Chapter IV: Part 4

Here was a young boy saying good-by to a mother and three aunts. He was all they had--their whole life. Here a father saying farewell to a wife and three sons, all under seventeen. Or a mother in deep mourning taking leave of her last son, or a young wife with a baby in her arms giving a last embrace.

As the train moved out of the station there were no shouts, no cheers, no words of encouragement. Instead there was a deadly silence. The men leaned out of windows, stretched despairing hands towards loved ones. As the train pulled away the little groups broke into strangling sobs. They were shaken as by a mighty tempest. Paroxysms of grief rent and tore them. They knew the end had come. A man may go once into battle and return, but not twice and thrice. Life held no hope. As I came away I stopped before the big building which conducts military affairs. It is known as the "House of Sorrow." On its rear wall is posted the list of dead and wounded....

One evening at midnight as I cross the Thiergarten I pass a small procession of new recruits. Midnight, my friend tells me, is the favourite hour for seizing fresh food for cannon. There is something sinister in choosing dark hours, when the city sleeps, for this deed....

III--A BEAUTIFUL STORY TOLD IN GENEVA

While in Geneva I visited the Red Cross authorities. This is the Central Bureau for relief work. It gives aid to the wounded and prisoners of all the belligerent countries. Many horrible, tragic and beautiful stories pass through the committee's hands.

After the war these stories will come to light. At present the rigid censorship prevents publication, for it is impossible to carry printed or written material across frontiers.

But one story told me needed no notes. It became engraven in my memory. It is the story of an English boy and a German mother.

I could not secure the letters that passed between these two but their contents, and the other facts given are here set forth accurately. This is a true story.

* * * * *

The sky was a soft, shining blue. The air was still. The warmth of summer brooded over the land. But no bird's song broke the stillness. No bees fluttered over flowers. The earth lay torn and bare. In deep brown furrows of the earth, hundreds of restless men lay or knelt or stood.

The land was vibrant with living silence. But now and again a gigantic smashing roar broke the tense stillness. Then in some spots, the ground spit forth masses of dirt, a soldier's helmet, a tattered rag of uniform, and bits of a human body.

It was after such a mighty blast that a great winged object came speeding from the north. It skimmed low over the trenches and dipped, and circled and paused above the English line. Like a great eagle it seemed about to rush to earth, snatch its prey, and then be off. But as it hung suspended, another whirring monster flew swiftly from the south. It winged its way above its rival, then turning, plunged downward. The great cannons grew silent. The eyes of the pigmies in the trenches gazed skyward. A breathless tenseness gripped the earth. Only sun and sky shone on with no whisper of the mad fight of these two winged things.

For a few wild moments they rushed at one another. Then the whirring bird with wings of white rose high, turned back, and plunged again upon that other whose wings had huge, black crosses.

It missed its prey, but there came a cracking sound. A puff of smoke, like a hot breath, burst from the creature of the iron crosses. It shuddered, dropped, turned, and fell head down. With sweeping curves the pursuer also came to earth. A lean, young Englishman sprang from the whirring engine. His body quivered with excitement. He sped with running feet to the broken object lying on the ground. He knelt by the twisted mass. Beneath the splintered wood and iron he saw a boyish figure. It was still and motionless. He gently pulled the body out. A fair young German lay before him. A deep gash in the head showed where a blow had brought instant death. The body was straight and supple, the features clear cut and clean. A boy's face with frank and fearless brow looked up at the young Englishman. The eyes held no malice. They were full of shocked surprise. The brown haired lad felt the lifeless heart. A piece of cardboard met his fingers. He pulled it from the coat pocket. It was a picture--a picture of a woman--a woman with gray hair and kindly eyes,--a mother whose face bore lines of patient suffering. Scrawled beneath the portrait in boyish hand were the words, "Meine Mutter."

A sob choked the young Englishman. Tenderly he gathered the lifeless form in his strong arms. Then he rose and walked unheeding across the open field of battle. But no angry bullet pelted after those young figures. The men in the trenches saw and understood. Behind the lines the boy lay his burden down. Taking paper and pencil from his pocket and placing the little picture before him, he began to write.

When he had finished he placed the letter and portrait in a carefully directed envelope. Then walking hurriedly to his machine he prepared for flight. Soon he was whirring low over the enemy trenches. Leaning out, he dropped his missile. The cannons roared, but no rifle was turned on that bright figure. Instinctively, men knew his deed was one of mercy. As the little paper fluttered downward it was picked up by eager soldier hands. A little cheer broke from a hundred throats. Willing messengers passed it to the rear. Speedily it went on its way.

Twenty-four hours later a mother with pale face and trembling hands fingered the white scrap of paper. Her unseeing eyes gazed out on a smiling landscape. Between green meadows in the warm summer sunshine lay the glittering Rhine. But she saw nothing. Her baby boy was dead. Memories of him flooded her. She felt again the warmth of the baby body as it clung to hers and the pull of the tiny hands at her breast. She saw him as a boy, his eager restlessness. She heard his running steps at the door and his cry of "mother." It was over. That bright spirit was still. The third and last son had been exacted. Her fingers touched the letter in her lap. Her eyes fell on the penciled words. Slowly they took meaning. This boy who wrote: He'd seen the beauty of her son. He'd lifted the dear body in his arms. His heart was torn by anguish. What was it he said?

