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WITH  THE   RUSSIAN  ARMY, 


His  Imperial  Highness  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolai  Nikolaievich ,  Supreme  Coinmander- 
in-Chief  of  the  Russian  Land  and  Sea  Forces,  August,  1914,  till  the  4th  September, 
1915 

[Frontispiece  Vol.  I. 


WITH  THE  RUSSIAN  ARMY 


1914-1917 

BEI$(G  CHIEFLT  EXTRACT'S 
FROM  THE  T)IART  OF 
A  MILITARY  ATTACHE 


48673 


ONTARIO 


BY 


MAJOR-GENERAL  SIR  ALFRED  KNOX, 

K.C.B.,  C.M.G. 


WITH    58    ILLUSTRATIONS,    CHIEFLY    FROM    PHOTO- 
GRAPHS   TAKEN     BY    THE    AUTHOR,    AND     19    MAPS 


48673 


VOL.  I 


LONDON:     HUTCHINSON    &    CO. 
PATERNOSTER      ROW 

1921 


J> 


4 


MAY 

25 
I98J 


1  f 


PREFACE 

OF  the  multitude  of  war  books,  few  have  dealt  with  the  struggle  in 
the  Eastern  theatre.  Yet  it  is  certainly  the  second  theatre  in 
importance,  and  probably  the  most  interesting  of  all  to  the  military 
reader.  The  German  General  Staff,  it  is  true,  has  produced 
valuable  studies  of  certain  episodes  of  the  fighting  in  Russia,  but  from 
the  point  of  view  of  our  Ally  there  has  been  little  or  nothing. 

Until  the  day,  which  all  lovers  of  Russia  hope  is  not  far  distant 
when  the  Russian  General  Staff  will  be  able  to  publish  to  the  world  an 
official  account  of  the  work  of  the  Russian  Army  in  the  Great  War, 
it  is  thought  that  these  extracts  from  the  Diary  of  a  British  officer  may 
prove  of  interest.  The  writer  can  at  any  rate  claim  to  have  enjoyed 
greater  opportunities  for  observation  of  the  Russian  army  than  any 
other  foreign  observer,  both  previous  to  the  war  as  Military  Attache* 
to  the  British  Embassy  at  Petrograd,  and  during  the  war  as  liaison 
officer  at  the  front. 

If  some  of  his  Russian  friends  find  his  comments  occasionally  over- 
frank,  he  asks  their  forgiveness.  He  wrote  things  down  as  they 
seemed  to  him  at  the  time. 

These  twenty-five  chapters  give  the  writer's  experiences  during 
three  and  a  half  years  of  war  and  revolution.  Passing  through  Ger- 
many on  the  eve  of  the  declaration  of  war,  he  spent  a  few  days  at  the 
Headquarters  of  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolas.  He  then  visited  the  3rd 
Army  just  before  its  invasion  of  Galicia  (Chapter  I.),  and  the  2nd 
Army  during  the  battle  of  Tannenberg  (Chapter  II.).  In  September 
he  accompanied  a  cavalry  division  in  a  raid  in  South-West  Poland,  and 
retired  with  it  before  Hindenburg's  first  offensive  against  Warsaw 
(Chapter  III.).  In  the  following  months  he  was  with  the  Guard 
Corps  at  the  battle  of  Ivangorod,  and  in  the  subsequent  Russian 
counter-offensive  towards  Krakau  (Chapter  IV.).  Some  account 
derived  from  eye-witnesses  is  given  of  the  operation  of  Lodz  (Chapter 
V.),  of  the  disaster  to  the  Russian  loth  Army  in  February,  1915,  and 
of  the  operations  on  the  Narev  in  the  winter  of  that  year  (Chapter  VI.) . 

In  the  great  Russian  retreat  from  Poland  in  1915,  due  to  lack  of 


vi  Preface 

armament,  the  writer  was  attached  first  to  the  Guard  Corps  and  later 
to  the  Staff  of  the  ist  Army  (Chapter  VIII.).  Chapter  IX.  tells  of  the 
German  cavalry  raid  on  Svyentsyani  in  September,  1915,  and 
Chapter  X.  of  the  adventures  of  a  Russian  Delegation  despatched  to 
England  and  France  to  obtain  munitions. 

Chapters  XII.-XVI.  describe  the  fighting  in  1916,  with  many  hither- 
to unpublished  details  of  Brusilov's  offensive  and  the  subsequent  opera- 
tions. Chapter  XVII.  deals  with  the  political  unrest  preceding  the 
Revolution.  Chapters  XIX.-XXV.  give  an  eye-witness's  account  of 
the  Revolution  of  March  I2th,  1917,  and  of  the  rapid  decline  of  the 
Russian  army,  culminating  in  the  Bolshevik  coup  d'etat  of  November  7th 
and  the  negotiations  for  the  separate  peace. 

ALFRED  KNOX. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME   I 

INTRODUCTION 
THE  RUSSIAN  ARMY  IN  1914 

PAGE 

Conditions  of  service — Military  Law  of  1914 — Recruitment — Organisation 
in  peace — Expansion  in  war — Number  of  men  available — Depot  units 
— Armament — Rifles — Machine-guns — Guns — Aircraft — Transport — 
Training — The  officers — General  Staff — Regimental  and  reserve 
officers — The  non-commissioned  officers — The  rank  and  file — A  long 
war  necessarily  fatal  to  Russia  . .  . .  . .  . .  xvii 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   OUTBREAK   OF    WAR.    GENERAL    HEADQUARTERS   AND    THE 

SOUTH-WEST  FRONT  IN  AUGUST,  1914 

Return  from  leave  through  Germany  at  the  end  of  July — The  mobilisation 
— General  Laguiche — Forecast  of  the  enemy's  probable  distribution  of 
strength — Departure  from  Petrograd  in  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolas's 
train — The  Grand  Duke's  Staff — The  journey  to  Baranovichi — Con- 
versation with  the  Grand  Duke — General  Jilinski,  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  North- West  Front — Boredom  of  life  at  Baranovichi — The 
Russian  plan  of  campaign  and  strategical  deployment — Composition  of 
the  front-line  armies — Visit  to  the  South- West  Front — Dinner  with 
General  Ivanov — The  3rd  Army  on  the  eve  of  crossing  the  frontier — 
Visit  to  the  33rd  Division — Russian  patience  and  good  temper — De- 
parture from  Baranovichi  . .  . .  . .  . .  . .  37 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  DISASTER  TO  THE  2ND  ARMY,  AUGUST,  1914 

General  situation  on  the  North- West  Front — Interview  with  General 
Jilinski  on  the  evening  of  August  23rd — Lunch  with  General  Samsonov 
at  Ostrolenka  on  August  24th — Situation  of  the  2nd  Army — Chief  of 
Staff's  pessimism — Arrival  at  Neidenburg — Visits  to  General  Martos 
of  the  XVth  Corps  and  to  General  Torklus  of  the  6th  Division — 
Battle  of  Orlau-Frankenau — Lack  of  businesslike  method — Position 
of  the  Russian  forces  on  the  evening  of  the  25th — Arrival  of  General 
Samsonov  at  Neidenburg  on  August  26th — German  attack  on  the  ist 
Corps — Situation  on  the  night  of  the  26th — Position  on  the  morning 
of  August  2 yth — Russian  estimate  of  German  strength — Signs  of 
nerves — Conversation  with  General  Samsonov  on  the  morning  of  the 
28th — Drive  to  Ostrolenka — Situation  in  Warsaw — The  battle  in  the 

Yii 


viii  Contents 

MM 

south  undecided — Back  to  Ostrolenka — The  disaster  to  the  2nd  Army 
from  accounts  of  eye-witnesses — Relation  of  the  Russian  Staff. 

AFTERNOTE. — At  Byelostok — Recapture  and  re-abandonment  of 
Neidenburg — A  German  account  of  events  in  the  and  Army — Inex- 
perience of  Russian  commanders — Defective  services  of  intelligence 
and  communications — Orders  and  counter-orders — Adventures  of 
Samsonov's  Chief  of  Intelligence — Work  of  the  ist  Army — Relation  of 
a  member  of  Rennenkampf's  Staff — Wanderings  of  the  Ilnd  Corps — 
Relation  of  a  member  of  the  Staff  of  the  Ilnd  Corps — The  invasion  of 
East  Prussia  gained  its  object,  but  the  price  paid  was  unnecessarily 
great — Wonderful  success  of  the  German  Command — Removal  of 
Russian  commanders-r-Reconstitution  of  the  XVth  and  Xlllth  Corps  56 


CHAPTER  III 

WITH  A  CAVALRY  DIVISION  IN  SOUTH-WEST  POLAND,  SEPTEMBER- 
OCTOBER,  1914 

Success  of  the  Russian  offensive  on  the  South-West  Front — Rumoured 
enemy  transfers  from  the  French  theatre — Visit  to  the  fitape  Comman- 
dant at  Warsaw — Pessimistic  Englishmen — Journey  to  join  the  Staff  of 
the  9th  Army  in  Galicia — Difficulties  at  Lyublin — Bibikov's  death — 
Guard  Co-operative  Society — Anecdotes  of  the  recent  fighting — The 
wounded — Supply  and  transport — Preparations  for  the  defence  of  the 
Vistula — Keen  subalterns — Sandomir— The  Cossacks — Headquarters 
of  the  gth  Army  at  Zolbnev — General  Gulevich — Situation  in  Galicia 
— Proposed  cavalry  raid  on  Austrian  communications — The  start  of  the 
raid — i4th  Cavalry  Division — Generals  Novikov  and  Erdeli — Staff 
of  the  1 4th  Cavalry  Division — Polish  mistrust  of  Russian  promises — 
Adisturbed  night — The  situation — Staff  routine — Cavalry  armament — 
Skirmish  with  "  Sokols  " — Remounts — A  month's  casualties  in 
a  cavalry  division — Burning  of  a  country  house — Orders — Terrible 
situation  of  the  Poles — "  The  Bloodthirsty  Cornet  " — The  division 
recalled  to  the  north  owing  to  the  German  offensive — Skirmish  with  a 
German  cavalry  patrol — Examination  of  prisoners — Through  Pinchov 
with  a  sentimental  officer — The  enemy  strength  estimated  at  one 
corps  only — Maxim's  "gallantry" — Position  of  opposing  forces — 
Delaying  action  at  Yasenn — A  Jewish  spy — Continuation  of  retreat 
— Adventures  of  a  Cossack  squadron  commander  on  reconnaissance 
— Situation  on  October  ist — Machine-guns — Strength  of  cavalry 
regiment — Reconnaissance — Futility  of  attempts  to  delay  the  ad- 
vance of  the  enemy  infantry — Confidence  regarding  the  speedy  end 
of  the  war — Horse-rations  in  peace  and  war — Intelligence — Re- 
connaissance and  "  flying  posts  " — Battle  patrols — Orderly  parties — 
A  night  alarm  and  subsequent  march — A  German  prisoner — Russian 
infantry  west  of  the  Vistula — Staff  of  the  Cavalry  Corps  loses  control 
owing  to  rapidity  of  enemy  advance — Supply — Narrow  escape  at 
Ostrovets  on  October  3rd — Last  "  delaying  position  "  on  October  6th 
— Retirement  across  the  Vistula  at  Novo  Alexandriya — Good-bye  to 
the  1 4th  Cavalry  Division — Journey  to  Warsaw. 

AFTERNOTE. — The  average  daily  march  of  the  1 4th  Cavalry  Division 
— The  Russian  cavalry — Subsequent  services  of  the  I4th  Cavalry  Divi- 
sion— Of  General  Erdeli — Of  General  Sencha — Of  Captain  Sapoj- 
nikov — Fine  death  of  Colonel  Westphalen — Death  of  Captain 
Plotnikov,  his  presentiment — Subsequent  services  of  General  Novikov 
and  of  Colonel  Dreyer  . .  . .  . .  . .  . .  95 


Contents  ix 

CHAPTER   IV 

WITH   THE   QTH  ARMY   AND   THE  GUARD  CORPS   IN   SOUTH  WEST 

POLAND.    HINDENBURG'S  FIRST  OFFENSIVE  AGAINST  WARSAW  AND 

THE  RUSSIAN  COUNTER-OFFENSIVE.    OCTOBER-DECEMBER,  1914 

PAGE 

Line  held  by  the  Russians  in  Galicia  on  September  2ist,  1914 — Difficulties 
of  supply — Transfer  to  the  north — First  news  received  of  Hinden- 
burg's  advance  on  September  23rd — Question  whether  the  enemy 
should  be  met  west  of  or  in  rear  of  the  Vistula — The  disaster  at  Opatov 
— Location  of  units  of  4th,  gth  and  5th  Armies  on  October  6th — 
Difficulties  in  carrying  out  the  Russian  change  of  front — Failure  of 
the   enemy's   plans — Warsaw   crowded   with   fugitives   on   October 
1 2th — The  Russians  resume  the  offensive — Journey  to  Lyublin — 
Weather— Railway  transport — Office  of  Commandant  of  the  Lines 
of  Communication  at  Lyublin — Story  of  the  Jew  at  Ivangorod — 
The  road  from  Lyublin  to  Krasnik — The  distribution  of  armies — The 
ride   back   from    Krasnik — General   Lechitski — Russian   success   at 
Warsaw — General  Gulevich  regrets  the  lack  of  bridgeheads  on  the 
Vistula — The  fieldpost — Orders  issued  to  the    Qth    Army    for   the 
offensive^ — Drive  from  Lyublin  to  Ivangorod  to  join  the  Guard  Corps — 
Russian  infantry  on  the  march — Second -line  transport — The  battle 
of  Ivangorod — Visit  to  the  XXVth  Corps  in  advance  of  Novo  Alex- 
andriya — Retirement    of    the    enemy — The    church    at    Zvolen — A 
subaltern  of  the  Preobrajenski  Regiment — A  drummer  boy's  funeral — 
Russian  distribution  on  October  28th — The  Staff  of  the  Guard  Corps 
— A  priest's  story — Touch  with  the  enemy  lost — Stories  of  the  enemy's 
doings — Visit  to  Warsaw — Russian  plans — Sufferings  of  the  Poles — 
Return   to   the   Guard   Corps — Second-line   troops — Destruction   of 
railways — Situation   in    South-West    Poland    on    November    8th — 
Advance  of  the  Guard  Corps  towards  Krakau — Waiting  for  the  3rd 
Army — Nervousness  regarding  ammunition  supply — Composition  of 
the  3rd  and  8th  Armies — Tired  infantry — A  Frenchman — The  tunnel 
at  Myekhov — The  system  of    replacing    casualties    in    the    Guard 
Corps — Objectives  of  Russian  armies — A  Guard  regiment  in  action 
— Russian  information  of  enemy  dispositions  on  November  iyth — 
A  prisoner's  reply — The  2nd  Guard  Infantry  Division  held  up — The 
first  news  of  the  offensive  from  Thorn  received  at  i  a.m.  on  the  i8th 
—General  anxiety   regarding  shortage  of  ammunition — Failure  of 
Russian  counter-offensive  becomes  probable — The  45th  Division  in 
action — Points  about  winter  warfare — Views  in  South-West  Poland 
regarding  offensive  from  Thorn — Shortage  of  shell  not  local  but 
general — Depression — Visit  to  the  Finlandski  Regiment  at  Yangrot 
and  to  the  Preobrajenski  Regiment  at  Poremba  Gorna — Abandon- 
ment of  the  attempted  offensive — Losses  in  the  Guard  Corps — Men  in 
the  trenches  frozen  at  night — Strength  opposite  the  4th  and  9th 
Armies — gth  Army  averages  only  7,000  men  per  division — Another 
visit  to  the  Preobrajenski  Regiment — Slackness  of  counter-espionage 
—Weakness   of   our   strategy — Grand   Duke's   enquiries   regarding 
equipment — Lack  of  officers — The  tunnel  at  Myekhov — Retirement 
becomes  probable — Inefficient  railway  management — Inefficiency  oa 
the   Lines   of  Communication — Visit  to  Headquarters  of  the  2nd 
Guard  Infantry  Division — Progress  of  the  3rd  Army  south  of  Krakau 
— Desertions — Drive   to   Warsaw — Drafts   on   the   march — Warsaw 
rumours — Large  reinforcements  for  the  front — Arrival  at  Petrograd. 
AFTERNOTE. — Failure  of  Hindenburg's  first  offensive  in  Poland — 
Failure  of  the  Russian  counter-offensive — The  latter  in  reality  a 
gigantic  bluff  . .  . .  . .  . .  . .  . .       139 


x  Contents 

CHAPTER  V 

HINDENBURG'S    SECOND   OFFENSIVE   IN   POLAND,  NOVEMBER  AND 

DECEMBER,  1914 

PACE 

Hindenburg  appointed  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  German  Forces  in  the 
East — Ludendorff  suggests  the  offensive  from  Thorn — The  German 
concentration  —  Tardy  Russian  counter-measures  —  Mackenzen  's 
rapid  advance — Defeat  of  the  ist  and  2nd  Armies  in  detail — Arrange- 
ments for  the  rescue  of  the  2nd  Army — Generals  Rennenkampf  and 
Plehve — Plehve  and  the  orderly  officer — Move  north  of  the  5th  Army 
— Enterprise  of  the  German  penetrating  force — Launch  of  the  relieving 
forces  from  the  ist  Army — The  advance  of  the  Lovich  Force — Change 
of  commander — Lack  of  information  and  of  proper  equipment — 
Second  change  of  commander — Modification  of  orders — The  German 
penetrating  force  receives  orders  to  retire,  7  p.m.  on  the  22nd — 
Further  change  of  orders  in  the  Lovich  Force — The  6th  Siberian 
Division  asks  for  help — Indecision — Russians  in  the  dark — Staff  of 
Lovich  Force  loses  touch  with  all  its  columns — Destruction  of  the 
6th  Siberian  Division — Escape  of  the  German  penetrating  force — Its 
remarkable  work — Disappointment  of  the  Russians — Russian  forces 
much  intermingled — Arrival  of  German  reinforcements — Loss  of  Lodz 
and  Lovich — Retirement  of  the  Russian  armies  to  the  "  river  line" 
— The  operation  of  Lodz  probably  the  most  interesting  of  the  war 
from  a  military  psychological  standpoint — The  fog  of  war — Value  of 
co-operation — Wonderful  German  organisation — Mackenzen's  initial 
success — His  failure  owing  to  the  delay  and  weakness  of  the  German 
offensive  further  south — Question  whether  the  German  Supreme 
Command  might  not  with  advantage  have  delayed  its  offensive  till 
the  arrival  of  reinforcements  from  France  and  have  then  launched  it 
from  Mlava  instead  of  from  Thorn — The  Russian  Intelligence  on  this 
occasion  at  fault — Brilliant  work  of  the  Russian  5th  Army — Rennen- 
kampf's  failure — Question  whether  the  Russian  Supreme  Command 
should  not  have  detached  troops  to  the  north  . .  . .  . .  202 

CHAPTER  VI 

WAR  OF  POSITION  WEST  OF  THE  VISTULA.  THE  GERMAN 
ATTACK  ON  THE  RUSSIAN  IOTH  ARMY.  OPERATIONS  OF  THE  IOTH, 
I2TH  AND  IST  ARMIES  IN  ADVANCE  OF  THE  NAREV,  JANUARY  TO 

MARCH,  1915 

Shortage  of  rifles — The  cause — Shortage  of  shell — Reduction  of  the  number 
of  guns  in  the  infantry  division  from  forty-eight  to  thirty-six — The 
retirement  to  the  "  river  line  "  caused  by  loss  of  men  and  deficiency 
of  armament — Question  whether  the  Grand  Duke  knew  in  October  of 
the  deficiency  of  rifles  and  of  shell — Secretiveness  of  Russian  officials 
— General  Sukhomlinov  amply  warned  by  the  Staffs  of  the  Fronts 
and  by  the  Artillery  Department — His  career  and  character — The 
Assistant  Minister  of  War — Interview  with  General  Sukhomlinov  on 
December  i6th — Optimism  of  the  Times — Visit  to  G.H.Q. — The 
Emperor  at  G.H.Q. — Warsaw  in  January,  1915 — Distribution  of 
armies  west  of  Warsaw — Fighting  against  Austrians — Opinions  of 
General  Erdeli  and  of  Count  Prjetski  on  the  role  and  tactics  of  cavalry 
— The  Staff  of  the  5th  Army  at  Mogilnitsa — Christmas-trees — Diffi- 
culty of  obtaining  information — General  Plehve — An  enemy  airman 
—Plehve  and  Miller— Visit  to  the  XlXth  Corps— The  Poles  as  fighters 


Contents  xi 

PAGB 

— The  Poles  and  the  Russians  :  two  points  of  view — Clumsy  German 
propaganda — The  ijth  Division  and  the  68th  Borodino  Regiment — 
Poor  trenches — Distribution  of  strength  in  the  IVth  Corp»— Forma- 
tion of  the  1 2th  Army — Appointment  of  General  Gulevich  as  Chief 
of  Staff  of  the  North-West  Front — His  reception  of  the  news — Russian 
armies  on  the  South-West  Front — Anecdote  from  the  4th  Army — 
Enemy  offensive  against  the  nth  Army — Comparison  of  strength  on 
the  South- West  Front — Enemy  attack  on  the  Bzura  at  the  end  of 
January — The  Guard  Corps  ordered  to  Lomja — Billets  at  Lomja — The 
disaster  to  the  loth  Army — Situation  on  the  Narev  in  the  middle  of 
February — Task  of  the  I2th  Army — Tactical  instructions — Concentra- 
tion of  the  1 2th  Army — A  cavalry  "raid" — East  Prussian  versus 
Galician  line  of  advance — Regroupment  on  February  i6th — Indecision 
regarding  point  of  concentration  of  reinforcements — Count  Nostitz — 
Orders  and  counter-orders — Sufferings  of  the  wounded — Playing  at  war 
in  the  Staff — Futile  march  of  the  2nd  Guard  Infantry  Division  and  the 
Guard  Rifle  Brigade — The  troops  between  the  Bobr  and  the  Pissa 
placed  under  the  orders  of  General  Bezobrazov — Orders  for  the 
attack  on  February  2oth — Failure  of  the  2nd  Division  at  Yedvabno 
and  consequent  collapse  of  the  attack — General  discouragement — 
Continued  transfer  of  Russian  and  enemy  forces  to  the  Narev  front 
— Visit  to  the  2nd  Guard  Infantry  Division — Shell — Superiority  of 
the  Germans  in  manoeuvre — Arrival  of  General  Plehve  at  Lomja — 
Poor  impression  made  by  the  Vth  and  1st  Corps — disagreement 
between  Generals  Plehve  and  Bezobrazov  regarding  the  plan  of 
attack — The  question  of  Osovets — Futile  attacks  on  March  2nd,  3rd 
and  4th — Adventure  of  Austin  armoured  cars — The  operation  of 
Prasnish — News  of  the  attack  on  the  Dardanelles — Lack  of  shell — 
Pessimism — Losses — Failure  of  the  second  German  offensive  on 
Prasnish — Visit  to  the  2nd  Guard  Infantry  Division  with  General 
Bezobrazov — The  power  of  religion — Dinner  to  the  Commander  of 
the  Hlrd  Caucasian  Corps — Colonel  Engelhardt's  views  on  strategy, 
on  Russian  generals,  on  the  peace  training  of  officers  and  on  the  issue 
of  impossible  orders — Orders  issued  on  March  i6th  for  a  general 
standfast  on  the  North- West  Front — Russian  units  in  the  Eastern 
theatre  outnumber  enemy  units,  but  the  enemy  superior  in  communi- 
cations, supply  of  shell,  number  of  machine-guns  and  in  organisation 
— Recalled  to  Petrograd  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..216 

CHAPTER  VII 

REAR  SERVICES  AND  THE  INTERNAL  SITUATION  IN  THE  SPRING  AND 

SUMMER  OF  1915 

Losses  in  five  months  of  war — Number  of  men  called  up — The  Opolchenie 
— Depot  units — Infantry — Cavalry  artillery — Number  of  divisions 
mobilised — Lack  of  rifles — Other  desiderata — Lack_of  guns_arid  of 
shell— Attitude  of  the  Artillery  Department — The~GTand  Duke  Serge — 
Suggestions  put  forward  by  the  French  Technical  Mission — Lord 
Kitchener's  policy — Russian  attitude  towards  the  firm  of  Vickers 
—Colonel  Ellershaw's  mission  to  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolas — General 
Manikovski — Russia's  effort  in  shell  production  in  the  first  nine 
months  of  war  compared  with  England's — Lord  Kitchener's  message 
and  the  reply  of  the  Russian  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs — Gas 
masks — Riots  in  Moscow  in  June — Three  unpopular  ministers — The 
Minister  of  War,  General  Sukhomlinov,  dismissed  on  June  25th  and 
succeeded  by  General  Polivanov — Colonel  Myasoyedov  hung  as  a 
spy — War  weariness  of  all  classes  . .  . .  « .  . .  267 


xii  Contents 

V  CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  GERMAN  OFFENSIVE  ON  THE  DUNAJEC  AND  THE  RETREAT  FROM 

POLAND,  APRIL-AUGUST,  1915 

PAGE 

The  "  stand-fast  "  on  the  North- West  Front — Capture  of  Przemysl — 
Offensive  by  the  3rd  and  8th  Armies  in  the  Carpathians  in  April — The 
Mackenzen  stroke  on  the  Dunajec — Retreat  of  the  3rd  Army — 
Retreat  of  the  4th,  8th  and  nth  Armies — Exhaustion  of  the  3rd 
Army — Despatch  of  reinforcements — Przemysl  abandoned — Failure 
of  the  counter-offensive  west  of  the  San — Lack  of  heavy  artillery — 
Confusion  of  units  in  the  3rd  and  8th  Armies — The  capture  of  Memel 
by  the  Russians  leads  to  the  German  invasion  of  Kurland — The  im- 
portance of  the  new  offensive  at  first  underrated — Formation  of  the 
1 3th  Army — The  Russians  outnumbered — The  transfer  of  three 
corps  from  the  north  to  the  4th  and  3rd  Armies — Optimism  at  War- 
saw—Visit to  the  Staff  of  the  North- West  Front  at  Syedlets— 
Opinions  regarding  Generals  Ruzski  and  Alexyeev — Composition  of 
the  Russian  armies  at  the  beginning  of  July — The  Supreme  Command 
opposed  to  a  counter-offensive  owing  to  lack  of  rifles  and  shell — 
Disagreement  of  General  Bezobrazov  with  General  Lesh« — First 
meeting  of  the  Russian  Guard  with  the  Prussian  Guard — General 
Bezobrazov  replaced  in  command  of  the  Guard  Corps  by  General 
Olukhov — The  flank  of  the  Guard  turned  owing  to  the  retreat  of 
the  Ilnd  Siberian  Corps — Incompetence  of  General  Antipov — Retreat 
of  the  3rd  Army — Lyublin  and  Kholm  abandoned — Lunch  with  the 
Staff  of  the  4th  Army — At  the  Staff  of  the  ist  Army — Retreat  of  the 
ist  Army  in  July — Retreat  of  the  I2th  Army — The  retirement  from 
the  Vistula — Situation  on  August  7th — Novogeorgievsk — Visit  to 
the  XXVIIth  Corps  on  August  i2th — Effect  of  lack  of  armament 
on  morale — Feeling  regarding  the  "  inaction  "  of  the  Allies — Fine 
conduct  of  the  regimental  officers  under  the  strain  of  the  retreat — 
The  tragedy  of  the  lack  of  shell — The  staff  of  the  I2th  Army  moved  to 
Petrograd — Staff  of  the  I3th  Army  moved  to  Riga — The  fall  of 
Kovna  and  of  Novogeorgievsk — Visit  to  Osovets  and  its  abandon- 
ment on  August  22nd — Polish  fugitives  . .  . .  . .  280 


CHAPTER  IX 

EVENTS  ON  THE  NORTHERN  AND  WESTERN  FRONTS  FROM  THE  MIDDLE 
OF  AUGUST  TILL  THE  MIDDLE  OF  OCTOBER,  1915 

Lack  of  transverse  railways — The  stcry  of  the  fall  of  Kovna — Trial  of 
the  Commandant — Formation  of  the  Northern  Front  under  General 
Ruzski — Events  on  the  Dvina  in  late  August  and  early  September — 
Assumption  of  the  Supreme  Command  by  the  Emperor  with  General 
Alexyeev  as  Chief  of  Staff — Opinions  regarding  General  Alexyeev — 
Opinions  regarding  the  change  in  the  Supreme  Command — Un- 
popularity of  the  Empress — Mistrust  of  authority — Corruption  on 
the  railways — The  German  cavalry  raid  on  Svyentsyani — Retreat 
of  the  loth  Army — Distribution  of  the  Russian  armies  in  October, 
1915 — Shortage  of  rifles — Shaken  morale  of  the  army — Deserters — 
A  young  officer's  letter  to  General  Alexyeev — Opinions  of  Generals 
Odishelidze  and  Novitski  regarding  the  Russian  soldier — General 
Ruzski — General  Ewarth — Supper  with  General  Lebedev  . .  ,v .  324 


Contents  xiii 

CHAPTER  X 

WITH  A  RUSSIAN  DELEGATION  TO  ENGLAND  AND  FRANCE 

MM 

Composition  of  the  Delegation — Situation  in  Arkhangel — Mined  in  the 

White  Sea — Three  weeks  in  a  bay  in  Lapland — Work  in  London — 
Appeal  to  Lord  Kitchener  and  interview  with  Sir  William  Robertson 
in  Paris — Visit  to  the  French  Front — Interview  with  General  Foch — 
Short  visit  to  the  British  Front — St.  Omer — Impressions  of  the 
Russians  regarding  Lord  Kitchener  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George — Fate  of 
Admiral  Russin — Adventures  of  Commander  Romanov  . .  . .  354 


ONTARIO 


LIST  OF  MAPS 


MAP 

I.    The  Strategical  Deployment  in  the   Eastern  Theatre. 
Situation  on  August  20th,  1914.    Scale  1/3,000,000 

II.  The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army.  Situation  on  August 
26th,  1914.  Scale  1/1,000,000 

III:  South- West  Poland  and  Galicia,  showing  the  line 
occupied  by  the  Russian  armies  on  September  2ist, 
1914,  previous  to  the  first  German  offensive  against 
Warsaw.  Scale  1/2,000,000 

IV.  South-West  Poland.  To  illustrate  Chapters  III.  and 
IV.  Scale  1/1,000,000 

V.  Approximate  position  of  Russian  Armies  on  October 
2ist,  1914,  and  the  supposed  position  of  enemy 
forces.  Scale  1/3,000,000 

VI.    Position  of  the  Opposing  Forces  on  November  nth, 

1914.  Scale  1/3,000,000 

VII.  German  Offensive  against  the  loth  Russian  Army 
in  East  Prussia,  February  7th-22nd,  1915.  Scale 
1/1,000,000 

VIII.     The  Prasnish    Operation.    Situation  evening  of    Feb- 
ruary 25th,  1915.    Scale  1/500,000 

IX.    Operations   on  the    Narev  in    February  and    March, 

1915.  Scale  1/1,000,000 

X.  Operations  in  the  Russian  theatre,  May,  1915-Sep- 
t  ember,  1915.  Scale  1/2,000,000 

SKETCH  A.    The    Lodz    Operation.    Movements   of    the    2nd 
Army,  November  I4th-I7th,  1914.    Scale  1/2,000,000 

SKETCH  B.    Lodz.    Situation  November  I7th-22nd,  1914.  Scale 
1/500,000 

SKETCH  C.    The  Storming  of  Kovna,  August  i6th-i8th,  1915. 
Scale   1/500,000 


xi 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


. 


is  Imperial  Highness  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolai  Nikolaievich    Frontis. 

Facing  page 

Operations  Department  of  the  General  Staff,  G.H.Q.,  1914-15  . .  74 

General  Marquis  de  Laguiche  and  General  Ivanov      . .             . .  74 

Russians  collecting  German  wounded,  Orlau-Frankenau,  1914  75 

Sandomir,  September,  1914             . .             . .             . .             •  •  75 

Cooking-carts,  Lagov,  S.W.  Poland,  1914    . .             . .             . .  140 

Railway  bridge,  N.  of  Kyeltsi,  destroyed  by  Germans,  1914     . .  140 

Railway  demolished  near  Myekhov,  1914     . .             . .             . .  141 

Western  end  of  tunnel,  N.  of  Myekhov,  demolished  by 

Germans,  1914               . .             . .             . .             . .             . .  141 

Officers  of  the  5th  Battery,  2nd  Guard  Artillery  Brigade           . .  204 

Rodzianko  and  telephone  "  sentry  "            . .             . .             . .  204 

Headquarters  5th  Army,  Mogilnitsa,  1915  . .             . .             . .  205 

Operations  Section  of  the  Staff  of  5th  Army,  1915      . .             . .  205 

Second  line  defences,  N.  of  Lomja,  1915        . .             . .             . .  254 

Peasant  women  at  work  on  a  position  N.E.  of  Lbmja,  1915        . .  254 

Bridging  under  difficulties,  Novogrod,  N.  Poland,  1915            . .  255 

Headquarters  of  2nd  Division  of  the  Guard,  1915        . .             . .  255 

Lieutenant  Gershelman  and  Grand  Duke  Konstantin  Kon- 

stantinovich                 . .             . .             . .             . .             . .  300 

Duke  of  Mecklenburg,  Inspector  of  Artillery  of  the  Guard        . .  300 

Staff  of  the  Guard  Corps,  July  18-31, 1915   . .             . .             . .  301 

General  Bezobrazov  thanking  3rd  and  4th  Guard  Rifle  Regiments 

for  their  services,  1915               . .             . .             .               . .  301 

Jewish  fugitives  escaping  from  Reiovets,  1915  .  . .  310 

Colonel  L ,  a  Baltic  baron  . .  . .  .  . .  310 

Typical  faces,  II  Siberian  Corps     . .             . .             .               . .  311 

General  Balanin,  Commander  XXVIIth  Corps  .  . .  311 
Count  Ignatiev,  Commander  of  Preobrajenski  Regiment  of  the 

Guard            . .             . .             . .             . .             . .  318 

Baron  Budberg,  and  hole  made  by  German  shell         . .  318 

General  Brjozovski,  defender  of  Osovets       . .             . .  319 

General  Brjozovski  and  specimens  of  shell  fired  into  fortress  319 

Grand  Duke  Dimitri  Pavlovich  distributing  crosses,  1915  330 

Packing  up  to  fly  before  German  advance,  1915  . .  330 

Group  of  Kharkov  Opolchenie  . .  .  /  . .  331 

Tired-out  men  of  the  5th  Rifle  Brigade  . .  . .  331 


XV 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  RUSSIAN  ARMY  IN  1914 

UNDER  the  law  in  force  at  the  outbreak  of  war  the  whole  of 
the  population  of  the  Russian  Empire,  amounting  to  some 
one  hundred  and  eighty  millions,  with  the  exception  of  certain 
races  such  as  the  inhabitants  of  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Finland, 
the  Mohammedan  tribes  of  the  Caucasus  and  the  native  popula- 
tion of  Russia  in  Asia,  was  liable  to  personal  military  service 
from  the  twenty-first  to  the  end  of  the  forty-third  year  of  age. 

The  Cossacks  and  fleet  served  under  special  regulations. 

The  serving  period  of  twenty-three  years  was  divided  as 
follows  : 

COLOUR  RESERVE.          OPOLCHENIE. 

SERVICE,    ist  Ban.     2nd  Ban. 

Years.          Years.         Years.         Years. 

Infantry  arid  Ar- 
tillery (except 
Horse  Artillery)  3  7  8  5 

Other  arms  and 
services  476  6 

. 

The  number — estimated  at  over  one  and  a  half  millions  of 
males — that  completed  the  age  of  twenty  each  year  was  more 
than  the  resources  of  the  Empire  could  train,  so  the  incidence  of 
the  military  law  was  lightened  by  a  liberal  grant  of  exemptions 
for  family  and  educational  reasons.  Among  the  men  so  exempted 
those  physically  fit  for  military  service  were  at  once  enrolled  in 
the  Opolchenie  or  national  militia,  and  some  of  them  were  called 
up  occasionally  from  civil  life  for  six  weeks'  elementary  training, 

xvii  B 


xviii  Introduction 

An  important  law  to  increase  the  strength  of  the  army  was 
passed  by  the  legislature  in  secret  session  in  the  spring  of  1914. 
This  law,  together  with  the  French  law  raising  the  period  of 
service  from  two  to  three  years,  constituted  the  reply  of  the  Dual 
Alliance  to  the  recent  increase  of  the  German  Army. 

The  new  law  provided  through  additions  to  the  annual 
contingent  for  an  increase  of  468,000  in  the  peace  strength  by 
the  year  1917.  The  following  table  shows  the  actual  figures  up 
to  1914  and  the  proposed  figures  from  1915  to  1917  : 

Year.         Annual  Contingent  of  Estimated  Total  Peace 

Previous  Autumn.  Strength  on  April  I4th. 

1911  436,283  About  1,300,000 

1912  435»5i3  »  1,300,000 

1913  43I.971  :  »  1,300,000 

1914  455>ooo     ,    .,  „  1,320,000 

1915  585.000  „  1,460,000 

1916  585,000  „  1,610,000 

1917  585>ooo  „  1,768,000 

The  bill  further  arranged,  in  order  to  cover  the  dangerous 
period,  while  the  last-joined  contingent  was  undergoing  pre- 
liminary training,  to  retain  with  the  colours  for  an  additional 
three  months  the  men  about  to  pass  to  the  reserve.  This  pro- 
vision in  effect  lengthened  the  colour  service  of  the  infantry  and 
field  artillery  from  three  to  three  and  a  quarter  years,  and  of  the 
mounted  and  technical  troops  from  four  to  four  and  a  quarter  years. 

The  additional  peace  strength  was  to  be  used  to  raise  a  new 
corps  for  the  Western  frontier,  a  new  corps  for  Siberia,  a  new 
division  for  the  Caucasus  and  a  4th  Rifle  Brigade  for  Finland.  It 
was  also  to  provide  the  personnel  of  twenty-six  new  six-squadron 
cavalry  regiments  and  a  large  increase  in  the  artillery.  The 
balance  of  the  additional  men  not  required  for  these  new  forma- 
tions was  to  be  allotted  to  strengthen  the  peace  establishment  of 
units  near  the  frontier,  and  so  to  help  to  counteract  the  dis- 
advantages the  Russians  suffered  from  the  comparative  slowness 
of  their  mobilisation. 


Introduction  xix 

The  programme  was  drawn  up  mainly  with  the  idea  of  perfect- 
ing the  defences  of  the  Western  frontier.  Its  extent  was  cal- 
culated on  the  increase  in  the  German  army,  and  it  is  significant 
that  it  was  to  reach  its  full  effect  in  1917,  the  year  when  the 
extortionate  commercial  treaty  forced  by  Germany  on  a  defence- 
less Russia  the  year  after  the  Japanese  war  was  due  for  revision. 
All  these  facts  were  of  course  known  in  Germany,  and  there  can  be 
no  manner  of  doubt  that  the  passing  of  this  bill  into  law  was  one 
of  the  potent  factors,  if  not  the  all-potent  factor,  which  decided 
the  German  Government  to  declare  war  in  August,  1914. 

When  the  Germans  struck,  only  one  of  the  new  formations 
was  ready — the  4th  Finland  Rifle  Brigade. 

For  political  reasons  the  territorial  system  of  recruitment  was 
never  introduced  in  Russia.  The  peace  strength  of  units  was 
composed  of  two-thirds  Russians  and  one-third  of  '  subject 
races,"  such  as  Poles,  Letts,  Esthonians,  Georgians,  Armenians, 
etc.  Neither  the  Russians  nor  the  '  subject  races  '  as  a  rule 
were  permitted  to  serve  near  their  homes,  but  were  drafted  to 
units  at  a  distance.  On  mobilisation,  to  save  time,  units  com- 
pleted to  war  strength  by  incorporating  trained  men  from  the 
local  populations. 

From  1905  to  1909  the  Emperor  seems  to  have  hesitated  as  to 
whether  the  Chief  of  the  General  Staff  should  be  independent  of 
the  Minister  of  War  as  in  Germany  and  Austro-Hungary,  or 
subordinate  to  him  as  in  France.  The  party  favouring  the 
concentration  of  the  supreme  power  in  the  hands  of  the  Minister 
of  War  definitely  won,  and  from  December,  1909,  the  Minister 
had  the  sole  right  to  report  to  the  Emperor  on  all  military  matters. 

Under  the  Minister  of  War  were  the  various  departments  and 
directorates.  The  Supreme  Directorate  of  the  General  Staff 
contained  the  Department  of  the  General  Quartermaster,  which 
corresponded  to  our  Military  Operations  Directorate,  and  other 
branches  dealing  with  Military  Communications,  Topography, 
Organisation  and  Training,  and  Mobilisation. 

The  Head-Quarter  Staff  did  the  work  of  our  Adjutant-General's 


xx  Introduction 

and  Pensions  Branches.  The  Intendance  dealt  with  supply, 
transport  and  pay.  The  Artillery  Department  attended  to  the 
armament  and  training  of  artillery.  The  Military  Technical 
Directorate  dealt  with  the  technical  troops. 

The  territory  of  the  empire  was  in  peace  divided  into  twelve 
military  districts,  each  under  a  Commander-in-Ohief :  Petrograd, 
Vilna,  Warsaw,  Kiev,  Odessa,  Moscow,  Kazan,  Caucasus,  Turki- 
stan,  Omsk,  Irkutsk  and  the  Pri-Amur. 

There  were  thirty-seven  army  corps  :  the  Guard,  the  Grena- 
dier, Ist-XXVth  Line,  Ist-IIIrd  Caucasian,  1st  and  Ilnd  Turkistan 
and  Ist-Vth  Siberian. 

The  number  of  infantry  divisions  was  seventy  :  three  Guard, 
four  Grenadier,  fifty- two  Line  and  eleven  Siberian  Rifle. 

There  were  in  addition  eighteen  Rifle  Brigades  :  one  Guard, 
five  European,  four  Finland,  two  Caucasian  and  six  Turkistan. 

There  were  twenty-four  cavalry  and  Cossack  divisions,  and  in 
addition  eleven  independent  cavalry  and  Cossack  cavalry  brigades. 

The  normal  composition  of  an  army  corps  was  two  infantry 
divisions  :  one  division  (two  six-gun  batteries)  of  light  howitzers 
with  howitzer  park  and  a  battalion  of  sappers  (three  sapper  and 
two  telegraph  companies). 

The  infantry  division  consisted  normally  of  four  four-battalion 
regiments,  a  field  artillery  brigade  of  six  eight-gun  batteries  and 
an  artillery  park  brigade. 

The  rifle  brigade  contained  four  two-battalion  rifle  regiments, 
a  rifle  artillery  division  of  three  eight-gun  field  batteries  and  a 
rifle  artillery  park. 

The  regular  cavalry  division  contained  four  regiments  each  of 
six  squadrons.  These  were  grouped  in  two  brigades,  of  which  the 
first  contained  the  Dragoon  and  the  Lancer  regiments  and  the 
second  the  Hussar  and  the  Cossack  regiments. 

On  mobilisation  thirty-five  infantry  reserve  divisions  were 
formed  styled  53rd-84th  and  I2th-i4th  Siberian.  The  establish- 
ment of  these  reserve  divisions  was  identical  with  that  of  the 


Introduction  xxi 

regular  divisions.  Each  of  the  four  infantry  regiments  of  the 
reserve  division  was  formed  by  the  addition  of  officers  and 
men  from  the  reserve  to  a  cadre  of  twenty-two  officers  and  four 
hundred  rank  and  file,  who  were  detached  on  mobilisation  from 
a  parent  first-line  regiment. 

A  number  of  additional  Gossack  cavalry  divisions  were  formed 
on  mobilisation  and  other  Cossack  divisions  were  added  later. 

Russia  therefore  commenced  the  war  with  the  equivalent  of 
114  infantry  and  about  36  cavalry  divisions. 

Of  course,  114  divisions  represented  a  poor  effort  compared 
with  that  of  Germany  and  France,  for  the  male  population  of 
Russia  on  January  1st,  1910,  was  81,980,600,  out  of  whom 
74,262,600  were  liable  to  military  service. 

The  following  is  an  estimate  of  the  number  of  men  who  were 
classified  for  mobilisation : 

1.  Regular   army,  including  reserve;  fully-trained 

men  from  twenty-one  to  thirty-nine  years  of 

age  5,000,000 

2.  Cossacks ;  fully-trained  men  200,000 

3.  Opolchenie,    ist   Ban ;    fully-trained   men  from 

thirty-nine  to  forty-three  years  350,000 

4.  Opolchenie,  ist  Ban  ;  partially-trained  men  from 

twenty-one  to  forty-three  years,  about  3,500,000 

5.  Opolchenie,  2nd  Ban  ;  untrained  men  from  twenty- 

one  to  forty-three  years,  about  6,000,000 


15,050,000 

On  mobilisation  the  whole  of  the  active  army,  reserve  and  the 
Cossacks  were  called  out,  and  the  ist  Ban  of  the  Opolchenie  was 
partially  mobilised.  Of  this  total  of  some  five  millions  there 
was  place  for  only  about  three  millions  in  the  fighting  formations. 
The  remainder  were  allotted  to  line-of-communication  formations, 
hospitals,  ordnance  depots,  transport  columns  and  to  depot 
battalions. 


xxii  Introduction 

The  number  of  depot  battalions  formed  on  mobilisation  was 
192.  Of  these,  sixteen  were  affiliated  to  and  fed  directly  the 
infantry  regiments  of  the  Guards.  The  remainder  were  un- 
affiliated  and  sent  recruits  to  replace  wastage  in  any  units  at  the 
front  on  requisition  from  the  Mobilisation  Department  of  the 
Supreme  Directorate  of  the  General  Staff. 

The  cadres  of  the  depot  battalions  were  furnished  by  certain 
previously-designated  first-line  units.  Thus  some  regiments 
provided  ten  officers — a  battalion  commander,  an  adjutant  and 
eight  cadre  company  commanders.  The  cadre  companies  pre- 
pared drafts,  250  strong,  for  despatch  to  the  front  as  required. 
The  rate  of  wastage  far  exceeded  the  calculations  of  the  General 
Staff,  and  in  1915  it  was  found  necessary  to  send  drafts  to  the 
front  only  partially  trained.  Difficulties  of  climate  and  in  the 
provision  of  accommodation — most  of  the  barracks  lying  in  the 
centre  of  large  towns — together  with  the  inefficiency  of  the 
training  personnel,  interfered  with  the  proper  preparation  of 
drafts,  and  the  lack  of  spare  billeting  accommodation  near  the 
front,  together  with  the  poor  carrying  capacity  of  the  Russian 
railways,  interfered  throughout  the  war  with  the  systematic 
replacement  of  casualties. 

The  Russian  infantry  and  cavalry  were  armed  with  the  three- 
line  rifle  of  1891.  This  weapon,  though  heavy  (9!  Ibs.,  including 
bayonet),  was  "  fool-proof  "  and  stood  the  test  of  war  well.  At 
the  outbreak  of  war  it  was  being  resighted  to  suit  the  new  pointed 
bullet. 

The  infantry  regiment  of  four  battalions,  the  rifle  regiment 
of  two  battalions  and  the  cavalry  division  of  twenty-four  squad- 
rons had  each  a  machine-gun  section  of  eight  Maxims. 

The  proportion  of  artillery  was  inadequate.  The  normal 
infantry  division  had  an  artillery  brigade  of  six  eight-gun  batteries 
armed  with  3"  Q.F.  field  guns.  Most  of  these  were  of 
the  1902  model  with  steel  shield  and  panoramic  sight,  but  some 
units  had  still  the  1900  gun.  Each  cavalry  division  had  a  horse 
artillery  division  of  two  six-gun  batteries  armed  with  the  same 
3*  gun  of  1902.  Both  field  and  horse  batteries  had  two 


Introduction 


xxm 


wagons  per  gun.  The  gun  was  not  a  real  quick-firer  and  was 
much  too  heavy  for  work  with  cavalry. 

The  mountain  batteries,  which  took  the  place  of  field  batteries 
in  certain  units  in  Finland,  the  Kiev,  Caucasian,  Turkistan  and 
Siberian  Military  Districts,  were  armed,  partly  with  the  2-95"  Q.F. 
gun  (Model  1909)  of  Schneider-Danglis  pattern,  and  partly  with 
the  older  3"  Q.F.  mountain  gun  of  1904.  Both  guns  were  fitted 
for  transport  by  draught  or  by  pack. 

Each  army  corps  had  a  light  howitzer  division  containing  two 
six-gun  batteries  of  4-8"  Q.F.  field  howitzers  (Model  1909)  of 
Krupp  pattern. 

The  Russian  army  was  only  known  to  possess  seven  divisions 
of  heavy  field  artillery.  Each  division  contained  two  four-gun 
batteries  of  6"  howitzers  (Model  1910)  and  one  four-gun 
battery  of  4-2 "  guns.  On  mobilisation  these  seven  divisions  com- 
menced to  expand  threefold,  i.e.,  into  a  total  of  sixty-three  heavy 
batteries.  However,  many  of  them  were  of  inferior  armament. 

To  sum  up,  the  114  Russian  infantry  divisions  of  14,000 
rifles  had  only  forty-eight  field  guns  each,  with  a  backing  for  the 
whole  army  of  seventy-five  batteries  (450  guns)  of  light  howitzers 
as  corps  artillery  and  of  twenty-one  batteries  (84  guns)  of  modern 
heavy  guns  as  army  artillery.  In  other  words,  there  were  per 
1,000  rifles  only  3-4  field  guns,  -28  light  howitzers  and  -05  so-called 
heavy  field  guns. 

It  had  been  decided  in  the  spring  of  1914  to  commence  the  re- 
organisation and  increase  of  the  artillery,  The  following  table 
shows  the  existing  and  the  proposed  organisation  of  the  arm 
in  the  normal  army  corps  : 


EXISTING. 
Field  guns,  12  eight-gun 

batteries  -      96 

Light  howitzers,  2  six-gun 

batteries  12 

Heavy  guns  o 


PROPOSED. 
1 8  six-gun  batteries 

4  six-gun  batteries 
3  four-gun  batteries 


108 
24 

12 


Total  per  corps   108 


144 


xxiv  Introduction 

The  supply  of  shell  was  1,000  per  field  gun.  As  in  France 
and  England,  large  stocks  were  not  kept  because  they  could  not 
have  been  used  in  the  annual  peace  practice  in  time  to  avoid 
deterioration.  The  crime  of  economy  in  Russia  was  greater 
owing  to  the  small  output  of  the  Russian  factories,  which  could 
not  be  depended  on  in  an  emergency  to  provide  large  quantities 
of  shell  rapidly  ;  but  Russia's  excuse  for  her  economy  was  greater, 
for  her  revenues  were  more  needed  for  internal  development.  As 
in  other  countries,  the  General  Staff  did  not  expect  a  long  war. 

Russia  had  no  dirigibles  of  power  equal  to  the  German 
Zeppelins.  She  had  at  the  outbreak  of  war  five  up-to-date 
machines  of  the  second  class  and  ten  yet  smaller  machines,  none 
of  which  was  of  any  military  value.  Nothing  was  heard  of  the 
work  of  any  Russian  dirigible  during  the  war. 

The  number  of  aeroplanes  that  were  in  the  country  was  320, 
and  there  were  about  the  same  number  of  trained  pilots.  A 
large  aeroplane  with  four  engines,  invented  by  a  M.  Sikorski  and 
called  after  a  national  Siberian  hero,  "  Ilya  Muromets,"  had  been 
boomed  by  the  Press.  Its  trials  had  not  given  very  satisfactory 
results,  but  an  order  had  been  given  in  the  spring  of  1914  for  the 
delivery  of  ten  of  the  type  by  autumn.  The  smaller  machines 
were  of  various  types,  the  preference  of  the  authorities  having 
been  given  in  1912  to  Nieuports,  and  in  1913,  in  succession  to 
Farmans,  Morane-Saulniers  and  Duperdussins.  It  was  decided 
in  1913  to  order  1,000  aeroplanes  for  delivery  in  the  three  years 
1914-1916 ;  400  of  these  were  ordered  from  various  works  in 
Russia  for  delivery  by  the  autumn  of  1914. 

In  spite  of  Imperial  and  Press  encouragement,  aeronautics 
in  Russia  had  made  no  progress  as  a  sport.  The  membership  of 
the  All-Russia  Aero  Club  declined  from  874  in  1910  to  360  in  1912. 
The  Vilna,  Caucasus,  Nijni-Novgorod,  Orenburg  and  Riga  Clubs 
ceased  to  exist  in  1913.  In  January,  1914,  there  were  only 
eleven  aero  clubs  in  Russia  compared  with  one  hundred  in 
Germany,  and  these  were  all  maintained  by  the  keenness  of  some 
single  local  individual. 

The  Government  had  done  its  best  to  encourage  the  home 
manufacture  of  flying  material,  but  with  only  moderate  success. 


Introduction  xxv 

There  were  only  two  engine  factories,  the  Gnome  at  Moscow, 
with  a  capacity  of  perhaps  twenty  engines  a  month,  and  Kalep's 
"  Motor  Works  '  at  Riga,  with  an  output  of  two  or  three. 

The  rapid  development  of  air  material  during  the  war  left 
the  Russian  industry  still  further  behind.  The  Western  Allies 
supplied  large  numbers  of  machines,  but  there  was  a  general  lack 
of  skilled  mechanics  to  put  them  together  and  keep  them  in  order, 
and  the  enemy's  command  of  the  air  in  the  Eastern  theatre  was 
never  challenged  till  "  Kerenski's  '  offensive  in  July,  1917,  when 
the  Russian  pilots  were  assisted  by  French  and  British. 

In  transport  the  army  of  our  Allies  was  far  behind  its  op- 
ponents. There  were  at  the  outbreak  of  war  only  679  Govern- 
ment automobiles — 259  passenger,  418  transport  and  2  ambu- 
lance ;  and  the  number  of  civilian-owned  transport  cars  suitable 
for  military  use  that  it  was  possible  to  requisition  in  Russia  in 
the  first  thirteen  months  of  war  was  only  an  additional  475.  The 
army  in  advance  of  railhead  had  to  depend  mainly  on  horse 
transport.  This  absorbed  an  enormous  number  of  men  and 
horses,  whose  feeding  further  complicated  matters  ;  it  blocked  the 
roads  and  by  its  cumbrousness  decreased  the  mobility  of  the 
fighting  troops. 

A  writer  in  Danzer's  Armee  Zeitung  in  November,  1909, 
compared  the  Russian  army  of  that  day  to  a  heavy-weight, 
muscle-bound  prize-fighter,  who,  because  of  his  enormous  bulk, 
lacked  activity  and  quickness,  and  would  therefore  be  at  the 
mercy  of  a  lighter  but  more  wiry  and  intelligent  opponent. 

The  comparison  was  extraordinarily  true,  but  the  ineffective- 
ness and  lack  of  mobility  of  the  army  arose  more  from  the  want 
of  modern  equipment  and  from  inherent  national  characteristics 
than  from  merely  bad  leading  and  insufficient  training. 

Generally  speaking,  the  teaching  of  the  General  Staff  in  the 
peace  period  from  1905  to  1914  had  been  devoted  to  the  inculca- 
tion of  the  spirit  of  the  offensive.  All  the  instructional  manuals 
and  all  the  memoranda  issued  by  the  twelve  District  Com- 
manders breathed  this  spirit.  Personal  initiative  was  en- 
couraged, at  all  events  on  paper.  Meddling  with  their  juniors  by 


xxvi  Introduction 

senior  commanders  was  strictly  forbidden,  and  commanders  of  all 
grades  at  manoeuvres  were  ordered  to  remain  in  the  positions 
they  would  occupy  in  war. 

The  combination  of  the  arms  had  improved,  since  in  1910  the 
divisional  artillery  had  been  placed  under  the  divisional  com- 
mander for  tactical  training,  and  since,  later,  the  engineer  units 
had  been  permanently  allotted  to  mixed  commands  of  all  arms 
instead  of  being  trained  as  before  in  watertight  compartments. 
Still,  these  reforms  had  been  too  recent.  It  was  obvious,  for 
instance,  that  there  had  not  been  time  to  weld  the  artillery  and 
infantry  of  the  division  into  one  indivisible  whole.  Only  a  few 
weeks  before  the  war  writers  in  the  military  Press  tried  to  prove 
that  the  change  had  been  positively  harmful  in  that  it  had  in- 
creased the  volume  of  correspondence. 

In  infantry  training  stress  had  been  laid  on  instruction  in  work 
in  extended  order  and  in  the  use  of  cover.  The  Musketry  Regula- 
tions of  1909  represented  a  striking  advance  on  those  of  1899,  and 
the  allowance  of  practice  ammunition  was  increased. 

The  cavalry  on  the  whole  seemed  to  have  made  less  progress. 
Dismounted  action  was  still  preferred  and  little  attempt  was  made 
to  combine  mobility  with  fire  tactics.  Scouting  was  poor.  Still, 
the  horses  and  men  were  of  splendid  material. 

It  was  difficult  to  judge  of  the  quality  of  artillery  training  from 
manoeuvres.  The  guns  showed  a  marked  preference  for  concealed 
positions  and  little  mobility. 

The  war  in  Manchuria  had  revealed  many  shortcomings  in  the 
officer  class,  both  educational  and  moral,  and  the  task  of  raising 
the  general  level  was  rendered  doubly  difficult  after  the  war  by 
the  large  number  of  resignations  among  the  better  educated.  In 
January,  1910,  there  was  a  shortage  of  no  less  than  5,123  officers. 

The  military  administration  did  what  it  could  to  combat  the 
evil  by  a  series  of  measures  for  improving  the  position  of  the 
officer  and  increasing  his  professional  qualifications.  The  pay 
of  all  officers  up  to  and  including  the  rank  of  lieutenant-colonel 
was  raised  by  amounts  varying  from  25  per  cent,  to  35  per 
cent.  Their  pensions  were  raised.  The  flow  of  promotion  was 


Introduction  xxvii 

accelerated  by  the  fixing  of  an  age  limit  for  compulsory 
retirement.  In  a  little  over  one  year  341  generals  and  400 
colonels  were  retired  as  inefficient. 

Schools  for  the  training  of  officers  were  formerly  of  two 
classes,  "  military  "  and  "  yunker,"  entrance  to  the  latter  being 
possible  to  youths  of  an  inferior  educational  standard.  With 
the  idea  of  levelling  up  the  social  class  of  officers,  all  the  yunker 
schools  were  changed  to  military  schools.  The  accommodation 
in  all  military  schools  was  increased.  A  third  school  for  field 
artillery  and  a  new  school  for  fortress  artillery  were  started. 
The  gunnery  courses  were  extended  and  a  splendid  training-ground 
was  acquired  at  Luga.  Musketry  courses  for  officers  were 
established  in  many  of  the  military  districts. 

These  reforms  required  time  to  produce  their  full  effect.  Mean- 
while the  bulk  of  the  regimental  officers  of  the  Russian  army 
suffered  from  the  national  faults.  If  not  actually  lazy,  they  were 
inclined  to  neglect  their  duties  unless  constantly  supervised. 
They  hated  the  irksome  round  of  everyday  training.  Unlike  our 
officers,  they  had  no  taste  for  outdoor  amusements,  and  they  were 
too  prone  to  spend  a  holiday  in  eating  rather  more  and  in  sleeping 
much  more.  In  the  new  distribution  an  attempt  had  been  made 
to  avoid  the  waste  of  time  in  the  strategical  concentration  con- 
sequent on  the  lack  of  railways  by  quartering  in  peace  a  larger 
proportion  of  the  army  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of 
various  frontiers.  The  monotony  of  life  in  these  frontier  stations 
without  the  relaxation  of  out-of-door  amusements  can  be  imag- 
ined. In  Termez,  for  instance,  on  the  frontier  of  Afghanistan, 
there  was  not  a  single  tennis-court,  though  the  garrison  numbered 
from  150  to  200  officers.  It  is  small  wonder  that  there  were 
suicides  among  the  officers  of  this  garrison  every  year. 

The  great  majority  of  vacancies  for  regimental  commander  in 
the  infantry  and  cavalry  of  the  line  were  filled  by  officers  of  the 
General  Staff  or  Guard  Corps,  or  by  those  who  had  been  detached 
on  extra-regimental  duty.  The  natural  result  was  that  the 
men  with  a  tendency  to  laziness  consoled  themselves  with  the 
excuse  that  it  was  no  use  working,  and  such  men,  though  passed 
over  repeatedly,  were  allowed  to  remain  till  they  qualified  for 


xxviii  Introduction 

pension,  meanwhile  blocking  promotion  for  their  more  capable 
and  energetic  juniors. 

Work  was  badly  distributed  between  the  links  of  the  chain  of 
command.  The  corps,  brigade  and  battalion  commanders  had 
little  to  do,  while  the  commanders  of  the  division,  regiment  and 
company  were  overwhelmed  by  administrative  detail.  Letter- 
writing  and  report  scribbling — "  that  vice,"  as  one  writer  put  it, 
'  that  in  the  Russian  army  drowns  every  promising  reform  in  a 
sea  of  ink  " — occupied  far  too  much  of  the  combatant  officer's 
time,  and  left  him  wearied  and  listless — a  sucked  orange — when 
he  came  to  his  real  work,  the  preparation  of  his  command  for 
war.  In  1913  a  battery  commander  in  Central  Asia  stated  that 
the  number  of  letters  despatched  from  his  battery  in  the  year  was 
4,500,  adding  that  there  "  should  not  be  more  than  3,500,  but  the 
Intendance  Officer  was  very  conscientious  "  !  Another  battery 
commander  from  the  Kazan  Military  District  stated  that  his 
battery  sent  out  8,000  each  year. 

The  best  educated  officers  passed  into  the  Nikolas  Academy 
or  Staff  College  very  young,  before  they  had  time  to  learn  their 
regimental  work,  much  less  the  management  of  men.    Once 
they  had  passed  the  test  of  the  three  years'  study  there,  their 
careers  were  made  if  they  refrained  from  quarrelling  with  some 
influential  superior,  and  they  had  little  further  incentive  to  work. 
An  article  in  the  Russian  military  paper,  the  Russki  Invalid,  in 
1912,  described  the  life  of  the  average  General  Staff  officer.    They 
left  the  Academy  usually  with  six  to  eight  years'  service.    They 
were  then  supposed  to  command  a  company  or  squadron  for  two 
years,  but  seldom  did.    The  next  four  years  were  spent  in  a 
subordinate  position  on  the  staff  of  a  division  or  corps  or  fortress, 
and  the  young  officer  was  out  of  touch  with  troops  except  at 
manoeuvres.     "  Six  years  after  leaving  the  Academy,  i.e.,  when 
he  has  twelve  to  fourteen  years'  service,  the  General  Staff  officer 
becomes  a  lieutenant-colonel.     He  is  then  generally  transferred 
to  the  Staff  of  his  district  or  to  army  headquarters,  but  his  work 
remains  the  same.    He  never  decides  anything  and  never  ex- 
presses an  opinion  of  his  own,  but  spends  his  time  in  collating  the 
opinions  of  others.    The  only  qualities  of  his  character  that  have 


Introduction  xxix 

a  chance  of  development  are  those  of  self-control  and  a  highly 
disciplined  respect  for  those  superiors  on  whom  he  knows  that  his 
future  promotion  depends."  Before  appointment  to  the  com- 
mand of  a  regiment — usually  when  he  had  twenty-three  to  twenty- 
six  years'  service — the  General  Staff  officer  was  only  in  more  or 
less  direct  contact  with  the  men  for  one  further  period — four 
months  in  command  of  a  battalion  or  as  administrative  officer 
in  a  regiment  of  cavalry.  In  spite  of  the  pessimism  of  this 
article,  it  is  fair  to  add  that  the  General  Staff  officer  proved  him- 
self in  the  war  to  be  the  cream  of  the  army. 

The  regimental  officers  represented  a  weaker  element — not  so 
much  the  regular  regimental  officers,  who,  as  in  other  countries, 
were  mostly  killed  during  the  first  years  of  war — but  the  officers 
of  reserve  who  were  called  up  from  civil  life  on  mobilisation  and 
who  reflected  all  the  faults  from  a  national  point  of  view  of  the 
Russian  "  Intelligentsya."  These  were  men  who  on  account  of 
exceptional  educational  qualifications  had  been  excused  the  full 
period  of  conscript  service  and  had  served  as  "  short-term  volun- 
teers." Previous  to  1912  they  were  divided  into  two  classes ; 
the  first  class  with  superior  educational  qualifications  served  one 
year  only ;  the  second  class  served  two  years,  but  both  classes 
served  as  privates  or  N.O.O.'s  only,  while  on  mobilisation  they 
were  required  to  fill  the  position  of  officer.  By  the  new  Law  of 
Military  Service  of  1912  all  short-term  volunteers  were  com- 
pelled to  serve  for  two  years,  which  might  be  reduced  to  one  and 
a  half  or  one  and  two-third  years  on  their  passing  an  examination 
qualifying  them  for  the  position  of  officer.  Some  of  these  men 
proved  splendid  material,  but  very  many  hated  the  military  life 
and  were  far  too  lazy  to  enforce  discipline  or  look  after  the  comfort 
of  their  men. 

The  large  numbers  of  young  officers  that  the  military  schools 
passed  out  during  the  war  proved  better  material,  but  their 
keenness  often  disappeared  at  the  front  since  they  found  no  one 
to  teach  them. 

In  the  matter  of  non-commissioned  officers  the  Russian  army 
was  still  more  hopelessly  behind  its  enemies. 


xxx  Introduction 

In  short-service  armies  it  is  necessary  to  induce  a  number  of 
N.C.O.'s  to  re-engage  for  extended  service  in  order  to  provide  men 
of  the  same  class  as  the  conscripts,  but  of  greater  experience  and 
authority,  to  assist  officers  in  training,  administration  and  tactical 
leading. 

The  number  of  such  men  in  the  Russian  army  had  long  been 
insufficient.  At  the  commencement  of  the  year  1904  only  about 
one-seventh  of  the  N.C.O.'s  were  re-engaged  men,  the  remainder 
being  serving  conscripts.  In  1905  substantial  inducements  were 
offered  to  induce  men  to  re-engage  ;  their  pay  was  trebled,  they 
were  given  a  bounty  of  £106  on  the  completion  of  ten  years'  re- 
engaged service  and  promised  a  pension  of  £10  on  the  completion 
of  thirteen  years.  In  1908  and  subsequent  years  arrangements 
were  made  for  the  reservation  of  a  large  number  of  Government 
posts  to  provide  for  their  comfortable  livelihood  on  return  to 
civil  life. 

In  1911  a  "  second  class  of  N.C.O.'s  of  extended  service  "  was 
inaugurated.  The  idea  was  to  provide  eventually  six  re-engaged 
N.C.O.'s,  three  of  each  class,  for  each  company,  squadron  and 
battery.  It  was  hoped  to  attain  an  establishment  of  24,000  of 
the  second  class  by  the  year  1915. 

The  number  of  N.C.O.'s  of  the  first  class  serving  in  1911  was 
estimated  by  the  Austrian  General  Staff  at  28,500  (Streffleur, 
1911,  p.  1752),  but  this  estimate  was  certainly  an  exaggeration. 
Of  the  second  class  there  were  18,535  N.C.O.'s  and  2,035  lance- 
corporals  and  bombardiers  serving  at  the  beginning  of  1914. 

The  Ministry  of  War  had  accomplished  much,  but  not  enough. 
Press  articles  in  1913  pointed  out  that  while  the  Russian  company 
had  only  five  N.C.O.'s  of  extended  service,  three  of  the  first  class 
and  two  of  the  second,  all  the  N.C.O.'s  of  the  German  and  Japanese 
company  and  75  per  cent,  of  those  of  the  French  com- 
pany were  re-engaged  men. 

The  conscript  N.C.O.'s  had,  of  course,  the  same  faults  as  the 
men,  whom,  moreover,  they  lacked  the  authority  to  lead.  The 
Russian  soldier  requires  leading  more  than  any  soldier  in  the 
world,  and  the  lack  of  officers  and  N.C.O.'s  of  quality  was  felt 
throughout  the  war. 


Introduction  xxxi 

Previous  to  the  war  friendly  observers  had  reason  to  hope 
that  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Russian  army  might  possess  certain 
valuable  qualities  non-existent  in  other  armies.  The  proportion 
of  town-bred  men  was  less  than  elsewhere.  Many  of  the  re- 
servists had  had  experience  of  modern  war.  Owing  to  the  rigour 
of  the  climate  and  the  lower  general  civilisation,  the  Russian 
soldier  was  more  fitted  to  stand  privation  and  should  have  been 
more  fitted  to  stand  nerve  strain  than  the  men  of  Central  Europe. 
The  relations  between  officers  and  men  were  far  better  than  in 
Germany.  The  simple  faith  of  the  Russian  soldier  in  God  and 
the  Emperor  seemed  to  provide  an  overwhelmnig  asset  to  the 
leader  with  sufficient  imagination  to  realise  its  value. 

Frenchmen  have  freely  acknowledged  that  the  Russian  army 
administration  had  made  more  progress  during  the  eight  years 
1906-1914  than  their  countrymen  accomplished  in  a  similar 
period  following  the  disasters  of  1870-71,  but  more  time  was 
required  to  recreate  an  army  that  reflected  all  the  faults  as  well 
as  the  qualities  of  the  nation. 

The  raw  material  of  the  army  still  suffered  from  want  of 
education  and  of  individuality.  The  proportion  of  literates 
among  the  reservists  was  said  to  be  increasing.  Of  the  1903 
contingent,  only  39  per  cent,  could  read  and  write,  but 
before  the  war  the  percentage  was  said  to  have  risen  to  50.  It 
is  believed  that  both  these  figures  were  grossly  exaggerated,  but 
in  any  case  such  smattering  of  education  as  the  recruit  possessed 
had  not  in  any  way  expanded  his  mind  or  made  of  him  a  civilised, 
thinking  being. 

It  was  impossible  to  hope  for  individuality  in  recruits,  75  per 
cent,  of  whom  were  drawn  from  the  peasant  class.  The  Tartar 
domination  and  serfdom  seem  to  have  robbed  them  of  all  natural 
initiative,  leaving  only  a  wonderful  capacity  for  patient  en- 
durance. Initiative  might  have  been  fostered  by  individual 
training,  but  the  company  officers  were  handicapped  by  the 
large  number  of  official  holidays,  ceremonial  parades  and  guards, 
which  it  was  calculated  left  only  one  year  out  of  the  three  years' 
colour  service  for  the  actual  training  of  the  infantry  soldier. 

The  men  had  the  faults  of  their  race.    They  were  lazy  and 


xxxii  Introduction 

happy-go-lucky,  doing  nothing  thoroughly  unless  driven  to  it. 
The  bulk  of  them  went  willingly  to  the  war  in  the  first  instance, 
chiefly  because  they  had  little  idea  what  war  meant.  They 
lacked  the  intelligent  knowledge  of  the  objects  they  were  fighting 
for  and  the  thinking  patriotism  to  make  their  morale  proof  against 
the  effects  of  heavy  loss ;  and  heavy  loss  resulted  from  un- 
intelligent leading  and  lack  of  proper  equipment. 

It  must  have  been  evident  to  the  more  foreseeing  members  of 
the  Russian  General  Staff  that  even  at  the  first  clash  of  arms  the 
Russian  forces,  where  numerically  only  equal  to  the  German, 
would  be  at  a  disadvantage.  They  calculated,  however,  on  their 
own  weight  of  numbers  in  combination  with  the  dash  of  the  French 
to  overcome  the  enemy.  As  for  the  possibility  of  a  long  war,  the 
Russian  General  Staff,  no  more  than  the  Austrian,  French  or 
German  Staffs,  ever  thought  of  it. 

A  long  war  spelt  for  Russia  inevitable  disaster,  for  it  tested 
every  fibre  and  muscle  of  the  national  frame.  The  shortcomings 
of  the  army  might  have  passed  unnoticed  if  the  Allies  had  gained 
a  decisive  victory  in  the  West  in  the  first  six  months  of  war.  Such 
a  victory  was  not  gained  because  Germany's  preparation  for  war 
was  more  thorough  than  France's,  and  because  the  politicians  of 
Great  Britain  of  all  parties  had  been  deaf  to  the  soldiers'  warnings 
and  had  refused  to  organise  the  national  defence.  The  Russian 
army  worked  with  rare  self-sacrifice  and  accomplished  as  much  as 
we  had  any  right  to  expect.  No  one  with  any  knowledge  of 
Russia  ever  imagined  that  the  decision  could  come  in  the  Eastern 
theatre.  The  false  hopes  which  our  censorship  allowed  the  man 
in  the  street  to  place  on  the  Russian  "  steam-roller  "  were  mere 
self-deception  and  were  never  shared  by  the  well-informed. 

The  strain  of  a  long  war,  and  essentially  a  war  of  machinery, 
was  immeasurably  greater  for  Russia  than  for  England,  France 
or  Germany,  owing  to  her  lack  of  communications,  the  backward- 
ness of  her  industry,  the  incompetence  of  her  Government  and 
the  absence  of  real  self-sacrificing  patriotism  in  the  masses  of  the 
population. 

Russia  possessed  only  about  half  a  mile  of  railway  to  one 


Introduction  xxxiii 

hundred  square  miles  as  compared  with  about  twenty  miles  of 
line  to  the  same  area  in  England.  She  had  practically  no  coast- 
wise traffic  and  her  magnificent  inland  waterways,  which  should 
have  relieved  much  of  the  pressure,  were  undeveloped  and  mis- 
managed. Out  of  the  many  Russian  ports  which  normally 
served  her  import  and  export  trade,  there  remained  at  the  out- 
break of  war  only  two — Arkhangel  and  Vladivostok — andArk- 
hangel  was  closed  for  half  the  year.  Arkhangel  was  immediately 
served  by  only  a  single  narrow-gauge  line  and  was  some  2,000 
miles  from  the  battle-line.  Vladivostok  was  8,000  miles.  During 
the  first  three  years  of  war  the  average  arrivals  of  ships  in  Russian 
ports  numbered  1,250  annually,  while  the  arrivals  in  ports  of  the 
United  Kingdom  numbered  on  an  average  2,200  weekly. 

Russia's  main  trade  in  peace  had  passed  in  and  out  through 
the  now  closed  Baltic  and  Black  Seas.  With  every  desire  to  help 
their  ally,  Russia's  friends  were  handicapped  by  the  inadequacy 
of  equipment  of  the  ports  that  remained  open  and  the  poorness 
of  the  land  communications  that  led  from  them  to  the  front. 
Great  Britain  had  now  to  pay  in  the  weakening  of  Russia's  effort 
for  the  policy  that  had  denied  her  an  outlet  on  the  open  sea.  It 
is  true  that  Russia  could  not  have  fought  on  for  more  than  twelve 
months  if  the  command  of  the  sea  had  been  in  the  enemy's  hands, 
but  she  received  less  benefit  from  our  possession  of  that  command 
than  any  of  her  allies. 

A  very  few  weeks  of  war  proved  to  all  the  combatants  that 
their  initial  stocks  of  shell  and  materials  of  war  generally  were 
insufficien :  to  ensure  a  decision.  Germany,  France  and  England 
diverted  their  thousands  of  factories  to  war-work.  But  Russia, 
with  her  180  millions  inhabitants,  had  roughly  only  one  factory 
to  Great  Britain's  150.  She  had  not  the  machinery  or  the  tools 
or  the  trained  personnel.  Machinery  and  tools  could  only  be 
obtained  from  America,  where  the  Allies  had  already  swamped 
the  market.  Even  if  shipped  from  America  there  remained  the 
difficulty  of  their  delivery  at  industrial  centres  in  Russia. 

The  Government  was  hide-bound  and  did  not  rise  to  the 
emergency.  It  was  jealous  alike  of  the  advice  of  the  Allies  and 
of  Russian  patriots  outside  the  circle  of  the  bureaucracy.  It 

C 


xxxiv  Introduction 

persistently  refused  to  introduce  industrial  conscription,  which 
had  been  early  adopted  by  Germany  and  France. 

The  division  of  classes,  the  system  of  a  bureaucracy  on  the 

German  model,   but  without  German  honesty  and  efficiency, 

imposed  on  a  people  without   education  and  patriotism  had 

produced  a  state  edifice  too  rotten  to  resist  any  prolonged  strain. 

The  Russian  peasant  population  is  essentially  pacific  and  the 

least  Imperialistic  in  the  world.     It  never  understood  why  it 

fought.     It  fought  well  on  many  occasions  when  the  leading  was 

moderate.     It  would  have  continued  to  fight  well  if  it  had  had 

some  measure  of  success,  but  it  soon  lost  trust  in  the  Government 

and  the  leading.     A  higher  type  of  human  animal  was  required 

to  persevere  to  victory  through  the  monotony  of  disaster.    That 

the  Russian  type  was  so  low,  the  Russian  Government  was  largely 

to  blame,  for  it  had  discouraged  education  and  had  allowed  the 

brandy  monopoly  for  many  years  to  sap  the  character  and  grit 

of  the  people.    The  Government  of  the  French  Republic  would 

have  been  wiser  from  a  purely  selfish  point  of  view  to  have 

pressed  the  Emperor  to  introduce  some  simple  form  of  universal 

primary  education  on  patriotic  lines,  and  to  develop  the  home 

factories  for  the  production  of  material  of  war.    No  one,  however, 

believed  in  a  long  war,  and  the  one  idea  was  to  speed  up  the 

Russian  mobilisation  by  the  construction  of  new  railways  and  to 

increase  the  number  of  new  cadres  to  enable  Russia  to  bring  her 

weight  to  bear  as  soon  as  possible.    No  doubt,  too,  any  suggestion 

regarding  education  would  have  been  regarded  as  "  unjustifiable 

interference  in  the  internal  affairs  of  an  allied  and  friendly 

nation." 

Russia's  allies  had  to  pay  dearly  for  the  low  mental  develop- 
ment of  the  mass  of  the  Russian  population.  From  the  very 
commencement  of  the  war  the  Russians  surrendered  in  thousands, 
and  Russian  prisoners  freed  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Germans 
from  agriculture  and  industry  to  man  the  trenches  in  the  West. 

For  a  long  war  Russia  was  outclassed  in  every  factor  of  success 
except  in  the  number  of  her  fighting  men  and  in  their  mollusc- 
like  quality  of  recovery  after  severe  defeat. 

Many  Russians  were  fully  aware  of  their  national  shortcomings. 


Introduction  xxxv 

There  was  universal  joy  when  it  was  known  that  Great  Britain 
had  entered  the  war  as  Russia's  ally — Great  Britain,  who  was 
always  called  by  the  peasants  "  Anglichanka,"  or  the  English- 
woman, in  reminiscence  of  the  long  reign  of  Queen  Victoria.  Soon 
after  the  revolution  of  March,  1917,  a  "  soldier  deputy  "  told  the 
writer  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  a  fellow  peasant  from  the 
Urals  had  said  to  him  that  "  he  was  glad  that  the  '  Anglichanka  ' 
was  with  Russia,  because  first  she  was  clever  and  would  help ; 
secondly,  if  things  went  badly  with  Russia,  she  was  good  and  she 
would  help ;  thirdly,  if  it  came  to  making  peace,  she  was  deter- 
mined and  would  not  give  way." 


With  the  Russian  Army 

1914-1917 


VOL.  I 

CHAPTER  I 

OUTBREAK   OF  WAR.    G.H.Q.   AND   THE 
SOUTH-WEST  FRONT,  AUGUST,  1914 

REFERENCE  MAP  No.  I 

ONE  delightful  thing  about  the  appointment  of  Military 
Attache  is  that  he  can  take  his  annual  leave  when  he  likes, 
provided  his  private  plans  fit  in  with  the  ideas  of  the  Ambassador 
and  the  War  Office.  Since  1911,  when  I  was  appointed  to 
Petrograd,  I  had  always  gone  home  in  June  and  returned  at  the 
end  of  July  in  time  for  the  annual  manoeuvres  of  the  Petrograd 
Military  District. 

To  these  manoeuvres  accredited  foreign  officers  were  always 
invited  as  the  guests  of  the  Emperor  :  we  lunched  and  dined  at 
his  table,  used  his  motor-cars,  rode  his  horses,  and  attended  with 
him  nightly  performances  at  the  local  theatre ;  we  saw  much 
martial  spectacle  but  very  little  serious  training  for  modern  war 

In  June,  1914,  the  Ambassador  made  me  postpone  my  leave 
till  the  end  of  the  month  to  be  present  during  the  official  visit  of 
our  battle-cruiser  squadron  to  Russian  waters.  I  got  away  at 
the  end  of  June,  but  the  Ambassador  had  to  remain  without  a 
day's  leave  till  January,  1918. 

37 


38          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

On  my  way  home  the  German  paper  I  bought  in  Berlin  told  of 
the  murder  of  the  Grand  Duke  Franz  Ferdinand  and  his  wife. 
This,  however,  did  not  seem  necessarily  to  mean  war.  The  news 
of  the  Austrian  ultimatum  to  Serbia  was  more  threatening,  but 
I  read  this  in  Ulster,  where  we  were  all  too  deeply  engrossed  in 
thoughts  for  our  political  future  to  consider  possible  European 
complications.  It  was  recognised,  of  course,  that  the  situation 
was  critical,  but  it  had  been  critical  in  1908  and  1912  and  nothing 
had  come  of  it.  Like  nine  out  of  every  ten  officers,  I  had  believed 
for  eighteen  years  in  the  reality  of  the  German  menace,  but  one's 
fears  had  been  treated  with  such  consistent  contempt  by  the 
great  and  wise  that  we  had  begun  to  hope  that  we  might  after 
all  prove  to  be  the  lunatics  we  were  represented  to  be,  and  that 
Germany  might  forbear  from  pushing  matters  to  extremes. 

At  breakfast  on  Monday,  July  27th,  I  received  telegraphic 
orders  from  the  War  Office  that  the  Ambassador  wished  me  at 
once  to  return  to  my  post.  I  played  a  round  of  golf  that  had 
been  previously  arranged  and  crossed  that  night  from  Belfast. 
On  the  boat  was  a  submarine  officer  who  had  also  been  recalled. 
He  was  a  fellow  Ulsterman,  and  we  talked  till  late,  and  more  of 
Ulster  than  of  the  European  situation.  Next  day  I  said  good-bye 
at  Euston  to  poor  Johnnie  Gough.  He  put  me  a  question  or  two 
about  the  Russian  army,  but  in  his  mind,  too,  Ulster  was  upper- 
most. 

At  the  War  Office  I  could  get  no  advice  as  to  how  to  return 
to  Russia,  but  I  made  up  my  mind  to  risk  the  journey  across 
Germany  and  cancelled  the  passage  taken  provisionally  from 
Hull  to  Helsingfors.  Next  morning  at  Victoria  the  booking-clerk 
said  he  had  already  booked  several  passengers  to  Petrograd. 
The  journey  indeed  was  most  comfortable.  At  Berlin  we  read 
in  the  German  papers  of  Russia's  partial  mobilisation,  and  then 
knew  that  war  was  inevitable.  Still,  a  polite  German  porter 
helped  to  telegraph  to  the  frontier  to  retain  a  coupe  in  the  Russian 
express. 

From  the  train  no  men  could  be  seen  at  work  in  the  fields,  yet, 
on  the  other  hand,  no  troop  trains  were  passed.  The  big  bridges 
at  Dirshau  and  Marienburg  were  strongly  guarded  by  infantry, 


August,  1914  39 

most  of  whom  were  in  the  old  uniform  along  with  a  few  in  the 
new  "  field  grey." 

In  East  Prussia  generally  there  were  more  signs  of  excitement. 
Prussian  officers  chatted  nervously,  and  one  of  them  left  his 
pocket-book  behind  when  he  alighted  from  the  train. 

Once  safe  across  the  Russian  frontier  the  many  Russian 
passengers,  who  had  hitherto  been  remarkably  silent,  took  no 
pains  to  conceal  their  sentiments.  One  of  them  lamented  that 
he  had  not  had  a  bomb  to  drop  on  Dirshau  bridge  !  He  drew 
consolation  from  the  fact  that  the  bridge  guards  were  not  all  in 
field  service  uniform — proving  that  those  ' '  pigs  of  Germans  ' '  at 
any  rate  were  not  ready  to  the  last  gaiter-button. 

At  Kovna  at  midnight  we  heard  of  the  general  Russian 
mobilisation. 

I  arrived  in  Petrograd  on  the  morning  of  Friday,  July  3ist. 
Germany  declared  war  on  Russia  at  6  p.m.  the  following  day — 
Saturday,  August  ist. 

The  mobilisation  went  smoothly  and  the  number  of  men  called 
up  in  comparison  with  the  partial  mobilisation  of  1904  caused 
general  astonishment. 

The  spirit  of  the  people  appeared  excellent.  All  the  wine- 
shops were  closed  and  there  was  no  drunkenness — a  striking 
contrast  to  the  scenes  witnessed  in  1904.  Wives  and  mothers 
with  children  accompanied  the  reservists  from  point  to  point, 
deferring  the  hour  of  parting,  and  one  saw  cruel  scenes,  but  the 
women  cried  silently  and  there  were  no  hysterics.  The  men 
generally  were  quiet  and  grave,  but  parties  cheered  one  another 
as  they  met  in  the  street. 

The  war  was  undoubtedly  popular  with  the  middle  classes, 
and  even  the  strikers,  who  Russians  believed  had  been  subsidised 
with  German  money,  at  once  on  mobilisation  returned  to  work. 
The  Warsaw  Press  summoned  the  Poles  to  rally  to  the  defence  of 
Slavdom.  A  mass  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  people  uncovered  in 
the  Palace  Square  before  the  sacred  eikons  while  the  Emperor 
swore  in  the  words  of  Alexander  I.  that  he  would  never  make 
peace  as  long  as  an  enemy  remained  on  Russian  soil.  Patriotic 
crowds  cheered  nightly  in  front  of  the  British  and  French 


40          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Embassies  and  the  Serbian  Legation.  The  mass  of  the  people  had 
taken  it  for  granted  that  the  English  would  "  come  in,"  and 
remarks  in  the  streets  and  in  tramcars  on  August  2nd  and  3rd 
about  the  delay  of  our  Government  were  unpleasant  to  hear. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  if  Great  Britain  had  declared  for 
neutrality  the  Embassy  would  have  been  stormed  by  the  rabble, 
as  was  the  German  Embassy.  Some  of  us  were  to  live  in 
Russia  to  see  the  day,  three  and  a  half  years  later,  when  our 
Embassy  was  once  more  in  danger  from  the  fickle  crowd  because, 
having  taken  up  Russia's  quarrel,  we  were  determined  to  see  the 
matter  through. 

But  in  those  wonderful  August  days  of  1914  our  popularity 
was  unbounded  once  the  news  came  that  the  Government  had 
taken  up  the  challenge  and  joined  in  the  great  adventure.  The 
morning  the  telegram  arrived  the  Ambassador  called  for  me  with 
Grenf ell,  the  Naval  Attache,  and  took  us  to  a  service  at  the  French 
church,  where  there  were  representatives  of  all  the  Allies,  and 
where  the  cure  in  a  moving  address  called  upon  God  to  take  to 
Himself  the  souls  of  those  who  were  even  now  giving  up  their  lives 
for  their  country  and  to  protect  all  civilisation  from  Germany, 
'  who  always  sought  to  humiliate  those  whom  she  conquered/' 

The  next  few  days  passed  quickly.    I  handed  over  my  office 

in  Petrograd  to  Captain  James  Blair,  of  the  Gordon  Highlanders, 

and  prepared  to  leave  Petrograd  on  the  train  of  the  Grand  Duke 

Nikolas  Nikolaievich,  who  had  been  appointed  Commander-in- 

Ghief. 

Blair  was  to  be  my  assistant  as  long  as  Russia  remained  at 
war.  He  proved  the  best  of  fellows  and  the  most  loyal  of 
helps.  It  was  a  lucky  chance  that  found  an  officer  of  his 
ability  and  energy  on  language  leave  in  Russia  at  the  outbreak 
of  war. 

Information  soon  came  that  Sir  John  Hanbury  Williams  was 
being  sent  out  from  England  to  be  attached  to  the  Russian  armies. 
As  he  was  much  senior  to  me,  I  had  naturally  to  give  him  my  place 
at  G.H.Q.,  but  the  Ambassador  decided  that  pending  his  arrival 
I  must  leave  Petrograd  as  British  representative  in  the  Grand 
Duke's  train  with  the  French  and  Serbian  Military  Attaches, 


August,   1914  41 

General  Marquis  de  Laguiche  and  Colonel  Leonkevich,  who  had 
not  been  superseded  by  their  Governments. 

Though  I  had  been  longer  in  Russia,  Laguiche  had  a  stronger 
position  before  the  war  as  the  representative  of  Russia's  ally. 
He  had  an  excellent  knowledge  of  the  German  and  Austrian 
armies,  as  he  had  served  in  both  countries  as  Military  Attache 
before  coming  to  Petrograd.  He  was  a  good  colleague  and  a 
big  gentleman,  and  we  always  worked  together  and  helped  one 
another  all  we  could. 

The  forecast  of  the  Russian  General  Staff  regarding  the 
enemy's  course  of  action  was  fairly  accurate.  It  was  thought  that 
the  Germans  with  five  first-line  corps  and  some  reserve  divisions 
would  confine  themselves  to  the  defensive  in  the  Eastern  theatre 
pending  the  arrival  of  reinforcements  after  the  decision  in  the 
West.  It  was  calculated  that  the  Austrians  would  use  ten  corps 
of  first-line  troops  to  form  three  armies  against  Russia,  that  their 
main  concentration  would  be  completed  about  August  2ist, 
probably  on  the  line  Tarnopol-Lemberg-Jaroslau,  and  that  they 
would  strike  north-east  from  that  line. 

The  trans-frontier  raids  of  the  first  few  days  were  of  little 
importance.  Russian  cavalry  penetrated  a  short  distance  into 
East  Prussia,  west  from  Eydkuhnen  and  north  from  Bialla ;  it 
cut  the  railways  between  Soldau  and  Neidenburg.  German 
infantry  occupied  Vrotslavsk,  Kalish  and  Bendin  in  South-west 
Poland. 

We  were  told  to  join  the  Grand  Duke's  train  at  Peterhof  by 
midnight  on  the  I3th,  so  had  to  leave  Petrograd  by  the  9.10 
train. 

I  took  with  me  my  civilian  servant  "  Maxim,"  who  had  been 
with  me  for  over  three  years  and  had  served  my  two  predecessors 
in  the  post  of  Military  Attache.  At  the  station  I  was  joined  by 
an  orderly  detailed  by  the  General  Staff — one  Ivan  Gribkov — 
who  had  been  a  ladies'  tailor  in  civil  life,  and  who  remained  with 
me  till  I  left  Russia,  proving  himself  an  excellent  servant  and 
friend  in  every  way. 

Laguiche  and  Leonkevich  travelled  with  me  and  we  joined 
old  friends  in  Colonels  Skalon,  the  chief  of  the  German  section, 


42          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

and  Samoilo,  the  chief  of  the  Austrian  section.  They  were 
intimate  friends  before  the  war.  Skalon  was  of  German  extrac- 
tion from  the  Baltic  Provinces.  He  was  a  man  of  few  words. 
He  shot  himself  at  Brest  Litovsk  in  1917  rather  than  take  part 
in  the  Bolshevik  betrayal.  Samoilo  was  a  little  Russian  with 
a  loud  voice  and  a  keen  sense  of  humour.  He  now  holds  an  im- 
portant Bolshevik  command.  In  politics  before  the  war  Samoilo 
was  thought  to  be  the  most  reactionary  member  of  the  General 
Staff.  -  .> 

At  Peterhof  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolas's  Staff  was  assembling. 
We  met  General  Yanushkevich,  the  Chief  of  the  Staff,  and  General 
Danilov,  the  General  Quartermaster. 

Yanushkevich  had  seen  no  service  in  the  field.  He  had  early 
joined  the  secretariat  of  the  Ministry  of  War,  and  returned  to 
employment  there  after  passing  the  Academy.  He  had  com- 
manded a  company  for  a  short  time  but  never  a  battalion.  He 
is  said  to  have  attracted  the  Emperor's  attention  when  on  guard 
as  a  young  captain  at  the  Palace,  and  his  selection  to  be  Com- 
mandant of  the  Academy  in  1913  and  his  promotion  to  the  Chief 
of  the  General  Staff  on  Jilinski's  appointment  to  be  Governor  of 
Warsaw  in  the  spring  of  1914  excited  general  surprise.  He  gave 
the  impression  rather  of  a  courtier  than  of  a  soldier.  As  Chief  of 
the  General  Staff  in  peace,  he  became,  in  accordance  with  the  plan 
of  mobilisation,  Chief  of  the  Staff  of  the  army  in  the  field. 

Danilov,  nicknamed  "  the  Black  "  to  distinguish  him  from  a 
host  of  other  Danilovs,  was  the  hardest  worker  and  the  strongest 
brain  in  the  staff.  In  many  years'  service  in  the  Supreme 
Directorate  of  the  General  Staff  he  had  made  a  study  of  the  strategy 
of  the  western  frontier.  He  was  a  stern,  silent  man,  a  great 
disciplinarian  and  exacting  chief.  Throughout  the  war  I  was  to 
hear  many  complaints  from  Russian  officers  of  his  "  hide-bound 
strategy/'  but  no  one  ever  suggested  the  name  of  an  officer  who 
could  have  done  better. 

Many  wives  had  come  to  see  us  off.  Madame  Danilov  had 
journeyed  from  Vinnitsa — twenty-four  hours  in  peace,  but  now 
a  five  days'  pilgrimage.  Madame  Samoilo  was  saying  good-bye 
to  her  husband.  Countess  Mengden  was  helping  her  husband, 


August,  1914  43 

one  of  the  Grand  Duke's  A.D.C.'s,  into  his  Sam  Browne  belt. 
General  Gulevich,  the  Chief  of  the  Staff  of  the  Petrograd  Military 
District,  was  there,  and  General  Van  der  Fliet,  a  grand  old  soldier 
who  had  assisted  at  the  capture  of  Tashkent  in  1868,  and  who  had 
now  succeeded  to  the  command  of  the  district  which  the  Grand 
Duke  had  held  before  mobilisation.  We  were  presented  to  the 
Grand  Duke  Peter,  who  accompanied  the  brother  to  whom  he  is 
devoted.  The  train  started  at  midnight. 

DIARY  : 

Friday,  August  14^,  1914.  GRAND  DUKE'S  TRAIN. 

Awoke  to  find  myself  on  the  Vitebsk  line  north  of  Dno. 
The  train  is  moving  very  slowly  and  we  only  passed  one 
train  during  the  day — that  containing  the  personnel  of 
the  General  Staff  for  G.H.Q.  which  left  St.  Petersburg 
yesterday  some  hours  before  we  did. 

At  lunch  the  Grand  Duke  Peter  sat  at  a  small  table 
with  Laguiche  on  his  right  hand  and  the  Serbian  Military 
Attache  and  me  opposite.  At  the  other  side  of  the  wagon 
the  Grand  Duke  Nikolas  spoke  across  to  our  table  a  good 
deal.  To  me  he  spoke  of  sport,  and  said  he  was  determined 
to  go  to  England  for  shooting  after  the  war.  He  told  me 
how  fond  he  was  of  Sir  Montague  Gerard  and  Sir  Ian 
Hamilton.  After  lunch  he  took  Laguiche,  Yanushkevich 
and  Danilov  with  him  to  discuss  military  matters. 

At  7  p.m.  Prince  Kotsube,  one  of  the  aides,  came  to 
fetch  me  to  the  Grand  Duke.  He  brought  a  message  that 
I  v/as  to  bring  my  pipe  with  me,  for  we  would  go  in  straight 
to  dinner  after  our  talk,  and  he  specially  hoped  I  would 
smoke  my  pipe  after  dinner. 

He  told  me  how  he  hated  the  Germans  because  one 
could  never  trust  them ;  that  this  war  had  been  forced 
upon  us  and  that  we  must  crush  Germany  once  and  for 
all  to  enable  the  nations  to  live  in  peace ;  the  German 
Empire  must  cease  to  exist  and  be  divided  up  into  a  group 
of  states,  each  of  which  would  be  happy  with  its  own  little 
court. 


44          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

He  spoke  of  the  credulity  of  the  Germans  and  of  their 
stupidity.  A  Russian  lady  had  gone  to  see  the  German 
Ambassador's  wife,  the  Countess  Portales,  the  day  before 
Germany's  declaration  of  war  and  had  found  her  packing. 
Countess  Portales  had  said  that  she  knew  for  a  certainty 
that  the  day  after  the  declaration  of  war  both  the  Winter 
Palace  and  the  Hermitage  would  be  blown  up.  On  the 
contrary,  reports  from  all  parts  of  Russia  proved  the 
popularity  of  the  war — such  a  contrast  to  conditions  prior 
to  the  war  against  Japan. 

The  Grand  Duke  said  he  was  not  a  diplomat  but  always 
said  straight  out  what  he  thought.  He  hoped  we  would  be 
good  friends.  When  he  spoke  of  the  alleged  barbarities 
committed  by  the  Germans  at  Chenstokhov  and  Kalish, 
he  became  excited  and  gesticulated  vehemently.  He  is 
honest  and  shrewd  and  has  evidently  force  of  character. 

I  mustered  up  courage  as  we  were  leaving  to  go  out  to 
dinner,  and  told  him  how  frightened  I  was  that  when 
General  Hanbury- Williams  came  I  might  be  sent  back  to 
St.  Petersburg.  He  said  that  he  quite  understood  that  I 
did  not  want  to  sit,  as  the  Russians  say,  "  with  folded 
arms/'  but  that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  have  two- 
British  officers  at  Headquarters.  I  said  I  wanted,  on  the 
contrary,  to  go  forward,  and  he  told  me,  when  the  time 
came,  to  ask  him,  and  he  promised  I  should  go  where  I 
wished.  This  was  delightful  and  just  what  I  wanted. 

I  asked  Maxim  if  he  was  keen  on  going  to  the  front. 
He  said  if  there  was  danger,  he,  for  his  part,  did  not  wish 
to  be  killed  and  would  rather  return  to  St.  Petersburg. 

We  hear  from  Prince  Golitzin,  one  of  the  aides,  that  our 
present  destination  is  Baranovichi. 

Saturday,  August  i$th,  1914.  GRAND  DUKE'S  TRAIN. 

The  train,  by  the  Grand  Duke's  special  order,  is  running 
in  accordance  with  the  ordinary  troop-train  programme  in 
order  to  avoid  interference  with  the  concentration.  Con- 
sequence is  that  we  take  fifty-seven  hours  to  cover  a 


August,  1914  45 

distance  that  the  usual  express  would  cover  in  twenty-five. 
This  is  in  striking  contrast  to  the  system  in  1904,  when  the 
frequent  Imperial  specials  much  interfered  with  the 
transport  of  troops  to  the  Far  East.  We  changed  on  to 
the  Bologoe-Syedlets  line  in  the  night.  Large  numbers 
of  empty  trains  passed  during  the  day,  going  east,  all  of 
one  hundred  axles,  running  irregularly,  but  sometimes  with 
intervals  of  only  twenty  minutes.  We  passed  five  trains 
running  west,  chiefly  loaded  with  transport.  One  train 
contained  a  battalion  of  Opolchenie  in  civilian  clothes  with 
the  cross  on  the  front  of  their  caps.  Our  train  moves  at 
only  about  eighteen  versts  an  hour  exclusive  of  stoppages, 
which  are  long  and  frequent  (five  hours  at  Lida,  for 
instance). 

The  meals  on  the  train  are  well  cooked  but  simple. 
We  lunch  at  12.30 — three  courses — and  dine  at  7.30 : 
soup,  joint,  and  sweet,  a  glass  of  vodka,  claret  or  Madeira, 
and  a  glass  of  cognac  with  our  coffee.  The  Grand  Duke 
sat  on  till  10  p.m.,  talking  to  Yanushkevich,  but  he  told 
those  who  had  work  to  do  not  to  wait,  and  General  Danilov, 
Skalon  and  Samoilo  at  once  went  out. 


We  arrived  at  Baranovichi  at  9  a.m.  on  Sunday,  the  i6th,  and 
were  received  on  the  platform  by  General  Jilinski,  who  had  been 
appointed  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Armies  of  the  North- West 
Front,  by  the  Grand  Duke  Kiril,  who  with  other  naval  officers 
formed  part  of  the  headquarters  staff,  and  by  a  few  representatives 
of  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs.  One  of  the  latter,  Muraviev, 
whom  I  afterwards  got  to  know  well,  remarked  to  Kotsube : 
You  soldiers  ought  to  be  very  pleased  that  we  have  arranged 
such  a  nice  war  for  you."  Kotsube  said  :  "  We  must  wait  and 
see  whether  it  will  be  such  a  nice  war  after  all." 

General  Jilinski,  like  the  Minister  of  War,  General  Sukhom- 
linov,  commenced  his  service  in  the  Chevalier  Guard  Regiment. 
He  served  on  the  staff  of  the  Viceroy  Alexyeev  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  Japanese  war.  He  later  commanded  a  cavalry 


46          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

division  in  Poland,  and  was  appointed  Chief  of  the  General  Staff 
in  1910.  In  this  position  he  had  a  share  in  the  working  out  of  the 
most  recent  army  reforms.  In  the  spring  of  1914  he  had  suc- 
ceeded General  Skalon  as  Governor  of  Warsaw.  He  was  an 
official  of  the  cut-and-dried  type  and  was  generally  unpopular. 

Baranovichi  was  in  peace-time  the  headquarters  of  three 
railway  battalions,  and  our  train  was  shunted  on  to  a  siding  which 
had  been  specially  prepared  in  the  midst  of  the  fir-woods.  The 
staff  all  lived  and  fed  in  the  trains,  but  the  house  of  the  Com- 
mander of  the  Railway  Brigade  was  fitted  up  as  an  office  for  the 
use  of  the  General-Quartermaster's  Department.  This  Depart- 
ment, which  comprised  the  Operations,  Intelligence  and  "  General ' 
Sections,  was  manned  by  about  twenty  General  Staff  officers. 

The  Major-General  in  charge  of  Military  Communications  had 
his  office  at  some  little  distance.  His  staff  was  much  smaller — 
perhaps  one  or  two  officers. 

Little  news  arrived  and  we  had  not  much  to  do.  Laguiche 
was  in  despair.  He  said :  '  Pensez  que  moi  au  bout  de  38  ans 
de  service,  apres  avoir  tant  reve  a  la  revanche  dois  rester  ici 
quand  1'heure  a  sonne."  In  fact,  anything  less  warlike  than  our 
surroundings  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine.  We  were  in  the 
midst  of  a  charming  fir-wood  and  everything  was  quiet  and 
peaceful.  We  were  both  astonished  at  the  practical  sense  of  the 
Russians  who  had  chosen  such  a  quiet  place  for  their  headquarters, 
and  who  went  to  work  with  complete  calmness  and  an  entire 
absence  of  fuss. 

However,  two  days  of  walks  and  rides  in  the  fir-woods  was 
enough,  and  we  were  glad  to  leave  in  the  Grand  Duke's  train  at 
midnight  on  the  i8th  to  visit  the  Headquarters  of  the  South- 
western Front  at  Rovno. 

It  may  be  convenient  to  give  here  some  account  of  the  Russian 
dispositions,  though  such  details  were  neither  at  this  time  nor 
later  communicated  officially,  but  were  gathered  laboriously  from 
various  friends  at  odd  times. 

The  original  Russian  plan  of  campaign  was  to  act  on  the 
defensive  towards  Germany  and  to  assume  the  offensive  against 


August,  1914  47 

Austria.  To  hold  back  Germany,  the  ist  Army  under  Ren- 
nenkampf  was  to  be  formed  in  the  Vilna  Military  District,  while 
the  4th,  5th,  3rd  and  8th  Armies  were  to  operate  against 
Austria.  The  2nd  Army  was  to  assemble  opposite  Warsaw  as  a 
reserve  to  the  southern  armies  and  the  gth  Army  was  to  be  held 
in  readiness  at  Petrograd  for  the  defence  of  the  capital 
against  possible  landings. 

This  plan  was  changed  after  mobilisation  with  the  sole  object 
of  helping  the  Allies  in  the  West.  The  2nd  Army  was  sent  north, 
and  was  replaced  on  the  middle  Vistula  by  the  Qth  Army  from 
Petrograd. 

In  the  first  instance,  therefore,  six  armies  were  formed  on  the 
western  frontier.  The  North- Western  Group  consisted  of  the  ist 
Army  under  General  Rennenkampf,  which  was  deployed  in  the 
Vilna  Military  District  to  operate  west  into  East  Prussia,  and  the 
2nd  Army,  which  deployed  on  the  Narev  under  General  Sam- 
sonov,  late  Governor-General  of  Turkistan,  to  advance  north 
into  East  Prussia  and  in  co-operation  with  the  ist  Army  to  turn 
the  Masurian  Lakes.  These  two  armies  were  controlled  from 
Byelostok  by  General  Jilinski,  who  had  General  Oranovski  as  his 
Chief  of  Staff. 

The  South- Western  Group  contained  four  armies  and  was 
directed  from  Rovno  by  General  Ivanov,  with  General  Alexyeev 
as  his  Chief  of  Staff.  The  two  armies  on  the  right  had  at  first  a 
passive  task.  They  deployed  facing  south  along  the  Kholm- 
Lyublin-Novo  Alexandriya  railway.  These  were  the  4th  under 
Baron  Salza,  the  Commander  of  the  Kazan  Military  District,  and 
the  5th  under  General  Plehve,  the  Commander  of  the  Moscow 
Military  District.  Further  south-east  the  3rd  Army  under  Gen- 
eral Ruzski,  late  second  in  command  to  General  Ivanov  in  the 
Kiev  Military  District,  formed  about  Dubno,  and  the  8th  Army 
under  General  Brusilov,  late  commander  of  the  Xllth  Corps, 
gathered  round  Proskurov.  The  3rd  and  8th  Armies  were  to 
take  the  offensive  at  once  against  the  communications  of  the 
Austrian  armies,  which  were  known  to  be  preparing  to  advance 
into  Southern  Poland. 

As  the  gth  Army  under  General  Lechitski,  late  Commander  of 


48  With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

the  Pri-Amur  Military  District,  moved  forward  from  Petrograd, 
it  was  replaced  by  the  so-called  6th  Army,  consisting  of  the  few 
troops  that  remained  in  or  near  the  capital. 

The  troops  left  at  Odessa  were  called  the  7th  Army  and  were 
supposed  to  watch  the  Black  Sea  coast. 

The  composition  of  the  six  front-line  armies  on  the  western 
frontier  was  as  follows  : 

NORTH-WESTERN  FRONT  : 

IST  ARMY  :    Commander,    General  Rennenkampf.     Chief  of 

Staff,  General  Miliant. 
ist  and  2nd  Guard  Cavalry  Divisions ;    ist,  2nd  and  3rd 

Divisions  of  the  Cavalry  of  the  Line. 
Illrd,  XXth  and  IVth  Corps.  ': 

2ND  ARMY  :  Commander,  General  Samsonov.     Chief  of  Staff, 

General  Postovski. 
4th,  6th  and  I5th  Cavalry  Divisions. 
Ilnd,  Vlth,  Xlllth,  XVth  and  XXIIIrd  Corps. 

SOUTH-WEST  FRONT  : 

4TH  ARMY  :   Commander,  Baron  Salza. 
I3th  and  I4th  Cavalry  Divisions. 
XVIth,  XlVth,  Illrd  Caucasian  and  Grenadier  Corps. 
STH  ARMY  :    Commander,  General  Plehve.     Chief  of  Staff, 

General  Miller. 

7th  Cavalry  Division  ;  ist  Don  Cossack  Cavalry  Division. 
,      XXVth,  XlXth,  Vth  and  XVIIth  Corps. 
3RD  ARMY  :    Commander,  General  Ruzski.     Chief  of  Staff, 

General  Dragomirov. 
9th,  loth  and  nth  Cavalry  Divisions. 
, ;      XXIst,  Xlth,  Xth  and  IXth  Corps. 
STH  ARMY  :   Commander,  General  Brusilov. 

2nd  Combined  Cossack  Cavalry  Division ;    I2th  Cavalry 

Division. 
Vllth,  Vlllth,  Xllth  and  XXIVth  Corps. 

These  six  armies  took  all  the  first-line  corps  of  European 
Russia  except  the  Guard,  Ist  and  XVIIIth  from  Petrograd, 


August,  1914  49 

which  were  earmarked  for  the  gth  Army  and  the  XXI  Ind,  which 
had  been  held  back  for  a  few  days  in  Finland. 

From  Trans-Caucasia,  Turkistan  and  Siberia  the  Ilnd  Cau- 
casian, 1st  Turkistan  and  1st,  Ilnd  and  Illrd  Siberian  Corps  were 
already  en  route,  to  be  followed  later  by  the  Vth  and  IVth  Siberian. 
The  1st  Caucasian  Corps  remained  in  the  Caucasus  and  was  joined 
there  by  the  Ilnd  Turkistan  Corps. 

To  continue  the  Diary  : 

Tuesday,  August  i8th,  1914.  TRAIN  AT  ROVNO. 

We  left  Baranovichi  soon  after  midnight  and  ran  south 
to  Rovno,  where  the  train  arrived  at  9  a.m.  General 
Ivanov,  in  command  of  the  armies  of  the  South- West  Front, 
and  his  Chief  of  Staff,  General  Alexyeev,  met  the  Grand 
Duke  and  were  closeted  with  him  for  two  and  a  half  hours. 
During  this  time  we  walked  up  and  down  or  stood  about 
the  platform.  The  Grand  Duke's  train  started  back  for 
Baranovichi  at  11.30,  and  Laguiche,  Leonkevich  and  I 
remained  with  Colonel  Assanovich,  of  the  General  Staff  as 
bear-leader.  The  Grand  Duke  Peter  gave  me  a  large  flask 
of  brandy  just  before  the  train  started  and  told  me  to 
bring  it  back  empty.  It  was  an  especially  kind  thought, 
and  I  did  not  really  appreciate  its  meaning  till  we  lunched 
with  Ivanov  at  the  station  at  i  p.m. 

I  had  met  Ivanov  in  Kiev  one  and  a  half  years  before. 
He  is  a  Russian  type  of  General  beloved  by  his  men,  with 
whom  he  continually  converses.  He  is  simple  and  un- 
pretentious in  his  manner — a  contrast  to  General  Jilinski. 
Alexyeev  I  had  not  previously  met.  He  had  worked  his 
way  up  from  humble  beginnings  by  sheer  merit.  He  had 
been  Professor  at  the  Staff  College,  and  has  a  great  reputa- 
tion as  a  student  of  scientific  war. 

We  had  a  thoroughly  Russian  type  of  meal,  with  shchi, 
kasha,  etc.  Ivanov  allows  no  wine  at  his  table  till  the 
war  is  over.  It  was  interesting  to  see  Princes  Dolgorouki 
and  Karakin,  who  sat  opposite  me,  imbibing  lemonade  of  a 


50          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

particularly  sweet  type.  Prince  Bariatinski,  who  served 
ten  years  in  the  4th  Regiment  of  the  Guard,  Rifle  Brigade, 
and  is  now  attached  to  Ivanov,  sat  on  my  left.  I  talked 
Russian  with  Ivanov,  but  he  spoke  French .  to  Laguiche, 
who  sat  on  his  other  side.  He  proposed  our  healths 
amidst  cheers  and  then  kissed  us  all  three  in  turn.  After 
lunch  we  returned  to  the  first-class  wagon  to  which  our 
kit  had  been  transferred,  and  almost  at  once  the  General 
came  over  to  call  on  us.  He  sat  down  on  my  bed  and 
wrote  out  three  copies  of  a  greeting  '  from  the  General 
in  Command  of  the  South- West  Front  to  the  Armies  of  the 
Allied  Countries."  He  kissed  us  all  once  more  before 
leaving,  and  I  took  a  snapshot  of  him  as  he  got  out  of  our 
wagon.  Ivanov  has  got  an  acute  intellect  and  a  good 
memory.  He  told  us  all  that  had  happened  so  far  on  his 
"  front,"  and  detailed  the  section  of  the  frontier  occupied 
at  present  by  each  of  the  Austrian  cavalry  divisions.  The 
Russians  have  so  far  been  successful  in  all  their  encounters 
with  the  Austrians.  As  Ivanov  says,  these  may  be  only 
Landwehr  troops,  but  this  initial  success  is  having  an 
exhilarating  effect  on  the  Russian  morale.  His  headquarters 
were  for  four  days  at  Berdichev,  and  he  expects  to  spend 
ten  days  at  Rovno. 

