CHAPTER XX

HARD MARCHING AND DESULTORY FIGHTING

We had no rest for thirty hours. During this time we marched and fought incessantly, falling back about sixty versts to Novogeorgevsk, where we were joined by the 233rd Reserve Regiment from Warsaw, where they had arrived from Novgorod only a few hours previously. Other divisions also received strong reinforcements, which were of great value to us, not only by reason of their physical aid, but also because they greatly revived the spirits of our worn-out fighting-men, many of whom dropped from exhaustion the moment we were out of reach of the enemy and a halt was called. I did myself; and believe I should have died had not a soldier given me half a bottle of rum, and a loaf of rye bread. Where he obtained them I do not know; but many of the men got food at Novogeorgevsk which was not served out by the commissariat.

It was seldom that any spirits were obtainable other than vodka, which is frightful stuff and has more than once fetched the skin off my gums and lips. Rum, therefore, was simply nectar. Touching this subject: the Russian soldier, and the Russian peasant, are often represented as great drunkards. It is simply a libel on an abstemious and frugal people. The whole of the time I was in Russia I did not see more than fifty drunken people; and they were German officers and soldiers, who, occasionally, when captured, were as drunk as lords.

During the retreat of thirty hours most of the men fired about 500 cartridges. These were brought to the firing-line by light carts, which galloped along, and threw the packets on the ground for the men to pick up.

The Germans sometimes pressed us pretty closely; but a bear robbed of her whelps is an awkward customer to deal with; and notwithstanding their superior numbers, they soon learned a great respect for us. Our losses were heavy; theirs were not light. A pretty good sprinkling of bodies was left on the road Novogeorgevsk; and when the artillery got a chance they added heaps to the sprinkling.

Captain Sawmine was badly, but not dangerously, wounded. Red Cross men, doctors and officers tried to induce him to get into a cart, and go to the rear; but he would not. "I mean to die with my men," was all he would say; and, indeed, I thought it was coming to that. He fainted twice; and sometimes we were compelled to carry him a verst or two; but as soon as he gained a little strength he insisted on marching like the rest of us. We all carried rifles; and he shot off nearly as many rounds as the men, and shot them well, too. It was not until we reached Novogeorgevsk that his hurts were properly dressed.

We went back to our old lodgings, where we enjoyed the refreshment of a good meal and a long sleep. Large bodies of troops were massed along the Vistula, and away towards Pultusk, on the River Narew, a great part of the garrison of Warsaw having come out to meet the danger. The Germans were effectually checked by these fresh troops, which gave the exhausted men a chance to recoup.

Also thousands of men were hourly arriving by train from Vilna and other northern garrisons. Everybody knew that the enemy must be beaten back immediately, or they would be in Warsaw in a few hours, although the defences of the city were being daily strengthened.

At first a good deal of the fighting was skirmishing along the banks of the rivers and streams, of which there are many small ones in this region which are fringed with willows, and in summer half-hidden in beds of thick rushes. Of course the rushes were now dead, or lying low, a mass of withered vegetation; but the willows and bushes afforded sufficient concealment to the marksmen to enable them to keep up a continual skirmish. I am not sure that this kind of fighting is of much use. It costs a number of lives on both sides, but really effects nothing, unless it is used as a screen to more important movements.

Though some of the streams were fordable, and all the smaller ones frozen over, the enemy made no attempt to cross any of them. They appeared to fear a turning movement from the direction of Pultusk, and retired in a way that was inexplicable to us at the time. We soon learned, however, that they had been forced back from the line of the Narew with great loss; and were in full and disorderly retreat. The pressure must have been great: for the large forces in front of Novogeorgevsk suddenly began to retire; and our artillery cut them up cruelly. They had not a sufficient number of guns to make an effectual reply, which seems to show that they had sent the bulk of their batteries to the Narew. It is a common movement of the Germans when they are hard pressed at any point, and also when they are gaining an advantage, to bring up every gun they can move from other corps. This sometimes gives them the victory; but occasionally brings disaster upon them. The Germans are the gamblers of war. They seem ready to throw away men and guns on the bare chance of winning--and losing, care not, but hope for "better luck next time." Their officers certainly do not care twopence for the lives of their men.

About this time, too, I noticed some deterioration in the quality of the German troops. In the first part of the campaign they never sustained a rout, as I have several times stated; but as the winter wore on their retreats were often disorderly, as I have mentioned above.