IV--WHAT THE GERMAN MOTHER READ ON THE SCRAP OF PAPER

"'It's your son. I know you can't forgive me for I killed him. But
I want you to know he didn't suffer. The end came quickly. He was
very brave. He must also have been very good. He had your picture
in his pocket. I am sending it back, though I should like to keep
it. I suppose I am his enemy, yet I don't feel so at all. I'd give
my life to have him back. I didn't think of him or you when I shot
at his machine. He was an enemy spying out our men. I couldn't let
him get back to tell his news. It meant death to our men. It was a
plucky deed. We were covered up with brush. He had to come quite
low to see us and he came bravely. He nearly escaped me. He handled
his machine magnificently. I thought how I should like to fly with
him. But he was the enemy and had to be destroyed. I fired. It was
over in a second. Just a blow on the head as the machine crashed to
earth. His face shows no suffering, only excitement. His eyes are
bright and fearless. I know you must have loved him. My mother died
when I was quite a little boy. But I know what she would have felt
if I had been killed. War isn't fair to women. God! how I wish it
were over. It is a nightmare. I feel if I just touched your boy,
he'd wake and we'd be friends. I know his body must be dear to you.
I will take care of it and mark his grave with a little cross.
After the war you may want to take him home.

"'For the first time, I'm almost glad my mother isn't living. She
could not have borne what I have done. My own heart is heavy. I
felt it was my duty. Yet now when I see your son lifeless before me
and hold your picture in my hand, it all seems wrong. The world is
dark. O Mother, be my mother just a little too, and tell me what to
do.--HUGH.'"

Slowly great tears rolled down the woman's cheeks. What was this monster that was smashing men? Her boy and this other, they were the same. No hate was in their hearts. They suffered--the whole world suffered. Her country went in hunger. The babies in the nearby cottages grew weak for want of milk. She mustn't tell that to the English lad. His heart would break. Why must such suffering be? Was she to blame? There was the English lad without a mother. She had not thought of him and others like him. Her home, her sons, her Fatherland, these had been sufficient. But each life hangs on every other. Motherhood is universal.

V--A GERMAN MOTHER TO THE ENGLISH BOY WHO KILLED HER SON

Suddenly she knew what to write. What she must say to that grief-stricken English boy. Quickly her hand penned the words:

"DEAR LAD: There is nothing to forgive. I see you as you
are--your troubled goodness. I feel you coming to me like a little
boy astounded at having done ill when you meant well. You seem my
son. I am glad your hands cared for my other boy. I had rather
you than any other touched his earthly body. He was my youngest.
I think you saw his fineness. I know the torture of your heart
since you have slain him. To women brotherhood is a reality. For
all men are our sons. That makes war a monster that brother must
slay brother. Yet perhaps women more than men have been to blame
for this world war. We did not think of the world's children, our
children. The baby hands that clutched our breast were so sweet, we
forgot the hundred other baby hands stretched out to us. But the
Earth does not forget, she mothers all. And now my heart aches with
repentance. I long to take you in my arms and lay your head upon my
breast to make you feel through me your kinship with all the earth.
Help me, my son, I need you. Be your vision, my vision. Spread the
dream of oneness and love throughout the land. When the war is over
come to me. I am waiting for you.--DEINE MUTTER."

FOOTNOTE:

[15] All numerals relate to stories herein told--not to chapters in the original sources.

FIGHTING "WITH THE RUSSIAN ARMY"--ON AUSTRIAN FRONT

_The Colossal Struggle of the Slavs_

_Told by Bernard Pares, Official Observer with the Russian Army_

This is one of the most important narratives in the records of
the War; it is an invaluable witness of the colossal struggle
waged on the Eastern battle front. The author was granted official
privileges awarded to no other non-combatant. He passed through
the first Warsaw Campaign, the crucial battle of Dunajec, and
the Russian retreat. When Germany declared war on Russia, he
volunteered for service and went to Petrograd and Moscow, where
he was appointed official correspondent with the Russian Army,
traveling with the general staff. He later joined the third army
as an attaché. Here he was given written permit by General Radko
Dmitriev to visit any part of the firing line. "We were the advance
guard," he says, "of the liberation of the Slavs ... the retreat of
the army to the San and to the Province of Lublin. We were driven
out by sheer weight of metal ... it was a delight to be with such
splendid men as the Staff of the Russian Army. I never saw anything
base all the while I was with the Army. There was no drunkenness,
everyone was at his best, and it was the simplest and noblest
atmosphere in which I have ever lived." His experiences have been
gathered into a volume entitled, "Day by Day With the Russian
Army," from which the following incidents are retold by permission
of his American publishers, Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

[16] I--WAR STORIES FROM THE RUSSIANS

It is wonderful how little effect the war seems to have made on the body of Russia. On the other hand, the atmosphere of nervous tension begins to disappear the moment one begins to get really near to the front. In the Red Cross offices at Kiev I found the same straining toward the front as elsewhere, only much calmer because these were people who had a big war work to do. Hospitals meet the eye in the streets at every turn.

