In the Russian Ranks Part 6

We hurried on, the men marching at a very quick step, but often floundering through slush and mud. The ground was very soft and marshy, and full of ponds and streams with steep banks. Troops were in front of us, and others behind; and judging from a spluttering rifle-fire, I thought our flank was being protected by a cavalry skirmishing line. It was the first serious night-fight in which I had been engaged. As we advanced it became more and more evident that it was a battle of an extensive and desperate description; and enough could be seen to show that its front extended at least twenty versts, and probably much more.

At length we were halted and deployed into line; and I thought other infantry regiments were coming up on both flanks; but the night was too dark to enable one to make sure of much. While we were thus engaged a cavalry regiment rode into us--it cannot be said that it charged--and I have always been of opinion that they made a mistake of some kind. Half of them were killed, the rest surrendered; and I tried to gain possession of one of their horses, as I had been recommended to do. I was disappointed. Some unmannerly rascal took it from me just as I was trying to get into the saddle, and time and circ.u.mstances made an argument both difficult and dangerous.

We were within long range of artillery fire, and stray sh.e.l.ls burst over our heads and fell amongst our ranks; and an order was pa.s.sed that we were to lie down. The ground was sodden, and most of us were very damp if not wet through; but there we lay for two hours until about 1.30 a.m., when we were suddenly ordered to advance.

We had not gone 1,000 yards when there was some wild shooting in front of us, and to my astonishment I found that we were close upon the enemy.

It must have been a surprise to them, or they would never have permitted us to close without riddling us with rifle and cannon shot according to their usual tactics; and either desperation lent them energy, or they were getting used to the handling of their weapons, for I never saw a fiercer bayonet fight on the part of the Germans. They burnt flares, or a similar contrivance, which threw a lurid light over the fiercely struggling ma.s.s of human furies, and benefited us as much as it did themselves; and that was a good thing, for otherwise it would have been almost impossible to distinguish friend from foe, and accidents must have been of frequent occurrence.

The enemy appeared to have made some shallow rifle trenches, but many of them fought on open, flat ground; and their losses were terrible. The fight lasted, furiously, desperately, for about a quarter of an hour; then the Germans gave way and ran for their lives, closely followed by their foes. As they ran they unbuckled their knapsacks and let them fall to the ground. Many fell on their knees and held their hands up, not always with success in obtaining mercy, though hundreds of prisoners were taken and secured by the reserves which were following us in support. Some threw themselves flat on the ground and thus often escaped immediate death.

The officers on both sides lost control of their men. I could hear the Germans shouting and threatening and saw some of them throw themselves before the soldiers in a vain attempt to stop the headlong flight; while our men were so excited that the commands of their officers were quite ignored--a very unusual thing amongst Russian soldiers, whose reverence for their commanders resembles that of saints for their priests.

I believe the Germans suffered something from their own artillery fire, their sh.e.l.ls bursting amongst friends and foes alike. One fell close in front of me and the explosion made me shiver; but though it killed at least half a dozen men I escaped without so much as a scratch, though I afterwards found my clothes torn by projectiles of some kind.

The pursuit went on for hours. When daylight broke it had not diminished in vigour, and, the country being an open marsh, the enemy, deprived of the trenches in which they love to fight, could find no point of support and were kept on the run. Many of them, far too heavily accoutred, fell from exhaustion, and soon they began to surrender in squads and companies.

Cavalry on our left front made a demonstration, but the ground was so rotten that they could not charge; and we soon began to come up with guns embedded in the mud. Gunners and horses were bayoneted, and the guns afterwards fell into our hands. I was told that hundreds were taken; certainly whole batteries were left behind, the majority of the horses having been worked to death in an endeavour to drag them away. I saw them lying dead harnessed to guns and waggons. Some were still dying, groaning pitifully, and not a few were put out of their misery by men whom the fiercest pa.s.sion could not deprive of some sense of compa.s.sion for innocent suffering. I came upon a German gunner engaged in this praiseworthy work, and gave him a friendly nod. He returned the nod with equal friendliness before hopping after his comrades with a couple of pounds of mud clinging to each boot. Ah! war is a sad, sad business. It must be bred of the devil: for one would rather lose his soul than fail to sabre or stab the foe in front of him; and yet when the fierce rage of the fight is over, one would give the whole world not to have done such a thing.

