History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0468/04685.txt

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$Unique_ID{how04685}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{True Stories Of The Great War
Escape Of The Russian Leader Of The 'Terrible Division'}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Novikoff, Ivan}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{korniloff
general
russian
austrian
way
himself
soldiers
division
enemy
escape}
$Date{1917}
$Log{}
Title:       True Stories Of The Great War
Book:        Escape Of The Russian Leader Of The "Terrible Division"
Author:      Novikoff, Ivan
Date:        1917
Translation: Benington, Arthur

Escape Of The Russian Leader Of The "Terrible Division"

I - Story Of The Dreaded General - The Russian Tiger

True Story Of How General Korniloff Escaped Across Hungary

Told by Ivan Novikoff

[The story of how the famous Russian general, leader of the "Terrible
Division," was captured by the Austrians, and how he escaped in an Austrian
soldier's uniform, making his way right across Hungary, for a distance of over
three hundred miles, until he regained the Russian lines.  This is the first
detailed narrative of the general's feat, as it is told in the Wide World
Magazine.]

     The Forty-eighth Infantry Division of the Russian army had long been
dreaded by the enemy.  Their bravery and dash, their grim and almost
desperate courage, had earned for them the name of the "Terrible Division."

     Their leader was the redoubtable General Korniloff, a man of iron will
and heroic courage.  He was a worthy descendant of that other great
Korniloff, whose dying words, "Lord, bless Russia and the Czar, save the
fleet and Sebastopol!" are inscribed on his monument near the Malakhoff Hill,
where he fell in the great assault of 1855.  A tiger to his enemies was
Korniloff, but very gentle where his own men were concerned, solicitous for
their wants and comforts.  Though they were among the bravest fighters in the
Russian army, their leader never threw their lives away recklessly.  As for
him, they believed him to bear a charmed life.  "Korniloff" was their
war-cry, and they felt safe in his hands.

     In those brave days when the Russians were attacking in the Carpathians,
in the spring of 1915, Korniloff's men were ever foremost in the fighting.
Mowed down repeatedly by the German and Austrian guns, which defended the
ground yard by yard, they came back to the charge again and again with a
furious elan.

     The way of the Russians was barred by a commanding eminence held by two
divisions of the enemy.  From this height the fire had been devastating and
unceasing, and the position seemed impregnable.  Formidable defences of
barbed wire guarded all the approaches, and mines and other murderous devices
defied all their efforts to take the stronghold.

     But Korniloff determined to accomplish the almost superhuman task.
Deliberately he set about breaking down the defences.  Two regiments were
assigned to the task.  Night by night they worked in as much secrecy as the
darkness afforded, pressing on under a withering fire until at last the road
was clear.  Then they took the height by a furious assault, and were masters
of the position that had galled them for so many months.  Five thousand men
had defeated twelve times their number.  The Austrian general, with his
staff, was taken prisoner, and when he learned of the numbers which had
opposed his big army he broke down and wept with rage and grief.  "Korniloff
is not a man," he said; "he is an elemental force."

     The Russians were now masters of this important strategical position.
The town of Ivla lay in front of them, within reach of their guns, but it was
strongly fortified; while in the neighbouring forests the enemy was
concentrating in great numbers.  The fighting continued with unabated fury.

     It was in April, 1915, and the rugged slopes of the Carpathian hills and
mountains were brightened with the new green shoots of the foliage, with the
vivid splashes made by broom and poppy, anemone, and other variegated blooms.

     The Austrian forces were receiving reinforcements rapidly, and the
Russian general and his division, in their new position, were hard pressed.
They were almost isolated, practically surrounded by sixty thousand fresh
enemy troops.  The Russians kept up a solid and heroic defence, but the enemy
gave them no rest.  Soon Korniloff's much-weakened force was in a desperate
situation.  All their bravery and sacrifice had been unavailing; the enemy
was gradually gaining upon them.

     Calm and self-possessed, General Korniloff viewed the situation.  "We
are too feeble to resist any longer," he told his officers; "we must attack."
This was Korniloff's method.  He called his men together and explained how
things stood.  A small force must attack the Austrians and thus cover the
retreat of the main body.  He called for volunteers, and from the serried
ranks that presented themselves formed a small detachment pledged to make the
supreme dash.  It was a forlorn hope, this attack, but it might save the rest
of the division, which was otherwise doomed to fall into the hands of the
enemy.

