Part 2

"Russia," said one of the best Russians to me, Mr. N. N. Lvov, "was lost in a confusion of petty quarrels and intrigues; and suddenly we see that the real Russia is there."

The pleasant streets of this great country city, so far more homelike than those of the capital, we found even more country-like than ever; a notable absence everywhere of young men; the feeling that all those who were left were at work somewhere together.

In the town hall, which I have always found so thronged and busy, none of the chief public men were to be seen; the work of all seemed to have passed to the new department opened close by for the town organisation in connection with the Red Cross. There, after a long wait while numberless applicants for service passed us, we received an admirably short and clear explanation of the work for the wounded. In the same building was organised the care for the poor, strongly developed in recent years at twenty-nine local branches, and now working wholesale and with splendid effect for the homes of those who have gone to the war.

At the Zemstvo League there was the atmosphere of all the years of missionary work for the people that has been carried on in camping conditions for so many years by the Zemstvo in all sorts of country corners of Russia. Every one was moving quietly and quickly about his share of the common business. At the big green baize table every seat was occupied--here a woman of the poorer class volunteering as a Red Cross sister, there a medical student asking for service. Small conferences of fellow-workers going on in all the side rooms; and in the evening a common discussion of how the Zemstvo work could be carried further to the economic support of the population; an appeal is being drawn up to go to every one in Russia. Here I found the excellent "twin" secretaries of the President of the Duma, Mr. Shchepkin and Mr. Alexeyev, who have done so much for friendship with England, and the head of the whole Zemstvo League, Prince Lvov, who in a few simple words gave all the objects of the work for the wounded, who were expected to number 750,000.

Next we were taken to the chief depots. Princess Gagarin has given her beautiful house for one, and now lives in a corner of it, helping at the work. There are two main departments for paid work and for unpaid. Patterns of all the clothes, pillows, and hospital linen required for the wounded are sent here, and the material cut out is given out to 3,200 women, some of whom stand in a long file in the court outside. Every day the store, which works till midnight, is cleared for a new supply, and the materials prepared are packed in cases of birch bark for the army. In the Government horse-breeding department there is another great depot under the direction of Princess O. Trubetskoy. The workers, rich and poor, all have their simple meals together in one of the working rooms. There is a large store of chemicals, and elsewhere a department for the supply of furniture and implements for the field hospitals.

It would be hard to make those who cannot see it feel how intimately the Russian people now feels itself bound up with the English in a great common effort. The Rector of Moscow University, with whom I was only able to converse by telephone, said to me: "Tell them in England that we have one heart and one soul with them."

Every day great numbers of wounded are brought by train to Moscow. By the admirable arrangements of Countess O. Bobrinsky, a vast number of students, young women, and helpers of all kinds are waiting for them at the Alexandrovsky station to assist in moving them and to supply them with refreshments. An enormous silent crowd surrounds the white station. The owners of motors are waiting ready with their carriages; all details are in order. Three trains come in between six and ten o'clock. The sight is a terrible one; faces bound up, limbs missing; some few have died on the journey. The wounded are moved quickly and quietly to the private carriages. As they pass through the crowd all hats are off, and the soldiers sometimes reply with a salute. It is all silent; it is the pulse of a great family beating as that of one man.

_October 8._

The Emperor's visit to the Vilna was a great success. He rode through the town unguarded. The streets were crowded, the reception most cordial. The upper classes in Vilna are mostly Poles, a kind of Polish "enclave." There are several splendid Catholic churches. On the road to the station are gates with some revered Catholic images, before which all passers by remove their hats. There is a large Jewish trading population often living in extreme poverty: for instance, sometimes in three tiers of cellars one below another. The peasants are mostly Lithuanians. Thus there are not many Russians except officials. At the beginning of war the nearness of the enemy was felt with much anxiety. Now there is an atmosphere of work and assurance. The Grand Hotel and several public buildings are converted into hospitals, where the Polish language is largely used. The Emperor visited all the chief hospitals, and spoke with many wounded, distributing medals in such numbers that the supply ran short. He received a Jewish deputation and spoke with thanks of the sympathetic attitude of the Jews in this hour so solemn for Russia. The general feeling may be described as like a new page of history. Among Poles, educated or uneducated, enthusiasm is general. This is all the more striking because in no circumstances could Vilna be considered as politically Polish. Vilna shows all the aspects of war conditions, but the country around is being actively cultivated.

