Dying men made piteous appeals for drink. One poor fellow expired while we were in the act of attending to him. The horribly inhuman nature of the Germans was evinced by the circumstance that they had made prisoners of all the wounded who would probably recover, and count in their lists of capture; but had left the mortal cases (even their own) unattended, to linger out a dreadful and agonized end. Their lack of feeling was fiendish. They had not even endeavoured to alleviate the sufferings of the men thus abandoned: for we found one German groaning, and seemingly praying for succour, pinned down under a dead horse. He was not even dangerously hurt, and would, I think, recover under the treatment he would receive from the Russians. For though these northern men were often barbarous enough on the field of battle, they were never cruel to their prisoners, or to injured men, unless these were known to have been guilty of atrocities.
The sights of that battlefield, and others which I afterwards witnessed, will be a nightmare to the end of life. I had often read of rivers "running red with blood," and thought this simply poetic exaggeration; but when we went to a brook to obtain water for some gasping men, I noticed that it was horribly tinged with dark red streaks, which seemed to be partly coagulated blood. Some light fragments which floated by were undoubtedly human brains; yet at their urgent entreaty we gave of this water to poor creatures to drink, for no other was available.
This horror was not comparable to what we witnessed when we arrived at the spot where the artillery slaughter had taken place. The ground was covered with dark patches—blood blotches. Fragments of flesh, arms, legs, limbs of horses, and scattered intestines, lay everywhere about that horrible "first position." On the ground lay a human eye and within an inch or two of it, a cluster of teeth; all that remained of some poor head that had been dashed away. Where the body was that had owned these relics did not appear. The force of impact had probably driven them yards and yards; and it was a mere chance that they met my view. Close to one of our guns, too badly broken to be worth carrying away by the enemy, were two brawny hands, tightly clasping the handle of the sponge with which their owner had been cleaning the piece when they had been riven from his body. The man was close by, a mere mass of smashed flesh and bones, with thousands of beastly flies battening on his gore, as they were on that of all the corpses. The sight was unbearable. Sick and nearly fainting, I had to lean against a broken waggon to recover myself.
Our wounded had been murdered. There could be no question of that. For we had not left any behind who were capable of fighting, yet a dozen had been finished off by bayonet wounds—and German bayonets make awful jagged wounds because their weapons have saw-backs.
One bayoneted gunner was not quite dead. At long intervals—about a minute it seemed to me—he made desperate efforts to breathe; and every time he did so bubbles of blood welled from the wound in his breast, and a horrible gurgling sound came from both throat and breast. There were two doctors in our party, but they looked at each other, and shook their heads when they examined this miserable man. Nothing could be done for him except to place him in a more comfortable position. War is hellish.
We found another of our men alive. His plight was so terrible that it was hardly worth while to increase his suffering by carrying him away. We did so: but he died before we had gone two versts. On that part of the field which the Germans had been compelled to cross without waiting to carry out their fell work, we found more survivors, and took back a dozen, of whom three were Germans. There happened to be no Red Cross men with our division just then; but we sent them to the rear in empty provision waggons.
This is what I saw of the battle of Biezum, if this is its correct designation. According to Polchow the Russian centre was at Radnazovo, a town, or large village, eleven versts further east; and the whole front extended more than thirty versts, though the hottest fighting was near Biezum. It was afterwards reported that 10,000 Russians were killed in this engagement, and 40,000 wounded. The Germans must have lost heavily too. I saw thousands of their dead lying on the ground near Biezum alone. The fight was not a victory for the Russians, and scarcely could be claimed as such by the Germans. The two forces remained in contact, and fighting continued with more or less intensity until it developed into what modern battles seem destined to be, a prolonged series of uninterrupted operations.
THE FIGHTING UP TO THE 26TH AUGUST
There appeared to be nearly 300 men in Polchow's battery when we went into action: only fifty-nine remained with the four guns we saved at the close of the day, and not one of these escaped a more or less serious hurt, though some were merely scratched by small fragments of shell or bruised by shrapnel bullets. At least twenty of the men would have been justified in going to hospital; several ultimately had to do so, and one died. Even British soldiers could not have shown greater heroism. Chouraski, the non-commissioned officer who had attached himself to me, had a bullet through the fleshy part of the left arm, yet he brought me some hot soup and black bread after dark; whence obtained, or how prepared, I have no idea. I was much touched by the man's kindness. All the soldiers with whom I came in contact were equally kind: and I have noticed that the men of other armies with whom I have come in contact in the course of my life, even the Germans, seemed to see something in my personality which attracted them, and to desire to be friendly. Perhaps they instinctively realized that I am an admirer of the military man; or perhaps it was the bonhomie which is universal amongst soldiers. Certainly I got on well with them all, though some time elapsed before we could understand a simple sentence spoken on either side.