We  spoke  to  a  fine  fellow,  over  six  feet  high,  belonging 
to  the  4th  Heavy  Artillery  Division,  a  recruit  from  Kiev 
of  the  1907  class.  He  was  down  on  his  luck  and  told  us 
that  he  had  left  a  wife  and  five  children.  We  told  him  he 
would  come  back  all  right,  but  he  shook  his  head  and  said  : 
"  They  say  it  is  a  wide  road  that  leads  to  the  war  and  only 
a  narrow  path  that  leads  home  again." 

Rovno  is  a  typical  Russian  frontier  town,  dirty  and 
dusty,  the  streets  swarming  with  Jews  who  stare  and  gape 
at  strangers. 

Ivanov  seems  to  have  a  large  staff — one  officer  said 
fifty-six  officers — but  his  personal  staff  only  accounts  for 
eight  of  them. 

We  saw  a  supply  convoy  with  grain  and  hay  for  the 


August,  1914  51 

XXIst  Corps  on  country  carts  with  tiny  ponies.  They 
stood  for  hours  waiting  the  order  to  move  forward.  Cer- 
tainly the  patience  of  the  Russian  is  a  valuable  asset ! 
The  troop  trains  seem  to  stop  unnecessarily  long  in  the 
stations,  but  there  is  no  piling  up  of  trains. 

There  are  seven  to  eight  Austrian  Cavalry  Divisions  on 
the  frontier  from  Volochisk  by  Sokal  to  Rawa  Ruska  backed 
by  the  Xth  and  XXth  Corps  in  the  triangle  Lemberg- 
Tarnopol-Brodi.  These  cover  the  concentration  of  the 
main  enemy  army  in  rear. 

Wednesday,  August  iqth,  1914  TRAIN  AT  DUBNO. 

Slept  comfortably  in  train  at  Rovno.  Left  at  8  a.m. 
in  carriage  attached  to  General  Ruzski's  train.  Arrived 
Dubno  at  10  a.m.  Introduced  to  General  Babikov,  till 
lately  commander  of  infantry  brigade,  but  now  G.Q.M.  of 
Army  and  acting  as  Chief  of  Staff  during  the  absence 
through  illness  of  General  Dragomirov.  Started  off  in  a 
motor  to  get  lunch  at  Dubno  town,  about  five  miles 
distant. 

We  passed  the  I27th  Infantry  Regiment  on  the  way  to 
Dubno.  The  weather  was  dreadful,  rain  in  torrents.  The 
Colonel  rode  at  the  head  of  the  regiment,  followed  by  a 
flag  with  the  regimental  number.  The  expression  of  most 
of  the  men  was  one  of  dull,  unreasoning  misery.  Some  of 
the  younger  men  were  singing  and  looked  cheery  enough, 
but  these  were  a  very  small  minority.  The  pace  was  such 
as  to  kill  any  troops — they  were  practically  marking  time. 
The  machine-gun  detachment  was  well  trained  and  manned 
by  men  who  had  evidently  been  picked.  The  regiment 
generally  did  not  look  like  victory. 

On  our  way  back  from  the  town  to  the  station  we 
passed  the  32nd  Field  Artillery  Brigade — a  far  better 
class  of  men  than  in  the  infantry,  but  the  horses  were,  as 
usual,  too  light.  The  drivers  carried  slung  rifles,  but  men 
on  guns  and  limbers  did  not. 

We  found  the  7th  Railway  Battalion  hard  at  work  at 


52          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

railway  (narrow  gauge)  extension  from  Kremenets  to  the 
frontier.  The  Colonel  told  me  that  he  will  later  be  em- 
ployed in  broadening  the  Austrian  railways. 

We  got  ready  to  dine  with  General  Ruzski,  as  invited, 
at  8.  Were  told  he  would  dine  at  8.30  instead.  At  8.30 
he  did  not  turn  up  at  all. 

Thursday,  August  20th,  1914.  TRAIN  AT  DUBNO. 

We  started  from  Dubno  at  9  a.m.  and  ran  in  a  motor 
to  within  five  miles  of  the  frontier  via  Mlinov  and  Demi- 
dovka.  A  beautiful  sunny  day.  From  Mlinov  on  we 
passed  an  infantry  regiment  (the  I29th).  The  transport 
seemed  good,  the  horses  remarkably  so.  Just  now  they 
are  fresh  and  difficult  to  manage,  but  the  men  work 
well,  and  it  will  all  shake  down  in  a  week  or  ten  days.  On 
our  way  back  we  ran  into  the  corps  transport,  which  had 
been  overtaken  by  ambulance  transport  and  which  was 
marching  on  a  double  front,  blocking  the  chaussee.  How- 
ever, everyone  remains  good-humoured  and  quiet  through- 
out. There  is  an  extraordinary  calmness  and  absence  of 
shouting,  and  also  of  the  abuse  which  we  sometimes  see  in 
the  management  of  our  transport.  The  Russian  has  no 
very  high  ideal  of  efficiency  to  strive  after,  so  he  is  content 
with  a  little,  and  takes  it  for  granted  that  everyone  is  doing 
his  best,  as  indeed  he  probably  is. 

At  Ostrov  we  were  received  with  open  arms  by  General 
Zegelov,  the  G.O.G.  of  the  33rd  Division ;  by  Colonel 
Chernov,  O.C.  I32nd  Regiment,  and  by  Colonel  Bredov, 
G.S.O.  of  the  division.  The  General  invited  us  into  his 
house,  the  priest's,  to  rest.  This  was  scrupulously  clean 
and  very  comfortable.  The  priest  and  his  family  had 
moved  to  another  room  and  brought  us  in  tea.  We  then 
walked  out  to  the  bivouac,  where  we  saw  two  batteries  of 
artillery,  the  guns  outside,  the  horses  tethered  by  head- 
ropes  to  both  sides  of  ropes  tied  taut  between  the  am- 
munition wagons.  We  were  introduced  to  the  commander 
of  the  R.A.  Division,  who  had  won  the  St.  George's  Cross 


August,  1914  53 

at  Port  Arthur,  and  had  distinguished  himself  more 
recently  by  fasting  for  thirty  days,  in  which  time  he  only 
took  distilled  water.  This  latter  diversion  was  to  "  give 
his  inside  a  rest."  He  said  that  he  would  have  gone  on 
fasting  longer  if  the  mobilisation  had  not  intervened. 

We  visited  one  of  the  infantry  bivouacs ;  every  man 
was  under  cover,  most  of  them  in  barns  with  a  plentiful 
supply  of  straw.  Their  foot-rags,  which  were  filthy,  were 
spread  out  to  dry.  The  march  to-day  was  only  eleven 
versts,  seven  and  a  third  miles,  and  the  men  looked  fresh 
and  happy.  They  are  a  good  lot  in  the  I32nd,  mostly 
coming  from  the  Government  of  Kursk. 

The  General  invited  us  to  dine  at  5.  We  sat  down  at 
5.45  and  had  a  good  meal  of  chicken  bouillon,  "  cutlets  " 
and  stewed  apples,  followed  by  tea.  No  drink,  and  few  of 
the  officers  smoked. 

General  Zegelov  is  quiet  and  knowledgeable.  His 
Chief  of  Staff,  Colonel  Bredov,  seems  an  excellent  officer. 
Though  the  enemy  was  only  a  march  distant,  the  staff 
seemed  to  give  its  whole  time  and  attention  to  us  during 
the  six  hours  we  were  at  Berestechko.  They  are  cer- 
tainly confident  and  devoid  of  worry.  One  wonders  whether 
this  is  the  result  of  trust  based  on  training,  that  all  must 
be  well,  or  simply  slackness  in  allowing  things  to  rip. 

The  XXIst  Corps  is  advancing  on  the  right  of  the  3rd 
Army,  with  its  three  divisions  from  right  to  left  as  follows  : 
6gth,  44th,  33rd.  As  many  roads  as  possible  are  made 
use  of.  When  a  chaussee  is  available  all  the  transport  is 
marched  along  it.  Each  regiment  of  the  division  is 
covered  by  its  own  outposts  at  night. 

The  Division  had  a  half-section  of  the  Frontier  Guard 
as  divisional  cavalry  pending  the  arrival  of  the  2nd 
Category  Cossacks,  two  to  three  squadrons  of  which  will 
be  allotted  to  each  infantry  division.  The  advanced 
guard  was  commanded  by  the  brigade  commander.1 

1  The  Russian  infantry  division  had  in  war-time  only  a  single  "  brigade  com- 
mander."   This  officer  was  really  "  second  in  command  "  of  the  division, 


54          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

We  sheltered  during  a  shower  in  a  small  room  in  one  of 
the  farmhouses,  and  found  all  the  officers  of  a  battalion — 
sixteen  of  them — including  the  priest,  had  their  beds 
spread  out  side  by  side,  almost  touching. 

The  IXth  and  Xth  Corps,  like  the  XXIst,  have  each 
got  a  reserve  division.  The  Xlth  Corps  (Rovno)  has  not, 
as  it  is  quartered  almost  on  the  frontier.  The  reserve 
divisions  with  these  three  corps  are  moving  forward  with 
the  regular  divisions.  General  Zegelov  said  that  he 
thought  the  reserve  divisions  were  only  slightly  inferior  to 
the  regular  ones. 

The  Opolchenie  has  been  so  far  simply  used  to  keep 
local  order  and  for  local  defence.  It  is  clothed  in  what- 
ever uniforms  the  local  regular  regiment  happens  to  have 
available  for  issue. 

Assanovich  told  us  at  11.30  p.m.  that  the  3rd  Army 
would  not  advance  to-morrow  (2ist),  as  time  had  to  be 
allowed  to  General  Brusilov  to  move  forward  from  Pros- 
kurov  into  line.  To-morrow  we  return  to  Rovno  en  route 
for  Baranovichi. 

i 

Friday,  August  2ist,  1914.  BARANOVICHI. 

Laguiche  is  much  worried  by  the  delay  of  the  French 

offensive  in  the  West.    There  are  always  so  many  people 

devoted  to  the  principle  of  the  offensive  in  peace  who 

hesitate  to  risk  it  in  war. 

We  arrived  at  Baranovichi  at  8  p.m.,  dined  at  the 
station,  and  then  drove  to  the  Grand  Duke's  train  with 
Colonel  Kotsub6,  who  had  just  arrived  from  carrying 
despatches  to  Rennenkampf.  It  appears  that  the  latter 
has  had  considerable  losses. 

Saturday,  August  22nd,  1914.  BARANOVICHI. 

Laguiche  received  despatches  yesterday  to  the  effect 

that  several  Austrian  corps  are  on  the  left  of  the  Germans 

on  the  Alsatian  frontier.     He  represented  to  the  Grand 

Puke  the  importance  of  rapidity  in  the  Russian  offensive 


August,  1914  55 

in  order  to  relieve  pressure  on  the  Allies  in  the  Western 
theatre.  The  Grand  Duke  said  that  he  had  sent  orders  to 
Brusilov  to  advance  as  rapidly  as  possible,  which  he  is  doing. 
Rennenkampf  has  taken  Lyck  and,  it  is  reported,  Tilsit, 
but  these  places  have  no  great  importance.  Only  his 
advance  on  the  line  Stalluponen-Insterburg  in  combination 
with  Samsonov's  movement  to  the  north  can  clear  Eastern 
Prussia  as  a  preparatory  movement  to  the  vital  advance. 

Laguiche  and  I  on  return  from  a  ride  found  General 
Ewarth,  the  Gommander  of  the  Irkutsk  Military  District, 
at  lunch  at  the  Grand  Duke's  table.  After  lunch  General 
Danilov  told  us  that  we  might  go  to-morrow  to  visit 
Samsonov's  Army.  The  question  is,  how  much  shall  we 
see  ?  The  place  to  be  at  present  is  right  of  Samsonov  or 
left  of  Rennenkampf. 

Orders  have  been  given  to  push  the  offensive  ener- 
getically. Brusilov  is  two  marches  within  Austrian 
territory,  Ruzski  crosses  the  frontier  to-day,  Plehve  and 
Salza  are  only  slightly  in  rear.  The  Ilnd  Corps  on  Sam- 
sonov's right  has  reached  Arys. 

Rennenkampf  has  won  an  important  action  at  Gum- 
binnen.  Russians  think  three  German  Corps  were  en- 
gaged. The  enemy  asked  for  leave  to  bury  his  dead  and 
this  was  refused.  I  was  reading  the  notice  when  the 
Grand  Duke  called  me  to  come  and  talk  to  him.  He 
asked  me  where  I  wanted  to  go,  and  said  I  might  go  to 
Samsonov  now,  and  if  I  wished  to  change  later  to  send 
him  a  telegram  direct  and  he  would  arrange  it.  He  was 
quite  cheery  again  when  I  went  to  say  good-bye  to  him 
after  meeting  Sir  J.  Hanbury- Williams  at  the  station. 
We  left  camp  and  all  the  good  fellows  there  at  i  a.m. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE  DISASTER  TO  THE  2ND  ARMY, 
I-        •  /  '     AUGUST,  1914 

REFERENCE  MAPS  Nos.  I.  AND  II 

AS  has  been  shown  in  Chapter  I.,  the  original  Russian  plan  of 
campaign  was  changed  during  mobilisation  with  the 
object  of  helping  the  Allies  in  the  West.  On  the  Russian  right 
General  Jilinski,  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  North- West  Front, 
launched  the  ist  and  2nd  Armies  into  the  East  Prussian  salient 
with  the  task  of  concentrating  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Allenstein 
and  so  turning  the  defences  of  the  difficult  lake  and  forest  country 
of  Masuria. 

The  ist  Army  crossed  the  eastern  frontier  of  East  Prussia  on 
August  I7th  and  drove  back  the  Germans  at  Stalluponen.  On 
the  20th  it  defeated  them  at  Gumbinnen.  Meanwhile  the  Com- 
mander of  the  8th  German  Army,  von  Prittwitz,  became  aware  of 
the  advance  of  the  2nd  Russian  Army,  which  crossed  the  southern 
frontier  of  East  Prussia  on  the  2 ist  and  occupied  Willenberg, 
Ortelsburg  and  Neidenburg  on  the  following  day.  Alarmed  for 
the  safety  of  his  communications,  after  a  first  panicky  decision  to 
abandon  all  East  Prussia  and  to  retire  to  the  lower  Vistula,  he 
ordered  the  withdrawal  to  the  line  of  the  River  Passarge.  He 
was  superseded  in  command  by  General  Hindenburg,  who  arrived 
with  his  Chief  of  Staff,  General  Ludendorff,  on  August  23rd.  The 
energy  of  the  new  Command  at  once  changed  the  situation.  The 
German  8th  Army,  which  had  been  defeated  at  Gumbinnen,  was 
withdrawn  by  road  and  rail  to  envelop  and  annihilate  the 
Russian  2nd  Army  in  one  of  the  most  striking  victories  of 
history. 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  57 

Sunday,  August  z^rd,  1914.  TRAIN. 

Our  train  left  Baranovichi  at  8  a.m.  We  three — 
Laguiche,  Leonkevich  and  I — are  bear-led  by  Captain 
Anders,  of  the  General  Staff,  a  very  fat  fellow,  but  a  very 
good  fellow. 

It  is  gathered  from  various  sources  that  the  situation 
on  the  North- Western  Front  is  now  something  as  follows  : 

The  ist  Army  under  General  Rennenkampf  on  the 
right,  consisting  mainly  of  troops  from  the  Vilna  Military 
District,  was  ready  before  the  2nd  Army  and  crossed  the 
East  Prussian  frontier  about  the  I7th.  The  ist  and  2nd 
Guard  Cavalry  Divisions  and  the  2nd  Cavalry  Division 
are  operating  on  its  right  as  one  corps  under  General 
Khan  Nakhichevanski,  the  commander  of  the  2nd  Division, 
and  the  ist  and  3rd  Cavalry  Divisions  are  working  on  its 
left  under  General  Gurko,  the  commander  of  the  ist 
Division. 

This  Army  has  been  continuously  engaged  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Stalluponen  and  Gumbinnen,  but  the 
Germans,  whose  strength  is  reported  to  have  equalled 
three  corps,  are  stated  to-day  to  be  in  full  retreat. 

The  2nd  Army,  under  General  Samsonov,  was  pushed 
forward  before  its  concentration  was  completed.  On  its 
right  the  Ilnd  Corps  from  Grodna  occupied  the  town  of 
Lyck.  The  Vlth  Corps  from  Byelostok  and  Lomja  crossed 
the  frontier  about  Mishinets.  The  XHIth  Corps,  which 
had  detrained  at  Ostrolenka,  crossed  the  frontier  at 
Khorjele  and  occupied  Willenberg  and  Ortelsburg  on  the 
22nd.  The  XVth  Corps  from  Ostrov  and  Warsaw  crossed 
the  frontier  at  Yanov,  south-east  of  Neidenburg,  on  the 
2  ist,  and  occupied  the  latter  town  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
22nd.  As  the  Cossack  patrols  were  fired  upon  by  civilians 
from  houses,  General  Martos  bombarded  the  town,  reducing 
most  of  the  houses  in  the  centre  square  to  ruins.  The 
advance  was  apparently  unexpected  by  the  enemy,  and 
the  baggage  of  officers,  including  staff  maps,  was  found  in 
the  hotel 


58          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

We  arrived  at  Byelostok  at  3  p.m.  and  called  at  once 
on  General  Jilinski.  He  asked  us  to  remain  to  dinner, 
but  we  had  decided  to  go  on  by  a  train  at  7  p.m.  to  Sam- 
sonov's  headquarters  at  Ostrolenka. 

Jilinski  spoke  of  Rennenkampf's  large  losses  and  said 
that  Samsonov  was  moving  too  slowly.  He  told  us  that 
he  had  taken  the  Ilnd  Corps  from  Samsonov  to  fill  the 
interval  and  to  act  as  a  sort  of  connection  between  the 
two  armies  by  masking  the  fortress  of  Lotzen.  It  is  true 
that  Samsonov  has  occupied  Johannisburg,  Ortelsburg  and 
Neidenburg,  but  Jilinski  thinks  he  should  be  by  now  at 
Allenstein.  He  repeated  that  he  was  dissatisfied  with 
Samsonov  for  moving  too  slowly.1 

The  Commander-in-Ghief  went  on  to  point  out  the 
difficulty  of  his  task  compared  with  that  set  Ivanov  on  the 
South- West  Front.  The  Austrians  surrender  willingly, 
many  of  them  having  Slav  sympathies.  It  is  a  different 
matter  with  the  Prussians.  A  woman  in  East  Prussia 
the  other  day,  when  asked  by  General  Tolpigo,  the  com- 
mander of  the  4th  Cavalry  Division,  if  there  were  any 
Germans  in  a  village,  drew  a  revolver  and  fired  at  him. 
Luckily  she  missed,  and  was  at  once  cut  down.  On 
another  occasion  a  Cossack  asking  a  woman  for  milk  was 
shot  dead. 

Jilinski 's  quarters  are  as  peaceful  as  the  Grand  Duke's. 
He  occupies  a  bungalow  belonging  to  one  of  the  officers 
now  at  the  front. 

We  were  the  centre  of  an  admiring  crowd,  generally  of 


1  Hindenburg  and  Ludendorff  arrived  at  Marienburg  at  2  p.m.  on  August 
23rd.  That  evening  Hindenburg  communicated  to  Supreme  Headquarters  his 
plan  to  "  deploy  the  army  on  the  XXth  Corps  by  August  26th  for  an  enveloping 
attack." 

His  plan  was  for  the  XXth  Corps,  reinforced  by  the  3rd  Reserve  Division 
(railed  from  Angerburg  to  Allenstein)  to  delay  the  enemy's  centre,  while  the 
1st  Corps  (railed  from  Insterburg  to  Deutsch-Eylau)  arrived  on  the  enemy's 
left,  and  the  XVIIth  and  1st  Reserve  Corps  approached  his  right  by  road. — 
Article  by  Hermann  Giehrl  in  Wissen  und  Wehr,  p.  64,  Mittler  und  Sohn. 
J3erlin,  1920. 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  59 

several  hundreds,  if  we  stood  still  for  even  a  few  minutes 
at  Byelostok. 

Monday,  August  z^th,  1914.  MLAVA. 

We  arrived  at  Ostrolenka  early  in  the  morning.  It  is 
a  typical  Polish,  or  rather,  Jewish,  town,  for  three-fourths  of 
the  population  at  least  are  Jews.  All  the  fairly  decent 
houses  are  on  the  centre  square.  The  only  things  that 
strike  a  Westerner  are  the  general  filth  and  the  swarms  of 
squalid  Jewish  children.  I  had  visited  Ostrolenka  and 
gathered  a  rough  knowledge  of  the  neighbouring  country 
when  I  rode  on  a  bicycle  in  the  autumn  of  1911  from 
Warsaw  to  Konigsberg.  I  then  followed  Benigsen's  route 
of  1806-7,  ascending  the  Narev  from  Pultusk  through 
Rojan  to  Ostrolenka  and  Lomja,  crossing  the  frontier  at 
Lyck  and  turning  west  through  Johannisburg,  Ortelsburg, 
and  Willenberg  to  Neidenburg,  whence,  after  a  contre- 
temps with  the  German  officials,  I  rode  north  through 
Allenstein  and  Gutstadt  to  Konigsberg. 

At  ii  a.m.  we  called  on  General  Samsonov.  I  had 
first  met  him  last  year  at  the  Turkistan  manoeuvres.  I 
distinctly  remember  the  night  he  arrived.  It  was  late  and 
the  men  were  standing  round  camp  fires.  As  the  General 
reached  each  group  he  exchanged  greetings  with  the  men 
in  the  ordinary  Russian  manner,  and  then  caught  hold  of 
the  soldier  standing  nearest,  or  sometimes  dived  into  the 
middle  of  a  group,  and  commenced  a  running  fire  of 
chaffing  questions,  such  as  :  "  Where  do  you  come  from  ? ' 
"  Are  you  married  ?  "  "  Well,  your  wife  won't  know  you 
when  you  get  back.  Look  at  the  beard  you  have  grown !  ' 
"  Have  you  any  children  ?  When  I  went  to  the  war  in 
1904  I  left  a  daughter  one  and  a  half  years  old,  and  when  I 
came  back  she  ran  away  from  me." 

At  that  time  opinion  in  Russia  was  divided  as  to 
whether  Samsonov  or  Rennenkampf  was  the  more  capable 
soldier.  Many  people  thought  that  Rennenkampf  was 
the  more  daring  and  that  Samsonov  had  got  out  of  touch 


60          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

with  military  ideas  in  the  four  years  he  had  spent  in 
administration. 

I  grew  to  like  him  in  the  four  days  we  spent  together 
in  the  mountains  south-east  of  Samarkand.  He  was,  as 
so  many  Russians  are,  of  a  simple,  kindly  nature,  and  his 
staff  were  all  devoted  to  him.  At  the  time  he  was  much 
engrossed  by  problems  for  the  development  of  the  rich 
provinces  committed  to  his  charge.  Neither  Samsonov 
nor  Rennenkampf  commanded  much  more  than  a  division 
of  cavalry  against  the  Japanese,  and  Samsonov's  work 
since  then  has  been  but  a  poor  preparation  for  the  command 
of  a  large  army  in  modern  war. 

Samsonov  is  now  fifty-five.  He  arrived  at  Ostrolenka 
on  the  i6th,  having  been  summoned  from  the  Caucasus, 
where  he  was  on  leave  with  his  wife.  We  lunched  with 
him  in  the  infantry  barracks  near  the  town  at  i  p.m., 
before  leaving  at  3.30  to  drive  by  car  via  Rojan  and 
Prasnish  to  Mlava.  He  received  us  most  kindly,  remark- 
ing how  different  it  was  to  meet  foreign  attaches  under 
present  conditions.  In  the  Russo-Japanese  war  the 
British  attaches  were  always  looked  upon  with  a  certain 
amount  of  distrust,  and  he  confessed  there  was  some- 
thing of  thsamee  feeling  towards  me  in  Turkistan  last 
autumn. 

The  following  troops  are  advancing  north  from  right 
to  left :  4th  Cavalry  Division,  Vlth,  XHIth,  XVth  Corps 
and  (2nd  Division)  XXIIIrd  Corps,  6th  and  I5th  Cavalry 
Divisions.  The  1st  Corps  is  in  readiness  as  a  general 
reserve  near  Soldau.  Just  before  lunch  a  telegram  arrived 
from  Martos,  the  commander  of  the  XVth  Corps,  to  report 
that  he  had  captured  two  guns  and  two  machine-guns  and 
was  bivouacking  to-night  at  Orlau  and  Frankenau,  north  of 
Neidenburg.  The  general  line  occupied  to-night  will 
stretch  from  north  of  Ortelsburg  to  north  of  Neidenburg. 
It  is  hoped  to  occupy  Allenstein  to-morrow. 

Samsonov's  Chief  of  the  Staff,  General  Postovski, 
characterises  the^  advance  of  the  2nd  Army  as 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  61 

adventure."  Sufficient  time  has  not  been  allowed  for  the 
mobilisation  and  the  transport  is  not  up.  The  advance 
should  have  commenced  on  the  2oth  instead  of  the  i6th. 
The  officer  in  charge  of  the  rear  services  is  much  worried 
regarding  the  difficulty  of  evacuating  the  wounded.  General 
Postovski  has  spent  nearly  all  his  service  in  the  Warsaw 
Military  District  and  has  acted  as  G.Q.M.  of  the  District 
for  over  four  years.  He  complains  of  the  difficulty  of 
assuming  the  offensive  in  a  region  which  has  been  pur- 
posely left  roadless  in  order  to  delay  the  expected 
German  offensive.  It  will  be  the  same  in  the  Lyublin 
Government. 

Rennenkampf  is  expected  to  occupy  Insterberg  to- 
night. The  first  reserve  divisions  to  arrive  on  the  front 
will  be  directed  to  Rennenkampf  and  the  next  lot  to 
Samsonov.  Samsonov's  reserve  divisions  are  now  gar- 
risoning fortresses,  but  will  soon  move  forward  to  join  the 
active  army. 

At  Mlava  we  put  up  for  the  night  in  an  hotel  kept  by  a 
pretty  Polish  woman.  Our  hostess  told  us  that  her  hus- 
band had  gone  to  serve.  The  German  troops  had  robbed 
her  of  Rs.i,ooo  during  their  occupation  of  the  town,  and 
they  paid  for  what  they  took  by  paper  receipts  which  were 
now  of  no  value.  The  population  of  the  town  was  de- 
lighted when  the  Russian  advance  caused  the  Germans  to 
retire.  It  is  said  that  as  we  advance  in  Masuria  the  Ger- 
man population  retires  and  the  Poles  remain.  In  fact, 
since  the  Grand  Duke's  proclamation,  the  attitude  of  the 
Poles  is  all  that  could  be  desired. 

I  occupied  a  room  with  the  Serb,  who  gave  me  a  great 
imitation  of  the  "  Orchestra  of  Battle,"  the  result  of  his 
experiences  in  the  Balkan  Campaign. 

The  Russians  are  adding  a  third  rail  to  the  Warsaw- 
Mlava  line  in  order  to  bring  up  the  Warsaw- Vienna  rolling- 
stock  for  use  in  East  Prussia. 

Each  army  corps  forms  its  own  line  of  communications. 
The  first  post  on  the  line  of  communications  of  the  XHIth 


62          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Corps  was  seen  at  Ostrolenka.  On  the  road  to  Mlava  were 
few  Government  carts,  but  large  parks  of  requisitioned 
transport,  and  at  Prasnish  twenty  to  thirty  automobiles. 
Martos  in  his  telegram  to-day  reported  that  the  XXth 
German  Corps,  in  strength  three  divisions,  was  facing 
him.  Samsonov  had  arranged  to  move  from  Ostrolenka 
to  Ortelsburg  to-day,  but  was  kept  back  by  Jilinski  pending 
the  opening  of  a  direct  wire  to  Ortelsburg. 

Tuesday,  August  2$th,  1914.  NEIDENBURG. 

We  left  Mlava  at  9  a.m.  and  drove  by  a  grand  chaussee 
to  Neidenburg.  The  corps  transport  of  the  ist  Corps 
arrived  at  Mlava  in  the  night,  after  a  march  of  thirty-five 
versts,  and  started  forward  to  Soldau  at  the  same  time  as 
we  did. 

As  we  passed  the  frontier,  half-way  to  Neidenburg,  I 
said  to  Anders  that  I  wanted  to  photograph  our  group 
at  the  frontier  barrier.  He  said :  "At  the  former 
frontier." 

Neidenburg  looks  very  different  from  its  appearance 
nearly  three  years  ago,  when  I  was  arrested  by  a  gendarme 
on  a  charge  of  espionage.  Most  of  the  houses  in  the  main 
square  have  been  shot  about  and  burned  down. 

We  drove  on  to  see  General  Martos,  the  commander  of 
the  XVth  Corps,  a  small  man  with  a  grey  beard  and  a 
great  reputation  as  a  disciplinarian.  He  said  that  as  his 
cavalry  had  been  fired  on  by  civilians  on  entering  Neiden- 
burg, he  had  given  orders  to  bombard  the  town.  Accord- 
ing to  one  of  the  waitresses  at  the  hotel,  the  Cossacks  were 
fired  upon  by  a  military  patrol  of  thirty  men  and  not  by 
civilians.  This  happened  on  the  afternoon  of  Saturday, 
22nd.  Martos,  however,  seems  as  kind-hearted  as  most 
Russians  are,  and  described  how  uncomfortable  he  felt 
living  in  a  house  that  the  owners  had  left  without  taking 
time  to  pack  their  little  belongings  and  photographs.  He 
had  himself  carried  back  in  his  motor  little  children  that  he 
found  near  the  battlefield.  Soon  after  we  left  we  heard  an 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  63 

outburst  of  firing  at  a  German  aeroplane  which  floated 
over  us  at  a  height  of  about  1,000  metres,  quite  unharmed. 

We  then  drove  on  to  Lahna,  occupied  by  the  3ist 
Regiment,  who  had  taken  it  two  days  before.  We  found 
ourselves  the  centre  of  a  throng  of  cheering  men.  We 
lunched  at  a  wayside  cottage,  and,  escorted  by  Cossacks 
to  prevent  mistakes  as  to  our  identity,  we  drove  to 
Frankenau  to  visit  General  Torklus,  the  G.O.G.  6th  Divi- 
sion. Torklus,  who  is  a  Lett,  spoke  German  willingly. 
He  sent  his  A.D.G.  and  an  officer  of  the  Intendance  to 
show  us  over  the  right  flank  of  the  German  position. 

It  appears  that  after  occupying  Neidenburg  on  the 
22nd,  the  XVth  Corps,  moving  north  in  three  columns,  on 
the  23rd  came  upon  the  enemy  in  an  extended  position 
about  5  p.m.  This  position  faced  south  and  stretched  from 
Frankenau  on  the  right  or  western  flank  by  Lahna  to  Orlau. 
It  was  held  by  a  line  of  riflemen  supported  by  artillery  and, 
it  is  said,  without  reserves.  Prisoners  state  that  they  had 
been  told  to  hold  on  till  the  last  as  they  were  to  gain  time 
for  the  concentration  of  troops  in  rear.  The  German 
strength  is  estimated  at  three  divisions  of  the  XXth  Corps, 
but  all  the  dead  I  saw  on  the  hills  south  of  Frankenau 
belonged  to  the  I5oth  Regiment.  The  Russians  had  two 
divisions.  Probably  the  whole  Russian  force  did  not 
come  into  action ;  on  the  other  hand,  I  much  doubt 
whether  the  Germans  had  more  than  a  division. 

The  centre  of  the  German  position  at  the  village  of 
Lahna  was  weak,  as  the  trenches  had  only  a  field  of  fire 
some  three  hundred  yards  on  the  left  front.  The  village 
was  carried  by  the  3ist  Regiment  with  the  bayonet  at 
8.30  p.m.  on  the  23rd. 

The  left  flank  at  Orlau  and  the  right  at  Frankenau 
proved  more  difficult.  Both  were,  however,  carried  on 
the  morning  of  the  24th,  the  German  left  by  the  ist  Brigade 
of  the  8th  Division  and  the  trenches  south  of  Frankenau 
by  the  6th  Division. 

The  attack  of  the  2nd  Brigade  of  the  6th  Division  which 


64          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

carried  the  German  right  was  supported  by  two  field 
batteries  from  a  covered  position  at  a  range  of  about  5,500 
yards  from  the  left  rear  of  the  attack,  and  by  one  battery 
from  a  position,  also  concealed,  3,400  yards  directly  south 
of  the  defenders'  line.  The  latter  battery  did  remarkable 
execution,  and  the  greater  number  of  the  German  corpses 
seen  were  killed  by  shrapnel.  The  Russian  attack  was  also 
supported  by  howitzer  fire. 

The  attackers  advanced  to  within  about  700  yards 
before  they  were  stopped  by  darkness.  They  lay  all  night 
in  their  position  and  managed  to  creep  forward  another 
hundred  yards  before  dawn,  when  they  were  ordered  to 
carry  the  trenches  at  all  costs.  The  last  600  yards  were 
carried  in  three  rushes.  Few  of  the  defenders  waited  for 
the  bayonet.  Two  Russian  companies  detailed  to  turn 
the  enemy's  right  did  valuable  work,  and  the  enemy  in  his 
retirement  had  not  time  to  occupy  a  second  trench  just 
south  of  Frankenau,  which  was  covered  by  a  barbed  wire 
entanglement. 

The  Russians  used  the  spade  freely  in  the  attack.  I 
saw  rifle  trenches  scooped  out  within  130  yards  of  the 
defenders'  trenches.  The  German  machine-guns  were 
deadly,  mowing  down  rows  of  Russians  immediately  they 
raised  themselves  in  the  potato-fields  to  fire  or  to  ad- 
vance. The  Russian  artillery  quickly  silenced  the  German 
guns. 

General  Martos  complained  that  he  received  no  help 
from  the  XHIth  Corps  on  his  right,  that  the  front  of 
fourteen  versts  allotted  to  his  corps  was  too  wide  to  fight 
on,  and  that  there  was  delay  in  getting  through  messages 
to  and  receiving  replies  from  Army  Headquarters. 

The  Russians  estimate  their  loss  in  this  action  of  the 
23rd-24th  at  4,000  men  and  that  of  the  Germans — but 
this  is  mere  guesswork — at  6,000.  One  Russian  regiment 
had  nine  company  commanders  killed  out  of  sixteen,  and 
one  company  which  went  into  action  190  strong  lost  all 
its  officers  and  120  men  killed. 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  65 

The  sight  of  the  corpses  was  awful.  We  saw  German 
and  Russian  wounded  being  carried  from  a  field  on  which 
they  must  have  lain  at  least  thirty-six  hours. 

The  Russians  seem  to  have  treated  the  wounded 
humanely.  We  were  told  of  a  German  officer  who  was 
being  carried  wounded  from  the  field  and  who  drew  his 
revolver  and  shot  one  of  the  stretcher-bearers.  All  the 
German  inhabitants  have  fled.  The  war  on  the  German 
side  will  be  a  bitter  one. 

General  Martos  received  to-day  the  2nd  Division  of  the 
XXIIIrd  Corps,  and  is  to  have  the  rest  of  the  other  division 
(the  3rd  Guard)  of  that  corps  placed  under  his  orders  as 
it  arrives. 

The  country  is  difficult,  and  unfortunately  there  seems 
to  be  a  lack  of  proper  co-operation  between  the  Russian 
corps  commanders,  who,  if  they  worked  properly  together, 
should  be  able  to  advance  rapidly  by  at  once  turning  the 
flanks  of  the  inferior  enemy  forces.  The  enemy  are 
reported  to  be  fortifying  Hohenstein.  The  XVth  Corps 
was  halting  to-day,  though  firing  ceased  at  9  a.m.  yesterday. 
Nothing  is  known  of  the  position  of  the  XHIth  and  Vlth 
Corps  to-night.  Things  will  have  to  move  more  quickly 
for  the  Russians  to  do  any  good  in  the  preliminary  cam- 
paign in  East  Prussia,  the  object  of  which  should  be  to 
annihilate  the  two  or  three  German  corps  here  together 
with  their  reserve  divisions  before  they  can  be  reinforced. 

Poor  Neidenburg  is  in  darkness  and  without  water 
owing  to  the  bombardment,  but  we  are  made  comfortable 
enough  at  the  hotel. 

There  was  an  instance  to-day  of  the  want  of  business- 
like method  in  the  Russian  character.  While  we  were 
visiting  General  Torklus,  his  A.D.C.  was  rummaging 
through  the  German  post-bag,  which  had  been  captured 
in  Frahkenau  thirty-six  hours  before,  when  the  Germans 
were  driven  back.  This  youth  was  simply  satisfying  his 
curiosity  by  prying  into  private  letters  to  parents  and 
sweethearts  that,  considering  the  circumstances  under 

E 


66          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

which  they  were  written,  should  have  been  sacred  from  all 
examination  except  in  the  interests  of  the  public  service. 
We  suggested  that  this  correspondence  might  contain 
information  of  value,  and  the  General  said  to  his 
A.D.G. :  "  Yes,  I  forgot  to  tell  you  to  write  a  note  to  the 

Regiment  to  send  over  an  officer  to  go  through  it. 

You  had  better  do  this  at  once."  As  we  went  out,  a 
young  officer  came  up  and  saluted,  and  said  that  the 
German  scholar  of  the  regiment  was  on  outpost  duty,  but 
that  he  knew  a  little  German.  The  General  said  "  a  little 
German '  was  not  sufficient  and  that  he  would  apply  to 
another  regiment.  Heaven  knows  how  much  longer  the 
reading  of  the  correspondence  was  deferred,  and  yet  it 
might  have  contained  very  vital  information.  It  is 
extraordinary  to  think  that  a  division  should  go  forward 
without  its  Intelligence  Officer  earmarked.  There  seems 
to  have  been  a  great  deal  of  sleeping  after  the  position 
was  carried — yet  the  staff  officer  should  never  sleep  ! 

Dear  old  Torklus  seemed  more  interested  in  the 
psychology  of  his  men  and  in  the  effect  on  them  of  their 
baptism  of  fire  than  in  any  preparations  for  a  continuation 
of  the  advance.  He  told  us  how  delighted  he  was  with  their 
spirit,  for  he  had  spent  much  time  watching  them  from 
the  window  of  the  little  cottage  where  his  headquarters 
were,  and  he  could  detect  no  trace  of  nerve-strain. 

The  position  of  the  2nd  Army  to-night  is  approxi- 
mately : 

4th  Cavalry  Division  and  Vlth  Corps  :  North-west  and 
north  of  Ortelsburg. 

XHIth  Corps  :    Gimmendorf-Kurken. 

XVth  Corps  :   Orlau-Frankenau. 

2nd  Division  and  Keksgolmski  Regiment  (of  the  3rd 
Guard  Infantry  Division)  :  Lippau. 

6th  and  I5th  Cavalry  Divisions  and  ist  Corps  :  North- 
west and  west  of  Usdau. 

Three  regiments  of  3rd  Guard,  Infantry  Division : 
Detraining  at  Ilovo. 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  67 

It  is  reported  that  the  enemy  is  preparing  to  offer 
battle  on  the  line  Miihlen-Nadrau-Lansk.  J 


Wednesday,  August  26th,  1914.  NEIDENBURG. 

The  G.O.G.  XVth  Corps  has  ordered  the  advance  of 
his  three  divisions  direct  to  the  north  in  five  columns  of 
strength  from  right  to  left  of  twelve  battalions,  eight 
battalions,  twelve  battalions,  eight  battalions  and  eight 
battalions.  The  Vlth  and  XHIth  Corps  also  continue 
their  advance  to  the  north.  2 

Anders,  the  G.S.  Officer,  who  accompanies  us,  refused 
to  move  out  alone,  as  we  had  been  nearly  fired  upon 
twice  yesterday  owing  to  Laguiche's  red  kepi.  We  went 
out  with  an  automobile  column. 

We  drove  out  to  Grosz  Nattaisch  (north-east  of  Neiden- 
burg),  where  we  were  met  by  the  divisional  transport  of 
the  ist  Division  (XHIth  Army  Corps).  The  automobile 
company  took  back  twenty  wounded — nine  Germans  and 
eleven  Russians— casualties  in  an  advance  guard  skirmish 
of  the  XHIth  Corps  on  the  24th.  One  of  the  men  had  had 
an  extraordinary  escape,  a  bullet  entering  on  the  right  of 
his  nose  and  traversing  the  head,  going  out  behind  the 
left  ear.  The  man  was  sitting  up  in  the  cart,  but  confessed 
he  did  not  feel  quite  well ! 

There  was  bad  staff  work  in  starting.  The  Automobile 
Colonel — a  delightful  fellow  to  talk  to — was  quite  unable 
to  read  a  map,  so  we  went  three  miles  on  the  wrong  road, 
and  the  heavy  cars  had  to  turn  to  the  right  about  on  a 
sandy  track.  It  did  not  occur  to  him  that  he  should  have 
reconnoitred  the  road  in  his  light  car  while  the  transport 
cars  were  taking  in  petrol  at  Neidenburg.  Yet  the 
Russians  seem  to  muddle  through  in  a  happy-go-lucky  way. 


1  On  the  evening  of  the  25th  the  German  Ist  Reserve  Corps  reached  Seeburg, 
and  the  XVIIth  Corps,  after  a  5O-kilometre  march,  reached  Bischofstein. — 
Wissen  und  Wehr. 

3  The  Russian  orders  for  the  advance  on  the  26th  were  picked  up  by  the 
German  wireless  on  the  25th. — Wissen  und  Wehr,  p.  186. 


68          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

We  were  stopped  in  our  attempt  to  get  to  the  head- 
quarters of  the  XHIth  Corps  at  Kurken  by  the  sand  on 
the  road,  so  drove  back  to  Neidenburg.  We  reached 
Neidenburg  at  5  p.m.,  and  met  General  Samsonov,  who  had 
just  arrived  by  car  from  Ostrolenka.  He  told  me  that 
he  thought  of  sending  me  to  the  1st  Corps — on  his  left — 
as  "  things  promised  to  be  lively  there/1 

He  asked  us  all  to  dinner,  and  as  we  started  sent  back 
Postovski  to  get  his  sword,  remarking  that  he  was  now  in 
an  enemy's  country  and  must  go  armed. 

We  dined  with  the  Town  Commandant,  a  colonel  of  the 
30th  Regiment,  in  the  Governor's  office,  where  I  had  been 
searched  nearly  three  years  ago.  The  Chief  of  Staff  said 
that  the  whole  of  the  2nd  Army  was  making  a  wheel  to  the 
left  pivoted  on  the  XVth  Corps.  He  spoke  of  general  com- 
plaints of  the  enemy's  use  of  hand-grenades.  It  is  curious 
that  we  heard  nothing  of  them  in  Frankenau  yesterday. 

Samsonov  worried  because  he  had  not  yet  received  a 
letter  from  his  wife. 

There  was  a  dramatic  incident  in  the  middle  of  the 
meal.  An  officer  brought  in  a  telegram  for  the  G.  of  S. 
and  said  that  the  G.O.C.  1st  Corps  wished  to  speak  on  the 
telephone  with  the  Army  Commander  or  the.  Chief  of 
Staff.  He  said  he  was  hotly  engaged.  General  Postovski 
put  on  his  pince-nez,  read  the  telegram,  and  he  and  General 
Samsonov  buckled  on  their  swords,  said  good-bye  to  the 
Commandant,  and  left  at  once. 

It  appears  that  this  attack  on  the  1st  Corps  was  not 
unexpected.  This  corps  is  at  Usdau,  and  was  known  to  be 
faced  by  a  German  corps  which  was  reinforced  to-day. 
I  tried  to  induce  Anders  to  start  off  for  the  1st  Corps,  but 
without  effect. 

A  few  of  the  local  German  inhabitants  are  coming  back. 
I  went  into  a  house  at  Nattaisch  to  ask  for  a  German 
paper.  The  man  told  me  that  the  Cossacks  had  robbed  him 
of  everything.  When  I  asked  him  where  his  wife  was,  he 
began  to  cry. 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  69 

One  of  the  local  women  who  is  helping  the  Red  Gross 
with  the  wounded  asked  me  to-day  what  was  the  use  of 
war.  A  difficult  question  !  I  said  that  it  was  entirely 
the  fault  of  the  Kaiser.  She  said  that  none  of  the  local 
Germans  wanted  war,  that  they  cried  when  they  went 
away  and  said  they  hoped  there  would  soon  be  peace. 
She  complained  of  the  Cossacks,  but  acknowledged  that 
the  Russians  were  now  behaving  well.  She  confessed 
that  some  young  firebrand  had  fired  on  the  Russian  troops, 
and  I  told  her  that  it  was  owing  to  that  solely  that  a  large 
part  of  Neidenburg  had  been  destroyed.  She  said  Willen- 
berg  had  been  similarly  treated.  (This  was  untrue.) 

Anders  came  back  from  the  Army  Staff  at  9  p.m.  and 
told  us  something  of  the  situation  : 

General  Artamonov  with  the  H.Q.  of  the  1st  Corps  at 
Usdau  is  in  occupation  of  a  line  west-north-west  of  that 
village.  He  telephoned  to  Samsonov  that  he  expected 
to  be  attacked  by  two  to  three  divisions  advancing  from 
the  north-west,  and  aerial  reconnaissance  had  revealed 
another  division  advancing  against  him  from  Lautenburg. 
He  asked  for  the  2nd  Division.  Samsonov  told  him  that 
the  brigade  of  the  3rd  Guard  Division  at  Soldau  would  be 
under  his  orders,  and  sent  an  officer  in  an  automobile  to 
turn  back  the  2nd  Division  from  Martos'  left  to  cover 
Artamonov's  right  flank.  He  told  Artamonov  to  hold  on 
till  the  last  man. 

Martos  reports  that  his  Cossacks  entered  Hohenstein 
but  were  driven  out,  and  he  is  preparing  to  attack  it  with 
infantry.  Klyuev,  with  the  XHIth  Corps,  has  passed 
the  defile  of  Lansk  (south-east  of  Hohenstein),  which  was 
only  slightly  defended. 

Rennenkampf  has  lost  touch  with  the  enemy,  but  has 
advanced  considerably  to  the  west  of  Insterburg  and  his 
left  has  occupied  Angerburg  (south  of  Insterburg). 

General  Postovski  is  nervous  ;  he  is  generally  nervous, 
and  goes  by  the  name  of  "  the  mad  Mullah."  Samsonov 
is  content  and  satisfied.  I  hope  Artamonov  is  entrenched. 


70          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Samsonov  has  ordered  all  beer  in  Neidenburg  to  be 
destroyed  !  l 

Thursday,  Aitgust  2jth,  1914.  MLAVA. 

Things  have  developed  rapidly.  Anders,  after  visiting 
Army  Headquarters,  brought  back  news  at  10  a.m.  to-day 
that  the  2nd  Division  is  near  Jankowitz,  facing  the 
German  main  body  at  Gilgenburg.  Germans  are  also 
advancing  from  Lautenburg,  but  the  chief  fighting  is  near 
Jankowitz. 

Samsonov  has  moved  the  left  of  the  XVth  Corps  south- 
west to  Miihlen  from  Hohenstein,  but  has  instructed  the 
Vlth  and  XHIth  Corps  to  continue  their  move  north  on 
Allenstein.  He  sticks  to  his  plan,  and  I  only  hope  he  has 
not  under-estimated  the  strength  of  the  German  advance 
from  the  west  and  north-west.  All  depends  on  that. 
Poiret,  the  French  airman,  who  has  been  doing  yeoman 
work,  told  me  to-night  that  he  thought  there  must  be 
three  corps  from  the  strength  of  their  artillery.  He  was 
reconnoitring  north-west  from  Neidenburg  this  morning, 
when  his  observer  was  wounded  by  shrapnel  in  the  leg. 
He  says  the  German  guns  are  in  pits.  It  looks  as  if  they 
were  holding  the  Russians'  centre  and  right  and  perhaps 
pushing  round  their  left  to  cut  the  line  of  communication 
Prasnish-Mlava-Neidenburg. 

At  Headquarters  it  was  thought  that  two  to  three 
divisions  were  opposed  to  the  1st  Corps,  which  is  now  on 
a  line  west-north-west  of  Soldau,  and  that  part  of  the 
XVIIth  Corps  and  some  Landwehr  is  opposed  to  the  2nd 
Division.  The  XXth  Corps  is  supposed  to  be  south  of 
Allenstein.  In  general  it  is  imagined  that  the  German 

1  Hindenburg  had  ordered  the  1st  German  Corps  to  storm  Usdau  by  10  a.m. 
on  August  26th.  A  Russian  cavalry  division  penetrating  to  the  rear  of  the 
German  Corps  caused  some  confusion  in  its  transport,  and  the  attempt  on  Usdau 
failed. 

The  4th  Division  of  the  Russian  Vlth  Corps  was  attacked  in  a  "  cleverly 
entrenched  position  "  at  Bossau  by  the  XVIIth  German  Corps  in  front  and  by 
the  1st  Reserve  Corps  in  flank  and  rear,  and  was  driven  back  at  nightfall  on  the 
26th. — Wissen  und  Wehr,  pp.  188-190. 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  71 

strength  does  not  exceed  two  regular  corps  (XXth  and 
XVIIth)  and  one  reserve  corps. 

The  troops  actually  in  action  against  the  German 
offensive  are : 

Under  General  Martos,  G.O.C.  XVth  Corps  :  XVth 
Corps,  regiment  of  the  3rd  Guard  Infantry  Division  and 
the  2nd  Infantry  Division.  Under  General  Artamonov, 
G.O.G.  1st  Corps  :  1st  Corps. 

The  dangerous  point  at  10  a.m.  was  thought  to  be  the 
line  Miihlen-Jankowitz. 

Samsonov  said  I  was  to  go  to  Mlava  with  Laguiche, 
Leonkevich  and  Anders,  and  then  get  my  servant,  horses 
and  kit  and  return  to  him. 

We  visited  the  hospital  (improvised  from  a  school 
building)  at  Neidenburg  before  starting  and  enquired 
after  the  wounded  airman.  We  found  very  little  sign  of 
forethought  and  organisation.  No  beds  had  been  collected. 
The  wounded  were  lying  anywhere,  on  the  straw  or  on  the 
floor,  many  of  them  with  the  sun  streaming  in  on  their  heads. 

As  we  were  leaving  Neidenburg  a  man  rushed  up 
shouting  that  the  German  cavalry  was  on  us.  There  are 
signs  of  nerves. 

We  drove  to  the  station  on  arrival  at  Mlava,  to  find 
that  our  train  with  Army  Headquarters  had  not  arrived 
and  no  one  knew  where  it  was.  General  Artamonov  had 
stopped  all  traffic  to  allow  of  the  ist  Rifle  Brigade  getting 
through.  Of  this  brigade  three  regiments  had  arrived,  or 
rather  had  gone  through  to  the  frontier  station  at  Ilovo. 
While  we  were  at  Mlava  station  part  of  the  Keksgolmski 
Regiment  of  the  Guard  was  going  through. 

Anders  decided  to  drive  down  the  line  to  find  the  train, 
and  I  went  too,  as  I  could  not  go  anywhere  without  the 
motor.  At  Tysekhanov  we  dined  at  3  p.m.,  and  learned 
that  the  train  was  twenty-eight  kilometres  further  down 
the  line.  I  said  good-bye  to  Laguiche,  Leonkevich  and 
Anders,  who  climbed  on  to  a  train  for  Warsaw.  I  drove 
back  to  Mlava,  where  I  arrived  at  7  p.m, 


72        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

An  officer  told  me  that  just  before  I  arrived  there  had 
been  a  panic  in  the  town,  someone  having  said  that  the 
Germans  were  coming.  The  Chief  of  Police  told  me  that 
the  same  thing  had  happened  at  Ilovo,  some  Cossacks 
being  responsible  in  this  case. 

I  have  decided  to  remain  in  Mlava  for  the  night.  Poiret, 
whom  I  met  again,  told  me  that  German  shell  was  bursting 
five  kilometres  from  Neidenburg  when  he  left  the  town  at 
I  p.m.,  so  it  seems  very  doubtful  if  I  could  get  through. 
I  put  up  at  the  Victoria,  with  the  idea  of  starting  early  in 
the  morning.  At  8.30  p.m.  the  corps  transport  of  the  1st 
Corps  passed  through  the  town  in  retreat. 

A  long  convoy  of  wounded  has  entered  the  town  from 
the  2nd  Division.  Losses,  according  to  all  accounts, 
have  been  dreadful,  and  chiefly  from  artillery  fire,  the 
number  of  German  guns  exceeding  the  Russian. 

A  plucky  sister  arrived  from  Soldau  with  a  cartload 
of  wounded.  She  said  there  had  been  a  panic  among  the 
transport  and  the  drivers  had  run  away,  leaving  the 
wounded.  She  stuck  to  her  cart  and  load,  and  the  Chief 
of  Police  sent  someone  with  her  to  guide  her  to  the  tem- 
porary hospital  in  the  Commercial  School.  She  said  that 
the  artillery  fire  of  the  Germans  was  awful.1 

Friday,  August  zSth,  1914.  OSTROLENKA. 

Spent  an  uncomfortable  night  at  Mlava,  disturbed  by 
long  convoys  of  wounded  passing  over  the  cobblestones 
below  the  hotel. 

Got  up  at  5  a.m.  and  drove  down  to  the  station.  Was 
with  Baron  Stackleberg,  enquiring  about  Samsonov's  train, 


1  The  1st  German  Corps  captured  Usdau  at  noon  on  the  27th,  the  1st  Russian 
Corps  retiring  through  Soldau. 

In  the  centre  the  XVth  Russian  Corps  attacked  and  met  with  strong  re- 
sistance. The  XI Ilth  Russian  Corps  reached  Allenstein  with  little  opposition. 

On  the  eastern  flank  the  XVIIth  and  1st  Reserve  Corps  pursuing  the  Russian 
Vlth  Corps  reached  Passenheim. 

Rennenkampf's  continued  inactivity  assured  freedom  of  action  for  the 
German  right  wing,  but  Hindenburg  had  as  yet  no  cause  for  triumph  on  the 
evening  of  the  27th, 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  73 

when  rifle-firing  started  all  round  the  station.  We  ran 
out,  to  see  an  enormous  Zeppelin  hovering  at  a  height  of 
about  900  to  1,000  metres  in  the  sun.  It  looked  so  extra- 
ordinarily peaceful !  Suddenly  it  threw  four  bombs, 
one  after  the  other,  in  quick  succession.  The  loss  was 
six  killed  and  fourteen  wounded,  but  it  might  have  been 
far  greater,  for  the  station  was  crowded.  I  picked  up  a 
piece  of  one  of  the  bombs.  The  Zeppelin  hovered  round 
and  finally  sailed  away.  Infantry  firing,  proving  useless, 
soon  stopped,  and  a  battery  came  into  action,  doing  good 
work  at  once.  One  was  filled  with  impotent  rage  against 
the  machine,  and  it  was  with  genuine  delight  that  I  heard 
it  had  been  brought  down  and  its  crew  captured. 

The  drive  to  Neidenburg  was  uneventful,  though  the 
line  of  bursting  shells  and  burning  villages  had  come 
much  nearer  than  on  the  day  before.  I  passed  one  or  two 
small  detachments  moving  forward  with  advanced  guards 
and  flanking  patrols  thrown  out. 

I  arrived  at  Neidenburg  at  8.30  and  found  Samsonov 
had  gone  on.  I  followed  with  a  colonel  of  the  General 
Staff  along  the  route  running  north-east  to  Jedwabno. 
Every  few  hundred  yards  we  stopped  to  question  stragglers, 
who  always  had  the  same  story — that  they  had  lost  their 
way  through  no  fault  of  their  own.  Samsonov  said  two 
days  ago  that  Jewish  soldiers  skulked  in  the  woods  and 
so  avoided  fighting,  but  many  of  the  men  we  saw  to-day 
were  certainly  not  Jews.  We  found  Samsonov  sitting  on 
the  ground  poring  over  maps  and  surrounded  with  his 
staff.  I  stood  aside.  Suddenly  he  stood  up  and  ordered 
eight  of  the  men  of  the  sotnia  of  Cossacks  that  was  with 
us  to  dismount  and  give  up  their  animals.  I  prepared  to 
go  off  too,  but  he  beckoned  to  me  and  took  me  aside.  He 
said  that  he  considered  it  his  duty  to  tell  me  that  the 
position  was  very  critical.  His  place  and  duty  was  with 
the  army,  but  he  advised  me  to  return  while  there  was  time, 
as  my  duty  was  to  send  in  "  valuable '  reports  to  my 
Government.  He  said  that  the  1st  Corps,  the  2nd  Division 


74          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

and  the  XVth  Corps  had  been  forced  back  on  his  left. 
He  had  just  heard  that  the  Vlth  Corps  had  been  driven 
back  yesterday  afternoon  *  in  disorder  on  his  right.  He 
was  sending  back  all  his  automobiles  via  Willenberg  to 
Ostrolenka,  as  Neidenburg  and  the  Neidenburg-Mlava 
route  were  no  longer  safe. 

He  concluded  that  he  did  not  know  what  was  going 
to  happen,  but  even  if  the  worst  happened,  it  would  not 
affect  the  ultimate  result  of  the  war. 

It  was  my  duty  to  keep  in  touch  with  my  Government, 
and  I  knew  enough  of  the  Russian  character  to  under- 
stand that  the  presence  of  a  foreigner  at  a  time  so  critical 
would  increase  the  nerve-strain  of  the  staff,  so  I  said 
good-bye,  and  Samsonov,  with  his  seven  staff  officers, 
mounted  the  Cossack  horses  and  rode  north-west,  followed 
by  the  remainder  of  the  squadron.  Both  he  and  his  staff 
were  as  calm  as  possible  ;  they  said  :  "  The  enemy  has 
luck  one  day,  we  will  have  luck  another."  They  told  me 
he  was  going  to  the  XVth  Corps,  which  was  suffering  from 
hunger  as  well  as  from  heavy  loss  in  a  four-days'  battle, 
and  that  he  was  going  to  collect  what  he  could  to 
drive  the  Germans  back. 

The  eight  or  ten  officers  left  then  consulted,  and  found 
that  it  was  impossible  to  carry  out  the  General's  orders  and 
drive  straight  to  Willenberg,  as  a  bridge  on  that  road  had 
been  destroyed.  We  therefore  decided  to  go  back  through 
Neidenburg. 

My  car  was  sixth  in  the  long  row,  and  it  was  a  curious 


1  According  to  German  accounts,  the  disaster  to  the  Vlth  Corps  took  place 
on  the  evening  of  the  26th,  and  not  of  the  27th.  Samsonov  only  learned  of  it 
at  9.30  a.m.  on  the  28th. 

Nearly  three  years  afterwards  I  met  an  officer  who  had  served  on  the  staff 
of  the  Vlth  Corps.  He  said  that  it  had  marched  thirteen  days  without  a  halt, 
without  proper  transport  and  most  of  the  time  without  bread.  The  4th  Division 
was  attacked  by  a  German  corps  and  the  i6th  Division  "  wavered."  The 
corps  commander  received  an  order  to  march  on  Allenstein  but  retreated  through 
Ortelsburg  when  he  should  have  fought.  Though  in  the  fighting  only  one  regi- 
ment suffered  severely,  the  corps  was  cut  off  from  direct  communication  with  the 
Staff  of  the  Army  and  had  no  idea  what  enemy  forces  were  on  its  flanks.  The 
German  heavy  artillery  "  made  a  bad  impression  "  on  the  Russian  rank  and  file. 


House  at  Baranovichi  in  which  the  Operations  Department  of  the 

General  Staff,  G.H.Q.,  worked  in  1914-1915. 

[See  page  46 


Rovno.  18th  August,  1914.  Left  to  right :  General  Marquis  de  Laguiche, 
French  Military  Representative,  General  Ivanov,  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Russian 
Armies  of  the  South-West  Front. 

To  face  page  74J  [See  page  50 


25th  August,  1914.     Russians  collecting  German  wounded  on  battlefield 

of  Orlau-Frankenau. 

[See  page  6"> 


18th  September,  1911.     Sandomir; 


[See  page  103 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  75 

sensation  to  drive  slowly  into  Neidenburg  wondering 
whether  it  was  still  occupied  by  our  own  people  or  had 
fallen  into  German  hands.  We  found  everything  quiet 
there,  though  a  heavy  cannonade  was  in  progress,  and  we 
could  see  the  shells  bursting  two  or  three  miles  to  the 
north-west.  Wounded  men,  stragglers  and  transport 
drivers  were  wandering  aimlessly  about. 

A  soldier  was  being  flogged  by  Cossacks  outside  the 
Commandant's  house.  He  was  shrieking.  He  had  been 
caught  pillaging  a  house.  A  shot  was  fired  just  as  we 
left  the  town. 

From  Neidenburg  to  Willenberg  the  civilian  population 
was  evidently  in  a  state  of  great  excitement.  Several 
peasants  were  seen  mounted.  Men  bolted  round  corners 
as  our  cars  appeared.  No  Russian  patrols  were  seen. 
The  chaussee  was  splendid  as  far  as  Khorjele  on  the 
Russian  frontier,  but  there  we  had  to  get  horses  to  drag 
the  heavy  cars  through  the  first  three  versts  south  of  the 
frontier.  We  dined  at  6  p.m.  at  Khorjele  with  the  Catholic 
priest.  Driving  via  Prasnish,  Makov,  Rojan,  we  reached 
Ostrolenka  station  at  midnight.  I  had  been  motoring 
eighteen  hours. 

Every  few  miles  along  the  road  from  the  frontier  there 
were  groups  of  Polish  girls  singing  their  religious  chants 
as  they  knelt  round  the  roadside  shrines.  I  had  for- 
gotten it  was  Friday,  and  connected  for  the  moment  their 
prayers  with  the  world-drama  being  played  out  a  few  miles 
further  north. 

An  officer  overtook  us  at  Khorjele  who  left  Neidenburg 
at  3  p.m.,  and  told  us  that  shells  were  then  falling  on  the 
town.  He  said  that  Samsonov's  train  had  been  ordered 
back  to  Ostrolenka. 

Saturday,  August  2gth,  1914.  WARSAW. 

Left  Ostrolenka  at  6.17  a.m.  and  changed  half-way  into 

a  military  train  which  was  carrying  two  companies  of  the 

235th  Regiment — a  second-line  regiment  formed  at  Orel 


76          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

that  had  been  five  days  in  garrison  at  Osovets.  The  two 
company  commanders  and  fifteen  men  per  company  were 
first-line  troops,  the  remainder  of  the  officers  and  men 
were  from  the  reserve. 

I  have  put  up  at  the  Bristol  Hotel.  I  got  our  Consul, 
Grove,  to  lunch.  We  met  General  Bezobrazov  and  his 
A.D.G.,  Rodzianko.  Bezobrazov  said  that  his  "  young 
men  of  the  Guard  are  simply  thirsting  to  fight/' 

I  drove  to  the  Kovel  and  the  Praga  stations  to  try  to 
find  out  the  whereabouts  of  my  servant  and  horses.  No 
success  so  far. 

Common  report  is  that  the  Germans  were  pushed  back 
yesterday  by  a  flank  attack  and  that  they  suffered  enor- 
mous loss.  I  hope  that  this  is  true  ! 

Sunday,  August  ^oth,  1914.  WARSAW. 

Things  are  going  badly.  Lechitski  and  the  staff  of 
the  Qth  Army  are  here,  though  the  army  is  not  yet 
formed.  I  went  to  see  General  Gulevich,  the  Chief  of  the 
Staff,  this  morning,  and  found  him  preparing  to  start  for 
Ivangorod.  He  told  me  that  the  great  battle  raging  on  a 
wide  front  south  of  Lyublin  was  as  yet  undecided.  Some 
of  the  Russian  divisions  had  retired  as  much  as  several 
kilometres,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  Austrians 
had  also  retired.  The  Guard  Corps  is  leaving  Warsaw 
to-day  in  an  attempt  to  roll  up  the  Austrian  left.  I  pray 
it  may  be  successful.  If  it  is  in  time,  the  impetus  of  the 
attack  of  30,000  men  of  the  calibre  of  the  Guard  Corps, 
fresh,  and,  as  Bezobrazov  said  yesterday,  ' '  clamouring  ' 
to  fight,  should  be  irresistible.  Gulevich  was  interested  to 
hear  my  account  of  Samsonov's  position.  It  appears  that 
the  Germans  had  drawn  all  their  forces  from  Thorn  and 
Graudenz  to  carry  out  the  flank  attack  on  Samsonov's 
communications . 

Gulevich  said  he  would  be  glad  to  see  me  when  the  time 
came  for  the  9th  Army  to  advance.  He  thought  the  Guard 
would  be  back  from  the  southern  expedition  in  eight  days. 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  77 

The  28th  and  2Qth  Siberian  Regiments  from  the 
Irkutsk  Military  District  are  here  already.  They  took 
twenty-three  days  from  the  day  they  entrained  in  Siberia 
till  their  arrival  at  Warsaw. 

All  preparations  were  made  for  the  evacuation  of 
Warsaw  if  necessary  in  the  first  week  of  the  mobilisation. 
The  3rd  Guard  Infantry  Division  went  north-east  to  guard 
the  neck  of  Poland  at  Suvalki ;  the  Warsaw  bridges  were 
prepared  for  demolition,  all  traffic  being  stopped  for  three 
days  on  the  new  bridge  while  the  preparations  were  in 
progress.  Government  officials  and  their  wives  packed 
up  ready  for  departure  at  a  moment's  notice.  When  the 
ist  and  2nd  Guard  Infantry  Divisions  arrived  from  St. 
Petersburg  and  moved  across  the  river  there  was  general 
relief. 

Our  Consul,  Grove,  and  I  were  arrested  by  a  policeman 
whom  we  asked  where  the  Staff  of  the  3rd  Guard  Division 
was.  I  was  in  uniform,  and  he  drove  with  us  to  the  police 
offices.  There  we  refused  to  alight,  and  told  him  to  fetch 
an  officer.  He  said  that  we  must  come  in  and  see  the 
officer,  and  tha,t  he  would  not  come  out  to  us,  but  another 
policeman  who  had  more  sense  fetched  out  a  junior  officer, 
who  was  at  once  profuse  in  apologies. 

Guchkov,  the  Octobrist  member  of  the  Duma,  who  is 
here  with  the  Red  Cross,  said  last  night  that  the  Russians 
were  prepared  to  lose  300,000  men  in  forcing  the  passage 
of  the  Lower  Vistula. 

Monday,  August  ^ist,  1914.  WARSAW. 

A  telephone  message  came  at  8.30  a.m.  to  say  that  the 
train  of  the  G.O.G.  2nd  Army  was  at  the  St.  P.  station. 
I  went  down  and  retrieved  my  servant  Maxim.  I  was  told 
that  the  best  thing  I  could  do  would  be  to  return  to  Ostro- 
lenka  and  I  would  find  out  everything  there.  No  one  had 
any  idea  where  Samsonov  was.  (He  had  been  dead  over 
thirty  hours.) 

Maxim  has  been  three  days  at  Naselsk  on  the  Warsaw- 


78  With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Mlava  line.  This  is  a  badly-equipped  line,  and  its 
maximum  working  at  high  pressure  to  take  troops  forward 
and  bring  wounded  back  is  twenty  pairs  of  trains  in 
twenty-four  hours. 

The  Russian  Press  states  that  a  German  corps  in  160 
trains  left  the  Belgian  theatre  for  the  Russian  frontier  on 
the  night  of  August  28th.  Russians  seem  convinced  that 
corps  from  the  Western  theatre  took  part  in  the  attack  on 
Samsonov. 

The  Warsaw-Mlava  line  is  still  being  adapted  for  Central 
European  gauge.  The  ist  Rifle  Brigade  is  stated  to 
have  been  in  action  yesterday  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Neidenburg. 

I  was  told  that  the  train  for  Ostrolenka  would  start  at 
7  p.m.,  so  drove  down  at  six  to  find  I  had  to  wait  till 
twelve. 

An  eccentric  youth  travelled  with  me,  the  son  of  a 
chocolate  manufacturer  of  Warsaw,  who  is  on  the  Staff  of 
the  2nd  Army  simply  because  he  can  draw  caricatures. 
He  colours  maps ! 

Tuesday,  September  ist,  1914.  OSTROV. 

I  arrived  at  Ostrolenka  at  9.30  a.m.,  to  find  the  staff 
train  had  gone  to  Ostrov.  I  asked  the  railway  transport 
officer  if  he  could  direct  me  to  Samsonov.  He  shook  his 
head,  and  as  I  pressed  for  a  reply,  he  drew  his  hand  sig- 
nificantly across  his  throat.  Samsonov  has  been  routed 
and  has  shot  himself. 

The  Vlth  Corps  is  at  Mishinets. 

The  Ist  Corps  is  between  Mlava  and  Soldau.  No  one 
knows  where  the  ist  Rifle  Brigade  is.  Most  of  the  59th 
Division,  which  was  pushed  up  from  Warsaw  in  support, 
must  be  near  Mlava  now.  Not  a  unit  of  the  2nd  Army 
has  been  in  Germany  since  Sunday  evening. 

It  appears  that  the  German  attack  from  the  west  and 
north-west  penetrated  between  the  left  of  the  XVth 
Corps  and  the  right  of  the  Ist  Corps  on  Friday  afternoon, 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  79 

the  28th.  A  captain  of  the  2ist  Muromski  Regiment  of 
the  XVth  Corps  whom  I  met  at  Ostrolenka  told  me  that 
he  was  so  far  the  only  officer  of  his  corps  who  was  known 
to  have  escaped.  He  was  at  Nadrau  on  Friday  in  action, 
facing  south-west,  against  German  troops  facing  north- 
east. While  the  Germans  passed  through  to  Neidenburg, 
a  detachment  turned  the  flank  of  his  division,  and  at 
2  a.m.  on  Saturday  it  retreated  to  Orlau.  On  Saturday 
morning  the  division  tried  to  fight  its  way  through  to  the 
south  by  Neidenburg,  but  found  this  impossible.  It 
retreated  east  through  the  woods  towards  Willenberg. 
Fighting  all  the  way,  this  officer  said,  he  at  length  reached 
the  frontier  and  crossed  at  Zarembi,  east  of  Khorjele,  at 
8  a.m.  on  Sunday,  the  30th.  General  Postovski  and  the 
greater  part  of  the  seven  officers  of  the  Army  Staff  and 
seventeen  men  of  his  company  crossed  with  him,  all  on 
foot. 

The  main  German  attack  from  Gilgenburg  on  Neiden- 
burg and  Willenberg  seems  to  have  completely  cut  off  the 
Xlllth  as  well  as  the  XVth  Corps.  Only  odd  men  of  both 
corps  are  now  coming  into  Ostrolenka.  All  the  guns  and 
transport  have  been  lost.  General  Martos  was  wounded 
by  a  shell  which  fell  in  his  motor.  He  was  accompanied 
at  the  time  by  '  Alexandra  Alexandrovna,"  the  wife  of 
the  second  in  command  of  the  Muromski  Regiment,  who 
had  a  good  knowledge  of  German  and  was  disguised  as  a 
man  to  act  as  interpreter.  She  jumped  out  of  the  car  and 
hid  in  the  woods,  but  eventually  disappeared  during  the 
retreat.  She  has  probably  been  killed.  The  Army  Staff 
went  sixty  versts  on  foot,  and  General  Postovski  arrived  at 
Ostrolenka  last  night. 

This  is  a  disaster.  Rennenkampf  has  been  ordered  to 
retire.  It  appears  that  Samsonov  had  been  cut  off  from 
communication  with  Jilinski  for  three  days.  It  will  delay 
everything.  Russian  officers  maintain  that  it  will  make 
no  difference  in  the  ultimate  result.  The  danger  is  that  it 
will  make  the  men  lose  confidence.  They  speak  of  there 


8o          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

being  something  they  cannot  understand,  of  disagreements 
between  Samsonov  and  the  corps  commanders,  of  the 
Command  thinking  there  are  so  many  soldiers  that  it 
does  not  matter  how  many  of  them  are  thrown  to  their 
death. 

There  is  evidently  indecision  at  Headquarters.  The 
5th  Railway  Battalion,  which  arrived  at  Ostrolenka  a 
month  ago,  had  started  laying  a  line  by  Mishinets  to 
Rosog.  On  August  2Qth  they  were  sent  to  Lyublin.  On 
arrival  there  they  were  sent  back  as  there  was  "  nothing 
for  them  to  do."  This  they  are  now  doing  at  Ostrolenka 
— the  colonel  reading  a  novel. 

Rennenkampf  will  be  in  a  very  exposed  position.  It 
is  hoped  that  the  German  losses  were  large. 

A  train  passed  through  Ostrolenka  with  eight  German 
officers  and  370  men  who  had  been  taken  prisoners  by  the 
XVth  Corps  at  various  times.  This  fine  fighting  corps  has 
been  sacrificed  through  bad  organisation  and  generalship. 
It  was  starving  for  the  later  days  of  the  fight.  It  looks  as 
if  the  Russians  were  too  simple  and  good-natured  to  wage 
modern  war. 

Left  Ostrolenka  at  7  p.m.  and  arrived  at  Ostrov  at 
9.30;  dined  and  slept  in  the  Staff  train — Grand  Duke's 
magic  letter ! 

Wednesday,  September  2nd,  1914.  OSTROV. 

I  walked  the  one  and  a  half  versts  to  the  Army  Staff  to 
visit  General  Postovski  and  General  Philomonov,  the 
General-Quartermaster  of  the  2nd  Army. 

On  Thursday,  the  27th,  the  day  I  had  been  sent  south 
with  Laguiche  and  Leonkevich,  the  Russian  left  had  been 
forced  back  all  along  the  line.  The  XVth  Corps  with  the 
2nd  Division  and  the  Guards  Regiment  were  retired  to 
an  extended  position  facing  west  from  Waplitz  by  Witt- 
mansdorf  to  Frankenau.  Artamonov  moved  the  1st  Corps 
still  further  back,  transferring  his  headquarters  from 
Soldau  to  Ilovo.  He  was  superseded  in  the  command 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  81 

Three  regiments  of  rifles  arrived  at  Ilovo  from  the 
south  by  the  evening  of  the  27th. 

The  Xlllth  Corps  continued  its  advance  to  the  north 
and  arrived  without  opposition  south  of  Allenstein. 

On  the  morning  of  the  28th  the  seriousness  of  the 
position  was  realised.  Samsonov  left  Neidenburg  at 
8  a.m.  and  motored  in  the  direction  of  Nadrau  to  see 
for  himself  what  it  might  be  possible  to  do  to  save  the 
situation. 

At  9.30  he  received  information  of  the  disaster  to  the 
VI th  Corps. 

After  I  left  him — at  about  n  a.m. — Samsonov  and  his 
seven  staff  officers  on  the  Cossack  horses,  and  escorted  by 
the  Cossack  squadron,  rode  to  a  point  south  of  Nadrau  and 
in  rear  of  the  XVth  Corps.  This  corps,  whose  strength 
had  been  seriously  reduced  by  the  actions  of  the  23rd, 
24th  and  27th,  not  only  held  its  own  all  day,  but  took 
1,300  prisoners  in  a  vigorous  counter-attack. 

The  Xlllth  Corps,  which  had  been  recalled  south, 
"  arrived  late  and  attacked  without  energy."  The  Vlth 
Corps  continued  its  retreat  through  Ortelsburg. 

There  was  already  a  considerable  interval  between  the 
right  of  the  1st  Corps  and  the  left  of  the  2nd  Division. 
The  2nd  Division  and  the  Guards  Regiment  with  it  was 
overwhelmed,  and  the  enemy's  cavalry,  several  batteries 
of  artillery  and  machine-guns  on  motor-cars,  poured 
through  the  gap  to  reoccupy  Neidenburg  and  so  sever  the 
most  important  line  of  communication. 

After  a  council  of  war  the  remains  of  the  XVth  Corps 
abandoned  its  position  at  2  a.m.  on  Saturday,  the  2Qth, 
and  moved  south.  An  attempt  was  made  to  force  a  way 
south  through  Neidenburg,  but  this  was  abandoned  when 
the  heights  north  of  the  town  were  found  to  be  occupied 
by  the  enemy's  infantry,  which  had  come  up  in  the  night. 
The  enemy  continually  extended  his  right,  occupying 
eventually  Willenberg. 

The  Xlllth  Corps  probably  surrendered.  Most  of  the 

F 


82          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

remaining  men  of  the  XVth  Corps,  with  their  commander, 
were  killed  or  captured  in  the  woods  north-east  of  Neiden- 
burg. 

The  Staff  of  the  Army  followed  the  remnants  of  the 
XVth  Corps  in  the  retreat  of  the  29th,  having  been  cut  off 
from  all  communication  with  the  1st  Corps  since  the 
morning  of  the  28th,  and  with  the  Vlth  and  XHIth  Corps 
since  the  evening  of  the  same  day.  They  soon  became 
isolated,  Samsonov  having  told  the  Cossack  escort,  who 
had  suffered  severely  in  charging  a  machine-gun  party, 
to  shift  for  themselves.  All  the  night  of  the  29th-3Oth  they 
stumbled  through  the  woods  that  fringe  the  north  of  the 
railway  from  Neidenburg  to  Willenberg,  moving  hand  in 
hand  to  avoid  losing  one  another  in  the  darkness.  Sam- 
sonov said  repeatedly  that  the  disgrace  of  such  a  defeat 
was  more  than  he  could  bear.  "  The  Emperor  trusted 
me.  How  can  I  face  him  after  such  a  disaster  ?  "  He  went 
aside  and  his  staff  heard  a  shot.  They  searched  for  his 
body  without  success,  but  all  are  convinced  that  he  shot 
himself.  The  Chief  of  Staff  and  the  other  officers  managed 
to  reach  Russian  territory,  having  covered  forty  miles 
on  foot. 

It  is  complained  that  the  1st  Corps  made  no  attempt 
to  break  through  to  the  north  from  Mlava  on  the  28th, 
or  on  the  morning  of  the  29th,  when  a  strong  movement 
might  have  saved  the  XVth  Corps  and  possibly  the 
XHIth.  .-.«./,', 

Russian  General  Staff  officers  point  out  that  it  was 
madness  to  advance  without  properly  organising  and 
fortifying  the  lines  of  communication.  Neidenburg  had 
only  a  garrison  of  half  a  company  of  the  Line  of  Com- 
munication Battalion  of  the  XVth  Corps. 

The  German  Intelligence  Service  was,  as  Postovski 
says,  far  superior  to  the  Russian.  I  asked  him  if  he 
thought  any  troops  had  been  moved  from  the  Western 
theatre,  and  he  confessed  :  r  Unfortunately  we  have  taken 
no  note  of  the  units  opposed  to  us." 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  83 

I  arrived  at  Byelostok  at  12   midnight  and  went   to 
the  Palace  Hotel. 


AFTERNOTE 

At  Byelostok  I  wrote  my  despatch  for  the  War  Office  and 
resolved  to  take  it  myself  to  Petrograd,  as  I  had  no  safe  means 
of  sending  it.  I  telegraphed  to  G.H.Q.  to  ask  permission  to 
transfer  to  the  Qth  Army,  as  the  2nd  Army  obviously  required 
a  rest. 

I  tried  to  see  General  Jilinski,  but  was  told  that  he  was  ill. 
His  Chief  of  Staff,  General  Oranovski,  saw  me  for  a  few  moments, 
and  I  told  him  that  I  was  going  to  Petrograd.  A  few  hours 
later  an  A.D.G.  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  's  came  to  tell  me  that 
I  must  ask  the  Grand  Duke's  permission  before  returning  to  the 
capital.  I  was  the  only  foreign  officer  with  any  knowledge  of 
the  disaster,  and  General  Jilinski  evidently  thought  that  Russia's 
honour  demanded  that  I  should  be  prevented  from  informing 
the  Western  Allies  of  the  true  position.  I  was  kept  three  and  a 
half  days  at  Byelostok,  but  at  length  received  permission  from 
the  Grand  Duke  to  go  to  Petrograd  and  subsequently  transfer 
to  the  Qth  Army.  I  left  Byelostok  at  9  a.m.  on  September  6th. 

The  XXIInd  Corps  was  passing  through  Byelostok  en  route 
for  Graevo. 

A  column  consisting  of  the  1st  Corps,  the  1st  Rifle  Brigade  and 
the  remains  of  the  3rd  Guard  Infantry  Division  under  the  com- 
mand of  General  Sirelius,  the  commander  of  the  3rd  Guard  In- 
fantry Division,  reoccupied  Neidenburg  at  9  p.m.  on  August  3oth, 
the  Germans  having  entrained  for  the  east  immediately  after 
Samsonov's  defeat.  The  Russian  troops,  however,  were  nervous, 
and  General  Sirelius,  having  "  heard  that  the  Germans  were 
returning  in  force/'  abandoned  the  town  seven  hours  later — at 
4  a.m.  on  the  3ist.  He  was  removed  from  his  command. 

A  German  account  of  the  events  in  the  2nd  Army  preceding 
the  disaster  is  worth  quoting : 

Even  in  the  period  of  the  strategical  advance  things 
had   gone   wrong.    Whole    army   corps    advanced   from 


84          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Byelostok  without  bread  or  oats,  and  had  to  have  recourse 
to  their  reserve  rations.  Even  before  the  Narev  the  march 
discipline  was  bad,  and  from  that  river  to  the  Prussian 
frontier  the  Russian  columns  had  to  wade  through  sand. 
Nerves  were  so  shaky  that  the  troops  fired  at  every  airman, 
occasionally  even  at  their  own  automobiles.  The  Higher 
Gommand  was  ignorant  of  the  enemy's  movements.  Corps 
commanders  were  only  informed  of  the  immediate  objec- 
tives of  the  neighbouring  corps ;  they  were  told  nothing, 
for  instance,  of  the  task  of  Rennenkampf's  army.  .  .  . 
Owing  to  shortcomings  in  the  communications  service, 
Army  Orders  reached  commanders  much  too  late,  some- 
times only  at  10  a.m.,  so  that  troops  could  only  march  at 
noon.  .  .  .  The  army  was  practically  without  telephones 
owing  to  lack  of  wire.  Communication  between  corps  had 
to  be  maintained  by  wireless.  As  many  staffs  could  not 
decipher,  messages  were  sent  in  clear,  and  the  German 
stations  obtained  in  this  manner  copies  of  important 
Russian  dispositions.  The  Russian  Army  Staff  remained 
for  long  ignorant  of  the  disaster  to  the  Vlth  Corps  on 
August  26th,  and  three  times  asked  the  XHIth  Corps  by 
wireless  for  information.  When  the  scouts  of  the  XHIth 
Corps  reported  on  the  27th  that  there  were  columns  of 
troops  in  movement  near  Wartenburg,  these  were  imagined 
to  belong  to  the  Vlth  Russian  Corps,  which  in  reality  had 
fled  long  before  through  Ortelsburg.  The  troops  seen 
were  those  of  Mackenzen's  XVIIth  Corps.  It  was  an 
unlucky  chance  for  the  Russians  that  on  this  day  one  of 
the  few  airmen  who  had  flown  over  Wartenburg  was  shot 
down  there. 

On  the  27th  the  Russian  XHIth  Corps  reached  Allen- 
stein,  which  many  Russian  soldiers  characteristically 
believed  to  be  Berlin.  A  grandiloquent  proclamation 
was  posted  in  the  town :  "To  you  Prussians,  we,  the 
representatives  of  Russia,  turn  as  the  forecomers  of  united 
Slavdom,"  etc.,  etc.,  but  in  reality  spirits  were  low,  and 
soon  news  was  received  of  the  defeat  of  the  1st  Russian 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  85 

Corps  at  Usdau.  Success  was  no  longer  believed  in,  and 
the  bulk  of  the  Xlllth  Corps  remained  outside  and 
south  of  the  town,  which  was  only  occupied  by  a  weak 
advanced  guard.  The  Russians  were  thankful  that  the 
town  gave  them  bread  and  oats.  The  XVth  Corps  asked 
for  help,  and  the  Army  Staff  ordered  the  immediate  march 
of  the  Xlllth  Corps  from  Allenstein  on  Hohenstein,  but  a 
council  of  war  decided,  in  view  of  the  extreme  fatigue  of  the 
troops,  to  postpone  the  march  till  the  early  morning  of  the 
28th.1 

Rennenkampf  and  Samsonov  had  made  their  reputation  as 
commanders  of  cavalry  divisions  in  the  war  against  Japan.  Their 
experience,  however,  as  cavalry  leaders  in  the  Far  East  was  of  no 
value  as  a  preparation  for  the  control  of  large  armies  in  an  essen- 
tially different  theatre  under  totally  dissimilar  conditions.  They 
had  to  contend  with  men  who  had  made  a  lifelong  study  of  war 
in  this  theatre  and  under  the  existing  conditions. 

Samsonov's  all-prevailing  idea  was  to  try  to  see  the  battle 
with  his  own  eyes.  He  was  probably  worried,  too,  by  instructions 
from  Byelostok.  Hence  the  mad  decision,  taken  in  the  early 
hours  of  the  28th,  to  cut  himself  off,  not  only  from  his  base,  but 
also  from  half  his  command,  to  send  all  such  paraphernalia  as 
wireless  apparatus  back  to  Russia,  and  to  get  on  a  Cossack  saddle 
and  ride  forward  to  take  his  fortune  in  his  hand  under  condi- 
tions resembling  those  to  which  he  had  been  accustomed  in 
Manchuria. 

Many  Russian  officers  who  took  part  in  these  operations  have 
since  admitted  that  the  Russian  army  of  those  days  "  did  not 
know  how  to  wage  modern  war."  Instances  quoted  in  the 
Diary  show  the  inefficiency  of  the  Intelligence  Service.  The 
airmen  did  their  best,  but  were  handicapped  by  want  of  petrol. 
The  service  of  communications  was  hopeless.  Telephones  were 
constantly  cut,  and  the  men  sent  to  repair  them  were  murdered 
by  the  inhabitants.  Finally  the  Army  Staff  sent  out  the  detail 
of  the  distribution  of  the  army  to  the  corps  staffs  in  clear  ! 

1  Wissen  und  Wehr,  p.  193. 


86          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

The  whole  machine  was  inferior  to  the  German  machine. 
There  was  no  proper  co-operation  between  corps  commanders. 
The  men  were  worried  by  orders  and  counter-orders.  The 
commander  of  a  regiment  of  the  ist  Rifle  Brigade  has  since  told 
how  his  men,  who  had  spent  the  night  digging  a  trench  facing 
north,  were  towards  daylight  ordered  to  retire  a  short  distance 
and  to  prepare  at  once  another  trench  facing  west.  The  morale 
of  all  ranks  was  much  affected  by  the  number  of  the  enemy's 
heavy  guns,  by  his  H.E.  shell,  his  machine-guns  on  motor-cars 
and  in  trees,  and  his  hand-grenades.  On  the  other  hand,  many 
of  the  Russians  fought  with  determination  till  the  end.  On  the 
evening  of  the  30th,  Hindenburg  reported :  "  The  enemy  is 
fighting  with  immense  obstinacy."  Martos,  of  the  XVth  Corps, 
and  Klyuev,  of  the  XHIth  Corps,  surrendered  with  their  staffs 
on  the  30th,  but  parties  of  Russians  still  fought  on  till  the  3ist. 

The  Russians  were  just  great  big-hearted  children  who  had 
thought  out  nothing  and  had  stumbled  half-asleep  into  a  wasp's 
nest. 

Nearly  three  years  later  one  of  Samsonov's  staff,  the  Chief  of 
his  Intelligence,  dining  with  me  in  Petrograd,  described  how  the 
Army  Staff  became  finally  isolated  in  the  woods  near  Neiden- 
burg,  Samsonov  having  told  his  Cossack  escort  to  shift  for  them- 
selves. This  staff  of  an  army  must  have  been  a  pathetic  sight. 
They  had  a  compass  but  no  maps.  At  last  the  matches  they 
struck  to  consult  the  compass  gave  out.  Not  long  after  Sam- 
sonov's disappearance,  my  informant,  being  a  fat  man  in  poor 
training,  felt  tired  out.  He  sat  down  to  rest  and  fell  fast  asleep. 
When  he  woke  it  was  broad  daylight  and  he  was  hungry.  He 
stumbled  on  through  the  wood  till  he  came  to  a  cottage.  He 
approached  cautiously,  and  while  hesitating  whether  to  declare 
himself  or  not,  he  overheard  some  scraps  of  conversation  through 
the  open  door.  The  inmates  were  Poles  and  evidently  smugglers, 
of  whom  there  are  many  along  the  frontier.  They  were  discussing 
the  war,  and  one  of  them  was  angry  because  a  Russian  patrol  had 
robbed  him  of  300  marks  and  had  then  outraged  his  daughter. 
He  said  that  though  the  Russians  were  many  they  could  not  win, 
for  people  who  did  such  things  could  never  win.  My  friend  went 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  87 

in  and  gave  them  all  the  money  he  had,  saying  :  "  For  the  rest, 
I  can  only  apologise  for  my  comrades."  The  Poles  played  the 
game.  They  gave  him  milk  and  bread,  and  a  few  hours  later  led 
him  across  the  frontier  to  a  Russian  cavalry  patrol. 

The  same  officer  told  me  that  it  was  General  Postovski  that 
suggested  that  I  should  be  sent  back  when  I  arrived  on  the  28th. 
He  argued  :  '  The  position  is  very  serious,  and  it  is  not  right  that  a 
foreigner  should  see  the  state  we  are  in."  According  to  this 
evidence,  it  was  also  Postovski's  idea  to  go  north  on  the  morning 
of  the  28th  to  direct  the  fighting  personally  ;  the  junior  officers 
of  the  staff  had  suggested  the  withdrawal  of  Army  Headquarters 
from  Neidenburg  to  Yanov,  but  their  advice  was  overruled. 

This  officer  stated  that  the  XIHth  Corps  found  drink  in 
Allenstein  on  the  27th,  and  this  was  partly  the  reason  that  it  only 
turned  out  at  10  a.m.  on  the  28th  instead  of  two  hours  earlier,  as 
ordered,  in  order  to  carry  out  Samsonov's  instructions  to  strike 
south-west.  When  it  did  come  partly  into  action,  one  of  its  regi- 
ments ran  away  in  front  of  the  Commander  of  the  Army,  who 
promptly  superseded  its  commanding  officer,  replacing  him  by  a 
young  lieutenant-colonel  of  Engineers.  The  latter  led  the  regi- 
ment back,  but  it  once  more  gave  way,  and  he  was  seen  after 
fruitless  attempts  to  rally  the  men  to  take  his  revolver  and  shoot 
himself. 

Samsonov  held  a  council  of  war  on  the  evening  of  the  28th, 
and  decided  after  consultation  with  Martos  to  withdraw  that 
night  to  fight  his  way  through  Neidenburg.  The  idea  was  that 
the  2nd  Division  should  move  slightly  south  from  Frankenau  and 
the  XVth  and  XHIth  Corps  moving  south  in  its  rear  should  come 
into  action  on  its  left.  The  Russian  Command  altogether  under- 
estimated the  German  quickness  of  movement  and  initiative. 

Samsonov  was  really  dead.  There  were  rumours  current  for 
a  long  time  that  he  had  escaped,  but  M.  Guchkov,  in  his  capacity 
as  Plenipotentiary  of  the  Russian  Red  Cross,  visited  the  enemy's 
lines  and  satisfied  himself  that  he  was  dead.  Many  Russian 
officers  afterwards  blamed  Samsonov's  staff  for  abandoning  him. 
They  said  that  Samsonov,  who  suffered  from  asthma,  could  not 


With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

walk  and  had  to  be  helped  along.  They  said  that  his  staff  at 
first  helped  him,  but  finally  abandoned  him. 

In  November,  1914,  I  met  in  Warsaw  B ,  an  officer  of 

Rennenkampf  s  staff,  who  was  a  fervent  admirer  of  his  chief, 
though  he  acknowledged  that  he  showed  a  tendency  to  go  too  far 
forward  and  did  not  remain  behind  working  by  maps,  as  the 
commander  of  a  large  force  necessarily  should. 

Rennenkampf  received  orders  early  in  August  to  cross  the 
frontier  of  East  Prussia  on  August  lyth  and  to  carry  out  an 
energetic  offensive  in  the  direction  of  Insterburg.  The  orders 
stated  that  the  2nd  Army  would  cross  the  frontier  on  the  line 
Khorjele-Mlava  on  August  igth.  Rennenkampf  showed  the 

telegram  to  B ,  and  said  :  "  Nothing  will  come  of  it.  In  the 

first  place,  the  2nd  Army  will  not  be  ready  to  cross  on  the  igth, 
and,  in  the  second  place,  the  Germans  will  throw  their  forces  first 
against  me  and  then  against  Samsonov."  This  was  prophetic, 
for  though  Rennenkampf  himself  crossed  the  frontier  on  the  lyth, 
Samsonov's  army  only  crossed  on  the  2ist,  and,  as  we  know, 
without  waiting  to  complete  its  mobilisation. 

The  battle  of  Gumbinnen  was  fought  on  August  20th.  It  was 
very  nearly  lost  by  the  Russian  ist  Army,  for  three  regiments  of 
the  28th  Division  on  the  right  gave  way,  but  Rennenkampf, 
though  urged  by  all  his  staff  to  retire  in  order  to  save  an  over- 
whelming disaster,  held  on,  and  advancing  with  his  centre  and 
left,  drove  the  Germans  back.  There  was  the  usual  half-panic  in 

the  Russian  transport.  B asked  the  General  if  he  might  go 

to  bed,  and  was  told  he  might,  but  that  he  should  not  undress. 
He  lay  down  for  an  hour  and  was  awakened  by  Rennenkampf, 
who  stood  beside  his  bed,  smiling,  and  said  :  "  You  can  take  off 
your  clothes  now  ;  the  Germans  are  retiring/' 

If  Rennenkampf  and  his  staff  had  had  any  proper  under- 
standing of  their  task  they  would  have  recognised  that  the  time 
when  the  Germans  were  retiring  was  precisely  the  time  to  exert 
every  effort  to  keep  in  touch,  and  certainly  not  the  time  to  undress 
and  go  to  bed  ! 

The  staff  of  the  ist  Army  estimated  the  German  loss  at  Gum- 
binnen at  40,000,  but  they  completely  lost  touch  on  the  2ist. 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  89 

The  Russian  cavalry  on  the  right  flank  had  suffered  severely  on 
the  20th  and  marched  25  versts  to  the  north  to  rest ! 

During  these  operations  the  Ilnd  Corps  wandered  about 
between  the  two  Russian  wings,  helping  neither.  In  the  autumn 
of  1916 1  met  an  officer  who  had  served  on  the  corps  staff.  Though 
General  Jilinski  certainly  said  on  August  23rd  that  he  had 
taken  the  Ilnd  Corps  "  from  Samsonov's  army,"  this  officer  was 
under  the  impression  that  the  corps  was  originally  under  the 
ist  Army.  He  acknowledged,  however,  that  the  service  of 
communications  was  defective  and  the  corps  received  few 
orders. 

The  Ilnd  Corps  completed  its  mobilisation  at  Grodna  and 
moved  forward  to  occupy  an  extended  defensive  position  on  the 
Avgustov  marshes,  the  Vlth  Corps  occupying  a  similar  position 
on  its  left. 

The  corps  advanced  to  the  north-west  and  the  staff  entered 
Lyck  on  August  igth.  Johannisburg  and  Arys  were  occupied, 
and  Lotzen  was  summoned  to  surrender,  but  refused.  The  staff 
entered  Angerburg  on  the  24th. 

On  the  26th,  when  the  staff  was  between  Nordenburg  and 
Angerburg,  an  officer  arrived  in  a  car  with  instructions  for  the 
corps  to  retrace  its  steps  to  Lyck  preparatory  to  joining  the  Qth 
Army.  It  turned  and  moved  south.  On  the  27th  orders  arrived 
for  it  to  move  in  conjunction  with  the  IVth  Corps  (ist  Army) 
south-west,  via  Rastenburg,  to  assist  Samsonov.  It  turned  again 
On  the  2Qth  the  staff  arrived  at  Korschen,  and  that  evening 
received  orders  to  retire  east  owing  to  the  disaster  to  the  2nd 
Army. 

It  retired  leisurely.  The  Germans  attacked  on  September  8th. 
After  severe  fighting  the  76th  Division  gave  way,  and  the  corps 
was  ordered  to  retire  to  Darkehmen.  The  order  arrived  late,  and 
the  movement  was  rendered  extremely  difficult  owing  to  the 
boldness  and  rapidity  of  the  enemy's  advance,  and — since  roads 
had  not  been  assigned  to  corps — to  confusion  with  the  transport 
of  the  IVth  and  XXth  Corps. 

On  the  I2th  the  corps  was  ordered  to  retire  to  Mariampol,  and 


go          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

the  staff  arrived  there  on  the  I4th.  By  the  igth  the  corps  was 
withdrawn  to  rest  east  of  the  Nyeman. 

On  September  27th  the  offensive  was  resumed  in  conjunction 
with  the  newly-formed  loth  Army  (General  Pflug,  later  General 
Sievers),  and  the  Germans,  who  had  despatched  considerable 
forces  to  take  part  in  the  offensive  in  south-west  Poland,  were 
defeated  at  Avgustov. 

Samsonov's  army  crossed  the  East  Prussian  frontier  on 
August  2 ist.  By  the  morning  of  the  30th  it  had  been  com- 
pletely defeated  and  he  had  shot  himself.  The  ten  days'  offensive 
cost  the  Russians  practically  the  whole  of  the  Xlllth  and  XVth 
Corps,  the  2nd  Infantry  Division,  and  one  regiment  of  the  3rd 
Guard  Infantry  Division  with  their  artillery  and  transport. 

The  Germans  claim  to  have  killed,  wounded  and  captured 
170,000  men,  the  whole  Russian  artillery  and  transport  at  a  cost 
of  15,000  casualties. 

Then  came  the  turn  of  Rennenkampf,  whose  slowness  to 
advance  after  the  battle  of  Gumbinnen  had  been  largely  to  blame 
for  Samsonov's  disaster.  He  retired  a  short  distance  and  took  up 
an  extended  position  from  Wehlau  through  Allenburg,  Gerdauen 
and  Angerburg  and  waited.  Hindenburg  received  reinforcements 
from  the  Western  theatre,  including  the  Xlth  Corps,  the  Guard 
Reserve  Corps  and  the  8th  Cavalry  Division,  increasing  his 
strength  to  about  175,000.  He  attacked  the  Russian  ist  Army 
on  both  flanks  on  September  gth  and  rolled  up  its  left.  Ren- 
nenkampf evacuated  East  Prussia  with  a  loss,  according  to 
German  accounts,  of  60,000  men  killed,  wounded  and  taken 
prisoner,  and  of  150  guns. 

Russians  claim  that  the  invasion  of  East  Prussia  in  August, 
1914,  was  a  raid  altruistically  undertaken  with  the  sole  object 
of  relieving  pressure  on  Russia's  Allies  in  the  West.  When  the 
news  of  the  disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  arrived  at  G.H.Q.,  and  the 
French  representative,  General  Laguiche,  expressed  his  sympathy, 
the  Grand  Duke  replied :  "  Nous  sommes  heureux  de  faire  de 
tels  sacrifices  pour  nos  alliees." 

On  the  other  hand,  of  course,  the  Russian  Command  did  not 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  91 

deliberately  send  to  the  sacrifice  some  nine  corps  and  eight 
cavalry  divisions — more  than  a  quarter  of  the  whole  ^irmy. 

The  two  armies  were  launched  with  the  primary  idea  of  a 
raid,  but  the  Russians,  with  their  sanguine  temperament,  under- 
rated the  difficulties  and  hoped  for  a  permanent  local  success. 
They  forgot  the  miserable  capacity  of  the  Warsaw-Mlava  railway 
and  the  alternate  marsh  and  sand  of  Northern  Poland,  which  had 
been  purposely  left  without  railways  and  roads  to  delay  an  enemy's 
advance.  They  forgot  the  wonderful  capacity  of  the  East 
Prussian  railway  system.  They  sent  the  2nd  Army  forward 
without  field  bakeries,  imagining,  if  they  thought  of  the  soldiers' 
stomachs  at  all,  that  a  large  army  could  be  fed  in  a  region  devoid 
of  surplus  supplies.  They  probably  imagined  that  during  the 
strain  of  the  campaign  in  Western  Europe  the  enemy's  opposition 
would  be  less  serious  than  it  actually  proved.  They  took  no 
count  of  the  inferiority  of  the  Russian  machine  to  the  German  in 
command  and  armament  and  in  power  of  manoeuvre. 

It  is  evident  from  German  accounts  that  the  raid  effected  its 
object.  The  fugitives  crowding  into  Berlin  as  they  fled  before 
the  Russian  threat  made  the  German  Government  and  the 
Higher  Command  nervous.  The  General  Quartermaster,  von 
Stein,  in  notifying  General  Ludendorff  of  his  appointment  as 
Chief  of  Staff  to  the  German  8th  Army,  wrote  on  August  2ist : 
You  may  yet  be  able  to  save  the  situation  in  the  East.  ...  Of 
course  you  will  not  be  made  responsible  for  what  has  already 
happened,  but  with  your  energy  you  can  prevent  the  worst  from 
happening."  The  8th  Army  Command  had  proposed  first  to 
evacuate  the  whole  country  east  of  the  Vistula,  but  by  the  23rd 
— the  date  of  the  arrival  of  Hindenburg  and  Ludendorff — had 
decided  to  defend  the  line  of  the  River  Passarge. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  battle,  which  the  Germans 
have  named  Tannenburg,  the  German  Supreme  Command 
telegraphed,  offering  to  transfer  three  corps  from  the  Western 
theatre.  The  reinforcements  actually  sent — the  Xlth  Corps,  the 
Guard  Reserve  Corps  and  the  8th  Cavalry  Division — were  drawn 
from  the  German  right  in  the  Western  theatre.  They  arrived 
too  late  to  take  part  in  the  battle  of  Tannenburg,  but  it  was 


92  With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

solely  owing  to  the  Russian  raid  that  they  were  absent  from  the 
battle  of  the  Marne. 

The  Germans  are  naturally  proud  of  their  work  in  this  cam- 
paign. Hindenburg  and  Ludendorff  took  full  advantage  of  the 
lack  of  communication  between  the  two  Russian  armies.  They 
withdrew  the  German  forces  from  before  the  Russian  ist  Army, 
leaving  its  whole  nine  infantry  and  five  cavalry  divisions  masked 
from  the  27th  onwards  by  only  two  brigades  of  cavalry.  They 
forced  back  the  Ist  Corps  from  the  left  of  the  2nd  Army  and 
frightened  it  into  passivity  while  they  enveloped  and  destroyed 
the  greater  part  of  the  three  and  a  half  remaining  corps. 

In  about  three  weeks  they  cleared  East  Prussia  of  the  enemy. 
With  an  army  that  averaged  little  over  150,000  in  strength,  they 
inflicted  losses  of  upwards  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  men.  They 
dealt  a  severe  blow  to  Russian  morale,  and  deprived  the  Russian 
army  of  a  vast  quantity  of  very  necessary  material. 

They  took  enormous  risks,  for  they  had  no  right  to  count 
on  the  supineness  and  lack  of  initiative  of  Rennenkampf  and  his 
numerous  cavalry.  They,  however,  knew  their  own  machine  and 
properly  assessed  the  value  of  that  of  the  enemy.  They  knew  they 
could  count  on  the  co-operation  with  one  another  of  the  corps 
and  subordinate  leaders,  who  had  all  been  trained  in  one  school 
of  military  doctrine,  and  that  they  could  rely  on  the  educated 
patriotism  of  the  men  who  were  defending  their  homes. 

Possibly  the  detachment  from  the  Western  theatre  that  the 
Russian  raid  wrung  from  the  German  Supreme  Command  saved 
the  Allies  in  the  West  and  so  turned  the  whole  course  of  the  war. 
No  price  could  have  been  too  great  to  pay  for  this  relief  in  the 
West,  but  the  price  actually  paid — the  crippling  of  the  Russian 
army — was  greater  than  it  need  have  been,  and  for  this  crippling 
the  Allies  generally,  and  Russia  most  of  all,  were  eventually  to 
suffer. 

General  Postovski  remained  Chief  of  Staff  under  General 
Scheidemann,  who  succeeded  to  command  of  the  2nd  Army,  till 
after  the  battle  of  Lodz.  He  then  commanded  a  division  on  the 
South- West  Front.  Eventually  he  returned  to  Petrograd  suffering 


The  Disaster  to  the  2nd  Army  93 

from  nervous  breakdown,  and  was  employed  in  the  General 
Staff.  I  last  saw  him  in  the  bad  days  of  December,  1917,  when 
the  Bolsheviks  were  arranging  their  betrayal.  I  said :  "  This 
is  a  sad  ending."  He  could  not  reply,  but  simply  pressed  my 
hand  and  passed  on. 

General  Philomonov  was  for  some  time  Chief  of  the  Staff  in 
the  Fortress  of  Brest  Litovsk.  Later  he  commanded  a  division. 
I  have  not  met  him  since,  though  I  was  very  near  him  during  the 
offensive  at  Lake  Naroch  in  March,  1916. 

General  Jilinski  was  replaced  in  command  of  the  North- 
West  Front  by  General  Ruzski  from  the  3rd  Army.  At  the  end 
of  1915  he  was  appointed  Russian  representative  with  the  French 
army.  Till  then  I  used  sometimes  to  see  him  wandering  idly  in 
the  Summer  Garden  at  Petrograd.  The  Chief  of  the  Staff  of  the 
North-West  Front,  General  Oranovski,  held  his  post  for  two 
more  months  and  then,  being  succeeded  by  General  Gulevich, 
took  command  of  the  1st  Cavalry  Corps.  He  was  foully  mur- 
dered by  the  mutinous  troops  at  Viborg  in  September,  1917. 

Three  corps  commanders — Generals  Blagovyeshchenski  of 
the  Vlth,  Kondratovich  of  the  XXIIIrd  and  Artamonov  of  the  1st 
— were  relieved  of  their  commands.  The  subsequent  court  of 
enquiry  acquitted  Artamonov  and  also  Sirelius,  the  commander 
of  the  3rd  Guard  Infantry  Division.  It  dismissed  from  the 
service  Blagovyeshchenski  and  Kondratovich,  and  also  Komarov, 
the  commander  of  the  4th  Infantry  Division.  Artamonov  was 
frequently  employed,  but  never  again  in  the  command  of  troops 
in  the  field.  The  career  of  General  Sirelius  continued  to  be 
varied,  and  he  was  at  least  twice  later  suspended  from  command. 
The  feeling  against  General  Klyuev  of  the  XHIth  Corps  for  sur- 
rendering without  proper  resistance  is  still  bitter 

Steps  were  taken  to  reconstitute  the  XVth  Corps  at  once.  It 
reappeared  in  the  field  in  the  loth  Army  at  Grodna  in  March, 

1915.  It  was  commanded  by  General  Torklus,  late  commander 
of  the  6th  Division.     I  spent  a  day  with  him  when  his  corps  was 
on  the  line  of  the  ist  Army  south  of  Dvinsk  in  the  autumn  of 

1916,  and  was  surprised  to  hear  that  some  4,000  men  of  the  corps 
had  escaped  from  the  debacle  in  1914.    The   General  told  me 


94          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

that  on  August  26th — the  day  after  I  had  visited  him — the  6th 
Division  advanced  to  Miihlen  and  was  engaged  continually  with 
superior  enemy  forces  till  n  p.m.  on  the  28th,  when  the  order 
was  received  to  retire.  He  blamed  Samsonov  for  having  failed 
to  issue  this  order  earlier.  I  last  saw  General  Torklus  when  he 
came  to  the  Embassy  in  Petrograd  in  1917  to  try  to  arrange  a 
transfer  for  his  son  to  the  British  army. 

The  XHIth  Corps  was  considered  to  have  fought  less  well 
than  the  XVth.  Probably  for  this  reason  it  was  not  recon- 
stituted till  later,  when  its  former  commander,  General  Alexyeev, 
became  Chief  of  Staff  to  the  Emperor  in  1915.  I  visited  the 
corps  on  the  Dvina  west  of  Jacobstadt  in  1916. 


CHAPTER  III 

WITH   A  CAVALRY   DIVISION  IN   SOUTH-WEST 
POLAND,  SEPTEMBER— OCTOBER,  1914  ' 

REFERENCE  MAPS  Nos.  I.,  III.  AND  IV> 

ON  the  South- West  Front  by  the  beginning  of  September  the 
Russian  armies  had  wrested  the  initiative  from  the  Austrian 
Command. 

The  Austrians  had  in  the  first  instance  some  thirty-six  infantry 
divisions  to  assist  the  German  seventeen  divisions  to  hold  back 
Russia  pending  the  decision  in  the  Western  theatre.  They 
resolved  to  strike  north  at  the  Russian  4th  (Ewarth  vice  Salza) 
and  5th  (Plehve)  Armies  between  the  Bug  and  Vistula.  For  this 
purpose  they  detailed  a  Northern  Group,  consisting  of,  from  right 
to  left,  the  4th  Army  (Auffenberg),  ist  Army  (Dankl),  and  on  the 
left  bank  of  the  Vistula  a  mixed  detachment  containing  a  German 
Landwehr  Corps  under  General  Woyrsch.  The  strength  of  this 
offensive  wing  was  about  350  battalions,  150  squadrons  and  150 
batteries.  To  guard  its  right  flank  from  the  attack  of  the  Russian 
8th  (Brusilov)  and  3rd  (Ruzski)  Armies  through  Eastern  Galicia, 
they  formed  a  right  defensive  wing,  about  200  battalions,  170 
squadrons  and  130  batteries  strong.  This  right  wing  was  sub- 
divided into  the  2nd  Army,  which  assembled  between  Stanislau 
and  Stryj  under  General  Kovess,  and  the  3rd  Army  (Von  Bruder- 
mann),  which  was  intended  to  cover  the  approaches  to  Lemberg 
from  the  east. 

The  Russian  4th  and  5th  Armies  completed  their  deployment 
on  the  1 8th  and  moved  south  from  the  general  line  Novo-Alex- 
andriya-Vladimir-Volinsk  on  August  iQth. 

The  Austrian  orders  for  the  advance  of  the  Northern  Group 

95 


96          With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

were  issued  on  August  22nd,  before  the  completion  of  the  con- 
centration. The  advance  was  at  first  successful.  The  battle  of 
Krasnik  ended  on  the  25th  with  the  retreat  of  the  Russian  4th 
Army.  Auffenberg  captured  Zamostie  on  the  27th.  By  the 
evening  of  September  ist,  Dankl  had  penetrated  upwards  of  100 
kilometres  into  Russian  territory,  and  was  within  a  march  of 
Lyublin,  the  third  city  in  the  kingdom  of  Poland.  Auffenberg's 
Army  had  made  less  progress,  and  was  held  up  for  several  days 
by  Plehve's  5th  Army  on  the  general  line  Krilov-Dashov-Komarov- 
Grabovets.  At  length,  on  September  ist,  Komarov  was  occupied, 
Plehve  having  received  orders  to  retire. 

Meanwhile  the  plan  of  campaign  worked  out  by  Alexyeev, 
Ivanov's  Chief  of  Staff,  commenced  to  take  effect,  and  the  threat 
to  the  Austrian  communications  in  Galicia  became  a  very  real  one. 
Brusilov,  with  the  Russian  8th  Army,  had  crossed  the  frontier 
on  a  wide  front  west  of  Proskurov  on  August  igth.  Two  days 
later  Ruzski,  with  the  3rd  Army,  crossed  astride  the  Brody- 
Lemberg  railway.  The  progress  of  both  armies  was  rapid.  From 
August  lyth  till  September  3rd  Brusilov  covered  220  versts.  On 
the  latter  date  the  3rd  Army  took  Lemberg  and  the  8th  Army 
Halicz. 

