Colours of war

LOST RUSSIANS 45

The cliques which are enemies of Russia as much as enemies of Finland were against recon- cihation. St. Petersburg NationaHsts, profess- ing a new friendship for Poles, and tolerance for Jews, held that the Finns, far from the war, might be ignored. The Governor-General agreed. Not content with enforcing the illegal- ities of others for which he was not responsible, he showed personal zeal in doing harm, in par- ticular for traducing the Finns to his superiors. The war was his chance. His misrepresentations kept in Finland the well-trained Twenty-Second Corps at a time when it was badly wanted in Poland. After the battle of Tannenberg, St. Petersburg saw through General Seyn: the corps was withdrawn. The general commanding

WORK 59

The newspaper censorship, exercised in the Commander-in-Chief's name, was severe. Lib- eral papers were suppressed; fines as high as £1000 were imposed. Newspapers of enemy- countries were excluded; the enemies' oflScial reports were suppressed. Good news was is- sued; drawn engagements appeared as victories; and defeats did not appear. Of the battle of Tannenberg the public learned only that three generals were killed, and that the losses were heavy. After the battle of Gorlice-Tarnow, which cost Russia GaUcia, Poland, Courland, and Lithuania, a statement was made to neutral countries that the enemy had had no success of any kind. Losses of territory were ascribed to strategical considerations, they were pledges of coming success. The Government did not in- vent the weekly marches on Berlin and de- structions of Field-Marshal Hindenburg which rejoiced England; this higher class of work was left to the ally. Editors complained that truth was suppressed; to remedy the grievance they filled their unofficial columns with inventions far beyond a government's power. As with us, novelists whose books ceased to sell, turned to statecraft. After boring readers for years

WORK 65

For visiting, the apartment hospitals were best. In them were Hghtly wounded and con- valescent soldiers, who liked to see visitors and to talk. The men were brave. They knew little of battles, and could seldom describe what they had seen and felt. There were exceptions; and I got rough notions of soldier minds. Con- fidence was great. Whatever the end of a battle, the soldiers recalled only the successful parts. They criticised the Germans, praising the German artillery, and laughing, without reason, at the infantry. The infantry was "no good." "Little, pale men who couldn't drive a horse or grow fruit." The man who said this fought at Hohenstein against Hamburg Land- sturm men, probably middle-aged clerks. Men had vivid but confused memories. A soldier of the Army of the Narew said that at a rear- guard fight at Soldau, fought before the battle of Tannenberg, seven German companies lost 450 men. He told of the self-sacrifice of a com- rade, heard of from prisoners. The comrade, when standing sentry on Mlava bridge, found Germans on the girders beneath. He fired in the air to summon help, next at the enemy. The Germans shouted advice to the Russian to leave his post and surrender. The bridge was mined. The sentry continued to fire. The

ARMS AND MEN 207

In physique the Russian army compares best with the German. Abundance of conscripts pre- vents the enrolment of weak men. Men of the active army are strong. The health of reserv- ists has been affected by bad feeding, drink, and unsanitary housing. The war puts severe strains on muscles and nerves. A prisoner told me that between the battle of Tannenberg and Hindenburg's retreat from Warsaw, he fought in six actions. Soldiers broke down. Near Radom, a company of sleeping Germans was captured. Of fighting near Kovno in June, a

WARSAW 117

the woes of captivity. The Russians gave them cigarettes. The thin cigarettes were better. The prisoners broke them, stuffed the thready tobacco in their pipes, and smoked it away in two draws. The enemies said good-bye. The Germans saluted; the Russians saluted; some Russians lifted their caps, as if they were not sol- diers but peasants at home, and bowed very low. With soldiers, wounded, and prisoners mak- ing a floating population were many refugees. Some came in summer before the first invasion; Some came when Hindenburg was near Prush- kow; some in December after the battle of Lodz. The first refugees were from Kalisch; the second from all parts of left- Vistula Poland; the last from the province of Petrokow, and from the villages on the Bsura and Rawka. In Russia there were refugees from Warsaw. Fifty thousand fled in October; some returned when the enemy retreated; some fled again when guns on the Bsura were heard in the suburbs. Many fled without cause, or because of the favourite legend: "The Civil Government has left." Stories were told of free tickets to Mos- cow; and the poor rushed to the Brest station and returned in tears. Refugees from the west were hungry, in rags, cold, exhausted, some- times wounded. Some were suspect Jews, sent

THE FRONT OF CRACOW

IN February I visited Galicia. After the battle of Lodz, Galicia became the chief theatre of the Eastern campaign. The battle of Lodz is the chain of engagements which began at Wlozlawsk on the 14th of November and continued without break till the evacuation of Lodz on December the 6th. In these engagements both sides had unitary aims. The Lodz battle made Galicia chief theatre, because it showed that an invasion of Germany was beyond the army's power. The Germans proclaimed that the battle destroyed Russia's offensive capacity. As far as Germany was concerned, this was true; no general of- fensive has since been tried. But, without admitting defeat, Russia could not confine her- self to the defensive. She resolved to try a second time Austria-Hungary, the Power of less resistance.

