HINDENBURG'S DEATH TRAP
Story from Lips of a Young Cossack
Told by Lady Glover
The authoress heard this remarkable story from the lips of the young Cossack concerned. It deals with the terrible tragedy that befell the Russian armies in the early days of the war, amid that treacherous labyrinth of lakes, rivers, and morasses known as the Masurian Lakes. This is as she tells it in the Wide World Magazine.
I—THE AGED MOTHER WHO REFUSED TO FLEE
"Here I was born, and here I am going to die. It is no use, my son; I am now in the eighty-second year of my age, and I am too old to be transported to a strange place. What is to be will be."
Mooska Zarden took his mother's frail hand in his.
"But I entreat you," he said; "the whole of the Russian population is leaving Dvinsk. There is no time to be lost; even now the German guns are at the door, and the Governor's order is that the whole of the civilian population must be out of the town within twenty-four hours to seek refuge in a safer place, because the Russian army is about to take up the line and make a stand of Dvinsk."
"You are a Cossack," she replied, "and must go wherever you are sent to serve your country; but here I was born, and here I am going to die."
Dvinsk was a fortified town, or "Kerpost," as it is called in Russia, but of late years it has been turned into an arsenal of munitions and material of war, all ready for the appointed day should the enemy try to cross the fair River Dvina. The stream at this point is beautiful and wide; very few bridges span its flowing waters, and these few were now securely held by the Russians. On the southern side of the river the country is flat and low-lying, the land rolling away to the horizon. The approach of an enemy, therefore, would be distinctly visible, while the northern banks are well timbered, and higher than on the southern side, so that an army concealed in the woods, if well supplied with ammunition, could play havoc with the enemy when they tried to cross the river from the opposite bank.
The Germans have by this time learned the reason why they suffered such an important check at Dvinsk, and therefore I shall not be giving away any military secrets by describing the Dvinsk sector of the Dvina line, which the Russians took up after their retreat from Poland. It was an excellent one from the strategical point of view, and one which they have held ever since.
There are three railway lines available, of great importance for the army—one from Riga to Oriol, which follows the line of the Dvina as nearly as possible; the main line from Petrograd to Warsaw; and a branch line of the Lembo-Rommy railway, with a junction connecting the three together. When the Russian army was about to make a stand at Dvinsk, at the beginning of the war, the civil population of the town received orders to leave, and men, women, and children were sent to seek refuge at a sufficient distance for their safety, out of reach of Prussian guns.
The terror-stricken people had no time to take their household goods or the treasures they so much prized; they simply had to flee, they knew not whither. Vanda Zarden, however, was not among that stricken crowd. With bowed head and prostrate form, she was kneeling before an ikon in the home that had been hers for so many years, the home she had been brought up in and where her children were born. Her husband had long been dead, and her sons were all married except Mooska the Cossack, the pride of her life and the comfort of her old age.
The Cossacks of the Don, the distant Carpathian mountains, and other remote regions are among the most famous cavalry in the world, and it is the ambition of many a Russian mother that her boy will obtain a commission in a Cossack regiment or even a place in its ranks.
Thus it was that Mooska Zarden was only a few hours old when his father registered his name in Dvinsk as a trooper. He was determined that one of his sons should have the distinction of serving the Czar as a mounted soldier; so Mooska was trained for this branch of the service, and learned all about horses. When he joined the regiment it was soon discovered how quickly he could tame the wildest steeds and teach them many things beside their drill. His own horse followed him about like a dog, and would lie down at the word of command. Mooska also taught him to lift a man in his teeth by the belt of his uniform and carry him, which was not a part of the regulation army drill.
And now the hour had come when Mooska must leave Dvinsk, his native town, and the aged mother who refused to flee. His heart was heavy within him at the thought of deserting her in the time of peril; but his regiment was ordered to join the army that was marching towards the Masurian Lake district to oppose the advance of the Huns. This was during the earlier days of the war, when there was not much known about these wilds nor about the lake district that proved so full of surprises for the great Russian armies that were rolling westwards.
There was only one German who knew how to deal with the invasion of East Prussia, and he was soon busily occupied. General Hindenburg had a very intimate knowledge of that particular region, founded upon great experience, and had studied in detail the strategic and tactical bearings of this highly restricted field of operations.
He had bought large properties in the district, and knew every inch of the ground. He had secretly deepened fords that were marked on the maps and made new ones that were not marked; he had tested the bearing powers of the quagmires and guns and wagons, and he knew just where men and horses might venture and where they would be swallowed up. Some time before the war, when it was suggested that a big land company should be formed to drain the bogs and lakes and turn them into arable farm land, Hindenburg advised the Supreme War Lord not to let the project be carried out.
"Those lakes," he said, "are more valuable to us than two army corps. No guns will be needed if the enemy advances. You will see when the day comes."
