I was told that one of the military doctors wondered whether I was a spy. As he was going to the staff of the LL Corps, I asked him to take me with him. Here I had a kind welcome, though I happened to be without all my papers. Everything seemed to be going better. The General in command, a man of decision and much humour, was evidently in good spirits; business was barred at meals; but the position was explained to me, and it was clear that the enemy was being held.
I was sent on to one of the Divisions, which had been in action for about five days. Here, in spite of the rapid changes in the personnel of the officers, there was the same feeling of confidence and hope. In the evening I rode out with the General of Division on his visit to one of the regiments. Everywhere we passed fresh troops coming up. We found the regimental staff in a wood; though there were huts quite near, the Colonel preferred a series of elaborate burrows which had been made in the sand among the trees. Near these burrows we sat round a table in the twilight, while orderly masses of grey figures kept passing us in their march forward. This Colonel, a big genial man with a composure that inspired confidence, soon dropped into a conversation about old comrades. The General had commanded the O regiment, and it was painful to hear his inquiries about one after another of his officers: almost all were gone.
The next day I again visited this regiment and went forward to the front. The rear was being shelled by the enemy with a good deal of shrapnel, and this seemed to be going on every day. As I got further forward I passed line after line of entrenchments and shelters, and eventually came on the front line, which was admirably complete and much more detailed than most of the positions which I had yet seen. The battalion, which was in a wood, was commanded by a fine young fellow, still a lieutenant, who exposed himself freely but took the greatest thought for his men. The enemy was only a few hundred yards off and suddenly opened a hurricane of musketry fire; practically none but explosive bullets were used; this was quite clear as they kept crashing into the trees all around us. The men, who were in fine strength and spirits, did not suffer; and such measures have been taken that the losses inflicted earlier by the German heavy artillery are very unlikely to be repeated.
At no time have I seen so marked a difference in the course of a few days. When I visited the San there was still the atmosphere of the preceding operations, heroism against odds. Now there was a quiet confidence for which one could everywhere see the reason—in the troops that had come up, and the lessons that had been learned.
May 29.
Matters here continue to take a better complexion. Yesterday in the staff of the LL Corps I was given the sketch-map of the day, which showed an advance at more than one point. The regiment which I had last visited had now crossed the little brook in front of its trenches and also the larger stream which runs at some distance almost parallel with it. Of this I had painful evidence just outside headquarters. A man with face bound up had just been brought in and came forward to me making signs. On the paper which I gave him he wrote: "I am the Commander of the second battalion of the Y regiment. Where are you off to now?" It was the fine young lieutenant whom I had seen a few days back, so proud of his new command and so brisk and vigorous in all his dispositions. He wrote that he had been wounded during the attack by an explosive bullet, such as I had heard crackling against the trees when I was with his regiment. His mouth was shattered, but he was quite cool and gave no sign of pain. My companion sent him off at once by motor to the ambulance.
At another point there had been a more definite advance, which, coming as it did just where the enemy had made a great effort to break through, seemed to promise results all along the line. This was the point that I decided to visit; so I was directed to a cavalry division from the Caucasus which was stationed there. I experimented in a new means of conveyance, namely a hand-truck which worked between our last station and the front. It was a sporting ride, and we went faster than a good many trains. Just before I started I was asked to carry word to a badly wounded officer that a motor was being sent for him. Alighting at a signal-box, I made my way to the place, and the poor fellow was delighted; but alas! no motor could make its way over this road, and the young man died before there were other means of moving him.
Headquarters staff of the Division was a farm building crowded with fine horses and soldiers. The men wore the long black busbies and the picturesque flowing uniform of the Caucasus, with decorated sabres and bandoliers. The General was a patriarchal man with bald head and long beard, easy of manner and short and conclusive in speech. He kindly put me up in his own room, and through the night he seemed to be doing business at a great rate with the minimum of exertion. Next morning the whole position was shortly and plainly explained to me; in the night we had taken another village, and levelled up the line of our advance rightwards. I was sent to see the corresponding movement on the left.