For two days I was not fit for much: then I went to the front with a detachment of sixty gunners which had arrived from Petrograd via Warsaw. I found the battery and the rest of the regiment encamped to the westward of Przasnysz.
Heavy fighting was going on somewhere in front; but the contending troops were not in sight. The whole country was full of smoke, and the smell of burning wood and straw was nearly suffocating. The Germans had set fire to everything that would burn, including the woods. During the night heavy showers of rain fell, and these extinguished most of the fires and saved a vast quantity of timber.
I could see that the Germans had been driven back a considerable distance; and the Russians claimed to have won great victories in the neighbourhood of Stshutchen and Graevo, and to have already passed 500,000 men across the German border. That they were making progress was obvious; and on the 20th August I witnessed some desperate infantry fighting.
The Germans came on, as they always did, in immense columns, literally jammed together, so that their men were held under fire an unnecessarily long time. The usual newspaper phrase, "Falling in heaps," was quite justifiable in this case. Thousands fell in ten minutes; and the remainder broke and fled in spite of the efforts of their officers to stop them. I was well in front and saw what took place. The German officers struck their men with their swords and in several cases cut them down; and I saw one of them fire his revolver into the crowd. I did not actually see men fall, but he must have shot several.
The Russians, too, adopted a much closer formation than was wise, and suffered severely in consequence, but they never wavered. The Germans came on again and again, nine times in all, and proved themselves wonderful troops. Four out of the nine charges they drove home, and there was some desperate bayonet fighting in which the Teutons proved to be no match for the Muscovites. The last named used the "weapon of victory" with terrible effect, disproving all the modern theories about the impossibility of opposing bodies being able to close, or to come into repeated action on the same day.
On the contrary, it may be taken as certainly proved that men's nerves are more steeled than ever they were, and that the same body of men can make repeated and successive attacks within very short periods of time. In the above attacks fresh bodies of troops were brought up each time, but the remnants of the battalions previously used were always driven on in front. I noticed this: on three occasions the 84th regiment (probably Landwehr) formed part of the attacking force.
"Driven on" is the correct term. The German officers invariably drove their men in front of them. Arriving in contact with their foes, the soldiers fought with fury. It was the preliminary advance that seemed to discompose them: and, indeed, their losses were dreadful. They certainly left at least 30,000 dead and wounded on the ground on the 20th. The greater number were dead, because those who lay helpless received a great part of the fire intended for their retreating comrades, and thus were riddled through and through.
The Russian artillery played on the masses both when they advanced and retreated; but the fight was chiefly an infantry one. The full effect of the guns could not be brought into play without danger of injury to our own men. In the end the Russians chased the enemy back and the artillery was advanced to support them. Considerable ground was gained; but four or five versts to the rear of their first position the Germans were found to be strongly entrenched. The day's fight was finished by a charge of a large body of Cossacks and Russian light cavalry. They swept away the force of German horsemen who ventured to oppose them, and also drove back several battalions of infantry. That part of the Russian Army which had been engaged bivouacked on the ground they had fought over.
The cries of the wounded during the night were terrible to hear, and came from many different points and distances. Hundreds must have died from want of attention, and hundreds more, on both sides, were murdered. The Germans, who were hovering about in small parties, persistently fired on the Red Cross men, so little could be done for the dying; and the cruelties which were perpetrated, and which were revealed (so I was told) by the shouts, entreaties and imprecations of the sufferers, aroused a nasty spirit in the Russians, and particularly in the Cossacks, and led to fearful reprisals, so that in one part of the field I know that not a German was left alive. I am bound to add that after I had seen two Russians brought in with their eyes gouged out, and another with his nose and ears cropped, and his lacerated tongue lolling from his mouth, I had not a word of protest to utter against these reprisals. The Germans were finished fiends, and deserved all they got from a body of men notorious for their fierceness; and they did get it. I will say this, though: that throughout the campaign no instance of a Russian injuring a woman or a child came under my notice; nor did I hear of any such cases. But I was told that three Prussian girls, who were seen to be on friendly terms with some Russian soldiers, were nearly flogged to death by their own people; and the horrible treatment the Polish women received from the hands of the Germans has already been mentioned, and was ever recurring during the whole of the time I spent with the Russian Army.
