with England. His quick resourceful mind and his ties with men in all
departments of Russian politics and public life here have for years
been mobilised to this object, which is the mainspring of all his great
and untiring efforts. He has never lost heart when events went against
him or when some favourite plan was blocked, and was always ready for
another go. He is a good man and a brave man.
War has brought Wiggins and me together in novel surroundings. He has
a liking for all that is venturesome and an innocent predilection for
anything that partakes of conspiracy. Wiggins sits and collects all the
military telegrams from the different fronts, including the western;
Wiggins reads, answers and transmits private telegrams from Russia to
other countries. Wiggins goes through the letters found in the enemy's
trenches, and his staff is competent to deal with all the Babel of
languages of Austria. Wiggins interrogates the prisoners and fixes
the movements of the enemy's troops; there is a delightful caricature
of him, standing like a wild boar at bay, among a crowd of gaping
Austrians. Wiggins looks after the aeroplanes; and sometimes goes
himself on the most perilous of scouting expeditions. On one of these
I found with him a man of the most quaint simplicity, an artist, who
used to sit down between the lines and sketch the enemy's positions.
He described with an impersonal unconcern how the bullets passed him.
"But what do you do when you have finished?" I asked. "Oh, I go on to
another position." "But surely it is very dangerous work?" "Yes, I
suppose there are about ninety-nine chances in a hundred of my getting
killed; but I haven't any children. I should rather like to do my work
from an aeroplane; I think that would be safer."
"Wiggins" asked my help in reading some of the letters from the
trenches. One way or another, I have seen a good many of these. The
great thing that strikes me is that they are so good--that the war
after all brings out the best of every one. The Italian letters (of
soldiers in the Austrian army) are particularly graceful and pretty;
but then most Italians are gentlefolk. One writes: "I hear that T. is
a prisoner and with the Russians and that they are much better off
than in the line of fire." Another, hoping for the end of the war by
Christmas, writes: "For the Babe Jesus we hope for peace." "Angelina"
writing to "Carissimo Gustavo" ends thus: "If we are meant to be
married, few letters are enough; and if we are not, no letters are any
use."
I came out on the muddy little square and to my surprise caught the
notes of a melody that was for many years prohibited in Poland. It was
"Poland is not ruined yet," the battle-song of the Polish legions that
fought under Dombrowski against Russia for Napoleon and for Polish
independence. The words were different but not in spirit; they were
the famous "Slavs come on." I was surprised, because I was in purely
military surroundings at the staff of our army. But the men who were
singing were all Slavs of non-Russian origin, they were a military
unit in Russian uniform and marched round the square in front of Radko
Dmitriev, who, with all others present, stood to the salute. To these
troops he then distributed crosses and medals of the George for signal
bravery, and they sang him another Slavonic air, a Bulgarian hymn
in honour of himself. Behind him stood a number of Czech (Bohemian)
prisoners; and the troops next played the Bohemian salute and the Czech
National Hymn; some of the prisoners were in tears. Turning to them,
the General said that as Slavs they could have no doubt as to the
welcome that awaited them in Russia, where all that was possible would
be done for their comfort, and that when the war was over they would
return home, and he hoped that they would find their country free. The
last words were, at his desire, repeated to them by the interpreter.
No wonder that the Slavs of Austria are coming over in great masses
and begging for employment on the Slavonic side; while the fictitious
unity of Austria, a mechanism for turning to German uses a country
which is three-quarters Slavonic, is crumbling before the eyes.
German ambitions are being reduced to count only on the services of
instruments that are really German.
