Part 11

My friends possessed an interesting little book in a black paper binding which they kindly lent to me. It was the song-book of the German army, which, with a soldier's Prayer-book, is carried in every German knapsack. It is called "War Song-book for the German Army, 1914," and was issued by the Commission for the Imperial Book of Folk-songs. Roughly, about the ten best things in German patriotic and military song are to be found here, with a few of the best-known folk-songs and a number of inferior ditties which vainly attempt to be light. Prussia has more than her share, for there are very few good Prussian songs, though such as there are are military. "Fredericus Rex" and "Als die Preussen marschirten vor Prag"--surely an unfortunate reminiscence in the present war--are both historic and have the merit of plainness. The year 1813, a year of liberation and not of aggression, gives three magnificent songs: "The God that bade the iron grow," by Arndt, and "Lützow's wild hunt" and the "Sword Song" of Körner, the latter written a few hours before the author of "Lyre and Sword" met his death in a cavalry charge at the battle of Dresden. But, of course, I expected also to find--and am sure that I should have found in God-fearing 1870--the same writer's "Prayer in Battle," one of the most real and masculine of hymns, and his soul-stirring "Landsturm." As to the omission of the "Landsturm," an Austrian prisoner explained it to me by saying, "This is no war of liberation." Of the less specially national songs there is Schiller's magnificent picture of the soldier of fortune, "Wohlauf Kameraden aufs Pferd, aufs Pferd," some of the verses of which have certainly been too faithfully followed in Poland. One finds also the top thing in German war lyric, "I had a trusty Comrade" of Uhland--a word-perfect poem which I shall always associate with the Saxon grave outside Saint-Privat where I heard it sung by veterans of 1870. There is also the simple trooper's song "Morgenrot"; I should have put in "Die barge Nacht," but one verse is certainly too plain-spoken for present German hopes. Martin Luther's "Safe stronghold"--"Now thank we all our God," sung by Frederic's soldiers on the battlefield of Lützen--and the Evening Prayer--these are the other best things in the collection; but it is spoilt by the unnecessary and improbable allusions to the successful wooing of French and Russian damsels, and beer is too much mixed up with Bible.

I left my friends singing. The Raven, with a plaintive and sentimental look, was with bent head putting in his bass to the admirable tenor of Pickwick Junior. My own contribution was about the "leaders" who "marched with fusees and the men with hand-grenades" (British Grenadiers). One scout, who usually works alone, had taken an unexploded Austrian shell back into their very lines, made a small bonfire round it, and was waiting outside for it to explode; but the result, when I left, was not yet known.

_March 13._

I have just visited "The Birds," a very tight place for the Russian soldier to sit in. I was in this part once before, for it was here that Dr. Roshkov set up his tent, or, to be more exact, his earthwork bandaging room in the foremost trenches.

The divisional general was kindness itself; for I stumbled on him in the darkness by opening a wrong door, and his revenge was to ask me in and offer me a bed. The next day I visited the divisional lazaret, where an English lady, Miss Kearne, is working with admirable skill and devotion for the Russians. Nearly all the wounded came from "The Birds," and nearly all had been wounded while sitting in the trenches or looking through the embrasures--that is, without taking any risks, which in "The Birds" all are strictly forbidden to court.

One soon felt one was coming to a warm place. The driver of my army cart explained that the open space over which we were passing was often covered with stray bullets, and there, sure enough, were the Austrian trenches just across the river. The village on our side had a high church, now smashed by the Austrian fire into an imposing ruin. Around it the shells continue to fall freely, and women and children going for water along the village streets are sometimes hit by stray bullets. Roshkov and his comrades have been sent to another part of the front; but a Red Cross "flying column" from the Union of Russian towns is working here under fire, and I met one of its students on horseback taking wounded to the rear.

I delivered a greeting from England to the scouts who were drawn up in the village, and then set off with their leader for the advance posts across the river--as I may say, "The Birds Proper." The chief scout was almost a boy, who had joined the army as a volunteer only at the beginning of the war. He was a Musulman, with a most determined face and a manner of complete ease and indifference. He explained that we were passing over ground often swept by the fire, and added casually, "You've a bad coat; it is fur-lined; the fur might stick in your wound and give you lockjaw, so that you would probably die." Whether he was right or not I have no idea. The soldiers who accompanied us insisted on walking above the covered way, until we told them that we should join them unless they came down to us.

