This proclamation was received in Galicia with acclaim. When the Russian soldiers came, priests and people came out from the villages with flowers and banners to meet their "little brothers." Flowers were thrown on their heads from the upper balconies of houses, as they marched through the streets. Whatever could be done by pretended ignorance or silence to mislead the Austrians regarding the Russian advance was done by peasants. Meanwhile, General Brussilov was making the most of his opportunities. He passed over the tributaries of the Dniester and without revealing his strength pushed back the Austrian cavalry screen. For this work he used large bodies of Cossacks, with all necessary infantry and artillery support. [Illustration: Field Marshal von Hindenburg] While appearing to be merely a border raider, the Cossack had to veil his main army and clear its path through bridgeheads, forts, and blockhouses, and he was well suited to this kind of work. Moving at the rate of eight miles a day in advance of the infantry and the big guns, he maintained a continual skirmish with cavalry scouts, infantrymen, and gunners in places that had been fortified, and even armored trains. In all, the Cossack in the Galician campaign, proved himself not only a most efficient soldier but well behaved. Previously, his reputation had been an evil one. Naturally, there were reports of brutality and savagery, but none were proved. In fact, neither on the part of the Russians nor the Austrians was there manifest any of the "frightfulness" attributed, rightly or wrongly, to combatants in the western theatre of war. It was, of course, not to the interest of the Russians to mistreat the people of Galicia. They came, in their own estimation at least, as deliverers, not as despoilers. As for the Austrians, they were in their own country when in Galicia. When they penetrated north into Russia, it appears that they did little wanton damage. On their return, it is true, they laid waste a large part of the province of Volhynia, burning villages and farmsteads as they proceeded. But this was dictated by military exigencies, in order to delay and inconvenience their pursuers. There was an occasion when it might have been supposed there would have been excesses. This was when after an Austrian defeat, the Russian van, composed of three divisions of Cossack cavalry, pushed through Halicz in pursuit of the enemy. The victorious troops swept through a country, full of Jews, and utterly undefended. It was a garden of plenty, a rich and fertile country. Instead of presenting a picture of desolation and ruin after the Russian army had passed, its cattle still grazed in the fields, the fields were full of shocks of grain, and chickens, ducks, and swine wandered about the streets of the town.