THE FRONT OF CRACOW 145

the San and Przemysl. The position of the German and Austrian armies was bad. The Russian concentration in superior force was complete; a decisive battle could not be fought so far from home. After heavy fighting, which did not take the character of a decisive battle, both invaders went back. They were followed by the Russians, who regained nearly all of Galicia. On December the 4th the Russian advance-guard was eight miles from Cracow. After the German victory at Lodz, came a new Austrian offensive. On December the 12th, the Austrians won the battle of Limanovo; they retook Neu-Sandec, and Bochnia. A week later, the Russians ceased to retreat, and took a front facing Cracow. The enemies built field fortifications, and their lines remained with little change for four months. Galicia, six thousand square miles excepted, remained Russian.

GALICIAN CATASTROPHES 181

Officers say that in killed and wounded the battle of the Passes was the costliest of the war. Germans called it "the grave of the Russian Army." Losses were great, but smaller, I be- lieve, than in the battle of Lodz. For duration, steadfastness on both sides, and skill in meeting difficulties, all mountain fights were excelled. Snow lay shoulder-high on plane slopes; the drifts were as deep as wells; the cold was in- tense; and there were mists. Sunshine melted the surface snow, making slides of ice. While the Russians fought Arctic winter, the Aus- trians, ascending the south slopes, had an early spring; they struggled in torrents of snow water and abysms of mud. The Austrians had their backs to the sun; the Russians were dazzled as they stormed the hill fortresses; the glare across the snow hampered aim. The Eighth Army was in trouble for supplies. Wheeled carts would not move, and the slopes were too steep and the snow too deep for sledges. Supplies came on endless chains of sleds with broad runners, hauled by men at the summits. Trains were swallowed up, and had to be dug out. Guns were floated over the snow on platforms, and dead men on planks were sUd down the hills for burial.

WORK 59

The newspaper censorship, exercised in the Commander-in-Chief's name, was severe. Lib- eral papers were suppressed; fines as high as £1000 were imposed. Newspapers of enemy- countries were excluded; the enemies' oflScial reports were suppressed. Good news was is- sued; drawn engagements appeared as victories; and defeats did not appear. Of the battle of Tannenberg the public learned only that three generals were killed, and that the losses were heavy. After the battle of Gorlice-Tarnow, which cost Russia GaUcia, Poland, Courland, and Lithuania, a statement was made to neutral countries that the enemy had had no success of any kind. Losses of territory were ascribed to strategical considerations, they were pledges of coming success. The Government did not in- vent the weekly marches on Berlin and de- structions of Field-Marshal Hindenburg which rejoiced England; this higher class of work was left to the ally. Editors complained that truth was suppressed; to remedy the grievance they filled their unofficial columns with inventions far beyond a government's power. As with us, novelists whose books ceased to sell, turned to statecraft. After boring readers for years

THE FRONT OF CRACOW 165

In Galicia the Russians behaved as if they had come to stay. Official utterances and the Press of Petrograd implied that the province had been rejoined to Russia after a few years of Austrian rule. On the eve of the unlucky battle of Gorlice-Tarnow, the Tsar paid a visit, and proclaimed that Galicia was annexed, and a week after the battle the Commander-in- Chief was decorated as Galicia's Liberator. Russian money was the legal exchange; Aus-

GALICIAN CATASTROPHES

The battle of Gorlice-Tarnow spoiled the doctrine that shells do no harm. During my

GALICIAN CATASTROPHES 195

If Russia's disasters of last summer are not retrieved, the battle of Gorlice-Tarnow will rank as one of the decisive battles of the world. No battle makes so plain the meaning of strat- egy and the moral penalty of defeat. The force defeated on the Cracow front was not a tenth of the army; its destruction caused the retreat, and in part the dissolution of armies four times as great; it caused the loss of the Carpathian strategical frontier, the loss of the fortress key of Galicia; and the loss of all the fortresses with some thousands of guns, and the loss of pris- oners declared by the captors to have num- bered in the four months. May to August, over 1,100,000. The battle showed to most what from the first was plain to a few, the superior-