Brusiloff: Man and General

AN achievement so brilliant as that of General Brusiloff, like a sudden splendor of dawn from the midst of darkness, inevitably arouses an eager desire to know something of him; and, in the absence of knowledge, gives birth to all kinds of fancies and imaginings. One of the best newspapers in New York printed, a day or two after the beginning of his great offensive, a charming and whimsical article, alleging that about the unknown personality of the Russian general were already gathering all the stories of military prowess that had served for Alexander, for Cæsar, for Napoleon; he was fast becoming a Solar Myth. And we have had, since then, a curiously detailed story that Brusiloff is only a nom de guerre; that the victor on the eastern battle-line is really the ill-starred Sir Hector Macdonald redivivus, come back to repeat the triumph of Omdurman. And, in passing, one may note that this legend of a miraculous return wreathes itself about every dominant personality, not only the spiritual heroes like Gautama and Zoroaster, but the men of war, like Friedrich Barbarossa, asleep in the Kyffhäuser, Shivaji of the Mahratta hills; and now, for the second time, about the fine soldier who forfeited the renown won in the Sudan. So insistent is the sense of immortality aroused by genius and power.

It becomes, then, almost a duty for those who have had the opportunity to meet and know General Brusiloff, to put on record some of the facts of his life; for his achievement has made him a part of history, and he is well entitled to wear, in his proper person, the laurels he has so gallantly won.

To begin with, one should make it entirely clear that there is nothing haphazard or extemporized, no element of mere luck, in what General Brusiloff has accomplished; no single factor of effort or training or science has been lacking in his lifelong preparation, and no element of devotion or consecration. Heredity, too, has played its part, and early environment has had a share in the ripening of his genius.

Alexei Alexeievitch Brusiloff comes from the great traditional school of Russian military prowess and skill, the Caucasus, where, among mountains far overtopping the Alps, the armies of Russia have fought for generations against the valorous savage tribesmen of whom the Cherkess, in the north, and the Kurds, farther south, are outstanding types. His father, a former General Alexei Brusiloff, won renown in the Caucasian wars; he was serving with the Russian armies in the Caucasus when the present war hero was born there, some sixty years ago. And his father’s fathers, for generations, had stood high in the Imperial service, an earlier ancestor having already won high military renown in the southern tracts beyond the dominions of the Moscow Tsars, in the days before Peter the Great; before what is now the Cossack country was embodied in the Russian Empire. The tradition of military service and high martial achievement had long been the inspiration of his family.

It was natural, therefore, that Alexei Brusiloff and his two younger brothers should all three enter the profession of war, two becoming soldiers and the third entering the Russian navy. It was equally natural that, with their old Cossack blood, the two soldier brothers should, when they had completed the courses in the Russian military schools, find their way into the Tver Dragoons, a regiment which, although taking its name from the northern city between Moscow and Petrograd, had become almost permanently fixed in the Caucasus Mountains. In certain ways the conditions of life in such a regiment are very like those of regiments stationed on the Northwest frontier of India — a mingling of dashing adventure and dull routine, enlivened by hunting and regimental steeplechases. In everything that had to do with horsemanship, Alexei Brusiloff was supreme. Slender and light, with the figure almost of a jockey, he is to-day one of the best cross-country riders in Russia, a land where skillful horsemen are not lacking. In the training and management of horses also he excels; as between the rough method and the gentle, he strongly advocates the latter, and has always enjoined it on his regiments.

