DAY BY DAY WITH
THE RUSSIAN ARMY
1914-15
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR.]
DAY BY DAY WITH
THE RUSSIAN ARMY
1914-15
BY
BERNARD PARES
_Official British Observer with the Russian Armies in the Field_
_WITH MAPS_
LONDON
CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD.
1915
TO
NICHOLAS AND MARY HOMYAKOV
Tidings from the Tsar of Germans,
Tidings to the Russian Tsar.
"I will come and break your Russia,
And in Russia I will live."
Moody was the Russian Tsar,
As he paced the Moscow street.
"Be not moody, Russian Tsar,
Russia we will never yield.
"Gather, gather, Russian hosts;
William shall our captive be.
"Cross the far Carpathian mountains;
March through all the German towns."
_Marching Song of the Third Army._
PREFACE
For the last ten years or more I have paid long visits to Russia, being
interested in anything that might conduce to closer relations between
the two countries. During this time the whole course of Russia's public
life has brought her far nearer to England--in particular, the creation
of new legislative institutions, the wonderful economic development of
the country, and the first real acquaintance which England has made
with Russian culture. I always travelled to Russia through Germany,
whose people had an inborn unintelligence and contempt for all things
Russian, and whose Government has done what it could to hold England
and Russia at arm's length from each other. I often used to wonder
which of us Germany would fight first.
When Germany declared war on Russia, I volunteered for service, and was
arranging to start for Russia when we, too, were involved in the war. I
arrived there some two weeks afterwards, and after a stay in Petrograd
and Moscow was asked to take up the duty of official correspondent with
the Russian army. It was some time before I was able to go to the army,
and at first only in company of some twelve others with officers of
the General Staff who were not yet permitted to take us to the actual
front. We, however, visited Galicia and Warsaw, and saw a good deal of
the army. After these journeys I was allowed to join the Red Cross
organisation with the Third Army as an attaché of an old friend, Mr.
Michael Stakhovich, who was at the head of this organisation; and there
General Radko Dmitriev, whom I had known earlier, kindly gave me a
written permit to visit any part of the firing line; my Red Cross work
was in transport and the forward hospitals. My instructions did not
include telegraphing, and my diary notes, though dispatched by special
messengers, necessarily took a month or more to reach England; but I
had the great satisfaction of sharing in the life of the army, where
I was entertained with the kindest hospitality and invited to see and
take part in anything that was doing.
The Third Army was at the main curve in the Russian front, the point
where the German and Austrian forces joined hands. It was engaged in
the conquest of Galicia, and on its fortunes, more perhaps than on
those of any other army on either front, might depend the issue of
the whole campaign. We were the advance guard of the liberation of
the Slavs, and to us was falling the rôle of separating Austria from
Germany, or, what is the same thing in more precise terms, separating
Hungary from Prussia. I had the good fortune to have many old friends
in this area. My work in hospitals and the permission to interrogate
prisoners at the front gave me the best view that one could have of
the process of political and military disintegration which was and is
at work in the Austrian empire. I took part in the advanced transport
work of the Red Cross, visited in detail the left and right flanks of
the army, and went to the centre just at the moment when the enemy
fell with overwhelming force of artillery on this part. I retreated
with the army to the San and to the province of Lublin. My visits to
the actual front had in each case a given object--usually to form a
judgment on some question on which depended the immediate course of the
campaign.
I am now authorised to publish my more public communications, including
my diary notes with the Third Army. I am also obliged to the _Liverpool
Daily Post and Mercury_ for leave to reprint my note of September 1914
on Moscow. I think it will be seen that if we lost Galicia we lost it
well, and that the moral superiority remained and remains on our side
throughout. We were driven out by sheer weight of metal, but our troops
turned at every point to show that the old relations of man to man
were unchanged. The diary of an Austrian officer who was several times
opposite to me will, I think, make this clear. When Russia has half
the enemy's material equipment we know, and he does, that we shall be
travelling in the opposite direction.
It was a delight to be with these splendid men. I never saw anything
base all the while that I was with the army. There was no drunkenness;
every one was at his best, and it was the simplest and noblest
atmosphere in which I have ever lived.
BERNARD PARES.
DAY BY DAY WITH THE RUSSIAN ARMY
_July-August 1914._
While the war cloud was breaking, I was close to my birthplace at
Dorking with my father, whom I was not to see again. Though eighty-one
years old he was in his full vigour of heart, mind and body, and we
were motoring every day among the beautiful Surrey hills. He had had a
great life of work for others, born just after the first Reform Bill
which his own father had helped to carry through the House of Commons,
and stamped with the robust faith and vigour of the great generation
of the Old Liberals. Like every other interest of his children, he had
always followed with the fullest participation my own work in Russia,
and I had everything packed for my yearly visit there. In London I had
had short visits from Mr. Protopopov, a liberal Russian publicist,
and later from the eminent leader of Polish public life, Mr. Dmowski,
than whom I know no better political head in Europe. Both had expected
war for years past, but neither had any idea how close it was. Mr.
