New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-10-26
ABSTINENCE MAKES
RUSSIANS new MEN
Rennenkampf's Soldiers
Have Been Sober Since
the War BEGAN.

London, Oct. 25.-The correspondent
of "The Daily Chronicle" writing from
wilma, Russia, under date Of Septem-
Der ~, says:
AT Rennenkampf's headquarters at
Wirballen, where formerly one changed
trains going from Berlin to Peters
burg, one sees the fashion in which
Russia shapes for war. Here, beneath
a little bridge with black and white
striped sentry box upon it, its muddy
banks partitioned with rotten planks
into goose-pens, runs that feeble stream
which separates Russia from Germany.
Upon its further side, what is left Of
Eydtkuhnen, the Prussian frontier vii
lage, looms drearily through its screen
of willows-wslls e-blackened and
roofess, crumbling in piles OF fallen
brick across its single street, which was
dreary enough at its best. To the north
and south, and behind TO the eastward,
are the camps, a city full, country
full of men armed and equipped; the
mean end ugly village thrills TO the
movement and purpose. On the ROOF or
the schoolhouse there lifts itself against
and STAYS of the wireless apparatus,
and in the courtyard below and In the
shabby street in front there is surge
Of automobiles. motor cycles, mounted
orderlies all the message-carrying ma
chinery OF IA staff office. The military
telephone wires loop across the street,
ard spray out in dozen directions
over the fat and trodden fields: for
within the dynamic kernel to all this
elaborate shell isi Rennenkampf, the
Prussian-Russian who governs the gate
of Germany. 8"
Here is the brain of the army. Its
limbs go swinging by at all hours, in
battalions and brigades. or at the trot,
with Jingle of bits and scabbards, or
at the walk, with bump and clank, as
the gun wheels dear the ruts. 1t is the
infantry that fills the eye-line, big
stuff, man for men the biggest Infantry
in the world.
Their uniform of peaked cap, trouseI
tucked into knee-boots, and khaki
! blouse, is workm2nlike, and the serious,
middle-aged officers trudging beside
4 them are hardly distingush3ble from
the men. They have not yet learned
the use OF the short, broad-bladed
bayonets; theirs are Of the old three
cornered section tyne with which the
Bulgarians drove the Turks to Cha
taldia; but there is something else .hat
| they have learned: Since the first days
of the mobilization that brought them
| from their homes there is not a man
among them that has tasted strong
drink. These men have been sober from
the start, and viii perforce be sober TO
/ the end.
Of all that elaborate and copious ma
chinery Of war which Russia has built
| up since her failure in Manchuria there
| is nothing so impressive rs this. Her
/ thousand and odd aeroplanes, her muir
! derously expert artillery, her neat and
successful field wireless telegraph, even
/ her strategy, count as secondary TO il.
| The chief of her weaknesses in the
past has been tho slowness of her
mobilization; Germany, with her plans
/ laid and tested for a mobilization in
/ four days, could count on time enough
20 strike before Russia could move. She
used her advantage to effect when Aus
/ tria planted the seed of this present
war by the annexation of Bosnia and
/ Herzegovina; she was able to present
Russia in all her appropriateness with
| the alternatives of war in twenty-four
hours or accepting the situation. But
this time il has been different.
At Petrograd one sees how different.
IIither from the northern and eastern
governments come the men who are to
swell Rennenkampf's force. Their
cadres, the skeletons of the battalions
OF which they are the flesh, are waiting
for them officers, organization, equip
Inent, ell is ready. The endless trains
decant them; they swing in leisurelv
columns through the streets to their
depots, motley as circus-foresters
mcujiks in fetid shcepskins, csttlemen
ana rivermen, Siberisns, tow-haired
Firms, wide gamut of the races of Rus
STA, all big, with those impassive, blunt
featured faces that mask the Russian
soul, and all sober. No need now to
make men OF them before making SOL
diers; no inferno at the wayside sta
| tons and troop trains turning up days
late. II is as If, at the cost of those
annual 7s0,00o,0O0 rubles, Russia had
/ bought the clcw to victory.