Where was justice? Where was brotherhood? Where was manhood and decency?
“How can you leave your comrades and those brave women to certain destruction?” the Commander appealed to them. “Where is your sense of honour and justice and comradeship?”
The officers begged and implored their men to go forward as our calls for help grew more and more insistent. There was no response. The men said they would defend their positions in case of a German attack, but would not take part in any offensive.
It was in these desperate circumstances, as I was rushing about from position to position, exposing myself to bullets in the hope that I might be struck dead rather than see the collapse of the whole enterprise, that I came across a couple hiding behind a trunk of a tree. One of the pair was a girl belonging to the Battalion, the other a soldier. They were making love!
This was even more overpowering than the deliberations of the Ninth Corps, which were sentencing us to annihilation. I was almost out of my senses. My mind failed to grasp that such a thing could be really happening at a moment when we were trapped like rats at the enemy’s mercy. My heart turned into a raging cauldron. In an instant I flung myself upon the couple.
I ran my bayonet through the girl. The man took to his heels before I could strike him, and escaped.
There being no immediate prospect of a conclusion of the debate in the Ninth Corps, the Commander ordered us to save ourselves by retreat. The difficulty was to extricate ourselves without being detected by the Germans. I ordered first one group to go back some distance and stop, and then another and then a third group to do the same till we reached almost the fringe of the forest. It was a slow and perilous undertaking, full of anxious moments during the shiftings of the line, but everything went smoothly and our hopes were raised.
Our line was drawn in, and we were preparing for the final retreat when terrific shouts of “Hurrah!” suddenly rang out, almost simultaneously, on both flanks. We were half surrounded! Another quarter of an hour and the net would have completely surrounded us. There was no time to lose. I ordered a helter-skelter retreat.
The German artillery increased in violence, and the enemy’s rifles played havoc with us from both sides. I ran for all I was worth several hundred feet, till knocked unconscious by the terrific concussion of a shell that landed near me. My adjutant, Lieutenant Filippov, saw me fall, picked me up and dashed through the devastating fire, the German trench system, the open space that was No Man’s Land before the offensive, and into the Russian trenches.
There the Ninth Corps was still debating. But it was already too late. As the breathless survivors of the Battalion, bespattered with mud and blood, made their way one by one into our trenches, it became obvious that there was no use in any further deliberations. The offensive had been all to no purpose. The Germans re-occupied, without opposition, all the ground and trenches we had won at such terrible cost. There were only two hundred women left in the ranks of my Battalion.
I regained consciousness at a hospital in the rear. I was suffering from shell-shock. My hearing was affected and, while I could understand what was said to me, I was unable to talk. I was sent to Petrograd and was met at the station by a distinguished gathering, including many of my patronesses and some distinguished army officers. Kerensky sent his adjutant. General Vasilkovsky, successor to Polovtzev as Commander of the Petrograd Military District, was also present. I was deluged with flowers and kisses. But to all the congratulations I could make not a sound in reply, lying motionless on the stretcher.
I was taken to a hospital and given a large, beautiful room. Kerensky came to see me, kissed me on the forehead, and presented me with a handsome bouquet. He made a little speech, apologizing for the trouble he had given me in the controversy about introducing the committee system in the Battalion, praising me for my bravery, and declaring that I had set a wonderful example to the men all over the front. He invited me to call on him as soon as I got well.
President Rodzianko visited me the following day. He was very depressed and pessimistic over the condition of the country.
“Russia is perishing,” he said, “and there is no salvation in prospect for her. Kerensky relies too much on his own power, and is blind to what is going on around him. General Kornilov requested that Kerensky should grant him the necessary authority to restore discipline in the army, but Kerensky refused, saying that he was able to accomplish it himself in his own fashion.”
While I was in the hospital a delegate from the front brought me a testimonial from my Corps Committee! It appeared that two days after I was wounded the Committee, which usually comprised the more intelligent soldiers, met in session and discussed all night how they could best reward my conduct. A resolution was passed in which praise and thanks were expressed to me for brave leadership in an attack which resulted in the capture of two thousand prisoners. The testimonial was a record of the resolution, signed by the members of the Corps Committee. Later, the men would have done anything to revoke their signatures, as they deeply regretted this tribute to me, an implacable enemy of the Germans, from the entire corps, which was infected even then with the Bolshevist spirit.
I learned that Lieutenant Filippov had taken charge of the Battalion, gathering the survivors from all the units with which they identified themselves during and after the retreat. However, he did not remain with the Battalion, resigning in order to join an aviation