Protopopov was absorbed in a study of English town planning and Mr.
Dmowski was correcting the proofs of his last article for my _Russian
Review_, which he ended with the words, "The time is not yet." He
came down and motored with us through what he called "the paradise of
trees"--and Poland itself has some of the finest trees in Europe; and
my father was keenly interested in his hopes for the future of Poland.
He was going to the English seaside when events called him back to an
adventurous journey across Europe, in the course of which he was twice
arrested in Germany, the second time in company of his old political
opponent, the reactionary Russian Minister of Education, the late Mr.
Kasso. To them a German Polish sentry said that as a Pole he wished for
the victory of Russia, for "though the Russian made himself unpleasant,
the _Schwab_ (Swabian or German) was far more dangerous."
When I read Austria's demands on Serbia, I felt that it must mean a
European war, and that we should have to take part in it. I remember
the ordinary traveller in a London hotel explaining to me how
infinitely more important the Ulster question was than the Serbian.
It was clear that the really mischievous factor was the simultaneous
official and public support of Germany, who claimed to draw an
imaginary line around the Austro-Serbian conflict and threatened war to
any one who interfered in the war. I had long realised the humbug of
pretending that Austria was anything distinct from or independent of
Germany; and the claim of the two to settle in their own favour one of
the most thorny questions in Europe could never be tolerated by Russia.
The Bosnian withdrawal of 1909 would, I knew, never be repeated, least
of all by the Russian Emperor. The line had been crossed; it was
"mailed fist" once too often.
Serbia's reply showed the extreme calm and circumspection both of
Serbia and of Russia. Then came in quick succession the great days,
when every one's political horizon was daily forced wider, when
all the home squabbles of the different countries--the Caillaux
case, the Russian labour troubles, and the Irish conflict, on which
Germany had counted so much--were hurrying back as fast as possible
into their proper background. There was a significant catch when
the Austro-Russian conversations were renewed, and Germany, who had
now come out in her true leadership, went forward to the forcing of
war. The absurd inconsequences of German diplomacy reached their
extraordinary culmination in the actual declaration to Russia. To make
sure of war, the German ambassador in St. Petersburg received for
delivery a formal declaration with alternative wordings suitable to any
answer which Russia might give to the German ultimatum; and this genial
diplomatist delivered the draft with _both_ alternative wordings to the
Russian Foreign Minister, Mr. Sazonov. It is the last communication
printed in the Russian Orange Book.
The question was, how soon we should all see it. The news of the
German declaration was in the English Sunday papers. Many English
clergymen see virtue in not reading Sunday papers. I went to church.
The clergyman began his sermon: "They tell me that the Sunday papers
assert that Germany has declared war on Russia." Not a very promising
beginning, but England was there the next minute. "If this is true,"
he went on, "and if we come into it, as we shall have to, we stand at
the end of the long period when we have been spoiling ourselves with
riches and comfort and forgetting what it is to make sacrifices"; and
there followed an impromptu but very clear forecast of what was to be
asked of us.
No one will forget the great days of probation, when each great country
in turn was called on to stand and give whatever it had of the best.
Russia was what one had felt sure that she would be. The Emperor's
pledge not to make peace while a German soldier was in Russia, was an
exact repetition of the words of Alexander I, but given this time at
the very beginning of the war. The wonderful scene before the Winter
Palace showed sovereign and people at one; and the wrecking of the
German Embassy was an answer of the Russian workmen to an active
propaganda of discontent that had issued from its walls. Next came
France's turn, her remarkable coolness and discretion, and the outburst
of patriotic devotion which the President of the Chamber voiced in the
words, "Lift up your hearts" (_Haut les coeurs_). Then the turn of
the Belgians, king and people, and their splendid and simple devotion.
And now it was for us to speak.
I believed that we were sure to come into the war, but it was three
days of waiting and the invasion of Belgium that gave us a united
England. The Germans did our job for us. It was a quick conversion
for those who hesitated; one day, neutrality to be saved; the next,
neutrality past saving; the next, war, and war to the end. When we were
waiting before the post office for Sir Edward Grey's speech, every one
was asking, "Have they done the right thing?" This was the atmosphere
of the London streets on the night that we declared war. We all lived
on a few very simple thoughts. It was clear that there must be endless
losses and many cruel inventions, but just as clear not only that we
had to win but that, if we were not failing to ourselves, we were sure
to.
