The Austrians came out in force and tried to storm the trenches. They
swarmed up to the wire entanglements--over which the Russians in
general took less trouble than the enemy, as they ordinarily have the
confidence of the aggressive--but they were beaten off with terrible
loss. Blue uniforms covered all the space between the two lines. Those
who fell nearest to the trenches were buried by the Russians without
delay; but the Austrians made no attempt to bury their dead lying
between, and their fire makes it quite impossible for the Russians to
come out for this purpose. Thus, two months after the engagement, I
saw these bodies still rotting there; it will soon be spring; and with
the two lines so close the danger of infection is pressing for both
sides. It would only need a truce of three hours to remove it, and the
Russians would gladly make this arrangement and do the work. It seems
to me one of those matters which even in this war could be dealt with
by some international association, and I have communicated the details,
through Prince Dolgorukov, to the Peace Society of Moscow.
As usual in the regiments, and more especially in the trenches, I
delivered with the wish of the colonels a greeting to the men from
England; and it is one of my chief interests, in making these visits,
to see how warmly it is returned, usually with some variant of the
Russian military response, "We are glad to do our best"--such as, for
instance, "We'll have a try together and finish him." Here the men were
particularly cordial. There was the usual interchange of news with the
officers as to the eastern and western fronts. I think I may repeat
that there is nowhere a more generous appreciation of England's work
in the war than in the front lines of the Russian army. The attack
on the Dardanelles, which promises to be the most decisive blow that
has yet been dealt, arouses the greatest enthusiasm; and the military
preparations of England, their wholeheartedness and thoroughness, are
a tremendous source of confidence to the Russians. How many times it
has been said to me: "With England with us, we know we shall make a
clean job of it." Here an officer quoted his father, who had always
told him, "Where England is, there things go right," The support is
not only moral. The spirit in the two countries is so identical that I
frequently find in my letters from England the same phrases, word for
word, as I am hearing in conversation here. But it is much more than
that; and when it becomes known how close, detailed and far-reaching is
the co-operation between the three chief Allies, I am sure that it will
be found that no alliance was ever more close or more effective.
Our reappearance on the bridge drew a few bullets. In general all this
firing has very little result, and our people do not take the trouble
to reply to it. As to artillery, I am sure they fire more than twenty
shells to every one of ours. They do it in a routine way at fixed
times for an hour, two hours or three at a time. Our artillery lets
it pass till it becomes a nuisance and then, with infinitely superior
precision, plumps a few shells straight into their lines. This sight I
have witnessed more than once from our infantry trenches, which might
be miles from our guns but were only a few hundred yards from the marks
that they aimed at. It was interesting to see the immediate rebound of
spirits among our infantry, who had been sitting almost without reply
under the aimless crash and roar of the enemy's fire. By instinct they
at once looked freely over the ramparts as privileged spectators, and
called out to each other "Got him again," as the smoke of our shells
rose from the enemy's line. At such times, indeed, the Austrian fire
stops almost immediately; and in one place, after the first Russian
shell, a commanding voice came to us from the other side: "Corporal,
cease firing."
_March 26._
The bombardment of Tarnow has continued. It is now nearly three months
that it has gone on intermittently. Yesterday I was walking along a
street when the heavy bustling goods-train sound of a big shell came
rattling close overhead. There was a crash somewhere near, and a few
soldiers who were close to us laughed and picked up a jagged segment.
The street seemed full of people at once, and all moving toward where
the shell had fallen. An old soldier with a cut face came moodily
toward me, so I took his arm and walked with the crowd, as it was
taking the direction of the chief local hospital, in which I often
worked.
I was afraid that the hospital itself was hit. Far as it was from the
railway or anything of military importance, it had more than once had
the attention of the German heavy artillery. In January, while I was in
this hospital, a shell passed over us so near as to take the breath of
the heavily-wounded Austrians who were lying there, and lodged about
two hundred yards off, reducing a house to ruins. Some weeks later
another shell lodged on an open space about 150 yards off. The Russian
sisters of mercy, under Miss Homyakov, never lost their heads for a
minute and set about reassuring the wounded; but these last, who were
themselves entirely helpless and could not distract their attention by
helping any one else, were very agitated. No one was more indignant
than the wounded Austrian officers, especially a colonel from Hungary,
who regarded the German shot as without any kind of justification.