_March 9._
I crossed the river and followed the line of the entrenchments. The
men were resting in the evening before their earth-burrows. I passed
along to the corner of our positions; in the half-light one could
stand on the earthworks and see without being shot at. The enemy, who
were Hungarians, were only six hundred yards off. Between the two
lines ran a broad causeway built in time of peace, part of a great
dam of which sections are occupied by us and other sections by the
enemy. Here, where for a short distance it becomes neutral, all sorts
of queer things are possible. Our scouts can pass under partial cover
along either side of it, and constantly do so. The enemy makes no
counter-moves; his advance sentries stand only just outside his wire
entanglements, and creep in and report the moment they see any movement
outside; he does not even open fire. The Russian soldier, who here, as
elsewhere, has a complete moral and physical superiority, goes out on
little night raids, sometimes in small companies, sometimes alone, to
hear the conversation of the enemy, which if Slavonic can be readily
understood by him, or, still better, to catch a "tongue," that is, to
bring home a captive sentinel for information. This is why the enemy's
sentries retreat. If fire were opened, it would only tell the Russians
just what they want to know, namely, in what strength the positions are
occupied.
I should like to have stayed here, but there were other things to see;
so, with a soldier guide, I passed over some flat, marshy ground to
a forward angle of our lines. We found our way by passing the field
telephone through our hands, which is also a good means of seeing that
it is in order. In the dusk, with the sense of danger and mystery
around us and stray bullets sometimes coming from the enemy, my
companion spoke in short and simple sentences, of which one would like
to have preserved every word. "He" (the German) must be having a bad
time; why doesn't he see it? We are drawing in on him from all sides;
the Austrians will be no use to him; they are nervous and fire at
everything, and seldom hit anything; our people only fire to hit.
In a stone cellar with nothing above it, for the whole village was
destroyed soon after it was taken, there are gathered the officers of
the battalion. The commander, Lukich, is a genial, communicative man
who has knit them all together into a little family; indeed, two of the
captains are cousins, and the commander has living with him in his mud
hut his nephew, a boy of fifteen, who has been allowed to spend his
holidays at the war. Not many of those who set out for the war are left
now, and that alone makes a closer brotherhood among the rest. They all
smile at Lukich's inventiveness and resource, and are all very fond of
him.
Lukich gives elaborate instructions for the night's scouting. Pavel
Pavlovich, whose turn it is to go, is a splendidly built man with a
great head and big brown eyes: "an ideal fighting man," I am told. He
is down with a very bad chill, and reports himself quite unfit. Lukich
says that he always has to send out sick scouts. "Don't laugh," says
Pavel Pavlovich; "I can hardly keep on my legs." However, without
further words he gets ready for his night's job. Half-an-hour later he
appears in a long white dressing-gown which hangs carelessly over his
huge figure, and with him are thirty picked men--for there are always
plenty of volunteers for this work--drawn from different companies. All
are clad in white, and when first I stumbled on them in the darkness,
though I knew they were there, I took them for a row of posts. Lukich
made them a little speech, telling them that some one from their
English allies had come to see them and that he hoped they would do
well.
Their job was to crawl some one thousand yards, to overhear the
conversation in the enemy's trenches and judge of the numbers there,
to catch a sentry if possible, to cut through some of the wire
entanglements, and, above all, to throw some hand-grenades into the
Austrian lines. Each man had a definite task; the bomb-throwers were
trained men, and several carried huge scissors for cutting wire. As the
Austrians sometimes pass an electric current through the wires, these
scissors often have wooden handles.
The men passed at once into the darkness, and we waited on the line of
our trenches. Nothing happened for some time. Various figures appeared
from the neutral ground: sentries and patrols, who gave the impression
that all this ground was Russian. At last, at the request of a soldier,
we took cover (the soldiers are always trying to put their officers in
greater safety than themselves), and directly afterwards there was a
big thud, and flash went the first bomb. The next moment the Austrians
were shooting wildly in all directions; but very soon after the firing
had died down the second bomb went up, followed by another excited
discharge from the enemy. This showed that our scouts had stayed close
outside the Austrian lines; and among those around us, too, there was
a sort of buoyant audacity. "They'll come away now?" I asked. "Oh no;
they've several more bombs with them;" and soon after the calm of night
had returned up went No. 3. We waited till six bombs had been lodged
in this way, and each time there was the same nervous discharge of
musketry, bullets flying everywhere, but no one being hit.