Once in the train for Galicia it was again the war atmosphere and simplicity itself. The talk was all of people engaged directly or indirectly in it. A graceful old lady with a very attentive son was on her way to get a sight of her husband, one of the generals. A young officer, whose wound has kept him out of it for three weeks, is on his way to the front before Cracow. A fresh-looking young man, at first unrecognisable to his friends with his close-cropped bullet head, tells how he went on a reconnaissance, how he came on the Austrians, how their first line held up their muskets and when the Russians had passed on fired on their rear, how nevertheless practically all came back safe and sound. It was told with a kind of schoolboy ingenuousness and without suggestion or comment of any kind on the conduct of those concerned. Then followed an account of a war marriage, at first put off and then carried out as quietly as possible. All the friends of every one seemed to be at the war.

At the old frontier some of the buildings near the station were wrecked by artillery fire, and the railway was lined with a succession of solid hospital barracks, with the local commandant's flag flying over one of them. There was plenty to eat at the station; and though we moved on very quickly, every one from our crowded train managed to find a place in the Austrian carriages, chiefly because every one was ready to help his neighbour. The corridors jammed with passengers and kits, we moved on through the typical "strips" of Russian peasant culture, a pleasant wooded country, passing a draft detachment on the halt which waved greetings to us. My companion, Mr. Stakhovich, a phenomenally strong man and imbued by a fine spirit, was talking of the indifference of the Russian peasant to danger; he regarded it as an indifference to all sensations; anyhow they go forward, whatever the conditions, as a sheer matter of course. With the ordinary educated man the mind must be kept occupied with work if unpleasant possibilities of all kinds are to be kept out of it; but General Radko Dmitriev, to whom we are going, will jump up from a meal, however hungry, when there is a chance of getting under fire.

II--IN THE CONQUERED CITY OF LVOV

We draw up in the great station at Lvov. To the right of us stretch endless lines crowded with wagons, especially with sanitary trains. In the lofty passages and waiting-rooms are sleeping troops with piled muskets, some wounded on stretchers tended by the sisters of mercy who are constantly on duty here, and a crowd of men, all soldiers, coming and going. One passed many Austrian prisoners, of whom another enormous batch was just announced to arrive; and elsewhere a Russian private explained to me the excellent quality of the Hungarian knapsack, which he and his comrades had turned into busbies. One man was asleep inside the rail opposite the ticket office. He did not seem to mind how often he was awakened.

In the town everything is quiet, and life goes so naturally that no one could take it for a conquered city. In the country this might have been expected because far the greater part of the population is Little Russian; but in Lvov the Russians are only about 17 per cent. and the predominant element is the Polish (60 per cent.), the rest being Jews (20 per cent.) or Germans (3 per cent.).

Lvov is taking on more of the character of a Russian town. Many of the Jews have left. The Russian signs over new restaurants, stores, etc., meet the eye everywhere. Of the Little Russian party which supported the Austrians, many have now returned and are making their peace with the new authorities. The Russian soldier is quite at home in Lvov, as one sees when the singing "drafts" swing past the Governor-General's palace; the Austrian prisoners in uniform, who are allowed liberty on parole, seem equally at their ease. Numbers of Russian priests are pouring into Galicia, but not fast enough for the Uniat villages which have embraced Orthodoxy; as soon as they arrive, peasants come with their carts and take them off to their parishes, without waiting for any formal distribution. The Uniat creed and ritual are practically identical with the Orthodox, so that the difference between the two was purely political. At the new People's Palace of Nicholas II, I saw a number of children, principally from families that had suffered severely at the hands of Austrian troops, receive Christmas presents on the day of St. Nicholas, who is the Russian Santa Claus. Archbishop Eulogius, in a very effective little address, told them that the biggest Christmas present which they were receiving was the liberty to speak their own language and worship in their own way in union with their Russian brothers.

Starting for the army, I spent a night of strange happening in the great railway station, as our train was delayed till the morning. At one time I went, in the frosty night, to look for it at the goods station, where there were endless rails and wagons, and found it after a long search. In the big restaurant four little boys made great friends with me, one of fourteen in uniform and spurs who had been serving as mounted scout with a regiment at the front, and one of thirteen who had attached himself in the same capacity to a battery. Both were small creatures, and the first was a remarkable little person, with all the smartness and determination of a soldier, relieved by an amusing childlike grace and courtesy. He said to me in a confidential voice, "I see you are very fond of little children," and he ordered with pride lemonade and chocolates for us both. He said the men at the front could last a week to ten days, if necessary, without any food but _sukhari_ (army biscuit), so long as they had cigarettes. His imagination had been caught by the aeroplanes over Peremyshl, and also by the Carpathians, which he described with an up and down movement of the hand. He had a great disgust for anything mean and a warlike pride in the exploits of the soldiers of his regiment. His model was a boy, now a young man, who had been through the Japanese War. "If a general comes past," and he made a salute to show the extreme respect felt for his hero. Many a time in that long night, while the weary heads of doctors and sisters of mercy were bent in sheer tiredness against the tables, he would come and sit by me and ask me to read the war news to him, or to tell him about the English submarines. He left me with the smartest of salutes in the early hours of the morning.