The Russian Red Cross staff were urged from some sides to move the
hospital to a safer place, but the sisters absolutely refused, because
to transport many of the wounded would have meant death to them. The
Commander of the Army conferred the George medal on them for their
courage.
As I now neared the hospital, I saw a huge rent in the building in
front of it, which was mostly unoccupied. A whole wall of this huge
building was torn out, and the iron staircase within was twisted into
fantastic shapes. At the door of the hospital, nearly all the windows
of which were broken, stood a crowd of townspeople, mostly women and
children bringing in wounded. The operating-room was full; on one
side an old man, on another a wounded girl with blanched face, and
in an ante-room a woman with a wounded baby. Here the local Polish
medical staff works hand in hand with the Russians; and with remarkable
expedition the wounded all received first aid within half an hour.
Twenty minutes, however, had hardly passed when a second shell
banged into something else close to us. I found a little Polish boy,
previously amputated here, crouching in the corridor and shivering with
fear: I had to carry him back to his ward. Not more than 250 yards
off there was a large crowd looking at the new big shell pit (the
shell came from a 12-inch gun). In a garden lay the corpse of a girl
of twenty, terribly mangled, so that no head was to be distinguished;
and her father, running up, cried as if his heart would break and fell
beside her. The people, who are of course Austrian subjects, were
furious.
Two days later the Commandant put up posters announcing that, on the
statement of a captured Austrian officer, these guns are served by a
native of Tarnow.
Throughout the bombardment there have been hardly any Russian troops in
the town, and it is the local population that suffers. The closeness of
so many shell pits near the hospital suggests that this is one of the
regular "numbers" or aims of the German artillery.
_March 30._
The fall of Przemysl, which will now no doubt be called by its Russian
name of Peremyshl, is in every way surprising.
Even a few days before, quite well-informed people had no idea that
the end was coming so soon. The town was a first-class fortress, whose
development had been an object of special solicitude to the late
Archduke Francis Ferdinand. Of course it was recognised that Peremyshl
was the gate of Hungary and the key to Galicia; but, more than that, it
was strengthened into a great point of debouchement for an aggressive
movement by Austro-Hungary against Russia; for the Russian policy
of Austria, like her original plan of campaign, was based on the
assumption of the offensive. It was generally understood that Peremyshl
was garrisoned by about 50,000 men, that the garrison was exclusively
Hungarian, and that the commander, Kusmanek, was one of the few really
able Austrian commanders in this war. The stores were said to be enough
for a siege of three years. The circle of the forts was so extended as
to make operations easy against any but the largest blockading force;
and the aerodrome, which was well covered, gave communication with the
outside world. An air post has run almost regularly, the letters (of
which I have some) being stamped "Flieger-Post." As long as Peremyshl
held out, the local Jews constantly circulated rumours of an Austrian
return, and the Russian tenure of Galicia remained precarious. The
practical difficulties offered to the Russians by Peremyshl were very
great; for the one double railway line westward runs through the
town, so that all military and Red Cross communications have been
indefinitely lengthened.
My friend "Wiggins" did his part toward the taking of Peremyshl. The
air-postmen, on their long journey to the fortress, are often shot at
and sometimes brought down. An Austrian airman found himself compelled
to descend on our ground; "Wiggins" sent a cart to be ready for him as
he alighted, and that night all his papers were worked through. Among
them was the now well-known army order of Kusmanek, announcing that the
only way of safety lay through the enemy's lines, and that the men must
conquer or die. But side by side with it was a letter from an Austrian
staff officer to his wife. He explained that he took this opportunity
of eluding the military censor, that a sortie was determined on, but
that it was not likely to succeed, and that as to danger his wife need
not feel anxious, as the staff did not go into the firing line. Word
was sent off at once to the blockading army to expect the sortie.
