companions kept reckoning whether we should reach the town by midnight.
Twelve o'clock was well past when the train drew up heavily a verst
from the station and we were told that it would go no further. We
scrambled out into the snow, when suddenly from the lighted station
there rose in full orchestra, strong and triumphant, the most beautiful
and the most religious of national anthems. It was played three times,
and the notes may even have been carried to the neighbouring Germans
beyond the river. This was our Russian New Year: and in the station a
colonel was dismissing his men with the words, "For this year I wish
you health and victory."
Next day the stretch of railroad that we had traversed and the carriage
in which we had supped was cannonaded by the biggest German shells. The
bombardment went on all day and night, the huge "portmanteaux" making
tremendous holes and falling for the most part far wide of their only
mark, the railway, and carrying ruin and mutilation to many of the
inhabitants, who are thus encouraged by the beaten enemy to remain
Austrian subjects. There is hardly any object in this bombardment,
which is put down to the Germans and has roused great indignation
among the many wounded Austrian officers and men who are lying here in
hospital. Not a soldier has been touched; but wounded civilians, men,
women and children, have been brought in to the different hospitals.
_January 16._
The bombardment, which was continued yesterday, has created a
certain excitement here, but nothing approaching to panic. The big
"portmanteaux" are very ugly things and make an unpleasant noise, but
only two shots can be said to have produced any results worth mention.
The prevailing mood is one of vigour and interest.
I have had some informing conversations with wounded officers of the
enemy. They indicate a definite mental attitude very different from
ours. I see no trace of religious enthusiasm and little of nationality
in the wider sense. The Germans have the greatest confidence and
pride in their army. They tell me that two million volunteers were
inscribed at the beginning of the war--an enormous fact, if correct.
The attitude of the German women is such that no man who can serve
dares to remain at home. My informants fully realise that for Germany
the war is a matter of life and death. They have served on the
western front and described the French fortresses as extremely strong
("brillant"). The Bavarians are terrible in warfare and spread alarm
among the population. The losses of the first move through Belgium were
enormous. The Belgians are described as excellent soldiers, and large
German losses are put down to them. In the march on Paris the reserves
and the commissariat could not keep up. The retreat is accepted as an
unpleasant necessity. There was a certain pedantry among my informants
in insisting on the need of turning the allied right wing, whatever
should happen at other points. They claimed that the Germans were now
in Calais.
Large losses against the Russians were admitted, but it was claimed,
without any real evidence, that the Russians had lost more. Again,
there was a kind of machine-like insistence on the need of attack in
columns with reserves close up--as this was "our tactics." The Germans
had so far been saved by the default of any real Russian winter, which
would have ruined the German transport and artillery and robbed their
operations of all effect. What struck me most was the absence of any
real intelligence as to the political issues in debate. My informants
were, for reasons of humanity, in favour of a _status quo_ peace.
Some Austrians gave an interesting account of the origin of the war.
The Austro-Serbian quarrel was not political but personal. The Serbian
dynasty, failing to obtain any satisfactory recognition from Austria,
was credited with a personal hostility against the late Archduke, who
was described as in general a friend of the Slavs. Proof in support of
this view of his end had been widely circulated in Austria in December.
The personal quarrel between the reigning houses of Austria and Serbia
had been turned by the insistence of the Emperor William into an
occasion for a European war, specially directed against Russia, into
which Austria had been hurried against her will. Her present position
now was described as very precarious.
To a Hungarian officer I put the question whether the war had produced
any real poetry in Hungary. He answered that there had been some
rough-and-ready effusions among the working classes, whom he described
as militant in their habits in time of peace and always ready for any
war, especially with Russia. But the educated classes were not well
disposed either to war or to this war.
It is rarely that one meets among these wounded of the enemy any other
disposition than a strong desire for peace. I should add that several
of them have asked me to communicate to their relations that they were
being treated with the greatest kindness in Russia; "I am lovingly
tended," wrote one of them. An Austrian colonel, a fine soldier and
gentleman, told me he should never forget the "Anständigkeit" (decency)
of all the Russians with whom he had had to do since his capture. Even
Germans who at first are challenging and hostile, are softened by the
true humanity with which they are surrounded in the Russian hospitals.
