During the comparative lull on the Bzura-Rawka-Pilitza line I have been trying to go about to certain important salients on our front and have a look both at the terrain, and the positions which we are defending. Leaving Warsaw by motor we ran out to the head-quarters of a certain army where we found the General living in the palace of a Polish noble. Beautiful avenues of trees gave access to a wonderful garden with a little lake before an old mansion dating back to the eighteenth century. Here in the quiet seclusion of a little forest lives the general, who presides over the destinies of perhaps 150,000 men. We are received cordially by the Chief of Staff who, with exemplary patience, reads over the twelve permits of various sorts which complete the constantly growing collection of authorizations for me to come and go on this We must first go to the head-quarters of an army corps. This is distant 25 versts, and as the roads are for the most part short cuts across the fields, it takes us more than an hour to reach a very unpretentious village where we meet the General commanding the — Corps. This man is distinctly of the type that war produces. He was only a minor general when the war started, but efficiency in action has given him two promotions. Shabby and war-worn he is living in a mere hovel, still wearing the uniform and shoulder straps of two grades back By the time we pull up between a couple of ruined peasants’ homes, only the walls of which are standing; it is after seven in the evening. From a kind of cave among the debris there emerged three or four tired-looking artillerymen who are in charge of the guns in these positions. The country here is flat and rolling, with a little ridge to the west of us, which cuts off the view into the valley beyond, in which are the lines of the Russian and German trenches. Leaving our automobiles in the road, we stroll through a wheat-field toward the ridge, distant perhaps 1,000 yards. In the corner of the field is a hedge, and behind the hedge is a battery of field guns. One notices with each passing month the increasing cleverness of the Russians in masking their batteries. Though this is no wood, we walk almost on to the position before we discover the guns at all. They This particular battery, so its Colonel tells us, has had a great laugh on the enemy during the past few days. What happened was this. A German Taube flew over the line several times, and it kept coming back so frequently and hovering over the battery, that the officers who were watching it became suspicious that they had been spotted. When darkness fell the entire personnel of the battery became extremely busy, and by working like bees they moved their guns perhaps 600 yards to the south and by daylight had them in the new positions and fairly well masked. Shortly after sunrise back came the aeroplane, and when over the old position it gave a signal to its own lines and then flew back. Almost instantly hell broke loose on the abandoned spot. In walking over the ground one Leaving the guns, we saunter across the wheat-field toward the ridge, the great red ball of the setting sun dazzling our eyes with its aspect of molten steel. On the very crest of the rolling ground is a grove of stunted firs, and through this lies a path to the observation trench which is entered by an approach growing gradually deeper until, cutting through the very ridge, it ends in the observation trench dug out of the earth on the western slope. For the last couple of hundred yards before we enter the approaches, Through the hyperscopes one could look out over the beautiful sweep of the valley studded with little farms, the homes of which are mostly in ruins. This point from which we were studying the landscape was only 100 yards from our own line of trenches, which lay just in front of and below us, while not more than 75 yards beyond were the line of the German trenches. So clear were they Russian officers in an artillery observation position. After the report of the shells had died away and the dust settled there was the silence of absolute peace and serenity over the whole valley. Not a rifle shot or a human noise broke the beautiful calm of the May sunset. Off to the west glimmered the silver stream of the Rawka. To look out over this lovely valley in the falling twilight it seemed incredible that thousands of men lay concealed under our very eyes, men who were waiting only a favourable opportunity to leap out of their trenches and meet each other in hand-to-hand combat. On the advice of our guides, we waited in our secure little trench until the last red rays of the sun were cut off by the horizon in the west, when we returned by the way we had come to the waiting automobiles. The whole valley in this section is very flat, and I was especially interested in looking over this locality, because in Warsaw it has been mentioned as a point where the Russians were in great danger, and where they were barely able to hold their own. The truth is that there has been little fighting here for months excepting an occasional burst of artillery, or now and then a spasm of inter-trench fighting between unimportant units. I told our guide of the dismal stories we heard, and he only laughed as he pointed out to me a level stretch of country on our side of the ridge. A number of young Russian officers were riding about on prancing horses. “See there,” my friend told me, “we have laid out a race course, and the day after A few minutes later we were in our motors speeding through the twilight to the village in our rear where the Chief of Staff of the — Corps had arranged quarters for us. A SUMMER DAY ON THE RAWKA LINE |