The General took me with him to one of his Brigadiers, and on the way in a few vigorous words put renewed heart into two brisk-looking batteries that lay on our road. The soldier who took me forward had the day before got a skin wound on the face from shrapnel, while carrying a message to the staff; it had not prevented him from returning to the front. The General jocularly told him that to-day he would probably get one on the other cheek.
As we came out of the wood, we saw a man dodge past us, and the next minute came the explanation in the shape of a shell. The railway ran straight forward up the bare slope; and the enemy was shelling all along this line. A few hundred yards on, behind the lightest of shelters, was a hole in the ground with a telephone, which served during action for the staff of the regiment. I asked for the Colonel, and they pointed to a splendidly built man lying stretched out on the ground. I thought for a moment that he was dead, but he was only lying fast asleep under the shrapnel, after the ceaseless and arduous work of the attack. He stood up and shook himself like some noble animal, standing in the open, much against the wish of his officers.
We sat and talked for some hours. The ground where we were had all been won in the night. Our present positions, temporary and little developed, were about five hundred yards further up. Our men were only six hundred yards from the Germans and had orders to advance by short stages. Some of them had already crept forward two hundred yards and were throwing up head cover on the ridge of the slope. Other parts of the ridge were still in the hands of the Germans; their trenches were plainly visible, and they were firing down on us, aiming at anything which stood upright.
A soldier was sent by the railway ditch up to the front, so I went with him. The best plan after all was to walk forward, stepping out but without hurry. A little beyond the level of our lines I found some breast-high shelters on the edge of the railway ditch. Here we posted the bearers, who would wait to attend to the wounded.
One got a near view of all our front. A group of some twenty men had gone forward together and were entrenching themselves; others at intervals crept forward on their own initiative on different sides; it was rather like men at a Salvation meeting, coming in, one by one, for conversions. As one was halfway up to his comrades, a shrapnel burst with a flare just above him; he lay still for a few minutes and then crawled slowly back, evidently wounded. The twenty had hardly established themselves when three shrapnels and a shell burst at intervals all along their little line. However, the slow process went on, and the line was being gradually levelled up to those who were furthest forward.
This slow advance, inevitable in daytime, is very trying. The moment of greatest danger was when the men came in full view of the enemy, who from his trenches could direct his artillery fire with precision on to the Russian advance. As our men came closer in, this danger would disappear, for the German artillery in the rear would be afraid of hitting its own infantry; but this stage was still far off.
I came back to the staff, and when close to it I was noticed and followed with a little shower of explosive bullets which burst near me. Beyond the railway, much the same movement was in process, except that here machine guns were at work. I made my way back to the wood; shells travelled overhead far to our rear; as each passed, the wounded men whom I was supporting jerked instinctively away from me and wished to lie down or seek any shelter.
I had a long walk back, passing on the way groups of those wounded who were able to go on foot, and followed for some distance by two soldiers who were on the lookout for spies.
May 31.
I have had an interesting talk with a German officer, commander of a battery which was cut off by the Russians in a recent advance on our side. He comes from the Rhine and has lived long in Hamburg, and he inspired in his captors the greatest respect by his breeding and good feeling.
We talked first of Hamburg: he described it as a dead town; trade there is, but it goes by other roads and most of the profits remain in neutral countries. The short rations in Germany he insisted were simply a measure of precaution, and latterly prices had been lowered; he had a poor opinion of potato bread. Next we talked of the Rhine Universities, which are practically emptied of students by the war. There are in the army many volunteers from the age of sixteen to that of forty-eight, but this is no indication of the depletion of material for the Army.
