AMPHIBIOUS WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 217, 20 February 1915, Page 7

AMPHIBIOUS WAR.

CHARGE THROUGH STREAM. THE NIGHTLY BATTLE. The great general arrived among tl latteries, where his subordinate had be:' '1 riding on so pluck ily against the lien: " I: :d repeated Grman attacks, and H made a speech to men who had just con: from night duty i:>. the trendies, write; a correspondent with the Russian troop in Poland. As a scene it Mas an occasion stag. (" with every circumstance of drama. Ai. avenue between tall woods was the plae. chosen. With the general was a groui of his stall'. All round were men new from a night in the trenches, (luring which the Germans had attacked des poratoly. They were stained with the mud in which they had lain or stood and fought Their clothing and beards made then, typical of that infantry which makes Russia so formidable. There; were Siberians in grey fur coat;: —famous regiments at full strength, toegli and indefaiigrililo. Over all there sounded the never-ceas-ing music of guns, sometimes so loud and insistent that the general's voice was scarcely audible. The trenches of the extreme front were barely 400 yds away. Close by the hidden Russian guns roar ed and sent wailing shlls over the heads of the. {fathered men. The general spoke briefly. He is soldierly in every utterance and every attitude. He wore on his breast the White. Cross of St. George, which he won in Manchuria. Curtlv, and in brief, clipped sentences, lie told the men they had done well. They were worthy of the name of Russian soldiers. The men heard him i n silence; but as he concluded they greeted him with s great outburst of cheering. It was unmistakably spontaneous' —nothing like the perfunctory official cheers to which speeches by generals are ritually entitled. This was genuine—the exultation of men who would have to make good their cheers with the bayonet, and who were glad of the opportunity. On the Bzura there was need of the spirit which those cheers expressed. The icy stream and its banks were nightly the scene of furious fighting. There was an attack across the river below Radziwillow. The Germans have brought those affairs to a. system. Thee have 100 yds to-go under fire from their trenches to the river. Fifty yards to wade, and then 50vds uphill to the Russian trenches. All this under searchlights, and star shells, and the concentrated fire from batteries and trenches Those who made this —the right—bank of the river tried at once to entrench on the water's edge, necessitating a descent to the bank by the regiment which drove them back into the water. Scarcely more than a few dozen of them could have got nnck to their own lines. The Russian losses at this point were only !>0 odd. On another occasion, however, the enemy crossed the river in some strength, their force amounting to altogether possibly 7000 men. The Russians fell hack and the Germans advanced, and then proceeded to throw- no works. By day light the Russians had come up; and there ensued a brief, but hot battle. The defenders forced the Germans hack ito the river, and (her,, utterly routed them. Though they carried away a number of their dead, over 1000 remained on the ground and were buried by the Russians. In the great cloth factory here, which serves as a hospital, T found a wounded soldier, who cine from the place in i the Black Forest, where I was at school. 1"0 h. the water," ho said, ''that awful water. "Every night for three weeks we went I down into that water to he drowned or be shot. I feel as if I shall never be warm or safe again."