From our own correspondent, Petrograd, Oct 15.
The departure of the Tsar for general headquarters is officially recorded. The young Cesarevitch accompanied his father. The Tsar is glad to be able to fulfil his dearest wish to have his son with him at the front, and, having disposed of the more urgent matters of home policy, to be able to devote himself to all the absorbing duties of the Generalissimo.
From one who is in constant touch with the work of the General Headquarters Staff I have obtained some very interesting personal impressions of the life of the Tsar at the front. He is an extremely early riser and devotes the whole morning to military affairs, passing many hours in conference with General Alexeieff, his Chief of Staff. Throughout the Empire General Alexeieff is unanimously regarded as the right man in the right place, and from the point of view of the efficiency of the Russian Armies nothing better could be desired than the present organization of the Headquarters Staff. The Tsar displays a remarkable grasp of the situation in all its details. He sees everyone himself, and whenever it is necessary to take action does so without a moment’s delay.
At luncheon the Tsar daily meets all the foreign Generals attached to the Staff. After a frugal meal, at which he presides, he goes out for daily exercise, either motoring or boating. These excursions are not attended by any pomp, the Tsar wearing the ordinary field uniform of a colonel. The other day he alighted from his car in a village and asked a peasant to take him for a row. The man did not know who was his passenger, and when he was directed to land at a particular spot, he replied, “No, it is forbidden, so just sit still.” His passenger laughingly informed him, “But I am the Tsar,” whereupon the peasant, utterly overwhelmed, immediately complied.
After his return to Headquarters the Tsar makes a point of personally reviewing the regiments that are going to the front and frequently converses with the soldiers. Dinner affords another occasion for informal hospitality from which all Court etiquette is entirely banished.
Advertisement
GERMANS’ HEAVY LOSSES AT DVINSK.
Petrograd, Oct 16.
The official communique issued tonight says: In the Kalntzem district (seven miles south of Shlock, near Riga) there was an artillery duel. West of Grunwald (16 miles east of Mitau) the Germans, after a nocturnal cannonade, crossed the River Eckau yesterday, but were thrown back across the river by our counter-attack A somewhat violent artillery action was fought in the district west of the farm of Misshof (on the railway 20 miles south-east of Riga). German attempts to cross to the left bank of the Missa, south-west of Misshof, were repulsed by our artillery and rifle fire.
Enemy airplanes again threw bombs on the station of Remershof, north of Friedrichstadt. In the Dvinsk region the Germans delivered several attacks along the Illukst road and south of Lake Medumskoi (nine miles south-west of Dvinsk). All these attacks were barren. In a desperate fight yesterday near the farm of Gateny, between Lakes Demmen and Drisviaty (south of Dvinsk), our troops captured the farm and took a number of prisoners and several machine-guns.
Very good reports have reached us regarding the very great losses which the enemy has suffered in the recent fighting on the Dvinsk front and in the region of Lakes Demmen, Drisviaty, and Boginskoi. South of the Dvinsk region, and as far as the Pripet, the position remains stationary.
Advertisement
During the night of October 14-15 a Zeppelin threw 15 bombs on Minsk. Our artillery immediately drove the Zeppelin off. Near the village of Novo Selki on the Styr above Chartoryisk the enemy, after artillery preparation, took the offensive, and at first pressed our men back a little, but shortly afterwards he was dislodged and forced to return to his starting point. Galicia - In the region of the village of Hasvoronka on the Strypa, west of Trembovla, the enemy continues his desperate attacks. Yesterday the enemy developed in this region a hurricane artillery fire, which lasted more than an hour and a half and reached an extreme limit of intensity, after which he attacked several times, but was on each occasion repulsed. We had several very hot encounters with the enemy in the region south-east of Buczac, where the Germans took the offensive at many places.