The Prussians must have had reserves in the field, but we saw nothing of them. Either they were dealt with by other bodies of our troops, or, seeing that the day was lost, took the hint and did not wait. Our men kept up the pursuit until nearly noon the next morning, when the majority of them were so exhausted that they threw themselves on the ground and slept where they lay, with the rain pelting down upon them.

This action was known to the Russians as the "Battle of Suvalki," and was the nearest approach to an old-fashioned fight that had taken place. It was a tremendous affair, fought on a front of nearly thirty English miles; and was a complete, unqualified German defeat. They lost about 30,000 killed and wounded, and nearly as many more taken prisoners. The Kaiser was in personal command throughout the action; and is responsible for the precious mess made of it. About 300 field-guns were captured, but some of them were so firmly embedded in the mud that they could not be dragged off, horses being scarce. According to my estimate at least 8,000 of these poor beasts perished in the fight.

There is no exaggeration in these estimations. One column of prisoners alone which I pa.s.sed on its way to the interior of Russia was five miles long, the men marching without a break, in double file, or six abreast, according to German formation. (The German file is usually three men deep, and not two, as it is in most other European armies.)

Both sides were thoroughly exhausted by this tremendous struggle; and there was no fighting on the latter part of the 1st and the whole of the 2nd of October; at any rate by the troops which had been engaged in the main battle. On the 3rd we resumed our advance into Prussia, but late in the afternoon were ordered to halt, and the remainder of the day was spent in taking up an alignment facing due north towards Tilsit. The object of this movement was not clear to me; but there can be no doubt that our position was sometimes almost critical. The force which fought the Battle of Suvalki was outflanked both to the north and to the south, and had we suffered defeat the disaster would have been a terrible one. The Russians had not only a huge marsh in their rear, but also a large and deep river (the Niemen), and what that might have meant may be gathered from the fearful losses of the Germans when they were forced, as a part of the movement I have been describing, over it to the north of Suvalki. Not much about this disaster seems to have leaked out as yet, but it cost the Germans at least another 20,000 men, nearly all of whom perished by drowning; in fact, the pa.s.sage of the Niemen is second only, as a military _debacle_, to that of the Beresina in Napoleon's days. Eye-witnesses, whose veracity cannot be questioned, amongst them being General Rennenkampf, a.s.serted that whole companies, and batteries of artillery, were swept away, the heavy rains having greatly increased the current of the river. Heavy siege guns, destined for the bombardment of Warsaw, were lost; and several of the bridges constructed by the German engineers collapsed under the excessive weight forced upon them; while two of these structures were demolished by the Russian sh.e.l.l fire, being crowded with men at the time. In fact, whatever the outcome of the campaign, the Germans will never forget the dressing they got at the pa.s.sage of the Niemen below Tilsit.

The effect of the battle of Suvalki was very great. The German objective had been Warsaw, and they tried to seize it, as they tried to seize Paris, by a rapid and impetuous advance. They had reached Suvalki and Rovno in the north, and their advanced parties were on their way to Wilna, the capture of which would have cut the communications of Warsaw; while southwards they had reached Radom, 140 miles over the border, and two-thirds of the way to Warsaw. Suvalki saved Warsaw; for it compelled the Germans to fall back north and south and evacuate West Poland. It is beyond all measure the most important victory the Russians have gained; for though the loss of Warsaw would not necessarily mean the loss of the war, it would be a nasty blow to the Muscovite prestige, and might entail the loss of Petrograd. As one of their most fervent well-wishers I heartily rejoice that they won Suvalki. It must have been a knock-down blow for Wilhelm der Grosse, as it showed conclusively that if he is a Napoleonic tyrant he is not a Napoleonic genius. Like the little man with the large head he is a big scoundrel; but, unlike the Corsican, he is not a great soldier.