We now got on to the main questions; he was very ready to discuss them and spoke perfectly frankly. I asked on what side Germany could hope for any deciding success. He admitted at once that no such point, of the kind that Napoleon used to look for, was to be found on any side, and he maintained that from the outset, both militarily and politically, Germany was fighting a purely defensive war, of course by frequent counter-offensives. In that case, I suggested, Germany could only have peace by our offering it, that is, by our getting tired of the war; and surely it was unfortunate that she had all of us against her at once. In reply he reminded me of the German word Streber, which means a restless pushing person who is always disturbing and annoying others. Economically, he said, the struggle for life in Germany had become almost impossible, of which he himself had seen many instances. Some outlet was essential, and this England and the other Powers had united to prevent. I said that for us English the issue was whether Germany should have things which we at present possess, and that we were not likely to give them up without fighting. He quite accepted this. Germany, he said, was like the troublesome boy of the school, who was dissatisfied and had a grievance, and was always making things unpleasant for all the rest, so that there was no wonder if he was not liked. I suggested that this went too far, if his own old allies, such as Italy, turned against him. He expressed a natural resentment against Italy, and said that anyhow here right was on the side of Germany, who would continue to defend herself to the end. I answered that we might disagree as to the question of right, but that I could not understand how any successful issue could be hoped for under such conditions. He was of my opinion, and twice spoke of the war as a "catastrophe." I asked, then, why Germany should persist in a policy which had obviously, especially in the case of Italy, proved to be a misguided one; we all felt admiration for the magnificent fighting power of the German army, which might have dealt successfully with us separately; but it had been set an impossible task. He replied that England had a long experience as a state and that policy with her was well thought out; Germany had only some forty years of a united existence behind her, and the policy which had led to "the catastrophe" could not, as a policy, be defended. I asked whether it was likely to be changed, and to this I neither expected nor got any answer. But it was interesting that, in spite of the great successes in western Galicia, he described the present mood of the army as nothing like the first great outburst of enthusiasm at the beginning of the war.
I was later given an opportunity of examining a German private (a Hanoverian). This man had been asleep when the Russians stormed his trenches. I was interested both in the readiness of his answers, which he gave with a smiling face, and in the answers themselves. The German heavy artillery was all beyond the San, and troops were being sent away to the Italian front. Food was poor in Galicia; all the soldiers were for peace, and there was the same refrain in all the letters received from home. He had been on the western front near Reims and had made the railway journey to Neu-Sandec (Nowy Sacz) in five days. He spoke with especial respect of the first English troops, of the Russian field artillery and of the accuracy of the French heavy artillery.
June 7.
I had a talk with a staff officer of the E E Corps on the fortunes of his corps and on the German methods of advance. The corps had not been hit so hard as some others by the Austro-German impact; it helped to cover the retreat to the San, and stood to its ground beyond the river until one of its neighbours retired. When the enemy had thus got a footing beyond the river, the E E Corps made a counter-attack vigorous and successful. But the enemy pushed the next corps still further back, so that the E E's had also to rectify their line. However, they continued to make counter-attacks, at one point gaining about a mile of ground, and they were still holding good. They had at least the satisfaction of holding the forces of the enemy which were opposed to them, so that these troops could not move further along the Russian line to complete their offensive movement. This record is typical of very much of the Galician fighting, which is full of such ups and downs of attacks and of counter-attacks, and only reached decisive results by the employment, at given points, of an overwhelmingly superior heavy artillery.
The German method is to mass superior artillery against a point selected and to cover the area in question with a wholesale and continuous cannonade. The big German shells, which the Russian soldiers call the "black death," burst almost simultaneously at about fifty yards from each other, making the intervening spaces practically untenable. The cannonaded area extends well to the rear of the Russian lines, and sometimes it is the rear that is first subjected to a systematic bombardment, the lines themselves being reserved for treatment later. On one of my visits the divisional and regimental staffs were being so shelled that the former had to move at once and one of the latter was half destroyed; but meanwhile there was hardly a shot along the actual front. In this way confusion is created, and reinforcements and supply are made difficult. It is the wholesale character of these cannonades that make their success, for there is nowhere to which the defenders can escape. The whole process is, of course, extremely expensive.
When a considerable part of the Russian front has thus been annihilated, and when the defenders are, therefore, either out of action or in retreat, the enemy's infantry is poured into the empty space and in such masses that it spreads also to left and right, pushing back the neighbouring Russian troops. Thus the whole line is forced to retire, and the same process is repeated on the new positions.
When success in one district has thus been secured, the German impact is withdrawn and again brought forward at some further part of the Russian front. In other words, the German hammer, zigzagging backwards and forwards, travels along our front, striking further and further on at one point or another, until the whole front has been forced back.
The temper of this corps, as of practically all the others, is in no sense the temper of a beaten army. The losses have been severe; but with anything like the artillery equipment of the enemy, both officers and men are confident that they would be going forward.