II - Marching To Death Before The Holy Ikon

     Early on a beautiful spring morning the resolute band mustered, and were
passed in a pathetic little review by their valiant chief, who knew that he
should look upon but few of those faces again.  As they bowed devoutly before
the holy ikon raised above them, they cried, "For God, St. Nicholas, and the
Czar!" Then they shouldered their rifles, and a moment later were on the
move, headed by the commander himself.

     The manoeuvre surprised the enemy, as it was intended to do, but the
advancing force was violently assailed by a triple fire from artillery,
rifles, and machine-guns.  Still, however, they stumbled on, singing a chant
popular with the peasants on the banks of the Volga.  Man after man fell
around the intrepid Korniloff, but the survivors pressed on unheeding; they
knew that every yard they advanced meant more chance for the Forty-eighth
Division.

     Steadily they ploughed their way onwards till they were close to the
enemy's lines.  By this time there was but a handful of them left.  Korniloff
himself was wounded, and his strength was fast failing him.

     The Austrians looked on with astonishment.  Would these madmen never
surrender?  The ground was strewn with their dead and wounded.  What could
the last few survivors hope to accomplish?  At last a bullet brought down the
indomitable general, and the one-sided fight was over.

III - The Great Korniloff A Prisoner Of The Austrians

     When Korniloff came to himself, and was able to take account of his
surroundings, he found himself in a hospital, being treated for his serious
wounds.  He was a prisoner of the Austrians, as were the few of his men who
had been left alive when he himself was taken.  But he breathed a sigh of
relief, for the gallant Forty-eighth Division had been saved by his devotion
and the sacrifice of his splendid little band.

     Dreary months of illness and convalescence passed by.  At last the
general was well enough to be moved from the hospital, and his captors
conveyed him to a safer and more suitable habitation.  As a prisoner of mark,
a residence was chosen for him at the chateau of Esterhazy, at Eisenstadt,
in the Sopron Department in Hungary.  This was the famous castle, built in
1683, where Haydn was Kapell-meister to the Prince Esterhazy of the time.

     Korniloff made up his mind that Eisenstadt should not long have him as
a guest, and with increasing health and strength he set about finding a means
of escape.  First of all he made friends with the men who acted as his
guardians, and they were flattered at the notice taken of them by the
redoubtable Russian general, whose fame had spread over the Empire.  He took
a great interest in these common soldiers; he talked to them of their lives,
their homes, the fights they had been in; and learned from them a few words
and expressions in Magyar.

     Now, one of these Austrian soldiers (as General Korniloff afterwards
related to the delegates of the Czech Brigade, when they welcomed him in Kiev
and congratulated him on his escape) happened to be a Slovack.  What more
natural than that he should sympathize with the prisoner and agree to help
him to regain his liberty?  In exactly what way he did this, no one knows
save Korniloff himself, and as regards such points he is naturally discretion
itself.  Anyway, one morning, as he was returning to his apartment from the
park in which he was allowed to stroll, he passed a guardroom, the door of
which was open.  On a table just inside lay a private soldier's uniform, with
forage cap and everything complete.  No one was in sight, though he heard
somewhere in the rear the voices of men at their morning tasks.  It was the
work of a second to slip in, snatch up the kit, hide it under his cloak, and
hasten to his own room.  Had it been placed there, by arrangement, by the
Slovack?  Presumably, considering what followed next.

     For two days after that the general kept to his apartment, suffering
from a fictitious cold.  He feared that inquiries might be made as to the
missing garments, but to his heartfelt relief he heard nothing further about
the matter.  As there was always a considerable coming and going of soldiers,
he trusted that during the two days he remained invisible there might be some
new arrivals who would not be familiar with his person when the time came for
action.

IV - Story Of Korniloff's Daring Escape

     On the second evening Korniloff, who had already experimented with the
borrowed uniform and found that it fitted him fairly well, dressed himself
in it and shaved off his beard.  For some time past he had practised to
himself before a mirror his knowledge of the German language, which was
fairly good, and its pronunciation with the soft Austrian accent.

     At nightfall, arrayed in his disguise, he went down into the court-yard
and across into the park, where, at a certain spot and hour, he had arranged
to meet his Slovack friend.