The  Austrian  Command  wavered.  The  main  body  of  Auffen- 
berg's 4th  Army  was  recalled,  and  on  September  5th  it  faced  south, 
with  its  right  north  of  Nemierow  and  its  left  east  of  Rawa  Ruska. 
From  this  position  its  right  moved  still  further  south  to  unite 
with  the  left  of  the  defeated  Austrian  right  wing  in  an  attempt  to 
withstand  the  enemy's  continued  pressure  west  of  Lemberg. 

Meanwhile  the  arrival  of  the  Guard  and  the  XVIIIth  Corps 
on  the  line  Lyublin-Kholm  had  enabled  the  Russians  to  take  the 
offensive  against  Dankl.  On  September  5th  he  was  forced  to 
withdraw  his  right,  and  Woyrsch's  German  Landwehr  Corps  was 
transferred  east  to  strengthen  that  flank.  Dankl  held  on  for 
some  days,  but  on  the  gth  pressure  on  both  flanks  forced  him  to 
retire. 

The  counter-attacks  of  the  2nd,  3rd  and  4th  Armies  availed 
the  Austrians  nothing  against  the  determined  and  continued 
pressure  of  Plehve,  Ruzski  and  Brusilov.  At  midday  on 


September -October,  1914  97 

September  nth  the  Austrian  Command  resolved  to  withdraw 
its  armies  to  refit  behind  the  San. 

The  Russian  campaign  on  the  South-West  Front  had  opened 
brilliantly,  but  the  success  was  not  decisive.  The  officer  who  was 
in  charge  of  operations  in  the  Staff  of  the  Front  at  this  time  stated 
months  later  that  the  original  Russian  plan  had  been  by  a  simul- 
taneous advance  to  the  south  up  both  banks  of  the  Vistula  and 
in  a  westerly  direction  south  of  Lemberg  to  cut  off  the  Austrian 
army  from  both  Krakau  and  the  Carpathians.  In  his  opinion 
the  gth  Russian  Army  should  have  been  sent  due  south  from 
Ivangorod,  instead  of  its  strength  being  employed  in  frontal 
attacks  between  Lyublin  and  Kholm. 

During  the  five  days  I  spent  in  Petrograd — from  the 
evening  of  the  7th  till  the  morning  of  September  13th — the  Russian 
General  Staff  professed  to  be  perturbed  by  reports  of  transfers 
from  the  Western  Theatre.  On  September  8th  it  was  stated  that 
four  corps,  said  to  have  been  brought  from  France,  were  de- 
training on  the  line  Krakau-Chenstokhov ;  on  the  loth  that 
the  Russian  Military  Attache*  had  telegraphed  from  Holland 
that  he  calculated  only  ten  to  twelve  regular  German  corps 
remained  in  the  Western  Theatre.  On  the  same  day  information 
was  received  that  the  Germans  were  detraining  a  corps  at  Sambor, 
south-west  of  Lemberg.  These  reports  were  all  inaccurate. 

Tuesday,  September  i$th,  1914.  WARSAW. 

I  arrived  at  Warsaw  8.30  a.m.  Drove  to  the  Hotel 
Bristol,  and  spent  the  day  arranging  for  further  journey. 

At  the  office  of  the  Commandant  of  the  Lines  of  Com- 
munication there  were,  as  usual,  armed  sentries  every- 
where, annoying  everyone  and  exercising  no  discrimination 
as  to  who  should  be  allowed  to  go  in  and  who  not.  The 
whole  place  was  in  an  indescribable  state  of  filth ;  everyone 
appeared  to  be  waiting  and  little  progress  seemed  to  be 
made  with  work.  However,  by  making  a  row  I  attracted 
sufficient  attention  to  induce  a  clerk  who  could  read  to  go 
through  my  letter.  I  was  sent  to  the  stable  with  an 
ensign,  a  nice  fellow,  who  spoke  a  little  English,  to  see  my 

G 


98         With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

horses.  The  mare  has  rheumatism.  The  veterinary 
surgeon  says  she  will  be  able  to  march  in  a  week,  but  I 
doubt  it. 

There  is  a  little  of  everything  at  the  "  Base  £tape." 
It  comprises  a  remount  depot — I  saw  a  collection  of 
dreadful  scarecrows ;  also  poor  Samsonov's  horses,  in- 
cluding the  black  that  I  remember  walked  so  fast  in 
Turkistan  last  year.  There  were  people  selling  hay.  A 
non-commissioned  officer  had  come  from  Lyublin  direct  to 
get  horses  for  his  battery,  and  refused — I  perfectly  agreed 
with  him — to  take  any  of  those  he  saw.  There  were 
numbers  of  deserters  and  of  convalescents  waiting  to  be 
sent  on  to  their  units.  All  seemed  content  to  wait.  I 
heard  there  were  one  hundred  German  female  prisoners 
who  had  been  captured  armed  in  East  Prussia  and  many 
other  German  prisoners.  One  wagon-load  of  thirty-five 
that  arrived  on  Saturday  from  Mlava  was  to  go  to  Minsk 
to  be  shot.  They  had  been  brought  with  only  two  Russian 
guards  in  the  wagon.  They  murdered  one  by  ripping  up 
his  stomach  with  a  penknife  and  beat  and  threw  the  other 
out  of  the  train.  Luckily  the  man  thrown  out  was  not 
killed,  and  was  able  to  creep  to  a  station  and  warn  the 
authorities.  Altogether,  I  would  prefer  other  jobs  to  that 
of  Commandant  £tapes  at  Warsaw.  Apparently  the 
unfortunate  individual  deals  with  the  lines  of  communica- 
tion in  every  direction. 

I  saw  two  pessimistic  Englishmen,  both  of  whom  were 
more  or  less  convinced  that  Warsaw  is  in  immediate 
danger  because  it  is  being  fortified  and  wire  entanglements 
are  being  put  up.  I  told  them  that  St.  Petersburg  is  also 
being  fortified ! 

Wednesday,  September  i6th,  1914.  LYUBLIN. 

The  Russian  army  is  crossing  the  lower  San  unopposed. 
Ruzski,  having  reached  Moseiska,  is  within  a  march  east 
of  Przemysl, 


September -October,  1914  99 

N. 

I  met  an  English  tutor  who  had  seen  something  of 
operations  in  the  Lyublin  Government.  He  is  full  of 
tales  of  misconduct  of  troops — that  one  corps  bolted  for 
miles  from  Krasnik  and  was  only  stopped  by  Cossacks, 
who  used  their  whips  freely — that  officers  immediately 
they  arrive  at  the  bivouac  look  about  for  women  and  leave 
horses  and  men  to  shift  for  themselves.  The  XVIIIth 
Corps  has  gone  up  the  Vistula. 

I  left  Warsaw  by  train  at  4  p.m.  without  my  horses,  and 
arrived  at  Lyublin  at  n  p.m.,  to  find  that  the  staff  of  the 
9th  Army  had  left  at  4  p.m.  for  Ivangorod  and  Ostrovets. 
It  would  be  much  better  to  drive  there,  but  the  Station 
Commandant,  after  telephoning  to  the  Commandant  Town, 
advised  me  to  go  back  to  Ivangorod  to-morrow  to  apply 
to  the  Commandant  fitapes,  who  would  send  me  by  the 
'  organised  '  route — probably  up  the  Vistula.  Mean- 
while it  was  necessary  to  sleep  somewhere,  so  after  waiting 
an  hour  for  a  cab,  and  none  coming,  we  started  to  walk 
the  two  miles  to  the  town.  We  picked  up  a  cab  halfway, 
and  drove  in  succession  to  seven  hotels,  starting  at  a  palace 
like  the  Ritz  and  ending  with  a  Jewish  hovel.  None  of 
them  had  a  corner  to  spare,  and  most  of  the  rooms  had  three 
to  six  occupants.  We  drove  back  to  the  station  and  the 
Commandant  Station  most  kindly  turned  out  of  his  railway 
compartment  to  let  me  sleep  there.  I  felt  a  brute,  and 
wished  I  had  put  up  in  the  refreshment  room.  It  is  the 
getting  up  in  the  morning  one  dreads,  with  no  chance  of  a 
wash. 

Heavy  rain. 

Thursday,  September  ijth,  1914.  IVANGOROD. 

I  waited  at  Lyublin  till  n  a.m.  for  a  train  to  carry  me 
back  to  Ivangorod.  The  captain  in  command  of  the  station 
at  Lyublin,  with  his  two  assistants,  a  staff  captain  and  an 
ensign,  were  kindness  itself.  They  do  their  work 
efficiently.  I  noticed  while  in  the  office  at  the  station 


TOO        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

how  everyone  who  came  in  was  attended  to  sympathetic- 
ally and  rapidly  without  red  tape,  and  yet  the  general 
accompaniments  of  the  office  showed  no  signs  of  order. 
Good  temper  and  unbounded  patience  seemed  to  make 
everything  work. 

I  was  given  a  coupe  to  myself  to  return  to  Ivangorod, 
and  gave  seats  to  two  ladies  who  were  dressed  in  black, 
and  a  lieutenant  in  the  horse  artillery  battery  of  the  Guard 
from  Warsaw.  The  elder  lady  had  lost  her  son  in  the 
Preobrajenskis  in  the  recent  battle  at  Krasnik.  The 
younger  one,  who  was  very  pretty  and  who  spoke  English 
well,  had  come  down  to  Lyublin  to  nurse  her  husband 
through  an  attack  of  typhoid.  They  told  me  of  the  death 
of  young  Bibikov,  who  belonged  to  the  Lancers  of  Warsaw 
and  was  killed  in  a  charge  by  the  Independent  Guard 
Cavalry  Brigade  against  infantry  in  a  wood.  Mannerheim, 
his  General,  kissed  the  dead  boy  and  said  he  would  like  to  be 
in  his  place.  Mannerheim  is  blamed  for  squandering  lives. 
Poor  Bibikov  won  all  the  prizes  at  the  Concours  Hippique  at 
Vienna  three  years  ago.  I  remember  I  saw  his  father  and 
mother  dining  with  the  boy  at  a  restaurant  the  night  he 
returned  to  Warsaw.  The  little  lady  told  me  to-day  that 
the  funeral  service  had  been  held  in  a  huge  stable,  part  of 
which  was  occupied  with  horses,  and  she  found  this  fitting 
in  the  case  of  a  boy  like  Bibikov,  who  was  so  devoted  to  the 
animals. 

The  horse  gunner  told  me  of  a  remarkable  piece  of 
work  by  the  i6th  Narva  Hussars.  The  Guard  Rifle 
Brigade,  which  had  three  regiments  in  occupation  of  a 
position,  was  badly  in  need  of  help.  The  i6th  charged  the 
enemy's  trenches  at  10  p.m. ! 

I  had  some  conversation  with  the  colonel  in  charge  of 
the  advanced  depot  which  the  Guard  Co-operative  Society 
maintains  for  the  convenience  of  the  officers  and  men  of 
the  Guard  Corps.  The  society  has  seven  wagons  on  a 


September -October,  1914  101 

siding  at  Lyublin,  three  or  four  at  Ivangorod.  We  took 
four  on  with  us  by  the  train  in  which  we  left  for  Ostrovets. 
The  wagons  are  given  at  half-freight  by  Government. 
One  can  buy  almost  anything  :  boots,  Sam  Browne  belts, 
chocolate,  etc.  They  also  sell  brandy  to  officers,  but  there 
is  absolutely  no  drinking  to  excess  ;  as  officers  say  :  "  The 
war  is  too  serious  for  that." 

The  Russians  lost  many  men  at  Krasnik,  where  the 
Austrians  had  semi-perm anently  fortified  a  position.  The 
enemy  fired  through  loopholes  and  the  Russians  were 
forced  to  attack  without  fire  preparation.  The  Russian 
artillery  fire  is  wonderfully  accurate,  and  as  the  enemy 
never  has  time  to  get  the  range  to  Russian  covered  posi- 
tions, the  Russian  losses  in  gunners  have  been  extra- 
ordinarily small.  The  cavalry  on  this  front  has  not 
suffered  much  and  the  infantry  has  borne  the  brunt. 

Probably  as  many  as  40,000  wounded,  including  Aus- 
trians, were  brought  into  Lyublin.  They  were  carried 
many  miles  over  bad  roads  in  country  carts.  Three  bad 
cases  were  carried  in  a  cart,  and  more  often  than  not  only 
two  men  were  still  alive  when  they  arrived.  I  gather 
that  the  advanced  hospital  is  the  regimental  hospital, 
then  the  field  hospital.  Then  at  the  railhead,  as  a  rule, 
is  the  collecting-point  (Sborni-Punkt),  whence  cases  are 
sent  to  local  hospitals  (Myestnie)  in  school-houses,  etc.,  or 
sent  to  the  interior  in  trains  if  judged  fit  to  travel. 

The  gth  Army  is  south  of  Sandomir  on  the  right  bank 
of  the  Vistula,  with  its  chief  supply  base  in  Ivangorod. 
Each  corps  has  a  separate  line  of  communications  and 
organisation.  Yesterday  40,000  puds  were  sent  by  train 
to  Ostrovets,  6,000  on  a  steamer  up  the  Vistula,  and  16,000 
by  road  up  the  right  bank  of  the  river.  The  Russians 
have  four  steamers,  each  with  a  capacity  of  6,000  puds. 
The  ordinary  military  train  takes  45,000  puds,  just  enough 
for  an  army  corps  for  a  day,  including  forage,  etc,,  etc. 


With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

At  Lyublin  I  saw  the  56th  Supply  Transport  Battalion 
(country  carts),  which  had  just  arrived  from  Bobruisk,  and 
was  met  by  an  order  to  detrain  and  carry  bread  seventy- 
four  versts,  as  the  men  at  the  front  were  said  to  be  starving. 

On  leaving  Warsaw  I  noticed  that  one  of  the  arches 
of  the  northern  footbridge  had  been  prepared  for  demoli- 
tion, and  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Vistula  there  were 
emplacements  ready  prepared  for  a  field  battery,  and 
pointed  towards  Warsaw.  Similarly  at  Ivangorod  there 
were  recently-constructed  trenches. 

While  we  were  dining  at  the  hotel  at  Ivangorod, 
twenty  young,  recently-appointed  subalterns  came  in. 
They  had  been  two  years  at  artillery  schools  and  had  got 
their  commissions  early  on  account  of  the  war.  They  were 
going  to  the  gth  Army  to  be  appointed  to  batteries.  The 
poor  boys  were  all  as  keen  as  mustard,  and  told  me  that 
their  one  fear  was  lest  they  might  be  employed  till  the  end 
of  the  war  against  the  Austrians  and  never  have  a  dash  at 
the  Prussians.  I  said  to  the  Colonel :  "  They  think  they 
will  all  be  field-marshals."  He  said  :  "  No,  it's  the  St. 
George's  Cross  that  they  dream  of,  but  war  thirsts  for  the 
young.  In  the  Pavlovski  regiment,  out  of  eleven  recently 
joined,  four  have  been  killed  and  seven  wounded."  The 
boys  were  soon  scribbling  letters  home. 

We  left  Ivangorod  by  train  at  10  p.m. 

Friday,  September  iSfh,  1914.  SANDOMIR. 

I  arrived  at  Ostrovets  at  9  a.m.  in  a  downpour,  and 
drove  in  a  motor,  starting  at  midday,  via  Ojarov  and 
Zavikhost  to  Sandomir,  where  we  arrived  at  five.  My 
servant  Maxim,  the  orderly  Ivan,  and  my  one  remaining 
horse  did  not  reach  Sandomir  till  10  p.m.  The  police- 
inspector  found  me  a  nice,  clean  room  in  this  very  dirty 
town,  which  is  crowded  with  troops. 


September -October,  1914  103 

The  Russians  have  a  mass  of  cavalry  on  the  Austrian 
front.  A  Cossack  officer  told  me  that  they  had  thirty- 
four  second-  and  third-category  Don  Cossack  regiments, 
and  fifteen  Orenburg  Cossack  regiments  alone,  to  say 
nothing  of  Kuban,  Terek,  Ural,  etc.  I  saw  a  squadron  of 
Ural  Cossacks  in  Sandomir — big,  red-bearded,  wild-looking 
men,  nearly  all  with  a  waterproof  coat  over  their  military 
great-coat.  I  don't  wonder  that  the  Austrians  are  fright- 
ened by  them. 

The  men  generally  that  I  have  seen  here  are  not  so 
worn-looking  as  those  with  poor  Samsonov  were. 

Sandomir  was  taken  on  Monday,  the  I4th,  the  Tula 
regiment  losing  heavily.  The  town  had  been  occupied 
for  two  and  a  half  weeks  by  the  Austrians.  My  hostess, 
who  talked  a  little  French,  told  me  that  she  had  had 
Hungarians  and  Cossacks  and  every  kind  of  person  in  the 
house. 

There  was  fighting  going  on  near  by  to-day  and  the 
sky  was  lit  up  to  the  south-west  by  burning  villages  at 
night. 

Saturday,  September  igth,  1914.  SANDOMIR. 

I  had  a  good  sleep  in  a  comfortable  bed,  and  Madame 
P.  gave  us  tea  before  we  started  to  motor  to  Army 
Headquarters  at  Zolbnev,  twelve  versts  south-east  of 
Sandomir. 

She  told  me  that  her  husband  had  insisted  on  her 
leaving  for  her  sister's  house  when  Sandomir  was  occupied 
by  the  Austrians.  On  the  day  the  Russians  re-took  the 
town  the  Germans  seized  seventeen  of  the  oldest  men  and 
carried  them  off.  Her  husband,  an  apothecary  of  fifty- 
six,  was  one  of  them,  the  excuse  being  that  a  shot  had  been 
fired  from  a  group  of  houses  in  which  his  stood.  She  is 
now  in  despair,  for  she  can  hear  nothing  of  him,  and,  indeed, 
is  unlikely  to  do  for  months  to  come. 

We    found   the  staff  of  the  Qth  Army   in    a   villa 


104        With  tlie  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

surrounded  by  pretty  gardens.  The  house  was  oldish,  per- 
haps dating  from  the  seventeenth  century.  The  furniture 
was  a  lot  of  it  good  Empire.  General  Gulevich,  the  Chief  of 
Staff,  took  me  into  a  little  room  apart  to  talk,  and  sat  down 
on  a  chair  which  collapsed  with  him  and  deposited  him  on 
the  floor  with  his  feet  in  the  air.  It  may  have  been  a  good 
armchair  a  hundred  years  ago,  but  was  not  a  weight- 
carrier.  I  showed  my  credentials.  Gulevich  explained 
that  General  Lechitski  dreaded  having  me,  as  he  could 
not  speak  either  English  or  French.  He  came  in  to  see 
me  and  actually  understood  my  Russian  ! 

The  general  situation  was  explained  to  me.  Ruzski 
and  Brusilov  are  still  pressing  the  Austrians  west.  Plehve 
and  Ewarth  are  pushing  them  south,  and  will  probably  take 
Jaroslau.  Lechitski  is  making  ground  to  the  south  and 
south-west.  It  appears  that  the  Austrians  have  retreated 
west  from  Baranow,  which  was  occupied  by  the  Russians 
yesterday,  and  are  preparing  to  defend  seriously  the  line 
of  the  River  Wist  oka. 

A  raid  by  five  cavalry  divisions  is  to  be  attempted 
under  General  Novikov  with  the  idea  of  cutting  the  Austrian 
communications  with  Krakau  and  forcing  them  to  retire. 
I  asked  and  obtained  permission  to  go  with  this  force. 

I  spoke  for  some  time  with  the  Polish  lady,  and  she 
tried  to  find  out  what  I  thought  of  the  Russian  army, 
remarking  that  it  had  evidently  made  wonderful  progress 
since  the  Japanese  war.  She  showed  me  the  place  where 
two  howitzer  shells  from  the  Russian  guns  had  burst,  one 
of  them  making  a  hole  five  feet  deep  within  ten  yards  of 
her  house.  She  and  her  husband  had  spent  two  nights  and 
a  day  in  the  cellar.  Her  two  sons  are  fighting  in  the 
Austrian  army  and  she  has  not  had  any  news  from  them 
since  the  war  commenced.  What  an  unhappy  people  the 
Poles  are  !  I  hope  one  result  of  the  war  will  be  to  produce 
a  united  people  under  Russia's  protection.  The  idea  of 
the  possibility  of  such  shell-craters  in  our  garden  in  Ulster 


September -October,  1914  105 

makes  one  willing  to  pay  any  income  tax  for  an  over- 
whelming army. 

We  drove  further  south  to  Rozwadow  to  see  large 
quantities  of  supplies  that  had  been  captured  from  the 
Austrians.  I  had  an  excellent  meal  of  shchi l  and  black 
bread — probably  all  the  stuff  I  will  have  to  eat  for  a  week 
or  so  ! 

Little  Durnovo,  on  his  way  from  General  Headquarters 
to  join  Lechitski's  gth  Army,  brought  me  greetings  from 
the  Grand  Duke  and  the  news  that  '  a  second  British 
Army  has  landed  at  Ostend  and  is  moving  in  conjunction 
with  the  Belgians  against  the  German  lines  of  com- 
munication." 


Colonel  S.,  of  the  Administrative  Staff  of  the  gth  Army, 
with  whom  I  have  spent  the  last  few  days,  is  a  glorious 
snorer.  Each  snore  ends  with  a  regular  ring.  I  lay 
awake  imagining  how  his  nostrils  must  shake  and  tingle. 
You  could  hear  him  at  Vladivostok !  He  tries  to  work 
hard  in  the  day,  but  gives  me  the  impression  of  talking 
too  much.  However,  he  is  a  kind-hearted  soul.  He  was 
astonished  that  I  shaved  every  day,  and  still  more  so 
when  I  told  him  that  many  people  in  England  shaved 
twice  a  day. 

Sunday,  September  20th,  1914.  KLIMONTOV. 

A  pouring  wet  day  and  not  a  pleasant  start  for  the 
raid.  General  Erdeli,  who  is  in  command  of  the  I4th 
Division,  and  his  A.D.G.,  Prince  Gantacuzene,  called  for 
me  at  9.30  a.m.  We  drove  through  a  sea  of  mud  to 
Klimontov,  the  Headquarters  of  the  I4th  Cavalry  Division, 
for  the  night.  The  division  arrived  about  3  p.m.,  having 
marched  from  Tarnobzeg,  south  of  the  Vistula,  at  8  a.m. 
The  8th  Division  passed  through  Sandomir  moving  north- 
west last  night. 

1  Cabbage  soup. 


io6        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

General  Novikov's  corps  will  be  140  squadrons  strong, 
comprising  the  5th,  8th,  i4th  and  two  Don  Cossack  divi- 
sions, a  Turkistan  Cossack  brigade  and  four  sotnias  of 
Frontier  Guard. 

There  seems  some  doubt  regarding  our  "  task."  It 
is  said  that  the  heavy  rain  has  flooded  the  Vistula  and  the 
possible  crossing-places  are  carefully  guarded.  The  possi- 
bility of  a  turning  movement  west  instead  of  east  of 
Krakau  is  canvassed. 

We  got  almost  a  comfortable  dinner,  including  tea, 
for  forty  kopeks  (tenpence)  !  The  population  of  the  town 
is  almost  entirely  Jewish.  I  found  a  Jew  who  had  been 
at  Toronto  and  talked  broad  "  American."  "  He  liked 
the  country  and  liked  the  people  "  ! 

I  saw  Novikov  yesterday  for  the  first  time.  He  was 
walking  up  and  down  a  long  room  in  the  Chateau  at 
Zolbnev  discussing  plans  with  his  Chief  of  Staff,  Colonel 
Dreyer.  A  young  officer  pointed  him  out  as  the  fore- 
most cavalry  leader  of  the  Russian  army.  Outwardly  he 
appeared  merely  a  tall,  handsome  man  of  the  type  of 
British  cavalry  officer. 

Erdeli  I  had  met  before  at  St.  Petersburg.  He  is  of  a 
more  brainy  and  subtle  type.  He  commenced  his  service  in 
the  Hussars  of  the  Guard,  in  which  he  served  with  the 
Emperor.  He  commanded  the  Dragoons  of  the  Guard, 
and  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  was  General  Quarter- 
master of  the  St.  Petersburg  Military  District,  in  which 
capacity  he  was  appointed  to  the  gth  Army.  He  is  only 
forty-four. 

The  division  has  had  a  rough  time  since  mobilisation. 
It  has  had  many  skirmishes  with  Germans  and  Austrians 
between  Radom  and  Ivangorod.  The  doctor  says  it  is 
"  tired,"  but  horses  and  men  look  fit  and  hard. 

Monday,  September  2ist,  1914.  STOPNITSA. 

Rode  forty-three  versts  (thirty  miles)  with  the  division, 
from  Klimontov  via  Bogoriya  to  Stopnitsa. 


September -October,  1914  107 

On  the  march  we  had  two  squadrons  in  front,  one 
furnishing  patrols  and  the  other  an  advance  party.  The 
four  remaining  squadrons  of  the  leading  regiment,  with  a 
battery,  followed  us. 

The  officers  of  the  staff  of  the  division  are  :  Chief  of 
Staff,  Colonel  Westphalen,  who  is  aged  forty-nine  and 
looks  more,  as  he  has  just  recovered  from  a  serious  illness. 

Captain  of  General  Staff,  Sapojnikov,  a  very  capable 
officer  with  plenty  of  initiative. 

Two  officers  attached  to  the  General  Staff.  One  of 
these  was  at  the  Academy  when  war  broke  out. 

An  officer  in  charge  of  administration. 

A  Commandant  of  the  Staff,  who  is  also  in  charge  of 
the  "  flying  post." 

An  officer  interpreter. 

Liaison  officers  from  neighbouring  divisions. 

An  officer  and  five  men  from  each  of  the  four  regiments 
of  the  division.  These  "  battle  patrols  "  are  sent  out  im- 
mediately before  an  action  when  the  enemy  is  only  five 
versts  off,  with  the  special  task  of  bringing  exact  informa- 
tion regarding  his  distribution  and  strength. 

An  officer  and  two  men  from  each  regiment  and  the 
artillery  of  the  division  as  orderlies. 

Important  messages  are  sent  by  the  officers  and 
ordinary  ones  by  the  men. 

We  arrived  at  6  p.m.  at  a  Polish  landowner's  house. 
The  hostess,  a  nice  old  lady  with  a  comforting  admiration 
for  England,  was  anxious  to  see  me.  She  doubts  the 
fulfilment  of  Russia's  promises  to  Poland.  She  told  me 
that  the  Russian  Government  had  seized  all  the  balances 
in  the  municipal  funds  and  in  the  private  banks,  most  of 
which  had  been  sent  by  Polish  emigrants  from  America. 
The  officials  are  getting  no  salaries  and  the  pensioners 
receive  no  pensions  ! 

I  occupied  a  room  with  Cantacuzene  last  night,  and 
had  a  very  disturbed  time.  The  General  Staff  Captain 


io8        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

only  brought  orders  from  the  Corps  Staff  at  2  a.m. ;  then 
there  was  much  consultation  while  the  divisional  orders 
were  being  written  in  the  General's  room  next  door.  Then 
the  telephone  which  connects  the  divisional  staff  with  the 
four  regiments  went  continuously  the  whole  night  in  the 
room  on  the  other  side.  Heaven  only  knows  what  they 
had  to  talk  about ! 

To-night  the  5th  Division  is  on  our  left  on  the  Vistula 
and  the  8th  on  our  right.  Our  patrols  are  going  as  far 
as  the  Vistula.  The  enemy  has  a  bridgehead  south-east 
by  south  at  a  distance  of  about  twenty-five  versts  from 
Stopnitsa. 

•  ^ 

Tuesday,  September  22nd,  1914.  STOPNITSA. 

The  Divisional  Commander  and  his  two  General  Staff 
Officers  returned  at  i  a.m.  from  a  conference  with  the 
Corps  Commander.  They  left  again  at  10  a.m.  with  battle 
patrols  and  orderlies  to  carry  out  a  short  reconnaissance 
towards  the  Vistula. 

The  Austrians  beyond  the  river  are  thought  to  be  only 
Landwehr.  A  cannonade  was  audible  all  morning  from  a 
south-easterly  direction. 

The  position  of  our  forces  now  (morning  of  22nd)  is : 

I4th  Cavalry  Division. — Billets  in  neighbourhood  of 

Stopnitsa.    Patrols  to  line  Korchin-Brjesko  (on 

Vistula). 

5th  Cavalry  Division. — Billets,  Korchin.    To  move 

23rd,  north-west  to  Myekhov. 
8th  Cavalry  Division. — Billets,  Solets,  north-east  of 

Stopnitsa. 
Turkistan  Cossack  Brigade. — Billets,  Busk.   Moving 

23rd,  north-west  to  Naglovitse. 
The  I4th,  5th  and  8th  Divisions  have  been  detailed 
for  the  southern  raid.    The  4th  and  5th  Don  Cossacks  will 
protect  their  right  rear. 

Till  the  4th  and  5th  Don  Cossack  Divisions  have  come 
up,  the  task  of  reconnoitring  west  will  fall  to  the  Turkistan 


September -October,  1914  109 

Brigade  and  the  5th  Division.  The  former  will  have 
headquarters  at  Naglovitse  (north-west  of  Andreev)  and 
will  reconnoitre  towards  the  line  Lansberg-Sosnitse  ;  the 
latter  will  continue  the  reconnaissance  line  from  Sosnitse 
by  Bendin  to  Krakau,  a  front  of  upwards  of  three  hundred 
miles  for  thirty-six  squadrons. 


a 


The  Austrians  have  burnt  the  wooden  bridge  tempor- 
arily erected  north  of  Szczucin,  and  fired  to-day  on  our 
patrols  from  the  southern  bank  of  the  Vistula. 


On  receipt  of  corps  or  army  orders,  Captain  Shapoj- 
nikov  calls  up  the  orderly  officers  and  dictates  the  divi- 
sional orders,  which  are  then  carried  by  the  officers  to  units. 
The  hour  of  start  only  is  communicated  to  units  or  bri- 
gades by  telephone.  Orders  are  never  written  before  an 
engagement  against  cavalry. 

Officers  in  charge  of  patrols  receive  detailed  instructions 
on  the  area  to  be  reconnoitred  and  the  subjects  on  which  a 
report  is  required.  It  is  also  laid  down  where  and  when 
they  shall  send  in  periodical  reports.  The  three  squadrons 
of  the  i4th  Division  sent  out  yesterday  morning  were  to 
deploy  on  the  front  Korchin-Pinchov  and  wheel  to  the  left 
to  the  Vistula  on  the  line  Korchin-Brjesko. 

Officers  ascribe  the  unwillingness  of  the  Austrian 
cavalry  to  meet  the  Russian  cavalry  to  the  absence  in  the 
former  of  the  lance.  Every  trooper  in  the  Russian  cavalry 
would  now  carry  a  lance  if  he  were  allowed.  The  German 
lance  is  a  few  inches  shorter,  a  discovery  which  much 
pleased  the  Russians.  The  Russian  cavalry  practically 
follows  the  same  tactics  in  reconnaissance  as  the  German 
cavalry  is  supposed  to ;  it  rides  to  kill  any  hostile  patrol 
it  meets.  German  Uhlans  carried  pennons  in  West 
Poland  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  but  these  were  soon 
discarded.  The  Austrian  carbine  is  poor.  The  I4th 
Division  say  they  have  not  yet  had  a  man  wounded  by  it. 


no        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

The  divisional  medical  officer  tells  me  he  has  two  sons 
and  a  daughter.  He  and  his  children  are  Lutherans. 
One  son  is  married  to  an  Orthodox  girl  and  the  other  to  a 
Catholic  ;  the  girl  is  married  to  a  Mohammedan. 

Wednesday,  September  2$rd,  1914.  ZLOTA. 

We  got  up  at  6.30  a.m.  and  left  at  8  a.m.,  after  saying 
good-bye  to  and  thanking  our  hosts  of  the  last  two  days. 
We  rode  in  a  cold  wind  over  the  most  dreadful  roads  I  have 
ever  seen,  even  in  Russia,  to  Vislitza,  and  then  wheeled  left 
(south)  in  two  columns  and  came  into  action  against  some 
200  "  sokols,"  or  Polish  partisans — not  a  very  exciting 
affair ! 

We  got  to  a  comfortable  house  at  Zlota  at  9.45.  We 
had  been  practically  fourteen  hours  out.  Luckily  Maxim 
had  made  me  some  sandwiches,  for  which  I  was  heartily 
thankful.  The  Russians  are  far  too  kind-hearted.  We 
lost  our  way  several  times  on  our  return  journey,  and  if  I 
had  had  anything  to  do  with  it,  I  should  certainly  have 
seized  one  of  the  local  inhabitants  and  have  made  him 
come  with  me  to  show  me  the  way. 

Officers  carry  their  maps  generally  in  their  hats.  The 
maps  are  never  mounted.  The  two-verst  map,  which  is 
not  on  sale,  seems  good.  The  ten-verst  is  inaccurate  and 
indistinct. 

The  supply  of  the  two-verst  map  was  not  always 
sufficient,  and  some  officers  used  the  three- versts — a  poor 
map  with  hashured  hill  features. 

Officers  in  command  of  "  battle  patrols  '  were  found 
repeatedly  to  be  without  maps  of  the  district  in  which  their 
task  lay.  The  excuse  was,  of  course,  that  such  maps  had 
been  left  in  the  second-line  transport. 

Each  regiment  of  the  I4th  Division  has  received  203 
riding  remounts  since  the  war  began.  These  were  fur- 
nished by  the  reserve  squadron.  About  ninety  of  them 


September -October,  1914  in 

were  the  annual  batch  of  remounts  due  a  few  months  later. 
Others  had  been  prepared  for  the  six  new  cavalry  regi- 
ments which  it  was  proposed  to  raise  this  year.  Most  of 
these  animals  have  been  little  trained,  and  they  are  so 
soft  that  many  of  them  have  fallen  out  of  the  ranks  already. 
Apart  from  this,  sick  horses  are  every  day  replaced  during 
the  march  by  changing  them  for  fit  ones  requisitioned  on 
receipts  from  the  civilian  owners. 

The  divisional  doctor  showed  me  the  return  of  killed 
and  wounded  for  the  last  month — August  I3th  to  Sep- 
tember I3th — in  which  the  division  had  been  continuously 
employed  on  essentially  legitimate  cavalry  duties.  Officers  : 
killed  o,  wounded  7.  Rank  and  file :  killed  32,  wounded 
130.  This  out  of  a  total  of  5,200. 

Two  Jews  were  discussing  the  war.  One  said  :  "  Our 
side  will  win,"  and  the  other  agreed.  Someone  asked 
which  side  was  "  ours,"  and  both  said  :  "  Why,  the  side 
that  will  win." 

In  our  skirmish  with  the  Sokols  this  evening  we  burned 
the  Charkov  Manor  House,  a  fine  old  chateau.  Its  owner, 
young  Count  Palovski,  and  his  agent  were  brought  in  a 
country  cart  to  where  we  stood.  I  was  sorry  for  the  boy, 
who  looked  a  cultured  gentleman  and  rather  a  contrast  to 
some  of  those  crowding  round  him,  but  it  was  clear  that 
he  had  harboured  the  Sokols  till  our  arrival,  and  local 
evidence  marked  him  out  as  their  chief  organiser.  His 
elder  brother  is  an  Austrian  subject  and  an  officer  in  an 
Austrian  cavalry  regiment.  Another  brother  served  as  a 
short-time  volunteer  in  the  very  regiment  that  he  was 
captured  by  to-day.  They  have  estates  in  Lithuania  and 
a  palace  at  Krakau.  The  youth  bore  himself  well  and 
without  bombast,  looking  round  every  now  and  again  at 
his  burning  home.  He  was  driven  off  under  escort  to 
Busk.  He  had  doubtless  remained  in  his  home  in  the 
hope  that  it  might  be  spared. 


ii2        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

The  application  of  the  lava  formation  I  saw  to-day  did 
not  impress  me.  A  squadron  simply  advanced  in  open 
order  and  when  fired  upon  retired.  It  roughly  located 
the  enemy's  trenches  and  had  no  casualties  because  it  was 
opposed  to  irregulars.  The  tactics  of  the  day  seemed 
feeble.  As  we  had  previous  information  that  we  would 
only  be  opposed  by  200  Sokols,  we  might  have  allowed  one 
brigade  to  march  straight  to  bivouac.  If  the  other 
brigade  had  sent  forward  one  regiment  in  lava  formation, 
it  would  have  quickly  found  the  enemy's  flanks  and  forced 
him  to  retire  from  his  trenches  and  cut  him  up  when 
retiring. 

The  orders  for  the  march  which  were  issued  on  the 
previous  evening  indicated  the  rayon  of  the  bivouac. 
Verbal  orders  issued  at  midday  allotted  the  brigades  to 
villages.  The  orders  for  the  outposts  were  written  rapidly 
by  Captain  Shapojnikov  while  the  "  battle '  was  in 
progress. 

I  had  a  very  comfortable  night  at  Count  Veselovski's, 
an  excellent  supper  and  actually  a  bath  in  the  morning. 

Thursday,  September  24th,  1914  ZLOTA. 

Captain  Shapojnikov  left  at  3  p.m.  with  a  squadron 
and  an  officer  of  the  Pontoon  Brigade  to  reconnoitre  at 
Brjesko.  It  was  reported  that  an  Austrian  battalion  is 
there  and  is  either  destroying  or  building  a  bridge.  In  the 
latter  case  we  may  expect  a  hostile  offensive  here,  but  this, 
I  think,  is  unlikely.  I  still  hope  we  will  cross,  so  as  to 
weaken  resistance  to  the  gth  Army  and  hasten  its  advance 
on  Krakau. 

We  heard  to-day  that  Plehve  has  taken  Jaroslau  and 
so  Przemysl  is  cut  off  from  direct  railway  communication 
with  Krakau. 

I  am  very  sorry  for  the  Poles.  These  poor  people 
don't  know  whether  to  stay  or  to  try  to  get  away.  If 
armed  Sokols  come  they  say  they  are  powerless  to  resist 
them  and  the  Russian  troops  hold  them  responsible.  At 


September -October,  1914  113 

tea  to-day  the  old  lady  of  the  house  asked  me  who  a  very 
young  officer  at  the  table  was,  and  shuddered  when  I  told 
her  he  was  a  Cossack.  She  said  that  ten  days  ago  at  his 
estate  in  the  neighbourhood  her  brother  had  fallen  down 
dead  from  heart  disease  while  giving  a  shawl  to  a  Cossack 
who  asked  for  a  disguise.  In  1863  her  grandfather  and 
father  had  taken  part  in  the  Partisan  movement.  Their 
house  was  surrounded  and  both  men  wounded.  Her 
grandmother,  an  old  lady  of  eighty,  was  shot  dead  by  a 
Cossack.  I  hope  the  settlement  will  bring  this  much-tried 
nation  relief.  Our  hostess  told  me  that  she  only  heard  at 
5  p.m.  yesterday  that  her  house  was  to  be  "  invaded."  It 
is  hard  lines,  but  this  cannot  be  helped.  The  poor  woman 
is  horrified  at  the  mud  the  orderlies  carry  in  on  their  boots, 
but,  after  all,  there  is  no  mat  to  clean  them  on  ! 

She  complained  to-day  bitterly  of  the  theft  of  apples 
by  the  men  from  a  Jew  who  had  bought  the  contents  of 
her  orchards.  She  told  the  Commandant  of  the  Staff,  but 
I  fancy  nothing  will  come  of  it.  The  officers  do  not  seem 
to  understand  that  this  spoils  discipline. 

Friday,  September  2$lh,  1914.  WOODMAN'S  HUT 

FIVE  KILOMETRES  SOUTH  OF  PINCHOV. 

We  started  at  9  a.m.,  after  saying  good-bye.  Rode 
south  to  Dobyeslavitse.  Glorious  day.  "  The  Blood- 
thirsty Cornet '  (as  we  had  christened  a  young  officer, 
who  was  always  thirsting  for  the  blood  of  the  Boche) 
rode  on  an  Irish  horse,  a  "  hunter,"  that  he  had  bought 
from  our  host  for  Rs.40o  and  was  at  once  willing  to  sell 
for  Rs.75o.  He  got  no  offers  over  Rs.300,  as  the  horse 
was  evidently  a  confirmed  "  puller." 

We  lunched  in  the  house  of  a  Polish  landowner  who  had 
some  fine  old  engravings.  At  lunch  the  General  received 
information  from  the  Corps  that  the  Germans  are  advancing 
in  two  large  groups  based  on  Chenstokhov  and  Bendin, 
and  that  further  north  they  have  occupied  Novoradomsk. 
We  are  ordered  to  move  north  in  the  direction  of  Pinchov, 

H 


H4        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

and  have  to  abandon  the  idea  of  crossing  the  Vistula, 
which  was  to  have  been  carried  out  to-night.  Our  task 
will  be  now  to  delay  the  German  advance  on  Warsaw  till 
an  army  in  rear  concentrates.  We  had  marched  twenty- 
five  versts  in  the  morning,  and  started  at  3.30  p.m. 
to  march  thirty-five  more  in  exactly  the  opposite 
direction. 

The  division  moved  in  three  parallel  columns,  a  brigade 
on  either  flank  and  the  transport  in  the  centre.  We  rode 
in  advance  of  the  left  brigade.  At  8  p.m.  shots  were  fired 
by  men  of  a  German  patrol  on  a  connecting  file  of  our 
advanced  guard.  We  were  all  halted  in  a  hollow  at  the 
time.  The  General  ordered  a  squadron  forward,  and  it 
streamed  out  in  lava  formation.  Soon  the  Bloodthirsty 
Cornet  returned  to  tell  us  that  a  German  trooper  had  been 
wounded  and  captured.  He  carried  his  sword  and  helmet 
in  triumph.  He  said  he  could  not  speak  very  well,  as  he 
had  been  wounded  by  a  lance  in  the  mouth  ! 

An  officer's  patrol  came  in  to  say  that  the  8th  Division 
was  in  action  against  infantry  near  Myekhov.  We  will 
move  north  to-morrow  with  the  Turkistan  Brigade  on  the 
right  and  north  of  it,  the  Caucasian  Cavalry  Division  under 
General  Charpentier. 

We  reached  a  farmhouse  at  n  p.m.,  but  there  is  little 
chance  of  seeing  our  transport  to-night. 

Rotmeister  Nikolaev,  who  was  marching  by  the  centre 
road  with  the  pack  transport,  stumbled  on  to  the  top  of 
the  German  patrol  to-day.  He  did  not  hesitate,  but 
galloped  straight  at  it,  pack-horses  and  all.  He  accounted 
for  nine  Germans.  It  was  fine  evidence  of  the  cavalry 
spirit,  for  if  he  had  hesitated  for  a  moment  the  patrol 
would  probably  have  turned  the  tables  on  him,  or  at  any 
rate  would  have  got  away.  All  the  wounded  and  killed 
in  the  skirmish  were  by  the  lance.  The  Captain  in  com- 
mand got  a  horrid  wound  in  the  mouth,  knocking  his 
teeth  out.  He  lay  all  night  on  a  sofa  of  the  dining-room 
of  the  house  we  occupied  and  glared  at  us.  The  second 


September -October,  1914  115 

officer  was  killed,  and  we  altogether  killed  or  captured 
twenty-three  men  out  of  twenty-six  in  the  patrol. 

The  Commander's  diary  showed  that  he  had  seen  us 
march  south  in  the  morning.  He  did  not  reckon  on  us 
returning  so  quickly.  The  roads  here  are  sunken  and 
conceal  troop  movements. 

The  young  lieutenant  who  acts  as  interpreter  was 
quite  efficient  in  extracting  information  from  a  captured 
German  N.G.O.  His  method  is  to  tell  the  man  that  if  he 
tells  lies  we  are  in  a  position  to  disprove  them,  and  that  he 
will  be  at  once  shot ;  otherwise  he  will  be  sent  back  as  a 
prisoner  of  war  to  Central  Russia  and  will  have  a  good 
time.  He  then  asks  if  the  man  has  a  wife  and  children, 
when  his  eyes  are  bound  to  fill  with  tears,  and  he  is 
'  brought  to  the  proper  frame  of  mind."  It  was  an 
unforgettable  scene,  the  room  crowded  with  officers,  a 
single  flickering  candle,  and  the  prisoners. 

Only  N.C.O.'s  and  a  few  of  the  men  are  questioned 
separately  and  their  answers  are  compared.  Officers 
are  not  questioned,  the  Russian  theory  being  that  the 
officer  is  a  man  of  honour  and  must  not  be  insulted 
by  being  pressed  to  give  information  against  his  own 
country. 

The  wounded  N.C.O.  stated  that  the  patrol  had  been 
despatched  two  days  previously  from  one  hour  west  of 
Myekhov.  It  belonged  to  the  Guard  Dragoon  Regiment. 
The  collecting-point  for  reports  was  a  village  fifteen  versts 
south-west  of  our  present  billet,  and  this  point  was  occupied 
by  infantry. 

Saturday,  September  26th,  1914.  YASENN,   Six   VERSTS 

SOUTH-EAST  OF  ANDREEV. 

Maxim  arrived  at  the  workman's  hut  with  the  transport 
about  3  a.m.  I  slept  about  three  hours.  Left  at  9  a.m. 
and  rode  through  Pinchov. 

Pinchov  is  the  peace  station  of  the  I4th  Uhlans,  one  of 
the  regiments  of  the  Division.  I  rode  into  the  town  with 


n6       With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Staff  Rotmeister  Plotnikov,  the  Commander  of  the  battle 
patrol  furnished  by  that  regiment,  and  he  was  delighted  to 
be  once  more  in  familiar  surroundings.  He  said  it  made  a 
curious  impression  to  ride  in  war  through  a  wood  where 
he  had  so  often  gathered  mushrooms  with  his  wife.  He 
got  me  cigarettes  through  a  friendly  Jew  and  a  meal  in  the 
town. 

We  rode  on,  crossing  the  Nida  at  Motkovitse  to  Yasenn, 
south-east  of  Andreev,  where  we  stopped  in  a  small  country 
house  inhabited  by  a  bevy  of  women.  Their  drawing-room 
is  full  of  flowers  ;  it  will  look  different  to-morrow  morning. 
They  can  only  give  us  four  rooms,  and  we  are  eighteen 
officers. 

A  German  patrol  was  sighted  by  one  of  our  flank  patrols 
as  we  crossed  the  Nida,  but  got  away,  though  we  sent  two 
squadrons  after  it — a  pity,  for  this  may  spoil  the  im- 
pression of  yesterday. 

The  Corps  Staff  estimates  the  German  strength  on  the 
front  Ghenstokhov-Bendin  at  an  army  corps  only,  com- 
posed of  reserve  units  of  the  Guard  and  the  IVth  Corps. 
If  we  can  destroy  their  cavalry  and  so  "  blind  them,"  as 
Shapojnikov  says,  we  should  have  some  fun. 

Yesterday  Loginov,  with  the  Turkistan  Cossack 
Brigade  reconnoitring  on  too  wide  a  front,  was  pushed 
back  from  Konetspol,  and  later,  it  is  believed,  from  Vlosh- 
chova.  The  8th  Division  is  believed  to  be  near  Vodzislav 
and  the  5th  near  Myekhov,  but  their  commanders  are 
without  much  energy.  One  of  the  Don  Cossack  divisions 
arrives  by  forced  marches  to-morrow  at  Kyeltsi  to  assist 
Loginov ;  the  other  will  probably  go  on  to  the  extreme 
left.  Our  role  is  to  delay.  The  Nida,  with  its  marshy  valley, 
seems  the  natural  line. 

Maxim,  my  civilian  servant,  asked  me  to  recommend 
him  for  a  St.  George's  Cross  on  account  of  the  skirmish 
yesterday.  As  he  was  on  a  cart  with  the  centre  column, 
and  was  unarmed,  I  asked  him  what  he  had  done.  He 
said  :  • "  I  yelled  '  Hurrah  ! '  " 


September -October,  1914  117 

Fine  morning,  but  cloudy  afternoon.    Frost  last  night. 

Sunday,  September  2jth,  1914.          YASENN,  SOUTH-EAST  OF 

ANDREEV. 

The  enemy's  infantry  is  generally  on  a  radius  of  thirty- 
five  versts  from  Andreev  from  right  to  left  west  of  Vlosh- 
chova-Shchekotsini-Jarnovets-Myekhov.  A  column  of  his 
cavalry  which  was  trying  to  get  through  to  Andreev  was 
thrown  back  by  two  of  our  squadrons  last  night. 

The  Turkistan  Brigade  has  re-taken  Vloshchova.  The 
5th  Don  Cossack  Division  arrives  at  Kyeltsi  to-day.  The 
I4th  Division  is  to  go  to  Andreev ;  the  8th  Division  to 
Vodzislav ;  the  5th  to  Skalbmyer] ;  the  4th  Don 
Cossack  Division  may  arrive  at  Busk  to-day,  but  it  is 
doubtful.  Agent's  information  received  at  10  a.m. 
states  that  two  infantry  regiments  are  advancing  on 
Naglovitse ;  the  bulk  of  the  Germans  seem  to  be  moving 
south-east  towards  Myekhov,  i.e.,  probably  against  the 
flank  of  the  gth  Army.  They  have  this  year's  recruits  in 
the  ranks.  The  4th  Army  is  retiring  to  Ivangorod.  Mean- 
while we  have  only  a  brigade  of  the  79th  Division  at 
Ivangorod  and  another  brigade  of  the  same  division  is 
retiring  north  along  the  Vistula.  The  Staff  of  the  Cavalry 
Corps  moves  to  Motkovitse  on  the  river  Nida  south-east  of 
Andreev  to-day.  Three  railway  bridges  north-east  and 
west  and  south-west  of  Andreev  were  destroyed  this 
morning. 

While  I  was  writing  the  above  a  cannonade  started 
north-west  of  Andreev,  accompanied  by  machine-gun  fire. 
We  said  good-bye  to  our  hostess  and  her  six  daughters, 
who  looked  quite  terrified.  They  had  no  idea  till  they 
heard  the  firing  that  the  Prussians  were  anywhere  near. 
I  hope  their  nice  garden  and  place  escapes  in  the  fighting 
that  will  probably  take  place  to-morrow.  I  am  par- 
ticularly sorry  for  them,  as  the  father — the  only  male  of 
the  establishment — is  practically  an  imbecile.  The  old 
lady  said  she  would  like  to  leave,  but  she  could  not  get 


u8        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

her  money  from  the  bank,  so  had  to  cling  to  her  little  place, 
where  she  could  be  always  certain  of  a  livelihood  by  selling 
the  apples  from  her  orchards.  There  is  a  long  score  to 
pay  against  Germany. 

We  rode  about  a  mile  towards  Andreev  and  remained 
there  for  the  day.  The  German  guns  fired  deliberately  at 
the  Catholic  church  in  Andreev  and  set  it  on  fire.  Then 
first  one  and  then  the  other  of  our  batteries  came  into 
action  and  the  Germans  ceased  fire.  An  officer  of  Hussars 
told  me  that  the  fighting  had  started  with  an  attack  by  a 
company  of  cyclists  and  two  squadrons  of  cavalry  on  his 
piquet  (a  troop  strong),  and  he  had  been  forced  to  retire. 
We  got  bread  and  cheese  at  a  farmhouse  at  2  p.m.,  then 
rode  back  to  our  hosts  of  the  night  before  to  dine  at  6  p.m. 
Then  we  rode  on  to  Motkovitse,  the  estate  of  M.  Gurski, 
who  has  migrated  to  Warsaw  while  the  war  lasts.  The 
General,  Cantacuzene  and  I  put  up  in  the  drawing-room 
— I  on  a  glorious  sofa.  The  Corps  Staff  is  here  as  well, 
but  the  house  is  a  splendid  one,  with  room  for  all  of 
us.  To-morrow  should  be  an  interesting  day.  It  was 
interesting  to-day,  but  fog  prevented  us  from  seeing 
properly. 

Monday,  September  28th,  1914.  KHMYELNIK. 

A  comfortable  night  on  the  sofa  in  M.  Gurski 's  house  at 
Motkovitse.  A  good  breakfast  and  start  at  6  a.m.  We 
rode  north-west  towards  Andreev  through  the  outpost  line 
of  the  night  before,  which  was  five  versts  from  the  Staff 
Headquarters  and  covered  an  arc  of  twelve  versts.  We 
advanced  to  "  bite  "  the  enemy,  as  the  C.R.A.  expressed 
it.  In  general  the  arrangement  was  :  1st  Brigade  right 
of  the  chaussee  and  2nd  Brigade  left,  with  the  Frontier 
Guard  in  the  centre. 

I  had  my  first  experience  of  the  moral  effect  of  gun- 
fire. The  enemy  gunners  were  evidently  attracted  by  the 
target  offered  by  the  Staff  with  orderlies  and  horses  on  the 
see,  and  opened  fire  with  shrapnel.  We  had  a  hot 


September-October,  1914  119 

time  for  five  minutes.  This  was  our  surprise ;  we  had 
one  ready  for  the  enemy.  He  was  withdrawing  north-east 
by  the  chaussee  to  Kyeltsi,  when  one  of  our  batteries  opened 
fire  from  a  covered  position  on  our  right.  We  could  see 
through  our  glasses  the  disorder  in  his  column.  Presently 
his  guns  came  into  action  against  our  battery,  and  it  seemed 
as  if  nothing  could  live  under  his  fire.  However,  it 
eventually  withdrew  with  a  loss  of  only  three  wounded  ! 
Our  other  battery  came  into  action  on  the  right  of  the  road 
without  much  effect.  There  was  a  short  pause  while  the 
enemy  no  doubt  detailed  a  column  to  move  against  us,  for 
he  obviously  could  not  continue  his  processional  march 
along  the  chaussee  to  Kyeltsi  and  Radom  with  an  enemy 
force  of  unknown  strength  on  his  right  flank.  Suddenly 
we  heard  rifle-fire  on  the  chaussee  from  the  direction  of 
Andreev.  It  developed  with  extraordinary  rapidity  all 
along  our  short  front.  A  Frontier  Guard  orderly  galloped 
up  to  ask  for  leave  to  retire  as  his  squadron  was  in  a 
dangerous  position.  Erdeli  told  him  not  to  be  excited  but 
to  go  back  and  hold  on.  We  went  back  to  the  main 
position  of  the  day,  where  the  eight  guns  were  brought 
into  position  north-west  of  the  edge  of  a  thick  wood, 
covered  by  a  scattered  line  of  dismounted  cavalrymen 
about  two  hundred  yards  in  advance.  The  calmness  of 
the  Russians  is  wonderful.  I  saw  the  gunners  actually 
asleep  behind  their  shields  two  minutes  before  fire  was 
opened.  When,  ten  minutes  later,  the  enemy's  guns  had 
got  the  range,  the  place  became  "  unhealthy."  Few  shells 
reached  us  two  hundred  yards  further  at  the  other  side  of 
the  wood,  but  the  din  was  appalling.  When  the  battery 
retired  a  captain  of  the  Frontier  Guard  galloped  up  to  say 
that  one  of  the  gun  teams  had  been  destroyed.  He  took 
men  back  to  help,  and  presently  a  gun  came  slowly  down 
the  road  drawn  by  two  horses,  one  of  which  was  badly 
wounded.  A  group  of  men  carried  a  dead  comrade.  The 
batteries  had  remained  in  action  till  the  enemy's  guns  were 
within  1,500  yards.  Casualties  were  again  trifling.  The 


120        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

eight  guns  lost  one  man  killed  and  six  wounded,  and  six 
horses  killed  and  twelve  wounded. 

This  was  the  second  and  the  main  position  of  the  day. 
We  then  trotted  back  four  versts  through  Motkovitse  and 
over  the  Nida,  where  two  bridges  were  prepared  with  straw 
and  explosives  for  destruction.  A  line  of  men  had  been 
told  to  hold  on  to  the  approach  to  Motkovitse  till  all  that 
were  in  front  had  gone  through. 

Opposite  to  the  entrance  to  the  house  we  slept  in  last 
night  at  Motkovitse  a  Jew  was  hanging  from  a  tree  by  the 
roadside.  His  cap  was  on  his  head,  and  as  we  trotted 
rapidly  past  in  the  drifting  rain  I  did  not  see  the  rope,  and 
was  astonished  to  see  a  Jew  who  did  not  salute.  As  I 
looked  again  I  saw  that  his  feet  were  some  inches  from  the 
ground.  He  had  been  slung  up  by  the  Corps  Staff  for 
espionage. 

The  enemy's  cyclists  arrived  too  late  to  prevent  the 
destruction  of  the  bridge.  We  had  prepared  long  lines  of 
dismounted  men  to  dispute  the  passage  of  the  river,  but  the 
enemy  had  probably  had  enough,  and  a  few  gun  and  rifle- 
shots ended  the  day. 

We  stopped  at  Kai  to  write  orders  for  the  halt,  and  then 
rode  the  twelve  versts  to  Khmyelnik  at  a  walk.  Our 
outpost  line  is  on  the  edge  of  a  wood  about  five  versts 
west  of  Khmyelnik.  * 

The  net  result  of  our  action  to-day  is  that  the  enemy, 
whose  strength  is  estimated  at  one  brigade  of  infantry, 
one  regiment  of  cavalry  and  two  six-gun  batteries  of 
artillery,  was  prevented  from  marching  to  Kyeltsi,  as  he 
evidently  wished,  and  was  drawn  into  a  combat  with  us  in 
which  he  covered  only  twelve  versts  from  Andreev  to 
Motkovitse  instead  of  the  normal  twenty  versts'  march. 
He  will  have  to  repair  the  bridges  at  Motkovitse  or  else 
return  to  Andreev,  as  a  preliminary  to  a  move  north-east  or 
south-east  to  find  another  crossing  for  his  guns. 

We  have  lost  about  sixty  men  killed,  wounded  and 
missing.  The  bulk  of  them  are  Frontier  Guard, 


September-October,  1914  121 

sotnia  of  which  was  left  behind  in  the  first  position  after 
the  German  infantry  advance.  It  is  said  that  they  were 
destroyed  by  machine-gun  fire.  At  any  rate,  their  horse- 
holders  came  back  without  them.  The  German  losses 
must  be  as  great,  for  our  guns  got  into  their  advancing 
columns.  On  the  other  hand,  our  rifle-fire  can  have 
caused  him  little  damage,  for  our  lines  had  to  commence 
retirement  when  his  firing-line  was  over  1,000  yards  off. 
The  terrain  was  particularly  difficult  for  cavalry,  for  the 
woods  were  too  thick  to  ride  through  comfortably  with 
the  lance. 

Erdeli  was  coolness  itself,  receiving  reports  and  direct- 
ing the  action  with  the  utmost  calm.  The  German  infantry 
advanced  resolutely  and  the  artillery  shooting  was  good. 

General  situation  :  The  8th  Cavalry  Division  is  said  to 
be  east  of  Pinchov  and  the  5th  at  Busk.  No  news  from 
Kyeltsi.  The  Corps  Staff  is  here  at  Khmyelnik.  Our  task 
is  "to  delay  the  enemy's  advance  till  October  ist,  when 
the  4th  Army  will  be  ready,"  but  on  what  line,  it  is  not 
known. 

We  got  a  good  dinner  at  Khmyelnik  and  slept  com- 
fortably.   The  weather  throughout  the  day  was  awful — ' 
strong  wind  and  many  showers. 

Tuesday,  September  29^,  1914.  PRIEST'S  HOUSE, 

OTSYESENKI. 

We  started  at  nine  and  rode  north-west  to  Petrokovitse, 
where  we  awaited  result  of  reconnaisance.  We  had 
heard  that  the  enemy  had  moved  his  outposts  and  five 
companies  of  infantry  over  the  Nida  late  last  night,  and 
that  he  had  repaired  the  bridges  by  morning.  They 
must  have  been  very  slackly  blown  up  ! 

Three  reports  received  between  12.30  and  i  p.m. 
confirmed  the  fact  that  the  enemy  was  continuing  his 
advance  on  Khmyelnik,  We  rode  east  in  two  columns 
to  Otsyesenki,  completing  a  march  of  forty  versts  in  all  on 


122        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

awful  roads.  We  arrived  at  Otsyesenki  at  8.30  p.m.,  and 
it  was  a  pleasant  surprise  to  find  our  baggage  arrived  and 
things  ready  for  us  at  the  priest's  house.  We  won't, 
however,  get  dinner  till  n  p.m. 

No  news  from  Kyeltsi,  but  it  seems  probable  that  the 
Turkistan  Brigade  and  the  5th  Don  Gossack  Division  have 
retired  from  there. 

The  8th  Division  had  left  three  squadrons,  two  guns 
and  two  machine-guns  to  hold  the  passage  at  Pinchov,  but 
this  was  forced  by  the  enemy's  infantry  at  11.30  last 
night.  The  8th  Division  is  at  Gnoino,  south-east  of 
Khmyelnik,  and  the  5th  is  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Stopnitsa. 

It  looks  as  if  we  would  come  out  between  Ostrovets 
and  Opatov. 

Last  night  while  we  were  at  dinner  a  Cossack  officer 
brought  in  three  prisoners.  His  patrol  of  eleven  men 
had  killed  two  and  taken  three.  He  announced  the  fact 
by  saying  that  he  had  had  a  slight  unpleasantness.  This 
was  said  quite  naturally,  without  the  slightest  straining  for 
effect.  A  piquet  to-day  took  two  prisoners  and  killed 
one  other  man  in  a  German  patrol.  The  Russians  are 
extraordinarily  good  to  their  prisoners,  giving  away  tea 
and  bread  that  they  are  in  want  of  themselves. 

Khmyelnik  is  now  occupied  by  the  outposts  of  the 
German  column  from  Andreev 

Wednesday,  September  ^oth,  1914.  PRIEST'S  HOUSE, 

LAGOV. 

We  rested  this  morning  and  only  resumed  our  retreat 
at  3  p.m.,  the  priest  blessing  us  as  we  left. 

We  rode  through  beautiful  scenery  to  Lagov,  due  east 
(nine  versts  only). 

The  8th  Division  has  moved  north  to  Rakov  and  the 
5th  Division  is  at  and  east  of  Stopnitsa. 

I  understood  that  we  are  to  continue  to  move  generally 
in  a  north-easterly  direction.  The  Corps  Staff  is  at  Stashoy. 


September-  October,  1914  123 

A  Cossack  squadron  commander  returned  to-night  from 
a  two-days'  reconnaissance,  which  he  had  carried  out 
between  two  of  the  advancing  columns.  He  ran 
very  great  risk,  but  has  returned  through  a  miracle, 
with  the  loss  of  two  men  only.  He  looks  like  a  benevolent 
professor  instead  of  a  wild  Cossack,  and  he  has  a  stomach 
and  wears  spectacles.  On  one  occasion,  in  a  village  at 
midnight,  he  stumbled  through  the  German  outposts  and 
came  on  a  house  in  which  a  number  of  them  were  fast 
asleep.  He  did  nothing,  as  he  '  did  not  know  his  way 
back."  The  information  he  brought  amounts  to  nothing, 
for  he  saw  no  shoulder-straps.  This  class  of  officer  spoils 
good  men.  Erdeli  spoke  some  "  winged  words." 

Thursday,  October  ist,  1914.      FARMHOUSE,  ZVOLYA-SARNYA. 

Slept  comfortably  at  the  priest's  house  at  Lagov.  His 
sanitary  arrangements  are  respectable,  which  is  wonderful 
in  Poland. 

The  Germans  are  in  three  groups  :  the  northern  at 
Kyeltsi,  the  centre  at  Khmyelnik,  the  right  about  Busk. 
The  4th  Don  Cossack  Division  is  north-east  of  Kyeltsi,  the 
Turkistan  Brigade  with  the  5th  Don  Cossack  Division  is 
east  of  Kyeltsi,  the  I4th  Cavalry  Division  is  at  Lagov^ 
the  8th  is  at  Rakov,  the  5th  at  Stashov  ;  the  Corps  Staff 
is  moving  to-day  north-east  to  Ivaniska. 

The  Germans  have  the  Xlth  and  XXth  active  Corps 
and  the  Guard  Reserve  Corps. 

We  started  at  2  p.m.  and  rode  fifteen  versts  north-east 
to  Zvolya-Sarnya  by  a  pretty  mountain  road.  The 
General  examined  the  ground,  selecting  a  position  to 
delay  a  column  that  is  reported  to  be  advancing  from 
Kyeltsi  in  this  direction.  We  put  up  at  a  small  farm- 
house. 

The  division  is  armed  with  eight  Maxims  of  the  new 
(lighter)  type.    They  are  used  in  pairs,  e.g., 
go  with  the  advanced  guard  or  rearguard, 


ONTARIO 


124        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

The  strength  of  the  cavalry  regiment  is  44  officers  and 
996  men ;  of  the  squadron,  147  men. 

Generally  three  reconnoitring  squadrons  are  out  at  a 
time.  Each  is  given  a  strip  of  country,  say  eight  to  ten 
versts  wide.  The  squadron  moves,  say  thirty  versts, 
and  sends  out  three  patrols,  one  of  which  is  generally 
commanded  by  an  officer  and  the  other  two  by  N.C.O.'s. 
The  patrols  may  move  another  ten  versts,  so  the  whole 
squadron  searches  to  a  distance  of  forty  versts  if  not  held 
up.  Special  officers'  patrols  are  sent  out  to  search  sections 
between  the  reconnoitring  squadrons.  "  Close  recon- 
naissance "  is  carried  out  at  the  direction  of  the  brigade 
commanders  to  a  distance  of  fifteen  versts. 

Friday,  October  2nd,  1914.  PRIEST'S  HOUSE,  VASNEV. 

We  started  at  6.15  on  a  dreadful  morning — cold  wind 
and  torrents  of  rain — to  ride  west  to  Novaya  Slunya,  where 
we  had  been  ordered  by  the  corps  commander  to  delay  the 
enemy  as  he  debouched  from  the  hills.  The  ist  Brigade 
took  up  a  position  in  readiness  on  the  right  of  the  Opatov- 
Novaya  Slunya  road  facing  west,  and  the  2nd  Brigade  a 
similar  position  on  the  left.  Both  batteries  deployed  in  a 
field  on  the  ground  on  the  right  of  the  road,  some  four 
hundred  yards  apart. 

Erdeli  and  his  staff  rode  to  a  hut  on  the  left  flank  some 
400  yards  in  advance  of  the  batteries.  A  farmhouse  on 
the  extreme  left  was  occupied  by  a  dismounted  squadron 
of  Cossacks,  who  were  told  to  hold  on  "as  long  as  they 
could."  I  asked  an  officer  what  this  meant  in  the  case  of 
dismounted  cavalry  as  opposed  to  infantry,  and  he  said 
that  it  meant  that  they  should  go  before  the  horse-holders 
were  in  danger,  and  that  was  generally  before  the  enemy's 
infantry  reached  1,000  yards'  range. 

The  ground,  as  we  occupied  it  in  the  early  morning, 
was  hopeless  for  our  purposes.  With  artillery  that 
cannot  fire  at  a  much  shorter  range  than  3,000  yards  no 
ground  was  visible  to  more  than  1,000  yards,  owing  to  the 


September -October,  1914  125 

fog.  There  is  a  feeling  among  officers  that  their  attempts 
to  delay  infantry  advances  are  futile.  The  dismounted 
cavalry  hardly  waits  to  exchange  shots  and  the  action 
resolves  itself  into  an  artillery  duel,  in  which  our  eight  guns 
are  opposed  to  superior  strength.  The  position  we  would 
have  had  to  occupy  to-day  was  bad,  for  all  the  ground  over 
which  the  enemy  was  expected  to  advance  commanded 
that  by  which  we  should  eventually  have  had  to 
retreat. 

It  cleared  at  twelve  and  we  waited  till  at  length  a 
report  came  through  that  the  column  whose  coming  we 
awaited  had  turned  off  south  towards  Opatov.  At  4.15 
we  received  a  message  (with  no  time  noted  on  it)  that  a 
column  of  all  arms  was  entering  Khibitse,  due  north  of 
where  we  were,  and  with  a  road  to  Vasnev,  where  we  had 
arranged  to  sleep.  We  moved  off  at  once  and  took  up  a 
flanking  position  to  oppose  the  advance  of  this  column, 
sending  out  battle  patrols  to  ascertain  whether  the  enemy 
had  stopped  for  the  night  at  Khibitse,  or  was  moving  on. 
Two  officers  in  command  of  reconnoitring  parties  reported 
that  the  enemy  had  entered  Khibitse,  but  were  cursed  by 
the  General  because  they  had  not  waited  to  see  whether  he 
moved  on,  and  if  so  by  what  roads. 

Finally  it  was  decided  that  we  should  spend  the  night 
at  Vasnev,  six  miles  from  the  enemy's  infantry,  and  the 
transport,  which  had  been  sent  east,  was  called  back.  We 
put  up  at  the  house  of  the  priest,  who  entertained  us  with 
the  best  he  had,  and  we  had  a  scratch  meal  of  ham,  bread, 
butter  and  wine.  The  kindness  of  the  Russians  is  wonder- 
ful. They  are  always  anxious  that  I  should  have  all  I  can 
possibly  require  before  they  think  of  themselves. 

The  cottage  we  spent  the  day  in  belonged  to  an  old  man 
of  eighty-five,  who  had  forgotten  how  many  children  he  had 
had — seven  or  eight.  He  was  a  good  type  of  the  sturdy, 
sober  Polish  peasant. 

To-morrow  we  should  get  behind  our  infantry.  I  hope 
they  are  ready  to  wake  up  the  Germans. 


126         With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Saturday,  October  $rd,  1914.  COUNTRY  HOUSE  AT  YANOV 

(NORTH-EAST  OF  OSTROVETS). 

The  retreat  is  continued,  the  8th  Division  is  ordered 
back  from  Rudniki,  where  it  spent  last  night,  to  Syenno, 
but  probably  will  not  reach  it ;  the  5th  Division  from 
Midlov  to  Ostrovets,  but  will  probably  spend  the  night 
south-east  of  that.  The  three  Cossack  Divisions,  4th  and 
5th  Don  and  the  Ural  (Kaufmann)  have  moved  north  and 
west  to  the  left  flank  of  the  enemy's  Kyeltsi  group,  there 
being  a  wide  interval  between  the  left  of  the  Kyeltsi  group 
and  the  right  of  the  German  group  further  north. 

We  slept  quietly,  though  our  outposts  must  have  been 
in  touch  with  the  German  outposts  at  Khibitse.  We 
started  at  8.30  a.m.  and  occupied  a  strong  position  east  of 
Vasnev. 

The  Germans  soon  appeared  and  moved  in  thick 
columns  down  the  opposite  slope  to  occupy  Vasnev.  They 
fired  a  single  shot,  which  fell  short.  Our  left  battery  fired 
for  a  considerable  time,  but  all  the  shots  were  short,  and 
the  Germans  did  not  reply.  It  is  as  well  that  they  did 
not,  for  the  whole  east  side  of  the  long  village  in  which 
we  were  was  crowded  with  horses  and  men  in  which  the 
first  shell  would  have  created  a  panic. 

No  men  were  actually  extended  in  the  firing-line.  We 
moved  off  at  twelve,  when  Vasnev  had  been  already  occupied 
by  the  enemy,  and  an  hour  after  we  had  received  a  message 
(despatched  10.20)  that  Kunov  was  occupied  by  infantry, 
cavalry  and  cyclists  and  that  the  latter  were  moving 
towards  Ostrovets,  our  line  of  retreat.  We  rode  rapidly 
through  Ostrovets,  for  the  enemy's  cyclists  had  been 
sighted  very  near  the  town.  Clear  of  the  town,  we 
stopped  while  the  general  dictated  orders  for  the  bivouac 
at  Yanov,  twenty- three  versts  north-east  of  Ostrovets. 
The  road  lay  through  woods  for  the  most  part  of  the  way. 
It  was  pleasant  riding,  but  the  depth  of  the  sand  made  our 
C.R.A.'s  heart  bleed  for  his  horses. 

At  Yanov  we  put  up  at  a  pleasant  country  house  that 


September-October,  1914  127 

was  well  known  to  the  I4th  Division  in  its  wanderings  last 
month. 

The  two  Don  Cossack  divisions  have  been  taken  from 
the  corps,  and  the  corps  (5th,  8th,  I4th  Cavalry  Divisions) 
is  to  move  north-east  to  Ivangorod  and  then  to  Warsaw, 
where  it  will  take  part  in  the  operations  towards  the  west. 

It  was  rather  a  blow  to  hear  that  the  4th  Army  is  only 
crossing  at  Nova  Alexandriya  and  Yuzefov.  The  9th 
Army's  crossing  has  been  delayed  by  the  destruction  of 
bridges,  one  at  Sandomir  by  fire-ships  sent  down  by  the 
Austrians  and  the  others  at  Zavikhost  and  Annopol  by 
flood.  Still,  it  is  said  that  the  4th  and  9th  Armies  will 
both  be  across  by  the  6th.  It  will  be  a  very  near  thing  if 
they  are  in  time.  In  any  case,  if  they  do  not  cross  they 
will  certainly  be  able  to  stop  the  enemy  on  the  Vistula. 
The  Guard  Rifle  Brigade  and  the  Independent  Guard 
Cavalry  Brigade  are  at  Opatov. 

Everyone  is  very  confident  that  the  war  will  be  over 
in  two  months.  Erdeli  said  as  we  rode  along  to-day,  that 
we  would  see  the  New  Year  in  in  Petrograd. 

We  heard  to-day  that  the  Commander-m-Ghief  sent  his 
thanks  for  the  action  near  Andreev,  and  the  battery 
commander,  who  was  wounded,  has  been  awarded  the 
gold  sword. 

The  Russian  horse-rations  are  as  follows : 

Peace  io|  Ibs.  oats,       io|  Ibs.  hay,       4  Ibs.  straw 

War         -    14!    „     „  15      „      „         4    „       „ 

Barley  is  only  given  when  no  oats  are  available. 

I  had  some  conversation  with  Shapojnikov  about 
Intelligence.  The  District  Staff  is  in  peace  mainly 
responsible  for  the  collection  of  intelligence,  but  the 
General  Staff  of  each  cavalry  division  in  peace  also  works 
at  it.  The  I4th  Cavalry  Division  with  headquarters  at 


128        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Chenstokhov  had  an  agent  for  German  work  and  another 
for  Austrian.  One  agent,  who  is  still  working,  is  a  Polish 
reservist  and  drives  about  in  a  cart.  He  received  Rs.ioo 
for  his  first  task  and  now  gets  Rs.40  to  Rs.5o  for  each 
trip.  He  was  most  valuable  against  the  Austrians,  but 
finds  work  more  difficult  against  the  Germans.  Before 
the  attack  on  Sandomir  he  brought  exact  information  of 
the  units  and  number  of  guns  in  the  garrison.  He  changes 

his  disguise  continually.     Yet   S never  trusts  him 

entirely  and  only  tells  him  approximately  where  the 
division  may  be  on  a  certain  date. 

Poor  Colonel  Westphalen,  the  Chief  of  Staff,  naturally 
feels  his  position,  as  his  junior,  Shapojnikov,  is  consulted 
continually  by  the  General  and  he  never. 

We  picked  up  to-day  a  band  of  200  Don  Cossacks  who 
had  been  trying  for  nine  days  to  join  the  4th  Don  Cossack 
Division.  They  are  chiefly  young  men  who  had  been 
excused  service  previously  on  account  of  family  reasons. 

There  are  at  present  four  reconnoitring  squadrons  out. 
Two  of  them  have  been  out  for  five  days.  Generally  three 
reconnoitring  squadrons  have  a  single  collecting  pivot  for 
information  and  this  is  connected  by  "  Flying  Post,"  laid 
by  the  division,  with  divisional  headquarters  (a  distance  of 
about  twenty  versts).  The  headquarters  of  each  squadron 
connects  by  its  own  "  Flying  Post '  with  the  collecting 
pivot.  Headquarters  of  squadrons  are  at  about  ten  to 
twelve  versts  from  the  collecting  pivot.  The  squadron  in 
turn  sends  out  two  reconnoitring  patrols.  Each  squadron 
remains  out  "  till  further  orders,"  and  these  orders  are  sent 
by  "  Flying  Post."  There  has  been  no  possibility  of 
communicating  with  two  of  the  squadrons  mentioned 
above  for  three  days,  and  they  are  now  "  on  their  own ' 
well  in  the  enemy's  rear. 

The  method  of  sending  out  the  battle  reconnoitring 
patrols  is  this.  The  divisional  commander  calls  out : 


September-October,  1914  129 

"  Next  battle  R.P.  of  1st  (or  2nd)  Brigade  for  duty/* 
explains  the  task  verbally  and  the  officer  gallops  off 
calling  out :  '  Follow  me  the  Uhlan  (or  Hussar  or  Dragoon 
or  Cossack)  Battle  R.P."  There  are  two  battle  R.P/s 
for  each  brigade  (one  for  each  regiment)  and  similarly 
two  orderly  parties  (one  officer  and  two  men)  for  each 
brigade  (one  for  each  regiment). 

Sunday,  October  ^th,  1914.  FARMHOUSE>  SITSINA. 

Last  night  was  the  second  night  that  I  was  too  tired  to 
wait  for  supper.  It  was  not  ready  till  u  and  I  turned  in 
at  10.30. 

At  i  a.m.  we  were  turned  out  and  had  to  march  east 
in  a  torrent  of  rain  to  Soleika  Volya — sixteen  versts  on  the 
top  of  the  thirty-five  we  had  done  in  the  day.  My  throat 
was  hurting  me  and  I  felt  pretty  rotten. 

We  were  disturbed  owing  to  the  ambitions  of  a  young 
cornet.  This  youth,  who  has  been  acting  for  the  past  year 
as  regimental  paymaster,  burned,  as  his  friend  told  me,  to 
gain  some  special  war  honour.  He  heard  from  local 
inhabitants  that  there  was  a  picquet  or  reconnoitring  party 
of  the  enemy  two  versts  outside  our  outpost  line  and  got 
leave  to  take  a  party  to  attack  them.  He  started  with 
twenty-four  men — sixteen  troopers  and  eight  Cossacks. 
He  surprised  the  enemy's  picquet  of  thirty-two  men  and 
killed  or  burned  (for  he  set  fire  to  the  enclosure  where  they 
slept)  twenty-eight  and  took  one  prisoner* 

As  information  came  in  at  the  same  time  that  the 
enemy's  infantry  had  come  close  to  us,  the  General  decided 
to  retire.  We  tumbled  out  of  bed,  Cantacuzene  remarking 
that  we  would  remember  this  against  the  Germans  in  the 
peace  negotiations.  While  we  were  waiting  for  our  bag- 
gage to  get  ahead,  the  prisoner,  a  boy  of  seventeen,  a 
native  of  East  Prussia,  was  brought  in.  He  was  trembling 
and,  as  he  said,  tired  to  death.  He  had  only  joined  five 
days  before  and  it  can  be  easily  imagined  the  hell  he  must 

have  lived  through  in  this  skirmish, 

I 


130         With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

The  scene  in  the  dining-room  was  striking — this  boy 
standing  facing  his  enemies,  a  lot  of  good-natured  and 
sleepy  Russians,  our  host,  a  handsome,  bearded  Pole,  his 
son  and  daughter  listening  with  intense  interest  to  all  that 
was  said — the  half-light  of  a  flickering  lamp,  the  heavy 
downpour  and  rough  gusts  of  wind  outside. 

At  Soleika  Volya  we  lay  down  for  some  hours,  but  it 
was  hard  to  sleep.  I  had  our  host's  bed,  but  there  were 
sixteen  officers  in  his  drawing-room  on  sofas,  chairs,  mat- 
tresses, camp  beds  and  on  the  floor.  We  had  a  scratch 
meal  at  12  noon  and  started  at  2  p.m.  marching  sixteen 
versts  over  the  crossing  of  a  tributary  of  the  Vistula  by 
Tseplev  to  Sitsina.  The  crossing  had  not  been  occupied 
and  we  arrived  at  7.30  p.m.  at  a  large  farmhouse  at  Sitsina, 
which  the  I4th  Divisional  Staff  proceeded  to  occupy  for  the 
sixth  time  since  the  war  started.  The  I4th  Division  should 
and  I  believe  does  know  the  ground. 

There  are  apparently  only  two  groups  of  Russian 
infantry  west  of  the  upper  Vistula — the  75th  Division  at 
Radom,  which  is  in  touch  with  the  4th  and  5th  Don  Cos- 
sacks,  the  Ural  Cossack  Divisions  and  the  Turkistan 
Cossack  Brigade,  and  the  Guard  Rifle  Brigade  which  was 
at  Opatov. 

Yesterday  at  Skarishev,  south-east  of  Radom,  the  5th 
Don  Cossack  Division  fought  a  successful  action,  and  it  is 
said  that  the  75th  Division  threw  back  the  enemy  ten 
versts.  To-night  again  our  outpost  line  will  be  in  touch 
with  his  infantry  outposts.  Each  day  it  is  a  different 
column,  as  we  carry  through  our  flank  march  to  the  north. 
The  Germans  burnt  all  the  village  this  morning  where  their 
piquet  was  cut  up  last  night,  and  as  we  rode  to  our  quarters 
to-night  there  was  an  enormous  fire  burning  on  the  bank 
of  the  Vistula.  It  therefore  looks  as  if  the  northern  line 
of  retreat  of  the  5th  and  8th  Divisions  is  cut  off.  They 
can,  however,  always  retreat  by  Sandomir. 

The  8th  Cavalry  Division,  which  spent  last  night  near 
Opatov,  was  told  by  the  Corps  Staff  to  move  to  Syenno 


September-October,  1914  131 

to-day,  and  the  5th  Division  from  Midlov  (south  of  Opatov) 
was  told  to  move  to  Marushev,  south-east  of  Syenno.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  know  how  far  these  orders  were 
carried  out.  The  Corps  Staff  itself  was  fired  on  in  Os- 
trovets.  It  sent  orders  to  us  to-day  to  hold  Yanov,  where 
we  spent  the  first  part  of  last  night,  to  the  last.  The 
situation  has  changed  so  rapidly  owing  to  the  rapid 
advance  of  the  Germans  that  the  corps  has  lost  all  power 
of  co-ordinating  movement,  and  the  safety  of  each  division 
will  ultimately  depend  on  the  skill  of  its  commander. 

Bread  is  as  a  rule  supplied  by  Government  bakeries, 
each  army  corps  having  its  own.  In  the  latter  part  of 
September  a  civilian  bakery  was  organised  at  Opatov  to 
supply  the  Qth  Army.  Black  bread  from  this  bakery  was 
sent  to  the  cavalry  operating  in  south-west  Poland,  On 
two  occasions  when  it  did  not  turn  up,  the  I4th  Divisional 
Intendant  purchased  from  local  Jewish  bakers  and  dis- 
tributed to  the  regiments  of  the  division.  For  five 
consecutive  days  the  men  of  the  etape  company  at  San- 
domir  were  without  bread.  On  these  occasions  fifty 
kopeks  are  given  to  each  man  and  he  purchases  bread  if 
he  can  I 

When  Government  cattle  are  not  available,  each  squad- 
ron or  battalion  purchases  meat  locally.  Similarly  with 
cabbages.  When  the  regimental  supply  of  tea,  sugar  and 
salt  is  exhausted  it  is  replenished  by  the  Intendance. 

The  men  of  the  I4th  Division  were  well  fed  throughout, 
though  they  received  the  meals  often  at  unnecessarily 
irregular  times. 

Forage  is  wherever  possible  purchased  by  squadron 
commanders  and  paid  for  in  cash. 

Monday,  October  tfh,  1914.  FARMHOUSE,    LAGOV 

(EAST  OF  ZVOLEN). 

It  was  a  lucky  chance  which  prompted  Erdeli  to  send  a 
squadron  and  two  machine-guns  to  Ostrovets  from  Vasnev 


132        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

* 

early  on  the  morning  of  the  3rd.  I  heard  him  give  the 
order  when  Shapojnikov  came  in  with  the  reports  that 
had  been  received  in  the  night,  one  of  which  told  us  that 
Kunov  was  occupied  by  the  enemy's  cyclists.  The  order 
was  a  remarkable  one,  for  we  had  been  informed  by  the 
Corps  Staff  the  night  before  that  the  2nd  Rifle  Brigade 
would  be  in  Ostrovets.  As  things  turned  out,  Ostrovets 
was  unoccupied  and  the  cavalry  only  arrived  a  few 
minutes  before  the  German  cyclists  and  so  were  able  to 
ensure  our  passage  six  hours  later. 

We  remained  where  we  were  all  day  at  Sitsina  "  to 
guard  the  left  of  the  75th  Division  at  Radom."  I  thought 
it  very  possible  that  Zvolen  might  be  occupied  and  our 
retreat  confined  uncomfortably  to  the  dreadful  roads 
north-east  from  Sitsina.  I  went  out  for  a  walk  at  six,  and 
found  everyone  starting  on  my  return.  The  75th  Division 
was  falling  back  from  Radom,  the  5th  Don  Cossacks  Divi- 
sion was  falling  back  north  of  Zvolen.  I  said  good-bye  to 
my  hostess  and  her  little  three-year-old  daughter,  and  we 
started  on  our  ride.  It  was  fine  with  almost  a  full  moon, 
and  for  a  wonder  no  wind.  Zvolen  was  not  yet  occupied. 
It  was  a  relief  to  get  on  the  good  Radom-Novo  Alexandriya 
chaussee.  We  stopped  for  the  night  at  Lagov,  about 
fifteen  versts  from  the  river,  turning  the  poor  landlord  out 
of  his  bed  and  generally  upsetting  his  house. 

We  heard  to-day  that  the  Corps  Staff  had  arrived  at 
Novo- Alexandriya, 

Tuesday,  October  6th,  1914.  OSINI,  NEAR  Novo 

ALEXANDRIYA. 

We  left  Lagov  soon  after  daylight  and  moved  west  to 
five  and  a  half  versts  east  of  Zvolen,  where  we  took  up  a 
position  "  to  delay  the  German  advance."  The  2nd  Bri- 
gade was  on  the  right  of  the  chaitssee.  Some  of  the 
Frontier  Guard  were  thrown  forward  in  the  centre  and  the 
ist  Brigade  was  on  the  left.  The  two  batteries,  one  on  the 


September -October,  1914  133 

right  of  the  chaussge  and  the  other  on  the  left,  had  a 
single  O.P. — a  wooden  windmill  on  the  left  centre,  near 
which  we  took  up  our  position.  It  rained  incessantly  all 
day — a  steady  downpour — but  there  was  less  wind  than 
usual. 

Presently  a  patrol  commander  west  of  Zvolen  reported 
that  a  company  of  cyclists  with  two  squadrons  of  cavalry 
and  some  infantry  were  advancing  and  that  he  was 
retiring  to  the  east  of  Zvolen.  There  was  some  excitement 
caused  by  a  glimpse  of  two  squadrons  on  the  edge  of  a  wood 
three  and  a  half  versts  off.  The  artillery  did  not  fire,  as 
we  could  not  be  sure  that  they  were  not  our  own  people. 
A  report  that  a  column  of  the  enemy  had  turned  north-east 
from  Zvolen  caused  Erdeli  to  retire  his  right  brigade  three 
versts  to  another  position.  From  about  twelve  on,  we 
could  hear  rifle-shots  in  the  village  in  front  and  on  our 
left  flank.  It  was  clearly  evident  to  everyone  that  the 
enemy  was  trying  to  work  round  our  flanks ;  with  a 
crossing  like  the  Vistula  in  rear  this  was  a  real  danger.  Once 
established  on  our  flanks,  the  enemy  might  have  pierced  our 
front  with  his  machine-guns  on  automobiles  and  have 
pushed  forward  heavy  guns  to  bombard  the  bridge.  The 
order  which  we  got  from  the  Corps  Staff  in  the  morning 
was  to  delay  the  enemy  without  allowing  ourselves  to 
become  seriously  engaged  and  to  retire  over  the  river  into 
bivouac  east  of  Novo  Alexandriya.  Erdeli  was  urged  by 
his  staff  and  by  Colonel  Sencha,  as  strongly  as  discipline 
would  allow,  to  retire.  He,  however,  wanted  to  fire  his 
guns  and  remained  on  in  the  hope  of  a  target.  At  length, 
at  1.45,  he  fired  some  shots,  at  the  edge  of  a  wood  where 
there  was  thought  to  be  infantry.  We  went  off  immediately 
afterwards.  The  brigade  retired  extraordinarily  quickly 
and  in  perfect  order.  When  we  reached  the  bridge  at 
Novo  Alexandriya  at  5  p.m.  the  whole  of  the  ist  Brigade 
was  already  there.  The  2nd  was  close  at  hand.  The 
distance  they  had  covered  was  eighteen  to  twenty-one 
versts.  The  enemy  made  no  attempt  to  follow  us — 


134        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

probably  because  he  was  waiting  for  troops  to  come  up 
from  the  rear. 

The  situation  in  the  morning  when  we  took  up  our 
position  east  of  Zvolenwas  explained  to  me  by  Shapojnikov. 

General  Stegelman,  with  the  75th  Division,  accom- 
panied by  the  4th  Don  and  the  Ural  Cossack  Divisions, 
had  continued  the  retirement  commenced  on  the  morning 
of  the  5th  and  had  reached  a  line  west  and  south-west  of 
Kozenitse.  The  Turkistan  Cossack  Brigade  was  retiring 
east  along  the  railway  from  Radom  to  Ivangorod. 

The  5th  Don  Cossack  Division,  which  had  spent  the 
night  at  Polichna,  north  of  Zvolen,  was  also  retiring  slowly 
north-east.  Our  division  was  on  the  extreme  left. 

The  4th  Army  has  headquarters  at  Lyublin,  and  has 
thrown  forward  the  Grenadier  Corps  to  Novo  Alexandriya 
and  the  XVIth  Corps  to  Ivangorod.  The  Grenadier 
Corps  has  one  brigade  in  strong  entrenchments  west  of  the 
river.  The  corps  is  said  to  have  arrived  only  three  days 
ago. 

The  gth  Army  headquarters  moved  three  days  ago  from 
Zolbnev  to  Krasnik.  The  Guard  Corps  is  said  to  be  at 
Yuzefov. 

It  looks  almost  as  if  the  Russians  were  going  to  confine 
themselves  for  the  present  to  the  passive  defensive  on  the 
line  of  the  upper  Vistula.  Will,  in  that  case,  the  German 
strength  suffice  to  carry  the  offensive  across  the  river,  and 
even  if  it  does,  will  it  touch  anything  vital  ?  It  is  thought 
that  the  enemy  has  the  Guard  Reserve  Corps,  the  XXth  and 
Xlth  Corps,  and  there  is  at  all  events  one  Austrian  corps 
on  his  right.  If  the  blow  has  been  struck  with  only  four 
corps  it  has  fallen  in  the  air  and  has  failed.  The  Russians 
will  hold  the  enemy  in  front  with  the  4th  and  gth  Armies 
and  will  turn  his  left  with  a  mass  of  cavalry  thrown  out  on 
their  right. 

If  the  German  advance  has  failed  strategically,  it  has 


September-October,  1914  135 

caused  a  lot  of  suffering.  It  was  heartbreaking  to  see  the 
cartloads  of  families  moving  east  as  we  retired.  Parents 
with  their  whole  families,  including  tiny  babies,  huddled 
together  with  all  their  belongings  in  the  long  Polish  carts 
and  shivering  in  the  cold  and  rain.  The  people  did  not 
fly  before  the  Austrian  advance. 

We  dined  at  the  same  restaurant  in  Novo  Alexandriya 
where  I  had  dined  two  and  a  half  years  ago.  General 
Novikov  was  there  with  the  requisite  amount  of  cavalry 
swagger  and  moustache-pulling.  We  had  a  barbaric  meal 
with  long  delays  and  hardly  anything  to  drink  but  brandy, 
then  rode  eight  versts  through  still  pouring  rain  to  the 
country  house  where  we  put  up  for  the  night. 

The  I4th  Division  had  three  reconnoitring  squadrons 
still  out  when  it  crossed  the  river.  Nothing  had  been 
heard  of  them  for  a  week,  but  it  is  hoped  that  some  of 
them  may  make  their  way  back  over  other  bridges, 

Thursday,  October  8th,  1914.  WARSAW. 

It  appears  that  the  4th  and  Qth  Armies  are  deployed 
along  the  Vistula.  The  headquarters  of  the  4th  Army 
are  at  Lyublin  and  of  the  Qth  Army  at  Krasnik. 

General  Erdeli  told  me  that  the  2nd  Army  is  in  advance 
of  Warsaw.  All  cavalry  has  been  ordered  to  rest  four  days 
at  Novo-Alexandriya  and  then  to  move  by  short  marches 
north  to  Warsaw.  What  I  think  will  be  the  decisive  battle 
in  this  theatre  may  begin  in  a  week's  time. 

I  said  good-bye  to  the  I4th  Division  at  n  a.m.  yester- 
day and  rode  from  our  billets  to  the  station  at  Novo- 
Alexandriya.  I  really  believe  these  fellows  were  sorry  that 
I  left.  I,  at  any  rate,  was  very  sorry,  for  I  had  made 
friends  with  them  and  felt  at  ease. 

I  had  to  wait  five  hours  at  the  station  at  Novo-Alexan- 
driya for  a  train.  .  At  length  I  got  a  lift  to  Ivangorod  and 
was  lucky  in  getting  on  from  there  by  a  train  which  brought 
me  within  three  miles  of  Warsaw  by  6.30  a.m.  to-day, 


136        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

AFTERNOTE 

Of  the  fifteen  days  I  had  spent  with  the  I4th  Cavalry  Division, 
we  marched  thirteen  days  and  halted  two.  In  our  marches  we 
covered  424  versts,  or  280  miles — an  average  of  nearly  twenty-two 
miles  for  each  marching  day.  This  is  what  the  staff  rode,  but  the 
troops,  of  course,  covered  far  more. 

I  would  like  to  have  remained  longer  with  the  division  or  to 
have  gone  to  an  infantry  division,  for,  as  in  all  armies,  the  nearer 
one  gets  to  the  front  the  better  fellows  one  finds,  but  I  realised 
that  it  was  my  duty  to  go  to  some  larger  staff  further  in  the  rear 
whence  I  could  get  a  wider  view  and  obtain  more  accurate  in- 
formation of  the  operations.  I  therefore  remained  a  couple  of 
days  in  Warsaw  to  write  a  despatch  and  then  returned  to  the 
staff  of  the  Qth  Army. 

The  short  time  I  spent  with  the  I4th  Cavalry  Division  left  me 
with  a  whole-hearted  admiration  for  the  Russian  cavalry  soldier — 
a  fine  man  well  mounted.  If  the  Russian  cavalry  did  not  attain 
in  the  war  the  results  that  were  hoped  from  its  vast  numerical 
superiority  over  the  enemy  cavalry,  it  was  not  the  fault  of  the 
trooper  or  of  his  officers  up  to  the  rank  of  squadron  leader. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  higher  cavalry  command  lacked  in 
many  cases  initiative  and  dash,  and  the  determination  to  push 
through  an  enterprise  to  its  logical  conclusion  regardless  of  loss, 
and  from  this  lack  the  Russian  cause  in  general  suffered.  This 
was,  however,  not  the  case  in  the  I4th  Division,  for  Erdeli  was  a 
fine  divisional  leader  and  Sencha  a  dashing  brigadier. 

I  never  met  the  I4th  Division  again,  though  I  frequently  came 
across  officers  that  I  had  ridden  with  in  South- West  Poland  in  the 
autumn  of  1914.  The  division  continued  to  do  fine  service  till 
after  the  retreat  from  Poland  ten  months  later.  It  was  then 
allotted  with  other  cavalry  divisions  to  a  passive  sector  of  the 
Dvina  between  Dvinsk  and  Jacobstadt,  and  remained  there  for 
nearly  two  years.  It  remained  loyal  long  after  many  infantry 
divisions  had  succumbed,  and  formed  part  of  the  column  that  was 
sent  to  Petrograd  in  July>  1917,  to  quell  the  Bolshevik  revolt. 

Erdeli  was  promoted  to  command  the  2nd  Guard  Cavalry 


September -October,  1914  137 

Division  and  passed  many  months  with  it  in  the  Pinsk  marshes. 
Then,  tiring  of  inaction,  he  transferred  to  the  command  of  an 
infantry  division  in  the  Carpathians.  In  the  spring  of  1917  he 
was  promoted  to  command  the  XXXth  Corps,  and  just  before  the 
last  Russian  offensive  in  July,  1917,  he  was  given  command  of 
the  right  offensive  army,  the  nth,  in  Galicia.  I  often  saw  him 
then.  Though  an  aristocrat  and  an  A.D.G.  to  the  Emperor,  he 
worked  his  best  to  save  the  Russian  army,  accepting  against  his 
better  judgment  the  crazy  committee  system.  He  was  arrested 
in  September,  1917,  and  confined  with  the  patriot  Kornilov.  With 
him  he  escaped  and  he  has  since  fought  in  Southern  Russia  with 
Alexyeev,  Deniken  and  Wr angel. 

I  never  saw  Sencha  again,  but  will  always  remember  his  fine, 
martial  figure,  rolled  in  a  trailing  "  burkha."  He  became  chief 
of  staff  of  a  cavalry  corps. 

Poor  Westphalen  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  a  regi- 
ment in  the  division,  and  was  killed  at  the  head  of  his  men  in  a 
grand  charge  on  the  Narev  in  August,  1915.  He  was  a  simple, 
modest  gentleman.  The  Bolsheviks  have  now  got  the  big  German 
pistol  he  gave  me  to  keep  for  him  till  the  end  of  the  war. 

Shapojnikov  served  for  long  in  the  Intelligence  staff  of  the 
Western  Front,  and  there  I  frequently  saw  him.  He  became 
later  chief  of  staff  of  a  Cossack  cavalry  division.  He  maintained 
his  reputation  everywhere  as  an  especially  able  officer. 

Poor  Plotnikov,  the  dashing  patrol-leader  and  fine  horseman, 
who  had  ridden  through  Pinchov  with  me  and  had  grown  senti- 
mental as  we  passed  through  the  woods  where  he  had  gathered 
mushrooms  with  his  wife,  was  shot  through  the  heart  a  few  months 
later  while  on  reconnaissance.  He  had  a  strange  presentiment 
of  his  approaching  death  and  had  that  morning  ordered  his  kit 
to  be  packed  and  addressed  to  his  wife. 

General  Novikov  was  appointed  later  to  command  the 
XLIIIrd  Corps  in  the  Riga  bridgehead,  and  I  saw  him  there  in 
February,  1916.  He  was  the  same  big  handsome  man,  but  was 
commencing  to  put  on  flesh.  Talking  over  the  days  of  1914,  he 
told  me  that  he  calculated  that  his  Cavalry  Corps  had  delayed  the 
German  advance  on  Warsaw  no  less  than  five  days.  I  disagreed 


138        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

with  him,  for  the  enemy  opposed  to  the  i/jth  Cavalry  Division  at 
all  events  marched  fifteen  versts  a  day  regularly. 

Novikov  told  me  that  he  had  telegraphed  to  General  Lechitski 
that  he  considered  it  his  duty  to  warn  him  that  the  Guard  Rifle 
Brigade  was  in  a  very  dangerous  position  at  Opatov.  Lechitski 
issued  orders  for  the  brigade  to  retire,  but  these  were  received 
too  late,  for  it  was  already  in  action.1 

Colonel  Dreyer,  General  Novikov's  Chief  of  Staff,  came  to 
grief,  and  after  some  weeks  of  unemployment  was  appointed 
Chief  of  Staff  to  an  infantry  division.  His  division  was  an- 
nihilated in  the  disaster  to  the  loth  Army  in  February,  1915,  but 
he  escaped,  carrying  with  him  copies  of  the  operation  orders. 


1  See  Chapter  IV. 


CHAPTER  IV 

WITH  THE  gin  ARMY  AND  THE  GUARD  CORPS 

IN   SOUTH-WEST  POLAND 

HINDENBURG'S    FIRST     OFFENSIVE    AGAINST 
WARSAW.    OCTOBER— DECEMBER,    1914 

REFERENCE  MAPS  Nos.  III.,  IV.  AND  V. 

ON  September  2ist  the  Russian  armies  in  Galicia  lay  as 
follows  from  right  to  left :  1 

gth  Army  (Lechitski),  on  the  line  of  the  river  Wistoka ; 
Guard  Rifle  Brigade,  XVIIIth,  XlVth  Corps  with  XVIth  Corps 
in  reserve  on  the  left. 

4th  Army  (Ewarth),  on  line  Kreshov-Lezajsk-Sieniawa ; 
Guard,  Grenadier,  Illrd  Caucasian. 

5th  Army  (Plehve),  on  line  Sieniawa-Jaroslau ;  XXVth, 
XlXth,  Vth  and  XVIIth. 

The  line  was  continued  to  the  south-east  by  the  3rd  Army 
(Radko  Dimitriev)  and  the  8th  Army  (Brusilov). 

After  reaching  the  San  the  Russians  did  not  press  the  retreat- 
ing Austrians  with  any  vigour.  They  had  had  heavy  losses  and 
awaited  reinforcements.  They  had  out-marched  their  radius  of 
supply,  and  men  and  horses  were  on  short  rations.  The  Russian 
armies  were  now  suffering  from  the  policy  of  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment, which  had  consistently  vetoed  "  on  strategical  grounds ' 
the  construction  of  railways  in  the  Government  of  Lyublin.  The 
policy  had  aimed  at  the  formation  of  a  Polish  bastion  :  Grodna- 
Osovets-Lomj  a-Ostrolenka-Novo  Georgievsk-I  vangorod-Lyublin- 
Kholm,  developing  railway  and  road  communications  within 
this  bastion  to  the  utmost,  and  leaving  the  frontier  beyond  a 

1  See  Map  No.  III. 
139 


140        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

roadless  glacis,  regardless  of  all  peace  economic  considerations. 
The  theatre  had  been  prepared  in  peace  for  a  defensive  war ;  it 
ill  suited  the  Grand  Duke's  chivalrous  wish  to  come  as  rapidly  as 
possible  to  the  aid  of  his  Allies  in  the  west. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  supply,  far  too  many  Russians  had 
been  thrown  into  Galicia.  One  or  two  of  the  five  armies  should 
have  been  withdrawn  either  north  or  else  thrown  across  the 
Vistula  into  south-west  Poland  to  rest  and  refit  on  the  railways. 
It  is  said  that  the  Supreme  Command  wished  to  withdraw  a  part 
of  the  forces  to  the  north,  but  was  opposed  by  General  Ivanov  on 
the  ground  that  his  Intelligence  showed  the  bulk  of  the  Austrians 
to  be  concentrating  south  of  PrzemysL  The  Russians  had  not 
yet  learnt  that  the  exact  location  of  the  Austrian  concentration 
was  only  a  minor  matter  and  that  the  supreme  factor  in  the 
Eastern  theatre  was  the  German  railway  system  and  the  power 
it  gave  Hindenburg  to  concentrate  superior  German  force  sud- 
denly and  unexpectedly  in  any  direction. 

On  September  22nd,  owing  to  the  crowded  front,  the  Grena- 
dier, the  Illrd  Caucasian  and  the  XVIth  Corps  received  orders 
to  move  north.  The  Guard  was  handed  over  by  the  4th  Army  to 
the  gth  Army. 

On  September  23rd  the  first  information  was  received  of  the 
enemy  advance  in  trans- Vistula-Poland. 

When  it  became  evident  to  the  Russian  Command  that  the 
bulk  of  the  enemy's  forces  were  advancing  from  the  line  Krakau- 
Bendin-Chenstokhov  and  that  a  rapid  change  of  front  to  the  west 
had  become  necessary,  the  question  arose  whether  it  would  be 
possible  to  effect  this  change  in  time  to  meet  the  German  advance 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  Vistula  and  at  a  sufficient  distance  from 
that  river  to  make  it  safe  to  accept  battle.  Lechitski,  the  G.O.G. 
Qth  Army,  wished  to  take  his  army  across  at  Sandomir  and 
Zavikhost  and  to  offer  battle  somewhere  on  the  line  Radom- 
Opatov.  Ivanov,  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  South-West 
Front,  insisted  on  the  whole  wheel  taking  place  in  rear  of  the 
Vistula.  This  was  undoubtedly  the  safer  course,  for  it  is  very 
doubtful  whether  the  Russians  would  have  had  time  after  the 
signalling  of  the  German  offensive  to  throw  sufficient  force  across 


30th  September,  1914.    Lagov,  S.W.  Poland.     Cooking  carts. 


[See  page  122 


?th  November,  1014.    Railway  bridge  N.  of  Kyeltsi  destroyed  by  the  Germans. 

T:>f«ce  pnge  140]  [See  page  170 


14th  November,  1914.    Railway  demolished  near  Myekhov. 


[Seepage  176 


14th  November,  1914.    Western  end  of  tunnel  N.  of  Myekhov, 

demolished  by  the  Germans. 


[See  page  176 


October-December,  1914  141 

the  river  to  meet  the  enemy's  advance  at  a  safe  distance.  The 
course  adopted,  however,  had  grave  disadvantages.  It  neces- 
sitated the  abandonment  of  all  trans-Vistula  Poland  to  the 
enemy,  it  brought  great  hardship  on  the  troops  who  had  to  retire 
over  the  few  roads  of  the  Lyublin  Government,  where  supply 
arrangements  were  quite  inadequate,  and  it  entailed  eventual 
heavy  loss  in  forcing  the  passage  of  the  Vistula  in  face  of  the 
enemy. 

Though  Lechitski  was  not  allowed  to  carry  out  his  idea  in  its 
entirety,  he  sent  the  Guard  Rifle  Brigade  across  the  Vistula  on 
September  30th  to  join  the  2nd  Rifle  Brigade,  with  the  idea 
apparently  of  delaying  the  enemy's  advance. 

On  the  morning  of  October  3rd  the  Guard  Rifle  Brigade  was 
facing  south-west  at  Opatov.  On  its  left  was  the  2nd  Rifle 
Brigade,  and  further  south  was  the  8oth  Division,  which,  however, 
during  the  day  retired  to  Sandomir.  It  is  said  that  General  Del- 
salle,  the  commander  of  the  Guard  Rifle  Brigade,  expected  his 
right  to  be  covered  by  the  I4th  Cavalry  Division  in  the  direction 
of  Ostrovets.  So  far  from  the  I4th  Division  having  been  told 
to  cover  the  right  flank  of  the  Rifles,  we  expected,  in  that  division, 
as  it  turned  out,  wrongly,  that  our  retirement  that  day  through 
Ostrovets  would  be  secured  by  the  2nd  Rifle  Brigade.  General 
Mannerheim,  with  the  Independent  Cavalry  Brigade  of  the 
Guard,  moved  from  Delsalle's  left  to  his  right  when  he  heard  that 
that  flank  was  uncovered.  The  Guard  blamed  the  staff  of  the 
9th  Army  for  the  subsequent  disaster.  There  was  undoubtedly 
bad  staff  work,  but  there  is  also  no  doubt  that  Delsalle  held  on  to 
his  position  dangerously  long. 

The  Rifles  were  attacked  by  overwhelming  forces  at  9  a.m. 
on  October  4th.  They  retired  at  3.30  p.m.  on  Sandomir  and  their 
large  losses,  amounting  to  100  officers,  8,000  rank  and  file,  9  guns 
and  21  machine-guns,  were  chiefly  from  gun-fire  during  the 
retreat.  Two  regiments  of  the  Guard  Rifles  lost  about  80 
per  cent. 

On  September  25th  the  order  was  issued  for  the  9th  and  5th 
Armies  to  follow  the  4th  in  a  general  movement  to  the  north. 
On  that  date,  the  gth  Army  occupied  the  same  position  as  on  the 


142        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

2ist,  but  the  Guard  had  come  up  on  its  left  flank.  The  5th  Army 
had  advanced  to  the  line  Sokolow-Lancut-Jawornik. 

The  whole  of  the  5th  Army  moved  north  on  September  25th, 
and  also  the  Guard.  On  the  28th  the  remainder  of  the  gth 
Army,  viz.,  the  XVIIIth  and  the  XlVth  Corps,  commenced  their 
retirement  down  the  right  bank  of  the  Vistula. 

By  October  6th  units  of  the  three  armies  were  aligned  along 
the  Vistula  from  north  to  south  as  follows  : 

V 

Illrd  Caucasian  Corps  . .  . .  North  of  Ivangorod. 

XVIth  Corps  and  75th  Division  Ivangorod. 

Grenadier  Corps  . .  . .  Novo  Alexandriya. 

Guard  Corps       . .         , .  . .  Centre  at  Yuzefov. 

XVIIIth  Corps  . .  . .  Centre  at  Annopol. 

XlVth         „  . .  . .  South  of  Zavikhost. 

•       XXVth       „  ..  ..  On  the  San. 

The  remaining  corps  of  the  5th  Army,  the  Vth,  XlXth  and 
XVIIth,  were  in  reserve  in  rear  of  the  XXVth  Corps. 

The  Illrd  Caucasian  and  the  Grenadier  Corps  had  moved  via 
Krasnik  and  Lyublin. 

On  October  7th  the  5th  Army  commenced  its  further  retire- 
ment by  the  same  road  to  Lyublin  and  thence  by  rail  to  the 
neighbourhood  of  Gura  Kalvarya,  south  of  Warsaw.  It  had 
mostly  cleared  Lyublin  by  October  I5th.  The  XXVth  Corps 
was  handed  over  to  the  gth  Army. 

As  the  troops  of  the  three  armies  moved  north,  the  line  of  the 
River  San  was  taken  over  by  Radko  Dimitriev's  3rd  Army. 

The  Russians  are  justifiably  proud  of  the  great  change  of  front 
they  made  to  meet  the  German  advance.  The  distance  was  not 
great,  but  the  move  was  made  at  the  cost  of  extreme  privation  to 
the  troops,  as  the  miserable  roads  had  been  rendered,  according 
to  Western  ideas,  impassable  by  the  incessant  rain  and  did  not 
admit  of  adequate  and  regular  supply. 

The  4th  Army  in  its  retreat  was  able  to  draw  a  certain  quantity 
of  supplies  from  the  Vistula.  The  5th  Army,  following  by  the 
same  route,  was  in  worse  case,  for  the  roads  had  been  broken  up. 
It  is  said  to  have  been  six  days  without  bread,  and  the  men  were 


October-December,  1914  143 

exhausted.     The  Qth  Army  in  its  move  north  drew  supplies  from 
its  depots  previously  established  at  Sandomir  and  Krasnik. 

Meanwhile  the  enemy  occupied  all  south-west  Poland,  the 
Russian  line  in  Galicia  was  retired  to  the  San  and  the  siege  of 
Przemysl  was  raised.  This,  however,  was  the  sum  of  the  enemy's 
success.  His  attempts  to  cross  the  San  and  the  Vistula  failed, 
and  the  Russians  prepared  to  check  his  offensive  by  a  counter 
offensive  movement  directed  in  a  southerly  direction  against  his 
left  flank  from  the  line  Novo-Georgievsk- Warsaw.  According  to 
a  German  authority  1  the  enemy  Command  then  decided  to  move 
the  point  of  his  offensive  north  against  Warsaw  to  meet  the 
Russian  attack. 

The  idea  was  a  bold  one,  but  showed  at  once  the  enemy's 
contempt  for  the  Russian  fighting  power  and  the  defectiveness  of 
his  own  Intelligence.  The  enemy  forces  were  unequal  to  the  task. 
They,  indeed,  on  October  nth  reached  aline  eleven  versts  from 
the  capital,  but  the  Russians  had  now  for  once  the  best  of  the 
communications  and  their  strength  was  gathering  fast.  The  2nd 
Army  was  already  at  Warsaw,  the  ist  Army  was  concentrating 
in  the  neighbourhood  from  the  north-east,  leaving  its  place  on 
the  borders  of  East  Prussia  to  the  loth  Army.  The  splendid 
Siberian  troops  were  pouring  in  by  rail,  the  Bologoe-Syedlets 
strategical  railway  that  had  only  run  three  pairs  of  trains  in 
peace  working  up  to  fifty-two  pairs.  All  attempts  by  the 
Austrians  to  drive  Radko  Dimitriev  back  from  the  San  proved 
unavailing.  The  enemy  was  compelled  to  retreat  from  the  Polish 
salient. 

Monday,  October  I2th,  1914.  LYUBLIN. 