I would here make mention of the quality of the Russian and German soldiery. Conscription sweeps into the ranks of an army numbers of men who are totally unfit for a military life and a still further number who abhor it. In the present war, hatred and vindictive feeling generally has run very high on the northern side of the fighting area; and this circumstance seems to have greatly increased the war-like instinct of the masses, and consequently decreased the number of what I may term the natural non-combatants. In the Russian ranks, and I believe in the German also, this class is weeded out as far as possible, and relegated to the organizations which have least to do with the fighting line—that is, the administrative services, and troops organized to maintain the lines of communication. But these fellows—the natural non-combatants, or haters of the soldier's life, I mean—are, when found in the fighting ranks, the most detestable scoundrels imaginable; and I believe the greater part of the atrocities committed may be laid to their charge. They lose no opportunity of indulging in lust and murder; and as in civil life they are mostly wastrels, thieves and would-be murderers, they find in war an opportunity to indulge in those vices which, practised in time of peace, would bring them to the prison and the noose. In other words, the scum of the big cities is brought into the army, and often proves as great a curse to its own administrative, as it does to that of the enemy. Not all the Germans were fiends—not all the Russians saints.
Early in the war many of the German regiments were composed of exceedingly fine-looking men. There was a decided deterioration later on, but this was more in appearance than quality: they still fought with determined, or desperate, courage; I am inclined to think, often the last-named. They were taught that the only way to escape the brutality of their officers was to face the courage of their foes. They chose the latter. Often hundreds—whole companies together—rushed over to the Russians, threw down their arms, and surrendered themselves prisoners of war. No such instance ever occurred in the Russian ranks. The Russian soldier is a very pious man, and, like the North Aryan stock from which he has sprung, is a great worshipper of ancestry and his superiors. His commanding officer, like his Czar, is a Father, or a Little Father—a sacred being—his priest as well as his temporal master. The consequence is that officer and soldier are one, a conjunction that is of great value from the military standpoint.
This is never the case in the German Army. The Teutonic officer is a brute and a slave-driver, and his soldiers fear him if they do not hate him. I doubt if any German soldier ever gets through his training without being repeatedly struck by all his superiors from the unter-officer upwards. Feathers show how the wind sets. A Prussian regiment (the Pomeranian Grenadiers) was route-marching. One of the musicians blew a false note: the bandmaster immediately turned and struck the man a stinging blow on the face. I believe the German Army is the only one in the world where such an incident could occur. Like master, like man. One brute breeds another.
Taken on the whole the old adage that "one volunteer is worth two pressed men" is true; but an army of ten or twelve millions could not be successfully met by one of a million or two. Numbers must count when they are excessive; though things militate against this rule sometimes. If an army has not its heart in a contest very inferior numbers may win. In the present case it soon became clear to me that both the great nations had their hearts in the war: the surprising thing is that Russia with her huge hordes has so far done so little—Germany hard pressed on all sides effected so much.
These words will reveal that I do not take the general view that Russia is progressing as fast and as well as she might reasonably be expected to do.[1] Yet I am unable to point out very clearly where her principal defect lies. She brought up troops very rapidly; and by the 20th August she had an enormous army in the field on the East Prussian frontier. At this time, and later on, I learned that her lines extended throughout the German border and far along that of Austria to the Bug; and she was said to have at least 5,000,000 men massed in these lines. The Germans had not nearly so many—probably not more than 2,500,000 or 3,000,000; but they had the power, by means of their railways, to concentrate on a given point very rapidly, and so equal, or more than equal, the Russians, who, being without adequate railway communication, could not take advantage of their superior numbers. If the last-named saw a weakness in any part of the German defensive and attempted to take advantage of it, before they could bring up an adequate number of troops the Germans had discovered their intentions and rushed up a sufficient force to secure the threatened point: and this they did by bringing men from positions so numerous, and so distant, that they nowhere materially weakened their line; or, if they did so, they were enabled to conceal the fact.
[1] This paragraph was written four or five months ago.
Europe, Austria and Germany, is surrounded by a ring of armed men, extending, roughly, a distance of 1,500 miles, and defended by a force of about 14,000,000 men, or some five men to the linear yard. This is, in modern war, a sufficient number for effective attack or defence, on ordinary ground; but it is not too many, and in prolonged operation may prove to be too few on some descriptions of terre-plein. Yet, after ten months of the fiercest and most destructive fighting the world has ever seen, this ring of armed men has not been broken, though persistently attacked by three of the most powerful military nations on earth.
