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Show RUSSIAN RETREAT I A MASTERPIECE Terrifying, Systematic Devas Hi tation Recalls the Great Re- tirement of Armies j 1812. , II SEA OF FLAMES BEHIND Well organized Detachments j of Cossacks Follow Burning 1 1 1 Implacably Everything j in Sight. !! Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, I Jjj Sept. 1, via Paris, SepL 4, 11 a. m. i (Delayed in transmission.) Tho Lau- Ifljjl sanne Gazette publishes a letter from ml an Austrian officer fighting on the uwj eastern front in which he says: j! "The Russian retreat is a mastor- I jjs piece of terrifying, systematic devas- I jM tation which recalls the retreat of I !j 1812 There is an Immense sea of flames behind tho retiring Russian I fj armies caused by burning houses and 1 jjj crops. General Mischenko is follow- 1 jjj ed by well organized detachments of ijjj Cossacks whose duty it is to burn ev- jjnjjj erything behind the army. They ac- 3 jj I; complish their task implacably. I'll "When the Honveds tried to enter Sijl Krylow in pursuit of the Russians. gjljj every street was aflame. They wero Sijj unable to pass through the huge fur- II j nace and lost many precious hours in ajlj going round the town by indirect ljj roads across the fields. jjfl JI Towns Left Blazing. y K "When the Austro-Hungarlans ar- 11 rived at Vladimir-VolynskyI they B j found the town burning and the town fflii of Verba also was blazing. Every ? village on the Volynskyi plain as far ml as Kovel was in flames. The Austro- ij Hungarian troops had no shelter for m days. is "The roads are Indescribably cut up, Jjj and obstructed. Convoys arrived a Hj day and a half late. It would take j fifty soldiers to draw one cart out of II a mud hole. "Thousands of men worked upon I repairs on the railway from Sokol to II Vladimir-Voplynskyi and if the road m had not been repaired in time we II would have met with disaster." I oo HI |