“I was silent, but the sacred tears in the eyes of this hero touched me deeply, and at this moment I vowed in my mind that I would die for him and for our common Motherland. General Kornilov seemed to feel this. He turned to me suddenly, pressed my hand, and turned away, as if ashamed of his momentary weakness.
“The acquaintance of the new Commander with the infantry began with the units in the Reserve, when formed in rank, holding a meeting and replying to all appeals for the necessity of an advance by pointing out how useless it was to continue a Bourgeois war, carried on by ‘militarists.’ When, after two hours of fruitless discussion, General Kornilov, worn out morally and physically, proceeded to the trenches, he found a scene there which could scarcely have been foreseen by any soldier of this age.
“We entered into a system of fortifications where the trench-lines of both sides were separated or, more correctly, joined by lines of barbed wire.... The appearance of General Kornilov was greeted ... by a group of German officers, who gazed insolently on the Commander of the Russian Army; behind them stood some Prussian soldiers. The General took my field-glasses and, ascending the parapet, began to examine the arena of the fights to come. When someone expressed a fear that the Prussians might shoot the Russian Commander, the latter replied:
“‘I would be immensely glad if they did; perhaps it might sober our befogged soldiers and put an end to this shameful fraternisation.’
“At the positions of a neighbouring regiment the Commander of the Army was greeted by the bravura march of a German Jaeger regiment, to whose band our ‘fraternising’ soldiers were making their way. With the remark, ‘This is treason!’ the General turned to an officer standing next him, ordering the fraternisers from both sides to be told that if this disgraceful scene did not cease at once he would turn the guns loose on them. The disciplined Germans ceased playing and returned to their own trenches, seemingly ashamed of the abominable spectacle. But our soldiers—oh! they held meetings for a long time, complaining of the way their ‘counter-Revolutionary commanders oppressed their liberty.’”
In general I do not cherish feelings of revenge. Yet I regret exceedingly that General Ludendorff left the German Army prematurely, before its break-up, and did not experience directly in its ranks those inexpressibly painful moral torments which we Russian officers have suffered.
Before the battle in the Revolutionary Army: a meeting.