My estimate of the number of German and Austrian troops actually in the fighting-line at the beginning of the war is much in excess of the numbers stated in English newspapers. I note this; but do not think that 14,000,000 is an exaggeration. I have information, and am not merely guessing. Nor are the losses of the enemy overstated by me.
Down to the present date the losses of the Germans and Austrians amount to about 3,000,000 men; but it must be remembered that quite two-thirds of these would be wounded men who would recover, and go back to their respective fighting-lines; so that the actual number of men permanently put out of action is about 1,000,000, including those accounted for by the French, British, and Belgian armies. The losses of the Russians are nearly 2,000,000 men. Of these the greater part fell in the fighting I have described and am about to describe, fighting which may be called a prolonged battle for the possession of Warsaw on the one side and its defence on the other. The importance of this combat will be recognized when it is considered that the taking of Warsaw is the first necessary step towards the occupation of Petrograd.
The vision of one man, especially in war, is limited; and I did not see everything that took place in the region in which I was. I heard a good deal, and was ever on the watch to learn and verify, but it could not be otherwise than impossible to be always sure—always correct; and without doubt there are many errors in my narration. What I saw, I saw, and this may be relied on: what I guessed, or was told, I have advanced with caution. Taken as a whole I think my account of the fighting in Poland and East Prussia is as reliable as that of any one man can be: and let it be remembered that I held no official position which could help me in gaining knowledge.
On the evening of the 20th, and morning of the 21st, many rumors reached our corps of Russian successes in the neighbourhoods of Gumbinnen and Suvalki, places which were said to be but little more than 100 versts from our position. The first-named is an open town in East Prussia twenty-five versts over the border; and the news gave great joy to our troops, as it proved that Germany was actually invaded. My informants of the details were Major Polchow and two or three officers who spoke a little English and French and were able to make themselves understood to me.
There was said to have been desperate fighting, with heavy losses, the capture of many German prisoners, and the complete annihilation of a whole division of the enemy.
The occupation of Gumbinnen was of great importance because it is on the Prussian direct line to Vilna, one of the most important railway centres in this part of Russia and perhaps in the whole empire. Although the Russians could not maintain their hold of it, its temporary occupation, no doubt, had an important effect, and possibly helped more than seems to have been seen in saving Warsaw from the enemy's hands. For had they succeeded in seizing Vilna, the Russian force in Poland would have been deprived largely, if not entirely, of reinforcements and supplies in general. It was one of the peculiarities of the war in Poland and East Prussia that neither side seemed able to keep an important position for any length of time. Places were seized which had a telling effect for the moment, and which one would have thought would have greatly influenced the fate of the campaign; and yet they were soon retaken or rendered untenable and the advantages of their seizure lost. In fact the fighting swayed to and fro. Here to-day, there to-morrow, the battle was lost or won. It was all a question of railways.
On the 21st the Russians crossed the frontier between Janow and Chorzellen, and advanced towards Ortelsberg, driving in a force of Uhlans and smashing a battery.
The next day they were met by a force of Villenberg, which partially outflanked us. Desperate fighting ensued, the Germans suffering terrible losses: but they had an object to effect—to hold the Russians until reinforcements arrived. These were run down rapidly from Koenigsberg and the Russians outnumbered and forced back. The fight was lost because the Germans had a network of railways behind them, while the nearest Russian line was 45 versts away. These facts require no comment. A Russian railway at Chorzellen would have saved the day, and led to the investment and probable fall of Koenigsberg. It would have made the occupancy of Tilsit and Memel permanent, and would almost certainly have changed the results of the campaign in this region.
As it was, we had to fall back; but we did so fighting stubbornly, and giving ground very slowly, reinforcements hourly arriving by march-route. Finally we made a stand at Chorzellen, and the Prussians tried their usual tactics of repeated attacks in masses. They left 10,000 dead before the town (it is scarcely more than a big village), and then entrenched themselves at a hamlet called Straffenberg, several miles in a south-westerly direction towards Unterberg: and then a terrific artillery duel commenced. I calculated that 30,000 shots an hour were fired from both armies. The air, the ground, everywhere and everything, seemed to be alive with bursting shells. The roar of guns and explosions was incessant and quite drowned the sound of the infantry firing. Afterwards many men were deaf; I myself could hear no sounds for two days.
