Part 16

And now I was looking upon the battle. I saw on the edges of the great swamp two villages in flames. I located the German columns issuing from the south Augustowo woods and breaking into extended order, spread across the snow toward Mogilnice, a multitude of creeping specks of brown; and toward the south, out of Grezedy, they seemed suddenly to spring up from the earth, as if a Cadmus had sown them, and roll in a cloud toward a point beyond the yellow weeds, where now all the shrapnel seemed bursting, as if by fantastic intent, making beautiful the sky with the fleecy clouds that brought death. And in the din of it all, I heard now the harsh pecking of machine guns, and that which had been a rolling gray-green mass of men became jagged and wavering; and then as suddenly the earth gave up another armed harvest, and the wavering mass of men was caught up in this and hurled forward. Suddenly for the first time that day the sun streaked through the greasy clouds, and the bayonets flashed it back. Was that roar a cheer? As the gray-green mass rolled on, and there came a mad clamor as if all the machine guns were pecking away at once. Then it was as if the mass, swept over like a mighty inundation, for you could hear their volleys no more--only the shrapnel, which seemed suddenly to have lengthened its range, panged ever more faintly away, wreathing a covert where fugitives might flee in a halo of pure smoke.

I felt my arms growing tired. The officer looked patient. I thanked him and climbed to the ground. Tzschirner, too, looked patient.

"I thought you would remain there for the night," he smiled.

"Was I long?" I asked, surprised.

"Half an hour," he said.

But it is not the battery of 10.5's, not the village in flames, not the death stalking amid the pines, not the storm of the Germans near Grezedy, that will be my memory of the battle of Augustowo Wald. Rather it will be of an old woman--an old woman who lives in a little hut on the big farm, to the right of the road as you enter Augustowo. As we started for the battle I saw this wizened little figure with her red shawl wrapped around her head peering from the shelter of the door, like a hen thrusting its head from a coop. Two hours later, while returning, I looked toward the hut again and saw the little woman who wore the red shawl. She stood as before, her head cautiously peering through the crack of the door, as if she feared that her body might present too big a mark for the battle fire. As I looked again when our motor snorted past, I realized that she stood there frozen in terror. At the noise of our coming she turned her face to the road and I saw that her mouth was open wide--as wide as my hand.

_The Feast of Victory_

As we drove into Suwalki, the muffled rolling of the guns followed us through the damp twilight. Stopping at the Europiski Hotel, a faded building of painted stones, we passed to the clicking of sentries' heels under a dripping archway, opening into a filthy, watery court. One saw bare-legged women, yoked with double pails, picking their way between the shiny automobiles of the staff, to a typhus menacing well beyond. On the right of the archway a flight of heavy stone steps ran up to a dingy drinking room; a tea room now, since the days of the vodka _ukase_. A greasy proletarian smirked a welcome from behind a counter, laden with platters of food, as sour as his smile. Excusing himself, Rittmeister Tzschirner opened the door to a larger room on the right, which we had seen open during the day, but always closed after six at night. Taking seats at one of the little round topped tables, I watched the German officers filing in, taking plates from a high stack, and helping themselves from the large platters on the counter, always paying the price without comment and in money, while the greasy proprietor rang a merry tune on his cash register, and contemptuous, no doubt, that the conquering Germans paid his outrageous prices without protest. I knew the man with the smirk was thinking that had the Russians been the conquerors they would not have bothered about the score. No, not the Russians. They would have had his daughters dance for them, and they would have eaten their fill in the name of the Czar. To give him full measure, they might have beaten him with the flats of their swords. Bah, these Germans, they were fools!

"Excellence von Eichorn," said Tzschirner, returning, "begs that you be his guest at dinner."

I could scarcely credit my good fortune. Dinner with the Commanding General of the 10th German army on the night of his triumph.

"We shall eat with Excellence and his staff--in celebration of the victory," added the Rittmeister.

