THE MEN BEHIND THE LINES
+1
DARING AND DANGER.
1BY THE TIMES' SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]
It is a cruel injustice that, while one writes ao much of the bravery of our soldiers who do the actual âghting--and Que cannot write too much of it-neither time nor space permits one to dwell upon the others whose share in victory is really no less nor their work less arduous.
way
'FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH."
THE HONGKONG DAILY PRESS, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1st, 1916.
GLORIOUS HEROISM OF A BRITISH
SAILOR BOY.
Even where, as Admiral Beatty writes, the behaviour of the ships' compoules in the sea battle was magnificent, without exception, the glorious heroism of a boy an HMS. Chester stands out pro- minently.
The story is told in a report from the commanding officer on the Chester, who Hays:
Boy (1st Class) John Travers Cornwell, of the Chester, was mortally wounded early in the action. He nevertheless re mained standing alone at a most exposed post, quietly awaiting orders till the end of the setion, with the gun's crew dead His age and wounded all round him. was under 18 years. I regret that hô has since dief, but I recommend his case for special recognition in justice to his memory, and as an acknowledgment of the high example set by him.
BUKOVINA
TWO BULLETS FIND THEIR BILLETS IN A BOOK. THE CARPATHIAN PASSES.
"THERE MUST BE A WAR. ON, The whole of Bukovina now lies in Russian hands, But most of us never
AFTER ALL, I SUPPOSE." thought twice of Bukovins till this war
+ Much has been said of the amazing began, and the news, save that it marke the passing of another stage in the Busverve and sprit with which our men-
We
regiment
regiment-have thrown sian advance, means little to UK. may consider its significance in two as themselves cheering and singing into the peets, first puting the value of Bukovinis very heart of the German defences. More in itself, and, secondly, its importano extraordinary still it is to find the same as a means to a further invasion of the spirit abroad in the hospital ships and the hospital trains. Sorely wounded as many Bukovina is a geographical expression, of them are, and on a journey which all Hapsburg dominions. The province has no natural or national the care can make only endurable, the men still tingle with the thrill of the unity, and no bond of union with the queer congeries of territory over which charge and their talk is all of the glori Francis Joseph rules, except the sway of
ous rush with which they carried every Bukovita the Austrian bureaucracy.
obstacle.
Deans simply the land of beech trees.
"We went over in grand style," said a The name is given to a trianglur pie sergeant, recalling the assault on Montan. of land which lies between the mountain ban, “and found the place in an awful mass of the Carpathians and the plans. Most of the houses had been knock of Galicia, Basin and Rumania, Nearlyed head over heels the only ones I saw half of its area is forest. About a quarter standing were a couple of cafés. As we is under pasture, and another quarter cane on we saw lots of Germans running It has therefore been of out of the back of the village, but when we considerable importance as a source of get into the streets there were plenty of food supplies. But its total extent is only them monkeying about the ruins. We had 4,000 square miles, that is, rather more divided the company up into groups of six, but as we neared the village we all than half the area of Wales.
joined up again. My five pals were five of the best, and we kept well together. We saw some Huns in a ground-floor- room, 90 we dropped a Mills' bomb through the window and didn't wait for an answer.
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The Dispatch Riders are a constant source of wonder and admiration. Their missions are often of the most perilous, and the mortality among them has been considerable. Behind the lines one sees l all day, and everywhere, pounding alung on their motor-ycles, soaking wet and cased in mud, or, in dry weather, covered with dust and grime, so that their features are quite indistinguish- alle, somehow threading their through all the blocks and intricacies of the traffic, among horses and guns and lorries and columns of marching men.