I do not know how many guns were in action, nor the calibre of them. On our side only field guns were used, and if the Germans had any of larger size they were, at this time, few in number. Hundreds of machine-guns were used on both sides, and yet the slaughter was not at all in proportion to the amount of ammunition expended. As in all battles, according to my experience, the principal part of the destruction was due to infantry fire. Of course the loss of life was very great. I can only say the ground was heaped with dead and dying. At each successive assault the Germans mounted the heaps of corpses to get at our men and, falling on their comrades, caused the slain to lie in heaps and ridges in an extraordinary and dreadful way. The wounded in the underlying layers must have been suffocated; and the blood ran down the slopes in streams.
This fearful form of fighting went on from the 22nd to the 28th August without any intermission, except occasionally a few hours in the night-time, rarely even then. I, like others, sometimes slept the sleep of utter exhaustion; but during the wakening hours I do not remember that the firing ever entirely ceased. Generally the sound of it was a continuous roar. The heavens were lit up by the reflections of discharged guns and bursting shells, and the pandemonium was dominated by a shrieking sound, probably occasioned by the rush of projectiles through the air. The terrific noise affected my brain so that for weeks afterwards I was afflicted with a head-noise resembling a loud hissing, almost intolerable to bear as it interfered with necessary rest.
The front of this terrific battle was very extensive—200 versts I was told; and the Russians claimed to have had 3,000,000 men in action. At the same time fighting was going on in Galicia, and there were some isolated contests, south and west of our position. The fortune of the contending parties varied greatly; in some places the Prussians were forced back, in others the Russians. Neither side had a decided victory in any part of the field, and the ground lost or won never exceeded a verst or two in extent and was often less than a hundred yards. So it is proved that close and hand-to-hand fighting are not things of the past, as many have thought them to be. On the contrary, close fighting is more often and more extensively resorted to than ever it has been previously, even in the open field; and I think, more fiercely contested. At any rate I saw several battalions on each side so nearly destroyed that they were practically wiped out. A battalion of the 9th West Siberian regiment on our side, and a territorial battalion of the 59th Prussians met with such a fate. Not fifty of the Russians nor more than a dozen of the Germans came out of the scrimmages. They were greatly outnumbered, and some of those lost were probably taken prisoners; but I can say, from actual sight of the incidents, that in each case the men fought with desperate bravery and evinced no desire to surrender.
There was some cavalry fighting too; but, generally, the Russians were numerically superior to their foes; and the Germans, more often than otherwise, avoided proffered battle. In a few instances squadrons and regiments charged one another, the Germans always getting the worst of it, and in one case at least being much cut up. The Russian cavalry even attacked infantry, but though they got away without serious loss, it is pretty evident that only in exceptional instances can cavalry now successfully contend with modernly armed foot soldiers.
THE CAVALRY FIGHTING BEFORE KOENIGSBERG
The battery to which I had attached myself was destroyed on the 26th. It was overwhelmed by an opposing fire which nothing could withstand, and an attempt was made to withdraw it. It was found impossible to limber up the guns: all the horses were killed, and only five or six of the drivers left. All the guns, too, were damaged; and Polchow, the commanding officer, gave the order for the few men left to endeavour to save themselves. As the words were being spoken a shell burst full on him, and, riddled by shrapnel bullets, he dropped dead without a struggle. About 20 men only got away and no horses were saved. My own was shot the moment I mounted it, and pinned me to the ground by its weight. I was exposed to the full blast of the German guns for nearly two hours. Partly shielded by the carcass I escaped injury, though my clothes were torn to rags by shrapnel bullets. The escape was miraculous. By-and-by the Germans fell back, after suffering murderous losses; and I was rescued from my perilous position by some infantry soldiers of the 70th regiment.
The loss of Polchow was a serious one to me, although I had known him so short a time, to say nothing of the shock of losing a friend from whose hands I had received many kindnesses. Other friends, too, were lost in these terrible fights, but the non-com. Chouraski escaped, though he was standing near one of our ammunition-carts when it was struck by a shell and blown up.
After dark a party went out to bring in the bodies of Major Polchow and two other artillery officers who had lost their lives during the day. It was raining heavily at the time; but the Germans heard us, and opened a sniping fire, by which we lost one man killed and another wounded.
