The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Russian Campaign, by Stanley Washburn, Illustrated by George H. Mewes This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: The Russian Campaign April to August, 1915, Being the Second Volume of "Field Notes from the Russian Front" Author: Stanley Washburn Release Date: March 25, 2016 [eBook #51551] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN*** E-text prepared by Brian Coe, Wayne Hammond, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (https://archive.org/details/americana) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See https://archive.org/details/russiancampaigna00wash THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN APRIL TO AUGUST, 1915 Other Books by STANLEY WASHBURN. Trails, Trappers, and Tenderfeet Price 10s. 6d. net. Second Edition. Nogi Large crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. net. The Cable Game Price 4s. 6d. net. Two in the Wilderness: A Romance of North-Western Canada Price 6s. Fourth Edition. London: Andrew Melrose, Ltd. HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE TSAR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS. Frontispiece.] [Photo, Record Press. THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN APRIL TO AUGUST, 1915, BEING THE SECOND VOLUME OF “FIELD NOTES FROM THE RUSSIAN FRONT” By STANLEY WASHBURN (Special Correspondent of “The Times” with the Russian Armies) WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY GEORGE H. MEWES LONDON: ANDREW MELROSE, LTD. 3 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. The illustrations in this book are from the photographs of Mr. George H. Mewes, who accompanied Mr. Washburn in all his tours. They are reproduced here by courtesy of the “Daily Mirror.” Dedication. To Lord Northcliffe and the Editors of “The Times” London In Appreciation of a Year of Loyal Support and Co-operation. M INTRODUCTION any of my friends have urged me not to publish this, the second volume of Field Notes from the Russian Front, on the ground that the fortunes of Russia and the Russian armies were on the wane, and that the optimism which I have always felt has proved itself unfounded by the events of the past few months. It is for the very reason that conditions in Russia are momentarily unfavourable that I am glad to publish this book at this time, as a vindication of my faith and belief in the common soldiers and officers of an army with which I have been associated for nearly a year. During the advances and successes in Galicia and Poland a year ago I found the Russian troops admirable, and now in the hour of their reverses and disappointments they are superb. I retract nothing that I have said before, and resting my faith in the justice of the cause, the unflinching character of the people, and the matchless courage of the Russian soldiers, I am glad in this moment of depression to have the chance to vindicate my own belief in their ultimate victory in the East. The Russians for more than a year have laboured under innumerable difficulties. Without munitions, and handicapped in a hundred ways, they have held themselves intact before the relentless drives of the most efficient army in the world. Though they have fallen by the hundreds of thousands, their spirits have not been broken. The loss of Warsaw and numerous other positions has not shaken their morale. History will record this campaign as one in which character fought against efficient machinery, and was not found wanting. In the final issue I have never doubted that character would prevail. When the Russians get munitions and their other military needs, they will again advance, and no one who knows the Russian army doubts that within it lies the capacity to go forward when the time is ripe. Nothing is more fallacious than to judge the outcome of this campaign by pins moved backward or forward on the map of Europe. There are great fundamental questions that lie behind the merely military aspects of the campaign; questions of morals, ethics, equity, and justice. These qualities, backed by men of tenacity, courage, and the capacity to sacrifice themselves indefinitely in their cause, are greater ultimate assets than battalions and 42-centimetre guns. That the Russians possess these assets is my belief, and with the fixed opinion that my faith is well-founded, and that the reverses of this summer are but temporary and ephemeral phases of this vast campaign, it is with equanimity and without reservation that I have authorized my publisher to send these pages to the printer. The defects of hurriedly written copy are of course apparent in these notes, but, as in my first volume, it has seemed wiser to publish them with all their faults, than to wait until the situation has passed and news from Russia has no moral value. STANLEY WASHBURN. Petrograd, Russia, September 3, 1915. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I The Fall of Przemysl 3 II Warsaw in April, 1915 41 III An American Doctor in the Russian Army 53 IV General Russky’s Successor 63 V Checking up the Situation in Poland 75 VI A Visit to the Positions 87 VII A Summer Day on the Rawka Line 99 VIII The Change of Front in Poland and the Battle of Opatov 113 IX With the Army in Southern Poland 127 X An Afternoon at the “Positions” 141 XI How the Russians Met the First Gas Attack 157 XII Some Details Regarding the Gas Horror 169 XIII The Bzura Front in June 185 XIV The Galician Front 199 XV The German Drive in Galicia 209 XVI The Front of Ivanov 221 XVII Hunting for the Army of the Bukovina 235 XVIII The Russian Left 247 XIX With a Russian Cavalry Corps 259 XX On the Zota Lipa 273 XXI A Visit to an Historic Army 289 XXII The New Army of the Former Dunajec Line 301 XXIII Back to the Warsaw Front 311 XXIV The Loss of Warsaw 319 XXV Conclusion 339 TO FACE PAGE His Imperial Majesty the Tsar of all the Russias Frontis. Occupation of Przemysl by the Russians. Austrians leaving as prisoners 4 Austrian prisoners leaving Przemysl 6 Russian occupation of Przemysl 6 Cossack patrol entering Przemysl 8 Russian occupation of Przemysl. Governor’s bodyguard entering Government House 8 Destroyed by the Austrians before leaving Przemysl 12 Principal street in Przemysl 12 Austrian and Hungarian prisoners en route to Lwow 14 Austrian prisoners resting by the roadside during their march from Przemysl 17 Austrian prisoners leaving Przemysl 20 Russian Governor of Przemysl 33 Russian occupation of Przemysl. Headquarters of Staff 35 Feeding Austrian prisoners en route to Lwow 37 General Hubert, Chief of Austrian Staff in Przemysl 38 A Russian officer inspecting eight-inch gun 44 Russian bath train 48 The Emperor with his Staff 56 Russian nurses attend to the feeding of the soldiers 56 Russian soldiers performing their native dance 68 The Polish Legion. Note the small boy in the ranks as mascot 76 The Vistula (winter) 80 Russian officers in an artillery observation position 92 A first-line trench in Poland 104 Russian General inspecting his gunners 106 Telephoning to the battery from the observation position 108 In the trenches near Opatov 116 Second-line trenches, Opatov 118 A second-line trench near Opatov 122 A Russian first-line trench near Lublin 128 German position near Lublin 129 March-past of the Gonogoriski Regiment 130 Men of the Gonogoriski Regiment cheering King George V 132 Men of the Gonogoriski Regiment 134 Howitzer battery in Poland 142 Cossacks on the Dniester. Officers’ quarters in the woods 144 The Polish Legion 150 The colours of the Siberians 164 Respirator drill in the trenches 172 Austrians leaving Przemysl 172 Siberians returning from the trenches 178 General Brussilov 213 General Ivanov 222 My car in a Galician village 222 G. H. Mewes 248 Stanley Washburn, Prince Oblensky, Count Tolstoy, Count Keller 251 Cossacks dancing the Tartars’ native dance 254 H.I.H. The Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch, Commander of two divisions of Cossacks 261 The Russian soldier at meal-time. Ten men share the soup 268 Cavalry taking up position 280 Russian band playing the men to the trenches 280 After the Russian evacuation of Lwow. The Bug Lancers retreating in good order 290 A Russian eight-inch gun going into position during the fighting round Lublin 302 Russian artillery officers in an observation position during the fighting round Lublin 306 Retreat from Warsaw. Burning crops 312 The retreat from Warsaw. A Jewish family leaving Warsaw 312 Retreat from Warsaw. A Polish Jew 314 The evacuation of Warsaw. Copper and bells were all taken away 316 The retreat from Warsaw 319 The retreat from Warsaw. Ammunition on the road 320 During the retreat from Warsaw 322 Russian armoured motor-car. 322 The retreat from Warsaw. Wounded in a barn outside Warsaw 324 The retreat from Warsaw. German prisoners housed in a barn 326 The retreat from Warsaw. Artillery on the road 328 During the retreat from Warsaw. Note wounded man in foreground 330 The retreat from Warsaw. One of the last regiments to pass through Warsaw 332 Siberians leaving the last trench before Warsaw 334 A batch of German prisoners captured during the retreat from Warsaw 339 Refugees on the road to Brest-Litovsk 340 Roll call during the retreat from Warsaw. All that was left of them 342 Resting during the retreat from Warsaw 344 Wounded returning to Warsaw 346 On the banks of the River Dniester 346 THE FALL OF PRZEMYSL T CHAPTER I THE FALL OF PRZEMYSL Dated: Lwow, Galicia, April 1, 1915. I he news of the fall of Przemysl reached Petrograd on the morning of March 23, and the announcement was given out by the War Office at noon. The spring is very late in Russia this year, and so much snow and such intense cold have not been known so late in March for more than a hundred years. On the 23rd it was snowing heavily in Petrograd and a biting wind was sweeping through the streets. Save for an occasional street car and foot passengers the Moika and even the Nevsky Prospekt were at noon almost as empty as at midnight. And then came the announcement that the great fortress in Galicia had fallen. In an hour the news was all over the town and in spite of the inclement weather the streets