_January 22._
The town has been bombarded for several days on end, beginning with
the Russian New Year, January 14. The Germans had given a foretaste on
our own Christmas Eve. They dropped from an aeroplane a paper bearing
the words: "We ask you not to shoot on December 25; we will send you
presents": the text of the telegram I had from the Commandant of the
town, to whom it was taken. For all that, and though the Russian
artillery was instructed only to reply, five heavy bombs were fired
into the town and some of the inhabitants were wounded.
There were other Christmas "presents" which I have seen, sent by the
Austrians with a parleyer and a white flag. With other objects of no
importance were six matchboxes full of matches and containing also
short manifestoes printed in Russian and addressed to the troops.
They were signed "Your unfortunate Tsar, Nicholas"; and they informed
the Russian soldiers that the Emperor knew the war would ruin Russia
and had sought to avoid it, but had been forced into it by the Grand
Duke Nicholas and the "perfidious" Russian generals, against whom the
soldiers were invited to turn their arms. I have not often seen a
document so conspicuously lacking in humour.
Punctually at midnight of January 13, one Russian regiment received two
large shells bearing on their case the words "Congratulations on the
New Year." The next day the town, though it had no troops in it, was
shelled severely, and this bombardment was kept up for several days.
The chief mark, and a very legitimate one, was the railway; here there
fell in all six large bombs, making holes some twenty feet in diameter
and ten in depth. But the great majority of the bombs fell in other
parts of the town; and two of them rattled close over the roof of two
different hospitals while I was in them, and the splinters of a third
flew into the lodging of the workers of another lazaret.
In one of these hospitals, a local one now served by the Russian Red
Cross, a large proportion of the patients are wounded of the enemy,
including officers, most of them too badly hit to be removed without
danger to their lives; and these were greatly agitated by the shells
passing so near to them. Hurried councils were held by the different
Red Cross authorities. One hospital, where the shells continued to
fall quite near, left the town. The most serious cases were moved to
the local hospital, where the Russian Red Cross courageously decided
to remain. Here are also to be found many local inhabitants, wounded
by bullets and shrapnel in the town or in neighbouring villages under
fire; and one room is mostly filled with little Polish boys, all of
them wearing a little silver religious medal round their necks. Here,
too, are the inmates of a Polish hut who were injured by the explosion
of a hand grenade; in a space of about twelve feet square, some sixteen
persons were thus wounded; the father is dead and the mother and one of
the children are out of their minds.
These are all cases that have come under my notice; and of course
there are many others. Yet it is wonderful how the inhabitants remain
in their huts under fire in the hope that the worst is over or in
despair of finding any other shelter. From one such hut, after the last
and finally crushing shot, there issued an old man of nearly seventy
with a pipe in his mouth and entirely unharmed. I remember that on my
first visit to Lvov, I heard a barrel organ repeating about fifty times
the beautiful Polish national hymn: "From the Smoke of Fires"; in the
Lublin province, on a line of some seventy miles, I found almost every
other village half demolished. It is everywhere Poland that suffers;
and it will be hard if some new life for this unhappy people does not
rise out of their present ordeal.
There must be endless espionage in this town. An Austrian was found
by one of our priests at the top of a tower working a telephone, and
to the priest's question he replied that he was "sending word as to
fires," which was no doubt strictly true. If so, it is a pity that the
shots were not better directed. There is no question that the guns at
work were not Austrian but German. General Radko Dmitriev came without
delay to the town, and distributed the George medal for bravery among
the workers of the Red Cross.
_January 23._
I have been visiting some of the Regimental First Aid stations. In
principle each regiment of four battalions should have five doctors
and a captain of bearers. The bearers are selected from each company
and can be supplemented by soldiers who volunteer for this service.
