naturally drawn as by a magnet to work being as near as possible to
the actual front. Different people show this in different ways; some
are restless, some are evidently there in thought, others keep it to
themselves as an intimate purpose which they only mention when their
desire is to be satisfied. Often this satisfaction is long in coming,
even when it has long been worked for and seems quite near. F., a
quiet, self-contained young man, asked leave to go off with the bearers
in the hope of learning how to help later in carrying the wounded, and
I saw him ride off in his grey mantle with set face; but that time
he got no further than the regimental headquarters. K., one quiet
evening, told me how all was arranged for regular volunteer work in the
trenches, but everything is still uncertain and he will anyhow have to
wait for some weeks.
The fact is that this creditable straining after the most dangerous
work of all, for it is more dangerous than that of the soldiers in the
firing line, does not easily fit in with the requirements of the army.
There are certain dangers which it is madness to court, not only in
one's own interest but in that of others, and especially of the troops
themselves. For instance, a body of volunteer helpers would simply by
their appearance indicate the positions of the troops and draw the fire
of the enemy, and would probably have to return without any wounded.
Such experiments have been made with doubtful success. It is only by
following the wishes of the commanders, and learning from them how and
when help can be given, that any good can be done; and this means that
it is necessary to stand near to some given military unit and earn the
confidence of its chief.
A few days ago I had a chance meeting with a few men in rough winter
coats, who came in together and sat down to a hasty meal. They were of
different ages, but all bore the stamp of the simple seriousness of the
front. It was the same with their talk. We discussed the meaning of
this war for the Russian soldier--that is, for the Russian peasant--and
I expressed my conviction that this war is one of the greatest stages
in history, in the manifestation of the true qualities of the Russian
people to Europe. The quietest of the party, a middle-aged doctor,
intervened to say that this idea pleased him; the Russian seemed
uncultured because he took less thought for comforts and contrivances,
but all his care was for the biggest things of all; the scope of his
vision might indeed help to broaden the heart of Europe; and it was
good to feel that all this quiet and selfless heroism would not go for
nothing.
I learned that these men belonged to the most famous and the most
forward of the Red Cross organisations. No. 14 is headed by a military
man; it has three doctors, several students and 130 soldier-bearers.
It was the first to attach itself to a given Division, and, by waiting
for its chances and always keeping close up, it has so far made the
most interesting experiments in volunteer help. I expressed my respect;
but my acquaintances hastened to tell me that the reports of their work
were highly exaggerated, and they gave me a plain prose picture of what
they did and of things that might be done.
Yesterday I paid a visit to No. 14. They were in clean quarters in a
little scattered village in the snow some five miles from the front.
They had good quarters for first aid and some twenty very practical
carriages for the transport of the wounded. The soldier-bearers were
drawn up in line and received a message of thanks for their work from
the General. Six of them, and two of the students, had the George medal
for bravery, bestowed for their work on the San.
Travelling on to the regimental staff, we entered the atmosphere of
which I have written above. The regimental surgeon described with
enthusiasm the work of No. 14, especially when the regiment was in
movement; at such times he could not have possibly coped with his work
alone. He himself was forbidden by the regulations to work further
forwards.
Somewhat farther on stood a village, with a lofty church that had been
struck by several shells. To appear beyond the village was at once to
draw fire, as it lay along the Dunajec, beyond which were the enemy.
There was no natural cover; but our side of the stream, which is not a
broad one, was lined with a kind of embankment. However, we also held
the bridge and a bridge-head on the other side. As this bridge-head
was faced and flanked by the enemy's trenches it was constantly under
the closest fire; and every night, especially when it was dark, the
bridge was under a continuous shower of bullets and shrapnel, while by
day the appearance of a single person at once called forth a volley.
