(Stryj) and Dniestr, and the battlefield of Rava Ruska. Galich was
at the south of the first Austrian line of defence. The Dniestr here
presents from the north-eastern side a concave front, defended by
extensive wire entanglements and trenches, and, behind the river, by
low but jutting hills. The town, which lies on a ledge between these
hills and the river, bears the distinctive Russian character and
possesses an ancient Russian church, now Uniat, and a remnant of an
early Russian tower. There is no doubt of the Russian-ness of Galich;
the only inhabitants whom one sees besides the picturesque Little
Russians are the numerous Jews. There was nothing to indicate nearness
of the enemy, and complete order prevailed, the Russian authorities
being evidently chiefly concerned with the newness of their work and
the task of organisation. Friendly relations were maintained between
the troops here and the inhabitants; and the only violences of which
there was local evidence were those committed by Austrian soldiers
before the evacuation of the town. In spite of the strength of the
position, no serious resistance was offered here. The Russians appeared
unexpectedly at a point on the north of the river, taking in reverse
the Austrian field works at this point. They shelled the neighbouring
township with extraordinary accuracy, destroying only the houses in
the middle and leaving standing the two churches and a third spired
building, the town hall. The Austrians then retired rapidly over the
bridge, which they blew up, and evacuated Galich.
At the junction of the Dniestr and Stryi we also found deep trenches,
some six feet deep and three feet wide. The tower at the bridge head,
commanding a wide, flat outlook, had suffered but little. The railway
bridge had been blown up. Here, too, there were no signs of serious
resistance. At a railway junction in the neighbourhood there were again
striking signs of the accuracy of the Russian artillery fire, only
a distant portion of the station building having suffered. Close by
lay a very handsome French chateau belonging to the Austrian General
Desveaux, who was connected with the Polish family of Lubomirski.
The interior of this chateau had been systematically wrecked by the
Little Russian peasants of the locality, the top torn off the piano,
family portraits defaced, sofa and chairs destroyed, and the bare floor
covered with a thick litter of valuable sketches and pictures, among
which I noticed a map of the Austrian army manoeuvres of 1893. I
heard here and in other places of the violences committed against the
peasants by the Austrian troops on their passage, the inhabitants being
often left entirely destitute. The Ruthenian troops in the Austrian
army were in a very difficult position: in several cases they fired
in the air; and the attacking Russians would sometimes do the same,
on which numbers of the Little Russians would come over to them. The
Cossacks who preceded the Russian army offered no violence here, I
was told, except where villagers told them untruly that the Austrian
troops had left the village; with such cases they dealt summarily. They
were also sometimes drastic, though not necessarily violent, with
the local Jews, who in Galicia have held the peasants in the severest
bondage, leaving only starvation wages to the tenants of their farms
and exacting daily humiliations of obeisance.
My examination of these questions could only be very short; but the
general picture obtained was, I think, in the main correct, because
it was confirmed by much that I have heard from the soldiers of both
sides; and it is clear that the Russians considered themselves to be at
home among the Ruthenians of Galicia, whose dialect many of them are
able to talk with ease. One thing was clear: namely, that there was no
friction in the parts which I visited, except with the Jews, and that
life was going on as if the war were a thousand miles away instead of
almost at one's doors.
Our visit to Rava Ruska presented much greater military interest; we
drove round the south, east, and north front of the Russian attack on
this little town, and very valuable explanations were given by an able
officer of the General Staff. On the southern front, near the station
of Kamionka Woloska, where there were lines of trenches, the deep holes
made by bursting Russian shells and sometimes filled with water, lay
thick together.
The eastern front was more interesting. Here there were many lines of
rifle pits, Austrian, Russian, or Austrian converted into Russian. The
Austrian rifle pits were much shallower and less finished than the
Russian, which were generally squarer, deeper and with higher cover.
An officer's rifle pit just behind those of his men showed their care
and work for him, as was also indicated in letters written after
the battle. Casques of cuirassiers, many Hungarian knapsacks, broken
rifles, fragments of shrapnel, potatoes pulled up, and such oddments
as an Austrian picture postcard, were to be found in or near the rifle
pits. These wide plains, practically without cover, were reminiscent of
Wagram. A high landmark was a crucifix on which one of the arms of the
figure was shot away; underneath it was a "brother's grave" containing
the bodies of 120 Austrians and 21 Russians. Another cross of fresh-cut
wood marked the Russian soldiers tribute to an officer: "God's servant,
Gregory." Close to one line of trenches stood a village absolutely
untouched, and in the fields between stood a picturesque group of
villagers at their field work, one in an Austrian uniform and two boys
in Austrian shakos.
