Part 9

These Czechs confidently assured me that any Russian troops that entered Bohemia would be welcomed as friends; and they claimed that not only the neighboring Moravians and Slovaks but also the Croats further south were to be taken as feeling as they did. The Bohemians and Moravians seem to be surrendering in the largest numbers of all; and though the Viennese claimed that large numbers of Russians had also been taken, I cannot regard as anything but exceptional the enormous batches of blue uniforms that I passed on the road here. I asked these men about their greatcoats and was not at all surprised when they said they felt cold in them. It is nothing like such a practical winter outfit, whether for head, body or legs, as that of the Russian soldier.

We came very well over the last part of our journey. I was sorry to part with the friendly sanitars, who all seemed old acquaintances by the end of the journey and invited me to take up my quarters permanently with them. Theirs was more than ordinary kindness, as they had shared everything they had with me, including their little sleeping apartment. The bearer company under their orders is all composed of Mennonites, a German religious sect from South Russia which objects to war on principle and, being excused military service even in this tremendous struggle, seems to be serving wholesale as ambulance volunteers.

As there were none but soldiers about, these men helped me out with my luggage; and through the window of the First Aid point in Tarnow station, I saw another acquaintance waving me a welcome. This is the last point that the railway can serve; and my friends will go back with a full burden, which will keep the medical staff busy day and night all the way. One of my new companions, who has been out to a village to get milk for the wounded, has seen the shrapnel bursting; and the guns are sounding loud and clear near the town as I write this. It is here that the most seriously wounded must be treated at once, as a railway journey would simply mean death for them. This is brought home to one, if one only looks at the faces of the workers. Yet with this huge line of operations, and the assaults which may be made at any point of it, at any moment the nearest field hospitals may need to send off any wounded who can be moved without delay. Though the work is being done with danger all round, less thought is being given to it than anywhere that I have been yet.

IV--CHRISTMAS IN AN AUSTRIAN HOSPITAL

Christmas Eve: peace on earth and good will toward men. And all through "the still night, the holy night," the sound that means killing goes on almost continuously. How can any one say prayers for a world which is at war, or for himself that is a part of it? May God, who knows everything, help each of us to bear our part and not disgrace Him, and make us instruments to the end that He wishes.

Christmas day I spent in the hospitals. In one ward, at a local Austrian hospital, and full of wounded, I found that almost every one of the line of patients was of a different nationality. Going round the room, one found first a Pole of western Galicia, then a Russian from the Urals, next a Ruthenian (Little Russian) from eastern Galicia, next a Magyar from Hungary, and against the wall a young German from Westphalia. After him came an Austrian-German from Salzburg, a Serbian from southern Hungary, another Ruthenian, an Austrian-German from Moravia, an Austrian-German from Bohemia, and a Moravian from Moravia.

I spent a couple of hours here, talking sometimes with each of the patients, sometimes with all. The Pole knew only Polish and the bearded Russian, who had a bad body wound, was too tired to talk much. Of the Ruthenians one was a frail, white-faced boy from close to the Russian frontier who seemed, like most of his people, subdued, and confused with the strangeness of his position in fighting against his own people; the other was a lumpish boy without much intelligence. The thin, bearded Hungarian, who knew no German but a little Russian, was mostly groaning or dozing. The Salzburg Austrian was dazed and drowsy, but at intervals talked quietly of his pleasant homeland.

The German stood out from the rest. He was a bright, vigorous boy of twenty, had gone as a volunteer and was tremendously proud of the spirit of the German army. He had fought against the French during four days of pouring rain, mostly in standing water. The Bavarians, who seemed to have quarrelled with the other troops in that part, were making war atrociously, he said, knifing the inhabitants, insulting the women and destroying all that came in their way. He was later moved to the Carpathians, where one German division fought between two Austrian ones. They advanced in snow without field kitchens, and were not allowed to touch the pigs and poultry that they passed. However, they had enough to eat; and they were hoping to surprise their enemy, when the Russians fell upon them and left only the remnants of a regiment, many of the officers also falling. He himself was wounded in both legs, and was brought here in a cart.

Every German soldier has a prayer-book and a song-book. They constantly sing on the march, and find it a great remedy against fatigue. Songs of Arndt and Körner are very popular, and there is a new version of an old song, which is perhaps the greatest favorite; it begins--

"Oh Deutschland hoch an Ehren, Du heil'ges Land der Treu."

and it goes on to speak of the new exploits in east and west. There are any number of volunteers in Germany; the women are all joining the Red Cross; and the population is busy with every kind of work for the army; but when I asked whether the people were keen for the war, he answered with astonishment, "The people? The people thought that the war was not to be avoided; but that was at the start; now it is different." He asked if there were many other Englishmen in Russia, and when I answered that there were some, he said, to my surprise, "The English are everywhere, they are a fine people--_nobel_." He also asked me on the quiet whether, when he was well, he would be sent to Siberia. He had been told that the Russians were terrible, but had written home to say that he had found them nothing of the sort.

