Chapter VIII: Part 8

"Captain ----, I wish you to stay here. You are, if I mistake not, the lieutenant's friend, so there is no reason, it seems to me, why you should not be present while I make a few friendly observations to Count Seilern. They relate to a little affair which, as I dare say you know, occurred this morning."

Uneasy at being retained as a witness of a scene which I instinctively felt would be of the most painful character, I glanced at my friend with the object of catching his eye, and expressing to him by a look my uncomfortable state of mind.

To a certain extent, he relieved my feelings. At least, I interpreted an almost imperceptible nod of his haughtily-raised head to mean that he was rather pleased than otherwise I was there. I noted--not without anxiety--a certain arrogance in his bearing, as though he were still intoxicated by the declarations and promises which, presumably, had been made to him in the course of his _tête-à-tête_ with the Archduchess. On hearing Hoetzendorf speak of "friendly observations," he perceptibly bridled and coldly, almost insolently, replied:--

"And what may they be, General?"

"Lieutenant Count Seilern," began Conrad von Hoetzendorf, nervously toying with his pen, and evidently making a great effort both to keep his temper and choose his words carefully, "it is almost needless to say that it gives me very great pain to have had to summon you here. But I was in duty bound to do so. You, as a soldier, will surely appreciate my position--the very difficult position in which your conduct, which it was impossible for me to regard otherwise than as reprehensible, has placed me----"

"Reprehensible? Opinions differ, General von Hoetzendorf," interjected Count Seilern.

"Allow me to inform you, once for all, Lieutenant Seilern," replied the General, omitting my friend's title and laying a slight emphasis on his rank, "that as regards a question of military discipline, I can permit of no two opinions. It is your duty to remember that we are on campaign, and that this is no time for society play."

"I am of the opinion, General von Hoetzendorf, that my time is my own when off duty, as was the case this morning," rapped out Count Seilern, white to the eyes.

"Your time is Austria's--by which I mean that, even when off duty, you should remember that this is no time for the amusements to which members of your class are unfortunately addicted in days of peace. I repeat that the dalliance of which you have been guilty is highly reprehensible, so long as you are under my command, and I have reason to believe that my Imperial master would support me in this view. Understand, therefore----"

V--IMPERIAL MANDATE--THE SOLDIER'S ARREST

But the General's further "friendly observations" were never completed. His veiled reference to the Archduchess and the displeasure of the Emperor Francis Joseph, indicating, as it did, that he had received instructions on the subject, had the most disastrous effect on Count Seilern, who, in a paroxysm of rage, exclaimed:--

"That is a private matter which concerns only another and myself! Your Imperial mandate extends to my military duties, which I have always carried out with precision, and no further."

"Silence!" cried Hoetzendorf, springing to his feet and stretching out his hand to touch the button of an electric bell on his table. "We will very soon see about that!"

It was then that the irreparable happened. Count Seilern, either through interpreting the General's gesture as a menace to his personal safety, or because he was carried away by anger, brought his hand to the hilt of his sword, and, at the very moment that an aide-de-camp, in reply to the summons, appeared in the doorway, partly drew the weapon from its scabbard.

"I order you to disarm Lieutenant Count Seilern and place him under arrest," said the General, drawing himself up to his full height as he instinctively stepped back a few paces. "Call the guard immediately. Captain ----," turning his head in my direction, "you are a witness of this inexcusable act of insubordination. I shall require you shortly to give evidence, so you may as well draw up a report of what you have heard and seen without delay. Soldiers, remove the prisoner to the guard-room."

As Count Seilern was led away, proud and defiant, I saw clearly that the danger of which I had been informed at C---- was still hanging over his head. Moreover, the conviction suddenly came to me that Conrad von Hoetzendorf was acting as an agent for those who were attempting to counter the plans of this over-ambitious man. An inkling of this was given me by the Count himself during the confrontation, by the expression of his face and his manner, no less than by the indignant words, "Your Imperial mandate extends to my military duties--and no further." I seemed to read therein the Count's recognition that he was the victim of a cabal, which was drawing a net ever closer and closer around him.

General von Hoetzendorf might have judged and condemned Count Seilern there and then, but postponed this disagreeable duty; and I have a very good idea why. When, an hour later, I handed in my report (the most obnoxious piece of work I have ever done in my life) I found him in deep thought. All he said, ere I withdrew, was:--

"Very good, Captain ----, I will read what you have written later. The affair can stand over for a while, until I call a court-martial."

It was evident (thought I) that the General was considering what the effects of all this was going to be on himself. He was torn between his allegiance to his Imperial master and a desire to avoid the enmity of the powerful families with whom the Seilerns were allied. A soldier by profession, he had an instinctive hatred of being connected in the slightest degree with Court intrigues, and especially at such a time as that, when the whole of his mental power ought to have been concentrated on the business of war. For these reasons (I was convinced) he had contented himself with placing Count Seilern, for the time being, under arrest in a small house--used as a guard-room--in the village, with two sentinels at the door.

But what were my unfortunate friend's thoughts in this prison? Some of them I learnt within the next few days; others, which enable me to complete the picture of Count Seilern's meditations, which few of us imagined were to lead, within a week, to such a startling complication of his life drama, came with later knowledge.

