And now came the reply. Standing up under the cannonade the Russian infantry, with the support of its machine guns, poured in such volleys that everything in front of it went down. The rush to break through was beaten out and backward, the trenches occupied by the Tirolese became a line of corpses; no attempt was made to resist the bayonet; Russian troops on the flank passed down towards the river and took the enemy in flank; the whole attack, or what was left of it, rolled down the hill, leaving 1300 corpses in the wood and in the open; a number of prisoners, wounded and Red Cross men were left behind; and next day retreating columns, without even their baggage, were seen marching off into the hills beyond the river.
Prisoners told me they had not eaten for four days, and that enteric and typhus were rampant in their trenches, which were often full of water. They gave no good account of their officers, and they said that both they and Tirol were sick of the war. I found many dead in the Russian trenches, all killed by the enemy's artillery. The fire was then intermittent, and we were still obliged to act on the defensive; but the men were perfectly unperturbed. As a Russian private put it when I asked him to compare the Austrian soldier with the Russian: "He is a man, too, but we have rather more vigour, rather more boldness, more inclination for it, and we are anyhow winning. It might be added that we are steadier." A modest and quiet estimate enough at the moment of a signal victory against odds and natural conditions.
February 26.
In the bandaging-room every description of suffering is seen, and many ways of meeting it. What strikes one most is the difference between the Russians and the rest. In general the Russians have an altogether stronger physique and therefore a much firmer and sounder morale. Some of the younger men lie there under treatment as if they were not ill at all and were simply having football injuries patched up. Such was Alexey of Yaroslav, who kept a fine ruddy colour and chatted away jollily about the market gardeners at Lake Nero as he arched his broad back and had his numerous wounds attended to. He was wounded in a scouting expedition, but crawled back of himself to the Russian lines; and when he was carried out of the hospital he behaved like an ordinary traveller going on a journey. He had no intention of going to Russia and spoke of his return to the ranks as "a matter of course." Many of these wounded write begging their officers to keep their places open for them. Some lie glancing at their serious wounds as they are treated, with a healthy and indifferent eye. The head wounds are the most trying to the morale; they always make men look weak and unequal to things. But even here the Russian temper shows itself. Ivan, a married peasant, had two nasty holes in his head, but he talked all the while he was being treated with a loveable simplicity, and even his exclamations of pain were only little appeals to the sisters, full of a natural courtesy. Once when the knife was a long time in his head, he protested mildly, "Enough, gentlemen!" There was great alarm when he suddenly rolled off the dressing-table on to the stone floor; but this proved to be the turning-point in his recovery, and he was soon afterwards joining with the others in his ward singing peasant songs. The Armenians are sometimes a frailer people; but there was one man with a great heart, who had both his legs smashed while bringing in an officer from under fire; one leg had been amputated, and delay in first aid had induced a mass of gangrene; the man was doomed; but he held out for day after day, and nothing but a dull, strong groan escaped him until at last he succumbed under his sufferings; to the end he was always asking after the officer whom he had saved.
The Germans show a much greater consciousness of their wounds, but take a quiet pride in conquering them. Will and purpose are triumphant, and these men return sooner than others to a normal outlook on the little businesses of life. A Tirolese, badly wounded in the head, at first took a little too much trouble to keep up his self-respect before strangers, but later talked away freely, though he was very troubled that he would go back to his sweetheart with the brand of a prisoner of war. The Austrian Germans were frailer and more gentle. Two of them in particular, both officers, won golden opinions from all who met them. They were men of a happy disposition, of real culture and of great delicacy of mind. There was not the slightest difficulty in talking with them about the war, because they bore no grudge against any one, not even against the Emperor William, whose unwisdom they regarded as the main cause of their country's misfortunes. These two showed the greatest patience under treatment, talking meanwhile of their army, literature and music, and regarding their wounded limbs as children who were being gradually persuaded to be good.
Much the saddest sight in the bandaging-room were the little Polish boys who had been wounded in villages during the operations, mostly by shrapnel. There were eleven of them in the hospital, and they almost filled one ward. They were all pretty little fellows, remarkably well made and with something martial in their bearing; all of them wore round their necks little silver religious medals. It was very painful to see them minus an arm or a leg, or still worse with some body wound which could only look natural on a full-grown soldier. Most of these children were from ten to thirteen years of age. They were bright and smiling in the bandaging-room, and seemed to have no more regret for themselves than they would have had for their own broken toys. But Poland will be covered with such after the war. There may be a renewed, there may be a united Poland, but anyhow there will be a Poland of cripples. That is why I continue to hear everywhere, like a burden that ever repeats itself, the beautiful Polish national air "In the Smoke of Fires." Its solemn tones meet one everywhere, now hummed by passers-by, now ground out endlessly by a barrel organ. I came one day on to the street humming it myself, when an old Pole at once, with the grace of his nation, took off his hat and solemnly bowed to me. It is the motto of the Polish population on whichever side of the Russian frontier; and may the purification of which it speaks lead to happier things: for no nationality has been tempered in a harder school than that of Poland.
Nothing could exceed the kindness of the Russian staff in dealing with all these various patients. There is, of course, no distinction of nationality or condition; the sisters play with the children, find all sorts of little questions or other interests to distract the attention of those under treatment, and bring them back to lighter mood, as soon as the actual pain is passed. A Russian hospital, even with all the afflictions of war, gives out an atmosphere of home of which there is frequent mention in the letters which the prisoners send off to their distant relations.
March 1.
My friend "Wiggins" is a very remarkable person. Heaven knows what he doesn't manage, and it would be difficult to say what he doesn't know. Take England, though Wiggins has many other languages and knowledges. Wiggins's English, learnt in childhood, is of the most daring and comprehensive kind and runs to the writing of doggerel verse. The history of the English Church he knows far better than most English clergymen, and the development of the English Constitution he both knows and understands better than some English professors. He will write, for instance, "Please send me more books on the period of transition from Constitutionalism to Parliamentarism." Parliamentary procedure he has studied night after night in the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery; and his toast when he was dined in the House of Commons in 1909 was "to the glorious traditions of the Parliament of Great Britain." He is very well up in all the detail of our Army and Navy, is thought a good judge of English shorthorns, and hopes to send his son to Winchester.
Wiggins has done no end of work for the close friendship of his country with England. His quick resourceful mind and his ties with men in all departments of Russian politics and public life here have for years been mobilised to this object, which is the mainspring of all his great and untiring efforts. He has never lost heart when events went against him or when some favourite plan was blocked, and was always ready for another go. He is a good man and a brave man.