June 10.
I rode over dull country on my way to the SS Corps, one of whose divisions I had visited a week or so before. While I sat lunching in a wood, regiments of cavalry swept past me, filling the air with dust; sometimes one could not see a horseman until he was upon one. Not far from the Staff there was a sick soldier lying by the road, with some peasants looking after him; we sent him forward on a passing army cart.
The SS Corps was having an easy time after the recent fighting in a large village over three miles long which had several good clean quarters; the Polish peasants are excellent hosts. Neither side was making any move, but our Staff went up every day to the positions to direct the work of entrenching, which was being carried forward with the greatest energy. The General in command, who is very hearty and sociable, was just starting in his motor when I arrived, and he invited me to come with him. It was a far drive, and at one point we were stuck in the sand; we passed quite a number of different lines of defence, carefully planned and executed. As large drafts of recruits had come in recently, we halted at the edge of a wood and the General gathered the men round him and made them a very vigorous little speech. He described how Germany and Germans had for several years exploited Russia, especially through the last tariff treaty, which was made when Russia was engaged in the Japanese War, and set up entirely unfair conditions of exchange. He said that the German exploited and bullied everybody; and that was a thing which the peasant could understand, often from personal experience. Then he got talking of the great family of the Slavs, of little Serbia's danger and of the Tsar's championship, of Germany's challenge and of Russia's defiance. Next he spoke of the Allies and of their help. And then he spoke of the regiment, which bears a name associated with the great Suvorov; they were always, he said, sent to the hardest work, often, as now, to repair a reverse; and he spoke plainly and without fear of the recent retreat. Concluding, he told them a story of Gurko: some of his men had said that the enemy would have to pass over their bodies, and Gurko answered, "Much better if you pass over his." He ended by telling them all to "fight with their heads." In the wood he addressed another group. Both his little speeches were manly and effective, and they were very much appreciated; one of the men (I wear no epaulettes) called me to closer attention.
On the further edge of the wood there were good trenches, and from them ran a long and very winding covered way to the front line of all. The enemy here was only some sixty yards off, and we could get a good view of his lines; but this day he only sent a few intermittent shrapnel over our heads.
The next day we motored again to this side, which was on our extreme right flank. We left the motors and rode fast through thick brushwood. Most of us got separated from the leaders, but we picked up their tracks, and our Cossacks gave us a great gallop to catch up with them. We had tea in a beautiful wood with an outpost of the Red Cross, which was living in tents; the regimental band played to us, and gave us "God save the King." We were just beginning to talk about the stifling gases. "Confound their politics; Frustrate their knavish tricks" seemed to have a new significance. After tea we rode and walked to an artillery observation post, from which the enemy's lines were clearly visible. This day wore a holiday atmosphere, with music and snapping of photographs and the forest picnic. But the General's alertness was soon to be proved. Three days later the Germans made their new advance exactly at this point, but of that I will write later.
June 13.
Next to the L Corps on the right is one of the most famous corps in the Russian army—3 K. In this war it has been put to hard and dangerous work all over the front.
At Kosienice, which saw some of the hardest fighting in the war, two regiments crossed the Vistula—the Vistula, mind; and those who have seen it will know what that means—under fire and in face of two German corps and three Austrian; another brigade of 3 K came along the river from a Russian fortress on the western bank, marching knee-deep through marsh and water with the general at its head. The two regiments that crossed moved forward to a vast forest near the river, and there they had an hour and a half's bayonet fighting—one may imagine what that means. An enormous number of officers went down; the B's lost forty, and the S's in the course of those five days had seven successive officers killed while commanding the regiment. In the midst of the bayonet fighting, when most of the Russian officers fell, some of the Germans shouted out in Russian, "Don't fight your own men!" and in the confusion which followed the Russians left the forest and lay, half in marsh and with only the most elementary cover, under a devastating artillery fire; however, they held their ground on this bank of the river, and, as soon as they were reinforced, they again moved forward and scattered the Germans, drove them off westward, and then pushed the Austrians, in more than a week of fighting, beyond Kielce, where they feasted their triumph with the old corps song, "God has given victory." After this followed arduous fighting in the Czenstochowa region. Later the corps went to the eastern Carpathians to stem an Austro-German advance, and it was thence brought rapidly across to the assistance of our army when the tremendous artillery impact of the enemy fell on Galicia between Gorlice and Tarnow.
