It was this same peculiar strain of magnificent, romantic courage which made the Governor of Moscow, after having given orders to burn the city, when Napoleon and his Grand Army were approaching, himself set fire to his own beloved house. This great deed will live in the long noble history of human sacrifice and valour as long as the world endures, for it was the burning of Moscow which turned the tide against the greatest conqueror Europe had known since Julius Cæsar.
The Russians are as mighty with the pen as with the sword. The finest story ever written on war was written by a Russian named Count Tolstoi. It is called “War and Peace.”
And now to the Russians this great war with Germany is a crusade, a holy war. They are fighting for their fellow-Slavs, who like them belong to the Greek Church, and who if they became Germans and Austrians would be most cruelly oppressed by their conquerors. So strong is this feeling in Russia that it has united everyone—from the Tsar to the poorest moujik—in one great passion for justice and freedom.
The following moving letter from his mother was found on the breast of a Russian officer killed in action. It will show you more than anything I can tell you how Russia feels about this war:
“Your father was killed very far from us, and I send you for the sacred duty of defending our dear country from the vile and dreadful enemy. Remember you are the son of a hero. My heart is oppressed, and I weep when I ask you to be worthy of him. I know all the fateful horror of these words, what suffering it will be for me and you, but we do not live for ever in this world. What is our life? A drop in the ocean of beautiful Russia. We must die, but she will live for ever. I know we shall be forgotten, and our happy descendants will not remember those who sleep in ‘brothers’ graves’ (soldiers’ graves).
“With kisses and blessings I parted with you. When you are sent to perform a great deed, don’t remember my tears but only my blessing. God save you, my dear, bright, loved child. One word more; it is written everywhere that the enemy is cruel and savage. Don’t be led by blind vengeance. Don’t raise your hand at a fallen foe, but be gracious to those whose fate it is to fall into your hands.”
What a noble and beautiful end is that to this letter, but how one’s heart aches for the writer now that the dear, bright, beloved son sleeps in “brothers’ graves.”
Of all the Tsar’s soldiers the most typically Russian is the Cossack. Now the Cossack has been well described as being a man of war from his youth upwards. He is always the child of a soldier, and his mother cradles him with war songs. When he gets a little older and begins crawling about the floor, his games are mimic battles, and his father takes him off to the stables for at least an hour every day that he may regard horses as his friends and playfellows.
At seventeen he becomes a Cossack, and after a very few weeks’ training he is ready for war. The Cossack’s equipment is most peculiar, and it is so arranged that he can creep along, even when on horseback, quite noiselessly. A proverb in Russia runs: “One dragoon makes more noise than a regiment of Cossacks!” The Cossack’s claim is that what mortal man can do he will do, and a great deal more besides. As a rule he is a small man and his horse is a small horse, in fact what we should call a pony. No cavalryman is on better terms with his mount, and many and many a time a Cossack has given his life for his horse. But a Cossack never allows his mount to know what the inside of a comfortable stable is like; the Cossack’s horse has to learn to be as hardy as his master.
Small wonder therefore that the Cossacks are the most amazingly clever horsemen in the world. One of their favourite manœuvres, when on active service, is to swing down beneath their horses’ girths, thus causing the enemy to believe that they have before them a number of runaway horses.