John Morse

“ Every nation, I suppose, has its peculiarities. I do not depreciate the Germans. They can fight, and fight bravely—but not with the generous bravery that most soldiers exercise one to another. They are cruel in their desperation, vicious in the moment of victory; and they yell for mercy in the hour of their defeat; the only soldiers I have known to exercise this form of—I will not call it cowardice—Hudibrastic caution. ”

“ The fighting consisted mostly of artillery duels at long ranges. While we were watching the action of some guns posted about two English miles away, a shell smashed to atoms the head and shoulders of an officer in the midst of our group, and we were splashed all over with his blood and brains—not a pleasant experience. The man must have been killed instantly, yet his hands and feet continued to twitch for some minutes after he was struck. It is remarkable that only one man was hurt, as we were standing close together under some trees, where we felt sure we were quite safe. ”

“ The night of the 4th February was very quiet until about four o'clock a.m., when the steady rush of thousands of feet alarmed all who were awake. The Germans were attempting a surprise. A few straggling shots from the sentries along our front, accompanied by shouts of warning; a blaze of rifle fire; the heavy booming of artillery, and, in one minute from the alarm being given, the hell of battle was again in full fury. Our engineers threw search-lights over the trenches and in front of them, so that we could see what we were doing. ”

“ It was its isolated situation and great distance from a base that made Kalisz the weak point on the Russian frontier, and the German Eagle saw this and swooped on it as a bird of prey on a damless lamb.
But the Russian base, if distant, was strong, and the force and material at Warsaw was powerful and great, and was in ponderous motion long before the Vulture had picked clean the bones of her first victim. Russia has no great fortress on the German frontier. This is another serious fault of defence. ”

“ Insanity is even more frequent amongst German soldiers than suicide. At the battle of Darkehmen a man, quite naked, foaming and gesticulating wildly, rushed towards us. The astonishment this excited caused a lull of the firing at the spot, and he dashed along for 500 yards at a tremendous speed, leaping and springing like a stag. He made straight for our ranks, where he was knocked down by a soldier and secured. He bit very badly several of his captors before being carried to the rear. I do not know what became of him; but hundreds of our prisoners were raving when captured. ”

“ There are always some men in a company who have more heart in their work than the others; and these are generally found close to their officers at critical moments: indeed, these are the men who do most of the hand-to-hand fighting, and to whom the victory is really due. One of the heroic fellows who formed our little band slew at least twenty of the enemy, I know; and very possibly double that number. I am sorry that I cannot record the name of this brave man, an honour to his country; nor that of others not his inferiors in bravery and self-sacrifice. ”

“ It is in curious contrast to the petulance and [275] cowardice of the Germans, who yell and scream when in danger or suffering much pain. The Russian never does this. Even the dying Muscovite scarcely groans. I have seen men brought out of the trenches, or from the front, practically smashed, hurt beyond the wildest hope of recovery, yet calm and patient, and grateful for the least help, not one sound of complaint or pain passing their brave lips. Even those rascals the Cossacks invariably met suffering and death with the invincible courage of heroes. ”

“ No troops in the world would tolerate to be fired on under such circumstances. The Cossack died a lingering death.
We drew out of range of the infantry with slight loss; some of our men, who had their horses killed, running by the side of their comrades, and occasionally, in moments of great danger, riding behind them; but most of these men were ultimately taken prisoners. Two squadrons of the enemy's hussars had the temerity to charge our rear-guard. The Cossacks made sad work of them; especially as they thought they could not be burdened with prisoners during their retreat. ”

“ It was a surprise to our troops: for the Germans were upon our outposts before they were discovered. The pickets fired on them; and those that escaped ran in behind the barricades we had formed. Hundreds of men were sleeping in the loop-holed houses; and these saved the day: for the enemy could not get at them, and they were shot down in great numbers by rifle and machine-gun fire, and from a building in the centre of the hamlet (a public hall of some kind) which commanded the cross-streets, and was admirably placed for defence. ”

“ In the Russian ranks, and I believe in the German also, this class is weeded out as far as possible, and relegated to the organizations which have least to do with the fighting line—that is, the administrative services, and troops organized to maintain the lines of communication. But these fellows—the natural non-combatants, or haters of the soldier's life, I mean—are, when found in the fighting ranks, the most detestable scoundrels imaginable; and I believe the greater part of the atrocities committed may be laid to their charge. They lose no opportunity of indulging in lust and murder ”

“ I saw them lying dead harnessed to guns and waggons. Some were still dying, groaning pitifully, and not a few were put out of their misery by men whom the fiercest passion could not deprive of some sense of compassion for innocent suffering. I came upon a German gunner engaged in this praiseworthy work, and gave him a friendly nod. He returned the nod with equal friendliness before hopping after his comrades with a couple of pounds of mud clinging to each boot. Ah! war is a sad, sad business. ”

“ Chouraski, the non-commissioned officer who had attached himself to me, had a bullet through the fleshy part of the left arm, yet he brought me some hot soup and black bread after dark; whence obtained, or how prepared, I have no idea. I was much touched by the man's kindness. All the soldiers with whom I came in contact were equally kind: and I have noticed that the men of other armies with whom I have come in contact in the course of my life, even the Germans, seemed to see something in my personality which attracted them, and to desire to be friendly. ”

