OCR Text |
Show GERMAN MACHINE GUNS MOW DOWN RUSSIAN MASSES Terrific Assaults of the Czar's Soldiers in Tea Days Bloody Battle. DEAD PILED HIGH ON FIELD "Magnificent, but Criminal," Says Teuton Teu-ton Officer, in Describing Advance Ad-vance Made by Slavs in Face of Certain Death. By OSWALD F. SCHUETTE. (Special Correspondent of Chicago Daily News.) With Field Marshal von Hinden-burg's Hinden-burg's Armies, Near Postawy, Russia. I have come to these blood-drenched battlefields too late to see the terrific ter-rific assaults of the great Russian offensive, of-fensive, so I can only tell the story of this battle that raged day after day by picturing the scenes as 1 find them and piecing together into one ghastly mosaic the fragments of what I am told. I have talked with ofiicers and men of the German regiments that held back the Russian deluge and have carefully gone over the statements of the Russian prisoners. This battlefield consists of an open glade cut through the Russian primeval prime-val forest. It runs almost due north and south and varies in width from 400 to 1,500 yards. ' The Russians were intrenched along the eastern edge of this opening, while the forest behind offered splendid opportunities for concealing movements of troops and emplacements of artillery, The German lines skirt the western edge of the r'ade. Battle Lasts Ten Days. The Russian fighting at this point lasted ten days before the czar's troops finally gave up their attempt to break through the German lines. On :he first day the Russian fire was sporadic, spo-radic, apparently to make certain the range of the guns. Then for two days more the Russian bombardment continued, con-tinued, but now it was a real "drum are. This means that the cannonad- ng is so heavy that It sounds like the 01 attle of a drum. k. On the afternoon of the third day " :he Russian drum fire- was suddenly m lifted from the German trenches and converted into a "sperrfeuer" (curtain cl fire) back of the German lines to pre- fi' rent the bringing up of reserves. It m was the signal for a Russian attack. But of the forest came the storming c Russians straight - for - the German tr lines, straight into the curtain of Ger-man Ger-man artillery flretha iota ",ea'y ung columns, though these I auickly closed up. In the meantime the German troops rushed out of their dugouts into the water-filled and shell-torn trenches. Almost Al-most in a moment the machine guns were jerked out of the bombproof protection, and after being hastily nounted on the wreckage of the breastworks, began to sputter their fearful greeting to the Russians. Between the machine guns rattled he infantry fire. There was no time "tor giving coirmands and there was 10 need of any. There were no volleys. vol-leys. Each German soldier fired as '.ast as he could. The gaps In the Russian Rus-sian line widened, and then the Russians Rus-sians would hat and fire toward the 3erman trenchis, but it was hard to lim, and the billets scarcely checked the withering crash of machine gun and rifle fire. . - Stoppei at Barbed Wire. The Russiin wave reached the barbed wire utanglements before the German brea-tworks, but came no farther. far-ther. Torn, beaten and shattered into 1 thousand fagments, the remnants of the Russlarhost beat a retreat. How many reacted the protection of their trenches u'-ler the unceasing German fire no onccart tell, but the ground between be-tween theGerman and Russian lines was covced with dead and dying. There ws no further attack that night. Towai ' morning the thunder of the cannon uieted and the cries or the wounde. were almost stilled by daybreak. day-break. The i'eat battlefield was asleep only for antioiir when the action of the fourthly began with another terrific drum re, which lasted until long past noon. A;;fi the Russian wave broke from the (rests, but it had hardly got out 0f e woods before the German arti-T opened fire. Again shells tonopen the ranks; again the ma-chli ma-chli guns piled up the dead. The task wf,more terrible than on the day be-f0-, as the Russians had to storm 0 the bodies of their dead com-rres. com-rres. igain the night was freezing cold, -nln the hours were hideous with the res of the dying men out there on ii battlefield and again the darkness is filled with the thunder of cannon, o prevent a night attack, the Ger-Isras Ger-Isras kept up a discharge of llluminat-n? llluminat-n? rockets and a blue-greenish glare .dded to the ghastliness of the field of leath. But no Russians dared to advance. ad-vance. i At daybreak the Russians opened with a third drum fire. This time it was more terrible than on the previous previ-ous occasions, for it was directed not only on the German trenches, but deep W.fl Ui lines behind them, to hold back the reserves and prevent the bringing up of relief to the half-frozen German soldiers, who, bundled up, outs waiting for the