He thought at first, but only for a moment, of committing suicide, in order to avoid a dishonouring sentence. On reflection he came to the conclusion that there was a chance of the General hesitating to be too severe on him, through a desire to remain on good terms with all parties concerned. It was then that certain so-called friends called on the prisoner and made a most extraordinary proposal to him--that he should allow himself to be represented at his forthcoming trial as irresponsible! But he was too well acquainted with the scandalous chronicles of the Hapsburgs not to know what such a "favour" meant. He called to mind the fate of the unhappy Louise of Belgium, who spent seven years in asylums to satisfy the rancour of Philip of Coburg.[12] How thoroughly in accordance with tradition was this suspicious proposal--made, he had not the slightest doubt, at the suggestion of Conrad Von Hoetzendorf! He also thought of the tragic end of Rudolf of Hapsburg, and the many other crimes committed with the tacit approbation of the Hofburg.

VI--THE LOVER'S FLIGHT FROM THE HAPSBURG PRISON

As a result of these reflections he at last came to a definite conclusion. He determined, encouraged by certain friends, to make a bold bid for liberty and effect his escape, even though he might have to resort to violence, hoping that, once in Vienna, the Archduchess and her friends would protect him.

Working in conjunction with two or three devoted friends, whom this ever-popular man never lacked wherever he might be, he succeeded in inspiring confidence in the two soldiers who guarded him, and who, moreover, watched over him with the consideration due to his rank.

One morning the door of the little Hungarian house in which Count Seilern had been imprisoned for a little less than a week was found open, and there, before the entrance, was the evidence of the means which the prisoner's friends had adopted to rescue him. Stretched on the ground were the unconscious bodies of the two sentinels, heavily drugged by Seiler's accomplices.

Shortly before this occurrence, which, though it naturally created a great sensation in the immediate circle of the Staff, was thrown into the background by military events of considerable importance and the consequent long-desired removal of headquarters to a place nearer the Front, there occurred an event which I cannot but regard as connected with it. A certain Baron A----, one of Seilern's intimate friends, found the means of obtaining permission to return to Vienna. The alleged reason for his departure was urgent family business--some sudden illness or similar call for his presence at home; but I am convinced that its real object was to prepare a sure hiding-place for the fugitive Count. It matters not what my reasons may be for so thinking; suffice it to say that information received from a sure source led me not only to that conclusion but to many other inferences. I learnt, for instance, that the particulars of what was now known as the "Seilern Affair" had leaked out, that the hiding-place of the Count was already known to the police of the Austrian capital, but that _no attempt was being made to arrest him_. It was evident, indeed, that powerful influences were at work, and that every possible means was being taken to hush up the scandal.

Later, I learnt that recourse was had to the advice of the aged Princess M----, the oracle of the higher society circles of Vienna, whose wisdom has been brought to bear on every "good" scandal at the Court of the Hapsburgs during more than the half-century she has made the laws of the fashionable world there.

Whilst Princess M---- was setting her acute wits to work, the Archduchess Valeria, more and more determined never to return to her ignoble husband, and realizing that the great crisis in her life had at last come, took refuge at the house of some faithful family retainers. The outcome of Princess M----'s ingenious reflections was that Baron A---- was found a further useful mission in conjunction with the affair. This trusted emissary was sent to Berne as a diplomatic messenger, the alleged bearer of confidential documents for Count von G----, a high Austro-Hungarian official and the representative of our Government with the Swiss Confederation.

Holding the opinions I do in regard to the policy which is bringing my poor country to the brink of ruin, I have no hesitation in speaking my mind about some of the men who compose its diplomatic corps. Let me explain, then, that von G----, a former head of the Cabinet of Count Aerenthal, is one of the most equivocal figures in the diplomacy of the Ballplatz. Frigid in his courtesy, scrupulously careful not to offend anyone of importance, pitiless to the weak and servile to the powerful, he was the mere tool of the Minister who first brought Austro-Hungary under the dominations of Berlin.

You can easily imagine the unctuous politeness with which this Machiavellian diplomatist received the man who called upon him with a letter from Princess M----, asking him, in the cordial and guarded terms which her pen can so well indite, to favour the love affair of Count Seilern and hush up a scandal which, "if generally known, would do incalculable harm, at a time when we have more and more need of enlisting the respect of the subjects of His Most Gracious and Imperial Majesty."

"What would I not do to oblige Princess M----?" exclaimed the Count von G----, on coming to the end of the letter and turning his heavily-whiskered face to Baron A---- (who related the interview to me). "Will you transmit that expression of my devotion to her Royal Highness, and say that I live in the hope of accomplishing much, _much_ more than this truly insignificant service? You will, of course, understand, my dear Baron, that this is strictly _entre nous_. No documentary evidence of my connection with this affair must exist, and--_je vous en prie!_--not a word about this interview. See, I carry out her Royal Highness's request this very minute and destroy her letter"--tearing it in pieces and throwing them into his waste-paper basket. "I will leave you to acknowledge its receipt. It is always best to transact little affairs of this sort strictly by word of mouth. You will call upon me once or twice and we will arrange--verbally, mark you--for the accommodation of these turtle-doves of the dear Princess. And, once on this free Helvetian soil, we will assist them--as in the story-books, ha, ha!--to live happily ever afterwards."

