The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 3/How I Got Across
How I Got Across
By MAJOR JOHN ŠIPEK.
I served in the “glorious” Austrian Army from the beginning of the war until March 2, 1915 as first lieutenant. In the spring of 1915 I commanded a company in a Tyrolean regiment, composed of Italians and Germans, the Italians being about twice as numerous as the Germans. The men liked me, and the Italians saw in the Czech officer a friend. Especially after April, when Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, we seemed to understand each other well. Now and then one of the Italian boys remarked with a wink that now we would surely win the war soon, but of course I would only say with a smile that we would try to do so. In the mean time the Russians were falling back before us and there seemed little chance of either winning the war in the sense in which we understood that term, or crossing over to the other side. Finally the right opportunity turned up in early June. Our positions were on the edge of a wood; about 250 yards back of us was a railroad running through this wood. At seven o’clock in the morning the Russians began bombarding our position, but they did not seem to shoot well, for the shrapnels were bursting around the railroad tracks. The Germans in my company made jokes about Russian marksmanship, but the Italians were sore and kept glancing at me as if to ask what I made of it. The shots were not many and soon they ceased; it seemed as if the Russian artillerymen had been merely trying to decide a bet, whether they could hit the railroad. About eight o’clock the noise ceased and a grateful quiet prevailed in the trenches. As the sun ascended higher, we took things easier, for it grew to be very hot. Then about noon all of a sudden a tremendous bombardment hit the Austro-German trenches. Our sector was not affected, the drum fire seemed to be aimed at our left, some six miles away from us. That woke us up and we looked anxiously at the Russian line ahead to guess what it all meant. But no motion could be discerned in the trenches opposite. You could read the question on the faces of my boys: what does it all mean? I could not guess as yet myself, but I was sure that something was going on that would soon involve our own sector. The bombardment to the left was growing in intensity, but not a shot was fired against us. I picked
Flag presented by Czechoslovaks in Siberia to the Kosciuszko Regiment of their Polish Comrades.
up the telephone connecting the sector with the regimental headquarters and asked what the Russian drum fire meant. But the officers at regimental headquarters were no wiser, and an other hour passed in uneasy wondering.
Suddenly I heard the shrill whistle of shrapnels over our head and immediately the shells were bursting on the track in the rear of us. In the Russian trenches there was still no sign of life, only the artillery was placing one shell next to the other on the railroad track. Now I saw a light: the Russians to the left of us broke through, debouching to the left to cut us off, and their artillery was putting up a barrage so that we could not retreat. In the meantime the telephone rang and as I picked up the instrument, I received orders to retreat toward the village of N. and leave in the trenches only a few sentinels. As I was listening to this order, I realized that my chance had at last come. I made no answer, dropped the instrument, cut the wire and wrote a report stating that the telephone wires were broken and that I would hold my position to the last breath. I sent a man with this message to the regimental headquarters and told everybody that an attack was about to be launched by the Russians and that everyone should watch carefully the opposite lines.
Returning home from Siberia after five years.
A half hour passed thus, the boys expecting the worst, and then sudenly from the left a soldier comes running and reports in a scared voice that the sector to the left of us is empty and that there are Russians in the woods. I heaved a long sigh and ordered my men to pick up their effects and follow me. Bombardment of the railroad track had almost ceased, as we passed through the young trees back of us and entered the high forest. And then suddenly we saw ahead of us two lines of Russian soldiers with rifles held in position, standing motionless like a wall. My men threw away their guns, gathered around me, fell on the ground and then looked up to me to get them out of this with their lives safe. I must have loked like a hen surrounded by a flock of chicks. I signaled that I surrendered and a Russian officer approached; I gave him my sword, my men got up and we started our march into Russia accompanied by four soldiers who could not hide their pleasure that they were given the easy assignment of watching the prisoners. On the road we had to pick up a number of wounded Russians and carry them toward the rear of the Russian position. We crossed the river San, ascended the high right bank and sat down for a little rest.
We looked back toward the west, where our home was and where our mothers no doubt were thinking of us; they would have been glad to know that we were safe in captivity. At least my Germans and Italians had no intention of fighting any more. But as for myself, my first thought was to get back into the war, this time on the right side. And in about six months I was back.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1953, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse