rushing hither and thither and a troop of
about 100 Cossacks are apparently the only features which do not belong
to the everyday life of the small village which is the nearest regular
railroad station. Many hundreds of miles away from this picture of
tranquillity is stretched out the tremendous chain of the Russian front,
each point of which is connected with this string of railroad cars by
telegraph. Here, separated from the chaos of battle, uninfluenced by the
confusion of armed masses, the brain of the army is able to gain a clear
and free view of the entire theatre of war which would only be obscured
by closer proximity."

Another, a French correspondent, says: "Whatever happens anywhere, from
the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains, is known immediately in the
big blue railroad cars whose walls are covered with maps. Telegraph and
telephone report the most minute occurrence. Should the commander in
chief desire to inspect a position or to consult personally with one of
the commanding generals there is always an engine ready with steam up.
Headquarters suddenly rolls off; and, after two or three days, it
returns noiselessly, with its archives, its general staff, its
restaurant, and its electric plant. The Grand Duke rules with an iron
fist. Champagne and liquor is taboo throughout the war zone, and even
the officers of the general staff get nothing except a little red wine.
Woe to anyone who sins against this order, here or anywhere else at the
front. The iron fist of the Grand Duke hits, if necessary, even the
greatest, the most famous. At a near-by table I recognize an officer in
plain khaki, Grand Duke Cyril. The proud face and the powerful figure of
the commander in chief, Grand Duke Nicholas, is sometimes to be seen in
this severe room. Shyly one approaches the chief commander upon whose
shoulders rests all the responsibility; and the attitude of the man who
has been chosen to lead the Russian armies to victory does not encourage
familiarity. Next to him I notice Janushkewitch, the Chief of the Great
General Staff, with the gentle, almost youthful face of a thinker. But
everything is ruled by the personality of the Grand Duke, which, with
its mixture of will power and of gracious majesty, is most captivating."

Let us now rush across space and follow still another war correspondent,
this time a representative of the German press, to the headquarters of
the German armies: "Field Marshal von Hindenburg has an