In 1809, the Emperor Alexander I founded an Officers’ Cavalry School in the capital which to-day bears the name of Petrograd, and it became a tradition that the more martial members of the Imperial House should give to this school much of their time and care. Thus it was that, after the RussoTurkish war of 1877-1878, in which he commanded the Russian army in Europe, the Grand Duke Nicolai Nicolaievitch the elder (who was the son of Nicholas I, and therefore the nephew of Alexander I and brother of Alexander II) gave much of his time to the Cavalry School. He put at the head of it Colonel Sukhomlinoff, who was War Minister when the present war broke out, and who had a high reputation as a cavalry commander and administrator. It is the rule, I believe, that each cavalry regiment in Russia shall send to the Officers’ Cavalry School an officer and four men, to study the whole science and practice of mounted warfare. From the Tver Dragoons, following this rule, came Alexei Brusiloff, who had gained a name as a fearless and skillful horseman even in that hardriding regiment. Colonel Sukhomlinoff was so impressed by his qualities that he made Brusiloff his adjutant, and a great deal of the actual daily work of the Cavalry School in this way devolved upon him.

The Grand Duke Nicholas the elder, and two of his sons, Nicolai Nicolaievitch the younger and Peter Nicolaievitch (the former being the brilliant and gallant soldier who, as Viceroy of the Caucasus, has gained new laurels at Erzerum and Trebizond) were frequent visitors at the Cavalry School. Thus it happened that Alexei Brusiloff was in constant association with the two men who were Commander-in-Chief and Minister of War in the summer of 1914. As a result, he was, at the outset, given command of one of the four Russian armies which were the first to move, in contrast with men like General Shuvaieff, the present War Minister, and General Alexeieff, the Commander-inChief under the Emperor, who have worked their way to the top in the actual fighting.

But we are going ahead of our story. As a result of his excellent work at the Cavalry School, where he had set and maintained a high ideal of discipline and efficiency, Alexei Brusiloff was transferred from the Tver Dragoons, which is a line regiment, to one of the mounted regiments of the Imperial Guards, with the same rank — a rare and exceptional honor, and one which gave him an opportunity to prove his quality as a soldier.

For in these crack regiments of the Russian army there is always the likelihood that an atmosphere of social elegance and easy-going gayety will prevail over the sterner military virtues, and Alexei Brusiloff immediately found himself under the pressure of this tendency. He reacted vigorously, with a humorous result: he began to carry out the theory, which had long lain in his mind, that the training for war should be almost as rigorous as war itself; 1 hat the conditions of actual warfare should be the goal of all manoeuvres. In his own practice, this took the form of long and arduous cross-country gallops, in which he himself always took the lead, seeking rather than avoiding darkness and rain and foul weather. But this was not at all acceptable to some of the spoiled gentlemen of the Guard, and protests, backed by high social influence, found their way to ‘the Highest Personages.’ It is credibly recorded that, to such a protest, General Brusiloff made answer: ‘If Your Majesty w ill guarantee that the enemy will only attack on fine days, I will countermand the night-riding!’ But the guarantee was not forthcoming, and the night-riding went on. During the winter, when General Brusiloff’s troops, often up to the shoulders in snow, were attacking in the Carpathian passes, one remembered that wise reply.

Alexei Brusiloff rose steadily to the command of his regiment, of a brigade, of a division, and then of an army corps, the Fourteenth, stationed at Lublin. Several years earlier, he had married a cousin from Courland; their son, who is also an Alexei Brusiloff and a daring cavalry officer, has been decorated for valor in the present war.

General Brusiloff, like most men of his class in Russia, speaks French admirably. More than that, he knows France and the French army well; on several occasions, he had the honor to be chosen to accompany the Grand Duke Nicholas to France, to take part in the great annual manoeuvres, held, for the most part, on the ground of the present battlefields. It is interesting to-day to remember that the Grand Duke Nicholas the elder was, with his nephew, the Emperor Alexander III, chiefly instrumental in bringing about the alliance between France and Russia, which was the foundation-stone of the present war for honor and liberty. And it is pleasant to be able to record that General Brusiloff shared t he opinion of the Grand Duke Nicholas, that in martial valor the French army stood higher than the German. That view was not generally held until the war revealed the superb spirit of the French.