A wonderful army, though, is this German Army. After suffering a crushing defeat and losing, with those drowned in the Niemen, from 70,000 to 80,000 men, they drew off in fairly good order, and in a few days were again a formidable host. They did not sustain a "rout." No fair, impartial account of what really occurred can go so far as to say that. A crushing defeat it was, but not a rout.

These operations cost the Germans, in addition to their loss of men, about 700 guns of various descriptions and 18,000 horses. About 850 waggons and carts fell into the Russian hands.

CHAPTER IX

CHIEFLY PERSONAL MATTER

The Russian soldier is a splendid fellow: I do not go so far as to say that he is a first-cla.s.s fighter. It is really difficult to describe him correctly. He has been represented repeatedly as a dogged being; so he is. His courage, too, is unimpeachable; but it is not a very intelligent courage. The Russian soldier must be led, and the better led he is the better he will fight. He has, as I have already hinted, an almost religious reverence for his acknowledged superiors; and he is a religious man. Perhaps it would be better to say, a superst.i.tiously religious man. He nearly always carries a relic or a little ikon of some kind, and to this he frequently prays, kissing it at the same time. He has an intense reverence for the Holy Virgin, and a common form of greeting is, "Brother, Christ is risen," to which the comrade addressed replies, "He is risen, indeed." Faithful, true-hearted and generous, he never forsakes a friend; and, on the other hand, I am afraid he never forgives an enemy. He can be dreadfully cruel to those he hates; yet, in his ordinary mood, it would be difficult to find a man who has a stronger natural dislike to shedding blood. He makes a good husband, is pa.s.sionately fond of children; but is not a merciful man in his dealing with dumb animals. He is pudding-headed, but not obstinate in the usual acceptance of the word; and his friend, or his officer, can lead him anywhere. In a fight he dies like a Roman, and never abandons his leader. It is difficult to imagine him a revolutionist or a King-killer, though history has recorded that he can be either; and some terrible things have occurred even in the reign of the present Czar.

That part of the Russian Army with which I was mostly in contact was composed almost entirely of Siberians, people who retain very markedly the features of their Mongolian origin. They are Asiatics, as, indeed, are many Russians. At any rate, this seemed to be perfectly clear, judging from their features and other indications; though, I must confess, I am not learned on the subject of the origin of nations. Their habits, too, are largely Asiatic, and there was a considerable admixture of Tartar blood in some of the regiments; and in others many of the men would easily have pa.s.sed as Chinese. Some of the regiments were composed of Kirghiz; and one, at least, of Mongolians pure and simple.

I fell into some confusion concerning the numbering and naming of the regiments, because there seem to be several distinct armies in the Russian services. The Siberian is one of these armies: and some of the regiments were only known by their territorial designation, while others had both name and number. The army from "All the Russias" seems to be considered the elite troops; but in my opinion the Siberians are not in any way inferior to them, and the Tiflis Rifles is one of the finest bodies of light infantry I have ever seen.

The physique of the men, generally, is magnificent, and their powers of endurance unsurpa.s.sed by that of any soldiers in the world. They can march and fight, too, on rations so scanty and coa.r.s.e that I much doubt if any other European soldiers would tolerate such food. Many of the regiments for days had no better diet than tea and biscuit. Milk was not drunk in the tea, but sugar was used when it could be obtained. The troops were supposed to have a ration of sugar, and also salt. Some years ago the sugar ration was abolished, but the health of the men deteriorated so much that it was again served out to them with beneficial results; so it would seem that sugar is necessary to human health. "How did people do when there was no sugar?" "When was that?"

