THE WAR CORRESPONDENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2111, 9 August 1894, Page 42

THE WAR CORRESPONDENT.

M. Verrshchagin, tb.e famous Russian artist, in his new book, " A War Correspondent," has not the romance but the prose, the seamy side, the horrible matter-of-fact aspect of war. Here are two extracts from it. The earlier is a scene before the Grivitsa batteries, which the Turks defended so well :

" Yesterday it waß reported as quite certain that, there was a complete want of ammunition and guns — and now suddenly the whole of that fortified place is belching forth shot and shell with dreadful fury ; obviously they had determined not to waste ammunition ; every moment sho wed a white puff of smoke there, followed by a bursting shell in the rank : of our regiments. A shell would fall ; a little cloud of smoke would rise ; all sprang to ono side in frightened expectation that it would burst. A score of men were knocked over — some were merely stunned and some again ran forward to join the marching column. Of those who were wounded by the fragments some were able to raise themselves and by the aid of their rifles drag themselves to the rear, where they found shelter ; the other wounded had to wait until the ambulance men came with their stretchers. . . . He sees a few forms standing out like black specks agait st the sky as a background ; they [the Russians attacking Grivitaa] are leaping out of the ditch and m >ving backward, some slosYly, others more quickiy ; then followed a mass of humanity, crawling out cf the big ditch for all the world like a swarm of ants. They were scrabbling with their hands and their feet, and when barely erect rushed away down the hill to where the danger was less. The enemy follow with their rifle shots 'as rapidly as they can load. Vladimir c iul-i at first make nothing of all this ; he ur.dsr.Vood it only when a loud voice near him shi.u o«i 'We arc beaten.' Again be thought t.> himself, 'And co this is what is meant by being teiteu ; how very simple it all is ; not at all according to current accounts.' "

The second is a scene on Ihe high road

" The prisoners were already on their way to Russia, aod Vladimir only taw the last two or three detachments of these poor wretches, who, shivering in their thin clothes, weak and naif starved lrom the effects of the long-con-tinued siege, were about to start, on their terrible journey through the. bitter weather. The road along which the prisoners marched presented a spectacle that was almosi unique in its way. By the wayside, as far as the eye could see, lay dozens of men who were either partially or altogetherfrozsn. The road itself seemed to be paved with corpses. The drivers of the carts and waggons, findingit impossible to avoid the bodies, drove Btraight over them, crushing some, in whom life was not yet extinct, deep into the snow. Of course it never occurred to any of the authorities to order the corpses to be cleared away. Here and there were sca'tered portions oE human heads, arms, and legs, so that it seemed as if the road lay through an unbroken series oE burial grounds. No one paid any att jntion to these horrors, but the soldiers who were marching past to join their regiments occasionally bestowed a word of warning or advice upon the half-frozen Turks by the wayside. ' Now brother Turk,' they would say, in tones of fatherly admonition, ' you see what comes of going to war with us. You had better teach your children and grandchildren to leave us alone in future.' "