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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12013-0.txt b/12013-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6ac5ea --- /dev/null +++ b/12013-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12824 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12013 *** + +My Year Of The War + +Including An Account Of Experiences +With The Troops In France, And The +Record Of A Visit To The Grand +Fleet, Which Is Here Given +For The First Time In +Its Complete Form + +By Frederick Palmer +(Accredited American Correspondent at the British Front) + + + + + + +Contents + +To The Reader +I. "Le Brave Belge!" +II. Mons And Paris +III. Paris Waits +IV. On The Heels Of Von Kluck +V. And Calais Waits +VI. In Germany +VII. How The Kaiser Leads +VIII. In Belgium Under The Germans +IX. Christmas In Belgium +X. The Future Of Belgium +XI. Winter In Lorraine +XII. Smiles Among Ruins +XIII. A Road Of War I Know +XIV. Trenches In Winter +XV. In Neuve Chapelle +XVI. Nearer The Germans +XVII. With The Guns +XVIII. Archibald The Archer +XIX. Trenches In Summer +XX. A School In Bombing +XXI. My Best Day At The Front +XXII. More Best Day +XXIII. Winning And Losing +XXIV. The Maple Leaf Folk +XXV. Many Pictures +XXVI. Finding The Grand Fleet +XXVII. On A Destroyer +XXVIII. Ships That Have Fought +XXIX. On The Inflexible +XXX. On The Fleet Flagship +XXXI. Simply Hard Work +XXII. Hunting The Submarine +XXXIII. The Fleet Puts To Sea +XXIV. British Problems + + + + + +To the Reader + + + +In 'The Last Shot', which appeared only a few months before the +Great War began, drawing from my experience in many wars, I +attempted to describe the character of a conflict between two great +European land-powers, such as France and Germany. + +"You were wrong in some ways," a friend writes to me, "but in other +ways it is almost as if you had written a play and they were following +your script and stage business." + +Wrong as to the duration of the struggle and its bitterness and the +atrocious disregard of treaties and the laws of war by one side; right +about the part which artillery would play; right in suggesting the +stalemate of intrenchments when vast masses of troops occupied the +length of a frontier. Had the Germans not gone through Belgium and +attacked on the shorter line of the Franco-German boundary, the +parallel of fact with that of prediction would have been more +complete. As for the ideal of 'The Last Shot', we must await the +outcome to see how far it shall be fulfilled by a lasting peace. + +Then my friend asks, "How does it make you feel?" Not as a prophet; +only as an eager observer, who finds that imagination pales beside +reality. If sometimes an incident seemed a page out of my novel, I +was reminded how much better I might have done that page from life; +and from life I am writing now. + +I have seen too much of the war and yet not enough to assume the +pose of a military expert; which is easy when seated in a chair at +home before maps and news dispatches, but becomes fantastic after +one has lived at the front. One waits on more information before he +forms conclusions about campaigns. He is certain only that the Marne +was a decisive battle for civilization; that if England had not gone into +the war the Germanic Powers would have won in three months. + +No words can exaggerate the heroism and sacrifice of the French or +the importance of the part which the British have played, which we +shall not realize till the war is over. In England no newspapers were +suppressed; casualty lists were published; she gave publicity to +dissensions and mistakes which others concealed, in keeping with +her ancient birthright of free institutions which work out conclusions +through discussion rather than take them ready-made from any ruler +or leader. + +Whatever value this book has is the reflection of personal +observation and the thoughts which have occurred to me when I +have walked around my experiences and measured them and found +what was worth while and what was not. Such as they are, they are +real. + +Most vital of all in sheer expression of military power was the visit to +the British Grand Fleet; most humanly appealing, the time spent in +Belgium under German rule; most dramatic, the French victory on the +Marne; most precious, my long stay at the British front. + +A traveller's view I had of Germany in the early period of the war; but I +was never with the German army, which made Americans particularly +welcome for obvious reasons. Between right and wrong one cannot +be a neutral. In foregoing the diversion of shaking hands and passing +the time of day on the Germanic fronts, I escaped any bargain with +my conscience by accepting the hospitality of those warring for a +cause and in a manner obnoxious to me. I was among friends, living +the life of one army and seeing war in all its aspects from day to day, +instead of having tourist glimpses. + +Chapters which deal with the British army in France and with the +British fleet have been submitted to the censor. Though the censor +may delete military secrets, he may not prompt opinions. Whatever +notes of praise and of affection which you may read between the +lines or in them spring from the mind and heart. Undemonstratively, +cheerily as they would go for a walk, with something of old-fashioned +chivalry, the British went to death. + +Their national weaknesses and strength, revealed under external +differences by association, are more akin to ours than we shall realize +until we face our own inevitable crisis. Though one's ancestors had +been in America for nearly three centuries, he was continually finding +how much of custom, of law, of habit, and of instinct he had in +common with them; and how Americans who were not of British blood +also shared these as an applied inheritance that has been the most +formative element in the American crucible. + +My grateful acknowledgments are due to the American press +associations who considered me worthy to be the accredited +American correspondent at the British front, and to Collier's and +Everybody's; and may an author who has not had the opportunity to +read proofs request the reader's indulgence. + +FREDERICK PALMER. British Headquarters, France. + + + + + + +My Year Of The War + + + + +I +"Le Brave Belge!" + + + +The rush from Monterey, in Mexico, when a telegram said that +general European war was inevitable; the run and jump on board the +Lusitania at New York the night that war was declared by England +against Germany; the Atlantic passage on the liner of ineffaceable +memory, a suspense broken by fragments of war news by wireless; +the arrival in England before the war was a week old; the journey to +Belgium in the hope of reaching the scene of action!--as I write, all +seem to have the perspective of history, so final are the processes of +war, so swift their execution, and so eager is everyone for each day's +developments. As one grows older the years seem shorter; but the +first year of the Great War is the longest year most of us have ever +known. + +Le brave Belge! One must be honest about him. The man who lets +his heart run away with his judgment does his mind an injustice. A +fellow-countryman who was in London and fresh from home in the +eighth month of the war, asked me for my views of the relative +efficiency of the different armies engaged. + +"Do you mean that I am to speak without regard to personal +sympathies?" I asked. + +"Certainly," he replied. + +When he had my opinion he exclaimed: + +"You have mentioned them all except the Belgian army. I thought it +was the best of all." + +"Is that what they think at home?" I asked. + +"Yes, of course." + +"The Atlantic is broad," I suggested. + +This man of affairs, an exponent of the efficiency of business, was a +sentimentalist when it came to war, as Anglo-Saxons usually are. The +side which they favour--that is the efficient side. When I ventured to +suggest that the Belgian army, in a professional sense, was hardly to +be considered as an army, it was clear that he had ceased to +associate my experience with any real knowledge. + +In business he was one who saw his rivals, their abilities, the +organization of their concerns, and their resources of competition with +a clear eye. He could say of his best personal friend: "I like him, but +he has a poor head for affairs." Yet he was the type who, if he had +been a trained soldier, would have been a business man of war who +would have wanted a sharp, ready sword in a well-trained hand and +to leave nothing to chance in a battle for the right. In Germany, where +some of the best brains of the country are given to making war a +business, he might have been a soldier who would rise to a position +on the staff. In America he was the employer of three thousand men-- +a general of civil life. + +"But look how the Belgians have fought!" he exclaimed. "They +stopped the whole German army for two weeks!" + +The best army was best because it had his sympathy. His view was +the popular view in America: the view of the heart. America saw the +pigmy fighting the giant rather than let him pass over Belgian soil. +On that day when a gallant young king cried, "To arms!" all his +people became gallant to the imagination. + +When I think of Belgium's part in the war I always think of the little +Belgian dog, the schipperke who lives on the canal boats. He is a +home-staying dog, loyal, affectionate, domestic, who never goes out +on the tow-path to pick quarrels with other dogs; but let anything on +two or four feet try to go on board when his master is away and he will +fight with every ounce of strength in him. The King had the +schipperke spirit. All the Belgians who had the schipperke spirit +tried to sink their teeth in the calves of the invader. + +One's heart was with the Belgians on that eighteenth day of August, +1914, when one set out toward the front in a motor-car from a +Brussels rejoicing over bulletins of victory, its streets walled with +bunting; but there was something brewing in one's mind which was as +treason to one's desires. Let Brussels enjoy its flags and its capture +of German cavalry patrols while it might! + +On the hills back of Louvain we came upon some Belgian troops in +their long, cumbersome coats, dark silhouettes against the field, +digging shallow trenches in an uncertain sort of way. Whether it was +due to the troops or to Belgian staff officers hurrying by in their cars, I +had the impression of the will and not the way and a parallel of raw +militia in uniforms taken from grandfather's trunk facing the trained +antagonists of an Austerlitz, or a Waterloo, or a Gettysburg. + +Le brave Beige! The question on that day was not, Are you brave? +but, Do you know how to fight? Also, Would the French and the +British arrive in time to help you? Of a thousand rumours about the +positions of the French and the British armies, one was as good as +another. All the observer knew was that he was an atom in a motor- +car and all he saw for the defence of Belgium was a regiment of +Belgians digging trenches. He need not have been in Belgium before +to realize that here was an unwarlike people, living by intensive thrift +and caution--a most domesticated civilization in the most thickly- +populated workshop in Europe, counting every blade of grass and +every kernel of wheat and making its pleasures go a long way at +small cost; a hothouse of a land, with the door about to be opened to +the withering blast of war. + +Out of the Hôtel de Ville at Louvain, as our car halted by the cathedral +door, came an elderly French officer, walking with a light, quick step, +his cloak thrown back over his shoulders, and hurriedly entered a car; +and after him came a tall British officer, walking more slowly, +imperturbably, as a man who meant to let nothing disturb him or beat +him--both characteristic types of race. This was the break-up of the +last military conference held at Louvain, which had now ceased to be +Belgian Headquarters. + +How little you knew and how much they knew! The sight of them was +helpful. One was the representative of a force of millions of +Frenchman; of the army. I had always believed in the French army, +and have more reason now than ever to believe in it. There was no +doubt that if a French corps and a German corps were set the task of +marching a hundred miles to a strategic position, the French would +arrive first and win the day in a pitched battle. But no one knew this +better than that German Staff whose superiority, as von Moltke said, +would always ensure victory. Was the French army ready? Could it +bring the fullness of its strength into the first and perhaps the deciding +shock of arms? Where was the French army? + +The other officer who came out of the Hôtel de Ville was the +representative of a little army--a handful of regulars--hard as nails and +ready to the last button. Where was the British army? The restaurant +keeper where we had luncheon at Louvain--he knew. He whispered +his military secret to me. The British army was toward Antwerp, +waiting to crush the Germans in the flank should they advance on +Brussels. We were "drawing them on!" Most cheerful, most confident, +mine host! When I went back to Louvain under German rule his +restaurant was in ruins. + +We were on our way to as near the front as we would go, with a pass +which was written for us by a Belgian reservist in Brussels between +sips of beer brought him by a boy scout. It was a unique, a most +accommodating pass; the only one I have received from the Allies' +side which would have taken me into the German lines. + +The front which we saw was in the square of the little town of Haelen, +where some dogs of a dog machine-gun battery lay panting in their +traces. A Belgian officer in command there I recollect for his +passionate repetition of, "Assassins! The barbarians!" which seemed +to choke out any other words whenever he spoke of the Germans. +His was a fresh, livid hate, born of recent fighting. We could go where +we pleased, he said; and the Germans were "out there," not far away. +Very tired he was, except for the flash of hate in his eyes; as tired as +the dogs of the machine-gun battery. + +We went outside to see the scene of "the battle," as it was called in +the dispatches; a field in the first flush of the war, where the headless +lances of Belgian and German cavalrymen were still scattered about. +The peasants had broken off the lance-heads for the steel, which was +something to pay for the grain smouldering in the barn which had +been shelled and burned. + +A battle! It was a battle because the reporters could get some +account of it, and the fighting in Alsace was hidden under the cloud of +secrecy. A superficial survey was enough to show that it had been +only a reconnaissance by the Germans with some infantry and guns +as well as cavalry. Their defeat had been an incident to the thrust of a +tiny feeling finger of the German octopus for information. The +scouting of the German cavalry patrols here and there had the same +object. Waiting behind hedges or sweeping around in the rear of a +patrol with their own cavalry when the word came by telephone, the +Belgians bagged many a German, man and horse, dead and alive. +Brussels and London and New York, too, thrilled over these exploits +supplied to eager readers. It was the Uhlan week of the war; for every +German cavalryman was a Uhlan, according to popular conception. +These Uhlans seemed to have more temerity than sense from the +accounts that you read. But if one out of a dozen of these mounted +youths, with horses fresh and a trooper's zest in the first flush of war, +returned to say that he had ridden to such and such points without +finding any signs of British or French forces, he had paid for the loss +of the others. The Germans had plenty of cavalry. They used it as the +eyes of the army, in co-operation with the aerial eyes of the planes. + +A peasant woman came out of the house beside the battlefield with +her children around her; a flat-chested, thin woman, prematurely old +with toil. "Les Anglais!" she cried at sight of us. Seeing that we had +some lances in the car, she rushed into her house and brought out +half a dozen more. If the English wanted lances they should have +them. She knew only a few words of French, not enough to express +the question which she made understood by gestures. Her eyes were +burning with appeal to us and flashing with hate as she shook her fist +toward the Germans. + +When were the English coming? All her trust was in the English, the +invincible English, to save her country. Probably the average +European would have passed her by as an excited peasant woman. +But pitiful she was to me, more pitiful than the raging officer and his +dog battery, or the infantry awkwardly intrenching back of Louvain, or +flag-bedecked Brussels believing in victory: one of the Belgians with +the true schipperke spirit. She was shaking her fist at a dam which +was about to burst in a flood. + +It was strange to an American, who comes from a land where +everyone learns a single language, English, that she and her +ancestors, through centuries of living neighbour in a thickly-populated +country to people who speak French and to French civilization, +should never have learned to express themselves in any but their +own tongue--singular, almost incredible, tenacity in the age of popular +education! She would save the lance-heads and garner every grain +of wheat; she economized in all but racial animosity. This racial +stubbornness of Europe--perhaps it keeps Europe powerful in jealous +competition of race with race. + +The thought that went home was that she did not want the Germans +to come; no Belgian wanted them; and this was the fact decisive in +the scales of justice. She said, as the officer had said, that the +Germans were "out there." Across the fields one saw nothing on that +still August day; no sign of war unless a Taube overhead, the first +enemy aeroplane I had seen in war. For the last two days the +German patrols had ceased to come. Liege, we knew, had fallen. +Looking at the map, we prayed that Namur would hold. + +"Out there" beyond the quiet fields, that mighty force which was to +swing through Belgium in flank was massed and ready to move when +the German Staff opened the throttle. A mile or so away a patrol of +Belgian cyclists stopped us as we turned toward Brussels. They were +dust-covered and weary; the voice of their captain was faint with +fatigue. For over two weeks he had been on the hunt of Uhlan +patrols. Another schipperke he, who could not only hate but fight +as best he knew how. + +"We had an alarm," he said. "Have you heard anything?" + +When we told him no, he pedalled on more slowly, and oh, how +wearily! to the front. Rather pitiful that, too, when you thought of what +was "out there." + +One had learned enough to know, without the confidential information +that he received, that the Germans could take Brussels if they chose. +But the people of Brussels still thronged the streets under the +blankets of bunting. If bunting could save Brussels, it was in no +danger. + +There was a mockery about my dinner that night. The waiter who laid +the white cloth on a marble table was unctuously suggestive as to +menu. Luscious grapes and crisp salad, which Belgian gardeners +grow with meticulous care, I remember of it. You might linger over +your coffee, knowing the truth, and look out at the people who did not +know it. When they were not buying more buttons with the allied +colours, or more flags, or dropping nickel pieces in Red Cross boxes, +they were thronging to the kiosks for the latest edition of the evening +papers, which told them nothing. + +A man had to make up his mind. Clearly, he had only to keep in his +room in his hotel in order to have a great experience. He might see +the German troops enter Belgium. His American passport would +protect him as a neutral. He could depend upon the legation to get +him out of trouble. + +"Stick to the army you are with!" an eminent American had told me. + +"Yes, but I prefer to choose my army," I had replied. + +The army I chose was not about to enter Brussels. It was that of +"mine own people" on the side of the schipperke dog machine-gun +battery which I had seen in the streets of Haelen, and the peasant +woman who shook her fist at the invader, and all who had the +schipperke spirit. + +My empty appointment as the representative of the American Press +with the British army was, at least, taken seriously by the policeman +at the War Office in London when I returned from trips to Paris. The +day came when it was good for British trenches and gun-positions; +when it was worth all the waiting, because it was the army of my race +and tongue. + + + + +II +Mons And Paris + + + +Back from Belgium to England; then across the Channel again to +Boulogne, where I saw the last of the French garrison march away, +their red trousers a throbbing target along the road. From Boulogne +the British had advanced into Belgium. Now their base was moved on +to Havre. Boulogne, which two weeks before had been cheering +the advent of "Tommee Atkeens" singing "Why should we be +downhearted?" was ominously lifeless. It was a town without soldiers; +a town of brick and mortar and pavements whose very defencelessness +was its best security should the Germans come. + +The only British there were a few stray wounded officers and men +who had found their way back from Mons. They had no idea where +the British army was. All they realized were sleepless nights, the +shock of combat, overpowering artillery fire, and resisting the +onslaught of outnumbering masses. + +An officer of Lancers, who had ridden through the German cavalry +with his squadron, dwelt on the glory of that moment. What did his +wound matter? It had come with the burst of a shell in a village street +which killed his horse after the charge. He had hobbled away, +reached a railroad train, and got on board. That was all he knew. + +A Scotch private had been lying with his battalion in a trench when a +German aeroplane was sighted. It had hardly passed by when +showers of shrapnel descended, and the Germans, in that grey- +green so hard to see, were coming on as thick as locusts. Then the +orders came to fall back, and he was hit as his battalion made +another stand. He had crawled a mile across the fields in the night +with a bullet in his arm. A medical corps officer told him to find any +transportation he could; and he, too, was able to get aboard a train. +That was all he knew. + +These wounded had been tossed aside into eddies by the maelstrom +of action. They were interesting because they were the first British +wounded that I had seen; because the war was young. + +Back to London again to catch the steamer with an article. One was +to take a season ticket to the war from London as home. It was a +base whence one sallied forth to get peeps through the curtain of +military secrecy at the mighty spectacle. You soaked in England at +intervals and the war at intervals. Whenever you stepped on the pier +at Folkestone it was with a breath of relief, born of a sense of freedom +long associated with fields and hedges on the other side of the chalk +cliffs which seemed to make the sequestering barrier of the sea +complete. + +Those days of late August and early September, 10.14, were gripping +days to the memory. Eager armies were pressing forward to a +cataclysm no longer of dread imagination but of reality. That ever- +deepening and spreading stain from Switzerland to the North Sea +was as yet only a splash of fresh blood. You still wondered if you +might not wake up in the morning and find the war a nightmare. +Pictures that grow clearer with time, which the personal memory +chooses for its own, dissociate themselves from a background of +detail. + +They were very quiet, this pair that sat at the next table in the dining- +room of a London hotel. I never spoke to them, but only stole discreet +glances, as we all will in irresistible temptation at any newly-wedded +couple. Neither was of the worldly type. One knew that to this young +girl London was strange; one knew the type of country home which +had given her that simple charm which cities cannot breed; one +knew, too, that this young officer, her husband, waited for word to go +to the front. + +Unconsciously she would play with her wedding-ring. She stole covert +glances at it and at him, of the kind that bring a catch in the throat, +when he was not looking at her--which he was most of the time, for +reasons which were good and sufficient to others besides himself. +Apprehended in "wool-gathering," she mustered a smile which was +so exclusively for him that the neighbour felt that he ought to be +forgiven his peeps from the tail of his eye at it because it was so +precious. + +They attempted little flights of talk about everything except the war. +He was most solicitous that she should have something which she +liked to eat, whilst she was equally solicitous about him. Wasn't he +going "out there?" And out there he would have to live on army fare. It +was all appealing to the old traveller. And then the next morning--she +was alone, after she had given him that precious smile in parting. The +incident was one of the thousands before the war had become an +institution, death a matter of routine, and it was a commonplace for +young wives to see young husbands away to the front with a smile. + +One such incident does for all, whether the war be young or old. +There is nothing else to tell, even when you know wife and husband. I +was rather glad that I did not know this pair. If I had known them I +should be looking at the casualty list for his name and I might not +enjoy my faith that he will return alive. These two seemed to me the +best of England. I used to think of them when gossip sought the latest +turn of intrigue under the mantle of censorship, when Parliament +poured out its oral floods and the newspapers their volumes of words. +The man went off to fight; the woman returned to her country home. It +was the hour of war, not of talk. + +On that Sunday in London when the truth about Mons appeared stark +to all England, another young man happened to buy a special edition +at a street corner at the same time as myself. By all criteria, the world +and his tailor had treated him well and he deserved well of the world. +We spoke together about the news. Already the new democracy +which the war has developed was in evidence. Everybody had +common thoughts and a common thing at stake, with values +reckoned in lives, and this makes for equality. + +"It's clear that we have had a bad knock. Why deny it?" he said. Then +he added quietly, after a pause: "This is a personal call for me. I'm +going to enlist." + +England's answer to that "bad knock" was out of her experience. She +had never won at first, but she had always won in the end; she had +won the last battle. The next day's news was worse and the next +day's still worse. The Germans seemed to be approaching Paris by +forced marches. Paris might fall--no matter! Though the French army +were shattered, one heard Englishmen say that the British would +create an army to wrest victory from defeat. The spirit of this was fine, +but one realized the enormity of the task; should the mighty German +machine crush the French machine, the Allies had lost. To say so +then was heresy, when the world was inclined to think poorly of the +French army and saw Russian numbers as irresistible. + +The personal call was to Paris before the fate of Paris was to be +decided. My first crossing of the Channel had been to Ostend; the +second, farther south to Boulogne; the third was still farther south, to +Dieppe. Where next? To Havre! Events were moving with the speed +which had been foreseen with myriads of soldiers ready to be thrown +into battle by the quick march of the railroad trains. + +Every event was hidden under the "fog of war," then a current +expression--meagre official bulletins which read like hope in their brief +lines, while the imagination might read as it chose between the lines. +The marvel was that any but troop trains should run. All night in that +third-class coach from Dieppe to Paris! Tired and preoccupied +passengers; everyone's heart heavy; everyone's soul wrenched; +everyone prepared for the worst! You cared for no other man's views; +the one thing you wanted was no bad news. France had known that +when the war came it would be to the death. From the first no +Frenchman could have had any illusions. England had not realized +yet that her fate was with the soldiers of France, or France that her +fate and all the world's was with the British fleet. + +An Italian in our compartment would talk, however, and he would +keep the topic down to red trousers, and to the red trousers of a +French Territorial opposite, with an index finger when his gesticulatory +knowledge of the French language, which was excellent, came to the +rescue of his verbal knowledge, which was poor. The Frenchman +agreed that red trousers were a mistake, but pointed to the blue +covering which he had for his cap--which made it all right. The Italian +insisted on keeping to the trousers. He talked red trousers till the +Frenchman got out at his station, and then turned to me to confirm +his views on this fatal strategic and tactical error of the French. After +all, he was more pertinent than most of the military experts trying to +write on the basis of the military bulletins. It was droll to listen to +this sartorial discourse, when at least two hundred thousand men +lay dead and wounded from that day's fight on the soil of France. +Red trousers were responsible for the death of a lot of those men. + +Dawn, early September dawn, on dew-moist fields, where the harvest +lay unfinished as the workers, hastening to the call of war, had left the +work. Across Paris, which seemed as silent as the fields, to an hotel +with empty rooms! Five hundred empty rooms, with a clock ticking +busily in every room! War or no war, that old man who wound the +clocks was making his rounds softly through the halls from door to +door. He was a good soldier, who had heeded Joffre's request that +everyone should go on with his day's work. + +"They're done!" said an American in the foyer. "The French cannot +stand up against the Germans--anybody could see that! It's too bad, +but the French are licked. The Germans will be here to-morrow or the +next day." + +I could not and would not believe it. Such a disaster was against all +one's belief in the French army and in the real character of the +French people. It meant that autocracy was making sport of +democracy; it meant disaster to all one's precepts; a personal +disaster. + +"Look at that interior line which the French now hold. Think of the +power of the defensive with modern arms. No! The French have not +had their battle yet!" I said. + +And the British Expeditionary Force was still intact; still an army, with +lots of fight left in it. + + + + +Ill +Paris Waits + + + +It was then that people were speaking of Paris as a dead city--a Paris +without theatres, without young men, without omnibuses, with the +shutters of its shops down and its cafés and restaurants in gloomy +emptiness. + +The Paris the host of the idler and the traveller; the Paris of the +boulevards and the night life provided for the tourist; the Paris that +sparkled and smiled in entertainment; the Paris exploited to +the average American through Sunday supplements and the +reminiscences of smoking-rooms of transatlantic liners, was dead. +Those who knew no other Paris and conjectured no other Paris +departed as from the tomb of the pleasures which had been the +passing extravaganza of relief, from dull lives elsewhere. The +Parisienne of that Paris spent a thousand francs to get her pet dog +safely away to Marseilles. Politicians of a craven type, who are the +curse of all democracies, had gone to keep her company, leaving +Paris cleaner than ever she was after the streets had had their +morning bath on a spring day when the horse chestnuts were in +bloom and madame was arranging her early editions on the table of +her kiosk--a spiritually clean Paris. + +Monsieur, would you have America judged by the White Way? What +has the White Way to do with the New York of Seventy-Second +Street or Harlem? It serves the same purpose as the boulevards of +furnishing scandalous little paragraphs for foreign newspapers. +Foreigners visit it and think that they understand how Americans live +in Stockbridge, Mass., or Springfield Illinois, Empty its hotels and +nobody but sightseers and people interested in the White Way would +know the difference. + +The other Paris, making ready to stand siege, with the Government +gone to Bordeaux with all the gold of the Bank of France, with the +enemy's guns audible in the suburbs and old men cutting down trees +and tearing up paving-stones to barricade the streets--never had that +Paris been more alive. It was after the death of the old and the birth of +the new Paris that an elderly man, seeing a group of women at tea in +one of the few fashionable refreshment places which were open, +stopped and said: + +"Can you find nothing better than that to do, ladies, in a time like +this?" + +And the Latin temperament gave the world a surprise. Those who +judged France by her playful Paris thought that if a Frenchman +gesticulated so emotionally in the course of everyday existence, he +would get overwhelmingly excited in a great emergency. One +evening, after the repulse of the Germans on the Marne, I saw two +French reserves dining in a famous restaurant where, at this time of +the year, four out of five diners ordinarily would be foreigners +surveying one another in a study of Parisian life. They were big, rosy- +cheeked men, country born and bred, belonging to the new France of +sports, of action, of temperate habits, and they were joking about +dining there just as two sturdy Westerners might about dining in a +deserted Broadway. The foreigners and demimondaines were +noticeably absent; a pair of Frenchmen were in the place of the +absentees; and after their dinner they smoked their black brier-root +pipes in that fashionable restaurant. + +Among the picture post-cards then on sale was one of Marianne, who +is France, bound for the front in an aeroplane with a crowing French +cock sitting on the brace above her. Marianne looked as happy as if +she were going to the races; the cock as triumphant as if he had a +spur through the German eagle's throat. However, there was little +sale for picture post-cards or other trifles, while Paris waited for the +siege. They did not help to win victories. News and not jeux d'esprit, +victory and not wit, was wanted. + +For Marianne went to war with her liberty cap drawn tight over her +brow, a beat in her temples, and her heart in her throat; and the cock +had his head down and pointed at the enemy. She was relieved in a +way, as all Europe was, that the thing had come; at last an end of the +straining of competitive taxation and preparation; at last the test. She +had no Channel, as England had, between her and the foe. Defeat +meant the heel of the enemy on her soil, German sentries in her +streets, submission. Long and hard she had trained; while the outside +world, thinking of the Paris of the boulevards, thought that she could +not resist the Kaiser's legions. She was effeminate, effete. She was +all right to run cafés and make artificial flowers, but she lacked beef. +All the prestige was with her enemy. In '70 all the prestige had been +with her. For there is no prestige like military prestige. It is all with +those who won the last war. + +"But if we must succumb, let it be now," said the French. + +On, on--the German corps were coming like some machine- +controlled avalanche of armed men. Every report brought them a little +nearer Paris. Ah, monsieur, they had numbers, those Germans! +Every German mother has many sons; a French mother only one or +two. + +How could one believe those official communiqués which kept saying +that the position of the French armies was favourable and then +admitted that von Kluck had advanced another twenty miles? The +heart of Paris stopped beating. Paris held its breath. Perhaps the +reason there was no panic was that Parisians had been prepared for +the worst. + +What silence! The old men and the women in the streets moved as +under a spell, which was the sense of their own helplessness. But few +people were abroad, and those going on errands apparently. The +absence of traffic and pedestrians heightened the sepulchral +appearance to superficial observation. At the windows of flats, inside +the little shops, and on by-streets, you saw waiting faces, everyone +with the weight of national grief become personal. Was Paris alive? +Yes, if Paris is human and not bricks and stone. Every Parisian was +living a century in a week. So, too, was one who loved France. In the +prospect of its loss he realized the value of all that France stands for, +her genius, her democracy, her spirit. + +One recalled how German officers had said that the next war would +be the end of France. An indemnity which would crush out her power +of recovery would be imposed on her. Her northern ports would be +taken. France, the most homogeneous of nations, would be divided +into separate nationalities--even this the Germans had planned. +Those who read their Shakespeare in the language they learned in +childhood had no doubt of England's coming out of the war secure; +but if we thought which foreign civilization brought us the most in our +lives, it was that of France. + +What would the world be without French civilization? To think of +France dead was to think of cells in your own brain that had gone +lifeless; of something irreparable extinguished to every man to whom +civilization means more than material power of destruction. The +sense of what might be lost was revealed to you at every turn in +scenes once merely characteristic of a whole, each with an appeal of +its own now; in the types of people who, by their conduct in this hour +of trial, showed that Spartan hearts might beat in Paris-the Spartan +hearts of the mass of everyday, workaday Parisians. + +Those waiting at home calmly with their thoughts, in a France of +apprehension, knew that their fate was out of their hands in the hands +of their youth. The tide of battle wavering from Meaux to Verdun +might engulf them; it might recede; but Paris would resist to the last. +That was something. She would resist in a manner worthy of Paris; +and one could live on very little food. Their fathers had. Every day +that Paris held out would be a day lost to the Germans and a day +gained for Joffre and Sir John French to bring up reserves. + +The street lamps should not reveal to Zeppelins or Taubes the +location of precious monuments. You might walk the length of the +Champs Elysées without meeting a vehicle or more than two or three +pedestrians. The avenue was all your own; you might appreciate it as +an avenue for itself; and every building and even the skyline of the +streets you might appreciate, free of any association except the +thought of the results of man's planning and building. Silent, deserted +Paris by moonlight, without street lamps--few had ever seen that. +Millionaire tourists with retinues of servants following them in motor- +cars may never know this effect; nor the Parisienne who paid a +thousand francs to send her pet dog to Marseilles. + +The moonlight threw the Arc de Triomphe in exaggerated spectral +relief, sprinkled the leaves of the long rows of trees, glistened on the +upsweep of the broad pavements, gleamed on the Seine. Paris was +majestic, as scornful of Prussian eagles as the Parthenon of Roman +eagles. A column of soldiery marching in triumph under the Arc might +possess as a policeman possesses; but not by arms could they gain +the quality that made Paris, any more than the Roman legionary +became a Greek scholar by doing sentry go in front of the Parthenon. +Every Parisian felt anew how dear Paris was to him; how worthy of +some great sacrifice! + +If New York were in danger of falling to an enemy, the splendid length +of Fifth Avenue and the majesty of the skyscrapers of lower +Broadway and the bay and the rivers would become vivid to you in a +way they never had before; or Washington, or San Francisco, or +Boston--or your own town. The thing that is a commonplace, when +you are about to lose it takes on a cherished value. + +To-morrow the German guns might be thundering in front of the +fortifications. The communiqués from Joffre became less frequent +and more laconic. Their wording was like some trembling, fateful +needle of a barometer, pausing, reacting a little, but going down, +down, down, indicator of the heart-pressure of Paris, shrivelling the +flesh, tightening the nerves. Already Paris was in a state of siege, in +one sense. Her exits were guarded against all who were not in +uniform and going to fight; to all who had no purpose except to see +what was passing where two hundred miles resounded with strife. It +was enough to see Paris itself awaiting the siege; fighting one was yet +to see to repletion. + +The situation must be very bad or the Government would not have +gone to Bordeaux. Alors, one must trust the army and the army must +trust Joffre. There is no trust like that of a democracy when it gives its +heart to a cause; the trust of the mass in the strength of the mass +which sweeps away the middlemen of intrigue. + +And silence, only silence in Paris; the silence of the old men and the +women, and of children who had ceased to play and could not +understand. No one might see what was going on unless he carried a +rifle. No one might see even the wounded. Paris was spared this, +isolated in the midst of war. The wounded were sent out of reach of +the Germans in case they should come. + +Then the indicator stopped falling. It throbbed upward. The +communiqués became more definite; they told of positions regained, +and borne in the ether by the wireless of telepathy was something +which confirmed the communiqués. At first Paris was uneasy with the +news, so set had history been on repeating itself, so remorselessly +certain had seemed the German advance. But it was true, true--the +Germans were going, with the French in pursuit, now twenty, now +thirty, now forty, now fifty, sixty, seventy miles away from Paris. Yes, +monsieur, seventy! + +With the needle rising, did Paris gather in crowds and surge through +the streets, singing and shouting itself hoarse, as it ought to have +done according to the popular international idea? No, monsieur, Paris +will not riot in joy in the presence of the dead on the battlefields and +while German troops are still within the boundaries of France. Paris, +which had been with heart standing still and breathing hard, began to +breathe regularly again and the glow of life to run through her veins. +In the markets, whither madame brought succulent melons, pears, +and grapes with commonplace vegetables, the talk of bargaining +housewives with their baskets had something of its old vivacity and +madame stiffened prices a little, for there will be heavy taxes to pay +for the war. Children, so susceptible to surroundings, broke out of the +quiet alleys and doorways in play again. + +A Sunday of relief, with a radiant September sun shining, followed a +Sunday of depression. The old taxicabs and the horse vehicles with +their venerable steeds and drivers too old for service at the front, +exhumed from the catacomb of the hours of doubt, ran up and down +the Champs Elysées with airing parties. At Notre Dame the religious +rejoicing was expressed. A great service of prayer was held by the +priests who were not away fighting for France, as three thousand are, +while joyful prayers of thanks shone on the faces of that democratic +people who have not hesitated to discipline the church as they have +disciplined their rulers. Groups gathered in the cafés or sauntered +slowly, talking less than usual, gesticulating little, rolling over the +good news in their minds as something beyond the power of +expression. How banal to say, "C'est chic, ça!" or "C'est épatant!" +Language is for little things. + +That pile of posters at the American Embassy had already become +historical souvenirs which won a smile. The name of every American +resident in Paris and his address had been filled in the blank space. +He had only to put up the warning over his door that the premises +were under the Embassy's protection. Ambassador Herrick, suave, +decisive, resourceful, possessed the gift of acting in a great +emergency with the same ease and simplicity as in a small one, +which is a gift sometimes found wanting when a crisis breaks upon +the routine of official life. + +He had the courage to act and the ability to secure a favour for an +American when it was reasonable; and the courage to say "No" if it +were unreasonable or impracticable. No one of the throngs who had +business with him was kept long at the door in uncertainty. In its +organization for facilitating the home-going of the thousands of +Americans in Paris and the Americans coming to Paris from other +parts of Europe, the American Embassy in Paris seemed as well +mobilized for its part in the war as the German army. + +In spite of '70, France still lived. You noted the faces of the women in +fresh black for their dead at the front, a little drawn but proud and +victorious. The son or brother or husband had died for the country. +When a fast motor-car bearing officers had a German helmet or two +displayed, the people stopped to look. A captured German in the +flesh on a front seat beside a soldier-chauffeur brought the knots to a +standstill. "Voilà C'est un Allemand!" ran the exclamation. But Paris +soon became used to these stray German prisoners, left-overs from +the German retreat coming in from the fields to surrender. The +batches went through by train without stopping for Paris, southward to +the camps where they were to be interned; and the trains of wounded +to winter resorts, whose hotels became hospitals, the verandas +occupied by convalescents instead of gossiping tourists. It is très à la +mode to be wounded, monsieur--très à la mode all over Europe. + +And, monsieur, all those barricades put up for nothing! They will not +need the cattle gathered on Long-champs race-track and in the parks +at Versailles for a siege. The people who laid in stocks of tinned +goods till the groceries of Paris were empty of everything in tins--they +will either have to live on canned food or confess that they were pigs, +hein? Those volunteers, whether young men who had been excused +because they were only sons or for weak hearts which now let them +past the surgeons, whether big, hulking farmers, or labourers, or +stooped clerks, drilling in awkward squads in the suburbs till they are +dizzy, they will not have to defend Paris; but, perhaps, help to regain +Alsace and Lorraine. + +Then there were stories going the rounds; stories of French courage +and élan which were cheering to the ears of those who had to remain +at home. Did you hear about the big French peasant soldier who +captured a Prussian eagle in Alsace? They had him come to Paris to +give him the Legion of Honour and the great men made a ceremony +of it, gathering around him at the Ministry of War. The simple fellow +looked from one to another of the group, surprised at all this attention. +It did not occur to him that he had done anything remarkable. He had +seen a Prussian with a standard and taken the standard away from +the Prussian. + +"If you like this so well," said that droll one, "I'll try to get another!" + + + + +IV +On The Heels Of Von Kluck + + + +Though the Germans were going, the siege by the cordon of French +guards around Paris had not been raised. To them every civilian was +a possible spy. So they let no civilians by. Must one remain for ever in +Paris, screened from any view of the great drama? Was there no way +of securing a blue card which would open the road to war for an atom +of humanity who wanted to see Frenchmen in action and not to pry +into generals' plans? + +Happily, an army winning is more hospitable than an army losing; and +bonds of friendship which stretch around the world could be linked +with authority which has only to say the word, in order that one might +have a day's glimpse of the fields where von Kluck's Germans were +showing their heels to the French. + +Ours, I think, was the pioneer of the sight-seeing parties which +afterwards became the accepted form of war correspondence with +the French. None could have been under more delightful auspices in +companionship or in the event. Victory was in the hearts of our hosts, +who included M. Paul Doumer, formerly President of the Chamber of +Deputies and Governor of French Indo-China and now a senator, and +General Febrier, of the French Medical Service, who was to have had +charge of the sanitation of Paris in case of a siege. + +M. Doumer was acting as Chef de Cabinet to General Gallieni, the +commandant of Paris, and he and General Febrier and two other +officers of Gallieni's staff, who would have been up to their eyes in +work if there had been a siege, wanted to see something of that army +whose valour had given them a holiday. Why should not Roberts and +myself come along? which is the pleasant way the French have of +putting an invitation. + +Oh, the magic of a military pass and the companionship of an officer +in uniform! It separates you from the crowd of millions on the other +side of the blank wall of military secrecy and takes you into the area +of the millions in uniform; it wins a nod of consent on a road from that +middle-aged reservist whose bayonet has the police power of millions +of bayonets in support of its authority. + +At last one was to see; the measure of his impressions was to be his +own eyes and not written reports. Other passes I have had since, +which gave me the run of trenches and shell-fire areas; but this pass +opened the first door to the war. That day we ran by Meaux and +Château Thierry to Soissons and back by Senlis to Paris. We saw a +finger's breadth of battle area; a pin-point of army front. Only a ride +along a broad, fine road out of Paris, at first; a road which our cars +had all to themselves. Then at Claye we came to the high-water mark +of the German invasion in this region. Thus close to Paris in that +direction and no closer had the Germans come. + +There was the field where their skirmishers had turned back. Farther +on, the branches of the avenue of trees which shaded the road had +been slashed as if by a whirlwind of knives, where the French +soixante-quinze field-guns had found a target. Under that sudden +bath of projectiles, with the French infantry pressing forward on their +front, the German gunners could not wait to take away the cord of +five-inch shells which they had piled to blaze their way to Paris. One +guessed their haste and their irritation. They were within range of the +fortifications; within two hours' march of the suburbs; of the Mecca of +forty years' preparation. After all that march from Belgium, with no +break in the programme of success, the thunders broke and lightning +flashed out of the sky as Manoury's army rushed upon von Kluck's +flank. + +"It was not the way that they wanted us to get the shells," said a +French peasant who was taking one of the shell-baskets for a +souvenir. It would make an excellent umbrella stand. + +For the French it had been the turn of the tide; for that little British +army which had fought its way back from Mons it was the sweet +dream, which had kept men up on the retreat, come true. Weary +Germans, after a fearful two weeks of effort, became the driven. +Weary British and French turned drivers. A hypodermic of victory +renewed their energy. Paris was at their back and the German backs +in front. They were no longer leaving their dead and wounded behind +to the foe; they were sweeping past the dead and wounded of the +foe. + +But their happiness, that of a winning action, exalted and passionate, +had not the depths of that of the refugees who had fled before the +German hosts and were returning to their homes in the wake of their +victorious army. We passed farmers with children perched on top of +carts laden with household goods and drawn by broad-backed farm- +horses, with usually another horse or a milch cow tied behind. The +real power of France, these peasants holding fast to the acres they +own, with the fire of the French nature under their thrifty +conservatism. Others on foot were villagers who had lacked horses +or carts to transport their belongings. In the packs on their backs +were a few precious things which they had borne away and were now +bearing back. + +Soon they would know what the Germans had done to the homes. +What the Germans had done to one piano was evident. It stood in the +yard of a house where grass and flowers had been trodden by horses +and men. In the sport of victory the piano had been dragged out of +the little drawing-room, while Fritz and Hans played and sang in the +intoxication of a Paris gained, a France in submission. They did not +know what Joffre had in pickle for them. It had all gone according to +programme up to that moment. Nothing can stop us Germans! +Champagne instead of beer! Set the glass on top of the piano and +sing! Haven't we waited forty years for this day? + +Captured diaries of German officers, which reflect the seventh +heaven of elation suddenly turned into grim depression, taken in +connection with what one saw on the battlefield, reconstruct the +scene around that piano. The cup to the lips; then dashed away. How +those orders to retreat must have hurt! + +The state of the refugees' homes all depended upon the chances of +war. War's lightning might have hit your roof-tree and it might not. It +plays no favourites between the honest and the dishonest; the thrifty +and the shiftless. We passed villages which exhibited no signs of +destruction or of looting. German troops had marched through in the +advance and in the retreat without being billeted. A hurrying army with +another on its heels has no time for looting. Other villages had been +points of topical importance; they had been in the midst of a fight. +General Mauvaise Chance had it in for them. Shells had wrecked +some houses; others were burned. Where a German non-commissioned +officer came to the door of a French family and said that room must +be made for German soldiers in that house and if anyone dared to +interfere with them he would be shot, there the exhausted human +nature of a people trained to think that "Krieg ist Krieg" and that the +spoils of war are to the victor had its way. + +It takes generations to lift a man up a single degree; but so swift is the +effect of war, when men live a year in a day, that he is demonized in a +month. Before the occupants had to go, often windows were broken, +crockery smashed, closets and drawers rifled. The soldiery which +could not have its Paris "took it out" of the property of their hosts. +Looting, destruction, one can forgive in the orgy of war which is +organized destruction; one can even understand rapine and atrocities +when armies, which include latent vile and criminal elements, are +aroused to the kind of insane passion which war kindles in human +beings. But some indecencies one could not understand in civilized +men. All with a military purpose, it is said; for in the nice calculations +of a staff system which grinds so very fine, nothing must be excluded +that will embarrass the enemy. A certain foully disgusting practice +was too common not to have had the approval of at least some +officers, whose conduct in several châteaux includes them as +accomplices. Not all officers, not all soldiers. That there should be a +few is enough to sicken you of belonging to the human species. +Nothing worse in Central America; nothing worse where civilized +degeneracy disgraces savagery. + +But do not think that destruction for destruction's sake was done in all +houses where German soldiers were billeted. If the good principle +was not sufficiently impressed, Belgium must have impressed it; a +looting army is a disorderly army. The soldier has burden enough to +carry in heavy marching order without souvenirs. That collector of the +stoppers of carafes who had thirty on his person when taken prisoner +was bound to be a laggard in the retreat. + +To their surprise and relief, returning farmers found their big, conical +haystacks untouched, though nothing could be more tempting to the +wantonness of an army on enemy soil. Strike a match and up goes +the harvest! Perhaps the Germans as they advanced had in mind to +save the forage for their own horses, and either they were running too +fast to stop or the staff overlooked the detail on the retreat. + +It was amazing how few signs of battle there were in the open. +Occasionally one saw the hastily-made shelter-trenches of a skirmish +line; and again, the emplacements for batteries--hurried field- +emplacements, so puny beside those of trench warfare. It had been +open fighting; the tide of an army sweeping forward and then, +pursued, sweeping back. One side was trying to get away; the other +to overtake. Here, a rearguard made a determined action which +would have had the character of a battle in other days; there, a +rearguard was pinched as the French or the British got around it. + +Swift marching and quick manÅ“uvres of the type which gave war +some of its old sport and zest; the advance all the while gathering +force like the neap tide! Crowds of men hurrying across a harvested +wheatfield or a pasture after all leave few marks of passage. A day's +rain will wash away bloodstains and liven trampled vegetation. Nature +hastens with a kind of contempt of man to repair the damage done by +his murderous wrath. + +The cyclone past, the people turned out to put things in order. +Peasants too old to fight, who had paid the taxes which paid for the +rifles and guns and shell-fire, were moving across the fields with +spades, burying the bodies of the young men and the horses that +were war's victims. Long trenches full of dead told where the eddy of +battle had been fierce and the casualties numerous; scattered +mounds of fresh earth where they were light; and, sometimes, when +the burying was unfinished--well, one draws the curtain over scenes +like that in the woods at Betz, where Frenchmen died knowing that +Paris was saved and Germans died knowing that they had failed to +take Paris. + +Whenever we halted our statesman, M. Doumer, was active. Did we +have difficulties over a culvert which had been hastily mended, he +was out of the car and in command. Always he was meeting some +man whom he knew and shaking hands like a senator at home. At +one place a private soldier, a man of education by his speech, came +running across the street at sight of him. + +"Son of an old friend of mine, from my town," said our statesman. +Being a French private meant being any kind of a Frenchman. All +inequalities are levelled in the ranks of a great conscript army. + +Be it through towns unharmed or towns that had been looted and +shelled, the people had the smile of victory, the look of victory in their +eyes. Children and old men and women, the stay-at-homes, waved to +our car in holiday spirit. The laugh of a sturdy young woman who +threw some flowers into the tonneau as we passed, in her tribute to +the uniform of the army that had saved France, had the spirit of +victorious France--France after forty years' waiting throwing back a +foe that had two soldiers to every one of hers. All the land, rich fields +and neat gardens and green stretches of woods in the fair, rolling +landscape, basked in victory. Dead the spirit of anyone who could +not, for the time being, catch the infection of it and feel himself a +Frenchman. Far from the Paris of gay show for the tourist one +seemed; in the midst of the France of the farms and the villages +which had saved Paris and France. + +The car sped on over the hard road. Staff officers in other cars whom +we passed alone suggested that there was war somewhere ahead. +Were we never going to reach the battle-line, the magnet of our +speed when a French army chauffeur made all speed laws obsolete? + +Shooting out of a grove, a valley made a channel for sound that +brought to our ears the thunder of guns, with firing so rapid that it was +like the roll of some cyclopean snare-drum beaten with sticks the size +of ship-masts. From the crest of the next hill we had a glimpse of an +open sweep of park-like country toward wooded hills. As far as we +could see against the background of the foliage which threw it into +relief was a continuous cloud of smoke from bursting shells, renewed +with fresh, soft, blue puffs as fast as it was dissipated. + +This, then, was a battle. No soldiers, no guns, in sight; only against +masses of autumn green a diaphanous, man-made nimbus which +was raining steel hail. Ten miles of this, one would say; and under it +lines of men in blue coats and red trousers and green uniforms +hugging the earth, as unseen as a battalion of ants at work in the tall +grass. Even if a charge swept across a field one would have been +able to detect nothing except moving pin-points on a carpet. + +There was hard fighting; a lot of French and German were being +killed in the direction of Compiègne and Noyon to-day. Another dip +into another valley and the thir-r-r of a rapid-firer and the muffled +firing of a line of infantry were audible. Yes, we were getting up +with the army, with one tiny section of it operating along the road on +which we were. Multiply this by a thousand and you have the whole. + +Ahead was the army's larder on wheels; a procession of big motor +transport trucks keeping their intervals of distance with the precision +of a battleship fleet at sea. We should have known that they belonged +to the army by the deafness of the drivers to appeals to let us pass. +All army transports are like that. What the deuced right has anybody +to pass? They are the transport, and only fighting men belong in front +of them. Our car in trying to go by to one side got stuck in a rut that +an American car, built for bad roads, would have made nothing of; +which proves again how closely European armies are tied to their fine +highways. We got out, and here again was our statesman putting his +shoulder to the wheel. That is the way of the French in war. +Everybody tries to help. By this time the transport chauffeurs +remembered that they also were Frenchmen; and as Frenchmen are +polite even in time of war, they let us by. + +A motor-cyclist approached with his hand up. + +"Stop here!" he called. + +Those transport chauffeurs who were deaf to ex-premiers heard +instantly and obeyed. In front of them was a line of single horse- +drawn carts, with an extra horse in the rear. They could take paths +that the motor trucks could not. Archaic they seemed, yet friendly, as +a relic of how armies were fed in other days. For the first time I was +realizing what the motor truck means to war. It brings the army +impedimenta close up to the army's rear; it means a reduction of road +space occupied by transport by three-quarters; ease in keeping pace +with food with the advance, speed in falling back in case of retreat. + +All that day I did not see a single piece of French army transport +broken down. And this army had been fighting for weeks; it had been +an army on the road. The valuable part of our experience was exactly +in this: a glimpse of an army in action after it had been through all the +vicissitudes that an army may have in marching and counter- +marching and attack. Order one expected afterwards, behind the +siege line of trenches, when there had been time to establish a +routine; organization and smooth organization you had here at the +climax of a month's strain. It told the story of the character of the +French army and the reasons for its success other than its courage. +The brains were not all with the German Staff. + +That winding road, with a new picture at every turn, now revealed the +town of Soissons in the valley of the River Aisne. Soissons was ours, +we knew, since yesterday. How much farther had we gone? Was our +advance still continuing? For then, winter trench-fighting was +unforeseen and the sightseers thought of the French army as +following up success with success. Paris, rising from gloom to +optimism, hoped to see the Germans speedily put out of France. The +appetite for victory grew, after a week's bulletins which moved the +flags forward on the map every day. + +Another turn and Soissons was hidden from view by a woodland. +Here we came upon what looked like a leisurely family party of +reserves. The French army, a small section of French army, along a +road! And thus, if one would see the whole it must be in bits along the +roads, when not on the firing-line. They were sprawling in the fields in +the genial afternoon sun, looking as if they had no concern except to +rest. Uniforms dusty and faces tanned and bearded told their story of +the last month. + +The duty of a portion of a force is always to wait on what is being +done by the others at the front. These were waiting near a fork which +could take them to the right or the left, as the situation demanded. At +the rear, their supply of small arms ammunition; in front, caissons of +shells for a battery speaking from the woods near by; a troop of +cavalry drawn up, the men dismounted, ready; and ahead of them +more reserves ready; everything ready. + +This was where the general wanted the body of men and equipment +to be, and here they were. There were no dragging ends in the rear, +so far as I could see; nobody complaining that food or ammunition +was not up; no aide looking for somebody who could not be found; no +excited staff officer rushing about shouting for somebody to look +sharp for somebody had made a mistake. The thing was unwarlike; it +was like a particularly well-thought-out route march. Yet at the word +that company of cavalry might be in the thick of it, at the point where +they were wanted; the infantry rushing to the support of the firing-line; +the motor transport facing around for withdrawal, if need be. It was +only a little way, indeed, into the zone of death from the rear of that +compact column. Thousands of such compact bodies on many +roads, each seemingly a force by itself and each a part of the whole, +which could be a dependable whole only when every part was ready, +alert, and where it belonged! Nothing can be left to chance in a battle- +line three hundred miles long. The general must know what to +depend on, mile by mile, in his plans. Millions of human units are +grouped in increasingly larger units, harmonized according to set +forms. The most complex of all machines is that of a vast army, which +yet must be kept most simple. No unit acts without regard to the +others; every one must know how to do its part. The parts of the +machine are standardized. One is like the other in training, uniform, +and every detail, so that one can replace another. Oldest of all trades +this of war; old experts the French. What one saw was like +manÅ“uvres. It must be like manoeuvres or the army would not hold +together. ManÅ“uvres are to teach armies coherence; war tries out +that coherence, which you may not have if someone does not know +just what to do; if he is uncertain in his rôle. Haste leads to confusion; +haste is only for supreme moments. In order to know how to hasten +when the hurry call comes, the mighty organism must move in its +routine with the smoothness of a well-rehearsed play. + +Joffre and the others who directed the machine must know more than +the mechanics of staff-control. They must know the character of the +man-material in the machine. It was their duty as real Frenchmen to +understand Frenchmen, their verve, their restlessness for the +offensive, their individualism, their democratic intelligence, the value +of their elation, the drawback of their tendency to depression and to +think for themselves. Indeed, the leader must counteract the faults of +his people and make the most of their virtues. + +Thus, we had a French army's historical part reversed: a French army +falling back and concentrating on the Marne to receive the enemy +blow. Equally alive to German racial traits, the German Staff had +organized in their mass offensive the élan which means fast +marching and hard blows. So, we found the supposedly excitable +French digging in to receive the onslaught of the supposedly +phlegmatic German. When the time came for the charge--ah, you can +always depend on a Frenchman to charge! + +Those reserves were pawns on a chessboard. They appeared like it; +one thought that they realized it. Their individual intelligence +and democracy had reasoned out the value of obedience and +homogeneity, rather than accepted it as the dictum of any war lord. +Difficult to think that 'each one had left a vacancy at a family board; +difficult to think that all were not automatons in a process of endless +routine of war; but not difficult to learn that they were Frenchmen +once we had thrown our bombs in the midst of the group. + +Of old, one knew the wants of soldiers. One needed no hint of what +was welcome at the front. Never at any front were there enough +newspapers or tobacco. Men smoke twice as much as usual in the +strain of waiting for action; men who do not use tobacco at all get the +habit. Ask the G.A.R. men who fought in our great war if this is not +true. Then, too, when your country is at war, when back at home +hands stretch out for every fresh edition and you at the front know +only what happens in your alley, think what a newspaper from Paris +means out on the battle-line seventy miles from Paris! So I had +brought a bundle of newspapers and many packets of cigarettes. + +Monsieur, the sensation is beyond even the French language to +express--the sensation of sitting down by the roadside with this +morning's edition and the first cigarette for twenty-four hours. + +"C'est épatant! C'est chic, ça! C'est magnifique! Alors, nom de Dieu! +Tiens! Hélas! Voilà ! Merci, mille remerciments!"--it was an army of +Frenchmen with ready words, quick, telling gestures, pouring out their +volume of thanks as the car sped by and we tossed out our +newspapers at intervals, so that all should have a look. + +An Echo de Paris that fell into the road was the centre of a flag-rush, +which included an officer. Most un-military--an officer scrambling at +the same time as his men! In the name of the Kaiser, what discipline! + +Then the car stopped long enough for me to see a private give the +paper to his officer, who was plainly sensible of a loss of dignity, with +a courtesy which said, "A thousand pardons, mon capitaine!" and the +capitaine began reading the newspaper aloud to his men. Scores of +human touches which were French, republican, democratic! + +With half our cigarettes gone, we fell in with some brown-skinned, +native African troops, the Mohammedan Turcos. Their white teeth +gleaming, their black eyes devilishly eager, they began climbing on to +the car. We gave them all the cigarettes in sight; but fortunately our +reserve supply was not visible, and an officer's sharp command +saved us from being invested by storm. + +As we came into Soissons we left the reserves behind. They were +kept back out of range of the German shells, making the town a dead +space between them and the firing-line, which was beyond. When the +Germans retreated through the streets the French had taken care, as +it was their town, to keep their fire away from the cathedral and the +main square to the outskirts and along the river. Not so the German +guns when the French infantry passed through. Soissons was not a +German town. + +We alighted from the car in a deserted street, with all the shutters of +shops that had not been torn down by shell-fire closed. Soissons was +as silent as the grave, within easy range of many enemy guns. War +seemed only for the time being in this valley bottom shut in from the +roar of artillery a few miles away, except for a French battery which +was firing methodically and slowly, its shells whizzing toward the ridge +back of the town. + +The next thing that one wanted most was to go into that battery and +see the soixante-quinze and their skilful gunners. Our statesman said +that he would try to locate it. We thought that it was in the direction of +the river, that famous Aisne which has since given its name to the +longest siege-line in history; a small, winding stream in the bottom of +an irregular valley. Both bridges across it had been cut by the +Germans. If that battery were on the other side under cover of any +one of a score of blots of foliage we could not reach it. Another shot-- +and we were not sure that the battery was not on the opposite side of +the town; a crack out of the landscape: this was modern artillery fire to +one who faced it. Apparently the guns of the battery were scattered, +according to the accepted practice, and from the central firing-station +word to fire was being passed first to one gun and then to another. + +Beside the buttress of one bridge lay two still figures of Algerian +Zouaves. These were fresh dead, fallen in the taking of the town. +Only two men! There were dead by thousands which one might see +in other places. These two had leaped out from cover to dash forward +and bullets were waiting for them. They had rolled over on their +backs, their rigid hands still in the position of grasping their rifles +after the manner of crouching skirmishers. + +Our statesman said that we had better give up trying to locate the +battery; and one of the officers called a halt to trying to go up to the +firing-line on the part of a personally-conducted party, after we +stopped a private hurrying back from the front on some errand. With +his alertness, the easy swing of his walk, his light step, and his +freedom of spirit and appearance, he typified the thing which the +French call élan. Whenever one asked a question of a French private +you could depend upon a direct answer. He knew or he did not know. +This definiteness, the result of military training as well as of Gallic +lucidity of thought, is not the least of the human factors in making an +efficient army, where every man and every unit must definitely know +his part. This young man, you realized, had tasted the "salt of life," as +Lord Kitchener calls it. He had heard the close sing of bullets; he had +known the intoxication of a charge. + +"Does everything go well?" M. Doumer asked. "It is not going at all, +now. It is sticking," was the answer. "Some Germans were busy up +there in the stone quarries while the others were falling back. They +have a covered trench and rapid-fire-gun positions to sweep a zone +of fire which they have cleared." + +Famous stone quarries of Soissons, providing ready-made dug-outs +as shelter from shells! + +There is a story of how before Marengo Napoleon heard a private +saying: "Now this is what the general ought to do!" It was Napoleon's +own plan revealed. "You keep still!" he said. "This army has too many +generals." + +"They mean to make a stand," the private went on. "It's an ideal place +for it. There is no use of an attack in front. We'd be mowed down by +machine-guns." The br-r-r of a dozen shots from a German machine- +gun gave point to his conclusion. "Our infantry is hugging what we +have and intrenching. You'd better not go up. One has to know the +way, or he'll walk right into a sharpshooter's bullet"--instructions that +would have been applicable a year later when one was about to visit +a British trench in almost the same location. + +The siege-warfare of the Aisne line had already begun. It was singular +to get the first news of it from a private in Soissons and then to return +to Paris and London, on the other side of the curtain of secrecy, +where the public thought that the Allied advance would continue. + +"Allons!" said our statesman, and we went to the town square, where +German guns had carpeted the ground with branches of shade trees +and torn off the fronts of houses, revealing sections of looted interior +which had been further messed by shell-bursts. Some women and +children and a crippled man came out of doors at sight of us. M. +Doumer introduced himself and shook hands all around. They were +glad to meet him in much the same way as if he had been on an +election campaign. + +"A German shell struck there across the square only half an hour +ago," said one of the women. + +"What do you do when there is shelling?" asked M. Doumer. + +"If it is bad we go into the cellar," was the answer; an answer which +implied that peculiar fearlessness of women, who get accustomed to +fire easier than men. These were the fatalists of the town, who would +not turn refugee; helpless to fight, but grimly staying with their homes +and accepting what came with an incomprehensible stoicism, which +possibly had its origin in a race-feeling so proud and bitter that they +would not admit that they could be afraid of anything German, even a +shell. + +"And how did the Germans act?" + +"They made themselves at home in our houses and slept in our beds, +while we slept in the kitchen," she answered. "They said that if we +kept indoors and gave them what they wanted we should not be +harmed. But if anyone fired a shot at their troops or any arms were +found in our houses, they would burn the town. When they were +going back in a great hurry--how they scattered from our shells! We +went out in the square to see our shells, monsieur!" + +What mattered the ruins of her home? "Our" shells had returned +vengeance. + +Arrows with directions in German, "This way to the river," "This way to +Villers-Cotteret," were chalked on the standing walls; and on door- +casings the names of the detachments of the Prussian Guard billeted +there, all in systematic Teutonic fashion. + +"Prince Albrecht Joachim, one of the Kaiser's sons, was here and I +talked with him," said the Mayor, who thought we would enjoy a +morsel from court circles in exchange for a copy of the Echo de Paris, +which contained the news that Prince Albrecht had been wounded +later. The Mayor looked tired, this local man of the people, who had to +play the shepherd of a stricken flock. Afterwards, they said that he +deserted his charge and a lady, Mme. Mâcherez, took his place. All I +know is that he was present that day; or, at least, a man who was +introduced to me as mayor; and he was French enough to make a +bon mot by saying that he feared there was some fault in his +hospitality because he had been unable to keep his guest. + +"May I have this confiture?" asked a battle-stained French orderly, +coming up to him. "I found it in that ruined house there--all the +Germans had left. I haven't had a confiture for a long time, and, +monsieur, you cannot imagine what a hunger I have for confitures." + +All the while the French battery kept on firing slowly, then again +rapidly, their cracks trilling off like the drum of knuckles on a +table-top. Another effort to locate one of the guns before we started +back to Paris failed. Speeding on, we had again a glimpse of the +landscape toward Noyon, sprinkled with shell-bursts. The reserves +were around their camp-fires making savoury stews for the evening +meal. They would sleep where night found them on the sward under +the stars, as in wars of old. That scene remains indelible as one of +many while the army was yet mobile, before the contest became +one of the mole and the beaver. + +Though one had already seen many German prisoners in groups and +convoys, the sight of two on the road fixed the attention because of +the surroundings and the contrast suggested between French and +German natures. Both were young, in the very prime of life, and both +Prussian. One was dark-complexioned, with a scrubbly beard which +was the product of the war. He marched with such rigidity that I +should not have been surprised to see him break into a goose-step. +The other was of that mild, blue-eyed, tow-haired type from the Baltic +provinces, with the thin, white skin which does not tan but burns. He +was frailer than the other and he was tired! He would lag and then +stiffen back his shoulders and draw in his chin and force a trifle more +energy into his steps. + +A typical, lively French soldier was escorting the pair. He looked pretty +tired, too, but he was getting over the ground in the natural, easy way +in which man is meant to walk. The aboriginal races, who have a +genius for long distances on foot, do not march in the German +fashion, which looks impressive, but lacks endurance. By the same +logic, the cowboy pony's gait is better for thirty miles day in and day +out than the gait of the high-stepping carriage horse. + +You could realize the contempt which those two martial Germans had +for their captor. Four or five peasant women refugees by the roadside +loosened their tongues in piercing feminine satire and upbraiding. + +"You are going to Paris, after all! This is what you get for invading our +country; and you'll get more of it!" + +The little French soldier held up his hand to the women and shook his +head. He was a chivalrous fellow, with imagination enough to +appreciate the feelings of an enemy who has fought hard and lost. +Such as he would fight fair and hold this war of the civilizations up to +something like the standards of civilization. + +The very tired German stiffened up again, as his drill sergeant had +taught him, and both stared straight ahead, proud and contemptuous, +as their Kaiser would wish them to do. I should recognize the faces of +those two Germans and of that little French guard if I saw them ten +years hence. In ten years, what will be the Germans' attitude toward +this war and their military lords? + +It is not often that one has a senator for a guide; and I never knew a +more efficient one than our statesman. His own curiosity was the best +possible aid in satisfying our own. Having seen the compactness and +simplicity of an army column at the front, we were to find that the +same thing applied to high command. A sentry and a small flag at the +doorway of a village hotel: this was the headquarters of the Sixth +Army, which General Manoury had formed in haste and flung at von +Kluck with a spirit which crowned his white hairs with the audacity of +youth. He was absent, but we might see something of the central +direction of one hundred and fifty thousand men in the course of one +of the most brilliant manÅ“uvres of the war, before staffs had settled +down to office existence in permanent quarters. That is, we might see +the little there was to see: a soldier telegrapher in one bedroom, a +soldier typewritist in another, officers at work in others. One realized +that they could pack up everything and move in the time it takes to +toss enough clothes into a bag to spend a night away from home. +Apparently, when the French fought they left red tape behind with the +bureaucracy. + +From his seat before a series of maps on a sitting-room table an +officer of about thirty-five rose to receive us. It struck me that he +exemplified self-possessed intelligence and definite knowledge; that +he had coolness and steadiness plus that acuteness of perception +and clarity of statement which are the gift of the French. You felt sure +that no orders which left his hand wasted any words or lacked +explicitness. The Staff is the brains of the army, and he had brains. + +"All goes well!" he said, as if there were no more to say. All goes well! +He would say it when things looked black or when they looked bright, +and in a way that would make others believe it. + +Outside the hotel were no cavalry escorts or commanders, no +hurrying orderlies, none of the legendary activity that is associated +with an army headquarters. A motor-car drove up, an officer got out; +another officer descended the stairs to enter a waiting car. The wires +carry word faster than the cars. Each subordinate commander was in +his place along that line where we had seen the puffs of smoke +against the landscape, ready to answer a question or obey an order. +That simplicity, like art itself, which seems so easy is the most difficult +accomplishment of all in war. + +After dark, in a drizzling rain, we came to what seemed to be a town, +for our motor-car lamps spread their radiant streams over wet +pavements. But these were the only lights. Tongues of loose bricks +had been shot across the cobblestones and dimly the jagged skyline +of broken walls of buildings on either side could be discerned. It was +Senlis, the first town I had seen which could be classified as a town in +ruins. Afterwards, one became a sort of specialist in ruins, comparing +the latest with previous examples of destruction. + +Approaching footsteps broke the silence. A small, very small, French +soldier--he was not more than five feet two--appeared, and we +followed him to an ambulance that had broken down for want of +petrol. It belonged to the Société de Femmes de France. The little +soldier had put on a uniform as a volunteer for the only service his +stature would permit. In those days many volunteer organizations +were busy seeking to "help." There was a kind of competition among +them for wounded. This ambulance had got one and was taking him +to Paris, off the regular route of the wounded who were being sent +south. The boot-soles of a prostrate figure showed out of the dark +recess of the interior. This French officer, a major, had been hit in the +shoulder. He tried to control the catch in his voice which belied his +assertion that he was suffering little pain. The drizzling rain was chilly. +It was a long way to Paris yet. + +"We will make inquiries," said our kindly general. + +A man who came out of the gloom said that there was a hospital kept +by some Sisters of Charity in Senlis which had escaped destruction. +The question was put into the recesses of the ambulance: + +"Would you prefer to spend the night here and go on in the morning?" + +"Yes, monsieur, I--should--like--that--better!" The tone left no doubt of +the relief that the journey in a car with poor springs was not to be +continued after hours of waiting, marooned in the street of a ruined +town. + +Whilst the ambulance passed inside the hospital gate, I spoke with an +elderly woman who came to a near-by door. Cool and definite she +was as a French soldier, bringing home the character of the women +of France which this war has made so well known to the world. + +"Were you here during the fighting?" + +"Yes, monsieur, and during the shelling and the burning. The shelling +was not enough. The Germans said that someone fired on their +soldiers--a boy, I believe--so they set fire to the houses. One could +only look and hate and pray as their soldiers passed through, looking +so unconquerable, making all seem so terrible for France. Was it to +be '70 over again? One's heart was of stone, monsieur. Tiens! They +came back faster than they went. A mitrailleuse was down there at +the end of the street, our mitrailleuse! The bullets went cracking by. +They crack, the bullets; they do not whistle like the stories say. Then +the street was empty of Germans who could run. The dead they +could not run, nor the wounded. Then the French came up the street, +running too--running after the Germans. It was good, monsieur, good, +good! My heart was not of stone then, monsieur. It could not beat fast +enough for happiness. It was the heart of a girl. I remember it all very +clearly. I always shall, monsieur." + +"Allons!" said our statesman. "The officer is well cared for." + +The world seemed normal again as we passed through other towns +unharmed and swept by the dark countryside, till a red light rose in +our path and a sharp "Qui vive?" came out of the night as we slowed +down. This was not the only sentry call from a French Territorial in +front of a barricade. + +At a second halt we found a chain as well as a barricade across the +road. For a moment it seemed that even the suave parliamentarism +of our statesman and the authority of our general and our passes +could not convince one grizzled reservist, doing his duty for France at +the rear whilst the young men were at the front, that we had any right +to be going into Paris at that hour of the night. The password, which +was "Paris," helped, and we felt it a most appropriate password as we +came to the broad streets of the city that was safe. + +There is a popular idea that Napoleon was a super-genius who won +his battles single-handed. It is wrong. He had a lot of Frenchmen +along to help. Much the same kind of Frenchmen live to-day. Not until +they fought again would the world believe this. It seems that the +excitable Gaul, whom some people thought would become demoralized +in face of German organization, merely talks with his hands. In a +great crisis he is cool, as he always was. I like the French for their +democracy and humanity. I like them, too, for leaving their war +to France and Marianne; for not dragging in God as do the Germans. +For it is just possible that God is not in the fight. We don't know +that He even approved of the war. + + + + +V +And Calais Waits + + + +To the traveller, Calais had been the symbol of the shortest route +from London to Paris, the shortest spell of torment in crossing the +British Channel. It was a point where one felt infinite relief or sad +physical anticipations. In the last days of November Calais became +the symbol of a struggle for world-power. The British and the French +were fighting to hold Calais; the Germans to get it. In Calais, +Germany would have her foot on the Atlantic coast. She could look +across only twenty-two miles of water to the chalk cliffs of Dover. She +would be as near her rival as twice the length of Manhattan Island; +within the range of a modern gun; within an hour by steamer and +twenty minutes by aeroplane. + +The long battle-front from Switzerland to the North Sea had been +established. There was no getting around the Allied flank; there had +ceased to be a flank. To win Calais, Germany must crush through by +main force, without any manÅ“uvre. From the cafés where the British +journalists gathered England received its news, which they gleaned +from refugees and stragglers and passing officers. They wrote +something every day, for England must have something about that +dizzy, head-on wrestle in the mud, that writhing line of changing +positions of new trenches rising behind the old destroyed by German +artillery. The British were fighting with their last reserves on the Ypres- +Armentiéres line. The French divisions to the north were suffering no +less heavily, and beyond them the Belgians were trying to hold the +last strip of their land which remained under Belgian sovereignty. +Cordons of guards which kept back the observer from the struggle +could not keep back the truth. Something ominous was in the air. + +It was worth while being in that old town as it waited on the issue in +the late October rains. Its fishermen crept out in the mornings from +the shelter of its quays, where refugees gathered in crowds hoping to +get away by steamer. Like lost souls, carrying all the possessions +they could on their backs, these refugees. There was numbness in +their movements and their faces were blank--the paralysis of brain +from sudden disaster. The children did not cry, but mechanically +munched the dry bread given them by their parents. + +The newspaper men said that "refugee stuff" was already stale; +eviction and misery were stale. Was Calais to be saved? That was +the only question. If the Germans came, one thought that madame at +the hotel would still be at her desk, unruffled, businesslike, and she +would still serve an excellent salad for déjeuner; the fishermen would +still go to sea for their daily catch. + +What was going to happen? What might not happen? It was human +helplessness to the last degree for all behind the wrestlers. Fate was +in the battle-line. There could be no resisting that fate. If the Germans +came, they came. Belgian staff officers with their high-crowned, gilt- +braided caps went flying by in their cars. There always seemed a +great many Belgian staff officers back of the Belgian army in the +restaurants and cafés. Habit is strong, even in war. They did not often +miss their déjeuners. On the Dixmude line all that remained of the +active Belgian army was in a death struggle in the rain and mud. To +these "schipperkes" honour without stint, as to their gallant king. + +Slightly-wounded Belgians and Belgian stragglers roamed the streets +of Calais. Some had a few belongings wrapped up in handkerchiefs. +Others had only the clothes they wore. Yet they were cheerful; this +was the amazing thing. They moved about, laughing and chatting in +groups. Perhaps this was the best way. Possibly relief at being out of +the hell at the front was the only emotion they could feel. But their +cheerfulness was none the less a dash of sunlight for Calais. + +The French were grim. They were still polite; they went on with their +work. No unwounded French soldiers were to be seen, except the old +Territorials guarding the railroad and the highways. The military +organization of France, which knew what war meant and had +expected war, had drawn every man to his place and held him there +with the inexorable hand of military and racial discipline. Calais had +never considered caring for wounded, and the wounded poured in. I +saw a motor-car with a wounded man stop at a crowded corner, in +the midst of refugees and soldiers; a doctor was leaning over him, +and he died whilst the car waited. + +But the journalists were saying that stories of wounded men were +likewise stale. So they were, for Europe was red with wounded. Train +after train brought in its load from the front, and Calais tried to care +for them. At least, it had buildings which would give shelter from +the rain. On the floor of a railway freight shed the wounded lay in +long rows, with just enough space between them to make an alley. +Those in the row against one of the walls were German prisoners. +Their green uniforms melted into the stone of the wall and did not +show the mud stains. Two slightly wounded had their heads together +whispering. They were helplessly tired, though not as tired as most +of the others, those two stalwart young men; but they seemed to be +relieved, almost happy. It did not matter what happened to them, now, +so long as they could rest. + +Next to them a German was dying, and others badly hit were glassy- +eyed in their fatigue and exhaustion. This was the word, exhaustion, +for all the wounded. + +They had not the strength for passion or emotion. The fuel for those +fires was in ashes. All they wanted in this world was to lie quiet; and +some fell asleep not knowing or caring probably whether they were in +Germany or in France. In the other rows, in contrast with this +chameleon, baffling green, were the red trousers of the French and +the dark blue of the Belgian uniforms, sharing the democracy of +exhaustion with their foe. + +A misty rain was falling. In a bright spot of light through a window one +by one the wounded were being lifted up on to a seat, if they were not +too badly hit, and on to an operating-table if their condition were +serious. A doctor and a sturdy Frenchwoman of about thirty, in +spotless white, were in charge. Another woman undid the first-aid +bandage and still another applied a spray. No time was lost; there +were too many wounded to care for. The thing must be done as +rapidly as possible before another train-load came in. If these +attendants were tired, they did not know it any more than the +wounded had realized their fatigue in the passion of battle. The +improvized arrangement to meet an emergency had an appeal which +more elaborate arrangements of organization which I had seen +lacked. It made war a little more red; humanity a little more human +and kind and helpless under the scourge which it had brought on +itself. + +Though Calais was not prepared for wounded, when they came the +women of energy and courage turned to the work without jealousy, +without regard to red tape, without fastidiousness. I have in mind half +a dozen other women about the streets that day in uniforms of short +skirts and helmets, who belonged to a volunteer organization which +had taken some care as to its regimentals. They were types not +characteristic of the whole, of whom one practical English doctor said: +"We don't mind as long as they do not get in the way." Their criticisms +of Calais and the arrangements were outspoken; nothing was +adequate; conditions were filthy; it was shameful. They were going to +write to the English newspapers about it and appeal for money. When +they had organized a proper hospital, one should see how the thing +ought to be done. Meantime, these volunteer Frenchwomen were +doing the best they knew how and doing it now. + +A fine-looking young Frenchman who had a shell-wound in the thigh +was being lifted on to the table. He shuddered with pain, as he +clenched his teeth; yet when the dressing was finished he was able to +breathe his thanks. On the seat was a Congo negro who had been +with one of the Belgian regiments, coal black and thick-lipped, with +bloodshot eyes; an unsensitized human organism, his face as +expressionless as his bare back with holes made by shell-fragments. +A young Frenchwoman--she could not have been more than nineteen +--with a face of singular refinement, sprayed his wounds with the +definiteness of one trained to such work, though two days before it +had probably never occurred to her as being within the possibilities +of her existence. Her coolness and the coolness of the other women +in their silent activity had a charm that added to one's devout respect. + +The French wounded, too, were silent, as if in the presence of a crisis +which overwhelmed personal thoughts. Help was needed at the front; +they knew it. On sixty trains in one day sixty thousand French passed +through Calais. With a pass from the French commandant at Calais, I +got on board one of these trains down at the railroad yards at dawn. +This lot were Turcos, under the command of a white-haired veteran of +African campaigns. An utter change of atmosphere from the freight +shed! Perhaps it is only the wounded who have time to think. My +companions in the officers' car were as cheery as the brown devils +whom they led. They had come from the trenches on the Marne, and +their commissariat was a boiled ham, some bread and red wine. +Enough! It was war time, as they said. + +"We were in the Paris railroad yards. That is all we saw of Paris--and +in the night. Hard luck!" + +They had left the Marne the previous day. By night they could be in +the fight. It did not take long to send reinforcements when the line +was closed to all except military traffic and one train followed close on +the heels of another. + +They did not know where they were going; one never knew. Probably +they would get orders at Dunkirk. Father Joffre, when there was a call +for reinforcements, never was in a panicky hurry. He seemed to +understand that the general who made the call could hold out a little +longer; but the reinforcements were always up on time. A long head +had Father Joffre. + +Now I am going to say that life was going on as usual at Dunkirk; that +is the obvious thing to say. The nearer the enemy, the more +characteristic that trite observation of those who have followed the +roads of war in Europe. At Dunkirk you might have a good meal +within sound of the thunder of the guns of the British monitors which +were helping the Belgians to hold their line. At Dunkirk most excellent +pâtisserie was for sale in a confectionery shop. Why shouldn't +tartmakers go on making tarts and selling them? The British naval +reserve officers used to take tea in this shop. Little crowds of citizens +who had nothing to do, which is the most miserable of vocations in +such a crisis, gathered to look at armoured motor-cars which had +come in from the front with bullet dents, which gave them the +atmosphere of battle. + +Beyond Dunkirk, one might see wounded Belgians, fresh from the +field of battle, staggering in, crawling in, hobbling in from the havoc of +shell-fire, their first-aid bandages saturated with mud, their ungainly +and impracticable uniforms oozing mud, ghosts of men-these +"schipperkes" of the nation that was unprepared for war who had +done their part, when the only military thought was for more men, +unwounded men, British, French, Belgian, to stem the German tide. +Yet many of these Belgians, even these, were cheerful. They could +still smile and say, "Bonne chance!" + +Indeed, there seemed no limit to the cheerfulness of Belgians. At a +hospital in Calais I met a Belgian professor with his head a white ball +of bandages, showing a hole for one eye and a slit for the mouth. He +had been one of the cyclist force which took account of many +German cavalry scouts in the first two weeks of the war. A staff +motor-car had run over him on the road. + +"I think the driver of the car was careless," he said mildly, as if he +were giving a gentle reproof to a student. + +By contrast, he had reason to be thankful for his lot. Looked after by a +brave man attendant in another room were the wounded who were +too horrible to see; who must die. Then, in another, you had a picture +of a smiling British regular, with a British nurse and an Englishwoman +of Calais to look after him. They read to him, they talked to him, they +vied with each other in rearranging his pillows or bedclothes. He was +a hero of a story; but it rather puzzled him why he should be. Why +were a lot of people paying so much attention to him for doing his +duty? + +In the cavalry, he had been separated from his regiment on the +retreat from Mons. Wandering about the country, he came up with a +regiment of cuirassiers and asked if he might not fight with them. A +number of the cuirassiers spoke English. They took him into the +ranks. The regiment went far over on the Marne, through towns with +French names which he could not pronounce, this man in khaki with +the French troopers. He was marked. C'est un Anglais! People +cheered him and threw flowers to him in regions which had never +seen one of the soldiers of the Ally before. + +Yes, officers and gentlemen invited him to dine, like he was a +gentleman, he said, and not a Tommy, and the French Government +had given him a decoration called the Legion of Honour or something +like that. This was all very fine; but the best thing was that his own +colonel, when he returned, had him up before his company and made +a speech to him for fighting with the French when he could not find +his own regiment. He was supremely happy, this Tommy. In waiting +Calais one might witness about all the emotions and contrasts of war +--and many which one does not find at the front. + + + + + +VI +In Germany + + + +Never had the war seemed a more monstrous satire than on that first +day in Germany as the train took me to Berlin. It was the other side of +the wall of gun and rifle-fire where another set of human beings were +giving life in order to take life. The Lord had fashioned them in the +same pattern on both sides of the wall. Their children were born in the +same way; they bled from wounds in the same way--but why go on in +this vicious circle of thought? + +My impressions of Germany were brief, and the clearer perhaps for +being brief, and drawn on the fresh background of Paris and Calais +waiting to know their fate; of England staring across the Channel, in a +suspense which her stoicism would not confess, to learn the result of +the battle for the Channel ports; of England and France straining with +all their strength to hold, while the Germans exerted all theirs to gain, +a goal; of Holland, stolid mistress of her neutrality, fearing for it and +profiting by it while she took in the Belgian foundlings dropped on her +steps--Holland, that little land at peace, with the storms lashing +around her. + +The stiff and soldierly-appearing reserve officer with bristling +Kaiserian moustache, so professedly alert and efficient, who looked +at the mottled back of my passport and frowned at the recent visa, "A +la Place de Calais, bon pour aller à Dunkerque, P.O. Le Chef d'Etat- +Major," but let me by without questions or fuss, aroused visions of a +frontier stone wall studded with bayonets. + +For something about him expressed a certain character of downright +militancy lacking in either an English or a French guard. I could +imagine his contempt for both and particularly for a "sloppy, +undisciplined" American guard, as he would have called one of ours. +Personal feelings did not enter into his thoughts. He had none; only +national feelings, this outpost of the national organism. The mood of +the moment was friendliness to Americans. Germany wished to +create the impression on the outside world through the agency of the +neutral press that she was in | danger of starving, whilst she amassed +munitions for her summer campaign and the Allies were lulled into +confidence of siege by famine rather than by arms. A double, a treble +purpose the starving campaign served; for it also ensured economy +of foodstuffs, whilst nothing so puts the steel into a soldier's heart as +the thought that the enemy is trying to beat him through taking the +bread out of his mouth and the mouths of the women and children +dependent upon him. + +Tears and laughter and moods and passions organized! Seventy +millions in the union of determined earnestness of a life-and-death +issue! Germany had studied more than how to make war with an +army. She had studied how the people at home should help an army +to make war. + +"With our immense army, which consists of all the able-bodied youth +of the people," as a German officer said, "when we go to war the +people must be passionate for war. Their impulse must be the +impulse of the army. Their spirit will drive the army on. They must be +drilled, too, in their part. No item in national organization is too small +to have its effect." + +Compared to the, French, who had turned grim and gave their prayers +as individuals to hearten their soldiers, the Germans were as +responsive as a stringed instrument to the master musician's touch. A +whisper in Berlin was enough to set a new wave of passion in motion, +which spread to the trenches east and west. + +Something like the team-work of the "rah-rah" of college athletics was +applied to the nation. The soft pedal on this emotion, the loud on that, +or a new cry inaugurated which all took up, not with the noisy, paid +insincerity of a claque, but with the vibrant force of a trained orchestra +with the brasses predominant. + +There seemed less of the spontaneity of an individualistic people than +of the exaltation of a religious revival. If the army were a machine of +material force, then the people were a machine of psychical force. +Though the thing might leave the observer cold, as a religious revival +leaves the sceptic, yet he must admire. I was told that I should +succumb to the contagion as others had; but it was not the optimism +which was dinned into my ears that affected me as much as +sidelights. + +When I took a walk away from a railway station where I had to make +a train connection, I saw a German reservist of forty-five who was +helping with one hand to thresh the wheat from his farm, on a grey, +lowering winter day. The other hand was in a bandage. He had been +allowed to go home until he was well enough to fight again. The same +sort of scene I had witnessed in France; the wounded man trying to +make up to his family the loss of his labour during his absence at the +front. + +Only, that man in France was on the defensive; he was righting to +hold what he had and on his own soil. The German had been fighting +on the enemy's soil to gain more land. He, too, thought of it as the +defensive. All Germany insisted that it was on the defensive. But it +was the defensive of a people who think only in the offensive. That +was it--that was the vital impression of Germany revealed in every +conversation and every act. + +The Englishman leans back on his oars; the German leans forward. +The Englishman's phrase is "Stick it," which means to hold what you +have; the German's phrase is "Onward." It was national youth against +national middle-age. A vessel with pressure of increase from within +was about to expand or burst. A vessel which is large and +comfortable for its contents was resisting pressure from without. The +French were saying, What if we should lose? And the Germans were +saying, What if we should not win all that we are entitled to? Germany +had been thinking of a mightier to-morrow and England of a to- +morrow as good as to-day. Germany looked forward to a fortune to +be won at thirty; England considered the safeguarding of her fortune +at fifty. + +It is not professions that count so much as the thing that works out +from the nature of a situation and the contemporaneous bent of a +people. The Englishman thought of his defence as keeping what he +already had; the German was defending what he considered that he +was entitled to. If he could make more of Calais than the French, then +Calais ought to be his. A nation, with the "closed in" culture of the +French on one side and the enormous, unwieldy mass of Russia on +the other, convinced of its superiority and its ability to beat either foe, +thought that it was the friend of peace because it had withheld the +blow. When the striking time came, it struck hard and forced the +battle on enemy soil, which proved, to its logic, that it was only +receiving payment of a debt owed it by destiny. + +Bred to win, confident that the German system was the right system +of life, it could imagine the German Michael as the missionary of the +system, converting the Philistine with machine-guns. Confidence, the +confidence which must get new vessels for the energy that has +overflowed, the confidence of all classes in the realization of the long- +promised day of the "place in the sun" for the immense population +drilled in the system, was the keynote. They knew that they could lick +the other fellow and went at him from the start as if they expected to +lick him, with a diligence which made the most of their training and +preparation. + +When I asked for a room with a bath in a leading Berlin hotel, the +clerk at the desk said, "I will see, sir." He ran his eye up and down the +list methodically before he added: "Yes, we have a good room on the +second floor." Afterwards, I learned that all except the first and +second floors of the hotel were closed. The small dining-room only +was open, and every effort was made to make the small dining-room +appear normal. + +He was an efficient clerk; the buttons who opened the room door, a +goose-stepping, alert sprout of German militarism, exhibiting a +punctiliousness of attention which produced a further effect of +normality. Those Germans who were not doing their part at the front +were doing it at home by bluffing the other Germans and themselves +into confidence. The clerk believed that some day he would have +more guests than ever and a bigger hotel. All who suffered from the +war could afford to wait. Germany was winning; the programme was +being carried out. The Kaiser said so. In proof of it, multitudes of +Russian soldiers were tilling the soil in place of Germans, who were at +the front taking more Russian soldiers. + +Everybody that one met kept telling him that everything was perfectly +normal. No intending purchaser of real estate in a boom town was +ever treated to more optimistic propaganda. Perfectly normal--when +one found only three customers in a large department store! Perfectly +normal--when the big steamship offices presented in their windows +bare blue seas which had once been charted with the going and +coming of German ships! Perfectly normal--when the spool of the +killed and wounded rolled out by yards like that of a ticker on a busy +day on the Stock Exchange! Perfectly normal--when women tried to +smile in the streets with eyes which had plainly been weeping at +home! + +Are you for us or against us? The question was put straight to the +stranger. Let him say that he was a neutral and they took it for +granted that he was a pro-Ally. He must be pro-something. + +As I returned to the railway station after my walk, a soldier took me in +charge and marched me to the office of the military commandant. +"Are you an Englishman?" was his first question. The guttural, military +emphasis which he put on "Englishman" was most significant. Which +brings us to another factor in the psychology of war: hate. + +"If men are to fight well," said a German officer, "it is necessary that +they hate. They must be exalted by a great passion when they charge +into machine-guns." + +Hate was officially distilled and then instilled--hate against England, +almost exclusively. The public rose to that. If England had not come +in, the German military plan would have succeeded: first, the crushing +of France; then, the crushing of Russia. The despised Belgian, that +small boy who had tripped the giant and then hugged the giant's +knees, delaying him on the road to Paris, was having a rest. For he +had been hated very hard for a while with the hate of contempt--that +miserable pigmy who had interfered with the plans of the machine. + +The French were almost popular. The Kaiser had spoken of them as +"brave foes." What quarrel could France and Germany have? France +had been the dupe of England. Cartoons of the hairy, barbarous +Russian and the futile little Frenchman in his long coat, borne on +German bayonets or pecking at the boots of a giant Michael, were not +in fashion. For Germany was then trying to arrange a separate peace +with both France and Russia. She was ready to yield at least part of +Alsace-Lorraine to France. When the negotiations fell through, +cartoonists were again free to make sport of the aenemic Gaul and +the untutored Slav. It was not alone in Germany that a responsive +Press played the weather vane to Government wishes; but in +Germany the machinery ran smoothest. + +For the first time I knew what it was to have a human being whom I +had never seen before hate me. At sight of me a woman who had +been a good Samaritan, with human kindness and charity in her +eyes, turned a malignant devil. Stalwart as Minerva she was, a fair- +haired German type of about thirty-five, square-shouldered and +robustly attractive in her Red Cross uniform. Being hungry at the +station at Hanover, I rushed out of the train to get something to eat, +and saw some Frankfurter sandwiches on a table in front of me as I +alighted. + +My hand went out for one, when I was conscious of a movement and +an exclamation which was hostile, and looked up to see Minerva, as +her hand shot out to arrest the movement of mine, with a blaze of +hate, hard, merciless hate, in her eyes, while her lips framed the +word, "Englisher!" If looks were daggers I should have been pierced +through the heart. Perhaps an English overcoat accounted for her +error. Certainly, I promptly recognized mine when I saw that this was +a Red Cross buffet. An Englishman had dared to try to buy a +sandwich meant for German soldiers! She might at least glory in the +fact that her majestic glare had made me most uncomfortable as I +murmured an apology which she received with a stony frown. + +A moment later a soldier approached the buffet. She leaned over, +smiling, as gentle as she had been fierce and malignant a moment +before, making a picture, as she put some mustard on a sandwich for +him, which recalled that of the Frenchwoman among the wounded in +the freight shed at Calais--a simile which would anger them both. + +The Frenchwoman, too, had a Red Cross uniform; she, too, +expressed the mercy and gentle ministration which we like to +associate with woman. But there was the difference of the old culture +and the new; of the race which was fighting to have and the race +which was fighting to hold. The tactics which we call the offensive was +in the German woman's, as in every German's, nature. It had been in +the Frenchwoman's in Napoleon's time. Many racial hates the war +has developed; but that of the German is a seventeen-inch-howitzer, +asphyxiating-gas hate. + +If hates help to win, why not hate as hard as you can? Don't you go to +war to win? There is no use talking of sporting rules and saying that +this and that is "not done" in humane circles--win! The Germans +meant to win. Always I thought of them as having the spirit of the +Middle Ages in their hearts, organized for victory by every modern +method. Three strata of civilization were really fighting, perhaps: The +French, with its inherent individual patriotism which makes a +Frenchman always a Frenchman, its philosophy which prevents +increase of numbers, its thrift and its tenacity; the German, with its +newborn patriotism, its discovery of what it thinks is the golden +system, its fecundity, its aggressiveness, its industry, its ambition; +and the Russian, patient and unbeatable, vague, glamorous, +immense. + +The American is an outsider to them all; some strange melting-pot +product of many races which is trying to forget the prejudices and +hates of the old world and perhaps not succeeding very well, but not +yet convinced that the best means of producing patriotic unity is war. +After this and other experiences, after being given a compartment all +to myself by men who glanced at me with eyes of hate and passed +on to another compartment which was already crowded or stood up +in the aisle of the car, I made a point of buying an American flag for +my buttonhole. + +This helped; but still there was my name, which belonged to an +ancestor who had gone from England to Connecticut nearly three +hundred years ago. Palmer did not belong to the Germanic tribe. He +must be pro the other side. He could not be a neutral and belong to +the human kind with such a name. Only Swenson, or Gansevoort, or +Ah Fong could really be a neutral; and even they were expected to be +on your side secretly. If they weren't they must be on the other. Are +you for us? or, Are you against us? I grew weary of the question in +Germany. If I had been for them I should have "dug in" and not told +them. In France and England they asked you objectively the state of +sentiment in America. But, possibly, the direct, forcible way is the +better for war purposes when you mean to win; for the Germans have +made a study of war. They are experts in war. + +However, the rosy-cheeked German boy, in his green uniform which +could not be washed clean of all the stains of campaigning, whom I +met in the palace grounds at Charlottenberg, did not put this tiresome +question to me. He was the only person I saw in the grounds, whose +quiet I had sought for an hour's respite from war. One could be +shown through the palace by the lonely old caretaker, who missed +the American tourist, without hearing a guide's monotone explaining +who the gentleman in the frame was and what he did and who +painted his picture. This boy could have more influence in making me +see the German view-point than the propagandist men in the +Government offices and the belligerent German-Americans in hotel +lobbies--those German-Americans who were so frequently in trouble +in other days for disobeying the verbotens and then asking our State +Department to get them out of it, now pluming themselves over +victories won by another type of German. + +About twenty-one years old this boy, round-faced and blue-eyed, who +saw in Queen Louisa the most beautiful heroine of all history. The +hole in his blouse which the bullet had made was nicely sewed up +and his wound had healed. He was fighting in France when he was +hit; the name of the place he did not know. Karl, his chum, had been +killed. The doctor had given him the bullet, which he exhibited proudly +as if it were different from other bullets, as it was to him. In a few days +he must return to the front. Perhaps the war would be over soon; he +hoped so. + +The French were brave; but they hated the Germans and thought +that they must make war on the Germans, and they were a cruel +people, guilty of many atrocities. So the Fatherland had fought to +conquer the enemies who planned her destruction. A peculiar, +childlike naïveté accompanied his intelligence, trained to run in certain +grooves, which is the product of the German type of popular +education; that trust in his superiors which comes from a diligent and +efficient paternalism. He knew nothing of the atrocities which +Germans were said to have committed in Belgium. The British and +the French had set Belgium against Germany and Germany had to +strike Belgium for playing false to her treaties. But he did think that +the French were brave; only misled by their Government. And the +Kaiser? His eyes lighted in a way that suggested that the Kaiser was +almost a god to him. He had heard of the things that the British said +against the Kaiser and they made him want to fight for his Kaiser. He +was only one German--but the one was millions. + +In actual learning which comes from schoolbooks, I think that he was +better informed than the average Frenchman of his class; but I +should say that he had thought less; that his mind was more of a hot- +house product of a skilful nurseryman's hand, who knew the value of +training and feeding and pruning the plant if you were to make it yield +well. A kindly, willing, likable boy, peculiarly simple and unspoiled, it +seemed a pity that all his life he should have to bear the brand of the +Lusitania on his brow; that event which history cannot yet put in its +true perspective. Other races will think of the Lusitania when they +meet a German long after the Belgian atrocities are forgotten. It will +endure to plague a people like the exile of the Acadians, the +guillotining of innocents in the French Revolution, and the burning of +the Salem witches. But he had nothing to do with it. A German +admiral gave an order as a matter of policy to make an impression +that his submarine campaign was succeeding and to interfere with +the transport of munitions, and the Kaiser told this boy that it was +right. One liked the boy, his loyalty and his courage; liked him as a +human being. But one wished that he might think more. Perhaps he +will one of these days, if he survives the war. + + + + + + + + +VII +How The Kaiser Leads + + +Only a week before I had seen wounded Germans in the freight shed +at Calais; and all the prisoners that I had seen elsewhere, whether in +ones or twos, brought in fresh from the front or in columns under +escort, had been Germans. The sharpest contrast of all in war which +the neutral may observe is seeing the men of one army which, from +the other side, he had watched march into battle--armed, confident, +disciplined parts of an organization, ready to sweep all before them in +a charge--become so many sheep, disarmed, disorganized, rounded +up like vagrants in a bread-line and surrounded by a fold of barbed +wire and sentries. + +Such was the lot of the nine thousand British, French, and Russians +whom I saw at Döberitz, near Berlin. This was a show camp, I was +told, but it suffices. Conditions at other camps might be worse; +doubtless were. England treated its prisoners best, unless my +information from unprejudiced observers be wrong. But Germany had +enormous numbers of prisoners. A nation in her frame of mind +thought only of the care of the men who could fight for her, not of +those who had fought against her. + +Then, the German nature is one thing and the British another. +Crossing the Atlantic on the Lusitania we had a German reserve +officer who was already on board when the evening editions arrived +at the pier with news that England had declared war on Germany. +Naturally he must become a prisoner upon his arrival at Liverpool. He +was a steadfast German. When a wireless report of the German +repulse at Liege came, he would not believe it. Germany had the +system and Germany would win. But when he said, "I should rather +be a German on board a British ship than a Briton on board a +German ship, under the circumstances," his remark was significant in +more ways than one. + +His English fellow-passengers on that splendid liner which a German +submarine was to send to the bottom showed him no discourtesy. +They passed the time of day with him and seemed to want to make +his awkward situation easy. Yet it was apparent that he regarded their +kindliness as racial weakness. Krieg ist Krieg. When Germany made +war she made war. + +So allowances are in order. One prison camp was like another in this +sense, that it deprived a man of his liberty. It put him in jail. The +British regular, who is a soldier by profession, was, in a way, in a +separate class. But the others were men of civil industries and +settled homes. Except during their term in the army, they went to +the shop or the office every day, or tilled their farms. They were +free; they had their work to occupy their minds during the day and +freedom of movement when they came home in the evening. They +might read the news by their firesides; they were normal human +beings in civilized surroundings. + +Here, they were pacing animals in a cage, commanded by two field- +guns, who might walk up and down and play games and go through +the daily drill under their own non-commissioned officers. It was the +mental stagnation of the thing that was appalling. Think of such a lot +for a man used to action in civil life--and they call war action! Think of +a writer, a business man, a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, reduced to +this fenced-in existence, when he had been the kind who got +impatient if he had to wait for a train that was late! Shut yourself up in +your own backyard with a man with a rifle watching you for twenty- +four hours and see whether, if you have the brain of a mouse, prison- +camp life can be made comfortable, no matter how many greasy +packs of cards you have. And lousy, besides! At times one had to +laugh over what Mark Twain called "the damfool human race." + +Inside a cookhouse at one end of the enclosure was a row of soup- +boilers. Outside was a series of railings, forming stalls for the +prisoners when they lined up for meals. In the morning, some +oatmeal and coffee; at noon, some cabbage soup boiled with +desiccated meat and some bread; at night, more coffee and bread. +How one thrived on this fare depended much upon how he liked +cabbage soup. The Russians liked it. They were used to it. + +"We never keep the waiter late by tarrying over our liqueurs," said a +Frenchman. + +Our reservist guide had run away to America in youth, where he had +worked at anything he could find to do; but he had returned to Berlin, +where he had a "good little business" before the war. He was stout +and cheery, and he referred to the prisoners as "boys." The French +and Russians were good boys; but the English were bad boys, who +had no discipline. He said that all received the same food as German +soldiers. It seemed almost ridiculous chivalry that men who had +fought against you and were living inactive lives should be as well fed +as the men who were fighting for you. The rations that I saw given to +German soldiers were better. But that was what the guide said. + +"This is our little sitting-room for the English non-commissioned +officers," he explained, as he opened the door of a shanty which had +a pane of glass for a window. Some men sitting around a small stove +arose. One, a big sergeant-major, towered over the others; he had +the colours of the South African campaign on the breast of his worn +khaki blouse and stood very straight as if on parade. By the window +was a Scot in kilts, who was equally tall. He looked around over his +shoulder and then turned his face away with the pride of a man who +does not care to be regarded as a show. + +His uniform was as neat as if he were at inspection; and the way he +held his head, the haughtiness of his profile against the stream of +light, recalled the unconquerable spirit of the Prussian prisoner whom +I had seen on the road during the fighting along the Aisne. Only a +regular, but he was upholding the dignity of Britain in that prison camp +better than many a member of Parliament on the floor of the House of +Commons. I asked our guide about him. + +"A good boy that! All his boys obey him and he obeys all the +regulations. But he acts as if we Germans were his prisoners." + +The British might not be good boys, but they would be clean. They +were diligent in the chase in their underclothes; their tents were free +from odour; and there was something resolute about a Tommy who +was bare to the waist in that freezing wind, making an effort at a bath. +I heard tales of Mr. Atkins' characteristic thoughtlessness. While the +French took good care of their clothes and kept their tents neat, he +was likely to sell his coat or his blanket if he got a chance in order to +buy something that he liked to eat. One Tommy who sat on his straw +tick inside the tent was knitting. When I asked him where he had +learned to knit, he replied: "India!" and gave me a look as much as to +say, "Now pass on to the next cage." + +The British looked the most pallid of all, I thought. They were not used +to cabbage soup. Their stomachs did not take hold of it, as one said; +and they loathed the black bread. No white bread and no jam! Only +when you have seen Mr. Atkins with a pot of jam and a loaf of white +bread and some bacon frizzling near by can you realize the hardship +which cabbage soup meant to that British regular who gets lavish +rations of the kind he hkes along with his shilling a day for +professional soldiering. + +"You see, the boys go about as they please," said our guide. "They +don't have a bad time. Three meals a day and nothing to do." + +Members of a laughing circle which included some British were taking +turns at a kind of Russian blind man's buff, which seemed to me +about in keeping with the mental capacity of a prison camp. "No +French!" I remarked. + +"The French keep to themselves, but they are good boys," he replied. +"Maybe it is because we have only a few of them here." + +Every time one sounded the subject he was struck by the attitude of +the Germans toward the French, not alone explained by the policy of +the hour which hoped for a separate peace with France. Perhaps it +was best traceable to the Frenchman's sense of amour propre, his +philosophy, his politeness, or an indefinable quality in the grain of the +man. + +The Germans affected to look down on the French; yet there was +something about the Frenchmen which the Germans had to respect-- +something not won by war. I heard admiration for them at the same +time as contempt for their red trousers and their unprepared-ness. +While we are in this avenue, German officers had respect for the +dignity of British officers, the leisurely, easy quality of superiority +which they preserved in any circumstances. The qualities of a +race come out in adversity no less than in prosperity. Thus, +their captors regarded the Russians as big, good-natured children. + +"Yes, they play games and we give the English an English newspaper +to read twice a week," said our affable guide, unconscious, I think, of +any irony in the remark. For the paper was the Continental News, +published in "the American language" for American visitors. You +make take it for granted that it did not exaggerate any success of the +Allies. + +"We have a prince and the son of a rich man among the Russian +prisoners--yes, quite in the Four Hundred," the guide went on. "They +were such good boys we put them to work in the cookhouse. Star +boarders, eh? They like it. They get more to eat." + +These two men were called out for exhibition. Youngsters of the first +line they were and even in their privates' uniform they bore the +unmistakable signs of belonging to the Russian upper class. Each +saluted and made his bow, as if he had come on to do a turn before +the footlights. It was not the first time they had been paraded before +visitors. In the prince's eye I noted a twinkle, which as much as said: +"Well, why not? We don't mind." + +When we were taken through the cookhouse I asked about a little +Frenchman who was sitting with his nose in a soup bowl He seemed +too near-sighted ever to get into any army. His face was distinctly that +of a man of culture; one would have guessed that he was an artist. + +"Shrapnel injury," explained the guide. "He will never be able to see +much again. We let him come in here to eat." + +I wanted to talk with him, but these exhibits are supposed to be all in +pantomime; a question and you are urged along to the next exhibit. +He was young and all his life he was to be like that--like some poor, +blind kitten! + +The last among a number of Russians returning to the enclosure from +some fatigue duty was given a blow in the seat of his baggy trousers +with a stick which one of the guards carried. The Russian quickened +his steps and seemed to think nothing of the incident. But to me it +was the worst thing that I saw at Döberitz, this act of physical violence +against a man by one who has power over him. The personal +equation was inevitable to the observer. Struck in that way, could one +fail to strike back? Would not he strike in red anger, without stopping +to think of consequences? There is something bred into the Anglo- +Saxon which resents a physical blow. We court-martial an officer for +laying hands on a private, though that private may get ten years in +prison on his trial. Yet the Russian thought nothing of it, or the guard, +either. An officer in the German or the Russian army may strike a +man. + +"Would the guard hit a Frenchman in that way?" I asked. Our guide +said not; the French were good boys. Or an Englishman? He had +not seen it done. The Englishman would swear and curse, he was +sure, and might fight, they were such undisciplined boys. But the +Russians--"they are like kids. It was only a slap. Didn't hurt him any." + +New barracks for the prisoners were being built which would be +comfortable, if crowded, even in winter. The worst thing, I repeat, was +the deadly monotony of the confinement for a period which would end +only when the war ended. Any labour should be welcome to a +healthy-minded man. It was a mercy that the Germans set prisoners +to grading roads, to hoeing and harvesting, retrieving thus a little of +the wastage of war. Or was it only the bland insistence that conditions +were luxurious that one objected to?--not that they were really bad. +The Germans had a horde of prisoners to care for; vast armies to +maintain; and a new volunteer force of a million or more--two millions +was the official report--to train. + +While we were at the prison camp we heard at intervals the rap-rap of +a machine-gun at the practice range near by, drilling to take more +prisoners, and on the way back to Berlin we passed companies of +volunteers returning from drill with that sturdy march characteristic of +German infantry. + +In Berlin I was told again that everything was perfectly normal. Trains +were running as usual to Hamburg, if one cared to go there. "As +usual" in war time was the ratio of one to five in peace time. + +At Hamburg, in sight of steamers with cold boilers and the forests of +masts of idle ships, one saw what sea power meant. That city of +eager shippers and traders, that doorstep of Germany, was as dead +as Ypres, without a building being wrecked by shells. Hamburgers +tried to make the best of it; they assumed an air of optimism; they still +had faith that richer cargoes than ever might come over the sea, +while a ghost, that of bankruptcy, walked the streets, looking at office- +windows and the portholes of ships. + +For one had only to scratch the cuticle of that optimism to find that the +corpuscles did not run red. They were blue. Hamburg's citizens had +to exhibit the fortitude of those of Rheims under another kind of +bombardment: that of the silent guns of British Dreadnoughts far out +of range. They were good Germans; they meant to play the game; +but that once prosperous business man of past middle age, too old to +serve, who had little to do but think, found it hard to keep step with +the propagandist attitude of Berlin. + +A free city, a commercial city, a city unto itself, Hamburg had been in +other days a cosmopolitan trader with the rest of the world. It had +even been called an English city, owing to the number of English +business men there as agents of the immense commerce between +England and Germany. Everyone who was a clerk or an employer +spoke English; and through all the irritation between the two countries +which led up to the war, English and German business men kept on +the good terms which commerce requires and met at luncheons and +dinners and in their clubs. Englishmen were married to German +women and Germans to Englishwomen, while both prayed that their +governments would keep the peace. + +Now the English husband of the German woman, though he had +spent most of his life in Hamburg, though perhaps he had been born +in Germany, had been interned and, however large his bank account, +was taking his place with his pannikin in the stalls in front of some +cookhouse for his ration of cabbage soup. Germans were kind to +English friends personally; but when it came to the national feeling of +Germany against England, nowhere was it so bitter as in Hamburg. +Here the hate was born of more than national sentiment; it was of the +pocket; of seeing fortunes that had been laboriously built dwindling, +once thriving businesses in suspended animation. There was no +moratorium in name; there was worse than one in fact. A patriotic +freemasonry in misfortune took its place. No business man could +press another for the payment of debts lest he be pressed in turn. +What would happen when the war was over? How long would it last? + +It was not quite as cruel to give one's opinion as two years to the +inquirers in Hamburg as to the director of the great Rudolph Virchow +Hospital in Berlin. Here, again, the system; the submergence of the +individual in the organization. The wounded men seemed parts of a +machine; the human touch which may lead to disorganization was +less in evidence than with us, where the thought is: This is an +individual human being, with his own peculiarities of temperament, his +own theories of life, his own ego; not just a quantity of brain, tissue, +blood and bone which is required for the organism called man. A +human mechanism wounded at the German front needed repairs and +repairs were made to that mechanism. The niceties might be lacking +but the repair factory ran steadily and efficiently at full blast. Germany +had to care for her wounded by the millions and by the millions she +cared for them. "Two years!" + +I was sorry that I had said this to the director, for its effect on him was +like a blow in the chest. The vision of more and more wounded +seemed to rise before the eyes of this man, weary with the strain of +doing the work which he knew so well how to do as a cog in the +system. But for only a moment. He stiffened; he became the +drillmaster again; and the tragic look in his eyes was succeeded by +one of that strange exaltation I had seen in the eyes of so many +Germans, which appeared to carry their mind away from you and +their surroundings to the battlefield where they were fighting for their +"place in the sun." "Two years, then. We shall see it through!" He had +a son who had been living in a French family near Lille studying +French and he had heard nothing of him since the war began. They +were good people, this French family; his son liked them. They would +be kind to him; but what might not the French Government do to him, +a German! He had heard terrible stories--the kind of stories that +hardened the fighting spirit of German soldiers--about the treatment +German civilians had received in France. He could think of one +French family which he knew as being kind, but not of the whole +French people as a family. As soon as the national and racial element +were considered the enemy became a beast. + +To him, at least, Berlin was not normal; nor was it to that keeper of a +small shop off Unter den Linden which sold prints and etchings and +cartoons. What a boon my order of cartoons was! He forgot his +psychology code and turned human and confidential. The war had +been hard on him; there was no business at all, not even in cartoons. + +The Opera alone seemed something like normal to one who trusted +his eyes rather than his ears for information. There was almost a full +house for the "Rosenkavalier"; for music is a solace in time of +trouble, as other capitals than Berlin revealed. Officers with close- +cropped heads, wearing Iron Crosses, some with arms in slings, +promenaded in the refreshment room of the Berlin Opera House +between the acts. This in the hour of victory should mean a picture of +gaiety. But there was a telling hush about the scene. Possibly music +had brought out the truth in men's hearts that war, this kind of war, +was not gay or romantic, only murderous and destructive. One had +noticed already that the Prussian officer, so conscious of his caste, +who had worked so indefatigably to make an efficient army, had +become chastened. He had found that common men, butchers and +bakers and candlestick makers, could be as brave for their Kaiser as +he. And more of these officers had the Iron Cross than not. + +The prevalence of Iron Crosses appealed to the risibilities of the +superficial observer. But in this, too, there was system. An officer who +had been in several battles without winning one must feel a trifle +declassed and that it was time for him to make amends to his pride. If +many Crosses were given to privates, then the average soldier would +not think the Cross a prize for the few who had luck, but something +that he, too, might win by courage and prompt obedience to orders. + +The masterful calculation, the splendid pretence and magnificent +offence could not hide the suspense and suffering. Nowhere were +you able to forget the war or to escape the all-pervading influence of +the Kaiser. The empty royal box at the Opera, His Opera, called him +to mind. What would happen before he reappeared there for a gala +performance? When again, in the shuffle of European politics, would +the audience see the Tsar of Russia or the King of England by the +Kaiser's side? + +It was his Berlin, the heart of his Berlin, that was before you when you +left the Opera--the new Berlin, which he had fathered in its boom +growth, taking few pages of a guidebook compared to Paris. In front +of his palace Russian field-guns taken by von Hindenburg at +Tannenberg were exhibited as the spoils of his war; while not far +away the never-to-be-forgotten grandfather in bronze rode home in +triumph from Paris. + +One wondered what all the people in the ocean of Berlin flats were +thinking as one walked past the statue of Frederick the Great, with his +sharp nose pointing the way for future conquerors, and on along +Unter den Linden, with its broad pavements gleaming in a +characteristic misty winter night, through the Brandenburg Gate of his +Brandenburg dynasty, or to the statue of the blood-and-iron +Bismarck, with his strong jaw and pugnacious nose--the statesman +militant in uniform with a helmet over his bushy brow--who had made +the German Empire, that young empire which had not yet known +defeat because of the system which makes ready and chooses the +hour for its blow. + +Not far away one had glimpses of the white statues of My Ancestors +of the Sieges Allée, or avenue of victory--the present Kaiser's own +idea--with the great men of the time on their right and left hands. +People whose sense of taste, not to say of humour, may limit their +statecraft had smiled at this monotonous and grandiose row of the +dead bones of distinguished and mediocre royalty immortalized in +marble to the exact number of thirty-two. But they were My Ancestors, +O Germans, who made you what you are! Right dress and keep that +line of royalty in mind! It is your royal line, older than the trees in the +garden, firm as the rocks, Germany itself. The last is not the least in +might nor the least advertised in the age of publicity. He is to make +the next step in advance for Germany and bring more tribute home, if +all Germans will be loyal to him. + +One paused to look at the photograph of the Kaiser in a shop +window; a big photograph of that man whose photograph is +everywhere in Germany. It is a stern face, this face, as the leader +wishes his people to see him, with its erectile moustache, the lips firm +set, the eyes challenging and the chin held so as to make it symbolic +of strength: a face that strives to say in that pose: "Onward! I lead!" +Germans have seen it every day for a quarter of a century. They +have lived with it and the character of it has grown into their natures. + +In the same window was a smaller photograph of the Crown Prince, +with his cap rakishly on the side of his head, as if to give himself a +distinctive characteristic in the German eye; but his is the face of a +man who is not mature for his years, and a trifle dissipated. For a +while after the war began he, as leader of the war party, knew the joy +of being more popular than the Kaiser. But the tide turned soon in +favour of a father who appeared to be drawn reluctantly into the +ordeal of death and wounds for his people in "defence of the +Fatherland" and against a son who had clamoured for the horror +which his people had begun to realize, particularly as his promised +entry into Paris had failed. There can be no question which of the two +has the wise head. + +The Crown Prince had passed into the background. He was +marooned with ennui in the face of French trenches in the West, +whilst all the glory was being won in the East. Indeed, father had put +son in his place. One day, the gossips said, son might have to ask +father, in the name of the Hohenzollerns, to help him recover his +popularity. His photograph had been taken down from shop windows +and in its place, on the right hand of the Kaiser in the Sieges Allée of +contemporary fame, was the bull-dog face of von Hindenburg, victor +of Tannenberg. The Kaiser shared von Hindenburg's glory; he has +shared the glory of all victorious generals; such is his histrionic gift in +the age of the spotlight. + +Make no mistake--his people, deluded or not, love him not only +because he is Kaiser, but also for himself. He is a clever man, who +began his career with the enormous capital of being emperor and +made the most of his position to amaze the world with a more +versatile and also a more inscrutable personality than most people +realize. Poseur, perhaps, but an emperor these days may need to be +a poseur in order to wear the ermine of Divine Right convincingly to +most of his subjects. + +His pose is always that of the anointed King of My People. He has +never given down on that point, however much he has applied State +Socialism to appease the Socialistic agitation. He has personified +Germany and German ambition with an adroit egoism and the +sentiment of his inheritance. Those critics who see the machinery of +the throne may say that he has the mind of a journalist, quick of +perception, ready of assimilation, knowing many things in their +essentials, but no one thing thoroughly. But this is the kind of mind +that a ruler requires, plus the craft of the politician. + +Is he a good man? Is he a great man? Banal questions! He is the +Kaiser on the background of the Sieges Allée, who has first promoted +himself, then the Hohenzollerns, and then the interests of Germany, +with all the zest of the foremost shareholder and chairman of the +corporation. No German in the German hothouse of industry has +worked harder than he. He has kept himself up to the mark and tried +to keep his people up to the mark. It may be the wrong kind of a +mark. Indeed, without threshing the old straw of argument, most of +the people of the civilized world are convinced that it is. + +That young private I met in the grounds at Charlottenberg, that +wounded man helping with the harvest, that tired hospital director, the +small trader in Hamburg, the sturdy Red Cross woman in the station +at Hanover, the peasants and the workers throughout Germany, kept +unimaginatively at their tasks, do not see the machinery of the throne, +only the man in the photograph who supplies them with a national +imagination. His indefatigable goings and comings and his poses fill +their minds with a personality which typifies the national spirit. Will +this change after the war? But that, too, is not a subject for speculation +here. + +Through the war his pose has met the needs of the hour. An emperor +bowed down with the weight of his people's sacrifice, a grey, +determined emperor hastening to honour the victors, covering up +defeats, urging his legions on, himself at the front, never seen by the +general public in the rear; a mysterious figure, not saying much and +that foolish to the Allies but appealing to the Germans, rather +appearing to submerge his own personality in the united patriotism of +the struggle--such is the picture which the throne machinery has +impressed on the German mind. The histrionic gift may be at its best +in creating a saga. + +Always the offensive! Germany would keep on striking as long as she +had strength for a blow, whilst making the pretence that she had the +strength for still heavier blows. One wonders, should she gain peace +by her blows, if the Allies would awaken after the treaty was signed to +find how near exhaustion she had been, or that she was so self- +contained in her production of war material that she had only +borrowed from Hans to pay Fritz, who were both Germans. Russia +did not know how' nearly she had Japan beaten until after +Portsmouth. Japan's method was the German method; she learned it +from Germany. + +At the end of my journey I was hearing the same din of systematic +optimism in my ears as in the beginning. + +"Warsaw, then Paris, then our Zeppelins will finish London," said the +restaurant keeper on the German side of the Dutch frontier; "and our +submarines will settle the British navy before the summer is over. No, +the war will not last a year." + +"And is America next on the programme?" I asked. + +"No. America is too strong; too far away." + +I was guilty of a faint suspicion that he was a diplomatist. + + + + +VIII +In Belgium Under The Germans + + + +No week at the front, where war is made, left the mind so full as this +week beyond the sound of the guns with war's results. It taught the +meaning of the simple words life and death, hunger and food, love +and hate. One was in a house with sealed doors where a family of +seven millions sat in silence and idleness, thinking of nothing but war +and feeling nothing but war. He had war cold as the fragments of an +exploded shell beside a dead man on a frozen road; war analysed +and docketed for exhibition, without its noise, its distraction, and its +hot passion. + +In Ostend I had seen the Belgian refugees in flight, and I had seen +them pouring into London stations, bedraggled outcasts of every +class, with the staring uncertainty of the helpless human flock flying +from the storm. England, who considered that they had suffered for +her sake, opened her purse and her heart to them; she opened her +homes, both modest suburban homes and big country houses which +are particular about their guests in time of peace. No British family +without a Belgian was doing its duty. Bishop's wife and publican's wife +took whatever Belgian was sent to her. The refugee packet arrived +without the nature of contents on the address tag. All Belgians had +become heroic and noble by grace of the defenders of Liege. + +Perhaps the bishop's wife received a young woman who smoked +cigarettes, and asked her hostess for rouge, and the publican's wife +received a countess. Mrs. Smith, of Clapham, who had brought up +her children in the strictest propriety, welcomed as play-mates for her +dears, whom she had kept away from the contaminating associations +of the alleys, Belgian children from the toughest quarters of Antwerp, +who had a precocity that led to baffling confusion in Mrs. Smith's mind +between parental responsibility and patriotic duty. Smart society gave +the run of its houses sometimes to gentry who were used to getting +the run of that kind of houses by lifting a window with a jemmy on a +dark night. It was a refugee lottery. When two hosts met one said: +"My Belgian is charming!" and the other said: "Mine isn't. Just listen--" + +But the English are game; they are loyal; they bear their burden of +hospitality bravely. + +The strange things that happened were not the more agreeable +because of the attitude of some refugees who, when they were +getting better fare than they ever had at home, thought that, as they +had given their "all" for England, they should be getting still better, not +to mention wine on the table in temperance families; whilst there was +a disinclination towards self-support by means of work on the part of +certain heroes by proxy which promised a Belgian occupation of +England that would last as long as the German occupation of +Belgium. England was learning that there are Belgians and Belgians. +She had received not a few of the "and Belgians." + +It was only natural. When the German cruisers bombarded +Scarborough and the Hartlepools, the first to the station were not the +finest and sturdiest. Those with good bank accounts and a +disinclination to take any bodily or gastronomic risks, the young idler +who stands on the street corner ogling girls and the girls who are +always in the street to be ogled, the flighty-minded, the irresponsible, +the tramp, the selfish, and the cowardly, are bound to be in the van of +flight from any sudden disaster and to make the most of the generous +sympathy of those who succour them. + +The courageous, the responsible, those with homes and property at +stake, those with an inborn sense of real patriotism which means +loyalty to locality and to their neighbours, are more inclined to remain +with their homes and their property. Besides, a refugee hardly +appears at his best. He is in a strange country, forlorn, homesick, a +hostage of fate and personal misfortune. The Belgian nation had +taken the Allies' side and now individual Belgians expected help from +the Allies. + +England did not get the worst of the refugees. They could travel no +farther than Holland, where the Dutch Government appropriated +money to care for them at the same time that it was under the +expense of keeping its army mobilized. Looking at the refugees in the +camp at Bergen-op-Zoom, an observer might share some of the +contempt of the Germans for the Belgians. Crowded in temporary +huts in the chill, misty weather of a Dutch winter, they seemed listless, +marooned human wreckage. They would not dig ditches to drain their +camp; they were given to pilfering from one another the clothes which +the world's charity supplied. The heart was out of them. They were +numbed by disaster. + +"Are all these men and women who are living together married?" I +asked the Dutch officer in charge. + +"It is not for us to inquire," he replied. "Most of them say that they +have lost their marriage certificates." + +They were from the slums of that polyglot seaport town Antwerp, +which Belgians say is anything but real Belgium. To judge Belgium by +them is like judging an American town by the worst of its back streets, +where saloons and pawnshops are numerous and red lights twinkle +from dark doorways. + +Around a table in a Rotterdam hotel one met some generals who +were organizing a different kind of campaign from that which brought +glory to the generals who conquered Belgium. It was odd that Dr. +Rose--that Dr. Rose who had discovered and fought the hook worm +among the mountaineers of the Southern States--should be +succouring Belgium, and yet only natural. Where else should he and +Henry James, Jr., of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Mr. Bicknell, of +the American Red Cross, be, if not here directing the use of an +endowment fund set aside for just such purposes? + +They had been all over Belgium and up into the Northern +Departments of France occupied by the Germans, investigating +conditions. For they were practical men, trained for solving the +problem of charity with wisdom, who wanted to know that their money +was well spent. They had nothing for the refugees in London, but they +found that the people who had stayed at home in Belgium were +worthy of help. The fund was allowing five hundred thousand dollars a +month for the American Commission for Relief in Belgium, which was +the amount that the Germans had spent in a single day in the +destruction of the town of Ypres with shells. Later they were to go to +Poland; then to Serbia. + +With them was Herbert C. Hoover, a celebrated mining engineer, the +head of the Commission. When American tourists were stranded +over Europe at the outset of the war, with letters of credit which could +not be cashed, their route homeward must lie through London. They +must have steamer passage. Hoover took charge. When this work +was done and Belgium must be helped, he took charge of a task that +could be done only by a neutral. For the adjutants and field officers of +his force he turned to American business men in London, to Rhodes +scholars at Oxford, and to other volunteers hastening from America. + +When "Harvard, 1914," who had lent a hand in the American +refugees' trials, appeared in Hoover's office to volunteer for the new +campaign, Hoover said: "You are going to Rotterdam to-night." "So I +am!" said Harvard, 1914, and started accordingly. Action and not red +tape must prevail in such an organization. + +The Belgians whom I wished to see were those behind the line of +guards on the Belgo-Dutch frontier; those who had remained at home +under the Germans to face humiliation and hunger. This was possible +if you had the right sort of influence and your passport the right sort of +visés to accompany a Bescheinigung, according to the form of "31 +Oktober, 1914, Sect. 616, Nr. 1083," signed by the German consul at +Rotterdam, which put me in the same motor-car with Harvard, 1914, +that stopped one blustery, snowy day of late December before a +gate, with Belgium on one side and Holland on the other side of it, on +the Rosendaal-Antwerp road. "Once more!" said Harvard, 1914, who +had made this journey many times as a dispatch rider. + +One of the conquerors, the sentry representing the majesty of +German authority in Belgium, examined the pass. The conqueror was +a good deal larger around the middle than when he was young, but +not so large as when he went to war. He had a scarf tied over his +ears under a cracked old patent-leather helmet, which the Saxon +Landsturm must have taken from their garrets when the Kaiser sent +the old fellows to keep the Belgians in order so that the young men +could be spared to get rheumatism in the trenches if they escaped +death. + +You could see that the conqueror missed his wife's cooking and +Sunday afternoon in the beer garden with his family. However much +he loved the Kaiser, it did not make him love home any the less. His +nod admitted us into German-ruled Belgium. He looked so lonely that +as our car started I sent him a smile. Surprise broke on his face. +Somebody not a German in uniform had actually smiled at him in +Belgium! + +My last glimpse of him was of a grin spreading under the scarf toward +his ears. + +Belgium was webbed with these old Landsturm guards. If your +Passierschein was not right, you might survive the first set of sentries +and even the second, but the third, and if not the third some +succeeding one of the dozens on the way to Brussels, would hale you +before a Kommandatur. Then you were in trouble. In travelling about +Europe I became so used to passes that when I returned to New +York I could not have thought of going to Hoboken without the +German consul's visa or of dining at a French restaurant without the +French consul's. + +"And again!" said Harvard, 1914, as we came to another sentry. +There was good reason why Harvard had his pass in a leather-bound +case under a celluloid face. Otherwise, it would soon have been worn +out in showing. He had been warned by the Commission not to talk +and he did not talk. He was neutrality personified. All he did was to +show his pass. He could be silent in three languages. The only time I +got anything like partisanship out of him and two sentences in +succession was when I mentioned the Harvard-Yale football game. +"My! Wasn't that a smear! In their new stadium, too! Oh, my! Wish I +had been there!" + +When the car broke a spring half-way to Antwerp, he remarked, +"Naturally!" or, rather, a more expressive monosyllable which did not +sound neutral. + +While he and the Belgian chauffeur, with the help of a Belgian farmer +as spectator, were patching up the broken spring, I had a look at the +farm. The winter crops were in; the cabbages and Brussels sprouts in +the garden were untouched. It happened that the scorching finger of +war's destruction had not been laid on this little property. In the yard +the wife was doing the week's washing, her hands in hot water and +her arms exposed to weather so cold that I felt none too warm in a +heavy overcoat. At first sight she gave me a frown, which instantly +dissipated into a smile when she saw that I was not German. + +If not German, I must be a friend. Yet if I were I would not dare talk-- +not with German sentries all about. She lifted her hand from the suds +and swung it out to the west toward England and France with an +eager, craving fire in her eyes, and then she swept it across in front of +her as if she were sweeping a spider off a table. When it stopped at +arm's length there was the triumph of hate in her eyes. I thought of +the lid of a cauldron raised to let out a burst of steam as she asked +"When?" When? When would the Allies come and turn the Germans +out? + +She was a kind, hardworking woman, who would help any stranger in +trouble the best she knew how. Probably that Saxon whose smile had +spread under his scarf had much the same kind of wife. Yet I knew +that if the Allies' guns were heard driving the Germans past her +house and her husband had a rifle, he would put a shot in that +Saxon's back, or she would pour boiling water on his head if she +could. Then, if the Germans had time, they would burn the farmhouse +and kill the husband who had shot one of their comrades. + +I recollect a youth who had been in a railroad accident saying: "That +was the first time I had ever seen death; the first time I realized what +death was." Exactly. You don't know death till you have seen it; you +don't know invasion till you have felt it. However wise, however able +the conquerors, life under them is a living death. True, the farmer's +property was untouched, but his liberty was gone. If you, a well- +behaved citizen, have ever been arrested and marched through the +streets of your home town by a policeman, how did you like it? Give +the policeman a rifle and a fixed bayonet and a full cartridge-box and +transform him into a foreigner and the experience would not be any +more pleasant. + +That farmer could not go to the next town without the permission of +the sentries. He could not even mail a letter to his son who was in the +trenches with the Allies. The Germans had taken his horse; theirs the +power to take anything he had--the power of the bayonet. If he +wanted to send his produce to a foreign market, if he wanted to buy +food in a foreign market, the British naval blockade closed the sea to +him. He was sitting on a chair of steel spikes, hands tied and mouth +gagged, whilst his mind seethed, solacing its hate with hope through +the long winter months. If you lived in Kansas and could not get your +wheat to Chicago, or any groceries or newspapers from the nearest +town, or learn whether your son in Wyoming were alive or dead, or +whether the man who owned your mortgage in New York had +foreclosed it or not--well, that is enough without the German sentry. + +Only, instead of newspapers or word about the mortgage, the thing +you needed past that blockade was bread to keep you from starving. +America opened a window and slipped a loaf into the empty larder. +Those Belgian soldiers whom I had seen at Dixmude, wounded, +exhausted, mud-caked, shivering, were happy beside the people at +home. They were in the fight. It is not the destruction of towns and +houses that impresses you most, but the misery expressed by that +peasant woman over her washtub. + +A writer can make a lot of the burst of a single shell; a photographer +showing the ruins of a block of buildings or a church makes it appear +that all blocks and all churches are in ruins. Running through Antwerp +in a car, one saw few signs of destruction from the bombardment. +You will see them if you are specially conducted. Shops were open, +people were moving about in the streets, which were well lighted. No +need of darkness for fear of bombs dropping here! German barracks +had safe shelter from aerial raids in a city whose people were the +allies of England and France. But at intervals marched the German +patrols. + +When our car stopped before a restaurant a knot gathered around it. +Their faces were like all the other faces I saw in Belgium--unless +German--with that restrained, drawn look of passive resistance, +persistent even when they smiled. When? When were the Allies +coming? Their eyes asked the question which their tongues dared +not. Inside the restaurant a score of German officers served by +Belgian waiters were dining. Who were our little party? What were we +doing there and speaking English--English, the hateful language of +the hated enemy? Oh, yes! We were Americans connected with the +relief work. But between the officers' stares at the sound of English +and the appealing inquiry of the faces in the street lay an abyss of +war's fierce suspicion and national policies and racial enmity, which +America had to bridge. + +Before we could help Belgium, England, blockading Germany to keep +her from getting foodstuffs, had to consent. She would consent only if +none of the food reached German mouths. Germany had to agree +not to requisition any of the food. Someone not German and not +British must see to its distribution. Those rigid German military +authorities, holding fast to their military secrets, must consent to +scores of foreigners moving about Belgium and sending messages +across that Belgo-Dutch frontier which had been closed to all except +official German messages. This called for men whom both the +German and the British duellists would trust to succour the human +beings crouched and helpless under the circling flashes of their steel. + +Fortunately, our Minister to Belgium was Brand Whitlock. He is no +Talleyrand or Metternich. If he were, the Belgians might not have +been fed, because he might have been suspected of being too much +of a diplomatist. When an Englishman, or a German, or a Hottentot, +or any other kind of a human being gets to know Whitlock, he +recognizes that here is an honest man with a big heart. When leading +Belgians came to him and said that winter would find Belgium without +bread, he turned from the land that has the least food to that which +has the most--his own land. + +For Belgium is a great shop in the midst of a garden. Her towns are +so close together that they seem only suburbs of Brussels and +Antwerp. She has the densest population in Europe. She produces +only enough food to last her for two months of the year. The food for +the other ten months she buys with the products of her factories. In +1914-15 Belgium could not send out her products; so we were to help +feed her without pay, and England and France were to give money to +buy what food we did not give. + +But with the British navy generously allowing food to pass the +blockade, the problem was far from solved. Ships laden with supplies +steaming to Rotterdam--this was a matter of easy organization. How +get the bread to the hungry mouths when the Germans were using +Belgian railroads for military purposes? Germany was not inclined to +allow a carload of wheat to keep a carload of soldiers from reaching +the front, or to let food for Belgians keep the men in the trenches from +getting theirs regularly. Horse and cart transport would be +cumbersome, and the Germans would not permit Belgian teamsters +to move about with such freedom. As likely as not they might be +spies. + +Anybody who can walk or ride may be a spy. Therefore, the way to +stop spying is not to let anyone walk or ride. Besides, Germany had +requisitioned most of the horses that could do more than draw an +empty phaeton on a level. But she had not drawn the water out of the +canals; though the Belgians, always whispering jokes at the expense +of the conquerors, said that the canals might have been emptied if +their contents had been beer. There were plenty of idle boats in +Holland, whose canals connect with the web of canals in Belgium. +You had only to seal the cargoes against requisition, the seal to be +broken only by a representative of the Relief Commission, and start +them to their destination. + +And how make sure that those who had money should pay for their +bread, while all who had not should be reached? The solution was +simple compared to the distribution of relief after the San Francisco +earthquake and fire, for example, in our own land, where a sparser +population makes social organization comparatively loose. + +The people to be relieved were in their homes. Belgium is so old a +country, her population so dense, she is so much like one big +workshop, that the Government must keep a complete set of books. +Every Belgian is registered and docketed. You know just how he +makes his living and where he lives. Upon marriage a Belgian gets a +little book, giving his name and his wife's, their ages, their +occupations, and address. As children are born their names are +added. A Belgian holds as fast to this book as a woman to a piece of +jewellery that is an heirloom. + +With few exceptions, Belgian local officials had not fled the country. +They realized that this was a time when they were particularly needed +on the job to protect the people from German exactions and from +their own rashness. There were also any number of volunteers. The +thing was to get the food to them and let them organize local +distribution. + +The small force of Americans required to oversee the transit must +watch that the Germans did not take any of the food and retain both +British and German confidence in the absolute good faith of their +intentions. The volunteers were paid their expenses; the rest of their +reward was experience, and it was "soom expeerience," as a Belgian +said who was learning a little American slang. They talked about +canal-boat cargoes as if they had been from Buffalo to Albany on the +Erie Canal for years; they spoke of "my province" and compared +bread-lines and the efficiency of local officials. And the Germans took +none of the food; orders from Berlin were obeyed. Berlin knew that +any requisitioning of relief supplies meant that the Relief Commission +would cease work and announce to the world the reason. + +However many times Americans were arrested they must be patient. +That exception who said, when he was put in a cell overnight +because he entered the military zone by mistake, that he would not +have been treated that way in England, needed a little more coaching +in preserving his mask of neutrality. For I must say that nine out of ten +of these young men, leaning over backward to be neutral, were pro- +Ally, including some with German names. But publicly you could +hardly get an admission out of them that there was any war. As for +Harvard, 1914, hang a passport carrier around the Sphinx's neck and +you have him done in stone. + +Fancy any Belgian trying to get him to carry a contraband letter or a +German commander trying to work him for a few sacks of flour! When +I asked him what career he had chosen he said, "Business!" without +any waste of words. I think that he will succeed in a way to surprise +his family. It is he and all those young Americans of whom he is a +type, as distinctive of America in manner, looks, and thought as a +Frenchman is of France or a German of Germany, who carried the +torch of Peace's kindly work into war-ridden Belgium. They made you +want to tickle the eagle on the throat so he would let out a gentle, +well-modulated scream; of course, strictly in keeping with neutrality. + +Red lanterns took the place of red flags swung by Landsturm sentries +on the run to Brussels as darkness fell. There was no relaxation of +watchfulness at night. + +All the twenty-four hours the systematic conquerors held the net tight. +Once when my companion repeated his "Again!" and held out the +pass in the lantern's rays, I broke into a laugh, which excited his +curiosity, for you soon get out of the habit of laughing in Belgium. + +"It has just occurred to me that my guidebook states that passports +are not required in Belgium!" I explained. + +The editor of that guidebook will have a busy time before he issues +the next edition. For example, he will have a lot of new information +about Malines, whose ruins were revealed by the motor-lamps in +shadowy broken walls on either side of the main street. Other places +where less damage had been done were equally silent. In the smaller +towns and villages the population must keep indoors at night; for +egress and ingress are more difficult to control there than in large +cities, where guards at every corner suffice--watching, watching, +these disciplined pawns of remorselessly efficient militarism; watching +every human being in Belgium. + +"The last time I saw that statue of Liege," I remarked, peering into the +darkness as we rode into the city, "the Legion of Honour conferred by +France on Liege for its brave defence was hung on its breast. I +suppose it is gone now." + +"I guess yes," said Harvard, 1914. + +We went to the hotel at Brussels which I had left the day before the +city's fall. English railway signs on the walls of the corridor had not +been disturbed. More ancient relic still seemed a bulletin board with +its announcement of seven passages a day to England, traversing +the Channel in "fifty-five minutes via Calais" and "three hours via +Ostend," with the space blank where the state of the weather for the +despair or the delight of intending voyagers had been chalked up in +happier days. The same men were in attendance at the office as +before; but they seemed older and their politeness that of cheerless +automatons. For five months they had been serving German officers +as guests with hate in their hearts and, in turn, trying to protect their +property. + +A story is told of how that hotel had filled with officers after the +arrival of the Germanic flood and how one day, when it was learned +that the proprietor was a Frenchman, guards were suddenly placed +at the doors and the hall was filled with luggage as every officer, +acting with characteristic official solidarity, vacated his room and +bestowed his presence elsewhere. Then the proprietor was informed +that his guests would return if he would agree to employ German +help and buy his supplies from Germany. He refused, for practical +as well as for sentimental reasons. If he had consented, think what +the Belgians would have done to him after the Germans were gone! +However, officers were gradually returning, for this was the best +hotel in town, and even conquerors are human and German conquerors +have particularly human stomachs. + + + + +IX +Christmas In Belgium + + + +Christmas in Belgium with the bayonet and the wolf at the door taught +me to value Christmas at home for more than its gifts and the cheer +of the fireside. It taught me what it meant to belong to a free people +and how precious is that old English saying that a man's house is his +castle, which was the inception of so much in our lives which we +accept as a commonplace. If such a commonplace can be made +secure only by fighting, then it is best to fight. At any time a foreign +soldier might enter the house of a Belgian and take him away for trial +before a military court. + +Breakfast in the same restaurant as before the city's fall! Again the +big grapes which are a luxury of the rich man's table or an +extravagance for a sick friend with us! The hothouses still grew them. +What else was there for he hothouses to do, though the export of +their products was impossible? A shortage of the long, white-leafed +chicory that we call endive in New York restaurants? There were piles +of it in the Brussels market and on the hucksters' carts; nothing so +cheap! + +One might have excellent steaks and roasts and delicious veal; for +the heifers were being butchered as the Germans had taken all +fodder. But the bread was the Commission's brown, which everyone +had to eat. Belgium, growing quality on scanty acres with intensive +farming, had food luxuries but not the staff of life. + +I looked out of the windows on to the square which four months +before I had seen crowded with people bedecked with the Allies' +colours and eagerly buying the latest editions containing the +communiqués of hollow optimism. No flag in sight now except a +German flag flying over the station! But small revenges may be +enjoyed. A German soldier tried to jump on the tail of a cart driven by +a Belgian, but the Belgian whipped up his horse and the German fell +off on to the pavement, whilst the cart sped around a corner. + +Out of the station came a score of German soldiers returning from the +trenches, on their way to barracks to regain strength in order that they +could bear the ordeal of standing in icy water again. They were not +the kind exhibited on Press tours to illustrate the "vigour of our +indomitable army." Eyelids drooped over hollow eye-sockets; sore, +numbed feet moved like feet which are asleep in their vain effort to +keep step. Sensitiveness to surroundings, almost to existence, +seemed to have been lost. + +One was a corporal, young, tall, and full-bearded. He might have +been handsome if he had not been so haggard. He gave the lead to +the others; he seemed to know where they were going, and they +shuffled on after him in dogged painfulness. Four months ago that +corporal, with the spring of the energy of youth when the war was +young, was perhaps in that green column that went through the +streets of Brussels in the thunderous beat of their regular tread on +their way to Paris. The group was an object lesson in how much the +victor must suffer in war in order to make his victim surfer. + +Some officers were at breakfast, too. Mostly they were reservists; +mostly bespectacled, with middle age swelling their girth and +hollowing their chests, but sturdy enough to apply the regulations +made for conduct of the conquered. Whilst stronger men were under +shell-fire at the front, they were under the fire of Belgian hate as +relentless as their own hate of England. You saw them always in the +good restaurants, but never in the company of Belgians, these +ostracized rulers. In four months they had made no friends; at least, +no friends who would appear with them in public. A few thousand +guards in Belgium in the companionship of conquest and seven +million Belgians in the companionship of a common helplessness! +Bayonets may make a man silent, but they cannot stop his thinking. + +At the breakfast table on that Christmas morning in London, Paris, or +Berlin the patriot could find the kind of news that he liked. His racial +and rational predilections and animosities were solaced. If there +were good news it was "played up"; if there were bad news, it was not +published or it was explained. L'Echo Belge and L'Indépendance +Belge and all the Brussels papers were either out of business or +being issued as single sheets in Holland and England. + +The Belgian, keenest of all the peoples at war for news, having less +occupation to keep his mind off the war, must read the newspapers +established under German auspices, which fed him with the pabulum +that German chefs provided, reflective of the stumbling degeneracy +of England, French weariness of the war, Russian clumsiness, and +the invincibility of Germany. If an Englishman had to read German, or +a German English, newspapers every morning he might have +understood how the Belgian felt. + +Those who had sons or fathers or husbands in the Belgian army +could not send or receive letters, let alone presents. Families +scattered in different parts of Belgium could not hold reunions. But at +mass I saw a Belgian standard in the centre of the church. That flag +was proscribed, but the priests knew it was safe in that sacred place +and the worshippers might feast their eyes on it as they said their +avis. + +A Bavarian soldier came in softly and stood a little apart from the +worshippers, many in mourning, at the rear; a man who was of the +same faith as the Belgians and who crossed himself with the others in +the house of brotherly love. He would go outside to obey orders; and +the others to nurse their hate of him and his race. This private in his +faded green, bowing his head before that flag in the shadows of the +nave, was war-sick, as most soldiers were; and the Belgians were +heartsick. They had the one solace in common. But if you had +suggested to him to give up Belgium, his answer would have been +that of the other Germans: "Not after all we have suffered to take it!" +Christians have a peculiar way of applying Christianity. Yet, if it were +not for Christianity and that infernal thing called the world's opinion, +which did not exist in the days of Caesar and the Belgse, the Belgians +might have been worse off than they were. More of them might have +been dead. When they were saying, "Give us this day our daily +bread" they were thinking, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," +if ever their turn came. + +A satirist might have repeated the apochryphal naïveté of Marie +Antoinette, who asked why the people wanted bread when they could +buy such nice cakes for a sou! For all the pâtisserie shops were +open. Brussels is famous for its French pastry. With a store of +preserves, why shouldn't the bakeshops go on making tarts with +heavy crusts of the brown flour, when war had not robbed the bakers +of their art? It gave work to them; it helped the shops to keep open +and make a show of normality. But I noticed that they were doing little +business. Stocks were small and bravely displayed. Only the rich +could afford such luxuries, which in ordinary times were what ice- +cream cones are to us. Even the jewellery shops were open, with +diamond rings flashing in the windows. + +"You must pay rent; you don't want to discharge your employees," +said a jeweller. "There is no place to go except your shop. If you +closed it would look as if you were afraid of the Germans. It would +make you blue and the people in the street blue. One tries to go +through the motions of normal existence, anyway. But, of course, you +don't sell anything. This week I have repaired a locket which carried +the portrait of a soldier at the front and I've put a mainspring in a +watch. I'll warrant that is more than some of my competitors have +done." + +Swing around the circle in Brussels of a winter's morning and look at +the only crowds that the Germans allow to gather, and any doubt that +Belgium would have gone hungry if she had not received provisions +from the outside was dispelled. Whenever I think of a bread-line +again I shall see the faces of a Belgian bread-line. They blot out the +memory of those at home, where men are free to go and come; +where war has not robbed the thrifty of food. + +It was fitting that the great central soup kitchen should be established +in the central express office of the city. For in Belgium these days +there is no express business except in German troops to the front +and wounded to the rear. The dispatch of parcels is stopped, no less +than the other channels of trade, in a country where trade was so rife, +a country that lived by trade. On the stone floor, where once +packages were arranged for forwarding to the towns whose names are +on the walls, were many great cauldrons in clusters of three, to economize +space and fuel. + +"We don't lack cooks," said a chef-who had been in a leading hotel. +"So many of us are out of work. Our society of hotel and restaurant +keepers took charge. We know the practical side of the business. I +suppose you have the same kind of a society in New York and would +turn to it for help if the Germans occupied New York?" + +He gave me a printed report in which I read, for example, that "M. +Arndt, professor of the École Normale, had been good enough to +take charge of accounts," and "M. Catteau had been specially +appointed to look after the distribution of bread." Most appetizing that +soup prepared under direction of the best chefs in the city! The meat +and green vegetables in it were Belgian and the peas American. +Steaming hot in big cans it was sent to the communal centres, where +lines of people with pots, pitchers, and pails waited to receive their +daily allowance. A democracy was in that bread-line such as I have +never seen anywhere except at San Francisco after the earthquake. +Each person had a blue or a yellow ticket, with numbers to be +punched, like a commuter. The blue tickets were for those who had +proved to the communal authorities that they could not pay; the +yellow for those who paid five centimes for each person served. A +flutter of blue and yellow tickets all over Belgium, and in return life I +With each serving of soup went a loaf of the American brown bread. +The faces in the line were not those of people starving--they had +been saved from starvation. There was none of the emaciation which +pictures of famine in the Orient have made familiar; but they were +pinched faces, bloodless faces, the faces of people on short rations. + +To the Belgian bread is not only the staff of life; it is the legs. At home +we think of bread as something that goes with the rest of the meal; to +the poorer classes of Belgians the rest of the meal is something that +goes with bread. To you and me food has meant the payment of +money to the baker and the butcher and the grocer, or the hotel- +keeper. You get your money by work or from investments. What if +there were no bread to be had for work or money? Sitting on a +mountain of gold in the desert of Sahara would not quench thirst. +Three hundred grammes, a minimum calculation--about half what the +British soldier gets--was the ration. That small boy sent by his mother +got five loaves; his ticket called for an allowance for a family of five. +An old woman got one loaf, for she was alone in the world. + +Each one as he hurried by had a personal story of what war had +meant to him. They answered your questions frankly, gladly, with the +Belgian cheerfulness which was amazing considering the circumstances. +A tall, distinguished-looking man was an artist. + +"No work for artists these days," he said. + +No work in a community of workers where every link of the chain of +economic life had been broken. No work for the next man, a +chauffeur, or the next, a brass worker; the next, a teamster; the next, +a bank clerk; the next, a doorkeeper of a Government office; whilst +the wives of those who still had work were buying in the only market +they had. But the husbands of some were not at home. Each answer +about the absent one had an appeal that nothing can picture better +than the simple words or the looks that accompanied the words. + +"The last I heard of my husband he was fighting at Dixmude--two +months ago." + +"Mine is wounded, somewhere in France." + +"Mine was with the army, too. I don't know whether he is alive or +dead. I have not heard since Brussels was taken. He cannot get my +letters and I cannot get his." + +"Mine was killed at Liege, but we have a son." + +So you out in Nebraska who gave a handful of wheat might know that +said handful of wheat reached its destination in an empty stomach. If +you sent a suit of clothes, or a cap, or a pair of socks, come along to +the skating-rink, where ice-polo was played and matches and +carnivals were held in better days, and look on at the boxes, packed +tight with gifts of every manner of thing that men and women and +children wear except silk hats, which are being opened and sorted +and distributed into hastily-constructed cribs and compartments. + +A Belgian woman whose father was one of Belgium's leading +lawyers--her husband was at the front-was the busy head of this +organization, because, as she said, the busier she was the more it +"keeps my mind off------" and she did not finish the sentence. How +many times I heard that "keeps my mind off------" a sentence that was +the more telling for not being finished. She and some other women +began sewing and patching and collecting garments; "but our +business grew so fast"--the business of relief is the one kind in +Belgium that does grow these days--"that now we have hundreds of +helpers. I begin to feel that I am what you would call in America a +captainess of industry." + +Some of the good mothers in America were a little too thoughtful in +their kindness. An odour in a box that had evidently travelled across +the Atlantic close to the ship's boilers was traced to the pocket of a +boy's suit, which contained the hardly-distinguishable remains of a +ham sandwich, meant to be ready to hand for the hungry Belgian boy +who got that suit. Broken pots of jam were quite frequent. But no +matter. Soap and water and Belgian industry saved the suit, if not the +sandwich. Sweaters and underclothes and overcoats almost new, +and shiny old morning coats and trousers with holes in seat and +knees might represent equal sacrifice on the part of some American +three thousand miles away, and all were welcome. Needlewomen +were given work cutting up the worn-outs of grown-ups and making +them over into astonishingly good suits or dresses for youngsters. + +"We've really turned the rink into a kind of department store," said the +lady. "Come into our boot department. We had some leather left in +Belgium that the Germans did not requisition, so we bought it and that +gave more Belgians work in the shoe factories. Work, you see, is +what we want to keep our minds off------" + +Blue and yellow tickets here, too! Boots for children and thick-set +working-women and watery-eyed old men! + +And each was required to leave behind the pair he was wearing. + +"Sometimes we can patch up the cast-offs, which means work for the +cobblers," said the captainess of industry. "And who are our clerks? +Why, the people who put on the skates for the patrons of the rink, of +course!" + +One could write volumes on this systematic relief work, the +businesslike industry of succouring Belgium by the businesslike +Belgians, with American help. Certainly one cannot leave out those +old men stragglers from Louvain and Bruges and Ghent--venerable +children with no offspring to give them paternal care--who took their +turn in getting bread, which they soaked thoroughly in their soup for +reasons that would be no military secret, not even in the military zone. +On Christmas Day an American, himself a smoker, thinking what +class of children he could make happiest on a limited purse, +remembered the ring around the stove and bought a basket of cheap +brier pipes and tobacco. By Christmas night some toothless gums +were sore, but a beatific smile of satiation played in white beards. + +Nor can one leave out the very young babies at home, who get their +milk if grown people do not, and the older babies beyond milk but not +yet old enough for bread and meat, whose mothers return from the +bread-line to bring their children to another line, where they got +portions of a syrupy mixture which those who know say is the right +provender. On such occasions men are quite helpless. They can only +look on with a frog in the throat at pale, improperly nourished mothers +with bundles of potential manhood and womanhood in their arms. For +this was woman's work for woman. Belgian women of every class +joined in it: the competent wife of a workman, or the wife of a +millionaire who had to walk like everybody else now that her motor- +car was requisitioned by the army. + +Pop-eyed children, ruddy-cheeked, aggressive children, pinched- +faced children, kept warm by sweaters that some American or +English children spared, happy in that they did not know what their +elders knew! Not the danger of physical starvation so much as the +actual presence of mental starvation was the thing that got on your +nerves in a land where the sun is seldom seen in winter and rainy +days are the rule. It was bad enough in the "zone of occupation," so +called, a line running from Antwerp past Brussels to Mons. One could +guess what it was like in the military zone to the westward, where only +an occasional American relief representative might go. + +This is not saying that the Germans were stricter than necessary, if +we excuse the exasperation of their militarism, in order to prevent +information from passing out, when a multitude of Belgians would +have risked their lives gladly to help the Allies. One spy bringing +accurate information might cost the German army thousands of +casualties; perhaps decide the fate of a campaign. They saw the +Belgians as enemies. They were fighting to take the lives of their +enemies and save their own lives, which made it tough for them and +the French and the British--tough all round, but very particularly tough +for the Belgians. + +It was good for a vagrant American to dine at the American Legation, +where Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock were far, very far, from the days in +Toledo, Ohio, where he was mayor. Some said that the place of the +Minister to Belgium was at Havre, where the Belgian Government +had its offices; but neither Whitlock nor the Belgian people thought +so, nor the German Government, since they had realized his prestige +with the Belgians and how they would listen to him in any crisis when +their passions might break the bonds of wisdom. Hugh Gibson, being +the omnipresent Secretary of Legation in four languages, naturally +was also present. We recalled dining together in Honduras, when he +was in the thick of vexations. + +Trouble accommodatingly waits for him wherever he goes, because +he has a gift for taking care of trouble, in the ascendancy of a +cheerful spirit and much knowledge of international law. His present +for the Minister, who daily received stacks of letters from all sources +asking the impossible, as well as from Americans who wanted to be +sure that the food they gave was not being purloined by the +Germans, was a rubber stamp, "Blame-it-all-there's-a-state-of-war-in- +Belgium!" which he suggested might save typewriting--a recommendation +which the Minister refused to accept, not to Gibson's surprise. + +On that Christmas afternoon and evening, the people promenaded +the streets as usual. You might have thought it a characteristic +Christmas afternoon or evening except for the Landsturm patrols. But +there was an absence of the old gaiety, and they were moving as if +from habit and moving was all there was to do. + +They had heard the sound of the guns at Dixmude the night before. +Didn't the sound seem a little nearer? No. The wind from that +direction was stronger. When? When would the Allies come? + + + + +X +The Future Of Belgium + + + +In former days the traveller hardly thought of Belgium as possessing +patriotic homogeneity. It was a land of two languages, French and +Flemish. He was puzzled to meet people who looked like well-to-do +mechanics, artisans, or peasants and find that they could not answer +a simple question in French. This explained why a people so close to +France, though they made Brussels a little Paris, would not join the +French family and enter into the spirit and body of that great +civilization on their borders, whose language was that of their own +literature. Belgium seemed to have no character. Its nationality was +the artificial product of European politics; a buffer divided in itself, +which would be neither French, nor German, nor definitely Belgian. + +In later times Belgium had prospered enormously. It had developed +the resources of the Congo in a way that had aroused a storm of +criticism. Old King Leopold made the most of his neutral position to +gain advantages which no one of the great Powers might enjoy +because of jealousies. The International Sleeping Car Company was +Belgian and Belgian capitalists secured concessions here and there, +wherever the small tradesman might slip into openings suitable to his +size. Leopold was not above crumbs; he made them profitable; he +liked to make money; and Belgians liked to make money. + +Her defence guaranteed by neutrality, Belgium need have no thought +except of thrift. Her ideals were those of prosperity. No ambition of +national expansion stirred her imagination as Germany's was stirred; +there was no fire in her soul as in that of France in apprehension of +the day when she would have to fight for her life against Germany; no +national cause to harden the sinews of patriotism. The immensity of +her urban population contributed its effect in depriving her of the +sterner stuff of which warriors are made. Success meant more +comforts and luxuries. In towns like Brussels and Antwerp this +doubtless had its effect on the moralities, which were