fevered anxiety, of enthusiastic anticipation, tempered in some sober
quarters by a quiet but not ungenerous scepticism born of previous
experience. The English were coming, cried the enthusiasts. Three
English Army Corps (Heaven alone knows whence it was proposed to get
them) were on their way to Trebizonde, to Samsoun, and to Shumla to aid
their Turkish and Italian allies. The eastern division of the
Mediterranean Fleet had already entered the Black Sea, as much to the
surprise (and perhaps, somewhat to the chagrin) of the Turkish
commanders at the Dardanelles and the Kavaks as of the generals of
Russia and of France. In Trebizonde and the surrounding villages a
certain basis of probability was built beneath these rumours by the fact
that English agents had, for a week, been purchasing mules, sheep, and
cattle, at, as is usual with British agents in times of stress, some
five times their market value to any other purchaser. Nor have the
native producers profited more than usual by this large-handed
generosity, for some two or three Greek and Armenian traders,
anticipating, as is their wont, honest English procrastination, have
been beforehand with the army agents, with whom they are now dealing at
altogether fancy prices. This, however, is after all but a small matter
beside the great question of our intervention. That England’s action
should invariably be delayed almost (but never quite) until too
late—that her transports should reach their destination empty, her
troops be either unprovided with cartridges, or supplied with those of
some obsolete and useless pattern—that by every mistake ineptitude can
secure or official ignorance produce, all arrangements connected with
the disembarkation and provisioning, and general welfare of whatever
forces have been tardily despatched, must inevitably break down but for
the tireless energy, the unfailing resource, the unremitting good temper
and never-flagging loyalty of all the officers and men thus maltreated,
are matters which have long since come to be as well known abroad as
they are beginning to be recognised at home. ‘The English,’ said the
good people of Trebizonde, while awaiting the expected Army Corps, ‘are
good but careless. They are richer than the Russians, and they are less
corrupt, but they are also more stupid.’ This, as the independent
criticism of allies, more than anxious to be generous, is worth at least
a second thought.
[Illustration:
BRITISH TROOPS LANDING AT TREBIZONDE.
]
I would gladly have witnessed the disembarkation of our troops (for
aught I know it may have already taken place), but, after fruitlessly
waiting many days in dreary Trebizonde, I no longer dared to delay. News
had come that a large Russian force was advancing from Kars westward
towards Erzeroum, and, although there are in and around that place some
50,000 Turkish troops, yet, save at Keupru Kui, a place about nine
hours’ ride from Erzeroum on the Kars road, little or no preparation
appears to have been made to resist an enemy. Erzeroum, let it be
remembered, is entered by three posterns, called respectively the
Stamboul, the Ardahan, and the Kars gates. The roads from them lead to
Ardahan, Kars, Van, Erzinghan, and Trebizonde. On the south of Erzeroum,
at a very short distance from the walls, a mountain descends steeply
towards the city, which it altogether commands, and a direct road runs
from Van to Moush, and from that town to the mountain, from which two
water channels lead into Erzeroum. If an enemy once had possession of
the eminence—and, so far as I can learn, there is little or nothing to
prevent him—he would be able to turn these water-courses off from the
city. There are, it is true, a few wells within the walls, but the
supply from them is already insufficient for the requirements of the
population, without taking into account the troops quartered in and
around the town. It seems typical of Turkish apathy that so little
should have been done to secure this their last great stronghold in Asia
Minor from attack. I am going, of course, merely by what I hear from
Turkish officers, as I have as yet been unable to see for myself; but I
have hitherto had no reason to discredit their information.
It appears that from time to time, since 1878, proposals have been made
for fortifying various strong natural positions, but that, with a
procrastinatory belief in the protection of Providence that is wholly
Turkish and almost English, these plans have been continually set aside
until it is now too late to execute them. Thus on the Van Road, about
five miles from Erzeroum, there is an admirable position known as the
Palandukain defile. This position was protected after a fashion in 1876,
when a fort was constructed capable of offering sturdy resistance.