We were not allowed to cross this bridge, nor was any one allowed to
come across to us, for at the time of our visit it was under rifle
fire and shrapnel. But in the earthworks beyond there has been put up
in the trenches a first-aid point with approaches from the sides and
all necessary appliances; here the wounded can be attended to and kept
under some kind of shelter till a slackening of the fire, perhaps once
in twenty-four hours, allows of their transport across the bridge; and
here at this point, prohibited to the regimental surgeon, lives, sleeps
and works Dr. Vladimir Petrovich Roshkov, who spoke to me of the quiet
heroism of the Russian soldier and of his faith in the qualities of the
Russian people.
_February 21._
After my visit to No. 14 I was laid up with a bad chill, but after two
weeks I was able to resume my journeyings.
I arrived at the N regiment in a cab, or rather did not arrive, because
we stuck in a sea of mud. The Polish cabman, plaintive but polite,
described it as an "awful drive," and seemed inclined to stay there all
night, till some soldiers came and dragged us out.
The Colonel and his two adjutants lived in the usual hut. These Polish
cottages are very clean and well furnished, with handsome stoves,
decorated roofs, sometimes a divan, and in all cases rows of religious
pictures encircled with wreaths of artificial flowers.
We had the usual telephone-interrupted night and a long talk about the
Colonel's earlier experiences in Austria. He now had in front of him an
Austrian regiment whose guest he had been when on his travels.
Next day I rode to some of the positions. One could get close up to
them without danger. We walked forward, through brushwood and swamp,
with sentries at various points, up to the rapid Dunajec. To the right
some of our positions were across the stream; to the left it was itself
the dividing line. Here there was a broken bridge, and on either
side of the break were the opposing sentries, who occasionally took
snapshots at each other at short range. The German lines and their wire
entanglements were plainly visible, but at midday the view was as bare
and desolate as the ship of the "Flying Dutchman" before the awakening.
One of the most curious things in war is the tacit convention that
develops itself illogically out of a set of circumstances entirely
novel. In open day to show oneself here is ordinarily to be killed, yet
at certain hours, fixed rather by instinct than by reason, there is an
unspoken truce of which both sides take advantage. Photographs could be
taken, and we returned in peace to the main positions.
In the evening I set out for some more distant trenches where the
enemy was Austrian. I stopped to take tea at a point where some of the
inhabitants were being examined. I have seen a good deal of this, and
have always found that the Russians, if anything, erred on the side
of leniency. There are undoubted communications between the lines,
but, apart from the most obvious espionage, the most that is done is
to remove suspects from the ground nearest to the trenches. We went
forward on foot in the twilight, with a good moon and a clear sky,
and with a full view of the enemy's ground, though we ourselves were
indistinguishable from our surroundings. We soon came on the trenches,
which were elaborate, deep, and for the most part dry. My host here
was one of those ideal persons who seem made for such conditions
of life. I will call him George, because he is one of the most
worthy knights of that Order of bravery. I asked him how he won this
distinction, and after starting the briefest account of a village taken
and communications secured he broke it off saying: "For execution of
orders." He was a big man with kind eyes, a manner prompt and natural,
and the simplest address to his soldiers.
It was now comparatively safe to traverse a bit of more open ground and
visit some other positions. Here again the works were excellent, and
George required some still further improvements. The men were in good
heart and vigour; and across the plain we could hear how the younger
soldiers of a neighbouring regiment were singing in lusty chorus one of
their favourite war-songs.
A voice came across from the Austrian lines which were here only a few
hundred yards off: "The Russians are singing--Peace." Answering shouts
of song came from the Austrian trenches, but they were feeble and soon
ended sharply as if by order. We made our way back in the dark to our
central entrenchments.
After a half-hour's talk on the straw in our earth hut the moon had
waned, though the stars were still shining bright all over the sky.
With a guide I passed through some trees down the slope to the river
and beyond the line of our trenches. It was reported that there were
signals and signs of movement beyond the river, and all the men were
ordered to be clothed and ready.
