RUSSIAN SOLDIER A MAN OF IRON

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 241, 14 November 1914, Page 3

RUSSIAN SOLDIER A MAN OF IRON

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By Richard G. Conover.

When the famous King went over the fighting zone tl\e next day he was horror stricken at what he sif^v—and that is saying a great deal in the case of a calloused commander like Frederick. Thousands of dead Russians and Prussians lay in frowning pairs, the hands of each clutching the other's tliroat, and —mark this —in most cases the teeth of the Russian sunk in the flesh of his enemy, where he had bitten and gouged up to the last moment of his death agony. The prize of victory won through strategy and tactics of a superior leader went to Prussia. The prize fop individual field fighting, man to man, would have gone to Russia had such a recognition of valor been bestowed. In all of the celebrated

Y what battling value:* shall the soldier of the steppes be appraised so that his performance in the present great war - grapple may be reasonably foreshadowed? What is the rating and the victory-likelihood of the Tsar s fighting millions, gauged by the triumphs, defeats, conquests and losses during turbulent centuries of Muscovite history? What does tlie past presage for the armed. hosts coming from the land of St. Petersburg. Moscow and Siberia? Consider the Russian soldier from the three key points of character to which lie is reducible, and he will be better and quicker comprehended. First, lie i 3 Cossack in essence; second, he is. conqueror in mould; third, he is Tartar in tendency. Centuries have accentuated each trait of the minglings. The Russian fighting man of to-day has a Cos-eack-Conqueror-Tartar ideal of warfare ' based upon and interwoven with a national past, sanguinary and dark beyond compare. About the camp fire of the present day you may hear the tale of Cossack intrepidity and Tartar destnktiveness, both exercised through patriotic motive at some hour of Russian history, ancient or modern. And of the conqueror attribute, the story spinner of the bivouac dotes upon this:— the cousin of Rurik, the founder of Russia, was a royal freebooter, tie started out in 532 and conquered, plundered and annexed until he came to a point on the Dneiper where the augurs and portends urged that he embark. He recruited first, and then sailing down the river to the Black Sea finally arrived before Constantinople with 80,000 troops, the transportation of which had necessitated the assembling of 900 galleys. Tlie teller of the talc describes with tense unction how Oleg fixed his shield to the gate of Constantinople as a trophy. He compelled the Greek Emperor to enter into, an ignominious treaty with him and pay him an enormous ransom before he would depart. He returned to Kiev in 911 laden with plunder. Oleg embodies an aspiration for the Russian soldier even to this day. If the Tsar'p fighting man had his way his twentieth century shield would hang on the gate of Constantinople and there would be no ransom or return to Kiev. Oleg's soldiers' descendants approve of their ancestors.

Seven Years War no soldier of his many enemies ever gave Frederick such a tussle as the Russian at Zorndorf. The Prussian King met with defeat several times, but even in the battles where he was overthrown his troops never had to fight so desperately as when they encountered the battling man of the Tsar. Again in the succeeding campaign it was the Russian soldier who bore the brunt of the battle of Kunersdorf, where Frederick was disastrously put to flight with a loas of 17,000 men. Had jealousy not divided the Russian and Austrian commanders at this critical time Prussia would have had to succumb, as declared subsequently by Frederick himself.

This fixes the status of the Russian fighting man pretty well, but once more, in ISI2, he proved his characteristic battling qualities. Napoleon's woful Moscow campaign of that year cost France nearly half a million soldiers. From the moment Bonaparte entered upon Russian soil he was doomed to defeat because of the methods pursued by Russian troops. Keeping a scant mile ahead of Napoleon's van they fell back in great steadiness, grimly and doggedly, borliering their invaders every f wt of the way. Not that the Russian st/jdier meant to confine his resistance to retreat. In due time he received word from his distant Tsar to make a stand at Smolensk,

which Bonaparte assaulted vigorously August 17, ISI2. Calmly he halted. The French failed to carry the Russian defences, although 12,000 men were sacrificed in the attempt. They got ready to try again next day. This is where the Russian twist began. That night the Tsar's soldiers set fire to Smolensk and withdrew as the French entered. They did the same thing at Dorogobourg, Viazina and Gjatsk. They were not afraid to utterly sacrifice their own towns and villages, following out their burning and abandoning policy to the limit. Their generals, Michael, Prince Barclay de Tolly and Michael Ivutusoff, Prince of Smolensk, conducted the retiring and burning in a most masterly fashion.

On September 7, in obedience to the Tsar's orders, his generals made another stand at Borodino, and there the French army, eager to fight a foe that was not slipping away to destroy provisions and burn towns, made a desperate attack. Napoleon k\st 12,000 killed and 20,000 wounded; the Russians, 10,000 killed, 30,000 wounded and 2,000 prisoners. With these tremendous casualties it might be thought the French victory had gained them some tremendous anl final advantage. Instead only the Russian intrenehments had been carried. The Russian soldier again retired, in excellent order and with no material loss of

As a preliminary certitude it should be noted that it was the Russian soldier who gave two of the greatest captains of history the hardest fight of their conquering lives. In 1758' Frederick the Great attacked a Russian army at Zormlorf. Furiously the battle raged all d:iy. Xeither side gave quarter. With darkness' the Russian's sullenly retired. Frederick remained; tile prestige of victory was his.

tered; he was alarmed to find it the prey of incendiaries. The following night the city was set afire again in many quarters. Nine-tenths of -Moscow was destroyed. It was the deliberate work of the Russian soldier, delegated to ruin and raze rather than afford shelter to his French enemies. The great Bonaparte was conquered by the Russian twist the Tsar's soldiers had given to. war methods. The winter faced him without the means of protecting his troops. October 19 he started his retreat, the most terrible known in history. Every step of the way the Russian soldier harassed him. The French had now IOS.OOO men and 5G9 guns. Kutusoff barred and fought his foe at Taroslevetz, at Kaluga, and when Napoleon reached Wiazina he had no more than 49,000 men, with the full horror of a Russian winter on him. Back to Smolensk the French retreated, expecting food and warm clothing. The organization had broken down and they found neither.

enthusiasm. lie hastened on to the interior, burning and destroying so that the French soldier had a torch to guide him every league of the way, anu no obstacles to remove that the war blaze hail not done for him.

the phraseology of the next one due was being teorght out. Piece by piece the fighting man of Russia has helped his Czar bite off Turkey in Europe, and Constantinople seems destined for" certain swallow in the end. The Russian soldier has fought hundreds of thousands of J square miles of territory into the Muscovite Empire—ail compact territory, no distant colonies to defend or worry. Even Alaska was sold because it gave bother. ' , . ' Peter the Great may be considered the epitome of the Russian soldier. Defeat never dimmed his energy nor cooled his determination for retaliation on those who overthrew him. He was the harassing Russian soldier at Moscow over a century before the burning of Moscow occurred. On November 30, I<oo, at Narva, east of the Gulf of Finland, a Russian army of nearly 30.000, met was utterly defeated by the'famous Charles XII. of Sweden with only 9,000 troops. Peter was at Novgorod arranging -foi ammunition. The Russians were, surprised, outgeneralled and forced to retreat. They behaved well, but were so poorly handled they were constantly in confusion. When Peter got news of the ..efeat he said coolly ". —; "These .Swedes,' I knew would beat us for a time, but they will soon teach us how to them." And immediately he sent 20,000 of his best troops to serve under the King of Poland, who was the next object of the great Swedish Japtain's attack. "To learn more about how he does it," he told the commander of this force. It was nine years before Peter had a chance to prove that his soldiers had been learning the art of war. At Pol-

tava or, as it is more generally known, Pultowa, on July.B, 1700, he was again attacked by Charles XII., who commanded from a litter, owing to a wound received • several before. Peter was conspicuous among his troops. He received a bullet through his hat, anothei in his saddle and another struck the ancient cross he wore around his neck. J. he Russian soldier had steadied up and had beaten the Swede at his war game. The last war of the nineteenth century

between Russia and Turkey began in April, 1577. It was the outcome of Balkan trouble. The event of the war was the siege of Plevna, so ably defended by Osman Pacha that the operations o: the Russian soldier against tuch an antagonist brought glory to the besieged as well as the besieger. The Tsar's fighting man heroically attacked the redoubts again and again,"only to fail. Liually, his supplies exhausted, Osman Pacha made a general sortie. It was futile and after performing prodigies of valor the Turkish commander was forced 10 surrender with all that was left of, his gallant army after being penned up and assaulted for six mouths. This surrender was made-uncondition-ally and specifically to the ''Emperor of Russia" after a desperate battle following the last sortie. The Turks were driven back in their assault on the Russian lines in a hand to hand fight until Osman Pacha found himself hemmed in on all sides with uo chance of escape. He was severely wounded, having displayed great personal gallantry. P.y the surrender the Russian soldier gained for his Tsar more than fifty thousand prisoners and a vast amount of artillery, arms and military stores. The Russian army followed up its success, beating the Turks at Tashesm and occupying Sophia. Early in January. 1878, the entire Turkish force defending the southern outlet

On November 17 Kutusoff permitti Bonaparte and the main army to pass him at Krusnoi. Then he fell upon its rear and took 10,000 prisoners. As the French crossed (he Dnieper they were raked with a deadly fire by the Russian artillerymen. They passed over the Niemen December 13, hardly a handful left, and the Napoleonic scheme completely collapsed. Only a Russian soldier could or would have fought the greatest military commander of any age to a finish in this sort of way. It was no fightiug innovation with the Cossack. He deliberately depended upon it. the same as he would plan a gain from fighting a pitched battle. Stoically bravo, ponderously quick, laconically modest, the Russian soldier's blend make him the never wholly comprehensible fighting factor of any war. As a rule he has no life ultimate to shape his views and purposes beyoud what the army in activity may bring. His horizon is bound by the army entirely. Hence, when the army acts he feels best. He has been in conflict with the Ottoman Empire for centuries. Most of the intervals between battlings have been in the way of armed truces. While .me treaty of peace was beinz sisrued