I was in London before our declaration to ask what I could do, and was
now making my last preparations for starting. The squalor of the great
city had taken the aspect of a dingy ironclad at work. At the Bank of
England, where payment could still be claimed in gold, I was asked the
object of my journey. No one seemed to know about routes except Cook &
Son. In the country the mobilisation passed us silent and unnoticed,
except for the aeroplanes which we saw streaming southwards. I saw my
father in his garden for the last time, went to London, and there, in
a confusion of little things and big, with a taxi piled in haste with
parcels of the most various nature and ownership, hurried to King's
Cross, bundled into a full third-class carriage and started for Russia.
_August 21._
At King's Cross I was already almost in Russia. The sixty or so
Russians who had come to the Dental Congress in London, after one
sitting had been caught by the war. Their English hosts looked after
them splendidly, and they themselves pooled the supplies of money
which they happened to have on them. There were also several members
of the Russian ballet, and other Russians on their way from Italy,
Switzerland and France, going via Norway and Sweden to St. Petersburg.
Our route of itself was a striking illustration of the great military
advantage possessed by Germany and Austria. With its interior lines of
communication, the great German punching machine could measure its
forces to any blow which it wished to deal on either side, while for
any contact with each other the Allies had to crawl right round the
circumference. For this military advantage, however, the aggressors
had sacrificed in the most evident way all political considerations.
In a quarrel which Austria had picked with Serbia, Germany forced war
on Russia for daring to mobilise. Germany made an ultimatum to France
at the same time, so as to make war with both countries simultaneously
and give herself time to crush France before Russia could help her. For
greater speed against France, she invaded neutral Belgium, thus making
England an enemy and Italy a neutral. The absurdity became apparent
when, with all this done, we were still waiting for the completion of
the Russian mobilisation which was the nominal cause of the European
War. Hence the union of so many peoples; but for all that the military
advantage remained. It was as if Europe had the stomach ache, with
shooting pains in all directions.
[Illustration: Centre versus CIRCUMFERENCE.
(_to illustrate the journeys of members of our party._)]
I asked a friend in the train what might be the state of mind of the
Emperor William. He replied by quoting the answer of an Irishman: "He's
probably thinking, Is there any one that I've left out?"
At Newcastle, the Norwegian steamer had booked at least forty more
passengers than it could berth. I only got on to the boat by a special
claim and had to sleep in a passage with my things scattered round me.
All the corridors were taken up in this way. The Russians are admirable
fellow-passengers: they had organised themselves informally under a
natural leader into a great family. One corridor was set apart for a
night nursery. The women received special consideration, and any one
who had a berth was ready to give it up to them. One Russian, thinking
I was ill, offered me his. I was ensconced with my back to the wall
at the head of a staircase, and they would stop to chat as they went
up or down. They had been greatly impressed by the spirit in England:
the Englishman they regarded as a civil fellow who had better not be
provoked, for if he was he would get to business at once and not look
back till it was finished. They spoke very simply of themselves and
of their little failings, and said that for this reason it was the
greatest comfort to have England with them. What had impressed them
most was the calm and vigour with which we had faced our financial
crisis. They had seen some of our territorial troops, whom they classed
very high for physique and spirit. They had much to tell one of France
and Italy, and also of insults offered to them or their friends when
leaving Germany. There were outbursts of sheer hooliganism marked with
a sort of brutal contempt for Russians, and one lady, they said, had
the earrings torn out of her ears. Their humanity was shocked by all
this. They had nothing but condemnation for anything of the kind, from
whatever side it came, and they were quite ready to criticise their own
people or ours wherever there was any ground for doing so.
The captain said to me, "We sail under the protection of England." We
were stopped once by an English warship, but only for a few minutes. At
Bergen I found new fellow-passengers, and after an evening which was
a succession of fiords, lakes, rocky heights and white villages, we
passed by a wonderfully engineered railway over the snow level and down
to Kristiania. The Norwegians were friendly and sympathetic, the Swedes
courteous but reserved. There had recently been unveiled a frontier
monument showing two brothers shaking hands; and one felt that the one
country would not move without the other.
Between Kristiania and Stockholm I wrote an article on the Poles, and
directly afterwards, puzzling out a Swedish newspaper, I read the
manifesto of the Grand Duke Nicholas. We had with us Poles who were
travelling right round to Warsaw. From Stockholm the more apprehensive
members of our party went northward for the long land journey by
Torneô. The rest of us risked the voyage across the Gulf of Bothnia.
In the beautiful Skerries, we were at one point sent back by a Swedish
gunboat and piloted past a mine field. I was on a Finnish boat, which
was fair prize; so I had an interest in any ship that showed itself
on this hostile sea. When we reached Raumo, a little improvised port
in Finland, there was an outburst of relief for those who had come so
far and were home again at last. All classes joined and enjoyed the
home-coming together. The train picked up detachments of Russian troops
on their way to the war. I had no seat, and went and slept or drowsed
for an hour or two in a carriage full of soldiers. As I lay on a wooden
bench I listened to a young peasant recruit with a bright clear face
who was talking to his mother. It seemed to be a kind of fairy tale
that he was telling her, and the clearly spoken words mingled with the
movement of the train: "And he went again to the lake, and there he
found the girl, and there was the golden ring, the ring of parting."
