Part 3

I have so far visited only Galich (Halicz), the junction of the Stryi (Stryj) and Dniestr, and the battlefield of Rava Ruska. Galich was at the south of the first Austrian line of defence. The Dniestr here presents from the north-eastern side a concave front, defended by extensive wire entanglements and trenches, and, behind the river, by low but jutting hills. The town, which lies on a ledge between these hills and the river, bears the distinctive Russian character and possesses an ancient Russian church, now Uniat, and a remnant of an early Russian tower. There is no doubt of the Russian-ness of Galich; the only inhabitants whom one sees besides the picturesque Little Russians are the numerous Jews. There was nothing to indicate nearness of the enemy, and complete order prevailed, the Russian authorities being evidently chiefly concerned with the newness of their work and the task of organisation. Friendly relations were maintained between the troops here and the inhabitants; and the only violences of which there was local evidence were those committed by Austrian soldiers before the evacuation of the town. In spite of the strength of the position, no serious resistance was offered here. The Russians appeared unexpectedly at a point on the north of the river, taking in reverse the Austrian field works at this point. They shelled the neighbouring township with extraordinary accuracy, destroying only the houses in the middle and leaving standing the two churches and a third spired building, the town hall. The Austrians then retired rapidly over the bridge, which they blew up, and evacuated Galich.

At the junction of the Dniestr and Stryi we also found deep trenches, some six feet deep and three feet wide. The tower at the bridge head, commanding a wide, flat outlook, had suffered but little. The railway bridge had been blown up. Here, too, there were no signs of serious resistance. At a railway junction in the neighbourhood there were again striking signs of the accuracy of the Russian artillery fire, only a distant portion of the station building having suffered. Close by lay a very handsome French chateau belonging to the Austrian General Desveaux, who was connected with the Polish family of Lubomirski. The interior of this chateau had been systematically wrecked by the Little Russian peasants of the locality, the top torn off the piano, family portraits defaced, sofa and chairs destroyed, and the bare floor covered with a thick litter of valuable sketches and pictures, among which I noticed a map of the Austrian army manoeuvres of 1893. I heard here and in other places of the violences committed against the peasants by the Austrian troops on their passage, the inhabitants being often left entirely destitute. The Ruthenian troops in the Austrian army were in a very difficult position: in several cases they fired in the air; and the attacking Russians would sometimes do the same, on which numbers of the Little Russians would come over to them. The Cossacks who preceded the Russian army offered no violence here, I was told, except where villagers told them untruly that the Austrian troops had left the village; with such cases they dealt summarily. They were also sometimes drastic, though not necessarily violent, with the local Jews, who in Galicia have held the peasants in the severest bondage, leaving only starvation wages to the tenants of their farms and exacting daily humiliations of obeisance.

My examination of these questions could only be very short; but the general picture obtained was, I think, in the main correct, because it was confirmed by much that I have heard from the soldiers of both sides; and it is clear that the Russians considered themselves to be at home among the Ruthenians of Galicia, whose dialect many of them are able to talk with ease. One thing was clear: namely, that there was no friction in the parts which I visited, except with the Jews, and that life was going on as if the war were a thousand miles away instead of almost at one's doors.

Our visit to Rava Ruska presented much greater military interest; we drove round the south, east, and north front of the Russian attack on this little town, and very valuable explanations were given by an able officer of the General Staff. On the southern front, near the station of Kamionka Woloska, where there were lines of trenches, the deep holes made by bursting Russian shells and sometimes filled with water, lay thick together.

The eastern front was more interesting. Here there were many lines of rifle pits, Austrian, Russian, or Austrian converted into Russian. The Austrian rifle pits were much shallower and less finished than the Russian, which were generally squarer, deeper and with higher cover. An officer's rifle pit just behind those of his men showed their care and work for him, as was also indicated in letters written after the battle. Casques of cuirassiers, many Hungarian knapsacks, broken rifles, fragments of shrapnel, potatoes pulled up, and such oddments as an Austrian picture postcard, were to be found in or near the rifle pits. These wide plains, practically without cover, were reminiscent of Wagram. A high landmark was a crucifix on which one of the arms of the figure was shot away; underneath it was a "brother's grave" containing the bodies of 120 Austrians and 21 Russians. Another cross of fresh-cut wood marked the Russian soldiers tribute to an officer: "God's servant, Gregory." Close to one line of trenches stood a village absolutely untouched, and in the fields between stood a picturesque group of villagers at their field work, one in an Austrian uniform and two boys in Austrian shakos.