were thronged with eager Russians, from Prince to Moujik, anxiously asking each other if the news which had been so long promised could really be true. The fall of Przemysl it must be remembered had been reported at least a dozen times in Petrograd before this. There are people in as well as out of Russia, who like to say that the man in the street over here cares nothing for the war and knows less, but on this particular day these people were silent. It was no wonder. If ever a people genuinely rejoiced over good news it was the citizens of all classes of Russia’s capital when it became known that Przemysl was at last in Russian hands. By three in the afternoon, crowds had organized themselves into bands, and with the Russian flag waving in front, and a portrait of the Czar carried before, dozens of bands marched through the streets chanting the deep-throated Russian National anthem; one of the most impressive hymns in the world. Though the snow was still falling and a nipping wind blowing, thousands of the crowds that now perambulated the streets stood bareheaded in the blast as each procession passed. Old retired generals of seventy and more stood at rigid attention as the portrait of their monarch and the flag of their nation was borne past. Moujiks, princes, men and women, the aged and the young alike, displayed the same spirit of ardour and enthusiasm as each demonstration came down the street. While it is true that there is not in Russia what we in the West call public opinion, yet a stranger living here during this war comes to feel that there is growing up a spirit that is uniting all classes. This is the great hope for the war. It is also Russia’s hope for the future. In another generation it is destined to bring forth greater progress and unity than the Empire of the Czar has ever known. Occupation of Przemysl by the Russians. Austrians leaving as prisoners. The Russians entering the town. The people of Petrograd have followed the war much more closely than one would have believed possible. Over here there has been action from the day the war started, and hardly a month when gigantic movements of some sort or other have not been under weigh. Petrograd has been called on again and again to furnish new troops, and from September until to-day there has not been a week that one could not see new troops drilling in the streets. Russia has had great successes and great setbacks, but each alike strengthens the same stubborn determination to keep pressing forward. There was great disappointment when the Russian army withdrew a few weeks ago from East Prussia, but it began to abate when it became known that the German advance was checked. The Russians, as is their habit, had pulled themselves together, and slowly but surely were pushing back the invader just as they did in the dreary days following the Samsonov disaster in the first days of the war. Then came the news of Galicia and the greatest single success that the war has brought to any of the Allies, or for that matter to any of the belligerent powers. When the details of the numbers of the captured began to leak out, the importance of the success was first realized, and not without reason did the Russians begin to allude to the fall of Przemysl as a second Metz. It was generally believed that the garrison shut up within the fortress did not total above 50,000 men, and none were more surprised than the victors, when they learned that more than 131,000 soldiers and nearly 4,000 officers had fallen into their hands, not to mention a number of guns of all calibres amounting probably to above 300. These unfortunately have been rendered useless by the Austrians and must be charged as a heavy loss to them rather than as any direct military asset gained by the Russians. Austrian prisoners leaving Przemysl. Russian occupation of Przemysl. Austrian officers pay a last visit to the Russian head-quarters before leaving for Lwow. Well may the Russians take pride in what their new army has accomplished, for one must go back to the taking of Plevna to find any such landmark in the history of Russian siege operations. The last great siege in Muscovite history was that of Port Arthur, and one cannot but contrast the state of matters in Russia ten years ago, and now. Port Arthur fell after a long series of disasters to the Russian arms, and the people all over the Empire received the tidings without interest and with that dumb resignation to disaster that is characteristic of their fatalistic temperament. A spirit of hopelessness and despondency and pessimism pervaded every class of Russian society. Announcements of new defeats were heard without surprise and almost without interest. “Of course, what do you expect?” one would hear on all sides, “Russian troops never win.” But now there is quite a different point of view. Even the moujik has come to feel a pride and confidence in his army and in its victories. Their successes are his successes, and their defeats are his defeats. One who takes interest in studying the psychology of countries comes to realize that pride of