Next came Order No. 1., the Declaration and so forth.
Perhaps, however, it might have been possible to combat all this verbal ocean of lies and hypocrisy which flowed from Petrograd and from the local Soviets and was echoed by the local demagogues had it not been for a circumstance which paralysed all the efforts of the Commanders, viz., the animal feeling of self-preservation which had flooded the whole mass of the soldiers. This feeling had always existed. But it had been kept under and restrained by examples of duty fulfilled, by flashes of national self-consciousness, by shame, fear and pressure. When all these elements had disappeared, when for the soothing of a drowsy conscience there was a whole arsenal of new conceptions, which justified the care for one’s own hide and furnished it with an ideal basis, then the Army could exist no longer. This feeling upset all the efforts of the Commanders, all moral principles and the whole regiment of the Army.
In a large, open field, as far as the eye can see, run endless lines of trenches, sometimes coming close up to each other, interlacing their barbed wire fences, sometimes running far off and vanishing behind a verdant crest. The sun has risen long ago, but it is still as death in the field. The first to rise are the Germans. In one place and another their figures look out from the trenches; a few come out on to the parapet to hang their clothes, damp after the night, in the sun. A sentry in our front trench opens his sleepy eyes, lazily stretches himself, after looking indifferently at the enemy trenches. A soldier in a dirty shirt, bare-footed, with coat slung over his shoulders, cringing under the morning cold, comes out of his trench and plods towards the German positions, where, between the lines, stands a “postbox”; it contains a new number of the German paper, The Russian Messenger, and proposals for barter.
All is still. Not a single gun is to be heard. Last week the Regimental Committee issued a resolution against firing, even against distance firing; let the necessary distances be estimated by the map. A Lieutenant-Colonel of the gunners—a member of the Committee—gave his full approval to this resolution. When yesterday the Commander of a field battery began firing at a new enemy trench, our infantry opened rifle fire on our observation post and wounded the telephone operator. During the night the infantry lit a fire on the position being constructed for a newly arrived heavy battery.[26]
Nine a.m. The first Company gradually begins to awaken. The trenches are incredibly defiled; in the narrow communication trenches and those of the second line the air is thick and close. The parapet is crumbling away. No one troubles to repair it; no one feels inclined to do so, and there are not enough men in the Company. There is a large number of deserters; more than fifty have been allowed to go. Old soldiers have been demobilised, others have gone on leave with the arbitrary permission of the Committee. Others, again, have been elected members of numerous Committees, or gone away as delegates; a while ago, for instance, the Division sent a numerous delegation to “Comrade” Kerensky to verify whether he had really given orders for an advance. Finally, by threats and violence, the soldiers have so terrorised the regimental surgeons that the latter have been issuing medical certificates even to the “thoroughly fit.”
In the trenches the hours pass slowly and wearily, in dullness and idleness. In one corner men are playing cards, in another a soldier returned from leave is lazily and listlessly telling a story; the air is full of obscene swearing. Someone reads aloud from the Russian Messenger the following:
“The English want the Russians to shed the last drop of their blood for the greater glory of England, who seeks her profit in everything.... Dear soldiers, you must know that Russia would have concluded peace long ago had not England prevented her.... We must turn away from her—the Russian people demand it; such is their sacred will.”
Someone or other swears.
“Don’t you wish for peace. They make peace, the ——; we shall die here, without getting our freedom!”