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O hidden face of man, whereover The years have woven a viewless veil, If thou wert verily man's lover What did thy love or blood avail? Thy blood the priests make poison of; And in gold shekels coin thy love. Which has most to do with shekels today, the priests or the politicians? Can we say in any special sense nowadays that clergymen, as such, make a poison out of the blood of the martyrs? Can we say it in anything like the real sense, in which we do say that yellow journal

ists make a poison out of the blood of the soldiers?

But I understand how Swinburne felt when, confronted by the image of the carven Christ, and, perplexed by the contrast between its claims and its consequences, he said his strange farewell to it, hastily indeed, but not without regret, not even really without respect. I felt the same way myself when I looked for the last time on the Statue of Liberty.

RUSSIA'S DÉBÂCLE IN 1917

BY THE DUKE OF LEUCHTENBERG

[The author of this vivid account of the break-up of the Russian army, after the Kerensky offensive of 1917, is a former officer of a Turkestan brigade of chasseurs, who served as an aide-de-camp of Tsar Nicholas II.]

From La Revue de Paris, June 15

(INDEPENDENT POLITICAL AND LITERARY SEMI-MONTHLY)

WHEN the Great War broke out, I was in command of the First Battalion of the Preobrajensky Regiment of the Imperial Guards. Tsar Nicholas II had been colonel of this regiment when he ascended the throne, and was still its nominal commander. I had the honor to lead into battle this élite battalion, which headed the attack made on the first of August, 1914, near the city of Lublin. It was this attack that forced the Austrians of that sector to retreat. Later, I was in command of the reserve battalion of the same regiment. Subsequently I commanded the Twelfth Turkestan Chasseurs, from the retreat of 1915 to the end of 1916. During the latter period I was attached to the Tsar's suite as his aide-de-camp. It was in the latter capacity that I was in

timately associated with the drama at Mohilev, and the Tsar's abdication.

I returned to the front later as a brigadier-general in the Seventh Division of Turkestan Chasseurs, where I remained until December 16, 1917. After we made our shameful armistice with Germany, and the soldiers were empowered to elect their own officers, I resigned, as I was entitled to do on account of my length of service, and retired to Kieff.

I trust my readers will pardon me for such a long introduction about myself; but these details are necessary to explain how I became personally familiar with the facts I am about to relate.

Up to the great retreat of 1915, which was due mainly to shortage of munitions, arms, and even soldiers, the old disci

plined Russian army fought our battles. But by the middle of September, 1915, this army had been almost exterminated as a consequence of its appalling losses during the continuous fighting of the previous summer, and its place had been taken by a poorly drilled militia, almost destitute of enthusiasm and disciplined morale.

When I took command of the Twelfth Turkestan Chasseurs, late in August, 1915, at a point a little north of Warsaw, just as the retreat began, — it numbered about twenty-five hundred men. When the retreat was halted on the Niemen line, we were reduced to one hundred and fifty bayonets and five or six officers. Another regiment, commanded by one of my old army friends, had only sixty bayonets. During our retreat of two months, the Twelfth Turkestan Chasseurs had received but two hundred and fifty replacement troops.

Most of our artillery had been sent to the rear because we had no ammunition. We had to be very economical of ammunition even in firing the few guns still left at the front. We halted for days under the constant fire of German artillery, with no means of making an effective reply. We always retreated at night and in good order, only to be exposed to the steady gunfire of the enemy all the ensuing day. Although regiments were melting away rapidly, the length of line assigned them to defend remained practically the same. When my chasseurs had been reduced to six hundred men, they were still holding two kilometres of the front; and later in the retreat, when their numbers had been still further reduced, they were given a still longer line to hold. We had practically no reserves. In spite of all this, the enemy never broke our lines, and our army was able to reform and to fortify the position chosen for it.

How did we go about reorganizing

our regiment? The Twelfth Turkestan was for a time commanded by a captain, every officer of higher rank having been either killed or wounded. It was reinforced by about eight hundred men collected from the rear. Most of these were refugees and marauders, who had been enrolled previously in quite different arms of the service.

A little later we began to receive very young recruits, from nineteen to twenty years old, who had received practically no previous instruction. These boysfor young Russians develop slower than young Frenchmen and Germans—were not strong enough for heavy trenchservice or inured to cold and exposure. They lacked morale, and they received their military training practically under the fire of the enemy.

The convalescents from the old army who returned to us also exhibited signs of apathy and indifference. It was a common saying among them: 'Russians can do nothing against Germans.'