General Brusiloff knows Germany also, has watched the great Prussian manoeuvres, and has learned all that can be learned of the military science of the enemy. On one occasion, Kaiser Wilhelm asked his opinion of a certain cavalry manoeuvre. General Brusiloff, who does not speak English, replied,

‘ Your Majesty, I understand German, but—I am not a master of “ Der, die, das! ” If Your Majesty does not mind about “ Der, die, das,” I shall try to answer in German.’ The Kaiser professed himself callous to the sufferings of ‘Der, die, das’ and the criticism was made. Following out his method of learning from the enemy, he constantly read the military journals of Germany, as well as those of France. He is a thoroughly scientific soldier.

General Brusiloff was a widower when he was made commander of the Fourteenth Corps at Lublin. Shortly after he had taken his new post, he married the second daughter of the late Madame Jelihovskaya, whom he had known as a child in the Caucasus, and, later, in Petrograd. Her half-brother, General Yakhontoff, who had served with Alexei BrusilofF in the Tver Dragoons, and who has been bound to him by a life-long friendship, is now a general adjutant on General Brusiloff’s staff. General BrusilofFs bride was living in Odessa. The first, important town on the railroad from Lublin to Odessa is Kovel. There General Brusiloff and his bride met and were married, returning immediately to Lublin. Kovel, therefore, now comes into his biography for the second time.

At Lublin, by virtue of an international kinship, I had the good fortune to be General Brusiloff’s guest, in the late summer of 1911, less than three years before the war. If I were to seek for a single phrase, to sum up the impression made by his personality, it would be, I think, distinction — personal distinction in a high degree. But one may associate the idea of distinction with a certain kind of weakness, of over-refinement. In General BrusilofF, on the contrary, distinction is as the fine edge on a sword-blade of highly tempered steel. Distinction, with great personal charm, which expressed itself at once in the perfection of his hospitality, and in a delightful gift for teasing, a ceaseless flow of delicate banter that bubbled up like a spring of crystal water, creating an atmosphere in which anything like gloom or despondency was unthinkable.

But at the same time this ideal host was every inch a soldier. One could never for a moment forget that. To begin with, he was always in uniform, whether undress, or, when some function was in preparation, the full parade uniform of a lieutenant-general. And, on all occasions, the perfection of neatness — of grace also, as becomes a man who is an admirable dancer, as well as an admirable horseman. One felt that a slovenly or slipshod attitude would be impossible for the finely tempered steel of his slim, muscular body.

One felt, too, that General BrusilofF was every inch a commander of men. As we walked together through Lublin, through the quaintly picturesque streets of the ancient Polish city, we met, at every turn, the officers and men of his corps; and he had then under his direct command half-a-dozen generals, with the commanding officers of eight or ten regiments, and all their junior officers. To every one he spoke, intimately, gently, cordially, for gentleness is an outstanding quality of the ‘iron general.’ If we entered a restaurant, every officer there rose to salute the corps commander, and with every one he spoke, were it only for a moment or two. I was struck by his close personal knowledge of his men, and spoke to him of it. ‘Yes,’ he said, ’I know them all personally. But that, is not the point. The point is, that they should know me; so t hat not one of them shall hesitate an instant, in time of war, in recognizing his commander!’

‘In time of war’; it was his ceaseless pre-occupation. For even then, three years almost before the outbreak, he saw that war was inevitable, and with Russia’s present foe. And indeed many men in Russia saw it, beginning with the painful time, in 1908, when, taking advantage of the struggle between Abdul Hamid and the Young Turk party, Baron Aehrenthal seized Bosnia-Herzegovina for Austria, thus turning the Berlin Treaty into a scrap of paper; the days when Wilhelm II stood beside his ally ‘in shining armor,’ and cried to Russia, ‘Hands off!' Beginning with that time, the work of regenerating and renewing the Russian army went on tirelessly; and there was no finer embodiment of its new life than General BrusilofF.

