Greene Francis Vinton. Sketches of army life in Russia

New York : C. Scribner's Sons, 1880. — 356 р.A year ago, in "The Russian Army and its Campaigns in Turkey in 1877-78," I endeavored to explain to military readers the organization of the Russian army, to narrate the events of the war I had been sent to observe, and to state certain professional conclusions which that war justified. In the following pages I have attempted to give a few sketches, which, crude and imperfect as they are, may yet serve to give some idea of the soul
which animates the Russian military machine, and tell what manner of man the Russian soldier is, and how he lives and moves and has his beine. To analyse the characteristics of a large body of men is always a difficult matter, and, moreover, in writing publicly of a people from whom the greatest kindness and hospitality have been received, one runs the risk cither of offending those who have bestowed this kindness, by giving too great prominence to unpleasant truths, or else of being false to the public which is addressed, by stating only the virtues of the people described. I have certainly had no intention of limiting myself to the latter,
and I hope I have not been indiscreet in stating the former. Should these sketches ever come to the notice of those who treated me as one of themselves during the campaign in Turkey, I feel sure they will see that whatever I have written in criticism of their countrymen is wholly free from malice, and is only what I have often said to them and they to me in friendly conversation; and they need have no fear of having it made public. If I have not shown the Russian soldier to be above all manly, generous, and warm-hearted, then I have certainly failed to transcribe the picture of him which remains in my own mind, and have done injustice to a people whose hospitality to individual Americans is no less conspicuous than their unvarying friendship for the United States as a nation.