And at night, wherever one is, in the
From the captain of the Cheater Mrs.arable land. stillness or through the noise of the guns, Cornwell has received the following let somewhere on the nearest road the cense- ter: I know you would wish to hear of less purring of their machines goes on.
the splendid fortitude and courage shown Individually, I pressume, they sleep by your boy during the action on May
Lying at the point where the frontiers sometimes. Collectively, they never stop,alst. His devotion to duty was an ex- The constant playing of their shuttles ample for all of us. The wounds which of two strong races, the Russian and the going on day and night through all the resulted in his death within a short time Roumanian, meet, it is naturally the were received in the first few minutes of home of a diverse population. Before the complicated fabric of The moving armies.
Then there are Signals
war it had more than 800,000 inhabitants, (though the action. He remained stendy at his the Dispatch Riders are technically most exposed post at the gun, waiting Of these 35 per cent. were Roumanians "Signals alo), who look after the for orders. His gun would not bear on and 40 per cent. what Austria loves to telephone and telegraph communication, the enemy; all but two of the ten crew call Ruthenians. Who are the Ruthenians? "As we turned the corner we saw a whether the Army is moving or at rest. were killed or wounded, and he was the They are a creation of Austrian bureau-German lying round the end of a wall. NETH. INDIA, MANILA, HONGKONG & SAN FRANCISCO. On them, when our line pushes forward, only one whe was in such an exposed pasterats. One of the great branches of the He'd got a machine-gun and had made depends the maintenance of connections tion.. But he felt he might be needed, Slav race is the Little Russians. I the a little emplacement with bricks. Ho with the headquarters in the as indeed he might have been; so he stay Middle Ages they established a strong turned this dame thing on me and got Generally, it is safe to assume that theed there, standing and waiting, under
There are now
me in the foot. It didn't stop me, enemy is barraging the intermediate heavy fire, with just his own brave heart kingdom of their own.
kome 23,000,000 of them in the Russian though, and when I was getting near him apa ns heavily as he can.
and God's help to support him.
Empire. Their home is in the southern I felt two kicks over the heart. 1 didn't I have never spoken to a Brigade or
provinces on both banks of the Dnieper, wait to see what had happened, but sim- Divisional Comtaander after an advance
in Volhynin, and in Pudolia, with Kieff ply wert át him and bayoneted him. I without his paying the highest tribute to
as their metropolis. The conquering couldn't go on ruuch farther, so I sat down the bravery of the men who have worked
armies of General Brussiloff are there to see what was the damage. My foot on coally in spite of whatever fire the
fore based on the homeland of the Little was pretty bad, but when I looked at my euemy poured upon them. More than one
Russians. Bat of this race many have left-han I breast pocket I saw two holes Commander, in expressing his adaira tion. has said, "I don't know how they I hope to place in the boys' mess a plate on for a hundred years under the Haps it, I opened my pocket and found dili. Some day proper recognition with his name on and the date, and the bung dominion. There are two or thres that two bullets had gone through my will be given to them. Meanwhile, one words "Faithful unto death. I hope millions of them in Galicia, and, as we metal shaving mirror, through my pos can only say that they have shown them some day you may be able to come and have seen, some hundreds of thousands intense, and had nosed their way into a selves-through everything worthy ofsee it there. I have not failed to bring Bukovina, But Austria will not allow book I was carrying. Funnily enough,
before Dame prominently the men with whom and for whom they his
them to call themselves Russians,
earlier in the morning my officer gave me work.
Admiral,
-Was certain Count Stadion, once governor of Galicia, who invented for book and said I could read it when I got into the German trenches-so I put For years it in my pocket, little thinking that I Austrian policy has striven to constitute should be able to read a bit of it on hos a Rutheniu nationality which should be independent of, and even hostile to, Ruspital ship coming back."
BRINGING UP MUPPLIES.
I cannot express to you my admiration of the son you have lost from this world. No other comfort would I attempt to give to the mother of so brave a lad, but to assure her of what he was and what an example he gave.
ny
Since he was a small boy Cornwell's one ambition was to be a sailor. He had them the name Ruthenian. per-
only been at sea a few weeks before he met his death.
