[Special Cable to The New York Times.]
ZYRDDOW, Poland, Received in London Jan. 19.—There is a spot above the river which must not be indicated too explicitly, but whose name signifies in Russian the place of tombs. It is thus christened by the troops who camp in a great forest which shadows the whole position. It is a point at which the new German plan of thrusting toward the railway instead of as hitherto toward the road has produced fighting of more than Homeric quality.
The Russians, who never misjudge the value of ground, were established here in well-made trenches, with the shelter of the forest at their backs for reserves and supports. Upon this iron front the Germans spent themselves in fruitless attacks, incurring crippling losses. It was only after repeated and disastrous failure of these tactics that they began a different method of approach.
Here, as everywhere else, they have a large amount of artillery, and under incessant shell fire they proceeded to sap their way toward the Russian trenches. Incidentally they expended shells enough to last an army through the whole of a small war, and where formerly six acres of trees projected from the main forest there are now no trees at all.
The parapet of their trench is only thirty-five paces from the Russian parapet, and the men crouching behind their shelter can hear the voices of their enemies. None dare lift head or hand to even the loopholes on the breastworks, since the worst shot in the world can send bullet after bullet through any loophole at that distance. The Russians are able to throw hand grenades, with which their trenches are supplied, clear into the German trenches, while the German shelling has had to cease since their own men are in equal danger from any shell aimed at the Russian trenches.
I rode down through the forest in an effort to reach one of the trenches two nights ago, passing from the pale shine of the snow upon the bare fields to sheer darkness. I found the staff established in a spacious dugout some 400 yards behind the actual first line. Here, as always, was a straw-padded, candle-lit interior, with an orderly waiting, with telephone to ear, and all those rough-and-ready contrivances by which men live who have death forever at their elbow. Here, too, their faces disguised by weeks of beard and grimed with the smirch of war, were burly Russian officers, those adequate and quietly confident men who are the strength and inspiration of the Russian Army.
In all the gloom, where all life was balanced on a hair, one thing was steadfast and cordial, and that was the unshaken assurance of these cheerful, expert fighting men in their power to hold the Germans and presently to resume the offensive, to which each one of them looks forward, and advance at last toward the frontier of Germany. None underestimates the enemy. They criticise him in a spirit of absolute professional impartiality, admiring quite frankly the organization and courage of the German infantry, but condemning the artillery and pooh-poohing the cavalry.
Yesterday morning the Germans renewed their bombardment of the positions at Radziwillow, where the fine Russian trench is practically impregnable, and has already cost them huge losses in their attempts to assault it.
I had an illustration of their lack of system in artillery fire while returning along the rear of this position. Their shells sailed up across the woods to the south of the railway, bursting on an empty stretch of fields about a thousand yards away, and turned seven or eight hundred acres of virgin snow into an inferno of smoke and torn earth, but no single shell fell nearer than a thousand yards to any living soul.
During the last day or two I have seen a change in the nature of the fighting on this front. The German procedure has no longer its old character of desperate decision but has become more desultory and their pressure flickers up and down the line as though in a panic of effort to find some point at which the defense is weak.
I learned here from prisoners that the Germans lately have been celebrating victories. Berlin and other cities are said to be gay with flags, and Gen. von Hindenburg has been acclaimed as a national hero. I can only keep my eyes on the small portion of the long front limited by Socahczew on the north and Msczonow on the south, but in regard to this region I can offer my personal testimony that at no point have the Germans gained anything in the nature of a success nor made any attack which has not been immensely more costly in lives to them than to the Russians.
Shelled Tsing-tao With Wireless Aid
By Jefferson Jones,
Staff Correspondent of The Minneapolis Journal and Japan Advertiser.
[From The New York Times, Jan. 24, 1915.]
TOKIO, Dec. 15.—Far out in the Yellow Sea busy gunners on a Japanese battleship aimed a 12-inch gun at one of the German forts in Tsing-tao. Opening the breech, they removed the smoking cartridge case, put in another loaded one, and waited to learn whether the projectile had scattered death among the enemy or exploded harmlessly in soft earth. They were five or six miles from their target.
The gunners gazed toward the battleship's wireless masts. Presently came a sputter and crackle of electric sparks. An officer appeared in the turret and said, perhaps, "Very good. Put some more in the same place," or, "That one was fifty feet to the right or sixty feet too high." He had received a wireless message from the shore telling exactly where the shell had struck, probably for the first time since naval warfare began.
At the rear of the Japanese lines, where a naval lookout had been erected, I saw several marines focusing horned telescopes on the besieged forts. As soon as a shell landed one of the men would telephone the exact location to the naval wireless station at Sesheco, which relayed the message to the warships.
The fourth day of the siege was the most severe of the whole siege of Tsing-tao. Gen. Johoji on the extreme left, with Gen. Barnardiston of the British expeditionary force, was pressing the intrenched Germans near Moltke Fort. Early in the morning Gen. Johoji had sent a detachment against the triangular pumping station fort, as it was deemed wise not to turn the siege guns on the place, because the fort might be destroyed and the supply of water be cut off in the city when the troops entered. The detachment approached the fort without any resistance from the Germans, and, surrounding it, discovered that there was a small garrison, which had barred itself inside. The Japanese commanded the men to surrender, threatening to dynamite the place. The steel door was opened and twenty-three Germans walked out.