For weeks past the fortress had kept up a terrific fire which was
greater than any experienced elsewhere from Austrian artillery.
Thousands of shells yielded only tens of wounded, and it would seem
that the Austrians could have had no other object than to get rid
of their ammunition. The fire was now intensified to stupendous
proportions and the sortie took place; but, so far from the whole
garrison coming out, it was only a portion of it, and was driven back
with the annihilation of almost a whole division.
Now followed extraordinary scenes. Austrian soldiers were seen
fighting each other, while the Russians looked on. Amid the chaos a
small group of staff officers appeared, casually enough, with a white
flag, and announced surrender. Austrians were seen cutting pieces
out of slaughtered horses that lay in heaps, and showing an entire
indifference to their capture. Explosions of war material continued
after the surrender.
The greatest surprise of all was the strength of the garrison, which
numbered not 50,000 but 130,000, which makes of Peremyshl a second
Metz. Different explanations are offered; for instance, troops which
had lost their field trains and therefore their mobility are reported
to have taken refuge in Peremyshl after Rava Russka, but surely the
subsequent withdrawal of the blockade gave them ample time for retreat.
A more convincing account is that Peremyshl was full of depôts, left
there to be supports of a great advancing field army. In any case no
kind of defence can be pleaded for the surrender of this imposing force.
The numbers of the garrison of course reduced to one-third the time
during which the food supplies would last; but even so the fortress
should have held out for a year. The epidemic diseases within the
lines supply only a partial explanation. The troops, instead of being
all Hungarians, were of various Austrian nationalities; and there is
good reason to think that the conditions of defence led to feuds,
brawls, and in the end open disobedience of orders. This was all the
more likely because, while food was squandered on the officers, the
rank and file and the local population were reduced to extremes, and
because the officers, to judge by the first sortie, took but little
part in the actual fighting. The wholesale slaughter of horses of
itself robbed the army of its mobility. The fall of Peremyshl is the
most striking example so far of the general demoralisation of the
Austrian army and monarchy.
Peremyshl, so long a formidable hindrance to the Russians, is now a
splendid base for an advance into Hungary.
_April 1._
I am afraid to-day, which, by the way, was Bismarck's birthday, is a
bad date to put to any anticipations as to the war. But things seem to
be taking a more definite direction than for some months past, and one
may say that the possibility of decisive events is now in sight.
If one glances along both fronts, western and eastern, one sees, I
think, only a single point at which a really decisive blow, military
and political, is possible; it is, of course, the junction on the
eastern front of Austro-Hungary and Germany. This has been clear to
every one for some time past. But one may go further. The greatest
strength of our enemies, both political and military, lies in two
parts, Prussia and Hungary; and the gap between Prussia and Hungary is
a very much wider one than the Austro-German frontier. In this gap lie
Slavonic peoples, the Czechs (Bohemians), Moravians and Slovaks, whose
representatives in arms have shown by extensive surrenders that their
sympathies are rather with us than with the enemy. A number of mountain
chains, the Carpathians, Giant Mountains, Erzgebirge and Böhmerwald,
give this group rough geographical boundaries.
Germany, under the lead of Prussia, is a powerful and compact unit
which has so far given itself heart and soul to this war. Divisions
in the future here are by no means impossible. There have been brawls
even in this war between Prussian and Bavarian troops (in the Argonne);
and it is not difficult to picture a return of the old jealousies
which less than fifty years ago put South Germany and Saxony into the
opposite camp to Prussia. Here, too, the Böhmerwald, Thüringerwald and
Erzgebirge have a traditional political and military significance; but
such divisions are not at present in sight, and can only follow on
decisive events on the western front. Prussia is at present not at all
likely to be troubled by them.
It is very different with Hungary. What an extraordinary position this
valiant people holds, drowned, as has been said, in an ocean of Slavs,
and what vigour it has shown in maintaining it. The Magyar from Asia
has planted himself on the rolling plains of the Theiss and Danube and,
though he does not inhabit the surrounding mountains, he has managed
to grip them into a strong kingdom with good geographical boundaries.