After a time Pavel Pavlovich came back, as if from a football match. He
had left a reserve in the rear, sent watchers in various directions,
and taken the rest forward. Not a man was hurt, and every detail of
his instructions had been carried out. Pavel Pavlovich was a different
man, full of life and spirits; and, to complete his satisfaction,
there appeared in our cellar at this very moment his nearest friend, a
brother officer wounded earlier in the war through the head and only
to-night returned to the regiment. "We must leave those two alone,"
said Lukich; "they are like man and wife, and no one will get a word
out of either of them."
_March 11._
The staff of the V regiment was in the usual hut, clean, comfortable
and decorated with religious pictures, as most of these Polish cottages
seem to be. It was the usual family party, the little colonel being
a sort of paterfamilias, the major a kind of uncle, and the younger
men like cousins of different degrees. It was very interesting when
the reports came in from other parts of the huge front and the day's
changes were filled in on the maps--as usual, on the whole satisfactory.
The colonel of artillery was a bronzed man whose face was a mixed
suggestion of a raven and of a kind Mephistopheles. He was a strong
Conservative, and had friendly discussions with the chronicler of
the regiment, a highly cultivated Liberal with a beautiful voice and
the features of a youthful Mr. Pickwick. The war brings all sorts of
political views together, and the exchange is always free, equal and
without rancour.
When I got to know these good people, I told them I thought they spent
a lot of time in copying out verses. "Position warfare"--standing
in the trenches--is not an eventful life; and while I was with the
regiment three sets of verses were put on the machine and circulated to
the battalions. One of these, with a number of jokes about "Wilhelm,"
was written by a soldier in the ranks; and another was the composition
of a non-commissioned officer, also of this regiment. This second was
headed by the word which is in every one's thoughts here, "Forward,"
and contained one verse which had almost the smoothness and simplicity
of Pushkin, and is, therefore, not for translation. The third set came
from Pickwick Junior, and I give a rough rendering of it which, I am
afraid, only spoils it--
Now in this year of heavy trial
Happy is he who for his land
Has passed at price of self-denial,
Into the heroes' shining band--
Who of his hopes and love the whole
On his dear country has bestowed,
With all the ardour of his soul,
His highest aims, his mind, his blood.
'Twill pass, the battle and its blare;
'Twill sink, the endless crash of guns;
And, in their place, the burning prayer
Of mothers orphaned of their sons.
The meadows will be green again,
The corn will ripen on the plain.
The spite of war will pass away,
And happy peace once more will reign.
These are the simple thoughts that are in most people's minds here--the
more so the nearer one is to the front. There one finds least of all
doubt of the blessings of peace, and least of all doubt of the need to
go to the end, and of the certainty of the final result. But Russia has
done and is doing a giant's task, and one will meet cripples at every
turn for many a year to come.
My friends possessed an interesting little book in a black paper
binding which they kindly lent to me. It was the song-book of the
German army, which, with a soldier's Prayer-book, is carried in every
German knapsack. It is called "War Song-book for the German Army,
1914," and was issued by the Commission for the Imperial Book of
Folk-songs. Roughly, about the ten best things in German patriotic
and military song are to be found here, with a few of the best-known
folk-songs and a number of inferior ditties which vainly attempt to be
light. Prussia has more than her share, for there are very few good
Prussian songs, though such as there are are military. "Fredericus Rex"
and "Als die Preussen marschirten vor Prag"--surely an unfortunate
reminiscence in the present war--are both historic and have the
merit of plainness. The year 1813, a year of liberation and not of
aggression, gives three magnificent songs: "The God that bade the
iron grow," by Arndt, and "Lützow's wild hunt" and the "Sword Song"
of Körner, the latter written a few hours before the author of "Lyre
and Sword" met his death in a cavalry charge at the battle of Dresden.
