A VISIT TO THE POSITIONS
From:
SOMEWHERE ON THE RAWKA LINE,
_May 25, 1915_.
During the comparative lull on the Bzura-Rawka-Pilitza line I have been
trying to go about to certain important salients on our front and have
a look both at the terrain, and the positions which we are defending.
Leaving Warsaw by motor we ran out to the head-quarters of a certain
army where we found the General living in the palace of a Polish
noble. Beautiful avenues of trees gave access to a wonderful garden
with a little lake before an old mansion dating back to the eighteenth
century. Here in the quiet seclusion of a little forest lives the
general, who presides over the destinies of perhaps 150,000 men. We are
received cordially by the Chief of Staff who, with exemplary patience,
reads over the twelve permits of various sorts which complete the
constantly growing collection of authorizations for me to come and
go on this front. After careful scrutiny of all he sighs heavily,
for perhaps he is not an admirer of the press, but none the less he
inquires cordially what we would like to do. “Heavy batteries and
observation points” is always my reply for reasons already explained. A
smart young aide is sent for who, it appears, speaks English fluently,
having lived for some time in America. The staff offer us an additional
automobile, and while this is being brought round we sit out under the
trees in the garden. Just behind the house, in a bower, is another
officer of the staff sitting in an easy-chair behind a table before
which stand a group of Austrian prisoners whom he is examining for
information. After a few minutes our young aide comes back, and with
two automobiles we start for the positions.
We must first go to the head-quarters of an army corps. This is distant
25 versts, and as the roads are for the most part short cuts across the
fields, it takes us more than an hour to reach a very unpretentious
village where we meet the General commanding the -- Corps. This man is
distinctly of the type that war produces. He was only a minor general
when the war started, but efficiency in action has given him two
promotions. Shabby and war-worn he is living in a mere hovel, still
wearing the uniform and shoulder straps of two grades back when he was
a somewhat humble officer in the artillery. By him we are supplied with
a soldier guide and go off to the head-quarters of an artillery brigade
where we find the commander of the guns who provides us with a member
of his staff. This officer joins our party, and directs us to the
head-quarters of an artillery unit composed of a number of batteries. I
say unit because it is all controlled from one point of observation.
By the time we pull up between a couple of ruined peasants’ homes, only
the walls of which are standing; it is after seven in the evening.
From a kind of cave among the debris there emerged three or four
tired-looking artillerymen who are in charge of the guns in these
positions. The country here is flat and rolling, with a little ridge
to the west of us, which cuts off the view into the valley beyond, in
which are the lines of the Russian and German trenches. Leaving our
automobiles in the road, we stroll through a wheat-field toward the
ridge, distant perhaps 1,000 yards. In the corner of the field is a
hedge, and behind the hedge is a battery of field guns. One notices
with each passing month the increasing cleverness of the Russians in
masking their batteries. Though this is no wood, we walk almost on to
the position before we discover the guns at all. They are well dug in,
with small fir trees borrowed from neighbouring bits of woodland stuck
in the ground all about them. Each gun is separated from its brother by
a screen of green, and boughs above mask the view from an aeroplane.
From the front one would never see them at all unless one were looking
closely. To-night the last red rays from the setting sun just catch
a twinkle of the steel in their shining throats, as their long sleek
snouts protrude from the foliage. The shields are painted a kind of
green which helps still more to make them invisible.
This particular battery, so its Colonel tells us, has had a great laugh
on the enemy during the past few days. What happened was this. A German
Taube flew over the line several times, and it kept coming back so
frequently and hovering over the battery, that the officers who were
watching it became suspicious that they had been spotted. When darkness
fell the entire personnel of the battery became extremely busy, and by
working like bees they moved their guns perhaps 600 yards to the south
and by daylight had them in the new positions and fairly well masked.
Shortly after sunrise back came the aeroplane, and when over the old
position it gave a signal to its own lines and then flew back. Almost
instantly hell broke loose on the abandoned spot. In walking over the
ground one is amazed at the accuracy of long range artillery fire, for
in the ten-acre lot in which the old position was the centre there was
hardly ten square yards without its shell hole, while the ground was a
junk heap of steel and shrapnel fragments. Six hundred yards away the
men of the battery watched it all and laughed their sides out at the
way they had fooled the Germans. This particular battery had bothered
the enemy a great deal and they were on the look out for it. Probably
there will be further competitions of wits before the week is out. From
glancing at the field torn up with shell fire one begins to realize
what observation means to the enemy. With modern methods a single
signal from an aeroplane may mean the wiping out in a few minutes of an
unsuspecting battery that has been safely hidden for months.