At last we passed some trenches and came out into the open above the river. It is the peculiarity of "The Birds" that we hold a strip of land across the river a mile and a half long, but nowhere more than 300 yards deep. When the Russians rectified their line after the advance to Cracow, they decided to retain certain vantage-points of this kind; however cramped the position and however difficult the conditions of defence, the advantage will be felt when, as on the San earlier, the time comes for another move forward. These advanced lines are connected with our side by bridges which are constantly under fire, as the favourite offensive of the Austrians is a hail of artillery; yet they have never succeeded even in endangering the communications, and their frequent musketry fire is disregarded.

We were able this time to cross the bridge at a walk, and passed along the lines, guesting with different officers, and ultimately taking up our quarters in a spacious earth hut ten yards from the front, which was protected by a high line of excellent earthworks. One advanced post which we visited was only sixty yards from the enemy, and in general the distance from trenches to trenches was 400 to 200 yards. Artillery fire is seldom brought effectively to bear here, but a shower of bullets is kept up, mostly explosive, as one can tell from their splutter; and the enemy have made machines for lodging bombs of various kinds at this short range within our trenches. There is little work for scouts here; the distance is too short, and the opposing sentries are often not more than twenty-five yards from each other. My young host reassuringly mentioned that shrapnel would penetrate our roof, and in the night there was the constant thud of bullets striking against our shelters, while often our door was lit up by the reflection of the frequent rockets sent up by the enemy. Inside, however, our accommodation was first-rate, and we soon slept soundly.

Next morning we went along the front line. The men were everywhere in their places, this line being fully occupied day and night. I had been told I must not stand anywhere behind an embrasure, so we took our view in peeps, mostly from the side. At one point we looked over the top of the works, with the result that there was an immediate volley. One man had been wounded by a bomb in the night, and another was shot through an embrasure, as the shadow made by a head at once draws fire. Some soldiers were busy making little mirrors, so as to see from the side; another had made a bomb-throwing machine out of an Austrian shell, which he fired off in front of us, the officer first calling out to two exposed soldiers, "Here, Beard and Black Collar, get out of the way!" One man's hand was shot through an embrasure.

The most difficult part of the lines was on one of the flanks, where they passed close to the river and were separated from the Austrians at one point by a distance of only twenty-five yards. Earlier it was worse. The two lines were eight yards apart, the bayonets actually crossed over the earthworks, and the Austrians held their rifles over their heads in order to fire down into the Russian trenches. At that time a flank fire also swept these trenches, which were now protected by many transverses. Yet I found the men perfectly cool and natural, just going about the work as they would have done any other.

The bridge on our return was only under a partial fire; but the enemy was again heavily shelling the village.

_March 15._

From "The Birds" I passed on to a rather similar position occupied by another regiment. In this case only a small section beyond the river was held, and the Austrian trenches were at a distance of 800 to 1000 yards. This meant a good deal of difference. The enemy was not pestering the advance posts with bombs at short range and incessant musketry fire. The approach was again over a plain bare except for some patches of trees, and there was again a lofty church, this time of particularly handsome outlines, ruined by the Austrian artillery fire. From afar its two towers looked like severed and half-twisted stalks. The Austrians evidently feel sure that all churches are observation points for the Russian artillery. In this they are quite wrong. The Russians in general avoid all such use of churches; I know of many cases in this war in which churches have figured as points of vantage, but always for the Austrians. In more than one case, after the Austrian retreat, telephones for spy's communications have been found attached to the altars, and once a priest was caught at this work.

We left our horses at a ruined building and crossed the bridge. The advanced works were deep and well constructed but, as at "The Birds," the trenches were often full of water, and one had to walk along them frog-wise with a foot pressed against each side. This did not affect the actual shelters of the officers and men, which were dry and fairly comfortable, with lots of straw. One could look through the embrasures or even in some parts over the top of the works, without being likely to confuse the Austrian lines with the Russians as one did at "The Birds." At one place, however, there was an unusual sight. A covered way actually ran without interruption direct from the one line to the other and was often used by the scouts of either side. At the Russian side it came right up to the wire entanglements and the rampart, and here there were always stationed sharpshooters with loaded rifles commanding it for about fifty yards. The enemy's lines were, of course, very plainly visible.

In January a considerable action took place within this narrow compass. The Austrians came out in force and tried to storm the trenches. They swarmed up to the wire entanglements--over which the Russians in general took less trouble than the enemy, as they ordinarily have the confidence of the aggressive--but they were beaten off with terrible loss. Blue uniforms covered all the space between the two lines. Those who fell nearest to the trenches were buried by the Russians without delay; but the Austrians made no attempt to bury their dead lying between, and their fire makes it quite impossible for the Russians to come out for this purpose. Thus, two months after the engagement, I saw these bodies still rotting there; it will soon be spring; and with the two lines so close the danger of infection is pressing for both sides. It would only need a truce of three hours to remove it, and the Russians would gladly make this arrangement and do the work. It seems to me one of those matters which even in this war could be dealt with by some international association, and I have communicated the details, through Prince Dolgorukov, to the Peace Society of Moscow.

