THE FRONT OF IVANOV
Dated:
GALICIAN FRONTIER,
_June 28, 1915_.
In Russia it is not a simple matter to change one’s “front.” For many
months I have been associated with the group of armies over which
Alexieff presides, where I have been able to move about from army to
army with the utmost freedom. When I decided to change my base to
the head-quarters of Ivanov and the front of Galicia I found myself
surrounded by difficulties. For more than a month now, one could enter
Warsaw without a permit or travel on the roads or pass to and from any
of the towns in the area of war. I applied to my army friends in Warsaw
and they, by permission of General Alexieff, kindly lent me a young
officer whose duty it was to deliver me into the hands of the staff of
the Galician Front.
We left Warsaw in my motor, not even knowing where the staff of Ivanov
was, for at that moment it was on its way to a new destination, the
retirements from Galicia having thrown the commanding General too far
west to be conveniently in touch with his left flank armies. Stopping
at a point about 100 versts from Warsaw, we learned our destination,
and two days later motored into the quaint little Russian town not too
far from Galicia, where the presiding genius of the Eastern Campaign
had arrived that very morning with his whole staff. Here we found
Ivanov living on a special train with his head-quarters in a kind of
old museum. As the staff had just arrived, everything was still in
confusion and nothing had been done to make the room, which was as
large as a barn, comfortable. In the centre were two enormous tables
covered with maps, before which sat a rather tired-looking man with a
great full beard. He arose as we entered, and after shaking hands bade
us be seated.
[Illustration: General Ivanov.]
[Illustration: My car in a Galician village.]
General Ivanov is a man of about sixty, with a kindly gentle face and
a low and musical voice. It is impossible to imagine him ever becoming
excited or ever making a sudden movement. Everything about him suggests
calm, balance, poise and absolute self-control. As he speaks only
Russian I was obliged to talk with him entirely through an interpreter.
He has very deep blue eyes with a kindly little twinkle in them that
one suspects might easily turn to a point of fire if he were roused.
Since meeting him I have known many of his staff, and find that his
personality is just what his appearance suggests. A great-hearted,
kindly, unselfish man, he is worshipped by all whose duty it is to work
with, for and under him. It is not etiquette according to the censor
to quote anything that the General said, and I deeply regret this as I
talked with him for an hour, and after the first thirty minutes felt
as much at home as though I had known him a lifetime. His work and his
army and the success of Russia make up his entire life. He impressed me
as a big, earnest man, giving all the force of a powerful intellect to
a very big job and doing it with the simplicity that is characteristic
of all big men.
After a few commonplaces he asked me what I wanted. I told him quite
frankly that from a news point of view, Russia, and the Galician
campaign especially, was little known in the West. That the public in
the West were depressed over the Russian reverses in Galicia, and that
all of the friends of Russia wanted to know as accurately as possible
what the conditions were in his armies. He leaned back in his chair
and studied me closely for fully a minute, and then smiled a little,
and the interpreter translated to me: “The General says that you may
do what you like in his armies. He will detail an officer who speaks
English to go with you. You may visit any army, any trench, any
position or any organization that you wish, and he will give you the
written permission. He will suggest a plan which he thinks advisable,
but if you do not care for it you can make one up for yourself and he
will give his consent to any programme that you care to suggest.” The
General smiled and then bent forward over his maps, and with his pencil
pointed out to me the general arrangement of his armies, and after
some discussion advised that I should start on his extreme left flank,
the last division of which was operating in Bukovina not far from the
Roumanian frontier. We were to stop as long as we cared to, and then
visit each army in turn until we had covered all in his group, when the
officer who was to be detailed to accompany us would deliver us to the
first army next to him that belonged to the Alexieff group.
He then sent for the officer who was to be our guide, and presently
there appeared a tall, handsome young man who was introduced to us as
Prince Oblensky, a captain of the Chevalier Guards, now serving as
personal aide-de-camp to General Ivanov. From the moment that we met
him the Prince took charge of us completely, and for two weeks he was
our guide, philosopher and friend. In passing I must say that I have
never known a man of sweeter disposition and a more charming companion
than this young Captain, from whom I was not separated for above an
hour or two at a time in fourteen days. The Prince took me around and
introduced me to a number of the staff, and all of them talked freely
and with very little reserve about the whole situation.
The point of view that I found at Ivanov’s staff was this. Russia with
her long front could not be strong everywhere at once. Her railroad
system and her industrial organization were in no way equal to the
German. Their sudden concentration was irresistible, and almost from
the start the Russians realized that they would have to go back. It
was hoped that the Germans could not maintain their ascendancy of
ammunition and strength beyond the San. Indeed, for a few days there
was something of a lull in which the Russians made gains in certain
places. Then the flow of ammunition was resumed, and from that time it
was pretty well understood that the Grodek line, and Lwow, would be
held only as rearguard actions to delay the German advance, and to take
from them the maximum loss at the minimum sacrifice. This particular
staff, in whose hands rested the conduct of the whole manœuvre, had
then the task of withdrawing these armies over this vast front in such
order and symmetry that as they retired no one should overlap the
flanks of the other, and that no loopholes should occur where an enemy
could get through. With these numerous armies, operating in all kinds
of countries with all sorts of lines of communications, falling back
before fierce assaults from an enemy superior in guns and men, the
performance of getting them safely back on to a united line where they
could once more make a united stand, must, I think, take its place in
history as one of the greatest military manœuvres that has ever been
made.