race and confidence in one’s blood is the greatest asset that any nation can possess. Throughout Russia, the cause in which her Armies are engaged has come to be more nearly understood than any war she has ever engaged in. It is not true of course that the peasant knows as much as does the British Tommy; nor is there anything like the same enlightenment that prevails in the Western Armies. But in fairness to Russia she must not be judged from a Western standpoint, but compared with herself ten years ago. As has been written by a dozen writers from Russia in the last six months the new spirit was crystallized when the war began. It has had its ups and its downs with the varying reports from the Front, but as each defeat has been turned into a stepping stone for a subsequent advance, public confidence has gradually mounted higher and higher, until, with the fall of Przemysl, we find Russian sentiment and confidence in Russia at probably the highest point that has ever been reached in the history of the Empire. The dawn of the new day of which we hear so much over here now, bears every indication of being the beginning of the much heralded new Era in this country. II Galicia is still under martial law, and one cannot even enter the new Russian province without a permit issued by the General Staff. It is of course even more difficult for one to get into the actual theatre of war. A wire, however, from the Staff of the Generalissimo to the powers that be in Petrograd, made the way to Przemysl possible, and a few days after the fortress had fallen the writer reached Lwow. The Russian-gauged railroad has been pushed south of the old frontier line to the town of Krasne, famous as the centre of the battle-line of Austrian defence in the days when the armies of Russky were pushing on toward Lwow. Cossack patrol entering Przemysl. Russian occupation of Przemysl. Governor’s bodyguard entering Government House. It was originally intended to widen the Austrian tracks to take the Russian rolling stock, so that trains might proceed direct to the capital of Galicia; but it was found that the expense of carrying on operations which meant the widening of every bridge and the strengthening of every culvert and elevated way, to take the heavier equipment, would involve time and expense scarcely less than building a new line complete. The result is that one still changes carriages some distance out of Lwow, a handicap that is trifling for passenger traffic, but involving very real inconvenience and delays in the handling of the vast amount of freight and munitions that go to supply the huge armies in the field in Galicia. Lwow itself is no longer the dismal place that it was in the early autumn when almost every public building was a hospital, and the station a receiving depot for the thousands of fresh wounded that poured in by train-loads from the positions on the San and from the trenches before Przemysl, which was just then undergoing its first investment. Where stretchers and throngs of wounded formerly filled every available foot of ground in the huge terminus a few months ago, all is now orderly and very much as in the days before the war. The hotels which in October were filled to overflowing with officers and Red Cross nurses, are now comparatively quiet, and the city itself, barring troops going through and prisoners coming from Przemysl, is not far from normal. A few hours after arriving the writer was received by Count Brobinsky, who frankly expressed his delight and relief at the capture of the Galician fortress. There are of course a large number of Austrians in Galicia, and ever since the Russian occupation in September a pro- German-Austrian propaganda has been kept up here. Every reverse to the Dual Alliance has been minimized as much as possible, and every effort was subtly made by the German-Austrian agents of the enemy to prevent the peasants and that portion of the population here which sympathizes with the Russians, from co-operating in the new régime. They were assured that soon the Austrians would be coming back, and fears of reprisals when the day came have no doubt restrained a large number of Little Russians, Poles and others from openly supporting the efforts of the new government to restore Galicia to its normal state. But with each month it has become increasingly difficult for the Austrian sympathizers to make the public believe that the Russian occupation was only a temporary wave that would shortly recede. Austro-German advances in Bukowina, and the really serious aggressive attempts through the Carpathians no doubt helped to render conditions unsettled. Then came the check of the Austrian advance in Bukowina and the gradual reclaiming by the Russians of the ground lost at the first impetus of the enemy’s offensive. This was followed by the failure of the relieving column to make satisfactory headway toward its objective at Przemysl. In spite of all these very obvious failures to achieve any definite advantage over the Russians, the spirits of the anti- Russian element were kept buoyed up by the spectacle