hardly of the +New England Puritan standard. She had a small standing army; a +militia system in the process of reform against the conviction of the +majority, unlike that of the Swiss mountaineers, that Belgium would +never have any need for soldiers. + +If militarism means conscription as it exists in France and Germany, +then militarism has improved the physique of races in an age when +people are leaving the land for the factory. The prospect of battle's +test unquestionably develops in a people certain sturdy qualities +which can and ought to be developed in some other way than with +the prospect of spending money for shells to kill people. + +With the world making every Belgian man a hero and the unknowing +convinced that a citizen soldiery at Liege--defended by the Belgian +standing army--had rushed from their homes with rifles and beaten +German infantry, it is right to repeat that the schipperke spirit was not +universal, that at no time had Belgium more than a hundred thousand +men under arms, and that on the Dixmude line she maintained never +more than eighty thousand men out of a population of seven millions, +which should yield from seven hundred thousand to a million; while +they lost a good deal of sympathy both in England and in France, +from all I heard, through the number of able-bodied refugees who +were disinclined to serve. It was a mistaken idealism that swept over +the world, early in the war, characterizing a whole nation with the +gallantry of its young king and his little army. + +The spirit of the Boers or of the Minute Men at Lexington was not in +the Belgian people. It could not be from their very situation and +method of life. They did not believe in war; they did not expect to +practise war; but war came to them out of the still blue heavens as it +came to the prosperous Incas of Peru. + +Where one was wrong was in the expectation that her bankers and +capitalists--an aristocracy of money not given to the simple life--and +her manufacturers, artisans, and traders, if not her peasants, would +soon make truce with Caesar for individual profit. Therein, Belgium +showed that she was not lacking in the moral spirit which, with the +schipperke's, became a fighting spirit. It seemed as if the metal of +many Belgians, struck to a white heat in the furnace of war, had +cooled under German occupation to the tempered steel of a new +nationalism. + +When you travelled over Belgium after it was pacified, the logic of +German methods became clear. What was haphazard in their reign +of terror was due to the inevitable excesses of a soldiery taking the +calculated redress ordered by superiors as licence in the first red +passion of war to a war-mad nation, which was sullen because +Belgians had not given up the keys of the gate to France. + +The extent of the ruins in Belgium east of the Yser has been +exaggerated. They were the first ruins, most photographed, most +advertised; bad enough, inexcusable enough, and warrantedly +causing a spell of horror throughout the civilized world. We have +heard all about them, mind, while hearing nothing about those in +Lorraine, where the Bavarians exceeded Prussian ruthlessness in +reprisals. I mean, that to have read the newspapers in early +September, 1914, one would have thought that half the towns of +Belgium were debris while the truth is that only a small percentage +are--those in the path of the German army's advance. Two-thirds of +Louvain itself is unharmed; though the fact alone of its venerable +library being in ashes is sufficient outrage, if not another building had +been harmed. + +The German army planned destruction with all the regularity that it +billeted troops, or requisitioned supplies, or laid war indemnities. It did +not destroy by shells exclusively. It deliberately burned homes. No +matter whether the owners were innocent or not, the homes were +burned as an example. The principle applied was that of punishing +half a dozen or all the boys in the class in the hope of getting the real +culprit. + +Cold ruins mark blocks where sniping was thought to have occurred. +The Germans insist that theirs was the merciful way. Krieg ist Krieg. +When a hundred citizens of Louvain were gathered and shot +because they were the first citizens of Louvain to hand, the purpose +was the security of the mass at the expense of the individual, +according to the war-is-war machine reasoning. No doubt there was +firing on German troops by civilians. What did the Germans expect +after the way that they had invaded Belgium? If they had bothered +with trials and investigations, the conquerors say, sniping would have +kept up. They may have taken innocent lives and burned the homes +of the innocent, they admit, but their defence is that thereby they +saved many thousands of their soldiers and of Belgians, and +prevented the feud between the rulers and the ruled from becoming +more embittered. + +Sniping over, the next step in policy was to keep the population quiet +with a minimum of soldiery, which would permit a maximum at the +front. In a thickly-settled country, so easily policed, in a land with the +population inured to peace, the wisdom of keeping quiet was soon +evident to the people. What if Boers had been in the Belgians' place? +Would they have attempted guerrilla warfare? Would you or I want to +bring destruction on neighbours in a land without any rural fastnesses +as a rendezvous for operations? One could tell only if a section of our +country were invaded. + +A burned block cost less than a dead German soldier. The system +was efficacious. It was mercilessness mixed with craft. When +Prussian brusqueness was found to be unnecessarily irritating to the +population, causing rash Belgians to turn desperate, the elders of the +Saxon and Bavarian coreligionists were called in. They were amiable +fathers of families, who would obey orders without taking the law into +their own hands. The occupation was strictly military. It concerned +itself with the business of national suffocation. All the functions of +government were in German hands. But Belgian policemen guided +the street traffic, arrested culprits for ordinary misdemeanours, and +took them before Belgian judges. This concession, which also meant +a saving in soldiers, only aggravated to the Belgian the regulations +directed against his personal freedom. + +"Eat, drink, and live as usual. Go to your own police courts for +misdemeanours," was the German edict in a word; "but remember +that ours is the military power, and no act that aids the enemy, that +helps the cause of Belgium in this war, is permitted. Observe that +particular affiche about a spy, please. He was shot." + +At every opportunity Belgians were told that the British and the +French could never come to their rescue. The Allies were beaten. It +was the British who got Belgium into trouble; the British who were +responsible for the idleness, the penury, the hunger and the suffering +in Belgium. The British had used Belgium as a cat's-paw; then they +had deserted her. But Belgians remained mostly unconvinced. They +were making war with mind and spirit, if not with arms. + +"We know how to suffer in Belgium," said a Belgian jurist. "Our ability +to suffer and to hold fast to our hearths has kept us going through the +centuries. Flemish and French, we have stubbornness in common. +Now a ruffian has come into our house and taken us by the throat. He +can choke us to death, or he can slowly starve us to death, but he +cannot make us yield. No, we shall never forgive!" + +"You too hate, then?" I asked. + +"Of course I hate. For the first time in my life I know what it is to hate; +and so do my countrymen. I begin to enjoy my hate. It is one of the +privileges of our present existence. We cannot stand on chairs and +tables as they do in Berlin cafés and sing our hate, but no one can +stop our hating in secret." + +Beside the latest verboten and regulation of Belgian conduct on the +city walls were posted German official news bulletins. The Belgians +stopped to read; they paused to re-read. And these were the rare +occasions when they smiled, and they liked to have a German sentry +see that smile. + +"Pour les enfants!" they whispered, as if talking to one another about +a crèche. Little ones, be good! Here is a new fairy tale! + +When a German wanted to buy something he got frigid politeness +and attention--very frigid, telling politeness--from the clerk, which said: + +"Beast! Invader! I do not ask you to buy, but as you ask, I sell; and as +I sell I hate! I hate! ! I hate! ! !" + +An officer entering a shop and seeing a picture of King Albert on the +wall, said: + +"The orders are to take that down!" + +"But don't you love your Kaiser?" asked the woman who kept the +shop. + +"Certainly!" + +"And I love my King!" was the answer. "I like to look at his picture just +as much as you like to look at your Kaiser's." + +"I had not thought of it in that way!" said the officer. + +Indeed, it is very hard for any conqueror to think of it in that way. So +the picture remained on the wall. + +How many soldiers would it take to enforce the regulation that no +Belgian was to wear the Belgian colours? Imagine thousands and +thousands of Landsturm men moving about and plucking King +Albert's face or the black, yellow and red from Belgian buttonholes! +No sooner would a buttonhole be cleared in front than the emblem +would appear in a buttonhole in the rear. The Landsturm would face +counter, flank, frontal, and rear attacks in a most amusing military +manoeuvre, which would put those middle-aged conquerors fearfully +out of breath and be rare sport for the Belgians. You could not arrest +the whole population and lead them off to jail; and if you bayoneted a +few--which really those phlegmatic, comfortable old Landsturms +would not have the heart to do for such a little thing--why, it would get +into the American Press, and the Berlin Foreign Office would say: + +"There you are, you soldiers, breaking all the crockery again!" + +In the smaller towns, where the Germans were billeted in Belgian +houses, of course the hosts had to serve their unwelcome guests. + +"Yet we managed to let them know what was in our hearts," said one +woman. "Some tried to be friendly. They said they had wives and +children at home; and we said: 'How glad your wives and children +would be to see you! Why don't you go home?'" + +When a report reached the commander in Ghent that an old man had +concealed arms, a sergeant with a guard was sent to search the +house. + +"Yes, my son has a rifle." + +"Where is it?" + +"In his hands on the Yser, if he is not dead, monsieur. You are +welcome to search, monsieur." + +Belgium was developing a new humour, a humour at the expense of +the Germans. In their homes they mimicked their rulers as freely as +they pleased. To carry mimickry into the streets meant arrest for the +elders, but not always for the children. You have heard the story, +which is true, of how some gamins put carrots in old bowler hats to +represent the spikes of German helmets, and at their leader's +command of "On to Paris!" did a goose-step backwards. There is +another which you may not have heard of a small boy who put on +grandfather's spectacles, a pillow under his coat, and a card on his +cap, 'Officer of the Landsturm.' The conquerors had enough sense +not to interfere with the battalion which was taking Paris; but the +pseudo-Landsturm officer was chased into a doorway and got a cuff +after his placard was taken away from him. + +When a united public opinion faces bayonets it is not altogether +helpless to reply. By the atmospheric force of mass it enjoys a +conquest of its own. If a German officer or soldier entered a street +car, women drew aside in a way to indicate that they did not want +their garments contaminated. People walked by the sentries in the +streets giving them room as you would give a mangy dog room, yet +as if they did not see the sentries; as if no sentries existed. + +The Germans said that they wanted to be friendly. They even +expressed surprise that the Belgians would not return their advances. +They sent out invitations to social functions in Brussels, but no one +came--not even to a ball given by the soldiers to the daughters of the +poor. Belgium stared its inhospitality, its contempt, its cynical +drolleries at the invader. + +I kept thinking of a story I heard in Alaska of a man who had shown +himself yellow by cheating his partner out of a mine. He appeared +one day hungry at a cabin occupied by half a dozen men who knew +him. They gave him food and a bunk that night; they gave him +breakfast; they even carried his blanket-roll out to his sled and +harnessed his dogs as a hint, and saw him go without one man +having spoken to him. No matter if that man believed he had done no +wrong, he would have needed a rhinoceros hide not to have felt this +silence. Such treatment the Belgians have given to the Germans, +except that they furnished the shelter and harnessed the team under +duress, as they so specifically indicate by every act. No wonder, then, +that the old Landsturm guards, used at home to saying "Wie gehts?" +and getting a cheery answer from the people they passed in the +streets, were lonely. + +Not only stubborn, but shrewd, these Belgians. Both qualities were +brought out in the officials who had to deal with the Germans, +particularly in the small towns and where destruction had been worst. +Take, for example, M. Nerincx, of Louvain, who has energy enough to +carry him buoyantly through an American political campaign, +speaking from morning to midnight. He had been in America. I +insisted that he ought to give up his professorship, get naturalized, +and run for office in America. I know that he would soon be mayor of +a town, or in Congress. + +When the war began he was professor of international law at the +ancient university whose walls alone stand, surrounding the ashes of +its priceless volumes, across from the ruined cathedral. With the +burgomaster a refugee from the horrors of that orgy, he turned man +of action on behalf of the demoralized people of the town with a +thousand homes in ruins. Very lucky the client in its lawyer. He is the +kind of man who makes the best of the situation; picks up the +fragments of the pitcher, cements them together with the first material +at hand, and goes for more milk. It was he who got a German +commander to sign an agreement not to "kill, burn, or plunder" any +more, and the signs were still up on some houses saying that "This +house is not to be burned except by official order." + +There in the Hôtel de Ville, which is quite unharmed, he had his office, +within reach of the German commander. He yielded to Caesar and +protected his own people day in and day out, diplomatic, watchful, +Belgian. And he was cheerful. What other people could have retained +any vestige of cheer! Sometimes one wondered if it were not partly +due to an absence of keen nerve-sensibilities, or to some other of the +traits which are a product of the Belgian hothouse and Belgian +inheritance. + +I might tell you about M. Nerincx's currency system; how he issued +paper promises to pay when he gave employment to the idle in +repairing those houses which permitted of being repaired, and +cleaned the streets of debris, till ruined Louvain looked as shipshape +as ruined Pompeii; and how he got a little real money from Brussels +to stop depreciation when the storekeepers came to him and said +that they had stacks of his notes which no mercantile concern would +cash. + +M. Nerincx was practising in the life about all that he ever learned and +taught at the university, "which we shall rebuild!" he declared, with +cheery confidence. "You will help us in America," he said. "I'm going +to America to lecture one of these days about Louvain!" + +"You have the most famous ruins, unless it is Rheims," I assured him. +"You will get flocks of tourists"--particularly if he fenced in the ruins +of the library and burned leaves of ancient books were on sale. + +"Then you will not only have fed, but have helped to rebuild Belgium," +he added. + +A shadow of apprehension overhung his anticipation of the day of +Belgium's delivery. Many a Belgian had arms hidden from the alert +eye of German espionage, and his bitterness was solaced by the +thought; "I'll have a shot at the Germans when they go!" The lot of the +last German soldier to leave a town, unless the garrison slips away +overnight, would hardly make him a good life-insurance risk. + +My last look at a Belgian bread-line was at Liege, that town which +had had a blaze of fame in August, 1914, and was now almost +forgotten. An industrial town, its mines and works were idle. The +Germans had removed the machinery for rifle-making, which has +become the most valuable kind of machinery in the world next to that +for making guns and shells. If skilled Belgians here or elsewhere were +called upon to serve the Germans at their craft, they suddenly +became butter-fingered. So that bread-line at Liege was long, its +queue stretching the breadth of the cathedral square. + +As most of the regular German officers in Belgium were cavalrymen-- +there was nothing for cavalry to do on the Aisne line of trenches--it +was quite in keeping that the aide to the commandant of Liege, who +looked after my pass to leave the country, should be a young officer +of Hussars. He spoke English well; he was amiable and intelligent. +While I waited for the commandant to sign the pass the aide chatted +of his adventures on the pursuit of the British to the Marne. The +British fought like devils, he said. It was a question if their new army +would be so good. He showed me a photograph of himself in a British +Tommy's overcoat. + +"When we took some prisoners I was interested in their overcoats," +he explained. "I asked one of the Tommies to let me try on his. It fitted +me perfectly, so I kept it as a souvenir and had this photograph made +to show my friends." + +Perhaps a shade of surprise passed over my face. + +"You don't understand," he said. "That Tommy had to give me his +coat! He was a prisoner." + +On my way out from Liege I was to see Visé--the town of the +gateway--the first town of the war to suffer from frightfulness. I had +thought of it as entirely destroyed. A part of it had survived. + +A delightful old Bavarian Landsturmman searched me for contraband +letters when our cart stopped on the Belgian side of a barricade at +Maastricht, with Dutch soldiers on the other side. His examination +was a little perfunctory, almost apologetic, and he did want to be +friendly. You guessed that he was thinking he would like to go around +the corner and have "ein Glas Bier" rather than search me. What a +hearty "Auf wiedersehen!" he gave me when he saw that I was +inclined to be friendly, too! + +I was glad to be across that frontier, with a last stamp on my +Passierschein; glad to be out of the land of those ghostly Belgian +millions in their living death; glad not to have to answer again their +ravenously whispered "When?" When would the Allies come? + +The next time that I was in Belgium it was in the British lines of the +Ypres salient, two months later. When should I be next in Brussels? +With a victorious British army, I hoped. A long wait it was to be for a +conquered people, listening each day and trying to think that the +sound of gun-fire was nearer. + +The stubborn, passive resistance and self-sacrifice that I have +pictured was that of a moral leadership of a majority shaming the +minority; of an ostracism of all who had relations with the enemy. Of +course, it was not the spirit of the whole. The American Commission, +as charity usually must, had to overcome obstacles set in its path by +those whom it would aid. Belgian politicians, in keeping with the +weakness of their craft, could no more forego playing politics in time +of distress than some that we had in San Francisco and some we +have heard of only across the British Channel from Belgium. + +Zealous leaders exaggerated the famine of their districts in order to +get larger supplies; communities in great need without spokesmen +must be reached; powerful towns found excuses for not forwarding +food to small villages which were without influence. Natural greed got +the better of men used to turning a penny any way they could. +Rascally bakers who sifted the brown flour to get the white to sell to +pâtisserie shops and the well-to-do while the bread-line got the bran, +required shrewd handling, and it was found that the best punishment +was to let the public know the pariah part they had played. In fact that +soon put a stop to the practice. It meant that the baker's business +was ruined and he had lost his friends. + +A certain percentage of Belgians, as would happen in any country, +saw the invasion only as a visitation of disaster, like an earthquake. A +flat country of gardens limits one's horizon. They fell into line with the +sentiment of the mass. But as time wore on into the summer and +autumn of the second year, some of them began to think, What was +the use? German propaganda was active. All that the Allies had +cared for Belgium was to use her to check the German tide to Paris +and the Channel ports! Perfidious England had betrayed Belgium! +German business and banking influences, which had been considerable +in Belgium before the war, and the numerous German residents +who had returned, formed a busy circle of appeal to Belgian business +men, who were told that the British navy stood between them and a +return to prosperity. Germany was only too willing that they should +resume their trade with the rest of the world. + +Why should not Belgium come into the German customs union? Why +should not Belgium make the best of her unfortunate situation, as +became a practical and thrifty people? But be it a customs union or +annexation that Germany plans, the steel had entered the hearts of +all Belgians with red corpuscles; and King Albert and his +"schipperkes" were still fighting the Germans at Dixmude. A British +army appearing before Brussels would end casuistry; and pessimism +would pass, and the German residents, too, with the huzzas of all +Belgium as the gallant king once more ascended the steps of his +palace. + +Worthy of England at her best was her consent to allow the +Commission's food to pass, which she accompanied by generous +giving. She might seem slow in making ready her army--though I do +not think that she was--but give she could and give she did. It was a +grave question if her consent was in keeping with the military policy +which believes that any concession to sentiment in the grim business +of war is unwise. Certainly, the Krieg ist Krieg of Germany would not +have permitted it. + +There is the very point of the war that ought to make any neutral take +sides. If the Belgians had not received bread from the outside world, +then Germany would either have had to spare enough to keep them +from starving or faced the desperation of a people who would fight for +food with such weapons as they had. This must have brought a +holocaust of reprisals that would have made the orgy of Louvain +comparatively insignificant. However much the Germans hampered +the Commission with red tape and worse than red tape through the +activities of German residents in Belgium, Germany did not want the +Commission to withdraw. It was helping her to economize her food +supplies. And England answered a human appeal at the cost of hard- +and-fast military policy. She was still true to the ideals which have set +their stamp on half the world. + + + + +XI +Winter In Lorraine + + + +Only a winding black streak, that four hundred and fifty miles of +trenches on a flat map. It is difficult to visualize the whole as you see +it in your morning paper, or to realize the labour it represents in its +course through the mire and over mountain slopes, through villages +and thick forests and across open fields. + +Every mile of it was located by the struggle of guns and rifles and +men coming to a stalemate of effort, when both dug into the earth +and neither could budge the other. It is a line of countless battles and +broken hopes; of charges as brave as men ever made; a symbol of +skill and dogged patience and eternal vigilance of striving foe against +striving foe. + +From the first, the sector from Rheims to Flanders was most familiar +to the public. The world still thinks of the battle of the Marne as an +affair at the door of Paris, though the heaviest fighting was from Vitry- +le-François eastward and the fate of Paris was no less decided on the +fields of Lorraine than on the fields of Champagne. The storming of +Rheims Cathedral became the theme of thousands of words of print +to one word for the defence of the Plateau d'Amance or the struggle +around Lunéville. Our knowledge of the war is from glimpses through +the curtain of military secrecy which was drawn tight over Lorraine +and the Vosges, shrouded in mountain mists. This is about Lorraine +in winter, when the war was six months old. + +But first, on our way, a word about Paris, which I had not seen since +September. At the outset of the war, Parisians who had not gone to +the front were in a trance of suspense; they were magnetized by the +tragic possibilities of the hour. The fear of disaster was in their hearts, +though they might deny it to themselves. They could think of nothing +but France. Now they realized that the best way to help France was +by going on with their work at home. Paris was trying to be normal, +but no Parisian was making the bluff that Paris was normal. The +Gallic lucidity of mind prevented such self-deception. + +Is it normal to have your sons, brothers, and husbands up to their +knees in icy water in the trenches, in danger of death every minute? +This attitude seems human; it seems logical. One liked the French for +it. One liked them for boasting so little. In their effort at normality +they had accomplished more than they realized; for one-sixth of +the wealth of France was in German hands. A line of steel made +the rest safe for those not at the front to pursue the routine of peace. + +When I had been in Paris in September there was no certainty about +railroad connections anywhere. You went to the station and took your +chances, governed by the movement of troops, not to mention other +conditions. This time I took the regular noon express to Nancy, as I +might have done to Marseilles, or Rome, or Madrid, had I chosen. +The sprinkling of quiet army officers on the train were in the new +uniform of peculiar steely grey, in place of the target blue and red. But +for them and the number of women in mourning and one other +circumstance, the train might have been bound for Berlin, with Nancy +only a stop on the way. + +The other circumstance was the presence of a soldier in the vestibule +who said: "Votre laisser-passer, monsieur, s'il vous platt!" If you had a +laisser-passer, he was most polite; but if you lacked one, he would +also have been most polite and so would the guard that took you in +charge at the next station. In other words, monsieur, you must have +something besides a railroad ticket if you are on a train that runs past +the fortress of Toul and your destination is Nancy. You must have a +military pass, which was never given to foreigners if they were +travelling alone in the zone of military operations. The pulse of the +Frenchman beats high, his imagination bounds, when he looks +eastward. To the east are the lost provinces and the frontier drawn by +the war of '70 between French Lorraine and German Lorraine. This +gave our journey interest. + +Nancy, capital of French Lorraine, is so near Metz, the great German +fortress town of German Lorraine, that excursion trains used to run to +Nancy in the opera season. "They are not running this winter," say +the wits of Nancy. "For one reason, we have no opera--and there are +other reasons." + +An aeroplane from the German lines has only to toss a bomb in the +course of an average reconnaissance on Nancy if it chooses; for +Zeppelins are within easy reach of Nancy. But here was Nancy as +brilliantly lighted at nine in the evening as any city of its size at home. +Our train, too, had run with the windows unshaded. After the +darkness of London, and after English trains with every window- +shade closely drawn, this was a surprise. + +It was a threat, an anticipation, that darkened London, while Nancy +knew fulfilment. Bombardment and bomb-dropping were nothing new +to Nancy. The spice of danger gives a fillip to business to the town +whose population heard the din of the most thunderously spectacular +action of the war echoing among the surrounding hills. Nancy saw the +enemy beaten back. Now she was so close to the front that she felt +the throb of the army's life. + +"Don't you ever worry about aerial raids?" I asked madame behind +the counter at the hotel. + +"Do the men in the trenches worry about them?" she answered. "We +have a much easier time than they. Why shouldn't we share some of +their dangers? And when a Zeppelin appears and our guns begin +firing, we all feel like soldiers under fire." + +"Are all the population here as usual?" + +"Certainly, monsieur!" she said. "The Germans can never take +Nancy. The French are going to take Metz!" + +The meal which that hotel restaurant served was as good as in peace +times. Who deserves a good meal if not the officer who comes in +from the front? And madame sees that he gets it. She is as proud of +her poulet en casserole as any commander of a soixante-quinze +battery of its practice. There was steam heat, too, in the hotel, which +gave an American a homelike feeling. + +In a score of places in the Eastern States you see landscapes with +high hills like the spurs of the Vosges around Nancy sprinkled with +snow and under a blue mist. And the air was dry; it had the life of our +air. Old Civil War men who had been in the Tennessee Mountains or +the Shenandoah Valley would feel perfectly at home in such +surroundings; only the foreground of farm land which merges into the +crests covered with trees in the distance is more finished. The people +were tilling it hundreds of years before we began tilling ours. They till +well; they make Lorraine a rich province of France. + +With guns pounding in the distance, boys in their capes were skipping +and frolicking on their way to school; housewives were going to +market, and the streets were spotlessly clean. All the men of Nancy +not in the army pursued their regular routine while the army went +about its business of throwing shells at the Germans. On the dead +walls of the buildings were M. Deschanel's speech in the Chamber of +Deputies, breathing endurance till victory, and the call for the class of +recruits of 1915, which you will find on the walls of the towns of all +France beside that of the order of mobilization in August, now +weather-stained. Nancy seemed, if anything, more French than any +interior French town. Though near the border, there is no touch of +German influence. When you walked through the old Place +Stanislaus, so expressive of the architectural taste bred for centuries +in the French, you understand the glow in the hearts of this very +French population which made them unconscious of danger while +their flag was flying over this very French city. + +No two Christian peoples we know are quite so different as the +French and the Germans. To each every national thought and habit +incarnates a patriotism which is in defiance of that on the other side of +the frontier. Over in America you may see the good in both sides, but +no Frenchman and no German can on the Lorraine frontier. If he +should, he would no longer be a Frenchman or a German in time of +war. + +At our service in front of the hotel were waiting two mortals in goatskin +coats, with scarfs around their ears and French military caps on top of +the scarfs. They were official army chauffeurs. If you have ridden +through the Alleghenies in winter in an open car, why explain that +seeing the Vosges front in a motor-car may be a joy ride to an +Eskimo, but not to your humble servant? But the roads were perfect; +as good wherever we went in this mountain country as from New +York to Poughkeepsie. I need not tell you this if you have been in +France; but you will be interested to know that Lorraine keeps her +roads in perfect repair even in war time. + +Crossing the swollen Moselle on a military bridge, twisting in and out +of valleys and speeding through villages, one saw who were guarding +the army's secrets, but little of the army itself and few signs of +transportation on a bleak, snowy day. At the outskirts of every village, +at every bridge, and at intervals along the road, Territorial sentries +stopped the car. Having an officer along was not sufficient to let you +whizz by important posts. He must show his pass. Every sentry was a +reminder of the hopelessness of being a correspondent these days +without official sanction. + +The sentries were men in the thirties. In Belgium, their German +counterpart, the Landsturm, were the monitors of a journey that I +made. No troops are more military than the first line Germans; but in +the snap and spirit of his salute the French Territorial has an élan, a +martial fervour, which the phlegmatic German in the thirties lacks. + +Occasionally we passed scattered soldiers in the village streets, or a +door opened to show a soldier figure in the doorway. The reason that +we were not seeing anything of the army was the same that keeps +the men and boys who are on the steps of the country grocery in +summer at home around the stove in winter. All these villages were +full of reservists who were indoors. They could be formed in the street +ready for the march to any part of the line where a concentrated +attack was made almost as soon after the alarm as a fire engine +starts to a fire. Now, imagine your view of a cricket match limited to +the bowler: and that is all you see in the low country of Flanders. You +have no grasp of what all the noise and struggle means, for you +cannot see over the shoulders of the crowd. But in Lorraine you have +only to ascend a hill and the moves in the chess game of war are +clear. + +A panorama unfolds as our car takes a rising grade to the village of +Ste. Geneviève. We alight and walk along a bridge, where the sentry +of a lookout is on watch. He seems quite alone, but at our approach a +dozen of his comrades come out of their "home" dug in the hillside. +Wherever you go about the frozen country of Lorraine it is a case of +flushing soldiers from their shelters. A small, semicircular table is set +up before the lookout, like his compass before a mariner. Here run +blue pencil lines of direction pointing to Pont-à -Mousson, to Château- +Salins, and other towns. Before us to the east rose the tree-clad +crests of the famous Grand Couronné of Nancy, and faintly in the +distance we could see Metz. + +"Those guns that I hear, are they firing across the frontier?" I asked. +For some French batteries command one of the outer forts of Metz. + +"No, they are near Pont-à -Mousson." + +To the north the little town of Pont-à -Mousson lay in the lap of the +river bottom, and across the valley, to the west, the famous Bois le +Prêtre. More guns were speaking from the forest depths, which +showed great scars where the trees had been cut to give fields of fire. +This was well to the rear of our position, marking the boundaries of +the wedge that the Germans drove into the French lines, with its point +at St. Mihiel, in trying to isolate the forts of Verdun and Toul. +Doubtless you have noticed that wedge on the snake maps and have +wondered about it, as I have. It looks so narrow that the French ought +to be able to shoot across it from both sides. If so, why don't the +Germans widen it? + +Well, for one thing, a quarter of an inch on a map is a good many +miles of ground. The Germans cannot spread their wedge because +they would have to climb the walls of an alley. That was a fact as +clear to the eye as the valley of the Hudson from West Point. The +Germans occupy an alley within an alley, as it were. They have their +own natural defences for the edges of their wedge; or, where they do +not, they lie cheek by jowl with the French in such thick woods as the +Bois le Prêtre. + +At our feet, looking toward Metz, an apron of cultivated land swept +down for a mile or more to a forest edge. This was cut by lines of +trenches, whose barbed-wire protection pricked a blanket of snow. + +"Our front is in those woods," explained the colonel who was in +command of the point. + +"A major when the war began and an officer of reserves," mon +capitaine, who had brought us out from Paris, explained about the +colonel. We were soon used to hearing that a colonel had been a +major or a major a captain before the Kaiser had tried to get Nancy. +There was quick death and speedy promotion at the great battle of +Lorraine, as there was at Gettysburg and Antietam. + +"They charged out of the woods, and we had a battalion of reserves-- +here are some of them--mes poilus!" + +He turned affectionately to the bearded fellows in scarfs who had +come out of the shelter. They smiled back. Now, as we all chatted +together, officer-and-man distinction disappeared. We were in a +family party. + +It was all very simple to mes poilus, that first fight. They had been told +to hold. If Ste. Geneviève were lost, the Amance plateau was in +danger, and the loss of the Amance plateau meant the fall of Nancy. +Some military martinets say that the soldiers of France think too +much. In this case thinking may have taught them responsibility. So +they held; they lay tight, these reserves, and kept on firing as the +Germans swarmed out of the woods. + +"And the Germans stopped there, monsieur. They hadn't very far to +go, had they? But the last fifty yards, monsieur, are the hardest +travelling when you are trying to take a trench." + +They knew, these poilus, these veterans. Every soldier who serves in +Lorraine knows. They themselves have tried to rush out of the edge +of a woods across an open space against intrenched Germans and +found the shoe on the other foot. + +Now the fields in the foreground down to the woods' edge were bare +of any living thing. You had to take mon capitaine's word for it that +there were any soldiers in front of us. + +"The Boches are a good distance away at this point," he said. "They +are in the next woods." + +A broad stretch of snow lay between the two clumps of woods. It was +not worth while for either side to try to get possession of the +intervening space. At the first movement by either French or +Germans the woods opposite would hum with rifle fire and echo with +cannonading. So, like rival parties of Arctic explorers waiting out the +Arctic winter, they watched each other. But if one force or the other +napped and the other caught him at it, then winter would not stay a +brigade commander's ambition. Three days later in this region the +French, by a quick movement, got a good bag of prisoners to make a +welcome item for the daily French official bulletin. + +"We wait and the Germans wait on spring for any big movement," +said the colonel. "Men can't lie out all night in the advance in weather +like this. In that direction------" He indicated a part of the line where +the two armies were facing each other across the old frontier. Back +and forth they had fought, only to arrive where they had begun. + +There was something else which the colonel wished us to see before +we left the hill of Ste. Geneviève. It appealed to his Gallic sentiment, +this quadrilateral of stone on the highest point where legend tells that +"Jovin, a Christian and very faithful, vanquished the German +barbarians 366 A.D." + +"We have to do as well in our day as Jovin in his," remarked the +colonel. + +The church of Ste. Geneviève was badly smashed by shell. So was +the church in the village on the Plateau d'Amance, as are most +churches in this district of Lorraine. Framed through a great gap in +the wall of the church of Amance was an immense Christ on the +cross without a single abrasion, and a pile of debris at its feet. After +seeing as many ruined churches as I have, one becomes almost +superstitious at how often the figures of Christ escape. But I have +also seen effigies of Christ blown to bits. + +Anyone who, from an eminence, has seen one battle fought +visualizes another readily when the positions lie at his feet. Looking +out on the field of Gettysburg from Round Top, I can always get the +same thrill that I had when, seated in a gallery above the Russian and +the Japanese armies, I saw the battle of Liao-yang. In sight of that +Plateau d'Amance, which rises like a great knuckle above the +surrounding country, a battle covering twenty times the extent of +Gettysburg raged, and one could have looked over a battle-line as far +as the eye may see from a steamer's mast. + +An icy gale swept across the white crest of the plateau on this +January day, but it was nothing to the gale of shells that descended +on it in late August and early September. Forty thousand shells, it is +estimated, fell there. One kicked up fragments of steel on the field like +peanut-shells after a circus has gone. Here were the emplacements +of a battery of French soixante-quinze within a circle of holes torn by +its adversaries' replies to its fire; a little farther along, concealed by +shrubbery, the position of another battery which the enemy had not +located. + +So that was it! The struggle on the immense landscape, where at +least a quarter of a million men were killed and wounded, became as +simple as some Brobdingnagian football match. Before the war +began the French would not move a man within five miles of the +frontier lest it be provocative; but once the issue was joined they +sprang for Alsace and Lorraine, their imagination magnetized by the +thought of the recovery of the lost provinces. Their Alpine chasseurs, +mountain men of the Alpine and the Pyrenees districts, were +concentrated for the purpose. + +I recalled a remark I had heard: "What a pitiful little offensive that +was!" It was made by one of those armchair "military experts" who +look at a map and jump at a conclusion. They appear very wise in +their wordiness when real military experts are silent for want of +knowledge. Pitiful, was it? Ask the Germans who faced it what they +think. Pitiful, that sweep over those mountain walls and through the +passes? Pitiful, perhaps, because it failed, though not until it had +taken Château-Salins in the north and Mulhouse in the south. Ask the +Germans if they think that it was pitiful! The Confederates also failed +at Antietam and at Gettysburg, but the Union army never thought of +their efforts as pitiful. + +The French fell back because all the weight of the German army was +thrown against France, while the Austrians were left to look after the +slowly mobilizing Russians. Two million five hundred thousand men +on their first line the Germans had, as we know now, against the +French twelve hundred thousand and Sir John French's army fighting +one against four. To make sure of saving Paris as the Germans +swung their mighty flanking column through Belgium, Joffre had to +draw in his lines. The Germans came over the hills as splendidly as +the French had gone. They struck in all directions toward Paris. In +Lorraine was their left flank, the Bavarians, meant to play the same +part to the east that von Kluck played to the west. We heard only of +von Kluck; nothing of this terrific struggle in Lorraine. + +From the Plateau d'Amance you may see how far the Germans came +and what was their object. Between the fortresses of Epinal and of +Toul lies the Trouée de Mirecourt--the Gap of Mirecourt. It is said that +the French had purposely left it open when they were thinking of +fighting the Germans on their own frontier and not on that of Belgium. +They wanted the Germans to make their trial here--and wisely, for +with all the desperate and courageous efforts of the Bavarian and +Saxon armies they never got near the gap. + +If they had forced it, however, with von Kluck swinging on the other +flank, they might have got around the French army. Such was the +dream of German strategy, whose realization was so boldly and +skilfully undertaken. The Germans counted on their immense force of +artillery, built for this war in the last two years and out-ranging the +French, to demoralize the French infantry. But the French infantry +called the big shells marmites (saucepans), and made a joke of them +and the death they spread as they tore up the fields in clouds of +earth. + +Ah, it took more than artillery to beat back the best troops of France in +a country like this--a country of rolling hills and fenceless fields cut by +many streams and set among thick woods, where infantry on a bank +or at a forest's edge with rifles and rapid-firers and guns kept their +barrels cool until the charge developed in the open. Some of these +forests are only a few acres in extent; others are hundreds of acres. +In the dark depths of one a frozen lake was seen glistening from our +viewpoint on the Plateau d'Amance. + +"Indescribable that scene which we witnessed from here," said an +officer who had been on the plateau throughout the fighting. "All the +splendid majesty of war was set on a stage before you. It was +intoxication. We could see the lines of troops in their retreat and +advance, batteries and charges shrouded in shrapnel smoke. What +hosts of guns the Germans had! They seemed to be sowing the +whole face of the earth with shells. The roar of the thing was like that +of chaos itself. It was the exhilaration of the spectacle that kept us +from dropping from fatigue. Two weeks of this business! Two weeks +with every unit of artillery and infantry always ready, if not actually +engaged!" + +The general in command was directing not one but many battles, +each with a general of its own; manoeuvring troops across streams +and open places, seeking the cover of forests, with the aeroplanes +unable to learn how many of the enemy were hidden in the forests on +his front, while he tried to keep his men out of angles and make his +movements correspond with those of the divisions on his right and +left. Skill this required; skill equivalent to German skill; the skill +which you cannot command in a month after calling for a million +volunteers, but which grows through years of organization. + +Shall I call the general in chief command General X? This is +according to the custom of anonymity. A great modern army like the +French is a machine; any man, high or low, only a unit of the +machine. In this case the real name of X is Castelnau. If it lacks the +fame which seems its due, that may be because he was too busy to +take the Press into his confidence. Fame is not the business of +French generals nowadays. It is war. What counted for France was +that he never let the Germans get near the gap at Mirecourt. + +Having failed to reach the gap, the Germans, with that stubbornness +of the offensive which characterizes them, tried to take Nancy. They +got a battery of heavy guns within range of the city. From a high hill it +is said that the Kaiser watched the bombardment. But here is a story. +As the German infantry advanced toward their new objective they +passed a French artillery officer in a tree. He was able to locate that +heavy battery and able to signal its position back to his own side. The +French concentrated sufficient fire to silence it after it had thrown forty +shells into Nancy. The same report tells how the Kaiser folded his +cloak around him and walked in silence from his eminence, where the +sun blazed on his helmet. It was not the Germans' fault that they +failed to take Nancy. It was due to the French. + +Some time a tablet will be put up to denote the high-water mark of the +German invasion of Lorraine. It will be between the edge of the forest +of Champenoux and the heights. When the Germans charged from +the cover of the forest to get possession of the road to Nancy, the +French artillery and machine-guns which had held their fire turned +loose. The rest of the story is how the French infantry, impatient at +being held back, swept down in a counter-attack, and the Germans +had to give up their campaign in Lorraine as they gave up their +campaign against Paris in the early part of September. Saddest of all +lost opportunities to the correspondent in this war is this fighting in +Lorraine. One had only to climb a hill in order to see everything! + +In half an hour, as the officer outlined the positions, we had lived +through the two weeks' fighting; and, thanks to the fairness of his +story--that of a professional soldier without illusions--we felt that we +had been hearing history while it was very fresh. + +"They are very brave and skilful, the Germans," he said. "We still +have a battery of heavy guns on the plateau. Let us go and see it." + +We went, picking our way among the snow-covered shell-pits. At one +point we crossed a communication trench, where soldiers could go +and come to the guns and the infantry positions without being +exposed to shell-fire. I noticed that it carried a telephone wire. + +"Yes," said the officer; "we had no ditch during the fight with the +Germans, and we were short of telephone wire for a while; so we had +to carry messages back and forth as in the old days. It was a pretty +warm kind of messenger service when the German marmites were +falling their thickest." + +At length he stopped before a small mound of earth not in any way +distinctive at a short distance on the uneven surface of the plateau. I +did not even notice that there were three other such mounds. He +pointed to a hole in the ground. I had been used to going through a +manhole in a battleship turret, but not through one into a field-gun +position before aeroplanes played a part in war. + +"Entrez, monsieur!" + +And I stepped down to face the breech of a gun whose muzzle +pointed out of another hole in the timbered roof covered with earth. + +"It's very cosy!" I remarked. + +"Oh, this is the shop! The living room is below--here!" + +I descended a ladder into a cellar ten feet below the gun level, where +some of the gunners were lying on a thick carpet of perfectly dry +straw. + +"You are not doing much firing these days?" I suggested. + +"Oh, we gave the Boches a couple this morning so they shouldn't get +cocky thinking they were safe It's necessary to keep your hand in +even in the winter." + +"Don't you get lonesome?" + +"No, we shift on and off. We're not here all the while. It is quite warm +in our salon, monsieur, and we have good comrades. It is war. It is for +France. What would you?" + +Four other gun-positions and four other cellars like this! Thousands of +gun-positions and thousands of cellars! Man invents new powers of +destruction and man finds a way of escaping them. + +As we left the battery we started forward, and suddenly out of the +dusk came a sharp call. A young corporal confronted us. Who were +we and what business had we prowling about on that hill? If there had +been no officer along and I had not had a laisser-passer on my +person, the American Ambassador to France would probably have +had to get another countryman out of trouble. + +The incident shows how thoroughly the army is policed and how +surely. Editors who wonder why their correspondents are not in the +front line catching bullets, please take notice. + +It was dark when we returned to the little village on the plateau where +we had left the car. The place seemed uninhabited with all the blinds +closed. But through one uncovered window I saw a room full of +chatting soldiers. We went to pay our respects to the colonel in +command, and found him and his staff around a table covered with +oilcloth in the main living-room of a villager's house. He spoke of his +men, of their loyalty and cheerfulness, as the other commanders had, +as if this were his only boast. These French officers have little "side"; +none of that toe-the-mark, strutting militarism which the Germans +think necessary to efficiency. They live very simply on campaign, +though if they do get to town for a few hours they enjoy a good meal. +If they did not, madame at the restaurant would feel that she was not +doing her duty to France. + + + + + + + +XII +Smiles Among Ruins + + + +Scorched piles of brick and mortar where a home has been ought to +make about the same impression anywhere. When you have gone +from Belgium to French Lorraine, however, you will know quite the +contrary. In Belgium I suffered all the depression which a nightmare +of war's misery can bring; in French Lorraine I found myself sharing +something of the elation of a man who looks at a bruised knuckle with +the consciousness that it broke a burglar's jaw. + +A Belgian repairing the wreck of his house was a grim, heartbreaking +picture; a Frenchman of Lorraine repairing the wreck of his house had +the light of hard-won victory, of confidence, of sacrifice made to a +great purpose, of freedom secure for future generations, in his eyes. +The difference was this: The Germans were still in Belgium; they were +out of French Lorraine for good. + +"What matters a shell-hole through my walls and my torn roof!" said a +Lorraine farmer. "Work will make my house whole. But nothing could +ever have made my heart and soul whole while the Germans +remained. I saw them go, monsieur; they left us ruins, but France is +ours!" + +I had thought it a pretty good thing to see something of the Eastern +French front; but a better thing was the happiness I found there. + +Mon capitaine had come out from the Ministry of War in Paris; but +when we set out from Nancy southward, we had a different local +guide, a major belonging to the command in charge of the region +which we were to visit. He was another example which upsets certain +popular notions of Frenchmen as gesticulating, excitable little men. +Some six feet two in height, he had an eye that looked straight into +yours, a very square chin, and a fine forehead. You had only to look +at him and size him up on points to conclude that he was all there; +that he knew his work. + +"Well, we've got good weather for it to-day, monsieur," said a voice +out of a goatskin coat, and I found we had the same chauffeur as +before. + +The sun was shining--a warm winter sun like that of a February thaw +in our Northern States--glistening on the snowy fields and slopes +among the forests and tree-clad hills of the mountainous country. +Faces ambushed in whiskers thought it was a good day for trimming +beards and washing clothes. The sentries along the roads had their +scarfs around their necks instead of over their ears. A French soldier +makes ear muffs, chest protector, nightcap, and a blanket out of the +scarf which wife or sister knits for him. If any woman who reads this +knits one to send to France she may be sure that the fellow who +received it will get every stitch's worth out of it. + +To-day, then, it was war without mittens. You did not have to sound +the bugle to get soldiers out of their burrows or their houses. Our first +stop was at our own request, in a village where groups of soldiers +were taking a sun bath. More came out of the doors as we alighted. +They were all in the late twenties or early thirties, men of a reserve +regiment. Some had been clerks, some labourers, some farmers, +some employers, when the war began. Then they were piou-pious, in +French slang; then all France prayed godspeed to its beloved piou- +pious. Then you knew the clerk by his pallor; the labourer by his hard +hands; the employer by his manner of command. Now they were +poilus--bearded, hard-eyed veterans; you could not tell the clerk from +the labourer or the employer from the peasant. + +Anyone who saw the tenderfoot pilgrimage to the Alaskan goldfield in +'97-8 and the same crowd six months later will understand what had +happened to these men. The puny had put on muscle; the city +dweller had blown his lungs; the fat man had lost some adipose; +social differences of habit had disappeared. The gentleman used to +his bath and linen sheets and the hard-living farmer or labourer--both +had had to eat the same kind of food, do the same work, run the +same risks in battle, and sleep side by side in the houses where they +were lodged and in the dug-outs of the trenches when it was their turn +to occupy them through the winter. Any "snob" had his edges +trimmed by the banter of his comrades. Their beards accentuated the +likeness of type. A cheery lot of faces and intelligent, these, which +greeted us with curious interest. + +"Perhaps President Wilson will make peace," one said. + +"When?" + +A shrug of the shoulder, a gesture to the East, and the answer was: + +"When we have Alsace-Lorraine back." + +Under a shed their déjeuner was cooking. This meal at noon is the +meal of the day to the average Frenchman who has only bread and +coffee in the morning. They say that he objects to fighting at luncheon +time. That is the hour when he wants to sit down and forget his work +and laugh and talk and enjoy his eating. The Germans found this out +and tried to take his trenches at the noon hour. Interference with his +gastronomic habits made him so angry that he dropped the knife and +fork for the bayonet and took back any lost ground in a ferocious +counter-attack. He would teach those "Boches" to leave him to eat +his déjeuner in peace. + +That appetizing stew in the kettles in the shed once more proved that +Frenchmen know how to cook. I didn't blame them for objecting to +being shot at by the Germans when they were about to eat it. The +average French soldier is better fed than at home; he gets more +meat, for a hungry soldier is usually a poor soldier. It is a very simple +problem with France's fine roads to feed that long line when it is +stationary. It is like feeding a city stretched out over a distance of four +hundred and fifty miles; a stated number of ounces each day for each +man and a known number of men to feed. From the railway head +trucks and motor-buses take the supplies up to the distributing points. +At one place I saw ten Paris motor-buses, their signs painted over in +a steel-grey to hide them from aeroplanes, and not one of them had +broken down through the war. The French take good care of their +equipment and their clothes; they waste no food. As a people is so is +their army, and the French are thrifty by nature. + +Father Joffre, as the soldiers call him, is running the next largest +boarding establishment in Europe after the Kaiser and the Tsar. And +he has a happy family. It seemed to me that life ought to have been +utterly dull for this characteristic group of poilus, living crowded +together all winter in a remote village. Civilians sequestered in this +fashion away from home are inclined to get grouchy on one another. + +One of the officers in speaking of this said that early in the autumn +the reserves were pretty homesick. They wanted to get back to their +wives and children. Nostalgia, next to hunger, is the worst thing for a +soldier. Commanders were worried. But as winter wore on the spirit +changed. The soldiers began to feel the spell of their democratic +comradeship. The fact that they had fought together and survived +together played its part; and individualism was sunk in the one +thought that they were there for France. The fellowship of a cause +taught them patience, brought them cheer. Another thing was the +increasing sense of team play, of confidence in victory, which holds a +ball team, a business enterprise, or an army together. Every day the +organization of the army was improving; every day that indescribable +and subtle element of satisfaction that the Germans were securely +held was growing. + +Every Frenchman saves something of his income; madame sees to it +that he does. He knows that if he dies he will not leave wife and +children penniless. His son, not yet old enough to fight, will come on +to take his place. Men at home of twenty-two or three years and +unmarried, men of twenty-eight or thirty years and not long married, +and men of forty with some money put by, will, in turn, understand +how their own class feels. + +In ten minutes you had entered into the hearts of this single company +in a way that made you feel that you had got into the heart of the +whole French army. When you asked them if they would like to go +home they didn't say "No!" all in a chorus, as if that were what the +colonel had told them to say. They obey the colonel, but their +thoughts are their own. Otherwise, these ruddy, healthy men, +representing the people of France and not the cafés of Paris, would +not keep France a republic. + +Yes, they did want to go home. They did want to go home. They +wanted their wives and babies; they wanted to sit down to morning +coffee at their own tables. Lumps rose in their throats at the +suggestion. But they were not going until the German peril was over +for ever. Why stop now, only to have another terrible war in thirty or +forty years? A peace that would endure must be won. They had +thought that out for themselves. They would not stick to their +determination if they had not. This is the way of democracies. Thus, +everyone was conscious that he was fighting not merely to win, but +for future generations. + +"It happened that this great struggle which we had long feared came +in our day, and to us is the duty," said one. You caught the spirit of +comradeship passing the time with jests at one another's expense. +One of the men who was not a full thirty-third-degree poilu had +compromised with the razor on a moustache as blazing red as his +shock of hair. + +"I think that the colonel gave him the tip that he would light the way for +Zeppelins!" said a comrade. + +"Envy! Sheer envy!" was the retort. "Look at him!" and he pointed at +some scraggly bunches on chin and cheeks which resembled a +young grass plat that had come up badly. + +"I don't believe in air-tight beards," was the response. When I +produced a camera, the effect was the same as it always is with +soldiers at the front. They all wanted to be in the photograph, on the +chance that the folks at home might see how the absent son or father +looked. Would I send them one? And the address was like this: +"Monsieur Benevent, Corporal of Infantry 18th Company, 5th +Battalion, 299th Regiment of Infantry, Postal Sector No. 121." by +which you will know the rural free delivery methods along the French +front. This address is the one rift in the blank wall of anonymity which +hides the individuality of the millions under Joffre. Only the army +knows the sector and the numbers of the regiment in that sector. By +the same kind of a card-index system Joffre might lay his hand on +any one of his millions, each a human being with all a human being's +individual emotions, who, to be a good soldier, must be only one of +the vast multitude of obedient chessmen. + +"We are ready to go after them when Father Joffre says the word," all +agreed. Joffre has proved himself to the democracy, which means +the enthusiastic loyalty of a democracy's intelligence. + +"If there are any homesick ones we should find them among the lot +here," said mon capitaine. + +These were the men who had not been long married. They were not +yet past the honeymoon period; they had young children at home; +perhaps they had become fathers since they went to war. The +younger men of the first line had the irresponsibility and the ardour of +youth which makes comradeship easy. + +But the older men, the Territorials as they are called, in the late +thirties and early forties, have settled down in life. Their families are +established; their careers settled; some of them, perhaps, may enjoy +a vacation from the wife; for you know madame, in France, with all +her thrift, can be a little bossy, which is not saying that this is not a +proper tonic for her lord. So the old boys seem the most content in +the fellowship of winter quarters. What they cannot stand are +repeated, long, hard marches; their legs give out under the load of +rifle and pack. But their hearts are in the war, and right there is one +very practical reason why they will fight well--and they have fought +better as they hardened with time and the old French spirit revived in +their blood. "Allons, messieurs!" said the tall major, who wanted us to +see battlefields. It required no escort to tell us where the battlefield +was. We knew it when we came to it, as you know the point reached +by high tide on the sands--this field where many Gettysburgs were +fought in one through that terrible fortnight in late August and early +September, when the future of France and the whole world hung in +the balance--as the Germans sought to reach Paris and win a +decisive victory over the French army. Where destruction ended +there the German invasion reached its limit. + +Forests and streams and ditches and railway culverts played their +part in tactical surprises, as they did at Gettysburg; and cemetery +walls, too. In all my battlefield visits in Europe I have not seen a single +cemetery wall that was not loopholed. But the fences, which +throughout the Civil War offered impediment to charges and screen +to the troops which could reach them first, were missing. The fields +lay in bold stretches, because it is the business of young boys and +girls in Lorraine to watch the cows and keep them out of the corn. + +We stopped at a cross-roads where charges met and wrestled back +and forth in and out of the ditches. Fragments of shells appeared as +steps scuffed away the thin coating of snow. I picked up an old +French cap, with a slash in the top that told how its owner came to his +end, and near by a German helmet. For there are souvenirs in plenty +lying in the young wheat which was sown after the battle was over. +Millions of little nickel bullets are ploughed in with the blood of those +who died to take the Kaiser to Paris and those who died to keep him +out in this fighting across the fields and through the forests, in a tug- +of-war of give-and-take, of men exhausted after nights and days +under fire, men with bloodshot eyes sunk deep in the sockets, dust- +laden, blood-spattered, with forty years of latent human powder +breaking forth into hell when the war was only a month old and +passion was at a white heat. + +Hasty shelter-trenches gridiron the land; such trenches as breathless +men, dropping after a charge, threw up hurriedly with the spades that +they carry on their backs to give them a little cover. And there is the +trench that stopped the Germans--the trench which they charged but +could not take. It lies among shell-holes so thick that you can step +from one to another. In places its crest is torn away, which means +that half a dozen men were killed in a group. But reserves filled their +places. They kept pouring out their stream of lead which German +courage could not endure. Thus far and no farther the invasion came +in that wheat-field which will be ever memorable. + +We went up a hill once crowned by one of those clusters of farm- +buildings of stone and mortar, where house and stables and +granaries are close together. All around were bare fields. Those farm- +buildings stood up like a mountain peak. The French had the hill and +lost it and recovered it. Whichever side had it, the other was bound to +bathe it in shells because it commanded the country around. The +value of property meant nothing. All that counted was military +advantage. Because churches are often on hill-tops, because they +are bound to be used for lookouts, is why they get torn to pieces. +When two men are fighting for life they don't bother about upsetting a +table with a vase, or notice any "Keep off the grass" signs; no, not +even if the family Bible be underfoot. + +None of the roof, none of the superstructure of these farm-buildings +was left; only the lower walls, which were eighteen inches thick and in +places penetrated by the shells. For when a Frenchman builds a +farmhouse he builds it to last a few hundred years. The farm windmill +was as twisted as a birdcage that has been rolled under a trolley car, +but a large hayrake was unharmed. Such is the luck of war. I made +up my mind that if I ever got under shell-fire I would make for the +hayrake and avoid the windmill. + +Our tall major pointed out all the fluctuating positions during the battle. +It was like hearing a chess match explained from memory by an +expert. Words to him were something precious. He made each one +count as he would the shots from his cannon. His narrative had the +lucidity of a terse judge reviewing evidence. The battlefield was +etched on his mind in every important phase of its action. + +Not once did he speak in abuse of the enemy. The staff officer who +directs steel ringing on steel is too busy thrusting and keeping guard +to indulge in diatribes. To him the enemy is a powerful impersonal +devil, who must be beaten. When I asked about the conduct of the +Germans in the towns they occupied, his lip tightened and his eyes +grew hard. + +"I'm afraid it was pretty bad!" he said; as if he felt, besides the wrong +to his own people, the shame that men who had fought so bravely +should act so ill. I think his attitude toward war was this: "We will die +for France, but calling the Germans names will not help us to win. It +only takes breath." + +"Allons, messieurs!" + +As our car ran up a gentle hill we noticed two soldiers driving a load of +manure. This seemed a pretty prosaic, even humiliating, business, in +a poetic sense, for the brave poilus, veterans of Lorraine's great +battle. But Father Joffre is a true Frenchman of his time. Why should +not the soldiers help the farmers whose sons are away at the front +and perhaps helping farmers back of some Other point of the line? + +Over the crest of the hill we came on long lines of soldiers bearing +timbers and fascines for trench-building, which explained why some +of the villages were empty. A fascine is something usually made of +woven branches which will hold dirt in position. The woven wicker +cases for shells which the German artillery uses and leaves behind +when it has to quit the field in a hurry, make excellent fascines, and a +number that I saw were of this ready-made kind. After carrying shell +for killing Frenchmen they were to protect the lives of Frenchmen. +Near by other soldiers were turning up a strip of fresh earth against +the snow, which looked like a rip in the frosting of a chocolate cake. + +"How do you like this kind of war?" we asked. It is the kind that +irrigationists and subway excavators make. + +"We've grown to be very fond of it," was the answer. "It is a cultivated +taste, which becomes a passion with experience. After you have +been shot at in the open you want all the earth you can get between +you and the bullets." + +Now we alighted from the motor-car and went forward on foot. We +passed some eight lines of trenches before we came to the one +where we were to stop. A practised military eye had gone over all that +ground; a practised military hand had laid out each trench. After the +work was done the civilian's eye could grasp the principle. If one +trench were taken, the men knew exactly how to fall back on the next, +which commanded the ground they had left. The trenches were not +continuous. There were open spaces left purposely. All that front was +literally locked, and double and triple locked, with trenches. Break +through one barred door and there is another and another +confronting you. Considering the millions of burrowing and digging +and watching soldiers, it occurred to one that if a marmite (saucepan) +came along and buried our little party, our loss would not be as much +noticed as if a piece of coping from a high building had fallen and +extinguished us on Broadway, which would be a relatively novel way +of dying. Being killed in war had long ceased to be a novelty on the +continent of Europe. + +We seemed in a dead world, except for the leisurely, hoarse, muffled +reports of a French gun in the woods on either side of the open space +where we stood. Through our glasses we could see quite clearly the +line of the German front trench, which was in the outskirts of a village +on higher ground than the French. Not a human being was visible. +Both sides were watching for any move of the other, meanwhile lying +tight under cover. By day they were marooned. All supplies and all +reliefs of men who are to take their turn in front go out by night. + +There were no men in the trench where we stood; those who would +man it in case of danger were in the adjoining woods, where they had +only to cut down saplings and make shelters to be as comfortable as +in a winter resort camp in the Adirondacks. Any minute they might +receive a call--which meant death for many. But they were used to +that, and their card games went on none the less merrily. + +"No farther?" we asked our major. + +"No farther!" he said. "This is risk enough for you. It looks very +peaceful, but the enemy could toss in some marmites if it pleased +him." Perhaps he was exaggerating the risk for the sake of a realistic +effect on the sightseers. No matter! In time one was to have risks +enough in trenches. It was on such an occasion as this, on another +part of the French line, that two correspondents slipped away from +the officers conducting them, though their word of honour was given +not to do so--which adds another reason for military suspicion of the +Press. The officers rang up the nearest telephone which connected +with the front trenches, the batteries, and regimental and brigade +headquarters, to apprehend two men of such-and-such description. +They were taken as easily as a one-eyed, one-eared man, with a +wooden leg and red hair would be in trying to get out of police +headquarters when the doormen had his Bertillon photograph and +measurements to go by. + +That battery hidden from aerial observation in the thick forest kept up +its slow firing at intervals. It was "bothering" one of the German +trenches. Fiendish the consistent regularity with which it kept on, and +so easy for the gunners. They had only to slip in a shell, swing a +breech-lock home, and pull a lanyard. The German guns did not +respond because they could not locate the French battery. They may +have known that it was somewhere in the forest, but firing at two or +three hundred acres of wood on the chance of reaching some guns +heavily protected by earth and timbering was about like tossing a pea +from the top of the Washington Monument on the chance of hitting a +four-leafed clover on the lawn below. + +Our little group remained, not standing in the trench but back of it, in +full relief for some time; for the German gunners refused to play for +realism by sending us a marmite. Probably they had seen us through +the telescope at the start and concluded we weren't worth a shot. In +the first months of the war such a target would have received a burst +of shells, for the fun of seeing us scatter, if nothing else. Then +ammunition was plentiful and the sport of shooting had not lost its +zest; but in these winter days orders were not to waste ammunition. + +The factories must manufacture a supply ahead for the summer +campaign. There must be fifteen dollars' worth of target in sight, say, +for the smallest shell costs that; and the shorter you are of shells the +more valuable the target must be. Besides, firing a cannon had +become as commonplace a function to both French and German +gunners as getting up to put another stick of wood in the stove or +going to open the door to take a letter from the postman. + +We had glimpses of other trenches; but this is not the place in this +book to write of trenches. We shall see trenches till we are weary of +them later. We are going direct to Gerbéviller which was--emphasis +on the past tense--a typical little Lorraine town of fifteen hundred +inhabitants. Look where you would now, as we drove along the road, +and you saw churches without steeples, houses with roofs standing +on sections of walls, houses smashed into bits. + +"I saw no such widespread destruction as this in Belgium!" I +exclaimed. + +"There was no such fighting in Belgium," was the answer. + +Of course not, except in the south-western corner, where the armies +still face each other. + +"Not all the damage was done by the Germans," the major explained. +"Naturally, when they were pouring in death from the cover of a +house, our guns let drive at that house," he went on. "The owners of +the houses that were hit by our shells are rather proud--proud of our +marksmanship, proud that we gave the unwelcome guest a hot pill to +swallow." + +For ten days the Bavarians had Gerbéviller. They tore it to pieces +before they got it, then burned the remains because they said the +population sniped at them. All the orgy of Louvain was repeated here, +unchronicled to our people at home. The church looks like a Swiss +cheese from shell-holes. Its steeple was bound to be an observation +post, reasoned the Germans; so they poured shells into it. But the +brewery had a tall chimney which was an even better lookout, and the +brewery is the one building unharmed in the town. The Bavarians +knew that they would need that for their commissariat. For a Bavarian +will not fight without his beer. The land was littered with barrels after +they had gone. I saw some in trenches occupied by Bavarian +reserves not far back of where their firing-line had been. + +"However, the fact that the brewery is intact and the church in ruins +does not prove that a brewery is better than a church. It only proves +which is the Lord's side in this war," said Sister Julie. But I get ahead +of my story. + +In the middle of the main street were half a dozen smoke-blackened +houses which remained standing, an oasis in the sea of destruction, +with doors and windows intact facing gaps where doors and windows +had been. We entered with a sense of awe of the chance which had +spared these buildings. + +"Sister Julie!" the major called. + +A short, sturdy nun of about sixty years answered cheerily and +appeared in the dark hall. She led us into the sitting-room, where she +spryly placed chairs for our little party. She was smiling; her eyes +were sparkling with a hospitable and kindly interest in us, while I felt, +on my part, that thrill of curiosity that one always has when he meets +some celebrated person for the first time--curiosity no less keen than +if I were to meet Barbara Frietchie. + +Through all that battle of ten days, with the cannon never silent day or +night, with shells screaming overhead and crashing into houses; +through ten days of thunder and lightning and earthquake, she and +her four sister associates remained in Gerbéviller. When the town +was fired they moved from one building to another. They nursed both +wounded French and Germans; also wounded townspeople who +could not flee with the others. + +"You were not frightened? You did not think of going away?" she was +asked. + +"Frightened?" she answered. "I had not time to think of that. Go +away? How could I when the Lord's work had come to me?" + +President Poincaré went in person to give her the Legion of Honour, +the first given to a woman in this war; so rarely given to a woman, and +here bestowed with the love of a nation. Sister Marie was in the +kitchen at the time, cooking the meal for the sick for whom the sisters +are still caring. So Sister Julie took the President of France into the +kitchen to meet Sister Marie, quite as she would take you or me. A +human being is simply a human being to Sister Julie, to be treated +courteously; and great men may not cause a meal for the sick to +burn. After the complexity of French politics, President Poincaré was +anything but unfavourably impressed by the incident. + +"He was such a little man, I could not believe at first that he could be +President," she said. "I thought that the President of France would be +a big man. But he was very agreeable and, I am sure, very wise. +Then there were other men with him, a Monsieur de-de-Deschanel, +who was president of something or other in Paris, and Monsieur du- +du--yes, that was it, Du Bag. He also is president of something in +Paris. They were very agreeable, too." + +"And your Legion of Honour?" + +"Oh, my medal that M. le Président gave me! I keep that in a drawer. +I do not wear it every day when I am in my working-clothes." + +"Have you ever been to Paris?" + +"No, monsieur." + +"They will make a great ado over you when you go." + +"I must stay in Gerbéviller. If I stayed during the fighting and when the +Germans were here, why should I leave now? Gerbéviller is my +home. There is much to do here and there will be more to do when +the people who were driven away return." + +These nuns saw their townspeople stood up against a wall and shot; +they saw their townspeople killed by shells. The cornucopia of war's +horrors was emptied at their door. And women of a provincial town, +who had led peaceful, cloistered lives, they did not blench or falter in +the presence of ghastliness which only men are supposed to have +the stoicism to witness. + +What feature of the nightmare had held most vividly in Sister Julie's +mind? It is hard to say; but the one which she dwelt on was about the +boy and the cow. The invaders, when they came in, ordered that no +inhabitant leave his house, on pain of death. A boy of ten took his +cow to pasture in the morning as usual. He did not see anything +wrong in that. The cow ought to go to pasture. And he was shot, for +he broke a military regulation. He might have been a spy using the +cow as a blind. War does not bother to discriminate. It kills. + +Sister Julie can enjoy a joke, particularly on the Germans, and her +cheerful smile and genuine laugh are a lesson to all people who draw +long faces in time of trouble and weep over spilt milk. A buoyant +temperament and unshaken faith carried her through her ordeal. +Though her hair is white, youth's optimism and confidence in the +future and the joy of victory for France overshadowed the present. +The town and church would be rebuilt; children would play in the +streets again; there was a lot of the Lord's work to do yet. + +In every word and thought she is French--French in her liveliness of +spirit and quickness of comprehension; wholly French there on the +borderland of Germany. If we only went to the outskirts of the town, +she reminded us, we could see how the soldiers of her beloved +France fought and why she was happy to have remained in +Gerbéviller to welcome them back. + +In sight of that intact brewery and that wreck of a church is a gentle +slope of open field, cut by a road. Along the crest were many mounds +as thick as the graves of a cemetery, and by the side of the road was +a temporary monument above a big mound, surrounded by a sanded +walk and a fence. The dead had been thickest at this point, and here +they had been laid in a vast grave. The surviving comrades had +made that monument; and, in memory of what the dead had fought +for, the living said that they were not yet ready to quit fighting. + +Standing on this crest, you were a thousand yards away from the +edge of a woods. German aeroplanes had seen the French massing +for a charge under the cover of that crest; but French aeroplanes +could not see what was in the woods. Rifles and machine-guns +poured a spray of lead across the crest when the French appeared. +But the French, who were righting for Sister Julie's town, would not +stop their rush at first. They kept on, as Pickett's men did when the +Federal guns riddled their ranks with grapeshot. This accounts for +many of the mounds being well beyond the crest. The Germans +made a mistake in firing too soon. They would have made a heavier +killing if they had allowed the charge to go farther. After the French fell +back, for two days and nights their wounded lay out on that field +without water or food, between the two forces, and if their comrades +approached to give succour the machine-guns blazed more death, +because the Germans did not want to let the French dig a trench on +the crest. After two days the French forced the Germans out of the +woods by hitting them from another point. + +We went over the field of another charge half a mile away. There a +French regiment put a stream with a single bridge at their back--which +requires some nerve--and charged a German trench on rising +ground. They took it. Then they tried to take the woods beyond. +Before they were checked twenty-two officers out of a total of thirty +fell. But they did not give up the ground they had won. They burrowed +into the earth in a trench of their own, and when help came they put +the Germans out of the woods. + +The men of this regiment were not first line, but the older fellows--men +of the type we stopped to chat with in the village--hastening to the +front when the war began. Their officers were mostly reserves, too, +who left civil occupations at the call to arms. One of the eight +survivors of the thirty was with us, a stocky little man, hardly looking +the hero or the soldier. I expressed my admiration, and he answered +quietly: "It was for France!" How often I have heard that as a reason +for courage or sacrifice! The enemies of France have learned to +respect it, though they had a poor opinion of the French army before +the war began. + +"That railroad bridge yonder the Germans left intact when they +occupied it because they were certain that they would need it to +supply their troops when they took the Gap of Mirecourt and +surrounded the French army," I was told. "However, they had to go in +such a hurry that they failed to mine it. They must have fired five +hundred shells afterwards to destroy it, in vain." + +It was dusk when we entered the city of Lunéville for the second time. +Whole blocks lay in ruins; others only showed where shells had +crashed into walls. It is hard to estimate just how much damage shell- +fire has done to a town, for you see the effects only where they have +struck on the street sides and not when they strike in the centre of the +block. But Lunéville has certainly suffered as much as Louvain, only +we did not hear about it. Grim, sad Louvain, with its German sentries +among the ruins! Happy, triumphant Lunéville, with its poilus instead +of German sentries! + +"We are going to meet the mayor," said the major. + +First we went to his office. But that was a mistake. We were invited to +his house, which was a fine, old, eighteenth-century building. If you +could transport it to New York some arms-and-ammunition millionaire +would give half a million dollars for it. The hallway was smoke- +blackened and a burnt spot showed where the enemy had tried to set +it on fire before evacuating the town. Ascending a handsome old +staircase, we were in rooms with gilded mirrors and carved mantels, +where we were introduced to His Honour, a lively man of some forty +years. + +"I have been in Amérique two months. So much English do I speak. +No more!" said the mayor merrily, and introduced us in turn to his +wife, who spoke not even "so much" English, but French as fast and +as piquantly as none but a Frenchwoman can. Her only son, who was +seventeen, was going up with the 1916 class of recruits very soon. +He was a sturdy youngster; a type of Young France who will make +the France of the future. + +"You hate to see him go?" I asked. + +"It is for France!" she answered. + +We had cakes and tea and a merrier--at least, a more heartfelt--party +than at any mayor's reception in time of peace. Everybody talked. For +the French do know how to talk, when they have not turned grim, +silent soldiers. I heard story on story of the German occupation; and +how the mayor was put in jail and held as a hostage; and what a +German general said to him when he was brought in as a prisoner to +be interrogated in his own house, which the general occupied as +headquarters. + +Among the guests was the wife of a French general in her Red Cross +cap. She might see her husband once a week by meeting him on the +road between the city and the front. He could not afford to be any +farther from his post, lest the Germans spring a surprise. The extent +of the information which he gave her was that all went well for France. +Father Joffre plays no favourites in his discipline. + +Happy, happy Lorraine in the midst of its ruins! Happy because her +adored tricolour floats over those ruins. + + + + +XIII +A Road Of War I Know + + + +Other armies go to war across the land, but the British go across the +sea. They take the Channel ferry in order to reach the front. Theirs is +the home road of war to me; the road of my affections, where men +speak my mother tongue. It begins on the platform at Victoria Station, +with the khaki of officers and men, returning from leave, relieved by +the warmer colours of women who have come to say good-bye to +those they love. In five hours from the time of starting one may be +across that ribbon of salt water, which means much in isolation and +little in distance, and in the trenches. + +That veteran regular--let us separate him from the crowd--is a type I +have often seen, a type that has become as familiar as one's +neighbours in one's own town. We will call him the tenth man. That is, +of every ten men who went to the front a year ago in his battalion, +nine are gone. All of the hardships and all of the terrors of war he has +witnessed: men dropped neatly by a bullet; men mangled by shells. + +His khaki is spotless, thanks to his wife, who has dressed in her best +for the occasion. Terrible as war itself, but new, that hat of hers, which +probably represented a good deal of looking into windows and +pricing; and her gown of the cheapest material, drooping from her +round shoulders, is the product of the poor dress-making skill of +hands which show only too well who does all the housework at home. +The children, a boy of four and a girl of seven, are in their best, too, +with faces scrubbed till they shine. + +You will see like scenes in stations at home when the father has +found work in a distant city and is going on ahead to get established +before the family follow him. Such incidents are common in civil life; +they became common at Victoria Station. What is common has no +significance, editors say. + +When the time came to go through the gate, the veteran picked the +boy up in his arms and pressed him very close and the little girl +looked on wonderingly, while the mother was not going to make it any +harder for the father by tears. "Good-bye, Tom!" she said. So his +name was Tom, this tenth man. + +I spoke with him. His battalion was full with recruits. It had been kept +full. But, considering the law of chance, what about the surviving one +out of an original ten? + +"Yes, I've had my luck with me," he said. "Probably my turn will come. +Maybe I'll never see the wife and kids again." + +The morning roar of London had begun. That station was a small +spot in the city. There were not enough officers and men taking the +train to make up a day's casualty list; for ours was only a small party +returning from leave. The transports, unseen, carried the multitudes. +Wherever one had gone in England he had seen soldiers and +wherever he went in France he was to see still more soldiers. +England had become an armed camp; and England plodded on, +"muddled" on, preparing, ever preparing, to forge in time of war the +thunderbolt for war which was undreamed of in time of peace when +other nations were forging their thunderbolts. + +Still the recruiting posters called for more soldiers and the casualty +lists appeared day after day with the regularity of want +advertisements. Imagine eight million men under arms in the United +States and you have the equivalent to what England did by the +volunteer system. The more there were the more pessimistic became +the British Press. Pessimism brought in recruits. Bad news made +England take another deep breath of energizing determination. It was +the last battle which was decisive. She had always won that. She +would win it again. + +They talk of war aboard the Pullman, after officers have waved their +hands out of the windows to their wives, quite as if they were going to +Scotland for a weekend instead of back to the firing-line. British +phlegm this is called. No, British habit, I should say, the race-bred, +individualistic quality of never parading emotions in public; the instinct +of keeping things which are one's own to one's self. Personally, I like +this way. In one form or another, as the hedges fly by the train +windows, the subject is always war. War creeps into golf, or shooting, +or investments, or politics. Only one suggestion quite frees the mind +from the omnipresent theme: Will the Channel be smooth? The +Germans have nothing to do with that. It is purely a matter of weather. +Bad sailors are more worried about the crossing than about the shell- +fire they are going to face. + +With bad sailors or good sailors, the significant thing which had +become a commonplace was that the Channel was a safely-guarded +British sea lane. In all my crossings I was never delayed. For England +had one thunderbolt ready forged when the war began. The only +submarines, or destroyers, or dirigibles that one saw were hers. +Antennae these of the great fleet waiting with the threat of stored +lightning ready to be flashed from gun-mouths; a threat as efficacious +as action, in nowise mysterious or subtle, but definite as steel and +powder, speaking the will of a people in their chosen field of power, +felt over all the seas of the world, coast of Maine and the Carolinas no +less than Labrador. Thousands of transports had come and gone, +carrying hundreds of thousands of soldiers and food for men and +guns to India; and on the high road to India, to Australia, to San +Francisco, shipping went its way undisturbed by anything that dives +or flies. + +The same white hospital ships lying in that French harbour; the same +line of grey, dusty-looking ambulances parked on the quay! +Everybody in the one-time sleepy, week-end tourist resort seems to +be in uniform; to have something to do with war. All surroundings +become those of war long before you reach the front. That knot of +civilians, waiting their turn for another examination of the same kind +as that on the other side of the Channel, have shown good reasons +for going to Paris to the French Consul in London, or they might not +proceed even this far on the road of war. They seem outcasts--a +humble lot in the variegated costumes of the civil world--outcasts +from the disciplined world in its pattern garb of khaki. Their excuse for +not being in the game is that they are too old or that they are women. +For now the war has sucked into its vortex the great majority of those +who are strong enough to fight or work. + +A traveller might be a spy; hence, all this red tape for the many to +catch the one. Even red tape seems now to have become normal. +War is normal. It would seem strange to cross the Channel in time of +peace; the harbour would not look like itself with civilians not having +to show passports, and without the white hospital ships, and the +white-bearded landing-officer at the foot of the gangway, and the +board held up with lists of names of officers who have telegrams +waiting for them. + +For the civilians a yellow card of disembarkation and for the military a +white card. The officers and soldiers walk off at once and the queue +of civilians waits. One civilian with a white card, who belongs to no +regiment, who is not even a chaplain or a nurse, puzzles the landing- +officer for a moment. But there is something to go with it--a +correspondent's licence and a letter from a general who looks after +such things. They show that you "belong"; and if you don't belong on +the road of war you will not get far. As well try to walk past the +doorman and take a seat in the United States Senate chamber during +a session. + +Most precious that magical piece of paper. I happen to be the only +American with one, unless he is in the fighting line--which is one sure +way to get to the front. The price of all the opera boxes at the +Metropolitan will not buy it; and it is the passport to the welcoming +smile from an army chauffeur, whom I almost regard as my own. But +its real value appears at the outskirts of the city. There the dead line +is drawn; there the sheep are finally separated from the goats by a +French sentry guarding the winding passageway between some +carts, which have been in the same place in the road for months. + +The car spins over the broad, hard French road, in a land where for +many miles you see no signs of war, until it turns into the grounds of a +small château opposite a village church. The proprietor of a drygoods +store in a neighbouring city spends his summers here; but this +summer he is in town, because the Press wanted a place to live and +he was good enough to rent us his country place. So this is home, +where the five British and one American correspondents live and +mess. The expense of our cars costs us treble all the rest of our +expenses. They take us where we want to go. We go where we +please, but we may not write what we please. We see something like +a thousand times more than we can tell. The conditions are such as +to make a news reporter throw up his hands and faint. But if he had +his unbridled way, one day he might feel the responsibility for the loss +of hundreds of British soldiers' lives. + +"It may be all right for war correspondents, but it is a devil of a poor +place for a newspaper man," as one editor said. Yet it is the only +place where you can really know anything about the war. + +We become part of the machinery of the great organization that +encloses us in its regular processes. No one in his heart envies the +press officer who holds the blue pencil over us. He has to "take it both +going and coming." He labours on our behalf and sometimes we +labour with him. The staff are willing enough to let us watch the army +at work, but they do not care whether or not we write about their war; +he wants us both to see it and to write about it. He tells us some big +piece of news, and then says: "That is for yourselves; you may not +write it." + +People do not want to read about the correspondents, of course. +They want to read what the correspondents have to tell about the +war; but the conditions of our work are interesting because we are the +link between the army and the reading public. All that it learns from +actual observation of what the army is doing comes through us. + +We may not give the names of regiments and brigades until weeks +after a fight, because that will tell the enemy what troops are +engaged; we may not give the names of officers, for that is glorifying +one when possibly another did his duty equally well. It is the +anonymity of the struggle that makes it all seem distant and unreal--till +the telegram comes from the War Office to say that the one among +the millions who is dear to you is dead or wounded. Otherwise, it is a +torment of unidentified elements behind a curtain, which is parted for +an announcement of gain or loss, or to give out a list of the fallen. + +The world wants to read that Peter Smith led the King's Own +Particular Fusiliers in a charge. It may not know Peter Smith, but his +name and that of his regiment make the information seem definite. +The statement that a well-known millionaire yesterday gave a million +dollars to charity, or that a man in a checked suit swam from the +Battery to Coney Island, is not convincing; nor is the fact that one +private unnamed held back the Germans with bombs in the traverse +of a trench for hours until help came. We at the front, however, do +know the names; we meet the officers and men. Ours is the intimacy +which we may not interpret except in general terms. + +Every article, every dispatch, every letter, passes through the +censor's hand. But we are never told what to write. The liberty of the +Press is too old an institution in England for that. Always we may +learn why an excision is made. The purpose is to keep information +from the enemy. It is not like fighting Boers or Filipinos, this war of +walls of men who can turn the smallest bit of information to +advantage. + +Intelligence officers speak of their work as piecing together the parts +of a jig-saw puzzle. What seems a most innocent fact by itself may +furnish the bit which gives the figure in the picture its face. It does not +follow because you are an officer that you know what may and what +may not be of service to the enemy. + +A former British officer who had become a well-known military critic, in +an account of a visit to the front mentioned having seen a battle from +a certain church tower. Publication of the account was followed by a +tornado of shell-fire that killed and wounded many British soldiers. +Only a staff specialist, trained in intelligence work and in constant +touch with the intelligence department, can be a safe censor. At the +same time, he is the best friend of the correspondent. He knows what +is harmless and what may not be allowed. He wants the Press to +have as much as possible. For the more the public knows about its +soldiers, the better the morale of the people, which reflects itself in the +morale of the army. + +The published casualty lists giving the names of officers and men and +their battalions is a means of causing casualties. From a prisoner +taken the enemy learns what battalions were present at a given fight; +he adds up the numbers reported killed and wounded and ascertains +what the fight cost the enemy and, in turn, the effect of the fire from +his side. But the British public demanded to see the casualty lists and +the British Press were allowed to gratify the desire. They appeared in +the newspapers, of course, days after the nearest relative of the dead +or wounded man had received official notification from the War Office. + +Officers' letters from the front, so freely published earlier in the +war, amazed experienced correspondents by their unconscious +indiscretions. The line officer who had been in a fight told all that he +saw. Twenty officers doing the same along a stretch of front and the +jig-saw experts, plus what information they had from spies, were in +clover. Editors said: "But these men are officers. They ought to know +when they are imparting military secrets." + +Alas, they do not know! It is not to be expected that they should. Their +business is to fight; the business of other experts is to safeguard +information. For a long time the British army kept correspondents +from the front on the principle that the business of a correspondent +must be to tell what ought not to be told. Yet they were to learn that +the accredited correspondent, an expert at his profession, working in +harmony with the experts of the staff, let no military secrets pass. + +At our mess we get the Berlin dailies promptly. Soon after the +Germans are reading the war correspondence from their own front +we are reading it, and laughing at jokes in their comic papers and at +cartoons which exhibit John Bull as a stricken old ogre and Britannia +who Rules the Waves with the corners of her mouth drawn down to +the bottom of her chin, as she sees the havoc that von Tirpitz is +making with submarines which do not stop us from receiving our +German jokes regularly across the Channel. + +Doubtless the German messes get their Punch and the London +illustrated weeklies regularly. In the time that it took the English daily +with the account of the action seen from the church tower to reach +Berlin and the news to be wired to the front, the German guns made +use of the information. Neutral little Holland is the telltale of both +sides; the ally and the enemy of all intelligence corps. Scores of +experts in jig-saw puzzles on both sides seize every scrap of +information and piece them together. Each time that one gets a bit +from a newspaper he is for a sharper Press censorship on his side +and a more liberal one on the other. + +We six correspondents have our insignia, as must everyone who is +free to move along the lines. By a glance you may tell everybody's +branch and rank in that complicated and disciplined world, where no +man acts for himself, but always on someone else's orders. + +"Don't you know who they are? They are the correspondents," I heard +a soldier say. "D. Chron., that's the Daily Chronicle; M. Post, that's the +Morning Post; D. Mail, that's the Daily Mail. There's one with U.S.A. +What paper is that?" + +"It ain't a paper," said another. "It's the States--he's a Yank!" + +The War Office put it on the American cousin's arm, and wherever it +goes it seems welcome. It may puzzle the gunners when the +American says, "That was a peach of a shot, right across the pan!" or +the infantry when he says, "It cuts no ice!" and there is no ice visible +in Flanders; he speaks about typhoid to the medical corps which calls +it enteric; and "fly-swatting" is a new word to the sanitarians, who are +none the less busily engaged in that noble art. Lessons for the British +in the "American language" while you wait! In return, the American is +learning what a "stout-hearted thruster" and other phrases mean in +the Simon-pure English. + +The correspondents are the spoiled spectators of the army's work; +the itinerants of the road of war. Nobody sees so much as we, +because we have nothing to do but to see. An officer looking at the +towers of Ypres Cathedral a mile away from the trench where he was, +said: "No, I've never been in Ypres. Our regiment has not been +stationed in that part of the line." + +We have sampled all the trenches; we have studied the ruins of +Ypres with an archaeologist's eye; we know the names of the +estaminets of the villages, from "The Good Farmer" to "The +Harvester's Rest" and "The Good Cousin," not to mention "The +Omnibus Stop" on the Cassel Hill. Madame who keeps the hotel in +the G.H.Q. town knows me so well that we wave hands to each other +as I pass the door; and the clerks in a certain shop have learned that +the American likes his fruit raw, instead of stewed in the English +fashion, and plenty of it, especially if it comes from the South out of +season, as it does from Florida or California to pampered human +beings at home, who, if they could see as much of this war as I have +seen, would appreciate what a fortunate lot they are to have not a +ribbon of saltwater but a broad sea full of it, and the British navy, too, +between them and the thing on the other side of the zone of death. + +G.H.Q. means General Headquarters and B.E.F., which shows the +way for your letters from England, means British Expeditionary Force. +The high leading, the brains of the army, are theoretically at G.H.Q. +That word theoretically is used advisedly in view of opinion at other +points. An officer sent from G.H.Q. to command a brigade had not +been long out before he began to talk about those confounded one- +thing-and-another fellows at G.H.Q. When he was at G.H.Q. he used +to talk about those confounded one-thing-and-another fellows who +commanded corps, divisions, and brigades at the front. The +philosophers of G.H.Q. smiled and the philosophers of the army +smiled--it was the old story of the staff and the line; of the main office +and the branches. But the line did the most smiling to see the new +brigadier getting a taste of his own medicine. + +G.H.Q. directs the whole; here every department of all that vast +concern which supplies the hundreds of thousands of men and +prepares for the other hundreds of thousands is focussed. The +symbol of its authority is a red band round the cap, which means that +you are a staff officer. No war at G.H.Q., only the driving force of war. +It seems as far removed from the front as the New York office of a +string of manufacturing plants. + +If one follows a red-banded cap into a door he sees other officers and +clerks and typewriters, and a sign which says that a department chief +has his desk in the drawing-room of a private house--where he has +had it for months. Go to one mess and you will hear talk about +garbage pails and how to kill flies; to another, about hospitals and +clearing stations for the wounded; to another, about barbed wire, +sandbags, spades, timber, and galvanized iron--the engineers; to +another, about guns, shells, rifles, bullets, mortars, bombs, bayonets, +and high explosives--the ordnance; to another, about jam, bread, +bacon, uniforms, iron rations, socks, underclothes, tinned goods, +fresh beef, and motor-trucks--the Army Service Corps; to another, +about attacks, counter-attacks, and salients, and about what the +others are doing and will have to do--the operations. + +The Chief of Staff drives the eight-horse team. He works sixteen +hours a day. So do most of the others. This is how you prove to the +line that you have a right to be at G.H.Q. When you get to know +G.H.Q. it seems like any other business institution. Many are there +who do not want to be there; but they have been found out. They are +specialists, who know how to do one thing particularly well and are +kept doing it. No use of growling that you would like a "fighting job." + +G.H.Q. is the main station on the road of war, which hears the sound +of the guns faintly. Beyond is the region of all the activities that it +commands, up to the trenches, where all roads end and all efforts +consummate. One has seen dreary flat lands of mud and leafless +trees become fair with the spring, the growing harvest reaped, and +the leaves begin to fall. Always the factory of war was in the same +place; the soldiers billeted in the same towns; the puffs of shrapnel +smoke over the same belt of landscape; the ruins of the same +villages being pounded by high explosives. Always the sound of +guns; always the wastage of life, as passing ambulances, the curtains +drawn, speed by, their part swiftly and covertly done. The enormity of +the thing holds the imagination; its sure and orderly processes of an +organized civilization working at destruction win the admiration. There +is a thrill in the courage and sacrifice and the drilled readiness of +response to orders. + +The spectator is under varying spells. To-day he seems in a fantastic +world, whose horror makes it impossible of realization. To-morrow, as +his car takes him along a pleasant by-road among wheat-fields where +peasants are working and no soldier is in sight, it is a world of peace +and one thinks that he has mistaken the roar of a train for the distant +roar of gun-fire. Again, it seems the most real of worlds, an exclusive +man's world, where nothing counts but organized material force, and +all those cleanly, well-behaved men in khaki are a part of the +permanent population. + +One sees the war as a colossal dynamo, where force is perpetual like +the energy of the sun. The war is going on for ever. The reaper cuts +the harvest, but another harvest comes. War feeds on itself, renews +itself. Live men replace the dead. There seems no end to supplies of +men. The pounding of the guns, like the roar of Niagara, becomes +eternal. Nothing can stop it. + + + + +XIV +Trenches In Winter + + + +The difference between trench warfare in winter and in summer is +that between sleeping on the lawn in March and in July. It was in the +mud and winds of March that I first saw the British front. The winds +were much like the seasonal winds at home; but the Flanders mud is +like no other mud, in the judgment of the British soldier. It is mixed +with glue. When I returned to the front in June for a longer stay, the +mud had become clouds of dust that trailed behind the motor-car. + +In March my eagerness to see a trench was that of one from the +Western prairies to get his first glimpse of the ocean. Once I might go +into a trench as often as I pleased I became "fed up" with trenches, +as the British say. They did not mean much more than an alley or a +railway cutting. One came to think of the average peaceful trench as +a ditch where some men were eating marmalade and bully beef and +looking across a field at some more men who were eating sausage +and "K.K." bread, each party taking care that the other did not see +him. + +Writers have served us trenches in every possible literary style that +censorship will permit. Whoever "tours" them is convinced that none +of the descriptions published heretofore has been adequate and +writes one of his own which will be final. All agree that it is not like +what they thought it was. But, despite all the descriptions, the public +still fails to visualize a trench. You do not see a trench with your eyes +so much as with your mind and imagination. That long line where all +the powers of destruction within man's command are in deadlock has +become a symbol for something which cannot be expressed by +words. No one has yet really described a shell-burst, or a flash of +lightning, or Niagara Falls; and no one will ever describe a trench. He +cannot put anyone else there. He can only be there himself. + +The first time that I looked over a British parapet was in the edge of a +wood. Board walks ran across the spongy earth here and there; the +doors of little shanties with earth roofs opened on to those streets, +which were called Piccadilly and the Strand. I was reminded of a +pleasant prospector's camp in Alaska. Only, everybody was in +uniform and occasionally something whished through the branches of +the trees. One looked up to see what it was and where it was going, +this stray bullet, without being any wiser. + +We passed along one of the walks until we came to a wall of +sandbags--simply white bags about three-quarters of the size of an +ordinary pillowslip, filled with earth and laid one on top of another like +bags of grain. You stood beside a man who had a rifle laid across the +top of the pile. Of course, you did not wear a white hat or wave a +handkerchief. One does not do that when he plays hide-and-seek. + +Or, if you preferred, you might look into a chip of glass, with your +head wholly screened by the wall of sandbags, which got a reflection +from another chip of glass above the parapet. This is the trench +periscope; the principle of all of them is the same. They have no more +variety than the fashion in knives, forks and spoons on the dinner +table. + +One hundred and fifty yards away across a dead field was another +wall of sandbags. The distance is important. It is always stated in all +descriptions. One hundred and fifty yards is not much. Only when you +get within forty or fifty yards have you something to brag about. Yet +three hundred yards may be more dangerous than fifteen, if an +artillery "hate" is on. + +Look for an hour, and all you see is the wall of sandbags. Not even a +rabbit runs across that dead space. The situation gets its power of +suggestion from the fact that there are Germans behind the other +wall--real, live Germans. They are trying to kill the British on our side +and we are trying to kill them; and they are as coyly unaccommodating +about putting up their heads as we are. The emotion of the situation +is in the fact that a sharpshooter might send a shot at your cap; he +might smash a periscope; a shell might come. A rifle cracks--that is +all. Nearly everyone has heard the sound, which is no different at the +front than elsewhere. And the sound is the only information you get. +It is not so interesting as shooting at a deer, for you can tell whether +you hit him or not. The man who fires from a trench is not even certain +whether he saw a German or not. He shot at some shadow or object +along the crest which might have been a German head. + +Thus, one must take the word of those present that there is any more +life behind than in front of the sandbags. However, if you are sceptical +you may have conviction by starting to crawl over the top of the +British parapet. After dark the soldiers will slip over and bring back +your body. It is this something you do not see, this something +visualized by the imagination, which convinces you that you ought to +be considerate enough of posterity to write the real description of a +trench. Look for an hour at that wall of sandbags and your +imagination sees more and more, while your eye sees only +sandbags. What does this war mean to you? There it is: only you can +describe what this war means to you. + +Many a soldier who has spent months in trenches has not seen a +German. I boast that I have seen real Germans through my glasses. +They were walking along a road back of their trenches. It was most +fascinating. All the Germans I had ever seen in Germany were not +half so interesting. I strained my eyes watching those wonderful +beings as I might strain them at the first visiting party from Mars to +earth. There must have been at least ten out of the Kaiser's millions. + +In summer that wood had become a sylvan bower, or a pastoral +paradise, or a leafy nook, as you please. The sun played through the +branches in a patchwork; flowers bloomed on the dirt roofs of the +shanties, and a swallow had a nest--famous swallow!--on one of the +parapets. True, it was not on the front parapet; it was on the reserve. +The swallow knew what he was about. He was taking a reasonable +amount of risk and playing reasonably secure to get a front seat, +according to the ethics of the war correspondent. The two walls of +sandbags were in the same place that they had been six months +previously. A little patching had been done after some shells had hit +the mark, though not many had come. + +For this was a quiet corner. Neither side was interested in stirring up +the hornets' nest. If a member of Parliament wished to see what +trench life was like he was brought here, because it was one of the +safest places for a few minutes' look at the sandbags which Mr. +Atkins stared at week in and week out. Some Conservatives, +however, in the case of Radical members, would have chosen a +different kind of trench to show; for example, that one which was +suggested to me by the staff officer with the twinkle in his eye on my +best day at the front. + +In want of an army pass to the front in order to write your own +description, then, put up a wall of sandbags in a vacant lot and +another one hundred and fifty yards away and fire a rifle occasionally +from your wall at the head of a man on the opposite side, who will +shoot at yours--and there you are. If you prefer the realistic to the +romantic school and wish to appreciate the nature of trench life in +winter, find a piece of wet, flat country, dig a ditch seven or eight feet +deep, stand in icy water looking across at another ditch, and sleep in +a cellar that you have dug in the wall, and you are near +understanding what Mr. Atkins has been doing for his country. The +ditch should be cut zigzag in and out, like the lines dividing the +squares of a checker-board; that makes more work and localizes the +burst of shells. + +Of course, the moist walls will be continually falling in and require +mending in a drenching, freezing rain of the kind that the Lord visits +on all who wage war underground in Flanders. Incidentally, you must +look after the pumps, lest the water rise to your neck. For all the while +you are fighting Flanders mud as well as the Germans. + +To carry realism to the limit of the Grand Guignol school, then, +arrange some bags of bullets with dynamite charges on a wire, which +will do for shrapnel; plant some dynamite in the parapet, which will do +for high explosive shells that burst on contact; sink heavier charges of +dynamite under your feet, which will do for mines, and set them off, +while you engage someone to toss grenades and bombs at you. + +Though scores of officers' letters had given their account of trench life +with the vividness of personal experience, I must mention my first +trench in Flanders in winter when, with other correspondents, I saw +the real thing under the guidance of the commanding officer of that +particular section, a slight, wiry man who wore the ribbon of the +Victoria Cross won in another war for helping to "save the guns." He +made seeing trenches in the mud seem a pleasure trip. He was the +kind who would walk up to his ball as if he knew how to play golf, +send out a clean, fair, long drive, and then use his iron as if he knew +how to use an iron, without talking about his game on the way around +or when he returned to the club-house. Men could go into danger +behind him without realizing that they were in danger; they could +share hardship without realizing that there were any hardships. Such +as he put faith and backbone into a soldier by their very manner; and +if their professional training equal their talents, when war comes they +win victories. + +We had rubber boots, electric torches, and wore British warms, those +short, thick coats which collect a modicum of mud for you to carry +besides what you are carrying on your boots. We walked along a +hard road in the dark toward an aurora borealis of German flares, +which popped into the sky like Roman candles and burst in circles of +light. They seemed to be saying: "Come on! Try to crawl up on us +and play us a trick and our eyes will find you and our marksmen will +stop you. Come on! We make the night into day, and watching never +ceases from our parapet." + +Occasional rifle-shots and a machine-gun's ter-rut were audible from +the direction of the jumping red glare, which stretched right and left as +far as the eye could see. We broke off the road into a morass of mud, +as one might cross fields when he had lost his way, and plunged on +till the commanding officer said, "We go in here!" and we descended +into a black chasm in the earth. The wonder was that any ditch could +be cut in soil which the rains had turned into syrup. Mud oozed from +the sandbags, through the wire netting, and between the wooden +supports which held the walls in place. It was just as bad over in the +German trenches. General Mud laid siege to both armies. The field of +battle where he gathered his gay knights was a slough. His tug of war +was strife against landslides, rheumatism, pneumonia, and frozen +feet. + +The soldier tries to kill his adversary; he tries to prevent his adversary +from killing him. He is as busy in safeguarding as in taking life. While +he breathes, thinks, fights mud, he blesses as well as curses mud. +Mother Earth is still unconquerable. In her bosom man still finds +security; such security that "dug in" he can defy at a hundred yards' +distance rifles that carry death three thousand yards. She it is that +has made the deadlock in the trenches and plastered their occupants +with her miry hands. + +The C.O. lifted a curtain of bagging as you might lift a hanging over +an alcove bookcase, and a young officer, rising from his blankets in +his house in the trench wall to a stooping posture, said that all was +quiet. His uniform seemed fleckless. Was it possible that he wore +some kind of cloth which shed mud spatters? He was another of the +type of Captain Q------, my host at Neuve Chapelle; a type formed on +the type of seniors such as his C.O. Unanalysable this quality, but +there is something distinguished about it and delightfully appealing. A +man who can be the same in a trench in Flanders in mid-winter as in +a drawing-room has my admiration. They never lose their manner, +these English officers. They carry it into the charge and back in the +ambulance with them to England, where they wish nothing so much +as that their friends will "cut out the hero stuff," as our own officers +say. + +In other dank cellars soldiers who were off guard were lying or sitting. +The radiance of the flares lighted the profiles of those on guard, +whose faces were half-hidden by coat-collars or ear-flaps-- +imperturbable, silent, marooned and marooning, watchful and +fearless. The thing had to be done and they were doing it; and they +were going to keep on doing it. + +There was nothing dry in that trench, unless it was the bowl of a +man's pipe. There were not even any braziers. In your nostrils was +the odour of the soil of Flanders cultivated by many generations +through many wars. As night wore on the sky was brightened by cold, +winter stars and their soft light became noticeable between the +disagreeable flashes of the flares. + +We walked on and on. It was like walking in a winding ditch; that was +all. The same kind of walls at every turn; the same kind of dim figures +in saturated, heavy army overcoats. Slipping off the board walk into +the ooze, one was thrown against the mud wall as his foot sank. Then +he held fast to his boot-straps lest the boot remain in the mud while +his foot came out. Only the CO. never slipped. He knew how to tour +trenches. Beside him the others were as clumsy as if they were trying +to walk a tight-rope. + +"Good-night!" he said to each group of men as he passed, with the +cheer of one who brings a confident spirit to vigils in the mud and with +that note of affection of the commander who has learned to love his +men by the token of ordeals when he saw them hold fast against +odds. + +"Good-night, sir!" they answered; and in their tone was something +which you liked to hear--a finer tribute to the CO. than medals which +kings can bestow. It was affection and trust. They were ready to +follow him, for they knew that he knew how to lead. I was not +surprised when I heard of his promotion, later. I shall not be surprised +when I hear of it again. For he had brain and heart and the gift of +command. + +"Shall we go on or shall we go back?" he asked when we had gone +about a mile. "Have you had enough?" + +We had, without a dissenting voice. A ditch in the mud, that was all, +no matter how much farther we went. So we passed out of the trench +into a soapy, slippery mud which had been ploughed ground in the +autumn, now become lathery with the beat of men's steps. Our party +became separated when some foundered and tried to hoist +themselves with both boot-straps at once. The CO. called out in order +to locate us in the darkness, and the voice of an officer in the +trenches cut in, "Keep still! The Germans are only a hundred yards +away!" + +"Sorry!" whispered the CO. "I ought to have known better." + +Then one of the German searchlights that had been swinging its +stream of light across the paths of the flares lay its fierce, comet eye +on us, glistening on the froth-streaked mud and showing each mud- +splashed figure in heavy coat in weird silhouette. + +"Standstill!" + +That is the order whenever the searchlights come spying in your +direction. So we stood still in the mud, looking at one another and +wondering. It was the one tense second of the night, which lifted our +thoughts out of the mud with the elation of risk. That searchlight was +the eye of death looking for a target. With the first crack of a bullet we +should have known that we were discovered and that it was no longer +good tactics to stand still. We should have dropped on all fours into +the porridge. The searchlight swept on. Perhaps Hans at the +machine-gun was nodding or perhaps he did not think us worth while. +Either supposition was equally agreeable to us. + +We kept moving our mud-poulticed feet forward, with the flares at our +backs, till we came to a road where we saw dimly a silent company of +soldiers drawn up and behind them the supplies for the trench. +Through the mud and under cover of darkness every bit of barbed +wire, every board, every ounce of food, must go up to the moles in +the ditch. The searchlights and the flares and the machine-guns +waited for the relief. They must be fooled. But in this operation most +of the casualties in the average trenches, both British and German, +occurred. Without a chance to strike back, the soldier was shot at by +an assassin in the night. + +When the men who had been serving their turn of duty in the +trenches came out, a magnet drew their weary steps--cleanliness. +They thought of nothing except soap and water. For a week they +need not fight mud or Germans or parasites, which, like General Mud, +waged war against both British and Germans. Standing on the slats +of the concrete floor of a factory, they peeled off the filthy, saturated +outer skin of clothing with its hideous, crawling inhabitants and, +naked, leapt into great steaming vats, where they scrubbed and +gurgled and gurgled and scrubbed. When they sprang out to apply +the towels, they were men with the feel of new bodies in another +world. + +Waiting for them were clean clothes, which had been boiled and +disinfected; and waiting, too, was the shelter of their billets in the +houses of French towns and villages, and rest and food and food and +rest, and newspapers and tobacco and gossip--but chiefly rest and +the joy of lethargy as tissue was rebuilt after the first long sleep, often +twelve hours at a stretch. They knew all the sensations of physical +man, man battling with nature, in contrasts of exhaustion and danger +and recuperation and security, as the pendulum swung slowly back +from fatigue to the glow of strength. + +Those who came out of the trenches quite "done up," Colonel Bate, +Irish and genial, fatherly and not lean, claimed for his own. After the +washing they lay on cots under a glass roof, and they might play +dominoes and read the papers when they were well enough to sit up. +They had the food which Colonel Bate knew was good for them, just +as he knew what was deadly for the inhabitants whom they brought +into that isolated room which every man must pass through before he +was admitted to the full radiance of the colonel's curative smile. When +they were able to return to the trenches, each was written down as +one unit more in the colonel's weekly statistical reports. In summer he +entertained al fresco in an open-air camp. + + + + +XV +In Neuve Chapelle + + + +Typical of many others, this quiet village in a flat country of rich +farming land, with a church, a school, a post-office, and stores where +the farmer could buy a pound of sugar or a spool of thread, employ a +notary, or get a pair of shoes cobbled or a horse shod, without having +to go to the neighbouring town of Bethune, Neuve Chapelle became +famous only after it had ceased to exist--unless a village remains a +village after it has been reduced to its original elements by shell-fire. + +It was the scene of one of those actions in the long siege line which +have the dignity of a battle; the losses on either side, about sixteen +thousand, were two-thirds of those at Waterloo or Gettysburg. Here +the British after the long winter's stalemate in the mud, where they +stuck when the exhausted Germans could press no farther, took the +offensive, with the sap of spring rising in their veins. + +The guns blazed the way and the infantry charged in the path of the +guns' destruction; and they kept on while the shield of shell-fire held. +When it left an opening for the German machine-guns through its +curtain and the German guns visited on the British what their guns +had been visiting on the Germans, the British stopped. A lesson was +learned; a principle established. A gain was made, if no goal were +reached. + +The human stone wall had moved. It had broken some barriers and +come to rest before others, again to become a stone wall. But it knew +that the thing could be done with guns and shells enough--and only +with enough. This means a good deal when you have been under +dog for a long time. Months were to pass waiting for enough shells +and guns, with many little actions and their steady drain of life, while +everyone looked back to Neuve Chapelle as a landmark. It was +something definite for a man to say that he had been wounded at +Neuve Chapelle and quite indefinite to say that he had been +wounded in the course of the day's work in the trenches. + +No one might see the battle in that sea of mud. He might as well have +looked at the smoke of Vesuvius with an idea of learning what was +going on inside of the crater. I make no further attempt at describing +it. My view came after the battle was over and the cauldron was still +steaming. + +Though in March, 1914, one would hardly have given Neuve +Chapelle, intact and peaceful, a passing glance from a motor-car, in +March, 1915, Neuve Chapelle in ruins was the one town in Europe +which I most wanted to see. Correspondents had not then +established themselves. The staff officer whom I asked if I might +spend a night in the new British line was a cautious man. He bade me +sign a paper freeing the British army from any responsibility. Judging +by the general attitude of the Staff, one could hardly take the request +seriously. One correspondent less ought to please any Staff; but he +said that he had an affection for the regulars and knew that there +were always plenty of recruits to take their places without resorting to +conscription. The real responsibility was with the Germans. He +suggested that I might go out to the German trenches and see if I +could obtain a paper from them. He thought if I were quick about it I +might get at least a yard in front of the British parapet in daylight. His +sense of humour I had recognized when we had met in Bulgaria. + +Any traveller is bound to meet men whom he has met before in the +travelled British army. At the brigade headquarters town, which, as +one of the officers said, proved that bricks and mortar can float in +mud, the face of the brigadier seemed familiar to me. I found that I +had met him in Shanghai in the Boxer campaign, when he had come +across a riotous China from India on one of those journeys in remote +Asia which British officers are fond of making. He was "all there," +whether dealing with a mob of Orientals or with Germans in the +trenches. I made myself at home in the parlour of the private house +occupied by himself and staff, while he went on with his work. No flag +outside the house; no sign that it was headquarters. Motor-cars +stopped only long enough for an officer to enter or alight. Brigade +headquarters is precisely the target that German aeroplanes or spies +like to locate for their guns. + +"Are you ready? Have you your rubber boots?" the brigadier asked a +few minutes later, as he put his head in at the parlour door. It would +not do to approach the trenches until after dark. Of course, I had +rubber boots. One might as well try to go to sea without a boat as to +trenches without rubber boots in winter. "I'll take my constitutional," he +added; "the trouble with this kind of war is that you get no exercise." + +He was a small man, but how he could walk! I began to understand +why the Boxers could not catch him. He turned back after we had +gone a mile or more and one of his staff went on with me to a point +where, just at dusk, I was turned over to another pilot, an aide from +battalion headquarters, and we set out across sodden fields that had +yielded beetroot in the last harvest, taking care not to step in shell- +holes. Dusk settled into darkness. No human being was in sight +except ourselves. + +"There's the first line of German trenches before the attack," said my +companion. "Our guns got fairly on them." Dimly I saw what seemed +like a huge, long, irregular furrow of earth which had been torn almost +out of the shape of a trench by British shells. "There was no living in it +when the guns began all together. The only thing to do was to get +out." + +Around us was utter silence, where the hell of thunders and +destruction by the artillery had raged during the battle. Then a spent +or ricochet bullet swept overhead, with the whistle of complaint of +spent bullets at having travelled far without hitting any object. It had +gone high over the British trenches; it had carried the full range, and +the chance of its hitting anyone was ridiculously small. But the nearer +you get to the trenches, the more likely these strays are to find a +victim. "Hit by a stray bullet!" is a very common saying at the front. + +At last we felt the solidity of a paved road under our feet, and +following this we came to a peasant's cottage. Inside, two soldiers +were sitting beside telephone and telegraph instruments, behind a +window stuffed with sandbags. On our way across the fields we had +stepped on wires laid on the ground; we had stooped to avoid wires +stretched on poles--the wires that form the web of the army's +intelligence. + +Of course, no two units of communication are dependent on one wire. +There is always a duplicate. If one is broken it is immediately +repaired. The factories spin out wire to talk over and barbed wire for +entanglements in front of trenches and weave millions of bags to be +filled with sand for breastworks to protect men from bullets. If Sir John +French wished, he could talk with Lord Kitchener in London and this +battalion headquarters at Neuve Chapelle within the same space of +time that a railroad president may speak over the Long Distance from +Chicago to New York and order dinner out in the suburbs. + +These two men at the table, their faces tanned by exposure, men in +the thirties, had the British regular of long service stamped all over +them. War was an old story to them; and an old story, too, laying +signal wires under fire. + +"We're very comfortable," said one. "No danger from stray bullets or +from shrapnel; but if one of the Jack Johnsons come in, why, there's +no more cottage and no more argument between you and me. We're +dead and maybe buried, or maybe scattered over the landscape, +along with the broken pieces of the roof." + +A soldier was on guard with bayonet fixed inside that little room, which +had passageway to the cellar past the table, among straw beds. This +seemed rather peculiar. The reason lay on one of the beds in a +private's khaki. He had come into the battalion's trenches from our +front and said that he belonged to the D------regiment and had been +out on patrol and lost his way. + +It was two miles to that regiment and two miles is a long distance to +stray between two lines of trenches so close together, when at any +point in your own line you will find friends. It was possible that this +fellow's real name was Hans Schmidt, who had learned cockney +English in childhood in London, and in a dead British private's uniform +had come into the British trenches to get information to which he was +anything but welcome. + +He was to be sent under guard to the D------regiment +for identification; and if he were found to be a Hans and not a +Tommy--well, though he had tried a very stupid dodge he must have +known what to expect when he was found out, if his officers had +properly trained him in German rules of war. + +I had a glimpse of him in the candlelight before stooping to feel my +way down three or four narrow steps to the cellar, where the farmer +ordinarily kept potatoes and vegetables. There were straw beds +around the walls here, too. The major commanding the battalion rose +from his seat at a table on which were some cutlery, a jam pot, +tobacco, pipes, a newspaper or two, and army telegraph forms and +maps. + +If the hosts of mansions could only make their hospitality as simple as +the major's, there would be less affectation in the world. He +introduced me to an officer sitting on the other side of the table and to +one lying in his blankets against the wall, who lifted his head and +blinked and said that he was very glad to see me. + +It is a small world, for China cropped up here, as it had at brigade +headquarters. The major had been in garrison at Peking when the +war began. If my shipmate on a long battleship cruise, Lt.-Col. Dion +Williams, U.S.M.C, reads this out in Peking let it tell him that the major +is just as urbane in the cellar of a second-rate farmhouse on the +outskirts of Neuve Chapelle as he would be in a corner of the Peking +Club. + +"How is it? Painful now?" asked the major of Captain P-----, on the +other side of the table. + +"Oh, no! It's quite all right," said the captain. + +"Using the sling?" + +"Part of the time. Hardly need it, though." + +Captain P-----was one of those men whose eyes are always smiling; +who seems, wherever he is, to be glad that he is not in a worse place; +who goes right on smiling at the mud in the trenches and bullets and +shells and death. They are not emotional, the British, perhaps, but +they are given to cheeriness, if not to laughter, and they have a way +of smiling at times when smiles are much needed. The smile is more +often found at the front than back at headquarters; or perhaps it is +more noticeable there. + +"You see, he got a bullet through the arm yesterday," the major +explained. "He was reported wounded, but remained on duty in the +trench." I saw that the captain would rather not have publicity given to +such an ordinary incident. He did not see why people should talk +about his arm. "You are to go with him into the trench for the night," +the major added; and I thought myself very lucky in my companion. + +"Aren't you going to have dinner with us?" the major asked him. + +"Why, I had something to eat not very long ago," said Captain P-----. +One was not sure whether he had or not. + +"There's plenty," said the major. + +"In that event, I don't see why I shouldn't eat when I have a chance," +the captain returned; which I found was a characteristic trench habit, +particularly in winter when exposure to the raw, cold air calls for plenty +of body-furnace heat. + +We had a ration soup and ration ham and ration prunes and cheese; +what Tommy Atkins gets. When we were outside the house and +starting for the trench this captain, with his wounded arm, wanted to +carry my knapsack. He seemed to think that refusal was breaking the +Hague conventions. + +Where we turned off the road, broken finger-points of brick walls in +the faint moonlight indicated the site of Neuve Chapelle; other +fragments of walls in front of us were the remains of a house; and +that broken tree-trunk showed what a big shell can do. The trunk, a +good eighteen inches in diameter, had not only been cut in two by +one of the monsters of the new British artillery, but had been carried +on for ten feet and left lying solidly in the bed of splinters of the top +of the stump. All this had been in the field of that battle of a day, +which was as fierce as the fiercest day at Gettysburg, and fought +within about the same space. Every tree, every square rod of ground, +had been paid for by shells, bullets, and human life. + +But now we were near the trenches; or, rather, the breastworks. We +are always speaking of the trenches, while not all parts of the line are +held by trenches. A trench is dug in the ground; a breastwork is +raised from the level of the ground. At some points a trench becomes +practically a breastwork, as its wall is raised to get free of the mud +and water. + +We came into the open and heard the sound of voices and saw a +spotty white wall; for some of the sandbags of the new British +breastworks still retained their original colour. On the reverse side of +this wall lines were leaning in readiness, their fixed bayonets faintly +gleaming in the moonlight. I felt of the edge of one and it was sharp, +quite prepared for business. In the surroundings of damp earth and +mud-bespattered men, this rifle seemed the cleanest thing of all, +meticulously clean, that ready weapon whose well-aimed and telling +fire, in obedient and cool hands, was the object of all the drill of the +new infantry in England; of all the drill of all infantry. Where pickets +watched in the open in the old days before armies met in pitched +battle, an occasional soldier now stands with rifle laid on the parapet, +watching. + +Across a reach of field faintly were made out the white spots of +another wall of breastworks, the German, at the edge of a stretch of +woods, the Bois du Bies. The British reached these woods in their +advance; but, their aeroplanes being unable to spot the fall of shells +in the mist, they had to fall back for want of artillery support. Along +this line where we stood outside the village they stopped; and to stop +is to set the spades going to begin the defences which, later, had +risen to a man's height, and with rifles and machine-guns had riddled +the German counter-attack. + +And the Germans had to go back to the edge of the woods, where +they, too, began digging and building their new line. So the enemies +were fixed again behind their walls of earth, facing each other across +the open, where it was death for any man to expose himself by day. + +"Will you have a shot, sir?" one of the sentries asked me. + +"At what?" + +"Why, at the top of the trench over there, or at anything you see +moving," he said. + +But I did not think that it was an invitation for a non-combatant to +accept. If the bullet went over the top of the trench it had still two +thousand yards and more to go, and it might find a target before it +died. So, in view of the law of probabilities, no bullet is quite waste. + +"Now, which is my house?" asked Captain P------. + +"I really can't find my own home in the dark." + +Behind the breastwork were many little houses three or four feet in +height, all of the same pattern, and made of boards and mud. The +mud is put on top to keep out shrapnel bullets. + +"Here you are, sir!" said a soldier. + +Asking me to wait until he made a light, the captain bent over as if +about to crawl under the top rail of a fence and his head disappeared. +After he had put a match to a candle and stuck it on a stick thrust into +the wall, I could see the interior of his habitation. A rubber sheet +spread on the moist earth served as floor, carpet, mattress, and bed. +At a squeeze there was room for two others besides himself. They +did not need any doormat, for when they lay down their feet would be +at the door. + +"Quite cosy, don't you think?" remarked the captain. He seemed to +feel that he had a royal chamber. But, then, he was the kind of man +who might sleep in a muddy field under a wagon and regard the +shelter of the wagon body as a luxury. "Leave your knapsack here," +he continued, "and we'll see what is doing along the line." + +In other words, after you had left your bag in the host's hall, he +suggested a stroll in the village or across the fields. But only to see +war would he have asked you to walk in such mud. + +"Not quite so loud!" he warned a soldier who was bringing up boards +from the rear under cover of darkness. "If the Germans hear they +may start firing." + +Two other men were piling mud on top of a section of breastwork at +an angle to the main line. + +"What is that for?" the captain asked. + +"They get an enfilade on us here, sir, and Mr.------ (the lieutenant) told +me to make this higher." + +"That's no good. A bullet will go right through," said the captain. "We'll +have to wait until we get more sandbags." + +A little farther on we came to an open space, with no protection +between us and the Germans. Half a dozen men were piling earth +against a staked chicken wire to extend the breastworks. Rather, they +were piling mud, and they were besmirched from head to foot. They +looked like reeking Neptunes rising from a slough. In the same +position in daylight, standing full height before German rifles at three +hundred yards, they would have been shot dead before they could +leap to cover. + +"How does it go?" asked the captain. + +"Very well, sir; though what we need is sandbags." + +"We'll have some up to-morrow." + +At the moment there was no firing in the vicinity. Faintly I heard the +Germans pounding stakes, at work improving their own breastworks. + +A British soldier appeared out of the darkness in front. + +"We've found two of our men out there with their heads blown off by +shells," he said. "Have we permission to go out and bury them, sir?" + +"Yes." + +They would be as safe as the fellows piling mud against the chicken +wire, unless the Germans opened fire. If they did, we could fire on +their working-party, or in the direction of the sound. For that matter, +we knew through our glasses by day the location of any weak places +in their breastworks, and they knew where ours were. A sort of "after- +you-gentlemen-if-you-fire-we-shall" understanding sometimes exists +between the foes up to a certain point. Each side understands +instinctively the limitation of that point. Too much noise in working, a +number of men going out to bury dead or making enough noise to be +heard, and the ball begins. A deep, broad ditch filled with water made +a break in our line. No doubt a German machine-gun was trained on +it. + +"A little bridging is required here," said the captain. "We'll have it done +to-morrow night. The break is no disadvantage if they attack; in fact, +we'd rather like to have them try for it. But it makes movement along +the line difficult by day." + +When we were across and once more behind the breastworks, he +called my attention to some high ground in the rear. + +"One of our officers took a short cut across there in daylight," he said. +"He was quite exposed, and they drew a bead on him from the +German trench and got him through the arm. Not a serious hit. It +wasn't cricket for anyone to go out to bring him in. He realized this, +and called out to leave him to himself, and crawled to cover." + +I was getting the commonplaces of trench life. Thus far it had been a +quiet night and was to remain so. Reddish, flickering swaths of light +were thrown across the fields between the trenches by the enemy's +Roman candle flares. One tried to estimate how many flares the +Germans must use every night from Switzerland to the North Sea. + +On our side, the only light was from our braziers. Thomas Atkins has +become a patron of braziers made by punching holes in buckets; and +so have the Germans. Punch holes in a bucket, start a fire inside, +and you have cheer and warmth and light through the long night +vigils. Two or three days before we had located a sniper between the +lines by seeing him swing his fire-pot to make a draught against the +embers. + +If you have ever sat around a camp-fire in the forest or on the plains +you need be told nothing further. One of the old, glamorous features +of war survives in these glowing braziers, spreading their genial rays +among the little houses and lighting the faces of the men who stand +or squat in encircling groups around the coals, which dry wet clothes, +slake the moisture of a section of earth, make the bayonets against +the walls glisten, and reveal the position of a machine-gun with its +tape ready for firing. + +Values are relative, and a brazier in the trenches makes the +satisfaction of a steam-heated room in winter very superficial and +artificial. You are at home there with Tommy Atkins, regular of an old +line English regiment, in his heavy khaki overcoat and solid boots and +wool puttees, a sturdy, hardened man of a terrific war. He, the +regular, the shilling-a-day policeman of the empire, was still doing the +fighting at the front. The new army, which embraces all classes, was +not yet in action. + +This man and that one were at Mons. This one and that one had +been through the whole campaign without once seeing Mother +England for whom they were fighting. The affection in which Captain +P------was held extended through his regiment, for we had left his own +company behind. At every turn he was asked about his arm. + +"You've made a mistake, sir. This isn't a hospital," as one man +expressed it. Oh, but the captain was bored with hearing about that +arm! If he is wounded again I am sure that he will try to keep the fact +a secret. + +These veterans could "grouse," as the British call it. Grousing is one +of Tommy's privileges. When they got to grousing worst on the retreat +from Mons, their officers knew that what they really wanted was to +make another stand. They were tired of falling back; they meant to +take a rest and fight a while. Their language was yours, the language +in which our own laws and schoolbooks are written. They made the +old blood call. For months they had been taking bitter medicine; very +bitter for a British soldier. The way they took it will, perhaps, remain a +greater tribute than any part they play in future victories. + +"How do they feel in the States?" I was asked. "Against us?" + +"No. By no means." + +"I don't see how they could be!" Tommy exclaimed. + +Tommy may not be much on argument as it is developed by the +controversial spirit of college professors, but he had said about all +there was to say. How can we be? Hardly, after you come to know T. +Atkins and his officers and talk English with them around their camp- +fires. + +"The Germans are always sending up flares," I remarked. "You send +up none. How about it?" + +"It cheers them. They're downhearted!" said one of the group. "You +wouldn't deny them their fireworks, would you, sir?" + +"That shows who is top dog," said another. "They're the ones that are +worried." + +I had heard of trench exhaustion, trench despair, but there was no +sign of it in a regiment that had been through all the hell and mire that +the British army had known since the war began. To no one had +Neuve Chapelle meant so much as to these common soldiers. It was +their first real victory. They were standing on soil won from the +Germans. + +"We're going to Berlin!" said a big fellow who was standing, palms +downward to the fire. "It's settled. We're going to Berlin." + +A smaller man with his back against the sandbags disagreed. There +was a trench argument. + +"No, we're going to the Rhine," he said. "The Russians are going to +Berlin." (This was in March, 1915, remember.) + +"How can they when they ain't over the Balkans yet?" + +"The Carpathians, you mean." + +"Well, they're both mountains and the Russians have got to cross +them. And there's a place called Cracow in that region. What's the +matter of a pair of mountain ranges between you and me, Bill? You're +strong on geography, but you fail to follow the campaign." + +"The Rhine, I say!" + +"It's the Rhine first, but Berlin is what you want to keep your mind on." + +Then I asked if they had ever had any doubt that they would reach +the Rhine. + +"How could we, sir?" + +"And how about the Germans. Do you hate them?" + +"Hate!" exclaimed the big man. "What good would it do to hate them? +No, we don't hate. We get our blood up when we're fighting and when +they don't play the game. But hate! Don't you think that's kind of +ridiculous, sir?" + +"How do they fight?" + +"They take a bit of beating, do the Boches!" + +"So you call them Boches!" + +"Yes. They don't like that. But sometimes we call them Allemands, +which is Germans in French. Oh, we're getting quite French +scholars!" + +"They're good soldiers. Not many tricks they're not up to. But in my +opinion they're overdoing the hate. You can't keep up to your work on +hate, sir. I should think it would be weakening to the mind, too." + +"Still, you would like the war over? You'd like to go home?" + +They certainly would. Back to the barracks, out of the trenches! They +certainly would. + +"And call it a draw?" + +"Call it a draw, now! Call it a draw, after all we've been through------" + +"Spring is coming. The ground will dry up and it will be warm." + +"And the going will be good to Berlin, as it was back from Paris in +August, we tell the Boches." + +"Good for the Russians going over the Carpathians, or the Pyrenees, +or whatever those mountains are, too. I read they're all covered with +snow in winter." + +It was good, regular soldier talk, very "homey" to me. As you will +observe, I have not elided the h's. Indeed, Tommy has a way of +prefixing his h's to the right vowels more frequently than a generation +ago. The Soldiers Three type has passed. Popular education will +have its way and induce better habits. Believing in the old remedy for +exhaustion and exposure to cold, the army served out a tot of rum +every day to the men. But many of them are teetotalers, these hardy +regulars, and not even Mulvaney will think them effeminate when they +have seen fighting which makes anything Mulvaney ever saw child's +play. So they asked for candy and chocolate, instead of rum. + +Some people have said that Tommy has no patriotism. He fights +because he is paid and it is his business. That is an insinuation. +Tommy doesn't care for the "hero stuff," or for waving flags and +speechmaking. Possibly he knows how few Germans that sort of +thing kills. His weapons are bullets. To put it cogently, he is fighting +because he doesn't want any Kaiser "in his." + +Is not that what all the speeches in Parliament are about and all the +editorials and the recruiting campaign? Is not that what England and +France are fighting for? It seems to me that Tommy's is a very +practical patriotism, free from cant; and the way that he refuses to +hate or to get excited, but sticks to it, must be very irritating to the +Germans. + +"Would you like a Boche helmet for a souvenir, sir?" asked a soldier +who appeared on the outer edge of the group. He was the small, +active type, a British soldier with the élan of the Frenchman. "There +are lots of them out among the German dead "--the unburied German +dead who fell like grass before the mower in a desperate and futile +counter-attack to recover Neuve Chapelle. "I'll have one for you on +your way back." + +There was no stopping him; he had gone. + +"Matty's a devil!" said the big man. "He'll get it, all right. He's equal +to reaching over the Boches' parapet and picking one off a Boche's +head!" + +As we proceeded on our way, officers came out of the little houses to +meet Captain P------and the stranger civilian. They had to come out, +as there was no room to take us inside; and sometimes they talked +shop together after I had answered the usual question, "Is America +against us?" There seemed to be an idea that we were, possibly +because of the prodigious advertising tactics of a minority. But any +feeling that we might be did not interfere with their simple courtesy, or +lead them to express any bitterness or break into argument. + +"How are things going on over your side?" + +"Nicely." + +"Any shelling?" + +"A little this morning. No harm done." + +"We cleaned out one bad sniper to-day." + +"Ought to have some sandbags up to-night." + +"It's a bad place there. They've got a machine-gun trained which has +quite a sweep. I asked if the artillery shouldn't put in a word, but the +general didn't think it worth while." + +"You must run across that break. Three or four shots at you every +time. We're gradually getting shipshape, though." + +Just then a couple of bullets went singing overhead. The group paid +no attention to them. If you paid attention to bullets over the parapet +you would have no time for anything else. But these bullets have a +way of picking off tall officers who are standing up among their +houses. In the course of their talk they happened to speak of such an +instance, though not with reference to the two bullets I have +mentioned. + +"Poor S------did not last long. He had been out only three weeks." + +"How is J------? Hit badly?" + +"Through the shoulder; not seriously." + +"H------is back. Recovered very quickly." + +Normal trench talk, this! A crack which signifies that the bullet has hit +--another man down. One grows accustomed to it, and one of this +group of officers might be gone to-morrow. + +"I have one, sir," said Matty, exhibiting a helmet when we returned +past his station. "Bullet went right through the head and came out the +peak!" + +It was time that Captain P------ was back to his own command. As we +came to his company's line word was just being passed from sentry +to sentry: + +"No firing. Patrols going out." + +It was midnight now. + +"We'll go in the other direction," said Captain P------ when he had +learned that there was no news. + +This brought us to an Irish regiment. The Irish naturally had +something to say. + + + + +XVI +Nearer The Germans + + + +Here not the Irish Sea lay between the broad a and the brogue, but +the space between two sentries or between two rifles with bayonets +fixed, lying against the wall of the breastworks ready for their owners' +hands when called to arms in case of an alarm. One stepped from +England into Ireland; and my prediction that the Irish would have +something to say was correct. + +The first man who made his presence felt was a good six feet in +height, with a heavy moustache and the earpieces of his cap tied +under his chin, though the night was not cold. He placed himself fairly +in front of me in the narrow path back of the breastworks and he +looked a cowled and sinister figure in the faint glow from a brazier. I +certainly did not want any physical argument with a man of his build. + +"Who are you?" he demanded, as stiffly as if I had broken in at the +veranda window with a jemmy. + +For the nearer you come to the front, the more you feel that you are +in the way. You are a stray extra piece of baggage; a dead human +weight. Everyone is doing something definite as a part of the machine +except yourself; and in your civilian clothes you feel the self- +conscious conspicuousness of appearing on a dancing-floor in a +dressing-gown. + +Captain P------was a little way back in another passage. I was alone +and in a rough tweed suit--a strange figure in that world of khaki and +rifles. + +"A German spy! That's why I am dressed this way, so as not to excite +suspicion," I was going to say, when a call from Captain P------ +identified me, and the sentry's attitude changed as suddenly as if the +inspector of police had come along and told a patrolman that I might +pass through the fire lines. + +"So it's you, is it, right from America?" he said. "I've a sister living at +Nashua, New Hampshire, U.S.A. with three brothers in the United +States army." + +Whether he had or not you can judge as well as I by the twinkle in his +eye. He might have had five, and again he might not have one. I was +a tenderfoot seeing the trenches. + +"It's mesilf that's going to America when me sarvice in the army is up +in one year and six months," he continued. "That's some time yet. I'm +going if I'm not killed by the Germans. It's a way that they have, or we +wouldn't be killing them." + +"What are you going to do in America? Enlist in the army?" + +"No. I'm looking for a better job. I'm thinking I'll be one of your +millionaires. Shure, but that would be to me taste." + +Not one Irishman was speaking really, but a dozen. They came out of +their little houses and dug-outs to gather around the brazier; and for +every remark I made I received a fusillade in reply. It was an event, +an American appearing in the trench in the small hours of the +morning. + +A trench-toughened, battle-toughened old sergeant was sitting in the +doorway of his dug-out, frying a strip of bacon over one rim of the +brazier and making tea over the other. The bacon sizzled with an +appetizing aroma and a bullet sizzled harmlessly overhead. Behind +that wall of sandbags all were perfectly safe, unless a shell came. But +who worries about shells? It is like worrying about being struck by +lightning when clouds gather in a summer sky. + +"It looks like good bacon," I remarked. + +"It is that!" said the sergeant. "And the hungrier ye are the better. It's +your nose that's telling ye so this minute. I can see that ye're hungry +yoursilf!" + +"Then you're pretty well fed?" + +"Well fed, is it? It's stuffed we are, like the geese that grow the paty- +what-do-you-call-it? Eating is our pastime. We eat when we've +nothing else to do and when we've got something to do. We get eggs +up here--a fine man is Lord Kitchener--yes, sir, eggs up here in the +trenches!" + +When they seemed to think that I was sceptical, he produced some +eggs in evidence. + +"And if ye'll not have the bacon, ye'll have a drop of tea. Mind now, +while your tongue is trying to be polite, your stomach is calling your +tongue a liar!" + +Wouldn't I have a souvenir? Out came German bullets and buckles +and officers' whistles and helmets and fragments of shells and +German diaries. + +"It's easy to get them out there where the Germans fell that thick!" I +was told. "And will ye look at this and take it home to give your pro- +German Irish in America, to show what their friends are shooting at +the Irish? I found them mesilf on a dead German." + +He passed me a clip of German bullets with the blunt ends instead of +the pointed ends out. The change is readily made, for the German +bullet is easily pulled out of the cartridge case and the pointed end +thrust against the powder. Thus fired, it goes accurately four or five +hundred yards, which is more than the average distance between +German and British trenches. When it strikes flesh the effect is that of +a dum-dum and worse; for the jacket splits into slivers, which spread +through the pulpy mass caused by the explosion. A leg or an arm +thus hit must almost invariably be amputated. I am not suggesting +that this is a regular practice with German soldiers, but it shows what +wickedness is in the power of the sinister one. + +"But ye'll take the tea," said the sergeant, "with a little rum hot in it. +'Twill take the chill out of your bones." + +"What if I haven't a chill in my bones?" + +"Maybe it's there without speaking to ye and it will be speaking before +an hour longer--or afther ye're home between the sheets with the +rheumatiz, and yell be saying, 'Why didn't I take that glass?' which +I'm holding out to ye this minute, steaming its invitation to be drunk." + +It was a memorable drink. Snatches of brogue followed me from the +brazier's glow when I insisted that I must be going. + +Now our breastworks took a turn and we were approaching closer to +the German breastworks. Both lines remained where they had "dug +in" after the counter-attacks which followed the battle had ceased. +Ground is too precious in this siege warfare to yield a foot. Soldiers +become misers of soil. Where the flood is checked there you build +your dam against another flood. + +"We are within about sixty yards of the Germans," said Captain P------ +at length, after we had gone in and out of the traverses and left the +braziers well behind. + +Between the spotty, whitish wall of German sandbags, quite distinct in +the moonlight, and our parapet were two mounds of sandbags about +twenty feet apart. Snug behind one was a German and behind the +other an Irishman, both listening. They were within easy bombing +range, but the homicidal advantage of position of either resulted in a +truce. Sixty yards! Pace it off. It is not far. In other places the enemies +have been as close as five yards--only a wall of earth between them. +Where a bombing operation ends in an attack, a German is naturally +on one side of a traverse and a Briton on the other. + +The Germans were as busy as beavers dam-building. They had a lot +of work to do before they had their new defences right. We heard +them driving stakes and spading; we heard their voices with snatches +of sentences intelligible, and occasionally the energetic, shouted, +guttural commands of their officers. All through that night I never +heard a British officer speak above a conversational tone. The orders +were definite enough, but given with a certain companionable +kindliness. I have spoken of the genuine affection which his men +showed for Captain P------, and I was beginning to appreciate that it +was not a particular instance. + +"What if you should shout at Tommy in the German fashion?" I +asked. + +"He wouldn't have it; he'd get rebellious," was the reply. "No, you +mustn't yell at Tommy. He's a little temperamental about some things +and he will not be treated as if he were just a human machine." + +Yet no one will question the discipline of the British soldier. Discipline +means that the officer knows his men, and British discipline, which +bears a retreat like that from Mons, requires that the man likes to +follow his officers, believes in his officers, loves his officers. Each +army and each people to its own ways. + +Sixty yards! And the dead between the trenches and death lurking +ready at a trigger's pull should life show itself! When daylight comes +the British sing out their "Good-morning, Germans!" and the Germans +answer, "Good-morning, British!" without adding, "We hope to kill +some of you to-day!" Ragging banter and jest and worse than jest +and grim defiance are exchanged between the trenches when they +are within such easy hearing distance of each other; but always from +a safe position behind the parapet which the adversaries squint +across through their periscopes. At the gibe business the German is, +perhaps, better than the Briton. + +Early in the evening a regiment on our right broke into a busy +fusillade at some fancied movement of the enemy. In trench talk that +is getting "jumpy." The Germans in front roared out their contempt in +a chorus of guying laughter. Toward morning, these same Germans +also became "jumpy" and began tearing the air with bullets, firing +against nothing but the blackness of night. Tommy Atkins only made +some characteristic comments; for he is a quiet fellow, except when +he is played on the music-hall stage. Possibly he feels the +inconsistency of laughter when you are killing human beings; for, as +his officers say, he is temperamental and never goes to the trouble of +analysing his emotions. A very real person and a good deal of a +philosopher is Mr. Atkins, Britain's professional fighting man, who was +the only kind of fighting man she had ready for the war. + +Any small boy who had never had enough fireworks in his life might +be given a job in the German trenches, with the privilege of firing +flares till he fell asleep from exhaustion. All night they were going, with +the regularity of clockwork. The only ones sent up from our side that +night were shot in order that I might get a better view of the German +dead. + +You know how water lies in the low places on the ground after a +heavy rain. Well, the patches of dead were like that, and dark in the +spots where they were very thick--dark as with the darkness of +deeper water. There were also irregular tongues of dead and +scattered dead, with arms outstretched or under them as they fell, +and faces white even in the reddish glare of the rockets and turned +toward you in the charge that failed under the withering blasts of +machine-guns, ripping out two or three hundred shots a minute, and +well-aimed rifle-bullets, each bullet getting its man. Threatening that +charge would have seemed to a recruit, but measured and calculated +in certainty of failure in the minds of veteran defenders, who knew +that the wheat could not stand before their mowers. Man's flesh is +soft and a bullet is hard and travels fast. + +One bit of satire which Tommy sent across the field covered with its +burden of slaughter to the Germans who are given to song, ought to +have gone home. It was: "Why don't you stop singing and bury your +dead?" But the Germans, having given no armistice in other times +when British dead lay before the trenches, asked for none here. The +dead were nearer to the British than to the Germans. The discomfort +would be in British and not German nostrils. And the dead cannot +fight; they can help no more to win victory for the Fatherland; and the +time is A.D. 1915. Two or three thousand German dead altogether, +perhaps--not many out of the Kaiser's millions. Yet they seemed a +great many to one who saw them lying there. + +We stopped to read by the light of a brazier some German soldiers' +diaries that the Irishmen had. They were cheap little books, bought for +a few cents, each one telling the dead man's story and revealing the +monotony of a soldier's existence in Europe to-day. These pawns of +war had been marched here and there, they never knew why. The +last notes were when orders came entraining them. They did not +know that they were to be sent out of those woods yonder to recover +Neuve Chapelle out of those woods in the test of all their drill and +waiting. A Bavarian officer--for these were Bavarians--actually rode in +that charge. He must have worked himself up to a strangely exalted +optimism and contempt of British fire. Or was it that he, too, did not +know what he was going against? that only the German general +knew? Neither he nor his horse lasted long; not more than a dozen +seconds. The thing was so splendidly foolhardy that in some little war +it might have become the saga of a regiment, the subject of ballads +and paintings. In this war it was an incident heralded for a day in one +command and forgotten the next. + +"Good-night!" called the Irish. + +"Good-night and good luck!" + +"Tell them in America that the Irish are still fighting!" + +"Good luck, and may your travelling be aisy; but if ye trip, may ye fall +into a gold mine!" + +We were back with the British regulars; and here, also, many of the +men remained up around the braziers. + +The hours of duty of the few on watch do not take many of the +twenty-four hours. One may sleep when he chooses in the little +houses behind the breastworks. Night melts into day and day into +night in the monotony of mud and sniping rifle-fire. By-and-by it is your +turn to go into reserve; your turn to get out of your clothes--for there +are no pyjamas for officers or men in these "crawls," as they are +sometimes called. Boots off is the only undressing; boots off and +puttees unloosed, which saves the feet. Yes, by-and-by the march +back to the rear, where there are tubs filled with hot water and an +outfit of clean clothes awaiting you, and nothing to do but rest and +sleep. + +"How soon after we leave the trenches may we cheer?" officers have +been asked in the dead of winter, when water stood deep over the +porous mud and morning found a scale of ice around the legs. + +You, nicely testing the temperature of your morning tub; you, satisfied +only with faucets of hot and cold water and a mat to stand on--you +know nothing about the joy of bathing. Your bath is a mere part of the +daily routine of existence. Try the trenches and get itchy with vermin; +then you will know that heaven consists of soap and hot water. + +No bad odour assails your nostrils wherever you may go in the British +lines. Its cleanliness, if nothing else, would make British army +comradeship enjoyable. My wonder never ceases how Tommy keeps +himself so neat; how he manages to shave every day and get a part, +at least, of the mud off his uniform. This care makes him feel more as +if he were "at home" in barracks. + +From the breastworks, Captain P------and I went for a stroll in the +Village, or the site of the village, silent except for the occasional +singing of a bullet. When we returned he lighted the candle on a stick +stuck into the wall of his earth-roofed house and suggested a nap. It +was three o'clock in the morning. Now I could see that my rubber +boots had grown so heavy because I was carrying so much of the soil +of Northern France. It looked as if I had gout in both feet--the over- +bandaged, stage type of gout--which were encased in large mud +poultices. I tried to stamp off the incubus, but it would not go. I tried +scraping one foot on the other, and what I scraped off seemed to +reattach itself as fast as I could remove it. + +"Don't try!" said the captain. "Lie down and pull your boots off in the +doorway. Perhaps you will get some sleep before daybreak." + +Sleep! Does a débutante go to sleep at her first ball? Sleep in such +good company, the company of this captain who was smiling all the +while with his eyes; smiling at his mud house, at the hardships in the +trenches, and, I hope, at having a guest who had been with armies +before! + +It was the first time that I had been in the trenches all night; the first +time, indeed, when I had not been taken into them by an escort in a +kind of promenade. On this account I was in the family. If it is the right +kind of a family, that is the way to get a good impression. There would +be plenty of time to sleep when I returned to London. + +So Captain P------ and I lay there talking. I felt the dampness of the +earth under my body and the walls exuded moisture. The average +cellar was dry by comparison. "You will get your death of cold!" any +mother would cry in alarm if her boy were found even sitting on such +cold, wet ground. For it was a clammy night of early spring. Yet, +peculiarly enough, few men get colds from this exposure. One gets +colds from draughts in overheated rooms much oftener. Luckily, it +was not raining; it had been raining most of the winter in the flat +country of Northern France and Flanders. + +"It is very horrible, this kind of warfare," said the captain. He was +thinking of the method of it, rather than of the discomforts. "All war is +very horrible, of course." Regular soldiers rarely take any other view. +They know war. + +"With your wounded arm you might be back in England on leave," I +suggested. + +"Oh, that arm is all right!" he replied. "This is what I am paid for"-- +which I had heard regulars say before. "And it is for England!" he +added, in his quiet way. "Sometimes I think we should fight better if +we officers could hate the Germans," he went on. "The German idea +is that you must hate if you are going to fight well. But we can't hate." + +Sound views he had about the war; sounder than I have heard from +the lips of Cabinet ministers. For these regular officers are specialists +in war. + +"Do you think that we shall starve the Germans out?" + +"No. We must win by fighting," he replied. This was in March, 1915. +"You know," he went on, taking another tack, "when one gets back to +England out of this muck he wants good linen and everything very +nice." + +"Yes. I've found the same after roughing it," I agreed. "One is most +particular that he has every comfort to which civilization entitles him." + +We chatted on. Much of our talk was soldier shop talk, which you will +not care to hear. Twice we were interrupted by an outburst of firing, +and the captain hurried out to ascertain the reason. Some false alarm +had started the rifles speaking from both sides. A fusillade for two or +three minutes and the firing died down to silence. + +Dawn broke and it was time for me to go; and with daylight, when +danger of a night surprise was over, the captain would have his +sleep. I was leaving him to his mud house and his bed on the wet +ground without a blanket. It was more important to have sandbags up +for the breastworks than to have blankets; and as the men had not +yet received theirs, he had none himself. + +"It's not fair to the men," he said. "I don't want anything they don't +have." + +No better food and no better house and no warmer garments! He +spoke not in any sense of stated duty, but in the affection of the +comradeship of war; the affection born of that imperturbable courage +of his soldiers who had stood a stone wall of cool resolution against +German charges when it seemed as if they must go. The glamour of +war may have departed, but not the brotherhood of hardship and +dangers shared. + +What had been a routine night to him had been a great night to me; +one of the most memorable of my life. + +"I was glad you could come," he said, as I made my adieu, quite as if +he were saying adieu to a guest at home in England. + +Some of the soldiers called their cheery good-byes; and with a +lieutenant to guide me, I set out while the light was still dusky, leaving +the comforting parapet to the rear to go into the open, four hundred +yards from the Germans. A German, though he could not have seen +us distinctly, must have noted something moving. Two of his bullets +came rather close before we passed out of his vision among some +trees. + +In a few minutes I was again entering the peasant's cottage that was +battalion headquarters; this time by daylight. Its walls were chipped by +bullets that had come over the breastworks. The major was just +getting up from his blankets in the cellar. By this time I had a real +trench appetite. Not until after breakfast did it occur to me, with some +surprise, that I had not washed my face. + +"The food was just as good, wasn't it?" remarked the major. "We get +quite used to such breaches of convention. Besides, you had been +up all night, so your breakfast might be called your after-the-theatre +supper." + +With him I went to see what the ruins of Neuve Chapelle looked like +by daylight. The destruction was not all the result of one +bombardment, for the British had been shelling Neuve Chapelle off +and on all winter. Of course, there is the old earthquake comparison. +All writers have used it. But it is quite too feeble for Neuve Chapelle. +An earthquake merely shakes down houses. The shells had done a +good deal more than that. They had crushed the remains of the +houses as under the pestle-head in a mortar; blown walls into dust; +taken bricks from the east side of the house over to the west and +thrown them back with another explosion. Neuve Chapelle had been +literally flailed with the high explosive projectiles of the new British +artillery, which the British had to make after the war began in order to +compete with what the Germans already had; for poor, lone, +wronged, bullied Germany, quite unprepared--Austria with her fifty +millions does not count--was fighting on the defensive against wicked, +aggressive enemies who were fully prepared. This explains why she +invaded France and took possession of towns like Neuve Chapelle to +defend her poor, unready people from the French, who had been +plotting and planning "the day" when they would conquer the +Germans. + +Bits of German equipment were mixed with ruins of clocks and family +pictures and household utensils. I noticed a bicycle which had been +cut in two, its parts separated by twenty feet; one wheel was twisted +into a spool of wire, the other simply smashed. + +Where was the man who had kept the shop with a few letters of his +name still visible on a splintered bit of board? Where the children who +had played in the littered square in front of the church, with its +steeples and walls piles of stone that had crushed the worshippers' +benches? Refugees somewhere back of the British lines, working on +the roads if strong enough, helping France in any way they could, not +murmuring, even smiling, and praying for victory, which would let +them return to their homes and daily duties. To their homes! + + + + + + + +XVII +With The Guns + + + +It is a war of explosions, from bombs thrown by hand within ten yards +of the enemy to shells thrown as far as twenty miles and to mines laid +under the enemy's trenches; a war of guns, from seventeen-inch +down to three-inch and machine-guns; a war of machinery, with man +still the pre-eminent machine. + +Guns mark the limit of the danger zone. Their screaming shells laugh +at the sentries at the entrances to towns and at cross-roads who +demand passes of all other travellers. Anyone who tried to keep out +of range of the guns would never get anywhere near the front. It is all +a matter of chance with long odds or short odds, according to the +neighbourhood you are in. If shells come, they come without warning +and without ceremony. Nobody is afraid of shells and everybody is--at +least, I am. + +"Gawd! Wat a 'ole!" remarks Mr. Thomas Atkins casually, at sight of +an excavation in the earth made by a thousand-pound projectile. + +It is only eighteen years since I saw, at the battle of Domoko in the +Greco-Turkish war, half a dozen Turkish batteries swing out on the +plain of Thessaly, limber up in the open, and discharge salvos with +black powder, in the good, old battle-panorama style. One battery of +modern field guns unseen would wipe out the lot in five minutes. Only +ten years ago, at the battle of Liao-yang, as I watched a cloud of +shrapnel smoke sending down steel showers over the little hill of +Manjanyama, which sent up showers of earth from shells burst by +impact on the ground, a Japanese military attaché remarked: + +"There you have a prophecy of what a European war will be like!" + +He was right. He knew his business as a military attaché. But the +Allies might also make guns and go on making them till they have +enough. The voices of the guns along the front seem never silent. In +some direction they are always firing. When one night the reports +from a certain quarter seemed rather heavy, I asked the reason the +next day. + +"No, not very heavy. No attack," a division staff officer explained. +"The Boches had been building a redoubt, and we turned on some +h.e.s."