"Before sugar honey was universally used; and honey is certainly a natural sugar." The faddist is a very tiresome person anywhere; above all things he should be kept away from armies and navies, where he may do much mischief. Now the non-alcoholic idiot is getting the sway. What a pa.s.s things are coming to! Waterloo was fought on beer, and Trafalgar on rum; but I remember at the "Battle of Dorking" a Staff-Officer "came between a poor cove and his grub," who nearly got himself shot for complaining--the "poor cove" I mean, not the Staff-Officer.

The victory at Suvalki had far-reaching effects. Even at the few posts where the Germans were not forced back they were compelled to retire. Some of their cavalry made an effort to check the pursuit, but it was unavailing. What appeared to be parts of two regiments, hussars and dragoons, had the temerity to charge a battalion of our regiment.

The greater part of them went down in a heap, men and horses together.

On our side a regiment of Cossacks (said to be the 3rd of the Don) charged a battalion of Prussians and dispersed them, taking 100 prisoners, including a colonel. During the retreat of the Germans many small fights occurred which had no particular results on the campaign.

By the 3rd October whole corps of Russians were on Prussian soil.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUSSIANS HURRYING AMMUNITION TO OPERATING LINES]

It was unfortunate that heavy rains again began to fall, as they prevented so close a pursuit as would otherwise have hara.s.sed the enemy.

The country west of Suvalki, naturally a marsh, was rendered a huge lake. The water was not deep enough to prevent the advance of cavalry and infantry; but guns could not be dragged through the mud, and without them it would have been unsafe to advance very far. Many of those captured from the Germans were lost owing to the state of the ground, but I do not think they were recovered by the enemy. They sank into the mora.s.s and so disappeared.

I was very glad when a halt was called and we were ordered to find what shelter we could, the regiment being far in advance of the main body.

The Germans had sadly devastated the country. We pa.s.sed over many miles of country in which scarcely so much as the sh.e.l.l of a house was left standing: all were charred and blackened; and men, women and children were found murdered. The bodies of two young boys under twelve years of age lay on the roof of a low outhouse. They had been bayoneted and thrown there, n.o.body could surmise why. Some bodies were burnt to cinders, and others had been torn and partly eaten by swine and dogs.

The dogs, by-the-by, were numerous, and very fierce brutes.

In some spots, where the Germans had bivouacked, the heads and offal of pigs showed that they had shot some of these animals, and also killed ducks and fowls, for food, and cooked them at open-air fires made of the belongings of the peasantry. Chairs and tables were left outside, just in the positions in which they had evidently been used. A dish-cover was left on one table, and when it was raised it revealed two pairs of human hands severed at the wrists. The men to whom these hands had belonged, and a woman, were found shot in the farm-house. All were old people, as nearly all the murdered persons were, except some young women and children. Besides the two boys already mentioned, a younger child and a little girl of about fourteen years were seen lying on the ground. The cause of the death of the girl did not appear, and it was probably caused by fright. A woman clasping her baby had been shot. The bodies had, in many cases, been treated with disgusting irreverence. Even a hunchbacked man had been shot, and a poor old fellow with beard and hair as white as snow. One st.u.r.dy dame seemed to have attempted to fight for her life, for she held a hoe in her dead hands. Her body was riddled by bullets.

To escape the rain I climbed up the half-burnt rafters of a cottage to a room in which a portion of the floor and a corner of the roof were still in position--I cannot say intact. Here, in imminent danger of a fall, I slept the instant I stretched myself on the boards. Below were a score of exhausted soldiers, too utterly weary to care a rap for danger from falling walls: and long and soundly we all slept.

No food had been served out for two days, and when a commissariat waggon came up only about half the men obtained biscuits. I was thinking of cooking a pig's head left behind by the Germans when a soldier generously gave me half a biscuit. Others followed his example, and in this way I obtained a breakfast. The pigs which had escaped the Prussians had all run away, but later in the day one was found and killed, and about two pounds of its flesh found its way into my hands.