III--TALES TOLD ON AN ARMY TRAIN

Our train is an enormous one with endless warm carriages (_teplushki_) for the wounded. The staff of sanitars and sisters, working for the Zemstvo Red Cross, live in a spotlessly clean carriage, and there are special carriages for drugs, stores, kitchen, etc. They are simple and interesting people, and, as I am now in the Red Cross and have many interests in common with them, they kindly made me up a bed in their carriage, where we discussed Russia in all its bearings.

We carry a group of passengers who have all made friends after the Russian way. A colonel and his wife are going to fetch the body of a fallen comrade. Another colonel, a delightfully simple man with close-cropped hair, thin brown face and bright, clever eyes seems to know all the Slavonic languages and has much to say of the Austrians. He has seen twenty of them surrender to a priest and his clerk who came on them in a wood, made the sign of the cross and told them to come with them. In another place twenty-two Austrians were captured by two Russians. The Austrian officers put quick-firing guns behind their own rifle pits for the "encouragement" of their men, on whom he has seen them fire. They make their gunners fire every two hours in the night as a kind of exercise. He has seen them form their men in close column under fire and march them about up and down along the line of the Russian trenches. The Austrian artillery seldom takes cover; the Russian directs its fire on the enemy rather than on his batteries. In one place, heavy Russian artillery at a range of seven miles demolished an Austrian field train and two battalions who were lunching in the square of a small town. He is full of life and confidence, and all that he says breathes of fresh air and of work.

Our train made its way through to the furthest point up. We had to stop several times to let through the ambulance trains already charged with wounded, which take precedence. We had to go very slowly over several repaired bridges; and this was no simple matter, as we had twenty-seven long and heavy coaches. Some of these repairs were complicated pieces of work, as the bridges were high above the level of the rivers. At point after point, and especially on the Austrian sides of the rivers, we passed lines of carefully prepared trenches, and in one place there was a masterpiece of artillery cover, with every arrangement for a long stay.

The damage done by the artillery fire was sporadic--here a smashed station building, there a town where several houses had suffered. But there was nothing indiscriminate; and the Polish population, which showed no sign of any hostility to the Russians, seemed to find the war conditions livable.

As in other parts, I was specially struck by the easy relations existing between the inhabitants, the Austrian soldiers and their Russian captors. There were exceptions. I had some talk with a few Austrian Germans from Vienna. They were simple folk and seemed to have no grudge against the Russians; and the circumstance in their position which they felt most--they were only taken the day before yesterday--was that this was Christmas Eve, the "_stille Nacht, heilige Nacht_" of the beautiful German hymn, and that they were far from home among strange people. They kept apart as far as possible not only from their captors but from their fellow prisoners from Bohemia and Moravia. These last seemed at least quite comfortable, smoking their long pipes and leisurely sweeping the platforms. They were quite a large company. They understood my Russian better than my German. When I asked them how they stood with the German troops, instead of the sturdy "Gut" of their Viennese fellows, they answered with a slang word and a gesture. When asked about the Russians, they replied in a quite matter-of-course way: "We are brothers and speak the same tongue; we are one people." For any difficulties, the Poles often prove good interpreters. It is very different for the Austrian captive officers, who often cannot understand their own men.

These Czechs confidently assured me that any Russian troops that entered Bohemia would be welcomed as friends; and they claimed that not only the neighboring Moravians and Slovaks but also the Croats further south were to be taken as feeling as they did. The Bohemians and Moravians seem to be surrendering in the largest numbers of all; and though the Viennese claimed that large numbers of Russians had also been taken, I cannot regard as anything but exceptional the enormous batches of blue uniforms that I passed on the road here. I asked these men about their greatcoats and was not at all surprised when they said they felt cold in them. It is nothing like such a practical winter outfit, whether for head, body or legs, as that of the Russian soldier.

We came very well over the last part of our journey. I was sorry to part with the friendly sanitars, who all seemed old acquaintances by the end of the journey and invited me to take up my quarters permanently with them. Theirs was more than ordinary kindness, as they had shared everything they had with me, including their little sleeping apartment. The bearer company under their orders is all composed of Mennonites, a German religious sect from South Russia which objects to war on principle and, being excused military service even in this tremendous struggle, seems to be serving wholesale as ambulance volunteers.

As there were none but soldiers about, these men helped me out with my luggage; and through the window of the First Aid point in Tarnow station, I saw another acquaintance waving me a welcome. This is the last point that the railway can serve; and my friends will go back with a full burden, which will keep the medical staff busy day and night all the way. One of my new companions, who has been out to a village to get milk for the wounded, has seen the shrapnel bursting; and the guns are sounding loud and clear near the town as I write this. It is here that the most seriously wounded must be treated at once, as a railway journey would simply mean death for them. This is brought home to one, if one only looks at the faces of the workers. Yet with this huge line of operations, and the assaults which may be made at any point of it, at any moment the nearest field hospitals may need to send off any wounded who can be moved without delay. Though the work is being done with danger all round, less thought is being given to it than anywhere that I have been yet.