II—HINDENBURG SAT SMILING IN HIS HOUSE
And now Hindenburg's army was on one side of these marshes and the Russians were advancing on the other, and Hindenburg sat smiling in his house, like a spider in its web, stroking his moustache self-complacently. The Huns did not trouble much about the advancing troops, for Hindenburg merely said, "Let them come," and smiled again.
The events that followed were some of the most tragic of the war. Hindenburg watched the results of his calculations surrounded by the Hochgeboren—the princes and generals of the army of the Huns. Can it be wondered that the Duke of Brunswick, who witnessed the tragedy, has since been reported as hopelessly insane? At the age of nine-and twenty he was in command of the German troops at the Russian frontier, and saw the terrible fate of the men who were swallowed up bodily in the treacherous marshes. The cries of the victims and his own helplessness haunted him to such an extent that it is said he lost his reason and, from extreme violence, drifted into a deep stupor of melancholy.
Mooska Zarden was among those who witnessed the terrors of that awful day. Finding the ground soft and muddy, the Russian engineers were sent forward with long planks to make a roadway for the troops to pass over the marshes, little thinking that, owing to the treacherous nature of the ground, the black slime and ooze would soon suck down into the bottomless mire the flower of Russian manhood, and that even the roadway itself would be swallowed up.
The summer sun had dried the surface crust, and reeds and sedge and aquatic plants grew and flourished exceedingly. The Russian army spread out and entered this treacherous zone at different points, according to the disposition of the troops and the branches of the service to which they belonged. Mooska Zarden was riding on the flank of his troop. The sun beat down fiercely, and it grew hazy in the distance as the heat drew up the moisture from the marshes.
Very soon the young Cossack's horse showed signs of uneasiness and alarm. It is wonderful how the human voice can restore confidence and courage in an animal and allay apprehension; but self-preservation is the strongest primitive instinct, and nothing the Cossack could do would soothe the terror of his mount. The horses in front of them were already snorting and whinnying their fears to each other as the trembling brutes felt the marshy land quaking under them.
Suddenly Mooska's horse took the bit in his teeth and bolted back out of the ranks, and bit and spur were of no avail to make him turn and advance again. The panic-terror had come; he was fighting for his life, for now the swamp was giving way and he was sinking at every footstep. Behind them there was being enacted a scene that baffles description as the treacherous quagmire began to claim its toll. The cries and shrieks of men and beasts as they were engulfed added horror to the dreadful situation.
Presently, realizing what was amiss, Mooska dismounted to take the weight off his floundering horse. A discarded plank that he came across enabled him to struggle on by pushing it in front of them, and yard by yard man and beast fought their way to firmer ground, not daring to stop to rest for a moment lest the delay should be fatal. By this time the Cossack was almost exhausted, yet he floundered on with the desperation of despair, for within view was higher ground which he believed to be the edge of the marsh. Could he hold out till then? His panting steed, dripping with sweat and covered with mud, was—like himself—nearly spent, but side by side they stumbled on, with eyes fixed in that goal which was their only hope of preservation. At last the earth felt firmer; they were no longer sinking ankle-deep at every step. Then the Cossack, taxed beyond his strength, fell forward on his face, and everything became a blank to him.
III—THE YOUNG COSSACK IN THE MARSHES
That bit of dry land, as it happened, was the commencement of a low ridge of hard ground on the border of the morass. The exhausted horse stood beside his master, with legs extended and heaving flanks, turning his nose to the wind as he panted for breath. The treacherous marshes stretched away for miles on every side, and the panic-terror ran through the animal like an electric shock. Behind him in the bogs the tragedy wore on to its climax. Maddened horses broke away, men were knocked down and rendered helpless, and animals and humans were sucked down to a dreadful death. The columns in the rear had hardly left the firm road before the darkness of night hid the inferno in front, and only a few stragglers escaped to tell the tale of what befell that day. When the sun was once more high in the heavens, the survivors marched back from that dreadful place with leaden feet, shoulders huddled forward, and red-rimmed eyes; they were thinking of the fearful fate of their comrades.
As they trudged along the dusty road, the weary men stepping slowly under the weight of their packs, they saw a little Cossack horse a short distance from the highway, with drooping head and tired eyes, standing under the shade of an overhanging tree beside a motionless bundle covered with caked mud. The horse whinnied as they drew near, and lifted his odd-shaped burden with his teeth. For a few yards he struggled on with it; then he laid it down from sheer exhaustion.
"It looks like a man; see if he lives," ordered an officer. A sergeant came forward and found that the helpless Cossack was still breathing. How long he had lain there he never knew, for his faithful horse had carried him by his belt little by little, yard by yard, from the place where he had fallen—five weary versts away, they told him—till he reached the shelter of those trees by the roadside. He had never left his master save for a short time to crop the herbage or drink from a pool during that long night and the day that followed. And now, when he could do no more, help had come.
