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Among it was also news about preparations on the German-Russian frontier, as for instance the announcement of the state of war in Kovno, the departure of the Warsaw garrison, and the strengthening of the Alexandrovo garrison. On July 27th, the first information was received concerning preparatory measures taken by France: the 14th Corps discontinued the manoeuvres and returned to its garrison.
If there are no trains running yet, we go on to Alexandrovo. I shall not leave you till I have set you safely on your way. Those are my orders." "I don't know why I'm going," I muttered dejectedly, sitting up among the hay. "I would rather have stayed." "You go because he ordered you to; and we all obey him, whether we like it or not!" he retorted. "And he was right to send you.
"It was thus that the battles of Alexandrovo, Kalisz, and Czernowicz were won in the early stages of the war upon the Austro-German frontier. So, too, in the Rhine Provinces, were the battles of Treves, Mulhausen, and Freiburg turned by the aid of the French aerostats from battles into butcheries.
I request command you, to make your way out of this country as soon as possible, and rejoin your friends in England, or America, where you will. It may mean more to you than you dare hope or imagine. You will have some difficulty probably, though some of the trains are running again now. I think your safest plan will be to ride to Kutno or if necessary even to Alexandrovo.
The train on which I had arrived had pulled out and another had taken its place. This was marked Posen, Thorn, Insterburg, Stalluponen, Alexandrovo, Vilna. As I stood on that platform I felt Germany's power in a peculiar but convincing way. I had been in Germany, in East Prussia, when the Russians were not only in possession of the last four places named, but about to threaten the first two.
I was lucky to get in at all, and, though all the cars were soon crammed to their utmost capacity, it was an hour or more before the train started. Then it crawled and jolted through the darkness at a pace that I reckoned would land us at Alexandrovo somewhere about noon next day, if we ever got there at all.
But the indescribable discomforts of that long night journey at least prevented anything in the way of coherent thought. I look back on it now as a blank interval; a curtain dropped at the end of a long and lurid act in the drama of life. At Alexandrovo more soldiers, more hustling, more interrogations; then the barrier, and beyond, freedom!
It would not be easy perhaps, but it would be quite possible for you to get through, via Warsaw and Alexandrovo, if you go at once." "Why do you ask me that?" I demanded, looking at him very straight. His blue eyes were more troubled than I had ever seen them. "Do you doubt me?" "No, before God I trust you as I trust none other in the world but Mishka and his father!
He never saw far ahead, and even in his survey of the present situation Prussian interests and family considerations held far too large a space. It was so now. Against the wishes of his Chancellor, he went to meet the Czar at Alexandrovo; and while the Austro-German compact took form at Gastein and Vienna, Czar and Kaiser were assuring each other of their unchanging friendship.
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