Dated:
Warsaw,
June 9.

Some one has said that there is nothing more monotonous than war. After ten months of almost continuous contact with its various phenomena, and week after week spent in the same atmosphere, where one is always surrounded by the same types of men in the same uniforms, the same transport, the same guns, the same Red Cross, and in fact everything the same in general appearance, it becomes very difficult to get up new interest in the surroundings, and that deadly monotony of even the happenings makes it increasingly difficult to write about it. The types of country vary here and trenches are not after one pattern, but after one has seen a few dozen even of these there is a good deal of sameness in it all. I have not been on the Bzura Front, however, since January, and as little has been written about it by any one else since the big January-February attacks on the Bolimov positions, it may be worth devoting a short chapter to it, describing its appearance in summer.

The last time that I was out here was in January, when the ground was deep in snow and slush, and the soldiers muffled to their ears to keep out the biting winds that swept across the country. Now the whole army, that is not fighting or otherwise occupied, is luxuriously basking in the sunshine, or idling under the shade of the trees. The poisonous gas campaigns, of which I have already written at length, having been started on our Bzura line, seemed to justify a visit to the positions here in order that I might speak with some degree of accuracy as to the effects of this newest German method of warfare, from the trenches, where the attacks were made, down through the varying stages to the last, where one found the victims struggling for breath in the Warsaw hospitals.

Leaving Warsaw early in the morning I went to the head-quarters of the army immediately before Warsaw, and on explaining my desires, every possible means of assistance was placed at my disposal including an extra automobile and an officer interpreter. From the army head-quarters we sped over a newly-built road to the head-quarters of that army corps which is defending the line of the Rawka, where the chief medical officer obligingly placed at my disposal all the information which he possessed of the General commanding that particular Siberian army corps on whom the experiment was first tried. This man, an officer of high rank, was living in a small white cottage standing by the side of a second rate country road, without a single tree to protect it from the rays of the sun which in the afternoon was beating down on it with a heat that could be seen as it shimmered up from the baking earth, barren of grass or any green thing. Here was a man, commanding perhaps 40,000 troops, living in one of the bleakest spots I have seen in Poland, with nothing but a tiny head-quarters flag and dozens of telephone wires running in from all directions to denote that he was directing a command greater than a battalion.

As the greatest indignation prevails throughout the army on the gas subject, I found the officers here very eager to help me in my investigations, and the General immediately telephoned to the division head-quarters that we would visit them and asked that an officer might be provided to take us forward to the positions where the heaviest losses occurred. So once more we took to our motor car, and for another 6 versts, across fields and down avenues of trees, we sped until at last we turned off sharply into the country estate of some landed proprietor where were living the staff of the —th division. These fortunate men were much better off than their commander, for in a lovely villa, with a lake shimmering like a sheet of silver in the sunlight behind the terrace on which the officers could have their coffee in the evenings, the General and his suite lived. A delightful little Captain, who seemed to be in charge of our programme, led us to a window and pointing to a windmill in an adjacent field remarked: “The German artillery reaches just to that point. From the time you leave there until you reach the trenches you will be continually within the range of their guns and for most of the time within plain sight of their observers in their gun positions. However, if you insist we shall be glad to let you go. Probably they will not fire on you, and if they do I think they will not hit you. An automobile is a difficult target.”

With this doubtful assurance we started out again, this time heading for regimental head-quarters, which we were told was a mile behind the trenches. A few miles further, and we came on several battalions in reserve near a little village. A small orchard here gave them shelter from observation, and after their trying ordeal a few days before, they were resting luxuriously on the grass, many of them lying flat on their backs in the shade fast asleep while everywhere were piled their rifles. These sturdy self-respecting Siberian troops are the cream of the army and physically as fine specimens of manhood as I have ever seen anywhere. From this point we turned sharply west and ran at top speed down an avenue of trees to a little bridge, where we left the car effectively concealed behind a clump of trees. At least that was the intention, and one in which the chauffeur and his orderly companion took great interest as one could see by the careful scrutiny that they gave the landscape and then their cover.

Personally I think this is the meanest country to get about in during the day time that I can possibly imagine. It is almost as flat as a billiard table, and I am of the opinion that if you lay down in the road you could see a black pin sticking up in it a mile away. Everything around you is as still as death for perhaps ten minutes. The sun shines, butterflies flit about and an occasional bee goes droning past. There is nothing whatever to suggest the possibility of war. You think it is a mistake and that you are at least twenty miles from the Front; then you hear a deep detonation not far away and a great smoking crater in a field near by indicates where a heavy shell has burst. Again there is absolute silence for perhaps twenty minutes, when a sharp report not far away causes you to look quickly toward a grove of trees in a neighbouring field where you discover one of the Russian batteries. Leaving our motor we walk across a field and approach the site of a destroyed village, if a cluster of six or eight little cottages could ever have been dignified by that name. Now only a chimney here, or a few walls there, indicates where once stood this little group of homes. In one of the ruins, like a dog in an ash-heap, lives the Colonel of the —th Siberian with his staff. Behind a wall left standing is a table and a few chairs, and dug out of the corner is a bomb proof where converge telephones from the trenches in which are his troops. Here he has been living since the middle of last January.

The village was destroyed months and months ago, and clearly as it is in the line of German observation it seems to provide a comparatively safe retreat for the officers, though as one of them remarked quite casually, “They dropped thirty-five shells round us yesterday, but you see nothing much came of it.” Absolute indifference to these situations is the keynote at the Front, and good form makes one refrain from asking the numerous questions as to the exact location of the enemy, whether or not they can see us, and other subjects which, at the moment, seem to us of first-class importance. However, we realize that good taste requires that we assume the same casual attitude, and so we sit for half an hour, smoke cigarettes and quietly hope that the enemy will choose some other target than this for their afternoon practice which, as one of the officers remarked, “Usually begins about this hour in the afternoon.”