He has made himself the equal, almost the predominant partner with
Vienna and the Austrian Germans in the Austro-Hungarian state, and his
strength rests in the deprivation of the surrounding Slavs of any equal
voice in the destinies of this monarchy. He has gone wholesale for the
intimate connexion between Austro-Hungary and Germany which makes the
first an instrument of the policy of the second, with many incidental
gains to himself at the expense of the Slavs.
Now for the Magyar has come a time of reckoning. Russia, the big
brother of the Slavs and his own hereditary enemy, stands at his door.
The protecting glacis of Galicia has been torn away and Peremyshl,
the road out and the road in, has fallen. Even on the south there is
a victorious enemy, the Serbian, who has just claims on some of his
territory. To east, the sky is equally cloudy for him. Transylvania, a
mountain barrier whose loss would leave him defenceless on this side,
has a large Rumanian population, which his oppressive policy has driven
to its natural affinities; and Rumania seeks the realisation here of
her traditional ambitions.
The Russians are fighting their way from hill to hill through the
Carpathians. The Austro-Hungarian army has suffered severely in each of
the many counterstrokes which it had to attempt in the interest of the
German plan of common defence. The cavalry is practically gone and the
infantry is very exhausted. Sacrifice made to Germany at the beginning
of the war, when so many of the Austro-Hungarian guns and motors were
sent to the western front, have left their marks on the Hungarian
artillery. The Carpathians are like a fan, and might perhaps have been
held from the inside, but they have at many points been lost step by
step; and once they are crossed, the converging passes will bring the
Russians together into a compact mass on the further side.
There is one strong man in Hungary, Count Tisza, and he still reserves
his hand. He is fighting meanwhile the desperate battle of the
Austro-German connexion, to abandon which is to put Hungary at the
mercy of Russia and to sign the abdication of the Magyars' mastery over
his Slav subjects; but this seems to be the result which awaits him
almost inevitably.
Germany is for every reason bound to do all that she can to save
Hungary. But the Russian advance, whatever direction it takes, must
make an ever-widening gap between the two allies.
_April 4._
I had known the airmen for some time. Sometimes I met them discussing
sporting enterprises with their chief in the conspirative quarters
of "Wiggins." Sometimes I dropped in at their spacious lodging in
the town, where everything, meals, talk or plans, seemed to go with
a peculiar briskness and lightness; in particular there was this
touch about any of the several services which they rendered me. It
was Russian in spirit, but in manner very reminiscent of England.
Several of the airmen might be English, and one of them they call "the
Englishman."
On every fine day we see the aeroplanes above the town, and at
different points on both sides there are batteries for firing on them.
There are no longer duels of airmen on the eastern front; there were
two or three, but now they are apparently forbidden on both sides. It
was felt to be waste to lose a competent airman in order to kill one
of the enemy. This means that there is no such attempt on either side
to drive the enemy from the air, as was anticipated by Mr. Wells. Thus
on both sides the airman has come to stay, and the whole significance
of his work is not in fighting but scouting. It is, of course, far the
most valuable scout-work that can be done; altogether wider and more
far-reaching than any other kind; and there can hardly be any doubt
that in the future no Chief of Staff but will have to fly and to fly
often. On nearly every one of Napoleon's battlefields one will find
some commanding point from which he fought and won; there is no such
point at Borodino or Leipzig, but that helps to explain why these
battles were not won. Now, with the scope of operations and of pitched
battles enormously enlarged, there has come also the ideal way of
seeing.
On the other hand, the earth does not give up without a fight.
Batteries capable of any direction and almost any elevation can guard
those parts where the enemy's eye is most to be avoided. Experience on
this side shows that the airman can be kept out of such parts.
