The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-09
BEHIND THE RUSSIAN LINES
By BYRON LoMAx

ONNNAANAs
 attempt to reach Warsaw got strande
 here. Sokoly is on branch line, mile from Belostock. Where Bielostock i everyone knows. About B miles belo, Bielostock, my train got to the uppe l waters of the mysterious Narew whic l further down bristles with six might
 Actresses which are the main barrier t
 a German invasion of Poland from tn
 north. The Narew is mean, yellow an
 tedious looking; it has an iron bridge wit 1 three sentries on it. That is because W are on the main Warsaw-Petrograd rail road Thirteen miles took two hours t 1 cover-13 is luckless number At Lap, l Junction, which is just over the river,
 heard the cry, ''Vyidite. gospoda" "Ge out, gentlemen' The train had changed it's mind. Instead of proceeding to War saw, it would return to Bielostock. Thi was at o'clock in the morning. I asked
 the stationmaster what to do He said
 ''In half an hour there is a train te
 chaussee." Visions arose of pinnacle6 -automobiles-opera. took 8 train of three third class carriages, ano reached Sokoly.
 Sokoly is the meanest village town ir Poland. So it looks. But it has civillza. ton. Over the towns main store you read notice in four languages. Even in French: "Epicerie!, The commission agent, M. Levickye speaks three tongues and some miles away there is retired colonel who speaks six. He has lived in Nice. Ventor (Isngland) and viareggio He loves foreigners" says the "epice- iaf 0r t. to the chief Sokoly hotel. The hotel is clean, but overrun with small, black, in- credibly active cock reaches. They drop off the ceiling. I resolved to visit the colonel who loves foreigners.
 l drove for an hour and half saw a white house twinlsling between beech trees. and passed a procession of wounded The colonel said his name is; but if I write anything about him I may call him "Ivanoff.'' A common, name. Only on such conditions will he tell me about the war, which he has seen from a distance. He entertained me to a straw colored, straw tasting. Polish liquer called dombrowka (something like that-everything in Poland is called dom browka); and gave me a bedroom Hear ing that I had left my baggage among the Sokoly cock reaches he offered me a lady's night gown with the remark T sent my wife to Smoensk.''
 The colonel said that he had just come from Warsaw, and that I should have difficulty in getting, and greater difficulty in staying there. He. was in Warsaw when the Germans advanced on the Bsura and he could hear the artillery fight at How. He saw-from the roof of the Bristol hotel-flashes, which the simple Varsovians took for gun flashes, thought the real gun flashes could not-'owing to the earths rotundity.'' said the col onel-be seen from Warsaw. The flashes were shells exploding prematurely at the highest points of their trajectories. The colonel gave me a picture of the strate- gical position: sF4g W
 Four million Russians, he said, un- dertook to drive Hindenburg over the frontier and then to invade Germany via .Posen and Breslau. The staff es- inmates that the Austro- German forces number 2.500,00 The Germans since the middle of November have not been merely on the defensive. General Hin denburg's plan was to attack the Rus sian center and att the same time to drive in the right and left. The at tack on the right succe eded; the at : tack on the center was being made mainly on Lods; and the attack on the left from Cracow and Czenstoch- owo., Fortunes varied in the center, especially in the Strykow -Sgersh dis trict near Lodz, where part of the Ger man center has been in peril. If the Germans could push. in the grand dukes Hanks. a retreat from Lodz would be inevitable. If they drove the center from Lodz. the Russian Hanks on the Bsura and Cracow Czcpstocho- owo would have to hold out until the center completed its retreat. If the German center was broken, Hinden- bprg's, whole line would be forced to retreat.
 The Germans had fought we'll, but had not by any means had it all their own way. At Kutno two of their best brigades fell into a pitfall and were nearly annihileted The colonel had gone out of Warsaw with some uf the governors officials, and he had seen the end of this battle. The Germans advanced over marshy ground, unak- ing use of three. paved roads and bridge. The Russian lines proved too strong. Up a slope dashed the Ger mans losing more mon than they ex- pected. In shattered, battered state they found themselves before one of the wonderful Russian field earthworths which are every soldiers admiration These consist of rows of holes in ter raced ground. absolutely proof against shell fire and rifle fire. In front of this work were three vertical and hor- izontal barbed wire entanglements. While the attackers with magnificent courage faced these terroYs an explo- sion in the rear made them turn. The Russians had mined roads and bridge The Germans were caught by shrap- mel. Of the two brigades about 1900 mon eecaped. sa- -ss..ss
 More ssanguinary still, said tha col 0nel. were the Sgersh- -Strykow battles which were still unfinished. Here both aides attack cd; and neither side en- trenched. The Russians sacrificed the advantage of their tremendous earth works. but they gained by their great numbers and their good marching. At Strykow whole divisions of Russia ms and Germans were hurled at one an- other in the open. Tt Is a battle of rifles. bayonets. sloggings. shrapnel and exha ustion." said the colonel The Germans were getting reinforcesnents, and pushing, slowly. ahead.
 , sHindenburg shows -feverish speed in apd in fighting. The speed in results from his good trans- port. not from better soldiers' legs. The smaller German numbers and their peripheral petition prevent crowding of roada Whom 1t cosnee to leg march, |nes the peujik soldier helde ihis own with the German line troepe and ex- cells the peseryes men and 1np6wehr. 4 race took place aa 10 ,N1loh elee would quickest throw reipfotcApusnle from to Xdun&kp ~Wolte- Tho Rus-