I
The news of the fall of Przemysl reached Petrograd on the morning of March 23, and the announcement was given out by the War Office at noon. The spring is very late in Russia this year, and so much snow and such intense cold have not been known so late in March for more than a hundred years. On the 23rd it was snowing heavily in Petrograd and a biting wind was sweeping through the streets. Save for an occasional street car and foot passengers the Moika and even the Nevsky Prospekt were at noon almost as empty as at midnight. And then came the announcement that the great fortress in Galicia had fallen. In an hour the news was all over the town and in spite of the inclement weather the streets were thronged with eager Russians, from Prince to Moujik, anxiously asking each other if the news which had been so long promised could really be true. The fall of Przemysl it must be remembered had been reported at least a dozen times in Petrograd before this.
There are people in as well as out of Russia, who like to say that the man in the street over here cares nothing for the war and knows less, but on this particular day these people were silent. It was no wonder. If ever a people genuinely rejoiced over good news it was the citizens of all classes of Russia’s capital when it became known that Przemysl was at last in Russian hands. By three in the afternoon, crowds had organized themselves into bands, and with the Russian flag waving in front, and a portrait of the Czar carried before, dozens of bands marched through the streets chanting the deep-throated Russian National anthem; one of the most impressive hymns in the world.
Though the snow was still falling and a nipping wind blowing, thousands of the crowds that now perambulated the streets stood bareheaded in the blast as each procession passed. Old retired generals of seventy and more stood at rigid attention as the portrait of their monarch and the flag of their nation was borne past. Moujiks, princes, men and women, the aged and the young alike, displayed the same spirit of ardour and enthusiasm as each demonstration came down the street. While it is true that there is not in Russia what we in the West call public opinion, yet a stranger living here during this war comes to feel that there is growing up a spirit that is uniting all classes. This is the great hope for the war. It is also Russia’s hope for the future. In another generation it is destined to bring forth greater progress and unity than the Empire of the Czar has ever known.
Occupation of Przemysl by the Russians. Austrians leaving as prisoners. The Russians entering the town.
The people of Petrograd have followed the war much more closely than one would have believed possible. Over here there has been action from the day the war started, and hardly a month when gigantic movements of some sort or other have not been under weigh. Petrograd has been called on again and again to furnish new troops, and from September until to-day there has not been a week that one could not see new troops drilling in the streets. Russia has had great successes and great setbacks, but each alike strengthens the same stubborn determination to keep pressing forward.
There was great disappointment when the Russian army withdrew a few weeks ago from East Prussia, but it began to abate when it became known that the German advance was checked. The Russians, as is their habit, had pulled themselves together, and slowly but surely were pushing back the invader just as they did in the dreary days following the Samsonov disaster in the first days of the war. Then came the news of Galicia and the greatest single success that the war has brought to any of the Allies, or for that matter to any of the belligerent powers. When the details of the numbers of the captured began to leak out, the importance of the success was first realized, and not without reason did the Russians begin to allude to the fall of Przemysl as a second Metz. It was generally believed that the garrison shut up within the fortress did not total above 50,000 men, and none were more surprised than the victors, when they learned that more than 131,000 soldiers and nearly 4,000 officers had fallen into their hands, not to mention a number of guns of all calibres amounting probably to above 300. These unfortunately have been rendered useless by the Austrians and must be charged as a heavy loss to them rather than as any direct military asset gained by the Russians.
Austrian prisoners leaving Przemysl.
Russian occupation of Przemysl. Austrian officers pay a last visit to the Russian head-quarters before leaving for Lwow.
Well may the Russians take pride in what their new army has accomplished, for one must go back to the taking of Plevna to find any such landmark in the history of Russian siege operations. The last great siege in Muscovite history was that of Port Arthur, and one cannot but contrast the state of matters in Russia ten years ago, and now. Port Arthur fell after a long series of disasters to the Russian arms, and the people all over the Empire received the tidings without interest and with that dumb resignation to disaster that is characteristic of their fatalistic temperament. A spirit of hopelessness and despondency and pessimism pervaded every class of Russian society. Announcements of new defeats were heard without surprise and almost without interest. “Of course, what do you expect?” one would hear on all sides, “Russian troops never win.” But now there is quite a different point of view. Even the moujik has come to feel a pride and confidence in his army and in its victories. Their successes are his successes, and their defeats are his defeats.
One who takes interest in studying the psychology of countries comes to realize that pride of race and confidence in one’s blood is the greatest asset that any nation can possess. Throughout Russia, the cause in which her Armies are engaged has come to be more nearly understood than any war she has ever engaged in. It is not true of course that the peasant knows as much as does the British Tommy; nor is there anything like the same enlightenment that prevails in the Western Armies. But in fairness to Russia she must not be judged from a Western standpoint, but compared with herself ten years ago.
As has been written by a dozen writers from Russia in the last six months the new spirit was crystallized when the war began. It has had its ups and its downs with the varying reports from the Front, but as each defeat has been turned into a stepping stone for a subsequent advance, public confidence has gradually mounted higher and higher, until, with the fall of Przemysl, we find Russian sentiment and confidence in Russia at probably the highest point that has ever been reached in the history of the Empire. The dawn of the new day of which we hear so much over here now, bears every indication of being the beginning of the much heralded new Era in this country.