Another fort had been built also at that time at Gereguzek, eighteen
miles from Erzeroum, on the Ardahan road. Another position, that of the
Devé Boinou Bogaz, five miles from Erzeroum, on the Kars road, was
considered at that time to be a good place for a fort, and yet further
defences were then constructed at the Loghana defile, which is some
twenty-four hours from Erzeroum, on the Kars road. There are, no doubt,
also important positions on the Bayazid road, as, for instance, at Deli
Baba—a narrow gorge through high mountains, which the Turks declare to
be impregnable—at Taher Gedi, five hours’ march further on, and at Kara
Kilissa, beyond which there is a level road to Bayazid. Since the war,
however, it appears that little or nothing has been done to strengthen
or even to maintain these positions in an adequate state of defence.
There has been much talk of late in Constantinople of extensive
armaments on this frontier. Krupp guns have, it has been said, been sent
to supplement the bronze cannon manufactured at Tophané, with which the
forts of Erzeroum were in the last war mainly armed. As to whether any
such material has reached its destination I am as yet uninformed. People
on this road, which it must surely have traversed, profess to know
nothing of it. It is to be feared that we may expect a repetition of the
famous story of the million liras expenditure said to have been incurred
in the fortification of Erzeroum in the last war.
I did not journey from Trebizonde alone, but took advantage of the
departure of a huge straggling convoy of mules and pack-horses laden
with ammunition for Erzeroum. There were also with us half a dozen
English doctors who have taken service with the Porte, and have
volunteered to attend the wounded under fire. Owing to the accident to
my horse, who slipped, poor brute, through a ragged hole in the wide
stone bridge across the Kara Su, close to this place (a terrible pitfall
for artillery), and badly scraped both his own shin and his master’s,
these gentlemen have perforce abandoned me until such time as I can
obtain another beast.
The traffic through this little place, which is the point of junction of
the Trebizonde and Erzinghan roads to Erzeroum, and as a rule at this
season is almost deserted, is in itself indicative of stirring events in
our front. All through the day there has been a continuous passage of
nondescript wayfarers in either direction. Turkish soldiers—stragglers
or deserters may be—some sick, some slightly wounded; Koordish
Bashi-bazouks, pure bandits for the most part, flashing great arsenals
of gleaming weapons in their waist-belts, and armed, many of them, with
Winchester rifles, remnants of the last war; slim, evil-visaged
Circassians on lean, wiry horses, and gaunt Zaibeks, ferocious beneath
their extravagant headgear, have tramped and clattered continuously past
the miserable khan where I am established. Some of these gentry, I note,
have Russian great-coats with regimental numbers on the shoulder strap,
flung either across their cruppers, or around their shoulders. This is a
sure indication that there has at least been some skirmish or
reconnaissance in which Russian arms have suffered not a little.
REPULSE OF THE RUSSIANS.
THE TURKS PURSUE ESKI ZAGRA—THE GRIM REALITIES OF WAR.
NEAR KEUPRU KEUI, _May 2_.
I am profiting by an opportunity to send you a hurried message by a
Turkish officer on his way to Erzeroum with despatches. Soon after
writing last to you, I managed to pick up a horse—a poor beast enough
truly, in place of my stalwart grey—and pushed on to Erzeroum. There I
found all in confusion. Certain news had arrived of a Russian advance in
force along the Kars road, and every available man had been thrown
forward to meet it. It was but natural that the Russians should seize
the earliest possible opportunity of hurling themselves against the
Turkish stronghold, which they might very reasonably expect to find
unprepared to receive them. More or less unprepared the Turks indeed
were, but Ghazi Moukhtar Pasha—the hero of ’77—who had himself reached
Erzeroum but a few days since, was fully determined not to permit his
traditional enemy to win an easy triumph. As I have said, every
available regiment was ordered to meet the attack, and hurried forward
to Keupru Keui, where the stand was to be made. I have as yet no
details—indeed, as I stayed but an hour or so in Erzeroum to feed my
horses, I have hitherto been able to see no one in authority; but so far
as I can gather, the Turks, though outnumbered, were not greatly
inferior to their adversaries, over whom they had the additional
enormous advantage of being in a position which tradition has taught
them to regard as well-nigh impregnable. In any case Turkish arms seem
to have gained a signal victory.
