The Campaign in Russian Poland 4

The Campaign in Russian Poland 4

“Being sure that you will all lend your strength to the realisation

of this end, I appeal to you to welcome the Russian troops as

faithful friends who are fighting for your best dreams.

 

(Signed) “NICHOLAS, Commander-in-Chief and Aide-de-Camp General.”

 

The present may be a convenient opportunity for pausing to consider

briefly a few of the more picturesque “sidelights” of the war, while

vast armies are mustering to the onslaught in Poland, in East Prussia,

and in Austro-Hungary. A good impression was created throughout

the world, as showing the spirit animating the Russian people and

government in the prosecution of the struggle, by the prohibition of

the sale of vodka “for ever” in the Tsar’s dominions. Russia would

henceforth be a sober country, and in the spirit of clear-minded

cheerfulness and serenity would see this world-contest through to

the bitter end. About the same time another Imperial edict seemed to

imply that the Tsar was so well satisfied with the numbers of troops

already mobilised, and with the steady progress being effected by the

field-armies, that Russia’s last line of men was not to be called to

the colours.

 

Yet the masses of troops still available by the half-beaten Austrians

were remarkable in the extreme. The calling up of their Landsturm gave

them a million of fresh men with which to recoup the enormous wastage

of the earlier battles. To this new million, an estimate of the astute

Colonel Shumsky adds the further resources of the German allies. He

reminds us that “On the list of the German Minister of War there are

4,300,000 trained men. Supposing that the Germans have lost 800,000 in

the fields of Belgium, France, Eastern Prussia, and Galicia, then they

must have 3,500,000 trained men, of whom 1,000,000 are in France. The

remaining 2,500,000 are not occupied with France, and consequently can

operate on the east front. But it must be remembered that if Austria

and Germany have a population of 110,000,000 from which to derive

their troops, their antagonists have not less than 220,000,000. In the

battles of the present war strategy and tactics are playing a secondary

part. All that counts is the numbers and the spirit of the soldier.”

 

An Italian estimate of about the same date stated that by the month of

October Russia would have fully three millions of men actively engaged

in this complicated theatre of operations--an overwhelming avalanche

of troops, flushed with victory and confident of the ultimate result.

The general reader derived some idea of what the preparation for fight

of the units of such an embattled host really means from a vivid

account in the _Daily Telegraph_ by Mr. Alan Lethbridge, who had been

deputed by that journal to attend the headquarters of the world’s most

gigantic mobilisation. Mr. Lethbridge records, with many human touches,

the gathering together of 30,000 Cossacks within four days after the

outbreak of hostilities. He makes one realise the significance, to the

mind of the local Muscovite peasant, of what is to him very essentially

a holy war, because his “Little Father” the Tsar orders it. He tells,

with rare lucidity and wealth of detail, how he saw the green-and-gold

vested priests, with their ikons and huge crosses borne before them,

blessing the great masses of men amid the prayers and tears of their

womenkind, and solemnly impressing upon their auditors that this was

no war of aggression into which their Tsar had felt himself forced to

enter. He describes how one Siberian township alone (Omsk) contributed

its quota of 75,000 conscripts, and how in a single day he saw at

least a hundred thousand more being transported over one small section

of the Siberian railway. He emphasises the extreme “teetotal” aspect

of all that he saw and heard, remarking that perhaps nothing brought

home to one as much as this the realities and possibilities of the

true awakening of Russia. Incidentally, he gossips amusingly as to a

rumour of Japanese troops passing through Russian townships _en route_

for “the front”--first cousin, this, to the equally fantastic story of

Cossack soldiers having passed through England. The following brief

extract from this correspondent’s account may serve to illustrate the

quiet, business-like aspect of the mobilisation:

 

“A galloping Cossack with a red pennon fluttering from his lance

was our first intimation that Russia was at war. From the bridge of

a steamer on the river Irtish we could watch him. His stout little

pony easily kept abreast of our boat, and his method of operating was

clearly visible. He would accost a group of his brethren garnering

their harvest--for this is Cossack territory--there would be some

gesticulation, horses would be seized and mounted, and within

five minutes the harvest-fields of the great Siberian steppe would

be denuded of their manhood. Such action was repeated with almost

monotonous precision during that long summer day, and it was thanks

to this organisation that on our arrival at Semipalatinsk, a steppe

town some 600 miles from railhead, we found no less than 30,000 fully

armed and equipped Cossacks. This within four days of the outbreak of

hostilities.”