But, of course, I expected also to find--and am sure that I should
have found in God-fearing 1870--the same writer's "Prayer in Battle,"
one of the most real and masculine of hymns, and his soul-stirring
"Landsturm." As to the omission of the "Landsturm," an Austrian
prisoner explained it to me by saying, "This is no war of liberation."
Of the less specially national songs there is Schiller's magnificent
picture of the soldier of fortune, "Wohlauf Kameraden aufs Pferd, aufs
Pferd," some of the verses of which have certainly been too faithfully
followed in Poland. One finds also the top thing in German war lyric,
"I had a trusty Comrade" of Uhland--a word-perfect poem which I shall
always associate with the Saxon grave outside Saint-Privat where I
heard it sung by veterans of 1870. There is also the simple trooper's
song "Morgenrot"; I should have put in "Die barge Nacht," but one verse
is certainly too plain-spoken for present German hopes. Martin Luther's
"Safe stronghold"--"Now thank we all our God," sung by Frederic's
soldiers on the battlefield of Lützen--and the Evening Prayer--these
are the other best things in the collection; but it is spoilt by the
unnecessary and improbable allusions to the successful wooing of French
and Russian damsels, and beer is too much mixed up with Bible.
I left my friends singing. The Raven, with a plaintive and sentimental
look, was with bent head putting in his bass to the admirable tenor
of Pickwick Junior. My own contribution was about the "leaders"
who "marched with fusees and the men with hand-grenades" (British
Grenadiers). One scout, who usually works alone, had taken an
unexploded Austrian shell back into their very lines, made a small
bonfire round it, and was waiting outside for it to explode; but the
result, when I left, was not yet known.
_March 13._
I have just visited "The Birds," a very tight place for the Russian
soldier to sit in. I was in this part once before, for it was here
that Dr. Roshkov set up his tent, or, to be more exact, his earthwork
bandaging room in the foremost trenches.
The divisional general was kindness itself; for I stumbled on him in
the darkness by opening a wrong door, and his revenge was to ask me
in and offer me a bed. The next day I visited the divisional lazaret,
where an English lady, Miss Kearne, is working with admirable skill
and devotion for the Russians. Nearly all the wounded came from "The
Birds," and nearly all had been wounded while sitting in the trenches
or looking through the embrasures--that is, without taking any risks,
which in "The Birds" all are strictly forbidden to court.
One soon felt one was coming to a warm place. The driver of my army
cart explained that the open space over which we were passing was often
covered with stray bullets, and there, sure enough, were the Austrian
trenches just across the river. The village on our side had a high
church, now smashed by the Austrian fire into an imposing ruin. Around
it the shells continue to fall freely, and women and children going for
water along the village streets are sometimes hit by stray bullets.
Roshkov and his comrades have been sent to another part of the front;
but a Red Cross "flying column" from the Union of Russian towns is
working here under fire, and I met one of its students on horseback
taking wounded to the rear.
I delivered a greeting from England to the scouts who were drawn up in
the village, and then set off with their leader for the advance posts
across the river--as I may say, "The Birds Proper." The chief scout
was almost a boy, who had joined the army as a volunteer only at the
beginning of the war. He was a Musulman, with a most determined face
and a manner of complete ease and indifference. He explained that we
were passing over ground often swept by the fire, and added casually,
"You've a bad coat; it is fur-lined; the fur might stick in your wound
and give you lockjaw, so that you would probably die." Whether he was
right or not I have no idea. The soldiers who accompanied us insisted
on walking above the covered way, until we told them that we should
join them unless they came down to us.
At last we passed some trenches and came out into the open above the
river. It is the peculiarity of "The Birds" that we hold a strip of
land across the river a mile and a half long, but nowhere more than 300
yards deep. When the Russians rectified their line after the advance
to Cracow, they decided to retain certain vantage-points of this kind;
however cramped the position and however difficult the conditions of
defence, the advantage will be felt when, as on the San earlier, the
time comes for another move forward. These advanced lines are connected
with our side by bridges which are constantly under fire, as the
favourite offensive of the Austrians is a hail of artillery; yet they
have never succeeded even in endangering the communications, and their
frequent musketry fire is disregarded.