_Petrograd._
I shall not dwell on the six weeks or so that I spent in St.
Petersburg. My time was taken up with a number of details and with
arrangements for getting to the front. I had volunteered for the Red
Cross when I was asked to serve as official correspondent.
On my arrival I saw Mr. Sazonov, who spoke very simply about the
overdoing of the mailed fist; he was as quiet and natural as he always
is. He was very pleased with the mobilisation, which he told me had
been so enthusiastic as to gain many hours on the schedule. This was
the account that I heard everywhere. Mr. N. N. Lvov, of Saratov on
the Volga, one of the most respected public men in Russia, was at
his estate at the time. When the news of war came, the peasants, who
were harvesting, went straight off to the recruiting depot and thence
to the church, where all who were starting took the communion; there
was no shouting, no drinking, though the abstinence edict had not
then been issued; and every man who was called up, except one who was
away on a visit, was in his place at the railway station that same
evening. In other parts the peasants went round and collected money
for the soldiers' families, and even in small villages quite large
sums were given. The abstinence edict answered to a desire that had
been expressed very generally among the peasants for some years. It
was thoroughly enforced both in the country and in the towns. In the
country the savings banks at once began steadily to fill, and the
peasants, who would speak very naïvely of their former drunkenness,
hoped that the edict would be permanent. In the towns some few
restaurants were for a time still allowed to supply beer, but this
ceased later. In all this time I only saw one drunken man.
The whole country was at once at its very best. After a mean and
confused period every one saw his road to sacrifice. The difference
between the Russians and us was that while this feeling, often so acute
with us, could often find no road, in Russia, with her conscription and
her huge Red Cross organisation, the path was easy. All the life of the
country streamed straight into the war; age limits did not act as with
us; and the rear, including the capital, was depleted of nearly every
one. This made one feel that no good work could be done here without
access to the army. Nearly all my friends were gone off, and I was
anxious to join them.
The interval was filled with different lesser interests. The question
of communications between the Allies was engaging a great deal of
attention. I was a member of a committee at the Russo-British Chamber
of Commerce, which was working out arrangements for trade routes. My
English friends and I also tried to plan an exchange of articles,
asking leading Russians and Englishmen to write respectively in English
and Russian papers. But, though this was felt to be important, we broke
down on the Russian side, because those who wished to write for us were
swept away to war work at the front. In the rear the most important
work was the relief of the families left behind. This engaged a number
of devoted workers and was soon brought into very good order both at
St. Petersburg and at Moscow, but it was in the main a task for women.
At the outset of the war the aged Premier, Mr. Goremykin, whose
political record was that of a benevolent Conservative, at once
saw the need of engaging the full co-operation of the nation as a
whole. After consultation with public leaders the Duma was summoned.
A few representative speeches were expected, but with a remarkable
spontaneity not only every section of political opinion, but every
race in the vast Russian empire took its part in a striking series
of declarations of loyalty and devotion. Each man spoke plainly the
feelings of himself and those for whom he spoke. Perhaps no speeches
left a greater impression than those of the Lithuanians and of the
Jews; these last found a noble spokesman in Mr. Friedmann. The speeches
in the Duma, which were circulated all over the country, were a
revelation to the public and to the Duma itself; and the war thus had
from the first a national character; it was a great act in the national
life of Russia.
In particular it was found that the Red Cross work could not possibly
be organised on any basis of suspicion of public initiative. In the
Japanese War Zemstva were still suspect to the Government, because
they represented the elective principle. The Zemstva created a large
Red Cross organisation under the admirable Prince George Lvov, but it
worked under great difficulties. Now Mr. Goremykin confided the main
work of the Red Cross to Prince Lvov and the Zemstva; and almost every
one prominent in Zemstvo or Duma life engaged in this work, which
gave splendid results. The later attempt of the reactionary Minister
of the Interior, Mr. Maklakov, to close this organisation ended in his
resignation.
Red Cross Zemstvo work meant the nationalisation of Russian public
life, which had so long been under the strong control of reactionary
German influences. The liberation from these influences was sealed
by the re-naming of the capital. The German name, St. Petersburg,
was exchanged for the Russian Petrograd. This was no fad. It was the
fitting end to a long struggle of the Russian people as a whole, under
a national sovereign, to develop itself independently of any mailed
fist, to manage its own affairs as Russian instincts should direct.
In Moscow in 1812 the Emperor met his people after the beginning of the
war. Gentry offered their lives; merchants, with clenched fists and
streaming eyes, offered one-third of all their substance. In 1914 the
Emperor again went to pray with his people in Moscow, and the growth of
a still greater Russia has only augmented those proportions, deepened
the reach of that historic example of patriotic self-sacrifice.
