GENERAL RUSSKY’S SUCCESSOR
Dated:
WARSAW, RUSSIA,
_May 10, 1915_.
The two most simple personalities that I have met in this war are the
Grand Duke Nicholas, and the Commander who has come to the Northern
Armies to take up the post made vacant by the retirement of General
Russky. Certain business relating to desired freedom of movement in
the zone of operations took the writer to the head-quarters of General
Alexieff, which is situated in a place not very far away. Without
giving away any figures it is perhaps safe to say that the command of
General Alexieff is twice the size of that now under Field-Marshal Sir
John French on the continent. The territory occupied by the armies
commanded by him covers an enormous area, and probably up to this war
there has been no single individual in the history of the world with
such a vast military organization as that over which General Alexieff
presides as supreme dictator, subject only to the Grand Duke himself.
The whole aspect of the headquarters of which he is the presiding
genius is, in atmosphere, the last word in the modern idea of a
commanding general’s place of abode. The town in which he is living is
perhaps a model one from the point of view of the gentlemen who write
the textbooks and sketch the details of the programme and course which
should be adopted by military chiefs. The theory in the Japanese Army
was that the brains of the army should be so far away from the actual
scene of operations, that the officer would be absolutely detached from
the atmosphere of war; and that between himself and the Front there
should be installed so many nervous shock absorbers that the office
of the great chief himself should be the realm of pure reason with no
noise nor excitement nor hurrying aides to impair his judgment.
I recall a conversation I once had with Major (now Lt.-General) Tanaka,
Oyama’s personal A.D.C. “I should have liked to have been with the
General Staff,” I remarked to him, “during the Battle of Moukden.
It must have been an exciting time with you.” My friend laughed and
answered, “You would have had a great surprise, I imagine. There was no
excitement at all. How do you suppose Oyama and his staff spent much
of their time during the battle?” One naturally imagined that it was
spent scrutinizing maps and making plans, and I said this to Tanaka.
“Not at all,” he replied, “when the battle began, our work was largely
finished. It was but necessary to make an occasional change in the line
here and there, and this too, for only a few minutes of the time of the
Field-Marshal. Most of the time he and Kodame (Chief of General Staff)
were playing croquet.”
Much the same atmosphere of detachment from the activities of the
campaign may be seen to-day in the little Polish city where Alexieff
has his head-quarters, except that no one here has time for croquet.
It is a safe venture that outside of his own staff there are not fifty
soldiers in the whole town. It is in fact less military in appearance
than any city I have ever seen since I have have been in Russia. In
front of his office are a couple of soldiers, and a small Russian
flag hangs over the door. Nothing outside would lead one to believe
that within is the man in the palm of whose hand lies the fate and
movements of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of men, and at whose
word a thousand guns will spread death and destruction. In trenches
miles away, stretching through forest and along hilltops, numberless
regiments and brigades await the curt order from this building to
launch themselves against the German lines.
The man himself is as quiet and unobtrusive as are his surroundings.
Perhaps fifty-eight or fifty-nine in years with a very intellectual
face and an almost shy manner, is Alexieff, the man whom current
gossip credits with the keenest brain in the Russian field armies. As
Ivanov’s Chief of Staff, he is said to have been a great factor in the
planning and the execution of much of the Galician campaign, and those
who know him well, believe that under his direction great things will
be accomplished in Poland. The General is very quiet and retiring, and
from a very brief observation one would say that he was primarily a
man of strategy, more at home solving the intellectual problems of a
campaign than in working out tactical puzzles in the field.
The staff of the quiet unostentatious Russian who is commanding this
enormous front consists of about seventy-five members (about the same
number as Kusmanek of Przemysl fame had on his personal staff for the
defence of the city), and taken as a whole, they are most serious and
hard-working men, if their looks do not belie them. “You would be
surprised,” an A.D.C. informed me, “to know the enormous amount of work
that we all get through here. There is a lull on this front now, and
it is comparatively an easy time, but in spite of that fact we are all
of us busy from morning until night. When there is a movement under way
we do not get any rest even at nights.” One comes from Warsaw where
rumours are flying thick and fast as to German advances and Russian
mishaps, to find everything serene and calm and the general opinion of
the staff one of great optimism. For the moment the Russians are in the
trough of the sea, as it were, and all of the late news from Galicia is
not particularly favourable; but if the attitude of the staff is any
criterion, the situation is not felt to be of a critical nature, and
for the first time in months one hears officers expressing the opinion
that the war will end this year.
