III
The spring is late here as it is throughout Russia this year, and it was snowing heavily as our big touring car, with a soldier as chauffeur, threaded its way in the early morning through the narrow streets of Lwow and out into the open country which was now almost white. Before we have been twenty minutes on the road we begin to pass occasional groups of dismal wretches in the blue uniform which before this war was wont to typify the might of the Hapsburgs, but which now in Galicia is the symbol of dejection and defeat. Through the falling snow they plod in little parties of from three to a dozen; evidently the rear guard of the column that went through yesterday, for they are absolutely without guards, and are no doubt simply dragging on after their regiments.
Austrian and Hungarian prisoners en route to Lwow.
From Lwow almost due west runs the line of the highway to Grodek where we get our first glimpse of prisoners in bulk. Here, at the scene of some of the fiercest fighting that the war has produced, is a rest station for the columns that are making the journey to Russian captivity on foot from Przemysl to Lwow, and I know not how far beyond. As we motor into the town the three battalions of the 9th Hungarian regiment of the 54th Landsturm brigade are just straggling into the town from the west. With a few Russians who seem to be acting as guides and nurses rather than as guards, they file through the streets and into a great square of a barracks. Here they are marshalled in columns of four, and marched past the door of the barracks where an official counts the individual fours and makes a note of the number that have passed his station. Beyond in a grove the ranks are broken, and the weary-looking men drop down under the trees, regardless of the snow and mud, and shift their burdens and gnaw at the hunks of bread and other provisions furnished them by the Russians.
It is hard to realize that the haggard despondent rabble that we see has ever been part of an actual army in being. Most of them were evidently clothed for a summer campaign, and their thin and tattered uniform overcoats must have given but scant warmth during the winter that has passed. The line is studded with civilian overcoats, and many of the prisoners have only a cap or a fragment of a uniform which identifies them as ever having been soldiers at all. The women of the village pass up and down the line giving the weary troops bits of provision not in the Russian menu. All the men are wan and thin, with dreary hopelessness written large upon their faces, and a vacant stare of utter desolation in their hollow eyes. They accept gladly what is given and make no comment. They get up and sit down as directed by their guards, apparently with no more sense of initiative or independence of will than the merest automatons. We pause but a few minutes, for the roads are bad and we are anxious to get over the muddy way as quickly as possible.
The western portion of Grodek was badly knocked up by shell fire during the battle in September, and the barren walls of charred buildings remain to tell the story of the Austrian effort to stay the tide of the Russian advance that swept them out of position after position during the first weeks of the war. Grodek was reported to have been utterly destroyed at the time, but as a fact, not more than one-fifth of the buildings were even damaged by the artillery fire.
Austrian prisoners resting by the roadside during their march from Przemysl.
Just east of Sadowa Wisznia, the scene of another Austrian stand, we come upon a regiment attached to the 54th Landsturm brigade. This is the tenth regiment, and, with the exception of a few non-commissioned officers, is composed entirely of Slovaks and Hungarians. They are resting as we motor up, and for nearly a mile they are sitting dejectedly by the side of the road, some with heads resting wearily against tree trunks, while dozens of others are lying in the snow and mud apparently asleep. As nearly as I could estimate, there is about one Russian to a hundred prisoners. In any case one has to look about sharply to see the guards at all. It reminds one a bit of trying to pick a queen bee out of a swarm of workers. Usually one discovers the guard sitting with a group of prisoners, talking genially, his rifle leaning against the trunk of a tree near by.
We stopped here for about half an hour while I walked about trying to find some prisoners who could speak German, but for the most part that language was unknown to them. At last I discovered a couple of non-commissioned officers, who, when they heard that I was an American, opened up and talked quite freely. Both took great pride in repeating the statement that Przemysl could never have been taken by assault, and that it had only surrendered because of lack of food.
One of the men was from Vienna and extremely pro-German in his point of view. He took it as a matter of course that the Austrians were defeated everywhere, but seemed to feel a confidence that could not be shaken in the German troops. He knew nothing of the situation outside of his own garrison, and when told of Kitchener’s new British Army, laughed sardonically. “It is a joke,” he said, “Kitchener’s army is only on paper, and even if they had half a million as they claim to have, they would be of no use. The English cannot fight at all.” When told that over two million men had been recruited in the British Empire he opened his eyes a bit, but after swallowing a few times he came back, “Well even if they have it does not matter. They can’t fight.”
The other man whom I questioned was mainly interested in how long the war was going to last. He did not seem to feel any particular regret at the fall of the fortress, nor to care very much who won, as long as it would soon be over so that he could go home again. As for the rank and file I think it perfectly safe to suggest that not one in a hundred has any feeling at all except that of hopeless perpetual misery. They have been driven into a war for which they care little, they have been forced to endure the hardships of a winter in the trenches with insufficient clothing, a winter terminating with a failure of food supplies that brought them all to the verge of starvation. The fall of the fortress means to them three meals of some sort a day, and treatment probably kinder than they ever got from their own officers. They are at least freed from the burden of war and relieved of the constant menace of sudden death which has been their portion since August.
The road leading west from Sadowa Wisznia is in fearful condition owing to the heavy traffic of the Russian transport, and in places the mud was a foot deep. The country here is flat with occasional patches of fir and spruce timber. It is questionable if there ever was much prosperity in this belt; and since it has been swept for six months by contending armies, one cannot feel much optimism as to what the future has in store for the unfortunate peasants whose homes are destroyed, and whose live stock is said to have been taken off by the Austrians as they fell back before the Russians.