Day by Day with the Russian Army, 1914-15Pares, Bernard
History
Day by Day with the Russian Army, 1914-15
Pares, Bernard
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Poland; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
Rewards were distributed, and we were off for home; but we had hardly
got there, with every one except the General fairly tired, when he
ordered his motor to take him off to his opposite flank, the right.
He invited me to come with him, and I asked leave to spend the night
in the trenches of the Q regiment, which held that flank. He gave his
leave, as there was no disquieting news from that side, and my traps
were put in the motor. We had a long push through the oceans of sand,
but at last were travelling along the rear of the right flank. At one
point some sinister hand, well in the rear of our front, had laid a
whole line of fire through a great wood.
Suddenly there opened before us such a sight as I had seen at the
beginning of the great fighting in Galicia when I was with the J Corps.
There was one long line of fire, shell on shell bursting at close
intervals and almost continuously in the twilight, with a deafening
noise, though we were some way in the rear. It was the smashing tactics
again--and again at the expense of the J Corps--which had suffered so
much in the previous fighting.
General Irmanov thought for a moment that we had gone beyond our own
positions; but it proved otherwise. We found the Staff of the Division
in a garden outside a hut. It was a General whom I had met elsewhere,
with a new Chief of the Staff, very conscientious and painstaking. With
a lamp on the table we sat in the garden and heard the news. At four
o'clock the Q's were intact. The neighbouring regiment of the J Corps,
which was only at half strength, had had to retire from its positions;
and the Q's, with their flank uncovered, were pounded till they had
but few men left. These retreated in good order, guarding as best they
could against further outflanking; but there was no question of getting
to them that night.
In a single day our corps, which the enemy respected enough to leave
till last, had been turned on both flanks; and at each of the
threatened points so far distant from each other, General Irmanov, who
could not have anticipated the danger, had managed to be on the spot as
soon as it presented itself.
_June 19._
The morning after our return from the right flank every one was very
busy, and the best thing that one could do was not to get in the way.
I had a chat with the Chief of the Staff, who, when he could snatch
an interval at an anxious time, usually spent it with one of the
more fantastic novels of Mr. H. G. Wells. We talked of the military
reputations of the war. He told me we were engaged along our whole
front; I had thought of getting to the regiment which I had accompanied
near Biecz, and which belonged to this corps; but he said that it was
difficult to send me. Shortly afterwards, in the most business-like
way, everything in the house was packed; we, too, were to retreat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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