of the great fortress in Galicia still holding out. “As long as Przemysl stands out there is hope,” seems to have been the general opinion of all who wished ill to the Russians. Thus the fortress, which at the outset might have been abandoned with small loss of prestige to the Austrians, gradually came to have a political as well as military significance of the most far reaching importance. In the general crash after the battle of the Grodek line, the loss of a town which until then had never been heard of in the West, outside of military circles, would have escaped anything more than passing comment. Not until the Russian armies had actually swept past its trenches and masked its forts, did the world at large know that such a place was on the map; even then the greatest interest manifested was in the vexed question as to how its name was pronounced, if indeed it could be done at all, an opinion which was held by not a few people. This place which could have been given up earlier in the war without any important sacrifice was held tenaciously and became one of the vital points of strategy in the whole campaign. An army which turned out to be a huge one, was isolated from the field armies of Austria at a time when she needed every able-bodied man that she could get; and Przemysl, which, as we see now, was doomed from the start, was allowed to assume an importance in the campaign which made its fall not only a severe military loss but a blow to the hopes of the Austrians, both at home and in Galicia. The fall of this fortress has gone further towards shattering any hopes of ultimate victory that have been entertained than anything that has occurred since the war started. Destroyed by the Austrians before leaving Przemysl. Principal street in Przemysl. As Count Brobinsky, who for six months now has been straggling to readjust Galicia to the normal, said, his task has now been enormously simplified, and there is scarcely an element left here that now believes there is any chance of Austria winning back her lost province. The Austrian agents have abandoned hope, and the Russian sympathizers are now openly declaring their loyalty to the new régime. There is, however, a class of bureaucrats left here aggregating, I am informed, nearly 40,000 in number. This class is composed of Poles, Austrians and others who for generations have been holding the best offices at the disposal of the Vienna government. These are of course, almost to a man, out of their lucrative posts, and represent the element that has most vigorously, if quietly, attempted to undermine the activities of the government installed here by Russia. But even these see in the collapse of their great fortress the evaporation of their chief hopes. As Galicia is still under martial law, all the motor cars have been taken over by the military authorities and so, even armed with passes and permits, we found it all but impossible to reach Przemysl. The best horses here are in the army service, and the few skinny horses attached to the cabs find it difficult even to stagger from the station to the hotel, and it was out of the question to go by carriage the 94 kilometres to Przemysl. But when we told Count Brobinsky of our difficulties, he solved them by promptly placing a huge military touring car at our disposal; he further paved the way for a pleasant trip to the scene of the Russian achievement by giving us a personal letter of introduction to General Atrimanov, the new Russian commandant of the captured fortress. III The spring is late here as it is throughout Russia this year, and it was snowing heavily as our big touring car, with a soldier as chauffeur, threaded its way in the early morning through the narrow streets of Lwow and out into the open country which was now almost white. Before we have been twenty minutes on the road we begin to pass occasional groups of dismal wretches in the blue uniform which before this war was wont to typify the might of the Hapsburgs, but which now in Galicia is the symbol of dejection and defeat. Through the falling snow they plod in little parties of from three to a dozen; evidently the rear guard of the column that went through yesterday, for they are absolutely without guards, and are no doubt simply dragging on after their regiments. Austrian and Hungarian prisoners en route to Lwow. From Lwow almost due west runs the line of the highway to Grodek where we get our first glimpse of prisoners in bulk. Here, at the scene of some of the fiercest fighting that the war has produced, is a rest station for the columns that are making the journey to Russian captivity on foot from Przemysl to Lwow, and I know not how far beyond. As we motor into the town the three battalions of the 9th Hungarian regiment of the 54th Landsturm brigade are just straggling into the town from the west. With a few Russians who seem to be acting as guides and nurses rather than as guards, they file through the streets and into a great square of a barracks. Here they are marshalled in columns of four, and marched past the door of the barracks where an