THE CARPATHIAN FIGHTING

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2412, 18 March 1915, Page 6

THE CARPATHIAN FIGHTING

i STRUGGLES WITH WOLVES AND BEARS. r Francis Mohair (the Hungarian play- .. Wight, author of "The Devil"), who is :' aoting as war correspondent of the i "Az Est," has contributed to that jour- •' nal a vivid account of the fighting in ! the Carpathians. He describes the - taking of an ancient fortress,- now a ruin, but with walls 9ft. thick, built on 1 a slope o thousand feet high, and thus giving excellent positions for mountain : batteries and machine-guns. There are ; dozens of such picturesque and roman- : tic ruins, in tho Carpathians, erected ; by the nobles as a defence agaiust the r Poles and German or Slavonic vagaj bondising tribes, who broke in when- ! ever they were moved by the desire to rob and plunder. j 'One of these ruins, says {he report) ; •. was held by, three companies of infantry ; and a mountain battery. This small force held the place for two weeks j against the Russians, who were put to terrible trouble thereby, for they could : not pass'on the road below. Tlie Ausi trians dug themselves in around the ■ ancient walls. They were subjected to ' a-terrific bombardment for a fortnight, 1 and the walls, which had withstood tho attacks of Turk and Tartar, melted away like snow under the Russian artillery fire. The trenches around iliein stood'the, storm, but not the walls. it took three regiments to dislodge this small force from their snow-bound entrenchmont up in the :■ fortress. " "The reason why we lost so many prisoners in the Carpathians," continues tlie report, "is because, such detachments as the one I mentioned above, who were holding certain points, had ; no chance of getting away when at last surrounded or reached by a considerably larger force—and this always had •to be large. Retreating from a height through shining white snow, with the 'enemy behind you on the top, plunging snee deep in snow, and every .dark figure an excellent target, is certain 1 death. When these detachments were caught they had no other choice but to surrender. And they could do it with a good conscience for they must have accounted for nvo times as many of the ■ oneiny." In a report on the fighting in tho 1 Carpathians an amusing story is told fcy the correspondent of another Hun'gariari paper. Tho opposing trenches at one place were on two hillsides, ■ some ■ four hundred yards apart. One morning a Russian sniper hidden among the bushes came out with a loud yell, arid on both sides tho soldiers began to peep out to see what the trouble was. They beheld an enormous black hear slouching along midway in the valley. The business of war was forgotten, and, creeping up from the trenches, Austrians and Russians sent a, volley at the unfortunate bear. Hit by a. hundred bullets, it stumbled and fell. As soon as it was dark some Austrian soldiers went out to fetch the bear in, but When they got to the 6pot they found that the Russians had been there before them. There are a large number of bears land packs of wolves, especially in the south-eastern ranges of the mountains, and very often the advance guards or reconnoitring parties have to fight for their lives witih these ferocious beasts, who, driven by hunger and made furious by the sound of cannonading, are ready to attack any number of men. In the northern Carpathians there ara some .regions Tich in ice-caverns, with icicles hanging from the roofs as big as a man, the walls white like Carrara maTble. Fantastically-shaped large halls and smaller spaces open one into the other, and the floors aTe smooth and so slippery that one cannot walk in them in ordinary boots. A war cor- ■ respondent mentions that a company of infantry had to spend five days and nights in one of these ice-caverns, tho er.emy being unaware of its existence, though camping only some two hundred yards away from the opening. At last, not being able to hold out any longer, the cold and damp being unbearable, they decided to draw the attention of tho Russians to the place. They fired a few shots, and were at once detected. The Russians rushed the cavern, hut could only enter one by one, and wore either killed or taken prisoners. This company _ took_ four hundred prisoners, and, dispersing the Test of tho Russians, they were able to leave "the •tomb of ice." It can thus be easily imagined what difficulties the Russian Army has to overcome in order to make an advance against such a resistance in such a country.: It is simply guerrilla warfare on an immense scale, with many hundred thousand men to conduct it. J