WINTER ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 268, 20 April 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

WINTER ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT.

By ARTHUR RANSOME, m the "Daily News."

There is a radical difference between tho effects) of winter on the French and Russian fronts. Winter in the West is of so mild a character that its principal effect is that of the Russian autumndiscomfort, dirt, and an inevitable lindering of operations. Winter in Northern Russia is so cold, so prolonged, and .so steadfast that it alters the whole character and, from a military point of view, the whole conformation of the front, and makes operations possible just there where operations were impossible before. For example, in the north tho positions are cut up in all directions in spring, autumn, and summer, first by floods, then by impassable bogs left behind by the floods, and then by floods again. Then comes frost, and the ground hardens; tho streams freeze, the marshes become solid 1 ice, and it is as if there had been a sudden shifting of all the defences. The points where attack is possible become infinitely more numerous. The difficulty oi ho'.cl ng new-won positions Incomes greater because no man can dig himself into ground that is as hard as steel. The freezing of the rivers on tins front, where rivers form the natural lines of defence, has a double effect. The lfver ceases to exist as a river. That is to say, it is no longer possible to hold it with oomparatjjveiyl small numbers of troops, knowing that hostile preparations to cross it wiH give you tme to bring up your reserves. You may attack or be attacked across it, precisely as if it were solid ground. Therefore, with winter begins a sudden violent activity, the object of which is to keep the river in its natural frozen condition where you think you can attack, and to make it into an artificial defence where you think you may be attacked. This last is dtonict in two ways. The first is the making of barbed wire entanglements on the actual river, by freezing the stakes into tho ice. The second method is to break up the ice itself. Scouts go out and sink explosives deep into the river. When these explode, a geyser of ice and water is flung in a column hundreds of feet into the air, descending in huge lumps that smash the ice in all directions, so taht even after rt has begun to freeze again Ct is treacherous in tho extreme. Wnle busy yourself in tins way, you are aso concerned to make it impossible for the enemy to do the same at those points that you are reserving for your own private purposes. All through tho long nights, which are never quite dark, because of the faint light that hangs over the snow, scouts on both sides endeavour to checkmate each other on this precarious no man's land of frozen water.

BLACK AND WHITE. Snow, in its own way, lias effects as marked'as those of frost. Paint a thick white layer of snow over the wholo front, and, for perhaps an hour, vou would think that there was nothing there. Then the actual line of the front 'becomes more visible than ever it was Cn summer. Loopholes and ha l "'**} wiro posts are flung up as if they had been etched with exaggerated clearness on the white ground. The snow melts fairly quickly off the tops of shelters, and round the chimneys of the dugcuts. Ten days ago I was in an observation post looking at Machane-Gun Hill and other German positions since gloriously captured by the Russians. The mcro warmth of human habitation had outlined them as clearly as possible, hero by a strip of melted snow, there because the loopholes under the whiteshrouded head-covering showed black as ink on account of the back of the trench behind them. And I had only to look about me to see that the same causes had the same effects on our side also. And, of course, from the point of view of the aerial scouts, winter gives the flying photographer far better pictures than summer, of the positions lying thousands of feet below him. Every'inessential detail of the ground is blotted out. There is no need to pick and choose among the hair lines on the negative to know which are those that havo their meaning in war. In summer a straight ditch and a trench look much tho same from above. In winter the ditch van'shes in the white kickground, whereas the trench, walked in. betrays itself at once. Movements of troops become more obvious, and their traces are more easily distinguished one from another. An expert these matters, lent by Franco to Russia, told mo that he could tell at once from winter photographs whether cavalry or artillery horses had pasesd along a "road. He would not tell mo how, but he showed me photographs enough to make it very plain how advantageous winter is to the photographer, who in these days is the army's most useful scout. Against this," of course, must be set the difficulty of flying in very cold weather. Even motor-cars tn Northern Russia have to wear felt shawls over their bonnets to keep the petrol from freezing. And in tho air it is colder still. But in winter the armies are hard put to it to keep hidden. They do their best. A s~out in white overall and hood i*s almost invisible, and a wiro entanglement becomes a ghost of itself and very hard to see indeed if all the posts on which tho wiro is stretched are silver birch logs with tho bark left on.

IN THE ARMY CAMPS. Finally, there s tho effect of winter on the actual daily life of the front—that cheerful, hardy life, midway hetween civilisation and savagery, that hrngs out t'" l VO, '.V ,H ' st '" ev( ' r . v Inan who shares it. In the forest camps tho.se little no.it gardens in the sand under the great firs have disappeared. Gonn are the little summer houses, the pride, of each regiment, whore men wit and talked and smoked together in the evenings. There is no more walking and talking in tho alloys between tne timliered wigwam*. Heavy snow has fulien. The wigwams liavo lost all grace of design they ever had, and are heccmo white mounds among the trees, with dark outruns, like the lutty of Iwp'imos. The dug-outs in :i hollow in tno low hills, that once looked like a group of chalets in a Swiss valley, show nothing hut the Mack holes by wlrcli nn n go in and out. and they look like a ral>l)it warren n the s-now. [mule the dug-outs stoves keep up a tremendous heat, and hospitality rules throughout. Rverywhe.ro you are told to "Come in and warm up a little.'' You go in freezing, stay half an hour, drmk a glass of tea, and go nut again with a fresh stoic of warmth wrapped up in your shrep«kin to face the cold. In tin. front trenches. In those holes under the earth, men I'e together in a. lump, p.nd lie!) m mass like noet.s of young rit'-i, ready at any moment ti tumble, out and man tho waiting rifles. Most picturesque of all arc the blo'-k----liou»e«, like huge snow-covered hedge - hogs. In summer you w> in and cool. In wiiitn- . . . ! They are like eaves <n the transformation scone of a pan torn 'm-e, ill* l machine-gun onihrasaires screened l»v gigantic icicles that hang from re of to floor.