The capture of this fort was the key for the final attack of the Japanese, as it left the central fort and redoubts exposed to fire.
Late in the afternoon the fire became extremely heavy. The Germans seemed to be making sharp resistance to the Japanese, lest they advance within the quarter-mile zone of the redoubt walls. The Japanese infantry, however, were sapping away, and as dusk settled over the field we saw the bright flash of bursting shrapnel from the German forts. It was the first shrapnel sent out by the Germans during the siege.
Ten, twelve, fifteen, and sometimes even twenty shrapnel shells could be counted bursting at one time, all in a straight line, over the Japanese front line, and then the big German searchlights would flash about the field. They would fall on fifteen or twenty Japanese sappers on the top of their trenches placing sandbags, and then the flash would disappear.
Thursday, Nov. 5, seemed only a repetition of what we had seen the day before. All night long the firing kept up, and it was evident that the German garrison at Tsing-tao was making stubborn and gallant resistance.
That night the Japanese forces advanced 200 yards under a heavy shrapnel fire from the Germans. A snowstorm, followed by rain, had filled the trenches with water a foot deep, and it was in these that the Japanese and British forces found themselves during the closing days of the siege.
Friday, Nov. 6, was a bitter morning. A forty-mile gale was blowing off the Yellow Sea, and with the thermometer at 2 below zero it was not any too comfortable, even for those of us who were fortunate enough to get near a charcoal burner.
Toward midnight Gen. Yamada, whose men were intrenched in front of Forts 2 and 3, sent out a detachment to learn the condition of the German garrison opposing him. The men approached the redoubt walls of the forts, climbed ten feet to the bottom, and found themselves face to face with wire entanglements twenty yards wide and running the length of the wall. No Germans were seen. Reinforcements were called for while the scouts were cutting the entanglements. At 1 A.M., Nov. 7, Gen. Yamada with more than 300 men was behind the redoubt walls of Fort 3.
In the meantime, heavily protected on all sides by planks and sandbags, a detachment of 200 Germans with machine guns was watching the approach of Gen. Barnardiston's men, who had been stationed to the right of Gen. Yamada. The Germans were unaware that the Japanese had gained the wall, when suddenly a sentry heard Japanese voices. The signal was given and the Germans rushed from their sandbag houses into the shadow of the wall, hoping to reach their comrades, stationed 500 yards back along the casement walls. Some, perhaps, reached their destination, but the majority of the men were shot down by the Japanese infantry.
The capture of Forts 2 and 3 by Gen. Yamada was quickly reported to Gen. Horiuchi, and within an hour his men had captured Forts 4 and 5 with very little resistance. Gen. Johoji, on the extreme left, with Gen. Barnardiston of the British force, also advanced with the news of the capture of the positions, but the Germans put up a stubborn resistance, and it was not until 6:30 A.M. that the attackers gained the coast fort and Fort 1.
With the capture of the redoubt fortifications there still remained the mountainous forts, Iltis, Bismarck, and Moltke, a quarter of a mile back toward Tsing-tao. With detachments of engineers and infantrymen, Gens. Horiuchi and Yamada ordered the general attack. The men rushed from their trenches for the base of the forts. It was to be a hand-to-hand bayonet attack.
But two guns on the Iltis fort had already been silenced, the four big 28-centimeter mortars on the same fort were useless for use at the base of Iltis, while the other guns had been so placed and sandbagged at the rear of the fort that they could not be quickly brought forward and utilized for work along the steep slopes leading to the forts. Rifles and machine guns were resorted to.
The Japanese, as they charged up the slope, were mowed down by the machine guns, but on they came from all sides—17,000 men against 3,800. The German garrison could not hold out, and the white flag was hoisted from Fort C, close to Gov. Gen. Meyer Waldeck's residence. The surrender came at 7:05 A.M.
THE BROKEN ROSE
(TO KING ALBERT)
By ANNIE VIVANTI CHARTRES.
[From King Albert’s Book.]
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Shy, youthful, silent—and misunderstood, In the white glare of Kinghood thou didst stand. The sceptre in thy hand Seemed but a flower the Fates had tossed to thee, And thou wert called, perchance half scornfully, Albert the Good. Today thou standest on a blackened grave, Thy broken sword still lifted to the skies. Thy pure and fearless eyes Gaze into Death's grim visage unappalled And by the storm-swept nations thou art called Albert the Brave. Tossed on a blood-red sea of rage and hate The frenzied world rolls forward to its doom. But high above the gloom Flashes the fulgent beacon of thy fame, The nations thou hast saved exalt thy name— Albert the Great! * * * * * * Albert the good, the brave, the great, thy land Lies at thy feet, a crushed and morient rose Trampled and desecrated by thy foes. One day a greater Belgium will be born, But what of this dead Belgium wracked and torn? What of this rose flung out upon the sand? Behold! Afar where sky and waters meet A white-robed Figure walketh on the sea (Peace goes before Him and her face is sweet.) As once He trod the waves of Galilee He comes again—the tumult sinks to rest, The stormy waters shine beneath His feet. He sees the dead rose lying in the sand, He lifts the dead rose in His holy hand And lays it at His breast. O broken rose of Belgium, thou art blest! |