upon the monument itself:
" Here lie the bodies of 121 Austrian warriors and
four Russian warriors of the — th regiment."
— 120 —
Gross with Figure partly shattered by Shell Fire.
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
After the terrible fighting that had gone on
for weeks, there followed a period of recuperation
and refilling of the wastage of both armies. The
Russians engaged the forts of Przemysl and took
the town of Sambor, and rested for a little. In
the meantime the Austrians, encouraged by their
German allies, were making frantic efforts to
pull themselves together. The fragments of the
army that had escaped through the passes
of the Carpathians were taken by rail to Cra-
cow, while the army that went that way
was reinforced and stiffened up, and the whole
reorganized and whipped into shape for further
operations. The view that the heart of the
Austrian army had been destroyed was now contra-
dicted, for shortly after the icth of October they
again showed signs of life. We hear that their
left in Cracow joins the German right, and that
many German army corps are united with them
there. Rumour among us also says that the
German Staff is in command of all their present
operations. In any case, the second phase of
the Galician war is now in full blast.
The Austrians began this by a terrific attack
on Sambor, which was held by the Russians.
Their impetus was so great that for several days
it seemed possible that the Russians might be dis-
lodged permanently from their hard-won position
on their left flank. Indeed at Lemberg, where
— 121 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
the guns could plainly be heard, there were con-
stant rumours of Austrian \ictories. But their
offensive ultimately failed, and the tide of battle
gradually ebbed from round Sambor, and the inter-
est shifted to a point which is between Sambor and
Przemysl. Here the Austrians concentrated a
number of army corps, less than four, and made
a heroic effort to break the Russian line, with
the idea of taking Lemberg, which was a prac-
ticable scheme, entirely dependent on the success of
their attack. For a day or so their efforts seemed
to be showing results, and a number of the hos-
pitals in Lemberg were ordered to be in readiness
for an instant removal. But this also failed,
and also the Sambor movement, with a dreadful
loss to the Austrians in dead and wounded, be-
sides more than 5,000 prisoners taken by the
Russians.
While this action was at its height, the combined
Austrians and Germans deHvered a stroke against
Yaroslav, which the Russians had been holding
since the days following the retirement of the
Austrians from their Rodek-Rawa Ruska line.
The details of this battle are not known to us,
and indeed, the action is still under way as I
am writing these lines. From what we gather,
however, the Germans, after occupying Yaroslav,
were driven out by the Russians in a terrible
counter-attack, and since then have made
— 122 —
Church destroyed by Artillery. Note the Cross untouched.
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
no headway whatsoever. In a word, the move-
ments of the Austro-German united armies in
this last effort to wrest Gahcia from the Russians
seem now to have been absolutely futile. For
three days we were traveUing just in the rear
of the Russian line, and during all that time
the cannonading was terrible and without inter-
mission. We are too near the operations, both
from the point of view of distance and time, to get
any real perspective of the general situation ; but
at the time of writing it seems safe to venture the
statement that the Dual Alliance have shot their
bolt on this frontier, and that hereafter there
will be no serious opportunity for them to regain
the territory which they lost in Galicia.
The fortress of Przemysl still holds out and
may very well last until the end of hostilities.
It is strongly defended, and will take a lot of
battering before its capture can be effected.
What I have written of the military situation
in Galicia is, I believe, approximately a correct
outline of the general movements. It is almost
impossible to get more than a very general idea
of how things have actually happened, except
in a very hazy way. The fighting has extended
over such an enormous area, the numbers en-
gaged have been so large, and the units of com-
mand have been so numerous, that nothing Hke
an accurate account can be given until the re-
— 123 —
FIELD NOTES FROM THE RUSSIAN FRONT
ports of the various commanders on both sides
are to hand and can be digested.
The general fact remains, however, that Russia
has in two months handled an army of more
than a million of men with no serious setbacks,
and is to-day occupying the richest and best
portion of the fertile province of Galicia.
124 —
WARSAW
CHAPTER X
WARSAW
Warsaw, Poland,
October 25, 1914.
THE carefully-picked delegation of personally
conducted war correspondents was returned
to the headquarters of the General Staff of all
the Russian armies two days ago ; and a council
of war was held as to what was to be done next
with the impatient band of international white
elephants who were caged in the two special
cars on the headquarters' siding in the rail-
way yard. At three in the afternoon we were
all taken to the sanctum of the potentates of
strategy, and instructed as to our next move.
Three of our number were missing from this
trip owing to causes over which they apparently
had no control ; and when we gathered in the
private saloon of the Chief of Staff we learned
that one among us had committed an indiscretion,
and was already on his way to Petrograd, while
two others are not to make the next trip,
— 127 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
The Russian correspondents, it appears, are
dissatisfied with our travels in many lands.
They had all set their respective hearts on mingling
with the soldiers in the trenches, and taking notes
amidst the bursting of shell and the melancholy
"ping" of rifle bullets. As soon as the meeting
was called to order by the Chief of Staff, they
all began to talk at once, employing their best
line of enthusiastic utterances and three at a
time. When the discussion had finished, and he
who had already made the plans had an opening,
we were smilingly and politely informed what
the plans were ; and it was gently but pointedly
added that if the programme was unsatisfactory
no one was under any obligation to go at all.
On the contrary, the road to Petrograd was in
working order, and an express train was available
for the use of the dissatisfied who cared to make
a comfortable and expeditious journey to the place
whence we came. After some bubbling of rage
and mutterings on the part of the suppressed, we
were returned in large, powerful motor-cars to
our special car, to await the commencement of
our second tour.
After jiggling along in a troop train for nearly
thirty hours, we at last arrived at Warsaw about
two in the morning. Every one here has had
a thoroughly good scare ; for nearly eight days
the German guns have been thundering away
— 128 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
to the west, while German aeroplanes and dirigibles
have been flying over the city and dropping
bombs promiscuously about the town. There
is the most intense indignation here among all
classes at the action of the Germans in this matter.
Warsaw cannot fairly be considered a fortified
city, and during the fighting practically every
available soldier was rushed forward to the
firing line. Yet for days the aircraft of the
Germans sailed over the city, dropping their
infernal bombs absolutely without regard to
who was killed or what was destroyed in their
irresponsible career. The first aircraft that flew
over the city dropped pamphlets printed in
Polish, in which the population were politely
informed that they need anticipate no alarm
from explosives dropped in the city, as they
were intended merely for use against the soldiers
and to destroy public buildings. They were ad-
vised to stay within doors while this programme
was in progress.
After this reassuring announcement some other
airmen proceeded to carry out this promise by
dropping bombs quite at random. As near as
I can learn, thirty-two were dropped, and the
number of killed is placed at fourteen, while
from twenty to thirty were wounded by the
explosions. It is interesting to note that not
one of this number was either a soldier or an
— 129 — I
FIELD NOTES FROM
official of any sort, and that of the property de-
stroyed, which was small, no building was official.
The casualty list composes men, women, and
children, all absolutely innocent, and having
nothing whatever to do with the operations of
war. One bomb fell within a few hundred
yards of the American Consulate, and just oppo-
site the Hotel Palonia. Neither of these buildings
has the slightest resemblance to a public institution,
and the occupants of both were correspondingly
indignant at what is regarded here as an outrage.
One of the aeroplanes was winged by the Russian
soldiers and fell into the street. Of the two men
in it, one was killed, while the other, it is said, blew
out his brains rather than submit to capture.
Sentiment here is ferocious against the Ger-
mans, and, incredible as it may seem, there is
more enthusiasm for war manifested in the
streets than in any part of the war zone that I
have yet visited. Each regiment that passes
through on its way to the front receives a
perfect ovation from the people. Women run
along beside the soldiers handing them food
and cigarettes, while they are cheered to the
echo at every street corner. It is hard to
believe that all this ardour that one sees is
coming from Poles, and that the recipients of it
are the soldiers of the Czar.
The people of Warsaw have had a great fright,
— 130 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
and thousands upon thousands left when the
advance of the Germans seemed to make the
occupation of the town probable. For eight
days the fighting continued to the west of the town ;
and now that the armies of the Kaiser have re-
tired, and the sound of their guns has died
away, the rehef expressed on all sides is intense.
Warsaw has resumed its normal aspects, and
everybody is going quietly about his or her own
business.
The one thing that impresses the observer
more and more each day is the sobriety and
good behaviour of the Russian troops. I have
now been with the army nearly three weeks,
and have seen thousands upon thousands of
soldiers from all parts of Russia. I have yet
to see the first drunken or disorderly man con-
nected with the army, either officer or soldier.
The traditional dread of soldiery when armies
are spread over a country is absolutely lack-
ing. It is certain that the prohibition of
strong drink has worked wonders in the Rus-
sian Army, and is one of the great factors re-
sponsible for the splendid showing, both in the
field and in the cities, that is being made by these
armies to-day in both GaHcia and in the Polish
theatre of war. Of the northern armies I am
not in a position to express any opinion.
— 131 —
THE FIRST GERMAN INVASION
OF POLAND
CHAPTER XI
THE FIRST GERMAN INVASION OF
POLAND
Lowicz, Poland,
October 27, 1914.
WE left Warsaw in motor-cars early this
morning for a tour over the field where
the Russians fought a battle which, in its results,
will prove one of the landmarks in the present
war. In point of numbers engaged on both sides
there have been far larger operations in other theatres
of the war, but for definite effects the outcome
of the battle before Warsaw cannot be overesti-
mated in its importance. It seems moderately-
clear now, from evidence available, that this
beautiful Polish city on the Vistula was to have
been the high-water mark of the German autumn
campaign ; and with this and the line of the Vis-
tula to Ivangorod occupied for the winter, the
Germans could have afforded very well to have
rested on their laurels, and to have devoted the
bulk of their attention to the French frontier.
— 135 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
But in their estimate of the psychology of
peoples they seem to have failed here as in
almost every other zone into which they have carried
the war. As they imagined that Belgium would
be passive, so also did they conclude that Poland
would be at least neutral in her sympathies,
and perhaps even more, would actively assist
them in a war against Russia. Thus their
armies advanced confidently toward Warsaw,
jubilant in the idea that after one easy en-
gagement the city would be theirs, and the end
of the autumn fighting arrived at. They appear
to have allotted to this job, from all their
hordes, only five army corps, the bulk of this
being formed, as far as one can learn, of re-
serve and Landsturm men, with a scattering of the
first line to stiffen them up. There seems no
doubt that at the beginning of the conflict the
Russians were greatly outnumbered; but as
their line held with stubborn determination, time
was given for fresh troops to come up, and for
a flanking movement to be launched around
the German left wing. The net results of Germany's
Polish campaign were, the evacuation of their
position against Warsaw and a hurried retire-
ment to the west and south-west. Events that
have followed day by day since the retreat started
show clearly that Russia is following up her
victory here with commendable dispatch. Every
— 136 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
morning we hear of towns abandoned by the
Germans and positions evacuated.
As I have written before, it is extremely diffi-
cult to judge of operations over so vast a scale
save in a very general way. News is jealously
guarded, and among the rumours and private
advices that pour in from all sides, it is difficult to
pick the absolute truth out of the mass of reports
that one receives. It is clear, however, that the
German programme here, up to the date of writing,
is an unmitigated failure, and that they are now
retiring as speedily as possible, stopping only to
fight rearguard actions, in order to delay the
Russian advance sufficiently to permit them to
get out of this theatre of war with their transport
and guns with a fair margin of safety. The
actions in the zone which I have been through
to-day might in a lesser conflict be treated as
important battles; but considering the numbers
engaged and the character of the resistance,
one must, I believe, conclude that the stands
made, though vigorous and resulting in desper-
ate fighting and heavy losses, are now merely
to protect the retreat on some line where a
definite stand will be made. Where this will be
is merely a matter of speculation, and one can
estimate it as easily in London as here.
The Warsaw action once lost, it was clear and
logical that Germany would do just as she is doing.
— 137 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
Certainly it would have been madness to try
further campaigning in Poland, which, contrary
to their anticipation, is bitterly hostile to them.
The significance and benefit of this campaign
here cannot be sufficiently rejoiced in by the
Allies of Russia ; for it means, as we within our
limited perspective here read it, the first complete
failure and reversal of programme that Germany
has encountered since the war began. The second
important point is the effect that it has had upon
the Russian soldiers. Their moral has increased
a hundred per cent, and any apprehensions they
may have had with regard to their ability to
withstand the German legions have been dissipated
for all time. The enormous prestige which the
soldiers of the Kaiser have enjoyed is gone,
and the report of their superiority over Russian
troops has been proved to be a fiction. The
Russians in their first days of fighting around
Warsaw showed their mettle ; and no doubt the
Germans now realize that they have been badly
informed as to the nature of the enemy who, they
were told, would be an easy prey to their advanc-
ing columns. The German retirement must have
a very depressing effect upon the invading army ;
it is certainly encouraging to the soldiers of the
Czar and to the great bulk of the people of Poland
itself.
We had not been an hour out of Warsaw on our
- 138-
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
journey, before another thing became clear to all
of us who have ever known the life of an army
in time of war ; namely, that Russia is at last
under way in this campaign, and that the huge
engine of her organization is moving with a
tremendous momentum. Never have I seen sights
which could be more encouraging to an ally, and
impressive to the citizen of a neutral country,
than those I see daily. The highways for miles
and miles are packed with the preparations for an
advance in every quarter. Transport, Red Cross
supplies, and miles upon miles of ammunition
trains, are all moving to the various fronts with
a precision and orderliness that must for ever
dissipate the idea that Russian organization is
lacking when it comes to the final test. The
whole nation is aroused at last, and one may well
hope that from now on, the Allies will find Russia
crowding ever closer on the German frontier.
If the Germans are to stem this rising tide even
for a moment, they must speedily release troops
from the Western frontier, or find themselves
overrun with the well-drilled and disciplined
armies of Russia, under perfect control, and con-
ducting themselves, as far as the observer can see,
with the greatest tact and friendliness alike to
population and prisoners and the wounded of
the enemy.
We have seen numbers of captured prisoners,
— 139 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
and among every lot is a sprinkling of the blue
coats of the Austrians ; this lends colour to the
rumours which we hear on every hand, that the
Germans have detached regiments of their own
to stiffen up their allies in the south, and taken
regiments in return which they have placed in their
own line. It is reported that in the engagements in
this vicinity, the Germans graciously allotted
to their allies the places of honour in the firing
line, where the glory, and incidentally the death
rate, was the greatest. But this I can only repeat
as gossip and hearsay. It is certain that there are
Austrian prisoners, wounded, and dead.
The German line has now retired more than a
hundred kilometres from their high-water mark,
and is in places not much above that distance
from their own frontier. As far as one can make
out, the Russians are not far from Lodz, which
one day we hear has been occupied and the next,
is in the hands of the Germans. It is difficult
to hit upon the truth, though private advices
received here state emphatically that Lodz has
been evacuated. In any event, that contingency,
which spells the last important city in their hands
between Warsaw and Kalisz, is hourly expected,
and no doubt will have come to pass by the time
this chapter is read in London.
After touring about all day in a motor-car
one begins to realize that the good people of
— 140 —
•OS)
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
Warsaw had excellent reasons for apprehensions
lest their fair city should fall into German hands.
We are told that for eight days the windows
shook and rattled with the concussion of artil-
lery fire ; and what with that and the interest of
bombs falling from above, and machine guns and
enterprising infantry soldiers in the streets firing
at the aeroplanes, one can well believe that life
here was filled with the spice of the uncertain.
One gets but a few kilometres out of Warsaw,
when the signs of the devastation of war become
increasingly evident. Dead horses lie about in
the fields, houses wrecked with shell fire are
everywhere, and the inevitable trenches and rifle
pits in every direction.
It is evident from the great holes in the ground
that the Germans had some of their big guns with
them, and were doing their best to get into the
city whose chimneys and spires loomed alluringly
just over the rolling prairieland dotted with its
beautiful groves of trees. I noticed one quaint,
old-fashioned windmill, just outside the town, that
had been wrecked by a single shell. Its great
blades lay on the ground like the wings of a bird,
while the whole edifice had collapsed about it like
a house of cards. The highway, which is a mag-
nificent one, was torn up with holes where the
projectiles had burst, and this made travelling in
a motor-car difficult at any speed.
— 141 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
Near Blonie we left the main road to visit a
small village with an unpronounceable Polish name
where, as we were informed, typical fighting had
taken place. The outlying houses w^ere destroyed
by shell fire, and in the midst of the wreckage were
the ruins of a quaint old church. This the Rus-
sians had spared until the last, but finally opened
on it because the Germans mounted a machine
gun in the beautiful old tower. The neutral ob-
server, no matter what his personal sympathies
may be, feels an obligation to investigate some-
what carefully evidence coming from a source
which must obviously be prejudiced; and I therefore
scouted about a bit to discover whether or not the
evidence of the field substantiated this action on
the part of the Germans. To the east of the
town, about a thousand yards away, within pleas-
ant machine-gun range, one comes upon a huge
grave in which are buried three hundred Rus-
sian soldiers. Before this grave are five small
crosses, and in advance of the five stands
one large cross commemorating the colonel, the
five captains and the men of five companies.
Around this desolate spot I found a number of
relics, and among them four or five Russian infan-
try caps, in which were bullet holes in the crown.