The hottest fight had been on the north-eastern front. Here, after a
wood and a fall of the ground, there came a gradual bare slope of a
mile and a half crowned by two Austrian batteries which lay just behind
the crest. This ground had been disputed inch by inch and was seamed
with some five or six lines of rifle pits. At one point three Russian
shells fired from about due east had fallen plump on three neighbouring
rifle pits, and fragments of uniform all round gave evidence of the
wholesale devastation which they had worked. All the ground was cut
up with deep shell pits, and this place, which was a kind of angle of
the defending line, must have become literally untenable. The pits for
the Austrian guns still contained a broken wheel and other relics, and
close by was a cross made of shrapnel.
The impressions which most defined themselves from this battlefield
were the almost entire absence of cover, the exposed position of the
rifle pits, the deadliness of the Russian artillery, the toughness of
the resistance offered, and lastly the thunder of cannon from some
thirty miles away, which was sounding in our ears all the time of our
visit to the field of Rava Ruska.
We did not pursue our journey further along the northern positions. In
the market place we saw an angry scramble of a large number of Jews
over some sacks of flour; and in a wood outside we passed a strong,
masterful old Jew with dignified bearing striding silently with his two
sons over his land, a sight which is hardly to be seen in Russia. The
Jewish land-leasers here sometimes take ten-elevenths of the profits,
as contrasted with the two-thirds which the leaseholder takes in
Russia. Distant hills to the north marked the old frontier of Russia.
From narratives of soldiers a few characteristics of all this fighting
may be added. The attack was throughout delivered by the Russians,
even where their numbers are inferior. The men are full of the finest
spirit, and they have the greatest confidence in their artillery,
though the proportion of field guns to a unit is less numerous on the
Russian side than on the German or Austrian. When given the word to
advance, the Russians feel that they are going to drive the Austrians
from the field and go forward with an invincible rush. They say that
less resort is made to the bayonet by the Austrians and by the Germans.
In the rifle fire of their enemies they find, to use the expression
of one of them, "nothing striking," the one thing that commands their
respect is the heavy artillery, but the Russian field artillery has had
a marked advantage. Small bodies of Austrians have made repeated use
of copses to draw advancing Russian companies on to their quick-firing
guns, which have sometimes done deadly work. Cavalry has played but an
insignificant part in the fighting.
But the most impressive thing of all is the extraordinary endurance of
the men in the trenches. It is a common experience for a man to be five
to eight days in the trenches in pouring rain, almost, or sometimes
altogether without food, then perhaps to rush on the enemy, to fall
and see half his comrades fall, but the rest still going forward,
to lie perhaps through a night, and then to the hospital to lose a
limb: and yet, spite of the reaction, such men are not only patient
and affectionate to all who do anything for them, but really cheerful
and contented, often literally jovial and always in no doubt of the
ultimate issue.
There are no two accounts of the spirit in the Russian army. One feels
it as a regiment goes past on foot or packed into a train, with one
private tuning up an indefinite number of verses and the rest falling
into parts that give all the solemnity of a hymn. It draws everything
to it; so that no one seems to feel he is living unless he is getting
to the front; the talk of all those who are already at work, whether
officers or men, is balanced and confident, and all little comforts
are shared simply as among brothers. I saw a little boy of twelve with
a busby looking as large as himself, an orphan who performed bicycle
tricks in a circus, and had now persuaded a passing regiment to let him
come with them, and seemed to have found his family at last.
All the life of Russia is streaming into the war, and never was the
Russian people more visible than it is now in the Russian army.
_October 30._
I have spent some days in Warsaw and have examined the scenes of the
recent fighting as far out as beyond Skiernewice. The Russian river
line of defence ran along the Niemen, Bobr, Narew, middle Vistula and
San. The Germans had not previously seriously tested the strength of
the centre of this line, and Russian reports issued had so far only
spoken of a northern and a southern front.
Warsaw lay beyond the defensive river line. A rapid seizure of the
city before winter set in would have greatly strengthened the Prussian
northern front and have endangered the Russian occupation of Galicia.
It would also have created a moral effect on the Poles and might have
served as a support to any proposals to negotiate.
