Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/21

 ruins. Not a house, cottage, or hut was left. We marched on, passing innumerable “extinct“ villages, till Oct. 29. We were about fifty kilometres south of Ivangorod. We dug trenches. We were told that the Russians were recrossing the Visla. We were to help to cut off their retreat. It was not true. We soon learned it.

The Russians inflicted a severe defeat on the Austrians and Germans at Ivangorod. They came on once more like a torrent. Our whole division broke up and fled helter-skelter, the cavalry getting away at a gallop. Such hopeless confusion I had never seen before! The greater part of the division got as far as the River Opatuvka. Here things became inextricable. The artillery got stuck in the sand and quagmires. Our convoys got jammed behind the artillery. We were ordered to make a stand. It was to give the artillery time to get out of the sand. We fought hopelessly and desperately. On Nov. 1 and 2 it was a fight of forty-eight hours without an instant's repose. On the second night we were shifted over to the Second Division. This division had lost nearly all its men. But our division was nearly as bad. We had from fifteen to twenty men left per section. I had lost more than half my company. Still the orders were to hold out. My Ruthenians this time obeyed.

The corporals came and told me they had no more cartridges. Every round had been fired. “Go and get some more from the fellows behind.“ I said. They returned, and said the “fellows behind“ had none. I sent them a second and a third time. Each time they returned with the same story-no ammunition left. The last time they added that the “fellows behind“ had gone. The regiments to my right and left were going. The companies on each side of me had left their trenches. I was acting the colonel in the beer cellar that day. I simply sat in the trenches, and gave orders. But it was no use. I had to get up at last. “I shall go and see if there is any ammunition; come along with me,“ I said to one corporal. I got back a few hundred yards when I came across a Landsturm captain. He looked at me surprised. “What are you doing here?“ he asked. “I am looking for ammunition,“ I said. “My men have none left.“

“You have no business staying where you are,“ he replied, “I shall report you if you don’t order your men to fall back!“ I pretended to be astonished. “My orders were to hold out,“ I said. “Don’t you see that all the companies have left!“ he exclaimed. I went back to order my company to do the same. It was not easy to got back into the trenches. The Russians kept firing, out without coming nearer. I got back to my men, and gave them orders how to get away. Each section in little groups. Only little groups remained. I left the trenches last, and