One part of his perfect hospitality showed itself in this way: there were held, at Cholm, some little distance from Lublin on the railroad toward Kovel, military exercises and athletic sports involving several regiments — and a Russian regiment numbers four thousand men. General Brusiloff, surrounded by a number of the generals and commanding officers of his corps, presided, and one noticed how easily, how completely, how unconsciously, his slight, almost boyish figure dominated the formidable group ol which he was the centre. And his hospitality showed itself in this, that he made his guest, a quite unknown foreigner, a civilian, completely at home in this dominating military atmosphere, so that what might easily have been something of an ordeal was really a fresh and simple pleasure.

Two little incidents remain in one’s mind, as expressing his gentleness and tact. We went, on one of our walks through Lublin, to the ancient ghetto, in which pre-Russian Poland had confined its Jews; it lies without the city gate and, oddly enough, one found the old Russian church in the same quarter, equally exiled by the Poles. The Jews there still affect the old costume, a kind of long, rather dingy overcoat, a rusty cap with a glazed peak, and somewhat rusty high boots. And the odd thing is, that their boys, even the youngest of them, wear a miniature copy of the same costume. One of these little chaps, with sleek hair and dark, keen eyes, seeing the officer’s uniform, drew himself up very straight, clicked his heels together and saluted. Acknowledging the salute, the general turned to me and smiled; 41 should like to hug him,’ he said, ‘but they would at once make an “incident” of it!'

Another little scene: on one of the country roads just outside Lublin, a little chap, this time a genuine little Pole, came trotting along the road on an old nag. The boy’s knees were pulled up almost to his chin. General Brusiloff, standing in the middle of the road, cried ‘Halt!’ as though the boy had been a squadron of dragoons. The terrified youngster pulled up short. Then the corps commander stepped to the side of the old horse and lengthened first one stirrup-leather and then the other, and put the boy’s feet back into the stirrups. Then, starting him once more on his way, he commented whimsically: ‘They would quote that as an instance of the Russian oppression of the Poles!’ It was, by the way, one of his griefs that all his efforts had won almost no cordial response from the Poles of Lublin; they remained icily aloof, in spite of his kindliest overtures.

Another element of his fine hospitality was the way in which he allowed one to share his deepest interests. Very like General Foch in certain qualities, he is like him also in this, that he is deeply religious; in the highest sense a Christian mystic. And, speaking of things mystical, he talked one day of a book he had been reading, the story of a modern Antichrist — a man supremely endowed wit h intellectual power and exercising a fascination over masses of men, who, in the name of material well-being, of t he earthly paradise, was seducing men’s souls from every vestige of spiritual faith. ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘ that, the author’s idea is a true one. There is an Antichrist, and we shall have to fight him!’ One should hold this steadily in view, I think, as expressing his deepest conviction concerning the present war and his own part in it. He holds that he is facing, and thrusting back, the organized forces of evil.

General Brusiloff’s quarters were in one of the old monastic buildings in Lublin that date from the great Catholic period of Poland. As is the custom in Russia, there were many rooms en suite, and one was struck by the quiet good taste of the whole interior. Other wings of the huge building were given up to military uses, and I remember very vividly a huge, gloomy courtyard in which was pointed out to me a single window with a glimmering light in it. A soldier who had been guilty of a murderous assault on an ofRcerwas confined there, awaiting execution. It was significant that, by tacit consent, there were no sentimental pleas for the man’s life. General Brusiloff is really iron in all matters of discipline.

A few months later, General Brusiloff was transferred to Warsaw to cooperate with General Skalon in coördinating (he considerable military forces concentrated there; as always, with a view to the eventual war. While in Warsaw, he was promoted to t he rank of full general, receiving also certain decorations, to be added to many already won. But he did not remain very long in Warsaw, being transferred, toward the end of 1913, to Vinnitza, not far from the Galician frontier, which is the headquarters of the Twelfth Army Corps. If I am not mistaken, this t ransfer was at his own request, and he had two motives in asking for it: first that he would be more likely to receive an independent command, in case war broke out ; and, secondly, that he was convinced that from this point a formidable blow could be dealt, and dealt rapidly, against the armies of Austria based on Lemberg. This was the period, it will be remembered, after the Second Balkan War, in which Bulgaria, inspired t hereto by Austria, had treacherously turned against her late allies, Greece and Serbia, attacking them without declaring war. Austria had then wished to attack Serbia, but Italy had held her back. The danger, however, was only delayed, not averted, and the attitude of the Crown Prince of Germany, who openly declared that he wanted war, added to the likelihood of an early explosion.