     Here he hung about near the gate for some time, talking to soldiers,
smoking a cigar, and cursing in the best military slang.  Nobody suspected
him, and at a moment when the sentinel's back was turned he slipped out.  At
first he strolled along nonchalantly, hoping that if he had been observed the
others would think he was only one of themselves going off for a spree
without leave.  As soon as he was out of sight, however, the general "put his
best leg foremost" and made the utmost haste he could towards a figure which
he recognized to be that of the man who had promised to guide him towards
Russia.  They had provided themselves with a map and compass, and had also
accumulated a little store of money.  But Russia was a long way off, and
their plans for the future were somewhat vague.

     All that night and most of the next day Korniloff and his unknown friend
(the general confessed that he never knew the name of his benefactor) walked
in an easterly direction.  They slept for some hours in a lonely field, and
then got on the move again.  Here and there peasants helped them on their
way; they were offered food and drink and a rest.  Though they avoided small
towns, they were making their way to Budapest, thinking that something might
happen in that great city to help them, and that they could easily pass
unchallenged where so many races intermingled.

     But before reaching the great city on the banks of the blue Danube an
unexpected and most unhappy incident occurred.  The plan of escape was almost
entirely wrecked.

     "We had noticed that wherever we went the gendarmes eyed us
suspiciously," said the general to the already mentioned delegation.  "In
every village through which we passed, at every farm at which we called for
bite or sup, on every plain which we crossed, there seemed to be eyes
watching us.  Soon our provisions became exhausted and we began to suffer the
pangs of hunger.  One day, after a long, hungry march, my Slovack guide - the
faithful companion of the early part of my sufferings - decided, since he was
on the point of exhaustion, to ask for food and water at an isolated farm.
I warned him that it was dangerous, but hardly had the words passed my lips
than he was gone.  I saw him enter the farm and waited in vain - waited for
ten long hours!  At last I comprehended what had happened.  I saw the
gendarmes surround the house and heard the sound of gunshots.  Flight,
instant flight, was the only course open to me, and thus, alone for the
remainder of my journey, I continued with all speed towards Budapest."

V - The Russian General Disguised As An Austrian

     On reaching the Hungarian city, General Korniloff found it, as he
expected, full of troops.  Reinforcements were coming in to be dispatched to
the various fronts, while other men were on their way home on periods of
furlough.  Amid all these soldiers nobody took any notice of the disguised
Russian in his simple Austrian uniform.  Needless to say, he carefully
avoided attracting attention to himself, always keeping where the crowds were
thickest.

     Feeling hungry, he went into a small eating-house frequented by
working-class people and ordered beer, bread, and sausage.  Most of the
customers in the place spoke Hungarian, but two sitting at a table near him
were talking in German, and he overheard what they said.  One of them was a
woman, who, to judge by her appearance, was engaged in munition-making.

     "Ach, du Guter!" she exclaimed to her companion.  "That Russian general
they captured in the Carpathians last year - Korniloff - has escaped, and
they are offering a reward for his capture."

     The fugitive felt for a moment as if all eyes were bent upon him, but
as a matter of fact nobody took any notice of him.

     "Ugh!" growled the man addressed.  "Why couldn't they keep him when they
had him?  How much are they offering?"

     "Fifty thousand kronen."

     "Fui tausend!  Fifty thousand kronen for a verdammten Russen!  And in
these times, when the war costs so much!"

     "Ja, mein lieber, but he's a general, you see," explained the woman.
"I wish I could find him.  It would be better than making munitions."

     So there was a price of fifty thousand kronen on his head, reflected
Korniloff, as he left the restaurant.  He felt strangely elated at the
thought that he was calmly passing among the enemy unknown and unsuspected
with such a reward offered for his capture.  He bought a newspaper to obtain
confirmation of the woman's announcement, and there he found the notice in
large type, with a curiously inaccurate portrait of himself.

     The darkness was now falling, and he walked on until he found himself
in the Franz Josefplatz.  A large number of soldiers were camping in the
square, lying upon the benches or on the ground, and evidently preparing to
spend the night there.  Artillery-wagons were lined up all round.  A man he
passed - an Austrian artillery man - looked up at him and smiled.  He was
fixing his haversack against the trunk of a tree to serve as a sort of
pillow.

     "As good here as anywhere else," said the man in German.