We resumed our march at 11 a.m., the enemy being known to be not far off. During the afternoon we came up with one of their abandoned waggons. It was full of champagne and hock! I am glad there were no teetotallers about to witness the capture. What King Jamie meant by being "fu'" I do not presume to know; but I am quite sure some of us were "tight" before that waggon was done with, and I should like to see the teetotaller, of exalted or humble rank, who would resist the temptation of a good "swig" after forty-eight hours of such misery as we had just gone through.

Apparently the Germans observed this capture; for they fired two sh.e.l.ls at us from a range of about three miles. One shot fell 200 yards from us, the other came a little nearer, but neither interrupted the interesting work in hand.

Notwithstanding the preconceived opinions of book strategists, long-range firing does not seem to be productive of very destructive results, even with heavy artillery. It was certainly not much resorted to in this campaign. Even rifle shooting seldom took place at a longer range than 1,000 yards; and much oftener at not more than half that distance; while firing at point-blank range was frequent. The bayonet did as much work as in any war that ever took place; in some fights half the casualties were caused by its use. Cavalry, too, faced infantry fire boldly and successfully. We were to have no more charges of ma.s.ses of cavalry according to the theorists. But on at least half-a-dozen occasions bodies of over 4,000 hors.e.m.e.n made most telling charges. In one case at least 10,000 cavalry took part in a charge, riding over the Prussian infantry as they might have ridden over stubble. The Cossacks, like the Uhlans, have hooks attached to the b.u.t.ts of their lances; and with these they whipped officers from their horses, and men from the ground in the most extraordinary way, sometimes pulling them up into their own saddles and bringing them in prisoners. How they liked the humiliation of this treatment may be gathered from the remark of one officer made to me in English, "D----n it! I would rather have been killed"; but he joined in the general laugh at his accident.

Perhaps I have no right to record mere impressions and ideas; and I intend to avoid doing so generally; but there are some opinions and beliefs which had a general bearing on what I did, and especially on what I recorded; and I think I may be excused if I sometimes refer to these.

As a case in point, I was generally very ignorant of what was taking place in other areas of the war. German newspapers were pretty plentiful in all our camps; but very few French or British found their way into our hands. German accounts were not reliable in my opinion, but some of their statements could hardly be altogether untrue. The news of the loss by submarine torpedoes of the three battleships, _Aboukir_, _Hogue_ and _Cressy_, perturbed me greatly. The reports in German newspapers, combined with other rumours which reached us, made it clear enough that the British Navy had met with a great disaster, though I was compelled to rely on the translations of Russian comrades of these German reports.

The Russian cavalry made some attempts to penetrate East Prussia, and get at the trains which were conveying troops from Koenigsberg southwards; but none of these attempts were successful so far as I have heard. A few isolated patrols got a long way into Prussia, but, I think, in no case did they succeed in wrecking a train.

For a time I was out of action, though I tried to reach the scenes of fighting I heard was in progress. The East Prussian frontier is a very difficult country for military operations, especially those of an offensive description. The marsh lands are very extensive, and there are numerous lakes and ponds which greatly aid the defending force, while much hindering those engaged in the attack. Lakes and marshes enable an army on the defensive greatly to extend its front; which those engaged in the a.s.sault cannot do without at any rate incurring great risks. The Germans often threw up batteries between two lakes, or a lake and a marsh situated near each other. As these could be approached only on a narrow neck of land, they could be defended by a mere handful of men, while the attacking force was not only compelled to advance a strong party, but had, also, to keep others in hand to prevent being outflanked.

Something of this kind of fighting I saw; but much of it occurred further south, near the Vistula river, in a district where I was not engaged at the time it took place.