_October 10._

We reached the Russian headquarters as the bugle sounded for evening prayer. The atmosphere here is one of complete simplicity and homeliness. Our small party includes several distinguished journalists from most of the chief Russian papers, also eminent French, American and Japanese representatives of the Press. We found the Grand Ducal train on a side line. It was spacious and comfortable but simply appointed. We were received by the Chief of the General Staff, one of the youngest lieutenant-generals in the Russian army. He is a strongly built man with a powerful head, whose carriage and speech communicate confidence. He spoke very simply of the military conditions, of the common task, and of his assurance of the full co-operation of the public and Press. The Grand Duke then entered, his light step, bright eye and imposing stature well shown up by his easy cavalry uniform. Shaking hands with each of us, both before and after his address, he said: "Gentlemen, I am glad to welcome you to my quarters. I have always thought, and continue to think, that the Press, in competent and worthy hands, can do an enormous amount of good. I am sure you gentlemen are just the men who by your communications through the papers, telling all that is most keenly interesting, and by your correct exposition of the facts, can do good both to the public and to us. I unfortunately and necessarily cannot show you all I should be perhaps glad to show, as in every war, and particularly in this stupendous one, the observing of military secrecy relative to the plan and all that can reveal it is the pledge of success. I have marked out a road on which you will be able to acquaint yourselves with just what is of most lively interest to all, and what all are anxious to know. Allow me to wish you success and to express to you my confidence that by your work you will do all the good which is expected of you as representatives of the public, and will calm relations and friends and all who are suffering and anxious. I welcome you, gentlemen, and wish you full success." We were invited to join in the lunch and dinner of the General Staff in their restaurant car. There were no formalities--it was simply a number of fellow workers having their meals together, without distinction, just as in the big houses in Moscow where the making of clothes for the army is proceeding. A notice forbids handshaking in the restaurant, under fine of threepence for the wounded. I noticed a street picture of the Cossack Kruchkov in his single-handed combat with eleven German Dragoons, also a map of the front of the Allies in the West, but hardly any other decorations. Among the party there was, in accordance with the temperance edict, no alcohol.

_October 12._

To-day I visited several wounded from the Austrian front, mostly serious cases. The first, an Upper Austrian with a broken leg, spoke cheerily of his wound and his surroundings. He described the Russian artillery fire as particularly formidable. His own corps had run short of ammunition, not of food. Another prisoner, a young German from Bohemia, singularly pleasing and simple, described the fighting at Krasnik, where he was hit in the leg. The battle, he said, was terrible. The Austrian artillery here was uncovered and was crushed. The Russian rifle line took cover so well that he could not descry them from two hundred yards in front of his own skirmishing line, but its firing took great effect. I saw also an Austrian doctor taken prisoner, and now continuing his work salaried by the Russians. All three prisoners evidently felt nothing antagonistic in their surroundings. They struck me as men who had fulfilled a civic duty without either grudge or any distinctive national feeling. I spoke with several Russians who had been badly hit in their first days of fighting, especially at Krasnik. Here a young Jew fell in the firing line on a slope, and saw thence more than half of his company knocked over as they pressed forward. He was picked up next morning. A Russian described how his company charged a small body of Austrians, who retired precipitately to a wood but reappeared supported by three quickfirers which mowed down most of his company. All accounts agreed that the Austrians could never put up resistance to Russian bayonet charges. This was particularly noticeable in the later fighting. As one sturdy fellow put it, "No, they don't charge us, we charge them, and they clear out." I was most of all impressed by a frail lad of twenty who looked a mere boy. He was not wounded, and was sent back simply because he was worn out by the campaigning. He said, "They are firing on my brother and not on me. That is not right, I ought to be where they all are." One feels it is a great wave rolling forward with one spirit driving it on.

Many of these wounded had only been picked up after lying for some time on the field. I saw one heroic lady, a sister of mercy, who had herself carried a wounded officer from the firing line. Both the hospitals that I visited were strongly staffed. In the second, designed only for serious cases, and admirably equipped with drugs, Roentgen apparatus and operating rooms, the sister of the Emperor, the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna (who went through the full two years' preparation) is working as a sister of mercy under all the ordinary discipline and conditions of travel and work. Starting at the outbreak of the war, she was in time for the tremendous pressure of the great Austrian battles, when the hospital had to provide for three hundred patients instead of the expected two hundred. All the arrangements in these hospitals, based on fifty years' experience of Russian country hospital work, were carried out under the most difficult conditions and bore the impression of missionary devotion. Here, for instance, all the medicine chests were adapted for frequent transport; the table is also the travelling chest, and so on.

The country aspect was also noticeable in an army bread factory which I visited. The rye bread is dried to a portable biscuit; the soldier can carry a large supply of this biscuit and has something to eat in the firing line when other provisions run short.

