I was aware that the L's were now in the Carpathians and close to me. The two regiments whose lines I had traversed had lost many in this hill warfare. Where a hill is taken, the enemy's losses, though probably more than double the Russian, are rather in surrenders than in killed and wounded. A hill attack, which is beaten off by superior numbers, means heavy sacrifices.
I clambered over another of the steep intersecting gulleys. A group of S's stood waving their farewells. There was a bit of bare slope facing the Austrian plateau, and then I came on the first shelter of the L's, quite a comfortable mud hut. The young officer, who had come to meet me, was an acquaintance, and he sat down and told me about the men I knew. In a single night attack on the height in front of us, two-thirds of the officers that I had known had gone down, and about half the regiment. Name after name came up with the brief record, "He's killed." We lay on the straw—in nearly all other huts here there were only boughs of fir—and he told me the whole story. The hill was almost inaccessible, the works were long prepared and elaborate, the Germans had hurried up large forces here; yet the attack all but succeeded. "All but," and no results but losses. At Rava Russka and on the San the L's had given of their best, and decisive successes had followed. The hill opposite had cost more and still faced us. It is one of the saddest of thoughts, that the bravest of all, the men who go furthest, must lie where they fell. Yet the L's, who in the course of a few days have again been brought up to full strength by the enormous reinforcements which Russia continues to pour into the army, will have written their name on the Hungarian war in as lasting colours as on the Galician. We are over the crest; we are fighting in the main downwards; we touch a vital spot; and we are going forward.
There is nothing which makes one feel all this better than to pass along the lines of a regiment so battered, still in position at the time when I visited it; nay, more, occupying for the moment far more than the natural extent for its full strength, and occupying it as a conqueror with swiftly thrown-up works that only provide for an elementary shelter. And the battle is not offered; the enemy sits on his heights and makes no counter-stroke to push his temporary advantage home.
I write of a time which has already passed; for the whole position is very different now. But I say the L's were conquerors. There were nothing like enough of them for a continuous line; so they had picked out all those sections which commanded any possible advance of the enemy, and held them as masters. For the intervals, the gullies, they detached large scouting parties which met any forward move halfway. The work which this meant for all will remain with me as giving a picture of a Russian regiment after a check. All the officers and men were alert and looking to the next move in the game. A soldier who guided me, confident and intelligent, stopped only for a moment in his conversation, to say: "But, as a matter of fact, sir, there are very few left of us." Regiments that can take punishments like this, communicate their spirit and tradition to those of the new recruits who are so fortunate as to join them.
From one occupied point to another, our little party of officers and men walked freely over the open, in face of the neighbouring Austrian plateau, till each of our cleverly chosen positions had fallen into its place in our survey. I had a long walk back; in fact, I did not get out of the range of the Austrian plateau till the next day. My two soldier guides and I sat down and smoked by a stream for a while, and they told me that of their fellow villagers who set out at the beginning of the war, the one had lost sixteen out of eighteen, and the other fifty out of sixty. One of them, with three comrades, had fought his way back, when the rest of his company was lost.
The position is changed now, but I feel that the more we know of this fighting, the more we shall understand of the Russian spirit and of the Russian sacrifices, and the clearer will be the picture of the Russian advance.
May 1.
Waiting at a railway station, I met a young officer who was taking home the body of his brother. The young man met his death leading a night attack. He took his company further up than any, and even got through the wire entanglements and into the enemy's trenches. The deadly fire of the machine guns made it necessary to draw off the men, and this company got the order late. Some fought their way through, but their leader was mortally wounded. The brother was serving in the neighbouring artillery and was able to be with the dying man to the last. He said that his brother might easily have surrendered with others, but it would always be a satisfaction that he did not "hold up his hands and go into Austria."
At staff headquarters of the army I passed many funerals. Here the enemy's airmen make a visit almost every day. Two days ago, and again to-day, they appeared in force and dropped their bombs almost without a break. The air battery and picked riflemen kept up an incessant fire on them. Yesterday I watched an aeroplane under fire of Russian shrapnel. The shells burst all round it and evidently forced it to give up its intention of reaching the town: it sped away northwards. These raids have had hardly any success. Even the bombs which lodged where they were meant to, on the railway or on the aerodrome, did no real damage. The net result is a small number of wounded, including civilians and a sister of mercy.
An officer whom I met in the trenches, and of whom I wrote under the name of "George," has very appropriately been appointed one of the judges of recommendations for the George Cross. The soldier's George is given for any signal act of bravery, and the men thus honoured are always found to be the rallying points in further attacks. The officers' George is in four classes. Only some four individuals have ever received the first class, beginning with Kutuzov. The second class, which is for very definite achievements of generalship can only be given to Generals (Ivanov has it for the conquest of Galicia), and the third only to Generals and Colonels. The fourth, which is for any act of courage or initiative, can be won by any officer. The different achievements which can win the George are clearly set out. The two first classes are conferred only by the nomination of the Sovereign; for the other two there is in each army what is called a "Duma," or panel of selectors.