“ In one thing only is Russia the stronger of the two Powers, and that is in her cavalry: and this force has not, to my knowledge, suffered a disaster, even on a small scale. Not one of her mounted regiments has been cut up, or even sustained abnormal losses; but they have certainly destroyed more than one of Germany's cavalry regiments; and that in fair open fight. The Russian cavalry has charged, successfully, all classes of troops—mounted men, infantry and artillery. So much for the paper tacticians who have asserted that the days of cavalry charges and hand-to-hand fighting are over. ”

“ The German dearly loves his comfort and good cheer. They never seemed to be short of food, and we took carts laden with wine that had been made in France and must have been sent hither at much trouble and expense only to find its way down Russian throats in spite of the Czar's teetotal proclamation. I think the German troops must be taught to make bivouacks and huts, they are such adepts at the work; and render their dens so comfortable by a hundred little devices that show they have previously studied the art of adapting everything to their own welfare and ease. ”

“ This war will make Russian and Pole one people. I am quite convinced of it. Fifty years ago Polish women stood up with the men to fight the Russian oppressor: in this present desperate struggle they have fought side by side with the former oppressor. Not twenty yards from me, in the trenches before Skyermevice, two sturdy Amazons handled rifle and bayonet (weapons dropped by dead soldiers) with the strength and skill of old soldiers; and others in the rear attended Russian wounded with the same care and attention they lavished upon their fathers and brothers. ”

“ To a great extent land-fighting, like naval encounters, has lost its picturesqueness, and has become little more than a disgusting slaughter. A good deal of the action is similar to the fighting of rats in a ditch. Trench warfare is horrible, with its villainous grenades and bombs, which are quite different from these devices in former days, and are no better than tools in the hands of a butcher. It is useless to argue that a bomb is a bomb, and that it cannot matter whether a man is blown to pieces by one of the ancient, or one of the modern, type. ”

“ For a dish of bacon, or a cup of wine, being placed in front of one, what is one to do but relieve the craving of nature? The only defence I can make is that we all do it, as circumstances occasion.
At Ostrolenka we were ordered on to Pultusk; and here we found a division of infantry and another of Cossacks—about 14,000 men in all, the units being reduced by the ravages of war. Among the Cossacks was the celebrated 5th of the Don, with its woman colonel, who seemed to be not more than thirty years of age. She had adopted male costume, and rode astride like her troopers. ”

“ Hundreds of machine-guns were used on both sides, and yet the slaughter was not at all in proportion to the amount of ammunition expended. As in all battles, according to my experience, the principal part of the destruction was due to infantry fire. Of course the loss of life was very great. I can only say the ground was heaped with dead and dying. At each successive assault the Germans mounted the heaps of corpses to get at our men and, falling on their comrades, caused the slain to lie in heaps and ridges in an extraordinary and dreadful way. ”

“ But when war comes on a large scale the shells and cartridges have to be found at double and treble cost. It is a sad way of spending huge sums of money; but it is the only real "National Insurance": the only way of securing real peace and liberty. And whatever happens, and whatever is the consequence, I, for one, will not live under the régime of such a scoundrel as the Hell-Hound of Berlin—a wretch who, while posing [240] as a God-fearing man, has brought heart-torment on millions of better men than himself. ”

“ We were to have no more charges of masses of cavalry according to the theorists. But on at least half-a-dozen occasions bodies of over 4,000 horsemen made most telling charges. In one case at least 10,000 cavalry took part in a charge, riding over the Prussian infantry as they might have ridden over stubble. The Cossacks, like the Uhlans, have hooks attached to the butts of their lances; and with these they whipped officers from their horses, and men from the ground in the most extraordinary way, sometimes pulling them up into their own saddles and bringing them in prisoners. ”

“ As to pluck and courage, there is not an appreciable difference in any of the armies. I witnessed some magnificent instances of bravery in both Germans and Russians; and truth to tell, acts of devilish cruelty in both nations—acts which I do not believe it is possible either French or British officers could commit, however great the provocation.
There are peculiarities in all peoples; and one of those of the Russians is the number of females serving in their ranks, many of them as officers. Indeed, I heard that one lady commanded a regiment of Cossacks! ”

“ It was made extemporaneously by the soldiers in various ways. Sometimes they closed up a small room of a house, and filled it with steam by sprinkling water on stones previously heated to a white heat; but the favourite way was to make a small hut with branches, and render this impervious by covering it with turf. In such a hovel a soldier could pretty nearly suffocate himself in ten minutes, the stones being heated in a wood fire outside. When a man had parboiled himself to the hue of a lobster, he would rush out and roll about, naked as he was, in the snow ”

“ There was now no doubt that the Germans were retreating; but they were doing so in that leisurely way which indicated that their retirement was anything but a rout; and I foresaw that it would not be long before they turned again with renewed ferocity. I do not think that the troops we had been opposed to were some of the best that Germany could put in the field. In some battalions there did not appear to be a man under forty years of age: in others they were all boys: and these last named were amongst the best fighters. ”

“ The Russian soldier never grumbles, by-the-by. Boots are the great desideratum of an army in the field. Nothing will break an army up sooner than a lack of foot-wear: and in respect of this necessary the Russians were generally well provided, though I occasionally met detachments, if not larger bodies, who had completely worn out their boots, and resorted to tying their feet up in pieces of hide, or sheep's skin. These cases were so rare that they scarcely deserve notice; but as the winter wore on the clothing of the troops certainly began to show signs of wear. ”