Warsaw  was  in  something  of  a  panic,  caused  chiefly  by 
villagers  crowding  in  from  the  area  of  operations.  It 
appears  that  the  Russians  are  on  a  defensive  line 
previously  prepared  and  running  from  Sokhachev  by 
Skernevitsi  to  Groitsi.  All  Russians  are  confident,  but  that 
proves  nothing  ;  they  are  such  optimists. 

1  Baron  von  Ardenne,  Der  Feldzug  in  Polen,  Georg  Huller,  Munchen,  1915. 


144         With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

I  saw  Poiret,  the  French  flying  man,  in  the  evening.  He 
was  pessimistic  and  said  that  if  the  Russians  allowed 
Warsaw  to  be  taken  it  would  show  that  they  were  "  jolly 
well  beaten."  He  said  that  the  Russians  had  six  to  seven 
corps  west  of  Warsaw.  His  pessimism  may  have  been 
partly  because  he  had  been  fired  on  during  the  day 
by  Russians,  and  one  Russian  pilot  had  eleven  bullets 
through  the  wings  of  his  machine. 

I  left  Warsaw  by  the  7  a.m.  train  for  Lukov  en  route 
to  Lyublin  on  Sunday  the  nth.  The  crowd  at  the  station 
was  awful,  and  I  had  to  fight  my  way  to  my  compartment. 
I  had  a  Polish  doctor  in  with  me.  He  said  that  the 
sanitary  state  of  the  hospitals  left  much  to  be  desired. 
They  are  often  in  empty  barracks,  which  are  saturated  with 
dirt ;  doctors  have  too  much  to  do  ;  his  ten  doctors  have 
to  attend  to  600  wounded. 

I  gather  from  various  sources  that  the  situation  is  as 
follows : 

The  Russians  have  assumed  the  offensive.  The  4th 
Army  commenced  to  cross  the  Vistula  from  Ivangorod  and 
Novo  Alexandriya  at  3  a.m.  on  the  gth.  They  were 
turned  back  by  the  enemy's  heavy  artillery.  The  strongly- 
fortified  bridgehead  at  Novo  Alexandriya  was  abandoned  ; 
the  enemy's  shell  fell  on  the  pontoon  bridge,  which  was 
destroyed  and  many  buildings  in  Novo  Alexandriya  were 
set  on  fire.  On  the  evening  of  the  nth  the  enemy's  shell 
injured  the  railway  between  Ivangorod  and  Novo  Alex- 
andriya. On  the  afternoon  of  the  I2th  communication 
was  re-established.  This  was  not  a  very  auspicious 
commencement  to  the  Russian  offensive,  but  Russians 
talked  of  it  as  merely  "  a  local  success  for  the  enemy." 

I  had  a  comfortable  journey  on  the  nth  as  far  as  Lukov, 
where  I  changed.  I  then  went  on  in  a  filthy  second-class 
carriage  with  six  officers  returning  from  wound  leave. 
We  travelled  fairly  comfortably  till  i  a.m.,  when  we  were 
turned  out  twelve  versts  from  Lyublin  and  put  in  an  un- 
heated  goods  wagon  with  my  horses.  We  reached  a 


October-December,  1914  145 

station  seven  versts  from  Lyublin  and  then  waited  four 
hours,  finally  getting  into  an  ambulance  train.  The  hotels 
were  all  full.  I  got  into  an  empty  private  apartment, 
which  was  bitterly  cold,  but  had  a  roof  at  all  events.  It 
rained  all  day  as  it  did  most  of  yesterday.  Many  of  the 
men  here  look  tired  out,  but  Russian  officers  say  the  rain 
is  a  good  thing,  as  the  Russians  can  stand  hardship  better 
than  the  town-bred  Germans. 

The  station  at  Lyublin  is  crowded  with  men  of  all  arms 
and  units.  Some  of  them  have  been  "  waiting  "  for  two 
days.  The  Assistant  Station  Commandant  told  me  that 
he  had  sent  off  twenty-six  trains  yesterday  by  the  single 
line  to  Ivangorod  and  by  the  double  line  to  the  same  place 
via  Lukov — not  a  great  feat,  but  one  of  which  he  was 
evidently  proud.  As  far  as  communications  are  con- 
cerned, the  Russians  have  the  advantage  in  the  present 
situation,  but  if  they  cannot  use  their  railways  to  better 
effect,  this  will  avail  them  little. 

The  office  of  the  Commandant  of  the  Line  of  Communi- 
cations is  crowded  to  suffocation  with  men  of  all  units, 
returning  from  wound  and  sick  leave,  all  trying  to  find  their 
units — a  task  for  which  a  very  Sherlock  Holmes  is  required. 
The  building  consists  of  four  small  rooms,  opening  out  of 
one  another.  In  the  two  inner  rooms  the  work  is  carried 
on,  in  the  first  by  clerks,  in  the  second  by  officers.  The 
bulk  of  the  work  is  done  apparently  by  the  adjutant,  who 
has  more  than  any  one  man  could  possibly  do.  All  the 
windows  are  shut,  the  smell  and  filth  are  awful.  Each 
door  has  a  sentry,  sometimes  two,  with  rifles,  and  they  stop 
everyone  except  officers.  This  department  has  to  house 
and  feed  all  odd  men  as  well  as  to  direct  them  to  their 
units  in  the  field. 

Wednesday,  October  itfh,  1914.  KRASNIK. 

It  is  said  that  a  Jew  was  caught  carrying  a  German 

officer  in  a  sack  across  the  bridge  at  Ivangorod.    Both  men 

were  hung.    If  the  story  is  true  the  Jew  must  have  had 

K 


146        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

more  muscle  than  most  of  his  race,  and  the  officer  must 
have  been  specially  chosen  for  his  diminutive  size. 

I  rode  out  of  Lyublin  at  9.30  a.m.  on  Tuesday  and 
reached  Krasnik  (thirty  miles)  at  5.45.  The  road  was  in  a 
dreadful  state.  Originally  a  chaussec,  it  had  been  broken 
up  by  heavy  artillery,  pontoons,  etc.,  and  owing  to  the 
recent  rains  the  whole  was  covered  with  several  inches  of 
liquid  mud.  This  made  it  impossible  to  see  the  holes  and 
quite  dangerous  to  ride  on  the  road.  Carts  had  spread 
over  the  country  to  a  distance  of  300  yards  on  either  side 
of  the  road.  On  the  very  outside  one  saw  infantry 
struggling  along  on  the  comparatively  good  going  of  the 
water-logged  plough  land. 

The  rain  came  down  in  torrents  till  i  p.m.  The  ground 
for  ten  miles  south  of  Lyublin  to  Krasnik  was  cut  up  with 
trenches.  The  whole  road  is  littered  with  dead  horses. 
My  orderly  said  he  simply  could  not  look  at  them.  We 
saw  a  man  going  round  with  a  bag  collecting  dead  horses' 
shoes.  The  whole  way  the  cannonade  of  big  guns  roared 
along  the  Vistula. 

At  dinner  I  sat  between  General  Gulevich,  the  Chief  of 
Staff,  and  Colonel  Bazarov.  General  Gulevich  thinks  that 
the  war  may  be  over  by  February.  Bazarov,  who  was 
Military  Attache  at  Berlin  up  to  the  outbreak  of  war,  is 
more  pessimistic. 

A  cannonade  with  big  guns  has  been  going  on  across 
the  Vistula  for  three  days,  but  has  not  been  renewed 
to-day.  The  Germans  are  concentrating  their  main  army 
west  of  Warsaw,  and  their  whole  line  is  moving  north  to 
that  point.  They  have  the  best  of  the  road  conditions, 
for  the  roads  west  of  the  Vistula  are  far  better  than  those 
on  the  east. 

According  to  orders  received  at  2  a.m.  on  the  I4th,  the 
5th  Army,  which  is  now  between  Warsaw  and  Ivangorod 
on  the  right  of  the  4th  Army,  will  go  to  Warsaw  to  support 
the  2nd  Army.  The  4th  Army  will  move  north,  occupying 
the  line  Warsaw  (exclusive) -Ivangorod  (inclusive),  the 


October-December,  1914  147 

9th  Army  will  take  the  line  Ivangorod  (exclusive)  - 
Zavikost. 

In  four  days,  i.e.,  by  the  evening  of  the  i8th,  the  4th 
and  Qth  armies  will  have  reached  their  new  positions.  It 
is  obvious  that  the  5th  Army  cannot  concentrate  west  of 
Warsaw  by  that  date. 

The  river  Pilitsa,  a  left  bank  tributary  of  the  Vistula, 
will  form  the  dividing  line  between  the  area  of  Ruzski's 
(loth,  ist,  2nd  and  5th)  and  Ivanov's  (4th,  gth,  3rd  and 
8th  armies)  groups. 

The  danger  is  that  the  2nd  Army  west  of  Warsaw — five 
corps  with  the  Ilnd  Corps  arriving  to  make  a  sixth — may 
be  crushed  by  superior  forces  before  they  can  be  reinforced. 

The  Germans  are  said  to  have  sixteen  corps  and  he 
Austrians  fifteen  (of  which  three  are  reserve),  but  all  the 
German  Corps  are  of  two  divisions,  while  several  of  the 
Russian  Corps  have  three  and  the  Austrian  Corps  are  of 
inferior  fighting  power. 

The  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps,  which  crossed  the  river  at 
Kozenitse,  north  of  Ivangorod,  has  been  engaged  with  the 
enemy  during  the  past  two  days. 

Thursday,  October  15^,  1914.  LYUBLIN. 

We  left  Krasnik  at  6  a.m.,  before  daylight.  I  rode. 
The  General  with  his  Chief-of-Staff,  Gulevich,  Ganta- 
cuzene,1  Benkendorf 2  and  Bazarov,  started  in  motors. 
They  found  after  a  few  miles  that  the  road  was  quite 
impassable,  and  had  to  join  me  on  horseback,  General 
Gulevich,  who  is  any  thing  but  a  horseman,  very  reluctantly. 
We  reached  Lyublin  at  noon  and  Lechitski  had  a  con- 
ference with  Ivanov,  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Front, 
and  Ewarth,  the  commander  of  the  neighbouring  4th 
Army. 


1  Prince  Cantacuzene  was  A.D.C.  to  General  Gulevich.  He  had  been  lent 
to  General  Erdeli  in  a  similar  capacity. 

a  Lieutenant  Benkendorf,  who  had  served  in  the  Russian  Embassy  in  Berlin, 
was  in  the  Censor  Department, 


148        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Lechitski  is  a  fine  old  man  and  a  good  horseman.  He 
took  us  at  a  great  pace  to-day.  He  said,  in  talking  to  me, 
that  the  delay  in  finally  squashing  Austria  was  owing  to 
Russia's  miserable  communications.  The  armies  could 
not  move  sufficiently  rapidly  as  it  was  impossible  to  victual 
them. 

Friday,  October  i6th,  1914.  LYUBLIN. 

Suvorov,  who  was  on  the  district  staff  at  St.  Petersburg, 
and  whom  I  knew  before  the  war,  slept  in  a  room  with  me 
at  the  Victoria  Hotel.  He  is  now  attached  to  the  Army 
Commander's  Staff  "  for  special  service,"  in  other  words, 
he  is  a  personal  friend  of  Lechitski 's,  who  uses  him  for  odd 
jobs.  He  tells  me  that  the  General  has  little  education, 
having  only  finished  four  classes  of  a  clerical  school.  He 
went  through  the  Chinese  war,  and  was  a  battalion  com- 
mander at  the  commencement  of  the  Japanese  campaign. 
He  ended  this  campaign  as  a  regiment  commander. 
Later  General  Danilov,  when  in  command  of  the  Guard 
Corps,  procured  through  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolaivich  his 
appointment  to  the  command  of  one  of  the  divisions  of 
the  Guard  and  he  then  visited  Petrograd  practically  for 
the  first  time,  all  his  previous  services  having  been  spent 
in  the  Far  East.  When  he  was  in  command  of  the  Pri- 
Amur  Military  District,  before  the  war,  he  made  his  Chief 
of  Staff  read  him  lectures  on  tactics  for  two  hours  every 
day.  He  is  shy  and  a  great  grumbler,  but  has  a  firm  will. 

An  officer  came  in  in  the  morning  to  say  that  all  was 
quiet  at  Warsaw  and  there  was  no  panic.  The  Germans, 
who  were  at  one  time  within  eleven  versts,  have  been  driven 
back  to  twenty-five.  Great  slaughter  on  both  sides. 

The  Qth  Army  has  received  orders  to  cross  on  the  night 
of  the  igth-20th,  but  its  pontoon  train,  which  is  now  on  its 
way  back  from  the  San,  cannot  arrive  before  the  22nd. 
As  Gulevich  says,  the  operation,  which  will  be  opposed  by 
an  enemy  who  has  had  time  to  fortify,  will  be  a  very 
dangerous  one.  I  wonder  if  it  would  be  possible  to  leave 


October-December,  1914  149 

a  mere  skeleton  to  mask  the  Vistula  front  and  to  move  an 
overwhelming  force  via  Warsaw  against  his  left  and  rear. 
Gulevich  estimates  the  German  strength  on  the  front 
Sandomir-Warsaw  at  not  less  than  eleven  corps.  He 
regrets  that  we  did  not  hold  tetes-de-pont  on  the  left  bank. 
"  The  9th  Army  should  have  held  the  line  Ostrovets- 
Opatov-Klimontov  in  force  and  the  4th  Army,  which 
halted  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Ivangorod  for  six  days, 
should  have  met  the  enemy  at  Radom."  Either  army 
with  three  corps  would,  he  thinks,  have  been  able  to  defend 
itself. 

Friday,  October  i6th,  1914.  LYUBLIN. 

The  gth  Army  is  to  get  heavy  guns  from  Ivangorod  for 
the  crossing  on  Sunday  night. 

The  railway  between  Ivangorod  and  Novo-Alexandriya 
is  still  closed  for  traffic,  owing  to  the  fire  of  the  enemy's 
heavy  guns.  The  Germans  have  succeeded  in  igniting  a 
kerosene  tank  at  Ivangorod. 

Yesterday  Suvorov  and  I  went  to  the  Post  Office  to 
see  about  the  letters  for  the  9th  Army.  The  Chief 
'  Chinovnik '  calmly  explained  that  he  had  2,000  puds 
(thirty-two  tons)  of  letters  for  us.  His  excuse  was  that  he 
had  been  unable  to  get  carts  from  the  Governor  to  send 
them.  A  man  like  this  should  be  hung  when  one  remembers 
how  poor  fellows  at  the  front  long  for  news  from  home. 
He  showed  us  the  enormous  bags,  piles  and  piles  of  them. 

Saturday,  October  ijth,  1914.  LYUBLIN, 

The  new  development  to-day  is  an  Austrian  advance  on 
the  extreme  Russian  left,  near  the  Carpathians.  The 
enemy's  strength  is  only  estimated  at  most  at  three  corps, 
but  it  may  be  greater  in  view  of  his  weakness  on  our  front. 
Ivanov  has  given  Brusilov  the  two  second-line  corps  that 
were  used  for  the  blockade  of  Przemysl  so  that  he  has  now 
five  army  corps,  and  on  his  left  two  Cossack  cavalry  divi- 
sions. Radko-Dimitriev  has  five  corps.  Both  Generals 


150        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

have  been  told  to  retire,  if  necessary,  slowly,  disputing 
every  inch  of  ground,  pending  a  decision  west  of  the 
Vistula.  There  should  be  no  cause  for  fear. 

The  Qth  Army  consists  at  present  of  eleven  and  a  half 
infantry  and  three  and  a  half  cavalry  divisions. 

The  Guard  has  two  and  a  half  infantry  divisions  and 
; \\  ,  the  XlVth,  XVIIIth  and  XXVth  Corps  have  each  a  third 
(reserve)  division.  The  cavalry  consists  of  the  3rd  Divi- 
sion, the  I3th  Division,  3rd  Caucasian  Cossack  Division 
and  the  Independent  Guard  Brigade. 

Apparently  the  5th  Army  is  not  to  go  to  Warsaw,  but 
is  to  attempt  to  cross  the  Vistula  near  Gura  Kalvarya, 
The  2nd  Army  is  to  advance  its  left  to-day  to  attempt  to 
occupy  Pyesechno. 

The  Illrd  Caucasian  and  the  XVTIth  Corps  (4th  Army), 
which  have  crossed  the  Vistula  at  Kozenitse,  north  of 
Ivangorod,  appear  to  make  little  progress.  We  have  asked 
for  permission  to  postpone  our  crossing  till  the  23rd,  and 
should  hear  from  Ivanov  this  evening. 

Sunday,  October  iSth,  1914.  LYUBLIN. 

The  distribution  expected  to  be  attained  by  this 
evening  will  not  be  realised.  The  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps 
has  lost  8,000  men  in  four  days  at  Kozenitse  from  the 
converging  fire  of  the  enemy's  heavy  artillery.  The 
XVIIth  Corps  on  its  right  flank  has  also  suffered  severely. 
The  9th  Army  will  take  over  Ivangorod. 

Tuesday,  October  2oth,  1914.  LYUBLIN. 

The  9th  Army  has  handed  over  all  its  pontoons  to  the 
4th  Army.  Pending  their  return,  the  army  has  been 
ordered  to  '*  occupy  "  the  enemy  in  its  front.  Telegrams 
to-night  reported  that  the  2nd  Army  met  with  only  weak 
resistance  in  its  advance  south  and  south-west  from 
Warsaw.  The  advanced  guards  of  the  XlXth  and  Vth 
Corps  of  the  5th  Army  are  crossing  at  Gura  Kalvarya. 

If  the  Germans  have  not  something  up  their  sleeve 


; 


October -December,  1914 

in  the  Thorn  direction  to  throw  against  Warsaw  when 
our  2nd  Army  has  been  drawn  south,  the  whole  of  their 
movement  must  be  a  demonstration,  for  otherwise  with 
the  time  we  have  allowed  them,  they  would  have  con- 
centrated sufficient  force  to  crush  the  2nd  Army  and  occupy 
Warsaw.  Are  they  waiting  for  the  heavy  guns  that  took 
Antwerp  ? 

Orders  were  received  to-day  from  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  Front  to  reduce  the  establishment  of  guns  in 
batteries  in  the  event  of  shortage  of  horses,  but  on  no 
account  to  reduce  the  number  of  ammunition  wagons. 

Wednesday t  October  2 is/,  1914.  *  LYUBLIN. 

Instructions  were  received  from  Ivanov  at  3  a.m,  that 
the  Guard  is  to  march  to-day  to  Ivangorod  and  cross  to 
the  left  of  the  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps  to-morrow,  22nd. 
The  pontoons  sent  up  to  the  4th  Army  are  being  returned 
by  rail  and  when  they  have  been  received  the  XXVth  and 
XlVth  Corps  will  cross  at  Novo  Alexandriya.  This  will 
probably  be  in  two  or  three  days.  Heavy  artillery  is 
being  moved  to  cover  the  crossing.  I  leave  by  motor-car 
to-morrow  morning  to  join  the  staff  of  the  Guard  Corps. 
The  XVIIIth  Corps  moves  to  Opole. 

The  presence  of  three  more  Austrian  corps  is  reported 
on  Brusilov's  left  centre. 

Circular  instructions  were  issued  to-night  to  units  of 
the  gth  Army.  The  Germans  have  retired  sixty  versts 
from  the  Vistula  on  the  line  Warsaw-Ivangorod,  yesterday 
and  to-day.  We  are  to  follow.  On  our  right  the  XVIIth 
Corps  and  the  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps  are  advancing  and 
the  Ural  (Cossack  Cavalry)  Division  of  the  same  army 
(4th)  has  crossed  the  river  at  Pavlovitse  to  pursue  the 
enemy  in  the  direction  of  Radom.  On  our  left,  part  of  the 
units  of  the  3rd  Army  have  been  thrown  across  the  San. 
The  Guard  Cavalry  Brigade  reached  Ivangorod  to-day  and 
the  Guard  Corps  is  nearing  that  fortress. 

1  See  Map  No.  V. 


152        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

To-morrow,  the  22nd,  the  Guard  Corps  crosses  at 
Ivangorod  and  advances  south  of  the  railway.  The 
XXVth  Corps  will  cross  by  a  pontoon  bridge  at  Novo 
Alexandriya  and  advance  by  the  chaussee  on  Zvolen. 
The  XlVth  Corps  will  march  from  Opole  and  reach  Novo 
Alexandriya  in  two  days.  The  XVIIIth  Corps  is  to 
cross  as  best  it  can,  but  higher  up  the  river. 

The  46th  and  8oth  Divisions,  in  conjunction  with  the 
XXIst  Corps,  will  advance  across  the  San. 

The  1 3th  Cavalry  Division  will  cross  at  Ivangorod  and 
reconnoitre  south  and  on  the  left  of  the  Ural  Division. 

The  1st  Don  Cossack  Division  will  cross  the  river  at 
Yanovets,  south  of  Novo  Alexandriya,  by  the  night  of 
the  23rd. 

The  3rd  Caucasian  Cossack  Division  will  cross  the  San 
and  reconnoitre  in  advance  of  the  46th  and  Both  Divisions. 

These  orders  were  sent  by  telegraph,  flying  post  and 
motor  cyclists  to  all  corps. 

It  is  reported  from  the  Front  that  the  Germans  have 
fortified  the  area  Chenstokhov-Olkush-Myekhov.  It  is 
possible  that  they  may  have  chosen  this  area,  based  on  a 
thick  railway  net  to  offer  a  prolonged  resistance.  The 
Russians  will  have  the  usual  disadvantage  of  bad  com- 
munications to  contend  with. 

Thursday,  October  22nd,  1914.  IVANGOROD. 

When  I  went  to  say  good-bye  to  Lechitski  before 
leaving  to  join  the  Guard  Corps,  I  found  the  old  man  in 
splendid  spirits.  He  said :  "The  enemy  has  evidently 
heard  you  are  coming,  for  he  is  in  full  retreat !  ' 

We  left  Lyublin  by  motor  at  twelve  noon  and  arrived 
at  Ivangorod  at  4  p.m.  We  drove  through  a  large  quantity 
of  transport,  partly  that  of  the  Guard  Corps,  and  the  whole 
of  the  1st  Guard  Infantry  Division  and  Rifle  Brigade. 
Russian  infantry  regiments  on  the  march  move  regardless 
of  order,  but  at  a  fine  pace  if  not  impeded  by  transport  in 


October -December,  1914  153 

front.  There  is  no  march  discipline  in  our  sense  of  the 
word,  for  no  interval  and  no  formation  is  kept. 

Soon  after  we  reached  Ivangorod  a  cannonade  was 
audible  in  the  south-west  and  north-west.  I  walked 
across  the  bridge  with  Rodzianko,  the  General's  A.D.C., 
who  has  been  placed  in  charge  of  me,  and  we  saw  the 
enemy's  shells  bursting  about  three  versts  from  the  river 
and  just  south  of  the  railway.  All  of  this  does  not  chime 
in  with  the  idea  that  the  enemy  has  retired  sixty  versts, 
but  it  may,  of  course,  be  only  a  farewell  demonstration. 

It  struck  me  that  the  second-line  transport  of  the 
Guard  was  too  close  up,  for  it  crossed  the  river  im- 
mediately in  rear  of  the  regiments.  The  transport  seemed 
enormous  in  quantity. 

Some  Austrian  prisoners  who  gave  themselves  up  west 
of  Ivangorod  stated  that  the  Germans  are  concentrating 
at  Radom,  and  that  two  Austrian  corps  have  come  to  help 
them. 

Friday,  October  z^rd,  1914.  IVANGOROD. 

I  slept  last  night  in  extreme  comfort  in  a  tiny  room 
by  myself  !  Rodzianko,  Lovshin  l  and  Grabbe  l  were  in  a 
larger  room  next  door  and  the  servants  beyond.  I  went 
in  the  morning  to  pay  my  respects  to  Count  Nostitz,  the 
Chief  of  Staff,  and  to  General  Bezobrazov,  the  Commander 
of  the  Corps.  Both  are  charming. 

The  2nd  Division  of  the  Guard  and  one  brigade  of  the 
ist  Division  only  succeeded  in  crossing  the  river  last 
night.  The  other  brigade  of  the  ist  Division  and  the 
Guard  Rifle  Brigade  bivouacked  by  the  roadside.  Luckily 
it  was  fine.  To-day  the  2nd  Division  of  the  Guard  on  our 
right  was  in  touch  with  the  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps  ;  the 
ist  Division  had  come  up  in  line  on  its  left  and  the  Rifle 
Brigade  was  in  reserve. 

After  lunch  we  rode  out  through  the  village  of  Klyash- 
torna  Volya,  where  we  found  the  G.O.C.  2nd  Division  in 

1  Colonels  attached  to  the  staff  of  the  Guard  Corps. 


154        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

touch  by  telephone  with  his  regimental  commanders.  He 
was  in  the  cottage  where  he  had  slept  the  night  before. 
We  then  rode  on,  following  the  sound  of  the  firing  till  we 
found  three  batteries  in  action  supporting  some  three 
battalions  of  the  Findlandski  and  Pavlovski  Regiments, 
extended  on  a  front  of  four  versts  on  the  line  Vyes-Zavada- 
Kotsiolki,  beating  back  repeated  Austrian  attacks  from 
the  south.  The  firing  was  very  heavy  and  we  met  several 
wounded,  fine  fellows,  only  keen  to  get  back  to  the  firing- 
line. 

We  came  back  in  complete  darkness  and  had  some 
difficulty  in  finding  our  way  over  the  awful  roads,  blocked 
by  the  parks  carrying  ammunition  to  the  Front.  Im- 
mediately it  was  dark,  the  cooking  carts  moved  out  from 
the  nearest  village  to  the  men  in  the  fighting  line.  We 
passed  two  columns  of  supports  moving  up — silent  and 
determined.  I  have  an  intense  admiration  for  the  Russian 
Guardsman.  When  he  has  officers  to  lead  there  is  no 
soldier  in  the  world  like  him.  He  would  be  hard  to  beat 
if  the  supply  services  only  ensured  his  regular  rations. 

Ivangorod  had  made  preparations  for  a  regular  siege. 
The  Germans  have  been  entrenched  on  the  edge  of  a  wood, 
five  versts  west  of  the  fortress,  for  twelve  days,  and  only 
left  on  the  night  of  the  20th-2ist.  The  entrenchments 
that  I  saw  were  badly  sited  and  badly  made.  They  are 
now  occupied  by  a  detachment  of  our  Opolchenie  and  I 
saw  fifteen  of  our  dead  who  had  remained  unburied  by  the 
Germans  for  nine  days  with  their  eyes  still  open — a  grue- 
some sight. 

Darkness  brought  no  rest  for  the  2nd  Division.  As 
we  rode  back,  the  guns  and  machine-guns  were  still  at  work 
and  gunfire  was  almost  continuous  up  to  10.30.  We  heard 
the  Austrians  had  attempted  a  night  attack  against  the 
Moskovski  Regiment,  but  failed. 

There  is  a  large  staff  in  the  Guard  Corps.  The  General 
Staff  includes  the  Chief  of  Staff,  Count  Nostitz,  Colonel 


October-December,  1914  155 

Domanevski — a  worker,  and  five  captains,  including 
Engelhardt,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Duma  and  Reporter 
on  the  Military  Budget. 

The  question  is,  where  the  Prussians,  relieved  here  by 
the  Austrians,  have  gone.  Engelhardt  thinks  they  have 
moved  north  to  support  the  Warsaw  group.  In  that  case 
we  shall  push  rapidly  here  to  threaten  their  rear.  The 
XXVth  Corps  crossed  the  Vistula  yesterday. 

The  three  batteries  seen  to-day  were  in  echelon  and  in 
covered  positions.  It  was  interesting  to  watch  the  dif- 
ference between  the  Austrian  shell,  which  gives  rose- 
coloured  smoke,  and  the  German,  which  gives  white. 

Saturday,  October  24th,  1914.  IVANGOROD. 

The  2nd  Division  was  attacked  eleven  times  during  the 

night,  but  held  its  ground  along  most  of  the  front.    The 

enemy  forced  his  way  to  Kotsiolki.    This  village  and  the 

wood  south  east  of  it  were  taken  again  at  5  p.m.  to-day. 

The  front  occupied  by  the  2nd  Division  of  the  Guard 
after  forty-eight  hours  continuous  fighting,  remains  pretty 
much  the  same.  A  line  of  seven  versts  is  held  by  thirteen 
battalions  of  the  division,  and  is  divided  into  two  sections, 
each  of  which  is  under  a  brigade  commander.  The  units 
are  necessarily  much  mixed  up,  as  the  section  held  at  first 
by  the  Finlandski  Regiment  has  been  reinforced  by  the 
other  three  regiments.  The  right  section  has  no  local 
reserve,  the  left  has  one  battalion.  One  battalion  of  the 
division  is  on  escort  duty  to  artillery  and  transport,  and 
two  battalions  are  in  general  Corps  Reserve.  The  line 
from  the  left  of  the  2nd  Division  is  carried  on  by  the  ist 
Division,  and  this  is  now  in  touch  with  the  right  of  the 
XXVth  Corps,  which  completed  its  crossing  at  Novo 
Alexandriya  yesterday  and  was  joined  on  its  left  by  the 
XlVth  Corps  to-day.  The  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps  on  our 
right  advanced  considerably  to-day. 


156        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Engelhardt,  who  explained  the  position  to  me  to-night, 
considers  that  the  duration  of  the  war  largely  depends  on 
the  result  of  the  operation  now  in  hand  by  the  Qth  Army 
in  conjunction  with  the  Illrd  Caucasian  and  XVIIth 
Corps.  We  have  six  corps,  i.e.,  XVIIth,  Illrd  Caucasian, 
Guard,  XXVth,  XlVth  and  XVIIIth,  in  addition  to  the 
75th  Reserve  Division  at  Ivangorod,  which  ensures  our 
line  of  communications.  If  these  six  corps  can  roll  up 
the  three  Austrians  opposed  to  them  rapidly,  the!7-g  German 
Corps  operating  against  our  Warsaw  front  will  be  forced 
to  retire  rapidly  as  they  are  opposed  by  nine  corps,  as 
follows : 

1st  and  Ilnd,  1st  and  Ilnd  Siberian,  IVth,  XXIIIrd, 
XXVIIth  of  the  2nd  Army  and  the  Vth  and  XlXth  of  the 
5th  Army. 

We  visited  to-day  a  battery  of  the  Illrd  Caucasian 
Howitzer  Division  in  action  from  the  north  of  Garbatka 
against  Polichna.  The  officers  said  they  had  crossed  the 
river  twelve  days  ago.  During  the  whole  time  they  had 
been  in  action  against  German  heavy  artillery,  but  their 
concealed  position  in  a  wood  had  never  been  discovered, 
and  they  had  only  had  a  .single  casualty,  a  scout,  killed. 
A  German  aeroplane  had  located  their  sister  battery  and 
dropped  a  flare  on  to  it  as  a  signal  to  his  own  artillery, 
which  presently  opened  with  crushing  effect. 

Sunday,  October  2$th}  1914.  IVANGOROD. 

We  started  before  eight,  and  rode  out  to  Setsekhov,  where 
where  we  saw  the  G.O.G.  Guard  Rifle  Brigade.  He  told 
us  the  Austrians  had  retired  at  daylight  from  in  front  of 
the  2nd  Division.  The  ist  Division  was  nearing  the  line 
Sarnov-Khekhli.  Polichna  had  been  occupied  by  the  mrd 
Caucasian  Corps.  The  Guard  Cavalry  Brigade  was  being 
sent  through  in  that  direction  to  operate  against  the  enemy's 
left,  and  the  Rifle  Brigade  was  to  follow.  We  rode  to  the 
wood  south-west  of  Kotsiolki,  which  had  been  captured 
by  our  fellows  yesterday,  and  found  the  enemy  had  only 


October -December,  1914  157 

retired  to  the  northern  outskirts  of  Berdzsja.  The  Rifle 
Brigade  did  not  start  till  i  p.m.  or  later.  The  fighting 
to-day  was  almost  entirely  by  artillery.  I  don't  know 
what  orders  the  Guard  have  got,  but  they  are  certainly 
not  hurrying  themselves  in  their  advance.  This  is  the 
fourth  night  that  the  G.O.C.  2nd  Division  remains  in  one 
hut. 

East  of  the  wood  which  was  taken  by  our  men  at  noon 
yesterday,  the  Austrian  trenches  were  in  three  tiers,  about 
seventy  yards  apart.  Each  row  provided  cover  standing, 
and  was  of  low  profile,  about  io-i2in.  Trenches  were  well 
concealed  and  usually  made  in  pairs.  At  the  top  of  the 
hill  were  underground  shelters  with  narrow  communica- 
tion trenches.  Altogether,  the  amount  of  spade  work 
seems  to  have  been  extraordinary. 

We  lunched  at  Kotsiolki  in  a  farm  shed  and  four 
shrapnel  burst  unpleasantly  close.  Two  poor  devils  of  the 
Moskovski  Regiment  were  wounded  close  by,  one  in  the 
groin  and  one  in  the  leg.  Two  batteries  came  into  action 
close  to  us  and  quickly  silenced  the  enemy's  fire. 

Monday,  October  26th,  1914.  IVANGOROD. 

Rodzianko  and  I  went  to  visit  the  XXVth  Corps  on 
our  left. 

We  started  in  a  motor  soon  after  8  a.m.  The  whole 
way  from  Ivangorod  to  Novo  Alexandriya,  a  distance  of 
twenty-three  versts,  the  right  bank  of  the  Vistula  has  been 
defended  by  field  works.  As  we  returned  after  dark,  we 
could  see  that  this  line  is  also  guarded  by  outposts,  though 
the  enemy  has  been  driven  some  distance  back  from  the 
left  bank. 

We  found  the  staff  of  the  XXVth  Corps  in  Prince 
Czartoriski's  palace  at  Novo  Alexandriya.  This  was 
confiscated  after  the  rebellion  of  1863,  and  is  now  used  as 
an  agricultural  college.  It  is  an  enormous  house,  built  on 
the  plan  of  Fontainebleau  with  an  avenue  several  miles 
long, 


158        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

General  Ragoza,  the  G.O.C.  and  his  Chief  of  Staff, 
Colonel  Galkin,  explained  that  the  XXVth  consisting  of  the 
3rd  Grenadier  and  the  70th  (Reserve)  Divisions  crossed 
on  the  night  of  the  22nd-23rd  October.  They  were  able 
to  gain  a  footing  on  the  left  bank  as  the  enemy  was  sur- 
prised, but  during  the  first  thirty-six  hours  after  crossing 
they  were  counter-attacked,  and  were  unable  to  gain 
sufficient  ground  to  deploy.  The  XlVth  Corps  crossed  by 
the  same  bridge  on  the  night  of  October  23rd-24th.  On 
the  25th  progress  was  facilitated  by  the  fire  of  fortress 
artillery  and  heavy  field  artillery  from  the  right  bank  and 
by  the  progress  of  the  ist  Division  of  the  Guard  on  the 
right  of  the  corps.  There  were  continual  hand-to-hand 
combats,  and  the  Austrians  suffered  enormously.  The 
two  corps  have  taken  5,000  prisoners  in  four  days.  The 
7oth  Division  worked  on  the  right  of  the  road  and  de- 
livered a  spirited  attack  across  the  open.  This  division 
has  lost  2,700  rank  and  file  and  forty-seven  officers  in  the 
three  days'  fighting  23rd-25th.  Its  G.O.C.  on  the  night 
of  the  loth  went  into  the  trenches  and  told  the  men  that 
the  bridge  at  Novo  Alexandriya  in  their  rear  had  been 
burned !  He  led  them  personally,  and  personal  leading 
is  what  the  reserve  divisions  require.  As  Galakin  said, 
they  are  more  "  impressionable "  than  the  active 
divisions. 

The  XXVth  Corps  had  occupied  the  line  Filipinov- 
Vulka  Zamoiska  by  nightfall  to-day.  The  XlVth  Corps 
was  on  their  left  and  rear,  towards  the  Vistula.  The  ist 
and  2nd  Divisions  of  the  Guard  between  them  have 
occupied  the  wood  south  of  Berdzeja.  The  Guard  Rifle 
Brigade  has  occupied  Polichna,  and  is  moving  south  on 
Zvolen,  preceded  by  Mannerheim's  Guard  Cavalry  Brigade. 

The  I3th  Cavalry  and  the  ist  Don  Cossack  Divisions 
crossed  last  night  near  Yanovets,  and  will  move  forward 
to-morrow. 

The  moral  of  all  this  is  that  the  Austrians  are  being 
pushed  back  with  loss,  it  is  true,  but  they  are  escaping  us. 


October -December,  1914  159 

The  letting  slip  of  chances  like  this  makes  one  despair  of  a 
really  decisive  success. 

It  is  reported  that  the  Germans  are  retiring  south- 
west, destroying  the  Ivangorod-Radom  railway  and 
sweeping  the  country  of  all  eatables.  This  will  mean  that 
the  Russians  will  require  a  month  or  six  weeks  to  advance 
before  they  can  get  into  touch  with  the  fortified  position 
at  Chenstokhov-Myekhov-Olkush. 

Engelhardt  came  in  and  told  me  that  the  Germans 
were  opposing  Ewarth's  advance  on  the  line  of  the  River 
Radonka.  He  estimates  their  strength  on  this  front  at 
about  nine  corps. 

Tuesday,  October  zjth,  1914.  ZVOLEN. 

I  left  Ivangorod  at  3  p.m.  and  drove  with  Rodzianko 
via  Novo  Alexandriya  to  Zvolen,  as  the  Corps  Staff  had 
received  orders  last  night  to  move  to  that  town.  The 
order  was  bold  in  the  circumstances,  as  the  XXVth  Corps 
was  eight  versts  east  of  Zvolen  at  nightfall  yesterday,  and 
our  nearest  troops  were  about  the  same  distance  to  the 
north  and  north-east. 

However,  the  Austrians  evacuated  Zvolen  at  5  a.m. 
to-day  and  their  rearguard  was  attacked  a  couple  of 
hours  later  by  the  Lancers  of  the  Guard,  young  Pan- 
chulidzev  being  wounded.  The  General  went  by  train  to 
Garbatka  and  rode  from  there  with  some  of  his  staff. 

The  place  is  infected  with  typhoid.  The  church  is  full 
of  Austrian  wounded — nearly  all  Magyars,  who  cannot 
speak  much  German.  I  found  a  hospital  assistant  who 
looked  blank  when  I  tried  him  in  succession  in  German, 
French  and  Russian,  but  who  spoke  English,  as  he  had  been 
in  America.  He  said  he  hated  war,  for  he  got  hit  and 
hit  no  one  back  !  These  poor  people  have  been  without 
anything  to  eat  for  two  to  three  days ;  the  smell  in  the 
church  is  dreadful.  The  poor  devils  were  no  doubt  quite 
healthy  three  months  ago.  Now  they  have  been  torn 
from  their  homes  and  dragged  to  a  foreign  country,  made 


160        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

1 

to  stand  up  before  the  enemy's  bullets,  and  finally  left  by 
their  own  people,  mutilated,  to  die  of  starvation.  This  is 
war ! 

Rodzianko  went  round,  like  the  good  fellow  he  is, 
giving  all  of  them  cigarettes  and  chocolate.  When  his 
servants  came,  they  at  once  said  that  they  would  give  all 
the  bread  they  had,  as  they  might  get  some  more  to- 
morrow. Good  fellows  !  This  is  all  an  ordinary  incident 
of  war  and  no  one  is  to  blame.  It  is  no  one's  business  to 
dress  these  men's  wounds  to-night,  so  they  must  wait. 

The  corps  of  the  4th  Army  lie  as  follows  from  north  to 
south  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Vistula  :  Grenadiers,  XVIth, 
XVIIth  and  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps. 

The  XVIIIth  Corps  of  the  gth  Army  is  crossing  with 
slight  opposition  at  Solets  and  another  point  further  south. 

The  Germans,  who  are  being  continually  forced  back 
by  the  2nd  Army,  are  reported  to  be  concentrating  on  the 
line  Radom-Petrokov.  Their  heavy  guns  are  moving 
towards  Radom,  which  town  is  strongly  fortified. 

The  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps  is  opposed  by  the  XI th 
Austrian  Corps,  the  Guard  and  the  XXVth  and  XlVth  by 
the  1st  and  Vlth  Corps.  Some  regiments  from  Bosnia  are 
offering  slight  opposition  to  the  progress  of  the  XVIIIth 
Corps. 

The  latest  idea  of  the  Staff  of  the  gth  Army  seems  to  be 
that  we  are  opposed  on  the  line  Warsaw-Novo  Alexandriya 
by  seven  German  and  three  Austrian  corps. 

Another  report  describes  great  preparations  at  Chen- 
stokhov,  and  it  is  expected  that  the  enemy  will  retreat  to 
that  line  before  offering  serious  battle. 

Wednesday,  October  zSth,  1914.  ZVOLEN. 

We  put  up  at  the  priest's  house.  Slept  comfortably  in 
a  room  with  Rodzianko,  the  window  actually  open.  Some 
Red  Cross  doctors  were  in  the  room  on  one  side,  and  on  the 
other  Lovchin,  Grabbe  and  Greighton. 

We  had  a  stand-up  breakfast  in  the  mess  kitchen  and 


October-December,  1914  161 

then  rode  out  to  visit  the  Staff  of  the  ist  Division  of  the 
Guard,  south-west  of  Zvolen.  General  Olukhov  spoke 
with  enthusiasm  of  the  work  of  the  Semenovski  and 
Preobrajenski  Regiments  in  the  fighting  of  the  past  few 
days.  One  youth,  Vansovich,  who  has  just  joined  the 
Preobrajenski,  took  two  officers  and  forty-six  men  prisoners 
with  a  detachment  of  six  men.  He  had  been  sent  to  find 
out  if  a  village  was  occupied,  and  first  of  all  met  twenty 
Austrians,  whom  he  charged  and  forced  to  surrender.  He 
kept  these  twenty  men  quiet  with  his  revolver,  while  his 
six  men  searched  the  village  and  brought  out  two  officers 
and  twenty-six  more  men.  He  is  the  brother  of  the 
Vansovich  in  the  same  regiment  who  was  killed  near 
Lyublin. 

The  story  and  the  state  of  the  wounded  found  at 
Zvolen  proves  the  disorganisation  of  the  Austrian  Army. 
Rodzianko  entered  a  hut  last  night  where  two  severely 
wounded  men  implored  to  be  carried  out,  as  they  had  been 
four  days  shut  up  there  with  the  corpses  of  two  comrades, 
without  food  and  unable  to  stir  themselves. 

While  we  were  at  the  headquarters  of  the  division,  a 
report  came  in  that  the  body  of  a  drummer  of  the  Preobra- 
jenskis  had  been  mutilated  on  the  preceding  night.  We 
rode  to  the  village  where  this  occurred  and  arrived  just  in 
time  for  the  burial  service,  which  was  being  held  in  a  fir- 
wood  near  at  hand.  The  man's  company,  220  strong,  was 
drawn  up,  forming  a  square  round  the  priest,  who  intoned 
the  service  before  the  open  grave.  The  company,  the 
Emperor's,  was  of  picked  men,  all  over  six  feet  in 
height.  The  doctor  and  the  company  officers  explained 
that  the  drummer  had  been  sent  with  a  message  to  a 
neighbouring  piquet  in  the  outpost  line  on  the  preceding 
night.  He  had  lost  his  way  and  stumbled  on  to  the  enemy's 
trenches.  He  had  been  shot  through  the  spine  and 
probably  killed  at  once.  The  Austrians  had  then  riddled  his 
body  with  bullets  fired  at  such  close  range  as  to  singe  the 
flesh,  and  they  had  slashed  his  body  with  their  bayonets. 

L 


162        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Savage  treatment,  considering  that  we  tend  their  wounded 
better  than  they  do  themselves  ! 

We  overtook  the  Preobrajenskis  on  the  march,  and  spoke 
to  the  Commander,  Count  Ignatiev,  Baron  Tornau  and 
others. 

The  general  line  of  the  5th  Army  *  is  held  by  the  ist 
Siberian,  XlXth  and  Vth  Corps. 

The  line  is  continued  to  the  south  by  the  4th  Army — 
Grenadiers,  XVIth,  XVIIth  and  the  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps. 
The  last-named  corps  bivouacked  last  night  well  in 
advance  of  Zvolen  in  the  angle  between  the  Ivangorod- 
Radom  railway  and  the  Zvolen-Radom  chaussee. 

The  line  was  continued  last  night  to  the  left  by  the 
Rifle  Brigade,  2nd  and  ist  Divisions  of  the  Guard. 

The  XXVth  Corps  has  cleared  the  Austrians  from  the 
north  of  the  river  Iljanka. 

The  G.O.G.  Guard  has  directed  his  advanced  troops  to 
occupy  the  chausee  Radom-Skarishev  to-night.  The 
XlVth  Corps  has  been  directed  to  assist  the  crossing  of  the 
XVIIIth  Corps  (General  Zaionchkovski,  37th  and  83rd 
Divisions) .  General  Kruzenstern  has  taken  over  command 
of  three  divisions  on  the  San  and  has  been  told  to  occupy 
Sandomir.  His  three  divisions  are  the  23rd  (lately  in 
XVIIIth  Corps),  8oth  and  46th. 

We  hear  (8  p.m.)  that  Radom  has  been  occupied  by  the 
Cossacks.  Everything  points  to  the  rapid  retreat  of  the 
Germans  to  Kalish-Chenstokhov-Bendin.  It  will  take  us 
three  weeks  to  reach  this  line,  perhaps  a  little  more  or  a 
little  less,  according  to  the  state  of  the  weather  and  its 
effect  on  the  roads  and  to  the  amount  of  damage  the 
Germans  have  done  to  the  railways.  The  question  is, 
what  will  the  Germans  do  in  this  time.  It  is  too  much  to 
hope  that  their  seven  corps  will  require  so  long  to  recoup 
and  to  reorganise.  The  danger  is  that  they  will  use 
their  communications  once  more  to  hurl  their  seven  corps 

1  See  Map  No.  V. 


October-December,  1914  163 

in  the  spot  least  convenient  for  us — Belgium  or  East 
Prussia. 

The  Germans  are  said  to  have  strongly  fortified  the 
frontier  of  East  Prussia  in  order  to  render  a  Russian 
invasion  impossible. 

It  is  rumoured  to-night  that  we  have  lost  touch  with 
the  enemy.  If  this  is  true  it  is  unpardonable,  with  our 
huge  force  of  cavalry. 

Thursday,  October  2<)tht  1914.  SKARISHEV. 

Engelhardt,  who  was  starting  this  morning  to  carry 
dispatches  to  the  Grand  Duke,  gave  me  a  list  of  the 
General  Staff  officers  with  the  Guard  Corps. 

The  division  of  duties  on  a  corps  staff  depends  very 
much  on  the  personal  ideas  of  the  member  of  the  staff 
with  the  strongest  character.  In  the  Staff  of  the  Guard 
this  officer  is  Colonel  Domanevski,  who  is  not  happy  unless 
working  twenty-two  hours  a  day.  The  Chief  of  Staff, 
Count  Nostitz,  who  is  supposed  to  direct  everything,  leaves 
things  to  Domanevski.  He  nurses  a  gouty  leg  and  reads 
Francois  Coppee  while  guns  are  booming.  He  is  always 
to  be  found  while  Domanevski  is  dictating  orders,  quite 
absorbed  in  letters  to  his  wife,  an  American. 

Under  the  general  supervision  of  the  Chief  of  Staff 
the  General  Staff  includes  a  colonel,  three  captains  and  two 
attached  officers.  Their  work  is  allotted  as  follows  : 

Colonel  of  General  Staff :  General  supervision  of 
work  in  General  Staff — Colonel  Domanevski. 

Captain  of  General  Staff :  ist  Assistant  to  Colonel 
Domanevski ;  supposed  to  write  orders  and 
attend  generally  to  operations,  but  this  is  really 
done  by  Colonel  Domanevski. 

Captain  of  General  Staff :  Intelligence.  Captain 
Engelhardt.  Retired  from  army  six  years  ago 
and  has  since  taken  a  prominent  interest  in 
military  matters  in  the  Duma.  The  most 
capable  man  on  the  Staff. 


164        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Captain  of  General  Staff  :   Communications. 
Two  officers  attached  to  the  General  Staff.     Special 
service.    Really  maids-of-all-work. 

It  is  said  that  there  is  only  a  single  officer  in  excess  of 
establishment  as  far  as  the  General  Staff  is  concerned ; 
but  there  are  a  mass  of  others,  perhaps  twenty,  with  no 
defined  duties — "  qui  voyagent"  as  Domanevski  says. 
Some  of  them  have  their  autos,  and  some  their  carriages, 
but  they  are  all  in  the  way  as  much  as  I  am,  and  they  have 
less  excuse,  for  they  should  be  with  their  regiments. 

We  had  an  interesting  visit  last  night  from  the  priest  of 
a  village  a  few  versts  west  of  Ivangorod.  He  was  taken 
prisoner  by  the  Germans  some  eight  days  ago,  together 
with  fifty  men,  women  and  children  of  the  neighbourhood, 
and  carried  to  Radom.  The  rest  were  sent  to  Germany, 
he  had  heard,  "  to  assist  in  gathering  the  crops,  and  to 
work  in  the  factories/'  He  was  released  on  Monday.  He 
says  the  Germans  left  Radom  on  Friday,  the  23rd,  by  train. 
They  acknowledged  to  a  loss  of  50,000,  and  maintained 
that  the  Russian  gun-fire  was  so  accurate  that  it  could 
only  be  directed  by  Japanese.  The  Austrians  evacuated 
Radom  on  Monday  night,  the  26th.  The  Austrian 
organisation  is  pitiable  and  the  men  have  nothing  to  eat. 
The  Germans  eat  enough  for  five  men  each.  The  latter  have 
systematically  robbed  the  country,  sending  corn  and 
potatoes  by  train  to  Germany.  The  people  loathe  them. 
I  am  bound  to  say  that  we  saw  no  trace  of  their  exactions 
when  we  drove  through  Radom  to-day. 

General  Bezobrazov  thinks  that  fourteen  corps  will  be 
directed  towards  Krakau,  and  a  screen  of  ten  will  be 
placed  towards  Thorn  to  cover  Warsaw,  etc. 

We  have  no  divisional  cavalry  in  the  Guard  Corps. 
The  General  insists  on  maintaining  Mannerheim's  In- 
dependent Guard  Cavalry  Brigade  intact.  It  is  true  that 
this  particular  brigade  is  of  too  good  cavalry  to  split  up 
between  infantry  divisions,  but  he  could  easily  apply  for 


October -December,  1914  165 

Cossacks.  It  is  really  disgraceful  that  we  have  lost  touch 
again.  The  men  were  crying  aloud  for  cavalry  when  they 
got  the  Austrians  on  the  run,  but  there  was  none  forth- 
coming. 

The  order  to-night  shows  that  we  are  moving  south — 
the  left  of  the  Guard  Corps  through  Ilja.  The  idea  seems 
to  be  to  make  the  Austrians  evacuate  Sandomir  without  a 
fight.  Presumably  we  will  then  turn  right  and  go  along 
the  left  bank  of  the  Vistula.  There  is  an  unconfirmed 
report  that  the  Xlth  and  XXth  German  Corps  retired 
through  Radom  on  Kyeltsi  on  the  27th  and  28th.  We 
have  to  do  on  our  left  and  front  with  the  remnants  of  the 
1st,  Vth  and  Xth  Austrian  Corps. 

Friday,  October  30^,  1914.  ILJA. 

My  forty-fourth  birthday,  and  a  bitterly  cold  day. 
Rode  with  Rodzianko  after  the  twelve  o'clock  dinner  to 
Ilja,  sixteen  versts,  where  we  spend  the  night.  Ilja  is  a 
prettily  situated  place,  with  an  old  ruined  castle,  said  to 
date  from  1004  A.D.  We  put  up  at  the  priest's. 

Radko  Dimitriev  is  slightly  west  of  the  San.  Kruzen- 
stern  is  trying  to  cross  the  Vistula  below  Sandomir.  The 
gth  Army  is  moving  south-west  by  south,  the  Guard  on 
the  right. 

The  general  idea  is  to  pursue  the  1st,  Vth  and  Xth 
Austrian  Corps  and  to  facilitate  Radko's  advance  west, 
up  the  right  bank.  The  4th  Army  is  on  our  right,  its 
Staff  advancing  along  the  line  of  the  Radom-Kyeltsi 
railway.  It  is  thought  possible  that  the  Germans  may 
make  a  diversion  on  our  right  to  save  the  Austrians.  My 
idea  is  that  the  Austrians  will  escape.  If  there  is  any 
fight  it  will  be  to-morrow.  We  had  good  news  to-day. 
The  Germans  are  fairly  running  from  Poland.  Lodz 
has  been  reoccupied. 

In  the  three  and  a  half  days'  fighting  west  of  Ivangorod 
last  week  the  2nd  Artillery  Brigade  of  the  Guard  used 
13,000  rounds,  i.e.,  an  average  of  over  270  rounds  per  gun. 


166        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

A  good  deal  of  the  delay  on  the  27th  arose  from  a 
misunderstanding.  General  Irman  (Illrd  Caucasian 
Corps)  maintained  that  Polichna  was  already  occupied 
by  our  people,  and  so  the  Guard  artillery  did  not  fire  on  it. 
However,  the  chief  fruit  of  the  victory  was  lost  through 
the  timid  handling  of  the  cavalry.  Even  to-day  the 
Guard  Brigade,  the  I3th  Division  and  the  ist  Don  Cossack 
Division  seem  to  be  doing  nothing. 

One  hears  stories  of  the  conduct  of  the  Germans.  An 
escaped  ensign  says  that  officer  prisoners  at  Radom  were 
made  to  work  with  the  men,  dragging  heavy  guns.  The 
priest  at  Skarishev  says  that  officer  prisoners  were  stripped 
to  the  waist  and  paraded  on  horseback  round  the  village 
square. 

The  priest  at  Ilja  said  he  was  delighted  to  see  us  —  the 
only  pity  was  that  we  had  not  come  earlier.  The  Germans 
and  Austrians  had  been  four  weeks  less  one  day  with  them, 
and  had  robbed  everyone.  When  they  arrived  they 
ordered  food.  He  put  up  a  General  and  two  other 
officers  for  two  days  and  fed  them.  When  going,  the 
General  said  :  "  What  shall  I  pay  you  for  the  food  ?  Well, 
here  are  twenty  marks  !  "  They  paid  for  cattle,  etc.,  by 
receipts,  which  they  perfectly  well  knew  were  of  no  value 
whatsoever.  They  proclaimed  the  rate  of  exchange  at 
Mark  i  =  R.i'4o.  (Pre-war  rate  was  Mark  i  =  R.  50.) 


Saturday,  October  ^ist,  1914.  WARSAW. 

The  uxorious  Rodzianko  was  off  to  Warsaw  this  morning 
ostensibly  to  get  three  motor-cars  repaired  —  really  to  see 
his  wife  —  so  I  went  with  him  to  get  my  dispatch  through 
to  Petrograd.  We  could  not  start  till  2  p.m.  as  the  cars 
had  to  convey  the  staff  in  relays  to  the  next  halt  at 
Virjbnik  (for  some  reason  many  officers  have  a  strong  objec- 
tion to  riding).  We  ran  through  Skarishev  to  Radom, 
where  we  fed  ;  then  on  the  ninety-five  versts  to  Warsaw, 
over  a  good  road,  arriving  at  8  p.m. 

There  was  a  strong  wind  and  snowstorm,  but  we  had  a 


October-December,  1914  167 

closed  car.  It  was  a  shock  to  see  a  large  body  of  artillery 
moving  north,  thirty  miles  out  of  Warsaw.  We  asked  an 
officer  where  they  were  going,  and  he  said,  "  Turkey." 
This  gave  me  furiously  to  think,  but  Rodzianko  would 
think  of  nothing  except  the  chance  of  seeing  his  wife, 
cursing  the  chauffeur  every  now  and  then  for  going  too 
slowly.  At  Warsaw  we  heard  that  the  Goeben  had  had  the 
impertinence  to  bombard  Novorossisk  and  had  sunk  a  ship 
of  the  Black  Sea  fleet.  However,  a  naval  officer  tells  us 
that  three  ships  of  the  Black  Sea  fleet  united  have  a  heavier 
broadside  than  the  Goeben,  only  the  latter  steams  twenty- 
eight  knots  and  they  only  seventeen.  No  one  knows 
whether  Turkey  has  declared  war  on  Russia.  There  is  an 
impression  that  the  German  crew  of  the  Goeben  simply 
acted  on  their  own  initiative,  for  the  Turkish  Ambassador 
at  Petrograd  has  only  just  renewed  the  lease  of  his  house 
for  a  year. 

Laguiche  and  Hanbury-Williams  are  here  on  a  visit 
from  G.H.Q.,  and  young  Neilson  only  left  to-day  to  rejoin 
Rennenkampf. 

I  had  a  long  talk  with  Laguiche,  who  really  knows  things. 

He  tells  me  that  trace  has  been  lost  of  the  German  corps 
that  took  part  in  the  recent  offensive  against  Warsaw. 

The  Austrians  are  thought  to  have  still  sixteen  regular 
and  five  reserve  corps  in  the  field,  but  they  are  mere 
skeletons.  The  Russians  have  taken  1,000  guns  and  over 
200,000  prisoners.  Are  the  Austrians  beaten  ?  If  we 
succeed  in  driving  a  wedge  into  South  Silesia,  where  the 
Polish  part  of  the  population  is  prepared  to  welcome  us, 
the  Austrian  army  will  have  to  decide  whether  it  will 
defend  Berlin  or  Vienna.  What  will  be  the  attitude  of  the 
Czechs  ? 

The  loth  Army  (Sievers)  1  is  now  being  fiercely  at- 
tacked in  the  neighbourhood  of  Suvalki,  the  Germans 
having  brought  up  heavy  guns  from  Konigsberg,  and,  it 

1  See  Map  No.  V. 


168        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

is  said,  from  Posen.  The  1st  Army  (Rennenkampf)  is  to 
advance  to  the  frontier  beyond  Mlava.  The  role  of  these 
two  armies,  as  of  the  8th  (Brusilov)  on  the  extreme  Russian 
left,is  to  be  one  of  active  defence,f  or  the  present  at  all  events. 

Meanwhile  the  4th  Army  (Ewarth),  the  gth  Army 
(Lechitski)  and  the  3rd  Army  (Radko  Dimitriev)  of  the 
South-West  Front  will  advance  to  the  south-west,  and  the 
2nd  Army  (Scheidemann)  and  the  5th  Army  (Plehve)  will 
be  allotted  the  task  of  turning  the  enemy's  left. 

The  problem  we  have  to  solve  is  chiefly  one  of  com- 
munications and  supply.  Everything  goes  to  show  that 
the  Russians  in  pressing  back  the  Austrians  from  the 
Government  of  Lyublin  marched  beyond  the  effective 
radius  of  their  supply  columns.  The  result  was  that 
horses  died  in  harness,  and  only  the  extraordinary 
endurance  of  the  men  and  the  disorganisation  of  the 
Austrians  and  their  consequent  inability  to  counter-attack 
saved  the  Russian  army  from  disintegration.  No  less  than 
1,500  horses  were  sent  to  a  single  corps.  The  men  had  to 
drag  the  guns  for  several  days.  There  is  a  shortage  of 
rifles,  but  many  are  being  obtained  from  Japan. 

Our  position  in  South-West  Poland  will  improve  when 
Przemysl  and  Krakau  are  taken,  as  this  will  make  the 
Lemberg-Krakau  railway  available.  Till  then  the  4th, 
9th  and  3rd  Armies  will  have  to  depend  for  supply  on  the 
two  double  lines,  Warsaw-Ghenstokhov  (European  gauge), 
and  Radom-Kyeltsi  (Russian  gauge),  and  the  Vistula.  The 
railways  have  been  thoroughly  destroyed  by  the  Germans 
and  will  require  three  weeks  to  repair.  The  Vistula  above 
Sandomir  is  a  poor  line  of  supply,  and  the  Russians  have 
insufficient  steamers.  The  first  task  will  be  to  feed  the 
troops  to  enable  them  to  advance  sufficiently  rapidly,  and 
then  to  provide  supply  depots  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
frontier  to  make  possible  the  subsequent  advance  to 
Breslau  and  further  north-west. 

*** 
Miss  D tells  me  that  the  Poles  have  been  treated 


October  -December,  1914  169 

in  the  most  disgraceful  manner.  German  officers  who  had 
been  entertained  for  days  stole  cushions,  bedding,  etc., 
when  leaving.  Others  committed  wanton  damage,  slash- 
ing pictures  and  furniture. 

A  landowner  near  Grodzisk,  south-west  of  Warsaw, 
entertained  German  officers  for  a  week.  When  they 
retired  one  officer  remained  behind,  and  was  captured  by 
the  farm  hands  setting  alight  his  host's  haystacks.  When 
he  was  brought  before  the  "  master,"  the  latter  stood  him 
against  a  wall  and  spat  in  his  face,  and  then  handed  him 
over  to  the  farm  hands  to  do  what  they  liked  with  him. 

Madame  0  -  says  that  Prince  Eitel  Friedrich  was  at 
the  Hotel  de  Rome  at  Radom  during  recent  operations. 
Her  sister-in-law  was  left  alone  by  her  husband  in  a  house 
near  Radom,  and  had  German  officers  with  her  for  five 
nights.  They  tried  to  "  make  love  to  her,"  and  she  is 
nearly  off  her  head.  The  Austrian  Commander-in-Ghief 
stayed  with  her  other  brother-in-law  near  Zamostie  during 
the  operations  in  the  Government  of  Lyublin,  and  when 
the  enemy  retired  they  took  him  with  them,  as  they  said 
he  "  had  seen  and  knew  too  much." 


Thursday,  November  tyh,  1914.  WARSAW. 

The  railway  is  said  to  be  open  to  Radom  and  to  sixty 
versts  beyond  Skernevitsi.  Kyeltsi  has  been  occupied, 
but  the  repair  of  the  line  from  Radom  to  Kyeltsi  is  ex- 
pected to  take  three  weeks.  The  Guard  Corps  was  in 
action  yesterday  south-east  of  Kyeltsi,  so  we  will  run  in 
that  direction  to-morrow.  Austrian  rearguards  are  trying 
to  cover  the  enemy  retirement. 

We  have  retaken  Sandomir,  but  Radko-Dimitriev  is 
making  very  little  progress  further  south. 

We  have  occupied  Mlava,  and  our  patrols  are  well  to 
the  north.  Warsaw  rumours  state  that  the  Germans  are 
concentrating  north  of  Mlava,  so  we  may  hear  something 
in  a  day  or  two.  Sievers,  with  the  loth  Army,  is  entering 
East  Prussia  west  of  Suvalki. 


170        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

The  Russians  are  throwing  up  elaborate  defences  to 
cover  Warsaw — a  useful  precaution. 

Laguiche  tells  me  that  the  official  Russian  opinion  is 
that  only  three  and  a  half  to  four  German  corps  took  part 
in  the  movement  against  Warsaw,  and  that  there  are  only 
one  and  a  half  German  corps  in  East  Prussia ! 

Saturday,  November  yth,  1914.  PJNCHOV. 

I  left  Warsaw  by  car  at  3  p.m.  yesterday,  slept  at 
Radom  and  arrived  at  Pinchov  (Guard  Corps)  at  7  p.m. 
to-day.  Engelhardt  made  an  interesting  companion. 

He  tells  me  that  Rennenkampf  is  of  opinion  that  the 
old  system  of  reserve  troops  with  cadres  already  formed 
and  existing  in  peace  is  better  than  the  present  system, 
under  which  the  reserve  units  are  only  formed  on  mobilisa- 
tion on  cadres  then  detailed  from  regular  units.  Engel- 
hardt prefers  the  present  system,  but  thinks  the  cadres 
should  be  stronger,  and  that  the  whole  level  and  quality 
of  training  of  the  officers  of  reserve  should  be  raised  to  the 
equal  of  what  it  is  in  Germany.  The  difficulty  in  Russia 
unfortunately  is  that  there  is  no  patriotic  middle  class  as 
in  other  countries. 

All  the  hotels  at  Radom  were  full,  but  we  had  the  luck 
to  stumble  on  a  comfortable  and  clean  private  flat,  where 
we  slept  in  luxury.  The  owner,  a  Polish  doctor,  had 
remained  in  the  town  throughout  the  enemy  occupation. 
A  high  German  official  had  been  billeted  on  him,  but  "  his 
attitude  was  most  correct,  and  he  insisted  on  paying  for 
the  use  of  the  flat."  He  said  that  the  Allies  were  re- 
treating because  their  losses  had  been  "  colossal " — 
greater  than  any  figure  the  doctor  could  possibly  imagine. 

Between  Radom  and  Pinchov  the  railway  has  been 
thoroughly  destroyed.  All  the  water-supply  arrange- 
ments, all  the  points,  besides  every  bridge  and  long 
stretches  of  embankment,  have  been  destroyed  by  ex- 
plosives placed  at  a  few  yards  interval.  Trains  now  run 
to  Radom,  and  optimists  promise  the  opening  of  the  line 


October -December,  1914  171 

to  Kyeltsi  by  the  I2th,  but  this  seems  very  doubtful. 
The  road  bridges  have  also  been  destroyed,  and  we  had  to 
drag  the  car  out  of  mud  several  times. 
A  glorious,  sunny,  frosty  day. 

Sunday,  November  8th,  1914.  PINCHOV. 

The  Staff  of  the  Guard  Corps  occupies  here  a  house 
which  the  Marquis  of  Vilapolski  had  handed  over  for  use 
as  a  school.  We  remain  here  to-day  to  allow  the  Illrd 
Caucasian  Corps  to  clear  our  front.  It  was  imagined  that 
the  Nida  was  strongly  fortified,  and  the  Illrd  Caucasian 
Corps  was  accordingly  despatched  south  with  the  idea  of 
turning  the  Austrian  left. 

On  the  left  of  the  Guard  the  XXVth  Corps  will  send  its 
two  divisions,  the  75th  and  the  3rd  Grenadier,  across  the 
Nida  to-night.  Further  south,  and  near  the  Vistula,  is 
the  XlVth  Corps,  with  the  45th  and  i8th  Divisions  and  the 
2nd  Rifle  Brigade.  In  rear  of  the  XlVth  Corps  is  the 
XVIIIth,  with  two  divisions,  the  83rd  and  37th,  on  the 
left  bank  of  the  Vistula.  Of  Kruzenstern's  three 
divisions  on  the  right  bank  the  23rd  has  reached  the 
Wistoka  and  the  46th  and  8oth  are  echeloned  about  a 
march  and  two  marches  in  rear.  Kruzenstern's  advance 
has  caused  the  Austrians  opposed  to  Radko-Dimitriev  to 
retire. 

It  is  said  that  Brusilov's  position  was  at  one  time 
difficult,  and  it  was  thought  that  he  would  have  to  retire 
from  Galicia,  abandoning  Lemberg.  He,  however,  counter- 
attacked one  of  the  columns  sent  against  him,  and  our 
extreme  left  is  now  considered  out  of  danger. 

The  General  told  me  to-day  that  he  had  hung  three 
Jews  for  attacking  a  Cossack.  The  Jews  here  are  in 
consequence  very  polite  ! 

We  received  orders  to-night  to  advance  two  marches 
and  to  take  up  a  position  just  out  of  range  of  the  guns  of 
Krakau.  The  XXVth  and  XlVth  Corps  will  line  up  on 
our  left. 


172        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917  1 

Monday,  November  qth,  1914,  DZYALOSHITSE. 

Though  this  place  is  only  twenty  versts  from  Pinchov, 
my  luggage  only  arrived  at  10  p.m.,  having  been  twelve 
hours  on  the  road.  There  seems  to  have  been  some 
confusion  in  the  orders,  for  the  road  was  a  fair  one. 

It  is  thought  that  we  will  be  in  a  position  to  move  on 
as  soon  as  the  railway  is  repaired  as  far  as  Kyeltsi.  It 
depends  what  is  meant  by  '  moving  on."  If  we  are  to 
make  a  serious  invasion  of  German  territory  we  should  not 
only  have  the  railway  right  up  to  our  rear  units,  but 
should  accumulate  supply  magazines,  for  the  Germans 
will  lay  waste  the  country  as  they  retire. 


Tuesday,  November  loth,  1914.  MARKHOTSITSE 

We  rode  the  twelve  versts  here  from  Dzyaloshitse  this 
afternoon.  The  large  staff  of  the  corps — 100  officers  and 
officials — is  very  crowded  in  the  village.  I  am  in  a  room 
of  the  schoolhouse  with  Lovchin  and  Grabbe.  The  Duke 
of  Mecklenburg,  General  Potocki,  the  Inspector  of  Ar- 
tillery, and  others  are  in  the  next  room.  The  corps  may 
have  to  halt  here  for  ten  days  to  await  the  arrival  of  the 
3rd  Army.  We  were  more  comfortable  at  the  last  place, 
but  the  General  objected  to  the  Jews. 

We  heard  from  prisoners  last  night  that  all  the  Germans 
have  gone  north-west  from  Krakau,  and  have  been 
followed  by  the  Austrian  active  troops.  It  is  said  that 
there  is  a  panic  in  Krakau  and  the  inhabitants  have  been 
ordered  to  leave.  The  place  is  provisioned  for  three  mont 

The  XVIIIth  Corps  is  to  cross  the  Vistula  to  hel 
Kruzenstern.    The  Austrians  have  abandoned  the  line  of 
the  Wistoka. 


3en 
hs. 
elp 


Wednesday,  November  nth,  1914.  MARKHOTSITSE. 

The  enemy  has  occupied  certain  points  a  few  versts 

outside  his  line  of  forts,  and  has  sent  out  a  brigade  to 

occupy  some  high  ground  inside  our  border  and  north-east 

of  Krakau. 


October -December,  1914  173 

A  field  of  fire  has  been  cleared  in  front  of  the  forts,  and 
it  is  reported  that  large  areas  have  been  mined.  There  are 
German  420.  guns. 

The  Independent  Guard  Cavalry  Brigade  and  the  ist 
Don  Cossack  Cavalry  Division  are  now  resting  east  of 
Myekhov,  having  each  sent  a  squadron  to  carry  out 
reconnaissance  in  advance  of  the  infantry  of  the  Guard  and 
the  XXVth  Corps. 

Agents  report  that  the  enemy  is  preparing  to  evacuate 
Chenstokhov.  He  is  sending  back  sick,  wounded  and 
heavy  guns.  Everything  now  points  to  the  concentration 
of  the  Allies  in  the  area  Bendin-Olkush. 

The  Staff  of  the  South- West  Front  moved  forward  from 
Kholm  to  Radom  on  Saturday  the  7th.  The  Staff  of  the 
4th  Army  arrived  at  Kyeltsi  on  the  6th,  and  of  the  gth 
Army  at  Busk  from  Ostrovets  on  the  8th. 

The  railway  to  Kyeltsi  will  not  be  repaired  till  between 
the  i8th  and  2ist. 

Thursday,  November  I2th,  1914.  MARKHOTSITSE. 

I  rode  out  with  the  General  to  see  the  right  flank  of  the 
position  which  we  are  taking  up  to  await  the  arrival  in 
line  of  the  3rd  Army — now  three  marches  in  rear.  The 
weather  was  awful  when  we  started,  soon  after  7  a.m. — 
rain  and  a  wind  that  cut  one  in  two.  I  am  helpless  and 
hopeless  in  such  weather.  The  Russians  have  a  great 
advantage  in  their  insensibility  to  cold. 

The  men  were  everywhere  busy  trenching  and  cutting 
down  trees  for  overhead  cover,  the  whole  under  the 
superintendence  of  the  officers  of  the  engineer  companies 
who  had  selected  the  sites  for  the  trenches.  The  whole 
line  will  be  seventeen  versts,  and  it  will  be  occupied  by  the 
2nd  and  ist  Division  of  the  Guard. 

The  cavalry  and  mounted  scouts  report  that  the  enemy 
yesterday  evacuated  the  advanced  line  he  had  taken  up 
on  our  territory,  and  retired  towards  the  line  of  forts. 

Instructions  have  been  received  that  Radko-Dimitriev 


174        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

will  on  arrival  take  charge  of  the  blockade  of  Krakau,  and 
the  2nd,  5th,  4th  and  gth  Armies  will  move  on  to  the  west. 

Friday,  November  i^th,  1914.  MARKHOTSITSE. 

The  5th  and  4th  Armies  face  due  west.  The  9th  Army 
will  face  south-west  till  relieved  by  the  3rd  Army,  when  it 
will  wheel  to  a  position  facing  west. 

The  4th  Army,  on  our  right,  passes  from  the  South- 
West  Front  to  the  North- West  Front  at  midnight  to-night. 
The  2nd,  5th  and  4th  Armies  are  ordered  to  take  the 
offensive  to-morrow  to  "  prevent  the  initiative  from 
passing  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy."  Our  task  in  the 
9th  Army  is  to  support  in  every  way  possible  the  4th 
Army,  by  covering  its  left  flank  pending  the  arrival  of 
Radko-Dimitriev,  who  is  now  halfway  between  the  San 
and  Wistoka. 

Saturday,  November  i^th,  1914.  MYEKHOV. 

We  left  Markhotsitse  at  12  noon  and  I  rode  the  ten 
versts  to  Myekhov.  There  is  no  sign  of  fortification 
here,  so  the  reports  to  that  effect  were  quite  untrue.  The 
Guard  Staff  occupies  the  southern  part  of  the  town  to- 
night and  the  Staff  of  the  XlVth  Corps  the  northern  area. 
The  Guard  Rifle  Brigade,  which  is  in  reserve  to  our  corps, 
is  also  here. 

The  Austrians  evacuated  Myekhov  exactly  a  week 
ago.  Our  landlord  tells  me  that  the  Germans  when  here 
had  no  less  than  2,000  motors,  of  which  300  were  repaired 
in  a  garage  in  a  single  day.  They  turned  on  all  the  local 
inhabitants  to  repair  the  roads.  I  wish  we  would  do  the 
same,  but  it  seems  to  be  nobody's  business. 

The  railway  has  been  repaired  to  Skorjisk,  half-way 
between  Radom  and  Kyeltsi.  The  first  train  was  expected 
to  reach  Ostrovets  to-day. 

The  shortage  of  ammunition,  both  gun  and  rifle,  is 
causing  anxiety.  General  Potocki,  the  Inspector  of 
Artillery  of  the  corps,  tells  me  that  we  have  ammunition 


October -December,  1914  175 

for  seven  days'  normal  expenditure.  He  calculates  fifty 
rounds  per  gun  per  day  as  '  normal."  The  average  per 
diem  per  gun  in  the  2nd  Guard  Brigade  in  the  four  days' 
fighting  at  Ivangorod  was  ^  or  sixty-seven  rounds, 
and  this  was  greater  than  in  any  four  days'  fighting  in 
September  in  the  Government  of  Lyublin ;  but  on  one 
occasion  a  brigade  of  artillery  of  the  Grenadier  Corps  fired 
4,000  rounds  in  one  day,  or  eighty-three  rounds  per  gun. 

"  Local  parks  "  are  mobilised  at  the  fortresses — so 
many  for  each  army,  often  one  for  each  corps.  One  local 
park  is  at  Ostrovets,  where  it  is  fed  from  Annopol  and  the 
Vistula.  Ammunition  has  to  be  carried  by  road  the  whole 
way  from  Ostrovets.  The  parks  will  be  transferred  when 
the  Radom-Kyeltsi-Olkush  railway  has  been  repaired. 

The  3rd  Army  is  still  considerably  in  rear.  It  ap- 
parently consists  of  the  XXIst,  Xlth,  IXth  and  Xth  Corps, 
with  one  division  of  the  Vllth  Corps,  while  the  8th  consists 
of  the  Xllth,  VHIth,  XXIVth  and  Vllth. 

The  Austrians  retreating  from  before  these  armies  are 
throwing  away  transport,  ammunition  wagons,  etc. 

The  4th  Army  will  continue  its  offensive  to-morrow. 
The  right  of  the  gth  Army,  viz.,  the  XlVth  Corps  and  the 
ist  Brigade,  2nd  Guard  Infantry  Division,  will  assist, 
while  the  remainder  of  the  Guard  and  the  XXVth  Corps 
stand  fast. 

I  saw  some  of  the  infantry  of  the  45th  Division  (now 
with  the  XlVth  Corps)  coming  through  Myekhov  to-day, 
and  they  impressed  me  unfavourably.  They  seemed  tired 
and  spiritless,  and  their  expression  was  monotonous  in  its 
hopeless  depression.  Not  a  smile  anywhere,  and  many  of 
the  men  looked  ill.  I  am  told  they  do  not  get  enough 
'  kasha,"  or  bread.  I  hope  no  epidemic  will  break  out, 
for  these  men  would  die  like  flies. 

A  Frenchman  appeared  to-night  with  the  story  that 
he  had  been  a  teacher  in  Lemberg  and  had  been  arrested 
at  the  commencement  of  the  war.  He  had  consented  to 
act  as  spy  for  the  Austrians  in  order  to  escape.  He  said 


176        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

he  had  been  told  to  ascertain  how  far  our  railways  had 
been  mended  and  how  many  trains  a  day  were  running. 
Engelhardt  gave  him  food  and  lodging. 

Sunday,  November  i$th,  1914.  MYEKHOV. 

After  lunch  to-day  I  rode  with  my  orderly  ten  versts 
to  see  the  destroyed  tunnel  north  of  Myekhov.  Every 
curved  rail  has  been  destroyed,  but  only  some  forty  yards 
of  straight  rail  on  either  side  of  the  tunnel.  The  tunnel 
was  destroyed  on  Tuesday  3rd,  but  no  one  has  com- 
menced clearing  away  the  rubbish  yet,  although  this  cannot 
be  considered  skilled  labour. 

I  had  some  conversation  with  Ushakov,  the  officer  in 
charge  of  the  administrative  service  in  the  Guard  Corps, 
regarding  the  system  of  replacing  casualties. 

The  arrangement  at  the  commencement  of  the  campaign 
was  that  each  regiment  formed  a  depot  battalion  2,000 
strong  at  its  peace  station.  The  depot  battalions  of  a 
corps  formed  a  depot  brigade,  16,000  strong.  The  Guard 
Corps  had  ten  battalions  for  its  three  divisions.  Rifle 
brigades  formed  two  depot  battalions  each.  The  Guard 
depot  battalions  took  longer  to  form,  as  it  was  thought 
desirable  to  enlist  only  ex-Guardsmen.  At  the  commence- 
ment of  the  Lyublin  operations  drafts  of  2,000  men  were 
telegraphed  for  from  the  depot  brigade  (September  9th). 
They  did  not  arrive  till  September  25th,  and  before  their 
arrival  8,000  had  been  telegraphed  for.  These  could  not 
be  sent  for  a  considerable  time,  owing  to  the  whole  of  the 
men  available  in  the  battalions  being  required  for  the  3rd 
Guard  Division,  which  lost  heavily  in  the  Samsonov 
disaster.  Up  to  date,  the  Guard  has  received  altogether 
9,000  men  and  it  is  now  5,000  under  strength.  I  asked 
why,  and  was  told  that  it  was  preferred  to  have  no  men 
rather  than  men  half  trained,  and  that  the  shortage  of 
officers  in  the  corps  made  it  impossible  to  have  the  full 
strength.  For  Instance,  the  Moskovski  Regiment  lost 


October -December,  1914  177 

fifty  officers  out  of  its  establishment  of  seventy-eight  in 
the  operations  south  of  Lyublin.  The  Guard  regiments 
have  so  far  refused  to  promote  ensigns,  as  men  so  pro- 
moted might  remain  with  them  after  the  war  ! 

All  corps  are  short  of  establishment. 

Of  course  the  controlling  factor  in  the  strength  of  the 
army  at  present  is  the  number  of  officers.  Apart  from 
the  shortening  of  the  course  of  instruction  at  military 
schools,  which  has  already  provided  an  additional  con- 
tingent of  3,000  officers,  line  regiments  have  been  author- 
ised to  promote  their  eighteen  ensigns  and  all  their  short- 
time  volunteers,  who  average  in  number  about  twenty-one 
per  regiment.  Again,  all  students  who  had  been  permitted 
to  postpone  their  military  service  on  account  of  educational 
reasons  have  been  ordered  to  go  through  a  course  of  four 
months'  instruction  and  on  its  conclusion  to  join  as  officers  ; 
this  arrangement  will  provide  an  additional  15,000  young 
officers  by  February  I4th. 

The  2nd  Army  has  been  ordered  to  move  against  the 
line  Kalish-Velyun,  and  the  5th  and  4th  Armies  against 
the  German  group  near  Chenstokhov.  The  gih  Army  is 
to  cover  the  left  flank  from  enemy  attempts  from  the 
direction  of  Krakau. 

The  Guard  moves  on,  leaving  the  XXVth  Corps  to 
organise  the  blockade  of  Krakau,  for  which  the  following 
divisions  have  been  detailed :  6ist  (XVII),  7oth  (XXV), 
8oth  and  Sard  (XVIII). 

The  XVIIIth  Corps  (23rd  and  37th  Divisions)  will  move 
north. 

The  railway  is  actually  opened  to  Kyeltsi,  which 
becomes  railhead.  During  the  past  ten  days  the  Qth 
Army,  with  the  exception  of  the  Guard  Corps,  has  been 
provisioned  from  Annopol  on  the  Vistula  by  horse  trans- 
port over  120  miles  of  road.  The  Guard  had  permission 
to  draw  its  supplies  from  the  magazines  at  Warsaw,  and 
arranged  for  trains  to  be  delivered  at  railhead  on  the 

M 


178        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Radom-Kyeltsi  line,  but  transport  thence  has  been  by 
country  cart. 

Tuesday,  November  ijth,  1914.  STSIBORJITSE. 

I  could  not  induce  Rodzianko  to  start  from  Myekhov 
till  nearly  10.  While  he  had  been  in  Warsaw  his  orderlies 
had  allowed  his  horses  to  fight,  so  that  the  best  is  now  laid 
up  with  swollen  legs  and  the  other  is  in  for  several  weeks' 
sore  back.  He  rode  his  orderly's  horse,  which  soon 
proved  to  be  dead  lame.  It  had  frozen  hard  the  night 
before  and  was  slippery,  so  we  had  to  stop  to  get "  shipi" 
screwed  into  our  horses'  feet  by  the  smith  of  a  transport 
column  we  passed.  It  was  so  bitterly  cold  that  walking 
was  pleasanter  than  riding.  We  are  to  spend  the  night 
here  in  a  huge  block  of  a  house  belonging  to  an  Austrian 
Pole,  who  left  the  place  in  July.  The  Cossacks  have 
ransacked  one  room.  I  wandered  into  the  fine  library 
and  took  down  a  volume  of  Byron,  but  found  it  was 
a  German  translation,  and  that  discouraged  further 
rummaging. 

Slight  firing  was  audible  from  Skala  and  heavy  firing 
from  Yangrot,  so  we  rode,  still  at  a  walk,  west,  in  the 
latter  direction. 

Wre  went  forward  to  the  O.P.  of  one  of  the  batteries 
from  which  we  could  see  the  firing-line.  The  enemy  was 
holding  Yangrot  in  trenches,  and  our  men,  some  400  yards 
nearer  us,  were  in  occupation  of  a  captured  trench.  They 
were  being  reinforced  from  the  support  by  some  hundred 
men  moving  up  at  a  walk.  The  attack  was  supported  by 
two  batteries  in  a  covered  position  on  the  right  and  one 
battery  on  the  left,  firing  at  about  1,800  yards.  Just 
before  dark  our  infantry  ran  forward  and  carried  the 
position. 

The  guns  were  well  dug  in  and  shelter-holes  had  been 
prepared  for  both  officers  and  men  to  pass  the  night, 
These  had  been  lined  with  straw  from  the  neighbouring 
village,  but  all  the  same  it  must  have  been  cold  work 


October -December,  1914  179 

without  blankets  and  with  several  degrees  of  frost.  Very 
little  gun  ammunition  was  used,  which  is  as  well,  for  I 
don't  know  where  our  parks  are. 

Little  Gershelman,  one  of  the  General's  orderly  officers, 
who  takes  an  interest  in  the  operations,  came  to  my  room 
and  gave  me  the  general  situation  in  outline. 

The  loth  Army  has  advanced  some  miles  into  East 
Prussia  and  occupies  the  line  Stalluponen-Goldap-Lyck. 

The  Germans  have  pushed  forward  a  newly-formed 
XXVth  Corps  to  the  neighbourhood  of  Vlotslavsk. 

They  have  one  corps  at  Kalish,  the  VI th  Landwehr, 
and  the  Xlth  near  Velyun,  the  XXth,  Guard  Reserve  and 
the  Ilnd  Landwehr  near  Ghenstokhov.  The  XVIIth  and 
Xllth  have  not  yet  been  located,  but  probably  the  corps 
at  Kalish  is  one  of  these. 

The  general  German  movement  appears  to  be  towards 
the  north.  It  may  be  intended  to  base  a  mobile  column 
on  Thorn  to  operate  against  the  right  flank  of  our  line  of 
communications  in  the  event  of  our  penetrating  into 
Germany.1 

The  Guard  took  prisoners  to-day  from  three  Austrian 
corps,  the  1st,  Vth  and  Xth.  The  Ilnd  Austrian  Corps  is 
opposite  the  XI Vth  Corps,  now  on  our  right.  The  Aus- 
trian XlVth  and  Vlth  Corps  are  reported  to  be  at  Krakau. 

Radko-Dimitriev  has  reached  a  line  halfway  between 
the  Wist  oka  and  the  Dunajec.  On  arrival  his  army  will 
invest  Krakau  from  the  south-east  and  south,  while  the 
XXVth  Corps  blockades  it  from  the  north. 

Wednesday,  November  iSth,  1914.  STSIBORJITSE. 

A  "  soft  "  day.  I  had  a  touch  of  lumbago,  so  gave  my 
horses  a  rest.  My  groom  has  gone  sick,  but  I  got  another 
who  seems  better  value. 

While  we  were  at  lunch  a  report  came  in  that  the  enemy 
is  holding  a  strongly  fortified  position  covered  by  barbed 

1  The  German  offensive  from  Thorn  had  actually  commenced  on  November 
nth — six  days  earlier  1 


i8o        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

wire  north-east  of  Mikhalovka.  The  G.O.O.  2nd  Division 
asked  for  heavy  guns,  as  otherwise  the  position  could  only 
be  captured  with  great  loss. 

The  Chief  Veterinary  Officer,  who  is  proud  of  his 
German,  was  to-day  driving  into  an  unfortunate  Austrian 
prisoner  the  misfortunes  of  his  country.  He  said  :  '  Do 
you  know  that  there  is  not  a  single  Austrian  soldier  in 
Serbia  ?  The  Serbs  have  taken  Semlin  and  the  Mon- 
tenegrins have  invaded  Bosnia."  The  ragged  individual 
replied  :  "  Tempora  mutantur."  He  was  a  student ! 

Thursday,  November  iQth,  1914.  STSIBORJITSE. 

The  2nd  Division  has  not  been  able  to  occupy  Mik- 
halovka. The  left  of  the  45th  Division  on  its  right,  which 
has  not  received  its  drafts  and  is  probably  9,000  strong 
instead  of  14,000,  has  been  forced  to  retire  from  the  wood 
north  of  Yangrot,  and  the  enemy  is  evidently  trying  to 
turn  our  right  by  pushing  a  column  through  this  wood. 

Our  situation  is  not  brilliant.  It  has  been  established 
from  the  questioning  of  prisoners  that  the  Guard  Corps  has 
in  its  immediate  front  five  divisions  of  the  Vth  and  Xth 
Austrian  Corps.  The  enemy  is  attacking  all  along  the 
line  and  we  cover  a  front  of  twenty-five  versts.  In  the  ist 
Division  the  Semenovski  and  Yegerski  Regiments  have  been 
hard  pressed,  but  have  held  their  own,  and  have  even 
gained  some  ground. 

The  Corps  Staff  received  bad  news  at  i  a.m.  on  the 
i8th.  It  appears  that  two  corps  have  been  forced  to  retire 
before  a  German  offensive  from  the  line  Vreshen-Thorn. 
It  was  expected  for  some  time  that  the  9th  Army  would  be 
ordered  to  retire,  but  other  councils  have  apparently 
prevailed.  The  2nd  and  5th  Armies  have  been  ordered 
to  form  front  to  the  north  to  deal  with  the  German  offen- 
sive, and  the  4th  Army  has  been  once  more  returned  to  the 
South-West  Front.  It  and  the  9th  Army  have  been 
ordered  to  attack  the  Austrians  in  their  immediate  front 
to  prevent  further  enemy  transfers  to  the  north.  Much 


October-December,  1914  181 

depends  on  the  strength  of  the  German  offensive.  There 
are  signs  that  the  Guard  Reserve  and  the  Ilnd  Landwehr 
Corps  have  been  relieved  by  Austrian  troops.  Still,  if  the 
Russians  play  their  cards  well,  even  seven  enemy  corps 
should  have  a  bad  time  between  the  Vistula,  Novo 
Georgievsk,  and  the  ist,  2nd  and  5th  Armies. 

There  is  general  anxiety  regarding  the  shortage  of 
ammunition.  This  is  especially  serious  in  the  2nd  Guard 
Division,  which  has  used  2,150,000  rounds  of  small  arms 
ammunition  in  the  fighting  of  the  last  three  days.  The 
Division  only  had  180  rounds  per  rifle  left  this  morning. 
We  met  the  regimental  ammunition  carts  returning  to 
search  for  the  parks  yesterday  at  2  p.m.  The  drivers 
asked  us  where  the  parks  were  and  we  could  not  tell  them. 
I  now  learn  that  they  are  at  Stopnitsa,  where  they  are 
filling  from  the  local  parks,  and  they  cannot  be  here  for 
four  days,  i.e.,  on  the  morning  of  the  24th.  As  a  train 
is  said  to  be  unloading  ammunition  at  Skorjisk,  Rodzianko 
has  gone  off  with  Gershelman  to  organise  its  transport  by 
motor  from  Skorjisk  to  Myekhov  and  thence  by  cart.  It  is 
cruel  to  think  of  the  men  in  the  trenches  on  a  day  like  this, 
with  the  thermometer  several  degrees  below  zero,  trying 
to  hold  their  own  against  a  superior  attacking  force,  without 
cartridges  to  shoot  the  enemy  down.  We  have  an  over- 
whelming preponderance  of  guns,  but  these  are  of  little 
use  to  us,  as  shell  too  is  lacking. 

The  37th  Division  (XVIIIth  Gorps)  to-day  relieved  the 
ist  Division  of  the  Guard  in  front  line. 

The  General  tells  me  that  the  Germans  are  advancing 
"  in  great  force  "  up  the  left  bank  of  the  Vistula.  The 
2nd  and  5th  Armies  are  carrying  out  a  laborious  wheel  to 
the  north.  Meanwhile  one  would  have  thought  there 
could  be  little  left  to  oppose  the  4th  Army,  but  it  too 
only  advanced  yesterday  "  with  difficulty."  Radko  Ditni- 
triev  arrived  yesterday  within  two  marches  of  the  eastern 


182       With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

forts  of  Krakau,  but  he  had  only  two  corps  with  him, 
having  used  the  others  to  block  passes  in  the  Carpathians. 
It  is  a  mystery  to  me  how  Radko  is  going  to  cut  off  Krakau 
from  the  south  and  west  with  only  two  corps.  Of  course 
if  we  can  get  cartridges  to-morrow  to  enable  us  really  to 
take  the  offensive,  it  may  change  everything. 

Before  this  offensive  was  ordered  "  in  order  to  prevent 
the  initiative  from  passing  into  the  enemy's  hands,"  the 
General  Staff  strategists  should  have  consulted  the  ad- 
ministrative services  to  see  whether  their  plan  was  prac- 
ticable. It  looks  to  me  as  if  the  Russian  strategical  counter 
attack  was  about  to  end  in  a  fiasco. 

Dolgoruki  and  I  had  a  bet  yesterday  about  "  1'anee 
12."  I  said  that  every  foreigner  had  left  Russian  soil  by 
Christmas  Day.  Nostitz  confirmed  my  guess.  Latter  is 
well  read  and  reads  widely  now  when  one  would  think 
that  the  Chief  of  Staff  of  a  corps  would  have  enough  to  do 
to  attend  to  his  own  work.  He  was  reading  a  Blue  Book  on 
the  causes  of  the  war  yesterday.  The  dear  old  General  is 
full  of  anecdotes  about  Suvorov  and  Napoleon. 

Friday,  November  zoth,  1914.  STSIBORJITSE. 

A  conference  of  the  Chiefs  of  Staff  of  divisions  and  the 
Rifle  Brigade  with  our  G.O.G.  and  the  Corps  Staff  sat  last 
night  from  9  p.m.  till  2  a.m.  to  decide  on  the  best  manner 
of  helping  the  XlVth  Corps  on  our  right,  and  especially  the 
45th  Division,  which  has  lost  50  per  cent,  of  its  strength. 

At  ii  a.m.  to-day  General  Bezobrazov  had  a  conversa- 
tion with  General  LechitskL  Lechitski  asked  to  be  in- 
formed of  what  steps  Bezobrazov  was  taking  to  help  the 
XlVth  Corps  in  its  "  critical '  position.  Bezobrazov 
replied  that  he  had  no  reserves  ;  he  acknowledged  that  the 
position  was  serious,  but  was  persuaded  there  would  be  no 
catastrophe.  He  ended  that  what  is  required  is  energetic 
action  and  cartridges.  Lechitski  said  :  "  Cartridges  you 
will  have.  I  wish  you  success  and  give  you  complete 
freedom  of  action." 


October-December,  1914  183 

When  starting  at  9.15  I  found  Engelhardt  starting  too. 
We  rode  eleven  versts  north-west  to  Poremba  Gorna,  a 
village  four  versts  south  of  Volbrom,  and  which  is  ap- 
parently the  enemy's  immediate  objective.  There  had 
been  a  hard  frost  and  the  ground  was  covered  with  light 
snow.  It  was  bitterly  cold,  and  we  walked  a  good  part  of 
the  way  to  keep  our  feet  warm.  At  Poremba  Gorna  we 
found  Colonel  Rozanov,  the  Commander  of  the  left 
brigade  of  the  45th  Division,  in  the  priest's  house  on  a 
hill  with  a  wide  view  to  the  south,  west  and  north- 
west. Rozanov,  who  speaks  English,  explained  the  situa- 
tion. His  brigade  had  been  reduced  to  under  3,000  men, 
as  the  greater  part  of  its  right  had  been  cut  off  and  made 
prisoners  on  the  railway  six  versts  to  the  west  three  days 
ago.  His  men  occupied  a  front  of  four  versts.  While  we 
were  there  he  had  to  send  his  last  reserve  of  300  men  to 
help  to  meet  the  main  attack  along  the  railway  on  his 
right.  He  then  telephoned  to  ask  for  a  battalion  of  the 
Rifles  at  Sukha  to  be  sent  to  form  a  reserve.  He  had 
considerable  strength  in  guns — two  light  howitzer  batteries 
and  two  field  batteries — and  was  further  supported  by  the 
Guard  Heavy  Artillery  Division  from  his  left.  The 
Austrians  had  only  a  single  battery,  apparently.  The 
view  from  the  hill  was  splendid,  and  we  could  clearly  see  the 
Austrian  infantry  advancing  at  the  run,  though  the  dis- 
tance was  four  versts.  Our  howitzers  opened  upon  them 
and  soon  the  whole  stretch  of  ground  over  which  they  had 
been  advancing  was  blotched  with  great  black  masses 
where  the  earth  thrown  up  by  the  explosions  covered  the 
snow.  I  doubt  if  we  killed  many  of  them,  but  we  produced 
a  useful  moral  effect,  for  they  stayed  quiet  in  their  trenches 
as  long  as  we  watched.  Rozanov's  position  was  uncom- 
fortable. He  had  only  150  cartridges  per  rifle  in  the  morn- 
ing and  few  shell ;  his  force  of  3,000  tired-out  men  was 
far  too  weak  to  hold  four  versts  of  front.  Engelhardt  sent 
off  a  report  and  sketch  recommending  that  a  brigade  of  the 
ist  Guard  Division  should  be  sent  in  support. 


184        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

I  understand  that  the  rear  echelons  of  our  parks  went 
to  Annopol  on  the  Vistula  to  fetch  ammunition,  and  when 
they  arrived  they  were  told  that  there  was  no  ammunition 
there  and  no  one  had  ever  heard  that  there  was  any 
chance  of  it  being  there.  Ammunition  was  picked  up  on 
their  return  at  Ostrovets,  the  railway  there  having  been 
opened  meanwhile.  The  parks  are  now  at  Stopnitsa. 
Owing  to  Gershelmann  and  Rodzianko's  expedition  yester- 
day, ammunition  has  been  brought  from  Skorjisk  to 
Myekhov  by  motor-car.  The  first  echelons  of  our  parks 
filled  up  there  to-day  and  arrived  at  the  front  at  about 
2  p.m.  The  other  echelons  are  following. 

Saturday,  November  2ist,  1914.  STSIBORJITSE. 

A  fine,  sunny  day  with  a  hard  frost.  Gould  get  no  one 
to  come  with  me,  except  Dolgoruki,  who  offered  to  come 
if  I  would  drive  !  Too  cold.  Rode  to  Poremba  Gorna 
and  found  the  Preobrajenskis  about  to  take  over  from 
Colonel  Rozanov.  The  enemy  had  made  three  separate 
attempts  to  advance  along  the  railway,  but  had  been 
repulsed  by  our  artillery.  Their  artillery  was  much  more 
active  to-day  in  shelling  our  advanced  trenches. 

The  Austrians  are  advancing  all  along  the  front  from 
Volbrom  to  Sukha,  but  I  fancy  their  movement  is  not  a 
very  serious  one. 

The  cold  in  the  trenches  at  night  is  intense,  and  some 
of  the  men  have  been  frostbitten.  The  Finlandski  Regi- 
ment's trenches  are  at  a  distance  of  sixty  yards  from  those 
of  the  Austrians  at  Yangrot. 

Points  about  this  winter  warfare  are  : 

It  is  practically  impossible  to  entrench.  Hence 
advantage  of  the  side  which  happens  to  occupy  entrench- 
ments when  the  frost  comes  and  disinclination  of  both 
sides  to  attack.  All  country  roads  become  passable,  thus 
facilitating  the  problem  of  supply  for  the  Russians.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  wounded  suffer  from  the  cold  and  from 


October-December,  1914  185 

the  jolting  on  the  rough  roads.  Strategical  aerial  recon- 
naissance is  impossible.  Owing,  to  the  intense  cold,  an 
airman  can  only  cover  about  twenty-five  versts  at  a  stretch. 

Coming  away  from  Poremba  Gorna  to-night  I  met  a 
long  line  of  ambulance  cars  arriving  to  carry  off  the 
seriously  wounded  men  in  the  brigade  of  the  45th  Division. 

Sunday,  November  22nd,  1914.  STSIBORJITSE. 

Another  bright  morning,  but  colder  (6°  of  frost  Reau- 
mur). Gun-fire  went  on  all  night,  but  there  is  said  to  be 
no  change  in  the  general  position  this  morning. 

The  ist  Guard  Division  relieved  the  left  brigade  of  the 
45th  Division  yesterday,  and  to-day  at  daybreak  relieved 
the  right  brigade  of  the  same  division  north  of  the  railway 
and  west  of  Volbrom. 

The  following  points  regarding  the  general  situation  are 
gleaned  from  a  summary  sent  yesterday  by  the  staff,  gth 
Army.  The  Germans  are  advancing  in  two  groups  :  the 
first  on  Lodz  and  the  second  on  Lovich.  On  the  two  lines 
they  have  from  right  to  left,  covered  in  front  by  five  cavalry 
divisions  :  the  IXth,  Xlth,  XVIIth,  XXth  and  XXVth 
(Reserve)  Corps. 

The  Germans — the  Guard  Reserve  and  Landwehr 
Corps  and  the  Breslau  garrison — in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Velyun  and  Ghenstokhov,  will  move  north  as  soon  as 
relieved  by  Austrians. 

The  Staff  of  the  Qth  Army  flatters  itself  that  it  was  its 
rapid  advance  that  forced  the  4th  Austrian  Army  (originally 
designed  for  Chenstokhov)  to  deploy  further  south  to  cover 
the  north-east  section  of  the  Krakau  defences. 

The  idea  is  that  we  can  hold  our  own  in  south-west 
Poland.  The  German  advance  up  the  left  bank  of  the 
Vistula  seems  a  very  risky  move.  If  it  goes  far  enough  the 
Russians  might  score  a  great  victory  with  the  ist,  2nd  and 
5th  Armies  (thirteen  corps  against  five  !). 

10  p.m. — Position  according  to  a  summary  of  informa- 
tion received  from  the  south-west  Front  to-night,  dated 


i86        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

November  2ist,  is  extraordinary — as  Nostitz  says,  a 
regular  "  gachis." 

We  will  know  the  result  in  a  few  days.  Transport  to 
rear  is  to  be  ready  to  move  in  any  direction.  The  3rd 
Army  is  to  send  two  corps  to  the  left  bank  of  Vistula  to 
strengthen  our  left.  The  8th  Army  is  to  cover  the  3rd 
Army's  left  as  far  as  possible.  The  two  corps  of  the  3rd 
Army  to  cross  are  the  XXIst,  to-morrow,  and  the  Xth 
Corps  with  the  74th  Division  on  Tuesday,  the  24th. 

To  fill  the  gap  between  the  left  of  the  5th  Army 
and  the  right  of  the  4th  occasioned  by  the  former's  move 
northward,  the  Guard  Cavalry  Divisions  and  Tumanov's 
Cavalry  Corps  are  being  sent  west  to  Petrokov, 

Monday,  November  z^rd,  1914.  STSIBORJITSE. 

Sovorov  1  tells  me  that  there  is  abundance  of  rifle 
ammunition  in  Russia,  but  the  difficulty  is  to  get  it  to  the 
front  owing  to  the  miserable  railway  service.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  feared  that  there  is  a  shortage  of  shell. 
General  Alexyeev  said  the  other  day  that  he  had  no  more 
shrapnel  to  send  ! 

Rodzianko  gives  a  heartrending  account  of  the  condi- 
tion of  the  wounded  crowding  the  streets  at  Myekhov  and 
Kyeltsi,  with  no  place  to  go  to  where  they  might  get  food 
or  even  warmth.  It  is  the  obvious  duty  of  the  General  in 
charge  of  the  movement  of  troops  at  Kyeltsi  to  worry  the 
civil  governor  till  he  has  set  apart  proper  accommodation. 
Rodzianko  saw  an  unfortunate  man  who  had  been  shot 
through  the  body  in  three  places,  and  who  had  walked  the 
seventy-five  versts  to  railhead  at  Kyeltsi,  only  to  find  that 
no  train  was  ready  to  take  him  and  no  waiting-room  was 
ready  to  accommodate  him  till  one  arrived.  It  is  another 
Russian  superstition  that  their  wounded  are  stronger  than 
the  wounded  of  other  nations,  because  they  do  not  complain, 
much  less  mutiny. 

Of  course,  the  dearth  of  proper  communications  is  more 

1  Staff  of  the  Qth  Army. 


October-December,  1914  187 

to  blame  than  even  slackness  in  organisation.  After  the 
Vistula  battles  we  advanced  without  waiting  to  organise 
our  rear  services,  to  collect  supplies  of  food  and  of  am- 
munition, without  completing  to  strength  by  drafts  and 
without  fitting  out  our  men  with  winter  clothing.  The 
railways  are  now  blocked  with  warm  clothing,  and  am- 
munition trains  have  to  wait  while  trains  with  Imperial 
gifts  for  the  troops,  that  cannot  at  present  be  de- 
livered, are  passed  on  to  the  front. 

There  was  general  depression  this  morning  owing  to  the 
receipt  of  orders  to  prepare  for  retreat  in  case  of  necessity. 
I  drove  with  Rodzianko  to  Myekhov,  but  the  staff  of  the 
army  threw  no  light  on  the  situation. 

The  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps  has  only  6,500  rank  and  file 
left,  and  its  drafts,  like  those  of  other  corps,  are  only 
advancing  by  route  march  from  Novo  Alexandriya. 

Tuesday,  November  24th,  1914.  STSIBORJITSE. 

The  gth  Army  has  received  orders  to  attack.  The 
orders  arrived  at  2  a.m.  It  is  said  that  they  were  issued 
by  Lechitski,  "  on  his  own,"  and  that  the  G.Q.M.  Golovin 
did  not  know  of  them  till  daylight. 

It  was  a  grand  sunny  day  after  a  night  of  eight  degrees 
of  frost.  I  rode  out  alone  to  the  3rd  Heavy  Artillery 
Division  near  Sukha.  Its  escort,  for  lack  of  infantry,  was 
furnished  by  two  squadrons  of  the  Grodna  Hussars.  I 
then  went  on  to  the  5th  Field  Artillery  Battery  of  the  2nd 
Division  of  the  Guard,  and  the  Commander  sent  an  orderly 
with  me  to  show  me  the  way  to  the  staff  of  the  Finlandski 
Regiment  in  the  village  of  Yangrot.  I  had  been  told  that 
all  Yangrot  was  in  our  hands,  but  found  bullets  whistling 
down  the  street  and  the  men  running  doubled  up,  as  the 
western  half  of  the  village  is  still  in  the  hands  of  the 
Austrians.  The  staff  was  in  a  small  hut,  the  orderlies,  with 
the  exception  of  the  telephonists,  in  the  first  room.  In  the 
second  room  there  were  five  officers,  one  of  them  asleep. 
There  was  a  table  and  two  chairs,  but  no  beds,  and  the 


i88        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

• 

floor  was  littered  with  straw  on  which  the  officers  sleep  at 
night.  I  was  told  not  to  stand  or  sit  near  the  window,  as 
bullets  might  come  in ;  two  horses  had  been  killed  just 
beside  the  house  a  few  hours  earlier. 

Only  two  companies  out  of  the  sixteen  in  the  Finlandski 
Regiment  are  in  reserve ;  the  remaining  fourteen  are  con- 
tinually in  the  trenches.  The  cold  in  the  trenches, 
especially  at  night,  is  intense.  The  men  are  allowed  to  go 
back  occasionally  to  warm  themselves,  but  the  danger  of 
doing  so  is  so  great  that  few  avail  themselves  of  the 
permission.  The  enemy  is  strongly  entrenched  with 
machine-guns  in  trees,  and  in  the  opinion  of  the  officers  it 
is  impossible  for  the  regiment  to  advance  with  its  present 
strength.  To-day  was  the  ninth  day  that  these  poor 
fellows  had  been  in  this  miserable  hut.  They  gave  me  the 
impression  of  men  who  had  got  to  the  end  of  their  nerve- 
resistance. 

On  my  return  the  battery  gave  me  tea  in  their  "  Mess 
House/1  a  comfortable  dugout.  I  took  a  snapshot  of  the 
officers. 

I  then  rode  to  Poremba  Gorna.  A  N.O.O.  of  the  Preo- 
brajenski  who  knew  me  took  me  to  the  priest's  house  and 
pointed  out  the  damage  that  a  shell  had  done  four  or  five 
hours  earlier.  It  had  fallen  between  two  rooms,  both  of 
which  were  crowded  with  orderlies",  and  it  is  a  miracle  that 
only  a  single  man  was  contusioned. 

Spies  must  certainly  have  given  information  that  Count 
Ignatiev,  the  Commander  of  the  Regiment,  was  in  the  house, 
for  it,  and  not  the  church  which  was  just  behind  it,  or  the 
observation  point  on  its  immediate  right,  had  been  evi- 
dently fired  at  by  the  Austrian  gunners. 

The  Adjutant  of  the  regiment  took  me  out  and 
explained  the  position.  The  left  of  the  regiment  had 
advanced  some  1,000  yards,  but  with  loss.  One  officer 
had  been  killed  to-day  and  another  yesterday.  The 
Austrians  are  in  great  force  and  moved  up  reserves  to  meet 
our  attack. 


October-December,  1914  189 

The  Preobrajenski  Regiment  has  now  three  battalions 
in  firing-line  and  supports  and  one  battalion  in  Kehlm  in 
regimental  reserve.  The  three  battalions  have  four  com- 
panies in  support  and  eight  in  firing-line.  The  front 
occupied  from  somewhat  south  of  the  railway  to  north- 
west of  Sukha  is  just  under  four  versts.  The  officer  con- 
sidered that  the  front  was  not  too  long  for  defence,  but  the 
strength  of  the  regiment  did  not  admit  of  attack.  The 
difficulty  now  is  that  it  is  impossible  to  entrench  when 
advancing,  so  hard  is  the  ground. 

I  heard  on  return  that  the  "  offensive  "  had  had  even 
worse  luck  in  other  parts  of  the  field.  The  Grenadierski 
Regiment  in  advancing  stumbled  on  to  a  whole  hostile 
division  and  a  battalion  was  practically  wiped  out. 

General  Bezobrazov  sent  for  me  after  supper  and  asked 
me  my  opinion  on  what  I  had  seen.  I  told  him  what  I 
thought :  that  we  had  not  sufficient  weight  to  carry  an 
offensive  through  as  we  are  situated  at  present.  He  said 
we  would  wait  for  Radko  Dimitriev.  This  will  take  time. 

The  General  thought  we  should  be  in  a  very  dangerous 
position  for  the  next  three  or  four  days.  I  don't  think  the 
Austrians  will  attempt  any  very  serious  attack. 

No  more  news  from  the  north,  and  I  fear  that  in  this 
case  no  news  cannot  be  good  news. 

Wednesday,  November  2$th,  1914.  STSIBORJITSE. 

It  was  warmer  this  morning — about  zero.  I  rode  out 
with  Rodzianko  to  Zadroje,  where  we  lunched  with 
General  Etter  of  the  Semenovski  Regiment.  Three 
battalions  of  this  regiment  are  in  corps  reserve,  and  one 
forms  the  reserve  of  the  2nd  Division. 

The  Grenaderski  Regiment  yesterday  lost  very  heavily, 
and  has  now  only  nine  officers  and  500  men.  The  Mos- 
kovski  Regiment  has  only  sixteen  officers  left.  The 
Semenovski  Regiment  has  lost  ten  officers  killed  and 
twenty  wounded  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and 
3,000  rank  and  file.  The  Preobrajenski  Regiment  has 


With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

lost  forty-eight  officers  killed  and  wounded  out  of  seventy. 
The  30,000  drafts  for  the  gth  Army,  which  are  said  to  be 
on  their  way,  and  to  have  reached  Kyeltsi,  will  be  only  a 
drop  in  the  bucket.  The  necessity  for  rapid  refilling  of 
casualties  owing  to  the  enormous  losses  of  modern  war  has 
been,  I  fear,  lost  sight  of  in  Russia,  and  if  we  have  to 
advance  in  the  winter,  our  losses  will  be  three  times  as 
great. 

We  have  lost  several  men  frozen  to  death  in  the  trenches 
at  night.  A  captured  Austrian  officer's  diary  revealed  the 
fact  that  one  officer  and  six  men  in  his  company  had  been 
frozen  to  death  in  a  single  night.  The  coldest  night  has 
been  9°  Reaumur.  We  may  have  15°  ! 

A  captured  Austrian  officer  says  that  our  artillery  is 
splendid,  but  he  thinks  little  of  our  infantry.  I  think  the 
infantry  is  much  of  it  excellent,  but  it  suffers  from  the 
rotten  arrangements  for  replacing  casualties  and  from 
want  of  cartridges  and  warm  clothing.  These  two  causes 
do  not  so  much  affect  the  artillery,  which  has  few  losses 
and  can  generally  sleep  comparatively  comfortably. 

There  are  apparently  nine  divisions  opposed  to  the  4th 
Army — four  German  and  five  Austrian.  The  4th  Army  is 
slightly  superior  on  paper,  but  it  is  known  that  one  of  its 
corps,  the  Illrd  Caucasian,  has  only  6,500  rank  and  file 
left. 

There  are  eighteen  Austrian  divisions  opposed  to  the 
fourteen  very  weak  divisions  of  the  gth  Army,  but  the 
3rd  Army  has  moved  five  divisions  across  the  Vistula  to 
strengthen  our  left. 