This latter was a bit of gentle irony that for the moment I missed. I later learned that the room which always closed at six, was the dining hall of General von Eichorn and his staff. As we passed in with Tzschirner, the officers showed a polite curiosity and then bent over their food. "_Amerikaner!_" I heard some one say. Soon I was shaking hands with the hero of the battle of Augustowo Wald. A tall white haired man, who must have been over sixty, whose face betokened more of the scholar than the soldier. The clear twinkling eyes and the fine thoughtful forehead, were those of a serene doctor of laws who was living out his life among the flowers of some pretty university town; and yet his jaw was a buttress of steel and his mouth had a way of thinning in a straight grim line--a strange combination of the humanitarian and militant elements.

"I congratulate your Excellency" (what a feeble attempt it was!) "upon your wonderful victory." Telling me I was very kind, he then by some trick of his marvelous personality almost succeeded in making us feel that we, not he, were the heroes of the evening. While we were meeting different members of his staff, we learned what the Russian rout was. The entire Tenth Army under General Russky had been smashed. One hundred thousand men had been made prisoners; eighty thousand wounded, forty thousand dead, ten thousand fugitives. About three hundred and fifty cannons had been captured, with munition and with machine guns, so vast in numbers that there had not yet been time to count them. An entire army annihilated! The white haired man, who, sitting at the table at the end of the room, from which radiated other tables like those at a banquet, and he who was now raising a cup of tea, and smiling about him with gentle eyes, he had directed it all--the smashing of almost a quarter million men--making ninety thousand of them captive and killing or wounding or starving the rest.

And this was the feast in celebration of victory. In English and American newspapers I had read of the drunken revels with which the Barbarians made the nights of their triumphs more terrible. I had read that the first great drive into France fell short of Paris, because entire staffs had gone drunk; and then I recalled Rittmeister Tzschirner in extending Von Eichorn's invitation had added with genial irony--"_in celebration of the victory._"

And this was the feast, stewed hare and fried meat cakes, mashed potatoes and rice, all covered with a brown gravy and served all in the same big platters, a slice of black bread, tea, the sweetened whipped white of an egg, and one glass of a cheap Bordeaux for each man--that was the menu with which the battle of Augustowo Wald was celebrated.

I was busy at the hare when the Rittmeister said to us:

"Excellence von Eichorn would drink wine with you."

Tzschirner told us afterwards that it was a great honor.

"I know I made a mess of it," I lamented to him. "What should I have done?"

"Oh, no," said the Rittmeister. "You are American and we do not expect you to understand our military customs," which made me feel a little easier.

On my left, Captain Kluth, who early in the morning would leave for Augustowo to bring back four captured Russian generals, spoke English, like an American. Kluth, a merry eyed, dark skinned Rheinlander, smiled when he said he was sorry that they had no grape juice--and then he did not smile when he said:

"In America, you want peace. You could bring about peace if you would stop selling ammunition. To-day we captured so much ammunition that Russia would be in a bad way for more, were it not for America."

"Did you capture any American ammunition?" I asked him.

"Quantities," he replied, "and the trouble with it is that your ammunition is good. It kills more men."

And then came the champagne, not in honor of Von Eichorn or the victory, but in honor of the American guest.

"I have," smiled Captain Kluth, "two pints of champagne in my room. We shall drink together."

Knowing that in the Russia of to-day, that next to cleanliness wine is the rarest commodity, I begged Captain Kluth to keep his treasure hidden; but he would have none of it, and when he returned with the bottles he told me their story.

"When we occupied Suwalki," he said, "I asked an old Jew if he knew where there was any champagne. He said, no. I gave him two marks and he said, yes. From somewhere he produced these two pint bottles and wanted twenty marks for them. I gave him ten. It's enough for two pints of bad champagne, isn't it?"

In response to a query of mine, a captain of the telegraph corps gave me his story of the battle.

"This morning," he began, "one of our corps telegraphed here that they were without food. They got an answer that the Russians were in the woods with plenty of food. Two hours later they telegraphed again. 'We are enjoying our dinner,' was the message."

