RUSSIA
The Russian campaigns, like the Belgian, were won by bluff and good marching. In August, 1914, East Prussia was held by only a thin screen of troops, mostly Landsturm. But in order to deceive the enemy, trenches were dug and filled with dummy machine-guns and with scarecrows wearing the spiked helmets of the German infantry. In another district a division was employed for some time simply in marching between two points. In the daytime it marched from A to B, at night it entrained and was sent back to A, changed the numbers on its helmets and shoulder-straps and marched to B again. The Russians were thus led to believe that certain parts of the line were strongly held and that at other points a great concentration of troops was taking place. But for this they would have attempted a breakthrough and might really have reached Berlin. They were still more elaborately fooled at the winter battle of the Masurian Lakes. Here the Germans wanted to lure the Russians a second time into this dangerous territory. One would have thought it impossible, but the trap was set with masterly cunning. Reports appeared, not so much in the German as in the neutral papers, that East Prussia was being evacuated and that the peasants were leaving their homesteads and villages and fleeing westwards in a wild panic. The Germans, it was hinted, were so occupied in France that they could not spare any troops for the Russian front. Meanwhile, whatever forces the Germans had, seemed to be concentrated opposite Warsaw. The Russians fell headlong into the trap and lost the flower of what was left of their old army. Neither battle of the Masurian Lakes could have been won except for the marching powers of the German infantry. While the enemy was held in front, it was necessary to march round with extreme swiftness and take him in the rear before he could begin to move his armies out of the trap. The soldiers who took part in this battle told me that the forced marches tried them beyond anything they had experienced in the war.
On the whole, the German training found its best justification in Russia. Here the conditions were exactly those for which it had been devised. The enemy was superior in numbers, and he was to be overawed by German dash, enterprise, and mobility. The principle in Russia was to go for the enemy wherever you found him, and to count neither his numbers nor your losses. The Russian morale was badly shaken. Our servant at Irkutsk, who had fought against the Germans, used to wake us by shouting in his dreams, “The Germans are coming. Run! Run!” In time the Germans came to despise the Russians so much that they neglected the most obvious precautions. Our regiment once advanced to the attack without even reconnoitring the ground. When halfway across to the enemy’s positions, they were suddenly held up by a sunken ditch. They had to go forward as best they could, and the leading company alone lost eighty killed.
But with all their dash the Germans would have been lost without their superiority in artillery. They had plenty of guns and plenty of ammunition, and could always batter the Russian trenches to pieces before attacking. The Russians, on the other hand, could only fire a limited number of shells per day, and were practically helpless against a bombardment. Most people will remember that some time in October or November, 1914, Hindenburg was surrounded by the Russians. He afterwards broke the ring, taking 12,000 prisoners with him. He owed his release solely to the heavy artillery, to which the Russians could not reply. One man who took part in the battle said to me, “We began to batter a sector of the Russian line at eight o’clock in the morning, and by the evening we were through.”
The system of attack in massed formation, common to both the Germans and the Austrians, was most heartily disliked by the younger officers. They used to protest against it, but in vain. On one occasion a regiment had received an order to attack, and its adjutant telephoned to headquarters, “Attack impossible. Clear field of fire.” He received the answer, “Doesn’t matter. Go forward.” He did so, and not a man came back, except the wounded. Sometimes the men themselves took matters into their own hands. We were once attacking a Russian village, and were met by a hurricane of shrapnel and bullets. Fifteen times the bugle sounded the charge, and fifteen times not a man stirred from where he lay. At last the artillery came up, and the Russians retired. The losses entailed by mass attacks were staggering. At the first battle of Ypres the Germans lost 120,000 men. As I have mentioned, when I was trained, the Germans were beginning to see reason, and were taught to go forward in open formation.
In the Austrian Army, while things were similar, discipline was looser and protest more easy. One officer, when ordered to a hopeless attack, refused point blank. “Very well, then,” said the general, “if you don’t attack, I shall turn the guns on you.” The officer replied that if the general did that, he would order his men to right-about-turn and take the guns. The general gave in, and the officer received neither reprimand nor punishment.
RED CROSS
The worst organized part of the German Army was the Red Cross work. From all I could hear, it seems that the German Red Cross arrangements badly broke down in the first year of the war. At first I thought the complaints I heard were exaggerations, but the same story came from every part of the front. The stretcher-bearers were all said to be cowards, for ever lurking about in the rear, not daring to face a bullet. Besides they were selfish thieves, and they drank all the cognac themselves, which they were supposed to reserve for the wounded. “Why,” the soldiers used to say, “even the Russians have organized their Red Cross better than we. Their stretcher-bearers do go forward with the soldiers in the front line.” These complaints received some confirmation from the fact that a cavalry lieutenant of my acquaintance was transferred to the medical corps in order to organize the stretcher-bearers and see if he could not get them to face the music of the shells. Wherever I went at the front, the stretcher-bearers were treated with contempt by the other soldiers. What I say does not apply to the doctors, I never heard anything against them.
Again, at the beginning, the distribution of comforts left much to be desired. At one time on the French front you could buy a horse for two cigars. Later on the supply of tobacco was improved. Of religious work, or Y.M.C.A. work, there was comparatively little. The Germans had a brilliant idea for fighting venereal disease. When a soldier fell ill, they sent his nearest relative a postcard to the effect that your son (husband, brother, as the case might be) was at “Hospital No. so-and-so, suffering from so-and-so.” Shame kept many straight, when nothing else would have prevailed.
The accounts which the Germans gave of their enemies were interesting. They freely admitted that the French and English were better at flying than they. Of Russian aviators they thought nothing. On the other hand, every one had the greatest respect for the Russian artillery. It was the universal opinion that the Russian artillerymen were the smartest in the war. One German officer said to me, “If we had the Russian artillery we should be in Kieff by now.” At a certain point on the Russian front we had half a battery—two guns—opposed to us. Yet so quickly did the Russians fire them off, boom, boom, boom, boom, that we thought they had a battery of four guns. And when the statements of prisoners placed it beyond a doubt that there were only two guns, our artillery were lost in wonder, and said that they themselves could not attempt such a thing. Of the Russian troops, the Cossack enjoyed a great reputation as a scout, but he was a poor fighter. The Austrians, who were in the disastrous retreat from Rava Ruska, told me wonderful tales of the Cossack cleverness in scouting. They would scarcely come within a kilometre of the position, and yet they would have noticed exactly how it ran, and the Russian artillery would soon confirm the accuracy of their reconnoitring. The Germans had an unbounded admiration for the French soldiers. It was the fashion to pity the French for having such a splendid army, but such a poor Government.