Germanikowka, Galicia,
July 3, 1915.

The army of the Bukovina, or the extreme Russian left, is probably the most romantic organization operating in one of the most picturesque countries in the whole theatre of this gigantic war. In the first place the left is composed very largely of the type of cavalry which I think no other country in the world can duplicate, that is the irregular horsemen brought from all parts of the East. Tribes from the Caucasus, Tartars, Mongols, and I know not what others, are here welded together into brigades and divisions, and make, all told, nearly two complete army corps with only a sprinkling of infantry and regular cavalry. It was this army that gained such headway in its advance toward the Hungarian plain, and it is this very army that is credited with so alarming the Hungarians that they threatened independent peace unless something was done for them. That something we know now was Austria’s wail to Germany and the resulting Galician campaign.

During all the first part of the great German drive, this army with its hordes of wild cavalry was proceeding confidently “hacking its way through” all resistance, and capturing thousands upon thousands of Austrians or Hungarians that came in its way. For nearly a month after things were going badly in the West, it was moving victoriously forward until it became evident that unless it stopped it would find itself an independent expedition headed for Buda-Pest and completely out of touch with the rest of the Russian line which was withdrawing rapidly. Then came a pause, and as the flanking armies continued to retreat, the army was very unwillingly obliged to retire also to keep in touch with its neighbour. My own impression as to the spirits of this army, especially of the cavalry corps, is similar to the impression one forms when one sees a bulldog being let loose from another hound whom he has down, and is chewing luxuriously when his master comes along, and drags him away on a leash. So these troops have retired snarling and barking over their shoulders, hoping that the enemy would follow close enough to let them have another brush with them.

There has been fighting of more or less acuteness, especially where German troops have been engaged, but taken on the whole this portion of the Russian front cannot be considered a serious one and their withdrawal has been forced by the greater strategy. I found many of the younger officers of the opinion that they could advance at any time if they only had the permission from the powers that be. As for the soldiers—a single look into those set swarthy faces was enough to satisfy one that they would willingly advance in any event regardless of policy or orders either. I have never seen such fierce looking men in my life. Many of them do not speak Russian, and to them the war is a real joy. Heretofore they have had to be content to fight among themselves for nothing in particular; now that they have a chance to fight for something really great they are in their element. I question how valuable troops of this character would be under different conditions, but here in this rough Bukovina country they are nearly ideal for their work, as is manifest from the manner in which they have swept the enemy before them.

On leaving Tarnopol we came directly to the head-quarters of one of these corps, where we spent three extremely interesting days. The position which this army was holding is, in a rough way, from the junction of the Zota Lipa and the Dniester, down that river to a point perhaps 20 versts west of Chocin, and thence in an irregular line 40 or 50 versts through Bukovina in the direction of the Roumanian frontier. The Dniester itself is a deep-flowing river lying between great bluffs which for miles skirt the river bank on both sides. These bluffs are for the most part crested with heavy timber. In a general way the Russians are holding one bank, and the Austrians the other, though here and there patches of Russians have clung to the South side, while in one or two spots Austrians backed by Germans have gained a foothold on the north bank. The first afternoon I arrived, I went out to a 356 metre hill from where I could look over the whole country. I discerned easily the lines of the Austrian and Russian positions between which was the valley through which flowed the Dniester. There are any number of young Petrograd swells here who have left their crack cavalry corps, many of which are dismounted and fighting in the trenches in Poland and on other fronts, to put on the uniform of the Cossack and lead these rough riders of the East in their romantic sweeps towards the Hungarian plains. I have been in some armies where I found hardly any one who spoke English, but in this one corps I found nearly a score who spoke it, many as well as I did, which indicates pretty clearly the type of young men that Russia has here, and is one reason, no doubt, why the army has done so well.

Here I met Count Tolstoi, son of the novelist; Count Keller, whose father was killed by Japanese shrapnel on the Motienling Pass in Manchuria, and many other men whose names are well known in Russia. Count Keller was the ranking Captain in a squadron (sotnia, I believe they call it) of cavalry from the Caucasus, and carried us off to his lair in a valley not far from the Dniester. Here we met a courteous old Persian who commanded the regiment, and dined in a quaint old castle where they had their head-quarters. Deep in its little valley, the castle was not seen by the Austrians, but had long since been spotted by the aeroplanes of the enemy. The result was that every afternoon a few shells were sent over the southern ridge of hills, just to let the regimental staff know that they were not forgotten. The day before we arrived twelve horses were killed in the garden, and while we were cleaning up for dinner, a shrapnel shell whined through the yard bursting somewhere off in the brush.

After dinner the dancers of the regiment came up and in the half-light performed their weird evolutions. In long flowing coats, with their oriental faces, emitting uncanny sounds from their mouths, they formed a picture that I shall long remember. Count Keller told me that in spite of all their wildness they were fine troops to command, for, as he said, “They have very high ideals of their profession. I may be killed or wounded, but I am always sure that my men will never leave me. They cannot speak my tongue, but there is not a man in my command who would not feel himself permanently disgraced if he left the body of his officer on the field of battle. They are absolutely fearless and will go anywhere, caring nothing whatever for death, wounds, hardship or anything else that war brings forth. I am very fond of them indeed.”