_Lvov (Lemberg), October 15._

To-day, on their arrival, the Russian Governor-General of Galicia received the correspondents, and addressed us as follows--

"I am glad, gentlemen, to meet you; I am well aware of the enormous advantage that can be derived from the use of the Press, and am only sorry that you are to be for so short a time in Galicia, for I should like you to have had the opportunity of studying on the spot the difficult questions of administration: you might have communicated to me your impressions and suggestions--for in your capacity of writers you are trained critics. We have to deal in Galicia with various nationalities, and very divergent political views.

"I shall be glad if I can be of any assistance in your study of the country. I have already communicated to various deputations, and to the public, the principles of my attitude toward the problems of administration, and have no alterations to make in my declared views.

"Eastern Galicia should become part of Russia. Western Galicia, when its conquest has been completed, should form part of the kingdom of Poland, within the empire. My policy as to the religious question is very definite. I have no desire to compel any one to join the Orthodox Church. If a two-thirds majority in any given village desires to conform to the Orthodox Church, then they should be given the parish church. This does not mean that the remaining third should not be free to remain in its former communion. I am avoiding even any suggestion of compulsion. The peasants pass over very easily to Orthodoxy; for them the question is in no way acute, indeed the so-called Uniats consider they are Orthodox already. But it is different for the clergy, for whom the question is a real one. I respect all the priests who have remained in their parishes, and they have not been disturbed. Those who have abandoned their benefices I am not restoring: nor shall I permit the return of any who are associated with any political agitation against Russia.

"A difficult question has arisen relating to Austrian officials in the town of Lvov: from persons of means they have now become paupers requiring assistance. Another question is that of credit: numbers of banks are without their cash, which has all been taken away to Vienna. These banks are sending a deputation to Petrograd to solicit the support of the Bank of Russia.

"There is also the question of the police. I am waiting for trained policemen to be sent from Russia: it is impossible, of course, to use untrained men for administrative work, and meanwhile I contrive to employ the local Austrian police. Some magistrates have fled--we have to put the affairs of justice in order: I am awaiting a representative of the Ministry of Justice, who will examine the question.

"In certain regions around Lvov, Nikolayev, Gorodok and other places where there has been severe fighting, the population has been left in a state of great distress. In Bukovina, however, there is little distress, except in the towns; and as the crops there are good, we are importing food into Galicia from thence. The relief of distress is being dealt with by committees, including prominent local residents, under the Directors of Districts, and controlled by a central committee, whose chairman is Count Vladimir Bobrinsky. In cases of extreme distress it is being arranged that money may be advanced to the necessitous.

"I have established in Galicia three provinces: Lvov (Lemberg), Tarnopol, and Bukovina. Perhaps we may establish another province, following the line of demarcation of the Russian population, which on maps of Austrian Poland is admitted to include parts of the region about Sanok (in central Galicia)."

_October 24._

I have spent some days in the Austrian territory conquered by the Russians. The Russian broad gauge has been carried some distance into Galicia, and the further railway communication with the Austrian gauge and carriages is in working order. The large waiting-rooms were covered with wounded on stretchers with doctors and sisters of mercy in constant attendance. They utter no sound, except in very few cases when under attention. One poor fellow, a bronzed and strapping lad struck through the lungs, I saw dying; he looked so hale and strong; his wide eyes kept moving as he gasped and wrestled silently with death; he seemed so grateful to those who sat with him; he died early in the morning. I talked with three Hungarian privates, keen-eyed and vigorous. They said their men were very good with the bayonet and seldom surrendered, a statement which was confirmed by a Russian cavalry officer who had just returned from fighting in the passes, though it seems the Hungarians do not consider the war as national beyond the Carpathians, and they fight well because they are warlike and not because they like this war. The prisoners with whom I talked were very energetic in praising their treatment by the Russians, which is indeed beyond praise. Everywhere they met people with tea, sugar, and cigarettes. One said repeatedly, "I can say nothing," and another said, "I cannot but wish that we may do as well by them in Hungary." These were the only Austrian prisoners in whom I have seen a trace of that national enthusiasm for the war which is so evident in all the Russian soldiers. I talked with two Italians, simple, friendly fellows who described their treatment as _pulito_, or very decent.

The Slovenes and Bohemians seemed rather in a maze about the whole thing. A Ruthenian soldier of Galicia was quite frank about it. "Of course we had to go," he said, but he expressed pleasure at the Russians winning Galicia, and even regarded it as compensation for his wound.

