THE RUSSIAN ARMY.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 366, 13 April 1915, Page 10

THE RUSSIAN ARMY.

A COLOSSAL MACHINE. SLAVONIC FORTITUDE. With a dull, leaden sky overhead, ami an icy drizzle in my face, I left Warsaw, says a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian." I sped through the streets of Warsaw in a car, racing past grimy factory chimneys, through narrow alleys with their Hebrew inhabitants. Hardly less inviting was the country that lav beyond. Seas of black, slimy mud covered the roads, the endless plain of Central Poland was covered Avitli half-melted snow, the poplar trees that lined the roadside were scarred and barked by soldiers who liad sought fuel on their way to the front. Here and there lay the skeleton of a dead horse or a heap of blood-stained rags left, by a wounded soldier. The

rumble of distant artillery could be heard faintly towards the east —or, to be correct, it .was felt vibrating the air without causing definite sound. Inhabitants of wayside farms peeped through half-opened doors with & look of half-curiosity, half-anxiety, which is always a sign that war is afoot. Miles of Troops. I soon became aware of the immensity of the Russian military machine. Large bodies of troops and transport were on the road. Great caravans, often 'mijes longi of carts laden With food, hay, and ammunition blocked our way. Our motor often was dodging in and out of a. maze of wheels, horses' legs, arid lines of fur-capped men. It was m.v general impression that the transport machinery of Russia's great army is working smoothly, if slowly. The materials arrive at their destination without hitch or breakdown, though' not, of course, with the rapidity of a Western army, having regard to the less perfect roads and means of communication. A Traill Party. Occasionally we had amusing incidents when we met a train of transports witlr horses from Siberia who had never seen a motor. In spite of the frantic endeavours of the drivers the whole train was generally to be seen after a few minutes careering over the fields in every direction, distributing their burdens as they went.

! A long ride in tlie darlc and I reach- | ed a hospital train at the very end of a railway behind the Russian lines. I Here I made my abode for the night with a company of ambulances and Red Cross workers. \\ T e sat in second-class carriages with all doors and windows closed, with a stove burning, the air dense with tobacco smoke, drinking cups of boiliiig tea,' and all talking at once on subjects varying from the ruins of ancient Rome to the price of toothpaste in Poland, while the roar of artillery (only a mile or so distant) shook the carriage from side to side. The Russian never loses his love of association and his communicative nature even under the stress of war. Under Shell Fire. Next morning I set out to try and get down to the place where, along a strip of forest on the bank of a river, the Russian and German lines stood facing each other. I borrowed a trolley which worked by a handle, and with a couple of Polish students (Red Cross workers) crept gingerly down the railway, with a view to reaching first the Russian artillery positions on our side of the forest. About midday we reached the station of , and found a heap of charred ruins. . It had been shelled a few days previously by the Germans in the attempt to locate tlie Russian battery close by. In this object, however, they had failed. Soon it was apparent that they were going to make the .attempt again, for just as

we were about to proceed down the line the crescendo scream of a shrapnel, followed by a loud report overhead and I the patter of the grape shot in a field close by, told us that the German gunners were getting their range again. We forged ahead, thinking that we might get into the zone in which the shells would be bursting behind us. Before long we found that they were aiming at the Russian battery about 500 yards ay/ay from us, for some dozen or more shrapnel burst over us, slightly to the left, and the Russian battery answered with a round of three shots, fired all at once. So we beat a hasty retreat, and spent the next half-hour in watching, at a distance of half a mile, an interesting artillery duel, in which some 20 shells burst over the ruined station we had just visited. In the end the German battery stopped, and the Russian continued a few casual shots all that afternoon. By evening the German battery had withdrawn, but we could not make out its destination. Tea and Artillery. Later in the day I watched a fresh Russian battery which had been sent down by rail from Warsaw being unloaded from the trucks. The job was in the hands of an officer and some 20 men. They first sat down on the railway bank and began to discuss how to di> it. The officer asked advice from his men, and -in common council they decided on a plan. They then felt that it might go better with a cup of tea, so they lit a fire and had a.'' chai put,'' to which I was "invited. Then they got to work, arid all worked together, the officer with the men. At last the guns were got off, and away they went in the direction of the lines, with shouts and cracking of whips. That evening: the wounded began to. come in. Fine, lusty young men, they bore their sufferings with the stoic fortitude of the Slav. They held in their hands the ikons,' which they carried with them. "Look," said one of them to me,', "my mother gave me. that. She said if I kept it I should not be killed, for it is the picture of St. Vladimir. I shall become well, for I have the. ikon."

Another one told me liow he and two others were the only wounded in his battalion for the day. This he attributed to the fact thstfc : the , regimental priest had three times that day walked up and down in front of'the trenches bearing aloft the Orthodox cross. "How could Nemtsi shoot straight if our priest did that." Bessarabian Soldiers. | "Wandering southward on foot, behind the lines, I came to a little .spot where some Russian soldiers were squatting round a fire. I went up- and squatted down too, making the excuse .that, my hands were cold. I told them I was a friend, and they told me they were just back from the trenches for three days' rest. They all came from Bessarabia, but they had no idea in which part of Russia that was. All'they knew was that its name "was; Bessarabia, that bread was cheaper 1 there than in Poland, and that it was three days' journey in the train from where they were. "I don't know, brother," one Qf them then said to me, '' how it is with you in England, but here the guns shoot every day. Will the war end sobii? If it goes long, it will be bad. But who knows what will happen? May God give ua victory. His help: is needed for that." They wanted to know how many sol-, tilers there were in" England—they did not know that England was an island— ~ and they were anxious to know how much an English soldier got in food and pay. They told me that a Russian soldier got 3£lb of black rye bread, lib of meat, 12 solotniks of sugar, with tea and soup. I asked them if they had seen the Germans, and what they thought of them. "They are just like us," said one. "People in the world are all the same, but the Governments are .different."