THE SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE SECTION
k TH E
DRAMA OF MY LIFE
Mukden:
"ThcBloodu Sunday?
Kronstadi 6y IVAN NARODNY
Illustration bt WILSON K ARCHER
1 ' &fi
The Battle of Mukden
I HF.RTY ! WHO CAN appreciate it
save one wlio, like myself, has leon
long confined! 1 was free, free!
The word rang in my ears free to
go and to come and to live as I
pleased. How different was this
world of action from Hint of the cell!
How different was the speech of the lips from the
talk of the walls! For years after my release from
prison, I subconsciously accompanied' with my fin
gers the language of my unwilling lips. And'when
I saw a flying dove or u creeping mouse those
symbols of friendship in prison I would start as
if I had beheld a ghost; for in that moment I saw,
as in a flash, the whole kaleidoscope of four terrible
years spent in solitary confinement.
Two years had passed since my release from prison,
two happy years. I was living on my farm, and it
seemed as if the peace 1 had found would last for
ever. 1 felt that the cruelty of my life in prison
had crushed every aspiration. lint suddenly, 1
awoke. The war between Russia and Japan was on.
The peasants and the working people of the cities
began to revolt. It looked as if a great revolution
might be imminent. I wns no longer content to
remain idly at home, when my military friends were
working day and night for the cause that was so
dear to us all. I felt as if a voice were urging me
to join them and, though I knew the danger, I could
not choose but go.
I went to St. Petersburg, where I learned that half
of the members of our organization had been ordered
to Manchuria. Those left behind had plans to start
a big uprising at a moment when the autocratic gov
ernment would be weakest. Our ideal was not social
ism, for which reason we did not associate with either
fho socialistic or the social revolutionary parties. We
proposed to make Russia a Republic, first of all.
With this in view, my friends wished me to go to
Manchuria, there to imbue the army with a spirit of
rebellion. A favorable opportunity presented itself
when n Russian and a (ierman paper asked me to
become their special war correspondent, and I ac
cepted. I left St. Petersburg on May 4. 1!)0.". Peyond
Moscow there was an endless succession of troops
and ammunition trains. If I had not seen moun
tains and valleys, villages and towns from the win
dow of my car, I should have thought the world
was merely a huge armed camp. After two weeks
of strenuous traveling, I arrived in Harbin and ob
tained, with great difficulty, a room in the Hotel
Orient. That was surely one of the most expensive
hotels that I have ever patronized. For a dirtv and
damp bedroom, bare of furniture and even without
a bed, I paid four dollars a day. My daily bill
amounted to something like forty dollars. The house
was kept by two e.-convicts, who looked as if they
were capable of strangling a guest at any moment,
if they suspected that he had money on his person.
I met a couple of Russian newspaper men, who
told mo that it was impossible to go any farther.
They said that the correspondents at Mukden were
on the point of returning and that Admiral Alexieff
with his staff Alexieff was at that time the Viceroy
of tho Far East was also expected back. General
Maximoff, to whom I had a letter of introduction
from my military friends in St. Petersburg, informed
me that the plan of the campaign was a general re
treat to Harbin, which city wns to become the head
quarters of Cicneral Kuropatkin. However, 1 was
resolved to see the war and left Harbin for Mukden.
It took a day and two nights to reach Mukden,
and when I arrived there I felt that I had left tho
western world far behind. I was in a monumental
Kastern bazaar, overcrowded with barracks, hospitals
and gambling houses, anil tormented by a ceaseless
clamor, such as 1 have never heard since. The city
was a tangle of closely packed, one-story houses,
intersected by three main streets, and with a network
of innumerable back alleys. The brilliant coloring
of tho costumes and uniforms, the tinkling temple
bells, the theaters with their great gongs to attract
the passers-by, the roaring of the guns from the dis
tance and the moans of the wounded all made a
monstrous impression upon me. It seemed as if
human life meant nothing here.
During my few weeks in Mukden, 1 got many
glimpses of the horrors of war. 1 stayed at the
house of a young Chinaman, a mile out of the citv,
with my friend. Colonel S.; and we were soon m
touch with all the members of our revolutionary or
ganization. We arranged a meeting in a Puddliistic
temple, where a resolution was adopted that every
thing possible should be done lo create chaos in (lie
Russian army. This was one of my most dangerous
undertakings; for if 1 had been detected at that time,
I should have been shot the next day.