A few days later, Count Seilern himself, provided, thanks to Princess M----'s influence, backed up by the collaboration of Count von G----and Baron A----, with passports, crossed the frontier. He had shaved off his moustache and had all the appearance of a young man little more than twenty. His extremely youthful physiognomy enabled him to pass as the secretary of the Archduchess Valeria, who, when she heard that Princess M---- was disposed to facilitate the escape of her lover to Switzerland and thence to the United States, where he could remain until after the war, when things would have blown over, insisted on accompanying him into exile. It was at Zurich that the romantic couple found their first hiding-place, arranged with Count von G----'s usual genius for intrigue.

But the Austrian Court was on the watch.

The plan so astutely arranged by Princess M---- had saved Count Seilern from the condemnation which hung over his head. Unfortunately, the hatred of the Hapsburgs and the vengeance of Conrad von Hoetzendorf followed him to Switzerland.

Whilst at Zurich, Count Seilern frequently received messages from Princess M----, who, with her love for adventures of this sort, began to take more and more interest in the welfare of the couple, who had come to be known by Count von G----'s cynical phrase of "the turtle-doves." There was hardly an occasion on which the Imperial messenger left Vienna with diplomatic correspondence for that cunning official but he carried confidential letters for both the Count and the Archduchess.

I have often wondered whether Seilern, living happily in his retirement at Zurich and looking forward to the still more free life of the United States, ever realized the tremendous hatred he had aroused against him. Probably not, judging by his trustful attitude and what followed. He appears, as far as I have been able to learn, to have been so wrapped up in himself and his Archduchess that he had not the slightest suspicion of the snare which the Austrian Court had determined to set for him.

This, then, was what happened, according to Baron A----, to whom I owe the rest of this narrative.

VII--THE HYPOCRITICAL DIPLOMATIST SETS DEATH TRAP

Von G----, in spite of his scrupulous care to avoid incriminating evidence of complicity with Princess M----, soon discovered the danger of "running with the hare and hunting with the hounds," and accordingly made his choice. I strongly suspect that pressure was brought to bear upon him and that, in order not to lose his post, and at the same time to gain favour at Court, he was obliged to give his assistance to the Hapsburg and Hoetzendorf parties, which had made up their minds to punish severely the man who had dared to turn an Archduchess from her duties and to set military laws at defiance. So he entered without delay on his double game.

On the one hand, as the friend of Princess M----, he assured Seilern, through Baron A----, of his earnest desire to assist him in high flight by procuring him the means of leaving for America. But, on the other, this hypocritical diplomatist set to work to devise a plan for enticing him on to Austrian soil--that is to say, on to premises which, having been rented at Lucerne by the Austrian Legation, would be considered as benefiting, in the eyes of the Swiss authorities, by the valuable privilege of ex-territoriality. A plan of this duplicity was truly after the heart of such a man. If successfully carried out, he knew it would inevitably lead to him being regarded as an Austrian diplomat _de la meilleure race_--as he himself would have expressed it.

I must now introduce to you a new character, a sincere friend of Count Seilern--an Englishman, Professor S----, who, in ignorance of Count von G----'s duplicity, and responding solely to the generosity of his heart, unknowingly lent himself to the plot which was on foot. Before he is actually brought upon the scene, however, let me explain that von G---- had rented, at Lucerne, the annex of an hotel, where, a short time afterwards, Count von Bülow was to install his offices. Coinciding with this, the Archduchess Valeria's brother, who, by the way, is completely under the influence of the Court, arrived and took up his quarters at the hotel in question.

Von G----, still professing to be the friend of all parties, then transmitted to Count Seilern, through his English friend and professor, an invitation to come to Lucerne for a short time, so as to receive the passports necessary for traveling without let or hindrance to the United States.

Thereupon the Archduchess Valeria, Count Seilern, and their friend and counsellor, Baron A----, left for that resort, and took up their residence at an hotel. The morning after their arrival, Seilern was requested to come to the annex rented by the Austro-Hungarian Legation. He was received there by the Minister Plenipotentiary, Count von G----, the Archduchess Valeria's brother, the military attaché von E----, and a number of other unknown individuals, who, in reality, were members of the secret police of Vienna.

What happened? You may judge from what follows.

The same day, his English friend, Professor S----, quietly continuing his work at Zurich, and under the impression that he would be hearing in a few days of the safe departure of the Count and Archduchess for the United States, thanks to the "noble support" of the Austro-Hungarian Minister, received a telegram worded as follows: "Come to Lucerne immediately."

At the railway station of the celebrated resort he was met by two agents of the Austrian secret police, who begged him, on behalf of Count von G----, to accompany them to the annex of the hotel rented by the Legation. On the way they explained that Count von G---- had sent for him "to see his friend, who had had an accident." That was all the information he could extract from them.

Mounting to the first floor, a door was thrown open before him. In the middle of the room he saw a bed and on it a body--that of the hapless Count Seilern, who had been _condemned to death and executed_ (though his decease was attributed in the newspapers to suicide) for having loved an Austrian Princess and threatened General von Hoetzendorf!

As in the case of the Archduke Rudolf of Hapsburg, at Mayerling, the body of the man who dared to "play with fire" was covered up to the neck with white cloth, with flowers strewn all over his deathbed.

This was in January, 1915.

