Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/173

 holes seemed like big dark eyes gazing up at the heavens.

Assuredly, we had never seen such diabolically refined devastation; they had not been content with demolishing, but the material even had been carted away and thrown out on the roads or in the ditches. Who was it that had done that? It was neither the Russians nor the Austrians. The Germans had been there in 1915. They pretended that francs-tireurs had fired upon their troops from the houses, and they had made an example with the Gründlichkeit that characterizes all their methods. After that we understood why in this part of Austria the population, which shows a certain indifference when they are asked whether they prefer the Russians or the Austrians, reply in a very decisive manner when questioned as to their sentiments concerning the Germans.

At Tarnopol, where we stopped for five minutes, we had the pleasure of discovering suddenly among the grey mass