official counts the individual fours and makes a note of the number that have passed his station. Beyond in a grove the ranks are broken, and the weary-looking men drop down under the trees, regardless of the snow and mud, and shift their burdens and gnaw at the hunks of bread and other provisions furnished them by the Russians. It is hard to realize that the haggard despondent rabble that we see has ever been part of an actual army in being. Most of them were evidently clothed for a summer campaign, and their thin and tattered uniform overcoats must have given but scant warmth during the winter that has passed. The line is studded with civilian overcoats, and many of the prisoners have only a cap or a fragment of a uniform which identifies them as ever having been soldiers at all. The women of the village pass up and down the line giving the weary troops bits of provision not in the Russian menu. All the men are wan and thin, with dreary hopelessness written large upon their faces, and a vacant stare of utter desolation in their hollow eyes. They accept gladly what is given and make no comment. They get up and sit down as directed by their guards, apparently with no more sense of initiative or independence of will than the merest automatons. We pause but a few minutes, for the roads are bad and we are anxious to get over the muddy way as quickly as possible. The western portion of Grodek was badly knocked up by shell fire during the battle in September, and the barren walls of charred buildings remain to tell the story of the Austrian effort to stay the tide of the Russian advance that swept them out of position after position during the first weeks of the war. Grodek was reported to have been utterly destroyed at the time, but as a fact, not more than one-fifth of the buildings were even damaged by the artillery fire. Austrian prisoners resting by the roadside during their march from Przemysl. Just east of Sadowa Wisznia, the scene of another Austrian stand, we come upon a regiment attached to the 54th Landsturm brigade. This is the tenth regiment, and, with the exception of a few non-commissioned officers, is composed entirely of Slovaks and Hungarians. They are resting as we motor up, and for nearly a mile they are sitting dejectedly by the side of the road, some with heads resting wearily against tree trunks, while dozens of others are lying in the snow and mud apparently asleep. As nearly as I could estimate, there is about one Russian to a hundred prisoners. In any case one has to look about sharply to see the guards at all. It reminds one a bit of trying to pick a queen bee out of a swarm of workers. Usually one discovers the guard sitting with a group of prisoners, talking genially, his rifle leaning against the trunk of a tree near by. We stopped here for about half an hour while I walked about trying to find some prisoners who could speak German, but for the most part that language was unknown to them. At last I discovered a couple of non-commissioned officers, who, when they heard that I was an American, opened up and talked quite freely. Both took great pride in repeating the statement that Przemysl could never have been taken by assault, and that it had only surrendered because of lack of food. One of the men was from Vienna and extremely pro-German in his point of view. He took it as a matter of course that the Austrians were defeated everywhere, but seemed to feel a confidence that could not be shaken in the German troops. He knew nothing of the situation outside of his own garrison, and when told of Kitchener’s new British Army, laughed sardonically. “It is a joke,” he said, “Kitchener’s army is only on paper, and even if they had half a million as they claim to have, they would be of no use. The English cannot fight at all.” When told that over two million men had been recruited in the British Empire he opened his eyes a bit, but after swallowing a few times he came back, “Well even if they have it does not matter. They can’t fight.” The other man whom I questioned was mainly interested in how long the war was going to last. He did not seem to feel any particular regret at the fall of the fortress, nor to care very much who won, as long as it would soon be over so that he could go home again. As for the rank and file I think it perfectly safe to suggest that not one in a hundred has any feeling at all except that of hopeless perpetual misery. They have been driven into a war for which they care little, they have been forced to endure the hardships of a winter in the trenches with insufficient clothing, a winter terminating with a failure of food supplies that brought them all to the verge of starvation. The fall of the fortress means to them three meals of some sort a day, and treatment probably kinder than they ever got from their own officers. They are at least freed from the burden of war and relieved of the constant menace of sudden death which has been their portion since August. The road leading west from Sadowa Wisznia is in fearful condition owing to the heavy traffic of the Russian transport, and