"Yes," added Captain Kluth, "and that corps was made up of volunteers. The Emperor sent word to them that they had battled as well as first line troops."

Then we talked of many things concerning the war, while one by one the officers of the staff, leaving the table, bowed and went to the rooms. During this unique feast there was frequent laughter at witty sallies, but no boisterousness; and we began to marvel at the cool, confident, almost commonplace way with which the staff was taking the victory. It lacked a few minutes of ten when General von Eichorn said good night to us and went to his room; and after he had gone we heard something about him, that his home was in Frankfort, that his record in maneuvers was one of unbroken success, that the outbreak of war had found him ill, and that this was his first campaign. And then at a hint from Rittmeister Tzschirner, I begged to be excused.

"These officers," he whispered, "have had much to tire them to-day and must be up very early."

I nodded. As we rose the officers did also, and the soldier cook came in to smile a good-by, and the soldier waiters passed platters in which each officer dropped a few coins.

"How much?" I asked Tzschirner.

"One mark eighty pfennigs. But you are not to pay."

And so was celebrated the battle of Augustowo Wald, one of the greatest victories of modern history, with a dinner that cost one mark eighty pfennigs a cover, or about forty cents.

_The Strategy of the Battle_

The battle of Augustowo Wald, which resulted in the annihilation of an entire Russian army on February 21, actually began on February 7, when Field Marshal Hindenburg secretly transported troops from Poland to East Prussia and new troops, young soldiers who were to get their baptism of fire were brought up from inner garrisons. The total reinforcements were five corps. Concentrating around Gumbinnen, the Tenth German army, under the command of Excellence von Eichorn, awaited the command to advance simultaneously with General von Buelow's army, which was making its preparations behind Lyck. Like a country fence, the Russian line zigzagged across East Prussia, south of the Memel, east of Ragnit, to Gumbinnen, wedging forward along the line of the Angerapp and back through the Masuren lakes to Lyck. Since mid-November the Russians had held this line, a third of the rich East Prussian farmland behind their crooked fence. And the fence must be smashed.

It was on the ninth of February that General von Lowenstein's troops of General von Eichorn's army began the battle by making forced marches in the snow from Gumbinnen toward Pillkallen and Stallupönen. All that night snow fell and confident the Germans would not attack because they could not bring up their artillery, the Russians fell back on Eydtkuhnen (East Prussia) and Kibarty and Wirballen, just across the frontier. Here they ate from their field kitchens--something they had been unable to do in twenty-four hours, turned in for a good sleep and left the road without outposts. Why bother with outposts? The snow was sufficient; the Germans could never bring up their cannon on those roads. Apparently since the days of Napoleon, Russia had believed too foolishly that winter is always on its side.

Not being able to advance with their cannon, the Germans came up without it. Unsupported by a single gun, forcing their way through the downpour of snow, the German infantry, young soldiers in their first battle, swept down on Eydtkuhnen. On the road stood two batteries, totaling twelve howitzers and a large number of ammunition wagons. Up to within fifty meters of the Russian batteries the Germans were able to advance before being discovered. In a panic the Russians tried with carbine fire to cover the retreat of their guns, but storming the position the Germans shot down the horses in the traces and piling the dead and the living, blocked the road of escape. Supported now by the captured cannon, the Germans rushed on and there followed a night battle in the streets of Eydtkuhnen, back across the frontier to Russian Kibarty, where ten thousand prisoners were made. By midnight another division of Von Eichorn's army, which broke through at Pillkallen, had driven the Russians down into Wirballen, where the Russians, again surprised by similar forced marches through the snowstorm, fought desperately in the streets and surrendered.

Three hospital trains, one the Czarina's, another Prince Lievin's, were captured in Kibarty, and in them General von Lowenstein's staff found unexpectedly comfortable quarters for the night, and stores of delicacies like preserves and chocolate. Captured cars filled with boots and fur lined vests made the soldiers more comfortable, and when they found one hundred and ten Russian field kitchens filled with warm food, the joy of the young German regiments was complete. For two days they had been living on knapsack rations.