I saw off a train of Russian wounded. They were most brotherly and thoughtful for each other. An Austrian patient told me he was happy and had made great friends with the Russian next to him. The electric trams are used for ambulances, and the chief buildings are turned into hospitals. The biggest is in the Polytechnicum, and is served practically by Poles. The big Russian hospital of the Dowager Empress is very well equipped. The Red Cross organisation is in the hands of eminent public men; such as Homyakov, Stakhovich and Lerche, who visited England with the party of Russian Legislators in 1909. Count Vladimir Bobrinsky, another member of that party, is chairman of the relief committee appointed by his cousin the Russian Governor-General of Galicia. The town is old and pleasing, set in undulating country. It is in excellent order. A little sporadic street firing was quickly suppressed. All inhabitants throughout the conquered territory must be at home from ten in the evening till four unless they have special permission. How well this rule is kept one could judge when returning from the station. No one was out except Russian sentries and Austrian policemen, who have been continued on their work. Otherwise one sees no signs of a conquered town.

The day the Russians entered, the Polish paper issued its morning edition under Austrian control and its evening edition under Russian. The electric lighting and tramways continued working and the shops remained open. The fighting, which was most severe, was all outside. But even on the sites of engagements the amount of damage done by artillery is limited to few places and few houses, and cultivation is now going on, without any signs of war, close up to the present front. A general order forbids the leaving about of any refuse. There is no friction between the Little Russian peasants and the troops or the new administrators; but the Jews adopt a waiting attitude. The general position is a great credit to the Russians, and gives ample proof of their close kinship with the great majority of the conquered population.

_October 26._

I have visited some of the battlefields of Galicia. It is much too early to attempt any thorough account of these battles; nor did the conditions of my visits make any complete examination possible.

The chief harm which Germany and Austria could inflict in a war against Russia was to conquer Russian Poland, whose frontier made defence extremely difficult. Regarding this protuberance as a head, Germany and Austria could make a simultaneous amputating operation at its neck, attacking the one from East Prussia and the other from Galicia. But the German policy, which had other and more primary objects, precipitated war with France and threw the bulk of the German forces westward. Thus the German army in East Prussia kept the defensive, and Austria was left to make her advance from Galicia without support.

The Austrian forces on this front were at first more numerous than the Russians. The Russians had been prepared to defend the line of the Bug, which would have meant the temporary abandonment of nearly all Poland. But the alliance with France and England made it both possible and desirable to advance, and at the battle of Gnila Lipa the army on the Austrian right was driven back beyond Lvov (Lemberg), the town falling into Russian hands. The next great fighting was for the possession of the line of the river San.

It must be remembered that while the fighting lines ran roughly from north to south, the frontier line here ran from east to west. Thus the left of each force occupied the territory of the other. The first decisive success had been that of the Russian left in Galicia; but the Austrian left and centre were still allowed to advance further into Russian Poland. A double movement was then undertaken against them. While General Brusilov pushed home in southern Galicia the success already obtained on this side, and thus secured the Russian left flank from a counter-offensive, General Ruzsky, the conqueror of Lvov, came in on the Austrian centre at Rava Ruska, while other Russian armies, detached from the reserves standing between the Russian northern and southern fronts, and making good use of the advantageous railway connexion, arrived to the north of the Austrian left. Seldom has a tactical battle been planned on so large a scale. The Austrians, threatened at this point with outflanking on both sides, after several days' hard defensive fighting, withdrew with a haste that had the character of a rout, and which only saved them from complete annihilation. Their centre, like their already beaten right, retired southwards toward Hungary, while their left, just escaping the peril of being surrounded, fell back rapidly in the direction of Cracow, where it was strengthened by further support from Germany. Two German corps had already joined it, but too late to avert the reverse already described. The success of Brusilov at Gorodok (Grodek) secured to the Russians the line of the river San as far as Peremyshl (Przemysl).

This series of operations, after the Russian evacuation of East Prussia necessitated by the strong German movements on the northern fronts, left Russia with the following line of defence: the Niemen, the Bobr, the Narev, the middle Vistula, the San (to Peremyshl) and the Carpathians. This line includes the larger part of Russian Poland, the city of Warsaw, and western Galicia, with its capital, Lvov. This line is infinitely more satisfactory than that of the Bug. Its security on the south depends in part on the action of Rumania, but a counter-offensive from Hungary has already been repulsed on this side. On the north, attempts of the Germans on Grodno and on Warsaw have been triumphantly repulsed; and the Russians have since fought with success along almost the whole line; a serious German and Austrian effort is to be anticipated on the middle Vistula and the San.