Leaving the guns, we saunter across the wheat-field toward the ridge,
the great red ball of the setting sun dazzling our eyes with its aspect
of molten steel. On the very crest of the rolling ground is a grove of
stunted firs, and through this lies a path to the observation trench
which is entered by an approach growing gradually deeper until, cutting
through the very ridge, it ends in the observation trench dug out of
the earth on the western slope. For the last couple of hundred yards
before we enter the approaches, we are in plain view of the German
gunners, but we had supposed that at the distance a few men would not
be noticed. Evidently, however, our observers in the German line have
had their eyes glued on this spot, for we had barely entered the trench
when a shell burst down in front of us. The writer was looking through
the hyperscope at the time, but imagined that it was at least half a
mile away. An instant later came the melancholy wail of another shell
over our heads and the report of its explosion half way between us and
our motor-car in the road. Behind it came another and another each one
getting nearer our trench. The last one passed a few feet over our
heads and burst just beyond, covering us in the trench with dust and
filling our nostrils with the fumes of gunpowder. Another shortening up
of the range might have landed in our delightful retreat, but evidently
the Germans became discouraged, for we heard nothing more from them.
Through the hyperscopes one could look out over the beautiful sweep of
the valley studded with little farms, the homes of which are mostly in
ruins. This point from which we were studying the landscape was only
100 yards from our own line of trenches, which lay just in front of
and below us, while not more than 75 yards beyond were the line of the
German trenches. So clear were they in the field of the hyperscope
that one could actually see the loopholes in the ridge of earth. Our
own were, of course, open from the back, and one could see the soldiers
moving about in their quarters or squatting comfortably against the
walls of the trenches. Away to the west were ridges of earth here
and there, where our friends of the artillery told us were reserve
trenches, while they pointed out groves of trees or ruined villages in
which they suspected lurked the German guns.
[Illustration: Russian officers in an artillery observation position.]
After the report of the shells had died away and the dust settled there
was the silence of absolute peace and serenity over the whole valley.
Not a rifle shot or a human noise broke the beautiful calm of the May
sunset. Off to the west glimmered the silver stream of the Rawka. To
look out over this lovely valley in the falling twilight it seemed
incredible that thousands of men lay concealed under our very eyes, men
who were waiting only a favourable opportunity to leap out of their
trenches and meet each other in hand-to-hand combat. On the advice
of our guides, we waited in our secure little trench until the last
red rays of the sun were cut off by the horizon in the west, when we
returned by the way we had come to the waiting automobiles.
The whole valley in this section is very flat, and the ridges such
as the one I have described are very scarce. The Russian lines are
extremely strong, and one gets the idea that they would require a good
deal of taking before the Germans could occupy them. Our artillery
seemed to be in excellent quantities, and the ammunition situation
satisfactory if the officer may be believed. The rears of all these
positions have been prepared for defence, and there are at least three
lines or groups of trenches lying between this front and Warsaw, each
of which would present as strong a defence as the line which now for
many months has defied all efforts of the enemy to get through.
I was especially interested in looking over this locality, because
in Warsaw it has been mentioned as a point where the Russians were
in great danger, and where they were barely able to hold their own.
The truth is that there has been little fighting here for months
excepting an occasional burst of artillery, or now and then a spasm
of inter-trench fighting between unimportant units. I told our guide
of the dismal stories we heard, and he only laughed as he pointed out
to me a level stretch of country on our side of the ridge. A number
of young Russian officers were riding about on prancing horses. “See
there,” my friend told me, “we have laid out a race course, and the
day after to-morrow the officers of this brigade are going to have a
steeplechase. You see they have built a little platform for the general
to stand on and judge the events. We are only 1,000 yards here from the
trenches of the enemy. So you see we do not feel as anxious about the
safety of our position as they do in Warsaw.” He lighted a cigarette
and then added seriously: “No, the Germans cannot force us here, nor
do I think on any of the other Warsaw fronts. Our positions have never
been as strong as they are to-day.”
A few minutes later we were in our motors speeding through the twilight
to the village in our rear where the Chief of Staff of the -- Corps had
arranged quarters for us.
A SUMMER DAY ON THE RAWKA LINE