# The Russian Review/Volume 1/June 1916/On the March

On the March.
By J. Okunev.
The following sketch is another extract from Mr. Okunev's Russian book of impressions of the War. The first extract was published in the April issue of "The Russian Review."—Ed.
We have now become accustomed to everything, we have passed through everything, and it is impossible to frighten or to surprise us with any unexpected circumstance. Attacks, forced marches, flank movements, rapid changes of front, tramping through impassable roads and often simply through fields and woods—all this we have already tried, and it seems that the rest of the campaign cannot have any further tests for our strength, endurance, and patience. After Rawa, Seniava, Jaroslaw, after marching through hundreds of versts of swamps, marshes, and woods, after crossing rivers through the water or over pontoons, under a terrific fire of the enemy, despite all this —despite the fact that we were covered with dirt, that our boots were worn down and torn, our garments reduced to rags—those of us who remained unharmed received, with remarkable indifference, the news that on the following day we were to start on a new, long, and difficult march towards the heights of Beskid, where every step would have to be made fighting, where every inch of ground would have to be taken by force.
We are "fighting units." Now the volunteer Somov, who is a graduate of two universities, is not distinguishable from the Olonetz peasant Kistiakov, who can scarcely count as far as one hundred. And what differentiation can there be when all our movements are co-ordinated and brought under one control, not so much by discipline, which may be considered consciously and complied with without the loss of one's individuaity, but as if by a mighty instinct, which destroys all mental superiority, all differences of intellectual capabilities, points of view, strivings, and aspirations. There are perhaps fifteen of us, educated men, amidst four thousand peasants, coming from Riasan, and Poltava, and Kostroma, and Tula. And having marched with them from Sandomir to Stry and to the forests of Unterwalden, we have become like them, have acquired their ways, their habits, their motions, because these ways "seem "handier," because it is more convenient to do exactly as those peasants dressed in military uniforms.
"Why do we walk around and around, instead of fighting?" asks Kistiakov.
​Not that he is in such a martial mood, but "walking around and around" means making long, interminable marches, in an attempt to surround the unseen enemy, and these marches are much more difficult and tiresome than a battle lasting many days.
Kistiakov is certain that the enemy is "beating it."
"Got it in the neck, so he's beating it. Didn't take him long to get back of that mountain."
The mountains are as yet nowhere in sight. They are somewhere "over there," in the distant mists, but when "we get over the mountains," that will be "his end."
"Where can he go now? Nowhere, except into our hands. Well, there's where we'll get him, and that'll be the end of him."
Just now we are on a forced march, in full uniform and complete equipment, tramping through mud. Occasionally we come across small detachments of the enemy, on horseback or on foot. But the obstacles we have to overcome are not the living power of the enemy's army, but all kinds of artificial barriers. Bridges are all blown up, and we have to wade through the water. The roads are dug up and obstructed with barbed wire. Kistiakov tears down a portion of the wire obstruction with a cool remark:
"Call that work, too? Tearing down wires!"
The woods are on fire, and the flames are raging in the brushwood and amidst the trees. Kistiakov has just waded through a river, whose ice-cold water reached to his neck. Everything on him is wet, his boots are full of water; yet now he is tearing his way through the fire. Surrounded by dense smoke, which chokes him and makes his eyes water, he makes his way on, to the mountains, where the enemy "beat it," and where "his end" is surely coming.
The villages, estates, and hamlets that we meet on our way are all empty. The enemy has requisitioned all articles of food and has burnt what he could not take with him. Our supply trains are coming by a round-about route, and are always falling behind. Things are pretty hard for us, and some of us are just as hungry as we can be. We are dreaming of hot borshch, of tea, and all the other delicacies which we have not tasted for a long time.
We covered about two hundred versts in six days. Then we came to steep, rocky hills. Kistiakov and everybody else felt relieved, for the end of the march was evidently in sight. Lord only knows whether it will be easier later on, but one thing ​is certain: there are no more swamps, overflooded rivers, and marshes on our way. Let there be furious battles ahead, with their "Marthas" and their machine-guns; they are better than tramping through the muddy roads of Galicia, sleeping in clay mire, always wet, cold, shivering.
At noon we stopped near the heights of B. for a rest on a "neck," as the soldiers call a thin strip of land separating two lakes. Towards evening, a detachment of Cossacks, numbering about fifty, appeared. Noticing us from a distance they began to sing a merry tune, although they were really half-frozen, their uniforms torn, while one of them was even bootless.
"Where have you been, boys?"
The Cossack regards an infantryman as his inferior. He does not answer at once when asked a question. Finally, our Cossack condescended a reply:
"Over at U."
"What do you mean at U.? Why, the Austrians are there."
We know that the main forces of the enemy are concentrated at the mountain pass of U., which is the gateway to Hungary. But it appeared that the half-hundred of Cossacks, sent out to reconnoiter, found itself far behind the enemy's lines, obtained a great deal of valuable information, and then made its way back despite the enemy's pickets and sentinels. . .
Kistiakov, a gigantic peasant, almost seven feet tall, with a large gold beard, feels himself the incarnation of Russia. For him this is not a formula, not an abstraction, but a concrete fact. This is why he carries one after another the fortified positions of the enemy, battering down, as with a ram, the wall of Austrian troops that guard the gateway to Hungary. By the force of his fatalistic conviction that "we'll get there," he has taken Rawa and Stry, and is now moving on, overcoming every obstacle.
There are four thousand Kistiakovs in our regiment. And in their midst are we, a handful of educated men. But Kistiakov's conviction infects us, too, and lends us new strength. We, too, feel ourselves the embodiment of Russia, the tremendous, the awkward, slow in preparing for a blow, but crushing, in her ponderous movement across the fields and forest of Galicia. . .
According to the information brought by the Cossacks, the enemy must be quite near. And this proximity is apparent. Shots are heard not very far off, heavy guns are booming at a distance, while at night the bright beams of powerful ​searchlights "feel" the darkness. To the left of us, the column of General W. has engaged the enemy. This is merely a manoeuvre undertaken in order to make it possible for our columns to join forces at B., and then strike at the enemy's right wing.
It is raining and hailing; the wind is strong, cold, penetrating. The water gets into the sleeves, behind the collar, flows in cold streams down the back and the chest, the wet overcoat hangs heavy on the shoulders, the boots are wet through.
"At ease!"
The men are tired, and they drop down right into the mud. Yet they are in good spirits.
"We'll sleep in jelly to-night."
Somov is happy. He has made himself a cigarette out of the soldiers' wretched tobacco, and enjoys it, although the tobacco-smoke almost chokes him.
"There's less nicotine in this stuff," says he, coughing and choking, "than in the more expensive brands. Fine tobacco!"
He was a rich man, accustomed to ease and luxury. At the beginning he was quite uncomfortable and nervous. But now life has broken him in: he is even praising the soldiers' tobacco.