The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1877-07-07
Russian Soldiers Defense Of his
COmfade. ~

There is well known story of the
finding upon the battlefield Of 1nker-
man of the corpses of an English guards
man and q Russian grenadier, each with
his bayonet driven to the very shank in
his opponents body. Such proof of
hardihood might have satisfied Leoni-
das himself; but still more memora-
BILE example of the qualities which char
acterize the Russian linesman occurred
during the almost unknown siege of the
fortified town of Kitab, in Central Asia.
The story is best told in the words of
the Russian officer who related it to
our informant:
"The town of Kitab lies in deep,
narrow gully, surrounded on every side
by steep hills, so that we could only
bring small force to bear upon any
one point; and the wall, though built
of dried mud, in the Asiatic fashion, was
quite high and strong enough to be a
tough morsel for any storming party.
However, it was decided to try it by es-
calade CfOr you see, we had beaten the
fellows so often that we undervalued
them for once), and 1 was with the de-
tachment that were told off to do it.
But the whole thing was tissue of
blunders from beginning to end, as bad
as the assault of Kars under Mouravieff
in 1885, which was my first taste of
fighting. First and foremost, the sig
nal for the forlorn hope
to advance was given by
some horrid mistake, before the sup
porters were ready to follow up; so for
ward we went, under smashing fire
(for the Shekri Setzians can shoot, and
no mistake), without man to back us!
And then, when we got to the wall, 10
and behold our ladders were too short,
just as it happened at Kars; and there
we were being shot down like par
tridges, without chance of doing any
thing. Our men behaved splendidly, 1
must say; some tried to splice the lad
ders together, while others attempted
to scramble up over each others shoul-
ders, with the enemy peppering right
down among them as hard as they could
pelt. But it was all of no use. They
fell one upon another, just like fish out
of net; and our Colonel was hit in the
side, and 1 got bullet through my
shoulder, and the rest dropped one by
one, till there was hardly an officer left.
At last we heard the signal for recall,
but our men were so mad with the re-
pulse, and the losses, and what not, that
they would not retire even when they
were ordered, and Just then the enemy,
seeing how few we were, came rushing
out upon us in body.
Snow, it happened that in my COM
pany there were two young fellows who
were like second edition of the 'Corsi-
can Brothers'-regular inseparables, in
fact-and one of them having got through
the fight with what he called a slight
wound q should have thought it sharp
one myself, was lying on the ground
helpless, with ball through his leg. In
an instant he had him on his shoulders
and was carrying him away, when eight
of the enemy came rushing upon them
at once. Thereupon the rough fellow
laid his wounded friend on the ground
as gently as a mother, and, standing
astride of him, clinched his musket and
fought the whole eight of them single
and when the support came
up they found one Shekri-Setzian lying
with his skull mashed like an egg-shel1,
and the Russian, with five sword wounds |
in him, keeping the other seven rascals |
at bay. But when we praised him and |
called him hero, he looked at US quite !
and said: what was l |
to do, father? I couldn't forsake my