IV--CHRISTMAS IN AN AUSTRIAN HOSPITAL

Christmas Eve: peace on earth and good will toward men. And all through "the still night, the holy night," the sound that means killing goes on almost continuously. How can any one say prayers for a world which is at war, or for himself that is a part of it? May God, who knows everything, help each of us to bear our part and not disgrace Him, and make us instruments to the end that He wishes.

Christmas day I spent in the hospitals. In one ward, at a local Austrian hospital, and full of wounded, I found that almost every one of the line of patients was of a different nationality. Going round the room, one found first a Pole of western Galicia, then a Russian from the Urals, next a Ruthenian (Little Russian) from eastern Galicia, next a Magyar from Hungary, and against the wall a young German from Westphalia. After him came an Austrian-German from Salzburg, a Serbian from southern Hungary, another Ruthenian, an Austrian-German from Moravia, an Austrian-German from Bohemia, and a Moravian from Moravia.

I spent a couple of hours here, talking sometimes with each of the patients, sometimes with all. The Pole knew only Polish and the bearded Russian, who had a bad body wound, was too tired to talk much. Of the Ruthenians one was a frail, white-faced boy from close to the Russian frontier who seemed, like most of his people, subdued, and confused with the strangeness of his position in fighting against his own people; the other was a lumpish boy without much intelligence. The thin, bearded Hungarian, who knew no German but a little Russian, was mostly groaning or dozing. The Salzburg Austrian was dazed and drowsy, but at intervals talked quietly of his pleasant homeland.

The German stood out from the rest. He was a bright, vigorous boy of twenty, had gone as a volunteer and was tremendously proud of the spirit of the German army. He had fought against the French during four days of pouring rain, mostly in standing water. The Bavarians, who seemed to have quarrelled with the other troops in that part, were making war atrociously, he said, knifing the inhabitants, insulting the women and destroying all that came in their way. He was later moved to the Carpathians, where one German division fought between two Austrian ones. They advanced in snow without field kitchens, and were not allowed to touch the pigs and poultry that they passed. However, they had enough to eat; and they were hoping to surprise their enemy, when the Russians fell upon them and left only the remnants of a regiment, many of the officers also falling. He himself was wounded in both legs, and was brought here in a cart.

Every German soldier has a prayer-book and a song-book. They constantly sing on the march, and find it a great remedy against fatigue. Songs of Arndt and Körner are very popular, and there is a new version of an old song, which is perhaps the greatest favorite; it begins--

"Oh Deutschland hoch an Ehren,
Du heil'ges Land der Treu."

and it goes on to speak of the new exploits in east and west. There are any number of volunteers in Germany; the women are all joining the Red Cross; and the population is busy with every kind of work for the army; but when I asked whether the people were keen for the war, he answered with astonishment, "The people? The people thought that the war was not to be avoided; but that was at the start; now it is different." He asked if there were many other Englishmen in Russia, and when I answered that there were some, he said, to my surprise, "The English are everywhere, they are a fine people--_nobel_." He also asked me on the quiet whether, when he was well, he would be sent to Siberia. He had been told that the Russians were terrible, but had written home to say that he had found them nothing of the sort.

Much of our talk turned on the Austrian army. The German said that it didn't stand firm "unless it was properly led, by Germans." In Bohemia and Moravia the regiments were mixed, Slavs and Austrian-Germans, and according to the Moravian soldiers, were constantly quarrelling; all the officers were Austrian-Germans, and even some of the Hungarian regiments seemed to be commanded by Germans. The young Serbian spoke of frequent quarrels and even brawls between Serbian and Hungarian fellow-soldiers. The great wish of all was that the war should end. When I said that the end was not in sight, the German exclaimed, "More misery, more misery;" a second said, "Oh, Jammer, Jammer" (lamentation), and a third had tears in his eyes.

In another ward I heard more of the Bohemians. There Prussia is the antipathy. There appear to be Czech officers only in the reserve. After the outbreak of war, the Austrians made wholesale arrests among the educated Czechs, quite apart from party politics, and were particularly severe on the gymnastic volunteer organizations (_sokols_), which are popular among all the Slav nationalities of Austria. The Bohemians had not had time to find their legs under the new possibilities created by the Russian successes, but the Russian troops would be sure of a cordial welcome there. The whole of my informant's regiment had surrendered _en masse_; and even in the mobilization of 1914, a Prague regiment had refused to march against Russia and several of the men had been shot. I was told that the Austrian army was much weaker in reserves than the Russian.

V--HOW THE RUSSIAN SOLDIERS DIE

I ended the day at the railway station, where the Russian wounded just brought in were being attended to while the cannon sounded from time to time not far off. Several lay on stretchers in the corridors and others on pallets in the ambulance room, all still in their greatcoats and with their kits lying beneath them. I had no conversations here; there was too much pain, one could only sit by the sufferers or perhaps help them to change their position. First aid had been given elsewhere, but this was the stage when the wounds seem to be felt most. There was wonderfully little complaining. Most were silent, except when a helping hand was needed. One man shot through the chest told me that "By the grace of God, it was nothing to matter." It was always a satisfaction to the men that they had been wounded while attacking. A general walked quickly round, distributing cigarettes, which he put in the men's mouths and himself lighted.

