In the Russian Ranks Part 10

Our Cossack friends were of a party having a roving commission, and reporting direct to Warsaw, which was now encircled by trenches and earthworks, the permanent forts being old and not to be depended on; and I may add, on my own responsibility, woefully short of heavy artillery.

As far as the Cossacks knew there were no Russian troops nearer to our position than the trenches at Skyermevice, where they were in pretty close contact with the enemy. We heard that there had been fighting quite recently; and daily we heard the reports of artillery in that direction, the distance being less than thirty versts.

The Russians are marchers as well as fighters; but the roads were so blocked with snow that we could rarely discern them, and we took a direct route straight across the country. This was very well; but the men sank in to the knee at every step, and progress was very slow, while concealment was impossible. If only a small body of the enemy had appeared we should have had no alternative but unconditional surrender--not a pleasant lookout, especially for me, who could not hope to pa.s.s for a Russian. In spite of strenuous exertion we could not advance faster than two versts an hour (less than a mile and a half).

When, therefore, we came to a gentleman's house, we decided to remain there and send on two of the Cossacks with a written message to the nearest commanding officer they could find.

These men did not return until late the following day, bringing orders for the battalion to proceed to a village called Samitz, near Skyermevice. Captain Folstoffle decided to remain where he was and send on the message to the Colonel.

We were in very good quarters at the house mentioned above. The family had fled to a place of greater safety, leaving an old couple to look after the mansion, and answer all German inquiries. Strange to say, and very fortunately for us, the Germans had not visited this house; and everything being intact we had plenty of food and wine, and good beds to sleep in. There was a poultry yard with abundance of fowls, ducks and geese; and a piggery full of fine porkers with no suspicion attached to their recent diet, and--well, the Cossacks looked after this department, not forgetting the respect due to their superiors when the roast was ready: and I am afraid that the poor old woman had some doubts which was most preferable--a visit from the Germans, or a self-invitation from her compatriots; and I am not sure she did not say as much. She certainly had a good deal to say; and I did not need to understand Russian to perceive the temper and tone in which her speech was delivered. But her protests were received with sublime indifference, and she was calmly presented with receipts and bills which she was informed the Russian Government would honour in due course.

The next day, the 8th January, 1915, the battalion arrived at this pleasant halting-place, and cleared up the remnants of the poultry-yard and piggery. It took us all day on the 9th to reach Samitz, which the enemy was sh.e.l.ling vigorously. The village was a small place originally; and half of it had already been reduced to something very like dust. The only civilian I saw in the place was a woman, who was crying bitterly as she sat on the threshold of a shattered cottage, quite oblivious, in her terrible grief, of such trifling dangers as bursting sh.e.l.ls. These are the sights that upset men, even soldiers born, and cause them to hate war. Even the dogs and the pigs had deserted this place.

The headquarters, and the other battalions of the Vladimir regiment, were not at Samitz; and n.o.body could tell us where they were. We were politely told not to bother our heads about our comrades, but to get into the trenches at once. Fortunately we were with "goodly capon lined"; for they had not the good manners here to give us a ration before sending us on duty. But the service was pressing just then, as we soon discovered.

Night was closing in when we became aware that a heavy ma.s.s of the enemy was making straight for the trench we occupied. They were shouting loudly something I did not understand; and orders were pa.s.sed along the trench that we were to lie quiet, and not fire until the foe was quite close. I thought this a foolish order, but of course obeyed it, like the rest of the men.

I afterwards read in an English newspaper of a dodge practised by the Germans of running up dressed in English uniform, and shouting something like this: "Ve vos not Shermans; we vos Royal Vest Surreys!"

A similar trick was played on us at this time. It appears the Germans shouted: "We are a reinforcement of Russians; do not fire on your comrades!"

We did not fire until they reached the wire entanglement which protected the front of the trench: and then----. Well, they went down as if blasted by a wind from Hades. Point-blank, quick-firing: and then, while the groan of fright and horror was still issuing from their lips, came the order, "Upon them with the bayonet--Charge."

There was no fighting: it was simply slaughter amidst yells, curses, and abject screams for mercy. For the first time in this campaign I saw German soldiers fairly and unmistakably routed. There was no mistake about it this time. Old Jack Falstaff never carried his paunch as nimbly as these Germans carried theirs in their run for their lives.

