The Grand Duke Nicholas, the Commander-in-chief of the Russian armies, is a man of the most fearless courage and the idol of his soldiers. A correspondent says: "During the terrific fighting to the north of the Radom-Ivangorod railway, the Grand Duke's motor car, marked by a blue and white flag, drove slowly down a road on which German shells were falling. The Siberians, with whom the Commander-in-chief is particularly popular, raised such a cheer that their comrades in the trenches imagined that a great victory had been won. The omen was fulfilled, for next day the Germans were driven along the Pilitza, and were obliged to abandon four guns. 'Big Nicholas' let down the roof of his motor car and praised the soldiers as 'Molodsti' (fine fellows)—the usual salutation of a general. A chorus of 'Radi staratsa' ('We are delighted to do our best') was the reply."
You will remember that there were very fierce struggles in the woods which lie to the west of the Vistula and to the north and south of the Radom-Ivangorod railway. A correspondent[160] thus describes the fighting in the woods, and their condition when the Germans had been driven out of them:—
"Day after day the Russians poured troops in on their side of the wood. These entered, were seen for a few minutes, then disappeared in the maze of trees, and were lost. Companies, regiments, battalions, and even brigades were quite cut off from each other. None knew what was going on anywhere but a few feet in front. All knew that the only thing required of them was to keep advancing. This they did, foot by foot and day after day, fighting each other hand to hand, taking, losing, and retaking position after position. In all of this ten kilometres[161] of forest I dare venture to say there is hardly an acre without its trenches, rifle pits, and graves.
"Here one sees where a dozen men had a little fort of their own, and fought furiously with the enemy a few feet away in a similar position. Day after day it went on, and day after day troops were poured into the Russian side of the wood, and day and night the continuous crack of rifle fire and the roar of artillery hurling shells into the wood could be heard for miles. . . . The forest looks as though a hurricane had swept through. Trees staggering from their shattered trunks, and limbs hanging everywhere, show where the shrapnel shells have been bursting. Yard by yard the ranks and lines of the enemy were driven back, but the nearer their retreat brought them to the open country west of the wood the hotter the contest became; for each man in his own mind must have known how they would fare when, once driven from the protecting forest, they attempted to retreat through the open country without shelter.
"The state of the last two kilometres of the wooded belt is hard to describe. There seems scarcely an acre that is not sown like the scene of a paper-chase; only the trail here consists of blood-stained bandages and bits of uniform. Here also there was small use for the artillery, and the rifle and the bayonet played the leading part. Men, fighting hand to hand with clubbed muskets and bayonets, fought from tree to tree and ditch to ditch. . . .
"But at last the day came when the dirty, grimy, blood-stained soldiers of the Tsar pushed their antagonists out of the far side of the belt of woodland. . . . Once out in the open, the hungry guns of the Russians got their chance. Down every road through the wood came the six-horse teams, with the guns jumping and jingling behind, with their accompanying caissons[162] heavy with shrapnel. The moment the enemy were in the clear, these batteries, eight guns to a unit, were unlimbered on the fringe of the wood, and were pouring out their death and destruction on the wretched enemy, now retreating hastily across the open."
The Russians, as perhaps you know, are a deeply religious people. A soldier thus tells us how he went into battle during an assault:—