The Germans advanced principally from the south-west, a region largely
left in their hands. German army corps reached a line south-east of
Blonie, and at Pruszkow they were little more than six miles from
Warsaw. The cannonade shook the windows in the city. German aeroplanes
dropped bombs near the railway bridge, Etat Major and elsewhere,
killing over a hundred persons but not achieving any military object.
The population were much exasperated, and many went out to the scene
of the fighting. The brunt of the defence fell on two Russian corps,
especially on one containing Siberian troops which had to oppose three
German corps. Splendid work was done at Pruszkow and also by a Siberian
regiment at Rakitna. Here the Germans, covered by woods and gardens,
delayed the Russian advance and placed machine guns on the roof of a
high church. The inhabitants say that the Siberians long refrained
from returning the fire from the church. The regiment lost its colonel
and many officers and 275 men, but held good till reinforced. Several
Russian corps arrived, and the Russians then drove the Germans back
in successive rearguard engagements which lasted for eighteen days.
Another regiment specially distinguished itself at Kazimierz and
received a telegram from the Commander-in-Chief, congratulating it on
a brilliant bayonet attack. Two days ago it drove back the enemy with
the bayonet through a wood, inflicting heavy loss. The Germans retired
rapidly in the night south-westward. The country up to several miles
west and south of Lowicz and Skiernewice has now been recovered.
The Germans in these operations seized provisions and some valuables
and committed some minor indignities, but the country has in no way an
aspect of devastation. The population is strongly for Russia and offers
every service to the Russian soldiers. In Warsaw great enthusiasm
prevails, with a very striking difference from the attitude before the
war and the Grand Duke's appeal. The Germans during their withdrawal
made clean work of bridges, railways, and stores. There was every sign
of a deliberate and well-executed retreat. Fewer prisoners were taken
than in the case of the Austrians, the wounded being mostly carried
away. The Russian artillery worked with great precision and effect, and
the Russian infantry, after artillery preparation, attacked throughout.
There is no sign of any likelihood of a further German aggressive
on this side before winter, but there is always the possibility of
an early conflict southward, where the Russians need to secure and
complete their conquest of Galicia, and the enemy have to guard their
base of joint action between Germany and Austria.
_October 30._
My visits to the scenes of fighting in the Warsaw area have been of
interest. The main scene of the most critical fighting, Pruszkow, we
did not visit. The Germans tried to force their way up here from the
south, close to the Vistula, and got to within some nine miles from
Warsaw. If they had captured the town (about 900,000 inhabitants, of
whom 300,000 are Jews), and occupied the Vistula bridges, they would
have established an enormous political and military advantage, which
could not have been reversed without the greatest difficulty. Though
Warsaw was beyond their line of defence, the Russians made every effort
to hold it.
We visited a point in the centre of the line of defence, where the
Russians held good under heavy losses; their rifle pits were close up
to a copse and gardens, and they had tried to secure a footing even
closer in. From thence their line ran in a convex curve to Rakitna.
Here their artillery had battered in the sides of the lofty and
impressive church, leaving standing the woodwork of the roof and two
irregular pinnacles. The Germans fired from this church; they had
confined several of the inhabitants in the vaults. The buildings near
the church were reduced to ruins. Close up against the village lay
graves of the attacking Siberian regiment, marked by lofty well-cut
orthodox crosses, the men lying together under a vast regular mound
and Colonel Gozhansky and six of his officers under separate crosses
at the base, while at the head stood one great cross for all the dead
of the regiment. The inscriptions were throughout in almost identical
language, ending: "Sleep in peace, hero and sufferer." In a small
garden close by, the Germans had buried their dead so rapidly that some
of them were still uncovered. On two neighbouring crosses they had paid
their tribute to "six brave German warriors" and to "six brave Russian
warriors." Through a great hole in the ruined church one caught sight
of a crucifix, untouched but surrounded with marks of shot in the wall.
In the neighbouring township of Blonie, the town hall had been set on
fire.
Blonie, which was the northern point of the line of battle, lies about
eighteen miles due west of Warsaw; from thence runs an excellent broad
_chaussée_, embanked and lined with poplars, going straight westward
towards the frontier. At Sochaczew the high bridge over the river
was broken off clean at both ends and the central supports entirely
destroyed, but there were few other marks of war. At Lowicz the bridge
had been destroyed and, as at Sochaczew and Skiernewice, had been
very rapidly repaired by the pursuing Russians. Lowicz lies in flat
country, through which the rivers make deep furrows. It is a clean and
picturesque little place, with a symmetrical central square flanked by
large buildings and with the fine parish church at the western end.