We returned the fire, but had nothing to aim at except the occasional flash of a rifle; so we retired, carrying the bodies of our dead comrades with us, and buried them in the middle of a small pine-copse, with rough wooden crosses at the heads of the graves, on which we hung their caps and accoutrements after the custom prevailing during this campaign. The Russians always scrupulously revered German graves so marked: I am sorry to record that the Germans were not so humane, but hurt the feelings and aroused the ire of us all, men and officers alike, by their beastly indecencies on the graves of brave men, the very meanest of whom would have blushed to be so dirty-minded and cowardly.
The battery was ordered to be reformed, men, guns and horses being drawn from some reserves which, I believe, came via Petrograd; but as I would not have cared to serve under the officer appointed to command it, I sought and obtained from a Staff Officer a permit, signed by the Grand Duke Nicholas, enabling me to go practically where I liked. For a time I was with the 11th Corps, then with the 5th, and afterwards with several detachments and corps. It was a fortunate thing that I followed this course, as it enabled me to see much more and learn more than I could have done had I remained attached to a small unit.
On the 27th and 28th there was very severe fighting in the direction of Villenberg, at which I was not present. At least 20,000 prisoners were brought to the rear, together with a number of horses, guns and waggons. There can be no doubt but that the Germans received a severe defeat on these two days and were compelled to retire a great distance in a disorganized condition.
During these two days enormous reinforcements came up on the Russian side, including four cavalry divisions. There was great enthusiasm in our ranks, because news came to hand that the Russians had the Austrian army in a trap, and we might expect to hear of great things before the week had run out.
On the 29th I rode with the 5th division of the Cossacks of the Don, and by midday we had arrived in front of Allenstein, which is a junction of five or six railway lines and is situated about 70 English miles from Koenigsberg.
The people flew before us terror-stricken, and a regiment of German hussars was destroyed. I am afraid there were some atrocities on the part of the Cossacks. Without defending them I must remark that the Prussians had set them a very bad example, and they were not slow to imitate it. Villages were burnt and some civilians slain, and there were some other lamentable occurrences.
A German brigade of heavy cavalry fell back, and the railway-station together with a considerable part of the town of Allenstein were destroyed, partly by fire, partly by being blown up; while the lines were torn up in every direction; but this does not mean that the destruction was as great as it would be under similar circumstances in France or England, for the district is not a country of many culverts and bridges. The ground is marshy, with numerous pools and lakes of considerable size, which afforded good shelter to such German troops as were seen, and enabled them to retire without much loss; in fact there was scarcely any fighting on this day, and it became evident that they were waiting for reinforcements before venturing to attack the overwhelming mass of Russian cavalry, which was the largest body of horsemen I have ever heard of as acting in one huge corps. Probably they mustered 40,000 lances and sabres, and they covered the whole country on a front of quite 100 versts, extending from Allenstein to Goldapp near Suvalki.
The whole of this region is a swamp with a crescentic line of lakes and ponds—a difficult country for cavalry to act in; but the Cossacks crept in everywhere, and fire and lance did some fell work.
In some places there was fighting. On the 30th we came in contact with a division of Prussian infantry with 60 guns. Our men, consisting of dismounted Cossacks, dragoons and chasseurs, with 30 horse-artillery and machine guns, took cover amongst some reeds and scattered farm buildings and inflicted some loss on the enemy, who did not make a stand but soon withdrew behind a marshy lake, their guns taking a made road where they offered a good mark, so that a couple of them were knocked over, horses and all, though the enemy saved them under cover of darkness.
At night the railway-station at Bischofsburg was destroyed and the line torn up for a distance of four versts east and west of it; and we learned that our patrols had demolished the stations at Sensburg, Rastenburg, Latzen and Nordenburg, and had pulled up many versts of the line. We ourselves blew up the station at Seeburg, or Seeburg Road as it might be called, for the town is situated several versts from the railway. Altogether we seemed to be having a walk-over in this region, and when news arrived on the 2nd September that the Russians, after a week's fighting, had crushed the Austrian Army and occupied Lemberg, the excitement and joy in our division were such as I never before thought the phlegmatic Muscovites to be capable of, and I began to entertain the belief that the campaign would be a short one, and that the boast of the Russians that we should be in Berlin in two or three weeks' time was no vain one.