When Mooska Zarden's senses returned to him he seemed to remember lying in the moonlight during that long night, with nothing but the stars above him, and feeling the soft nose of the faithful animal touch his hand; and he would feebly move it to show that he was alive. Then his belt would tighten and he would be dragged on gently for a few yards and laid down again, still only semi-conscious. Now the soldiers were giving him restoratives, but he felt little except the throbbing of his head. He opened his eyes feebly at last, but could not speak or think. When he was placed on a stretcher the horse broke away from the man who was leading him and took his place beside the bearers, every now and then putting his nose against the shoulder of the prostrate figure.
"Let him be till we fall in with a Cossack regiment or some stragglers of his own corps," said the colonel. "He saved the trooper's life."
When Zarden regained his senses he was in hospital, weak and spent by fever; his brain had hardly as yet recovered from the shock. "Have I been ill?" he inquired, but the nurse told him to lie still and ask no questions. As yet he could remember nothing. The sun glinted in through the windows and flecked the white-washed walls here and there with gleams of golden light. There were rows and rows of beds in the long ward, placed side by side, and Red Cross nurses were flitting about among them. It was all very strange to him. After a while his eyes rested upon the ikon hanging on the wall. This was the first time he had noticed it, and his memory brought him fitful shadows of the last occasion on which he had seen one. An aged woman, of whom he had but a hazy remembrance, was kneeling before it.
While he was trying to straighten out the tangle of mixed-up ideas in his mind, a cry from one of the beds in the ward held his attention. "Save me; I am sinking!" cried an agonized voice. Then, in a flash, he remembered those pitiful shrieks of despair, and he covered his face with his hands. Memory, that fickle jade, had come back at the point where she had deserted him, and he lay back with closed eyes while pictures floated through his brain of what he had passed through that dreadful day, followed by the starlit night when he could hear the troop-horse cropping the herbage at his side and the strike of the animal's iron-shod hoofs as he slipped over stones, weighted with his burden. Soon it all came back to him. "Bring me a mirror, nurse," he said. It was the first thing he had asked for. He looked at it; then, with a wild shriek, he flung it away.
"It is another—not me! Who am I?" he cried. "My hair and beard are as white as snow! It is not me, Mooska Zarden, any more."
The nurse picked up the fragments of the broken glass hastily, and he lay back raving as he had done in his fever.
"You must dye his hair and beard at once," the doctor ordered, "otherwise he will lose his reason. With care, however, he will recover; it is a nervous breakdown."
IV—AT THE DOOR OF HIS MOTHER'S HOME
Slowly the Cossack pulled round, as the doctor thought he would, and ere long he was sent home to recuperate. The smiling Dvina spread out before him in the early dawn, with the blue, cloudless sky above and the golden sun shining on its shimmering water. On the banks green trees waved in the breeze, and away in the distance the blurred outline of a town was visible in the purple morning haze. As he came nearer to the city, however, and the buildings took distinctive objects of Dvinsk, some of the familiar houses and churches and towers that he knew so well. It was a city shorn of its beauty, a ghost of what it had once been. He thought that his recent illness must have impaired his eyesight, but when he neared the town and beheld great heaps of stones, roofless houses, and walls crumbled to dust a great panic seized his heart. Where was the mother whom he had left there in the house they called their own? Was it, too, a mass of dust and stones? With trembling knees he turned to find the well-known street. A few stray dogs, thin and hungry, wandered about among the rubbish in search of food. A strange silence seemed everywhere.
At last he reached his mother's house. Yes, the roof was still intact; a little broken glass lay about, and there were marks of shrapnel on the wall, but the house stood firm and unharmed. This would be about the hour, he remembered, that his mother would be rising to prepare the morning meal. He put his hand on the latch of the door, and his heart was thumping with emotion. Slowly he pushed it open and entered the little kitchen. Everything was spotlessly clean and neat, and everything stood just where he had seen it last. The kettle was hissing with a welcome sound, and the old black cat was asleep on the hearth, but the bench beside it was empty. He looked round, and the morning sun shone on the polished brasses and lit them up like burnished gold. The pendulum of the big clock was swaying monotonously as of old, and pointing to the hour when the household used to assemble round the oaken table for their morning meal. As the last stroke of the hour ceased to vibrate, a bent figure kneeling in front of the ikon raised her trembling hands to it, clasped in an agony of prayer. "Send him home to me, good Lord, that I may see his face once more," she cried.
Mooska Zarden stooped and lifted the prostrate form and folded his mother closely to his heart. Then he told her the strange story of his miraculous escape, and showed her the well-worn leather belt, with the marks of the teeth of the faithful horse that had saved his life, and recounted to her again and again the tale of the brave animal's pluck and endurance during that long night and those dreadful days of suffering.
"It was the will of God, my son," she said, earnestly. "What is to be, now and for evermore."