Tarnopol,
July 6, 1915.

We found the General of the army now occupying the line that runs from approximately the head of the Zota Lipa to its confluence with the Dniester, living in a palace south-west of ——. These wonderful estates come as a great surprise to strangers travelling through the country. One passes a sordid Galician village filled with dogs and half-naked children, and perhaps on the outskirts one comes to a great gate and turning in finds oneself in a veritable Versailles, with beautiful avenues of trees, lakes, waterfalls and every other enhancement of the landscape that money and good taste can procure. I have never seen more beautiful grounds or a more attractively decorated and beautifully furnished house than this one where our particular General was living with his staff.

During my visit to this army, I saw and talked with the General commanding twice, and he permitted me to see his maps and gave his consent to my visiting any of his line which I desired to see. He sent one of his staff with me, who spoke English, as a guide and interpreter. Again I regret I cannot give the General’s name, but suffice to say that from this head-quarters I gathered that, barring the failure of their centre army, a retreat would probably have been unnecessary, though it is folly to disguise the fact that this army was hard pressed, suffered not a little, and was constantly outnumbered in both men and munitions. It is probably not unfair to place its whole movement under the category of a rear-guard action.

During the retreat from Stryj to the Zota Lipa, where the army was when I visited it, captures of enemy prisoners were made to the number of 53,000, as I was informed by the highest authority. The bulk of these were Austrians. As I said at the time, I incline to think this must be considered one of the most remarkable retreats in history. If I was disposed to doubt this statement when I first heard it, my hesitation vanished, when, during three days, I personally saw between 4,000 and 5,000 Austrian prisoners that had been taken within a week, regardless of the fact that the army was still retiring before the enemy. I think that the mere mention of the matter of prisoners is enough to convince the reader that this army was not a demoralized one, and that the furthest stretch of imagination could not consider it a badly defeated one. A glance at the map serves to show that the country, from the beginning of this retreat to the Zota Lipa, is an ideal one in which to fight defensively! and as a matter of fact the country for 100 versts further east is equally well adapted to the same purpose. A number of streams running almost due north and south flow into the Dniester river, and as each of these rivulets runs between more or less pretentious bluffs it is a very simple matter to hold them with very little fieldworks.

What the Russians have been doing here is this. They take up one of these natural lines of defence and throw up temporary works on the bluffs and wait for the Austrians. When the latter come up they find the Russians too strong to be turned out with anything short of the full enemy strength. Usually a week is taken up by the Austro-German forces in bringing up their full strength, getting their guns in position and preparing for an attack. The Russians in the meantime sit on their hills, taking all the losses that they can get, and repel the Austrian preliminary attacks as long as they can do so without risking too much. By the time that enemy operations have reached a really serious stage, and an attack in force is made, it is discovered that the main force of the Russians has departed, and when the positions are finally carried, only a rearguard of cavalry is discovered holding the trenches; the bulk of these usually get away on their horses, leaving the exhausted Austrians sitting in a hardly-won line with the knowledge that the Russians are already miles away waiting for them to repeat the operation all over again. The prisoners have been captured for the most part in preliminary operations on these works, on occasions where the Russians have made counter attacks or where the Austrians have advanced too far and been cut off. The youth and inexperience of their officers, and the fact that the rank and file have no heart in the fight, have made it easy for them to go too far in the first place, and willing to surrender without a fight when they discover their mistake. All of this I was told at head-quarters, and had an opportunity to verify the next day by going to one of the forward positions on the Zota Lipa.

I have within the last few months, after poking about on the billiard table terrain of the Polish Front, acquired a great liking for hills, protected by woods if possible. I have therefore picked places on this trip where I could get to points of observation from which I could see the terrain without being, shot at, if this could be avoided with dignity. It was just such a place as this towards which we headed the next day. My own impressions were, and still are, that this army might retire further yet from its present positions. There are certain reasons which I cannot divulge at present, but are no doubt understood in England, that makes it unwise for these armies to attempt to hold advance positions if they can fall quietly back without the sacrifice of any positions which will have a bad effect on the Russian campaign as a whole. This particular army with its neighbour to the south can do this for more than 100 versts without materially impairing its own moral, and, as far as I can see, without giving the enemy any other advantage than something to talk about.

