We now got on to the main questions; he was very ready to discuss them and spoke perfectly frankly. I asked on what side Germany could hope for any deciding success. He admitted at once that no such point, of the kind that Napoleon used to look for, was to be found on any side, and he maintained that from the outset, both militarily and politically, Germany was fighting a purely defensive war, of course by frequent counter-offensives. In that case, I suggested, Germany could only have peace by our offering it, that is, by our getting tired of the war; and surely it was unfortunate that she had all of us against her at once. In reply he reminded me of the German word Streber, which means a restless pushing person who is always disturbing and annoying others. Economically, he said, the struggle for life in Germany had become almost impossible, of which he himself had seen many instances. Some outlet was essential, and this England and the other Powers had united to prevent. I said that for us English the issue was whether Germany should have things which we at present possess, and that we were not likely to give them up without fighting. He quite accepted this. Germany, he said, was like the troublesome boy of the school, who was dissatisfied and had a grievance, and was always making things unpleasant for all the rest, so that there was no wonder if he was not liked. I suggested that this went too far, if his own old allies, such as Italy, turned against him. He expressed a natural resentment against Italy, and said that anyhow here right was on the side of Germany, who would continue to defend herself to the end. I answered that we might disagree as to the question of right, but that I could not understand how any successful issue could be hoped for under such conditions. He was of my opinion, and twice spoke of the war as a "catastrophe." I asked, then, why Germany should persist in a policy which had obviously, especially in the case of Italy, proved to be a misguided one; we all felt admiration for the magnificent fighting power of the German army, which might have dealt successfully with us separately; but it had been set an impossible task. He replied that England had a long experience as a state and that policy with her was well thought out; Germany had only some forty years of a united existence behind her, and the policy which had led to "the catastrophe" could not, as a policy, be defended. I asked whether it was likely to be changed, and to this I neither expected nor got any answer. But it was interesting that, in spite of the great successes in western Galicia, he described the present mood of the army as nothing like the first great outburst of enthusiasm at the beginning of the war.
I was later given an opportunity of examining a German private (a Hanoverian). This man had been asleep when the Russians stormed his trenches. I was interested both in the readiness of his answers, which he gave with a smiling face, and in the answers themselves. The German heavy artillery was all beyond the San, and troops were being sent away to the Italian front. Food was poor in Galicia; all the soldiers were for peace, and there was the same refrain in all the letters received from home. He had been on the western front near Reims and had made the railway journey to Neu-Sandec (Nowy Sacz) in five days. He spoke with especial respect of the first English troops, of the Russian field artillery and of the accuracy of the French heavy artillery.
June 7.
I had a talk with a staff officer of the E E Corps on the fortunes of his corps and on the German methods of advance. The corps had not been hit so hard as some others by the Austro-German impact; it helped to cover the retreat to the San, and stood to its ground beyond the river until one of its neighbours retired. When the enemy had thus got a footing beyond the river, the E E Corps made a counter-attack vigorous and successful. But the enemy pushed the next corps still further back, so that the E E's had also to rectify their line. However, they continued to make counter-attacks, at one point gaining about a mile of ground, and they were still holding good. They had at least the satisfaction of holding the forces of the enemy which were opposed to them, so that these troops could not move further along the Russian line to complete their offensive movement. This record is typical of very much of the Galician fighting, which is full of such ups and downs of attacks and of counter-attacks, and only reached decisive results by the employment, at given points, of an overwhelmingly superior heavy artillery.
The German method is to mass superior artillery against a point selected and to cover the area in question with a wholesale and continuous cannonade. The big German shells, which the Russian soldiers call the "black death," burst almost simultaneously at about fifty yards from each other, making the intervening spaces practically untenable. The cannonaded area extends well to the rear of the Russian lines, and sometimes it is the rear that is first subjected to a systematic bombardment, the lines themselves being reserved for treatment later. On one of my visits the divisional and regimental staffs were being so shelled that the former had to move at once and one of the latter was half destroyed; but meanwhile there was hardly a shot along the actual front. In this way confusion is created, and reinforcements and supply are made difficult. It is the wholesale character of these cannonades that make their success, for there is nowhere to which the defenders can escape. The whole process is, of course, extremely expensive.
When a considerable part of the Russian front has thus been annihilated, and when the defenders are, therefore, either out of action or in retreat, the enemy's infantry is poured into the empty space and in such masses that it spreads also to left and right, pushing back the neighbouring Russian troops. Thus the whole line is forced to retire, and the same process is repeated on the new positions.
When success in one district has thus been secured, the German impact is withdrawn and again brought forward at some further part of the Russian front. In other words, the German hammer, zigzagging backwards and forwards, travels along our front, striking further and further on at one point or another, until the whole front has been forced back.
The temper of this corps, as of practically all the others, is in no sense the temper of a beaten army. The losses have been severe; but with anything like the artillery equipment of the enemy, both officers and men are confident that they would be going forward.
June 10.
I rode over dull country on my way to the SS Corps, one of whose divisions I had visited a week or so before. While I sat lunching in a wood, regiments of cavalry swept past me, filling the air with dust; sometimes one could not see a horseman until he was upon one. Not far from the Staff there was a sick soldier lying by the road, with some peasants looking after him; we sent him forward on a passing army cart.