Much of our talk turned on the Austrian army. The German said that it didn't stand firm "unless it was properly led, by Germans." In Bohemia and Moravia the regiments were mixed, Slavs and Austrian-Germans, and according to the Moravian soldiers, were constantly quarrelling; all the officers were Austrian-Germans, and even some of the Hungarian regiments seemed to be commanded by Germans. The young Serbian spoke of frequent quarrels and even brawls between Serbian and Hungarian fellow-soldiers. The great wish of all was that the war should end. When I said that the end was not in sight, the German exclaimed, "More misery, more misery;" a second said, "Oh, Jammer, Jammer" (lamentation), and a third had tears in his eyes.

In another ward I heard more of the Bohemians. There Prussia is the antipathy. There appear to be Czech officers only in the reserve. After the outbreak of war, the Austrians made wholesale arrests among the educated Czechs, quite apart from party politics, and were particularly severe on the gymnastic volunteer organizations (_sokols_), which are popular among all the Slav nationalities of Austria. The Bohemians had not had time to find their legs under the new possibilities created by the Russian successes, but the Russian troops would be sure of a cordial welcome there. The whole of my informant's regiment had surrendered _en masse_; and even in the mobilization of 1914, a Prague regiment had refused to march against Russia and several of the men had been shot. I was told that the Austrian army was much weaker in reserves than the Russian.

V--HOW THE RUSSIAN SOLDIERS DIE

I ended the day at the railway station, where the Russian wounded just brought in were being attended to while the cannon sounded from time to time not far off. Several lay on stretchers in the corridors and others on pallets in the ambulance room, all still in their greatcoats and with their kits lying beneath them. I had no conversations here; there was too much pain, one could only sit by the sufferers or perhaps help them to change their position. First aid had been given elsewhere, but this was the stage when the wounds seem to be felt most. There was wonderfully little complaining. Most were silent, except when a helping hand was needed. One man shot through the chest told me that "By the grace of God, it was nothing to matter." It was always a satisfaction to the men that they had been wounded while attacking. A general walked quickly round, distributing cigarettes, which he put in the men's mouths and himself lighted.

In the night the cannonade sounded close to the town, but seemed farther off again next morning.

To-day I also went round a hospital with the dressers. The work was quickly executed, but much of it was very complicated. One does not describe such scenes, not so much because of the ugly character of many of the wounds, nor because of the end impending over many of the patients. To this last the Russian soldier's attitude is simple--_gilt es dir, oder gilt es mir_. He will speak of it as "going to America," the undiscovered country. But all these things come to be forgotten in the atmosphere of work. Here all the resources of life are going forward in their own slow way, for they can have no quicker, handicapped and outpaced in their struggle to keep up with the work of death.

General Radko Dmitriev is a short and sturdily built man with quick brown eyes and a profile reminiscent of Napoleon. He talks quickly and shortly, sometimes drums on the table with his fingers, and now and then makes a rapid dash for the matches. The daily visit of the Chief of the Staff is short, because, as the General says on his return, simple business is done quickly. Every piece of his incisive conversation holds together as part of a single and clear view of the whole military position, of which the watchword is "Forward."

It is only the heavy rains that have saved the retreating Austrians from further losses. The roads are so broken up and so deep with mud that any quick movement is impossible. This gives the occasion for a useful rest. The cold weather--and it is freezing now--will be welcomed on this side; and the Russian winter kits, which have already been served out, are immeasurably better than the thin blue greatcoats of the draggled and demoralized Austrians.

Numbers of Austrian units are so reduced that they are only shadows of what they were, and some seem to have disappeared altogether. The ordinary drafts came in some time ago and are now exhausted--such is the testimony of Austrian officers. The new Russian recruits, on the contrary, will join the colors shortly.

* * * * *

From the beginning of the war, Bosnians, who are really Serbians, surrendered in large numbers. Then the Poles began to come in, and now the Bohemians. The Hungarians are sure to go on to the end; but the Roumanian and Italian soldiers of Austria have also come over very easily. In front of Cracow a Russian officer under fire came on a whole number of Bohemians who were singing the "Sokol" songs and shouted a greeting as they came into the Russian lines.

