des, and your side must win.

My memory of these days is very much blurred, every day being
pretty nearly the same as the preceding one,--fatiguing marches,
little rest and comparatively little fighting.

It is quite possible that our commander tried to divide the work of the
troops in a just manner, and that in consequence of my regiment
having borne the brunt of two terrible attacks, and having suffered
considerable loss, we were now temporarily withdrawn from the
fighting line, and not once during these days were assigned to the
duty of a rear guard. Consequently we had only few and
unimportant skirmishes in these days, twice while guarding the flank
through having to repulse attacks of Cossacks, and once being
harassed by an armored automobile. But the movements of an
automobile being confined to the road, we had no difficulty in
avoiding its fire, and as for the Cossacks with their eternal feigned
attacks, we had reached the point where we almost ignored them.

We were in the first days of September, and upon reaching the
swamps near Grodeck, south of Lemberg, a determined stand was
decided upon by our commanding general. It seemed the most
propitious place for a formidable defense, there being only few
roads through otherwise impassable swamps. On September sixth
my battalion was ordered to take up a position commanding a defile
which formed one of the possible approaches for the enemy. Here
we awaited the Russians, and they were not long in coming. First
they violently shelled our position and silenced one of our batteries.
Finding their artillery fire did not draw any answer from our side, they
attempted to storm our position by means of frontal infantry attacks,
combined with occasional raids of Cossacks, which were always
repulsed. Finally the Russian infantry succeeded in establishing a
number of trenches, the one opposite us not more than five
hundred yards away. It was the first time we had come in close
touch with the Russians, almost within hailing distance, and with the
aid of our field glasses we could occasionally even get a glimpse of
their faces and recognize their features. We stayed four days
opposite each other, neither side gaining a foot of ground.

It was there and then that I made a curious observation. After the
second day we had almost grown to know each other. The Russians would
laughingly call over to us, and the Austrians would answer. The
salient feature of these three d