We took no prisoners: or, if any, only one or two odd ones; and we scarcely lost a man, except afterwards, by artillery fire. For the Germans, absolutely routed, sought vengeance by opening as heavy an artillery sh.e.l.ling as they could; but it was little better than a waste of ammunition, and killed more of their own wounded than it did of our men.

When morning came, I calculated that 2,000 German bodies lay on half a verst of our front. The groans and cries of the wounded were awful to hear; but n.o.body could help them. Their own people made no overtures to do so; and when our Red Cross men attempted to go to their a.s.sistance they were fired on by the enemy in the most cowardly way. None of our wounded lay outside the trench.

When darkness set in Captain Folstoffle, and an officer called Skidal, with Drs. Wolnoff and Falovki, myself and a dozen stretcher-bearers of the Red Cross Service, went out to try to be of some service to the suffering and dying. It was a dark night; but the snow rendered objects visible; and the miserable wail of the injured guided us to where they lay thickest. Nothing could be more awful: one man with the top of his skull blown off, and the brains exposed, was still alive, and most anxious to be saved. He begged piteously to be first attended to; but what could be done for such a case? We made him as comfortable as we could under such dreadful circ.u.mstances, and left him: though his cries to be taken away, or at least have somebody remain with him, haunted my mind for many days afterwards.

It was puzzling to know where to commence work when so many required attention. We gave first aid to a great many, and sent some to the rear of our trenches; but it was obviously of no use to treat hopeless cases.

We removed them to more sheltered positions, and made them more comfortable. One or two were groaning under heaps of their slain comrades: we released these, and dressed their wounds. Some were very grateful for the aid rendered. One man kissed the hand of the attendant helping him; and another was very profuse in his thanks. Others were cursing their Kaiser and their country, and even the Almighty, for entailing so much misery upon them. One man was insane, probably as a result of his fears rather than his sufferings.

Many corpses were broken to pieces, probably as a result of the German's own sh.e.l.l-fire. When the arms of a dead man were taken hold of to release another soldier pinned down beneath him, they both came away at the first pull, owing to the body being completely shattered. Several dissevered limbs lay about; and also headless bodies: and we discovered one dead man, who had died in the act of holding his bowels in, the outside of the stomach having been shot away. While we were attending to these miserable men, a sh.e.l.l came from the enemy's line and killed Lieutenant Skidal and two of the men, and so severely wounded Dr.

Wolnoff that he died a few days afterwards. Of course we abandoned our work, and returned to the shelter of our trenches. In a similar way the Germans often put a stop to the would-be good work our people attempted to perform.

CHAPTER XV

SMALL AFFAIRS AND PERSONAL ADVENTURES

Throughout the night there was cannonading at intervals, some of the sh.e.l.ls weighing about 100 pounds. We had no guns so heavy in our lines; and I attribute the fact that the Russians were never able to fully push home their attacks to this cause. Their artillery, of all cla.s.ses, was decidedly inferior to that of their foes, and there was a sad lacking of large pieces of siege ordnance, without which a modern army can hardly hope to beat its foes out of well-constructed trenches.

On the following day the Germans did not make a direct attack on our position; but they sent out a host of snipers and skirmishers, who fired on us, causing many casualties, from snow-pits, and heaps of the same material. At first sight it would seem that snow would not prove a very efficacious defence; nevertheless pits and trenches made of it afford splendid protection to infantry, and even to field-guns. We found it impossible to dislodge these skirmishers by artillery fire alone; and individually they offered no mark to our riflemen.

On the 14th January we attempted an a.s.sault of the German position, but were stopped at their wire entanglement and shot down in such numbers that we were compelled to retreat, leaving 1,000 men behind, mostly dead and dying, but a few of them prisoners of war. In this attempted a.s.sault we discovered that the enemy were using their iron shields, fixed upright in the ground, as a protection behind which to shoot from.

At long range our rifle-bullets could not penetrate them; but they were an indescribably clumsy contrivance to carry about in the way the Germans first used them. They discovered that themselves, and abandoned their use, except in trenches; nor were they of much use at close quarters; for bullets would pierce them, sometimes at as great a range as 500 yards.