Looking from the graves to the tower of the
church I discovered that the angle was exactly
correct to catch the infantry on the top of their
— 142 —
•OJ)
C
•OD
G
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
heads. It was here that the three hundred fell, and
doubtless the statement of the machine guns on
the church may be taken at its face value. The
Russians at once replied, and from appearances
it is safe to conclude that the machine gun on
the tower ceased its operations abruptly.
In any case only the walls are standing, while
the interior of the nave is a mass of refuse, fallen tim-
ber and shattered masonry. On one side is a great
shell hole ten feet across, and just opposite, framed
by this ragged rupture in the masonry, is a huge
crucifix. A shrapnel shell had burst just above it,
and the wall for five feet in every direction was
dotted with shrapnel holes, while not a shot had hit
the sacred figure. In a garden across the street, hur-
riedly-dug graves revealed arms, legs, and occasion-
ally the head of one who had fallen in the contest
round the church. At one point I noticed a cross
on which was written in German, "Here lie the
bodies of twelve Russian warriors who fell fight-
ing bravely." It is one increasingly pleasant
feature of this side of the war that the belligerents
are coming to respect the bravery of one another's
soldiers.
At noon we lunched in the station at Blonie,
which, as we learn, was the headquarters of the
commanders of one of the German army corps,
and probably the nearest point to the goal of the
Polish campaign reached by any of the com-
— 143 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
manding Generals. From here we went on in a
pouring rain to an army corps' headquarters,
a town now alive with the activities of the
near front. This little place is filled with Jews,
a section of the population which is, as we
are told, unfriendly to the Russians. Here, it
seems, when the Germans were in the town,
they were received with delight by the Hebrew
population, and disgust by the Poles. When
the Germans were forced to retire, the posi-
tion of the Jews was not a happy one, as the
Poles lost no time in telling the Russians of
the open friendliness their neighbours had shown
the Germans. Hence the Hebrews are under
suspicion by the present lords of the town, who
attribute every act of hostility to them.
Here we are not far from the front, as the
transport and fresh wounded make evident.
Numbers of German prisoners were being captured
all along the line, and we saw many of them.
Three Uhlans on foot and two wounded in a cart
passed by, escorted by some Cossacks. After
all the stirring stories of the dreaded Uhlans, it
was something of an anticlimax to see a few tired-
faced boys in uniform, as types of the cavalry
that we have heard so much about. Later, on
the road, we passed some hundreds of Germans,
captured during the fighting of the past few
days. All of them looked fagged and depressed,
— 144 —
XI
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
and practically all were of the second and third
German line, with the exception of a very few
who were mere boys. It is obvious that over
here we are confronted with anything but the
cream of the German Army, and that they have
forced every male capable of bearing arms into
the firing line. From the faces of those that I
have seen, instruments of the system of which
they are the unhappy victims, they are not on
fire about the programme, to say the least.
From the headquarters village we motored on
to Lowicz, from which the Germans have been
recently ousted. The town is full of troops, and
it was difficult to find lodgings, but thanks to the
kindness of a Russian officer, we secured shelter
and a place to sleep.
— 145—
A REARGUARD ACTION
CHAPTER XII
A REARGUARD ACTION
Skierniewice, Poland,
October, 28, 1914.
WE motored over to this pretty little Polish
city from Lowicz this morning and have
had a very interesting day. We are hard on
the trail of the retreating Germans, but it takes
a motor-car very nearly at its best to keep up
with the retreat which is moving as rapidly as get-
ting out their guns and transport permits. The
Russians occupied this town only a few days
ago, but already the front has advanced some-
thing over thirty kilometres. This place, however,
is the immediate base to which the wounded
are coming, and was therefore alive with soldiers,
transport going out, and the flotsam and jetsam
of battle coming back. The Germans blew up
all the bridges as they retired, so that we had to
take carriages that could ford the streams where
motors were impossible.
The country through here is beautiful, and the
roads splendid, so we travelled rapidly. On every
— 149 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
hand there were signs of the German intention
to make stands in order to delay the Russian
advance. At one point, about ten kilometres
from Skierniewice, an extremely elaborate posi-
tion had been prepared with the thoroughness
which marks all the German field work. Trees
had been felled across the road which presented
a veritable abatis for the advance of artillery.
Along the ridge deep trenches and gun positions
had been thrown up. The whole presented as
ideal a position for defence as one could imagine,
with a clear sweep for gun fire as far as field artil-
lery could possibly carry. Yet they never stopped
even a day at this point ; and it is now perfectly
clear that their present policy is one of absolute
withdrawal, with only such stands as are neces-
sary to permit them to get conveniently out of
the country with their impedimenta.
For another hour we drove on, and then came
suddenly over a ridge on to the position itself.
The battle at this point, which seems to have been
a typical rearguard action, was just over ; and
the last belated shells of the retiring enemy were
bursting sporadically to the west of us, with
an occasional puff of shrapnel to the south, to
indicate that we were close on the heels of the
troops. The little village behind the position
was alive with the activities that one always
finds at the extreme front; Red Cross wagons,
— 150 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
transport, wounded being carried back on stretchers,
and the thousand and one odds and ends of con-
fusion that go to make up the fringe of war.
Behind the village, six horses to the team, with
drivers lolling in their saddles chatting and smok-
ing, were drawn up the limbers of two batteries ;
while off in a dip in the country to the north
were three or four battalions of reserves. The
inhabitants were just beginning to come out of
their holes, and everybody was comparing notes
as to the damage done by the German shell
fire. Here and there a wrecked house or a dead
horse slashed open with a fragment of shell,
attracted little groups of the natives, who excitedly
discussed it all.
The street was congested with soldiers, wounded,
transport, and men, women, and children of the
population. Just at the outskirts of the town
one came on the position itself, with the long
lines of trenches, and here and there hurriedly-
erected bombproof s for the officers. The sol-
diers, after their fight, were just coming out of
their burrows and comparing their experiences.
Across the main road to the north were the
Russian gun positions, with the long, sleek
noses of the field guns showing out of their
earth embrasures ; while the gunners were pack-
ing up their used shell cases, and the officers
were making up their daily reports of ammunition
— 151 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
expended and losses incurred. Farther to the
north was another hne of trenches, and, beyond
.that, more guns. This particular action in an
ordinary campaign might be worth notice, but
in this stupendous conflict it must go down as
merely one of the thousand details which make
up a campaign over a front measured in extent
by hundreds of kilometres.
The fight in question was a German rearguard
action which detained the Russians but a day
or two. These fights are typical of all. Troops
piled forward and entrenched ; artillery shoved
up into position, and then a rain of shell fire on
the enemy, until the moment is ripe for the in-
fantry to take their turn with the bayonet. The
fighting in this district indicates a good bit of
this work done, and a few thousand metres
beyond the trenches there is a wood which the
Russians carried with a bayonet charge which was
actually carried home, as some 300 German dead
showed conclusively. When the action had
finished, the troops that had borne the brunt of
it remained on the field, while fresh ones were
moved forward to take care of the next day's
fighting farther to the west.
The statement which has been made repeatedly,
that the Germans are robbing the cradle and
the grave to fill their firing line, seems justified
by the evidence in the wood above mentioned.
— 152 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
From the military record book of one soldier torn
to fragments by a bit of shell appeared the date
of his birth — " 1900/' Certainly it is indicative
of strenuous efforts at recruiting, when boys of
fourteen are in the line performing the work of
grown men. Others were between thirty and forty,
from which one must conclude that a very large
portion of the army that is now retiring is com-
posed of the second and third line. I neither
heard of nor saw Austrian dead, wounded, or
prisoners, in this vicinity.
A few miles to the west we came on a village
that lay in the wake of the German retreat, burned
to the ground ; probably as the result of shell fire
and subsequent spreading of the flames. Here
and there a dead horse or cow lying about
in the front yards indicated that shrapnel had
been flying. It was just getting dark as we
entered the village ; and here as elsewhere near
the front the inhabitants, stunned with the disaster
that had befallen them, were wandering about
among the ruins. Women with babies in their
arms sat in a kind of dazed bewilderment on the
sills of doors which were all that remained of
what had been their homes but yesterday. Cows
were wandering aimlessly about, trying to find
the former byres where at just this hour they
had been wont to come to be milked and bedded
down for the night. These sights are all very
— 153 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
painful, but are, I suppose, of the inevitable
consequences of war.
These destroyed villages, in almost every in-
stance, I believe, are the outcome of rallies made
by the retiring troops and resulting shell fire
by the pursuing victors. When these stands
are made, it is, of course, the only recourse of the
Russians to shell them out of their temporary
shelter. For a country however which has been
the scene of so much fighting I find this in excep-
tionally good condition. The abundance of live
stock on every hand certainly indicates that
the Germans have not wantonly looted the
villages through which their armies have now
passed twice. Even burned villages are com-
paratively rare.
One naturally expected restraint from the
Germans in their advance, for no sound general
would permit his soldiery to incur the hatred of
a population which he was leaving in his rear.
But that the same policy of restraint, excepting a
few isolated instances, should have been followed in a
retreat after a collapse of the campaign, indicates
pretty clearly that the Germans have seen a
new light as to the methods of conducting war-
fare. Perhaps the fact that we have over here
larger numbers of reserves and Landsturm men
has some significance as well ; for the older men
who are married and have families of their own
— 154 —
•* 'V'
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
in Germany, are much less apt to run ram-
pant with the torch than the boys of the first
line, to whom war is a great adventure. Perhaps
also the respect for a brave and stubborn
enemy which is growing up on both sides, is
doing a great deal to lessen the personal bitter-
ness which characterized the war at its begin-
ning. Certainly I have seen or heard nothing
here or in the Galician country which can in any
way be compared to the campaign conducted by
the Germans in Belgium.
Realization is no doubt creeping in, that after
all Europe has some future when the war is over,
and the family of nations on the Continent have
eventually got to live together on terms of peace.
I think it a very excellent sign, then,that the hatred
and personal bitterness on each side, which gave
every soldier the lust and ambition to cut the throat
of each individual of the enemy he met, is gradu-
ally fading away into the legitimate aim of war.
The close intermingling of soldiers and popula-
tion of foreign countries certainly brings a realiza-
tion to each, that after all the enemy are but
men like themselves, neither much better nor
much worse. Thus, in mutual respect and associ-
ation, there grows up throughout a war a feel-
ing which, when peace actually comes, will make
possible better relations than existed in the
period preceding hostilities. As examples of
— 155 —
FIELD NOTES FROM THE RUSSIAN FRONT
this, witness the present relations just now of
Russia and Japan, or England and the Boers.
The feeling I mention, which is, I believe, slowly
and subtly developing in all the armies over here,
is one of the few bright spots in a conflict which
reeks with horrors and misery.
- 156
A RELIGIOUS SERVICE ON THE
FIELD OF BATTLE
'Jl
CHAPTER XIII
A RELIGIOUS SERVICE ON THE FIELD
OF BATTLE
Warsaw, Poland,
November i, 1914.
HE who tries to understand the psychology
of the milhons of simple soldiers of the
Czar now with the colours, and overlooks the
spiritual aspect of these humble privates, certainly
fails to appreciate one of the keynotes in the
character of the men who are carrying forward
the honour and the banners of Russia towards a
victorious consummation of the war. I never
began to realize this extraordinary quality of the
Russian soldier, until by rare good luck we hap-
pened a few days ago on services which were
being held on the battlefield near a certain village
in Western Poland.
The sun had set and the whole landscape was
fading into the neutral tints of the afterglow of
a cold afternoon in late October. A few hundred
yards to the west was the line of the Russian
trenches and the position of their field artillery,
— 159 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
whose guns were hardly cool from the discharge
of shrapnel shells. The last stretcher-bearers
were disappearing to the rear with their melan-
choly burdens, while in a wood a few miles away
the still bleeding bodies of the enemy's dead were
stiffening in death. A few kilometres beyond,
belated shells, like the last fire cracker in a
pack, were bursting at infrequent intervals. The
battle was over, and here we saw the change
from the militant to the religious. The regiment
in question was one of those from Siberia
whose deeds of valour in eighteen days of con-
secutive fighting reduced its numbers from 4,000
to 1,700, and its officers from 70 to 12. The
fame of their endurance and prodigies of courage
had trickled back to the General Staff, and the
Grand Duke had himself sent a wire of congratu-
lations to the regiment, and ordered that it should be
decorated with the Cross of St. George, the nearest
equivalent to the V.C. which Russian tradition
offers. This order is given only for bravery in
action. Representing the regiment so honoured,
forty soldiers, selected by their own comrades,
receive the cherished little metal cross with its
bit of black and orange ribbon.
The regiment that we now saw in the slowly
d5dng October day had thus been honoured; and
almost ere their rifles were cool, were ordered
back into a little hollow dip to hear the message
— 160 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
of the Commander-in-Chief, to receive their
reward, and to participate in rehgious services
conducted by a priest of their own faith.
The scene was one that I shall never forget.
Seventeen hundred war-worn veterans, covered
with the mud and dirt of the trenches, massed in
a half-square in all the atmosphere of battle. But
the hard glint of cruel war was gone from their
eyes, and in its place there shone that peculiar
exaltation of the religious man in the presence
of the chosen representative of his creed.
And such a representative ! In the very centre
of the square, with the entire staff of the regi-
mental officers grouped bareheaded behind him,
stood the most magnificent priest that I have
ever seen. With golden hair hanging down to his
shoulders, and a head transfigured with the light of
one lifted above earthly matters, he stood in all his
gorgeous robes before six stacked rifles, the bayonets
of which served to support the Holy Bible and the
golden cross that symbolizes the Christian faith.
With eyes turned in rapture to the cold leaden
heavens above him, the priest seemed a figure
utterly detached from the earth. Behind him stood a
few grimy veterans whose voices made them eligible
to aid in the chanting. And on two sides, file
upon file, leaning on their rifles with bayonets fixed,
stood these sons of Russia's vast domain of steppes
and desolation which sweeps from the Ural
— i6i — L
FIELD NOTES FROM
Mountains to the far fringes of the Pacific httoral
in Asia.
The service I could not follow, as it was of
course in Russian, but the spirit of it, there in the
chill twilight upon the battlefield, was such as
none could misread. And when there came the
benediction, each of the soldiers fell upon his
knees and with bended head listened to the
sonorous voice that bespoke for them the mercy
and kindness of Him who above the roar and
tumult of battle and conflicting races yet watches
over every one of His own. As they knelt there
with their forest of bayonets silhouetted against the
sky, it seemed as though the gleaming points must
be part of a religious service, and not the type of
war's most cruel weapon. The service ended,
and then followed a scene almost as impressive.
The colonel, a grizzled old warrior, stepped out
and in sharp, military sentences ordered from the
ranks those of the privates who had been honoured
with the Cross of St. George. The men stepped
forward and kissed the cross held in the hands
of the priest. Next, the forty were formed in
a line of twenty, two files deep. An officer
then called out certain orders, and at once the
sea of bayonets dissolved in a confusion of defiling
columns, and at another order reshaped into the
whole regiment in column of eights, with the
colonel at their head. These then defiled past
— 162 —
c
o
«
G
o
o
o
n
Hi
•CD
C
C/D
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
the new Knights of St. George to pay their respects
to those among them who had borne the test of
fire and of steel.
The first man was the old, grizzled colonel. In
his left hand he carried a cane to support a foot
which limped from a wound received in Man-
churia. As he passed his own privates, he raised
his hand in respectful salute. Behind him filed the
whole regiment, company after company, each pay-
ing the respect that manhood renders to fortitude
and bravery crowned by official recognition. And
all the while the forty chosen ones stood with radi-
ant faces, their rifles at the present. Here we
saw them file past, these ragged, war-stained men
from Siberia, and a finer body of troops more
representative of their craft has never come before
my eyes. Dirty, bearded, and jinghng with their
teapots, spades, and soldiers' knick-knacks, they
moved slowly past their companions whom
they had chosen to honour as types of their own
bravery. When the last company had passed,
the deep, stern tones of the colonel rang out,
and at once the regiment dissolved into its com-
panies, each of which returned to the place in the
trenches from whence it had come to participate
in this remarkable meeting. After it was over,
I strolled along the lines and there sank into my
mind the realization that these simple men had
gone back to their trenches armed with a faith
- 163 -
FIELD NOTES FROM THE RUSSIAN FRONT
and an ardour which only reHgion sowti on a
fertile ground can stir in the breast of man.
I learn now that priests are with nearly all the
armies, and services are held as frequently as
possible, and that during the action these men of
God move among the troops, administering the
last offices to those that are beyond earthly help,
and binding up the wounds of those whose
condition is not hopeless.
The spirit of the troops is perhaps typified by
the scene that I have imperfectly tried to describe.
Let no one who would understand the tempera-
ment and capacity of the Russian soldier forget,
that in the very aspect seen here, there is one of the
greatest assets that an army can have, when it is
embodied in the heart of each of the simple units
that forms its regiments, the men who pay the
price of war and whose lives and shattered car-
casses form the foundation of the highway of
advancing Empire.
— 164 —
SCENES ON THE ROAD IN POLAND
CHAPTER XIV
SCENES ON THE ROAD IN POLAND
Dated November 2, 1914,
From Radum, Poland.
^ 1 THAT I have seen to-day was not spec-
V V tacular, but to one who has followed
armies in the field, it was the most encouraging
sight for a sympathizer of the Allies that he
could possibly wish to behold. We have covered
in and around here perhaps two hundred kilo-
metres of road in our motor-cars, and never
have I seen such signs of preparation for an aggres-
sive movement. It is not an exaggeration to
say that there are on the road to-day in our im-
mediate vicinity, transport, munitions, and troops
that if strung in a single line would extend for at
least a hundred kilometres in length. All day
long I have witnessed a continuous procession
of everything that goes to make for war. Russia
may have been a httle slow in getting under way,
but one feels here that she is not the less sure
for all that.