Thus, the tradition of assassination is perpetuated from one end to the other of the reign of the sinister Emperor who sold the independence of his kingdom to William II. of Germany. The victims change, but the methods remain the same. Whosoever is considered guilty of an offence against the "dignity" or "honour" of the Hapsburgs must die, unless he or she consents to be declared insane. Crime follows crime, and the family which, in the eyes of the aged Emperor Francis Joseph himself, is "doomed to be tracked by tragedy" knows, as in the Middle Ages, but one argument against its enemies--the knife and the bullet.

But what of the Archduchess Valeria? The last news I heard of her was to the effect that, half-demented by the shock she sustained, she lay for months between life and death. On recovering, she turned her back for ever on the fashionable life of Vienna, and withdrew to one of her estates in the country, where she seeks what consolation she can find in charitable work in her religion.

FOOTNOTE:

[12] Brother of Ferdinand, the treacherous Czar of Bulgaria.

TURNING HEAVENS INTO HELL--EXPLOITS OF CANADIAN FLYING CORPS

_Battle in Air With One Hundred Aeroplanes_

_Told by Officer of Royal Canadian Flying Corps_

The heroism of the Canadians is one of the immortal epics of the War.
The great dominion sent across the seas her strongest sons. Their
valor in trench and field "saved the British army" on many critical
moments. The feats of daring of these Canadians would fill many
volumes, but here is one story typical of their sublime courage--a
tale of the air.

I--WITH THE CANADIANS IN THE CLOUDS

There were one hundred of us--fifty on a side--but we turned the heavens into a hell, up in the air there, more terrible than ten thousand devils could have made running rampant in the pit.

The sky blazed and crackled with bursting time bombs, and the machine guns spitted out their steel venom, while underneath us hung what seemed like a net of fire, where shells from the Archies, vainly trying to reach us, were bursting.

We had gone out early in the morning, fifty of us, from the Royal Canadian Flying Corps barracks, back of the lines, when the sun was low and my courage lower, to bomb the Prussian trenches before the infantry should attack.

Our machines were stretched out across a flat tableland. Here and there in little groups the pilots were receiving instructions from their commander and consulting maps and photographs.

At last we all climbed into our machines. All along the line engines began to roar and sputter. Here was a 300 horsepower Rolls-Royce, with a mighty, throbbing voice; over there a $10,000 Larone rotary engine vieing with the others in making a noise. Then there were the little fellows humming and spitting the "vipers" or "maggots," as they are known in the service.

At last the squadron commander took his place in his machine and rose with a whirr. The rest of us rose and circled round, getting our formation.

Crack! At the signal from the commander's pistol we darted forward, going ever higher and higher, while the cheers of the mechanicians and riggers grew fainter.

Across our own trenches we sailed and out over No Man's Land, like a huge, eyeless, pock-scarred earth face staring up at us.

There was another signal from the commander. Down we swooped. The bomb racks rattled as hundreds of bombs were let loose, and a second later came the crackle of their explosions over the heads of the Boches in their trenches.

Lower and lower we flew. We skimmed the trenches and sprayed bullets from our machine guns. The crashing of the weapons drowned the roar of the engines.

I saw ahead of me a column of flame shoot up from one of our machines, and I caught a momentary glance at the pilot's face. It was greenish-ash color. His petrol tank had been hit. I hope the fall killed him and that he did not burn to death.

II--THE VULTURES OVER THE TRENCHES

Away in the distance a number of specks had risen, like vultures scenting the carrion that had already been made. It was a German squadron. The Archies had not bothered us much while we were spraying the Prussian trenches, but now we had that other squadron to take care of. Our orders were to bomb the trenches. We could not spare a bomb or a cartridge from the task of putting the fear of Britain into the hearts of the infantry below before our own "Tommies" should start over the top.

I don't know what it was, but suddenly, just after my partner had let go a rack of bombs, there was a terrific explosion just beneath us. My machine leaped upward, twisted, then dropped suddenly. Death himself was trying to wrench the control levers from my grip, but I clung to them madly and we righted. A few inches more and I couldn't have told you about this.

There was no longer any chance to worry about flying position. There were too many things occupying my attention--that line of gray down there that we were trying to erase and the Boche squadron thrumming down on us.

One drum of our ammunition was already used up. My partner whirled around on his stool--a sort of piano stool, which always made me think of the tuneless, tinpanny instrument back in quarters--grabbed another drum and slammed it into the machine gun. It was to be a parting message for the Prussians, for the commander was just signalling to retire.

My partner lurched forward. He was hit. A thin red stream trickled down his face.

I raced westward, the air whistling through the bullet holes in the wings of the machine and my partner leaning against the empty bomb rack, silent.

As we sailed over the foremost Prussian trench some Scotch were just leaping into it. The "ladies from hell" the Germans call them, because of their kilts.

Several machines had landed before I took the ground. Ambulances were dashing back and forth across the flying field.

They lifted my partner out of the aeroplane, but they did not put him into an ambulance. He had answered another recall. I walked to quarters ill--ill at heart, at stomach, at mind. I'll never know a better pal than was Tom.

On the way I managed to help with a machine that had just landed. A big Rolls-Royce it was, and the radiator had been hit by a bit of shrapnel. The pilot and observer were both terribly scalded.