Our division took no part in this fighting. Probably those in supreme command thought we had had enough of it recently; and they were about right. If ever a division deserved the name of "fighting division," it was ours: and yet, strange as it may seem, I do not know precisely what we were. At one time we were known as the Seventh Division of the Ninth Army; and after a time on detached duty, as the Thirteenth of the Eighth Army. Then again we were unattached. There is little doubt that the division was made up of odd battalions and regiments, the remnants of corps which had been practically wiped out. There was always a disinclination to give me much information on the subject; and I thought it unwise to be too persistent in my inquiries. It is certain that we were made up, afterwards, of reservists, and were used to temporarily strengthen other corps. Of the Vladimirs not a dozen of the original men remained; and two of these were officers; and the battalion, though still retaining its designation, was numbered the 3rd of the second regiment. From time to time we received recruits, generally the remnants of corps which had become "wiped out," a very frequent occurrence in this war, when whole regiments were often destroyed, perhaps a company, or a part of one, escaping. While we were at Novogeorgevsk a number of cavalrymen who had lost their horses were sent to us, bringing the battalion up to about 500 men. The whole division was under 3,000. Such are the losses of war.

When the enemy showed signs of wavering, the fresh troops in our neighbourhood made a vigorous attack upon them, with the result that they gave way almost at once. Evidently their reverses further north had demoralized them.

On the 26th, at night, we heard that the enemy had been crushed at Przasnysz. The enemy must have heard it too: for they drew back their right wing towards the north-west; and when our men pressed them hard, retreated with more precipitation than I had ever seen them do on any previous occasion.

Our division was following in support, and we had little or no fighting. The ground over which we marched was chiefly fields and frozen marshes. The artillery used the roads where they could discern them; but this was no easy task, the country being one flat sheet of snow, with few trees, and only ruins of houses: in fact, the country had been rendered desolate, and the people had fled to the towns.

We passed by thousands of dead and wounded, scattered in all directions; for there had been no defence of positions here, but a retiring fight in the open. The Red Cross men picked up the hurt: the dead were left where they lay; the usual custom in this campaign. Every now and then we met parties of Cossacks and infantry, escorting prisoners to the rear. The total losses of the enemy appeared to be at least three to one of ours.

There was no halt at night; and cavalry of all kinds--dragoons, hussars, lancers, chasseurs, and the ubiquitous Cossacks--were constantly overtaking us, and pressing to the front in pursuit of the flying enemy: for flying they were. These German boys, who had fought so well in their first onset, when tired out and exhausted by continuous exertion, broke down completely: and there were some pitiful scenes: as, for instance, when some twenty or thirty of them were discovered hidden in the cellars of a wrecked house. One of them had the courage to fire his rifle up the stairs and kill a Cossack as he sat eating his ration. This was considered to be a murder by the Cossack's comrades, and notwithstanding that the Germans immediately surrendered, the whole party was hanged to the fruit-trees in the garden of the house--the only ones in the neighbourhood.

I do not think any of these boys were more than twenty years old; half of them certainly were not more than sixteen or seventeen; and they made a terrible fuss over their fate, screaming and crying like small children; and one or two grovelling in the snow, and begging for mercy in the most piteous way. In vain. They were all strung up; and as no drop was given to break their necks, some were a long time dying. I saw one still struggling after he had been suspended twenty minutes; and others were apparently not quite dead until a bystander put an end to their suffering with revolver-shots. It is probable that these lads would not have been discovered had not one of them shot the Cossack.

The hiding in cellars of small parties of the enemy was a frequent occurrence. They would probably have often escaped detection had it not been for their own folly. They did not seem to be able to resist the temptation to fire on any of our men who chanced to enter the houses where they lay concealed, probably thinking they were isolated squads, and unsupported by stronger bodies.

Amongst other strange incidents was that of a motor-car which was taken past us on the 28th. It was a closed carriage, and contained three ladies, and a large quantity of articles of dress, jewellery, and plate. The women were said to be officers' wives; and the goods, plunder: and there were many stories prevailing amongst our troops of robberies of houses by Prussian women of considerable social rank. It was quite a common incident for us to recover cars and carts full of spoil which had been taken from the houses of the Polish nobility of the district. What became of the thieves I do not know; but in the case of women I believe they escaped unpunished.

Other things we captured were carts, waggons, and conveyances laden with provisions and clothing materials, which had been stolen from Polish towns, villages and private houses. It was commonly reported that the Germans were in great straits for food; and whether this was so or not, they stripped those tracts of country which were overrun by them of everything eatable. They even dug up the potatoes and turnips (in the autumn, of course); and when they got the chance, reaped the cornfields, sending this produce to Germany, unless we were fortunate enough to intercept it. This action may have been dictated by want, but was more likely to have been the outcome of economical provision for the future, combined with their acknowledged policy of making war as frightful as possible to the civil population of their foe's country. It entailed terrible misery on the poor people, and was the cause of the towns and villages of whole regions being abandoned by the inhabitants, many of whom were said to have died of starvation. Others had to apply to relief committees.