Several little adventures happened to us while we were in these trenches. For instance, one night I thought I saw several small pyramids of snow moving about; and watching carefully I presently saw a man clothed in white come right up to our trenches. He knew, or discovered, the s.p.a.ces left in the wire entanglements to enable us to sally out. His movements were so regular and bold that I was afraid to shoot him, thinking he might be one of our men, but went at once to Colonel Krastnovitz's hut, and reported what I had seen. None of our men were, at this time, clothed in white, or furnished with white cloaks, and the Colonel at once went with me to the spot where I had seen the mysterious figure. It had disappeared; but in about ten minutes several men, scarcely distinguishable from the snow, were dimly discerned moving about, and evidently examining our network of barbed wire. One of them seemed to be looking for something among the dead (all the wounded were very quiet by this time), and was seen to turn a corpse over.

Our men, dead beaten with excessive fatigue, were asleep in the trench, a couple of sentries excepted; but several men were aroused, and the Colonel whispered his orders to them. Several angry spurts of fire, accompanied by sharp reports, and our prying Germans clothed in white raiment were hurrying away across the plain, leaving two of their number behind stretched on the ground. We went out to examine these fallen heroes. One was past help: the other was only wounded, and that not very seriously. He said he was willing to surrender, and hoped we would not murder him: rather comical, I thought; but the Russian mind is slow in perceiving a joke; and so his captors devoted all their attention to examining his white cloak, or overall, and making notes of the same. The young prisoner (he appeared to be no more than twenty years) was not "murdered," had his wounds seen to, and was sent to the rear. We saw no more of "the dashing white sergeants" that night, but afterwards became well acquainted with them, and imitated their tactics, for whole divisions of Russians wore white gaberdines when there was snow on the ground.

On the night of the 15th a regiment of infantry, with our battalion attached, and supported by a strong division of Cossacks, made an attack of the German trenches on our right. We captured one of their advanced positions, but were soon driven out by a shower of hand-grenades, not the first time I had seen these very destructive missiles used, though I never expected that they would be resorted to in modern warfare. That their use should have died out is remarkable; for they are a most effective weapon at close quarters. The poison-gas, of which, I am thankful to say, I saw nothing, is a diabolical development of the ancient "stink-pot," a contrivance to suffocate an enemy; but one that was not particularly cruel, or effective.

In this second sortie, which cost us 400 men, we captured several of the iron shields, before mentioned; and the Russian commanders thought it worth while to have some made of the same pattern; but as I have already stated, their use was soon considered to be a mistake and a failure, and they were set up as a kind of bulwark in the trenches. They were of some use in making barricades in narrow s.p.a.ces where there was not room enough for an earthen parapet.

We were not so discouraged by these little reverses as we might have been had we not enjoyed a continual stream of good news. Great things were reported to be occurring on the Austrian front; and the cavalry in our own neighbourhood had several skirmishes with the enemy, in which the Germans, as usual, had the worst of it.

The weather was again very bad; though, really, there had not been much improvement in it for several weeks. Snow fell in immense quant.i.ties, in the form in which the Americans call blizzards: that is, as I understand the term, accompanied by storms of icy-cold wind. The snow lying on the ground, however, was frozen hard, and therefore more easily pa.s.sed over. We could march with tolerable ease and rapidity. We were often moved from one part of the trenches and back again, for no perceivable reason; and on one occasion we were marched forty versts in the direction of Plock, probably because a great battle was expected.

There was heavy fighting in this direction; but it was all over before we arrived. By the p.r.o.noun I mean the body of infantry to which the Vladimir battalion was attached, and which consisted of a division under General Berenstoff. It was made up largely of battalions and detachments which had lost a part of their effective force, or got separated from their regiments.