Just by the aerodrome another biplane fluttered down. The observer was dead. The pilot was hit in a dozen places. Somehow he brought the machine in, switched off his engine and slopped forward in his seat, stone dead.

Ten minutes later I was sound asleep. The next day we were at it again.

In battles of this kind it is more or less a matter of good fortune if you escape with your life. Flying ability and trickiness can play but little part. It is in the lone adventure that stunt flying helps.

III--THE MYSTERIOUS MAJOR AND THE UHLANS

One of the most versatile flyers in the corps was the "Mysterious Major." Condon was his name, but to all the men, both sides of No Man's Land, he was the "Mysterious Major."

He was forced to glide to earth one day, back of the Prussian lines, with his big motor stalled. He leaped out hastily, adjusted a bit of machinery and spun the propellers. A gentle purr, then silence, was the response.

Once more he flashed the blades around, with no better result.

It wasn't a healthy neighborhood to be in. With a short, crisp oath, the "Mysterious Major" set to work in dead earnest. Down the road to the right of the field a cloud of dust, flying high, appeared. It meant cavalry. The major's ears caught the sound of hoofbeats.

It was tradition that he would never be killed in the air, but here he was on earth, with cavalry galloping toward him. His descent had probably been spotted and the Uhlans sent to get him.

At last he got a roar from the engine that sounded like business, but it petered out.

Closer came the hoof beats. The Uhlans rode over a fence and came galloping across the field. A shot punctuated his exhortations to the motor and slit one of the planes.

Pulling and tugging, he got his machine turned so that he could use his machine gun. Br-r-rang! He let drive a drum of ammunition from his machine gun. He saw several horses and riders go down in sprawling, rolling heaps, then turned to his motor again.

Eight or ten Uhlans who had escaped his murderous fire withdrew. He knew what they would do. They would return from every side at once, and his single machine gun could never stop them.

If he could only get into the air he would feel safe. Once more he twisted the propeller. As though nothing had ever been wrong, the engine started to thrum and roar. He leaped into the seat.

Quickly the machine rose. The Uhlans saw it. I suppose they knew he had not loaded the machine gun again, and they galloped on to the field, firing at him.

He was so low that there was every chance for them to hit his petrol tank or even the major himself. So he went even lower. Straight at the heads of the horses he drove. The animals, scared at the great, white-winged, roaring machine, reared and plunged, throwing some of the riders to the ground. The others were too busy with their mounts to shoot straight.

The major waved goodby, fired a couple of parting shots from his service revolver and climbed to where the bullets could not reach him. It was not his fate to die in the air, he thought, but only a few weeks after he told me this story he was killed by a shrapnel burst from an Archie, which wrecked his machine while he was flying with an air patrol.

I do not think they ever should have sent him on such work. He was too valuable alone. The Prussians feared him so much that a price was upon his head.

Scarcely a day went by that some new feat of daring was not accredited to this almost phantom-like flier. Perhaps he did not perform them all, but the effect was cumulative.

I have known the "Mysterious Major" to side slip three thousand feet at a time. He used to skim so close to the Boche trenches that they say men ducked their heads, and all the time he was pouring six hundred shots a minute from his machine gun.

Many said the "Mysterious Major" was crazy, but if we all were suffering from the same dementia the Boches wouldn't be able to show their heads. He was of inestimable value to the secret service, but those stories will have to wait until after the war, if they are ever told.

IV--THE BIRDMAN WHO PLAYED 'POSSUM

One of the most thrilling encounters I can recall is that of Captain Woodhouse, who, accompanied by another pilot, was out over the Prussian lines. One of the Prussians gave chase and opened fire. Woodhouse made believe that he had been hit, and his companion brought the machine down in a field. Immediately the Prussian, in one of the latest type battle planes, made his landing and went over to the other machine without bothering to cover the pilot with his revolver, Woodhouse meanwhile lying as if dead. Suddenly he leaped up, jammed his revolver under the Boche's nose and marched him over to the big battle plane, got in after him and with the gun against his ribs took him back to our lines, a prisoner. Later he returned and got the Prussian machine. Besides the machine there were some valuable papers taken, which proved very useful later.

In the Royal Naval Air Service there is a young lieutenant, Murray Galbraith by name, with whom I once trained at the school at Dayton, Ohio. Murray is a great big fellow who gave up a splendid future--his father is one of the Canadian silver kings--to go into the flying service. He was sent to Dunkirk to do patrol work for one of the monitors lying off the coast. Over at Ostend the Prussians had made their staff headquarters in a certain hotel. Galbraith spotted this hotel and directed the shell-fire of the monitor with such accuracy that the Prussian staff barely escaped annihilation.

On one of his flights over the Prussian lines he encountered five machines, one of which he disposed of. He got away from the rest and, coming on toward the Somme, ran into another group of Boches. Two of these he put out of business with a withering fire from his Lewis gun and then executed a loop and started earthward. His engine gave out, but he was just high enough to glide back over their lines and then to a point of safety near our lines.

When he landed his machine was literally shot to pieces. He received the D. S. O. for this and, I believe, has since been decorated again. (Retold from _New York Herald_.)