--meaning high explosive shells. + +Night after night, under cover of darkness, the Germans had been +labouring on that redoubt, thinking that they were unobserved. They +had kept extremely quiet, too, slipping their spades into the earth +softly and hammering a nail ever so lightly; and, of course, the +redoubt was placed behind a screen of foliage which hid it from the +view of the British trenches. Such is the hide-and-seek character of +modern war. + +What the German builders did not know was that a British aeroplane +had been watching them day by day, and that the spot was nicely +registered on a British gunner's map. On this map it was a certain +numbered point. Press a button, as it were, and you ring the bell with +a shell at that point. And the gunners waited till the house of cards +was up before knocking it to pieces. + +Surprise is the thing with the guns. A town may go for weeks without +getting a single shell. Then it may get a score of shells in ten minutes; +or it may be shelled regularly every day for ensuing weeks. "They are +shelling X again," or, "They have been leaving Z alone for a long +time," is a part of the gossip up and down the line. Towns are proud +of having escaped altogether, and proud of the number and size of +the shells received. + +"Did you get any?" I asked the division staff officer who had told me +about the session the six-inch howitzers had enjoyed. A common +question that, at the front, "Did you get any?" (meaning Germans). A +practical question, too. It has nothing to do with the form of play or +any bit of sensational fielding; only with the score, with results, with +casualties. + +"Yes, quite a number," said the officer. "Our observer saw them lying +about." + +The guns are watching for the targets at all hours--the ever-hungry, +ever-ready, murderous, cunning, quick, scientifically-calculating, +marvellously-accurate and also the guessing, wondering, blind, +groping, helpless guns, which toss their steel messengers over +streams, woodlands, and towns, searching for unseen prey in a wide +landscape. + +Accurate and murderous they seem when you drop low behind a +trench wall or huddle in a dug-out as you hear an approaching +scream and the earth trembles and the air is wracked by a +concussion, and the cry of a man a few yards away tells of a hit. Very +accurate when still others, sent from muzzles six or seven thousand +yards distant, fall in that same line of trench! Very accurate when, +before an infantry attack, with bursts of shrapnel bullets they cut to +bits the barbed-wire entanglements in front of a trench! The power of +chaos that they seem to possess when the firing-trench and the dug- +outs and all the human warrens which protect the defenders are +beaten as flour is kneaded! + +Blind and groping they seem when a dozen shells fall harmlessly in a +field; when they send their missiles toward objects which may not be +worth shooting at; when no one sees where the shells hit and the +amount of damage they have done is all guesswork; and helpless +without the infantry to protect them, the aeroplanes and the observers +to see for them. + +One thinks of them as demons with subtle intelligence and long +reach, their gigantic fists striking here and there at will, without a +visible arm behind the blow. An army guards against the blows of an +enemy's demons with every kind of cover, every kind of deception, +with all resources of scientific ingenuity and invention; and an army +guards its own demons in their lairs as preciously as if they were +made of some delicate substance which would go up in smoke at a +glance from the enemy's eye, instead of having barrels of the +strongest steel that can be forged. + +Your personal feeling for the demons on your side is in ratio to the +amount of hell sent by the enemy's which you have tasted. After you +have been scared stiff, while pretending that you were not, by sharing +with Mr. Atkins an accurate bombardment of a trench and are +convinced that the next shell is bound to get you, you fall into the +attitude of the army. You want to pat the demon on the back and say, +"Nice old demon!" and watch him toss a shell three or four miles into +the German lines from the end of his fiery tongue. Indeed, nothing so +quickly develops interest in the British guns as having the German +gunners take too much personal interest in you. + +You must have someone to show you the way or you would not find +any guns. A man with a dog trained to hunt guns might spend a week +on the gun-position area covering ten miles of the front and not locate +half the guns. He might miss "Grandmother" and "Sister" and "Betsy" +and "Mike" and even "Mister Archibald," who is the only one who +does not altogether try to avoid publicity. + +When an attack or an artillery bombardment is on and you go to as +high ground as possible for a bird's-eye view of battle, all that you see +is the explosion of the shells; never anything of the guns which are +firing. In the distance over the German lines and in the foreground +over the British lines is a balloon, shaped like a caterpillar with folded +wings--a chrysalis of a caterpillar. + +Tugging at its moorings, it turns this way and that with the breeze. +The speck directly beneath it through the glasses becomes an +ordinary balloon basket and other specks attached to a guy rope play +the part of the tail of a kite, helping to steady the type of balloon which +has taken the place of the old spherical type for observation. Anyone +who has been up in a captive spherical balloon knows how difficult it +is to keep his glasses focussed on any object, because of the jerking +and pitching and trembling due to the envelope's response to air- +movements. The new type partly overcomes this drawback. To +shrapnel their thin envelope is as vulnerable as a paper drum-head to +a knife; but I have seen them remain up defiantly when shells were +bursting within three or four hundred yards, which their commanders +seemed to understand was the limit of the German battery's reach. + +Again, I have seen a shrapnel burst alongside within range; and five +minutes later the balloon was down and out of sight. No balloon +observer hopes to see the enemy's guns. He is watching for shell- +bursts, in order to inform the guns of his side whether they are on the +target or not. + +Riding along the roads at the front one may know that there is a +battery a stone's throw away only when a blast from a hidden gun- +muzzle warns him of its presence. It is wonderful to me that the +artillery general who took me gun-seeing knew where his own guns +were, let alone the enemy's. I imagine that he could return to a field +and locate a four-leafed clover that he had seen on a previous stroll. +His dogs of war had become foxes of war, burrowing in places which +wise old father foxes knew were safest from detection. Hereafter, I +shall not be surprised to see a muzzle poking its head out of an oven, +or from under grandfather's chair or a farm wagon, or up a tree, or in +a garret. Think of the last place in the world for emplacing a gun and +one may be there; think of the most likely place and one may be +there. You might be walking across the fields and minded to go +through a hedge, and bump into a black ring of steel with a gun's +crew grinning behind it. They would grin because you had given proof +of how well their gun was concealed. But they wouldn't grin as much +as they would if they saw the enemy plunking shells into another +hedge two hundred yards distant, where the German aeroplane +observer thought he had seen a battery and had not. + +"I'll show you a big one, first!" said the general. + +We left the car at a cottage and walked along a lane. I looked all +about the premises and could see only some artillerymen. An officer +led me up to a gun-breech; at least, I know a gun-breech when it is +one foot from my nose and a soldier has removed its covering. But I +shall not tell how that gun was concealed; the method was so +audacious that it was entirely successful. The Germans would like to +know and we don't want them to know. A little pencil-point on their +map for identification, and they would send a whirlwind of shells at +that gun. + +And then? + +Would the gun try to fire back? No. Its gunners probably would not +know the location of any of the guns of the German battery which had +concentrated on their treasure. They would desert the gun. If they did +not, they ought to be court-martialled for needlessly risking the +precious lives of trained men. They would make for the "funk-pits," as +they call the dug-outs, just as the gunners of any other Power would. + +The chances are that the gun itself would not be hit bodily by a shell. +Fragments might strike it without causing more than an abrasion; for +big guns have pretty thick cuticles. When the storm was over, the +gunners would move their treasure to another hiding-place; which +would mean a good deal of work, on account of its size. + +It is the inability of gun to see gun, and even when seen to knock out +gun, which has put an end to the so-called artillery duel of pitched- +battle days, when cannon walloped cannon to keep cannon from +walloping the infantry. Now when there is an action, though guns still +go after guns if they know where they are, most of the firing is done +against trenches and to support trenches and infantry works, or with a +view to demoralizing the infantry. Concentration of artillery fire will +demolish an enemy's trench and let your infantry take possession of +the wreckage remaining; but then the enemy's artillery concentrates +on your infantry and frequently makes their new habitation untenable. + +Noiselessly except for a little click, with chickens clucking in a field +near by, the big breech-block which held the shell fast, sending all the +power of the explosion out of the muzzle, was swung back and one +looked through the shining tube of steel, with its rifling which caught +the driving band and gave the shell its rotation and accuracy in its +long journey, which would close when, descending at the end of its +parabola, its nose struck building, earth, or pavement and it exploded. + +Wheels that lift and depress and swing the muzzle, and gadgets with +figures, and other scales which play between the map and the +gadgets, and atmospheric pressure and wind-variation, all worked out +with the same precision under a French hedge as on board a +battleship where the gun-mounting is fast to massive ribs of steel--it +seemed a matter of book-keeping and trigonometry rather than war. + +If a shell from this gun were to hit at the corner of Wall Street and +Broadway at the noon hour, it would probably kill and wound a +hundred men. If it went into the dug-out of a support trench it would +get everybody there; but if it went ten yards beyond the trench into +the open field, it would probably get nobody. "Cover!" someone +exclaimed, while we were looking at the gun; and everybody promptly +got under the branches of a tree or a shed. A German aeroplane was +cruising in our direction. If the aviator saw a group of men standing +about he might draw conclusions and pass the wireless word to send +in some shells at whatever number on the German gunners' map +was ours. + +These gunners loved their gun; loved it for the power which it could +put into a blow under their trained hands; loved it for the care and the +labour it had meant for them. It is the way of gunners to love their +gun, or they would not be good gunners. Of all the guns I saw that +day, I think that two big howitzers meant the most to their masters. +These had just arrived. They had been set up only two days. They +had not yet fired against the enemy. For many months the gunners +had drilled in England, and they had tried their "eight-inch hows" out +on the target range and brought them across the Channel and +nursed them along French roads, and finally set them up in their +hidden lair. Now they waited for observers to assist them in +registration. + +When the general approached there was a call to turn out the guard; +but the general stopped that. At the front there is an end of the +ceremoniousness of the barracks. Military formality disappears. +Discipline, as well as other things, is simpler and more real. The men +went on with their recess playing football in a near-by field. + +The officers possibly were a trifle diffident and uncertain; they had not +yet the veteran's manner. It was clear that they had done everything +required by the textbook of theory--the latest, up-to-date textbook of +experience at the front as taught in England. When they showed us +how they had stored their stock of shells to be safe from a shot by the +enemy, one remarked that the method was according to the latest +directions, though there was some difference among military experts +on the subject. When there is a difference, what is the beginner to +do? An old hand, of course, does it his way until an order makes him +do otherwise. The general had a suggestion about the application of +the method. He had little to say, the general, and all was in the spirit +of comradeship and quite to the point. Not much escaped his +observation. + +It seems fairly true that one who knows his work well in any branch of +human endeavour makes it appear easy. Once a gunner always a +gunner is characteristic of all armies. The general had spent his life +with guns. He was a specialist visiting his plant; one of the staff +specialists responsible to a corps commander for the work of the +guns on a certain section of map, for accuracy and promptness of fire +when it was required in the commander's plans. + +If the newcomers put their shells into the target on their first trial they +had qualified; and sometimes newcomers shoot quite as well as +veterans, which is a surprise to both and the best kind of news for the +general who is in charge of an expanding plant. The war will be +decided by gunners and infantry that knew nothing of guns or drill +when the war began. + +"Here are some who have been in France from the first," said the +general, when we came to a battery of field guns; of the eighteen- +pounders, the fellows you see behind the galloping horses, the "hell- +for-leather" guns, the guns which bring the gleam of affection into the +eyes of men who think of pursuits and covering retreats and the +pitched-battle conditions before armies settled down in trenches and +growled and hissed at each other day after day and brought up guns +of calibres which we associate with battleships and coast +fortifications. + +These are called "light stuff" and "whizz-bangs" now, in army +parlance. They throw only an eighteen-pound shell which carries +three hundred bullets, but so fast that they chase one another +through the air. There has been so much talk about the need of +heavy guns, you might think that eighteen-pounders were too small +for consideration. Were the German line broken, these are the ones +which could gallop on the heels of the infantry. + +They are the boys who weave the "curtain of fire" which you read +about in the official bulletins as checking an infantry charge; which +demolish the barbed-wire entanglements to let an infantry charge get +into a trench. If a general wants a shower of bullets over any part of +the German line he has only to call up the eighteen-pounders and it is +sent as promptly as the pressure of a button brings a pitcher of iced- +water to a room in a first-class hotel. A veteran eighteen-pounder +crew in action is a poem in precision and speed of movement. The +gun itself seems to possess intelligence. + +There was the finesse of gunners' craft worthy of veterans in the way +that these eighteen-pounders were concealed. The Germans had put +some shells in the neighbourhood, but without fooling the old hands. +They did not change the location of their battery and their judgment +that the shots which came near were chance shots fired at another +object was justified. Particularly I should like to mention the nature of +their "funk-pits," which kept them safe from the heaviest shells. For +the veterans knew how to take care of themselves; they had an eye +to the protection which comes of experience with German high +explosives. Their expert knowledge of all the ins and outs of the +business had been fought into them for over a year. + +Another field battery, also, I have in mind, placed in an orchard. +Which orchard of all the thousands of orchards along the British front +the German staff may guess, if they choose. If German guns fired at +all the orchards, one by one, they might locate it--and then again they +might not. Besides, this is a peculiar sort of orchard. + +It is a characteristic of gunners to be neat and to have an eye for the +comeliness of things. These men had a lawn and a garden, tables +and chairs. If you are familiar with the tidiness of a retired New +England sailor, who regards his porch as a quarter-deck and sallies +forth to remove each descending autumn leaf from the grass, then +you know how scrupulous they were about litter. + +For weeks they had been in the same position, unseen by German +aeroplanes. They had daily baths; they did their weekly laundry, +taking care not to hang it where it would be visible from the sky. Every +day they received the London papers and letters from home. When +they were needed to help in making war, all they had to do was to slip +a shell in the breech and send it with their compliments to the +Germans. They were camping out at His Majesty's expense in the +pleasant land of France in the joyous summer time; and on the roof of +sod over their guns were pots of flowers, undisturbed by blasts from +the gun-muzzles. + +It was when leaving another battery that out of the tail of my eye I +caught a lurid flash through a hedge, followed by the sharp, ear- +piercing crack that comes from being in line with a gun-muzzle when +a shot is fired. We followed a path which took us to the rear of the +report, where we stepped through undergrowth among the busy +group around the breeches of some guns of one of the larger +calibres. + +An order for some "heavy stuff" at a certain point on the map was +being filled. Sturdy men were moving in a pantomime under the +shade of a willow tree, each doing exactly his part in a process that +seemed as simple as opening a cupboard door, slipping in a package +of concentrated destruction, and closing the door. All that detail of +range-finding and mathematical adjustment of aim at the unseen +target which takes so long to explain was applied as automatically as +an adding-machine adds up a column of figures. Everybody was as +practice-perfect in his part as performers who have made hundreds +of appearances in the same act on the stage. + +All ready, the word given, a thunder peal and through the air you saw +a wingless, black object in a faint curve against the soft blue sky, +which it seemed to sweep with a sound something like the escape of +water through a break in the garden hose multiplied by ten, rising to +its zenith and then descending, till it passed out of sight behind a +green bank of foliage on the horizon. + +After the scream had been lost to the ear you heard the faint, +thudding boom of an explosion from the burst of that conical piece of +steel which you had seen slipped into the breech. This was the +gunners' part in chessboard war, where the moves are made over +signal wires, while the infantry endure the explosions in their trenches +and fight in their charges in the traverses of trenches at as close +quarters as in the days of the cave-dwellers. + +There was no stopping work when the general came, of course. It +would have been the same had Lord Kitchener been present. The +battery commander expressed his regret that he could not show me +his guns without any sense of irony; meaning that he was sorry he +was too busy to tell about his battery. In about the time that it took a +telegraph key to click after each one of those distant bursts, he knew +whether or not the shot was on the target and what variation of +degree to make in the next if it were not; or, if the word came, to shift +the point of aim a little, when you are trying to shake up the enemy +here and there along a certain length of trench. + +At another wire-end someone was spotting the bursts. Perhaps he +was in the kind of place where I found one observer, who was sitting +on a cushion looking out through a chink in a wall, with a signal corps +operator near by. It was a small chink, just large enough to allow the +lens of a pair of glasses or a telescope a range of vision; and even +then I was given certain warnings before the cover over the chink +was removed, though there could not have been any German in +uniform nearer than four thousand yards. But there may be spies +within your own lines, looking for such holes. + +From this post I could make out the British and the German trenches +in muddy white lines of sandbags running snake-like across the fields, +and the officer identified points on the map to me. Every tree and +hedge and ditch in the panorama were graven on his mind; all had +language for him. His work was engrossing. It had risk, too; there was +no telling when a shell might lift him off the cushion and provide a +hole for the burial of his remains. + +If he were shelled, the observer would go to a funk-pit, as the +gunners do, until the storm had passed; and then he would move on +with his cushion and his telegraph instrument and make a hole in +another wall, if he did not find a tree or some other eminence which +suited his purpose better. Meanwhile, he was not the only observer in +that section. There were others nearer the trenches, perhaps actually +in the trenches. The two armies, seeming chained to their trenches, +are set with veiled eyes at the end of wires; veiled eyes trying to +locate the other's eyes, the other's guns and troops and the least +movement which indicates any attempt to gain an advantage. + +"Gunnery is navigation, dead reckoning, with the spotting observer +the sun by which you correct your figures," said one of the artillery +officers. + +Firing enough one had seen--landscape bathed in smoke and dust +and reverberating with explosions; but all as a spectacle from an +orchestra seat, not too close at hand for comfort. This time I was to +see the guns fire and the results of the firing in detail. Both can rarely +be seen at the same time. It was not show firing this that we watched +from an observing station, but part of the day's work for the guns and +the general. First, the map, "Here and there," as an officer's finger +pointed; and then one looked across fields, green and brown and +golden with the summer crops. + +Item I. The Germans were fortifying a certain point on a certain farm. +We were going to put some "heavy stuff" in there and some "light +stuff," too. The burst of our shells could be located in relation to a +certain tree. + +Item II. Our planes thought that the Germans had a wireless station in +a certain building. "Heavy stuff" exclusively for this. No enemy's +wireless station ought to be enjoying serene summer weather without +interruption; and no German working-party ought to be allowed to +build redoubts within range of our guns without a break in the +monotony of their drudgery. + +Six lyddites were the order for the wireless station; six high explosives +which burst on contact and make a hole in the earth large enough for +a grave for the Kaiser and all his field marshals. Frequently, not only +the number of shells to be fired, but also the intervals between them +is given by the artillery commander, as part of his plan in his +understanding of the object to be accomplished; and it is quite clear +that the system is the same with the Germans. + +One side no sooner develops an idea than the other adopts it. By +effect of the enemy's shells you judge what the effect of yours must +be. Months of experience have done away with all theories and +practice has become much the same by either adversary. For +example, let a German or a British airman be winged by anti-aircraft +gun-fire and the guns instantly loosen up on the point over his own +lines, if he regains them, where he is seen to fall. All the soldiers in +the neighbourhood are expected to run to his assistance; and, at any +rate, you may get a trained aviator, whose life is a valuable asset on +one side of the ledger and whose death an asset on the other. There +is no sentiment left in war, you see. It is all killing and avoiding being +killed. + +By the scream of a shell the practised ear of the artilleryman can tell +whether it comes from a gun with a low trajectory or from a howitzer, +whose projectile rises higher and falls at a sharper angle which +enables it to enter the trenches; and he can even tell approximately +the calibre. + +A scream sweeping past from our rear, and we knew that this was for +the redoubt, as that was to have the first turn. A volume of dust and +smoke breaking from the earth short of the redoubt, and after the +second's delay of hearing the engine whistle after the burst of steam +in the distance on a winter day, came the sound of the burst. The +next was over. With the third the "heavy stuff" ought to be right on. + +But don't forget that there was also an order for some "Right stuff," +identified as shrapnel by its soft, nimbus-like puff which was +scattering bullets as if giving chase to that working-party as it +hastened to cover. There you had the ugly method of this modern +artillery fire: death shot downward from the air and leaping up out of +the earth. Unhappily, the third was not on, nor the fourth--not exactly +on. Exactly on is the way that British gunners like to fill an order +f.o.b., express charges prepaid, for the Germans. + +Ten years ago it would have seemed good shooting. It was not very +good in the twelfth month of the war; for war beats the target range in +developing accuracy. At five or six or seven or eight thousand yards' +range the shells were bursting thirty or forty yards away from where +they should. + +No, not very good; the general murmured as much. He did not need +to say so aloud to the artillery officer responsible for that shooting, +who was in touch with his batteries by wire. The officer knew it. He +was the high-strung, ambitious sort. You had better not become a +gunner unless you are. Any "good-enough" temperament is ruled off +wasting munitions. Red was creeping through the tan from his throat +to the roots of his hair. To have this happen in the presence of that +veteran general, after all his efforts to try to remedy the error in those +guns! + +But the general was quite human. He was not the "strafing" kind. + +"I know those guns have an error!" he said, as he put his hand on the +officer's arm. That was all; and that was a good deal to the officer. +Evidently, the general not only knew guns; he knew men. The officer +had suffered admonition enough from his own injured pride. + +Besides, what we did to the supposed wireless station ought to keep +any general from being downhearted. Neither guns, nor the powder +which sent the big shells on their errand, nor the calculations of the +gunners, nor their adjustment of the gadgets, had any error. With the +first one, a great burst of the black smoke of deadly lyddite rose from +the target. "Right on!" + +And again and again--right on! The ugly, spreading, low-hanging, +dense cloud was renewed from its heart by successive bursts in the +same place. If the aeroplane's conclusions were right, that wireless +station must be very much wireless, now. The only safe discount for +the life insurance of the operators was one hundred per cent. + +"Here, they are firing more than six!" said the general. "It's always +hard to hold these gunners down when they are on the target like +that." + +He spoke as if it would have been difficult for him to resist the +temptation himself. The wireless station got two extra shells for full +measure. Perhaps those two were waste; perhaps the first two had +been enough. Conservation of shells has become a first principle of +the artillerists' duty. The number fired by either side in the course of +the routine of an average so-called peaceful day is surprising. +Economy would be easier if it were harder to slip a shell into a gun- +breech. The men in the trenches are always calling for shells. They +want a tree or a house which is the hiding-place of a sniper knocked +down. The men at the guns would be glad to accommodate them, but +the say as to that is with commanders who know the situation. + +"The Boches will be coming back at us soon, you will see!" said one +of the officers who was at our observation post. "They always do. The +other day they chose this particular spot for their target"--which was a +good reason why they would not this time, an optimist thought. + +Let either side start a bombardment and the other responds. There is +a you-hit-me-and-I'll-hit-you character about siege warfare. Gun-fire +provokes gun-fire. Neither adversary stays quiet under a blow. It was +not long before we heard the whish of German shells passing some +distance away. + +They say sport is out of war. Perhaps, but not its enthralling and +horrible fascination. Knowing what the target is, knowing the object of +the fire, hearing the scream of the projectile on the way and watching +to see if it is to be a hit, when the British are fighting the Germans on +the soil of France, has an intensive thrill which is missing to the +spectator who looks on at the Home Sports Club shooting at clay +pigeons--which is not in justification of war. It does explain, however, +the attraction of gunnery to gunners. One forgets, for the instant, that +men are being killed and mangled. He thinks only of points scored in +a contest which requires all the wit and strength and fortitude of man +and all his cunning in the manufacture and control of material. + +You want your side to win; in this case, because it is the side of +humanity and of that kindly general and the things that he and the +army he represents stand for. The blows which the demons from the +British lairs strike are to you the blows of justice; and you are glad +when they go home. They are your blows. You have a better reason +for keeping an army's artillery secrets than for keeping secret the +signals of your Varsity football team, which anyone instinctively +keeps--the reason of a world cause. + +Yet another thing to see--an aeroplane assisting a battery by spotting +the fall of its shells, which is engrossing enough, too, and amazingly +simple. Of course this battery was proud of its method of +concealment. Each battery commander will tell you that a British +plane has flown very low, as a test, without being able to locate his +battery. If it is located, there is more work due in "make-up" to +complete the disguise. Competition among batteries is as keen as +among battleships of our North Atlantic fleet. + +Situation favoured this battery, which was Canadian. It was as nicely +at home as a first-class Adirondack camp. At any rate, no other +battery had a dug-out for a litter of eight pups, with clean straw for +their bed, right between two gun-emplacements. + +"We found the mother wild, out there in the woods," one of the men +explained. "She, too, was a victim of war; a refugee from some home +destroyed by shell-fire. At first she wouldn't let us approach her, and +we tossed her pieces of meat from a safe distance. I think those pups +will bring us luck. We'll take them along to the Rhine. Some mascots, +eh?" + +On our way back to the general's headquarters we must have passed +other batteries hidden from sight only a stone's throw away; and yet in +an illustrated paper recently I saw a drawing of some guns emplaced +on the crest of a bare hill, naked to all the batteries of the enemy, but +engaged in destroying all the enemy's batteries, according to the +account. Twelve months of war have not shaken conventional ideas +about gunnery; which is one reason for writing this chapter. + +Also, on our way back we learned the object of the German fire in +answer to our bombardment of the redoubt and the wireless station. +They had shelled a cross-roads and a certain village again. As we +passed through the village we noticed a new hole in the church tower, +and three holes in the churchyard, which had scattered clods of earth +about the pavement. A shopkeeper was engaged in repairing a +window-frame that had been broken by a shell-fragment. + +There is no flustering the French population. That very day I heard of +an old peasant who asked a British soldier if he could not get +permission for the old farmer to wear some kind of an armband which +both sides would respect, so that he could cut his field of wheat +between the trenches. Why not? Wasn't it his wheat? Didn't he need +the crop? + +And the Germans fire into villages and towns; for the women and +children there are the women and children of the enemy. But those in +the German lines belong to the ally of England. Besides, they are +women and children. So British gunners avoid towns--which is, in one +sense, a professional handicap. + + + + +XVIII +Archibald The Archer + + + +There is another kind of gun, vagrant and free lance, which deserves +a chapter by itself. It has the same bark as the eighteen-pounder field +piece; the flight of the shell makes the same kind of sound. But its +scream, instead of passing in a long parabola toward the German +lines, goes up in the heavens toward something as large as your +hand against the light blue of the summer sky--a German aeroplane. + +At a height of seven or eight thousand feet the target seems almost +stationary, when really it is going somewhere between fifty and ninety +miles an hour. It has all the heavens to itself, and to the British it is a +sinister, prying eye that wants to see if we are building any new +trenches, if we are moving bodies of troops or of transport, and where +our batteries are in hiding. That aviator three miles above the earth +has many waiting guns at his command. A few signals from his +wireless and they would let loose on the target he indicated. + +If the planes might fly as low as they pleased, they would know all that +was going on in an enemy's lines. They must keep up so high that +through the aviator's glasses a man on the road is the size of a pin- +head. To descend low is as certain death as to put your head over +the parapet of a trench when the enemy's trench is only a hundred +yards away. There are dead lines in the air, no less than on the earth. + +Archibald, the anti-aircraft gun, sets the dead line. He watches over it +as a cat watches a mouse. The trick of sneaking up under cover of a +noonday cloud and all the other man-bird tricks he knows. A couple of +seconds after that crack a tiny puff of smoke breaks about a hundred +yards behind the Taube. A soft thistledown against the blue it seems +at that altitude; but it would not if it were about your ears. Then it +would sound like a bit of dynamite on an anvil struck by a hammer +and you would hear the whizz of scores of bullets and fragments. + +The smoking brass shell-case is out of Archibald's steel throat, and +another shell-case with its charge slipped into place and started on its +way before the first puff breaks. The aviator knows what is coming. +He knows that one means many, once he is in range. + +Archibald rushes the fighting; it is the business of the Taube to side- +step. The aviator cannot hit back except through his allies, the +German batteries, on the earth. They would take care of Archibald if +they knew where he was. But all that the aviator can see is mottled +landscape. From his side Archibald flies no goal flags. He is one of +ten thousand tiny objects under the aviator's eye. + +Archibald's propensities are entirely peripatetic. He is the vagabond +of the army lines. Locate him and he is gone. His home is where night +finds him and the day's duties take him. He is the only gun that keeps +regular hours like a Christian gentleman. All the others, great and +small, raucous-voiced and shrill-voiced, fire at any hour, night or day. +Aeroplanes rarely go up at night; and when no aeroplanes are up, +Archibald has no interest in the war. But he is alert at the first flush of +dawn, on the look-out for game with the avidity of a pointer dog; for +aviators are also up early. + +Why he was named Archibald nobody knows. As his full name is +Archibald the Archer, possibly it comes from some association with +the idea of archery. If there were ten thousand anti-aircraft guns in the +British army, every one would be known as Archibald. + +When the British Expeditionary Force went to France it had none. All +the British could do was to bang away at Taubes with thousands of +rounds of rifle-bullets, which might fall in their own lines, and with the +field guns. + +It was pie in those days for the Taubes! Easy to keep out of the range +of both rifles and guns and observe well! If the Germans did not know +the progress of the British retreat from on high it was their own fault. +Now, the business of firing at Taubes is left entirely to Archibald. +When you see how hard it is for Archibald, after all his practice, to get +a Taube, you understand how foolish it was for the field guns to try to +get one. + +Archibald, who is quite the "swaggerist" of the gun tribe, has his own +private car built especially for him. Such of the cavalry's former part +as the planes do not play he plays. He keeps off the enemy's scouts. +Do you seek team-work, spirit of corps, and smartness in this theatre +of France, where all the old glamour of war is supposed to be +lacking? You will find it in the attendants of Archibald. They have +pride, élan, alertness, pepper, and all the other appetizers and +condiments. They are as neat as a private yacht's crew, and as lively +as an infield of a major league team. The Archibaldians are naturally +bound to think rather well of themselves. + +Watch them there, every man knowing his part, as they send their +shells after the Taube! There is not enough waste motion among the +lot to tip over the range-finder, or the telescopes, or the score board, +or any of the other paraphernalia assisting the man who is looking +through the sight in knowing where to aim next, as a screw answers +softly to his touch. + +Is the sport of war dead? Not for Archibald! Here you see your target +--which is so rare these days when British infantrymen have stormed +and taken trenches without ever seeing a German--and the target is a +bird, a man-bird. Puffs of smoke with bursting hearts of death are +clustered around the Taube. One follows another in quick succession, +for more than one Archibald is firing, before your entranced eye. + +You are staring like the crowd of a county fair at a parachute act. For +the next puff may get him. Who knows this better than the aviator? +He is, likely, an old hand at the game; or, if he is not, he has all the +experience of other veterans to go by. His ruse is the same as that of +the escaped prisoner who runs from the fire of a guard in a zigzag +course, and more than that. If a puff comes near on the right, he turns +to the left; if one comes near on the left, he turns to the right; if one +comes under, he rises; over, he dips. This means that the next shell +fired at the same point will be wide of the target. + +Looking through the sight, it seems easy to hit a plane. But here is +the difficulty. It takes two seconds, say, for the shell to travel to the +range of the plane. The gunner must wait for its burst before he can +spot his shot. Ninety miles an hour is a mile and a half a minute. +Divide that by thirty and you have about a hundred yards which the +plane has travelled from the time the shell left the gun-muzzle till it +burst. It becomes a matter of discounting the aviator's speed and +guessing from experience which way he will turn next. + +That ought to have got him--the burst was right under. No! He rises. +Surely that one got him! The puff is right in front, partly hiding the +Taube from view. You see the plane tremble as if struck by a violent +gust of wind. Close! Within thirty or forty yards, the telescope says. +But at that range the naked eye is easily deceived about distance. +Probably some of the bullets have cut his plane. + +But you must hit the man or the machine in a vital spot in order to +bring down your bird. The explosions must be very close to count. It is +amazing how much shell-fire an aeroplane can stand. Aviators are +accustomed to the whizz of shell-fragments and bullets, and to have +their planes punctured and ripped. Though their engines are put out +of commission, and frequently though the man be wounded, they are +able to volplane back to the cover of their own lines. + +To make a proper story we ought to have brought down this particular +bird. But it had the luck, which most planes, British or German have, +to escape antiaircraft gun-fire. It had begun edging away after the first +shot and soon was out of range. Archibald had served the purpose of +his existence. He had sent the prying aerial eye home. + +A fight between planes in the air very rarely happens, except in the +imagination. Planes do not go up to fight other planes, but for +observation. Their business is to see and learn and bring home their +news. + + + + +XIX +Trenches In Summer + + + +It was the same trench in June, still a relatively "quiet corner," which I +had seen in March; but I would never have known it if its location had +not been the same on the map. One was puzzled how a place that +had been so wet could become so dry. + +This time the approach was made in daylight through a long +communication ditch, which brought us to a shell-wrecked +farmhouse. We passed through this and stepped down at the back +door into deep traverses cut among the roots of an orchard; then +behind walls of earth high above our heads to battalion headquarters +in a neat little shanty, where I deposited the first of the cakes I had +brought on the table beside some battalion reports. A cake is the right +gift for the trenches, though less so in summer than in winter when +appetites are less keen. The adjutant tried a slice while the colonel +conferred with the general, who had accompanied me this far, and he +glanced up at a sheet of writing with a line opposite hours of the day, +pinned to a post of his dug-out. + +"I wanted to see if it were time to make another report," he said. "We +are always making reports. Everybody is, so that whoever is superior +to someone else knows what is happening in his subordinate's +department." + +Then in and out in a maze, between walls with straight faces of the +hard, dry earth, testifying to the beneficence of summer weather in +constructing fastnesses from artillery fire, until we were in the firing- +trench, where I was at home among the officers and men of a +company. General Mud was "down and out." He waited on the winter +rains to take command again. But winter would find an army prepared +against his kind of campaign. Life in the trenches in summer was not +so unpleasant but that some preferred it, with the excitement of +sniping, to the boredom of billets. + + + +"What hopes!" was the current phrase I heard among the men in +these trenches. It shared honours with strafe. You have only one life +to live and you may lose that any second--what hopes! Dig, dig, dig, +and set off a mine that sends Germans skyward in a cloud of dust-- +what hopes! Bully beef from Chicago and Argentina is no food for +babes, but better than "K.K." bread--what hopes! Mr. Thomas Atkins, +British regular, takes things as they come--and a lot of them come-- +shells, bullets, asphyxiating gas, grenades, and bombs. + +There is much to be thankful for. The King's Own Particular Fusiliers, +as we shall call this regiment, had only three men hit yesterday. On +every man's cap is a metal badge crowded with battle honours, from +the storming of Quebec to the relief of Ladysmith. Heroic its history; +but no battle honours equal that of the regiment's part in the second +battle of Ypres; and no heroes of the regiment's story, whom you +picture in imagination with haloes of glory in the wish that you might +have met them in the flesh in their scarlet coats, are the equal of +these survivors in plain khaki manning a ditch in A.D. 1915, whom +anyone may meet. + +But do not tell them that they are heroes. They will deny it on the +evidence of themselves as eyewitnesses of the action. To remark +that the K.O.P.F. are brave is like remarking that water flows down +hill. It is the business of the K.O.P.F. to be brave. Why talk about it? + +One of the three men hit was killed. Well, everybody in the war rather +expects to be killed. The other two "got tickets to England," as they +say. My lady will take the convalescents joy-riding in her car, and +afterwards seat them in easy chairs, arranging the cushions with her +own hands, and feed them slices of cold chicken in place of bully beef +and strawberries and cream in place of ration marmalade. Oh, my! +What hopes! + +Mr. Atkins does not mind being a hero for the purposes of such +treatment. Then, with never a twinkle in his eye, he will tell my lady +that he does not want to return to the front; he has had enough of it, +he has. My lady's patriotism will be a trifle shocked, as Mr. Atkins +knows it will be; and she will wonder if the "stick it" quality of the +British soldier is weakening, as Mr. Atkins knows she will. For he has +more kinks in his mental equipment than mere nobility ever guesses, +and he is having the time of his life in more respects than +strawberries and cream. What hopes! Of course, he will return and +hold on in the face of all that the Germans can give, without any +pretence to bravery. + +If you go as a stranger into the trenches on a sightseeing tour and +says, "How are you?" and, "Are you going to Berlin?" and, "Are you +comfortable?" etc., Tommy Atkins will say, "Yes, sir," and "Very well, +sir," as becomes all polite regular soldier men; and you get to know +him about as well as you know the members of a club if you are +shown the library and dine at a corner table with a friend. + +Spend the night in the trenches and you are taken into the family, into +that very human family of soldier-dom in a quiet corner; and the old, +care-free spirit of war, which some people thought had passed, is +found to be no less alive in siege warfare than on a march of regulars +on the Indian frontier or in the Philippines. Gaiety and laughter and +comradeship and "joshing" are here among men to whom wounds +and death are a part of the game. One may challenge high +explosives with a smile, no less than ancient round shot. Settle down +behind the parapet, and the little incongruities of a trench, paltry +without the intimacy of men and locality, make for humour no less +than in a shop or a factory. + +Under the parapet runs the tangle of barbed wire--barbed wire from +Switzerland to Belgium--to welcome visitors from that direction, which, +to say the least, would be an impolitic direction of approach for any +stranger. + +"All sightseers should come into the trenches from the rear," says Mr. +Atkins. "Put it down in the guidebooks." + +Beyond the barbed wire in the open field the wheat which some +farmer sowed before positions were established in this area is now in +head, rippling with the breeze, making a golden sea up to the wall of +sandbags which is the enemy's line. It was late June at its loveliest; +no signs of war except the sound of our guns some distance away +and an occasional sniper's bullet. One cracked past as I was looking +through my glasses to see if there were any evidence of life in the +German trenches. + +"Your hat, sir!" + +Another moved a sandbag slightly, but not until after the hat had +come down and the head under it, most expeditiously. Up to eight +hundred yards a bullet cracks; beyond that range it whistles, sighs, +even wheezes. An elevation gives snipers, who are always trained +shots, an angle of advantage. In winter they had to rely for cover on +buildings, which often came tumbling down with them when hit by a +shell. The foliage of summer is a boon to their craft. + +"Does it look to you like an opening in the branches of that tree--the +big one at the right?" + +In the mass of leaves a dark spot was visible. It might be natural, or it +might be a space cut away for the swing of a rifle-barrel. Perhaps +sitting up there snugly behind a bullet-proof shield fastened to the +limbs was a German sharpshooter, watching for a shot with the +patience of a hound for a rabbit to come out of its hole. + +"It's about time we gave that tree a spray good for that kind of fungus, +from a machine-gun!" + +A bullet coming from our side swept overhead. One of our own +sharpshooters had seen something to shoot at. + +"Not giving you much excitement!" said Tommy. + +"I suppose I'd get a little if I stood up on the parapet?" I asked. + +"You wouldn't get a ticket for England; you'd get a box!" + +"There's a cemetery just behind the lines if you'd prefer to stay in +France!" + +I had passed that cemetery with its fresh wooden crosses on my way +to the trench. These tenderhearted soldiers who joked with death had +placed flowers on the graves of fallen comrades and bought +elaborate French funeral wreaths with their meagre pay--which is +another side of Mr. Thomas Atkins. There is sentiment in him. Yes, +he's loaded with sentiment, but not for the "movies." + +"Keep your head down there, Eames!" called a corporal. "I don't want +to be taking an inventory of your kit." + +Eames did not even realize that his head was above the parapet. The +hardest thing to teach a soldier is not to expose himself. Officers keep +iterating warnings and then forget to practise what they preach. That +morning a soldier had been shot through the heart and arm sideways +behind the trench. He had lain down unnoticed for a nap in the sun, it +was supposed. When he awoke, presumably he sat up and yawned +and Herr Schmidt, from some platform in a tree, had a bloody reward +for his patience. + +The next morning I saw the British take their revenge. Some German +who thought that he could not be seen in the mist of dawn was +walking along the German parapet. What hopes! Four or five men +took careful aim and fired. That dim figure collapsed in a way that was +convincing. + +As I swept the line of German trenches with the glasses I saw a wisp +of flag clinging to its pole in the still air far down to the left. Flags +are as unusual above trenches as men standing up in full view of +the enemy. Then a breeze caught the folds, and I saw that it was +the tricolour of France. + +"A Boche joke!" Tommy explained. + +"Probably they are hating the French to-day?" + +"No, it's been there for some days. They want us to shoot at the flag +of our ally. They'd get a laugh out of that--a regular Boche notion of +humour." + +"If it were a German flag?" I suggested. + +"What hopes! We'd make it into a lace curtain!" + +Even the guns had ceased firing. The birds in their evensong had all +the war to themselves. It was difficult to believe that if you stood on +top of the parapet anybody would shoot at you; no, not even if you +walked down the road that ran through the wheatfield, everything was +so peaceful. One grew sceptical of there being any Germans in the +trenches opposite. + +"There are three or four sharpshooters and a fat old Boche professor +in spectacles, who moves a machine-gun up and down for a bluff," +said a soldier, and another corrected him: + +"No, the old professor's the one that walks along at night sending up +flares!" + +"Munching K.K. bread with his false teeth!" + +"And singing the hymn of hate!" + +Thus the talk ran on in the quiet of evening, till we heard a concussion +and a quarter of a mile away, behind a screen of trees, a pillar of +smoke rose to the height of two or three hundred feet. + +"A mine!" In front of the -th brigade!" + +"Ours or the Boches'?" + +"Ours, from the way the smoke went--our fuse!" + +"No, theirs!" + +Our colonel telephoned down to know if we knew whose mine it was, +which was the question we wanted to ask him. The guns from both +sides became busy under the column of smoke. Oh, yes, there were +Germans in the trenches which had appeared vacant. Their shots +and ours merged in the hissing medley of a tempest. + +"Not enough guns--not enough noise for an attack!" said experienced +Tommy, who knew what an attack was like. + +The commander of the adjoining brigade telephoned to the division +commander, who passed the word through to our colonel, who +passed it to us that the mine was German and had burst thirty yards +short of the British trench. + +"After all that digging, wasting Boche powder in that fashion! The +Kaiser won't like it!" said Mr. Atkins. "We exploded one under them +yesterday and it made them hate so hard they couldn't wait. They've +awful tempers, the Boches!" And he finished the job on which he was +engaged when interrupted, eating a large piece of ration bread +surmounted by all the ration jam it could hold; while one of the +company officers reminded me that it was about dinner time. + + + +"What do you think I am? A blooming traffic policeman?" growled the +cook to two soldiers who had found themselves in a blind alley in the +maze of streets back of the firing-trench. "My word! Is His Majesty's +army becoming illiterate? Strafe that sign at the corner! What do you +think we put it up for? To show what a beautiful hand we had at +printing?" + +The sign on a board fastened against the earth wall read, "No +thoroughfare!" The soldier-cook, with a fork in his hand, his sleeves +rolled up, his shirt open at his tanned throat, looked formidable. He +was preoccupied; he was at close quarters roasting a chicken over a +small stove. Yes, they have cook-stoves in the trenches. Why not? +The line had been in the same position for six months. + +"Little by little we improve our happy home," said the cook. + +The latest acquisition was a lace curtain for the officers' mess hall, +bought at a shop in the nearest town. + +When the cook was inside his kitchen there was no room to spill +anything on the floor. The kitchen was about three feet square, with +boarded walls, and a roof covered with tar paper and a layer of earth +set level with the trench parapet. The chicken roasted and the frying +potatoes sizzled as an occasional bullet passed overhead, even as +flies buzz about the screen door when Mary is making cakes for tea. + +The officers' mess hall, next to the kitchen and built in the same +fashion, had some boards nailed on posts sunk in the ground for a +table, which was proof against tipping when you climbed over it or +squeezed around it to your place. The chairs were rifle-ammunition +boxes, whose contents had been emptied with individual care, bullet +by bullet, at the Germans in the trench on the other side of the +wheatfield. Dinner was at nine in the evening, when it was still twilight +in the longest days of the year in this region. The hour fits in with +trench routine, when night is the time to be on guard and you sleep +by day. Breakfast comes at nine in the morning. I was invited to help +eat the chicken and to spend the night. + +Now, the general commanding the brigade who accompanied me to +the trenches had been hit twice. So had the colonel, a man about +forty. From forty, ages among the regimental officers dropped into the +twenties. + +Many of the older men who started in the war had been killed, or were +back in England wounded, or had been promoted to other commands +where their experience was more useful. To youth, life is sweet and +danger is life. The oldest of the officers of the proud old K.O.P.F. who +gathered for dinner was about twenty-five, though when he assumed +an air of authority he seemed to be forty. It was not right to ask the +youngest his age. Parenthetically, let it be said that he is trying to +start a moustache. They had come fresh from Sandhurst to swift +tuition in gruelling, incessant warfare. + +"Has anyone asked him it yet?" one inquired, referring to some +question to the guest. + +"Not yet? Then all together: When do you think that the war will be +over?" + +It was the eternal question of the trenches, the army, and the world. +We had it over with before the soldier-cook brought on the roast +chicken, which was received with a befitting chorus of approbation. + +Who would carve? Who knew how to carve? Modesty passed the +honour to her neighbour, till a brave man said: + +"I will! I will strafe the chicken!" 'Gott strafe England!' Strafe has +become a noun, a verb, an adjective, a cussword, and a term of +greeting. Soldier asks soldier how he is strafing to-day. When the +Germans are not called Boches they are called Strafers. "Won't you +strafe a little for us?" Tommy sings out to the German trenches when +they are close. What hopes? That gallant youngster of the K.O.P.F. in +the midst of bantering advice succeeded in separating the meat from +the bones without landing a leg in anybody's lap or a wing in +anybody's eye. Timid spectators who had hung back where he had +dared might criticize his form, but they could not deny the efficiency of +his execution. He was appointed permanent strafer of all the fowls +that came to table. + +Everybody talked and joked about everything, from plays in London +to the Germans. There were arguments about favourite actors and +military methods. The sense of danger was as absent as if we had +been dining in a summer garden. It was the parents and relatives in +pleasant English homes in fear of a dread telegram who were +worrying, not the sons and brothers in danger. Isn't it better that way? +Would not the parents prefer it that way? Wasn't it the way of the +ancestors in the scarlet coats and the Merrie England of their day? +With the elasticity of youth my hosts adapted themselves to +circumstances. In their lightheartedness they made war seem a keen +sport. They lived war for all it was worth. If it gets on their nerves +their efficiency is spoiled. There is no room for a jumpy, excitable +man in the trenches. Youth's resources defy monotony and death +at the same time. + +An expedition had been planned for that night. A patrol the previous +night had brought in word that the Germans had been sneaking up +and piling sandbags in the wheatfield. The plan was to slip out as +soon as it was really dark with a machine-gun and a dozen men, get +behind the Germans' own sandbags, and give them a perfectly +informal reception when they returned to go on with their work. + +Before dinner, however, J------, who was to be the general of the +expedition, and his subordinates made a reconnaissance. Two or +more officers or men always go out together on any trip of this kind in +that ticklish space between the trenches, where it is almost certain +death to be seen by the enemy. If one is hit the other can help him +back. If one survives he will bring back the result of his investigations. + +J----had his own ideas about comfort in trousers in the trench in +summer. He wore shorts with his knees bare. When he had to do a +"crawl" he unwound his puttees and wound them over his knees. He +and the others slipped over the parapet without attracting the +attention of the enemy's sharpshooters. On hands and knees, like +boy scouts playing Indians, they passed through a narrow avenue in +the ugly barbed wire, and still not a shot at them. A matter of the +commonplace to the men in the trench held the spectator in +suspense. There was a fascination about the thing, too; that of the +sporting chance, without a full realization that failure in this hide-and- +seek game might mean a spray of bullets and death for these young +men. + +They entered the wheat, moving slowly like two land turtles. The grain +parted in swaths over them. Surely the Germans might see the +turtles' heads as they were raised to look around. No officer can be +too young and supple for this kind of work. Here the company officer +just out of school is in his element, with an advantage over older +officers. That pair were used to crawling. They did not keep their +heads up long. They knew just how far they might expose +themselves. They passed out of sight, and reappeared and slipped +back over the parapet again without the Germans being any the +wiser. Hard luck! It is an unaccommodating world! They found that +the patrol which had examined the bags at night had failed to discern +that they were old and must have been there for some time. + +"I'll take the machine-gun out, anyhow, if the colonel will permit it," +said J------. For the colonel puts on the brakes. Otherwise, there is no +telling what risks youth might take with machine-guns. + +We were half through dinner when a corporal came to report that a +soldier on watch thought that he had seen some Germans moving in +the wheat very near our barbed wire. Probably a false alarm; but no +one in a trench ever acts on the theory that any alarm is false. Eternal +vigilance is the price of holding a trench. Either side is cudgelling its +brains day and night to spring some new trick on the other. If one side +succeeds with a trick, the other immediately adopts it. No international +copyright in strategy is recognized. We rushed out of the mess hall +into the firing-trench, where we found the men on the alert, rifles laid +on the spot where the Germans were supposed to have been seen. + +"Who are you? Answer, or we fire!" called the ranking young +lieutenant. + +If any persons present out in front in the face of thirty rifles knew the +English language and had not lost the instinct of self-preservation, +they would certainly have become articulate in response to such an +unveiled hint. Not a sound came. Probably a rabbit running through +the wheat had been the cause of the alarm. But you take no risks. +The order was given, and the men combed the wheat with a fusillade. + +"Enough! Cease fire!" said the officer. "Nobody there. If there had +been we should have heard the groan of a wounded man or seen the +wheat stir as the Germans hugged closer to the earth for cover." + +This he knew by experience. It was not the first time he had used a +fusillade in this kind of a test. + +After dinner J------rolled his puttees up around his bare knees again, +for the colonel had not withdrawn permission for the machine-gun +expedition. J------'s knees were black and blue in spots; they were +also--well, there is not much water for washing purposes in the +trenches. Great sport that, crawling through the dew-moist wheat in +the faint moonlight, looking for a bunch of Germans in the hope of +turning a machine-gun on them before they turn one on you! + +"One man hit by a stray bullet," said J------on his return. + +"I heard the bullet go th-ip into the earth after it went through his leg," +said the other officer. + +"Blythe was a recruit and he had asked me to take him out the first +time there was anything doing. I promised that I would, and he got +about the only shot fired at us." + +"Need a stretcher?" + +"No." + +Blythe came hobbling through the traverse to the communication +trench, seeming well pleased with himself. The soft part of the leg is +not a bad place to receive a bullet if one is due to hit you. + + + +Night is always the time in the trenches when life grows more +interesting and death more likely. + +"It's dark enough, now," said one of the youngsters who was out on +another scout. "We'll go out with the patrol." + +By day, the slightest movement of the enemy is easily and instantly +detected. Light keeps the combatants to the warrens which protect +them from shell and bullet-fire. At night there is no telling what +mischief the enemy may be up to; you must depend upon the ear +rather than the eye for watching. Then the human soldier-fox comes +out of his burrow and sneaks forth on the lookout for prey; both sides +are on the prowl. + +"Trained owls would be the most valuable scouts we could have," +said the young officer. "They would be more useful than aeroplanes +in locating the enemy's gun-positions. A properly reliable owl would +come back and say that a German patrol was out in the wheatfield at +such a point and a machine-gun would wipe out that patrol." + +We turned into a side trench, an alley off the main street, leading out +of the front trench toward the Germans. + +"Anybody out?" he asked a soldier who was on guard at the end of it. + +"Yes, two." + +Climbing out of the ditch, we were in the midst of a tangle of barbed +wire protecting the trench front, which was faintly visible in the +starlight. There was a break in the tangle, a narrow cut in the hedge, +as it were, kept open for just such purposes as this. When the patrol +returned it closed the gate again. + +"Look out for that wire--just there! Do you see it? We've everything to +keep the Boches off our front lawn except 'Keep off the grass!' signs." + +It was perfectly still, a warm summer night without a cat's-paw of +breeze. Through the dark curtain of the sky in a parabola rising from +the German trenches swept the brilliant sputter of red light of a +German flare. It was coming as straight toward us as if it had been +aimed at us. It cast a searching, uncanny glare over the tall wheat in +head between the trenches. + +"Down flat!" whispered the officer. + +It seemed foolish to grovel before a piece of fireworks. There was no +firing in our neighbourhood; nothing to indicate a state of war between +the British Empire and Germany; no visual evidence of any German +army in France except that flare. However, if a guide who knows as +much about war as this one says you are to prostrate yourself when +you are out between two lines of machine-guns and rifles--between +the fighting powers of England and Germany--you take the hint. The +flare sank into earth a few yards away, after a last insulting, ugly fling +of sparks in our faces. + +"What if we had been seen?" + +"They'd have combed the wheat in this part thoroughly, and they +might have got us." + +"It's hard to believe," I said. + +So it was, he agreed. That was the exasperating thing. Always hard +to believe, perhaps, until after all the cries of wolf the wolf came; until +after nineteen harmless flares the twentieth revealed to the watching +enemy the figure of a man above the wheat, when a crackling chorus +of bullets would suddenly break the silence of night by concentrating +on a target. Keeping cover from German flares is a part of the minute, +painstaking economy of war. + +We crawled on slowly, taking care to make no noise, till we brought +up behind two soldiers hugging the earth, rifles in hand ready to fire +instantly. It was their business not only to see the enemy first, but to +shoot first, and to capture or kill any German patrol. The officer spoke +to them and they answered. It was unnecessary for them to say that +they had seen nothing. If they had we should have known it. He was +out there less to scout himself than to make sure that they were on +the job; that they knew how to watch. The visit was part of his routine. +We did not even whisper. Preferably, all whispering would be done by +any German patrol out to have a look at our barbed wire and +overheard by us. + +Silence and the starlight and the damp wheat; but, yes, there was +war. You heard gun-fire half a mile, perhaps a mile, away; and raising +your head you saw auroras from bursting shells. We heard at our +backs faintly snatches of talk from our trenches and faintly in front the +talk from theirs. It sounded rather inviting and friendly from both sides, +like that around some camp-fire on the plains. + +It seemed quite within the bounds of possibility that you might have +crawled on up to the Germans and said, "Howdy!" But by the time +you reached the edge of their barbed wire and before you could +present your visiting-card, if not sooner, you would have been full of +holes. That was just the kind of diversion from trench monotony for +which the Germans were looking. "Well, shall we go back?" asked the +officer. There seemed no particular purpose in spending the night +prone in the wheat with your ears cocked like a pointer-dog's. +Besides, he had other duties, exacting duties laid down by the colonel +as the result of trench experience in his responsibility for the +command of a company of men. + +It happened as we crawled back into the trench, that a fury of shots +broke out from a point along the line two or three hundred yards +away; sharp, vicious shots on the still night air, stabbing, merciless +death in their sound. Oh, yes, there was war in France; unrelenting, +shrewd, tireless war. A touch of suspicion anywhere and the hornets +swarmed. + + + +It was two a.m. From the dug-outs came unmistakable sounds of +slumber. Men off duty were not kept awake by cold and moisture in +summer. They had fashioned for themselves comfortable dormitories +in the hard earth walls. A cot in an officer's bedchamber was +indicated as mine. The walls had been hung with cuts from illustrated +papers and bagging spread on the floor to make it "home-like." He lay +down on the floor because he was nearer the door in case he had to +respond to an alarm; besides, he said I would soon appreciate that I +was not the object of favouritism. So I did. It was a trench-made cot, +fashioned by some private of engineers, I fancy, who had Germans +rather than the American cousin in mind. + +"The wall side of the rib that runs down the middle is the comfortable +side, I have found," said my host. "It may not appear so at first, but +you will find it works out that way." + +Nevertheless, I slept, my last recollection that of sniping shots, to be +awakened with the first streaks of day by the sound of a fusillade--the +"morning hate" or the "morning strafe" as it is called. After the vigil of +darkness it breaks the monotony to salute the dawn with a burst of +rifle-shots. Eyes strained through the mist over the wheatfield +watching for some one of the enemy who may be exposing himself, +unconscious that it is light enough for him to be visible. Objects which +are not men but look as if they might be in the hazy distance, called +for attention on the chance. For ten minutes, perhaps, the serenade +lasted, and then things settled down to the normal. The men were +yawning and stirring from their dug-outs. After the muster they would +take the places of those who had been "on the bridge" through the +night. + +"It's a case of how little water you can wash with, isn't it?" I said to +the cook, who appreciated my thoughtfulness when I made shift +with a dipperful, as I had done on desert journeys. We were in a trench +that was inundated with water in winter, and not more than two miles +from a town which had water laid on. But bringing a water supply in +pails along narrow trenches is a poor pastime, though better than +bringing it up under the rifle-sights of snipers across the fields back +of the trenches. + +"Don't expect much for breakfast," said the strafer of the chicken. But +it was eggs and bacon, the British stand-by in all weathers, at home +and abroad. + +J------was going to turn in and sleep. These youngsters could sleep at +any time; for one hour, or two hours, or five, or ten, if they had a +chance. A sudden burst of rifle-fire was the alarm clock which always +promptly awakened them. The recollection of cheery hospitality and +their fine, buoyant spirit is even clearer now than when I left the +trench. + + + + +XX +A School In Bombing + + + +It was at a bombing school on a French farm, where chosen soldiers +brought back from the trenches were being trained in the use of the +anarchists' weapon, which has now become as respectable as the +rifle. The war has steadily developed specialism. M.B. degrees for +Master Bombers are not beyond the range of possibilities. + +Present was the chief instructor, a Scottish subaltern with blue eyes, +a pleasant smile, and a Cock-o'-the-North spirit. He might have been +twenty years old, though he did not look it. On his breast was the +purple and white ribbon of the new order of the Military Cross, which +you get for doing something in this war which would have won you a +Victoria Cross in one of the other wars. + +Also present was the assistant instructor, a sergeant of regulars--and +very much of a regular--who had three ribbons which he had won in +previous campaigns. He, too, had blue eyes, bland blue eyes. These +two understood each other. + +"If you don't drop it, why, it's all right!" said the sergeant. "Of course, +if you do------" + +I did not drop it. + +"And when you throw it, sir, you must look out and not hit the man +behind you and knock the bomb out of your hand. That has +happened before to an absent-minded fellow who was about to toss +one at the Boches, and it doesn't do to be absent-minded when you +throw bombs." + +"They say that you sometimes pick up the German bombs and chuck +them back before they explode," I suggested. + +"Yes, sir, I've read things like that in some of the accounts of the +reporters who write from Somewhere in France. You don't happen to +know where that is, sir? All I can say is that if you are going to do it +you must be quick about it. I shouldn't advise delaying decision, sir, or +perhaps when you reached down to pick it up, neither your hand nor +the bomb would be there. They'd have gone off together, sir." + +"Have you ever been hurt in your handling of bombs?" I asked. + +Surprise in the bland blue eyes. "Oh, no, sir! Bombs are well behaved +if you treat them right. It's all in being thoughtful and considerate of +them!" Meanwhile, he was jerking at some kind of a patent fuse set in +a shell of high explosive. "This is a poor kind, sir. It's been discarded, +but I thought that you might like to see it. Never did like it. Always +making trouble!" + +More distance between the audience and the performer. "Now I've +got it, sir--get down, sir!" The audience carried out instructions to the +letter, as army regulations require. It got behind the protection of one +of the practice-trench traverses. He threw the discard behind another +wall of earth. There was a sharp report, a burst of smoke, and some +fragments of earth were tossed into the air. + +In a small affair of two hundred yards of trench a week before, it was +estimated that the British and the Germans together threw about five +thousand bombs in this fashion. It was enough to sadden any +Minister of Munitions. However, the British kept the trench. + +"Do the men like to become bombers?" I asked the subaltern. + +"I should say so! It puts them up in front. It gives them a chance to +throw something, and they don't get much cricket in France, you see. +We had a pupil here last week who broke the throwing record for +distance. He was as pleased as Punch with himself. A first-class +bombing detachment has a lot of pride of corps." + +To bomb soon became as common a verb with the army as to +bayonet. "We bombed them out" meant a section of trench taken by +throwing bombs. As you know, a trench is dug and built with +sandbags in zigzag traverses. In following the course of a trench it is +as if you followed the sides of the squares of a checker board up and +down and across on the same tier of squares. The square itself is a +bank of earth, with the cut on either side and in front of it. When a +bombing-party bombs its way into possession of a section of German +trench, there are Germans under cover of the traverses on either +side. They are waiting around the corner to shoot the first British head +that shows itself. + +"It is important that you and not the Boches chuck the bombs over +first," explained the subaltern. "Also, that you get them into the right +traverse, or they may be as troublesome to you as to the enemy." + +With bombs bursting in their faces, the Germans who are not put out +of action are blinded and stunned. In that moment when they are off +guard, the aggressors leap around the corner. + +"And then?" + +"Stick 'em, sir!" said the matter-of-fact sergeant. "Yes, the cold steel is +best. And do it first! As Mr. MacPherson said, it's very important to do +it first." + +It has been found that something short is handy for this kind of work. +In such cramped quarters--a ditch six feet deep and from two to three +feet broad--the rifle is an awkward length to permit of prompt and +skilful use of the bayonet. + +"Yes, sir, you can mix it up better with something handy--to think that +British soldiers would come to fighting like assassins!" said the +sergeant. "You must be spry on such occasions. It's no time for wool- +gathering." + +Not a smile from him or the subaltern all the time. They were the kind +you would like to have along in a tight corner, whether you had to fight +with knives, fists, or seventeen-inch howitzers. + +The sergeant took us into the storehouse where he kept his supply of +bombs. + +"What if a German shell should strike your storehouse?" I asked. + +"Then, sir, I expect that most of the bombs would be exploded. +Bombs are very peculiar in their habits. What do you think, sir?" + +It was no trouble to show stock, as clerks at the stores say. He +brought forth all the different kinds of bombs that British ingenuity had +invented--but no, not all invented. These would mount into the +thousands. Every British inventor who knows anything about +explosives has tried his hand at a new kind of bomb. One means all +the kinds which the British War Office has considered worth a +practice test. The spectator was allowed to handle each one as much +as he pleased. There had been occasions, that boyish Scottish +subaltern told me, when the men who were examining the products of +British ingenuity--well, the subaltern had sandy hair, too, which +heightened the effect of his blue eyes. + +There were yellow and green and blue and black and striped bombs; +egg-shaped, barrel-shaped, conical, and concave bombs; bombs that +were exploded by pulling a string and by pressing a button--all these +to be thrown by hand, without mentioning grenades and other larger +varieties to be thrown by mechanical means, which would have made +a Chinese warrior of Confucius' time or a Roman legionary feel at +home. + +"This was the first-born," the subaltern explained, "the first thing we +could lay our hands on when the close quarters' trench warfare +began." + +It was as out of date as grandfather's smooth-bore, the tin-pot bomb +that both sides used early in the winter. A wick was attached to the +high explosive, wrapped in cloth and stuck in an ordinary army jam +tin. + +"Quite home-made, as you see, sir," remarked the sergeant. "Used to +fix them up ourselves in the trenches in odd hours--saved burying the +refuse jam tins according to medical corps directions--and you threw +them at the Boches. Had to use a match to light it. Very old- +fashioned, sir. I wonder if that old fuse has got damp. No, it's going all +right"--and he threw the jam pot, which made a good explosion. Later, +when he began hammering the end of another he looked up in mild +surprise at the dignified back-stepping of the spectators. + +"Is that fuse out?" someone asked. + +"Yes, sir. Of course, sir," he replied. "It's safer. But here is the best; +we're discarding the others," he went on, as he picked up a bomb. + +It was a pleasure to throw this crowning achievement of experiments. +It fitted your hand nicely; it threw easily; it did the business; it was +fool-proof against a man in love or a war-poet. + +"We saw as soon as this style came out," said the sergeant, "that it +was bound to be popular. Everybody asks for it--except the Boches, +sir." + + + + +XXI +My Best Day At The Front + + + +It was the best day because one ran the gamut of the mechanics and +emotions of modern war within a single experience--and oh, the +twinkle in that staff officer's eye! + +It was on a Monday that I first met him in the ballroom of a large +château. Here another officer was talking over a telephone in an +explicit, businesslike fashion about "sending up more bombs," while +we looked at maps spread out on narrow, improvised tables, such as +are used for a buffet at a reception. Those maps showed all the +British trenches and all the German trenches--spider-weblike lines +that cunning human spiders had spun with spades--in that region; +and where our batteries were and where some of the German +batteries were, if our aeroplane observations were correct. + +To the layman they were simply blue prints, such as he sees in the +office of an engineer or an architect, or elaborate printed maps with +many blue and red pencil-lings. To the general in command they +were alive with rifle-power and gun-power and other powers +mysterious to us; the sword with which he thrust and feinted and +guarded in the ceaseless fencing of trench warfare, while higher +authorities than he kept their secrets as he kept his and bided their +day. + +That morning one of the battalions which had its pencilled place on +the map had taken a section of trench from the Germans about the +length of two city blocks. It got into the official bulletins of both sides +several times, this two hundred yards at Pilken in the everlastingly +"hot corner" north of Ypres. So it was of some importance, though not +on account of its length. To take two hundred yards of trench +because it is two hundred yards of trench is not good war, tacticians +agree. Good war is to have millions of shells and vast reserves ready +and to go in over a broad area and keep on going night and day, with +a Niagara of artillery, as fresh battalions are fed into the conflict. + +But the Germans had command of some rising ground in front of the +British line at this point. They could fire down and crosswise into our +trench. It was as if we were in the alley and they were in a first-floor +window. This meant many casualties. It was man-economy and fire- +economy to take that two hundred yards. A section of trench may +always be taken if worth while. Reduce it to dust with shells and then +dash into the breach and drive the enemy back from zigzag traverse +to traverse with bombs. But such a small action requires as careful +planning as a big operation of other days. We had taken the two +hundred yards. The thing was to hold them. That is always the +difficulty; for the enemy will concentrate his guns to give you the +same dose that you gave him. In an hour after they were in, the +British soldiers, who knew exactly what they had to do and how to do +it, after months of experience, had turned the wreck of the German +trench into a British trench which faced toward Berlin, rather than +Calais. + +In their official bulletin the Germans said that they had recovered the +trench. They did recover part of it for a few hours. It was then that the +commander on the German side must have sent in his report to catch +the late evening editions. Commanders do not like to confess the loss +of trenches. It is the sort of thing that makes headquarters ask: "What +is the matter with you over there, anyway?" There was a time when +the German bulletins about the Western front seemed rather truthful; +but of late they have been getting into bad habits. + +The British general knew what was coming; he knew that he would +start the German hornets out of their nest when he took the trench; +he knew, too, that he could rely upon his men to hold till they were +told to retire or there were none left to retire. The British are a home- +loving people, who do not like to be changing their habitations. In +succeeding days the question up and down the lines was, "Have we +still got that trench?" Only two hundred yards of ditch on the continent +of Europe! But was it still ours? Had the Germans succeeded in +"strafing" us out of it yet? They had shelled all the trenches in the +region of the lost trench and had made three determined and +unsuccessful counter-attacks when, on the fifth day, we returned to +the château to ask if it were practicable to visit the new trench. + +"At your own risk!" said the staff officer. If we preferred we could sit on +the veranda where there were easy chairs, on a pleasant summer +day. Very peaceful the sweep of the well-kept grounds and the shade +of the stately trees of that sequestered world of landscape. Who was +at war? Why was anyone at war? Two staff motor-cars awaiting +orders on the drive and a dust-laden dispatch rider with messages, +who went past toward the rear of the house, were the only visual +evidence of war. The staff officer served us with helmets for +protection in case we got into a gas attack. He said that we might +enter our front trenches at a certain point and then work our way as +near the new part as we could; division headquarters, four or five +miles distant, would show us the way. It was then that the twinkle in +the staff officer's eye as it looked straight into yours became manifest. +You can never tell, I have learned, just what a twinkle in a British staff +officer's eye may portend. These fellows who are promoted up from +the trenches to join the "brain-trust" in the château, know a great deal +more about what is going on than you can learn by standing in the +road far from the front and listening to the sound of the guns. We +encountered a twinkle in another eye at division headquarters, which +may have been telephoned ahead along with the instructions, "At +their own risk." + +There are British staff officers who would not mind pulling a +correspondent's leg on a summer day; though, perhaps, it was really +the Germans who pulled ours, in this instance. Somebody did remark +at some headquarters, I recall, that "You never know!" which shows +that staff officers do not know everything. The Germans possess half +the knowledge--and they are at great pains not to part with their half. + +We proceeded in our car along country roads, quiet, normal country +roads off the main highway. It has been written again and again, and +it cannot be written too many times, that life is going on as usual in +the rear of the army. Nothing could be more wonderful and yet +nothing more natural. All the men of fighting age were absent. White- +capped grandmothers, too old to join the rest of the family in the +fields, sat in doorways sewing. Everybody was at work and the crops +were growing. You never tire of remarking the fact. It brings you back +from the destructive orgy of war to the simple, constructive things of +life. An industrious people go on cultivating the land and the land +keeps on producing. It is pleasant to think that the crops of Northern +France were good in 1915. That is cheering news from home for the +soldiers of France at the front. + +At an indicated point we left the car to go forward on foot, and the +chauffeur was told to wait for us at another point. If the car went any +farther it might draw shell-fire. Army authorities know how far they +may take cars with reasonable safety as well as a pilot knows the +rocks and shoals at a harbour entrance. + +There was an end of white-capped grandmothers in doorways; an +end of people working in the fields. Rents in the roofless walls of +unoccupied houses stared at the passer-by. We were in a dead land. +One of two soldiers whom we met coming from the opposite direction +pointed at what looked like a small miner's cabin half covered with +earth, screened by a tree, as the next headquarters which we were +seeking in our progress. + +It was not for sightseers to take the time of the general who received +us at the door of his dug-out. German guns had concentrated on a +section of his trenches in a way that indicated that another attack was +coming. One company already had suffered heavy losses. It was an +hour of responsibility for the general, isolated in the midst of silent +fields and houses, waiting for news from a region hidden from his +view by trees and hedges in that flat country. He might not move from +headquarters, for then he would be out of communication with his +command. His men were being pounded by shells and the inexorable +law of organization kept him at the rear. Up in the trench he might +have been one helpless human being in a havoc of shells which had +cut the wires. His place was where he could be in touch with his +subordinates and his superiors. + +True, we wanted to go to the trench that the Germans had lost and +his section was the short cut. Modesty was not the only reason for not +taking it. As we started along a road parallel to the front, the head of a +soldier popped out of the earth and told us that orders were to walk in +the ditch. I judged that he was less concerned with our fate than with +the likelihood of our drawing fire, which he and the others in a +concealed trench would suffer after we had passed on. + +There were three of us, two correspondents, L------ and myself, and +R------, an officer, which is quite enough for an expedition of this kind. +Now we were finding our own way, with the help of the large scale +army map which had every house, every farm, and every group of +trees marked. The farms had been given such names as Joffre, +Kitchener, French, Botha, and others which the Germans would not +like. We cut across fields with the same confidence that, following a +diagram of city streets in a guidebook, a man turns to the left for the +public library and to the right for the museum. + +Our own guns were speaking here and there from their hiding-places; +and overhead an occasional German shrapnel burst. This seemed a +waste of the Kaiser's munitions as there was no one in sight. Yet +there was purpose in the desultory scattering of bullets from on high. +They were policing the district; they were warning the hated British in +reserve not to play cricket in those fields or march along those +deserted roads. + +The more bother in taking cover that the Germans can make the +British, the better they like it; and the British return the compliment in +kind. Anything that harasses your enemy is counted to the good. If +every shell fired had killed a man in this war, there would be no +soldiers left to fight on either side; yet never have shells been so +important in war as now. They can reach the burrowing human +beings in shelters which are bulletproof; they are the omnipresent +threat of death. The firing of shells from batteries securely hidden and +em-placed represents no cost of life to your side; only cost of +material, which ridicules the foolish conclusion that machinery and not +men count. It is because man is still the most precious machine--a +machine that money cannot reproduce--that gun-machinery is so +much in favour, and every commander wants to use shells as freely +as you use city water when you do not pay for it by meter. + +Now another headquarters and another general, also isolated in a +dug-out, holding the reins of his wires over a section of line adjoining +the section we had just left. Before we proceeded we must look over +his shelter from shell-storms. The only time that British generals +become boastful is over their dug-outs. They take all the pride in +them of the man who has bought a plot of land and built himself a +home; and, like him, they keep on making improvements and calling +attention to them. I must say that this was one of the best shelters I +have seen anywhere in the tornado belt; and whatever I am not, I am +certainly an expert in dug-outs. Of course, this general, too, said, "At +your own risk!" He was good enough to send a young officer with us +up to the trenches; then we should not make any mistakes about +direction if we wanted to reach the neighbourhood of the two hundred +yards which we had taken from the Germans. When we thanked him +and said "Good-bye!" he remarked: + +"We never say good-bye up here. It does not sound pleasant. Make it +au revoir." He, too, had a twinkle in his eye. + +By this time, one leg ought to have been so much longer than the +other that one would have walked in a circle if he had not had a +guide. + +That battery which had been near the dug-out kept on with its regular +firing, its shells sweeping overhead. We had not gone far before we +came to a board nailed to a tree, with the caution, "Keep to the right!" +If you went to the left you might be seen by the enemy, though we +were seeing nothing of him, nor of our own trenches yet. Every +square yard of this ground had been tested by actual experience, at +the cost of dead and wounded men, till safe lanes of approach had +been found. + +Next was a clearing station, where the wounded are brought in from +the trenches for transfer to ambulances. A glance at the burden on a +stretcher just arrived automatically framed the word, "Shell-fire!" The +stains over-running on tanned skin beyond the edge of the white +bandage were bright in the sunlight. A khaki blouse torn open, or a +trousers leg or a sleeve cut down the seam, revealing the white of the +first aid and a splash of red, means one man wounded; and by the +ones the thousands come. + +Fifty wounded men on the floor of a clearing station and the individual +is lost in the crowd. When you see the one borne past, if there is +nothing else to distract attention you always ask two questions: Will +he die? Has he been maimed for life? If the answers to both are no, +you feel a sense of triumph, as if you had seen a human play, built +skilfully around a life to arouse your emotions, turn out happily. + +The man has fought in an honourable cause; he has felt the touch of +death's fingers. How happy he is when he knows that he will get well! +In prospect, as his wound heals into the scar which will be the lasting +decoration of his courage, his home and all that it means to him. +What kind of a home has he, this private soldier? In the slums, with a +slattern wife, or in a cottage with a flower garden in front, only a few +minutes' walk from the green fields of the English countryside? But +we set out to tell you about the kind of inferno in which this man got +his splash of red. + +We come to the banks of a canal which has carried the traffic of the +Low Countries for many centuries; the canal where British and +French had fought many a Thermopylae in the last eight months. +Along its banks run rows of fine trees, narrowing in perspective before +the eye. Some have been cut in two by the direct hit of a heavy shell +and others splintered down, bit by bit. Others still standing have been +hit many times. There are cuts as fresh as if the chips had just flown +from the axeman's blow, and there are scars from cuts made last +autumn which nature's sap, rising as it does in the veins of wounded +men, has healed, while from the remaining branches it sent forth +leaves in answer to the call of spring. + +In this section the earth is many-mouthed with caves and cut with +passages running from cave to cave, so that the inhabitants may go +and come hidden from sight. Jawbone and Hairyman and Lowbrow, +of the Stone Age, would be at home there, squatting on their hunkers +and tearing at their raw kill with their long incisors. It does not seem a +place for men who walk erect, wear woven fabrics, enjoy a written +language, and use soap and safety razors. One would not be +surprised to see some figure swing down by a long, hairy arm from a +branch of a tree and leap on all fours into one of the caves, where he +would receive a gibbering welcome to the bosom of his family. + +Not so! Huddled in these holes in the earth are free-born men of an +old civilization, who read the daily papers and eat jam on their bread. +They do not want to be there, but they would not consider themselves +worthy of the inheritance of free-born men if they were not. Only +civilized man is capable of such stoicism as theirs. They have +reverted to the cave-dweller's protection because their civilization is +so highly developed that they can throw a piece of steel weighing +from eighteen to two thousand pounds anywhere from five to twenty +miles with merciless accuracy, and because the flesh of man is even +more tender than in the cave-dweller's time, not to mention that his +brain-case is a larger target. + +An officer calls attention to a shell-proof shelter with the civic pride of +a member of a chamber of commerce pointing out the new Union +Station. + +"Not even a high explosive"--the kind that bursts on impact after +penetration--"could get into that!" he says. "We make them for +generals and colonels and others who have precious heads on their +shoulders." + +With material and labour, the same might have been constructed for +the soldiers, which brings us back to the question of munitions in the +economic balance against a human life. It was the first shelter of this +kind which I had seen. You never go up to the trenches without +seeing something new. The defensive is tireless in its ingenuity in +saving lives and the offensive in taking them. Safeguards and +salvage compete with destruction. And what labour all that excavation +and construction represented--the cumulative labour of months and +day-by-day repairs of the damage done by shells! After a +bombardment, dig out the filled trenches and renew the smashed +dug-outs to be ready for another go! + +The walls of that communication trench were two feet above our +heads. We noticed that all the men were in their dug-outs; none were +walking about in the open. One knew the meaning of this barometer-- +stormy. The German gunners were "strafing" in a very lively way this +afternoon. + +Already we had noticed many shells bursting five or six hundred +yards away, in the direction of the new British trench; but at that +distance they do not count. Then a railroad train seemed to have +jumped the track and started to fly. Fortunately and unfortunately, +sound travels faster than big shells of low velocity; fortunately, +because it gives you time to be undignified in taking cover; +unfortunately, because it gives you a fraction of a second to reflect +whether or not that shell has your name and your number on Dug-out +Street. + +I was certain that it was a big shell, of the kind that will blow a dug-out +to pieces. Anyone who had never heard a shell before would have +"scrooched," as the small boys say, as instinctively as you draw back +when the through express tears past the station. It is the kind of +scream that makes you want to roll yourself into a package about the +size of a pea, while you feel as tall and large as a cathedral, judging +by the sensation that travels down your backbone. + +Once I was being hoisted up a cliff in a basket, when the rope on the +creaking windlass above slipped a few inches. Well, it is like that, or +like taking a false step on the edge of a precipice. Is the clock about +to strike twelve or not? Not this time! The burst was thirty yards away, +along the path we had just traversed, and the sound was like the +burst of a shell and like nothing else in the world, just as the swirling, +boring, growing scream of a shell is like no other scream in the world. +A gigantic hammer-head sweeps through the air and breaks a steel +drum-head. + +If we had come along half a minute later we should have had a better +view, and perhaps now we should have been on a bed in a hospital +worrying how we were going to pay the rent, or in the place where, +hopefully, we shall have no worries at all. Between walls of earth the +report was deadened to our ears in the same way as a revolver +report in an adjoining room; and not much earth had gone down the +backs of our necks from the concussion. + +Looking over the parapet, we saw a cloud of thick, black smoke; and +we heard the outcry of a man who had been hit. That was all. The +shell might have struck nearer without our having seen or heard any +more. Shut in by the gallery walls, one knows as little of what +happens in an adjoining cave as a clam buried in the sand knows of +what is happening to a neighbour clam. A young soldier came half- +stumbling into the nearest dug-out. He was shaking his head and +batting his ears as if he had sand in them. Evidently he was returning +to his home cave from a call on a neighbour which had brought him +close to the burst. + +"That must have been about six or seven-inch," I said to the officer, +trying to be moderate and casual in my estimate, which is the correct +form on such occasions. My actual impression was forty-inch. + +"Nine-inch, h.e.," replied the expert. + +This was gratifying. It was the first time that I had been so near to a +nine-inch-shell explosion. Its "eat 'em-alive" frightfulness was +depressing. But the experience was worth having. You want all the +experiences there are--but only "close." A delightful word that word +close, at the front! + +The Germans were generous that afternoon. Another scream +seemed aimed at my head. L------ disagreed with me; he said that it +was aimed at his. We did not argue the matter to the point of a +personal quarrel, for it might have got both our heads. It burst back of +the trench about as far away as the other shell. After all, a trench is a +pretty narrow ribbon, even on a gunner's large scale map, to hit. It is +wonderful how, firing at such long range, he is able to hit a trench at +all. + +This was all of the nine-inch variety for the time being. We got some +fours and fives as we walked along. Three bursting as near together +as the ticks of a clock made almost no smoke, as they brought some +tree limbs down and tore away a section of a trunk. Then the +thunderstorm moved on to another part of the line. Only, unlike the +thunderstorms of nature, this, which is man-made and controlled as a +fireman controls the nozzle of his hose, may sweep back again and +yet again over its path. All depends upon the decision of a German +artillery officer, just as whether or not a flower-bed shall get another +sprinkle depends upon the will of the gardener. + +We were glad to turn out of the support trench into a communication +trench leading toward the front trench; into another gallery cut deep in +the fields, with scattered shell-pits on either side. Still more soldiers, +leaning against the walls or seated with their legs stretched out +across the bottom of the ditch; more waiting soldiers, only strung out +in a line and as used to the passing of shells as people living along +the elevated railroad line to the passing of trains. They did not look up +at the screams boring the air any more than one who lives under the +trains looks up every time that one passes. Theirs was the passivity +of a queue waiting in line before the entrance to a theatre or a ball- +grounds. + +A senator or a lawyer, used to coolness in debate, or to presiding +over great meetings, or to facing crowds, who happened to visit the +trenches could have got reassurance from the faces of any one of +these private soldiers, who had been trained not to worry about death +till death came. Harrowing every one of these screams, taken by +itself. Instinctively, unnecessarily, you dodged at those which were +low--unnecessarily, because they were from British guns. No danger +from them unless there was a short fuse. To the soldiers, the low +screams brought the delight of having blows struck from their side at +the enemy, whom they themselves could not strike from their reserve +position. + +For we were under the curving sweep of both the British and the +German shells, as they passed in the air on the way to their targets. It +was like standing between two railway tracks with trains going in +opposite directions. You came to differentiate between the +multitudinous screams. "Ours!" you exclaimed, with the same delight +as when you see that your side has the ball. The spirit of battle +contest rose in you. There was an end of philosophy. These soldiers +in the trenches were your partisans. Every British shell was working +for them and for you, giving blow for blow. + +The score of the contest of battle is in men down; in killed and +wounded. For every man down on your side you want two men down +on the enemy's. Sport ceases. It is the fight against a burglar with a +revolver in his hand and a knife between his teeth; and a wounded +man brought along the trench, a visible, intimate proof of a hit by the +enemy, calls for more and harder blows. + +Looking over the parapet of the communication trench you saw fields, +lifeless except for the singing birds in the wheat, who had also the +spirit of battle. The more shells, the more they warble. It was always +so on summer days. Between the screams you hear their full-pitched +chorus, striving to make itself heard in competition with the song of +German invasion and British resistance. Mostly, the birds seemed to +take cover like mankind; but I saw one sweep up from the golden sea +of ripening grain toward the men-brothers with their wings of cloth. + +Was this real, or was it extravaganza? Painted airships and a painted +summer sky? The audacity of those British airmen! Two of them were +spotting the work of British guns by their shell-bursts and watching for +gun-flashes which would reveal concealed German battery-positions, +and whispering results by wireless to their own batteries. + +It is a great game. Seven or eight thousand feet high, directly over the +British planes, is a single Taube cruising for the same purpose. It +looks like a beetle with gossamer wings suspended from a light cloud. +The British aviators are so low that the bull's-eye identification marks +are distinctly visible to the naked eye. They are playing in and out, like +the short stop and second baseman around second, there in the very +arc of the passing shells from both sides fired at other targets. But +scores of other shells are most decidedly meant for them. In the +midst of a lacework of puffs of shrapnel-bursts, which slowly spread in +the still air, from the German anti-aircraft guns, they dip and rise and +turn in skilful dodging. At length, one retires for good; probably his +plane-cloth has become too much like a sieve from shrapnel- +fragments to remain aloft longer. + +Come down, Herr Taube, come down where we can have a shot at +you I Get in the game! You can see better at the altitude of the British +airmen! But Herr Taube always stays high--the Br'er Fox of the air. Of +course, it was not so exciting as the pictures that artists draw, but it +was real. + +Every kind of shell was being fired, low and high velocity, small and +large calibre. One-two-three-four in as quick succession as the roll of +a drum, four German shells burst in line up in the region where we +have made ourselves masters of the German trench. British shells +responded. + +"Ours again!" + +But I had already ducked before I spoke, as you might if a pellet of +steel weighing a couple of hundred pounds, going at the rate of a +thousand yards a second or more, passed within a few yards of your +head--ducked to find myself looking into the face of a soldier who was +smiling. The smile was not scornful, but it was at least amused at the +expense of the sightseer who had dodged one of our own shells. In +addition to the respirators in case of a possible gas attack, supplied +by that staff officer with a twinkle in his eye, we needed a steel rod +fastened to the back of our necks and running down our spinal +columns in order to preserve our dignity. + +We were witnessing what is called the "artillery preparation for an +infantry attack," which was to try to recover that two hundred yards of +trench from the British. Only the Germans did not limit their attention +to the lost trench. It was hottest there around the bend of our line, +from our view-point; for there they must maul the trench into formless +debris and cut the barbed wire in front of it before the charge was +made. + +"They touch up all the trenches in the neighbourhood to keep us +guessing," said the officer, "before they make their final +concentration. So it's pretty thick around this part." + +"Which might include the communication trench?" + +"Certainly. This makes a good line shot. No doubt they will spare us a +few when they think it is our turn. We do the same thing. So it goes." + +From the variety of screams of big shells and little shells and screams +harrowingly close and reassuringly high, which were indicated as +ours, one was warranted in suggesting that the British were doing +considerable artillery preparation themselves. + +"We must give them as good as they send--and better." + +Better seemed correct. + +"Those close ones you hear are doubtless meant for the front +German trench, which accounts for their low trajectory; the others for +their support trenches or any battery-positions that our planes have +located." We could not see where the British shells were striking. We +could judge only of the accuracy of some of the German fire. +Considering the storm being visited on the support trench which we +had just left, we were more than ever glad to be out of it. Artillery is +the war burglar's jemmy; but it has to batter the house into ruins and +blow up the safe and kill most of the family before the burglar can +enter. Clouds of dust rose from the explosions; limbs of trees were +lopped off by tornadoes of steel hail. + +"There! Look at that tree!" + +In front of a portion of the British support trench a few of a line of +stately shade trees were still standing. A German shell, about an +eight-inch, one judged, struck fairly in the trunk of one about the +same height from the ground as the lumberman sinks his axe in the +bark. The shimmer of hot gas spread out from the point of explosion. +Through it as through an aureole one saw that twelve inches of green +wood had been cut in two as neatly as a thistle-stem is severed by a +sharp blow from a walking-stick. The body of the tree was carried +across the splintered stump with crushing impact from the power of +its flight, plus the power of the burst of the explosive charge which +broke the shell-jacket into slashing fragments; and the towering +column of limbs, branches, and foliage laid its length on the ground +with a majestic dignity. Which shows what one shell can do, one of +three which burst not far away at the same time. In time, the shells +would get all the trees; make them into chips and splinters and +toothpicks. + +"I'd rather that it would hit a tree-trunk than my trunk," said L------. + +"But you would not have got it as badly as the tree," said the officer +reassuringly. "The substance would have been too soft for sufficient +impact for a burst. It would have gone right through!" + + + + + + + +XXII +More Best Day + + + +At battalion headquarters in the front trenches the battalion surgeon +had just amputated an arm which had been mauled by a shell. + +"Without any anaesthetic," he explained. "No chance if we sent him +back to the hospital. He would die on the way. Stood it very well. +Already chirking up." + +A family practitioner at home, the doctor, when the war began, had +left his practice to go with his Territorial battalion. He retains the +family practitioner's cheery, assuring manner. He is the kind of man +who makes you feel better immediately he comes into the sick-room; +who has already made you forget yourself when he puts his finger +on your pulse. + +"The same thing that we might have done in the Crimea," he +continued, "only we have antiseptics now. It's wonderful how little you +can work with and how excellent the results. Strong, healthy men, +these, with great recuperative power and discipline and resolution-- +very different patients from those we usually operate on." + +Tea was served inside the battalion commander's dugout. Tea is as +essential every afternoon to the British as ice to the average +American in summer. They do not think of getting on without it if they +can possibly have it, and it is part of the rations. As well take +cigarettes away from those who smoke as tea from the British soldier. + +It was very much like tea outside the trenches, so far as any signs of +perturbation about shells and casualties were concerned. In that the +battalion commander had to answer telegrams, it had the aspect of a +busy man's sandwich at his desk for luncheon. Good news to cheer +the function had just come over the network of wires which connects +up the whole army, from trenches to headquarters--good news in the +midst of the shells. + +German West Africa had fallen. Botha, who was fighting against the +British fifteen years ago, had taken it fighting for the British. A +suggestive thought that. It is British character that brings enemies like +Botha into the fold; the old, good-natured, sportsmanlike live-and-let- +live idea, which has something to do with keeping the United States +intact. A board with the news on it in German was put up over the +British trenches. Naturally, the board was shot full of holes; for it is +clear that the Germans are not yet ready to come into the British +Empire. + +"Hans and Jacob we have named them," said the colonel, referring to +two Germans who were buried back of his dug-out. "It's dull up here +when the Boches are not shelling, so we let our imaginations play. +We hold conversations with Hans and Jacob in our long watches. +Hans is fat and cheerful and trusting. He believes every thing that the +Kaiser tells him and has a cheerful disposition. But Jacob is a +professor and a fearful 'strafer.' It seems a little gruesome, doesn't it, +but not after you have been in the trenches for a while." + +A little gruesome--true! Not in the trenches--true, too! Where all is +satire, no incongruity seems out of place. Life plays in and out with +death; they intermingle; they look each other in the face and say: "I +know you. We dwell together. Let us smile when we may, at what we +may, to hide the character of our comradeship; for to-morrow------" + +Only half an hour before one of the officers had been shot through +the head by a sniper. He was a popular officer. The others had +messed with him and marched with him and known him in the +fullness of affection of comradeship in arms and dangers shared. A +heartbreak for some home in England. No one dwelt on the incident. +What was there to say? The trembling lip, trembling in spite of itself, +was the only outward sign of the depth of feeling that words could not +reflect, at tea in the dug-out. The subject was changed to something +about the living. One must carry on cheerfully; one must be on the +alert; one must play his part serenely, unflinchingly, for the sake of the +nerves around him and for his own sake. Such fortitude becomes +automatic, it would seem. Please, I must not hesitate about having a +slice of cake. They managed cake without any difficulty up there in +the trenches. And who if not men in the trenches was entitled to cake, +I should like to know? "It was here that he was hit," another officer +said, as we moved on in the trench. "He was saying that the +sandbags were a little weak and a bullet might go through and catch +a man who thought himself safely under cover as he walked along. +He had started to fix the sandbags himself when he got it. The bullet +came right through the top of one of the bags in front of him." + +A bullet makes the merciful wound; and a bullet through the head is a +simple way of going. The bad wounds come mostly from shells; but +there is something about seeing anyone hit by a sniper which is more +horrible. It is a cold-blooded kind of killing, more suggestive of +murder, this single shot from a sharpshooter waiting as patiently as a +cat for a mouse, aimed definitely to take the life of a man. + +Again we move on in that narrow cut of earth with its waiting soldiers, +which the world knows so well from reading tours of the trenches. No +one not on watch might show his head on an afternoon like this. The +men were prisoners between those walls of earth; not even +spectators of what the guns were doing; simply moles. They took it all +as a part of the day's work, with that singular, redoubtable +combination of British phlegm and cheerfulness. + +Of course, some of them were eating bread and marmalade and +making tea. Where all the marmalade goes which Mr. Atkins uses for +his personal munition in fighting the Germans puzzles the Army +Service Corps, whose business it is to see that he is never without it. +How could he sit so calmly under shell-fire without marmalade? +Never! He would get fidgety and forget his lesson, I am sure, like the +boy who had the button which he was used to fingering removed +before he went to recite. + +Any minute a shell may come. Mr. Atkins does not think of that. Time +enough to think after it has arrived. Then perhaps the burial party will +be doing your thinking for you; or if not, the doctors and the nurses +who look after you will. + +I noted certain acts of fellowship of comrades who are all in the same +boat and have learned unselfishness. When they got up to let you +pass and you smiled your thanks, you received a much pleasanter +smile in return than you will from many a well-fed gentleman who has +to stand aside to let you enter a restaurant. The manners of the +trenches are good, better than in some places where good manners +are a cult. + +There is no better place to send a spoiled, undisciplined, bumptious +youth than to a British trench. He will learn that there are other men in +the world besides himself and that a shell can kill a rich brute or a +selfish brute as readily as a poor man. Democracy there is in the +trenches; the democracy where all men are in the presence of death +and "hazing" parties need not be organized among the students. + +But there is another and a greater element in the practical psychology +of the trenches. These good-natured men, fighting the bitterest kind +of warfare without the signs of brutality which we associate with the +prize-fighter and the bully in their faces, know why they are fighting. +They consider that their duty is in that trench, and that they could not +have a title to manhood if they were not there. After the war the men +who have been in the trenches will rule England. Their spirit and their +thinking will fashion the new trend of civilization, and the men who +have not fought will bear the worst scars from the war. + +Ridiculous it is that men should be moles, perhaps; but at the same +time there is something sublime in the fellowship of their courage and +purpose, as they "sit and take it," or guard against attacks, without +the passion of battle of the old days of excited charges and quick +results, and watch the toll pass by from hour to hour. Borne by +comrades pick-a-back we saw the wounded carried along that +passage too narrow for a litter. A splash of blood, a white bandage, a +limp form! + +For the second permissible--periscopes are tempting targets--I +looked through one over the top of the parapet. Another film! A big +British lyddite shell went crashing into the German parapet. The dust +from sandbags and dug-outs merged into an immense cloud of ugly, +black smoke. As the cloud rose, one saw the figure of a German dart +out of sight; then nothing was visible but the gap which the explosion +had made. No wise German would show himself. British snipers were +watching for him. At least half a dozen, perhaps a score, of men had +been put out by this single "direct hit" of an h.e. (high explosive). Yes, +the British gunners were shooting well, too. Other periscopic glimpses +proved it. + +Through the periscope we learned also that the two lines of sandbags +of German and British trenches were drawing nearer together. +Another wounded man was brought by. + +"They're bombing up ahead. He has just been hit." As we drew aside +to make room for him to pass, once more the civilian realized his +helplessness and unimportance. One soldier was worth ten Prime +Ministers in that place. We were as conspicuously mal à propos as an +outsider at a bank directors' meeting or in a football scrimmage. The +officer politely reminded us of the necessity of elbow room in the +narrow quarters for the bombers, who were hidden from view by the +zigzag traverses, and I was not sorry, though perhaps my +companions were. If so, they did not say so, not being talkative men. +We were not going to see the two hundred yards of captured trench +that were beyond the bombing action, after all. Oh, the twinkle in that +staff officer's eye! + +"A Boche gas shell!" we were told, as we passed an informal +excavation in the communication trench on our way back. +"Asphyxiating effect. No time to put on respirators when one +explodes. Laid out half a dozen men like fish, gasping for air, but they +will recover." + +"The Boches want us to hurry!" exclaimed L------. + +They were giving the communication trench a turn at "strafing," now, +and shells were urgently dropping behind us. There was no use trying +to respond to one's natural inclination to run away from the pursuing +shower when you had to squeeze past soldiers as you went. + +"But look at what we are going into! This is like beating up grouse to +the guns, and we are the birds! I am wondering if I like it." + +We could tell what had happened in our absence in the support +trench by the litter of branches and leaves and by the excavations +made by shells. It was still happening, too. Another nine-inch, with +your only view of surroundings the wall of earth which you hugged. +Crash--and safe again! + +"Pretty!" L------ said, smiling. He was referring to the cloud of black +smoke from the burst. Pretty is a favourite word of his. I find that men +use habitual exclamations on such occasions. R------, also smiling, +had said, "A black business, this!" a favourite expression with him. + +"Yes--pretty!" R------and I exclaimed together. + +L------took a sliver off his coat and offered it to us as a souvenir. He +did not know that he had said "Pretty!" or R------ that he had said "A +black business!" several times that afternoon; nor did I know that I +had exclaimed, "For the love of Mike!" Psychologists take notice; and +golfers are reminded that their favourite expletives when they foozle +will come perfectly natural to them when the Germans are "strafing." +Then another nine-inch, when we were out of the gallery in front of +the warrens. My companions happened to be near a dug-out. They +did not go in tandem, but abreast. It was a "dead heat." All that I could +see in the way of cover was a wall of sandbags, which looked about +as comforting as tissue paper in such a crisis. + +At least, one faintly realized what it meant to be in the support +trenches, where the men were still huddled in their caves. They never +get a shot at the enemy or a chance to throw a bomb, unless they are +sent forward to assist the front trenches in resisting an attack. It is for +this purpose that they are kept within easy reach of the front +trenches. They are like the prisoner tied to a chair-back, facing a gun. + +"Yes, this was pretty heavy shell-fire," said an officer who ought to +know. "Not so bad as on the trenches which the infantry are to attack +--that is the first degree. You might call this the second." + +It was heavy enough to keep any writer from being bored. The +second degree will do. We will leave the first until another time. + +Later, when we were walking along a paved road, I heard again what +seemed the siren call of a nine-inch. + +Once, in another war, I had been on a paved road when--well, I did +not care to be on this one if a nine-inch hit it and turned fragments of +paving-stones into projectiles. An effort to "run out the bunt"--Caesar's +ghost! It was one of our own shells! Nerves! Shame! Two stretcher- +bearers with a wounded man looked up in surprise, wondering what +kind of a hide-and-seek game we were playing. They made a picture +of imperturbability of the kind that is a cure for nerves under fire. +If the other fellow is not scared it does not do for you to be scared. + +"Did you get any shells in your neighbourhood?" we asked the +chauffeur--also British and imperturbable--whom we found waiting at +a clearing station for wounded. + +"Yes, sir, I saw several, but none hit the car." + +As we came to the first cross-roads in that dead land back of the +trenches which was still being shelled by shrapnel, though not +another car was in sight, and ours had no business there (as we were +told afterwards), that chauffeur, as he slowed up before turning, held +out his hand from habit as he would have done in Piccadilly. + +Two or three days later things were normal along the front again, with +Mr. Atkins still stuffing himself with marmalade in that two hundred +yards of trench. + + + + +XXIII +Winning And Losing + + + +Seeming an immovable black line set as a frontier in peace, that +Western front on your map which you bought early in the war in +anticipation of rearranging the flags in keeping with each day's news +was, in reality, a pulsating, changing line. + +At times you thought of it as an enormous rope under the constant +pressure of soldiers on either side, who now and then, with an "all +together" of a tug-of-war at a given point, straightened or made a +bend, with the result imperceptible except as you measured it by a +tree or a house. Battles as severe as the most important in South +Africa, battles severe enough to have decided famous campaigns in +Europe in former days, when one king rode forth against another, +became landmark incidents of the give and take, the wrangling and +the wrestling of siege operations. + +The sensation of victory or defeat for those engaged was none the +less vivid because victory meant the gain of so little ground and +defeat the loss of so little; perhaps the more vivid in want of the +movement of pursuing or of being pursued in the shock of arms as in +past times, when an army front hardly covered that of one brigade in +the trenches. For winners and losers, returning to their billets in +French villages as other battalions took their places, had time to think +over the action. + +The offensive was mostly with the British through the summer of +1915; any thrust by the Germans was usually to retake a section of +trenches which they had lost. But our attacks did not all succeed, of +course. + +Battalions knew success and failure; and their narratives were mine +to share, just as one would share the good luck or the bad luck of his +neighbours. + +You may have a story of heartbreak or triumph an hour after you +have been chatting with playing children in a village street, as the car +speeds toward the zone where reserves are billeted and the +occasional shell is a warning that peace lies behind you. First, we +alighted near the headquarters of two battalions which have been in +an attack that failed. The colonel of the one to the left of the road was +killed. We went across the fields to the right. Among the surviving +officers resting in their shelter tents, where there is plenty of room +now, is the adjutant, tall, boyish, looking tired, but still with no +outward display of what he has gone through and what it has meant +to him. I have seen him by the hundreds, this buoyant type of English +youth. + +In army language, theirs had not been a "good show." We had heard +the account of it with that matter-of-fact prefix from G.H.Q., where +they took results with the necessarily cold eye of logic. The two +battalions were set to take a trench; that was all. In the midst of +merciless shell-fire they had waited for their own guns to draw all the +teeth out of the trench. When the given moment came they swept +forward. But our artillery had not "connected up" properly. + +The German machine-guns were not out of commission, and for +them it was like working a loom playing bullets back and forth across +the zone of a hundred yards which the British had to traverse. The +British had been told to charge and they charged. Theirs not to +reason why; that was the glory of the thing. Nothing more gallant in +warfare than their persistence, till they found that it was like trying to +swim in a cataract of lead. One officer got within fifty yards of the +German parapet before he fell. At last they realized that it could not +be done--later than they should, but they were a proud regiment, and +though they had been too brave, there was something splendid about +it. + +With a soldier's winning frankness and simplicity they told what had +happened. Even before they charged they knew the machine-guns +were in place; they knew what they had to face. One man spoke of +seeing, as they lay waiting, a German officer standing up in the midst +of the British shell-fire. + +"A stout-hearted fighter I We had to admire him!" said the adjutant. + +It was a chivalrous thought with a deep appeal, considering what he +had been through. Oh, these English! They will not hate; they cannot +be separated from their sense of sportsmanship. + +It was not the first time the guns had not "connected up" for either +side, and German charges on many occasions had met a like fate. +Calm enough, these officers, true to their birthright of phlegm. They +did not make excuses. Success is the criterion of battle. They had +failed. Their unblinking recognition of the fact was a sort of self- +punishment which cut deep into your own sensitiveness. One young +lieutenant could not keep his lip from trembling over that naked, grim +thought. Pride of regiment had been struck a whip-blow, which meant +more to the soldier than any injury to his personal pride. + +But next time! They wanted another try for that trench, these +survivors. No matter about anything else--the battalion must have +another chance. You appreciated this from a few words and more +from the stubborn resolution in the bearing of all. There was no "let- +us-at-'em-again" frightfulness. In order to end this war you must "lick" +one side or the other, and these men were not "licked." You were +sorry that you had gone to see them. It was like lacerating a wound. + +One could only assure them, in his faith in their gallantry, that they +would win next time. And oh, how you wanted them to win! They +deserved to win because they were such manly losers. + +At home in their rough wooden houses in camp we found a battalion +which had won--the same undemonstrative type as the one that had +lost; the same simplicity and kindly hospitality, which gives life at the +front a charm in the midst of its tragedy, from these men of one of the +dependable line regiments. This colonel knew the other colonel, and +he said about the other what his fellow-officers had said: it was not his +fault; he was a good man. If the guns were not "on," what happened +to him was bound to happen to anybody. They had been "on" for the +winning battalion; perfectly "on." They had buried the machine-guns +and the Germans with them. + +When a man goes into the kind of charge that either battalion made +he gives himself up for lost. The psychology is simple. You are going +to keep on until------! + +Well, as Mr. Atkins has remarked in his own terse way, a battle was a +lot of noise all around you and suddenly a big bang in your ear; and +then somebody said, "please open your mouth and take this!" and +you found yourself in a white, quiet place full of cots. + +The winning battalion was amazed how easily the thing was done. +They had "walked in." They were a little surprised to be alive--thanks +to the guns. "Here we are! Here we are again!" as the song at the +front goes. It is all a lottery. Make up your mind to draw the death +number; and if you don't, that is "velvet." Army courage these days is +highly sensitized steel in response to will. + +They had won; there was a credit mark in the regimental record. All +had won; nobody in particular, but the battalion, the lot of them. They +did not boast about it. The thing just happened. They were alive and +enjoying the sheer fact of life, writing letters home, rereading letters +from home, looking at the pictures in illustrated papers, as they +leaned back and smoked their brier-wood pipes and discussed +politics with that freedom and directness of opinion which is an +Englishman's pastime and his birthright. + +The captain who was describing the fight had retired from the army, +gone into business, and returned as a reserve officer. The guns were +to stop firing at a given moment. As the minute-hand lay over the +figure on his wrist-watch he dashed for the broken parapet, still in the +haze of dust from shell-bursts, to find not a German in sight. All were +under cover. He enacted the ridiculous scene with humorous +appreciation of how he came face to face with a German as he +turned a traverse. He was ready with his revolver and the other was +not, and the other was his prisoner. + +There was nothing gruesome about listening to a diffident soldier +explaining how he "bombed them out," and you shared his +amusement over the surprise of a German who stuck up his head +from a dug-out within a foot of the face of a British soldier who was +peeping inside to see if any more Germans were at home. You +rejoiced with this battalion. Victory is sweet. + +When on the way back to quarters you passed some of the new army +men, "the Keetcheenaires," as the French call them, you were +reminded that although the war was old the British army was young. +There was a "Watch our city grow!" atmosphere about it. Little by +little, some great force seemed steadily pushing up from the rear. It +made that business institution at G.H.Q. feel like bankers with an +enormous, increasing surplus. In this the British is like no other army. +One has watched it in the making. + + + + +XXIV +The Maple Leaf Folk + + + +These were "home folks" to the American. You might know all by their +maple-leaf symbol; but even before you saw that, with its bronze +none too prominent against the khaki, you knew those who were not +recent emigrants from England to Canada by their accent and by +certain slang phrases which pay no customs duty at the border. + +When, on a dark February night cruising in a slough of a road, I heard +out of a wall of blackness back of the trenches, "Gee! Get on to the +bus!" which referred to our car, and also, "Cut out the noise!" I was +certain that I might dispense with an interpreter. After I had remarked +that I came from New York, which is only across the street from +Montreal as distances go in our countries, the American batting about +the front at midnight was welcomed with a "glad hand" across that +imaginary line which has and ever shall have no fortresses. + +What a strange place to find Canadians--at the front in Europe! I +could never quite accommodate myself to the wonder of a man from +Winnipeg, and perhaps a "neutral" from Wyoming in his company, +fighting Germans in Flanders. A man used to a downy couch and an +easy chair by the fire and steam-heated rooms, who had ten +thousand a year in Toronto, when you found him in a chill, damp +cellar of a peasant's cottage in range of the enemy's shells was +getting something more than novel, if not more picturesque, than +dog-mushing and prospecting on the Yukon; for we are quite used to +that contrast. + +All I asked of the Canadians was to allow a little of the glory they had +won--they had such a lot--to rub off on their neighbours. If there must +be war, and no Canadian believed in it as an institution, why, to my +mind, the Canadians did a fine thing for civilization's sake. It hurt +sometimes to think that we also could not be in the fight for the good +cause, particularly after the Lusitania was sunk, when my own +feelings had lost all semblance of neutrality. + +The Canadians enlivened life at the front; for they have a little more +zip to them than the thorough-going British. Their climate spells +"hustle," and we are all the product of climate to a large degree, +whether in England, on the Mississippi flatlands, or in Manitoba. +Eager and high-strung the Canadian born, quick to see and to act. +Very restless they were when held up on Salisbury Plain, after they +had come three-four-five-six thousand miles to fight and there was +nothing to fight but mud in an English winter. + +One from the American contingent knew what ailed them; they +wanted action. They may have seemed undisciplined to a drill +sergeant; but the kind of discipline they needed was a sight of the real +thing. They wanted to know, What for? And Lord Kitchener was +kinder to them, though many were beginners, than to his own new +army; he could be, as they were ready with guns and equipment. So +he sent them over to France before it was too late in the spring to get +frozen feet from standing in icy water looking over a parapet at a +German parapet. They liked Flanders mud better than Salisbury Plain +mud, because it meant that there was "something doing." + +It was in their first trenches that I saw them, and they were "on the +job, all right," in face of scattered shell-fire and the sweep of +searchlights and flares. They had become the most ardent of pupils, +for here was that real thing which steadied them and proved their +metal. + +They refashioned their trenches and drained them with the +fastidiousness of good housekeepers who had a frontiersman's +experience for an inheritance. In a week they appeared to be old +hands at the business. + +"Their discipline is different from ours," said a British general, "but it +works out. They are splendid. I ask for no better troops." + +They may have lacked the etiquette of discipline of British regulars, +but they had the natural discipline of self-reliance and of "go to it" +when a crisis came. This trench was only an introduction, a +preparation for a thing which was about as real as ever fell to the lot +of any soldiers. It is not for me to tell here the story of their part in +the second battle of Ypres, when the gas fumes rolled in upon them. +I should like to tell it and also the story of the deeds of many British +regiments, from the time of Mons to Festubert. All Canada knows it in +detail from their own correspondents and their record officer. England +will one day know about her regiments; her stubborn regiments of the +line, her county regiments, who have won the admiration of all the +crack regiments, whether English or Scots. + +"When that gas came along," said one Canadian, who expressed the +Canadian spirit, "we knew the Boches were springing a new one on +us. You know how it is if a man is hit in the face by a cloud of smoke +when he is going into a burning building to get somebody out. He +draws back--and then he goes in. We went in. We charged--well, it +was the way we felt about it. We wanted to get at them and we were +boiling mad over such a dastardly kind of attack." + +Higher authorities than any civilian have testified to how that charge +helped, if it did not save, the situation. And then at Givenchy--straight +work into the enemy's trenches under the guns. Canada is part of the +British Empire and a precious part; but the Canadians, all imperial +politics aside, fought their way into the affection of the British army, if +they did not already possess it. They made the Rocky Mountains +seem more majestic and the Thousand Islands more lovely. + +If there are some people in the United States busy with their own +affairs who look on the Canadians as living up north somewhere +toward the Arctic Circle and not very numerous, that old criterion of +worth which discovers in the glare of battle's publicity merit which +already existed has given to the name Canadian a glory which can be +appreciated only with the perspective of time. The Civil War left us a +martial tradition; they have won theirs. Some day a few of their neutral +neighbours who fought by their side will be joining in their army +reunions and remarking, "Wasn't that mud in Flanders------" etc. + +My thanks to the Canadians for being at the front. They brought me +back to the plains and the North-West, and they showed the +Germans on some occasions what a blizzard is like when expressed +in bullets instead of in snowflakes, by men who know how to shoot. I +had continental pride in them. They had the dry, pungent philosophy +and the indomitable optimism which the air of the plains and the St. +Lawrence valley seems to develop. They were not afraid to be a little +emotional and sentimental. There is room for that sort of thing +between Vancouver and Halifax. They had been in some "tough +scraps" which they saw clear-eyed, as they would see a boxing- +match or a spill from a canoe into a Canadian rapids. + +As for the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, old soldiers of +the South African campaign almost without exception, knowing and +hardened, their veteran experience gave them an earlier opportunity +in the trenches than the first Canadian division. Brigaded with British +regulars, the Princess Pat's were a sort of corps d'élite. Colonel +Francis Farquhar, known as "Fanny," was their colonel, and he knew +his men. After he was killed his spirit remained with them. Asked if +they could stick they said, "Yes, sir!" cheerily, as he would have +wanted them to say it. + +I am going to tell the story of their fight of May 8th, not to single them +out from any other Canadian battalion, or any British battalions, but +because the story came to me and it seemed illuminative of what +other battalions had endured, this one picturesquely because of its +membership and its distance from home. + +Losses in that Ypres salient at St. Eloi the P.P.s had suffered in the +winter, dribbling, day-by-day losses, and heavier ones when they had +made attacks and repulsed attacks. They had been holding down the +lid of hell heretofore, as one said graphically, and on May 8th, to use +his simile again, they held on to the edge of the opening by the skin of +their teeth and looked down into the bowels of hell after the Germans +had blown the lid off with high explosives. + +It was in a big château that I heard the story--a story characteristic of +modern warfare at its highest pitch--and felt its thrill when told by the +tongues of its participants. There were twenty bedrooms in that +château. If I wished to stay all night I might occupy three or four. As +for the bathroom, paradise to men who have been buried in filthy mud +by high explosives, the Frenchman who planned it had the most +spacious ideas of immersion. A tub, or a shower, or a hose, as you +pleased. Some bathroom, that! + +For nothing in the British army was too good for the Princess Pat's +before May 8th; and since May 8th nothing is quite good enough. Ask +the generals in whose command they have served if you have any +doubts. There is one way to win praise at the front: by fighting. The +P.P.s knew the way. + +"Too bad Gault is not here. He's in England recovering from his +wound. Gault is six feet tall and five feet of him legs. All day in that +trench with a shell-wound in his thigh and arm. God! How he was +suffering! But not a moan, his face twitching and trying to make the +twitch into a smile, and telling us to stick. + +"Buller away, too. He was the second in command. Gault succeeded +him. Buller was hit on May 5th and missed the big show--piece of +shell in the eye." + +"And Charlie Stewart, who was shot through the stomach. How we +miss him! If ever there were a 'live-wire' it's Charlie. Up or down, he's +smiling and ready for the next adventure. Once he made thirty +thousand dollars in the Yukon and spent it on the way to Vancouver. +The first job he could get was washing dishes; but he wasn't washing +them long. Again, he started out in the North-West on an expedition +with four hundred traps, to cut into the fur business of the Hudson +Bay Company. His Indians got sick. He wouldn't desert them, and +before he was through he had a time which beat anything yet opened +up for us by the Germans in Flanders. But you have heard such +stories from the North-West before. Being shot through the stomach +the way he was, all the doctors agreed that Charlie would die. It was +like Charlie to disagree with them. He always had his own point of +view. So he is getting well. Charlie came out to the war with the +packing-case which had been used by his grandfather, who was an +officer in the Crimean War. He said that it would bring him luck." + +The 4th of May was bad enough, a ghastly forerunner for the 8th. On +the 4th the P.P.s, after having been under shell-fire throughout the +second battle of Ypres, the "gas battle," were ordered forward to a +new line to the south-east of Ypres. To the north of Ypres the British +line had been driven back by the concentration of shell-fire and the +rolling, deadly march of the clouds of asphyxiating gas. + +The Germans were still determined to take the town, which they had +showered with four million dollars' worth of shells. It would be big +news: the fall of Ypres as a prelude to the fall of Przemysl and of +Lemberg in their summer campaign of 1915. A wicked salient was +produced in the British line to the south-east by the cave-in to the +north. It seems to be the lot of the P.P.s to get into salients. On the +4th they lost twenty-eight men killed and ninety-eight wounded from a +gruelling all-day shell-fire and stone-walling. That night they got relief +and were out for two days, when they were back in the front trenches +again. The 5th and the 6th were fairly quiet; that is, what the P.P.s or +Mr. Thomas Atkins would call quiet. Average mortals wouldn't. They +would try to appear unconcerned and say they had been under pretty +heavy fire, which means shells all over the place and machine-guns +combing the parapet. Very dull, indeed. Only three men killed and +seventeen wounded. + +On the night of May 7th the P.P.s had a muster of six hundred and +thirty-five men. This was a good deal less than half of the original total +in the battalion, including recruits who had come out to fill the gaps +caused by death, wounds, and sickness. Bear in mind that before this +war a force was supposed to prepare for retreat with a loss of ten per +cent, and get under way to the rear with the loss of fifteen per cent, +and that with the loss of thirty per cent, it was supposed to have +borne all that can be expected of the best trained soldiers. + +The Germans were quiet that night, suggestively quiet. At 4.30 a.m. +the prelude began; by 5.30 the German gunners had fairly warmed to +their work. They were using every kind of shell they had in the locker. +Every signal wire the P.P.s possessed had been cut. The brigade +commander could not know what was happening to them and they +could not know his wishes; except that it may be taken for granted +that the orders of any British brigade commander are always to "stick +it." The shell-fire was as thick at the P.P.s' backs as in front of them; +they were fenced in by it. And they were infantry taking what the guns +gave in order to put them out of business so that the way would be +clear for the German infantry to charge. In theory they ought to have +been buried and mangled beyond the power of resistance by what is +called "the artillery preparation for the infantry in attack." + +Every man of the P.P.s knew what was coming. There was relief in +their hearts when they saw the Germans break from their trenches +and start down the slope of the hill in front. Now they could take it out +of the German infantry in payment for what the German guns were +doing to them. This was their only thought. Being good shots, with the +instinct of the man who is used to shooting at game, the P.P.s "shoot +to kill" and at individual targets. The light green of the German +uniform is more visible on the deep green background of spring grass +and foliage than against the tints of autumn. At two or three or four +hundred yards neither Corporal Christy, the old bear-hunter, lying on +the parapet nor other marksmen of the P.P.s could miss their marks. +They kept on knocking down Germans; they didn't know that men +around them were being hit; they did not know they were being +shelled except when a burst shook their aim or filled their eyes with +dust. In that case they wiped the dust out of their eyes and went on. +The first that many of them realized that the German attack was +broken was when they saw green blots in front of the standing +figures, which were now going in the other direction. Then the thing +was to keep as many of these as possible from returning over the hill. +After that they could dress the wounded and make the dying a little +more comfortable. For there was no taking the wounded to the rear. +They had to remain there in the trench perhaps to be wounded again, +spectators of their comrades' valour without the preoccupation of +action. + +In the official war journal where a battalion keeps its records--that +precious historical document which will be safeguarded in fireproof +vaults one of these days--you may read in cold, official language what +happened in one section of the British line on the 8th of May. Thus: + +"7 a.m. Fire trench on right blown in at several points ... 9 a.m. +Lieutenants Martin and Triggs were hit and came out of left +communicating trench with number of wounded . . . Captain Still and +Lieutenant de Bay hit also . . . 9.30 a.m. All machine-guns were +buried (by high explosive shells) but two were dug out and mounted +again. A shell killed every man in one section . . . 10.30 a.m. +Lieutenant Edwards was killed . . . Lieutenant Crawford, who was +most gallant, was severely wounded . . . Captain Adamson, who had +been handing out ammunition, was hit in the shoulder, but continued +to work with only one arm useful . . . Sergeant-Major Frazer, who was +also handing out ammunition to support trenches, was killed instantly +by a bullet in the head." + +At 10.30 only four officers remained fit for action. All were lieutenants. +The ranking one of these was Niven, in command after Gault was +wounded at 7 a.m. We have all met the Niven type anywhere from +the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Circle, the high-strung, wiry type who +moves about too fast to carry any loose flesh and accumulates none +because he does move about so fast. A little man Niven, rancher and +horseman, with a good education and a knowledge of men. He rather +fits the old saying about licking his weight in wild cats--wild cats being +nearer his size than lions or tigers. + +Eight months before he had not known any more about war than +thousands of other Canadians of his type, except that soldiers carried +rifles over their shoulders and kept step. But he had "Fanny" +Farquhar, of the British army, for his teacher; and he studied the book +of war in the midst of shells and bullets, which means that the lessons +stick in the same way as the lesson the small boy receives when he +touches the red-hot end of a poker to ascertain how it feels. + +Writing in the midst of ruined trenches rocked by the concussion of +shells, every message he sent that day, every report he made by +orderly after the wires were down was written out very explicitly; which +Farquhar had taught him was the army way. The record is there of his +coolness when the lid was blown off of hell. For all you can tell by the +firm chirography, he might have been sending a note to a ranch +foreman. + +When his communications were cut, he was not certain how much +support he had on his flanks. It looked for a time as if he had none. +After the first charge was repulsed, he made contact with the King's +Royal Rifle Corps on his right. He knew from the nature of the first +German charge that the second would be worse than the first. The +Germans had advanced some machine-guns; they would be able to +place their increased artillery fire more accurately. + +Again green figures started down that hill and again they were put +back. Then Niven was able to establish contact with the Shropshire +Light Infantry, another regiment on his left. So he knew that right and +left he was supported, and by seasoned British regulars. This was +very, very comforting, especially when German machine-gun fire was +not only coming from the front but in enfilade, which is most trying to a +soldier's steadiness. In other words, the P.P.s were shooting at +Germans in front, while bullets were whipping crosswise of their +trenches and of the regulars on their flanks, too. Some of the German +infantrymen who had not been hit or had not fallen back had dug +themselves cover and were firing at a closer range. + +The Germans had located the points in the P.P.s' trench occupied by +machine-guns. At least, they could put these hornets' nests out of +business if not all the individual riflemen. So they concentrated high +explosive shells on the guns. This did the trick; it buried them. But a +buried machine-gun may be dug out and fired again. It may be dug +out two or three times and keep on firing as long as it will work and +there is anyone to man it. + +While the machine-guns were being exhumed every man in one +sector of the trench was killed. Then the left half of the right fire +trench had three or four shells, one after another, bang into it. There +was no trench left; only macerated earth and mangled men. Those +emerging alive were told to retreat to the communication trench. +Next, the right end of the left fire trench was blown in. When the +survivors fell back to the communication trench that also was +blown in their face. + +"Oh, but we were having a merry party!" as Lieutenant Vandenberg +put it. + +Niven and his lieutenants were moving here and there to the point of +each new explosion to ascertain the amount of damage and to +decide what was to be done as the result. One soldier described +Niven's eyes as sparks emitted from two holes in his dust-caked face. + +Pappineau tells how a tree outside the trench was cut in two by a +shell and its trunk laid across the breach of the trench caused by +another shell; and lying over the trunk, limp and lifeless where he had +fallen, was a man killed by still another shell. + +"I remember how he looked because I had to step around him and +over the trunk," said Pappineau. + +Unless you did have to step around a dead or a wounded man there +was no time to observe his appearance; for by noon there were as +many dead and wounded in the P.P.s' trench as there were men fit +for action. + +Those unhurt did not have to be steadied by their superiors. Knocked +down by a concussion they sprang up with the promptness of disgust +of one thrown off a horse or tripped by a wire. When told to move +from one part of the trench to another where there was desperate +need, a word was sufficient. They understood what was wanted of +them, these veterans. They went. They seized every lull to drop the +rifle for the spade and repair the breaches. When they were not +shooting they were digging. The officers had only to keep reminding +them not to expose themselves in the breaches. For in the thick of it, +and the thicker the more so, they must try to keep some dirt between +all of their bodies except the head and arm which had to be up in +order to fire. + +At 1.30 p.m. a cheer rose from that trench. It was in greeting of a +platoon of the King's Royal Rifles which had come as a reinforcement. +Oh, but this band of Tommies did look good to the P.P.s! And the +little prize package that the very reliable Mr. Atkins had with him +--the machine-gun! You can always count on Mr. Atkins to remain +"among those present" to the last on such occasions. + +Now Niven got word by messenger to go to the nearest point where +the telephone was working and tell the brigade commander the +complete details of the situation. The brigade commander asked him +if he could stick, and he said, "Yes, sir!" which is what Colonel +"Fanny" Farquhar would have said. This trip was hardly what would +be called peaceful. The orderly whom Niven had with him both going +and coming was hit by high explosive shells. Niven is so small that it +is difficult to hit him. He is about up to Major Gault's shoulder. + +He had been worrying about his supply of rifle-cartridges. There were +not enough to take care of another German infantry charge, which +was surely coming. After repelling two charges, think of failing to repel +the third for want of ammunition! Think of Corporal Christy, the bear- +hunter, with the Germans thick in front of him and no bullets for his +rifle! But appeared again Mr. Thomas Atkins, another platoon of him, +with twenty boxes of cartridges, which was rather a risky burden to +bring through shell-fire. The relief as these were distributed was that +of having something at your throat which threatens to strangle you +removed. + +Making another tour of his trenches a little later in the afternoon, +Niven found that there was a gap of fifty yards between his left and +the right of the adjoining regiment. Fifty yards is the inch on the end of +a man's nose in trench-warfare on such an occasion. He was able to +place eight men in the gap. At least, they could keep a look out and +tell him what was going on. + +It was not cheering news to learn that the regiments on his left had +withdrawn to trenches about three hundred yards to the rear--a long +distance in trench warfare. But the P.P.s had no time to retire. They +could have gone only in the panic of men who think of nothing in their +demoralization except to flee from the danger in front, regardless of +more danger to the rear. They were held where they were under what +cover they had by the renewed blasts of shells, putting the machine- +guns out of action. + +Now the Germans were coming on again in their supreme effort. It +was as a nightmare, in which only the objective of effort is recalled +and all else is a vague struggle of every ounce of strength which one +can exert against smothering odds. No use to ask these men what +they thought. What do you think when you are climbing up a rope +whose strands are breaking over the edge of a precipice? You climb; +that is all. + +The P.P.s shot at Germans. After a night without sleep, after a day +among their dead and wounded, after torrents of shell-fire, after +breathing smoke, dust and gas, these veterans were in a state of +exaltation entirely oblivious of danger, of their surroundings, mindless +of what came next, automatically shooting to kill as they were trained +to do, even as a man pulls with all his might in the crucial test of a tug +of war. Old Corporal Christy, bear-hunter of the North-West, who +could "shoot the eye off an ant," as Niven said, leaned out over the +parapet, or what was left of it, because he could take better aim lying +down and the Germans were so thick that he could not afford any +misses. + +Corporal Dover had to give up firing his machine-gun at last. +Wounded, he had dug it out of the earth after an explosion and set it +up again. The explosion which destroyed the gun finally crushed his +leg and arm. He crawled out of the debris toward the support trench +which had become the fire trench, only to be killed by a bullet. + +The Germans got possession of a section of the P.P.s' trench where, +it is believed, no Canadians were left. But the German effort died +there. It could get no farther. This was as near to Ypres as the +Germans were to go in this direction. When the day's work was done, +there, in sight of the field scattered with German dead, the P.P.s +counted their numbers. Of the six hundred and thirty-five men who +had begun the fight at daybreak, one hundred and fifty men and four +officers, Niven, Pappineau, Clark and Vandenberg, remained fit for +duty. + +Vandenberg is a Hollander, but mostly he is Vandenberg. To him the +call of youth is the call to arms. He knows the roads of Europe and +the roads of Chihuahua. He was at home fighting with Villa at +Zacetecas and at home fighting with the P.P.s in front of Ypres. + +Darkness found all the survivors among the P.P.s in the support and +communication trenches. The fire trench had become an untenable +dust-heap. They crept out only to bring in any wounded unable to +help themselves; and wounded and rescuers were more than once +hit in the process. It was too dangerous to attempt to bury the dead +who were in the fire-trench. Most of them had already been buried by +shells. For them and for the dead in the support trenches interred by +their living comrades, Niven recited such portions as he could recall +of the Church of England service for the dead--recited them with a +tight throat. Then the P.P.s, unbeaten, marched out, leaving the +position to their relief, a battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps. +Corporal Christy, the bear-hunter, had his "luck with him." He had not +even a scratch. + +Such is the story of a hard fight by one battalion in the kind of warfare +waged in Europe these days, a story only partially told; a story to +make a book. All the praise that the P.P.s, millionaire or labourer, +scapegrace or respectable pillar of society, ask is that they are worthy +of fighting side by side with Mr. Thomas Atkins, regular. At best, one +poor, little, finite mind only observes through a rift in the black smoke +and yellow smoke of high explosives and the clouds of dust and +military secrecy something of what has happened many times in a +small section of that long line from Switzerland to the North Sea. + +Leaning against the wall in a corner of the dining-room of the French +château were the P.P.s colours. Major Niven took off the wrapper in +order that I might see the flag with the initials of the battalion which +Princess Patricia embroidered with her own hands. There is room, +one repeats, for a little sentiment and a little emotion, too, between +Halifax and Vancouver. + +"Of course we could not take our colours into action," said Niven. +"They would have been torn into tatters or buried in a shell-crater. But +we've always kept them up at battalion headquarters. I believe we are +the only battalion that has. We promised the Princess that we would." + +In her honour, an old custom has been renewed in France: knights +are fighting in the name of a fair lady. + + + + +XXV +Many Pictures + + + +A single incident, an impression photographic in its swiftness, a +chance remark, may be more illuminating than a day's experiences. +One does not need to go to the front for them. Sometimes they come +to the gateway of our château. They are pages at random out of a +library of overwhelming information. + +One of the aviation grounds is not far away. Look skyward at almost +any hour of the day and you will see a plane, its propeller a roar or a +hum according to its altitude. Sometimes it is circling in practice; +again, it is off to the front. At break of day the planes appear; in the +gloaming they return to roost. + +If an aviator has leave for two or three days in summer he starts in +the late afternoon, flashing over that streak of Channel in half an +hour, and may be at home for dinner without getting any dust on his +clothes or having to bother with military red tape at steamer +gangways or customs houses. + +The airmen are a type which one associates with certain marked +characteristics. No nervous man is wanted, and it is time for an +aviator to take a rest at the first sign of nerves. They seem rather shy, +men given to observation rather than to talking; accustomed to using +their eyes and hands. It is difficult to realize that some quiet, young +fellow who is pointed out has had so many hairbreadth escapes. +What tales, worthy of Arabian Nights' heroes who are borne away-on +magic carpets, they bring home, relating them as matter-of-factly as if +they had broken a shoelace. + +Up in their seat, a whir of the motor, and they are off on another +adventure. They have all the spirit of corps of the oldest regiments, +and, besides, a spirit peculiar to the newest branch in the service of +war. Anonymity is absolute. Everything is done by the corps for the +corps. Possibly because it is so young, because it started with +chosen men, the British Aviation Corps is unsurpassed; but partly it is +because of the British temperament, with that combination of +coolness and innate love of risk which the British manner sometimes +belies. Something of the old spirit of knighthood characterizes air +service. It is individual work; its numbers are relatively few. + +Some mornings ago I saw several young soldiers with notebooks +going about our village street. They were from the cadet school +where privates, from the trenches, take a course and return with +chocolate drops on their, sleeve-bands as commissioned officers. +This was a course in billeting. For ours is not an army in tents, but +one living in French houses and barns. The pupils were learning how +to carry out this delicate task; for delicate it is. A stranger speaking +another language becomes the guest of the host for whom he is +fighting. Mr. Atkins receives only shelter; he supplies his own meals. +His excess of marmalade one sees yellowing the cheeks of the +children in the family where he is at home. Madame objects only to +his efforts to cook in her kitchen; woman-like, she would rather handle +the pots and pans herself. + +Tommy is thoroughly instructed in his duty as guest and under a +discipline that is merciless so far as conduct toward the population +goes; so the two get on better than French and English military +authorities feared that they might. Time has taught them to +understand each other and to see that difference in race does not +mean absence of human qualities in common, though differently +expressed. Many armies I have seen, but never one better behaved +than the British army in France and Flanders in its respect for +property and the rights of the population. + +And while the fledgling officers are going on with their billeting, we +hear the t-r-r-t of a machine-gun at a machine-gun school about a +mile distant, where picked men also from the trenches receive +instruction in the use of an arm new to them. There are other schools +within sound of the guns teaching the art of war to an expanding army +in the midst of war, with the teachers bringing their experience from +the battle-line. + + + +"Their shops and their houses all have fronts of glass," wrote a Sikh +soldier home, "and even the poor are rich in this bountiful land." + +Sikhs and Ghurkas and Rajputs and Pathans and Gharwalis, the +brown-skinned tribesmen in India, have been on a strange Odyssey, +bringing picturesqueness to the khaki tone of modern war. +Aeroplanes interested them less than a trotting dog in a wheel for +drawing water. They would watch that for hours. + +Still fresh in mind is a scene when the air seemed a moist sponge +and all above the earth was dripping and all under foot a mire. I was +homesick for the flash on the windows of the New York skyscrapers +or the gleam on the Hudson of that bright sunlight in a drier air, that is +the secret of the American's nervous energy. It seemed to me that it +was enough to have to exist in Northern France at that season of the +year, let alone fighting Germans. + +Out of the drizzly, misty rain along a muddy road and turning past us +came the Indian cavalry, which, like the British cavalry, had fought on +foot in the trenches, while their horses led the leisurely life of true +equine gentry. Erect in their saddles, their martial spirit defiant of +weather, their black eyes flashing as they looked toward the +reviewing officers, troop after troop of these sons of the East passed +by, everyone seeming as fit for review as if he had cleaned his +uniform and equipment in his home barracks instead of in French +barns. + +You asked who had trained them; who had fashioned the brown clay +into resolute and loyal obedience which stood the test of a Flanders +winter? What was the force which could win them to cross the seas to +fight for England? Among the brown faces topped with turbans +appeared occasional white faces. These were the men; these the +force. + +The marvel was not that the Indians were able to fight as well as they +did in that climate, but that they fought at all. What welcome summer +brought from their gleaming black eyes! July or August could not be +too hot for them. On a plateau one afternoon I saw them in a +gymkhana. It was a treat for the King of the Belgians, who has had +few holidays, indeed, this last year, and for the French peasants who +came from the neighbourhood. Yelling, wild as they were in tribal days +before the British brought order and peace to India, the horsemen +galloped across the open space, picking up handkerchiefs from the +ground and impaling tent pegs on their lances. The French peasants +clapped their hands and the British Indian officers said, "Good!" when +the performer succeeded, or, "Too bad!" when he failed. + +If you asked the officers for the secret of the Indian Empire they said: +"We try to be fair to the natives!" which means that they are just and +even-tempered. An enormous, loose-jointed machine the British +Empire, which seems sometimes to creak a bit, yet holds together for +that very reason. Imperial weight may have interfered with British +adaptability to the kind of warfare which was the one kind that the +Germans had to train for; but certainly some Englishmen must know +how to rule. + +That church bell across the street from our château begins its clangor +at dawn, summoning the French women and children and the old +men to the fields in harvest time. But its peal carrying across the +farmlands is softened by distance and sweet to the tired workers in +the evening. In the morning it tells them that the day is long and they +have much to do before dark. After that thought I never complained +because it robbed me of my sleep. I felt ashamed not to be up and +doing myself, and worked with a better spirit. + +"Will they do it?" + +We asked this question as often in our mess in those August days +as, Will the Russians lose Warsaw? Would the peasants be able to +get in their crops, with all the able-bodied men away? I had inside +information from the village mayor and the blacksmith and the baker +that they would. A financial expert, the baker. Of course, he said, +France would go on fighting till the Germans were beaten, just as the +old men and the women and children said, whether the church bell +were clanging the matins or the angelus. But there was the question +of finances. It took money to fight. The Americans, he knew, had +more money than they knew what to do with--as Europeans +universally think, only, personally, I find that I was overlooked in the +distribution--and if they would lend the Allies some of their spare +billions, Germany was surely beaten. + +A busy man, the blacksmith, and brawny, if he had no spreading +chestnut tree; busy not only shoeing farmhorses, but repairing +American reapers and binders, whose owners profited exceedingly +and saved the day. But not all farmers felt that they could afford the +charge. + +These kept at their small patches with sickles. Gradually the carpets +of gold waving in the breeze became bundles lying on the stubble, +and great, conical harvest stacks rose, while children gathered the +stray stems left on the ground by the reapers till they had immense +bouquets of wheat-heads under their arms, enough to make two or +three loaves of the pain de ménage that the baker sold. So the +peasants did it; they won; and this was some compensation for the +loss of Warsaw. + + + +One morning we heard troops marching past, which was not unusual. +But these were French troops in the British zone, en route from +somewhere in France to somewhere else in France. There was not a +person left in any house in that village. Everybody was out, with +affection glowing in their eyes. For these were their own--their soldiers +of France! + + + +When you see a certain big limousine flying a small British flag pass +you know that it belongs to the Commander-in-Chief; and though it +may be occupied only by one of his aides, often you will have a +glimpse of a man with a square chin and a drooping white +moustache, who is the sole one among the hundreds of thousands at +the British front who wears the wreath-circled crossed batons of a +field-marshal. + +It is erroneous to think that Sir John French or any other commander, +though that is the case in time of action, spends all his time in the +private house occupied as headquarters, designated by two wisps of +flags, studying a map and sending and receiving messages, when +the trench-line remains stationary. He goes here and there on +inspections. It is the only way that a modern leader may let his +officers and men know that he is a being of flesh and blood and not a +name signed to reports and orders. A machine-gun company I knew +had a surprise when resting in a field waiting for orders. They +suddenly recognized in a figure coming through an opening in a +hedge the supreme head of the British army in France. No need of a +call to attention. The effect was like an electric shock, which sent +every man to his place and made his backbone a steel rod. Those +crossed batons represented a dizzy altitude to that battery which had +just come out from England. Sir John walked up and down, looking +over men and guns after their nine months' drill at home, and said, +"Very good!" and was away to other inspections where he might not +necessarily say, "Very good!" + +Frequently his inspections are formal. A battalion or a brigade is +drawn up in a field, or they march past. Then he usually makes a +short speech. On one occasion the officers had arranged a platform +for the speech-making. Sir John gave it a glance and that was +enough. It was the last of such platforms erected for him. + +"Inspections! They are second nature to us!" said a new army man. +"We were inspected and inspected at home and we are inspected +and inspected out here. If there is anything wrong with us it is the +general's own fault if it isn't found out. When a general is not +inspecting, some man from the medical corps is disinfecting." + +Battalions of the new army are frequently billeted for two or three +days in our village. The barn up the road I know is capable of housing +twenty men and one officer, for this is chalked on .the door. Before +they turn in for the night the men frequently sing, and the sound of +their voices is pleasant. + +A typical inspection was one that I saw in the main street. The +battalion was drawn up in full marching equipment on the road. Of +those officers with packs on their backs one was only nineteen. This +is the limit of youth to acquire a chocolate drop on the sleeve. The +sergeant-major was an old regular, the knowing back-bone of the +battalion, who had taken the men of clay and taught them their letters +and then how to spell and to add and subtract and divide. One of +those impressive red caps arrived in a car, and the general who wore +it went slowly up and down the line, front and rear, examining rifles +and equipment, while the young officers and the old sergeant were +hoping that Jones or Smith hadn't got some dust in his rifle-barrel at +the last moment. + +Brokers and carpenters, bankers and mechanics, clerks and +labourers, the new army is like the army of France, composed of all +classes. One evening I had a chat with two young fellows in a +battalion quartered in the village, who were seated beside the road. +Both came from Buckinghamshire. One was a schoolmaster and the +other an architect. They were "bunkies," pals, chums. + +"When did you enlist?" I asked. + +"In early September, after the Marne retreat. We thought that it was +our duty, then; but we've been a long time arriving." + +"How do you like it?" + +"We are not yet masters of the language, we find," said the +schoolmaster, "though I had a pretty good book knowledge of it." + +"I'm learning the gestures fast, though," said the architect. + +"The French are glad to see us," said the schoolmaster. "They call us +the Keetcheenaires. I fancy they thought we were a long time coming. +But now we are here, I think they will find that we can keep up our +end." + +They had the fresh complexions which come from healthy, outdoor +work. There was something engaging in their boyishness and their +views. For they had a wider range of interests than that professional +soldier, Mr. Atkins, these citizens who had taken up arms. They knew +what trench-fighting meant by work in practice trenches at home. + +"Of course it will not be quite the same; theory and practice never +are," said the schoolmaster. + +"We ought to be well grounded in the principles," said the architect +thoughtfully, "and they say that in a week or two of actual experience +you will have mastered the details that could not be taught in +England. Then, too, having shells burst around you will be strange at +first. But I think our battalion will give a good account of itself, sir. +All the Bucks men have!" There crept in the pride of regiment, of +locality, which is so characteristically Anglo-Saxon. + +They change life at the front, these new army men. If a carpenter, a +lawyer, a sign-painter, an accountant, is wanted, you have only to +speak to a new army battalion commander and one is forthcoming--a +millionaire, too, for that matter, who gets his shilling a day for serving +his country. Their intelligence permitted the architect and the +schoolmaster to have no illusions about the character of the war they +had to face. The pity was that such a fine force as the new army, +which had not become trench stale, could not have a free space in +which to make a great turning movement, instead of having to go +against that solid battle front from Switzerland to the North Sea. + +We have heard enough--quite enough for most of us?--about the +German Crown Prince. But there is also a prince with the British army +in France. No lieutenant looks younger for his years than this one in +the Grenadier Guards, and he seems of the same type as the others +when you see him marching with his regiment or off for a walk +smoking a brier-wood pipe. There are some officers who would rather +not accompany him on his walks, for he can go fast and far. He +makes regular reports of his observations, and he has opportunities +for learning which other subalterns lack, for he may have both the +staff and the army as personal instructors. Otherwise, his life is that of +any other subaltern; for there is an instrument called the British +Constitution which regulates many things. A little shy, very desirous to +learn, is Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne of Great +Britain and Ireland and the Empire of India. He might be called the +willing prince. + +This was one of the shells that hit--one of the hundred that hit. The +time was summer; the place, the La Bassée region. Probably the +fighting was all the harder here because it is so largely blind. When +you cannot see what an enemy is doing you keep on pumping shells +into the area which he occupies; you take no risks with him. + +The visitor may see about as much of what is going on in the La +Bassée region as an ant can see of the surrounding landscape when +promenading in the grass. The only variation in the flatness of the +land is the overworked ditches which try to drain it. Look upward, and +rows of poplar trees along the level, and a hedge, a grove, a cottage, +or trees and shrubs around it, limit your vision. Thus, if a breeze starts +timidly in a field it is stopped before it goes far. That "hot corner" is +all the hotter for a burning July sun. The army water-carts which run +back to wells of cool water are busy filling empty canteens, while +shrapnel trims the hedges. + +A stretcher was being borne into the doorway of an estaminet which +had escaped destruction by shells, and above the door was chalked +some lettering which indicated that it was a first clearing station for the +wounded. Lying on other stretchers on the floor were some wounded +men. Of the two nearest, one had a bandage around his head and +one a bandage around his arm. They had been stunned, which was +only natural when you have been as close as they had to a shell- +burst--a shell that made a hit. The concussion was bound to have this +effect. + +A third man was the best illustration of shell-destructiveness. Bullets +make only holes. Shells make gouges, fractures, pulp. He, too, had a +bandaged head and had been hit in several places; but the worst +wound was in the leg, where an artery had been cut. He was weak, +with a sort of where-am-I look in his eyes. If the fragment which had +hit his leg had hit his head, or his neck, or his abdomen, he would +have been killed instantly. He was also an illustration of how hard it is +to kill a man even with several shell-fragments, unless some of them +strike in the right place. For he was going to live; the surgeon had +whispered the fact in his ear, that one important fact. He had beaten +the German shell, after all. + +Returning by the same road by which we came a motor-car ran swiftly +by, the only kind of car allowed on that road. We had a glimpse of the +big, painted red cross on an ambulance side, and at the rear, where +the curtains were rolled up for ventilation, of four pairs of soldier boot- +soles at the end of four stretchers, which had been slid into place at +the estaminet by the sturdy, kindly, experienced medical corps men. + +Before we reached the village where our car waited, the ambulance +passed us on the way back to the estaminet. Very soon after the +shell-burst, a telephone bell had rung down the line from the extreme +front calling for an ambulance and stating the number of men hit, so +that everybody would know what to prepare for. At the village, which +was outside the immediate danger zone, was another clearing +station. Here the stretchers were taken into a house--taken without a +jolt by men who were specialists in handling stretchers--for any re- +dressing if necessary, before another ambulance started journey, +with motor-trucks and staff motor-cars giving right of way, to a +spotless, white hospital ship which would take them home to England +the next night. + +It had been an incident of life at the front, and of the organization of +war, causing less flurry than an ambulance call to an accident in a +great city. + + + +XXVI +Finding The Grand Fleet + + + +Good fortune slipped a message across the Channel to the British +front, which became the magic carpet of transition from the life of the +burrowing army in its trenches to the life of battleships; from motors +trailing dust over French roads, to destroyers trailing foam in choppy +seas off English coasts. + +But there was more than one place to go in that wonderful week; +more than ships to see if one would know something of the intricate, +busy world of the Admiralty's work, which makes coastguards a part +of its personnel. The transition is less sudden if we begin with a ride in +an open car along the coast of Scotland. Dusk had fallen on the +purple cloudlands of heather dotted with the white spots of grazing +sheep in the Scottish Highlands under changing skies, with +headlands stretching out into the misty reaches of the North Sea, +forbidding in the chill air after the warmth of France and suggestive of +the uninviting theatre where, in approaching winter, patrols and +trawlers and mine-sweepers carried on their work to within range of +the guns of Heligoland. A people who lived in such a chill land, in +sight of such a chill sea, and who spoke of their "Bonnie Scotland +forever," were worthy to be masters of that sea. The Americans who +think of Britain as a small island forget the distance from Land's End +to John o' Groat's, which represents coast line to be guarded; and we +may find a lesson, too, we who must make our real defence by sea, +in tireless vigils which may be our own if the old Armageddon beast +ever comes threatening the far-longer coast line that we have to +defend. For you may never know what war is till war comes. Not even +the Germans knew, though they had practised with a lifelike dummy +behind the curtains for forty years. + +At intervals, just as in the military zone in France, sentries stopped us +and took the number of our car; but this time sentries who were +guarding a navy's rather than an army's secrets. With darkness we +passed the light of an occasional inn, while cottage lights made a +scattered sprinkling among the dim masses of the hills. A man might +have been puzzled as to where all the kilted Highland soldiers whom +he had seen at the front came from, if he had not known that the +canny Highlanders enlist Lowlanders in kilty regiments. + +The Frenchmen of our party--M. Stephen Pichon, former Foreign +Minister, M. René Bazin, of the Académie Française, M. Joseph +Reinach, of the Figaro, M. Pierre Mille, of Le Temps, and M. Henri +Ponsot--who had never been in Scotland before, were on the look out +for a civilian Scots in kilts and were grievously disappointed not to find +a single one. + +This night ride convinced me that however many Germans might be +moving about in England under the guise of cockney or of Lancashire +dialects in quest of information, none has any chance in Scotland. He +could never get the burr, I am sure, unless born in Scotland; and if he +were, once he had it the triumph ought to make him a Scotsman at +heart. + +The officer of the Royal Navy who was in the car with me confessed +to less faith in his symbol of authority than in the generations' bred +burr of our chauffeur to carry conviction of our genuineness; so +arguments were left to him and successfully, including two or three +with Scotch cattle, which seemed to be co-operating with the sentries +to block the road. + +After an hour's run inland, as the car rose over a ridge and +descended on a sharp grade, in the distance under the moonlight we +saw the floor of the sea again, melting into opaqueness, with curving +fringes of foam along the irregular shore cut by the indentations of the +firths. Now the sentries were more frequent and more particular. Our +single light gave dim form to the figures of sailors, soldiers, and boy +scouts on patrol. + +"They have done remarkably well, these boys!" said the officer. "Our +fears that, boy like, they would see all kinds of things which didn't +exist were quite needless. The work has taught them a sense of +responsibility which will remain with them after the war, when their +experience will be a precious memory. They realize that it isn't play, +but a serious business, and act accordingly." + +With all the houses and the countryside dark, the rays of our lamp +seemed an invading comet to the men who held up lanterns with red +twinkles of warning. + +"The patrol boats have complained about your lights, sir!" said one +obdurate sentry. + +We looked out into the black wall in the direction of the sea and could +see no sign of a patrol boat. How had it been able to inform this lone +sentry of that flying ray which disclosed the line of a coastal road to +anyone at sea? He would not accept the best argumentative burr that +our chauffeur could produce as sufficient explanation or guarantee. +Most Scottish of Scots in physiognomy and shrewd matter-of- +factness, as revealed in the glare of the lantern, he might have been +on watch in the Highland fastnesses in Prince Charlie's time. + +"Captain R------, of the Royal Navy!" explained the officer, introducing +himself. + +"I'll take your name and address!" said the sentry. + +"The Admiralty. I take the responsibility." + +"As I'll report, sir!" said the sentry, not so convinced but he burred +something further into the chauffeur's ear. + +This seems to have little to do with the navy, but it has much, indeed, +as a part of unfathomable, complicated business of guards within +guards, intelligence battling with intelligence, deceiving raiders by +land or sea, of those responsible for the safety of England and the +mastery of the seas. + +It is from the navy yard that the ships go forth to battle and to the +navy yard they must return for supplies and for the grooming beat of +hammers in the dry dock. Those who work at a navy yard keep the +navy's house; welcome home all the family, from Dreadnoughts to +trawlers, give them cheer and shelter and bind up their wounds. + +The quarter-deck of action for Admiral Lowry, commanding the great +base on the Forth, which was begun before the war and hastened to +completion since, was a substantial brick building. Adjoining his office, +where he worked with engineers' blue prints as well as with sea +charts, he had fitted up a small bedroom where he slept, to be at +hand if an emergency arose. + +Partly we walked, as he showed us over his domain of steam- +shovels, machine shops, cement factories, of building and repairs, of +coaling and docking, and partly we rode on a car that ran over +temporary rails laid for trucks loaded with rocks and dirt. Borrowing +from Peter to pay Paul, a river bottom had been filled in back of the +quays with material that had been excavated to form a vast basin with +cement walls, where squadrons of Dreadnoughts might rest and +await their turn to be warped into the great dry docks which open off it +in chasmlike galleries. + +"The largest contract in all England," said the contractor. "And here is +the man who checks up my work," he added, nodding to the lean, +Scottish naval engineer who was with us. It was clear from his looks +that only material of the best quality and work that was true would be +acceptable to this canny mentor of efficiency, "And the workers? +Have you had any strikes here?" + +"No. We have employed double the usual number of men from the +start of the war," he said. "I'm afraid that the Welsh coal troubles have +been accepted as characteristic. Our men have been reasonable and +patriotic. They have shown the right spirit. If they hadn't, how could +we have accomplished that?" + +We were looking down into the depths of a dry dock blasted out of the +rock, which had been begun and completed within the year. And we +had heard nothing of all this through those twelve months! No writer, +no photographer, chronicled this silent labour! Double lines of guards +surrounded the place day and night. Only tried patriots might enter +this world of a busy army in smudged workmen's clothes, bending to +their tasks with that ordered discipline of industrialism which wears no +uniforms, marches without beat of drums, and toils that the ships +shall want nothing to ensure victory. + + + + +XXVII +On A Destroyer + + + +Now we were on our way to the great thing--to our look behind the +curtain at the hidden hosts of sea-power. Of some eight hundred tons +burden our steed, doing eighteen knots, which was a dog-trot for one +of her speed. + +"A destroyer is like a motor-car," said the commander. "If you rush +her all the time she wears out. We give her the limit only when +necessary." + +On the bridge the zest of travel on a dolphin of steel held the bridle on +eagerness to reach the journey's end. We all like to see things well +done, and here one had his first taste of how well things are done in +the British navy, which did not have to make ready for war after the +war began. With an open eye one went, and the experience of other +navies as a balance for his observation; but one lost one's heart to +the British navy and might as well confess it now. A six months' cruise +with our own battleship fleet was a proper introduction to the +experience. + +After the arduous monotony of the trenches and after the traffic of +London, it was freedom and sport and ecstasy to be there, with the +rush of salt air on the face! Our commander was under thirty years of +age; and that destroyer responded to his will like a stringed +instrument. He seemed a part of her, her nerves welded to his. + +"Specialized in torpedo work," he said, in answer to a question. "That +is the way of the British navy: to learn one thing well before you go on +with another. If in the course of it you learn how to command, larger +responsibilities await you. If not--there's retired pay." + +Behind a shield which sheltered them from the spray on the forward +deck, significantly free of everything but that four-inch gun, its crew +was stationed. The commander had only to lean over and speak +through a tube and give a range, and the music began. For the tube +was bifurcated at the end to an ear-mask over a youngster's head; a +youngster who had real sailor's smiling blue eyes, like the +commander's own. For hours he would sit waiting in the hope that +game would be sighted. No fisherman could be more patient or more +cheerful. + +"Before he came into the navy he was a chauffeur. He likes this," said +the commander. + +"In case of a submarine you do not want to lose any time; is that it?" + +"Yes," he replied. "You never can tell when we might have a chance +to put a shot into Fritz's periscope or ram him--Fritz is our name for +submarines." + +Were all the commanders of destroyers up to his mark? How many +more had the British navy caught young and trained to such +quickness of decision and in the art of imparting it to his men? + +Three hundred revolutions! The destroyer changed speed. Five +hundred! She changed speed again. Out of the mist in the distance +flashed a white ribbon knot that seemed to be tied to a destroyer's +bow and behind it another destroyer, and still others, lean, catlike, but +running as if legless, with greased bodies sliding over the sea. We +snapped out a message to them and they answered like passing +birds on the wing, before they swept out of sight behind a headland +with uncanny ease of speed. Literal swarms of destroyers England +had running to and fro in the North Sea, keen for the chase and too +quick at dodging and too fast to be in any danger of the under-water +dagger thrust of the assassins whom they sought. There cannot be +too many. They are the eyes of the navy; they gather information and +carry a sting in their torpedo tubes. + + + +It was chilly there on the bridge, with the prospect too entrancing not +to remain even if one froze. But here stepped in naval preparedness +with thick, short coats of llama wool. + +"Served out to all the men last winter, when we were in the thick of it +patrolling," the commander explained. "You'll not get cold in that!" + +"And yourself?" was suggested to the commander. + +"Oh, it is not cold enough for that in September! We're hardened to it. +You come from the land and feel the change of air; we are at sea all +the time," he replied, He was without a great-coat; and the ease with +which he held his footing made landlubbers feel their awkwardness. + +A jumpy, uncertain tidal sea was running. Yet our destroyer slipped +over the waves, cut through them, played with them, and let them +seem to play with her, all the while laughing at them in the confident +power of her softly purring vitals. + +"Look out!" which at the front in France was a signal to jump for a +"funk pit." We ducked, as a cloud of spray passed above the heavy +canvas and clattered like hail against the smokestack. "There won't +be any more!" said the commander. He was right. He knew that +passage. One wondered if he did not know every gallon of water in +the North Sea, which he had experienced in all its moods. + +Sheltered by the smokestack down on the main deck, one of our +party, who loved not the sea for its own sake, but endured it as a +passageway to the sight of the Grand Fleet, had found warmth, if not +comfort. Not for him that invitation to come below given by the chief +engineer, who rose out of a round hole with a pleasant "How d'y' do!" +air to get a sniff of the fresh breeze, wizard of the mysterious power of +the turbines which sent the destroyer marching so noiselessly. He +was the one who transferred the commander's orders into that +symphony in mechanism. Turn a lever and you had a dozen more +knots; not with a leap or a jerk, but like a cat's sleek stretching of +muscles. Not by the slightest tremor did you realize the acceleration; +only by watching some stationary object as you flew past. + +Now a sweep of smooth water at the entrance to a harbour, and a +turn--and there it was: the sea-power of England! + + + + +XXVIII +Ships That Have Fought + + + +But was that really it--that spread of greyish blue-green dots set on a +huge greyish blue-green platter? One could not discern where ships +began and water and sky which held them suspended left off. +Invisible fleet it had been called. At first glance it seemed to be +composed of phantoms, baffling, absorbing the tone of its +background. Admiralty secrecy must be the result of a naval dislike of +publicity. + +Still as if they were rooted, these leviathans! How could such a shy, +peaceful-looking array send out broadsides of twelve and thirteen-five +and fifteen-inch shells? What a paradise for a German submarine! +Each ship seemed an inviting target. Only there were many gates +and doors to the paradise, closed to all things that travel on and +under the water without a proper identification. Submarines that had +tried to pick one of the locks were like the fish who found going good +into the trap. A submarine had about the same chance of reaching +that anchorage as a German in the uniform of the Death's Head +Hussars, with a bomb under his arm, of reaching the vaults of the +Bank of England. + +And was this all of the greatest naval force ever gathered under a +single command, these two or three lines of ships? But as the +destroyer drew nearer the question changed. How many more? Was +there no end to greyish blue-green monsters, in order as precise as +the trees of a California orchard, that appeared out of the greyish +blue-green background? First to claim attention was the Queen +Elizabeth, with her eight fifteen-inch guns on a platform which could +travel at nearly the speed of the average railroad train. + +The contrast of sea and land warfare appealed the more vividly to +one fresh from the front in France. What infinite labour for an army to +get one big gun into position! How heralded the snail-like travels of +the big German howitzer! Here was ship after ship, whose guns +seemed innumerable. One found it hard to realize the resisting power +of their armour, painted to look as liquid as the sea, and the stability +of their construction, which was able to bear the strain of firing the +great shells that travelled ten miles to their target. + +Sea-power, indeed! And world-power, too, there in the hollow of a +nation's hand, to throw in whatever direction she pleased. If an +American had a lump in his throat at the thought of what it meant, +what might it not mean to an Englishman? Probably the Englishman +would say, "I think that the fleet is all right, don't you?" + +Land-power, too! On the continent vast armies wrestled for some +square miles of earth. France has, say, three million soldiers; +Germany, five; Austria, four--and England had, perhaps, a hundred +thousand men, perhaps more, on board this fleet which defended the +English land and lands far overseas without firing a shot. A battalion +of infantry is more than sufficient in numbers to man a Dreadnought. +How precious, then, the skill of that crew! Man-power is as +concentrated as gun-power with a navy. Ride three hundred miles in +a motor-car along an army front, with glimpses of units of soldiers, +and you have seen little of a modern army. Here, moving down the +lanes that separated these grey fighters, one could compass the +whole! + +Four gold letters, spelling the word Lion, awakened the imagination to +the actual fact of the Bluecher turning her bottom skyward before she +sank off the Dogger Bank under the fire of the guns of the Lion and +the Tiger astern of her, and the Princess Royal and the New Zealand, +of the latest fashion in battle-cruiser squadrons which are known as +the "cat" squadron. This work brought them into their own; proved +how the British, who built the first Dreadnought, have kept a little +ahead of their rivals in construction. With almost the gun-power of +Dreadnoughts, better than three to two against the best battleships, +with the speed of cruisers and capable of overpowering cruisers, or of +pursuing any battleship, or getting out of range, they can run or strike, +as they please. + +Ascend that gangway, so amazingly clean, as were the decks above +and below and everything about the Lion or the Tiger, and you were +on board one of the few major ships which had been under heavy +fire. Her officers and men knew what modern naval war was like; her +guns knew the difference between the wall of cloth of a towed target +and an enemy's wall of armour. + +In the battle of Tsushima Straits, Russian and Japanese ships had +fought at three and four thousand yards and closed into much shorter +range. Since then, we had had the new method of marksmanship. +Tsushima ceased to be a criterion. The Dogger Bank multiplied the +range by five. A hundred years since England, all the while the most +powerfully armed nation at sea, had been in a naval war of the first +magnitude; and to the Lion and the Tiger had come the test. The +Germans said that they had sunk the Tiger; but the Tiger afloat +purred a contented denial. + +You could not fail to identify among the group of officers on the +quarter-deck Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty, for his victory had +impressed his features on the public's eye. Had his portrait not +appeared in the press, one would have been inclined to say that a +first lieutenant had put on a vice-admiral's coat by mistake. He was +about the age of the first lieutenant of one of our battleships. Even as +it was, one was inclined to exclaim: "There is some mistake! You are +too young!" The Who is Who book says that he is all of forty-four +years old and it must be right, though it disagrees with his +appearance by five years. + +A vice-admiral at forty-four! A man who is a rear-admiral with us at +fifty-five is very precocious. And all the men around him were young. +The British navy did not wait for war to teach again the lesson of +"youth for action!" They saved time by putting youth in charge at +once. + +Their simple uniforms, the directness, alertness, and definiteness of +these officers who had been with a fleet ready for a year to go into +battle on a minute's notice, was in keeping with their surroundings of +decks cleared for action and the absence of anything which did not +suggest that hitting a target was the business of their life. + +"I had heard that you took your admirals from the schoolroom," said +one of the Frenchmen, "but I begin to believe that it is the nursery." + +Night and day they must be on watch. No easy chairs; their shop is +their home. They must have the vitality that endures a strain. One +error in battle by any one of them might wreck the British Empire. + +It is difficult to write about any man-of-war and not be technical; for +everything about her seems technical and mechanical except the fact +that she floats. Her officers and crew are engaged in work which is +legerdemain to the civilian. + +"Was it like what you thought it would be after all your training for a +naval action?" one asked. + +"Yes, quite; pretty much as we reasoned it out," was the reply. +"Indeed, this was the most remarkable thing. It was battle practice-- +with the other fellow shooting at you!" + +The fire-control officers, who were aloft, all agreed about one +unexpected sensation, which had not occurred to any expert +scientifically predicting what action would be like. They are the only +ones who may really "see" the battle in the full sense. + +"When the shells burst against the armour," said one of these +officers, "the fragments were visible as they flew about. We had a +desire, in the midst of preoccupation with our work, to reach out and +catch them. Singular mental phenomenon, wasn't it?" + +At eight or nine thousand yards one knew that the modern battleship +could tear a target to pieces. But eighteen thousand--was accuracy +possible at that distance? + +"Did one in five German shells hit at that range?" I asked. + +"No!" + +Or in ten? No! In twenty? Still no, though less decisively. You got a +conviction, then, that the day of holding your fire until you were close +in enough for a large percentage of hits was past. Accuracy was still +vital and decisive, but generic accuracy. At eighteen thousand yards +all the factors which send a thousand or fifteen hundred or two +thousand pounds of steel that long distance cannot be so gauged +that each one will strike in exactly the same line when ten issue from +the gun-muzzles in a broadside. But if one out of twenty is on at +eighteen thousand yards, it may mean a turret out of action. Again, +four or five might hit, or none. So, no risk of waiting may be taken, in +face of the danger of a chance shot at long range. It was a chance +shot which struck the Lion's feed tank and disabled her and kept the +cat squadron from doing to the other German cruisers what they had +done to the Bluecher. + +"And the noise of it to you aloft, spotting the shots?" I suggested. "It +must have been a lonely place in such a tornado." + +"Yes. Besides the crashing blasts from our own guns we had the +screams of the shells that went over and the cataracts of water from +those short sprinkling the ship with spray. But this was what one +expected. Everything was what one expected, except that desire to +catch the fragments. Naturally, one was too busy to think much of +anything except the enemy's ships--to learn where your shells were +striking." + +"You could tell?" + +"Yes--just as well and better than at target practice; for the target was +larger and solid. It was enthralling, this watching the flight of our +shells toward their target." Where were the scars from the wounds? +One looked for them on both the Lion and the Tiger. An armour patch +on the sloping top of a turret might have escaped attention if it had not +been pointed out. A shell struck there and a fair blow, too. And what +happened inside? Was the turret gear put out of order? + +To one who has lived in a wardroom a score of questions were on the +tongue's end. The turret is the basket which holds the precious eggs. +A turret out of action means two guns out of action; a broken knuckle +for the pugilist. + +Constructors have racked their brains over the subject of turrets in +the old contest between gun-power and protection. Too much gun- +power, too little armour! Too much armour, too little gun-power! +Finally, results depend on how good is your armour, how sound your +machinery which rotates the turret. That shell did not go through +bodily, only a fragment, which killed one man and wounded another. +The turret would still rotate; the other gun kept in action and the one +under the shell-burst was soon back in action. Very satisfactory to the +naval constructors. + +Up and down the all but perpendicular steel ladders with their narrow +steps, and through the winding passages below decks in those cities +of steel, one followed his guide, receiving so much information and so +many impressions that he was confused as to details between the +two veterans, the Lion, which was hit fifteen times, and the Tiger, +which was hit eight. Wherever you went every square inch of space +and every bit of equipment seemed to serve some purpose. + +A beautiful hit, indeed, was that into a small hooded aperture where +an observer looked out from a turret. He was killed and another man +took his place. Fresh armour and no sign of where the shot had +struck. Then below, into a compartment between the side of the ship +and the armoured barbette which protects the delicate machinery for +feeding shells and powder from the magazine deep below the water +to the guns. + +"H----was killed here. Impact of the shell passing through the outer +plates burst it inside; and, of course, the fragments struck harmlessly +against the barbette." + +"Bang in the dug-out!" one exclaimed, from army habit. + +"Precisely! No harm done next door." + +Trench traverses and "funk-pit shelters" for localizing the effects of +shell-bursts are the terrestrial expression of marine construction. No +one shell happened to get many men either on the Lion or the Tiger. +But the effect of the burst was felt in the passages, for the air- +pressure is bound to be pronounced in enclosed spaces which allow +of little room for expansion of the gases. + +Then up more ladders out of the electric light into the daylight, +hugging a wall of armour whose thickness was revealed in the cut +made for the small doorway which you were bidden to enter. Now you +were in one of the brain-centres of the ship, where the action is +directed. Through slits in that massive shelter of the hardest steel one +had a narrow view. Above them on the white wall were silhouetted +diagrams of the different types of German ships, which one found in +all observing stations. They were the most popular form of mural +decoration in the British navy. + +Underneath the slits was a literal panoply of the brass fittings of +speaking-tubes and levers and push-buttons, which would have +puzzled even the "Hello, Central" girl. To look at them revealed +nothing more than the eye saw; nothing more than the face of a +watch reveals of the character of its works. There was no telling how +they ran in duplicate below the water line or under the protection of +armour to the guns and the engines. + +"We got one in here, too. It was a good one!" said the host. + +"Junk, of course," was how he expressed the result. Here, too, a man +stepped forward to take the place of the man who was killed, just as +the first lieutenant takes the place of a captain of infantry who falls. +With the whole telephone apparatus blown off the wall, as it were, +how did he communicate? + +"There!" The host pointed toward an opening at his feet. If that failed +there was still another way. In the final alternative, each turret could +go on firing by itself. So the Germans must have done on the Bluecher +and on the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst in their last ghastly +moments of bloody chaos. + +"If this is carried away and then that is, why, then, we have------" as +one had often heard officers say on board our own ships. But that +was hypothesis. Here was demonstration, which made a glimpse of +the Lion and the Tiger so interesting. The Lion had had a narrow +escape from going down after being hit in the feed tank; but once in +dry dock, all her damaged parts had been renewed. Particularly it +required imagination to realize that this tower had ever been struck; +visually more convincing was a plate elsewhere which had been left +unpainted, showing a spatter of dents from shell-fragments. + +"We thought that we ought to have something to prove that we had +been in battle," said the host. "I think I've shown all the hits. There +were not many." + +Having seen the results of German gun-fire, we were next to see the +methods of British gun-fire; something of the guns and the men who +did things to the Germans. I stooped under the overhang of the turret +armour from the barbette and climbed up through an opening which +allowed no spare room for the generously built, and out of the dim +light appeared the glint of the massive steel breech block and gun, +set in its heavy recoil mountings with roots of steel supports sunk into +the very structure of the ship. It was like other guns of the latest +improved type; but it had been in action, and you kept thinking of this +fact which gave it a sort of majestic prestige. You wished that it might +look a little different from the others, as the right of a veteran. + +As the plugman swung the breech open I had in mind a giant +plugman on the U.S.S. Connecticut whom I used to watch at drills +and target practice. Shall I ever forget the flash in his eye if there +were a fraction of a second's delay in the firing after the breech had +gone home! The way in which he made that enormous block obey his +touch in oily obsequiousness suggested the apotheosis of the whole +business of naval war. I don't know whether the plugman of H.M.S. +Lion or the plugman of the U.S.S. Connecticut was the better. It would +take a superman to improve on either. + +Like the block, it seemed as if the man knew only the movements of +the drill; as if he had been bred and his muscles formed for that. You +could conceive of him as playing diavolo with that breech. He +belonged to the finest part of all the machinery, the human element, +which made the parts of a steel machine play together in a beautiful +harmony. + +The plugman's is the most showy part; others playing equally +important parts are in the cavern below the turret; and most important +of all is that of the man who keeps the gun on the target, whose true +right eye may send twenty-five thousand tons of battleship to +perdition. No one eye of any enlisted man can be as important as the +gun-layer's. His the eye and the nerve trained as finely as the +plugman's muscles. He does nothing else, thinks of nothing else. In +common with painters and poets, gun-layers are born with a gift, and +that gift is trained and trained and trained. It seems simple to keep +right on, but it is not. Try twenty men in the most rudimentary test and +you will find that it is not; then think of the nerve it takes to keep +right on in battle, with your ship shaken by the enemy's hit. + +How long had the plugman been on his job? Six years. And the gun- +layer? Seven. Twelve years is the term of enlistment in the British +navy. Not too fast but thoroughly is the British way. The idea is to +make a plugman or a gun-layer the same kind of expert as a master +artisan in any other walk of life, by long service and selection. + +None of all the men serving these guns from the depths to the turret +saw anything of the battle, except the gun-layer. It was easier for +them than for him to be letter-perfect in the test, as he had to guard +against the exhilaration of having an enemy's ship instead of a cloth +target under his eye. Super-drilled he was to that eventuality; super- +drilled all the others through the years, till each one knew his part as +well as one knows how to turn the key of a drawer in his desk. Used +to the shock of the discharges of their own guns at battle practice, +many of the crew did not even know that their ship was hit, so +preoccupied was each with his own duty and the need of going on +with it until an order or a shell's havoc stopped him. Every mind was +closed except to the thing which had been so established by drill in +his nature that he did it instinctively. + +A few minutes later one was looking down from the upper bridge on +the top of this turret and the black-lined planking of the deck eighty- +five feet below, with the sweep of the firm lines of the sides +converging toward the bow on the background of the water. Suddenly +the ship seemed to have grown large, impressive; her structure had a +rocklike solidity. Her beauty was in her unadorned strength. One was +absorbing the majesty of a city from a cathedral tower after having +been it its thoroughfares and seen the detail of its throbbing industry. + +Beyond the Lion's bow were more ships, and port and starboard and +aft were still more ships. The compass range filled the eye with the +stately precision of the many squadrons and divisions of leviathans. +One could see all the fleet. This seemed to be the scenic climax; but +it was not, as we were to learn later when we should see the fleet go +to sea. Then we were to behold the mountains on the march. + +You glanced back at the deck and around the bridge with a sort of +relief. The infinite was making you dizzy. You wanted to be in touch +with the finite again. But it is the writer, not the practical, hardened +seaman, who is affected in this way. To the seaman, here was a +battle-cruiser with her sister battle-cruisers astern, and there around +her were Dreadnoughts of different types and pre-Dreadnoughts and +cruisers and all manner of other craft which could fight each in its +way, each representing so much speed and so much metal which +could be thrown a certain distance. + +"Homogeneity!" Another favourite word, I remember, from our own +wardrooms. Here it was applied in the large. No experimental ships +there, no freak variations of type, but each successive type as a unit +of action. Homogeneous, yes--remorselessly homogeneous. The +British do not simply build some ships; they build a navy. And of +course the experts are not satisfied with it; if they were, the British +navy would be in a bad way. But a layman was; he was overwhelmed. + +From this bridge of the Lion on the morning of the 24th of January, +1915, Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty saw appear on the horizon a +sight inexpressibly welcome to any commander who has scoured the +seas in the hope that the enemy will come out in the open and give +battle. Once that German battle-cruiser squadron had slipped across +the North Sea and, under cover of the mist which has ever been the +friend of the pirate, bombarded the women and children of +Scarborough and the Hartle-pools with shells meant to be fired at +hardened adult males sheltered behind armour; and then, thanks to +the mist, they had slipped back to Heligoland with cheering news to +the women and children of Germany. This time when they came out +they encountered a British battle-cruiser squadron of superior speed +and power, and they had to fight as they ran for home. + +Now, the place of an admiral is in his conning tower after he has +made his deployments and the firing has begun. He, too, is a part of +the machine; his position defined, no less than the plugman's and the +gun-layer's. Sir David watched the ranging shots which fell short at +first, until finally they were on, and the Germans were beginning to +reply. When his staff warned him that he ought to go below, he put +them off with a preoccupied shake of his head. He could not resist the +temptation to remain where he was, instead of being shut up looking +through the slits of a visor. + +But an admiral is as vulnerable to shell-fragments as a midshipman, +and the staff did its duty, which had been thought out beforehand like +everything else. The argument was on their side; the commander +really had none on his. It was then that Vice-Admiral Beatty sent Sir +David Beatty to the conning tower, much to the personal disgust of +Sir David, who envied the observing officers aloft their free sweep of +vision. + +Youth in Sir David's case meant suppleness of limb as well as youth's +spirit and dash. When the Lion was disabled by the shot in her feed +tank and had to fall out of line, Sir David must transfer his flag. He +signalled for his destroyer, the Attack. When she came alongside he +did not wait for a ladder, but jumped on board her from the deck of +the Lion. An aged vice-admiral with chalky bones might have broken +some of them, or at least received a shock to his presence of mind. + +Before he left the Lion Sir David had been the first to see the +periscope of a German submarine in the distance, which sighted the +wounded ship as inviting prey. Officers of the Lion dwelt more on the +cruise home than on the battle. It was a case of being towed at five +knots an hour by the Indomitable. If ever submarines had a fair +chance to show what they could do it was then against that battleship +at a snail's pace. But it is one thing to torpedo a merchant craft and +another to get a major fighting ship, bristling with torpedo defence +guns and surrounded by destroyers. The Lion reached port without +further injury. + + + + +XXIX +On The "Inflexible" + + + +What Englishman, let alone an American, knows the names of even +all the British Dreadnoughts? With a few exceptions, the units of the +Grand Fleet seem anonymous. The Warspite was quite unknown to +the fame which her sister ship the Queen Elizabeth had won. For +"Lizzie" was back in the fold from the Dardanelles; and so was the +Inflexible, heroine of the battle of the Falkland Islands. Of all the ships +which Sir John Jellicoe had sent away on special missions, the +Inflexible had had the grandest Odyssey. She, too, had been at the +Dardanelles. + +The Queen Elizabeth was disappointing so far as wounds went. She +had been so much in the public eye that one expected to find her +badly battered, and she had suffered little, indeed, for the amount of +sport she had had in tossing her fifteen-inch shells across the Gallipoli +peninsula into the Turkish batteries and the amount of risk she had +run from Turkish mines. Some of these monsters contained only +eleven thousand shrapnel bullets. A strange business for a fifteen- +inch naval gun to be firing shrapnel. A year ago no one could have +imagined that one day the most powerful British ship, built with the +single thought of overwhelming an enemy's Dreadnought, would ever +be trying to force the Dardanelles. + +The trouble was that she could not fire an army corps ashore along +with her shells to take possession of the land after she had put +batteries out of action. She had some grand target practice; she +escaped the mines; she kept out of reach of the German shells, and +returned to report to Sir John with just enough scars to give zest to +the recollection of her extraordinary adventure. All the fleet was +relieved to see her back in her proper place. It is not the business of +super-Dreadnoughts to be steaming around mine-fields, but to be +surrounded by destroyers and light cruisers and submarines +safeguarding her giant guns, which are depressed and elevated as +easily as if they were drum-sticks. One had an abrasion, a tracery of +dents. + +"That was from a Turkish shell," said an officer. "And you are standing +where a shell hit." + +I looked down to see an irregular outline of fresh planking. + +"An accident when we did not happen to be out of their reach. We +had the range of them," he added. + +"The range of them" is a great phrase. Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee +used it in speaking of the battle of the Falkland Islands. "The range of +them" seems a sure prescription for victory. Nothing in all the history +of the war appeals to me as quite so smooth a bit of tactics as the +Falkland affair. It was so smooth that it was velvety; and it is worth +telling again, as I understand it. Sir Frederick is another young +admiral. Otherwise, how could the British navy have entrusted him +with so important a task? He is a different type from Beatty, who in an +army one judges might have been in the cavalry. Along with the +peculiar charm and alertness which we associate with sailors--they +imbibe it from the salt air and from meeting all kinds of weather and +all kinds of men, I think--he has the quality of the scholar, with a +suspicion of merriness in his eye. + +He was Chief of the War Staff at the Admiralty in the early stages of +the war, which means, I take it, that he assisted in planning the +moves on the chessboard. It fell to him to act; to apply the strategy +and tactics which he planned for others at sea while he sat at a desk. +It was his wit against von Spee's, who was not deficient in this +respect. If he had been he might not have steamed into the trap. The +trouble was that von Spee had some wit, but not enough. It would +have been better for him if he had been as guileless as a parson. + +Sir Frederick is so gentle-mannered that one would never suspect +him of a "double bluff," which was what he played on von Spee. After +von Spee's victory over Cradock, Sturdee slipped across to the South +Atlantic, without anyone knowing that he had gone, with a squadron +strong enough to do unto von Spee what von Spee had done unto +Cradock. + +But before you wing your bird you must flush him. The thing was to +find von Spee and force him to give battle; for the South Atlantic is +broad and von Spee, it is supposed, was in an Emden mood and +bent on reaching harbour in German South-West Africa, whence he +could sally out to destroy British shipping on the Cape route. When +he intercepted a British wireless message--Sturdee had left off the +sender's name and location--telling the plodding old Canopus seeking +home or assistance before von Spee overtook her, that she would be +perfectly safe in the harbour at Port William, as guns had been +erected for her protection, von Spee guessed that this was a bluff, +and rightly. But it was only Bluff Number One. He steamed to the +Falklands with a view to finishing off the old Canopus on the way +across to Africa. There he fell foul of Bluff Number Two. Sturdee did +not have to seek him; he came to Sturdee. + +There was no convenient Dogger Bank fog in that latitude to cover +his flight. Sturdee had the speed of von Spee and he had to fight. It +was the one bit of strategy of the war which is like that of the story +books and worked out as strategy always does in proper story books. +Practically the twelve-inch guns of the Inflexible and the Invincible +had only to keep their distance and hang on to the Scharnhorst and +the Gneisenau in order to do the trick. Light-weights or middle- +weights have no business trafficking with heavy-weights in naval +warfare. + +"Von Spee made a brave fight," said Sir Frederick, "but we kept him +at a distance that suited us, without letting him get out of range." + +He had had the fortune to prove an established principle in action. It +was all in the course of duty, which is the way that all the officers and +all the men look at their work. Only a few ships have had a chance to +fight, and these are emblazoned on the public memory. But they did +no better and no worse, probably, than the others would have done. If +the public singles out ships, the navy does not. Whatever is done and +whoever does it, why, it is to the credit of the family, according to the +spirit of service that promotes uniformity of efficiency. Leaders and +ships which have won renown are resolved into the whole in that +harbour where the fleet is the thing; and the good opinion they most +desire is that of their fellows. If they have that they will earn the +public's when the test comes. + +Belonging to the class of the first of battle-cruisers is the Inflexible, +which received a few taps in the Falklands and a blow that was nearly +the death of her in the Dardanelles. Tribute enough for its courage-- +the tribute of a chivalrous enemy--von Spee's squadron receives +from the officers and men of the Inflexible, who saw them go down +into the sea tinged with sunset red with their colours still flying. Then +in the sunset red the British saved as many of those afloat as they +could. + +Those dripping German officers who had seen one of their battered +turrets carried away bodily into the sea by a British twelve-inch shell, +who had endured a fury of concussions and destruction, with steel +missiles cracking steel structures into fragments, came on board the +Inflexible looking for signs of some blows delivered in return for the +crushing blows that had beaten their ships into the sea and saw none +until they were invited into the wardroom, which was in chaos--and +then they smiled. + +At least, they had sent one shell home. The sight was sweet to them, +so sweet that, in respect to the feeling of the vanquished, the victors +held silence with a knightly consideration. But where had the shell +entered? There was no sign of any hole. Then they learned that the +fire of the guns of the starboard turret midships over the wardroom, +which was on the port side, had deposited a great many things on the +floor which did not belong there; and their expression changed. Even +this comfort was taken from them. + +"We had the range of you!" the British explained. The chaplain of the +Inflexible was bound to have an anecdote. I don't know why, except +that a chaplain's is not a fighting part and he may look on. His place +was down behind the armour with the doctor, waiting for wounded. He +stood in his particular steel cave listening to the tremendous blasts of +her guns which shook the Inflexible's frame, and still no wounded +arrived. Then he ran up a ladder to the deck and had a look around +and saw the little points of the German ships with the shells sweeping +toward them and the smoke of explosions which burst on board them. +It was not the British who needed his prayers that day, but the +Germans. Personally, I think the Germans are more in need of +prayers at all times because of the damnable way they act. + +Perhaps the spirit of the Inflexible's story was best given by a +midshipman with the down still on his cheek. Considering how young +the British take their officer-beginners to sea, the admirals are not +young, at least, in point of sea service. He got more out of the action +than his elders; his impressions of the long cruises and the actions +had the vividness of boyhood. Down in one of the caves, doing his +part as the shells were sent up to feed the thundering guns above, +the whispered news of the progress of battle was passed on at +intervals till, finally, the guns were silent. Then he hurried on deck in +the elation of victory, succeeded by the desire to save those whom +they had fought. It had all been so simple; so like drill. You had only to +go on shooting--that was all. + +Yes, he had been lucky. From the Falklands to the Dardanelles, +which was a more picturesque business than the battle. Any minute +off the Straits you did not know but a submarine would have a try at +you or you might bump into a mine. And the Inflexible did bump into +one. She had two thousand tons of water on board. It was fast work +to keep the remainder of the sea from coming in, too, and the same +kind of dramatic experience as the Lion's in reaching port. Yes, he +had been very lucky. It was all a lark to that boy. + +"It never occurs to midshipmen to be afraid of anything," said one of +the officers. "The more danger, the better they like it." + +In the wardroom was a piece of the mine or the torpedo, whichever it +was, that struck the Inflexible; a strange, twisted, annealed bit of +metal. Every ship which had been in action had some souvenir which +the enemy had sent on board in anger and which was preserved with +a collector's enthusiasm. + +The Inflexible seemed as good as ever she was. Such is the way of +naval warfare. Either it is to the bottom of the sea or to dry docks and +repairs. There is nothing half-way. So it is well to take care that you +have "the range of them." + + + + +XXX +On The Fleet Flagship + + + +Thus far we have skirted around the heart of things, which in a fleet is +always the Commander-in-Chief's flagship. Our handy, agile +destroyer ran alongside a battleship with as much nonchalance as +she would go alongside a pier. I should not have been surprised to +see her pirouette over the hills or take to flying. + +There was a time when those majestic and pampered ladies, the +battleships--particularly if there were a sea running as in this harbour +at the time--having in mind the pride of paint, begged all destroyers to +keep off with the superciliousness of grandes dames holding their +skirts aloof from contact with nimble, audacious street gamins, who +dodged in and out of the traffic of muddy streets. But destroyers have +learned better manners, perhaps, and battleships have been +democratized. It is the day of Russian dancers and when aeroplanes +loop the loop, and we have grown used to all kinds of marvels. + +But the sea has refused to be trained. It is the same old sea that it +was in Columbus' time, without any loss of trickiness in bumping +small craft against towering sides. The way that this destroyer slid up +to the flagship without any fuss and the way her bluejackets held her +off from the paint, as she rose on the crests and slipped back into the +trough, did not tell the whole story. A part of it was how, at the right +interval, they assisted the landlubber to step from gunwale to +gangway, making him feel perfectly safe when he would have been +perfectly helpless but for them. + +I had often watched our own bluejackets at the same thing. They did +not grin--not when you were looking at them. Nor did the British. +Bluejackets are noted for their official politeness. I should like to have +heard their remarks--they have a gift for remarks--about those +invaders of their uniformed world in Scottish caps and other kinds of +caps and the different kinds of clothes which tailors make for civilians. +Without any intention of eavesdropping, I did overhear one asking +another whence came these strange birds. + +You knew the flagship by the admirals' barges astern, as you know +the location of an army headquarters by its motor-cars. It seemed in +the centre of the fleet at anchor, if that is a nautical expression. +Where its place would be in action is one of those secrets as +important to the enemy as the location of a general's shell-proof +shelter in Flanders. Perhaps Sir John Jellicoe may be on some other +ship in battle. If there is any one foolish question which you should not +ask it is this. + +As you mounted the gangway of this mighty super-Dreadnought you +were bound to think--at least, an American was--of another flagship in +Portsmouth harbour, Nelson's Victory. Probably an Englishman would +not indulge in such a commonplace. I would like to know how many +Englishmen had ever seen the old Victory. But then, how many +Americans have been to Mount Vernon and Gettysburg? + +It was a hundred years, one repeats, since the British had fought a +first-class naval war. Nelson did his part so well that he did not leave +any fighting to be done by his successors. Maintaining herself as +mistress of the seas by the threat of superior strength--except in the +late 'fifties, when the French innovation of iron ships gave France a +temporary lead on paper--ship after ship, through all the grades of +progress in naval construction, has gone to the scrap heap without +firing a shot in anger. The Victory was one landmark, or seamark, if +you please, and this flagship was another. Between the two were +generations of officers and men, working through the change from +stagecoach to motors and aeroplanes and seaplanes, who had kept +up to a standard of efficiency in view of a test that never came. A year +of war and still the test had not come, for the old reason that England +had superior strength. Her outnumbering guns which had kept the +peace of the seas still kept it. All second nature to the Englishman +this, as the defence of the immense distances of the steppes to the +Russian or the Rocky Mountain wall and the Mississippi's flow to the +man in Kansas. But the American kept thinking about it; and he +wanted the Kansans to think about it, too. When he was about to +meet Sir John Jellicoe he envisaged the tall column in Trafalgar +Square, surmounted by the one-armed figure turned toward the +wireless skein on top of the Admiralty building. + +I first heard of Jellicoe fifteen years ago when he was Chief of Staff to +Sir Edward Seymour, then Commander-in-Chief of the Asiatic +Squadron. Indeed, you were always hearing about Jellicoe in those +days on the China coast. He was the kind of man whom people talk +about after they have met him, which means personality. It was in +China seas, you may remember, that when a few British seamen +were hard pressed in a fight that was not ours the phrase, "Blood is +thicker than water," sprang from the lips of an American commander, +who waited not on international etiquette but went to the assistance of +the British. + +Nor will anyone who was present in the summer of '98 forget how Sir +Edward Chichester stood loyally by Admiral George Dewey, when the +German squadron was empire-fishing in the waters of Manila Bay, +until our Atlantic fleet had won the battle of Santiago and Admiral +Dewey had received reinforcements and, east and west, we were +able to look after the Germans. The British bluejackets said that the +rations of frozen mutton from Australia which we sent alongside were +excellent; but the Germans were in no position to judge, doubtless +through an oversight in the detail of hospitality by one of Admiral +Dewey's staff. Let us be officially correct and say there was no mutton +to spare after the British had been supplied. + +In the gallant effort of the Allied force of sailors to relieve the +legations against some hundreds of thousands of Boxers, Captain +Bowman McCalla and his Americans worked with Admiral Seymour +and his Britons in the most trying and picturesque adventure of its +kind in modern history. McCalla, too, was always talking of Jellicoe, +who was wounded on the expedition; and Sir John's face lighted at +mention of McCalla's name. He recalled how McCalla had painted +on the superstructure of the little Newark that saying of Farragut's, +"The best protection against an enemy's fire is a well-directed fire +of your own"; which has been said in other ways and cannot be +said too often. + +"We called McCalla Mr. Lead," said Sir John; "he had been wounded +so many times and yet was able to hobble along and keep on +fighting. We corresponded regularly until his death." + +Beatty, too, was on that expedition; and he, too, was another +personality one kept hearing about. It seemed odd that two men who +had played a part in work which was a soldier's far from home should +have become so conspicuous in the Great War. If on that day when, +with ammunition exhausted, all members of the expedition had given +up hope of ever returning alive, they had not accidentally come upon +the Shi-kou arsenal, one would not be commanding the Grand Fleet +and the other its battle-cruiser squadron. + +Before the war, I am told, when Admiralty Lords and others who had +the decision to make were discussing who should command in case +of war, opinion ran something like this: "Jellicoe! He has the brains." +"Jellicoe! He has the health to endure the strain, with years enough +and not too many." "Jellicoe! He has the confidence of the service." +The choice literally made itself. When anyone is undertaking the +gravest responsibility which has been an Englishman's for a hundred +years, this kind of a recommendation helps. He had the guns; he had +supreme command; he must deliver victory--such was England's +message to him. + +When I mentioned in a dispatch that all that differentiated him from +the officers around him was the broader band of gold lace on his arm, +an English naval critic wanted to know if I expected to find him in cloth +of gold. No; nor in full dress with all his medals on, as I saw him +appear on the screen at a theatre in London. + +Any general of high command must be surrounded by more pomp +than an admiral in time of action. A headquarters cannot have the +simplicity of the quarter-deck. The force which the general commands +is not in sight; the admiral's is. You saw the commander and you saw +what it was that he commanded. Within the sweep of vision from the +quarter-deck was the terrific power which the man with the broad gold +band on his arm directed. At a signal from him it would move or it +would stand still. That command of Joshua's if given by Sir John one +thought might have been obeyed. + +One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred twelve-inch +guns and larger, which could carry two hundred tons of metal in a +single broadside for a distance of eighteen thousand yards! But do +not forget the little guns, bristling under the big guns like needles from +a cushion, which would keep off the torpedo assassins; or the light +cruisers, or the colliers, or the destroyers, or the 2,300 trawlers and +mine-layers, and what not, all under his direction. He had +submarines, too, double the number of the German. But with all the +German men-of-war in harbour, they had no targets. Where were +they? You did not ask questions which would not be answered. The +whole British fleet was waiting for the Germans to show their heads, +while cruisers were abroad scouting in the North Sea. + +At the outset of the war the German fleet might have had one chance +in ten of getting a turn of fortune in its favour by an unexpected stroke +of strategy. This was the danger against which Jellicoe had to guard. +For in one sense, the Germans had the tactical offensive by sea as +well as by land; theirs the outward thrust from the centre. They could +choose when to come out of their harbour; when to strike. The British +had to keep watch all the time and be ready whenever the enemy +should come. + +Thus, the British Grand Fleet was at sea in the early part of the war, +cruising here and there, begging for battle. Then it was that it learned +how to avoid submarines and mine-fields. Submarines had played a +greater part than expected, because Germany had chosen a guerrilla +naval warfare: to harass, to wound, to wear down. Doubtless she +hoped to reduce the number of British fighting units by attrition. + +Weak England might be in plants for making arms for an army, but +not in ship-building. Here was her true genius. She was a maritime +power; Germany a land power. Her part as an ally of France and +Russia being to command the sea, all demands of the Admiralty for +material must take precedence over demands of the War Office. At +the end of the first year she had increased her fighting power by sea +to a still higher ratio of preponderance over the Germans; in another +year she would increase it further. + +Admiral von Tirpitz wanted nothing so much as to draw the British +fleet under the guns of Heligoland or into a mine-field and submarine +trap. But Sir John Jellicoe refused the bait. When he had completed +his precautions and his organization to meet new conditions, his fleet +need not go into the open. His Dreadnoughts could rest at anchor at +a base, while his scouts kept in touch with all that was passing, and +his auxiliaries and destroyers fought the submarines. Without a British +Dreadnought having fired a shot at a German Dreadnought, nowhere +on the face of the seas might a single vessel show the German flag +except by thrusting it above the water for a few minutes. + +If von Tirpitz sent his fleet out he, too, might find himself in a trap of +mines and submarines. He was losing submarines and England was +building more. His naval force rather than Sir John's was suffering +from attrition. The blockade was complete from Iceland to the North +Sea. While the world knew of the work of the armies, the care that +this task required, the hardships endured, the enormous expenditure +of energy, were all hidden behind that veil of secrecy which obviously +must be more closely drawn over naval than over army operations. + +From the flagship the campaign was directed. One would think that +many offices and many clerks would be required. But the offices and +the clerks were at the Admiralty. Here was the execution. In a room +perhaps four feet by six was the wireless focus which received all +reports and sent all orders, with trim bluejackets at the keys. "Go!" +and "Come!" the messages were saying; they wasted no words. +Officers of the staff did their work in narrow space, yet seemed to +have plenty of room. Red tape is inflammable. There is no more place +for it on board a flagship prepared for action than for unnecessary +woodwork. + +At every turn compression and concentration of power were like the +guns and the decks, cleared for action, significant in directness of +purpose. The system was planetary in its impressive simplicity, the +more striking as nothing that man has ever made is more +complicated or includes more kinds of machinery than a battleship. +One battleship was one unit, one chessman on the naval board. + +Not all famous leaders are likeable, as every world traveller knows. +They all have the magnetism of force, which is quite another thing +from the magnetism of charm. What the public demands is that they +shall win victories, whether personally likeable or not. But if they are +likeable and simple and human and a sailor besides--well, we know +what that means. + +Perhaps Sir John Jellicoe is not a great man. It is not for a civilian +even to presume to judge. We have the word of those who ought to +know, however, that he is. I hope that he is, because I like to think +that great commanders need not necessarily appear formidable. +Nelson refused to be cast for the heavy part, and so did Farragut. It +may be a sailor characteristic. I predict that after this war is over, +whatever honours or titles they may bestow upon him, the English are +going to like Sir John Jellicoe not alone for his service to the nation, +but for himself. + +Admiral Jellicoe is one with Captain Jellicoe, whose cheeriness even +when wounded kept up the spirits of the others on the relief +expedition of Boxer days. "He could do it, too!" one thought, having in +mind Sir David Beatty's leap to the deck of a destroyer. Spare, of +medium height, ruddy, and fifty-seven--so much for the health +qualification which the Admiralty Lords dwelt upon as important. After +he had been at sea for a year he seemed a human machine, much of +the type of the destroyer as a steel machine--a thirty-knot human +machine, capable of three hundred or five hundred revolutions, +engines running smoothly, with no waste energy, slipping over the +waves and cutting through them; a quick man, quick of movement, +quick of comprehension and observation, of speech and of thought, +with a delightful self-possession--for there are many kinds--which is +instantly responsive with decision. + +A telescope under his arm, too, as he received his guests. You liked +that. He keeps watch over the fleet himself when he is on the quarter- +deck. You had a feeling that nothing could happen in all his range of +vision, stretching down the "avenues of Dreadnoughts" to the light- +cruiser squadron, and escape his attention. It hardly seems possible +that he was ever bored. Everything around interests him. Energy he +has, electric energy in this electric age, this man chosen to command +the greatest war product of modern energy. + +Fastened to the superstructure near the ladder to his quarters was a +new broom which South Africa had sent him. He was highly pleased +with the present; only the broom was Tromp's emblem, while Blake's +had been the whip. Possibly the South African Dutchmen, now +fighting on England's side, knew that he already had the whip and +they wanted him to have the Dutch broom, too. + +He had been using both, and many other devices in his campaign +against von Tirpitz's "unter See" boats, as was illustrated by one of +the maps hung in his cabin. Quite different this from maps in a +general's headquarters, with the front trenches and support and +reserve trenches and the gun-positions marked in vari-coloured +pencillings. Instantly a submarine was sighted anywhere, Sir John +had word of it, and a dot went down on the spot where it had been +seen. In places the sea looked like a pepper-box cover. Dots were +plentiful outside the harbour where we were; but well outside, like flies +around sugar which they could not reach. + +Seeing Sir John among his admirals and guests one had a glimpse of +the life of a sort of mysterious, busy brotherhood. I was still searching +for an admiral with white hair. If there were none among these +seniors, then all must be on shore. Spirit, I think, that is the word; the +spirit of youth, of corps, of service, of the sea, of a ready, buoyant +definiteness--yes, spirit was the word to characterize these leaders. +Sir John moved from one to another in his quick way, asking a +question, listening, giving a direction, his face smiling and expressive +with a sort of infectious confidence. + +"He is the man!" said an admiral. I mean, several admirals and +captains said so. They seemed to like to say it. Whenever he +approached one noted an eagerness, a tightening of nerves. Natural +leadership expresses itself in many ways; Sir John gave it a sailor's +attractiveness. But I learned that there was steel under his happy +smile; and they liked him for that, too. Watch out when he is not +smiling, and sometimes when he is smiling, they say. + +For failure is never excused in the fleet, as more than one +commander knows. It is a luxury of consideration which the British +nation cannot afford by sea in time of war. The scene which one +witnessed in the cabin of the Dreadnought flagship could not have +been unlike that of Nelson and his young captains on the Victory, in +the animation of youth governed with one thought under the one rule +that you must make good. + +Splendid as the sight of the power which Sir John directed from his +quarter-deck while the ships lay still in their plotted moorings, it paled +beside that when the anchor chains began to rumble and, column by +column, they took on life slowly and, majestically gaining speed, one +after another turned toward the harbour's entrance. + + + + +XXXI +Simply Hard Work + + + +Besides the simple word spirit, there is the simple word work. Take +the two together, mixing with them the proper quantity of intelligence, +and you have something finer than Dreadnoughts; for it builds +Dreadnoughts, or tunnels mountains, or wins victories. + +In no organization would it be so easy as in the navy to become +slack. If the public sees a naval review it knows that its ships can +steam and keep their formations; if it goes on board it knows that the +ships are clean--at least, the limited part of them which it sees; and it +knows that there are turrets and guns. + +But how does it know that the armour of the turrets is good, or that +the guns will fire accurately? Indeed, all that it sees is the shell. The +rest must be taken on trust. A navy may look all right and be quite +bad. The nation gives a certain amount of money to build ships which +are taken in charge by officers and men who, shut off from public +observation, may do about as they please. The result rests with their +industry and responsibility. If they are true to the character of the +nation by and large that is all the nation may expect; if they are better, +then the nation has reason to be grateful. Englishmen take more +interest in their navy than Americans in theirs. They give it the best +that is in them and they expect the best from it in return. Every +youngster who hopes to be an officer knows that the navy is no place +for idling; every man who enlists knows that he is in for no junket on a +pleasure yacht. The British navy, I judged, had a relatively large +percentage of the brains and application of England. + +"It is not so different from what it was for ten years preceding the +war," said one of the officers. "We did all the work we could stand +then; and whether cruising or lying in harbour, life is almost normal for +us to-day." + +The British fleet was always on a war footing. It must be. Lack +of naval preparedness is more dangerous than lack of land +preparedness. It is fatal. I know of officers who had had only a week's +leave in a year in time of peace; their pay is less than our officers'. +Patriotism kept them up to the mark. + +And another thing: once a sailor, always a sailor, is an old saying; but +it has a new application in modern navies. They become fascinated +with the very drudgery of ship existence. They like their world, which +is their house and their shop. It has the attraction of a world of +priestcraft, with them alone understanding the ritual. Their drill at the +guns becomes the preparation for the great sport of target practice, +which beats any big-game shooting when guns compete with guns, +with battle practice greater sport than target practice. Bringing a ship +into harbour well, holding her to her place in the formation, roaming +over the seas in a destroyer--all means eternal effort at the mastery +of material, with the results positively demonstrated. + +On one of the Dreadnoughts I saw a gun's crew drilling with a dummy +six-inch; weight, one hundred pounds. + +"Isn't that boy pretty young to handle that big shell?" an admiral asked +a junior officer. + +"He doesn't think so," the officer replied. "We haven't anyone who +could handle it better. It would break his heart if we changed his +position." + +Not one of fifty German prisoners whom I had seen filing by over in +France was as sturdy as this youngster. In the ranks of an infantry +company of any army he would have been above the average of +physique; but among the rest of the gun's crew he did appear slight. +Need more be said about the physical standard of the crews of the +fighting ships of the Grand Fleet? + +You had an eye to more than guns and machinery and to more than +the character of the officers. You wanted to get better acquainted with +the personnel of the men behind the guns. They formed patches of +blue on the decks, as one looked around the fleet, against the +background of the dull, painted bulwarks of steel--the human element +whose skill gave the ships life--deep-chested, vigorous men in their +prime, who had the air of men grounded in their work by long +experience. I noted when an order was given that it was obeyed +quickly by one who knew what he had to do because he had done it +thousands of times. + +There are all kinds of bluejackets, as there are all kinds of other men. +Before the war some took more than was good for them when on +shore; some took nothing stronger than tea; some enjoyed the +sailor's privilege of growling; some had to be kept up to the mark +sharply; an occasional one might get rebellious against the merciless +repetition of drills. + +The war imparted eagerness to all, the officers said. Infractions of +discipline ceased. Days pass without anyone of the crew of a +Dreadnought having to be called up as a defaulter, I am told. And +their health? At first thought, one would say that life in the steel caves +of a Dreadnought would mean pasty complexions and flabby +muscles. For a year the crews had been prisoners of that readiness +which must not lose a minute in putting to sea if von Tirpitz should +ever try the desperate gamble of battle. + +After a turn in the trenches the soldiers can at least stretch their legs +in billets. A certain number of a ship's company now and then get a +tramp on shore; not real leave, but a personally conducted outing not +far from the boats which will hurry them back to their stations on +signal. However, all that one needs to keep well is fresh air and +exercise. The blowers carry fresh air to every part of the ship; the +breezes which sweep the deck from the North Sea are fresh enough +in summer and a little too fresh in winter. There is exercise in the +regular drills, supplemented by setting-up exercises. The food is good +and no man drinks or eats what he ought not to, as he may on shore. +So there is the fact and the reason for the fact: the health of the men, +as well as their conduct, had never been so good. + +"Perhaps we are not quite so clean as we were before the war," said +an officer. "We wash decks only twice a week instead of every day. +This means that quarters are not so moist, and the men have more +freedom of movement. We want them to have as much freedom as +possible." + +Waiting, waiting, in such confinement for thirteen months; waiting for +battle! Think of the strain of it! The British temperament is well +fitted to undergo such a test, and particularly well fitted are these +sturdy seamen of mature years. An enemy may imagine them +wearing down their efficiency on the leash. They want a fight; naturally, +they want nothing quite so much. But they have the seaman's +philosophy. Old von Tirpitz may come out and he may not. It is for +him to do the worrying. They sit tight. The men's ardour is not imposed +upon. Care is taken that they should not be worked stale; for the +marksman who puts a dozen shots through the bull's-eye had better +not keep on firing, lest he begin rimming it and get into bad habits. + +Where an army officer has a change when he leaves the trench for +his billet, there is none for the naval officer, who, unlike the army +officer, is Spartan-bred to confinement. The army pays its daily toll of +casualties; it lies cramped in dug-outs, not knowing what minute +extinction may come. The Grand Fleet has its usual comforts; it is +safe from submarines in a quiet harbour. Many naval officers spoke +of this contrast with deep feeling, as if fate were playing favourites, +though I have never heard an army officer mention it. + +The army can give each day fresh proof of its courage in face of the +enemy. Courage! It takes on a new meaning with the Grand Fleet. +The individual element of gallantry merges into gallantry of the whole. +You have the very communism of courage. The thought is to keep a +cool head and do your part as a cog in the vast machine. Courage is +as much taken for granted as the breath of life. Thus, Cradock's men +fought till they went down. It was according to the programme laid out +for each turret and each gun in a turret. + +Smith, of the army, leads a bomb-throwing party from traverse to +traverse; Smith, of the navy, turns one lever at the right second. Army +gunners are improving their practice day by day against the enemy; +all the improving by navy gunners must be done before the battle. No +sieges in trenches; no attacks and counter-attacks: a decision within +a few hours--perhaps within an hour. + +This partially explains the love of the navy for its work; its cheerful +repetition of the drills which seem such a wearisome business to the +civilian. The men know the reason of their drudgery. It is an all- +convincing bull's-eye reason. Ping-ping! One heard the familiar sound +of sub-calibre practice, which seems as out of proportion in a fifteen- +inch gun as a mouse-squeak from an elephant whom you expect to +trumpet. As the result appears in sub-calibre practice, so it is +practically bound to appear in target practice; as it appears in target +practice, so it is bound to appear in battle practice. It was on the +flagship that I saw a device which Sir John referred to as the next +best thing to having the Germans come out. He took as much delight +in it as the gun-layers, who were firing at German Dreadnoughts of +the first line, as large as your thumb, which were in front of a sort of +hooded arrangement with the guns of a British Dreadnought inside-- +the rest I censor myself before the regular censor sees it. + +When we heard a report like that of a small target rifle inside the +arrangement a small red or a small white splash rose from the +metallic platter of a sea. Thus the whole German navy has been +pounded to pieces again and again. It is a great game. The gun- +layers never tire of it and they think they know the reason as well as +anybody why von Tirpitz keeps his Dreadnoughts at home. + +But elsewhere I saw some real firing; for ships must have their regular +target practice, war or no war. If those cruisers steaming across the +range had been sending six or eight-inch shrapnel, we should have +preferred not to be so near that towed square of canvas. Flashes +from turrets indistinguishable at a distance from the neutral-toned +bodies of the vessels and the shells struck, making great splashes +just beyond the target, which was where they ought to go. + +A familiar scene, but with a new meaning when the time is one of war. +So far as my observation is worth anything, it was very good +shooting, indeed. One broadside would have put a destroyer out of +business as easily as a "Jack Johnson" does for a dug-out; and it +would have made a cruiser of the same class as the one firing pretty +groggy--this not from any experience of being on a light cruiser or any +desire to be on one when it receives such a salute. But it seems to be +waiting for the Germans any time that they want it. + +Oh, that towed square of canvas! It is the symbol of the object of all +building of guns, armour, and ships, all the nursing in dry dock, all the +admiral's plans, all the parliamentary appropriations, all the striving on +board ship in man's competition with man, crew with crew, gun with +gun, and ship with ship. One had in mind some vast factory plant +where every unit was efficiently organized; but that comparison would +not do. None will. The Grand Fleet is the Grand Fleet. Ability gets its +reward, as in the competition of civil life. There is no linear promotion +indulgent to mediocrity and inferiority which are satisfied to keep step +and harassing to those whom nature and application meant to lead. +Armchairs and retirement for those whose inclinations run that way; +the captain's bridge for those who are fit to command. Officers' +records are the criterion when superiors come to making promotions. +But does not outside influence play a part? you ask. If professional +conscience is not enough to prevent this, another thing appears to +be: that the British nation lives or dies with its navy. Besides, the +British public has said to all and sundry outsiders: "Hands off the +navy!" All honour to the British public, much criticized and often most +displeased with its servants and itself, for keeping its eye on that +canvas square of cloth! The language on board was the same as on +our ships; the technical phraseology practically the same; we had +inherited British traditions. But a man from Kansas and a man from +Dorset live far apart. If they have a good deal in common they rarely +meet to learn that they have. Our seamen do meet British seamen +and share a fraternity which is more than that of the sea. Close one's +eyes to the difference in uniform, discount the difference in accent, +and one imagined that he might be with our North Atlantic fleet. + +The same sort of shop talk and banter in the wardroom, which trims +and polishes human edges; the same fellowship of a world apart. +Securely ready the British fleet waits. Enough drill and not too much; +occasional visits between ships; books and newspapers and a +lighthearted relaxation of scattered conversation in the mess. One +wardroom had a thirty-five-second record for getting past all the +pitfalls in the popular "Silver Bullet" game, if I remember correctly. + + + + +XXXII +Hunting The Submarine + + + +Seaplanes cut practice circles over the fleet and then flew away on +their errands, to be lost in the sky beyond the harbour entrance. With +their floats, they were like ducks when they came to rest on the water, +sturdy and a little clumsy looking compared to those hawks the army +planes, soaring to higher altitudes. + +The hawk had a broad, level field for its roost; the duck, bobbing with +the waves after it came down, had its wings folded as became a bird +at rest, after its engines stopped, and, a dead thing, was lifted on +board its floating home with a crane, as cargo is swung into the hold. + +On shipboard there must be shipshapeness; and that capacious, +one-time popular Atlantic liner had undergone changes to prepare it +for its mothering part, with platforms in place of the promenades +where people had lounged during the voyage and bombs in place of +deck-quoits and dining-saloons turned into workshops. Of course, +one was shown the different sizes and types of bombs. Aviators +exhibit them with the pride of a collector showing his porcelains. +Every time they seem to me to have grown larger and more +diabolical. Where will aerial progress end? Will the next war be fought +by forces that dive and fly like fishes and birds? + +"I'd like to drop that hundred-pounder on to a Zeppelin!" said one of +the aviators. All the population of London would like to see him do it. +And Fritz, the submarine, does not like to see the shadow of man's +wings above the water. + +Seaplanes and destroyers carry the imagination away from the fleet +to another sphere of activity, which I had not the fortune to see. An +aviator can see Fritz below a smooth surface; for he cannot travel +much deeper than thirty or forty feet. He leaves a characteristic ripple +and tell-tale bubbles of air and streaks of oil. When the planes have +located him they tell the hunters where to go. Sometimes it is known +that a submarine is in a certain region; he is lost sight of and seen +again; a squall may cover his track a second time, and the hunters, +keeping touch with the planes by signals, course here and there on +the look out for another glimpse. Perhaps he escapes altogether. It is +a tireless game of hide and seek, like gunnery at the front. Naval +ingenuity has invented no end of methods, and no end of +experiments have been tried. Strictest kept of naval secrets, these. +Fritz is not to be told what to avoid and what not to avoid. + +Very thin is the skin of a submarine; very fragile and complicated its +machinery. It does not take much of a shock to put it out of order or a +large charge of explosives to dent the skin beyond repair. It being in +the nature of submarines to sink, how does the hunter know when he +has struck a mortal blow? If oil and bubbles come up for some time in +one place, or if they come up with a rush, that is suggestive. Then, it +does not require a nautical mind to realize that by casting about on +the bottom with a grapnel you will learn if an object with the bulk and +size of a submarine is there. The Admiralty accept no guesswork +from the hunters about their exploits; they must bring the brush to +prove the kill. + +With Admiral Crawford I went to see the submarine defences of the +harbour. It reminded one of the days of the drawbridge to a castle, +when a friend rode freely in and an enemy might try to swim the moat +and scale the walls if he pleased. + +"Take care! There is a tide here!" the coxswain was warned, lest the +barge should get into some of the troubles meant for Fritz. "A cunning +fellow, Fritz. We must give him no openings." + +The openings appear long enough to permit British craft, whether +trawlers, or flotillas, or cruiser squadrons, to go and come. Lying as +close together as fish in a basket, I saw at one place a number of +torpedo boats home from a week at sea. + +"Here to-day and gone to-morrow," said an officer. "What a time they +had last winter! You know how cold the North Sea is--no, you cannot, +unless you have been out in a torpedo boat dancing the tango in the +teeth of that bitter wind, with the spray whipping up to the tops of the +smoke-stacks. In the dead of night they would come into this pitch- +dark harbour. How they found their way is past me. It's a trick of those +young fellows, who command." + +Stationary they seemed now as the quay itself; but let a signal speak, +an alarm come, and they would soon be as alive as leaping +porpoises. The sport is to those who scout and hunt. But do not +forget those who watch, those who keep the blockade, from the +Channel to Iceland, and the trawlers that plod over plotted sea- +squares with the regularity of mowing-machines cutting a harvest, on +their way back and forth sweeping up mines. They were fishermen +before the war and are fishermen still. Night and day they keep at it. +They come into the harbours stiff with cold, thaw out, and return to +hardships which would make many a man prefer the trenches. +Tributes to their patient courage, which came from the heart, were +heard on board the battleships. + +"It is when we think of them," said an officer, "that we are most eager +to have the German fleet come out, so that we can do our part." + + + + + + +XXXIII +The Fleet Puts To Sea + + + +There is another test besides that of gun-drills and target practice +which reflects the efficiency of individual ships, and the larger the +number of ships the more important it is. For the business of a fleet is +to go to sea. At anchor, it is in garrison rather than on campaign, an +assembly of floating forts. Navies one has seen which seemed +excellent when in harbour, but when they started to get under way the +result was hardly reassuring. Some erring sister fouled her anchor +chain; another had engine-room trouble; another lagged for some +other reason; there was fidgeting on the bridges. Then one asked, +What if a summons to battle had come? Our own officers were +authority enough that the British had no superiors in any of the tests. +But strange reports dodged in and out of the alleys of pessimism in +the company of German insistence that the Tiger and other ships +which one saw afloat had been sunk. Was the fleet really held +prisoner by fear of submarines? If it could go and come freely when it +chose, the harbour was the place for it while it waited. If not, then, +indeed, the submarine had revolutionized naval warfare. Admiral +Jellicoe might lose some of his battleships before he could get into +action against the Germans. + +"Oh, to hear the hoarse rattle of the anchor chains!" I kept thinking +while I was with the fleet. "Oh, to see all these monsters on the +move!" + +A vain wish it seemed, but it came true. A message from the +Admiralty arrived while we were on the flagship. Admiral Jellicoe +called his Flag Lieutenant and spoke a word to him, which was +passed in a twinkling from flagship to squadron and division and ship. +He made it as simple as ordering his barge alongside, this sending of +the Grand Fleet to sea. + +From the bridge of a destroyer beyond the harbour entrance we saw +it go. I shall not attempt to describe the spectacle, which convinced +me that language is the vehicle for making small things seem great +and great things seem small. If you wish words invite splendid and +magnificent and overwhelming and all the reliable old friends to come +forth in glad apparel from the dictionary. Personally, I was inarticulate +at sight of that sea-march of dull-toned, unadorned power. + +First came the outriders of majesty, the destroyers; then the graceful +light cruisers. How many destroyers has the British navy? I am only +certain that it has not as many as it seems to have, which would +mean thousands. Trying to count them is like trying to count the bees +in the garden. You cannot keep your eye on the individual bees. You +are bound to count some twice, so busy are their manÅ“uvres. + +"Don't you worry, great ladies!" you imagined the destroyers were +saying to the battleships. "We will clear the road. We will keep watch +against snipers and assassins." + +"And if any knocks are coming, we will take them for you, great +ladies!" said the cruisers. "If one of us went down, the loss would not +be great. Keep your big guns safe to beat other battleships into +scrap." + +For you may be sure that Fritz was on the watch in the open. He +always is, like the highwayman hiding behind a hedge and envying +people who have comfortable beds. Probably from a distance he had +a peep through his periscope at the Grand Fleet before the approach +of the policeman destroyers made him duck beneath the water; and +probably he tried to count the number of ships and identify their +classes in order to take the information home to Kiel. Besides, he +always has his fingers crossed. He hopes that some day he may get +a shot at something more warlike than a merchant steamer or an +auxiliary; only that prospect becomes poorer as life for him grows +harder. Except a miracle happened, the steaming fleet, with its +cordons of destroyers, is as safe from him as from any other kind of +fish. + +The harbour which is the fleet's home is landlocked by low hills. There +is an eclipse of the sun by the smoke from the ships getting under +way; streaming, soaring columns of smoke on the move rise above +the skyline from the funnels of the battleships before they appear +around a bend. Indefinite masses as yet they are, under their night- +black plumes. Each ship seems too immense to respond to any will +except its own. But there is something automatic in the regularity with +which, one after another, they take the bend, as if a stop watch had +been held on twenty thousand tons of steel for a second's variation. +As they approach they become more distinct and, showing less +smoke, there seems less effort. Their motive-power seems inherent, +perpetual. + +There is some sea running outside the entrance, enough to make a +destroyer roll. But the battleships disdain any notice of its existence. It +is no more to them than a ripple of dust to a motor truck. They plough +through it. + +Though you were within twenty yards of them you would feel quite +safe. An express train was in no more danger of jumping the track. +Mast in line with mast, they held the course with a majestic +steadiness. Now the leading ship makes a turn of a few points. At the +same spot, as if it were marked by the grooves of tyres in a road, the +others make it. Any variation of speed between them would have +been instantly noticeable, as one forged ahead or lagged; but the +distance between bows and sterns did not change. A line of one +length would do for each interval so far as one could discern. + +It was difficult to think that they were not attached to some taut, +moving cable under water. How could such apparently unwieldy +monsters, in such a slippery element as the sea, be made to obey +their masters with such fine precision? + +The answer again is sheer hard work! Drills as arduous in the engine- +room as at the guns; machinery kept in tune; traditions in +manoeuvring in all weathers, which is kept up with tireless practice. + +Though all seemed perfection to the lay eye, let it be repeated that +this was not so to the eyes of admirals. It never can be. Perfection is +the thing striven for. Officers dwell on faults; all are critics. Thus you +have the healthiest kind of spirit, which means that there will be no +cessation in the striving. + +"Look at that!" exclaimed an officer on the destroyer. "They ought to +try another painting on her and see if they can't do better." + +Ever changing that northern light. For an instant the sun's rays, +strained by a patch of peculiar cloud, playing on a Dreadnought's +side, made her colour appear molten, exaggerating her size till she +seemed as colossal to the eye as to the thought. + +"But look, now!" said another officer. She was out of the patch and +seemed miles farther away to the vision, a dim shape in the sea- +haze. + +"You can't have it right for every atmospheric mood of the North Sea, +I suppose!" muttered the critic. Still, it hurt his professional pride +that a battleship should show up as such a glaring target even +for a moment. + +The power of the fleet was more patent in movement than at rest; for +the sea-lion was out of his lair on the hunt. Fluttering with flags at a +review at Spithead, the battleships seemed out of their element; +giants trying for a fairy's part. Display is not for them. It ill becomes +them, as does a pink ribbon on a bulldog. + +Irresistibly ploughing their way they presented a picture of resolute +utility--guns and turrets and speed. No spot of bright colour was +visible on board. The crew was at the guns, I took it. Turn the turrets, +give the range, lay the sights on the enemy's ships, and the battle +was on. + +"There is the old Dreadnought," said an officer. The old Dreadnought +--all of ten years of age, the senile old thing! What a mystery she was +when she was building! The mystery accentuated her celebrity--and +almost forgotten now, while the Queen Elizabeth and the Warspite, +and others of their class with their fifteen-inch guns, would be in the +public eye as the latest type till a new type came. A parade of naval +types was passing. One seemed to shade into the other in +harmonious effect. But here was an outsider, whom one noted +instantly as he studied those rugged silhouettes of steel. She had +twelve twelve-inch guns, with turret piled on turret in an exotic +fashion--one of the two Turkish battleships building in England at the +time of the war and taken over by the British. + +One division, two divisions, four ships, eight Dreadnoughts--even a +squadron coming out of a harbour numbs the faculties with a sense +of its might. Sixteen--twenty--twenty-four--it was the unending +numbers of this procession of sea-power which was most impressive. +An hour passed and all were not by. One sat down for a few minutes +behind the wind-screen of the destroyer's bridge, only to look back +and see more Dreadnoughts going by. A spectator had not realized +that there were so many in the harbour. He had a suspicion that +Admiral Jellicoe was a conjuror who could take Dreadnoughts out of +a hat. + +The first was lost in the gathering darkness far out in the North Sea, +and still the cloud of smoke over the anchorage was as thick as ever; +still the black plumes kept appearing around the bend. The King +Edward VII. class with their four twelve-inch guns and other ancients +of the pre-Dreadnought era, which are still powerful antagonists, were +yet to come. One's eyes ached. Those who saw a German corps +march through Brussels said that it seemed irresistible. What if they +had seen the whole German army? Here was the counterpart of the +whole German army in sea-power and in land-power, too. + +The destroyer commander looked at his watch. + +"Time!" he said. "I'll put you on shore." + +He must take his place in the fleet at a given moment. A word to the +engine-room and the next thing we knew we were off at thirty knots +an hour, cutting straight across the bows of a Dreadnought steaming +at twenty knots, towering over us threateningly, with a bone in her +teeth. + +Imagination sped across seas where a man had cruised into +harbours that he knew and across continents that he knew. He was +trying to visualize the whole globe--all of it except the Baltic seas and +a thumb-mark in the centre of Europe. Hong-Kong, Melbourne, +Sydney, Halifax, Cape Town, Bombay--yes, and Rio and Valparaiso, +Shanghai, San Francisco, New York, Boston, these and the lands +back of them, where countless millions dwell, were all safe behind the +barrier of that fleet. + +Then back through the land where Shakespeare wrote to London, +with its glare of recruiting posters and the throbbing of that individual +freedom which is on trial in battle with the Prussian system--and as +one is going to bed the sound of guns in the heart of the city! From +the window one looked upward to see, under a searchlight's play, the +silken sheen of a cigar-shaped sort of aerial phantom which was +dropping bombs on women and children, while never a shot is fired at +those sturdy men behind armour. + +When you have travelled far; when you think of Botha and his Boers +fighting for England; when you have found justice and fair play and +open markets under the British flag; when you compare the +vociferations of von Tirpitz, glorying in the torpedoing of a Lusitania, +with the quiet manner of Sir John Jellicoe, you need only a little spark +of conscience to prefer the way that the British have used their sea- +power to the way that the men who send out Zeppelins to war on +women and children would use that power if they had it. + + + + +XXXIV +British Problems + + + +Throughout the summer of 1915 the world was asking, What about +the new British army? Why was it not attacking at the opportune +moment when Germany was throwing her weight against Russia? A +facile answer is easy; indeed, facile answers are always easy. +Unhappily, they are rarely correct. None that was given in this +instance was, to my mind. They sought to put a finger on one definite +cause; again, on an individual or a set of individuals. + +The reasons were manifold; as old as Waterloo, as fresh as the last +speech in Parliament. They were inherent in the Anglo-Saxon race. +Whoever raised a voice and said, This, or that, or you, are +responsible! should first have looked into his own mind and into the +history of his race and then into a mirror. Least of all should any +American have been puzzled by the delay. + +"Oh, we should have done better than that--we are Americans!" I +hear my countrymen say. Perhaps we should. I hope so; I believe so. +The British public thought that they were going to do better; military +men were surprised that they did as well. + +Along with laws and language we have inherited our military ideas +from England. In many qualities we are different--a distinct type; but in +nothing are we more like the British than in our attitude toward the +soldier and toward war. The character of any army reflects the +character of its people. An army is the fist; but the muscle, the +strength, of the physical organism behind the blow in the long run +belong to the people. What they have prepared for in peace they +receive in war, which decides whether they have been living in the +paradise of a fool or of a wise man. + +As a boy I was brought up to believe, as an inheritance of the +American Revolution, that one American could whip two Englishmen +and five or six of any other nationality, which made the feathers of the +eagle perched on the national escutcheon look glossy. It was a +satisfying sort of faith. Americans had never tried five or six of any +first-class fighting race; but that was not a thought which occurred to +me. As we had won victories over the English and the English had +whipped the French at Waterloo, the conclusion seemed obvious. +English boys, I understand, also had been brought up to believe that +one Englishman could whip five or six men of any other nationality, +but, I take it for granted, only two Americans. This clothed the British +lion with majesty, while the lower ratio of superiority over Americans +returned the compliment in kind from the sons of the lion to the sons +of the eagle. + +After I began to read history for myself and to think as I read, I found +that when British and Americans had met, the generals on either side +were solicitous about having superior forces, and in case of odds of +two to one they made a "strategic retreat." When either side was +beaten, the other always explained that he was overcome by superior +numbers, though perhaps the adversary had not more than ten or +fifteen per cent, advantage. Then I learned that the British had not +whipped five or six times their number on the continent of Europe. +The British Expeditionary Force made as fine an effort to do so at +Mons as was ever attempted in history, but they did not succeed. + +It was a regular army that fought at Mons. The only two first-class +nations which depend upon regulars to do their fighting are the British +and the American. This is the vital point of similarity which is the +practical manifestation of our military ideas. We have been the earth's +spoiled children, thanks to the salt seas between us and other +powerful military nations. Before any other Power could reach the +United States it must overwhelm the British navy, and then it must +overwhelm ours and bring its forces in transports. Sea-power, you +say. That is the facile word, so ready to the lips that we do not realize +the wonder of it any more than of the sun rising and setting. + +When we want soldiers our plan still is to advertise for them. The +ways of our ancestors remain ours. We think that the volunteer must +necessarily make the best soldier because he offers his services; +while the conscript--rather a term of opprobrium to us--must be +lukewarm. It hardly occurs to us that some forms of persuasion may +amount to conscription, or that the volunteer, won by oratorical +appeal to his emotions or by social pressure, may suffer a reaction +after enlistment which will make him lukewarm also, particularly as he +sees others, also young and fit, hanging back. Nor does it occur to us +that there may be virtue in that fervour of national patriotism aroused +by the command that all must serve, which, on the continent in this +war, has meant universal exaltation to sacrifice. The life of Jones +means as much to him as the life of Smith does to him; and when the +whole nation is called to arms there ought to be no favourites in life- +giving. + +For the last hundred years, if we except the American Civil War, ours +have been comparatively little wars. The British regular army has +policed an empire and sent punitive expeditions against rebellious +tribes with paucity of numbers, in a work which the British so well +understand. Our little regular army took care of the Red Indians as +our frontier advanced from the Alleghenies to the Pacific. To put it +bluntly, we have hired someone to do our fighting for us. + +Without ever seriously studying the business of soldiering, the +average Anglo-Saxon thought of himself as a potential soldier, taking +his sense of martial superiority largely from the work of the long- +service, severely drilled regular. Also, we used our fists rather than +daggers or duelling swords in personal encounters and, man to man, +unequipped with fire-arms or blades, the quality which is responsible +for our sturdy pioneering individualism gave us confidence in our +physical prowess. + +Alas! modern wars are not fought with fists. A knock-kneed man who +knows how to use a machine-gun and has one to use--which is also +quite important--could mow down all the leading heavy-weights of the +United States and England, with the latest champion leading the +charge. + +Now, this regular who won our little wars was not representative of +the people as a whole. He was the man "down on his luck," who went +to the recruiting depot. Soldiering became his profession. He was in a +class, like priests and vagabonds. When you passed him in the street +you thought of him as a strange being, but one of the necessities of +national existence. It did not interest you to be a soldier; but as there +must be soldiers, you were glad that men who would be soldiers were +forthcoming. + +When trouble broke, how you needed him! When the wires brought +news of his gallantry you accepted the deeds of this man whom you +had paid as the reflection of national courage, which thrilled you with +a sense of national superiority. To him, it was in the course of duty; +what he had been paid to do. He did not care about being called a +hero; but it pleased the public to make him one--this professional who +fights for a shilling a day in England and $17.50 a month in the United +States. + +Though when the campaign went well the public was ready to take +the credit as a personal tribute, when the campaign went badly they +sought a scapegoat, and the general who might have been a hero +was sent to the wilderness perhaps because those busy men in +Congress or Parliament thought that the army could do without that +little appropriation which was needed for some other purpose. The +army had failed to deliver the goods which it was paid to produce. +The army was to blame, when, of course, under free institutions the +public was to blame, as the public is master of the army and not the +army of the public. + +A first impression of the British army is always that of the regiment. +Pride of regiment sometimes appears almost more deep-seated than +army pride to the outsider. It has been so long a part of British martial +inheritance that it is bred in the blood. In the old days of small armies +and in the later days of small wars, while Europe was making every +man a soldier by conscription, regiment vying with regiment won the +battles of empire. The memory of the part each regiment played is the +inspiration of its present; its existence is inseparable from the +traditions of its long list of battle honours. + +The British public loves to read of its Guards' regiment and to watch +them in their brilliant uniforms at review. When a cadet comes out of +Sandhurst he names the regiment which he wishes to join, instead of +being ordered to a certain regiment, as at West Point. It rests with the +regimental commander whether or not he is accepted. Frequently the +young man of wealth or family serves in the Guards or another crack +regiment for awhile and resigns, usually to enjoy the semi-leisurely life +which is the fortune of his inheritance. + +Then there are the county line regiments, such as the Yorkshires, the +Kents, and the Durhams. In this war each county wanted to read +about its own regiments at the same time as about the Guards, just +as Kansans at home would want to read about the Kansas regiment +and Georgians about the Georgia regiment. The most trying feature +of the censorship to the British public was its refusal to allow the +exploitation of regiments. The staff was adamant on this point; for the +staff was thinking for the whole and of the interests of the whole. In +the French and the German armies, as in our regular army, regiments +are known by numbers. + +The young man who lives in the big house on the hill, the son of the +man of wealth and power in the community, as a rule does not go to +West Point. None of the youth of our self-called aristocracy which +came up the golden road in a generation past those in modest +circumstances who have generations of another sort back of them, +think of going into the First Cavalry or the First Infantry for a few years +as a part of the career of their class. A few rich men's sons enter our +army, but only enough to prove the rule by the exception. They do not +regard the army as "the thing." It does not occur to them that they +ought to do something for their country. Rather, their country ought to +do something for them. + +But sink the plummet a little deeper and these are not our aristocracy +nor our ruling class, which is too numerous and too sound of thought +and principle for them to feel at home in that company. Any boy, +however humble his origin, may go to West Point if he can pass the +competitive examination. Europe, particularly Germany, would not +approve of this; but we think it the best way. The average graduate of +the Point, whether the son of a doctor, a lawyer, or a farmer, sticks to +the army as his profession. We maintain the Academy for the strict +business purpose of teaching young men how to train our army in +time of peace and to lead and direct it in time of action. + +Our future officers enter West Point when they are two years younger +than is the average at Sandhurst; the course is four years compared +with two at Sandhurst. I should venture to say that West Point is the +harder grind; that the graduate of the Point has a more specifically +academic military training than the graduate of Sandhurst. This is not +saying that he may be any better in the performance of the simple +duties of a company officer. It is not a new criticism that we train +everybody at West Point to be a general, when many of the students +may never rise above the command of a battalion. However, it is a +significant fact that at the close of the Civil War every army +commander was a West Point man and so were most of the corps +commanders. + +The doors are open in the British army for a man to rise from the +ranks; not as wide as in our army, but open. The Chief of Staff of the +British Expeditionary Force, Sir William Robertson, was in the ranks +for ten years. No man not a West Pointer had a position equivalent in +importance to his at the close of the Civil War. His rise would have +been possible in no other European army. + +But West Point sets the stamp on the American army, and Sandhurst +and Woolwich, the engineering and artillery school, on the British +army. At the end of the four years at West Point the men who survive +the hard course may be tried by courtmartial not for conduct +unbecoming an officer, but an officer and a gentleman. They are +supposed, whatever their origin, to have absorbed certain qualities, if +they were not inborn, which are not easily described but which we all +recognize in any man. If they are absent it is not the fault of West +Point; and if a man cannot acquire them there, then nature never +meant them for him. From the time he entered the school the +government has paid his way; and he is cared for until he dies, if he +keeps step and avoids courtmartials. + +His position in life is secure. His pay, counting everything, is better +than that of the average graduate of a university or a first-class +professional school who practises a profession. Yet only three boys, I +remember, wanted to go to West Point from our congressional district +in my youth. Nothing could better illustrate the fact that we are not a +military people. From West Point they go out to the little army which is +to fight our wars; to the posts and the Philippines, and become a +world in themselves; an isolated caste in spite of themselves. I am +not at all certain that either the British or the American officer works +as hard as the German in time of peace. Neither has the practical +incentive nor the determined driver behind him. + +For it takes a soldier Secretary of War to drive a soldier; for example, +Lord Kitchener. Those British officers who applied themselves in +peace to the mastery of their profession and were not content with +the day's routine requirements, had to play chess without chessmen; +practise manÅ“uvres on a board rather than with brigades, divisions, +corps, and armies. They became the rallying points in the concourse +of untrained recruits. + +German and French officers had the incentive and the chessmen. +The Great War could not take them by surprise. They took the road +with a machine whose parts had been long assembled. They had +been trained for big war; their ambition and intelligence were under +the whip of a definite anticipation. + +A factor overlooked, but even more significant than training or staff +work, was that what might be called martial team-play had become +an instinct with the continental peoples through the necessity of their +situation. This the Japanese also possess. It is the right material +ready to hand for the builder. Not that it is the kind of material one +admires; but it is the right material for making a war-machine. One +had only to read the expert military criticism in the British and the +American Press at the outset of the war to realize how vague was the +truth of the continental situation to the average Englishman or +American--but not to the trained British Staff. + +So that little British Expeditionary Force, in ratio of number one to +twenty or thirty of the French army, crossed the Channel to help save +Belgium. Gallantry it had worthy of the brightest chapter in the +immortal history of its regiments from Quebec to Kandahar, from +Agincourt, Blenheim and Waterloo to South Africa, Guards and +Hussars, Highlanders and Lowlanders, kilts and breeks, Connaught +Rangers and Royal Fusiliers, Duke of Wellington's and Prince of +Wales' Own, come again to Flanders. The best blood of England was +leading Tommy Atkins. Whatever British aristocracy is or is not, it +never forgets its duty to the England of its fathers. It is never ingrate +to its fortune. The time had come to go out and die for England, if +need be, and these officers went as their ancestors had gone before +them, as they would go to lectures at Oxford, to the cricket field and +the polo field, in outward phlegm, but with a mighty passion in their +hearts. + +The Germans affected to despise this little army. It had not been +trained in the mass tactics which hurl columns of flesh forward to gain +tactical points that have been mauled by artillery fire. You do not use +mass tactics against Boers, nor against Afridis, nor Filipinos. It is +difficult to combine the two kinds of efficiency. Those who were on the +march to the relief of the Peking Legations recall how the Germans +were as ill at ease in that kind of work as the Americans and British +were at home. It made us misjudge the Germans and the Germans +misjudge us when they thought of us as trying to make war on the +continent of Europe. A small, mobile, regular army, formed to go +overseas and march long distances, was to fight in a war where +millions were engaged and a day's march would cover an immense +stretch of territory in international calculations of gain and loss. + +For its own purposes, the British Expeditionary Force was well-nigh a +perfect instrument. As quantity of ammunition was an important factor +in transport in the kind of campaign which it was prepared for, its +guns were the most accurate on a given point and its system of fire +adapted to that end; but the French system of fire, with plentiful +ammunition from near bases over fine roads, was better adapted for +a continental campaign. To the last button that little army was +prepared. Man for man and regiment for regiment, I should say it was +the best force that ever fired a shot in Europe; this without regard to +national character. As England must make every regular soldier +count, and as she depended upon the efficiency of the few rather +than on numbers, she had trained her men in musketry. No +continental army could afford to allow its soldiers to expend the +amount of ammunition on the target range that the British had +expended. Only by practice can you learn how to shoot. This gives +the soldier confidence. He stays in his trench and keeps on shooting +because he knows that he can hit those advancing figures and that +this is his best protection. The more I learn, the more I am convinced +that the Germans ought to have got the British Expeditionary Force; +and the Germans were very surprised that they did not get it. With +their surprise developed a respect for British arms, reported by all +visitors to Germany. + +Mr. Thomas Atkins, none other, is the hero of that retreat from Mons. +The first statue raised in London after the war ought to be of him. If +there had been five hundred thousand of him in Belgium at the end of +the second week in August, Brussels would now be under the Belgian +flag. Like many other good things in this world, including the French +army, there were not enough of him. Many a company on that retreat +simply got tired of retreating, though orders were to fall back. It dug a +trench and lay down and kept on firing--accurately, in the regular, +businesslike way, reinforced by the "stick it" British character--until +killed or engulfed. This held back the flood long enough for the +remainder of the army to retire. + +Not all the generalship emanated from generals. I like best that story +of the cross-roads where, with Germans pressing hard on all sides, +two columns in retreat fell in together, uncertain which way to go. With +confusion developing for want of instructions, a lone, exhausted staff +officer who happened along took charge, and standing at the junction +in the midst of shell-fire told every doubting unit what to do, with a +one-two-three alacrity of decision. His work finished, he and his red +cap disappeared, and I never could find anyone who knew who he +was. + +After the retreat and after the victory of the Marne, what was +England's position? The average Englishman had thought that +England's part in the alliance was to send a small army to France and +to take care of the German fleet. England's fleet was her first +consideration; that must be served. France's demand for rifles and +supplies must be attended to before the British demand. Serbia +needed supplies; Russia needed supplies; a rebellion threatened in +South Africa; the Turks threatened the invasion of Egypt. England +had to spread her energy out over a vast empire with an army that +had barely escaped annihilation. Every soldier who fought must be +supplied overseas. German officers put a man on a railroad train and +he detrained near the front. Every British soldier had to go on board a +train and then a ship and then disembark from the ship and go on +board another train. Every article of ordnance, engineering, medical +supply, food supply, must be handled four times, while in Germany +they need be handled but twice. Any railway traffic manager will +understand what this means. Both the British supply system and the +medical corps were marvels. + +Germany was stronger than the British public thought. Germany and +Austria could put at the front in the first six months of the war +practically double the number which the Allies could maintain. Russia +had multitudes to draw from in reserve, but the need was multitudes +at the front. There she was only as strong as the number she could +feed and equip. In the first year of the war England suffered 380,000 +casualties on land, more than three times the number of men that +she had at Mons. This wastage must be met before she could begin +to increase her forces. The length of line on the western front that she +was holding was not the criterion of her effort. The French who +shared with the British that terrible Ypres salient realized this. + +Apart from the regulars she had the Territorials, who are much the +same as our National Guard and vary in quality in the same way. +Native Indian troops were brought to France to face the diabolical +shell-fire of modern guns, and Territorials went out to India to take the +place of the British regulars who were withdrawn for France. Every +rifle that England could bring to the assistance of the French in their +heroic stand was a rifle to the good. + +Meanwhile, she was making her new army. For the first time since +Cromwell's day, all classes in England were going to war. Making an +army out of the raw is like building a factory to be manned by expert +labour which you have to train. Let us even suppose that the factory +is ready and that the proprietor must mobilize his managers, +overseers, foremen, and labour from far and near--a force individually +competent, but which had never before worked together. It would +require some time to organize team-play, wouldn't it? Particularly it +would if you were short of managers, overseers, and foremen. To +express my meaning from another angle, in talking once with an +English pottery manufacturer he said: + +"We do not train our labour in the pottery district. We breed it from +generation to generation." + +In Germany they have not only been training soldiers, but breeding +them from generation to generation. You may think that system is +wrong. It may be contrary to our ideals. But in fighting against that +system for your ideals when war is violence and killing, you must +have weapons as effective as the enemy's. You express only a part +of Germany's preparedness by saying that the men who left the +plough and the shop, the factory and the office, became trained +soldiers at the command of the staff as soon as they were in uniform +and had rifles. These men had the instinct of military co-ordination +bred in them, and so had their officers, while England had to take +men from the plough and the shop, the factory and the office, and +equip them and teach them the rudiments of soldiering before she +could consider making them into an army. + +It was one thing for the spirit of British manhood to rise to the +emergency. Another and even more important requisite went with it. If +my country ever faces such a crisis I hope that we also may have the +courage of wisdom which leaves an expert's work to an expert. +England had Lord Kitchener, who could hold the imagination and the +confidence of the nation through the long months of preparation, +when there was little to show except repetition of drills here and there +on gloomy winter days. It required a man with a big conception and +patience and authority to carry it through, and recruits with an +unflinching sense of duty. The immensity of the task of transforming a +non-military people into a great fighting force grew on one in all its +humdrum and vital details as he watched the new army forming. "Are +you learning to think in big numbers?" was Lord Kitchener's question +to his generals. + +Half of the regular officers were killed or wounded. + +Where the leaders? Where the drillmasters for the new army? Old +officers came out of retirement, where they had become used to an +easy life as a rule, to twelve hours a day of hard application. "Dug- +outs" they were called. Veteran non-commissioned officers had to drill +new ones. It was demonstrated that a good infantry soldier can be +made in six months; perhaps in three. But it takes seven months to +build a rifle-plant; many more months to make guns--and the navy +must never be stinted. Probably the English are slow; slow and +thoroughgoing. They are good at the finish, but not quick at the start. +They are used to winning the last battle, which they say is the one +that counts. The complacency of empire with a century's power was a +handicap, no doubt. We are inclined to lean forward on our oars, they +to lean back--which does not mean that they cannot lean forward in +an emergency or that they lack reserve strength. It may lead us to +misjudge them. + +Public impatience was inevitable. It could not be kept silent; that is the +English of it--the American, too. It demands to know what is being +done. It was not silent in the Civil War. From the time McClellan +started forming his new army until the Peninsular campaign was six +months, if I remember rightly. Von Moltke, who built the German staff +system, said that the Civil War was a strife between two armed mobs; +though I think if he had brought his Prussians to Virginia a year later, +in '63, which would have ended the Civil War there and then, he +would have had an interesting time before he returned to Berlin. + +The British new army was not to face another new army, but the most +thoroughly organized military machine that the world has ever known. +Not only this, but the Germans, with a good start and their system +established, were not standing still and waiting for the British to catch +up, so that the two could begin again even, but were adapting +themselves to the new features of the war. They had been the world's +arms-makers. With vast munition plants ready, their feudal socialistic +organization could make the most of their resources in men and +material. + +More than two million Englishmen went to the recruiting depots, +though no invader had set foot on their soil, and offered to serve in +France or wherever they were needed overseas. If no magic could +put rifles in their hands or summon batteries of guns to follow them on +the march, the fact of their volunteering, when they knew by watching +from day to day the drudgery that it meant and what trench warfare +was, shows at least that the race is not yet decadent. Perhaps we +should have done better. No one can know until we try it. If liberal +treatment by the government and the course set by Secretary Root +means anything, our staff ought to be better equipped for such a task +than the English were; this, too, only war can decide. + +Whatsoever of pessimism appeared in the British Press was +telegraphed to America. Pessimism was not permitted in the German +Press. Imagine Germany holding control of the cable and allowing +press dispatches from Germany to pass over it with the freedom that +England allowed. Imagine Germany having waited as long as +England before making cotton contraband. The British Press +demanded information from the government which the German Press +would never have dared to ask. I have known an American +correspondent, fed out of hand in Germany and thankful for anything +that the fearful German war-machine might vouchsafe, turning a +belligerent when he was in London for privileges which he would +never have thought of demanding in Berlin. + +If an English ship were reported sunk, he believed it must be, despite +the government's denial. Did he go to the Germans and demand that +he might publish the rumours of what had happened to the Moltke in +the Gulf of Riga, or how many submarines Germany had really lost? +Indeed, he was unconsciously paying a compliment to British free +institutions. He expected more in England; it seemed a right to him, +as it would at home. Englishmen talked frankly to him about mistakes; +he heard all the gossip; and sometimes he concluded that England +was in a bad way. In Germany such talk was not allowed. Every +German said that the government was absolutely truthful; every +German believed all of its reports. But ask this critical American how +he would like to live under German rule, and then you found how anti- +German he was at heart. Nothing succeeds like success, and +Germany was winning and telling no one if she had any setbacks. + +If there were a strike, the British Press made the most of it, for it was +big news. Pessimism is the Englishman's natural way of arousing +himself to fresh energy. It is also against habit to be demonstrative in +his effort; so it is not easy to understand how much he is doing. Then, +pessimism brought recruits; it made the Englishman say, "I've got to +put my back into it!" Muddling there was and mistakes, such as that +of the method of attack at Gallipoli; but in the midst of all this +dispiriting pessimism, no Englishman thought of anything but of +putting his back into it more and more. Lord Kitchener had said that it +was to be a long war and evidently it must be. Of course, England's +misfortune was in having the war catch her in the transition from an +old order of things to social reforms. + +But if the war shows anything it is that basically English character has +not changed. She still has unconquerable, dogged persistence, and +her defects for this kind of war are not among the least admirable of +her traits to those who desire to live their own lives in their own way, +as the English-speaking people have done for five hundred years, +without having a verboten sign on every street corner. + +It is still the law that when a company of infantry marches through +London it must be escorted by a policeman. This means a good deal: +that civil power is superior to military power. It is a symbol of what +Englishmen have fought for with spades and pitchforks, and what we +have fought Englishmen for. My own idea is that England is fighting +for it in this struggle; and starting unready against a foe which was +ready, as the free peoples always have done, she was fighting for +time and experience before she could strike her sturdiest blows. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Year of the War, by Frederick Palmer + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12013 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c0c57c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12013 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12013) diff --git a/old/12013-8.txt b/old/12013-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..738195b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12013-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13247 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Year of the War, by Frederick Palmer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: My Year of the War + Including an Account of Experiences with the Troops in France and + the Record of a Visit to the Grand Fleet Which is Here Given for the + First Time in its Complete Form + + +Author: Frederick Palmer + +Release Date: April 13, 2004 [EBook #12013] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY YEAR OF THE WAR *** + + + + +Produced by A. Langley + + + + + +My Year Of The War + +Including An Account Of Experiences +With The Troops In France, And The +Record Of A Visit To The Grand +Fleet, Which Is Here Given +For The First Time In +Its Complete Form + +By Frederick Palmer +(Accredited American Correspondent at the British Front) + + + + + + +Contents + +To The Reader +I. "Le Brave Belge!" +II. Mons And Paris +III. Paris Waits +IV. On The Heels Of Von Kluck +V. And Calais Waits +VI. In Germany +VII. How The Kaiser Leads +VIII. In Belgium Under The Germans +IX. Christmas In Belgium +X. The Future Of Belgium +XI. Winter In Lorraine +XII. Smiles Among Ruins +XIII. A Road Of War I Know +XIV. Trenches In Winter +XV. In Neuve Chapelle +XVI. Nearer The Germans +XVII. With The Guns +XVIII. Archibald The Archer +XIX. Trenches In Summer +XX. A School In Bombing +XXI. My Best Day At The Front +XXII. More Best Day +XXIII. Winning And Losing +XXIV. The Maple Leaf Folk +XXV. Many Pictures +XXVI. Finding The Grand Fleet +XXVII. On A Destroyer +XXVIII. Ships That Have Fought +XXIX. On The Inflexible +XXX. On The Fleet Flagship +XXXI. Simply Hard Work +XXII. Hunting The Submarine +XXXIII. The Fleet Puts To Sea +XXIV. British Problems + + + + + +To the Reader + + + +In 'The Last Shot', which appeared only a few months before the +Great War began, drawing from my experience in many wars, I +attempted to describe the character of a conflict between two great +European land-powers, such as France and Germany. + +"You were wrong in some ways," a friend writes to me, "but in other +ways it is almost as if you had written a play and they were following +your script and stage business." + +Wrong as to the duration of the struggle and its bitterness and the +atrocious disregard of treaties and the laws of war by one side; right +about the part which artillery would play; right in suggesting the +stalemate of intrenchments when vast masses of troops occupied the +length of a frontier. Had the Germans not gone through Belgium and +attacked on the shorter line of the Franco-German boundary, the +parallel of fact with that of prediction would have been more +complete. As for the ideal of 'The Last Shot', we must await the +outcome to see how far it shall be fulfilled by a lasting peace. + +Then my friend asks, "How does it make you feel?" Not as a prophet; +only as an eager observer, who finds that imagination pales beside +reality. If sometimes an incident seemed a page out of my novel, I +was reminded how much better I might have done that page from life; +and from life I am writing now. + +I have seen too much of the war and yet not enough to assume the +pose of a military expert; which is easy when seated in a chair at +home before maps and news dispatches, but becomes fantastic after +one has lived at the front. One waits on more information before he +forms conclusions about campaigns. He is certain only that the Marne +was a decisive battle for civilization; that if England had not gone into +the war the Germanic Powers would have won in three months. + +No words can exaggerate the heroism and sacrifice of the French or +the importance of the part which the British have played, which we +shall not realize till the war is over. In England no newspapers were +suppressed; casualty lists were published; she gave publicity to +dissensions and mistakes which others concealed, in keeping with +her ancient birthright of free institutions which work out conclusions +through discussion rather than take them ready-made from any ruler +or leader. + +Whatever value this book has is the reflection of personal +observation and the thoughts which have occurred to me when I +have walked around my experiences and measured them and found +what was worth while and what was not. Such as they are, they are +real. + +Most vital of all in sheer expression of military power was the visit to +the British Grand Fleet; most humanly appealing, the time spent in +Belgium under German rule; most dramatic, the French victory on the +Marne; most precious, my long stay at the British front. + +A traveller's view I had of Germany in the early period of the war; but I +was never with the German army, which made Americans particularly +welcome for obvious reasons. Between right and wrong one cannot +be a neutral. In foregoing the diversion of shaking hands and passing +the time of day on the Germanic fronts, I escaped any bargain with +my conscience by accepting the hospitality of those warring for a +cause and in a manner obnoxious to me. I was among friends, living +the life of one army and seeing war in all its aspects from day to day, +instead of having tourist glimpses. + +Chapters which deal with the British army in France and with the +British fleet have been submitted to the censor. Though the censor +may delete military secrets, he may not prompt opinions. Whatever +notes of praise and of affection which you may read between the +lines or in them spring from the mind and heart. Undemonstratively, +cheerily as they would go for a walk, with something of old-fashioned +chivalry, the British went to death. + +Their national weaknesses and strength, revealed under external +differences by association, are more akin to ours than we shall realize +until we face our own inevitable crisis. Though one's ancestors had +been in America for nearly three centuries, he was continually finding +how much of custom, of law, of habit, and of instinct he had in +common with them; and how Americans who were not of British blood +also shared these as an applied inheritance that has been the most +formative element in the American crucible. + +My grateful acknowledgments are due to the American press +associations who considered me worthy to be the accredited +American correspondent at the British front, and to Collier's and +Everybody's; and may an author who has not had the opportunity to +read proofs request the reader's indulgence. + +FREDERICK PALMER. British Headquarters, France. + + + + + + +My Year Of The War + + + + +I +"Le Brave Belge!" + + + +The rush from Monterey, in Mexico, when a telegram said that +general European war was inevitable; the run and jump on board the +Lusitania at New York the night that war was declared by England +against Germany; the Atlantic passage on the liner of ineffaceable +memory, a suspense broken by fragments of war news by wireless; +the arrival in England before the war was a week old; the journey to +Belgium in the hope of reaching the scene of action!--as I write, all +seem to have the perspective of history, so final are the processes of +war, so swift their execution, and so eager is everyone for each day's +developments. As one grows older the years seem shorter; but the +first year of the Great War is the longest year most of us have ever +known. + +Le brave Belge! One must be honest about him. The man who lets +his heart run away with his judgment does his mind an injustice. A +fellow-countryman who was in London and fresh from home in the +eighth month of the war, asked me for my views of the relative +efficiency of the different armies engaged. + +"Do you mean that I am to speak without regard to personal +sympathies?" I asked. + +"Certainly," he replied. + +When he had my opinion he exclaimed: + +"You have mentioned them all except the Belgian army. I thought it +was the best of all." + +"Is that what they think at home?" I asked. + +"Yes, of course." + +"The Atlantic is broad," I suggested. + +This man of affairs, an exponent of the efficiency of business, was a +sentimentalist when it came to war, as Anglo-Saxons usually are. The +side which they favour--that is the efficient side. When I ventured to +suggest that the Belgian army, in a professional sense, was hardly to +be considered as an army, it was clear that he had ceased to +associate my experience with any real knowledge. + +In business he was one who saw his rivals, their abilities, the +organization of their concerns, and their resources of competition with +a clear eye. He could say of his best personal friend: "I like him, but +he has a poor head for affairs." Yet he was the type who, if he had +been a trained soldier, would have been a business man of war who +would have wanted a sharp, ready sword in a well-trained hand and +to leave nothing to chance in a battle for the right. In Germany, where +some of the best brains of the country are given to making war a +business, he might have been a soldier who would rise to a position +on the staff. In America he was the employer of three thousand men-- +a general of civil life. + +"But look how the Belgians have fought!" he exclaimed. "They +stopped the whole German army for two weeks!" + +The best army was best because it had his sympathy. His view was +the popular view in America: the view of the heart. America saw the +pigmy fighting the giant rather than let him pass over Belgian soil. +On that day when a gallant young king cried, "To arms!" all his +people became gallant to the imagination. + +When I think of Belgium's part in the war I always think of the little +Belgian dog, the schipperke who lives on the canal boats. He is a +home-staying dog, loyal, affectionate, domestic, who never goes out +on the tow-path to pick quarrels with other dogs; but let anything on +two or four feet try to go on board when his master is away and he will +fight with every ounce of strength in him. The King had the +schipperke spirit. All the Belgians who had the schipperke spirit +tried to sink their teeth in the calves of the invader. + +One's heart was with the Belgians on that eighteenth day of August, +1914, when one set out toward the front in a motor-car from a +Brussels rejoicing over bulletins of victory, its streets walled with +bunting; but there was something brewing in one's mind which was as +treason to one's desires. Let Brussels enjoy its flags and its capture +of German cavalry patrols while it might! + +On the hills back of Louvain we came upon some Belgian troops in +their long, cumbersome coats, dark silhouettes against the field, +digging shallow trenches in an uncertain sort of way. Whether it was +due to the troops or to Belgian staff officers hurrying by in their cars, I +had the impression of the will and not the way and a parallel of raw +militia in uniforms taken from grandfather's trunk facing the trained +antagonists of an Austerlitz, or a Waterloo, or a Gettysburg. + +Le brave Beige! The question on that day was not, Are you brave? +but, Do you know how to fight? Also, Would the French and the +British arrive in time to help you? Of a thousand rumours about the +positions of the French and the British armies, one was as good as +another. All the observer knew was that he was an atom in a motor- +car and all he saw for the defence of Belgium was a regiment of +Belgians digging trenches. He need not have been in Belgium before +to realize that here was an unwarlike people, living by intensive thrift +and caution--a most domesticated civilization in the most thickly- +populated workshop in Europe, counting every blade of grass and +every kernel of wheat and making its pleasures go a long way at +small cost; a hothouse of a land, with the door about to be opened to +the withering blast of war. + +Out of the Hôtel de Ville at Louvain, as our car halted by the cathedral +door, came an elderly French officer, walking with a light, quick step, +his cloak thrown back over his shoulders, and hurriedly entered a car; +and after him came a tall British officer, walking more slowly, +imperturbably, as a man who meant to let nothing disturb him or beat +him--both characteristic types of race. This was the break-up of the +last military conference held at Louvain, which had now ceased to be +Belgian Headquarters. + +How little you knew and how much they knew! The sight of them was +helpful. One was the representative of a force of millions of +Frenchman; of the army. I had always believed in the French army, +and have more reason now than ever to believe in it. There was no +doubt that if a French corps and a German corps were set the task of +marching a hundred miles to a strategic position, the French would +arrive first and win the day in a pitched battle. But no one knew this +better than that German Staff whose superiority, as von Moltke said, +would always ensure victory. Was the French army ready? Could it +bring the fullness of its strength into the first and perhaps the deciding +shock of arms? Where was the French army? + +The other officer who came out of the Hôtel de Ville was the +representative of a little army--a handful of regulars--hard as nails and +ready to the last button. Where was the British army? The restaurant +keeper where we had luncheon at Louvain--he knew. He whispered +his military secret to me. The British army was toward Antwerp, +waiting to crush the Germans in the flank should they advance on +Brussels. We were "drawing them on!" Most cheerful, most confident, +mine host! When I went back to Louvain under German rule his +restaurant was in ruins. + +We were on our way to as near the front as we would go, with a pass +which was written for us by a Belgian reservist in Brussels between +sips of beer brought him by a boy scout. It was a unique, a most +accommodating pass; the only one I have received from the Allies' +side which would have taken me into the German lines. + +The front which we saw was in the square of the little town of Haelen, +where some dogs of a dog machine-gun battery lay panting in their +traces. A Belgian officer in command there I recollect for his +passionate repetition of, "Assassins! The barbarians!" which seemed +to choke out any other words whenever he spoke of the Germans. +His was a fresh, livid hate, born of recent fighting. We could go where +we pleased, he said; and the Germans were "out there," not far away. +Very tired he was, except for the flash of hate in his eyes; as tired as +the dogs of the machine-gun battery. + +We went outside to see the scene of "the battle," as it was called in +the dispatches; a field in the first flush of the war, where the headless +lances of Belgian and German cavalrymen were still scattered about. +The peasants had broken off the lance-heads for the steel, which was +something to pay for the grain smouldering in the barn which had +been shelled and burned. + +A battle! It was a battle because the reporters could get some +account of it, and the fighting in Alsace was hidden under the cloud of +secrecy. A superficial survey was enough to show that it had been +only a reconnaissance by the Germans with some infantry and guns +as well as cavalry. Their defeat had been an incident to the thrust of a +tiny feeling finger of the German octopus for information. The +scouting of the German cavalry patrols here and there had the same +object. Waiting behind hedges or sweeping around in the rear of a +patrol with their own cavalry when the word came by telephone, the +Belgians bagged many a German, man and horse, dead and alive. +Brussels and London and New York, too, thrilled over these exploits +supplied to eager readers. It was the Uhlan week of the war; for every +German cavalryman was a Uhlan, according to popular conception. +These Uhlans seemed to have more temerity than sense from the +accounts that you read. But if one out of a dozen of these mounted +youths, with horses fresh and a trooper's zest in the first flush of war, +returned to say that he had ridden to such and such points without +finding any signs of British or French forces, he had paid for the loss +of the others. The Germans had plenty of cavalry. They used it as the +eyes of the army, in co-operation with the aerial eyes of the planes. + +A peasant woman came out of the house beside the battlefield with +her children around her; a flat-chested, thin woman, prematurely old +with toil. "Les Anglais!" she cried at sight of us. Seeing that we had +some lances in the car, she rushed into her house and brought out +half a dozen more. If the English wanted lances they should have +them. She knew only a few words of French, not enough to express +the question which she made understood by gestures. Her eyes were +burning with appeal to us and flashing with hate as she shook her fist +toward the Germans. + +When were the English coming? All her trust was in the English, the +invincible English, to save her country. Probably the average +European would have passed her by as an excited peasant woman. +But pitiful she was to me, more pitiful than the raging officer and his +dog battery, or the infantry awkwardly intrenching back of Louvain, or +flag-bedecked Brussels believing in victory: one of the Belgians with +the true schipperke spirit. She was shaking her fist at a dam which +was about to burst in a flood. + +It was strange to an American, who comes from a land where +everyone learns a single language, English, that she and her +ancestors, through centuries of living neighbour in a thickly-populated +country to people who speak French and to French civilization, +should never have learned to express themselves in any but their +own tongue--singular, almost incredible, tenacity in the age of popular +education! She would save the lance-heads and garner every grain +of wheat; she economized in all but racial animosity. This racial +stubbornness of Europe--perhaps it keeps Europe powerful in jealous +competition of race with race. + +The thought that went home was that she did not want the Germans +to come; no Belgian wanted them; and this was the fact decisive in +the scales of justice. She said, as the officer had said, that the +Germans were "out there." Across the fields one saw nothing on that +still August day; no sign of war unless a Taube overhead, the first +enemy aeroplane I had seen in war. For the last two days the +German patrols had ceased to come. Liege, we knew, had fallen. +Looking at the map, we prayed that Namur would hold. + +"Out there" beyond the quiet fields, that mighty force which was to +swing through Belgium in flank was massed and ready to move when +the German Staff opened the throttle. A mile or so away a patrol of +Belgian cyclists stopped us as we turned toward Brussels. They were +dust-covered and weary; the voice of their captain was faint with +fatigue. For over two weeks he had been on the hunt of Uhlan +patrols. Another schipperke he, who could not only hate but fight +as best he knew how. + +"We had an alarm," he said. "Have you heard anything?" + +When we told him no, he pedalled on more slowly, and oh, how +wearily! to the front. Rather pitiful that, too, when you thought of what +was "out there." + +One had learned enough to know, without the confidential information +that he received, that the Germans could take Brussels if they chose. +But the people of Brussels still thronged the streets under the +blankets of bunting. If bunting could save Brussels, it was in no +danger. + +There was a mockery about my dinner that night. The waiter who laid +the white cloth on a marble table was unctuously suggestive as to +menu. Luscious grapes and crisp salad, which Belgian gardeners +grow with meticulous care, I remember of it. You might linger over +your coffee, knowing the truth, and look out at the people who did not +know it. When they were not buying more buttons with the allied +colours, or more flags, or dropping nickel pieces in Red Cross boxes, +they were thronging to the kiosks for the latest edition of the evening +papers, which told them nothing. + +A man had to make up his mind. Clearly, he had only to keep in his +room in his hotel in order to have a great experience. He might see +the German troops enter Belgium. His American passport would +protect him as a neutral. He could depend upon the legation to get +him out of trouble. + +"Stick to the army you are with!" an eminent American had told me. + +"Yes, but I prefer to choose my army," I had replied. + +The army I chose was not about to enter Brussels. It was that of +"mine own people" on the side of the schipperke dog machine-gun +battery which I had seen in the streets of Haelen, and the peasant +woman who shook her fist at the invader, and all who had the +schipperke spirit. + +My empty appointment as the representative of the American Press +with the British army was, at least, taken seriously by the policeman +at the War Office in London when I returned from trips to Paris. The +day came when it was good for British trenches and gun-positions; +when it was worth all the waiting, because it was the army of my race +and tongue. + + + + +II +Mons And Paris + + + +Back from Belgium to England; then across the Channel again to +Boulogne, where I saw the last of the French garrison march away, +their red trousers a throbbing target along the road. From Boulogne +the British had advanced into Belgium. Now their base was moved on +to Havre. Boulogne, which two weeks before had been cheering +the advent of "Tommee Atkeens" singing "Why should we be +downhearted?" was ominously lifeless. It was a town without soldiers; +a town of brick and mortar and pavements whose very defencelessness +was its best security should the Germans come. + +The only British there were a few stray wounded officers and men +who had found their way back from Mons. They had no idea where +the British army was. All they realized were sleepless nights, the +shock of combat, overpowering artillery fire, and resisting the +onslaught of outnumbering masses. + +An officer of Lancers, who had ridden through the German cavalry +with his squadron, dwelt on the glory of that moment. What did his +wound matter? It had come with the burst of a shell in a village street +which killed his horse after the charge. He had hobbled away, +reached a railroad train, and got on board. That was all he knew. + +A Scotch private had been lying with his battalion in a trench when a +German aeroplane was sighted. It had hardly passed by when +showers of shrapnel descended, and the Germans, in that grey- +green so hard to see, were coming on as thick as locusts. Then the +orders came to fall back, and he was hit as his battalion made +another stand. He had crawled a mile across the fields in the night +with a bullet in his arm. A medical corps officer told him to find any +transportation he could; and he, too, was able to get aboard a train. +That was all he knew. + +These wounded had been tossed aside into eddies by the maelstrom +of action. They were interesting because they were the first British +wounded that I had seen; because the war was young. + +Back to London again to catch the steamer with an article. One was +to take a season ticket to the war from London as home. It was a +base whence one sallied forth to get peeps through the curtain of +military secrecy at the mighty spectacle. You soaked in England at +intervals and the war at intervals. Whenever you stepped on the pier +at Folkestone it was with a breath of relief, born of a sense of freedom +long associated with fields and hedges on the other side of the chalk +cliffs which seemed to make the sequestering barrier of the sea +complete. + +Those days of late August and early September, 10.14, were gripping +days to the memory. Eager armies were pressing forward to a +cataclysm no longer of dread imagination but of reality. That ever- +deepening and spreading stain from Switzerland to the North Sea +was as yet only a splash of fresh blood. You still wondered if you +might not wake up in the morning and find the war a nightmare. +Pictures that grow clearer with time, which the personal memory +chooses for its own, dissociate themselves from a background of +detail. + +They were very quiet, this pair that sat at the next table in the dining- +room of a London hotel. I never spoke to them, but only stole discreet +glances, as we all will in irresistible temptation at any newly-wedded +couple. Neither was of the worldly type. One knew that to this young +girl London was strange; one knew the type of country home which +had given her that simple charm which cities cannot breed; one +knew, too, that this young officer, her husband, waited for word to go +to the front. + +Unconsciously she would play with her wedding-ring. She stole covert +glances at it and at him, of the kind that bring a catch in the throat, +when he was not looking at her--which he was most of the time, for +reasons which were good and sufficient to others besides himself. +Apprehended in "wool-gathering," she mustered a smile which was +so exclusively for him that the neighbour felt that he ought to be +forgiven his peeps from the tail of his eye at it because it was so +precious. + +They attempted little flights of talk about everything except the war. +He was most solicitous that she should have something which she +liked to eat, whilst she was equally solicitous about him. Wasn't he +going "out there?" And out there he would have to live on army fare. It +was all appealing to the old traveller. And then the next morning--she +was alone, after she had given him that precious smile in parting. The +incident was one of the thousands before the war had become an +institution, death a matter of routine, and it was a commonplace for +young wives to see young husbands away to the front with a smile. + +One such incident does for all, whether the war be young or old. +There is nothing else to tell, even when you know wife and husband. I +was rather glad that I did not know this pair. If I had known them I +should be looking at the casualty list for his name and I might not +enjoy my faith that he will return alive. These two seemed to me the +best of England. I used to think of them when gossip sought the latest +turn of intrigue under the mantle of censorship, when Parliament +poured out its oral floods and the newspapers their volumes of words. +The man went off to fight; the woman returned to her country home. It +was the hour of war, not of talk. + +On that Sunday in London when the truth about Mons appeared stark +to all England, another young man happened to buy a special edition +at a street corner at the same time as myself. By all criteria, the world +and his tailor had treated him well and he deserved well of the world. +We spoke together about the news. Already the new democracy +which the war has developed was in evidence. Everybody had +common thoughts and a common thing at stake, with values +reckoned in lives, and this makes for equality. + +"It's clear that we have had a bad knock. Why deny it?" he said. Then +he added quietly, after a pause: "This is a personal call for me. I'm +going to enlist." + +England's answer to that "bad knock" was out of her experience. She +had never won at first, but she had always won in the end; she had +won the last battle. The next day's news was worse and the next +day's still worse. The Germans seemed to be approaching Paris by +forced marches. Paris might fall--no matter! Though the French army +were shattered, one heard Englishmen say that the British would +create an army to wrest victory from defeat. The spirit of this was fine, +but one realized the enormity of the task; should the mighty German +machine crush the French machine, the Allies had lost. To say so +then was heresy, when the world was inclined to think poorly of the +French army and saw Russian numbers as irresistible. + +The personal call was to Paris before the fate of Paris was to be +decided. My first crossing of the Channel had been to Ostend; the +second, farther south to Boulogne; the third was still farther south, to +Dieppe. Where next? To Havre! Events were moving with the speed +which had been foreseen with myriads of soldiers ready to be thrown +into battle by the quick march of the railroad trains. + +Every event was hidden under the "fog of war," then a current +expression--meagre official bulletins which read like hope in their brief +lines, while the imagination might read as it chose between the lines. +The marvel was that any but troop trains should run. All night in that +third-class coach from Dieppe to Paris! Tired and preoccupied +passengers; everyone's heart heavy; everyone's soul wrenched; +everyone prepared for the worst! You cared for no other man's views; +the one thing you wanted was no bad news. France had known that +when the war came it would be to the death. From the first no +Frenchman could have had any illusions. England had not realized +yet that her fate was with the soldiers of France, or France that her +fate and all the world's was with the British fleet. + +An Italian in our compartment would talk, however, and he would +keep the topic down to red trousers, and to the red trousers of a +French Territorial opposite, with an index finger when his gesticulatory +knowledge of the French language, which was excellent, came to the +rescue of his verbal knowledge, which was poor. The Frenchman +agreed that red trousers were a mistake, but pointed to the blue +covering which he had for his cap--which made it all right. The Italian +insisted on keeping to the trousers. He talked red trousers till the +Frenchman got out at his station, and then turned to me to confirm +his views on this fatal strategic and tactical error of the French. After +all, he was more pertinent than most of the military experts trying to +write on the basis of the military bulletins. It was droll to listen to +this sartorial discourse, when at least two hundred thousand men +lay dead and wounded from that day's fight on the soil of France. +Red trousers were responsible for the death of a lot of those men. + +Dawn, early September dawn, on dew-moist fields, where the harvest +lay unfinished as the workers, hastening to the call of war, had left the +work. Across Paris, which seemed as silent as the fields, to an hotel +with empty rooms! Five hundred empty rooms, with a clock ticking +busily in every room! War or no war, that old man who wound the +clocks was making his rounds softly through the halls from door to +door. He was a good soldier, who had heeded Joffre's request that +everyone should go on with his day's work. + +"They're done!" said an American in the foyer. "The French cannot +stand up against the Germans--anybody could see that! It's too bad, +but the French are licked. The Germans will be here to-morrow or the +next day." + +I could not and would not believe it. Such a disaster was against all +one's belief in the French army and in the real character of the +French people. It meant that autocracy was making sport of +democracy; it meant disaster to all one's precepts; a personal +disaster. + +"Look at that interior line which the French now hold. Think of the +power of the defensive with modern arms. No! The French have not +had their battle yet!" I said. + +And the British Expeditionary Force was still intact; still an army, with +lots of fight left in it. + + + + +Ill +Paris Waits + + + +It was then that people were speaking of Paris as a dead city--a Paris +without theatres, without young men, without omnibuses, with the +shutters of its shops down and its cafés and restaurants in gloomy +emptiness. + +The Paris the host of the idler and the traveller; the Paris of the +boulevards and the night life provided for the tourist; the Paris that +sparkled and smiled in entertainment; the Paris exploited to +the average American through Sunday supplements and the +reminiscences of smoking-rooms of transatlantic liners, was dead. +Those who knew no other Paris and conjectured no other Paris +departed as from the tomb of the pleasures which had been the +passing extravaganza of relief, from dull lives elsewhere. The +Parisienne of that Paris spent a thousand francs to get her pet dog +safely away to Marseilles. Politicians of a craven type, who are the +curse of all democracies, had gone to keep her company, leaving +Paris cleaner than ever she was after the streets had had their +morning bath on a spring day when the horse chestnuts were in +bloom and madame was arranging her early editions on the table of +her kiosk--a spiritually clean Paris. + +Monsieur, would you have America judged by the White Way? What +has the White Way to do with the New York of Seventy-Second +Street or Harlem? It serves the same purpose as the boulevards of +furnishing scandalous little paragraphs for foreign newspapers. +Foreigners visit it and think that they understand how Americans live +in Stockbridge, Mass., or Springfield Illinois, Empty its hotels and +nobody but sightseers and people interested in the White Way would +know the difference. + +The other Paris, making ready to stand siege, with the Government +gone to Bordeaux with all the gold of the Bank of France, with the +enemy's guns audible in the suburbs and old men cutting down trees +and tearing up paving-stones to barricade the streets--never had that +Paris been more alive. It was after the death of the old and the birth of +the new Paris that an elderly man, seeing a group of women at tea in +one of the few fashionable refreshment places which were open, +stopped and said: + +"Can you find nothing better than that to do, ladies, in a time like +this?" + +And the Latin temperament gave the world a surprise. Those who +judged France by her playful Paris thought that if a Frenchman +gesticulated so emotionally in the course of everyday existence, he +would get overwhelmingly excited in a great emergency. One +evening, after the repulse of the Germans on the Marne, I saw two +French reserves dining in a famous restaurant where, at this time of +the year, four out of five diners ordinarily would be foreigners +surveying one another in a study of Parisian life. They were big, rosy- +cheeked men, country born and bred, belonging to the new France of +sports, of action, of temperate habits, and they were joking about +dining there just as two sturdy Westerners might about dining in a +deserted Broadway. The foreigners and demimondaines were +noticeably absent; a pair of Frenchmen were in the place of the +absentees; and after their dinner they smoked their black brier-root +pipes in that fashionable restaurant. + +Among the picture post-cards then on sale was one of Marianne, who +is France, bound for the front in an aeroplane with a crowing French +cock sitting on the brace above her. Marianne looked as happy as if +she were going to the races; the cock as triumphant as if he had a +spur through the German eagle's throat. However, there was little +sale for picture post-cards or other trifles, while Paris waited for the +siege. They did not help to win victories. News and not jeux d'esprit, +victory and not wit, was wanted. + +For Marianne went to war with her liberty cap drawn tight over her +brow, a beat in her temples, and her heart in her throat; and the cock +had his head down and pointed at the enemy. She was relieved in a +way, as all Europe was, that the thing had come; at last an end of the +straining of competitive taxation and preparation; at last the test. She +had no Channel, as England had, between her and the foe. Defeat +meant the heel of the enemy on her soil, German sentries in her +streets, submission. Long and hard she had trained; while the outside +world, thinking of the Paris of the boulevards, thought that she could +not resist the Kaiser's legions. She was effeminate, effete. She was +all right to run cafés and make artificial flowers, but she lacked beef. +All the prestige was with her enemy. In '70 all the prestige had been +with her. For there is no prestige like military prestige. It is all with +those who won the last war. + +"But if we must succumb, let it be now," said the French. + +On, on--the German corps were coming like some machine- +controlled avalanche of armed men. Every report brought them a little +nearer Paris. Ah, monsieur, they had numbers, those Germans! +Every German mother has many sons; a French mother only one or +two. + +How could one believe those official communiqués which kept saying +that the position of the French armies was favourable and then +admitted that von Kluck had advanced another twenty miles? The +heart of Paris stopped beating. Paris held its breath. Perhaps the +reason there was no panic was that Parisians had been prepared for +the worst. + +What silence! The old men and the women in the streets moved as +under a spell, which was the sense of their own helplessness. But few +people were abroad, and those going on errands apparently. The +absence of traffic and pedestrians heightened the sepulchral +appearance to superficial observation. At the windows of flats, inside +the little shops, and on by-streets, you saw waiting faces, everyone +with the weight of national grief become personal. Was Paris alive? +Yes, if Paris is human and not bricks and stone. Every Parisian was +living a century in a week. So, too, was one who loved France. In the +prospect of its loss he realized the value of all that France stands for, +her genius, her democracy, her spirit. + +One recalled how German officers had said that the next war would +be the end of France. An indemnity which would crush out her power +of recovery would be imposed on her. Her northern ports would be +taken. France, the most homogeneous of nations, would be divided +into separate nationalities--even this the Germans had planned. +Those who read their Shakespeare in the language they learned in +childhood had no doubt of England's coming out of the war secure; +but if we thought which foreign civilization brought us the most in our +lives, it was that of France. + +What would the world be without French civilization? To think of +France dead was to think of cells in your own brain that had gone +lifeless; of something irreparable extinguished to every man to whom +civilization means more than material power of destruction. The +sense of what might be lost was revealed to you at every turn in +scenes once merely characteristic of a whole, each with an appeal of +its own now; in the types of people who, by their conduct in this hour +of trial, showed that Spartan hearts might beat in Paris-the Spartan +hearts of the mass of everyday, workaday Parisians. + +Those waiting at home calmly with their thoughts, in a France of +apprehension, knew that their fate was out of their hands in the hands +of their youth. The tide of battle wavering from Meaux to Verdun +might engulf them; it might recede; but Paris would resist to the last. +That was something. She would resist in a manner worthy of Paris; +and one could live on very little food. Their fathers had. Every day +that Paris held out would be a day lost to the Germans and a day +gained for Joffre and Sir John French to bring up reserves. + +The street lamps should not reveal to Zeppelins or Taubes the +location of precious monuments. You might walk the length of the +Champs Elysées without meeting a vehicle or more than two or three +pedestrians. The avenue was all your own; you might appreciate it as +an avenue for itself; and every building and even the skyline of the +streets you might appreciate, free of any association except the +thought of the results of man's planning and building. Silent, deserted +Paris by moonlight, without street lamps--few had ever seen that. +Millionaire tourists with retinues of servants following them in motor- +cars may never know this effect; nor the Parisienne who paid a +thousand francs to send her pet dog to Marseilles. + +The moonlight threw the Arc de Triomphe in exaggerated spectral +relief, sprinkled the leaves of the long rows of trees, glistened on the +upsweep of the broad pavements, gleamed on the Seine. Paris was +majestic, as scornful of Prussian eagles as the Parthenon of Roman +eagles. A column of soldiery marching in triumph under the Arc might +possess as a policeman possesses; but not by arms could they gain +the quality that made Paris, any more than the Roman legionary +became a Greek scholar by doing sentry go in front of the Parthenon. +Every Parisian felt anew how dear Paris was to him; how worthy of +some great sacrifice! + +If New York were in danger of falling to an enemy, the splendid length +of Fifth Avenue and the majesty of the skyscrapers of lower +Broadway and the bay and the rivers would become vivid to you in a +way they never had before; or Washington, or San Francisco, or +Boston--or your own town. The thing that is a commonplace, when +you are about to lose it takes on a cherished value. + +To-morrow the German guns might be thundering in front of the +fortifications. The communiqués from Joffre became less frequent +and more laconic. Their wording was like some trembling, fateful +needle of a barometer, pausing, reacting a little, but going down, +down, down, indicator of the heart-pressure of Paris, shrivelling the +flesh, tightening the nerves. Already Paris was in a state of siege, in +one sense. Her exits were guarded against all who were not in +uniform and going to fight; to all who had no purpose except to see +what was passing where two hundred miles resounded with strife. It +was enough to see Paris itself awaiting the siege; fighting one was yet +to see to repletion. + +The situation must be very bad or the Government would not have +gone to Bordeaux. Alors, one must trust the army and the army must +trust Joffre. There is no trust like that of a democracy when it gives its +heart to a cause; the trust of the mass in the strength of the mass +which sweeps away the middlemen of intrigue. + +And silence, only silence in Paris; the silence of the old men and the +women, and of children who had ceased to play and could not +understand. No one might see what was going on unless he carried a +rifle. No one might see even the wounded. Paris was spared this, +isolated in the midst of war. The wounded were sent out of reach of +the Germans in case they should come. + +Then the indicator stopped falling. It throbbed upward. The +communiqués became more definite; they told of positions regained, +and borne in the ether by the wireless of telepathy was something +which confirmed the communiqués. At first Paris was uneasy with the +news, so set had history been on repeating itself, so remorselessly +certain had seemed the German advance. But it was true, true--the +Germans were going, with the French in pursuit, now twenty, now +thirty, now forty, now fifty, sixty, seventy miles away from Paris. Yes, +monsieur, seventy! + +With the needle rising, did Paris gather in crowds and surge through +the streets, singing and shouting itself hoarse, as it ought to have +done according to the popular international idea? No, monsieur, Paris +will not riot in joy in the presence of the dead on the battlefields and +while German troops are still within the boundaries of France. Paris, +which had been with heart standing still and breathing hard, began to +breathe regularly again and the glow of life to run through her veins. +In the markets, whither madame brought succulent melons, pears, +and grapes with commonplace vegetables, the talk of bargaining +housewives with their baskets had something of its old vivacity and +madame stiffened prices a little, for there will be heavy taxes to pay +for the war. Children, so susceptible to surroundings, broke out of the +quiet alleys and doorways in play again. + +A Sunday of relief, with a radiant September sun shining, followed a +Sunday of depression. The old taxicabs and the horse vehicles with +their venerable steeds and drivers too old for service at the front, +exhumed from the catacomb of the hours of doubt, ran up and down +the Champs Elysées with airing parties. At Notre Dame the religious +rejoicing was expressed. A great service of prayer was held by the +priests who were not away fighting for France, as three thousand are, +while joyful prayers of thanks shone on the faces of that democratic +people who have not hesitated to discipline the church as they have +disciplined their rulers. Groups gathered in the cafés or sauntered +slowly, talking less than usual, gesticulating little, rolling over the +good news in their minds as something beyond the power of +expression. How banal to say, "C'est chic, ça!" or "C'est épatant!" +Language is for little things. + +That pile of posters at the American Embassy had already become +historical souvenirs which won a smile. The name of every American +resident in Paris and his address had been filled in the blank space. +He had only to put up the warning over his door that the premises +were under the Embassy's protection. Ambassador Herrick, suave, +decisive, resourceful, possessed the gift of acting in a great +emergency with the same ease and simplicity as in a small one, +which is a gift sometimes found wanting when a crisis breaks upon +the routine of official life. + +He had the courage to act and the ability to secure a favour for an +American when it was reasonable; and the courage to say "No" if it +were unreasonable or impracticable. No one of the throngs who had +business with him was kept long at the door in uncertainty. In its +organization for facilitating the home-going of the thousands of +Americans in Paris and the Americans coming to Paris from other +parts of Europe, the American Embassy in Paris seemed as well +mobilized for its part in the war as the German army. + +In spite of '70, France still lived. You noted the faces of the women in +fresh black for their dead at the front, a little drawn but proud and +victorious. The son or brother or husband had died for the country. +When a fast motor-car bearing officers had a German helmet or two +displayed, the people stopped to look. A captured German in the +flesh on a front seat beside a soldier-chauffeur brought the knots to a +standstill. "Voilà C'est un Allemand!" ran the exclamation. But Paris +soon became used to these stray German prisoners, left-overs from +the German retreat coming in from the fields to surrender. The +batches went through by train without stopping for Paris, southward to +the camps where they were to be interned; and the trains of wounded +to winter resorts, whose hotels became hospitals, the verandas +occupied by convalescents instead of gossiping tourists. It is très à la +mode to be wounded, monsieur--très à la mode all over Europe. + +And, monsieur, all those barricades put up for nothing! They will not +need the cattle gathered on Long-champs race-track and in the parks +at Versailles for a siege. The people who laid in stocks of tinned +goods till the groceries of Paris were empty of everything in tins--they +will either have to live on canned food or confess that they were pigs, +hein? Those volunteers, whether young men who had been excused +because they were only sons or for weak hearts which now let them +past the surgeons, whether big, hulking farmers, or labourers, or +stooped clerks, drilling in awkward squads in the suburbs till they are +dizzy, they will not have to defend Paris; but, perhaps, help to regain +Alsace and Lorraine. + +Then there were stories going the rounds; stories of French courage +and élan which were cheering to the ears of those who had to remain +at home. Did you hear about the big French peasant soldier who +captured a Prussian eagle in Alsace? They had him come to Paris to +give him the Legion of Honour and the great men made a ceremony +of it, gathering around him at the Ministry of War. The simple fellow +looked from one to another of the group, surprised at all this attention. +It did not occur to him that he had done anything remarkable. He had +seen a Prussian with a standard and taken the standard away from +the Prussian. + +"If you like this so well," said that droll one, "I'll try to get another!" + + + + +IV +On The Heels Of Von Kluck + + + +Though the Germans were going, the siege by the cordon of French +guards around Paris had not been raised. To them every civilian was +a possible spy. So they let no civilians by. Must one remain for ever in +Paris, screened from any view of the great drama? Was there no way +of securing a blue card which would open the road to war for an atom +of humanity who wanted to see Frenchmen in action and not to pry +into generals' plans? + +Happily, an army winning is more hospitable than an army losing; and +bonds of friendship which stretch around the world could be linked +with authority which has only to say the word, in order that one might +have a day's glimpse of the fields where von Kluck's Germans were +showing their heels to the French. + +Ours, I think, was the pioneer of the sight-seeing parties which +afterwards became the accepted form of war correspondence with +the French. None could have been under more delightful auspices in +companionship or in the event. Victory was in the hearts of our hosts, +who included M. Paul Doumer, formerly President of the Chamber of +Deputies and Governor of French Indo-China and now a senator, and +General Febrier, of the French Medical Service, who was to have had +charge of the sanitation of Paris in case of a siege. + +M. Doumer was acting as Chef de Cabinet to General Gallieni, the +commandant of Paris, and he and General Febrier and two other +officers of Gallieni's staff, who would have been up to their eyes in +work if there had been a siege, wanted to see something of that army +whose valour had given them a holiday. Why should not Roberts and +myself come along? which is the pleasant way the French have of +putting an invitation. + +Oh, the magic of a military pass and the companionship of an officer +in uniform! It separates you from the crowd of millions on the other +side of the blank wall of military secrecy and takes you into the area +of the millions in uniform; it wins a nod of consent on a road from that +middle-aged reservist whose bayonet has the police power of millions +of bayonets in support of its authority. + +At last one was to see; the measure of his impressions was to be his +own eyes and not written reports. Other passes I have had since, +which gave me the run of trenches and shell-fire areas; but this pass +opened the first door to the war. That day we ran by Meaux and +Château Thierry to Soissons and back by Senlis to Paris. We saw a +finger's breadth of battle area; a pin-point of army front. Only a ride +along a broad, fine road out of Paris, at first; a road which our cars +had all to themselves. Then at Claye we came to the high-water mark +of the German invasion in this region. Thus close to Paris in that +direction and no closer had the Germans come. + +There was the field where their skirmishers had turned back. Farther +on, the branches of the avenue of trees which shaded the road had +been slashed as if by a whirlwind of knives, where the French +soixante-quinze field-guns had found a target. Under that sudden +bath of projectiles, with the French infantry pressing forward on their +front, the German gunners could not wait to take away the cord of +five-inch shells which they had piled to blaze their way to Paris. One +guessed their haste and their irritation. They were within range of the +fortifications; within two hours' march of the suburbs; of the Mecca of +forty years' preparation. After all that march from Belgium, with no +break in the programme of success, the thunders broke and lightning +flashed out of the sky as Manoury's army rushed upon von Kluck's +flank. + +"It was not the way that they wanted us to get the shells," said a +French peasant who was taking one of the shell-baskets for a +souvenir. It would make an excellent umbrella stand. + +For the French it had been the turn of the tide; for that little British +army which had fought its way back from Mons it was the sweet +dream, which had kept men up on the retreat, come true. Weary +Germans, after a fearful two weeks of effort, became the driven. +Weary British and French turned drivers. A hypodermic of victory +renewed their energy. Paris was at their back and the German backs +in front. They were no longer leaving their dead and wounded behind +to the foe; they were sweeping past the dead and wounded of the +foe. + +But their happiness, that of a winning action, exalted and passionate, +had not the depths of that of the refugees who had fled before the +German hosts and were returning to their homes in the wake of their +victorious army. We passed farmers with children perched on top of +carts laden with household goods and drawn by broad-backed farm- +horses, with usually another horse or a milch cow tied behind. The +real power of France, these peasants holding fast to the acres they +own, with the fire of the French nature under their thrifty +conservatism. Others on foot were villagers who had lacked horses +or carts to transport their belongings. In the packs on their backs +were a few precious things which they had borne away and were now +bearing back. + +Soon they would know what the Germans had done to the homes. +What the Germans had done to one piano was evident. It stood in the +yard of a house where grass and flowers had been trodden by horses +and men. In the sport of victory the piano had been dragged out of +the little drawing-room, while Fritz and Hans played and sang in the +intoxication of a Paris gained, a France in submission. They did not +know what Joffre had in pickle for them. It had all gone according to +programme up to that moment. Nothing can stop us Germans! +Champagne instead of beer! Set the glass on top of the piano and +sing! Haven't we waited forty years for this day? + +Captured diaries of German officers, which reflect the seventh +heaven of elation suddenly turned into grim depression, taken in +connection with what one saw on the battlefield, reconstruct the +scene around that piano. The cup to the lips; then dashed away. How +those orders to retreat must have hurt! + +The state of the refugees' homes all depended upon the chances of +war. War's lightning might have hit your roof-tree and it might not. It +plays no favourites between the honest and the dishonest; the thrifty +and the shiftless. We passed villages which exhibited no signs of +destruction or of looting. German troops had marched through in the +advance and in the retreat without being billeted. A hurrying army with +another on its heels has no time for looting. Other villages had been +points of topical importance; they had been in the midst of a fight. +General Mauvaise Chance had it in for them. Shells had wrecked +some houses; others were burned. Where a German non-commissioned +officer came to the door of a French family and said that room must +be made for German soldiers in that house and if anyone dared to +interfere with them he would be shot, there the exhausted human +nature of a people trained to think that "Krieg ist Krieg" and that the +spoils of war are to the victor had its way. + +It takes generations to lift a man up a single degree; but so swift is the +effect of war, when men live a year in a day, that he is demonized in a +month. Before the occupants had to go, often windows were broken, +crockery smashed, closets and drawers rifled. The soldiery which +could not have its Paris "took it out" of the property of their hosts. +Looting, destruction, one can forgive in the orgy of war which is +organized destruction; one can even understand rapine and atrocities +when armies, which include latent vile and criminal elements, are +aroused to the kind of insane passion which war kindles in human +beings. But some indecencies one could not understand in civilized +men. All with a military purpose, it is said; for in the nice calculations +of a staff system which grinds so very fine, nothing must be excluded +that will embarrass the enemy. A certain foully disgusting practice +was too common not to have had the approval of at least some +officers, whose conduct in several châteaux includes them as +accomplices. Not all officers, not all soldiers. That there should be a +few is enough to sicken you of belonging to the human species. +Nothing worse in Central America; nothing worse where civilized +degeneracy disgraces savagery. + +But do not think that destruction for destruction's sake was done in all +houses where German soldiers were billeted. If the good principle +was not sufficiently impressed, Belgium must have impressed it; a +looting army is a disorderly army. The soldier has burden enough to +carry in heavy marching order without souvenirs. That collector of the +stoppers of carafes who had thirty on his person when taken prisoner +was bound to be a laggard in the retreat. + +To their surprise and relief, returning farmers found their big, conical +haystacks untouched, though nothing could be more tempting to the +wantonness of an army on enemy soil. Strike a match and up goes +the harvest! Perhaps the Germans as they advanced had in mind to +save the forage for their own horses, and either they were running too +fast to stop or the staff overlooked the detail on the retreat. + +It was amazing how few signs of battle there were in the open. +Occasionally one saw the hastily-made shelter-trenches of a skirmish +line; and again, the emplacements for batteries--hurried field- +emplacements, so puny beside those of trench warfare. It had been +open fighting; the tide of an army sweeping forward and then, +pursued, sweeping back. One side was trying to get away; the other +to overtake. Here, a rearguard made a determined action which +would have had the character of a battle in other days; there, a +rearguard was pinched as the French or the British got around it. + +Swift marching and quick manœuvres of the type which gave war +some of its old sport and zest; the advance all the while gathering +force like the neap tide! Crowds of men hurrying across a harvested +wheatfield or a pasture after all leave few marks of passage. A day's +rain will wash away bloodstains and liven trampled vegetation. Nature +hastens with a kind of contempt of man to repair the damage done by +his murderous wrath. + +The cyclone past, the people turned out to put things in order. +Peasants too old to fight, who had paid the taxes which paid for the +rifles and guns and shell-fire, were moving across the fields with +spades, burying the bodies of the young men and the horses that +were war's victims. Long trenches full of dead told where the eddy of +battle had been fierce and the casualties numerous; scattered +mounds of fresh earth where they were light; and, sometimes, when +the burying was unfinished--well, one draws the curtain over scenes +like that in the woods at Betz, where Frenchmen died knowing that +Paris was saved and Germans died knowing that they had failed to +take Paris. + +Whenever we halted our statesman, M. Doumer, was active. Did we +have difficulties over a culvert which had been hastily mended, he +was out of the car and in command. Always he was meeting some +man whom he knew and shaking hands like a senator at home. At +one place a private soldier, a man of education by his speech, came +running across the street at sight of him. + +"Son of an old friend of mine, from my town," said our statesman. +Being a French private meant being any kind of a Frenchman. All +inequalities are levelled in the ranks of a great conscript army. + +Be it through towns unharmed or towns that had been looted and +shelled, the people had the smile of victory, the look of victory in their +eyes. Children and old men and women, the stay-at-homes, waved to +our car in holiday spirit. The laugh of a sturdy young woman who +threw some flowers into the tonneau as we passed, in her tribute to +the uniform of the army that had saved France, had the spirit of +victorious France--France after forty years' waiting throwing back a +foe that had two soldiers to every one of hers. All the land, rich fields +and neat gardens and green stretches of woods in the fair, rolling +landscape, basked in victory. Dead the spirit of anyone who could +not, for the time being, catch the infection of it and feel himself a +Frenchman. Far from the Paris of gay show for the tourist one +seemed; in the midst of the France of the farms and the villages +which had saved Paris and France. + +The car sped on over the hard road. Staff officers in other cars whom +we passed alone suggested that there was war somewhere ahead. +Were we never going to reach the battle-line, the magnet of our +speed when a French army chauffeur made all speed laws obsolete? + +Shooting out of a grove, a valley made a channel for sound that +brought to our ears the thunder of guns, with firing so rapid that it was +like the roll of some cyclopean snare-drum beaten with sticks the size +of ship-masts. From the crest of the next hill we had a glimpse of an +open sweep of park-like country toward wooded hills. As far as we +could see against the background of the foliage which threw it into +relief was a continuous cloud of smoke from bursting shells, renewed +with fresh, soft, blue puffs as fast as it was dissipated. + +This, then, was a battle. No soldiers, no guns, in sight; only against +masses of autumn green a diaphanous, man-made nimbus which +was raining steel hail. Ten miles of this, one would say; and under it +lines of men in blue coats and red trousers and green uniforms +hugging the earth, as unseen as a battalion of ants at work in the tall +grass. Even if a charge swept across a field one would have been +able to detect nothing except moving pin-points on a carpet. + +There was hard fighting; a lot of French and German were being +killed in the direction of Compiègne and Noyon to-day. Another dip +into another valley and the thir-r-r of a rapid-firer and the muffled +firing of a line of infantry were audible. Yes, we were getting up +with the army, with one tiny section of it operating along the road on +which we were. Multiply this by a thousand and you have the whole. + +Ahead was the army's larder on wheels; a procession of big motor +transport trucks keeping their intervals of distance with the precision +of a battleship fleet at sea. We should have known that they belonged +to the army by the deafness of the drivers to appeals to let us pass. +All army transports are like that. What the deuced right has anybody +to pass? They are the transport, and only fighting men belong in front +of them. Our car in trying to go by to one side got stuck in a rut that +an American car, built for bad roads, would have made nothing of; +which proves again how closely European armies are tied to their fine +highways. We got out, and here again was our statesman putting his +shoulder to the wheel. That is the way of the French in war. +Everybody tries to help. By this time the transport chauffeurs +remembered that they also were Frenchmen; and as Frenchmen are +polite even in time of war, they let us by. + +A motor-cyclist approached with his hand up. + +"Stop here!" he called. + +Those transport chauffeurs who were deaf to ex-premiers heard +instantly and obeyed. In front of them was a line of single horse- +drawn carts, with an extra horse in the rear. They could take paths +that the motor trucks could not. Archaic they seemed, yet friendly, as +a relic of how armies were fed in other days. For the first time I was +realizing what the motor truck means to war. It brings the army +impedimenta close up to the army's rear; it means a reduction of road +space occupied by transport by three-quarters; ease in keeping pace +with food with the advance, speed in falling back in case of retreat. + +All that day I did not see a single piece of French army transport +broken down. And this army had been fighting for weeks; it had been +an army on the road. The valuable part of our experience was exactly +in this: a glimpse of an army in action after it had been through all the +vicissitudes that an army may have in marching and counter- +marching and attack. Order one expected afterwards, behind the +siege line of trenches, when there had been time to establish a +routine; organization and smooth organization you had here at the +climax of a month's strain. It told the story of the character of the +French army and the reasons for its success other than its courage. +The brains were not all with the German Staff. + +That winding road, with a new picture at every turn, now revealed the +town of Soissons in the valley of the River Aisne. Soissons was ours, +we knew, since yesterday. How much farther had we gone? Was our +advance still continuing? For then, winter trench-fighting was +unforeseen and the sightseers thought of the French army as +following up success with success. Paris, rising from gloom to +optimism, hoped to see the Germans speedily put out of France. The +appetite for victory grew, after a week's bulletins which moved the +flags forward on the map every day. + +Another turn and Soissons was hidden from view by a woodland. +Here we came upon what looked like a leisurely family party of +reserves. The French army, a small section of French army, along a +road! And thus, if one would see the whole it must be in bits along the +roads, when not on the firing-line. They were sprawling in the fields in +the genial afternoon sun, looking as if they had no concern except to +rest. Uniforms dusty and faces tanned and bearded told their story of +the last month. + +The duty of a portion of a force is always to wait on what is being +done by the others at the front. These were waiting near a fork which +could take them to the right or the left, as the situation demanded. At +the rear, their supply of small arms ammunition; in front, caissons of +shells for a battery speaking from the woods near by; a troop of +cavalry drawn up, the men dismounted, ready; and ahead of them +more reserves ready; everything ready. + +This was where the general wanted the body of men and equipment +to be, and here they were. There were no dragging ends in the rear, +so far as I could see; nobody complaining that food or ammunition +was not up; no aide looking for somebody who could not be found; no +excited staff officer rushing about shouting for somebody to look +sharp for somebody had made a mistake. The thing was unwarlike; it +was like a particularly well-thought-out route march. Yet at the word +that company of cavalry might be in the thick of it, at the point where +they were wanted; the infantry rushing to the support of the firing-line; +the motor transport facing around for withdrawal, if need be. It was +only a little way, indeed, into the zone of death from the rear of that +compact column. Thousands of such compact bodies on many +roads, each seemingly a force by itself and each a part of the whole, +which could be a dependable whole only when every part was ready, +alert, and where it belonged! Nothing can be left to chance in a battle- +line three hundred miles long. The general must know what to +depend on, mile by mile, in his plans. Millions of human units are +grouped in increasingly larger units, harmonized according to set +forms. The most complex of all machines is that of a vast army, which +yet must be kept most simple. No unit acts without regard to the +others; every one must know how to do its part. The parts of the +machine are standardized. One is like the other in training, uniform, +and every detail, so that one can replace another. Oldest of all trades +this of war; old experts the French. What one saw was like +manœuvres. It must be like manoeuvres or the army would not hold +together. Manœuvres are to teach armies coherence; war tries out +that coherence, which you may not have if someone does not know +just what to do; if he is uncertain in his rôle. Haste leads to confusion; +haste is only for supreme moments. In order to know how to hasten +when the hurry call comes, the mighty organism must move in its +routine with the smoothness of a well-rehearsed play. + +Joffre and the others who directed the machine must know more than +the mechanics of staff-control. They must know the character of the +man-material in the machine. It was their duty as real Frenchmen to +understand Frenchmen, their verve, their restlessness for the +offensive, their individualism, their democratic intelligence, the value +of their elation, the drawback of their tendency to depression and to +think for themselves. Indeed, the leader must counteract the faults of +his people and make the most of their virtues. + +Thus, we had a French army's historical part reversed: a French army +falling back and concentrating on the Marne to receive the enemy +blow. Equally alive to German racial traits, the German Staff had +organized in their mass offensive the élan which means fast +marching and hard blows. So, we found the supposedly excitable +French digging in to receive the onslaught of the supposedly +phlegmatic German. When the time came for the charge--ah, you can +always depend on a Frenchman to charge! + +Those reserves were pawns on a chessboard. They appeared like it; +one thought that they realized it. Their individual intelligence +and democracy had reasoned out the value of obedience and +homogeneity, rather than accepted it as the dictum of any war lord. +Difficult to think that 'each one had left a vacancy at a family board; +difficult to think that all were not automatons in a process of endless +routine of war; but not difficult to learn that they were Frenchmen +once we had thrown our bombs in the midst of the group. + +Of old, one knew the wants of soldiers. One needed no hint of what +was welcome at the front. Never at any front were there enough +newspapers or tobacco. Men smoke twice as much as usual in the +strain of waiting for action; men who do not use tobacco at all get the +habit. Ask the G.A.R. men who fought in our great war if this is not +true. Then, too, when your country is at war, when back at home +hands stretch out for every fresh edition and you at the front know +only what happens in your alley, think what a newspaper from Paris +means out on the battle-line seventy miles from Paris! So I had +brought a bundle of newspapers and many packets of cigarettes. + +Monsieur, the sensation is beyond even the French language to +express--the sensation of sitting down by the roadside with this +morning's edition and the first cigarette for twenty-four hours. + +"C'est épatant! C'est chic, ça! C'est magnifique! Alors, nom de Dieu! +Tiens! Hélas! Voilà! Merci, mille remerciments!"