As usual in the regiments, and more especially in the trenches, I delivered with the wish of the colonels a greeting to the men from England; and it is one of my chief interests, in making these visits, to see how warmly it is returned, usually with some variant of the Russian military response, "We are glad to do our best"--such as, for instance, "We'll have a try together and finish him." Here the men were particularly cordial. There was the usual interchange of news with the officers as to the eastern and western fronts. I think I may repeat that there is nowhere a more generous appreciation of England's work in the war than in the front lines of the Russian army. The attack on the Dardanelles, which promises to be the most decisive blow that has yet been dealt, arouses the greatest enthusiasm; and the military preparations of England, their wholeheartedness and thoroughness, are a tremendous source of confidence to the Russians. How many times it has been said to me: "With England with us, we know we shall make a clean job of it." Here an officer quoted his father, who had always told him, "Where England is, there things go right," The support is not only moral. The spirit in the two countries is so identical that I frequently find in my letters from England the same phrases, word for word, as I am hearing in conversation here. But it is much more than that; and when it becomes known how close, detailed and far-reaching is the co-operation between the three chief Allies, I am sure that it will be found that no alliance was ever more close or more effective.

Our reappearance on the bridge drew a few bullets. In general all this firing has very little result, and our people do not take the trouble to reply to it. As to artillery, I am sure they fire more than twenty shells to every one of ours. They do it in a routine way at fixed times for an hour, two hours or three at a time. Our artillery lets it pass till it becomes a nuisance and then, with infinitely superior precision, plumps a few shells straight into their lines. This sight I have witnessed more than once from our infantry trenches, which might be miles from our guns but were only a few hundred yards from the marks that they aimed at. It was interesting to see the immediate rebound of spirits among our infantry, who had been sitting almost without reply under the aimless crash and roar of the enemy's fire. By instinct they at once looked freely over the ramparts as privileged spectators, and called out to each other "Got him again," as the smoke of our shells rose from the enemy's line. At such times, indeed, the Austrian fire stops almost immediately; and in one place, after the first Russian shell, a commanding voice came to us from the other side: "Corporal, cease firing."

_March 26._

The bombardment of Tarnow has continued. It is now nearly three months that it has gone on intermittently. Yesterday I was walking along a street when the heavy bustling goods-train sound of a big shell came rattling close overhead. There was a crash somewhere near, and a few soldiers who were close to us laughed and picked up a jagged segment. The street seemed full of people at once, and all moving toward where the shell had fallen. An old soldier with a cut face came moodily toward me, so I took his arm and walked with the crowd, as it was taking the direction of the chief local hospital, in which I often worked.

I was afraid that the hospital itself was hit. Far as it was from the railway or anything of military importance, it had more than once had the attention of the German heavy artillery. In January, while I was in this hospital, a shell passed over us so near as to take the breath of the heavily-wounded Austrians who were lying there, and lodged about two hundred yards off, reducing a house to ruins. Some weeks later another shell lodged on an open space about 150 yards off. The Russian sisters of mercy, under Miss Homyakov, never lost their heads for a minute and set about reassuring the wounded; but these last, who were themselves entirely helpless and could not distract their attention by helping any one else, were very agitated. No one was more indignant than the wounded Austrian officers, especially a colonel from Hungary, who regarded the German shot as without any kind of justification. The Russian Red Cross staff were urged from some sides to move the hospital to a safer place, but the sisters absolutely refused, because to transport many of the wounded would have meant death to them. The Commander of the Army conferred the George medal on them for their courage.

As I now neared the hospital, I saw a huge rent in the building in front of it, which was mostly unoccupied. A whole wall of this huge building was torn out, and the iron staircase within was twisted into fantastic shapes. At the door of the hospital, nearly all the windows of which were broken, stood a crowd of townspeople, mostly women and children bringing in wounded. The operating-room was full; on one side an old man, on another a wounded girl with blanched face, and in an ante-room a woman with a wounded baby. Here the local Polish medical staff works hand in hand with the Russians; and with remarkable expedition the wounded all received first aid within half an hour.

Twenty minutes, however, had hardly passed when a second shell banged into something else close to us. I found a little Polish boy, previously amputated here, crouching in the corridor and shivering with fear: I had to carry him back to his ward. Not more than 250 yards off there was a large crowd looking at the new big shell pit (the shell came from a 12-inch gun). In a garden lay the corpse of a girl of twenty, terribly mangled, so that no head was to be distinguished; and her father, running up, cried as if his heart would break and fell beside her. The people, who are of course Austrian subjects, were furious.