I first saw General Irmanov the day he had entered Kielce. He is one of the most remarkable and sympathetic figures of the whole war. I saw what seemed an old man of middle height, of sturdy figure, with a curious outward kink in his walk as of one who had lived much on horseback; he has a singularly peaceful and gentle face, with a high colour and grey hair and beard; a child-like simplicity and directness blended with a fatherly benevolence; but the suggestion of different ages ends, when one sees much of the General, in one's forgetting age altogether. The voice is a mild, high one which sometimes comes out like a little bark. I had a long talk then with General Irmanov, and for every one of my questions got a clear and full answer. Irmanov was not a General Staff officer; in peace and off duty he lives a quiet domestic life in his mountain home. His staff is like a family; there is a peculiar smartness and spirit in the salute when the General appears and all line up to greet him. He mounts without delay and is off in a moment; he is one of the fastest riders in the army, and in a few minutes his suite, trained riders as they are, are all streaming behind him.
In the battle of Gorlice the corps was set a desperate task. It was to turn the German flank and get to the devastating heavy artillery and take it. It is always shorter to go forward than to go back; and this was the one way in which bold hands could beat metal. When I first heard the order, some one said, "Irmanov can do it"; and he very nearly succeeded. The Prussian Guard Reserve was against him, and their prisoners, who held their heads high in other matters, were all agreed as to the heroism of 3 K. There followed tremendous rearguard fighting, battles or marches every day. The corps was 40,000 when it marched on the guns; it was 8000 when it stood covering the Russian rear beyond the river San. It was 6000 when it made its counter-advance on Sieniawa, and then it took 7000 prisoners and a battery of heavy artillery. Not much of the beaten army in this!
I reached the pleasing white farmhouse in which the staff of the corps lived, and felt at home from the first. They made me feel myself to be one of the party; there was no ceremony, but the General, who found time for everything, saw to it himself that I had a little room of my own, which he visited to see that all was in order.
Next day he asked me whether I would like to go with a colonel of Cossacks. This seemed simple enough. We went to the colonel's quarters, took a quick lunch and then mounted. The whole regiment, I noticed, was behind us; we started at a dashing pace, breaking a way through thick forest, the branches often lashing our faces. The Germans had come through at one point, and we were on our way to stop them; if we found them on the march, the regiment would charge; if they were taking cover, we should take cover opposite them and possibly advance on foot to a counter-attack, in which the Cossack's sword would replace the infantry bayonet. At a signal all heads were uncovered and, while we still rode forward, there rose a solemn hymn which is always sung before action. Later the colonel said, "We have been serious long enough; let's have some songs"; and with the music of the Don and Caucasus rising and falling we rode forward.
I had begun to wonder what exactly was my part in the day's business—for I was riding, with only a Red Cross brassard, next to the colonel—when we were all told to dismount, hide in a wood and await further orders. We were here for about two hours; I woke from a good sleep to see the divisional general come out of his hut with our colonel. The General made vigorous gestures which I thought must be an order for attack; but it turned out just the opposite. The gestures meant that the German advance had already been stopped, and the colonel came back, saying, "Got to go home." From my point of view it was just as well, for I am sure I could have done nothing to help except fall off. We rode slowly back in the evening; and every now and then the men sang long melodies that fitted the hour and the bare plains.
June 16.
The day after our ride there was nothing doing, and it was difficult to make any plan. I spent most of the day lying about the big garden, as many of the soldiers did. There were pleasant gullies, and beyond lay the long, rambling, white-walled village with a pretty church. The village girls were all on the way thither dressed in bright colours. It seemed that there were services twice a day; and the people, who were Poles, met whenever they heard the cannon, to pray for the success of the Russian arms.