The Russian army finally fell back on Moscow, and every Russian soldier entered heart and soul into the awful sacrifice called for in the Tsar's tragic plan of campaign. Instead of attempting to defend Moscow, Kutusoff withdrew the inhabitants and removed from it everything of value that could be carried away. He waited until the vanguard of the French appeared in the near distance, September 14, and then marched his army out of the city and its vicinity, followed by the inhabitants. Napoleon entered the ancient capital with a rtish and a flourish. Comfortable winter quarters he had planned, from which in the spring he would issue forth against the Emperor Alexander and subjugate the Tsar's mighty dominion. But no sooner had Bonaparte established his headquarters in the Kremlin, the ancient palace of the Tsars, when the cry of fire rang through the city. A dozen blazes in various quarters of the city were with great difficulty extinguished. Napoleon had been astonished to find the place deserted when he tn

of the Shipka pass, numbering forty-ona battalions, ten; batteries, and one regi-; ment of cavalry, was brilliantly captured by the Russian fightingjnan. Adrian© pie wsu occupied. Only a British fleet prevented the Tsar's army from taking possession of Constantinople. Aside from his wonderful method of resistance successfully pat in operation during the Moscow Invasion, the' Russian soldier fought many desperately contested battles during the Napoleonic period. In 1798 the Tsar sent an army into Italy, as a member of - the antiFrance coalition, to expel the enemy there in force. Had not its commander, Suwarof, been hampered by the ordera of the Aulic Council at Vienna, he would hive crushed Koreau. Again at\the battle of Austerlitz the Russian soldier* magnificently buttling, was ; sacrificed t<> the ignorant rashness of - his Tsar, who insisted on his genera 1 s following a certain plan denounced by the Aiistnans. V Whenever the Russian Soldier is considered it is impossible to ignore the percentage of Cossack in his calibre. It is that' element that marks; his fighting characteristics beyond all mistake. Not every Russian soldier is u Cossack, of course, but it has of ( t;en been said that every .Russian spldier the temperament" wishesrthat he was. How he endures,- fights;: thinks, wishes art; acts is Cossack in its essence. : V

The Cossacks as a class date back, in the matter of authentic recording, to sixteenth century. Fact and fiction in,, equal percentage cluster around Ivan - Stepanovitch iiazeppa, a renegade tioble- '» man of the Orthodox faith, as the first strong Cossack He is the hero of Bryon's famous poem of the same name. He was stripped and boundi to a horse just as-the poem states bei cause of having betrayed the hospitality of a neighbor. Shame ( made him a wanI derer. He became one of the principal ; leaders of the Cossacks and ill 1764 was > intrusted with a mission to arrange for 1 the annexation of that.body to Russia, j He finally got to the Russian court inner I circle through his ingratiating manner | and became a great favorite with Peter | the Great 'The Tsar stuck to him deI spite many accusations of treachery, and j it was only when Mazeppa went over to j the Swedish camp at a "perilous moment i that Peter was forced to acknowledge ; j the powerful Cossack guilty. . | At first the Cossack was nothing but 'a vagabond. The word Cossack or' | Kazak means, first, a ..ee, homeless : | fellow, and second, one of the partisans | or guerilla warriors formed out of such . . a class. The name in popular parlance ; has almost always been applied to robber 'bands. The Cossack in the past has ■ been a characteristic manifestation of the time—a national protest against the governmental forms which did not satisfy the Russian ideal. The ideal of the Cossack was full personal freedom, unconditional possession of the soil, an elective government, popular justice administered by himself, complete equality between members, contempt of all priv- ' ileges of rank and birth and mutual defence against, external enemies. In Poland the Cossacks were registered. They had the freehold of their lands, paid no taxes, were 6.000 jn, numbeiy and the government refused to recognize any-others. This did uot suit "the popular view, because all the common people sought to be Cossacks. One method of obtaining this object was to run away to Siteha. Stenka Razin, a Cossack chief, of is still sung as the Russian Robin Hood. The Cossack was always a daredevil rider and an amalgamation of the cow- , boy and the gypsy. He never expected to be domestic, and to die with liis boots on was his ordained lot he enthusiastically believed. Careering over the steppes lie felt himself to be the very incarua-v tion of freedom, his allegiance always hanging by a thread. To be steadfast was to cramp his ideas of liberty. Mazeppa told Charles XII. he could turn over 30,000 Cossacks to him. But when Charles received Mazeppa and asked for his men, the Cossack leader had to confess that they had even been fickle to him, and that he had come to ,tlie Swedish camp to s:ir e his own life. Scratch a Russian and you find a Tartar has proved a fatal truism to almost every enemy of the A tuscovite. The Russian soldier is the scion of the Scythian, lie is, therefore, a fighter of deadly surprises and uncertainties. His next move may not be predicted on any known or limited method of warfare. lie is apt to develop a fighting science of his own in a five minute emergency. Depend upon the Russian battler to behave, well. Ilia manner and method of proving his mettle are not predictable!.