My guide was one of those native gentlemen who are so common among the
Russian peasants and are to be met everywhere in the army, entirely
selfless, indifferent to all danger except for others, and full of
quiet, childlike intelligence of the great issues engaged. His hand,
a strong and gentle one, was there to help my every movement with
the instinct of the most devoted of family servants. The whispered
talk came with a strange freshness, and the whole atmosphere of our
excursion was that of another world more real than our own. We entered
a dwelling where the watch sat round a smoky camp fire. There was a
brisk salute, and the answer to my greeting from England was "Very
pleasant." What they all liked to hear about was how we were preparing
new armies. "Then we'll take him on both sides," whispered my companion
as we left the watch, "and we'll surround him--the barbarian."
We crept slowly forward till we came up with the second of the two
advanced sentries, a young man crouched on his knee with rifle loaded
and ready. Here we stayed a little time, with now and then the lowest
whisper, and in front of us the rushing river, beyond which were the
sentries of the enemy; sky and air were clear. We crept on to the
forward sentry on the bank, and were crouching beside him when a
rocket went up in front of us beyond the river followed by a blaze
of light and then a second and a third. "Lie down, your nobility,"
whispered my companion, and we lay as still as we could together while
four rifle shots cracked at us. We could hear each other's breathing in
the few seconds while the blaze hung above us. We had all crawled back
to the second sentry when the rocket went up again followed by more
shots, but this time we had some little shelter. We returned and bade
"Good-night" to the Watch and lay for a while in a shelter close by,
with a whispered talk of our joint task. On the way up the hill there
were more rockets and more shots at us, but we were soon back at the
earth hut with its welcome shelter and its friendly host, and the straw
screen that served as a door shut on a good night and a sound sleep.
_February 23._
All day long we sat in our earth hut or passed crouching along
the trenches visiting the different points of observation. What a
difference a few inches make! At each more exposed point no care seemed
enough. The whole day bullets passed above us, sometimes singing--or
as George said "wailing"--about fifteen yards off, but most of them
embedded themselves in our hill, sometimes kicking away with a ricochet
or exploding. Often there were sharp salvos from several rifles at once
aimed mostly at the loopholes where our sharpshooters lay ready; men
were shot through the forehead in this way.
In the afternoon I saw a fire light up in some German trenches by the
river, and it quickly spread along their lines. A figure like an insect
stood out shovelling at the flames and some of our men shot at it; the
German passed down the slope but came again, this time going back at
a run. The flames spread further until they were at last extinguished
from below. We ourselves got nothing except bullets, and none of our
men were wounded. There was no excitement and practically no reply.
It was considered that the enemy was wasting his powder, in a nervous
fear of attack.
But all the day we saw, from our vantage-point, shell after shell
raining on neighbouring positions. At one time attention was given to
the high ground behind us, and a large hut in which I had halted the
night before went up in flames, and in a few minutes seemed to have
disappeared altogether. However, only a cow was killed, and except for
two huts I found the position unchanged when I passed back here in the
evening. No wonder that our own artillery did not deign to reply till
the evening, when it lighted up a big flame in a small town beyond the
river.
Southward across the flat ground which we had traversed in the dark
the cannonade was more furious and had more meaning. Here there was
a projecting bluff where our front came close up to the river before
receding sharply from it and taking an altogether different direction.
This was doubly an angle. It was a salient landmark in the curve of the
whole Russian line from a western front against Germany to a southern
front against Austria, and was therefore one of the points from which
the conquering Russian march through Galicia threatens the junction of
the two allies. The lie of the ground made it still more a challenge to
the enemy, as the advanced trenches on this side were opposed to a fire
from both sides and even partly from the rear. On this devoted hill the
enemy's artillery, strongly reinforced, poured an unending torrent of
shells. We could see them burst almost without interruption--the heavy
explosive shell for driving the men from their shelter followed by the
two shrapnels for catching them in the open. In all some eight hundred
shells must have been lodged on the hill on this day, and in the
evening a large hut on the top lit up like an illuminated fairy castle.