"Russia," said one of the best Russians to me, Mr. N. N. Lvov, "was
lost in a confusion of petty quarrels and intrigues; and suddenly we
see that the real Russia is there."
The pleasant streets of this great country city, so far more homelike
than those of the capital, we found even more country-like than ever; a
notable absence everywhere of young men; the feeling that all those who
were left were at work somewhere together.
In the town hall, which I have always found so thronged and busy, none
of the chief public men were to be seen; the work of all seemed to have
passed to the new department opened close by for the town organisation
in connection with the Red Cross. There, after a long wait while
numberless applicants for service passed us, we received an admirably
short and clear explanation of the work for the wounded. In the same
building was organised the care for the poor, strongly developed in
recent years at twenty-nine local branches, and now working wholesale
and with splendid effect for the homes of those who have gone to the
war.
At the Zemstvo League there was the atmosphere of all the years of
missionary work for the people that has been carried on in camping
conditions for so many years by the Zemstvo in all sorts of country
corners of Russia. Every one was moving quietly and quickly about
his share of the common business. At the big green baize table every
seat was occupied--here a woman of the poorer class volunteering as a
Red Cross sister, there a medical student asking for service. Small
conferences of fellow-workers going on in all the side rooms; and
in the evening a common discussion of how the Zemstvo work could be
carried further to the economic support of the population; an appeal is
being drawn up to go to every one in Russia. Here I found the excellent
"twin" secretaries of the President of the Duma, Mr. Shchepkin and Mr.
Alexeyev, who have done so much for friendship with England, and the
head of the whole Zemstvo League, Prince Lvov, who in a few simple
words gave all the objects of the work for the wounded, who were
expected to number 750,000.
Next we were taken to the chief depots. Princess Gagarin has given her
beautiful house for one, and now lives in a corner of it, helping at
the work. There are two main departments for paid work and for unpaid.
Patterns of all the clothes, pillows, and hospital linen required for
the wounded are sent here, and the material cut out is given out to
3,200 women, some of whom stand in a long file in the court outside.
Every day the store, which works till midnight, is cleared for a new
supply, and the materials prepared are packed in cases of birch bark
for the army. In the Government horse-breeding department there is
another great depot under the direction of Princess O. Trubetskoy. The
workers, rich and poor, all have their simple meals together in one of
the working rooms. There is a large store of chemicals, and elsewhere
a department for the supply of furniture and implements for the field
hospitals.
It would be hard to make those who cannot see it feel how intimately
the Russian people now feels itself bound up with the English in a
great common effort. The Rector of Moscow University, with whom I was
only able to converse by telephone, said to me: "Tell them in England
that we have one heart and one soul with them."
Every day great numbers of wounded are brought by train to Moscow. By
the admirable arrangements of Countess O. Bobrinsky, a vast number of
students, young women, and helpers of all kinds are waiting for them
at the Alexandrovsky station to assist in moving them and to supply
them with refreshments. An enormous silent crowd surrounds the white
station. The owners of motors are waiting ready with their carriages;
all details are in order. Three trains come in between six and ten
o'clock. The sight is a terrible one; faces bound up, limbs missing;
some few have died on the journey. The wounded are moved quickly and
quietly to the private carriages. As they pass through the crowd all
hats are off, and the soldiers sometimes reply with a salute. It is all
silent; it is the pulse of a great family beating as that of one man.
_October 8._
The Emperor's visit to the Vilna was a great success. He rode through
the town unguarded. The streets were crowded, the reception most
cordial. The upper classes in Vilna are mostly Poles, a kind of Polish
"enclave." There are several splendid Catholic churches. On the road
to the station are gates with some revered Catholic images, before
which all passers by remove their hats. There is a large Jewish trading
population often living in extreme poverty: for instance, sometimes
in three tiers of cellars one below another. The peasants are mostly
Lithuanians. Thus there are not many Russians except officials. At the
beginning of war the nearness of the enemy was felt with much anxiety.
Now there is an atmosphere of work and assurance. The Grand Hotel and
several public buildings are converted into hospitals, where the Polish
language is largely used. The Emperor visited all the chief hospitals,
and spoke with many wounded, distributing medals in such numbers that
the supply ran short. He received a Jewish deputation and spoke with
thanks of the sympathetic attitude of the Jews in this hour so solemn
for Russia. The general feeling may be described as like a new page of
history. Among Poles, educated or uneducated, enthusiasm is general.
This is all the more striking because in no circumstances could Vilna
be considered as politically Polish. Vilna shows all the aspects of war
conditions, but the country around is being actively cultivated.