Saturday,  November  2$th,  1914.  STSIBORJITSE. 

The  Commander  of  the  Grenaderski  Regiment  came  in 

to  supper  last  night.   He  told  me  he  had  been  sent  for  by  the 

Corps  Commander,  and  he  seemed  very  worried.     I  heard 

afterwards  that  he  had  been  deprived  of  his  command, 

being  blamed  for  the  failure  of  his  regiment  on  the  24th. 

I  rode  with  Rodzianko  to  Myekhov  and  lunched  with 


October -December,  1914 

the  staff  of  the  gth  Army.  The  German  corps  near  Lodz, 
that  it  was  hoped  to  cut  off,  has  escaped.  It  had  first 
marched  south-west  from  Brezini  towards  Petrokov,  then 
north-east  and  finally  escaped  north-west.  Yesterday  it 
was  said  that  eighteen  trains  had  been  ordered  to  carry 
away  the  prisoners  we  hoped  to  take  ! 

There  is  no  fear  of  a  catastrophe  to  the  Russian  armies 
in  the  north,  but  on  the  other  hand  there  is  no  chance  of  a 
decisive  victory.  An  uncomfortable  feature  is  the  advance 
of  three  cavalry  and  six  infantry  regiments  towards 
Petrokov,  in  the  direction  of  the  gap  left  by  the  move 
north  of  the  5th  Army,  for  in  this  area  we  have  only 
cavalry  to  oppose  them. 

An  officer  gave  the  number  of  bayonets  in  the  gth 
Army  on  November  23rd  as  93,000.  Taking  the  division 
at  14,000  bayonets,  the  fourteen  divisions  of  the  army 
should  contain  196,000,  and  the  Army  is  therefore  103,000 
under  strength.  General  Gulevich  told  me  that  65,000  drafts 
are  on  their  way,  and  to-day  a  telegram  was  sent  asking 
that  this  number  should  be  made  up  to  100,000. 

An  officer  returning  from  sick  leave  said  that  Petrograd 
is  full  of  convalescent  officers,  who  are  not  sent  back  to 
their  regiments  quick  enough,  and  very  many  of  whom  try 
to  get  away  on  "  side  shows  "  such  as  automobile  machine- 
gun  companies. 

The  staff  of  the  4th  Army  is  at  Vloshchova. 

Monday,  November  30^,  1914.  STSIBORJITSE. 

We  have  been  a  whole  fortnight  in  this  house,  but 
move  north  to-morrow,  our  quarters  here  being  taken  over 
by  the  staff  of  the  XVIIIth  Corps. 

It  was  a  fine  day  and  I  rode  out  at  10  a.  m.  to  Poremba 
Gorna,  where  I  found  the  staff  of  the  Preobrajenskis  had 
been  forced  to  abandon  the  priest's  house  in  favour  of  less 
exposed  quarters  further  down  the  village.  The  Aus- 
trian heavy  guns  were  shelling  the  village  while  I  was 
there. 


With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

The  Preobrajenskis  gained  a  little  ground  on  the  24th, 
which  they  have  since  held.  The  battalion  in  reserve  is 
now  changed  nightly,  so  that  each  battalion  has  one  night's 
rest  in  four — little  enough !  The  new  arrangements  will 
narrow  the  front  allotted  to  the  army  and  so  allow  the  men 
more  rest. 

The  first  line  is  covered  by  scouts  thrown  forward  to 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  Austrian  trenches.  These  men 
have  dogs  which  they  use  for  carrying  back  messages  to 
the  trenches,  attaching  the  message  to  the  collar.  A  dog 
running  back  without  any  message  attached  is  the  signal 
for  an  alarm. 

I  found  poor  old  Ignatiev  wringing  his  hands  over 
instructions  from  the  Corps  P.M.O.  that,  in  view  of  the 
frequency  of  cases  of  frost-bite,  steps  must  be  taken  to 
keep  the  men's  feet  warm,  and  they  must  be  constantly 
supplied  with  hot  tea.  "  Such  orders,"  he  said,  "  are 
easy  to  write,  but  difficult  to  carry  out,  when  not  a  day 
passes  without  one  of  the  orderlies  who  carry  the  officers' 
lunches  to  the  trenches  being  wounded." 

The  Adjutant  spoke  of  the  prevalence  of  espionage,  and 
blamed  the  Army  Staff.  A  man  who  had  been  passed  on 
from  the  regiment  on  the  right  appeared  with  an  order 
permitting  him  to  pass  through  the  lines.  He  said  that 
it  was  dangerous  to  pass  through  the  Preobrajenski  lines, 
and  asked  for  a  note  for  the  unit  on  their  left.  This  was 
given  him,  but  it  was  a  little  too  hot  when  the  Commander 
of  this  unit  reported  that  the  individual  wanted  to  go  still 
further  left.  He  was  arrested  and  sent  to  the  Staff  of  the 
Division.  The  Division  passed  him  to  the  Staff  of  the 
Army,  which  released  him  !  There  ought,  of  course,  to  be 
a  special  Intelligence  officer  with  the  regiment,  which 
equals  in  strength  our  brigade.  He  would  enquire  into 
cases  of  espionage  and  would  send  on  a  proper  report 
with  the  individual  charged,  so  as  to  give  the  Staff  of  the 
Army  less  opportunity  of  exercising  its  high-minded 
generosity  ! 


October -December,  1914  193 

Tuesday,  December  ist,  1914.  YELCHA. 

Rodzianko  came  back  last  night  from  Myekhov  with 
grave  news.  The  right  of  our  line  on  the  north  has 
retired  before  German  pressure.  The  Grand  Duke  is 
much  excited  that  Joffre  has  not  taken  the  offensive  ;  he 
is  convinced  that  the  Germans  have  transferred  largely 
from  the  Western  theatre. 

Meanwhile  the  G.Q.M.  Golovin  has  had  agents'  informa- 
tion that  the  Austrians  will  not  defend  Krakau.  Ivanov 
had  already  ordered  the  9th  Army  to  withdraw,  but  in 
view  of  this  report  and  the  remarkable  progress  made  by 
Radko-Dimitriev,  who  has  pushed  on  south  of  Krakau, 
he  permitted  it  to  remain. 

Some  Russians  think  that  it  is  our  Western  diplomacy 
that  prevents  the  commencement  of  the  French  offensive, 
since  our  Governments  have  decided  with  diabolical  cun- 
ning that  Russia  must  waste  her  strength,  so  that  she  may 
not  emerge  too  strong  from  the  war  !  ! 

It  is  a  fatal  weakness  of  this  eternal  line  formation  that 
it  gives  no  power  of  manoeuvre.  If  each  of  our  armies  had 
now  a  single  corps  in  reserve,  we  could  welcome  the  German 
attempt  to  turn  the  flanks  of  the  2nd  and  5th  Armies,  for  we 
could  strike  the  turning  column  in  flank  and  overwhelm  it. 

At  lunch  to-day  General  Bezobrazov  waxed  eloquent 
on  the  necessity  of  attacking  the  Austrians  in  our  front 
and  of  invading  Silesia  within  a  week.  Golovin  agreed  to 
the  idea  when  I  spoke  to  him  of  it.  He  says  we  shall  have 
some,  at  all  events,  of  the  65,000  drafts  in  a  few  days,  and 
some  more  cartridges. 

He  showed  me  the  translation  of  a  German  Army 
Order,  warning  the  artillery  to  be  sparing  in  their  use  of 
shell,  as  the  productive  resources  of  the  country  would  not 
admit  of  waste.  The  battery  commanders  were  told  not 
to  fire  at  any  targets  unless  well  marked. 

Wednesday,  December  2nd,  1914.  YELCHA. 

I  drove  to-day  with  Kotsube*,  the  Grand  Duke's  A.D.C., 

N 


194        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

to  visit  the  XlVth  Corps  and  the  45th  Division,  which  will 
be  relieved  to-night  by  the  2nd  Guard  Infantry  Division. 

Kotsub£  has  been  sent  by  the  Grand  Duke  to  report  on 
equipment.  We  found  several  men  of  the  45th  Division 
with  rifles  equipped  with  old  sights.  Some  have  warm 
vests,  but  they  are  without  warm  drawers.  Boots  are 
generally  in  a  dreadful  state,  and  indeed  they  could  not  be 
otherwise,  considering  the  distances  that  the  men  have 
covered  and  the  fact  that  there  have  been  no  re-issues 
since  the  commencement  of  the  war.  The  men  say  they 
are  being  sufficiently  fed,  but  would  like  more  bread,  as 
the  present  ration  of  2  Ibs.  is  not  enough.  I  tasted 
"  Sukhari,"  the  Russian  substitute  for  biscuit.  It  is 
simply  dried  black  bread  packed  loose  in  sacks. 

The  losses  among  officers  have  been  very  great.  A 
General  Staff  officer  of  the  i8th  Division  told  me  that  his 
Division  has  now  only  forty  left  out  of  the  350  with  which 
it  commenced  the  war,  but  some  of  the  absent  are  sick  and 
wounded  who  will  no  doubt  return.  Battalions  are  com- 
manded by  ensigns.  At  present  a  single  officer  has  often 
a  verst  of  trench  to  watch,  and  in  consequence  cannot  hope 
to  control  expenditure  of  ammunition.  One  regiment 
has  been  losing  as  many  as  seven  men  per  day  in  desertions 
to  the  enemy.  The  men  are  tried  beyond  their  strength 
by  having  to  remain  in  the  trenches  without  relief. 

The  Director  of  Equipment  on  the  South- West  Front 
arrived  a  day  or  two  ago  to  take  his  son's  body  back  to 
Petrograd.  He  was  formerly  Chief  of  the  Department  of 
Military  Education.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  service  of 
supply  works  badly ! 

Thursday,  December  $rd,  1914.  YELCHA. 

I  rode  with  Rodzianko  to  see  the  tunnel  north  of 
Myekhov.  The  repair  work  has  been  going  on  for  over 
two  weeks,  but  the  railway  battalion  has  only  been  there 
one  week.  There  are  now  1,000  men  of  the  railway  bat- 
talion and  500  hired  labourers. 


October-December,  1914  195 

The  eastern  end  was  the  more  thoroughly  destroyed. 
Only  one  of  the  two  tunnels  is  being  cleared,  and  the  work 
appears  to  be  going  on  very  slowly.  It  may  be  finished  in 
three  weeks,  i.e.,  by  December  24th.  Meanwhile  the 
permanent  way  and  bridges  have  been  repaired  as  far  as 
Volbrom — the  farthest  point  occupied  by  our  troops. 
Some  distance  west  of  the  tunnel  we  came  upon  a  large 
grave  with  a  cross  erected  by  the  Austrians,  appealing  to 
the  Russians  to  respect  the  last  resting-place  of  "  brave 
men  who  had  died  in  defending  the  approaches  to  their 
country."  It  appears  that  in  a  collision  between  two 
trains  which  took  place  just  after  the  demolition  of  the 
tunnel,  a  spark  from  one  of  the  engines  ignited  some  kero- 
sine,  which  in  turn  blew  up  two  wagons  full  of  dynamite 
and  seventy-six  men  were  killed. 

We  rode  on  to  the  Army  Staff  at  Myekhov.  I  could 
not  find  out  from  Golovin  how  soon  we  would  move.  I 
asked  if  we  would  move  within  the  next  ten  days,  and  he 
said,  "  Probably  much  sooner,"  but  he  could  not  give  any 
reason  for  his  opinion.  I  think  I  can  go  to  Warsaw  and 
perhaps  to  Petrograd  without  the  risk  of  missing  anything. 

The  enemy  column  advancing  from  the  west  against 
Petrokov  has  not  yet  developed  its  movement,  and  is 
apparently  waiting  to  increase  its  estimated  strength  of 
two  German  and  two  Austrian  corps  by  drawing  troops 
from  further  south.  Meanwhile  Ivanov  has  ordered  the 
G.O.C.  gth  Army  to  select  defensive  positions  in  case  it  may 
be  necessary  to  retire. 

The  railway  officials  do  nothing  in  war-time,  ap- 
parently handing  over  all  their  functions  to  the  railway 
staff  officers.  How  inefficiently  the  latter  work  is  evident 
from  the  fact  that  only  six  trains  a  day  now  run  to  Andreev. 
People  say  that  under  the  management  of  the  Ministry  of 
Ways  twenty  pairs  could  be  run  !  The  Corps  Engineer 
has  very  little  to  do,  and  he  would  be  usefully  employed 


196        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

in  superintending  the  repair  of  roads  and  railways.  As  it 
is,  he  only  advises  on  fortification  of  positions  and  is  vaguely 
responsible  for  engineer  material. 

The  work  of  the  etapes  leaves  much  to  be  desired.  They 
are  supposed  to  feed  all  details  on  the  road  to  and  from 
the  front.  Their  failure  to  do  this  results  in  the  robbing 
of  the  local  population,  which  is  naturally  rendered 
hostile. 

An  instance  of  bad  administration  is  the  order  offering 
rewards  of  Rs.6  for  the  return  of  a  Russian  rifle  and  Rs.5 
for  an  Austrian.  It  was  stated  that  the  sums  would  be 
paid  during  a  period  up  to  one  month  after  the  date  of 
order.  Unfortunately  the  order  was  not  distributed  for 
a  whole  month  after  its  date,  and  in  any  case  no  arrange- 
ments had  been  made  to  provide  the  ready  money,  so  the 
local  population  soon  gave  up  rifle-hunting  as  an  un- 
profitable business. 


Friday,  December  tyh,  1914.  YELCHA. 

As  General  Bezobrazov  says  there  is  unlikely  to  be  any 
important  move  in  this  area  during  the  next  ten  days  I 
told  him  I  would  go  to  Warsaw  and  perhaps  Petrograd 
to-morrow  with  Staff-Captain  Chertkov.  We  will  start 
at  8.30  a.m.  and  try  to  motor  through  to  Warsaw  in  one 
day. 

Rode  out  with  Rodzianko  to  see  Dragomirov  x  at  the 
Headquarters  of  the  2nd  Guard  Division  at  Poremba- 
Djerjna.  He  tells  me  that  he  can  now  organise  reliefs  in 
his  trenches  —  six  days  in  the  trenches  and  three  days  in 
reserve.  There  is  no  great  Austrian  strength  in  front. 
His  Chief  of  Staff,  Boldirev,  is  positive  that  we  could 
squash  the  Austrians  on  our  front  if  we  were  ordered  to 
advance.  '  If  Bezobrazov  had  ordered  a  flank  attack  by 
the  Semenovski  Regiment  on  the  24th,  the  Grenadierski 
Regiment  would  have  been  saved." 

1  Vladimir   Dragomirov,    eldest   son   of   the   famous   General.     Afterwards 
Chief  of  Staff  of  the  South-West  Front  and  commander  of  a  corps. 


October -December,  1914  197 

Brusilov  is  sending  the  XXIVth  and  Vlllth  Corps  to 
assist  Radko  south  of  Krakau.  The  latter  has  made  good 
progress,  occupying  Wieliezka,  the  IXth  Corps  on  his  left 
penetrating  a  fortified  position  south-west  of  that  town 
yesterday. 

It  is  said  that  drafts  of  32,000  men  are  expected  in  the 
gth  Army  by  December  7th.  Perhaps  ! 

An  officer  who  had  been  specially  detailed  to  examine 
the  condition  of  the  men  in  the  trenches  in  the  gth 
Army  stated  to-night  that,  in  a  2nd  category  division  of  the 
XVIIIth  Corps,  in  one  regiment  in  a  single  night,  fifteen 
officers  and  1,000  men  deserted  to  the  enemy,  being  no 
longer  able  to  bear  the  rigour  of  the  trenches.  The  regi- 
ment was  left  with  only  five  officers  and  850  men ! 

The  General  tells  me  to-night  that  the  German  attack 
in  the  Lovich  direction  is  supposed  to  have  failed.  The 
only  danger  is  now  the  flank  attack  towards  Petrokov. 

The  whole  of  the  5th  Army  was  heavily  engaged 
yesterday.  It  is  said  that  the  Germans  have  lost  12,000 
prisoners  and  100,000  killed  and  wounded  in  these  opera- 
tions. 

Saturday,  December  tyh,  1914.  WARSAW. 

It  was  6U  of  Reaumur  last  night,  but  to-day  was  bright, 
and  it  was  appreciably  warmer  as  we  neared  Warsaw. 

Chertkov  and  I  got  off  at  10.15,  and  arrived  at  Warsaw 
at  7.30 — a  wonderful  performance  for  150  miles  on  roads 
crowded  with  transport.  We  stopped  at  Myekhov  for 
fifteen  minutes  and  at  Radom  to  dine  for  seventy  minutes. 

We  passed  about  9,000  drafts  between  Myekhov  and 
Radom,  most  of  the  men  straggling  anyhow,  with  few 
officers.  It  was  interesting  to  note  the  expressions  of  the 
men ;  the  young  looked  keen  and  happy,  the  older  ones 
had  a  hopeless  expression.  Men  over  thirty  are,  with  few 
exceptions,  useless  at  the  front. 

There  is  no  ammunition  depot  in  advance  of  Andreev, 


With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

which  is  railhead.  I  noticed  the  parks  going  and  coming. 
Those  returning  had  the  two-wheeled  small  arms  ammuni- 
tion carts  piled  with  extra  boxes. 

Warsaw  is  full  of  rumours  as  usual,  but  who  can  under- 
stand the  movements  of  this  last  battle !  Russians  say 
that  Russians  and  Germans  were  fighting  in  concentric 
circles,  and  that  the  movements  of  the  battle  will  perhaps 
remain  for  ever  a  military  secret. 

The  Germans  who  broke  through  are  terrorising  the 
countryside,  and  Warsaw  is  once  more  crowded  with 
fugitives.  All  the  hotels  are  full,  and  I  had  to  go  to  the 
Europe  instead  of  the  Bristol,  for  the  first  time.  The 
Germans  in  the  north  have  retired  from  Tsyekhanov  on 
Mlava, 

German  aeroplanes  throw  bombs  daily  on  Warsaw. 

Neilson  has  just  come  in.  He  has  been  right  through 
these  operations,  and  will  be  able  to  give  a  connected 
account  of  them.  We  will  go  to  Petrograd  together  to- 
morrow. 


Tuesday,  December  8th,  1914.  PETROGRAD. 

Neilson  and  I  talked  till  2  a.m.  on  Sunday.  I  had  only 
just  got  to  sleep  when  Maxim  rang  me  up  to  say  he  had 
been  arrested  and  was  in  the  Citadel.  He  was  released  at 
6  a.m.  It  is  found  necessary  now  for  the  Warsaw  police  to 
arrest  all  rank  and  file  in  the  streets  after  9  p.m.,  so  many 
stragglers  from  the  front  having  been  found.  General  Staff 
officers  examine  all  officers'  papers,  and  this,  too,  has 
been  found  very  necessary. 

I  went  to  see  General  Turbin,  the  Military  Governor, 
on  Sunday  morning.  He  has  no  fears  for  the  safety  of 
Warsaw,  as  he  tells  me  there  are  two  prepared  defensive 
lines,  one  seventy  kilometres  long  and  the  other  thirty, 
He  estimates  the  German  strength  between  the  Vistula  and 
Lask  at  thirteen  corps  !  The  Russians  have  taken  15,000 


October-December,  1914  199 

German  prisoners,  and  he  estimates  the  total  German  loss 
at  120,000.  He  acknowledges  a  Russian  loss  of  53,000 
wounded,  i.e.,  probably  with  killed  70,000  (and  with 
prisoners  100,000,  as  Rodzianko  told  me). 

It  is  said  that  270,000  men  are  now  on  their  way  to 
the  front  and  that  all  losses  will  be  filled  up  in  eight  days, 
i.e.,  by  December  I4th.  The  new  men  belong  to  the 
Opolchenie,  and  have  been  training  for  two  to  three 
months.  I  saw  a  lot  at  Warsaw,  who  looked  excellent 
material,  and  we  passed  several  troop  trains  on  our  way  to 
Byelostok. 

This  year's  contingent  should  join  in  from  three  to  five 
weeks,  and  is  estimated  at  950,000. 

We  left  Warsaw  on  Sunday  by  the  5  p.m.  train  and 
reached  Petrograd  to-day,  Tuesday  the  8th,  at  8.30  a.m. 

I  met  General  Van  der  Fliet,  the  Commander  of  the 
Petrograd  Military  District,  this  morning,  and  he  told 
me  that  he  was  now  left  without  troops.  He  had  at 
one  time  nine  divisions,  four  regular  and  five  reserve,  and 
they  have  all  been  sent  to  the  front.  He  is  sending  off 
large  reinforcements  now  almost  daily.  Ten  thousand 
left  yesterday.  He  has  still  here  67,000  Opolchenie 
training  and  73,000  reservists. 

The  Austrians  are  concentrating  south  of  Krakau 
with  the  idea  evidently  of  turning  our  left.  The  com- 
munique states  that  on  this  account  the  Ghenstokhov  region 
has  for  the  time  being  lost  its  importance.  I  understand 
that  this  means  that  the  4th  and  9th  Armies  will  move  back. 

Rennenkampf  has  been  succeeded  in  command  of  the 
ist  Army  by  Litvinov. 

Lodz  and  Lovich  are  stated  to-night  to  have  fallen. 

The  Ambassador  thinks  me  very  pessimistic  ! 

AFTERNOTE 

Hindenburg's  first  offensive  in  Poland  relieved  pressure  on  the 
Austrians  in  Galicia,  but  failed  in  its  more  ambitious  attempt 


200        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

against  Warsaw.  Ludendorff  considers  that  the  German  gih 
Army  fulfilled  its  task  by  drawing  the  bulk  of  the  Russians 
north  and  holding  them  on  the  Vistula  for  what,  in  his  opinion, 
should  have  been  sufficient  time  to  enable  the  Austrians  to  gain  a 
decision  on  the  San.  However,  Radko  Dimitriev  and  Brusilov 
held  fast,  and  the  Russian  Command  was  able  to  concentrate 
sufficient  force  before  Warsaw  to  turn  the  German  left,  and  finally 
to  compel  their  retreat  on  the  night  of  the  iSth-igth  October. 

The  Russian  Governor  of  Warsaw  estimated  the  losses  of  the 
9th  Army  before  the  fortress  at  60,000  to  70,000.  This  may  be 
an  exaggeration,  but  the  losses  were  certainly  considerable. 
The  enemy,  however,  made  good  his  further  retreat  to  the  frontier 
practically  unscathed,  though  pursued  by  overwhelming  forces  of 
Russian  cavalry. 

Then  the  Grand  Duke  launched  the  5th,  4th  and  Qth  Armies 
through  South- West  Poland  with  the  idea  of  invading  Silesia  and 
moving  by  the  valley  of  the  Oder  on  Breslau.  The  ist  and  2nd 
Armies  guarded  the  immediate  right  of  the  offensive  group, 
while  General  Sievers  with  the  loth  Army  once  more  invaded  East 
Prussia  from  the  east.  In  Galicia  the  3rd  and  8th  Armies  were  to 
advance  to  secure  the  left. 

Unfortunately  the  progress  made  by  Radko  Dimitriev  and 
Brusilov  was  slow,  and  the  German  8th  Army  in  East  Prussia, 
though  in  very  inferior  strength,  prevented  the  second  invasion 
of  that  province  from  becoming  a  real  danger. 

With  the  extreme  wings  holding  back,  the  Russian  front,  as 
the  offensive  group  advanced,  became  more  and  more  extended. 
The  whole  movement  assumed  the  character  of  an  eccentric 
advance,  and  invited  another  counterstroke  from  an  enemy 
who  had  all  the  best  of  the  communications. 

Some  Russians  consider  that  after  the  defeat  of  the  first 
attempt  on  Warsaw  the  Russian  Supreme  Command  should 
have  fortified  the  Bzura  and  Ravka  in  advance  of  Warsaw,  cover- 
ing the  right  of  the  offensive  group  with  cavalry  only,  and  that 
the  armies  of  the  group — in  that  case  the  5th,  4th  and  Qth — 
should  have  moved  forward  in  more  compact  formation,  retaining 
each  at  least  one  corps  in  reserve. 


October-December,  1914  201 

The  lowness  of  the  remaining  stocks  of  ammunition  and 
the  temporary  weakness  of  the  Russian  effectives  rendered  the 
ambitious  movement  a  gigantic  bluff.  The  enemy  had  destroyed 
the  railways  thoroughly,  and  the  Russian  armies  stumbled  slowly 
on,  as  it  were,  hoping  for  something  to  turn  up.  As  in  August  in 
East  Prussia,  the  Grand  Duke's  plans  were  governed  by  a  chival- 
rous desire  to  help  the  Allies  in  the  West,cost  what  the  effort  might 
to  Russia. 


V  :>    CHAPTER  V 

HINDENBURG'S  SECOND  OFFENSIVE  IN  POLAND 

THE  OPERATION  OF  LODZ 

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER,  1914 

REFERENCE  MAP  No.  V.  AND  SKETCHES  A  AND  B 

ON  November  1st  Hindenburg  was  appointed  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  German  forces  in  the  East.  He  retained 
Ludendorff  as  his  Chief  of  Staff. 

The  German  Command  was  apparently  without  accurate 
information  of  the  weakness  of  the  Russian  army,  and  the  Russian 
advance  towards  Silesia  was  regarded  as  a  real  danger  which 
demanded  serious  precautionary  measures.  Certain  of  the  mines 
in  Upper  Silesia  were  destroyed,  and  youths  of  serving  age  were 
evacuated  to  the  West. 

On  November  3rd  Ludendorff  suggested  to  Hindenburg  the 
concentration  of  the  gth  Army  under  Mackenzen  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Thorn  and  its  advance  up  the  left  bank  of  the  Vistula  "  to 
deal  the  Russians  such  a  blow  as  would  not  only  bring  their 
armies  in  the  bend  of  the  Vistula  to  a  standstill  once  and  for  all, 
and  so  put  an  end  to  their  offensive,  but  crush  them  decisively."  l 

By  November  loth  five  and  a  half  army  corps  and  five  cavalry 
divisions  were  assembled.  The  idea  was  to  advance  rapidly,  first 
to  overwhelm  the  left  of  the  ist  Russian  Army  and  then  to 
turn  the  right  of  the  2nd  Army  and  so  roll  up  the  whole  Russian 
offensive. 

The  exact  date  on  which  the  Russians  received  their  first 
information  of  the  concentration  near  Thorn  is  not  known.  It  is 
possible  that  the  ist  Army  had  commenced  a  day  or  two  earlier 


1  Ludendorff,  p.  103. 

203 


November-December,  1914  203 

to  concentrate  to  its  left,  but  up  to  the  night  of  November  I3th 
no  corresponding  move  had  been  made  by  the  other  armies.  The 
1st  Army  had  on  that  date  two  corps  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
Vistula,  including  the  Ilnd,  which  had  been  handed  over  from  the 
2nd  Army  some  days  previously.  The  2nd  Army  was  on  the 
Varta,  with  the  5th  Army  two  marches  in  rear  in  echelon  on  its 
left.  Further  south  the  4th  and  Qth  Armies  were  waiting  for 
the  3rd  Army  (Radko-Dimitriev)  to  come  forward  from  the  San 
in  order  to  storm  the  Austrian  trenches  and  invade  Silesia. 

Mackenzen  began  his  advance  on  November  nth. 

On  the  1 2th  his  left  corps  drove  back  the  Vth  Siberian  Corps 
(1st  Army),  and  occupied  Vlotslavsk,  taking  12,000  prisoners. 

Rennenkampf  threw  the  Vlth  Siberian  Corps  across  to  the  left 
bank  of  the  Vistula  at  Plotsk. 

Further  south,  on  the  I4th,  the  Germans  attacked  in  over- 
whelming strength  the  Ilnd  Corps  (left  corps,  ist  Army)  and  the 
XXIIIrd  Corps  (right  corps,  2nd  Army). 

Rennenkampf 's  Vlth  Corps  was  attacked  on  the  right  bank  of 
the  river,  but  passed  some  units  over  to  the  left  or  southern 
bank. 

On  the  I4th,  Scheidemann,  the  Commander  of  the  Russian 
2nd  Army,  commenced  to  change  front  to  the  right.  His  idea 
was  apparently  to  deploy  his  army  on  a  line  from  Strikov  to  the 
west  of  Lenchitsa,  facing  north-east,  and  flanking  the  German 
advance  up  the  left  bank  of  the  Vistula.  He  and  the  Staff  of  the 
North- West  Front  had  under-estimated  the  German  strength  and 
rapidity  of  movement.  His  army  narrowly  escaped  being  cut  to 
pieces  in  detail,  in  spite  of  its  hard  marching  and  fighting. 

On  the  I5th  l  and  i6th  the  Vth  Siberian,  Vlth  Siberian  and 
Ilnd  Corps  of  the  ist  Army,  and  the  Ilnd  Siberian  and  XXIIIrd 
Corps  of  the  2nd  Army,  were  all  engaged  and  lost  heavily,  leaving, 
according  to  German  claims,  25,000  prisoners  in  the  enemy's 
hands. 

The  remains  of  the  Ilnd  Siberian  Corps  retreated  from  Len- 
chitsa to  Lodz  ;  the  XXIIIrd  Corps  took  up  a  line  west  of  Lodz  ; 

1  See  Sketch  A. 


204        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

the  IVth  Corps,  marching  north,  only  reached  a  line  a  short 
distance  north  of  Lodz;  the  1st  Corps  was  forced  back  to  the 
south-east  of  Lodz. 

Meanwhile  Plehve,  with  the  5th  Army,  continued  his  march 
to  the  west  and  touched  the  Varta  on  the  i6th,  occupying  Velyun 
with  his  cavalry.  He  was  then  ordered  to  retire,  and  on  the  I7th, 
after  a  forced  march,  reached  practically  the  position  he  had 
occupied  four  days  previously  on  the  line  Belkhatov-Kamensk, 
about  twenty-five  versts  west  and  south-west  of  Petrokov. 

On  the  17th,1  Scheidemann's  position  became  critical.  In  the 
previous  three  days  he  had  frittered  away  much  of  his  army  in 
trying  to  stem  the  German  advance.  The  enemy's  XXVth 
Reserve  Corps  and  3rd  Guard  Division,  with  the  6th 
Cavalry  Division,  were  working  round  his  right  flank.  His  front 
was  being  forced  back  south  on  Lodz  by  the  attack  of  the  XI th, 
XVIIth  and  XXth  Corps.  The  Breslau  Corps  was  already  turning 
his  left  near  Kazimerj.  Little  help  was  to  be  hoped  for  from  the 
1st  Army,  for  the  remains  of  the  Vlth,  Vth  Siberian  and  Vlth 
Siberian  Corps  were  driven  further  up  the  left  bank  of  the  Vistula 
and  further  apart  from  the  2nd  Army  by  the  1st  Reserve  Corps 
on  the  I7th  and  i8th. 

On  the  evening  of  the  i8th  the  German  Command  thought  it 
had  the  whole  2nd  Army  in  its  grasp.  It  looked  forward  by 
November  20th  to  a  victory  on  a  par  with  Cannae,  Sedan  or 
Tannenberg.  "  But  the  Grand  Duke's  counter-measures  were  not 
bad/',2 

The  arrangements  for  the  rescue  of  the  2nd  Army  were  worked 
out  by  General  Ruzski  at  the  Headquarters  of  the  North- West 
Front.  The  success  of  the  plans  depended  upon  their  intelligent 
translation  into  action  by  Rennenkampf,  the  Commander  of  the 
ist  Army,  and  by  Plehve,  the  Commander  of  the  5th. 

These  two  men,  like  Scheidemann,  the  Commander  of  the  2nd 
Army,  of  families  German  by  origin,  but  long  of  Russian  citizen- 
ship, were  of  very  different  type.  Rennenkampf  was  the  dashing 
cavalry  soldier,  personally  brave,  of  the  type  that  fills  the  eye 

i  See  Sketch  B. 
z  Die  Schlacht  bei  Lodz,  p.  33. 


24th  November,  1914.    E.  of  Yangrot,  S.W.  Poland.    Officers  of  the  5th 
Battery,  2nd  Guard  Artillery  Brigade 


[See  page  188 


2nd  December,  1914.     Yelcha     Rodzianko  and  telephone  "  sentry." 

To  face  page  204]  [See  page  1 94 


January,  1915.     Mogilnitsa.    Headquarters  5th  Army 


[See  page  227 


25th  January,  1915.    In  Prince  Lyubomirski's  chateau  at  Mala  Vyes. 
The  Operations  Section  of  the  Staff  of  the  5th  Army. 

[See  page  234 


November -December,  1914  205 

as  a  leader  of  men.  Plehve  was  small  and  old  and  bent,  and  weak 
in  health.  Rennenkampf  had  been  personally  popular  in  Vilna 
before  the  war,  though  he  worked  his  men  and  horses  hard. 
Plehve,  in  Moscow,  had  the  reputation  of  interfering  too  much  in 
detail.  He  was  unpopular,  except  with  his  immediate  associates, 
for  he  was  very  exacting  and  took  no  pains  to  make  himself 
popular.  Rennenkampf  was  on  bad  terms  with  his  Chief  of  Staff, 
Miliant,  and  sometimes  in  the  middle  of  the  night  was  known  to 
send  off  instructions,  changing  or  modifying  those  issued  by  the 
Chief  of  Staff  a  few  hours  earlier.  Miliant  seems  to  have  got  on 
his  nerves  badly,  and  he  finally  told  him  one  day  ' '  to  take  his 
snout  away  "  as  he  "  could  not  bear  the  sight  of  it  any  longer." 
Plehve  worked  in  complete  unison  with  his  brilliant  Chief  of 
Staff,  Miller.  Rennenkampf  might  have  been  a  Murat  if  he  had 
lived  a  hundred  years  earlier.  In  command  of  an  army  in  the 
twentieth  century  he  was  an  anachronism  and  a  danger.  Plehve 
was  more  of  the  Moltke  school,  with  a  logical  mind  and  an  iron  will. 

It  is  natural  that  it  was  Plehve  with  the  5th  Army  that  saved 
the  2nd  Army  from  overwhelming  disaster,  while  Rennenkampf  is 
generally  blamed  for  failing  to  take  full  advantage  of  the  turn  in 
the  tide  and  for  allowing  the  Germans  to  escape. 

Months  later  admirers  of  Plehve  on  the  Staff  of  the  5th  Army 
liked  to  describe  how  an  orderly  officer  from  Scheidemann  rode 
up  to  the  General  on  the  march  and  called  out  in  a  state  of 
breathless  excitement :  Your  Excellency,  the  2nd  Army  is 
surrounded  and  will  be  forced  to  surrender."  Plehve  looked  at 
the  youngster  for  a  second  or  two  from  under  his  thick  eyebrows, 
and  then  said  :  '  Have  you  come,  Little  Father,  to  play  a  tragedy 
or  to  make  a  report  ?  If  you  have  a  report  to  make,  make  it  to 
the  Chief  of  Staff,  but  remember,  no  tragedy-playing,  or  I  place 
you  under  arrest." 

Orders  were  received  for  the  5th  Army  to  move  north  to  the 
assistance  of  the  2nd.  Further  south  the  4th  and  gth  Armies 
were  directed  to  attack  the  enemy  in  their  front  in  order  to 
prevent  at  all  costs  further  transfers  to  the  north.  Five  cavalry 
divisions  were  sent  to  fill  the  gap  between  the  5th  and  4th  Armies. 

Plehve  lost  no  time.    The  loth  Division  (Vth  Corps)  was 


206        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

ordered  to  Skernevitsi  on  the  ijih.  One  regiment  got  through  by 
rail  before  the  line  was  cut  by  the  German  cavalry  at  Kolyushki. 
The  remaining  three  regiments  of  the  division  engaged  German 
troops  at  Tushin  on  the  iQth. 

The  whole  of  the  remainder  of  the  5th  Army  marched  north  on 
the  1 8th.  On  that  night  the  1st  Siberian  Corps  relieved  Scheide- 
mann's  left  by  driving  back  a  division  of  the  German  Xlth  Corps 
with  the  bayonet.  It  was  supported  on  the  left  by  the  XlXth 
Corps,  which  routed  the  Breslau  Corps  on  the  igth.  The  7th 
Division  (Vth  Corps)  moved  to  Lask  in  reserve. 

The  left  of  the  2nd  Army  was  temporarily  secured,  but  the 
greater  danger  lay  on  the  right  or  eastern  flank.  There  General 
Schaffer,  the  Commander  of  the  XXVth  Reserve  Corps,  had  been 
joined  by  the  3rd  Guard  Division,  which  had  detrained  after 
Mackenzen's  advance  had  commenced,  but  had  caught  up  the 
main  body  by  marches  averaging  fifty  kilometres  a  day.  Schaffer 
was  also  given  the  6th  Cavalry  Division,  and  to  him  was  allotted 
the  bold  task  of  enveloping  the  right  flank  of  the  2nd  Russian 
Army. 

On  the  i8th  he  stormed  Brezini  and  bivouacked  that  night 
south  of  the  town.  On  the  igth  the  advance  was  continued  to 
the  south  and  west.  The  3rd  Guard  Division  on  the  right  or 
western  flank  of  the  penetrating  force  was  severely  engaged,  but 
troops  of  the  XXVth  Corps  reached  Bendkov,  twenty-five  kilo- 
metres south-east  of  Lodz,  with  little  opposition,  while  the  6th 
Cavalry  Division  reconnoitring  in  advance  reached  a  point 
twelve  kilometres  north  of  Petrokov. 

On  the  following  day  the  Guard  and  one  division  of  the 
XXVth  Corps,  together  with  the  Qth  Cavalry  Division,  which  had 
come  through  from  the  north,  succeeded  in  fighting  their  way 
further  west,  so  that  by  nightfall  they  had  completely  turned 
Scheidemann's  flank  and  faced  Lodz  from  the  south.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  6th  Cavalry  Division  had  been  forced  to  withdraw 
before  enemy  forces  marching  north  from  Petrokov,  and  if 
Schaffer  had  been  aware  of  the  failure  of  the  right  flank  of  the  gth 
German  Army  he  must  have  realised  that  little  hope  remained  of 
surrounding  the  2nd  Army.  On  the  morning  of  the  2ist,  units 


November-December,  1914  207 

of  the  Guard  reached  the  southern  suburbs  of  Lodz,  but  were 
driven  back  by  counter-attacks,  probably  of  the  1st  Corps,  which 
was  now  bent  back  facing  south. 

The  2nd  Russian  Army  was  being  constantly  pressed  from 
the  north.  Its  right  wing  was  now  confined  to  a  narrow  strip 
about  seven  miles  wide.  In  some  cases  half  of  the  guns  of  a  heavy 
division  faced  south  and  the  other  half  north. 

To  save  the  situation,  the  ist  Army  launched  two  forces  from 
the  neighbourhood  of  Lovich  on  the  20th,  and  from  Skernevitsi 
on  the  2ist. 

The  Lovich  Force  consisted  of  four  columns  :  from  right  to  left, 
the  ist  Turkistan  Brigade,  the  43rd  Division,  the  63rd  Division 
and  the  6th  Siberian  Division.  Its  units  were  up  to  strength, 
with  the  exception  of  the  43rd  Division,  which  was  very  weak. 

The  Skernevitsi  Force  consisted  of  one  regiment  of  the  loth 
Division  and  the  55th  Division,  which  had  been  railed  forward 
from  Warsaw.  It  effected  nothing. 

Captain,  now  Major,  Neilson,  late  of  the  loth  Hussars,  ac- 
companied the  Lovich  Force. 

Its  original  orders  were  to  advance  with  all  possible  speed  in 
close  contact  with  the  Ilnd  Corps  on  its  right,  and  on  no  account 
to  halt  till  it  reached  the  2nd  Army. 

It  started  on  November  20th,  but  only  advanced  five  miles 
that  day  as  the  Ilnd  Corps  was  held  back  by  pressure  from  the 
north-west.    About  6  p.m.  the  Commander  of  the  Force,  General^ 
Slyusarenko,  was  replaced  by  General  Count  Shuvalov,  a  retired 
cavalry  officer  and  friend  of  General  Rennenkampf . 

The  Force  had  been  hastily  formed  and  was  without  proper 
staff,  transport  or  medical  services.  All  supplies  had  to  be 
conveyed  by  road  from  Skernevitsi,  and  in  consequence  the 
troops  were  irregularly  fed.  All  intercommunication  was  carried 
out  by  mounted  orderly.  The  Staff  at  the  time  the  Force  started 
was  completely  in  the  dark  regarding  the  general  situation,  and 
did  not  even  know  whether  the  2nd  Army  was  still  in  being. 
The  cold  was  intense — 10°  to  15°  of  frost  (Reaumur),  and  there 
was  deep  snow  on  the  ground.  Many  of  the  wounded  were 
frozen  to  death. 


208        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

On  the  2 ist  the  four  columns  advanced  twelve  to  thirteen 
miles,  and  the  leading  units  halted  for  the  night  on  a  front  of  ten 
miles  from  one  mile  north-east  of  Strikov  to  five  miles  north-east 
of  Brezini.  So  far  no  opposition  had  been  met,  but  the  enemy  was 
reported  to  be  in  Strikov  and  Brezini.  The  staff  spent  the  night 
at  Glovno.  Late  in  the  evening  about  100  prisoners  were  cap- 
tured by  the  43rd  Division,  and  among  them  were  many  tele- 
graphists from  the  German  XXth,  XXVth  and  Guard  Corps  who 
had  lost  their  units. 

The  Commander  of  the  Force  was  changed  for  the  second 
time  in  thirty-six  hours,  probably  owing  to  orders  received  from 
the  Staff  of  the  North- West  Front,  and  Count  Shuvalov  gave  place 
to  General  Vasiliev,  the  Commander  of  the  Vlth  Siberian  Corps, 
who  brought  with  him  Colonel  Menshukov  as  his  Chief  of  Staff. 

The  original  orders  were  modified.  The  two  right  columns, 
the  ist  Turkistan  Brigade  and  the  43rd  Division,  were  now  directed 
to  march  through  to  the  2nd  Army,  while  the  two  left  columns, 
the  63rd  and  6th  Siberian  Divisions,  were  ordered  to  move  south- 
east of  the  right  (or  eastern)  flank  of  the  2nd  Army  and  along  the 
Skernevitsi-Lodz  railway. 

On  the  22nd  the  ist  Siberian  Division  (Ist  Siberian  Corps) 
was  moved  east  and  flung  back  Schaffer's  advanced  troops.  On 
the  same  day  the  German  Ist  Reserve  Corps  failed  in  an  attempt 
to  take  Lovich.  At  7  p.m.  Schaffer  received  orders  from  the 
Army  Command  to  retire  north  and  re-establish  his  line  of  com- 
munications by  driving  the  Russians  from  Brezini. 

That  day  the  right  and  left  columns  of  the  Lovich  Force  had 
captured  Strikov  and  Brezini  after  severe  house-to-house  fighting. 
At  nightfall  the  ist  Turkistan  Brigade  billeted  with  the  Ilnd  Corps 
in  and  north-east  of  Strikov,  and  the  43rd  Division  halted  four 
miles  to  the  south  of  that  town.  The  63rd  and  6th  Siberian 
Divisions  made  good  progress,  the  latter  reaching  the  village  of 
Kolyushki  four  miles  south  of  Brezini.  The  attack  on  Strikov 
took  place  in  a  thick  mist,  and  the  Turkistan  Brigade  lost  heavily, 
especially  in  officers.  In  taking  Brezini  the  6th  Siberian  lost  700 
men  but  liberated  600  Russian  prisoners. 

The  Staff  of  the  Force  moved  to  Volya  Tsirusova  in  rear  of  the 


November-December,  1914  209 

63rd  Division,  and  was  visited  there  in  the  afternoon  by  General 
Rennenkampf. 

Touch  was  established  with  the  2nd  Army,  and  Lodz  was 
found  to  be  still  in  Russian  hands.  The  enemy  strength  opposing 
each  column  was  estimated  at  about  a  brigade. 

As  the  advance  of  the  right  and  left  columns  was  likely  to  be 
further  delayed,  the  centre  columns — the  43rd  and  63rd  Divisions 
— were  ordered  to  march  through  to  join  the  2nd  Army. 

On  the  23rd  the  Staff  of  the  Force  moved  at  10  a.m.  to  Brezini. 
The  right  column  remained  at  Strikov  with  the  Ilnd  Corps.  The 
43rd  and  63rd  Divisions  reached  the  lines  of  the  1st  Corps  (2nd 
Army)  at  4  p.m.  and  3  p.m.  respectively. 

Captain  Neilson  motored  with  two  officers  in  the  morning  from 
Volya  Tsirusova  to  the  Headquarters  of  the  1st  Corps  south-east 
of  Lodz.  He  found  the  corps  "  in  a  most  unpleasant  situation, 
in  a  small  semi-circle,  Staff,  reserves,  artillery,  transport,  all 
huddled  together,  heavy  and  field  guns  all  mixed  and  pointing 
in  all  directions." 

At  5  p.m.  the  6th  Siberian  Division,  which  was  now 
isolated  in  a  position  facing  south  on  the  railway  west  of  Kolyushki, 
reported  that  three  German  columns,  estimated  at  three  divisions, 
were  marching  against  it  from  the  south,  and  asked  for  help. 
The  Commander  of  the  1st  Corps  was  implored  to  move,  but  he 
and  his  troops  had  been  badly  hustled,  and  had  been  cowed  into 
passivity.  He  and  they,  or  possibly  only  he  and  his  Staff,  lacked 
the  reserve  of  stamina  necessary  for  renewed  effort.  He  hesi- 
tated, and  finally  decided  to  ask  the  Army  Commander.  The 
latter  did  nothing. 

The  Commander  of  the  63rd  Division  consented  to  move,  but 
very  reluctantly  and  much  too  late.  Yet  the  distance  from 
Andrjespol,  which  was  occupied  by  the  troops  of  the  1st  Corps, 
to  the  nearest  units  of  the  6th  Siberian  Division  cannot  at  this 
time  have  exceeded  four  miles  ! 

Captain  Neilson  left  the  Staff  of  the  1st  Corps  and  motored 
to  Brezini,  where  he  rejoined  the  Staff  of  the  Lovich  Force,  "  after 
an  unpleasantly  exciting  drive  through  forests  in  the  dark, 
blindly  evading  enemy  columns." 

O 


210        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

The  6th  Siberian  Division  fought  well  all  day  and  captured 
two  batteries  complete  with  teams  and  wagons,  300  prisoners  and 
a  number  of  machine-guns.  At  nightfall  the  Division  was  en- 
trenched on  the  line  Yanovka-Galkov,  and  the  63rd  Division  was 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Andrjespol. 

Each  side  exaggerated  the  difficulties  of  its  own  position,  and 
certainly  the  terrible  climatic  conditions  conduced  to  pessimism. 
Two  short  extracts  from  Captain  Neilson's  diary  of  this  night  are 
interesting : 

Prisoners  state  that  the  Germans  know  they  are 
surrounded.  Their  spirits  have  fallen  considerably — 
fatigue,  cold  and  hunger.  They  have  had  ten  days' 
continuous  fighting,  marching  every  night,  nothing  to  eat 
for  three  days.  To-day  was  extremely  cold — very  hard 
frost. 

Again  : 

As  prisoners  have  been  taken  from  all  three  corps — 
the  XXth,  XXVth  and  Guard  Reserve — it  is  thought  that 
the  German  main  body  of  the  strength  of  three  corps  is 
marching  north  against  the  6th  Siberian  Division. 

It  was  not  known  till  the  following  day  that  in  rear  of  the 
German  columns  and  only  a  very  short  distance  from  them  were 
the  ist  Siberian  Division  and  the  loth  Division  of  the  5th  Army, 
and  also  Novikov's  Cavalry  Corps.  But  why  was  this  not  known 
in  time  ?  The  information  might  have  been  conveyed  through 
the  5th  Army,  the  Staff  of  the  North- West  Front  and  the  ist 
Army,  or  it  might  have  been  obtained  directly  on  the  spot  by 
ordinary  reconnaisance  by  the  numerous  Russian  cavalry — 
Kaznakov's  and  Gharpentier's  divisions — which  were  in  touch  with 
the  Staff  of  the  Lovich  Force. 

At  i  a.m.  Neilson  went  to  sleep  at  Brezini  on  the  floor  of  the 
hut  occupied  by  the  Staff,  and  at  5  a.m.  on  the  24th  he  was  awak- 
ened by  shooting  in  the  streets.  The  motor-cars  were  frozen,  and 
the  Staff,  which  was  without  escort,  escaped  with  some  difficulty. 
It  eventually  assembled  in  an  armoured  train  at  the  station  of 


November-December,  1914  211 

Kolyushki.  It  had  lost  touch  with  all  columns  of  the  Force, 
and  remained  a  helpless  spectator  of  the  destruction  of  the  6th 
Siberian  Division. 

The  enemy  worked  round  both  flanks  of  the  division,  which 
had  been  ordered  to  hold  its  ground  at  all  costs.  An  attempt  to 
relieve  its  right — it  can  only  have  been  a  half-hearted  attempt — 
by  the  63rd  Division  failed  about  9  a.m.  The  Caucasian  Cavalry 
Division  (Charpentier),  which  was  supposed  to  guard  its  left  or 
eastern  flank,  retired  at  once.  Finally  at  n  a.m.,  abandoned  by 
everyone,  enfiladed  from  both  flanks  and  attacked  in  front,  the 
division  retired  to  the  north,  and  finding  Brezini  occupied,  dis- 
persed, some  of  the  men  filtering  through  west  to  the  2nd  Army 
and  about  1,500  making  their  way  eventually  to  Skernevitsi. 

It  can  have  been  no  easy  task  for  Schaffer  to  withdraw  troops 
that  were  in  close  contact  with  the  enemy,  but,  though  he  had 
only  received  the  order  to  retire  at  7  p.m.  on  the  22nd,  all  his 
columns  were  in  movement  five  hours  later,  apparently  un- 
noticed by  the  Russians,  who  did  not  pursue  till  daylight. 

After  his  destruction  of  the  6th  Siberian  Division  on  the  24th, 
his  line  of  retreat  was  clear,  for  the  Ilnd  Russian  Corps  was  that 
day  outflanked  and  driven  back  to  the  north-east.  He  eventually 
rejoined  the  gth  German  Army,  though  Strikov  and  Glovno,  and 
the  Germans  claim  that  he  not  only  lost  no  guns  and  few  wounded, 
but  carried  with  him  in  his  retirement  16,000  prisoners  and  sixty- 
four  captured  enemy  guns. 

Whether  the  German  official  claim  be  well  founded  or  not,  the 
exploits  of  this  penetrating  force  of  three  infantry  and  two  cavalry 
divisions  afforded  remarkable  proof  of  the  wonderful  efficiency  of 
the  units  concerned,  the  genius  for  bold  leadership  of  the  com- 
mand, and  the  training,  power  of  endurance  and  intelligence  of 
all  ranks. 

The  Russian  Command  had  expected  to  make  a  large  capture. 
They  had  ordered  eighteen  trains  to  take  the  captives  away.  In 
the  gth  Army,  then  near  Krakau,  it  was  actually  stated  that 
26,000  prisoners  had  been  captured.  It  seems  on  the  whole 
probable  that  the  details  of  the  instructions  to  the  Lovich  Force 


212        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

were  left  entirely  to  Rennenkampf ,  and  that,  badly  served  by  his 
cavalry  and  misled  by  the  wireless  appeals  from  Scheidemann, 
he  failed  entirely  to  appreciate  the  situation. 

Naturally,  after  a  fortnight  of  such  strenuous  fighting  units 
on  both  sides  were  much  mixed  up.  The  German  penetrating 
forces  came  into  line  between  the  XXth  Corps  and  the  1st  Reserve 
Corps,  and  the  German  Qth  Army  formed  once  more  a  continuous 
front.  It  opposed  the  Russian  ist,  2nd  and  5th  Armies  on  a  line 
from  Gombin,  south-east  of  Plotsk,  in  advance  of  Lovich  and 
north  of  Brezini  and  Lodz.  This  line  was  occupied  from  right  to 
left  by  the  following  units  : 

Vth  Siberian  Corps,  Vlth  Siberian  Corps,  53rd  Division,  Guard 
Cossack  Brigade,  4th  Division  (Vlth  Corps),  67th  Division  (lately 
arrived  from  Petrograd),  i4th  Cavalry  Division  (Ist  Cavalry  Corps), 
loth  Division  (Vth  Corps,  5th  Army),  Caucasian  Cavalry  Division, 
ist  Siberian  Division  (Ist  Siberian  Corps,  5th  Army),  43rd  Division 
(Ilnd  Corps,  ist  Army),  6th  Siberian  Division  (Vth  Siberian 
Corps,  ist  Army),  I  Vth  Corps  and  XXIIIrd  Corps  (both  of  the 
2nd  Army),  2nd  Siberian  Division  (Ist  Siberian  Corps,  5th  Army), 
XlXth  Corps  (5th  Army),  Tumanov's  Cavalry  Corps,  the  ist  and 
2nd  Guard  Cavalry  Divisions. 

The  Germans  received  large  reinforcements.  The  Illrd 
Reserve  Corps  and  the  XHIth  Corps  were  placed  on  the  left  of 
the  gth  Army.  The  Ilnd  Corps  was  sent  to  Syeradz,  and  the 
48th  Reserve  Division  reinforced  the  Breslau  Corps  further 
south. 

The  Russian  Command  detailed  two  corps  from  the  4th  and 
Qth  Armies  and  moved  them  north,  but  it  was  too  late.  The 
German  Ilnd  Corps  advanced  with  success.  The  Russians 
evacuated  Lodz  on  December  6th.  On  the  I5th  Lovich  was  lost. 

The  Russian  armies  fell  back  to  the  "  river  line/'  Bzura-Ravka- 
Nida-Dunajec,  which  they  were  to  hold  for  some  seven  months. 

The  above  is  a  brief  record  of  the  main  movements  of  an 
operation  that  will  probably,  if  the  Russian  official  records  are 
ever  published,  prove  to  be  the  most  interesting  from  the  military 
psychological  point  of  view  of  any  in  the  war. 


November-December,  1914  213 

Throughout  probably  most  of  the  eight  days,  i8th  to  25th,  the 
German  and  Russian  Supreme  and  Army  Commands  must  have 
been  enveloped  in  a  "  fog  of  war."  In  such  cases  the  side  whose 
corps,  division  and  regiment  leaders  have  been  trained  in  peace  to 
self-sacrificing  co-operation  has  inestimable  advantages.  If 
placed  in  a  similar  position,  no  German  Corps  commander  would 
have  hesitated,  as  the  Commander  of  the  1st  Russian  Corps 
hesitated  on  the  evening  of  the  23rd,  about  sending  help  to  the 
hard-pressed  6th  Siberian  Division. 

The  final  order  for  the  retreat  of  the  German  gth  Army  on  the 
abandonment  of  Hindenburg's  first  offensive  had  been  issued 
on  October  26th.  This  army  retreated  rapidly  over  some  200 
kilometres  to  the  German  frontier  without  losing  morale,  in  spite 
of  its  severe  defeat  before  Warsaw  and  the  subsequent  pursuit 
by  overwhelming  Russian  cavalry.  It  destroyed  the  com- 
munications as  it  went.  It  replaced  all  losses  in  personnel  and 
equipment,  and  concentrated  further  north,  to  launch  its  lightning 
offensive  on  November  nth — fifteen  days  later.  This  was  a 
masterpiece  of  organisation. 

At  first  all  went  well  with  Mackenzen.  He  severely  defeated 
units  amounting  to  about  half  of  the  strength  of  the  ist  and  2nd 
Russian  Armies  before  those  armies  had  time  to  concentrate.  He 
pushed  the  two  armies  apart  and  turned  the  right  flank  of  the 
Russian  offensive.  Then  he  failed,  owing  to  the  weakness  and 
bad  timing  of  the  German  offensive  further  south,  which  allowed 
the  Russian  5th  Army  to  be  moved  north  to  save  the  situation. 

The  German  Supreme  Command  might  have  done  bet:er  to 
have  delayed  the  commencement  of  the  offensive  till  the  arrival 
of  the  reinforcements  from  France,  which  finally  compelled  the 
Russian  retreat.  The  Russian  armies  might  have  been  allowed 
to  waste  themselves  for  another  week  or  two  against  the  German 
and  Austrian  positions  with  little  danger  to  the  Central  Powers. 
Owing  to  shortage  of  rifles  and  gun  ammunition,  weakness  of  the 
effectives,  and  disorganisation  of  the  lines  of  communication  they 
were  incapable  of  a  serious  offensive.  If  they  had  been  allowed 
to  stumble  on  to  the  Posen  and  Silesian  frontier,  and  Mackenzen's 
army  had  then  been  launched  from  the  region  of  Mlava,  it  would 


214        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

have  occupied  Warsaw  and  the  middle  Vistula  long  before  the 
Russian  armies  could  have  been  recalled.  The  Russians  would 
have  been  cut  off  from  their  base,  and  without  ammunition  and 
largely  without  warm  clothing  they  would  have  been  compelled 
to  surrender.  As  it  was,  the  German  offensive  lapsed  to  a  merely 
frontal  attack  and  forced  the  Russians  back  to  the  river  line, 
where,  based  in  comparative  security  on  the  best  communications 
in  the  Empire,  their  armies  were  able  to  re-form. 

The  Russian  Intelligence,  which  was  generally  good,  seems  to 
have  been  to  blame  for  failing  to  obtain  timely  information  of 
the  concentration  of  the  Qth  German  Army  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Thorn,  and  of  its  strength  when  it  advanced.  We  can  only 
ascribe  the  action  of  the  commanders  of  the  ist  and  2nd  Russian 
Armies  to  their  ignorance  of  the  situation.  Both  of  them  gravely 
risked  the  defeat  of  their  armies  in  detail  through  under-rating  the 
German  strength  and  rapidity  of  movement.  On  the  i6th,  five 
days  after  the  launching  of  the  German  offensive,  the  5th  Army 
was  calmly  advancing  ta  the  Varta,  only  to  retrace  its  steps  by 
forced  march  the  following  day. 

If  Mackenzen's  operation  against  the  2nd  Army  was  a  typical 
German  enveloping  movement,  similar  to  the  tactics  at  Tannen- 
berg  and  to  the  attempt  made  in  February,  1915,  at  Prasnish,  the 
move  north  of  the  Russian  5th  Army  to  the  rescue  of  the  2nd 
approximates  to  an  example  of  the  grand  tactics  of  the  so-called 
French  school.  The  work  of  the  5th  Army  was  brilliant.  The 
XlXth  Corps  started  on  its  return  march  from  the  Varta  at 
6  a.m.  on  the  lyth,  marched  thirty-three  miles  by  2  a.m.  on  the 
1 8th,  started  again  that  day  at  n  a.m.  and  marched  thirty-seven 
miles  more,  going  into  action  at  7  a.m.  on  the  igth  north-west  of 
Lask.  The  Ist  Siberian  Corps  started  at  about  the  same  time, 
covered  an  equal  distance,  and  drove  the  Xlth  German  Corps 
back  with  the  bayonet  on  the  night  of  the  i8th.  Only  the  know- 
ledge that  further  German  echelons  were  preparing  to  advance 
from  Velyun  prevented  the  XlXth  Corps  from  driving  home  its 
attack  against  the  inferior  troops  of  the  Breslau  Corps. 

The  effort  of  the  ist  Army  to  relieve  pressure  on  the  2nd 
Army  was  less  effective.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  the  orders 


November -December,  1914  215 

issued  to  the  Lovich  Force  by  the  Staff  of  the  ist  Army  and  the 
ignorance  of  the  general  situation  which  made  the  issue  of  such 
orders  possible,  for  the  2nd  Army  was  throughout  in  touch 
through  the  5th  Army  with  the  Headquarters  of  the  North- West 
Front  at  Syedlets,  with  which  Rennenkampf  was  in  direct  tele- 
graphic communication.  The  ist  Army,  like  the  2nd,  seems  to 
have  been  for  the  time  morally  dominated  by  the  boldness  of  the 
German  leadership. 

It  is  a  question  whether  the  Grand  Duke  might  not  have 
detached  from  the  front  of  the  4th  and  Qth  Armies  on  the  i6th  or 
I7th,  when  the  situation  was  becoming  evident,  sufficient  force 
to  have  overwhelmed  the  German  offensive.  The  risk  from  the 
Austrians  was  not  great,  and  Radko-Dimitriev  might  have 
temporarily  retired  to  the  Dunajec.  Of  course  there  were  diffi- 
culties ;  the  roads  for  such  a  lateral  movement  were  few,  and 
there  were  no  railways,  and  the  Grand  Duke  preferred  to  hold 
fast  to  his  own  plan — the  invasion  of  Silesia.  It  is  not  known 
whether  this  project  was  considered.  It  is  evident  that  the 
division  of  the  whole  army  into  two  fronts — the  North- West 
and  the  South- West — militated  against  the  conception  of  such  a 
manoeuvre.  The  Commanders  of  the  two  fronts  were  allowed 
much  latitude,  and  Ivanov  naturally  held  fast  to  the  Silesian  idea. 
It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  the  4th  Army,  which  had  been 
handed  over  from  the  South- West  to  the  North- West  Front  at 
midnight  on  November  I3th,  was  returned  to  the  South-West 
Front  on  the  i8th,  when  the  magnitude  of  the  German  effort 
must  have  been  known,  and  Ruzski  was  left  to  work  out  his 
salvation  with  the  ist,  2nd  and  5th  Armies. 


-     :    V        CHAPTER  VI 

WAR  OF  POSITION  WEST  OF  THE  VISTULA.     THE 

GERMAN  ATTACK  ON  THE  RUSSIAN  IOTH  ARMY. 

OPERATIONS    OF    THE    IOTH,     I2TH,    AND    IST 

ARMIES  IN  ADVANCE  OF  THE  NAREV. 

JANUARY  TO  MARCH,  1915 
REFERENCE  MAPS  Nos.  VII.,  VIII.  AND  IX. 

NEILSON  and  I  remained  in  Petrograd  from  December  8th 
till  the  23rd,  and  then,   at  the  Ambassador's   request, 
visited  G.H.Q.  from  the  24th  till  the  30th  in  order  to  consult 
with  the  Allied  representatives  there  regarding  the  shortage  of 
munitions. 

The  chief  deficiencies  were  in  rifles  and  gun  ammunition. 

On  mobilisation  there  are  said  to  have  been  4,275,400  three- 
line  rifles  of  the  four  types,  "  Infantry,"  "  Dragoon,"  "  Cossack  ' 
and  "  Carbine,"  and  362,019  Berdans.  In  spite  of  this  large 
stock,  I  heard  some  months  later  that  General  Kusmin-Karavaev, 
the  aged  Chief  of  the  Artillery  Department,  at  once  realised  that 
more  would  be  required,  and  on  the  fourteenth  day  of  mobilisation 
dispatched  Colonel  Federov  of  his  department  to  Japan  with 
instructions  to  purchase,  if  possible,  an  extra  million.  Federov 
only  succeeded  in  obtaining  200,000,  which  were  now  being 
received  and  distributed  to  police,  gendarmerie  and  frontier 
guards,  releasing  an  equal  number  of  three-line  rifles  for  use  at 
the  front.  Russian  factories  were  said  to  be  producing  45,000 
rifles  a  month.  Apart  from  the  Japanese  rifles,  there  was  little 
hope  of  obtaining  large  supplies  from  abroad,  though  an  army  of 
'  commercial  adventurers  with  more  or  less  attractive  proposals 
descended  on  Russia.  The  Western  Allies  had  already  been  in 
the  market  and  had  tapped  all  possible  sources, 

216 


January -March,  1915  217 

If  there  really  were  upwards  of  five  million  rifles  on  mobilisa- 
tion, it  is  extremely  difficult  to  account  for  a  shortage  after  about 
four  months  of  war.  It  was  ascribed,  officially,  to  the  loss  of  rifles 
with  prisoners,  of  the  rifles  of  wounded  men  during  retirements, 
and  of  wounded  men  even  during  an  advance,  for  the  comman- 
dants of  posts  on  the  lines  of  communication  who  were  charged 
with  the  duty  of  their  collection  were  already  overworked.  The 
need  for  care  in  the  collection  of  rifles  had  been  overlooked.  The 
first  drafts  arrived  at  the  front  fully  armed,  and  the  officers  and 
officials  in  the  forward  area  imagined  that  the  supply  in  the 
interior  was  inexhaustible.  The  commanders  of  units  did  not 
care  to  burden  their  transport  with  rifles  which  were  not  at  that 
moment  required.  The  Commander  of  the  Guard  Corps  told  me 
that  on  one  occasion  his  corps,  on  taking  over  trenches  from  units 
of  the  line,  found  that  Russian  rifles  had  been  used  in  the  con- 
struction of  overhead  cover.  I  had  myself  on  several  occasions 
seen  rifles  lying  on  the  battlefield  two  and  three  days  after 
fighting  had  ceased.  There  had  been  many  panics,  and  the  men 
when  running  away  threw  their  rifles  away,  and  remained  un- 
punished, for  discipline  was  far  too  slack. 

A  proclamation  offering  Rs.6  for  each  Russian  rifle  and  Rs.5 
for  each  Austrian  rifle  had  no  useful  result. 

Whatever  the  cause  of  the  shortage,  pre-war  swindling  or 
war-time  slackness,  that  the  shortage  existed  was  now  evident. 
The  G.O.G.  6th  Army  at  Petrograd  said  on  December  Qth  that 
he  had  to  train  drafts  for  the  front  with  only  one  rifle  to  three 
men.  Units  at  the  front  were  now  only  half  strength,  and  the 
Assistant  Minister  of  War  stated  that  the  only  obstacle  to  the 
dispatch  in  the  next  few  weeks  of  some  two  million  drafts  was 
the  impossibility  of  arming  them. 

The  initial  reserve  of  artillery  ammunition  had  been  cal- 
culated at  1,000  rounds  per  gun.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  stores 
are  said  to  have  contained  5,200,000  out  of  the  proper  total  of 
5,400,000  (3,590  first-line  and  1,824  second-line  guns,  or  altogether 

5,414). 

The  daily  expenditure  of  shell  in  the  first  hundred  days  of 

war  averaged  45,000  rounds. 


218        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

The  home  factories,  which  had  been  engaged  chiefly  since 
mobilisation  in  filling  shrapnel,  could  not  have  produced  more 
than  300,000  new  shell.  It  was  impossible  to  obtain  details,  but 
it  was  calculated  that  on  December  3rd  there  could  not  have  been 
more  than  one  million  Russian  three-inch  shell  remaining  in  all 
echelons  of  supply. 

The  daily  output  of  home  factories  was  expected  to  rise  to 
8,000  a  day  in  December  and  to  20,000  a  day  by  July.  Contracts 
for  the  delivery  of  8,000,000  rounds  by  November  I5th,  1915,  had 
been  placed  in  the  home  market.  Orders  had  been  placed  for 
4,500,000  abroad.  Of  the  latter,  Vickers  had  taken  a  contract 
for  2,000,000,  but  no  foreign  order  was  expected  to  substantiate 
before  March,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  none  of  them  pioduced 
anything  till  much  later. 

The  Chief  of  Staff  at  G.H.Q.,  General  Yanushkevich,  explained 
that,  on  his  appointment  to  be  Chief  of  the  General  Staff  in  the 
spring  of  1914,  he  had  recommended  that  the  initial  stocks  should 
be  raised  from  1,000  to  2,000,  but  war  had  intervened  before  the 
necessary  credits  had  passed  the  Duma. 

In  November,  1914,  in  consequence  of  the  losses  of  guns  in 
East  Prussia,  instructions  had  been  issued  for  the  reduction  of  all 
eight-gun  batteries  to  an  establishment  of  six  guns.  This  meant 
that  the  guns  of  the  infantry  division  were  reduced  from  forty- 
eight  to  thirty-six — a  serious  matter  in  itself,  but  now  of  no 
consequence,  as  the  shortage  of  shell  had  become  the  governing 
factor. 

It  was  on  December  i6th  that  the  Grand  Duke  explained  to 
Laguiche  that,  owing  to  his  great  losses  and  the  shortage  of  rifles 
and  shell,  he  was  forced  to  retreat.  The  same  day  Yanushkevich 
said  that  he  had  counselled  retirement  to  the  Vistula,  but  the 
Grand  Duke,  with  soldierly  instinct,  preferred  the  more  forward 
line  of  the  Bzura-Ravka-Nida. 

On  December  26th,  while  Neilson  and  I  were  at  G.H.Q.,  the 
Chief  of  Staff  told  Laguiche  that  a  real  offensive  could  not  be 
undertaken  till  the  end  of  July  if  Russia  had  to  depend  on  her  own 
resources.  The  possibility  of  taking  the  offensive  sooner  de- 
pended on  the  supplies  of  shell  received  from  abroad.  The 


January -March,  1915  219 

Grand  Duke  wished  to  do  all  he  could,  but  he  could  do  no  more." 
Now  we  knew  how  things  stood,  it  could  only  be  regarded  as  a 
matter  of  congratulation  that  before  the  munitions  difficulty 
became  apparent  our  advance  had  been  stopped  by  the  German 
offensive  up  the  left  bank  of  the  Vistula.  If  the  enemy  had 
allowed  us  to  enter  Silesia  becore  he  counter-attacked,  there  is 
every  probability  that  we  would  have  suffered  a  great  disaster. 

It  is,  however,  an  interesting  question  whether  the  Grand 
Duke  really  knew  of  the  depletion  of  the  reserves  of  rifles  and  shell 
when  he  telegraphed  to  the  Allies  giving  a  date  for  the  occupation 
of  Breslau.  The  organisation  of  the  rear  services  was  based  on 
regulations  that  were  still  in  manuscript  on  the  first  day  of 
mobilisation,  and  were  consequently  known  only  to  the  officers 
and  officials  of  high  rank  who  had  spent  some  five  years  in  their 
compilation.  Under  these  regulations,  the  services  of  Equip- 
ment and  Supply — including  Ordnance — were  controlled  by 
individuals  at  the  Headquarters  of  the  Gommanders-in-Ghief  of 
Fronts — in  the  case  of  the  North- West  Front  by  a  General  who 
had  been  previous  to  mobilisation  the  Chief  of  the  Office  of  the 
Minister  of  War,  and  in  the  South- West  Front  by  a  General  who 
had  been  in  peace  the  Director-General  of  Military  Education. 
These  officers,  besides  being  little  fitted  by  peace  training  for  the 
duties  they  were  now  called  upon  to  perform,  had  no  direct 
representative  at  the  Grand  Duke's  Headquarters.  They  cor- 
responded direct  with  the  Ministry  of  War  at  Petrograd.  It  is 
possible  that  General  Sukhomlinov's  optimism  and  his  intense 
desire  to  please — especially  those  of  Imperial  rank — may  have 
prevented  him  from  representing  to  the  Grand  Duke  matters  in 
their  true  light. 

The  secretiveness  of  many  responsible  Russian  officials  and 
their  suicidal  desire  to  represent  the  situation  in  a  falsely  favour- 
able light  made  it  at  all  times  exceedingly  difficult  for  allied 
representatives  in  Russia  to  keep  their  Governments  posted  with 
timely  and  accurate  information.  The  following  is  an  instance. 
On  September  25th  General  Joffre  had  enquired  by  telegram 
whether  the  resources  of  the  British  and  Russian  Governments 
permitted  of  the  indefinite  continuance  of  the  war  at  the  then 


220         With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

rate  of  expenditure  of  ammunition,  and,  if  they  did  not,  up  to 
what  date  did  the  supply  suffice.  The  French  Ambassador  at 
Petrograd  passed  on  the  question  to  the  Russian  Government  in 
an  official  letter.  The  Minister  of  War  replied  on  September 
28th  that  the  question  of  the  supply  of  ammunition  in  the  Russian 
army  gave  no  cause  for  anxiety,  and  that  the  Ministry  of  War  was 
taking  all  necessary  steps  to  provide  everything  required.  At 
the  same  time  the  French  Military  Attache*  learned  from  an 
unofficial  source  that  the  output  of  factories  in  Russia  then 
amounted  to  only  35,000  shell  a  month.  Unfortunately,  he  had 
no  means  of  ascertaining  that  the  rate  of  expenditure  at  the  front 
then  averaged  45,000  a  day,  and  he  believed  that  the  initial  stock 
on  mobilisation  was  more  than  twice  as  large  as  it  really  was. 

If  General  Sukhomlinov  and  his  Staff  had  worried  to  ap- 
preciate the  situation  at  the  end  of  September,  they  must  have 
known  that  the  initial  stock  only  provided  shell  for  two  more 
months  of  war,  and  they  should  then  at  once  have  taken  adequate 
measures  to  cope  with  the  difficulty  by  ordering  from  abroad. 

It  subsequently  became  known  that  the  officials  at  Petrograd 
received  ample  warning.  On  September  Qth  the  Staff  of  the 
South- West  Front  had  telegraphed  to  the  Artillery  Department : 
"It  is  essential  to  replace  the  almost  exhausted  supplies  of 
shell."  On  October  26th  Ivanov  had  telegraphed  :  "  Supplies 
of  ammunition  are  entirely  exhausted.  If  not  replenished, 
operations  will  have  to  be  broken  off  and  the  troops  retired  under 
most  difficult  conditions." 

Over  a  year  later  I  learned  on  unimpeachable  authority  that 
in  the  middle  of  October  General  Kuzmin  Karavaev,  an  honour- 
able old  man,  whose  nerves  had  been  shaken  by  his  immense 
responsibilities  as  Chief  of  the  Artillery  Department,  went  to 
Sukhomlinov,  weeping,  and  said  that  Russia  would  have  to  make 
peace  owing  to  the  shortage  of  artillery  ammunition.  The 
Minister  of  War  told  him  to  "go  to  the  devil  and  quiet  himself." 
How  strange  it  is  that  orders  were  not  then  placed  abroad  ! 

Sukhomlinov  was  at  this  time  sixty-six  years  of  age.  He  had 
been  appointed  Minister  of  War  in  1909  after  holding  for  three 
months  the  post  of  Chief  of  the  General  Staff.  Originally  an 


January -March,  1915  221 

officer  of  the  Cavalry  of  the  Guard,  he  had  spent  much  time  as 
Instructor  and  Commandant  of  the  Officers'  Cavalry  School.  He 
was  a  General  of  the  evergreen  type,  a  light-hearted  man,  charac- 
terised by  his  enemies  as  a  "  buffoon,"  whose  influence  over  the 
Emperor  was  ascribed  to  his  fund  of  excellent  stories.  He,  in 
turn,  was  much  under  the  influence  of  his  fourth  wife,  a  lady  many 
years  his  junior.  She  is,  in  fact,  said  to  have  been  only  twenty- 
three  when,  as  Madame  Butovich,  wife  of  an  inspector  of  schools, 
she  attracted,  in  1906,  the  attention  of  the  amorous  General,  then 
Governor  of  Kiev.  Butovich  was  divorced,  much  against  his  will, 
and  retaliated  six  years  later  by  attacking  his  supplanter  in  a 
Petrograd  evening  paper.  In  these  articles  he  asserted  that  the 
Kiev  Secret  Police  had  been  used  freely  by  the  Governor  to  procure 
evidence  against  him,  that  he  had  had  to  flee  the  country,  as  he 
was  threatened  with  detention  in  a  madhouse  or  with  transporta- 
tion to  Siberia,  that  the  signatures  to  the  documentary  evidence, 
on  the  strength  of  which  the  divorce  was  finally  declared,  were 
forged,  and  that  the  papers  on  which  the  defence  relied  were 
conveniently  lost  while  in  charge  of  a  Government  Department. 
The  opposition  evening  paper  took  the  part  of  the  Minister,  and 
described  the  life  of  his  wife  with  her  former  husband  as  a  "  family 
hell."  Both  parties  forgot  the  Russian  proverb  which  warns 
people  to  "  keep  their  own  dirt  at  home,"  and  if  the  exposure  did 
not  shake  the  Emperor's  confidence  in  his  Minister,  it  relieved  for 
a  time  the  tedium  of  pre-war  Petrograd. 

Sukhomlinov  was  a  courtier  and  an  official  of  the  autocratic 
type  who  never  took  kindly  to  parliamentary  interference  in 
matters  of  national  defence,  though  the  main  object  of  that 
interference  had  been  in  Russia  to  force  expenditure  in  order  to 
secure  efficiency,  and  not,  as  in  other  countries,  to  save  the  tax- 
payer's pocket  for  the  moment.  He  had  lived  very  much  above 
his  emoluments  of  Rs. 27,000  a  year.  The  Emperor  is  said  to 
have  paid  his  debts  at  least  once  from  his  private  purse,  and 
Sukhomlinov  himself  tried  to  make  both  ends  meet  by  the 
travelling  allowance  he  earned  on  long  journeys  of  inspection. 
As  a  Minister  was  entitled  to  draw  for  the  hire  per  verst  of  twenty- 
four  horses,  and  the  journey  was  of  course  done  by  rail,  the 


222         With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

income  derived  from  a  trip  of  12,000  versts  to  Vladivostok  and 
back  was  considerable.1 

The  Assistant  Minister  of  War  was  General  Vernander,  a 
patriarchal  figurehead  of  seventy  years  of  age,  whom  Sukhomlinov 
had  nominated  in  1912  to  replace  General  Polivanov,  with  whom 
he  had  quarrelled. 

I  interviewed  Sukhomlinov  in  Petrograd  on  December  i6th 
to  ascertain  his  views  regarding  rifles  and  shell.  His  first  remark 
was  :  "As  you  know,  the  Germans  have  been  preparing  for  this 
war  since  1870.  We  never  commenced  preparation  till  five  years 
ago,  when  I  became  Minister  of  War.  We  have  done  a  lot  since 
then,  but  I  wanted  two  years  more/1 

He  said  that  the  1914  contingent  of  "  1,400,000  recruits  " 
would  join  the  colours  in  January,  and  that  rifles  would  not  be 
wanting  as  they  had  been  ' '  ordered  and  were  on  their  way  from 
America."  This  was  a  gross  misstatement  of  fact.  The  contract 
for  the  American  rifles  had  not  then  been  signed,  and  the  rifles 
did  not  begin  to  arrive  in  any  numbers  till  eighteen  months  later ! 

At  this  time  the  optimism  of  the  Military  Correspondent  of 
the  Times  proved  very  trying  to  readers  in  Russia  who  were 
acquainted  with  the  real  situation.  The  thick  reserve  columns 
that  appeared  in  Times  maps  in  rear  of  the  Russian  front  gave 
an  entirely  false  impression.  So  far,  while  fighting  was  in 
progress,  I  had  never  known  a  corps,  and  seldom  even  a  division, 
to  be  in  reserve.  In  the  advance  after  the  Vistula  battles 
the  front  of  the  ist,  2nd,  5th,  4th  and  9th  Armies  had  been  drawn 
out  from  near  Ostrolenka  to  Sandomir  in  a  pathetic  attempt  to 
avoid  German  outflanking  movements.  When  the  ist  and  2nd 
Armies  got  into  difficulties,  troops  to  re-establish  the  position  had 

1  At  the  trial  of  General  Sukhomlinov  in  1917  for  having  failed  to  take 
timely  steps  before  and  during  the  war  to  increase  the  supply  of  arms  and  am- 
munition and  on  other  charges  the  prosecution  made  some  startling  revelations 
regarding  his  pecuniary  affairs.  It  was  stated  that  his  bank  balance  when  he  was 
transferred  to  serve  at  Petrograd  was  Rs. 5 7,000,  and  that  in  six  years  he  paid  in  no 
less  than  Rs. 702, 737  and  26  kopeks — including  a  sum  of  Rs. 20,000  given  by  the 
Khan  of  Khiva  for  the  purchase  of  a  present  for  Madame  Sukhomlinov — though 
his  total  emoluments  during  the  period  only  amounted  to  Rs. 270,000,  and, 
owing  to  Madame  Sukhomlinov's  extravagance,  the  annual  expenditure  of  the 
couple  amounted  to  at  least  Rs.5o,ooo  to  Rs.75,ooo. 


January -March,  1915  223 

to  be  drawn  from  the  front  of  the  loth,  5th,  4th  and  gth  Armies. 
In  December,  1914,  it  is  calculated  that  there  were  nominally 
on  the  front  thirty-two  regular  corps  and  the  equivalent  of  fifteen 
second-line  corps.  This  should  have  meant  2,200,000  combatants, 
but  on  the  analogy  of  the  Qth  Army,  which  on  December  5th  had 
an  effective  rifle  strength  of  only  about  a  third  of  establishment, 
the  total  number  of  combatants  actually  on  the  front  certainly 
cannot  have  exceeded  1,200,000.  Of  course,  the  Military  Cor- 
respondent's constant  references  to  the  "  Russian  steam-roller  ' 
may  have  been  so  many  conscious  endeavours  to  depress  the 
morale  of  the  enemy  and  to  raise  our  own. 

The  Grand  Duke  decorated  Neilson  and  me  with  the  4th  Class 
of  the  Order  of  St.  Vladimir.  He  was  as  nice  as  ever,  but  seemed 
much  worn  and  worried. 

On  Christmas  Day  he  sent  me  a  message  that  the  Emperor 
was  expected  at  Baranovichi  on  the  26th,  and  that  he  wished 
Neilson  and  me  to  remain  till  he  left. 

We  only  saw  the  Emperor  for  five  minutes  on  the  28th.  He 
was  returning  with  some  of  his  staff  from  one  of  the  long  walks 
which  he  constantly  took.  He  spoke  to  us  for  a  few  minutes, 
asking  us  what  part  of  the  front  we  had  visited.  His  train  was 
drawn  up  on  a  siding  in  the  woods  near  the  train  of  the  Grand 
Duke,  and  the  whole  area  was  encircled  by  three  rows  of  sentries, 
mounted  Cossacks  outside,  then  dismounted  Cossacks,  then 
gendarmes.  It  would  have  been  difficult  for  the  most  enter- 
prising revolutionary  to  have  got  through. 

Our  time  at  Baranovichi  was  spent  in  conferences  about 
munitions.  Before  the  Emperor  left,  he  thanked  General 
Hanbury- Williams  for  the  trouble  he  had  taken,  and  assured  him 
that  he  would  see  in  future  that  red-tapism  did  not  interfere  with 
the  provision  of  adequate  supplies. 

On  the  Sunday  the  Emperor  and  most  officers  attended  a 
cinema  performance  of  scenes  from  the  front.  One  picture  of 
the  burial  of  hundreds  of  bodies  in  a  common  grave  was  par- 
ticularly gruesome,  and  continued  for  five  minutes,  till  many 
people  in  the  room  called  out  "  Enough  !  " 


«  224        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Neilson  and  I  arrived  in  Warsaw  on  the  afternoon  of  December 
30th.  He  left  on  January  2nd  to  join  Radko  Dimitriev  with  the 
3rd  Army  on  the  Dunajec.  He  and  I  were  the  only  two  forward 
observing  officers  of  the  British  Army,  so  it  was  best  for  us  to 
separate,  much  as  I  would  have  liked  to  have  kept  him  with  me. 
He  speaks  Russian  well  and  had  become  very  popular  with  all 
Russians,  among  whom  he  had  established  quite  a  reputation  for 
gallantry. 

I  spent  the  next  few  days  in  Warsaw,  which  was  always  a 
clearing-house  for  information,  the  Bristol  Hotel  especially  being 
a  rendezvous  for  officers  on  leave  from  various  armies  at  the 
front. 

Even  with  the  enemy  at  the  gates,  Warsaw  remained  a 
delightfully  light-hearted  city.  The  Poles  had  seen  the  Germans 
beaten  back  when  they  were  still  nearer,  and  were  now  extra- 
ordinarily confident.  It  was  pleasant  to  meet  old  friends  every 
day,  who  all  arrived  in  good  humour  at  the  prospect  of  a  few 
days'  release  from  the  tedium  of  the  front.  Alcohol  was  pro- 
hibited, but  this  regulation  was  winked  at  in  the  Bristol  at  all 
events,  though  to  keep  up  appearances  champagne  was  served  in 
a  teapot  and  drunk  from  cups.  When  I  dined  at  other  res- 
taurants I  took  a  flask  with  me.  The  Grand  Duke  Boris  told  me 
that  he  carried  more  than  one  flask,  to  suit  his  changing  fancy  and 
to  ease  the  strain  of  war. 

Such,  indeed,  was  the  attraction  of  Warsaw  that  special 
measures  were  required  to  prevent  officers  and  others  from 
straggling  from  the  front.  Surprise  visits  were  often  made  to 
hotels,  and  all  officers  were  made  to  show  their  leave  certi- 
ficates. Any  men  in  the  streets  after  8  p.m.  were  arrested  and 
taken  to  the  citadel.  Tea-shops  and  restaurants  were  not 
allowed  to  serve  soldiers,  who  could  only,  therefore,  obtain 
Government  rations,  and  to  get  these  they  had  to  show  their 
papers. 

The  ist  Army,  which  was  now  holding  the  Bzura  due  west  of 
Warsaw,  had  been  reinforced  from  the  2nd  and  5th  Armies.  The 
distribution  of  the  three  armies  between  the  Vistula  and  the 
Pilitsa  was : 


January -March,  1915  225 

1ST  ARMY. — Commander:    General  Lit  vino  v.     Chief  of  Staff: 

General  Odishelidze. 
Vth  Siberian  Corps. 
VI th  Siberian  Corps. 
XXVIth  Corps. 
Ilnd  Caucasian  Corps. 
1st  Siberian  Corps. 
Vlth  Corps. 

2ND  ARMY. — Commander:   General  Smirnov.     Chief  of  Staff: 

General  Kvyetsinski. 
1st  Corps. 

Ilnd  Siberian  Corps. 
IVth  Corps. 

5TH  ARMY. — Commander:   General  Plehve.     Chief  of  Staff : 

General  Miller. 

XXIIIrd  Corps.  c 

XlXth  Corps.  ;    '     ,        : 

Vth  Corps.  ;-.;,: .:•...  ,      ,-: 

Fighting  Austrians  was  throughout  the  war  a  relaxation  to- 
Russian  officers  after  service  on  the  German  front.  The  following 
is  an  anecdote  told  at  this  time  illustrative  of  the  domestic  type 
of  warfare  then  carried  on  before  Przemysl.  An  Austrian  officer, 
when  taken  prisoner,  asked  that  he  might  be  allowed  to  call  his 
soldier  servant.  He  was  told  that  there  was  no  objection  if  he 
could  arrange  it.  He  called  out  from  the  Russian  trenches  : 
"  O  h&,  Fritz  !  "  When  Fritz  replied,  he  called  out :  "  Bring 
mein  Handgepack  !  "  After  some  half  an  hour  Fritz  came  trotting 
across  with  his  master's  portmanteau. 

One  day  I  lunched  at  the  Bristol  with  Count  Nostitz,  the  Chief 
of  Staff  of  the  Guard  Corps,  and  General  Erdeli,  the  Commander 
of  the  1 4th  Cavalry  Division.  I  asked  Erdeli  why  the  Russian 
Cavalry  seemed  never  to  "  pull  its  weight."  He  said  the  reason 
Novikov,  the  Commander  of  the  1st  Cavalry  Corps,  did  so  little 
to  worry  the  Germans  in  their  retreat  from  before  Warsaw  was 
that  the  Russian  cavalry  had  been  held  too  far  back  while  the 

P 


226        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

infantry  battle  was  in  progress.  It  required  about  a  week  to 
cross  the  lower  Bzura  and  so  reach  the  enemy's  flank,  and  even 
then  it  found  all  the  crossings  of  the  river  higher  up,  and  the  roads 
leading  across  the  numerous  marshes  were  held  by  enemy  infantry, 
who  effectively  prevented  any  attempt  on  the  lines  of  communica- 
tion. 

The  I4th  Cavalry  Division  had  been  continually  used  in  frontal 
operations  against  the  enemy,  and  in  such  operations  success  is 
difficult.  Erdeli  said  that  the  Higher  Command  did  not  know  how 
to  use  cavalry.  It  should  be  saved  for  launching  on  legitimate 
cavalry  tasks.  It  should  only  be  formed  in  corps  for  definite 
temporary  objects — for  instance,  the  present  raid  on  our  extreme 
left  in  Hungary.  Otherwise  cavalry  divisions  should  be  attached 
to  each  army.  In  fact,  he  recommended  that  a  cavalry  brigade 
should  be  attached  to  each  corps,  so  that  it  should  always  be  at 
hand  when  required  for  the  pursuit  of  shaken  infantry. 

Erdeli  related  with  pride  that  the  I4th  Cavalry  Division  had 
been  sufficiently  far  west  to  bombard  Kalish. 

Some  days  later  I  had  a  talk  with  a  junior  officer,  Count 
Prjetski,  of  the  Lancers  of  the  Guard,  on  the  same  subject.  He 
condemned  the  organisation  of  the  regiment  in  six  squadrons, 
and  held  that  two-squadron  regiments  would  do  better  work,  as 
it  is  impossible  for  one  colonel  to  control  six  squadrons.  As 
regards  the  delaying  power  of  cavalry,  to  my  assertion  that 
Novikov's  cavalry  did  not  delay  the  German  advance  on  Warsaw 
a  single  day,  he  replied  that  the  Independent  Guard  Cavalry 
Brigade  had  held  up  the  Austrian  advance  at  Krasnik  in  August 
for  six  hours  by  dismounted  fire,  and  at  Klimontov  in  October  it 
had  delayed  the  Austrians  a  whole  day.  The  men  had  their 
horses  well  under  cover  and  had  allowed  the  enemy's  infantry  to 
come  within  200  yards.  Of  course,  matters  differ  according  to  the 
ground,  and  it  is  worth  remembering  that  in  both  the  cases  he 
quoted  the  enemy  was  Austrian  and  not  German. 

Prjetski  said  that  it  was  difficult  for  cavalry  to  achieve  much 
in  pursuit.  "  Each  squadron  and  brigade  was  allotted  its  own 
'  corridor '  to  pursue  in,  and  could  not  make  wide  detours  to 
turn  the  retreating  infantry's  flank.  Still,  the  Russian^cavalry 


January -March,  1915  227 

had  worried  the  Austrians  considerably  in  the  pursuit  after  the 
battles  at  Ivangorod.  Austrian  prisoners  said  that  they  had 
been  compelled  to  entrench  twice  a  day,  first  to  secure  quiet  for 
the  midday  meal  and  again  to  secure  rest  at  night."  This  was 
not  very  convincing. 

As  the  Guard  Corps  had  been  withdrawn  to  reserve,  I  obtained 
permission  to  visit  the  5th  Army  on  the  Ravka,  and  left  Warsaw 
by  automobile  on  January  6th  for  the  village  of  Mogilnitsa,  where 
the  Staff  of  the  army  had  been  since  December  i8th.* 

The  name  "  Mogilnitsa  "  has  an  unpleasant  sound  in  Russian, 
It  might  mean  "  a  little  tomb,"  but  it  really  means  "  the  place  of 
the  fogs."  Either  name  might  have  suited  the  place,  as  it  ap- 
peared in  January,  1915.  It  consists  of  a  single  street  of  cottages 
in  a  narrow,  damp  valley.  The  weather  was  atrocious,  snow  and 
thaw  alternating  so  as  to  make  the  roads  almost  impassable. 

The  accommodation  of  the  village  was  too  small  to  house  the 
whole  Army  Staff,  so  I  found  there  only  the  so-called  "  1st 
Echelon,"  consisting  of  General  Plehve  and  his  personal  staff, 
the  Chief  of  Staff,  General  Miller,  and  the  General  Quartermaster, 
General  Sievers,  with  his  three  sections,  "  Operations,"  "  In- 
telligence '  and  "  General." 

The  Army  Commander  and  his  personal  staff  lodged  in  the 
priest's  house,  which  was,  of  course,  the  best  in  the  village, 
General  Miller's  house  came  next,  and  then  a  two-roomed  cottage, 
which  was  assigned  to  me.  I  slept  and  worked  in  the  front  room, 
and  the  family  and  my  servant  and  orderly  occupied  the  room  in 
the  rear.  This  rear  room  accommodated  every  night  eight  or 
nine  people,  viz. :  in  one  bed  the  mother  and  one  or  two  grown-up 
daughters,  in  another  bed  the  father  and  a  son,  and  on  the  floor 
Maxim  (my  servant),  Ivan  (my  orderly)  and  two  farm-labourers. 
The  cottage  was  very  clean.  Indeed,  though  I  slept  in  the  first 
eighteen  months  of  war  on  occasion  in  the  poorest  Polish  peasant's 
cottages,  I  never  suffered  from  the  pests  that  made  night 
uncomfortable  when  we  were  driven  back  later  into  Russian 

»  See  Map  No.  IX. 


228        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

territory.  Our  peasant  hosts  were  always  politeness  and 
kindness  itself,  though  we  must  have  been  a  sore  trial  to 
them. 

The  Chief  of  Staff  always  lunched  and  dined  with  the  Army 
Commander  and  his  personal  staff.  The  other  officers  fed  in  two 
"  messes." 

I  reported  on  arrival  to  General  Miller,  and  found  him  a  small, 
alert  man  with  beard  and  long  brown  moustache.  Both  he  and 
General  Sievers,  who  was  taller  and  of  a  somewhat  heavier  build, 
were  very  popular  with  junior  officers. 

It  was  the  Russian  Christmas  Eve,  and  Miller  invited  me  to  a 
Christmas-tree  in  his  quarters.  The  tree  had  been  decked  out  by 
the  orderlies  with  lighted  candles,  and  was  hung  with  everything 
that  could  possibly  serve  as  an  ornament,  such  as  the  silver  paper 
from  chocolates,  fancy  biscuits,  etc.  The  entertainment  had  not 
been  designed  for  children,  for  there  were  no  children  there.  The 
grown-up  officers  took  a  child's  delight  in  the  whole  proceedings 
as  we  sat  round  drinking  tea  and  eating  bonbons. 

At  midday  the  following  day  I  went  to  lunch  with  General 
Plehve,  and  he  asked  me  to  lunch  and  sup  with  him  every  day 
during  my  stay  at  Mogilnitsa.  We  supped  at  6  p.m.,  and  then 
went  to  a  Christmas-tree  which  had  been  arranged  for  the  men — 
odd  men  of  the  Staff  and  drafts  en  route  for  the  front.  The  men 
filed  past  and  each  was  given  a  roll  of  white  bread,  a  bag  of  tobacco 
and  a  parcel  of  sweets.  The  bags  of  tobacco  contained  letters 
written  by  children  in  Moscow  to  the  unknown  recipients.  Each 
man  as  he  received  his  present  thanked  the  Army  Commander, 
first  the  "  show  man  "  roaring  out  the  set  phrase  in  a  voice  of 
thunder,  and  then  the  others,  more  timid  and  less  drilled,  gradu- 
ally diminuendo.  Plehve  sat  and  blinked  impassively. 

I  was  introduced  to  several  nurses  from  a  Moscow  Red  Cross 
hospital  which  had  just  arrived  at  the  front.  One  of  them  spoke 
English,  and  they  were  all  nice,  innocent  little  girls.  I  adjourned 
with  them  to  the  quarters  of  "  Nikolai  Nikolaievich,"  the  genial 
Commandant  of  the  Staff,  and  there  drank  tea  while  our  host  sang 
Russian  songs  to  his  guitar. 

On  other  evenings  I  took  tea  with  General  Miller,  and  I  am 


January -March,  1915  229 

afraid  bored  him  with  my  constant  thirst  for  information.  He 
and  other  Russians  were  so  kind-hearted  that  they  positively 
suffered  when  they  considered  it  their  duty  to  give  evasive  replies 
to  my  leading  questions.  They  always  tried  to  switch  the  con- 
versation on  to  the  subject  of  past  operations,  or  information  of 
the  enemy,  when  it  approached  such  risky  topics  as  the  present 
strength  and  distribution  and  armament  of  the  Russian  forces  or 
the  plans  for  the  future  of  the  Russian  Command.  Later,  when 
they  got  to  know  me  better,  the  Russians  trusted  me  more.  At 
first  it  was  exceedingly  up-hill  work,  though  I  generally  managed 
by  one  means  or  another  to  get  more  or  less  "  there." 

Though  the  Russians  took  an  allied  liaison  officer  little  into 
their  confidence,  the  officers  in  general  were  of  so  happy-go-lucky 
a  nature  that  the  task  of  enemy  spies  must  have  been  easy.  In 
the  Guard  Corps  I  had  been  refused  on  one  pretext  or  another 
copies  of  the  daily  operation  orders,  till  one  day,  when  taking  my 
early  morning  walk,  I  found  a  copy  of  the  previous  night's 
operation  order  lying  under  a  hedge.  I  carried  it  back  in  triumph 
to  my  friend  on  the  Staff,  who  found  the  incident  highly  amusing, 
and  as  long  as  he  remained  a  member  of  that  particular  Staff  I  had 
no  further  difficulty. 

Plehve  was  at  this  time  nearly  sixty-five.  In  appearance  he 
was  a  little  wizened-up  rat,  but  his  intelligence  was  keen  and  he 
had  an  indomitable  will.  His  Staff  spoke  of  him  with  admiration, 
but  it  was  evident  that  they  feared  as  much  as  they  loved  him. 
They  said  he  had  been  a  nuisance  in  peace,  constantly  interfering 
in  detail  and  worrying  over  trifles,  but  that  in  war  he  was  quite 
different,  grasping  the  situation  with  extraordinary  quickness 
and  giving  his  decision  rapidly  and  firmly.  He  never,  to  my 
knowledge,  visited  the  trenches,  chiefly,  no  doubt,  because,  though 
he  rode  well,  he  was  too  infirm  for  walking.  I  imagine,  too,  that 
to  him  the  men  at  the  front  were  merely  pawns.  He  expected 
everyone  there  to  do  his  duty,  as  he,  their  commander,  did, 
by  issuing  strong  and  clear  instructions  from  the  Staff  in  rear. 
His  strong,  dry  character,  and  also,  it  must  be  confessed,  his 
strong  prejudices  on  occasion  regarding  individuals,  made  Plehve 
very  unpopular  with  senior  Russian  officers,  who  were  before 


230         With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

everything  human,  and  could  forgive  mistakes  in  strategy  sooner 
than  a  lack  of  geniality. 

At  Mogilnitsa  Plehve  had  seven  sentries  round  his  house, 
unlike  all  other  Russian  army  commanders,  who  had  only  the 
usual  double  sentry  at  their  door.  He  had  piquets  dug  in  on  all 
the  roads  approaching  the  village.  Every  afternoon  he  went 
out  for  a  ride  with  an  escort  of  twelve  Cossacks,  and  he  always 
rode  east. 

January  i8th  was  one  of  the  few  fine,  sunny  days  I  saw  while 
at  Mogilnitsa.  We  were  all  at  lunch  in  Plehve's  quarters.  An 
A.D.G.  had  just  remarked  that  we  would  probably  have  a  visitor, 
when  the  sentries  round  the  house  commenced  firing.  A  big 
German  biplane  flew  slowly  three  times  backwards  and  forwards 
over  the  village,  and  threw  a  dozen  bombs.  The  airman  was  no 
doubt  aiming  at  our  house,  but  did  not  hit  it,  and  most  of  the 
bombs  fell  harmlessly.  One,  however,  killed  one  soldier  and 
wounded  two  men  and  two  horses,  and  another  blew  an  unfor- 
tunate Polish  workman  to  pieces.  All  the  windows  in  the  Chief 
of  Staff's  house  and  the  two  windows  of  my  room  were  smashed. 
Within  fifteen  seconds  of  the  first  bomb  all  Plehve's  Staff  had 
disappeared  to  issue  orders,  first  to  tell  the  men  not  to  fire,  and 
then  to  tell  them  to  fire,  but  really  to  get  away  from  Plehve,  who 
has  a  trying  temper.  The  old  man  and  I  were  left  alone,  he  wax- 
ing more  and  more  indignant  as  each  bomb  fell.  He  said  such 
conduct  was  a  scandalous  breach  of  the  customs  of  war,  and  if  the 
airman  were  brought  down  he  would  at  once  hang  him  up 
to  the  highest  tree  in  the  village.  Presently  the  priest  appeared 
from  his  kitchen  and  increased  the  General's  wrath  by  petitioning 
that  the  sentries  should  be  told  to  stop  firing  as  they  gave  away 
the  position  of  the  house,  which  he  feared  might  be  destroyed. 

Miller  got  much  of  the  credit  for  the  uniform  success  of  the 
Plehve-Miller  combination,  but  though  Miller  was  a  first-rate 
Chief  of  Staff,  I  think  Plehve,  owing  to  his  unpopularity,  got  less 
credit  than  was  his  due.  On  more  than  one  occasion  I  have 
heard  Plehve  dictating  orders  to  his  Chief  of  Staff. 

In  order  to  see  something  of  the  troops  I  paid  visits  of  three 


January -March,  1915  231 

or  four  days  each  to  two  corps  in  the  5th  Army,  the  XlXth  and 
the  IVth.  The  Staffs  of  both  corps  were  quartered  in  Polish 
landowners'  houses,  that  of  the  XlXth  Corps  at  Kalen  and  that 
of  the  IVth  Corps,  which  had  just  been  handed  over  from  the  2nd 
Army,  further  north  at  Volya  Penkoshevskaya.  Both  of  the 
corps  had  done  well ;  the  XlXth  in  particular  had  already  earned 
a  reputation  that  it  maintained  till  the  Revolution. 

At  Kalen  I  was  lodged  in  a  room  with  three  other  officers,  and 
General  Gorbatovski  and  his  Staff  made  me  at  once  welcome. 
The  General  is  a  fine  old  soldier  of  the  hard  fighting  type,  who 
had  defended  one  of  the  sectors  at  Port  Arthur.  He  was  a  strong 
optimist  in  January,  1915,  and  it  was  exhilarating  if  unconvincing 
to  hear  him  maintain  that  we  would  thrash  the  Germans  in  the 
spring  when  we  had  got  shell  and  filled  up  our  ranks.  The 
description  of  him  given  by  "Victor  Ivanovich,"  one  of  the  junior 
officers  of  the  General  Staff  of  the  Corps,  was  interesting.  He  said 
that  Gorbatovski  was  '  quite  unprepared  ' '  when  he  took  com- 
mand of  the  corps,  that  he  used  to  try  to  command  companies  in 
the  firing-line  instead  of  directing  the  whole  from  the  rear.  The 
Chief  of  Staff  was  too  old  and  weak  in  character  to  effect  anything. 
'  It  therefore  devolved  on  us  youngsters  to  educate  the  Corps 
Commander !  At  first  we  had  our  work  cut  out  for  us,  and  we 
had  constant  quarrels,  but  after  a  month  we  could  say  to  each 
other  :  '  Well,  we  have  trained  him  now  ! '  " 

The  XlXth  Corps,  when  quartered  in  peace  at  Brest  Litovsk, 
Kholm  and  Kovel  had  163  men  in  each  company.  It  filled  up 
on  mobilisation  with  Poles  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Warsaw 
and  with  Russians  from  Volhynia. 

Russian  officers  always  professed  to  regard  the  Poles  as  inferior 
fighters,  but  I  think  this  is  pure  prejudice.  The  corps  quartered 
in  peace  in  the  Warsaw  Military  District,  which  completed  to  war 
strength  from  local  Polish  reservists,  gave  throughout  a  better 
account  of  themselves  than  corps  from  the  Moscow  Military 
District,  which  drew  many  reservists  from  manufacturing  centres. 
This  was  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  former  contained  necessarily 
a  larger  percentage  of  Jews. 

At  Kalen,  as  elsewhere,  there  were  at  once  apparent  the  usual 


232         With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

differences  between  the  Russian  Staff  and  their  Polish  hosts. 
Each  side  seemed  to  irritate  the  other  more  than  was  necessary. 

I  had  a  long  talk  one  night  with  our  Polish  host.  He  com- 
plained that  the  Germans  in  their  offensive  had  taken  from  him 
forty  out  of  his  sixty  horses  and  had  paid  him  only  in  bills  on 
the  Russian  Government !  He  said  that  there  had  never  been 
such  a  tragedy  in  history  as  that  of  the  Poles  in  the  present  war, 
their  fighting-men  forced  by  both  sides  to  fight  against  their 
brothers,  and  their  civilian  population  bearing  the  brunt  of  all 
the  suffering  consequent  on  military  operations  on  their  home 
territory.  When  I  was  riding  away  at  the  end  of  my  visit,  this 
man  ran  upstairs  and  came  back  with  a  parcel  of  apples  as  a 
present  from  his  little  daughter,  with  whom  I  had  made  friends. 
His  wife  looked  ill.  She  told  me  she  had  only  been  out  once  since 
the  Staff  arrived  ;  indeed,  the  habitual  disregard  of  the  ordinary 
rules  of  decent  sanitation  by  the  Russian  orderlies  and  Cossacks 
made  it  difficult  for  the  lady  to  walk  about  her  own  grounds. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Russians  maintained  that  the  Polish 
landowners  made  a  very  good  thing  out  of  supply  to  the  troops, 
and  that  they  were  never  satisfied.  They  said  that  our  host  now 
got  50  kopeks  per  pud  for  straw  instead  of  the  25  he  would 
have  got  in  peace,  and  75  kopeks  for  hay  instead  of  the  usual  30. 
Another  landowner  not  far  from  Kalen  had  claimed  Rs.  175,000 
for  damage  done  to  his  forests,  but  a  committee  after  impartial 
enquiry,  assessed  the  sum  due  at  Rs.39,ooo. 

Russians  are  always  annoyed  that  Poles  regard  them  as 
foreigners.  Our  hostess  one  night  said  that  after  the  war  she 
would  no  longer  go  to  German  watering-places,  but  only  to  French 
and  English  ones.  A  Russian  officer  remarked  afterwards  that 
the  lady  seemed  to  have  forgotten  the  existence  of  the  Caucasian 
resorts. 

German  propaganda  was  already  busy  in  trying  to  corrupt 
the  Russian  rank  and  file.  Its  methods,  however,  were  not 
always  distinguished  by  intelligence.  In  one  instance  a  German 
flag  was  planted  halfway  between  the  opposing  trenches.  By  it 
was  a  bottle  of  wine,  a  loaf  of  bread  and  a  piece  of  bacon,  with  a 
proclamation  calling  on  all  Mohammedans  to  join  the  Holy  War 


January-March,  1915  233 

which  Turkey  had  proclaimed  in  alliance  with  the  "  oft-tried 
friends  of  Islam  Germany  and  Austria."  The  German  arguments 
were  as  little  likely  to  appeal  to  the  Russian  Tartar  as  the  wine 
and  bacon  forbidden  by  the  Prophet,  and,  moreover,  there  were 
no  Tartars  in  the  XlXth  Corps.  Another  proclamation,  which 
was  accompanied  by  wine  and  cigarettes,  pointed  out  that  the 
Tsar  had  not  wanted  war,  and  that  the  Russian  soldiers  were 
being  sacrificed  by  the  Grand  Duke,  who  had  been  bribed  by 
France  and  England  ! 

Each  day  while  with  the  Corps  Staffs  I  rode  out  to  visit  one  of 
the  divisions,  including  some  unit  in  the  trenches.  One  day,  for 
instance,  I  visited  the  I7th  Division  of  the  XlXth  Corps.  I 
found  it  had  four  battalions  of  two  regiments  in  line  with  the 
remaining  four  battalions  in  regimental  reserve.  Three  other 
battalions  of  the  division  were  at  the  disposal  of  the  Divisional 
Commander  and  were  sent  forward  at  night  to  be  near  the  line. 
The  remaining  five  battalions  had  been  lent  temporarily  to  another 
division. 

The  eastern  bank  of  the  Ravka  commands  the  western  bank, 
which  was  occupied  by  the  enemy.  The  river  is  marshy  and  only 
fordable  in  places.  The  opposing  lines  were  generally  about  1,000 
yards  apart. 

In  the  iyth  Division  I  visited  the  68th  Borodino  Regiment, 
the  commander  of  which  had  just  received  a  message  of  good 
wishes  from  the  68th  Durham  Light  Infantry,  and  asked  me  to 
send  a  suitable  reply  on  his  behalf.  This  regiment  had  lost  up  to 
date  nine  officers  killed  and  forty-five  wounded,  and  3,000  men 
killed  and  wounded. 

The  men  were  usually  two  days  in  the  trenches  and  two  in 
reserve,  but  the  company  I  saw  had  volunteered  to  remain  in  the 
trenches  for  twenty-four  days,  as  it  had  "  made  itself  comfort- 
able." It  was  not,  however,  evident  what  efforts  it  had  made  in 
twenty-four  days  to  make  itself  either  comfortable  or  safe.  The 
communication  trenches  were  far  too  shallow.  There  were  no 
shell-proof  dug-outs.  Similarly  in  the  IVth  Corps,  the  construction 
of  the  trenches  left  much  to  be  desired,  considering  that  the 
troops  had  been  thirty-five  days  on  the  same  position.  It  was 


234        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

the  same  story  everywhere  ;  many  officers  were  too  lazy  to  make 
the  men  work.  They  forgot  that  nothing  breeds  discontent  like 
idleness. 

In  the  IVth  Corps  the  line  was  strongly  held,  one  division  of 
sixteen  battalions  having  only  six  versts  of  front.  This  corps 
contained  two  divisions,  and  the  arrangement  was  that  four 
regiments  (sixteen  battalions)  held  the  front  line  with  supports 
and  reserves.  A  regiment  was  divisional  reserve  in  each  division, 
and  two  regiments  formed  the  corps  reserve,  one  regiment  being 
placed  in  rear  of  each  division,  but  both  being  retained  at  the 
disposal  of  the  corps  commander. 

A  third  of  the  artillery  was  lying  in  reserve,  there  being  no 
use  for  it  at  the  front  owing  to  the  shortage  of  shell.  Batteries 
in  action  were  well  concealed,  and  had  suffered  practically  no 
casualties,  though  they  had  occupied  the  same  positions  for  over 
a  month. 

The  IVth  Corps,  which  is  Skobelev's  old  corps,  was  now 
commanded  by  General  Aliev,  a  Mohammedan  from  the  Caucasus. 

While  with  the  IVth  Corps  I  heard  that  Plehve  had  "  received 
another  appointment,"  and  had  been  succeeded  in  command  of 
the  5th  Army  by  General  Churin.  On  January  25th  I  returned 
to  the  Staff,  which  had  moved  east  to  Mala  Ves,  a  large  house 
belonging  to  Prince  Lyubomirski.  Russian  officers  maintained  a 
desperate  secrecy  regarding  Plehve's  new  task,  but  my  servant, 
Maxim,  heard  from  a  gendarme  that  he  had  gone  to  form  a  new 
1 2th  Army.  I  gathered  from  a  Serb  officer  that  this  army  was 
intended  to  operate  in  the  direction  of  and  beyond  Mlava,  the 
infantry  being  used  as  a  mobile  base  to  support  a  large  force  of 
cavalry  sent  forward  to  raid  in  East  Prussia.  There  was  very 
evidently  '  nothing  doing '  in  the  5th  Army,  so  I  returned  to 
Warsaw  on  the  following  day,  in  order  to  try  to  arrange  to  be 
attached  to  Plehve. 

I  found  him  and  Miller  in  a  train  at  Warsaw  station.  They 
said  they  would  be  delighted  to  take  me  if  I  got  permission  from 
G.H.Q.  I  therefore  telegraphed  to  General  Danilov,  the  General 
Quartermaster  at  G.H.Q.  :  "  I  ask  for  permission  to  go  for  a 
time  to  the  Staff  of  the  I2th  Army."  On  the  2Qth  came  the 


January -March,  1915  235 

reply  :  The  granting  of  your  request  is  at  present  impossible." 
I  had  made  a  blunder,  but  how  was  I  to  tell  that  the  formation 
of  a  new  army,  which  was  common  property  in  Warsaw  and  at 
Petrograd,  was  regarded  as  a  secret  in  the  fir-woods  at  Bara- 
novichi ?  I  heard  later  that  the  innocent  Staff  of  the  5th  Army 
was  reprimanded  for  having  given  the  matter  away  !  Meanwhile 
I  decided  to  return  to  the  Guard,  and  rejoined  it  on  February  6th, 
when  its  Staff  reached  Warsaw. 