In the night the cannonade sounded close to the town, but seemed farther off again next morning.

To-day I also went round a hospital with the dressers. The work was quickly executed, but much of it was very complicated. One does not describe such scenes, not so much because of the ugly character of many of the wounds, nor because of the end impending over many of the patients. To this last the Russian soldier's attitude is simple--_gilt es dir, oder gilt es mir_. He will speak of it as "going to America," the undiscovered country. But all these things come to be forgotten in the atmosphere of work. Here all the resources of life are going forward in their own slow way, for they can have no quicker, handicapped and outpaced in their struggle to keep up with the work of death.

General Radko Dmitriev is a short and sturdily built man with quick brown eyes and a profile reminiscent of Napoleon. He talks quickly and shortly, sometimes drums on the table with his fingers, and now and then makes a rapid dash for the matches. The daily visit of the Chief of the Staff is short, because, as the General says on his return, simple business is done quickly. Every piece of his incisive conversation holds together as part of a single and clear view of the whole military position, of which the watchword is "Forward."

It is only the heavy rains that have saved the retreating Austrians from further losses. The roads are so broken up and so deep with mud that any quick movement is impossible. This gives the occasion for a useful rest. The cold weather--and it is freezing now--will be welcomed on this side; and the Russian winter kits, which have already been served out, are immeasurably better than the thin blue greatcoats of the draggled and demoralized Austrians.

Numbers of Austrian units are so reduced that they are only shadows of what they were, and some seem to have disappeared altogether. The ordinary drafts came in some time ago and are now exhausted--such is the testimony of Austrian officers. The new Russian recruits, on the contrary, will join the colors shortly.

* * * * *

From the beginning of the war, Bosnians, who are really Serbians, surrendered in large numbers. Then the Poles began to come in, and now the Bohemians. The Hungarians are sure to go on to the end; but the Roumanian and Italian soldiers of Austria have also come over very easily. In front of Cracow a Russian officer under fire came on a whole number of Bohemians who were singing the "Sokol" songs and shouted a greeting as they came into the Russian lines.

* * * * *

These wholesale surrenders have, I think, an extremely interesting political significance. When governments turned the whole people into an army, it was clear that the army was also being turned into the people; but it was not clear how the people could express itself when under army discipline. These surrenders, in their general character and in their differences of detail, are a picture of the feelings and aspirations of the various nationalities which are bundled together under the name of Austria.

* * * * *

At this Staff, as at the General Staff, life was very simple. We all met twice a day for a plain meal without any alcohol; there was plenty of conversation, but it was that of men engaged in responsible work; any news from outside was welcome, especially from the western allies, and there was full appreciation and sympathy for their hard task.

There was plenty of news from other quarters of the Russian front, and one could have a much juster and fuller perspective of how things were going than anywhere behind the army; the two things which stood out even more here than elsewhere were, on the one hand, the immensity of the sacrifices which have been asked and are being cheerfully made by Russia, and, on the other, the sense of quiet confidence as to the ultimate result.

FOOTNOTE:

[16] All numerals relate to stories herein told--not to chapters from original sources.

THE ROMANCE OF THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

_The "Glorious Rascals"_

_Told by E. S. and G. F. Lees_

The reinstatement by the King of Lieutenant-Colonel John Ford
Elkington in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, after he had served
for twenty-two months with conspicuous bravery in the French
Foreign Legion, has once more drawn attention to this unique
military organization. As the writers of this story show, "La
Légion Etrangère" of our Allies the French is literally steeped
in romance, and it is therefore the romantic side of the heroic
yet often maligned legionaries which they have set forth most
prominently. Practically every man in the corps has a history, if
he could only be induced to tell it, and in the present war the
Legion has covered itself with glory, as shown in this story in the
_Wide World Magazine_.

I--STORY OF "THE GLORIOUS BLACKGUARDS"

Budding novelists in search of ideas for tales of adventure, short story writers who have come to the end of their stock of episodes, and all who wield the pen either for amusement or instruction, may be recommended to turn over the pages that tell the story of the Foreign Legion. There is a whole literature at their disposal, covering a period of more than eighty years and written in almost as many languages as there are nationalities in this remarkable military body, and it teems from beginning to end with incidents which respond to the entire gamut of human emotions.

The Foreign Legion, which in time of peace is composed of between eight and ten thousand men, but which now probably exceeds the strength of an army corps, since no fewer than thirty-two thousand odd foreigners enrolled themselves from August 21st, 1914, to April 1st, 1915, is, as it were, a microcosm of the world. According to official French returns, there were in its ranks at the beginning of the war nine thousand five hundred Alsatians and Lorrainers, fourteen hundred and sixty-two Belgians, three hundred and seventy-nine English, three thousand three hundred and ninety-three Russians, four thousand nine hundred and thirteen Italians, thirteen hundred and eighty Greeks, five hundred and ninety-one Luxembourgers, nine hundred and sixty-nine Spaniards, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven Swiss, thirteen hundred and sixty-nine Austro-Hungarians, one thousand and twenty-seven Germans, five hundred and ninety-two Turks, six hundred Americans, and four thousand two hundred and fifty-four of various other nationalties, including, in all probability, as at the time of the Empire, Poles, Albanians, Croatians, Illyrians, and negroes.