attack which they w knew was inevitable. At eight o'clock c the attack came and this time it was P' more successful. Despite the artillery, despite the ma- s chine guns and despite the infantry ' fite, the apparently inexhaustible regi- fr ments of Russians swept on over the r dead, over the barbed-wire barriers be- c' fore the German line, over the first ' trenches and routed the German sol-diers, sol-diers, who were half frozen in the mud a bi mtii . ...aw. cu -:.i. v " 3e hand-to-hand conflict followed. Hand grenades tore down scores of defend-p3 defend-p3 ers and assailants al'ke. The men le fought like maniacs with spades, bay-Ll bay-Ll onets, knives and clubbed guns, is Within 100 Feet of Victory. ' But the Russians won at a fearful lv 1 C l.-l.i - ,i . . . pi ice iui ou Biigm u gain, il migut have been worth more had the Russian Rus-sian deluge swept farther, but it did not. The Russians stopped within a hundred feet of victory. It may have been lack of discipline, lack of officers or lack of reserves; no one knows. The Russians seemed helpless In the German trench; Instead of sweeping sweep-ing on into the second lines they tried to intrench themselves in the wrecked German first line. Immediately German Ger-man artillery hurled shells of the heaviest caliber into these lines, and tore them into fragments. Then came the German reserves, and by nightfall the Russians had again been driven out, 800 of them being taken prisoners. Four days of almost absolute quiet followed, with only occasional artillery fire and now and then a sputtering infantry in-fantry volley across the glade with its burden of death when the scout posts on either side thought they'-saw the enemy. The weather turned warm again aiiu the held or buttle m a.u almost impassable swamp. Attack Without Drum Fire. On the eighth day reports reached the German lines that the Russians intended in-tended to make a surprise attack that night without any drum fire. The German Ger-man artillery therefore shelled the Russian woods at a terrific rate at hourly intervals through the night. All the troops remained on duty without a minute of sleep, but no Russians came. Thy next day was quiet. That night again It was feared there might be. a surprise attack and so again the German artillery shelled the Russian lines until morning. But there was no attack until the following noon, when, without any artillery preparation, prepara-tion, the Russian onslaught was repeated. re-peated. A German officer told me the story of that attack. He said that if he had not seen it himself he would never have believed It possible that an attack would come out of the Russian Rus-sian woods, where the lines were almost al-most 1,500 yards apart. Suddenly, without any warning, a mud-colored wave begaD to pour forth from the forest. It was a, line of Russians Rus-sians three ranks deep, containing more than 1,000 men. ftiey marched step by step, and did not run. Behind Be-hind this was a second wave like the first, and then a third, the intervals between them being about 150 yards. The German r.rtillery tore holes in the ranks, which merely closed up again, marched on and made an attempt at-tempt to fire. They marched, as though on parade. "It was magnificent, magnifi-cent, but criminal," said the German officer. Then came a fourth line like the other three. The first line was less than 1,000 yards from the German trenches. It came so slowly that it was possible for the Germans to make plans with cruel precision to meet it. Caught Between Walls of Firo. When the fourth line emerged from the Russian wood the German artillery artil-lery dropped a curtain of fire behind It and then a similar wall of shells ahead of those In front. They then moved these two walls closer together togeth-er with a hail of shrapnel between them, while at the same time they cut loose with the machine guns. Tb,e splendid formation of Russians, trapped between the walls of fire, scattered scat-tered heedlessly in every direction, but in vain. Shells gouged deep holes in the dissolving ranks. The air was filled with clamor and frantic shrieks were somenmes heard above the in- ei lessant roar and cracking or explodiLg ir projectiles. oi Deafened men sought to dig them- ti selves into the ground in the foolish 11 belief that they could find safety there " from this deluge of shells. Others . raced madly for the rear and some es-caped es-caped in this way as if by a m'rcle Still others ran t " t- '"TTiii in Unes, onTytota--7"c'ut down by the Ger-tn2fln3acnlne-gun fire. In less than twenty minutes the ter-j ter-j rible drama was over. The attack had cost the Russians 4,000 lives, and yet not a Russian soldier had come within 500 yards of the German lines. "It was a terrible harvest of death," said the officer who described the battle. It was the last gasp of the Russian of-I of-I tensive at this point. |