_October 10._
We reached the Russian headquarters as the bugle sounded for evening
prayer. The atmosphere here is one of complete simplicity and
homeliness. Our small party includes several distinguished journalists
from most of the chief Russian papers, also eminent French, American
and Japanese representatives of the Press. We found the Grand Ducal
train on a side line. It was spacious and comfortable but simply
appointed. We were received by the Chief of the General Staff, one of
the youngest lieutenant-generals in the Russian army. He is a strongly
built man with a powerful head, whose carriage and speech communicate
confidence. He spoke very simply of the military conditions, of the
common task, and of his assurance of the full co-operation of the
public and Press. The Grand Duke then entered, his light step, bright
eye and imposing stature well shown up by his easy cavalry uniform.
Shaking hands with each of us, both before and after his address, he
said: "Gentlemen, I am glad to welcome you to my quarters. I have
always thought, and continue to think, that the Press, in competent
and worthy hands, can do an enormous amount of good. I am sure you
gentlemen are just the men who by your communications through the
papers, telling all that is most keenly interesting, and by your
correct exposition of the facts, can do good both to the public and
to us. I unfortunately and necessarily cannot show you all I should
be perhaps glad to show, as in every war, and particularly in this
stupendous one, the observing of military secrecy relative to the plan
and all that can reveal it is the pledge of success. I have marked
out a road on which you will be able to acquaint yourselves with just
what is of most lively interest to all, and what all are anxious to
know. Allow me to wish you success and to express to you my confidence
that by your work you will do all the good which is expected of you
as representatives of the public, and will calm relations and friends
and all who are suffering and anxious. I welcome you, gentlemen, and
wish you full success." We were invited to join in the lunch and
dinner of the General Staff in their restaurant car. There were no
formalities--it was simply a number of fellow workers having their
meals together, without distinction, just as in the big houses in
Moscow where the making of clothes for the army is proceeding. A notice
forbids handshaking in the restaurant, under fine of threepence for
the wounded. I noticed a street picture of the Cossack Kruchkov in his
single-handed combat with eleven German Dragoons, also a map of the
front of the Allies in the West, but hardly any other decorations.
Among the party there was, in accordance with the temperance edict, no
alcohol.
_October 12._
To-day I visited several wounded from the Austrian front, mostly
serious cases. The first, an Upper Austrian with a broken leg, spoke
cheerily of his wound and his surroundings. He described the Russian
artillery fire as particularly formidable. His own corps had run
short of ammunition, not of food. Another prisoner, a young German
from Bohemia, singularly pleasing and simple, described the fighting
at Krasnik, where he was hit in the leg. The battle, he said, was
terrible. The Austrian artillery here was uncovered and was crushed.
The Russian rifle line took cover so well that he could not descry
them from two hundred yards in front of his own skirmishing line, but
its firing took great effect. I saw also an Austrian doctor taken
prisoner, and now continuing his work salaried by the Russians.
All three prisoners evidently felt nothing antagonistic in their
surroundings. They struck me as men who had fulfilled a civic duty
without either grudge or any distinctive national feeling. I spoke
with several Russians who had been badly hit in their first days of
fighting, especially at Krasnik. Here a young Jew fell in the firing
line on a slope, and saw thence more than half of his company knocked
over as they pressed forward. He was picked up next morning. A Russian
described how his company charged a small body of Austrians, who
retired precipitately to a wood but reappeared supported by three
quickfirers which mowed down most of his company. All accounts agreed
that the Austrians could never put up resistance to Russian bayonet
charges. This was particularly noticeable in the later fighting. As
one sturdy fellow put it, "No, they don't charge us, we charge them,
and they clear out." I was most of all impressed by a frail lad of
twenty who looked a mere boy. He was not wounded, and was sent back
simply because he was worn out by the campaigning. He said, "They are
firing on my brother and not on me. That is not right, I ought to be
where they all are." One feels it is a great wave rolling forward with
one spirit driving it on.
Many of these wounded had only been picked up after lying for some time
on the field. I saw one heroic lady, a sister of mercy, who had herself
carried a wounded officer from the firing line. Both the hospitals
that I visited were strongly staffed. In the second, designed only for
serious cases, and admirably equipped with drugs, Roentgen apparatus
and operating rooms, the sister of the Emperor, the Grand Duchess
Olga Alexandrovna (who went through the full two years' preparation)
is working as a sister of mercy under all the ordinary discipline and
conditions of travel and work. Starting at the outbreak of the war, she
was in time for the tremendous pressure of the great Austrian battles,
when the hospital had to provide for three hundred patients instead
of the expected two hundred. All the arrangements in these hospitals,
based on fifty years' experience of Russian country hospital work, were
carried out under the most difficult conditions and bore the impression
of missionary devotion. Here, for instance, all the medicine chests
were adapted for frequent transport; the table is also the travelling
chest, and so on.
The country aspect was also noticeable in an army bread factory which
I visited. The rye bread is dried to a portable biscuit; the soldier
can carry a large supply of this biscuit and has something to eat in
the firing line when other provisions run short.
