Day by Day with the Russian Army, 1914-15

by Bernard Pares

What a picture these days will leave on the minds of those who have lived through them. It is only the simple things that count; but they keep coming back on one in new forms again and again, and that is why one must repeat oneself so often.

The staff is in no way downhearted; it is sometimes preoccupied, sometimes cheerful, but always full of vigour. The cause of our losses has been localised; and there is no sign of panic or hurry in the search for the necessary remedies. At the bottom of all is this wonderful confidence of the men and officers who come back wounded from the front. The Commander of the Army is full of spirit and energy, and we all consider that we are only halfway through this battle.

The other hospital institutions have mostly been sent to the rear; but this period of movement is a time of small advance ambulance points which dispatch their wounded to the rear at once and themselves are ready to move at short notice, whether forward or backward; and the Russian sisters who returned with me from the front organised at once such an ambulance at the station, going on duty the same night, and working sometimes fifteen hours or more at a stretch.

Enemy aeroplanes threw bombs at them every day, and we picked up several badly wounded at the station, but none of the workers in the bandaging-room took any notice of the explosions.

The station is a wonderful place—as wonderful as the great station in Lvov, which I described several months ago. It is crowded with wounded, lying close together in the family manner of the Russian peasant. Most are wounded in the hands or the head; this means that they were under a devastating fire in the trenches which hit anything that was at all exposed. But there are also many signs of advance or of infantry attacks beaten off, in wounds of all kinds all over the body. Every night hundreds of wounded are given clean bandages and fed with anything that can be bought in a place where all is movement.

The officers lie here like the rest, separated only by the silent respect shown to them by the men. The number of wounded officers is not surprising, for, as I have explained, they stand and walk while their men are ordered to crawl; but the sacrifice in officers is particularly impressive.

For me the officers are also sources of information as to the fate of each of the regiments I have visited. Four jolly N's, three of them wounded, told me of how their trenches were levelled and how they retired because there were only shell pits to sleep in; seven officers led the last counter-attack of this regiment. Of some regiments the news was that they were practically all gone; in one case the answer was "The regiment does not exist." Some one asked of one of the O's where his regiment was to be found: he answered "In the other world." I learned that three hundred men of this regiment with the colonel had fought their way back; later, I learned that only seventy-one were left. The General of this Division told me that he had reformed and reinforced his men and that they were again at the front, where he was off to join them. The T's had invited me to join them when in action, and it was a pure chance that I was directed to another point. I passed in the street the field trains of this regiment; the officer riding at the head stopped me and grasped my hand: "What I wanted to say," he said, "is that the T's are gone, only the flag is saved." The next day a private with the number of this regiment came up to me in the street: would I come and see the Colonel who had just been brought in wounded? I found him at the quarters of the Commander of the Army. His head was bound up, but he was seated and writing. General Radko Dmitriev came in and shook his hand time after time. "Thank you for your splendid stand; human strength can do no more." The Colonel related that his entrenchments were demolished with the men in them; one company was cut off, and forty hands were held up in surrender; he himself saw how the Germans bayoneted half the number out of hand; his own men, when only five hundred were left of them, went on taking prisoners exceeding themselves in number, and rejoiced in this sign of their moral superiority. Of forty officers and four thousand men, in the end two hundred and fifty were left.

The enemy was in overwhelming numbers; but prisoners continued to come in in great batches. I spoke with some of the Prussian Guard; they were vigorous and contentious, and spoke with small respect of the Austrians. The war is becoming more and more bitter.

I return to my inevitable conclusion. There has been a big success of technique; and it has wiped out a number of good lives. Even this battle is not over, and our own people are advancing at points which offer hope of better results. The Russian army is firmer than ever, and more and more men are being poured in. It can win, but only if it can be given anything like fair conditions; in a word, that the Germans should be met on their own ground, that of heavy and more numerous artillery, by every possible united effort of the Allies.

May 13.