On the way out to the positions I passed important bodies of troops “changing front,” for it is hardly possible to call what I witnessed, a retreat. They came swinging down the road laughing, talking and then singing at the top of their lungs. Had I not known the points of the compass, I should have concluded that they had scored a decisive victory and were marching on the capital of the enemy. But of such stuff are the moujik soldiers of the Czar.

We first visited the head-quarters of one of the Army corps, and then motored through Ztoczow, a very beautiful little Austrian town lying just at the gateway between ridges of hills that merge together as they go eastward, making the road climb to the plateau land which, indented by the valleys of the rivers running into the Dniester, stretches practically for 100 versts east of here. Turning south from the little town we climbed up on to this plateau land, and motored for 15 or 20 versts south to the head-quarters of a General commanding a division of Cossack cavalry from the Caucasus. With him we had tea, and as he spoke excellent English I was able to gather much of interest from his point of view. He was not sufficiently near head-quarters nor of rank high enough to be taken into the higher councils, and therefore did not know the reasons for the constant retirements. Again and again he assured me that the positions now held could as far as he was concerned be retained indefinitely. His was the thankless job of the rear guard, and it apparently went against his fighting instincts to occupy these splendid positions and then retire through some greater strategy, which he, far off in the woods from everything, did not understand.

One is constantly impressed with the isolation of the men holding important minor commands. For days and weeks they are without outside news, and many of them have even only a vague idea as to what is going on in neighbouring corps, and almost none at all of the movements in adjoining armies. I was convinced from the way this General—and he was a fine old type—talked, that he did not consider his men had ever been beaten at all, and that he looked upon his movements merely as the result of orders given for higher strategic considerations. From him we went out to the line on the Zota Lipa. The Russians at this time had retired from the Gnita Lipa (the great Austro-German “victory” where they lost between 4,000 and 5,000 prisoners and I know not how many dead and wounded) and had now for four days been quietly sitting on the ridges of the second Lipa waiting for the enemy to come up. I think no army can beat the Russians when it comes to forced marches, and after each of these actions they have retired in two days a distance that takes the enemy four or five to cover. It is because of this speed of travel that there have been stragglers, and it is of such that the enemy have taken the prisoners of whom they boast so much. The position we visited was on a wonderful ridge crested with woods. The river lay so deeply in its little valley that, though but a mile away, we could not see the water at all, but only the shadow wherein it lay. Our trenches were just on the edge of it while our guns and reserves were behind us. From our position we could look into the rear of our trenches, and across the river where the country was more open and where the Austrians were just beginning to develop their advance. Though the Russians had been here for several days, the enemy was just coming up now and had not yet brought up his guns at all.

Our infantry were sniping at the blue figures which dotted the wood a verst or two away, but at such a range that its effect was not apparent. Our guns had not yet fired a shot, and hence the Austrians knew nothing of our position but the fact that they were in contact with snipers in some sort of a trench. In any case the Austrians in a thin blue line which one could see with the naked eye, were busily digging a trench across a field just opposite us and about 4,000 metres distant, while with my glasses I could see the blue-clad figures slipping about on the fringe of the wood behind their trench diggers. Our observation point was under a big tree on an advanced spur of the hill, a position which I think would not be held long after the arrival of the Austrian guns. The battery commander had screwed his hyperscope into the tree trunk, and was hopping about in impatience because his field wire had not yet come up from the battery position in the rear. He smacked his lips with anticipation as he saw the constantly, increasing numbers of the enemy parading about opposite without any cover, and at frequent intervals kept sending messengers to hurry on the field telegraph corps.

