host of ravenous dogs in Russian villages; and as many of these were now ownerless, they had run wild. Besides these there were wild boars and wolves, always ready to take toll of the battlefield; to say nothing of the crow and the raven. Folstoffle's orders had been to return before midday on the 23rd; but it was after that hour before we turned to rejoin our main body. About four o'clock we met a section coming to look for us, as Colonel Krastnovitz had become anxious. The object of the reconnaissance was said to be accomplished; we had found that there were no enemies in that district; or, at any rate, in our immediate neighbourhood; and this information was corroborated by that of half a sotnia of Cossacks, who, it seems, had been acting in conjunction with us, though we had seen nothing of them since starting on our little expedition. But our leaders must have had a belief that the enemy was at hand: for we received orders to fall back on our deserted village, and put it into a state of defence, which we did by loopholing what remained of the walls, and digging trenches round the outskirts. In cases like this the trenches are held and defended while the enemy is using his artillery; but when the actual assault takes place, and he can no longer use his guns for fear of injuring his own troops, the defenders retire to the loop-holes as a second line of defence; and as they can fire into the trenches, these are seldom tenable by the enemy. CHAPTER XIII THE BUTCHER'S BILL TO THE END OF 1914 We were strictly kept within our lines: I had no opportunity, therefore, of ascertaining what other troops were in our neighbourhood. I took it for granted that we were supported, as it was quite clear that our battalion was acting as an advanced post. A battery of eight guns was sent to strengthen our position; but no other troops showed themselves; and the battery commander declared that he had come a distance of forty versts by march-route without seeing more than a few detachments of infantry and cavalry, the last named chiefly Cossacks. Writing of numbers recalls certain remarks which I heard about this time concerning the force, or supposed force, of ourselves and our enemies. The Germans on the East Prussian front were put by our commander at 1,600,000 men, with another 250,000 or 300,000 in Austria. I am inclined to think that these figures are an under estimation; though, on account of the speed with which the Germans moved their troops about by rail, it was very difficult to arrive at correct conclusions concerning their numbers. At one time, however, when they considered there was a serious fear of Germany being rapidly overrun by their ponderous foe, I am sure there was more than 2,000,000 German soldiers on the Eastern front with not less than 3,500 field-guns, and 1,000 guns of position, not including machine-guns of rifle-calibre.