The battle was clearly for the possession of Warsaw; and more than once rumours reached us that the foe had carried the city at the point of the bayonet; but I do not think they ever got within sight of any part of it, though many of their newspapers claim that they did, and even occupied its suburbs. The last-named claim was evidently false; but the place had a narrow escape of falling. The fight seems to have worn itself out; or the Germans fell back: for all was quiet on the 21st, though neither side had obtained a victory. This was too frequently the sequence to a prolonged fight or series of fights. The opposing force seemed to get tired out, and a lull ensued, during which one would scarcely hear a stray rifle shot. On the 21st, however, some of our troops at the front captured a German band! It consisted of about forty musicians, though they said there had been eighty of them when they first came to the front. Asked to give us some music they played willingly enough, and very well. The Russian regiments have bands, but I heard and saw very little of them during this war; they seemed to have been sent to the rear to attend to wounded men. Some of the Siberian regiments, and the foot Cossacks, have dancing men who march at the head of the battalions, and dance, sing, and clash cymbals, when moving from place to place. It is hardly necessary to record that the Germans made desperate attempts to cross the river during the fighting referred to just now. I did not actually witness any of the fighting at this stage, but I know that it all failed. I was told that they tried to pontoon the stream at a place called Viegrod, abreast of Garvolin station. The pontoons were smashed to pieces, and several hundreds of the enemy drowned. Small detachments got over at various places, some in boats, others by means of flying bridges; but they were all destroyed or captured. They did not succeed in forcing any of the permanent bridges, which were defended by _têtes-de-pont_. The Russians claimed that they completely wiped out some of these detachments. I saw bodies lying together within very narrow spaces of ground; and I have no doubt that the peasantry avenged themselves by killing the wounded: and I know that the Russian infantry bayoneted every man of one detachment of about 300. Still a good many prisoners were taken, and sent by train to Warsaw. The Germans used some aeroplanes for observation work; but on being fired at these machines went out of range and kept there. It would have been a great advantage to the Russians to have had some of these things; but that they had few, or none, in this part of the field, shows that aircraft cannot materially affect a foe who is without them. No doubt aeroplanes have done splendid work for the Allies, and inflicted serious losses on the enemy; but they do not often seem to be able to face an army in the field.