in places the mud was a foot deep. The country here is flat with occasional patches of fir and spruce timber. It is questionable if there ever was much prosperity in this belt; and since it has been swept for six months by contending armies, one cannot feel much optimism as to what the future has in store for the unfortunate peasants whose homes are destroyed, and whose live stock is said to have been taken off by the Austrians as they fell back before the Russians. IV One’s preconceived idea of what a modern fortress looks like vanishes rapidly as one enters Przemysl. In time of peace it is probable that a layman might pass into this town without suspecting at all that its power of resisting attack is nearly as great as any position in all Europe. Now, of course, innumerable field works, trenches, and improvised defences at once attract the attention; but other than these there is visible from the main road but one fortress, which, approached from the east is so extremely unpretentious in appearance that it is doubtful if one would give it more than a passing glance if one were not on the lookout for it. Przemysl itself is an extremely old town which I believe was for nearly 1,000 years a Russian city. From remote days of antiquity it has been a fortress, and following the ancient tradition, each successive generation has kept improving its defences until to-day it is in reality a modern stronghold. Why the Austrians have made this city, which in itself is of no great importance, the site of their strongest position, is not in the least obvious to the layman observer. The town itself, a mixture of quaint old buildings and comparatively modern structures, lies on the east bank of the river San—which at this point is about the size of the Bow river at Calgary, in Canada—and perhaps 3 kilometres above the point where the small stream of the Wiar comes in from the south. The little city is hardly visible until one is almost upon it, so well screened is it by rolling hills that lie all about it. Probably the prevailing impression in the world has been that the Russian great guns have been dropping shells into the heart of the town; many people even in Lwow believe it to be in a half-ruined condition. As a matter of fact the nearest of the first line of forts is about 10 kilometres from the town itself, so that in the whole siege not a shell from the Russian batteries has fallen in the town itself. Probably none has actually fallen within 5 kilometres of the city. There was therefore no danger of the civilian population suffering anything from the bombardment while the outer line of forts held as they did from the beginning. Austrian prisoners leaving Przemysl. The only forts or works which we were given the opportunity of seeing, were those visible from the road, the authorities informing us that they had reason to believe that many of the trenches and positions were mined, and that no one would be permitted in them until they had been examined by the engineers of the army and pronounced safe. If the works seen from the road are typical of the defences, and I believe they are, one can quite well realize the impregnable nature of the whole position. The road from Lwow comes over the crest of a hill and stretches like a broad ribbon for perhaps 5 kilometres over an open plain, on the western edge of which a slight rise of ground gives the elevation necessary for the first Austrian line. To the north of the road is a fort, with the glacis so beautifully sodded that it is hardly noticeable as one approaches, though the back is dug out and galleried for heavy guns. Before this is a ditch with six rows of sunken barbed wire entanglements, and a hundred yards from this is another series of entanglements twelve rows deep, and so criss-crossed with barbed wire that it would take a man hours to cut his way through with no other opposition. To the right of the road runs a beautifully constructed line of modern trenches. These are covered in and sodded and buried in earth deep enough to keep out anything less than a 6-inch field howitzer shell unless it came at a very abrupt angle. To shrapnel or any field gun high explosive shell, I should think it would have proved invulnerable. The trench itself lies on a slight crest with enough elevation to give loop holes command of the terrain before. The field of fire visible from these trenches is at least 4 kilometres of country, and so perfectly cleared of shelter of all sorts that it would be difficult for a rabbit to cross it unseen. The ditch and two series of wire entanglements extend in front of the entire position. This line is, I believe, typical of the whole outer line of fortifications, which is composed of a number of forts all of which are tied together with the line of trenches. The outer line is above 40 kilometres in circumference, from which it may be judged to what great expense Austria has been put in fortifying this city. I was not able to get any accurate information as to the number of guns which the Austrians have on their various positions, but the opinion of a