On October 8, 1 received instructions to start for
tho front anil to join the First European Army
Corps, which formed part of the reserves. I arrived
in the evening at the village of San-Lintse, twelve'
term!. southeast of Mukden. 1 passed the night in
the tent of a colonel, a member of our organization.
Put, on October 11, I moved with the Sixth Regi
ment of Siberian Cossacks to a village four wcrxts
farther in, near the headquarters of (lencrul Kuro
patkin. On October 12 artillery (ire began early in
the morning. This was my first experience of 'real
war. The day wns clear; but the atmosphere was
heavy with the odor of smoke and blood. From a
kopje in front of our position, I got a splendid view
of flic fighting. To the cast, a succession of brown
hills were like tho waves of an angry sea; to the west
was a wide plain, dotted with little black groups of
I it w twordi riling and falling
infantry. In Hie center of the plain, a buttery was
engaged in an uninterrupted duel with a Japanese
battery. As 1 watched, it received a hail of shells,
which exploded with an ear-splitting crash and spread
destruction and death. In the extreme distance were
the peaceful hills of Yantay. The firing of the bat
teries continued until late in the evening. The in
fantry then retired to the southwest.
In the night it rained heavily, the noise of the
thunder mingling with that of musketry. News of
terrific fighting arrived continuously. The wounded
began to pass our camp. I could hear distinctly
their groans and cries. On the roadside, 1 found
here and there the corpses of those who had died in
the ambulances, or from evhaustion. A young sol
dier writhed in the shadow of the wall of a grave
yard. He only moaned in answer to my inquiry if I
could do anything for him. 1 lighted a candle that
I was carrying and learned that lie was dying from
tho effects of a ghastly wound in his breast. I gave
him a few mouthfuls of the wine 1 had with me, and
offered him a cigar. He smoked and seemed to be
relieved. Removing bis blooiKoakcd shirt, I found
that his body had been mangled by bayonet wounds.
1 tore my handkerchief into strips and tried to bind
his wounds; but before I was able to relieve him, he
died in terrible agony. All thai night the incident
haunted me, and I could not close my eyes.
The intermittent thunder of the great guns was
heard throughout Hie night. A few minutes before
sunrise the next morning, the batteries got down fo
work in real earnest. The shells of the enemy seemed
to fall every moment nearer to my post of' observation.
1 turned to the nearest Russian battery, and saw that
it was astir. It was the highest time to leave.
Scarcely had I mounted my pony and left the kopje,
when two shells fell behind it. On my arrival at the
headquarters of the First Army Corps, 1 was told
that the Japanese were in a village three ircrsts oil.
Corpses, bl ly clothing and bandages were to bo
seen in every direction.
We received orders at dawn fo be in readiness to
move. A fierce infantry battle was expected to take
place the following day. The nervous strain that I
had undergone, added to the fact that 1 had not slept
for the pasl two nights, had left me so exhausted
that I could hardly stand on my feel. The village,
which was occupied by the regiment commanded by
niv friend, Colonel S., had already been descried by
its inhabitants. I passed the night in the house of a
Puddlut priest. At daybreak I was awakened by a
special messenger from the colonel, informing ine
that an infantry battle was going on and that he had
gone to the front, leaving a letter to his family, in
my care, in case he should be killed. I rushed oil! of
the house, and in a few seconds was in a literal hell
of tire and death. Pullels whistled around my head.
A few houses had caught fire, and the Humes were
spreading rapidly. The wounded lay wherever I
looked symbols of the suffering of the whole hu
man race. Some wero trying to reach the Red Cross
camp, and hundreds of them were shot down by fresh
bullets. Others writhed in their agony, without suc
cor. I seemed to be plunged into the lowest circle of
the inferno of human pain.
There was some degree of safety in my proximity
to the hospital camp; but I looked longingly nt the
hills, which were beyond the range of the rille bul
lets, although the field guns seemed to be doing
execution even there. I gave one last glance at the
scene around me - the most horrible recollection of
my life. Then, I set spurs to my pony, and in time
I safely reached the valley beyond the hills. Put a
ghastly sight met me there, also. The valley was filled
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