Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 122, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1916 — LIKE ONE HUGE VAST CHURCHYARD [ARTICLE]

LIKE ONE HUGE VAST CHURCHYARD

Writer Paints Sorrowful Picture of Trip From Lemberg to Przemysl. SWEPT THREE TIMES BY WAR Only Cities Were Spared, and They Have Recuperated With a Speed That Would Seem Almost Impossible. The Hague.—Lemberg and Przemysl —how long it seems since our thoughts were concentrated on those two Galician towns! In reality it is but a few short months. To ride from Lemberg to Przemysl today is to ride through one huge, vast churchyard. Wherever you look you see graves. There they He in groups in the wilderness! On some are transfixed a email gray cap or German helmet, already rotting. On others the rough wooden crosses are sinking into the ground, as though they knew the plow would soon be there. Sometimes you see huge graves, from which many-colored regimental flags wave vigorously above the pitiful landscape. It is almost as if someone were laughing in the grave below. The only break in this terrible churchyard is formed by some blackened, tumbled ground, once a village. . Such is the country over which the fury of war has raged three times. Only cities have been spared, and have recuperated with a speed which would seem almost impossible. Lemberg is as gay and busy as ever; Przemysl is once more the peaceful provincial town of peace days. The streets are clean, the hotels are adequate and the shop windows are full. Then and Now. I stood gazing into the well-filled windows of a confectioner. And the thought came to me, “What were these windows like a year ago?” A year ago horse-fillet was the" best that riches could buy, and only very occasionally a countryman crept into the town to sell a chicken, for which $lO was gladly given. Winter clothes were not to be had then, and rich men did not hesitate to walk the streets wrapped in some woman’s cast-off mantle. In this war fortp have fallen like ninepins. To Przemysl alone has fallen the honor of a long siege. To the garrison fell hardships which the siege of Paris did not know. In the dead of winter there was not a window in the town, and no glass could be had. The bombs of Russian aviators had broken them all. Horses were fed on

wood pulp soaked in sweetened water, some of the animals thrived on it; others lay down to die. In the Case Stieber you can listen for hours to such details as these. Do not think the house of Stieber is any ordinary case. Its history is the history of Przemysl. Long before Przemysl was first threatened this case was the great proscenium of the war. The battle of Lemberg, the battle of Grodek, and a hundred other battles, fights and skirmishes took place within hearing. Almost the whole AustroHungarian army passed the windows of the case on their way east to fight the Russians. And later, during the first and second sieges, Case Stieber was the center of this town. No one wanted to stay at home with his own dismal" thoughts, guests could not be received, gas there was none, and petroleum must be used sparingly. Occasionally a Newspaper. The best thing to do, therefore, was to stick your two lumps of sugar in your pocket and grope through the streets to Case Stieber. And then there was always something to read there. In the beginning there was even from time to time a real newspaper brought by an aviator. Later there was only the war bulletin, which was slowly reduced from -ordinary white paper to the backs of paper-, bags, and finally to the backs of menu cards. Last of all there was only one copy, and that was on view in the Case Stieber. In the last weeks of the siege any bit of paper in the street was eagerly picked up and used as a cigarette paper. Nor was tobacco any too plentiful. In February, 1915, SSO was offered for 100 cigarettes of poor quality. The offer was refused with contempt. And if you had tobacco and cigarettes you could not smoke them where you would. For that you had to

go to Case Stieber. There a huge fire burned night and day, for of wood there was plenty, but matches were precious Indeed. The soldiers in the trenches got two matches a day foa five men.