* * * * *

These wholesale surrenders have, I think, an extremely interesting political significance. When governments turned the whole people into an army, it was clear that the army was also being turned into the people; but it was not clear how the people could express itself when under army discipline. These surrenders, in their general character and in their differences of detail, are a picture of the feelings and aspirations of the various nationalities which are bundled together under the name of Austria.

* * * * *

At this Staff, as at the General Staff, life was very simple. We all met twice a day for a plain meal without any alcohol; there was plenty of conversation, but it was that of men engaged in responsible work; any news from outside was welcome, especially from the western allies, and there was full appreciation and sympathy for their hard task.

There was plenty of news from other quarters of the Russian front, and one could have a much juster and fuller perspective of how things were going than anywhere behind the army; the two things which stood out even more here than elsewhere were, on the one hand, the immensity of the sacrifices which have been asked and are being cheerfully made by Russia, and, on the other, the sense of quiet confidence as to the ultimate result.

FOOTNOTE:

[16] All numerals relate to stories herein told--not to chapters from original sources.

THE ROMANCE OF THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

_The "Glorious Rascals"_

_Told by E. S. and G. F. Lees_

The reinstatement by the King of Lieutenant-Colonel John Ford Elkington in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, after he had served for twenty-two months with conspicuous bravery in the French Foreign Legion, has once more drawn attention to this unique military organization. As the writers of this story show, "La Légion Etrangère" of our Allies the French is literally steeped in romance, and it is therefore the romantic side of the heroic yet often maligned legionaries which they have set forth most prominently. Practically every man in the corps has a history, if he could only be induced to tell it, and in the present war the Legion has covered itself with glory, as shown in this story in the _Wide World Magazine_.

I--STORY OF "THE GLORIOUS BLACKGUARDS"

Budding novelists in search of ideas for tales of adventure, short story writers who have come to the end of their stock of episodes, and all who wield the pen either for amusement or instruction, may be recommended to turn over the pages that tell the story of the Foreign Legion. There is a whole literature at their disposal, covering a period of more than eighty years and written in almost as many languages as there are nationalities in this remarkable military body, and it teems from beginning to end with incidents which respond to the entire gamut of human emotions.

The Foreign Legion, which in time of peace is composed of between eight and ten thousand men, but which now probably exceeds the strength of an army corps, since no fewer than thirty-two thousand odd foreigners enrolled themselves from August 21st, 1914, to April 1st, 1915, is, as it were, a microcosm of the world. According to official French returns, there were in its ranks at the beginning of the war nine thousand five hundred Alsatians and Lorrainers, fourteen hundred and sixty-two Belgians, three hundred and seventy-nine English, three thousand three hundred and ninety-three Russians, four thousand nine hundred and thirteen Italians, thirteen hundred and eighty Greeks, five hundred and ninety-one Luxembourgers, nine hundred and sixty-nine Spaniards, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven Swiss, thirteen hundred and sixty-nine Austro-Hungarians, one thousand and twenty-seven Germans, five hundred and ninety-two Turks, six hundred Americans, and four thousand two hundred and fifty-four of various other nationalties, including, in all probability, as at the time of the Empire, Poles, Albanians, Croatians, Illyrians, and negroes.

In this world-in-little all classes of society are represented--the prince and the pauper, the scholar and the illiterate, the one-time brilliant officer, prominent financier, and ecclesiastic. All of them are brought to a common level with the lowest of the low through inherent human weakness, some foolish act committed in haste and repented of at leisure, or else through some misfortune or other over which the man who is "down on his luck" has no control whatever.

The social outcast, the deserter, the gambler, the fugitive from justice, the man who has been crossed in love, the desperate man who, on second thoughts, prefers the ranks of the Legion to suicide, the man who has a pure love of soldiering or an inordinate taste for adventure, the out-and-out failure who has been told by his family to "make good" and clean off his debt to society--all of them are found here, living under the shadow of mystery, undergoing the most arduous life imaginable, and, for the most part, suffering in silence. So heterogenous are they that the legionaries, quite unjustly, have been called many ill names. Through the faults of a few, who necessarily find their way into such an organization, they have all been indiscriminately labelled with such epithets as "band of criminals," "degenerates," "troop of dishonoured foreigners," "heartless mercenaries," and so on. But many sins can be forgiven the soldiers of the Legion when we read their history aright, and come to understand their Spartan characters in the hour of trial and danger. And it is for that reason that, despite their antecedents and shortcomings, they are now generally known in French military circles as "The Heroic Rascals," or as "The Glorious Blackguards."