And the Transport! Our men, hs, have pushed with superb anducity across the open, under a storm of fire as they went, to rush some-wood or trench or village They have forced their way in and held it. But the way by which they came is still swept by a withering fire. increased in all probability by the heavy barrage which the enemy is now Lhrowing across the open to prevent min forcements from coming up. To send new batalions of infantry across that
It
The two bullets, after piercing the mir He was home on leave from the school last Easter, said his mother in an inter-sia
The dreamers of Vienus have hoped for and ease, bad met and fused into one view and the last thing he said as he left home again on Easter Monday night that this night some day bring the dis- lump of metal as they struck the book was, "I only hope I'll get a ship soon and integration of Russia and the establish-Jan Hay's A Knight on Wheels." that we'll have a chance to smack the ment of a "Ruthenian province, includ Won't you be proud when Iing Volbynia, the Ukraine, Kieff, and all Geriaana.
That was the in- come home with a stripe on my arm the Little Russians.
Hace would, until some other point, Something grand, not bars like it is Tapiration of the grandiose Teutonic talk down theirs too, and went for them with
whence the enemy's machine guns and rifles command it, has been cleared out, be merely to throw those battalions away. Our little handful on ahead must, for n while, hold that place unaided, and they may have to hold it so, not for hours, but for days. If so, supplies must be got up to them-and supplies have always gone
More than once I have told how pris oners have reported that they, had been without food or water for some days be cause nothing could reach them through wur artillery fire. I have no hesitation whatever in saying that in like case our men would have had their rations, have heard only one instance where ad- vanced troops of ours in a certain wood really safered because supplies did not
now.
It seems terribly hard to lose him." she sighed, but he died a death he himself would have wished, for Eng land."
*
THE GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION.
At this stage in the war we must also consider the occupation of Bukovina in ends.
STARVING GERMAN PRISONERS. I'
saw, he continues, Gree German coine up to two of our fellows and throw down their rifles. So our Inds chucked their fists, and they didn't half give 'em a dusting.
branches.
The spirit of our boys was splendid. They simply loved the fun. One of thera He seemed got blown up by a shell.
roach them. No matter what the obstacles difficulty, and going, with few words but its second asprot, as a means to strategis Prelty dazed, but he' picked himself ap
have been, our transport has always gone through,
Of course, there have been losses—gome- times of a few individuals only, some
But times in the wiping out of a unit it has made no difference. The food and water had to be gut up and it has been got up. And there has been no need of compulsion or of discipline. It is one of the extraordinary things about theso- men of ours that, with nothing said, they about whatever job lies before them as if it were as much a matter of course as was their daily peaceful task at home.
GALLANT MESSENGERS.
and came along. All he said was, "Oh! There must be a war on after all, I sup-
puso.
GOMMECOURT EPIC DOGGED. ADYANCE UNDER TEMPEST OF FIRE.
last year about a march on Kieff, If Aus tria could incorporate one branch of the Slav race in Bohemia, another in Cran
One of our boys did wonders with the tia, why not yet another in the East! Such dreams the Russian occupation of bayonet. He was chasing three Germans. Bukovia and the thunderous blows in caught them up, and bayonetted twn; Galicia and Volkyria are now shattere swang round lie bit the third man petent artists are here (and if not they have shown little sign of gratitude for man machine gunner up a tree. He had It is earnestly to be hoped that coming for over. The Ruthenians, indeed, down with the butt of his rifle. As we were going into Montauban we saw a Gez should be sent) who will make studies, Austrian attempts to use them as a means
got the ventest little platform you over not of battles for the modern battle is to weakening the Russian power. Among saw, painted so that it was almost invis- a difficult thing to interpret on canvas them Russian sympathies have always- but of the British soldier, the individual been keen, and the hearty welcome which ble. We shot him down, but he didn't fall clear. The last we saw of him was that in the ranks, with his rifle and equip the Russian armies received in Galicia, he was hanging by his boots from the ment and tin hat," or with his gun, evidence enough of the natural destina his horses, his lorry, his motor-bicycle, tion of Austria's Ruthenians. or aeroplane. It is a new figure in the world-this quiet man in khaki wrestling so imperturbably with every kind of utter cheerfulness, about his carpest
This is not the place for con- work,
jecture or prophecy as to what Gen. **INSUBORDINATE ** PADRES.