These marshes and lakes greatly a.s.sisted the Germans and probably saved them from the rout which they are supposed by some people to have sustained. I do not know of any instance where they were forced to evacuate such a defensive position as that I have described. In fact the marshes of East Prussia saved the country from a serious invasion, and certainly checked the Russian advance into the heart of the country. If heavy siege guns could have been brought up they might have effected something; but as it was, not even light field artillery could be moved over the ground in any quant.i.ty. The amount of rain which fell was quite abnormal, and was often almost incessant for days together. Then there would be some signs of a clear up; but long before more than the surface of the ground was dry it would begin to pour down again. I never saw so much mud in any other country, nor such deep, tenacious stuff. Even men sometimes stuck fast in it and had to be hauled out of quagmires with the aid of ropes. I have recorded that the Germans lost many guns owing to their sinking into it; some also were lost by the Russians, even when they were not under fire; and the destruction of horses through being smothered to death or by exhaustion was deplorable. In fact the mud sometimes troubled the Russians far more than the foe did. It prevented the commissariat and reserve ammunition waggons from coming up; but, on the whole, lying in it, and being subjected to a continuous downpour of rain, did not seem to adversely affect the health of the men. The field hospitals were always crowded by wounded, but the sick from disease were singularly few in number.

Amongst other things about which there were rumours in our army was the destruction that airships and aeroplanes were causing. The Russians had aeroplanes; but they were not strong in this kind of military force, and we seldom saw one. The Germans, however, occasionally sent a few over our lines, and on the 5th October I saw one shot down. It swerved a good deal, and I expected to see it turn over and drop, but it came down slowly enough to prevent the airmen from sustaining much hurt. The "navigator" was one of the most irritable and arrogant rascals I ever met. He was very angry at his accident, and fumed and swore incessantly and had not the least fear of consequences before his eyes. He shook his fist in the faces of the Cossacks and officers who first came up to his wrecked machine, beat and kicked his unfortunate mechanic, and raved like a lunatic. Even his captors seemed to be in considerable awe of him. Some hours afterwards I saw this fellow eating a meal outside a tent. He was devouring the food like what he probably was--a human hog.

Another astonishing trait in the German Army was the remarkable way in which it frequently recovered lost ground. The Battle of Suvalki, and the operations further south, had the effect of causing a general retirement of the enemy's line; and amongst other places they abandoned was Radom; but in a week or ten days they were back in this place, and had even pushed much nearer to Warsaw. Our scouts ascertained that they were in force along the Vistula from Ivangorod to Varko; and their Uhlan patrols were seen at the hamlet of Vistikar, near Gora, not twenty versts from Warsaw. Whether they ever got nearer to the ancient city I do not know, but for a time we all expected and feared that it would fall. n.o.body believed that the old capital of Poland could long stand against an investment by our powerful and cunning foes.

But, while recovering themselves in the south, the Germans did not, at this time, do so in the Suvalki district, or in those parts near the Spirding See where the recent severe fighting had taken place: Russian soldiers still remained on German soil.

The weather grew worse, and seriously affected most of our important operations. Gloom began to settle on the troops; especially when accounts of adversity to our forces in Galicia reached us. These generally came from German sources; but some of our own officers brought news that progress was being stopped by floods, and the enormous reinforcement the enemy had succeeded in bringing up. Often we did not know what to believe; the reports were so contradictory that it was evident one side or another was telling deliberate lies. A comical side was once or twice given to the matter, owing to German, Austrian and Russian "unofficial sources" giving diametrically opposite accounts of the same circ.u.mstances. Willing as we were to believe our own side to be the most truthful, it was not always possible to ignore the circ.u.mstantiality of our opponents. It became evident that all three sides were a little given to exaggeration--not to give it a harsher designation.

The dreadful weather was more than I could endure, and I was obliged to fall out. I was taken by rail to a convent hospital at Grodno, and there so well and carefully nursed by the sisters, with whom were a.s.sociated many of the ladies of the town, that I quite recovered and was fit for service again in less than a week.

I could not find my old regiment, however, and my adventures with the Russians might have terminated at this point had I not happened to run up against an officer with whom I had some acquaintance. Captain Shalkotoff belonged to the commissariat department; and as he was going south with a convoy he invited me to accompany him as far as Ostrolenka, his first destination; and I accepted his kind proposal.