I sat for some time in the church. The younger girls all knelt before the chancel and sang a long and beautiful prayer, into which, in the second half of each stave, there joined the voices of the men behind. Then the priest, who looked both kind and clever, had a talk with the younger children. Poland is one of the few countries where all the church music is congregational, and it is often sung very beautifully. For the Pole the church is the fortress and shelter of his country; and in this terrible war, which has fallen so hardly on Poland, this comfort is more needed and more real than ever. It is many times that the inhabitants of this region, especially old peasant women, have told me how they feared the coming of the Germans.
The Staff was a very pleasant company. The chief, also a general, had the face and manner of a conscientious English country gentleman; he was widely read in military history, and his judgments were always weighed. The senior adjutant had been contusioned and invalided, but somehow had managed to return almost at once; he was humorous and talkative; in his room he had a placard, "There is no air in this room, don't spoil your health and GO AWAY." Over the General's door he had written, "Don't disturb work or rest."
Two officers examined our prisoners, assisted by a Czech interpreter. There was one very militant Austrian German, who would have it that Austria would win; he was so rude about the Austrian Slavs that I asked him at the end whether Austria wanted the Slavs. He said they wished to be quit of Galicia, and in fact of all their Slav provinces; I suggested that Austria proper and Tirol might find their natural place inside the German empire; he answered with alacrity, "Of course, far better under Wilhelm II." It is a view which offers possibilities of a settlement; but I did not see how it would suit Austria.
In the evening the Cossacks, encamped in different groups in the wood, struck up their strange songs and the Russian national hymn, which they have their own way of singing, suggestive of cadences in the music of the north of England. I came back from a walk in the cornfields to hear that the General invited me to come with him the next day.
At eight in the morning all was movement. We made a vigorous start, and went off at a great pace towards our left flank, the point which I had already visited when with the SS Corps. The General missed nothing. He had a salute in his little high voice for every one: "Good day, sapper," "Good day, cavalier" (to any soldier with the George Cross); and men standing far away across the fields drew themselves to sharp attention to anticipate him with their lusty greeting. "Thank you for your trouble," he said, whenever we passed a group of men at work. At one point he galloped right away from all the lot of us, and when we caught him up he said, "I thought somehow he looked like my son." He turned round several times to ask, "Is the Englishman there?" and insisted on superintending the adjustment of my stirrups.
After passing several lines of entrenchments, we came to the front line. Here he ordered us all to stay on the edge of a wood and went forward into the open alone, diving into the trenches, talking with one man or another, patting them on the back and distributing rewards for bravery. He was soon back again from his scramble and said he must have an observation point. They took us to a tree with a ladder against it; the tree was outside our lines. He was up it in an instant. "They can come at us from three sides under cover here," he said, pointing to the surrounding woods. "Go up and have a look"; then, "Who's on our flank?" for we were at the limit of our positions. The answer did not satisfy him, nor did the reply which he received from a neighbouring regiment; he made the necessary dispositions and was off on horseback.
As we passed behind our lines we met a Red Cross outpost, where we made a short halt. A little further on there passed us at full gallop four regiments of Cossacks on their way to relieve our neighbours on the left, where, as we now knew, the Germans were breaking through. As we passed, the General called a salute to each regiment by name and to officers or soldiers in person; and we saluted each flag as the Cossacks swept past in full swing. We pulled up sharp at the Staff of the brigade. The General had the men out and talked to them; to the candidates presented for the George he said, "I will give it to any one who accounts for ten Germans;" then he spoke of England, and asked me to give a greeting, so I told them how grateful we were for all that they had done for the Allies, and how we meant to do our full share of the work.
Rewards were distributed, and we were off for home; but we had hardly got there, with every one except the General fairly tired, when he ordered his motor to take him off to his opposite flank, the right. He invited me to come with him, and I asked leave to spend the night in the trenches of the Q regiment, which held that flank. He gave his leave, as there was no disquieting news from that side, and my traps were put in the motor. We had a long push through the oceans of sand, but at last were travelling along the rear of the right flank. At one point some sinister hand, well in the rear of our front, had laid a whole line of fire through a great wood.
Suddenly there opened before us such a sight as I had seen at the beginning of the great fighting in Galicia when I was with the J Corps. There was one long line of fire, shell on shell bursting at close intervals and almost continuously in the twilight, with a deafening noise, though we were some way in the rear. It was the smashing tactics again—and again at the expense of the J Corps—which had suffered so much in the previous fighting.