eral Staffs. may next intend. Lat
We had-carried the first two lines, and And as yet I have said nothing about therefore, confine ourselves to BJ1 ex-
on getting into the third we saw the the R.A.M.C. or the stretcher-bearers. amination of the facts of geography.
know one case in which, only three We hear continually that the Russian Germans coming up from the two exits are at the foot of the Carpathians, that of a deep dugout and pairing off down days ago, one battalion lost in one after- noon 12 out of its 18 stretcher-bearers.
is, only the Carpathians atand between the trench, Our-platoon commander get into the trench and picked the Huns off And the Chaplains, I believe, have been them and the Hungarian plain, one of the most insubordinate the only insab the most vulnerable points of the Central as they came out. He had a month of ordination in the Army, for when Empires. And undoubtedly, with their the dugout on either s'de of him, say 15 they are commanded to stay with Field troops beyond Kimpolung and Kuty, Heyards away. He was as cool as a cucum Ambulances and Dressing Stations theyRussians are at the foot of the Carber he simply turned from right to left Unfortunately, this does not and fired just as if he was in a shooting keep turning up in the front-line treaches pathians. No one in all the Army, again, has and going with the men where they have necessarily mean that they will soon be saloan. It was the best bit of fancy shoot-
un the other side. The Carpathians are
ing I've seen. done braver things than
and to right to be. There are many batta scores scores of our runners, or messangers, who fions in which the Padre is known to be a great natural picee of fortification. take back dispatches of all sorts from the one of the bravest officers of the lot; tou Not so formidable as the Alps, they are, nevertheless, only to be crossed by armies advance to the supports, to lases, or many, also, which have no Padre now. headquarters A day, or two ago, a
And, besides all these, there is the at a few points, and those, as we learnt Brigade Commander who, with his men, whole amazing organization behind in the early month of 1915, can be long har just been through one of the grandest the lines. The world at large is be- defended against the most vehement
Towards the northern end of the line episodes of all this battle, said to me ginning to understand that the produc assault. In that phase of the campaign about as follows:-
tion of the British Armies in the short the Russians were attacking the Galician of attack, that is to say, about Gomme- passes, Though they occupied Lemberg, court salient, north of Hebuterne, the In the old days, when a message had space of time which it took was some
But the Przemyl, and the whole of Galicia as far strongest resistance was encountered. Of to be taken through the enemy's fire, a thing of a miracle. 11
mere accumulation and equipment and
the Dunajec, an Austrian counter-offen the superb self-sacirice of our men at volunteer was called for, and we all know
sive had won back most of Bukovina this point Mr. Beach. Thomas tells a stories of how the regiment has watched drilling of so many willion men is not. in breathless anxiety while the messenger when one sees the whole, what strikes The Bukovina passes, therefore, have not graphic story:-Our attack at Gomme- court, he writes, was as heroic as any went, perhaps getting through, and perone as the really miraculous thing. It yet been attacked..
The easiest lies in the south at the thing in the war. In spite of appear- haps not. But if he did get through, he is that all these men, thus accumulated, probably received the Victoria Cross. equipped, and drilled, should all be point where Rumania, Transylvania, and ances the Germans (who hold a charp
Bakovina meet, From Doras Yatrs salient in Gommecourt Wood) Our runners aught all to receive the parts of this wonderful machine.