Ln the early summer of 1914, General Brusiloff and his wife went abroad to visit a Bavarian health resort. They had planned to return through Saxony, spending some time at Dresden. But the Serajevo disaster bore its warning for General Brusiloff’s alert spirit, and he went immediately homeward. The Teutons were probably unaware of the quality of their guest, or of how much it would have been worth to them to delay his return. He has, so far, taken half a million captives, and has, wit hout doubt, put out of action at least as many more.

At that time, General Skalon was head of the war district of Warsaw; General Rennenkampf, who gained distinction in Manchuria, and published the story of his achievements there, held a like post at Wilna, which threatens East Prussia; General Ruzsky was head of the war district, of Kicff; the Grand Duke Nicholas was in command of the Petrograd war district. This situation dictated the first moves of Russia at the outbreak of the war. General Rennenkampf at once began a drive into East Prussia, while General Samsonoff, transferred from Turkestan, began a like drive from Warsaw; both these moves being intended to lighten the pressure of the rush to Paris, and contributing to the accomplishment of this end. From Kicff, General Ruzsky moved westward, with some seven or eight army corps, while at (he same 1 ime General Brusiloff, with an approximately equal force, advanced from Vinnitza. The immediate objective of these two armies of the south was to meet and force back the army which the Austrian General Auffenberg was aiming against the Volhynia triangle of forts, — Rovno-Dubno-Lutsk, —while General Dankl at the same time thrust at Lublin and Cholm.

Ruzsky and Brusiloff early came into touch with Auffenberg’s army, and, after sharp fighting, thrust it back on the line joining Lemberg and Halicz, while Russian forces, under commanders of whom General Ivanoff and General Evert are the best known, held General Dankl in check before Lublin.

On the Lemberg-Halicz line was fought, in the opening days of September, 1914, a fierce and decisive battle, which was the first great victory for the Allies, preceding the splendid victory of the Marne by several days. But Ruzsky and Brusiloff proved themselves to be remarkable soldiers, not only in the actual fighting, but in the masterly way in which they followed up their victory. From the blow then dealt, the Austrian army never recovered. Never again did it meet the Russians on equal terms, without: a ‘stiffening’ of German soldiers. The wholesale surrender of Austrian soldiers showed the inherent weakness of the Dual Monarchy.

Meanwhile the achievement of the armies of the south was brought into higher relief by the disasters which befell the two armies of the north, which had set out from Warsaw and Wilna. General Samsonoff was decisively defeated, and mortally wounded; General Rennenkampf was driven back over the Russian border.

While the Germans thrust again and again at Warsaw, only to be beaten back by the masterly strategy of the Grand Duke, General Ruzsky fought forward, round and beyond Przemysl, toward Cracow. General Brusilolf, on a parallel line somewhat to the south, drove forward to the Carpathians and, before the Lupkoff Pass, met and decisively defeated a strong force which sought to relieve Przemysl, in a battle based on Baligrad. Then he began to cut his way to the Carpathian passes and twice his advance guards reached the plains of Hungary.

But there were elements of weakness in the rear, and suddenly all Russian offensives were stopped by a munition famine, the result of which was disastrous, among other things, to General Brusiloff’s campaign. For General Mackensen’s really brilliant drive across the Dunayets, against the position held first by General Ruzsky and later by General Ivanoff, compelled the withdrawal of the whole Russian line, including, of necessity, Brusiloff’s army to the south. But in spite of the lack of ammunition, he doggedly contested every inch of t he way, using cold steel against shrapnel; and he was still on enemy soil when the great Teutonic drive was finally blocked on the line which ran from Riga to Rovno.