The hottest fight had been on the north-eastern front. Here, after a wood and a fall of the ground, there came a gradual bare slope of a mile and a half crowned by two Austrian batteries which lay just behind the crest. This ground had been disputed inch by inch and was seamed with some five or six lines of rifle pits. At one point three Russian shells fired from about due east had fallen plump on three neighbouring rifle pits, and fragments of uniform all round gave evidence of the wholesale devastation which they had worked. All the ground was cut up with deep shell pits, and this place, which was a kind of angle of the defending line, must have become literally untenable. The pits for the Austrian guns still contained a broken wheel and other relics, and close by was a cross made of shrapnel.

The impressions which most defined themselves from this battlefield were the almost entire absence of cover, the exposed position of the rifle pits, the deadliness of the Russian artillery, the toughness of the resistance offered, and lastly the thunder of cannon from some thirty miles away, which was sounding in our ears all the time of our visit to the field of Rava Ruska.

We did not pursue our journey further along the northern positions. In the market place we saw an angry scramble of a large number of Jews over some sacks of flour; and in a wood outside we passed a strong, masterful old Jew with dignified bearing striding silently with his two sons over his land, a sight which is hardly to be seen in Russia. The Jewish land-leasers here sometimes take ten-elevenths of the profits, as contrasted with the two-thirds which the leaseholder takes in Russia. Distant hills to the north marked the old frontier of Russia.

From narratives of soldiers a few characteristics of all this fighting may be added. The attack was throughout delivered by the Russians, even where their numbers are inferior. The men are full of the finest spirit, and they have the greatest confidence in their artillery, though the proportion of field guns to a unit is less numerous on the Russian side than on the German or Austrian. When given the word to advance, the Russians feel that they are going to drive the Austrians from the field and go forward with an invincible rush. They say that less resort is made to the bayonet by the Austrians and by the Germans. In the rifle fire of their enemies they find, to use the expression of one of them, "nothing striking," the one thing that commands their respect is the heavy artillery, but the Russian field artillery has had a marked advantage. Small bodies of Austrians have made repeated use of copses to draw advancing Russian companies on to their quick-firing guns, which have sometimes done deadly work. Cavalry has played but an insignificant part in the fighting.

But the most impressive thing of all is the extraordinary endurance of the men in the trenches. It is a common experience for a man to be five to eight days in the trenches in pouring rain, almost, or sometimes altogether without food, then perhaps to rush on the enemy, to fall and see half his comrades fall, but the rest still going forward, to lie perhaps through a night, and then to the hospital to lose a limb: and yet, spite of the reaction, such men are not only patient and affectionate to all who do anything for them, but really cheerful and contented, often literally jovial and always in no doubt of the ultimate issue.

There are no two accounts of the spirit in the Russian army. One feels it as a regiment goes past on foot or packed into a train, with one private tuning up an indefinite number of verses and the rest falling into parts that give all the solemnity of a hymn. It draws everything to it; so that no one seems to feel he is living unless he is getting to the front; the talk of all those who are already at work, whether officers or men, is balanced and confident, and all little comforts are shared simply as among brothers. I saw a little boy of twelve with a busby looking as large as himself, an orphan who performed bicycle tricks in a circus, and had now persuaded a passing regiment to let him come with them, and seemed to have found his family at last.

All the life of Russia is streaming into the war, and never was the Russian people more visible than it is now in the Russian army.

_October 30._

I have spent some days in Warsaw and have examined the scenes of the recent fighting as far out as beyond Skiernewice. The Russian river line of defence ran along the Niemen, Bobr, Narew, middle Vistula and San. The Germans had not previously seriously tested the strength of the centre of this line, and Russian reports issued had so far only spoken of a northern and a southern front.

Warsaw lay beyond the defensive river line. A rapid seizure of the city before winter set in would have greatly strengthened the Prussian northern front and have endangered the Russian occupation of Galicia. It would also have created a moral effect on the Poles and might have served as a support to any proposals to negotiate.