     "To be sure," Korniloff replied.  "Better than the trenches, anyway.
Why is the regiment bivouacking here?"

     "No room elsewhere, comrade," said the soldier.  "Wounded and soldiers
everywhere - all the barracks full; everything full.  Well, it's a nice
night.  Have a smoke?"

     He offered a cigar, which the disguised general accepted, sitting down
beside his new-found friend.

     "Where have you come from, and where are you going?" asked the Austrian.

     "Rejoining my regiment after convalescence," replied Korniloff.

     They sat and exchanged confidence for some time, the Austrian asking
numerous questions which Korniloff parried as well as he could.  The gunner
confessed that he was heartily sick of the war, as were all his comrades.
He heard nothing but complaints from his home, where conditions were getting
harder and food was becoming scarcer.

     "It's the same with you, eh, comrade?" he said.  "I don't suppose you
come from a part of the world that's any better off?"

     The Austrian was a simple soul, and he told Korniloff many things that
interested him.  Finally, after he had babbled in this way for some time,
both men fell asleep side by side.

VI - Tramping Across Hungary With The Peasants

     Korniloff bade his chance host good-bye and was off on his journey again
before the regiment was stirring.  He decided that he must trust to his feet.
He would march right across Hungary; and by means of his map and compass he
hoped to make so straight a line that it would not take him more than a
month.  He was now in good health and in excellent trim generally, and he had
no fear of the journey if he could only get enough food to keep him alive.
He must not linger on the way, however, for every hour was now of importance
to him.

     Having taken a crust and a cup of coffee at a wayside tavern full of
soldiers, he got out of the city while the day was still young.  Then began
a long and dreary tramp, mostly alone, for the peasants in this region were
not communicative, for the simple reason that he could not speak their
language.  He tramped for whole days without passing anything bigger than
small hamlets, and his conversation was limited to asking, most frequently
at farmhouses, for kruh (bread) or viz (water).

     Sometimes the peasants would look him up and down and ask him,
"Osztrak?" ("Austrian?"), and he would nod his head.

     Very rarely did he get anything without paying for it, and as he saw his
small stock of heller gradually disappearing, he had to be as economical as
possible with those that remained.  He slept mostly in the open air, since
the weather was fine and there was little danger; once he was given a
"shake-down" in a loft, and once he paid a few heller for a bed at a country
inn.

     Eventually Korniloff was reduced to almost his last pieces of money, and
he felt that he must husband these in case of a very pressing need.  A day
came when he got nothing to eat but some wild strawberries picked by the
road-side.  A woman whom he asked for a bit of bread chased him away from her
door with an oath, calling him "Verdammten Osztrak!" The next morning he got
some bread, but again a day passed with no food but wild berries and water
from a brook.

     Things were getting worse and worse, but Korniloff knew he was near the
end of his journey, and would be safe in another three or four days if only
he could hold out.  He had now been walking for nearly twenty days.

VII - "Halt!" - He Salutes A German Captain

     One of his narrowest escapes happened in the little town of Klausenburg,
a quiet place ordinarily, but now the centre of great military activity.  He
was walking through the town, as it was the best way of keeping to the direct
route.  Suddenly, from behind him, he heard a harsh voice cry in German,
"Halte!"

     Looking round, he saw that it was he himself who was being addressed.
He halted; there was nothing else to do.

     "Why did you not stop and salute me?" asked an offensive-looking young
Austrian officer.

     Korniloff clinked his heels together and saluted.

     "I did not see you, Herr Hauptmann!"

     "Ah!  you are blind, then?  Who are you, and where are you going?"

     "Johann Bach," said the Russian, affecting simplicity, "and I am going
home to my wife."

     "You will come with me first, so that we can make a few inquiries about
you."

     Disaster stared the fugitive in the face.  His first impulse was to run,
but he resisted it.  To obey, however, would mean his immediate discovery.

     "I beg your pardon, gracious Herr Captain," he said, as humbly as he
could, though inwardly cursing.  "I beg you not to detain me now, when I am
so anxious to get to my dear wife."

     "An hour longer from your wife won't hurt you," answered the officer.
"Come with me."

     His tone was so utterly offensive that, almost instinctively, Korniloff
made a gesture of defiance.  Quickly the officer called two men who were
passing.  "Take this man to the Kiraly barracks," he ordered.  "I will meet
you there in half an hour."