_Lvov (Lemberg), October 15._
To-day, on their arrival, the Russian Governor-General of Galicia
received the correspondents, and addressed us as follows--
"I am glad, gentlemen, to meet you; I am well aware of the enormous
advantage that can be derived from the use of the Press, and am only
sorry that you are to be for so short a time in Galicia, for I should
like you to have had the opportunity of studying on the spot the
difficult questions of administration: you might have communicated to
me your impressions and suggestions--for in your capacity of writers
you are trained critics. We have to deal in Galicia with various
nationalities, and very divergent political views.
"I shall be glad if I can be of any assistance in your study of the
country. I have already communicated to various deputations, and to
the public, the principles of my attitude toward the problems of
administration, and have no alterations to make in my declared views.
"Eastern Galicia should become part of Russia. Western Galicia, when
its conquest has been completed, should form part of the kingdom of
Poland, within the empire. My policy as to the religious question is
very definite. I have no desire to compel any one to join the Orthodox
Church. If a two-thirds majority in any given village desires to
conform to the Orthodox Church, then they should be given the parish
church. This does not mean that the remaining third should not be free
to remain in its former communion. I am avoiding even any suggestion of
compulsion. The peasants pass over very easily to Orthodoxy; for them
the question is in no way acute, indeed the so-called Uniats consider
they are Orthodox already. But it is different for the clergy, for whom
the question is a real one. I respect all the priests who have remained
in their parishes, and they have not been disturbed. Those who have
abandoned their benefices I am not restoring: nor shall I permit the
return of any who are associated with any political agitation against
Russia.
"A difficult question has arisen relating to Austrian officials in
the town of Lvov: from persons of means they have now become paupers
requiring assistance. Another question is that of credit: numbers of
banks are without their cash, which has all been taken away to Vienna.
These banks are sending a deputation to Petrograd to solicit the
support of the Bank of Russia.
"There is also the question of the police. I am waiting for trained
policemen to be sent from Russia: it is impossible, of course, to use
untrained men for administrative work, and meanwhile I contrive to
employ the local Austrian police. Some magistrates have fled--we have
to put the affairs of justice in order: I am awaiting a representative
of the Ministry of Justice, who will examine the question.
"In certain regions around Lvov, Nikolayev, Gorodok and other places
where there has been severe fighting, the population has been left
in a state of great distress. In Bukovina, however, there is little
distress, except in the towns; and as the crops there are good, we are
importing food into Galicia from thence. The relief of distress is
being dealt with by committees, including prominent local residents,
under the Directors of Districts, and controlled by a central
committee, whose chairman is Count Vladimir Bobrinsky. In cases of
extreme distress it is being arranged that money may be advanced to the
necessitous.
"I have established in Galicia three provinces: Lvov (Lemberg),
Tarnopol, and Bukovina. Perhaps we may establish another province,
following the line of demarcation of the Russian population, which on
maps of Austrian Poland is admitted to include parts of the region
about Sanok (in central Galicia)."
_October 24._
I have spent some days in the Austrian territory conquered by the
Russians. The Russian broad gauge has been carried some distance into
Galicia, and the further railway communication with the Austrian
gauge and carriages is in working order. The large waiting-rooms were
covered with wounded on stretchers with doctors and sisters of mercy
in constant attendance. They utter no sound, except in very few cases
when under attention. One poor fellow, a bronzed and strapping lad
struck through the lungs, I saw dying; he looked so hale and strong;
his wide eyes kept moving as he gasped and wrestled silently with
death; he seemed so grateful to those who sat with him; he died early
in the morning. I talked with three Hungarian privates, keen-eyed
and vigorous. They said their men were very good with the bayonet
and seldom surrendered, a statement which was confirmed by a Russian
cavalry officer who had just returned from fighting in the passes,
though it seems the Hungarians do not consider the war as national
beyond the Carpathians, and they fight well because they are warlike
and not because they like this war. The prisoners with whom I talked
were very energetic in praising their treatment by the Russians, which
is indeed beyond praise. Everywhere they met people with tea, sugar,
and cigarettes. One said repeatedly, "I can say nothing," and another
said, "I cannot but wish that we may do as well by them in Hungary."
These were the only Austrian prisoners in whom I have seen a trace of
that national enthusiasm for the war which is so evident in all the
Russian soldiers. I talked with two Italians, simple, friendly fellows
who described their treatment as _pulito_, or very decent.
The Slovenes and Bohemians seemed rather in a maze about the whole
thing. A Ruthenian soldier of Galicia was quite frank about it. "Of
course we had to go," he said, but he expressed pleasure at the
Russians winning Galicia, and even regarded it as compensation for his
wound.