They must be sound and strong; in peace time they march with their
companies, carrying the rifle, and meet for a course of instruction
twice a week. They are expected to gather under their captain before
an action and to go out to the field to pick up the wounded only
at night time, or after the action is over. In the present war it
is seldom possible to maintain the full complement of regimental
doctors. As battles have continued for weeks on end, it has been quite
impossible to limit the bearers' work to less dangerous times; and it
has been found most convenient to send them to the trenches with their
respective companies, as they could then get to work as soon as they
were wanted, and could also know the least dangerous track from their
companies to the first-aid points. Ordinarily four bearers are assigned
to one wounded: but as the track under fire is often long and exposed,
it is sometimes necessary to send out eight men together, to carry by
turns. They are supposed to have a leader, but in practice any one
gives a lead, and if good it will be followed. The mortality in this
service is considerably higher than in the ranks, as this is largely a
war of cover, and these are the men who are most deprived of it.
Every Russian soldier is supplied with a packet containing lint, two
compresses and a fastening pin. The object of the first bandaging is
simply to stop the flow of blood and keep out dirt; and the wounded man
is bandaged on the spot by himself, some comrade, or a _feldsher_ (a
trained medical assistant), one of whom is in the trenches with each
company.
During the seventeen days of fighting on the San, the wounded had to
be carried by relays over a long exposed slope and in many cases over
the river. It was found possible to divide the distance into different
sections; but the workers in each section were under fire, and so was
the regimental point, which might sometimes be in a hut, but was more
often a patch of open ground, with a tent stretched over it, or with no
covering at all. There were instances where wounded and bearers alike
were crushed by a shell on their road; for the Austrians poured endless
artillery volleys on to given points. For all that, when the Russian
trenches were examined after the battle, it was found that the bearers'
work had been carried out completely, and that all the wounded had been
removed.
The tremendous mortality of this war has put a specially hard strain on
this service. Yet it is one of those which it would be most difficult
to supplement with volunteers. Untrained men would be almost certain to
be killed off soon; and indeed the appearance of bearers on the field
is at once an indication to the enemy of the positions of the troops.
It has been found quite impossible, with the present range of
artillery, to keep the regimental points in security. The work has
therefore to be dispatched with the greatest expedition. The regiments,
for mobility, dispense with any superfluous material and appliances
and send their patients as soon as possible to the divisional lazaret,
where the first really serious treatment is received.
Lazarets further back have often, as I have previously mentioned, been
under fire. Austrian prisoners tell me that they have often seen
their artillery fire on field hospitals; and from Russian observation
points it has several times been noticed that the Austrian fire has
been opened on what could only be a hospital field train. One of the
subjects discussed with me by wounded officers of both sides is the
possibility of securing further respect for the Geneva Convention
and even a further definition of its regulations; but at present the
overpowering stress under which we all live seems to be carrying us to
the total disregard of any limitations at all.
_January 27._
After a talk with the Divisional General, I set out for a visit to the
regiments at the front. My orderly told me with pride that this was the
best fighting Division in the army; certainly it has that reputation in
other quarters and has three times in this campaign done decisive work
against superior odds. It has rushed the Austrians from point to point,
and would do so still unless they had taken refuge in the hill country
before the Carpathians, where every hill has to be won in turn. Its
General, an old man full of fire and energy, has received three wounds,
which, as he says, make for him a calendar of the war.
The way lay between pleasant fir-clad hills, and late in the evening
I reached the X regiment, with quite a good-sized house for its
headquarters. The Colonel, who was very simple and businesslike,
lived with his staff in the dining-room by a kind of half-light and
with picnic fare, of which, as always in Russia, much more than his
share was pressed upon the guest. The talk was that of comrades at
serious work. These men will all go to the end, but they don't find it
necessary to say so. When one said something about finishing at Berlin,
a young officer put in with a smile: "Do you know, if we do, I expect
none of us will be alive by then?"
