Aeon221
Lord of the Cheese Helmet
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2003
- Messages
- 1,995
-October...?
It has been many months since I joined the army, but today, whatever day it is, I decided to keep a journal. I found this notebook on a dead Turk a week or so ago, and it is apparently the same use to which he put it. It has been very effective as toilet paper; hopefully it will serve as well as a journal of these terrible days.
My name is Dmitri Mendelov; I lived in a small farm in Kharkov, and joined the Cossacks there when the Tzar called all able bodied men to assist in the fight that was starting. My only friend back home was an old priest, Father Kirowski, who adopted me when my parents starved to death. He has told me little of them, but did teach me to read and write... passably.
If I die, these words will serve as the only record of my existence in this blasted and bleak existence.
I served in the Great Raid, where many of my brother Cossacks were slaughtered; some say that the Tzar intended to rid the world of us. I say they are right, and I yearn for the day when something can be done.
I survived. I served in the Breakthrough, where we took the town of Tarnesvar, and rode forth into the heartland of an undefended Austria. I watched as my brothers were once again slaughtered, as Russian commanders refused to send infantry to support us, artillery to protect us, and supplies to feed us. I helped burn the Austrian towns, and I and a few others managed to escape the avenging Austrians. Many regiments were slaughtered to the last man, and others were severely decimated. I joined a new regiment, and fought on.
Today, like yesterday was, and tomorrow will be, was another hellish day. If there is a God, He has turned His face from Russia; the artillery rains upon our enemies, but we must still charge into a malestrom of lead and fire and shells and mud and blood; it is hell.
The Generals say that Tarnesvar can never be retaken; had they supported us, it would never have been lost. They send us to die in a place called Sibiu, since the Turks could not do the job.
Death blights the West as well; the French, the British, the Italians; they all die in strange places, brutally beaten down by the strength of the German army.
I have written much, and I must still scavenge for food. I hope that I will not die tomorrow, and that I will kill an Austrian with a satchel of rations.
It has been many months since I joined the army, but today, whatever day it is, I decided to keep a journal. I found this notebook on a dead Turk a week or so ago, and it is apparently the same use to which he put it. It has been very effective as toilet paper; hopefully it will serve as well as a journal of these terrible days.
My name is Dmitri Mendelov; I lived in a small farm in Kharkov, and joined the Cossacks there when the Tzar called all able bodied men to assist in the fight that was starting. My only friend back home was an old priest, Father Kirowski, who adopted me when my parents starved to death. He has told me little of them, but did teach me to read and write... passably.
If I die, these words will serve as the only record of my existence in this blasted and bleak existence.
I served in the Great Raid, where many of my brother Cossacks were slaughtered; some say that the Tzar intended to rid the world of us. I say they are right, and I yearn for the day when something can be done.
I survived. I served in the Breakthrough, where we took the town of Tarnesvar, and rode forth into the heartland of an undefended Austria. I watched as my brothers were once again slaughtered, as Russian commanders refused to send infantry to support us, artillery to protect us, and supplies to feed us. I helped burn the Austrian towns, and I and a few others managed to escape the avenging Austrians. Many regiments were slaughtered to the last man, and others were severely decimated. I joined a new regiment, and fought on.
Today, like yesterday was, and tomorrow will be, was another hellish day. If there is a God, He has turned His face from Russia; the artillery rains upon our enemies, but we must still charge into a malestrom of lead and fire and shells and mud and blood; it is hell.
The Generals say that Tarnesvar can never be retaken; had they supported us, it would never have been lost. They send us to die in a place called Sibiu, since the Turks could not do the job.
Death blights the West as well; the French, the British, the Italians; they all die in strange places, brutally beaten down by the strength of the German army.
I have written much, and I must still scavenge for food. I hope that I will not die tomorrow, and that I will kill an Austrian with a satchel of rations.