     The two soldiers saluted, placed themselves on either side of Korniloff,
and marched him off.  He knew it was no good trying to escape, so he thought
he would try friendliness.  "Give me at least a smoke," he said; and very
willing one of the men stopped, gave him a cigar, and lighted it.  They asked
him what he had done, or not done, to bring on himself this disciplinary
measure.

     "Oh, it's only because I don't know the way," said Korniloff.  "Come and
have a drink with me, comrades.  There is no harm in that."

VIII - Story Of A Girl And A Shepherd's Hut

     One soldier looked at the other, and they nodded - it was not far to the
barracks - and then turned into a small beer-garden, where drinks were
ordered.  They were served by a comely young woman, who looked with interest
at the captive, for soldiers are not reticent in talking to the opposite sex.
Korniloff did not know how it came about, but presently his companions, who
took a second glass of beer, began to feel the effects in a way that he would
never have expected.  Korniloff left the table with an excuse to his
comrades, who paid little attention.

     The girl, who had been watching him, beckoned to him from the side of
the house, grasped his arm, and led him to the yard.

     "Flee," she said, "across those fields.  I will keep them in talk.  I
have put something in their beer.  Flee!" she repeated, and thrust a piece
of bread and meat into his hand.

     By way of answer Korniloff seized her hand, kissed her, turned on his
heel, and hastened away as quickly as he could.  In a very short while the
town of Klausenburg was miles behind him.  He walked almost all through the
night, fearful that a hue and cry might be raised.

     The next day the general felt a new sympathy, as it were, in the air.
This was Transylvania, where he would run much less risk of being discovered.
He had seen a newspaper at the inn Klausenburg which told him great news -
that Roumania was on the point of joining the Allies.

     He stopped two peasants and asked them where he was.  They pointed out
the directions of Russia and of Moldavai.

     "You're a Russian," said one the peasants, speaking in a dialect known
in the Bukovina.

     Korniloff nodded, waiting to see what the result might be, but his
confession evidently evoked sympathy.

     "See!" said the man, taking him by the arm.  "Follow yonder brook, cross
the hill as straight as you can, and to-night you will find a shepherd's hut
on the right of the road at the bottom of the hill.  Go there and ask for
Mathias Meltzer; he will help you."

     With a cheery "good day" they left him, and Korniloff trudged on.  After
a stiff day's march he reached the hut and found the old shepherd, with a
younger man.  Korniloff repeated the message he had been told to give.

     "And who are you?  An escaped Russian?" asked the old man as he sat
beside his wood fire and shaded his hand to look at the stranger.  "The
Russian outposts are half a day's march from here," he continued.  "I often
hear the guns.  To-morrow the Roumanians come in on the side of the Allies.
Soon the Russians and the Roumanians will join hands and all this land will
be laid waste."

     "Will you take me to the Russians?" asked Korniloff.  "It will be worth
your while."

     The old man pondered for a time.  "I don't mind helping a Russian," he
said, at last.  "They've always been decent to me.  Lie you down now and get
some sleep, for we must start before daybreak."

     He handed his guest a little bread, coarse cheese, and some onions.
Korniloff made a meal and was soon asleep.

     They started on their journey next morning in wet and mist.  Mathias
covered the Russian with a discoloured piece of sackcloth to make him look
like a shepherd, in case they met inquisitive strangers.  They kept close to
the bed of a river and a small forest, and, creeping forward stealthily, were
by midday in sight of the Russian outposts.

     Here Korniloff was safe with his own people, and great was their joy
when they learned who he was.  A few days later the general was able to send
a trusty messenger to the shepherd, Mathias Meltzer, carrying a sum of money
and a letter of thanks to tell him whom he had saved.

IX - Sequel: A Slovack Soldier And A Hangman

     The sequel to this stirring story remains to be told.  Who was the noble
Slovack soldier - true to his race and his duty towards a Slav in trouble -
who assisted General Korniloff to escape, and what was his ultimate fate?
For three months nothing was known.  Only recently was the author of these
lines able to read in the Hungarian papers the account of a court-martial,
held at Presburg, which had condemned to death by hanging "a Slovack soldier,
named Francis Mornyak, proved to have been guilty of having assisted General
Korniloff to escape from the chateau of Esterhazy." The execution of this
obscure hero took place immediately after the judgment.