A Russian Cossack riding among refugees fleeing before a Central Power advance. The Russians adopted a scorched-earth policy in the months-long retreat before the German-Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive of the spring, summer, and fall 1915, with Cossacks accused of burning homes and crops to deny them to the advancing enemy, and to prevent civilians from remaining behind and providing intelligence to the invader.
Il Cammino della CiviltàThe Path of Civilization
"That night not one of us slept; we were very cold and we were afraid. All around us were drunken, unruly men, drunken with freedom as well as with alcohol. Bands of them were passing through Botushany after dark; shouting, singing, swearing their way past our hiding-place — yes, hiding-place. It had come to that; we had to hide, because we were afraid of our own soldiers. As they passed, we would hold our breath and speak in whispers; a sharp tap from Mamasha now and then would remind us that even a whisper was too loud. And more than once, during that black, dreadful night, we heard a peasant-woman's shrill, desperate cry for help."
Excerpt from the entry for December 16 (December 29, Old Style), 1917, covering the last several days, from the diary of Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross. Farmborough's unit had been with the Russian Army in Romania when the Bolshevik Revolution brought Vladimir Lenin to power. He had consistently called for an immediate end to the war, and Russia had agreed an armistice on December 15 with the Central Powers. On December 26, Farmborough's unit received orders to make their way to Moscow as best they could. She traveled first to Odessa on the Black Sea before going on to Moscow, finally reaching it after a journey of 13 days.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 363, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
1917-12-26, 1917, December, drunkenness, drunk, rape,Russian refugee