The Germans advanced principally from the south-west, a region largely left in their hands. German army corps reached a line south-east of Blonie, and at Pruszkow they were little more than six miles from Warsaw. The cannonade shook the windows in the city. German aeroplanes dropped bombs near the railway bridge, Etat Major and elsewhere, killing over a hundred persons but not achieving any military object. The population were much exasperated, and many went out to the scene of the fighting. The brunt of the defence fell on two Russian corps, especially on one containing Siberian troops which had to oppose three German corps. Splendid work was done at Pruszkow and also by a Siberian regiment at Rakitna. Here the Germans, covered by woods and gardens, delayed the Russian advance and placed machine guns on the roof of a high church. The inhabitants say that the Siberians long refrained from returning the fire from the church. The regiment lost its colonel and many officers and 275 men, but held good till reinforced. Several Russian corps arrived, and the Russians then drove the Germans back in successive rearguard engagements which lasted for eighteen days. Another regiment specially distinguished itself at Kazimierz and received a telegram from the Commander-in-Chief, congratulating it on a brilliant bayonet attack. Two days ago it drove back the enemy with the bayonet through a wood, inflicting heavy loss. The Germans retired rapidly in the night south-westward. The country up to several miles west and south of Lowicz and Skiernewice has now been recovered.

The Germans in these operations seized provisions and some valuables and committed some minor indignities, but the country has in no way an aspect of devastation. The population is strongly for Russia and offers every service to the Russian soldiers. In Warsaw great enthusiasm prevails, with a very striking difference from the attitude before the war and the Grand Duke's appeal. The Germans during their withdrawal made clean work of bridges, railways, and stores. There was every sign of a deliberate and well-executed retreat. Fewer prisoners were taken than in the case of the Austrians, the wounded being mostly carried away. The Russian artillery worked with great precision and effect, and the Russian infantry, after artillery preparation, attacked throughout.

There is no sign of any likelihood of a further German aggressive on this side before winter, but there is always the possibility of an early conflict southward, where the Russians need to secure and complete their conquest of Galicia, and the enemy have to guard their base of joint action between Germany and Austria.

_October 30._

My visits to the scenes of fighting in the Warsaw area have been of interest. The main scene of the most critical fighting, Pruszkow, we did not visit. The Germans tried to force their way up here from the south, close to the Vistula, and got to within some nine miles from Warsaw. If they had captured the town (about 900,000 inhabitants, of whom 300,000 are Jews), and occupied the Vistula bridges, they would have established an enormous political and military advantage, which could not have been reversed without the greatest difficulty. Though Warsaw was beyond their line of defence, the Russians made every effort to hold it.

We visited a point in the centre of the line of defence, where the Russians held good under heavy losses; their rifle pits were close up to a copse and gardens, and they had tried to secure a footing even closer in. From thence their line ran in a convex curve to Rakitna. Here their artillery had battered in the sides of the lofty and impressive church, leaving standing the woodwork of the roof and two irregular pinnacles. The Germans fired from this church; they had confined several of the inhabitants in the vaults. The buildings near the church were reduced to ruins. Close up against the village lay graves of the attacking Siberian regiment, marked by lofty well-cut orthodox crosses, the men lying together under a vast regular mound and Colonel Gozhansky and six of his officers under separate crosses at the base, while at the head stood one great cross for all the dead of the regiment. The inscriptions were throughout in almost identical language, ending: "Sleep in peace, hero and sufferer." In a small garden close by, the Germans had buried their dead so rapidly that some of them were still uncovered. On two neighbouring crosses they had paid their tribute to "six brave German warriors" and to "six brave Russian warriors." Through a great hole in the ruined church one caught sight of a crucifix, untouched but surrounded with marks of shot in the wall. In the neighbouring township of Blonie, the town hall had been set on fire.