"THE LEGION OF DEATH"--WOMEN SOLDIERS ON THE FIRING-LINE

_How the Russian, Serbian, and German Women Go to War_

_Told by Officers and Eye-Witnesses from the Battlefields_

Tales of the Great War bring stories of thousands of women fighting
as soldiers in men's uniforms on all the battle-lines--in the
trenches, in the artillery and cavalry, and going "over the top" in
the bayonet charges. "The Legion of Death"--a battalion of Russian
women, under command of Vera Butchkaroff, has fought many hard
battles with the Russian Army. They are pledged to take their own
lives rather than become prisoners of the Germans, who have ravished
and attacked them. Each woman soldier carries a ration of cyanide of
potassium to be swallowed in case of capture. Mme. Colonel Koudasheva
commands the Sixth Ural Cossacks, of which one-fourth of the soldiers
are women. The Serbian, German and Austrian women are in the ranks.
Official dispatches mention them for orders of bravery. A few of
these stories are told in these pages from the following sources:
I--War Correspondent of _New York American_; II--William G. Shepherd,
War Correspondent for _United Press_; III--War Correspondent for
_Salt Lake Tribune_; IV--War Correspondent for _New York World_;
V--War Correspondent for _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_; VI--_London Daily
Telegraph_.

(Many are the tales that will be told of these women soldiers in the
"New Russia," but this is sufficient to prove that womanhood the
world over always rises to the emergency, when home and country are
in danger--EDITOR.)

I--STORIES OF MADAM COLONEL KOUDASHEVA

It did not seem possible that women could undergo the hardships, the complete reversal of all their habits and the primitive manners that necessarily accompany trench life. Incredulity has, however, given way before actual official reports of women decorated and promoted for bravery on the battlefields. It seems now that in Europe the women actually do put on the uniform of the men, fight not only in trenches, but in the cavalry, and in every way measure up to the standard of a soldier.

Indeed, they are harder to conquer, it seems, than the men. A recent semi-official report from Petrograd mentioned that the Russians were surprised, when they captured a line of trenches along the Bzura River in Poland, to find a number of German women among their captives. These women were found in the very first line, with hot rifles still in their hands.

"There was much more difficulty in making these women prisoners than the men," reported the officer in charge of the victors. "They would not surrender until after all their men comrades had thrown down their arms, and they taunted the men with cowardice. These women were not at all heavy, unsexed peasants. Some of them showed the marks of refinement. Inquiry developed that only a few had donned the uniform because some loved one was in their company. The majority had enlisted because of pure patriotism.

"I was told that the German authorities," said the officer in charge of the victors, "do not openly encourage enlistment by women, but they do wink at it. The men in the trenches, the officers know perfectly well that this and that soldier is a woman, but they pretend not to know it officially."

The Russians could not have been surprised at seeing women soldiers, however, because hundreds of women are apparently fighting in the armies of the Czar.

Mme. Alexandra Koudasheva is the most distinguished woman soldier in the Russian army. She commands the Sixth Ural Cossack Regiment, which has covered itself with honors in many battles in East Prussia. Wounded twice, Mme. Koudasheva bears the Cross of St. George, that is given only for exceptional bravery, and many orders of inferior significance. She is back again to her regiment which consists of many Cossack woman volunteers, though the majority of the soldiers are men. A few more successful battles and Mme. Koudasheva will be promoted to a general.

When the war began Mme. Koudasheva entered the army as a volunteer. She distinguished herself in daring raids on the German Uhlans, and was made a lieutenant, and soon thereafter a colonel of the same regiment in which her husband had served two years ago. During the two months that she has acted as a commander of the regiment she has given proof of exceptional strategic gifts and courage. She has never stood behind, but always in front, of her men. Naturally, no man likes to be surpassed by a woman, and this has given her company a reputation for unusual bravery.

Colonel Koudasheva is by no means a semi-barbaric adventurer or a Salome who revels in bloodshed. She is a lady of highest culture and refinement. Besides being a talented poet and brilliant writer, she is a fine musician and a passionate lover of sports. She has made twice a trip on horseback from China, through Manchuria, Siberia and European Russia to Petrograd. She made the trip alone, and passed the most dangerous deserts of the two continents without having had any great difficulties.

"I have felt just as safe in the wildest deserts of Siberia, as I do in the streets of Moscow or Petrograd, simply because I have absolute confidence in my ability to command the man, regardless do I meet him in a fashionable society of a big city, or as a highway robber in the wildest wilds. A woman--if she only knows her feminine powers--can conquer any man," thus writes Mme. Koudasheva in her "Diary of Ride Through Siberia."

This is how she writes in a letter to a friend in New York of one of her adventures while she was still a lieutenant and was out to ascertain the strength of the enemy at night:

"It was a ghastly moonlight night of the Fall. A bleak wind whistled and howled around the ruins of the village, in which there had been so much human joy before and so much misery after. I was riding with a company of twenty-five men to trace the retreating enemy. Though the amphitheatric hills that rose before us seemed dead and bare, yet mysterious flashes of light appeared here and there, like magic signals. They warned us of the hidden batteries of the enemy. As we galloped on, I could see the road strewn with broken boxes, knapsacks, household implements, dead horses and men which the enemy had left behind in his hurried retreat.