I spent the night in the regimental doctor's hut, and next day went off
to the artillery observation point. It was a clear day and we could
see not only our own lines and the enemies', but also some of the
Austrians walking about near their trenches. A shell from us sent them
scattering back into their burrows, and our guns were then turned on
one point after another, the shells, as we could see, always exploding
on or very close to the object aimed at; this day, there was only a
half-hearted reply. The following day, I saw the guns themselves at
work; the place of the battery was not likely to be located. It is very
seldom during the war that a Russian battery has been silenced by the
enemy. The Austrians, on the other hand, often place their guns on the
crests of hills and have suffered severely from the accuracy of the
Russian artillery, which is one of the striking features of the whole
campaign. There is, further, this difference, that the Russians never
fire without a target, whereas the Austrians in the most systematic
way sweep whole areas in turn, as a rule doing extraordinarily little
damage for the powder expended. One colonel suggested that the Emperor
Francis Joseph must have more money than he knows what to do with.
In the evening I set out with a party of soldiers for the infantry
trenches. With a clear moon lighting the snow-clad slopes we made our
way along the more exposed lines; there was no sign of life, though
the Austrian trenches could be seen quite near. Passing under shelter
we found the Russian mud huts, which take only three or four hours to
make and give good cover from weather, bullets and shrapnel, but not
from bombs. We sat for some time in an angle of the entrenchments; here
several bombs had fallen close to a very exposed hut, in which however,
the inhabitants still remained. We passed the night in another hut,
which we could only enter in the dark for fear of drawing the enemy's
fire. The scouts came in for instructions, headed by a young volunteer
who was doing his first work of this kind. Voices went on long into the
night; reports came in from various points. The scouts returned about 3
a.m. They had come on a body of Austrians double their force in a wood;
they let themselves be nearly surrounded, then threw a hand-grenade
with effect and scrambled back to our lines; as the whole Austrian line
opened fire the reconnaissance had achieved its object, which was to
ascertain whether the enemy had made any changes in his positions. In
the early morning appeared an Austrian officer who had made his way
across to us. He was smiling so broadly that I saw his smile before I
saw the man. He was a Ruthenian and was married to a Serbian, so that
all his sympathies were long since on our side; his wife was already
under Russian rule in conquered Galicia, and his own great wish was to
fight in the Serbian army. The Russian officers made him completely
at home at once, putting their breakfast and their servants at his
disposal; when a few hours later another Ruthenian fugitive arrived,
our last-found ally helped to make him feel comfortable, stroking his
face and relieving his apprehensions, amid the broad smiles of the
Russian soldiers.
The day we spent under the fire of 180 bombs, which fell often along
the line of the entrenchments, but only wounded some five or six men.
It was very unpleasant for the infantry to have to sit under this
alarming noise, and certainly the men would infinitely have preferred
to attack. From the Austrian side no other sign was made, and there was
no such mark as the Russian artillery or infantry think it worth while
to fire at.
In the evening I was coming back on horseback in the twilight when a
shell fell on the road close in front of me. This was the last as far
as I was concerned, and I slept in comfort at the first-aid point of
the regiment.
_January 29._
On my way to the H regiment I had to pass over a commanding plateau,
and from hence, looking backward, I could see endless and intermingling
lines of wooded hills with the main masses of the Carpathians in the
far distance. I commented to my orderly on the beauty of the view, and
as usual when I made any pointless remark, he replied courteously, "I
understand," which meant "I don't."
Shrapnel was falling by a fir-wood on the crest, and we took a lower
road to the regimental staff. The Colonel was a soldier of an English
type, with a grace which I have seldom seen in a man. Altogether, minds
seem more at ease at the front than anywhere else in Russia; there is
the fullest consciousness of heavy losses and of straining conditions,
but all this seems only to make every-day life more simple. There was
a strange incident after lunch: one of the regimental doctors had just
gone out of the door when he was bitten by a mad dog that was running
wild in the woods, and the place had to be burnt out with a hot iron.