Blonie, which was the northern point of the line of battle, lies about eighteen miles due west of Warsaw; from thence runs an excellent broad _chaussée_, embanked and lined with poplars, going straight westward towards the frontier. At Sochaczew the high bridge over the river was broken off clean at both ends and the central supports entirely destroyed, but there were few other marks of war. At Lowicz the bridge had been destroyed and, as at Sochaczew and Skiernewice, had been very rapidly repaired by the pursuing Russians. Lowicz lies in flat country, through which the rivers make deep furrows. It is a clean and picturesque little place, with a symmetrical central square flanked by large buildings and with the fine parish church at the western end. The Poles of this part wear very distinctive national costumes; the women have skirts in broad and narrow vertical stripes, with orange, or sometimes red, as the foundation of colour, the narrow stripes being usually black, purple and yellow; round their shoulders they wear what look like similar skirts, fastened with ribbons at the neck, and they have variegated aprons, in which the foundation colour of the dress is absent; the general impression in the fields or on the sky line is of a mass of orange. The old men wear grizzled grey overcoats and broad-brimmed hats, and the younger men elaborate and tight-fitting costumes that suggest a groom of the eighteenth century, or loose zouave blouses and trousers of blue or other colours. Houses in the villages are spacious and plastered white, with sometimes a certain amount of decoration, usually in blue. At Lowicz there were some marks of war. My host for the night, an old soldier from Orenburg who had served under Skobelev, spoke with indignation of the recent German occupation; they had taken all the supplies that they could find. But there were no signs of any permanent occupation, and the German requisitions could not have been very thorough, as one saw many geese, pigs and, above all, very fine horses in this part, and the inhabitants had quite settled down again to their ordinary occupations. From such accounts as I have read of the conditions in Germany, I should think that one would see there fewer young and middle-aged men and less field work going on than in this no-man's land that has lain between the two hostile lines of defence and has been traversed by each army in turn.

From Lowicz to Skiernewice there runs south-westward a _chaussée_ and also a more direct road that passes through an area of sand and mud. Napoleon used to say that in his campaign of Poland (1807) he had discovered a fifth element--mud. There is no other obstacle, the broad undulating plains suggesting parts of the north of France; combining lights and shades, they offer scope for the artist, and the long lines of well-to-do villages have a pleasing effect that is enhanced by the graceful local costumes. The peasants are well built and good featured, often with a military air and carriage; their manners are excellent, and their intercourse with the Russian soldiers is both courteous and cordial. They were at any time ready to come and help in the frequent breakdowns of our motors, and I noticed, to my surprise, after experiences of other years in Warsaw, that they felt no difficulty in understanding Russian and in making themselves intelligible to us. At some points on our road there were marks of rearguard fighting, and as we were told, two or three wounded, but we saw hardly any prisoners, except a body of Landwehr men, and no trophies. At the village of Mokra (which means "damp") the houses still bore the ordinary German chalk marks assigning the billets to given numbers of men. At Skiernewice the coal stores at the station had been fired and were still burning: but the town was comfortably held by the Russians, and we found no difficulty in the matter of supplies and quarters. Skiernewice will be remembered as one of the last stopping places in the Russian empire on the road from Moscow to Berlin, and also as a former meeting place of the three emperors. It has great preserves for pheasants, which are only touched during the visits of the Sovereign. There is the usual central square of Polish houses, and here, as in Sochaczew, the Jews were in evidence, though they have been removed from some military centres where they have given assistance to the enemy. From Skiernewice we travelled a considerable distance south-westwards, passing over a fine military position carefully prepared by the Germans, and commanding a view of some ten miles to the north-east, but abandoned without any sign of resistance. At every point we met the picturesque-looking peasants returning to their now recovered homes.

At a low-lying village we saw vedettes riding to and fro, trains of supplies, vans of the Red Cross being loaded with wounded, and in front of the poor thatched cottages a line of deeply hollowed trenches, from which rose a colonel, a simple homely man in workday uniform, to offer us part of the repast. There was the strong family feeling typical of any gathering of Russians. We passed along the line chatting with the men; a young colonel galloped up to invite us to visit his guns; but we turned to a nearer battery, of which the old commander did us the honours. These men were from a military province in the heart of Russia, and their faces passed into a broad friendly grin as they stood to their guns for us, sat to be photographed at their tea-drinking, and told the story of their last fighting. They had been firing for all the last two days. At about half a mile lay a copse on a hill, at first held by the Germans, and behind it a long wooded ridge near which were German rifle pits. The German artillery put up a cross fire from both sides. Their shells had done very little damage. The Russian infantry charged up the nearer slope and drove the Germans with the bayonet through the copse. Here there were more than three hundred German dead; among them boys of thirteen and fourteen, whose soldiers' pay-books gave their ages. One officer remained standing just as the blow had caught him. In the night the Germans had rapidly withdrawn and were now several miles away.