We were able this time to cross the bridge at a walk, and passed along
the lines, guesting with different officers, and ultimately taking up
our quarters in a spacious earth hut ten yards from the front, which
was protected by a high line of excellent earthworks. One advanced
post which we visited was only sixty yards from the enemy, and in
general the distance from trenches to trenches was 400 to 200 yards.
Artillery fire is seldom brought effectively to bear here, but a
shower of bullets is kept up, mostly explosive, as one can tell from
their splutter; and the enemy have made machines for lodging bombs of
various kinds at this short range within our trenches. There is little
work for scouts here; the distance is too short, and the opposing
sentries are often not more than twenty-five yards from each other. My
young host reassuringly mentioned that shrapnel would penetrate our
roof, and in the night there was the constant thud of bullets striking
against our shelters, while often our door was lit up by the reflection
of the frequent rockets sent up by the enemy. Inside, however, our
accommodation was first-rate, and we soon slept soundly.
Next morning we went along the front line. The men were everywhere in
their places, this line being fully occupied day and night. I had been
told I must not stand anywhere behind an embrasure, so we took our view
in peeps, mostly from the side. At one point we looked over the top of
the works, with the result that there was an immediate volley. One man
had been wounded by a bomb in the night, and another was shot through
an embrasure, as the shadow made by a head at once draws fire. Some
soldiers were busy making little mirrors, so as to see from the side;
another had made a bomb-throwing machine out of an Austrian shell,
which he fired off in front of us, the officer first calling out to two
exposed soldiers, "Here, Beard and Black Collar, get out of the way!"
One man's hand was shot through an embrasure.
The most difficult part of the lines was on one of the flanks, where
they passed close to the river and were separated from the Austrians
at one point by a distance of only twenty-five yards. Earlier it was
worse. The two lines were eight yards apart, the bayonets actually
crossed over the earthworks, and the Austrians held their rifles over
their heads in order to fire down into the Russian trenches. At that
time a flank fire also swept these trenches, which were now protected
by many transverses. Yet I found the men perfectly cool and natural,
just going about the work as they would have done any other.
The bridge on our return was only under a partial fire; but the enemy
was again heavily shelling the village.
_March 15._
From "The Birds" I passed on to a rather similar position occupied by
another regiment. In this case only a small section beyond the river
was held, and the Austrian trenches were at a distance of 800 to
1000 yards. This meant a good deal of difference. The enemy was not
pestering the advance posts with bombs at short range and incessant
musketry fire. The approach was again over a plain bare except for some
patches of trees, and there was again a lofty church, this time of
particularly handsome outlines, ruined by the Austrian artillery fire.
From afar its two towers looked like severed and half-twisted stalks.
The Austrians evidently feel sure that all churches are observation
points for the Russian artillery. In this they are quite wrong. The
Russians in general avoid all such use of churches; I know of many
cases in this war in which churches have figured as points of vantage,
but always for the Austrians. In more than one case, after the Austrian
retreat, telephones for spy's communications have been found attached
to the altars, and once a priest was caught at this work.
We left our horses at a ruined building and crossed the bridge. The
advanced works were deep and well constructed but, as at "The Birds,"
the trenches were often full of water, and one had to walk along them
frog-wise with a foot pressed against each side. This did not affect
the actual shelters of the officers and men, which were dry and fairly
comfortable, with lots of straw. One could look through the embrasures
or even in some parts over the top of the works, without being likely
to confuse the Austrian lines with the Russians as one did at "The
Birds." At one place, however, there was an unusual sight. A covered
way actually ran without interruption direct from the one line to the
other and was often used by the scouts of either side. At the Russian
side it came right up to the wire entanglements and the rampart, and
here there were always stationed sharpshooters with loaded rifles
commanding it for about fifty yards. The enemy's lines were, of course,
very plainly visible.