Two days later the Commandant put up posters announcing that, on the statement of a captured Austrian officer, these guns are served by a native of Tarnow.

Throughout the bombardment there have been hardly any Russian troops in the town, and it is the local population that suffers. The closeness of so many shell pits near the hospital suggests that this is one of the regular "numbers" or aims of the German artillery.

_March 30._

The fall of Przemysl, which will now no doubt be called by its Russian name of Peremyshl, is in every way surprising.

Even a few days before, quite well-informed people had no idea that the end was coming so soon. The town was a first-class fortress, whose development had been an object of special solicitude to the late Archduke Francis Ferdinand. Of course it was recognised that Peremyshl was the gate of Hungary and the key to Galicia; but, more than that, it was strengthened into a great point of debouchement for an aggressive movement by Austro-Hungary against Russia; for the Russian policy of Austria, like her original plan of campaign, was based on the assumption of the offensive. It was generally understood that Peremyshl was garrisoned by about 50,000 men, that the garrison was exclusively Hungarian, and that the commander, Kusmanek, was one of the few really able Austrian commanders in this war. The stores were said to be enough for a siege of three years. The circle of the forts was so extended as to make operations easy against any but the largest blockading force; and the aerodrome, which was well covered, gave communication with the outside world. An air post has run almost regularly, the letters (of which I have some) being stamped "Flieger-Post." As long as Peremyshl held out, the local Jews constantly circulated rumours of an Austrian return, and the Russian tenure of Galicia remained precarious. The practical difficulties offered to the Russians by Peremyshl were very great; for the one double railway line westward runs through the town, so that all military and Red Cross communications have been indefinitely lengthened.

My friend "Wiggins" did his part toward the taking of Peremyshl. The air-postmen, on their long journey to the fortress, are often shot at and sometimes brought down. An Austrian airman found himself compelled to descend on our ground; "Wiggins" sent a cart to be ready for him as he alighted, and that night all his papers were worked through. Among them was the now well-known army order of Kusmanek, announcing that the only way of safety lay through the enemy's lines, and that the men must conquer or die. But side by side with it was a letter from an Austrian staff officer to his wife. He explained that he took this opportunity of eluding the military censor, that a sortie was determined on, but that it was not likely to succeed, and that as to danger his wife need not feel anxious, as the staff did not go into the firing line. Word was sent off at once to the blockading army to expect the sortie.

For weeks past the fortress had kept up a terrific fire which was greater than any experienced elsewhere from Austrian artillery. Thousands of shells yielded only tens of wounded, and it would seem that the Austrians could have had no other object than to get rid of their ammunition. The fire was now intensified to stupendous proportions and the sortie took place; but, so far from the whole garrison coming out, it was only a portion of it, and was driven back with the annihilation of almost a whole division.

Now followed extraordinary scenes. Austrian soldiers were seen fighting each other, while the Russians looked on. Amid the chaos a small group of staff officers appeared, casually enough, with a white flag, and announced surrender. Austrians were seen cutting pieces out of slaughtered horses that lay in heaps, and showing an entire indifference to their capture. Explosions of war material continued after the surrender.

The greatest surprise of all was the strength of the garrison, which numbered not 50,000 but 130,000, which makes of Peremyshl a second Metz. Different explanations are offered; for instance, troops which had lost their field trains and therefore their mobility are reported to have taken refuge in Peremyshl after Rava Russka, but surely the subsequent withdrawal of the blockade gave them ample time for retreat. A more convincing account is that Peremyshl was full of depôts, left there to be supports of a great advancing field army. In any case no kind of defence can be pleaded for the surrender of this imposing force.

The numbers of the garrison of course reduced to one-third the time during which the food supplies would last; but even so the fortress should have held out for a year. The epidemic diseases within the lines supply only a partial explanation. The troops, instead of being all Hungarians, were of various Austrian nationalities; and there is good reason to think that the conditions of defence led to feuds, brawls, and in the end open disobedience of orders. This was all the more likely because, while food was squandered on the officers, the rank and file and the local population were reduced to extremes, and because the officers, to judge by the first sortie, took but little part in the actual fighting. The wholesale slaughter of horses of itself robbed the army of its mobility. The fall of Peremyshl is the most striking example so far of the general demoralisation of the Austrian army and monarchy.

Peremyshl, so long a formidable hindrance to the Russians, is now a splendid base for an advance into Hungary.

_April 1._

I am afraid to-day, which, by the way, was Bismarck's birthday, is a bad date to put to any anticipations as to the war. But things seem to be taking a more definite direction than for some months past, and one may say that the possibility of decisive events is now in sight.