Except perhaps in Austria, with which I have nothing to do, as my experiences did not extend to that area of the war, there was little progress made, and but slight reverses suffered, during the early part of the year. The weather and the state of the ground may have had something to do with this; but I think both sides were suffering considerably from exhaustion. The men had been worked incessantly and unmercifully, yet no great numbers had fallen out on account of breakdown. Frostbites are not common amongst Russian troops, even in the severest weather; but I had some trouble from this complaint myself. The soldiers were provided with good warm clothing; but furs were not in general use; and a few regiments, which had seen a great deal of hard service, were almost in rags; yet their sufferings did not seem to be greater than those of their comrades. The Russian soldier never grumbles, by-the-by. Boots are the great desideratum of an army in the field. Nothing will break an army up sooner than a lack of foot-wear: and in respect of this necessary the Russians were generally well provided, though I occasionally met detachments, if not larger bodies, who had completely worn out their boots, and resorted to tying their feet up in pieces of hide, or sheep's skin. These cases were so rare that they scarcely deserve notice; but as the winter wore on the clothing of the troops certainly began to show signs of wear.

Personally I had some difficulty in providing necessaries. Boots were given to me; but underclothing was both difficult to obtain and to keep clean. No article was scarcer than soap in the Russian camp--it never found its way to the trenches, which were in a shockingly insanitary condition. It could not be otherwise: for once in our position we could not leave it, even for a few moments, until regularly relieved at the appointed hour. In some instances the troops were in the trenches for a week without intermission. There are said to be no fleas in Russia.

There are abundance of another kind of vermin, which revels in dirt; and mice were so numerous in the fields that things had to be closely watched to prevent them from being destroyed. The knapsacks of the Russians, like those of the Germans, are made of undressed sheep's skins; and these, and other leather articles, were often nibbled by the mice; while food was sure to be spoiled if left in a tent, or hut, for a few hours. Winter did not rid us of these pestiferous little rodents, which lived, and prospered, in the snow.

I usually did my own washing and mending, taking advantage of the facilities to be found in some of the deserted houses, where tubs and pails and many other things had been left behind on the flight of the inhabitants, and hot water was easily procurable, though I never found any soap.

Baths are much in use in Russia, but more as luxuries and sources of enjoyment than as means of cleanliness. The so-called "Turkish bath"

seems to be of Russian origin. It was made extemporaneously by the soldiers in various ways. Sometimes they closed up a small room of a house, and filled it with steam by sprinkling water on stones previously heated to a white heat; but the favourite way was to make a small hut with branches, and render this impervious by covering it with turf. In such a hovel a soldier could pretty nearly suffocate himself in ten minutes, the stones being heated in a wood fire outside. When a man had parboiled himself to the hue of a lobster, he would rush out and roll about, naked as he was, in the snow; the operation being finished off by a good rub down.

The steam once raised, an occasional hot stone would keep it up for any length of time; and man after man would use the same "bath." I tried this curious operation myself, and found it both refreshing and strengthening; and it is a fine remover of the pain and exhaustion occasioned by excess of physical exertion. The snow, by-the-by, at this time of year is what is called in Russia "dry snow." That is, it is frozen so intensely that it does not readily thaw, may be brushed from the clothing, does not cling to anything, and blows about with the breeze like dust. I preferred this state of things to the fogs, which in the autumn and early part of the winter were very troublesome, and prejudicial to the general health.

During the latter part of January there was not much downfall of snow, but the cold was intense, and the winds such as, to use a common expression, "cut through one." The snow that was on the ground got a crust that would easily have borne a man on snow-shoes; but these useful inventions were not employed by the Russian troops.

Sometimes, when there were blizzards, the trenches were nearly filled with drifted snow; and more than once, the men were buried above their waists. This was an inconvenience from the military point of view; but the men did not object to it as it kept them warm; and snow-huts were much used during the winter, both because they were difficult to be discerned by a distant enemy, and because they make remarkably warm sleeping-places. The only inconvenience is that the heat of the body causes the snow on the inside of the hut to melt and drip on the sleeper until he is, sometimes, pretty well wet through, the Russian, as a rule, being a sound sleeper.

The Germans, also, adopted these snow-huts, and their reconnoitring-parties must have discovered ours; for one fine morning, just as the sun was rising clear and bright, they opened fire on a small village of these hovels which we had constructed behind our trenches.

The result was not pleasant; and I saw several poor fellows blown clean into the air amidst clouds of frozen snow. On the evening of that day we trotted out for a retaliatory expedition; but nothing much came of it.