Very soon after leaving Erzeroum, which I did shortly before mid-day
this morning, I began to meet with unmistakable evidences that a big
battle had either been fought or was in progress. First a knot of some
twenty infantrymen, weary, haggard, and ragged, met me on the steep
slope of the hill some five miles beyond the town. They were all jaded
beyond expression—every one was wounded more or less grievously—several
were using their rifles as crutches, and some who had lost or abandoned
their rifles were helping themselves along either by the aid of their
comrades’ shoulders, or by stakes, or waggon-boards, or rammers, or
indeed any of the miscellaneous articles of wood or metal that are to be
found strewn along the line of a straggling fight. I gave them a
water-skin, and offered a bottle of brandy (as _ilitch_—medicine for
their wounds). The water they took, but none would touch the spirit save
one gaunt, white-moustached veteran, who mumbled incoherencies about
Algeria, by way seemingly of excuse. While they drank I asked them what
was doing. ‘A great battle was being fought,’ they said, but their
opinions were divided as to the course of the action; several men (weak
from loss of blood) opined that the enemy was too strong for them. But
one broad-shouldered, bright-eyed little fellow, who had had all the
flesh of one cheek torn from him by a shell splinter, and had bound the
wound with a strip from his rough serge jacket, was loud in his derision
of this view. ‘It was Eski Zagra again,’ he said. The Moskoffs were
driven back, beaten hopelessly, and pursued by agile Bashi-bazouks
through the slippery passes, the precipitous fastnesses, the treacherous
paths of the rugged route, a pursuit without cess or quarter—where every
enemy, whether wounded or not, was exultingly slaughtered as soon as
caught. The little veteran illustrated with horribly realistic gestures
his own views as to the treatment of Russian wounded. With a foul gusto
that raised wild enthusiasm in his weary comrades, he demonstrated how
he would hew off the noses and lips of his enemy; how he would gouge out
their eyes with his bayonet before he plunged it into their throats and
twisted it till the victims died suffocated with their own blood. He
outlined other horrors, but I had had enough, and left him posing in
anticipation as a hero among his fellows, while I rode on towards this
place.
That this fierce implacable Moslem had been right in his conjecture I
soon had ample—ay, terrible—proof. In every mile, even on the rugged
track itself, as I neared the spot from which I write, the horrible
evidences of deadly carnage multiplied and repeated themselves.
Disembowelled horses, broken limbers, little mounds of dead, fallen one
on another, their still, calm, white faces in cruel contrast to the
extravagant distortion of their scattered and twisted limbs; and
everywhere traces of that ruthless hatred vowed by the Turk to his
hereditary enemy. Hideous featureless corpses stared at me out of
eyeless sockets from the roadside, their hands uplifted and bloody,
showing that wounded, not dead Russians, had been thus maltreated;
occasionally a movement, slight though perceptible, caused me to
dismount, eager to aid some mutilated sufferer, but all to no
purpose—the Turks had done their work too well. As I advanced, the
spectacle of these recurrent horrors increased in its revelations of
barbarism and malignant cruelty. The number of Turkish dead diminished
step by step, as that of the Russians augmented, and by the time I
reached this place I had had such a surfeit of ghoul-feasting (for the
eye) as I envy no man.
While talking to Salem Bey Agris—the gentleman to whose good offices I
am indebted for the conveyance of this hurried despatch, at least, as
far as Erzeroum—a poor horse hobbled up, browsing its way along the thin
coarse grass which covers the bank on which I was seated. Something in
the animal’s movements attracting my attention, I looked up and noticed
to my infinite horror that the poor brute, which was still saddled and
bridled, had but three legs—the off fore leg being from the shoulder
downwards nothing but a sliver of white bone splintered to a pencil
point. Horror-struck, I seized my revolver—my first thought being to put
the poor creature out of its pain. But as it browsed on placidly,
seemingly indifferent, I called Salem Bey’s attention to its condition.
‘Poor horse,’ he said (and note that he had surveyed mutilated Russians
with placid indifference), ‘a suffering animal, indeed, tears the
breast, but I have seen, only two hours since, a sight far more
heartrending than this. I was charging with my squadron a troop of
Cossacks. It chanced that a shell burst right over the first line, and,
killing two troopers, tore away the whole muzzle of one of their horses.
All was destroyed in the poor beast, right up to the eyes, and you might
have supposed it would fall dead at once. Nothing of the kind. It held
its place in the ranks, spouting torrents of blood and foam from its
ghastly shattered head, until, fortunately, some stray Russian bullet
laid it low. Until then, I will own,’ he added, ‘I was afraid for my
men.’
