HOW THE RUSSIANS WERE WIPED OUT

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 19 October 1917, Page 1

HOW THE RUSSIANS WERE WIPED OUT

A THRILLING STORY. WHERE THE FRENCH • BLUNDERED. (T'y F- D. Pitney.] The Russian contingent in France has vanished. with the'exception of a few men who are wandering around as separate and imattached units. - They vanished in the attack on Brimont in the SoissonsAiibenve ; offensive in April. Fort de Brimont is the point from which the Germans loi two and a-half years carried on the clnei part of their bombardment of Kheims. Every day shells were thrown into tjie city from the fort built to protect it- file Germans ' were so regular and methodical in their habits that tlie French troops in the trenches north-east of Rheims could tell tiie hour by the sailing over their heads of four shells from the Germans' guns at Fort de Brimont. The commander set- his watch.by the German , shells. When it became evident to the ; Germans in the beginning of April that there was to be a big French offensive in. • the Rheims sector, they began a throwing from 12.000 to 20.000 shells a day into the cathedral city, and the greater part of them came from the Brimont region. Brimont had to be retaken. The Russians were eet to the job. NO FIGHTING DONE ON A HUGE SCALE. • They had been for six months in the : Champagne sector, holding the line in front of Aubevive. It was quiet there during their tenancy of the position—that lgis, it had been , as rjuiet there as it ever

is on tlie front; Every day there wassomething doing—little actions, that cost a few men to one side or the other; Every ' day a few shells flew, but there had been no fighting, on a big scale. The Russians were picked men from all their armies. All had volunteered for service in France, and all were veterans of a year and a-half of war the eastern front. General Lochwiskv, their commander, was wounded three times in East Prussia. There was a rule in the Russian contingent that none of their men should ever be left in German hands. Every wounded mail was to be brought back into their own lines. The body. of, every <|ead man /was"to -be brought back. And this rule was faith-, fully , observed. The Germans never got a Russian soldier, "dead or alive, on the , Champagne front. 1 remember seeing a V giant corporal who was" on guard at- the storehouse for hand grenades in a. little ' patch of woods near the front lines before Auberive. when the Germans began the bombardmentof the woods. The destruction of that storehouse would probably have meant the loss Of several hundred men, who were held in the woods as the first supports for the front"'line. -When the bombardment began the Russian soldiers scurried for shelter, as wise soldiers, should. But the corporal-could' not leave his post. Bombardment or not, lie'had to keep his guard, standing at one side of the entrance to the storehouse. A German-155 millimetre shell fell less than 20ft in front of him. The corporal moved three feet to stand with his body protecting the small opening into the storehouse/ The left shoulder of his coat was torn with a great jagged hole by a piece of the 'exploding shell- He stood with his rifle at salute, and never turned a hair. HIS ONLY REWARD—A STRONG HANDSHAKE, Ihe next morning I saw General Lochwisky shake-hands with the corporal, clap hini on the shoulder, and tell him he was ' l good soldier arid worthy of the Russian army. That was his reward, and- it was all lie wanted. Those were the soldiers ' who were moved from in front-of Auberive to take Brimont, the t place that mustYbe" carried to prevent, the entire destruction of Rheims. The Foreign Legion was sent" V" the assault of Auberive.. In the three days' action or" the big movement of the So] ssons- Au be rive ofiensive tile Foreign Le"- , gion went into the attack on Auberive 2,100 strong. They were supposed to take Auberive in two hours and a-half. They took it in two days and a-half, and 7CO of them came back from the task. The Russians never took Brimont, and they vanished in the attempt. The experience of the two famous fighting units in that attack was the same to all intents and poses. It was, indeed, the experience of practically every unit along the whole line of (the offensive. Too much confidence was« shown by the high .commLnd. There -was too little advance preparation. They thought the Germans were ready to 1 retire voluntarily on the first show of an attack by the French. THE HELP OF BARRAGE FIRE. Announced plans called for a double barrage fire ahead of the advancing troops. There was to be a ban-age of heavy artillery 200 yards in advance of the troops, . and auotner barrage of field guns 150 yards ahead of. them. All experience told ' that there should be from three to four days bombardment of the .-trenches before the attack, destroying the opposing lines utterly: If the preparation had been carried out a£ Foch ditl it on the Somme, before the big push there, the French troops would have walked over thehrst two lines of the German trenches with .their hands in their pockets. The fighting Would have begun at the- third line. But they fought every inch' of the way. Instead of taking first German positions in two hours and a-nalf. they were still for the most part untaken at. the end of three days, in many places the" bombardment began onlyVLO minutes before the got out of the trenches. There was no double barrage, and the artillery lifted to let the French charge the German trenches with, the German lines still-heavily held, absolutely intact, and the mitrailleuse positions untouched. x HELD BY BARBED WIRE—ALL SHOT DOWN.; The French charged against German barbed _wire that stood as solidly as the day it was erected. Under a veritable hell of mitrailleuse file they had to stand and cut the German barbed wire with their wire cutters. Brimont was one of the positions most tenaciously held by the Germans. It was the stronghold from which . they could shell for miles behind the French lines. Not only Rheims was at their mercy from Brimont, but every concentration camp and munitions depot within 2o kilometres. • It was against this position, held with the fierceness that the Germans were sure to hold it, that the Russians were sent with an inadequate pie- < parat-ion by the artil/ery—not by the fault of the artillery, but by the fault of the high command. It matters little to the Russians now that Nivelie has been relieved and Petain, who objected to the offensive starting before the artillery lia<| done its work, 1 is in the .high, command. For there are no more Russians on the French front. They went against Brimont. There A\as a of and they stood up to the work-of cutting the wire under the lire of Gerinan machine guns. About half of'them got through the wire! The others were on the ground behind. Those who got through managed to iii?ht their way about 40 yards into the German trenches. Then the artillery began the v> oik it should have done a week before. It began to shell the German trenches, and the Russians continue;.! to fight their way, yard by yard, into the German lines, while the German aitiiierv poured a hell of shells on them. The Russians ate their way in piece by niece for three days, and established a foothold in the outskirts of the German Brirnont ; position. - But Brimont remained iiirfGerman hands. Shells from Brimont continue to rain on Rheims, while French- troops , have taken the- place before Brimont of the vanished Russian contin-ient.