"Defeated men sought to dig themselves into the ground in the foolish belief that they could find safety there from this deluge of shells. Others raced madly for the rear and some escaped in this way as if by a miracle. Still others ran toward the German lines only to be cut down by the German machine-gun fire. "In less than twenty minutes the terrible dream was over. The attack had cost the Russians 4,000 lives, and yet not a Russian soldier had come within 600 yards of the German line." Another important feature of the March offensive, especially in its early phases, was the patrol work, executed on both sides. This required not only courage of the highest order, but also a high degree of intelligence on the part of the leader as well as of the men working under him. The results obtained by patrol work are, of course, of the greatest importance to the respective commanding officers, and many times the way in which such a mission is carried out is the decisive factor in bringing success or failure to an important movement. At the same time patrol work is, of course, a matter of chiefly local importance, and no matter how difficult the problem or how cleverly it is solved it is only on rare occasions that the result reaches the outside world, even though a collection of detailed reports which patrol leaders are able to make would form a story that would put to shadow the most impossible book of fiction or the most unbelievable adventure film. The following two descriptions of such work, therefore, make not only a highly sensational story, but prove also that war in modern times relies almost as much on personal valor and initiative as in times gone by, all claims to the contrary notwithstanding, and in spite of the wonderful technical progress which military science of our times shares with all other sciences. An American special newspaper correspondent with Von Hindenburg's army reports the following occurrences and also gives a vivid pen picture of conditions in the territory immediately behind the front: "In a forest near the town of Lyntupy a patrol of thirteen Russian spies hid in an abandoned German dugout in the course of a night march southward to destroy a bridge over the river Viliya with high explosives. "Desperate for food, they finally intrusted their safety to a Polish forester, ordering him to bring food. The forester promptly gave the Germans information. The Germans surrounded the dugout, throwing in three hand grenades. On entering the dugout they discovered ten Russians killed by grenades and three by bullets. "The Russian lieutenant had shot two comrades not killed by grenades and then himself, in order to escape execution as spies, for the patrol was not in uniform.