The Bey, leaving me to digest this tale, strode away in the dusk to get
his horse. ‘Where is your army?’ I have shouted to him, and his reply
is: ‘_Bilémem_ (I do not know). INSHALLAH, it has gone to KARS.’
THE RUSSO-GERMAN CAMPAIGN—GREAT BATTLE AT SKIERNIWIÇE.
ROUT OF THE RUSSIANS AND THEIR RETREAT ON WARSAW—HEAVY FIGHTING ON THE
GALICIAN FRONTIER.
(_From our Special Correspondent, Mr. Charles Lowe._)
SKIERNIWIÇE, _May 18_.
Strange is the irony of events. In the month of September 1884, this was
the friendly meeting-place of the Emperors of Russia, Germany, and
Austria, who were accompanied by their respective Chancellors—Bismarck,
Kalnoky, and Giers; and now the chateau where they so ostentatiously
feasted, embraced, and exchanged their pledges of peace, is a heap of
smoking ruins. After this, who shall say that there is any stability in
human affairs, or any trustworthiness in human foresight?
The united Russian forces, consisting of the 5th and 6th Corps under
General Gourko, and the 14th and 15th Corps under the Grand Duke
Vladimir, have to-day suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the
combined German armies of the Vistula and Silesia, commanded by the King
of Saxony, and are now in full retreat on Warsaw. As I predicted in my
last despatch, this has been the Waterloo of the Russo-German portion of
the campaign, and it has been brilliantly won by the Germans—thanks
mainly to the disconcerting effects of smokeless powder on the tactics
of an enemy who fights better in the mass than in detail, no less than
to the fact of the Russians having committed the radical error of
provoking a war before they were completely equipped with the new
magazine rifle, which, even with the aid of the French factories that
received orders for half a million of the new weapon, will not be served
out to the entire army of the Czar before the summer of 1894.
In my last despatch I recorded how the Grand Duke Vladimir, in spite of
his victory over the German Army of Silesia at Czenstochau, had
refrained from following up his success in consideration of Gourko’s
repulse at Alexandrovo, preferring—like Wellington, who had similarly
beaten Ney at Quatre Bras, but was yet desirous of succouring the
retreating Blücher, who had come to grief in front of Napoleon on the
same day at Ligny—to retire towards Warsaw for the purpose of joining
hands with his fellow-commander, on the latter being worsted by the King
of Saxony. The distances, of course, were infinitely greater in the
present case; but otherwise the principles of strategy were the same.
A glance at the map will show that the junction-point for Gourko and the
Grand Duke Vladimir could only have been Skierniwiçe, where the railways
from Alexandrovo and Czenstochau converge; and it appears that, though
the Grand Duke’s line of retreat to the common rendezvous was
considerably the longer of the two, nevertheless the bulk of his forces
had reached it first, by reason of the fact that he enjoyed a double
line of rails, whereas Gourko had to move as best he could along a
single track.
The German Army of the Vistula, with which I had thrown in my lot as a
witness of the war, was not slow to gather itself together after the
battle of Alexandrovo, and start in pursuit of Gourko’s shattered
forces, but much precious time was lost by us in repairing bridges which
our retreating foes had blown up; and though at last, by dint of great
exertions on our part, the railway proved not altogether unavailable to
us for transport purposes, still the earlier stages of our advance on
Warsaw simply assumed the form of an ordinary march along, and parallel
with, the line, the engineers pontooning or planking any bridgeless
stream or ravine which obstructed our progress.
At Vlokavek, which our advanced guard reached on the fifth day after the
battle of Alexandrovo, though the distance is only about thirty miles,
we were considerably hampered, and even hurt, by the flanking fire of a
Russian battery, which had established itself in a safe position on the
right bank of the Vistula—a battery, strange to say, which was
unsupported by any body of infantry of which we could discover trace;
and the King of Saxony, who, in spite of his sixty-four summers, is
still almost as vigorous and alert as when he commanded on the Meuse,
determined to imitate, though, of course, on a very much smaller scale,
the celebrated passage of the Douro by Wellington (of which, by the way,
this was, curiously enough, the anniversary, the 12th May). Accordingly,
the 3d battalion of the ‘Old Dessauers’ Magdeburg regiment, under Major
von Wusterhausen, was stealthily ferried over the Vistula, which is here
both broad and deep, at the dead of night; and, performing a silent and
circuitous march to the rear of the Russian battery, it opened a heavy
fire on the bewildered Muscovites, just as the latter, profiting by the
breaking dawn, were about to begin their usual day’s work of pounding
away at our advancing columns; and, charging with a cheer up to the
emplacements, before the pieces could be reversed, the ‘Old Dessauers’
killed or captured every one of the gunners. For this smart and
effective feat of arms Major von Wusterhausen will doubtless receive the
Iron Cross of the first class and the rank of colonel.