One thing which impresses me greatly is the
— 167 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
enormous amount of shrapnel caissons one sees
compared to transport loaded with small-arm
ammunition. Certainly there has never been a
war where artillery played such an important
role as in this ; and I think I do not exaggerate
when I state that I have seen, in the last few days,
fully a thousand six-horse teams with the ammuni-
tion caissons going to the front. And not only
are they strung out for miles along the roads,
but at frequent intervals one sees whole parks
of them, covering acres of ground, with the little
shaggy horses tethered in long rows to ropes.
Every village is filled with hundreds of transport
carts, while in and around and between one sees
nothing but soldiers of every branch of the service.
I do not know how many times to-day we have
had to slow down our car to drive through the
endless columns of men in leaden grey, who oblig-
ingly made a pathway through which we might
move forward.
The Russian regiments on the march are the
most informal organizations in the world. Ahead
ride a few officers, and then in no particular forma-
tion come the troops : some on one side of the
road and some on the other. Towards the rear
they straggle off in dwindling streams, wandering
about the fields, and plodding here and there
as though they were all off on individual
tours and each was on his own account.
— i68 —
■^
•00
■00
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
For miles after a regiment has passed one sees
little groups trudging along, apparently perfectly
detached and without any idea of their destina-
tion. Yet at night, to a man, they are all there
for rations, and in the morning start off again in
a solid formation.
I am told that this method of marching has
proved a great puzzle to the aviators of the Ger-
mans trying to estimate the numbers of troops
that are moving ; for when the columns are so
strung out, it is almost impossible from any height
to tell whether what one sees is a battalion in
close formation or a company strung out. Most
armies march in solid masses, which can be seen
on the roads for long distances and their strength
judged to a nicety.
The more one sees of the individual of the Russian
army the more one comes to like the common
soldier here. They are the most good-natured,
child-like, playful creatures in the world ; and in the
month I have been with the army, in constant
association with troops, I have not seen a single
fight among the soldiers or any disorder whatsoever.
On the road and in their camps at night, all seem
contented and happy when the weather is fine.
It must be admitted that they look a httle dismal
in the rain.
For the first time on this trip we have seen
considerable numbers of Cossacks, and have talked
— 169 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
with a lot of them. Personally I am of the
opinion that the terrible name given to the Cos-
sacks is a libel. There may be undesirable indi-
viduals, but most of them that I have seen have
been great overgrown children. Incidentally, I am
gradually forming a similar impression of the
Uhlans that I have seen. They may be quite
different men on the other frontier, but those
that have been taken prisoners here by the Rus-
sians are anything but terrifying to look at. Most
of them that I have seen are very young, and look
like schoolboys in uniform rather than the demons
incarnate that I have read so much about since
the war started.
We have travelled over some very bad roads, and
the other day when we were stuck in a bad place
where the bridges had been destroyed by the
retreating Germans, and a detour had to be made,
we were rescued by these very same prisoners,
who came along just in the nick of time. During
the delay in getting us out, I had a chat with both
Germans and Austrians among the group of four
or five hundred. I asked the Germans how they
felt about the Russians, and how they had been
treated. They agreed in the same breath that
they liked them and that they had been treated
very well. The Austrians said the same. The
convoy accompanying this substantial block of
captured men was not above a dozen Russian
— 170 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
soldiers. While some forty prisoners were trying
to get our motor-cars out of the mud, one of the
Russian soldiers came up with a few Austrians
and asked each of our party in turn if we could
not help a friend to change Austrian silver to
Russian money. All fraternized together, and
it is hard to believe that these men have the
slightest personal animus against each other.
As the war drags out, such bitterness as there is, is
becoming less and less seen.
There were two very intelligent Germans in
the crowd, and I talked for some time with them.
Both were reservists : one was a merchant from
Berlin, and the other, in time of peace, a carpenter.
I asked them how the army talked about the war.
" Oh, we shall win all right," the merchant said.
" You know of course that France is already
practically finished, and we have only Russia
now, and we knew that would take some time."
" How about England ? " I asked. " You know
of course that she has a new army of a million
men that will go into the field before long." The
two men turned and looked at each other. It
was evident that neither of them knew anything
about it at all, and their faces fell accordingly.
I talked with still a third, who confided to me
that he was a coachman in time of peace, but that
all things considered he infinitely preferred war
to his last job.
— 171 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
I am constantly inquiring among all for cases
of atrocities, but I have not yet found one of
which the evidence was clear or conclusive. One
is constantly being told that Germans have com-
mitted this or that horrible deed, but upon examina-
tion I have never found a single individual who
had seen it himself. He had always heard it
from some one, who had got it from a soldier,
who saw it at a distance, or who was told by some
one else. Of the situation on the other side, or
in Eastern Prussia, I would not presume to speak,
for I have not been in those theatres of war ; but
of what I have seen along the fronts in Galicia and
Poland I do not believe that any excesses, excepting
occasional isolated cases, are being practised on
either side.
War at its very best is hideous enough, and
certainly no good can come from taking the few
isolated incidents, magnifying them and treating
them as typical, and then giving them out to both
sides. I do not think at present one could find
many soldiers on this front on either side who have
much to complain of at the hands of their enemy
when captured. I believe the Germans here are
conducting a very decent campaign, and I am
certain that the Russians are doing the same.
One cannot overestimate the marvellous effect
that the abolition of drink has had upon this
army. It may be trite to write about it, but
— 172 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
the more one lives with these men the more one
comes to wonder at the sobriety and absolute
quiet and order of the army, both men and officers.
The organization of the transport service is
excellent, and in all the miles of wagons I have
seen in the past few days I have not seen one
broken down, nor have I seen any congestion on
the road. Everything is moving like clockwork,
and any one who doubts that the Russian Army
has been reorganized from the ground up, has only
to spend a month or two studying it to re?Jize
his mistake.
173 —
THE TAKING OF KIELCE
CHAPTER XV
THE TAKING OF KIELCE
KiELCE, Poland,
November 3, 1914.
THE Russians took Kielce to-day, and for
once we were far enough forward to make
it possible for us to enter the town with the
troops. The action itself took place during
the night, and, like all these fights, was a rear-
guard affair, arranged by the Germans to delay
the Russian advance long enough to permit of
the easy retirement of their own transport
and guns. The troops of the Czar, however, are
in such spirits and so encouraged by constant
advances, that they are moving much more
rapidly than suits the convenience of the enemy ;
with the result that by necessity some of these
rearguard events assume the stubborn resistance
of a pitched battle. Kielce was extremely intense
for the day, or rather night, that it lasted ; and
there is no doubt that the enemy is being hurried
in his retreat much faster than suits his pleasure.
The main bodies of the Russian advance are moving
— 177 — M
FIELD NOTES FROM
from twenty to twenty-five kilometres a day at
present, while some of the flank regiments cover up
to forty kilometres a day. The stands that are being
made are smothered almost instantly with the
volume of our troops that roll over the defence
like the waves of the sea. The Kielce fight got
under way a Httle late yesterday, but the Russians
did not wait until daylight, but with ferocious eager-
ness attacked the Austrian centre at a village ten
kilometres from here, and crumpled up the whole
line, with the result that the retirement was made
in a hurry. The last troops of the enemy left the
town itself at ten in the morning, and we entered
with the Russian soldiers a little past noon.
We were told at Radum, where we spent the
night, that there would be a fight to-day at Kielce,
and that we could go forward and see it. So we
got an early start in our motor-cars and headed
for the front, a distance of about fifty kilometres.
The roads, however, were in a very bad state, thanks
to the efforts of the retreating enemy, who had had
sufficient leisure here to run ploughs through the
beautiful macadam road, and burn or blow up
all the bridges and culverts on the way. Every
few miles it was necessary to make detours through
fields and over hurriedly- thrown- together bridges.
Again and again we stuck in the mud up to the
axles; and now we began to realize the convenience
of being attached to the General Staff and having
— 178 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
a Staff colonel as our leader. Every time we
came to grief we had only to wait until the next
company of troops or transport hove in sight,
when they suspended the war against the enemy
long enough to come down a hundred strong and
pull us bodily out of our predicament. The result
of the delays, however, was that what should
have taken us a couple of hours took nearly
five. The density of the traffic and transport
made travel slow even where the roads were good.
As the morning advanced we began to pass the
carts of wounded, and a hundred other unmistak-
able signs of the real front came in sight. A few
miles from town we became wedged in the road
with the whole vanguard of the army pouring in
from the fields on each side ; and then we learned
for the first time that the town had been taken
and that the troops surging about us were those
that had been fighting all night, and that, as a
matter of fact, their first columns were just pressing
in on the very heels of the enemy.
Ahead of us, the road was blocked with troops
and Cossack cavalry, all swinging forward, singing
songs and otherwise rejoicing at the advance
after a brisk night's work. Just behind us there
trotted in from the lanes, from the east and west,
battery after battery of artillery, fresh with the
mud and grime of their night's work in the positions.
The soldiers were sitting on the Hmbers munching
— 179 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
bread and shouting exuberantly at each other.
These guns, we learned, had just been limbered up
and were pushing forward to re-engage the enemy
as soon as he could be overtaken. They had all
been snatched out of their positions and hurried
forward so rapidly that each piece and caisson
was like a Christmas tree, with the odds and ends
belonging to the soldiers that they had not had
time to leave for the transport. Bales of hay
hurriedly thrown on between gun and caisson, tea-
pots and clothing, relics of the Austrian retreat,
horses' nosebags, drinking-cups, and a thousand
other intimate effects of the gunners jingled and
rattled against the barrel of the gun itself, its
muzzle now neatly capped with leather.
We entered the town surrounded by a forest
of bayonets, with transport, cavalry, and ammuni-
tion wagons pouring through every street. A
colonel of infantry on a big white horse, who was
trying to get his own regimental transport for-
ward through and out of the town, tried to stop
our car ; but when he saw the Staff shoulder-straps
of our colonel, he grudgingly stopped his trans-
port and let us slide through into the square of
the town. The population were hanging out of
the crowded windows and balconies. Russian
flags were flying from almost every house. If
I had any doubt before this day as to whether
the feelings of Poland were for or against Russia,
— i8o —
Russian Field Gun in Action (Poland).
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
it would have been dissipated in this square.
There was no doubt about the enthusiasm with
which the Russian troops were received.
We drove our cars down to the hotel, now the
headquarters of the general commanding the
army corps. The Staff was already there, having
luncheon, and as we entered they were all on
their feet singing in their deep, hoarse voices the
stirring Russian National Anthem. After a hasty
bite, we went back to the square, and watched
the avalanche of men that was pouring through
the town.
They are impressive, these soldiers of the Czar,
without a doubt. Here is no pomp and no bril-
liant show of uniform for officers and men. All
is soberly practical ; and as one stands for hours
and watches them swinging through the streets
in their dirty, grey coats, stained with the mud
and dirt of battlefield and trench ; with unshaven
faces, and their teakettles and canteens jingling
about them, the conviction grows that this army of
Russia which is now pushing forward everywhere,
is probably going to be the great deciding factor in
this greatest of all wars. All the afternoon the
columns were pouring through the square, with
breaks every now and again ; the soldiers splitting
their ranks to let the six-horse teams drawing
the long sleek guns, with their paint blistered off
from the heat of rapid fire, pass through to the
— i8i —
FIELD NOTES FROM
front. As the daylight began to fade, the columns
of troops began to dwindle and give place to the
endless stream of transport that seethed in its
wake ; and then, away to the south and west,
came the sullen report of a gun, and then another
and another and another, and presently the air
was filled with the distant rumble of artillery fire.
We knew that the guns that had passed us on
the road had already caught up wdth the enemy,
and that his rearguard was again being pressed.
But we unfortunately were now rounded up by
our gentle but exceedingly firm colonel, and advised
that we could not go any farther for the present, but
must remain in the town. To ease our restlessness
we were taken round after dinner to-night and
presented to the general commanding the advance
in this quarter. We spent half or three-quarters
of an hour in his room at the hotel, the corridors
of which were filled with aides and muddy order-
lies coming and going.
One is much impressed with the seriousness
with which these men are taking their job. The
general in command had a small room, and a kit
much less extensive than most of the war corre-
spondents of our party maintain as necessaries.
A table strewn with military maps covered with
pencil marks indicated the plans for the next day,
and a fuming, unshaven division general, covered
with mud, talking to an equally soiled Staff colonel
— 182 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
in the corner of the room, indicated pretty clearly
that we were not opportune in our visit. Yet
the General commanding received us very courte-
ously and kept us for nearly half an hour.
Before going to bed we took a stroll through the
streets. Where at noon one could hardly pass
for the congestion, there was now order and organ-
ization. The wave had rolled on, and already the
front was twenty kilometres beyond us, and only
the transport and occasional bodies of troops
coming in from distant positions remained to tell
of the deluge that had swept through this extremely
picturesque little Polish city in the morning.
During our short stop here I have made every
effort to secure all information possible from the
villagers about the German and Austrian occupa-
tion of the place. We learn that they had been
here for weeks, and that the retreat was a surprise
to the Germans, but has not apparently had a very
depressing effect on the soldiers, who maintain an
absolute confidence in their ultimate victory.
Huge supplies were accumulated here, and the
inhabitants say that many of the enemy expected
to winter in Kielce. German soldiers are ap-
parently very gullible. I suppose it is against
their military law to question even in their own
minds what has been told them by their officers.
In any case, they seem to believe here that the
retreat from Warsaw was not a very serious matter
— 183 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
and to have explained to the inhabitants that
an early winter and cold weather had made it
inconvenient, and that they were going home tem-
porarily and would call later again in the spring.
From conversations with prisoners and with
the people here, who seem to have had little trouble
with the visitors, it is obvious that the rank and
file of the Germans have been led to believe that
the war in the West is practically all over but the
shouting, and that it is merely a question of time
when Russia will be disposed of. The belief is
that they have done the hard job in France
already, and now they will digest Russia at their
leisure. The confidence of the Germans seems
to have been shared by many of the inhabi-
tants, who had gloomily come to share the same
point of view. As one man said to me, " We had
come to think the Germans were invincible. For
weeks we have seen nothing but German and
Austrian troops, artillery, and transport. There
were so many of them, and all in such fine con-
dition and so confident, that it did not seem possible
they could be defeated. I had about given up
hope, but now it is quite a different outlook,"
and he pointed out on the square filled with
Russian bayonets moving in and swaying in
unison through the street. Then he added signifi-
cantly, " Is there no end of them ? This early
morning this whole square was blue with Austrian
— 184 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
uniforms. It seems like a dream to see nothing
now but Russians." I asked him about the
Germans. They, it seems, took their departure
the afternoon before, leaving their allies of the
Dual Monarchy to take up the burden of the
rearguard.
From many conversations that I have had, it
seems clear that the relations between the soldiers,
and especially the officers, of the Germans and
Austrians are not cordial, to put it mildly ; and
there is a growing breach between them, which
may yet prove to be of great significance before
this war is over. The Germans are constantly
forcing their allies into the bad places, and making
them take up the thankless burden of rearguard
duty, with the heavy losses in wounded and
prisoners that follow, while the Germans them-
selves slip out with their transport. It is re-
ported, and seems probable, that many German
officers have been sprinkled through the Austrian
regiments, and that these treat their Aus-
trian fellow-ofhcers with arrogance and contempt,
which is creating dissatisfaction and intense
annoyance. Quarrels and recrimination between
them seem to be general, and if the reports that
we hear are true, it is easily believable that the
Austrians are getting sick of the job allotted them
by their allies of pulling their chestnuts out of the
fire.
- 185-
FIELD NOTES FROM
The spirit of the Austrian troops on this front
is certainly at a very low ebb, and this accounts
in part for the very large numbers of prisoners
taken in every action now. We are told that
they surrender in blocks, and that substantial
bodies have come in with native guides to the
Russian lines asking to be received. These stories
are, however, given us by the Russians themselves,
and I cannot vouch for their accuracy. All that
I have written above must be taken merely as
indicating a general trend of opinion, and accepted
for what it is worth, and not as authoritative in
any way. I believe, however, that the relations
between Germany and Austria are worth watching ;
and it is within the realm of possibility that
Austria, sick of her assignment of holding back
the Russians, which she is striving to do under
great difficulty, heavy losses and no appreciation,
may yet ask for terms of peace independently of
her ally, an event which would certainly put the
Germans in a desperate plight.
Among the hundreds and hundreds of Aus-
trian prisoners and wounded that I have seen in
the past few days, there have been but a handful
of Germans. These hold themselves absolutely
aloof from their i\ustrian fellow-captives, and their
relations with them seem much more hostile than
with the Russian guards that accompany them.
Many of the captured Austrians are Poles from
— i86 —
•OB
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
Galicia, and they do not even pretend to have
enthusiasm for, or interest in the war.
Russian sources here offer us tales of German
atrocities, but on being investigated I find Httle
ground for accepting any large portion of them.
We were told, for instance, by a colonel, with
great seriousness, that the Germans were wan-
tonly butchering prisoners. Seventeen captured
Cossacks, he told us, were hned up, and a German
officer went down the line shooting them with his
revolver one after the other. What was the
evidence ? A Cossack soldier said he had seen
it all from a wood a mile away. No confirmation
of this remarkable tale came from any other
quarter ; yet I noticed that the story was set
down seriously by some of our party, and no doubt
will go out as an authoritative statement.