"'Excellency,' whispered my orderly, I see there beyond the hill a moving dot. It's probably the head of a "dady"' (as we called the Germans). As we were in the shadow of the ruins, we could discern distinctly the bare field in the moonlight. Before us was the first line of the trenches of the enemy. I pulled my rifle and aimed. A shot. The dot became a black figure that rose and staggered and fell. It was a distance of 150 steps, and I could see how a gray ribbon of trenches stretched in both directions before us--a ribbon that always fascinates and yet frightens because it is the home of death. More black dots were visible, moving in the direction where the one before had fallen.

"Little by little I could see dots in every direction beyond the ribbon. A few figures climbed out and started running toward us. 'One, two, three!' I whispered and then followed a salvo from my men. The figures either fell or ran back behind the ribbon. From behind a hill flashed a light and then the battery of the enemy opened fire at the village where we were. It was the machine guns. 'Nu-ka, Misha, tickle the dadies, quick!' was the humorous remark of one of my soldiers to me. We must have killed and wounded a hundred or more. Then we turned around and rode away, without having lost a single man and without having any men wounded."

Mme. Koudasheva is a student of soldier psychology on the battlefield, as is shown in another letter.

"When you feel the invisible fingers of fate so close to your life, as on the battlefield, the problems that interest you before and the feelings that you experience in a peaceful feminine activity die out and a new view opens. It is not the feeling of sport, it is not the feeling of being killed, that takes hold of the mind of the battlefield, but it is a queer, dramatic hypnose, like an actor feels before opening a play.

"It all seems a huge cosmic play--a stern tragic panorama of life--but still a play. The whole human organism seems to work against all laws of nature, for, though you stay in the cold and rain day and night, yet you catch no cold, no ailments that are usual in everyday life."

Mme. Colonel Koudasheva may require a strict discipline of her inferiors, but she never applies any punitive measures. She commands with the most polite words. "Gentlemen, please, would you do me the favor" is her usual command to the soldiers. "My boys and girls go to any fire without any forcible measures," she writes. "I just need to hint at an instruction, and already it is carried out. I have taught them not to shoot with hate, but to love the man they shoot. And they do love, which is proven by an incident when once we chased the enemy into river and when we saw that they would be drowned we all went to pull them out, and thus saved a whole company."

Another Russian heroine is Natalie Tychnini, a high school girl of Kier, who has received the decoration of the Order of St. George for distinguished service at the front. She had arrived at Opatow among a detachment of volunteers for the campaign against the Austrians. She was dressed like a man, and passed for a remarkably handsome boy. She was detailed to carry ammunition to the trenches. She was in the hottest fire and was wounded twice. The Russians were forced to retire, and she was left lying on the field.

The Austrian Red Cross workers found her.

"Why, this is a woman!" exclaimed the Austrian surgeon who examined her. The Austrians nursed her. When the Russians again took Opatow she was still in a hospital. She was recaptured by them and sent back to Kier, where she was given her honors.

Austrian women are also fighting. Stefa Falica is a young Croatian who enlisted with her husband in the same regiment. In this case her sex was well-known, and she was not forced to use men's clothes. She has already been made a corporal for her bravery in the field.

A similar case is that of Stanislawa Ordinska, who enlisted, masquerading as a man, in the Polish Legion of Austria. She was made a sergeant for bravery shown at the front before it was discovered she was a woman. Then she was allowed to keep her rank and her gun.

One of the most interesting bodies of women soldiers is the Serbian organization called the "Legia Smirti," or Legion of Death.

The Legion of Death is composed of women who have been trained in the use of firearms and in the science of war. In the Balkan States, where women frequently follow their husbands throughout military campaigns, acting as pack-carriers, camp-attendants, and even as trench-diggers and sappers when necessary, it is not unusual for them to take their places beside their husbands or their lovers on the firing line. There are many expert rifle shots among them, many indeed who are capable of taking men's places under necessity. Accustomed to attack in solitary places, and more or less inured to bereavement, a kind of grim quiet follows them wherever they are seen.

The Legion of Death is recruited from all classes of women, from the wives of rich merchants to the wives and daughters of peasants. This Amazon corps had its origin in the patriotic enthusiasm of a woman sixty-two years old, whose husband died for Serbia in the war for liberty against the Turks. The women handle the regulation rifles and are held in deadly fear by the Austrians and Germans.

Indeed, it seems that on both sides the soldiers dread the women soldiers more than they do those of their own sex.

Kipling's "The female of the species is more deadly than the male," recalls itself, of course. Dr. Hans Hulduckson, writing of this same phenomenon, said:

"Women are not natural combatants. They do not rush into war for war's sake. They are without the blood lust that makes fighting a joy for fighting's sake. They will fight only in desperate straits, and then only for their honor, their children or the existence of their country. Standing at one of these last ditches, however, they fight with the ferocity of tigers. They do battle without rule or reason and to the death. An Englishwoman, who is endeavoring to organize a company of women for military training, said that she did not fear that they would not fight, but the fear was that they might fight too fiercely. They are the most cruel of combatants when they so far overcome their native womanly gentleness as to enter into combat.

"A soldier of experience said that he would rather fight a company of male soldiers than one woman soldier. He explained that woman is too resourceful in the matter of weapons. War transforms woman for the time into a beast."

II--STORY OF THE "POTASSIUM BRIGADE"

Russia's women soldiers have pledged themselves to take their own lives rather than become German war prisoners. Each woman soldier carries a ration of cyanide of potassium to be swallowed in case of capture.