This was the main incident which marked the course of our advance,
though I might fill columns by recounting the minor vicissitudes of our
march, especially the intolerable botheration which was occasioned us by
the clouds of Cossacks and Dragoons—the latter little more than mere
mounted infantry—who pertinaciously hovered on our flanks in search of
fitting opportunities for harassing us, and had ever and anon to be
brushed away like so many troublesome swarms of mosquitoes.
In the meantime the telegraph had kept us duly informed of the various
stages in the forward movement of the army of Silesia along the other
and longer side of the triangle, of which Skierniwiçe is the apex, and
it was naturally enough our endeavour so to time our junction with it as
to render it impossible for the Russians to attack our two armies
severally and beat them in detail, even if they should have the stomach
to assume the offensive, which we gravely doubted.
When our headquarters had reached Lowitz, which is only about fourteen
miles from Skierniwiçe, and established itself in a pretty chateau,
Arcadia by name, belonging to the Radziwill family, an officer of the
Empress Frederick’s Posen Hussars (Death’s Heads), who had made a long
and venturesome ride across country from Lipce, came spurring in with a
despatch from Prince George of Saxony, announcing that the combined
Russian forces under Gourko and the Grand Duke Vladimir had taken up a
strong defensive position behind the Lupta brook (which runs into the
Bzura, an affluent of the Vistula), with their left resting on a
village, Stryzboga, and their right on another hamlet, Dromiloff, their
centre being Skierniwiçe. The left half of their line, defended by the
troops of the Czar’s eldest brother, was formed by the Lupta itself, a
brook about the size of the Bistritz at Sadowa; while the right half was
thrown back from this streamlet at an angle of about twenty-five
degrees, so as to profit by some ridgy ground in its rear. Prince George
of Saxony, therefore, invited his royal brother to attack General Gourko
with all energy on the morrow, while he himself would simultaneously
assail the position of the Grand Duke Vladimir, a proposal which King
Albert, after brief consultation with his Staff, declared his readiness
to act upon.
Accordingly, two hours before dawn, all our troops were under arms, and
in motion for the various positions which had been assigned them. On our
half of the Russian front the 3d (Brandenburg) Corps, with the 7th
Division, advanced to open the attack, while the 8th Division acted as
reserve, and our two Cavalry Divisions were directed to keep a look-out
on our left flank, adapting their action to the nature of the ground and
the development of the infantry portion of the fight. Between us and the
enemy the terrain was pretty wavy with occasional patches of crops and
cover, while in front of Skierniwiçe it rose into a gentle slope, on the
top of which spread the extensive wood forming the deer park and game
preserves of the castle (famous for its Three Emperors’ Meeting), of
which the turrets were just visible above the tree-tops. This, as I
said, formed the centre of the Russian position; and it was by opening
our guns in this direction that we began the battle, with the view of
making the enemy believe that our main objective was the middle of their
line.
For a couple of hours or so the fight was nothing but an artillery duel
at long range, and it was plain that although the Russian artillery was
more advantageously posted, it had the utmost difficulty in finding the
range, and even the exact position of our guns, owing to the comparative
smokelessness of their discharges. On the other hand, after the Russian
outposts had been driven in, the Jäger Battalion of the 3d Corps, which,
courting every dip in the ground, had stealthily crept forward for some
considerable distance in a hollow beyond our batteries, and lined the
edge of a rye-field, within about 3000 metres of the Russian guns,
opened fire at this very long range, and not without fatal effects; for
with a good glass we could see the Russian artillerists dropping beside
their pieces, a fact which made us realise the truth of the German
Emperor’s remark that, if field guns are to hold their ground as weapons
of modern warfare, their range must still be further increased beyond
that of the newest form of small bore rifle.