Russia had checked her foe. But she did muchmore: splendidly aided by her Allies, among whom Japan played an effective part, she began to gather ammunition, new guns, new rifles; meanwhile rigorously training millions of new men — finer stuff, if possible, than her first armies. And all through the long and very severe winter of 19151916, she not only held the enemy but. daily added to her strength. At this time, General Kuropatkin, who had been hardly treated after his reverses in Manchuria, and who had, step by step, splendidly rehabilitated himself, held the north end of the Russian line, the Riga-Dwinsk sector; General Evert, who had fought General Dankl, held the centre; General Brusiloff held chief command of the armies of the south. Under the Emperor, General Michael Alexeieff coördinated the work of these three armies, while at Petrograd General Shuvaieff, who has a genius for practical organization, saw to it, as War Minister, that there should be no more shortage of supplies. This was the position at the end of May, on Russia’s main battle-line. We should add (for no summary of the work would be complete without it), that, under the general supervision of the Grand Duke Nicholas, as Viceroy of the Caucasus, — the most honorable post in the Empire, next to that of the Tsar himself,— General Baratoff had done brilliant work in checkmating German plans in Persia (which included an invasion of India through Afghanistan), while General Yudenitch had won victories at Erzerum and Trebizond, which will be decisive for the whole future history of Asia Minor, and which, in addition, rendered nugatory the threat against Suez. Thus, by a touch of Time’s irony, did Russia, once the bugbear of the Orient, safeguard England’s Eastern Empire.

At the end of May, Russia was ready to take the offensive. Of the three sectors, under Kuropatkin, Evert, and Brusiloff, the last was chosen; perhaps, for three reasons. The Austrian line there was, it seemed certain, the line of least resistance; the weak link in a chain which is no stronger than its weakest link. Then the southern sector was naturally the first to thaw, the first to dry sufficiently for the rapid passage of artillery. But I think the decisive factor was the third: the very brilliant and masterly way in which General Brusiloff had carried forward the offensive of August-September, 1914, over the same ground, against the same foe.

General Brusiloff’s new offensive began in the first week of June. Toward the end of July, he had accomplished this: first, a lightening of the pressure on the Allies in France, with a practical cessation of the great offensive against Verdun, and an even more apparent easing of Italy’s position in the Trentino; next, he had demonstrated that the strongest defensive lines, of reinforced concrete, with wide barbedwire barriers, could be broken to pieces; third, he had occupied all the Bukowina and much of southern Galicia, thence menacing Hungary.

He began by crushing the Teutonic line from Lutsk to Dubno, and beyond, both north and south, over a front of fifty or sixty miles; in France, a like breach would extend from the Somme to Belgium. Driving through this breach, his lieutenant, General Sakharoff, now menaces Kovel, Vladimir-Volynski and Lemberg. Smashing through the Teutonic line far to the south, Brusiloff’s left, under General Lechitski, contained General von Pflanzer-Ballin’s army at Czernowitz, then working northwest up the Pruth, cut the railroad at Snyatin and swung round against Pflanzer from the west, scattering his forces among the Carpathian foothills and gaining effective possession of the crown-land of Bukowina; Lechitski, working north and west, to Kolomea and Delatin, then got behind General von Bothmer’s army on the Stripa, while Russian forces pressed its front, thus forcing Bothmer back to the Zlota Lipa and the Dniester. Now, at the end of July, Lechitski threatens Hungary, the granary of the Central Empires, while, at the same time, his thrust on the south, and that, of Sakharoff on the north, have outflanked and threaten to envelop the Teutonic armies of BoehmErmolli and Bothmer held between them. Finally, Brusiloff’s advance, drawing German forces from the north, has made it possible for Kuropatkin to break through between Riga and Dwinsk, where we may expect an advance like that on the Lutsk-Dubno line. Taking it all in all, the campaign is a military exploit of great brilliance and vital moment, something that will loom large in history.