n common danger and amidst privation and stress. Many of
the officers had brought their wives and soon delightful intercourse,
utterly free from formality, developed, without any regard or
reference to rank, wealth, or station in private life. Among the
reserve officers of my battalion were a famous sculptor, a
well-known philologist, two university professors (one of mathematics,
the other of natural science), a prince, and a civil engineer at the
head of one of the largest Austrian steel corporations. The surgeon
of our battalion was the head of a great medical institution and a
man of international fame. Among my men in the platoon were a
painter, two college professors, a singer of repute, a banker, and a
post official of high rank. But nobody cared and in fact I myself did
not know until much later what distinguished men were in my
platoon. A great cloak of brotherhood seemed to have enveloped
everybody and everything, even differences in military rank not
being so obvious at this time, for the officers made friends of their
men, and in turn were worshipped by them.

My wife volunteered her services as Red Cross nurse, insisting
upon being sent to the front, in order to be as near me as could be,
but it developed later that no nurse was allowed to go farther than
the large troop hospitals far in the rear of the actual operations.
Upon my urgent appeal she desisted and remained in Vienna after I
had left, nursing in the barracks, which are now used for hospital
work. In fact, almost every third or fourth house, both private and
public, as well as schools, were given to the use of the government
and converted into Red Cross stations.

The happy days in Leoben came to an abrupt end, my regiment
receiving orders to start immediately for the front.

We proceeded to Graz, where we joined the other three battalions
and were entrained for an unknown destination. We traveled via
Budapest to Galicia, and left the train at Strij, a very important
railroad center south of Lemberg. It must be understood that the
only reports reaching us from the fighting line at that time were to
the effect that the Russians had been driven back from our border,
and that the Austrian armies actually stood on the enemy's soil. Strij
being hundreds of miles away from the Russian frontier, we could
not but surmise that we were going to be stationed there some time
for the purpose of training and maneuvering. This belief was
strength