I am constantly hearing similar tales. One was
told me the other day of a drummer boy being
captured and blown to bits by rifle bullets. What
was the evidence ? A man in the street had heard
it from a soldier who was told by an eye-witness.
And so on. It is of course difficult to follow these
stories to their foundation, but personally I think
the atrocity tales, unless absolutely proven, should
be handled with great care. Rumours unverified
and sent out as typical facts serve only to mislead
the public, and inflame the soldiery to take re-
prisals for supposed excesses, which I honestly
— 187 —
FIELD NOTES FROM THE RUSSIAN FRONT
believe, in nine cases out of ten, are entirely
made up. From the population one finds
only minor complaints, such as quarrels over
exchange between marks and roubles, under-
payment for rooms, etc. That the population
found the Germans arrogant and overbearing is
undoubtedly true, but beyond that I believe their
occupation has been as decent as is possible in
war.
— ib« —
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THE FIGHTING AROUND IVANGROD
CHAPTER XVI
THE FIGHTING AROUND IVANGROD
Warsaw,
November 8, 1914.
TWO weeks in Poland have given me an
absolutely new impression of the armies
of modern Russia. There is as much difference
in organization, moral, and efficiency, between
the armies which some of us saw in Manchuria ten
years ago, and which crumpled up before the
Imperial Guards of Japan at the battle of the
Yalu, and the military machine that these past
few weeks has been steadily and surely driv-
ing back the armies of Germany and Austria, as
there was between the raw American recruits
who stampeded at the battle of Bull Run in 1861
and the veterans that received the surrender of
Lee at Appomatox four years later.
One who has lived with large armies in the
field comes to look first of all at the great busi-
ness side of the enterprise. In the public mind
the soldier and the army is always judged from
the spectacular point of view of the battlefield.
— 191 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
But upon analysis one finds that the actual
battle is merely the fruition of all that has been
carefully prepared and nourished during years
that have gone before. An army may be likened
to an iceberg, of which it is said that seven-eighths
is submerged. What we see of troops is but
the merest fraction of all that has gone before
to prepare for the great spectacle of the battle
itself. The action is merely the sudden crystal-
lization of all that has been in solution during
the decades that have preceded. That nation
which has not been preparing the solution has
nothing to crystallize when the hour strikes ; and
when the moment for action comes, too often
finds its mihtary house built upon the sands,
which dissipate beneath it at the first impact.
The battle is the tempest itself, and when the
storm comes and the winds blow, the structure
of an army, and indeed of the nation itself, sur-
vives or crumbles according to whether or not
the foundations of preparation are true or
loose and disjointed.
So it is that one looks first at the vast seething
life that is going on behind the firing line, for
herein he may judge of what to expect on the
battlefield itself.
Until I went to Poland I had not during this
war been actually in the hfe of the army itself.
Of the efficiency of the German army, measured
— 192 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
by the terrific blows that it had been striking,
we all knew. Of the Russians, little was known
save of their Galician campaign. But now at last,
from the first day we entered the sphere of active
and immediate operations, we had the chance of
forming an opinion as to the qualit}^ of the soldiers
of the Czar. This opinion, which in two days
became a conviction, was that this army has
been completely reorganized in ten years, and that
it was now under full steam, with a momentum
and efficiency almost incredible to those that
had seen it ten years ago on the dismal plains of
Manchuria.
For weeks there have been suggestions in
the foreign press that Russia has been moving
slowly ; but that her slowness was the sign
of sureness is the answer which one reads on the
highways and byways of Poland to-day. I have
seen the transport and the communications of a
huge army in the Far East, but never have I
seen or even dreamed of the sights that one
sees daily on the lines of communications in
Poland. One can take a motor-car and drive
for hours along the beautiful macadam roads for
a hundred kilometres, pass the almost unbroken
fine of transport, ammunition and artillery, inter-
mingled with infantry and cavalry that is mov-
ing to the front. The ways are filled for mile
after mile with the unbroken lines of all that
— 193 — N
FIELD NOTES FROM
goes to make for the execution of war. In many
places they advance two abreast, and of the
wagons containing the miscellany from which
an army sucks its life, the numbers easily
run into tens of thousands. And between, and
around and about all, are ever the seething throngs
of the soldiers themselves — these quiet, good-
natured grey-coated units of the Czar, with their
bayonets invariably fixed, moving forward in
brigades, regiments, battalions, and companies.
The picture of the road that always lingers in
one's mind at night is this forest of bayonets
as background for miles and miles of labouring
caissons and creaking transport carts. From
the first day that one is on the road, one feels
absolutely certain that Russia has two of the
great requisites of war — the organization and
the men themselves. Organization, as I use it,
means supplies and the efficient means of trans-
porting them in a regular and orderly manner.
Napoleon said that an army was composed of
the material factors and of the moral components,
and of these the latter was three times as impor-
tant as the former. With every possible neces-
sity, and with the last word in equipment, an
army without moral is as a motor-car destitute
of petrol.
There is no question about the Russians to-day.
Two months ago, when I first came to Russia, I
— 194 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
wrote a story from Petrograd in which I men-
tioned the new spirit of Russia and the wilUng-
ness with which the troops were going to the
war. After having been at the front and seen
hundreds and thousands of the same soldiers
on the roads, in the trenches, and in the hospitals,
I am convinced that I did not exaggerate the
spirit of new Russia. None of these pathetic
units in the great game wanted the war, of course,
and I suppose every one of them longs for its
conclusion ; but almost without exception they
take it philosophically. Their hardships and their
losses, their privations and their wounds — all are
accepted as a matter of course. The absolute
hopelessness which one saw on their faces in
Manchuria is not seen in these days. The key-
note of their appearance, wherever I have seen
them in this war, is a good-natured willingness to
accept what is necessary for the general cause the
nature of which most of them understand.
The Russian soldier is to me the most philo-
sophical individual in the world. I have seen him
in the hospitals with arms and legs gone, head
smashed in, ghastly wounds of all sorts, and if
he has the strength to speak at all, he whispers
"Nichivo," the equivalent of which in English
is " What difference does it make, anyway ? "
After a ghmpse of the men and the munitions
that permeate the life behind the army, one is
- 195 -
FIELD NOTES FROM
not surprised at the feats that these same men,
backed by their organization and transport, are
performing everyday on the actual field of battle.
While it is true that many of the recent actions
have been rearguard affairs, where it has been
perfectly obvious that the enemy was making
a stand only long enough to permit him to get
out his impedimenta at his leisure, it is equally
true that there have been other actions where
he had not the slightest idea in the world of
leaving unless he was forced.
The best illustration of this is the battle which
seems to be known in a vague way as the battle
of Ivangrod. I have asked many people in the
last few days what they knew of this action.
All seemed to be aware in a general way that
it was an important Russian victory. Some
said it was a German-Austrian rearguard action;
but few seemed to know any of the details of
the contest which, in any other war that this
world has ever seen, would have filled books
with its details of fierce hand-to-hand fighting.
As far as I know there is nothing in the history
of war, with the possible exception of the Ameri-
can battle of the Wilderness, that can touch this
event I speak of ; and the Virginia campaign, as
regards losses, duration, and men engaged, was a
mere skirmish compared with this. Yet here a
few weeks afterwards, beyond the mere fact of it
— 196 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
having taken place and having been won by the
Russians, practically nothing is known about it.
I shall not attempt to describe the military
or strategic aspects of this desperate spot, be-
cause if one begins on the historical relation of
battles in this war there is absolutely no ending.
I shall, however, sketch just a httle of it, to indi-
cate the nature of the work that the Russian
soldiers did here. For in no battle of the whole
war, on any front, has the fibre, determination
and courage of troops been put more severely to
the test than in this one.
The German programme, as has been pointed
out, contemplated taking both Warsaw and Ivan-
grod and the holding for the winter of the fine
formed by the Vistula between the two. The
Russians took the offensive from Ivangrod, crossed
the river, and, after hideous fighting, fairly drove
Austrians and Germans from positions of great
strength around the quaint httle Polish town
of Kozienice. From this place, for perhaps ten
miles west, and I know not how far north and
south, there is a belt of forest of fir and spruce.
I say forest, but perhaps jungle is a better term
for it, for it is so dense with trees and underbrush
that one can hardly see fifty feet away. Near
Kozienice the Russian infantry, attacking in flank
and front, fairly wrested the enemy's position and
drove him back into this jungle. The front
— 197 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
was itself bristling with guns, and I counted
in about a mile position, forty-two guns. The
taking of this line was in itself a test of the mettle
of the Russian peasant soldier.
But this was only the beginning. Once in the
wood, the Russian artillery was limited in its
effect upon the enemy; and in any event, the
few roads through the forest and the absence of
open places made its use almost impossible.
The enemy retired a little way into this wilder-
ness and fortified. The Russians simply sent
their troops in after them. The fight was now
over a front of perhaps twenty kilometres.
There was no strategy.
It was all very simple. In this belt were Ger-
mans and Austrians. They were to be driven
out, if it took a month. The carnage began.
Day after day the Russians poured troops in on
their side of the wood. These entered, were seen
for a few minutes, then disappeared in the laby-
rinth of trees and were lost. Companies, regi-
ments, battalions, and even brigades, were abso-
lutely cut off from each other. None knew what
was going on anywhere but a few feet in front.
All knew that the only thing required of them
was to keep advancing. This they did, foot
by foot and day after day; fighting each other
hand to hand ; taking, losing and retaking position
after position. In all of this ten kilometres of forest
— 190 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
I dare venture to say there is hardly an acre with-
out its trenches, rifle pits and graves.
Here one sees where a dozen men had a httle
fort of their own and fought furiously with the
enemy a few feet away in a similar position.
Day after day it went on, and day after day troops
were poured into the Russian side of the wood ;
and day and night the continuous crack of rifle
fire and the roar of artillery hurling shells into the
wood, could be heard for miles. But the artil-
lery played a lesser role, for the denseness of
the forest made it impossible to get an effective
range. Yet they kept at it, and the forest
for miles looks as though a hurricane had swept
through. Trees staggering from their shattered
trunks, and limbs hanging everywhere, show
where the shrapnel shells have been bursting. Yard
by yard the ranks and lines of the enemy were
driven back, but the nearer their retreat brought
them to the open country west of the wood, the
hotter the contest became ; for each man in his
own mind must have known how they would
fare when, once driven from the protecting forest,
they attempted to retreat through the open country
without shelter.
The state of the last two kilometres of the
woody belt is hard to describe. There seems
scarcely an acre that is not sown like the scene of
a paperchase, only the trail here is bloody
FIELD NOTES FROM
bandages and bits of uniform. Here also there
was small use for the artillery, and the rifle and
the bayonet played the leading role. Men, fight-
ing hand to hand with clubbed muskets and
bayonets, fought from tree to tree and ditch to
ditch. Systematically, patiently, stoically, the
Russians sent in fresh troops at their side of the
wood.
The end was of course inevitable. The troops
of the Dual Alliance could not, I suppose, fill their
losses, and the Russians could. Their army was
under way, and they would have taken that belt of
wood if the entire peasant population of Russia had
been necessary to feed the maw of that ghastly
monster of carnage in the forest. But at last
the day came when the dirty, grimy, bloody sol-
diers of the Czar pushed their antagonists out
of the far side of the belt of woodland. What
a scene there must have been in this lovely bit
of open country, with the quaint httle village of
Augustow at the cross-roads !
Once out in the open, the hungry guns of
the Russians, that had for so long yapped in-
effectively and sightlessly into blind forest, got
their chance. Down every road through the wood,
came the six-horse teams with the guns jump-
ing and jingling behind, with their accompany-
ing caissons heavy with shrapnel. The moment
the enemy were in the clear, these batteries,
— 200 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
eight guns to a unit, were unlimbered on the
fringe of the wood and were pouring out their
death and destruction on the wretched enemy now
retreating hastily across the open.
The place where the Russians first turned loose
on the retreat is a place to remember — or to for-
get, if one can. Dead horses, bits of men, blue
uniforms, shattered transport, overturned gun
carriages, bones, broken skulls, and grisly bits
of humanity strew every acre of the ground.
A Russian officer, who seemed to be in authority
on this gruesome spot, volunteered the informa-
tion that already they had buried at Kozienice
in the wood and in the open 16,000 dead; and
as far as I could make out the job was still a
long way from being completed. Those who had
fallen in the open, and along the road, had been
decently interred, as the forests of crosses for ten
miles along that bloody way clearly indicated ;
but back in the woods themselves, there were
hundreds and hundreds of bodies lying as they
had fallen. Sixteen thousand dead means at
least 70,000 casualties all told, or 35,000 on a
side if losses were equally distributed. This is
figured on the basis of the 16,000 dead which
were already buried, without allowing for the
numbers of the fallen that still lie about in the
woods. And yet this is a battle the name of
which is, I dare venture to say, hardly more than
— 201 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
known either in England or the United States,
and in which the losses on both sides probably
amount to more than the entire army that Meade
commanded at the battle of Gettysburg. If
one wants to get an idea of what war is under
these conditions, it is only necessary to stroll
back among the trees and wander about among
the maze of rifle pits and trenches thrown up
by the desperate soldiers as they fought their
way forward or defended their retreat.
The battle is over now, and it is a day of clear
sunshine in the late autumn — such a day as the
Indian summers in New England bring, when the
life of spring seems to be coming back. All is
peace and harmony, beetles and caterpillars are
crawling about and insects humming in the sun-
shine. At every step we stumble across the ghastly
corpses of the dead, lying with glazed eyes star-
ing into the blue, cloudless heavens above them.
All is now serene and quiet, and save for the
gentle murmur of the wind in the tree tops,
there is not a sound to break the stillness.
And in each ghastly remnant of a human being
that one sees, there is the pathetic story of some
human life. Here alone, unwashed and uncared
for, lie the last earthly remains of men, each of
whom has somewhere a wife or sweetheart,
mother or sister, who would perhaps give their
life to have even the poor mangled body that
— 202 —
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THE RUSSIAN FRONT
lies rotting in the woods. And in each dead
body is disclosed the story of the fight, and the
pathetic effort of the stricken man to stave off
the inevitable.
And he who has the heart to walk about in
this ghastly place can read the last sad moments
of almost every corpse. Here one sees a blue-
coated Austrian with leg shattered by a jagged
bit of a shell. The trouser perhaps has been
ripped open and clumsy attempts been made
to dress the wound, while a great splash
of red shows where the failing strength was
exhausted before the flow of blood could be
checked. Here, again, is a body with a ghastly
rip in the chest made by bayonet or shell frag-
ment. Frantic hands now stiffened in death
are seen trying to hold together great wounds
from which life must have flowed in a few great
spurts of blood. Here it is no figure of speech
about the ground being soaked with gore. One
can see it — coagulated like bits of raw liver ;
sand and earth in great lumps are held together
by this human cement.
Other bodies lie in absolute peace and serenity,
struck dead with a rifle bullet through the heart
or some other instantly vital spot. These lie
like men asleep, and on their faces is the peace
of absolute rest and relaxation; but they are
few compared to those upon whose pallid, blood-
— 203 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
stained faces one reads the last frantic agony
of death. And what I have written here of the
dead is only a little of what one could write, for
of the more horrible sights of the battlefield
it is impossible to write, and indeed very un-
pleasant to think of at all if one can keep them
out of one's mind after having seen them.
I have mentioned this battle of Ivangrod merely
as a type to illustrate the manner of work that
the Russians are doing in these days, and to make
clear the determination with which they are
waging this war. In the terrible chaos which now
involves all Europe it is doubtful if the world at
large (other than the countries engaged) will ever
realize the magnitude and severity of these opera-
tions. Even as I write now of the scene of carnage
and blood in the woods about Kozienice, there is
in the making, about Cracow, a battle of so much
greater importance and on so much vaster a scale,
that perhaps when these lines are read, the action
I have spoken of will be utterly lost in its com-
parative insignificance. Personally I have long
since abandoned any idea of trying to work out
the details of the battles that are going on. A
single one of these covers such an area and con-
tains so many details, that even to begin a study
of a field demands a vast amount of time. Before
one action is fairly ended, a far greater one is
already under way ; and all that a correspondent
— 204 —
'-"^ J
^
•Ssa^i^'^aihnr ^^ rtiiiiiihifft-ti.-
A Russian Grave near Avgoustow.
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
can hope to do in this war is to keep pace with
the results from day to day, sending as carefully
as may be the significant events of what is
going on, and not attempting to work out the
details at all. Such a story as this must be
taken merely as a typical cross-section of a battle,
and in no way an attempt at an accurate his-
torical study of the military movement itself.
The soldiers themselves go on from battle-
field to battlefield, from one scene of carnage
to another. They see their regiments dwindle
to nothing, their officers decimated, three-fourths
of their comrades dead or wounded, and yet
each night they gather about their bivouacs
apparently undisturbed by it all. One sees
them on the road the day after one of these
desperate fights, marching cheerfully along, sing-
ing songs and laughing and joking with each
other. This is moral, and it is of the stuff that
victories are made. And of such is the fibre of
the Russian soldier scattered over these hundreds
of miles of front to-day. He exists in millions
much as I have described him above. He has
abiding faith in his companions, in his officers,
and in his cause. I think myself that he and
his brothers are going to be extremely hard for
the Germans to beat, and that sooner or later
he will win. Time alone can justify this belief.