On this day our videttes were at Friedland, and we learned that the Prussians had come out of Koenigsburg in force, and that there had been severe fighting ending in the enemy retiring to the shelter of their forts. The Russian commanders, however, do not seem to have thought it advisable to pursue the foe to within range of their guns. On the 3rd we approached near enough to be able to see two of the outlying forts of the great stronghold. Many parties of Germans watched the dozen troopers composing our advanced guard; but there was no exchange of shots. We satisfied ourselves that certain dispositions of the enemy were intended as a lure to attract a considerable body of our troops within destructive range of their concealed parties. We smelt the trap and declined to be led into it, but one of our officers, Lieutenant Pitchchiff, with great temerity rode up to an eminence which gave him a great command of view and was less than 200 yards from a company of the enemy. He was not shot at, but a number of mounted men rode towards him, and to avoid being taken prisoner he had to come away at a hand gallop. I do not think the information he gleaned was of much importance.
The officer I came most in contact with was Captain Rudovka of the 16th Dragoons, but acting as intelligence officer to the commander of the 5th division of Cossacks. His bad English and my worse French enabled us to understand one another, and his duties, carrying him as they did over a great deal of ground, made him a very desirable companion. I had permission also to keep the artilleryman Chouraski with me. He was an excellent servant.
The Russian officer is usually a splendid fellow; jovial, polite, generous and frank in a high degree. He is not so well versed in the history and theory of his profession as the German officer, and not a patch on his British comrade, who, after all is said and done, is the finest officer in the world. As to pluck and courage, there is not an appreciable difference in any of the armies. I witnessed some magnificent instances of bravery in both Germans and Russians; and truth to tell, acts of devilish cruelty in both nations—acts which I do not believe it is possible either French or British officers could commit, however great the provocation.
There are peculiarities in all peoples; and one of those of the Russians is the number of females serving in their ranks, many of them as officers. Indeed, I heard that one lady commanded a regiment of Cossacks! This seems to me on a par with a General nursing a baby! But I never was "a lady's man," so perhaps I had better reserve my opinions. All I say is that I am glad the lady referred to was not the Colonel of any regiment under the wings of which I fought; and I should imagine that any "mere male" brought before a court-martial of Amazons would stand more danger of being spanked than shot.
I saw some of these female soldiers—quite a score in all. There was nothing particularly romantic in the appearance of any of them. Most of them had the appearance of big, lanky raw-boned boys; faces oval, features "puddeny," and complexions pale. One girl, said to be only eighteen years old, was quite six feet high, with limbs that would fit a grenadier. I noticed that all those I saw were dark-haired women. They are said to have been enlisted as men and to have remained in their regiments some time before their sex was discovered. When this event took place the woman was allowed to remain in the service. I was a little curious to know where these ladies lodged, as accommodation is always limited enough in the tented field. I found that, in the case I was so rude as to pry into, the girl slept amongst the soldiers, but was relegated to a tent occupied exclusively by married men. My admiration was great. The wisdom of the East still reigns in Muscovite brains. Where else would one find the wisdom of the serpent combined with the harmlessness of the dove but in a tent full of married men unless, indeed, it would be in a tent full of married ladies?
The Northern nations are not prudish in the matter of housing the sexes together. Men and women sleep promiscuously in one compartment in their cottage, farms, etc.
For some days the centre of fighting was in Austrian Poland and Galicia, of which we could see nothing. There was also a powerful advance across the German frontier in the direction of Breslau. More weight was given to these evolutions than they deserved. For a time the Russian attacks were irresistible, but the Germans invariably succeeded in stemming them. The reason lies in a nutshell. The enormous weight of millions forced the enemy back; but he always retired slowly, doggedly; and when he had collected a sufficient force made a determined counter-attack which never failed, because man for man the German is by far the better fighter. It may be unpleasant to many to hear this; but it is true; and no man is more sorry than I am that it is so. The German is, generally speaking, a ferocious brute, but he is possessed of the bestial courage of a tiger, and, like that fierce animal, has an insatiable taste for blood. To say that the German Army is an organized band of criminals, a trained body of thieves and murderers, may seem to be far-fetched and exaggerated to some persons; but if they had witnessed what I have witnessed they would not say so.
Young Polish girls were forced to drink until they were helplessly drunk, and in this dreadful condition were outraged to death. The body of an aged female (no doubt a matron) was found hanging from a tree by the feet, disembowelled and trussed as a hog, with this notice pinned to her, "An old sow left to be salted." A whole company of Prussian infantry abused one poor woman who died in our camp. In one village about 150 men and male children, down to the age of nine or ten years, were burned alive. In another place, a small hamlet near Shiplishki, we heard the screams of burning people, and afterwards saw the charred remains of them. These are not isolated instances: they were of everyday occurrence, but I do not dwell on them for fear of exciting disgust. The murder and mutilation of the wounded was invariable when the enemy had time to effect it, and we became to some degree hardened to such commonplace occurrences.