Now while this movement was turning the Russian flank backward on Wilkowiszky, and at the same time General Lieutenant Boulgakew's 20th Army Corps--its communications with the 10th corps cut--was retreating pell mell from Goldap to Suwalki, two other German movements were developing. From north of Ragnit as far as the Baltic and east of the line of the Memel, the Russians were being driven back across the frontier. This important operation protected Von Eichorn's flank and allowed him to sweep down from the north, enfielding the Russians on Suwalki. And with this General von Buelow's 8th army had rolled up the Russians at Lyck, driving them back on a terrific frontal attack to the strongly entrenched line of the Bobr. So they battled from February 10th to the 21st, the crumbling Russian right, composed of the entire Army of East Prussia, under Russky's command, was hurled down from the north against the victorious troops of Von Buelow on the south. The flying Russians pouring out of East Prussia, plunged headlong across the snowy open plains, into Suwalki, where they attempted to make a stand at Suwalki. Fighting as they ran down the road to Augustowo, they were met by Von Eichorn's army, which had marched from Augustowo 120 kilometers through snow in two days. Then Von Buelow, coming across from Lyck, made a junction with Von Eichorn, and pursued them into the forests and frozen swamps--an army of 240,000 men utterly annihilated, its few remaining corps still bravely fighting for seven days in the Augustowo Wald until on the day we saw them, the day the rout was completed, their scattered, hungry remnants laid down their arms--sixty thousand men.

The most important engagement of the war since Tannenberg,--the battle of Augustowo Wald will be written in history beside the charnel fields of other wars. A terrific blow for Russia, for while she can lose thousands of those sullen conscripts, she cannot stand the loss of 350 cannon and countless machine guns, rifles and stores. One hundred and twenty thousand Russians dead and wounded lay in the snows, while a hundred thousand of their comrades shuffled back to Germany under armed guard. Whether one looks at it with the cold eyes of the strategist or appalled at its horror, one can only think of Augustowo in terms of Waterloo, Gettysburg or Sedan.

XII

THE WAR ON THE RUSSIAN FRONTIER

In the East, the war is different. With Hindenburg's army against the Russians, I saw a kind of warfare utterly different from the solid lines of the West. To portray to the most minute detail what is daily transpiring there, I wrote down all the impressions gained in a single day and night. It was near Tauroggen, a stricken village across the Russian frontier that I saw this war of the East; it was at Tauroggen that Prince Joachim, the youngest of the Emperor's sons, led the Germans in the storm.

The diary follows:

* * * * *

11:50 A. M., Tilsit--We have slept late, for we came to Tilsit in the small hours, a weary ride across the snow swept plains from Suwalki. Back there in the pine woods of Augustowo, Von Eichorn's young troops are hammering away at the new army that the Grand Duke has rushed to brace the crumbling front. But we have seen the fighting there, and this morning Rittmeister Tzschirner has promised to show me the war in the north, where the Memel line is protecting Von Eichorn's northern flank.

"We shall journey to one of our outposts in Russia," proposes Tzschirner, and his eyes light hopefully. "There may be fighting there."

Our motor goes barking through the pretty streets of Tilsit, which, by two hours' fighting in the fall, the German soldiers saved from the Russian torch. We cross the winding Memel, where a century ago Napoleon and the Czar met on a canopied pontoon to sign the Peace of Tilsit, while the hills behind us at Engelsberg bristled with the cannon of France; we cross vast river-plains shimmering with snow and mount to the pine fringed hills beyond, where now are strewn the soldiers of another Czar, who thought to march the road to Berlin; and chugging along a wayside strewn with their smashed entanglements, we come to Piculponen. Across the silent stretches of snow there comes the clear scattering cracks of carbines.

"A Russian patrol!" remarks Tzschirner, and he unbuttons his holster, while our red haired mechanician removes the caps from the rifles. "One can never tell," continues Tzschirner, "down which road their patrols may ride."

This puzzles me. "But how can they get through the German lines?" I asked him.