One comes on many "extras" of this kind, which have nothing to do with
the war but seem to fit themselves into it.
When twilight was come, I made another of these foot-pace rides over
frozen fields and gullies to the lines of the regiment. Halfway, by
some trees and a stream, we met a very young soldier who reported the
presence of "Free Austrians" in a neighbouring hut. These turned out to
be only the local peasants; and my orderly, who was an old soldier, was
very outspoken with his rebuke. We soon reached a hut, containing two
commanders of battalions, with a young officer who seemed to me a type
of that fearlessness that I have seen everywhere in the Russian army.
They wanted to give away all their chocolates and other luxuries, and
sent guides to take me to the trenches.
We had to climb one of the steepest hills I have ever gone up.
Fortunately it was covered with light scrub: otherwise I should never
have got to the top, for the frozen and clouted soil was so slippery
that one slid back at every step. Yet up this hill the Russian troops
had gone at night under the fire of the defending Austrians not many
days before, and I was told that the ground was then in even worse
condition. The storming of these hills one after the other calls for
the most reckless courage; but this kind of task is the favourite work
of the Russian soldier.
Halfway up, we took an "easy" in the mud hut of a superior officer. We
sat together in the straw with our toes to the stove, and, as is often
the case, the talk was not about the war at all, but about the human
things that most interest the Russian mind: about the characters in
Russian literature and the future of Russia. Naturally there is also a
good deal now to be said about England; and nowhere more than in the
trenches does one notice how every one wishes to give us the best word,
just as the guest receives the best of the fare. England's share in the
war was put to me, with a real thought and kindness, much better than
I could have put it myself. In these rough surroundings where ordinary
comforts must all be dispensed with, there is nothing that makes them
seem so unnecessary or that so stamps the character of officers and men
alike, as a certain delicacy of mind which seems to me the ideal of
good breeding.
Reaching the top we went over some ground which by day was almost
impassable and was covered with huge holes made by shells, and I slept
in an officer's mud hut just behind the trenches, where the five of
us lay literally packed in like sardines. Some shells fell during
the night; but the Austrians did not ordinarily open a regular fire
till ten in the morning. The last few days they had covered the brow
of this hill with shells. A hut standing on the summit and some farm
buildings in a hollow behind had been smashed to bits. To-day there was
a fog, so that even the Austrians did not make their usual aimless
cannonade. But they sent us in the course of the day what might be
called a mixed packet: the mortars, field and mountain artillery
machine guns and rifles all coming into play at one time or other. In
particular there were chance rifle shots on all sides. The Russian
trenches, despite the concentrated fire of the last few days, had
suffered very little; and here as elsewhere it appeared that, though
only explosive shells are effective against entrenchments, even they
are comparatively harmless. This day I was able to pass along the
front of the regiment and even further forward. My general impression
was that the Russian superiority is so great that all neutral ground
may almost be reckoned as Russian. The Russians are always ready to
venture into this unknown land; the Austrians, on the contrary, expect
attacks from all sides, answer every isolated shot with a wild volley,
and are ready to fire at anything, even a fog. Two or three Austrian
soldiers came across; they were loutish youths, not like soldiers, and
had only quite recently joined the colours; there have been instances
of prisoners who did not know to what regiment they belonged and had
not yet received their rifles. I was present while the Colonel examined
some prisoners, and the tale they told of the conditions in the
Austrian trenches was pitiable: water in the trenches, thin coats and
ridiculously ineffective boots, constant diarrhoea from eating fresh
meat; the roughest treatment from the officers (nearly all Germans),
who themselves avoided all danger and privations; a Hungarian battalion
at one time put to discipline them and shots fired at them from behind;
regiments reduced to a quarter of their strength, boy recruits without
any training, discordant elements in a given regiment, a general and
growing resentment against Germany and the German Kaiser, a keen
longing for peace, and an almost epidemic desire to surrender. This is
the consequence of six months' punching, which has, however, cost heavy
losses to the Russians.
_February 4._