These opinions are not my own but the opinions of Russians. These men may be unduly enthusiastic about their countrymen, but what they say I have since heard all over the army at the Front; whether they are right or wrong they may certainly be taken as typical of the natural view.
When I left Petrograd I was not cheerful as to the outlook in Galicia. When I left Ivanov’s head-quarters I felt more optimistic than I had been in six weeks.
HUNTING FOR THE ARMY OF THE BUKOVINA
CHAPTER XVII
HUNTING FOR THE ARMY OF THE BUKOVINA
Dated:
Tlust, Galicia,
June 30, 1915.
The town where General Ivanov lives is in Russia proper, and one may realize the scope of the military operations when one learns that the head-quarters of the army of his left flank is nearly 200 versts from the commander, while the furthest outpost of that army itself is perhaps 150 or 200 versts further still, which means that the directing genius is not far from 400 versts from his most distant line. After leaving the head-quarters we motored for 40 or 50 versts along the main line of communications of the whole group of armies, passing the usual endless train of transport and troops moving slowly forward to fill the ranks and replenish the supplies of the vast force that lies spread out ahead of us. For eleven months now, first in one part of Russia and then in another, I have been passing on the roads these endless chains of transport. Truly one begins to get the idea that there is nothing in the world nowadays but soldiers, guns, caissons and transport. One wonders where on earth it has all been kept in the days before August, a year ago, when a dozen transport carts or a battery of artillery was a sufficient novelty on the road to cause one to turn and look at it.
Forty versts from the head-quarters, we turn from the main road and strike off to the east and south toward Tarnopol, which though not the head-quarters of an army (if it were I could not mention it) is not too far away from the same. The road we follow is an excellent one as far as Kremenetz, a wonderfully picturesque little town tucked away in the hills, not far from the Russian-Galician frontier. Its quaint streets are now filled with the inevitable paraphernalia of war. From here by a road of lesser merit, we wind up a narrow road to one of the most picturesque spots I have ever seen, called Pochaief. This is the last town on the Russian side of the frontier. Here is a monastery a thousand years old, a Mecca to which come thousands of the devout peasantry from all over the Empire. The building itself is one of the greatest piles in Europe, and on its hill towers above the surrounding country so that it is visible for 20 versts with its golden dome shining in the summer sun. We reached the place late in the afternoon and learned that all the regular roads stopped here as it has apparently not been considered policy by either the Russian or Austrian Governments to have easy highways across the frontier. At this point we were perhaps 12 versts from the nearest good road in Galicia, a very trifling distance for a car that has been doing 70 or 80 versts an hour. The head of the police in Pochaief kindly lent us a gendarme, who assured us that we could get across the 12 intervening versts in an hour. So with this placid-faced guide we started about nine in the evening. This amiable gendarme, who had more goodwill than brains, in half an hour had led us into a country of bluffs, forests, bridle paths and worse that defy description. I neglected to say that General Ivanov had kindly given us an extra motor to carry our baggage, and extra chauffeurs, etc. The moon was just rising and we were digging ourselves out of difficulties for the tenth time when our guide announced that the road was now a perfectly clear and good one, and saluting respectfully left us in the wood with our cars groaning and panting and staggering over bumps and ditches until one came to have the most intense admiration for the gentlemen that design motor-cars. It is a mystery to me how they ever stand the misery that they have to undergo.
By midnight we were sitting out on a ridge of hills stuck fast in a field with our engines racing, and the mud flying and the whole party pushing and sweating and swearing. No doubt our guide had foreseen this very spot and had had the discretion to withdraw before we reached it. This was the exact frontier, and with its rolling hills and forests stretching before us in the quiet moonlight it was very beautiful. Our Prince, who never gets discouraged or ruffled, admired the scenery and smoked a cigarette, and we all wished for just one moment of our guide, for whom we had sundry little pleasantries prepared. While we were still panting and gasping, a figure on horseback came over the hill and cautiously approached us. He proved to be a policeman from the Galician side who had come out as the Prince told us because he had heard our engines and thought that a German aeroplane “had sat down on the hill” and he had come out to capture it. He was slightly disappointed at his mistake, but guided us back to the village whence he had come. Near here we found a beautiful Austrian estate, where we woke up the keeper and made him give us “my lady’s” bed chamber for the night, which he did grudgingly.
Our troubles were now over, for after one breakdown in the morning we were on a good highway which ran viâ Potkaimen down to Tarnopol. At Potkaimen we were again on the line of travel, with the line of creaking transport and jangling guns and caissons. I have never passed through a more beautiful or picturesque country in my life, and wonder why tourists do not come this way. Apparently until the war these villages were as much off the beaten path as though they were in the heart of Africa. Rolling hills, forests, with silvery lakes dotting the valleys, extend for miles with wonderful little streams watering each small water-shed between the ridges. The roads are fine, and the last 60 versts into Tarnopol we made in record time. A few miles from the city we began to pass an endless line of carts bearing all sorts and descriptions of copper. It was evident that many distilleries and other plants had been hurriedly dismantled, and everything in them containing copper shipped away less it fall into the hands of the copper-hungry enemy.
Here, too, we passed long lines of the carts of the Galician peasantry fleeing from the fear of the German invasion. It strikes one as extraordinary that these inhabitants, many of whose husbands, brothers and fathers are fighting in the Austrian Armies, should take refuge in flight at the rumour of their approach. It is a sad commentary on the reputation of the Germans that even the peoples of their Allies flee at the report of their approach. The name of Prussian down here seems to carry as much terror to the Galician peasant as ever it did to the Belgians or the Poles in other theatres of war. The peasantry are moving out bag and baggage with all the pathos and misery which the abandonment of their homes and lifelong treasures spells to these simple folk. Even ten months’ association with similar scenes does not harden one to the pitifulness of it all. Little children clinging to their toys, mothers, haggard and frightened, nursing babes at their breasts, and fathers and sons urging on the patient, weary, family horse as he tugs despairingly at the overloaded cart weighted down with the pathetic odds and ends of the former home.