The Foreign Legion can trace its origin to the days of the Scottish archers, employed by Charles VII. of France, and to those of the Swiss, Albanian, Flemish, Walloon, German, Italian, and other mercenaries in the service of his successors. At the time of the Convention, in 1793, an appeal was made to the nations of Europe for soldiers, with the result that several foreign regiments fought with the revolutionary armies. All these, however, were disbanded at the fall of Napoleon. When Louis XVIII. came to the throne he created the Royal Foreign Legion in their place, but they gradually merged into the regular army. However, after the 1830 Revolution the Foreign Legion was revived, and ever since they have taken part in nearly every foreign campaign in which France has been engaged--in the conquest of Algeria, in the Crimean War, in Mexico, Tongking, Formosa, Madagascar, and Morocco.

II--ASYLUM OF BRAVE UNFORTUNATES

Admission to the Legion is not the result of the efforts of the recruiting sergeant. All the men are volunteers, and although all classes and all nationalties are welcome to join they are not unduly encouraged to do so. There have been cases in which men who have come to enlist at the military headquarters in Paris have been told of the disadvantages they would have to encounter, and advised "to think the matter over seriously" before signing away their liberty for a period of five years. Yet, almost to a man, they have come back to undergo the extremely rigorous medical examination--the only examination, by the way, with which they are troubled. For, as regards their real name and nationality, no proofs are required. The authorities show no curiosity whatsoever about a man's past. They take it for granted that he has a very good reason for wishing to disappear for a while from the society of his relatives and friends and become merged with others of like mind in a semi-anonymous body, training, marching, and fighting without respite.

The military authorities formerly used to pay the legionaries the princely salary of a half-penny a day (recently raised to twopence-halfpenny), and their kit does not even include socks, yet they are expected to possess sufficient physical vigour to march a distance of twenty to thirty-two miles, over rocky, slippery ground and through jungles, in less than eight hours, halting only ten minutes each hour, and with a load of seventy to eighty pounds. This is a terrible test of speed and endurance, yet one out of which these men come, through systematic training, with flying colours, and of which they are all of them justly proud. "No questions asked, but strict obedience and iron discipline"--this might be the motto of the corps, in which such famous soldiers as MacMahon, Canrobert, Chanzy, De Négrier, Servière, and Villebois-Mareuil have been officers. In spite of this display of delicacy, however, many a man's story leaks out. He may be as silent as the Sphinx for years, yet the time comes when his taciturnity is overcome through some little incident, and his secret, or part of it, as in a case related by Mr. Frederic Martyn, in his "Life in the Legion," is out.

It was during the French campaign in Mexico, says Mr. Martyn, who himself served for five years in the Legion. A large city having been captured, the general in command wished to propitiate the inhabitants by celebrating a spectacular military High Mass in the cathedral. When all the troops had been assembled, it was found that the clergy had gone on strike. In the face of this dilemma, the general was just about to abandon the ceremony when a corporal of the Legion stepped forward and, saluting, said, "_Mon général_, I was a bishop before I became a corporal, and I will celebrate the Mass." Another eye-witness of this incident states that the ex-bishop also offered to preach a sermon, but the general considered that the Mass alone was sufficient.

M. Maurer, a former officer in the Legion and now President of the Mutual Aid Society for former officers, N. C. O.'s, and soldiers of the foreign regiments in Paris, informed us that he remembered this bishop, whose fall was due to drink.

This recalls another ecclesiastical anecdote. At the time of the Fashoda incident a legionary was drowned at Zarzis whilst attempting to save a fisherman. His comrades made a coffin out of the only wood available, some pieces of old packing-cases, on one of which--the portion, as it happened, which we used for the top--were the words, "Keep the contents dry." Again no priest was thought to be there to perform the last rites over the dead, until an Italian private stepped forward, revealed his priestly identity, and recited the Burial Service by heart.

III--FROM PRINCE TO LEGIONAIRE--THE KAISER'S COUSIN

The fall from bishopric to the rank and file of the Foreign Legion is not the biggest social drop on record in the Legion. In 1897 a young man of twenty-six, who gave his name as Albrecht Friedrich Nornemann, was accepted for service. After ten months in barracks at Géryville he broke down under the severe training, was sent into hospital, and in a few weeks died of phthisis. A day or two later the regiment was astonished to learn that a German war-vessel had entered the harbour, entrusted with the astounding mission of fetching the body of Albrecht Friedrich, cousin-german of Prince Henry of Prussia, and consequently cousin of the Kaiser, who, having ordered the remains to be brought back to Hamburg, probably alone knew the prince's secret.