"'The shoes did not fit little Hermann. All the other things pleased us very much. We have no need to hide them or be secret about what you send us because others at the front have sent much more stuff than you. Among other things the French pots are very much appreciated. If you find more French dishes or ware send them along.'"
[A NEW FOE ENTERS.]
Winter begins officially in Russia with the closing of navigation on the Neva, but already snow is lying on the ground on the western frontier, and in Poland there are severe frosts at night.
A new touch of horror is introduced by the freezing of the ground, which makes it practically impossible to dig graves for the great number of dead in the woods, where recent floods washed the bodies from the shallow graves in which they had been hastily buried.
The villagers report the presence of an unparalleled number of wolves, and have petitioned the army authorities to detach soldiers to shoot them.
The Germans are suffering intensely from the cold. In every town which they occupied they carried off all the available winter clothing, furs, sheepskins and leather coats. At Lodi and Shiradow, where there are great cloth factories, they commandeered the whole of the stocks and kept the plants working day and night providing materials for export to Germany. They failed, however, to bring away much of this owing to the destruction of the railway bridges by Polish guerillas, whose activities are acknowledged to have contributed to the Russian success.
[THE BRIGHTER SIDE.]
Life in the trenches appears by no means to be the irksome and dreadful thing it is reported to be. According to soldiers just back in Paris from the firing line troops that are supposed to face each other grimly across a fire-swept space only a few hundred yards wide are not the bloodthirsty fellows we all took them for.