We found the German position too strong to be meddled with; and after the exchange of a few rifle-shots we fell back, and retired to our own position. Fortunately for us, the Germans did not follow us; and we lost only two men killed, and a dozen wounded, which we carried away with us.

We often displayed great temerity in attacking with small bodies of infantry, and were seldom counter-attacked on these occasions, because, we supposed, the enemy feared a trap. They had some grounds for these fears. On one occasion, two companies of the 189th regiment, believing that a trench of the enemy's was weakly manned, made an attack on it.

They caught a Tartar, and were chased by about 2,000 Germans, who, fully believing that they were about to penetrate our lines, followed the fugitives right up to the edge of the trench. It chanced, however, that the officer commanding that section had his doubts about the wisdom of the rash attack, and had moved up a full regiment to meet a possible accident. So when the Germans arrived they were received with an unexpected fusillade, which killed the greater number of them, and terrified the others so much that they surrendered at once. Two men only ran back; and, strange to say, they both escaped, though hundreds of shots were sent after them. But in war I have noticed that temerity and cowardice are often self-punished, and bravery rewarded. Not always so, alas! I hate the Germans like sin; but I was not sorry to see these two plucky fellows escape.

CHAPTER XVI

A NIGHT ATTACK ON A BRIDGE-HEAD

During the last few days in January we received strong reinforcements, mostly recruits and reservists to bring up the regiments to their normal strength, the losses of some of which had been very heavy: in fact, with a fairly good knowledge of military history, I cannot recall that in any previous war there have been so many instances of whole battalions, batteries, and other units, being completely "wiped out," to use the modern expressive phrase. In several cases it is said that entire regiments of four battalions each (over 4,000 men at full war strength) have disappeared. The 66th (probably Ersatz), and their 41st of the regular line, are said to have met this fate: and many complete battalions on both sides have been destroyed, or taken prisoners wholesale. The first Russian unit to which I was attached, a battery of horse artillery, was practically rendered non-existent; and other batteries were lost on the actual field of battle, every man being shot down, and the guns smashed, or taken by the enemy. Many Russian batteries met such a fate as that described, as they were often subjected to the fire of guns much heavier than their own; and, indeed, it is useless to withhold the fact that the German artillery is altogether superior to that of the Russians.

To return to the subject of the Muscovite losses. How terrible these were may be guessed from the returns made by many regiments. I do not purpose to give the names, or regimental numbers, of units, for reasons which are more or less obvious. Taking twenty-three regiments, contiguous in station to the position occupied by my division in the middle of January, 1915, and having, at the commencement of the war, a total combatant strength of 92,000 men, there were eight regiments which could not parade 1,000 men each--that is, had lost three-fourths of their strength. In the case of five of these regiments the bulk of the missing men were known to be prisoners of war. One regiment could send only 638 men to the trenches--less than two-thirds of a battalion. The four regiments which had been most fortunate were each more than 1,000 men short of their proper complement; and to bring up the twenty-three regiments to their original war strength 50,000 men were required! They got 40,000 men; and at least 250,000 were sent to the Austrian area, and to the district of East Prussia near Suvalki. Many of these recruits came to the front without arms, and received those which had belonged to the killed and to men in hospital. There was so great a shortage of arms that some battalions were actually furnished with rifles and cartridges taken from the Germans. I suspect that Russia would have much vaster armies in the field if she could find rifles and cannon for them. It is a very unpleasant fact, but still a fact, that Russia is outgunned by her enemy to so great an extent that the Germans can place _five_ cannon against her _three_; and that on any part of the front where the t.i.tanic struggle is going on.

In one thing only is Russia the stronger of the two Powers, and that is in her cavalry: and this force has not, to my knowledge, suffered a disaster, even on a small scale. Not one of her mounted regiments has been cut up, or even sustained abnormal losses; but they have certainly destroyed more than one of Germany's cavalry regiments; and that in fair open fight. The Russian cavalry has charged, successfully, all cla.s.ses of troops--mounted men, infantry and artillery. So much for the paper tacticians who have a.s.serted that the days of cavalry charges and hand-to-hand fighting are over. They are clearly mistaken, as has been shown East and West in this war, which I suppose all will admit is the War of Wars.