The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1915-11-18
HALF MILLION RUSS
STRUGGLE In VAIN
Fight for Nine Days Preceding Fall
Of Wilma; Burned Homes and
Pictures Of Desolation
Presented
BY CARL w. ACKERMAN.
U. P. staff correspondent.

y. r btall cOiTehpOhucht.
MEJSAGOLA, near Wilma, Russia,
Oct. 3.-(By courier to Berlin, mail to
New York To-day is Sunday and we
have motored out to the valley of
Mejszagola, where the battle for Wilma
was fought. Our way lay through
abandoned trenches and barbed wire
entanglements, dug or stretched
through cemeteries, cabbage patches
and potato fields.
Entering the ruins OF Mejszagola, we
obtained the first real view of the bat
tlefield and in its center, the dilapi-
dated skeleton of what in peace times
was a church. 1t was all so quiet
One could hardly realize that from the
second TO the eleventh OF September,
$4,000 Of the Russian guard and the
German landstrum we're locked. in this
Smile valley, in seething death-strug
gle. IL was but one of the terrible, de-
cisive engagements OF this war, about
which the public has scarcely heard.
This battle was the beginning Of the
fall OF Wilma. the first city the Car
tried to save when he took personal
cc4amnnd OF his army. wilma was a
beautiful, modern city about the size
OF indianapolis; terminal on the main
rail line to Petrograd. The Car en-
trenched 100000 troops about the city,
including 3 divisions of his personal
guard. Kovno had fallen and linden
burg was coming. September 2 the
armies met at Mejszagola and for nine
days the crash and roar OF bedlam
Teiened in the Russians hopeless task
OF checking the Teutons' advance. The
night of the eleventh the Germans
stormed an ENHANCEMENT and the
trench back Of 1t delivered heavy flank
attacks and we're commanders OF the
whole position. had 10000 prisoners
and sealed vilnas fate.
We stopped before the church. Ten
PAGES brought us TO an old graveyard
IN NuiCh thS otoiht VI ShciAo hoa
plowed up the skeletons Of those long
dead and scattered them about, stark
and white. like an army of fallen
ghosts lying in the wake of battle,
grinning at the daylight. The green
sod of the surrounding fields was
strewn with the remnants of shells
which had exploded in mid-air and
rained their devilish iron and fire on
the struggling men. The white church
walls we're splashed with red.
We returned to the church. Peasants
were silently passing in and out We
lifted our hats and tip-toed inside.
The floor save for narrow passages
to the altar, was buried in straw. The
roof was torn to pieces and more than
one shell had exploded inside, for pic
lures, statues of Christ, altar cloths,
candle sticks and benches were
smashed and torn. Before the unrecog-
nizable altar knelt a woman and
girl, heads bowed, sobbing. oig, six
foot, fur-clad peasant c.me in and
knelt in the straw hallway down the
aisle. An old womal who had been
motionless beside the splintered pulpit,
began crawling aroun, and around it,
Save for the staccato Tapping OF a
loose sheet of tin on the steeple roof
as the gusty wind swept over it, this
house of God and the battlefield about,
were silent.
I'VE sauntered through the town, rast
the black piles of burned homes, and
cut into the Russian trenches. These,
dug slightly below the crest of the
hill, were architecturally so perfect
that they blended into the landscape
600 feet away. These trenches COM
manded the valley, ACROSS which. on
the forests fringe. we're the German
trenches. The green fields between
we're peppered with the black spots
that artillery fire makes. We walked
the tops of the Russian trenches,
which are built of heavy logs and ce'