On the other hand, the Russians retaliated; and I say, what wonder that they did so? I believe in retaliation. It is a powerful weapon to fight with. It frightened the Germans and afterwards, to a very marked extent, put a check on their atrocities. I stood by and saw 10 officers and 100 soldiers hanged; and as I did so I remembered that the first murders I witnessed in this horrible war were those of Russian subjects by the Germans at Kalisz; and if by holding up a thumb I could have saved the life of any one of these 110 scoundrels, I would not have lifted it. These were all clearly guilty of murder, wounding, torturing, female abusing, and plundering. Still I must say, with regard to the Cossacks—they are terrible fellows.
I have mentioned as a peculiarity of the Russian forces the number of women found in their ranks and welcomed there. The great peculiarities of the German Army, apart from its fiendish brutality, are the prevalence of suicide and insanity in it. Some months later than the time I am writing of, a captured German officer, a Lieutenant, I believe, of a Landwehr regiment, told me that down to the end of February, 1915, at least a thousand men had destroyed themselves; and he mentioned it as a curious fact that hardly any of these miserable creatures belonged to the artillery branch of the service. The reasons for destroying themselves were rarely left behind by the victims of this terrible infatuation. Some of our prisoners destroyed themselves; and I saw one man shoot himself on the battlefield. But in this latter instance horror at the sights around him was the probable cause of the deed.
Insanity is even more frequent amongst German soldiers than suicide. At the battle of Darkehmen a man, quite naked, foaming and gesticulating wildly, rushed towards us. The astonishment this excited caused a lull of the firing at the spot, and he dashed along for 500 yards at a tremendous speed, leaping and springing like a stag. He made straight for our ranks, where he was knocked down by a soldier and secured. He bit very badly several of his captors before being carried to the rear. I do not know what became of him; but hundreds of our prisoners were raving when captured.
THE FIRST INVASION OF EAST PRUSSIA, AND THE RETREAT
By the 4th or 5th September it was pretty generally known, in that part of the Russian Army where I was, that something was going wrong with us. Great masses of infantry and artillery were formed eastward, behind, and on the right flank of the cavalry; and yet we made no further advance or progress in any direction. Some thought that our commanders were afraid of the garrison of the Koenigsberg forts, which was believed to number 150,000 men. I, and others engaged on outpost and scouting work, knew that German reinforcements were coming up rapidly, and that a large army was collecting on the Vistula between Marienburg and Thorn. These reinforcements, we knew, were coming from Belgium and the Western theatre of war, and also from the interior of Germany.
On our side reinforcements were coming up in great numbers; but at this period the chief fighting was on the Austrian-Russian frontier; and daily, and often almost hourly, news came to hand of the great victories which were being gained. It was asserted that in one day as many as 130,000 Austrian and Prussian prisoners were taken. The truth of these reports I had no means of ascertaining: nor of the many other rumours of the crushing victories of the Allies in the West, where the Germans were said to be retreating on all parts, and in many places, in disorderly rout. Now, eight months later, are they retreating at any point? Evidently mistakes were made; and it was not realized that the enemy was preparing a ring of defences which it would take many months to force. It was also said that the Germans were beginning to run short of ammunition. We soon had painful evidence that the Germans were short of nothing.
On the evening of the 5th September, they trapped one of our cavalry regiments and destroyed it, together with the greater part of a squadron of dragoons. Many of the men, including all the wounded, were taken prisoners.
On the 6th the enemy began to advance in force. The fighting consisted mostly of artillery duels at long ranges. While we were watching the action of some guns posted about two English miles away, a shell smashed to atoms the head and shoulders of an officer in the midst of our group, and we were splashed all over with his blood and brains—not a pleasant experience. The man must have been killed instantly, yet his hands and feet continued to twitch for some minutes after he was struck. It is remarkable that only one man was hurt, as we were standing close together under some trees, where we felt sure we were quite safe.
On the same day we began to retire, but slowly, and with much stubborn fighting. Nearly all the cavalry was drawn back from the front, and much of it must have been sent right away, as I never saw it again. The 5th Cossack division, however, remained; and for a long time was engaged in covering a portion of the 11th Army Corps.