In the Russian Ranks: A Soldier's Account of the Fighting in Poland

by John Morse

Lofe was a very amiable fellow and I got on well with him, as I did with all the Russians with whom I became well acquainted. Life in the trenches was not to our taste. We applied for permission to go down to the front to witness the fighting, but it was refused. So we had to remain where we were and elaborate our defences. How many hundreds of miles of wire we used in our entanglements I should not like to guess; but if the Germans had ever reached them, I think they would have left a good many dead in front of them. With the barbed wire "crow-nets," as we called them, we intermixed a great many staked pits, and other amiable devices for shortening the days of our enemies.

The battle was clearly for the possession of Warsaw; and more than once rumours reached us that the foe had carried the city at the point of the bayonet; but I do not think they ever got within sight of any part of it, though many of their newspapers claim that they did, and even occupied its suburbs. The last-named claim was evidently false; but the place had a narrow escape of falling. The fight seems to have worn itself out; or the Germans fell back: for all was quiet on the 21st, though neither side had obtained a victory.

This was too frequently the sequence to a prolonged fight or series of fights. The opposing force seemed to get tired out, and a lull ensued, during which one would scarcely hear a stray rifle shot. On the 21st, however, some of our troops at the front captured a German band! It consisted of about forty musicians, though they said there had been eighty of them when they first came to the front. Asked to give us some music they played willingly enough, and very well. The Russian regiments have bands, but I heard and saw very little of them during this war; they seemed to have been sent to the rear to attend to wounded men. Some of the Siberian regiments, and the foot Cossacks, have dancing men who march at the head of the battalions, and dance, sing, and clash cymbals, when moving from place to place.

It is hardly necessary to record that the Germans made desperate attempts to cross the river during the fighting referred to just now. I did not actually witness any of the fighting at this stage, but I know that it all failed. I was told that they tried to pontoon the stream at a place called Viegrod, abreast of Garvolin station. The pontoons were smashed to pieces, and several hundreds of the enemy drowned. Small detachments got over at various places, some in boats, others by means of flying bridges; but they were all destroyed or captured. They did not succeed in forcing any of the permanent bridges, which were defended by têtes-de-pont. The Russians claimed that they completely wiped out some of these detachments. I saw bodies lying together within very narrow spaces of ground; and I have no doubt that the peasantry avenged themselves by killing the wounded: and I know that the Russian infantry bayoneted every man of one detachment of about 300. Still a good many prisoners were taken, and sent by train to Warsaw.

The Germans used some aeroplanes for observation work; but on being fired at these machines went out of range and kept there. It would have been a great advantage to the Russians to have had some of these things; but that they had few, or none, in this part of the field, shows that aircraft cannot materially affect a foe who is without them. No doubt aeroplanes have done splendid work for the Allies, and inflicted serious losses on the enemy; but they do not often seem to be able to face an army in the field.

It may give some idea of what is meant by "casualties" if I mention that about 40,000 recovered wounded rejoined the Russian Army while we were on the line of the Vistula. So a heavy list of losses does not necessarily mean that a vast number of men are permanently disabled from taking part in their country's services. Recoveries, too, are very rapid when the men are attended by good surgeons and good nurses.

I obtained one glimpse of the enemy's position. Not a German was to be seen; but puffs of smoke showed where their guns were placed. Smokeless powder was used by both sides for their rifle cartridges; but not for artillery; or at any rate, it was not efficacious when fired from heavy guns.

Both sides entrenched themselves, according to reports, for a distance of more than 300 versts. Afterwards I heard that trenches and earthworks were made along the whole of the German and Austrian frontiers, a result of both sides finding it impossible to make any material headway into each other's territory. The battle degenerated into an artillery engagement. The Russians brought up some heavy guns of about 6-inch calibre, and a few that were a little larger, and with these bombarded the German positions. The enemy, on their part, were similarly provided; and so the see-saw went on—banging at each other without noticeable results. Generally speaking, an artillery duel is the tamest of all kinds of fighting from a spectator's point of view. The only time when it becomes a little lively is when a shell happens to drop just behind one. It usually causes a sudden start forward, or an Eastern position of adoration, which is by far the safest to assume. The wonderful "Jack Johnsons," of which I have heard and read so much, were not used by the Germans in this region, though the nickname seems to have been given to any large shell. The "Jack Johnsons," however, were huge shells which appeared to have weighed from 1,600 to 2,000 pounds each, when charged. It was useless waste to fire them against anything but forts, and I much doubt if the Germans used them for any other purpose. The guns, being howitzers, could fire about 100 of these before needing retubing: so the shooting-power of the huge weapons was limited. Every shot must have cost about £200, and it is not likely that the Germans would waste them by shooting at trenches and small parties, where the effect would be comparatively of little moment. Very high explosives were used by the Germans, and some of their projectiles made very large holes in the ground.

Watching the firing, I could not perceive that ours was doing much harm; while that of the enemy certainly was not. Occasionally a few yards of our trenches was blown in, and a man or two destroyed; but the impression left on my mind was that trench warfare would go on for ever, unless some more effective force than mere artillery fire were brought to bear on an army so protected: and shelling a position is a very expensive mode of warfare. I afterwards saw that to destroy a hundred yards of trench cost 4,000 or 5,000 shells; and even then the defending force nearly always contrived to make good a retreat to a second, or third, line of defence. To shell an enemy out of a good defensive position is, I believe, an impossibility; therefore permanent fortresses should be constructed on the lines of a system of trenches, the guns being placed in Moncrieff pits or other specially constructed emplacements. I am quite convinced that unless guns are hidden, their destruction is assured. Modern gunfire is as accurate as that of rifle-shooting: it will, therefore, easily hit any mark which the gunners can locate.

Everybody knows that patience is a virtue, and that it generally obtains a reward. Our turn came. The 40th Siberians, better known to the men by an unpronounceable name, which, never having seen it in print, I cannot pretend to spell, were ordered to cross the Vistula on the morning of the 20th October.