THE REAL RED ARMY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25301, 7 September 1945, Page 5

THE REAL RED ARMY

CONTACT WITH BRITISH IN AUSTRIA

NOTES FROM AN OFFICER'S DIARY

By the London Times Special Correspondent in Vienna

A British major, commander of an almost legendary specialised unit of the Eighth Army, acted as liaison officer in the early days of May, when that army linked up with the Russians in Austria. From 1 thatperiod until (he movement of the British into Syria and Vienna, this officer described the Red Army to different British units stationed in Carinthia, and it is doubtful whether any talks have been more earnestly listened to by the soldiers to whom they were addressed. This account is based on the diary in which he entered his impressions of the Red Army as he found it during its advance across Austria. (In Jlay 9 lie first met the Russians in the countryside west of Graz. Willi a detachment of his unit he stopped a tank at the head of the Soviet column. From it a major of the 84th (Kharkov) Division stepped out. saluted, introduced himself, shook hands, and in a very loud voice delivered the following set speech: —"The : Allied armies have met; war with Germany is over; this is an historic day, the proudest in my life, and 1 shall talk, about it to my children and grandchildren." Merry and Carefree The party drove on westward to Voitsberg. During the next two days excitement went on, with parties, songs, band-plaving, some drunkenness, and a certain amount of looting ol civilians' houses, from which many souvenirs were collected, to the intense distress of the local inhabitants, who worked themselves into a hysterical panic. On the third morning the Soviet Army reverted to peace-time conditions —five-hours' drill in the mornings, firing on the range in the afternoons, maintenance of vehicles and weapons, kit inspection, and haircutling parades. Commanding officers were given ten days to get their troops into shape, and then divisional, corps, and army parades started. The men were much smartened up in this process; When the British first met them they were shabby and dirty, but their clothing was in good condition and their boots exeellent. ".Merry, carefree and humorous" the diary adds, "the Russian soldier does not worry about the rather harsh discipline to which he is submitted. There is much saluting and clicking of heels, and punishment for an offence is awarded on the spot without much formality. It is mainly in the nature of extra fatigues and the equivalent of our old-fashioned field punishment, and it is accepted with resignation and often a grin. I should say that, though discipline is much harder than ours, the Soviet soldier has a. much better chance of getting away with a minor offence." Soviet Football An incident illustrates how exaggerated stories of "brutal" Soviet discipline arise. Football is a game in which the Russians have been passionately interested since the middle twenties, when the Soviet Army took it up officially with great vigour on the Knglish model and incidentally with most of the English words. A BritishRussian football match was arranged at Voitsberg. It was postponed three times, apparently because the Russian corps commander, having heard about the forthcoming match, vetoed it until he could ho personally sure that a good Soviet team was available. When the team was selected, the corps commander told them; "You will now be allowed to plav the English, but don't think it will be easy. All Englishmen are born football players. For generations they have done practically nothing but practise sport. I shall give you a week to train, and remember, you have got to win that match. If you don't I shall cut your ears off!" A description of this little "pep talk" was given by the British officer to his comrades in the British zone, who enjoyed the joke as much as he did. But it soon became common knowledge that "when a Russian football team is beaten every single man in it has his ears cut off." Later the officer who had arranged the match at Voitsberg was actually warned by a senior to he careful about the_ game, because "if the Russians don't win they will all be shot." Abundant Tall Tales "The fact is," writes the British officer, "we are ready to believe anything'about. the Soviet Army, and the more improbable the better. In some cases the tales are based on some slender foundation of fact and deliberately made up to produce a good story, but generally the rumours are spread in good faith. This was particularly noticeable during the first weeks following our meeting with the Russians, when there was a daily flow across the boundary of our own liberated prisoners of war, _ displaced persons of various nationalities, and local Austrians in a state of panic fleeing before the Russians. "Nobody is more astonished than the Russians at the terror shown by the local inhabitants. They cannot account for it, but are rather amused and think it a great joke. If, however, we seem to believe that there is some foundation for it, they become very worried, lest we should think our Allies uncivilised." o . At all levels in the Soviet, Army there was a surprising knowledge of the British campaigns. Of the conversation at one party he writes: "They knew about the Battle of .Britain' and how we fought the German! 1 ; alone for a whole year before they themselves got involved in the battle. Our campaigns in the desert were more than slightly romanticised, for they described hosts of 50 divisions careering backward and forward through limitless expanses of waterless sand. The Italian campaign was dismissed as unimportant, and we en me to the long anxious wait for the opening of the second front. 'Then, after you had miraculously landed several armies across hundreds of miles of sea.' the Russians added, 'the Germans soon collapsed, and now the war is over.' Russians Talked Freely "Many stories were also told of the British and American bombing, and no episodes of the war are told by the Russians with more emotion than those relating to the rescue of Allied pilots. These men in foreign uniforms dangling from their parachutes came out of the sky as living tokens of the existence of'brothers in arms lighting the same battle ill strange countries, of help coming out of darkness." After the boundary between the British and Soviet forces hail been established there was a good deal of work in connection with the transfer of prisoners of war, the movement ol displaced civilians of many nationalities, and the handing over of the large body of Russian renegades—nearly 50,000 in number —formerly employed by the Germans under the name of Cossacks. Occasional looting parties of the Yugoslav Army in search of abandoned German equipment had also to he countered, and there was a host of minor problems, such as sharing coal from the Rosenthal mines and beer from the Graz brewery. In all these matters the Russians were helpful, and their enthusiastic friendliness toward the British was maintained throughout.

"Talk was free and easy. The Rus- p sians had no hesitation whatever in dis- f cussing Communism or pre-war relations between the Soviet Union and Great Britain or Generalissimo Stalin himself. It is obvious that, with the prestige of victory, the present regime < in Russia is so iirmly established and 1 commands the enthusiastic support ot such an overwhelming majority in the ] Army that there is no need to control j the free expression of opinion." ( The complete lack of political con- j sciousness was exemplified in the fact } that of a party of a dozen officers only 1 one remembered that the name Bolshevik had at one time denoted a political parly. ' Guns and Mobility j "The economic aspect ol the revolu- j tion," the British officer states, "is the i only one considered, much as we talk < of our industrial revolution, and in I that aspect, when they can switch their < minds off military matters, they take an enthusiastic interest. Oflicers and men all look forward to demobilisation and returning home, but they worry much less about their private affairs than the British." _ Superiority in artillery is given first place by the Russians in accounting for their final victory over Germany, particularly in the' case of the critical battle 'for Moscow. Greater mobility is given as the next reason; by using infantry on their feet, par-, ticularly during the autumn rains and spring thaw, and supplying them by , air when horscdrawn transport could j not follow, they surprised and out- ; manoeuvred the mud-bound German j forces. They also consider that their winter equipment enabled their troops to maintain their lighting potential during the fiercest cold spells, when the Germans just managed to keep alive. Allied supplies are given a high place among the factors lending to victory.