No fewer shots were fired the next day, and when I was later able to
get to this ground, it was all harrowed up with enormous holes even
in the gullies that ran crosswise through the hill itself. The men
crouched in the trenches where death threatened any exposed movement
and the falling shells often carried the works away wholesale, wounding
and killing large numbers.
A wounded officer, much loved by his men, was asked by them what they
could do to pay the enemy back, and he answered, "Sit and Wait."
This time the cannonade was not, as so often with the Austrians,
simply a nerve-stricken discharge of ammunition. When the hill, and
especially the line of our trenches, had been covered with shell, and
the defenders had been long enough reduced to a condition of paralysis
and impotence, a whole division of the gallant Tirolese advanced on the
projecting angle of the line. These are the best troops that Austria
has left, and they were opposed to parts of two Russian regiments. They
ensconced themselves at night in rifle pits on a lower ridge of the
hill, and forcing their way up found lodgment in a small wood and even
occupied some disused trenches only fifty yards from the Russians. They
planted a flag; and the fire of their artillery, which was this day
wonderfully accurate, continued to pound the Russians over the heads of
the Tirolese infantry. An attempt was made to break through the Russian
line at the point of the angle, which was also the junction of the two
defending regiments.
And now came the reply. Standing up under the cannonade the Russian
infantry, with the support of its machine guns, poured in such volleys
that everything in front of it went down. The rush to break through was
beaten out and backward, the trenches occupied by the Tirolese became
a line of corpses; no attempt was made to resist the bayonet; Russian
troops on the flank passed down towards the river and took the enemy
in flank; the whole attack, or what was left of it, rolled down the
hill, leaving 1300 corpses in the wood and in the open; a number of
prisoners, wounded and Red Cross men were left behind; and next day
retreating columns, without even their baggage, were seen marching off
into the hills beyond the river.
Prisoners told me they had not eaten for four days, and that enteric
and typhus were rampant in their trenches, which were often full of
water. They gave no good account of their officers, and they said that
both they and Tirol were sick of the war. I found many dead in the
Russian trenches, all killed by the enemy's artillery. The fire was
then intermittent, and we were still obliged to act on the defensive;
but the men were perfectly unperturbed. As a Russian private put it
when I asked him to compare the Austrian soldier with the Russian: "He
is a man, too, but we have rather more vigour, rather more boldness,
more inclination for it, and we are anyhow winning. It might be added
that we are steadier." A modest and quiet estimate enough at the moment
of a signal victory against odds and natural conditions.
_February 26._
In the bandaging-room every description of suffering is seen, and many
ways of meeting it. What strikes one most is the difference between
the Russians and the rest. In general the Russians have an altogether
stronger physique and therefore a much firmer and sounder morale.
Some of the younger men lie there under treatment as if they were
not ill at all and were simply having football injuries patched up.
Such was Alexey of Yaroslav, who kept a fine ruddy colour and chatted
away jollily about the market gardeners at Lake Nero as he arched his
broad back and had his numerous wounds attended to. He was wounded
in a scouting expedition, but crawled back of himself to the Russian
lines; and when he was carried out of the hospital he behaved like an
ordinary traveller going on a journey. He had no intention of going to
Russia and spoke of his return to the ranks as "a matter of course."
Many of these wounded write begging their officers to keep their places
open for them. Some lie glancing at their serious wounds as they are
treated, with a healthy and indifferent eye. The head wounds are the
most trying to the morale; they always make men look weak and unequal
to things. But even here the Russian temper shows itself. Ivan, a
married peasant, had two nasty holes in his head, but he talked all the
while he was being treated with a loveable simplicity, and even his
exclamations of pain were only little appeals to the sisters, full of
a natural courtesy. Once when the knife was a long time in his head,
he protested mildly, "Enough, gentlemen!" There was great alarm when
he suddenly rolled off the dressing-table on to the stone floor; but
this proved to be the turning-point in his recovery, and he was soon
afterwards joining with the others in his ward singing peasant songs.
