THE WHITE SILENCE—WINTER IN THE CARPATHIANS
In the Snow-Clad Mountains with the Austrians Told by Ludwig Bauer, of Vienna
This war has set new standards of endurance for the soldier. They have been compelled to keep the field—to march, to fight or to carry on siege warfare in the trenches—regardless of weather conditions. Battles have frequently been fought while a blizzard raged or while the thermometer stood below zero. War in the solitary, snow-clad wastes of a mountain range is war stripped of all its glamor. It is the repellant, savage struggle of wild beasts or of primitive men stalking one another and at the same time engaging in a life-and-death struggle with the destructive forces of nature. Something of the extraordinary physical and mental strain of service in the Carpathians in the winter of 1915-'16 is conveyed in the following story by Ludwig Bauer, the well known Viennese writer. It was published originally in the New Yorker Staats Zeitung, with whose permission it is here translated by William L. McPherson with editorial note for the New York Tribune.
I—STORY OF THE SNOWBOUND REGIMENT
The 3d company of the —st Regiment sits up there in the snow and waits. It doesn't know what for, or for how long. It may be that the next moment the field marshal will come. It may be that they must squat there another week.
About 300 meters below them runs the road. At least, it runs there on the map. It cannot be recognized now; it is just as white and smooth as the rest of the snow-covered world around them.
That is the road over which they are to advance. But just now no advance is possible. For the Russian artillery stands there on the mountain rising 700 feet high above them and commands the way. So they must wait until their artillery succeeds in locating the enemy's batteries. That is a hard job, since the Russians have naturally hidden themselves in the woods, and the tall, dark trees seem impenetrable; they betray nothing.
Slowly and measuredly the flakes fall, as if they were considering whether they should fall or not. The sky is leaden and lowering. The men gaze at it stolidly. This endless white has something deadening and stupefying about it. They say little. They have already exhausted their conversation, and nothing happens any longer to start new talk.
With their snow mantles and snow caps they, too, look completely whitened, as though they were a lean, haggard collection of snow-men. They may not smoke, they may not cook; the least flame or smoke would betray them. They are not allowed to dig out trenches, for the brown earth would be visible for miles, a dark spot on the brilliant snow cover.