 

Side by side with this may be read the testimony of Professor Pares of

the Liverpool University, whose intimate knowledge of the country and

its language admirably qualified him for the work of a correspondent

with the Tsar’s headquarters. Dr. Pares is just as emphatic as the

correspondent just quoted on the subject of the enthusiasm and

unanimity pervading all classes of the community with whom he came in

contact. He pays a passing tribute to the high efficiency of Russia’s

hospital arrangements, to the fine and self-sacrificing labours of all

from the highest to the lowest, and to the serenity and confidence

manifested on every side. He saw the Grand-duchess Olga, sister of

the Emperor, working as a Sister of Mercy, “under all the ordinary

discipline and conditions,” and heard how hard she had had to labour

after the early battles of the campaign, when hospitals designed for

the accommodation of 200 patients were compelled to accommodate at

least 300 each. “One feels it is a great wave rolling forward with one

spirit driving it.”

 

Dr. Pares was present when the Tsar in person visited Vilna, riding

through the streets quite unguarded. Vilna has for the most part a

Polish population, and from all sides the Tsar was greeted with

an enthusiasm that must have deeply touched and moved him. In the

hospitals the Professor conversed with many of the wounded belonging

to both sides. On the part of most of the Austrians, he says, he

found a general disposition to believe that they had been thoroughly

overmatched on the battle-field. A Russian lad of nineteen or twenty,

who had been sent back home, not on account of wounds but because of

physical overstrain, remarked almost with tears, “They are firing on my

brother and not on me. That is not right--I ought to be where they all

are.”

 

A story worth interpolating here on account of its military

significance has reference to a rumour that the German Emperor had

addressed a letter to the Dowager-Empress of Russia, calling her

“cousin,” in an attempt to induce her to use her good offices with the

Tsar in order to bring about peace. This missive eventually reached the

headquarters of the Grand-duke Nicholas, who is said to have returned

it to the Tsar with the laconic comment: “If you do, our armies will

mutiny, and there will be a revolution in all the Russias.” It is only

a soldier’s story, but it explains, especially in the final sentence,

why Russia has beaten the Austrian, German, and Austro-German armies

successively.

 

Nothing could be more noteworthy as emphasising the Russian record

of initial difficulties triumphed over than the preponderance of

Austro-German railway power in the vast war-area. General Kuropatkin,

the Tsar’s Commander-in-Chief in the war with Japan, had as far back

as 1900 called attention to this marked superiority in the Central

Powers’ means of transport. Doubtless upon his initiative, the Russian

railway lines along the Polish frontier were improved to a certain

extent. But, as Austria and Germany were correspondingly busy,

doubtless much of what Kuropatkin had written more than a dozen years

before remained true in 1914--indeed, the celerity with which the enemy

were enabled to rush masses of troops to all their frontiers must have

been one of the earliest things to impress any student of the struggle.

This is how Kuropatkin phrased his plea for a good deal more energy in

the matters of railway development:

 

“By the expenditure of vast sums of money, Germany has made ready

in the most comprehensive sense to march rapidly across our borders

with an army of one million men. She has seventeen lines of railway

(twenty-three tracks) leading to our frontiers, which would enable her

to send to the front more than five hundred troop-trains daily. She can

concentrate the greater part of her armed forces on our frontier within

a few days of the declaration of war; while, apart from this question

of speedy mobilisation, she has at her command far greater technical

resources, such as light railways, artillery, ordnance, and engineering

stores, particularly for telegraphs, mobile siege parks, etc., than

we have. She has also made most careful preparation for a determined

defence of her own border provinces, especially those of Eastern

Prussia.

 

“The first-class fortresses of Thorn, Königsberg, and Posen are

improved yearly, entrenched camps are built at the most important

junctions, and material lies ready stacked for the rapid semi-permanent

fortification of field positions. The crossing-places on the Vistula

have been rapidly placed in a state of defence, as have also the

various towns and large villages. The whole population, indeed, is

making ready for a national struggle.

 

“In the matter of railway development the Austrians have also left

us far behind. While they, by means of eight lines of rail (ten

tracks), can run two hundred and sixty trains up to the frontier every

twenty-four hours, we can only convey troops up to the same point on

four lines. As any of their troops on the frontier would be in advance

of the Carpathians, this range was formerly looked upon as an obstacle

to retirement, and to communication between Galicia and the rest of

Austria. But in the last ten years it has been pierced by five lines of

railway, and preparations have been made to lay three more.”

 

It will be perceived that General Kuropatkin cherished no optimistic

illusions as to the ultimate aims and aspirations of Germany, neither

did he believe that the shock could be much longer delayed, having

regard to the immense burden of armaments.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IV EBB AND FLOW IN EAST PRUSSIA

 

 

General Rennenkampf’s brilliant raid into East Prussia--which admirably

served its immediate purpose of causing the Germans to transfer great

masses of men from the west to the east, thereby relieving the pressure