The Armenians are sometimes a frailer people; but there was one man
with a great heart, who had both his legs smashed while bringing in an
officer from under fire; one leg had been amputated, and delay in first
aid had induced a mass of gangrene; the man was doomed; but he held
out for day after day, and nothing but a dull, strong groan escaped
him until at last he succumbed under his sufferings; to the end he was
always asking after the officer whom he had saved.
The Germans show a much greater consciousness of their wounds, but take
a quiet pride in conquering them. Will and purpose are triumphant, and
these men return sooner than others to a normal outlook on the little
businesses of life. A Tirolese, badly wounded in the head, at first
took a little too much trouble to keep up his self-respect before
strangers, but later talked away freely, though he was very troubled
that he would go back to his sweetheart with the brand of a prisoner of
war. The Austrian Germans were frailer and more gentle. Two of them in
particular, both officers, won golden opinions from all who met them.
They were men of a happy disposition, of real culture and of great
delicacy of mind. There was not the slightest difficulty in talking
with them about the war, because they bore no grudge against any one,
not even against the Emperor William, whose unwisdom they regarded as
the main cause of their country's misfortunes. These two showed the
greatest patience under treatment, talking meanwhile of their army,
literature and music, and regarding their wounded limbs as children who
were being gradually persuaded to be good.
Much the saddest sight in the bandaging-room were the little Polish
boys who had been wounded in villages during the operations, mostly by
shrapnel. There were eleven of them in the hospital, and they almost
filled one ward. They were all pretty little fellows, remarkably well
made and with something martial in their bearing; all of them wore
round their necks little silver religious medals. It was very painful
to see them minus an arm or a leg, or still worse with some body wound
which could only look natural on a full-grown soldier. Most of these
children were from ten to thirteen years of age. They were bright and
smiling in the bandaging-room, and seemed to have no more regret for
themselves than they would have had for their own broken toys. But
Poland will be covered with such after the war. There may be a renewed,
there may be a united Poland, but anyhow there will be a Poland of
cripples. That is why I continue to hear everywhere, like a burden that
ever repeats itself, the beautiful Polish national air "In the Smoke of
Fires." Its solemn tones meet one everywhere, now hummed by passers-by,
now ground out endlessly by a barrel organ. I came one day on to the
street humming it myself, when an old Pole at once, with the grace of
his nation, took off his hat and solemnly bowed to me. It is the motto
of the Polish population on whichever side of the Russian frontier; and
may the purification of which it speaks lead to happier things: for no
nationality has been tempered in a harder school than that of Poland.
Nothing could exceed the kindness of the Russian staff in dealing with
all these various patients. There is, of course, no distinction of
nationality or condition; the sisters play with the children, find all
sorts of little questions or other interests to distract the attention
of those under treatment, and bring them back to lighter mood, as soon
as the actual pain is passed. A Russian hospital, even with all the
afflictions of war, gives out an atmosphere of home of which there is
frequent mention in the letters which the prisoners send off to their
distant relations.
_March 1._
My friend "Wiggins" is a very remarkable person. Heaven knows what he
doesn't manage, and it would be difficult to say what he doesn't know.
Take England, though Wiggins has many other languages and knowledges.
Wiggins's English, learnt in childhood, is of the most daring and
comprehensive kind and runs to the writing of doggerel verse. The
history of the English Church he knows far better than most English
clergymen, and the development of the English Constitution he both
knows and understands better than some English professors. He will
write, for instance, "Please send me more books on the period of
transition from Constitutionalism to Parliamentarism." Parliamentary
procedure he has studied night after night in the Distinguished
Strangers' Gallery; and his toast when he was dined in the House of
Commons in 1909 was "to the glorious traditions of the Parliament of
Great Britain." He is very well up in all the detail of our Army and
Navy, is thought a good judge of English shorthorns, and hopes to send
his son to Winchester.