--it was an army of +Frenchmen with ready words, quick, telling gestures, pouring out their +volume of thanks as the car sped by and we tossed out our +newspapers at intervals, so that all should have a look. + +An Echo de Paris that fell into the road was the centre of a flag-rush, +which included an officer. Most un-military--an officer scrambling at +the same time as his men! In the name of the Kaiser, what discipline! + +Then the car stopped long enough for me to see a private give the +paper to his officer, who was plainly sensible of a loss of dignity, with +a courtesy which said, "A thousand pardons, mon capitaine!" and the +capitaine began reading the newspaper aloud to his men. Scores of +human touches which were French, republican, democratic! + +With half our cigarettes gone, we fell in with some brown-skinned, +native African troops, the Mohammedan Turcos. Their white teeth +gleaming, their black eyes devilishly eager, they began climbing on to +the car. We gave them all the cigarettes in sight; but fortunately our +reserve supply was not visible, and an officer's sharp command +saved us from being invested by storm. + +As we came into Soissons we left the reserves behind. They were +kept back out of range of the German shells, making the town a dead +space between them and the firing-line, which was beyond. When the +Germans retreated through the streets the French had taken care, as +it was their town, to keep their fire away from the cathedral and the +main square to the outskirts and along the river. Not so the German +guns when the French infantry passed through. Soissons was not a +German town. + +We alighted from the car in a deserted street, with all the shutters of +shops that had not been torn down by shell-fire closed. Soissons was +as silent as the grave, within easy range of many enemy guns. War +seemed only for the time being in this valley bottom shut in from the +roar of artillery a few miles away, except for a French battery which +was firing methodically and slowly, its shells whizzing toward the ridge +back of the town. + +The next thing that one wanted most was to go into that battery and +see the soixante-quinze and their skilful gunners. Our statesman said +that he would try to locate it. We thought that it was in the direction of +the river, that famous Aisne which has since given its name to the +longest siege-line in history; a small, winding stream in the bottom of +an irregular valley. Both bridges across it had been cut by the +Germans. If that battery were on the other side under cover of any +one of a score of blots of foliage we could not reach it. Another shot-- +and we were not sure that the battery was not on the opposite side of +the town; a crack out of the landscape: this was modern artillery fire to +one who faced it. Apparently the guns of the battery were scattered, +according to the accepted practice, and from the central firing-station +word to fire was being passed first to one gun and then to another. + +Beside the buttress of one bridge lay two still figures of Algerian +Zouaves. These were fresh dead, fallen in the taking of the town. +Only two men! There were dead by thousands which one might see +in other places. These two had leaped out from cover to dash forward +and bullets were waiting for them. They had rolled over on their +backs, their rigid hands still in the position of grasping their rifles +after the manner of crouching skirmishers. + +Our statesman said that we had better give up trying to locate the +battery; and one of the officers called a halt to trying to go up to the +firing-line on the part of a personally-conducted party, after we +stopped a private hurrying back from the front on some errand. With +his alertness, the easy swing of his walk, his light step, and his +freedom of spirit and appearance, he typified the thing which the +French call élan. Whenever one asked a question of a French private +you could depend upon a direct answer. He knew or he did not know. +This definiteness, the result of military training as well as of Gallic +lucidity of thought, is not the least of the human factors in making an +efficient army, where every man and every unit must definitely know +his part. This young man, you realized, had tasted the "salt of life," as +Lord Kitchener calls it. He had heard the close sing of bullets; he had +known the intoxication of a charge. + +"Does everything go well?" M. Doumer asked. "It is not going at all, +now. It is sticking," was the answer. "Some Germans were busy up +there in the stone quarries while the others were falling back. They +have a covered trench and rapid-fire-gun positions to sweep a zone +of fire which they have cleared." + +Famous stone quarries of Soissons, providing ready-made dug-outs +as shelter from shells! + +There is a story of how before Marengo Napoleon heard a private +saying: "Now this is what the general ought to do!" It was Napoleon's +own plan revealed. "You keep still!" he said. "This army has too many +generals." + +"They mean to make a stand," the private went on. "It's an ideal place +for it. There is no use of an attack in front. We'd be mowed down by +machine-guns." The br-r-r of a dozen shots from a German machine- +gun gave point to his conclusion. "Our infantry is hugging what we +have and intrenching. You'd better not go up. One has to know the +way, or he'll walk right into a sharpshooter's bullet"--instructions that +would have been applicable a year later when one was about to visit +a British trench in almost the same location. + +The siege-warfare of the Aisne line had already begun. It was singular +to get the first news of it from a private in Soissons and then to return +to Paris and London, on the other side of the curtain of secrecy, +where the public thought that the Allied advance would continue. + +"Allons!" said our statesman, and we went to the town square, where +German guns had carpeted the ground with branches of shade trees +and torn off the fronts of houses, revealing sections of looted interior +which had been further messed by shell-bursts. Some women and +children and a crippled man came out of doors at sight of us. M. +Doumer introduced himself and shook hands all around. They were +glad to meet him in much the same way as if he had been on an +election campaign. + +"A German shell struck there across the square only half an hour +ago," said one of the women. + +"What do you do when there is shelling?" asked M. Doumer. + +"If it is bad we go into the cellar," was the answer; an answer which +implied that peculiar fearlessness of women, who get accustomed to +fire easier than men. These were the fatalists of the town, who would +not turn refugee; helpless to fight, but grimly staying with their homes +and accepting what came with an incomprehensible stoicism, which +possibly had its origin in a race-feeling so proud and bitter that they +would not admit that they could be afraid of anything German, even a +shell. + +"And how did the Germans act?" + +"They made themselves at home in our houses and slept in our beds, +while we slept in the kitchen," she answered. "They said that if we +kept indoors and gave them what they wanted we should not be +harmed. But if anyone fired a shot at their troops or any arms were +found in our houses, they would burn the town. When they were +going back in a great hurry--how they scattered from our shells! We +went out in the square to see our shells, monsieur!" + +What mattered the ruins of her home? "Our" shells had returned +vengeance. + +Arrows with directions in German, "This way to the river," "This way to +Villers-Cotteret," were chalked on the standing walls; and on door- +casings the names of the detachments of the Prussian Guard billeted +there, all in systematic Teutonic fashion. + +"Prince Albrecht Joachim, one of the Kaiser's sons, was here and I +talked with him," said the Mayor, who thought we would enjoy a +morsel from court circles in exchange for a copy of the Echo de Paris, +which contained the news that Prince Albrecht had been wounded +later. The Mayor looked tired, this local man of the people, who had to +play the shepherd of a stricken flock. Afterwards, they said that he +deserted his charge and a lady, Mme. Mâcherez, took his place. All I +know is that he was present that day; or, at least, a man who was +introduced to me as mayor; and he was French enough to make a +bon mot by saying that he feared there was some fault in his +hospitality because he had been unable to keep his guest. + +"May I have this confiture?" asked a battle-stained French orderly, +coming up to him. "I found it in that ruined house there--all the +Germans had left. I haven't had a confiture for a long time, and, +monsieur, you cannot imagine what a hunger I have for confitures." + +All the while the French battery kept on firing slowly, then again +rapidly, their cracks trilling off like the drum of knuckles on a +table-top. Another effort to locate one of the guns before we started +back to Paris failed. Speeding on, we had again a glimpse of the +landscape toward Noyon, sprinkled with shell-bursts. The reserves +were around their camp-fires making savoury stews for the evening +meal. They would sleep where night found them on the sward under +the stars, as in wars of old. That scene remains indelible as one of +many while the army was yet mobile, before the contest became +one of the mole and the beaver. + +Though one had already seen many German prisoners in groups and +convoys, the sight of two on the road fixed the attention because of +the surroundings and the contrast suggested between French and +German natures. Both were young, in the very prime of life, and both +Prussian. One was dark-complexioned, with a scrubbly beard which +was the product of the war. He marched with such rigidity that I +should not have been surprised to see him break into a goose-step. +The other was of that mild, blue-eyed, tow-haired type from the Baltic +provinces, with the thin, white skin which does not tan but burns. He +was frailer than the other and he was tired! He would lag and then +stiffen back his shoulders and draw in his chin and force a trifle more +energy into his steps. + +A typical, lively French soldier was escorting the pair. He looked pretty +tired, too, but he was getting over the ground in the natural, easy way +in which man is meant to walk. The aboriginal races, who have a +genius for long distances on foot, do not march in the German +fashion, which looks impressive, but lacks endurance. By the same +logic, the cowboy pony's gait is better for thirty miles day in and day +out than the gait of the high-stepping carriage horse. + +You could realize the contempt which those two martial Germans had +for their captor. Four or five peasant women refugees by the roadside +loosened their tongues in piercing feminine satire and upbraiding. + +"You are going to Paris, after all! This is what you get for invading our +country; and you'll get more of it!" + +The little French soldier held up his hand to the women and shook his +head. He was a chivalrous fellow, with imagination enough to +appreciate the feelings of an enemy who has fought hard and lost. +Such as he would fight fair and hold this war of the civilizations up to +something like the standards of civilization. + +The very tired German stiffened up again, as his drill sergeant had +taught him, and both stared straight ahead, proud and contemptuous, +as their Kaiser would wish them to do. I should recognize the faces of +those two Germans and of that little French guard if I saw them ten +years hence. In ten years, what will be the Germans' attitude toward +this war and their military lords? + +It is not often that one has a senator for a guide; and I never knew a +more efficient one than our statesman. His own curiosity was the best +possible aid in satisfying our own. Having seen the compactness and +simplicity of an army column at the front, we were to find that the +same thing applied to high command. A sentry and a small flag at the +doorway of a village hotel: this was the headquarters of the Sixth +Army, which General Manoury had formed in haste and flung at von +Kluck with a spirit which crowned his white hairs with the audacity of +youth. He was absent, but we might see something of the central +direction of one hundred and fifty thousand men in the course of one +of the most brilliant manœuvres of the war, before staffs had settled +down to office existence in permanent quarters. That is, we might see +the little there was to see: a soldier telegrapher in one bedroom, a +soldier typewritist in another, officers at work in others. One realized +that they could pack up everything and move in the time it takes to +toss enough clothes into a bag to spend a night away from home. +Apparently, when the French fought they left red tape behind with the +bureaucracy. + +From his seat before a series of maps on a sitting-room table an +officer of about thirty-five rose to receive us. It struck me that he +exemplified self-possessed intelligence and definite knowledge; that +he had coolness and steadiness plus that acuteness of perception +and clarity of statement which are the gift of the French. You felt sure +that no orders which left his hand wasted any words or lacked +explicitness. The Staff is the brains of the army, and he had brains. + +"All goes well!" he said, as if there were no more to say. All goes well! +He would say it when things looked black or when they looked bright, +and in a way that would make others believe it. + +Outside the hotel were no cavalry escorts or commanders, no +hurrying orderlies, none of the legendary activity that is associated +with an army headquarters. A motor-car drove up, an officer got out; +another officer descended the stairs to enter a waiting car. The wires +carry word faster than the cars. Each subordinate commander was in +his place along that line where we had seen the puffs of smoke +against the landscape, ready to answer a question or obey an order. +That simplicity, like art itself, which seems so easy is the most difficult +accomplishment of all in war. + +After dark, in a drizzling rain, we came to what seemed to be a town, +for our motor-car lamps spread their radiant streams over wet +pavements. But these were the only lights. Tongues of loose bricks +had been shot across the cobblestones and dimly the jagged skyline +of broken walls of buildings on either side could be discerned. It was +Senlis, the first town I had seen which could be classified as a town in +ruins. Afterwards, one became a sort of specialist in ruins, comparing +the latest with previous examples of destruction. + +Approaching footsteps broke the silence. A small, very small, French +soldier--he was not more than five feet two--appeared, and we +followed him to an ambulance that had broken down for want of +petrol. It belonged to the Société de Femmes de France. The little +soldier had put on a uniform as a volunteer for the only service his +stature would permit. In those days many volunteer organizations +were busy seeking to "help." There was a kind of competition among +them for wounded. This ambulance had got one and was taking him +to Paris, off the regular route of the wounded who were being sent +south. The boot-soles of a prostrate figure showed out of the dark +recess of the interior. This French officer, a major, had been hit in the +shoulder. He tried to control the catch in his voice which belied his +assertion that he was suffering little pain. The drizzling rain was chilly. +It was a long way to Paris yet. + +"We will make inquiries," said our kindly general. + +A man who came out of the gloom said that there was a hospital kept +by some Sisters of Charity in Senlis which had escaped destruction. +The question was put into the recesses of the ambulance: + +"Would you prefer to spend the night here and go on in the morning?" + +"Yes, monsieur, I--should--like--that--better!" The tone left no doubt of +the relief that the journey in a car with poor springs was not to be +continued after hours of waiting, marooned in the street of a ruined +town. + +Whilst the ambulance passed inside the hospital gate, I spoke with an +elderly woman who came to a near-by door. Cool and definite she +was as a French soldier, bringing home the character of the women +of France which this war has made so well known to the world. + +"Were you here during the fighting?" + +"Yes, monsieur, and during the shelling and the burning. The shelling +was not enough. The Germans said that someone fired on their +soldiers--a boy, I believe--so they set fire to the houses. One could +only look and hate and pray as their soldiers passed through, looking +so unconquerable, making all seem so terrible for France. Was it to +be '70 over again? One's heart was of stone, monsieur. Tiens! They +came back faster than they went. A mitrailleuse was down there at +the end of the street, our mitrailleuse! The bullets went cracking by. +They crack, the bullets; they do not whistle like the stories say. Then +the street was empty of Germans who could run. The dead they +could not run, nor the wounded. Then the French came up the street, +running too--running after the Germans. It was good, monsieur, good, +good! My heart was not of stone then, monsieur. It could not beat fast +enough for happiness. It was the heart of a girl. I remember it all very +clearly. I always shall, monsieur." + +"Allons!" said our statesman. "The officer is well cared for." + +The world seemed normal again as we passed through other towns +unharmed and swept by the dark countryside, till a red light rose in +our path and a sharp "Qui vive?" came out of the night as we slowed +down. This was not the only sentry call from a French Territorial in +front of a barricade. + +At a second halt we found a chain as well as a barricade across the +road. For a moment it seemed that even the suave parliamentarism +of our statesman and the authority of our general and our passes +could not convince one grizzled reservist, doing his duty for France at +the rear whilst the young men were at the front, that we had any right +to be going into Paris at that hour of the night. The password, which +was "Paris," helped, and we felt it a most appropriate password as we +came to the broad streets of the city that was safe. + +There is a popular idea that Napoleon was a super-genius who won +his battles single-handed. It is wrong. He had a lot of Frenchmen +along to help. Much the same kind of Frenchmen live to-day. Not until +they fought again would the world believe this. It seems that the +excitable Gaul, whom some people thought would become demoralized +in face of German organization, merely talks with his hands. In a +great crisis he is cool, as he always was. I like the French for their +democracy and humanity. I like them, too, for leaving their war +to France and Marianne; for not dragging in God as do the Germans. +For it is just possible that God is not in the fight. We don't know +that He even approved of the war. + + + + +V +And Calais Waits + + + +To the traveller, Calais had been the symbol of the shortest route +from London to Paris, the shortest spell of torment in crossing the +British Channel. It was a point where one felt infinite relief or sad +physical anticipations. In the last days of November Calais became +the symbol of a struggle for world-power. The British and the French +were fighting to hold Calais; the Germans to get it. In Calais, +Germany would have her foot on the Atlantic coast. She could look +across only twenty-two miles of water to the chalk cliffs of Dover. She +would be as near her rival as twice the length of Manhattan Island; +within the range of a modern gun; within an hour by steamer and +twenty minutes by aeroplane. + +The long battle-front from Switzerland to the North Sea had been +established. There was no getting around the Allied flank; there had +ceased to be a flank. To win Calais, Germany must crush through by +main force, without any manœuvre. From the cafés where the British +journalists gathered England received its news, which they gleaned +from refugees and stragglers and passing officers. They wrote +something every day, for England must have something about that +dizzy, head-on wrestle in the mud, that writhing line of changing +positions of new trenches rising behind the old destroyed by German +artillery. The British were fighting with their last reserves on the Ypres- +Armentiéres line. The French divisions to the north were suffering no +less heavily, and beyond them the Belgians were trying to hold the +last strip of their land which remained under Belgian sovereignty. +Cordons of guards which kept back the observer from the struggle +could not keep back the truth. Something ominous was in the air. + +It was worth while being in that old town as it waited on the issue in +the late October rains. Its fishermen crept out in the mornings from +the shelter of its quays, where refugees gathered in crowds hoping to +get away by steamer. Like lost souls, carrying all the possessions +they could on their backs, these refugees. There was numbness in +their movements and their faces were blank--the paralysis of brain +from sudden disaster. The children did not cry, but mechanically +munched the dry bread given them by their parents. + +The newspaper men said that "refugee stuff" was already stale; +eviction and misery were stale. Was Calais to be saved? That was +the only question. If the Germans came, one thought that madame at +the hotel would still be at her desk, unruffled, businesslike, and she +would still serve an excellent salad for déjeuner; the fishermen would +still go to sea for their daily catch. + +What was going to happen? What might not happen? It was human +helplessness to the last degree for all behind the wrestlers. Fate was +in the battle-line. There could be no resisting that fate. If the Germans +came, they came. Belgian staff officers with their high-crowned, gilt- +braided caps went flying by in their cars. There always seemed a +great many Belgian staff officers back of the Belgian army in the +restaurants and cafés. Habit is strong, even in war. They did not often +miss their déjeuners. On the Dixmude line all that remained of the +active Belgian army was in a death struggle in the rain and mud. To +these "schipperkes" honour without stint, as to their gallant king. + +Slightly-wounded Belgians and Belgian stragglers roamed the streets +of Calais. Some had a few belongings wrapped up in handkerchiefs. +Others had only the clothes they wore. Yet they were cheerful; this +was the amazing thing. They moved about, laughing and chatting in +groups. Perhaps this was the best way. Possibly relief at being out of +the hell at the front was the only emotion they could feel. But their +cheerfulness was none the less a dash of sunlight for Calais. + +The French were grim. They were still polite; they went on with their +work. No unwounded French soldiers were to be seen, except the old +Territorials guarding the railroad and the highways. The military +organization of France, which knew what war meant and had +expected war, had drawn every man to his place and held him there +with the inexorable hand of military and racial discipline. Calais had +never considered caring for wounded, and the wounded poured in. I +saw a motor-car with a wounded man stop at a crowded corner, in +the midst of refugees and soldiers; a doctor was leaning over him, +and he died whilst the car waited. + +But the journalists were saying that stories of wounded men were +likewise stale. So they were, for Europe was red with wounded. Train +after train brought in its load from the front, and Calais tried to care +for them. At least, it had buildings which would give shelter from +the rain. On the floor of a railway freight shed the wounded lay in +long rows, with just enough space between them to make an alley. +Those in the row against one of the walls were German prisoners. +Their green uniforms melted into the stone of the wall and did not +show the mud stains. Two slightly wounded had their heads together +whispering. They were helplessly tired, though not as tired as most +of the others, those two stalwart young men; but they seemed to be +relieved, almost happy. It did not matter what happened to them, now, +so long as they could rest. + +Next to them a German was dying, and others badly hit were glassy- +eyed in their fatigue and exhaustion. This was the word, exhaustion, +for all the wounded. + +They had not the strength for passion or emotion. The fuel for those +fires was in ashes. All they wanted in this world was to lie quiet; and +some fell asleep not knowing or caring probably whether they were in +Germany or in France. In the other rows, in contrast with this +chameleon, baffling green, were the red trousers of the French and +the dark blue of the Belgian uniforms, sharing the democracy of +exhaustion with their foe. + +A misty rain was falling. In a bright spot of light through a window one +by one the wounded were being lifted up on to a seat, if they were not +too badly hit, and on to an operating-table if their condition were +serious. A doctor and a sturdy Frenchwoman of about thirty, in +spotless white, were in charge. Another woman undid the first-aid +bandage and still another applied a spray. No time was lost; there +were too many wounded to care for. The thing must be done as +rapidly as possible before another train-load came in. If these +attendants were tired, they did not know it any more than the +wounded had realized their fatigue in the passion of battle. The +improvized arrangement to meet an emergency had an appeal which +more elaborate arrangements of organization which I had seen +lacked. It made war a little more red; humanity a little more human +and kind and helpless under the scourge which it had brought on +itself. + +Though Calais was not prepared for wounded, when they came the +women of energy and courage turned to the work without jealousy, +without regard to red tape, without fastidiousness. I have in mind half +a dozen other women about the streets that day in uniforms of short +skirts and helmets, who belonged to a volunteer organization which +had taken some care as to its regimentals. They were types not +characteristic of the whole, of whom one practical English doctor said: +"We don't mind as long as they do not get in the way." Their criticisms +of Calais and the arrangements were outspoken; nothing was +adequate; conditions were filthy; it was shameful. They were going to +write to the English newspapers about it and appeal for money. When +they had organized a proper hospital, one should see how the thing +ought to be done. Meantime, these volunteer Frenchwomen were +doing the best they knew how and doing it now. + +A fine-looking young Frenchman who had a shell-wound in the thigh +was being lifted on to the table. He shuddered with pain, as he +clenched his teeth; yet when the dressing was finished he was able to +breathe his thanks. On the seat was a Congo negro who had been +with one of the Belgian regiments, coal black and thick-lipped, with +bloodshot eyes; an unsensitized human organism, his face as +expressionless as his bare back with holes made by shell-fragments. +A young Frenchwoman--she could not have been more than nineteen +--with a face of singular refinement, sprayed his wounds with the +definiteness of one trained to such work, though two days before it +had probably never occurred to her as being within the possibilities +of her existence. Her coolness and the coolness of the other women +in their silent activity had a charm that added to one's devout respect. + +The French wounded, too, were silent, as if in the presence of a crisis +which overwhelmed personal thoughts. Help was needed at the front; +they knew it. On sixty trains in one day sixty thousand French passed +through Calais. With a pass from the French commandant at Calais, I +got on board one of these trains down at the railroad yards at dawn. +This lot were Turcos, under the command of a white-haired veteran of +African campaigns. An utter change of atmosphere from the freight +shed! Perhaps it is only the wounded who have time to think. My +companions in the officers' car were as cheery as the brown devils +whom they led. They had come from the trenches on the Marne, and +their commissariat was a boiled ham, some bread and red wine. +Enough! It was war time, as they said. + +"We were in the Paris railroad yards. That is all we saw of Paris--and +in the night. Hard luck!" + +They had left the Marne the previous day. By night they could be in +the fight. It did not take long to send reinforcements when the line +was closed to all except military traffic and one train followed close on +the heels of another. + +They did not know where they were going; one never knew. Probably +they would get orders at Dunkirk. Father Joffre, when there was a call +for reinforcements, never was in a panicky hurry. He seemed to +understand that the general who made the call could hold out a little +longer; but the reinforcements were always up on time. A long head +had Father Joffre. + +Now I am going to say that life was going on as usual at Dunkirk; that +is the obvious thing to say. The nearer the enemy, the more +characteristic that trite observation of those who have followed the +roads of war in Europe. At Dunkirk you might have a good meal +within sound of the thunder of the guns of the British monitors which +were helping the Belgians to hold their line. At Dunkirk most excellent +pâtisserie was for sale in a confectionery shop. Why shouldn't +tartmakers go on making tarts and selling them? The British naval +reserve officers used to take tea in this shop. Little crowds of citizens +who had nothing to do, which is the most miserable of vocations in +such a crisis, gathered to look at armoured motor-cars which had +come in from the front with bullet dents, which gave them the +atmosphere of battle. + +Beyond Dunkirk, one might see wounded Belgians, fresh from the +field of battle, staggering in, crawling in, hobbling in from the havoc of +shell-fire, their first-aid bandages saturated with mud, their ungainly +and impracticable uniforms oozing mud, ghosts of men-these +"schipperkes" of the nation that was unprepared for war who had +done their part, when the only military thought was for more men, +unwounded men, British, French, Belgian, to stem the German tide. +Yet many of these Belgians, even these, were cheerful. They could +still smile and say, "Bonne chance!" + +Indeed, there seemed no limit to the cheerfulness of Belgians. At a +hospital in Calais I met a Belgian professor with his head a white ball +of bandages, showing a hole for one eye and a slit for the mouth. He +had been one of the cyclist force which took account of many +German cavalry scouts in the first two weeks of the war. A staff +motor-car had run over him on the road. + +"I think the driver of the car was careless," he said mildly, as if he +were giving a gentle reproof to a student. + +By contrast, he had reason to be thankful for his lot. Looked after by a +brave man attendant in another room were the wounded who were +too horrible to see; who must die. Then, in another, you had a picture +of a smiling British regular, with a British nurse and an Englishwoman +of Calais to look after him. They read to him, they talked to him, they +vied with each other in rearranging his pillows or bedclothes. He was +a hero of a story; but it rather puzzled him why he should be. Why +were a lot of people paying so much attention to him for doing his +duty? + +In the cavalry, he had been separated from his regiment on the +retreat from Mons. Wandering about the country, he came up with a +regiment of cuirassiers and asked if he might not fight with them. A +number of the cuirassiers spoke English. They took him into the +ranks. The regiment went far over on the Marne, through towns with +French names which he could not pronounce, this man in khaki with +the French troopers. He was marked. C'est un Anglais! People +cheered him and threw flowers to him in regions which had never +seen one of the soldiers of the Ally before. + +Yes, officers and gentlemen invited him to dine, like he was a +gentleman, he said, and not a Tommy, and the French Government +had given him a decoration called the Legion of Honour or something +like that. This was all very fine; but the best thing was that his own +colonel, when he returned, had him up before his company and made +a speech to him for fighting with the French when he could not find +his own regiment. He was supremely happy, this Tommy. In waiting +Calais one might witness about all the emotions and contrasts of war +--and many which one does not find at the front. + + + + + +VI +In Germany + + + +Never had the war seemed a more monstrous satire than on that first +day in Germany as the train took me to Berlin. It was the other side of +the wall of gun and rifle-fire where another set of human beings were +giving life in order to take life. The Lord had fashioned them in the +same pattern on both sides of the wall. Their children were born in the +same way; they bled from wounds in the same way--but why go on in +this vicious circle of thought? + +My impressions of Germany were brief, and the clearer perhaps for +being brief, and drawn on the fresh background of Paris and Calais +waiting to know their fate; of England staring across the Channel, in a +suspense which her stoicism would not confess, to learn the result of +the battle for the Channel ports; of England and France straining with +all their strength to hold, while the Germans exerted all theirs to gain, +a goal; of Holland, stolid mistress of her neutrality, fearing for it and +profiting by it while she took in the Belgian foundlings dropped on her +steps--Holland, that little land at peace, with the storms lashing +around her. + +The stiff and soldierly-appearing reserve officer with bristling +Kaiserian moustache, so professedly alert and efficient, who looked +at the mottled back of my passport and frowned at the recent visa, "A +la Place de Calais, bon pour aller à Dunkerque, P.O. Le Chef d'Etat- +Major," but let me by without questions or fuss, aroused visions of a +frontier stone wall studded with bayonets. + +For something about him expressed a certain character of downright +militancy lacking in either an English or a French guard. I could +imagine his contempt for both and particularly for a "sloppy, +undisciplined" American guard, as he would have called one of ours. +Personal feelings did not enter into his thoughts. He had none; only +national feelings, this outpost of the national organism. The mood of +the moment was friendliness to Americans. Germany wished to +create the impression on the outside world through the agency of the +neutral press that she was in | danger of starving, whilst she amassed +munitions for her summer campaign and the Allies were lulled into +confidence of siege by famine rather than by arms. A double, a treble +purpose the starving campaign served; for it also ensured economy +of foodstuffs, whilst nothing so puts the steel into a soldier's heart as +the thought that the enemy is trying to beat him through taking the +bread out of his mouth and the mouths of the women and children +dependent upon him. + +Tears and laughter and moods and passions organized! Seventy +millions in the union of determined earnestness of a life-and-death +issue! Germany had studied more than how to make war with an +army. She had studied how the people at home should help an army +to make war. + +"With our immense army, which consists of all the able-bodied youth +of the people," as a German officer said, "when we go to war the +people must be passionate for war. Their impulse must be the +impulse of the army. Their spirit will drive the army on. They must be +drilled, too, in their part. No item in national organization is too small +to have its effect." + +Compared to the, French, who had turned grim and gave their prayers +as individuals to hearten their soldiers, the Germans were as +responsive as a stringed instrument to the master musician's touch. A +whisper in Berlin was enough to set a new wave of passion in motion, +which spread to the trenches east and west. + +Something like the team-work of the "rah-rah" of college athletics was +applied to the nation. The soft pedal on this emotion, the loud on that, +or a new cry inaugurated which all took up, not with the noisy, paid +insincerity of a claque, but with the vibrant force of a trained orchestra +with the brasses predominant. + +There seemed less of the spontaneity of an individualistic people than +of the exaltation of a religious revival. If the army were a machine of +material force, then the people were a machine of psychical force. +Though the thing might leave the observer cold, as a religious revival +leaves the sceptic, yet he must admire. I was told that I should +succumb to the contagion as others had; but it was not the optimism +which was dinned into my ears that affected me as much as +sidelights. + +When I took a walk away from a railway station where I had to make +a train connection, I saw a German reservist of forty-five who was +helping with one hand to thresh the wheat from his farm, on a grey, +lowering winter day. The other hand was in a bandage. He had been +allowed to go home until he was well enough to fight again. The same +sort of scene I had witnessed in France; the wounded man trying to +make up to his family the loss of his labour during his absence at the +front. + +Only, that man in France was on the defensive; he was righting to +hold what he had and on his own soil. The German had been fighting +on the enemy's soil to gain more land. He, too, thought of it as the +defensive. All Germany insisted that it was on the defensive. But it +was the defensive of a people who think only in the offensive. That +was it--that was the vital impression of Germany revealed in every +conversation and every act. + +The Englishman leans back on his oars; the German leans forward. +The Englishman's phrase is "Stick it," which means to hold what you +have; the German's phrase is "Onward." It was national youth against +national middle-age. A vessel with pressure of increase from within +was about to expand or burst. A vessel which is large and +comfortable for its contents was resisting pressure from without. The +French were saying, What if we should lose? And the Germans were +saying, What if we should not win all that we are entitled to? Germany +had been thinking of a mightier to-morrow and England of a to- +morrow as good as to-day. Germany looked forward to a fortune to +be won at thirty; England considered the safeguarding of her fortune +at fifty. + +It is not professions that count so much as the thing that works out +from the nature of a situation and the contemporaneous bent of a +people. The Englishman thought of his defence as keeping what he +already had; the German was defending what he considered that he +was entitled to. If he could make more of Calais than the French, then +Calais ought to be his. A nation, with the "closed in" culture of the +French on one side and the enormous, unwieldy mass of Russia on +the other, convinced of its superiority and its ability to beat either foe, +thought that it was the friend of peace because it had withheld the +blow. When the striking time came, it struck hard and forced the +battle on enemy soil, which proved, to its logic, that it was only +receiving payment of a debt owed it by destiny. + +Bred to win, confident that the German system was the right system +of life, it could imagine the German Michael as the missionary of the +system, converting the Philistine with machine-guns. Confidence, the +confidence which must get new vessels for the energy that has +overflowed, the confidence of all classes in the realization of the long- +promised day of the "place in the sun" for the immense population +drilled in the system, was the keynote. They knew that they could lick +the other fellow and went at him from the start as if they expected to +lick him, with a diligence which made the most of their training and +preparation. + +When I asked for a room with a bath in a leading Berlin hotel, the +clerk at the desk said, "I will see, sir." He ran his eye up and down the +list methodically before he added: "Yes, we have a good room on the +second floor." Afterwards, I learned that all except the first and +second floors of the hotel were closed. The small dining-room only +was open, and every effort was made to make the small dining-room +appear normal. + +He was an efficient clerk; the buttons who opened the room door, a +goose-stepping, alert sprout of German militarism, exhibiting a +punctiliousness of attention which produced a further effect of +normality. Those Germans who were not doing their part at the front +were doing it at home by bluffing the other Germans and themselves +into confidence. The clerk believed that some day he would have +more guests than ever and a bigger hotel. All who suffered from the +war could afford to wait. Germany was winning; the programme was +being carried out. The Kaiser said so. In proof of it, multitudes of +Russian soldiers were tilling the soil in place of Germans, who were at +the front taking more Russian soldiers. + +Everybody that one met kept telling him that everything was perfectly +normal. No intending purchaser of real estate in a boom town was +ever treated to more optimistic propaganda. Perfectly normal--when +one found only three customers in a large department store! Perfectly +normal--when the big steamship offices presented in their windows +bare blue seas which had once been charted with the going and +coming of German ships! Perfectly normal--when the spool of the +killed and wounded rolled out by yards like that of a ticker on a busy +day on the Stock Exchange! Perfectly normal--when women tried to +smile in the streets with eyes which had plainly been weeping at +home! + +Are you for us or against us? The question was put straight to the +stranger. Let him say that he was a neutral and they took it for +granted that he was a pro-Ally. He must be pro-something. + +As I returned to the railway station after my walk, a soldier took me in +charge and marched me to the office of the military commandant. +"Are you an Englishman?" was his first question. The guttural, military +emphasis which he put on "Englishman" was most significant. Which +brings us to another factor in the psychology of war: hate. + +"If men are to fight well," said a German officer, "it is necessary that +they hate. They must be exalted by a great passion when they charge +into machine-guns." + +Hate was officially distilled and then instilled--hate against England, +almost exclusively. The public rose to that. If England had not come +in, the German military plan would have succeeded: first, the crushing +of France; then, the crushing of Russia. The despised Belgian, that +small boy who had tripped the giant and then hugged the giant's +knees, delaying him on the road to Paris, was having a rest. For he +had been hated very hard for a while with the hate of contempt--that +miserable pigmy who had interfered with the plans of the machine. + +The French were almost popular. The Kaiser had spoken of them as +"brave foes." What quarrel could France and Germany have? France +had been the dupe of England. Cartoons of the hairy, barbarous +Russian and the futile little Frenchman in his long coat, borne on +German bayonets or pecking at the boots of a giant Michael, were not +in fashion. For Germany was then trying to arrange a separate peace +with both France and Russia. She was ready to yield at least part of +Alsace-Lorraine to France. When the negotiations fell through, +cartoonists were again free to make sport of the aenemic Gaul and +the untutored Slav. It was not alone in Germany that a responsive +Press played the weather vane to Government wishes; but in +Germany the machinery ran smoothest. + +For the first time I knew what it was to have a human being whom I +had never seen before hate me. At sight of me a woman who had +been a good Samaritan, with human kindness and charity in her +eyes, turned a malignant devil. Stalwart as Minerva she was, a fair- +haired German type of about thirty-five, square-shouldered and +robustly attractive in her Red Cross uniform. Being hungry at the +station at Hanover, I rushed out of the train to get something to eat, +and saw some Frankfurter sandwiches on a table in front of me as I +alighted. + +My hand went out for one, when I was conscious of a movement and +an exclamation which was hostile, and looked up to see Minerva, as +her hand shot out to arrest the movement of mine, with a blaze of +hate, hard, merciless hate, in her eyes, while her lips framed the +word, "Englisher!" If looks were daggers I should have been pierced +through the heart. Perhaps an English overcoat accounted for her +error. Certainly, I promptly recognized mine when I saw that this was +a Red Cross buffet. An Englishman had dared to try to buy a +sandwich meant for German soldiers! She might at least glory in the +fact that her majestic glare had made me most uncomfortable as I +murmured an apology which she received with a stony frown. + +A moment later a soldier approached the buffet. She leaned over, +smiling, as gentle as she had been fierce and malignant a moment +before, making a picture, as she put some mustard on a sandwich for +him, which recalled that of the Frenchwoman among the wounded in +the freight shed at Calais--a simile which would anger them both. + +The Frenchwoman, too, had a Red Cross uniform; she, too, +expressed the mercy and gentle ministration which we like to +associate with woman. But there was the difference of the old culture +and the new; of the race which was fighting to have and the race +which was fighting to hold. The tactics which we call the offensive was +in the German woman's, as in every German's, nature. It had been in +the Frenchwoman's in Napoleon's time. Many racial hates the war +has developed; but that of the German is a seventeen-inch-howitzer, +asphyxiating-gas hate. + +If hates help to win, why not hate as hard as you can? Don't you go to +war to win? There is no use talking of sporting rules and saying that +this and that is "not done" in humane circles--win! The Germans +meant to win. Always I thought of them as having the spirit of the +Middle Ages in their hearts, organized for victory by every modern +method. Three strata of civilization were really fighting, perhaps: The +French, with its inherent individual patriotism which makes a +Frenchman always a Frenchman, its philosophy which prevents +increase of numbers, its thrift and its tenacity; the German, with its +newborn patriotism, its discovery of what it thinks is the golden +system, its fecundity, its aggressiveness, its industry, its ambition; +and the Russian, patient and unbeatable, vague, glamorous, +immense. + +The American is an outsider to them all; some strange melting-pot +product of many races which is trying to forget the prejudices and +hates of the old world and perhaps not succeeding very well, but not +yet convinced that the best means of producing patriotic unity is war. +After this and other experiences, after being given a compartment all +to myself by men who glanced at me with eyes of hate and passed +on to another compartment which was already crowded or stood up +in the aisle of the car, I made a point of buying an American flag for +my buttonhole. + +This helped; but still there was my name, which belonged to an +ancestor who had gone from England to Connecticut nearly three +hundred years ago. Palmer did not belong to the Germanic tribe. He +must be pro the other side. He could not be a neutral and belong to +the human kind with such a name. Only Swenson, or Gansevoort, or +Ah Fong could really be a neutral; and even they were expected to be +on your side secretly. If they weren't they must be on the other. Are +you for us? or, Are you against us? I grew weary of the question in +Germany. If I had been for them I should have "dug in" and not told +them. In France and England they asked you objectively the state of +sentiment in America. But, possibly, the direct, forcible way is the +better for war purposes when you mean to win; for the Germans have +made a study of war. They are experts in war. + +However, the rosy-cheeked German boy, in his green uniform which +could not be washed clean of all the stains of campaigning, whom I +met in the palace grounds at Charlottenberg, did not put this tiresome +question to me. He was the only person I saw in the grounds, whose +quiet I had sought for an hour's respite from war. One could be +shown through the palace by the lonely old caretaker, who missed +the American tourist, without hearing a guide's monotone explaining +who the gentleman in the frame was and what he did and who +painted his picture. This boy could have more influence in making me +see the German view-point than the propagandist men in the +Government offices and the belligerent German-Americans in hotel +lobbies--those German-Americans who were so frequently in trouble +in other days for disobeying the verbotens and then asking our State +Department to get them out of it, now pluming themselves over +victories won by another type of German. + +About twenty-one years old this boy, round-faced and blue-eyed, who +saw in Queen Louisa the most beautiful heroine of all history. The +hole in his blouse which the bullet had made was nicely sewed up +and his wound had healed. He was fighting in France when he was +hit; the name of the place he did not know. Karl, his chum, had been +killed. The doctor had given him the bullet, which he exhibited proudly +as if it were different from other bullets, as it was to him. In a few days +he must return to the front. Perhaps the war would be over soon; he +hoped so. + +The French were brave; but they hated the Germans and thought +that they must make war on the Germans, and they were a cruel +people, guilty of many atrocities. So the Fatherland had fought to +conquer the enemies who planned her destruction. A peculiar, +childlike naïveté accompanied his intelligence, trained to run in certain +grooves, which is the product of the German type of popular +education; that trust in his superiors which comes from a diligent and +efficient paternalism. He knew nothing of the atrocities which +Germans were said to have committed in Belgium. The British and +the French had set Belgium against Germany and Germany had to +strike Belgium for playing false to her treaties. But he did think that +the French were brave; only misled by their Government. And the +Kaiser? His eyes lighted in a way that suggested that the Kaiser was +almost a god to him. He had heard of the things that the British said +against the Kaiser and they made him want to fight for his Kaiser. He +was only one German--but the one was millions. + +In actual learning which comes from schoolbooks, I think that he was +better informed than the average Frenchman of his class; but I +should say that he had thought less; that his mind was more of a hot- +house product of a skilful nurseryman's hand, who knew the value of +training and feeding and pruning the plant if you were to make it yield +well. A kindly, willing, likable boy, peculiarly simple and unspoiled, it +seemed a pity that all his life he should have to bear the brand of the +Lusitania on his brow; that event which history cannot yet put in its +true perspective. Other races will think of the Lusitania when they +meet a German long after the Belgian atrocities are forgotten. It will +endure to plague a people like the exile of the Acadians, the +guillotining of innocents in the French Revolution, and the burning of +the Salem witches. But he had nothing to do with it. A German +admiral gave an order as a matter of policy to make an impression +that his submarine campaign was succeeding and to interfere with +the transport of munitions, and the Kaiser told this boy that it was +right. One liked the boy, his loyalty and his courage; liked him as a +human being. But one wished that he might think more. Perhaps he +will one of these days, if he survives the war. + + + + + + + + +VII +How The Kaiser Leads + + +Only a week before I had seen wounded Germans in the freight shed +at Calais; and all the prisoners that I had seen elsewhere, whether in +ones or twos, brought in fresh from the front or in columns under +escort, had been Germans. The sharpest contrast of all in war which +the neutral may observe is seeing the men of one army which, from +the other side, he had watched march into battle--armed, confident, +disciplined parts of an organization, ready to sweep all before them in +a charge--become so many sheep, disarmed, disorganized, rounded +up like vagrants in a bread-line and surrounded by a fold of barbed +wire and sentries. + +Such was the lot of the nine thousand British, French, and Russians +whom I saw at Döberitz, near Berlin. This was a show camp, I was +told, but it suffices. Conditions at other camps might be worse; +doubtless were. England treated its prisoners best, unless my +information from unprejudiced observers be wrong. But Germany had +enormous numbers of prisoners. A nation in her frame of mind +thought only of the care of the men who could fight for her, not of +those who had fought against her. + +Then, the German nature is one thing and the British another. +Crossing the Atlantic on the Lusitania we had a German reserve +officer who was already on board when the evening editions arrived +at the pier with news that England had declared war on Germany. +Naturally he must become a prisoner upon his arrival at Liverpool. He +was a steadfast German. When a wireless report of the German +repulse at Liege came, he would not believe it. Germany had the +system and Germany would win. But when he said, "I should rather +be a German on board a British ship than a Briton on board a +German ship, under the circumstances," his remark was significant in +more ways than one. + +His English fellow-passengers on that splendid liner which a German +submarine was to send to the bottom showed him no discourtesy. +They passed the time of day with him and seemed to want to make +his awkward situation easy. Yet it was apparent that he regarded their +kindliness as racial weakness. Krieg ist Krieg. When Germany made +war she made war. + +So allowances are in order. One prison camp was like another in this +sense, that it deprived a man of his liberty. It put him in jail. The +British regular, who is a soldier by profession, was, in a way, in a +separate class. But the others were men of civil industries and +settled homes. Except during their term in the army, they went to +the shop or the office every day, or tilled their farms. They were +free; they had their work to occupy their minds during the day and +freedom of movement when they came home in the evening. They +might read the news by their firesides; they were normal human +beings in civilized surroundings. + +Here, they were pacing animals in a cage, commanded by two field- +guns, who might walk up and down and play games and go through +the daily drill under their own non-commissioned officers. It was the +mental stagnation of the thing that was appalling. Think of such a lot +for a man used to action in civil life--and they call war action! Think of +a writer, a business man, a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, reduced to +this fenced-in existence, when he had been the kind who got +impatient if he had to wait for a train that was late! Shut yourself up in +your own backyard with a man with a rifle watching you for twenty- +four hours and see whether, if you have the brain of a mouse, prison- +camp life can be made comfortable, no matter how many greasy +packs of cards you have. And lousy, besides! At times one had to +laugh over what Mark Twain called "the damfool human race." + +Inside a cookhouse at one end of the enclosure was a row of soup- +boilers. Outside was a series of railings, forming stalls for the +prisoners when they lined up for meals. In the morning, some +oatmeal and coffee; at noon, some cabbage soup boiled with +desiccated meat and some bread; at night, more coffee and bread. +How one thrived on this fare depended much upon how he liked +cabbage soup. The Russians liked it. They were used to it. + +"We never keep the waiter late by tarrying over our liqueurs," said a +Frenchman. + +Our reservist guide had run away to America in youth, where he had +worked at anything he could find to do; but he had returned to Berlin, +where he had a "good little business" before the war. He was stout +and cheery, and he referred to the prisoners as "boys." The French +and Russians were good boys; but the English were bad boys, who +had no discipline. He said that all received the same food as German +soldiers. It seemed almost ridiculous chivalry that men who had +fought against you and were living inactive lives should be as well fed +as the men who were fighting for you. The rations that I saw given to +German soldiers were better. But that was what the guide said. + +"This is our little sitting-room for the English non-commissioned +officers," he explained, as he opened the door of a shanty which had +a pane of glass for a window. Some men sitting around a small stove +arose. One, a big sergeant-major, towered over the others; he had +the colours of the South African campaign on the breast of his worn +khaki blouse and stood very straight as if on parade. By the window +was a Scot in kilts, who was equally tall. He looked around over his +shoulder and then turned his face away with the pride of a man who +does not care to be regarded as a show. + +His uniform was as neat as if he were at inspection; and the way he +held his head, the haughtiness of his profile against the stream of +light, recalled the unconquerable spirit of the Prussian prisoner whom +I had seen on the road during the fighting along the Aisne. Only a +regular, but he was upholding the dignity of Britain in that prison camp +better than many a member of Parliament on the floor of the House of +Commons. I asked our guide about him. + +"A good boy that! All his boys obey him and he obeys all the +regulations. But he acts as if we Germans were his prisoners." + +The British might not be good boys, but they would be clean. They +were diligent in the chase in their underclothes; their tents were free +from odour; and there was something resolute about a Tommy who +was bare to the waist in that freezing wind, making an effort at a bath. +I heard tales of Mr. Atkins' characteristic thoughtlessness. While the +French took good care of their clothes and kept their tents neat, he +was likely to sell his coat or his blanket if he got a chance in order to +buy something that he liked to eat. One Tommy who sat on his straw +tick inside the tent was knitting. When I asked him where he had +learned to knit, he replied: "India!" and gave me a look as much as to +say, "Now pass on to the next cage." + +The British looked the most pallid of all, I thought. They were not used +to cabbage soup. Their stomachs did not take hold of it, as one said; +and they loathed the black bread. No white bread and no jam! Only +when you have seen Mr. Atkins with a pot of jam and a loaf of white +bread and some bacon frizzling near by can you realize the hardship +which cabbage soup meant to that British regular who gets lavish +rations of the kind he hkes along with his shilling a day for +professional soldiering. + +"You see, the boys go about as they please," said our guide. "They +don't have a bad time. Three meals a day and nothing to do." + +Members of a laughing circle which included some British were taking +turns at a kind of Russian blind man's buff, which seemed to me +about in keeping with the mental capacity of a prison camp. "No +French!" I remarked. + +"The French keep to themselves, but they are good boys," he replied. +"Maybe it is because we have only a few of them here." + +Every time one sounded the subject he was struck by the attitude of +the Germans toward the French, not alone explained by the policy of +the hour which hoped for a separate peace with France. Perhaps it +was best traceable to the Frenchman's sense of amour propre, his +philosophy, his politeness, or an indefinable quality in the grain of the +man. + +The Germans affected to look down on the French; yet there was +something about the Frenchmen which the Germans had to respect-- +something not won by war. I heard admiration for them at the same +time as contempt for their red trousers and their unprepared-ness. +While we are in this avenue, German officers had respect for the +dignity of British officers, the leisurely, easy quality of superiority +which they preserved in any circumstances. The qualities of a +race come out in adversity no less than in prosperity. Thus, +their captors regarded the Russians as big, good-natured children. + +"Yes, they play games and we give the English an English newspaper +to read twice a week," said our affable guide, unconscious, I think, of +any irony in the remark. For the paper was the Continental News, +published in "the American language" for American visitors. You +make take it for granted that it did not exaggerate any success of the +Allies. + +"We have a prince and the son of a rich man among the Russian +prisoners--yes, quite in the Four Hundred," the guide went on. "They +were such good boys we put them to work in the cookhouse. Star +boarders, eh? They like it. They get more to eat." + +These two men were called out for exhibition. Youngsters of the first +line they were and even in their privates' uniform they bore the +unmistakable signs of belonging to the Russian upper class. Each +saluted and made his bow, as if he had come on to do a turn before +the footlights. It was not the first time they had been paraded before +visitors. In the prince's eye I noted a twinkle, which as much as said: +"Well, why not? We don't mind." + +When we were taken through the cookhouse I asked about a little +Frenchman who was sitting with his nose in a soup bowl He seemed +too near-sighted ever to get into any army. His face was distinctly that +of a man of culture; one would have guessed that he was an artist. + +"Shrapnel injury," explained the guide. "He will never be able to see +much again. We let him come in here to eat." + +I wanted to talk with him, but these exhibits are supposed to be all in +pantomime; a question and you are urged along to the next exhibit. +He was young and all his life he was to be like that--like some poor, +blind kitten! + +The last among a number of Russians returning to the enclosure from +some fatigue duty was given a blow in the seat of his baggy trousers +with a stick which one of the guards carried. The Russian quickened +his steps and seemed to think nothing of the incident. But to me it +was the worst thing that I saw at Döberitz, this act of physical violence +against a man by one who has power over him. The personal +equation was inevitable to the observer. Struck in that way, could one +fail to strike back? Would not he strike in red anger, without stopping +to think of consequences? There is something bred into the Anglo- +Saxon which resents a physical blow. We court-martial an officer for +laying hands on a private, though that private may get ten years in +prison on his trial. Yet the Russian thought nothing of it, or the guard, +either. An officer in the German or the Russian army may strike a +man. + +"Would the guard hit a Frenchman in that way?" I asked. Our guide +said not; the French were good boys. Or an Englishman? He had +not seen it done. The Englishman would swear and curse, he was +sure, and might fight, they were such undisciplined boys. But the +Russians--"they are like kids. It was only a slap. Didn't hurt him any." + +New barracks for the prisoners were being built which would be +comfortable, if crowded, even in winter. The worst thing, I repeat, was +the deadly monotony of the confinement for a period which would end +only when the war ended. Any labour should be welcome to a +healthy-minded man. It was a mercy that the Germans set prisoners +to grading roads, to hoeing and harvesting, retrieving thus a little of +the wastage of war. Or was it only the bland insistence that conditions +were luxurious that one objected to?--not that they were really bad. +The Germans had a horde of prisoners to care for; vast armies to +maintain; and a new volunteer force of a million or more--two millions +was the official report--to train. + +While we were at the prison camp we heard at intervals the rap-rap of +a machine-gun at the practice range near by, drilling to take more +prisoners, and on the way back to Berlin we passed companies of +volunteers returning from drill with that sturdy march characteristic of +German infantry. + +In Berlin I was told again that everything was perfectly normal. Trains +were running as usual to Hamburg, if one cared to go there. "As +usual" in war time was the ratio of one to five in peace time. + +At Hamburg, in sight of steamers with cold boilers and the forests of +masts of idle ships, one saw what sea power meant. That city of +eager shippers and traders, that doorstep of Germany, was as dead +as Ypres, without a building being wrecked by shells. Hamburgers +tried to make the best of it; they assumed an air of optimism; they still +had faith that richer cargoes than ever might come over the sea, +while a ghost, that of bankruptcy, walked the streets, looking at office- +windows and the portholes of ships. + +For one had only to scratch the cuticle of that optimism to find that the +corpuscles did not run red. They were blue. Hamburg's citizens had +to exhibit the fortitude of those of Rheims under another kind of +bombardment: that of the silent guns of British Dreadnoughts far out +of range. They were good Germans; they meant to play the game; +but that once prosperous business man of past middle age, too old to +serve, who had little to do but think, found it hard to keep step with +the propagandist attitude of Berlin. + +A free city, a commercial city, a city unto itself, Hamburg had been in +other days a cosmopolitan trader with the rest of the world. It had +even been called an English city, owing to the number of English +business men there as agents of the immense commerce between +England and Germany. Everyone who was a clerk or an employer +spoke English; and through all the irritation between the two countries +which led up to the war, English and German business men kept on +the good terms which commerce requires and met at luncheons and +dinners and in their clubs. Englishmen were married to German +women and Germans to Englishwomen, while both prayed that their +governments would keep the peace. + +Now the English husband of the German woman, though he had +spent most of his life in Hamburg, though perhaps he had been born +in Germany, had been interned and, however large his bank account, +was taking his place with his pannikin in the stalls in front of some +cookhouse for his ration of cabbage soup. Germans were kind to +English friends personally; but when it came to the national feeling of +Germany against England, nowhere was it so bitter as in Hamburg. +Here the hate was born of more than national sentiment; it was of the +pocket; of seeing fortunes that had been laboriously built dwindling, +once thriving businesses in suspended animation. There was no +moratorium in name; there was worse than one in fact. A patriotic +freemasonry in misfortune took its place. No business man could +press another for the payment of debts lest he be pressed in turn. +What would happen when the war was over? How long would it last? + +It was not quite as cruel to give one's opinion as two years to the +inquirers in Hamburg as to the director of the great Rudolph Virchow +Hospital in Berlin. Here, again, the system; the submergence of the +individual in the organization. The wounded men seemed parts of a +machine; the human touch which may lead to disorganization was +less in evidence than with us, where the thought is: This is an +individual human being, with his own peculiarities of temperament, his +own theories of life, his own ego; not just a quantity of brain, tissue, +blood and bone which is required for the organism called man. A +human mechanism wounded at the German front needed repairs and +repairs were made to that mechanism. The niceties might be lacking +but the repair factory ran steadily and efficiently at full blast. Germany +had to care for her wounded by the millions and by the millions she +cared for them. "Two years!" + +I was sorry that I had said this to the director, for its effect on him was +like a blow in the chest. The vision of more and more wounded +seemed to rise before the eyes of this man, weary with the strain of +doing the work which he knew so well how to do as a cog in the +system. But for only a moment. He stiffened; he became the +drillmaster again; and the tragic look in his eyes was succeeded by +one of that strange exaltation I had seen in the eyes of so many +Germans, which appeared to carry their mind away from you and +their surroundings to the battlefield where they were fighting for their +"place in the sun." "Two years, then. We shall see it through!" He had +a son who had been living in a French family near Lille studying +French and he had heard nothing of him since the war began. They +were good people, this French family; his son liked them. They would +be kind to him; but what might not the French Government do to him, +a German! He had heard terrible stories--the kind of stories that +hardened the fighting spirit of German soldiers--about the treatment +German civilians had received in France. He could think of one +French family which he knew as being kind, but not of the whole +French people as a family. As soon as the national and racial element +were considered the enemy became a beast. + +To him, at least, Berlin was not normal; nor was it to that keeper of a +small shop off Unter den Linden which sold prints and etchings and +cartoons. What a boon my order of cartoons was! He forgot his +psychology code and turned human and confidential. The war had +been hard on him; there was no business at all, not even in cartoons. + +The Opera alone seemed something like normal to one who trusted +his eyes rather than his ears for information. There was almost a full +house for the "Rosenkavalier"; for music is a solace in time of +trouble, as other capitals than Berlin revealed. Officers with close- +cropped heads, wearing Iron Crosses, some with arms in slings, +promenaded in the refreshment room of the Berlin Opera House +between the acts. This in the hour of victory should mean a picture of +gaiety. But there was a telling hush about the scene. Possibly music +had brought out the truth in men's hearts that war, this kind of war, +was not gay or romantic, only murderous and destructive. One had +noticed already that the Prussian officer, so conscious of his caste, +who had worked so indefatigably to make an efficient army, had +become chastened. He had found that common men, butchers and +bakers and candlestick makers, could be as brave for their Kaiser as +he. And more of these officers had the Iron Cross than not. + +The prevalence of Iron Crosses appealed to the risibilities of the +superficial observer. But in this, too, there was system. An officer who +had been in several battles without winning one must feel a trifle +declassed and that it was time for him to make amends to his pride. If +many Crosses were given to privates, then the average soldier would +not think the Cross a prize for the few who had luck, but something +that he, too, might win by courage and prompt obedience to orders. + +The masterful calculation, the splendid pretence and magnificent +offence could not hide the suspense and suffering. Nowhere were +you able to forget the war or to escape the all-pervading influence of +the Kaiser. The empty royal box at the Opera, His Opera, called him +to mind. What would happen before he reappeared there for a gala +performance? When again, in the shuffle of European politics, would +the audience see the Tsar of Russia or the King of England by the +Kaiser's side? + +It was his Berlin, the heart of his Berlin, that was before you when you +left the Opera--the new Berlin, which he had fathered in its boom +growth, taking few pages of a guidebook compared to Paris. In front +of his palace Russian field-guns taken by von Hindenburg at +Tannenberg were exhibited as the spoils of his war; while not far +away the never-to-be-forgotten grandfather in bronze rode home in +triumph from Paris. + +One wondered what all the people in the ocean of Berlin flats were +thinking as one walked past the statue of Frederick the Great, with his +sharp nose pointing the way for future conquerors, and on along +Unter den Linden, with its broad pavements gleaming in a +characteristic misty winter night, through the Brandenburg Gate of his +Brandenburg dynasty, or to the statue of the blood-and-iron +Bismarck, with his strong jaw and pugnacious nose--the statesman +militant in uniform with a helmet over his bushy brow--who had made +the German Empire, that young empire which had not yet known +defeat because of the system which makes ready and chooses the +hour for its blow. + +Not far away one had glimpses of the white statues of My Ancestors +of the Sieges Allée, or avenue of victory--the present Kaiser's own +idea--with the great men of the time on their right and left hands. +People whose sense of taste, not to say of humour, may limit their +statecraft had smiled at this monotonous and grandiose row of the +dead bones of distinguished and mediocre royalty immortalized in +marble to the exact number of thirty-two. But they were My Ancestors, +O Germans, who made you what you are! Right dress and keep that +line of royalty in mind! It is your royal line, older than the trees in the +garden, firm as the rocks, Germany itself. The last is not the least in +might nor the least advertised in the age of publicity. He is to make +the next step in advance for Germany and bring more tribute home, if +all Germans will be loyal to him. + +One paused to look at the photograph of the Kaiser in a shop +window; a big photograph of that man whose photograph is +everywhere in Germany. It is a stern face, this face, as the leader +wishes his people to see him, with its erectile moustache, the lips firm +set, the eyes challenging and the chin held so as to make it symbolic +of strength: a face that strives to say in that pose: "Onward! I lead!" +Germans have seen it every day for a quarter of a century. They +have lived with it and the character of it has grown into their natures. + +In the same window was a smaller photograph of the Crown Prince, +with his cap rakishly on the side of his head, as if to give himself a +distinctive characteristic in the German eye; but his is the face of a +man who is not mature for his years, and a trifle dissipated. For a +while after the war began he, as leader of the war party, knew the joy +of being more popular than the Kaiser. But the tide turned soon in +favour of a father who appeared to be drawn reluctantly into the +ordeal of death and wounds for his people in "defence of the +Fatherland" and against a son who had clamoured for the horror +which his people had begun to realize, particularly as his promised +entry into Paris had failed. There can be no question which of the two +has the wise head. + +The Crown Prince had passed into the background. He was +marooned with ennui in the face of French trenches in the West, +whilst all the glory was being won in the East. Indeed, father had put +son in his place. One day, the gossips said, son might have to ask +father, in the name of the Hohenzollerns, to help him recover his +popularity. His photograph had been taken down from shop windows +and in its place, on the right hand of the Kaiser in the Sieges Allée of +contemporary fame, was the bull-dog face of von Hindenburg, victor +of Tannenberg. The Kaiser shared von Hindenburg's glory; he has +shared the glory of all victorious generals; such is his histrionic gift in +the age of the spotlight. + +Make no mistake--his people, deluded or not, love him not only +because he is Kaiser, but also for himself. He is a clever man, who +began his career with the enormous capital of being emperor and +made the most of his position to amaze the world with a more +versatile and also a more inscrutable personality than most people +realize. Poseur, perhaps, but an emperor these days may need to be +a poseur in order to wear the ermine of Divine Right convincingly to +most of his subjects. + +His pose is always that of the anointed King of My People. He has +never given down on that point, however much he has applied State +Socialism to appease the Socialistic agitation. He has personified +Germany and German ambition with an adroit egoism and the +sentiment of his inheritance. Those critics who see the machinery of +the throne may say that he has the mind of a journalist, quick of +perception, ready of assimilation, knowing many things in their +essentials, but no one thing thoroughly. But this is the kind of mind +that a ruler requires, plus the craft of the politician. + +Is he a good man? Is he a great man? Banal questions! He is the +Kaiser on the background of the Sieges Allée, who has first promoted +himself, then the Hohenzollerns, and then the interests of Germany, +with all the zest of the foremost shareholder and chairman of the +corporation. No German in the German hothouse of industry has +worked harder than he. He has kept himself up to the mark and tried +to keep his people up to the mark. It may be the wrong kind of a +mark. Indeed, without threshing the old straw of argument, most of +the people of the civilized world are convinced that it is. + +That young private I met in the grounds at Charlottenberg, that +wounded man helping with the harvest, that tired hospital director, the +small trader in Hamburg, the sturdy Red Cross woman in the station +at Hanover, the peasants and the workers throughout Germany, kept +unimaginatively at their tasks, do not see the machinery of the throne, +only the man in the photograph who supplies them with a national +imagination. His indefatigable goings and comings and his poses fill +their minds with a personality which typifies the national spirit. Will +this change after the war? But that, too, is not a subject for speculation +here. + +Through the war his pose has met the needs of the hour. An emperor +bowed down with the weight of his people's sacrifice, a grey, +determined emperor hastening to honour the victors, covering up +defeats, urging his legions on, himself at the front, never seen by the +general public in the rear; a mysterious figure, not saying much and +that foolish to the Allies but appealing to the Germans, rather +appearing to submerge his own personality in the united patriotism of +the struggle--such is the picture which the throne machinery has +impressed on the German mind. The histrionic gift may be at its best +in creating a saga. + +Always the offensive! Germany would keep on striking as long as she +had strength for a blow, whilst making the pretence that she had the +strength for still heavier blows. One wonders, should she gain peace +by her blows, if the Allies would awaken after the treaty was signed to +find how near exhaustion she had been, or that she was so self- +contained in her production of war material that she had only +borrowed from Hans to pay Fritz, who were both Germans. Russia +did not know how' nearly she had Japan beaten until after +Portsmouth. Japan's method was the German method; she learned it +from Germany. + +At the end of my journey I was hearing the same din of systematic +optimism in my ears as in the beginning. + +"Warsaw, then Paris, then our Zeppelins will finish London," said the +restaurant keeper on the German side of the Dutch frontier; "and our +submarines will settle the British navy before the summer is over. No, +the war will not last a year." + +"And is America next on the programme?" I asked. + +"No. America is too strong; too far away." + +I was guilty of a faint suspicion that he was a diplomatist. + + + + +VIII +In Belgium Under The Germans + + + +No week at the front, where war is made, left the mind so full as this +week beyond the sound of the guns with war's results. It taught the +meaning of the simple words life and death, hunger and food, love +and hate. One was in a house with sealed doors where a family of +seven millions sat in silence and idleness, thinking of nothing but war +and feeling nothing but war. He had war cold as the fragments of an +exploded shell beside a dead man on a frozen road; war analysed +and docketed for exhibition, without its noise, its distraction, and its +hot passion. + +In Ostend I had seen the Belgian refugees in flight, and I had seen +them pouring into London stations, bedraggled outcasts of every +class, with the staring uncertainty of the helpless human flock flying +from the storm. England, who considered that they had suffered for +her sake, opened her purse and her heart to them; she opened her +homes, both modest suburban homes and big country houses which +are particular about their guests in time of peace. No British family +without a Belgian was doing its duty. Bishop's wife and publican's wife +took whatever Belgian was sent to her. The refugee packet arrived +without the nature of contents on the address tag. All Belgians had +become heroic and noble by grace of the defenders of Liege. + +Perhaps the bishop's wife received a young woman who smoked +cigarettes, and asked her hostess for rouge, and the publican's wife +received a countess. Mrs. Smith, of Clapham, who had brought up +her children in the strictest propriety, welcomed as play-mates for her +dears, whom she had kept away from the contaminating associations +of the alleys, Belgian children from the toughest quarters of Antwerp, +who had a precocity that led to baffling confusion in Mrs. Smith's mind +between parental responsibility and patriotic duty. Smart society gave +the run of its houses sometimes to gentry who were used to getting +the run of that kind of houses by lifting a window with a jemmy on a +dark night. It was a refugee lottery. When two hosts met one said: +"My Belgian is charming!" and the other said: "Mine isn't. Just listen--" + +But the English are game; they are loyal; they bear their burden of +hospitality bravely. + +The strange things that happened were not the more agreeable +because of the attitude of some refugees who, when they were +getting better fare than they ever had at home, thought that, as they +had given their "all" for England, they should be getting still better, not +to mention wine on the table in temperance families; whilst there was +a disinclination towards self-support by means of work on the part of +certain heroes by proxy which promised a Belgian occupation of +England that would last as long as the German occupation of +Belgium. England was learning that there are Belgians and Belgians. +She had received not a few of the "and Belgians." + +It was only natural. When the German cruisers bombarded +Scarborough and the Hartlepools, the first to the station were not the +finest and sturdiest. Those with good bank accounts and a +disinclination to take any bodily or gastronomic risks, the young idler +who stands on the street corner ogling girls and the girls who are +always in the street to be ogled, the flighty-minded, the irresponsible, +the tramp, the selfish, and the cowardly, are bound to be in the van of +flight from any sudden disaster and to make the most of the generous +sympathy of those who succour them. + +The courageous, the responsible, those with homes and property at +stake, those with an inborn sense of real patriotism which means +loyalty to locality and to their neighbours, are more inclined to remain +with their homes and their property. Besides, a refugee hardly +appears at his best. He is in a strange country, forlorn, homesick, a +hostage of fate and personal misfortune. The Belgian nation had +taken the Allies' side and now individual Belgians expected help from +the Allies. + +England did not get the worst of the refugees. They could travel no +farther than Holland, where the Dutch Government appropriated +money to care for them at the same time that it was under the +expense of keeping its army mobilized. Looking at the refugees in the +camp at Bergen-op-Zoom, an observer might share some of the +contempt of the Germans for the Belgians. Crowded in temporary +huts in the chill, misty weather of a Dutch winter, they seemed listless, +marooned human wreckage. They would not dig ditches to drain their +camp; they were given to pilfering from one another the clothes which +the world's charity supplied. The heart was out of them. They were +numbed by disaster. + +"Are all these men and women who are living together married?" I +asked the Dutch officer in charge. + +"It is not for us to inquire," he replied. "Most of them say that they +have lost their marriage certificates." + +They were from the slums of that polyglot seaport town Antwerp, +which Belgians say is anything but real Belgium. To judge Belgium by +them is like judging an American town by the worst of its back streets, +where saloons and pawnshops are numerous and red lights twinkle +from dark doorways. + +Around a table in a Rotterdam hotel one met some generals who +were organizing a different kind of campaign from that which brought +glory to the generals who conquered Belgium. It was odd that Dr. +Rose--that Dr. Rose who had discovered and fought the hook worm +among the mountaineers of the Southern States--should be +succouring Belgium, and yet only natural. Where else should he and +Henry James, Jr., of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Mr. Bicknell, of +the American Red Cross, be, if not here directing the use of an +endowment fund set aside for just such purposes? + +They had been all over Belgium and up into the Northern +Departments of France occupied by the Germans, investigating +conditions. For they were practical men, trained for solving the +problem of charity with wisdom, who wanted to know that their money +was well spent. They had nothing for the refugees in London, but they +found that the people who had stayed at home in Belgium were +worthy of help. The fund was allowing five hundred thousand dollars a +month for the American Commission for Relief in Belgium, which was +the amount that the Germans had spent in a single day in the +destruction of the town of Ypres with shells. Later they were to go to +Poland; then to Serbia. + +With them was Herbert C. Hoover, a celebrated mining engineer, the +head of the Commission. When American tourists were stranded +over Europe at the outset of the war, with letters of credit which could +not be cashed, their route homeward must lie through London. They +must have steamer passage. Hoover took charge. When this work +was done and Belgium must be helped, he took charge of a task that +could be done only by a neutral. For the adjutants and field officers of +his force he turned to American business men in London, to Rhodes +scholars at Oxford, and to other volunteers hastening from America. + +When "Harvard, 1914," who had lent a hand in the American +refugees' trials, appeared in Hoover's office to volunteer for the new +campaign, Hoover said: "You are going to Rotterdam to-night." "So I +am!" said Harvard, 1914, and started accordingly. Action and not red +tape must prevail in such an organization. + +The Belgians whom I wished to see were those behind the line of +guards on the Belgo-Dutch frontier; those who had remained at home +under the Germans to face humiliation and hunger. This was possible +if you had the right sort of influence and your passport the right sort of +visés to accompany a Bescheinigung, according to the form of "31 +Oktober, 1914, Sect. 616, Nr. 1083," signed by the German consul at +Rotterdam, which put me in the same motor-car with Harvard, 1914, +that stopped one blustery, snowy day of late December before a +gate, with Belgium on one side and Holland on the other side of it, on +the Rosendaal-Antwerp road. "Once more!" said Harvard, 1914, who +had made this journey many times as a dispatch rider. + +One of the conquerors, the sentry representing the majesty of +German authority in Belgium, examined the pass. The conqueror was +a good deal larger around the middle than when he was young, but +not so large as when he went to war. He had a scarf tied over his +ears under a cracked old patent-leather helmet, which the Saxon +Landsturm must have taken from their garrets when the Kaiser sent +the old fellows to keep the Belgians in order so that the young men +could be spared to get rheumatism in the trenches if they escaped +death. + +You could see that the conqueror missed his wife's cooking and +Sunday afternoon in the beer garden with his family. However much +he loved the Kaiser, it did not make him love home any the less. His +nod admitted us into German-ruled Belgium. He looked so lonely that +as our car started I sent him a smile. Surprise broke on his face. +Somebody not a German in uniform had actually smiled at him in +Belgium! + +My last glimpse of him was of a grin spreading under the scarf toward +his ears. + +Belgium was webbed with these old Landsturm guards. If your +Passierschein was not right, you might survive the first set of sentries +and even the second, but the third, and if not the third some +succeeding one of the dozens on the way to Brussels, would hale you +before a Kommandatur. Then you were in trouble. In travelling about +Europe I became so used to passes that when I returned to New +York I could not have thought of going to Hoboken without the +German consul's visa or of dining at a French restaurant without the +French consul's. + +"And again!" said Harvard, 1914, as we came to another sentry. +There was good reason why Harvard had his pass in a leather-bound +case under a celluloid face. Otherwise, it would soon have been worn +out in showing. He had been warned by the Commission not to talk +and he did not talk. He was neutrality personified. All he did was to +show his pass. He could be silent in three languages. The only time I +got anything like partisanship out of him and two sentences in +succession was when I mentioned the Harvard-Yale football game. +"My! Wasn't that a smear! In their new stadium, too! Oh, my! Wish I +had been there!" + +When the car broke a spring half-way to Antwerp, he remarked, +"Naturally!" or, rather, a more expressive monosyllable which did not +sound neutral. + +While he and the Belgian chauffeur, with the help of a Belgian farmer +as spectator, were patching up the broken spring, I had a look at the +farm. The winter crops were in; the cabbages and Brussels sprouts in +the garden were untouched. It happened that the scorching finger of +war's destruction had not been laid on this little property. In the yard +the wife was doing the week's washing, her hands in hot water and +her arms exposed to weather so cold that I felt none too warm in a +heavy overcoat. At first sight she gave me a frown, which instantly +dissipated into a smile when she saw that I was not German. + +If not German, I must be a friend. Yet if I were I would not dare talk-- +not with German sentries all about. She lifted her hand from the suds +and swung it out to the west toward England and France with an +eager, craving fire in her eyes, and then she swept it across in front of +her as if she were sweeping a spider off a table. When it stopped at +arm's length there was the triumph of hate in her eyes. I thought of +the lid of a cauldron raised to let out a burst of steam as she asked +"When?" When? When would the Allies come and turn the Germans +out? + +She was a kind, hardworking woman, who would help any stranger in +trouble the best she knew how. Probably that Saxon whose smile had +spread under his scarf had much the same kind of wife. Yet I knew +that if the Allies' guns were heard driving the Germans past her +house and her husband had a rifle, he would put a shot in that +Saxon's back, or she would pour boiling water on his head if she +could. Then, if the Germans had time, they would burn the farmhouse +and kill the husband who had shot one of their comrades. + +I recollect a youth who had been in a railroad accident saying: "That +was the first time I had ever seen death; the first time I realized what +death was." Exactly. You don't know death till you have seen it; you +don't know invasion till you have felt it. However wise, however able +the conquerors, life under them is a living death. True, the farmer's +property was untouched, but his liberty was gone. If you, a well- +behaved citizen, have ever been arrested and marched through the +streets of your home town by a policeman, how did you like it? Give +the policeman a rifle and a fixed bayonet and a full cartridge-box and +transform him into a foreigner and the experience would not be any +more pleasant. + +That farmer could not go to the next town without the permission of +the sentries. He could not even mail a letter to his son who was in the +trenches with the Allies. The Germans had taken his horse; theirs the +power to take anything he had--the power of the bayonet. If he +wanted to send his produce to a foreign market, if he wanted to buy +food in a foreign market, the British naval blockade closed the sea to +him. He was sitting on a chair of steel spikes, hands tied and mouth +gagged, whilst his mind seethed, solacing its hate with hope through +the long winter months. If you lived in Kansas and could not get your +wheat to Chicago, or any groceries or newspapers from the nearest +town, or learn whether your son in Wyoming were alive or dead, or +whether the man who owned your mortgage in New York had +foreclosed it or not--well, that is enough without the German sentry. + +Only, instead of newspapers or word about the mortgage, the thing +you needed past that blockade was bread to keep you from starving. +America opened a window and slipped a loaf into the empty larder. +Those Belgian soldiers whom I had seen at Dixmude, wounded, +exhausted, mud-caked, shivering, were happy beside the people at +home. They were in the fight. It is not the destruction of towns and +houses that impresses you most, but the misery expressed by that +peasant woman over her washtub. + +A writer can make a lot of the burst of a single shell; a photographer +showing the ruins of a block of buildings or a church makes it appear +that all blocks and all churches are in ruins. Running through Antwerp +in a car, one saw few signs of destruction from the bombardment. +You will see them if you are specially conducted. Shops were open, +people were moving about in the streets, which were well lighted. No +need of darkness for fear of bombs dropping here! German barracks +had safe shelter from aerial raids in a city whose people were the +allies of England and France. But at intervals marched the German +patrols. + +When our car stopped before a restaurant a knot gathered around it. +Their faces were like all the other faces I saw in Belgium--unless +German--with that restrained, drawn look of passive resistance, +persistent even when they smiled. When? When were the Allies +coming? Their eyes asked the question which their tongues dared +not. Inside the restaurant a score of German officers served by +Belgian waiters were dining. Who were our little party? What were we +doing there and speaking English--English, the hateful language of +the hated enemy? Oh, yes! We were Americans connected with the +relief work. But between the officers' stares at the sound of English +and the appealing inquiry of the faces in the street lay an abyss of +war's fierce suspicion and national policies and racial enmity, which +America had to bridge. + +Before we could help Belgium, England, blockading Germany to keep +her from getting foodstuffs, had to consent. She would consent only if +none of the food reached German mouths. Germany had to agree +not to requisition any of the food. Someone not German and not +British must see to its distribution. Those rigid German military +authorities, holding fast to their military secrets, must consent to +scores of foreigners moving about Belgium and sending messages +across that Belgo-Dutch frontier which had been closed to all except +official German messages. This called for men whom both the +German and the British duellists would trust to succour the human +beings crouched and helpless under the circling flashes of their steel. + +Fortunately, our Minister to Belgium was Brand Whitlock. He is no +Talleyrand or Metternich. If he were, the Belgians might not have +been fed, because he might have been suspected of being too much +of a diplomatist. When an Englishman, or a German, or a Hottentot, +or any other kind of a human being gets to know Whitlock, he +recognizes that here is an honest man with a big heart. When leading +Belgians came to him and said that winter would find Belgium without +bread, he turned from the land that has the least food to that which +has the most--his own land. + +For Belgium is a great shop in the midst of a garden. Her towns are +so close together that they seem only suburbs of Brussels and +Antwerp. She has the densest population in Europe. She produces +only enough food to last her for two months of the year. The food for +the other ten months she buys with the products of her factories. In +1914-15 Belgium could not send out her products; so we were to help +feed her without pay, and England and France were to give money to +buy what food we did not give. + +But with the British navy generously allowing food to pass the +blockade, the problem was far from solved. Ships laden with supplies +steaming to Rotterdam--this was a matter of easy organization. How +get the bread to the hungry mouths when the Germans were using +Belgian railroads for military purposes? Germany was not inclined to +allow a carload of wheat to keep a carload of soldiers from reaching +the front, or to let food for Belgians keep the men in the trenches from +getting theirs regularly. Horse and cart transport would be +cumbersome, and the Germans would not permit Belgian teamsters +to move about with such freedom. As likely as not they might be +spies. + +Anybody who can walk or ride may be a spy. Therefore, the way to +stop spying is not to let anyone walk or ride. Besides, Germany had +requisitioned most of the horses that could do more than draw an +empty phaeton on a level. But she had not drawn the water out of the +canals; though the Belgians, always whispering jokes at the expense +of the conquerors, said that the canals might have been emptied if +their contents had been beer. There were plenty of idle boats in +Holland, whose canals connect with the web of canals in Belgium. +You had only to seal the cargoes against requisition, the seal to be +broken only by a representative of the Relief Commission, and start +them to their destination. + +And how make sure that those who had money should pay for their +bread, while all who had not should be reached? The solution was +simple compared to the distribution of relief after the San Francisco +earthquake and fire, for example, in our own land, where a sparser +population makes social organization comparatively loose. + +The people to be relieved were in their homes. Belgium is so old a +country, her population so dense, she is so much like one big +workshop, that the Government must keep a complete set of books. +Every Belgian is registered and docketed. You know just how he +makes his living and where he lives. Upon marriage a Belgian gets a +little book, giving his name and his wife's, their ages, their +occupations, and address. As children are born their names are +added. A Belgian holds as fast to this book as a woman to a piece of +jewellery that is an heirloom. + +With few exceptions, Belgian local officials had not fled the country. +They realized that this was a time when they were particularly needed +on the job to protect the people from German exactions and from +their own rashness. There were also any number of volunteers. The +thing was to get the food to them and let them organize local +distribution. + +The small force of Americans required to oversee the transit must +watch that the Germans did not take any of the food and retain both +British and German confidence in the absolute good faith of their +intentions. The volunteers were paid their expenses; the rest of their +reward was experience, and it was "soom expeerience," as a Belgian +said who was learning a little American slang. They talked about +canal-boat cargoes as if they had been from Buffalo to Albany on the +Erie Canal for years; they spoke of "my province" and compared +bread-lines and the efficiency of local officials. And the Germans took +none of the food; orders from Berlin were obeyed. Berlin knew that +any requisitioning of relief supplies meant that the Relief Commission +would cease work and announce to the world the reason. + +However many times Americans were arrested they must be patient. +That exception who said, when he was put in a cell overnight +because he entered the military zone by mistake, that he would not +have been treated that way in England, needed a little more coaching +in preserving his mask of neutrality. For I must say that nine out of ten +of these young men, leaning over backward to be neutral, were pro- +Ally, including some with German names. But publicly you could +hardly get an admission out of them that there was any war. As for +Harvard, 1914, hang a passport carrier around the Sphinx's neck and +you have him done in stone. + +Fancy any Belgian trying to get him to carry a contraband letter or a +German commander trying to work him for a few sacks of flour! When +I asked him what career he had chosen he said, "Business!" without +any waste of words. I think that he will succeed in a way to surprise +his family. It is he and all those young Americans of whom he is a +type, as distinctive of America in manner, looks, and thought as a +Frenchman is of France or a German of Germany, who carried the +torch of Peace's kindly work into war-ridden Belgium. They made you +want to tickle the eagle on the throat so he would let out a gentle, +well-modulated scream; of course, strictly in keeping with neutrality. + +Red lanterns took the place of red flags swung by Landsturm sentries +on the run to Brussels as darkness fell. There was no relaxation of +watchfulness at night. + +All the twenty-four hours the systematic conquerors held the net tight. +Once when my companion repeated his "Again!" and held out the +pass in the lantern's rays, I broke into a laugh, which excited his +curiosity, for you soon get out of the habit of laughing in Belgium. + +"It has just occurred to me that my guidebook states that passports +are not required in Belgium!" I explained. + +The editor of that guidebook will have a busy time before he issues +the next edition. For example, he will have a lot of new information +about Malines, whose ruins were revealed by the motor-lamps in +shadowy broken walls on either side of the main street. Other places +where less damage had been done were equally silent. In the smaller +towns and villages the population must keep indoors at night; for +egress and ingress are more difficult to control there than in large +cities, where guards at every corner suffice--watching, watching, +these disciplined pawns of remorselessly efficient militarism; watching +every human being in Belgium. + +"The last time I saw that statue of Liege," I remarked, peering into the +darkness as we rode into the city, "the Legion of Honour conferred by +France on Liege for its brave defence was hung on its breast. I +suppose it is gone now." + +"I guess yes," said Harvard, 1914. + +We went to the hotel at Brussels which I had left the day before the +city's fall. English railway signs on the walls of the corridor had not +been disturbed. More ancient relic still seemed a bulletin board with +its announcement of seven passages a day to England, traversing +the Channel in "fifty-five minutes via Calais" and "three hours via +Ostend," with the space blank where the state of the weather for the +despair or the delight of intending voyagers had been chalked up in +happier days. The same men were in attendance at the office as +before; but they seemed older and their politeness that of cheerless +automatons. For five months they had been serving German officers +as guests with hate in their hearts and, in turn, trying to protect their +property. + +A story is told of how that hotel had filled with officers after the +arrival of the Germanic flood and how one day, when it was learned +that the proprietor was a Frenchman, guards were suddenly placed +at the doors and the hall was filled with luggage as every officer, +acting with characteristic official solidarity, vacated his room and +bestowed his presence elsewhere. Then the proprietor was informed +that his guests would return if he would agree to employ German +help and buy his supplies from Germany. He refused, for practical +as well as for sentimental reasons. If he had consented, think what +the Belgians would have done to him after the Germans were gone! +However, officers were gradually returning, for this was the best +hotel in town, and even conquerors are human and German conquerors +have particularly human stomachs. + + + + +IX +Christmas In Belgium + + + +Christmas in Belgium with the bayonet and the wolf at the door taught +me to value Christmas at home for more than its gifts and the cheer +of the fireside. It taught me what it meant to belong to a free people +and how precious is that old English saying that a man's house is his +castle, which was the inception of so much in our lives which we +accept as a commonplace. If such a commonplace can be made +secure only by fighting, then it is best to fight. At any time a foreign +soldier might enter the house of a Belgian and take him away for trial +before a military court. + +Breakfast in the same restaurant as before the city's fall! Again the +big grapes which are a luxury of the rich man's table or an +extravagance for a sick friend with us! The hothouses still grew them. +What else was there for he hothouses to do, though the export of +their products was impossible? A shortage of the long, white-leafed +chicory that we call endive in New York restaurants? There were piles +of it in the Brussels market and on the hucksters' carts; nothing so +cheap! + +One might have excellent steaks and roasts and delicious veal; for +the heifers were being butchered as the Germans had taken all +fodder. But the bread was the Commission's brown, which everyone +had to eat. Belgium, growing quality on scanty acres with intensive +farming, had food luxuries but not the staff of life. + +I looked out of the windows on to the square which four months +before I had seen crowded with people bedecked with the Allies' +colours and eagerly buying the latest editions containing the +communiqués of hollow optimism. No flag in sight now except a +German flag flying over the station! But small revenges may be +enjoyed. A German soldier tried to jump on the tail of a cart driven by +a Belgian, but the Belgian whipped up his horse and the German fell +off on to the pavement, whilst the cart sped around a corner. + +Out of the station came a score of German soldiers returning from the +trenches, on their way to barracks to regain strength in order that they +could bear the ordeal of standing in icy water again. They were not +the kind exhibited on Press tours to illustrate the "vigour of our +indomitable army." Eyelids drooped over hollow eye-sockets; sore, +numbed feet moved like feet which are asleep in their vain effort to +keep step. Sensitiveness to surroundings, almost to existence, +seemed to have been lost. + +One was a corporal, young, tall, and full-bearded. He might have +been handsome if he had not been so haggard. He gave the lead to +the others; he seemed to know where they were going, and they +shuffled on after him in dogged painfulness. Four months ago that +corporal, with the spring of the energy of youth when the war was +young, was perhaps in that green column that went through the +streets of Brussels in the thunderous beat of their regular tread on +their way to Paris. The group was an object lesson in how much the +victor must suffer in war in order to make his victim surfer. + +Some officers were at breakfast, too. Mostly they were reservists; +mostly bespectacled, with middle age swelling their girth and +hollowing their chests, but sturdy enough to apply the regulations +made for conduct of the conquered. Whilst stronger men were under +shell-fire at the front, they were under the fire of Belgian hate as +relentless as their own hate of England. You saw them always in the +good restaurants, but never in the company of Belgians, these +ostracized rulers. In four months they had made no friends; at least, +no friends who would appear with them in public. A few thousand +guards in Belgium in the companionship of conquest and seven +million Belgians in the companionship of a common helplessness! +Bayonets may make a man silent, but they cannot stop his thinking. + +At the breakfast table on that Christmas morning in London, Paris, or +Berlin the patriot could find the kind of news that he liked. His racial +and rational predilections and animosities were solaced. If there +were good news it was "played up"; if there were bad news, it was not +published or it was explained. L'Echo Belge and L'Indépendance +Belge and all the Brussels papers were either out of business or +being issued as single sheets in Holland and England. + +The Belgian, keenest of all the peoples at war for news, having less +occupation to keep his mind off the war, must read the newspapers +established under German auspices, which fed him with the pabulum +that German chefs provided, reflective of the stumbling degeneracy +of England, French weariness of the war, Russian clumsiness, and +the invincibility of Germany. If an Englishman had to read German, or +a German English, newspapers every morning he might have +understood how the Belgian felt. + +Those who had sons or fathers or husbands in the Belgian army +could not send or receive letters, let alone presents. Families +scattered in different parts of Belgium could not hold reunions. But at +mass I saw a Belgian standard in the centre of the church. That flag +was proscribed, but the priests knew it was safe in that sacred place +and the worshippers might feast their eyes on it as they said their +avis. + +A Bavarian soldier came in softly and stood a little apart from the +worshippers, many in mourning, at the rear; a man who was of the +same faith as the Belgians and who crossed himself with the others in +the house of brotherly love. He would go outside to obey orders; and +the others to nurse their hate of him and his race. This private in his +faded green, bowing his head before that flag in the shadows of the +nave, was war-sick, as most soldiers were; and the Belgians were +heartsick. They had the one solace in common. But if you had +suggested to him to give up Belgium, his answer would have been +that of the other Germans: "Not after all we have suffered to take it!" +Christians have a peculiar way of applying Christianity. Yet, if it were +not for Christianity and that infernal thing called the world's opinion, +which did not exist in the days of Caesar and the Belgse, the Belgians +might have been worse off than they were. More of them might have +been dead. When they were saying, "Give us this day our daily +bread" they were thinking, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," +if ever their turn came. + +A satirist might have repeated the apochryphal naïveté of Marie +Antoinette, who asked why the people wanted bread when they could +buy such nice cakes for a sou! For all the pâtisserie shops were +open. Brussels is famous for its French pastry. With a store of +preserves, why shouldn't the bakeshops go on making tarts with +heavy crusts of the brown flour, when war had not robbed the bakers +of their art? It gave work to them; it helped the shops to keep open +and make a show of normality. But I noticed that they were doing little +business. Stocks were small and bravely displayed. Only the rich +could afford such luxuries, which in ordinary times were what ice- +cream cones are to us. Even the jewellery shops were open, with +diamond rings flashing in the windows. + +"You must pay rent; you don't want to discharge your employees," +said a jeweller. "There is no place to go except your shop. If you +closed it would look as if you were afraid of the Germans. It would +make you blue and the people in the street blue. One tries to go +through the motions of normal existence, anyway. But, of course, you +don't sell anything. This week I have repaired a locket which carried +the portrait of a soldier at the front and I've put a mainspring in a +watch. I'll warrant that is more than some of my competitors have +done." + +Swing around the circle in Brussels of a winter's morning and look at +the only crowds that the Germans allow to gather, and any doubt that +Belgium would have gone hungry if she had not received provisions +from the outside was dispelled. Whenever I think of a bread-line +again I shall see the faces of a Belgian bread-line. They blot out the +memory of those at home, where men are free to go and come; +where war has not robbed the thrifty of food. + +It was fitting that the great central soup kitchen should be established +in the central express office of the city. For in Belgium these days +there is no express business except in German troops to the front +and wounded to the rear. The dispatch of parcels is stopped, no less +than the other channels of trade, in a country where trade was so rife, +a country that lived by trade. On the stone floor, where once +packages were arranged for forwarding to the towns whose names are +on the walls, were many great cauldrons in clusters of three, to economize +space and fuel. + +"We don't lack cooks," said a chef-who had been in a leading hotel. +"So many of us are out of work. Our society of hotel and restaurant +keepers took charge. We know the practical side of the business. I +suppose you have the same kind of a society in New York and would +turn to it for help if the Germans occupied New York?" + +He gave me a printed report in which I read, for example, that "M. +Arndt, professor of the École Normale, had been good enough to +take charge of accounts," and "M. Catteau had been specially +appointed to look after the distribution of bread." Most appetizing that +soup prepared under direction of the best chefs in the city! The meat +and green vegetables in it were Belgian and the peas American. +Steaming hot in big cans it was sent to the communal centres, where +lines of people with pots, pitchers, and pails waited to receive their +daily allowance. A democracy was in that bread-line such as I have +never seen anywhere except at San Francisco after the earthquake. +Each person had a blue or a yellow ticket, with numbers to be +punched, like a commuter. The blue tickets were for those who had +proved to the communal authorities that they could not pay; the +yellow for those who paid five centimes for each person served. A +flutter of blue and yellow tickets all over Belgium, and in return life I +With each serving of soup went a loaf of the American brown bread. +The faces in the line were not those of people starving--they had +been saved from starvation. There was none of the emaciation which +pictures of famine in the Orient have made familiar; but they were +pinched faces, bloodless faces, the faces of people on short rations. + +To the Belgian bread is not only the staff of life; it is the legs. At home +we think of bread as something that goes with the rest of the meal; to +the poorer classes of Belgians the rest of the meal is something that +goes with bread. To you and me food has meant the payment of +money to the baker and the butcher and the grocer, or the hotel- +keeper. You get your money by work or from investments. What if +there were no bread to be had for work or money? Sitting on a +mountain of gold in the desert of Sahara would not quench thirst. +Three hundred grammes, a minimum calculation--about half what the +British soldier gets--was the ration. That small boy sent by his mother +got five loaves; his ticket called for an allowance for a family of five. +An old woman got one loaf, for she was alone in the world. + +Each one as he hurried by had a personal story of what war had +meant to him. They answered your questions frankly, gladly, with the +Belgian cheerfulness which was amazing considering the circumstances. +A tall, distinguished-looking man was an artist. + +"No work for artists these days," he said. + +No work in a community of workers where every link of the chain of +economic life had been broken. No work for the next man, a +chauffeur, or the next, a brass worker; the next, a teamster; the next, +a bank clerk; the next, a doorkeeper of a Government office; whilst +the wives of those who still had work were buying in the only market +they had. But the husbands of some were not at home. Each answer +about the absent one had an appeal that nothing can picture better +than the simple words or the looks that accompanied the words. + +"The last I heard of my husband he was fighting at Dixmude--two +months ago." + +"Mine is wounded, somewhere in France." + +"Mine was with the army, too. I don't know whether he is alive or +dead. I have not heard since Brussels was taken. He cannot get my +letters and I cannot get his." + +"Mine was killed at Liege, but we have a son." + +So you out in Nebraska who gave a handful of wheat might know that +said handful of wheat reached its destination in an empty stomach. If +you sent a suit of clothes, or a cap, or a pair of socks, come along to +the skating-rink, where ice-polo was played and matches and +carnivals were held in better days, and look on at the boxes, packed +tight with gifts of every manner of thing that men and women and +children wear except silk hats, which are being opened and sorted +and distributed into hastily-constructed cribs and compartments. + +A Belgian woman whose father was one of Belgium's leading +lawyers--her husband was at the front-was the busy head of this +organization, because, as she said, the busier she was the more it +"keeps my mind off------" and she did not finish the sentence. How +many times I heard that "keeps my mind off------" a sentence that was +the more telling for not being finished. She and some other women +began sewing and patching and collecting garments; "but our +business grew so fast"--the business of relief is the one kind in +Belgium that does grow these days--"that now we have hundreds of +helpers. I begin to feel that I am what you would call in America a +captainess of industry." + +Some of the good mothers in America were a little too thoughtful in +their kindness. An odour in a box that had evidently travelled across +the Atlantic close to the ship's boilers was traced to the pocket of a +boy's suit, which contained the hardly-distinguishable remains of a +ham sandwich, meant to be ready to hand for the hungry Belgian boy +who got that suit. Broken pots of jam were quite frequent. But no +matter. Soap and water and Belgian industry saved the suit, if not the +sandwich. Sweaters and underclothes and overcoats almost new, +and shiny old morning coats and trousers with holes in seat and +knees might represent equal sacrifice on the part of some American +three thousand miles away, and all were welcome. Needlewomen +were given work cutting up the worn-outs of grown-ups and making +them over into astonishingly good suits or dresses for youngsters. + +"We've really turned the rink into a kind of department store," said the +lady. "Come into our boot department. We had some leather left in +Belgium that the Germans did not requisition, so we bought it and that +gave more Belgians work in the shoe factories. Work, you see, is +what we want to keep our minds off------" + +Blue and yellow tickets here, too! Boots for children and thick-set +working-women and watery-eyed old men! + +And each was required to leave behind the pair he was wearing. + +"Sometimes we can patch up the cast-offs, which means work for the +cobblers," said the captainess of industry. "And who are our clerks? +Why, the people who put on the skates for the patrons of the rink, of +course!" + +One could write volumes on this systematic relief work, the +businesslike industry of succouring Belgium by the businesslike +Belgians, with American help. Certainly one cannot leave out those +old men stragglers from Louvain and Bruges and Ghent--venerable +children with no offspring to give them paternal care--who took their +turn in getting bread, which they soaked thoroughly in their soup for +reasons that would be no military secret, not even in the military zone. +On Christmas Day an American, himself a smoker, thinking what +class of children he could make happiest on a limited purse, +remembered the ring around the stove and bought a basket of cheap +brier pipes and tobacco. By Christmas night some toothless gums +were sore, but a beatific smile of satiation played in white beards. + +Nor can one leave out the very young babies at home, who get their +milk if grown people do not, and the older babies beyond milk but not +yet old enough for bread and meat, whose mothers return from the +bread-line to bring their children to another line, where they got +portions of a syrupy mixture which those who know say is the right +provender. On such occasions men are quite helpless. They can only +look on with a frog in the throat at pale, improperly nourished mothers +with bundles of potential manhood and womanhood in their arms. For +this was woman's work for woman. Belgian women of every class +joined in it: the competent wife of a workman, or the wife of a +millionaire who had to walk like everybody else now that her motor- +car was requisitioned by the army. + +Pop-eyed children, ruddy-cheeked, aggressive children, pinched- +faced children, kept warm by sweaters that some American or +English children spared, happy in that they did not know what their +elders knew! Not the danger of physical starvation so much as the +actual presence of mental starvation was the thing that got on your +nerves in a land where the sun is seldom seen in winter and rainy +days are the rule. It was bad enough in the "zone of occupation," so +called, a line running from Antwerp past Brussels to Mons. One could +guess what it was like in the military zone to the westward, where only +an occasional American relief representative might go. + +This is not saying that the Germans were stricter than necessary, if +we excuse the exasperation of their militarism, in order to prevent +information from passing out, when a multitude of Belgians would +have risked their lives gladly to help the Allies. One spy bringing +accurate information might cost the German army thousands of +casualties; perhaps decide the fate of a campaign. They saw the +Belgians as enemies. They were fighting to take the lives of their +enemies and save their own lives, which made it tough for them and +the French and the British--tough all round, but very particularly tough +for the Belgians. + +It was good for a vagrant American to dine at the American Legation, +where Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock were far, very far, from the days in +Toledo, Ohio, where he was mayor. Some said that the place of the +Minister to Belgium was at Havre, where the Belgian Government +had its offices; but neither Whitlock nor the Belgian people thought +so, nor the German Government, since they had realized his prestige +with the Belgians and how they would listen to him in any crisis when +their passions might break the bonds of wisdom. Hugh Gibson, being +the omnipresent Secretary of Legation in four languages, naturally +was also present. We recalled dining together in Honduras, when he +was in the thick of vexations. + +Trouble accommodatingly waits for him wherever he goes, because +he has a gift for taking care of trouble, in the ascendancy of a +cheerful spirit and much knowledge of international law. His present +for the Minister, who daily received stacks of letters from all sources +asking the impossible, as well as from Americans who wanted to be +sure that the food they gave was not being purloined by the +Germans, was a rubber stamp, "Blame-it-all-there's-a-state-of-war-in- +Belgium!" which he suggested might save typewriting--a recommendation +which the Minister refused to accept, not to Gibson's surprise. + +On that Christmas afternoon and evening, the people promenaded +the streets as usual. You might have thought it a characteristic +Christmas afternoon or evening except for the Landsturm patrols. But +there was an absence of the old gaiety, and they were moving as if +from habit and moving was all there was to do. + +They had heard the sound of the guns at Dixmude the night before. +Didn't the sound seem a little nearer? No. The wind from that +direction was stronger. When? When would the Allies come? + + + + +X +The Future Of Belgium + + + +In former days the traveller hardly thought of Belgium as possessing +patriotic homogeneity. It was a land of two languages, French and +Flemish. He was puzzled to meet people who looked like well-to-do +mechanics, artisans, or peasants and find that they could not answer +a simple question in French. This explained why a people so close to +France, though they made Brussels a little Paris, would not join the +French family and enter into the spirit and body of that great +civilization on their borders, whose language was that of their own +literature. Belgium seemed to have no character. Its nationality was +the artificial product of European politics; a buffer divided in itself, +which would be neither French, nor German, nor definitely Belgian. + +In later times Belgium had prospered enormously. It had developed +the resources of the Congo in a way that had aroused a storm of +criticism. Old King Leopold made the most of his neutral position to +gain advantages which no one of the great Powers might enjoy +because of jealousies. The International Sleeping Car Company was +Belgian and Belgian capitalists secured concessions here and there, +wherever the small tradesman might slip into openings suitable to his +size. Leopold was not above crumbs; he made them profitable; he +liked to make money; and Belgians liked to make money. + +Her defence guaranteed by neutrality, Belgium need have no thought +except of thrift. Her ideals were those of prosperity. No ambition of +national expansion stirred her imagination as Germany's was stirred; +there was no fire in her soul as in that of France in apprehension of +the day when she would have to fight for her life against Germany; no +national cause to harden the sinews of patriotism. The immensity of +her urban population contributed its effect in depriving her of the +sterner stuff of which warriors are made. Success meant more +comforts and luxuries. In towns like Brussels and Antwerp this +doubtless had its effect on the moralities, which were hardly of the +New England Puritan standard. She had a small standing army; a +militia system in the process of reform against the conviction of the +majority, unlike that of the Swiss mountaineers, that Belgium would +never have any need for soldiers. + +If militarism means conscription as it exists in France and Germany, +then militarism has improved the physique of races in an age when +people are leaving the land for the factory. The prospect of battle's +test unquestionably develops in a people certain sturdy qualities +which can and ought to be developed in some other way than with +the prospect of spending money for shells to kill people. + +With the world making every Belgian man a hero and the unknowing +convinced that a citizen soldiery at Liege--defended by the Belgian +standing army--had rushed from their homes with rifles and beaten +German infantry, it is right to repeat that the schipperke spirit was not +universal, that at no time had Belgium more than a hundred thousand +men under arms, and that on the Dixmude line she maintained never +more than eighty thousand men out of a population of seven millions, +which should yield from seven hundred thousand to a million; while +they lost a good deal of sympathy both in England and in France, +from all I heard, through the number of able-bodied refugees who +were disinclined to serve. It was a mistaken idealism that swept over +the world, early in the war, characterizing a whole nation with the +gallantry of its young king and his little army. + +The spirit of the Boers or of the Minute Men at Lexington was not in +the Belgian people. It could not be from their very situation and +method of life. They did not believe in war; they did not expect to +practise war; but war came to them out of the still blue heavens as it +came to the prosperous Incas of Peru. + +Where one was wrong was in the expectation that her bankers and +capitalists--an aristocracy of money not given to the simple life--and +her manufacturers, artisans, and traders, if not her peasants, would +soon make truce with Caesar for individual profit. Therein, Belgium +showed that she was not lacking in the moral spirit which, with the +schipperke's, became a fighting spirit. It seemed as if the metal of +many Belgians, struck to a white heat in the furnace of war, had +cooled under German occupation to the tempered steel of a new +nationalism. + +When you travelled over Belgium after it was pacified, the logic of +German methods became clear. What was haphazard in their reign +of terror was due to the inevitable excesses of a soldiery taking the +calculated redress ordered by superiors as licence in the first red +passion of war to a war-mad nation, which was sullen because +Belgians had not given up the keys of the gate to France. + +The extent of the ruins in Belgium east of the Yser has been +exaggerated. They were the first ruins, most photographed, most +advertised; bad enough, inexcusable enough, and warrantedly +causing a spell of horror throughout the civilized world. We have +heard all about them, mind, while hearing nothing about those in +Lorraine, where the Bavarians exceeded Prussian ruthlessness in +reprisals. I mean, that to have read the newspapers in early +September, 1914, one would have thought that half the towns of +Belgium were debris while the truth is that only a small percentage +are--those in the path of the German army's advance. Two-thirds of +Louvain itself is unharmed; though the fact alone of its venerable +library being in ashes is sufficient outrage, if not another building had +been harmed. + +The German army planned destruction with all the regularity that it +billeted troops, or requisitioned supplies, or laid war indemnities. It did +not destroy by shells exclusively. It deliberately burned homes. No +matter whether the owners were innocent or not, the homes were +burned as an example. The principle applied was that of punishing +half a dozen or all the boys in the class in the hope of getting the real +culprit. + +Cold ruins mark blocks where sniping was thought to have occurred. +The Germans insist that theirs was the merciful way. Krieg ist Krieg. +When a hundred citizens of Louvain were gathered and shot +because they were the first citizens of Louvain to hand, the purpose +was the security of the mass at the expense of the individual, +according to the war-is-war machine reasoning. No doubt there was +firing on German troops by civilians. What did the Germans expect +after the way that they had invaded Belgium? If they had bothered +with trials and investigations, the conquerors say, sniping would have +kept up. They may have taken innocent lives and burned the homes +of the innocent, they admit, but their defence is that thereby they +saved many thousands of their soldiers and of Belgians, and +prevented the feud between the rulers and the ruled from becoming +more embittered. + +Sniping over, the next step in policy was to keep the population quiet +with a minimum of soldiery, which would permit a maximum at the +front. In a thickly-settled country, so easily policed, in a land with the +population inured to peace, the wisdom of keeping quiet was soon +evident to the people. What if Boers had been in the Belgians' place? +Would they have attempted guerrilla warfare? Would you or I want to +bring destruction on neighbours in a land without any rural fastnesses +as a rendezvous for operations? One could tell only if a section of our +country were invaded. + +A burned block cost less than a dead German soldier. The system +was efficacious. It was mercilessness mixed with craft. When +Prussian brusqueness was found to be unnecessarily irritating to the +population, causing rash Belgians to turn desperate, the elders of the +Saxon and Bavarian coreligionists were called in. They were amiable +fathers of families, who would obey orders without taking the law into +their own hands. The occupation was strictly military. It concerned +itself with the business of national suffocation. All the functions of +government were in German hands. But Belgian policemen guided +the street traffic, arrested culprits for ordinary misdemeanours, and +took them before Belgian judges. This concession, which also meant +a saving in soldiers, only aggravated to the Belgian the regulations +directed against his personal freedom. + +"Eat, drink, and live as usual. Go to your own police courts for +misdemeanours," was the German edict in a word; "but remember +that ours is the military power, and no act that aids the enemy, that +helps the cause of Belgium in this war, is permitted. Observe that +particular affiche about a spy, please. He was shot." + +At every opportunity Belgians were told that the British and the +French could never come to their rescue. The Allies were beaten. It +was the British who got Belgium into trouble; the British who were +responsible for the idleness, the penury, the hunger and the suffering +in Belgium. The British had used Belgium as a cat's-paw; then they +had deserted her. But Belgians remained mostly unconvinced. They +were making war with mind and spirit, if not with arms. + +"We know how to suffer in Belgium," said a Belgian jurist. "Our ability +to suffer and to hold fast to our hearths has kept us going through the +centuries. Flemish and French, we have stubbornness in common. +Now a ruffian has come into our house and taken us by the throat. He +can choke us to death, or he can slowly starve us to death, but he +cannot make us yield. No, we shall never forgive!" + +"You too hate, then?" I asked. + +"Of course I hate. For the first time in my life I know what it is to hate; +and so do my countrymen. I begin to enjoy my hate. It is one of the +privileges of our present existence. We cannot stand on chairs and +tables as they do in Berlin cafés and sing our hate, but no one can +stop our hating in secret." + +Beside the latest verboten and regulation of Belgian conduct on the +city walls were posted German official news bulletins. The Belgians +stopped to read; they paused to re-read. And these were the rare +occasions when they smiled, and they liked to have a German sentry +see that smile. + +"Pour les enfants!" they whispered, as if talking to one another about +a crèche. Little ones, be good! Here is a new fairy tale! + +When a German wanted to buy something he got frigid politeness +and attention--very frigid, telling politeness--from the clerk, which said: + +"Beast! Invader! I do not ask you to buy, but as you ask, I sell; and as +I sell I hate! I hate! ! I hate! ! !" + +An officer entering a shop and seeing a picture of King Albert on the +wall, said: + +"The orders are to take that down!" + +"But don't you love your Kaiser?" asked the woman who kept the +shop. + +"Certainly!" + +"And I love my King!" was the answer. "I like to look at his picture just +as much as you like to look at your Kaiser's." + +"I had not thought of it in that way!" said the officer. + +Indeed, it is very hard for any conqueror to think of it in that way. So +the picture remained on the wall. + +How many soldiers would it take to enforce the regulation that no +Belgian was to wear the Belgian colours? Imagine thousands and +thousands of Landsturm men moving about and plucking King +Albert's face or the black, yellow and red from Belgian buttonholes! +No sooner would a buttonhole be cleared in front than the emblem +would appear in a buttonhole in the rear. The Landsturm would face +counter, flank, frontal, and rear attacks in a most amusing military +manoeuvre, which would put those middle-aged conquerors fearfully +out of breath and be rare sport for the Belgians. You could not arrest +the whole population and lead them off to jail; and if you bayoneted a +few--which really those phlegmatic, comfortable old Landsturms +would not have the heart to do for such a little thing--why, it would get +into the American Press, and the Berlin Foreign Office would say: + +"There you are, you soldiers, breaking all the crockery again!" + +In the smaller towns, where the Germans were billeted in Belgian +houses, of course the hosts had to serve their unwelcome guests. + +"Yet we managed to let them know what was in our hearts," said one +woman. "Some tried to be friendly. They said they had wives and +children at home; and we said: 'How glad your wives and children +would be to see you! Why don't you go home?'" + +When a report reached the commander in Ghent that an old man had +concealed arms, a sergeant with a guard was sent to search the +house. + +"Yes, my son has a rifle." + +"Where is it?" + +"In his hands on the Yser, if he is not dead, monsieur. You are +welcome to search, monsieur." + +Belgium was developing a new humour, a humour at the expense of +the Germans. In their homes they mimicked their rulers as freely as +they pleased. To carry mimickry into the streets meant arrest for the +elders, but not always for the children. You have heard the story, +which is true, of how some gamins put carrots in old bowler hats to +represent the spikes of German helmets, and at their leader's +command of "On to Paris!" did a goose-step backwards. There is +another which you may not have heard of a small boy who put on +grandfather's spectacles, a pillow under his coat, and a card on his +cap, 'Officer of the Landsturm.' The conquerors had enough sense +not to interfere with the battalion which was taking Paris; but the +pseudo-Landsturm officer was chased into a doorway and got a cuff +after his placard was taken away from him. + +When a united public opinion faces bayonets it is not altogether +helpless to reply. By the atmospheric force of mass it enjoys a +conquest of its own. If a German officer or soldier entered a street +car, women drew aside in a way to indicate that they did not want +their garments contaminated. People walked by the sentries in the +streets giving them room as you would give a mangy dog room, yet +as if they did not see the sentries; as if no sentries existed. + +The Germans said that they wanted to be friendly. They even +expressed surprise that the Belgians would not return their advances. +They sent out invitations to social functions in Brussels, but no one +came--not even to a ball given by the soldiers to the daughters of the +poor. Belgium stared its inhospitality, its contempt, its cynical +drolleries at the invader. + +I kept thinking of a story I heard in Alaska of a man who had shown +himself yellow by cheating his partner out of a mine. He appeared +one day hungry at a cabin occupied by half a dozen men who knew +him. They gave him food and a bunk that night; they gave him +breakfast; they even carried his blanket-roll out to his sled and +harnessed his dogs as a hint, and saw him go without one man +having spoken to him. No matter if that man believed he had done no +wrong, he would have needed a rhinoceros hide not to have felt this +silence. Such treatment the Belgians have given to the Germans, +except that they furnished the shelter and harnessed the team under +duress, as they so specifically indicate by every act. No wonder, then, +that the old Landsturm guards, used at home to saying "Wie gehts?" +and getting a cheery answer from the people they passed in the +streets, were lonely. + +Not only stubborn, but shrewd, these Belgians. Both qualities were +brought out in the officials who had to deal with the Germans, +particularly in the small towns and where destruction had been worst. +Take, for example, M. Nerincx, of Louvain, who has energy enough to +carry him buoyantly through an American political campaign, +speaking from morning to midnight. He had been in America. I +insisted that he ought to give up his professorship, get naturalized, +and run for office in America. I know that he would soon be mayor of +a town, or in Congress. + +When the war began he was professor of international law at the +ancient university whose walls alone stand, surrounding the ashes of +its priceless volumes, across from the ruined cathedral. With the +burgomaster a refugee from the horrors of that orgy, he turned man +of action on behalf of the demoralized people of the town with a +thousand homes in ruins. Very lucky the client in its lawyer. He is the +kind of man who makes the best of the situation; picks up the +fragments of the pitcher, cements them together with the first material +at hand, and goes for more milk. It was he who got a German +commander to sign an agreement not to "kill, burn, or plunder" any +more, and the signs were still up on some houses saying that "This +house is not to be burned except by official order." + +There in the Hôtel de Ville, which is quite unharmed, he had his office, +within reach of the German commander. He yielded to Caesar and +protected his own people day in and day out, diplomatic, watchful, +Belgian. And he was cheerful. What other people could have retained +any vestige of cheer! Sometimes one wondered if it were not partly +due to an absence of keen nerve-sensibilities, or to some other of the +traits which are a product of the Belgian hothouse and Belgian +inheritance. + +I might tell you about M. Nerincx's currency system; how he issued +paper promises to pay when he gave employment to the idle in +repairing those houses which permitted of being repaired, and +cleaned the streets of debris, till ruined Louvain looked as shipshape +as ruined Pompeii; and how he got a little real money from Brussels +to stop depreciation when the storekeepers came to him and said +that they had stacks of his notes which no mercantile concern would +cash. + +M. Nerincx was practising in the life about all that he ever learned and +taught at the university, "which we shall rebuild!" he declared, with +cheery confidence. "You will help us in America," he said. "I'm going +to America to lecture one of these days about Louvain!" + +"You have the most famous ruins, unless it is Rheims," I assured him. +"You will get flocks of tourists"--particularly if he fenced in the ruins +of the library and burned leaves of ancient books were on sale. + +"Then you will not only have fed, but have helped to rebuild Belgium," +he added. + +A shadow of apprehension overhung his anticipation of the day of +Belgium's delivery. Many a Belgian had arms hidden from the alert +eye of German espionage, and his bitterness was solaced by the +thought; "I'll have a shot at the Germans when they go!" The lot of the +last German soldier to leave a town, unless the garrison slips away +overnight, would hardly make him a good life-insurance risk. + +My last look at a Belgian bread-line was at Liege, that town which +had had a blaze of fame in August, 1914, and was now almost +forgotten. An industrial town, its mines and works were idle. The +Germans had removed the machinery for rifle-making, which has +become the most valuable kind of machinery in the world next to that +for making guns and shells. If skilled Belgians here or elsewhere were +called upon to serve the Germans at their craft, they suddenly +became butter-fingered. So that bread-line at Liege was long, its +queue stretching the breadth of the cathedral square. + +As most of the regular German officers in Belgium were cavalrymen-- +there was nothing for cavalry to do on the Aisne line of trenches--it +was quite in keeping that the aide to the commandant of Liege, who +looked after my pass to leave the country, should be a young officer +of Hussars. He spoke English well; he was amiable and intelligent. +While I waited for the commandant to sign the pass the aide chatted +of his adventures on the pursuit of the British to the Marne. The +British fought like devils, he said. It was a question if their new army +would be so good. He showed me a photograph of himself in a British +Tommy's overcoat. + +"When we took some prisoners I was interested in their overcoats," +he explained. "I asked one of the Tommies to let me try on his. It fitted +me perfectly, so I kept it as a souvenir and had this photograph made +to show my friends." + +Perhaps a shade of surprise passed over my face. + +"You don't understand," he said. "That Tommy had to give me his +coat! He was a prisoner." + +On my way out from Liege I was to see Visé--the town of the +gateway--the first town of the war to suffer from frightfulness. I had +thought of it as entirely destroyed. A part of it had survived. + +A delightful old Bavarian Landsturmman searched me for contraband +letters when our cart stopped on the Belgian side of a barricade at +Maastricht, with Dutch soldiers on the other side. His examination +was a little perfunctory, almost apologetic, and he did want to be +friendly. You guessed that he was thinking he would like to go around +the corner and have "ein Glas Bier" rather than search me. What a +hearty "Auf wiedersehen!" he gave me when he saw that I was +inclined to be friendly, too! + +I was glad to be across that frontier, with a last stamp on my +Passierschein; glad to be out of the land of those ghostly Belgian +millions in their living death; glad not to have to answer again their +ravenously whispered "When?" When would the Allies come? + +The next time that I was in Belgium it was in the British lines of the +Ypres salient, two months later. When should I be next in Brussels? +With a victorious British army, I hoped. A long wait it was to be for a +conquered people, listening each day and trying to think that the +sound of gun-fire was nearer. + +The stubborn, passive resistance and self-sacrifice that I have +pictured was that of a moral leadership of a majority shaming the +minority; of an ostracism of all who had relations with the enemy. Of +course, it was not the spirit of the whole. The American Commission, +as charity usually must, had to overcome obstacles set in its path by +those whom it would aid. Belgian politicians, in keeping with the +weakness of their craft, could no more forego playing politics in time +of distress than some that we had in San Francisco and some we +have heard of only across the British Channel from Belgium. + +Zealous leaders exaggerated the famine of their districts in order to +get larger supplies; communities in great need without spokesmen +must be reached; powerful towns found excuses for not forwarding +food to small villages which were without influence. Natural greed got +the better of men used to turning a penny any way they could. +Rascally bakers who sifted the brown flour to get the white to sell to +pâtisserie shops and the well-to-do while the bread-line got the bran, +required shrewd handling, and it was found that the best punishment +was to let the public know the pariah part they had played. In fact that +soon put a stop to the practice. It meant that the baker's business +was ruined and he had lost his friends. + +A certain percentage of Belgians, as would happen in any country, +saw the invasion only as a visitation of disaster, like an earthquake. A +flat country of gardens limits one's horizon. They fell into line with the +sentiment of the mass. But as time wore on into the summer and +autumn of the second year, some of them began to think, What was +the use? German propaganda was active. All that the Allies had +cared for Belgium was to use her to check the German tide to Paris +and the Channel ports! Perfidious England had betrayed Belgium! +German business and banking influences, which had been considerable +in Belgium before the war, and the numerous German residents +who had returned, formed a busy circle of appeal to Belgian business +men, who were told that the British navy stood between them and a +return to prosperity. Germany was only too willing that they should +resume their trade with the rest of the world. + +Why should not Belgium come into the German customs union? Why +should not Belgium make the best of her unfortunate situation, as +became a practical and thrifty people? But be it a customs union or +annexation that Germany plans, the steel had entered the hearts of +all Belgians with red corpuscles; and King Albert and his +"schipperkes" were still fighting the Germans at Dixmude. A British +army appearing before Brussels would end casuistry; and pessimism +would pass, and the German residents, too, with the huzzas of all +Belgium as the gallant king once more ascended the steps of his +palace. + +Worthy of England at her best was her consent to allow the +Commission's food to pass, which she accompanied by generous +giving. She might seem slow in making ready her army--though I do +not think that she was--but give she could and give she did. It was a +grave question if her consent was in keeping with the military policy +which believes that any concession to sentiment in the grim business +of war is unwise. Certainly, the Krieg ist Krieg of Germany would not +have permitted it. + +There is the very point of the war that ought to make any neutral take +sides. If the Belgians had not received bread from the outside world, +then Germany would either have had to spare enough to keep them +from starving or faced the desperation of a people who would fight for +food with such weapons as they had. This must have brought a +holocaust of reprisals that would have made the orgy of Louvain +comparatively insignificant. However much the Germans hampered +the Commission with red tape and worse than red tape through the +activities of German residents in Belgium, Germany did not want the +Commission to withdraw. It was helping her to economize her food +supplies. And England answered a human appeal at the cost of hard- +and-fast military policy. She was still true to the ideals which have set +their stamp on half the world. + + + + +XI +Winter In Lorraine + + + +Only a winding black streak, that four hundred and fifty miles of +trenches on a flat map. It is difficult to visualize the whole as you see +it in your morning paper, or to realize the labour it represents in its +course through the mire and over mountain slopes, through villages +and thick forests and across open fields. + +Every mile of it was located by the struggle of guns and rifles and +men coming to a stalemate of effort, when both dug into the earth +and neither could budge the other. It is a line of countless battles and +broken hopes; of charges as brave as men ever made; a symbol of +skill and dogged patience and eternal vigilance of striving foe against +striving foe. + +From the first, the sector from Rheims to Flanders was most familiar +to the public. The world still thinks of the battle of the Marne as an +affair at the door of Paris, though the heaviest fighting was from Vitry- +le-François eastward and the fate of Paris was no less decided on the +fields of Lorraine than on the fields of Champagne. The storming of +Rheims Cathedral became the theme of thousands of words of print +to one word for the defence of the Plateau d'Amance or the struggle +around Lunéville. Our knowledge of the war is from glimpses through +the curtain of military secrecy which was drawn tight over Lorraine +and the Vosges, shrouded in mountain mists. This is about Lorraine +in winter, when the war was six months old. + +But first, on our way, a word about Paris, which I had not seen since +September. At the outset of the war, Parisians who had not gone to +the front were in a trance of suspense; they were magnetized by the +tragic possibilities of the hour. The fear of disaster was in their hearts, +though they might deny it to themselves. They could think of nothing +but France. Now they realized that the best way to help France was +by going on with their work at home. Paris was trying to be normal, +but no Parisian was making the bluff that Paris was normal. The +Gallic lucidity of mind prevented such self-deception. + +Is it normal to have your sons, brothers, and husbands up to their +knees in icy water in the trenches, in danger of death every minute? +This attitude seems human; it seems logical. One liked the French for +it. One liked them for boasting so little. In their effort at normality +they had accomplished more than they realized; for one-sixth of +the wealth of France was in German hands. A line of steel made +the rest safe for those not at the front to pursue the routine of peace. + +When I had been in Paris in September there was no certainty about +railroad connections anywhere. You went to the station and took your +chances, governed by the movement of troops, not to mention other +conditions. This time I took the regular noon express to Nancy, as I +might have done to Marseilles, or Rome, or Madrid, had I chosen. +The sprinkling of quiet army officers on the train were in the new +uniform of peculiar steely grey, in place of the target blue and red. But +for them and the number of women in mourning and one other +circumstance, the train might have been bound for Berlin, with Nancy +only a stop on the way. + +The other circumstance was the presence of a soldier in the vestibule +who said: "Votre laisser-passer, monsieur, s'il vous platt!" If you had a +laisser-passer, he was most polite; but if you lacked one, he would +also have been most polite and so would the guard that took you in +charge at the next station. In other words, monsieur, you must have +something besides a railroad ticket if you are on a train that runs past +the fortress of Toul and your destination is Nancy. You must have a +military pass, which was never given to foreigners if they were +travelling alone in the zone of military operations. The pulse of the +Frenchman beats high, his imagination bounds, when he looks +eastward. To the east are the lost provinces and the frontier drawn by +the war of '70 between French Lorraine and German Lorraine. This +gave our journey interest. + +Nancy, capital of French Lorraine, is so near Metz, the great German +fortress town of German Lorraine, that excursion trains used to run to +Nancy in the opera season. "They are not running this winter," say +the wits of Nancy. "For one reason, we have no opera--and there are +other reasons." + +An aeroplane from the German lines has only to toss a bomb in the +course of an average reconnaissance on Nancy if it chooses; for +Zeppelins are within easy reach of Nancy. But here was Nancy as +brilliantly lighted at nine in the evening as any city of its size at home. +Our train, too, had run with the windows unshaded. After the +darkness of London, and after English trains with every window- +shade closely drawn, this was a surprise. + +It was a threat, an anticipation, that darkened London, while Nancy +knew fulfilment. Bombardment and bomb-dropping were nothing new +to Nancy. The spice of danger gives a fillip to business to the town +whose population heard the din of the most thunderously spectacular +action of the war echoing among the surrounding hills. Nancy saw the +enemy beaten back. Now she was so close to the front that she felt +the throb of the army's life. + +"Don't you ever worry about aerial raids?" I asked madame behind +the counter at the hotel. + +"Do the men in the trenches worry about them?" she answered. "We +have a much easier time than they. Why shouldn't we share some of +their dangers? And when a Zeppelin appears and our guns begin +firing, we all feel like soldiers under fire." + +"Are all the population here as usual?" + +"Certainly, monsieur!" she said. "The Germans can never take +Nancy. The French are going to take Metz!" + +The meal which that hotel restaurant served was as good as in peace +times. Who deserves a good meal if not the officer who comes in +from the front? And madame sees that he gets it. She is as proud of +her poulet en casserole as any commander of a soixante-quinze +battery of its practice. There was steam heat, too, in the hotel, which +gave an American a homelike feeling. + +In a score of places in the Eastern States you see landscapes with +high hills like the spurs of the Vosges around Nancy sprinkled with +snow and under a blue mist. And the air was dry; it had the life of our +air. Old Civil War men who had been in the Tennessee Mountains or +the Shenandoah Valley would feel perfectly at home in such +surroundings; only the foreground of farm land which merges into the +crests covered with trees in the distance is more finished. The people +were tilling it hundreds of years before we began tilling ours. They till +well; they make Lorraine a rich province of France. + +With guns pounding in the distance, boys in their capes were skipping +and frolicking on their way to school; housewives were going to +market, and the streets were spotlessly clean. All the men of Nancy +not in the army pursued their regular routine while the army went +about its business of throwing shells at the Germans. On the dead +walls of the buildings were M. Deschanel's speech in the Chamber of +Deputies, breathing endurance till victory, and the call for the class of +recruits of 1915, which you will find on the walls of the towns of all +France beside that of the order of mobilization in August, now +weather-stained. Nancy seemed, if anything, more French than any +interior French town. Though near the border, there is no touch of +German influence. When you walked through the old Place +Stanislaus, so expressive of the architectural taste bred for centuries +in the French, you understand the glow in the hearts of this very +French population which made them unconscious of danger while +their flag was flying over this very French city. + +No two Christian peoples we know are quite so different as the +French and the Germans. To each every national thought and habit +incarnates a patriotism which is in defiance of that on the other side of +the frontier. Over in America you may see the good in both sides, but +no Frenchman and no German can on the Lorraine frontier. If he +should, he would no longer be a Frenchman or a German in time of +war. + +At our service in front of the hotel were waiting two mortals in goatskin +coats, with scarfs around their ears and French military caps on top of +the scarfs. They were official army chauffeurs. If you have ridden +through the Alleghenies in winter in an open car, why explain that +seeing the Vosges front in a motor-car may be a joy ride to an +Eskimo, but not to your humble servant? But the roads were perfect; +as good wherever we went in this mountain country as from New +York to Poughkeepsie. I need not tell you this if you have been in +France; but you will be interested to know that Lorraine keeps her +roads in perfect repair even in war time. + +Crossing the swollen Moselle on a military bridge, twisting in and out +of valleys and speeding through villages, one saw who were guarding +the army's secrets, but little of the army itself and few signs of +transportation on a bleak, snowy day. At the outskirts of every village, +at every bridge, and at intervals along the road, Territorial sentries +stopped the car. Having an officer along was not sufficient to let you +whizz by important posts. He must show his pass. Every sentry was a +reminder of the hopelessness of being a correspondent these days +without official sanction. + +The sentries were men in the thirties. In Belgium, their German +counterpart, the Landsturm, were the monitors of a journey that I +made. No troops are more military than the first line Germans; but in +the snap and spirit of his salute the French Territorial has an élan, a +martial fervour, which the phlegmatic German in the thirties lacks. + +Occasionally we passed scattered soldiers in the village streets, or a +door opened to show a soldier figure in the doorway. The reason that +we were not seeing anything of the army was the same that keeps +the men and boys who are on the steps of the country grocery in +summer at home around the stove in winter. All these villages were +full of reservists who were indoors. They could be formed in the street +ready for the march to any part of the line where a concentrated +attack was made almost as soon after the alarm as a fire engine +starts to a fire. Now, imagine your view of a cricket match limited to +the bowler: and that is all you see in the low country of Flanders. You +have no grasp of what all the noise and struggle means, for you +cannot see over the shoulders of the crowd. But in Lorraine you have +only to ascend a hill and the moves in the chess game of war are +clear. + +A panorama unfolds as our car takes a rising grade to the village of +Ste. Geneviève. We alight and walk along a bridge, where the sentry +of a lookout is on watch. He seems quite alone, but at our approach a +dozen of his comrades come out of their "home" dug in the hillside. +Wherever you go about the frozen country of Lorraine it is a case of +flushing soldiers from their shelters. A small, semicircular table is set +up before the lookout, like his compass before a mariner. Here run +blue pencil lines of direction pointing to Pont-à-Mousson, to Château- +Salins, and other towns. Before us to the east rose the tree-clad +crests of the famous Grand Couronné of Nancy, and faintly in the +distance we could see Metz. + +"Those guns that I hear, are they firing across the frontier?" I asked. +For some French batteries command one of the outer forts of Metz. + +"No, they are near Pont-à-Mousson." + +To the north the little town of Pont-à-Mousson lay in the lap of the +river bottom, and across the valley, to the west, the famous Bois le +Prêtre. More guns were speaking from the forest depths, which +showed great scars where the trees had been cut to give fields of fire. +This was well to the rear of our position, marking the boundaries of +the wedge that the Germans drove into the French lines, with its point +at St. Mihiel, in trying to isolate the forts of Verdun and Toul. +Doubtless you have noticed that wedge on the snake maps and have +wondered about it, as I have. It looks so narrow that the French ought +to be able to shoot across it from both sides. If so, why don't the +Germans widen it? + +Well, for one thing, a quarter of an inch on a map is a good many +miles of ground. The Germans cannot spread their wedge because +they would have to climb the walls of an alley. That was a fact as +clear to the eye as the valley of the Hudson from West Point. The +Germans occupy an alley within an alley, as it were. They have their +own natural defences for the edges of their wedge; or, where they do +not, they lie cheek by jowl with the French in such thick woods as the +Bois le Prêtre. + +At our feet, looking toward Metz, an apron of cultivated land swept +down for a mile or more to a forest edge. This was cut by lines of +trenches, whose barbed-wire protection pricked a blanket of snow. + +"Our front is in those woods," explained the colonel who was in +command of the point. + +"A major when the war began and an officer of reserves," mon +capitaine, who had brought us out from Paris, explained about the +colonel. We were soon used to hearing that a colonel had been a +major or a major a captain before the Kaiser had tried to get Nancy. +There was quick death and speedy promotion at the great battle of +Lorraine, as there was at Gettysburg and Antietam. + +"They charged out of the woods, and we had a battalion of reserves-- +here are some of them--mes poilus!" + +He turned affectionately to the bearded fellows in scarfs who had +come out of the shelter. They smiled back. Now, as we all chatted +together, officer-and-man distinction disappeared. We were in a +family party. + +It was all very simple to mes poilus, that first fight. They had been told +to hold. If Ste. Geneviève were lost, the Amance plateau was in +danger, and the loss of the Amance plateau meant the fall of Nancy. +Some military martinets say that the soldiers of France think too +much. In this case thinking may have taught them responsibility. So +they held; they lay tight, these reserves, and kept on firing as the +Germans swarmed out of the woods. + +"And the Germans stopped there, monsieur. They hadn't very far to +go, had they? But the last fifty yards, monsieur, are the hardest +travelling when you are trying to take a trench." + +They knew, these poilus, these veterans. Every soldier who serves in +Lorraine knows. They themselves have tried to rush out of the edge +of a woods across an open space against intrenched Germans and +found the shoe on the other foot. + +Now the fields in the foreground down to the woods' edge were bare +of any living thing. You had to take mon capitaine's word for it that +there were any soldiers in front of us. + +"The Boches are a good distance away at this point," he said. "They +are in the next woods." + +A broad stretch of snow lay between the two clumps of woods. It was +not worth while for either side to try to get possession of the +intervening space. At the first movement by either French or +Germans the woods opposite would hum with rifle fire and echo with +cannonading. So, like rival parties of Arctic explorers waiting out the +Arctic winter, they watched each other. But if one force or the other +napped and the other caught him at it, then winter would not stay a +brigade commander's ambition. Three days later in this region the +French, by a quick movement, got a good bag of prisoners to make a +welcome item for the daily French official bulletin. + +"We wait and the Germans wait on spring for any big movement," +said the colonel. "Men can't lie out all night in the advance in weather +like this. In that direction------" He indicated a part of the line where +the two armies were facing each other across the old frontier. Back +and forth they had fought, only to arrive where they had begun. + +There was something else which the colonel wished us to see before +we left the hill of Ste. Geneviève. It appealed to his Gallic sentiment, +this quadrilateral of stone on the highest point where legend tells that +"Jovin, a Christian and very faithful, vanquished the German +barbarians 366 A.D." + +"We have to do as well in our day as Jovin in his," remarked the +colonel. + +The church of Ste. Geneviève was badly smashed by shell. So was +the church in the village on the Plateau d'Amance, as are most +churches in this district of Lorraine. Framed through a great gap in +the wall of the church of Amance was an immense Christ on the +cross without a single abrasion, and a pile of debris at its feet. After +seeing as many ruined churches as I have, one becomes almost +superstitious at how often the figures of Christ escape. But I have +also seen effigies of Christ blown to bits. + +Anyone who, from an eminence, has seen one battle fought +visualizes another readily when the positions lie at his feet. Looking +out on the field of Gettysburg from Round Top, I can always get the +same thrill that I had when, seated in a gallery above the Russian and +the Japanese armies, I saw the battle of Liao-yang. In sight of that +Plateau d'Amance, which rises like a great knuckle above the +surrounding country, a battle covering twenty times the extent of +Gettysburg raged, and one could have looked over a battle-line as far +as the eye may see from a steamer's mast. + +An icy gale swept across the white crest of the plateau on this +January day, but it was nothing to the gale of shells that descended +on it in late August and early September. Forty thousand shells, it is +estimated, fell there. One kicked up fragments of steel on the field like +peanut-shells after a circus has gone. Here were the emplacements +of a battery of French soixante-quinze within a circle of holes torn by +its adversaries' replies to its fire; a little farther along, concealed by +shrubbery, the position of another battery which the enemy had not +located. + +So that was it! The struggle on the immense landscape, where at +least a quarter of a million men were killed and wounded, became as +simple as some Brobdingnagian football match. Before the war +began the French would not move a man within five miles of the +frontier lest it be provocative; but once the issue was joined they +sprang for Alsace and Lorraine, their imagination magnetized by the +thought of the recovery of the lost provinces. Their Alpine chasseurs, +mountain men of the Alpine and the Pyrenees districts, were +concentrated for the purpose. + +I recalled a remark I had heard: "What a pitiful little offensive that +was!" It was made by one of those armchair "military experts" who +look at a map and jump at a conclusion. They appear very wise in +their wordiness when real military experts are silent for want of +knowledge. Pitiful, was it? Ask the Germans who faced it what they +think. Pitiful, that sweep over those mountain walls and through the +passes? Pitiful, perhaps, because it failed, though not until it had +taken Château-Salins in the north and Mulhouse in the south. Ask the +Germans if they think that it was pitiful! The Confederates also failed +at Antietam and at Gettysburg, but the Union army never thought of +their efforts as pitiful. + +The French fell back because all the weight of the German army was +thrown against France, while the Austrians were left to look after the +slowly mobilizing Russians. Two million five hundred thousand men +on their first line the Germans had, as we know now, against the +French twelve hundred thousand and Sir John French's army fighting +one against four. To make sure of saving Paris as the Germans +swung their mighty flanking column through Belgium, Joffre had to +draw in his lines. The Germans came over the hills as splendidly as +the French had gone. They struck in all directions toward Paris. In +Lorraine was their left flank, the Bavarians, meant to play the same +part to the east that von Kluck played to the west. We heard only of +von Kluck; nothing of this terrific struggle in Lorraine. + +From the Plateau d'Amance you may see how far the Germans came +and what was their object. Between the fortresses of Epinal and of +Toul lies the Trouée de Mirecourt--the Gap of Mirecourt. It is said that +the French had purposely left it open when they were thinking of +fighting the Germans on their own frontier and not on that of Belgium. +They wanted the Germans to make their trial here--and wisely, for +with all the desperate and courageous efforts of the Bavarian and +Saxon armies they never got near the gap. + +If they had forced it, however, with von Kluck swinging on the other +flank, they might have got around the French army. Such was the +dream of German strategy, whose realization was so boldly and +skilfully undertaken. The Germans counted on their immense force of +artillery, built for this war in the last two years and out-ranging the +French, to demoralize the French infantry. But the French infantry +called the big shells marmites (saucepans), and made a joke of them +and the death they spread as they tore up the fields in clouds of +earth. + +Ah, it took more than artillery to beat back the best troops of France in +a country like this--a country of rolling hills and fenceless fields cut by +many streams and set among thick woods, where infantry on a bank +or at a forest's edge with rifles and rapid-firers and guns kept their +barrels cool until the charge developed in the open. Some of these +forests are only a few acres in extent; others are hundreds of acres. +In the dark depths of one a frozen lake was seen glistening from our +viewpoint on the Plateau d'Amance. + +"Indescribable that scene which we witnessed from here," said an +officer who had been on the plateau throughout the fighting. "All the +splendid majesty of war was set on a stage before you. It was +intoxication. We could see the lines of troops in their retreat and +advance, batteries and charges shrouded in shrapnel smoke. What +hosts of guns the Germans had! They seemed to be sowing the +whole face of the earth with shells. The roar of the thing was like that +of chaos itself. It was the exhilaration of the spectacle that kept us +from dropping from fatigue. Two weeks of this business! Two weeks +with every unit of artillery and infantry always ready, if not actually +engaged!" + +The general in command was directing not one but many battles, +each with a general of its own; manoeuvring troops across streams +and open places, seeking the cover of forests, with the aeroplanes +unable to learn how many of the enemy were hidden in the forests on +his front, while he tried to keep his men out of angles and make his +movements correspond with those of the divisions on his right and +left. Skill this required; skill equivalent to German skill; the skill +which you cannot command in a month after calling for a million +volunteers, but which grows through years of organization. + +Shall I call the general in chief command General X? This is +according to the custom of anonymity. A great modern army like the +French is a machine; any man, high or low, only a unit of the +machine. In this case the real name of X is Castelnau. If it lacks the +fame which seems its due, that may be because he was too busy to +take the Press into his confidence. Fame is not the business of +French generals nowadays. It is war. What counted for France was +that he never let the Germans get near the gap at Mirecourt. + +Having failed to reach the gap, the Germans, with that stubbornness +of the offensive which characterizes them, tried to take Nancy. They +got a battery of heavy guns within range of the city. From a high hill it +is said that the Kaiser watched the bombardment. But here is a story. +As the German infantry advanced toward their new objective they +passed a French artillery officer in a tree. He was able to locate that +heavy battery and able to signal its position back to his own side. The +French concentrated sufficient fire to silence it after it had thrown forty +shells into Nancy. The same report tells how the Kaiser folded his +cloak around him and walked in silence from his eminence, where the +sun blazed on his helmet. It was not the Germans' fault that they +failed to take Nancy. It was due to the French. + +Some time a tablet will be put up to denote the high-water mark of the +German invasion of Lorraine. It will be between the edge of the forest +of Champenoux and the heights. When the Germans charged from +the cover of the forest to get possession of the road to Nancy, the +French artillery and machine-guns which had held their fire turned +loose. The rest of the story is how the French infantry, impatient at +being held back, swept down in a counter-attack, and the Germans +had to give up their campaign in Lorraine as they gave up their +campaign against Paris in the early part of September. Saddest of all +lost opportunities to the correspondent in this war is this fighting in +Lorraine. One had only to climb a hill in order to see everything! + +In half an hour, as the officer outlined the positions, we had lived +through the two weeks' fighting; and, thanks to the fairness of his +story--that of a professional soldier without illusions--we felt that we +had been hearing history while it was very fresh. + +"They are very brave and skilful, the Germans," he said. "We still +have a battery of heavy guns on the plateau. Let us go and see it." + +We went, picking our way among the snow-covered shell-pits. At one +point we crossed a communication trench, where soldiers could go +and come to the guns and the infantry positions without being +exposed to shell-fire. I noticed that it carried a telephone wire. + +"Yes," said the officer; "we had no ditch during the fight with the +Germans, and we were short of telephone wire for a while; so we had +to carry messages back and forth as in the old days. It was a pretty +warm kind of messenger service when the German marmites were +falling their thickest." + +At length he stopped before a small mound of earth not in any way +distinctive at a short distance on the uneven surface of the plateau. I +did not even notice that there were three other such mounds. He +pointed to a hole in the ground. I had been used to going through a +manhole in a battleship turret, but not through one into a field-gun +position before aeroplanes played a part in war. + +"Entrez, monsieur!" + +And I stepped down to face the breech of a gun whose muzzle +pointed out of another hole in the timbered roof covered with earth. + +"It's very cosy!" I remarked. + +"Oh, this is the shop! The living room is below--here!" + +I descended a ladder into a cellar ten feet below the gun level, where +some of the gunners were lying on a thick carpet of perfectly dry +straw. + +"You are not doing much firing these days?" I suggested. + +"Oh, we gave the Boches a couple this morning so they shouldn't get +cocky thinking they were safe It's necessary to keep your hand in +even in the winter." + +"Don't you get lonesome?" + +"No, we shift on and off. We're not here all the while. It is quite warm +in our salon, monsieur, and we have good comrades. It is war. It is for +France. What would you?" + +Four other gun-positions and four other cellars like this! Thousands of +gun-positions and thousands of cellars! Man invents new powers of +destruction and man finds a way of escaping them. + +As we left the battery we started forward, and suddenly out of the +dusk came a sharp call. A young corporal confronted us. Who were +we and what business had we prowling about on that hill? If there had +been no officer along and I had not had a laisser-passer on my +person, the American Ambassador to France would probably have +had to get another countryman out of trouble. + +The incident shows how thoroughly the army is policed and how +surely. Editors who wonder why their correspondents are not in the +front line catching bullets, please take notice. + +It was dark when we returned to the little village on the plateau where +we had left the car. The place seemed uninhabited with all the blinds +closed. But through one uncovered window I saw a room full of +chatting soldiers. We went to pay our respects to the colonel in +command, and found him and his staff around a table covered with +oilcloth in the main living-room of a villager's house. He spoke of his +men, of their loyalty and cheerfulness, as the other commanders had, +as if this were his only boast. These French officers have little "side"; +none of that toe-the-mark, strutting militarism which the Germans +think necessary to efficiency. They live very simply on campaign, +though if they do get to town for a few hours they enjoy a good meal. +If they did not, madame at the restaurant would feel that she was not +doing her duty to France. + + + + + + + +XII +Smiles Among Ruins + + + +Scorched piles of brick and mortar where a home has been ought to +make about the same impression anywhere. When you have gone +from Belgium to French Lorraine, however, you will know quite the +contrary. In Belgium I suffered all the depression which a nightmare +of war's misery can bring; in French Lorraine I found myself sharing +something of the elation of a man who looks at a bruised knuckle with +the consciousness that it broke a burglar's jaw. + +A Belgian repairing the wreck of his house was a grim, heartbreaking +picture; a Frenchman of Lorraine repairing the wreck of his house had +the light of hard-won victory, of confidence, of sacrifice made to a +great purpose, of freedom secure for future generations, in his eyes. +The difference was this: The Germans were still in Belgium; they were +out of French Lorraine for good. + +"What matters a shell-hole through my walls and my torn roof!" said a +Lorraine farmer. "Work will make my house whole. But nothing could +ever have made my heart and soul whole while the Germans +remained. I saw them go, monsieur; they left us ruins, but France is +ours!" + +I had thought it a pretty good thing to see something of the Eastern +French front; but a better thing was the happiness I found there. + +Mon capitaine had come out from the Ministry of War in Paris; but +when we set out from Nancy southward, we had a different local +guide, a major belonging to the command in charge of the region +which we were to visit. He was another example which upsets certain +popular notions of Frenchmen as gesticulating, excitable little men. +Some six feet two in height, he had an eye that looked straight into +yours, a very square chin, and a fine forehead. You had only to look +at him and size him up on points to conclude that he was all there; +that he knew his work. + +"Well, we've got good weather for it to-day, monsieur," said a voice +out of a goatskin coat, and I found we had the same chauffeur as +before. + +The sun was shining--a warm winter sun like that of a February thaw +in our Northern States--glistening on the snowy fields and slopes +among the forests and tree-clad hills of the mountainous country. +Faces ambushed in whiskers thought it was a good day for trimming +beards and washing clothes. The sentries along the roads had their +scarfs around their necks instead of over their ears. A French soldier +makes ear muffs, chest protector, nightcap, and a blanket out of the +scarf which wife or sister knits for him. If any woman who reads this +knits one to send to France she may be sure that the fellow who +received it will get every stitch's worth out of it. + +To-day, then, it was war without mittens. You did not have to sound +the bugle to get soldiers out of their burrows or their houses. Our first +stop was at our own request, in a village where groups of soldiers +were taking a sun bath. More came out of the doors as we alighted. +They were all in the late twenties or early thirties, men of a reserve +regiment. Some had been clerks, some labourers, some farmers, +some employers, when the war began. Then they were piou-pious, in +French slang; then all France prayed godspeed to its beloved piou- +pious. Then you knew the clerk by his pallor; the labourer by his hard +hands; the employer by his manner of command. Now they were +poilus--bearded, hard-eyed veterans; you could not tell the clerk from +the labourer or the employer from the peasant. + +Anyone who saw the tenderfoot pilgrimage to the Alaskan goldfield in +'97-8 and the same crowd six months later will understand what had +happened to these men. The puny had put on muscle; the city +dweller had blown his lungs; the fat man had lost some adipose; +social differences of habit had disappeared. The gentleman used to +his bath and linen sheets and the hard-living farmer or labourer--both +had had to eat the same kind of food, do the same work, run the +same risks in battle, and sleep side by side in the houses where they +were lodged and in the dug-outs of the trenches when it was their turn +to occupy them through the winter. Any "snob" had his edges +trimmed by the banter of his comrades. Their beards accentuated the +likeness of type. A cheery lot of faces and intelligent, these, which +greeted us with curious interest. + +"Perhaps President Wilson will make peace," one said. + +"When?" + +A shrug of the shoulder, a gesture to the East, and the answer was: + +"When we have Alsace-Lorraine back." + +Under a shed their déjeuner was cooking. This meal at noon is the +meal of the day to the average Frenchman who has only bread and +coffee in the morning. They say that he objects to fighting at luncheon +time. That is the hour when he wants to sit down and forget his work +and laugh and talk and enjoy his eating. The Germans found this out +and tried to take his trenches at the noon hour. Interference with his +gastronomic habits made him so angry that he dropped the knife and +fork for the bayonet and took back any lost ground in a ferocious +counter-attack. He would teach those "Boches" to leave him to eat +his déjeuner in peace. + +That appetizing stew in the kettles in the shed once more proved that +Frenchmen know how to cook. I didn't blame them for objecting to +being shot at by the Germans when they were about to eat it. The +average French soldier is better fed than at home; he gets more +meat, for a hungry soldier is usually a poor soldier. It is a very simple +problem with France's fine roads to feed that long line when it is +stationary. It is like feeding a city stretched out over a distance of four +hundred and fifty miles; a stated number of ounces each day for each +man and a known number of men to feed. From the railway head +trucks and motor-buses take the supplies up to the distributing points. +At one place I saw ten Paris motor-buses, their signs painted over in +a steel-grey to hide them from aeroplanes, and not one of them had +broken down through the war. The French take good care of their +equipment and their clothes; they waste no food. As a people is so is +their army, and the French are thrifty by nature. + +Father Joffre, as the soldiers call him, is running the next largest +boarding establishment in Europe after the Kaiser and the Tsar. And +he has a happy family. It seemed to me that life ought to have been +utterly dull for this characteristic group of poilus, living crowded +together all winter in a remote village. Civilians sequestered in this +fashion away from home are inclined to get grouchy on one another. + +One of the officers in speaking of this said that early in the autumn +the reserves were pretty homesick. They wanted to get back to their +wives and children. Nostalgia, next to hunger, is the worst thing for a +soldier. Commanders were worried. But as winter wore on the spirit +changed. The soldiers began to feel the spell of their democratic +comradeship. The fact that they had fought together and survived +together played its part; and individualism was sunk in the one +thought that they were there for France. The fellowship of a cause +taught them patience, brought them cheer. Another thing was the +increasing sense of team play, of confidence in victory, which holds a +ball team, a business enterprise, or an army together. Every day the +organization of the army was improving; every day that indescribable +and subtle element of satisfaction that the Germans were securely +held was growing. + +Every Frenchman saves something of his income; madame sees to it +that he does. He knows that if he dies he will not leave wife and +children penniless. His son, not yet old enough to fight, will come on +to take his place. Men at home of twenty-two or three years and +unmarried, men of twenty-eight or thirty years and not long married, +and men of forty with some money put by, will, in turn, understand +how their own class feels. + +In ten minutes you had entered into the hearts of this single company +in a way that made you feel that you had got into the heart of the +whole French army. When you asked them if they would like to go +home they didn't say "No!" all in a chorus, as if that were what the +colonel had told them to say. They obey the colonel, but their +thoughts are their own. Otherwise, these ruddy, healthy men, +representing the people of France and not the cafés of Paris, would +not keep France a republic. + +Yes, they did want to go home. They did want to go home. They +wanted their wives and babies; they wanted to sit down to morning +coffee at their own tables. Lumps rose in their throats at the +suggestion. But they were not going until the German peril was over +for ever. Why stop now, only to have another terrible war in thirty or +forty years? A peace that would endure must be won. They had +thought that out for themselves. They would not stick to their +determination if they had not. This is the way of democracies. Thus, +everyone was conscious that he was fighting not merely to win, but +for future generations. + +"It happened that this great struggle which we had long feared came +in our day, and to us is the duty," said one. You caught the spirit of +comradeship passing the time with jests at one another's expense. +One of the men who was not a full thirty-third-degree poilu had +compromised with the razor on a moustache as blazing red as his +shock of hair. + +"I think that the colonel gave him the tip that he would light the way for +Zeppelins!" said a comrade. + +"Envy! Sheer envy!" was the retort. "Look at him!" and he pointed at +some scraggly bunches on chin and cheeks which resembled a +young grass plat that had come up badly. + +"I don't believe in air-tight beards," was the response. When I +produced a camera, the effect was the same as it always is with +soldiers at the front. They all wanted to be in the photograph, on the +chance that the folks at home might see how the absent son or father +looked. Would I send them one? And the address was like this: +"Monsieur Benevent, Corporal of Infantry 18th Company, 5th +Battalion, 299th Regiment of Infantry, Postal Sector No. 121." by +which you will know the rural free delivery methods along the French +front. This address is the one rift in the blank wall of anonymity which +hides the individuality of the millions under Joffre. Only the army +knows the sector and the numbers of the regiment in that sector. By +the same kind of a card-index system Joffre might lay his hand on +any one of his millions, each a human being with all a human being's +individual emotions, who, to be a good soldier, must be only one of +the vast multitude of obedient chessmen. + +"We are ready to go after them when Father Joffre says the word," all +agreed. Joffre has proved himself to the democracy, which means +the enthusiastic loyalty of a democracy's intelligence. + +"If there are any homesick ones we should find them among the lot +here," said mon capitaine. + +These were the men who had not been long married. They were not +yet past the honeymoon period; they had young children at home; +perhaps they had become fathers since they went to war. The +younger men of the first line had the irresponsibility and the ardour of +youth which makes comradeship easy. + +But the older men, the Territorials as they are called, in the late +thirties and early forties, have settled down in life. Their families are +established; their careers settled; some of them, perhaps, may enjoy +a vacation from the wife; for you know madame, in France, with all +her thrift, can be a little bossy, which is not saying that this is not a +proper tonic for her lord. So the old boys seem the most content in +the fellowship of winter quarters. What they cannot stand are +repeated, long, hard marches; their legs give out under the load of +rifle and pack. But their hearts are in the war, and right there is one +very practical reason why they will fight well--and they have fought +better as they hardened with time and the old French spirit revived in +their blood. "Allons, messieurs!" said the tall major, who wanted us to +see battlefields. It required no escort to tell us where the battlefield +was. We knew it when we came to it, as you know the point reached +by high tide on the sands--this field where many Gettysburgs were +fought in one through that terrible fortnight in late August and early +September, when the future of France and the whole world hung in +the balance--as the Germans sought to reach Paris and win a +decisive victory over the French army. Where destruction ended +there the German invasion reached its limit. + +Forests and streams and ditches and railway culverts played their +part in tactical surprises, as they did at Gettysburg; and cemetery +walls, too. In all my battlefield visits in Europe I have not seen a single +cemetery wall that was not loopholed. But the fences, which +throughout the Civil War offered impediment to charges and screen +to the troops which could reach them first, were missing. The fields +lay in bold stretches, because it is the business of young boys and +girls in Lorraine to watch the cows and keep them out of the corn. + +We stopped at a cross-roads where charges met and wrestled back +and forth in and out of the ditches. Fragments of shells appeared as +steps scuffed away the thin coating of snow. I picked up an old +French cap, with a slash in the top that told how its owner came to his +end, and near by a German helmet. For there are souvenirs in plenty +lying in the young wheat which was sown after the battle was over. +Millions of little nickel bullets are ploughed in with the blood of those +who died to take the Kaiser to Paris and those who died to keep him +out in this fighting across the fields and through the forests, in a tug- +of-war of give-and-take, of men exhausted after nights and days +under fire, men with bloodshot eyes sunk deep in the sockets, dust- +laden, blood-spattered, with forty years of latent human powder +breaking forth into hell when the war was only a month old and +passion was at a white heat. + +Hasty shelter-trenches gridiron the land; such trenches as breathless +men, dropping after a charge, threw up hurriedly with the spades that +they carry on their backs to give them a little cover. And there is the +trench that stopped the Germans--the trench which they charged but +could not take. It lies among shell-holes so thick that you can step +from one to another. In places its crest is torn away, which means +that half a dozen men were killed in a group. But reserves filled their +places. They kept pouring out their stream of lead which German +courage could not endure. Thus far and no farther the invasion came +in that wheat-field which will be ever memorable. + +We went up a hill once crowned by one of those clusters of farm- +buildings of stone and mortar, where house and stables and +granaries are close together. All around were bare fields. Those farm- +buildings stood up like a mountain peak. The French had the hill and +lost it and recovered it. Whichever side had it, the other was bound to +bathe it in shells because it commanded the country around. The +value of property meant nothing. All that counted was military +advantage. Because churches are often on hill-tops, because they +are bound to be used for lookouts, is why they get torn to pieces. +When two men are fighting for life they don't bother about upsetting a +table with a vase, or notice any "Keep off the grass" signs; no, not +even if the family Bible be underfoot. + +None of the roof, none of the superstructure of these farm-buildings +was left; only the lower walls, which were eighteen inches thick and in +places penetrated by the shells. For when a Frenchman builds a +farmhouse he builds it to last a few hundred years. The farm windmill +was as twisted as a birdcage that has been rolled under a trolley car, +but a large hayrake was unharmed. Such is the luck of war. I made +up my mind that if I ever got under shell-fire I would make for the +hayrake and avoid the windmill. + +Our tall major pointed out all the fluctuating positions during the battle. +It was like hearing a chess match explained from memory by an +expert. Words to him were something precious. He made each one +count as he would the shots from his cannon. His narrative had the +lucidity of a terse judge reviewing evidence. The battlefield was +etched on his mind in every important phase of its action. + +Not once did he speak in abuse of the enemy. The staff officer who +directs steel ringing on steel is too busy thrusting and keeping guard +to indulge in diatribes. To him the enemy is a powerful impersonal +devil, who must be beaten. When I asked about the conduct of the +Germans in the towns they occupied, his lip tightened and his eyes +grew hard. + +"I'm afraid it was pretty bad!" he said; as if he felt, besides the wrong +to his own people, the shame that men who had fought so bravely +should act so ill. I think his attitude toward war was this: "We will die +for France, but calling the Germans names will not help us to win. It +only takes breath." + +"Allons, messieurs!" + +As our car ran up a gentle hill we noticed two soldiers driving a load of +manure. This seemed a pretty prosaic, even humiliating, business, in +a poetic sense, for the brave poilus, veterans of Lorraine's great +battle. But Father Joffre is a true Frenchman of his time. Why should +not the soldiers help the farmers whose sons are away at the front +and perhaps helping farmers back of some Other point of the line? + +Over the crest of the hill we came on long lines of soldiers bearing +timbers and fascines for trench-building, which explained why some +of the villages were empty. A fascine is something usually made of +woven branches which will hold dirt in position. The woven wicker +cases for shells which the German artillery uses and leaves behind +when it has to quit the field in a hurry, make excellent fascines, and a +number that I saw were of this ready-made kind. After carrying shell +for killing Frenchmen they were to protect the lives of Frenchmen. +Near by other soldiers were turning up a strip of fresh earth against +the snow, which looked like a rip in the frosting of a chocolate cake. + +"How do you like this kind of war?" we asked. It is the kind that +irrigationists and subway excavators make. + +"We've grown to be very fond of it," was the answer. "It is a cultivated +taste, which becomes a passion with experience. After you have +been shot at in the open you want all the earth you can get between +you and the bullets." + +Now we alighted from the motor-car and went forward on foot. We +passed some eight lines of trenches before we came to the one +where we were to stop. A practised military eye had gone over all that +ground; a practised military hand had laid out each trench. After the +work was done the civilian's eye could grasp the principle. If one +trench were taken, the men knew exactly how to fall back on the next, +which commanded the ground they had left. The trenches were not +continuous. There were open spaces left purposely. All that front was +literally locked, and double and triple locked, with trenches. Break +through one barred door and there is another and another +confronting you. Considering the millions of burrowing and digging +and watching soldiers, it occurred to one that if a marmite (saucepan) +came along and buried our little party, our loss would not be as much +noticed as if a piece of coping from a high building had fallen and +extinguished us on Broadway, which would be a relatively novel way +of dying. Being killed in war had long ceased to be a novelty on the +continent of Europe. + +We seemed in a dead world, except for the leisurely, hoarse, muffled +reports of a French gun in the woods on either side of the open space +where we stood. Through our glasses we could see quite clearly the +line of the German front trench, which was in the outskirts of a village +on higher ground than the French. Not a human being was visible. +Both sides were watching for any move of the other, meanwhile lying +tight under cover. By day they were marooned. All supplies and all +reliefs of men who are to take their turn in front go out by night. + +There were no men in the trench where we stood; those who would +man it in case of danger were in the adjoining woods, where they had +only to cut down saplings and make shelters to be as comfortable as +in a winter resort camp in the Adirondacks. Any minute they might +receive a call--which meant death for many. But they were used to +that, and their card games went on none the less merrily. + +"No farther?" we asked our major. + +"No farther!" he said. "This is risk enough for you. It looks very +peaceful, but the enemy could toss in some marmites if it pleased +him." Perhaps he was exaggerating the risk for the sake of a realistic +effect on the sightseers. No matter! In time one was to have risks +enough in trenches. It was on such an occasion as this, on another +part of the French line, that two correspondents slipped away from +the officers conducting them, though their word of honour was given +not to do so--which adds another reason for military suspicion of the +Press. The officers rang up the nearest telephone which connected +with the front trenches, the batteries, and regimental and brigade +headquarters, to apprehend two men of such-and-such description. +They were taken as easily as a one-eyed, one-eared man, with a +wooden leg and red hair would be in trying to get out of police +headquarters when the doormen had his Bertillon photograph and +measurements to go by. + +That battery hidden from aerial observation in the thick forest kept up +its slow firing at intervals. It was "bothering" one of the German +trenches. Fiendish the consistent regularity with which it kept on, and +so easy for the gunners. They had only to slip in a shell, swing a +breech-lock home, and pull a lanyard. The German guns did not +respond because they could not locate the French battery. They may +have known that it was somewhere in the forest, but firing at two or +three hundred acres of wood on the chance of reaching some guns +heavily protected by earth and timbering was about like tossing a pea +from the top of the Washington Monument on the chance of hitting a +four-leafed clover on the lawn below. + +Our little group remained, not standing in the trench but back of it, in +full relief for some time; for the German gunners refused to play for +realism by sending us a marmite. Probably they had seen us through +the telescope at the start and concluded we weren't worth a shot. In +the first months of the war such a target would have received a burst +of shells, for the fun of seeing us scatter, if nothing else. Then +ammunition was plentiful and the sport of shooting had not lost its +zest; but in these winter days orders were not to waste ammunition. + +The factories must manufacture a supply ahead for the summer +campaign. There must be fifteen dollars' worth of target in sight, say, +for the smallest shell costs that; and the shorter you are of shells the +more valuable the target must be. Besides, firing a cannon had +become as commonplace a function to both French and German +gunners as getting up to put another stick of wood in the stove or +going to open the door to take a letter from the postman. + +We had glimpses of other trenches; but this is not the place in this +book to write of trenches. We shall see trenches till we are weary of +them later. We are going direct to Gerbéviller which was--emphasis +on the past tense--a typical little Lorraine town of fifteen hundred +inhabitants. Look where you would now, as we drove along the road, +and you saw churches without steeples, houses with roofs standing +on sections of walls, houses smashed into bits. + +"I saw no such widespread destruction as this in Belgium!" I +exclaimed. + +"There was no such fighting in Belgium," was the answer. + +Of course not, except in the south-western corner, where the armies +still face each other. + +"Not all the damage was done by the Germans," the major explained. +"Naturally, when they were pouring in death from the cover of a +house, our guns let drive at that house," he went on. "The owners of +the houses that were hit by our shells are rather proud--proud of our +marksmanship, proud that we gave the unwelcome guest a hot pill to +swallow." + +For ten days the Bavarians had Gerbéviller. They tore it to pieces +before they got it, then burned the remains because they said the +population sniped at them. All the orgy of Louvain was repeated here, +unchronicled to our people at home. The church looks like a Swiss +cheese from shell-holes. Its steeple was bound to be an observation +post, reasoned the Germans; so they poured shells into it. But the +brewery had a tall chimney which was an even better lookout, and the +brewery is the one building unharmed in the town. The Bavarians +knew that they would need that for their commissariat. For a Bavarian +will not fight without his beer. The land was littered with barrels after +they had gone. I saw some in trenches occupied by Bavarian +reserves not far back of where their firing-line had been. + +"However, the fact that the brewery is intact and the church in ruins +does not prove that a brewery is better than a church. It only proves +which is the Lord's side in this war," said Sister Julie. But I get ahead +of my story. + +In the middle of the main street were half a dozen smoke-blackened +houses which remained standing, an oasis in the sea of destruction, +with doors and windows intact facing gaps where doors and windows +had been. We entered with a sense of awe of the chance which had +spared these buildings. + +"Sister Julie!" the major called. + +A short, sturdy nun of about sixty years answered cheerily and +appeared in the dark hall. She led us into the sitting-room, where she +spryly placed chairs for our little party. She was smiling; her eyes +were sparkling with a hospitable and kindly interest in us, while I felt, +on my part, that thrill of curiosity that one always has when he meets +some celebrated person for the first time--curiosity no less keen than +if I were to meet Barbara Frietchie. + +Through all that battle of ten days, with the cannon never silent day or +night, with shells screaming overhead and crashing into houses; +through ten days of thunder and lightning and earthquake, she and +her four sister associates remained in Gerbéviller. When the town +was fired they moved from one building to another. They nursed both +wounded French and Germans; also wounded townspeople who +could not flee with the others. + +"You were not frightened? You did not think of going away?" she was +asked. + +"Frightened?" she answered. "I had not time to think of that. Go +away? How could I when the Lord's work had come to me?" + +President Poincaré went in person to give her the Legion of Honour, +the first given to a woman in this war; so rarely given to a woman, and +here bestowed with the love of a nation. Sister Marie was in the +kitchen at the time, cooking the meal for the sick for whom the sisters +are still caring. So Sister Julie took the President of France into the +kitchen to meet Sister Marie, quite as she would take you or me. A +human being is simply a human being to Sister Julie, to be treated +courteously; and great men may not cause a meal for the sick to +burn. After the complexity of French politics, President Poincaré was +anything but unfavourably impressed by the incident. + +"He was such a little man, I could not believe at first that he could be +President," she said. "I thought that the President of France would be +a big man. But he was very agreeable and, I am sure, very wise. +Then there were other men with him, a Monsieur de-de-Deschanel, +who was president of something or other in Paris, and Monsieur du- +du--yes, that was it, Du Bag. He also is president of something in +Paris. They were very agreeable, too." + +"And your Legion of Honour?" + +"Oh, my medal that M. le Président gave me! I keep that in a drawer. +I do not wear it every day when I am in my working-clothes." + +"Have you ever been to Paris?" + +"No, monsieur." + +"They will make a great ado over you when you go." + +"I must stay in Gerbéviller. If I stayed during the fighting and when the +Germans were here, why should I leave now? Gerbéviller is my +home. There is much to do here and there will be more to do when +the people who were driven away return." + +These nuns saw their townspeople stood up against a wall and shot; +they saw their townspeople killed by shells. The cornucopia of war's +horrors was emptied at their door. And women of a provincial town, +who had led peaceful, cloistered lives, they did not blench or falter in +the presence of ghastliness which only men are supposed to have +the stoicism to witness. + +What feature of the nightmare had held most vividly in Sister Julie's +mind? It is hard to say; but the one which she dwelt on was about the +boy and the cow. The invaders, when they came in, ordered that no +inhabitant leave his house, on pain of death. A boy of ten took his +cow to pasture in the morning as usual. He did not see anything +wrong in that. The cow ought to go to pasture. And he was shot, for +he broke a military regulation. He might have been a spy using the +cow as a blind. War does not bother to discriminate. It kills. + +Sister Julie can enjoy a joke, particularly on the Germans, and her +cheerful smile and genuine laugh are a lesson to all people who draw +long faces in time of trouble and weep over spilt milk. A buoyant +temperament and unshaken faith carried her through her ordeal. +Though her hair is white, youth's optimism and confidence in the +future and the joy of victory for France overshadowed the present. +The town and church would be rebuilt; children would play in the +streets again; there was a lot of the Lord's work to do yet. + +In every word and thought she is French--French in her liveliness of +spirit and quickness of comprehension; wholly French there on the +borderland of Germany. If we only went to the outskirts of the town, +she reminded us, we could see how the soldiers of her beloved +France fought and why she was happy to have remained in +Gerbéviller to welcome them back. + +In sight of that intact brewery and that wreck of a church is a gentle +slope of open field, cut by a road. Along the crest were many mounds +as thick as the graves of a cemetery, and by the side of the road was +a temporary monument above a big mound, surrounded by a sanded +walk and a fence. The dead had been thickest at this point, and here +they had been laid in a vast grave. The surviving comrades had +made that monument; and, in memory of what the dead had fought +for, the living said that they were not yet ready to quit fighting. + +Standing on this crest, you were a thousand yards away from the +edge of a woods. German aeroplanes had seen the French massing +for a charge under the cover of that crest; but French aeroplanes +could not see what was in the woods. Rifles and machine-guns +poured a spray of lead across the crest when the French appeared. +But the French, who were righting for Sister Julie's town, would not +stop their rush at first. They kept on, as Pickett's men did when the +Federal guns riddled their ranks with grapeshot. This accounts for +many of the mounds being well beyond the crest. The Germans +made a mistake in firing too soon. They would have made a heavier +killing if they had allowed the charge to go farther. After the French fell +back, for two days and nights their wounded lay out on that field +without water or food, between the two forces, and if their comrades +approached to give succour the machine-guns blazed more death, +because the Germans did not want to let the French dig a trench on +the crest. After two days the French forced the Germans out of the +woods by hitting them from another point. + +We went over the field of another charge half a mile away. There a +French regiment put a stream with a single bridge at their back--which +requires some nerve--and charged a German trench on rising +ground. They took it. Then they tried to take the woods beyond. +Before they were checked twenty-two officers out of a total of thirty +fell. But they did not give up the ground they had won. They burrowed +into the earth in a trench of their own, and when help came they put +the Germans out of the woods. + +The men of this regiment were not first line, but the older fellows--men +of the type we stopped to chat with in the village--hastening to the +front when the war began. Their officers were mostly reserves, too, +who left civil occupations at the call to arms. One of the eight +survivors of the thirty was with us, a stocky little man, hardly looking +the hero or the soldier. I expressed my admiration, and he answered +quietly: "It was for France!" How often I have heard that as a reason +for courage or sacrifice! The enemies of France have learned to +respect it, though they had a poor opinion of the French army before +the war began. + +"That railroad bridge yonder the Germans left intact when they +occupied it because they were certain that they would need it to +supply their troops when they took the Gap of Mirecourt and +surrounded the French army," I was told. "However, they had to go in +such a hurry that they failed to mine it. They must have fired five +hundred shells afterwards to destroy it, in vain." + +It was dusk when we entered the city of Lunéville for the second time. +Whole blocks lay in ruins; others only showed where shells had +crashed into walls. It is hard to estimate just how much damage shell- +fire has done to a town, for you see the effects only where they have +struck on the street sides and not when they strike in the centre of the +block. But Lunéville has certainly suffered as much as Louvain, only +we did not hear about it. Grim, sad Louvain, with its German sentries +among the ruins! Happy, triumphant Lunéville, with its poilus instead +of German sentries! + +"We are going to meet the mayor," said the major. + +First we went to his office. But that was a mistake. We were invited to +his house, which was a fine, old, eighteenth-century building. If you +could transport it to New York some arms-and-ammunition millionaire +would give half a million dollars for it. The hallway was smoke- +blackened and a burnt spot showed where the enemy had tried to set +it on fire before evacuating the town. Ascending a handsome old +staircase, we were in rooms with gilded mirrors and carved mantels, +where we were introduced to His Honour, a lively man of some forty +years. + +"I have been in Amérique two months. So much English do I speak. +No more!" said the mayor merrily, and introduced us in turn to his +wife, who spoke not even "so much" English, but French as fast and +as piquantly as none but a Frenchwoman can. Her only son, who was +seventeen, was going up with the 1916 class of recruits very soon. +He was a sturdy youngster; a type of Young France who will make +the France of the future. + +"You hate to see him go?" I asked. + +"It is for France!" she answered. + +We had cakes and tea and a merrier--at least, a more heartfelt--party +than at any mayor's reception in time of peace. Everybody talked. For +the French do know how to talk, when they have not turned grim, +silent soldiers. I heard story on story of the German occupation; and +how the mayor was put in jail and held as a hostage; and what a +German general said to him when he was brought in as a prisoner to +be interrogated in his own house, which the general occupied as +headquarters. + +Among the guests was the wife of a French general in her Red Cross +cap. She might see her husband once a week by meeting him on the +road between the city and the front. He could not afford to be any +farther from his post, lest the Germans spring a surprise. The extent +of the information which he gave her was that all went well for France. +Father Joffre plays no favourites in his discipline. + +Happy, happy Lorraine in the midst of its ruins! Happy because her +adored tricolour floats over those ruins. + + + + +XIII +A Road Of War I Know + + + +Other armies go to war across the land, but the British go across the +sea. They take the Channel ferry in order to reach the front. Theirs is +the home road of war to me; the road of my affections, where men +speak my mother tongue. It begins on the platform at Victoria Station, +with the khaki of officers and men, returning from leave, relieved by +the warmer colours of women who have come to say good-bye to +those they love. In five hours from the time of starting one may be +across that ribbon of salt water, which means much in isolation and +little in distance, and in the trenches. + +That veteran regular--let us separate him from the crowd--is a type I +have often seen, a type that has become as familiar as one's +neighbours in one's own town. We will call him the tenth man. That is, +of every ten men who went to the front a year ago in his battalion, +nine are gone. All of the hardships and all of the terrors of war he has +witnessed: men dropped neatly by a bullet; men mangled by shells. + +His khaki is spotless, thanks to his wife, who has dressed in her best +for the occasion. Terrible as war itself, but new, that hat of hers, which +probably represented a good deal of looking into windows and +pricing; and her gown of the cheapest material, drooping from her +round shoulders, is the product of the poor dress-making skill of +hands which show only too well who does all the housework at home. +The children, a boy of four and a girl of seven, are in their best, too, +with faces scrubbed till they shine. + +You will see like scenes in stations at home when the father has +found work in a distant city and is going on ahead to get established +before the family follow him. Such incidents are common in civil life; +they became common at Victoria Station. What is common has no +significance, editors say. + +When the time came to go through the gate, the veteran picked the +boy up in his arms and pressed him very close and the little girl +looked on wonderingly, while the mother was not going to make it any +harder for the father by tears. "Good-bye, Tom!" she said. So his +name was Tom, this tenth man. + +I spoke with him. His battalion was full with recruits. It had been kept +full. But, considering the law of chance, what about the surviving one +out of an original ten? + +"Yes, I've had my luck with me," he said. "Probably my turn will come. +Maybe I'll never see the wife and kids again." + +The morning roar of London had begun. That station was a small +spot in the city. There were not enough officers and men taking the +train to make up a day's casualty list; for ours was only a small party +returning from leave. The transports, unseen, carried the multitudes. +Wherever one had gone in England he had seen soldiers and +wherever he went in France he was to see still more soldiers. +England had become an armed camp; and England plodded on, +"muddled" on, preparing, ever preparing, to forge in time of war the +thunderbolt for war which was undreamed of in time of peace when +other nations were forging their thunderbolts. + +Still the recruiting posters called for more soldiers and the casualty +lists appeared day after day with the regularity of want +advertisements. Imagine eight million men under arms in the United +States and you have the equivalent to what England did by the +volunteer system. The more there were the more pessimistic became +the British Press. Pessimism brought in recruits. Bad news made +England take another deep breath of energizing determination. It was +the last battle which was decisive. She had always won that. She +would win it again. + +They talk of war aboard the Pullman, after officers have waved their +hands out of the windows to their wives, quite as if they were going to +Scotland for a weekend instead of back to the firing-line. British +phlegm this is called. No, British habit, I should say, the race-bred, +individualistic quality of never parading emotions in public; the instinct +of keeping things which are one's own to one's self. Personally, I like +this way. In one form or another, as the hedges fly by the train +windows, the subject is always war. War creeps into golf, or shooting, +or investments, or politics. Only one suggestion quite frees the mind +from the omnipresent theme: Will the Channel be smooth? The +Germans have nothing to do with that. It is purely a matter of weather. +Bad sailors are more worried about the crossing than about the shell- +fire they are going to face. + +With bad sailors or good sailors, the significant thing which had +become a commonplace was that the Channel was a safely-guarded +British sea lane. In all my crossings I was never delayed. For England +had one thunderbolt ready forged when the war began. The only +submarines, or destroyers, or dirigibles that one saw were hers. +Antennae these of the great fleet waiting with the threat of stored +lightning ready to be flashed from gun-mouths; a threat as efficacious +as action, in nowise mysterious or subtle, but definite as steel and +powder, speaking the will of a people in their chosen field of power, +felt over all the seas of the world, coast of Maine and the Carolinas no +less than Labrador. Thousands of transports had come and gone, +carrying hundreds of thousands of soldiers and food for men and +guns to India; and on the high road to India, to Australia, to San +Francisco, shipping went its way undisturbed by anything that dives +or flies. + +The same white hospital ships lying in that French harbour; the same +line of grey, dusty-looking ambulances parked on the quay! +Everybody in the one-time sleepy, week-end tourist resort seems to +be in uniform; to have something to do with war. All surroundings +become those of war long before you reach the front. That knot of +civilians, waiting their turn for another examination of the same kind +as that on the other side of the Channel, have shown good reasons +for going to Paris to the French Consul in London, or they might not +proceed even this far on the road of war. They seem outcasts--a +humble lot in the variegated costumes of the civil world--outcasts +from the disciplined world in its pattern garb of khaki. Their excuse for +not being in the game is that they are too old or that they are women. +For now the war has sucked into its vortex the great majority of those +who are strong enough to fight or work. + +A traveller might be a spy; hence, all this red tape for the many to +catch the one. Even red tape seems now to have become normal. +War is normal. It would seem strange to cross the Channel in time of +peace; the harbour would not look like itself with civilians not having +to show passports, and without the white hospital ships, and the +white-bearded landing-officer at the foot of the gangway, and the +board held up with lists of names of officers who have telegrams +waiting for them. + +For the civilians a yellow card of disembarkation and for the military a +white card. The officers and soldiers walk off at once and the queue +of civilians waits. One civilian with a white card, who belongs to no +regiment, who is not even a chaplain or a nurse, puzzles the landing- +officer for a moment. But there is something to go with it--a +correspondent's licence and a letter from a general who looks after +such things. They show that you "belong"; and if you don't belong on +the road of war you will not get far. As well try to walk past the +doorman and take a seat in the United States Senate chamber during +a session. + +Most precious that magical piece of paper. I happen to be the only +American with one, unless he is in the fighting line--which is one sure +way to get to the front. The price of all the opera boxes at the +Metropolitan will not buy it; and it is the passport to the welcoming +smile from an army chauffeur, whom I almost regard as my own. But +its real value appears at the outskirts of the city. There the dead line +is drawn; there the sheep are finally separated from the goats by a +French sentry guarding the winding passageway between some +carts, which have been in the same place in the road for months. + +The car spins over the broad, hard French road, in a land where for +many miles you see no signs of war, until it turns into the grounds of a +small château opposite a village church. The proprietor of a drygoods +store in a neighbouring city spends his summers here; but this +summer he is in town, because the Press wanted a place to live and +he was good enough to rent us his country place. So this is home, +where the five British and one American correspondents live and +mess. The expense of our cars costs us treble all the rest of our +expenses. They take us where we want to go. We go where we +please, but we may not write what we please. We see something like +a thousand times more than we can tell. The conditions are such as +to make a news reporter throw up his hands and faint. But if he had +his unbridled way, one day he might feel the responsibility for the loss +of hundreds of British soldiers' lives. + +"It may be all right for war correspondents, but it is a devil of a poor +place for a newspaper man," as one editor said. Yet it is the only +place where you can really know anything about the war. + +We become part of the machinery of the great organization that +encloses us in its regular processes. No one in his heart envies the +press officer who holds the blue pencil over us. He has to "take it both +going and coming." He labours on our behalf and sometimes we +labour with him. The staff are willing enough to let us watch the army +at work, but they do not care whether or not we write about their war; +he wants us both to see it and to write about it. He tells us some big +piece of news, and then says: "That is for yourselves; you may not +write it." + +People do not want to read about the correspondents, of course. +They want to read what the correspondents have to tell about the +war; but the conditions of our work are interesting because we are the +link between the army and the reading public. All that it learns from +actual observation of what the army is doing comes through us. + +We may not give the names of regiments and brigades until weeks +after a fight, because that will tell the enemy what troops are +engaged; we may not give the names of officers, for that is glorifying +one when possibly another did his duty equally well. It is the +anonymity of the struggle that makes it all seem distant and unreal--till +the telegram comes from the War Office to say that the one among +the millions who is dear to you is dead or wounded. Otherwise, it is a +torment of unidentified elements behind a curtain, which is parted for +an announcement of gain or loss, or to give out a list of the fallen. + +The world wants to read that Peter Smith led the King's Own +Particular Fusiliers in a charge. It may not know Peter Smith, but his +name and that of his regiment make the information seem definite. +The statement that a well-known millionaire yesterday gave a million +dollars to charity, or that a man in a checked suit swam from the +Battery to Coney Island, is not convincing; nor is the fact that one +private unnamed held back the Germans with bombs in the traverse +of a trench for hours until help came. We at the front, however, do +know the names; we meet the officers and men. Ours is the intimacy +which we may not interpret except in general terms. + +Every article, every dispatch, every letter, passes through the +censor's hand. But we are never told what to write. The liberty of the +Press is too old an institution in England for that. Always we may +learn why an excision is made. The purpose is to keep information +from the enemy. It is not like fighting Boers or Filipinos, this war of +walls of men who can turn the smallest bit of information to +advantage. + +Intelligence officers speak of their work as piecing together the parts +of a jig-saw puzzle. What seems a most innocent fact by itself may +furnish the bit which gives the figure in the picture its face. It does not +follow because you are an officer that you know what may and what +may not be of service to the enemy. + +A former British officer who had become a well-known military critic, in +an account of a visit to the front mentioned having seen a battle from +a certain church tower. Publication of the account was followed by a +tornado of shell-fire that killed and wounded many British soldiers. +Only a staff specialist, trained in intelligence work and in constant +touch with the intelligence department, can be a safe censor. At the +same time, he is the best friend of the correspondent. He knows what +is harmless and what may not be allowed. He wants the Press to +have as much as possible. For the more the public knows about its +soldiers, the better the morale of the people, which reflects itself in the +morale of the army. + +The published casualty lists giving the names of officers and men and +their battalions is a means of causing casualties. From a prisoner +taken the enemy learns what battalions were present at a given fight; +he adds up the numbers reported killed and wounded and ascertains +what the fight cost the enemy and, in turn, the effect of the fire from +his side. But the British public demanded to see the casualty lists and +the British Press were allowed to gratify the desire. They appeared in +the newspapers, of course, days after the nearest relative of the dead +or wounded man had received official notification from the War Office. + +Officers' letters from the front, so freely published earlier in the +war, amazed experienced correspondents by their unconscious +indiscretions. The line officer who had been in a fight told all that he +saw. Twenty officers doing the same along a stretch of front and the +jig-saw experts, plus what information they had from spies, were in +clover. Editors said: "But these men are officers. They ought to know +when they are imparting military secrets." + +Alas, they do not know! It is not to be expected that they should. Their +business is to fight; the business of other experts is to safeguard +information. For a long time the British army kept correspondents +from the front on the principle that the business of a correspondent +must be to tell what ought not to be told. Yet they were to learn that +the accredited correspondent, an expert at his profession, working in +harmony with the experts of the staff, let no military secrets pass. + +At our mess we get the Berlin dailies promptly. Soon after the +Germans are reading the war correspondence from their own front +we are reading it, and laughing at jokes in their comic papers and at +cartoons which exhibit John Bull as a stricken old ogre and Britannia +who Rules the Waves with the corners of her mouth drawn down to +the bottom of her chin, as she sees the havoc that von Tirpitz is +making with submarines which do not stop us from receiving our +German jokes regularly across the Channel. + +Doubtless the German messes get their Punch and the London +illustrated weeklies regularly. In the time that it took the English daily +with the account of the action seen from the church tower to reach +Berlin and the news to be wired to the front, the German guns made +use of the information. Neutral little Holland is the telltale of both +sides; the ally and the enemy of all intelligence corps. Scores of +experts in jig-saw puzzles on both sides seize every scrap of +information and piece them together. Each time that one gets a bit +from a newspaper he is for a sharper Press censorship on his side +and a more liberal one on the other. + +We six correspondents have our insignia, as must everyone who is +free to move along the lines. By a glance you may tell everybody's +branch and rank in that complicated and disciplined world, where no +man acts for himself, but always on someone else's orders. + +"Don't you know who they are? They are the correspondents," I heard +a soldier say. "D. Chron., that's the Daily Chronicle; M. Post, that's the +Morning Post; D. Mail, that's the Daily Mail. There's one with U.S.A. +What paper is that?" + +"It ain't a paper," said another. "It's the States--he's a Yank!" + +The War Office put it on the American cousin's arm, and wherever it +goes it seems welcome. It may puzzle the gunners when the +American says, "That was a peach of a shot, right across the pan!" or +the infantry when he says, "It cuts no ice!" and there is no ice visible +in Flanders; he speaks about typhoid to the medical corps which calls +it enteric; and "fly-swatting" is a new word to the sanitarians, who are +none the less busily engaged in that noble art. Lessons for the British +in the "American language" while you wait! In return, the American is +learning what a "stout-hearted thruster" and other phrases mean in +the Simon-pure English. + +The correspondents are the spoiled spectators of the army's work; +the itinerants of the road of war. Nobody sees so much as we, +because we have nothing to do but to see. An officer looking at the +towers of Ypres Cathedral a mile away from the trench where he was, +said: "No, I've never been in Ypres. Our regiment has not been +stationed in that part of the line." + +We have sampled all the trenches; we have studied the ruins of +Ypres with an archaeologist's eye; we know the names of the +estaminets of the villages, from "The Good Farmer" to "The +Harvester's Rest" and "The Good Cousin," not to mention "The +Omnibus Stop" on the Cassel Hill. Madame who keeps the hotel in +the G.H.Q. town knows me so well that we wave hands to each other +as I pass the door; and the clerks in a certain shop have learned that +the American likes his fruit raw, instead of stewed in the English +fashion, and plenty of it, especially if it comes from the South out of +season, as it does from Florida or California to pampered human +beings at home, who, if they could see as much of this war as I have +seen, would appreciate what a fortunate lot they are to have not a +ribbon of saltwater but a broad sea full of it, and the British navy, too, +between them and the thing on the other side of the zone of death. + +G.H.Q. means General Headquarters and B.E.F., which shows the +way for your letters from England, means British Expeditionary Force. +The high leading, the brains of the army, are theoretically at G.H.Q. +That word theoretically is used advisedly in view of opinion at other +points. An officer sent from G.H.Q. to command a brigade had not +been long out before he began to talk about those confounded one- +thing-and-another fellows at G.H.Q. When he was at G.H.Q. he used +to talk about those confounded one-thing-and-another fellows who +commanded corps, divisions, and brigades at the front. The +philosophers of G.H.Q. smiled and the philosophers of the army +smiled--it was the old story of the staff and the line; of the main office +and the branches. But the line did the most smiling to see the new +brigadier getting a taste of his own medicine. + +G.H.Q. directs the whole; here every department of all that vast +concern which supplies the hundreds of thousands of men and +prepares for the other hundreds of thousands is focussed. The +symbol of its authority is a red band round the cap, which means that +you are a staff officer. No war at G.H.Q., only the driving force of war. +It seems as far removed from the front as the New York office of a +string of manufacturing plants. + +If one follows a red-banded cap into a door he sees other officers and +clerks and typewriters, and a sign which says that a department chief +has his desk in the drawing-room of a private house--where he has +had it for months. Go to one mess and you will hear talk about +garbage pails and how to kill flies; to another, about hospitals and +clearing stations for the wounded; to another, about barbed wire, +sandbags, spades, timber, and galvanized iron--the engineers; to +another, about guns, shells, rifles, bullets, mortars, bombs, bayonets, +and high explosives--the ordnance; to another, about jam, bread, +bacon, uniforms, iron rations, socks, underclothes, tinned goods, +fresh beef, and motor-trucks--the Army Service Corps; to another, +about attacks, counter-attacks, and salients, and about what the +others are doing and will have to do--the operations. + +The Chief of Staff drives the eight-horse team. He works sixteen +hours a day. So do most of the others. This is how you prove to the +line that you have a right to be at G.H.Q. When you get to know +G.H.Q. it seems like any other business institution. Many are there +who do not want to be there; but they have been found out. They are +specialists, who know how to do one thing particularly well and are +kept doing it. No use of growling that you would like a "fighting job." + +G.H.Q. is the main station on the road of war, which hears the sound +of the guns faintly. Beyond is the region of all the activities that it +commands, up to the trenches, where all roads end and all efforts +consummate. One has seen dreary flat lands of mud and leafless +trees become fair with the spring, the growing harvest reaped, and +the leaves begin to fall. Always the factory of war was in the same +place; the soldiers billeted in the same towns; the puffs of shrapnel +smoke over the same belt of landscape; the ruins of the same +villages being pounded by high explosives. Always the sound of +guns; always the wastage of life, as passing ambulances, the curtains +drawn, speed by, their part swiftly and covertly done. The enormity of +the thing holds the imagination; its sure and orderly processes of an +organized civilization working at destruction win the admiration. There +is a thrill in the courage and sacrifice and the drilled readiness of +response to orders. + +The spectator is under varying spells. To-day he seems in a fantastic +world, whose horror makes it impossible of realization. To-morrow, as +his car takes him along a pleasant by-road among wheat-fields where +peasants are working and no soldier is in sight, it is a world of peace +and one thinks that he has mistaken the roar of a train for the distant +roar of gun-fire. Again, it seems the most real of worlds, an exclusive +man's world, where nothing counts but organized material force, and +all those cleanly, well-behaved men in khaki are a part of the +permanent population. + +One sees the war as a colossal dynamo, where force is perpetual like +the energy of the sun. The war is going on for ever. The reaper cuts +the harvest, but another harvest comes. War feeds on itself, renews +itself. Live men replace the dead. There seems no end to supplies of +men. The pounding of the guns, like the roar of Niagara, becomes +eternal. Nothing can stop it. + + + + +XIV +Trenches In Winter + + + +The difference between trench warfare in winter and in summer is +that between sleeping on the lawn in March and in July. It was in the +mud and winds of March that I first saw the British front. The winds +were much like the seasonal winds at home; but the Flanders mud is +like no other mud, in the judgment of the British soldier. It is mixed +with glue. When I returned to the front in June for a longer stay, the +mud had become clouds of dust that trailed behind the motor-car. + +In March my eagerness to see a trench was that of one from the +Western prairies to get his first glimpse of the ocean. Once I might go +into a trench as often as I pleased I became "fed up" with trenches, +as the British say. They did not mean much more than an alley or a +railway cutting. One came to think of the average peaceful trench as +a ditch where some men were eating marmalade and bully beef and +looking across a field at some more men who were eating sausage +and "K.K." bread, each party taking care that the other did not see +him. + +Writers have served us trenches in every possible literary style that +censorship will permit. Whoever "tours" them is convinced that none +of the descriptions published heretofore has been adequate and +writes one of his own which will be final. All agree that it is not like +what they thought it was. But, despite all the descriptions, the public +still fails to visualize a trench. You do not see a trench with your eyes +so much as with your mind and imagination. That long line where all +the powers of destruction within man's command are in deadlock has +become a symbol for something which cannot be expressed by +words. No one has yet really described a shell-burst, or a flash of +lightning, or Niagara Falls; and no one will ever describe a trench. He +cannot put anyone else there. He can only be there himself. + +The first time that I looked over a British parapet was in the edge of a +wood. Board walks ran across the spongy earth here and there; the +doors of little shanties with earth roofs opened on to those streets, +which were called Piccadilly and the Strand. I was reminded of a +pleasant prospector's camp in Alaska. Only, everybody was in +uniform and occasionally something whished through the branches of +the trees. One looked up to see what it was and where it was going, +this stray bullet, without being any wiser. + +We passed along one of the walks until we came to a wall of +sandbags--simply white bags about three-quarters of the size of an +ordinary pillowslip, filled with earth and laid one on top of another like +bags of grain. You stood beside a man who had a rifle laid across the +top of the pile. Of course, you did not wear a white hat or wave a +handkerchief. One does not do that when he plays hide-and-seek. + +Or, if you preferred, you might look into a chip of glass, with your +head wholly screened by the wall of sandbags, which got a reflection +from another chip of glass above the parapet. This is the trench +periscope; the principle of all of them is the same. They have no more +variety than the fashion in knives, forks and spoons on the dinner +table. + +One hundred and fifty yards away across a dead field was another +wall of sandbags. The distance is important. It is always stated in all +descriptions. One hundred and fifty yards is not much. Only when you +get within forty or fifty yards have you something to brag about. Yet +three hundred yards may be more dangerous than fifteen, if an +artillery "hate" is on. + +Look for an hour, and all you see is the wall of sandbags. Not even a +rabbit runs across that dead space. The situation gets its power of +suggestion from the fact that there are Germans behind the other +wall--real, live Germans. They are trying to kill the British on our side +and we are trying to kill them; and they are as coyly unaccommodating +about putting up their heads as we are. The emotion of the situation +is in the fact that a sharpshooter might send a shot at your cap; he +might smash a periscope; a shell might come. A rifle cracks--that is +all. Nearly everyone has heard the sound, which is no different at the +front than elsewhere. And the sound is the only information you get. +It is not so interesting as shooting at a deer, for you can tell whether +you hit him or not. The man who fires from a trench is not even certain +whether he saw a German or not. He shot at some shadow or object +along the crest which might have been a German head. + +Thus, one must take the word of those present that there is any more +life behind than in front of the sandbags. However, if you are sceptical +you may have conviction by starting to crawl over the top of the +British parapet. After dark the soldiers will slip over and bring back +your body. It is this something you do not see, this something +visualized by the imagination, which convinces you that you ought to +be considerate enough of posterity to write the real description of a +trench. Look for an hour at that wall of sandbags and your +imagination sees more and more, while your eye sees only +sandbags. What does this war mean to you? There it is: only you can +describe what this war means to you. + +Many a soldier who has spent months in trenches has not seen a +German. I boast that I have seen real Germans through my glasses. +They were walking along a road back of their trenches. It was most +fascinating. All the Germans I had ever seen in Germany were not +half so interesting. I strained my eyes watching those wonderful +beings as I might strain them at the first visiting party from Mars to +earth. There must have been at least ten out of the Kaiser's millions. + +In summer that wood had become a sylvan bower, or a pastoral +paradise, or a leafy nook, as you please. The sun played through the +branches in a patchwork; flowers bloomed on the dirt roofs of the +shanties, and a swallow had a nest--famous swallow!