GALICICN MUD

North Otago Times, Volume CIII, Issue 13651, 19 August 1916, Page 8

GALICICN MUD

ROADS OF THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE. "THE MUDDIEST COUNTRY IN EUROPE." (By Hamilton Fyfe, ' Daily Mail's Special Correspondent with the Russian Army). After this war there will be numbers of experts at large in all lands' (writes the correspondent.from "Somewhere in Galicia." The "military expert" will indeed, have disappeared. Attempts to revive that particular kind of quackery will be laughed down, Anyone in future who attempts to tell what' isYikely to happen in war will be treated like the Reverend Mr Baxter, who has'so often announced the exact date ou which the world would come to an end. The Maudes' and Bellocs have killed their own But there will be'numbers of genuine experts of every' other -sort and kind, and among them I propose to enrol myself. I propose to set up as an expert in Mud. Until I came down to Galicia I did not know what mud. was. I thought I knew, but i was mistaken. How we arc able to motor through it, how the Russian transport columns managed to deliver punctually to the troops their daily rations I cannot yet understand. TheAustrian'transport appears to havo failed badlv.' Good Feeding. I saw a .prisoner a few days ago, captured in a skirmish the night before. He said he was hungry. He ate as if he had been half-starved. For some days, he complained, food had been very scarce. A quarter of a. pound of meat and 12 ounces of bread a day, with a tiny screw of coffee, no milk, and a famine.allowance of sugar, are poor enough-subsistence in damp trenches. All the' men are, of course, praying for sunshine and dry earth; but the Russian troops are far better off than their "opponents. I have several times comcupoti field kitchens by chance, and found the meat soup first rate, both in taste and in its nourishing quality. They get daily three pounds of very good bread (again 1 speak from experience), and their "kasha" (barley or buckwheat porridge cooked with scraps of bacon) is a savoury dish, which I intend to introduce into my own household. Tea they drink in large quantities, very weak, with at least three lumps of sugar in every glass, The result of good and regular feeding is evident in the'appearance, of the troops, despite the depressing greyness of the sky, 'the perpetual drizzle, and the quite exceptional character of the Galician mud, I noticed particularly the difference between the magnificently resonant way in "'hich the troops' at the front sing their marching songs and the mechanical madc-to-ordcr sound which these songs have far in the rear—at Petrograd or Moscow, for example. I mentioned this to a regimental officer as we watched the men of two companies tramping back from (he trenches to their billets in a half-ruined village, which they had patched up most cleverly in their handy , woodman's way. "Yes, yes," he said, "that is quite natural. Here it is their souls which sing." Gentlo and Friendly Folk, The poetical phrase came to the lips iof this burly Russian colonel without

the slightest affectation, There was nothing poetical in it to his mind. He was speaking what seemed, to him to be the literal truth, and I believe it is the literal truth. Our soldiers sing with a more careless jollity, the French soldiers with a gayer 'humour. In the singing of the Russian there is a ring of deeper feeling, a note which reaches, the springs of all sentiment..' How the idea ever took root, in Western Europe that the Russians were harsh and brutal 1 cannot imagine. They are, in truth, the gentlest and friendliest folk. Living as I am living now, with the army, passing from one staff or regimental mess to another, "turning up" suddenly with a cool request for food and lodgment, demanding the loan now and then of a horse, now of a guide, I have found the Russian officers from fhe highest to lowest, kinder and more considerate than 1 can say. Their essential gentleness of nature is proved afresh by their behaviour to the local popualtion of this occupied Austrian ter-1 ritory. Galician Country Folk, The peasants are doing their work as usual. Within sound of tlie guns they arc manuring fields, harrowing, seeding, tending their gardens, going to market, just lis if there were no war, I passed yesterday any number of carts coming from the big Monday 'morning horse fair. The scene sent .my thoughts to Ireland. The rolling country,'the pigs tied by. one leg, the buxom faces of the lasses, the shrewd "queer" look of the older men, the lowering sky and quietly persistent rain all helped to strengthen the resemblance. The cottages here are tidier than in Ireland, very neatly thatched, and mostly with their walls distempered a light blue. The people, too, have a more distinctive, and "therefore in our eyes a more picturesque, costume. They look like peasants out of an opera. They wear straw hats with wide brims (giving them rather a look of Harrow schoolboys). Their coats are braided in gay colours and ornamented with, "pompoms" like those on a pierrot blouse. All the women wear top-boots (and in the mud they need them), with bright-lined skirts and with 'kerchiefs over their heads, framing pretty faces in a fascinating fashion ami lending even, plain faces a momentary charm. Night-irJotoring Feelings. All appear to be on excellent terms with the Russian Army. They salute officers with a friendly smile, The soldiers are adopted into their families at once. These are'not German, Austriaus, you must remember, They are racially more akin to the Russians than lo their Teutonic overlords, Their language- belongs to the same family as Russian. Therefore they have no great reason for resenting I he occupation of their country, Many, indeed, welcome it, for the.y can sell their produce at a handsome profit,, ami work for good wages at road-making or railway' construction. The Russians are busy in both these directions. Their engineers have taken energetic, measures lo conquer the mud difficulty, and have done very well. Many new lines of railway have been laid down, Bridges blown up by. the Austriaus, which carried existing railways oyer rivers or chasms, have been rebuilt, in the most skilful and rapid way by making the "piles" of tree trunks instead of brick or masonry, Only Russians with their cleverness in using

the axe could liave. done such work as this. Wherever floods sweep away part of a lino an emergency gang of workers is organised; .and the damage very swiftly repaired. Mud Beyond Comprehension. Floods come out with very slight provocation in Galicia, for the surface water here is only a. few feet below the soil. 1 passed about a hundred shell holes this morning which were only made three dfiys ago. All were halffull of water; not rain water, but surface water. Even in* ordinary times Galicia is, for this reason, the muddiest country in Europe, and its mud has a peculiar squishy. sticky character (fnite of its own. Wow, this character is highly intensified. When I arrived the other evening at a certain staff headquarters the general asked me what I thought of the road. I said I had not noticed any road. He laughed, and replied: "Recollect tins—more traffic passes along these highways now every day thau passed along them in a hundred years before the war." The result is mud beyond the comprehension of mankind. Motoring at night, you can imagine, if you close your eyes, that you are on board ship in an unquiet sea. There is not only a rolling, plunging motion, there is a regular swish-swash of water, just as one hears it against the side of a ship. Stand still for a few moments, and your feet begin to sink. It takes an effort to pull them out of the mud. Impossible, I think, to imagine warfare under less encouraging conditions, and it is the best possible testimony to.the good physical condition and to the good spirits of the Russian soldiers that thev stand them so surprisingly well.