— 205 —
THE ROMANCE OF WAR
CHAPTER XVII
THE ROMANCE OF WAR
Petrograd,
November 21, 1914.
IN the early days of August Germany declared
war against Russia. The Kaiser, dressed
in a resplendent uniform, made an address from the
balcony of his Imperial Palace in Berlin. Frantic
crowds, wild with the hysteria of the moment,
cheered madly for war. Men threw their hats in
the air and embraced each other joyously just as
though some great blessing had befallen their
nation. Berlin seethed with enthusiasm, and
wherever the great War Lord, in his motor-car
with his gilded chauffeur, appeared, he was cheered
to the echo. The local papers announced the
triumphal departure of the city garrison for the
front. There seemed then nothing to mar the
picture of a short and glorious campaign that
in every German mind was to raise the Father-
land to a pinnacle of power never before even
dreamed of.
— 209 — o
FIELD NOTES FROM
In Paris almost similar scenes were enacted.
The French gave way to unrestrained exulta-
tion. The war of redemption was at hand, the
day of vengeance for which France had waited
for a generation had dawned. The grim and
sinister guns that left Paris for the front were
smothered in wreaths and garlands of roses, which
all but concealed the ugly muzzles which
were formed but for the utterance of messages
of death. The departing infantry left Paris with
the echoes of cheers still ringing in their ears.
Thus did France take up her burden.
In Petrograd the people took it more quietly,
but none the less deeply. Three hundred thou-
sand Russians gathered in the square before the
Winter Palace, and upon their knees chanted
the National Anthem of their race. The Nevsky
Prospekt shook with the tramp of marching
feet and the rumble of the batteries going to
the battlefield. Men, women and children fought
for places near the soldiery in its march to the
station. Brass bands blared out the glory of
Russia. Waving standards, borne by proudly
marching colour-sergeants, were greeted with roars
of enthusiastic cheering.
In Vienna the aged Emperor of the Dual Mon-
archy was crowned with the expression of popular
approval. In Serbia, Japan, and even phleg-
matic England, the coming of war found analogous
— 210 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
signs of eagerness and approbation. From every
capital affected by the declarations of hostilities
came photographs of crowds " cheering for war."
The various monarchs who were directly or
indirectly responsible for it were all national
heroes on the instant. Everywhere we saw
and heard the same story. Bands, eager crowds,
troops idolized, waving standards, fervent speeches
and denunciations. It was the one brief period
in which all Europe worshipped for an instant
at the shrine of carnage, an altar disguised in
bunting and garlands before which, with eyes
blinded to the future miseries, the races of the
world forgot the price and became dizzy with
joy. The romance of war was in the heart of
every man. There is another side of the picture.
Let us look at it.
I
There is a beautiful city in Galicia called Lem-
berg. Among its imposing pubhc buildings there
is none finer than the gigantic railway station,
whose classic lines and symmetrical proportions
speak of the masterhand and of an architect
who builded a monument to the glory of his
imperial and royal master, whose name — Franz
Joseph— is emblazoned in gilded letters above the
impressive entrance. Every traveller in GaHcia
will recall the luxurious equipment of this modern
— 211 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
and magnificently appointed edifice. Let us take
a glance at it as I saw it a few weeks ago.
From each of the dozen platforms a marble
stairway leads down to a transverse tunnel by
which one enters into the depot itself. The
system is identical with that of the New York
Central station at Albany, New York. In the
flickering arc lights of the train-shed — it was
late at night that I passed through — there were
rows upon rows of hospital cars and freight cars,
on each of which a huge red cross had been hurriedly
painted. With the exception of one long train,
loaded with canvas-covered guns, there was
nothing else visible in the shed. The air above
was cool and fresh in the late autumn night.
To breathe it was exhilaration. One paused for
a moment at the head of the stairway from which
came the flow of dead air such as one notices at
the mouth of a mine. In the transverse tunnel,
the lifelessness of it was more apparent, but
it was forgotten in the tramping feet of men
bearing stretchers from another track beyond.
We stood back a moment or two to allow
a series of sad objects to pass, and then,
taking advantage of a break in the procession,
we slipped into the great depot between a
stretcher and two men who carried between
them a blue-coated object with head on breast
and arms swaying helplessly. Once inside
— 212 —
•on
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THE RUSSIAN FRONT
the station one caught one's breath. The
air, laden with anaesthetics, disinfectants, and
the subtle smell of dried blood and unwashed
humanity, seemed incapable of nourishing the
blood within one's lungs. But the sights within
drove all else from one's consciousness. The
great hall within was set so thick with stretchers,
that it was only possible to pass through it by
picking one's way gingerly and stepping over
silent forms. And such objects as these ghastly
litters contained ! At this time the fighting was
going forward on the San and round Przemysl,
and the wounded had come directly from the
firing line and trenches with only the first field
dressings.
Every form of horror that human ingenuity
had designed for shell and shrapnel to create
was here as an evidence of the inventors' success.
Here a man with trousers ripped from his waist
down, and swathed in deep-dyed bandages from
hip to knee, showed where a fragment of a shell
had done its work. Near by lay a huge crea-
ture whose purple bandages failed to conceal a
great raw hole where a face had been. Others,
with glazing eyes, looked dully through and
beyond us, while the slow and laboured breath
told the story of life ebbing slowly away from
a wound in some vital organ. Across the hall, in the
blaze of a dozen arcs, hurriedly strung to enable
— 213 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
the surgeon to do his task, is the great first-class
dining-room. On each of three operating tables
lies a huge giant half stripped, under the knife
of the skilful surgeon, who, with haggard face
but steady hand, moves rapidly but surely about
his work, actually stepping over stretchers that
wait their turn. Huge baskets are rapidly filling
with bushels of blood-stained bandages ; here
and there a hand neatly cut off, or the stump
of a severed leg, among the Red Cross wrappings
tells of the surgeon's kind of work.
We linger only a moment in the flicker of the
white arc lamps, and push on through the hallway
into the great waiting-room. The ticket windows
are now closed. The benches have been removed
to make room. There is standing room only,
and hardly that. Every available inch not
covered by a stretcher, is occupied by a sol-
dier, whose wounded hand, arm, or bandaged
head is sufficiently slight enough to keep him on his
feet, but still bad enough to make a re-dressing
necessary as early as the rush upon the sur-
geon's time will make possible. I have said
there were three doctors in one dining-room.
There are two other dining-rooms, and in each is
a similar scene. Perhaps the reader may con-
clude that this dreadful scene spells poor organi-
zation. Quite the contrary.
The Russians are achieving wonders. In Lem-
— 214 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
berg during the war there have been to date,
including Austrians (who form perhaps the
major part), more than a hundred thousand
wounded. The night I speak of there had come
in a single block, three thousand wounded, in-
cluding those of both sides. What we see is
merely the first shock of the avalanche from
the battlefield. Return at daylight (I have
been in the ghastly edifice at almost all hours
of the day and night) and there is not a sol-
dier or a wounded man left. Sleepy attendants
are cleaning up, and tired surgeons and nurses
have either gone or are just packing up after
their night's work. The wounded that we saw
a httle earlier are already in clean beds. What
human love and sympathy and care can do is
now being done. It is sad. It is terrible. But
it is war. " Where," one asks oneself, " is the
romance of it all ? Are these the same men
who a month ago departed from Vienna and
Petrograd with music and amidst cheers ? " No
cheers now. Eyes that shone with the glitter of
excitement and the approbation of fellow- citizens
who speeded them to battle are now dull with
pain or sad with apprehension of the future.
Yet the sacrifice is one of necessity. The Rus-
sians accept it. They believe in their cause.
It is part of the day's work. The omelette that
Napoleon talked of is being made. They are
— 215 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
the eggs. What does it matter ! The balance
of power in Europe cries for adjustment !
II
Let us have another look at war and what
it spells.
We are in Poland now. It has been a beautiful
autumn day, and the sun has set over the
horizon to the west in a great red glory. It is a
lovely country dotted with villages, with great,
white, macadam roads lined with avenues of
trees stretching in long, white tangents from
village to village. Surely twilight, of all hours
of the day, is the supreme moment of peace on
earth and goodwill to men. With all nature
serene and the afterglow of departing day steeping
all in quiet and tranquillit}^ it is impossible to
realize that the lust of killing can be in any human
heart. In the fading light we halt in the street of
what this morning was a prosperous little village.
Let us pause by the roadside and have a look
at what is about us. Through the main street
in the gloaming, their figures already dimly sil-
houetted against the western sky, there passes
an interminable procession of the neutral-
tinted uniforms of Russian soldiers. Their
bayonets twinkle feebly in the dim light, and
their tired faces are almost undistinguishable.
— 216 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
Ever and anon their ranks scatter to right and
left, to permit the passage of the wagons bearing
wounded, who are moving and jolting to the
rear ; some moaning softly, others silent and
stern, with passionless eyes gazing straight into
the sky as they lie upon their backs in the crude
conveyances.
There has been a battle here to-day. It
was one of the many rearguard actions of
the Germans in their hurried flight from War-
saw. The Russians, moving forward with an im-
petuosity that would not be denied, were
pushing close on to their transport and their
ammunition train. For a day, a few devoted
regiments of the retreating hosts had been thrown
into the breach, to stem the tide long enough
to permit the enemy to get away with his im-
pedimenta. Unfortunately for this wretched
little village, the Germans made a stand here on
their retreat. What was the answer ? A few
quickly spoken words from an officer on the
eastern hills a few kilometres away. Eight guns
are snapped off their limbers, ranges are called
sharply, and in ten minutes the village which
shelters the retreating troops is a heap of ruins,
and the enemy are once more stringing out to
the west down the road, followed by the shrapnel
until they have passed over the hills and are out
of range.
— 217 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
The troops we see passing forward in the twi-
Hght are reserves pushing forward to keep up
with the Russian advance, which hours ago raced
through here on the very heels of the retiring
enemy. Over in the woods a few hundred yards
away, are the still warm bodies of the Germans,
who, true to discipline and the commands of their
officers, patiently awaited under a deadly fire for
the bayonets of the Russians. To-morrow the
scrupulous Russian will bury the bodies and
erect a cross above the grave with a respectful
inscription, and the incident in the wood will
have been closed. There are only a few hundred
dead. What does that amount to in a war where
there are millions engaged !
We forget ourselves as we turn back to the
village. The simple people, who have spent their
lives here until yesterday, are returning now. They
are wandering about aimlessly, dazed by the
transformation effected in a few hours.
Here is a cottage the walls of which are still
standing. Even the doorway is intact though the
door itself hangs drunkenly on a single hinge.
The family horse, torn open by a shrapnel shell,
lies with his head stretched across the sill. In the
back yard half a dozen cows are gazing reflectively
at a heap of ashes where their shed once stood.
In wonderment they chew their cud and ex-
pectantly await the coming of some one to empty
— 218 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
their full udders. No one, I think, will come.
The mother sits on an overturned tub in the
yard, a baby at her breast and two little children
clinging to her skirts. She is sobbing quietly.
Where is her husband ? Perhaps he hngered
too long, or took refuge in the shell-swept wood.
He too is but an incident in the catastrophe, a
drop in the bucket of misery.
The next cottage presents more signs of hope.
Nothing stands but the chimney, but here at least
we see signs of life. A fire has been kindled on
the hearthstone, and in its red flicker the vigorous
figure of a woman is moving about preparing
some kind of meal for three httle children who
sit on the doorstep without. A man with a
rake is pulling over the ashes. Here is a family
that will soon re-establish itself. Reliance and
hope speak everywhere. For them we need not
worry.
Across the street is a heap of ashes. Not even
a chimney remains. Under a tree a man is stand-
ing. He is holding a crying child in his arms.
His eyes look at us dully and without expression.
It is growing dark now, and the details are fading
slowly from our sight. The day is now over, and
we drive back thirty kilometres to our head-
quarters. Already we hear of a greater conflict
elsewhere, and turn in for the night and go to
sleep as quickly as we can, for in the morn-
— 219 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
ing we are to motor 140 kilometres to another
front.
But what we have seen is nothing wanton.
It is simply war. The Germans made a stand.
The Russians drove them out. Everything was
legitimate. The village was in the way ; there
was no other resource. Thousands of other vil-
lages in every theatre of war can tell the same
story.
I wonder if the cheering crowds in Unter den
Linden in Berlin, the eager throngs that marched
through the Graben in Vienna, thought of this
when they howled aloud for war, and became
drunk with the romance of it ?
Ill
One more glimpse and I have finished.
There was a battle only a week or so ago at
Kielce. Probably the reader never even heard
of such a place, and perhaps the battle was so
small in the huge perspective of what is now the
order of the day in Europe, that its echo never
reached England or America at all. Still in any
other war it would have been worth writing about.
The front was twenty kilometres across,
and on both sides perhaps nearly 100,000 men
were engaged. It was a rearguard action, and
lasted but a few hours. The Austrians, as usual
in this retreat towards the south-west, were
— 220 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
left to hold the rear. Their centre was in a
village ten kilometres east of Kielce. It was
an ideal position to hold, with a walled churchyard
as its apex, with rifle pits, gun positions and
trenches protecting its flanks. Here, no doubt,
the enemy felt sure of holding the Russians for
several days.
But even we who have been with the army
for a month, and are in sympathy with it,
have been surprised by the momentum, inspired
by moral and engendered of organization ful-
filled, that it has attained. The advance of
the Czar's soldiers, filled with confidence from
battles won at Ivangrod, Augustow and Radom,
never waited here for conventional opera-
tions, but the first wave of the advance took
this central point in a night attack with the
bayonet. They even swept over the loopholed
wall of the churchyard, like the waves of the
sea over the castles of sand that a child has erected
on the beach, before the incoming tide. With the
centre carried by storm, and the flanks already
enveloped, the whole line crumpled up ; and
once more the flood of Russians poured on the
wake of the retreating enemy like impounded
water in a reservoir when the dam gives way.
The Russians were proud of this churchyard
enterprise, as well they might be. So we journeyed
over to this pivotal point to have a look at it.
— 221 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
It was a quaint little village that clustered about
cross-roads. In the very centre was the church
and its walled yard, which hemmed in an ancient
graveyard whose mouldering tombstones showed
their age. The only sound here to break the
stillness of the morning was the rumble and
clatter of ammunition caissons, each with six
horses to the team, that in an endless line were
moving to the south-east where the distant
rumble of artillery told that our advance was
again pressing the retreating columns of the
Dual Alliance. The whole churchyard was littered
with the equipment of fallen soldiers. Guns, haver-
sacks, bloody bandages and coagulated blood were
scattered promiscuously among the graves. The
villagers, under the directions of the Russians, were
already mobilizing the dead. Creaking carts of
the peasantry had been pressed into the service,
and were plodding about the fields in all direc-
tions, picking up the dead and bringing them
into the town, where they were accumulating
in rows, grey-coated Russian beside blue-clad
Austrian. The children ran excitedly about the
street inspecting each hideous corpse, and scream-
ing with excited curiosity at every fresh horror.
On the outskirts of the village huge trenches
were being digged, beside which the dead were
ranged in crowds. Phlegmatic peasants drove up
with wagonloads of stiffened corpses, bloody
— 222 —
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THE RUSSIAN FRONT
faces leering gruesomely with unseeing eyes from
the back of the carts, with here and there an
arm or a leg sticking rigidly out of the mass.
Like bits of pig-iron they are dumped out on
the grass. Here a Russian with face half
gone, grimaces horribly with one glassy eye at
a beautiful Austrian boy whose pallid face looks
tranquilly into his ; the hand, clutched in the
rigour of death at the left breast, shows that he
fell without a struggle, while the half-smile on
his youthful mouth bespeaks the fact that he
at least never knew what hit him.
A little beyond at a wayside cross is another
heap of dead. One looks at them and shud-
ders at the horrors that shell fragments can
make out of what once was a man. But as
we look there come those whose duty it is to
bury them. Good men, these peasants, no doubt^
but surely not sensitive. As they begin to disentangle
the bodies and pull them toward the grave by one
leg, with passionless face bobbing in the dirt
behind, one turns sadly away. This, too, is but
an incident.
Did the girls of Vienna, when they cheered this
headless corpse, then a strong youth in the flush
of early manhood, foresee this finish ? Did the
dainty hands that placed the wreaths upon
the muzzles of the guns that lumbered to the
front, realize the character of the work that those
— 223 —
FIELD NOTES FROM THE RUSSIAN FRONT
metal mouths were designed to fulfil ? What
do the cheers, the bands, the waving standards
mean now ? Where is the romance ?
Sherman spoke well when he said at Atlanta,
" The essence of war is cruelty." What we see
daily is decent warfare. Is it cruel ? Perhaps,
but it is war, and without it there could be no
victories gained nor empire built. It puzzles
the imagination and distorts the perspective,
but it must be accepted — and forgotten, if
possible.
— 224 —
WARSAW DURING THE SECOND
GERMAN ADVANCE
CHAPTER XVIII
WARSAW DURING THE SECOND
GERMAN ADVANCE
Warsaw, Poland,
Dccemler 15, 1914.