--on one of the +parapets. True, it was not on the front parapet; it was on the reserve. +The swallow knew what he was about. He was taking a reasonable +amount of risk and playing reasonably secure to get a front seat, +according to the ethics of the war correspondent. The two walls of +sandbags were in the same place that they had been six months +previously. A little patching had been done after some shells had hit +the mark, though not many had come. + +For this was a quiet corner. Neither side was interested in stirring up +the hornets' nest. If a member of Parliament wished to see what +trench life was like he was brought here, because it was one of the +safest places for a few minutes' look at the sandbags which Mr. +Atkins stared at week in and week out. Some Conservatives, +however, in the case of Radical members, would have chosen a +different kind of trench to show; for example, that one which was +suggested to me by the staff officer with the twinkle in his eye on my +best day at the front. + +In want of an army pass to the front in order to write your own +description, then, put up a wall of sandbags in a vacant lot and +another one hundred and fifty yards away and fire a rifle occasionally +from your wall at the head of a man on the opposite side, who will +shoot at yours--and there you are. If you prefer the realistic to the +romantic school and wish to appreciate the nature of trench life in +winter, find a piece of wet, flat country, dig a ditch seven or eight feet +deep, stand in icy water looking across at another ditch, and sleep in +a cellar that you have dug in the wall, and you are near +understanding what Mr. Atkins has been doing for his country. The +ditch should be cut zigzag in and out, like the lines dividing the +squares of a checker-board; that makes more work and localizes the +burst of shells. + +Of course, the moist walls will be continually falling in and require +mending in a drenching, freezing rain of the kind that the Lord visits +on all who wage war underground in Flanders. Incidentally, you must +look after the pumps, lest the water rise to your neck. For all the while +you are fighting Flanders mud as well as the Germans. + +To carry realism to the limit of the Grand Guignol school, then, +arrange some bags of bullets with dynamite charges on a wire, which +will do for shrapnel; plant some dynamite in the parapet, which will do +for high explosive shells that burst on contact; sink heavier charges of +dynamite under your feet, which will do for mines, and set them off, +while you engage someone to toss grenades and bombs at you. + +Though scores of officers' letters had given their account of trench life +with the vividness of personal experience, I must mention my first +trench in Flanders in winter when, with other correspondents, I saw +the real thing under the guidance of the commanding officer of that +particular section, a slight, wiry man who wore the ribbon of the +Victoria Cross won in another war for helping to "save the guns." He +made seeing trenches in the mud seem a pleasure trip. He was the +kind who would walk up to his ball as if he knew how to play golf, +send out a clean, fair, long drive, and then use his iron as if he knew +how to use an iron, without talking about his game on the way around +or when he returned to the club-house. Men could go into danger +behind him without realizing that they were in danger; they could +share hardship without realizing that there were any hardships. Such +as he put faith and backbone into a soldier by their very manner; and +if their professional training equal their talents, when war comes they +win victories. + +We had rubber boots, electric torches, and wore British warms, those +short, thick coats which collect a modicum of mud for you to carry +besides what you are carrying on your boots. We walked along a +hard road in the dark toward an aurora borealis of German flares, +which popped into the sky like Roman candles and burst in circles of +light. They seemed to be saying: "Come on! Try to crawl up on us +and play us a trick and our eyes will find you and our marksmen will +stop you. Come on! We make the night into day, and watching never +ceases from our parapet." + +Occasional rifle-shots and a machine-gun's ter-rut were audible from +the direction of the jumping red glare, which stretched right and left as +far as the eye could see. We broke off the road into a morass of mud, +as one might cross fields when he had lost his way, and plunged on +till the commanding officer said, "We go in here!" and we descended +into a black chasm in the earth. The wonder was that any ditch could +be cut in soil which the rains had turned into syrup. Mud oozed from +the sandbags, through the wire netting, and between the wooden +supports which held the walls in place. It was just as bad over in the +German trenches. General Mud laid siege to both armies. The field of +battle where he gathered his gay knights was a slough. His tug of war +was strife against landslides, rheumatism, pneumonia, and frozen +feet. + +The soldier tries to kill his adversary; he tries to prevent his adversary +from killing him. He is as busy in safeguarding as in taking life. While +he breathes, thinks, fights mud, he blesses as well as curses mud. +Mother Earth is still unconquerable. In her bosom man still finds +security; such security that "dug in" he can defy at a hundred yards' +distance rifles that carry death three thousand yards. She it is that +has made the deadlock in the trenches and plastered their occupants +with her miry hands. + +The C.O. lifted a curtain of bagging as you might lift a hanging over +an alcove bookcase, and a young officer, rising from his blankets in +his house in the trench wall to a stooping posture, said that all was +quiet. His uniform seemed fleckless. Was it possible that he wore +some kind of cloth which shed mud spatters? He was another of the +type of Captain Q------, my host at Neuve Chapelle; a type formed on +the type of seniors such as his C.O. Unanalysable this quality, but +there is something distinguished about it and delightfully appealing. A +man who can be the same in a trench in Flanders in mid-winter as in +a drawing-room has my admiration. They never lose their manner, +these English officers. They carry it into the charge and back in the +ambulance with them to England, where they wish nothing so much +as that their friends will "cut out the hero stuff," as our own officers +say. + +In other dank cellars soldiers who were off guard were lying or sitting. +The radiance of the flares lighted the profiles of those on guard, +whose faces were half-hidden by coat-collars or ear-flaps-- +imperturbable, silent, marooned and marooning, watchful and +fearless. The thing had to be done and they were doing it; and they +were going to keep on doing it. + +There was nothing dry in that trench, unless it was the bowl of a +man's pipe. There were not even any braziers. In your nostrils was +the odour of the soil of Flanders cultivated by many generations +through many wars. As night wore on the sky was brightened by cold, +winter stars and their soft light became noticeable between the +disagreeable flashes of the flares. + +We walked on and on. It was like walking in a winding ditch; that was +all. The same kind of walls at every turn; the same kind of dim figures +in saturated, heavy army overcoats. Slipping off the board walk into +the ooze, one was thrown against the mud wall as his foot sank. Then +he held fast to his boot-straps lest the boot remain in the mud while +his foot came out. Only the CO. never slipped. He knew how to tour +trenches. Beside him the others were as clumsy as if they were trying +to walk a tight-rope. + +"Good-night!" he said to each group of men as he passed, with the +cheer of one who brings a confident spirit to vigils in the mud and with +that note of affection of the commander who has learned to love his +men by the token of ordeals when he saw them hold fast against +odds. + +"Good-night, sir!" they answered; and in their tone was something +which you liked to hear--a finer tribute to the CO. than medals which +kings can bestow. It was affection and trust. They were ready to +follow him, for they knew that he knew how to lead. I was not +surprised when I heard of his promotion, later. I shall not be surprised +when I hear of it again. For he had brain and heart and the gift of +command. + +"Shall we go on or shall we go back?" he asked when we had gone +about a mile. "Have you had enough?" + +We had, without a dissenting voice. A ditch in the mud, that was all, +no matter how much farther we went. So we passed out of the trench +into a soapy, slippery mud which had been ploughed ground in the +autumn, now become lathery with the beat of men's steps. Our party +became separated when some foundered and tried to hoist +themselves with both boot-straps at once. The CO. called out in order +to locate us in the darkness, and the voice of an officer in the +trenches cut in, "Keep still! The Germans are only a hundred yards +away!" + +"Sorry!" whispered the CO. "I ought to have known better." + +Then one of the German searchlights that had been swinging its +stream of light across the paths of the flares lay its fierce, comet eye +on us, glistening on the froth-streaked mud and showing each mud- +splashed figure in heavy coat in weird silhouette. + +"Standstill!" + +That is the order whenever the searchlights come spying in your +direction. So we stood still in the mud, looking at one another and +wondering. It was the one tense second of the night, which lifted our +thoughts out of the mud with the elation of risk. That searchlight was +the eye of death looking for a target. With the first crack of a bullet we +should have known that we were discovered and that it was no longer +good tactics to stand still. We should have dropped on all fours into +the porridge. The searchlight swept on. Perhaps Hans at the +machine-gun was nodding or perhaps he did not think us worth while. +Either supposition was equally agreeable to us. + +We kept moving our mud-poulticed feet forward, with the flares at our +backs, till we came to a road where we saw dimly a silent company of +soldiers drawn up and behind them the supplies for the trench. +Through the mud and under cover of darkness every bit of barbed +wire, every board, every ounce of food, must go up to the moles in +the ditch. The searchlights and the flares and the machine-guns +waited for the relief. They must be fooled. But in this operation most +of the casualties in the average trenches, both British and German, +occurred. Without a chance to strike back, the soldier was shot at by +an assassin in the night. + +When the men who had been serving their turn of duty in the +trenches came out, a magnet drew their weary steps--cleanliness. +They thought of nothing except soap and water. For a week they +need not fight mud or Germans or parasites, which, like General Mud, +waged war against both British and Germans. Standing on the slats +of the concrete floor of a factory, they peeled off the filthy, saturated +outer skin of clothing with its hideous, crawling inhabitants and, +naked, leapt into great steaming vats, where they scrubbed and +gurgled and gurgled and scrubbed. When they sprang out to apply +the towels, they were men with the feel of new bodies in another +world. + +Waiting for them were clean clothes, which had been boiled and +disinfected; and waiting, too, was the shelter of their billets in the +houses of French towns and villages, and rest and food and food and +rest, and newspapers and tobacco and gossip--but chiefly rest and +the joy of lethargy as tissue was rebuilt after the first long sleep, often +twelve hours at a stretch. They knew all the sensations of physical +man, man battling with nature, in contrasts of exhaustion and danger +and recuperation and security, as the pendulum swung slowly back +from fatigue to the glow of strength. + +Those who came out of the trenches quite "done up," Colonel Bate, +Irish and genial, fatherly and not lean, claimed for his own. After the +washing they lay on cots under a glass roof, and they might play +dominoes and read the papers when they were well enough to sit up. +They had the food which Colonel Bate knew was good for them, just +as he knew what was deadly for the inhabitants whom they brought +into that isolated room which every man must pass through before he +was admitted to the full radiance of the colonel's curative smile. When +they were able to return to the trenches, each was written down as +one unit more in the colonel's weekly statistical reports. In summer he +entertained al fresco in an open-air camp. + + + + +XV +In Neuve Chapelle + + + +Typical of many others, this quiet village in a flat country of rich +farming land, with a church, a school, a post-office, and stores where +the farmer could buy a pound of sugar or a spool of thread, employ a +notary, or get a pair of shoes cobbled or a horse shod, without having +to go to the neighbouring town of Bethune, Neuve Chapelle became +famous only after it had ceased to exist--unless a village remains a +village after it has been reduced to its original elements by shell-fire. + +It was the scene of one of those actions in the long siege line which +have the dignity of a battle; the losses on either side, about sixteen +thousand, were two-thirds of those at Waterloo or Gettysburg. Here +the British after the long winter's stalemate in the mud, where they +stuck when the exhausted Germans could press no farther, took the +offensive, with the sap of spring rising in their veins. + +The guns blazed the way and the infantry charged in the path of the +guns' destruction; and they kept on while the shield of shell-fire held. +When it left an opening for the German machine-guns through its +curtain and the German guns visited on the British what their guns +had been visiting on the Germans, the British stopped. A lesson was +learned; a principle established. A gain was made, if no goal were +reached. + +The human stone wall had moved. It had broken some barriers and +come to rest before others, again to become a stone wall. But it knew +that the thing could be done with guns and shells enough--and only +with enough. This means a good deal when you have been under +dog for a long time. Months were to pass waiting for enough shells +and guns, with many little actions and their steady drain of life, while +everyone looked back to Neuve Chapelle as a landmark. It was +something definite for a man to say that he had been wounded at +Neuve Chapelle and quite indefinite to say that he had been +wounded in the course of the day's work in the trenches. + +No one might see the battle in that sea of mud. He might as well have +looked at the smoke of Vesuvius with an idea of learning what was +going on inside of the crater. I make no further attempt at describing +it. My view came after the battle was over and the cauldron was still +steaming. + +Though in March, 1914, one would hardly have given Neuve +Chapelle, intact and peaceful, a passing glance from a motor-car, in +March, 1915, Neuve Chapelle in ruins was the one town in Europe +which I most wanted to see. Correspondents had not then +established themselves. The staff officer whom I asked if I might +spend a night in the new British line was a cautious man. He bade me +sign a paper freeing the British army from any responsibility. Judging +by the general attitude of the Staff, one could hardly take the request +seriously. One correspondent less ought to please any Staff; but he +said that he had an affection for the regulars and knew that there +were always plenty of recruits to take their places without resorting to +conscription. The real responsibility was with the Germans. He +suggested that I might go out to the German trenches and see if I +could obtain a paper from them. He thought if I were quick about it I +might get at least a yard in front of the British parapet in daylight. His +sense of humour I had recognized when we had met in Bulgaria. + +Any traveller is bound to meet men whom he has met before in the +travelled British army. At the brigade headquarters town, which, as +one of the officers said, proved that bricks and mortar can float in +mud, the face of the brigadier seemed familiar to me. I found that I +had met him in Shanghai in the Boxer campaign, when he had come +across a riotous China from India on one of those journeys in remote +Asia which British officers are fond of making. He was "all there," +whether dealing with a mob of Orientals or with Germans in the +trenches. I made myself at home in the parlour of the private house +occupied by himself and staff, while he went on with his work. No flag +outside the house; no sign that it was headquarters. Motor-cars +stopped only long enough for an officer to enter or alight. Brigade +headquarters is precisely the target that German aeroplanes or spies +like to locate for their guns. + +"Are you ready? Have you your rubber boots?" the brigadier asked a +few minutes later, as he put his head in at the parlour door. It would +not do to approach the trenches until after dark. Of course, I had +rubber boots. One might as well try to go to sea without a boat as to +trenches without rubber boots in winter. "I'll take my constitutional," he +added; "the trouble with this kind of war is that you get no exercise." + +He was a small man, but how he could walk! I began to understand +why the Boxers could not catch him. He turned back after we had +gone a mile or more and one of his staff went on with me to a point +where, just at dusk, I was turned over to another pilot, an aide from +battalion headquarters, and we set out across sodden fields that had +yielded beetroot in the last harvest, taking care not to step in shell- +holes. Dusk settled into darkness. No human being was in sight +except ourselves. + +"There's the first line of German trenches before the attack," said my +companion. "Our guns got fairly on them." Dimly I saw what seemed +like a huge, long, irregular furrow of earth which had been torn almost +out of the shape of a trench by British shells. "There was no living in it +when the guns began all together. The only thing to do was to get +out." + +Around us was utter silence, where the hell of thunders and +destruction by the artillery had raged during the battle. Then a spent +or ricochet bullet swept overhead, with the whistle of complaint of +spent bullets at having travelled far without hitting any object. It had +gone high over the British trenches; it had carried the full range, and +the chance of its hitting anyone was ridiculously small. But the nearer +you get to the trenches, the more likely these strays are to find a +victim. "Hit by a stray bullet!" is a very common saying at the front. + +At last we felt the solidity of a paved road under our feet, and +following this we came to a peasant's cottage. Inside, two soldiers +were sitting beside telephone and telegraph instruments, behind a +window stuffed with sandbags. On our way across the fields we had +stepped on wires laid on the ground; we had stooped to avoid wires +stretched on poles--the wires that form the web of the army's +intelligence. + +Of course, no two units of communication are dependent on one wire. +There is always a duplicate. If one is broken it is immediately +repaired. The factories spin out wire to talk over and barbed wire for +entanglements in front of trenches and weave millions of bags to be +filled with sand for breastworks to protect men from bullets. If Sir John +French wished, he could talk with Lord Kitchener in London and this +battalion headquarters at Neuve Chapelle within the same space of +time that a railroad president may speak over the Long Distance from +Chicago to New York and order dinner out in the suburbs. + +These two men at the table, their faces tanned by exposure, men in +the thirties, had the British regular of long service stamped all over +them. War was an old story to them; and an old story, too, laying +signal wires under fire. + +"We're very comfortable," said one. "No danger from stray bullets or +from shrapnel; but if one of the Jack Johnsons come in, why, there's +no more cottage and no more argument between you and me. We're +dead and maybe buried, or maybe scattered over the landscape, +along with the broken pieces of the roof." + +A soldier was on guard with bayonet fixed inside that little room, which +had passageway to the cellar past the table, among straw beds. This +seemed rather peculiar. The reason lay on one of the beds in a +private's khaki. He had come into the battalion's trenches from our +front and said that he belonged to the D------regiment and had been +out on patrol and lost his way. + +It was two miles to that regiment and two miles is a long distance to +stray between two lines of trenches so close together, when at any +point in your own line you will find friends. It was possible that this +fellow's real name was Hans Schmidt, who had learned cockney +English in childhood in London, and in a dead British private's uniform +had come into the British trenches to get information to which he was +anything but welcome. + +He was to be sent under guard to the D------regiment +for identification; and if he were found to be a Hans and not a +Tommy--well, though he had tried a very stupid dodge he must have +known what to expect when he was found out, if his officers had +properly trained him in German rules of war. + +I had a glimpse of him in the candlelight before stooping to feel my +way down three or four narrow steps to the cellar, where the farmer +ordinarily kept potatoes and vegetables. There were straw beds +around the walls here, too. The major commanding the battalion rose +from his seat at a table on which were some cutlery, a jam pot, +tobacco, pipes, a newspaper or two, and army telegraph forms and +maps. + +If the hosts of mansions could only make their hospitality as simple as +the major's, there would be less affectation in the world. He +introduced me to an officer sitting on the other side of the table and to +one lying in his blankets against the wall, who lifted his head and +blinked and said that he was very glad to see me. + +It is a small world, for China cropped up here, as it had at brigade +headquarters. The major had been in garrison at Peking when the +war began. If my shipmate on a long battleship cruise, Lt.-Col. Dion +Williams, U.S.M.C, reads this out in Peking let it tell him that the major +is just as urbane in the cellar of a second-rate farmhouse on the +outskirts of Neuve Chapelle as he would be in a corner of the Peking +Club. + +"How is it? Painful now?" asked the major of Captain P-----, on the +other side of the table. + +"Oh, no! It's quite all right," said the captain. + +"Using the sling?" + +"Part of the time. Hardly need it, though." + +Captain P-----was one of those men whose eyes are always smiling; +who seems, wherever he is, to be glad that he is not in a worse place; +who goes right on smiling at the mud in the trenches and bullets and +shells and death. They are not emotional, the British, perhaps, but +they are given to cheeriness, if not to laughter, and they have a way +of smiling at times when smiles are much needed. The smile is more +often found at the front than back at headquarters; or perhaps it is +more noticeable there. + +"You see, he got a bullet through the arm yesterday," the major +explained. "He was reported wounded, but remained on duty in the +trench." I saw that the captain would rather not have publicity given to +such an ordinary incident. He did not see why people should talk +about his arm. "You are to go with him into the trench for the night," +the major added; and I thought myself very lucky in my companion. + +"Aren't you going to have dinner with us?" the major asked him. + +"Why, I had something to eat not very long ago," said Captain P-----. +One was not sure whether he had or not. + +"There's plenty," said the major. + +"In that event, I don't see why I shouldn't eat when I have a chance," +the captain returned; which I found was a characteristic trench habit, +particularly in winter when exposure to the raw, cold air calls for plenty +of body-furnace heat. + +We had a ration soup and ration ham and ration prunes and cheese; +what Tommy Atkins gets. When we were outside the house and +starting for the trench this captain, with his wounded arm, wanted to +carry my knapsack. He seemed to think that refusal was breaking the +Hague conventions. + +Where we turned off the road, broken finger-points of brick walls in +the faint moonlight indicated the site of Neuve Chapelle; other +fragments of walls in front of us were the remains of a house; and +that broken tree-trunk showed what a big shell can do. The trunk, a +good eighteen inches in diameter, had not only been cut in two by +one of the monsters of the new British artillery, but had been carried +on for ten feet and left lying solidly in the bed of splinters of the top +of the stump. All this had been in the field of that battle of a day, +which was as fierce as the fiercest day at Gettysburg, and fought +within about the same space. Every tree, every square rod of ground, +had been paid for by shells, bullets, and human life. + +But now we were near the trenches; or, rather, the breastworks. We +are always speaking of the trenches, while not all parts of the line are +held by trenches. A trench is dug in the ground; a breastwork is +raised from the level of the ground. At some points a trench becomes +practically a breastwork, as its wall is raised to get free of the mud +and water. + +We came into the open and heard the sound of voices and saw a +spotty white wall; for some of the sandbags of the new British +breastworks still retained their original colour. On the reverse side of +this wall lines were leaning in readiness, their fixed bayonets faintly +gleaming in the moonlight. I felt of the edge of one and it was sharp, +quite prepared for business. In the surroundings of damp earth and +mud-bespattered men, this rifle seemed the cleanest thing of all, +meticulously clean, that ready weapon whose well-aimed and telling +fire, in obedient and cool hands, was the object of all the drill of the +new infantry in England; of all the drill of all infantry. Where pickets +watched in the open in the old days before armies met in pitched +battle, an occasional soldier now stands with rifle laid on the parapet, +watching. + +Across a reach of field faintly were made out the white spots of +another wall of breastworks, the German, at the edge of a stretch of +woods, the Bois du Bies. The British reached these woods in their +advance; but, their aeroplanes being unable to spot the fall of shells +in the mist, they had to fall back for want of artillery support. Along +this line where we stood outside the village they stopped; and to stop +is to set the spades going to begin the defences which, later, had +risen to a man's height, and with rifles and machine-guns had riddled +the German counter-attack. + +And the Germans had to go back to the edge of the woods, where +they, too, began digging and building their new line. So the enemies +were fixed again behind their walls of earth, facing each other across +the open, where it was death for any man to expose himself by day. + +"Will you have a shot, sir?" one of the sentries asked me. + +"At what?" + +"Why, at the top of the trench over there, or at anything you see +moving," he said. + +But I did not think that it was an invitation for a non-combatant to +accept. If the bullet went over the top of the trench it had still two +thousand yards and more to go, and it might find a target before it +died. So, in view of the law of probabilities, no bullet is quite waste. + +"Now, which is my house?" asked Captain P------. + +"I really can't find my own home in the dark." + +Behind the breastwork were many little houses three or four feet in +height, all of the same pattern, and made of boards and mud. The +mud is put on top to keep out shrapnel bullets. + +"Here you are, sir!" said a soldier. + +Asking me to wait until he made a light, the captain bent over as if +about to crawl under the top rail of a fence and his head disappeared. +After he had put a match to a candle and stuck it on a stick thrust into +the wall, I could see the interior of his habitation. A rubber sheet +spread on the moist earth served as floor, carpet, mattress, and bed. +At a squeeze there was room for two others besides himself. They +did not need any doormat, for when they lay down their feet would be +at the door. + +"Quite cosy, don't you think?" remarked the captain. He seemed to +feel that he had a royal chamber. But, then, he was the kind of man +who might sleep in a muddy field under a wagon and regard the +shelter of the wagon body as a luxury. "Leave your knapsack here," +he continued, "and we'll see what is doing along the line." + +In other words, after you had left your bag in the host's hall, he +suggested a stroll in the village or across the fields. But only to see +war would he have asked you to walk in such mud. + +"Not quite so loud!" he warned a soldier who was bringing up boards +from the rear under cover of darkness. "If the Germans hear they +may start firing." + +Two other men were piling mud on top of a section of breastwork at +an angle to the main line. + +"What is that for?" the captain asked. + +"They get an enfilade on us here, sir, and Mr.------ (the lieutenant) told +me to make this higher." + +"That's no good. A bullet will go right through," said the captain. "We'll +have to wait until we get more sandbags." + +A little farther on we came to an open space, with no protection +between us and the Germans. Half a dozen men were piling earth +against a staked chicken wire to extend the breastworks. Rather, they +were piling mud, and they were besmirched from head to foot. They +looked like reeking Neptunes rising from a slough. In the same +position in daylight, standing full height before German rifles at three +hundred yards, they would have been shot dead before they could +leap to cover. + +"How does it go?" asked the captain. + +"Very well, sir; though what we need is sandbags." + +"We'll have some up to-morrow." + +At the moment there was no firing in the vicinity. Faintly I heard the +Germans pounding stakes, at work improving their own breastworks. + +A British soldier appeared out of the darkness in front. + +"We've found two of our men out there with their heads blown off by +shells," he said. "Have we permission to go out and bury them, sir?" + +"Yes." + +They would be as safe as the fellows piling mud against the chicken +wire, unless the Germans opened fire. If they did, we could fire on +their working-party, or in the direction of the sound. For that matter, +we knew through our glasses by day the location of any weak places +in their breastworks, and they knew where ours were. A sort of "after- +you-gentlemen-if-you-fire-we-shall" understanding sometimes exists +between the foes up to a certain point. Each side understands +instinctively the limitation of that point. Too much noise in working, a +number of men going out to bury dead or making enough noise to be +heard, and the ball begins. A deep, broad ditch filled with water made +a break in our line. No doubt a German machine-gun was trained on +it. + +"A little bridging is required here," said the captain. "We'll have it done +to-morrow night. The break is no disadvantage if they attack; in fact, +we'd rather like to have them try for it. But it makes movement along +the line difficult by day." + +When we were across and once more behind the breastworks, he +called my attention to some high ground in the rear. + +"One of our officers took a short cut across there in daylight," he said. +"He was quite exposed, and they drew a bead on him from the +German trench and got him through the arm. Not a serious hit. It +wasn't cricket for anyone to go out to bring him in. He realized this, +and called out to leave him to himself, and crawled to cover." + +I was getting the commonplaces of trench life. Thus far it had been a +quiet night and was to remain so. Reddish, flickering swaths of light +were thrown across the fields between the trenches by the enemy's +Roman candle flares. One tried to estimate how many flares the +Germans must use every night from Switzerland to the North Sea. + +On our side, the only light was from our braziers. Thomas Atkins has +become a patron of braziers made by punching holes in buckets; and +so have the Germans. Punch holes in a bucket, start a fire inside, +and you have cheer and warmth and light through the long night +vigils. Two or three days before we had located a sniper between the +lines by seeing him swing his fire-pot to make a draught against the +embers. + +If you have ever sat around a camp-fire in the forest or on the plains +you need be told nothing further. One of the old, glamorous features +of war survives in these glowing braziers, spreading their genial rays +among the little houses and lighting the faces of the men who stand +or squat in encircling groups around the coals, which dry wet clothes, +slake the moisture of a section of earth, make the bayonets against +the walls glisten, and reveal the position of a machine-gun with its +tape ready for firing. + +Values are relative, and a brazier in the trenches makes the +satisfaction of a steam-heated room in winter very superficial and +artificial. You are at home there with Tommy Atkins, regular of an old +line English regiment, in his heavy khaki overcoat and solid boots and +wool puttees, a sturdy, hardened man of a terrific war. He, the +regular, the shilling-a-day policeman of the empire, was still doing the +fighting at the front. The new army, which embraces all classes, was +not yet in action. + +This man and that one were at Mons. This one and that one had +been through the whole campaign without once seeing Mother +England for whom they were fighting. The affection in which Captain +P------was held extended through his regiment, for we had left his own +company behind. At every turn he was asked about his arm. + +"You've made a mistake, sir. This isn't a hospital," as one man +expressed it. Oh, but the captain was bored with hearing about that +arm! If he is wounded again I am sure that he will try to keep the fact +a secret. + +These veterans could "grouse," as the British call it. Grousing is one +of Tommy's privileges. When they got to grousing worst on the retreat +from Mons, their officers knew that what they really wanted was to +make another stand. They were tired of falling back; they meant to +take a rest and fight a while. Their language was yours, the language +in which our own laws and schoolbooks are written. They made the +old blood call. For months they had been taking bitter medicine; very +bitter for a British soldier. The way they took it will, perhaps, remain a +greater tribute than any part they play in future victories. + +"How do they feel in the States?" I was asked. "Against us?" + +"No. By no means." + +"I don't see how they could be!" Tommy exclaimed. + +Tommy may not be much on argument as it is developed by the +controversial spirit of college professors, but he had said about all +there was to say. How can we be? Hardly, after you come to know T. +Atkins and his officers and talk English with them around their camp- +fires. + +"The Germans are always sending up flares," I remarked. "You send +up none. How about it?" + +"It cheers them. They're downhearted!" said one of the group. "You +wouldn't deny them their fireworks, would you, sir?" + +"That shows who is top dog," said another. "They're the ones that are +worried." + +I had heard of trench exhaustion, trench despair, but there was no +sign of it in a regiment that had been through all the hell and mire that +the British army had known since the war began. To no one had +Neuve Chapelle meant so much as to these common soldiers. It was +their first real victory. They were standing on soil won from the +Germans. + +"We're going to Berlin!" said a big fellow who was standing, palms +downward to the fire. "It's settled. We're going to Berlin." + +A smaller man with his back against the sandbags disagreed. There +was a trench argument. + +"No, we're going to the Rhine," he said. "The Russians are going to +Berlin." (This was in March, 1915, remember.) + +"How can they when they ain't over the Balkans yet?" + +"The Carpathians, you mean." + +"Well, they're both mountains and the Russians have got to cross +them. And there's a place called Cracow in that region. What's the +matter of a pair of mountain ranges between you and me, Bill? You're +strong on geography, but you fail to follow the campaign." + +"The Rhine, I say!" + +"It's the Rhine first, but Berlin is what you want to keep your mind on." + +Then I asked if they had ever had any doubt that they would reach +the Rhine. + +"How could we, sir?" + +"And how about the Germans. Do you hate them?" + +"Hate!" exclaimed the big man. "What good would it do to hate them? +No, we don't hate. We get our blood up when we're fighting and when +they don't play the game. But hate! Don't you think that's kind of +ridiculous, sir?" + +"How do they fight?" + +"They take a bit of beating, do the Boches!" + +"So you call them Boches!" + +"Yes. They don't like that. But sometimes we call them Allemands, +which is Germans in French. Oh, we're getting quite French +scholars!" + +"They're good soldiers. Not many tricks they're not up to. But in my +opinion they're overdoing the hate. You can't keep up to your work on +hate, sir. I should think it would be weakening to the mind, too." + +"Still, you would like the war over? You'd like to go home?" + +They certainly would. Back to the barracks, out of the trenches! They +certainly would. + +"And call it a draw?" + +"Call it a draw, now! Call it a draw, after all we've been through------" + +"Spring is coming. The ground will dry up and it will be warm." + +"And the going will be good to Berlin, as it was back from Paris in +August, we tell the Boches." + +"Good for the Russians going over the Carpathians, or the Pyrenees, +or whatever those mountains are, too. I read they're all covered with +snow in winter." + +It was good, regular soldier talk, very "homey" to me. As you will +observe, I have not elided the h's. Indeed, Tommy has a way of +prefixing his h's to the right vowels more frequently than a generation +ago. The Soldiers Three type has passed. Popular education will +have its way and induce better habits. Believing in the old remedy for +exhaustion and exposure to cold, the army served out a tot of rum +every day to the men. But many of them are teetotalers, these hardy +regulars, and not even Mulvaney will think them effeminate when they +have seen fighting which makes anything Mulvaney ever saw child's +play. So they asked for candy and chocolate, instead of rum. + +Some people have said that Tommy has no patriotism. He fights +because he is paid and it is his business. That is an insinuation. +Tommy doesn't care for the "hero stuff," or for waving flags and +speechmaking. Possibly he knows how few Germans that sort of +thing kills. His weapons are bullets. To put it cogently, he is fighting +because he doesn't want any Kaiser "in his." + +Is not that what all the speeches in Parliament are about and all the +editorials and the recruiting campaign? Is not that what England and +France are fighting for? It seems to me that Tommy's is a very +practical patriotism, free from cant; and the way that he refuses to +hate or to get excited, but sticks to it, must be very irritating to the +Germans. + +"Would you like a Boche helmet for a souvenir, sir?" asked a soldier +who appeared on the outer edge of the group. He was the small, +active type, a British soldier with the élan of the Frenchman. "There +are lots of them out among the German dead "--the unburied German +dead who fell like grass before the mower in a desperate and futile +counter-attack to recover Neuve Chapelle. "I'll have one for you on +your way back." + +There was no stopping him; he had gone. + +"Matty's a devil!" said the big man. "He'll get it, all right. He's equal +to reaching over the Boches' parapet and picking one off a Boche's +head!" + +As we proceeded on our way, officers came out of the little houses to +meet Captain P------and the stranger civilian. They had to come out, +as there was no room to take us inside; and sometimes they talked +shop together after I had answered the usual question, "Is America +against us?" There seemed to be an idea that we were, possibly +because of the prodigious advertising tactics of a minority. But any +feeling that we might be did not interfere with their simple courtesy, or +lead them to express any bitterness or break into argument. + +"How are things going on over your side?" + +"Nicely." + +"Any shelling?" + +"A little this morning. No harm done." + +"We cleaned out one bad sniper to-day." + +"Ought to have some sandbags up to-night." + +"It's a bad place there. They've got a machine-gun trained which has +quite a sweep. I asked if the artillery shouldn't put in a word, but the +general didn't think it worth while." + +"You must run across that break. Three or four shots at you every +time. We're gradually getting shipshape, though." + +Just then a couple of bullets went singing overhead. The group paid +no attention to them. If you paid attention to bullets over the parapet +you would have no time for anything else. But these bullets have a +way of picking off tall officers who are standing up among their +houses. In the course of their talk they happened to speak of such an +instance, though not with reference to the two bullets I have +mentioned. + +"Poor S------did not last long. He had been out only three weeks." + +"How is J------? Hit badly?" + +"Through the shoulder; not seriously." + +"H------is back. Recovered very quickly." + +Normal trench talk, this! A crack which signifies that the bullet has hit +--another man down. One grows accustomed to it, and one of this +group of officers might be gone to-morrow. + +"I have one, sir," said Matty, exhibiting a helmet when we returned +past his station. "Bullet went right through the head and came out the +peak!" + +It was time that Captain P------ was back to his own command. As we +came to his company's line word was just being passed from sentry +to sentry: + +"No firing. Patrols going out." + +It was midnight now. + +"We'll go in the other direction," said Captain P------ when he had +learned that there was no news. + +This brought us to an Irish regiment. The Irish naturally had +something to say. + + + + +XVI +Nearer The Germans + + + +Here not the Irish Sea lay between the broad a and the brogue, but +the space between two sentries or between two rifles with bayonets +fixed, lying against the wall of the breastworks ready for their owners' +hands when called to arms in case of an alarm. One stepped from +England into Ireland; and my prediction that the Irish would have +something to say was correct. + +The first man who made his presence felt was a good six feet in +height, with a heavy moustache and the earpieces of his cap tied +under his chin, though the night was not cold. He placed himself fairly +in front of me in the narrow path back of the breastworks and he +looked a cowled and sinister figure in the faint glow from a brazier. I +certainly did not want any physical argument with a man of his build. + +"Who are you?" he demanded, as stiffly as if I had broken in at the +veranda window with a jemmy. + +For the nearer you come to the front, the more you feel that you are +in the way. You are a stray extra piece of baggage; a dead human +weight. Everyone is doing something definite as a part of the machine +except yourself; and in your civilian clothes you feel the self- +conscious conspicuousness of appearing on a dancing-floor in a +dressing-gown. + +Captain P------was a little way back in another passage. I was alone +and in a rough tweed suit--a strange figure in that world of khaki and +rifles. + +"A German spy! That's why I am dressed this way, so as not to excite +suspicion," I was going to say, when a call from Captain P------ +identified me, and the sentry's attitude changed as suddenly as if the +inspector of police had come along and told a patrolman that I might +pass through the fire lines. + +"So it's you, is it, right from America?" he said. "I've a sister living at +Nashua, New Hampshire, U.S.A. with three brothers in the United +States army." + +Whether he had or not you can judge as well as I by the twinkle in his +eye. He might have had five, and again he might not have one. I was +a tenderfoot seeing the trenches. + +"It's mesilf that's going to America when me sarvice in the army is up +in one year and six months," he continued. "That's some time yet. I'm +going if I'm not killed by the Germans. It's a way that they have, or we +wouldn't be killing them." + +"What are you going to do in America? Enlist in the army?" + +"No. I'm looking for a better job. I'm thinking I'll be one of your +millionaires. Shure, but that would be to me taste." + +Not one Irishman was speaking really, but a dozen. They came out of +their little houses and dug-outs to gather around the brazier; and for +every remark I made I received a fusillade in reply. It was an event, +an American appearing in the trench in the small hours of the +morning. + +A trench-toughened, battle-toughened old sergeant was sitting in the +doorway of his dug-out, frying a strip of bacon over one rim of the +brazier and making tea over the other. The bacon sizzled with an +appetizing aroma and a bullet sizzled harmlessly overhead. Behind +that wall of sandbags all were perfectly safe, unless a shell came. But +who worries about shells? It is like worrying about being struck by +lightning when clouds gather in a summer sky. + +"It looks like good bacon," I remarked. + +"It is that!" said the sergeant. "And the hungrier ye are the better. It's +your nose that's telling ye so this minute. I can see that ye're hungry +yoursilf!" + +"Then you're pretty well fed?" + +"Well fed, is it? It's stuffed we are, like the geese that grow the paty- +what-do-you-call-it? Eating is our pastime. We eat when we've +nothing else to do and when we've got something to do. We get eggs +up here--a fine man is Lord Kitchener--yes, sir, eggs up here in the +trenches!" + +When they seemed to think that I was sceptical, he produced some +eggs in evidence. + +"And if ye'll not have the bacon, ye'll have a drop of tea. Mind now, +while your tongue is trying to be polite, your stomach is calling your +tongue a liar!" + +Wouldn't I have a souvenir? Out came German bullets and buckles +and officers' whistles and helmets and fragments of shells and +German diaries. + +"It's easy to get them out there where the Germans fell that thick!" I +was told. "And will ye look at this and take it home to give your pro- +German Irish in America, to show what their friends are shooting at +the Irish? I found them mesilf on a dead German." + +He passed me a clip of German bullets with the blunt ends instead of +the pointed ends out. The change is readily made, for the German +bullet is easily pulled out of the cartridge case and the pointed end +thrust against the powder. Thus fired, it goes accurately four or five +hundred yards, which is more than the average distance between +German and British trenches. When it strikes flesh the effect is that of +a dum-dum and worse; for the jacket splits into slivers, which spread +through the pulpy mass caused by the explosion. A leg or an arm +thus hit must almost invariably be amputated. I am not suggesting +that this is a regular practice with German soldiers, but it shows what +wickedness is in the power of the sinister one. + +"But ye'll take the tea," said the sergeant, "with a little rum hot in it. +'Twill take the chill out of your bones." + +"What if I haven't a chill in my bones?" + +"Maybe it's there without speaking to ye and it will be speaking before +an hour longer--or afther ye're home between the sheets with the +rheumatiz, and yell be saying, 'Why didn't I take that glass?' which +I'm holding out to ye this minute, steaming its invitation to be drunk." + +It was a memorable drink. Snatches of brogue followed me from the +brazier's glow when I insisted that I must be going. + +Now our breastworks took a turn and we were approaching closer to +the German breastworks. Both lines remained where they had "dug +in" after the counter-attacks which followed the battle had ceased. +Ground is too precious in this siege warfare to yield a foot. Soldiers +become misers of soil. Where the flood is checked there you build +your dam against another flood. + +"We are within about sixty yards of the Germans," said Captain P------ +at length, after we had gone in and out of the traverses and left the +braziers well behind. + +Between the spotty, whitish wall of German sandbags, quite distinct in +the moonlight, and our parapet were two mounds of sandbags about +twenty feet apart. Snug behind one was a German and behind the +other an Irishman, both listening. They were within easy bombing +range, but the homicidal advantage of position of either resulted in a +truce. Sixty yards! Pace it off. It is not far. In other places the enemies +have been as close as five yards--only a wall of earth between them. +Where a bombing operation ends in an attack, a German is naturally +on one side of a traverse and a Briton on the other. + +The Germans were as busy as beavers dam-building. They had a lot +of work to do before they had their new defences right. We heard +them driving stakes and spading; we heard their voices with snatches +of sentences intelligible, and occasionally the energetic, shouted, +guttural commands of their officers. All through that night I never +heard a British officer speak above a conversational tone. The orders +were definite enough, but given with a certain companionable +kindliness. I have spoken of the genuine affection which his men +showed for Captain P------, and I was beginning to appreciate that it +was not a particular instance. + +"What if you should shout at Tommy in the German fashion?" I +asked. + +"He wouldn't have it; he'd get rebellious," was the reply. "No, you +mustn't yell at Tommy. He's a little temperamental about some things +and he will not be treated as if he were just a human machine." + +Yet no one will question the discipline of the British soldier. Discipline +means that the officer knows his men, and British discipline, which +bears a retreat like that from Mons, requires that the man likes to +follow his officers, believes in his officers, loves his officers. Each +army and each people to its own ways. + +Sixty yards! And the dead between the trenches and death lurking +ready at a trigger's pull should life show itself! When daylight comes +the British sing out their "Good-morning, Germans!" and the Germans +answer, "Good-morning, British!" without adding, "We hope to kill +some of you to-day!" Ragging banter and jest and worse than jest +and grim defiance are exchanged between the trenches when they +are within such easy hearing distance of each other; but always from +a safe position behind the parapet which the adversaries squint +across through their periscopes. At the gibe business the German is, +perhaps, better than the Briton. + +Early in the evening a regiment on our right broke into a busy +fusillade at some fancied movement of the enemy. In trench talk that +is getting "jumpy." The Germans in front roared out their contempt in +a chorus of guying laughter. Toward morning, these same Germans +also became "jumpy" and began tearing the air with bullets, firing +against nothing but the blackness of night. Tommy Atkins only made +some characteristic comments; for he is a quiet fellow, except when +he is played on the music-hall stage. Possibly he feels the +inconsistency of laughter when you are killing human beings; for, as +his officers say, he is temperamental and never goes to the trouble of +analysing his emotions. A very real person and a good deal of a +philosopher is Mr. Atkins, Britain's professional fighting man, who was +the only kind of fighting man she had ready for the war. + +Any small boy who had never had enough fireworks in his life might +be given a job in the German trenches, with the privilege of firing +flares till he fell asleep from exhaustion. All night they were going, with +the regularity of clockwork. The only ones sent up from our side that +night were shot in order that I might get a better view of the German +dead. + +You know how water lies in the low places on the ground after a +heavy rain. Well, the patches of dead were like that, and dark in the +spots where they were very thick--dark as with the darkness of +deeper water. There were also irregular tongues of dead and +scattered dead, with arms outstretched or under them as they fell, +and faces white even in the reddish glare of the rockets and turned +toward you in the charge that failed under the withering blasts of +machine-guns, ripping out two or three hundred shots a minute, and +well-aimed rifle-bullets, each bullet getting its man. Threatening that +charge would have seemed to a recruit, but measured and calculated +in certainty of failure in the minds of veteran defenders, who knew +that the wheat could not stand before their mowers. Man's flesh is +soft and a bullet is hard and travels fast. + +One bit of satire which Tommy sent across the field covered with its +burden of slaughter to the Germans who are given to song, ought to +have gone home. It was: "Why don't you stop singing and bury your +dead?" But the Germans, having given no armistice in other times +when British dead lay before the trenches, asked for none here. The +dead were nearer to the British than to the Germans. The discomfort +would be in British and not German nostrils. And the dead cannot +fight; they can help no more to win victory for the Fatherland; and the +time is A.D. 1915. Two or three thousand German dead altogether, +perhaps--not many out of the Kaiser's millions. Yet they seemed a +great many to one who saw them lying there. + +We stopped to read by the light of a brazier some German soldiers' +diaries that the Irishmen had. They were cheap little books, bought for +a few cents, each one telling the dead man's story and revealing the +monotony of a soldier's existence in Europe to-day. These pawns of +war had been marched here and there, they never knew why. The +last notes were when orders came entraining them. They did not +know that they were to be sent out of those woods yonder to recover +Neuve Chapelle out of those woods in the test of all their drill and +waiting. A Bavarian officer--for these were Bavarians--actually rode in +that charge. He must have worked himself up to a strangely exalted +optimism and contempt of British fire. Or was it that he, too, did not +know what he was going against? that only the German general +knew? Neither he nor his horse lasted long; not more than a dozen +seconds. The thing was so splendidly foolhardy that in some little war +it might have become the saga of a regiment, the subject of ballads +and paintings. In this war it was an incident heralded for a day in one +command and forgotten the next. + +"Good-night!" called the Irish. + +"Good-night and good luck!" + +"Tell them in America that the Irish are still fighting!" + +"Good luck, and may your travelling be aisy; but if ye trip, may ye fall +into a gold mine!" + +We were back with the British regulars; and here, also, many of the +men remained up around the braziers. + +The hours of duty of the few on watch do not take many of the +twenty-four hours. One may sleep when he chooses in the little +houses behind the breastworks. Night melts into day and day into +night in the monotony of mud and sniping rifle-fire. By-and-by it is your +turn to go into reserve; your turn to get out of your clothes--for there +are no pyjamas for officers or men in these "crawls," as they are +sometimes called. Boots off is the only undressing; boots off and +puttees unloosed, which saves the feet. Yes, by-and-by the march +back to the rear, where there are tubs filled with hot water and an +outfit of clean clothes awaiting you, and nothing to do but rest and +sleep. + +"How soon after we leave the trenches may we cheer?" officers have +been asked in the dead of winter, when water stood deep over the +porous mud and morning found a scale of ice around the legs. + +You, nicely testing the temperature of your morning tub; you, satisfied +only with faucets of hot and cold water and a mat to stand on--you +know nothing about the joy of bathing. Your bath is a mere part of the +daily routine of existence. Try the trenches and get itchy with vermin; +then you will know that heaven consists of soap and hot water. + +No bad odour assails your nostrils wherever you may go in the British +lines. Its cleanliness, if nothing else, would make British army +comradeship enjoyable. My wonder never ceases how Tommy keeps +himself so neat; how he manages to shave every day and get a part, +at least, of the mud off his uniform. This care makes him feel more as +if he were "at home" in barracks. + +From the breastworks, Captain P------and I went for a stroll in the +Village, or the site of the village, silent except for the occasional +singing of a bullet. When we returned he lighted the candle on a stick +stuck into the wall of his earth-roofed house and suggested a nap. It +was three o'clock in the morning. Now I could see that my rubber +boots had grown so heavy because I was carrying so much of the soil +of Northern France. It looked as if I had gout in both feet--the over- +bandaged, stage type of gout--which were encased in large mud +poultices. I tried to stamp off the incubus, but it would not go. I tried +scraping one foot on the other, and what I scraped off seemed to +reattach itself as fast as I could remove it. + +"Don't try!" said the captain. "Lie down and pull your boots off in the +doorway. Perhaps you will get some sleep before daybreak." + +Sleep! Does a débutante go to sleep at her first ball? Sleep in such +good company, the company of this captain who was smiling all the +while with his eyes; smiling at his mud house, at the hardships in the +trenches, and, I hope, at having a guest who had been with armies +before! + +It was the first time that I had been in the trenches all night; the first +time, indeed, when I had not been taken into them by an escort in a +kind of promenade. On this account I was in the family. If it is the right +kind of a family, that is the way to get a good impression. There would +be plenty of time to sleep when I returned to London. + +So Captain P------ and I lay there talking. I felt the dampness of the +earth under my body and the walls exuded moisture. The average +cellar was dry by comparison. "You will get your death of cold!" any +mother would cry in alarm if her boy were found even sitting on such +cold, wet ground. For it was a clammy night of early spring. Yet, +peculiarly enough, few men get colds from this exposure. One gets +colds from draughts in overheated rooms much oftener. Luckily, it +was not raining; it had been raining most of the winter in the flat +country of Northern France and Flanders. + +"It is very horrible, this kind of warfare," said the captain. He was +thinking of the method of it, rather than of the discomforts. "All war is +very horrible, of course." Regular soldiers rarely take any other view. +They know war. + +"With your wounded arm you might be back in England on leave," I +suggested. + +"Oh, that arm is all right!" he replied. "This is what I am paid for"-- +which I had heard regulars say before. "And it is for England!" he +added, in his quiet way. "Sometimes I think we should fight better if +we officers could hate the Germans," he went on. "The German idea +is that you must hate if you are going to fight well. But we can't hate." + +Sound views he had about the war; sounder than I have heard from +the lips of Cabinet ministers. For these regular officers are specialists +in war. + +"Do you think that we shall starve the Germans out?" + +"No. We must win by fighting," he replied. This was in March, 1915. +"You know," he went on, taking another tack, "when one gets back to +England out of this muck he wants good linen and everything very +nice." + +"Yes. I've found the same after roughing it," I agreed. "One is most +particular that he has every comfort to which civilization entitles him." + +We chatted on. Much of our talk was soldier shop talk, which you will +not care to hear. Twice we were interrupted by an outburst of firing, +and the captain hurried out to ascertain the reason. Some false alarm +had started the rifles speaking from both sides. A fusillade for two or +three minutes and the firing died down to silence. + +Dawn broke and it was time for me to go; and with daylight, when +danger of a night surprise was over, the captain would have his +sleep. I was leaving him to his mud house and his bed on the wet +ground without a blanket. It was more important to have sandbags up +for the breastworks than to have blankets; and as the men had not +yet received theirs, he had none himself. + +"It's not fair to the men," he said. "I don't want anything they don't +have." + +No better food and no better house and no warmer garments! He +spoke not in any sense of stated duty, but in the affection of the +comradeship of war; the affection born of that imperturbable courage +of his soldiers who had stood a stone wall of cool resolution against +German charges when it seemed as if they must go. The glamour of +war may have departed, but not the brotherhood of hardship and +dangers shared. + +What had been a routine night to him had been a great night to me; +one of the most memorable of my life. + +"I was glad you could come," he said, as I made my adieu, quite as if +he were saying adieu to a guest at home in England. + +Some of the soldiers called their cheery good-byes; and with a +lieutenant to guide me, I set out while the light was still dusky, leaving +the comforting parapet to the rear to go into the open, four hundred +yards from the Germans. A German, though he could not have seen +us distinctly, must have noted something moving. Two of his bullets +came rather close before we passed out of his vision among some +trees. + +In a few minutes I was again entering the peasant's cottage that was +battalion headquarters; this time by daylight. Its walls were chipped by +bullets that had come over the breastworks. The major was just +getting up from his blankets in the cellar. By this time I had a real +trench appetite. Not until after breakfast did it occur to me, with some +surprise, that I had not washed my face. + +"The food was just as good, wasn't it?" remarked the major. "We get +quite used to such breaches of convention. Besides, you had been +up all night, so your breakfast might be called your after-the-theatre +supper." + +With him I went to see what the ruins of Neuve Chapelle looked like +by daylight. The destruction was not all the result of one +bombardment, for the British had been shelling Neuve Chapelle off +and on all winter. Of course, there is the old earthquake comparison. +All writers have used it. But it is quite too feeble for Neuve Chapelle. +An earthquake merely shakes down houses. The shells had done a +good deal more than that. They had crushed the remains of the +houses as under the pestle-head in a mortar; blown walls into dust; +taken bricks from the east side of the house over to the west and +thrown them back with another explosion. Neuve Chapelle had been +literally flailed with the high explosive projectiles of the new British +artillery, which the British had to make after the war began in order to +compete with what the Germans already had; for poor, lone, +wronged, bullied Germany, quite unprepared--Austria with her fifty +millions does not count--was fighting on the defensive against wicked, +aggressive enemies who were fully prepared. This explains why she +invaded France and took possession of towns like Neuve Chapelle to +defend her poor, unready people from the French, who had been +plotting and planning "the day" when they would conquer the +Germans. + +Bits of German equipment were mixed with ruins of clocks and family +pictures and household utensils. I noticed a bicycle which had been +cut in two, its parts separated by twenty feet; one wheel was twisted +into a spool of wire, the other simply smashed. + +Where was the man who had kept the shop with a few letters of his +name still visible on a splintered bit of board? Where the children who +had played in the littered square in front of the church, with its +steeples and walls piles of stone that had crushed the worshippers' +benches? Refugees somewhere back of the British lines, working on +the roads if strong enough, helping France in any way they could, not +murmuring, even smiling, and praying for victory, which would let +them return to their homes and daily duties. To their homes! + + + + + + + +XVII +With The Guns + + + +It is a war of explosions, from bombs thrown by hand within ten yards +of the enemy to shells thrown as far as twenty miles and to mines laid +under the enemy's trenches; a war of guns, from seventeen-inch +down to three-inch and machine-guns; a war of machinery, with man +still the pre-eminent machine. + +Guns mark the limit of the danger zone. Their screaming shells laugh +at the sentries at the entrances to towns and at cross-roads who +demand passes of all other travellers. Anyone who tried to keep out +of range of the guns would never get anywhere near the front. It is all +a matter of chance with long odds or short odds, according to the +neighbourhood you are in. If shells come, they come without warning +and without ceremony. Nobody is afraid of shells and everybody is--at +least, I am. + +"Gawd! Wat a 'ole!" remarks Mr. Thomas Atkins casually, at sight of +an excavation in the earth made by a thousand-pound projectile. + +It is only eighteen years since I saw, at the battle of Domoko in the +Greco-Turkish war, half a dozen Turkish batteries swing out on the +plain of Thessaly, limber up in the open, and discharge salvos with +black powder, in the good, old battle-panorama style. One battery of +modern field guns unseen would wipe out the lot in five minutes. Only +ten years ago, at the battle of Liao-yang, as I watched a cloud of +shrapnel smoke sending down steel showers over the little hill of +Manjanyama, which sent up showers of earth from shells burst by +impact on the ground, a Japanese military attaché remarked: + +"There you have a prophecy of what a European war will be like!" + +He was right. He knew his business as a military attaché. But the +Allies might also make guns and go on making them till they have +enough. The voices of the guns along the front seem never silent. In +some direction they are always firing. When one night the reports +from a certain quarter seemed rather heavy, I asked the reason the +next day. + +"No, not very heavy. No attack," a division staff officer explained. +"The Boches had been building a redoubt, and we turned on some +h.e.s."--meaning high explosive shells. + +Night after night, under cover of darkness, the Germans had been +labouring on that redoubt, thinking that they were unobserved. They +had kept extremely quiet, too, slipping their spades into the earth +softly and hammering a nail ever so lightly; and, of course, the +redoubt was placed behind a screen of foliage which hid it from the +view of the British trenches. Such is the hide-and-seek character of +modern war. + +What the German builders did not know was that a British aeroplane +had been watching them day by day, and that the spot was nicely +registered on a British gunner's map. On this map it was a certain +numbered point. Press a button, as it were, and you ring the bell with +a shell at that point. And the gunners waited till the house of cards +was up before knocking it to pieces. + +Surprise is the thing with the guns. A town may go for weeks without +getting a single shell. Then it may get a score of shells in ten minutes; +or it may be shelled regularly every day for ensuing weeks. "They are +shelling X again," or, "They have been leaving Z alone for a long +time," is a part of the gossip up and down the line. Towns are proud +of having escaped altogether, and proud of the number and size of +the shells received. + +"Did you get any?" I asked the division staff officer who had told me +about the session the six-inch howitzers had enjoyed. A common +question that, at the front, "Did you get any?" (meaning Germans). A +practical question, too. It has nothing to do with the form of play or +any bit of sensational fielding; only with the score, with results, with +casualties. + +"Yes, quite a number," said the officer. "Our observer saw them lying +about." + +The guns are watching for the targets at all hours--the ever-hungry, +ever-ready, murderous, cunning, quick, scientifically-calculating, +marvellously-accurate and also the guessing, wondering, blind, +groping, helpless guns, which toss their steel messengers over +streams, woodlands, and towns, searching for unseen prey in a wide +landscape. + +Accurate and murderous they seem when you drop low behind a +trench wall or huddle in a dug-out as you hear an approaching +scream and the earth trembles and the air is wracked by a +concussion, and the cry of a man a few yards away tells of a hit. Very +accurate when still others, sent from muzzles six or seven thousand +yards distant, fall in that same line of trench! Very accurate when, +before an infantry attack, with bursts of shrapnel bullets they cut to +bits the barbed-wire entanglements in front of a trench! The power of +chaos that they seem to possess when the firing-trench and the dug- +outs and all the human warrens which protect the defenders are +beaten as flour is kneaded! + +Blind and groping they seem when a dozen shells fall harmlessly in a +field; when they send their missiles toward objects which may not be +worth shooting at; when no one sees where the shells hit and the +amount of damage they have done is all guesswork; and helpless +without the infantry to protect them, the aeroplanes and the observers +to see for them. + +One thinks of them as demons with subtle intelligence and long +reach, their gigantic fists striking here and there at will, without a +visible arm behind the blow. An army guards against the blows of an +enemy's demons with every kind of cover, every kind of deception, +with all resources of scientific ingenuity and invention; and an army +guards its own demons in their lairs as preciously as if they were +made of some delicate substance which would go up in smoke at a +glance from the enemy's eye, instead of having barrels of the +strongest steel that can be forged. + +Your personal feeling for the demons on your side is in ratio to the +amount of hell sent by the enemy's which you have tasted. After you +have been scared stiff, while pretending that you were not, by sharing +with Mr. Atkins an accurate bombardment of a trench and are +convinced that the next shell is bound to get you, you fall into the +attitude of the army. You want to pat the demon on the back and say, +"Nice old demon!" and watch him toss a shell three or four miles into +the German lines from the end of his fiery tongue. Indeed, nothing so +quickly develops interest in the British guns as having the German +gunners take too much personal interest in you. + +You must have someone to show you the way or you would not find +any guns. A man with a dog trained to hunt guns might spend a week +on the gun-position area covering ten miles of the front and not locate +half the guns. He might miss "Grandmother" and "Sister" and "Betsy" +and "Mike" and even "Mister Archibald," who is the only one who +does not altogether try to avoid publicity. + +When an attack or an artillery bombardment is on and you go to as +high ground as possible for a bird's-eye view of battle, all that you see +is the explosion of the shells; never anything of the guns which are +firing. In the distance over the German lines and in the foreground +over the British lines is a balloon, shaped like a caterpillar with folded +wings--a chrysalis of a caterpillar. + +Tugging at its moorings, it turns this way and that with the breeze. +The speck directly beneath it through the glasses becomes an +ordinary balloon basket and other specks attached to a guy rope play +the part of the tail of a kite, helping to steady the type of balloon which +has taken the place of the old spherical type for observation. Anyone +who has been up in a captive spherical balloon knows how difficult it +is to keep his glasses focussed on any object, because of the jerking +and pitching and trembling due to the envelope's response to air- +movements. The new type partly overcomes this drawback. To +shrapnel their thin envelope is as vulnerable as a paper drum-head to +a knife; but I have seen them remain up defiantly when shells were +bursting within three or four hundred yards, which their commanders +seemed to understand was the limit of the German battery's reach. + +Again, I have seen a shrapnel burst alongside within range; and five +minutes later the balloon was down and out of sight. No balloon +observer hopes to see the enemy's guns. He is watching for shell- +bursts, in order to inform the guns of his side whether they are on the +target or not. + +Riding along the roads at the front one may know that there is a +battery a stone's throw away only when a blast from a hidden gun- +muzzle warns him of its presence. It is wonderful to me that the +artillery general who took me gun-seeing knew where his own guns +were, let alone the enemy's. I imagine that he could return to a field +and locate a four-leafed clover that he had seen on a previous stroll. +His dogs of war had become foxes of war, burrowing in places which +wise old father foxes knew were safest from detection. Hereafter, I +shall not be surprised to see a muzzle poking its head out of an oven, +or from under grandfather's chair or a farm wagon, or up a tree, or in +a garret. Think of the last place in the world for emplacing a gun and +one may be there; think of the most likely place and one may be +there. You might be walking across the fields and minded to go +through a hedge, and bump into a black ring of steel with a gun's +crew grinning behind it. They would grin because you had given proof +of how well their gun was concealed. But they wouldn't grin as much +as they would if they saw the enemy plunking shells into another +hedge two hundred yards distant, where the German aeroplane +observer thought he had seen a battery and had not. + +"I'll show you a big one, first!" said the general. + +We left the car at a cottage and walked along a lane. I looked all +about the premises and could see only some artillerymen. An officer +led me up to a gun-breech; at least, I know a gun-breech when it is +one foot from my nose and a soldier has removed its covering. But I +shall not tell how that gun was concealed; the method was so +audacious that it was entirely successful. The Germans would like to +know and we don't want them to know. A little pencil-point on their +map for identification, and they would send a whirlwind of shells at +that gun. + +And then? + +Would the gun try to fire back? No. Its gunners probably would not +know the location of any of the guns of the German battery which had +concentrated on their treasure. They would desert the gun. If they did +not, they ought to be court-martialled for needlessly risking the +precious lives of trained men. They would make for the "funk-pits," as +they call the dug-outs, just as the gunners of any other Power would. + +The chances are that the gun itself would not be hit bodily by a shell. +Fragments might strike it without causing more than an abrasion; for +big guns have pretty thick cuticles. When the storm was over, the +gunners would move their treasure to another hiding-place; which +would mean a good deal of work, on account of its size. + +It is the inability of gun to see gun, and even when seen to knock out +gun, which has put an end to the so-called artillery duel of pitched- +battle days, when cannon walloped cannon to keep cannon from +walloping the infantry. Now when there is an action, though guns still +go after guns if they know where they are, most of the firing is done +against trenches and to support trenches and infantry works, or with a +view to demoralizing the infantry. Concentration of artillery fire will +demolish an enemy's trench and let your infantry take possession of +the wreckage remaining; but then the enemy's artillery concentrates +on your infantry and frequently makes their new habitation untenable. + +Noiselessly except for a little click, with chickens clucking in a field +near by, the big breech-block which held the shell fast, sending all the +power of the explosion out of the muzzle, was swung back and one +looked through the shining tube of steel, with its rifling which caught +the driving band and gave the shell its rotation and accuracy in its +long journey, which would close when, descending at the end of its +parabola, its nose struck building, earth, or pavement and it exploded. + +Wheels that lift and depress and swing the muzzle, and gadgets with +figures, and other scales which play between the map and the +gadgets, and atmospheric pressure and wind-variation, all worked out +with the same precision under a French hedge as on board a +battleship where the gun-mounting is fast to massive ribs of steel--it +seemed a matter of book-keeping and trigonometry rather than war. + +If a shell from this gun were to hit at the corner of Wall Street and +Broadway at the noon hour, it would probably kill and wound a +hundred men. If it went into the dug-out of a support trench it would +get everybody there; but if it went ten yards beyond the trench into +the open field, it would probably get nobody. "Cover!" someone +exclaimed, while we were looking at the gun; and everybody promptly +got under the branches of a tree or a shed. A German aeroplane was +cruising in our direction. If the aviator saw a group of men standing +about he might draw conclusions and pass the wireless word to send +in some shells at whatever number on the German gunners' map +was ours. + +These gunners loved their gun; loved it for the power which it could +put into a blow under their trained hands; loved it for the care and the +labour it had meant for them. It is the way of gunners to love their +gun, or they would not be good gunners. Of all the guns I saw that +day, I think that two big howitzers meant the most to their masters. +These had just arrived. They had been set up only two days. They +had not yet fired against the enemy. For many months the gunners +had drilled in England, and they had tried their "eight-inch hows" out +on the target range and brought them across the Channel and +nursed them along French roads, and finally set them up in their +hidden lair. Now they waited for observers to assist them in +registration. + +When the general approached there was a call to turn out the guard; +but the general stopped that. At the front there is an end of the +ceremoniousness of the barracks. Military formality disappears. +Discipline, as well as other things, is simpler and more real. The men +went on with their recess playing football in a near-by field. + +The officers possibly were a trifle diffident and uncertain; they had not +yet the veteran's manner. It was clear that they had done everything +required by the textbook of theory--the latest, up-to-date textbook of +experience at the front as taught in England. When they showed us +how they had stored their stock of shells to be safe from a shot by the +enemy, one remarked that the method was according to the latest +directions, though there was some difference among military experts +on the subject. When there is a difference, what is the beginner to +do? An old hand, of course, does it his way until an order makes him +do otherwise. The general had a suggestion about the application of +the method. He had little to say, the general, and all was in the spirit +of comradeship and quite to the point. Not much escaped his +observation. + +It seems fairly true that one who knows his work well in any branch of +human endeavour makes it appear easy. Once a gunner always a +gunner is characteristic of all armies. The general had spent his life +with guns. He was a specialist visiting his plant; one of the staff +specialists responsible to a corps commander for the work of the +guns on a certain section of map, for accuracy and promptness of fire +when it was required in the commander's plans. + +If the newcomers put their shells into the target on their first trial they +had qualified; and sometimes newcomers shoot quite as well as +veterans, which is a surprise to both and the best kind of news for the +general who is in charge of an expanding plant. The war will be +decided by gunners and infantry that knew nothing of guns or drill +when the war began. + +"Here are some who have been in France from the first," said the +general, when we came to a battery of field guns; of the eighteen- +pounders, the fellows you see behind the galloping horses, the "hell- +for-leather" guns, the guns which bring the gleam of affection into the +eyes of men who think of pursuits and covering retreats and the +pitched-battle conditions before armies settled down in trenches and +growled and hissed at each other day after day and brought up guns +of calibres which we associate with battleships and coast +fortifications. + +These are called "light stuff" and "whizz-bangs" now, in army +parlance. They throw only an eighteen-pound shell which carries +three hundred bullets, but so fast that they chase one another +through the air. There has been so much talk about the need of +heavy guns, you might think that eighteen-pounders were too small +for consideration. Were the German line broken, these are the ones +which could gallop on the heels of the infantry. + +They are the boys who weave the "curtain of fire" which you read +about in the official bulletins as checking an infantry charge; which +demolish the barbed-wire entanglements to let an infantry charge get +into a trench. If a general wants a shower of bullets over any part of +the German line he has only to call up the eighteen-pounders and it is +sent as promptly as the pressure of a button brings a pitcher of iced- +water to a room in a first-class hotel. A veteran eighteen-pounder +crew in action is a poem in precision and speed of movement. The +gun itself seems to possess intelligence. + +There was the finesse of gunners' craft worthy of veterans in the way +that these eighteen-pounders were concealed. The Germans had put +some shells in the neighbourhood, but without fooling the old hands. +They did not change the location of their battery and their judgment +that the shots which came near were chance shots fired at another +object was justified. Particularly I should like to mention the nature of +their "funk-pits," which kept them safe from the heaviest shells. For +the veterans knew how to take care of themselves; they had an eye +to the protection which comes of experience with German high +explosives. Their expert knowledge of all the ins and outs of the +business had been fought into them for over a year. + +Another field battery, also, I have in mind, placed in an orchard. +Which orchard of all the thousands of orchards along the British front +the German staff may guess, if they choose. If German guns fired at +all the orchards, one by one, they might locate it--and then again they +might not. Besides, this is a peculiar sort of orchard. + +It is a characteristic of gunners to be neat and to have an eye for the +comeliness of things. These men had a lawn and a garden, tables +and chairs. If you are familiar with the tidiness of a retired New +England sailor, who regards his porch as a quarter-deck and sallies +forth to remove each descending autumn leaf from the grass, then +you know how scrupulous they were about litter. + +For weeks they had been in the same position, unseen by German +aeroplanes. They had daily baths; they did their weekly laundry, +taking care not to hang it where it would be visible from the sky. Every +day they received the London papers and letters from home. When +they were needed to help in making war, all they had to do was to slip +a shell in the breech and send it with their compliments to the +Germans. They were camping out at His Majesty's expense in the +pleasant land of France in the joyous summer time; and on the roof of +sod over their guns were pots of flowers, undisturbed by blasts from +the gun-muzzles. + +It was when leaving another battery that out of the tail of my eye I +caught a lurid flash through a hedge, followed by the sharp, ear- +piercing crack that comes from being in line with a gun-muzzle when +a shot is fired. We followed a path which took us to the rear of the +report, where we stepped through undergrowth among the busy +group around the breeches of some guns of one of the larger +calibres. + +An order for some "heavy stuff" at a certain point on the map was +being filled. Sturdy men were moving in a pantomime under the +shade of a willow tree, each doing exactly his part in a process that +seemed as simple as opening a cupboard door, slipping in a package +of concentrated destruction, and closing the door. All that detail of +range-finding and mathematical adjustment of aim at the unseen +target which takes so long to explain was applied as automatically as +an adding-machine adds up a column of figures. Everybody was as +practice-perfect in his part as performers who have made hundreds +of appearances in the same act on the stage. + +All ready, the word given, a thunder peal and through the air you saw +a wingless, black object in a faint curve against the soft blue sky, +which it seemed to sweep with a sound something like the escape of +water through a break in the garden hose multiplied by ten, rising to +its zenith and then descending, till it passed out of sight behind a +green bank of foliage on the horizon. + +After the scream had been lost to the ear you heard the faint, +thudding boom of an explosion from the burst of that conical piece of +steel which you had seen slipped into the breech. This was the +gunners' part in chessboard war, where the moves are made over +signal wires, while the infantry endure the explosions in their trenches +and fight in their charges in the traverses of trenches at as close +quarters as in the days of the cave-dwellers. + +There was no stopping work when the general came, of course. It +would have been the same had Lord Kitchener been present. The +battery commander expressed his regret that he could not show me +his guns without any sense of irony; meaning that he was sorry he +was too busy to tell about his battery. In about the time that it took a +telegraph key to click after each one of those distant bursts, he knew +whether or not the shot was on the target and what variation of +degree to make in the next if it were not; or, if the word came, to shift +the point of aim a little, when you are trying to shake up the enemy +here and there along a certain length of trench. + +At another wire-end someone was spotting the bursts. Perhaps he +was in the kind of place where I found one observer, who was sitting +on a cushion looking out through a chink in a wall, with a signal corps +operator near by. It was a small chink, just large enough to allow the +lens of a pair of glasses or a telescope a range of vision; and even +then I was given certain warnings before the cover over the chink +was removed, though there could not have been any German in +uniform nearer than four thousand yards. But there may be spies +within your own lines, looking for such holes. + +From this post I could make out the British and the German trenches +in muddy white lines of sandbags running snake-like across the fields, +and the officer identified points on the map to me. Every tree and +hedge and ditch in the panorama were graven on his mind; all had +language for him. His work was engrossing. It had risk, too; there was +no telling when a shell might lift him off the cushion and provide a +hole for the burial of his remains. + +If he were shelled, the observer would go to a funk-pit, as the +gunners do, until the storm had passed; and then he would move on +with his cushion and his telegraph instrument and make a hole in +another wall, if he did not find a tree or some other eminence which +suited his purpose better. Meanwhile, he was not the only observer in +that section. There were others nearer the trenches, perhaps actually +in the trenches. The two armies, seeming chained to their trenches, +are set with veiled eyes at the end of wires; veiled eyes trying to +locate the other's eyes, the other's guns and troops and the least +movement which indicates any attempt to gain an advantage. + +"Gunnery is navigation, dead reckoning, with the spotting observer +the sun by which you correct your figures," said one of the artillery +officers. + +Firing enough one had seen--landscape bathed in smoke and dust +and reverberating with explosions; but all as a spectacle from an +orchestra seat, not too close at hand for comfort. This time I was to +see the guns fire and the results of the firing in detail. Both can rarely +be seen at the same time. It was not show firing this that we watched +from an observing station, but part of the day's work for the guns and +the general. First, the map, "Here and there," as an officer's finger +pointed; and then one looked across fields, green and brown and +golden with the summer crops. + +Item I. The Germans were fortifying a certain point on a certain farm. +We were going to put some "heavy stuff" in there and some "light +stuff," too. The burst of our shells could be located in relation to a +certain tree. + +Item II. Our planes thought that the Germans had a wireless station in +a certain building. "Heavy stuff" exclusively for this. No enemy's +wireless station ought to be enjoying serene summer weather without +interruption; and no German working-party ought to be allowed to +build redoubts within range of our guns without a break in the +monotony of their drudgery. + +Six lyddites were the order for the wireless station; six high explosives +which burst on contact and make a hole in the earth large enough for +a grave for the Kaiser and all his field marshals. Frequently, not only +the number of shells to be fired, but also the intervals between them +is given by the artillery commander, as part of his plan in his +understanding of the object to be accomplished; and it is quite clear +that the system is the same with the Germans. + +One side no sooner develops an idea than the other adopts it. By +effect of the enemy's shells you judge what the effect of yours must +be. Months of experience have done away with all theories and +practice has become much the same by either adversary. For +example, let a German or a British airman be winged by anti-aircraft +gun-fire and the guns instantly loosen up on the point over his own +lines, if he regains them, where he is seen to fall. All the soldiers in +the neighbourhood are expected to run to his assistance; and, at any +rate, you may get a trained aviator, whose life is a valuable asset on +one side of the ledger and whose death an asset on the other. There +is no sentiment left in war, you see. It is all killing and avoiding being +killed. + +By the scream of a shell the practised ear of the artilleryman can tell +whether it comes from a gun with a low trajectory or from a howitzer, +whose projectile rises higher and falls at a sharper angle which +enables it to enter the trenches; and he can even tell approximately +the calibre. + +A scream sweeping past from our rear, and we knew that this was for +the redoubt, as that was to have the first turn. A volume of dust and +smoke breaking from the earth short of the redoubt, and after the +second's delay of hearing the engine whistle after the burst of steam +in the distance on a winter day, came the sound of the burst. The +next was over. With the third the "heavy stuff" ought to be right on. + +But don't forget that there was also an order for some "Right stuff," +identified as shrapnel by its soft, nimbus-like puff which was +scattering bullets as if giving chase to that working-party as it +hastened to cover. There you had the ugly method of this modern +artillery fire: death shot downward from the air and leaping up out of +the earth. Unhappily, the third was not on, nor the fourth--not exactly +on. Exactly on is the way that British gunners like to fill an order +f.o.b., express charges prepaid, for the Germans. + +Ten years ago it would have seemed good shooting. It was not very +good in the twelfth month of the war; for war beats the target range in +developing accuracy. At five or six or seven or eight thousand yards' +range the shells were bursting thirty or forty yards away from where +they should. + +No, not very good; the general murmured as much. He did not need +to say so aloud to the artillery officer responsible for that shooting, +who was in touch with his batteries by wire. The officer knew it. He +was the high-strung, ambitious sort. You had better not become a +gunner unless you are. Any "good-enough" temperament is ruled off +wasting munitions. Red was creeping through the tan from his throat +to the roots of his hair. To have this happen in the presence of that +veteran general, after all his efforts to try to remedy the error in those +guns! + +But the general was quite human. He was not the "strafing" kind. + +"I know those guns have an error!" he said, as he put his hand on the +officer's arm. That was all; and that was a good deal to the officer. +Evidently, the general not only knew guns; he knew men. The officer +had suffered admonition enough from his own injured pride. + +Besides, what we did to the supposed wireless station ought to keep +any general from being downhearted. Neither guns, nor the powder +which sent the big shells on their errand, nor the calculations of the +gunners, nor their adjustment of the gadgets, had any error. With the +first one, a great burst of the black smoke of deadly lyddite rose from +the target. "Right on!" + +And again and again--right on! The ugly, spreading, low-hanging, +dense cloud was renewed from its heart by successive bursts in the +same place. If the aeroplane's conclusions were right, that wireless +station must be very much wireless, now. The only safe discount for +the life insurance of the operators was one hundred per cent. + +"Here, they are firing more than six!" said the general. "It's always +hard to hold these gunners down when they are on the target like +that." + +He spoke as if it would have been difficult for him to resist the +temptation himself. The wireless station got two extra shells for full +measure. Perhaps those two were waste; perhaps the first two had +been enough. Conservation of shells has become a first principle of +the artillerists' duty. The number fired by either side in the course of +the routine of an average so-called peaceful day is surprising. +Economy would be easier if it were harder to slip a shell into a gun- +breech. The men in the trenches are always calling for shells. They +want a tree or a house which is the hiding-place of a sniper knocked +down. The men at the guns would be glad to accommodate them, but +the say as to that is with commanders who know the situation. + +"The Boches will be coming back at us soon, you will see!" said one +of the officers who was at our observation post. "They always do. The +other day they chose this particular spot for their target"--which was a +good reason why they would not this time, an optimist thought. + +Let either side start a bombardment and the other responds. There is +a you-hit-me-and-I'll-hit-you character about siege warfare. Gun-fire +provokes gun-fire. Neither adversary stays quiet under a blow. It was +not long before we heard the whish of German shells passing some +distance away. + +They say sport is out of war. Perhaps, but not its enthralling and +horrible fascination. Knowing what the target is, knowing the object of +the fire, hearing the scream of the projectile on the way and watching +to see if it is to be a hit, when the British are fighting the Germans on +the soil of France, has an intensive thrill which is missing to the +spectator who looks on at the Home Sports Club shooting at clay +pigeons--which is not in justification of war. It does explain, however, +the attraction of gunnery to gunners. One forgets, for the instant, that +men are being killed and mangled. He thinks only of points scored in +a contest which requires all the wit and strength and fortitude of man +and all his cunning in the manufacture and control of material. + +You want your side to win; in this case, because it is the side of +humanity and of that kindly general and the things that he and the +army he represents stand for. The blows which the demons from the +British lairs strike are to you the blows of justice; and you are glad +when they go home. They are your blows. You have a better reason +for keeping an army's artillery secrets than for keeping secret the +signals of your Varsity football team, which anyone instinctively +keeps--the reason of a world cause. + +Yet another thing to see--an aeroplane assisting a battery by spotting +the fall of its shells, which is engrossing enough, too, and amazingly +simple. Of course this battery was proud of its method of +concealment. Each battery commander will tell you that a British +plane has flown very low, as a test, without being able to locate his +battery. If it is located, there is more work due in "make-up" to +complete the disguise. Competition among batteries is as keen as +among battleships of our North Atlantic fleet. + +Situation favoured this battery, which was Canadian. It was as nicely +at home as a first-class Adirondack camp. At any rate, no other +battery had a dug-out for a litter of eight pups, with clean straw for +their bed, right between two gun-emplacements. + +"We found the mother wild, out there in the woods," one of the men +explained. "She, too, was a victim of war; a refugee from some home +destroyed by shell-fire. At first she wouldn't let us approach her, and +we tossed her pieces of meat from a safe distance. I think those pups +will bring us luck. We'll take them along to the Rhine. Some mascots, +eh?" + +On our way back to the general's headquarters we must have passed +other batteries hidden from sight only a stone's throw away; and yet in +an illustrated paper recently I saw a drawing of some guns emplaced +on the crest of a bare hill, naked to all the batteries of the enemy, but +engaged in destroying all the enemy's batteries, according to the +account. Twelve months of war have not shaken conventional ideas +about gunnery; which is one reason for writing this chapter. + +Also, on our way back we learned the object of the German fire in +answer to our bombardment of the redoubt and the wireless station. +They had shelled a cross-roads and a certain village again. As we +passed through the village we noticed a new hole in the church tower, +and three holes in the churchyard, which had scattered clods of earth +about the pavement. A shopkeeper was engaged in repairing a +window-frame that had been broken by a shell-fragment. + +There is no flustering the French population. That very day I heard of +an old peasant who asked a British soldier if he could not get +permission for the old farmer to wear some kind of an armband which +both sides would respect, so that he could cut his field of wheat +between the trenches. Why not? Wasn't it his wheat? Didn't he need +the crop? + +And the Germans fire into villages and towns; for the women and +children there are the women and children of the enemy. But those in +the German lines belong to the ally of England. Besides, they are +women and children. So British gunners avoid towns--which is, in one +sense, a professional handicap. + + + + +XVIII +Archibald The Archer + + + +There is another kind of gun, vagrant and free lance, which deserves +a chapter by itself. It has the same bark as the eighteen-pounder field +piece; the flight of the shell makes the same kind of sound. But its +scream, instead of passing in a long parabola toward the German +lines, goes up in the heavens toward something as large as your +hand against the light blue of the summer sky--a German aeroplane. + +At a height of seven or eight thousand feet the target seems almost +stationary, when really it is going somewhere between fifty and ninety +miles an hour. It has all the heavens to itself, and to the British it is a +sinister, prying eye that wants to see if we are building any new +trenches, if we are moving bodies of troops or of transport, and where +our batteries are in hiding. That aviator three miles above the earth +has many waiting guns at his command. A few signals from his +wireless and they would let loose on the target he indicated. + +If the planes might fly as low as they pleased, they would know all that +was going on in an enemy's lines. They must keep up so high that +through the aviator's glasses a man on the road is the size of a pin- +head. To descend low is as certain death as to put your head over +the parapet of a trench when the enemy's trench is only a hundred +yards away. There are dead lines in the air, no less than on the earth. + +Archibald, the anti-aircraft gun, sets the dead line. He watches over it +as a cat watches a mouse. The trick of sneaking up under cover of a +noonday cloud and all the other man-bird tricks he knows. A couple of +seconds after that crack a tiny puff of smoke breaks about a hundred +yards behind the Taube. A soft thistledown against the blue it seems +at that altitude; but it would not if it were about your ears. Then it +would sound like a bit of dynamite on an anvil struck by a hammer +and you would hear the whizz of scores of bullets and fragments. + +The smoking brass shell-case is out of Archibald's steel throat, and +another shell-case with its charge slipped into place and started on its +way before the first puff breaks. The aviator knows what is coming. +He knows that one means many, once he is in range. + +Archibald rushes the fighting; it is the business of the Taube to side- +step. The aviator cannot hit back except through his allies, the +German batteries, on the earth. They would take care of Archibald if +they knew where he was. But all that the aviator can see is mottled +landscape. From his side Archibald flies no goal flags. He is one of +ten thousand tiny objects under the aviator's eye. + +Archibald's propensities are entirely peripatetic. He is the vagabond +of the army lines. Locate him and he is gone. His home is where night +finds him and the day's duties take him. He is the only gun that keeps +regular hours like a Christian gentleman. All the others, great and +small, raucous-voiced and shrill-voiced, fire at any hour, night or day. +Aeroplanes rarely go up at night; and when no aeroplanes are up, +Archibald has no interest in the war. But he is alert at the first flush of +dawn, on the look-out for game with the avidity of a pointer dog; for +aviators are also up early. + +Why he was named Archibald nobody knows. As his full name is +Archibald the Archer, possibly it comes from some association with +the idea of archery. If there were ten thousand anti-aircraft guns in the +British army, every one would be known as Archibald. + +When the British Expeditionary Force went to France it had none. All +the British could do was to bang away at Taubes with thousands of +rounds of rifle-bullets, which might fall in their own lines, and with the +field guns. + +It was pie in those days for the Taubes! Easy to keep out of the range +of both rifles and guns and observe well! If the Germans did not know +the progress of the British retreat from on high it was their own fault. +Now, the business of firing at Taubes is left entirely to Archibald. +When you see how hard it is for Archibald, after all his practice, to get +a Taube, you understand how foolish it was for the field guns to try to +get one. + +Archibald, who is quite the "swaggerist" of the gun tribe, has his own +private car built especially for him. Such of the cavalry's former part +as the planes do not play he plays. He keeps off the enemy's scouts. +Do you seek team-work, spirit of corps, and smartness in this theatre +of France, where all the old glamour of war is supposed to be +lacking? You will find it in the attendants of Archibald. They have +pride, élan, alertness, pepper, and all the other appetizers and +condiments. They are as neat as a private yacht's crew, and as lively +as an infield of a major league team. The Archibaldians are naturally +bound to think rather well of themselves. + +Watch them there, every man knowing his part, as they send their +shells after the Taube! There is not enough waste motion among the +lot to tip over the range-finder, or the telescopes, or the score board, +or any of the other paraphernalia assisting the man who is looking +through the sight in knowing where to aim next, as a screw answers +softly to his touch. + +Is the sport of war dead? Not for Archibald! Here you see your target +--which is so rare these days when British infantrymen have stormed +and taken trenches without ever seeing a German--and the target is a +bird, a man-bird. Puffs of smoke with bursting hearts of death are +clustered around the Taube. One follows another in quick succession, +for more than one Archibald is firing, before your entranced eye. + +You are staring like the crowd of a county fair at a parachute act. For +the next puff may get him. Who knows this better than the aviator? +He is, likely, an old hand at the game; or, if he is not, he has all the +experience of other veterans to go by. His ruse is the same as that of +the escaped prisoner who runs from the fire of a guard in a zigzag +course, and more than that. If a puff comes near on the right, he turns +to the left; if one comes near on the left, he turns to the right; if one +comes under, he rises; over, he dips. This means that the next shell +fired at the same point will be wide of the target. + +Looking through the sight, it seems easy to hit a plane. But here is +the difficulty. It takes two seconds, say, for the shell to travel to the +range of the plane. The gunner must wait for its burst before he can +spot his shot. Ninety miles an hour is a mile and a half a minute. +Divide that by thirty and you have about a hundred yards which the +plane has travelled from the time the shell left the gun-muzzle till it +burst. It becomes a matter of discounting the aviator's speed and +guessing from experience which way he will turn next. + +That ought to have got him--the burst was right under. No! He rises. +Surely that one got him! The puff is right in front, partly hiding the +Taube from view. You see the plane tremble as if struck by a violent +gust of wind. Close! Within thirty or forty yards, the telescope says. +But at that range the naked eye is easily deceived about distance. +Probably some of the bullets have cut his plane. + +But you must hit the man or the machine in a vital spot in order to +bring down your bird. The explosions must be very close to count. It is +amazing how much shell-fire an aeroplane can stand. Aviators are +accustomed to the whizz of shell-fragments and bullets, and to have +their planes punctured and ripped. Though their engines are put out +of commission, and frequently though the man be wounded, they are +able to volplane back to the cover of their own lines. + +To make a proper story we ought to have brought down this particular +bird. But it had the luck, which most planes, British or German have, +to escape antiaircraft gun-fire. It had begun edging away after the first +shot and soon was out of range. Archibald had served the purpose of +his existence. He had sent the prying aerial eye home. + +A fight between planes in the air very rarely happens, except in the +imagination. Planes do not go up to fight other planes, but for +observation. Their business is to see and learn and bring home their +news. + + + + +XIX +Trenches In Summer + + + +It was the same trench in June, still a relatively "quiet corner," which I +had seen in March; but I would never have known it if its location had +not been the same on the map. One was puzzled how a place that +had been so wet could become so dry. + +This time the approach was made in daylight through a long +communication ditch, which brought us to a shell-wrecked +farmhouse. We passed through this and stepped down at the back +door into deep traverses cut among the roots of an orchard; then +behind walls of earth high above our heads to battalion headquarters +in a neat little shanty, where I deposited the first of the cakes I had +brought on the table beside some battalion reports. A cake is the right +gift for the trenches, though less so in summer than in winter when +appetites are less keen. The adjutant tried a slice while the colonel +conferred with the general, who had accompanied me this far, and he +glanced up at a sheet of writing with a line opposite hours of the day, +pinned to a post of his dug-out. + +"I wanted to see if it were time to make another report," he said. "We +are always making reports. Everybody is, so that whoever is superior +to someone else knows what is happening in his subordinate's +department." + +Then in and out in a maze, between walls with straight faces of the +hard, dry earth, testifying to the beneficence of summer weather in +constructing fastnesses from artillery fire, until we were in the firing- +trench, where I was at home among the officers and men of a +company. General Mud was "down and out." He waited on the winter +rains to take command again. But winter would find an army prepared +against his kind of campaign. Life in the trenches in summer was not +so unpleasant but that some preferred it, with the excitement of +sniping, to the boredom of billets. + + + +"What hopes!" was the current phrase I heard among the men in +these trenches. It shared honours with strafe. You have only one life +to live and you may lose that any second--what hopes! Dig, dig, dig, +and set off a mine that sends Germans skyward in a cloud of dust-- +what hopes! Bully beef from Chicago and Argentina is no food for +babes, but better than "K.K." bread--what hopes! Mr. Thomas Atkins, +British regular, takes things as they come--and a lot of them come-- +shells, bullets, asphyxiating gas, grenades, and bombs. + +There is much to be thankful for. The King's Own Particular Fusiliers, +as we shall call this regiment, had only three men hit yesterday. On +every man's cap is a metal badge crowded with battle honours, from +the storming of Quebec to the relief of Ladysmith. Heroic its history; +but no battle honours equal that of the regiment's part in the second +battle of Ypres; and no heroes of the regiment's story, whom you +picture in imagination with haloes of glory in the wish that you might +have met them in the flesh in their scarlet coats, are the equal of +these survivors in plain khaki manning a ditch in A.D. 1915, whom +anyone may meet. + +But do not tell them that they are heroes. They will deny it on the +evidence of themselves as eyewitnesses of the action. To remark +that the K.O.P.F. are brave is like remarking that water flows down +hill. It is the business of the K.O.P.F. to be brave. Why talk about it? + +One of the three men hit was killed. Well, everybody in the war rather +expects to be killed. The other two "got tickets to England," as they +say. My lady will take the convalescents joy-riding in her car, and +afterwards seat them in easy chairs, arranging the cushions with her +own hands, and feed them slices of cold chicken in place of bully beef +and strawberries and cream in place of ration marmalade. Oh, my! +What hopes! + +Mr. Atkins does not mind being a hero for the purposes of such +treatment. Then, with never a twinkle in his eye, he will tell my lady +that he does not want to return to the front; he has had enough of it, +he has. My lady's patriotism will be a trifle shocked, as Mr. Atkins +knows it will be; and she will wonder if the "stick it" quality of the +British soldier is weakening, as Mr. Atkins knows she will. For he has +more kinks in his mental equipment than mere nobility ever guesses, +and he is having the time of his life in more respects than +strawberries and cream. What hopes! Of course, he will return and +hold on in the face of all that the Germans can give, without any +pretence to bravery. + +If you go as a stranger into the trenches on a sightseeing tour and +says, "How are you?" and, "Are you going to Berlin?" and, "Are you +comfortable?" etc., Tommy Atkins will say, "Yes, sir," and "Very well, +sir," as becomes all polite regular soldier men; and you get to know +him about as well as you know the members of a club if you are +shown the library and dine at a corner table with a friend. + +Spend the night in the trenches and you are taken into the family, into +that very human family of soldier-dom in a quiet corner; and the old, +care-free spirit of war, which some people thought had passed, is +found to be no less alive in siege warfare than on a march of regulars +on the Indian frontier or in the Philippines. Gaiety and laughter and +comradeship and "joshing" are here among men to whom wounds +and death are a part of the game. One may challenge high +explosives with a smile, no less than ancient round shot. Settle down +behind the parapet, and the little incongruities of a trench, paltry +without the intimacy of men and locality, make for humour no less +than in a shop or a factory. + +Under the parapet runs the tangle of barbed wire--barbed wire from +Switzerland to Belgium--to welcome visitors from that direction, which, +to say the least, would be an impolitic direction of approach for any +stranger. + +"All sightseers should come into the trenches from the rear," says Mr. +Atkins. "Put it down in the guidebooks." + +Beyond the barbed wire in the open field the wheat which some +farmer sowed before positions were established in this area is now in +head, rippling with the breeze, making a golden sea up to the wall of +sandbags which is the enemy's line. It was late June at its loveliest; +no signs of war except the sound of our guns some distance away +and an occasional sniper's bullet. One cracked past as I was looking +through my glasses to see if there were any evidence of life in the +German trenches. + +"Your hat, sir!" + +Another moved a sandbag slightly, but not until after the hat had +come down and the head under it, most expeditiously. Up to eight +hundred yards a bullet cracks; beyond that range it whistles, sighs, +even wheezes. An elevation gives snipers, who are always trained +shots, an angle of advantage. In winter they had to rely for cover on +buildings, which often came tumbling down with them when hit by a +shell. The foliage of summer is a boon to their craft. + +"Does it look to you like an opening in the branches of that tree--the +big one at the right?" + +In the mass of leaves a dark spot was visible. It might be natural, or it +might be a space cut away for the swing of a rifle-barrel. Perhaps +sitting up there snugly behind a bullet-proof shield fastened to the +limbs was a German sharpshooter, watching for a shot with the +patience of a hound for a rabbit to come out of its hole. + +"It's about time we gave that tree a spray good for that kind of fungus, +from a machine-gun!" + +A bullet coming from our side swept overhead. One of our own +sharpshooters had seen something to shoot at. + +"Not giving you much excitement!" said Tommy. + +"I suppose I'd get a little if I stood up on the parapet?" I asked. + +"You wouldn't get a ticket for England; you'd get a box!" + +"There's a cemetery just behind the lines if you'd prefer to stay in +France!" + +I had passed that cemetery with its fresh wooden crosses on my way +to the trench. These tenderhearted soldiers who joked with death had +placed flowers on the graves of fallen comrades and bought +elaborate French funeral wreaths with their meagre pay--which is +another side of Mr. Thomas Atkins. There is sentiment in him. Yes, +he's loaded with sentiment, but not for the "movies." + +"Keep your head down there, Eames!" called a corporal. "I don't want +to be taking an inventory of your kit." + +Eames did not even realize that his head was above the parapet. The +hardest thing to teach a soldier is not to expose himself. Officers keep +iterating warnings and then forget to practise what they preach. That +morning a soldier had been shot through the heart and arm sideways +behind the trench. He had lain down unnoticed for a nap in the sun, it +was supposed. When he awoke, presumably he sat up and yawned +and Herr Schmidt, from some platform in a tree, had a bloody reward +for his patience. + +The next morning I saw the British take their revenge. Some German +who thought that he could not be seen in the mist of dawn was +walking along the German parapet. What hopes! Four or five men +took careful aim and fired. That dim figure collapsed in a way that was +convincing. + +As I swept the line of German trenches with the glasses I saw a wisp +of flag clinging to its pole in the still air far down to the left. Flags +are as unusual above trenches as men standing up in full view of +the enemy. Then a breeze caught the folds, and I saw that it was +the tricolour of France. + +"A Boche joke!" Tommy explained. + +"Probably they are hating the French to-day?" + +"No, it's been there for some days. They want us to shoot at the flag +of our ally. They'd get a laugh out of that--a regular Boche notion of +humour." + +"If it were a German flag?" I suggested. + +"What hopes! We'd make it into a lace curtain!" + +Even the guns had ceased firing. The birds in their evensong had all +the war to themselves. It was difficult to believe that if you stood on +top of the parapet anybody would shoot at you; no, not even if you +walked down the road that ran through the wheatfield, everything was +so peaceful. One grew sceptical of there being any Germans in the +trenches opposite. + +"There are three or four sharpshooters and a fat old Boche professor +in spectacles, who moves a machine-gun up and down for a bluff," +said a soldier, and another corrected him: + +"No, the old professor's the one that walks along at night sending up +flares!" + +"Munching K.K. bread with his false teeth!" + +"And singing the hymn of hate!" + +Thus the talk ran on in the quiet of evening, till we heard a concussion +and a quarter of a mile away, behind a screen of trees, a pillar of +smoke rose to the height of two or three hundred feet. + +"A mine!" In front of the -th brigade!" + +"Ours or the Boches'?" + +"Ours, from the way the smoke went--our fuse!" + +"No, theirs!" + +Our colonel telephoned down to know if we knew whose mine it was, +which was the question we wanted to ask him. The guns from both +sides became busy under the column of smoke. Oh, yes, there were +Germans in the trenches which had appeared vacant. Their shots +and ours merged in the hissing medley of a tempest. + +"Not enough guns--not enough noise for an attack!" said experienced +Tommy, who knew what an attack was like. + +The commander of the adjoining brigade telephoned to the division +commander, who passed the word through to our colonel, who +passed it to us that the mine was German and had burst thirty yards +short of the British trench. + +"After all that digging, wasting Boche powder in that fashion! The +Kaiser won't like it!" said Mr. Atkins. "We exploded one under them +yesterday and it made them hate so hard they couldn't wait. They've +awful tempers, the Boches!" And he finished the job on which he was +engaged when interrupted, eating a large piece of ration bread +surmounted by all the ration jam it could hold; while one of the +company officers reminded me that it was about dinner time. + + + +"What do you think I am? A blooming traffic policeman?" growled the +cook to two soldiers who had found themselves in a blind alley in the +maze of streets back of the firing-trench. "My word! Is His Majesty's +army becoming illiterate? Strafe that sign at the corner! What do you +think we put it up for? To show what a beautiful hand we had at +printing?" + +The sign on a board fastened against the earth wall read, "No +thoroughfare!" The soldier-cook, with a fork in his hand, his sleeves +rolled up, his shirt open at his tanned throat, looked formidable. He +was preoccupied; he was at close quarters roasting a chicken over a +small stove. Yes, they have cook-stoves in the trenches. Why not? +The line had been in the same position for six months. + +"Little by little we improve our happy home," said the cook. + +The latest acquisition was a lace curtain for the officers' mess hall, +bought at a shop in the nearest town. + +When the cook was inside his kitchen there was no room to spill +anything on the floor. The kitchen was about three feet square, with +boarded walls, and a roof covered with tar paper and a layer of earth +set level with the trench parapet. The chicken roasted and the frying +potatoes sizzled as an occasional bullet passed overhead, even as +flies buzz about the screen door when Mary is making cakes for tea. + +The officers' mess hall, next to the kitchen and built in the same +fashion, had some boards nailed on posts sunk in the ground for a +table, which was proof against tipping when you climbed over it or +squeezed around it to your place. The chairs were rifle-ammunition +boxes, whose contents had been emptied with individual care, bullet +by bullet, at the Germans in the trench on the other side of the +wheatfield. Dinner was at nine in the evening, when it was still twilight +in the longest days of the year in this region. The hour fits in with +trench routine, when night is the time to be on guard and you sleep +by day. Breakfast comes at nine in the morning. I was invited to help +eat the chicken and to spend the night. + +Now, the general commanding the brigade who accompanied me to +the trenches had been hit twice. So had the colonel, a man about +forty. From forty, ages among the regimental officers dropped into the +twenties. + +Many of the older men who started in the war had been killed, or were +back in England wounded, or had been promoted to other commands +where their experience was more useful. To youth, life is sweet and +danger is life. The oldest of the officers of the proud old K.O.P.F. who +gathered for dinner was about twenty-five, though when he assumed +an air of authority he seemed to be forty. It was not right to ask the +youngest his age. Parenthetically, let it be said that he is trying to +start a moustache. They had come fresh from Sandhurst to swift +tuition in gruelling, incessant warfare. + +"Has anyone asked him it yet?" one inquired, referring to some +question to the guest. + +"Not yet? Then all together: When do you think that the war will be +over?" + +It was the eternal question of the trenches, the army, and the world. +We had it over with before the soldier-cook brought on the roast +chicken, which was received with a befitting chorus of approbation. + +Who would carve? Who knew how to carve? Modesty passed the +honour to her neighbour, till a brave man said: + +"I will! I will strafe the chicken!" 'Gott strafe England!' Strafe has +become a noun, a verb, an adjective, a cussword, and a term of +greeting. Soldier asks soldier how he is strafing to-day. When the +Germans are not called Boches they are called Strafers. "Won't you +strafe a little for us?" Tommy sings out to the German trenches when +they are close. What hopes? That gallant youngster of the K.O.P.F. in +the midst of bantering advice succeeded in separating the meat from +the bones without landing a leg in anybody's lap or a wing in +anybody's eye. Timid spectators who had hung back where he had +dared might criticize his form, but they could not deny the efficiency of +his execution. He was appointed permanent strafer of all the fowls +that came to table. + +Everybody talked and joked about everything, from plays in London +to the Germans. There were arguments about favourite actors and +military methods. The sense of danger was as absent as if we had +been dining in a summer garden. It was the parents and relatives in +pleasant English homes in fear of a dread telegram who were +worrying, not the sons and brothers in danger. Isn't it better that way? +Would not the parents prefer it that way? Wasn't it the way of the +ancestors in the scarlet coats and the Merrie England of their day? +With the elasticity of youth my hosts adapted themselves to +circumstances. In their lightheartedness they made war seem a keen +sport. They lived war for all it was worth. If it gets on their nerves +their efficiency is spoiled. There is no room for a jumpy, excitable +man in the trenches. Youth's resources defy monotony and death +at the same time. + +An expedition had been planned for that night. A patrol the previous +night had brought in word that the Germans had been sneaking up +and piling sandbags in the wheatfield. The plan was to slip out as +soon as it was really dark with a machine-gun and a dozen men, get +behind the Germans' own sandbags, and give them a perfectly +informal reception when they returned to go on with their work. + +Before dinner, however, J------, who was to be the general of the +expedition, and his subordinates made a reconnaissance. Two or +more officers or men always go out together on any trip of this kind in +that ticklish space between the trenches, where it is almost certain +death to be seen by the enemy. If one is hit the other can help him +back. If one survives he will bring back the result of his investigations. + +J----had his own ideas about comfort in trousers in the trench in +summer. He wore shorts with his knees bare. When he had to do a +"crawl" he unwound his puttees and wound them over his knees. He +and the others slipped over the parapet without attracting the +attention of the enemy's sharpshooters. On hands and knees, like +boy scouts playing Indians, they passed through a narrow avenue in +the ugly barbed wire, and still not a shot at them. A matter of the +commonplace to the men in the trench held the spectator in +suspense. There was a fascination about the thing, too; that of the +sporting chance, without a full realization that failure in this hide-and- +seek game might mean a spray of bullets and death for these young +men. + +They entered the wheat, moving slowly like two land turtles. The grain +parted in swaths over them. Surely the Germans might see the +turtles' heads as they were raised to look around. No officer can be +too young and supple for this kind of work. Here the company officer +just out of school is in his element, with an advantage over older +officers. That pair were used to crawling. They did not keep their +heads up long. They knew just how far they might expose +themselves. They passed out of sight, and reappeared and slipped +back over the parapet again without the Germans being any the +wiser. Hard luck! It is an unaccommodating world! They found that +the patrol which had examined the bags at night had failed to discern +that they were old and must have been there for some time. + +"I'll take the machine-gun out, anyhow, if the colonel will permit it," +said J------. For the colonel puts on the brakes. Otherwise, there is no +telling what risks youth might take with machine-guns. + +We were half through dinner when a corporal came to report that a +soldier on watch thought that he had seen some Germans moving in +the wheat very near our barbed wire. Probably a false alarm; but no +one in a trench ever acts on the theory that any alarm is false. Eternal +vigilance is the price of holding a trench. Either side is cudgelling its +brains day and night to spring some new trick on the other. If one side +succeeds with a trick, the other immediately adopts it. No international +copyright in strategy is recognized. We rushed out of the mess hall +into the firing-trench, where we found the men on the alert, rifles laid +on the spot where the Germans were supposed to have been seen. + +"Who are you? Answer, or we fire!" called the ranking young +lieutenant. + +If any persons present out in front in the face of thirty rifles knew the +English language and had not lost the instinct of self-preservation, +they would certainly have become articulate in response to such an +unveiled hint. Not a sound came. Probably a rabbit running through +the wheat had been the cause of the alarm. But you take no risks. +The order was given, and the men combed the wheat with a fusillade. + +"Enough! Cease fire!" said the officer. "Nobody there. If there had +been we should have heard the groan of a wounded man or seen the +wheat stir as the Germans hugged closer to the earth for cover." + +This he knew by experience. It was not the first time he had used a +fusillade in this kind of a test. + +After dinner J------rolled his puttees up around his bare knees again, +for the colonel had not withdrawn permission for the machine-gun +expedition. J------'s knees were black and blue in spots; they were +also--well, there is not much water for washing purposes in the +trenches. Great sport that, crawling through the dew-moist wheat in +the faint moonlight, looking for a bunch of Germans in the hope of +turning a machine-gun on them before they turn one on you! + +"One man hit by a stray bullet," said J------on his return. + +"I heard the bullet go th-ip into the earth after it went through his leg," +said the other officer. + +"Blythe was a recruit and he had asked me to take him out the first +time there was anything doing. I promised that I would, and he got +about the only shot fired at us." + +"Need a stretcher?" + +"No." + +Blythe came hobbling through the traverse to the communication +trench, seeming well pleased with himself. The soft part of the leg is +not a bad place to receive a bullet if one is due to hit you. + + + +Night is always the time in the trenches when life grows more +interesting and death more likely. + +"It's dark enough, now," said one of the youngsters who was out on +another scout. "We'll go out with the patrol." + +By day, the slightest movement of the enemy is easily and instantly +detected. Light keeps the combatants to the warrens which protect +them from shell and bullet-fire. At night there is no telling what +mischief the enemy may be up to; you must depend upon the ear +rather than the eye for watching. Then the human soldier-fox comes +out of his burrow and sneaks forth on the lookout for prey; both sides +are on the prowl. + +"Trained owls would be the most valuable scouts we could have," +said the young officer. "They would be more useful than aeroplanes +in locating the enemy's gun-positions. A properly reliable owl would +come back and say that a German patrol was out in the wheatfield at +such a point and a machine-gun would wipe out that patrol." + +We turned into a side trench, an alley off the main street, leading out +of the front trench toward the Germans. + +"Anybody out?" he asked a soldier who was on guard at the end of it. + +"Yes, two." + +Climbing out of the ditch, we were in the midst of a tangle of barbed +wire protecting the trench front, which was faintly visible in the +starlight. There was a break in the tangle, a narrow cut in the hedge, +as it were, kept open for just such purposes as this. When the patrol +returned it closed the gate again. + +"Look out for that wire--just there! Do you see it? We've everything to +keep the Boches off our front lawn except 'Keep off the grass!' signs." + +It was perfectly still, a warm summer night without a cat's-paw of +breeze. Through the dark curtain of the sky in a parabola rising from +the German trenches swept the brilliant sputter of red light of a +German flare. It was coming as straight toward us as if it had been +aimed at us. It cast a searching, uncanny glare over the tall wheat in +head between the trenches. + +"Down flat!" whispered the officer. + +It seemed foolish to grovel before a piece of fireworks. There was no +firing in our neighbourhood; nothing to indicate a state of war between +the British Empire and Germany; no visual evidence of any German +army in France except that flare. However, if a guide who knows as +much about war as this one says you are to prostrate yourself when +you are out between two lines of machine-guns and rifles--between +the fighting powers of England and Germany--you take the hint. The +flare sank into earth a few yards away, after a last insulting, ugly fling +of sparks in our faces. + +"What if we had been seen?" + +"They'd have combed the wheat in this part thoroughly, and they +might have got us." + +"It's hard to believe," I said. + +So it was, he agreed. That was the exasperating thing. Always hard +to believe, perhaps, until after all the cries of wolf the wolf came; until +after nineteen harmless flares the twentieth revealed to the watching +enemy the figure of a man above the wheat, when a crackling chorus +of bullets would suddenly break the silence of night by concentrating +on a target. Keeping cover from German flares is a part of the minute, +painstaking economy of war. + +We crawled on slowly, taking care to make no noise, till we brought +up behind two soldiers hugging the earth, rifles in hand ready to fire +instantly. It was their business not only to see the enemy first, but to +shoot first, and to capture or kill any German patrol. The officer spoke +to them and they answered. It was unnecessary for them to say that +they had seen nothing. If they had we should have known it. He was +out there less to scout himself than to make sure that they were on +the job; that they knew how to watch. The visit was part of his routine. +We did not even whisper. Preferably, all whispering would be done by +any German patrol out to have a look at our barbed wire and +overheard by us. + +Silence and the starlight and the damp wheat; but, yes, there was +war. You heard gun-fire half a mile, perhaps a mile, away; and raising +your head you saw auroras from bursting shells. We heard at our +backs faintly snatches of talk from our trenches and faintly in front the +talk from theirs. It sounded rather inviting and friendly from both sides, +like that around some camp-fire on the plains. + +It seemed quite within the bounds of possibility that you might have +crawled on up to the Germans and said, "Howdy!" But by the time +you reached the edge of their barbed wire and before you could +present your visiting-card, if not sooner, you would have been full of +holes. That was just the kind of diversion from trench monotony for +which the Germans were looking. "Well, shall we go back?" asked the +officer. There seemed no particular purpose in spending the night +prone in the wheat with your ears cocked like a pointer-dog's. +Besides, he had other duties, exacting duties laid down by the colonel +as the result of trench experience in his responsibility for the +command of a company of men. + +It happened as we crawled back into the trench, that a fury of shots +broke out from a point along the line two or three hundred yards +away; sharp, vicious shots on the still night air, stabbing, merciless +death in their sound. Oh, yes, there was war in France; unrelenting, +shrewd, tireless war. A touch of suspicion anywhere and the hornets +swarmed. + + + +It was two a.m. From the dug-outs came unmistakable sounds of +slumber. Men off duty were not kept awake by cold and moisture in +summer. They had fashioned for themselves comfortable dormitories +in the hard earth walls. A cot in an officer's bedchamber was +indicated as mine. The walls had been hung with cuts from illustrated +papers and bagging spread on the floor to make it "home-like." He lay +down on the floor because he was nearer the door in case he had to +respond to an alarm; besides, he said I would soon appreciate that I +was not the object of favouritism. So I did. It was a trench-made cot, +fashioned by some private of engineers, I fancy, who had Germans +rather than the American cousin in mind. + +"The wall side of the rib that runs down the middle is the comfortable +side, I have found," said my host. "It may not appear so at first, but +you will find it works out that way." + +Nevertheless, I slept, my last recollection that of sniping shots, to be +awakened with the first streaks of day by the sound of a fusillade--the +"morning hate" or the "morning strafe" as it is called. After the vigil of +darkness it breaks the monotony to salute the dawn with a burst of +rifle-shots. Eyes strained through the mist over the wheatfield +watching for some one of the enemy who may be exposing himself, +unconscious that it is light enough for him to be visible. Objects which +are not men but look as if they might be in the hazy distance, called +for attention on the chance. For ten minutes, perhaps, the serenade +lasted, and then things settled down to the normal. The men were +yawning and stirring from their dug-outs. After the muster they would +take the places of those who had been "on the bridge" through the +night. + +"It's a case of how little water you can wash with, isn't it?" I said to +the cook, who appreciated my thoughtfulness when I made shift +with a dipperful, as I had done on desert journeys. We were in a trench +that was inundated with water in winter, and not more than two miles +from a town which had water laid on. But bringing a water supply in +pails along narrow trenches is a poor pastime, though better than +bringing it up under the rifle-sights of snipers across the fields back +of the trenches. + +"Don't expect much for breakfast," said the strafer of the chicken. But +it was eggs and bacon, the British stand-by in all weathers, at home +and abroad. + +J------was going to turn in and sleep. These youngsters could sleep at +any time; for one hour, or two hours, or five, or ten, if they had a +chance. A sudden burst of rifle-fire was the alarm clock which always +promptly awakened them. The recollection of cheery hospitality and +their fine, buoyant spirit is even clearer now than when I left the +trench. + + + + +XX +A School In Bombing + + + +It was at a bombing school on a French farm, where chosen soldiers +brought back from the trenches were being trained in the use of the +anarchists' weapon, which has now become as respectable as the +rifle. The war has steadily developed specialism. M.B. degrees for +Master Bombers are not beyond the range of possibilities. + +Present was the chief instructor, a Scottish subaltern with blue eyes, +a pleasant smile, and a Cock-o'-the-North spirit. He might have been +twenty years old, though he did not look it. On his breast was the +purple and white ribbon of the new order of the Military Cross, which +you get for doing something in this war which would have won you a +Victoria Cross in one of the other wars. + +Also present was the assistant instructor, a sergeant of regulars--and +very much of a regular--who had three ribbons which he had won in +previous campaigns. He, too, had blue eyes, bland blue eyes. These +two understood each other. + +"If you don't drop it, why, it's all right!" said the sergeant. "Of course, +if you do------" + +I did not drop it. + +"And when you throw it, sir, you must look out and not hit the man +behind you and knock the bomb out of your hand. That has +happened before to an absent-minded fellow who was about to toss +one at the Boches, and it doesn't do to be absent-minded when you +throw bombs." + +"They say that you sometimes pick up the German bombs and chuck +them back before they explode," I suggested. + +"Yes, sir, I've read things like that in some of the accounts of the +reporters who write from Somewhere in France. You don't happen to +know where that is, sir? All I can say is that if you are going to do it +you must be quick about it. I shouldn't advise delaying decision, sir, or +perhaps when you reached down to pick it up, neither your hand nor +the bomb would be there. They'd have gone off together, sir." + +"Have you ever been hurt in your handling of bombs?" I asked. + +Surprise in the bland blue eyes. "Oh, no, sir! Bombs are well behaved +if you treat them right. It's all in being thoughtful and considerate of +them!" Meanwhile, he was jerking at some kind of a patent fuse set in +a shell of high explosive. "This is a poor kind, sir. It's been discarded, +but I thought that you might like to see it. Never did like it. Always +making trouble!" + +More distance between the audience and the performer. "Now I've +got it, sir--get down, sir!" The audience carried out instructions to the +letter, as army regulations require. It got behind the protection of one +of the practice-trench traverses. He threw the discard behind another +wall of earth. There was a sharp report, a burst of smoke, and some +fragments of earth were tossed into the air. + +In a small affair of two hundred yards of trench a week before, it was +estimated that the British and the Germans together threw about five +thousand bombs in this fashion. It was enough to sadden any +Minister of Munitions. However, the British kept the trench. + +"Do the men like to become bombers?" I asked the subaltern. + +"I should say so! It puts them up in front. It gives them a chance to +throw something, and they don't get much cricket in France, you see. +We had a pupil here last week who broke the throwing record for +distance. He was as pleased as Punch with himself. A first-class +bombing detachment has a lot of pride of corps." + +To bomb soon became as common a verb with the army as to +bayonet. "We bombed them out" meant a section of trench taken by +throwing bombs. As you know, a trench is dug and built with +sandbags in zigzag traverses. In following the course of a trench it is +as if you followed the sides of the squares of a checker board up and +down and across on the same tier of squares. The square itself is a +bank of earth, with the cut on either side and in front of it. When a +bombing-party bombs its way into possession of a section of German +trench, there are Germans under cover of the traverses on either +side. They are waiting around the corner to shoot the first British head +that shows itself. + +"It is important that you and not the Boches chuck the bombs over +first," explained the subaltern. "Also, that you get them into the right +traverse, or they may be as troublesome to you as to the enemy." + +With bombs bursting in their faces, the Germans who are not put out +of action are blinded and stunned. In that moment when they are off +guard, the aggressors leap around the corner. + +"And then?" + +"Stick 'em, sir!" said the matter-of-fact sergeant. "Yes, the cold steel is +best. And do it first! As Mr. MacPherson said, it's very important to do +it first." + +It has been found that something short is handy for this kind of work. +In such cramped quarters--a ditch six feet deep and from two to three +feet broad--the rifle is an awkward length to permit of prompt and +skilful use of the bayonet. + +"Yes, sir, you can mix it up better with something handy--to think that +British soldiers would come to fighting like assassins!" said the +sergeant. "You must be spry on such occasions. It's no time for wool- +gathering." + +Not a smile from him or the subaltern all the time. They were the kind +you would like to have along in a tight corner, whether you had to fight +with knives, fists, or seventeen-inch howitzers. + +The sergeant took us into the storehouse where he kept his supply of +bombs. + +"What if a German shell should strike your storehouse?" I asked. + +"Then, sir, I expect that most of the bombs would be exploded. +Bombs are very peculiar in their habits. What do you think, sir?" + +It was no trouble to show stock, as clerks at the stores say. He +brought forth all the different kinds of bombs that British ingenuity had +invented--but no, not all invented. These would mount into the +thousands. Every British inventor who knows anything about +explosives has tried his hand at a new kind of bomb. One means all +the kinds which the British War Office has considered worth a +practice test. The spectator was allowed to handle each one as much +as he pleased. There had been occasions, that boyish Scottish +subaltern told me, when the men who were examining the products of +British ingenuity--well, the subaltern had sandy hair, too, which +heightened the effect of his blue eyes. + +There were yellow and green and blue and black and striped bombs; +egg-shaped, barrel-shaped, conical, and concave bombs; bombs that +were exploded by pulling a string and by pressing a button--all these +to be thrown by hand, without mentioning grenades and other larger +varieties to be thrown by mechanical means, which would have made +a Chinese warrior of Confucius' time or a Roman legionary feel at +home. + +"This was the first-born," the subaltern explained, "the first thing we +could lay our hands on when the close quarters' trench warfare +began." + +It was as out of date as grandfather's smooth-bore, the tin-pot bomb +that both sides used early in the winter. A wick was attached to the +high explosive, wrapped in cloth and stuck in an ordinary army jam +tin. + +"Quite home-made, as you see, sir," remarked the sergeant. "Used to +fix them up ourselves in the trenches in odd hours--saved burying the +refuse jam tins according to medical corps directions--and you threw +them at the Boches. Had to use a match to light it. Very old- +fashioned, sir. I wonder if that old fuse has got damp. No, it's going all +right"--and he threw the jam pot, which made a good explosion. Later, +when he began hammering the end of another he looked up in mild +surprise at the dignified back-stepping of the spectators. + +"Is that fuse out?" someone asked. + +"Yes, sir. Of course, sir," he replied. "It's safer. But here is the best; +we're discarding the others," he went on, as he picked up a bomb. + +It was a pleasure to throw this crowning achievement of experiments. +It fitted your hand nicely; it threw easily; it did the business; it was +fool-proof against a man in love or a war-poet. + +"We saw as soon as this style came out," said the sergeant, "that it +was bound to be popular. Everybody asks for it--except the Boches, +sir." + + + + +XXI +My Best Day At The Front + + + +It was the best day because one ran the gamut of the mechanics and +emotions of modern war within a single experience--and oh, the +twinkle in that staff officer's eye! + +It was on a Monday that I first met him in the ballroom of a large +château. Here another officer was talking over a telephone in an +explicit, businesslike fashion about "sending up more bombs," while +we looked at maps spread out on narrow, improvised tables, such as +are used for a buffet at a reception. Those maps showed all the +British trenches and all the German trenches--spider-weblike lines +that cunning human spiders had spun with spades--in that region; +and where our batteries were and where some of the German +batteries were, if our aeroplane observations were correct. + +To the layman they were simply blue prints, such as he sees in the +office of an engineer or an architect, or elaborate printed maps with +many blue and red pencil-lings. To the general in command they +were alive with rifle-power and gun-power and other powers +mysterious to us; the sword with which he thrust and feinted and +guarded in the ceaseless fencing of trench warfare, while higher +authorities than he kept their secrets as he kept his and bided their +day. + +That morning one of the battalions which had its pencilled place on +the map had taken a section of trench from the Germans about the +length of two city blocks. It got into the official bulletins of both sides +several times, this two hundred yards at Pilken in the everlastingly +"hot corner" north of Ypres. So it was of some importance, though not +on account of its length. To take two hundred yards of trench +because it is two hundred yards of trench is not good war, tacticians +agree. Good war is to have millions of shells and vast reserves ready +and to go in over a broad area and keep on going night and day, with +a Niagara of artillery, as fresh battalions are fed into the conflict. + +But the Germans had command of some rising ground in front of the +British line at this point. They could fire down and crosswise into our +trench. It was as if we were in the alley and they were in a first-floor +window. This meant many casualties. It was man-economy and fire- +economy to take that two hundred yards. A section of trench may +always be taken if worth while. Reduce it to dust with shells and then +dash into the breach and drive the enemy back from zigzag traverse +to traverse with bombs. But such a small action requires as careful +planning as a big operation of other days. We had taken the two +hundred yards. The thing was to hold them. That is always the +difficulty; for the enemy will concentrate his guns to give you the +same dose that you gave him. In an hour after they were in, the +British soldiers, who knew exactly what they had to do and how to do +it, after months of experience, had turned the wreck of the German +trench into a British trench which faced toward Berlin, rather than +Calais. + +In their official bulletin the Germans said that they had recovered the +trench. They did recover part of it for a few hours. It was then that the +commander on the German side must have sent in his report to catch +the late evening editions. Commanders do not like to confess the loss +of trenches. It is the sort of thing that makes headquarters ask: "What +is the matter with you over there, anyway?" There was a time when +the German bulletins about the Western front seemed rather truthful; +but of late they have been getting into bad habits. + +The British general knew what was coming; he knew that he would +start the German hornets out of their nest when he took the trench; +he knew, too, that he could rely upon his men to hold till they were +told to retire or there were none left to retire. The British are a home- +loving people, who do not like to be changing their habitations. In +succeeding days the question up and down the lines was, "Have we +still got that trench?" Only two hundred yards of ditch on the continent +of Europe! But was it still ours? Had the Germans succeeded in +"strafing" us out of it yet? They had shelled all the trenches in the +region of the lost trench and had made three determined and +unsuccessful counter-attacks when, on the fifth day, we returned to +the château to ask if it were practicable to visit the new trench. + +"At your own risk!" said the staff officer. If we preferred we could sit on +the veranda where there were easy chairs, on a pleasant summer +day. Very peaceful the sweep of the well-kept grounds and the shade +of the stately trees of that sequestered world of landscape. Who was +at war? Why was anyone at war? Two staff motor-cars awaiting +orders on the drive and a dust-laden dispatch rider with messages, +who went past toward the rear of the house, were the only visual +evidence of war. The staff officer served us with helmets for +protection in case we got into a gas attack. He said that we might +enter our front trenches at a certain point and then work our way as +near the new part as we could; division headquarters, four or five +miles distant, would show us the way. It was then that the twinkle in +the staff officer's eye as it looked straight into yours became manifest. +You can never tell, I have learned, just what a twinkle in a British staff +officer's eye may portend. These fellows who are promoted up from +the trenches to join the "brain-trust" in the château, know a great deal +more about what is going on than you can learn by standing in the +road far from the front and listening to the sound of the guns. We +encountered a twinkle in another eye at division headquarters, which +may have been telephoned ahead along with the instructions, "At +their own risk." + +There are British staff officers who would not mind pulling a +correspondent's leg on a summer day; though, perhaps, it was really +the Germans who pulled ours, in this instance. Somebody did remark +at some headquarters, I recall, that "You never know!" which shows +that staff officers do not know everything. The Germans possess half +the knowledge--and they are at great pains not to part with their half. + +We proceeded in our car along country roads, quiet, normal country +roads off the main highway. It has been written again and again, and +it cannot be written too many times, that life is going on as usual in +the rear of the army. Nothing could be more wonderful and yet +nothing more natural. All the men of fighting age were absent. White- +capped grandmothers, too old to join the rest of the family in the +fields, sat in doorways sewing. Everybody was at work and the crops +were growing. You never tire of remarking the fact. It brings you back +from the destructive orgy of war to the simple, constructive things of +life. An industrious people go on cultivating the land and the land +keeps on producing. It is pleasant to think that the crops of Northern +France were good in 1915. That is cheering news from home for the +soldiers of France at the front. + +At an indicated point we left the car to go forward on foot, and the +chauffeur was told to wait for us at another point. If the car went any +farther it might draw shell-fire. Army authorities know how far they +may take cars with reasonable safety as well as a pilot knows the +rocks and shoals at a harbour entrance. + +There was an end of white-capped grandmothers in doorways; an +end of people working in the fields. Rents in the roofless walls of +unoccupied houses stared at the passer-by. We were in a dead land. +One of two soldiers whom we met coming from the opposite direction +pointed at what looked like a small miner's cabin half covered with +earth, screened by a tree, as the next headquarters which we were +seeking in our progress. + +It was not for sightseers to take the time of the general who received +us at the door of his dug-out. German guns had concentrated on a +section of his trenches in a way that indicated that another attack was +coming. One company already had suffered heavy losses. It was an +hour of responsibility for the general, isolated in the midst of silent +fields and houses, waiting for news from a region hidden from his +view by trees and hedges in that flat country. He might not move from +headquarters, for then he would be out of communication with his +command. His men were being pounded by shells and the inexorable +law of organization kept him at the rear. Up in the trench he might +have been one helpless human being in a havoc of shells which had +cut the wires. His place was where he could be in touch with his +subordinates and his superiors. + +True, we wanted to go to the trench that the Germans had lost and +his section was the short cut. Modesty was not the only reason for not +taking it. As we started along a road parallel to the front, the head of a +soldier popped out of the earth and told us that orders were to walk in +the ditch. I judged that he was less concerned with our fate than with +the likelihood of our drawing fire, which he and the others in a +concealed trench would suffer after we had passed on. + +There were three of us, two correspondents, L------ and myself, and +R------, an officer, which is quite enough for an expedition of this kind. +Now we were finding our own way, with the help of the large scale +army map which had every house, every farm, and every group of +trees marked. The farms had been given such names as Joffre, +Kitchener, French, Botha, and others which the Germans would not +like. We cut across fields with the same confidence that, following a +diagram of city streets in a guidebook, a man turns to the left for the +public library and to the right for the museum. + +Our own guns were speaking here and there from their hiding-places; +and overhead an occasional German shrapnel burst. This seemed a +waste of the Kaiser's munitions as there was no one in sight. Yet +there was purpose in the desultory scattering of bullets from on high. +They were policing the district; they were warning the hated British in +reserve not to play cricket in those fields or march along those +deserted roads. + +The more bother in taking cover that the Germans can make the +British, the better they like it; and the British return the compliment in +kind. Anything that harasses your enemy is counted to the good. If +every shell fired had killed a man in this war, there would be no +soldiers left to fight on either side; yet never have shells been so +important in war as now. They can reach the burrowing human +beings in shelters which are bulletproof; they are the omnipresent +threat of death. The firing of shells from batteries securely hidden and +em-placed represents no cost of life to your side; only cost of +material, which ridicules the foolish conclusion that machinery and not +men count. It is because man is still the most precious machine--a +machine that money cannot reproduce--that gun-machinery is so +much in favour, and every commander wants to use shells as freely +as you use city water when you do not pay for it by meter. + +Now another headquarters and another general, also isolated in a +dug-out, holding the reins of his wires over a section of line adjoining +the section we had just left. Before we proceeded we must look over +his shelter from shell-storms. The only time that British generals +become boastful is over their dug-outs. They take all the pride in +them of the man who has bought a plot of land and built himself a +home; and, like him, they keep on making improvements and calling +attention to them. I must say that this was one of the best shelters I +have seen anywhere in the tornado belt; and whatever I am not, I am +certainly an expert in dug-outs. Of course, this general, too, said, "At +your own risk!" He was good enough to send a young officer with us +up to the trenches; then we should not make any mistakes about +direction if we wanted to reach the neighbourhood of the two hundred +yards which we had taken from the Germans. When we thanked him +and said "Good-bye!" he remarked: + +"We never say good-bye up here. It does not sound pleasant. Make it +au revoir." He, too, had a twinkle in his eye. + +By this time, one leg ought to have been so much longer than the +other that one would have walked in a circle if he had not had a +guide. + +That battery which had been near the dug-out kept on with its regular +firing, its shells sweeping overhead. We had not gone far before we +came to a board nailed to a tree, with the caution, "Keep to the right!" +If you went to the left you might be seen by the enemy, though we +were seeing nothing of him, nor of our own trenches yet. Every +square yard of this ground had been tested by actual experience, at +the cost of dead and wounded men, till safe lanes of approach had +been found. + +Next was a clearing station, where the wounded are brought in from +the trenches for transfer to ambulances. A glance at the burden on a +stretcher just arrived automatically framed the word, "Shell-fire!" The +stains over-running on tanned skin beyond the edge of the white +bandage were bright in the sunlight. A khaki blouse torn open, or a +trousers leg or a sleeve cut down the seam, revealing the white of the +first aid and a splash of red, means one man wounded; and by the +ones the thousands come. + +Fifty wounded men on the floor of a clearing station and the individual +is lost in the crowd. When you see the one borne past, if there is +nothing else to distract attention you always ask two questions: Will +he die? Has he been maimed for life? If the answers to both are no, +you feel a sense of triumph, as if you had seen a human play, built +skilfully around a life to arouse your emotions, turn out happily. + +The man has fought in an honourable cause; he has felt the touch of +death's fingers. How happy he is when he knows that he will get well! +In prospect, as his wound heals into the scar which will be the lasting +decoration of his courage, his home and all that it means to him. +What kind of a home has he, this private soldier? In the slums, with a +slattern wife, or in a cottage with a flower garden in front, only a few +minutes' walk from the green fields of the English countryside? But +we set out to tell you about the kind of inferno in which this man got +his splash of red. + +We come to the banks of a canal which has carried the traffic of the +Low Countries for many centuries; the canal where British and +French had fought many a Thermopylae in the last eight months. +Along its banks run rows of fine trees, narrowing in perspective before +the eye. Some have been cut in two by the direct hit of a heavy shell +and others splintered down, bit by bit. Others still standing have been +hit many times. There are cuts as fresh as if the chips had just flown +from the axeman's blow, and there are scars from cuts made last +autumn which nature's sap, rising as it does in the veins of wounded +men, has healed, while from the remaining branches it sent forth +leaves in answer to the call of spring. + +In this section the earth is many-mouthed with caves and cut with +passages running from cave to cave, so that the inhabitants may go +and come hidden from sight. Jawbone and Hairyman and Lowbrow, +of the Stone Age, would be at home there, squatting on their hunkers +and tearing at their raw kill with their long incisors. It does not seem a +place for men who walk erect, wear woven fabrics, enjoy a written +language, and use soap and safety razors. One would not be +surprised to see some figure swing down by a long, hairy arm from a +branch of a tree and leap on all fours into one of the caves, where he +would receive a gibbering welcome to the bosom of his family. + +Not so! Huddled in these holes in the earth are free-born men of an +old civilization, who read the daily papers and eat jam on their bread. +They do not want to be there, but they would not consider themselves +worthy of the inheritance of free-born men if they were not. Only +civilized man is capable of such stoicism as theirs. They have +reverted to the cave-dweller's protection because their civilization is +so highly developed that they can throw a piece of steel weighing +from eighteen to two thousand pounds anywhere from five to twenty +miles with merciless accuracy, and because the flesh of man is even +more tender than in the cave-dweller's time, not to mention that his +brain-case is a larger target. + +An officer calls attention to a shell-proof shelter with the civic pride of +a member of a chamber of commerce pointing out the new Union +Station. + +"Not even a high explosive"--the kind that bursts on impact after +penetration--"could get into that!" he says. "We make them for +generals and colonels and others who have precious heads on their +shoulders." + +With material and labour, the same might have been constructed for +the soldiers, which brings us back to the question of munitions in the +economic balance against a human life. It was the first shelter of this +kind which I had seen. You never go up to the trenches without +seeing something new. The defensive is tireless in its ingenuity in +saving lives and the offensive in taking them. Safeguards and +salvage compete with destruction. And what labour all that excavation +and construction represented--the cumulative labour of months and +day-by-day repairs of the damage done by shells! After a +bombardment, dig out the filled trenches and renew the smashed +dug-outs to be ready for another go! + +The walls of that communication trench were two feet above our +heads. We noticed that all the men were in their dug-outs; none were +walking about in the open. One knew the meaning of this barometer-- +stormy. The German gunners were "strafing" in a very lively way this +afternoon. + +Already we had noticed many shells bursting five or six hundred +yards away, in the direction of the new British trench; but at that +distance they do not count. Then a railroad train seemed to have +jumped the track and started to fly. Fortunately and unfortunately, +sound travels faster than big shells of low velocity; fortunately, +because it gives you time to be undignified in taking cover; +unfortunately, because it gives you a fraction of a second to reflect +whether or not that shell has your name and your number on Dug-out +Street. + +I was certain that it was a big shell, of the kind that will blow a dug-out +to pieces. Anyone who had never heard a shell before would have +"scrooched," as the small boys say, as instinctively as you draw back +when the through express tears past the station. It is the kind of +scream that makes you want to roll yourself into a package about the +size of a pea, while you feel as tall and large as a cathedral, judging +by the sensation that travels down your backbone. + +Once I was being hoisted up a cliff in a basket, when the rope on the +creaking windlass above slipped a few inches. Well, it is like that, or +like taking a false step on the edge of a precipice. Is the clock about +to strike twelve or not? Not this time! The burst was thirty yards away, +along the path we had just traversed, and the sound was like the +burst of a shell and like nothing else in the world, just as the swirling, +boring, growing scream of a shell is like no other scream in the world. +A gigantic hammer-head sweeps through the air and breaks a steel +drum-head. + +If we had come along half a minute later we should have had a better +view, and perhaps now we should have been on a bed in a hospital +worrying how we were going to pay the rent, or in the place where, +hopefully, we shall have no worries at all. Between walls of earth the +report was deadened to our ears in the same way as a revolver +report in an adjoining room; and not much earth had gone down the +backs of our necks from the concussion. + +Looking over the parapet, we saw a cloud of thick, black smoke; and +we heard the outcry of a man who had been hit. That was all. The +shell might have struck nearer without our having seen or heard any +more. Shut in by the gallery walls, one knows as little of what +happens in an adjoining cave as a clam buried in the sand knows of +what is happening to a neighbour clam. A young soldier came half- +stumbling into the nearest dug-out. He was shaking his head and +batting his ears as if he had sand in them. Evidently he was returning +to his home cave from a call on a neighbour which had brought him +close to the burst. + +"That must have been about six or seven-inch," I said to the officer, +trying to be moderate and casual in my estimate, which is the correct +form on such occasions. My actual impression was forty-inch. + +"Nine-inch, h.e.," replied the expert. + +This was gratifying. It was the first time that I had been so near to a +nine-inch-shell explosion. Its "eat 'em-alive" frightfulness was +depressing. But the experience was worth having. You want all the +experiences there are--but only "close." A delightful word that word +close, at the front! + +The Germans were generous that afternoon. Another scream +seemed aimed at my head. L------ disagreed with me; he said that it +was aimed at his. We did not argue the matter to the point of a +personal quarrel, for it might have got both our heads. It burst back of +the trench about as far away as the other shell. After all, a trench is a +pretty narrow ribbon, even on a gunner's large scale map, to hit. It is +wonderful how, firing at such long range, he is able to hit a trench at +all. + +This was all of the nine-inch variety for the time being. We got some +fours and fives as we walked along. Three bursting as near together +as the ticks of a clock made almost no smoke, as they brought some +tree limbs down and tore away a section of a trunk. Then the +thunderstorm moved on to another part of the line. Only, unlike the +thunderstorms of nature, this, which is man-made and controlled as a +fireman controls the nozzle of his hose, may sweep back again and +yet again over its path. All depends upon the decision of a German +artillery officer, just as whether or not a flower-bed shall get another +sprinkle depends upon the will of the gardener. + +We were glad to turn out of the support trench into a communication +trench leading toward the front trench; into another gallery cut deep in +the fields, with scattered shell-pits on either side. Still more soldiers, +leaning against the walls or seated with their legs stretched out +across the bottom of the ditch; more waiting soldiers, only strung out +in a line and as used to the passing of shells as people living along +the elevated railroad line to the passing of trains. They did not look up +at the screams boring the air any more than one who lives under the +trains looks up every time that one passes. Theirs was the passivity +of a queue waiting in line before the entrance to a theatre or a ball- +grounds. + +A senator or a lawyer, used to coolness in debate, or to presiding +over great meetings, or to facing crowds, who happened to visit the +trenches could have got reassurance from the faces of any one of +these private soldiers, who had been trained not to worry about death +till death came. Harrowing every one of these screams, taken by +itself. Instinctively, unnecessarily, you dodged at those which were +low--unnecessarily, because they were from British guns. No danger +from them unless there was a short fuse. To the soldiers, the low +screams brought the delight of having blows struck from their side at +the enemy, whom they themselves could not strike from their reserve +position. + +For we were under the curving sweep of both the British and the +German shells, as they passed in the air on the way to their targets. It +was like standing between two railway tracks with trains going in +opposite directions. You came to differentiate between the +multitudinous screams. "Ours!" you exclaimed, with the same delight +as when you see that your side has the ball. The spirit of battle +contest rose in you. There was an end of philosophy. These soldiers +in the trenches were your partisans. Every British shell was working +for them and for you, giving blow for blow. + +The score of the contest of battle is in men down; in killed and +wounded. For every man down on your side you want two men down +on the enemy's. Sport ceases. It is the fight against a burglar with a +revolver in his hand and a knife between his teeth; and a wounded +man brought along the trench, a visible, intimate proof of a hit by the +enemy, calls for more and harder blows. + +Looking over the parapet of the communication trench you saw fields, +lifeless except for the singing birds in the wheat, who had also the +spirit of battle. The more shells, the more they warble. It was always +so on summer days. Between the screams you hear their full-pitched +chorus, striving to make itself heard in competition with the song of +German invasion and British resistance. Mostly, the birds seemed to +take cover like mankind; but I saw one sweep up from the golden sea +of ripening grain toward the men-brothers with their wings of cloth. + +Was this real, or was it extravaganza? Painted airships and a painted +summer sky? The audacity of those British airmen! Two of them were +spotting the work of British guns by their shell-bursts and watching for +gun-flashes which would reveal concealed German battery-positions, +and whispering results by wireless to their own batteries. + +It is a great game. Seven or eight thousand feet high, directly over the +British planes, is a single Taube cruising for the same purpose. It +looks like a beetle with gossamer wings suspended from a light cloud. +The British aviators are so low that the bull's-eye identification marks +are distinctly visible to the naked eye. They are playing in and out, like +the short stop and second baseman around second, there in the very +arc of the passing shells from both sides fired at other targets. But +scores of other shells are most decidedly meant for them. In the +midst of a lacework of puffs of shrapnel-bursts, which slowly spread in +the still air, from the German anti-aircraft guns, they dip and rise and +turn in skilful dodging. At length, one retires for good; probably his +plane-cloth has become too much like a sieve from shrapnel- +fragments to remain aloft longer. + +Come down, Herr Taube, come down where we can have a shot at +you I Get in the game! You can see better at the altitude of the British +airmen! But Herr Taube always stays high--the Br'er Fox of the air. Of +course, it was not so exciting as the pictures that artists draw, but it +was real. + +Every kind of shell was being fired, low and high velocity, small and +large calibre. One-two-three-four in as quick succession as the roll of +a drum, four German shells burst in line up in the region where we +have made ourselves masters of the German trench. British shells +responded. + +"Ours again!" + +But I had already ducked before I spoke, as you might if a pellet of +steel weighing a couple of hundred pounds, going at the rate of a +thousand yards a second or more, passed within a few yards of your +head--ducked to find myself looking into the face of a soldier who was +smiling. The smile was not scornful, but it was at least amused at the +expense of the sightseer who had dodged one of our own shells. In +addition to the respirators in case of a possible gas attack, supplied +by that staff officer with a twinkle in his eye, we needed a steel rod +fastened to the back of our necks and running down our spinal +columns in order to preserve our dignity. + +We were witnessing what is called the "artillery preparation for an +infantry attack," which was to try to recover that two hundred yards of +trench from the British. Only the Germans did not limit their attention +to the lost trench. It was hottest there around the bend of our line, +from our view-point; for there they must maul the trench into formless +debris and cut the barbed wire in front of it before the charge was +made. + +"They touch up all the trenches in the neighbourhood to keep us +guessing," said the officer, "before they make their final +concentration. So it's pretty thick around this part." + +"Which might include the communication trench?" + +"Certainly. This makes a good line shot. No doubt they will spare us a +few when they think it is our turn. We do the same thing. So it goes." + +From the variety of screams of big shells and little shells and screams +harrowingly close and reassuringly high, which were indicated as +ours, one was warranted in suggesting that the British were doing +considerable artillery preparation themselves. + +"We must give them as good as they send--and better." + +Better seemed correct. + +"Those close ones you hear are doubtless meant for the front +German trench, which accounts for their low trajectory; the others for +their support trenches or any battery-positions that our planes have +located." We could not see where the British shells were striking. We +could judge only of the accuracy of some of the German fire. +Considering the storm being visited on the support trench which we +had just left, we were more than ever glad to be out of it. Artillery is +the war burglar's jemmy; but it has to batter the house into ruins and +blow up the safe and kill most of the family before the burglar can +enter. Clouds of dust rose from the explosions; limbs of trees were +lopped off by tornadoes of steel hail. + +"There! Look at that tree!" + +In front of a portion of the British support trench a few of a line of +stately shade trees were still standing. A German shell, about an +eight-inch, one judged, struck fairly in the trunk of one about the +same height from the ground as the lumberman sinks his axe in the +bark. The shimmer of hot gas spread out from the point of explosion. +Through it as through an aureole one saw that twelve inches of green +wood had been cut in two as neatly as a thistle-stem is severed by a +sharp blow from a walking-stick. The body of the tree was carried +across the splintered stump with crushing impact from the power of +its flight, plus the power of the burst of the explosive charge which +broke the shell-jacket into slashing fragments; and the towering +column of limbs, branches, and foliage laid its length on the ground +with a majestic dignity. Which shows what one shell can do, one of +three which burst not far away at the same time. In time, the shells +would get all the trees; make them into chips and splinters and +toothpicks. + +"I'd rather that it would hit a tree-trunk than my trunk," said L------. + +"But you would not have got it as badly as the tree," said the officer +reassuringly. "The substance would have been too soft for sufficient +impact for a burst. It would have gone right through!" + + + + + + + +XXII +More Best Day + + + +At battalion headquarters in the front trenches the battalion surgeon +had just amputated an arm which had been mauled by a shell. + +"Without any anaesthetic," he explained. "No chance if we sent him +back to the hospital. He would die on the way. Stood it very well. +Already chirking up." + +A family practitioner at home, the doctor, when the war began, had +left his practice to go with his Territorial battalion. He retains the +family practitioner's cheery, assuring manner. He is the kind of man +who makes you feel better immediately he comes into the sick-room; +who has already made you forget yourself when he puts his finger +on your pulse. + +"The same thing that we might have done in the Crimea," he +continued, "only we have antiseptics now. It's wonderful how little you +can work with and how excellent the results. Strong, healthy men, +these, with great recuperative power and discipline and resolution-- +very different patients from those we usually operate on." + +Tea was served inside the battalion commander's dugout. Tea is as +essential every afternoon to the British as ice to the average +American in summer. They do not think of getting on without it if they +can possibly have it, and it is part of the rations. As well take +cigarettes away from those who smoke as tea from the British soldier. + +It was very much like tea outside the trenches, so far as any signs of +perturbation about shells and casualties were concerned. In that the +battalion commander had to answer telegrams, it had the aspect of a +busy man's sandwich at his desk for luncheon. Good news to cheer +the function had just come over the network of wires which connects +up the whole army, from trenches to headquarters--good news in the +midst of the shells. + +German West Africa had fallen. Botha, who was fighting against the +British fifteen years ago, had taken it fighting for the British. A +suggestive thought that. It is British character that brings enemies like +Botha into the fold; the old, good-natured, sportsmanlike live-and-let- +live idea, which has something to do with keeping the United States +intact. A board with the news on it in German was put up over the +British trenches. Naturally, the board was shot full of holes; for it is +clear that the Germans are not yet ready to come into the British +Empire. + +"Hans and Jacob we have named them," said the colonel, referring to +two Germans who were buried back of his dug-out. "It's dull up here +when the Boches are not shelling, so we let our imaginations play. +We hold conversations with Hans and Jacob in our long watches. +Hans is fat and cheerful and trusting. He believes every thing that the +Kaiser tells him and has a cheerful disposition. But Jacob is a +professor and a fearful 'strafer.' It seems a little gruesome, doesn't it, +but not after you have been in the trenches for a while." + +A little gruesome--true! Not in the trenches--true, too! Where all is +satire, no incongruity seems out of place. Life plays in and out with +death; they intermingle; they look each other in the face and say: "I +know you. We dwell together. Let us smile when we may, at what we +may, to hide the character of our comradeship; for to-morrow------" + +Only half an hour before one of the