Over these bogs hang unhealthy
vapors, and among the rank reeds there is no fly, nor mosquito,
nor living soul or sound in the autumn.
Not even infantry could pass over this region--not to consider
cavalry or artillery, save in the depth of a cold winter when the
water and mire is frozen. Even then it would be impossible to venture
over the ice with heavy guns. An invading army must, therefore,
split in two parts and pass around the sides, and nothing is more
dangerous than splitting an army in the face of the enemy. It is
behind these vast marshes that we shall find the Russians planned
to make their first determined stand.
Here, too, the Russians expected to have the advantage of being
surrounded by their own people, for this is the country of the
White Russians, so called on account of their costumes. Here the
purest Slavic type is preserved; they have not blended with other
stocks, as the Great Russians with the Finns and the Little Russians,
farther south, with the Mongols. For a while this territory was
subject to the kings of Poland, who oppressed its inhabitants most
barbarously, from the effects of which they have not even fully
recovered. To-day White Russia is one of the poorest and most backward
parts of the empire. And even yet the great bulk of the landlords
are Poles.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XLIII
AUSTRIAN POLAND, GALICIA AND BUKOWINA
Let us now pass ahead of the armies into the southern section of
the eastern front.
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