The greater part of Poland lying in a broad sweep of country west, southwest and northeast of Warsaw has been swept over and battered to pieces by shot and shell like the strip of Flanders on both sides of the Yser river.
Without any direct interest in the present great conflict, the unhappy Poles found themselves impressed into the armies of these three great powers and fighting against their own racial brethren. That meant that brother was to fight against brother, and as the stress of the war increased and the age limit was raised to 38 years and even higher, nearly every able-bodied Pole was impressed into service.
Almost the first move of the Russians at the outbreak of hostilities was to invade Galicia. This brought with it instantly all the most frightful horrors of war. Embracing as it does a large part of the grain-growing district of the Polish peoples, the devastation of Galicia meant suffering for not only that province, but for Russian Poland as well. The crops had only been partially harvested by August, when the war began.
The panic of war stopped the work in the fields, even where the peasants were not compelled to flee before the invader. The men were called to the colors and the crops were allowed to rot in the fields. Numerous towns were sacked.
The advance to Lemberg by the Russians was swift. In the panic that followed this great city of 200,000 had scarcely 70,000 left when the invaders took possession. Families were broken up; none of the refugees had time to take supplies or clothes.
Germany's first move against Russia came from the great fortresses along the Oder and Vistula. All of western Poland was overrun. When the Russian advance from Warsaw drove back the invaders, the scars of the conflict left this section of Poland badly battered. Then came Von Hindenburg's victorious armies, and again this section was torn by shot and shell and wasted. While some of the larger places, such as Lodz, Plock, Lowicz, Tchenstochow and Petrokov, were spared, the smaller towns, villages, and hamlets in the direct line of battle suffered equally from the defenders and invaders.
All the section to the northeast of Warsaw between the East Prussian frontier and the Bug, Narew, and Niemen rivers has suffered even a worse fate, as the bitterness engendered by the devastation worked by the Russians in East Prussia led to reprisals that not even the strict discipline of the German army could curb. Not only were the peasants' homes pounded to bits by the opposing artillery fire, but the armies as they fought back and forth took all the cattle, horses, and stock that came to their hands. Disease added to the suffering of the stricken people.
THOUSANDS OF VILLAGES DESTROYED
Henry Sienkiewicz, the great Polish writer and author of "Quo Vadis," a refugee in Switzerland, said, on March 15, 1915:
"In the kingdom of Poland alone there are 15,000 villages burned or damaged; a thousand churches and chapels destroyed. The homeless villagers have sought shelter in the forests, where it is no exaggeration to say that women and children are dying from cold and hunger by thousands daily.