WAR TRADITIONS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2273, 6 October 1914, Page 6

WAR TRADITIONS

RUSSIA'S FORMER BATTLES

VICTORIOUS RETREATS

THE SWEDES AND NAPOLEON

The Ruesian advance upon Galicia and Eastern Prussia is being made over his-toric-ground. The forefathers of the ,Czai's conquering troops conducted two. victorious; retreats —tho adjective is justified —as masterly perhaps as those reported in the campaign of Belgium and France. Charles XII, the lion of Sweden,: left Saxony in September, 1707 -Exactly 207 years ago—to invade the territory of'-Peter-the Great He had with him 43,000 fine Swedish troops, veterans who had overrun Poland and Saxony, each with prize money amounting to fifty crowns and all flushed with victory. The-soldiers of those days irere fine foragers and marauders. Other Swedish armies of 20,000 and 15,000 were in, Poland and Finland. Charles was confident that he had only to advance to dethrone Peter and juggle with tho throne of Russia as he had with that of Poland. He and his Swedes were indifferent .to ice and snow. In the dead of .winter—January,, 1708-r----tbey crossed the Nieman and were within five miles of Grodno, which may be seen on the war maps, before the RusEians were aware of their approach. Cbarles was with an advance guard numbering only 600 men, but the Tsar, thinking that; the whole Swedish army was upon him, lied, leaving everything behind. Receiving information later that the town was held only by small detachments, the Tear, sent back 15,000 cavalry in the darkness of the night. The bold way, in which the handful of Swedes advanced to meet them filled them with terror, for the name of Charles was"then, as great a cause,of dread as that of Napoleon a hundred years later. . ■ A Doomed Invasion. The Russians continued to retreat beforo iihe invaders over miles of marshes, deserts, moaatains, and forests. The country was laid, waste. Tho Russians allowed cold and hunger to fight their hattles for them, they drew their puisuers on to snow-bound wastes. In the cultivated country the peasants had hidden all their grain and dry goods underground. Tho Swedes inarched along sounding the earth with iron-tip-ped poles in order to discover the buried stores. After hewing his way through a part of the forest Charles at length reached the Beresina, the river made world-famous through the tragedy of Napoleon's "grand army." The Swedes gained a great victory at Smolensko, but instead of- pushing on to Moscow, about 250 miles away, marched south towards TJkrania, or the country of the Cossacks. Here Charlos's fate became linked with -that of Mazeppa, the hero of Byron's poem. This extraordinary character was then Prince of TJkrania. Hβ had been brought up as a page at the Polish court. A Polish nobleman who was jealous of Maze.ppa's familiarity with his wife Had him tied, stark naked, to a wild Cossack horse, and set the animal free. The horse galloped away across the steppes bearing a burden more dead than'alive. Cossack peasants released him, and he Tose to be a person of consequence amongst them. He led them against tho Tartars, and was their envoy to tho Tsar. Mazeppa was a born conspirator. He made a secret treaty with the King of Sweden to dethrone the Tsar, and promised to meet Charles's army near the river Desna with 30,000 Cossacks, ammunition and provisions. His treachery was discovered. The Russians devastated the whole countryside. When tho Swedes, famishing and weary, approached tho meeting place Mazeppa met them as a.

fugitive without resources. Cold, hunger, and fatigue played greater' havoc with the Swedish army than. the overwhelming forces of the enemy. Before Pultowa, on July'B. 1709, Charles met his Waterloo, and fled to Turkey. Tho "Crand Army." Cold and hunger as signally' defeated Napoleon's "grand army", as they did that or tho terrible Charles, 'and to a large extent upon tho samo territory. The French forces numbered at least 470,000 •men. The front stretched from Riga right down the Volhyman irontier. At the commencement of' tho campaign the Russians mustered about '260,000. They had no intention of entering 'upon decisive engagements. Tsar Alexander I intended to-lay waste tho 1 country before the French invaders, and to leave the work of destruc- i iion to tho bitter Russian winter.- Napoleon's army reached Wilna. the capital of the rich province of Lithuania, to find that all tho magazines had been burnt.' As he pressed on, with' the Russians retreating before him, he passed over a waste of smoking ruin. The country was desolate. Napoleon issued bulletius complaining of Russia's "barbarous methods'' and its disregard for the laws of civilised warfare. He pushed on to Smolensko, and was repulsed three times. At night his forces won the position, only to find that the Russians had departed, and that the wooden city was becoming a sweeping torrent of flames. A Russian officer was brought before Napoleon and asked what the French were likely to encounter between Viasma and Moscow. He answered one word: "Pultowa." • Alexander was repeating the tactics of Peter the Great. Napoleon reached Moscow only to see that great city burst into flames also. His army had suffered much on its outward inarch, but its experiences were as nothing , to those on thd way home. Everywhere the bravo soldiers saw only desolation and death. They traversed the snow-clad wastes, as a horde of weary, dispirited wretches, growing fewer in numbers at every mile. Thousands perished in the snow. Tho enemy hung upon their rear killing the stragglers like sheep. The remnant of the once proud conquering host met with its crowning calamity at the Beresiiia River. Writers and artists ■iiave vied with each other in depicting the horrors of the crossing. As the wretched troops crowded across the two bridges one of them broke under the strain, casting men, horses, and wagons into the half-frozen stream. A wretched multitude struggled to get over the second bridge. The Russian cannon opened fireupon the press, killing and mangling thousands. While a large number of troops were still waiting to cross thoss who were already on tho safer side fired the bridge to stay the , Russian pursuit, leaving hundreds to the mercy of ..the enemy. One account, stales' that when theBeresina thawed 36,000 bodies were found in its ted. ' In the city of Wilha tho Russians erected a monument. On onq sido of the stone there is an inscription: "Napoleon Bonaparte passed this way in 1812 with 400,000 men." On the other side there are the words: "Napoleon Bonaparte- passed this way in 1812 with 9000 men."

It is believed, says a consular report on the trade of Panama, that a substitute for silk has boon pn/ducod b> crossing the blooms of certain wild fibro plants with the cotton plant. The result is a staple texture finer than cocoon silk, but with a tensile strength about fivo times greater. A consular report on the Spanish island of Annobon, Gulf of Guinea, mentions a native who had been resident iu Liverpool for four years, and returned to the island. "Ho wore a loin cloth and a necklace, and thero was nothing but his fluent English to testify to the civilisation he had known." The dead body of Rock Sand, Ilia winner of the "Triple Crown" in 1903, who died in France recently has been presented to the French National His. torr Museum, where it will be mounted,