In this world-in-little all classes of society are represented--the prince and the pauper, the scholar and the illiterate, the one-time brilliant officer, prominent financier, and ecclesiastic. All of them are brought to a common level with the lowest of the low through inherent human weakness, some foolish act committed in haste and repented of at leisure, or else through some misfortune or other over which the man who is "down on his luck" has no control whatever.

The social outcast, the deserter, the gambler, the fugitive from justice, the man who has been crossed in love, the desperate man who, on second thoughts, prefers the ranks of the Legion to suicide, the man who has a pure love of soldiering or an inordinate taste for adventure, the out-and-out failure who has been told by his family to "make good" and clean off his debt to society--all of them are found here, living under the shadow of mystery, undergoing the most arduous life imaginable, and, for the most part, suffering in silence. So heterogenous are they that the legionaries, quite unjustly, have been called many ill names. Through the faults of a few, who necessarily find their way into such an organization, they have all been indiscriminately labelled with such epithets as "band of criminals," "degenerates," "troop of dishonoured foreigners," "heartless mercenaries," and so on. But many sins can be forgiven the soldiers of the Legion when we read their history aright, and come to understand their Spartan characters in the hour of trial and danger. And it is for that reason that, despite their antecedents and shortcomings, they are now generally known in French military circles as "The Heroic Rascals," or as "The Glorious Blackguards."

The Foreign Legion can trace its origin to the days of the Scottish archers, employed by Charles VII. of France, and to those of the Swiss, Albanian, Flemish, Walloon, German, Italian, and other mercenaries in the service of his successors. At the time of the Convention, in 1793, an appeal was made to the nations of Europe for soldiers, with the result that several foreign regiments fought with the revolutionary armies. All these, however, were disbanded at the fall of Napoleon. When Louis XVIII. came to the throne he created the Royal Foreign Legion in their place, but they gradually merged into the regular army. However, after the 1830 Revolution the Foreign Legion was revived, and ever since they have taken part in nearly every foreign campaign in which France has been engaged--in the conquest of Algeria, in the Crimean War, in Mexico, Tongking, Formosa, Madagascar, and Morocco.

II--ASYLUM OF BRAVE UNFORTUNATES

Admission to the Legion is not the result of the efforts of the recruiting sergeant. All the men are volunteers, and although all classes and all nationalties are welcome to join they are not unduly encouraged to do so. There have been cases in which men who have come to enlist at the military headquarters in Paris have been told of the disadvantages they would have to encounter, and advised "to think the matter over seriously" before signing away their liberty for a period of five years. Yet, almost to a man, they have come back to undergo the extremely rigorous medical examination--the only examination, by the way, with which they are troubled. For, as regards their real name and nationality, no proofs are required. The authorities show no curiosity whatsoever about a man's past. They take it for granted that he has a very good reason for wishing to disappear for a while from the society of his relatives and friends and become merged with others of like mind in a semi-anonymous body, training, marching, and fighting without respite.

The military authorities formerly used to pay the legionaries the princely salary of a half-penny a day (recently raised to twopence-halfpenny), and their kit does not even include socks, yet they are expected to possess sufficient physical vigour to march a distance of twenty to thirty-two miles, over rocky, slippery ground and through jungles, in less than eight hours, halting only ten minutes each hour, and with a load of seventy to eighty pounds. This is a terrible test of speed and endurance, yet one out of which these men come, through systematic training, with flying colours, and of which they are all of them justly proud. "No questions asked, but strict obedience and iron discipline"--this might be the motto of the corps, in which such famous soldiers as MacMahon, Canrobert, Chanzy, De Négrier, Servière, and Villebois-Mareuil have been officers. In spite of this display of delicacy, however, many a man's story leaks out. He may be as silent as the Sphinx for years, yet the time comes when his taciturnity is overcome through some little incident, and his secret, or part of it, as in a case related by Mr. Frederic Martyn, in his "Life in the Legion," is out.

It was during the French campaign in Mexico, says Mr. Martyn, who himself served for five years in the Legion. A large city having been captured, the general in command wished to propitiate the inhabitants by celebrating a spectacular military High Mass in the cathedral. When all the troops had been assembled, it was found that the clergy had gone on strike. In the face of this dilemma, the general was just about to abandon the ceremony when a corporal of the Legion stepped forward and, saluting, said, "_Mon général_, I was a bishop before I became a corporal, and I will celebrate the Mass." Another eye-witness of this incident states that the ex-bishop also offered to preach a sermon, but the general considered that the Mass alone was sufficient.

M. Maurer, a former officer in the Legion and now President of the Mutual Aid Society for former officers, N. C. O.'s, and soldiers of the foreign regiments in Paris, informed us that he remembered this bishop, whose fall was due to drink.