General  Oranovski,  who  had  been  Chief  of  the  Staff  of  the 
North-West  Front  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  was  now 
appointed  to  command  a  cavalry  corps  in  the  I2th  Army.  He  was 
succeeded  on  General  Ruzski's  Staff  by  General  Gulevich,  who  had 
been  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  Petrograd  Military  District  before  the 
war  and  since  mobilisation  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  gth  Army.  Gule- 
vich was  very  clever  and  a  man  of  charming  manners,  but  lazy — 
in  fact,  "  a  gross,  fat  man,"  who  had  put  on  much  flesh  since  the 
war  started,  for  he  "  rested  "  in  bed  daily  from  2  to  5  p.m.  and 
never  took  any  exercise.  It  is  said  that  he  was  present  when  the 
telegram  informing  him  of  his  new  appointment  was  deciphered. 
Russians  use  the  same  word  for  "  chief  "  in  "  chief  of  the  staff  ' 
and  for  '  commander '  in,  for  instance,  '  commander  of  a 
division."  When  the  words  "  Gulevich  is  appointed  Comman- 
der "  were  deciphered,  he  held  his  head  with  his  hands  in  despair, 
for  he  had  a  horror  of  the  comparatively  active  life  he  would 
have  been  forced  to  lead  as  the  commander  of  a  division.  He  was 
greatly  relieved  when  the  context  revealed  the  nature  of  his  new 
appointment,  and  at  once  gave  orders  for  a  thanksgiving  service. 
My  cynical  informant  added  that  few  officers  attended  this  service, 
for  they  had  all  rushed  off  to  scribble  memoranda  for  the  General's 
guidance  of  the  honours  and  rewards  they  wished  to  receive. 

The  German  Command  was  now  about  to  launch  its  offensive 
against  the  Russian  loth  Army  in  East  Prussia.  This  was 
prepared  by  preliminary  attacks.  First  there  was  severe  fighting 
in  the  Carpathians,  and  it  was  for  some  time  thought  that  the 
m  ain  enemy  offensive  was  there. 

The  Russian  forces  on  the  South- West  Front  at  this  time  were 


236        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

distributed — from  right  to  left  in  five  armies,  4th,  gth,  3rd,  8th 
and  nth. 

From  the  middle  Pilitsa  to  Gorlice  along  the  front  of  the  4th, 
9th  and  3rd  Armies  things  were  comparatively  quiet. 

The  following  anecdote  came  from  the  4th  Army.  The 
Commander,  General  Ewarth,  had  been  ordered  by  General  Ivanov 
to  retire  from  the  Pilitsa  if  the  river  froze.  Ewarth  sent  a  party 
of  sappers  to  destroy  a  long  dam  which  made  freezing  more 
probable.  This  party  was  at  work  at  night  preparing  the  lodge- 
ments for  the  explosives  when  it  was  alarmed  by  suspicious  noises 
on  the  opposite  bank.  Tools  were  thrown  down  and  rifles  seized, 
but  reconnaissance  revealed  the  fact  that  the  enemy  was  at  the 
same  game.  Apparently  they  lived  in  terror  of  a  Russian  advance 
in  this  sector^  of  the  front,  and  also  wished  to  prevent  the  Pilitsa 
from  freezing.  It  is  said  that  both  sides  blew  up  sections  after  dawn. 
So  the  Pilitsa  did  not  freeze  and  both  Generals  slept  in  peace. 

The  8th  Army  had  assumed  an  offensive  and  gained  some 
success  on  the  line  of  the  Dukla  and  Mezo-Laborcz  Passes.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  enemy's  forces  attacking  the  detachments 
of  the  nth  Army  which  held  the  debouches  from  the  Uzsok, 
Munkacs  and  Yasinya  Passes  considerably  outnumbered  the 
columns  of  Generals  Ecke,  Alftan  and  Webel,  and  caused  them 
to  give  ground.  Two  divisions  of  the  7th  Army  from  Odessa 
which  were  to  have  carried  out  the  "  invasion  of  Transylvania  ' 
had  also  been  forced  back. 

To  this  section  from  Uzsok  to  Kirlebaba  Hindenburg  sent 
reinforcements  from  his  centre  in  Trans- Vistula  Poland.  The 
Russians,  foreseeing  the  danger,  despatched  the  XXI Ind  Corps 
from  the  loth  Army,  and  this  corps  passed  through  Lvov  to  join 
the  8th  Army  at  the  beginning  of  February.  The  transfer  was 
supposed  to  be  kept  a  secret,  but  the  men  of  the  corps  on  arrival 
in  the  Carpathians  found  placards  in  the  German  trenches 
inscribed  :  "  Welcome  to  the  XXIInd  Corps." 

The  XXIInd  Corps  was  followed  by  the  XVth,  originally 
intended  to  form  part  of  the  new  I2th  Army,  and  soon  to  return 
to  the  North- West  Front  to  join  the  loth  Army. 

Including   the    XXIInd   Corps,    but   excluding   the   Army 


January -March,  1915  237 

blockading  Przemysl,  the  Russians  had  forty-five  divisions  on  the 
whole  front  from  Pilitsa  to  the  frontier  of  Rumania,  and  were 
opposed  by,  it  was  calculated,  fifty-two  enemy  divisions,  including 
about  eight  and  a  half  German. 

Strong  German  reconnaissances  west  of  Warsaw  on  January 
agth  and  30th  developed  on  the  following  three  days  into  a  real 
attack  on  a  ten-verst  front  at  the  junction  of  the  ist  and  2nd 
Armies.  The  Germans  collected  400  guns  and  attacked  in  dense 
columns — seven  divisions  on  a  front  of  six  and  two-thirds  miles. 
The  attack  was  prepared  by  the  use  of  gas,  and  the  Russians  were 
at  first  forced  back,  but  they  counter-attacked  at  dawn  on 
February  3rd  and  won  back  all  the  ground  previously  lost.  The 
Russian  losses,  mainly  in  the  counter-attack,  were  estimated  at 
40,000,  chiefly  in  the  Ist  Siberian  and  Vlth  Corps,  but  the 
German  losses  were  also  spoken  of  as  "  enormous  " — in  fact,  the 
battle  was  characterised  as  - "  a  regular  Borodino." 

Ludendorff  claims  that  this  attack  was  a  demonstration  in 
order  to  tie  down  the  Russian  ist  and  2nd  Armies.  If  this  is 
true,  the  demonstration  was  quite  unnecessary,  for  the  Russian 
Command  had  no  idea  of  the  danger  impending  in  East  Prussia. 

The  Guard  Corps  was  ordered  to  concentrate  at  Warsaw  on 
the  night  of  February  8th.  The  following  night  it  was  handed 
over  to  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  North- West  Front,  and 
by  him  ordered  to  entrain  for  Lomja. 

The  official  communique  of  February  nth  stated  :  "  The 
concentration  of  very  considerable  German  forces  in  East  Prussia 
has  been  definitely  established.  They  are  taking  the  offensive 
principally  in  the  direction  of  Vilkovishki  and  Lyck.  The 
presence  of  new  formations  transported  from  Central  Germany  is 
noted.  Our  troops  are  retiring  fighting  from  the  Masurian  Lakes 
to  the  region  of  our  frontiers." 

The  Guard  commenced  entraining  at  6  p.m.  on  February  loth. 
By  noon  on  the  I4th  the  ist  Division  only  had  arrived  at  Lomja, 
twelve  versts  in  advance  of  the  point  of  detrainment.  The 
two  and  a  half  divisions  completed  their  concentration  at  Lomja 
by  the  night  of  the  i6th. 


238        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

I  motored  from  Warsaw  with  the  Staff  of  the  corps  on  the 
I3th.  Rodzianko  and  I  were  allotted  an  excellent  room  in  the 
Imperial  Bank.  This  room  had,  however,  been  the  nursery,  and 
the  director  of  the  bank  had  married  a  second  wife,  who,  un- 
fortunately for  us,  was  not  a  good  step-mother.  The  beds  were 
alive  with  bugs,  but  Rodzianko,  after  much  fussing,  got  the  beds 
of  the  director  and  his  wife,  which  were  clean.  The  personnel  of 
the  bank  had  left  for  Vladimir  on  the  Volga  in  the  first  days  of 
mobilisation,  but  though  Lomja  is  only  forty-five  versts  from  the 
frontier,  it  had  not  yet  been  touched  by  the  enemy. 

February  I4th  was  a  gloriously  sunny  day,  and  an  enemy  air- 
man flew  over  Lomj  a  and  dropped  a  few  bombs.  We  had  no  aero- 
planes, so  were  hopelessly  ignorant  of  the  situation  in  our  front 
and  even  in  the  loth  Army.  The  Corps  Commander  sent  a 
General  Staff  officer  to  Osovets  to  obtain  what  news  he  could,  and 
this  officer  returned  on  the  morning  of  the  i5th  with  some  account 
of  the  disaster  that  had  befallen  the  loth  Army.  His  story  as 
repeated  to  me  was  vague.  Gradually  something  like  the  truth 
filtered  out,  and  I  have  pieced  the  following  narrative  together 
from  extracts  from  my  Diary.1 

With  the  exception  of  a  small  detachment  north-east  of  Tilsit, 
the  loth  Army  in  Eastern  Prussia  occupied  on  February  7th  a 
long-drawn-out  line  from  west  of  Pillkallen,  by  east  of  Gumbinnen, 
east  of  Darkehmen,  east  of  Angerburg  and  east  of  Lotzen  to 
Nikolaiken. 

The  army  was  commanded  by  General  Sievers,  with  Baron 
Budberg  as  his  Chief  of  Staff.  The  Staff  was  at  Grodna. 

The  Illrd  Corps  (73rd  and  56th  Divisions)  lay  north-east  of 
Gumbinnen.  The  XXth  Corps  (27th,  29th,  53rd  and  28th 
Divisions)  east  of  Darkehmen,  the  XXVIth  Corps  (84th  and  64th 
Divisions)  east  of  Angerburg  and  Lotzen.  The  Illrd  Siberian 
Corps  (7th  Siberian  and  8th  Siberian  Divisions)  continued  the 
line  to  opposite  Nikolaiken.  The  57th  Division  was  detached  at 
Johannisburg. 

The  front  held  by  units  was  extended;  for  instance,  each 

i  See  Map  No.  VII, 


January-March,  1915  239 

division  of  the  Illrd  Corps  held  nineteen  versts  (twelve  and  two- 
thirds  miles)  The  position,  however,  had  been  prepared  for 
defence,  and  there  was  a  secondary  position  running  through 
Goldap. 

The  first  information  of  the  German  concentration  in  East 
Prussia  was  received  on  February  4th.  The  heavy  guns  from 
Osovets  which  had  been  moved  forward  to  bombard  Lotzen  were 
at  once  retired. 

On  February  7th  the  57th  Division  was  driven  back  from 
Johannisburg  by  a  force  estimated  at  one  and  a  half  corps.  It 
made  a  stand  at  Raigrod  and  suffered  heavily,  losing  its  guns. 
The  remnants  of  the  division  cut  their  way  through  with  the 
bayonet  to  Osovets. 

The  main  attack  by  Eichhorn's  German  loth  Army  com- 
menced on  the  afternoon  of  February  8th,  and  first  struck  the 
Illrd  Corps,  which  was  then  actually  carrying  out  an  extended 
outflanking  movement  with  the  object  of  turning  the  defences  of 
Gumbinnen  from  the  north  and  north-west.  The  Illrd  Corps 
retired  rapidly,  leaving  only  two  battalions  on  the  right  of  the 
XXth  Corps.  The  73rd  Division  lost  heavily — probably  all 
guns  and  transport — in  its  retreat  towards  Kovna.  The  pursuing 
Germans  captured  two  troop  trains  east  of  the  frontier  town  of 
Verjbolovo.  The  56th  Division  reached  Olita  comparatively 
unscathed. 

It  is  said  that  the  two  battalions  of  the  Illrd  Corps  retired 
without  warning  the  Commander  of  the  XXth  Corps.  It  is  at  all 
events  certain  that  this  corps  was  suddenly  and  unexpectedly 
fired  upon  from  the  rear. 

The  XXth,  XXVIth  and  Illrd  Siberian  Corps  retired  from 
the  line  Darkehmen-Nikolaiken  through  Suvalki  and  Avgustov, 
wheeling  to  their  right  in  the  retreat  to  the  general  line  Grodna- 
Dombrova.  The  Illrd  Siberian  Corps  was  protected  in  its  retreat 
by  the  lakes,  but  the  other  two  corps  suffered  severely  from  the 
superior  mobility  and  enterprise  of  the  Germans. 

It  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  XXth  Corps  to  cover  the  retirement 
through  the  Avgustov  woods.  While  the  remains  of  the  XXVIth 
and  Illrd  Siberian  Corps  had  cleared  the  wood  by  February  I5th, 


240        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

and  had  reached  the  line  Grodna-Dombrova  by  February  I7th, 
there  was  long  doubt  regarding  the  fate  of  the  XXth  Corps. 

The  great  mass  of  the  Germans — estimated  at  first  at  six 
corps,  but  later  at  three  and  a  half  corps — had  wheeled  to  the 
right  in  a  crushing  pursuit  of  the  Russian  corps,  throwing  mean- 
while cavalry  out  on  their  left  flank  towards  the  Nyeman. 

The  line  selected  for  the  retreat  of  Sievers'  Army  showed  how 
thoroughly  it  had  been  beaten.  Its  right  was  to  rest  on  the 
defences  of  the  fortress  of  Grodna  and  its  left  on  the  Bobr  marshes. 
Everything  was  withdrawn  from  the  120  versts  stretch  of  railway 
from  Vilna  to  Grodna,  with  the  exception  of  the  units  of  the  Illrd 
Corps  at  Olita. 

There  was  a  report  that  German  cavalry  was  passing  the 
Nyeman,  but  this  was  unconfirmed.  German  cavalry,  however, 
pursued  the  loth  Army  as  far  as  Lipsk,  north  of  Dombrova. 

The  27th  Division  and  three  regiments  of  the  53rd  Division, 
when  between  Goldap  and  Suvalki,  lost  touch  with  the  remainder 
of  the  Army.  They  fought  in  the  Avgustov  Forest  till  February 
22nd  and  then  surrendered,  all  their  ammunition  being  exhausted. 

A  German  news-sheet  captured  on  a  prisoner  on  March  6th 
estimated  the  enemy  booty  at  one  corps  commander,  two  division 
commanders  and  four  other  generals,  100,000  other  prisoners 
and  150  guns.  It  claimed  that  the  Russian  loth  Army  had  been 
"  annihilated."  Later  enemy  accounts  raised  the  estimate  to 
110,000  prisoners,  300  guns  and  200  machine-guns,  and  there  is 
no  reason  to  think  that  even  this  is  an  exaggeration. 

The  rapidity  of  retreat  of  the  Illrd  Corps  pointed  to  a  panic 
in  the  2nd  Line  divisions.  Yepanchin,  the  Commander,  was 
dismissed. 

The  German  offensive  was  carried  through  in  terrible  weather, 
violent  snowstorms  alternating  with  thaws  that  made  the  roads 
most  difficult.  It  was  said  that  the  Russian  columns  in  retreating 
trampled  down  the  snow  and  so  made  matters  easier  for  the 
pursuing  Germans.  Still,  the  enemy  must  have  had  great 
difficulty  in  feeding  his  guns  with  ammunition,  and  in  this  respect 
the  Russians  would  have  had  an  enormous  advantage  if  only  all 
their  troops  had  shown  fight.  Under  the  weather  conditions  the 


January -March,  1915  241 

German  advance  would  have  been  impossible  if  large  quantities 
of  Russian  food  supplies  had  not  been  captured. 

The  Russian  Command  can  have  had  no  prepared  scheme  for 
covering  the  retreat,  and  the  staff  work  must  have  been  execrable. 
This  was  the  worst  thing  since  Tannenburg.  General  Bezo- 
brazov  often  said  that  Russia  could  never  be  beaten  unless  her 
army  was  destroyed.  Here  we  had  lost  two  or  more  corps  and 
irreplaceable  guns  and  rifles. 

General  Sievers  and  his  Chief  of  Staff,  Baron  Budberg,  were 
replaced  by  General  Radkevich  from  the  XXVIth  Corps  with 
General  Popov  as  Chief  of  Staff. 

While  the  loth  Army  was  still  fighting  its  way  back,  the 
situation  further  west,  as  the  Guard  was  arriving  at  Lomja,  was 
as  follows  :  1 

Osovets  was  defended  by  Opolchenie  and  the  remains  of  the 
57th  Division,  soon  to  be  reinforced  by  a  regiment  of  the  Ilnd 
Corps. 

A  line  drawn  through  Shchuchin  and  Byelostok  separated  the 
left  of  the  loth  Army  from  the  right  of  the  12th  Army,  then 
beginning  to  concentrate. 

At  Vizna  the  passage  over  the  Narev  was  held  by  a  regiment 
of  the  ist  Caucasian  Rifle  Brigade,  which  was  detached  from  the 
Ilnd  Caucasian  Corps  and  had  detrained  on  January  I2th.  The 
other  three  regiments  with  their  two  mountain  batteries  had 
marched  north-west  to  Kolno. 

South-west  of  Kolno,  the  ist  Independent  Cavalry  Brigade 
under  General  Benderev,  a  Bulgarian  whom  I  had  known  before 
the  war,  held  an  extended  line  facing  north-west. 

The  5th  Rifle  Brigade  was  north  of  Ostrolenka,  and  further 
west  the  4th  Cavalry  Division  reconnoitred  as  far  as  the  River 
Or  jits. 

The  Ist  Turkistan  Corps  had  been  since  the  beginning  of 
December  in  occupation  of  an  extended  line  through  Prasnish 
and  Tsyekhanov,  blocking  the  approaches  from  Mlava.  On  its 
left  the  76th  Division  (XXVIIth  Corps)  in  the  neighbourhood  of 

1  See  Map  No.  IX. 

Q 


242        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Drobin  was  in  support  of  Erdeli's  cavalry  (i4th  Division  and  4th 
Don  Cossack  Division).  Further  south-west,  in  advance  of 
Plotsk,  Oranovski's  Cavalry  Corps  (i5th,  6th  and  8th  Divisions) 
supported  by  the  77th  Division  (XXVIIth  Corps),  was  in 
touch  with  the  enemy. 

Ludendorf  writes  of  the  "  Fortress  of  Lomja,"  and  all  German 
maps  show  fortresses  at  Lomja,  Ostrolenka  and  Rojan.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  permanent  works  at  these  places  were  valueless. 
Those  at  Lomja,  though  of  comparatively  recent  construction — 
1900-1903 — were  so  near  the  bridgehead  as  to  be  useless. 

During  the  war  fieldworks  had  been  constructed  along  the 
Narev  at  Ostrolenka,  Rojan  and  Pultusk.  Osovets  was  in  a 
strong  natural  position,  both  of  its  flanks  being  defended  by 
marshes,  and  Novo  Georgievsk  was  considered  a  first-class 
fortress. 

There  were  three  Opolchenie  brigades  on  the  line  of  the  Narev  ; 
the  8th  guarded  the  passages  at  Vizna  and  Lomja  ;  the  4th  Bri- 
gade was  at  Ostrolenka  and  Rojan ;  and  the  i8th  was  at  Pultusk 
and  Serotsk. 

The  staff  of  the  I2th  Army  moved  from  Naselsk  to  Ostrov  on 
February  I5th,  and  thence  to  Lomja  on  the  27th.  Its  task  was 
understood  to  be  to  cover  the  defences  of  the  Narev,  and  eventu- 
ally, when  force  permitted,  to  embark  on  a  decisive  offensive  in 
conjunction  with  the  loth  Army. 

On  the  1 5th  Plehve  issued  some  tactical  instructions  by 
telegram.  He  laid  down  that  in  the  operations  about  to  com- 
mence the  troops  were  on  no  account  to  be  scattered  in  small 
groups.  In  order  to  follow  with  their  own  eyes  the  course  of 
the  operations,  all  commanders,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  corps  commanders,  were  to  be  present  on  the  field  in  action 
instead  of  remaining  in  houses  where  the  situation  could 
only  be  judged  of  from  reports  and  maps.  Attacks  were  to  be 
carried  out  by  brigades  or  by  divisions.  Both  during  the  advance 
into  action  and  in  action  itself  the  echelon  formation  was  to  be 
made  frequent  use  of.  In  action  formations  in  depth  were 
recommended. 

A  defensive  position  was  selected  and  prepared  at  a  distance  of 


January -March,  1915  243 

twelve  versts  to  the  north-east  of  Lomja,  and  covering  the  ap- 
proaches from  Shchuchin  and  Kolno. 

The  IVth  Siberian  Corps  completed  its  concentration  at 
Ostrolenka  on  the  night  of  the  1/j.th.  The  ist  Guard  Infantry 
Division  occupied  Staviski  north-east  of  Lomja  with  an  advanced 
guard.  The  2nd  Guard  Infantry  Division  moved  forward  on  its 
right,  and  on  the  I7th  the  Guard  Rifle  Brigade  moved  into  billets 
in  reserve  south-west  of  the  ist  Division. 

No  news  of  importance  came  from  the  front.  The  enemy  was 
reported  to  have  only  small  stopping  detachments  of  the  three 
arms  blocking  roads  of  possible  advance  to  the  north  from  the 
Narev.  He  was  stated,  however,  to  be  throwing  troops  across  the 
Vistula  at  Plotsk  from  the  left  or  southern  to  the  right  or  northern 
bank. 

General  Khimets  with  the  Cavalry  School  Division  received 
orders  to  raid  into  East  Prussia,  but  after  expecting  great  things 
for  some  days,  we  were  told  that  he  "  could  not  find  a  way  through 
the  barbed  wire."  Eighteen  months  later  in  Bukovina  I  was 
given  another  account  of  this  "  raid  "  by  an  officer  who  had  taken 
part  in  it.  There  was  no  barbed  wire  whatsoever. 

Khimets  left  his  billets  at  Shumsk,  l  north-west  of  Prasnish, 
at  8  a.m.  on  February  I2th.  He  reached  Ednorojets  at  II  p.m., 
halted  there  two  hours  and  then  continued  his  advance  to  the 
north.  He  left  five  squadrons  of  Cossacks  at  Laz  to  cover  his 
retreat  and  crossed  the  frontier  east  of  Khorjele,  dispersing  a 
German  piquet.  He  arrived  at  Montvitz,  about  three  versts 
north  of  the  frontier,  at  8.30  a.m.  with  the  remainder  of  his  force, 
consisting  of  five  squadrons  of  Finland  Dragoons,  three  squadrons 
of  the  Cavalry  School  Regiment,  three  squadrons  of  Cossacks, 
four  guns  and  twelve  machine-guns. 

When  fired  on  from  trenches  south  of  Montvitz,  he  dismounted 
his  men,  called  up  his  guns  and  commenced  an  attack  according 
to  the  drill  book.  He  wasted  his  time  in  this  attack — though  he 
only  lost  seven  men — till  1.30  p.m.,  when  information  was 
received  that  the  enemy  had  moved  infantry  from  Khorjele  and 

1  See  Map.  No.  VIII. 


244        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Zarembe  to  cut  his  line  of  retreat.  He  cut  his  way  back  with  the 
loss  of  two  officers  and  forty-five  more  men  and  two  ammunition 
wagons  that  were  overturned. 

Khimets'  task  was  to  keep  moving,  and  he  deliberately 
wasted  five  hours ;  he  could  easily  have  ridden  round  Montvitz 
and  have  reached  Willenberg.  With  such  leaders  it  was  not 
surprising  that  with  all  our  mass  of  splendid  cavalry  we  were 
unable  to  cut  a  single  line  in  East  Prussia.  Of  course,  Erdeli 
and  Oranovski  were  in  a  cul-de-sac.  If  they  could  have  dis- 
engaged and  moved  north  they  might  have  effected  something. 

General  Bezobrazov  was  opposed  to  any  idea  of  an  advance 
into  East  Prussia.  He  said  to  me  on  February  i5th :  "I  call 
you  to  witness  that  I  say  it  is  folly  to  advance  into  East  Prussia 
unless  all  our  armies  are  moving  forward  simultaneously  on  all 
fronts." 

My  Diary  of  this  date  contains  the  following  : 

The  views  of  Bezobrazov  and  Nostitz  on  the  strategy 
of  the  campaign  are  amusingly  at  variance.  Bezobrazov 
holds  that  the  invasion  of  Silesia  is  an  absolute  necessity. 
Nostitz  is  strongly  of  opinion  that  we  should  never  have 
wandered  towards  Silesia,  but  should  have  placed  a  screen 
against  Austria  and  have  concentrated  all  our  strength 
against  East  Prussia.  "  The  taking  of  Konigsberg  would 
have  had  far  more  effect  than  the  taking  of  Przemysl."  He 
would  now,  if  he  were  Gommander-in-Chief ,  bring  Radko 
back  from  the  Dunajec  to  the  Wist  oca  and  would  transfer 
the  4th  Army  to  attack  the  Germans  in  the  Suvalki  Govern- 
ment. 

There  may  be  arguments  for  the  German  line  of  advance 
and  arguments  for  the  Austrian  line  of  attack,  but  there 
can  be  no  arguments  for  the  double  divergent  line.  The 
Russian  proverb  says  :  "If  you  pursue  two  hares  you 
won't  catch  either."  Of  course  it  is  the  fault  of  Ivanov 
and  Alexyeev  that  we  pursue  the  Austrian  hare  so  per- 
sistently ;  they  think  that  we  can  knock  the  Austrian 
army  definitely  out.  I  am  convinced  that  we  will  never  be 


January -March,  1915  245 

able  to  do  so  as  long  as  the  East  Prussian  salient  remains 
with  its  highly-developed  railway  system  on  our  right." 

On  February  i6th  orders  were  received  for  a  general  regroup- 
ment  of  the  troops  on  the  North- West  Front. l 

The  I2th  Army  (Plehve)  to  occupy  the  front  from  the  line 
Shchuchin-Byelostok  to  Rojan  on  the  Narev ;  the  ist  Army 
(Lit vino v)  from  Rojan  to  the  lower  Vistula. 

The  2nd  Army  (Smirnov)  and  the  5th  Army  (Ghurin)  to  divide 
the  front  from  the  lower  Vistula  to  the  Pilitsa. 

The  i2th  Army  was  to  contain  the  Guard  Corps,  IVth  Siberian 
Corps,  ist  Caucasian  Rifle  Brigade,  5th  Rifle  Brigade,  the  Guard 
Cossack  Cavalry  Brigade,  the  ist  Independent  Cavalry  Brigade, 
the  2nd  and  4th  Cavalry  Divisions,  in  all  five  and  a  half  infantry 
and  three  cavalry  divisions. 

The  ist  Army  was  to  include  the  XlXth  Corps,  which  com- 
menced crossing  to  the  right  bank  of  the  Vistula  at  Novo  Geor- 
gievsk  on  the  I7th,  the  XXVIIth  Corps  (63rd  and  76th  Divisions), 
the  Ist  Turkistan  Corps  (ist  and  3rd  Turkistan  Brigades,  nth 
Siberian  Division,  and  77th  Division),  the  Ussuri  Cavalry  Division, 
Khimets'  Cavalry  Division,  Erdeli's  Cavalry  Detachment  (i4th 
Division  and  4th  Don  Cossack  Division),  and  Oranovski's  Cavalry 
Corps  (6th,  8th  and  I5th  Cavalry  Divisions),  in  all  seven  infantry 
and  seven  cavalry  divisions. 

These  armies,  as  well  as  the  loth  Army,  then  straggling  back 
to  the  defences  of  Grodna,  were  to  be  reinforced  by  several  corps 
drawn  from  the  trans- Vistula  armies,  but  at  the  moment  there 
was  much  indecision  regarding  the  plan  of  operations.  I  learned 
later  that  G.H.Q.,  fearing  that  the  Germans  would  cross  the 
upper  Nyeman  and  cut  our  main  line  of  communications,  favoured 
the  transfer  of  reinforcements  to  the  area  east  of  Grodna,  while 
General  Ruzski  and  the  staff  of  the  North- West  Front  insisted  on 
the  adequacy  of  the  reinforcement  of  the  line  of  the  Narev. 

This  indecision  in  the  seats  of  the  mighty  naturally  caused 
confusion  in  humbler  spheres. 

At  lunch  on  the  i6th  Count  Nostitz  told  me  that  orders  had 

Map  No.  IX, 


246        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

been  received  on  the  previous  night  for  the  Guard  Corps  to 
advance,  its  place  at  Lomja  to  be  taken  by  the  IVth  Siberian 
Corps.  These  orders  had  been  almost  immediately  counter- 
manded and  General  Bezobrazov  had  been  summoned  to  Ostrov 
to  confer  with  Plehve.  He  left  at  i  p.m.  by  car. 

The  same  afternoon,  during  the  General's  absence  at  Ostrov, 
General  Benderev,  who  was  directing  the  operations  of  the  three 
Caucasian  rifle  regiments  at  Kolno  in  addition  to  commanding 
the  ist  Independent  Cavalry  Brigade,  telephoned  that  he  was 
being  attacked  by  superior  forces  and  asked  for  help.  Nostitz 
ordered  the  ist  Division  of  the  Guard  to  send  forward  one  regi- 
ment from  Staviski  towards  Kolno. 

The  General,  on  return  from  Ostrov,  told  me  that  the  Guard 
was  to  concentrate  at  Byelostok  by  road. 

It  was  evident  that  it  would  not  be  an  easy  operation  to 
withdraw  from  immediate  contact  with  the  enemy. 

Benderev  retired  from  Kolno  on  the  i6th  and  took  up  a  line 
further  south,  where  his  right  was  continued  by  the  Izmailovski 
and  Yegerski  Regiments,  with  the  Semenovski  Regiment  in 
echelon  on  the  left  of  the  Izmailovski,  and  the  Preobrajenski  Regi- 
ment in  echelon  at  Staviski  on  the  right  of  the  Yegerski. 

Diary  of  February  iyth : 

I  found  Nostitz  in  bed  this  morning  with  a  cold. 
He  got  up  later  for  lunch.  When  I  went  into  his  room 
strange  noises  were  issuing  from  his  bed,  and  at  first  I 
thought  that  he  was  seriously  ill,  but  soon  discovered  that 
it  was  only  his  gruntling  little  dog,  any  reference  to  which 
he  always  prefaces  with  the  remark :  "  J'adore  mon 
chien." 

Nostitz  was  studying  a  book  which  gave  the  compara- 
tive strength  of  the  British  and  German  navies,  and  I 
found  it  very  hard  to  make  him  take  an  interest  in  what  was 
going  on  around  us.  We  were  interrupted  by  a  staff  officer 
who  came  in  to  announce  that  the  commander  of  the 
Izmailovski  Regiment  had  been  wounded.  When  he 
retired,  we  once  more  resumed  our  discussion  on  the 


January -March,  1915  247 

strength  of  the  fleets.  Nostitz  said  that  finding  Russia 
in  alliance  with  Great  Britain — Russia  with  a  poor  puny 
fleet  and  Great  Britain  with  an  immense  one — made  him, 

** 

a  Russian,  feel  like  a  poor  provincial  gentleman  who  awoke 
one  day  to  the  realisation  of  the  possession  of  enormous 
wealth. 

Nostitz  is  a  very  interesting  character.  He  writes 
everything  to  his  wife.  Generally  he  is  writing  to  her,  but 
he  has  other  relaxations.  One  day  I  found  him  reading  a 
French  book,  Quelques  Pages  de  la  Vie  d'une  Diplomate  d 
Teheran.  This  when  the  guns  were  distinctly  audible. 
I  told  Engelhardt  that  I  was  glad  to  have  met  Nostitz, 
for  no  staff  officer  of  such  a  type  would  appear  in  any 
future  campaign.  He  said  :  '  And  thank  God  for  that." 

One  day  we  discussed  the  causes  of  war  and  the  best 
means  of  preventing  war  in  future.  Nostitz's  suggestion 
was  simple  and  I  doubt  if  the  united  wisdom  of  the  world's 
statesmen  will  ever  produce  anything  more  effective.  He 
said  that  immediately  following  a  declaration  of  war  the 
Prime  Ministers  and  Ministers  of  Foreign  Affairs  of  the  belli- 
gerent countries  should  be  compelled  to  join  the  army, 
"  not  staffs  but  infantry  regiments  at  the  front." 

He  is  a  very  kind-hearted  and  charming  man  of  the 
world,  as  well  as  a  man  of  wide  reading,  but  he  is  out  of 
place  as  Chief  of  Staff  of  a  Corps. 

The  Commander  of  the  Izmailovski  Regiment  was  shot 
in  the  left  elbow  and  right  hand  by  explosive  bullets  this 
morning,  and  his  left  arm  has  been  amputated.  It  is 
said  that  100  Germans  made  their  way  round  or  through 
the  line  of  piquets,  and  fired  through  the  window  of  the 
house  in  which  he  was  sleeping.  The  Grand  Duke  Kon- 
stantin  Konstantinovich  was  in  the  same  cottage.  The 
commander  sprang  to  his  feet  and  seized  a  stool  to  fling  at 
the  Germans.  It  looks  as  if  the  regiment  had  arrived  late 
last  night  and  had  not  troubled  to  put  out  piquets. 
Warfare  against  the  Austrians  is  a  bad  school. 


248        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

It  is  thought  that  the  troops  advancing  from  Kolno  and 
Shchuchin  against  our  ist  Division  and  the  Caucasian 
Rifles  are  a  division  of  the  XXth  Corps.  Another  division 
is  said  to  be  billeted  to-night  at  Shchuchin,  and  a  strong 
column  with  forty  heavy  guns  is  advancing  along  the  road 
from  Shchuchin  to  Osovets. 

The  2nd  Guard  Infantry  Division  and  the  Guard  Rifle 
Brigade  have  started  to  march  to  Byelostok. 

Bezobrazov  sent  off  a  galloper  to  order  the  G.O.G.  ist 
Division  to  retire  to  the  previously  prepared  position  north 
of  the  junction  of  the  Kolno  and  Shchuchin  roads.  This 
order  was  reported  by  wire  to  Plehve,  who  ordered  that 
the  ist  Division  was  not  to  retire  a  yard,  but  must  first 
drive  back  the  enemy  by  attacking  him  in  front  and 
flank  and  pursue  him ;  it  was  not  to  worry  about  being 
relieved,  as  the  enemy  had  first  to  be  driven  back. 

Rodzianko  raised  Cain  this  afternoon  when  in  the  course 
of  a  walk  we  came  on  a  long  line  of  carts  full  of  wounded, 
who  were  freezing  in  the  bitter  cold  while  they  waited  their 
turn  to  be  carried  into  hospital.  The  local  Jews  crowded 
round  with  gaping  curiosity,  but  it  did  not  occur  to  them 
till  we  suggested  it  that  they  might  help  by  fetching  tea 
and  bread.  R.  got  volunteers  to  help  to  carry,  but  the 
hospital  had  only  two  stretchers.  An  old  Polish  woman 
behaved  like  a  brick.  I  saw  her  crying  as  she  took  the 
shawl  from  her  head  to  wrap  round  a  wounded  man  who 
complained  of  the  cold.  Later  some  women  came  to 
volunteer  to  help,  and  girls  brought  cigarettes  and  apples 
to  the  men  in  the  hospital.  They  all  worked — Jew  and 
Gentile — when  shown  how  they  could  help.  After  all,  it 
would  be  a  poor  country  where  the  women  were  not  right 
at  heart !  Inside  the  hospital,  the  Government  Police 
Court,  all  was  being  done  that  was  possible.  The  men  were 
lying  crowded  but  on  clean  mattresses,  with  clean  blankets, 
and  the  rooms  were  well  heated. 

Later  in  the  Staff  R.  found  a  young  officer  by  way  of 


January -March,  1915 


249 


'  examining '  three  German  prisoners.  He  was  doing 
Engelhardt's  work  as  Corps  Intelligence  Officer  during  the 
latter's  absence  at  the  Imperial  Duma.  The  cross- 
examination,  which  should  be  carried  out  by  a  good 
German  scholar  with  a  barrister's  acuteness,  was,  as 
usual,  being  conducted  haphazard.  Bridge  was  in  pro- 
gress in  the  next  room  and  "  Dummy '  always  strolled 
in  and  tried  his  German  on  the  prisoner,  the  same  questions 
being  asked  many  times.  These  people  play  at  war.  As 
R.  said,  it  makes  one  furious — a  favourite  expression  of  his— 
to  think  of  the  poor  devils  in  the  hospitals  who  have  given 
their  all,  their  health  and  their  limbs,  for  their  country, 
while  the  cause  is  being  sacrificed  by  such  childishness  in 
rear. 

People  in  the  staff  are  nervous  to-night.  I  imagine 
Domanevski's  temper  is  proving  a  thorn  to  some  of  the 
junior  officers. 

Thursday,  February  iSth,  1915.  LOMJA. 

Bezobrazov  this  morning  quoted  :  "  Ordre,  contre- 
ordre,  desordre."  He  said  that  in  a  single  hour  he  had 
received  four  contradictory  orders  from  the  Staff  of  the 
Army.  He  thinks  this  is  not  so  much  the  fault  of  the 
Army  as  of  Danilov  at  G.H.Q. 

It  appears  that  at  eleven  last  night  Bezobrazov  replied 
to  Plehve  that  he  had  already  ordered  the  retirement  of 
the  ist  Guard  Division  on  the  prepared  position  at  Sipnevo, 
that  the  movement  was  actually  being  carried  out  and  that 
he  would  assume  full  responsibility  for  his  action.  A 
telegram  received  from  Plehve  at  i  a.m.  placed  the  troops 
between  the  Bobr  and  the  Pissa  under  Bezobrazov's  orders, 
and  directed  him  to  order  the  return  of  the  2nd  Guard 
Division  and  the  Guard  Rifle  Brigade  from  Byelostok  to 
Lomja.  The  position  at  Sipnevo  is  to  be  occupied 
merely  temporarily  as  a  preliminary  to  the  resumption  of 
the  offensive. 

The  unfortunate  2nd  Division  which  marched  fifty-two 


250        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

versts  yesterday  and  the  Rifle  Brigade,  which  covered 
forty-five,  are  to  retrace  their  steps  to-day. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  i8th,  Benderev  retired  still  further, 
but  an  attempt  to  turn  his  left  flank  was  forestalled  by  the  gth 
Siberian  Division,  which  crossed  at  Novogrod  and  relieved  the 
Caucasian  Brigade  on  the  night  of  the  i8th. 

The  2nd  Guard  Division  and  the  Guard  Rifle  Brigade  returned 
through  Lomja  on  the  morning  of  the  igth.  The  2nd  Division 
moved  north-east  to  near  Yedvabno,  while  the  Guard  Rifle 
Brigade  returned  to  its  former  billets  north  of  Lomja. 

General  Bezobrazov  prepared  to  carry  out  his  orders  to 
attack  on  the  morning  of  the  20th.  As  he  had  two  corps  cf  first- 
class  troops — the  IVth  Siberian  Corps  had  not  yet  been  actively 
engaged — it  was  hoped  that  he  would  punish  the  Germans,  whose 
strength  was  estimated  at  two  divisions  only. 

February  zoth,  1915.  LOMJA. 

Rodzianko  and  I  rode  at  9  a.m.  up  the  Shchuchin  road 
to  the  centre  of  our  front  to  see  the  attack.  Artillery  fire 
was  impossible  till  noon,  owing  to  the  mist. 

The  Corps  Orders  were  simple  and  to  the  point,  but 
their  issue  had  been  delayed  by  the  failure  of  the  9th 
Siberian  Division  to  report.  It  had  been  found  necessary 
to  send  a  General  Staff  officer  to  the  left  flank  to  see 
how  matters  stood,  and  this  officer  did  not  return  till 
late. 

A  copy  of  Corps  Orders  was  despatched  by  telegraph  at 
1.42  a.m.,  but  is  stated  by  the  divisional  staff  of  the  ist 
Division  to  have  been  received  only  at  3  a.m.  A  manu- 
script copy  was  sent,  not  by  an  officer  but  by  a  Cossack, 
whom  managed  to  lose  it  en  route  ! 

The  Divisional  Orders  are  dated  5  a.m.,  but  in  the  staff 
of  the  Preobrajenski  Regiment  I  was  told  that  they  were 
received  at  7.15  a.m.,  a  telephone  message  having  been 
received  earlier  to  send  an  officer  to  fetch  them. 

There  seems  to  be  a  good  deal  of  slackness  and  want  of 


January -March,  1915  251 

bundobust  here.  The  Divisional  Orders  go  straight  to  the 
regiment  and  not  to  a  brigade,  unless  the  brigade  has  a 
separate  task  assigned  to  it.  The  Russian  regiment  is 
equal  in  bayonets  to  the  British  infantry  brigade,  and  the 
adjutant  requires  time  to  write  his  orders.  In  this  case 
the  delay  was  of  no  importance  as  regards  the  ist  Guard 
Division,  as  that  Division  had  been  told  to  delay  its  advance 
pending  the  development  of  the  attack  of  the  2nd  Guard 
Division  on  its  right. 

In  the  Corps  Orders  the  general  idea  was  for  the  2nd 
Division  to  attack  the  enemy's  left  and  for  the  forward 
movement  then  to  be  taken  up  all  along  the  line.  The 
village  of  Yedvabno,  which  had  been  abandoned  somewhat 
hurriedly  by  the  Guard  Cossacks  on  the  previous  evening, 
was  the  2nd  Division's  first  objective.  As  the  cemetery 
in  this  village  was  found  to  be  "  strongly  fortified,"  the 
whole  advance  was  delayed  and  the  "  attack  "  came  to 
nothing.  It  seems  impossible  that  the  Germans  had  time 
to  render  this  place  impregnable  in  a  single  night.  The 
loss — ii  officers  and  360  men  in  the  Grenaderski  Regiment 
— should  not  have  frightened  the  G.O.G.  2nd  Division.  The 
Germans  will  use  to-night  to  dig  themselves  in,  if  not  to 
bring  up  reinforcements,  and  we  will  only  eventually  drive 
them  back  at  heavy  cost.  We  will  probably  repeat  here 
the  performance  of  Ivangorod,  i.e.,  the  enemy  will  play 
with  us  and  retire  when  he  thinks  good. 

I  managed  to  get  a  copy  of  the  orders  issued  by  the 
ist  Division.  The  front  of  the  Division  was  divided  into 
four  sections  of  the  following  strength,  each  section  being 
commanded  by  a  regiment  commander  : 

(1)  2  battalions,  8  guns,  i  section  of  sappers. 

(2)  4  battalions,  16  guns,  i  company  of  sappers. 

(3)  4  battalions,  16  guns,  half  company  of  sappers. 

(4)  2  battalions,  6  guns,  half  company  of  sappers. 
Each  section  commander  was  allotted  a  "  corridor,"  or 

zone,  in  which  to  advance. 

The  divisional  reserve  was  grouped  in  two  detachments 


252        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

respectively  four  and  two  versts  in  rear  of  the  right  and 
left  centre.  Each  regiment  retained  in  sectional  reserve 
about  25  per  cent,  of  its  strength. 

We  found  the  O.G.  Preobrajenski  Regiment  had  moved 
forward  to  an  artillery  observation  point  immediately  in 
rear  of  the  line  of  trenches.  This  point  was  linked  by 
telephone  with  the  regimental  headquarters  in  rear.  Regi- 
mental headquarters  were  linked  with  battalions,  and  each 
battalion  commander  was  linked  with  his  company  com- 
manders. 

The  Preobrajenski  Regiment  has,  however,  probably 
more  telephone  material  than  any  regiment  in  the  Russian 
army,  for  since  the  beginning  of  the  war  it  has  spent 
Rs. 8,600  (about  £800)  on  apparatus  out  of  regimental 
funds.  Instead  of  the  Government  allowance  of  nine 
instruments  and  ten  versts  (six  and  two-thirds  miles)  of 
line,  the  regiment  now  possesses  forty  instruments  and 
fifty-four  versts  (thirty-six  miles)  of  line. 

The  G.O.G.  gih  Siberian  Division  moved  his  right 
regiment  forward  at  4  p.m.  to  attack  the  village  of  Mali 
Plotsk.  He  was  driven  back,  losing  practically  two  whole 
battalions.  He  at  once  expended  his  whole  divisional 
reserve,  though  the  remaining  three  regiments  of  the 
division  had  hardly  been  under  fire.  The  Caucasian 
Brigade  has  been  sent  back  to  form  a  reserve  to  the 
Corps. 

The  situation  grew  uncomfortable  again.  We  had  hoped  for 
a  day  or  two  of  initiative,  but  the  attempt  at  attack  had  been  a 
miserable  failure.  The  General  had  long  conversations  with 
engineers  regarding  positions  for  passive  defence.  The  I2th 
Army  was  to  remain  on  its  present  line  for  over  five  months. 

On  the  2ist  a  new  German  brigade — Von  Einem's — was 
identified  on  our  right.  West  of  this  lay  in  succession  the  3rd 
Reserve  Division,  Jacobi's  Landwehr  Division  and  the  4ist 
Division  of  the  XXth  Corps. 

Domanevski  suggested  sending  two  regiments  of  our  general 


January -March,  1915  253 

reserve  to  attack  in  extension  of  our  right,  but  the  General  would 
not  hear  of  it. 

The  G.O.G.  gth  Siberian  Division  soon  exhausted  his  new  corps 
reserve,  the  Caucasian  Rifles,  and  telephoned  that  he  had  no 
general  reserve  and  was  in  a  "  difficult  position." 

On  the  23rd  the  General  told  me  that  both  our  flanks  were  in 
danger. 

The  shortage  of  shell  caused  anxiety.  The  recoil  mechanism 
of  the  guns  was  worn,  and  the  guns  did  not  make  as  good  shooting 
as  formerly.  The  infantry  suffered  from  want  of  proper  artillery 
support.  Officers  said :  '  Fighting  the  Germans  is  quite  a  different 
matter  from  fighting  the  Austrians.  The  German  shell  falls  right 
into  our  trenches,  and  there  is  an  extraordinary  amount  of  it." 

Though  the  enemy  in  the  Suvalki  Government  was  prevented, 
no  doubt  by  the  state  of  the  roads,  from  crossing  the  Nyeman,  he 
severely  defeated  an  attempt  of  the  loth  Army  to  advance  north 
on  the  2  ist. 

The  Russians  continually  transferred  troops  from  the  trans- 
Vistula  front  to  the  Narev,  while  the  enemy  moved  units  east  from 
Thorn.  On  February  23rd  it  was  calculated  that  there  were 
fifteen  German  corps  on  the  front  from  Thorn  to  Suvalki  opposed 
by  fifteen  Russian  corps  distributed  as  follows  : 

IST  ARMY.  I2TH  ARMY.  IOTH  ARMY. 

ist  Turkistan.  Guard.  Half  the  Illrd. 

XXVIIth.  IVth  Siberian.  Half  the  XXth. 

Ist  Siberian.  Ilnd  Siberian.  XXVIIth. 

XlXth.  Vth.  Illrd  Siberian. 

Illrd  Caucasian.  XVth. 

Guard  Rifle  Brigade.  Ilnd. 
ist  Caucasian  Rifle 
Brigade. 

On  the  24th  I  rode  with  Rodzianko  to  the  Headquarters  of 
the  2nd  Guard  Infantry  Division.  We  found  the  Staff  at  lunch 
and  anything  but  cheerful.  The  mess  was  in  a  miserable  hut  in 


254        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

a  miserable  village.  It  had  been  at  a  village  further  north  the 
day  before,  but  the  Germans  had  sent  over  thirty  heavy  shell, 
killing  men  and  horses  and  breaking  all  the  windows,  so  it  had 
moved  back.  The  division  occupied  fourteen  versts  of  front. 
The  enemy  was  firmly  settled  in  Yedvabno  cemetery,  and  our 
guns  were  said  to  be  unable  to  bombard  him  owing  to  the  nearness 
of  our  men. 

While  we  were  there,  Boldirev,  the  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  Divi- 
sion, returned  from  the  telephone.  He  said  that  the  Germans 
were  concentrating  north-west  of  Yedvabno  to  attack.  He  spoke 
of  the  Grenaderski  Regiment,  which  had  lost  half  its  strength,  and 
then  went  on  to  say :  "  I  have  an  unpleasant  piece  of  news  for 
you.  The  battery  wagons  which  went  to  fill  up  have  returned 
from  the  parks  empty,  as  they  were  refused  ammunition/1  He 
added :  "  We  can  fight  all  right,  but  not  without  shell."  The 
Divisional  Commander  said  quietly  :  "  You  have  just  to  tell  the 
artillery  to  use  shell  as  sparingly  as  possible." 

The  staff  of  the  Lomja  Group  was  even  more  anxious  about 
the  enemy's  pressure  down  the  Pissa  on  the  left  flank.  On  the 
morning  of  the  24th  they  only  got  to  bed  at  5  a.m.  The  Com- 
mander of  the  gth  Siberian  Division  twice  asked  for  the  support 
of  the  Guard  Rifle  Brigade.  Finally,  on  Bezobrazov's  recom- 
mendation, he  was  removed  from  his  command  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  Brigade  Commander. 

Some  relief  was  brought  by  the  arrival  of  the  Vth  Corps  at 
Lomja  and  Novogrod  on  the  25th  and  26th,  and  by  the  news  that 
it  was  to  be  followed  by  the  1st  Corps.  Still,  the  staff  of  the  I2th 
Army  considered  that  a  real  offensive  would  be  impossible  for 
some  six  weeks  pending  the  accumulation  of  shell. 

From  February  loth  till  the  25th  the  following  nine  corps 
had  been  transferred  to  the  Narev  front :  Guard,  XVth,  Hnd 
Siberian,  Vth,  Illrd  Caucasian,  XlXth,  1st  Siberian,  Ilnd,  1st. 
It  was  evident  that  our  difficulty  did  not  lie  in  lack  of  men. 

Diary  of  February  25th  : 

In  tactics  the  Germans  win  against  anything  like  equal 
numbers  if  the  Russians  have  not  time  to  entrench.    They 


February,  1915.     North  of  Lomja.     Second  line  defences,. 


[See  page  252 


February,  1915.     N.E.  of  Lomja.     Peasant  women  at  work  on  a  position. 

ifi.ice  page  254]  [See  page  252 


_  T-      ~^-** 


March,  1915.    Novogrod,  North  Poland.    Bridging  under  difficulties. 

[See  page  254 


16th  March,  1915.  N.E.  of  Lomja.  After  lunch  at  Headquarters  of  the  2nd 
Division  of  the  Guard.  Three  figures  on  left :  General  Potocki,  General  Bezobrazov, 
Colonel  Boldirev. 

[See  page  261 


January -March,  1915  255 

manoeuvre  more  boldly  and  are  not  nervous  about  their 
flanks,  having  a  wonderful  mutual  trust  in  the  command. 
The  Russians  have  less  idea  of  manoeuvre.  Units  do  not 
trust  one  another,  and  each  is  constantly  nervous  regarding 
its  flanks.  This  prevents  all  dash  and  initiative.  Every 
commander  expects  to  be  let  down  by  his  neighbour,  and  of 
course  consequently  generally  is.  The  Russians  suffer 
from  the  lack  of  shell,  of  heavy  artillery  and  of  machine- 
guns.  It  is  believed  that  the  Germans  have  four  machine- 
guns  per  battalion,  and  they  do  not  spare  shell.  They  use 
their  machine-guns  to  form  pivots  for  manoeuvre,  keeping 
up  a  deadly  fire  in  front  from  a  group  of  machine-guns 
while  the  infantry  works  round  one  or  both  flanks.  The 
number  of  these  machine-guns  makes  the  capture  of  a 
trench  once  lost  a  very  costly  business. 

I  heard  of  a  battery  commander  to-day  who  was  told 
that  he  would  be  court-martialled  if  he  fired  more  than 
three  rounds  per  gun  per  diem  without  special  orders. 

On  the  27th  I  saw  some  of  the  men  of  the  7th  Division  of  the 
Vth  Corps  as  they  went  forward  to  relieve  the  gth  Siberian  Divi- 
sion. They  made  a  bad  impression.  Most  of  them  seemed 
listless,  of  brutally  stupid  type,  of  poor  physique  and  stamina. 

Plehve  and  the  Staff  of  the  I2th  Army  arrived  at  Lomja  from 
Ostrov  on  the  27th.  Orders  were  received  for  an  attack  on 
March  2nd,  the  plan  being  to  send  the  1st  Corps  forward  up  the  right 
bank  of  the  Bobr  to  turn  the  German  left,  and  gradually  to  wheel 
him  out  of  his  fortified  positions. 

The  march  of  the  1st  Corps  through  Lomj  a  on  the  28th  was  not 
an  inspiriting  spectacle.  The  men  crowded  all  over  the  pave- 
ments, and  the  officers  rode  or  else  slouched  along  without 
making  any  attempt  to  enforce  march  discipline.  The  corps  had 
only  three-battalion  regiments  and  only  about  twenty  officers 
per  regiment.  The  bulk  of  the  men  had  never  been  under  fire, 
and  they  looked  quite  untrained. 

It  was  arranged  for  the  22nd  Division  of  this  Corps  to  relieve 
two  regiments  of  the  2nd  Division  of  the  Guard  on  our  extreme 


256        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

right,  north  of  Vizna,  permitting  these  regiments  to  move  into 
reserve  in  rear  of  their  Division.  The  22nd  Division  reached  its 
appointed  position  on  March  ist.  The  other  division  of  the  1st 
Corps,  the  24th,  formed  a  general  reserve  at  the  disposition  of  the 
Army  Commander. 

The  Guard  Corps  had  the  whole  eight  battalions  of  the  Guard 
Rifle  Brigade  in  reserve.  Six  regiments  of  the  Illrd  Caucasian 
Corps — the  other  two  regiments  had  been  sent  to  Osovets — were 
due  to  arrive  at  Vizna  on  the  evening  of  March  2nd.  Even  with- 
out the  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps,  the  Russians  had  seven  divisions 
and  a  brigade  of  cavalry  on  a  front  of  forty  versts  (twenty-seven 
miles).  Unfortunately  the  enemy  had  been  allowed  far  too  long 
to  entrench,  and  we  had  only  three  heavy  batteries. 

Bezobrazov  told  me  that  his  plan  was  to  hold  back  the  front 
till  the  Ist  Corps  had  turned  the  enemy's  flank,  while  Plehve 
wanted  a  frontal  attack  to  be  combined  with  the  flank  attack. 

The  question  as  to  whether  the  attack  should  be  carried  out 
with  the  existing  inadequate  supplies  of  shell  or  postponed  till 
more  shell  had  been  accumulated  depended  very  much  on  the  risk 
of  the  fall  of  Osovets  in  the  event  of  the  adoption  of  the  latter 
alternative.  Bezobrazov  considered  that  the  fortress  was  un- 
takeable  from  the  north,  and  that  if  a  thaw  set  in  it  would  be 
impossible  to  attack  it  on  any  other  face.  The  Commandant  of 
the  fortress  reported  that  the  enemy  had  fired  25,000  to  30,000 
shell  in  the  three  days  25th  to  27th,  with  only  trifling  result,  but 
that  the  i6|"  guns  commenced  firing  on  the  28th  and  "  shook 
the  cement  in  the  defences/'  Junior  officers,  however,  said  that 
the  Commandant  was  only  "  playing  up  for  the  Cross  of  St. 
George." 

Some  of  the  Staff  of  the  Guard  Corps  thought  that  the  enemy 
would  retire  rapidly  if  only  attacked  before  the  arrival  of  rein- 
forcements which  he  was  believed  to  be  transferring  from  the 
Nyeman  front. 

The  first  attack  was  made  by  the  22nd  Division  without 
proper  artillery  preparation  on  the  night  of  March  2nd  on  a  six- 
verst  front  west  of  the  Bobr.  It  was  repulsed. 

The  other  division — the  24th — attacked  on  the  following  night. 


January -March,  1915  257 

It  took  two  villages,  but  most  of  the  officers  were  either  killed  or 
wounded  in  the  assault,  and  the  men,  left  without  leaders,  like  the 
children  they  are,  scattered  to  loot  the  German  officers'  mess  and 
to  catch  stray  transport  horses.  The  ground,  too,  was  frozen  to 
a  depth  of  two  feet,  and  rapid  entrenching  was  out  of  the  question. 
The  Germans  counter-attacked  and  drove  the  Russians  back. 

The  following  night  the  remains  of  the  two  divisions,  supported 
>y  a  brigade  of  the  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps,  attacked  a  third  time, 
>ut  again  without  success. 

The  losses  in  the  three  days'  fighting  were  reported  to  be : 
[st  Corps,  16,000  ;  Guard  Corps,  5,000. 

Plehve  was  much  blamed  for  making  these  attacks  piecemeal. 
Bezobrazov  raged.  He  told  me  he  had  written  to  the  Grand  Duke 
to  complain  of  Plehve's  "  obstinate  waste  of  life." 

The  1st  Corps,  having  lost  about  55  per  cent,  of  its  strength, 
was  relieved  in  front  line  by  the  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps.  Of  the 
Guard,  the  Finlandski,  Grenadierski  and  Semenovski  Regiments 
suffered  most,  the  first-named  being  reduced  to  a  single  battalion. 
The  Guard  had  now  a  front  of  twenty-two  versts,  which  was 
considered  too  wide  to  attack  on.  Our  reserves  had  melted. 
Plehve  had  now  only  the  remains  of  the  badly-shattered  1st 
Corps,  and  Bezobrazov  had  only  two  regiments  of  the  Guard  Rifle 
Brigade. 

Two  armoured  cars  supplied  by  Messrs.  Austin  suffered 
severely  in  one  of  the  attacks  of  the  1st  Corps. 

They  advanced  up  a  poor  road  north-east  of  Vizna,  the  engines 
leading.  There  were  three  officers  and  seven  men  in  the  two 
cars,  and  out  of  the  total  of  ten,  seven  were  killed  or  wounded. 
The  armoured  plating,  which  had  been  supplied  by  Vickers  of  a 
specified  thickness,  was  considered  after  delivery  in  Russia  to 
be  too  thin,  and  was  replaced  by  other  plating  made  at  the  Putilov 
Works.  These  latter  plates  were  badly  fitted  between  the  bonnet 
and  the  screen,  and  a  bullet  penetrating  the  brass  hinge  in  the 
interval  between  the  plates  killed  one  driver.  The  officer  who 
took  his  place  was  instantly  killed  by  another  bullet.  In  the  other 
car  the  driver  was  killed  by  a  bullet  which  came  through  the 
window.  These  were  the  only  three  men  with  any  knowledge  of 

R 


258        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

driving,  so  the  two  cars  had  to  remain  where  they  were  till  dusk, 
when  one  of  the  surviving  officers  ran  back  and  got  a  squad  of 
infantry  to  pull  them  back  to  safety. 

In  the  latter  part  of  February  the  1st  Army  was  engaged  in 
some  interesting  operations  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Prasnish,1 
where  the  Germans  displayed  their  usual  daring  in  an  attempt  to 
repeat  the  manoeuvre  of  Lodz. 

The  63rd  Division  in  occupation  of  Prasnish  was  engaged 
with  the  enemy  in  its  front  when  its  right  was  turned  on  Feb- 
ruary 22nd  by  Sommer's  Landwehr  Division,  which  had  arrived 
from  Mishinets,  and,  followed  by  the  1st  Reserve  Corps,  pene- 
trated south  between  Prasnish  and  the  river  Orjits. 

On  the  following  day  the  enemy  continued  his  advance  to  the 
south,  severing  the  communications  of  the  63rd  Division  by 
cutting  the  Prasnish-Makov  chaussee. 

The  Russian  Command  took  prompt  counter-measures.  The 
Ilnd  Siberian  Corps,  which  had  detrained  at  Ostrov,  reached 
Krasnoselts  on  the  night  of  the  23rd  and  commenced  crossing  to 
the  right  bank  of  the  Orjits  on  the  24th.  On  the  same  day  the  1st 
Siberian  Corps  advanced  north  from  Pultusk. 

The  enemy's  penetrating  column  was  soon  attacked  on  all 
sides,  the  I2th  Army  co-operating  finely  with  the  ist.  Savich 
with  the  loth  Siberian  Division  and  the  5th  Rifle  Brigade  cut  the 
Mishinets-Prasnish  road.  Further  west,  Vannovski,  with  the  4th 
Cavalry  Division,  advanced  north  between  the  Ormulev  and  the 
Orjits  to  cut  the  enemy's  line  of  retreat.  The  Ilnd  Siberian 
Corps,  having  crossed  the  Orjits,  moved  west  on  Prasnish.  The 
enemy's  further  progress  south  was  barred  by  the  Ist  Siberian 
Corps,  while  he  was  attacked  from  the  south-west  by  the  ist 
Turkistan  Brigade  and  the  38th  Division  of  the  XlXth  Corps. 
On  the  26th  the  German  column  was  reported  to  be  fighting  to  get 
out,  and  it  seemed  that  we  were  about  to  make  large  captures  of 
prisoners.  In  the  event,  however,  the  63rd  Division  gave  way, 
and  the  bulk  of  the  Germans  escaped  to  the  north,  taking  six 
battalions  and  all  the  artillery  of  the  Division  with  them.  The 

1  See  Map  No.  VIII. 


January -March,  1915  259 

Ilnd  Siberian  Corps  then  retook  the  town  of  Prasnish,  capturing 
3,600  prisoners  and  eight  guns. 

On  my  way  to  Warsaw  on  March  2nd  I  passed  these  prisoners, 
fine  strapping  men,  well  enough  clothed  and  nourished,  and 
contrasting  very  favourably  with  the  men  I  had  seen  lately  in 
the  Russian  1st  and  Vth  Corps. 

On  March  5th  at  Lomja  we  received  the  first  news  of  the  bom- 
bardment of  the  Dardanelles.  My  Diary  contains  the  following : 

Nostitz  is  in  great  excitement  over  the  first  news  of  our 
bombardment  of  the  Dardanelles.  The  news  came  in  just 
before  dinner  to-night.  He  kept  on  asking  me  whether  I 
thought  we  would  be  at  Constantinople  this  week.  He  says 
Constantinople  is  doomed.  He  made  two  speeches  at 
dinner,  drinking  to  the  health  of  "  the  glorious  British 
army  and  fleet."  Bezobrazov  was  very  angry  with  him 
for  "  making  a  fool  of  himself."  Of  course,  I  have  been 
told  nothing  about  this  attempt  on  the  Dardanelles,  but  I 
think  it  is  a  much  more  serious  operation  than  Nostitz 
imagines,  and  it  will  be  very  difficult  without  the  co- 
operation of  a  Russian  landing  from  the  north. 

While  I  was  visiting  the  1st  Guard  Infantry  Division  on 
March  7th  the  Germans  commenced  an  artillery  bombardment. 
It  was  cruel  to  see  our  batteries  standing  idle  and  helpless  while 
the  enemy  threw  some  1,200  heavy  shell  into  our  trenches.  At 
length  our  couple  of  4-2"  guns  opened  and  fired  about  thirty 
rounds,  but  their  efforts  had  naturally  not  the  slightest  effect  on 
the  enemy  batteries. 

On  our  way  back  we  called  on  the  Staff  of  the  division.  The 
prevailing  spirit  was  pessimistic.  The  Captain  of  the  General 
Staff  said  that  it  was  "  heavy  work  "  on  the  North- West  Front, 
and  that  few  of  us  would  "  return  alive." 

The  Germans  having  retired  from  in  front  of  the  loth  Army, 
Radkevich  advanced  and  at  first  made  good  progress,  the  XXVIth 
and  Illrd  Siberian  Corps  reaching  a  line  south  of  Avgustov  by 
March  8th.  His  Army  consisted,  however,  of  four  weak  corps 


260        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

only,  and,  to  make  matters  worse,  his  advance  was  carried  out 
eccentrically  on  a  front  of  100  versts.  A  German  counter-attack 
very  soon  drove  the  loth  Army  back  to  the  comparative  security 
of  the  Grodna  defences. 

On  March  gth  Bezobrazov  told  me  that  the  Guard  had  lost 
10,173  officers  and  men  in  the  fighting  of  the  previous  three 
weeks,  and  he  estimated  the  total  losses  north  of  Lomja  in  that 
period  at  o  ver  35,000.  Once  more  he  blamed  Plehve  very  strongly 
for  dashing  troops  against  the  German  trenches  in  frontal  attacks 
without  proper  artillery  preparation. 

The  enemy  forces  which  had  been  driven  back  from  Prasnish 
did  not  rest  long,  and  on  March  gth  they  were  reported  to  be 
once  more  advancing,  this  time  down  both  banks  of  the  Or  jits  in 
the  general  direction  of  the  line  Prasnish-Ostrolenka. x 

They,  as  usual,  struck  at  the  point  of  junction  of  the  two 
armies.  Their  projects  were  once  more  defeated  by  the  efficient 
co-operation  of  the  two  Russian  staffs. 

On  the  night  of  March  loth,  the  G.O.C .  ist  Army  ordered  : 

The  Ilnd  Siberian  Corps,  with  the  Ist  Siberian  Corps  on  its  left, 
to  defend  the  northern  approaches  to  Prasnish.  Further  south- 
west, the  Ist  Turkistan  Corps  to  continue  the  line  facing  north. 
The  XlXth  Corps  to  concentrate  south-east  and  south  of  Pras- 
nish. Oranovski's  Cavalry  Corps  (three  and  a  half  divisions)  to 
maintain  touch  between  the  right  of  the  ist  Army  and  the  left 
of  the  I2th  Army. 

The  G.O.C.  I2th  Army  ordered  : 

The  4th  Cavalry  Division  to  oppose  and  delay  the  enemy's 
advance  down  the  left  bank  of  the  Orjits.  The  XXIIIrd  Corps 
to  advance  from  Ostrolenka  on  the  morning  of  the  nth  to 
Krasnoselts  in  order  to  attack  the  enemy's  left  flank  if  he  should 
attempt  to  turn  the  right  of  the  ist  Army.  The  Illrd  Caucasian 
Corps  to  relieve  the  Qth  Siberian  Division  and  the  left  units 
of  the  Guard  the  same  night.  The  gth  Siberian  Division 
to  rejoin  its  other  division,  the  loth,  which  had  lost  two  bat- 
talions on  March  Qth  in  an  attack  by  the  Germans  north  of 

1  See  Map  No.-  IX. 


January -March,  1915  261 

Kadzilo.  The  Vth  Corps,  with  the  units  attached — the  3rd 
Turkistan  Rifle  Brigade,  2nd  Cavalry  Division  and  ist  Indepen- 
dent Cavalry  Brigade — to  persevere  in  the  task  already  ordered, 
i.e.,  to  move  north  with  a  view  to  turning  the  right  flank  of  the 
enemy  operating  from  the  north  against  Lomja. 

The  Germans  advanced  cautiously,  and  the  Siberian  and 
Turkistan  Corps  retired  slowly  to  allow  time  for  the  arrival  of 
enforcements.  By  the  I3th  a  general  battle  was  in  progress  on 
oth  banks  of  the  Orjits.  The  Russians  took  the  offensive,  the 
XlXth  Corps  advancing  north  on  the  right  of  the  Ilnd  Siberian 
Corps.  The  XXIIIrd  Corps  crossed  the  Orjits  at  Ednorojets 
(twenty  versts  north  of  Krasnoselts),  and  attacked  the  enemy's 
left.  The  XVth  Corps,  which  had  been  transferred  from  the 
loth  Army,  moved  north  from  Ostrolenka  between  the  Ormulev 
and  the  Orjits  to  protect  the  right  flank  of  the  XXIIIrd  Corps. 
On  the  i6th  the  tired-out  Ilnd  Siberian  Corps  was  relieved  in 
first  line  by  the  Ilnd  Caucasian  Corps. 

All  danger  was  now  passed,  but  severe  fighting  continued  for 
some  days,  the  Russians  taking  prisoners  and  guns,  but  losing 
heavily  in  wading  through  marshes  to  attack  villages  defended 
by  machine-guns. 

Diary,  March  i6th,  1915  : 

To-day  General  Bezobrazov  took  me  in  an  automobile 
to  see  two  regiments  of  the  2nd  Division,  or  as  much  of 
them  as  it  was  possible  to  see  without  going  to  the  trenches. 
He  always  makes  a  habit  of  going  to  thank  units  that  have 
suffered  severely,  with  the  idea  of  "  bucking  them  up." 

We  started  at  9  a.m.,  the  General  and  I  in  a  limousine, 
Rodzianko  following  in  an  open  car  with  the  A.D.O.  on  duty. 
It  was  bitterly  cold.  Twelve  degrees  of  frost  Reaumur. 

We  drove  to  the  Headquarters  of  the  2nd  Division  and 
started  riding  from  there,  or,  rather,  the  others  rode  and  I 
walked  most  of  the  way,  for  the  wind  seemed  to  cut  my 
hands  and  feet  nearly  off.  We  saw  the  remnant  of  the 
Finlandski  Regiment — one  battalion — and  the  Pavlovski 
Regiment  and  a  battery,  and  then  returned  to  lunch  with 


262        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

General  Potocki.  After  lunch  we  visited  another  battery. 
Then  we  saw  a  battalion  of  the  Moskovski  Regiment,  which 
is  in  reserve,  and  the  officers  invited  us  into  their  dug-out 
to  take  tea. 

Each  unit  was  drawn  up  in  line,  and  the  General,  after 
greeting  the  men,  thanked  them  in  the  name  of  the 
Emperor  and  the  country  for  their  gallant  services,  and 
added  he  was  sure  they  would  continue  to  gather  fresh 
laurels  for  the  good  name  of  their  corps. 

It  was  touching  to  see  how  the  men  were  moved  by  his 
simple  words  of  praise.  They  are  evidently  very  fond  of 
both  Bezobrazov  and  Potocki,  the  Division  Commander. 
The  latter  leaned  over  and  chucked  men  here  and  there 
under  the  chin  as  he  rode  along.  "  Pauvres  gens,"  Bezo- 
brazov said  to  me  as  we  drove  away,  "  ils  sont  pr£ts  a 
donner  leur  vie  pour  un  sourire." 

Each  place  we  stopped  at  the  General  gave  a  little  lecture 
to  the  officers  explanatory  of  the  general  situation,  of  which 
people  in  the  trenches  are  very  ignorant,  owing  to  the 
poorness  of  the  Russian  papers  and  the  time  they  require 
to  reach  the  front.  Here,  again,  I  was  much  struck  by 
the  wonderful  simplicity  of  the  Russian  officers  as  well  as 
of  the  men.  When  we  were  in  the  underground  hut  of  the 
Moskovski  Regiment,  the  conversation  ran  on  the  tactics  of 
the  Germans  and  how  best  to  circumvent  them.  The 
General  discussed  the  possibility  of  a  break  in  our  line  of 
defence.  He  said  that  in  case  this  occurred,  the  only 
thing  to  do  was  to  counter-attack  at  once,  but  before 
counter-attacking  a  hurricane  fire  must  be  opened,  and 
while  the  counter-attack  progresses  this  fire  must  be 
lifted  to  the  enemy's  reserves.  Then  in  the  simplest 
possible  way,  without  any  change  of  voice  or  hypocritical 
flourish,  he  added :  "  You  must  always  remember,  too, 
the  value  of  prayer — with  prayer  you  can  do  anything." 
So  sudden  a  transition  from  professional  technicalities  to 
simple  primary  truths  seemed  incongruous,  and  gave  me 
almost  a  shock,  but  was  taken  quite  naturally  by  the 


January-March,  1915  263 

officers  crowding  round,  with  serious  bearded  faces,  in  the 
little  dug-out.  This  religious  belief  is  a  power  in  the 
Russian  army ;  the  pity  of  it  is  that  it  is  not  turned  to 
more  practical  account.  Grom well's  creed  made  "  poor 
tapsters  and  serving-men  "  fit  to  meet  "  men  of  honour," 
and  his  creed  was  not  a  very  elevating  one.  Here,  of 
course,  we  have  not  got  the  men  of  iron  to  preach  and  to 
force  the  best  qualities  in  the  rank  and  file  to  the  front. 
The  priests  are  splendidly  self-sacrificing,  but  their 
initiative  has  been  affected,  like  everyone's,  by  generations 
of  bureaucratic  government. 

On  the  I5th  Bezobrazov  gave  a  gala  dinner  to  General  Ir- 
manov,  the  Commander  of  the  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps,  and  his 
Chief  of  Staff,  General  Rozanov.  The  chief  bond  of  sympathy 
was  a  common  dislike  of  Plehve,  the  Army  Commander,  whose 
headquarters  were  in  the  town  but  who  was  not  invited.  Irmanov 
was  a  fine-looking  old  man,  who  had  spent  most  of  his  service  in 
Siberia.  His  father  was  of  German  family  and  his  mother  a 
Caucasian.  He  changed  his  name  from  "  Irman  "  to  "  Irmanov  " 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war.  He  was  a  strict  disciplinarian,  and 
his  corps  consistently  distinguished  itself. 

Engelhardt  returned  from  attending  the  Imperial  Duma  at 
Petrograd  in  optimistic  mood.  He  told  me  that  he  thought  the 
war  would  end  in  four  months,  Austria  falling  to  pieces  in  two 
months'  time.  I  ventured  to  disagree  on  the  ground  that  the 
Germans  were  too  intelligent  ever  to  allow  Austria  to  lapse  from 
the  alliance. 

Engelhardt,  like  practically  everyone,  except  Nostitz,  was  a 
strong  advocate  of  the  superior  strategic  importance  of  the  South- 
West  Front.  He  said  he  could  understand  Rennenkampf's  and 
Samsonov's  invasion  of  East  Prussia  as  being  done  to  relieve 
pressure  on  France,  but  he  considered  Sievers's  renewal  of  the 
invasion  last  December  to  be  indefensible.  Russia,  in  his  opinion, 
should  have  held  the  river  line  of  the  Nyeman-Bobr-Narev  with 
seven  corps  and  Opolchenie.  This  line  should  have  been  as 


264        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

strongly  fortified  as  possible.  Our  cavalry  should  have  been 
thrown  forward  to,  and  if  possible  in  advance  of,  the  frontier,  to 
destroy  all  the  German  railways  it  could. 

Bezobrazov  thought  our  defensive  line  should  run  as  far 
south  as  the  Pilitsa. 

I  doubted  whether  seven  Russian  corps  would  be  enough  to 
hold  an  enemy  as  enterprising  as  the  Germans,  with  the  railway 
system  of  East  Prussia  at  his  back,  on  a  front  of  250  miles  (Kovna 
to  Novo  Georgievsk),  which  would,  moreover,  increase  as  we 
advanced,  unless  we  had  a  central  strategic  reserve  of  several 
corps  at,  say,  Syedlets.  On  the  other  hand,  I  agreed  with 
Engelhardt  that  his  plan  was  infinitely  preferable  to  the  plan  so 
far  followed  of  tentative  invasions  of  East  Prussia,  followed  by 
tentative  invasions  of  Galicia. 

Engelhardt  said  :  "  Russia's  strength  is  in  the  number  of  her 
population  and  in  the  extent  of  her  territory.  Even  if  the 
Germans  did  cut  the  Vilna-Grodna-Warsaw  line,  we  still  have  the 
Bologoe-Syedlets.  Russia's  strategy  is  rotten,  for  her  Generals 
have  not  even  got  ideas,  much  less  the  ability  to  put  ideas  into 
practice." 

He  agreed  with  me  that  there  were  many  excellent  officers  in 
the  Russian  army  up  to  the  rank  of  company  and  squadron  com- 
mander, but  considered  that  the  peace  training  of  officers  of 
higher  rank  had  been  conducted  on  false  principles.  The  com- 
pany and  squadron  commanders  were  the  only  individuals  that 
practised  continually  in  peace  the  duties  that  they  would  have 
to  carry  out  in  war,  i.e.,  to  command  their  companies  or  squadrons. 
Even  the  battalion  commander  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  time 
criticising  or  instructing  his  company  commanders.  It  is  much 
easier  to  criticise  than  to  command  oneself.  Commanders  of  all 
grades  should  teach  themselves  by  war  games,  staff  rides,  etc. 
Criticism  is,  of  course,  necessary  as  a  guide  for  the  junior  ranks, 
but  the  duty  of  commanders  should  be  always  to  teach  themselves 
before  teaching  others. 

He  blamed  the  Staff  for  issuing  orders  which  they  should  know 
it  is  quite  impossible  for  the  troops  to  carry  out,  and  he  instanced 
the  order  given  to  the  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps  on  the  night  of 


January -March,  1915  265 

March  loth  to  march  thirty-six  versts  on  the  nth  and  to  relieve 
the  gth  Siberian  Division  in  front  line  on  that  night. 

Late  on  the  night  of  the  i6th  orders  were  received  which 
amounted  practically  to  a  "  stand  fast  "  all  along  the  North- West 
Front.  The  loth,  I2th,  ist,  2nd  and  5th  Armies  were  directed  to 
continue  the  fortification  of  their  front,  keeping  at  the  same  time 
a  careful  watch  for  any  weakening  of  the  enemy  opposed  to  them. 
The  Ist  Siberian  Corps  was  to  form  a  general  reserve  at  the 
disposal  of  the  Gommander-in- Chief  North- West  Front,  and  was 
ordered  to  Syedlets. 

Osovets  was  considered  to  be  out  of  danger.  The  fortress 
artillery  had  proved  itself  equal  to  the  German  siege  artillery ; 
the  enemy  had  found  the  garrison  in  good  heart  and  the  place  not 
to  be  carried  by  a  coup  de  main. 

On  March  ijih  the  Intelligence  of  the  I2th  Army  estimated  the 
German  strength  in  the  Eastern  theatre  at  the  following  number  of 
corps : 

Nyeman  Front        . .  . .  . .  4  corps 

Bobr-Narev  Front : 

Opposing  1 2tli  Army   5  corps 

Opposing  ist  Army      6  corps 

ii  corps 
Trans-Vistula  Front  . .  . .  8  corps 

Carpathians  . .  . .  . .  . .       4  or  5  corps 

Austrians,  40  divisions,  equivalent  to  . .     20  corps 

Total        . .  . .     47  or  48  corps 

We  had  fifty-two  corps,  but  the  enemy's  advantage  lay  in  his 
railways,  in  his  supply  of  shell,  in  the  number  of  his  machine-guns, 
and,  above  all,  in  the  rational  organisation  which  allowed  him  to 
replace  casualties  rapidly.  For  instance,  the  German  corps 
defeated  at  Prasnish  at  the  end  of  February  marched  to  the 
frontier,  filled  up,  and  started  back  in  one  or  two  days,  as  we 
learned  from  prisoners.  When  one  of  our  corps,  as,  for  instance, 


266        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

the  1st,  lost  over  50  per  cent.,  it  had  to  wait  for  weeks,  practically 
out  of  action,  till  drafts  arrived. 

March  ijth,  1915.  LOMJA. 

Colonel  Nadzimov,  who  is  in  charge  of  the  rear  services 
of  the  Guard,  took  me  to  talk  to  some  German  officers  who 
had  been  brought  in  as  prisoners.  I  had  on  the  Russian 
officer's  "  shuba,"  which  I  always  wear,  to  prevent  Russian 
sentries  from  firing  at  me,  and  I  do  not  think  they  had  any 
idea  I  was  a  Britisher.  The  Russians  turned  the  conversa- 
tion on  to  England.  The  Germans  are  very  sure  of  them- 
selves and  full  of  argument.  "  England  only  caused  the 
war.  Scarborough  is  well  known  to  be  a  fortified  base, 
The  English  fleet  is  afraid  to  attack  the  German  fleet.  It 
could  find  it  any  day  if  it  came  to  Heligoland.  Germany 
will  win,  and  the  war  will  only  stop  when  England  has  had 
enough  of  it.  Both  Russia  and  France  were  entirely 
dependent  on  England.  Russia  has  no  interests  opposed 
to  the  interests  of  Germany,  but  her  interests  clash  every- 
where with  British  interests — for  instance,  in  Persia  and 
China.  England's  object  in  the  war  is  to  destroy  a 
commercial  rival  " — a  natural  idea  to  their  mind,  ap- 
parently. 

On  the  I7th  I  received  a  telegram  from  the  Ambassador 
asking  me  to  return  to  Petrograd.  I  left  Lomja  on  the  i8th  and 
motored  to  Warsaw,  where  I  got  a  train  on  the  morning  of  the 
igth  that  took  me  to  Petrograd  in  forty-two  hours,  a  journey  of 
seventeen  hours  in  peace  ! 


I 


CHAPTER  VII 

REAR  SERVICES  AND  INTERNAL  SITUATION, 

SUMMER  OF  1915 

WITH  the  exception  of  a  short  visit  to  Moscow  in  April,  I 
spent  the  four  months  from  the  middle  of  March  till  the 
middle  of  July  at  Petrograd,  enquiring  into  the  organisation  of 
the  rear  services  and  especially  the  arrangements  for  the  supply 
of  men  and  munitions.  Captain  Neilson  accompanied  the 
Russian  3rd  Army  in  its  April  offensive  in  the  Western  Car- 
pathians and  in  its  retreat  during  May  and  June  in  Galicia. 
Captain  Blair  visited  the  Qth  Army  on  the  extreme  left,  and  saw 
something  of  its  offensive  in  May. 

The  General  Staff  stated  that  the  Russian  losses  up  till 
January  I3th — i.e.,  during  the  first  five  months  of  war — were, 
exclusive  of  prisoners  and  of  wounded  who  returned  to  the  front » 
13,899  officers,  319  officials,  482,162  rank  and  file. 

The  Chief  of  the  General  Staff  at  Petrograd,  General  Byelyaev, 
in  April  stated  that  altogether  8,200,000  men  had  been  called  up, 
and  that  the  "  feeding  strength  "  was  then  6,300,000.  Presumably 
the  difference — 1,900,000 — represented  the  killed  and  prisoners, 
and  those  men  who  had  been  permanently  evacuated  from  the 
front  on  account  of  wounds  and  sickness.  The  casualty  total  was, 
of  course,  greater,  for  the  1,900,000  did  not  include  men  who  had 
recovered  and  returned  to  the  front,  or  the  wounded  who  were 
still  in  hospital  and  in  receipt  of  Government  rations.  However, 
he  stated  that  the  proportion  of  the  evacuated  that  returned  to  the 
front  was  very  small ;  it  had  risen  to  40  per  cent,  in  one  month, 
but  had  since  fallen  to  25  per  cent.  No  less  than  50  per  cent,  of 

the  evacuations  were  for  sickness. 

267 


268        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

The  8,200,000  men  already  called  up  were  drawn  from  the 
following  classes  : 

Active   army,   Reserve   and   Cossacks,   allowing   for 

exemptions  on  account  of  special  employment    4,538,000 

Opolchenie,  ist  Ban,  say  . .  . .  . .      2,262,000 

Recruits  of  1914  Conscription,  called  up  on  October 
I4th,  1914,  men  of  21-22.    Went  to 
the  front  in  January  and  February,  1915      . .        700,000 

Recruits  of  1915  Conscription,  called  up  on  February 
7th,  1915,  men  of  20-21.  Now  being  sent  to 
the  front  . .  . .  . .  . .  700,000 


Total         . .  . .     8,200,000 

The  General  Staff  had  no  fear  for  the  future  as  regards  the 
supply  of  men.  General  Byelyaev  said  that,  though  the  wastage 
in  the  present  war  had  exceeded  anything  previously  dreamed  of, 
"  even  if  we  were  to  continue  for  two  years  more,  and  at  the 
present  rate  of  wastage,  we  would  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  the 


men." 


Up  to  this  time  no  men  of  over  thirty-nine  had  been  called  up. 
The  2nd  Ban  of  the  Opolchenie  had  not  been  touched. 

The  Opolchenie  of  either  ban  had  only  previously  been 
twice  called  up — in  1812  and  in  1854.  The  young  men  of  the 
annual  recruit  contingents  were  throughout  the  war  found  to  be 
of  far  more  reliable  material.  The  men  of  the  Opolchenie  always 
joined  with  a  grievance,  for  they  considered  that  they  had  been 
originally  freed  from  the  obligation  of  active  service  once  and  for 
all.  Besides,  they  had  most  of  them  family  ties,  which  few  of 
the  recruits  had  as  yet  contracted.  So  strong  was  this  feeling 
that  eventually  it  was  found  desirable,  in  order  to  avoid  desertions, 
to  train  the  men  of  the  Opolchenie  at  a  distance  from  their 
homes. 

To  meet  the  enormous  wastage  in  the  infantry  the  strength  of 
the  depot  battalions  was  raised,  and  their  number  was  increased 
from  192  to  237,  and,  to  provide  reserves  more  or  less  on  the  spot, 


Summer  of  1915  269 

60  of  the  total  number  of  237  were  allotted  to  the  frontal  area — 
30  to  the  North- West  Front  and  30  to  the  South- West  Front. 
The  remaining  177  battalions  were  distributed  to  empty  barracks 
in  the  populous  centres  of  the  interior.  The  Moscow  Military 
District  had  71  battalions  and  had  despatched  2,000  draft  com- 
panies, or  half  a  million  men,  to  the  front  by  April  I4th,  1915. 

IThe  principle  was  to  train  raw  recruits  for  four  weeks  and  men 
of  the  Opolchenie  for  six  weeks,  the  idea  being  that  the  older  men, 
in  spite  of  their  previous  training,  required  longer  to  discipline. 
The  period  of  training  was,  of  .course,  quite  inadequate,  and  even 
that  was  subject  to  reduction.  During  the  emergency  of  the 
retreat  from  Poland  in  1915,  infantry  drafts  were  sent  to  the 
front  who  had  never  fired  a  shot  and  did  not  even  know  how  to 
handle  their  rifles.  They  deserted  en  masse. 

In  the  other  arms,  where  the  percentage  of  casualties  had 
been  less,  the  draft  system  worked  well. 

The  sixty-five  depot  squadrons  which  existed  in  peace  for 
the  training  of  young  remounts  continued  their  work  after 
mobilisation,  assuming  responsibility  for  the  training  of  men  as 
well  as  of  horses.  The  remount  committees,  as  before,  purchased 
three-and-a-half -year-olds,  which  were  put  through  the  ordinary 
long  course  of  training,  but  also  bought  for  more  immediate  use 
five-to  twelve-year-olds.  The  latter  were  trained  as  rapidly  as 
possible  by  the  reservist  rough-riders,  who  returned  to  work  in  the 
depot  squadrons  on  mobilisation.  The  horses,  when  sufficiently 
trained,  were  handed  over  to  reservists  or  trained  recruits,  who 
took  them  in  draft  squadrons  to  the  front. 

Each  depot  squadron  was  strictly  affiliated  to  its  parent  regi- 
ment and  supplied  it  only  with  men  and  horses.  Up  till  the 
beginning  of  May  on  an  average  each  depot  squadron  had  sent 
forward  three  draft  squadrons.  So  far  almost  all  the  men 
despatched  to  the  front  had  been  previously  trained  cavalry 
reservists. 

On  mobilisation  five  depot  artillery  divisions,  each  of  two 
batteries,  had  been  formed,  to  prepare  artillery  drafts  for  the 
front.  These  were  found  inadequate  for  dealing  with  the 
mass  of  artillery  reservists,  and  in  addition  three  depot 


270        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

artillery  brigades,  each  of  six  batteries,  were  formed.  These 
depot  divisions  and  brigades  did  not  train  horses,  which  were 
prepared  in  special  artillery  horse  depots.  They  were  not 
affiliated  to  units  at  the  front,  but  sent  drafts  on  demand  to  the 
headquarters  of ' '  fronts. ' '  One  division — the  1st — which  was  seen 
in  May,  had  "  trained  "  over  400  officers  and  30,000  men  in  nine 
and  a  half  months  of  war,  and  it  had  60  officers  and  3,800  men 
under  instruction  at  the  time. 

General  Yanushkevich  stated  in  March  that  he  had  mobilised 
106  infantry  and  33  cavalry  divisions  for  work  on  the  Western 
frontier.  This  represented  a  puny  effort  compared  with  that  of 
France,  which,  as  M.  Delcasse  pointed  out,  had  4,000,000  of 
men  under  arms,  a  burden  on  the  economic  life  of  the  country 
that  might  be  compared  to  17,000,000  in  Russia. 

General  Byelyaev  always  maintained  that  the  difficulty  was 
solely  one  of  armament.  He  said  he  could  place  the  infantry 
of  three  new  corps  in  the  field  every  month  if  only  he  had 
rifles. 

There  was,  however,  a  good  deal  required  besides  mere  rifles 
to  make  the  infantry  drafts  of  any  real  use  when  they  arrived  at 
the  front.  The  men  required  longer  training  and  energetic 
officers,  who,  while  enforcing  strict  discipline,  would  look  properly 
after  the  comfort  of  their  men,  a  proper  organisation  of  the  supply 
and  transport  services,  shell  to  support  them  in  attack  and 
defence,  and  leading  that  inspired  confidence. 

Unfortunately,  the  situation  on  the  front  since  the  first 
realisation  in  November  of  the  shortage  of  rifles  and  shell  had  not 
permitted  of  the  accumulation  of  any  reserve.  Apart  from  the 
large  quantities  of  material  lost  in  the  disaster  to  the  loth  Army, 
the  normal  monthly  wastage  exceeded  in  quantity  the  supplies 
received  from  the  rear.  The  greatest  lack  was  still  of  rifles.  Un- 
armed men  had  to  be  sent  into  the  trenches  to  wait  till  their 
comrades  were  killed  or  wounded  and  their  rifles  became  avail- 
able. Large  orders  had  been  placed  with  American  firms,  but 
there  was  no  chance  of  their  materialising  before  the  end  of  the 
year.  On  June  23rd  I  telegraphed  that  Russia  would  not  be 


Summer  of  1915  271 

able  to  undertake  any  offensive  for  eight  months  owing  to  lack  of 
rifles. 

In  December  I  had  been  told  that  there  was  enough  small  arms 
ammunition  to  ' '  throw  out  of  the  window. ' '  Its  supply  now  began 
to  give  anxiety,  for  the  expenditure  rose  to  over  100,000,000  a 
month,  a  figure  which  it  was  difficult  for  the  factories  to  reach 
owing  to  lack  of  propellant. 

The  average  number  of  guns  per  1,000  bayonets  was  only 
2' 12,  and  many  guns  required  retubing.  Still,  the  number  and 
the  quality  of  the  guns  was  a  secondary  matter  as  compared  with 
the  urgent  necessity  for  the  increase  of  the  supply  of  shell.  No 
shell  had  yet  come  from  abroad.  The  Russian  factories  were 
making  a  great  effort,  but  they  were  handicapped  by  the  difficulty 
of  producing  fuse. 

The  Artillery  Department  had  been  constantly  attacked  in 
pre-war  days  by  patriotic  members  of  the  Duma,  such  as  M. 
Guchkov,  for  its  red  tapism  and  for  its  slowness  in  spending 
funds  allotted  by  the  Duma.  It  had  come  to  consist  largely  of 
technical  experts  who  were  out  of  touch  with  the  life  and  the 
practical  requirements  of  their  comrades  in  the  field.  Officers 
appointed  to  the  Artillery  Committee,  which  decided  all  technical 
questions,  generally  remained  there  till  they  died.  In  1913  there 
were  members  who  had  served  on  the  Committee  for  forty-two 
years. 

The  Department  received  at  first  with  little  sympathy  the 
cry  from  the  front  for  shell.  It  thought  that  shell  was  being 
wasted,  and  took  months  to  awaken  to  its  need  in  quantities 
hitherto  undreamed  of. 

The  Grand  Duke  Sergei  Mikhailovich  left  his  post  of  Inspector 
of  Artillery  to  undertake  the  superintendence  of  production.  A 
man  of  over  six  feet  five  and  a  good  artillery  officer,  he  was 
inspired  only  by  patriotic  motives,  and  toiled  all  day  in  his  Palace 
on  the  Millionnaya,  though  he  suffered  from  very  indifferent 
health.  He  was  always  accessible  and  answered  the  telephone 
himself. 

He,  however,  did  not  believe  in  the  need  for  shell  on  the  scale 
that  the  Allies  in  the  West  had  found  to  be  necessary.  As  a 


272        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

patriotic  Russian,  he  mistrusted  foreign  experts,  and  thought  that 
Russian  experts  were  as  good  as  any  in  the  world. 

He  delayed  a  whole  fortnight  before  receiving  a  French 
technical  mission  which  had  arrived  in  Petrograd  at  the  end  of 
January  with  the  object  of  assisting  the  Russians  to  develop  their 
production  of  shell.  This  mission,  which  consisted  of  able 
experts,  after  enquiry  into  the  local  situation,  put  forward  four 
practical  suggestions  : 

1.  That  in  order  to  increase  the  supply  of  artillery  ammunition, 
production  should  be  simplified  by  manufacturing  H.E.  shell  with 
delayed  action  fuse  instead  of  the  more  complicated  shrapnel. 

The  Russians  objected  on  the  ground  that  the  French  fuse 
would  be  ineffective  in  marshy  ground. 

2.  That   the   rules   of   "  inspection "   should  be   made   less 
rigorous,  and  useless  formality  generally  should  be  abolished. 

The  Artillery  Department  was  in  the  habit  of  sending  men 
abroad  as  inspectors,  who  were  without  any  technical  knowledge, 
and  were  therefore  obliged  to  follow  the  specification  pedantically 
and  without  intelligence.  On  one  occasion  an  officer  told  me  his 
brother  had  gone  to  England  to  "  take  over  "  big  guns.  I  asked 
if  he  knew  anything  of  gunnery.  The  reply  was  :  "  No.  He  is  a 
lawyer  by  education,  an  artist  by  inclination,  and  a  cavalry  officer 
by  occupation." 

3.  That  labour  in  the  mines  should  be  militarised  in  order  to 
secure  a  constant  supply  of  coal. 

The  engineers  of  the  Donetz  Basin  objected  that  such  a 
measure  would  be  equivalent  to  a  relapse  to  serfdom,  a  reply  that 
made  the  French  officers  not  a  little  indignant.  "  Nous  Francais 
sommes  done  des  esclaves  ?  " 

4.  That  a  constant  supply  of  both  coal  and  raw  material 
should  be  ensured  by  introducing  proper  methods  for  the  use  and 
organisation  of  the  railway  rolling-stock. 

Unfortunately  for  Russia  and  her  Allies,  the  first  of  these 
suggestions  was  the  only  one  that  was  partially  approved,  and  it 
was  only  after  some  three  months  that  the  mission  obtained  from 
the  Grand  Duke  permission  to  manufacture  a  million  H.E.  shell 
with  the  "  fusee  a  retard,"  under  the  proviso  that  the  work  should 


Summer  of  1915  273 

not  be  carried  out  at  Petrograd  or  in  the  Donetz  Basin,  where  the 
factories  were  occupied  with  the  production  of  shrapnel. 

Lord  Kitchener's  idea  was  to  induce  the  Russian  Government 
to  increase  their  orders  for  material  from  abroad. 

On  April  loth  I  handed  the  Grand  Duke  a  telegram  offering  a 
contract  for  shell  with  the  American  Locomotive  Combine.  He 
said  that  the  Artillery  Department  did  not  intend  to  place  any 
more  orders  for  shell  abroad,  but  required  propellant  and  fuses. 
Lord  Kitchener,  however,  repeated  his  offer,  strongly  recom- 
mending the  contract,  and  asking  for  a  definite  reply  by  12  noon 
on  the  1 5th.  I  read  the  message  to  the  Grand  Duke,  who  replied 
by  confirming  his  previous  refusal. 

Russian  officers  were  particularly  bitter  regarding  the  failure 
of  the  firm  of  Vickers  to  supply  shrapnel  and  fuses  as  soon  as 
expected.  They  argued  that  if  Vickers,  "  who  had  grown  rich 
on  Russian  orders/'  failed  them,  there  was  nothing  to  be  hoped  for 
from  other  foreign  firms  on  whom  Russia  had  no  claim,  and  it  was 
only  a  waste  of  money  to  pay  the  large  advance  which  such  firms 
demanded  before  accepting  an  order.  On  May  I3th  the  Grand 
Duke  Serge  said  :  "  Vickers  cares  only  for  money.  He  has  got  an 
advance  of  Rs.4,ooo,ooo  from  us,  and  has  put  it  in  his  pocket 
and  done  nothing.  I  have  been  at  his  works  twice,  and  know 
their  size.  It  is  ridiculous  for  him  to  say  that  he  can  make 
no  better  attempt  to  keep  his  contracts,  when  we  in  Russia  have 
increased  our  output  of  shell  from  the  42,000  of  August  to  the 
550,000  of  April." 

Lord  Kitchener  determined  to  appeal  to  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  and  in  early  May  an  able  and  energetic  artillery  officer, 
Colonel  Ellershaw,  arrived  with  a  letter  for  the  Grand  Duke 
Nikolas,  urging  the  placing  of  additional  orders  for  shell  abroad. 

Ellershaw  carried  out  his  mission  with  success,  and  returning 
to  Petrograd  from  G.H.Q.  on  May  i6th,  brought  with  him  a  letter 
from  the  Chief  of  Staff  to  General  Manikovski,  the  Governor  of 
the  Fortress  of  Kronstadt,  and  the  Assistant  of  the  Grand  Duke 
Serge  on  the  committee  which  had  been  specially  formed  to  take 
in  hand  the  supply  of  shell. 

S 


274        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

.  We  obtained  an  interview  with  Manikovski  that  day  and 
handed  him  the  letter.  He  read  us  extracts.  Yanushkevich 
wrote  that  the  Commander-in-Chief  had  appointed  Lord  Kitchener 
as  his  agent  for  the  purchase  of  shell,  rifles  and  ammunition,  that 
the  giving  of  such  powers  to  a  foreign  General  was  not  in  accord- 
ance with  Russian  law,  but  since  it  was  a  question  whether  Russia 
should  be  victorious  or  defeated,  "  we  will  spit  on  the  law/' 

This  was  my  first  interview  with  Manikovski,  whom  I  was 
afterwards  to  get  to  know  well.  He  was  a  small,  thick-set  man, 
with  a  bluff  manner.  He  spoke  only  Russian,  and  on  this 
occasion  in  a  voice  loud  enough  to  be  heard  by  a  whole  regiment. 
We  soon  found  that,  though  a  fortress-gunner  all  his  life,  he  took 
the  infantry  point  of  view  that  we  could  not  have  too  much  shell. 
He  said  that  the  Grand  Duke  Serge  was  a  man  of  great  ability, 
but  that  he  had  never  "  smelt  powder,"  and  he  loved  the  Artillery 
Department  and  all  its  ways,  "  like  a  man  will  still  love  a  woman, 
though  he  knows  all  the  time  that  she  is  a  bad  lot." 

Next  day  we  visited  the  Grand  Duke  Serge,  and  Ellershaw, 
speaking  English,  pleaded  Lord  Kitchener's  point  of  view.  The 
Grand  Duke  asked  :  "  When  will  Lord  Kitchener  deliver  his  first 
lot  of  shell  ?  Will  you  take  a  bet  that  we  get  anything  in  the 
next  six  months  ?  '  He  added  that  he  wanted  shell  at  the 
present  moment  and  not  in  six  months'  time,  that  he  would  have 
1,500,000  shell  in  August,  and  that  even  in  the  first  month  of 
the  war,  when  expert  artillerists  thought  that  50  per  cent,  of  the 
rounds  had  been  wasted,  he  had  used  only  1*2  millions.  We 
pointed  out  that  the  Russian  artillery  was  so  good  that  it  could 
not  fire  enough  to  please  the  infantry.  The  Grand  Duke  said  that 
the  guns  would  burst. 

Of  course  it  was  more  than  doubtful  whether  the  supply  from 
all  sources  would  really  reach  1,500,000  in  August.  The  Grand 
Duke  depended  on  large  deliveries  from  the  French  Government, 
and  the  Canadian  Car  and  Foundry  Company. 

Obviously  the  better  plan  was  to  develop  home  production. 

The  increase  of  the  monthly  production  of  shell  in  Russia  by 
1,300  per  cent,  in  the  nine  months  August- April,  without  any 
practical  assistance  from  the  Allies,  was,  taking  into  consideration 


Summer  of  1915  275 

the  backward  state  of  Russian  industrial  development,  at  least 
as  fine  a  performance  as  the  increase  in  Great  Britain  in  a 
similar  period  by  1,900  per  cent. 

Ellershaw  returned  to  England.  The  Grand  Duke  Serge  went 
to  Baranovichi  and  then  proceeded  on  sick  leave  to  the  Crimea. 
Manikovski  succeeded  Kuzmin  Karavaev  at  the  head  of  the 
Artillery  Department,  and  retained  that  position  till  the  end  of 
the  war.  He  proved  himself  to  be  a  man  of  remarkable  energy 
and  organising  ability,  and  a  quick  worker. 

On  May  26th  the  Ambassador  handed  to  M.  Sazonov  a  tele- 
gram received  from  the  Foreign  Office  stating  that  Lord  Kitchener 
would  do  his  best  to  obtain  shell  for  Russia,  but  reminding  the 
Russian  Government  that  it  had  refused  two  very  important 
offers — on  March  gth  a  contract  for  5,000,000  rounds  with  the 
Bethlehem  Steel  Company,  and  on  April  I5th  a  contract  for 
5,000,000  rounds  complete  with  the  exception  of  propellant  with 
the  American  Locomotive  Combine. 

As  the  British  Government  had  so  far  only  helped  with  sugges- 
tions, but  had  given  no  practical  assistance  in  the  essential  matter 
of  hurrying  up  deliveries  on  the  contracts  placed  by  its  advice,  it 
was  only  natural  that  this  communication  provoked  a  retort.  At 
the  beginning  of  June  M.  Sazonov  sent  the  following  "  Notice  ' 
to  the  Embassy  : 

"  Among  the  orders  placed  in  England  by  the  Imperial 
Government,  with  the  consent  of  the  British  Government, 
a  certain  number  were  of  an  urgent  character,  and  to  these, 
on  that  account,  the  Russian  Government  invited  the 
special  attention  of  the  British  Embassy  at  Petrograd,  as 
well  as  that  of  General  Williams  and  General  Paget. 

"Two  million  shell  were  ordered  from  Vickers,  to  be 
delivered  as  follows  : 

March          . .  . .       60,000. 

April  to  September    . .     240,000  per  month. 

October  and  November    250,000  per  month. 

"  One  million  fuses  were  ordered  from  the  same  firm  to 
be  delivered  as  follows  : 


276        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

February         . .  . .  . .       30,000 

March    and    monthly    till    com- 
pletion of  contract  . .     138,600 

"  So  far  there  has  been  no  delivery  on  either  of  these 
orders. 

"  Five  million  shell  were  ordered  through  the  British 
Government  from  Canada.  The  delivery  should  have 
commenced  in  April,  but  nothing  has  been  received  yet." 

It  is  easy  to  understand  and  to  sympathise  with  the  different 
points  of  view.  The  Russian  Government  wanted  to  see  some 
return  from  its  foreign  orders  before  placing  new  ones.  Lord 
Kitchener,  who  foresaw  the  long  war,  that  nobody  in  Russia 
believed  in,  even  in  May,  1915,  saw  clearly  that  the  orders  were 
quite  insufficient.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  French  plan  of 
sending  out  experts  to  expand  the  home  Russian  industries  was 
the  best,  and  would  have  borne  most  fruit  if  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment had  given  these  experts  anything  like  a  free  hand. 

As  the  Russians  mistrusted  the  foreign  expert,  they  also  mis- 
trusted any  foreign  new-fangled  article  till  they  had  had  practical 
proof  of  its  value.  The  British  General  Staff  had  sent  out  a 
specimen  gas-mask.  The  Chief  of  the  Russian  Red  Cross,  the 
Duke  of  Oldenburg,  who  was  Patron  of  the  Law  School,  took  up 
the  matter  energetically,  and  kept  the  law  students  back  for  three 
weeks  from  their  summer  holidays  till  they  had  completed  the 
manufacture  of  100,000  respirators. 

On  June  ist  gas  was  used  for  the  first  time  on  a  large  scale 
on  the  Bzura  and  lower  Ravka.  The  Press,  in  describing  the 
attack,  stated  that  the  Russians  "  had  time  to  take  the  necessary 
measures."  It  transpired  later  that  the  "  necessary  measures  " 
consisted  of  urinating  on  handkerchiefs  and  tying  them  round 
the  face,  for  the  respirators  sent  from  Petrograd  were  still  lying 
at  Warsaw  and  had  not  been  distributed  to  the  troops.  Over  one 
thousand  men  died  from  gas-poisoning. 

In  the  second  week  of  June  there  were  riots  in  Moscow,  which 
caused  considerable  damage.  Rumour  said  that  the  outbreak 


Summer  of  1915  277 

was  the  result  of  discontent  owing  to  the  proposed  calling  up  of 
the  2nd  Ban  of  the  Opolchenie,  and  that  the  secret  police 
had  cleverly  turned  the  movement  into  anti-German  channels. 
M.  Rodzianko,  the  President  of  the  Duma,  maintained  that  the 
riots  were  the  result  of  German  intrigue,  which  made  use  of 
popular  dissatisfaction  at  the  inefficiency  of  the  present  Govern- 
ment !  He  said  that  the  Russian  Government  was  "  very  bad." 
I  suggested  that  it  had  redeeming  features,  and  instanced  the 
prohibition  of  vodka  as  a  more  thorough-going  reform  than  had 
been  produced  by  a  century  of  chatter  in  other  assemblies. 

There  was  a  general  demand  for  the  removal  of  the  three 
Ministers,  Maklakov  (Interior),  Shcheglovitov  (Justice),  and  Suk- 
homlinov  (War). 

People  said  that  Maklakov  owed  his  place  as  Minister  of  the  \ 
Interior  to  his  knack  of  imitating  animals,  which  had  amused  the  j 
Imperial  children  when  depressed  by  the  murder  of  Stolypin/ 
in  1911.     After  the  Moscow  riots   he  was  replaced  by  Prince 
Shcherbatov,  a  man  of  more  liberal  tendencies. 

On  June  25th  Sukhomlinov  was  dismissed,  and  was  succeeded 
as  Minister  of  War  by  General  Polivanov.  The  Emperor,  who 
liked  Sukhomlinov  and  disliked  Polivanov,  was  only  induced  to 
make  this  change  by  the  pressure  of  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolas  and 
the  Constitutionalists.  He  had  told  Sukhomlinov  in  an  audience 
at  Tsarskoe  Selo  on  June  23rd  that  he  would  retain  his  portfolio, 
but  on  the  following  day  at  Baranovichi  he  was  persuaded  by  the 
Grand  Duke  that  a  change  was  necessary  in  order  to  soothe 
popular  discontent.  He  wrote  a  letter  to  Sukhomlinov  with  his 
own  hand,  expressing  his  sorrow  at  parting  with  him  after  such 
long  years  of  work,  and  leaving  to  history  the  task  of  estimating 
the  value  of  the  work  he  had  accomplished  for  Russia. 

Polivanov  had  been  Assistant  Minister  of  War  from  1906  to 
1912,  when  his  chief,  Sukhomlinov,  procured  his  dismissal  on  the 
ground  that  he  had  been  intriguing  against  him.  It  was  supposed 
at  the  time  that  the  "  intrigue  "  consisted  of  his  communicating 
to  members  of  the  Duma  the  details  of  Sukhomlinov's  employment 
of  the  traitor  Myasoyedov.  The  final  exposure  of  the  latter  proved 
a  fatal  blow  to  Sukhomlinov, 


278        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

The  Grand  Duke's  bulletin  on  April  2nd  had  announced  that 
Colonel  Myasoyedov,  "lately  interpreter  on  the  Staff  of  the  loth 
Army,"  had  been  hung  for  betraying  official  secrets,  and  that 
investigations  were  in  progress  with  a  view  to  bringing  similar 
charges  against  several  other  individuals. 

Myasoyedov  had  been  for  several  years  the  officer  in  charge  of 
the  gendarmerie  at  the  frontier  station  of  Verjbolovo.  He  was 
dismissed  on  a  charge  of  smuggling,  but  through  the  influence  of 
General  Sukhomlinov,  whose  wife  was  a  friend  of  Madame  Mya- 
soyedov, he  obtained  a  "  special  post  "  at  the  Ministry  of  War.  In 
1912  Guchkov,  the  Octobrist  leader,  attacked  Sukhomlinov  for 
employing  Myasoyedov  to  shadow  Russian  officers,  and  roundly 
accused  Myasoyedov  of  being  a  spy  in  the  service  of  a  foreign 
power.  The  matter  caused  much  scandal  at  the  time,  and 
Guchkov  and  Myasoyedov  fought  a  duel. 

However,  Myasoyedov  had  powerful  friends  in  the  Minister 
of  War  and  other  members  of  the  Extreme  Right,  and  he  continued 
to  be  employed  in  counter-espionage.  It  was  in  that  capacity, 
and  not  as  a  mere  interpreter,  that  he  was  attached  to  the  Staff  of 
the  loth  Army.  Like  Redl  in  Austria,  he  worked  for  the  enemy 
rather  than  for  his  own  country. 

It  is  said  that  the  first  evidence  of  his  activities  in  this  war  was 
the  discovery  of  a  list  of  names  on  the  body  of  a  German  staff 
officer  killed  in  France.  It  appears  that  he  sent  his  information 
through  an  individual  who  traded  at  Petrograd  as  an  advertising 
agent,  sub-letting  hoardings  at  railway  stations.  This  agent  con- 
stantly received  telegrams  which  appeared  innocent,  but  were 
really  in  a  pre-arranged  code.  He  transmitted  the  messages 
through  Sweden  to  Germany.  Myasoyedov  gave  away  to  the 
enemy  the  exact  position  and  strength  of  the  loth  Russian  army, 
and  so  ensured  the  initial  success  of  their  February  offensive. 

The  peasants  had  at  this  time  no  economic  cause  for  dis- 
content. They  were  getting  good  prices  for  their  grain,  and  were 
saving  the  money  they  had  formerly  spent  on  vodka.  There  was 
as  yet  no  famine  of  manufactured  products. 

The  industrial  population  of  the  towns  was  in  worse  case,  for 


Summer  of  1915  279 

the  working-men's  budget  of  expenditure  had  risen  upwards  of  40 
per  cent.,  without  a  corresponding  increase  in  wages.  Black 
bread,  which  had  been  2  to  3  kopeks  a  pound  before  the  war,  was 
now  4  to  5  kopeks  ;  meat  was  30  kopeks  instead  of  24  ;  tea  180 
instead  of  160  ;  sugar  16  to  25  instead  of  12  to  15.  Meat  and 
sugar  were  often  unobtainable  by  the  poor  in  Petrograd. 

All  classes  were  already  beginning  to  weary  of  the  war.  The 
men  on  leave  spread  stories  of  the  slaughter  and  the  suffering. 
The  suggestion  began  to  be  whispered  that  Russia  had  been 
enticed  into  a  war  for  a  quarrel  that  was  not  her  own.  It  was 
constantly  asked  what  the  Allies  in  the  West  were  doing,  and 
when  the  British  army  would  be  ready.  The  public  commenced 
to  mistrust  the  Government  and  the  higher  leading.  Treachery 

-•^^••WWIW^B^^I^W******* •^W***^^^^^ 

at  the  top  was  a  comfortable  explanation  of  continual  defeat. 
There  was  no  strong  patriotism  as  in  Great  Britain  to  weld  all 
classes  together.  It  is  unfortunately  not  in  the  character  of  the 
average  Russian  to  persevere  long  in  an  uphill  task.  I  remember 
a  young  cavalry  officer  asking  me  in  Poland  in  the  early  days  of 
October,  1914,  how  long  I  thought  the  war  would  last,  and  adding, 
with  the  usual  expressive  Russian  gesture,  that  he  was  "  fed  to 
the  teeth  with  it."  I  have  often  wondered  how  that  poor  fellow 
has  lived  through  the  years  since,  or  whether  he  soon  found  a 
refuge  in  death  from  a  life  that  had  proved  too  boring. 


-       ;  CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   GERMAN   OFFENSIVE   ON   THE   DUNAJEC 
AND  THE  RUSSIAN  RETREAT  FROM  POLAND, 

APRIL— AUGUST,  1915 

REFERENCE  MAP  No.  X. 