I have read descriptions of the state of Germany after the Thirty Years' War. I should think it could not have been worse than many parts of Poland now are. The enemy has turned whole districts into a desert, destitute of everything that is necessary to the existence of man. They have even wantonly cut down the fruit-trees, and filled the wells with filth. Barns and storehouses have been burnt, as well as dwellings, in many cases whole villages having been given to the flames. As a rule, however, the towns have been spared, though I passed through a few that had suffered severely, if they were not quite ruined. The enemy had frequently emulated the "crop-ears" of our Cromwellian period, and stabled their horses in the churches. Still more frequently they had desecrated and wrecked the sacred edifices--one of the most unwise things they could do: for to provoke a people through their religion is equal to losing a battle, and a big battle too, to say nothing of what the Most High may possibly think of it. This does not count with the Germans; but it may possibly count in favour of their enemies, when the day of reckoning comes!

The peasantry, rendered homeless and desperate, and enraged at the violation of things they held to be in the highest degree sacred, were a thorn in the side of Russia's foes. Living in the wood, prowling about their burnt homes in the dead of night, they often came upon the enemy's videttes and pickets, and made them prisoners. I do not think they imitated the Cossacks, and often took the lives of the men they surprised; but they did so occasionally. They made splendid scouts, and helped the Russian Army immensely in this way, supplying information which it would have been difficult, or rather impossible, for organized parties of armed men to have obtained. The women, especially, were useful in this way: for with that cunning and subterfuge which nobody condemns in the female character, they often ingratiated themselves with the German officers and soldiers, and so obtained access to knowledge of their movements and circumstances which no amount of duplicity or skill would have enabled a man to acquire. And a day or two afterwards the hussies, perhaps, would be stabbing their "friends" with pitchforks, their favourite weapons, next to their tongues, which they often used with great effect; for it was quite a usual circumstance for women to join in any fighting that took place in their neighbourhood. The men, also, joined the soldiers on the battlefield, and used any weapon they could obtain, but chiefly the instruments with which, in normal times, they tilled the ground.

To take up again the thread of this narrative. A great deal of fighting went on in our front, but the weakness of our division kept us out of it. We were still further reduced in numbers by being called on to furnish many detachments to guard prisoners to the rear. Under these circumstances I had to amuse myself with such rumours, and small items of news, as came in my way. From these I gathered that the onward movements of the enemy were completely checked; and it was even asserted that the Russian troops were again on German soil. This rumour was not satisfactorily confirmed; but I cannot doubt that the enemy was forced back to the frontier line in the neighbourhood of Mlawa and Chorzellen. The latter place is a small Russian town actually on the frontier, and more than thirty versts from a railway-station. Mlawa is also a Russian town five versts from the border, with a station on the Praga (suburb of Warsaw) German railway, which was held by the enemy. The two places are about thirty versts distant from each other: so it was evident the foe had fallen back on a pretty wide front.

One of the most striking episodes of this period was my first sight of the Russian Commander-in-Chief, the Grand Duke Nicholas. I had, of course, heard frequent mention of him; but it was never very clear to me where he was--I mean at what particular spot. Though not such a galloper (to use a military term) as the Kaiser, he still seemed to be here, there and everywhere. One week he was asserted to be in direct personal command of our corps: the next he was reported to be in Galicia. But the Duke is anything but a limelight gentleman; the German is nothing unless he is one. The Duke is a great commander, and no mean soldier: the Kaiser is also a great commander, but no soldier at all. The first can say what he wants, and can do it: the second can say what he wants, but cannot do it; he has to rely on his subordinates.

The Grand Duke Nicholas is a big man, yet not stout. He appears to stand considerably more than six feet high--I should think about six feet six inches. He is very straight and upright in carriage, but scarcely with the bearing of a soldier. He looks more like an athletic priest than a military man, especially as he has a grave countenance, and seldom, or never, smiles. He is an affable man, though; and seemingly quite devoid of pride. He wears a plain uniform, devoid of ornament, and carries a stick in place of a sword. Apparently he does not look about him; but nothing escapes his eye; and, like all great men, he is not above dealing with details even minute ones.

He does very little writing, however, but likes to sit on a chair and explain his wishes to an audience of officers. Those whom they concern make notes of his orders, which he afterwards looks over, but, I am told, does not sign. If I were one of his subordinates I should think this method had its drawbacks. What if a misunderstanding occurred? Everything would favour the commander, and all would necessarily go against the commanded. But perhaps this would not matter in a country like Russia.

One thing is certain: that if the Grand Duke is not one of the greatest commanders this war has produced, the Germans, at any rate, have not been able to catch him napping. His fault seems to be precisely similar to those which afflict the other Generals of the War: they do not get effectively driven back; but they cannot get forward. The trench business is one too many for them; and the art of outflanking has clearly not been sufficiently studied; while the art of effectual retaliation seems to be utterly unknown.