This recalls another ecclesiastical anecdote. At the time of the Fashoda incident a legionary was drowned at Zarzis whilst attempting to save a fisherman. His comrades made a coffin out of the only wood available, some pieces of old packing-cases, on one of which--the portion, as it happened, which we used for the top--were the words, "Keep the contents dry." Again no priest was thought to be there to perform the last rites over the dead, until an Italian private stepped forward, revealed his priestly identity, and recited the Burial Service by heart.

III--FROM PRINCE TO LEGIONAIRE--THE KAISER'S COUSIN

The fall from bishopric to the rank and file of the Foreign Legion is not the biggest social drop on record in the Legion. In 1897 a young man of twenty-six, who gave his name as Albrecht Friedrich Nornemann, was accepted for service. After ten months in barracks at Géryville he broke down under the severe training, was sent into hospital, and in a few weeks died of phthisis. A day or two later the regiment was astonished to learn that a German war-vessel had entered the harbour, entrusted with the astounding mission of fetching the body of Albrecht Friedrich, cousin-german of Prince Henry of Prussia, and consequently cousin of the Kaiser, who, having ordered the remains to be brought back to Hamburg, probably alone knew the prince's secret.

Six years before this remarkable incident, which is vouched for by more than one authority, another man of mysterious origin--who, if he was not actually a prince of the realm, was in all probability of royal blood on one side--was discovered in a Tongking battalion. A sergeant and the owner of an illustrious name, since his father was a general and Minister to a European monarch, it was noticed that he never received any letters from his father, but that every month the paymaster handed him a thousand francs which he never failed to share with his less well-to-do comrades. Why was he there, and what was the mystery surrounding his birth? was often the mental reflection of those who enjoyed his friendship and generosity. Only after his death did they get an inkling of the truth. His military book stated that his name was V. de S----, son of V. de S----, General of Division and Minister of War. "There was no mention of his mother's name," said a superior officer to M. de Pouvourville, who tells the story, "and there can be little doubt that she was of too illustrious a rank to acknowledge a son the circumstances of whose birth had placed him beyond the pale."

Some excellent stories of life in the Legion were told to the authors of this article by the above named M. Maurer.

One of his orderlies was Graf X----, the son of the then Governor of Brandenburg, but he could never learn in what circumstances this man had fallen from his high estate. It was different in the case of his particular chum, a young Englishman of distinguished manners, who spoke several languages and was an accomplished musician, though the secret of his life did not come out until several years after M. Maurer had retired and returned to Paris. One day, when passing the Madeleine, he saw a splendid equipage, drawn by a pair of magnificent greys, with silver harness, standing outside the church, and, lo and behold! sitting in the carriage was his old chum. Hailing him by the name by which he had always known him, M. Maurer was astonished to see his friend put his finger to his lips. The next moment he was invited to enter the carriage, and, with an invitation to dinner, off they drove to a fashionable restaurant in the Champs Elysees. Over dinner M. Maurer's former comrade told him his real name and story. A young man of good family, he had started his career with an excellent position in the Bank of England. One day, when ten thousand pounds had been slid into his hands, a sudden temptation came over him, a foolish desire to have a flutter at "Monte." So he took the earliest opportunity of leaving London. As was only to be expected, the inevitable happened; he lost at the tables every penny of the sum he had embezzled. Aware of the disgrace that awaited him when the theft was discovered, he enlisted in the Foreign Legion.

"Now, it is a well-known fact," concluded M. Maurer, "that the sins of a man who has served his full time in the Legion are wiped off the slate, and I suppose that something like this must have happened in the case of my young friend. I have no doubt that his family restored the money. Anyway, he attained his rehabilitation. He is the bearer of a very well-known name, and to-day occupies an important--a _very_ important--post in public affairs in England."

IV--THE ROMANCE OF THE EURASIAN

Another little romance revolving round the life of a legionary, whose birth was enveloped in mystery, was told some years ago by a British soldier who served in the Legion. After an engagement at Cao-Thuong, there was found on one of the dead, sewn in a belt, six British war medals and a letter addressed to the narrator. Judge of his surprise when he found that it was in perfect English, of which he had never for a moment suspected his comrade-in-arms had a knowledge, and that it contained the statement that the medals had been won by the writer's father and grandfather in India. His mother, the writer explained, was a native, and therefore he, as a Eurasian, although born in wedlock, was ineligible for the British Army. As his tastes were wholly military, and the greatest desire of his life was to add to his forebears' collection of medals, he had enlisted in the Legion.

The mental attitude of the man who regards the Foreign Legion as a _pis aller_ is a common trait among its members; it is often, indeed, the last resource of those who have met with life's disappointments.

There was once an officer of the German army who had invented a new type of cannon, and could not get its merits recognised, either by his own country or by France, as rapidly as he would have liked, or receive prompt remuneration for his work. Straightway, therefore, he went and joined the Légion Etrangère. Some little time later, in 1895, the French authorities, waking up to the possibility of the value of the work of so eminent an engineer, approached him on the subject, but by then he had become thoroughly soured. He declined to have anything to do with them, and with the air of one whose genius has been recognised too late hastily returned to his kitchen, where he had long carried out the duties of regimental cook.