road threads the wooded mountain cou-known to be both forewarned and fore- Victoria Cross. They do not magnificent- The Germans have persisted that, even
try at an easy gradient and descends to
armed. At 7.30 a.m., and earlier, on ly volunteer, and they have not the glory if we could find the men, we could not
the valley of the Bistritz. This is called July 1st, their guns-closely concentrated knowing that the regiment is watching make the machine which they have been
It has a good road, and I and of full calibre-set up a triple bar- them. It is in the regular course of their perfecting for 40 years and more. But the Borgo Pass.
there is reason to believe that since the rage. Through all these three barrages duty; and they go without a word and it is here, operating with perfect smooth
war began a railway has been taken over of intense fire our auen marched quite without fuss, the only difference being neas a machine which, in its mere mass
it. On the Transylvanian side it leads steadily, as if nothing was in the way, that the fire that they have to go through and intricacy, almost staggers the ima- is more often than not vastly worse than gination. One cannot speak of details to a district in which there is a large as if they were under review. At every any which the men who so splendily won
of the system for fear of saying some Rumanian population, the recovery of step men fell; and our trenches here are The very far apart from the German. the FC. in the old days had to face. thing which should not be told, but it is which has long been one of the chief am-
I do not believe that he exaggerated, stupendous in its proportions, with thebitions of Rumania. It is, therefore, gap was still wide, though a little while The thing is going one ery day. And methodical handing of the men in their obvious that the march of a Russian force before the fighting we had built a com- any of us who had misgivings in the past hundreds of sands, of all their over the Burgo would produce consider pletely new trench nearer the enemy in lest the fibre of the British people might equipment and supplies, food and mis-able political effect. On the other hand, the course of a single night. When these be softening must hasharned. Never cellaneous baggage and aminunition, and we have to note that such a force would steady, steadfast soldiers, true to have we had surer ground for confidence the endless trains of guns, guns and still be far from Hungary and engaged death, paraded in more than decimated numbers through and across the third in the quality of our race. Whatever shells by millions upon millions, all upon an almost isolated movement. danger we, as a nation, may have been in brought from England and all here in The other important pass from Buko barrage, the enemy in their turn heroic of
growing soft, we assuredly had not their places, or moved from place to vina, the Stiol, has the advantage of lead-left their trenches, crected machine begun to soften when this war came. It place with the rhythm of clockwork.ing to Hungary But it is far more guns on the parapets, and the two par has found us still sound.
One cannot convey any idea of it, nor difficult, rising to some, 4,000ft., it has ties fought one another in the open.. However familiar one becomes with it.grasp it in its entirety; but day by day no very good communication on either have not the hardihood to write one never ceases to be struck by the the immensity of it grows on one, and side, and is altogether without connection Heroism could no further go. Our men curious sir of competence which every one realizes how trivial beside it has with railways, The Russian advance ou died; aud in dying held in front of them man in our Armies seems to carry with been anything that British military Kolomea, though it takes us beyond the enough German guns to have altered the him. There is, in contrast with some organization has had to do in the past. borders of Bukovina, may also he con fate of our principal and our most suc Continental Armies, little evidence of That is the real miracle; not the mere sidered. For Kolomen stands on the rail-cessful advance in the south. They died command, yet each man-civilian though millions of men nor even their bravery, way which leads over the Delatyn or defeated, but won as great a victory in he may have been but a few months ago but this huge, frictionless machine of Jablonitzi Pass, one of the main high spirit end, in fact as English history or
goes about his work as if he had been which they are a part. One talks of the ways between Hungary and the East any history will ever chronicle. born to it. It is no mere aggregation size of this or that commercial enterprise,The summit of the pass is more than of amateur soldiers which is now testing or engineering scheme, or industrial 5.000ft. above the sea, but it is not as diffi-
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the whole strength of Germany: it is an organization. The biggest of them is cult as those figures would suggest. Some the existence of the theory proved the Army admirably, organized, which al- the tricking out of a doll's house com-uthorities have it that by the Jablonitzi practicability of the pass for masses of ready, and of right, assumes the bearing | pared to the thing which Great Britain Pass the Magyars themselves first entered
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