AS  explained  in  Chapter  VI.,  on  March  i8th  orders  were 
issued  to  the  North-West  Front  which  provided  for  a 
"  standfast  "  all  along  the  line.  The  loth,  I2th,  1st,  2nd  and  5th 
Armies  were  told  to  continue  to  fortify  their  front,  keeping  at  the 
same  time  a  careful  watch  for  any  weakening  of  the  opposing 
enemy.  It  was  decided  to  leave  East  Prussia  severely  alone. 
The  policy  of  combining  the  defensive  on  the  North- West  Front 
with  an  offensive  on  the  South- West  Front  was  regarded  by  the 
vast  majority  of  the  officers  of  the  Russian  General  Staff  as  offering 
the  greatest  chance  of  success.  It  was  conceded  that  the  initial 
raids  into  East  Prussia  had  been  of  use,  since  they  withdrew 
pressure  from  France,  but  it  was  considered  that  the  systematic 
conquest  of  that  province,  together  with  West  Prussia,  would 
require  far  greater  force  than  Russia  could  withdraw  from  Western 
Poland  and  the  Carpathians.  It  was  further  pointed  out  that, 
even  supposing  such  conquest  to  be  successful,  large  forces  would 
still  be  required  to  mask  the  fortress  of  Konigsberg  and  the 
bridgeheads  on  the  lower  Vistula,  while  the  Russian  right  on  the 
Baltic  would  always  be  open  to  attack. 

Unfortunately  the  defence  of  the  North- West  Front  from 
Kovna  to  the  Pilitsa  absorbed  in  the  spring  of  1915  fifty-two 
infantry  and  at  least  sixteen  cavalry  divisions,  numerically  half, 
and  in  quality  the  better  half,  of  the  Russian  Army. 

The  surrender  of  Przemysl  on  March  22nd  freed  the  besieging 
Russian  army  for  more  active  operations,  besides  opening  a  direct 


280 


April-August,  1915  281 

\ 

double  line  of  railway  for  the  supply  of  the  3rd  Army  on  the 
Dunajec.  The  garrison  which  surrendered  included  9  generals, 
93  field  and  2,500  junior  officers,  with  117,000  rank  and  file.  It 
was  generally  considered  that  with  proper  organisation  the  re- 
sistance of  the  fortress  might  have  been  considerably  prolonged. 
Though  some  of  the  defending  troops  were  half-starved,  the 
Russians,  on  entering  the  town,  found  that  the  Jews  had  hidden 
away  large  stores  of  food. 

In  February  the  XVIIth  and  XVIIIth  Corps,  together  with 
the  Staff  of  the  9th  Army,  had  been  transferred  from  the  trans- 
Vistula  Front  to  the  extreme  Russian  left  north  of  Stanislau. 

General  Ruzski  was  retired  from  the  command  of  the  North- 
West  Front  on  account  of  illness,  and  was  replaced  by  General 
Alexyeev,  who  had  hitherto  acted  as  Chief  of  Staff  to  General 
Ivanov  on  the  South- West  Front. 

The  Russians  in  early  April  endeavoured  to  carry  out  an 
offensive  in  a  southerly  direction  across  the  Carpathians  with  the 
idea  of  occupying  the  Hungarian  railways  running  south  of  and 
parallel  to  the  main  range.  The  movement  was  carried  out  by 
the  two  left  corps  of  the  3rd  Army  (the  Xllth  and  XXIXth) 
and  by  the  8th  Army,  the  corps  of  which  lay  from  right  to  left 
as  follows  :  Vlllth,  XVIIth,  XXVIIIth  and  Vllth. 

At  the  price  of  terrible  sufferings  from  the  cold,  these  six  corps 
succeeded  by  the  middle  of  April  in  fighting  their  way  through 
about  a  fifth  of  the  distance  to  their  objective.  The  advance 
came  to  a  halt  on  April  i8th  "  to  await  the  arrival  of  drafts  and 
new  supplies  of  ammunition."  Russian  officers  said  at  the  time 
that  the  halt  would  be  for  two  weeks  only.  It  is  curious  that 
exactly  two  weeks  later — on  May  2nd — Mackenzen  struck  at  the 
centre  of  the  3rd  Army  and  at  once  changed  the  whole  situation. 
It  was  then  recognised  that  the  Carpathian  offensive  had  been  a 
mistake,  for  it  had  lessened  the  power  of  resistance  of  the  3rd 
Army.  Even  before  the  offensive,  the  right  of  this  Army  had  been 
weakened  by  the  transfer  of  the  Xlth  Corps  to  the  9th  Army  on 


282        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

the  extreme  Russian  left.  It  was  still  further  weakened  in  the 
last  days  of  April  by  the  move  of  the  XXIst  Corps  from  its 
position  west  of  Tarnow  in  an  easterly  direction  to  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  Mezo-Laborcz  Pass. 

On  May  2nd  the  145  miles  of  front  of  the  3rd  Army  was  held 
by  corps  from  right  to  left  in  the  following  order  :  IXth,  Xth, 
XXIVth,  Xllth,  XXIst,  XXIXth. 

The  two  right  corps,  the  IXth  and  Xth,  had  been  sitting  in- 
active on  the  Dunajec  for  over  four  months.  Though  there  had 
been  ample  time  to  construct  several  successive  lines  of  fieldworks, 
only  two  lines  of  defence  had  been  prepared,  and  on  a  great  part  of 
the  front  only  a  single  line.  Radko  Dimitriev  had  been  opposed 
throughout  the  winter  by  the  Austrian  army  of  the  Archduke 
Joseph,  which  contained  only  a  single  German  division.  The 
majority  of  the  Russian  batteries  seem  to  have  occupied  the  same 
position  all  the  winter.  The  Austrians  shot  so  badly  that  there 
seemed  no  reason  why  they  should  trouble  to  move.  However, 
even  the  Austrians  could  not  Help  marking  down  the  position  of 
every  gun  and  getting  its  range.  The  Austrians  did  the  spade- 
work,  and  when  the  Germans  arrived  under  Mackenzen,  the  hero 
of  Lodz,  they  found  themselves  at  once  at  home. 

The  Russian  General  Staff  at  Petrograd  issued  later  a  sort  of 
official  apology  for  the  retirement.  This  document  stated  that 
the  Germans  concentrated  upwards  of  1,500  guns,  of  which  many 
were  of  medium  calibre,  against  the  right  of  the  3rd  Army.  They 
fired  700,000  shell  in  the  four  hours  preceding  the  attack.  It 
was  calculated  that  they  used  ten  medium-calibre  shell  for  every 
pace  and  a  half  of  front,  and  as  a  natural  result  all  the  Russians 
in  the  danger  zone  who  were  not  killed  or  wounded  were  stunned 
or  contusioned. 

The  Russians  had  nothing  with  which  to  reply.  It  is  believed 
that  there  were  not  more  than  three  medium-calibre  batteries  in 
the  whole  of  the  3rd  Army. 

The  German  phalanx  drove  forward  over  the  silent  Russian 
trenches  between  Gorlice  and  Tuchow  and  swarmed  along  the 
railway  towards  Rzeszow  and  Jaroslau. 

So  much  for  the  Xth  Corps,    The  turn  of  the  IXth  Corps  on 


April-August,  1915  283 

the  right  followed.  After  suffering  heavy  bombardment,  it  was 
forced  to  abandon  the  lower  Dunajec  and  to  retire  east. 

It  was  now  that  Radko  Dimitriev  suffered  for  his  lack  of  fore- 
sight in  the  winter.  If  rear  pivots  of  defence  had  been  prepared, 
their  delaying  effect  would  have  far  exceeded  that  of  the  first 
line,  for  before  attacking  them  the  Germans  would  have  had  to 
have  moved  up  their  heavy  guns  and  to  have  got  the  range. 

During  the  retreat  he  did  his  best  as  a  gallant  fighter.  He 
first  tried  to  restore  the  battle  by  directing  the  Illrd  Caucasian 
Corps,  his  only  reserve,  against  the  right  of  the  German  phalanx 
in  a  counter-attack  through  Jaslo.  The  corps  was  too  weak  to 
effect  anything,  and  was  swept  aside,  losing  heavily. 

The  left  of  the  3rd  Army  as  well  as  the  right,  and  the  whole 
of  the  8th  Army,  was  now  in  full  retreat  from  the  Carpathians, 
and  all  the  ground  won  in  the  April  offensive  was  abandoned. 
The  supply  of  gun  ammunition  failed  everywhere,  and  also  in 
many  places,  owing  to  faulty  organisation,  there  was  a  shortage  of 
small-arms  ammunition.  Radko  Dimitriev  attempted  another 
counter-attack,  this  time  through  Krosno,  with  the  XXIst  Corps, 
but  this,  too,  failed  to  stem  the  tide,  and  the  enemy's  phalanx, 
sweeping  on,  overwhelmed  the  XXIVth  Corps  at  the  crossings  of 
the  San. 

The  distance  from  Gorlice  to  Jaroslau  is  ninety-three  miles. 
The  German  troops  reached  the  latter  town  on  the  fourteenth  day 
of  their  offensive,  having  covered  the  distance  at  the  rate  of  six 
and  a  half  miles  a  day,  repairing  the  railway  as  they  advanced. 

On  the  following  day  they  forced  the  passage  of  the  San  and 
occupied  about  eight  miles  of  the  right  bank  down-stream  from 
Jaroslau.  On  the  I7th  this  advanced  force  developed  its  success, 
extending  its  left  to  Sieniawa  and  moving  some  five  miles  further 
east.  The  position  became  critical  for  the  Russians,  for  if  the 
German  wedge  had  succeeded  in  penetrating  further  east  they 
would  have  been  forced  to  abandon  the  whole  line  of  the  San. 
Fortunately,  however,  it  was  only  this  "  Mackenzen  wedge  "  that 
had  gained  any  great  success. 

In  trans-Vistula  Poland  the  4th  Army  had  moved  back 
from  the  Nida  in  conforrnance  to  the  retreat  of  the  3rd  Army. 


284        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

It  reached  the  line  Novemyasto-west  of  Radom-Ilja-Opatov, 
and  then  turning  on  Voyrsch  and  Dankl's  pursuing  troops,  drove 
them  back  in  a  vigorous  counter-stroke,  making  4,000  prisoners. 
The  Germans  on  May  20th  had  to  transfer  troops  to  the  left  bank 
of  the  Vistula  to  support  Dankl.  Similarly  on  the  igth  they  had 
to  reinforce  their  right  to  resist  the  offensive  of  the  gth  Army, 
which  had  been  launched  on  May  gth. 

The  3rd  Army  was,  however,  in  a  pitiable  condition.  Captain 
Neilson  wrote  on  May  igth  : 

"  Their  losses  have  been  colossal.  They  confessed  to 
over  100,000  on  the  i6th,  but  I  think  they  have  lost 
more.  Here  are  a  few  details  which  I  know  to  be 
correct  : 

"  Xth  Corps  :  in  one  division  1,000  men  remain  ;  in  the 

other  only  900. 
I2th  Siberian  Division  :   only  2,000  men  remain/' 

The  Vienna  communique  of  May  i8th  stated  that  the  captures 
of  the  first  half  of  May  were  170,000  prisoners,  128  guns  and  368 
machine-guns,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  estimate 
was  exaggerated. 

Neilson's  letter  continued  : 

"  An  airman  tells  me  that  he  reported  for  three  weeks 
that  the  Germans  were  concentrating,  but  no  one  believed 
him.  Spies  also  reported  this,  but  no  precautions  were 
taken.  ...  In  the  retreat  Radko  has  fought  every  yard, 
pouring  in  reinforcements  like  lead  into  a  furnace.  .  .  . 
Germans  do  the  work,  then  Austrians  take  their  place  and 
the  Germans  rest  till  they  are  required  again.  .  .  .  Local 
reinforcements  have  caused  this  Army  to  become  an 
inextricable  jumble.  ...  In  the  firing-line  they  are  very 
sore,  say  they  have  absolutely  no  direction  from  above  ; 
units  advance  and  retire  at  will.  .  .  .  The  army  is  still 
fighting  stubbornly  but  has  no  strength  left.  To-day  is 
the  eighteenth  day  of  uninterrupted  battle  and  retreat. 
I  fancy  the  men  have  had  very  little  to  eat.  .  .  .  The 
army  had  been  spoiled  by,  up  to  now,  having  been  opposed 


April-August,  1915  285 

by  Austrians.  It  did  not  know  what  real  fighting  meant. 
...  I  personally  fear  a  blow  on  Warsaw  from  the  direction 
of  Lyublin.  Galicia  is  doomed  beyond  all  doubt." 

The  Headquarters  of  the  3rd  Army  were  now  at  Tomashov, 
and  its  front  ran  for  eighty  miles  from  Tarnobrzeg  on  the  Vistula 
by  Nisko  up  the  right  bank  of  the  San  to  Sieniawa,  then  along  a 
loop  to  the  east  and  back  to  the  San  south  of  Jaroslau  and  along 
the  river  to  Radymno. 

The  8th  Army  carried  the  line  south  to  Przemysl  and  then 
south-east  to  the  Dniester  marshes,  eight  miles  north-east  of 
Sambor. 

The  nth  Army  (XXIInd  and  XVIIIth  Corps),  now  under 
General  Shcherbachev,  had  been  forced  to  abandon  the  Koziowa 
positions  so  long  held  by  the  XXIInd  Corps  against  determined 
enemy  attacks,  and  now  held  a  line  from  Drohobucz — north-west 
of  Stryj — to  Sokolow. 

Further  east  the  gth  Army  in  a  counter-offensive  had  crossed 
the  Pruth,  but  had  so  far  failed  to  take  either  Kolomea  or 
Czernowitz. 

Vladimir  Dragomirov,  who  had  succeeded  Alexyeev  as  Chief 
of  Staff  to  Ivanov  at  the  Headquarters  of  the  South- West  Front, 
lost  his  nerve  under  the  strain  of  directing  the  retreat,  and  was 
replaced  by  Savich,  the  Commander  of  the  IVth  Siberian  Corps. 
The  choice  was  hardly  a  happy  one,  for  Savich  had  had  no  war 
service  previous  to  the  present  war,  and  most  of  his  appointments 
had  been  in  connection  with  military  communications. 

The  Russian  Supreme  Command  hurried  to  the  danger-point 
such  reinforcements  as  could  be  spared  from  all  parts  of  the 
theatre  of  war.  The  XlVth  Corps  was  sent  across  the  Vistula 
from  the  4th  Army,  the  XVth  Corps  was  transferred  from  the 
I2th  Army,  the  XXIIIrd  Corps,  the  Ilnd  Caucasian  Corps  and 
the  77th  Division  from  the  ist  Army,  the  I3th  Siberian  Division 
from  the  2nd  Army. 

The  Vth  Caucasian  Corps,  which  had  been  practising  embarka- 
tion and  disembarkation  at  Odessa  with  a  view  to  co-operation 
with  our  Dardanelles  Expedition  in  a  descent  on  the  Bosphorus, 


286        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

was  hurried  off  to  the  San  about  May  8th.  The  Chief  of  the 
General  Staff  at  Petrograd  assured  me  on  June  6th  that  this  corps 
had  been  replaced  immediately  by  another,  but  I  reported  two 
days  later  that : 

"  It  should  be  clearly  understood  that  no  help  from  Russia 
is  likely  to  be  forthcoming  in  the  forcing  of  the  passage  to 
the  Black  Sea.  The  corps  which  is  said  to  be  forming  at 
Odessa  will  be  drawn  into  the  fighting-line  on  the  western 
frontier  long  before  the  Russians  decide  to  embark  it 
for  the  Bosphorus.  .  .  .  The  Grand  Duke  has  still  a  task 
on  the  western  frontier  that  will  require  every  man  he  can 
arm  till  things  take  a  decided  change  in  the  Western 
theatre." 

On  May  2ist  Neilson  got  another  letter  through.     He  wrote  : 

"  Situation  easier.  .  .  .  Spirits  of  Staff  have  risen,  but 
in  the  firing-line  they  are  pretty  fed  up." 


The  pause  in  the  German  offensive  which  caused  the  "  easier 
situation '  was  merely  occasioned  by  Mackenzen's  change  of 
front  from  the  north-east  to  the  south-east.  He  had  thrown  no 
less  than  fifteen  bridges  across  the  San,  and,  developing  his  attack 
to  the  south-east  on  the  24th,  he  was  already  by  the  28th  in  a 
position  to  threaten  the  Przemysl-Lemberg  railway.  The  Hlrd 
Caucasian  Corps,  attacking  his  northern  flank,  stormed  Sieniawa, 
capturing  9  guns  and  6,000  prisoners,  and  then  pressed  south  up 
the  right  bank  of  the  San.  This  gallant  corps  was,  however, 
reduced  to  4,000  men,  with  one  round  per  gun  and  75  rounds  per 
rifle,  and  even  its  iron-willed  commander,  Irmanov,  had  to 
acknowledge  that  it  was  too  weak  to  continue  its  offensive.  The 
8th  Army  was  forced  back,  and  Przemysl,  left  in  a  salient,  was 
abandoned  on  the  night  of  June  2nd. 

Meanwhile  the  Headquarters  of  the  3rd  Army  moved  back 
from  Tomashov  to  Zamostie,  re-entering  Russian  territory  for  the 
first  time  since  August,  1914.  Radko  Dimitriev  was  replaced  in 
command  by  General  Lesh  from  the  Xllth  Corps.  Lesh  had  made 


April -August,  1915  287 

his  name  in  the  Japanese  war  in  command  of  the  ist  Siberian 
Rifle  Brigade.  He  afterwards  commanded  in  succession  the 
Guard  Rifle  Brigade,  the  2nd  Guard  Infantry  Division  and  the 
Ilnd  Turkistan  Corps,  leaving  the  latter  corps  in  Transcaspia  at 
the  outbreak  of  war  to  relieve  Brusilov  in  command  of  the 
Xllth  Corps.  Previous  to  the  war  he  had  the  reputation  of  being 
the  greatest  authority  in  Russia  on  infantry  tactics,  and  during 
the  war  he  had  proved  himself  to  be  a  capable  corps  commander, 
strong,  cool  and  daring. 

After  the  fall  of  Przemysl  the  enemy's  efforts  in  Galicia  were 
for  some  days  directed  against  the  8th  and  nth  Armies,  and  the 
3rd  Army,  which  no  longer  blocked  the  direct  route  to  Lemberg, 
had  a  short  breathing-space.  Lesh  massed  four  corps — the 
XVth,  IXth,  Xth  and  XlVth— in  the  Vistula-San  triangle  with 
the  idea  of  advancing  south  against  the  enemy's  communications 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Rzeszow.  The  IVth  Cavalry  Corps, 
under  Gillenschmidt,  was  held  in  readiness  in  rear  of  the  IXth 
Corps.  The  latter  corps,  under  its  new  commander,  Abram 
Dragomirov,  distinguished  itself,  and  some  little  progress  was  at 
first  made. 

The  Cavalry  Corps  actually  broke  through,  but  only  went  five 
miles,  retiring  once  more  behind  the  infantry.  The  offensive  was 
finally  stopped  by  orders  received  from  the  Commander-in-Chief 
of  the  South-West  Front,  yet  the  movement  was  only  opposed 
by  Austrians,  who  are  unlikely  to  have  been  in  superior 
strength. 

The  3rd  and  8th  Armies  required  a  longer  rest  to  re-establish 
their  morale.  Neilson,  writing  on  June  6th  from  the  3rd  Army, 
said : 

"This  army  is  now  a  harmless  mob.  .  .  .  Here  are 
some  of  the  strengths  even  after  reinforcements  have 
arrived  since  May  I4th  at  the  rate  of  2,000  to  4,000  a  day  : 
1 2th  Siberian  Division,  eighteen  officers  and  3,000  men ; 
Xth  Corps,  all  three  divisions  together,  14,000  men.  The 
XXI Xth  Corps,  which  is  the  strongest  in  the  Army,  has 
20,000  men.  The  XXIIIrd  Corps  lost  more  than  half  its 
strength  in  an  attack.  The  IXth  Corps  lost  3,500  men 


288        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

in  three  days.  .  .  .  We  are  very  short  of  ammunition  and 
guns.  All  realise  the  futility  of  sending  men  against  the 
enemy,  they  with  their  artillery  and  we  with  ours/1 

On  the  other  hand,  he  added  : 

"The  Germans  are  losing  heavily.  .  .  .  Leshhasmadea 
very  good  impression — cool,  determined,  imperturbable, 
utterly  devoid  of  all  wish  to  advertise.  They  say  of  his 
orders  :  '  He  puts  more  in  five  lines  than  Radko  Dimitriev 
put  in  five  pages/ 

If  the  Russian  Command  had  been  able  to  place  a  large 
quantity  of  heavy  artillery  in  the  field  they  might  have  been 
able  to  restore  the  infantry's  lost  morale.  As  it  was,  Neilson  wrote 
on  June  nth  : 

"  All  the  late  advances  have  been  pure  murder,  as  we 
attacked  against  a  large  quantity  of  field  and  heavy  artil- 
lery without  adequate  artillery  preparation." 

In  the  same  letter  he  gave  a  few  extracts  from  telegrams 
despatched  from  the  Staff  of  the  3rd  Army  to  the  Headquarters  of 
the  Front  at  Kholm.  On  June  ist  : 

"  A  shortage  of  ammunition  is  feared,  so  the  artillery  is 
unable  to  develop  an  effective  fire." 


On  another  day  : 

"  As  we  are  forced  to  save  shell,  the  enemy  can  inflict 
loss  unpunished/1 

Again  : 

"  The  G.O.C.  XVth  Corps,  having  no  heavy  artillery, 

asked  the  neighbouring  corps  of  the  4th  Army,  the  XXXIst, 

to  help  him  from  the  left  bank  of  the  Vistula.  ...  In  front 

of  the  4th  Rifle  Division  the  enemy  has  occupied  a  position 

from  which  he  could  easily  be  driven  by  artillery  fire,  but 

as  ammunition  has  to  be  saved,  nothing  is  being  done/1 

The  detail  of  the  composition  of  the  corps  of  the  3rd  and  8th 

Armies  about  June  loth  shows  the  extent  to  which  the  Russian 


April- August,  1915  289 

Command  had  seized  whatever  units  were  available  to  fill  up  the 
gaps  in  the  firing-line. 

3RD  ARMY.  Headquarters :  Zamostie.  Commander :  Lesh. 
Tarnobrzeg  on  the  Vistula  to  Cieszanow,  north-east  of 
Jaroslau. 

On  the  left  bank  of  the  San : 

XVth  Corps  :    8th  Division,  7th  and  8th  Trans-Amur 

Regiments,  three  drujini  of  54th  Opolchenie  Brigade. 
IXth  Corps  :  5th  and  42nd  Divisions.    2ist,  25th  and  26th 

Brigades   of  Opolchenie  and  four  drujini  of  the  8ist 

Brigade. 
XlVth  Corps  :  i8th  and  yoth  Divisions  and  two  regiments 

of  the  8oth  Division. 
Xth  Corps  :  gth,  3ist  and  6ist  Divisions  ;  3rd  Caucasian 

Cossack  Cavalry  Division. 

On  the  right  bank  of  the  San  : 

Illrd  Caucasian  Corps  :    2ist,  52nd  and  8ist  Divisions, 

27th  Brigade  of  Opolchenie. 
XXIVth  Corps  :   48th,  4gth  and  74th  Divisions. 
XXIXth  Corps  :    45th  and  77th  Divisions. 
One  division  of  heavy  artillery  from  Ivangorod. 
IVth   Cavalry  Corps  :    7th  Cavalry  Division,  3rd  Don 

Cossack  Cavalry  Division  and  2nd  Composite  Cossack 

Cavalry  Division. 
i6th  Cavalry  Division. 

STH  ARMY.  Headquarters :  Lemberg.  Commander :  Brusi- 
lov.  Cieszanow  by  Jaworow  and  the  Grodek  Lakes  to  the 
Dniester  marshes  south  of  Komarno. 

Ilnd  Caucasian  Corps  :    Caucasian  Grenadier  and  5ist 

Divisions. 

XXIIIrd  Corps  :   3rd  Guard  and  62nd  Divisions. 
Vth  Caucasian  Corps  :   3rd  Caucasian  Rifle  Division,  ist 

and  2nd  Kuban  Cossack  Infantry  Brigades. 

T 


290        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

XXIst  Corps  :  3rd  Rifle  Division  ;  33rd  and  44th  Divi- 
sions ;  gist  and  I40th  Regiments ;  nth  Cavalry 
Division. 

Xllth  Corps  :  igth  Division  ;  two  regiments  of  the  I4th 
and  two  of  the  6oth  Division. 

VHIth  Corps  :  I3th,  I5th  and  55th  Divisions. 

XVIIth  Corps  :  3rd  Division,  4th  Rifle  Division,  I37th 
and  230th  Regiments. 

XXVIIIth  Corps  :  23rd  Division  (less  one  regiment),  one 
brigade  of  the  6oth  Division. 

Vllth  Corps  :  two  regiments  of  the  34th  Division,  258th 
Regiment ;  the  Orenburg  Cossack  Cavalry  Division. 

ARMY  RESERVE  :   25gth,  232nd  and  23ist  Regiments. 

In  the  first  invasion  of  Galicia  the  Russians  had  been  well 
received  by  the  Poles,  but  the  population  was  now  found  to  be 
bitterly  hostile.  It  had  been  irritated  by  various  mistakes  made 
by  the  Russian  civil  Governor,  Count  Bobrinski,  and  especially 
by  the  efforts  of  the  Orthodox  Archbishop  of  Lemberg  to  prose- 
letise  the  Polish  population.  A  Russian  General  said  that  this 
cleric's  activities  had  been  worth  four  additional  army  corps  to 
the  Austrians. 

The  nth  and  gth  Armies  retired  fighting  to  the  bridgeheads 
of  the  Dniester. 

Mackenzen's  thrust  had  set  up  a  running  sore  that  was  draining 
the  vital  force  of  the  Russian  defence,  but  the  enemy's  advance  on 
the  Russian  extreme  right  in  Kurland  now  also  called  for  serious 
attention. 

During  the  first  eight  months  of  war  the  enemy  had  made  no 
attempt  in  this  direction.  The  Russian  occupation  of  Memel  on 
March  i8th  seems  to  have  drawn  the  attention  of  the  German 
Supreme  Command  to  the  advantages  to  be  gained  by  an  invasion 
of  the  Baltic  Provinces.  The  Russian  Expedition  was  a  very 
futile  affair,  and  the  Opolchenie  was  driven  out  again  on  March 
23rd.  The  Germans,  always  nervous  of  any  invasion  of  the  home 
territory,  sent  a  cavalry  division  across  the  Russian  frontier  to 


April-August,  1915  291 

prevent  its  recurrence.  Kurland  was  found  to  be  rich  in  supplies, 
and  the  German  force  was  gradually  increased,  compelling  the 
Russians  to  detach  troops  from  their  loth,  I2th  and  1st  Armies 
to  oppose  the  advance.  The  German  Army  of  the  Nyeman,  as  it 
came  to  be  called,  was  always  a  "  justifiable  detachment,"  for  it 
occupied  an  enemy  force  superior  to  its  own  strength,  it  weakened 
the  long-drawn-out  Russian  front,  and  by  its  threat  to  Riga,  the 
centre  of  the  Russian  steel  industry,  increased  the  confusion  in 
the  Russian  rear  organisation. 

The  importance  of  the  new  German  move  was  for  a  long  time 
underrated.  At  the  beginning  of  May  the  Chief  of  the  General 
Staff  at  Petrograd  still  thought  it  was  merely  a  foraging  raid,  and 
the  General  Quartermaster  said  that  the  Grand  Duke  was  "  per- 
fectly calm  on  the  subject." 

The  Russians  had  at  first  only  weak  detachments  of  Opolchenie 
in  this  area.  Their  cavalry  was  all  elsewhere,  some  of  it  in  the 
trenches,  the  rest  vegetating  in  rear  of  the  infantry  in  the  various 
armies.  Strong  forces  of  Opolchenie  were  sent  from  Petrograd 
and  Moscow,  cavalry  was  directed  against  the  enemy's  right  rear, 
and  an  army  corps  was  brought  round  by  rail  from  the  North- 
West  Front  to  Riga. 

In  the  latter  half  of  May  it  was  acknowledged  that  the  Ger- 
man force  in  this  area  amounted  to  five  divisions  of  infantry  and 
seven  and  a  half  of  cavalry.  The  general  line  occupied  by  the 
invading  detachments  ran  from  a  point  on  the  coast  north  of 
Libau  in  a  south-easterly  direction  to  west  of  Shavli  and  along 
the  Dubisa  to  its  junction  with  the  Nyeman,  halfway  between 
Kovna  and  the  German  frontier.  Libau,  which  had  been 
abandoned  by  the  Russians  with  scarcely  a  struggle,  was  soon 
fortified  as  a  base  and  linked  by  narrow-gauge  line  with 
Memel. 

In  early  June  there  was  something  like  a  panic  in  Riga.  The 
banks  were  removed.  A  committee  was  appointed  to  arrange  for 
the  evacuation  of  the  civilian  population  and  of  such  material  as 
was  likely  to  be  of  use  to  the  enemy.  All  the  important  factories 
removed  their  plant  to  the  east,  and,  owing  to  shortage  of  suitable 
accommodation  elsewhere  and  defective  organisation,  many  of 


292        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

them  were  unable  to  re-start  work  satisfactorily  during  the  war. 
It  was  now  fully  recognised  that  the  loss  of  Riga  would  be  a 
greater  loss  materially  than  the  loss  of  Warsaw.  Unfortunately 
,the  mere  threat  to  Riga  deprived  the  great  manufacturing  town 
of  all  usefulness  for  the  national  defence. 

In  spite  of  the  desperate  situation  in  Galicia,  where  every 
bayonet  was  necessary  to  help  in  the  defence  of  Lemberg,  the 
Russian  Command  was  forced  to  transfer  two  divisions  (i2th 
Siberian  and  I3th  Siberian)  from  Galicia  to  the  north.  General 
Plehve  was  moved  from  the  command  of  the  I2th  Army  at  Lomja 
to  Mitau  to  take  command  of  a  new  5th  Army  whose  front  ran 
from  the  Baltic  to  the  junction  of  the  Dubisa  and  Nyeman.  He 
arrived  at  Riga  on  June  loth,  and  there  was  placed  at  his  disposal 
a  force  of  over  four  corps  and  six  cavalry  divisions.  Plehve's 
place  at  Lomja  was  taken  by  General  Churin,  who  moved  with 
his  staff  from  the  command  of  the  former  5th  Army  at  Mala  Vyes 
on  the  Trans- Vistula  front.  The  corps  of  the  former  5th  Army 
were  incorporated  with  the  2nd  Army,  which  now  held  the  line  of 
the  Ravka  as  well  as  of  the  Bzura,  the  4th  Army,  as  before,  con- 
tinuing the  front  from  the  Pilitsa  to  the  Vistula. 

After  a  pause  to  fill  up  with  men  and  munitions,  the  enemy  re- 
sumed his  advance  in  Galicia  on  June  nth.  Lemberg  was  occupied 
on  the  22nd,  the  Russian  8th  Army  retiring  east  to  the  Western  Bug 
and  the  Gnila  Lipa,  where  defensive  lines  had  been  prepared. 
The  Dniester  above  Halicz  was  abandoned. 

Meanwhile  the  3rd  Army,  being  obliged  to  defend  the  left  rear 
of  the  Trans- Vistula  armies,  had  to  retire  due  north  towards  the 
Lyublin-Kholm  railway.  Mackenzen's  advance  on  Zolkiew  and 
Rawa  Ruska  turned  the  right  of  the  8th  Army  and  forced  the 
3rd  and  8th  Armies  on  to  divergent  lines  of  retreat.  A  detach- 
ment formed  of  troops  drawn  from  the  left  of  the  3rd  and  the  right 
of  the  8th  Armies — the  XXIXth,  Vth  Caucasian,  Hnd  Caucasian 
and  XXIIIrd  Corps,  with  the  IVth  Cavalry  Corps — was  set  the 
difficult  task  of  manoeuvring  to  maintain  touch  between  the 
two  armies.  This  detachment  was  at  first  commanded  by  General 
Olukhov  from  the  XXIIIrd  Corps,  but  was  afterwards  formed 


April -August,  1915  293 

into  the  i3th  Army  under  General  Gorbatovski,  late  Commander 
of  the  XlXth  Corps. 

The  main  German  advance  was  now  directed  against  the  line 
Vladimir  Volinski-Kholm,  i.e.,  against  the  isth  Army,  but  any 
success  in  this  direction  made  itself  at  once  felt  from  the  Pilitsa 
to  the  frontier  of  Rumania,  and  the  4th,  3rd,  8th,  nth  and  gth 
Armies  were  compelled  to  conform  to  each  retirement.  The 
real  work  continued  to  be  done  by  the  Germans  with  their  heavy 
guns,  the  Austrians  merely  filling  in  the  gaps  in  the  general  front. 

The  influence  of  the  great  Pripyat  marsh  already  commenced 
to  affect  the  Russian  conduct  of  operations.  It  was  foreseen  that 
in  this  area,  which  is  also  called  Polyesie,  the  movement  of 
armies  would  be  exceedingly  difficult,  and  that  the  Russian 
force  as  they  retired  would  be  divided  by  it  into  two  groups. 
For  this  reason  the  3rd  Army  was  handed  over  from  the  South- 
West  to  the  North- West  Front. 

M.  Sazonov  told  the  Ambassador  that  G.H.Q.  considered  that 
Warsaw  would  not  be  in  danger  for  two  months,  but  the  official 
optimism  was  too  obvious,  and  I  reported  on  July  4th  that  the 
whole  Vistula  line  would  be  necessarily  abandoned  within  a 
month. 

Though  the  abandonment  of  Warsaw,  with  its  wealth  and  its 
art  treasures  and  its  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  Poles,  was 
from  every  point  of  view  lamentable,  it  was  evident  that  the 
possession  of  the  city  was  not  a  vital  factor  in  the  eventual 
success  of  the  Russian  arms,  and  the  greater  danger  to  the  military 
observer  seemed  to  be  that  the  Russian  Command  might  delay 
the  disagreeable  decision  so  long  as  to  risk  the  cutting  off  of  the 
Trans-Vistula  armies.  The  event  proved  that  these  fears  were 
ungrounded. 

It  was  evident  that  the  mere  occupation  of  Poland  as  long  as 
the  Russian  army  remained  in  being  could  not  force  Russia  to 
her  knees,  and  that  if  the  Allies  in  the  West  were  able  to  provide 
for  its  re-armament,  the  Russian  army  would  once  more  take  the 
offensive  in  the  spring  of  1916.  The  main  problem  of  the  next 
six  to  eight  months  seemed  to  be  the  re-armament  of  Russia. 

In  spite  of  Russia's  population  of  180,000,000,  the  Russian 


294        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

army  on  the  western  frontier  was  at  this  time  outnumbered  in 
everything  except  the  cavalry  arm,  for  less  than  100  very  weak 
infantry  divisions  opposed  sixty-six  German  and  forty-five  and  a 
half  Austrian  divisions.  M.  Guchkov  estimated  Russia's  losses 
up  to  the  beginning  of  July  at  3,800,000  in  killed,  wounded  and 
missing.  Owing  to  lack  of  rifles,  the  calling  up  of  the  1916  Class, 
which  had  been  proposed  for  June,  was  postponed. 

The  Russian  Command  determined  to  make  a  supreme  effort 
to  check  the  progress  of  the  Mackenzen  phalanx,  which  was  moving 
north  on  the  Zamostie-Krasnostav-Kholm  road.  As  in  the  Vistula 
battles  in  October,  our  allies  had  now  the  best  of  the  com- 
munications, for  the  enemy  advanced  troops  had  behind  them  the 
roadless  glacis  of  the  Polish  salient,  while  the  Russian  strategic 
railways  should  have  made  the  transfer  of  their  troops  from 
north  to  south  an  easy  matter. 

As  a  last  resort  three  corps  were  transferred  from  the  North- 
West  Front.  The  Guard  was  taken  from  the  I2th  Army  at 
Lomja.  It  travelled  by  the  direct  double  line  from  Byelostok 
by  Brest  Litovsk,  and  completed  its  detrainment  at  Kholm  on 
July  7th.  The  transfer  of  this  corps  of  two  and  a  half  infantry 
divisions  and  one  cavalry  brigade  took  eleven  days,  chiefly  owing 
to  confusion  arising  from  the  fact  that  the  railway  north  of  Brest 
was  under  the  administrative  staff  of  the  North- West  Front,  while 
that  to  the  south  was  under  the  South- West  Front. 

The  Ilnd  Siberian  Corps  from  the  ist  Army  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Tsyekhanov  moved  via  Malkin  and  Syedlets,  and  the  Vlth 
Siberian  Corps  from  the  2nd  Army  on  the  Bzura  railed  by  Ivan- 
gorod,  and  both  corps  were  detrained  between  Lyublin  and 
Kholm. 

On  July  8th  the  4th  Army  administered  a  useful  check  to  the 
Austrian  army  of  the  Archduke  Joseph  Ferdinand.  The  Aus- 
trians  were  advancing  from  Krasnik  on  Lyublin,  when  Ewarth 
threw  his  reserve,  consisting  of  four  regiments  drawn  from 
different  divisions,  on  their  flank  from  the  north-west  and  drove 
them  back  several  versts,  taking  17,000  prisoners.  This  tempo- 
rary success  delayed  the  advance  of  the  enemy,  who  were  indeed 


April-August,  1915  295 

only  kept  in  movement  by  the  German  troops,  inserted  at  this 
time  in  no  less  than  eighteen  different  places  from  the  Pilitsa  to 
the  Rumanian  frontier. 

On  July  i6th  I  left  Warsaw  for  the  last  time.  The  general 
population  seemed  to  have  little  knowledge  of  the  actual  situation. 
My  Diary  of  July  I2th  contains  the  remark  : 

It  is  said  that  Lesh  will  commence  an  offensive  on 
Wednesday  or  Thursday  (the  I4th  or  I5th).  I  personally 
think  that  the  Russians  will  delay,  and  it  will  be  a  German 
offensive. 

General  Turbin,  the  Military  Commandant,  was  as  jovial  and 
optimistic  as  ever.  I  suggested  to  him  that  the  2nd  Army  had 
been  dangerously  weakened,  but  he  replied  that  it  had  no  one  in 
front  of  it  but  "  hooligans  with  gases."  The  civil  Governor, 
Prince  Engalichev,  professed  to  believe  that  the  Germans  had 
already  left  the  Lyublin  Government  to  commence  some  other 
operation  !  On  the  I5th  we  learned  that  the  Germans  had  com- 
menced their  offensive  on  the  Narev  on  the  I3th,  and  that  the 
Russians  had  retired  to  a  second  line  of  defence  between  the 
rivers  Orjits  and  Lidinya,  yet  even  this  made  no  impression, 
and  an  acquaintance  actually  said  that  the  Russian 
Command  had  hoped  that  the  Germans  were  going  to  attack  on 
the  Narev  front. 

I  was  convinced,  however,  that  Warsaw  was  doomed,  and 
grew  sentimental  as  I  walked  for  the  last  time  in  the  Lazienki 
Gardens  and  tried  to  imagine  what  they  would  look  like  in 
German  occupation. 

I  spent  the  night  of  July  i6th  at  the  Headquarters  of  the 
North- West  Front  at  Syedlets  to  try  to  get  some  idea  of  the 
general  situation.  General  Gulevich,  the  Chief  of  Staff,  was 
naturally  worried  and  nervous.  He  said  the  Germans  were 
attacking  everywhere.  "  C'est  le  combat  general."  They  were 
suffering  heavy  losses,  but  so  were  we  from  their  heavy  artillery. 
Two  divisions  had  been  cut  to  pieces  on  the  South- West  Front ; 
the  companies  were  over  war  strength  and  now  they  numbered 
twenty  men  each.  I  was  indiscreet  enough  to  ask  whether  it 


296        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

had  been  decided  yet  to  abandon  Warsaw,  but  he  replied  simply  : 
"  Nous  luttons."  I  felt  very  much  de  trop,  for  the  time  was 
naturally  one  of  great  tension,  especially  for  Gulevich,  who  as 
Chief  of  Staff  had  to  direct  the  operations  of  no  less  than  seven 
armies  from  the  Baltic  to  South-East  Poland  :  the  5th,  loth, 
I2th,  ist,  2nd,  4th  and  3rd. 

It  was  rumoured  in  Syedlets  that  a  new  "  Northern  Front ' 
was  to  be  created  and  that  the  command  was  to  be  given  to 
General  Ruzski.  He  was  to  control  three  armies  with  the  object 
of  defending  the  approaches  to  Riga  and  Dvinsk.  Certain 
members  of  the  Staff  at  Syedlets  keenly  regretted  Ruzski's  de- 
parture. They  held  that  while  Alexyeev  had  done  excellent  work 
as  Chief  of  Staff  to  Ivanov,  he  lacked  sufficient  confidence  in  his 
own  judgment  to  be  a  good  commander-in-chief.  He  kept  by 
him  two  aged  mentors,  who  had  no  official  position,  but  whom 
he  consulted  in  everything — General  Palitsin,  who  had  been  Chief 
of  the  General  Staff  five  years  previously,  and  a  certain  General 
Borisov,  an  authority  on  the  Napoleonic  wars. 

I  motored  from  Syedlets  to  Kholm  on  July  I7th  and  joined 
the  Staff  of  the  Guard  Corps,  which  I  found  in  a  large  girls' 
school.  The  whole  road  from  Vlodava  to  Kholm  was  covered  by 
columns  of  poor  refugees  of  both  sexes  and  every  age,  who  had 
been  forced  by  the  Russians  to  leave  their  homes  before  the 
German  advance.  The  harvest  was  being  got  in,  but  slowly,  as 
most  of  the  men  of  serving  age  had  been  evacuated  to  the  east. 

I  dined  with  Neilson  at  the  Staff  of  the  3rd  Army,  and  sat 
next  Lesh.  I  asked  him  on  what  line  he  was  going  to  retreat, 
but  he  would  not  hear  of  retreat,  and  said  he  was  going  to  attack. 

The  composition  of  the  Russian  armies  is  believed  to  have  been 
as  follows  at  the  middle  of  July  : 

NORTH-WEST  FRONT. — Headquarters  :  Syedlets.  Commander  : 
General  Alexyeev.  Chief  of  Staff :  General  Gulevich. 
Front :  Baltic  to  Kholm. 

5TH  ARMY. — General  Plehve.  Chief  of  Staff:  General 
Miller.  Headquarters :  Riga.  Front :  Gulf  of  Riga  to 
Kovna. 


April -August,  1915  297 

Tukhum  Detachment. 

Opolchenie  Detachments. 

Ussuri  Cavalry  Brigade. 

Cavalry  School  Brigade. 

4th  Don  Cossack  Cavalry  Division. 

3rd  Cavalry  Division. 

3rd  Turkistan  Division. 

I2th  and  I3th  Siberian  Divisions. 

5th  Rifle  Division. 

XlXth  Corps  (near  Shavli). 

Illrd  Corps. 

5th  and  3rd  Cavalry  Divisions. 

XXXVIIth  Corps.     One  brigade  of  the  XHIth  Corps. 

I5th  Cavalry  Division. 

1st  Guard  Cavalry  Division. 

Kuban  Cossack  Cavalry  Division. 

IOTH  ARMY. — General  Radke  vich.  Chief  of  Staff :  General 
Popov.  Headquarters :  Grodna.  Front :  Kovna 
to  Osovets  (exclusive). 

Illrd  Siberian  Corps. 

XXXI Vth  Corps. 

Ilnd  Corps. 

XXVIth  Corps. 

XXth  Corps. 

I2TH  ARMY. — General  Churin.     Chief  of  Staff:    General 
Sievers.     Headquarters :    Zambrov.     Front :    Oso- 
vets to  River  Orjits. 
57th  Division  (garrison  of  Osovets). 
1st  Corps. 
Vth  Corps. 
IVth  Siberian  Corps. 

IST  ARMY. — General  Lit  vino  v.  Chief  of  Staff:  General 
Odishelidze.  Headquarters :  Yablonna  (north  of 
Warsaw).  Front :  River  Orjits  to  lower  Vistula. 

1st  Siberian  Corps. 

1st  Turkistan  Corps. 


298        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

IVth  Corps. 

XXVIIth  Corps. 

I4th,  8th  and  6th  Cavalry  Divisions. 

2ND  ARMY. — General  Smirnov.     Headquarters  :   Warsaw. 

Front :  Lower  Vistula  to  Gura  Kalvariya. 
Vth  Siberian  Corps. 
XXXVth  Corps. 
XXXVIth  Corps.  :  v 

4TH  ARMY. — General  Ewarth.    Headquarters  :  Ivangorod. 

Front :  North-west  of  Ivangorod-Kasimerj-Opole  to 

ten  versts  south  of  Lyublin. 
XVIth  Corps.  '  •-;.  •',"  < 

Grenadier  Corps. 

XXVth  Corps.  ;  ,, 

XVth  Corps. 
Vlth  Siberian  Corps. 

3RD  ARMY. — General  Lesh.  Chief  of  Staff :  General 
Baiov.  Headquarters :  Kholm.  Front :  South 
of  Lyublin  to  Voislavitse,  south  of  Kholm. 

IXth  Corps. 

Xth  Corps. 

Ilnd  Siberian  Corps. 

Illrd  Caucasian  Corps. 

XlVth  Corps. 

XXIVth  Corps. 

With  Cavalry :  2nd  Combined  Cossack  Cavalry  Divi- 
sion ;  3rd  Caucasian  Cossack  Cavalry  Division. 

In  Reserve  :   Guard  Corps. 

SOUTH-WEST  FRONT:  General  Ivanov.  Chief  of  Staff: 
Savich.  Headquarters:  Rovno.  Front:  Voislavitse 
to  the  Rumanian  frontier. 

I3TH  ARMY. — General  Gorbatovski.     Chief  of  Staff :  Gen- 
eral   Byelyaev.     Headquarters :     Kovel.     Front : 
Voislavitse  to  north-east  of  Sokal. 
Ilnd  Caucasian  Corps. 


April-August,  1915  299 

Vth  Caucasian  Corps. 

XXIXth  Corps. 

3rd  Don  Cossack  Cavalry  Division. 

i6th  Cavalry  Division. 

2nd  Guard  Cavalry  Division. 

XXIIIrd  Corps. 

XXXVIIIth  Corps. 

XXXIst  Corps. 

STH   ARMY. — General    Brusilov.     Headquarters :    Brody. 

Front :  North-east  of  Sokal  to  west  of  Zloczow. 
XVIIth  Corps. 
Xllth  Corps. 
XXVIIIth  Corps. 
Vllth  Corps. 
Vlllth  Corps. 

IITH  ARMY. — General  Shcherbachev.  Chief  of  Staff: 
General  Golovin.  Headquarters :  Tarnopol.  Front : 
West  of  Zloczow  to  Nizniow. 

Vlth  Corps. 

XVIIIth  Corps. 

XXIInd  Corps. 

QTH  ARMY. — General  Lechitski.  Chief  of  Staff:  General 
Sanikov.  Headquarters  :  Gusyatin.  Front : 
Nizniow  to  Khotin. 

Xlth  Corps. 

XXXth  Corps. 

XXXIIIrd  Corps. 

Ilnd  Cavalry  Corps. 

Illrd  Cavalry  Corps. 

XXXIInd  Corps. 

The  opinion  was  strongly  held  in  the  Staff  of  the  3rd  Army 
that  if  the  Ilnd  Siberian  and  Guard  Corps,  both  of  which  were 
considerably  over  war  strength,  had  been  launched  at  once,  i.e., 
about  July  gth  or  loth,  against  the  head  of  Mackenzen's  army, 
they  would  have  carried  the  remnants  of  the  3rd  Army  with  them 


300        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

and  a  general  success  would  have  been  scored.  I  think  this  is 
doubtful.  The  enemy  had  naturally  fortified  his  position  during 
the  halt  to  await  reinforcements.  The  following  divisions  lay 
from  left  to  right  against  the  3rd  Russian  Army  : 

45th  Austrian  44th  German 

nth  Austrian  ist  Prussian  Guard 

igth  German  2nd  Prussian  Guard 

20th  German  22nd  German 

ngth  German  3gth  Austrian 

43rd  German  I2th  Austrian 

i.e.,  eight  German  and  four  Austrian  divisions,  with,  it  was 
believed,  an  additional  German  and  an  additional  Austrian 
division  in  rear.  The  Russian  General  Staff  credited  this  force 
with  a  total  of  155  to  160  battalions,  or  115,000  to  I20,ooobayonets. 
This  estimate  was  probably  exaggerated,  but  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that,  though  the  enemy  divisions  had  suffered  considerable 
losses,  their  strength  was  never  allowed  to  drop  to  the  danger- 
ously anaemic  condition  that  had  become  chronic  in  Russian 
divisions. 

To  oppose  Mackenzen  the  3rd  Army  had  in  line  : 

BAYONETS. 
IXth  Corps  :  5th  and  42nd  Divisions  . .  . .  . .     6,000 

Xth  Corps  :  gth  and  66th  Divisions    . .  . .  . .     2,000 

Illrd  Caucasian  Corps  :   2ist  and  52nd  Divisions          . .     2,000 
XlVth  Corps  :  i8th  and  70th  Divisions  . .  . .     8,000 

XXIVth  Corps  :  48th  and  4gth  Divisions         . .  . .     7,000 

and  in  second  line  : 

BAYONETS. 

Ilnd  Siberian  Corps  :  4th  and  5th  Siberian  Divisions  . .  32,000 
Guard  Corps  :  ist  and  2nd  Guard  Divisions  and  Guard 

Rifle  Brigade  ...  . .  . .  . .  . .     40,000 

and  two  and  a  half  divisions  of  Cossack  cavalry,  i.e.,  fourteen  and 
a  half  divisions  of  infantry  containing  nominally  232  battalions, 
but  really  only  97,000  bayonets. 


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Polish  chateau  at  Reiovets.  Staff  of  the  Guard  Corps  18th-31st  July. 

[See  page  301 


22nd  July,  1915.     General  Bezobrazov  thanking  the  3rd  and  4th  Guard 

Rifle  Regiments  for  their  services. 

[See  page  302 


April-August,  1915  301 

The  Russian  formations  in  front  line  were  merely  skeletons, 
and  their  morale  had  been  severely  shaken  by  two  and  a  half 
months  of  constant  retreat.  For  instance,  a  report  on  July  ijth 
from  one  corps  stated  that  "  superhuman  efforts  were  required  to 
keep  the  men  in  the  trenches/'  The  enemy  was  overwhelmingly 
superior  in  number  of  guns  and  in  ammunition  supply. 

Whether  such  a  counterstroke  had  any  real  chance  of  success 
or  not,  the  higher  authorities  had  no  intention  of  risking  every- 
thing on  what  they  evidently  considered  a  desperate  venture. 
It  is  said  that  Danilov,  the  General  Quartermaster  at  G.H.Q., 
considered  it  useless  to  commence  an  offensive  which  lack  of 
shell  prevented  from  being  fought  out  to  a  conclusion.  Alexyeev 
tried  to  retain  the  corps  transferred  from  the  north  as  long  as 
possible  under  his  personal  control,  and  only  dealt  out  units 
sparingly  as  local  palliatives.  The  Vlth  Siberian  Corps  was  first 
assigned  to  the  4th  Army,  and  went  into  action  on  the  left  of  that 
army  to  defend  the  approaches  to  Lyublin. 

Lesh  telegraphed  three  times  in  a  single  day  imploring 
Alexyeev  to  give  him  the  Ilnd  Siberian  and  Guard  Corps,  but 
Alexyeev  refused. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  I5th  Mackenzen  once  more  advanced, 
and  the  Russian  trenches  were  soon  destroyed  by  heavy  gun-fire. 
On  the  i6th  the  Xth  Corps  and  the  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps  were 
driven  in,  and  the  Ilnd  Siberian  Corps  was  at  last  placed  at  Lesh's 
disposal.  Radko  Dimitriev,  who  commanded  it,  received  orders 
to  incorporate  the  Xth  Corps  with  his  own  and  to  attack  on  the 
I7th.  A  brigade  of  the  Guard  took  over  the  line  previously  held 
by  the  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps. 

Radko,  after  advancing  a  short  distance,  was  forced  back.  On 
the  i8th  the  Staff  of  the  Guard  Corps  moved  from  Kholm  south- 
west to  Reiovets,  and  threw  a  division  into  the  line  to  stop  a  gap 
north  of  Krasnostav. 

The  staff  was  lodged  at  Reiovets  in  a  fine  Polish  chateau. 
Its  work  was  poor.  General  Bezobrazov  had  no  longer  Colonel 
Domanevski  to  lean  on,  for  that  able  staff  officer  had  gone  to 
command  a  regiment  in  the  I4th  Cavalry  Division.  Count 
Nostitz,  who,  though  he  did  little  work,  was  at  any  rate 


302        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

intelligent  and  tactful,  had  been  stelleribosched  to  Petrograd,  where 
he  remained  till  the  end  of  the  war  employed  by  the  General  Staff 
to  count  the  casualties  in  the  German  army.  His  successor, 
General  Antipov,  was  less  intelligent ;  his  energy  was  only  devoted 
to  meddling,  and  he  had  no  influence  with  his  chief.  Bezobrazov 
had,  in  fact,  no  adviser  of  sufficiently  strong  character  to  make  his 
influence  felt,  and  he  therefore  gave  free  rein  to  a  somewhat  in- 
subordinate disposition.  Beloved  by  those  who  served  under 
him,  he  had,  on  the  other  hand,  quarrelled  with  every  army 
commander  with  whom  he  had  come  in  contact,  first  with 
Lechitski  and  then  with  Plehve.  He  resented  the  idea  of  serving 
under  Lesh,  who  in  peace  had  commanded  a  division  of  the  Guard 
under  his  orders.  On  the  i8th  he  asked  Lesh  by  telephone  to 
give  him  back  the  2nd  Guard  Infantry  Division,  then  held  as  Army 
Reserve,  to  enable  him  to  take  the  offensive.  Lesh  refused,  and 
the  fact  that  at  this  moment  the  XlVth  and  XXIVth  Corps  on  the 
left  of  the  army  had  only  ten  rounds  per  rifle  and  seventy  rounds 
per  gun  left  seems  sufficient  reason  for  his  refusal.  The  refusal, 
however,  started  the  inevitable  quarrel. 

On  this  day  for  the  first  time  in  history  the  Russian  Guard 
met  the  Prussian  Guard.  The  Russian  Guard  held  its  own,  but 
on  its  right  the  Hlrd  Caucasian  Corps  and  on  its  left  the  XlVth 
Corps  gave  way.  At  10  p.m.  orders  were  issued  for  the  whole 
Russian  line  to  retire  from  six  to  eleven  versts  to  the  north. 

The  Hlrd  Caucasian  Corps  and  the  Xth  Corps  were  withdrawn 
from  the  line  to  re-form.  In  the  next  few  days  the  enemy  con- 
tented himself  with  pounding  in  turn  with  his  heavy  artillery 
different  sections  of  the  line. 

The  Guard  had  at  this  time  ninety  field  guns,  twelve  4-8" 
howitzers,  eight  4*2*  guns,  four  6"  howitzers  and  four  6'  Schneider 
guns.  It  had  a  sufficiency  of  shell,  as  had  the  Ilnd  Siberian 
Corps,  but  the  other  corps  had  little.  The  German  guns 
dominated  the  situation. 

On  the  22nd  I  accompanied  General  Bezobrazov  when  he 
rode  to  the  support  line  to  thank  the  Izmailovski  Regiment  and 
the  3rd  and  4th  Regiments  of  the  Rifle  Brigade  of  the  Guard  for 
their  services  in  the  recent  fighting.  The  Izmailovski  had  lost 


April-August,  1915  303 

about  30  per  cent,  and  the  two  rifle  regiments  about  60  per  cent. 
The  General  said  a  few  words  of  warm  praise  to  such  men  as  could 
be  collected.  We  returned  to  the  Staff  late  for  the  mess  meal,  so 
the  General  asked  me  to  dine  in  his  room.  While  dining  he 
complained  of  Lesh's  refusal  to  allow  him  to  attack  on  the  i8th, 
and  Engelhardt  interposed  with  the  remark  that  he  might  have 
attacked  without  asking  permission  at  all. 

That  evening  at  7  p.m.  Bezobrazov  received  a  telegram  from 
Lesh  that  he  "  was  glad  to  be  able  to  grant  his  request,"  and  that 
he  could  attack  at  i  a.m.  on  the  23rd. 

Bezobrazov,  however,  considered  that  the  moment  for  attack 
had  now  passed,  as  the  Guard  had  by  this  time  lost  a  considerable 
number  of  men.  He  sent  an  insubordinate  reply  to  his  Army 
Commander,  characterising  the  order  to  attack  in  the  night  as  an 
"  absurd  "  one  that  would  cause  useless  waste  of  life.  He  issued 
no  orders  till  12.30  a.m.,  and  then  of  so  undecided  a  character  that 
one  of  the  divisional  commanders  telephoned  to  ask  if  a  real 
attack  was  intended  or  only  a  "  make-believe."  The  result  was 
as  might  have  been  expected.  The  IXth  Corps  and  the  Ilnd 
Siberian  Corps  on  the  right  of  the  Guard  advanced  several  miles 
and  took  fourteen  enemy  guns,  but  were  forced  eventually  to 
retire  with  heavy  loss.  The  XlVth  and  XXIVth  Corps  on  the 
left  had  been  ordered  to  await  the  development  of  the  attack  of 
the  Guard,  and,  as  that  never  really  developed  at  all,  they  did  not 
move. 

Such  disobedience  of  orders  in  the  face  of  the  enemy 
was  more  than  could  be  stood  even  from  the  Com- 
mander of  the  Guard,  and  Bezobrazov  was  removed  from  his 
command  to  give  place  to  General  Olukhov,  from  the  XXIIIrd 
Corps.  He  drove  away  from  Reiovets  on  the  morning  of  the 
25th,  leaving  behind  him  the  overgrown  Staff  very  nervous  as  to 
whether  it  would  be  pruned  down  to  establishment,  but  hopeful 
that  as  Olukhov  had  "  served  in  the  Guard,  he  would  understand 
matters,"  and  allow  irregularities  to  continue. 

General  Olukhov  arrived  on  the  28th,  and  wisely  refrained  for 
the  present  from  disturbing  the  Staff. 

On  the  30th,  before  the  new  Commander  had  had  time  to 


304        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

appreciate  the  incompetence  of  his  Chief  of  Staff,  the  Germans 
commenced  bombarding  the  5th  Siberian  Division  on  his  im- 
mediate right,  north-west  of  Krasnostav.  The  shelling  continued 
from  2  a.m.  till  n  a.m.,  and  the  Guard  made  no  attempt  to  help. 
At  I  p.m.  the  Chief  of  Staff  said  that  the  Siberians  were  holding 
their  position.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  were  then  in  full  retreat. 
About  2.30  p.m.  Captain  Neilson,  motoring  along  the  chaussee 
from  Lyublin,  came  under  heavy  shrapnel  fire,  and  saw  the  Xth 
Corps  going  forward  to  reinforce  the  Siberians,  who  were  retreating 
in  disorder.  Considerably  later  in  the  afternoon  the  Army  Staff 
knew  nothing  of  the  German  penetration.  The  Cossack  Brigade 
of  the  Guard,  which  was  in  the  trenches  on  the  immediate  left  of 
the  Siberians,  seems  to  have  sent  in  no  reports.  Only  at  5.30  a 
message  reached  the  Guard  Staff  from  Radko  Dimitriev  that  the 
5th  Siberian  Division,  "  in  spite  of  heroic  resistance,  had  been 
forced  to  retire."  General  Antipov  even  then  failed  to  realise 
the  seriousness  of  the  situation,  and  continued  to  draw  up  a  table 
of  work  for  the  members  of  the  Staff.  At  6  p.m.  he  received  a 
report  from  the  Army  Staff  to  the  effect  that  the  Germans  had 
crossed  the  Vyeprj.  They  had  penetrated  north  through  Travnik, 
severing  the  Kholm-Lyublin  railway  and  chaussee.  Their  advance 
north  was  checked  by  the  Xth  Corps,  which  consisted  of  two  weak 
composite  regiments,  about  3  p.m.,  and  some  hours  later  their 
move  east,  which  threatened  to  outflank  the  Guard,  was  checked 
by  the  seven  battalions  of  the  Guard  Reserve. 

The  situation,  however,  remained  serious,  for  little  reliance 
could  be  placed  on  the  power  of  resistance  of  the  Xth  Corps. 
Antipov  was  much  blamed  for  the  def ectiveness  of  the  communica- 
tions and  for  his  failure  to  co-operate  with  the  Siberians  in  time 
by  striking  at  the  right  flank  of  the  pursuing  Germans.  He  was 
not  flurried,  only  quietly  incapable.  Second  lieutenants  offered 
their  advice,  and  he  listened  but  did  nothing.  At  last,  at  1.30  a.m. 
on  the  3ist,  orders  were  received  from  the  Staff  of  the  Army  for 
the  whole  army  to  retire  at  3  a.m.  fifteen  versts  to  the  north. 

I  occupied  a  room  at  the  top  of  the  house  with  three  other 
officers,  and  was  preparing  to  turn  in  when  Rodzianko  came  up 
to  tell  me  that  it  was  of  no  use  to  go  to  bed.  He  was  in  a  towering 


April-August,  1915  305 

rage,  and  cursed  the  Chief  of  Staff  freely,  saying  that  things  were 
going  on  in  the  Staff  of  the  Guard  Corps  that  were  a  disgrace  to 
the  Russian  army.  Another  of  my  stable  companions,  old 

Colonel  L ,  a  retired  officer  of  the  Guard  cavalry,  who  hailed 

from  the  Baltic  Provinces,  called  aloud  for  his  sabre  in  fluent 
French  with  a  slight  German  accent,  exclaiming  that  the  Guard 
could  only  die  where  it  stood  but  could  never  retreat.  When  we 
were  left  alone  he  burst  into  invective  against  the  Russians,  "  who 
could  never  be  trusted,"  and  asserted  that  in  the  troublous  times 
of  1905  the  Russians  themselves  had  incited  his  Lettish  tenantry 
to  burn  his  chateau. 

Most  of  the  Staff  went  off  by  car  at  3  a.m.  to  Army  Head- 
quarters in  order  to  maintain  touch  with  the  neighbouring  corps 
pending  the  opening  up  of  telephonic  communication  from  oui 
next  halting-place.  I  remained  behind  till  6  a.m.  to  see  some- 
thing of  the  retirement.  The  troops  went  back  in  good  order  and 
the  Germans  did  not  press.  The  captive  balloon  was  almost 
forgotten,  but  was  remembered  by  a  junior  officer  at  the  last 
moment.  Many  officers  sympathised  with  the  poor  landowner 
who  had  been  our  host.  He  wanted  to  remain  behind,  but 
Colonel  Lallin,  the  Commandant  of  the  Staff,  spoke  to  him 
brutally,  telling  him  that  if  he  remained  it  would  simply  prove 
that  he  was  in  sympathy  with  the  enemy.  The  wily  Pole, 
however,  remained,  and  indeed  it  was  the  only  possible  way  of 
saving  his  property.  Nearly  all  the  poorer  inhabitants  left  with 
the  troops.  We  saw  the  most  pathetic  sights — whole  families 
with  all  their  little  worldly  belongings  piled  on  carts  ;  two  carts 
tied  together  and  drawn  by  a  single  miserable  horse  ;  one  family 
driving  a  cow ;  a  poor  old  man  and  his  wife  each  with  a  huge 
bundle  of  rubbish  tied  up  in  a  sheet  and  slung  on  the  back.  I 
took  a  photograph  of  three  Jews,  who  thought  their  last  hour  had 
come  when  told  to  stop. 

As  usual,  there  was  everywhere  evidence  of  misdirected  or 
undirected  effort.  The  gendarmes,  without  an  officer  to  direct 
them,  ran  about  setting  fire  to  piles  of  dry  straw,  but  leaving  the 
crops  untouched.  Eight  large  barrels  of  copper  parts  from  the 
machinery  of  a  local  factory  had  been  collected  with  infinite 

U 


306         With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

trouble,  but  they  were  characteristically  left  behind  owing  to  a 
doubt  as  to  whose  duty  it  was  to  remove  them.  I  heard  two  small 
explosions  on  the  railway,  but  the  curves,  and  even  the  telegraph, 
were  untouched  at  the  point  where  I  rode  across  the  line,  and  it  is 
very  unlikely  that  any  demolition  was  carried  out  later. 

I  overtook  a  young  artillery  officer  and  rode  with  him  till  we 
got  hungry  and  stopped  in  a  village  to  forage.  We  drank  weak 
tea  and  ate  eggs  and  bread  in  a  clean  cottage.  Our  hostesses  were 
three  old  sisters  and  the  daughter  of  one  of  them,  and  they  cried 
the  whole  time,  they  so  feared  the  coming  of  the  Germans. 

The  losses  in  the  two  and  a  half  divisions  of  the  Guard  in  the 
fighting  from  the  i8th  till  the  28th  (inclusive)  were  : 

OFFICERS.  RANK  AND  FILE. 
Killed      ..            ..          28  IA°9 

Wounded  . .         109  6,409 

Missing    . .  . .  3  1,480 

On  August  ist  the  Guard  had  still  150  shell  per  field  gun, 
500  per  4*2"  gun,  500  per  6"  howitzer  and  800  per  6"  gun.  Other 
corps  in  the  army  were  in  much  worse  case.  They  were  occasion- 
ally sent  a  "  present  "  of  shell,  but  they  certainly  did  not  get  as 
much  as  the  Guard,  who  had  a  duke  as  Inspector  of  Artillery. 

The  Guard  Corps,  having  had  its  flank  turned  on  the  30th 
through  the  giving  way  of  the  Ilnd  Siberian  Corps,  was  anxious 
to  avoid  similar  risks  in  future,  and  telegraphed  at  i  p.m.  on 
August  ist  to  the  Army  Staff  that  the  Xth  Corps  was  short  of 
rifle  cartridges  and  only  had  two  rounds  per  heavy  gun,  so  would 
be  forced  to  retire  if  attacked.  Lesh  replied  at  7  p.m.  in  a  tele- 
gram addressed  to  the  Commanders  of  the  Guard  and  Xth  Corps  : 
"  I  must  ask  corps  commanders  to  refrain  from  disturbing  one 
another  with  panic  reports.  The  corps  are  not  to  retire  on  any 
account  a  yard  from  the  line  they  now  occupy.'1 

However,  three  hours  later — at  10  p.m. — the  whole  of  the  3rd 
Army  was  ordered  to  commence  retiring  at  i  a.m.  on  the  2nd,  as 
the  enemy  had  penetrated  between  the  Ilnd  and  Vth  Caucasian 
Corps  on  the  right  of  the  I3th  Army. 


April-August,  1915  307 

As  the  troops  were  to  move  at  i  a.m.,  the  Chief  of  Staff 
ordered  the  Staff  to  pack  up  to  be  ready  to  move  at  the  same 
time.  When  we  had  all  packed,  a  young  and  intelligent  second 
lieutenant  suggested  to  him  that  there  was  nothing  to  be  gained 
by  the  Staff  moving  at  night.  He  assented,  so  we  all  unpacked 
and  slept  comfortably  till  7  a.m.,  when  we  rode  north  to  Gansk. 

This  false  alarm  was  unlucky  for  my  mounted  orderly,  a  fine 
Cuirassier  of  the  Guard,  who  was  with  me  most  of  the  war. 

A  large  part  of  the  revenues  of  the  Polish  landowners  is 
derived  from  alcohol,  which  is  distilled  on  every  estate  from 
potatoes.  At  each  halting-place  during  the  retreat  we  destroyed 
the  spirit,  which  would  have  proved  too  dangerous  a  temptation 
to  the  retreating  troops.  At  Khilin,  where  we  were  on  August 
ist,  the  spirit  was  run  along  a  channel  to  a  marsh,  and  guarded 
during  the  process  by  numerous  sentries  with  fixed  bayonets, 
while  idle  men  looked  on  thirstily.  As  usual,  the  sentries  were 
posted  without  much  intelligence,  and  certain  adventurous  in- 
dividuals found  a  hole  in  the  wall  at  the  other  side  of  the  distillery 
and  drank  some  of  the  raw  spirit  from  their  forage  caps.  My 
orderly  was  one  of  these,  and  when  he  failed  to  turn  up  at  mid- 
night was  discovered  dead  drunk  in  the  stable.  Next  day  he  ex- 
plained that  he  had  been  affected  by  some  "  strong  tea."  His  head 
must  have  been^sufftcient  lesson,  and  I  did  not  have  him  punished. 

Lyublin  was  abandoned  by  the  4th  Army  on  the  night  of 
July  3ist  and  Kholm  by  the  3rd  Army  on  August  ist.  The  Staffs 
moved  back  to  Radin  and  Vlodava  respectively.  The  Russian 
advanced  left  wing,  which  comprised  the  4th,  3rd  and  I3th  Armies, 
was  now  engaged  in  a  great  wheel  to  the  east  preliminary  to  the 
evacuation  of  the  Polish  salient.  This  wheel  had  been  planned 
beforehand,  and  several  lines  of  entrenchments  had  been  prepared 
to  delay  the  enemy  pending  the  retreat  of  the  troops  from  the 
trans-Vistula  front.  The  positions  had  been  prepared  by  local 
and  prisoner  labour.  Unfortunately,  though  in  some  cases  they 
were  more  up  to  date  than  any  defences  yet  seen  in  Russia,  they 
were  never  completed  in  time  for  the  occupation  of  the  troops. 
Organisation  had  failed  to  calculate  the  time  available  and  to 
provide  the  necessary  men  and  labour  for  the  completion  of  the 


3o8        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

work.  I  asked  General  Podimov,  the  Corps  Engineer  of  the 
Guard,  why  we  could  not  make  use  of  the  hundreds  of  transport 
drivers  and  others  who  were  attached  to  the  corps,  but  he  said  : 
"  You  might  as  well  offer  me  an  inch  of  cloth  when  my  breeches 
are  torn  right  across." 

The  summer  had  been  unfortunately  dry,  and  most  of  the 
large  marshes  were  passable  for  infantry  in  open  order. 

On  August  4th  the  Staff  calculated  that  the  enemy  had 
fourteen  German  and  four  Austrian  divisions  against  the  3rd 
Army,  which  certainly  did  not  exceed  the  equivalent  of  seven  and 
a  half  divisions  in  bayonets.  The  Russian  losses  in  men  had  been 
very  heavy,  for  corps  had  been  constantly  withdrawn  to  be  filled 
up  and  sent  once  more  into  the  line.  The  want  of  really  good 
officers  to  keep  the  men  in  the  trenches  was  being  felt.  We  had 
failed  to  stem  the  German  advance  chiefly  owing  to  lack  of  shell, 
but  it  must  be  confessed  that  any  chance  we  had  was  lessened  by 
the  lack  of  intelligent  co-operation  between  corps  commanders. 

On  the  other  hand,  Mackenzen  had  taken  seventeen  days  to 
advance  twenty-five  miles  north-east  by  north  from  Krasnostav, 
and  it  was  only  by  an  enormous  expenditure  of  shell  that  he  was 
enabled  to  move  forward  at  all.  German  prisoners  complained 
that  they  were  over-tired,  and  they  certainly  looked  it. 

While  the  deplorable  state  of  our  armament  made  a  prolonged 
defensive  impossible,  there  seemed,  on  the  other  hand,  little 
danger  that  the  enemy  would  penetrate  this  part  of  the  front  and 
so  endanger  the  general  withdrawal  from  Poland.  I  therefore 
applied  for  and  obtained  permission  to  move  to  the  Staff  of  the 
ist  Army. 

On  August  5th,  my  last  day  with  the  Guard,  I  lunched  with 
Count  Ignatiev,  the  Commander  of  the  Preobrajenski  Regiment, 
at  the  mess  of  a  battalion  in  support  in  a  wood  about  1,000  yards 
from  the  firing-line.  This  fine  regiment  retained  its  spirit  and  its 
organisation.  We  ate  from  a  camp-table  covered  with  a  clean 
cloth,  and  there  was  certainly  no  sign  of  depression. 

It  was  rumoured  that  Mitau  and  Lomja  x  had  been  lost,  but 

1  As  regards  Lomja,  this  was  only  "  intelligent  anticipation  of  coming 
events." 


April -August,  1915  309 

the  Russians  were  quite  happy.  They  said  :  "  We  will  retire  to 
the  Urals,  and  when  we  get  there  the  enemy's  pursuing  army  will 
have  dwindled  to  a  single  German  and  a  single  Austrian  ;  the 
Austrian  will,  according  to  custom,  give  himself  up  as  a  prisoner, 
and  we  will  kill  the  German."  The  first  part  of  the  remark  was 
strangely  prophetic.  Honest  soldiers  had  confidence  in  Russia's 
immense  pathless  spaces — they  never  dreamt  of  the  coming 
internal  crash. 

At  the  Staff  of  the  3rd  Army  at  Vlodava  on  the  6th  I  learned 
that  Warsaw  had  been  abandoned  on  the  night  of  the  4th  and 
Ivangorod  on  the  night  of  the  5th.  The  2nd  Army  had  been 
ordered  to  move  on  the  night  of  the  6th  to  the  line  Radimin-Novi 
Minsk-Garvolin,  whence  the  4th  Army  continued  the  line  to  the 
right  of  the  3rd  Army. 

On  August  7th  I  drove  across  to  join  the  Staff  of  the  1st  Army 
at  Sokolov.  On  the  way  I  stopped  for  lunch  with  the  Staff  of 
the  4th  Army  at  Radin.  I  found  it  in  an  enormous  Polish 
chateau.  The  officers  were  more  depressed  than  I  had  ever  seen 
Russians.  There  was  dead  silence  as  I  walked  up  the  huge  dining- 
hall.  I  felt  I  was  up  against  a  certain  hostile  feeling,  partly  as  a 
foreigner  and  unbidden  witness  of  Russia's  difficulty,  and  partly  as 
the  representative  of  the  Western  Allies,  who,  to  many  Russian 
minds,  seemed  by  their  inaction  to  be  poorly  repaying  the  Grand 
Duke's  sacrifices  to  serve  us  a  year  earlier.  Ewarth,  the  Com- 
mander, who  was  a  fine  soldier,  reminded  me  that  we  had  last 
met  at  Kyeltsi  at  the  time  of  the  November  advance — as  he  put  it, 
"  in  happier  times."  He  said  :  "It  is  all  a  matter  of  shell.  A 
Russian  corps  will  beat  a  German  corps  any  day,  given  equality  of 
armament." 

The  Staff  of  the  2nd  Army  was  arriving  at  Syedlets  from  Novi 
Minsk  as  I  passed  through.  The  stations  at  both  Novi  Minsk 
and  Syedlets  had  been  bombarded  by  a  Zeppelin  on  the  previous 
night  and  several  casualties  had  been  caused  in  the  train  of  the 
General  Staff  of  the  North- West  Front,  which  had  been  about  to 
leave  the  latter  station  for  Volkovisk. 

The  Staff  of  the  1st  Army  was  in  a  factory  at  Sokolov,  and  there 
I  met  for  the  first  time  the  Commander,  General  Litvinov,  who 


310        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

had  been  promoted  from  the  command  of  the  Vth  Corps  in 
November  to  succeed  Rennenkampf.  He  was  in  poor  health,  and 
had  the  reputation  of  leaving  all  decisions  to  his  Chief  of  Staff. 
This,  however,  was  not  altogether  true,  for  he  kept  himself 
thoroughly  informed  of  everything  in  his  arm}/,  and  nothing  was 
done  without  his  sanction.  The  Chief  of  Staff  was  the  Georgian 
Odishelidze,  and  the  General  Quartermaster  Richkov,  by  birth 
half  an  Armenian.  They  were  close  personal  friends,  and  I  had 
met  both  in  Turkistan  in  1913.  Richkov  was  then  Chief  of  Staff 
of  a  brigade  at  manoeuvres.  I  had  lunched  with  Odishelidze, 
who  was  Governor  of  Samarkand,  where  he  had  a  ten-acre  garden 
in  the  centre  of  the  cantonment.  He  was  a  close  friend  of  Sam- 
sonov,  who  had  a  high  opinion  of  his  ability.  He  was  exception- 
ally clever  and  really  directed  operations,  but  was  not  altogether 
popular  with  Russians,  who  spoke  of  him  as  "  cunning." 

Since  the  beginning  of  March  the  1st  Army,  with  Head- 
quarters at  Yablonna,  north  of  Warsaw,  had  held  a  front  from 
Ednorojets  on  the  river  Orjits  to  the  lower  Vistula.  It  was  the 
staff  of  this  army  that  had  directed  the  Prasnish  operation  in 
March,  the  most  brilliant  Russian  performance  so  far  in  the  war. 
Its  strength  had  since  then  been  much  weakened.  The  Ilnd 
Caucasian  Corps  and  the  XXIIIrd  Corps  had  gone  south  to  the 
3rd  Army  in  June,  and  in  July,  about  ten  days  before  the  German 
attack,  they  had  been  followed  by  the  Ilnd  Siberian  Corps. 

Previous  to  the  weakening  of  his  army  by  these  transfers, 
Litvinov  had  asked  for  permission  to  take  the  offensive.  He  was 
told  that  he  would  best  serve  the  Russian  cause  by  remaining  still 
and  economising  shell. 

In  the  first  part  of  July  the  1st  Army  occupied  a  line  from 
the  north-east  of  Prasnish  by  the  north  of  Tsyekhanov  and  ten 
versts  south  of  Drobin  to  the  Vistula,  about  twenty  versts  south- 
east of  Plotsk,  with  the  following  troops  from  right  to  left  : 

ist  Siberian  Corps  (Plyeshkov) :  ist  Siberian  and  2nd  Siberian 

Divisions, 
ist  Turkistan  Corps  (Scheidemann)  :    ist  and  2nd  Turkistan 

Rifle  Brigades  ;   nth  Siberian  Division. 


31st  July,  1915.    Jewish  fugitives,  escaping  from  Reiovets. 


[See  page  305 


1st  August,  1915.    Khilim,  South  Poland.     Col.  L.,  a  Baltic  Baron. 

To  face  page  310]  [See  page  305 


27th  July,  1915.    Typical  faces,  II.  Siberian  Corps. 


[See  page  304 


12th  August,  1915.    General  Balanin,  Commander  of  the  XXVIIth  Corps. 

[See  page  330 


April-August,  1915  311 

XXVIIth  Corps  (Balanin)  :    2nd  and  76th  Divisions  ;    ist 

Rifle  Brigade. 
Ist  Cavalry  Corps  (Oranovski)  :   6th,  8th  and  I4th  Cavalry 

Divisions. 

The  troops  had  entrenched  the  line  they  occupied. 

There  were  in  addition  certain  detachments  echeloned  along 
the  Vistula  in  rear  of  the  left  flank. 

The  German  offensive  was  expected,  for  information  had  been 
received  that  the  frontier  stations  of  Willenberg,  Soldau  and 
Neidenburg  were  being  enlarged. 

After  a  feint  along  the  Vistula,  the  Germans  commenced  their 
usual  hurricane  bombardment  on  the  line  north  of  Prasnish  and 
Tsyekhanov  on  July  I2th.  They  had  no  difficulty  in  ammunition 
supply  with  their  long  train  of  automobiles,  for  the  weather  had 
been  dry  and  the  roads  were  at  their  best.  The  ist  Army  was 
hopelessly  weak  in  heavy  artillery.  For  instance,  north  of 
Tsyekhanov  the  Ist  Turkistan  Corps  had  to  fight  forty-two  enemy 
guns  of  big  calibre  with  only  two.  As  a  result  the  nth  Siberian 
Division  was  practically  destroyed.  The  enemy  was  in  greatly 
superior  strength,  concentrating  eight  divisions  against  the  line 
Prasnish-Tsyekhanov. 

The  German  preponderance  in  heavy  artillery  caused  some- 
thing of  a  panic.  The  attack  was  delivered  on  July  I3th,  and  on 
that  night  the  Russians  retired  without  pausing  to  defend  a 
second  defensive  line  that  had  been  prepared  by  engineers  im- 
mediately north  of  Prasnish  and  Tsyekhanov  by  Plonsk  to 
Chervinsk.  During  the  retirement  the  enemy's  cavalry  broke 
through  east  of  Tsyekhanov  and  fell  upon  the  transport. 

On  the  i6th  the  line  Makov-Naselsk-Novo  Georgievsk  was 
reached.  The  IVth  Corps  began  to  arrive  by  rail  from  Warsaw, 
and  units  were  pushed  into  the  battle  as  they  detrained.  Though 
this  line  had  been  fortified  in  advance,  the  Russians  were  com- 
pelled to  retire  on  the  night  of  the  i8th  to  the  Narev.  On  the 
right  of  the  ist  Army  the  left  of  the  I2th  Army  similarly  retired. 
The  Vth  Corps  was  in  action  north  of  Novogrod,  the  IVth  Siberian 
Corps  at  Ostrolenka  bridgehead.  The  XXIst  Corps,  which  had 


312       With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

been  re-forming  in  rear  after  its  destruction  on  the  San,  arrived, 
and  was  detrained  to  defend  the  Rojan  bridgehead.  The  1st 
Siberian  Corps  continued  the  line  to  the  left,  and  the  IVth  Corps, 
together  with  the  remains  of  the  1st  Turkistan  Corps,  defended 
the  bridgehead  at  Pultusk  and  the  Serotsk  re-entrant. 

An  immense  amount  of  labour  had  been  expended  on  these 
works  in  the  spring.  The  Rojan  bridgehead,  in  particular,  was 
considered  very  strong.  The  crossing  was  covered  on  a  radius 
of  three  and  a  half  versts  by  three  permanent  works  of  modern 
profile,  and  these  were  linked  up  by  field-trench.  Three 
versts  further  in  advance  there  was  an  advanced  line  of  field- 
works. 

A  delay  was  gained  by  a  fine  charge  by  the  8th  and  I4th 
Cavalry  Divisions,  who  had  been  brought  round  from  the  left 
flank  and  who  forded  the  Narev  in  the  re-entrant  between  Rojan 
and  Pultusk  and  drove  three  enemy  columns  some  distance  north 
in  disorder. 

The  enemy  first  forced  a  passage  south  of  Pultusk  and  ad- 
vanced to  the  Serotsk  works  at  the  confluence  of  the  Bug  and  the 
Narev.  His  heavy  artillery,  with  six  shots,  reduced  Dembe,  a 
fort  on  the  river  halfway  from  Serotsk  to  Novo  Georgievsk  that 
the  Russians  had  considered  exceptionally  strong.  His  progress 
was  delayed  by  the  arrival  of  the  XXVIIth  Corps,  which  the 
shortening  of  his  front  had  enabled  Litvinov  to  bring  up  from  his 
left  by  rail  through  Warsaw.  The  corps  succeeded  in  defending 
for  some  days  the  approaches  to  Vishkov,  an  important  road 
centre  on  the  Bug. 

The  forcing  of  the  bridgeheads  at  Ostrolenka  and  Rojan  was, 
however,  from  the  enemy's  point  of  view,  of  greater  importance, 
for  excellent  chaussees  lead  from  both  towns  to  Ostrov.  Ostrov 
once  gained,  the  so-called  Cherboni  Bor  position,  a  line  of  wooded 
heights  which  had  been  reconnoitred  in  peace  with  a  view  to 
defence,  as  well  as  the  river  Bug,  would  have  to  be  turned  as  a 
necessary  preliminary  to  an  advance  further  east. 

The  defences  of  Rojan  were  quickly  swept  away  by  the 
enemy's  heavy  artillery,  and  the  XXIst  Corps  retired  to  the 
southern  bank,  losing  heavily  in  its  further  retreat  from  the 


April- August,  1915  313 

enemy's  field  guns,  which  had  been  at  once  carried  forward  to  the 
commanding  right  bank. 

The  Narev  had  now  been  forced,  but  the  enemy's  offensive  on 
this  flank,  successful  as  it  had  proved,  was,  according  to  Gulevich, 
the  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  North- West  Front,  only  a  contributing, 
and  not  the  immediate,  cause  of  the  evacuation  of  Warsaw. 

After  the  whole  of  the  4th  Army  had  withdrawn  to  the  right 
bank  of  the  Vistula  the  enemy  succeeded  in  effecting  a  crossing 
halfway  between  Gura  Kalvariya  and  Ivangorod.  He  at  first 
threw  a  division  across,  and  the  2nd  Army  countered  by  crossing 
its  left  corps,  the  XXXVIth,  at  Gura  Kalvariya.  The  enemy's 
force  on  the  right  bank  was  increased  to  three  divisions,  and  the 
XXXVth  Corps  followed  the  XXXVIth.  The  XXXVIth  Corps 
had  completed  its  crossing  by  July  3ist  and  the  XXXVth  by 
August  3rd.  Gulevich  told  me  that  it  was  only  when  the  enemy 
had  four  whole  divisions  on  the  right  bank  that  the  decision  to 
evacuate  Warsaw  was  finally  taken.  It  was  high  time,  for  the 
2nd  Army  had  only  a  single  corps — the  Vth  Siberian — left  on  the 
left  bank  in  occupation  of  a  rearguard  position  some  four  miles  in 
advance  of  the  city.  On  the  night  of  the  4th  this  corps  retired 
to  the  right  bank,  and  the  bridges  were  blown  up  at  3  a.m.  on  the 
5th.  The  German  scouts  reached  the  left  bank  at  6  a.m.  The 
three  corps  of  the  2nd  Army  had  suffered  little. 

The  abandonment  of  Ivangorod  was  effected  on  the  following 
night,  the  4th  Army  destroying  the  bridges,  and  levelling  even,  as 
they  told  me,  the  fieldworks.  The  Staff  of  this  Army  had  moved 
from  Novo  Alexandriya  to  Radin  on  July  2ist. 

The  Staff  of  the  ist  Army  moved  from  Yablonna  to  Lokhov. 
On  August  4th  it  moved  further  south-east  to  Sokolov,  where  I 
joined  it  on  August  7th. 

The  situation  was  then  as  follows  :  The  I2th  Army,  with 
Headquarters  at  Zambrov,  held  the  front  Osovets-north  of 
Lomja-south-east  of  Novogrod-east  of  Ostrolenka-east  of  Rojan, 
with  the  Ist,  Vth,  IVth  Siberian  and  XXIst  Corps.  The  ist 
Army,  with  Headquarters  at  Sokolov,  continued  the  line  along 
the  Bug  to  the  west  of  Vishkov  with  the  IVth,  Ist  Siberian  and 
XXVIIIth  Corps.  The  Ist  Turkistan  Corps  had  been  left 


314        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

behind  in  the  re-entrant  of  the  Bug-Narev  north  of  Zegrj  to  cover 
the  final  provisioning  of  Novo  Georgievsk.  Its  left  flank  was 
covered  towards  the  Vistula  by  Oranovski,  with  the  1st  Cavalry 
Corps. 

The  Staff  of  the  2nd  Army  was  arriving  at  Syedlets,  and  its 
troops—the  Vth  Siberian,  XXXVth  and  XXXVIth  Corps— held 
the  line  Radimin-Novi  Minsk-Garvolin. 

The  4th  Army,  with  Headquarters  at  Radin,  continued  the 
line  to  the  south-east  of  Lyubartov  with  the  XVIth,  Grenadier, 
XXVth,  XVth  and  Vlth  Siberian  Corps. 

Further  east  the  3rd  Army,  with  Headquarters  at  Vlodava, 
carried  the  line  to  the  south-east  of  that  town  with  the  IXth, 
XXIVth,  Xth,  Ilnd  Siberian,  Guard,  XlVth  and  Illrd  Caucasian 
Corps. 

The  Russians  had  therefore  twenty-three  corps  on  a  front 
from  Lorn j a  to  Vlodava  of  under  200  miles,  but  corps  did  not 
average  more  than  12,000  bayonets,  with  a  total  average  of  shell 
in  battery,  park  and  reserve  of  150  to  200  rounds  per  gun. 

In  the  I2th  Army  the  IVth  Siberian  Corps  and  the  XXIst 
Corps  had  suffered  severely  in  the  fighting  about  Ostrolenka  and 
Rojan.  The  XXIst  Corps  had  been  brought  up  to  the  front  before 
it  had  time  to  assimilate  the  drafts  that  had  replaced  its  losses  in 
Galicia,  and  its  Commander,  Skinski,  had  a  poor  reputation. 

In  the  ist  Army  the  XXVIIth  Corps  had  27,000  men,  but  the 
Chief  of  Staff  told  me  that  the  other  corps  averaged  only  5,000 
bayonets  each.  No  drafts  had  arrived  during  the  recent  fighting, 
while  the  cadres  of  the  enemy  in  our  front  had  been  refilled  three 
times.  The  "  Army  Reserve  "  of  shell  was  reduced  to  60  H.E. 
rounds.  Batteries  averaged  200  rounds  per  gun,  but  individual 
batteries  had  been  repeatedly  compelled  to  withdraw  owing  to 
lack  of  ammunition. 

The  2nd  Army  had  not  been  recently  seriously  engaged.  Of 
the  corps  in  the  4th  Army,  the  XVIth  and  the  Grenadier  had 
suffered  most. 

The  Turkistan  Corps  commenced  its  retirement  on  the  night 
of  the  7th.  Novo  Georgievsk  was  left  with  a  garrison  of  nominally 


April-August,  1915  315 

four  divisions  in  addition  to  the  six  battalions  of  artillery  and 
other  fortress  technical  troops.  The  infantry  included  two 
second-line  divisions — the  58th  and  6yd — and  Opolchenie.  The 
63rd  had  an  unfortunate  record.  Its  failure  to  hold  out  a  few 
hours  longer  at  Prasnish  in  February  had  saved  the  Germans 
considerable  losses.  It  had  then  been  re-formed,  but  had  been  cut 
to  pieces  by  Mackenzen  on  the  Dunajec  in  early  May. 

Novo  Georgievsk  had  been  provisioned  for  six  months,  but  of 
course  had  shell  for  nothing  like  that  period.  The  Staff  of  the 
ist  Army  did  not  expect  it  to  hold  out  for  more  than  ten  days. 

It  was  always  a  mystery  to  me  why  Novo  Georgievsk  had, 
previous  to  the  war,  been  strengthened  and  retained  as  a  fortress, 
while  Ivangorod  had  been  abandoned.  One  night  in  the  Guard 
Corps,  when  the  conversation  turned  on  fortresses,  I  had  asked 
General  Bezobrazov  his  opinion.  He  said  that  the  truth  had  yet 
to  be  told,  but  that  he  had  an  idea  that  a  secret  agreement  had 
been  made  with  Germany,  under  the  terms  of  which  Russia 
engaged  within  ten  years  of  the  conclusion  of  the  Japanese  war  to 
destroy  all  the  fortresses  in  Poland  ! 

By  the  morning  of  August  gth  the  five  armies — I2th,  ist,  2nd, 
4th  and  3rd — had  retired  to  the  general  line  Lomja-Ostrov- 
Vengrov-Lyubartov-Vlodava,  the  Turkistan  Corps  coming  into 
line  on  the  left  of  the  ist  Army.  The  Staffs  moved  back,  that  of 
the  I2th  Army  to  near  Byelostok,  of  the  ist  Army  to  Byelsk,  of 
the  2nd  to  Kleshcheli,  of  the  4th  to  Byela. 

That  day  the  Germans  captured  Lomja  from  the  south-west, 
the  Ist  Corps  retiring  east.  The  main  enemy  effort  was  directed 
on  the  junction  of  the  I2th  and  ist  Armies  at  Ostrov.  The 
Germans  forced  their  way  through,  turning  in  a  single  effort  the 
defences  of  the  Cherboni  Bor  and  the  middle  Bug.  The  XXIst 
Corps  retired  east,  leaving  a  gap  between  its  right  and  the  left  of 
the  IVth  Siberian  Corps,  and  to  fill  this  the  XXVIIth  Corps  was 
sent  north. 

The  Vth  Corps  was  now  the  only  one  in  the  I2th  Army  that 
retained  any  fighting  value.  The  ist  Army  extended  its  right 
flank  to  the  north  in  order  to  relieve  pressure  on  its  neighbour,  and 
by  the  morning  of  the  nth  occupied  a  general  line  from  Zambrov 


316        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

to  ten  versts  north  of  Sokolov.  The  2nd  and  4th  Armies  had 
moved  back  correspondingly. 

The  enemy  had  nothing  to  gain  by  running  into  the  angle  of 
the  Bobr  and  Narev,  so  transferred  his  forces  from  the  front  of  the 
I2th  to  that  of  the  ist  Army,  making  his  main  effort  to  reach 
Byelostok  through  Mazovyetsk. 

On  the  1 2th,  with  Baron  Budberg,  who  was  attached  to  the 
Army  Staff,  I  visited  the  XXVIIth  Corps  and  the  76th  Division, 
and  found  the  Staffs  in  the  usual  wonderful  spirits.  General 
Balanin  talked  incessantly  at  lunch.  He  gave  me  as  a  souvenir  a 
copy  of  an  order  he  had  issued  in  the  previous  month,  and  also  a 
memoir  of  his  son,  who  had  been  killed  in  the  Guard  at  Lomja. 

The  order,  of  which  he  was  very  proud,  ran  as  follows  : 

ORDER  TO  THE 
Village  XXVIITH  CORPS.  '-'zSthJuly, 

of  ••  1915- 

Vyeshkov.  No.  295. 

The  enemy  has  come  close  to  us. 

We  have  now  the  opportunity  to  deliver  him  a  powerful 
stroke,  worthy  of  the  gallant  Russian  Army. 

At  this  fateful  moment  I  turn  to  you,  glorious  units  of 
my  Corps,  with  heartfelt  greeting  and  a  warm  summons 
to  stand  firm  to  protect  the  interests  of  our  beloved 
Fatherland  and  to  gladden  the  heart  of  our  adored  Em- 
peror and  the  Supreme  Commander-in-Ghief  by  your 
strength,  tenacity  and  self-denying  bravery. 

The  battle  will  be  decisive. 

We  must  conquer  whatever  the  cost.  This  His  Majesty 
the  Emperor  demands  of  us  for  the  good  of  our  country. 

By  your  soldierly  exploits  you  will  guarantee  the 
happiness  of  your  native  land.  We  will  fight  to  the  last 
drop  of  blood  to  conquer  the  bold  and  wicked  enemy  who 
has  invaded  our  territory.  We  will  exert  all  our  strength 
to  fulfil  our  holy  duty  and  to  show  to  the  world  of  what 
stuff  is  made  the  brave,  self-sacrificing  Russian  soldier  risen 
in  defence  of  his  native  land. 


April-August,  1915  317 

God  will  help  us,  and  we,  mindful  of  the  saying,  "  Trust 
in  God,  but  keep  your  powder  dry,"  must  do  everything 
that  our  conscience  and  our  oath  demands  of  us  for  the 
triumph  of  our  holy  and  righteous  cause. 

I  am  confident  that  this  will  be  done  ! 

I  hope  that  the  units  of  the  XXVI I th  Corps  will  earn 
new  laurels  for  their  standards,  and  that  honourably, 
without  a  thought  of  self-preservation,  they  will  strike  a 
blow  for  the  happiness  of  our  great  Fatherland. 

Long  live  our  Emperor  ! 

God  be  with  us ! 

(Signed)  COMMANDER  OF  THE  CORPS, 

GENERAL  OF  INFANTRY,  BALANIN. 

On  the  night  of  the  I2th,  the  I2th,  ist  and  2nd  Armies  retired 
an  average  of  fifteen  miles  to  a  general  line  east  of  Vizna-Sokoli- 
Tsyekhanovets-Drogichin-Lositsi.  This  brought  no  relief,  and 
by  the  following  afternoon  the  ist  Army  was  once  more  in  action 
all  along  its  front. 

The  situation  was  critical  on  the  following  days.  In  the 
nine  days  August  5th  to  I3th,  the  ist  Army  had  retired  seventy- 
three  miles  from  the  Vistula  to  the  Bug.  Our  five  corps  were 
hopelessly  under  strength.  For  instance,  in  one  division  there 
only  remained  890  bayonets  out  of  sixteen  battalions.  They 
were  opposed  by  fourteen  divisions  which  had  been  filled  up  for 
the  fourth  time.  The  men  were  tired  out  from  retiring  every  night 
and  digging  trenches  in  the  morning,  only  to  be  shelled  in  the 
afternoon  by  an  artillery  to  which  they  could  hardly  reply.  The 
Official  Summary  of  Operations  of  the  I4th  says  of  an  attack  on 
the  76th  Division  north  of  the  Warsaw-Byelostok  railway  : 

"  The  attack  has  so  far  been  repulsed,  but  our  artillery, 
owing  to  shortage  of  shell,  is  unable  to  develop  a 
sufficiently  intense  fire." 

The  same  Summary  says,  regarding  the  IVth  Corps  : 

"  Our  artillery,  owing  to  shortage  of  shell,  is  unable  to 
stop  the  enemy's  continuous  attacks." 


318        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

On  August  I2th  the  XXIst  Corps  (33rd,  44th  and  78th 
Divisions,  a  brigade  of  the  4ist  Division,  a  brigade  of  the  6th 
Siberian  Division  and  two  Turkistan  rifle  regiments,  nominally 
sixty-eight  battalions)  mustered  only  6,000  men  with  thirty-one 
shell  per  gun. 

On  the  I5th  there  was  a  panic  in  the  XXIst  Corps,  but  ' '  it 
was  found  possible  at  6  p.m.  to  stop  the  retreating  units."  In 
one  corps  that  day  even  the  limber  ammunition  was  exhausted, 
and  the  batteries  were  reduced  to  silence.  Two  thousand  shell 
were  begged  and  obtained  from  the  I2th  Army.  In  the  Turkistan 
Corps  all  the  rifle  ammunition  was  exhausted  in  repelling  an 
attack. 

Naturally  the  lack  of  armament  was  commencing  to  have  a 
disastrous  effect  on  the  morale  of  the  troops.  Any  army  would  in 
time  become  demoralised  by  constant  short  retirements  with  an 
enemy  on  its  heels  that  it  could  never  shake  off.  It  would  have 
been  far  better,  if  it  could  have  been  managed,  for  the  troops  to 
have  retired  longer  distances  at  a  time  to  previously  prepared 
positions.  The  staff-work  of  the  retreat  was,  however,  very 
efficiently  managed ;  breaks-through  were  promptly  dealt  with, 
and  surplus  transport  and  guns  for  which  there  was  no  am- 
munition were  sent  on  ahead,  so  that  the  roads  were  never 
blocked. 

I  was  struck  by  a  conversation  I  had  with  a  young  airman  on 
August  I5th  in  the  garden  at  Byelsk.  He  commenced  as  usual 
with  an  attempt  to  "  draw  "  me  by  the  remark  that  he  supposed 
the  Western  Allies  were  very  angry  with  Russia  on  account  of 
her  failure.  He  went  on  to  say  that  he  was  certain  that  Russia 
would  never  reconquer  Poland  by  force  ;  that  the  Russian  soldier 
did  not  want  to  fight ;  that  he  was  at  best  only  raw  material ; 
that  the  officers  of  reserve  were  hopelessly  ignorant  and  could  not 
even  read  a  map  ;  that  it  was  not  enough  to  have  regular  officers 
only,  as  at  present,  in  charge  of  battalions,  for  the  reserve  officers 
were  quite  unfit  to  command  companies. 

Feeling  among  other  Russian  officers  was  bitter  regarding  the 
"  inaction  "  of  the  Allies.  On  one  occasion,  when  we  had  had  no 
post  for  a  fortnight,  I  asked  an  officer  who  had  got  a  paper  what 


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April-August,  1915  319 

the  Allies  were  doing  in  the  Western  theatre.  He  laughed  and 
said  :  '  Doing  ?  They  are  lost  in  admiration  for  the  Russian 
army  and  its  marvellous  valour." 

The  fighting  value  of  corps  and  divisions  now  more  than  ever 
depended  on  the  quality  of  the  command.  Men  of  strong  will, 
like  Aliev  of  the  IVth  Corps,  Abram  Dragomirov  of  the  IXth,  and 
Irmanov  of  the  Illrd  Caucasian  Corps,  had  the  remnants  of  their 
fine  corps  constantly  in  hand  and  kept  things  going. 

The  regular  officers  of  the  Russian  army  and  the  best  of  the 
temporary  officers,  who  worked  with  their  units  throughout  this 
great  retreat,  and  fought  their  way  back  yard  by  yard  without 
losing  heart  themselves  or  allowing  their  men  to  despair,  were 
citizens  of  whom  any  country  should  be  proud.  How  poorly 
have  their  services  been  rewarded  ! 

During  the  retreat  itself  most  Russian  officers,  as  usual, 
thought  it  was  their  duty  to  give  me  an  optimistic  view  of  the 
situation  and  to  try  to  make  me  believe  that  things  were  far 
better  than  they  really  were.  It  was  only  months  later  that 
artillery  officers  told  me  of  the  terrible  moral  strain  they  suffered 
through  their  powerlessness  to  help  the  infantry. 

An  officer  who  commanded  an  artillery  division  in  the  XXIst 
Corps  during  the  retreat  of  the  ist  Army  from  the  Narev  was 
given  fifty  rounds  a  day  for  his  eighteen  guns,  and  was  told  that 
his  career  would  suffer  if  he  fired  more.  His  division  was  in 
action  between  Rojan  and  Ostrov,  when  drafts  of  1,800  infantry 
arrived  and  were  distributed  to  support  trenches  to  wait  unarmed 
till  casualties  in  the  firing-line  should  make  rifles  available. 
The  Germans  turned  the  Russian  right,  and  he  had  seen,  standing 
helpless  through  want  of  shell,  1,600  of  these  unarmed  drafts 
'  churned  into  gruel ' '  by  the  enemy's  guns. 

Another  officer  who  commanded  a  battery  in  the  Guard  Rifle 
Brigade  told  me  how  in  the  retreat  infantry  officers  used  to  come 
to  him  to  implore  him  to  fire  "  just  one  or  two  shots  "  to  help 
them  in  their  difficulties,  and  he  had  to  refuse  ;  how  they  some- 
times asked,  "  Is  it  true  what  they  tell  us,  that  you  have  no  shell 
left  ?  "  and  he  had  to  lie  and  say  that  it  was  not  true,  but  that 
he  was  keeping  the  ammunition  for  a  critical  moment.  Then 


320        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

they  used  to  say,  "  All  right,  but  when  will  that  critical  moment 
be  if  not  now  ?  ' 

I  had  been  told  when  we  arrived  at  Byelsk  that  we  would 
probably  remain  there  three  months.  I  ventured  to  suggest 
three  weeks.  We  remained  eight  days.  On  the  morning  of  the 
i6th  the  Staff  had  to  retire  hurriedly  to  Berestovitsa,  as  a  German 
Cavalry  regiment  had  broken  through  our  line  in  the  night  and 
had  penetrated  to  the  rear  of  the  corps  staffs. 

On  August  i6th  and  I7th,  the  I2th,  ist  and  2nd  Armies  retired 
to  the  general  line  of  the  Bobr  and  Narev  and  the  Byelostok-Brest 
Litovsk  railway. 

On  the  I7th  this  railway  ceased  working. 

The  abandonment  of  the  Polish  salient  had  the  one  advantage 
that  it  shortened  the  general  Russian  front.  At  the  same  time, 
the  danger  on  the  Dvina  on  the  extreme  right  called  for  the  trans- 
fer of  additional  force.  On  the  night  of  August  i5th  orders  were 
issued  for  a  regroupment.  The  Staff  of  the  I2th  Army  was 
ordered  to  hand  over  its  troops  to  the  ist  Army  and  to  return  to 
Petrograd,  where  General  Churin,  with  General  Sievers  as  his  Chief 
of  Staff,  took  charge  of  the  phantom  6th  Army.  The  Staff  of  the 
ist  Army  took  control  of  the  front  of  the  former  I2th  Army  at 
midnight  on  the  igth. 

General  Gorbatovski,  with  the  Staff  of  the  I3th  Army,  was 
moved  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Kovel  to  Riga  to  take  over  a 
new  I2th  Army.  Some  of  the  units  of  the  13th  Army  were  handed 
over  to  the  neighbouring  3rd  and  8th  Armies,  and  others  were 

railed  to  the  north. 

/ 

The  fortress  of  Kovna  fell  on  August  i8th.  Novo  Georgievsk 
fell  on  the  following  day.  Its  investment  had  been  only  completed 
on  the  gth,  so  the  forecast  of  the  ist  Army  Staff,  which  gave  the 
fortress  only  ten  days'  life,  was  astonishingly  accurate.  The  last 
wireless  message  received  spoke  of  an  explosion  in  the  citadel. 
The  Russians  claimed  that  the  storming  of  the  works  cost  the 
Germans  immense  casualties.  There  was  the  usual  cry  of 
"  treachery."  It  was  stated  that  two  fortress  engineers  had 
motored  out  towards  the  enemy's  lines  and  had  been  captured 


April -August,  1915  321 

with  full  plans  of  the  fortress.  I  learned  later  the  foundation  of 
this  story.  Some  two  weeks  before  the  commencement  of  the 
siege,  two  engineers  had  motored  out  to  visit  the  front,  and  had 
indeed  been  captured  with  plans.  There  is,  however,  no  ground 
whatsoever  for  accusing  these  men  of  treachery.  They  were 
only  grossly  stupid  and  exceedingly  rash.  There  is  no  doubt,  too, 
that  the  Germans  had  complete  plans  long  before  this  incident. 

Ludendorff  comments  on  the  poor  construction  of  the  works, 
and  wonders  why  the  Grand  Duke  left  a  garrison  behind  to  defend 
the  fortress.  We  can  only  imagine  that  he  was  misinformed,  and 
calculated  that  it  could  stand  a  siege  of  several  months,  as 
Przemysl  had.  Its  short  resistance  can  have  had  no  delaying 
effect  on  the  enemy's  advance. 

The  fall  of  Kovna  was  in  a  military  sense  a  more  serious  blow 
than  the  abandonment  of  the  line  of  the  Vistula,  for  Vilna  was 
now  immediately  threatened,  and,  with  the  Germans  definitely 
established  in  possession  of  the  main  Trans-Nyeman  railway, 
retirement  from  the  Bobr  and  Narev  became  inevitable. 

Osovets  was  therefore  abandoned  on  the  night  of  the  22nd. 
Under  cover  of  a  mist  I  visited  the  defences  a  few  hours  prior  to 
their  destruction.  The  German  fire  had  not  had  the  terrible 
effects  that  reports  led  one  to  believe.  As  far  as  could  be  judged, 
the  fortress  might  have  held  out  for  months  if  the  general  situation 
had  admitted  of  the  continuance  of  the  defence.  We  lunched 
with  General  Brjozovski,  the  Commandant,  who  had  removed  to 
some  barracks  eight  miles  to  the  south. 

Brjozovski  said  that  he  had  expended  55,000  rounds  of  all 
calibres  up  to  6"  in  the  six  and  a  half  months'  defence.  He 
estimated  that  the  Germans  had  fired  from  200,000  to  230,000 
rounds  of  all  calibres  up  to  i6J".  When  I  repeated  this  state- 
ment to  Odishelidze,  he  said  that,  knowing  Brjozovski,  he  would 
estimate  the  actual  German  expenditure  at  30,000,  and,  judging 
from  the  results  on  the  forts,  he  was  probably  right.  The  Russian 
Press  at  the  time  estimated  the  number  of  rounds  ' '  hurled  into 
the  heroic  fortress  '  at  over  2,000,000. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  22nd  only  twenty-two  field  and  three 
antiquated  fortress  guns  remained  at  Osovets.  The  fifty-seven 

X 


322        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

field  guns  were  withdrawn  as  mobile  artillery  for  the  57th  and 
mth  Divisions,  who  had  defended  the  fortress,  and  who  were  now 
formed  into  a  combined  corps  in  the  ist  Army  under  Brjozovski. 

At  ii  p.m.  the  three  old  guns  and  the  defences  were  blown  up, 
the  explosive  used  amounting  to  ninety-two  tons  of  gunpowder, 
dynamite  and  guncotton. 

As  a  fortress,  Osovets  had  not  played  a  very  important  part. 
It  was  Schulman,  a  former  commandant,  who,  in  October,  1914, 
thought  it  would  be  no  harm  to  occupy  the  spare  time  of  the 
garrison  by  the  fortification  of  the  so-called  Sosna  position,  a  line 
of  trenches  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Bobr,  about  seven  versts  in 
length  and  two  versts  in  advance  of  the  fortress.  This  position 
prevented  the  German  gunners  from  properly  observing  the  results 
of  the  fire  of  their  heavy  artillery,  and  so  saved  the  forts. 

A  strikingly  pathetic  feature  of  the  retreat  was  the  mass  of 
fugitives  that  blocked  all  the  roads  as  the  Russian  troops  retired. 
The  whole  of  the  Polish  peasantry  seemed  to  migrate  from  the 
districts  east  of  the  Vistula.  The  Russians  said  that  they  did 
not  compel  them  to  move  unless  their  villages  were  likely  to  be 
the  scene  of  fighting.  The  requisition,  however,  had  been 
ordered  from  all  who  remained  of  all  cattle,  horses,  bacon,  tea 
and  sugar,  and  it  was  impossible  for  the  people  to  remain  behind 
when  deprived  of  their  means  of  livelihood.  Unfortunately  the 
civil  staff  was  always  the  first  to  leave,  and  it  was  left  to  the  Corps 
Intendance  to  carry  out  the  requisitions.  This,  having  no  proper 
staff  for  the  purpose,  carried  out  its  task  in  a  slipshod  manner. 
The  authorities  in  rear  were  put  to  it  to  cope  with  a  movement 
that  had  assumed  the  dimensions  of  a  national  migration.  Even 
if  trains  had  been  available,  they  would  have  been  of  no  use  to  the 
peasantry,  whose  only  wealth  was  of  too  bulky  a  nature.  They 
travelled  in  their  long  Polish  carts  drawn  generally  by  two  horses, 
the  father  driving  and  the  mother  sitting  on  the  top  of  the  family 
belongings  in  a  cluster  of  her  younger  children.  The  elder  sons 
and  daughters  drove  flocks  of  cows  or  geese  or  pigs  along  the 
roadside. 

Near  Byelsk  I  passed  twenty  continuous  miles  of  such  fugitives. 


April-August,  1915  323 

Some  of  them  had  come  from  as  far  as  Plotsk,  and  had  been  on  the 
road  a  month.  If  asked  why  they  left  their  homes  they  would 
say  that  if  they  had  stayed  they  would  have  starved,  for  "  the 
Germans  took  everything,"  and  "  Russia  will  at  any  rate  not  allow 
us  to  starve."  If  asked  where  they  were  going,  they  replied  that 
they  did  not  know. 

The  Polish  peasantry  is  one  of  the  finest  in  the  world — sober, 
hard-working  and  religious.  The  self-control  with  which  these 
poor  people  met  their  trouble  made  one's  heart  go  out  to  them. 
The  women  were  often  quietly  crying,  and  there  were  many  faces 
of  absolute  despair,  but  there  was  no  bad  temper  and  never  a 
complaint.  I  saw  one  peasant  stoically  driving  a  cart  on  which, 
propped  up  on  the  top,  was  the  body  of  his  wife,  who  had  died  of 
exposure  on  the  road,  her  children  lying  on  the  bedding  around 
her.  He  was  ' '  carrying  on  ' '  till  he  got  to  a  Catholic  cemetery. 
The  Red  Gross  opened  feeding-stations  at  intervals  to  provide  tea 
and  bread  free.  The  Russian  soldiers  treated  the  fugitives  with 
real  kindness.  The  Russian  Intendance  was  ordered  to  buy  all 
their  cattle  at  a  fair  price.  Yet,  in  spite  of  everything,  it  will 
never  be  known  how  many  of  these  poor  people  died  on  their 
pilgrimage.  In  the  following  year  I  found  the  main  roads  further 
east  over  which  the  tide  of  fugitives  had  passed  studded  every  few 
hundred  yards  with  rough  crosses  to  mark  the  general  graves 
where  cholera  victims  had  been  buried.  Some  Polish  refugees 
struggled  even  beyond  the  Urals.  There  were  Poles  living  in  dug- 
outs at  Omsk  four  years  later. 

I  left  the  Staff  of  the  ist  Army  at  Grodna  on  the  evening  of 
August  25th,  and  travelled  to  Petrograd. 


CHAPTER  IX 

EVENTS  ON  THE  NORTHERN   AND  WESTERN 
FRONTS  FROM  THE  MIDDLE  OF  AUGUST  TILL 
THE  MIDDLE  OF  OCTOBER,  1915 

REFERENCE  MAP  No.  X. 

ON  August  17th,  1915,  when  the  Byelostok-Brest  railway 
ceased  working,  the  war  in  the  Eastern  theatre  entered  on 
another  phase.  Up  to  that  date,  in  the  operations  in  the  "  Ad- 
vanced Theatre,"  the  Russian  Command  had  profited  by  the  use 
of  the  elaborate  system  of  railways  and  chaussees  that  had  been 
prepared  in  the  eighties.  In  future  the  Russian  armies  were  to 
operate  in  territory,  the  equipment  of  which  in  roads  and  railways 
was  as  inferior  to  that  of  Poland  as  the  railway  system  of  Poland 
was  inferior  to  that  of  East  Prussia. 

The  need  for  transverse  railways  made  itself  felt  at  once. 
In  the  100  miles  due  east  from  Warsaw  there  were  five  tracks 
parallel  to  the  front,  but  the  retreating  Russian  army  had  to  cover 
120  miles  more  in  an  easterly  direction  from  Brest  Litovsk  before 
it  reached  a  sixth  line,  that  from  Vilna  to  Sarni. 

Before  the  evacuation  of  Poland  the  shortage  of  rolling-stock 
was  often  blamed  for  delays  in  the  transfer  of  troops.  The  loss 
of  12,000  versts  of  line  might  have  been  expected  to  improve 
matters  by  increasing  the  number  of  engines,  wagons  and  per- 
sonnel per  verst  for  the  verstage  that  remained.  Such  ad- 
vantages, however,  were  entirely  neutralised  by  the  loss  of 
several  well-equipped  stations,  since  the  stations  that  remained 
were  unable  to  cope  with  the  volume  of  traffic.  The  control  of 
the  rolling-stock,  too,  was  deplorable.  Wagons  with  evacuated 
machinery  and  guns,  regarding  the  destination  of  which  no  orders 
had  been  issued,  occupied  valuable  sidings  for  weeks. 

This  disorganisation  of  the  railways  immensely  increased  the 

3*4 


August -October,  1915  325 

difficulties  of  the  Russian  Command  at  a  time  when  the  strategical 
situation  called  urgently  for  the  transfer  of  large  forces  from  the 
centre  and  left  to  the  right  flank. 

On  that  flank  Plehve,  who  had  moved  his  headquarters  first 
from  Mitau  to  Riga  and  then  east  to  Kreuzburg,  had  up  till  the 
middle  of  July  prevented  the  further  advance  of  Below's  Nyeman 
Army.  However,  immediately  after  their  attack  on  the  1st 
Army  on  the  Narev,  the  Germans  developed  a  new  offensive  in 
Kurland.  By  the  capture  of  Windau  and  Tukhum  they  were 
able  by  July  i8th  to  shorten  their  front  by  advancing  their  left 
flank  to  the  Gulf  of  Riga.  Shavli  and  Mitau  were  stoutly  de- 
fended by  the  Russians,  but  were  captured  on  July  23rd  and 
August  1st.  In  the  former  town,  which  was  the  chief  centre  of 
the  tanning  industry,  the  enemy  captured  £400,000  worth  of 
leather,  of  which  he  was  as  sorely  in  need  as  the  Russians.1 

Not  only  was  Riga  now  threatened,  but  also  Dvinsk,  the 
capture  of  which  would  have  severed  the  Petrograd-Warsaw 
railway.  However,  the  capture  of  Kovna  on  August  i8th  by  the 
neighbouring  Army  of  General  Eichhorn  opened  through  Vilna 
a  still  shorter  line  of  attack  on  this  vital  artery  of  Russian 
supply. 

The  German  preparations  before  Kovna  had  been  long  in  the 
making,  but  the  attack  on  the  advanced  field  works  only  com- 
menced on  August  5th,  the  day  Warsaw  was  evacuated.  The 
Germans  were  supposed  to  have  about  three  corps  at  their 
disposal,  while  the  defence  was  entrusted  to  the  fortress  troops, 
consisting  of  twenty-four  companies  of  artillery,  one  company  of 
sappers  and  a  telegraph  company,  together  with  the  I04th  and 
I24th  Divisions  of  Infantry.  These  divisions  were  composed  of 
units  that  had  been  working  battalions  up  till  April.  They  had 
then  been  given  rifles  and  told  that  they  were  Opolchenie.  A  few 
weeks  later  the  cross — the  badge  of  the  Opolchenie — was  taken 
from  their  caps  and  they  were  informed  that  they  were  now 
regulars.  There  were  also  four  depot  battalions,  each  13,000 
strong,  which  had  been  sent  to  the  fortress  a  week  before  the 

1  The  Russian   Intendance  issued   38,000,000  pairs   of   boots  in   the  first 
thirteen  months  of  war. 


326        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

attack,  and  four  Frontier  Guard  regiments.  The  garrison  pro- 
bably totalled  90,000  men.  The  Commandant  was  Grigoriev,  an 
ex-general  of  cavalry,  who  before  the  war  had  been  unfavourably 
reported  on  by  Rennenkampf ,  the  District  Commander. 

The  defences  were  not  completed.  The  Russian  programme  of 
fortress  construction  had  been  originally  drawn  up  with  a  view 
to  its  completion  in  1914.  The  increasing  power  of  siege  artillery 
made  this  programme  out  of  date,  and  the  year  1920  was  fixed  for 
the  completion  of  a  revised  programme  which  provided  for  a 
greater  thickness  of  cement.  There  were  no  works  of  cement 
construction  at  Kovna  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  during  the 
war  only  thirteen  shelters,  each  designed  for  the  accommodation 
of  a  company,  were  built.  There  was  only  a  single  ring  of  forts. 
The  Grand  Duke  Nikolai's  comment  on  the  defences  during  a 
visit  previous  to  the  war  was  that  the  name  "  Kovna  "  should  be 
changed  to  "  Govno  "  (dung).  There  were  no  guns  of  larger 
calibre  than  10",  while  the  enemy  is  said  to  have  made  use  of  all 
calibres  up  to  16%". 

The  Russian  General  Staff  seems  to  have  regarded  the  prepara- 
tions of  the  enemy  as  merely  a  demonstration  till  it  was  too  late. 
The  relief  columns  organised  from  units  of  the  loth  Army  ad- 
vanced very  slowly  and  were  easily  contained  by  the  enemy's 
covering  troops.  The  so-called  Yanov  Column,  composed  of 
units  of  the  XXXIVth  Corps,  never  advanced  much  beyond 
Yanov,  fifteen  miles  north-east  of  the  fortress.  The  other 
column,  composed  of  part  of  the  Illrd  Siberian  Corps,  was 
directed  against  the  right  of  the  German  troops  operating  against 
the  defences  of  the  First  Sector.  It  actually  fought  its  way  to  the 
railway,  but  the  Illrd  Siberian  Corps  had  in  addition  a  consider- 
able front  to  defend  towards  the  west,  and  the  units  available  for 
the  relief  were  too  weak  to  effect  anything. 

On  the  morning  of  August  I5th  the  enemy  carried  the  advanced 
works  in  the  First  Sector,  south-west  of  the  fortress.  That  night 
he  attempted  to  storm  the  forts  in  this  sector,  but  was  driven  back 
by  a  counter-attack. 

Troops  to  make  a  serious  attempt  at  relief  began  to  arrive, 
but  it  was  already  too  late.  The  4th  Finland  Rifle  Division  from 


August- October,  1915  327 

the  XXI Ind  Corps  of  the  nth  Army  was  brought  up  and  dis- 
tributed right  and  left  to  the  relieving  columns. 

While  still  in  the  fieldworks  in  advance  of  the  permanent 
defences,  the  Russian  infantry,  supported  by  the  guns  of  the 
forts  in  their  rear,  had  inflicted  considerable  damage  on  the 
enemy.  Once  these  works  were  abandoned,  the  concentrated 
fire  of  the  enemy's  heavy  guns,  whether  or  not  it  was  as  devastat- 
ing in  result  as  eye-witnesses  report,  proved  at  all  events  too  much 
for  the  nerves  of  the  half-trained  and  under-officered  defenders. 
On  the  i6th  the  enemy  captured  Fort  I.  of  the  First  Sector,  and, 
penetrating  between  Forts  II.  and  III.,  wheeled  to  the  left  in 
rear  of  the  forts  of  the  Second  Sector.  That  night  the  whole  of 
the  defences  of  the  First  Sector  were  captured.  One  fort  of  the 
Second  Sector  and  the  whole  of  the  defences  on  the  right  or 
eastern  bank  of  the  Nyeman  remained,  however,  still  in  the 
hands  of  the  Russians. 

On  the  I7th  Grigoriev,  accompanied  only  by  a  priest,  left  by 
motor-car  for  the  Hotel  Bristol  at  Vilna.  His  Chief  of  Staff  did 
not  for  some  time  know  that  he  had  gone. 

On  the  1 8th  the  Germans  occupied  the  town,  the  Russians 
retiring  from  all  the  defences. 

Thus  a  fortress  which  had  cost  many  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  pounds  was  captured  after  forty-eight  hours'  serious  attack. 

Over  a  year  later  an  ensign  whom  I  met  in  the  Carpathians 
gave  me  an  account  of  his  experiences  in  the  defence.  He  had 
been  drafted  with  four  depot  battalions  from  near  Baranovichi 
to  Kovna  a  week  before  the  commencement  of  the  German 
advance.  He  said  that  there  were  many  guns  in  the  fortress,  but 
the  defences  were  beneath  contempt.  The  only  concrete 
emplacement  was  occupied  by  the  Commandant,  General 
Grigoriev,  who  never  left  it  except  at  night  "  !  This  youth  said 
that  in  his  company  of  250  men  he  had  only  sixty-eight  rifles. 
A  single  16"  shell  destroyed  three  whole  sections.  He  was  con- 
tusioned  and  went  to  hospital,  where  he  consoled  himself  with  the 
reflection  that  at  all  events  the  bridge  over  the  Nyeman  would  be 
blown  up  and  he  would  have  time  to  escape.  The  bridge  was  not 
blown  up,  and  he  only  escaped  in  dressing-gown  and  slippers  on 


328        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

the  last  crowded  train.  In  his  opinion  the  Russian  guns  had 
sufficient  shell,  and  the  place  might  have  been  held  if  the  Com- 
mandant had  not  been  a  coward.  At  the  very  beginning  of  the 
attack  he  had  created  a  half  panic  by  telling  officers  who  had  no 
intention  of  running  away  that  "  the  first  man  to  bolt  would  be 
shot "  ! 

Two  hours  after  his  arrival  at  Vilna,  Grigoriev  was  placed  under 
arrest  by  the  Grand  Duke.  He  was  court-martialled  on  two  main 
charges  : 

1.  That  he  failed  to  make  proper   artillery   and   engineer 
preparation  for  the  defence  of  the  fortress  of  Kovna,  in  that  he 
massed  his  guns  in  too  small  an  area,  and  that  he  failed  to  clear 
the  field  of  fire. 

2.  That  he  abandoned  the  fortress  to  report  to  the  Army 
Command,   instead  of  sending  a  staff  officer  to  report,  as  he 
might  easily  have  done,   and  that  he  failed  to  return  to  the 
fortress. 

The  Court  was  much  influenced  in  its  decision  by  Grigoriev's 
failure  to  blow  up  the  tunnel  east  of  Kovna,  the  only  tunnel 
between  Ostend  and  Petrograd.  It  is  said  that  the  officer 
detailed  to  prepare  the  tunnel  for  demolition  had  been  told  to  do 
nothing  till  specially  ordered,  and  as  he  received  no  orders  he  left 
the  tunnel  intact. 

Grigoriev  was  sentenced  to  eight  years'  imprisonment  with  hard 
labour. 

The  enemy  captured  many  million  tins  of  preserved  meat  at 
Kovna,  and  these  were  of  the  greatest  value  to  him  in  the 
operations  of  the  following  month.  It  is  said  that  soon  after- 
wards he  captured  1,000  tons  of  sugar  at  Grodna  and  35,000  head 
of  cattle  at  Kobrin,  further  south. 

The  shortening  of  the  Russian  front  owing  to  the  abandonment 
of  the  line  of  the  Vistula,  and  the  prospect  of  its  further  contrac- 
tion as  the  retreating  armies  arrived  on  the  line  of  the  Pinsk 
marshes,  permitted  of  the  transfer  of  corps  from  the  left  centre  to 
the  extreme  right.  At  the  same  time,  the  necessity  of  assuring 
the  defences  of  the  lower  Dvina  in  order  to  guarantee  the  safety 


August -October,  1915  329 

of  the  right  flank  during  the  continued  retreat  of  the  main 
Russian  armies  was  increasingly  urgent. 

On  August  30th  a  new  group  of  armies — the  Northern  Front 
— was  formed  under  General  Ruzski,  with  Headquarters  at  Pskov, 
to  include  three  armies — the  6th  at  Petrograd,  the  I2th  under 
Gorbatovski  and  the  5th  under  Plehve. 

It  was  at  first  contemplated  to  make  Gorbatovski's  army  the 
strongest  of  the  group,  with  the  idea  that  he  might  take  the  offen- 
sive south  from  Riga  and  west  from  Jacobstadt.  However,  the 
fall  of  Kovna,  and  the  consequent  pressing  danger  to  the  important 
railway  centre  of  Vilna,  caused  the  diversion  of  the  first  reinforce- 
ments from  the  south  to  the  loth  Army,  and  the  retention  of  that 
army  in  the  Western  Front,  whose  right  flank  it  was  its  duty  to 
guard  during  the  continued  retirement. 

When  Gorbatovski,  with  his  Staff,  arrived  in  several  troop- 
trains  on  August  22nd  at  Wenden,  north-east  of  Riga,  he  took 
over  command  of  the  right  half  of  Plehve's  army,  consisting  of 
the  VHth  Siberian  and  the  XXXVIIth  Corps,  the  ist  Caucasian 
Rifle  Brigade,  the  ist,  2nd  and  4th  Cavalry  Divisions  and  the 
Cavalry  School  Division.  The  XXVIIIth  Corps  (17,000 
bayonets)  from  the  8th  Army  completed  its  detrainment  at 
Kreuzburg  by  August  3oth,  but  was  too  late.  Before  its  arrival 
the  XXXVIIth  Corps,  which  had  been  attacked  east  of  Riga,  was 
driven  across  to  the  right  or  northern  bank  of  the  Dvina,  and  the 
XXVIIIth  Corps  lost  a  whole  regiment  in  a  vain  attempt  to  defend 
the  town  of  Friedrichstadt.  The  XXVIIIth  Corps  was  itself 
driven  back  to  the  angle  of  the  Dvina  west  of  Jacobstadt,  and  by 
September  loth  had  been  reduced  to  7,000  bayonets. 

The  Commander  of  the  XXVIIIth,  Kashtalinski,  was  a  fine 
old  man  and  a  hard  fighter,  who  had  taken  a  leading  part  at  the 
Yalu  and  at  Laioyang.  I  found  him  at  7  p.m.  on  September 
loth  with  part  of  his  Staff  in  a  cottage  a  mile  from  the  firing-line, 
in  line  with  his  divisional  and  regimental  staffs,  and  with  the 
German  and  Russian  shell  flying  overhead.  He  explained  that  it 
was  important  that  his  men  should  feel  that  he  was  close  at  hand, 
since  he  had  only  4,500  of  them  on  the  left  bank  to  resist  the 
German  pressure,  and  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  hold  out  at 


330        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

all  costs  till  the  XXIIIrd  Corps  had  time  to  come  up  on  his  left. 
The  Ilnd  Siberian  Corps  (15,000  bayonets)  had  arrived  by 
September  3rd  to  take  over  the  defence  of  the  northern  bank  of 
the  Dvina  between  Riga  and  Jacobstadt,  and  the  arrival  of  the 
XXIIIrd  Corps,  which  completed  its  detrainment  at  Kreuzburg 
by  the  evening  of  the  I2th  and  moved  forward  to  relieve  the 
cavalry  on  the  left  of  the  XXVIIIth  Corps,  rendered  the  line  of 
the  lower  Dvina  comparatively  safe.  By  the  middle  of  Sep- 
tember Gorbatovski  had  at  his  disposal  forces  certainly  equal  to 
those  of  the  enemy,  but  all  idea  of  an  offensive  was  now  post- 
poned, and  he  devoted  himself  to  the  fortification  of  the  Riga  and 
Jacobstadt  bridgeheads. 

On  September  5th  the  Emperor  assumed  command  of  the 
Army,  announcing  the  fact  in  an  Army  Order  : 

"  I  have  to-day  taken  supreme  command  of  all  the  forces 
of  the  sea  and  land  armies  operating  in  the  theatre  of  war. 
With  firm  faith  in  the  clemency  of  God,  with  unshakable 
assurance  of  final  victory,  we  shall  fulfil  our  sacred  duty  to 
defend  our  country  to  the  last.  We  will  not  dishonour 
the  Russian  land." 

Two  days  later  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolai,  accompanied  by  his 
Chief  of  Staff,  Yanushkevich,  left  G.H.Q.  at  Mogilev  for  his  new 
post  of  Viceroy  and  Commander-in-Chief  in  the  Caucasus. 

The  late  General  Quartermaster,  Danilov,  received  command 
of  the  XXVth  Corps.  •'  " 

General  Alexyeev,  from  the  command  of  the  Western  (late 
North- Western)  Front,  was  promoted  to  be  Chief  of  Staff  to  the 
Emperor  at  Mogilev.  He  took  with  him  as  General  Quarter- 
master, General  Pustovoitenko. 

Alexyeev  was  succeeded  in  command  of  the  Western  Front 
by  General  Ewarth  from  the  4th  Army.  General  Ragoza,  from 
the  XXVth  Corps,  was  promoted  to  command  the  4th  Army. 
Ewarth  very  soon  came  to  loggerheads  with  his  Chief  of  Staff, 
Gulevich,  and  the  latter  was  "  placed  at  the  disposition  of  the 
Northern  Front,"  where  he  was  appointed  to  the  command  of 


5th  August,  1915.     Gansk.     Grand  Duke  Dimitri  Pavlovich  distributing  crosses 
on  behalf  of  the  Emperor.     General  Lesh,  Commander  of  the  3rd  Army,  is  the  stout 

man  with  heavy  moustache  in  the  centre  of  picture. 

[See  page  310 


1-Ath  September,  1915.     N.W.  of  Dvinsk.     Widow  with  eight  children  packing 

up  to  fly  before  German  advance. 

To  face  page  330]  [See  page  337 


13th  September,^1915.     Group  of  Kharkov  Opolchenie,  armed  with  Berdans, 
about  to  go  into  action  for  the  first  time  on  the  Dvinsk  defences. 

[See  page  337 


13th  September,  1915.     South-west  of  Dvinsk.      Tired-out  men  of  the  5th 

Rifle  Brigade 

[See  page  337 


August -October,  1915  331 

the  XXIst  Corps.  General  Kvyetsinski,  from  the  2nd  Army, 
was  appointed  Chief  of  Staff  to  Ewarth,  with  General  P.  P. 
Lebedev  as  General  Quartermaster. 

The  change  in  the  Supreme  Command  may  have  been  con- 
sidered necessary  in  order  to  satisfy  public  opinion,  which  had 
been  naturally  excited  by  the  recent  reverses,  but  it  was  received 
with  mixed  feelings  by  the  army.  There  was  a  strong  feeling,  it 
is  true,  against  Yanushkevich  and  Danilov,  both  in  Duma  circles 
and  in  the  army.  The  former  was  looked  on  as  merely  a  Court 
nominee,  as  indeed  he  was.  He  had  served  very  little  with 
troops.  Up  till  1913,  when  he  was  suddenly  selected  as  Chief  of 
the  Academy,  his  whole  career  had  been  passed  in  office  work  in 
the  Ministry  of  War.  He  occupied  his  post  at  the  Academy  for 
a  year,  and  in  that  time  dismissed  five  of  the  best  professors 
because  they  had  ventured  to  preach  the  importance  of  fire 
tactics,  while  Yanushkevich,  under  Sukhomlinov's  instructions, 
was  a  firm  believer  in  the  Suvorov  tradition  of  the  bayonet. 

Against  Danilov  the  feeling  was  stronger,  for  his  was  rightly 
regarded  as  the  directing  brain  at  G.H.Q.,  and  the  swarms  of  old 
women,  civil  and  military,  who  chatter  of  military  affairs  without 
knowledge,  laid  at  his  door  blame  for  every  Russian  disaster.  No 
doubt  he  had  made  mistakes,  such  as  the  eccentric  pursuit  of  the 
retreating  Germans  after  the  first  attempt  on  Warsaw  in  October, 
1914,  and  the  futile  offensive  by  the  3rd  and  8th  Armies  in  the 
Carpathians  in  April,  1915  ;  yet  he  had  only  the  moving  and 
direction  of  the  forces  placed  at  his  disposal  with  such  means  as 
were  available,  and  it  is  difficult  to  name  a  Russian  general  who 
would  have  done  better. 

While  relief  at  the  removal  of  Yanushkevich  and  Danilov 
was  general,  Alexyeev  had  few  champions  among  those  who  had 
worked  with  him  on  the  Staff  of  the  Western  Front,  and  the  assump- 
tion of  command  by  the  Emperor  was  generally  condemned. 

Mikhail  Vasilevich  Alexyeev  had  commenced  his  service  in 
the  Line  and  had  pushed  his  way  to  the  front  without  "  interest.'1 
He  was  at  this  time  a  man  of  fifty-eight  years  of  age,  of  simple, 
unassuming  manners  and  a  tremendous  worker.  A  large  part  of 
his  service  had  been  spent  as  a  teacher  at  the  Academy  and  in  the 


332        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

General  Quartermaster's  Branch  (Military  Operations  Directorate) 
at  Army  Headquarters.  He  had  been  General  Quartermaster  of 
the  3rd  Manchurian  Army  from  November,  1904,  and  Chief  of  the 
Staff  of  the  Kiev  Military  District  from  1908  to  1912,  when  he 
received  command  of  the  XIHth  Corps.  He  is  said  to  have  been 
an  ideal  commander  of  a  corps  in  peace,  and  he  was  Ivanov's 
right-hand  man  as  Chief  of  the  Staff  of  the  South-West  Front  in 
the  first  months  of  the  war. 

Alexyeev's  faults  were  that  he  tried  to  do  everything  himself 
and  that  he  lacked  the  necessary  self-reliance  to  enable  him  to 
take  decisions  quickly.  An  officer  who  served  under  him,  in 
conversation,  compared  him  to  a  "  second  Kuropatkin,  who 
could  decide  nothing."  Another  officer — an  army  commander 
— told  me  that  at  the  commencement  of  the  war  there  was  quite  a 
dispute  in  the  Staff  of  the  South- West  Front  as  to  who  should  open 
official  telegrams — the  Commander-in-Chief,  Ivanov,  or  his  Chief 
of  Staff,  Alexyeev.  "  The  matter  was  at  length  settled  by  typing 
two  copies,  one  of  which  Ivanov  tore  open  and  the  other  Alexyeev. 
But  matters  then  became  worse,  for  each  pencilled  his  instructions 
on  the  messages,  and  the  Staff  did  not  know  where  the  devil  they 
were." 

At  G.H.Q.  Alexyeev  did  not  show  much  power  of  delegating 
work.  He  still  looked  out  places  on  the  map  himself.  It  was 
said  that  when  things  went  badly  he  used  to  go  into  his  bedroom 
to  pray  while  his  subordinates  awaited  decisions. 

It  was  reported  that  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolai  had  been  asked 
to  take  Alexyeev  as  his  Chief  of  Staff,  but  he  refused  to  abandon 
Yanushkevich,  so  there  remained  no  alternative  to  the  solution 
adopted. 

Most  officers  of  the  army  regretted  the  Grand  Duke's  dis- 
missal, for  they  regarded  him  as  an  honest  man  who  stood  apart 
from  Court  intrigue.  They  would  have  been  content  to  pay  that 
dismissal  as  the  price  of  the  much-desired  removal  of  Yanush- 
kevich andDanilov,  many  of  them  thinking,  with  Bezobrazov,  that 
the  "  Grand  Duke  was  completely  in  the  hands  of  those  men." 
Misgiving,  however,  was  almost  universal  regarding  the  Emperor's 
assumption  of  the  Supreme  Command. 


August -October,  1915  333 

Radko  Dimitriev  thought  the  change  less  mad  tha/i  I  imagined. 
I  spent  the  night  of  September  gth  with  his  Staff  at  a  Baltic  baron's 
chateau  north  of  Friedrichstadt.  Next  morning  he  talked  for 
over  an  hour  as  we  walked  about  the  grounds.  His  argument  was 
that  it  had  been  evident  that  the  Grand  Duke  did  not  direct 
himself,  and  that  those  to  whom  he  had  committed  the  task  of 
direction  had  shown  themselves  wanting  in  decision.  His 
particular  instance  was  the  refusal  to  allow  him  (Radko)  to  invade 
Hungary  with  the  3rd  Army  in  March,  1915.  He  had  then  six 
cavalry  divisions,  and  if  he  had  been  given  the  three  additional 
corps  for  which  he  asked  he  would  have  "  launched  the  whole  on 
Buda-Pesth,  when  the  Hungarians  would  have  been  forced  to  sue 
for  a  separate  peace."  This  argument  was  not  convincing. 

At  supper  on  the  preceding  night  with  a  group  of  the  senior 
officers  of  the  Staff  of  the  I2th  Army  the  one  opinion  regarding  the 
change  was  "  Plokho  !  "  (bad).  It  was  felt  that  the  new  appoint- 
ment would  produce  a  crop  of  intrigues,  that  advancement  would 
be  given  to  Court  favourites,  and  only  men  of  strong  independent 
character,  of  whom  there  were  few  in  the  Russian  army,  would  be 
able  to  resist  the  temptation  of  intriguing  to  catch  the  Imperial 
eye. 

The  only  remark  I  heard  that  the  soldiers  made  was  the  childish 
one  :  '  Now  the  Emperor  is  going  to  fight,  soon  the  Empress  will 
come  too,  and  then  all  the  women  of  Russia  will  follow." 

In  Petrograd,  where  the  Empress's  unpopularity  was  great, 
the  Emperor's  decision  was  ascribed  to  her  influence  acting  on  the 
suggestion  of  the  impostor  Rasputin.  The  conversation  that 
took  place,  even  in  official  circles  and  in  the  presence  of  a  foreigner, 
showed  the  extent  to  which  mistrust  in  the  Government  and  the 
autocracy  had  gone.  I  was  present  in  the  drawing-room  of  a 
very  highly-placed  military  official,  when  a  lady  said  that  though 
common  rumour  reported  that  the  Archangel  Gabriel  had  ap- 
peared to  the  Empress  in  a  vision  in  the  night  and  had  announced 
that  the  armies  of  Russia  would  continue  to  be  beaten  till  their 
Emperor  placed  himself  at  their  head,  she  for  her  part  thought 
that  if  anyone  had  appeared  it  was  Rasputin,  and  not  the  Arch- 
angel Gabriel.  It  was  certain,  at  all  events,  that  an  arrangement 


334        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

that  withdrew  the  head  of  the  Government  to  a  distance  of 
twenty-four  hours  by  rail  from  his  responsible  ministers  at  a  time 
of  grave  national  danger  can  have  had  no  very  serious  origin.  It 
was  related  regretfully  of  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolai  that  when  on 
one  occasion  Rasputin  had  the  impertinence  to  telegraph  to  him 
for  permission  to  go  to  the  front  to  bless  the  troops,  Nikolai 
Nikolaievich  had  replied  in  two  Russian  words,  which  may  be 
translated  :  "  Yes,  do  come.  I'll  hang  you."  The  dismissal  of 
the  Assistant  Minister  of  the  Interior,  Junkovski,  and  of  Prince 
Orlov,  the  Chief  of  the  Emperor's  Military  Chancery,  was  ascribed 
to  representations  they  ventured  to  make  regarding  Rasputin  and 
the  indecency  of  permitting  a  man  of  his  type  to  visit  the  Court. 
At  the  suggestion  of  the  Prime  Minister,  Gorimikin,  the 
patriotic  Duma  was  dismissed,  since  he  had  cause  to  fear  its 
debates. 

The  retention  of  this  Minister,  whose  dismissal  all  Russia 
demanded,  was  ascribed  by  a  high  authority  to  the  influence  of 
the  Empress.  It  was  constantly  stated  in  Petrograd — probably 
without  a  shred  of  foundation — that  Gorimikin  flattered  the 
Empress  by  protesting  his  readiness,  if  necessary,  to  advocate  a 
separate  peace  in  order  "  to  save  the  dynasty." 

More  than  one  officer  assured  me  in  September,  1915,  that 
there  would  certainly  be  a  revolution  if  the  enemy  approached 
Petrograd.  They  said  that  such  a  movement  at  such  a  time  would 
be  deplorable,  but  that  the  Government  was  bringing  it  upon 
itself,  and  though  the  Guard  might  remain  loyal,  the  officers  of  the 
line  would  lend  no  hand  in  its  suppression. 

On  September  igth  I  reported  :  "If  there  has  ever  been  a 
Government  that  richly  deserved  a  revolution,  it  is  the  present 
one  in  Russia.  If  it  escapes,  it  will  only  be  because  the  members 
of  the  Duma  are  too  patriotic  to  agitate  in  this  time  of  crisis." 

The  leaders  of  political  thought  were  indeed  doing  their  best. 
A  message  of  the  Zemstvo  Alliance  to  the  army  and  the  Govern- 
ment told  the  army  to  fight  it  out  to  a  finish,  and  called  on  the 
Emperor  to  change  the  Government  and  to  summon  once  more  the 
Duma. 

The  mistrust  of  authority  was  penetrating  all  classes  of 


\ 


August -October,  1915  335 

society.  I  heard  of  one  village  near  Luga  where  cheap  papers 
were  received  describing  mythical  victories,  and  the  poor  people 
went  in  procession  to  beg  the  priest  to  celebrate  a  service  of 
thanksgiving,  learning  only  some  days  later  from  a  more  reliable 
paper  that  the  whole  report  was  a  fabrication.  This  village  had 
lost  twenty-four  men  killed  out  of  twenty-six  called  up.  The 
whole  of  its  population,  old  men,  women  and  children,  were  now 
convinced  that  Russia  had  been  sold  to  her  enemies  by  the 
Ministry ;  yet  there  was  no  calling  out  for  peace. 

There  was  much  corruption.  Officials  of  the  Department  of 
Military  Justice  worked  hard  at  the  preparation  of  charges  against 
many  highly-placed  individuals,  but  no  one  was  ever  publicly 
disgraced  by  exemplary  punishment.  Such  people  were  indeed 
never  punished  in  Russia  as  they  ought  to  have  been.  The 
Russian,  with  his  deep  human  sympathy  and  vivid  imagination, 
always  imagines  himself  in  the  guilty  person's  place,  and  if  the 
latter  happens  to  have  an  extravagant  wife  or  an  extravagant 
number  of  children,  he  says,  "  After  all,  poor  fellow,  his  position 
was  very  difficult,"  and  he  ends  by  frankly  sympathising  with  the 
criminal  for  the  mental  worry  he  must  have  undergone  before 
and  after  his  crime. 

The  mismanagement  of  the  rolling-stock  on  the  railways  and 
the  dishonesty  of  many  of  the  railway  officials  had  a  direct 
influence  on  the  rise  in  prices.  Sugar  and  meat  would  have  been 
available  throughout  the  towns  of  Russia,  and  at  reasonable 
prices,  if  it  had  been  possible  to  obtain  transport  for  private 
merchandise  without  bribing  at  least  one,  generally  several,  rail- 
way employes. 

When  a  train  came  into  a  station  it  was  the  duty  of  the 
subordinate  officials  to  compile  and  hand  over  to  the  station- 
master  a  list  of  the  wagons  with  their  numbers.  These  in- 
dividuals habitually  entered  only  75  per  cent,  of  the  wagons  on 
the  list,  retaining  the  remaining  25  per  cent.  '  up  their  sleeve  ' 
for  private  speculation  with  traders. 

The  officer  in  charge  of  the  motor  transport  of  the  Guard 
Corps  told  me  that  on  one  occasion  when  he  wanted  to  send  five 
cars  through  from  Minsk  to  Vitebsk  for  repair,  he  applied  to  the 


336        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Commandant  of  the  Station  (corresponding  to  our  R.T.O.),  but 
was  told  that  there  were  no  wagons.  He  got  a  bottle  of  brandy 
and  walked  down  the  sidings,  and  very  soon  found  an  employe* 
who  pointed  out  the  wagons  in  exchange  for  the  brandy.  He 
then  returned  to  the  Commandant,  and  told  him  "  not  to  worry/' 
as  everything  had  been  satisfactorily  arranged. 

After  capturing  Kovna  on  August  i8th,  Eichhorn,  with  the 
loth  German  Army,  pressed  forward  in  order  to  occupy  Vilna 
and  so  sever  the  direct  line  of  supply  and  retreat  of  the  ist  Russian 
Army,  which  opposed  the  armies  of  Scholtz  and  Gallwitz,  west  of 
Grodna. 

Eichhorn  was  opposed  by  the  loth  Russian  Army,  under 
General  Radkevich,  with  Headquarters  at  Vileisk,  and  to  this  the 
Russians  transferred  troops  from  their  centre  up  to  the  utmost 
carrying  capacity  of  their  railways.  By  the  end  of  August  the 
Guard  had  arrived  from  the  3rd  Army  and  the  Vth  Corps  from  the 
ist  Army. 

Eichhorn  had  occupied  Olita  on  August  26th,  but  an  attempt 
to  force  back  the  left  of  the  loth  Army  at  Orani  failed,  and  the 
Germans,  who  had  advanced  to  a  distance  of  eighteen  versts  from 
Vilna,  were  again  driven  back  to  a  distance  of  thirty  versts. 
Radkevich  prepared  a  counterstroke.  He  moved  the  IHrd 
Siberian  Corps  up  to  a  position  in  echelon  in  rear  of  the  right 
flank  of  the  Guard,  and  he  placed  the  right  group  of  his  army 
under  the  command  of  General  Olukhov,  the  Commander  of  the 
Guard  Corps,  giving  him  the  task  of  striking  south-west  to  roll  up 
the  enemy's  front.  Olukhov's  right  flank  was  to  be  protected  by 
the  Russian  cavalry,  who  had  been  ordered  to  wheel  to  their  left. 

While  the  Russian  move  was  in  preparation  the  enemy  struck. 
The  German  Command  had  formed  the  ambitious  project  of 
surrounding  and  destroying  x  the  Russian  loth  and  ist  Armies. 
Below's  Nyeman  Army  was  to  cover  the  German  left  by  a  vigorous 
offensive  towards  Dvinsk,  and  Eichhorn,  Schultz  and  Gallwitz 
were  to  attack  to  pin  the  Russians  down  to  their  front,  while  the 
German  cavalry,  supported  by  infantry  detachments,  was  to 

1  Hans  Niemann,  Hindenburg's  Siegeszug  gegen  Ruszland,  p.  77. 


August -October,  1915  337 

penetrate  between  the  Russian  5th  and  loth  Armies,  and  to  cut 
the  communications  of  the  latter  by  severing  the  Vilna-Dvinsk 
and  Vilna-Minsk  railways. 

German  airmen  actually  threw  proclamations  in  Minsk  fixing 
September  23rd  as  the  date  on  which  Radkevich  would  be  forced 
to  surrender.  In  him,  however,  the  enemy  found  a  man  worthy 
of  their  mettle.  I  only  met  him  once  in  the  course  of  the  war — at 
Izyaslavl,  north-west  of  Minsk,  where  I  lunched  with  his  Staff  on 
October  3rd,  1915.  He  was  a  fine-looking  old  man,  evidently  the 
possessor  of  a  strong  character.  He  had  served  in  the  Guard  and 
had  retired  before  the  war,  returning  on  mobilisation  to  take 
command  of  the  Illrd  Siberian  Corps,  which  had  consistently 
distinguished  itself  under  his  leadership. 

Many  months  later  an  officer  who  had  served  on  his  Staff  related 
how,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Avgustov  in  September,  1914, 
Pfiug,  then  in  command  of  the  loth  Army,  twice  ordered  Rad- 
kevich to  retire.  The  second  telegram  arrived  during  dinner  and 
was  opened  by  the  Chief  of  Staff,  who  showed  it  to  his  Chief, 
pointing  out  that  a  continued  disobedience  of  orders  would  render 
him  liable  to  trial  by  court-martial.  Radkevich  pondered  for  a 
minute,  and  then  brought  his  clenched  fist  down  on  the  table 
with  an  emphatic,  "  I  won't  retire.'1  He  drafted  a  reply  to  that 
effect.  His  decision  turned  out  correct,  and  the  Germans  were 
beaten  at  Avgustov.  Radkevich  received  the  Gross  of  St. 
George,  and  Pflug  was  superseded  in  command  of  the  loth  Army. 

The  Russian  cavalry  on  the  left  of  the  5th  Army  and  on  the 
right  of  the  loth  Army  was  driven  in  on  September  8th  by  parts 
of  the  ist,  3rd,  4th,  9th  and  Bavarian  Cavalry  Divisions.  Below's 
infantry  advanced  rapidly  along  the  Vilkomir-Dvinsk  chaussee, 
and  the  Russian  Illrd  Corps  had  to  retire  by  forced  marches  to 
forestall  the  enemy  at  the  Dvinsk  bridgehead.  This  corps 
covered  about  fifty  miles  on  the  night  of  the  nth  and  the  day  and 
night  of  the  I2th.  I  saw  it  arrive  on  the  first  line  of  the  Dvinsk 
defences  early  on  the  I3th.  Further  north  the  XlXth  Corps 
managed  to  slip  away  unperceived.  Both  corps  were  attacked 
by  the  pursuing  enemy  on  September  I4th. 

His  cavalry  having  been  driven  in,  Olukhov  moved  the  2nd 

Y 


338        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

Finland  Division  and  the  Illrd  Siberian  Corps  to  prolong  his  right 
flank  to  the  east. 

On  September  I2th  the  German  raiding  force  occupied  the 
station  of  Novo  Svyentsyani,  severing  communication  between 
Dvinsk  and  Vilna,  and  cutting  the  loth  Army's  main  line  of 
supply. 

Contact  squadrons  were  sent  north-east  in  the  direction  of 
Disna  and  Drissa,  and  the  column,  probably  passing  between 
lakes  Svir  and  Naroch,  occupied  Vileika  and  Krivichi  on  the  I5th, 
cutting  the  Bologoe-Lida  railway,  on  which  the  ist  Army  de- 
pended. Another  body  of  six  cavalry  regiments,  with  two  field  bat- 
teries and  one  heavy  battery,  immediately  supported  by  cyclists 
and  followed  by  three  infantry  regiments,  moved  rapidly  south-east 
up  the  right  bank  of  the  Viliya  and  occupied  Smorgoni  on  the  I4th, 
cutting  the  Vilna-Molodechno-Minsk  railway,  the  loth  Army's 
secondary  line  of  supply. 

The  Kuban  Cossacks,  on  the  right  of  the  loth  Army,  had  done 
little  to  impede  the  progress  of  the  German  raid.  The  German 
cavalry  had  indeed  so  far  had  it  all  its  own  way.  It  captured 
3,000  head  of  cattle  at  Smorgoni,  and  its  squadrons  south-west 
and  west  of  that  station  topk  the  divisional  transport  of  the  Ilnd 
Caucasian  Corps  and  almost  all  the  transport  of  the  Illrd  Siberian 
Corps,  together  with  more  than  one  field  hospital  and  field  bakery. 
The  unfortunate  peasants  in  the  district  raided  had  no  time  to 
save  their  cattle. 

It  happened  that  the  XXVIIth  Corps  was  being  moved  by 
train  from  Lida  to  Dvinsk  via  Molodechno  and  Polotsk.  Six 
trains  had  already  passed  the  danger-zone,  but  three  trains  with 
infantry  and  transport  were  in  the  station  at  Krivichi,  and  a 
telegraph  company  was  at  Vileika.  When  the  German  guns 
opened  fire  the  infantry  retired  south  from  Krivichi,  skirmishing, 
while  the  telegraph  company  retired  from  Vileika  on  Molodechno. 
The  train  with  the  Staff  of  the  ist  Army  arrived  at  Molodechno, 
but  moved  back  prudently  towards  Lida,  and  sent  out  its  escort 
squadron  to  reconnoitre ! 

From  Vileika  or  Krivichi  four  German  squadrons  moved 
south-east  to  attack  the  Berezina  bridge  at  Borisov.  Luckily 


August-October,  1915  339 

the  Russians  managed  to  get  a  battalion  to  Borisov  in  time,  for 
the  destruction  of  a  bridge  of  this  size  would  have  interrupted 
traffic  on  the  Moscow-Minsk  line  for  at  least  a  fortnight  or  three 
weeks.  The  enemy  cavalry  contented  itself  with  blowing  up  a 
few  yards  of  the  permanent  way  near  Jodino,  west  of  Borisov,  and 
the  damage  only  caused  a  few  hours'  delay. 

On  September  I5th  a  few  German  squadrons  with  two  guns 
moved  from  Smorgoni  on  the  important  railway  junction  of 
Molodechno.  They  were  opposed  by  the  ist  Independent 
Cavalry  Brigade,  which  happened  to  be  on  the  march  across  the 
rear  of  the  loth  Army  and  by  the  infantry  echelons  of  the  XXVIIth 
Corps,  which  crowded  the  station.  After  firing  a  few  shots  they 
retired. 

As  the  news  trickled  through  to  Petrograd  it  seemed  that  the 
loth  Army  must  inevitably  be  lost.  On  the  morning  of  the  2Oth 
I  met  a  lady  whose  husband  was  in  the  Staff  of  the  Guard  Corps, 
and  enquired  eagerly  if  she  had  any  news.  She  told  me  that  her 
husband's  orderly  had  arrived  that  very  morning,  bringing  with 
him  an  Empire  grand  piano  which  the  colonel,  a  great  collector, 
had  found  time  to  buy  in  a  Polish  chateau  and  his  orderly  had 
been  clever  enough  to  escort  through  to  the  capital.  The 
incident  seemed  to  indicate  that  things  could  not  be  as  bad  as  we 
imagined. 

The  Staffs  of  the  loth  Army  and  of  the  Western  Front  were,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  by  no  means  perturbed.  The  ist  Army  was 
already  in  process  of  transfer  to  the  right  of  the  loth,  and  orders 
were  now  issued  for  the  formation  of  a  new  2nd  Army  between  the 
ist  and  loth  to  carry  out  the  task  of  attacking  to  the  north-west 
on  the  line  Vileika- Smorgoni. 

It  had  been  calculated — quite  incorrectly — that  the  advanced 
troops  would  be  deployed  in  sufficient  force  by  September  i6th. 
On  the  I5th  Radkevich  issued  an  order  in  the  Napoleonic  style  : 

"It  is  my  pleasure  that  all  the  brave  units  of  the  loth 
Army  be  informed  that  the  steadfastness  and  tenacity  of 
which  they  have  given  proof  in  a  difficult  situation  are 
already  earning  their  reward. 


340        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

"  To-morrow,  the  i6th,  a  corps  arrives  on  our  right  flank, 
and  the  day  after  a  second  corps.  Further  to  our  right  a 
third  corps  is  coming  up. 

"  Shell  is  coming  in  every  day,  and  soon  there  will  be  no 
.longer  a  shortage. 

"The  arrival  of  these  new  reinforcements  will  be  the 
signal  for  a  general  advance  against  the  barbarian  foe. 
This  advance  must  be  carried  out  with  determination  and 
without  looking  back.  Remember  that  the  Germans  are 
ever  nervous  for  their  flanks  and  rear,  and  if  we  only  strike 
hard  enough  they  will  fly,  as  the  Guard  proved  in  its  recent 
short  offensive.  Let  everyone  learn  that  the  loth  Army 
has  no  fear  of  turning  movements,  and  that  the  flanks  of 
an  army  that  takes  the  offensive  with  the  determination  to 
beat  the  enemy  are  secured  by  its  own  boldness. 

"  The  attack  must  be  commenced  by  a  widely-extended 
firing-line  supported  by  strong  reserves,  the  artillery  at  the 
same  time  thundering  on  the  enemy's  firing-line,  reserves 
and  batteries.  A  prolonged  artillery  preparation  is  merely 
a  useless  expenditure  of  ammunition ;  the  enemy  becomes 
accustomed  to  the  noise  of  the  explosions  and  awaits  the 
infantry  attack  with  increased  confidence.  When  a  hurri- 
cane artillery  fire  is  accompanied  simultaneously  by  a 
reckless  infantry  assault,  no  German  will  hold  his  ground. 
When  the  enemy's  front  has  been  penetrated,  the  firing- 
line  must  pursue  its  advantage,  following  up  the  enemy  to 
right  and  left,  while  the  reserves  press  on  to  destroy  his 
reserves  in  rear. 

"  It  is  sufficient  for  the  present  for  the  cavalry  to  bear  in 
mind  the  instructions  received  to-day  from  the  Com- 
mander-in-Ghief  of  the  Front :  '  Our  cavalry  must  take 
as  its  example  the  energy,  the  courage  and  the  boundless 
activity  of  the  German  cavalry.'  I  think  this  remark 
should  be  sufficient  to  remind  our  cavalry,  and  especially 
the  Cossacks  and  their  leaders,  of  the  glorious  deeds  of 
their  ancestors.  Bold  reconnaissance  in  the  enemy's 
front  and  bolder  still  in  his  rear,  movement  as  if  at  home 


August -October,  1915  341 

among  his  batteries  and  his  transport,  dashes  from  rear 
and  flank  on  his  infantry  stragglers,  such  is  the  activity 
that  every  leader  can  illustrate  by  brilliant  examples  from 
the  past  history  of  the  Russian  cavalry,  and  such  is  the 
activity  the  Germans  are  now  so  successfully  imitating.  I 
will  never  believe  that  the  heroic  spirit  of  the  Russian 
cavalry  is  dormant  or  that  our  brave  troopers  have  for- 
gotten the  prowess  of  their  glorious  past.  Arise  from 
your  slumbers,  Horsemen  all,  and  betake  you  to  your  work 
so  pregnant  with  import !  Become  once  more  the  eyes 
and  ears  of  the  army,  and  to  the  foe  a  terror  in  front,  in 
flank,  and,  above  all,  in  rear  ! 

"  This  order  is  to  be  read  in  all  companies,  squadrons, 
batteries,  parks  and  transport  columns." 


The  confidence  of  the  Army  Commander  was  hardly  shared  to 
the  same  degree  by  those  further  in  advance.  Olukhov  asked  for 
permission  to  withdraw  his  group,  the  right  of  the  loth  Army,  on 
the  I3th,  but  Radkevich  replied,  as  Olukhov  told  me  later,  by 
"  insulting  "  him.  An  officer  of  Olukhov's  Staff  asked  him  one 
night  what  he  thought  of  the  situation,  and  was  told  that  he  must 
only  "  put  his  trust  in  God."  In  fact,  friends  in  the  Guard  Corps 
said  later  that  "  either  Olukhov  or  his  Chief  of  Staff,  Antipov, 
always  had  an  attack  of  nerves.  When  one  was  calm  the  other 
was  flurried."  Antipov  was  very  unpopular,  and  had  by  now 
earned  an  expressive  Russian  nickname,  which  may  be  literally 
translated,  "  The  Outraged  Hare"  ! 

Radkevich  had  taken  the  precaution,  as  soon  as  the  object  of 
the  German  Command  became  evident,  to  commence  the  move- 
ment of  two  of  his  corps  from  his  left  to  prolong  his  threatened 
right.  On  the  i6th  he  agreed  to  Olukhov's  suggestion,  and 
moved  his  right  group  back  to  a  line  of  fortifications  prepared  in 
advance  of  Vilna. 

Large  bodies  of  German  infantry  were  now  attempting  to 
turn  the  right  flank  of  the  army,  and  it  became  evident  that  the 
2nd  Army  would  not  be  up  in  time.  It  would  have  been  madness 
for  Radkevich  to  have  waited  any  longer  with  his  right  flank  in 


342        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917  1 

the  air  in  the  hope  of  saving  Vilna.  On  the  I7th  he  retired  his 
whole  army,  the  right  contracting  to  a  position  about  seven 
versts  in  advance  of  Vilna.  That  night  the  town  was  abandoned, 
the  decision  to  do  so  having,  as  usual,  been  kept  such  a  profound 
secret  that  several  officers  were  left  behind  in  cafes. 

Radkevich's  salvation  lay  in  the  continual  extension  of  his 
right  by  the  constant  withdrawal  of  force  from  his  left  or  western 
flank.  The  contraction  of  his  front  admitted  of  the  Guard  Corps 
being  drawn  into  reserve,  and  the  Vth  and  Ilnd  Corps  were 
transferred  across  from  the  west  to  the  east. 

It  rained  on  the  night  of  the  I7th,  but  after  that  the  weather 
was  fortunately  fine,  for  the  Russians  had  to  retire  over  a  prac- 
tically roadless  country. 

The  retreat  was  continued  on  the  night  of  the  i8th.  On 
the  night  of  the  igth  the  centre  only  was  withdrawn.  On  the 
following  night  the  whole  of  the  army  retired  once  more.  On  the 
i  Qth  and  20th  the  XXXVIth  Corps  arrived  by  road  and  drove  the 
enemy  from  Smorgoni  with  the  bayonet.  Oranovski's  1st  Cavalry 
Corps,  which  had  come  up  to  the  north  of  Soli,  was  relieved  by  the 
Guard.  The  latter  corps  made  an  attempt  to  take  the  offensive, 
but  this  came  to  nothing. 

All  danger  of  the  loth  Army  being  surrounded  and  cut  off 
was  now,  however,  at  an  end,  for  the  IVth  Siberian  Corps  was 
arriving  on  the  right  of  the  XXXVIth,  and  soon  the  XXVIIth 
Corps,  having  concentrated,  drove  the  enemy's  infantry  from 
Vileika  on  the  26th  and  from  Krivichi  on  the  27th. 

The  enemy's  cavalry  was  utterly  exhausted,  and  it  managed 
to  save  very  few  of  its  horses. 

Hindenburg's  plan  was  bold,  but  it  failed  in  execution,  as  his 
penetrating  attacks  at  Lodz  and  Prasnish  had  failed,  owing  to  the 
smallness  of  the  force  at  his  disposal  and  the  calm  nerve  of  the 
Russian  General  Staff. 

The  Russians  escaped  from  a  difficult  situation  with  com- 
paratively small  material  loss.  They  were  forced  to  abandon  a 
large  slice  more  territory,  but  they  saved  their  armies.  Rad- 
kevich  had  probably  very  accurate  information  of  the  enemy's 
infantry  movements  and  strength,  so  he  was  able  to  judge  the 


August -October,  1915  343 

exact  hour  when  retirement  became  a  necessity,  but  he  showed 
grand  nerve,  and  the  staff  arrangements  in  his  army  must  have 
been  excellent. 

The  German  cavalry  advanced  with  fine  self-sacrifice,  but  its 
raid  would  never  have  penetrated  to  the  depth  it  did  if  it  had  had 
to  deal  with  Russian  regular  cavalry  instead  of  with  Oossacks. 
The  German  infantry  must  have  made  some  wonderful  marches, 
for  its  advanced  units  arrived  in  Smorgoni  and  Vileika  three  days 
after  the  cavalry. 

The  Germans  evidently  expected  to  remain  in  permanent 
occupation  of  the  Polotsk-Molodechno  railway,  for  even  allowing 
for  the  small  amount  of  explosives  carried  by  mounted  troops,  the 
demolitions  they  effected  were  of  only  a  temporary  character,  and 
very  different  from  those  on  the  railways  beyond  the  Vistula  in 
1914.  Altogether  they  damaged  100  versts  of  line  from  Molo- 
dechno  to  south-east  of  Glubokoe,  blowing  up  seven  bridges,  of 
which  the  largest  were  two  of  245  feet  and  105  feet  span,  bom- 
barding the  station  at  Molodechno  and  burning  those  at  Vileika 
and  Krivichi.  The  bridges  were  repaired  in  seven  days,  and  traffic 
was  reopened  from  Polotsk  to  Molodechno  on  October  3rd.  If 
the  enemy  had  used  half  the  explosive  he  expended  on  the  bridges 
on  the  destruction  of  the  water  supply,  he  would  have  delayed  the 
resumption  of  traffic  three  times  as  long.  Practically  all  the 
stations  had  water-towers,  each  with  two  cisterns.  The  tower  at 
Vileika  was  untouched.  The  two  iron  pipes  in  the  tower  at 
Krivichi  were  cut,  but  these  were  easily  replaced  ;  a  hole  was  blown 
in  the  lower  cistern,  but  the  upper  one  was  left  intact.  The 
destruction  of  two  consecutive  towers  was  necessary  to  render 
traffic  impossible. 

The  Staff  of  the  ist  Army  arrived  by  rail  via  Minsk  at  Polotsk 
on  September  3oth.  Its  corps  came  up  gradually,  and  it  took  the 
offensive  in  a  westerly  direction  on  October  4th  and  5th,  the  Army 
Staff  moving  to  the  small  station  of  Krulevshchizna,  south  of 
Glubokoe.  Nine  and  a  half  divisions  of  cavalry  had  been  con- 
centrated on  Litvinov's  right  with  the  object  of  raiding  on  Svyent- 
"yani,  but  the  German  machine-guns  defeated  all  attempts  to 
force  a  passage  through  the  lake  defiles.  The  Russian  infantry 


344        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

lost  very  heavily,  and  by  October  7th  the  offensive  was  for  the 
time  being  abandoned. 

The  Vilna  Operation,  as  the  Russians  call  the  German  offensive 
of  September,  1915,  was  the  last  great  strategical  move  of  the  year 
in  the  Russian  theatre.  From  the  third  week  in  September  the 
German  Command  transferred  its  attention  to  other  theatres, 
and  moved  large  forces  to  France  and  Serbia. 

It  continued,  however,  its  attacks  on  the  Dvinsk  bridge- 
head with  a  persistency  that  gave  colour  to  the  belief  that  it 
wished  to  take  both  Dvinsk  and  Riga  and  to  fortify  bridgeheads 
on  the  right  bank  of  the  Dvina  as  bases  for  a  further  advance  in 
the  spring.  On  September  5th  General  Ruzski  said  at  Pskov  that 
it  was  very  probable  that  this  was  the  intention. 

The  balance  of  evidence  seemed,  however,  against  this 
supposition.  On  September  8th  I  wrote  in  my  Diary  while  on 
the  Northern  Front : 

I  think  the  weakness  of  the  German  force  on  their 
extreme  left — three  and  a  half  divisions  against  the 
Russian  I2th  Army — and  their  hesitation  to  renew  the 
attempt  on  Riga  from  the  sea,  when  they  know  that  less 
than  three  months  remain  during  which  their  superiority 
in  the  Baltic  could  be  brought  to  bear,  proves  that  they 
have  not  yet  definitely  formulated  the  idea  of  an  advance 
on  Petrograd.  They  are  simply  engaged  in  a  vast  frontal 
drive  against  the  Russian  army,  setting  a  pace  that  will 
strain  the  power  of  endurance  of  the  Russian  soldier  to  the 
utmost.  Their  hope  to  be  able  to  cut  off  and  destroy 
whole  formations  has  so  far  come  to  nothing,  but  they  are 
reaping  a  rich  harvest  in  tired-out  prisoners  and  rifles. 

By  the  middle  of  October  the  Russian  Army  had  taken  up  the 
general  line  which  it  occupied  throughout  the  winter  of  1915- 
1916.  Corps  were  in  the  first  instance  distributed  to  armies  as 
follows  : 

NORTHERN  FRONT. — Commander-in-Chief :    General  Ruzski. 
Chief  of  Staff:  General  Bonch-Bruevich.     General 


August -October,  1915  345 

Quartermaster :       General        Kiyanovski.       Head- 
quarters  :   Pskov. 

6TH  ARMY  :    General  Ghurin.     Chief  of  Staff:    General 

Sievers.     Headquarters :   Petrograd. 
XLth,  XLIst  and  XLIInd  Corps  in  formation. 
XLIIIrd  Corps,  io8th  and  logth  Divisions. 

I2TH  ARMY  :  General  Gorbatovski.  Chief  of  Staff:  Gen- 
eral Byelyaev.  Headquarters :  Wenden,  north- 
east of  Riga. 

Shlok  Column  of  all  arms. 

Vllth  Siberian  Corps  :  I2th  Siberian  and  13 th  Siberian 
Divisions. 

4th  Cavalry  Division. 

Ilnd  Siberian  :  4th  Siberian,    5th  Siberian. 

XXXVIIth  Corps  ;     Brigade  of  Xlllth  Corps,  79. 

5TH  ARMY  :  General  Plehve.  Chief  of  Staff:  General 
Miller.  Headquarters :  Dvinsk. 

XXVIII,  3rd  Rifle  Division,  60. 

Trubetskoi's  Cavalry  Column  :  ist  Caucasian  Rifle 
Brigade,  ist  Cavalry  Division,  2nd  Cavalry 
Division. 

I5th  Cavalry  Division. 

XIX,  17,  38. 

Ill,  5th  Rifle  Division,  73. 

XXIII,  20,  53- 

XXIX,  ist  Rifle,  3rd  Caucasian  Rifle, 
noth  Division. 

In  reserve  of  Front,  at  Ryejitsa  :   XXI,  33,  44,  78. 
Southern  line  of  demarcation  of  the  Northern  Front : 

Davgeli,  south-west  of  Dvinsk  to  Drissa,  east  of 
Dvinsk. 

WESTERN  FRONT. — Commander-in-Chief :  General  Ewarth. 
Chief  of  Staff:  General  Kvyetsinski.  General 
Quartermaster :  General  P.  P.  Lebedev.  Head- 
quarters :  Minsk. 


346        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

IST  ARMY:  General  Lit  vino  v.  Chief  of  Staff :  General 
Odishelidze.  Headquarters :  Krulevshchizna. 

4th  Don  Gossack  Cavalry  Division. 

1st  Cavalry  Corps  :  8th  and  I4th  Cavalry  Divisions. 

Tumanov's  Cavalry  Corps :  6th  and  I3th  Cavalry 
Divisions. 

Kaznakov's  Cavalry  Corps  :  1st  Guard  Cavalry  Divi- 
sion, 5th  Cavalry  Division,  Ussuri  Cavalry  Bri- 
gade. 

3rd  Don  Cossack  Cavalry  Division. 

Potapov's  Cavalry  Column :  Two  Siberian  Gossack 
and  one  Don  Gossack  cavalry  regiments. 

IV.,  30,  40. 

I.,  24,  59>  22. 

1st  Siberian,  ist  Siberian,  2nd  Siberian. 

XIV.,  18,70. 

Reserve  :  Vlth  Siberian,  3rd  Siberian,  I4th  Siberian. 

2ND  ARMY  :    General  Smirnov.     Chief  of  Staff:   General 

Stavrov.     Headquarters  :  Minsk. 
XX.,  28,  29. 
V.,  7,  10. 
XXVII.,  76,  45. 
XXXIV.,  104,  56. 
XXXVI.,  68,  25. 
In  Reserve  :  IVth  Siberian  :  9th  Siberian,  loth  Siberian. 

IOTHARMY:  General  Radkevich.  Chief  of  Staff:  General 
Popov.  Headqiiarters :  Izyaslavl,  north-west  of 
Minsk. 

XXVI.,  64,  84. 

Illrd  Siberian  :  7th  Siberian,  8th  Siberian. 

Ilnd  Caucasian  :    Caucasian  Grenadier,  51. 

II.,  43,  26. 

XXXVIIL,  61,  69,  62. 

Osovets  Corps  :   57,  in. 

In  Reserve  re-forming :  Ist  Guard :  ist  Guard  Infantry, 
2nd  Guard  Infantry.  Ilnd  Guard :  3rd  Guard 


August -October,  1915  347 

Infantry,   Guard  Rifle  Brigade.     Vth  Caucasian  i 
2nd  and  4th  Finland  Rifle  Divisions.     2nd  Division. 

4THARMY:   General    Ragoza.     Chief  of   Staff:   General 

Yunakov.     Headquarters :   Nesvij. 
1st  Turkistan  :   ist  and  2nd  Turkistan  Rifle  Brigades, 

nth  Siberian  Division. 
Vth  Siberian  :  6th  Siberian,  50. 
XXXV.,  67,  50. 
XVI.,  41,  47. 
XXV.,  3rd  Grenadier,  46. 
XV.,  6,  8. 

Grenadier  :    ist  Grenadier,  2nd  Grenadier. 
In    Reserve :    8ist    Division,    Trans-Baikal    Gossack 

Brigade,  Turkistan  Gossack  Brigade, 

3RD   ARMY  :     General   Lesh.     Chief  of  Staff:    General 

Baiov.     Headquarters :    Slutsk. 
IX.,  5,  42. 
X.,  9,  31. 
XXIV.,  48,  49. 
Illrd  Caucasian,  52,  21. 
2nd  Guard  Cavalry  Division. 
XXXL,  27,  75,  83. 
IVth  Cavalry  Corps  :   3rd  Caucasian  Gossack  Cavalry 

Division,    3rd    Cavalry  Division,    2nd    Composite 

Cossack  Cavalry  Division,  i6th  Cavalry  Division, 

77th  Division. 
Southern  line  of  demarcation  of  the  Western  Front : 

Rafalovka-Gorodnaya. 

SOUTH-WESTERN  FRONT:  Commander-in-Chief :  General 
Ivanov.  Chief  of  Staff :  General  Savich.  General 
Quartermaster  :  General  Dietrikhs.  Headquarters  : 
Berdichev. 

STH  ARMY  :    General  Brusilov.     Chief  of  Staff:   General 

Sukhomlin. 
Orlov's  Cavalry  Division, 


348        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

XXX.,  4th  Rifle  Division,  71,  80. 
XXXIX.,  102,  125. 
XII.,  12, 15. 
VIIL,  14,  3. 

XVII,  35. 
VII.,  13,  34. 

Arriving  on  transfer  from  the  gth  Army  :  2nd  Rifle 
Division,  82nd  Division. 

IITH   ARMY  :     General   Shcherbachev.     Chief  of  Staff: 

General  Golovin. 

VI.,  16,  4.    Trans-Amur  Cavalry  Brigade. 
XVIII.,  23,  37- 
XXII.,  3rd  Finland  Rifle  Division,  1st  Finland  Rifle 

Division. 

QTH  ARMY  :  General  Lechitski.  Chief  of  Staff  :  General 
Sanikov.  Headquarters  :  Twenty-five  miles  south 
of  Proskurov. 

XL,  n,  32. 

Ilnd  Cavalry  Corps  :  9th  and  I2th  Cavalry  Divisions, 
Caucasian  Native  Division. 

XXXIII.,  ist  and  2nd  Trans-Amur  Divisions,  ist  and 
2nd  Plastun  Brigades,  74. 

XXXII.,  101,  103. 

Illrd  Cavalry  Corps :  ist  Don  Cossack  Cavalry  Divi- 
sion, loth  Cavalry  Division. 

This  army  was  formidable  on  paper.  Unfortunately  in 
strength  it  was  only  a  third  of  war  establishment.  From  calcula- 
tions made  at  the  time,  I  estimated  the  total  strength  of  the 
Russian  army  on  the  Western  Frontier  at  the  commencement  of 
the  winter  of  1915-1916  at  only  650,000  rifles,  2,590  machine-guns 
and  4,000  3"  field  guns. 

Six  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  rifles  to  defend  a  front  that 
from  Reval  to  Czernowitz  was  not  far  short  of  one  thousand  miles 
were  little  enough.  It  was  impossible  for  the  moment  for  the 
Russians  to  bring  their  divisions  up  to  establishment,  first 


August-October,  1915  349 

because  the  depots  had  been  drained  dry,  and,  secondly,  because 
even  if  trained  men  had  been  available,  there  were  no  rifles  to 
arm  them.  The  prospect  of  the  army  being  able  to  resume  the 
offensive  in  the  spring  with  any  chance  of  success  depended 
primarily  on  the  balance-sheet  of  rifles. 

The  army  was,  however,  weak  in  other  ways.    The  number  of  ~vi 
officers  of  every  kind  in  the  normal  division  of  sixteen  battalions 
and  six  batteries  had  fallen  to  an  average  of  no.    Few  infantry 
units  still  retained  more  than  12  to  20  per  cent,  of  their  original 
establishment  of  professional  officers.    The  number  of  guns  of  a  - 
calibre  of  over  3"  per  army  corps  of  thirty-two  to  forty-eight 
battalions  was  on  an  average  only  fourteen,  and  three-quarters  of 
these  were  light  howitzers. 

The  morale  of  the  army  had  come  through  a  severe  trial,  and 
one  that  would  have  been  fatal  to  most  armies.  It  was  im- 
possible to  avoid  being  struck  by  the  respect  with  which  the  more 
intelligent  commanders  regarded  the  determination  of  the 
Germans  and  their  skill  in  manoeuvre  as  well  as  their  superiority 
in  technique.  There  was  a  belief  that  the  Germans  ' '  could  do 
anything/'  This  was  natural,  but  unhealthy.  Among  the  rank 
and  file  there  had  been  very  many  desertions  to  the  enemy  as  well 
as  to  the  rear,  and  the  steps  taken  to  capture  the  latter,  and  their 
punishment  when  captured,  were  alike  inadequate. 

Colonel  Rodzianko,  the  A.D.G.  to  the  Commander  of  the 
Guard  Corps,  when  travelling  from  Molodechno  to  Minsk  about 
September  26th,  was  approached  at  almost  every  station  by 
deputations  of  peasants,  who  complained  that  swarms  of  Russian 
deserters,  many  of  whom  had  thrown  their  rifles  down  wells,  were 
hiding  in  the  woods  and  maintaining  themselves  by  robbery. 

In  Minsk,  the  Governor  allowed  the  Jews  to  close  their  shops 
on  three  successive  Jewish  holidays,  with  the  result  that  soldier 
deserters  broke  into  the  shops  and  took  what  they  wanted  without 
paying.  Rodzianko  went  to  General  Ewarth,  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  the  Front,  and  told  him  frankly  that  if  these  things 
were  not  put  down  there  was  grave  danger  of  a  revolution. 
Ewarth,  who  was  a  strong  Conservative,  said  :  There  will  be  no 
revolution  here.  It  is  your  uncle  in  the  Duma  that  arranges 


350        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

revolutions."  He,  however,  placed  troops  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Commandant  of  the  Town  for  the  preservation  of  order. 

The  number  of  men  who  reported  '  sick '  was  enormous. 
Any  excuse  was  good  enough  to  get  away  from  the  front.  They 
said  there  was  no  good  in  their  fighting,  as  they  were  always 
beaten. 

A  letter  seen  at  the  Staff  of  the  Western  Front  at  Minsk  in 
early  October  threw  a  queer  light  on  discipline.  It  had  been 
addressed,  evidently  from  patriotic  motives,  by  a  young  company 
commander  in  one  of  the  Siberian  regiments  to  General  Alexyeev, 
and  by  him  had  been  sent  from  G.H.Q.  to  the  Staff  of  the  Western 
Front  "  for  information/'  This  officer  wrote  that  if  Russia  was 
to  win  the  war — "  as  win  she  must " — certain  things  must  be  put 
right.  Commanding  officers  of  regiments  must  be  selected  more 
carefully.  For  instance,  his  commanding  officer,  whose  name  he 
gave,  "though  an  excellent  fellow,  never  went  near  the  front, 
spending  the  whole  time  while  fighting  was  going  on  with  his 
brigade  commander  at  least  six  versts  from  the  firing-line."  His 
only  object  seemed  to  be  to  find  a  house  as  far  as  possible  removed 
from  the  enemy's  shells.  The  German  artillery  was  used  with  the 
utmost  boldness,  and  was  pushed  right  forward  to  shell  the  Russian 
trenches,  and,  though  the  writer  had  often  asked  our  guns  to  reply, 
they  seldom  did.  Russian  attacks  were  "  almost  always '  made 
without  artillery  preparation,  and  for  this  reason  the  men  no 
longer  attacked  willingly. 

The  Russian  soldier,  when  seen  after  a  prolonged  strain,  often 
looked  poor  stuff,  but  he  had  an  extraordinary  power  of  rapid 
recuperation.  On  September  I3th  some  men  of  the  Illrd  Corps 
were  seen  arriving  in  the  trenches  of  the  Dvinsk  bridgehead.  They 
straggled  in  singly  or  in  small  groups  at  long  intervals.  If  the 
German  cavalry  had  come  along  it  could  have  collected  hundreds 
with  scarcely  an  effort.  The  officers  were  making  no  attempt  to 
prevent  straggling.  On  the  other  hand,  the  men  of  the  28Qth 
Regiment  of  the  same  corps,  who  had  had  a  few  hours  rest  the 
night  before,  looked  quite  a  useful  lot.  I  asked  Odishelidze  if  he 
thought  the  morale  of  the  Russian  soldier  would  suffer  permanently 
from  the  retreat.  He  said  :  "  No,  he  is  only  a  slightly  superior 


August -October,  1915  351 

animal  without  nerves,  and  he  soon  forgets  things."  The  opinion 
held  by  General  Novitski,  the  able  Commander  of  the  3rd  Rifle 
Division,  seemed  a  very  good  description  of  the  Russian 
soldier.  He  said  :  '  He  is  an  excellent  soldier  as  long  as  all  goes 
well,  and  marches  according  to  programme,  when  he  knows 
where  his  officers  are  and  hears  his  guns  supporting  him,  i.e.,  in  a 
successful  attack  or  in  trenches  on  the  defensive,  but  when  the 
unexpected  happens,  as  is  generally  the  case  in  action  against  the 
Germans,  it  is  a  different  matter." 

In  September  and  October  I  spent  a  few  days  at  G.H.Q.  and 
at  the  Headquarters  of  the  Northern  Front  at  Pskov  and  of  the 
Western  Front  at  Minsk. 

After  lunch  at  G.H.Q.  I  ventured  to  ask  the  Emperor  for  a 
pass  to  enable  me,  as  the  representative  of  an  Allied  Power,  to 
obtain  such  information  as  I  required.  He  agreed  to  this  at 
once,  and  the  possession  of  this  pass  made  my  work  much  easier. 

At  Pskov  I  met  General  Ruzski  for  the  first  time.  Nikolai 
Vladimirovich  Ruzski  was  at  this  time  sixty-one — three  and  a 
half  years  older  than  Alexyeev  and  Ewarth.  He  had  com- 
menced his  service  in  the  infantry  of  the  Guard,  and  had  spent  most 
of  it  in  Staff  appointments  in  close  connection  with  the  troops. 
Like  Alexyeev  and  Ewarth,  he  had  taken  part  in  both  the  1877 
and  the  1904-1905  campaigns,  and,  like  Ewarth  and  Polivanov, 
he  had  been  wounded  in  the  Turkish  war.  He  commanded  the 
3rd  Army  brilliantly  at  the  commencement  of  the  Great  War,  and 
succeeded  Jilinski  in  command  of  the  North-West  Front  in 
September,  1914.  He  was  idolised  by  his  Staff,  who  asserted 
that  Alexyeev  and  Danilov  were  jealous  of  him,  and  for  that  reason 
had  delayed  sending  the  necessary  strength  to  the  Northern 
Front  1  Ruzski  was  reputed  to  be  a  clear  thinker,  with  a  rapid 
grasp  of  problems.  He  had  the  faculty  of  making  others  work,  and 
so  always  had  time  at  his  disposal.  He  was  a  close  friend  of 
General  Polivanov,  who  considered  him  the  ablest  general  in  the 
Russian  army.  Unfortunately  he  suffered  from  indifferent  health. 
General  Ewarth,  who  had  been  promoted  to  command  the 
Western  Front  in  early  September,  1915,  in  succession  to  Alexyeev, 


352        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

was  of  a  very  different  type  to  Ruzski.  His  family  was  of  Swedish 
origin,  but  he  belonged  to  the  Orthodox  faith.  He  was  a  stern 
disciplinarian,  and  his  manner  had  nothing  of  the  delightful  Slav 
charm  of  Ruzski's.  At  Minsk  he  dined  always  with  the  Staff  of 
the  Western  Front  at  midday.  All  officers  had  to  assemble  before 
he  arrived,  and  they  bowed  low  as  he  walked  stiffly  up  the  hall, 
bowing  ceremoniously  to  right  and  left.  Officers  who  knew  him 
complained  that  he  insisted  on  going  into  the  pettiest  details,  and 
he  was  in  the  habit  of  writing  or  dictating  his  orders  himself. 
In  command  of  the  4th  Army,  he  had  been  successful  without 
being  brilliant.  He  was  at  this  time  fifty-eight,  the  same  age  as 
Alexyeev. 

Ewarth's    General     Quartermaster     was    Pavel    Pavlovich 
Lebedev,  a  very  good  fellow,  with  whom  I  made  friends. 

October  jth,  1915.  MINSK. 

I  took  a  bottle  of  vodka  to  Lebedev  as  a  little  present 
this  morning,  and  he  asked  me  to  sup  with  him  in  his 
quarters  with  Samoila  (my  old  friend  and  his  assistant), 
and  another  staff  officer,  in  order  to  celebrate  the  occasion. 
The  conversation  turned  to  a  discussion  of  the  share  of  the 
common  burden  borne  by  each  of  the  Allies,  and  little 
Lebedev,  who  is  a  most  ardent  patriot,  let  himself  go. 
He  said  that  history  would  despise  England  and  France  for 
having  "  sat  still  like  rabbits  "  month  after  month  in  the 
Western  theatre,  leaving  the  whole  burden  of  the  war  to 
be  borne  by  Russia.  Of  course  I  disputed  this,  and  pointed 
out  that  Russia  would  have  been  forced  to  conclude  peace 
by  the  spring  of  1915  if  it  had  not  been  for  England,  for 
Arkhangel  and  even  Vladivostok  would  have  been  block- 
aded. I  reminded  him  that,  though  we  had  had  only  a 
very  small  army  before  the  war,  we  now  had  nearly  as 
many  bayonets  in  the  firing-line  as  Russia,  who  had  a 
population  of  180,000,000  to  our  45,000,000.  As  regards 
France,  I  repeated  Delcasse's  remark  that  if  Russia  were 
to  make  an  effort  equivalent  to  that  of  France,  she  would 
have  to  mobilise  17,000,000  men. 


August -October,  1915  353 

Lebedev  replied  that  he  did  not  wish  to  make  com- 
parisons between  what  the  various  armies  had  actually 
done,  but  he  complained  that  England  did  not  realise  that 
the  present  war  was  one  for  her  very  existence.  No 
doubt  England  was  doing  a  good  deal,  but  she  was  not 
doing  all  that  she  could.  Russia  was.  She  grudged 
nothing.  Nothing  could  be  of  greater  value  to  her  than 
the  lives  of  her  sons,  and  those  she  was  squandering 
freely.  England  gave  money  freely  but  grudged  men 
The  number  of  men  that  Russia  would  willingly  offer  was 
only  limited  by  her  power  of  arming  and  equipping  them, 
and  that,  as  I  knew,  was  restricted.  England  was  waging 
the  war  as  if  it  were  an  ordinary  war,  but  it  was  not.  Of 
all  the  Allies,  it  would  be  easiest  for  Russia  to  make  a 
separate  peace.  She  might  lose  Poland,  but  Poland  was 
nothing  to  her.  She  might  have  to  pay  an  indemnity,  but 
in  twenty  years  she  would  be  strong  again.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  Germany  were  allowed  by  England  to  win,  she 
would  in  twenty  years  have  a  fleet  three  times  as  strong  as 
England's.  He  repeated  :  "  We  are  playing  the  game 
We  are  giving  everything.  Do  you  think  it  is  easy  for  us 
to  look  on  those  long  columns  of  fugitives  flying  before  the 
German  advance  ?  We  know  that  all  the  children  crowded 
on  those  carts  will  die  before  the  winter  is  out." 

What  could  I  say  to  all  of  this — I  who  knew  that  much 
of  what  he  said  was  only  the  truth  ?  I  said  what  I  could. 
I  only  hope  that  I  talked  no  more  foolishly  than  some  of  our 
statesmen,  for  I  had  a  more  critical  audience ! 


CHAPTER  X 

WITH  A  RUSSIAN  DELEGATION  TO  ENGLAND 

AND   FRANCE 

REFERENCE  MAP  No.  XIII. 

I  REACHED  Petrograd  on  the  morning  of  October  nth,  having 
been  recalled  by  the  Ambassador  to  accompany  a  Delegation 
to  France  and  England  in  order  to  represent  Russia's  require- 
ments in  war  material. 

The  Delegation,  in  charge  of  Admiral  Russin,  Chief  of  the 
Naval  General  Staff,  left  Petrograd  on  Sunday  evening,  the  I7th, 
and  arrived  at  Arkhangel  two  days  later.  It  consisted  of  the 
Admiral's  Flag-Lieutenant  (Lieutenant  Lyubomirov),  Lieutenant- 
Commander  Romanov  of  the  Naval  General  Staff,  Major-General 
Savrimovich  of  the  Military  Technical  Department,  Colonel 
Federov  of  the  Artillery  Department,  and  M.  Tarne,  an  official  of 
the  Ministry  of  War.  It  was  joined  later  in  London  by  Colonel 
Kelchevski  of  the  General  Staff,  who  travelled  through  Sweden. 

Admiral  Russin  had  been  selected  to  head  the  Delegation  on 
account  of  his  knowledge  of  English,  He  unfortunately  lacked 
the  experience  and  personality  necessary  to  enable  him  to  compete 
on  equal  terms  with  men  of  the  calibre  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George  and 
M.  Albert  Thomas. 

Lyubomirov  was  an  amusing  fellow  who  enjoyed  to  the  full 
the  good  things  of  life,  but  nursed  a  deadly  jealousy  of  "  that  dog 
Romanov,"  the  Admiral's  trusted  adviser. 

Savrimovich  was  a  dear  old  gentleman,  whose  chief  work 
during  the  war  was  apparently  to  place  orders  for  barbed  wire.  Of 
this  article,  he  told  me  that  there  had  been  in  Russian  fortresses 
on  mobilisation  13,262  tons,  that  up  till  the  end  of  September, 
1915,  Russian  factories  had  supplied  an  additional  18,476  tons, 

354 


A  Russian  Delegation  to  England  and  France  355 

and  that  no  less  than  69,016  tons  had  reached  Russia  from 
abroad.  Some  months  later,  when  I  met  him  in  the  street  at 
Petrograd,  he  told  me  with  pride  that  he  calculated  that  he  had 
by  then  placed  sufficient  orders  to  join  the  earth  with  the  moon  by 
a  cable  an  inch  thick !  In  addition  to  barbed  wire,  he  wanted 
from  the  Western  Allies  automobiles,  entrenching  tools,  telegraph 
and  telephone  material,  searchlights,  aeroplanes  and  wireless 
equipment. 

Federov  was  a  very  efficient  artillery  officer  who  had  invented, 
among  other  things,  an  excellent  automatic  rifle.  He  was  as 
honest  as  the  daylight,  and  enjoyed  a  keen  sense  of  humour. 
His  main  task  was  to  obtain  rifles  and  heavy  guns. 

Kelchevski  was  a  capable  staff  officer  who  had  been  at  one 
time  an  instructor  at  the  Military  Academy,  and  was  afterwards  to 
rise  to  the  command  of  the  Qth  Army. 

Tarne  carried  a  portfolio  full  of  elaborate  tables  showing  the 
monthly  expenditure  of  each  article  in  the  past  and  the  estimated 
total  expenditure  till  the  end  of  1916.  He  was  pleasant  and 
good-tempered,  and  played  the  piano. 

The  members  of  the  Delegation  were  one  and  all  good  fellows, 
and  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  choose  a  pleasanter  set  of 
companions  for  the  varied  experiences  on  which  we  were  about  to 
embark. 

The  following  also  accompanied  the  party  on  its  journey  to 
England  :  Captain  Oobban  of  the  Indian  Army,  MM.  Muraviev 
and  Vassiliev  of  the  Russian  Diplomatic  Service,  and  Mrs.  Blair, 
the  wife  of  my  assistant  at  Petrograd. 

We  slept  two  nights  at  Arkhangel  on  board  H.M.S.  the 
jEgusa,  formerly  Sir  Thomas  Lipton's  yacht  the  Erin,  com- 
manded by  a  fine  type  of  naval  officer  who  had  retired  before  the 
war  as  an  admiral,  but  who  had  returned  to  "do  his  bit  "  in  a 
humbler  capacity. 

On  the  2Oth  we  lunched  with  the  Governor,  and  spent  the  rest 
of  the  day  in  official  visits  and  in  the  collection  of  information 
regarding  the  situation  at  Arkhangel,  the  most  important  port  of 
entry  for  foreign  supplies. 

The  narrow-gauge  line  from  Arkhangel  to  Vologda  was  being 


356        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

converted  to  normal  gauge,  and  it  was  calculated  that  the  work 
would  be  completed  by  the  beginning  of  the  New  Year.  In  the 
autumn  of  1915  only  170  ten-ton  wagons  left  Arkhangel  daily,  but 
it  was  hoped,  on  the  completion  of  the  conversion  of  gauge,  to 
despatch  375  sixteen-ton  wagons  per  diem.  There  appeared  to 
be  an  enormous  accumulation  of  stores  at  the  port — copper  and 
lead  and  aluminium,  rubber  and  coal,  and  no  less  than  700 
automobiles  in  wooden  packing-cases.  Most  of  this  material 
was  lying  out  in  the  open,  but  we  were  assured  that  it  would  all 
be  cleared  forward  in  the  winter,  when  deliveries  from  overseas 
would  cease  for  a  time. 

We  were  warned  that  we  would  have  to  be  prepared  for  the 
practical  stoppage  of  imports  in  the  months  of  February  and 
March,  when  the  ice  usually  packs  in  the  mouth  of  the  White 
Sea,  unless,  which  was  improbable,  the  Kola-Kandalaksha  line 
was  finished  by  then.  It  was  said  that  the  Petrozavodsk- 
Serotka  section  of  this  Murmansk  line  would  be  opened  for 
traffic  early  in  the  New  Year  but  though  Messrs.  Pawlings  had 
commenced  work  on  the  northern  or  Kola  section,  the  British  firm 
had  a  very  difficult  task  before  it. 

The  great  personality  in  Arkhangel  was  Captain  Proctor  of  the 
Scottish  Horse — a  Scot  of  the  Scots,  who  did  fine  work  throughout 
the  war,  first  as  private  and  later  as  official  flax-buyer.  He  was 
always  a  complete  compendium  of  information  regarding  every- 
thing at  Arkhangel,  and  he  enjoyed  great  popularity  among 
Russians. 

Wednesday,  October  2jth,  1915.  H.M.S.  Arlanza, 

SVYATOI  Nos  (HOLY  CAPE). 

We  have  gone  through  a  lot  since  I  wrote  the  last 
entry  (October  20th).  This  Diary,  amongst  other  things 
in  my  dispatch-case,  has  been  floating  down  the  White 
Sea,  but  it  is  now  fairly  right  again,  having  been  dried  at 
the  hot-air  apparatus  in  my  cabin. 

We  left  Arkhangel  in  the  Government  steamer  Bakhan 
last  Thursday — six  days  ago.  After  a  few  hours'  steam 
we  transhipped,  together  with  £160,000  worth  of  platinum, 


A  Russian  Delegation  to  England  and  France  357 

to  H.M.S.  Arlanza,  an  enormous  hulk  of  over  15,000  tons, 
standing  high  out  of  the  water. 

It  was  arranged  that  all  my  party  should  have  separate 
cabins.  Captain  Norres,  the  captain  of  the  Arlanza, 
invited  most  of  them  to  have  their  meals  with  him  in  a 
private  dining-room  that  during  the  commercial  life  of  the 
ship  had  been  the  "  Ladies'  Boudoir." 

The  ship  has  a  good  cook. 

We  started  with  five  British  trawlers  working  ahead 
of  us  and  sweeping  for  mines.  We  anchored  at  night  when 
sweeping  was  impossible. 

At  4.50  p.m.  on  the  second  day  of  the  voyage  the 
officer  in  charge  of  the  trawlers  had  just  been  on  board  to 
wish  the  Admiral  a  pleasant  journey  and  to  tell  him  that 
all  was  now  clear.  The  Captain,  Admiral,  Romanov  and  I 
were  in  the  '  Boudoir,"  having  tea.  The  Admiral  was 
saying  that  he  thought  we  were  not  yet  "  out  of  the  wood/' 
when  there  was  a  sudden  explosion  at  the  bows  which 
shook  the  whole  ship  and  brought  down  on  the  table  a 
shower  of  the  ornamental  moulding  from  the  ceiling.  No 
one  said  a  word,  for  we  all  knew  exactly  what  it  was.  We 
ran  to  our  cabins  on  the  next  deck  above  to  get  our  fur 
coats.  I  got  my  shuba  on  and  came  back  with  Mrs. 
Blair,  who  was  wonderfully  calm.  It  can't  have  been  five 
minutes  after  the  explosion  when  we  reached  the  boat- 
deck,  and  I  was  surprised  to  find  the  boats  already  full  and 
about  to  be  lowered.  Mrs.  Blair,  Lyubomirov,  Muraviev 
and  I  got  into  a  boat  on  the  starboard  side.  Luckily  there 
was  only  a  very  slight  swell  on.  All  the  same,  it  was  an 
unpleasant  experience  to  be  lowered  from  an  immense 
height,  trusting  to  the  nerves  of  the  people  above  holding 
out !  We  reached  the  water  safely,  but  there  was  no 
British  naval  officer,  or  apparently  even  a  petty  officer,  to 
take  charge,  and  Lyubomirov  added  to  the  confusion  by 
trying  to  direct  matters  in  incomprehensible  English. 
We  were  glued  to  the  side  of  the  ship.  I  looked  up  and 
saw  that  the  boat  originally  next  to  ours  was  being  lowered 


358         With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

perpendicularly,  one  of  the  davits  having  been  allowed  to 
slip.  The  boat  was  bang  over  our  heads,  and  it  looked  as 
if  the  other  davit  was  about  to  be  slipped  too,  in  which 
case  we  were  all  deaders.  A  third  boat  came  alongside, 
and  the  midshipman  in  charge  took  Mrs.  Blair  from  our 
boat,  calling  out :  "  That  boat  is  sinking.  Take  the  lady 
out." 

When  I  looked  up  again  a  few  seconds  later  we  had 
already  drifted  several  yards  and  the  perpendicular  boat 
was  no  longer  hanging  over  us.  A  sailor  was  just  falling 
out  of  it,  and  was  pulled  into  another  boat  near  at  hand. 
At  last  our  men  got  out  their  oars,  and  we  pulled  to  the 
nearest  trawler,  the  men  working  well  as  soon  as  I  had 
discovered  a  quartermaster  who  had  been  blushing  unseen 
in  the  bottom  of  the  boat  and  who  took  command  vice 
Lyubomirov. 

We  only  remained  two  minutes  on  the  trawler.  It  was 
evident  that  the  Arlanza  was  not  going  to  sink  immediately, 
and  Lyubomirov  wanted  to  return  to  her  to  get  his  papers. 
I  got  half  a  dozen  volunteers  to  row  us  back,  everybody 
coming  willingly  except  my  Russian  servant  Maxim,  who 
whined  and  refused.  On  our  way  we  met  a  small  gig  from 
one  of  the  trawlers,  manned  by  a  petty  officer  and  two 
seamen,  and  as  our  boat  was  taking  water  badly,  Lyu- 
bomirov and  I  transhipped  and  sent  our  boat  back.  We 
paddled  round  to  the  other  side  of  the  Arlanza  before  we 
found  a  rope,  by  which  Lyubomirov  and  the  petty  officer 
climbed  up.  Lyubomirov  kept  me  waiting  over  half  an 
hour  while  he  got  and  lowered  his  attache  case,  and,  much 
against  my  will,  my  attache  case,  which  fell  into  the  sea. 
It  was  very  cold  in  the  gig,  and  the  two  trawler  men  were 
only  half-clothed.  While  we  waited  they  saw  the  trawler, 
with  all  their  belongings,  sink,  but  took  the  blow  with 
philosophic  British  calm. 

At  length  a  gangway  was  lowered  and  I  was  able  to 
get  on  board.  I  met  the  Captain,  who  had  remained  on 
board  throughout,  and  he  told  me  that  the  ship  was  not 


A  Russian  Delegation  to  England  and  France  359 

in  immediate  danger,  and  that  he  was  going  to  try  to  make 
Svyatoi  Nos  with  the  help  of  the  Wilson  liner  Novo,  a 
three-thousand  tonner  which  was  standing  by. 

Lyubomirov  and  I  decided  to  remain  on  the  Arlanza, 
which,  if  a  little  more  risky,  was  decidedly  more  comfort- 
able. He  went  off  to  collect  the  remainder  of  the  party 
from  their  various  trawlers  and  to  take  them  to  the  Novo, 
and  he  took  with  him  some  of  Mrs.  Blair's  belongings, 
which  we  packed  together. 

At  8.30  p.m.  Norres  and  I  had  some  sandwiches 
together.  The  crew  came  tumbling  back  up  till  mid- 
night. One  poor  devil  of  a  stoker  had  got  caught  in  a 
watertight  compartment  door,  but  had  had  a  wonderful 
escape. 

We  slept  in  our  clothes,  as  no  one  knew  that  the  ship 
might  not  suddenly  go  down.  I  slept  only  by  fits  and  starts. 
We  started  at  7  a.m.  on  Saturday,  tugged  stern  ahead  by 
the  Wilson  liner  Novo,  with  the  trawlers  once  more  sweeping 
in  advance.  The  Novo  had  her  work  cut  out  to  pull  us, 
and  progress  was  constantly  interrupted  by  the  snapping 
of  the  cable.  Just  before  lunch  we  must  have  reached  the 
place  we  had  struck  on  Friday,  for  the  trawlers  caught  up 
a  mine  and  exploded  it  after  some  firing.  While  Lyu- 
bomirov and  I  were  discussing  an  excellent  lunch,  one  of 
the  stewards  calmly  remarked  that  a  man  had  just  come 
down  to  say  that  there  was  a  mine  about  seven  feet  from 
the  ship !  We  ran  on  deck,  and  were  in  time  to  see  four 
of  the  quartermasters  in  a  melancholy  group  watching 
another  mine  floating  quietly  away  under  our  stern.  A 
new  cable  was  being  attached  at  the  time,  so  we  were 
standing  still.  If  these  were  really  mines,  and  the  thing 
we  saw  bobbing  on  the  water  certainly  looked  like  one, 
God  was  very  good  to  us.  We  had  drifted  over  ten  miles 
south  before  casting  anchor  after  the  explosion  on  Friday, 
so  that  it  was  probably  the  same  unhealthy  spot  that  we 
struck  on  Saturday.  We  got  some  seven  miles  further  and 
then  anchored  for  the  night. 


360       With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917         , 

On  Sunday  we  were  towed  once  more  without  a  single 
snap  of  the  hawser  up  till  4  p.m.,  when  we  were  approach- 
ing Svyatoi  Nos.  The  Captain  then  manoeuvred  the  ship, 
first  with  bow  and  then  with  stern  ahead,  till  about  mid- 
night we  reached  an  anchorage  in  lea  of  the  Point  and 
north  of  the  Yukanskie  Islands.  The  Novo  passed  through 
the  narrow  channel  to  the  inner  anchorage. 

It  began  to  blow  in  the  night,  and  blew  a  half-gale  on 
Monday,  so  that  we  could  not  attempt  the  narrow  passage, 
and  in  our  helpless  condition  did  not  weigh  anchor.  The 
Novo  came  out  and  sailed  round  us,  returning  once  more 
to  the  inner  refuge.  However,  Norres,  to  whose  stout- 
hearted energy  we  all  owe  our  safety,  was  taking  his 
measures.  He  had  parties  working  all  day  and  that  night 
moving  ballast  to  shore  up  the  bulkhead,  and  balancing 
the  ship  by  pumping  water  aft  and  removing  6*  shell  in 
the  same  direction.  It  was  providential  that  this  shell  in 
the  forward  magazine  had  not  been  detonated  by  the 
explosion,  though  much  of  it  had  fallen  out  into  the  sea. 

The  wind  dropped  on  Tuesday,  and  after  one  failure,  in 
which  we  narrowly  escaped  running  ashore,  the  Captain 
managed  to  take  us  in  running  bow  ahead.  The  remains 
of  our  original  bow  fell  off  under  the  strain,  and  the  escorting 
trawlers  signalled  first :  "  Your  starboard  bow  is  gone," 
and  later :  "  Your  port  bow  has  fallen  off,"  Norres  reply- 
ing :  "  We  know  it,  but  are  not  downhearted." 

It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  relief  it  was  to  reach  at 
length  the  safety  of  the  inner  anchorage. 

The  passengers  returned  from  the  Novo.  They  had  had 
an  uncomfortable  time,  Savrimovich  and  Romanov  having 
spent  ten  minutes  in  the  water  on  Friday. 

We  all  attended  a  thanksgiving  service,  the  prayers 
being  read  by  Norres,  who  nearly  broke  down  from  the 
reaction  after  the  tremendous  strain  he  had  undergone  in 
the  past  four  days. 

We  spent  the   time  on  the   crippled  Arlanza   comfortably 


A  Russian  Delegation  to  England  and  France  361 

enough,  but  absolutely  cut  off  from  all  communication  from  the 
outer  world  till  we  were  rescued  by  the  Orotava,  which  was 
despatched  from  England  to  bring  home  the  Russian  Delegation 
and  the  surplus  crew  of  the  Arlanza. 

Before  we  left,  the  ice  in  the  bay  had  crept  quite  close.  The 
Arlanza  remained  till  sufficiently  patched  up  by  Russian  en- 
gineers to  attempt  the  journey  home  in  the  summer  of  1916. 

We  sailed  in  the  Orotava  on  Saturday,  the  I3th,  and  arrived 
at  Greenock  in  a  dense  fog  on  Sunday  night,  November  2ist. 
The  voyage  is  not  a  pleasant  memory.  One  or  two  days  it  was 
very  rough.  The  doors  continually  banged  in  a  way  that  re- 
minded one  of  an  artillery  action.  The  constant  "  practice 
alarms  ' '  were  disconcerting,  especially  when  one  was  awakened 
from  one's  afternoon  doze  by  a  stentorian  command  outside  the 
cabin  door  to  "  Prepare  to  abandon  ship  !  "  Our  nerves,  indeed, 
were  no  longer  what  they  had  been.  Poor  old  Savrimovich  told 
me  that  he  would  willingly  give  Rs.io,ooo  (£1,000)  to  find  himself 
safely  back  in  his  Petrograd  flat  and  the  trip  to  Western  Europe 
a  thing  of  the  past.  One  night  he  was  convinced  that  someone  on 
the  ship  was  signalling  to  a  German  submarine.  On  another 
night,  when  we  were  passing  through  the  Northern  Patrol,  he  was 
much  exercised  because  we  were  running  with  lights,  and  worried 
so  much  that  I  finally  lost  patience,  and  suggested  that  he  should 
go  up  on  the  bridge  and  take  command,  sending  the  captain  below 
as  a  passenger.  Then  he  looked  at  me,  laughing  with  his  kind 
old  eyes,  and  said  :  "  My  God,  what  a  cross  man  you  are  !  "  so 
that  I  was  ashamed  of  myself.  When  two  German  cruisers  were 
reported  by  wireless  to  have  left  Kiel,  the  conclusion  was  at  once 
jumped  to  that  they  were  coming  to  attack  us,  and  Romanov 
amused  himself  by  telling  the  soldiers  of  the  party  how  lucky  they 
were,  mere  landsmen,  to  have  a  chance  of  taking  part  in  a  real 
naval  battle. 

On  Monday  morning,  November  22nd,  we  went  ashore  at 
Greenock  and  travelled  luxuriously  in  a  special  saloon  to  St. 
Pancras,  where  we  arrived  at  6.40  p.m.,  five  weeks  and  a  day 
after  our  departure  from  Petrograd. 

Lord  Kitchener  was  in  the  Middle  East  and  Mr.  Asquith  was 


362        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

in  temporary  charge  of  the  War  Office.  We  had,  however,  more 
to  do  with  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  as  Minister  of  Munitions,  and  his 
magnetic  personality  at  once  impressed  the  Russian  delegates, 
Kelchevski  and  Romanov  frequently  afterwards  remarking  to  me 
on  his  "  wonderfully  penetrating  eyes." 

At  the  Inter-allied  Munitions  Conference,  poor  Admiral  Russin 
was  at  a  distinct  disadvantage  in  having  to  speak  for  Russia  in  a 
foreign  language,  while  Mr.  Lloyd  George  and  M.  Albert  Thomas 
spoke  English  and  French. 

Friday,  December  loth,  1915.  HOTEL  CRILLON,  PARIS. 

Ellershaw  is  working  wonders,  but  we  have  been  much 
delayed  in  our  work  by  the  fact  that  although  the  list  ot 
requirements  has  been  sent — according  to  Lyubomirov — 
"  to  all  corners  of  the  earth,"  nevertheless  the  Admiral  has 
to  telegraph  to  Petrograd  in  each  case  for  authority  to 
place  orders,  thus  delaying  progress  and  worrying  Eller- 
shaw. 

On  the  whole  the  British  have  met  the  requirements 
well.  Lloyd  George  has  promised  15,000,000  Japanese 
small-arms  ammunition  to  be  delivered  in  Russia  in  May, 
25,000,000  in  June,  and  45,000,000  in  July  and  the  suc- 
ceeding months  ;  also  300  4-5  howitzers. 

We  left  London  on  Wednesday  morning,  the  8th,  and 
crossed  to  Paris.  At  Boulogne  several  French  soldiers 
saluted,  at  which  the  Russians  were  evidently  pleased, 
one  of  them  remarking :  "  You  see,  the  French  salute." 
The  failure  of  some  of  our  men  to  salute  had  evidently  been 
remarked  in  London. 

Lord  Kitchener  was  in  Paris,  and  Sir  Edward  Grey  had  come 
over  with  Mr.  O'Beirne,  who  had  been  our  counsellor  for  many 
years  in  Petrograd,  and  more  recently  British  Minister  at  Sofia. 

Continuation  of  Diary : 

I  was  going  to  see  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  last  night,  but 


A  Russian  Delegation  to  England  and  France  363 

met  O'Beirne,  who  advised  me  to  come  to  play  bridge  with 
Sir  Edward  Grey  and  him  in  order  to  have  an  opportunity 
for  a  talk  with  Lord  K.  on  the  Russian  requirements  of 
small-arms  ammunition.  I  went  up  at  9  p.m.  to  the  big 
salon  on  the  first  floor  of  the  Orillon  overlooking  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde,  and  found  there  Lord  K.,  Sir  Edward  Grey, 
Sir  William  Robertson,  O'Beirne  and  Colonels  Fitzgerald 
and  Buckley.  They  were  sitting  at  a  round  table,  having 
just  finished  dinner.  I  pressed  Lord  K.  for  the  20,000,000 
Gras  ammunition  that  the  Russians  required  in  order  to 
enable  them  to  place  all  their  Gras  rifles  on  the  front. 
K.  said :  "  We  must  get  them  from  the  French,"  and 
promised  to  speak  to  Joffre  and  Galieni  on  the  subject 4 
Then  Robertson,  whom  I  met  for  the  first  time,  asked  when 
the  Russians  were  going  to  take  the  offensive  again.  I 
tried  to  point  out  that  it  was  impossible  to  expect  the 
Russians,  who  were  now  outnumbered  by  two  to  one,  to 
take  the  offensive  with  any  chance  of  success  when  the 
Allies  in  France,  who  themselves  outnumbered  the  Ger- 
mans by  the  same  proportion,  were  unable  to  break  the 
enemy  front.  He  denied  that  the  Allies  in  the  West  had 
two  to  one,  and  said  that  the  actual  proportion  was  three 
to  two.  After  Lord  K.  had  said  good-night,  Robertson 
asked  me  to  come  to  see  him  this  morning  at  9  a.m. 

I  had  an  hour's  talk  with  him  this  morning.  He  said 
that  some  of  my  dispatches  were  too  pessimistic.  I  would 
not  allow  this,  though  I  agree  with  his  remark  that  the 
Russians  had  managed  their  retreat  from  Poland  skilfully. 
I  tried  to  get  his  general  view  of  the  situation  and  of  our 
chances  of  success,  subjects  on  which  Russian  officers,  who 
were  commencing  to  doubt  their  own  powers,  were  con- 
stantly pressing  me  for  information.  He  thinks  the  war 
will  not  be  ended  by  preponderance  of  artillery  or  by  lack 
of  men  on  one  side  or  the  other,  but  by  the  higher  rulers 
getting  sick  of  it.  He  says  that  the  failures  on  the  Western 
Front  are  easy  to  explain.  We  have  to  take  a  fortress, 
and  a  fortress  that  we  cannot  circumvent.  We  have 


364        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

hitherto  put  in  too  many  men  in  rushing  the  first  two 
lines,  and  when  this  has  been  done  all  is  in  disorder,  and 
the  Germans  have  had  time  to  prepare  large  fresh  forces 
for  their  counter-attack.  He  thinks  we  will  win  the  war  if 
we  avoid  wild-cat  schemes  like  Baghdad,  Gallipoli  and 
East  Africa  and  concentrate  on  the  main  theatres.  I  was 
surprised  to  hear  him  say  that  Gallipoli  was  feasible  if  the 
operation  had  been  properly  undertaken.  He  asked 
numberless  questions  regarding  the  remaining  capabilities 
of  the  Russian  army.  He  agreed  that  the  re-armament  of 
Russia  is  the  main  problem  of  the  winter  months.  He 
said  that  in  future  military  attache's  would  have  to  report 
on  the  manufacturing  capabilities  of  the  countries  they  are 
accredited  to,  instead  of  as  in  the  past,  merely  on  the  army 
and  its  organisation  and  training.  I  pointed  out  that 
military  attaches  had  erred  in  good  company  in  imagining 
that  the  Great  War  would  be  a  short  war,  and  one  that 
would  not  therefore  tax  the  internal  structure  of  the  various 
countries.  I  asked  him  if  it  were  not  possible  to  have  a 
single  command  in  the  West,  pointing  out  the  extra- 
ordinary advantages  that  had  accrued  to  the  enemy 
allies  in  the  Eastern  theatre  through  one  of  them  being 
indisputably  "  top  dog.''  He  said  that  we  did  all  that  the 
French  asked  us  to  do,  that  we  attacked  where  and  when 
they  asked,  and  if  they  wanted  us  to  postpone  our  attack 
we  agreed ;  that  we  could  not  do  more  than  that ;  we 
could  not  place  a  British  army  under  foreign  command, 
for  that  had  never  been  done  in  history.  He  thinks 
Rumania  will  never  come  in  with  us — he  only  hopes  she  may 
remain  neutral. 

Saturday,  December  nth,  1915.  AMIENS. 

We  left  Paris  at  7.30  a.m.,  the  Admiral,  Ignatiev  (the 
Russian  Military  Attache),  Kelchevski  and  Federov  in 
two  cars,  and  Lyubomirov  and  I  in  a  third. 

We  saw  Joffre  at  Ghantilly,  and  the  Admiral  pressed 
the  Russian  claim  for  more  Gras  ammunition  and  for  more 


A  Russian  Delegation  to  England  and  France  365 

heavy  artillery.  I  don't  think  he  did  it  very  forcibly,  but 
Ignatiev,  who  seems  to  be  on  good  terms  with  Joffre, 
understands  the  situation  and  will  do  his  best. 

Kelchevski,  Federov  and  I,  with  a  French  officer,  left 
Ghantilly  in  two  cars  at  3.30  p.m.  for  Foch's  Headquarters 
west  of  Amiens.  I  had  met  Foch  at  manoeuvres  in  Russia 
in  1910,  and  afterwards  in  Paris,  so  after  he  had  spoken  for 
some  time  to  the  Russians,  and  I  was  about  to  follow 
them  out,  he  asked  me  to  return  later  to  speak  to  him.  He 
sent  a  car  to  the  Hotel  du  Rhin,  where  we  dined,  and  I 
returned  with  the  A.D.G.  I  told  him  all  about  Russia, 
explaining  as  well  as  I  could  the  necessity  for  us  to  get 
Gras  S.A.  A.  He  wrote  this  down,  and  I  hope  will  impress 
Joffre. 

Foch  is  convinced  that  we  will  break  through  in  the 
Western  theatre  as  soon  as  we  get  enough  guns  and  enough 
gas.  He  says  that  the  next  offensive  will  be  simultaneous 
with  one  in  the  Eastern  theatre. 

I  was  amused  to  hear  that  General  Jilinski,  the  Russian 
Military  Representative,  with  Joffre,  held  up  his  hands  in 
horror  when  he  heard  that  Federov  had  been  given  by  the 
Artillery  Department  the  detail  and  number  of  the  heavy 
guns  in  the  Russian  army. 

When  I  was  saying  good-night,  Foch  spoke  of  Henry 
Wilson,  and  said  that  "  with  those  long  legs  of  his  "  he  was 
running  about  between  the  two  armies  and  was  doing  work 
as  valuable  as  any  army  commander  in  helping  the  main- 
tenance of  cordial  relations. 

We  spent  December  I2th  in  visiting  the  front  of  the  French 
loth  Army,  lunching  with  General  Neudon  in  command  of  the 
70th  Division  and  dining  at  St.  Pol  with  General  D' Urban,  the 
Army  Commander.  The  French  arrangements  for  the  comfort  of 
the  Russians  had  throughout  been  excellent. 

It  had  been  arranged  that  we  were  to  see  something  of  the 
British  front  on  the  I3th,  and  to  spend  the  night  at  British 
G.H.Q.  at  St.  Omer  before  returning  to  England.  As  the  French 


366       With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

had  given  us  closed  cars,  we  had  left  our  furs  in  Paris,  and  it  was  a 
shock  when  a  young  officer  turned  up  on  the  morning  of  the  I3th 
with  open  cars.  I  learned,  too,  that  it  was  not  contemplated 
that  the  British  Commander-m-Ghief  should  personally  receive 
the  Russian  visitors.  Such  an  omission  would  have  made  a 
disastrous  impression,  so  I  said  that  if  the  Commander-in-Ohief 
was  unable  to  receive  them  it  would  be  better  for  me  to  take  them 
on  my  own  responsibility  straight  to  Boulogne,  without  visiting 
British  G.H.Q.  at  all. 

Generals  Snow  and  Frank  Lyon,  of  the  Vllth  Corps,  with 
whom  we  lunched,  fitted  us  out  with  warm  clothing  as  a  protection 
against  the  bitterly  cold  wind.  General  Lambton,  of  the  4th 
Division,  accompanied  us  round  his  trenches  and  showed  us 
everything  that  we  asked  to  see.  Kelchevski  took  a  great  fancy 
to  Lyon,  and  often  said  later  that  "  the  pleasantest  recollection  ' 
he  had  of  the  British  front  in  France  was  "  General  Lyon/' 

At  St.  Omer  we  were  left  to  dine  alone  at  a  very  indifferent 
hotel.  When  next  morning  I  mentioned  to  the  young  officer 
who  had  accompanied  us  at  the  front  that  British  officers  visiting 
Russian  G.H.Q.  would  have  been  very  differently  treated,  he 
replied  :  "  My  dear  sir,  we  are  running  a  war  ! '  It  is  possible 
that  the  reason  of  this  seeming  lack  of  attention  was  the  change  in 
the  British  Command  then  in  progress,  for  Sir  John  French  left 
for  England  on  the  I4th,  soon  after  he  had  received  the  Russian 
officers. 

I  saw  Sir  Henry  Wilson  for  a  moment  at  G.H.Q.  He  said  that 
the  Anglo  French  armies  would  not  be  able  to  break  through  till 
Russia  had  drawn  off  thirty  divisions  to  the  East,  and  he  asked  me 
when  I  thought  this  could  be  done. 

This  type  of  question  made  me  think  that  the  pessimism  of 
my  dispatches,  at  which  people  laughed,  had  not  been  deep 
enough.  Competent  authorities  in  the  West  seemed  to  expect 
from  Russia  a  continued  effort  based  on  the  size  of  her  population, 
without  taking  into  consideration  the  limitations  imposed  by 
actual  conditions  of  armament,  communications  and  power  of 
organisation. 

On  Friday  the  I7th  I  accompanied  Admiral  Russin  and 


A  Russian  Delegation  to  England  and  France  367 

Lieutenant-Commander  Romanov  to  bid  farewell  to  Lord  Kitchener 
at  the  War  Office  and  to  Mr.  Lloyd  George  at  the  House  of  Commons. 
The  Admiral  asked  Lord  K.  if  he  would  continue  in  June  and 
subsequent  months  "  the  monthly  gift  of  100  4-5  howitzers  that 
had  been  promised  to  Russia."  Lord  K.  had  evidently  not 
heard  of  any  such  promise  and  said  bluntly  :  What  howitzers  ?  ' 
I  explained  that  this  had  been  arranged  at  the  Inter-allied  Muni- 
tions Conference  in  the  preceding  month,  and  he  took  an  angry 
note.  The  Russians  saw  that  he  was  not  over-pleased,  and  they 
left  England  with  the  impression  that  Mr.  Lloyd  George  rather 
than  Lord  Kitchener  was  their  friend. 

On  Saturday  the  Delegation  was  received  by  the  King  at 
Buckingham  Palace.  I  saw  it  off  at  the  station  on  Sunday  night, 
the  i gth.  The  Russians  were  most  touching  in  their  thanks  ; 
they  said  that  I  had  fought  their  battle  as  if  I  had  been  a  Russian 
myself,  and  that  they  would  never  forget  my  help.  These  were 
not  empty  words.  I  soon  found  when  I  returned  to  Russia  that 
I  was  regarded  with  greater  confidence. 

Admiral  Russin,  who  was  a  strong  Monarchist,  resigned  his 
appointment  as  Chief  of  the  Naval  General  Staff  very  soon  after 
the  revolution  of  1917,  while  his  immediate  assistant,  Altfater,  a 
man  of  more  flexible  opinions,  continued  in  the  service,  and  was 
promoted  by  the  Bolsheviks  to  be  Minister  of  Marine,  in  which 
position  he  died,  it  is  said  by  his  own  hand,  in  1919.  Some  months 
earlier  Russin  had  been  judicially  murdered  by  the  Bolsheviks  at 
Petrograd  at  the  same  time  as  the  Grand  Duke  Paul,  it  was  said 
in  reprisal  for  the  murder  of  Liebknecht  and  Rosa  Luxembourg 
at  Berlin. 

Lyubomirov  acted  for  a  time  in  the  summer  of  1917  as  Naval 
Aide-de-Camp  to  Kerenski. 

Romanov,  who  was  a  Liberal,  wholeheartedly  welcomed  the 
First  Revolution.  As  order  gave  way  to  anarchy,  I  used  to  go  to 
see  him  sometimes  in  his  room  at  the  Naval  General  Staff  at 
Petrograd,  partly  to  vent  my  rage  and  partly  to  try  to  get  some 
gleam  of  hope  from  an  honest  Russian.  He  used  to  say :  "  But, 
my  dear  fellow,  you  forget  that  we  are  passing  through  a  revolu- 
tion," and  then  he  would  instance  some  supposedly  parallel  phase 


368        With  the  Russian  Army,  1914-1917 

in  the  French  Revolution,  a  history  of  which  always  lay  on  his 
table.  The  day  before  we  left  the  Embassy  in  Petrograd — on 
January  6th,  1918 — he  came  to  me  to  say  good-bye,  and  broke 
down,  confessing  that  he  had  never  imagined  that  things  would 
go  as  far  as  they  had  and  that  his  country  would  stoop  to  the 
negotiation  of  a  separate  peace.  In  the  autumn  of  the  following 
year  he  came  out  to  Siberia  by  the  northern  route  to  join  Admiral 
Kolchak  at  Omsk,  and  he  told  me  there  that  he  had  no  longer 
cause  for  shame  on  Russia's  behalf  in  talking  to  an  ally,  for  the 
Allies  had  abandoned  his  country.  His  theory  was  that  Bol- 
shevism, being  a  German  war-product,  the  Allies  were  in  duty 
bound  to  destroy  it.  He  was  captured  by  the  Bolsheviks  at 
Krasnoyarsk.  He  was  a  fine  fellow  and  a  patriot. 


END  OF  VOL.   I. 


PRINTED  BY  THE  ANCHOK  PRESS,  LTD.,  TIFTRHE,  K88BX,  ENGLAND. 


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