The contest is an interesting one to watch. The airman has first to
fetch inland, that is away from his own lines in order to get as much
height as possible. The guns can hit far higher than the airman will
fly, that is if they wish to see anything. The Austrian flyers are
therefore well within range, and the Russians, who take more sporting
risks, often go not much more than half the height of the Austrians.
In this connexion one must remember the infinitely greater precision
of the Russian artillery. On a fine day the buzz of the aeroplanes and
the boom of the batteries are among the most customary sounds here.
One sees the little puff of shrapnel at different points in the blue
sky; the aeroplane always makes off as soon as possible, and it is
seldom hit. It is hard to hit the motor, though I have seen an airship
which we struck on one of its cylinders; shots on the wings or tail are
seldom dangerous. The man who knows least of what is happening is the
airman himself, for the noise of his motor drowns any other.
_April 6._
Yesterday I went out to the aerodrome. I was given some breakfast in
a cottage, and saw the different types of machines while waiting for
the Chief of the Section. I was also shown the little missiles which
the Austrians and Russians respectively let fall: the Austrian is like
a pointed thermometer and the Russian is like a rounded letter-weight
with little wings. After a while there came over the high level ground
a tall man with a swinging stride and a little grizzled man whose walk
and manner spoke of quickness and decision. This last was the Chief of
the Section, and he has a great reputation among Russian airmen. Two of
the smaller machines went out scouting. One seemed at first a little
unsteady, but the other made a splendid take-off and rose like a bird;
soon one of them returned, having gone far beyond the enemy's line in
an hour and a half. My turn came next, and I was seated in a larger
machine with a most capable chauffeur, who sat in front of me. He
cried: "Contact obtained"; the men fell back for a moment, and then we
rushed smoothly along the ground, soon rising into the air. We made a
circle above the town, returned over the aerodrome, saluted our friends
and then struck away inland away from the front to get the necessary
elevation. We passed over a map of ponds and villages and copses, all
clearly marked in the bright sunshine, with the long ridge of the snowy
Carpathians to the right of us. Then we turned and swept higher over
the same ground as before straight for the lines. In front, at right
angles to us, lay the dividing river like a long, twisted ribbon, and
as soon as we neared it we swept to the right and along it. All the
different points at which I had stayed came out clear in the sunlight.
Here was the piece across the river where I had seen the scouting;
there were "The Birds" with the high ruined church behind them; further
came the smaller outpost; and in the distance lay the marshes in the
neighbourhood of the Upper Vistula. We again faced about and this time
passed right over the river which divided the hostile lines, following
it further southward by the broken bridge and to the main road, near
the point where I had sat at night among the sentries and to the hills
which had been the scene of the action with the Tirolese. But for me
the main interest of this, my first air ride, was that suddenly the
unknown land beyond the fatal line was as clearly outlined as all
that was so well known to me. Till now I had seen here a field and a
line of ramparts, there a river with trees, and there again a hill.
It is true that sometimes I had had good field-glass views of a given
landscape with signs of life, but now to the naked eye both sides were
for the first time parts of one common world, the dividing line ran
thin and almost undividing, and all was alive. There occurs to one the
notable description by Tolstoy of Nicholas Rostov looking across the
field. The wonderful and real things that that field meant were gone.
The tremendous and human struggle of all Europe was become a simple
problem of science; one had mounted to the skies and reached what
Napoleon, with his heartlessness and his seeing mind, had called "the
celestial side of the art of war." What would he have given for this
view, where his trained eye could have marked down not only the numbers
indicated by slight symptoms, but the full bearing of each, suggested
by the flash of genius so typical of him. Surely it was a measure of
magnificent consolation for the enormous widening of the area of combat.
The dull flats beyond the river rose to higher ground eastward, and
there on a high wooded plateau ran the railway dead straight, and at
one point a stationary train marked the centre of many of our troubles,
the point from which the 42-centimetre guns had been bombarding Tarnow.
As our aeroplanes flew along the river, there flicked out from a copse
a shot from a masked Austrian air-battery, posted there to keep off the
too curious eye. I was told afterwards that there were other shots, but
we did not see or hear them.