I had just come from Petrograd where the greatest gloom prevailed
in regard to the evacuation of Lwow, and I was surprised to find
that no one here attached any great importance to Lwow. One officer
of general’s rank remarked, “We do not believe in holding untenable
military positions for moral effect. Lwow is of no great value to us
from a military point of view, and the way the line developed it was
impossible to stay there without great risk. So we left. By and by we
will go back and take it again when we have more ammunition.” This was
the first time that I heard this statement, but since then I have heard
it at least a hundred times made by officers of all ranks from generals
down to subalterns. All agreed that it was disappointing to come back
after having fought so many months in taking Galicia, but I did not
find one man who was in the least depressed; and from that day to this
I have not heard in the army an expressed fear, or even a suggestion,
that there might be a possibility that Russia would not prove equal
to her task. The Russians as a race may be a bit slow in reaching
conclusions, but once they get their teeth set I think there are no
more stubborn or determined people in the world.
This retreat with all its losses and all its sacrifices has not, I
think, shaken the courage of a single soldier in the whole Russian
Army. They simply shut their teeth and pray for an opportunity to begin
all over again. All eagerly assured me that the Germans and Austrians
had lost far more than the Russians, and I was told by a high authority
that the Germans estimated their own losses in two months at 380,000
killed, wounded and missing. One man significantly put the situation,
“To judge of this movement one should see how it looks behind the
German lines. In spite of their advances and bulletins of success,
there has been great gloom behind their front. We know absolutely that
every town and even every village in Eastern Silesia is filled with
wounded, and in Breslau and Posen there is hardly a house that has
not been requisitioned for the accommodation of wounded. Since the
enemy crossed the Dunajec there has been an unbroken stream of wounded
flowing steadily back across the frontier. _This_ we do not see in the
papers printed in Germany. The Russian game is to keep on weakening the
Germans. We would rather advance, of course, but whether we advance or
retreat we are weakening the enemy day after day; sometime he will be
unable to repair his losses and then we will go on again. Do not worry.
All of this is but temporary. We are not in the least discouraged.”
Another statement which at first struck me as curious, but which I have
since come to understand, was that the morale of the Austrians has been
steadily decreasing since the capture of Przemysl and the fighting
on the San. Since visiting Ivanov I have been in six armies and have
talked in nearly all with the men who have been examining the Austrian
prisoners. Their point of view seems to be pretty much the same. And
when I say the Austrians, I mean, of course, the common soldiers and
not the authorities or the officers. The Austrian soldiers’ view is
something like this: “We have fought now for a year, and in May we had
practically lost Galicia. The end of the war, for which we have never
cared, was almost in sight. We hoped that soon there would be some kind
of peace and we could go home. We had lost Galicia, but the average
man in the Austrian Army cares little for Galicia. Just as the end
seemed in sight, the Germans, whom we don’t like any way, came down
here and dragged us along into this advance. At first we were pleased,
but we never expected the Russians to hold out so long. Finally the
Germans have given us back Lwow, and now little by little they are
beginning to go away. It is only a question of time when they will all
be gone either to France or against some other Russian front. Then the
Russians will come back. Our officers will make us defend Lwow. They
will make us defend the Grodek line, Przemysl and the Carpathians. The
Russians are united. We are not. They will beat us as they did before.
In the end we will be just where we were in May. It is all an extra
fight, with more losses, more suffering and more misery. We owe it all
to the Germans. We do not like it and we are not interested.”
I think this point of view is more or less typical, and it accounts in
a large measure for the fact that even though they are advancing the
Austrians are still surrendering in enormous blocks whenever they get
the chance of doing so without being caught in the act by their Allies.
For the most part the men that I talked with here thought that the
army had retired about as far as it would for the present. But one
feels constant surprise at the stoicism of the Russian, who does not
apparently feel the smallest concern at withdrawals, for, as they say,
“If they keep coming on into Russia it will be as it was with Napoleon.
They can never beat us in the long run, and the further they force us
back the worse for them. Look at Moscow,” and they smile and offer you
a cigarette. I have never in my life seen people who apparently have
a more sublime confidence in their cause and in themselves than the
Russians. Their confidence does not lie in their military technique,
for I think all admit that in that the Germans are their superiors.
It lies in their own confidence, in the stamina and character of the
Russian people, who, when once aroused are as slow to leave off a fight
as they are to begin it.
Throughout Russia to-day the strength of the war idea is growing
daily. Every reverse, every withdrawal and every rumour of defeat
only stiffens the determination to fight harder and longer. Time is
their great ally they say, for Germany cannot, they are certain, fight
indefinitely, while they believe that they can.
These opinions are not my own but the opinions of Russians. These men
may be unduly enthusiastic about their countrymen, but what they say I
have since heard all over the army at the Front; whether they are right
or wrong they may certainly be taken as typical of the natural view.
When I left Petrograd I was not cheerful as to the outlook in Galicia.
When I left Ivanov’s head-quarters I felt more optimistic than I had
been in six weeks.
HUNTING FOR THE ARMY OF THE BUKOVINA