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In the course of 1916, however, heavy reinforcements began to arrive. They were better trained, clothed, and equipped than the men we had been receiving just previously. They, at first glance, made an excellent impression. However, they belonged to the second class of reserves, who did not properly belong in the active army, else were men previously exempt from military service. The latter had no stomach for fighting. For instance, after reviewing two new companies, of about five hundred men, I called for volunteers for scouting service. But a single man stepped forward, and he proved to be a veteran scout, who had been wounded and had just returned to the front.

During 1916 several incidents occurred which indicated the declining morale of the army, and the spread of revolutionary propaganda. Desertions were unfortunately facilitated by a line

of hospitals and canteens, mostly supported by private charitable organizations, behind the front. Some of these institutions, it is true, courageously pitched their great tents right up near the firing-lines; but most of them were well toward the rear. Deserters found them a great assistance. They wandered like tramps from one canteen or relief-station to another, where they found food and lodging, and thus lived indefinitely in the zone behind the army. All our efforts to suppress this evil were unsuccessful. After the first revolution it grew enormously.

Two facts, of minor importance in themselves, were very symptomatic of the growing disorganization in our forces. The commissary on one occasion supplied us with lentils instead of peas. A soldier protested that lentils were fed only to animals, and his whole company refused to eat them. On another occasion, a sergeant, a man of great personal valor, twice decorated with the Cross of Saint George, who had just returned from a hospital after recovering from a wound, took advantage of his platoon being stationed at an advanced post, to desert to the enemy, accompanied by a Jewish soldier. A Polish soldier, whom he tried to persuade to join him, hastened back to inform us of his action, but too late. Before deserting, the sergeant left his decorations and his papers in the trench. An investigation showed that he had had previous communication with the enemy, and had obviously been worked upon while in the hospital.

The splendid esprit de corps of the old Russian army, where each regiment had its own history and traditions, often going back as did those of the Twelfth Turkestan to Peter the Great, was due in no small part to the officers' corps, which consisted of professional soldiers who, for the most part, had spent their whole lives with their units.

Most of the older officers, as I have said, were now dead, wounded, or prisoners. A few of the wounded returned to service during the winter of 1916. But every regiment was called upon repeatedly to supply professionally trained and veteran commanders for the new regiments, of which more than eight hundred were in process of organization. Meanwhile, we were literally flooded with young subalterns; a wartime product, graduated every three months from the numerous military schools organized for this purpose. Most of these young people had not the slightest experience in active service. They knew nothing of their trade, of handling men, of manœuvring troops, or of discipline. In many cases their morale left much to be desired. Of some sixty-five that our regiment received in 1916 not more than fifteen were competent. These were former reservist officers, not considered fit for active service earlier in the war, or else men promoted from the ranks-former sergeants and the like. We saved the situation by putting these reliable men in the critical positions. The common soldiers neither loved nor respected these young officers, whom they considered hardly their own equals, since they had been given shoulder-straps before their baptism of fire.

One day the battalion of the regiment that I commanded received a heavy contingent of some three thousand men recruited from the cantons of two different governments. Only three or four days later, before all the men had passed medical inspection, we were ordered to send immediately to the officers' school at Oranienbaum near Petrograd, all the former militia trainers and any other men having a common-school education to be found among them. I immediately reviewed the new recruits and interrogated each one carefully. Only eighty out of the

three thousand possessed these very modest qualifications. In the course of my inquiry I convinced myself that many even of these were not qualified to take an officer's course. Not one of them had ever seen active service. Their previous military training was practically nil. Some presented themselves at the review in a state of intoxication.

In spite of everything the army was reorganized. It had radically changed in personnel, to be sure, but the ranks were again filled and we were well armed and equipped. Our artillery was in excellent shape and we had plenty of munitions. Everything was ready to move against the enemy simultaneously with our allies. But just at this moment came the revolution. The abdication of the Tsar and of his brother freed the peasants, who formed eighty per cent of the army, from their oath of allegiance. This was followed almost automatically by the débâcle.

I had left the front in November, 1916, and was attached to the Emperor's staff, while awaiting my appointment as brigade commander. This is how I came to accompany the Tsar to Mohilev. Leaving the Empress and the children, who were all down with measles, at Tsarskoe-Selo, the Tsar went down to Headquarters just at the time when the labor troubles broke out at Petrograd.