Personally I hate poking around in the broad daylight in this flat country, but as I wanted to see the position where the gas was used and did not want to wait until night, and as the Colonel was perfectly agreeable, I suggested that we should proceed forthwith to the positions. Before starting we were told that up to a few weeks ago no one ever used the road in the daytime, because of its exposure to rifle and artillery fire. “But now,” as the Colonel said, “for some reason or other they are not shooting at individuals. Probably they are saving their ammunition for Galicia. So if we walk apart we shall not be in much danger. Anyway a man or two would be hard to hit with rifle fire, and their artillery is rather poor here, and even if they fire at us I think we shall not be killed.” We thanked him for his optimism and all started off down the road that led to the positions. In view of his suggestion about individuals being safe, I was not particularly happy when five officers who had nothing else to do joined us. The first half mile of the road led down an avenue of trees which effectively screened us. After that the trees stopped and the great white road, elevated about 5 feet above the surrounding country, impressed me as being the most conspicuous topographical feature that I had seen in Poland. There was not a bit of brush as big as a tooth-pick to conceal our party walking serenely down the highway.

After we had got about 200 yards on this causeway the Colonel stopped and pointed with his stick at a group of red brick buildings. “The Germans were there,” translated the interpreter. “My,” I ejaculated in enthusiasm at the idea that they had gone, “when did we retake the position?” “Oh,” replied the interpreter officer, “not yet. They are still there.” “Ah!” I said, lighting a cigarette, that my interest might not seem too acute, “I should think they could see us.” The linguist spoke a few words to the Colonel and then replied, “Oh, yes, every move we make, but the Colonel thinks they will not shoot.” I looked over at the brick buildings, behind which were the German artillery positions, and I could swear they were not 2,000 yards away, while a line of dirt nearer still showed the infantry trenches. For myself I felt as large as an elephant, and to my eyes our party seemed as conspicuous as Barnum’s circus on parade. However we continued our afternoon stroll to the reserve trenches, where a soldier or two joined our group. Five or six hundred yards up the road was the barricade thrown across, held by the first line. An occasional crack of a rifle reminded us that the look-outs in our trenches were studying the movements in the German trenches a few hundred yards beyond. Finally we left the road and came over a field and into the rear of our own position, and to the scene of the German gas attacks four or five days before.

Life in the trenches has become such an everyday affair to these sunburned, brawny soldiers from Siberia that they seem to have no more feeling of anxiety than if they were living in their own villages far, far to the East. In spite of the fact that they have steadily borne the brunt of terrible attacks, and even now are under the shadow of the opposing lines, which are thoroughly equipped with the mechanism for dispensing poisoned air, they are as gay and cheerful as schoolboys on a vacation. I have never seen such healthy, high-spirited soldiers in my life. The trenches have been so cleaned up that a house wife could find no fault with them.

These homes of the soldiers have every appearance of being swept daily. The apprehension felt in the winter of hygienic conditions when the spring came have no ground whatever, and I am told on the very highest authority that in this army the sickness, other than that coming from wounds, is less than for the months that preceded the war itself. The Colonel explained to us the use of the respirators with which every soldier is provided, and for our benefit had one of the soldiers fitted with one that he might be photographed to illustrate for the West what sort of protection is being supplied to the men on this side. After spending half to three-quarters of an hour wandering about in the trenches and meeting the officers who live there we returned to the regimental head-quarters. The sun was just setting, and as we strolled back over the open causeway in its last red glow a great German battery suddenly came into action somewhere off to the west and north of us, and we could hear the heavy detonations of its huge shells falling in a nearby wood.

When we got back to the regimental head-quarters I could see their target, which seemed to be nothing more than a big field. Every few minutes an enormous shell would drop in the meadow. For an instant there would be but a little dust where it hit the ground, then suddenly a great spout of earth and dust and volumes of dirty brown smoke would leap into the air like the eruption of a volcano, and then the heavy sound of the explosion would reach our ears, while for two or three minutes the crater would smoke as though the earth itself were being consumed by hidden fires. As it was coming late we did not linger long at the head-quarters but took to our car and sped up the avenue of trees which lay directly parallel to the point where the shells were bursting. The sun had set now, and in the after glow we passed once more the camps of the reserves squatting about their little twinkling fires built in the earth to mask them from the sight of the enemy. In half an hour we were back once more in the villa of the General of the division, an enormous man of six feet three, whose cross of St. George of the first class was given for a heroic record in Manchuria where the General, then a Colonel, was three times wounded by Japanese bullets. Sitting on his terrace he gave us more details in regard to the usages of the gas against his troops. Though they were 6 versts from the Front, everyone in his head-quarters had been affected with nausea and headaches, so potent were the fumes of the chloral that for hours lay like a miasmic mist in the grounds and garden of the estate. The General, who is a very kindly giant, shook his head sadly as he spoke of the Germans. I think the Russians are a very charitable people and nearly all the men with whom I have talked lay the blame of this outrage on civilization against the authorities and not against the men, who, they understand, are bitterly opposed to its use. When I asked the General what he thought of the German point of view of war, he sat for a few moments looking out over the lovely garden with the little lake that lay before us.

“They have an extraordinary point of view,” he said at last. Then he rose quickly from his chair and brought from a corner of the balcony a belt captured in some skirmish of the morning. He held it up for me to see the big buckle and with his finger pointed to the words: “Gott Mit Uns.” Then with a smile more significant than words he tossed it back into the corner. Yes, truly, the German point of view is an extraordinary one.

THE GALICIAN FRONT