officers had been shot through +the head by a sniper. He was a popular officer. The others had +messed with him and marched with him and known him in the +fullness of affection of comradeship in arms and dangers shared. A +heartbreak for some home in England. No one dwelt on the incident. +What was there to say? The trembling lip, trembling in spite of itself, +was the only outward sign of the depth of feeling that words could not +reflect, at tea in the dug-out. The subject was changed to something +about the living. One must carry on cheerfully; one must be on the +alert; one must play his part serenely, unflinchingly, for the sake of the +nerves around him and for his own sake. Such fortitude becomes +automatic, it would seem. Please, I must not hesitate about having a +slice of cake. They managed cake without any difficulty up there in +the trenches. And who if not men in the trenches was entitled to cake, +I should like to know? "It was here that he was hit," another officer +said, as we moved on in the trench. "He was saying that the +sandbags were a little weak and a bullet might go through and catch +a man who thought himself safely under cover as he walked along. +He had started to fix the sandbags himself when he got it. The bullet +came right through the top of one of the bags in front of him." + +A bullet makes the merciful wound; and a bullet through the head is a +simple way of going. The bad wounds come mostly from shells; but +there is something about seeing anyone hit by a sniper which is more +horrible. It is a cold-blooded kind of killing, more suggestive of +murder, this single shot from a sharpshooter waiting as patiently as a +cat for a mouse, aimed definitely to take the life of a man. + +Again we move on in that narrow cut of earth with its waiting soldiers, +which the world knows so well from reading tours of the trenches. No +one not on watch might show his head on an afternoon like this. The +men were prisoners between those walls of earth; not even +spectators of what the guns were doing; simply moles. They took it all +as a part of the day's work, with that singular, redoubtable +combination of British phlegm and cheerfulness. + +Of course, some of them were eating bread and marmalade and +making tea. Where all the marmalade goes which Mr. Atkins uses for +his personal munition in fighting the Germans puzzles the Army +Service Corps, whose business it is to see that he is never without it. +How could he sit so calmly under shell-fire without marmalade? +Never! He would get fidgety and forget his lesson, I am sure, like the +boy who had the button which he was used to fingering removed +before he went to recite. + +Any minute a shell may come. Mr. Atkins does not think of that. Time +enough to think after it has arrived. Then perhaps the burial party will +be doing your thinking for you; or if not, the doctors and the nurses +who look after you will. + +I noted certain acts of fellowship of comrades who are all in the same +boat and have learned unselfishness. When they got up to let you +pass and you smiled your thanks, you received a much pleasanter +smile in return than you will from many a well-fed gentleman who has +to stand aside to let you enter a restaurant. The manners of the +trenches are good, better than in some places where good manners +are a cult. + +There is no better place to send a spoiled, undisciplined, bumptious +youth than to a British trench. He will learn that there are other men in +the world besides himself and that a shell can kill a rich brute or a +selfish brute as readily as a poor man. Democracy there is in the +trenches; the democracy where all men are in the presence of death +and "hazing" parties need not be organized among the students. + +But there is another and a greater element in the practical psychology +of the trenches. These good-natured men, fighting the bitterest kind +of warfare without the signs of brutality which we associate with the +prize-fighter and the bully in their faces, know why they are fighting. +They consider that their duty is in that trench, and that they could not +have a title to manhood if they were not there. After the war the men +who have been in the trenches will rule England. Their spirit and their +thinking will fashion the new trend of civilization, and the men who +have not fought will bear the worst scars from the war. + +Ridiculous it is that men should be moles, perhaps; but at the same +time there is something sublime in the fellowship of their courage and +purpose, as they "sit and take it," or guard against attacks, without +the passion of battle of the old days of excited charges and quick +results, and watch the toll pass by from hour to hour. Borne by +comrades pick-a-back we saw the wounded carried along that +passage too narrow for a litter. A splash of blood, a white bandage, a +limp form! + +For the second permissible--periscopes are tempting targets--I +looked through one over the top of the parapet. Another film! A big +British lyddite shell went crashing into the German parapet. The dust +from sandbags and dug-outs merged into an immense cloud of ugly, +black smoke. As the cloud rose, one saw the figure of a German dart +out of sight; then nothing was visible but the gap which the explosion +had made. No wise German would show himself. British snipers were +watching for him. At least half a dozen, perhaps a score, of men had +been put out by this single "direct hit" of an h.e. (high explosive). Yes, +the British gunners were shooting well, too. Other periscopic glimpses +proved it. + +Through the periscope we learned also that the two lines of sandbags +of German and British trenches were drawing nearer together. +Another wounded man was brought by. + +"They're bombing up ahead. He has just been hit." As we drew aside +to make room for him to pass, once more the civilian realized his +helplessness and unimportance. One soldier was worth ten Prime +Ministers in that place. We were as conspicuously mal à propos as an +outsider at a bank directors' meeting or in a football scrimmage. The +officer politely reminded us of the necessity of elbow room in the +narrow quarters for the bombers, who were hidden from view by the +zigzag traverses, and I was not sorry, though perhaps my +companions were. If so, they did not say so, not being talkative men. +We were not going to see the two hundred yards of captured trench +that were beyond the bombing action, after all. Oh, the twinkle in that +staff officer's eye! + +"A Boche gas shell!" we were told, as we passed an informal +excavation in the communication trench on our way back. +"Asphyxiating effect. No time to put on respirators when one +explodes. Laid out half a dozen men like fish, gasping for air, but they +will recover." + +"The Boches want us to hurry!" exclaimed L------. + +They were giving the communication trench a turn at "strafing," now, +and shells were urgently dropping behind us. There was no use trying +to respond to one's natural inclination to run away from the pursuing +shower when you had to squeeze past soldiers as you went. + +"But look at what we are going into! This is like beating up grouse to +the guns, and we are the birds! I am wondering if I like it." + +We could tell what had happened in our absence in the support +trench by the litter of branches and leaves and by the excavations +made by shells. It was still happening, too. Another nine-inch, with +your only view of surroundings the wall of earth which you hugged. +Crash--and safe again! + +"Pretty!" L------ said, smiling. He was referring to the cloud of black +smoke from the burst. Pretty is a favourite word of his. I find that men +use habitual exclamations on such occasions. R------, also smiling, +had said, "A black business, this!" a favourite expression with him. + +"Yes--pretty!" R------and I exclaimed together. + +L------took a sliver off his coat and offered it to us as a souvenir. He +did not know that he had said "Pretty!" or R------ that he had said "A +black business!" several times that afternoon; nor did I know that I +had exclaimed, "For the love of Mike!" Psychologists take notice; and +golfers are reminded that their favourite expletives when they foozle +will come perfectly natural to them when the Germans are "strafing." +Then another nine-inch, when we were out of the gallery in front of +the warrens. My companions happened to be near a dug-out. They +did not go in tandem, but abreast. It was a "dead heat." All that I could +see in the way of cover was a wall of sandbags, which looked about +as comforting as tissue paper in such a crisis. + +At least, one faintly realized what it meant to be in the support +trenches, where the men were still huddled in their caves. They never +get a shot at the enemy or a chance to throw a bomb, unless they are +sent forward to assist the front trenches in resisting an attack. It is for +this purpose that they are kept within easy reach of the front +trenches. They are like the prisoner tied to a chair-back, facing a gun. + +"Yes, this was pretty heavy shell-fire," said an officer who ought to +know. "Not so bad as on the trenches which the infantry are to attack +--that is the first degree. You might call this the second." + +It was heavy enough to keep any writer from being bored. The +second degree will do. We will leave the first until another time. + +Later, when we were walking along a paved road, I heard again what +seemed the siren call of a nine-inch. + +Once, in another war, I had been on a paved road when--well, I did +not care to be on this one if a nine-inch hit it and turned fragments of +paving-stones into projectiles. An effort to "run out the bunt"--Caesar's +ghost! It was one of our own shells! Nerves! Shame! Two stretcher- +bearers with a wounded man looked up in surprise, wondering what +kind of a hide-and-seek game we were playing. They made a picture +of imperturbability of the kind that is a cure for nerves under fire. +If the other fellow is not scared it does not do for you to be scared. + +"Did you get any shells in your neighbourhood?" we asked the +chauffeur--also British and imperturbable--whom we found waiting at +a clearing station for wounded. + +"Yes, sir, I saw several, but none hit the car." + +As we came to the first cross-roads in that dead land back of the +trenches which was still being shelled by shrapnel, though not +another car was in sight, and ours had no business there (as we were +told afterwards), that chauffeur, as he slowed up before turning, held +out his hand from habit as he would have done in Piccadilly. + +Two or three days later things were normal along the front again, with +Mr. Atkins still stuffing himself with marmalade in that two hundred +yards of trench. + + + + +XXIII +Winning And Losing + + + +Seeming an immovable black line set as a frontier in peace, that +Western front on your map which you bought early in the war in +anticipation of rearranging the flags in keeping with each day's news +was, in reality, a pulsating, changing line. + +At times you thought of it as an enormous rope under the constant +pressure of soldiers on either side, who now and then, with an "all +together" of a tug-of-war at a given point, straightened or made a +bend, with the result imperceptible except as you measured it by a +tree or a house. Battles as severe as the most important in South +Africa, battles severe enough to have decided famous campaigns in +Europe in former days, when one king rode forth against another, +became landmark incidents of the give and take, the wrangling and +the wrestling of siege operations. + +The sensation of victory or defeat for those engaged was none the +less vivid because victory meant the gain of so little ground and +defeat the loss of so little; perhaps the more vivid in want of the +movement of pursuing or of being pursued in the shock of arms as in +past times, when an army front hardly covered that of one brigade in +the trenches. For winners and losers, returning to their billets in +French villages as other battalions took their places, had time to think +over the action. + +The offensive was mostly with the British through the summer of +1915; any thrust by the Germans was usually to retake a section of +trenches which they had lost. But our attacks did not all succeed, of +course. + +Battalions knew success and failure; and their narratives were mine +to share, just as one would share the good luck or the bad luck of his +neighbours. + +You may have a story of heartbreak or triumph an hour after you +have been chatting with playing children in a village street, as the car +speeds toward the zone where reserves are billeted and the +occasional shell is a warning that peace lies behind you. First, we +alighted near the headquarters of two battalions which have been in +an attack that failed. The colonel of the one to the left of the road was +killed. We went across the fields to the right. Among the surviving +officers resting in their shelter tents, where there is plenty of room +now, is the adjutant, tall, boyish, looking tired, but still with no +outward display of what he has gone through and what it has meant +to him. I have seen him by the hundreds, this buoyant type of English +youth. + +In army language, theirs had not been a "good show." We had heard +the account of it with that matter-of-fact prefix from G.H.Q., where +they took results with the necessarily cold eye of logic. The two +battalions were set to take a trench; that was all. In the midst of +merciless shell-fire they had waited for their own guns to draw all the +teeth out of the trench. When the given moment came they swept +forward. But our artillery had not "connected up" properly. + +The German machine-guns were not out of commission, and for +them it was like working a loom playing bullets back and forth across +the zone of a hundred yards which the British had to traverse. The +British had been told to charge and they charged. Theirs not to +reason why; that was the glory of the thing. Nothing more gallant in +warfare than their persistence, till they found that it was like trying to +swim in a cataract of lead. One officer got within fifty yards of the +German parapet before he fell. At last they realized that it could not +be done--later than they should, but they were a proud regiment, and +though they had been too brave, there was something splendid about +it. + +With a soldier's winning frankness and simplicity they told what had +happened. Even before they charged they knew the machine-guns +were in place; they knew what they had to face. One man spoke of +seeing, as they lay waiting, a German officer standing up in the midst +of the British shell-fire. + +"A stout-hearted fighter I We had to admire him!" said the adjutant. + +It was a chivalrous thought with a deep appeal, considering what he +had been through. Oh, these English! They will not hate; they cannot +be separated from their sense of sportsmanship. + +It was not the first time the guns had not "connected up" for either +side, and German charges on many occasions had met a like fate. +Calm enough, these officers, true to their birthright of phlegm. They +did not make excuses. Success is the criterion of battle. They had +failed. Their unblinking recognition of the fact was a sort of self- +punishment which cut deep into your own sensitiveness. One young +lieutenant could not keep his lip from trembling over that naked, grim +thought. Pride of regiment had been struck a whip-blow, which meant +more to the soldier than any injury to his personal pride. + +But next time! They wanted another try for that trench, these +survivors. No matter about anything else--the battalion must have +another chance. You appreciated this from a few words and more +from the stubborn resolution in the bearing of all. There was no "let- +us-at-'em-again" frightfulness. In order to end this war you must "lick" +one side or the other, and these men were not "licked." You were +sorry that you had gone to see them. It was like lacerating a wound. + +One could only assure them, in his faith in their gallantry, that they +would win next time. And oh, how you wanted them to win! They +deserved to win because they were such manly losers. + +At home in their rough wooden houses in camp we found a battalion +which had won--the same undemonstrative type as the one that had +lost; the same simplicity and kindly hospitality, which gives life at the +front a charm in the midst of its tragedy, from these men of one of the +dependable line regiments. This colonel knew the other colonel, and +he said about the other what his fellow-officers had said: it was not his +fault; he was a good man. If the guns were not "on," what happened +to him was bound to happen to anybody. They had been "on" for the +winning battalion; perfectly "on." They had buried the machine-guns +and the Germans with them. + +When a man goes into the kind of charge that either battalion made +he gives himself up for lost. The psychology is simple. You are going +to keep on until------! + +Well, as Mr. Atkins has remarked in his own terse way, a battle was a +lot of noise all around you and suddenly a big bang in your ear; and +then somebody said, "please open your mouth and take this!" and +you found yourself in a white, quiet place full of cots. + +The winning battalion was amazed how easily the thing was done. +They had "walked in." They were a little surprised to be alive--thanks +to the guns. "Here we are! Here we are again!" as the song at the +front goes. It is all a lottery. Make up your mind to draw the death +number; and if you don't, that is "velvet." Army courage these days is +highly sensitized steel in response to will. + +They had won; there was a credit mark in the regimental record. All +had won; nobody in particular, but the battalion, the lot of them. They +did not boast about it. The thing just happened. They were alive and +enjoying the sheer fact of life, writing letters home, rereading letters +from home, looking at the pictures in illustrated papers, as they +leaned back and smoked their brier-wood pipes and discussed +politics with that freedom and directness of opinion which is an +Englishman's pastime and his birthright. + +The captain who was describing the fight had retired from the army, +gone into business, and returned as a reserve officer. The guns were +to stop firing at a given moment. As the minute-hand lay over the +figure on his wrist-watch he dashed for the broken parapet, still in the +haze of dust from shell-bursts, to find not a German in sight. All were +under cover. He enacted the ridiculous scene with humorous +appreciation of how he came face to face with a German as he +turned a traverse. He was ready with his revolver and the other was +not, and the other was his prisoner. + +There was nothing gruesome about listening to a diffident soldier +explaining how he "bombed them out," and you shared his +amusement over the surprise of a German who stuck up his head +from a dug-out within a foot of the face of a British soldier who was +peeping inside to see if any more Germans were at home. You +rejoiced with this battalion. Victory is sweet. + +When on the way back to quarters you passed some of the new army +men, "the Keetcheenaires," as the French call them, you were +reminded that although the war was old the British army was young. +There was a "Watch our city grow!" atmosphere about it. Little by +little, some great force seemed steadily pushing up from the rear. It +made that business institution at G.H.Q. feel like bankers with an +enormous, increasing surplus. In this the British is like no other army. +One has watched it in the making. + + + + +XXIV +The Maple Leaf Folk + + + +These were "home folks" to the American. You might know all by their +maple-leaf symbol; but even before you saw that, with its bronze +none too prominent against the khaki, you knew those who were not +recent emigrants from England to Canada by their accent and by +certain slang phrases which pay no customs duty at the border. + +When, on a dark February night cruising in a slough of a road, I heard +out of a wall of blackness back of the trenches, "Gee! Get on to the +bus!" which referred to our car, and also, "Cut out the noise!" I was +certain that I might dispense with an interpreter. After I had remarked +that I came from New York, which is only across the street from +Montreal as distances go in our countries, the American batting about +the front at midnight was welcomed with a "glad hand" across that +imaginary line which has and ever shall have no fortresses. + +What a strange place to find Canadians--at the front in Europe! I +could never quite accommodate myself to the wonder of a man from +Winnipeg, and perhaps a "neutral" from Wyoming in his company, +fighting Germans in Flanders. A man used to a downy couch and an +easy chair by the fire and steam-heated rooms, who had ten +thousand a year in Toronto, when you found him in a chill, damp +cellar of a peasant's cottage in range of the enemy's shells was +getting something more than novel, if not more picturesque, than +dog-mushing and prospecting on the Yukon; for we are quite used to +that contrast. + +All I asked of the Canadians was to allow a little of the glory they had +won--they had such a lot--to rub off on their neighbours. If there must +be war, and no Canadian believed in it as an institution, why, to my +mind, the Canadians did a fine thing for civilization's sake. It hurt +sometimes to think that we also could not be in the fight for the good +cause, particularly after the Lusitania was sunk, when my own +feelings had lost all semblance of neutrality. + +The Canadians enlivened life at the front; for they have a little more +zip to them than the thorough-going British. Their climate spells +"hustle," and we are all the product of climate to a large degree, +whether in England, on the Mississippi flatlands, or in Manitoba. +Eager and high-strung the Canadian born, quick to see and to act. +Very restless they were when held up on Salisbury Plain, after they +had come three-four-five-six thousand miles to fight and there was +nothing to fight but mud in an English winter. + +One from the American contingent knew what ailed them; they +wanted action. They may have seemed undisciplined to a drill +sergeant; but the kind of discipline they needed was a sight of the real +thing. They wanted to know, What for? And Lord Kitchener was +kinder to them, though many were beginners, than to his own new +army; he could be, as they were ready with guns and equipment. So +he sent them over to France before it was too late in the spring to get +frozen feet from standing in icy water looking over a parapet at a +German parapet. They liked Flanders mud better than Salisbury Plain +mud, because it meant that there was "something doing." + +It was in their first trenches that I saw them, and they were "on the +job, all right," in face of scattered shell-fire and the sweep of +searchlights and flares. They had become the most ardent of pupils, +for here was that real thing which steadied them and proved their +metal. + +They refashioned their trenches and drained them with the +fastidiousness of good housekeepers who had a frontiersman's +experience for an inheritance. In a week they appeared to be old +hands at the business. + +"Their discipline is different from ours," said a British general, "but it +works out. They are splendid. I ask for no better troops." + +They may have lacked the etiquette of discipline of British regulars, +but they had the natural discipline of self-reliance and of "go to it" +when a crisis came. This trench was only an introduction, a +preparation for a thing which was about as real as ever fell to the lot +of any soldiers. It is not for me to tell here the story of their part in +the second battle of Ypres, when the gas fumes rolled in upon them. +I should like to tell it and also the story of the deeds of many British +regiments, from the time of Mons to Festubert. All Canada knows it in +detail from their own correspondents and their record officer. England +will one day know about her regiments; her stubborn regiments of the +line, her county regiments, who have won the admiration of all the +crack regiments, whether English or Scots. + +"When that gas came along," said one Canadian, who expressed the +Canadian spirit, "we knew the Boches were springing a new one on +us. You know how it is if a man is hit in the face by a cloud of smoke +when he is going into a burning building to get somebody out. He +draws back--and then he goes in. We went in. We charged--well, it +was the way we felt about it. We wanted to get at them and we were +boiling mad over such a dastardly kind of attack." + +Higher authorities than any civilian have testified to how that charge +helped, if it did not save, the situation. And then at Givenchy--straight +work into the enemy's trenches under the guns. Canada is part of the +British Empire and a precious part; but the Canadians, all imperial +politics aside, fought their way into the affection of the British army, if +they did not already possess it. They made the Rocky Mountains +seem more majestic and the Thousand Islands more lovely. + +If there are some people in the United States busy with their own +affairs who look on the Canadians as living up north somewhere +toward the Arctic Circle and not very numerous, that old criterion of +worth which discovers in the glare of battle's publicity merit which +already existed has given to the name Canadian a glory which can be +appreciated only with the perspective of time. The Civil War left us a +martial tradition; they have won theirs. Some day a few of their neutral +neighbours who fought by their side will be joining in their army +reunions and remarking, "Wasn't that mud in Flanders------" etc. + +My thanks to the Canadians for being at the front. They brought me +back to the plains and the North-West, and they showed the +Germans on some occasions what a blizzard is like when expressed +in bullets instead of in snowflakes, by men who know how to shoot. I +had continental pride in them. They had the dry, pungent philosophy +and the indomitable optimism which the air of the plains and the St. +Lawrence valley seems to develop. They were not afraid to be a little +emotional and sentimental. There is room for that sort of thing +between Vancouver and Halifax. They had been in some "tough +scraps" which they saw clear-eyed, as they would see a boxing- +match or a spill from a canoe into a Canadian rapids. + +As for the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, old soldiers of +the South African campaign almost without exception, knowing and +hardened, their veteran experience gave them an earlier opportunity +in the trenches than the first Canadian division. Brigaded with British +regulars, the Princess Pat's were a sort of corps d'élite. Colonel +Francis Farquhar, known as "Fanny," was their colonel, and he knew +his men. After he was killed his spirit remained with them. Asked if +they could stick they said, "Yes, sir!" cheerily, as he would have +wanted them to say it. + +I am going to tell the story of their fight of May 8th, not to single them +out from any other Canadian battalion, or any British battalions, but +because the story came to me and it seemed illuminative of what +other battalions had endured, this one picturesquely because of its +membership and its distance from home. + +Losses in that Ypres salient at St. Eloi the P.P.s had suffered in the +winter, dribbling, day-by-day losses, and heavier ones when they had +made attacks and repulsed attacks. They had been holding down the +lid of hell heretofore, as one said graphically, and on May 8th, to use +his simile again, they held on to the edge of the opening by the skin of +their teeth and looked down into the bowels of hell after the Germans +had blown the lid off with high explosives. + +It was in a big château that I heard the story--a story characteristic of +modern warfare at its highest pitch--and felt its thrill when told by the +tongues of its participants. There were twenty bedrooms in that +château. If I wished to stay all night I might occupy three or four. As +for the bathroom, paradise to men who have been buried in filthy mud +by high explosives, the Frenchman who planned it had the most +spacious ideas of immersion. A tub, or a shower, or a hose, as you +pleased. Some bathroom, that! + +For nothing in the British army was too good for the Princess Pat's +before May 8th; and since May 8th nothing is quite good enough. Ask +the generals in whose command they have served if you have any +doubts. There is one way to win praise at the front: by fighting. The +P.P.s knew the way. + +"Too bad Gault is not here. He's in England recovering from his +wound. Gault is six feet tall and five feet of him legs. All day in that +trench with a shell-wound in his thigh and arm. God! How he was +suffering! But not a moan, his face twitching and trying to make the +twitch into a smile, and telling us to stick. + +"Buller away, too. He was the second in command. Gault succeeded +him. Buller was hit on May 5th and missed the big show--piece of +shell in the eye." + +"And Charlie Stewart, who was shot through the stomach. How we +miss him! If ever there were a 'live-wire' it's Charlie. Up or down, he's +smiling and ready for the next adventure. Once he made thirty +thousand dollars in the Yukon and spent it on the way to Vancouver. +The first job he could get was washing dishes; but he wasn't washing +them long. Again, he started out in the North-West on an expedition +with four hundred traps, to cut into the fur business of the Hudson +Bay Company. His Indians got sick. He wouldn't desert them, and +before he was through he had a time which beat anything yet opened +up for us by the Germans in Flanders. But you have heard such +stories from the North-West before. Being shot through the stomach +the way he was, all the doctors agreed that Charlie would die. It was +like Charlie to disagree with them. He always had his own point of +view. So he is getting well. Charlie came out to the war with the +packing-case which had been used by his grandfather, who was an +officer in the Crimean War. He said that it would bring him luck." + +The 4th of May was bad enough, a ghastly forerunner for the 8th. On +the 4th the P.P.s, after having been under shell-fire throughout the +second battle of Ypres, the "gas battle," were ordered forward to a +new line to the south-east of Ypres. To the north of Ypres the British +line had been driven back by the concentration of shell-fire and the +rolling, deadly march of the clouds of asphyxiating gas. + +The Germans were still determined to take the town, which they had +showered with four million dollars' worth of shells. It would be big +news: the fall of Ypres as a prelude to the fall of Przemysl and of +Lemberg in their summer campaign of 1915. A wicked salient was +produced in the British line to the south-east by the cave-in to the +north. It seems to be the lot of the P.P.s to get into salients. On the +4th they lost twenty-eight men killed and ninety-eight wounded from a +gruelling all-day shell-fire and stone-walling. That night they got relief +and were out for two days, when they were back in the front trenches +again. The 5th and the 6th were fairly quiet; that is, what the P.P.s or +Mr. Thomas Atkins would call quiet. Average mortals wouldn't. They +would try to appear unconcerned and say they had been under pretty +heavy fire, which means shells all over the place and machine-guns +combing the parapet. Very dull, indeed. Only three men killed and +seventeen wounded. + +On the night of May 7th the P.P.s had a muster of six hundred and +thirty-five men. This was a good deal less than half of the original total +in the battalion, including recruits who had come out to fill the gaps +caused by death, wounds, and sickness. Bear in mind that before this +war a force was supposed to prepare for retreat with a loss of ten per +cent, and get under way to the rear with the loss of fifteen per cent, +and that with the loss of thirty per cent, it was supposed to have +borne all that can be expected of the best trained soldiers. + +The Germans were quiet that night, suggestively quiet. At 4.30 a.m. +the prelude began; by 5.30 the German gunners had fairly warmed to +their work. They were using every kind of shell they had in the locker. +Every signal wire the P.P.s possessed had been cut. The brigade +commander could not know what was happening to them and they +could not know his wishes; except that it may be taken for granted +that the orders of any British brigade commander are always to "stick +it." The shell-fire was as thick at the P.P.s' backs as in front of them; +they were fenced in by it. And they were infantry taking what the guns +gave in order to put them out of business so that the way would be +clear for the German infantry to charge. In theory they ought to have +been buried and mangled beyond the power of resistance by what is +called "the artillery preparation for the infantry in attack." + +Every man of the P.P.s knew what was coming. There was relief in +their hearts when they saw the Germans break from their trenches +and start down the slope of the hill in front. Now they could take it out +of the German infantry in payment for what the German guns were +doing to them. This was their only thought. Being good shots, with the +instinct of the man who is used to shooting at game, the P.P.s "shoot +to kill" and at individual targets. The light green of the German +uniform is more visible on the deep green background of spring grass +and foliage than against the tints of autumn. At two or three or four +hundred yards neither Corporal Christy, the old bear-hunter, lying on +the parapet nor other marksmen of the P.P.s could miss their marks. +They kept on knocking down Germans; they didn't know that men +around them were being hit; they did not know they were being +shelled except when a burst shook their aim or filled their eyes with +dust. In that case they wiped the dust out of their eyes and went on. +The first that many of them realized that the German attack was +broken was when they saw green blots in front of the standing +figures, which were now going in the other direction. Then the thing +was to keep as many of these as possible from returning over the hill. +After that they could dress the wounded and make the dying a little +more comfortable. For there was no taking the wounded to the rear. +They had to remain there in the trench perhaps to be wounded again, +spectators of their comrades' valour without the preoccupation of +action. + +In the official war journal where a battalion keeps its records--that +precious historical document which will be safeguarded in fireproof +vaults one of these days--you may read in cold, official language what +happened in one section of the British line on the 8th of May. Thus: + +"7 a.m. Fire trench on right blown in at several points ... 9 a.m. +Lieutenants Martin and Triggs were hit and came out of left +communicating trench with number of wounded . . . Captain Still and +Lieutenant de Bay hit also . . . 9.30 a.m. All machine-guns were +buried (by high explosive shells) but two were dug out and mounted +again. A shell killed every man in one section . . . 10.30 a.m. +Lieutenant Edwards was killed . . . Lieutenant Crawford, who was +most gallant, was severely wounded . . . Captain Adamson, who had +been handing out ammunition, was hit in the shoulder, but continued +to work with only one arm useful . . . Sergeant-Major Frazer, who was +also handing out ammunition to support trenches, was killed instantly +by a bullet in the head." + +At 10.30 only four officers remained fit for action. All were lieutenants. +The ranking one of these was Niven, in command after Gault was +wounded at 7 a.m. We have all met the Niven type anywhere from +the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Circle, the high-strung, wiry type who +moves about too fast to carry any loose flesh and accumulates none +because he does move about so fast. A little man Niven, rancher and +horseman, with a good education and a knowledge of men. He rather +fits the old saying about licking his weight in wild cats--wild cats being +nearer his size than lions or tigers. + +Eight months before he had not known any more about war than +thousands of other Canadians of his type, except that soldiers carried +rifles over their shoulders and kept step. But he had "Fanny" +Farquhar, of the British army, for his teacher; and he studied the book +of war in the midst of shells and bullets, which means that the lessons +stick in the same way as the lesson the small boy receives when he +touches the red-hot end of a poker to ascertain how it feels. + +Writing in the midst of ruined trenches rocked by the concussion of +shells, every message he sent that day, every report he made by +orderly after the wires were down was written out very explicitly; which +Farquhar had taught him was the army way. The record is there of his +coolness when the lid was blown off of hell. For all you can tell by the +firm chirography, he might have been sending a note to a ranch +foreman. + +When his communications were cut, he was not certain how much +support he had on his flanks. It looked for a time as if he had none. +After the first charge was repulsed, he made contact with the King's +Royal Rifle Corps on his right. He knew from the nature of the first +German charge that the second would be worse than the first. The +Germans had advanced some machine-guns; they would be able to +place their increased artillery fire more accurately. + +Again green figures started down that hill and again they were put +back. Then Niven was able to establish contact with the Shropshire +Light Infantry, another regiment on his left. So he knew that right and +left he was supported, and by seasoned British regulars. This was +very, very comforting, especially when German machine-gun fire was +not only coming from the front but in enfilade, which is most trying to a +soldier's steadiness. In other words, the P.P.s were shooting at +Germans in front, while bullets were whipping crosswise of their +trenches and of the regulars on their flanks, too. Some of the German +infantrymen who had not been hit or had not fallen back had dug +themselves cover and were firing at a closer range. + +The Germans had located the points in the P.P.s' trench occupied by +machine-guns. At least, they could put these hornets' nests out of +business if not all the individual riflemen. So they concentrated high +explosive shells on the guns. This did the trick; it buried them. But a +buried machine-gun may be dug out and fired again. It may be dug +out two or three times and keep on firing as long as it will work and +there is anyone to man it. + +While the machine-guns were being exhumed every man in one +sector of the trench was killed. Then the left half of the right fire +trench had three or four shells, one after another, bang into it. There +was no trench left; only macerated earth and mangled men. Those +emerging alive were told to retreat to the communication trench. +Next, the right end of the left fire trench was blown in. When the +survivors fell back to the communication trench that also was +blown in their face. + +"Oh, but we were having a merry party!" as Lieutenant Vandenberg +put it. + +Niven and his lieutenants were moving here and there to the point of +each new explosion to ascertain the amount of damage and to +decide what was to be done as the result. One soldier described +Niven's eyes as sparks emitted from two holes in his dust-caked face. + +Pappineau tells how a tree outside the trench was cut in two by a +shell and its trunk laid across the breach of the trench caused by +another shell; and lying over the trunk, limp and lifeless where he had +fallen, was a man killed by still another shell. + +"I remember how he looked because I had to step around him and +over the trunk," said Pappineau. + +Unless you did have to step around a dead or a wounded man there +was no time to observe his appearance; for by noon there were as +many dead and wounded in the P.P.s' trench as there were men fit +for action. + +Those unhurt did not have to be steadied by their superiors. Knocked +down by a concussion they sprang up with the promptness of disgust +of one thrown off a horse or tripped by a wire. When told to move +from one part of the trench to another where there was desperate +need, a word was sufficient. They understood what was wanted of +them, these veterans. They went. They seized every lull to drop the +rifle for the spade and repair the breaches. When they were not +shooting they were digging. The officers had only to keep reminding +them not to expose themselves in the breaches. For in the thick of it, +and the thicker the more so, they must try to keep some dirt between +all of their bodies except the head and arm which had to be up in +order to fire. + +At 1.30 p.m. a cheer rose from that trench. It was in greeting of a +platoon of the King's Royal Rifles which had come as a reinforcement. +Oh, but this band of Tommies did look good to the P.P.s! And the +little prize package that the very reliable Mr. Atkins had with him +--the machine-gun! You can always count on Mr. Atkins to remain +"among those present" to the last on such occasions. + +Now Niven got word by messenger to go to the nearest point where +the telephone was working and tell the brigade commander the +complete details of the situation. The brigade commander asked him +if he could stick, and he said, "Yes, sir!" which is what Colonel +"Fanny" Farquhar would have said. This trip was hardly what would +be called peaceful. The orderly whom Niven had with him both going +and coming was hit by high explosive shells. Niven is so small that it +is difficult to hit him. He is about up to Major Gault's shoulder. + +He had been worrying about his supply of rifle-cartridges. There were +not enough to take care of another German infantry charge, which +was surely coming. After repelling two charges, think of failing to repel +the third for want of ammunition! Think of Corporal Christy, the bear- +hunter, with the Germans thick in front of him and no bullets for his +rifle! But appeared again Mr. Thomas Atkins, another platoon of him, +with twenty boxes of cartridges, which was rather a risky burden to +bring through shell-fire. The relief as these were distributed was that +of having something at your throat which threatens to strangle you +removed. + +Making another tour of his trenches a little later in the afternoon, +Niven found that there was a gap of fifty yards between his left and +the right of the adjoining regiment. Fifty yards is the inch on the end of +a man's nose in trench-warfare on such an occasion. He was able to +place eight men in the gap. At least, they could keep a look out and +tell him what was going on. + +It was not cheering news to learn that the regiments on his left had +withdrawn to trenches about three hundred yards to the rear--a long +distance in trench warfare. But the P.P.s had no time to retire. They +could have gone only in the panic of men who think of nothing in their +demoralization except to flee from the danger in front, regardless of +more danger to the rear. They were held where they were under what +cover they had by the renewed blasts of shells, putting the machine- +guns out of action. + +Now the Germans were coming on again in their supreme effort. It +was as a nightmare, in which only the objective of effort is recalled +and all else is a vague struggle of every ounce of strength which one +can exert against smothering odds. No use to ask these men what +they thought. What do you think when you are climbing up a rope +whose strands are breaking over the edge of a precipice? You climb; +that is all. + +The P.P.s shot at Germans. After a night without sleep, after a day +among their dead and wounded, after torrents of shell-fire, after +breathing smoke, dust and gas, these veterans were in a state of +exaltation entirely oblivious of danger, of their surroundings, mindless +of what came next, automatically shooting to kill as they were trained +to do, even as a man pulls with all his might in the crucial test of a tug +of war. Old Corporal Christy, bear-hunter of the North-West, who +could "shoot the eye off an ant," as Niven said, leaned out over the +parapet, or what was left of it, because he could take better aim lying +down and the Germans were so thick that he could not afford any +misses. + +Corporal Dover had to give up firing his machine-gun at last. +Wounded, he had dug it out of the earth after an explosion and set it +up again. The explosion which destroyed the gun finally crushed his +leg and arm. He crawled out of the debris toward the support trench +which had become the fire trench, only to be killed by a bullet. + +The Germans got possession of a section of the P.P.s' trench where, +it is believed, no Canadians were left. But the German effort died +there. It could get no farther. This was as near to Ypres as the +Germans were to go in this direction. When the day's work was done, +there, in sight of the field scattered with German dead, the P.P.s +counted their numbers. Of the six hundred and thirty-five men who +had begun the fight at daybreak, one hundred and fifty men and four +officers, Niven, Pappineau, Clark and Vandenberg, remained fit for +duty. + +Vandenberg is a Hollander, but mostly he is Vandenberg. To him the +call of youth is the call to arms. He knows the roads of Europe and +the roads of Chihuahua. He was at home fighting with Villa at +Zacetecas and at home fighting with the P.P.s in front of Ypres. + +Darkness found all the survivors among the P.P.s in the support and +communication trenches. The fire trench had become an untenable +dust-heap. They crept out only to bring in any wounded unable to +help themselves; and wounded and rescuers were more than once +hit in the process. It was too dangerous to attempt to bury the dead +who were in the fire-trench. Most of them had already been buried by +shells. For them and for the dead in the support trenches interred by +their living comrades, Niven recited such portions as he could recall +of the Church of England service for the dead--recited them with a +tight throat. Then the P.P.s, unbeaten, marched out, leaving the +position to their relief, a battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps. +Corporal Christy, the bear-hunter, had his "luck with him." He had not +even a scratch. + +Such is the story of a hard fight by one battalion in the kind of warfare +waged in Europe these days, a story only partially told; a story to +make a book. All the praise that the P.P.s, millionaire or labourer, +scapegrace or respectable pillar of society, ask is that they are worthy +of fighting side by side with Mr. Thomas Atkins, regular. At best, one +poor, little, finite mind only observes through a rift in the black smoke +and yellow smoke of high explosives and the clouds of dust and +military secrecy something of what has happened many times in a +small section of that long line from Switzerland to the North Sea. + +Leaning against the wall in a corner of the dining-room of the French +château were the P.P.s colours. Major Niven took off the wrapper in +order that I might see the flag with the initials of the battalion which +Princess Patricia embroidered with her own hands. There is room, +one repeats, for a little sentiment and a little emotion, too, between +Halifax and Vancouver. + +"Of course we could not take our colours into action," said Niven. +"They would have been torn into tatters or buried in a shell-crater. But +we've always kept them up at battalion headquarters. I believe we are +the only battalion that has. We promised the Princess that we would." + +In her honour, an old custom has been renewed in France: knights +are fighting in the name of a fair lady. + + + + +XXV +Many Pictures + + + +A single incident, an impression photographic in its swiftness, a +chance remark, may be more illuminating than a day's experiences. +One does not need to go to the front for them. Sometimes they come +to the gateway of our château. They are pages at random out of a +library of overwhelming information. + +One of the aviation grounds is not far away. Look skyward at almost +any hour of the day and you will see a plane, its propeller a roar or a +hum according to its altitude. Sometimes it is circling in practice; +again, it is off to the front. At break of day the planes appear; in the +gloaming they return to roost. + +If an aviator has leave for two or three days in summer he starts in +the late afternoon, flashing over that streak of Channel in half an +hour, and may be at home for dinner without getting any dust on his +clothes or having to bother with military red tape at steamer +gangways or customs houses. + +The airmen are a type which one associates with certain marked +characteristics. No nervous man is wanted, and it is time for an +aviator to take a rest at the first sign of nerves. They seem rather shy, +men given to observation rather than to talking; accustomed to using +their eyes and hands. It is difficult to realize that some quiet, young +fellow who is pointed out has had so many hairbreadth escapes. +What tales, worthy of Arabian Nights' heroes who are borne away-on +magic carpets, they bring home, relating them as matter-of-factly as if +they had broken a shoelace. + +Up in their seat, a whir of the motor, and they are off on another +adventure. They have all the spirit of corps of the oldest regiments, +and, besides, a spirit peculiar to the newest branch in the service of +war. Anonymity is absolute. Everything is done by the corps for the +corps. Possibly because it is so young, because it started with +chosen men, the British Aviation Corps is unsurpassed; but partly it is +because of the British temperament, with that combination of +coolness and innate love of risk which the British manner sometimes +belies. Something of the old spirit of knighthood characterizes air +service. It is individual work; its numbers are relatively few. + +Some mornings ago I saw several young soldiers with notebooks +going about our village street. They were from the cadet school +where privates, from the trenches, take a course and return with +chocolate drops on their, sleeve-bands as commissioned officers. +This was a course in billeting. For ours is not an army in tents, but +one living in French houses and barns. The pupils were learning how +to carry out this delicate task; for delicate it is. A stranger speaking +another language becomes the guest of the host for whom he is +fighting. Mr. Atkins receives only shelter; he supplies his own meals. +His excess of marmalade one sees yellowing the cheeks of the +children in the family where he is at home. Madame objects only to +his efforts to cook in her kitchen; woman-like, she would rather handle +the pots and pans herself. + +Tommy is thoroughly instructed in his duty as guest and under a +discipline that is merciless so far as conduct toward the population +goes; so the two get on better than French and English military +authorities feared that they might. Time has taught them to +understand each other and to see that difference in race does not +mean absence of human qualities in common, though differently +expressed. Many armies I have seen, but never one better behaved +than the British army in France and Flanders in its respect for +property and the rights of the population. + +And while the fledgling officers are going on with their billeting, we +hear the t-r-r-t of a machine-gun at a machine-gun school about a +mile distant, where picked men also from the trenches receive +instruction in the use of an arm new to them. There are other schools +within sound of the guns teaching the art of war to an expanding army +in the midst of war, with the teachers bringing their experience from +the battle-line. + + + +"Their shops and their houses all have fronts of glass," wrote a Sikh +soldier home, "and even the poor are rich in this bountiful land." + +Sikhs and Ghurkas and Rajputs and Pathans and Gharwalis, the +brown-skinned tribesmen in India, have been on a strange Odyssey, +bringing picturesqueness to the khaki tone of modern war. +Aeroplanes interested them less than a trotting dog in a wheel for +drawing water. They would watch that for hours. + +Still fresh in mind is a scene when the air seemed a moist sponge +and all above the earth was dripping and all under foot a mire. I was +homesick for the flash on the windows of the New York skyscrapers +or the gleam on the Hudson of that bright sunlight in a drier air, that is +the secret of the American's nervous energy. It seemed to me that it +was enough to have to exist in Northern France at that season of the +year, let alone fighting Germans. + +Out of the drizzly, misty rain along a muddy road and turning past us +came the Indian cavalry, which, like the British cavalry, had fought on +foot in the trenches, while their horses led the leisurely life of true +equine gentry. Erect in their saddles, their martial spirit defiant of +weather, their black eyes flashing as they looked toward the +reviewing officers, troop after troop of these sons of the East passed +by, everyone seeming as fit for review as if he had cleaned his +uniform and equipment in his home barracks instead of in French +barns. + +You asked who had trained them; who had fashioned the brown clay +into resolute and loyal obedience which stood the test of a Flanders +winter? What was the force which could win them to cross the seas to +fight for England? Among the brown faces topped with turbans +appeared occasional white faces. These were the men; these the +force. + +The marvel was not that the Indians were able to fight as well as they +did in that climate, but that they fought at all. What welcome summer +brought from their gleaming black eyes! July or August could not be +too hot for them. On a plateau one afternoon I saw them in a +gymkhana. It was a treat for the King of the Belgians, who has had +few holidays, indeed, this last year, and for the French peasants who +came from the neighbourhood. Yelling, wild as they were in tribal days +before the British brought order and peace to India, the horsemen +galloped across the open space, picking up handkerchiefs from the +ground and impaling tent pegs on their lances. The French peasants +clapped their hands and the British Indian officers said, "Good!" when +the performer succeeded, or, "Too bad!" when he failed. + +If you asked the officers for the secret of the Indian Empire they said: +"We try to be fair to the natives!" which means that they are just and +even-tempered. An enormous, loose-jointed machine the British +Empire, which seems sometimes to creak a bit, yet holds together for +that very reason. Imperial weight may have interfered with British +adaptability to the kind of warfare which was the one kind that the +Germans had to train for; but certainly some Englishmen must know +how to rule. + +That church bell across the street from our château begins its clangor +at dawn, summoning the French women and children and the old +men to the fields in harvest time. But its peal carrying across the +farmlands is softened by distance and sweet to the tired workers in +the evening. In the morning it tells them that the day is long and they +have much to do before dark. After that thought I never complained +because it robbed me of my sleep. I felt ashamed not to be up and +doing myself, and worked with a better spirit. + +"Will they do it?" + +We asked this question as often in our mess in those August days +as, Will the Russians lose Warsaw? Would the peasants be able to +get in their crops, with all the able-bodied men away? I had inside +information from the village mayor and the blacksmith and the baker +that they would. A financial expert, the baker. Of course, he said, +France would go on fighting till the Germans were beaten, just as the +old men and the women and children said, whether the church bell +were clanging the matins or the angelus. But there was the question +of finances. It took money to fight. The Americans, he knew, had +more money than they knew what to do with--as Europeans +universally think, only, personally, I find that I was overlooked in the +distribution--and if they would lend the Allies some of their spare +billions, Germany was surely beaten. + +A busy man, the blacksmith, and brawny, if he had no spreading +chestnut tree; busy not only shoeing farmhorses, but repairing +American reapers and binders, whose owners profited exceedingly +and saved the day. But not all farmers felt that they could afford the +charge. + +These kept at their small patches with sickles. Gradually the carpets +of gold waving in the breeze became bundles lying on the stubble, +and great, conical harvest stacks rose, while children gathered the +stray stems left on the ground by the reapers till they had immense +bouquets of wheat-heads under their arms, enough to make two or +three loaves of the pain de ménage that the baker sold. So the +peasants did it; they won; and this was some compensation for the +loss of Warsaw. + + + +One morning we heard troops marching past, which was not unusual. +But these were French troops in the British zone, en route from +somewhere in France to somewhere else in France. There was not a +person left in any house in that village. Everybody was out, with +affection glowing in their eyes. For these were their own--their soldiers +of France! + + + +When you see a certain big limousine flying a small British flag pass +you know that it belongs to the Commander-in-Chief; and though it +may be occupied only by one of his aides, often you will have a +glimpse of a man with a square chin and a drooping white +moustache, who is the sole one among the hundreds of thousands at +the British front who wears the wreath-circled crossed batons of a +field-marshal. + +It is erroneous to think that Sir John French or any other commander, +though that is the case in time of action, spends all his time in the +private house occupied as headquarters, designated by two wisps of +flags, studying a map and sending and receiving messages, when +the trench-line remains stationary. He goes here and there on +inspections. It is the only way that a modern leader may let his +officers and men know that he is a being of flesh and blood and not a +name signed to reports and orders. A machine-gun company I knew +had a surprise when resting in a field waiting for orders. They +suddenly recognized in a figure coming through an opening in a +hedge the supreme head of the British army in France. No need of a +call to attention. The effect was like an electric shock, which sent +every man to his place and made his backbone a steel rod. Those +crossed batons represented a dizzy altitude to that battery which had +just come out from England. Sir John walked up and down, looking +over men and guns after their nine months' drill at home, and said, +"Very good!" and was away to other inspections where he might not +necessarily say, "Very good!" + +Frequently his inspections are formal. A battalion or a brigade is +drawn up in a field, or they march past. Then he usually makes a +short speech. On one occasion the officers had arranged a platform +for the speech-making. Sir John gave it a glance and that was +enough. It was the last of such platforms erected for him. + +"Inspections! They are second nature to us!" said a new army man. +"We were inspected and inspected at home and we are inspected +and inspected out here. If there is anything wrong with us it is the +general's own fault if it isn't found out. When a general is not +inspecting, some man from the medical corps is disinfecting." + +Battalions of the new army are frequently billeted for two or three +days in our village. The barn up the road I know is capable of housing +twenty men and one officer, for this is chalked on .the door. Before +they turn in for the night the men frequently sing, and the sound of +their voices is pleasant. + +A typical inspection was one that I saw in the main street. The +battalion was drawn up in full marching equipment on the road. Of +those officers with packs on their backs one was only nineteen. This +is the limit of youth to acquire a chocolate drop on the sleeve. The +sergeant-major was an old regular, the knowing back-bone of the +battalion, who had taken the men of clay and taught them their letters +and then how to spell and to add and subtract and divide. One of +those impressive red caps arrived in a car, and the general who wore +it went slowly up and down the line, front and rear, examining rifles +and equipment, while the young officers and the old sergeant were +hoping that Jones or Smith hadn't got some dust in his rifle-barrel at +the last moment. + +Brokers and carpenters, bankers and mechanics, clerks and +labourers, the new army is like the army of France, composed of all +classes. One evening I had a chat with two young fellows in a +battalion quartered in the village, who were seated beside the road. +Both came from Buckinghamshire. One was a schoolmaster and the +other an architect. They were "bunkies," pals, chums. + +"When did you enlist?" I asked. + +"In early September, after the Marne retreat. We thought that it was +our duty, then; but we've been a long time arriving." + +"How do you like it?" + +"We are not yet masters of the language, we find," said the +schoolmaster, "though I had a pretty good book knowledge of it." + +"I'm learning the gestures fast, though," said the architect. + +"The French are glad to see us," said the schoolmaster. "They call us +the Keetcheenaires. I fancy they thought we were a long time coming. +But now we are here, I think they will find that we can keep up our +end." + +They had the fresh complexions which come from healthy, outdoor +work. There was something engaging in their boyishness and their +views. For they had a wider range of interests than that professional +soldier, Mr. Atkins, these citizens who had taken up arms. They knew +what trench-fighting meant by work in practice trenches at home. + +"Of course it will not be quite the same; theory and practice never +are," said the schoolmaster. + +"We ought to be well grounded in the principles," said the architect +thoughtfully, "and they say that in a week or two of actual experience +you will have mastered the details that could not be taught in +England. Then, too, having shells burst around you will be strange at +first. But I think our battalion will give a good account of itself, sir. +All the Bucks men have!" There crept in the pride of regiment, of +locality, which is so characteristically Anglo-Saxon. + +They change life at the front, these new army men. If a carpenter, a +lawyer, a sign-painter, an accountant, is wanted, you have only to +speak to a new army battalion commander and one is forthcoming--a +millionaire, too, for that matter, who gets his shilling a day for serving +his country. Their intelligence permitted the architect and the +schoolmaster to have no illusions about the character of the war they +had to face. The pity was that such a fine force as the new army, +which had not become trench stale, could not have a free space in +which to make a great turning movement, instead of having to go +against that solid battle front from Switzerland to the North Sea. + +We have heard enough--quite enough for most of us?--about the +German Crown Prince. But there is also a prince with the British army +in France. No lieutenant looks younger for his years than this one in +the Grenadier Guards, and he seems of the same type as the others +when you see him marching with his regiment or off for a walk +smoking a brier-wood pipe. There are some officers who would rather +not accompany him on his walks, for he can go fast and far. He +makes regular reports of his observations, and he has opportunities +for learning which other subalterns lack, for he may have both the +staff and the army as personal instructors. Otherwise, his life is that of +any other subaltern; for there is an instrument called the British +Constitution which regulates many things. A little shy, very desirous to +learn, is Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne of Great +Britain and Ireland and the Empire of India. He might be called the +willing prince. + +This was one of the shells that hit--one of the hundred that hit. The +time was summer; the place, the La Bassée region. Probably the +fighting was all the harder here because it is so largely blind. When +you cannot see what an enemy is doing you keep on pumping shells +into the area which he occupies; you take no risks with him. + +The visitor may see about as much of what is going on in the La +Bassée region as an ant can see of the surrounding landscape when +promenading in the grass. The only variation in the flatness of the +land is the overworked ditches which try to drain it. Look upward, and +rows of poplar trees along the level, and a hedge, a grove, a cottage, +or trees and shrubs around it, limit your vision. Thus, if a breeze starts +timidly in a field it is stopped before it goes far. That "hot corner" is +all the hotter for a burning July sun. The army water-carts which run +back to wells of cool water are busy filling empty canteens, while +shrapnel trims the hedges. + +A stretcher was being borne into the doorway of an estaminet which +had escaped destruction by shells, and above the door was chalked +some lettering which indicated that it was a first clearing station for the +wounded. Lying on other stretchers on the floor were some wounded +men. Of the two nearest, one had a bandage around his head and +one a bandage around his arm. They had been stunned, which was +only natural when you have been as close as they had to a shell- +burst--a shell that made a hit. The concussion was bound to have this +effect. + +A third man was the best illustration of shell-destructiveness. Bullets +make only holes. Shells make gouges, fractures, pulp. He, too, had a +bandaged head and had been hit in several places; but the worst +wound was in the leg, where an artery had been cut. He was weak, +with a sort of where-am-I look in his eyes. If the fragment which had +hit his leg had hit his head, or his neck, or his abdomen, he would +have been killed instantly. He was also an illustration of how hard it is +to kill a man even with several shell-fragments, unless some of them +strike in the right place. For he was going to live; the surgeon had +whispered the fact in his ear, that one important fact. He had beaten +the German shell, after all. + +Returning by the same road by which we came a motor-car ran swiftly +by, the only kind of car allowed on that road. We had a glimpse of the +big, painted red cross on an ambulance side, and at the rear, where +the curtains were rolled up for ventilation, of four pairs of soldier boot- +soles at the end of four stretchers, which had been slid into place at +the estaminet by the sturdy, kindly, experienced medical corps men. + +Before we reached the village where our car waited, the ambulance +passed us on the way back to the estaminet. Very soon after the +shell-burst, a telephone bell had rung down the line from the extreme +front calling for an ambulance and stating the number of men hit, so +that everybody would know what to prepare for. At the village, which +was outside the immediate danger zone, was another clearing +station. Here the stretchers were taken into a house--taken without a +jolt by men who were specialists in handling stretchers--for any re- +dressing if necessary, before another ambulance started journey, +with motor-trucks and staff motor-cars giving right of way, to a +spotless, white hospital ship which would take them home to England +the next night. + +It had been an incident of life at the front, and of the organization of +war, causing less flurry than an ambulance call to an accident in a +great city. + + + +XXVI +Finding The Grand Fleet + + + +Good fortune slipped a message across the Channel to the British +front, which became the magic carpet of transition from the life of the +burrowing army in its trenches to the life of battleships; from motors +trailing dust over French roads, to destroyers trailing foam in choppy +seas off English coasts. + +But there was more than one place to go in that wonderful week; +more than ships to see if one would know something of the intricate, +busy world of the Admiralty's work, which makes coastguards a part +of its personnel. The transition is less sudden if we begin with a ride in +an open car along the coast of Scotland. Dusk had fallen on the +purple cloudlands of heather dotted with the white spots of grazing +sheep in the Scottish Highlands under changing skies, with +headlands stretching out into the misty reaches of the North Sea, +forbidding in the chill air after the warmth of France and suggestive of +the uninviting theatre where, in approaching winter, patrols and +trawlers and mine-sweepers carried on their work to within range of +the guns of Heligoland. A people who lived in such a chill land, in +sight of such a chill sea, and who spoke of their "Bonnie Scotland +forever," were worthy to be masters of that sea. The Americans who +think of Britain as a small island forget the distance from Land's End +to John o' Groat's, which represents coast line to be guarded; and we +may find a lesson, too, we who must make our real defence by sea, +in tireless vigils which may be our own if the old Armageddon beast +ever comes threatening the far-longer coast line that we have to +defend. For you may never know what war is till war comes. Not even +the Germans knew, though they had practised with a lifelike dummy +behind the curtains for forty years. + +At intervals, just as in the military zone in France, sentries stopped us +and took the number of our car; but this time sentries who were +guarding a navy's rather than an army's secrets. With darkness we +passed the light of an occasional inn, while cottage lights made a +scattered sprinkling among the dim masses of the hills. A man might +have been puzzled as to where all the kilted Highland soldiers whom +he had seen at the front came from, if he had not known that the +canny Highlanders enlist Lowlanders in kilty regiments. + +The Frenchmen of our party--M. Stephen Pichon, former Foreign +Minister, M. René Bazin, of the Académie Française, M. Joseph +Reinach, of the Figaro, M. Pierre Mille, of Le Temps, and M. Henri +Ponsot--who had never been in Scotland before, were on the look out +for a civilian Scots in kilts and were grievously disappointed not to find +a single one. + +This night ride convinced me that however many Germans might be +moving about in England under the guise of cockney or of Lancashire +dialects in quest of information, none has any chance in Scotland. He +could never get the burr, I am sure, unless born in Scotland; and if he +were, once he had it the triumph ought to make him a Scotsman at +heart. + +The officer of the Royal Navy who was in the car with me confessed +to less faith in his symbol of authority than in the generations' bred +burr of our chauffeur to carry conviction of our genuineness; so +arguments were left to him and successfully, including two or three +with Scotch cattle, which seemed to be co-operating with the sentries +to block the road. + +After an hour's run inland, as the car rose over a ridge and +descended on a sharp grade, in the distance under the moonlight we +saw the floor of the sea again, melting into opaqueness, with curving +fringes of foam along the irregular shore cut by the indentations of the +firths. Now the sentries were more frequent and more particular. Our +single light gave dim form to the figures of sailors, soldiers, and boy +scouts on patrol. + +"They have done remarkably well, these boys!" said the officer. "Our +fears that, boy like, they would see all kinds of things which didn't +exist were quite needless. The work has taught them a sense of +responsibility which will remain with them after the war, when their +experience will be a precious memory. They realize that it isn't play, +but a serious business, and act accordingly." + +With all the houses and the countryside dark, the rays of our lamp +seemed an invading comet to the men who held up lanterns with red +twinkles of warning. + +"The patrol boats have complained about your lights, sir!" said one +obdurate sentry. + +We looked out into the black wall in the direction of the sea and could +see no sign of a patrol boat. How had it been able to inform this lone +sentry of that flying ray which disclosed the line of a coastal road to +anyone at sea? He would not accept the best argumentative burr that +our chauffeur could produce as sufficient explanation or guarantee. +Most Scottish of Scots in physiognomy and shrewd matter-of- +factness, as revealed in the glare of the lantern, he might have been +on watch in the Highland fastnesses in Prince Charlie's time. + +"Captain R------, of the Royal Navy!" explained the officer, introducing +himself. + +"I'll take your name and address!" said the sentry. + +"The Admiralty. I take the responsibility." + +"As I'll report, sir!" said the sentry, not so convinced but he burred +something further into the chauffeur's ear. + +This seems to have little to do with the navy, but it has much, indeed, +as a part of unfathomable, complicated business of guards within +guards, intelligence battling with intelligence, deceiving raiders by +land or sea, of those responsible for the safety of England and the +mastery of the seas. + +It is from the navy yard that the ships go forth to battle and to the +navy yard they must return for supplies and for the grooming beat of +hammers in the dry dock. Those who work at a navy yard keep the +navy's house; welcome home all the family, from Dreadnoughts to +trawlers, give them cheer and shelter and bind up their wounds. + +The quarter-deck of action for Admiral Lowry, commanding the great +base on the Forth, which was begun before the war and hastened to +completion since, was a substantial brick building. Adjoining his office, +where he worked with engineers' blue prints as well as with sea +charts, he had fitted up a small bedroom where he slept, to be at +hand if an emergency arose. + +Partly we walked, as he showed us over his domain of steam- +shovels, machine shops, cement factories, of building and repairs, of +coaling and docking, and partly we rode on a car that ran over +temporary rails laid for trucks loaded with rocks and dirt. Borrowing +from Peter to pay Paul, a river bottom had been filled in back of the +quays with material that had been excavated to form a vast basin with +cement walls, where squadrons of Dreadnoughts might rest and +await their turn to be warped into the great dry docks which open off it +in chasmlike galleries. + +"The largest contract in all England," said the contractor. "And here is +the man who checks up my work," he added, nodding to the lean, +Scottish naval engineer who was with us. It was clear from his looks +that only material of the best quality and work that was true would be +acceptable to this canny mentor of efficiency, "And the workers? +Have you had any strikes here?" + +"No. We have employed double the usual number of men from the +start of the war," he said. "I'm afraid that the Welsh coal troubles have +been accepted as characteristic. Our men have been reasonable and +patriotic. They have shown the right spirit. If they hadn't, how could +we have accomplished that?" + +We were looking down into the depths of a dry dock blasted out of the +rock, which had been begun and completed within the year. And we +had heard nothing of all this through those twelve months! No writer, +no photographer, chronicled this silent labour! Double lines of guards +surrounded the place day and night. Only tried patriots might enter +this world of a busy army in smudged workmen's clothes, bending to +their tasks with that ordered discipline of industrialism which wears no +uniforms, marches without beat of drums, and toils that the ships +shall want nothing to ensure victory. + + + + +XXVII +On A Destroyer + + + +Now we were on our way to the great thing--to our look behind the +curtain at the hidden hosts of sea-power. Of some eight hundred tons +burden our steed, doing eighteen knots, which was a dog-trot for one +of her speed. + +"A destroyer is like a motor-car," said the commander. "If you rush +her all the time she wears out. We give her the limit only when +necessary." + +On the bridge the zest of travel on a dolphin of steel held the bridle on +eagerness to reach the journey's end. We all like to see things well +done, and here one had his first taste of how well things are done in +the British navy, which did not have to make ready for war after the +war began. With an open eye one went, and the experience of other +navies as a balance for his observation; but one lost one's heart to +the British navy and might as well confess it now. A six months' cruise +with our own battleship fleet was a proper introduction to the +experience. + +After the arduous monotony of the trenches and after the traffic of +London, it was freedom and sport and ecstasy to be there, with the +rush of salt air on the face! Our commander was under thirty years of +age; and that destroyer responded to his will like a stringed +instrument. He seemed a part of her, her nerves welded to his. + +"Specialized in torpedo work," he said, in answer to a question. "That +is the way of the British navy: to learn one thing well before you go on +with another. If in the course of it you learn how to command, larger +responsibilities await you. If not--there's retired pay." + +Behind a shield which sheltered them from the spray on the forward +deck, significantly free of everything but that four-inch gun, its crew +was stationed. The commander had only to lean over and speak +through a tube and give a range, and the music began. For the tube +was bifurcated at the end to an ear-mask over a youngster's head; a +youngster who had real sailor's smiling blue eyes, like the +commander's own. For hours he would sit waiting in the hope that +game would be sighted. No fisherman could be more patient or more +cheerful. + +"Before he came into the navy he was a chauffeur. He likes this," said +the commander. + +"In case of a submarine you do not want to lose any time; is that it?" + +"Yes," he replied. "You never can tell when we might have a chance +to put a shot into Fritz's periscope or ram him--Fritz is our name for +submarines." + +Were all the commanders of destroyers up to his mark? How many +more had the British navy caught young and trained to such +quickness of decision and in the art of imparting it to his men? + +Three hundred revolutions! The destroyer changed speed. Five +hundred! She changed speed again. Out of the mist in the distance +flashed a white ribbon knot that seemed to be tied to a destroyer's +bow and behind it another destroyer, and still others, lean, catlike, but +running as if legless, with greased bodies sliding over the sea. We +snapped out a message to them and they answered like passing +birds on the wing, before they swept out of sight behind a headland +with uncanny ease of speed. Literal swarms of destroyers England +had running to and fro in the North Sea, keen for the chase and too +quick at dodging and too fast to be in any danger of the under-water +dagger thrust of the assassins whom they sought. There cannot be +too many. They are the eyes of the navy; they gather information and +carry a sting in their torpedo tubes. + + + +It was chilly there on the bridge, with the prospect too entrancing not +to remain even if one froze. But here stepped in naval preparedness +with thick, short coats of llama wool. + +"Served out to all the men last winter, when we were in the thick of it +patrolling," the commander explained. "You'll not get cold in that!" + +"And yourself?" was suggested to the commander. + +"Oh, it is not cold enough for that in September! We're hardened to it. +You come from the land and feel the change of air; we are at sea all +the time," he replied, He was without a great-coat; and the ease with +which he held his footing made landlubbers feel their awkwardness. + +A jumpy, uncertain tidal sea was running. Yet our destroyer slipped +over the waves, cut through them, played with them, and let them +seem to play with her, all the while laughing at them in the confident +power of her softly purring vitals. + +"Look out!" which at the front in France was a signal to jump for a +"funk pit." We ducked, as a cloud of spray passed above the heavy +canvas and clattered like hail against the smokestack. "There won't +be any more!" said the commander. He was right. He knew that +passage. One wondered if he did not know every gallon of water in +the North Sea, which he had experienced in all its moods. + +Sheltered by the smokestack down on the main deck, one of our +party, who loved not the sea for its own sake, but endured it as a +passageway to the sight of the Grand Fleet, had found warmth, if not +comfort. Not for him that invitation to come below given by the chief +engineer, who rose out of a round hole with a pleasant "How d'y' do!" +air to get a sniff of the fresh breeze, wizard of the mysterious power of +the turbines which sent the destroyer marching so noiselessly. He +was the one who transferred the commander's orders into that +symphony in mechanism. Turn a lever and you had a dozen more +knots; not with a leap or a jerk, but like a cat's sleek stretching of +muscles. Not by the slightest tremor did you realize the acceleration; +only by watching some stationary object as you flew past. + +Now a sweep of smooth water at the entrance to a harbour, and a +turn--and there it was: the sea-power of England! + + + + +XXVIII +Ships That Have Fought + + + +But was that really it--that spread of greyish blue-green dots set on a +huge greyish blue-green platter? One could not discern where ships +began and water and sky which held them suspended left off. +Invisible fleet it had been called. At first glance it seemed to be +composed of phantoms, baffling, absorbing the tone of its +background. Admiralty secrecy must be the result of a naval dislike of +publicity. + +Still as if they were rooted, these leviathans! How could such a shy, +peaceful-looking array send out broadsides of twelve and thirteen-five +and fifteen-inch shells? What a paradise for a German submarine! +Each ship seemed an inviting target. Only there were many gates +and doors to the paradise, closed to all things that travel on and +under the water without a proper identification. Submarines that had +tried to pick one of the locks were like the fish who found going good +into the trap. A submarine had about the same chance of reaching +that anchorage as a German in the uniform of the Death's Head +Hussars, with a bomb under his arm, of reaching the vaults of the +Bank of England. + +And was this all of the greatest naval force ever gathered under a +single command, these two or three lines of ships? But as the +destroyer drew nearer the question changed. How many more? Was +there no end to greyish blue-green monsters, in order as precise as +the trees of a California orchard, that appeared out of the greyish +blue-green background? First to claim attention was the Queen +Elizabeth, with her eight fifteen-inch guns on a platform which could +travel at nearly the speed of the average railroad train. + +The contrast of sea and land warfare appealed the more vividly to +one fresh from the front in France. What infinite labour for an army to +get one big gun into position! How heralded the snail-like travels of +the big German howitzer! Here was ship after ship, whose guns +seemed innumerable. One found it hard to realize the resisting power +of their armour, painted to look as liquid as the sea, and the stability +of their construction, which was able to bear the strain of firing the +great shells that travelled ten miles to their target. + +Sea-power, indeed! And world-power, too, there in the hollow of a +nation's hand, to throw in whatever direction she pleased. If an +American had a lump in his throat at the thought of what it meant, +what might it not mean to an Englishman? Probably the Englishman +would say, "I think that the fleet is all right, don't you?" + +Land-power, too! On the continent vast armies wrestled for some +square miles of earth. France has, say, three million soldiers; +Germany, five; Austria, four--and England had, perhaps, a hundred +thousand men, perhaps more, on board this fleet which defended the +English land and lands far overseas without firing a shot. A battalion +of infantry is more than sufficient in numbers to man a Dreadnought. +How precious, then, the skill of that crew! Man-power is as +concentrated as gun-power with a navy. Ride three hundred miles in +a motor-car along an army front, with glimpses of units of soldiers, +and you have seen little of a modern army. Here, moving down the +lanes that separated these grey fighters, one could compass the +whole! + +Four gold letters, spelling the word Lion, awakened the imagination to +the actual fact of the Bluecher turning her bottom skyward before she +sank off the Dogger Bank under the fire of the guns of the Lion and +the Tiger astern of her, and the Princess Royal and the New Zealand, +of the latest fashion in battle-cruiser squadrons which are known as +the "cat" squadron. This work brought them into their own; proved +how the British, who built the first Dreadnought, have kept a little +ahead of their rivals in construction. With almost the gun-power of +Dreadnoughts, better than three to two against the best battleships, +with the speed of cruisers and capable of overpowering cruisers, or of +pursuing any battleship, or getting out of range, they can run or strike, +as they please. + +Ascend that gangway, so amazingly clean, as were the decks above +and below and everything about the Lion or the Tiger, and you were +on board one of the few major ships which had been under heavy +fire. Her officers and men knew what modern naval war was like; her +guns knew the difference between the wall of cloth of a towed target +and an enemy's wall of armour. + +In the battle of Tsushima Straits, Russian and Japanese ships had +fought at three and four thousand yards and closed into much shorter +range. Since then, we had had the new method of marksmanship. +Tsushima ceased to be a criterion. The Dogger Bank multiplied the +range by five. A hundred years since England, all the while the most +powerfully armed nation at sea, had been in a naval war of the first +magnitude; and to the Lion and the Tiger had come the test. The +Germans said that they had sunk the Tiger; but the Tiger afloat +purred a contented denial. + +You could not fail to identify among the group of officers on the +quarter-deck Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty, for his victory had +impressed his features on the public's eye. Had his portrait not +appeared in the press, one would have been inclined to say that a +first lieutenant had put on a vice-admiral's coat by mistake. He was +about the age of the first lieutenant of one of our battleships. Even as +it was, one was inclined to exclaim: "There is some mistake! You are +too young!" The Who is Who book says that he is all of forty-four +years old and it must be right, though it disagrees with his +appearance by five years. + +A vice-admiral at forty-four! A man who is a rear-admiral with us at +fifty-five is very precocious. And all the men around him were young. +The British navy did not wait for war to teach again the lesson of +"youth for action!" They saved time by putting youth in charge at +once. + +Their simple uniforms, the directness, alertness, and definiteness of +these officers who had been with a fleet ready for a year to go into +battle on a minute's notice, was in keeping with their surroundings of +decks cleared for action and the absence of anything which did not +suggest that hitting a target was the business of their life. + +"I had heard that you took your admirals from the schoolroom," said +one of the Frenchmen, "but I begin to believe that it is the nursery." + +Night and day they must be on watch. No easy chairs; their shop is +their home. They must have the vitality that endures a strain. One +error in battle by any one of them might wreck the British Empire. + +It is difficult to write about any man-of-war and not be technical; for +everything about her seems technical and mechanical except the fact +that she floats. Her officers and crew are engaged in work which is +legerdemain to the civilian. + +"Was it like what you thought it would be after all your training for a +naval action?" one asked. + +"Yes, quite; pretty much as we reasoned it out," was the reply. +"Indeed, this was the most remarkable thing. It was battle practice-- +with the other fellow shooting at you!" + +The fire-control officers, who were aloft, all agreed about one +unexpected sensation, which had not occurred to any expert +scientifically predicting what action would be like. They are the only +ones who may really "see" the battle in the full sense. + +"When the shells burst against the armour," said one of these +officers, "the fragments were visible as they flew about. We had a +desire, in the midst of preoccupation with our work, to reach out and +catch them. Singular mental phenomenon, wasn't it?" + +At eight or nine thousand yards one knew that the modern battleship +could tear a target to pieces. But eighteen thousand--was accuracy +possible at that distance? + +"Did one in five German shells hit at that range?" I asked. + +"No!" + +Or in ten? No! In twenty? Still no, though less decisively. You got a +conviction, then, that the day of holding your fire until you were close +in enough for a large percentage of hits was past. Accuracy was still +vital and decisive, but generic accuracy. At eighteen thousand yards +all the factors which send a thousand or fifteen hundred or two +thousand pounds of steel that long distance cannot be so gauged +that each one will strike in exactly the same line when ten issue from +the gun-muzzles in a broadside. But if one out of twenty is on at +eighteen thousand yards, it may mean a turret out of action. Again, +four or five might hit, or none. So, no risk of waiting may be taken, in +face of the danger of a chance shot at long range. It was a chance +shot which struck the Lion's feed tank and disabled her and kept the +cat squadron from doing to the other German cruisers what they had +done to the Bluecher. + +"And the noise of it to you aloft, spotting the shots?" I suggested. "It +must have been a lonely place in such a tornado." + +"Yes. Besides the crashing blasts from our own guns we had the +screams of the shells that went over and the cataracts of water from +those short sprinkling the ship with spray. But this was what one +expected. Everything was what one expected, except that desire to +catch the fragments. Naturally, one was too busy to think much of +anything except the enemy's ships--to learn where your shells were +striking." + +"You could tell?" + +"Yes--just as well and better than at target practice; for the target was +larger and solid. It was enthralling, this watching the flight of our +shells toward their target." Where were the scars from the wounds? +One looked for them on both the Lion and the Tiger. An armour patch +on the sloping top of a turret might have escaped attention if it had not +been pointed out. A shell struck there and a fair blow, too. And what +happened inside? Was the turret gear put out of order? + +To one who has lived in a wardroom a score of questions were on the +tongue's end. The turret is the basket which holds the precious eggs. +A turret out of action means two guns out of action; a broken knuckle +for the pugilist. + +Constructors have racked their brains over the subject of turrets in +the old contest between gun-power and protection. Too much gun- +power, too little armour! Too much armour, too little gun-power! +Finally, results depend on how good is your armour, how sound your +machinery which rotates the turret. That shell did not go through +bodily, only a fragment, which killed one man and wounded another. +The turret would still rotate; the other gun kept in action and the one +under the shell-burst was soon back in action. Very satisfactory to the +naval constructors. + +Up and down the all but perpendicular steel ladders with their narrow +steps, and through the winding passages below decks in those cities +of steel, one followed his guide, receiving so much information and so +many impressions that he was confused as to details between the +two veterans, the Lion, which was hit fifteen times, and the Tiger, +which was hit eight. Wherever you went every square inch of space +and every bit of equipment seemed to serve some purpose. + +A beautiful hit, indeed, was that into a small hooded aperture where +an observer looked out from a turret. He was killed and another man +took his place. Fresh armour and no sign of where the shot had +struck. Then below, into a compartment between the side of the ship +and the armoured barbette which protects the delicate machinery for +feeding shells and powder from the magazine deep below the water +to the guns. + +"H----was killed here. Impact of the shell passing through the outer +plates burst it inside; and, of course, the fragments struck harmlessly +against the barbette." + +"Bang in the dug-out!" one exclaimed, from army habit. + +"Precisely! No harm done next door." + +Trench traverses and "funk-pit shelters" for localizing the effects of +shell-bursts are the terrestrial expression of marine construction. No +one shell happened to get many men either on the Lion or the Tiger. +But the effect of the burst was felt in the passages, for the air- +pressure is bound to be pronounced in enclosed spaces which allow +of little room for expansion of the gases. + +Then up more ladders out of the electric light into the daylight, +hugging a wall of armour whose thickness was revealed in the cut +made for the small doorway which you were bidden to enter. Now you +were in one of the brain-centres of the ship, where the action is +directed. Through slits in that massive shelter of the hardest steel one +had a narrow view. Above them on the white wall were silhouetted +diagrams of the different types of German ships, which one found in +all observing stations. They were the most popular form of mural +decoration in the British navy. + +Underneath the slits was a literal panoply of the brass fittings of +speaking-tubes and levers and push-buttons, which would have +puzzled even the "Hello, Central" girl. To look at them revealed +nothing more than the eye saw; nothing more than the face of a +watch reveals of the character of its works. There was no telling how +they ran in duplicate below the water line or under the protection of +armour to the guns and the engines. + +"We got one in here, too. It was a good one!" said the host. + +"Junk, of course," was how he expressed the result. Here, too, a man +stepped forward to take the place of the man who was killed, just as +the first lieutenant takes the place of a captain of infantry who falls. +With the whole telephone apparatus blown off the wall, as it were, +how did he communicate? + +"There!" The host pointed toward an opening at his feet. If that failed +there was still another way. In the final alternative, each turret could +go on firing by itself. So the Germans must have done on the Bluecher +and on the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst in their last ghastly +moments of bloody chaos. + +"If this is carried away and then that is, why, then, we have------" as +one had often heard officers say on board our own ships. But that +was hypothesis. Here was demonstration, which made a glimpse of +the Lion and the Tiger so interesting. The Lion had had a narrow +escape from going down after being hit in the feed tank; but once in +dry dock, all her damaged parts had been renewed. Particularly it +required imagination to realize that this tower had ever been struck; +visually more convincing was a plate elsewhere which had been left +unpainted, showing a spatter of dents from shell-fragments. + +"We thought that we ought to have something to prove that we had +been in battle," said the host. "I think I've shown all the hits. There +were not many." + +Having seen the results of German gun-fire, we were next to see the +methods of British gun-fire; something of the guns and the men who +did things to the Germans. I stooped under the overhang of the turret +armour from the barbette and climbed up through an opening which +allowed no spare room for the generously built, and out of the dim +light appeared the glint of the massive steel breech block and gun, +set in its heavy recoil mountings with roots of steel supports sunk into +the very structure of the ship. It was like other guns of the latest +improved type; but it had been in action, and you kept thinking of this +fact which gave it a sort of majestic prestige. You wished that it might +look a little different from the others, as the right of a veteran. + +As the plugman swung the breech open I had in mind a giant +plugman on the U.S.S. Connecticut whom I used to watch at drills +and target practice. Shall I ever forget the flash in his eye if there +were a fraction of a second's delay in the firing after the breech had +gone home! The way in which he made that enormous block obey his +touch in oily obsequiousness suggested the apotheosis of the whole +business of naval war. I don't know whether the plugman of H.M.S. +Lion or the plugman of the U.S.S. Connecticut was the better. It would +take a superman to improve on either. + +Like the block, it seemed as if the man knew only the movements of +the drill; as if he had been bred and his muscles formed for that. You +could conceive of him as playing diavolo with that breech. He +belonged to the finest part of all the machinery, the human element, +which made the parts of a steel machine play together in a beautiful +harmony. + +The plugman's is the most showy part; others playing equally +important parts are in the cavern below the turret; and most important +of all is that of the man who keeps the gun on the target, whose true +right eye may send twenty-five thousand tons of battleship to +perdition. No one eye of any enlisted man can be as important as the +gun-layer's. His the eye and the nerve trained as finely as the +plugman's muscles. He does nothing else, thinks of nothing else. In +common with painters and poets, gun-layers are born with a gift, and +that gift is trained and trained and trained. It seems simple to keep +right on, but it is not. Try twenty men in the most rudimentary test and +you will find that it is not; then think of the nerve it takes to keep +right on in battle, with your ship shaken by the enemy's hit. + +How long had the plugman been on his job? Six years. And the gun- +layer? Seven. Twelve years is the term of enlistment in the British +navy. Not too fast but thoroughly is the British way. The idea is to +make a plugman or a gun-layer the same kind of expert as a master +artisan in any other walk of life, by long service and selection. + +None of all the men serving these guns from the depths to the turret +saw anything of the battle, except the gun-layer. It was easier for +them than for him to be letter-perfect in the test, as he had to guard +against the exhilaration of having an enemy's ship instead of a cloth +target under his eye. Super-drilled he was to that eventuality; super- +drilled all the others through the years, till each one knew his part as +well as one knows how to turn the key of a drawer in his desk. Used +to the shock of the discharges of their own guns at battle practice, +many of the crew did not even know that their ship was hit, so +preoccupied was each with his own duty and the need of going on +with it until an order or a shell's havoc stopped him. Every mind was +closed except to the thing which had been so established by drill in +his nature that he did it instinctively. + +A few minutes later one was looking down from the upper bridge on +the top of this turret and the black-lined planking of the deck eighty- +five feet below, with the sweep of the firm lines of the sides +converging toward the bow on the background of the water. Suddenly +the ship seemed to have grown large, impressive; her structure had a +rocklike solidity. Her beauty was in her unadorned strength. One was +absorbing the majesty of a city from a cathedral tower after having +been it its thoroughfares and seen the detail of its throbbing industry. + +Beyond the Lion's bow were more ships, and port and starboard and +aft were still more ships. The compass range filled the eye with the +stately precision of the many squadrons and divisions of leviathans. +One could see all the fleet. This seemed to be the scenic climax; but +it was not, as we were to learn later when we should see the fleet go +to sea. Then we were to behold the mountains on the march. + +You glanced back at the deck and around the bridge with a sort of +relief. The infinite was making you dizzy. You wanted to be in touch +with the finite again. But it is the writer, not the practical, hardened +seaman, who is affected in this way. To the seaman, here was a +battle-cruiser with her sister battle-cruisers astern, and there around +her were Dreadnoughts of different types and pre-Dreadnoughts and +cruisers and all manner of other craft which could fight each in its +way, each representing so much speed and so much metal which +could be thrown a certain distance. + +"Homogeneity!" Another favourite word, I remember, from our own +wardrooms. Here it was applied in the large. No experimental ships +there, no freak variations of type, but each successive type as a unit +of action. Homogeneous, yes--remorselessly homogeneous. The +British do not simply build some ships; they build a navy. And of +course the experts are not satisfied with it; if they were, the British +navy would be in a bad way. But a layman was; he was overwhelmed. + +From this bridge of the Lion on the morning of the 24th of January, +1915, Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty saw appear on the horizon a +sight inexpressibly welcome to any commander who has scoured the +seas in the hope that the enemy will come out in the open and give +battle. Once that German battle-cruiser squadron had slipped across +the North Sea and, under cover of the mist which has ever been the +friend of the pirate, bombarded the women and children of +Scarborough and the Hartle-pools with shells meant to be fired at +hardened adult males sheltered behind armour; and then, thanks to +the mist, they had slipped back to Heligoland with cheering news to +the women and children of Germany. This time when they came out +they encountered a British battle-cruiser squadron of superior speed +and power, and they had to fight as they ran for home. + +Now, the place of an admiral is in his conning tower after he has +made his deployments and the firing has begun. He, too, is a part of +the machine; his position defined, no less than the plugman's and the +gun-layer's. Sir David watched the ranging shots which fell short at +first, until finally they were on, and the Germans were beginning to +reply. When his staff warned him that he ought to go below, he put +them off with a preoccupied shake of his head. He could not resist the +temptation to remain where he was, instead of being shut up looking +through the slits of a visor. + +But an admiral is as vulnerable to shell-fragments as a midshipman, +and the staff did its duty, which had been thought out beforehand like +everything else. The argument was on their side; the commander +really had none on his. It was then that Vice-Admiral Beatty sent Sir +David Beatty to the conning tower, much to the personal disgust of +Sir David, who envied the observing officers aloft their free sweep of +vision. + +Youth in Sir David's case meant suppleness of limb as well as youth's +spirit and dash. When the Lion was disabled by the shot in her feed +tank and had to fall out of line, Sir David must transfer his flag. He +signalled for his destroyer, the Attack. When she came alongside he +did not wait for a ladder, but jumped on board her from the deck of +the Lion. An aged vice-admiral with chalky bones might have broken +some of them, or at least received a shock to his presence of mind. + +Before he left the Lion Sir David had been the first to see the +periscope of a German submarine in the distance, which sighted the +wounded ship as inviting prey. Officers of the Lion dwelt more on the +cruise home than on the battle. It was a case of being towed at five +knots an hour by the Indomitable. If ever submarines had a fair +chance to show what they could do it was then against that battleship +at a snail's pace. But it is one thing to torpedo a merchant craft and +another to get a major fighting ship, bristling with torpedo defence +guns and surrounded by destroyers. The Lion reached port without +further injury. + + + + +XXIX +On The "Inflexible" + + + +What Englishman, let alone an American, knows the names of even +all the British Dreadnoughts? With a few exceptions, the units of the +Grand Fleet seem anonymous. The Warspite was quite unknown to +the fame which her sister ship the Queen Elizabeth had won. For +"Lizzie" was back in the fold from the Dardanelles; and so was the +Inflexible, heroine of the battle of the Falkland Islands. Of all the ships +which Sir John Jellicoe had sent away on special missions, the +Inflexible had had the grandest Odyssey. She, too, had been at the +Dardanelles. + +The Queen Elizabeth was disappointing so far as wounds went. She +had been so much in the public eye that one expected to find her +badly battered, and she had suffered little, indeed, for the amount of +sport she had had in tossing her fifteen-inch shells across the Gallipoli +peninsula into the Turkish batteries and the amount of risk she had +run from Turkish mines. Some of these monsters contained only +eleven thousand shrapnel bullets. A strange business for a fifteen- +inch naval gun to be firing shrapnel. A year ago no one could have +imagined that one day the most powerful British ship, built with the +single thought of overwhelming an enemy's Dreadnought, would ever +be trying to force the Dardanelles. + +The trouble was that she could not fire an army corps ashore along +with her shells to take possession of the land after she had put +batteries out of action. She had some grand target practice; she +escaped the mines; she kept out of reach of the German shells, and +returned to report to Sir John with just enough scars to give zest to +the recollection of her extraordinary adventure. All the fleet was +relieved to see her back in her proper place. It is not the business of +super-Dreadnoughts to be steaming around mine-fields, but to be +surrounded by destroyers and light cruisers and submarines +safeguarding her giant guns, which are depressed and elevated as +easily as if they were drum-sticks. One had an abrasion, a tracery of +dents. + +"That was from a Turkish shell," said an officer. "And you are standing +where a shell hit." + +I looked down to see an irregular outline of fresh planking. + +"An accident when we did not happen to be out of their reach. We +had the range of them," he added. + +"The range of them" is a great phrase. Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee +used it in speaking of the battle of the Falkland Islands. "The range of +them" seems a sure prescription for victory. Nothing in all the history +of the war appeals to me as quite so smooth a bit of tactics as the +Falkland affair. It was so smooth that it was velvety; and it is worth +telling again, as I understand it. Sir Frederick is another young +admiral. Otherwise, how could the British navy have entrusted him +with so important a task? He is a different type from Beatty, who in an +army one judges might have been in the cavalry. Along with the +peculiar charm and alertness which we associate with sailors--they +imbibe it from the salt air and from meeting all kinds of weather and +all kinds of men, I think--he has the quality of the scholar, with a +suspicion of merriness in his eye. + +He was Chief of the War Staff at the Admiralty in the early stages of +the war, which means, I take it, that he assisted in planning the +moves on the chessboard. It fell to him to act; to apply the strategy +and tactics which he planned for others at sea while he sat at a desk. +It was his wit against von Spee's, who was not deficient in this +respect. If he had been he might not have steamed into the trap. The +trouble was that von Spee had some wit, but not enough. It would +have been better for him if he had been as guileless as a parson. + +Sir Frederick is so gentle-mannered that one would never suspect +him of a "double bluff," which was what he played on von Spee. After +von Spee's victory over Cradock, Sturdee slipped across to the South +Atlantic, without anyone knowing that he had gone, with a squadron +strong enough to do unto von Spee what von Spee had done unto +Cradock. + +But before you wing your bird you must flush him. The thing was to +find von Spee and force him to give battle; for the South Atlantic is +broad and von Spee, it is supposed, was in an Emden mood and +bent on reaching harbour in German South-West Africa, whence he +could sally out to destroy British shipping on the Cape route. When +he intercepted a British wireless message--Sturdee had left off the +sender's name and location--telling the plodding old Canopus seeking +home or assistance before von Spee overtook her, that she would be +perfectly safe in the harbour at Port William, as guns had been +erected for her protection, von Spee guessed that this was a bluff, +and rightly. But it was only Bluff Number One. He steamed to the +Falklands with a view to finishing off the old Canopus on the way +across to Africa. There he fell foul of Bluff Number Two. Sturdee did +not have to seek him; he came to Sturdee. + +There was no convenient Dogger Bank fog in that latitude to cover +his flight. Sturdee had the speed of von Spee and he had to fight. It +was the one bit of strategy of the war which is like that of the story +books and worked out as strategy always does in proper story books. +Practically the twelve-inch guns of the Inflexible and the Invincible +had only to keep their distance and hang on to the Scharnhorst and +the Gneisenau in order to do the trick. Light-weights or middle- +weights have no business trafficking with heavy-weights in naval +warfare. + +"Von Spee made a brave fight," said Sir Frederick, "but we kept him +at a distance that suited us, without letting him get out of range." + +He had had the fortune to prove an established principle in action. It +was all in the course of duty, which is the way that all the officers and +all the men look at their work. Only a few ships have had a chance to +fight, and these are emblazoned on the public memory. But they did +no better and no worse, probably, than the others would have done. If +the public singles out ships, the navy does not. Whatever is done and +whoever does it, why, it is to the credit of the family, according to the +spirit of service that promotes uniformity of efficiency. Leaders and +ships which have won renown are resolved into the whole in that +harbour where the fleet is the thing; and the good opinion they most +desire is that of their fellows. If they have that they will earn the +public's when the test comes. + +Belonging to the class of the first of battle-cruisers is the Inflexible, +which received a few taps in the Falklands and a blow that was nearly +the death of her in the Dardanelles. Tribute enough for its courage-- +the tribute of a chivalrous enemy--von Spee's squadron receives +from the officers and men of the Inflexible, who saw them go down +into the sea tinged with sunset red with their colours still flying. Then +in the sunset red the British saved as many of those afloat as they +could. + +Those dripping German officers who had seen one of their battered +turrets carried away bodily into the sea by a British twelve-inch shell, +who had endured a fury of concussions and destruction, with steel +missiles cracking steel structures into fragments, came on board the +Inflexible looking for signs of some blows delivered in return for the +crushing blows that had beaten their ships into the sea and saw none +until they were invited into the wardroom, which was in chaos--and +then they smiled. + +At least, they had sent one shell home. The sight was sweet to them, +so sweet that, in respect to the feeling of the vanquished, the victors +held silence with a knightly consideration. But where had the shell +entered? There was no sign of any hole. Then they learned that the +fire of the guns of the starboard turret midships over the wardroom, +which was on the port side, had deposited a great many things on the +floor which did not belong there; and their expression changed. Even +this comfort was taken from them. + +"We had the range of you!" the British explained. The chaplain of the +Inflexible was bound to have an anecdote. I don't know why, except +that a chaplain's is not a fighting part and he may look on. His place +was down behind the armour with the doctor, waiting for wounded. He +stood in his particular steel cave listening to the tremendous blasts of +her guns which shook the Inflexible's frame, and still no wounded +arrived. Then he ran up a ladder to the deck and had a look around +and saw the little points of the German ships with the shells sweeping +toward them and the smoke of explosions which burst on board them. +It was not the British who needed his prayers that day, but the +Germans. Personally, I think the Germans are more in need of +prayers at all times because of the damnable way they act. + +Perhaps the spirit of the Inflexible's story was best given by a +midshipman with the down still on his cheek. Considering how young +the British take their officer-beginners to sea, the admirals are not +young, at least, in point of sea service. He got more out of the action +than his elders; his impressions of the long cruises and the actions +had the vividness of boyhood. Down in one of the caves, doing his +part as the shells were sent up to feed the thundering guns above, +the whispered news of the progress of battle was passed on at +intervals till, finally, the guns were silent. Then he hurried on deck in +the elation of victory, succeeded by the desire to save those whom +they had fought. It had all been so simple; so like drill. You had only to +go on shooting--that was all. + +Yes, he had been lucky. From the Falklands to the Dardanelles, +which was a more picturesque business than the battle. Any minute +off the Straits you did not know but a submarine would have a try at +you or you might bump into a mine. And the Inflexible did bump into +one. She had two thousand tons of water on board. It was fast work +to keep the remainder of the sea from coming in, too, and the same +kind of dramatic experience as the Lion's in reaching port. Yes, he +had been very lucky. It was all a lark to that boy. + +"It never occurs to midshipmen to be afraid of anything," said one of +the officers. "The more danger, the better they like it." + +In the wardroom was a piece of the mine or the torpedo, whichever it +was, that struck the Inflexible; a strange, twisted, annealed bit of +metal. Every ship which had been in action had some souvenir which +the enemy had sent on board in anger and which was preserved with +a collector's enthusiasm. + +The Inflexible seemed as good as ever she was. Such is the way of +naval warfare. Either it is to the bottom of the sea or to dry docks and +repairs. There is nothing half-way. So it is well to take care that you +have "the range of them." + + + + +XXX +On The Fleet Flagship + + + +Thus far we have skirted around the heart of things, which in a fleet is +always the Commander-in-Chief's flagship. Our handy, agile +destroyer ran alongside a battleship with as much nonchalance as +she would go alongside a pier. I should not have been surprised to +see her pirouette over the hills or take to flying. + +There was a time when those majestic and pampered ladies, the +battleships--particularly if there were a sea running as in this harbour +at the time--having in mind the pride of paint, begged all destroyers to +keep off with the superciliousness of grandes dames holding their +skirts aloof from contact with nimble, audacious street gamins, who +dodged in and out of the traffic of muddy streets. But destroyers have +learned better manners, perhaps, and battleships have been +democratized. It is the day of Russian dancers and when aeroplanes +loop the loop, and we have grown used to all kinds of marvels. + +But the sea has refused to be trained. It is the same old sea that it +was in Columbus' time, without any loss of trickiness in bumping +small craft against towering sides. The way that this destroyer slid up +to the flagship without any fuss and the way her bluejackets held her +off from the paint, as she rose on the crests and slipped back into the +trough, did not tell the whole story. A part of it was how, at the right +interval, they assisted the landlubber to step from gunwale to +gangway, making him feel perfectly safe when he would have been +perfectly helpless but for them. + +I had often watched our own bluejackets at the same thing. They did +not grin--not when you were looking at them. Nor did the British. +Bluejackets are noted for their official politeness. I should like to have +heard their remarks--they have a gift for remarks--about those +invaders of their uniformed world in Scottish caps and other kinds of +caps and the different kinds of clothes which tailors make for civilians. +Without any intention of eavesdropping, I did overhear one asking +another whence came these strange birds. + +You knew the flagship by the admirals' barges astern, as you know +the location of an army headquarters by its motor-cars. It seemed in +the centre of the fleet at anchor, if that is a nautical expression. +Where its place would be in action is one of those secrets as +important to the enemy as the location of a general's shell-proof +shelter in Flanders. Perhaps Sir John Jellicoe may be on some other +ship in battle. If there is any one foolish question which you should not +ask it is this. + +As you mounted the gangway of this mighty super-Dreadnought you +were bound to think--at least, an American was--of another flagship in +Portsmouth harbour, Nelson's Victory. Probably an Englishman would +not indulge in such a commonplace. I would like to know how many +Englishmen had ever seen the old Victory. But then, how many +Americans have been to Mount Vernon and Gettysburg? + +It was a hundred years, one repeats, since the British had fought a +first-class naval war. Nelson did his part so well that he did not leave +any fighting to be done by his successors. Maintaining herself as +mistress of the seas by the threat of superior strength--except in the +late 'fifties, when the French innovation of iron ships gave France a +temporary lead on paper--ship after ship, through all the grades of +progress in naval construction, has gone to the scrap heap without +firing a shot in anger. The Victory was one landmark, or seamark, if +you please, and this flagship was another. Between the two were +generations of officers and men, working through the change from +stagecoach to motors and aeroplanes and seaplanes, who had kept +up to a standard of efficiency in view of a test that never came. A year +of war and still the test had not come, for the old reason that England +had superior strength. Her outnumbering guns which had kept the +peace of the seas still kept it. All second nature to the Englishman +this, as the defence of the immense distances of the steppes to the +Russian or the Rocky Mountain wall and the Mississippi's flow to the +man in Kansas. But the American kept thinking about it; and he +wanted the Kansans to think about it, too. When he was about to +meet Sir John Jellicoe he envisaged the tall column in Trafalgar +Square, surmounted by the one-armed figure turned toward the +wireless skein on top of the Admiralty building. + +I first heard of Jellicoe fifteen years ago when he was Chief of Staff to +Sir Edward Seymour, then Commander-in-Chief of the Asiatic +Squadron. Indeed, you were always hearing about Jellicoe in those +days on the China coast. He was the kind of man whom people talk +about after they have met him, which means personality. It was in +China seas, you may remember, that when a few British seamen +were hard pressed in a fight that was not ours the phrase, "Blood is +thicker than water," sprang from the lips of an American commander, +who waited not on international etiquette but went to the assistance of +the British. + +Nor will anyone who was present in the summer of '98 forget how Sir +Edward Chichester stood loyally by Admiral George Dewey, when the +German squadron was empire-fishing in the waters of Manila Bay, +until our Atlantic fleet had won the battle of Santiago and Admiral +Dewey had received reinforcements and, east and west, we were +able to look after the Germans. The British bluejackets said that the +rations of frozen mutton from Australia which we sent alongside were +excellent; but the Germans were in no position to judge, doubtless +through an oversight in the detail of hospitality by one of Admiral +Dewey's staff. Let us be officially correct and say there was no mutton +to spare after the British had been supplied. + +In the gallant effort of the Allied force of sailors to relieve the +legations against some hundreds of thousands of Boxers, Captain +Bowman McCalla and his Americans worked with Admiral Seymour +and his Britons in the most trying and picturesque adventure of its +kind in modern history. McCalla, too, was always talking of Jellicoe, +who was wounded on the expedition; and Sir John's face lighted at +mention of McCalla's name. He recalled how McCalla had painted +on the superstructure of the little Newark that saying of Farragut's, +"The best protection against an enemy's fire is a well-directed fire +of your own"; which has been said in other ways and cannot be +said too often. + +"We called McCalla Mr. Lead," said Sir John; "he had been wounded +so many times and yet was able to hobble along and keep on +fighting. We corresponded regularly until his death." + +Beatty, too, was on that expedition; and he, too, was another +personality one kept hearing about. It seemed odd that two men who +had played a part in work which was a soldier's far from home should +have become so conspicuous in the Great War. If on that day when, +with ammunition exhausted, all members of the expedition had given +up hope of ever returning alive, they had not accidentally come upon +the Shi-kou arsenal, one would not be commanding the Grand Fleet +and the other its battle-cruiser squadron. + +Before the war, I am told, when Admiralty Lords and others who had +the decision to make were discussing who should command in case +of war, opinion ran something like this: "Jellicoe! He has the brains." +"Jellicoe! He has the health to endure the strain, with years enough +and not too many." "Jellicoe! He has the confidence of the service." +The choice literally made itself. When anyone is undertaking the +gravest responsibility which has been an Englishman's for a hundred +years, this kind of a recommendation helps. He had the guns; he had +supreme command; he must deliver victory--such was England's +message to him. + +When I mentioned in a dispatch that all that differentiated him from +the officers around him was the broader band of gold lace on his arm, +an English naval critic wanted to know if I expected to find him in cloth +of gold. No; nor in full dress with all his medals on, as I saw him +appear on the screen at a theatre in London. + +Any general of high command must be surrounded by more pomp +than an admiral in time of action. A headquarters cannot have the +simplicity of the quarter-deck. The force which the general commands +is not in sight; the admiral's is. You saw the commander and you saw +what it was that he commanded. Within the sweep of vision from the +quarter-deck was the terrific power which the man with the broad gold +band on his arm directed. At a signal from him it would move or it +would stand still. That command of Joshua's if given by Sir John one +thought might have been obeyed. + +One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred twelve-inch +guns and larger, which could carry two hundred tons of metal in a +single broadside for a distance of eighteen thousand yards! But do +not forget the little guns, bristling under the big guns like needles from +a cushion, which would keep off the torpedo assassins; or the light +cruisers, or the colliers, or the destroyers, or the 2,300 trawlers and +mine-layers, and what not, all under his direction. He had +submarines, too, double the number of the German. But with all the +German men-of-war in harbour, they had no targets. Where were +they? You did not ask questions which would not be answered. The +whole British fleet was waiting for the Germans to show their heads, +while cruisers were abroad scouting in the North Sea. + +At the outset of the war the German fleet might have had one chance +in ten of getting a turn of fortune in its favour by an unexpected stroke +of strategy. This was the danger against which Jellicoe had to guard. +For in one sense, the Germans had the tactical offensive by sea as +well as by land; theirs the outward thrust from the centre. They could +choose when to come out of their harbour; when to strike. The British +had to keep watch all the time and be ready whenever the enemy +should come. + +Thus, the British Grand Fleet was at sea in the early part of the war, +cruising here and there, begging for battle. Then it was that it learned +how to avoid submarines and mine-fields. Submarines had played a +greater part than expected, because Germany had chosen a guerrilla +naval warfare: to harass, to wound, to wear down. Doubtless she +hoped to reduce the number of British fighting units by attrition. + +Weak England might be in plants for making arms for an army, but +not in ship-building. Here was her true genius. She was a maritime +power; Germany a land power. Her part as an ally of France and +Russia being to command the sea, all demands of the Admiralty for +material must take precedence over demands of the War Office. At +the end of the first year she had increased her fighting power by sea +to a still higher ratio of preponderance over the Germans; in another +year she would increase it further. + +Admiral von Tirpitz wanted nothing so much as to draw the British +fleet under the guns of Heligoland or into a mine-field and submarine +trap. But Sir John Jellicoe refused the bait. When he had completed +his precautions and his organization to meet new conditions, his fleet +need not go into the open. His Dreadnoughts could rest at anchor at +a base, while his scouts kept in touch with all that was passing, and +his auxiliaries and destroyers fought the submarines. Without a British +Dreadnought having fired a shot at a German Dreadnought, nowhere +on the face of the seas might a single vessel show the German flag +except by thrusting it above the water for a few minutes. + +If von Tirpitz sent his fleet out he, too, might find himself in a trap of +mines and submarines. He was losing submarines and England was +building more. His naval force rather than Sir John's was suffering +from attrition. The blockade was complete from Iceland to the North +Sea. While the world knew of the work of the armies, the care that +this task required, the hardships endured, the enormous expenditure +of energy, were all hidden behind that veil of secrecy which obviously +must be more closely drawn over naval than over army operations. + +From the flagship the campaign was directed. One would think that +many offices and many clerks would be required. But the offices and +the clerks were at the Admiralty. Here was the execution. In a room +perhaps four feet by six was the wireless focus which received all +reports and sent all orders, with trim bluejackets at the keys. "Go!" +and "Come!" the messages were saying; they wasted no words. +Officers of the staff did their work in narrow space, yet seemed to +have plenty of room. Red tape is inflammable. There is no more place +for it on board a flagship prepared for action than for unnecessary +woodwork. + +At every turn compression and concentration of power were like the +guns and the decks, cleared for action, significant in directness of +purpose. The system was planetary in its impressive simplicity, the +more striking as nothing that man has ever made is more +complicated or includes more kinds of machinery than a battleship. +One battleship was one unit, one chessman on the naval board. + +Not all famous leaders are likeable, as every world traveller knows. +They all have the magnetism of force, which is quite another thing +from the magnetism of charm. What the public demands is that they +shall win victories, whether personally likeable or not. But if they are +likeable and simple and human and a sailor besides--well, we know +what that means. + +Perhaps Sir John Jellicoe is not a great man. It is not for a civilian +even to presume to judge. We have the word of those who ought to +know, however, that he is. I hope that he is, because I like to think +that great commanders need not necessarily appear formidable. +Nelson refused to be cast for the heavy part, and so did Farragut. It +may be a sailor characteristic. I predict that after this war is over, +whatever honours or titles they may bestow upon him, the English are +going to like Sir John Jellicoe not alone for his service to the nation, +but for himself. + +Admiral Jellicoe is one with Captain Jellicoe, whose cheeriness even +when wounded kept up the spirits of the others on the relief +expedition of Boxer days. "He could do it, too!" one thought, having in +mind Sir David Beatty's leap to the deck of a destroyer. Spare, of +medium height, ruddy, and fifty-seven--so much for the health +qualification which the Admiralty Lords dwelt upon as important. After +he had been at sea for a year he seemed a human machine, much of +the type of the destroyer as a steel machine--a thirty-knot human +machine, capable of three hundred or five hundred revolutions, +engines running smoothly, with no waste energy, slipping over the +waves and cutting through them; a quick man, quick of movement, +quick of comprehension and observation, of speech and of thought, +with a delightful self-possession--for there are many kinds--which is +instantly responsive with decision. + +A telescope under his arm, too, as he received his guests. You liked +that. He keeps watch over the fleet himself when he is on the quarter- +deck. You had a feeling that nothing could happen in all his range of +vision, stretching down the "avenues of Dreadnoughts" to the light- +cruiser squadron, and escape his attention. It hardly seems possible +that he was ever bored. Everything around interests him. Energy he +has, electric energy in this electric age, this man chosen to command +the greatest war product of modern energy. + +Fastened to the superstructure near the ladder to his quarters was a +new broom which South Africa had sent him. He was highly pleased +with the present; only the broom was Tromp's emblem, while Blake's +had been the whip. Possibly the South African Dutchmen, now +fighting on England's side, knew that he already had the whip and +they wanted him to have the Dutch broom, too. + +He had been using both, and many other devices in his campaign +against von Tirpitz's "unter See" boats, as was illustrated by one of +the maps hung in his cabin. Quite different this from maps in a +general's headquarters, with the front trenches and support and +reserve trenches and the gun-positions marked in vari-coloured +pencillings. Instantly a submarine was sighted anywhere, Sir John +had word of it, and a dot went down on the spot where it had been +seen. In places the sea looked like a pepper-box cover. Dots were +plentiful outside the harbour where we were; but well outside, like flies +around sugar which they could not reach. + +Seeing Sir John among his admirals and guests one had a glimpse of +the life of a sort of mysterious, busy brotherhood. I was still searching +for an admiral with white hair. If there were none among these +seniors, then all must be on shore. Spirit, I think, that is the word; the +spirit of youth, of corps, of service, of the sea, of a ready, buoyant +definiteness--yes, spirit was the word to characterize these leaders. +Sir John moved from one to another in his quick way, asking a +question, listening, giving a direction, his face smiling and expressive +with a sort of infectious confidence. + +"He is the man!" said an admiral. I mean, several admirals and +captains said so. They seemed to like to say it. Whenever he +approached one noted an eagerness, a tightening of nerves. Natural +leadership expresses itself in many ways; Sir John gave it a sailor's +attractiveness. But I learned that there was steel under his happy +smile; and they liked him for that, too. Watch out when he is not +smiling, and sometimes when he is smiling, they say. + +For failure is never excused in the fleet, as more than one +commander knows. It is a luxury of consideration which the British +nation cannot afford by sea in time of war. The scene which one +witnessed in the cabin of the Dreadnought flagship could not have +been unlike that of Nelson and his young captains on the Victory, in +the animation of youth governed with one thought under the one rule +that you must make good. + +Splendid as the sight of the power which Sir John directed from his +quarter-deck while the ships lay still in their plotted moorings, it paled +beside that when the anchor chains began to rumble and, column by +column, they took on life slowly and, majestically gaining speed, one +after another turned toward the harbour's entrance. + + + + +XXXI +Simply Hard Work + + + +Besides the simple word spirit, there is the simple word work. Take +the two together, mixing with them the proper quantity of intelligence, +and you have something finer than Dreadnoughts; for it builds +Dreadnoughts, or tunnels mountains, or wins victories. + +In no organization would it be so easy as in the navy to become +slack. If the public sees a naval review it knows that its ships can +steam and keep their formations; if it goes on board it knows that the +ships are clean--at least, the limited part of them which it sees; and it +knows that there are turrets and guns. + +But how does it know that the armour of the turrets is good, or that +the guns will fire accurately? Indeed, all that it sees is the shell. The +rest must be taken on trust. A navy may look all right and be quite +bad. The nation gives a certain amount of money to build ships which +are taken in charge by officers and men who, shut off from public +observation, may do about as they please. The result rests with their +industry and responsibility. If they are true to the character of the +nation by and large that is all the nation may expect; if they are better, +then the nation has reason to be grateful. Englishmen take more +interest in their navy than Americans in theirs. They give it the best +that is in them and they expect the best from it in return. Every +youngster who hopes to be an officer knows that the navy is no place +for idling; every man who enlists knows that he is in for no junket on a +pleasure yacht. The British navy, I judged, had a relatively large +percentage of the brains and application of England. + +"It is not so different from what it was for ten years preceding the +war," said one of the officers. "We did all the work we could stand +then; and whether cruising or lying in harbour, life is almost normal for +us to-day." + +The British fleet was always on a war footing. It must be. Lack +of naval preparedness is more dangerous than lack of land +preparedness. It is fatal. I know of officers who had had only a week's +leave in a year in time of peace; their pay is less than our officers'. +Patriotism kept them up to the mark. + +And another thing: once a sailor, always a sailor, is an old saying; but +it has a new application in modern navies. They become fascinated +with the very drudgery of ship existence. They like their world, which +is their house and their shop. It has the attraction of a world of +priestcraft, with them alone understanding the ritual. Their drill at the +guns becomes the preparation for the great sport of target practice, +which beats any big-game shooting when guns compete with guns, +with battle practice greater sport than target practice. Bringing a ship +into harbour well, holding her to her place in the formation, roaming +over the seas in a destroyer--all means eternal effort at the mastery +of material, with the results positively demonstrated. + +On one of the Dreadnoughts I saw a gun's crew drilling with a dummy +six-inch; weight, one hundred pounds. + +"Isn't that boy pretty young to handle that big shell?" an admiral asked +a junior officer. + +"He doesn't think so," the officer replied. "We haven't anyone who +could handle it better. It would break his heart if we changed his +position." + +Not one of fifty German prisoners whom I had seen filing by over in +France was as sturdy as this youngster. In the ranks of an infantry +company of any army he would have been above the average of +physique; but among the rest of the gun's crew he did appear slight. +Need more be said about the physical standard of the crews of the +fighting ships of the Grand Fleet? + +You had an eye to more than guns and machinery and to more than +the character of the officers. You wanted to get better acquainted with +the personnel of the men behind the guns. They formed patches of +blue on the decks, as one looked around the fleet, against the +background of the dull, painted bulwarks of steel--the human element +whose skill gave the ships life--deep-chested, vigorous men in their +prime, who had the air of men grounded in their work by long +experience. I noted when an order was given that it was obeyed +quickly by one who knew what he had to do because he had done it +thousands of times. + +There are all kinds of bluejackets, as there are all kinds of other men. +Before the war some took more than was good for them when on +shore; some took nothing stronger than tea; some enjoyed the +sailor's privilege of growling; some had to be kept up to the mark +sharply; an occasional one might get rebellious against the merciless +repetition of drills. + +The war imparted eagerness to all, the officers said. Infractions of +discipline ceased. Days pass without anyone of the crew of a +Dreadnought having to be called up as a defaulter, I am told. And +their health? At first thought, one would say that life in the steel caves +of a Dreadnought would mean pasty complexions and flabby +muscles. For a year the crews had been prisoners of that readiness +which must not lose a minute in putting to sea if von Tirpitz should +ever try the desperate gamble of battle. + +After a turn in the trenches the soldiers can at least stretch their legs +in billets. A certain number of a ship's company now and then get a +tramp on shore; not real leave, but a personally conducted outing not +far from the boats which will hurry them back to their stations on +signal. However, all that one needs to keep well is fresh air and +exercise. The blowers carry fresh air to every part of the ship; the +breezes which sweep the deck from the North Sea are fresh enough +in summer and a little too fresh in winter. There is exercise in the +regular drills, supplemented by setting-up exercises. The food is good +and no man drinks or eats what he ought not to, as he may on shore. +So there is the fact and the reason for the fact: the health of the men, +as well as their conduct, had never been so good. + +"Perhaps we are not quite so clean as we were before the war," said +an officer. "We wash decks only twice a week instead of every day. +This means that quarters are not so moist, and the men have more +freedom of movement. We want them to have as much freedom as +possible." + +Waiting, waiting, in such confinement for thirteen months; waiting for +battle! Think of the strain of it! The British temperament is well +fitted to undergo such a test, and particularly well fitted are these +sturdy seamen of mature years. An enemy may imagine them +wearing down their efficiency on the leash. They want a fight; naturally, +they want nothing quite so much. But they have the seaman's +philosophy. Old von Tirpitz may come out and he may not. It is for +him to do the worrying. They sit tight. The men's ardour is not imposed +upon. Care is taken that they should not be worked stale; for the +marksman who puts a dozen shots through the bull's-eye had better +not keep on firing, lest he begin rimming it and get into bad habits. + +Where an army officer has a change when he leaves the trench for +his billet, there is none for the naval officer, who, unlike the army +officer, is Spartan-bred to confinement. The army pays its daily toll of +casualties; it lies cramped in dug-outs, not knowing what minute +extinction may come. The Grand Fleet has its usual comforts; it is +safe from submarines in a quiet harbour. Many naval officers spoke +of this contrast with deep feeling, as if fate were playing favourites, +though I have never heard an army officer mention it. + +The army can give each day fresh proof of its courage in face of the +enemy. Courage! It takes on a new meaning with the Grand Fleet. +The individual element of gallantry merges into gallantry of the whole. +You have the very communism of courage. The thought is to keep a +cool head and do your part as a cog in the vast machine. Courage is +as much taken for granted as the breath of life. Thus, Cradock's men +fought till they went down. It was according to the programme laid out +for each turret and each gun in a turret. + +Smith, of the army, leads a bomb-throwing party from traverse to +traverse; Smith, of the navy, turns one lever at the right second. Army +gunners are improving their practice day by day against the enemy; +all the improving by navy gunners must be done before the battle. No +sieges in trenches; no attacks and counter-attacks: a decision within +a few hours--perhaps within an hour. + +This partially explains the love of the navy for its work; its cheerful +repetition of the drills which seem such a wearisome business to the +civilian. The men know the reason of their drudgery. It is an all- +convincing bull's-eye reason. Ping-ping! One heard the familiar sound +of sub-calibre practice, which seems as out of proportion in a fifteen- +inch gun as a mouse-squeak from an elephant whom you expect to +trumpet. As the result appears in sub-calibre practice, so it is +practically bound to appear in target practice; as it appears in target +practice, so it is bound to appear in battle practice. It was on the +flagship that I saw a device which Sir John referred to as the next +best thing to having the Germans come out. He took as much delight +in it as the gun-layers, who were firing at German Dreadnoughts of +the first line, as large as your thumb, which were in front of a sort of +hooded arrangement with the guns of a British Dreadnought inside-- +the rest I censor myself before the regular censor sees it. + +When we heard a report like that of a small target rifle inside the +arrangement a small red or a small white splash rose from the +metallic platter of a sea. Thus the whole German navy has been +pounded to pieces again and again. It is a great game. The gun- +layers never tire of it and they think they know the reason as well as +anybody why von Tirpitz keeps his Dreadnoughts at home. + +But elsewhere I saw some real firing; for ships must have their regular +target practice, war or no war. If those cruisers steaming across the +range had been sending six or eight-inch shrapnel, we should have +preferred not to be so near that towed square of canvas. Flashes +from turrets indistinguishable at a distance from the neutral-toned +bodies of the vessels and the shells struck, making great splashes +just beyond the target, which was where they ought to go. + +A familiar scene, but with a new meaning when the time is one of war. +So far as my observation is worth anything, it was very good +shooting, indeed. One broadside would have put a destroyer out of +business as easily as a "Jack Johnson" does for a dug-out; and it +would have made a cruiser of the same class as the one firing pretty +groggy--this not from any experience of being on a light cruiser or any +desire to be on one when it receives such a salute. But it seems to be +waiting for the Germans any time that they want it. + +Oh, that towed square of canvas! It is the symbol of the object of all +building of guns, armour, and ships, all the nursing in dry dock, all the +admiral's plans, all the parliamentary appropriations, all the striving on +board ship in man's competition with man, crew with crew, gun with +gun, and ship with ship. One had in mind some vast factory plant +where every unit was efficiently organized; but that comparison would +not do. None will. The Grand Fleet is the Grand Fleet. Ability gets its +reward, as in the competition of civil life. There is no linear promotion +indulgent to mediocrity and inferiority which are satisfied to keep step +and harassing to those whom nature and application meant to lead. +Armchairs and retirement for those whose inclinations run that way; +the captain's bridge for those who are fit to command. Officers' +records are the criterion when superiors come to making promotions. +But does not outside influence play a part? you ask. If professional +conscience is not enough to prevent this, another thing appears to +be: that the British nation lives or dies with its navy. Besides, the +British public has said to all and sundry outsiders: "Hands off the +navy!" All honour to the British public, much criticized and often most +displeased with its servants and itself, for keeping its eye on that +canvas square of cloth! The language on board was the same as on +our ships; the technical phraseology practically the same; we had +inherited British traditions. But a man from Kansas and a man from +Dorset live far apart. If they have a good deal in common they rarely +meet to learn that they have. Our seamen do meet British seamen +and share a fraternity which is more than that of the sea. Close one's +eyes to the difference in uniform, discount the difference in accent, +and one imagined that he might be with our North Atlantic fleet. + +The same sort of shop talk and banter in the wardroom, which trims +and polishes human edges; the same fellowship of a world apart. +Securely ready the British fleet waits. Enough drill and not too much; +occasional visits between ships; books and newspapers and a +lighthearted relaxation of scattered conversation in the mess. One +wardroom had a thirty-five-second record for getting past all the +pitfalls in the popular "Silver Bullet" game, if I remember correctly. + + + + +XXXII +Hunting The Submarine + + + +Seaplanes cut practice circles over the fleet and then flew away on +their errands, to be lost in the sky beyond the harbour entrance. With +their floats, they were like ducks when they came to rest on the water, +sturdy and a little clumsy looking compared to those hawks the army +planes, soaring to higher altitudes. + +The hawk had a broad, level field for its roost; the duck, bobbing with +the waves after it came down, had its wings folded as became a bird +at rest, after its engines stopped, and, a dead thing, was lifted on +board its floating home with a crane, as cargo is swung into the hold. + +On shipboard there must be shipshapeness; and that capacious, +one-time popular Atlantic liner had undergone changes to prepare it +for its mothering part, with platforms in place of the promenades +where people had lounged during the voyage and bombs in place of +deck-quoits and dining-saloons turned into workshops. Of course, +one was shown the different sizes and types of bombs. Aviators +exhibit them with the pride of a collector showing his porcelains. +Every time they seem to me to have grown larger and more +diabolical. Where will aerial progress end? Will the next war be fought +by forces that dive and fly like fishes and birds? + +"I'd like to drop that hundred-pounder on to a Zeppelin!" said one of +the aviators. All the population of London would like to see him do it. +And Fritz, the submarine, does not like to see the shadow of man's +wings above the water. + +Seaplanes and destroyers carry the imagination away from the fleet +to another sphere of activity, which I had not the fortune to see. An +aviator can see Fritz below a smooth surface; for he cannot travel +much deeper than thirty or forty feet. He leaves a characteristic ripple +and tell-tale bubbles of air and streaks of oil. When the planes have +located him they tell the hunters where to go. Sometimes it is known +that a submarine is in a certain region; he is lost sight of and seen +again; a squall may cover his track a second time, and the hunters, +keeping touch with the planes by signals, course here and there on +the look out for another glimpse. Perhaps he escapes altogether. It is +a tireless game of hide and seek, like gunnery at the front. Naval +ingenuity has invented no end of methods, and no end of +experiments have been tried. Strictest kept of naval secrets, these. +Fritz is not to be told what to avoid and what not to avoid. + +Very thin is the skin of a submarine; very fragile and complicated its +machinery. It does not take much of a shock to put it out of order or a +large charge of explosives to dent the skin beyond repair. It being in +the nature of submarines to sink, how does the hunter know when he +has struck a mortal blow? If oil and bubbles come up for some time in +one place, or if they come up with a rush, that is suggestive. Then, it +does not require a nautical mind to realize that by casting about on +the bottom with a grapnel you will learn if an object with the bulk and +size of a submarine is there. The Admiralty accept no guesswork +from the hunters about their exploits; they must bring the brush to +prove the kill. + +With Admiral Crawford I went to see the submarine defences of the +harbour. It reminded one of the days of the drawbridge to a castle, +when a friend rode freely in and an enemy might try to swim the moat +and scale the walls if he pleased. + +"Take care! There is a tide here!" the coxswain was warned, lest the +barge should get into some of the troubles meant for Fritz. "A cunning +fellow, Fritz. We must give him no openings." + +The openings appear long enough to permit British craft, whether +trawlers, or flotillas, or cruiser squadrons, to go and come. Lying as +close together as fish in a basket, I saw at one place a number of +torpedo boats home from a week at sea. + +"Here to-day and gone to-morrow," said an officer. "What a time they +had last winter! You know how cold the North Sea is--no, you cannot, +unless you have been out in a torpedo boat dancing the tango in the +teeth of that bitter wind, with the spray whipping up to the tops of the +smoke-stacks. In the dead of night they would come into this pitch- +dark harbour. How they found their way is past me. It's a trick of those +young fellows, who command." + +Stationary they seemed now as the quay itself; but let a signal speak, +an alarm come, and they would soon be as alive as leaping +porpoises. The sport is to those who scout and hunt. But do not +forget those who watch, those who keep the blockade, from the +Channel to Iceland, and the trawlers that plod over plotted sea- +squares with the regularity of mowing-machines cutting a harvest, on +their way back and forth sweeping up mines. They were fishermen +before the war and are fishermen still. Night and day they keep at it. +They come into the harbours stiff with cold, thaw out, and return to +hardships which would make many a man prefer the trenches. +Tributes to their patient courage, which came from the heart, were +heard on board the battleships. + +"It is when we think of them," said an officer, "that we are most eager +to have the German fleet come out, so that we can do our part." + + + + + + +XXXIII +The Fleet Puts To Sea + + + +There is another test besides that of gun-drills and target practice +which reflects the efficiency of individual ships, and the larger the +number of ships the more important it is. For the business of a fleet is +to go to sea. At anchor, it is in garrison rather than on campaign, an +assembly of floating forts. Navies one has seen which seemed +excellent when in harbour, but when they started to get under way the +result was hardly reassuring. Some erring sister fouled her anchor +chain; another had engine-room trouble; another lagged for some +other reason; there was fidgeting on the bridges. Then one asked, +What if a summons to battle had come? Our own officers were +authority enough that the British had no superiors in any of the tests. +But strange reports dodged in and out of the alleys of pessimism in +the company of German insistence that the Tiger and other ships +which one saw afloat had been sunk. Was the fleet really held +prisoner by fear of submarines? If it could go and come freely when it +chose, the harbour was the place for it while it waited. If not, then, +indeed, the submarine had revolutionized naval warfare. Admiral +Jellicoe might lose some of his battleships before he could get into +action against the Germans. + +"Oh, to hear the hoarse rattle of the anchor chains!" I kept thinking +while I was with the fleet. "Oh, to see all these monsters on the +move!" + +A vain wish it seemed, but it came true. A message from the +Admiralty arrived while we were on the flagship. Admiral Jellicoe +called his Flag Lieutenant and spoke a word to him, which was +passed in a twinkling from flagship to squadron and division and ship. +He made it as simple as ordering his barge alongside, this sending of +the Grand Fleet to sea. + +From the bridge of a destroyer beyond the harbour entrance we saw +it go. I shall not attempt to describe the spectacle, which convinced +me that language is the vehicle for making small things seem great +and great things seem small. If you wish words invite splendid and +magnificent and overwhelming and all the reliable old friends to come +forth in glad apparel from the dictionary. Personally, I was inarticulate +at sight of that sea-march of dull-toned, unadorned power. + +First came the outriders of majesty, the destroyers; then the graceful +light cruisers. How many destroyers has the British navy? I am only +certain that it has not as many as it seems to have, which would +mean thousands. Trying to count them is like trying to count the bees +in the garden. You cannot keep your eye on the individual bees. You +are bound to count some twice, so busy are their manœuvres. + +"Don't you worry, great ladies!" you imagined the destroyers were +saying to the battleships. "We will clear the road. We will keep watch +against snipers and assassins." + +"And if any knocks are coming, we will take them for you, great +ladies!" said the cruisers. "If one of us went down, the loss would not +be great. Keep your big guns safe to beat other battleships into +scrap." + +For you may be sure that Fritz was on the watch in the open. He +always is, like the highwayman hiding behind a hedge and envying +people who have comfortable beds. Probably from a distance he had +a peep through his periscope at the Grand Fleet before the approach +of the policeman destroyers made him duck beneath the water; and +probably he tried to count the number of ships and identify their +classes in order to take the information home to Kiel. Besides, he +always has his fingers crossed. He hopes that some day he may get +a shot at something more warlike than a merchant steamer or an +auxiliary; only that prospect becomes poorer as life for him grows +harder. Except a miracle happened, the steaming fleet, with its +cordons of destroyers, is as safe from him as from any other kind of +fish. + +The harbour which is the fleet's home is landlocked by low hills. There +is an eclipse of the sun by the smoke from the ships getting under +way; streaming, soaring columns of smoke on the move rise above +the skyline from the funnels of the battleships before they appear +around a bend. Indefinite masses as yet they are, under their night- +black plumes. Each ship seems too immense to respond to any will +except its own. But there is something automatic in the regularity with +which, one after another, they take the bend, as if a stop watch had +been held on twenty thousand tons of steel for a second's variation. +As they approach they become more distinct and, showing less +smoke, there seems less effort. Their motive-power seems inherent, +perpetual. + +There is some sea running outside the entrance, enough to make a +destroyer roll. But the battleships disdain any notice of its existence. It +is no more to them than a ripple of dust to a motor truck. They plough +through it. + +Though you were within twenty yards of them you would feel quite +safe. An express train was in no more danger of jumping the track. +Mast in line with mast, they held the course with a majestic +steadiness. Now the leading ship makes a turn of a few points. At the +same spot, as if it were marked by the grooves of tyres in a road, the +others make it. Any variation of speed between them would have +been instantly noticeable, as one forged ahead or lagged; but the +distance between bows and sterns did not change. A line of one +length would do for each interval so far as one could discern. + +It was difficult to think that they were not attached to some taut, +moving cable under water. How could such apparently unwieldy +monsters, in such a slippery element as the sea, be made to obey +their masters with such fine precision? + +The answer again is sheer hard work! Drills as arduous in the engine- +room as at the guns; machinery kept in tune; traditions in +manoeuvring in all weathers, which is kept up with tireless practice. + +Though all seemed perfection to the lay eye, let it be repeated that +this was not so to the eyes of admirals. It never can be. Perfection is +the thing striven for. Officers dwell on faults; all are critics. Thus you +have the healthiest kind of spirit, which means that there will be no +cessation in the striving. + +"Look at that!" exclaimed an officer on the destroyer. "They ought to +try another painting on her and see if they can't do better." + +Ever changing that northern light. For an instant the sun's rays, +strained by a patch of peculiar cloud, playing on a Dreadnought's +side, made her colour appear molten, exaggerating her size till she +seemed as colossal to the eye as to the thought. + +"But look, now!" said another officer. She was out of the patch and +seemed miles farther away to the vision, a dim shape in the sea- +haze. + +"You can't have it right for every atmospheric mood of the North Sea, +I suppose!" muttered the critic. Still, it hurt his professional pride +that a battleship should show up as such a glaring target even +for a moment. + +The power of the fleet was more patent in movement than at rest; for +the sea-lion was out of his lair on the hunt. Fluttering with flags at a +review at Spithead, the battleships seemed out of their element; +giants trying for a fairy's part. Display is not for them. It ill becomes +them, as does a pink ribbon on a bulldog. + +Irresistibly ploughing their way they presented a picture of resolute +utility--guns and turrets and speed. No spot of bright colour was +visible on board. The crew was at the guns, I took it. Turn the turrets, +give the range, lay the sights on the enemy's ships, and the battle +was on. + +"There is the old Dreadnought," said an officer. The old Dreadnought +--all of ten years of age, the senile old thing! What a mystery she was +when she was building! The mystery accentuated her celebrity--and +almost forgotten now, while the Queen Elizabeth and the Warspite, +and others of their class with their fifteen-inch guns, would be in the +public eye as the latest type till a new type came. A parade of naval +types was passing. One seemed to shade into the other in +harmonious effect. But here was an outsider, whom one noted +instantly as he studied those rugged silhouettes of steel. She had +twelve twelve-inch guns, with turret piled on turret in an exotic +fashion--one of the two Turkish battleships building in England at the +time of the war and taken over by the British. + +One division, two divisions, four ships, eight Dreadnoughts--even a +squadron coming out of a harbour numbs the faculties with a sense +of its might. Sixteen--twenty--twenty-four--it was the unending +numbers of this procession of sea-power which was most impressive. +An hour passed and all were not by. One sat down for a few minutes +behind the wind-screen of the destroyer's bridge, only to look back +and see more Dreadnoughts going by. A spectator had not realized +that there were so many in the harbour. He had a suspicion that +Admiral Jellicoe was a conjuror who could take Dreadnoughts out of +a hat. + +The first was lost in the gathering darkness far out in the North Sea, +and still the cloud of smoke over the anchorage was as thick as ever; +still the black plumes kept appearing around the bend. The King +Edward VII. class with their four twelve-inch guns and other ancients +of the pre-Dreadnought era, which are still powerful antagonists, were +yet to come. One's eyes ached. Those who saw a German corps +march through Brussels said that it seemed irresistible. What if they +had seen the whole German army? Here was the counterpart of the +whole German army in sea-power and in land-power, too. + +The destroyer commander looked at his watch. + +"Time!" he said. "I'll put you on shore." + +He must take his place in the fleet at a given moment. A word to the +engine-room and the next thing we knew we were off at thirty knots +an hour, cutting straight across the bows of a Dreadnought steaming +at twenty knots, towering over us threateningly, with a bone in her +teeth. + +Imagination sped across seas where a man had cruised into +harbours that he knew and across continents that he knew. He was +trying to visualize the whole globe--all of it except the Baltic seas and +a thumb-mark in the centre of Europe. Hong-Kong, Melbourne, +Sydney, Halifax, Cape Town, Bombay--yes, and Rio and Valparaiso, +Shanghai, San Francisco, New York, Boston, these and the lands +back of them, where countless millions dwell, were all safe behind the +barrier of that fleet. + +Then back through the land where Shakespeare wrote to London, +with its glare of recruiting posters and the throbbing of that individual +freedom which is on trial in battle with the Prussian system--and as +one is going to bed the sound of guns in the heart of the city! From +the window one looked upward to see, under a searchlight's play, the +silken sheen of a cigar-shaped sort of aerial phantom which was +dropping bombs on women and children, while never a shot is fired at +those sturdy men behind armour. + +When you have travelled far; when you think of Botha and his Boers +fighting for England; when you have found justice and fair play and +open markets under the British flag; when you compare the +vociferations of von Tirpitz, glorying in the torpedoing of a Lusitania, +with the quiet manner of Sir John Jellicoe, you need only a little spark +of conscience to prefer the way that the British have used their sea- +power to the way that the men who send out Zeppelins to war on +women and children would use that power if they had it. + + + + +XXXIV +British Problems + + + +Throughout the summer of 1915 the world was asking, What about +the new British army? Why was it not attacking at the opportune +moment when Germany was throwing her weight against Russia? A +facile answer is easy; indeed, facile answers are always easy. +Unhappily, they are rarely correct. None that was given in this +instance was, to my mind. They sought to put a finger on one definite +cause; again, on an individual or a set of individuals. + +The reasons were manifold; as old as Waterloo, as fresh as the last +speech in Parliament. They were inherent in the Anglo-Saxon race. +Whoever raised a voice and said, This, or that, or you, are +responsible! should first have looked into his own mind and into the +history of his race and then into a mirror. Least of all should any +American have been puzzled by the delay. + +"Oh, we should have done better than that--we are Americans!" I +hear my countrymen say. Perhaps we should. I hope so; I believe so. +The British public thought that they were going to do better; military +men were surprised that they did as well. + +Along with laws and language we have inherited our military ideas +from England. In many qualities we are different--a distinct type; but in +nothing are we more like the British than in our attitude toward the +soldier and toward war. The character of any army reflects the +character of its people. An army is the fist; but the muscle, the +strength, of the physical organism behind the blow in the long run +belong to the people. What they have prepared for in peace they +receive in war, which decides whether they have been living in the +paradise of a fool or of a wise man. + +As a boy I was brought up to believe, as an inheritance of the +American Revolution, that one American could whip two Englishmen +and five or six of any other nationality, which made the feathers of the +eagle perched on the national escutcheon look glossy. It was a +satisfying sort of faith. Americans had never tried five or six of any +first-class fighting race; but that was not a thought which occurred to +me. As we had won victories over the English and the English had +whipped the French at Waterloo, the conclusion seemed obvious. +English boys, I understand, also had been brought up to believe that +one Englishman could whip five or six men of any other nationality, +but, I take it for granted, only two Americans. This clothed the British +lion with majesty, while the lower ratio of superiority over Americans +returned the compliment in kind from the sons of the lion to the sons +of the eagle. + +After I began to read history for myself and to think as I read, I found +that when British and Americans had met, the generals on either side +were solicitous about having superior forces, and in case of odds of +two to one they made a "strategic retreat." When either side was +beaten, the other always explained that he was overcome by superior +numbers, though perhaps the adversary had not more than ten or +fifteen per cent, advantage. Then I learned that the British had not +whipped five or six times their number on the continent of Europe. +The British Expeditionary Force made as fine an effort to do so at +Mons as was ever attempted in history, but they did not succeed. + +It was a regular army that fought at Mons. The only two first-class +nations which depend upon regulars to do their fighting are the British +and the American. This is the vital point of similarity which is the +practical manifestation of our military ideas. We have been the earth's +spoiled children, thanks to the salt seas between us and other +powerful military nations. Before any other Power could reach the +United States it must overwhelm the British navy, and then it must +overwhelm ours and bring its forces in transports. Sea-power, you +say. That is the facile word, so ready to the lips that we do not realize +the wonder of it any more than of the sun rising and setting. + +When we want soldiers our plan still is to advertise for them. The +ways of our ancestors remain ours. We think that the volunteer must +necessarily make the best soldier because he offers his services; +while the conscript--rather a term of opprobrium to us--must be +lukewarm. It hardly occurs to us that some forms of persuasion may +amount to conscription, or that the volunteer, won by oratorical +appeal to his emotions or by social pressure, may suffer a reaction +after enlistment which will make him lukewarm also, particularly as he +sees others, also young and fit, hanging back. Nor does it occur to us +that there may be virtue in that fervour of national patriotism aroused +by the command that all must serve, which, on the continent in this +war, has meant universal exaltation to sacrifice. The life of Jones +means as much to him as the life of Smith does to him; and when the +whole nation is called to arms there ought to be no favourites in life- +giving. + +For the last hundred years, if we except the American Civil War, ours +have been comparatively little wars. The British regular army has +policed an empire and sent punitive expeditions against rebellious +tribes with paucity of numbers, in a work which the British so well +understand. Our little regular army took care of the Red Indians as +our frontier advanced from the Alleghenies to the Pacific. To put it +bluntly, we have hired someone to do our fighting for us. + +Without ever seriously studying the business of soldiering, the +average Anglo-Saxon thought of himself as a potential soldier, taking +his sense of martial superiority largely from the work of the long- +service, severely drilled regular. Also, we used our fists rather than +daggers or duelling swords in personal encounters and, man to man, +unequipped with fire-arms or blades, the quality which is responsible +for our sturdy pioneering individualism gave us confidence in our +physical prowess. + +Alas! modern wars are not fought with fists. A knock-kneed man who +knows how to use a machine-gun and has one to use--which is also +quite important--could mow down all the leading heavy-weights of the +United States and England, with the latest champion leading the +charge. + +Now, this regular who won our little wars was not representative of +the people as a whole. He was the man "down on his luck," who went +to the recruiting depot. Soldiering became his profession. He was in a +class, like priests and vagabonds. When you passed him in the street +you thought of him as a strange being, but one of the necessities of +national existence. It did not interest you to be a soldier; but as there +must be soldiers, you were glad that men who would be soldiers were +forthcoming. + +When trouble broke, how you needed him! When the wires brought +news of his gallantry you accepted the deeds of this man whom you +had paid as the reflection of national courage, which thrilled you with +a sense of national superiority. To him, it was in the course of duty; +what he had been paid to do. He did not care about being called a +hero; but it pleased the public to make him one--this professional who +fights for a shilling a day in England and $17.50 a month in the United +States. + +Though when the campaign went well the public was ready to take +the credit as a personal tribute, when the campaign went badly they +sought a scapegoat, and the general who might have been a hero +was sent to the wilderness perhaps because those busy men in +Congress or Parliament thought that the army could do without that +little appropriation which was needed for some other purpose. The +army had failed to deliver the goods which it was paid to produce. +The army was to blame, when, of course, under free institutions the +public was to blame, as the public is master of the army and not the +army of the public. + +A first impression of the British army is always that of the regiment. +Pride of regiment sometimes appears almost more deep-seated than +army pride to the outsider. It has been so long a part of British martial +inheritance that it is bred in the blood. In the old days of small armies +and in the later days of small wars, while Europe was making every +man a soldier by conscription, regiment vying with regiment won the +battles of empire. The memory of the part each regiment played is the +inspiration of its present; its existence is inseparable from the +traditions of its long list of battle honours. + +The British public loves to read of its Guards' regiment and to watch +them in their brilliant uniforms at review. When a cadet comes out of +Sandhurst he names the regiment which he wishes to join, instead of +being ordered to a certain regiment, as at West Point. It rests with the +regimental commander whether or not he is accepted. Frequently the +young man of wealth or family serves in the Guards or another crack +regiment for awhile and resigns, usually to enjoy the semi-leisurely life +which is the fortune of his inheritance. + +Then there are the county line regiments, such as the Yorkshires, the +Kents, and the Durhams. In this war each county wanted to read +about its own regiments at the same time as about the Guards, just +as Kansans at home would want to read about the Kansas regiment +and Georgians about the Georgia regiment. The most trying feature +of the censorship to the British public was its refusal to allow the +exploitation of regiments. The staff was adamant on this point; for the +staff was thinking for the whole and of the interests of the whole. In +the French and the German armies, as in our regular army, regiments +are known by numbers. + +The young man who lives in the big house on the hill, the son of the +man of wealth and power in the community, as a rule does not go to +West Point. None of the youth of our self-called aristocracy which +came up the golden road in a generation past those in modest +circumstances who have generations of another sort back of them, +think of going into the First Cavalry or the First Infantry for a few years +as a part of the career of their class. A few rich men's sons enter our +army, but only enough to prove the rule by the exception. They do not +regard the army as "the thing." It does not occur to them that they +ought to do something for their country. Rather, their country ought to +do something for them. + +But sink the plummet a little deeper and these are not our aristocracy +nor our ruling class, which is too numerous and too sound of thought +and principle for them to feel at home in that company. Any boy, +however humble his origin, may go to West Point if he can pass the +competitive examination. Europe, particularly Germany, would not +approve of this; but we think it the best way. The average graduate of +the Point, whether the son of a doctor, a lawyer, or a farmer, sticks to +the army as his profession. We maintain the Academy for the strict +business purpose of teaching young men how to train our army in +time of peace and to lead and direct it in time of action. + +Our future officers enter West Point when they are two years younger +than is the average at Sandhurst; the course is four years compared +with two at Sandhurst. I should venture to say that West Point is the +harder grind; that the graduate of the Point has a more specifically +academic military training than the graduate of Sandhurst. This is not +saying that he may be any better in the performance of the simple +duties of a company officer. It is not a new criticism that we train +everybody at West Point to be a general, when many of the students +may never rise above the command of a battalion. However, it is a +significant fact that at the close of the Civil War every army +commander was a West Point man and so were most of the corps +commanders. + +The doors are open in the British army for a man to rise from the +ranks; not as wide as in our army, but open. The Chief of Staff of the +British Expeditionary Force, Sir William Robertson, was in the ranks +for ten years. No man not a West Pointer had a position equivalent in +importance to his at the close of the Civil War. His rise would have +been possible in no other European army. + +But West Point sets the stamp on the American army, and Sandhurst +and Woolwich, the engineering and artillery school, on the British +army. At the end of the four years at West Point the men who survive +the hard course may be tried by courtmartial not for conduct +unbecoming an officer, but an officer and a gentleman. They are +supposed, whatever their origin, to have absorbed certain qualities, if +they were not inborn, which are not easily described but which we all +recognize in any man. If they are absent it is not the fault of West +Point; and if a man cannot acquire them there, then nature never +meant them for him. From the time he entered the school the +government has paid his way; and he is cared for until he dies, if he +keeps step and avoids courtmartials. + +His position in life is secure. His pay, counting everything, is better +than that of the average graduate of a university or a first-class +professional school who practises a profession. Yet only three boys, I +remember, wanted to go to West Point from our congressional district +in my youth. Nothing could better illustrate the fact that we are not a +military people. From West Point they go out to the little army which is +to fight our wars; to the posts and the Philippines, and become a +world in themselves; an isolated caste in spite of themselves. I am +not at all certain that either the British or the American officer works +as hard as the German in time of peace. Neither has the practical +incentive nor the determined driver behind him. + +For it takes a soldier Secretary of War to drive a soldier; for example, +Lord Kitchener. Those British officers who applied themselves in +peace to the mastery of their profession and were not content with +the day's routine requirements, had to play chess without chessmen; +practise manœuvres on a board rather than with brigades, divisions, +corps, and armies. They became the rallying points in the concourse +of untrained recruits. + +German and French officers had the incentive and the chessmen. +The Great War could not take them by surprise. They took the road +with a machine whose parts had been long assembled. They had +been trained for big war; their ambition and intelligence were under +the whip of a definite anticipation. + +A factor overlooked, but even more significant than training or staff +work, was that what might be called martial team-play had become +an instinct with the continental peoples through the necessity of their +situation. This the Japanese also possess. It is the right material +ready to hand for the builder. Not that it is the kind of material one +admires; but it is the right material for making a war-machine. One +had only to read the expert military criticism in the British and the +American Press at the outset of the war to realize how vague was the +truth of the continental situation to the average Englishman or +American--but not to the trained British Staff. + +So that little British Expeditionary Force, in ratio of number one to +twenty or thirty of the French army, crossed the Channel to help save +Belgium. Gallantry it had worthy of the brightest chapter in the +immortal history of its regiments from Quebec to Kandahar, from +Agincourt, Blenheim and Waterloo to South Africa, Guards and +Hussars, Highlanders and Lowlanders, kilts and breeks, Connaught +Rangers and Royal Fusiliers, Duke of Wellington's and Prince of +Wales' Own, come again to Flanders. The best blood of England was +leading Tommy Atkins. Whatever British aristocracy is or is not, it +never forgets its duty to the England of its fathers. It is never ingrate +to its fortune. The time had come to go out and die for England, if +need be, and these officers went as their ancestors had gone before +them, as they would go to lectures at Oxford, to the cricket field and +the polo field, in outward phlegm, but with a mighty passion in their +hearts. + +The Germans affected to despise this little army. It had not been +trained in the mass tactics which hurl columns of flesh forward to gain +tactical points that have been mauled by artillery fire. You do not use +mass tactics against Boers, nor against Afridis, nor Filipinos. It is +difficult to combine the two kinds of efficiency. Those who were on the +march to the relief of the Peking Legations recall how the Germans +were as ill at ease in that kind of work as the Americans and British +were at home. It made us misjudge the Germans and the Germans +misjudge us when they thought of us as trying to make war on the +continent of Europe. A small, mobile, regular army, formed to go +overseas and march long distances, was to fight in a war where +millions were engaged and a day's march would cover an immense +stretch of territory in international calculations of gain and loss. + +For its own purposes, the British Expeditionary Force was well-nigh a +perfect instrument. As quantity of ammunition was an important factor +in transport in the kind of campaign which it was prepared for, its +guns were the most accurate on a given point and its system of fire +adapted to that end; but the French system of fire, with plentiful +ammunition from near bases over fine roads, was better adapted for +a continental campaign. To the last button that little army was +prepared. Man for man and regiment for regiment, I should say it was +the best force that ever fired a shot in Europe; this without regard to +national character. As England must make every regular soldier +count, and as she depended upon the efficiency of the few rather +than on numbers, she had trained her men in musketry. No +continental army could afford to allow its soldiers to expend the +amount of ammunition on the target range that the British had +expended. Only by practice can you learn how to shoot. This gives +the soldier confidence. He stays in his trench and keeps on shooting +because he knows that he can hit those advancing figures and that +this is his best protection. The more I learn, the more I am convinced +that the Germans ought to have got the British Expeditionary Force; +and the Germans were very surprised that they did not get it. With +their surprise developed a respect for British arms, reported by all +visitors to Germany. + +Mr. Thomas Atkins, none other, is the hero of that retreat from Mons. +The first statue raised in London after the war ought to be of him. If +there had been five hundred thousand of him in Belgium at the end of +the second week in August, Brussels would now be under the Belgian +flag. Like many other good things in this world, including the French +army, there were not enough of him. Many a company on that retreat +simply got tired of retreating, though orders were to fall back. It dug a +trench and lay down and kept on firing--accurately, in the regular, +businesslike way, reinforced by the "stick it" British character--until +killed or engulfed. This held back the flood long enough for the +remainder of the army to retire. + +Not all the generalship emanated from generals. I like best that story +of the cross-roads where, with Germans pressing hard on all sides, +two columns in retreat fell in together, uncertain which way to go. With +confusion developing for want of instructions, a lone, exhausted staff +officer who happened along took charge, and standing at the junction +in the midst of shell-fire told every doubting unit what to do, with a +one-two-three alacrity of decision. His work finished, he and his red +cap disappeared, and I never could find anyone who knew who he +was. + +After the retreat and after the victory of the Marne, what was +England's position? The average Englishman had thought that +England's part in the alliance was to send a small army to France and +to take care of the German fleet. England's fleet was her first +consideration; that must be served. France's demand for rifles and +supplies must be attended to before the British demand. Serbia +needed supplies; Russia needed supplies; a rebellion threatened in +South Africa; the Turks threatened the invasion of Egypt. England +had to spread her energy out over a vast empire with an army that +had barely escaped annihilation. Every soldier who fought must be +supplied overseas. German officers put a man on a railroad train and +he detrained near the front. Every British soldier had to go on board a +train and then a ship and then disembark from the ship and go on +board another train. Every article of ordnance, engineering, medical +supply, food supply, must be handled four times, while in Germany +they need be handled but twice. Any railway traffic manager will +understand what this means. Both the British supply system and the +medical corps were marvels. + +Germany was stronger than the British public thought. Germany and +Austria could put at the front in the first six months of the war +practically double the number which the Allies could maintain. Russia +had multitudes to draw from in reserve, but the need was multitudes +at the front. There she was only as strong as the number she could +feed and equip. In the first year of the war England suffered 380,000 +casualties on land, more than three times the number of men that +she had at Mons. This wastage must be met before she could begin +to increase her forces. The length of line on the western front that she +was holding was not the criterion of her effort. The French who +shared with the British that terrible Ypres salient realized this. + +Apart from the regulars she had the Territorials, who are much the +same as our National Guard and vary in quality in the same way. +Native Indian troops were brought to France to face the diabolical +shell-fire of modern guns, and Territorials went out to India to take the +place of the British regulars who were withdrawn for France. Every +rifle that England could bring to the assistance of the French in their +heroic stand was a rifle to the good. + +Meanwhile, she was making her new army. For the first time since +Cromwell's day, all classes in England were going to war. Making an +army out of the raw is like building a factory to be manned by expert +labour which you have to train. Let us even suppose that the factory +is ready and that the proprietor must mobilize his managers, +overseers, foremen, and labour from far and near--a force individually +competent, but which had never before worked together. It would +require some time to organize team-play, wouldn't it? Particularly it +would if you were short of managers, overseers, and foremen. To +express my meaning from another angle, in talking once with an +English pottery manufacturer he said: + +"We do not train our labour in the pottery district. We breed it from +generation to generation." + +In Germany they have not only been training soldiers, but breeding +them from generation to generation. You may think that system is +wrong. It may be contrary to our ideals. But in fighting against that +system for your ideals when war is violence and killing, you must +have weapons as effective as the enemy's. You express only a part +of Germany's preparedness by saying that the men who left the +plough and the shop, the factory and the office, became trained +soldiers at the command of the staff as soon as they were in uniform +and had rifles. These men had the instinct of military co-ordination +bred in them, and so had their officers, while England had to take +men from the plough and the shop, the factory and the office, and +equip them and teach them the rudiments of soldiering before she +could consider making them into an army. + +It was one thing for the spirit of British manhood to rise to the +emergency. Another and even more important requisite went with it. If +my country ever faces such a crisis I hope that we also may have the +courage of wisdom which leaves an expert's work to an expert. +England had Lord Kitchener, who could hold the imagination and the +confidence of the nation through the long months of preparation, +when there was little to show except repetition of drills here and there +on gloomy winter days. It required a man with a big conception and +patience and authority to carry it through, and recruits with an +unflinching sense of duty. The immensity of the task of transforming a +non-military people into a great fighting force grew on one in all its +humdrum and vital details as he watched the new army forming. "Are +you learning to think in big numbers?" was Lord Kitchener's question +to his generals. + +Half of the regular officers were killed or wounded. + +Where the leaders? Where the drillmasters for the new army? Old +officers came out of retirement, where they had become used to an +easy life as a rule, to twelve hours a day of hard application. "Dug- +outs" they were called. Veteran non-commissioned officers had to drill +new ones. It was demonstrated that a good infantry soldier can be +made in six months; perhaps in three. But it takes seven months to +build a rifle-plant; many more months to make guns--and the navy +must never be stinted. Probably the English are slow; slow and +thoroughgoing. They are good at the finish, but not quick at the start. +They are used to winning the last battle, which they say is the one +that counts. The complacency of empire with a century's power was a +handicap, no doubt. We are inclined to lean forward on our oars, they +to lean back--which does not mean that they cannot lean forward in +an emergency or that they lack reserve strength. It may lead us to +misjudge them. + +Public impatience was inevitable. It could not be kept silent; that is the +English of it--the American, too. It demands to know what is being +done. It was not silent in the Civil War. From the time McClellan +started forming his new army until the Peninsular campaign was six +months, if I remember rightly. Von Moltke, who built the German staff +system, said that the Civil War was a strife between two armed mobs; +though I think if he had brought his Prussians to Virginia a year later, +in '63, which would have ended the Civil War there and then, he +would have had an interesting time before he returned to Berlin. + +The British new army was not to face another new army, but the most +thoroughly organized military machine that the world has ever known. +Not only this, but the Germans, with a good start and their system +established, were not standing still and waiting for the British to catch +up, so that the two could begin again even, but were adapting +themselves to the new features of the war. They had been the world's +arms-makers. With vast munition plants ready, their feudal socialistic +organization could make the most of their resources in men and +material. + +More than two million Englishmen went to the recruiting depots, +though no invader had set foot on their soil, and offered to serve in +France or wherever they were needed overseas. If no magic could +put rifles in their hands or summon batteries of guns to follow them on +the march, the fact of their volunteering, when they knew by watching +from day to day the drudgery that it meant and what trench warfare +was, shows at least that the race is not yet decadent. Perhaps we +should have done better. No one can know until we try it. If liberal +treatment by the government and the course set by Secretary Root +means anything, our staff ought to be better equipped for such a task +than the English were; this, too, only war can decide. + +Whatsoever of pessimism appeared in the British Press was +telegraphed to America. Pessimism was not permitted in the German +Press. Imagine Germany holding control of the cable and allowing +press dispatches from Germany to pass over it with the freedom that +England allowed. Imagine Germany having waited as long as +England before making cotton contraband. The British Press +demanded information from the government which the German Press +would never have dared to ask. I have known an American +correspondent, fed out of hand in Germany and thankful for anything +that the fearful German war-machine might vouchsafe, turning a +belligerent when he was in London for privileges which he would +never have thought of demanding in Berlin. + +If an English ship were reported sunk, he believed it must be, despite +the government's denial. Did he go to the Germans and demand that +he might publish the rumours of what had happened to the Moltke in +the Gulf of Riga, or how many submarines Germany had really lost? +Indeed, he was unconsciously paying a compliment to British free +institutions. He expected more in England; it seemed a right to him, +as it would at home. Englishmen talked frankly to him about mistakes; +he heard all the gossip; and sometimes he concluded that England +was in a bad way. In Germany such talk was not allowed. Every +German said that the government was absolutely truthful; every +German believed all of its reports. But ask this critical American how +he would like to live under German rule, and then you found how anti- +German he was at heart. Nothing succeeds like success, and +Germany was winning and telling no one if she had any setbacks. + +If there were a strike, the British Press made the most of it, for it was +big news. Pessimism is the Englishman's natural way of arousing +himself to fresh energy. It is also against habit to be demonstrative in +his effort; so it is not easy to understand how much he is doing. Then, +pessimism brought recruits; it made the Englishman say, "I've got to +put my back into it!" Muddling there was and mistakes, such as that +of the method of attack at Gallipoli; but in the midst of all this +dispiriting pessimism, no Englishman thought of anything but of +putting his back into it more and more. Lord Kitchener had said that it +was to be a long war and evidently it must be. Of course, England's +misfortune was in having the war catch her in the transition from an +old order of things to social reforms. + +But if the war shows anything it is that basically English character has +not changed. She still has unconquerable, dogged persistence, and +her defects for this kind of war are not among the least admirable of +her traits to those who desire to live their own lives in their own way, +as the English-speaking people have done for five hundred years, +without having a verboten sign on every street corner. + +It is still the law that when a company of infantry marches through +London it must be escorted by a policeman. This means a good deal: +that civil power is superior to military power. It is a symbol of what +Englishmen have fought for with spades and pitchforks, and what we +have fought Englishmen for. My own idea is that England is fighting +for it in this struggle; and starting unready against a foe which was +ready, as the free peoples always have done, she was fighting for +time and experience before she could strike her sturdiest blows. