After we had got about 200 yards on this causeway the Colonel stopped and pointed with his stick at a group of red brick buildings. “The Germans were there,” translated the interpreter. “My,” I ejaculated in enthusiasm at the idea that they had gone, “when did we retake the position?” “Oh,” replied the interpreter officer, “not yet. They are still there.” “Ah!” I said, lighting a cigarette, that my interest might not seem too acute, “I should think they could see us.” The linguist spoke a few words to the Colonel and then replied, “Oh, yes, every move we make, but the Colonel thinks they will not shoot.” I looked over at the brick buildings, behind which were the German artillery positions, and I could swear they were not 2,000 yards away, while a line of dirt nearer still showed the infantry trenches. For myself I felt as large as an elephant, and to my eyes our party seemed as conspicuous as Barnum’s circus on parade. However we continued our afternoon stroll to the reserve trenches, where a soldier or two joined our group. Five or six hundred yards up the road was the barricade thrown across, held by the first line. An occasional crack of a rifle reminded us that the look-outs in our trenches were studying the movements in the German trenches a few hundred yards beyond. Finally we left the road and came over a field and into the rear of our own position, and to the scene of the German gas attacks four or five days before.
Life in the trenches has become such an everyday affair to these sunburned, brawny soldiers from Siberia that they seem to have no more feeling of anxiety than if they were living in their own villages far, far to the East. In spite of the fact that they have steadily borne the brunt of terrible attacks, and even now are under the shadow of the opposing lines, which are thoroughly equipped with the mechanism for dispensing poisoned air, they are as gay and cheerful as schoolboys on a vacation. I have never seen such healthy, high-spirited soldiers in my life. The trenches have been so cleaned up that a house wife could find no fault with them.
These homes of the soldiers have every appearance of being swept daily. The apprehension felt in the winter of hygienic conditions when the spring came have no ground whatever, and I am told on the very highest authority that in this army the sickness, other than that coming from wounds, is less than for the months that preceded the war itself. The Colonel explained to us the use of the respirators with which every soldier is provided, and for our benefit had one of the soldiers fitted with one that he might be photographed to illustrate for the West what sort of protection is being supplied to the men on this side. After spending half to three-quarters of an hour wandering about in the trenches and meeting the officers who live there we returned to the regimental head-quarters. The sun was just setting, and as we strolled back over the open causeway in its last red glow a great German battery suddenly came into action somewhere off to the west and north of us, and we could hear the heavy detonations of its huge shells falling in a nearby wood.
When we got back to the regimental head-quarters I could see their target, which seemed to be nothing more than a big field. Every few minutes an enormous shell would drop in the meadow. For an instant there would be but a little dust where it hit the ground, then suddenly a great spout of earth and dust and volumes of dirty brown smoke would leap into the air like the eruption of a volcano, and then the heavy sound of the explosion would reach our ears, while for two or three minutes the crater would smoke as though the earth itself were being consumed by hidden fires. As it was coming late we did not linger long at the head-quarters but took to our car and sped up the avenue of trees which lay directly parallel to the point where the shells were bursting. The sun had set now, and in the after glow we passed once more the camps of the reserves squatting about their little twinkling fires built in the earth to mask them from the sight of the enemy. In half an hour we were back once more in the villa of the General of the division, an enormous man of six feet three, whose cross of St. George of the first class was given for a heroic record in Manchuria where the General, then a Colonel, was three times wounded by Japanese bullets. Sitting on his terrace he gave us more details in regard to the usages of the gas against his troops. Though they were 6 versts from the Front, everyone in his head-quarters had been affected with nausea and headaches, so potent were the fumes of the chloral that for hours lay like a miasmic mist in the grounds and garden of the estate. The General, who is a very kindly giant, shook his head sadly as he spoke of the Germans. I think the Russians are a very charitable people and nearly all the men with whom I have talked lay the blame of this outrage on civilization against the authorities and not against the men, who, they understand, are bitterly opposed to its use. When I asked the General what he thought of the German point of view of war, he sat for a few moments looking out over the lovely garden with the little lake that lay before us.
“They have an extraordinary point of view,” he said at last. Then he rose quickly from his chair and brought from a corner of the balcony a belt captured in some skirmish of the morning. He held it up for me to see the big buckle and with his finger pointed to the words: “Gott Mit Uns.” Then with a smile more significant than words he tossed it back into the corner. Yes, truly, the German point of view is an extraordinary one.
THE GALICIAN FRONT
CHAPTER XIV
THE GALICIAN FRONT
Dated:
Rovna,
June 26, 1915.
In a few weeks a year will have passed since the Imperial German Government began issuing its series of declarations of war against one country after another—declarations which as time elapses are assuming the aspect of hostilities not only against individual countries, but against practically all that modern civilization had come to represent. During that time each of the Allies, and all of the world besides, have been studying the geography of Europe and the armies engaged in the great conflict. Of all these countries and of all these armies, I think that the least known and the least understood are the country and the army of Russia.
It has been my fortune to be with the Russians since last September, during which time I have travelled thousands of versts both in Poland and in Galicia. I have visited eight out of their eleven active armies, and been on the positions in most of them, and it is not an exaggeration to say that I have met and talked with between five hundred and a thousand officers. Yet I feel that I am only now beginning to realize what this war means to Russia, and the temper that it has slowly but surely developed in her armies and in her peoples. Never I think have the stamina and the temper of a country been more fiercely tested than have those of Russia during the campaign which has been going on in Galicia since May last. All the world realizes in a general way what the Russians had to contend with, and all the world knows vaguely that Russia has a front of 1,200 versts to protect, and appreciates in an indefinite kind of way that such a line must be difficult to hold. But though I have been here for eleven months, I never formed any adequate conception of how great was this problem until I undertook to cover the Front, from its far fringe in Bukovina to its centre on the Warsaw Front.