WHEN the Germans left this region in October
and we had accompanied them in their
retirement as far west as Skierniewice and as far
south as Kielce, there were many of us who were
so ignorant of the German determination to keep
everlastingly at the game over here as to believe
that they had abandoned Poland for good. True,
as I have already stated, I was in Kielce on Novem-
ber 3, the very day that the enemy retired before
our advance, a number of the inhabitants enter-
tained me with the remarks of the German soldiers
to the eft'ect that the Germans were only leaving
to suit their own convenience and would be back
when the cold weather with frozen roads and rivers
would make campaigning easier for them. But I
put this down at the time as stories told by the
German ofncers to their men to keep them from
being discouraged.
— 227 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
In the light of what followed, and the much
greater scale of the second invasion, we can only
conclude that what we took to be heavy fight-
ing in October was in comparison but a mere re-
connaissance. Even when the second movement
started, many in Russia felt that it was only a
demonstration to relieve the pressure on Cracow
and the ever impending menace of the Silesian
invasion ; but after Lodz was abandoned and we
heard reports of many army corps pouring in on
this front from Germany, we began to realize
that the Polish theatre was at last to be the big
news centre for some months to come. The
likelihood of this was increased by the fact that
the fighting in the West had settled down to
trench warfare, and had come to an approxi-
mate deadlock, calculated to last at least till the
spring.
One by one the correspondents who had been
marking time in Petrograd, began to slip quietly
away, and by the middle of December the lobby
of the Bristol Hotel here had become the ren-
dezvous of all the lost journalists in Russia.
Percival Gibbon, the correspondent of the Daily
Chronicle, has likened Warsaw in 1914 to Brussels
in 1815, and his comparison is not inapt.
Here in a first-class hotel, which is as fine as
any in Europe, one finds the great news centre
— 228 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
of this whole war. I am told that when the
war started, the proprietors of this establish-
ment thought of closing it up for fear of lack
of trade ; but as a matter of fact, from the day
of the first German advance it has been diffi-
cult to get a room here at all, so full is the
town of officers and those whose business is
ever upon the threshold of war. In the great
luxurious lobby that six months ago was given
over almost entirely to groups of tourists and
pleasure seekers, one sees now hardly a civilian
all day long. All day long the hotel is filled
with a moving throng of officers representing
every branch of the Russian service. Since the
fighting has settled down to prolonged opera-
tions west of us, hundreds of the wives and
women relatives of the officers have come down
here, and one can go a long way and find no gayer
scene of brightness and life than the lobby and
corridors of the hotel. It is hard to realize that
the front where hundreds of thousands of men
are facing each other in desperate fighting is
only thirty miles away.
But to understand that war is a reality, one has
only to step out into the street. For there, from
morning until night, is the constant evidence that
Warsaw is the base, and also the great artery
through which flows the transport of the enormous
army that is just to the west of us. All day and
— 229 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
all night the interminable line of transport carts
drags past the hotel on its way to the front.
Batteries, hundreds upon hundreds of caissons,
bearing shrapnel and ammunition, move slowly
through the streets. A dozen times a day one
meets battalions and regiments of new units of
troops plodding steadily through the town, the
great patient soldiers trudging along through the
snow towards the trenches where they, too, are
going to take up their place in Russia's greatest
war.
In spite of the fact that the front is so near, it
is very difficult to gather direct information of
what is going on from day to day. I have never,
in a somewhat varied experience, found any place
where more false reports and misinformation cir-
culated at par than here in Warsaw. Even Chefoo
in the Manchurian campaign, which up to that
time had the record for inaccuracies, must take
second place to Warsaw. Hardly a day passes
in which one is not told with the greatest conviction
by one and another stories to the effect that
the Germans have broken our line, are already at
Blonie (eighteen miles away), that Warsaw will
be evacuated instantly, and I know not what other
wild tales. There is little doubt that the enor-
moi^s population of Jews here is for the most part
German in its sympathies, and that probably
these falsehoods started from Hebrew sources.
— 230 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
But even the best informed and the most serious
minded are more than half the time misled as to
what is actually going on. Though the news from
almost every front is actually in this hotel within
twenty-four hours of its occurrence, it is all but
impossible to get it pieced together so as to make
a consistent whole. The younger officers who
will talk, know nothing about the situation save
in the immediate vicinity in which they have
themselves been engaged. The front is so ex-
tended, and there are so many thousand details,
that the report of a single individual who has come
from the front line is about as informing as to
the whole perspective as the view-point of a man
whose nose is two feet from a stone wall. I find
that even some of the officers are not informed as
to which corps flank their own organizations, while
the lower generals have only the vaguest ideas as
to operations that are going on ten miles away.
The man who comes in from a position where there
has been a snappy action during the day can see
only the results that took place in his particular
trench. If his battalion repulsed the Germans,
he brings in word that the Germans made a general
assault all along the line ; and in his heart he
believes that his regiment has been the centre of
one of the greatest actions in the world's history.
It is hard for any who go through an action
where half their neighbours are killed or wounded,
— 231 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
to realize that even the wiping out of his whole
regiment or brigade is but a detail of the war, and
that the fight which he took to be on so gigantic
a scale was in reality, but a skirmish relatively.
Thus it is that we get from day to day reports of
great victories and great defeats from men who
are absolutely sincere and intelligent as well. It
is all but impossible in operations so large to get
a perspective at all, and it is doubtful if even the
staff gets more than a very vague idea of what
has happened. The inaccuracies as to actual
events are, however, small in comparison with
unfounded general information. Reports of losses
are wide of the truth by hundreds per cent. A
hundred dead have easily been increased to a thou-
sand by the time the report gets here, and probably
more when it gets to Petrograd. If the Germans
get a new army corps over here, we hear at once
that they are withdrawing the bulk of their troops
from the West front, and I sincerely believe that
the majority of the plain soldiers over here think
that they are fighting the greater part of the
German army. If the Germans had here half
what they are credited with, they would long
since have had Warsaw, and by this time have
been well on their way towards Petrograd, if they
had coveted that city.
As for the number and the size of guns
credited to the Germans, there is no limit to
— 232 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
the imagination which describes them. If a
shrapnel bursts near one of the Red Cross assis-
tants, he immediately concludes that it is at
least a lo-inch projectile; and if he sees a lot
of them burst, the story circulates here next
day that more than half of the German guns are
of the largest type. Even the younger Russian
officers dehght in magnifying the artillery of the
enemy. One told me the other day that a certain
shell hole that we were examining was made by
a 42-centimetre shell, when it certainly was nothing
more important than the projectile from a 47.
It may be imagined, then, how difficult it becomes
for the correspondent to piece together the thou-
sand fragments of news and get anything like a
true estimate of the situation taken as a whole.
If one stays in Warsaw, one runs the risk of being
absolutely led astray ; and when one manages to
get out to the front itself, all perspective is entirely
lost.
It is possible, however, to keep a rough check
on troops moving through, and the numbers of
wounded that are coming back, and one can obtain
by diligent research from many quarters an ap-
proximation of the Russian line as it varies from
day to day. From the wounded it is difficult to
get very much, for almost without exception they
are so confused with the details of their own
experiences, that they know nothing at all of
— 233 —
FIELD NOTES FROM THE RUSSIAN FRONT
the general action, and many arc not clear as to
whether they won or lost it.
Correspondents are still unrecognized officially,
but there seems to be no objection to individuals
sHpping out on their own account. The front
is so near, and there are so many persons con-
nected with the Red Cross motoring out every
day, that it has become a very simple matter to
get out every few days and have a peep at the
position. It is certainly an extremely comfort-
able way in which to do a war. Here one puts
on one's old clothes and goes out and spends the
day at the front and returns in time to have a
clean-up and dinner at a fashionable restaurant.
The nearness of the positions makes it possible
for many officers to get in, but considering the
size of the army before Warsaw, the numbers that
one sees here are relatively few. Most vigorous
rules have been laid down about officers here off
duty, and this hotel, as well as all the others,
undergoes a checking process twice daily to see
if any officers are shirking their duties at the
front in order to have a little amusement in the
big hotels at the base.
— 234 —
A NIGHT ATTACK IN A SNOW-STORM
CHAPTER XIX
A NIGHT ATTACK IN A SNOW-STORM
Dated : Guzow, Poland,
January 6, 1915.
THE good old days when a war correspondent
could go out and stand on a hill and actu-
ally see infantry and cavalry advancing, and with
his glasses observe the genuine development of
an action, are gone for ever. Even if one could
come and go as one pleased, it would be impossible
to see the things that the reader at home is anxious
to hear about. Poland in this neighbourhood is
fiat, and unless one is fortunate enough to get up
in an aeroplane or a balloon there is no such thing
as really seeing the details of an action at all,
even though one be all but in the battle itself.
It seems incredible that one can be within a
thousand or fifteen hundred yards of an actual
attack and still see almost nothing but the
bursting shells. However, this is the fact, even
in the daytime, and at night it is still worse.
I had an opportunity of being pretty well in
the heart of such an event last night. I and
— 237 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
Granville Fortcscue, the correspondent of the
Daily Telegraph, accepted the invitation of a gen-
tleman in the Red Cross to run out with him from
Warsaw and have a look at some of the field hos-
pitals in which he was actively interested. Fol-
lowing the general situation from Warsaw becomes
rather a bore, and so we gladly accepted his offer,
and about eight o'clock on the Russian Christmas
Eve we found ourselves just finishing a simple
meal, in a little room in one of the improvised
hospitals. Across the hall from where we sat
some tired nurses were cleaning up the operating
room, and piling bloody bandages into a big
basket. The last of the day's wounded had been
attended to, and were already tucked in the straw
in a great shed across the street, where they were
to spend the night before moving back toward
the big Warsaw hospitals.
" Shall we make a visit to the positions ? "
asked our Red Cross friend. Both Fortescue and
myself had for a week been desirous of getting
into the first line trenches in order to form some
accurate estimate as to the condition of the Rus-
sian soldiers, and now, on the eve of the Russian
Christmas, seemed an exceptionally fortunate time
in which to make them a call. As we came out
into the street of the quaint little Polish village
it was snowing. Not a blustering, windy snow-
storm, but that quiet, gentle unassuming kind of
— 238 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
snow that comes drifting down aimlessly hour
after hour, and by morning leaves a white blanket
inches deep over everything. Our friend had
provided a cart with one weary horse, and into
this we climbed, and started westward out of the
village. The night was as quiet and serene as
the picture on a Christmas card. From the front
came not a sound to break the stillness. Once
out on the main road we came upon the intermin-
able transport which fills every highway and by-
way by day and by night. Long strings of artil-
lery caissons, bearing shrapnel as Christmas gifts
for the Germans, plodded along through the falling
snow, the weary drivers nodding in their saddles,
while the soldiers on the caisson lay crossways
on the limber, their feet hanging limply over one
end. The whole transport seems to move in-
tuitively at night with half the drivers sleeping
in their seats.
For more than an hour we drove down one of
the great avenues of trees that line nearly all the
main arteries of travel in this country. Then we
turned off across a field, and for another half hour
zigzagged about over a route which seemed
familiar enough to our guide, but which to us was
as planless as the banks of Newfoundland in a
fog. Finally, after driving for nearly two hours, we
brought up at a bank of a small creek. With the
flashes of a pocket electric lamp our guide dis-
— 239 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
covered the ford, and we drove in — and stuck fast.
It was as still as death, with only our voices
and the soft ripple of water in the little stream
to break the silence. The snow was still fall-
ing, and our coats and hats were already white.
While we were trying to tease our patient
little horse to make one more effort to get us
out of the river, there came a sullen boom, from
far off to the west. Then a long way off another
and another and another. " Ha," said our
guide, " the German guns. We are in luck.
They may be planning an attack."
Even as he spoke there came a quick red light
to our left through the haze of snow, and " Bang "
said the sharp incisive little field gun hidden
somewhere over there in the darkness. " Bang,
bang, bang," said two or three brothers in unison.
Almost simultaneously a second battery over on
our right came into action with a succession of
rapid reports that shook the air. Our little horse
made an extraordinary effort, due to the excite-
ment of the firing perhaps, and we got up on the
river's bank once more. As we stood in the road
there came an earth-shaking crash, and a flash as
of lightning from our rear, and a six-inch shell
from one of our big batteries a mile or more behind
screamed overhead. We heard its melancholy
wail fade away, and then a long way off the sullen
boom of its explosion. A sudden contagion of
— 240 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
fire seemed to sweep the countryside, and in an
instant the still night was torn and shattered by
the crash of artillery, the whine of shell, and
reverberations of heavy explosions. The small
German guns now broke loose, and we could
plainly see where our own trenches were located,
from the quick, hateful jagged flashes of the burst-
ing shrapnel above them.
We climbed into our cart and pushed on
toward the front as rapidly as possible. For ten
minutes the thunder of the artillery shook the air ;
and then puncturing the greater tumult came the
sharp little crack of a rifle, followed by a series
of reports like a pack of lire-crackers exploding.
Then it seemed as though some one had thrown
a thousand packs of crackers into the fire. The
artillery redoubled its rapidity of fire, and to our
right front a machine gun came into action ; then
another just before us, and then a whole series off
to the left, until it was impossible to pick out any
single piece from the confusion of noise. The
flash of the guns and the breaking of shells gave
a light like that of a pale moon, and we could
clearly see the road ahead of us.
Leaving our cart and patient pony, we pushed
forward on foot toward the trenches. Our way
led across a field, and then through the fringe of
a little grove of Christmas trees. In the field
the snow was deep, and we kept stepping into
— 241 — Q
FIELD NOTES FROM
holes and going headfirst into drifts. The crackle
of musketry, the monotonous hammer of machine
guns, the steady roar of the artillery around us
and the whine of shells above us, still continued.
After stumbling about in the snow for half an
hour, our party came to a halt. The attack
which seemed not above a thousand yards before
us was still going on. Rockets from the German
positions soared on high, and burst with a great
white light which we could see even through the
snow. Somewhere some one had a searchlight,
for we could see its great long finger sweep-
ing here and there across the sky. The noise
and tumult continued, but we did not go farther.
Our guide thought that it would be impossible in
view of the attack, for us to get into the trenches,
and I believe he was not sure of the way in the
dark. So we turned back, and in half an hour
were back at the first dressing station.
Each soldier has his first-aid package, and
somehow or other they manage to care for them-
selves and each other in the trenches with such
assistance as the busy doctor in the first line can
give. Thence they come back to the dressing
station, where their rough field dressings are re-
moved, and better ones put on. They are again
moved back one link in the chain, where, as at
Guzow, there is an operating table and complete
surgical equipment for the more imperative cases.
— 242 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
As we stumbled into the little hut from out of
the falling snow in the fields, the wounded were
already beginning to arrive. A half-dozen carts
with canvas tops, like the old American prairie
schooners, were already standing before the door ;
and sleepy soldiers were stumbling about in the
dark helping to get the wounded out of the carts
and into the little stuffy hut, where in the dull
light of oil lamps, the great patient Russian
soldiers, still in their bloodstained bandages and
wet and dirty from the trenches, were waiting
for treatment. And still from without came
the noise and tumult and clatter of the armies
celebrating Christmas Eve, the day of " Peace
on earth, goodwill to men."
It soon became obvious that we could get no
farther toward the front that night, and a little
after midnight we started back toward Guzow in
our little cart. After we had been on the road a
short time the firing began to slow up, and then
gradually ceased entirely, save for an occasional
spasmodic crash from a field gun, or the heavier
boom of a big howitzer that still kept up the
fight as though unwilling to go to sleep at all,
even as a big dog bays and bays long into the
night and refuses to be quieted.
We took a new road home, with the result that
we were soon off any road at all and plodding
about in the fields. A mile or more from the
— 243 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
front behind a hedge we stumbled on the reserve
ammunition of the batteries that had been in
action. The Russians apparently keep their first
reserve caissons constantly ready for action, and
I have noticed here as elsewhere, that the horses
stand in their harness all hitched to the caissons
both by day and by night. Here behind the
hedge were perhaps sixteen six-horse teams,
each attached to the ammunition caissons. The
fuzzy ponies stood apparently quite contented in
the snow, their little heads hanging low and their
ears flopped forward. Probably they were sound
asleep. Under the caissons in the snow lay the
artillery soldiers, also sleeping deeply. Both men
and horses were covered an inch deep with fallen
snow, but it seemed to trouble neither men nor
horses. Everything at the front is casual to a
degree. Here their batteries were in vigorous
action not over a mile away. Men were dying
and killing each other two miles away, but these
chaps were sound asleep in the snow.
It was three o'clock when we got back to Guzow,
and our host put us to bed in a great room already
crowded with workers in the service, who needed
rest and sleep far more than we did.
Thus on Christmas Eve did one more of the
thousand odd details of the fighting on our front
pass into history as a repulsed German attack.
Hardly a day or night passes in which the iden-
— 244 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
tical thing does not happen at least once ;
sometimes it happens two and three times in the
twenty-four hours.
245 —
A VISIT TO THE TRENCHES
CHAPTER XX
A VISIT TO THE TRENCHES
Dated from A certain place
West of Warsaw,
January lo, 1915.
THE lot of the struggling journalist who
wants to see things in this war is a hard
one. It is difficult to get west of Warsaw, and
the nearer one gets to the front the harder becomes
the task. While I was turning over in my mind
how to manage it without a knowledge of the
Russian language, there came a wire from the
General Staff informing me that I had been tem-
porarily assigned to the group of Generals from
the Grand Duke's headquarters, who with a Staff
Colonel were making a trip over the Warsaw
positions. So my way was made easy for three
of the pleasantest days that I have had during
the war.
The company consisted of General Sir Hanbury
Williams, the representative of the British Army,
the Marquis De La Guiche from the French,
— 249 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
and General Oba from the Army of far-off Japan.
