The Campaign in Russian Poland

by Percy Cross Standing

He noted that cavalry had played but an inconspicuous part in this desperate fighting. The Russians, he says, were always attacking. They felt the supremest confidence in the power of their artillery (“though the proportion of field-guns to a unit is less numerous on the Russian side than on the German or Austrian”), and, when questioned as to the enemy’s rifle-fire, they would reply, in characteristic Tommy Atkins fashion, “Oh, nothing striking.” Many men told Mr. Pares that they did not believe the Austro-German liked fighting at close quarters with the bayonet as much as the Russians did. The one thing for which the latter felt respect was the hostile heavy artillery, though claiming that their own field-artillery was superior. Their extraordinary endurance in the trenches, and their calm resolution and unswerving belief in their own prowess and the justness of their cause impressed him profoundly.

This commentator felt compelled, however reluctantly, to bear witness to the brutality of the retreating Austrians to the Polish peasantry. Of this he saw numerous examples, as also instances of the people’s retaliation upon the enemy, such as the wholesale destruction of the Austrian General Desveaux’s beautiful chateau. Little things will stick in the mind, and Mr. Pares noted amid the ruins of this noble house a map of the Austrian army manœuvres of 1893, “twenty years after.” The Russians deemed themselves among friends when they mingled with the Ruthenian inhabitants of Galicia, speaking their language and treating them with all good fellowship. The invaders’ relations with the Jewish population were scarcely so amicable in all cases.

Another correspondent of a great newspaper who had the harrowing experience of traversing some of the battle-fields of Galicia after the Austrian breakdown presents the following vivid and touching picture:

“In the very centre of this zone of misery two roads intersect, and at the angle stands a huge wooden cross on which hangs the carved figure of the Saviour. For a hundred years, no doubt, this monument to brotherly love has hung above the cross-roads so that the pious might pause in their journey to cross themselves and mutter a prayer. Nothing could be more incongruous than to see this sacred emblem: the mute evidence of a religious people. The top of the wooden upright is shattered by a bullet, while one arm of the figure of Jesus has been carried away by a shrapnel shell. What, indeed, must have been the thoughts of the patient Austrians lying in their exposed position and dying in hundreds as they beheld the shot and shell bursting about the carved figure of Him whose work on earth was to spread peace and brotherly love! The patient face of the Christ looks down upon a newly made grave wherein lie the shattered remains of 124 men who died almost at the foot of the sacred figure.”

For the defence of Przemysl many thousands of workmen were impressed to assist in the work of strengthening the fortifications, being called in from the neighbouring villages under threat of extreme penalties. The quantity of ammunition in the place was enormous, but the shortage of provisions is claimed by the Russians as being due to the swiftness of their initiative, whereby great quantities of stores intended for the defending force had been captured. The investing army had now a large number of batteries in position, and though they could well afford to take things easily so as to avoid needless wastage of life, the progress made was steady. German, and not Austrian, leadership was directing the defence of the stronghold. Every effort was made by them to hearten their men into the belief that the combined Austro-German operations proceeding towards the river San might, and in all likelihood would, culminate in the relief of the place. On this point, and of the operations in Galicia generally, Colonel Shumsky wrote during the second week of October:

“All the attempts of the enemy to cross the San have ended in a miserable fiasco. The Austro-German forces are making their attempts at various points of the river. First the artillery deluges the right shore with shells, and then infantry detachments approach the river; but Russian shrapnel causes them enormous losses. Dead bodies are washed down the San to the Vistula, and on to Sandomir and Ivangorod.

“Before this fortress the battle continues day and night without a moment’s intermission. The Germans are giving the defence a very energetic character. To all appearances the fortress is well supplied with ammunition. Our troops are making a gradual but persistent attack. Sometimes a regiment becomes impatient with the slowness of the progress and storms the nearest line of works. Sometimes a sharp blow, delivered in the night, brings about the fall of a strong fort. In this way several works have been taken.

“These unexpected blows clearly greatly excite the garrison. Right through the night projectors search the battle-field, and their long white rays rest tremulously on every fold of the ground. At times something alarms the forts, and the air is instantly filled with the thunder of roused Austrian guns. The fire is then kept up for thirty minutes to an hour before it again subsides.”

He adds that “the tremendous strategic front becomes elongated just as it does in France.” This immense battle-line was now beginning to be known to the strategists as the line “Cracow-Przemysl-Thorn,” as it began to be growingly obvious that Austrian Cracow and Silesian Thorn would presently be the scene of the biggest operations of the conflicting Empires.

On October 13-14 great Austro-German columns were in touch with their enemy south-east of Sandomir and west of Przemysl. On the first of the dates named an Austrian force deploying by way of Samok-Lisko upon Sambor was hurled back with the loss of 7 officers and 500 men captured, and next day they lost several hundred more prisoners. Hitherto the success of the Russian arms in Galicia had been so continuous that the official despatches and the newspaper reports in the Petrograd papers were fairly representative of the facts, patriotic feeling experiencing no temptation to practise a diplomatic “economy of the truth.” But now we find it hard to reconcile the Petrograd reports with reliable information from other sources as to what was happening in the region of the San.