The garrison of the capital was composed of reserve battalions. These must not be confused with the old reliable regiments which were fighting just then in the distant region around Stochod. These reserve battalions often numbered five thousand men, with skeleton units of fifteen hundred more. Although a few supplementary officers and wounded or convalescent sergeants had been specially detailed to them, there were not enough officers to main.tain order and discipline in this heter

ogeneous mass of militia exempts and semi-invalids. The total force in Petrograd and vicinity was about seventyfive thousand. Revolutionary propaganda was rife. The moment the revolution started these men took things in their own hands and went over to the Provisional Government and the Duma. Almost at once they proclaimed themselves the guardians of the revolution, and what was the important thing for most of them - refused to quit Petrograd for the front. That soon aroused discontent among their comrades in the trenches.

At first, General Alexiev, Chief of the General Staff, who had replaced the Tsar as Commander-in-Chief of the army, ordered that no revolutionary propagandist be permitted among the troops. But he had to cancel this order on receipt of a telegram from Petrograd. Thereupon agitators descended upon our forces like a flock of locusts, bringing with them countless German spies and agents. They speedily wrecked the remnant of discipline among our naïve and uneducated private soldiers. They did not at first teach fraternization with the Germans, 'their brothers and comrades,' but they declaimed against the free Russian nation serving the imperialist designs of the Entente. The formula, 'All land to the peasants,' was spread among the troops, and helped to hasten the armistice. Every soldier was eager to get back to his village so that he might receive his share of the land.

Knowing as I did the peasants' minds, and kept at the front by force of habit and loyalty to the Tsar, though really wearied by the war, I saw what was coming. Great numbers of soldiers who had gone home to plant their fields delayed returning to the army. Next, our troops refused to fight an enemy for whom they felt no special hatred, since they hardly knew who that enemy was.

Then came surrenders en masse, whenever the Germans advanced against our lines.

After having accompanied the Tsar on his sad journey back to TsarskoeSelo, I was ordered by him to continue to serve Russia under the new government. In June I was placed in command of a brigade of the Seventh Division of Turkestan Chasseurs, which included my former regiment.

One misconceived order followed another, and demoralization rapidly spread among the troops. This reached a climax with the institution of soldiers' councils. These councils were elected by the troops, beginning with the companies and ending with the Grand Headquarters. These committees assumed the right to prescribe punishments, to handle discipline, to regulate regimental expenses, to distribute rations, and to control arms, equipment, and munitions. I must do them the justice to say that, although their members were mostly revolutionary Socialists, there were many honest and well-meaning men among them. But their new prerogatives turned their heads. Constant friction arose between them and their old officers, especially officers who tried, or were suspected of trying, to ignore the councils or to control them. Personally, I got along fairly well with my committee, and found it of assistance in certain instances.

However, the first councils, which were elected for six months, were considered too strict by the voters. The latter began to protest and complain, and finally orders came from Kerensky to reduce the term of office, if I remember rightly, to three months. The result of the next election was to increase the number of Bolsheviki in these bodies.

This second crop of committees contained practically no officers, and adopted a very hostile attitude toward

them. But even this did not satisfy the rank and file. They began to introduce the recall whenever they were dissatisfied with the rulings of a council. Thereupon the councils practically lost their authority, which was usurped gradually by secret cliques.

Kerensky permitted, not only political offenders but even common criminals, to enlist. The latter were required to state solemnly that they wished to atone for their crimes by giving their lives for their country. We had as many as twenty of these common criminals at a time in a single company. They made common cause with the disaffected elements, forming secret groups, which used terrorism to intimidate the better element. So the regularly elected soldiers' councils soon became mere figureheads, while the real power rested with these criminal secret gangs. This sub rosa organization rapidly extended to cover the whole army, furthering the interest, not only of the Bolsheviki, but likewise of the anarchists and the Germans. They modified and annulled orders which they did not like, even when the orders were drafted and signed by the regularly elected soldiers' councils. Under these conditions it was impossible to continue the campaign.

One day I was informed that the grenadiers of one company of my old regiment refused to take their turn in the trenches unless their grenades were carried out in a wagon. They said the grenades were too heavy to carry. I immediately went to the quarters of this company and summoned the members of its soldiers' council to inquire what the trouble was all about. I could see at once that the members were concealing something from me; the soldiers, while courteous and respectful, refused absolutely to do their turn in the trenches except under the conditions they had specified. As I was leaving the cantonment, I met one of my old chas

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