Colonel Moucanoff of the Grand Duke's personal
suite was in charge. Our party left Warsaw in
a special train and proceeded to the headquarters
of the General commanding the army group west
of here. We found the General, whose name is
well known in London, but whose identity I am
not permitted to disclose, established with his
staff in what had formerly been a women's sana-
torium. The great sun parlour where the ladies
used to bring their knitting, and discuss the
gossip of Russia, has now been turned into a
telegraph office and general telephone exchange.
Here the thousand and one details of the opera-
tions of a gigantic army are cleared and digested
every day. Great maps with forests of pins show
the movements of all the regiments and brigades
under this command, and there are enormous
numbers of them.
We stopped only long enough to exchange
courtesies with the commander and his staff, and
then in two great grey military motor-cars
started west for the headquarters of a certain
army corps, the number of which cannot be dis-
closed. Our two cars were of the most powerful
army types, each directed by a Siberian trooper
with a hat like a bushel basket of black wool on
his head. The weather was bad, and the roads
in horrible shape ; but the big cars ploughed
— 250 —
Times " Correspondent (Stanley Washburn) and Maj.-Gen.
Sir Hanbury Williams.
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
through the mud like an ice breaker opening the
channel to a frozen harbour. About 1.30 in the
afternoon we turned into a village and at its
outskirts into the driveway of a beautiful summer
estate, where the commander of the army corps
had his headquarters.
The General met us at his door, and with the
usual clicking of heels and the saluting of salutes
we were ushered into a really lovely house. The
front hall was given over to telegraph instru-
ments and dirty troopers and orderlies standing
about waiting for instructions. The fine old
Hbrary with its hardwood floor and wonderful
woodwork and bookshelves loaded with volumes
in all languages had been taken over for the
Commander's private dining-room. The rest of
the house was filled with soldiers and officers
tramping about in their spurred boots over the
shining floors, which, by the way, shine less I
should say with each day that the war lasts.
Here the General gave us royally of everything
that one could desire in the way of food.
Immediately after dinner we emerged into the
beautiful grounds, with trees now laden with snow,
and accompanied by the Chief of Staff mounted
horses and started our journey to the front.
Three Cossacks rode ahead ; fifty or more fell
in behind as a guard of honour, and our little
cavalcade proceeded toward the positions. After
— 251 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
a ride of an hour we halted at another, though
less pretentious, villa where the Brigade Com-
mander had his headquarters. Poland being
as flat as a board, it is very difficult to get
into the advance positions without drawing the
fire of the enemy. The road to the trenches
for which we were aiming, lay for two miles in
direct vision of the German line, and for this
reason we dismounted and passed an hour taking
tea until the early dusk began to settle over the
landscape. As the weather was pretty bad we
did not need to remain until it was actually dark
before starting, but set out a little after four
o'clock. We were not far from the front here
and the dull boom of the guns sounded every
minute, first from one quarter, and then from
another.
For three-quarters of an hour we rode on, and
then the Chief of Staff turned suddenly off the
road, and by a faint trail through a bit of wood-
land led us to a clearing. At first sight it con-
tained nothing of interest, but on the farther side
we saw at last the carefully masked battery of the
Russian heavy artillery. The officer in charge
obligingly offered to throw some shells into the
German lines for our benefit, but as it was now
getting dark and we were anxious to visit the
trenches, we declined his offer and proceeded on
our way. We made one more halt at the regi-
— 252 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
mental headquarters and chatted a Httle with the
colonel commanding. From here we moved for-
ward to the edge of a small wood and dismounted
and proceeded on foot. The sharp crack of
rifles now sounded spasmodically in front of us.
Our guide, though a General, seemed to know
every foot of the way, and with the sureness of
an Indian following a trail in the forest, he led
us through the woods, having first warned us to
move separately and not in groups.
At last, turning off sharply, we came to the
line of reserve trenches. The soldiers were sit-
ting and squatting about in their little shelters,
having their suppers as peacefully as though there
were in the whole world no such thing as war.
From this trench we entered saps and for fifteen
minutes followed a maze of twisting trenches, until
at last we emerged on the first position itself.
This particular front lies along the Rawka river,
with the trenches skirting the bluff on our side
of the river. Heavy woods crowd to the very
brink, and in and out among these runs the
labyrinth of the Russian defensive position. I
have in the past seen many trenches, but I do
not think I have ever been in better and more
comfortable ones than these that we now visited.
The first line was very deep, possibly eight or
ten feet in places, while saps ran back at frequent
intervals to the reserve trenches, a hundred or
— 253 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
two hundred yards in the rear, where the bulk
of the soldiers of the reserves were gathered.
We found the men well dug in, and shelters
everywhere.
While it is true that a trench is not an ideal
place to spend the winter in, yet it is equally true
that there is a lot more comfort in a well-made
trench than one would imagine possible. The
officers' quarters burrowed out of the ground
were extremely cosy. The major command-
ing the battalion had a room fully fifteen feet
by ten, ten or fifteen feet under ground. One
entered it by steps leading down from the main
trench. Sofas, pictures on the walls of dirt, and
a writing table on which an oil lamp burned
brightly, gave the whole place a homelike appear-
ance that one hardly expected to find on the very
front line. The whole w^as roofed over with six-
inch logs, which held up, I suppose, five feet of
soil above that. In the corner was a telephone
communicating with the headquarters itself.
Nothing short of an extremely big shell bursting
exactly on the top of the place would bother the
inhabitants to any great extent.
Leaving this hospitable shelter we wandered
about in the trenches for some time, working our
way up to the one which was nearest to the
German position. Here in sheltered overheaded
ditches, one saw the butts of innumerable guns
— 254 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
sticking out of the loopholes, ready for the soldiers
to jump to at the first sound of an advance. The
main German line of trenches was between 250
and 300 yards from this position. During the
day time this was, in fact, the interval between
the armies, but at night both Russians and Ger-
mans pushed out their pickets to the brink of the
river that ran between, cutting down the distance
to merely a hundred yards. While we were there,
these pickets, taking advantage of the night which
had now completely shut out the view, began
to work forward, and then began that spasmodic
" crack, crack, crack," that one hears by night
up on the front line.
The Russian troops were well clothed and well
fed and their moral seemed extraordinarily high.
The system of reserve trenches connecting with
saps with the first line, makes possible frequent
changes of the personnel of the first line. The
shelters and comforts in the second line or reserve
trenches were excellent. My own impression, from
what I could make out in the darkness, was that
fully two-thirds of the troops were in the second-
line trenches, where they were not subjected to the
nervous strain of rifle fire and constant sniping
from the German side of the river. In case of a
German movement during the night the pickets
at once discover the activity and report it. Long
before the enemy is actually under way, the first-
— 255 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
line defence is at work through the loopholes
with rifles and machine guns ; and before the
attack becomes actually a menace, the reserves
are fed up through the saps, so that by the time
the enemy are really pressing the position, they
have the entire available Russian line to meet
them. From a defensive point of view I think
it a fair assumption that the Russians have
never had a stronger position in Poland than
the so-called Bzura line. If they leave it at all
it will be through some strategic consideration,
and not, I feel sure, through any menace of
a frontal attack.
We left the trenches through the saps by the
same way that we had come in, and found our
Cossack escort holding our saddled horses back
in the woodland where we had left them earlier
in the evening. We struck home by a new route,
the greater part of the way leading through a
most beautiful pine forest, a Cossack with a
lantern riding ahead lighting our way. As I
rode along in the dark with the clink of Cossack
accoutrement jingling on all sides, my com-
panion, General Williams, said the scene re-
minded him of Western Canada ; and to our
surprise we discovered that we were both
equally familiar with the great Empire of
Western Canada that stretches even to the foot-
hills of the Rockies.
— 256 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
It was well on in the evening when our little
cavalcade turned into the headquarters drive-
way. It had begun to snow, and we were all
wet and cold and stiff as we slid out of our saddles
and turned our ponies over to the Cossack. From
within the house there shone cheer and light and
the sound of many voices. As we entered the
great hall, the full brass military band gathered
in the background burst forth with the English
National Anthem, followed in turn by that of
each of the other Allies represented in our little
party.
A sumptuous supper followed, and then we
were led into the great beautifully furnished
drawing-room in which army cots had been
installed for our comfort. It always impresses me
strangely to be constantly living in other people's
houses, surrounded by all their personal knick-
knacks and belongings. Here in a great gold frame
on the table was a picture of a wedding party.
A sweet girl bride with her little wedding group
were sitting in the sunshine on the front porch.
It was spring and flowers were everywhere about
the verandah where now stand two solid Russian
sentries each with fixed bayonet. And as I
looked at the picture my mind drifted far from
war, and I vaguely wondered where all these nice
sweet-faced people in the picture were now.
Suddenly the windows shook. " Boom " went
— 257 — B
FIELD NOTES FROM THE RUSSIAN FRONT
a great gun not far off. And then again came
the same old tumult " Boom, Boom."
" They're off again," said the General as he
pulled off his boots. " Let's turn in ; it's getting
late."
— 258 —
INSPECTING THE WARSAW FRONT
CHAPTER XXI
INSPECTING THE WARSAW FRONT
Warsaw, Poland,
January 12, 191 5.
AFTER travelling about in Poland for hun-
dreds of kilometres in a motor-car and a
fair distance on horseback, one comes to view
the so-called " front " as a good deal of an ab-
straction. Here we have a nearly flat country
covered with great patches of timber, and in
every way adapted to getting lost in. From
the plain one sees no landmarks whatsoever,
and in the patches of woodland one can wan-
der about for hours within a few miles of the
firing line, and see no more signs of war than
in the heart of British Columbia. Yet in odd
patches it is all soaked in war. li one took
an automobile and spent an unmolested month
on the job, travelling every day, it might be
possible to visit perhaps half of the positions and
batteries ; but I doubt if even that much could
be seen in so short an interval. So, a trip of
inspection to the front is like taking a sample of
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FIELD NOTES FROM
grain out of a goods-wagon. It is at best a mere
cross-section of the situation at one point, and
it is only by visiting a number of isolated and
different points which are said to be typical, that
one gets even a vague idea as to what the war
is really like.
The little party of Generals with whom I
have had the privilege of travelling, have been
given every opportunity to view these typical
situations, and if I describe what we saw, I am
giving the reader the situation as accurately as
it can be seen by any single person in a trip of
a few days.
We spent the night, as has already been
told, at the headquarters of the Army Corps
Staff. The Chief of Staff, whose name I do not
know and which I should not be allowed to men-
tion if I did, is one of the most efficient men
I have met in Russia. This admirable soldier
gave up his entire day to our party, and under his
direction we were up and away by nine in the
morning, which is an early start in this country.
In our great grey motor-cars we sped over the
lovely Polish plain which in this direction tends
to roll a little. It reminds one not a little of
the Red River Valley in North Dakota, where
it begins to slope toward the westward ; only
here we have patches of forest, which are not
found in North Dakota.
— 262 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
For an hour or two our great snorting cars
ploughed through the mud, passing through vil-
lage after village whose Polish names are difficult
to speU, and I believe impossible to pronounce.
The natives pronounce them apparently without
difficulty, but to a foreigner they are absolutely
unpronounceable. We are running in the rear
of the lines for the most part, and all the morning
the air has been punctured with the occasional
deep boom of a big gun. The roads, as usual, are
crowded with caissons and transport and bat-
talions of troops or batteries of artillery. A little
before noon our cars sped past a sentry and
turned into one of those lovely Pohsh summer
places, so beautiful that any millionaire would
wish to possess it. A great white villa at the
end of an avenue through snow-clad trees is our
destination.
This we learn is the Brigade Headquarters of
Artillery.
The Colonel in command meets us on the steps
as we get out of our cars, with the inevitable
clicking of spurs and saluting of salutes. The
beautiful old house is upside down with war now.
In the front hall are a lot of blood-stained stretchers
standing up against the wall. At a table is a
telegraph operator. In the background there are
mud-stained orderlies and Cossack despatch riders.
They have taken up the carpets here, and the
— 263 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
hardwood floors are stained with mud and dirt.
A sweet-faced elderly woman with a Red Cross
on her breast meets us, and I gather that she
was the mistress of the house before the war broke
out.
We stopped here but a few minutes to pick
up the artillery Colonel and some of his staff,
and then started out on foot to have a look at his
positions. Behind the house was a lovely terrace,
and below that an artificial lake which, over-
flowing a little dam at the foot of the beau-
tiful garden, ran out in a little stream that
rippled beneath the ice as it wended its way
through a patch of pine trees in the corner of
the garden. We strolled down a woody path of
the estate and suddenly halted in a little clear-
ing. For a moment we saw nothing, and then
suddenly realized that we were in one of the
Russian big gun positions. But these were so
cleverly constructed by Christmas trees studded
about the guns that it was impossible to see them
until one was almost on them. Before each a
space had been made so that the fire just cleared
the tops of the trees on the other side of the
small clearing. The guns themselves were set
back under the pines. These were the big 15-
centimetre guns with an 8-verst range. There
they sat, their great throats open wide, with their
muzzles pointed just enough in elevation to clear
— 264 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
the tree tops a few yards in front of them.
Beside each, the caisson with its shells and
charges of powder in brass cartridges were
shrouded in trees that had been stuck in the
ground all around, leaving only the business side
exposed. Behind each gun were little trap-
doors in the earth, each of which led down a
flight of stairs to a submerged hut beneath the
floor of the forest that towered majestically
above.
Our friend the Chief of Staff chuckled with glee
as he explained to us the difficulty the Germans
had had in finding these guns at all. For nearly
four weeks they had been in position in this
grove, throwing their great sheUs into the German
lines. Again and again the German aeroplanes
had hung like hawks above the forest trying to
discover the nest of wasps that were stinging
them day after day. What information they
gained is best indicated from the fact that in four
weeks but seven casualties have occurred in this
battery, while the German shells that came to
search them out were bursting fully a thousand
yards from the place where the big guns were
placed.
Again we walked on through the woodlands.
Our guide, the Chief of Staff, seemed to know the
trail as well as the commander of the battery
himself. Suddenly he turned off sharply from the
— 265 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
trail ; we moved through the peaceful woods, and
in a few hundred yards came on another similar
battery, similarly concealed. Here again four
great guns sat, their muzzles peering just above
the opposite line of tree tops. Certainly the
operations of these big guns present the most
extraordinary aspect of modern war. Here they
sit day after day, miles and miles away from an
enemy and from their target. When they are not
in action it is as quiet and peaceful in this grove
as in a primitive wilderness. No enemy will
probably ever actually see them, but if, through
misadventure, some skilled and sharp-eyed scout
once locates this hidden group of monsters, this
bit of woodland will in a few minutes be trans-
ferred into a perfect hell of bursting shell and
flying splinters of steel. These guns will be
overturned and the patient men who work them
will be blown to atoms. But as long as they
are undiscovered they go quietly about their
tasks.
Slipping in their big shells and with nothing
visible to the gunners but the row of tree tops
across the clearing, the gunners send the pro-
jectiles screaming miles and miles away. In a
few minutes a telephone tinkles from an observa-
tion point, maybe two miles away, and advises
the commander of the battery where his shell
burst. The gun is altered a little in elevation,
— 266 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
and in a few minutes another projectile hurtles
out of the grove and over the tree tops to burst
miles away on the German position. At last the
range is discovered accurately and the soldiers
at the guns are told that their work is excellent.
Probably nothing in the world can be more
impersonal than the operation of these big guns.
Unless by misfortune their position is flanked and
they are enveloped and captured, it is doubtful
if half of the soldiers ever see an enemy during
the war at all.
From these guns we pushed forward to the
positions where the light guns of the field artillery
were crouching in hidden alcoves. After seeing
the big howitzers these slim creatures seem as
greyhounds compared to mastiffs. These also
are all in positions of indirect fire, and, from where
we saw them, their target was quite invisible.
But for the 'phone message from the observa-
tion point, they would never know after their
shell left their gun whether it was making good
practice or falling miles beyond or short of the
enemy. From the field gun positions we trailed
off through woodland paths to a slight elevation
on the very crest of which the woods ceased
and an open rolling country lay spread out
before us. Back in the woods were a number of
shelters dug out of the forest floor, and, just on the
fringe of the wood itself, two tripods standing
— 267 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
in the brush held aloft the hyperscopes of the
artillerist. These with their high-power lenses
brought the German line, several miles away,
almost to our feet.
Dug in between the hyperscopes was a sunken
shelter in which the field wires converged. These
linked up all the guns that were directed from this
unobtrusive spot on the 'fringe of wood which
certainly could not have been visible from a hun-
dred yards away.
Our Chief of Staff, who loved every detail of
his position, was as pleased as a child with the
whole arrangement and showed us on a map
where all the guns that we had been looking
at during the morning were located relative to
this position. " I will bring a battery into
action," he said casually, " and you shall see our
big gun practise at 6,500 yards. Our target is
the German gun position. You can see it through
the hyperscope." An obliging subaltern focussed
the instrument and by the cross hairs in the field
located the exact point that was to be aimed at.
When all was adjusted the Chief of Staff spoke
quietly to a man at the telephone. A second
later there came a great crash from a mile in our
rear and then the melancholy whine of a big shell
over our heads as with a diminishing wail it hurtled
to its destination. A second later a great black
spout of earth rose from the German line, and then
— 268 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
came the dull thud of the explosion drifting
back across the valley. Another crash and
another shell passed over our heads and another
cloud of earth and flying debris could be seen
through the glasses. From a mile to our east and
rear came another peal of thunder and again the
wail of shells. The second battery that we had
seen was in action.