There is a tendency to welcome the German impetuosity of attack, for
each fresh irruption means a weakening of the enemy. The Russian
theory is that Russia can stand the losses, large as they are, almost
indefinitely, and that she is willing to take the burden of breaking
the German wave again and again if need be, knowing that each assault
of the enemy is bringing them nearer and nearer to the end of their
tether. Since the latest irruption into Galicia we hear less talk of
a Russian advance in the near future, but certainly not a sign of
discouragement in any of the high quarters. One may well believe that
this last outburst was not anticipated, but the Russians over on this
side are as ready to “play” the fish now as they were when the war
first started. It was hoped after the January-February attacks, that
the enemy was exhausted and the time was in sight when the gaff might
be of use. Now the fish has taken another spurt, and the Russians are
letting out the line again and are prepared to let it have another
fling in their waters. But they believe none the less that the enemy is
firmly hooked, and that it is merely a question of time when from sheer
exhaustion he will tire and they may begin to drive home their own
attacks.
The Russian attitude is very philosophical, and though a people who
are temperamentally not without a vein of melancholy, they take this
war with much more equanimity than one could have imagined possible.
Retreats and shifting of lines no longer create panics over here.
People are sorry. They had hoped that the Germans were nearer the
point of exhaustion, but there is not the slightest indication of
discouragement. Probably their attitude is due primarily to the fact
that they had never anticipated an easy victory nor a short war. They
knew from the start that they were in for a terrific ordeal, and what
goes on day after day, with its ebbs and its floods, is merely a
matter of the day’s work with them. They have seen again and again the
irruptions of the Germans gradually absorbed by their troops, and each
set back now is accepted as only temporary. The movement of the Germans
in Courland has hardly made any impression at all in Russia generally,
if the reports one hears are true.
[Illustration: Russian soldiers performing their native dance.]
The Russians had practically no troops in that province, which itself
offered no great strategic advantage to the Germans. Taking advantage
of this weak spot, the Germans with a number of corps--it is placed as
high as three--poured into the almost unprotected country.
The Russians say that the German motive is first that they would
be able to announce to their people that they had occupied enemy
territory, and second that the rich province would give them certain
much needed supplies. For a day or two the progress seems to have been
almost without interruption, but now we hear that it has been checked
and that the enemy are gradually giving way before the Russians, who
have shifted troops to that front to prevent further advances. The
occupation of Libau does not seem to worry any one very much. “What
good will it do them?” one Russian officer said to me? “No doubt they
will fortify it and make it as strong as possible. Probably we will
never try to get it back while the war lasts. Why should we? It is of
no great value strategically, and it is not worth the price of lives
and troops detached from other points to retake it. When we have won,
it will naturally come back to us without our having to spend a single
extra life in getting it.”
The situation in Galicia is still something of a puzzle, but those in
authority do not seem to be taking it over seriously. There is reason
to believe that it is a repetition of what has occurred again and again
on this and other fronts. The Germans, by means of their superior
rail facilities made a sudden concentration and hit the Russian line
with such energy as to force its retirement. Each mile of the Russian
retreat has strengthened their army by the additions of reserves,
while it has probably seen an increasing weakening of the enemies’.
The sudden advance of the enemy has forced the withdrawal of the
Russians pushing through the Dukla, who were obviously menaced in their
communications. I am told now that the German attacks have already
passed their zenith, and that the Russians reinforced by new troops
are confident of checking any further advance. Over here it is but a
question of breaking the first fury of the attack. When that is done we
can count on the Russian muoujik slowly but surely to force his way
back over the lost ground. The end of the incident sees the Russians
stronger and the Germans weaker. It is futile for any one to attempt to
estimate how many more of these irruptions the Germans are capable of,
but we are certain that be it this summer or next there is a limit to
them. When that limit has been reached the Russian advance will begin.
CHECKING UP THE SITUATION IN POLAND