I saw off a train of Russian wounded. They were most brotherly and
thoughtful for each other. An Austrian patient told me he was happy
and had made great friends with the Russian next to him. The electric
trams are used for ambulances, and the chief buildings are turned
into hospitals. The biggest is in the Polytechnicum, and is served
practically by Poles. The big Russian hospital of the Dowager Empress
is very well equipped. The Red Cross organisation is in the hands
of eminent public men; such as Homyakov, Stakhovich and Lerche, who
visited England with the party of Russian Legislators in 1909. Count
Vladimir Bobrinsky, another member of that party, is chairman of the
relief committee appointed by his cousin the Russian Governor-General
of Galicia. The town is old and pleasing, set in undulating country.
It is in excellent order. A little sporadic street firing was quickly
suppressed. All inhabitants throughout the conquered territory must
be at home from ten in the evening till four unless they have special
permission. How well this rule is kept one could judge when returning
from the station. No one was out except Russian sentries and Austrian
policemen, who have been continued on their work. Otherwise one sees no
signs of a conquered town.
The day the Russians entered, the Polish paper issued its morning
edition under Austrian control and its evening edition under Russian.
The electric lighting and tramways continued working and the shops
remained open. The fighting, which was most severe, was all outside.
But even on the sites of engagements the amount of damage done by
artillery is limited to few places and few houses, and cultivation is
now going on, without any signs of war, close up to the present front.
A general order forbids the leaving about of any refuse. There is no
friction between the Little Russian peasants and the troops or the new
administrators; but the Jews adopt a waiting attitude. The general
position is a great credit to the Russians, and gives ample proof of
their close kinship with the great majority of the conquered population.
_October 26._
I have visited some of the battlefields of Galicia. It is much too
early to attempt any thorough account of these battles; nor did the
conditions of my visits make any complete examination possible.
The chief harm which Germany and Austria could inflict in a war against
Russia was to conquer Russian Poland, whose frontier made defence
extremely difficult. Regarding this protuberance as a head, Germany and
Austria could make a simultaneous amputating operation at its neck,
attacking the one from East Prussia and the other from Galicia. But the
German policy, which had other and more primary objects, precipitated
war with France and threw the bulk of the German forces westward. Thus
the German army in East Prussia kept the defensive, and Austria was
left to make her advance from Galicia without support.
The Austrian forces on this front were at first more numerous than the
Russians. The Russians had been prepared to defend the line of the Bug,
which would have meant the temporary abandonment of nearly all Poland.
But the alliance with France and England made it both possible and
desirable to advance, and at the battle of Gnila Lipa the army on the
Austrian right was driven back beyond Lvov (Lemberg), the town falling
into Russian hands. The next great fighting was for the possession of
the line of the river San.
[Illustration: THE SOUTH WEST FRONT
(SEPTEMBER)
a _Main Austrian impact_
b _Secondary Austrian forces_
c _Russian centre (retiring)_
d _Russian right wing (advancing)_
e _Russian armies in Galicia (advancing)_]
It must be remembered that while the fighting lines ran roughly from
north to south, the frontier line here ran from east to west. Thus
the left of each force occupied the territory of the other. The first
decisive success had been that of the Russian left in Galicia; but
the Austrian left and centre were still allowed to advance further
into Russian Poland. A double movement was then undertaken against
them. While General Brusilov pushed home in southern Galicia the
success already obtained on this side, and thus secured the Russian
left flank from a counter-offensive, General Ruzsky, the conqueror
of Lvov, came in on the Austrian centre at Rava Ruska, while other
Russian armies, detached from the reserves standing between the Russian
northern and southern fronts, and making good use of the advantageous
railway connexion, arrived to the north of the Austrian left. Seldom
has a tactical battle been planned on so large a scale. The Austrians,
threatened at this point with outflanking on both sides, after
several days' hard defensive fighting, withdrew with a haste that
had the character of a rout, and which only saved them from complete
annihilation. Their centre, like their already beaten right, retired
southwards toward Hungary, while their left, just escaping the peril
of being surrounded, fell back rapidly in the direction of Cracow,
where it was strengthened by further support from Germany. Two German
corps had already joined it, but too late to avert the reverse already
described. The success of Brusilov at Gorodok (Grodek) secured to the
Russians the line of the river San as far as Peremyshl (Przemysl).
This series of operations, after the Russian evacuation of East
Prussia necessitated by the strong German movements on the northern
fronts, left Russia with the following line of defence: the Niemen,
the Bobr, the Narev, the middle Vistula, the San (to Peremyshl) and
the Carpathians. This line includes the larger part of Russian Poland,
the city of Warsaw, and western Galicia, with its capital, Lvov.
This line is infinitely more satisfactory than that of the Bug. Its
security on the south depends in part on the action of Rumania, but a
counter-offensive from Hungary has already been repulsed on this side.
On the north, attempts of the Germans on Grodno and on Warsaw have been
triumphantly repulsed; and the Russians have since fought with success
along almost the whole line; a serious German and Austrian effort is to
be anticipated on the middle Vistula and the San.