RUSSIAN TROOPS

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 143, 17 June 1916, Page 5

RUSSIAN TROOPS

IN FRIANCE

WELCOME AT MARSEILLES.

MARSEILLES, 20th April

Russian troops are in France. I saw them set foot for the first time on French soil at 2.30 Uiis afternoon in the military dock at Marseilles. It was a wonderful sight for us onlookers; it was a wonderful experience for the Russian officers and men after their voyage. Think what that journey has been. They reached Marseilles on 20th April, safe and fit, and after an "uneventful" journey materially, but how fraught with extraordinary moral significance, and how full of meaning for the Allies' irrevocable victory!

A party of Boche prisoners this afternoon looked on while the Russian troops landed in the French port through which armies of British troops had already passed, and yet more armies are to be seen to-day. What a picture of the power of the Allies and of British sea power!

What I have just seen kindles the imagination, and no imagination could have conceived it two years ago. The military dock where we await the Russians is the embarkation dock of the British troops. , Men and officers of every British arm swarm here, every British colony is represented—lndians, Canadians, South Africans, of British and South Africans of Boer blood, South African Scots, still speaking broad Glasgow. Khaki columns march, British motor-lorries rumble by, magnificent Indians, and_ a squadron of gay French Hussars ride up with French colours, and in a few minutes all will welcome the army from that other Great Empire.' GERMAN ONLOOKERS. Boche prisoners, of whom hundreds peacefully and contentedly work here on French Government pay, rolling wine casks in leisurely fashion, happen, perhaps not by accident, to be in. a neighbouring dock when the transports came in, and were obligingly given a comfortable post of observation. Not the least curious detail in the picture was this group of Bdche soldiers, still mostly in uniform, and all with their grey and red round caps, watching the Army of France and England welcoming the army from Russia. General Menissier, Military Governor of Marseilles, limping from a, wound recently, received at, the front, and wearing the Military Cross for valour, represented France. Great Britain was represented by soldiers from all quarters of the Imperial Dominions swarming in the dockyard, and the British Military Attache in. Paris. There were also present Russian Staff officers who had already arrived some time before. All the men are picked soldiers. All have already fought for Russia on the European front with some distinction. This is how they were chosen. An order was sent round to all the Cossack leaders to ask their men, "Who will fight in France for Russia, and for the Allies?" Many thousands offered instantly. A choice was made, and this is the picked corps now on French, soil. The Boche prisoners just climbed quite unconcernedly, and even jocosely, to their post of qbservation when the great transport slowly appears. The ship is one huge silent and still monument of men standing drawn up in motionless lines of slightly greenish khaki— greener than ours, but much nearer ours than the German "feldgrau." The transport comes slowly in, still silently. Now one can scrutinise the men, and see each face illegibly through glasses. Are these the men who have travelled crowded in transports for miles ? I never saw fitter, finer, fresher-looking men. They still stand silent and motionless, but most. of them are by now beaming or grinning at us. A command, and one great cheer | comes,from the transport, answered on shore by responsive cheers. Then the Russian National Anthem and then the Marseillaise, to which all—Russians, French. English, Indians.. South Africans —stand at the salute. Has there yet, even after twenty months of war, been a more stirriug symbol, of the Allies' cause j and pledge of our victory? EAGER SOLDIERS.' The French general, nobly lame, limps lip the steps and greets the Russian gen- | 'erals and staffs, who come on shore and review the guard of honour, with colours, while bugles sound shrilly.The men are ready to disembark now, and eager to, set foot on this new soil on which they are to fight again. Through interpreters one can exchange a few j words with them. Here is a soldier, j quite young, wealing two crosses ajxl four medals. He beams when spoken to or shouted at, but will only say he won his decorations 'in Poland and Galicia. A. boy, looking 14—a diminutive^ Russian soldier in Tunis baggy pants and top boots, all half-size—smiles down on the strange crowd he sees beneath on the quay, and shouts that he is known in his regiment as Ivan the Lktle, but he will be big goon and fight. Some command is given, but one only sees the result, and the whole human movement: on the ship, which was still immovable, though no longer silent, suddenly becomes alive with nimbleness, and the whole troop sca-rnpers down ithc | ladders and runs to form columns on the shore. They'stretch their legs with a vengeance, these great loose, fresh, boy-looking Russian troopers. In formation and with their bayonets fixed, they march out of the dockyard to the, temporary camp, whence they will entrain for another camp, and they march with a long swinging stride. | As I leave my car gets mixed up with Russian troopers, a column of British infantry, Indian transport wagons, French Hussars, French African troops, and Mar- i seilles peasant carts; and a little further along, as I am driving with a British column marching ahead, \\e pass a party of Boche prisoners going in the opposite direction under an escort of elderly French Territorials. »

The Russian troops march through Marseilles with their colours, cheered by a crowd including all the officers and men on temporary leave hove.. They will be sent anon to one or other point of the united battle front of the Allies. Could one have a more striking vision of our union and our preordained victory? The Russian troops marched with a swing, rifles shouldered and bayonets fixed, down the wide, plane-tree bordered avenues, with a curious long, loose stride, and a gentle rocking rhythm of motion side to side from the hips. Sturdy, spare, fit, and well-trained, theso Russian "Tommies" are all young men in the first strength of manhood. French buglers lead, then marches a fine, well-built, young Russian colonel, and by his side, are borne the colours, a white embroidered standard with the head of Christ painted on the centre. "Vive la Russie!" comes from an extraordinary crowd of all the Allied nations packing the streets, and on reply every few moments the Russian soldiers break out in typical songs of the Russian land, all sung perfectly, some slow and broad ill rhythm, others witlv a< sharper and wonderfully vigorous accent?. Every man wears a flower from this land of flowers, and every one is beaming and radiant as hi- inarches to 6ght, in France for- Russia. g,nd tli< AUi«t>,rJjoii£t(m Isieji'a^ii cw> .*e*K£ffliien.t.