The members of the women regiments, now constantly increasing, agreed that death was to be preferred to the fate they would probably meet at the hands of the Germans.

The "Legion of Death" fighters are "good killers." I learned this to-day, when I talked to five of them now in a hospital near here, suffering from shell shock. From a woman's lips I heard how she had run a German through with her bayonet, firing the rifle at the same time. From others I heard how these women and girls, fresh from comfortable homes and universities, went leaping over mangled bodies in the charge with enemy shells bursting all about them.

But these harrowing experiences of the women fighters have steeled them and hundreds of other girls to a new determination to see it through. Girl soldiers drilling in the streets are now a common sight in Petrograd. Huge crowds gather daily about the Engineers' School, where 1,000 girls are drilling preparing to go to the front. In Moscow 1,000 men are training, while Kieff and Odessa have smaller bands. Premier Kerensky has also authorized the formation of women marine detachments and has promised to assign them to ships. The new women commands attempt no sort of decoration. Their heads are shaved and they wear the regulation uniform, including the heavy, ugly army boots.

The five women fighters I visited at the hospital were partially paralyzed by shell shock. One of them, a peasant girl, smiled joyously as she pointed to a German helmet on the bed beside her. It was the first war prize of a Russian woman.

"I saw a German in front of me as I ran forward with the others in the charge," she told me. "It was his life or mine. I raised my rifle. I plunged with all my strength. I stabbed him. The bayonet went deep into his body. At the same moment I pulled the trigger. He dropped dead. Then I took his hat as a souvenir."

The girl soldier smiled with delight.

"What was the battle like?" I asked another of the legionnaires.

"I was very nervous just before the charge," she replied. "We knew the order was coming and naturally we were just a little scared. But as soon as the orders to go forward came we forgot everything else in the advance.

"I could hear our girls yelling and shouting throughout the march forward. None of us were afraid once we got started. We were in the midst of a great fusillade of shots. Then terrific big shells began breaking all around us.

"We were again frightened a little when we first saw dead men about, but before very long we were jumping over the dead, and quickly forgot all about them."

"We couldn't tell what was going on anywhere," said a third girl in describing the final stages of the battle.

"Commander Bochkoreva was everywhere, urging us to fight and die like real Russian soldiers."

Then the girl told how the legion took its first prisoners.

"As we ran forward we suddenly came upon a bunch of Germans immediately ahead of us. It was only a second until we were all around them.

"They saw they were caught and threw down their rifles, holding up their hands. They were terribly frightened.

"Good God! Women!" they exclaimed.

"We saw wounded German soldiers raising themselves on their elbows and shooting," interjected another wounded girl. "We just forgot ourselves entirely. We were simply Russia, fighting for her life.

"The loss of Lena, the most popular member of our company, was keenly felt by all of us," she added soberly. "During the battle Lena heard that Commander Bochkoreva had been killed. She hurried forward into the shell and fire, saying she was going to find her. We saw her go through one space literally strewn with exploding shells. Then, through the smoke and flames, we saw her blown to fragments.

"We also lost Sonia. She used to be a musician with the Romanoff concert organization. She was killed by machine gun fire."

Petrograd has not yet seen the full casualty list of the Legion of Death. From what the girls say, however, it appears that at least a dozen big shells struck square in their midst, killing perhaps twelve girls and wounding twice as many more.

Five of the German prisoners the girls captured were women, wearing the German soldier's uniform. The number of women in all armies on the eastern front is believed to be growing steadily.

As I returned from the hospital where I saw these paralyzed girls I met a new company of women marching briskly through the street. They were ready for the firing line, ready to give their lives in battle, and with their little ration of cyanide ready to take their own lives to avoid worse than death at the hands of the enemy.

III--STORIES OF WOUNDED GIRLS IN "COMMAND OF DEATH"

When the Russian women's battalion, known officially as the "Command of Death," went into action against the Germans near Smorgon, July 25, they captured a number of German women who also were fighting on the battle front in western Russia.

Ten wounded heroines of the women's battalion arrived in Petrograd leaving their commander, Vera Butchkareff and Marya Skrydloff, a daughter of Admiral Skrydloff, former commander of the Baltic fleet, and minister of marine, in a hospital at Vitebsk.

The women said it was reported that of the 200 of the command who reached the front only fifty remained. Twenty were killed, eight were taken prisoners and all the rest were wounded.

"Several times," said one wounded girl, "we attacked the Germans. Especially memorable was our attack at Novospassky wood, near Smorgon, where the enemy, hearing the voices of girls, lost their nerve. The result was that the prisoners were a few women, from whom we learned for the first time that German women also were fighting.

"We did not feel the slightest fear for our personal safety. Our passion was to serve the fatherland. We advanced gaily against the foe with laughter and song, our only unpleasant sentiments being when we first came to the corpses. Once when replying to the enemy's severe rifle and machine gun fire, we discovered to our amazement that all our men comrades in the neighboring trenches had treacherously fled, leaving us--a handful of women--to face the enemy alone."

The Russian women's battalion underwent the greatest hardships, not only in the actual fighting, but on their way to the front, according to stories told by wounded girls who have been brought back from the fighting lines to be placed in hospitals. Their heroism under fire was wonderful. Their dash and elan and their fearlessness under fire make a new chapter of the war.