In a few minutes there came a rustle in the brush, and two soldiers with a reel unwinding wire came over the crest, and dropping on their knees behind some bushes a few yards away, made a quick connection with the telephone instrument, and then announced to the commander that he was in touch with his guns. Instantly his face lit up, but before speaking he turned and took a squint through his hyperscope; then with clenched fist held at arms length he made a quick estimate of the range and snapped out an order over his shoulder. The orderly at the ’phone mumbled something into the mouthpiece of the instrument. “All ready,” he called to the commander. “Fire,” came the quick response. Instantly there came a crash from behind us. I had not realized that the guns were so near until I heard the report and the shell whine over our heads. We stood with our glasses watching the Austrians. A few seconds later came the white puff in the air appearing suddenly as from nowhere, and then the report of the explosion drifted back to us on the breeze. The shot was high and over. Another quick order, and another screamed over our head, this time bursting well in front of the trench.

Through my glasses I could see that there was some agitation among the blue figures in the field across the river. Again the gun behind us snapped out its report, and this time the shell burst right over the trench and the diggers disappeared as by magic, and even the blue coats on the edge of the wood suddenly vanished from our view. The artillery officer smiled quietly, took another good look through the glass at his target, called back an order, and the battery came into action with shell after shell breaking directly over the trench. But as far as we could see there was not a living soul, only the dark brown ridge where lay the shallow ditch which the Austrians had been digging. The value of the shrapnel was gone, and the Captain sighed a little as he called for his carefully saved and precious high-explosives, of which as I learned he had very few to spare. The first fell directly in an angle of the trench, and burst with the heavy detonation of the higher explosive, sending up a little volcano of dust and smoke, while for a minute the hole smoked as though the earth were on fire.

“They are in that place right enough,” was the verdict of the director, “I saw them go. I’ll try another,” and a second later another shell burst in almost the identical spot. That it had found a living target there could be no doubt, for suddenly the field was dotted with the blue coats scampering in all directions for the friendly shelter of the wood in their rear. It was an object lesson of the difference in effectiveness between high explosive and shrapnel. The Captain laughed gleefully at his success as he watched the effect of his practice. Nearly all the Austrians were running, but away to the right was a group of five, old timers perhaps who declined to run, and they strolled leisurely away in the manner of veterans who scorn to hurry. The Commander again held out his fist, made a quick estimate of the range and called a deviation of target and a slight elevation of the gun. Again the gun crashed behind us and I saw the shell fall squarely in the centre of the group. From the smoking crater three figures darted at full speed. I saw nothing of the other two. No doubt their fragments lay quivering in the heap of earth and dust from which the fumes poured for fully a minute. It was excellent practice, and when I congratulated the officer he smiled and clicked his heels as pleased as a child. We saw nothing more of the enemy while we remained. No doubt they were waiting for the night to come to resume their digging operations.

How long the Russians will remain on this line can be merely speculation. Many of these lines that are taken up temporarily prove unusually strong, or the enemy proves unexpectedly weak, and what was intended as only a halt, gradually becomes strengthened until it may become the final line. My own idea was, however, that after forcing the Austrians to develop their full strength and suffer the same heavy losses, the Russians would again retire to a similar position and do it all over again. It is this type of action which is slowly breaking the hearts of the enemy. Again and again they are forced into these actions which make them develop their full strength and are taken only when supported by their heavy guns, only to find, when it is all over, that the Russians have departed and are already complacently awaiting them a few days’ marches further on. This kind of game has already told heavily on the Austrian spirits. How much longer they can keep it up one can only guess. I don’t think they can do it much longer, as not one of these advances is now yielding them any strategic benefit, and the asset of a talking point to be given out by the German Press Bureau probably does not impress them as a sufficiently good reason to keep taking these losses and making these sacrifices.

Leaving the position we returned to our base, where we spent the night preparatory to moving on the next day to the army that lies next in the line north of us, being the third from the extreme Russian left. My impressions of the condition and spirit of the army visited this day were very satisfactory, and I felt as I did about its southern neighbor—that its movements for the moment have not a vast importance. It may go back now, but when the conditions which are necessary are fulfilled it can almost certainly advance. Probably we need expect nothing important for some months here and further retirements may be viewed with equanimity by the Allies. Not too far away there is a final line which they will not leave without a definite stand and from which I question if they can be driven at all.

A VISIT TO AN HISTORIC ARMY