The positions at this point were about three versts distant from our little isolated valley, and as they were out on the crest of the bluff it was impossible to visit them until after dark. So on the great veranda of the castle we sat late after our dinner, until darkness fell and a great full moon rose slowly above the neighbouring hills flooding the valley with its silver rays, bringing out the old white castle as clearly in the darkness as a picture emerges from a photographic plate when the developer is poured upon it. It was just after midnight when Count Keller and I, well mounted on Cossack ponies, rode down into the valley and turned our horses on to the winding road that runs beside the little stream that leaps and gurgles over the rocks on the way to the Dniester. For a mile or more we followed the river, and then turning sharply to the right, took a bridle path and climbed slowly up the sharp side of the bluff. For fifteen or twenty minutes we rode through the woods, now in the shadow and now out in an opening where the shadows of the branches swaying softly in the moonlight made patterns on the road. Suddenly we came out upon a broad white road where the Count paused.

“We are advised to leave the horses here,” he remarked casually, “Shall we go on? Are you afraid?” Not knowing anything about the position I had no ideas on the subject, so we continued down the moonlit road, and while I was wondering where we were, we came out abruptly on the bluff just above the river, where the great white road ran along the crest for a mile or more. I paused for a moment to admire the view. Deep down below us, like a ribbon of silver in the shimmering moonlight, lay the great river. Just across on the other bank was the Austrian line with here and there spots of flickering light where the Austrians had fires in their trenches. There was not a sound to mar the silence of the perfect night save the gentle rustle of the wind in the trees. “The Austrians can see us plainly from here,” remarked the Count indifferently. “Gallop!” The advice seemed sound to me, but not knowing the country I was obliged to reply, “Which way?” “Right,” he replied laconically.

It is sufficient to say that I put spurs to my horse, and for the mile that lay exposed in the moonlight my little animal almost flew while the Count pounded along a close second just behind me. A mile away we reached the welcome shadows of a small bunch of trees, and as I rode into the wood I was sharply challenged by a guttural voice, and as I pulled my horse up on his haunches a wild-looking Cossack took my bridle. Before I had time to begin an explanation, the Count came up and the sharp words of the challenge were softened to polite speeches of welcome from the officer in command.

We were in the front line trench or rather just behind it, for the road lay above it while the trench itself was between it and the river where it could command the crossing with its fire. Here as elsewhere, I found men who could speak English, the one an officer and the other a man in charge of a machine gun. This man had been five years in Australia and had come back to “fight the Germans,” as he said. For an hour we sat up on the crest of the trench under the shadow of a tree, and watched in the sky the flare of a burning village to our right, which was behind the Russian lines, and had been fired just at dark by Austrian shells. I found that all the Russians spoke well of the Austrians. They said they were kindly and good-natured, never took an unfair advantage, lived up to their flags of truce, etc. Their opinion of the Germans was exactly the opposite. One man said, “Sometimes the Austrians call across that they won’t shoot during the night. Then we all feel easy and walk about in the moonlight. One of our soldiers even went down and had a bathe in the river, while the Austrians called across to him jokes and remarks, which of course he could not understand. The Germans say they won’t fire, and just as soon as our men expose themselves they begin to shoot. They are always that way.”

I have never known a more absolutely quiet and peaceful scene than this from the trench on the river’s bluff. As I was looking up the streak of silver below us, thinking thus, there came a deep boom from the east and then another and another, and then on the quiet night the sharp crackle of the machine guns and the rip and roar of volley firing. It was one of those spasms of fighting that ripple up and down a line every once in a while, but after a few minutes it died away, the last echoes drifting away over the hills, and silence again reigned over the Dniester. The fire in the village was burning low, and the first grey streaks of dawn were tinging the horizon in the east when we left the trench, and by a safer bridle path returned to the castle and took our motor-car for head-quarters which we reached just as the sun was rising.

The positions along this whole front are of natural defence and have received and required little attention. Rough shelter for the men, and cover for the machine guns is about all that any one seems to care for here. The fighting is regarded by these wild creatures as a sort of movable feast, and they fight now in one place and now in another. Of course they have distinctive lines of trenches, though they cannot compare with the substantial works that one finds in the Bzura-Rawka lines and the other really serious fronts in Poland and elsewhere. In a general way it matters very little whether the army moves forward or backward just here. The terrain for 100 versts is adapted to defence, and the army can, if it had to do so, go back so far without yielding to the enemy anything that would have any important bearing on the campaign of the Russian Army as a whole. From the first day that I joined this army, I felt the conviction that it could be relied upon to take care of itself, and that its retirements or changes of front could be viewed with something approaching to equanimity.

WITH A RUSSIAN CAVALRY CORPS