General Irmanov thought for a moment that we had gone beyond our own positions; but it proved otherwise. We found the Staff of the Division in a garden outside a hut. It was a General whom I had met elsewhere, with a new Chief of the Staff, very conscientious and painstaking. With a lamp on the table we sat in the garden and heard the news. At four o'clock the Q's were intact. The neighbouring regiment of the J Corps, which was only at half strength, had had to retire from its positions; and the Q's, with their flank uncovered, were pounded till they had but few men left. These retreated in good order, guarding as best they could against further outflanking; but there was no question of getting to them that night.
In a single day our corps, which the enemy respected enough to leave till last, had been turned on both flanks; and at each of the threatened points so far distant from each other, General Irmanov, who could not have anticipated the danger, had managed to be on the spot as soon as it presented itself.
June 19.
The morning after our return from the right flank every one was very busy, and the best thing that one could do was not to get in the way. I had a chat with the Chief of the Staff, who, when he could snatch an interval at an anxious time, usually spent it with one of the more fantastic novels of Mr. H. G. Wells. We talked of the military reputations of the war. He told me we were engaged along our whole front; I had thought of getting to the regiment which I had accompanied near Biecz, and which belonged to this corps; but he said that it was difficult to send me. Shortly afterwards, in the most business-like way, everything in the house was packed; we, too, were to retreat.
General Irmanov believed in meeting attack by counter-attack, and almost every day his corps had contrived some surprise for the enemy, usually by night; on the day of my arrival it took over a thousand prisoners. Altogether the corps had taken in prisoners much more than its own original strength. But this time there were reasons which made retreat imperative. "If I had what I need," said the General, "I should advance to-morrow."
The retreat was conducted in the most perfect order. The General visited on his way the new line of entrenchments, which had been prepared with great care. I accompanied the senior adjutant to the new quarters, which were only four and a half miles off, but, alas! beyond the old frontier and in Russian Poland. What of our friends, the poor inhabitants, whom we left behind? In our new halting-place I could not fail to notice the delicacy of the corps authorities in their arrangements for their quarters. Everything was done to lessen the inconvenience for the townspeople; and the General's own quarters were asked, rather than claimed, of the local priest. The General had given a special order as to my own accommodation; I was again to have a room of my own.
By now I was coming to a conclusion which I had long been considering. I had visited these last corps to complete my information on some points which seemed to me to be of the first importance, not only to the army, but to Russia and to the allies. The data, of which I now had much more than enough, were overwhelming in what they indicated. Clearly the troops had lost not an atom of their fighting spirit; equally clearly they were fighting under the most unfair conditions and would continue to do so until their technical equipment, in arms and munitions, was much more on a level with that of the enemy. I wished to report in person what I had seen; and in this conclusion I was encouraged by the General. He thought I should not wait for the end of these operations, which might last a long while, but that I should be off as soon as possible. "Come back and live with us when we've got what we want," he said; "and we'll show you how we use it."
He gave me his motor to go and pick up my luggage. It was a curious journey. Apparently I had twelve miles to go, but one could not tell how fast the enemy was advancing elsewhere. We ourselves were retreating twelve miles next day. Besides, the roads were mostly a hopeless waste of sand, in which motors stuck fast and had to be dragged out by horses. I was therefore advised to make a circuit of something like eighty miles.
For most of this distance I had a glorious paved road, constructed, I believe, by a Polish count, and certainly as good as asphalte. Late at night I was only five miles from my luggage: but it took me till the morning—something like seven hours—to get over those five miles, and it was a wonder that we got through at all, for the aquatic feats of the chauffeur were astonishing. However, by the evening of the next day I was with the Staff of the army and making all preparations for going further. Among the Staff I found not the slightest trace of agitation. The situation was fully recognised, and there was a clear-cut plan for dealing with it. I saw all my friends, got all further information that I needed, and started for Moscow and Petrograd.
The last words of the Chief of the Staff of the army were these: "Be sure to say, after everything else, that we won't consider a separate peace and that we are perfectly confident of the final result."