The few German shells that came back in
response to the salutation of our guns were not
within a thousand yards of their target. For
perhaps half an hour the bombardment went on,
the Germans who were stung by the shells re-
sponding to our challenge, but gradually the
fire on both sides slackened and at last sub-
sided. These spasms of firing back and forth
break out every few hours, day in and day out,
along the entire line of the trenches.
We visited other positions and batteries, and in
the afternoon we came back to the villa by the
lake. Here there occurred a rather dramatic
incident.
As we turned into the great carriage drive we
came upon a whole regiment of Russian troops
that had been drawn up two ranks deep on each
side of the drive for perhaps half a mile. General
Williams and Marquis De La Guiche passed down
the cheering line, first recognizing with salutes
the military honours accorded to them. About a
— 269 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
hundred yards behind came the Httle Japanese,
General Oba. Spick and span as though he had
stepped out of a bandbox, with his trim uniform
and gold aigrettes and gold-spurred boots, he
looked as chic and smart an officer as one
could see in a voyage round the world. As
he passed up the line, saluting right and left,
the great Russian moujiks cheered themselves
hoarse.
As I watched this scene my mind ran back ten
years. I was with this little General Oba,
then a Colonel on Nogi's staff, before the blood-
stained slopes of Port Arthur. In those days we
were watching Japanese big guns hurling huge
shells into Russian positions and congratulating
our Japanese friends when a lucky shot was
visible. I think even the little Japanese, the last
word in intelligence and efficiency, felt the
contrast.
A few minutes later we sat at the table in the
great dining-room, having luncheon with the
Staff. " Who," I said to him in an undertone,
" would have believed, if it had been said to your
people in Port Arthur, that in ten years' time you
would pass up an avenue in Poland madly cheered
as an ally by Russian troops ? "
His intelligent eyes flashed, and with the quick
intaking of breath with which the Japanese
signify pleasure, he rephed, " Ah, yes. Who
— 270 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
indeed ? " And as he finished there came a
crash from the corner of the garden . The windows
shook in their frames. The battery of howitzers
was just coming into action once more.
271
THE NORTH BZURA FRONT
CHAPTER XXII
THE NORTH BZURA FRONT
Warsaw, Poland,
January 15, 191 5.
THIS war is primarily a motor-car war, and
it is difficult to imagine what the staff,
the Red Cross and the journaHsts over here
would do on this extended front without this con-
veyance. From Warsaw as a base one can get
out to almost any of the positions in a few hours'
drive in one of the big high-speed touring cars
that are employed by the army.
For the past two days we have been inspecting
positions and batteries south of the Skierniewice-
Warsaw line of railroad. The last day we put
in on the north of that line in the territory lying
between the Vistula and the Lowiecz- Warsaw
line of the railroad. Familiarity makes unusual
things common. Nevertheless in the back of my
head I do realize that the sights on this road
would be really extraordinary if one were not so
accustomed to them.
It would not be inapt to call this highway an
— 275 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
ethnological museum of all the race products of
the Russian Empire. I think I never began to
realize what an enormous number of diverse
peoples come under the heading of " All the
Russias." On this road you see them all. In
the first place there is the constant stream of
officers and Red Cross officials in motor-cars, the
type that we associate with Petrograd, Paris or
London, or indeed wherever one sees Russians at
all. Then of course there are thousands and thou-
sands of the peasant soldiers of European Russia.
Just now the roads are blocked with Siberian
troops with their heavy faces and their woolly
caps. Everywhere between and around are little
bunches of Cossacks of all kinds, from South-
Eastern Russia, from the Caucasus and from
Siberia.
Last but not least we have just got in great
bunches of the most extraordinary creatures
from some of the Russian dominions in Turkestan.
There seem to be two groups of these, each equally
undesirable in appearance, and none of them, as
far as one can learn, speaking any known language.
They are almost as much strangers to the ordinary
Russians as they are to us. One group of these
gentlemen, who, like all the mounted troops of
Russia, go under the name of Cossacks, is clad
in untanned sheepskin coats dyed a brilliant
orange. They wear on their heads a bushel or
— 276 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
more of black wool, in which there is a hole in
which the head seems to be inserted. They seem
a cross between a Chinaman and a Mongol, with
deep red complexions and expressions which do
not encourage familiarity.
From somewhere in the same distant region
comes another group of gentlemen similarly
clad except as to the colour of their sheepskins,
which are a deep claret colour. Both ride the
most exquisite-looking thoroughbred horses,
with long thin legs, and delicate thin faces.
When not on the road these men seem to be
always engaged in caring for their horses. I have
never seen them mingling with any of the other
troops at all.
The transport is about equally divided in
numbers between the regular Russian carts and
the peasant cart of the Pole which, though small,
seems well suited for the bad roads of the country.
Each month of the war brings us more and more
of the Siberian ponies, and practically all the
artillery and a great deal of the transport is now
equipped with these strong little animals. The
more one sees of them the more one comes to
realize their value. They certainly do not aver-
age over 800 lbs. in weight and are not much
bigger than a cow. But when you get six of
these sturdy little brutes all pulling at once it
is surprising how they will drag a gun or an ammu-
— 277 —
:field notes from
nition caisson out of the mud. They are equally
happy and contented in wind, snow or rain.
They sleep contentedly, their lower lips wabbling
in absolute peace in a pouring rain or a driving
snow-storm. I have seen them standing serenely
covered with three inches of snow and appar-
ently as undisturbed as a cow in the sunshine of
a hay meadow in summer time.
Out on this front as on others I have ob-
served the prevailing Russian custom of keep-
ing horses in harness all night. The lead
team are tied up to a cross rope, and then
each team is bedded down with straw, and they
stand just as though in a stable, with the caissons
containing the reserve ammunition all hooked
up. One will often see sixteen or twenty such
teams standing contentedly in one place day
after day. If there comes a sudden call from the
front for ammunition there is no hooking up to
do at all. The drivers climb into their saddles, un-
tie their lead teams, and in a moment are off at a
gallop down the road or across the fields to relieve
the guns that are pumping shrapnel over into
the German lines. The first ammunition caissons
other than the limber with the battery seem to
average about 2,000 yards behind the gun posi-
tions ; the reserves perhaps six versts behind
them and the supports perhaps another six, making
all told not over fifteen versts for the entire dis-
— 278 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
tance between the guns and the ammunition
column available for a single day's work.
On the north front our line is now on the edge
of the Bzura river and runs through the town of
Sochaczew. Just across the river are the German
trenches ; and here day by day the intermin-
able firing back and forward between pickets
and trenches, and between German guns and
Russian guns, goes on. Sochaczew has been an
object of the Germans' greatest desire, and scores
of attacks have been made on this position.
Several times to my certain knowledge, the enemy
have gained a foothold on our side of the river,
but have within a few hours been dislodged and
driven back. Fighting of a similar sort went
on for thirty-four days around Lowiecz, which
is some eighteen or twenty versts to the south
and west. We went out and had a look at the
position here, but did not get nearer than several
thousand yards to the town, because the Germans
had chosen this particular time to throw shells
into it. It was burning in three or four places,
but the officers of the Russian battery which we
were visiting regarded the occurrence as a casual
one, and said that the Germans lighted up a
few fires with their shells every evening at dusk
to keep the town illuminated so that they
could see what was going on in that direction.
Hardly a day passes when one has not an
— 279 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
opportunity of seeing German prisoners, and in
these one finds unmistakable proof that the
armies of the Kaiser are becoming worn and
weaker every day. I met a dozen on a certain
railway platform the other day, and though
my sympathies are not with the German armies,
my heart pitied the miserable and pathetic-
looking objects in German uniform which stood
shivering in the rain waiting for a train to take
them to Siberia. Nearly all were undersized,
weakly, and haggard. I learned from one of
them that they were Ersatz reservists and had
been with the colours since August. The strain
of constant fighting had told on them severely,
and they looked ready to drop with fatigue. But
whether one is in sympathy with Germany or
not one must accord every respect to these soldiers
of the Kaiser. No troops in the world have a
better spirit. I got into conversation with these
pitiable objects and inquired of one of them if
the German army still thought they had a chance
of taking Warsaw. Almost before the words were
out of my mouth three replied at once. " Cer-
tainly," said one. " Without doubt," said the
second, and " There is not a question of it," echoed
the third. Though all looked pitiably lean and
haggard, each insisted that they had more food
than they could eat, that every company was
absolutely at full strength, and in a word that
— 280 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
they were in every way satisfied with their cause.
The more one sees of the Germans, and these are
far below the average in type, the more one
begins to feel that there is a long, long road ahead
of the Allies before these determined people are
broken. They will take a lot of licking, and he
is indeed an extraordinary optimist who can
question the truth of this statement.
One of the Germans whom I drew aside and
questioned sympathetically in his own language,
unbent a little and confided to me that as a matter
of fact the troops knew nothing whatever about
their own movements, and did not even know
that an attack was in contemplation until a few
minutes before they were ordered out of the
trenches. He also informed me that the losses
on this front since the last invasion began had
been perfectly terrible, a statement by the way
which was in absolute contradiction to his previous
replies to the Russian officer who questioned
him on the same topic.
One phase of the war which is constantly being
borne in upon me is that Germany is losing now
in personnel that which a generation cannot
replace. I am increasingly surprised at the
standard of men that one finds in the ranks of
the reservists. Mechanics, artisans, students and
even professional men abound, all serving as
common soldiers. Every attack now, with its
— 281 —
FIELD NOTES FROM THE RUSSIAN FRONT
ghastly losses to the Germans, represents a sub-
traction from the very best economic and indus-
trial assets that the German Empire has at its
disposal. In every group of prisoners one dis-
covers men of the upper middle class who have
been withdrawn from productive occupations of
every sort. In one of the advance field hospitals
last week a young attorney who was serving in
the German reserves was brought in with such a
hideous wound that his arm had to be taken off
at the shoulder.
I am of the opinion that even if Germany
could secure peace to-day on highly advantageous
terms, she would still find that she has crippled
her national life for generations to come. For
in these days she is pouring out wantonly and
with incredible disregard for the sacrifice she is
making, the very blood and brains that has en-
abled her to build up the great commercial and
industrial enterprises which have made her the
great power in the world that she is to-day — or
was before the British fleet bottled up her vast
merchant marine.
— 282 —
CONCLUSION
CHAPTER XXIII
CONCLUSION
IN the foregoing pages the writer has not at-
tempted to give any outUne of the whole
Russian campaign in sequence. At this time,
while we are still in the centre of the chaos and
still writing under the supervision of an ex-
ceedingly strict censorship, it is absolutely im-
possible to describe the movements here from
even an approach to a fair perspective of the
operations. What has been attempted is a num-
ber of sketches from firsthand observation, of
significant small details of the many thousands
which go to make up the war as a whole.
These odd scraps of cross sections of life and
warfare, as it is seen and conducted on this front,
may have a certain fresh interest for readers at
home who are probably less familiar with Russia
and the Russian method than with any of the
other countries involved in the war. It seems
therefore worth while to outline very briefly
what Russia has done to date, and, as nearly as
we know the truth, what the situation on this
— 285 —
FIELD NOTES FROM
front is at the time when these Hnes are
written.
So great and continuous has been the conflict
on the West, that it is possible that England and
America fail to appreciate the extent of the
actual progress made by Russia since the World
War broke out on the first of August. A glance
at the map shows clearly enough that Poland,
sticking out from the great bulk of European
Russia, is by no means a zone of strategic sim-
plicity in which an army may start operations.
On the North lies East Prussia, which was occu-
pied by the Germans. On the South lies Galicia,
in which the great bulk of the Austrian armies,
by means of excellent lines of strategic railways,
was instantly concentrated.
Russia started her campaign simultaneously
in the North and in the South, as it was of course
perfectly evident that no advance from the Polish
front on Posen or Berlin, via that route, was in any
way possible until at least one of the great nations
flanking Poland had been taken care of by the
soldiers of the Czar. The Russians met with a ca-
tastrophe in East Prussia,'owing to the extraordin-
ary difficulty of operating against an extremely
efficient enemy in a country of lakes and morasses,
totally unfitted for the mobile operations of
artillery or transport. The initial advance there
proved abortive, and up to the present time the
— 286 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
advance on Berlin in that direction seems im-
probable. In Galicia Russia found, pressing in-
stantly in aggression on her whole flank, the united
armies of Austria and Hungary, armies which
proved themselves to be efficient and well trained.
I am still of the opinion that I expressed in the
article written from Galicia, that the Russian
campaign there has been the most successful
movement of the whole war. A vast number of
army corps, moving from three or four different
bases, in the course of a few months inflicted
defeat after defeat on the Austrians and, uniting
at the strategic moment, swept the resistance
of an enemy (whom it is a great mistake to under-
estimate merely because he has been beaten) to
the Carpathians in the South and up into the
little wedge about Cracow in the West.
The first German attempt on Warsaw, as is
now well known, was a flat failure and resulted
in the absolute collapse of the Austrian and
German offensive in the East. The situation
round Cracow became acute, and with the early
possibility of the fall of that city, and an imme-
diate invasion of Silesia by the Russians, the
hand of the enemy was at once forced. Ger-
many was hurried into a demonstration in Poland,
following her well-known axiom that the best
defence is a vigorous offence. The second Polish
invasion was launched so precipitously that two
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FIELD NOTES FROM
of the German army corps came within an ace
of being captured, and but for a miscarriage of
plans the Russians would have inflicted a very
heavy disaster on their enemy. As it was, they
undoubtedly threw out the German programme
sufficiently to break up their scheme for a
sudden advance. Before Lodz, weeks of vigorous
fighting were required before the Russians fell
back.
The Germans, having now put their hand to the
plough of Poland's invasion, diverted army corps
after army corps into Poland, pressing the Rus-
sians with the intensity and impetuosity w^hich
are characteristic of all their campaigning. Step
by step the Russians fell back until their line
rested from the Vistula through Lowiecz, west
of Skierniewice, Breziny and southward. The
Germans spent thirty-four days in attacking
Lowiecz, which the Russians finally evacuated,
to fall back on a partially prepared line on
the Bzura river and southwards. An immediate
advance on Cracow was suspended and the
corps operating in Galicia fell back in order to
give the Russians an approximately straight
and simple line from the Vistula to the Car-
pathians. There seems little doubt that the
original intention of the Russians was to retire to
a line known to us as the " Blonie Line," which
is twenty-seven versts west of Warsaw and an
— 288 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
ideal position of defence. It is probable that the
Bzura position was intended as a check rather
than a permanent stand, but a week elapsed
without the Germans being able to break it
strategically. As the cold weather came on, our
line grew better, for there is nothing like incle-
ment weather to make soldiers dig in and pro-
tect themselves. With each attack the Germans
became weaker, and each day brought up fresh
reinforcements to the Russians.
It now seems probable to most of us here who
have seen the lines and been over a few details
of the positions, that the Germans have reached
their highwater mark in Poland, and if not actually
on the Bzura, then certainly on the Blonie line.
A month has elapsed now with fierce fight-
ing at various places along the whole line.
In many places battles lasting for days have
occurred which gave temporary advantages to
the Germans here and there; but usually the
gains of to-day are nullified by retirements
to-morrow. In many places our line has been
dented, but taken as a whole the Bzura-Rawka
line stands practically intact and is growing
stronger every day. I believe it is not undue
optimism to say that the German invasion of
Poland, viewed in relation to its strategic aim,
has failed. Whether they go back or camp
here for the winter is not of great importance.
— 289 — T
FIELD NOTES FROM
Their momentum has been stopped, and their
great machine, which depends primarily on the
weight and speed of its advance, stands to-day
stuck in the mud, with its engines practically at
a standstill.
In the South we hear that the Russians are
resuming the offensive and there is every reason
for concluding that the Austrian army is prac-
tically out of the running as an aggressive agent,
or as any great help to the German cause. Russia
has then, in little more than five months, brought
into the field, slowly, yet without confusion,
her great army. She has definitely put out of
the running the armies of Austria and Hungary
and has brought the Germans to a dead halt. It
seems to be the opinion in the West that Russia
has had an easy task in Galicia, but this is ab-
solutely untrue. The Austrians and Hungarians
for months proved a brave and stubborn enemy.
Russia has met the first shock and now finds one
enemy almost in a state of collapse and the other
thrown back on its haunches after a superhuman
effort to reach Warsaw. It may be assumed
that Germany has made her maximum effort here.
Russia has not done so by any means. Day by
day her armies are growing stronger and more
efficient. By April Russia will be in the best
position she has been since the war started, and,
as far as one can judge here, will then be just
— 290 —
THE RUSSIAN FRONT
prepared to put her maximum strength into the
conflict.
It is useless to speculate as to the length of the
war. It may be months, and it may be years,
but it is the opinion of the writer that with the
German failure on Warsaw the scales over here
have definitely turned ; and that though we may
yet have many battles and much carnage, the
end is now assured. Germany has made two
attempts on Poland, and as it now seems, she has
lost her chance.
After nearly five months' association with the
Army, there are of course many things that one
would like to write, and comments that one
would like to make ; but in so huge a war one
must refrain from anything save the barest gener-
alities until time and distance from the scene
can give the perspective which is necessary to
justify any definite conclusions.
THE END
Butler & Tanner Frome and Londoa
291
3H
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
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