Calm and self-possessed, General Korniloff viewed the situation. "We are too feeble to resist any longer," he told his officers; "we must attack." This was Korniloff's method. He called his men together and explained how things stood. A small force must attack the Austrians and thus cover the retreat of the main body. He called for volunteers, and from the serried ranks that presented themselves formed a small detachment pledged to make the supreme dash. It was a forlorn hope, this attack, but it might save the rest of the division, which was otherwise doomed to fall into the hands of the enemy.
II—MARCHING TO DEATH BEFORE THE HOLY IKON
Early on a beautiful spring morning the resolute band mustered, and were passed in a pathetic little review by their valiant chief, who knew that he should look upon but few of those faces again. As they bowed devoutly before the holy ikon raised above them, they cried, "For God, St. Nicholas, and the Czar!" Then they shouldered their rifles, and a moment later were on the move, headed by the commander himself.
The manœuvre surprised the enemy, as it was intended to do, but the advancing force was violently assailed by a triple fire from artillery, rifles, and machine-guns. Still, however, they stumbled on, singing a chant popular with the peasants on the banks of the Volga. Man after man fell around the intrepid Korniloff, but the survivors pressed on unheeding; they knew that every yard they advanced meant more chance for the Forty-eighth Division.
Steadily they ploughed their way onwards till they were close to the enemy's lines. By this time there was but a handful of them left. Korniloff himself was wounded, and his strength was fast failing him.
The Austrians looked on with astonishment. Would these madmen never surrender? The ground was strewn with their dead and wounded. What could the last few survivors hope to accomplish? At last a bullet brought down the indomitable general, and the one-sided fight was over.
III—THE GREAT KORNILOFF A PRISONER OF THE AUSTRIANS
When Korniloff came to himself, and was able to take account of his surroundings, he found himself in a hospital, being treated for his serious wounds. He was a prisoner of the Austrians, as were the few of his men who had been left alive when he himself was taken. But he breathed a sigh of relief, for the gallant Forty-eighth Division had been saved by his devotion and the sacrifice of his splendid little band.
Dreary months of illness and convalescence passed by. At last the general was well enough to be moved from the hospital, and his captors conveyed him to a safer and more suitable habitation. As a prisoner of mark, a residence was chosen for him at the château of Esterhazy, at Eisenstadt, in the Sopron Department in Hungary. This was the famous castle, built in 1683, where Haydn was Kapell-meister to the Prince Esterhazy of the time.