The Poles of this part wear very distinctive national costumes; the
women have skirts in broad and narrow vertical stripes, with orange, or
sometimes red, as the foundation of colour, the narrow stripes being
usually black, purple and yellow; round their shoulders they wear what
look like similar skirts, fastened with ribbons at the neck, and they
have variegated aprons, in which the foundation colour of the dress
is absent; the general impression in the fields or on the sky line
is of a mass of orange. The old men wear grizzled grey overcoats and
broad-brimmed hats, and the younger men elaborate and tight-fitting
costumes that suggest a groom of the eighteenth century, or loose
zouave blouses and trousers of blue or other colours. Houses in the
villages are spacious and plastered white, with sometimes a certain
amount of decoration, usually in blue. At Lowicz there were some marks
of war. My host for the night, an old soldier from Orenburg who had
served under Skobelev, spoke with indignation of the recent German
occupation; they had taken all the supplies that they could find.
But there were no signs of any permanent occupation, and the German
requisitions could not have been very thorough, as one saw many geese,
pigs and, above all, very fine horses in this part, and the inhabitants
had quite settled down again to their ordinary occupations. From such
accounts as I have read of the conditions in Germany, I should think
that one would see there fewer young and middle-aged men and less field
work going on than in this no-man's land that has lain between the two
hostile lines of defence and has been traversed by each army in turn.
From Lowicz to Skiernewice there runs south-westward a _chaussée_ and
also a more direct road that passes through an area of sand and mud.
Napoleon used to say that in his campaign of Poland (1807) he had
discovered a fifth element--mud. There is no other obstacle, the broad
undulating plains suggesting parts of the north of France; combining
lights and shades, they offer scope for the artist, and the long lines
of well-to-do villages have a pleasing effect that is enhanced by the
graceful local costumes. The peasants are well built and good featured,
often with a military air and carriage; their manners are excellent,
and their intercourse with the Russian soldiers is both courteous
and cordial. They were at any time ready to come and help in the
frequent breakdowns of our motors, and I noticed, to my surprise, after
experiences of other years in Warsaw, that they felt no difficulty in
understanding Russian and in making themselves intelligible to us. At
some points on our road there were marks of rearguard fighting, and as
we were told, two or three wounded, but we saw hardly any prisoners,
except a body of Landwehr men, and no trophies. At the village of Mokra
(which means "damp") the houses still bore the ordinary German chalk
marks assigning the billets to given numbers of men. At Skiernewice
the coal stores at the station had been fired and were still burning:
but the town was comfortably held by the Russians, and we found no
difficulty in the matter of supplies and quarters. Skiernewice will be
remembered as one of the last stopping places in the Russian empire
on the road from Moscow to Berlin, and also as a former meeting place
of the three emperors. It has great preserves for pheasants, which
are only touched during the visits of the Sovereign. There is the
usual central square of Polish houses, and here, as in Sochaczew,
the Jews were in evidence, though they have been removed from some
military centres where they have given assistance to the enemy. From
Skiernewice we travelled a considerable distance south-westwards,
passing over a fine military position carefully prepared by the
Germans, and commanding a view of some ten miles to the north-east, but
abandoned without any sign of resistance. At every point we met the
picturesque-looking peasants returning to their now recovered homes.
At a low-lying village we saw vedettes riding to and fro, trains of
supplies, vans of the Red Cross being loaded with wounded, and in front
of the poor thatched cottages a line of deeply hollowed trenches, from
which rose a colonel, a simple homely man in workday uniform, to offer
us part of the repast. There was the strong family feeling typical
of any gathering of Russians. We passed along the line chatting with
the men; a young colonel galloped up to invite us to visit his guns;
but we turned to a nearer battery, of which the old commander did us
the honours. These men were from a military province in the heart of
Russia, and their faces passed into a broad friendly grin as they stood
to their guns for us, sat to be photographed at their tea-drinking, and
told the story of their last fighting. They had been firing for all the
last two days. At about half a mile lay a copse on a hill, at first
held by the Germans, and behind it a long wooded ridge near which were
German rifle pits. The German artillery put up a cross fire from both
sides. Their shells had done very little damage. The Russian infantry
charged up the nearer slope and drove the Germans with the bayonet
through the copse. Here there were more than three hundred German dead;
among them boys of thirteen and fourteen, whose soldiers' pay-books
gave their ages. One officer remained standing just as the blow had
caught him. In the night the Germans had rapidly withdrawn and were now
several miles away.