Boche and Bolshevik Experiences of an Englishman in the German Army and in Russian Prisons

7–14 September 1914

First Battle of the Masurian Lakes

CHAPTER II LIES AND SPIES

The successes of the army were written up in much the same way. For instance, the winter battle at the Masurian Lakes was so announced as to appear three battles instead of one. First, part of the results were announced, then more, and then finally a complete account was given, but this was done in such a way that the people believed that three victories had been gained; and, as a matter of fact, the houses in Bonn were beflagged three times. One habit of the Germans is interesting to note at this particular moment. Whenever the Russians retreated, systematically destroying everything as they went, the German General Staff held up holy hands of horror. The Kaiser sent a special telegram about the “terrible but beautiful” sight of the ring of burning villages round Warsaw. The Germans forgot to say that these villages consisted for the most part of wooden huts, easily rebuilt, and that not much of beauty or value was destroyed. It is interesting to note, too, just now, what measures of revenge the Germans took. Once in retreat the Russians were unable to bring away their stores of bread, so, in order to make them unfit for human food, they drenched them with petroleum. Hindenburg comes along, and is informed of it. “How thoughtful of the Russians!” he exclaimed. “We’ll give it to their prisoners to eat.” Which was done, with the result that many of them died. When the day of reckoning comes, and the criminals are brought before the bar, Hindenburg must not be forgotten. He is an East Prussian, and has conducted the war with a cruelty possible only to one of his race.

CHAPTER V THE GERMAN ARMY IN THE FIELD

The Russian campaigns, like the Belgian, were won by bluff and good marching. In August, 1914, East Prussia was held by only a thin screen of troops, mostly Landsturm. But in order to deceive the enemy, trenches were dug and filled with dummy machine-guns and with scarecrows wearing the spiked helmets of the German infantry. In another district a division was employed for some time simply in marching between two points. In the daytime it marched from A to B, at night it entrained and was sent back to A, changed the numbers on its helmets and shoulder-straps and marched to B again. The Russians were thus led to believe that certain parts of the line were strongly held and that at other points a great concentration of troops was taking place. But for this they would have attempted a breakthrough and might really have reached Berlin. They were still more elaborately fooled at the winter battle of the Masurian Lakes. Here the Germans wanted to lure the Russians a second time into this dangerous territory. One would have thought it impossible, but the trap was set with masterly cunning. Reports appeared, not so much in the German as in the neutral papers, that East Prussia was being evacuated and that the peasants were leaving their homesteads and villages and fleeing westwards in a wild panic. The Germans, it was hinted, were so occupied in France that they could not spare any troops for the Russian front. Meanwhile, whatever forces the Germans had, seemed to be concentrated opposite Warsaw. The Russians fell headlong into the trap and lost the flower of what was left of their old army. Neither battle of the Masurian Lakes could have been won except for the marching powers of the German infantry. While the enemy was held in front, it was necessary to march round with extreme swiftness and take him in the rear before he could begin to move his armies out of the trap. The soldiers who took part in this battle told me that the forced marches tried them beyond anything they had experienced in the war.