"There is no line, as in the West. We have driven the Russians from East Prussia, but there are many roads down which their patrols can sneak from a frontier village and run back to the troops."

"Could they come down this road?" I asked.

"We hold it to Tauroggen, where we must go, but we have no trenches from Tauroggen to Woynuta, and between these points are cross roads by which they could raid this highway. But if those shots we heard were Cossacks, I do not think they will come here. They are not brave, the Cossacks."

We see that beyond, to the left, an old brick church hides among the pines.

"We shall go there," suggests the Rittmeister. "Do you wish?"

I am wondering why we should waste time on a church when Russian patrols are shooting up the countryside, when Tzschirner says:

"This church is where Queen Louise of Prussia took refuge from Napoleon in 1807."

With the dutiful air that one assumes upon examining an historical landmark, we scramble up the bank toward the church.

"Walk slowly," the Rittmeister said, as we picked our way through a snow covered graveyard, "or you may not see and kick a _grenat_. They explode very easily."

At once we cease thinking of the church of Piculponen as Queen Louise's retreat. We are walking amid a charnel patch of opened graves and tombs that are the gaping craters of shells.

"The Russians tried to hold a position here," remarks Tzschirner.

We turn the corner of the church and see the Russian trenches dug between the graves. We see the great windowed walls shattered with shrapnel and shell. We gaze down into an awful hole where a _grenat_ has plunged into a grave. The fragments of the casket are blown into the black mud, and there are other fragments too, fragments a chalky white, for the grave is old; and fragments of brown Russian coats. Nearby stands a white marble cross. "_Ruhig sanft_," it says, "Rest in Peace." The plains of the Memel, as we leave the churchyard, brooding in the white peace of the snow and under the Engelsberg lies Tilsit, vaguely as in a mirage, its slender steepled churches, the spires of a dream.

* * * * *

1:08 P. M. We are climbing a long brown slope of road that has been dug from out of the drifting snow. A kilometer from Piculponen we turn out to pass a clanking column of gray transports, plodding on toward the front. Noticing a wagon loaded with barbed wire, I said to Tzschirner: "What will you do, make this position at Tauroggen permanent? The entanglements are going up."

"Ah, yes, for a time. It is best always to be prepared," and he smiles.

In this clear, cold air our exhaust is barking in loud exaggeration, but as we crest the hill near the huddled houses of Kamstpauriken, we hear a foreign sound. Somewhere across the snows rifles are firing.

"The Russian patrols are very active this morning," Tzschirner is saying.

"How far off is that shooting?" I ask.

"About a mile. On a road which is parallel to this."

"How many in a patrol?" I was thinking that we were five--Gelbricke, who must drive the car; Seyring, the red-haired mechanician, who could use a carbine; Tzschirner, with his Browning automatic; Corey, with a fountain pen, and I with a camera.

"They are very many, the Russians," Tzschirner was saying. "They never ride a patrol under twenty men. It is dangerous," continues Tzschirner with the air of one doing his duty by saying that, although I knew he was spoiling for a scrap.

"We may be surrounded; but I do not think. _Naturlich_, there is the chance. You wish?"

"Rittmeister, these Russians would have to use the road and we could see them coming in time."

"Oh, no," Tzschirner says quickly. "They often ride over the fields; it is very good for patrol, the country here."

"What grand little comforter," I murmur.

Tzschirner looks around and grins. "I will protect you."

I feel he has been quietly laughing at me, until from behind a distant snow capped ridge I see a black belch of smoke.

"They have burned a village," exclaims Tzschirner.

Together we run through the snow in the direction of the smoke, until a hillock gives us a vantage point of the surrounding country. We can see the flames now, streaking through the smoke and above the snowy hills, black clouds stain the cold blue sky.

"Remain here," calls Tzschirner, who is fumbling with his map. "It is little more than a kilometer from here to the village." And while he studies his map I watch the flames through my binoculars.

"That is the village of Robkojen," he presently announces. "See," and he points to it on the Staff map, where even the little summit upon which we stand is marked.