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Year of the War, by Frederick Palmer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY YEAR OF THE WAR *** + +***** This file should be named 12013-8.txt or 12013-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/0/1/12013/ + +Produced by A. Langley + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: My Year of the War + Including an Account of Experiences with the Troops in France and + the Record of a Visit to the Grand Fleet Which is Here Given for the + First Time in its Complete Form + + +Author: Frederick Palmer + +Release Date: April 13, 2004 [EBook #12013] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY YEAR OF THE WAR *** + + + + +Produced by A. Langley + + + + + +My Year Of The War + +Including An Account Of Experiences +With The Troops In France, And The +Record Of A Visit To The Grand +Fleet, Which Is Here Given +For The First Time In +Its Complete Form + +By Frederick Palmer +(Accredited American Correspondent at the British Front) + + + + + + +Contents + +To The Reader +I. "Le Brave Belge!" +II. Mons And Paris +III. Paris Waits +IV. On The Heels Of Von Kluck +V. And Calais Waits +VI. In Germany +VII. How The Kaiser Leads +VIII. In Belgium Under The Germans +IX. Christmas In Belgium +X. The Future Of Belgium +XI. Winter In Lorraine +XII. Smiles Among Ruins +XIII. A Road Of War I Know +XIV. Trenches In Winter +XV. In Neuve Chapelle +XVI. Nearer The Germans +XVII. With The Guns +XVIII. Archibald The Archer +XIX. Trenches In Summer +XX. A School In Bombing +XXI. My Best Day At The Front +XXII. More Best Day +XXIII. Winning And Losing +XXIV. The Maple Leaf Folk +XXV. Many Pictures +XXVI. Finding The Grand Fleet +XXVII. On A Destroyer +XXVIII. Ships That Have Fought +XXIX. On The Inflexible +XXX. On The Fleet Flagship +XXXI. Simply Hard Work +XXII. Hunting The Submarine +XXXIII. The Fleet Puts To Sea +XXIV. British Problems + + + + + +To the Reader + + + +In 'The Last Shot', which appeared only a few months before the +Great War began, drawing from my experience in many wars, I +attempted to describe the character of a conflict between two great +European land-powers, such as France and Germany. + +"You were wrong in some ways," a friend writes to me, "but in other +ways it is almost as if you had written a play and they were following +your script and stage business." + +Wrong as to the duration of the struggle and its bitterness and the +atrocious disregard of treaties and the laws of war by one side; right +about the part which artillery would play; right in suggesting the +stalemate of intrenchments when vast masses of troops occupied the +length of a frontier. Had the Germans not gone through Belgium and +attacked on the shorter line of the Franco-German boundary, the +parallel of fact with that of prediction would have been more +complete. As for the ideal of 'The Last Shot', we must await the +outcome to see how far it shall be fulfilled by a lasting peace. + +Then my friend asks, "How does it make you feel?" Not as a prophet; +only as an eager observer, who finds that imagination pales beside +reality. If sometimes an incident seemed a page out of my novel, I +was reminded how much better I might have done that page from life; +and from life I am writing now. + +I have seen too much of the war and yet not enough to assume the +pose of a military expert; which is easy when seated in a chair at +home before maps and news dispatches, but becomes fantastic after +one has lived at the front. One waits on more information before he +forms conclusions about campaigns. He is certain only that the Marne +was a decisive battle for civilization; that if England had not gone into +the war the Germanic Powers would have won in three months. + +No words can exaggerate the heroism and sacrifice of the French or +the importance of the part which the British have played, which we +shall not realize till the war is over. In England no newspapers were +suppressed; casualty lists were published; she gave publicity to +dissensions and mistakes which others concealed, in keeping with +her ancient birthright of free institutions which work out conclusions +through discussion rather than take them ready-made from any ruler +or leader. + +Whatever value this book has is the reflection of personal +observation and the thoughts which have occurred to me when I +have walked around my experiences and measured them and found +what was worth while and what was not. Such as they are, they are +real. + +Most vital of all in sheer expression of military power was the visit to +the British Grand Fleet; most humanly appealing, the time spent in +Belgium under German rule; most dramatic, the French victory on the +Marne; most precious, my long stay at the British front. + +A traveller's view I had of Germany in the early period of the war; but I +was never with the German army, which made Americans particularly +welcome for obvious reasons. Between right and wrong one cannot +be a neutral. In foregoing the diversion of shaking hands and passing +the time of day on the Germanic fronts, I escaped any bargain with +my conscience by accepting the hospitality of those warring for a +cause and in a manner obnoxious to me. I was among friends, living +the life of one army and seeing war in all its aspects from day to day, +instead of having tourist glimpses. + +Chapters which deal with the British army in France and with the +British fleet have been submitted to the censor. Though the censor +may delete military secrets, he may not prompt opinions. Whatever +notes of praise and of affection which you may read between the +lines or in them spring from the mind and heart. Undemonstratively, +cheerily as they would go for a walk, with something of old-fashioned +chivalry, the British went to death. + +Their national weaknesses and strength, revealed under external +differences by association, are more akin to ours than we shall realize +until we face our own inevitable crisis. Though one's ancestors had +been in America for nearly three centuries, he was continually finding +how much of custom, of law, of habit, and of instinct he had in +common with them; and how Americans who were not of British blood +also shared these as an applied inheritance that has been the most +formative element in the American crucible. + +My grateful acknowledgments are due to the American press +associations who considered me worthy to be the accredited +American correspondent at the British front, and to Collier's and +Everybody's; and may an author who has not had the opportunity to +read proofs request the reader's indulgence. + +FREDERICK PALMER. British Headquarters, France. + + + + + + +My Year Of The War + + + + +I +"Le Brave Belge!" + + + +The rush from Monterey, in Mexico, when a telegram said that +general European war was inevitable; the run and jump on board the +Lusitania at New York the night that war was declared by England +against Germany; the Atlantic passage on the liner of ineffaceable +memory, a suspense broken by fragments of war news by wireless; +the arrival in England before the war was a week old; the journey to +Belgium in the hope of reaching the scene of action!--as I write, all +seem to have the perspective of history, so final are the processes of +war, so swift their execution, and so eager is everyone for each day's +developments. As one grows older the years seem shorter; but the +first year of the Great War is the longest year most of us have ever +known. + +Le brave Belge! One must be honest about him. The man who lets +his heart run away with his judgment does his mind an injustice. A +fellow-countryman who was in London and fresh from home in the +eighth month of the war, asked me for my views of the relative +efficiency of the different armies engaged. + +"Do you mean that I am to speak without regard to personal +sympathies?" I asked. + +"Certainly," he replied. + +When he had my opinion he exclaimed: + +"You have mentioned them all except the Belgian army. I thought it +was the best of all." + +"Is that what they think at home?" I asked. + +"Yes, of course." + +"The Atlantic is broad," I suggested. + +This man of affairs, an exponent of the efficiency of business, was a +sentimentalist when it came to war, as Anglo-Saxons usually are. The +side which they favour--that is the efficient side. When I ventured to +suggest that the Belgian army, in a professional sense, was hardly to +be considered as an army, it was clear that he had ceased to +associate my experience with any real knowledge. + +In business he was one who saw his rivals, their abilities, the +organization of their concerns, and their resources of competition with +a clear eye. He could say of his best personal friend: "I like him, but +he has a poor head for affairs." Yet he was the type who, if he had +been a trained soldier, would have been a business man of war who +would have wanted a sharp, ready sword in a well-trained hand and +to leave nothing to chance in a battle for the right. In Germany, where +some of the best brains of the country are given to making war a +business, he might have been a soldier who would rise to a position +on the staff. In America he was the employer of three thousand men-- +a general of civil life. + +"But look how the Belgians have fought!" he exclaimed. "They +stopped the whole German army for two weeks!" + +The best army was best because it had his sympathy. His view was +the popular view in America: the view of the heart. America saw the +pigmy fighting the giant rather than let him pass over Belgian soil. +On that day when a gallant young king cried, "To arms!" all his +people became gallant to the imagination. + +When I think of Belgium's part in the war I always think of the little +Belgian dog, the schipperke who lives on the canal boats. He is a +home-staying dog, loyal, affectionate, domestic, who never goes out +on the tow-path to pick quarrels with other dogs; but let anything on +two or four feet try to go on board when his master is away and he will +fight with every ounce of strength in him. The King had the +schipperke spirit. All the Belgians who had the schipperke spirit +tried to sink their teeth in the calves of the invader. + +One's heart was with the Belgians on that eighteenth day of August, +1914, when one set out toward the front in a motor-car from a +Brussels rejoicing over bulletins of victory, its streets walled with +bunting; but there was something brewing in one's mind which was as +treason to one's desires. Let Brussels enjoy its flags and its capture +of German cavalry patrols while it might! + +On the hills back of Louvain we came upon some Belgian troops in +their long, cumbersome coats, dark silhouettes against the field, +digging shallow trenches in an uncertain sort of way. Whether it was +due to the troops or to Belgian staff officers hurrying by in their cars, I +had the impression of the will and not the way and a parallel of raw +militia in uniforms taken from grandfather's trunk facing the trained +antagonists of an Austerlitz, or a Waterloo, or a Gettysburg. + +Le brave Beige! The question on that day was not, Are you brave? +but, Do you know how to fight? Also, Would the French and the +British arrive in time to help you? Of a thousand rumours about the +positions of the French and the British armies, one was as good as +another. All the observer knew was that he was an atom in a motor- +car and all he saw for the defence of Belgium was a regiment of +Belgians digging trenches. He need not have been in Belgium before +to realize that here was an unwarlike people, living by intensive thrift +and caution--a most domesticated civilization in the most thickly- +populated workshop in Europe, counting every blade of grass and +every kernel of wheat and making its pleasures go a long way at +small cost; a hothouse of a land, with the door about to be opened to +the withering blast of war. + +Out of the Hotel de Ville at Louvain, as our car halted by the cathedral +door, came an elderly French officer, walking with a light, quick step, +his cloak thrown back over his shoulders, and hurriedly entered a car; +and after him came a tall British officer, walking more slowly, +imperturbably, as a man who meant to let nothing disturb him or beat +him--both characteristic types of race. This was the break-up of the +last military conference held at Louvain, which had now ceased to be +Belgian Headquarters. + +How little you knew and how much they knew! The sight of them was +helpful. One was the representative of a force of millions of +Frenchman; of the army. I had always believed in the French army, +and have more reason now than ever to believe in it. There was no +doubt that if a French corps and a German corps were set the task of +marching a hundred miles to a strategic position, the French would +arrive first and win the day in a pitched battle. But no one knew this +better than that German Staff whose superiority, as von Moltke said, +would always ensure victory. Was the French army ready? Could it +bring the fullness of its strength into the first and perhaps the deciding +shock of arms? Where was the French army? + +The other officer who came out of the Hotel de Ville was the +representative of a little army--a handful of regulars--hard as nails and +ready to the last button. Where was the British army? The restaurant +keeper where we had luncheon at Louvain--he knew. He whispered +his military secret to me. The British army was toward Antwerp, +waiting to crush the Germans in the flank should they advance on +Brussels. We were "drawing them on!" Most cheerful, most confident, +mine host! When I went back to Louvain under German rule his +restaurant was in ruins. + +We were on our way to as near the front as we would go, with a pass +which was written for us by a Belgian reservist in Brussels between +sips of beer brought him by a boy scout. It was a unique, a most +accommodating pass; the only one I have received from the Allies' +side which would have taken me into the German lines. + +The front which we saw was in the square of the little town of Haelen, +where some dogs of a dog machine-gun battery lay panting in their +traces. A Belgian officer in command there I recollect for his +passionate repetition of, "Assassins! The barbarians!" which seemed +to choke out any other words whenever he spoke of the Germans. +His was a fresh, livid hate, born of recent fighting. We could go where +we pleased, he said; and the Germans were "out there," not far away. +Very tired he was, except for the flash of hate in his eyes; as tired as +the dogs of the machine-gun battery. + +We went outside to see the scene of "the battle," as it was called in +the dispatches; a field in the first flush of the war, where the headless +lances of Belgian and German cavalrymen were still scattered about. +The peasants had broken off the lance-heads for the steel, which was +something to pay for the grain smouldering in the barn which had +been shelled and burned. + +A battle! It was a battle because the reporters could get some +account of it, and the fighting in Alsace was hidden under the cloud of +secrecy. A superficial survey was enough to show that it had been +only a reconnaissance by the Germans with some infantry and guns +as well as cavalry. Their defeat had been an incident to the thrust of a +tiny feeling finger of the German octopus for information. The +scouting of the German cavalry patrols here and there had the same +object. Waiting behind hedges or sweeping around in the rear of a +patrol with their own cavalry when the word came by telephone, the +Belgians bagged many a German, man and horse, dead and alive. +Brussels and London and New York, too, thrilled over these exploits +supplied to eager readers. It was the Uhlan week of the war; for every +German cavalryman was a Uhlan, according to popular conception. +These Uhlans seemed to have more temerity than sense from the +accounts that you read. But if one out of a dozen of these mounted +youths, with horses fresh and a trooper's zest in the first flush of war, +returned to say that he had ridden to such and such points without +finding any signs of British or French forces, he had paid for the loss +of the others. The Germans had plenty of cavalry. They used it as the +eyes of the army, in co-operation with the aerial eyes of the planes. + +A peasant woman came out of the house beside the battlefield with +her children around her; a flat-chested, thin woman, prematurely old +with toil. "Les Anglais!" she cried at sight of us. Seeing that we had +some lances in the car, she rushed into her house and brought out +half a dozen more. If the English wanted lances they should have +them. She knew only a few words of French, not enough to express +the question which she made understood by gestures. Her eyes were +burning with appeal to us and flashing with hate as she shook her fist +toward the Germans. + +When were the English coming? All her trust was in the English, the +invincible English, to save her country. Probably the average +European would have passed her by as an excited peasant woman. +But pitiful she was to me, more pitiful than the raging officer and his +dog battery, or the infantry awkwardly intrenching back of Louvain, or +flag-bedecked Brussels believing in victory: one of the Belgians with +the true schipperke spirit. She was shaking her fist at a dam which +was about to burst in a flood. + +It was strange to an American, who comes from a land where +everyone learns a single language, English, that she and her +ancestors, through centuries of living neighbour in a thickly-populated +country to people who speak French and to French civilization, +should never have learned to express themselves in any but their +own tongue--singular, almost incredible, tenacity in the age of popular +education! She would save the lance-heads and garner every grain +of wheat; she economized in all but racial animosity. This racial +stubbornness of Europe--perhaps it keeps Europe powerful in jealous +competition of race with race. + +The thought that went home was that she did not want the Germans +to come; no Belgian wanted them; and this was the fact decisive in +the scales of justice. She said, as the officer had said, that the +Germans were "out there." Across the fields one saw nothing on that +still August day; no sign of war unless a Taube overhead, the first +enemy aeroplane I had seen in war. For the last two days the +German patrols had ceased to come. Liege, we knew, had fallen. +Looking at the map, we prayed that Namur would hold. + +"Out there" beyond the quiet fields, that mighty force which was to +swing through Belgium in flank was massed and ready to move when +the German Staff opened the throttle. A mile or so away a patrol of +Belgian cyclists stopped us as we turned toward Brussels. They were +dust-covered and weary; the voice of their captain was faint with +fatigue. For over two weeks he had been on the hunt of Uhlan +patrols. Another schipperke he, who could not only hate but fight +as best he knew how. + +"We had an alarm," he said. "Have you heard anything?" + +When we told him no, he pedalled on more slowly, and oh, how +wearily! to the front. Rather pitiful that, too, when you thought of what +was "out there." + +One had learned enough to know, without the confidential information +that he received, that the Germans could take Brussels if they chose. +But the people of Brussels still thronged the streets under the +blankets of bunting. If bunting could save Brussels, it was in no +danger. + +There was a mockery about my dinner that night. The waiter who laid +the white cloth on a marble table was unctuously suggestive as to +menu. Luscious grapes and crisp salad, which Belgian gardeners +grow with meticulous care, I remember of it. You might linger over +your coffee, knowing the truth, and look out at the people who did not +know it. When they were not buying more buttons with the allied +colours, or more flags, or dropping nickel pieces in Red Cross boxes, +they were thronging to the kiosks for the latest edition of the evening +papers, which told them nothing. + +A man had to make up his mind. Clearly, he had only to keep in his +room in his hotel in order to have a great experience. He might see +the German troops enter Belgium. His American passport would +protect him as a neutral. He could depend upon the legation to get +him out of trouble. + +"Stick to the army you are with!" an eminent American had told me. + +"Yes, but I prefer to choose my army," I had replied. + +The army I chose was not about to enter Brussels. It was that of +"mine own people" on the side of the schipperke dog machine-gun +battery which I had seen in the streets of Haelen, and the peasant +woman who shook her fist at the invader, and all who had the +schipperke spirit. + +My empty appointment as the representative of the American Press +with the British army was, at least, taken seriously by the policeman +at the War Office in London when I returned from trips to Paris. The +day came when it was good for British trenches and gun-positions; +when it was worth all the waiting, because it was the army of my race +and tongue. + + + + +II +Mons And Paris + + + +Back from Belgium to England; then across the Channel again to +Boulogne, where I saw the last of the French garrison march away, +their red trousers a throbbing target along the road. From Boulogne +the British had advanced into Belgium. Now their base was moved on +to Havre. Boulogne, which two weeks before had been cheering +the advent of "Tommee Atkeens" singing "Why should we be +downhearted?" was ominously lifeless. It was a town without soldiers; +a town of brick and mortar and pavements whose very defencelessness +was its best security should the Germans come. + +The only British there were a few stray wounded officers and men +who had found their way back from Mons. They had no idea where +the British army was. All they realized were sleepless nights, the +shock of combat, overpowering artillery fire, and resisting the +onslaught of outnumbering masses. + +An officer of Lancers, who had ridden through the German cavalry +with his squadron, dwelt on the glory of that moment. What did his +wound matter? It had come with the burst of a shell in a village street +which killed his horse after the charge. He had hobbled away, +reached a railroad train, and got on board. That was all he knew. + +A Scotch private had been lying with his battalion in a trench when a +German aeroplane was sighted. It had hardly passed by when +showers of shrapnel descended, and the Germans, in that grey- +green so hard to see, were coming on as thick as locusts. Then the +orders came to fall back, and he was hit as his battalion made +another stand. He had crawled a mile across the fields in the night +with a bullet in his arm. A medical corps officer told him to find any +transportation he could; and he, too, was able to get aboard a train. +That was all he knew. + +These wounded had been tossed aside into eddies by the maelstrom +of action. They were interesting because they were the first British +wounded that I had seen; because the war was young. + +Back to London again to catch the steamer with an article. One was +to take a season ticket to the war from London as home. It was a +base whence one sallied forth to get peeps through the curtain of +military secrecy at the mighty spectacle. You soaked in England at +intervals and the war at intervals. Whenever you stepped on the pier +at Folkestone it was with a breath of relief, born of a sense of freedom +long associated with fields and hedges on the other side of the chalk +cliffs which seemed to make the sequestering barrier of the sea +complete. + +Those days of late August and early September, 10.14, were gripping +days to the memory. Eager armies were pressing forward to a +cataclysm no longer of dread imagination but of reality. That ever- +deepening and spreading stain from Switzerland to the North Sea +was as yet only a splash of fresh blood. You still wondered if you +might not wake up in the morning and find the war a nightmare. +Pictures that grow clearer with time, which the personal memory +chooses for its own, dissociate themselves from a background of +detail. + +They were very quiet, this pair that sat at the next table in the dining- +room of a London hotel. I never spoke to them, but only stole discreet +glances, as we all will in irresistible temptation at any newly-wedded +couple. Neither was of the worldly type. One knew that to this young +girl London was strange; one knew the type of country home which +had given her that simple charm which cities cannot breed; one +knew, too, that this young officer, her husband, waited for word to go +to the front. + +Unconsciously she would play with her wedding-ring. She stole covert +glances at it and at him, of the kind that bring a catch in the throat, +when he was not looking at her--which he was most of the time, for +reasons which were good and sufficient to others besides himself. +Apprehended in "wool-gathering," she mustered a smile which was +so exclusively for him that the neighbour felt that he ought to be +forgiven his peeps from the tail of his eye at it because it was so +precious. + +They attempted little flights of talk about everything except the war. +He was most solicitous that she should have something which she +liked to eat, whilst she was equally solicitous about him. Wasn't he +going "out there?" And out there he would have to live on army fare. It +was all appealing to the old traveller. And then the next morning--she +was alone, after she had given him that precious smile in parting. The +incident was one of the thousands before the war had become an +institution, death a matter of routine, and it was a commonplace for +young wives to see young husbands away to the front with a smile. + +One such incident does for all, whether the war be young or old. +There is nothing else to tell, even when you know wife and husband. I +was rather glad that I did not know this pair. If I had known them I +should be looking at the casualty list for his name and I might not +enjoy my faith that he will return alive. These two seemed to me the +best of England. I used to think of them when gossip sought the latest +turn of intrigue under the mantle of censorship, when Parliament +poured out its oral floods and the newspapers their volumes of words. +The man went off to fight; the woman returned to her country home. It +was the hour of war, not of talk. + +On that Sunday in London when the truth about Mons appeared stark +to all England, another young man happened to buy a special edition +at a street corner at the same time as myself. By all criteria, the world +and his tailor had treated him well and he deserved well of the world. +We spoke together about the news. Already the new democracy +which the war has developed was in evidence. Everybody had +common thoughts and a common thing at stake, with values +reckoned in lives, and this makes for equality. + +"It's clear that we have had a bad knock. Why deny it?" he said. Then +he added quietly, after a pause: "This is a personal call for me. I'm +going to enlist." + +England's answer to that "bad knock" was out of her experience. She +had never won at first, but she had always won in the end; she had +won the last battle. The next day's news was worse and the next +day's still worse. The Germans seemed to be approaching Paris by +forced marches. Paris might fall--no matter! Though the French army +were shattered, one heard Englishmen say that the British would +create an army to wrest victory from defeat. The spirit of this was fine, +but one realized the enormity of the task; should the mighty German +machine crush the French machine, the Allies had lost. To say so +then was heresy, when the world was inclined to think poorly of the +French army and saw Russian numbers as irresistible. + +The personal call was to Paris before the fate of Paris was to be +decided. My first crossing of the Channel had been to Ostend; the +second, farther south to Boulogne; the third was still farther south, to +Dieppe. Where next? To Havre! Events were moving with the speed +which had been foreseen with myriads of soldiers ready to be thrown +into battle by the quick march of the railroad trains. + +Every event was hidden under the "fog of war," then a current +expression--meagre official bulletins which read like hope in their brief +lines, while the imagination might read as it chose between the lines. +The marvel was that any but troop trains should run. All night in that +third-class coach from Dieppe to Paris! Tired and preoccupied +passengers; everyone's heart heavy; everyone's soul wrenched; +everyone prepared for the worst! You cared for no other man's views; +the one thing you wanted was no bad news. France had known that +when the war came it would be to the death. From the first no +Frenchman could have had any illusions. England had not realized +yet that her fate was with the soldiers of France, or France that her +fate and all the world's was with the British fleet. + +An Italian in our compartment would talk, however, and he would +keep the topic down to red trousers, and to the red trousers of a +French Territorial opposite, with an index finger when his gesticulatory +knowledge of the French language, which was excellent, came to the +rescue of his verbal knowledge, which was poor. The Frenchman +agreed that red trousers were a mistake, but pointed to the blue +covering which he had for his cap--which made it all right. The Italian +insisted on keeping to the trousers. He talked red trousers till the +Frenchman got out at his station, and then turned to me to confirm +his views on this fatal strategic and tactical error of the French. After +all, he was more pertinent than most of the military experts trying to +write on the basis of the military bulletins. It was droll to listen to +this sartorial discourse, when at least two hundred thousand men +lay dead and wounded from that day's fight on the soil of France. +Red trousers were responsible for the death of a lot of those men. + +Dawn, early September dawn, on dew-moist fields, where the harvest +lay unfinished as the workers, hastening to the call of war, had left the +work. Across Paris, which seemed as silent as the fields, to an hotel +with empty rooms! Five hundred empty rooms, with a clock ticking +busily in every room! War or no war, that old man who wound the +clocks was making his rounds softly through the halls from door to +door. He was a good soldier, who had heeded Joffre's request that +everyone should go on with his day's work. + +"They're done!" said an American in the foyer. "The French cannot +stand up against the Germans--anybody could see that! It's too bad, +but the French are licked. The Germans will be here to-morrow or the +next day." + +I could not and would not believe it. Such a disaster was against all +one's belief in the French army and in the real character of the +French people. It meant that autocracy was making sport of +democracy; it meant disaster to all one's precepts; a personal +disaster. + +"Look at that interior line which the French now hold. Think of the +power of the defensive with modern arms. No! The French have not +had their battle yet!" I said. + +And the British Expeditionary Force was still intact; still an army, with +lots of fight left in it. + + + + +Ill +Paris Waits + + + +It was then that people were speaking of Paris as a dead city--a Paris +without theatres, without young men, without omnibuses, with the +shutters of its shops down and its cafes and restaurants in gloomy +emptiness. + +The Paris the host of the idler and the traveller; the Paris of the +boulevards and the night life provided for the tourist; the Paris that +sparkled and smiled in entertainment; the Paris exploited to +the average American through Sunday supplements and the +reminiscences of smoking-rooms of transatlantic liners, was dead. +Those who knew no other Paris and conjectured no other Paris +departed as from the tomb of the pleasures which had been the +passing extravaganza of relief, from dull lives elsewhere. The +Parisienne of that Paris spent a thousand francs to get her pet dog +safely away to Marseilles. Politicians of a craven type, who are the +curse of all democracies, had gone to keep her company, leaving +Paris cleaner than ever she was after the streets had had their +morning bath on a spring day when the horse chestnuts were in +bloom and madame was arranging her early editions on the table of +her kiosk--a spiritually clean Paris. + +Monsieur, would you have America judged by the White Way? What +has the White Way to do with the New York of Seventy-Second +Street or Harlem? It serves the same purpose as the boulevards of +furnishing scandalous little paragraphs for foreign newspapers. +Foreigners visit it and think that they understand how Americans live +in Stockbridge, Mass., or Springfield Illinois, Empty its hotels and +nobody but sightseers and people interested in the White Way would +know the difference. + +The other Paris, making ready to stand siege, with the Government +gone to Bordeaux with all the gold of the Bank of France, with the +enemy's guns audible in the suburbs and old men cutting down trees +and tearing up paving-stones to barricade the streets--never had that +Paris been more alive. It was after the death of the old and the birth of +the new Paris that an elderly man, seeing a group of women at tea in +one of the few fashionable refreshment places which were open, +stopped and said: + +"Can you find nothing better than that to do, ladies, in a time like +this?" + +And the Latin temperament gave the world a surprise. Those who +judged France by her playful Paris thought that if a Frenchman +gesticulated so emotionally in the course of everyday existence, he +would get overwhelmingly excited in a great emergency. One +evening, after the repulse of the Germans on the Marne, I saw two +French reserves dining in a famous restaurant where, at this time of +the year, four out of five diners ordinarily would be foreigners +surveying one another in a study of Parisian life. They were big, rosy- +cheeked men, country born and bred, belonging to the new France of +sports, of action, of temperate habits, and they were joking about +dining there just as two sturdy Westerners might about dining in a +deserted Broadway. The foreigners and demimondaines were +noticeably absent; a pair of Frenchmen were in the place of the +absentees; and after their dinner they smoked their black brier-root +pipes in that fashionable restaurant. + +Among the picture post-cards then on sale was one of Marianne, who +is France, bound for the front in an aeroplane with a crowing French +cock sitting on the brace above her. Marianne looked as happy as if +she were going to the races; the cock as triumphant as if he had a +spur through the German eagle's throat. However, there was little +sale for picture post-cards or other trifles, while Paris waited for the +siege. They did not help to win victories. News and not jeux d'esprit, +victory and not wit, was wanted. + +For Marianne went to war with her liberty cap drawn tight over her +brow, a beat in her temples, and her heart in her throat; and the cock +had his head down and pointed at the enemy. She was relieved in a +way, as all Europe was, that the thing had come; at last an end of the +straining of competitive taxation and preparation; at last the test. She +had no Channel, as England had, between her and the foe. Defeat +meant the heel of the enemy on her soil, German sentries in her +streets, submission. Long and hard she had trained; while the outside +world, thinking of the Paris of the boulevards, thought that she could +not resist the Kaiser's legions. She was effeminate, effete. She was +all right to run cafes and make artificial flowers, but she lacked beef. +All the prestige was with her enemy. In '70 all the prestige had been +with her. For there is no prestige like military prestige. It is all with +those who won the last war. + +"But if we must succumb, let it be now," said the French. + +On, on--the German corps were coming like some machine- +controlled avalanche of armed men. Every report brought them a little +nearer Paris. Ah, monsieur, they had numbers, those Germans! +Every German mother has many sons; a French mother only one or +two. + +How could one believe those official communiques which kept saying +that the position of the French armies was favourable and then +admitted that von Kluck had advanced another twenty miles? The +heart of Paris stopped beating. Paris held its breath. Perhaps the +reason there was no panic was that Parisians had been prepared for +the worst. + +What silence! The old men and the women in the streets moved as +under a spell, which was the sense of their own helplessness. But few +people were abroad, and those going on errands apparently. The +absence of traffic and pedestrians heightened the sepulchral +appearance to superficial observation. At the windows of flats, inside +the little shops, and on by-streets, you saw waiting faces, everyone +with the weight of national grief become personal. Was Paris alive? +Yes, if Paris is human and not bricks and stone. Every Parisian was +living a century in a week. So, too, was one who loved France. In the +prospect of its loss he realized the value of all that France stands for, +her genius, her democracy, her spirit. + +One recalled how German officers had said that the next war would +be the end of France. An indemnity which would crush out her power +of recovery would be imposed on her. Her northern ports would be +taken. France, the most homogeneous of nations, would be divided +into separate nationalities--even this the Germans had planned. +Those who read their Shakespeare in the language they learned in +childhood had no doubt of England's coming out of the war secure; +but if we thought which foreign civilization brought us the most in our +lives, it was that of France. + +What would the world be without French civilization? To think of +France dead was to think of cells in your own brain that had gone +lifeless; of something irreparable extinguished to every man to whom +civilization means more than material power of destruction. The +sense of what might be lost was revealed to you at every turn in +scenes once merely characteristic of a whole, each with an appeal of +its own now; in the types of people who, by their conduct in this hour +of trial, showed that Spartan hearts might beat in Paris-the Spartan +hearts of the mass of everyday, workaday Parisians. + +Those waiting at home calmly with their thoughts, in a France of +apprehension, knew that their fate was out of their hands in the hands +of their youth. The tide of battle wavering from Meaux to Verdun +might engulf them; it might recede; but Paris would resist to the last. +That was something. She would resist in a manner worthy of Paris; +and one could live on very little food. Their fathers had. Every day +that Paris held out would be a day lost to the Germans and a day +gained for Joffre and Sir John French to bring up reserves. + +The street lamps should not reveal to Zeppelins or Taubes the +location of precious monuments. You might walk the length of the +Champs Elysees without meeting a vehicle or more than two or three +pedestrians. The avenue was all your own; you might appreciate it as +an avenue for itself; and every building and even the skyline of the +streets you might appreciate, free of any association except the +thought of the results of man's planning and building. Silent, deserted +Paris by moonlight, without street lamps--few had ever seen that. +Millionaire tourists with retinues of servants following them in motor- +cars may never know this effect; nor the Parisienne who paid a +thousand francs to send her pet dog to Marseilles. + +The moonlight threw the Arc de Triomphe in exaggerated spectral +relief, sprinkled the leaves of the long rows of trees, glistened on the +upsweep of the broad pavements, gleamed on the Seine. Paris was +majestic, as scornful of Prussian eagles as the Parthenon of Roman +eagles. A column of soldiery marching in triumph under the Arc might +possess as a policeman possesses; but not by arms could they gain +the quality that made Paris, any more than the Roman legionary +became a Greek scholar by doing sentry go in front of the Parthenon. +Every Parisian felt anew how dear Paris was to him; how worthy of +some great sacrifice! + +If New York were in danger of falling to an enemy, the splendid length +of Fifth Avenue and the majesty of the skyscrapers of lower +Broadway and the bay and the rivers would become vivid to you in a +way they never had before; or Washington, or San Francisco, or +Boston--or your own town. The thing that is a commonplace, when +you are about to lose it takes on a cherished value. + +To-morrow the German guns might be thundering in front of the +fortifications. The communiques from Joffre became less frequent +and more laconic. Their wording was like some trembling, fateful +needle of a barometer, pausing, reacting a little, but going down, +down, down, indicator of the heart-pressure of Paris, shrivelling the +flesh, tightening the nerves. Already Paris was in a state of siege, in +one sense. Her exits were guarded against all who were not in +uniform and going to fight; to all who had no purpose except to see +what was passing where two hundred miles resounded with strife. It +was enough to see Paris itself awaiting the siege; fighting one was yet +to see to repletion. + +The situation must be very bad or the Government would not have +gone to Bordeaux. Alors, one must trust the army and the army must +trust Joffre. There is no trust like that of a democracy when it gives its +heart to a cause; the trust of the mass in the strength of the mass +which sweeps away the middlemen of intrigue. + +And silence, only silence in Paris; the silence of the old men and the +women, and of children who had ceased to play and could not +understand. No one might see what was going on unless he carried a +rifle. No one might see even the wounded. Paris was spared this, +isolated in the midst of war. The wounded were sent out of reach of +the Germans in case they should come. + +Then the indicator stopped falling. It throbbed upward. The +communiques became more definite; they told of positions regained, +and borne in the ether by the wireless of telepathy was something +which confirmed the communiques. At first Paris was uneasy with the +news, so set had history been on repeating itself, so remorselessly +certain had seemed the German advance. But it was true, true--the +Germans were going, with the French in pursuit, now twenty, now +thirty, now forty, now fifty, sixty, seventy miles away from Paris. Yes, +monsieur, seventy! + +With the needle rising, did Paris gather in crowds and surge through +the streets, singing and shouting itself hoarse, as it ought to have +done according to the popular international idea? No, monsieur, Paris +will not riot in joy in the presence of the dead on the battlefields and +while German troops are still within the boundaries of France. Paris, +which had been with heart standing still and breathing hard, began to +breathe regularly again and the glow of life to run through her veins. +In the markets, whither madame brought succulent melons, pears, +and grapes with commonplace vegetables, the talk of bargaining +housewives with their baskets had something of its old vivacity and +madame stiffened prices a little, for there will be heavy taxes to pay +for the war. Children, so susceptible to surroundings, broke out of the +quiet alleys and doorways in play again. + +A Sunday of relief, with a radiant September sun shining, followed a +Sunday of depression. The old taxicabs and the horse vehicles with +their venerable steeds and drivers too old for service at the front, +exhumed from the catacomb of the hours of doubt, ran up and down +the Champs Elysees with airing parties. At Notre Dame the religious +rejoicing was expressed. A great service of prayer was held by the +priests who were not away fighting for France, as three thousand are, +while joyful prayers of thanks shone on the faces of that democratic +people who have not hesitated to discipline the church as they have +disciplined their rulers. Groups gathered in the cafes or sauntered +slowly, talking less than usual, gesticulating little, rolling over the +good news in their minds as something beyond the power of +expression. How banal to say, "C'est chic, ca!" or "C'est epatant!" +Language is for little things. + +That pile of posters at the American Embassy had already become +historical souvenirs which won a smile. The name of every American +resident in Paris and his address had been filled in the blank space. +He had only to put up the warning over his door that the premises +were under the Embassy's protection. Ambassador Herrick, suave, +decisive, resourceful, possessed the gift of acting in a great +emergency with the same ease and simplicity as in a small one, +which is a gift sometimes found wanting when a crisis breaks upon +the routine of official life. + +He had the courage to act and the ability to secure a favour for an +American when it was reasonable; and the courage to say "No" if it +were unreasonable or impracticable. No one of the throngs who had +business with him was kept long at the door in uncertainty. In its +organization for facilitating the home-going of the thousands of +Americans in Paris and the Americans coming to Paris from other +parts of Europe, the American Embassy in Paris seemed as well +mobilized for its part in the war as the German army. + +In spite of '70, France still lived. You noted the faces of the women in +fresh black for their dead at the front, a little drawn but proud and +victorious. The son or brother or husband had died for the country. +When a fast motor-car bearing officers had a German helmet or two +displayed, the people stopped to look. A captured German in the +flesh on a front seat beside a soldier-chauffeur brought the knots to a +standstill. "Voila C'est un Allemand!" ran the exclamation. But Paris +soon became used to these stray German prisoners, left-overs from +the German retreat coming in from the fields to surrender. The +batches went through by train without stopping for Paris, southward to +the camps where they were to be interned; and the trains of wounded +to winter resorts, whose hotels became hospitals, the verandas +occupied by convalescents instead of gossiping tourists. It is tres a la +mode to be wounded, monsieur--tres a la mode all over Europe. + +And, monsieur, all those barricades put up for nothing! They will not +need the cattle gathered on Long-champs race-track and in the parks +at Versailles for a siege. The people who laid in stocks of tinned +goods till the groceries of Paris were empty of everything in tins--they +will either have to live on canned food or confess that they were pigs, +hein? Those volunteers, whether young men who had been excused +because they were only sons or for weak hearts which now let them +past the surgeons, whether big, hulking farmers, or labourers, or +stooped clerks, drilling in awkward squads in the suburbs till they are +dizzy, they will not have to defend Paris; but, perhaps, help to regain +Alsace and Lorraine. + +Then there were stories going the rounds; stories of French courage +and elan which were cheering to the ears of those who had to remain +at home. Did you hear about the big French peasant soldier who +captured a Prussian eagle in Alsace? They had him come to Paris to +give him the Legion of Honour and the great men made a ceremony +of it, gathering around him at the Ministry of War. The simple fellow +looked from one to another of the group, surprised at all this attention. +It did not occur to him that he had done anything remarkable. He had +seen a Prussian with a standard and taken the standard away from +the Prussian. + +"If you like this so well," said that droll one, "I'll try to get another!" + + + + +IV +On The Heels Of Von Kluck + + + +Though the Germans were going, the siege by the cordon of French +guards around Paris had not been raised. To them every civilian was +a possible spy. So they let no civilians by. Must one remain for ever in +Paris, screened from any view of the great drama? Was there no way +of securing a blue card which would open the road to war for an atom +of humanity who wanted to see Frenchmen in action and not to pry +into generals' plans? + +Happily, an army winning is more hospitable than an army losing; and +bonds of friendship which stretch around the world could be linked +with authority which has only to say the word, in order that one might +have a day's glimpse of the fields where von Kluck's Germans were +showing their heels to the French. + +Ours, I think, was the pioneer of the sight-seeing parties which +afterwards became the accepted form of war correspondence with +the French. None could have been under more delightful auspices in +companionship or in the event. Victory was in the hearts of our hosts, +who included M. Paul Doumer, formerly President of the Chamber of +Deputies and Governor of French Indo-China and now a senator, and +General Febrier, of the French Medical Service, who was to have had +charge of the sanitation of Paris in case of a siege. + +M. Doumer was acting as Chef de Cabinet to General Gallieni, the +commandant of Paris, and he and General Febrier and two other +officers of Gallieni's staff, who would have been up to their eyes in +work if there had been a siege, wanted to see something of that army +whose valour had given them a holiday. Why should not Roberts and +myself come along? which is the pleasant way the French have of +putting an invitation. + +Oh, the magic of a military pass and the companionship of an officer +in uniform! It separates you from the crowd of millions on the other +side of the blank wall of military secrecy and takes you into the area +of the millions in uniform; it wins a nod of consent on a road from that +middle-aged reservist whose bayonet has the police power of millions +of bayonets in support of its authority. + +At last one was to see; the measure of his impressions was to be his +own eyes and not written reports. Other passes I have had since, +which gave me the run of trenches and shell-fire areas; but this pass +opened the first door to the war. That day we ran by Meaux and +Chateau Thierry to Soissons and back by Senlis to Paris. We saw a +finger's breadth of battle area; a pin-point of army front. Only a ride +along a broad, fine road out of Paris, at first; a road which our cars +had all to themselves. Then at Claye we came to the high-water mark +of the German invasion in this region. Thus close to Paris in that +direction and no closer had the Germans come. + +There was the field where their skirmishers had turned back. Farther +on, the branches of the avenue of trees which shaded the road had +been slashed as if by a whirlwind of knives, where the French +soixante-quinze field-guns had found a target. Under that sudden +bath of projectiles, with the French infantry pressing forward on their +front, the German gunners could not wait to take away the cord of +five-inch shells which they had piled to blaze their way to Paris. One +guessed their haste and their irritation. They were within range of the +fortifications; within two hours' march of the suburbs; of the Mecca of +forty years' preparation. After all that march from Belgium, with no +break in the programme of success, the thunders broke and lightning +flashed out of the sky as Manoury's army rushed upon von Kluck's +flank. + +"It was not the way that they wanted us to get the shells," said a +French peasant who was taking one of the shell-baskets for a +souvenir. It would make an excellent umbrella stand. + +For the French it had been the turn of the tide; for that little British +army which had fought its way back from Mons it was the sweet +dream, which had kept men up on the retreat, come true. Weary +Germans, after a fearful two weeks of effort, became the driven. +Weary British and French turned drivers. A hypodermic of victory +renewed their energy. Paris was at their back and the German backs +in front. They were no longer leaving their dead and wounded behind +to the foe; they were sweeping past the dead and wounded of the +foe. + +But their happiness, that of a winning action, exalted and passionate, +had not the depths of that of the refugees who had fled before the +German hosts and were returning to their homes in the wake of their +victorious army. We passed farmers with children perched on top of +carts laden with household goods and drawn by broad-backed farm- +horses, with usually another horse or a milch cow tied behind. The +real power of France, these peasants holding fast to the acres they +own, with the fire of the French nature under their thrifty +conservatism. Others on foot were villagers who had lacked horses +or carts to transport their belongings. In the packs on their backs +were a few precious things which they had borne away and were now +bearing back. + +Soon they would know what the Germans had done to the homes. +What the Germans had done to one piano was evident. It stood in the +yard of a house where grass and flowers had been trodden by horses +and men. In the sport of victory the piano had been dragged out of +the little drawing-room, while Fritz and Hans played and sang in the +intoxication of a Paris gained, a France in submission. They did not +know what Joffre had in pickle for them. It had all gone according to +programme up to that moment. Nothing can stop us Germans! +Champagne instead of beer! Set the glass on top of the piano and +sing! Haven't we waited forty years for this day? + +Captured diaries of German officers, which reflect the seventh +heaven of elation suddenly turned into grim depression, taken in +connection with what one saw on the battlefield, reconstruct the +scene around that piano. The cup to the lips; then dashed away. How +those orders to retreat must have hurt! + +The state of the refugees' homes all depended upon the chances of +war. War's lightning might have hit your roof-tree and it might not. It +plays no favourites between the honest and the dishonest; the thrifty +and the shiftless. We passed villages which exhibited no signs of +destruction or of looting. German troops had marched through in the +advance and in the retreat without being billeted. A hurrying army with +another on its heels has no time for looting. Other villages had been +points of topical importance; they had been in the midst of a fight. +General Mauvaise Chance had it in for them. Shells had wrecked +some houses; others were burned. Where a German non-commissioned +officer came to the door of a French family and said that room must +be made for German soldiers in that house and if anyone dared to +interfere with them he would be shot, there the exhausted human +nature of a people trained to think that "Krieg ist Krieg" and that the +spoils of war are to the victor had its way. + +It takes generations to lift a man up a single degree; but so swift is the +effect of war, when men live a year in a day, that he is demonized in a +month. Before the occupants had to go, often windows were broken, +crockery smashed, closets and drawers rifled. The soldiery which +could not have its Paris "took it out" of the property of their hosts. +Looting, destruction, one can forgive in the orgy of war which is +organized destruction; one can even understand rapine and atrocities +when armies, which include latent vile and criminal elements, are +aroused to the kind of insane passion which war kindles in human +beings. But some indecencies one could not understand in civilized +men. All with a military purpose, it is said; for in the nice calculations +of a staff system which grinds so very fine, nothing must be excluded +that will embarrass the enemy. A certain foully disgusting practice +was too common not to have had the approval of at least some +officers, whose conduct in several chateaux includes them as +accomplices. Not all officers, not all soldiers. That there should be a +few is enough to sicken you of belonging to the human species. +Nothing worse in Central America; nothing worse where civilized +degeneracy disgraces savagery. + +But do not think that destruction for destruction's sake was done in all +houses where German soldiers were billeted. If the good principle +was not sufficiently impressed, Belgium must have impressed it; a +looting army is a disorderly army. The soldier has burden enough to +carry in heavy marching order without souvenirs. That collector of the +stoppers of carafes who had thirty on his person when taken prisoner +was bound to be a laggard in the retreat. + +To their surprise and relief, returning farmers found their big, conical +haystacks untouched, though nothing could be more tempting to the +wantonness of an army on enemy soil. Strike a match and up goes +the harvest! Perhaps the Germans as they advanced had in mind to +save the forage for their own horses, and either they were running too +fast to stop or the staff overlooked the detail on the retreat. + +It was amazing how few signs of battle there were in the open. +Occasionally one saw the hastily-made shelter-trenches of a skirmish +line; and again, the emplacements for batteries--hurried field- +emplacements, so puny beside those of trench warfare. It had been +open fighting; the tide of an army sweeping forward and then, +pursued, sweeping back. One side was trying to get away; the other +to overtake. Here, a rearguard made a determined action which +would have had the character of a battle in other days; there, a +rearguard was pinched as the French or the British got around it. + +Swift marching and quick manoeuvres of the type which gave war +some of its old sport and zest; the advance all the while gathering +force like the neap tide! Crowds of men hurrying across a harvested +wheatfield or a pasture after all leave few marks of passage. A day's +rain will wash away bloodstains and liven trampled vegetation. Nature +hastens with a kind of contempt of man to repair the damage done by +his murderous wrath. + +The cyclone past, the people turned out to put things in order. +Peasants too old to fight, who had paid the taxes which paid for the +rifles and guns and shell-fire, were moving across the fields with +spades, burying the bodies of the young men and the horses that +were war's victims. Long trenches full of dead told where the eddy of +battle had been fierce and the casualties numerous; scattered +mounds of fresh earth where they were light; and, sometimes, when +the burying was unfinished--well, one draws the curtain over scenes +like that in the woods at Betz, where Frenchmen died knowing that +Paris was saved and Germans died knowing that they had failed to +take Paris. + +Whenever we halted our statesman, M. Doumer, was active. Did we +have difficulties over a culvert which had been hastily mended, he +was out of the car and in command. Always he was meeting some +man whom he knew and shaking hands like a senator at home. At +one place a private soldier, a man of education by his speech, came +running across the street at sight of him. + +"Son of an old friend of mine, from my town," said our statesman. +Being a French private meant being any kind of a Frenchman. All +inequalities are levelled in the ranks of a great conscript army. + +Be it through towns unharmed or towns that had been looted and +shelled, the people had the smile of victory, the look of victory in their +eyes. Children and old men and women, the stay-at-homes, waved to +our car in holiday spirit. The laugh of a sturdy young woman who +threw some flowers into the tonneau as we passed, in her tribute to +the uniform of the army that had saved France, had the spirit of +victorious France--France after forty years' waiting throwing back a +foe that had two soldiers to every one of hers. All the land, rich fields +and neat gardens and green stretches of woods in the fair, rolling +landscape, basked in victory. Dead the spirit of anyone who could +not, for the time being, catch the infection of it and feel himself a +Frenchman. Far from the Paris of gay show for the tourist one +seemed; in the midst of the France of the farms and the villages +which had saved Paris and France. + +The car sped on over the hard road. Staff officers in other cars whom +we passed alone suggested that there was war somewhere ahead. +Were we never going to reach the battle-line, the magnet of our +speed when a French army chauffeur made all speed laws obsolete? + +Shooting out of a grove, a valley made a channel for sound that +brought to our ears the thunder of guns, with firing so rapid that it was +like the roll of some cyclopean snare-drum beaten with sticks the size +of ship-masts. From the crest of the next hill we had a glimpse of an +open sweep of park-like country toward wooded hills. As far as we +could see against the background of the foliage which threw it into +relief was a continuous cloud of smoke from bursting shells, renewed +with fresh, soft, blue puffs as fast as it was dissipated. + +This, then, was a battle. No soldiers, no guns, in sight; only against +masses of autumn green a diaphanous, man-made nimbus which +was raining steel hail. Ten miles of this, one would say; and under it +lines of men in blue coats and red trousers and green uniforms +hugging the earth, as unseen as a battalion of ants at work in the tall +grass. Even if a charge swept across a field one would have been +able to detect nothing except moving pin-points on a carpet. + +There was hard fighting; a lot of French and German were being +killed in the direction of Compiegne and Noyon to-day. Another dip +into another valley and the thir-r-r of a rapid-firer and the muffled +firing of a line of infantry were audible. Yes, we were getting up +with the army, with one tiny section of it operating along the road on +which we were. Multiply this by a thousand and you have the whole. + +Ahead was the army's larder on wheels; a procession of big motor +transport trucks keeping their intervals of distance with the precision +of a battleship fleet at sea. We should have known that they belonged +to the army by the deafness of the drivers to appeals to let us pass. +All army transports are like that. What the deuced right has anybody +to pass? They are the transport, and only fighting men belong in front +of them. Our car in trying to go by to one side got stuck in a rut that +an American car, built for bad roads, would have made nothing of; +which proves again how closely European armies are tied to their fine +highways. We got out, and here again was our statesman putting his +shoulder to the wheel. That is the way of the French in war. +Everybody tries to help. By this time the transport chauffeurs +remembered that they also were Frenchmen; and as Frenchmen are +polite even in time of war, they let us by. + +A motor-cyclist approached with his hand up. + +"Stop here!" he called. + +Those transport chauffeurs who were deaf to ex-premiers heard +instantly and obeyed. In front of them was a line of single horse- +drawn carts, with an extra horse in the rear. They could take paths +that the motor trucks could not. Archaic they seemed, yet friendly, as +a relic of how armies were fed in other days. For the first time I was +realizing what the motor truck means to war. It brings the army +impedimenta close up to the army's rear; it means a reduction of road +space occupied by transport by three-quarters; ease in keeping pace +with food with the advance, speed in falling back in case of retreat. + +All that day I did not see a single piece of French army transport +broken down. And this army had been fighting for weeks; it had been +an army on the road. The valuable part of our experience was exactly +in this: a glimpse of an army in action after it had been through all the +vicissitudes that an army may have in marching and counter- +marching and attack. Order one expected afterwards, behind the +siege line of trenches, when there had been time to establish a +routine; organization and smooth organization you had here at the +climax of a month's strain. It told the story of the character of the +French army and the reasons for its success other than its courage. +The brains were not all with the German Staff. + +That winding road, with a new picture at every turn, now revealed the +town of Soissons in the valley of the River Aisne. Soissons was ours, +we knew, since yesterday. How much farther had we gone? Was our +advance still continuing? For then, winter trench-fighting was +unforeseen and the sightseers thought of the French army as +following up success with success. Paris, rising from gloom to +optimism, hoped to see the Germans speedily put out of France. The +appetite for victory grew, after a week's bulletins which moved the +flags forward on the map every day. + +Another turn and Soissons was hidden from view by a woodland. +Here we came upon what looked like a leisurely family party of +reserves. The French army, a small section of French army, along a +road! And thus, if one would see the whole it must be in bits along the +roads, when not on the firing-line. They were sprawling in the fields in +the genial afternoon sun, looking as if they had no concern except to +rest. Uniforms dusty and faces tanned and bearded told their story of +the last month. + +The duty of a portion of a force is always to wait on what is being +done by the others at the front. These were waiting near a fork which +could take them to the right or the left, as the situation demanded. At +the rear, their supply of small arms ammunition; in front, caissons of +shells for a battery speaking from the woods near by; a troop of +cavalry drawn up, the men dismounted, ready; and ahead of them +more reserves ready; everything ready. + +This was where the general wanted the body of men and equipment +to be, and here they were. There were no dragging ends in the rear, +so far as I could see; nobody complaining that food or ammunition +was not up; no aide looking for somebody who could not be found; no +excited staff officer rushing about shouting for somebody to look +sharp for somebody had made a mistake. The thing was unwarlike; it +was like a particularly well-thought-out route march. Yet at the word +that company of cavalry might be in the thick of it, at the point where +they were wanted; the infantry rushing to the support of the firing-line; +the motor transport facing around for withdrawal, if need be. It was +only a little way, indeed, into the zone of death from the rear of that +compact column. Thousands of such compact bodies on many +roads, each seemingly a force by itself and each a part of the whole, +which could be a dependable whole only when every part was ready, +alert, and where it belonged! Nothing can be left to chance in a battle- +line three hundred miles long. The general must know what to +depend on, mile by mile, in his plans. Millions of human units are +grouped in increasingly larger units, harmonized according to set +forms. The most complex of all machines is that of a vast army, which +yet must be kept most simple. No unit acts without regard to the +others; every one must know how to do its part. The parts of the +machine are standardized. One is like the other in training, uniform, +and every detail, so that one can replace another. Oldest of all trades +this of war; old experts the French. What one saw was like +manoeuvres. It must be like manoeuvres or the army would not hold +together. Manoeuvres are to teach armies coherence; war tries out +that coherence, which you may not have if someone does not know +just what to do; if he is uncertain in his role. Haste leads to confusion; +haste is only for supreme moments. In order to know how to hasten +when the hurry call comes, the mighty organism must move in its +routine with the smoothness of a well-rehearsed play. + +Joffre and the others who directed the machine must know more than +the mechanics of staff-control. They must know the character of the +man-material in the machine. It was their duty as real Frenchmen to +understand Frenchmen, their verve, their restlessness for the +offensive, their individualism, their democratic intelligence, the value +of their elation, the drawback of their tendency to depression and to +think for themselves. Indeed, the leader must counteract the faults of +his people and make the most of their virtues. + +Thus, we had a French army's historical part reversed: a French army +falling back and concentrating on the Marne to receive the enemy +blow. Equally alive to German racial traits, the German Staff had +organized in their mass offensive the elan which means fast +marching and hard blows. So, we found the supposedly excitable +French digging in to receive the onslaught of the supposedly +phlegmatic German. When the time came for the charge--ah, you can +always depend on a Frenchman to charge! + +Those reserves were pawns on a chessboard. They appeared like it; +one thought that they realized it. Their individual intelligence +and democracy had reasoned out the value of obedience and +homogeneity, rather than accepted it as the dictum of any war lord. +Difficult to think that 'each one had left a vacancy at a family board; +difficult to think that all were not automatons in a process of endless +routine of war; but not difficult to learn that they were Frenchmen +once we had thrown our bombs in the midst of the group. + +Of old, one knew the wants of soldiers. One needed no hint of what +was welcome at the front. Never at any front were there enough +newspapers or tobacco. Men smoke twice as much as usual in the +strain of waiting for action; men who do not use tobacco at all get the +habit. Ask the G.A.R. men who fought in our great war if this is not +true. Then, too, when your country is at war, when back at home +hands stretch out for every fresh edition and you at the front know +only what happens in your alley, think what a newspaper from Paris +means out on the battle-line seventy miles from Paris! So I had +brought a bundle of newspapers and many packets of cigarettes. + +Monsieur, the sensation is beyond even the French language to +express--the sensation of sitting down by the roadside with this +morning's edition and the first cigarette for twenty-four hours. + +"C'est epatant! C'est chic, ca! C'est magnifique! Alors, nom de Dieu! +Tiens! Helas! Voila! Merci, mille remerciments!"--it was an army of +Frenchmen with ready words, quick, telling gestures, pouring out their +volume of thanks as the car sped by and we tossed out our +newspapers at intervals, so that all should have a look. + +An Echo de Paris that fell into the road was the centre of a flag-rush, +which included an officer. Most un-military--an officer scrambling at +the same time as his men! In the name of the Kaiser, what discipline! + +Then the car stopped long enough for me to see a private give the +paper to his officer, who was plainly sensible of a loss of dignity, with +a courtesy which said, "A thousand pardons, mon capitaine!" and the +capitaine began reading the newspaper aloud to his men. Scores of +human touches which were French, republican, democratic! + +With half our cigarettes gone, we fell in with some brown-skinned, +native African troops, the Mohammedan Turcos. Their white teeth +gleaming, their black eyes devilishly eager, they began climbing on to +the car. We gave them all the cigarettes in sight; but fortunately our +reserve supply was not visible, and an officer's sharp command +saved us from being invested by storm. + +As we came into Soissons we left the reserves behind. They were +kept back out of range of the German shells, making the town a dead +space between them and the firing-line, which was beyond. When the +Germans retreated through the streets the French had taken care, as +it was their town, to keep their fire away from the cathedral and the +main square to the outskirts and along the river. Not so the German +guns when the French infantry passed through. Soissons was not a +German town. + +We alighted from the car in a deserted street, with all the shutters of +shops that had not been torn down by shell-fire closed. Soissons was +as silent as the grave, within easy range of many enemy guns. War +seemed only for the time being in this valley bottom shut in from the +roar of artillery a few miles away, except for a French battery which +was firing methodically and slowly, its shells whizzing toward the ridge +back of the town. + +The next thing that one wanted most was to go into that battery and +see the soixante-quinze and their skilful gunners. Our statesman said +that he would try to locate it. We thought that it was in the direction of +the river, that famous Aisne which has since given its name to the +longest siege-line in history; a small, winding stream in the bottom of +an irregular valley. Both bridges across it had been cut by the +Germans. If that battery were on the other side under cover of any +one of a score of blots of foliage we could not reach it. Another shot-- +and we were not sure that the battery was not on the opposite side of +the town; a crack out of the landscape: this was modern artillery fire to +one who faced it. Apparently the guns of the battery were scattered, +according to the accepted practice, and from the central firing-station +word to fire was being passed first to one gun and then to another. + +Beside the buttress of one bridge lay two still figures of Algerian +Zouaves. These were fresh dead, fallen in the taking of the town. +Only two men! There were dead by thousands which one might see +in other places. These two had leaped out from cover to dash forward +and bullets were waiting for them. They had rolled over on their +backs, their rigid hands still in the position of grasping their rifles +after the manner of crouching skirmishers. + +Our statesman said that we had better give up trying to locate the +battery; and one of the officers called a halt to trying to go up to the +firing-line on the part of a personally-conducted party, after we +stopped a private hurrying back from the front on some errand. With +his alertness, the easy swing of his walk, his light step, and his +freedom of spirit and appearance, he typified the thing which the +French call elan. Whenever one asked a question of a French private +you could depend upon a direct answer. He knew or he did not know. +This definiteness, the result of military training as well as of Gallic +lucidity of thought, is not the least of the human factors in making an +efficient army, where every man and every unit must definitely know +his part. This young man, you realized, had tasted the "salt of life," as +Lord Kitchener calls it. He had heard the close sing of bullets; he had +known the intoxication of a charge. + +"Does everything go well?" M. Doumer asked. "It is not going at all, +now. It is sticking," was the answer. "Some Germans were busy up +there in the stone quarries while the others were falling back. They +have a covered trench and rapid-fire-gun positions to sweep a zone +of fire which they have cleared." + +Famous stone quarries of Soissons, providing ready-made dug-outs +as shelter from shells! + +There is a story of how before Marengo Napoleon heard a private +saying: "Now this is what the general ought to do!" It was Napoleon's +own plan revealed. "You keep still!" he said. "This army has too many +generals." + +"They mean to make a stand," the private went on. "It's an ideal place +for it. There is no use of an attack in front. We'd be mowed down by +machine-guns." The br-r-r of a dozen shots from a German machine- +gun gave point to his conclusion. "Our infantry is hugging what we +have and intrenching. You'd better not go up. One has to know the +way, or he'll walk right into a sharpshooter's bullet"--instructions that +would have been applicable a year later when one was about to visit +a British trench in almost the same location. + +The siege-warfare of the Aisne line had already begun. It was singular +to get the first news of it from a private in Soissons and then to return +to Paris and London, on the other side of the curtain of secrecy, +where the public thought that the Allied advance would continue. + +"Allons!" said our statesman, and we went to the town square, where +German guns had carpeted the ground with branches of shade trees +and torn off the fronts of houses, revealing sections of looted interior +which had been further messed by shell-bursts. Some women and +children and a crippled man came out of doors at sight of us. M. +Doumer introduced himself and shook hands all around. They were +glad to meet him in much the same way as if he had been on an +election campaign. + +"A German shell struck there across the square only half an hour +ago," said one of the women. + +"What do you do when there is shelling?" asked M. Doumer. + +"If it is bad we go into the cellar," was the answer; an answer which +implied that peculiar fearlessness of women, who get accustomed to +fire easier than men. These were the fatalists of the town, who would +not turn refugee; helpless to fight, but grimly staying with their homes +and accepting what came with an incomprehensible stoicism, which +possibly had its origin in a race-feeling so proud and bitter that they +would not admit that they could be afraid of anything German, even a +shell. + +"And how did the Germans act?" + +"They made themselves at home in our houses and slept in our beds, +while we slept in the kitchen," she answered. "They said that if we +kept indoors and gave them what they wanted we should not be +harmed. But if anyone fired a shot at their troops or any arms were +found in our houses, they would burn the town. When they were +going back in a great hurry--how they scattered from our shells! We +went out in the square to see our shells, monsieur!" + +What mattered the ruins of her home? "Our" shells had returned +vengeance. + +Arrows with directions in German, "This way to the river," "This way to +Villers-Cotteret," were chalked on the standing walls; and on door- +casings the names of the detachments of the Prussian Guard billeted +there, all in systematic Teutonic fashion. + +"Prince Albrecht Joachim, one of the Kaiser's sons, was here and I +talked with him," said the Mayor, who thought we would enjoy a +morsel from court circles in exchange for a copy of the Echo de Paris, +which contained the news that Prince Albrecht had been wounded +later. The Mayor looked tired, this local man of the people, who had to +play the shepherd of a stricken flock. Afterwards, they said that he +deserted his charge and a lady, Mme. Macherez, took his place. All I +know is that he was present that day; or, at least, a man who was +introduced to me as mayor; and he was French enough to make a +bon mot by saying that he feared there was some fault in his +hospitality because he had been unable to keep his guest. + +"May I have this confiture?" asked a battle-stained French orderly, +coming up to him. "I found it in that ruined house there--all the +Germans had left. I haven't had a confiture for a long time, and, +monsieur, you cannot imagine what a hunger I have for confitures." + +All the while the French battery kept on firing slowly, then again +rapidly, their cracks trilling off like the drum of knuckles on a +table-top. Another effort to locate one of the guns before we started +back to Paris failed. Speeding on, we had again a glimpse of the +landscape toward Noyon, sprinkled with shell-bursts. The reserves +were around their camp-fires making savoury stews for the evening +meal. They would sleep where night found them on the sward under +the stars, as in wars of old. That scene remains indelible as one of +many while the army was yet mobile, before the contest became +one of the mole and the beaver. + +Though one had already seen many German prisoners in groups and +convoys, the sight of two on the road fixed the attention because of +the surroundings and the contrast suggested between French and +German natures. Both were young, in the very prime of life, and both +Prussian. One was dark-complexioned, with a scrubbly beard which +was the product of the war. He marched with such rigidity that I +should not have been surprised to see him break into a goose-step. +The other was of that mild, blue-eyed, tow-haired type from the Baltic +provinces, with the thin, white skin which does not tan but burns. He +was frailer than the other and he was tired! He would lag and then +stiffen back his shoulders and draw in his chin and force a trifle more +energy into his steps. + +A typical, lively French soldier was escorting the pair. He looked pretty +tired, too, but he was getting over the ground in the natural, easy way +in which man is meant to walk. The aboriginal races, who have a +genius for long distances on foot, do not march in the German +fashion, which looks impressive, but lacks endurance. By the same +logic, the cowboy pony's gait is better for thirty miles day in and day +out than the gait of the high-stepping carriage horse. + +You could realize the contempt which those two martial Germans had +for their captor. Four or five peasant women refugees by the roadside +loosened their tongues in piercing feminine satire and upbraiding. + +"You are going to Paris, after all! This is what you get for invading our +country; and you'll get more of it!" + +The little French soldier held up his hand to the women and shook his +head. He was a chivalrous fellow, with imagination enough to +appreciate the feelings of an enemy who has fought hard and lost. +Such as he would fight fair and hold this war of the civilizations up to +something like the standards of civilization. + +The very tired German stiffened up again, as his drill sergeant had +taught him, and both stared straight ahead, proud and contemptuous, +as their Kaiser would wish them to do. I should recognize the faces of +those two Germans and of that little French guard if I saw them ten +years hence. In ten years, what will be the Germans' attitude toward +this war and their military lords? + +It is not often that one has a senator for a guide; and I never knew a +more efficient one than our statesman. His own curiosity was the best +possible aid in satisfying our own. Having seen the compactness and +simplicity of an army column at the front, we were to find that the +same thing applied to high command. A sentry and a small flag at the +doorway of a village hotel: this was the headquarters of the Sixth +Army, which General Manoury had formed in haste and flung at von +Kluck with a spirit which crowned his white hairs with the audacity of +youth. He was absent, but we might see something of the central +direction of one hundred and fifty thousand men in the course of one +of the most brilliant manoeuvres of the war, before staffs had settled +down to office existence in permanent quarters. That is, we might see +the little there was to see: a soldier telegrapher in one bedroom, a +soldier typewritist in another, officers at work in others. One realized +that they could pack up everything and move in the time it takes to +toss enough clothes into a bag to spend a night away from home. +Apparently, when the French fought they left red tape behind with the +bureaucracy. + +From his seat before a series of maps on a sitting-room table an +officer of about thirty-five rose to receive us. It struck me that he +exemplified self-possessed intelligence and definite knowledge; that +he had coolness and steadiness plus that acuteness of perception +and clarity of statement which are the gift of the French. You felt sure +that no orders which left his hand wasted any words or lacked +explicitness. The Staff is the brains of the army, and he had brains. + +"All goes well!" he said, as if there were no more to say. All goes well! +He would say it when things looked black or when they looked bright, +and in a way that would make others believe it. + +Outside the hotel were no cavalry escorts or commanders, no +hurrying orderlies, none of the legendary activity that is associated +with an army headquarters. A motor-car drove up, an officer got out; +another officer descended the stairs to enter a waiting car. The wires +carry word faster than the cars. Each subordinate commander was in +his place along that line where we had seen the puffs of smoke +against the landscape, ready to answer a question or obey an order. +That simplicity, like art itself, which seems so easy is the most difficult +accomplishment of all in war. + +After dark, in a drizzling rain, we came to what seemed to be a town, +for our motor-car lamps spread their radiant streams over wet +pavements. But these were the only lights. Tongues of loose bricks +had been shot across the cobblestones and dimly the jagged skyline +of broken walls of buildings on either side could be discerned. It was +Senlis, the first town I had seen which could be classified as a town in +ruins. Afterwards, one became a sort of specialist in ruins, comparing +the latest with previous examples of destruction. + +Approaching footsteps broke the silence. A small, very small, French +soldier--he was not more than five feet two--appeared, and we +followed him to an ambulance that had broken down for want of +petrol. It belonged to the Societe de Femmes de France. The little +soldier had put on a uniform as a volunteer for the only service his +stature would permit. In those days many volunteer organizations +were busy seeking to "help." There was a kind of competition among +them for wounded. This ambulance had got one and was taking him +to Paris, off the regular route of the wounded who were being sent +south. The boot-soles of a prostrate figure showed out of the dark +recess of the interior. This French officer, a major, had been hit in the +shoulder. He tried to control the catch in his voice which belied his +assertion that he was suffering little pain. The drizzling rain was chilly. +It was a long way to Paris yet. + +"We will make inquiries," said our kindly general. + +A man who came out of the gloom said that there was a hospital kept +by some Sisters of Charity in Senlis which had escaped destruction. +The question was put into the recesses of the ambulance: + +"Would you prefer to spend the night here and go on in the morning?" + +"Yes, monsieur, I--should--like--that--better!" The tone left no doubt of +the relief that the journey in a car with poor springs was not to be +continued after hours of waiting, marooned in the street of a ruined +town. + +Whilst the ambulance passed inside the hospital gate, I spoke with an +elderly woman who came to a near-by door. Cool and definite she +was as a French soldier, bringing home the character of the women +of France which this war has made so well known to the world. + +"Were you here during the fighting?" + +"Yes, monsieur, and during the shelling and the burning. The shelling +was not enough. The Germans said that someone fired on their +soldiers--a boy, I believe--so they set fire to the houses. One could +only look and hate and pray as their soldiers passed through, looking +so unconquerable, making all seem so terrible for France. Was it to +be '70 over again? One's heart was of stone, monsieur. Tiens! They +came back faster than they went. A mitrailleuse was down there at +the end of the street, our mitrailleuse! The bullets went cracking by. +They crack, the bullets; they do not whistle like the stories say. Then +the street was empty of Germans who could run. The dead they +could not run, nor the wounded. Then the French came up the street, +running too--running after the Germans. It was good, monsieur, good, +good! My heart was not of stone then, monsieur. It could not beat fast +enough for happiness. It was the heart of a girl. I remember it all very +clearly. I always shall, monsieur." + +"Allons!" said our statesman. "The officer is well cared for." + +The world seemed normal again as we passed through other towns +unharmed and swept by the dark countryside, till a red light rose in +our path and a sharp "Qui vive?" came out of the night as we slowed +down. This was not the only sentry call from a French Territorial in +front of a barricade. + +At a second halt we found a chain as well as a barricade across the +road. For a moment it seemed that even the suave parliamentarism +of our statesman and the authority of our general and our passes +could not convince one grizzled reservist, doing his duty for France at +the rear whilst the young men were at the front, that we had any right +to be going into Paris at that hour of the night. The password, which +was "Paris," helped, and we felt it a most appropriate password as we +came to the broad streets of the city that was safe. + +There is a popular idea that Napoleon was a super-genius who won +his battles single-handed. It is wrong. He had a lot of Frenchmen +along to help. Much the same kind of Frenchmen live to-day. Not until +they fought again would the world believe this. It seems that the +excitable Gaul, whom some people thought would become demoralized +in face of German organization, merely talks with his hands. In a +great crisis he is cool, as he always was. I like the French for their +democracy and humanity. I like them, too, for leaving their war +to France and Marianne; for not dragging in God as do the Germans. +For it is just possible that God is not in the fight. We don't know +that He even approved of the war. + + + + +V +And Calais Waits + + + +To the traveller, Calais had been the symbol of the shortest route +from London to Paris, the shortest spell of torment in crossing the +British Channel. It was a point where one felt infinite relief or sad +physical anticipations. In the last days of November Calais became +the symbol of a struggle for world-power. The British and the French +were fighting to hold Calais; the Germans to get it. In Calais, +Germany would have her foot on the Atlantic coast. She could look +across only twenty-two miles of water to the chalk cliffs of Dover. She +would be as near her rival as twice the length of Manhattan Island; +within the range of a modern gun; within an hour by steamer and +twenty minutes by aeroplane. + +The long battle-front from Switzerland to the North Sea had been +established. There was no getting around the Allied flank; there had +ceased to be a flank. To win Calais, Germany must crush through by +main force, without any manoeuvre. From the cafes where the British +journalists gathered England received its news, which they gleaned +from refugees and stragglers and passing officers. They wrote +something every day, for England must have something about that +dizzy, head-on wrestle in the mud, that writhing line of changing +positions of new trenches rising behind the old destroyed by German +artillery. The British were fighting with their last reserves on the Ypres- +Armentieres line. The French divisions to the north were suffering no +less heavily, and beyond them the Belgians were trying to hold the +last strip of their land which remained under Belgian sovereignty. +Cordons of guards which kept back the observer from the struggle +could not keep back the truth. Something ominous was in the air. + +It was worth while being in that old town as it waited on the issue in +the late October rains. Its fishermen crept out in the mornings from +the shelter of its quays, where refugees gathered in crowds hoping to +get away by steamer. Like lost souls, carrying all the possessions +they could on their backs, these refugees. There was numbness in +their movements and their faces were blank--the paralysis of brain +from sudden disaster. The children did not cry, but mechanically +munched the dry bread given them by their parents. + +The newspaper men said that "refugee stuff" was already stale; +eviction and misery were stale. Was Calais to be saved? That was +the only question. If the Germans came, one thought that madame at +the hotel would still be at her desk, unruffled, businesslike, and she +would still serve an excellent salad for dejeuner; the fishermen would +still go to sea for their daily catch. + +What was going to happen? What might not happen? It was human +helplessness to the last degree for all behind the wrestlers. Fate was +in the battle-line. There could be no resisting that fate. If the Germans +came, they came. Belgian staff officers with their high-crowned, gilt- +braided caps went flying by in their cars. There always seemed a +great many Belgian staff officers back of the Belgian army in the +restaurants and cafes. Habit is strong, even in war. They did not often +miss their dejeuners. On the Dixmude line all that remained of the +active Belgian army was in a death struggle in the rain and mud. To +these "schipperkes" honour without stint, as to their gallant king. + +Slightly-wounded Belgians and Belgian stragglers roamed the streets +of Calais. Some had a few belongings wrapped up in handkerchiefs. +Others had only the clothes they wore. Yet they were cheerful; this +was the amazing thing. They moved about, laughing and chatting in +groups. Perhaps this was the best way. Possibly relief at being out of +the hell at the front was the only emotion they could feel. But their +cheerfulness was none the less a dash of sunlight for Calais. + +The French were grim. They were still polite; they went on with their +work. No unwounded French soldiers were to be seen, except the old +Territorials guarding the railroad and the highways. The military +organization of France, which knew what war meant and had +expected war, had drawn every man to his place and held him there +with the inexorable hand of military and racial discipline. Calais had +never considered caring for wounded, and the wounded poured in. I +saw a motor-car with a wounded man stop at a crowded corner, in +the midst of refugees and soldiers; a doctor was leaning over him, +and he died whilst the car waited. + +But the journalists were saying that stories of wounded men were +likewise stale. So they were, for Europe was red with wounded. Train +after train brought in its load from the front, and Calais tried to care +for them. At least, it had buildings which would give shelter from +the rain. On the floor of a railway freight shed the wounded lay in +long rows, with just enough space between them to make an alley. +Those in the row against one of the walls were German prisoners. +Their green uniforms melted into the stone of the wall and did not +show the mud stains. Two slightly wounded had their heads together +whispering. They were helplessly tired, though not as tired as most +of the others, those two stalwart young men; but they seemed to be +relieved, almost happy. It did not matter what happened to them, now, +so long as they could rest. + +Next to them a German was dying, and others badly hit were glassy- +eyed in their fatigue and exhaustion. This was the word, exhaustion, +for all the wounded. + +They had not the strength for passion or emotion. The fuel for those +fires was in ashes. All they wanted in this world was to lie quiet; and +some fell asleep not knowing or caring probably whether they were in +Germany or in France. In the other rows, in contrast with this +chameleon, baffling green, were the red trousers of the French and +the dark blue of the Belgian uniforms, sharing the democracy of +exhaustion with their foe. + +A misty rain was falling. In a bright spot of light through a window one +by one the wounded were being lifted up on to a seat, if they were not +too badly hit, and on to an operating-table if their condition were +serious. A doctor and a sturdy Frenchwoman of about thirty, in +spotless white, were in charge. Another woman undid the first-aid +bandage and still another applied a spray. No time was lost; there +were too many wounded to care for. The thing must be done as +rapidly as possible before another train-load came in. If these +attendants were tired, they did not know it any more than the +wounded had realized their fatigue in the passion of battle. The +improvized arrangement to meet an emergency had an appeal which +more elaborate arrangements of organization which I had seen +lacked. It made war a little more red; humanity a little more human +and kind and helpless under the scourge which it had brought on +itself. + +Though Calais was not prepared for wounded, when they came the +women of energy and courage turned to the work without jealousy, +without regard to red tape, without fastidiousness. I have in mind half +a dozen other women about the streets that day in uniforms of short +skirts and helmets, who belonged to a volunteer organization which +had taken some care as to its regimentals. They were types not +characteristic of the whole, of whom one practical English doctor said: +"We don't mind as long as they do not get in the way." Their criticisms +of Calais and the arrangements were outspoken; nothing was +adequate; conditions were filthy; it was shameful. They were going to +write to the English newspapers about it and appeal for money. When +they had organized a proper hospital, one should see how the thing +ought to be done. Meantime, these volunteer Frenchwomen were +doing the best they knew how and doing it now. + +A fine-looking young Frenchman who had a shell-wound in the thigh +was being lifted on to the table. He shuddered with pain, as he +clenched his teeth; yet when the dressing was finished he was able to +breathe his thanks. On the seat was a Congo negro who had been +with one of the Belgian regiments, coal black and thick-lipped, with +bloodshot eyes; an unsensitized human organism, his face as +expressionless as his bare back with holes made by shell-fragments. +A young Frenchwoman--she could not have been more than nineteen +--with a face of singular refinement, sprayed his wounds with the +definiteness of one trained to such work, though two days before it +had probably never occurred to her as being within the possibilities +of her existence. Her coolness and the coolness of the other women +in their silent activity had a charm that added to one's devout respect. + +The French wounded, too, were silent, as if in the presence of a crisis +which overwhelmed personal thoughts. Help was needed at the front; +they knew it. On sixty trains in one day sixty thousand French passed +through Calais. With a pass from the French commandant at Calais, I +got on board one of these trains down at the railroad yards at dawn. +This lot were Turcos, under the command of a white-haired veteran of +African campaigns. An utter change of atmosphere from the freight +shed! Perhaps it is only the wounded who have time to think. My +companions in the officers' car were as cheery as the brown devils +whom they led. They had come from the trenches on the Marne, and +their commissariat was a boiled ham, some bread and red wine. +Enough! It was war time, as they said. + +"We were in the Paris railroad yards. That is all we saw of Paris--and +in the night. Hard luck!" + +They had left the Marne the previous day. By night they could be in +the fight. It did not take long to send reinforcements when the line +was closed to all except military traffic and one train followed close on +the heels of another. + +They did not know where they were going; one never knew. Probably +they would get orders at Dunkirk. Father Joffre, when there was a call +for reinforcements, never was in a panicky hurry. He seemed to +understand that the general who made the call could hold out a little +longer; but the reinforcements were always up on time. A long head +had Father Joffre. + +Now I am going to say that life was going on as usual at Dunkirk; that +is the obvious thing to say. The nearer the enemy, the more +characteristic that trite observation of those who have followed the +roads of war in Europe. At Dunkirk you might have a good meal +within sound of the thunder of the guns of the British monitors which +were helping the Belgians to hold their line. At Dunkirk most excellent +patisserie was for sale in a confectionery shop. Why shouldn't +tartmakers go on making tarts and selling them? The British naval +reserve officers used to take tea in this shop. Little crowds of citizens +who had nothing to do, which is the most miserable of vocations in +such a crisis, gathered to look at armoured motor-cars which had +come in from the front with bullet dents, which gave them the +atmosphere of battle. + +Beyond Dunkirk, one might see wounded Belgians, fresh from the +field of battle, staggering in, crawling in, hobbling in from the havoc of +shell-fire, their first-aid bandages saturated with mud, their ungainly +and impracticable uniforms oozing mud, ghosts of men-these +"schipperkes" of the nation that was unprepared for war who had +done their part, when the only military thought was for more men, +unwounded men, British, French, Belgian, to stem the German tide. +Yet many of these Belgians, even these, were cheerful. They could +still smile and say, "Bonne chance!" + +Indeed, there seemed no limit to the cheerfulness of Belgians. At a +hospital in Calais I met a Belgian professor with his head a white ball +of bandages, showing a hole for one eye and a slit for the mouth. He +had been one of the cyclist force which took account of many +German cavalry scouts in the first two weeks of the war. A staff +motor-car had run over him on the road. + +"I think the driver of the car was careless," he said mildly, as if he +were giving a gentle reproof to a student. + +By contrast, he had reason to be thankful for his lot. Looked after by a +brave man attendant in another room were the wounded who were +too horrible to see; who must die. Then, in another, you had a picture +of a smiling British regular, with a British nurse and an Englishwoman +of Calais to look after him. They read to him, they talked to him, they +vied with each other in rearranging his pillows or bedclothes. He was +a hero of a story; but it rather puzzled him why he should be. Why +were a lot of people paying so much attention to him for doing his +duty? + +In the cavalry, he had been separated from his regiment on the +retreat from Mons. Wandering about the country, he came up with a +regiment of cuirassiers and asked if he might not fight with them. A +number of the cuirassiers spoke English. They took him into the +ranks. The regiment went far over on the Marne, through towns with +French names which he could not pronounce, this man in khaki with +the French troopers. He was marked. C'est un Anglais! People +cheered him and threw flowers to him in regions which had never +seen one of the soldiers of the Ally before. + +Yes, officers and gentlemen invited him to dine, like he was a +gentleman, he said, and not a Tommy, and the French Government +had given him a decoration called the Legion of Honour or something +like that. This was all very fine; but the best thing was that his own +colonel, when he returned, had him up before his company and made +a speech to him for fighting with the French when he could not find +his own regiment. He was supremely happy, this Tommy. In waiting +Calais one might witness about all the emotions and contrasts of war +--and many which one does not find at the front. + + + + + +VI +In Germany + + + +Never had the war seemed a more monstrous satire than on that first +day in Germany as the train took me to Berlin. It was the other side of +the wall of gun and rifle-fire where another set of human beings were +giving life in order to take life. The Lord had fashioned them in the +same pattern on both sides of the wall. Their children were born in the +same way; they bled from wounds in the same way--but why go on in +this vicious circle of thought? + +My impressions of Germany were brief, and the clearer perhaps for +being brief, and drawn on the fresh background of Paris and Calais +waiting to know their fate; of England staring across the Channel, in a +suspense which her stoicism would not confess, to learn the result of +the battle for the Channel ports; of England and France straining with +all their strength to hold, while the Germans exerted all theirs to gain, +a goal; of Holland, stolid mistress of her neutrality, fearing for it and +profiting by it while she took in the Belgian foundlings dropped on her +steps--Holland, that little land at peace, with the storms lashing +around her. + +The stiff and soldierly-appearing reserve officer with bristling +Kaiserian moustache, so professedly alert and efficient, who looked +at the mottled back of my passport and frowned at the recent visa, "A +la Place de Calais, bon pour aller a Dunkerque, P.O. Le Chef d'Etat- +Major," but let me by without questions or fuss, aroused visions of a +frontier stone wall studded with bayonets. + +For something about him expressed a certain character of downright +militancy lacking in either an English or a French guard. I could +imagine his contempt for both and particularly for a "sloppy, +undisciplined" American guard, as he would have called one of ours. +Personal feelings did not enter into his thoughts. He had none; only +national feelings, this outpost of the national organism. The mood of +the moment was friendliness to Americans. Germany wished to +create the impression on the outside world through the agency of the +neutral press that she was in | danger of starving, whilst she amassed +munitions for her summer campaign and the Allies were lulled into +confidence of siege by famine rather than by arms. A double, a treble +purpose the starving campaign served; for it also ensured economy +of foodstuffs, whilst nothing so puts the steel into a soldier's heart as +the thought that the enemy is trying to beat him through taking the +bread out of his mouth and the mouths of the women and children +dependent upon him. + +Tears and laughter and moods and passions organized! Seventy +millions in the union of determined earnestness of a life-and-death +issue! Germany had studied more than how to make war with an +army. She had studied how the people at home should help an army +to make war. + +"With our immense army, which consists of all the able-bodied youth +of the people," as a German officer said, "when we go to war the +people must be passionate for war. Their impulse must be the +impulse of the army. Their spirit will drive the army on. They must be +drilled, too, in their part. No item in national organization is too small +to have its effect." + +Compared to the, French, who had turned grim and gave their prayers +as individuals to hearten their soldiers, the Germans were as +responsive as a stringed instrument to the master musician's touch. A +whisper in Berlin was enough to set a new wave of passion in motion, +which spread to the trenches east and west. + +Something like the team-work of the "rah-rah" of college athletics was +applied to the nation. The soft pedal on this emotion, the loud on that, +or a new cry inaugurated which all took up, not with the noisy, paid +insincerity of a claque, but with the vibrant force of a trained orchestra +with the brasses predominant. + +There seemed less of the spontaneity of an individualistic people than +of the exaltation of a religious revival. If the army were a machine of +material force, then the people were a machine of psychical force. +Though the thing might leave the observer cold, as a religious revival +leaves the sceptic, yet he must admire. I was told that I should +succumb to the contagion as others had; but it was not the optimism +which was dinned into my ears that affected me as much as +sidelights. + +When I took a walk away from a railway station where I had to make +a train connection, I saw a German reservist of forty-five who was +helping with one hand to thresh the wheat from his farm, on a grey, +lowering winter day. The other hand was in a bandage. He had been +allowed to go home until he was well enough to fight again. The same +sort of scene I had witnessed in France; the wounded man trying to +make up to his family the loss of his labour during his absence at the +front. + +Only, that man in France was on the defensive; he was righting to +hold what he had and on his own soil. The German had been fighting +on the enemy's soil to gain more land. He, too, thought of it as the +defensive. All Germany insisted that it was on the defensive. But it +was the defensive of a people who think only in the offensive. That +was it--that was the vital impression of Germany revealed in every +conversation and every act. + +The Englishman leans back on his oars; the German leans forward. +The Englishman's phrase is "Stick it," which means to hold what you +have; the German's phrase is "Onward." It was national youth against +national middle-age. A vessel with pressure of increase from within +was about to expand or burst. A vessel which is large and +comfortable for its contents was resisting pressure from without. The +French were saying, What if we should lose? And the Germans were +saying, What if we should not win all that we are entitled to? Germany +had been thinking of a mightier to-morrow and England of a to- +morrow as good as to-day. Germany looked forward to a fortune to +be won at thirty; England considered the safeguarding of her fortune +at fifty. + +It is not professions that count so much as the thing that works out +from the nature of a situation and the contemporaneous bent of a +people. The Englishman thought of his defence as keeping what he +already had; the German was defending what he considered that he +was entitled to. If he could make more of Calais than the French, then +Calais ought to be his. A nation, with the "closed in" culture of the +French on one side and the enormous, unwieldy mass of Russia on +the other, convinced of its superiority and its ability to beat either foe, +thought that it was the friend of peace because it had withheld the +blow. When the striking time came, it struck hard and forced the +battle on enemy soil, which proved, to its logic, that it was only +receiving payment of a debt owed it by destiny. + +Bred to win, confident that the German system was the right system +of life, it could imagine the German Michael as the missionary of the +system, converting the Philistine with machine-guns. Confidence, the +confidence which must get new vessels for the energy that has +overflowed, the confidence of all classes in the realization of the long- +promised day of the "place in the sun" for the immense population +drilled in the system, was the keynote. They knew that they could lick +the other fellow and went at him from the start as if they expected to +lick him, with a diligence which made the most of their training and +preparation. + +When I asked for a room with a bath in a leading Berlin hotel, the +clerk at the desk said, "I will see, sir." He ran his eye up and down the +list methodically before he added: "Yes, we have a good room on the +second floor." Afterwards, I learned that all except the first and +second floors of the hotel were closed. The small dining-room only +was open, and every effort was made to make the small dining-room +appear normal. + +He was an efficient clerk; the buttons who opened the room door, a +goose-stepping, alert sprout of German militarism, exhibiting a +punctiliousness of attention which produced a further effect of +normality. Those Germans who were not doing their part at the front +were doing it at home by bluffing the other Germans and themselves +into confidence. The clerk believed that some day he would have +more guests than ever and a bigger hotel. All who suffered from the +war could afford to wait. Germany was winning; the programme was +being carried out. The Kaiser said so. In proof of it, multitudes of +Russian soldiers were tilling the soil in place of Germans, who were at +the front taking more Russian soldiers. + +Everybody that one met kept telling him that everything was perfectly +normal. No intending purchaser of real estate in a boom town was +ever treated to more optimistic propaganda. Perfectly normal--when +one found only three customers in a large department store! Perfectly +normal--when the big steamship offices presented in their windows +bare blue seas which had once been charted with the going and +coming of German ships! Perfectly normal--when the spool of the +killed and wounded rolled out by yards like that of a ticker on a busy +day on the Stock Exchange! Perfectly normal--when women tried to +smile in the streets with eyes which had plainly been weeping at +home! + +Are you for us or against us? The question was put straight to the +stranger. Let him say that he was a neutral and they took it for +granted that he was a pro-Ally. He must be pro-something. + +As I returned to the railway station after my walk, a soldier took me in +charge and marched me to the office of the military commandant. +"Are you an Englishman?" was his first question. The guttural, military +emphasis which he put on "Englishman" was most significant. Which +brings us to another factor in the psychology of war: hate. + +"If men are to fight well," said a German officer, "it is necessary that +they hate. They must be exalted by a great passion when they charge +into machine-guns." + +Hate was officially distilled and then instilled--hate against England, +almost exclusively. The public rose to that. If England had not come +in, the German military plan would have succeeded: first, the crushing +of France; then, the crushing of Russia. The despised Belgian, that +small boy who had tripped the giant and then hugged the giant's +knees, delaying him on the road to Paris, was having a rest. For he +had been hated very hard for a while with the hate of contempt--that +miserable pigmy who had interfered with the plans of the machine. + +The French were almost popular. The Kaiser had spoken of them as +"brave foes." What quarrel could France and Germany have? France +had been the dupe of England. Cartoons of the hairy, barbarous +Russian and the futile little Frenchman in his long coat, borne on +German bayonets or pecking at the boots of a giant Michael, were not +in fashion. For Germany was then trying to arrange a separate peace +with both France and Russia. She was ready to yield at least part of +Alsace-Lorraine to France. When the negotiations fell through, +cartoonists were again free to make sport of the aenemic Gaul and +the untutored Slav. It was not alone in Germany that a responsive +Press played the weather vane to Government wishes; but in +Germany the machinery ran smoothest. + +For the first time I knew what it was to have a human being whom I +had never seen before hate me. At sight of me a woman who had +been a good Samaritan, with human kindness and charity in her +eyes, turned a malignant devil. Stalwart as Minerva she was, a fair- +haired German type of about thirty-five, square-shouldered and +robustly attractive in her Red Cross uniform. Being hungry at the +station at Hanover, I rushed out of the train to get something to eat, +and saw some Frankfurter sandwiches on a table in front of me as I +alighted. + +My hand went out for one, when I was conscious of a movement and +an exclamation which was hostile, and looked up to see Minerva, as +her hand shot out to arrest the movement of mine, with a blaze of +hate, hard, merciless hate, in her eyes, while her lips framed the +word, "Englisher!" If looks were daggers I should have been pierced +through the heart. Perhaps an English overcoat accounted for her +error. Certainly, I promptly recognized mine when I saw that this was +a Red Cross buffet. An Englishman had dared to try to buy a +sandwich meant for German soldiers! She might at least glory in the +fact that her majestic glare had made me most uncomfortable as I +murmured an apology which she received with a stony frown. + +A moment later a soldier approached the buffet. She leaned over, +smiling, as gentle as she had been fierce and malignant a moment +before, making a picture, as she put some mustard on a sandwich for +him, which recalled that of the Frenchwoman among the wounded in +the freight shed at Calais--a simile which would anger them both. + +The Frenchwoman, too, had a Red Cross uniform; she, too, +expressed the mercy and gentle ministration which we like to +associate with woman. But there was the difference of the old culture +and the new; of the race which was fighting to have and the race +which was fighting to hold. The tactics which we call the offensive was +in the German woman's, as in every German's, nature. It had been in +the Frenchwoman's in Napoleon's time. Many racial hates the war +has developed; but that of the German is a seventeen-inch-howitzer, +asphyxiating-gas hate. + +If hates help to win, why not hate as hard as you can? Don't you go to +war to win? There is no use talking of sporting rules and saying that +this and that is "not done" in humane circles--win! The Germans +meant to win. Always I thought of them as having the spirit of the +Middle Ages in their hearts, organized for victory by every modern +method. Three strata of civilization were really fighting, perhaps: The +French, with its inherent individual patriotism which makes a +Frenchman always a Frenchman, its philosophy which prevents +increase of numbers, its thrift and its tenacity; the German, with its +newborn patriotism, its discovery of what it thinks is the golden +system, its fecundity, its aggressiveness, its industry, its ambition; +and the Russian, patient and unbeatable, vague, glamorous, +immense. + +The American is an outsider to them all; some strange melting-pot +product of many races which is trying to forget the prejudices and +hates of the old world and perhaps not succeeding very well, but not +yet convinced that the best means of producing patriotic unity is war. +After this and other experiences, after being given a compartment all +to myself by men who glanced at me with eyes of hate and passed +on to another compartment which was already crowded or stood up +in the aisle of the car, I made a point of buying an American flag for +my buttonhole. + +This helped; but still there was my name, which belonged to an +ancestor who had gone from England to Connecticut nearly three +hundred years ago. Palmer did not belong to the Germanic tribe. He +must be pro the other side. He could not be a neutral and belong to +the human kind with such a name. Only Swenson, or Gansevoort, or +Ah Fong could really be a neutral; and even they were expected to be +on your side secretly. If they weren't they must be on the other. Are +you for us? or, Are you against us? I grew weary of the question in +Germany. If I had been for them I should have "dug in" and not told +them. In France and England they asked you objectively the state of +sentiment in America. But, possibly, the direct, forcible way is the +better for war purposes when you mean to win; for the Germans have +made a study of war. They are experts in war. + +However, the rosy-cheeked German boy, in his green uniform which +could not be washed clean of all the stains of campaigning, whom I +met in the palace grounds at Charlottenberg, did not put this tiresome +question to me. He was the only person I saw in the grounds, whose +quiet I had sought for an hour's respite from war. One could be +shown through the palace by the lonely old caretaker, who missed +the American tourist, without hearing a guide's monotone explaining +who the gentleman in the frame was and what he did and who +painted his picture. This boy could have more influence in making me +see the German view-point than the propagandist men in the +Government offices and the belligerent German-Americans in hotel +lobbies--those German-Americans who were so frequently in trouble +in other days for disobeying the verbotens and then asking our State +Department to get them out of it, now pluming themselves over +victories won by another type of German. + +About twenty-one years old this boy, round-faced and blue-eyed, who +saw in Queen Louisa the most beautiful heroine of all history. The +hole in his blouse which the bullet had made was nicely sewed up +and his wound had healed. He was fighting in France when he was +hit; the name of the place he did not know. Karl, his chum, had been +killed. The doctor had given him the bullet, which he exhibited proudly +as if it were different from other bullets, as it was to him. In a few days +he must return to the front. Perhaps the war would be over soon; he +hoped so. + +The French were brave; but they hated the Germans and thought +that they must make war on the Germans, and they were a cruel +people, guilty of many atrocities. So the Fatherland had fought to +conquer the enemies who planned her destruction. A peculiar, +childlike naivete accompanied his intelligence, trained to run in certain +grooves, which is the product of the German type of popular +education; that trust in his superiors which comes from a diligent and +efficient paternalism. He knew nothing of the atrocities which +Germans were said to have committed in Belgium. The British and +the French had set Belgium against Germany and Germany had to +strike Belgium for playing false to her treaties. But he did think that +the French were brave; only misled by their Government. And the +Kaiser? His eyes lighted in a way that suggested that the Kaiser was +almost a god to him. He had heard of the things that the British said +against the Kaiser and they made him want to fight for his Kaiser. He +was only one German--but the one was millions. + +In actual learning which comes from schoolbooks, I think that he was +better informed than the average Frenchman of his class; but I +should say that he had thought less; that his mind was more of a hot- +house product of a skilful nurseryman's hand, who knew the value of +training and feeding and pruning the plant if you were to make it yield +well. A kindly, willing, likable boy, peculiarly simple and unspoiled, it +seemed a pity that all his life he should have to bear the brand of the +Lusitania on his brow; that event which history cannot yet put in its +true perspective. Other races will think of the Lusitania when they +meet a German long after the Belgian atrocities are forgotten. It will +endure to plague a people like the exile of the Acadians, the +guillotining of innocents in the French Revolution, and the burning of +the Salem witches. But he had nothing to do with it. A German +admiral gave an order as a matter of policy to make an impression +that his submarine campaign was succeeding and to interfere with +the transport of munitions, and the Kaiser told this boy that it was +right. One liked the boy, his loyalty and his courage; liked him as a +human being. But one wished that he might think more. Perhaps he +will one of these days, if he survives the war. + + + + + + + + +VII +How The Kaiser Leads + + +Only a week before I had seen wounded Germans in the freight shed +at Calais; and all the prisoners that I had seen elsewhere, whether in +ones or twos, brought in fresh from the front or in columns under +escort, had been Germans. The sharpest contrast of all in war which +the neutral may observe is seeing the men of one army which, from +the other side, he had watched march into battle--armed, confident, +disciplined parts of an organization, ready to sweep all before them in +a charge--become so many sheep, disarmed, disorganized, rounded +up like vagrants in a bread-line and surrounded by a fold of barbed +wire and sentries. + +Such was the lot of the nine thousand British, French, and Russians +whom I saw at Doeberitz, near Berlin. This was a show camp, I was +told, but it suffices. Conditions at other camps might be worse; +doubtless were. England treated its prisoners best, unless my +information from unprejudiced observers be wrong. But Germany had +enormous numbers of prisoners. A nation in her frame of mind +thought only of the care of the men who could fight for her, not of +those who had fought against her. + +Then, the German nature is one thing and the British another. +Crossing the Atlantic on the Lusitania we had a German reserve +officer who was already on board when the evening editions arrived +at the pier with news that England had declared war on Germany. +Naturally he must become a prisoner upon his arrival at Liverpool. He +was a steadfast German. When a wireless report of the German +repulse at Liege came, he would not believe it. Germany had the +system and Germany would win. But when he said, "I should rather +be a German on board a British ship than a Briton on board a +German ship, under the circumstances," his remark was significant in +more ways than one. + +His English fellow-passengers on that splendid liner which a German +submarine was to send to the bottom showed him no discourtesy. +They passed the time of day with him and seemed to want to make +his awkward situation easy. Yet it was apparent that he regarded their +kindliness as racial weakness. Krieg ist Krieg. When Germany made +war she made war. + +So allowances are in order. One prison camp was like another in this +sense, that it deprived a man of his liberty. It put him in jail. The +British regular, who is a soldier by profession, was, in a way, in a +separate class. But the others were men of civil industries and +settled homes. Except during their term in the army, they went to +the shop or the office every day, or tilled their farms. They were +free; they had their work to occupy their minds during the day and +freedom of movement when they came home in the evening. They +might read the news by their firesides; they were normal human +beings in civilized surroundings. + +Here, they were pacing animals in a cage, commanded by two field- +guns, who might walk up and down and play games and go through +the daily drill under their own non-commissioned officers. It was the +mental stagnation of the thing that was appalling. Think of such a lot +for a man used to action in civil life--and they call war action! Think of +a writer, a business man, a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, reduced to +this fenced-in existence, when he had been the kind who got +impatient if he had to wait for a train that was late! Shut yourself up in +your own backyard with a man with a rifle watching you for twenty- +four hours and see whether, if you have the brain of a mouse, prison- +camp life can be made comfortable, no matter how many greasy +packs of cards you have. And lousy, besides! At times one had to +laugh over what Mark Twain called "the damfool human race." + +Inside a cookhouse at one end of the enclosure was a row of soup- +boilers. Outside was a series of railings, forming stalls for the +prisoners when they lined up for meals. In the morning, some +oatmeal and coffee; at noon, some cabbage soup boiled with +desiccated meat and some bread; at night, more coffee and bread. +How one thrived on this fare depended much upon how he liked +cabbage soup. The Russians liked it. They were used to it. + +"We never keep the waiter late by tarrying over our liqueurs," said a +Frenchman. + +Our reservist guide had run away to America in youth, where he had +worked at anything he could find to do; but he had returned to Berlin, +where he had a "good little business" before the war. He was stout +and cheery, and he referred to the prisoners as "boys." The French +and Russians were good boys; but the English were bad boys, who +had no discipline. He said that all received the same food as German +soldiers. It seemed almost ridiculous chivalry that men who had +fought against you and were living inactive lives should be as well fed +as the men who were fighting for you. The rations that I saw given to +German soldiers were better. But that was what the guide said. + +"This is our little sitting-room for the English non-commissioned +officers," he explained, as he opened the door of a shanty which had +a pane of glass for a window. Some men sitting around a small stove +arose. One, a big sergeant-major, towered over the others; he had +the colours of the South African campaign on the breast of his worn +khaki blouse and stood very straight as if on parade. By the window +was a Scot in kilts, who was equally tall. He looked around over his +shoulder and then turned his face away with the pride of a man who +does not care to be regarded as a show. + +His uniform was as neat as if he were at inspection; and the way he +held his head, the haughtiness of his profile against the stream of +light, recalled the unconquerable spirit of the Prussian prisoner whom +I had seen on the road during the fighting along the Aisne. Only a +regular, but he was upholding the dignity of Britain in that prison camp +better than many a member of Parliament on the floor of the House of +Commons. I asked our guide about him. + +"A good boy that! All his boys obey him and he obeys all the +regulations. But he acts as if we Germans were his prisoners." + +The British might not be good boys, but they would be clean. They +were diligent in the chase in their underclothes; their tents were free +from odour; and there was something resolute about a Tommy who +was bare to the waist in that freezing wind, making an effort at a bath. +I heard tales of Mr. Atkins' characteristic thoughtlessness. While the +French took good care of their clothes and kept their tents neat, he +was likely to sell his coat or his blanket if he got a chance in order to +buy something that he liked to eat. One Tommy who sat on his straw +tick inside the tent was knitting. When I asked him where he had +learned to knit, he replied: "India!" and gave me a look as much as to +say, "Now pass on to the next cage." + +The British looked the most pallid of all, I thought. They were not used +to cabbage soup. Their stomachs did not take hold of it, as one said; +and they loathed the black bread. No white bread and no jam! Only +when you have seen Mr. Atkins with a pot of jam and a loaf of white +bread and some bacon frizzling near by can you realize the hardship +which cabbage soup meant to that British regular who gets lavish +rations of the kind he hkes along with his shilling a day for +professional soldiering. + +"You see, the boys go about as they please," said our guide. "They +don't have a bad time. Three meals a day and nothing to do." + +Members of a laughing circle which included some British were taking +turns at a kind of Russian blind man's buff, which seemed to me +about in keeping with the mental capacity of a prison camp. "No +French!" I remarked. + +"The French keep to themselves, but they are good boys," he replied. +"Maybe it is because we have only a few of them here." + +Every time one sounded the subject he was struck by the attitude of +the Germans toward the French, not alone explained by the policy of +the hour which hoped for a separate peace with France. Perhaps it +was best traceable to the Frenchman's sense of amour propre, his +philosophy, his politeness, or an indefinable quality in the grain of the +man. + +The Germans affected to look down on the French; yet there was +something about the Frenchmen which the Germans had to respect-- +something not won by war. I heard admiration for them at the same +time as contempt for their red trousers and their unprepared-ness. +While we are in this avenue, German officers had respect for the +dignity of British officers, the leisurely, easy quality of superiority +which they preserved in any circumstances. The qualities of a +race come out in adversity no less than in prosperity. Thus, +their captors regarded the Russians as big, good-natured children. + +"Yes, they play games and we give the English an English newspaper +to read twice a week," said our affable guide, unconscious, I think, of +any irony in the remark. For the paper was the Continental News, +published in "the American language" for American visitors. You +make take it for granted that it did not exaggerate any success of the +Allies. + +"We have a prince and the son of a rich man among the Russian +prisoners--yes, quite in the Four Hundred," the guide went on. "They +were such good boys we put them to work in the cookhouse. Star +boarders, eh? They like it. They get more to eat." + +These two men were called out for exhibition. Youngsters of the first +line they were and even in their privates' uniform they bore the +unmistakable signs of belonging to the Russian upper class. Each +saluted and made his bow, as if he had come on to do a turn before +the footlights. It was not the first time they had been paraded before +visitors. In the prince's eye I noted a twinkle, which as much as said: +"Well, why not? We don't mind." + +When we were taken through the cookhouse I asked about a little +Frenchman who was sitting with his nose in a soup bowl He seemed +too near-sighted ever to get into any army. His face was distinctly that +of a man of culture; one would have guessed that he was an artist. + +"Shrapnel injury," explained the guide. "He will never be able to see +much again. We let him come in here to eat." + +I wanted to talk with him, but these exhibits are supposed to be all in +pantomime; a question and you are urged along to the next exhibit. +He was young and all his life he was to be like that--like some poor, +blind kitten! + +The last among a number of Russians returning to the enclosure from +some fatigue duty was given a blow in the seat of his baggy trousers +with a stick which one of the guards carried. The Russian quickened +his steps and seemed to think nothing of the incident. But to me it +was the worst thing that I saw at Doeberitz, this act of physical violence +against a man by one who has power over him. The personal +equation was inevitable to the observer. Struck in that way, could one +fail to strike back? Would not he strike in red anger, without stopping +to think of consequences? There is something bred into the Anglo- +Saxon which resents a physical blow. We court-martial an officer for +laying hands on a private, though that private may get ten years in +prison on his trial. Yet the Russian thought nothing of it, or the guard, +either. An officer in the German or the Russian army may strike a +man. + +"Would the guard hit a Frenchman in that way?" I asked. Our guide +said not; the French were good boys. Or an Englishman? He had +not seen it done. The Englishman would swear and curse, he was +sure, and might fight, they were such undisciplined boys. But the +Russians--"they are like kids. It was only a slap. Didn't hurt him any." + +New barracks for the prisoners were being built which would be +comfortable, if crowded, even in winter. The worst thing, I repeat, was +the deadly monotony of the confinement for a period which would end +only when the war ended. Any labour should be welcome to a +healthy-minded man. It was a mercy that the Germans set prisoners +to grading roads, to hoeing and harvesting, retrieving thus a little of +the wastage of war. Or was it only the bland insistence that conditions +were luxurious that one objected to?--not that they were really bad. +The Germans had a horde of prisoners to care for; vast armies to +maintain; and a new volunteer force of a million or more--two millions +was the official report--to train. + +While we were at the prison camp we heard at intervals the rap-rap of +a machine-gun at the practice range near by, drilling to take more +prisoners, and on the way back to Berlin we passed companies of +volunteers returning from drill with that sturdy march characteristic of +German infantry. + +In Berlin I was told again that everything was perfectly normal. Trains +were running as usual to Hamburg, if one cared to go there. "As +usual" in war time was the ratio of one to five in peace time. + +At Hamburg, in sight of steamers with cold boilers and the forests of +masts of idle ships, one saw what sea power meant. That city of +eager shippers and traders, that doorstep of Germany, was as dead +as Ypres, without a building being wrecked by shells. Hamburgers +tried to make the best of it; they assumed an air of optimism; they still +had faith that richer cargoes than ever might come over the sea, +while a ghost, that of bankruptcy, walked the streets, looking at office- +windows and the portholes of ships. + +For one had only to scratch the cuticle of that optimism to find that the +corpuscles did not run red. They were blue. Hamburg's citizens had +to exhibit the fortitude of those of Rheims under another kind of +bombardment: that of the silent guns of British Dreadnoughts far out +of range. They were good Germans; they meant to play the game; +but that once prosperous business man of past middle age, too old to +serve, who had little to do but think, found it hard to keep step with +the propagandist attitude of Berlin. + +A free city, a commercial city, a city unto itself, Hamburg had been in +other days a cosmopolitan trader with the rest of the world. It had +even been called an English city, owing to the number of English +business men there as agents of the immense commerce between +England and Germany. Everyone who was a clerk or an employer +spoke English; and through all the irritation between the two countries +which led up to the war, English and German business men kept on +the good terms which commerce requires and met at luncheons and +dinners and in their clubs. Englishmen were married to German +women and Germans to Englishwomen, while both prayed that their +governments would keep the peace. + +Now the English husband of the German woman, though he had +spent most of his life in Hamburg, though perhaps he had been born +in Germany, had been interned and, however large his bank account, +was taking his place with his pannikin in the stalls in front of some +cookhouse for his ration of cabbage soup. Germans were kind to +English friends personally; but when it came to the national feeling of +Germany against England, nowhere was it so bitter as in Hamburg. +Here the hate was born of more than national sentiment; it was of the +pocket; of seeing fortunes that had been laboriously built dwindling, +once thriving businesses in suspended animation. There was no +moratorium in name; there was worse than one in fact. A patriotic +freemasonry in misfortune took its place. No business man could +press another for the payment of debts lest he be pressed in turn. +What would happen when the war was over? How long would it last? + +It was not quite as cruel to give one's opinion as two years to the +inquirers in Hamburg as to the director of the great Rudolph Virchow +Hospital in Berlin. Here, again, the system; the submergence of the +individual in the organization. The wounded men seemed parts of a +machine; the human touch which may lead to disorganization was +less in evidence than with us, where the thought is: This is an +individual human being, with his own peculiarities of temperament, his +own theories of life, his own ego; not just a quantity of brain, tissue, +blood and bone which is required for the organism called man. A +human mechanism wounded at the German front needed repairs and +repairs were made to that mechanism. The niceties might be lacking +but the repair factory ran steadily and efficiently at full blast. Germany +had to care for her wounded by the millions and by the millions she +cared for them. "Two years!" + +I was sorry that I had said this to the director, for its effect on him was +like a blow in the chest. The vision of more and more wounded +seemed to rise before the eyes of this man, weary with the strain of +doing the work which he knew so well how to do as a cog in the +system. But for only a moment. He stiffened; he became the +drillmaster again; and the tragic look in his eyes was succeeded by +one of that strange exaltation I had seen in the eyes of so many +Germans, which appeared to carry their mind away from you and +their surroundings to the battlefield where they were fighting for their +"place in the sun." "Two years, then. We shall see it through!" He had +a son who had been living in a French family near Lille studying +French and he had heard nothing of him since the war began. They +were good people, this French family; his son liked them. They would +be kind to him; but what might not the French Government do to him, +a German! He had heard terrible stories--the kind of stories that +hardened the fighting spirit of German soldiers--about the treatment +German civilians had received in France. He could think of one +French family which he knew as being kind, but not of the whole +French people as a family. As soon as the national and racial element +were considered the enemy became a beast. + +To him, at least, Berlin was not normal; nor was it to that keeper of a +small shop off Unter den Linden which sold prints and etchings and +cartoons. What a boon my order of cartoons was! He forgot his +psychology code and turned human and confidential. The war had +been hard on him; there was no business at all, not even in cartoons. + +The Opera alone seemed something like normal to one who trusted +his eyes rather than his ears for information. There was almost a full +house for the "Rosenkavalier"; for music is a solace in time of +trouble, as other capitals than Berlin revealed. Officers with close- +cropped heads, wearing Iron Crosses, some with arms in slings, +promenaded in the refreshment room of the Berlin Opera House +between the acts. This in the hour of victory should mean a picture of +gaiety. But there was a telling hush about the scene. Possibly music +had brought out the truth in men's hearts that war, this kind of war, +was not gay or romantic, only murderous and destructive. One had +noticed already that the Prussian officer, so conscious of his caste, +who had worked so indefatigably to make an efficient army, had +become chastened. He had found that common men, butchers and +bakers and candlestick makers, could be as brave for their Kaiser as +he. And more of these officers had the Iron Cross than not. + +The prevalence of Iron Crosses appealed to the risibilities of the +superficial observer. But in this, too, there was system. An officer who +had been in several battles without winning one must feel a trifle +declassed and that it was time for him to make amends to his pride. If +many Crosses were given to privates, then the average soldier would +not think the Cross a prize for the few who had luck, but something +that he, too, might win by courage and prompt obedience to orders. + +The masterful calculation, the splendid pretence and magnificent +offence could not hide the suspense and suffering. Nowhere were +you able to forget the war or to escape the all-pervading influence of +the Kaiser. The empty royal box at the Opera, His Opera, called him +to mind. What would happen before he reappeared there for a gala +performance? When again, in the shuffle of European politics, would +the audience see the Tsar of Russia or the King of England by the +Kaiser's side? + +It was his Berlin, the heart of his Berlin, that was before you when you +left the Opera--the new Berlin, which he had fathered in its boom +growth, taking few pages of a guidebook compared to Paris. In front +of his palace Russian field-guns taken by von Hindenburg at +Tannenberg were exhibited as the spoils of his war; while not far +away the never-to-be-forgotten grandfather in bronze rode home in +triumph from Paris. + +One wondered what all the people in the ocean of Berlin flats were +thinking as one walked past the statue of Frederick the Great, with his +sharp nose pointing the way for future conquerors, and on along +Unter den Linden, with its broad pavements gleaming in a +characteristic misty winter night, through the Brandenburg Gate of his +Brandenburg dynasty, or to the statue of the blood-and-iron +Bismarck, with his strong jaw and pugnacious nose--the statesman +militant in uniform with a helmet over his bushy brow--who had made +the German Empire, that young empire which had not yet known +defeat because of the system which makes ready and chooses the +hour for its blow. + +Not far away one had glimpses of the white statues of My Ancestors +of the Sieges Allee, or avenue of victory--the present Kaiser's own +idea--with the great men of the time on their right and left hands. +People whose sense of taste, not to say of humour, may limit their +statecraft had smiled at this monotonous and grandiose row of the +dead bones of distinguished and mediocre royalty immortalized in +marble to the exact number of thirty-two. But they were My Ancestors, +O Germans, who made you what you are! Right dress and keep that +line of royalty in mind! It is your royal line, older than the trees in the +garden, firm as the rocks, Germany itself. The last is not the least in +might nor the least advertised in the age of publicity. He is to make +the next step in advance for Germany and bring more tribute home, if +all Germans will be loyal to him. + +One paused to look at the photograph of the Kaiser in a shop +window; a big photograph of that man whose photograph is +everywhere in Germany. It is a stern face, this face, as the leader +wishes his people to see him, with its erectile moustache, the lips firm +set, the eyes challenging and the chin held so as to make it symbolic +of strength: a face that strives to say in that pose: "Onward! I lead!" +Germans have seen it every day for a quarter of a century. They +have lived with it and the character of it has grown into their natures. + +In the same window was a smaller photograph of the Crown Prince, +with his cap rakishly on the side of his head, as if to give himself a +distinctive characteristic in the German eye; but his is the face of a +man who is not mature for his years, and a trifle dissipated. For a +while after the war began he, as leader of the war party, knew the joy +of being more popular than the Kaiser. But the tide turned soon in +favour of a father who appeared to be drawn reluctantly into the +ordeal of death and wounds for his people in "defence of the +Fatherland" and against a son who had clamoured for the horror +which his people had begun to realize, particularly as his promised +entry into Paris had failed. There can be no question which of the two +has the wise head. + +The Crown Prince had passed into the background. He was +marooned with ennui in the face of French trenches in the West, +whilst all the glory was being won in the East. Indeed, father had put +son in his place. One day, the gossips said, son might have to ask +father, in the name of the Hohenzollerns, to help him recover his +popularity. His photograph had been taken down from shop windows +and in its place, on the right hand of the Kaiser in the Sieges Allee of +contemporary fame, was the bull-dog face of von Hindenburg, victor +of Tannenberg. The Kaiser shared von Hindenburg's glory; he has +shared the glory of all victorious generals; such is his histrionic gift in +the age of the spotlight. + +Make no mistake--his people, deluded or not, love him not only +because he is Kaiser, but also for himself. He is a clever man, who +began his career with the enormous capital of being emperor and +made the most of his position to amaze the world with a more +versatile and also a more inscrutable personality than most people +realize. Poseur, perhaps, but an emperor these days may need to be +a poseur in order to wear the ermine of Divine Right convincingly to +most of his subjects. + +His pose is always that of the anointed King of My People. He has +never given down on that point, however much he has applied State +Socialism to appease the Socialistic agitation. He has personified +Germany and German ambition with an adroit egoism and the +sentiment of his inheritance. Those critics who see the machinery of +the throne may say that he has the mind of a journalist, quick of +perception, ready of assimilation, knowing many things in their +essentials, but no one thing thoroughly. But this is the kind of mind +that a ruler requires, plus the craft of the politician. + +Is he a good man? Is he a great man? Banal questions! He is the +Kaiser on the background of the Sieges Allee, who has first promoted +himself, then the Hohenzollerns, and then the interests of Germany, +with all the zest of the foremost shareholder and chairman of the +corporation. No German in the German hothouse of industry has +worked harder than he. He has kept himself up to the mark and tried +to keep his people up to the mark. It may be the wrong kind of a +mark. Indeed, without threshing the old straw of argument, most of +the people of the civilized world are convinced that it is. + +That young private I met in the grounds at Charlottenberg, that +wounded man helping with the harvest, that tired hospital director, the +small trader in Hamburg, the sturdy Red Cross woman in the station +at Hanover, the peasants and the workers throughout Germany, kept +unimaginatively at their tasks, do not see the machinery of the throne, +only the man in the photograph who supplies them with a national +imagination. His indefatigable goings and comings and his poses fill +their minds with a personality which typifies the national spirit. Will +this change after the war? But that, too, is not a subject for speculation +here. + +Through the war his pose has met the needs of the hour. An emperor +bowed down with the weight of his people's sacrifice, a grey, +determined emperor hastening to honour the victors, covering up +defeats, urging his legions on, himself at the front, never seen by the +general public in the rear; a mysterious figure, not saying much and +that foolish to the Allies but appealing to the Germans, rather +appearing to submerge his own personality in the united patriotism of +the struggle--such is the picture which the throne machinery has +impressed on the German mind. The histrionic gift may be at its best +in creating a saga. + +Always the offensive! Germany would keep on striking as long as she +had strength for a blow, whilst making the pretence that she had the +strength for still heavier blows. One wonders, should she gain peace +by her blows, if the Allies would awaken after the treaty was signed to +find how near exhaustion she had been, or that she was so self- +contained in her production of war material that she had only +borrowed from Hans to pay Fritz, who were both Germans. Russia +did not know how' nearly she had Japan beaten until after +Portsmouth. Japan's method was the German method; she learned it +from Germany. + +At the end of my journey I was hearing the same din of systematic +optimism in my ears as in the beginning. + +"Warsaw, then Paris, then our Zeppelins will finish London," said the +restaurant keeper on the German side of the Dutch frontier; "and our +submarines will settle the British navy before the summer is over. No, +the war will not last a year." + +"And is America next on the programme?" I asked. + +"No. America is too strong; too far away." + +I was guilty of a faint suspicion that he was a diplomatist. + + + + +VIII +In Belgium Under The Germans + + + +No week at the front, where war is made, left the mind so full as this +week beyond the sound of the guns with war's results. It taught the +meaning of the simple words life and death, hunger and food, love +and hate. One was in a house with sealed doors where a family of +seven millions sat in silence and idleness, thinking of nothing but war +and feeling nothing but war. He had war cold as the fragments of an +exploded shell beside a dead man on a frozen road; war analysed +and docketed for exhibition, without its noise, its distraction, and its +hot passion. + +In Ostend I had seen the Belgian refugees in flight, and I had seen +them pouring into London stations, bedraggled outcasts of every +class, with the staring uncertainty of the helpless human flock flying +from the storm. England, who considered that they had suffered for +her sake, opened her purse and her heart to them; she opened her +homes, both modest suburban homes and big country houses which +are particular about their guests in time of peace. No British family +without a Belgian was doing its duty. Bishop's wife and publican's wife +took whatever Belgian was sent to her. The refugee packet arrived +without the nature of contents on the address tag. All Belgians had +become heroic and noble by grace of the defenders of Liege. + +Perhaps the bishop's wife received a young woman who smoked +cigarettes, and asked her hostess for rouge, and the publican's wife +received a countess. Mrs. Smith, of Clapham, who had brought up +her children in the strictest propriety, welcomed as play-mates for her +dears, whom she had kept away from the contaminating associations +of the alleys, Belgian children from the toughest quarters of Antwerp, +who had a precocity that led to baffling confusion in Mrs. Smith's mind +between parental responsibility and patriotic duty. Smart society gave +the run of its houses sometimes to gentry who were used to getting +the run of that kind of houses by lifting a window with a jemmy on a +dark night. It was a refugee lottery. When two hosts met one said: +"My Belgian is charming!" and the other said: "Mine isn't. Just listen--" + +But the English are game; they are loyal; they bear their burden of +hospitality bravely. + +The strange things that happened were not the more agreeable +because of the attitude of some refugees who, when they were +getting better fare than they ever had at home, thought that, as they +had given their "all" for England, they should be getting still better, not +to mention wine on the table in temperance families; whilst there was +a disinclination towards self-support by means of work on the part of +certain heroes by proxy which promised a Belgian occupation of +England that would last as long as the German occupation of +Belgium. England was learning that there are Belgians and Belgians. +She had received not a few of the "and Belgians." + +It was only natural. When the German cruisers bombarded +Scarborough and the Hartlepools, the first to the station were not the +finest and sturdiest. Those with good bank accounts and a +disinclination to take any bodily or gastronomic risks, the young idler +who stands on the street corner ogling girls and the girls who are +always in the street to be ogled, the flighty-minded, the irresponsible, +the tramp, the selfish, and the cowardly, are bound to be in the van of +flight from any sudden disaster and to make the most of the generous +sympathy of those who succour them. + +The courageous, the responsible, those with homes and property at +stake, those with an inborn sense of real patriotism which means +loyalty to locality and to their neighbours, are more inclined to remain +with their homes and their property. Besides, a refugee hardly +appears at his best. He is in a strange country, forlorn, homesick, a +hostage of fate and personal misfortune. The Belgian nation had +taken the Allies' side and now individual Belgians expected help from +the Allies. + +England did not get the worst of the refugees. They could travel no +farther than Holland, where the Dutch Government appropriated +money to care for them at the same time that it was under the +expense of keeping its army mobilized. Looking at the refugees in the +camp at Bergen-op-Zoom, an observer might share some of the +contempt of the Germans for the Belgians. Crowded in temporary +huts in the chill, misty weather of a Dutch winter, they seemed listless, +marooned human wreckage. They would not dig ditches to drain their +camp; they were given to pilfering from one another the clothes which +the world's charity supplied. The heart was out of them. They were +numbed by disaster. + +"Are all these men and women who are living together married?" I +asked the Dutch officer in charge. + +"It is not for us to inquire," he replied. "Most of them say that they +have lost their marriage certificates." + +They were from the slums of that polyglot seaport town Antwerp, +which Belgians say is anything but real Belgium. To judge Belgium by +them is like judging an American town by the worst of its back streets, +where saloons and pawnshops are numerous and red lights twinkle +from dark doorways. + +Around a table in a Rotterdam hotel one met some generals who +were organizing a different kind of campaign from that which brought +glory to the generals who conquered Belgium. It was odd that Dr. +Rose--that Dr. Rose who had discovered and fought the hook worm +among the mountaineers of the Southern States--should be +succouring Belgium, and yet only natural. Where else should he and +Henry James, Jr., of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Mr. Bicknell, of +the American Red Cross, be, if not here directing the use of an +endowment fund set aside for just such purposes? + +They had been all over Belgium and up into the Northern +Departments of France occupied by the Germans, investigating +conditions. For they were practical men, trained for solving the +problem of charity with wisdom, who wanted to know that their money +was well spent. They had nothing for the refugees in London, but they +found that the people who had stayed at home in Belgium were +worthy of help. The fund was allowing five hundred thousand dollars a +month for the American Commission for Relief in Belgium, which was +the amount that the Germans had spent in a single day in the +destruction of the town of Ypres with shells. Later they were to go to +Poland; then to Serbia. + +With them was Herbert C. Hoover, a celebrated mining engineer, the +head of the Commission. When American tourists were stranded +over Europe at the outset of the war, with letters of credit which could +not be cashed, their route homeward must lie through London. They +must have steamer passage. Hoover took charge. When this work +was done and Belgium must be helped, he took charge of a task that +could be done only by a neutral. For the adjutants and field officers of +his force he turned to American business men in London, to Rhodes +scholars at Oxford, and to other volunteers hastening from America. + +When "Harvard, 1914," who had lent a hand in the American +refugees' trials, appeared in Hoover's office to volunteer for the new +campaign, Hoover said: "You are going to Rotterdam to-night." "So I +am!" said Harvard, 1914, and started accordingly. Action and not red +tape must prevail in such an organization. + +The Belgians whom I wished to see were those behind the line of +guards on the Belgo-Dutch frontier; those who had remained at home +under the Germans to face humiliation and hunger. This was possible +if you had the right sort of influence and your passport the right sort of +vises to accompany a Bescheinigung, according to the form of "31 +Oktober, 1914, Sect. 616, Nr. 1083," signed by the German consul at +Rotterdam, which put me in the same motor-car with Harvard, 1914, +that stopped one blustery, snowy day of late December before a +gate, with Belgium on one side and Holland on the other side of it, on +the Rosendaal-Antwerp road. "Once more!" said Harvard, 1914, who +had made this journey many times as a dispatch rider. + +One of the conquerors, the sentry representing the majesty of +German authority in Belgium, examined the pass. The conqueror was +a good deal larger around the middle than when he was young, but +not so large as when he went to war. He had a scarf tied over his +ears under a cracked old patent-leather helmet, which the Saxon +Landsturm must have taken from their garrets when the Kaiser sent +the old fellows to keep the Belgians in order so that the young men +could be spared to get rheumatism in the trenches if they escaped +death. + +You could see that the conqueror missed his wife's cooking and +Sunday afternoon in the beer garden with his family. However much +he loved the Kaiser, it did not make him love home any the less. His +nod admitted us into German-ruled Belgium. He looked so lonely that +as our car started I sent him a smile. Surprise broke on his face. +Somebody not a German in uniform had actually smiled at him in +Belgium! + +My last glimpse of him was of a grin spreading under the scarf toward +his ears. + +Belgium was webbed with these old Landsturm guards. If your +Passierschein was not right, you might survive the first set of sentries +and even the second, but the third, and if not the third some +succeeding one of the dozens on the way to Brussels, would hale you +before a Kommandatur. Then you were in trouble. In travelling about +Europe I became so used to passes that when I returned to New +York I could not have thought of going to Hoboken without the +German consul's visa or of dining at a French restaurant without the +French consul's. + +"And again!" said Harvard, 1914, as we came to another sentry. +There was good reason why Harvard had his pass in a leather-bound +case under a celluloid face. Otherwise, it would soon have been worn +out in showing. He had been warned by the Commission not to talk +and he did not talk. He was neutrality personified. All he did was to +show his pass. He could be silent in three languages. The only time I +got anything like partisanship out of him and two sentences in +succession was when I mentioned the Harvard-Yale football game. +"My! Wasn't that a smear! In their new stadium, too! Oh, my! Wish I +had been there!" + +When the car broke a spring half-way to Antwerp, he remarked, +"Naturally!" or, rather, a more expressive monosyllable which did not +sound neutral. + +While he and the Belgian chauffeur, with the help of a Belgian farmer +as spectator, were patching up the broken spring, I had a look at the +farm. The winter crops were in; the cabbages and Brussels sprouts in +the garden were untouched. It happened that the scorching finger of +war's destruction had not been laid on this little property. In the yard +the wife was doing the week's washing, her hands in hot water and +her arms exposed to weather so cold that I felt none too warm in a +heavy overcoat. At first sight she gave me a frown, which instantly +dissipated into a smile when she saw that I was not German. + +If not German, I must be a friend. Yet if I were I would not dare talk-- +not with German sentries all about. She lifted her hand from the suds +and swung it out to the west toward England and France with an +eager, craving fire in her eyes, and then she swept it across in front of +her as if she were sweeping a spider off a table. When it stopped at +arm's length there was the triumph of hate in her eyes. I thought of +the lid of a cauldron raised to let out a burst of steam as she asked +"When?" When? When would the Allies come and turn the Germans +out? + +She was a kind, hardworking woman, who would help any stranger in +trouble the best she knew how. Probably that Saxon whose smile had +spread under his scarf had much the same kind of wife. Yet I knew +that if the Allies' guns were heard driving the Germans past her +house and her husband had a rifle, he would put a shot in that +Saxon's back, or she would pour boiling water on his head if she +could. Then, if the Germans had time, they would burn the farmhouse +and kill the husband who had shot one of their comrades. + +I recollect a youth who had been in a railroad accident saying: "That +was the first time I had ever seen death; the first time I realized what +death was." Exactly. You don't know death till you have seen it; you +don't know invasion till you have felt it. However wise, however able +the conquerors, life under them is a living death. True, the farmer's +property was untouched, but his liberty was gone. If you, a well- +behaved citizen, have ever been arrested and marched through the +streets of your home town by a policeman, how did you like it? Give +the policeman a rifle and a fixed bayonet and a full cartridge-box and +transform him into a foreigner and the experience would not be any +more pleasant. + +That farmer could not go to the next town without the permission of +the sentries. He could not even mail a letter to his son who was in the +trenches with the Allies. The Germans had taken his horse; theirs the +power to take anything he had--the power of the bayonet. If he +wanted to send his produce to a foreign market, if he wanted to buy +food in a foreign market, the British naval blockade closed the sea to +him. He was sitting on a chair of steel spikes, hands tied and mouth +gagged, whilst his mind seethed, solacing its hate with hope through +the long winter months. If you lived in Kansas and could not get your +wheat to Chicago, or any groceries or newspapers from the nearest +town, or learn whether your son in Wyoming were alive or dead, or +whether the man who owned your mortgage in New York had +foreclosed it or not--well, that is enough without the German sentry. + +Only, instead of newspapers or word about the mortgage, the thing +you needed past that blockade was bread to keep you from starving. +America opened a window and slipped a loaf into the empty larder. +Those Belgian soldiers whom I had seen at Dixmude, wounded, +exhausted, mud-caked, shivering, were happy beside the people at +home. They were in the fight. It is not the destruction of towns and +houses that impresses you most, but the misery expressed by that +peasant woman over her washtub. + +A writer can make a lot of the burst of a single shell; a photographer +showing the ruins of a block of buildings or a church makes it appear +that all blocks and all churches are in ruins. Running through Antwerp +in a car, one saw few signs of destruction from the bombardment. +You will see them if you are specially conducted. Shops were open, +people were moving about in the streets, which were well lighted. No +need of darkness for fear of bombs dropping here! German barracks +had safe shelter from aerial raids in a city whose people were the +allies of England and France. But at intervals marched the German +patrols. + +When our car stopped before a restaurant a knot gathered around it. +Their faces were like all the other faces I saw in Belgium--unless +German--with that restrained, drawn look of passive resistance, +persistent even when they smiled. When? When were the Allies +coming? Their eyes asked the question which their tongues dared +not. Inside the restaurant a score of German officers served by +Belgian waiters were dining. Who were our little party? What were we +doing there and speaking English--English, the hateful language of +the hated enemy? Oh, yes! We were Americans connected with the +relief work. But between the officers' stares at the sound of English +and the appealing inquiry of the faces in the street lay an abyss of +war's fierce suspicion and national policies and racial enmity, which +America had to bridge. + +Before we could help Belgium, England, blockading Germany to keep +her from getting foodstuffs, had to consent. She would consent only if +none of the food reached German mouths. Germany had to agree +not to requisition any of the food. Someone not German and not +British must see to its distribution. Those rigid German military +authorities, holding fast to their military secrets, must consent to +scores of foreigners moving about Belgium and sending messages +across that Belgo-Dutch frontier which had been closed to all except +official German messages. This called for men whom both the +German and the British duellists would trust to succour the human +beings crouched and helpless under the circling flashes of their steel. + +Fortunately, our Minister to Belgium was Brand Whitlock. He is no +Talleyrand or Metternich. If he were, the Belgians might not have +been fed, because he might have been suspected of being too much +of a diplomatist. When an Englishman, or a German, or a Hottentot, +or any other kind of a human being gets to know Whitlock, he +recognizes that here is an honest man with a big heart. When leading +Belgians came to him and said that winter would find Belgium without +bread, he turned from the land that has the least food to that which +has the most--his own land. + +For Belgium is a great shop in the midst of a garden. Her towns are +so close together that they seem only suburbs of Brussels and +Antwerp. She has the densest population in Europe. She produces +only enough food to last her for two months of the year. The food for +the other ten months she buys with the products of her factories. In +1914-15 Belgium could not send out her products; so we were to help +feed her without pay, and England and France were to give money to +buy what food we did not give. + +But with the British navy generously allowing food to pass the +blockade, the problem was far from solved. Ships laden with supplies +steaming to Rotterdam--this was a matter of easy organization. How +get the bread to the hungry mouths when the Germans were using +Belgian railroads for military purposes? Germany was not inclined to +allow a carload of wheat to keep a carload of soldiers from reaching +the front, or to let food for Belgians keep the men in the trenches from +getting theirs regularly. Horse and cart transport would be +cumbersome, and the Germans would not permit Belgian teamsters +to move about with such freedom. As likely as not they might be +spies. + +Anybody who can walk or ride may be a spy. Therefore, the way to +stop spying is not to let anyone walk or ride. Besides, Germany had +requisitioned most of the horses that could do more than draw an +empty phaeton on a level. But she had not drawn the water out of the +canals; though the Belgians, always whispering jokes at the expense +of the conquerors, said that the canals might have been emptied if +their contents had been beer. There were plenty of idle boats in +Holland, whose canals connect with the web of canals in Belgium. +You had only to seal the cargoes against requisition, the seal to be +broken only by a representative of the Relief Commission, and start +them to their destination. + +And how make sure that those who had money should pay for their +bread, while all who had not should be reached? The solution was +simple compared to the distribution of relief after the San Francisco +earthquake and fire, for example, in our own land, where a sparser +population makes social organization comparatively loose. + +The people to be relieved were in their homes. Belgium is so old a +country, her population so dense, she is so much like one big +workshop, that the Government must keep a complete set of books. +Every Belgian is registered and docketed. You know just how he +makes his living and where he lives. Upon marriage a Belgian gets a +little book, giving his name and his wife's, their ages, their +occupations, and address. As children are born their names are +added. A Belgian holds as fast to this book as a woman to a piece of +jewellery that is an heirloom. + +With few exceptions, Belgian local officials had not fled the country. +They realized that this was a time when they were particularly needed +on the job to protect the people from German exactions and from +their own rashness. There were also any number of volunteers. The +thing was to get the food to them and let them organize local +distribution. + +The small force of Americans required to oversee the transit must +watch that the Germans did not take any of the food and retain both +British and German confidence in the absolute good faith of their +intentions. The volunteers were paid their expenses; the rest of their +reward was experience, and it was "soom expeerience," as a Belgian +said who was learning a little American slang. They talked about +canal-boat cargoes as if they had been from Buffalo to Albany on the +Erie Canal for years; they spoke of "my province" and compared +bread-lines and the efficiency of local officials. And the Germans took +none of the food; orders from Berlin were obeyed. Berlin knew that +any requisitioning of relief supplies meant that the Relief Commission +would cease work and announce to the world the reason. + +However many times Americans were arrested they must be patient. +That exception who said, when he was put in a cell overnight +because he entered the military zone by mistake, that he would not +have been treated that way in England, needed a little more coaching +in preserving his mask of neutrality. For I must say that nine out of ten +of these young men, leaning over backward to be neutral, were pro- +Ally, including some with German names. But publicly you could +hardly get an admission out of them that there was any war. As for +Harvard, 1914, hang a passport carrier around the Sphinx's neck and +you have him done in stone. + +Fancy any Belgian trying to get him to carry a contraband letter or a +German commander trying to work him for a few sacks of flour! When +I asked him what career he had chosen he said, "Business!" without +any waste of words. I think that he will succeed in a way to surprise +his family. It is he and all those young Americans of whom he is a +type, as distinctive of America in manner, looks, and thought as a +Frenchman is of France or a German of Germany, who carried the +torch of Peace's kindly work into war-ridden Belgium. They made you +want to tickle the eagle on the throat so he would let out a gentle, +well-modulated scream; of course, strictly in keeping with neutrality. + +Red lanterns took the place of red flags swung by Landsturm sentries +on the run to Brussels as darkness fell. There was no relaxation of +watchfulness at night. + +All the twenty-four hours the systematic conquerors held the net tight. +Once when my companion repeated his "Again!" and held out the +pass in the lantern's rays, I broke into a laugh, which excited his +curiosity, for you soon get out of the habit of laughing in Belgium. + +"It has just occurred to me that my guidebook states that passports +are not required in Belgium!" I explained. + +The editor of that guidebook will have a busy time before he issues +the next edition. For example, he will have a lot of new information +about Malines, whose ruins were revealed by the motor-lamps in +shadowy broken walls on either side of the main street. Other places +where less damage had been done were equally silent. In the smaller +towns and villages the population must keep indoors at night; for +egress and ingress are more difficult to control there than in large +cities, where guards at every corner suffice--watching, watching, +these disciplined pawns of remorselessly efficient militarism; watching +every human being in Belgium. + +"The last time I saw that statue of Liege," I remarked, peering into the +darkness as we rode into the city, "the Legion of Honour conferred by +France on Liege for its brave defence was hung on its breast. I +suppose it is gone now." + +"I guess yes," said Harvard, 1914. + +We went to the hotel at Brussels which I had left the day before the +city's fall. English railway signs on the walls of the corridor had not +been disturbed. More ancient relic still seemed a bulletin board with +its announcement of seven passages a day to England, traversing +the Channel in "fifty-five minutes via Calais" and "three hours via +Ostend," with the space blank where the state of the weather for the +despair or the delight of intending voyagers had been chalked up in +happier days. The same men were in attendance at the office as +before; but they seemed older and their politeness that of cheerless +automatons. For five months they had been serving German officers +as guests with hate in their hearts and, in turn, trying to protect their +property. + +A story is told of how that hotel had filled with officers after the +arrival of the Germanic flood and how one day, when it was learned +that the proprietor was a Frenchman, guards were suddenly placed +at the doors and the hall was filled with luggage as every officer, +acting with characteristic official solidarity, vacated his room and +bestowed his presence elsewhere. Then the proprietor was informed +that his guests would return if he would agree to employ German +help and buy his supplies from Germany. He refused, for practical +as well as for sentimental reasons. If he had consented, think what +the Belgians would have done to him after the Germans were gone! +However, officers were gradually returning, for this was the best +hotel in town, and even conquerors are human and German conquerors +have particularly human stomachs. + + + + +IX +Christmas In Belgium + + + +Christmas in Belgium with the bayonet and the wolf at the door taught +me to value Christmas at home for more than its gifts and the cheer +of the fireside. It taught me what it meant to belong to a free people +and how precious is that old English saying that a man's house is his +castle, which was the inception of so much in our lives which we +accept as a commonplace. If such a commonplace can be made +secure only by fighting, then it is best to fight. At any time a foreign +soldier might enter the house of a Belgian and take him away for trial +before a military court. + +Breakfast in the same restaurant as before the city's fall! Again the +big grapes which are a luxury of the rich man's table or an +extravagance for a sick friend with us! The hothouses still grew them. +What else was there for he hothouses to do, though the export of +their products was impossible? A shortage of the long, white-leafed +chicory that we call endive in New York restaurants? There were piles +of it in the Brussels market and on the hucksters' carts; nothing so +cheap! + +One might have excellent steaks and roasts and delicious veal; for +the heifers were being butchered as the Germans had taken all +fodder. But the bread was the Commission's brown, which everyone +had to eat. Belgium, growing quality on scanty acres with intensive +farming, had food luxuries but not the staff of life. + +I looked out of the windows on to the square which four months +before I had seen crowded with people bedecked with the Allies' +colours and eagerly buying the latest editions containing the +communiques of hollow optimism. No flag in sight now except a +German flag flying over the station! But small revenges may be +enjoyed. A German soldier tried to jump on the tail of a cart driven by +a Belgian, but the Belgian whipped up his horse and the German fell +off on to the pavement, whilst the cart sped around a corner. + +Out of the station came a score of German soldiers returning from the +trenches, on their way to barracks to regain strength in order that they +could bear the ordeal of standing in icy water again. They were not +the kind exhibited on Press tours to illustrate the "vigour of our +indomitable army." Eyelids drooped over hollow eye-sockets; sore, +numbed feet moved like feet which are asleep in their vain effort to +keep step. Sensitiveness to surroundings, almost to existence, +seemed to have been lost. + +One was a corporal, young, tall, and full-bearded. He might have +been handsome if he had not been so haggard. He gave the lead to +the others; he seemed to know where they were going, and they +shuffled on after him in dogged painfulness. Four months ago that +corporal, with the spring of the energy of youth when the war was +young, was perhaps in that green column that went through the +streets of Brussels in the thunderous beat of their regular tread on +their way to Paris. The group was an object lesson in how much the +victor must suffer in war in order to make his victim surfer. + +Some officers were at breakfast, too. Mostly they were reservists; +mostly bespectacled, with middle age swelling their girth and +hollowing their chests, but sturdy enough to apply the regulations +made for conduct of the conquered. Whilst stronger men were under +shell-fire at the front, they were under the fire of Belgian hate as +relentless as their own hate of England. You saw them always in the +good restaurants, but never in the company of Belgians, these +ostracized rulers. In four months they had made no friends; at least, +no friends who would appear with them in public. A few thousand +guards in Belgium in the companionship of conquest and seven +million Belgians in the companionship of a common helplessness! +Bayonets may make a man silent, but they cannot stop his thinking. + +At the breakfast table on that Christmas morning in London, Paris, or +Berlin the patriot could find the kind of news that he liked. His racial +and rational predilections and animosities were solaced. If there +were good news it was "played up"; if there were bad news, it was not +published or it was explained. L'Echo Belge and L'Independance +Belge and all the Brussels papers were either out of business or +being issued as single sheets in Holland and England. + +The Belgian, keenest of all the peoples at war for news, having less +occupation to keep his mind off the war, must read the newspapers +established under German auspices, which fed him with the pabulum +that German chefs provided, reflective of the stumbling degeneracy +of England, French weariness of the war, Russian clumsiness, and +the invincibility of Germany. If an Englishman had to read German, or +a German English, newspapers every morning he might have +understood how the Belgian felt. + +Those who had sons or fathers or husbands in the Belgian army +could not send or receive letters, let alone presents. Families +scattered in different parts of Belgium could not hold reunions. But at +mass I saw a Belgian standard in the centre of the church. That flag +was proscribed, but the priests knew it was safe in that sacred place +and the worshippers might feast their eyes on it as they said their +avis. + +A Bavarian soldier came in softly and stood a little apart from the +worshippers, many in mourning, at the rear; a man who was of the +same faith as the Belgians and who crossed himself with the others in +the house of brotherly love. He would go outside to obey orders; and +the others to nurse their hate of him and his race. This private in his +faded green, bowing his head before that flag in the shadows of the +nave, was war-sick, as most soldiers were; and the Belgians were +heartsick. They had the one solace in common. But if you had +suggested to him to give up Belgium, his answer would have been +that of the other Germans: "Not after all we have suffered to take it!" +Christians have a peculiar way of applying Christianity. Yet, if it were +not for Christianity and that infernal thing called the world's opinion, +which did not exist in the days of Caesar and the Belgse, the Belgians +might have been worse off than they were. More of them might have +been dead. When they were saying, "Give us this day our daily +bread" they were thinking, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," +if ever their turn came. + +A satirist might have repeated the apochryphal naivete of Marie +Antoinette, who asked why the people wanted bread when they could +buy such nice cakes for a sou! For all the patisserie shops were +open. Brussels is famous for its French pastry. With a store of +preserves, why shouldn't the bakeshops go on making tarts with +heavy crusts of the brown flour, when war had not robbed the bakers +of their art? It gave work to them; it helped the shops to keep open +and make a show of normality. But I noticed that they were doing little +business. Stocks were small and bravely displayed. Only the rich +could afford such luxuries, which in ordinary times were what ice- +cream cones are to us. Even the jewellery shops were open, with +diamond rings flashing in the windows. + +"You must pay rent; you don't want to discharge your employees," +said a jeweller. "There is no place to go except your shop. If you +closed it would look as if you were afraid of the Germans. It would +make you blue and the people in the street blue. One tries to go +through the motions of normal existence, anyway. But, of course, you +don't sell anything. This week I have repaired a locket which carried +the portrait of a soldier at the front and I've put a mainspring in a +watch. I'll warrant that is more than some of my competitors have +done." + +Swing around the circle in Brussels of a winter's morning and look at +the only crowds that the Germans allow to gather, and any doubt that +Belgium would have gone hungry if she had not received provisions +from the outside was dispelled. Whenever I think of a bread-line +again I shall see the faces of a Belgian bread-line. They blot out the +memory of those at home, where men are free to go and come; +where war has not robbed the thrifty of food. + +It was fitting that the great central soup kitchen should be established +in the central express office of the city. For in Belgium these days +there is no express business except in German troops to the front +and wounded to the rear. The dispatch of parcels is stopped, no less +than the other channels of trade, in a country where trade was so rife, +a country that lived by trade. On the stone floor, where once +packages were arranged for forwarding to the towns whose names are +on the walls, were many great cauldrons in clusters of three, to economize +space and fuel. + +"We don't lack cooks," said a chef-who had been in a leading hotel. +"So many of us are out of work. Our society of hotel and restaurant +keepers took charge. We know the practical side of the business. I +suppose you have the same kind of a society in New York and would +turn to it for help if the Germans occupied New York?" + +He gave me a printed report in which I read, for example, that "M. +Arndt, professor of the Ecole Normale, had been good enough to +take charge of accounts," and "M. Catteau had been specially +appointed to look after the distribution of bread." Most appetizing that +soup prepared under direction of the best chefs in the city! The meat +and green vegetables in it were Belgian and the peas American. +Steaming hot in big cans it was sent to the communal centres, where +lines of people with pots, pitchers, and pails waited to receive their +daily allowance. A democracy was in that bread-line such as I have +never seen anywhere except at San Francisco after the earthquake. +Each person had a blue or a yellow ticket, with numbers to be +punched, like a commuter. The blue tickets were for those who had +proved to the communal authorities that they could not pay; the +yellow for those who paid five centimes for each person served. A +flutter of blue and yellow tickets all over Belgium, and in return life I +With each serving of soup went a loaf of the American brown bread. +The faces in the line were not those of people starving--they had +been saved from starvation. There was none of the emaciation which +pictures of famine in the Orient have made familiar; but they were +pinched faces, bloodless faces, the faces of people on short rations. + +To the Belgian bread is not only the staff of life; it is the legs. At home +we think of bread as something that goes with the rest of the meal; to +the poorer classes of Belgians the rest of the meal is something that +goes with bread. To you and me food has meant the payment of +money to the baker and the butcher and the grocer, or the hotel- +keeper. You get your money by work or from investments. What if +there were no bread to be had for work or money? Sitting on a +mountain of gold in the desert of Sahara would not quench thirst. +Three hundred grammes, a minimum calculation--about half what the +British soldier gets--was the ration. That small boy sent by his mother +got five loaves; his ticket called for an allowance for a family of five. +An old woman got one loaf, for she was alone in the world. + +Each one as he hurried by had a personal story of what war had +meant to him. They answered your questions frankly, gladly, with the +Belgian cheerfulness which was amazing considering the circumstances. +A tall, distinguished-looking man was an artist. + +"No work for artists these days," he said. + +No work in a community of workers where every link of the chain of +economic life had been broken. No work for the next man, a +chauffeur, or the next, a brass worker; the next, a teamster; the next, +a bank clerk; the next, a doorkeeper of a Government office; whilst +the wives of those who still had work were buying in the only market +they had. But the husbands of some were not at home. Each answer +about the absent one had an appeal that nothing can picture better +than the simple words or the looks that accompanied the words. + +"The last I heard of my husband he was fighting at Dixmude--two +months ago." + +"Mine is wounded, somewhere in France." + +"Mine was with the army, too. I don't know whether he is alive or +dead. I have not heard since Brussels was taken. He cannot get my +letters and I cannot get his." + +"Mine was killed at Liege, but we have a son." + +So you out in Nebraska who gave a handful of wheat might know that +said handful of wheat reached its destination in an empty stomach. If +you sent a suit of clothes, or a cap, or a pair of socks, come along to +the skating-rink, where ice-polo was played and matches and +carnivals were held in better days, and look on at the boxes, packed +tight with gifts of every manner of thing that men and women and +children wear except silk hats, which are being opened and sorted +and distributed into hastily-constructed cribs and compartments. + +A Belgian woman whose father was one of Belgium's leading +lawyers--her husband was at the front-was the busy head of this +organization, because, as she said, the busier she was the more it +"keeps my mind off------" and she did not finish the sentence. How +many times I heard that "keeps my mind off------" a sentence that was +the more telling for not being finished. She and some other women +began sewing and patching and collecting garments; "but our +business grew so fast"--the business of relief is the one kind in +Belgium that does grow these days--"that now we have hundreds of +helpers. I begin to feel that I am what you would call in America a +captainess of industry." + +Some of the good mothers in America were a little too thoughtful in +their kindness. An odour in a box that had evidently travelled across +the Atlantic close to the ship's boilers was traced to the pocket of a +boy's suit, which contained the hardly-distinguishable remains of a +ham sandwich, meant to be ready to hand for the hungry Belgian boy +who got that suit. Broken pots of jam were quite frequent. But no +matter. Soap and water and Belgian industry saved the suit, if not the +sandwich. Sweaters and underclothes and overcoats almost new, +and shiny old morning coats and trousers with holes in seat and +knees might represent equal sacrifice on the part of some American +three thousand miles away, and all were welcome. Needlewomen +were given work cutting up the worn-outs of grown-ups and making +them over into astonishingly good suits or dresses for youngsters. + +"We've really turned the rink into a kind of department store," said the +lady. "Come into our boot department. We had some leather left in +Belgium that the Germans did not requisition, so we bought it and that +gave more Belgians work in the shoe factories. Work, you see, is +what we want to keep our minds off------" + +Blue and yellow tickets here, too! Boots for children and thick-set +working-women and watery-eyed old men! + +And each was required to leave behind the pair he was wearing. + +"Sometimes we can patch up the cast-offs, which means work for the +cobblers," said the captainess of industry. "And who are our clerks? +Why, the people who put on the skates for the patrons of the rink, of +course!" + +One could write volumes on this systematic relief work, the +businesslike industry of succouring Belgium by the businesslike +Belgians, with American help. Certainly one cannot leave out those +old men stragglers from Louvain and Bruges and Ghent--venerable +children with no offspring to give them paternal care--who took their +turn in getting bread, which they soaked thoroughly in their soup for +reasons that would be no military secret, not even in the military zone. +On Christmas Day an American, himself a smoker, thinking what +class of children he could make happiest on a limited purse, +remembered the ring around the stove and bought a basket of cheap +brier pipes and tobacco. By Christmas night some toothless gums +were sore, but a beatific smile of satiation played in white beards. + +Nor can one leave out the very young babies at home, who get their +milk if grown people do not, and the older babies beyond milk but not +yet old enough for bread and meat, whose mothers return from the +bread-line to bring their children to another line, where they got +portions of a syrupy mixture which those who know say is the right +provender. On such occasions men are quite helpless. They can only +look on with a frog in the throat at pale, improperly nourished mothers +with bundles of potential manhood and womanhood in their arms. For +this was woman's work for woman. Belgian women of every class +joined in it: the competent wife of a workman, or the wife of a +millionaire who had to walk like everybody else now that her motor- +car was requisitioned by the army. + +Pop-eyed children, ruddy-cheeked, aggressive children, pinched- +faced children, kept warm by sweaters that some American or +English children spared, happy in that they did not know what their +elders knew! Not the danger of physical starvation so much as the +actual presence of mental starvation was the thing that got on your +nerves in a land where the sun is seldom seen in winter and rainy +days are the rule. It was bad enough in the "zone of occupation," so +called, a line running from Antwerp past Brussels to Mons. One could +guess what it was like in the military zone to the westward, where only +an occasional American relief representative might go. + +This is not saying that the Germans were stricter than necessary, if +we excuse the exasperation of their militarism, in order to prevent +information from passing out, when a multitude of Belgians would +have risked their lives gladly to help the Allies. One spy bringing +accurate information might cost the German army thousands of +casualties; perhaps decide the fate of a campaign. They saw the +Belgians as enemies. They were fighting to take the lives of their +enemies and save their own lives, which made it tough for them and +the French and the British--tough all round, but very particularly tough +for the Belgians. + +It was good for a vagrant American to dine at the American Legation, +where Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock were far, very far, from the days in +Toledo, Ohio, where he was mayor. Some said that the place of the +Minister to Belgium was at Havre, where the Belgian Government +had its offices; but neither Whitlock nor the Belgian people thought +so, nor the German Government, since they had realized his prestige +with the Belgians and how they would listen to him in any crisis when +their passions might break the bonds of wisdom. Hugh Gibson, being +the omnipresent Secretary of Legation in four languages, naturally +was also present. We recalled dining together in Honduras, when he +was in the thick of vexations. + +Trouble accommodatingly waits for him wherever he goes, because +he has a gift for taking care of trouble, in the ascendancy of a +cheerful spirit and much knowledge of international law. His present +for the Minister, who daily received stacks of letters from all sources +asking the impossible, as well as from Americans who wanted to be +sure that the food they gave was not being purloined by the +Germans, was a rubber stamp, "Blame-it-all-there's-a-state-of-war-in- +Belgium!" which he suggested might save typewriting--a recommendation +which the Minister refused to accept, not to Gibson's surprise. + +On that Christmas afternoon and evening, the people promenaded +the streets as usual. You might have thought it a characteristic +Christmas afternoon or evening except for the Landsturm patrols. But +there was an absence of the old gaiety, and they were moving as if +from habit and moving was all there was to do. + +They had heard the sound of the guns at Dixmude the night before. +Didn't the sound seem a little nearer? No. The wind from that +direction was stronger. When? When would the Allies come? + + + + +X +The Future Of Belgium + + + +In former days the traveller hardly thought of Belgium as possessing +patriotic homogeneity. It was a land of two languages, French and +Flemish. He was puzzled to meet people who looked like well-to-do +mechanics, artisans, or peasants and find that they could not answer +a simple question in French. This explained why a people so close to +France, though they made Brussels a little Paris, would not join the +French family and enter into the spirit and body of that great +civilization on their borders, whose language was that of their own +literature. Belgium seemed to have no character. Its nationality was +the artificial product of European politics; a buffer divided in itself, +which would be neither French, nor German, nor definitely Belgian. + +In later times Belgium had prospered enormously. It had developed +the resources of the Congo in a way that had aroused a storm of +criticism. Old King Leopold made the most of his neutral position to +gain advantages which no one of the great Powers might enjoy +because of jealousies. The International Sleeping Car Company was +Belgian and Belgian capitalists secured concessions here and there, +wherever the small tradesman might slip into openings suitable to his +size. Leopold was not above crumbs; he made them profitable; he +liked to make money; and Belgians liked to make money. + +Her defence guaranteed by neutrality, Belgium need have no thought +except of thrift. Her ideals were those of prosperity. No ambition of +national expansion stirred her imagination as Germany's was stirred; +there was no fire in her soul as in that of France in apprehension of +the day when she would have to fight for her life against Germany; no +national cause to harden the sinews of patriotism. The immensity of +her urban population contributed its effect in depriving her of the +sterner stuff of which warriors are made. Success meant more +comforts and luxuries. In towns like Brussels and Antwerp this +doubtless had its effect on the moralities, which were hardly of the +New England Puritan standard. She had a small standing army; a +militia system in the process of reform against the conviction of the +majority, unlike that of the Swiss mountaineers, that Belgium would +never have any need for soldiers. + +If militarism means conscription as it exists in France and Germany, +then militarism has improved the physique of races in an age when +people are leaving the land for the factory. The prospect of battle's +test unquestionably develops in a people certain sturdy qualities +which can and ought to be developed in some other way than with +the prospect of spending money for shells to kill people. + +With the world making every Belgian man a hero and the unknowing +convinced that a citizen soldiery at Liege--defended by the Belgian +standing army--had rushed from their homes with rifles and beaten +German infantry, it is right to repeat that the schipperke spirit was not +universal, that at no time had Belgium more than a hundred thousand +men under arms, and that on the Dixmude line she maintained never +more than eighty thousand men out of a population of seven millions, +which should yield from seven hundred thousand to a million; while +they lost a good deal of sympathy both in England and in France, +from all I heard, through the number of able-bodied refugees who +were disinclined to serve. It was a mistaken idealism that swept over +the world, early in the war, characterizing a whole nation with the +gallantry of its young king and his little army. + +The spirit of the Boers or of the Minute Men at Lexington was not in +the Belgian people. It could not be from their very situation and +method of life. They did not believe in war; they did not expect to +practise war; but war came to them out of the still blue heavens as it +came to the prosperous Incas of Peru. + +Where one was wrong was in the expectation that her bankers and +capitalists--an aristocracy of money not given to the simple life--and +her manufacturers, artisans, and traders, if not her peasants, would +soon make truce with Caesar for individual profit. Therein, Belgium +showed that she was not lacking in the moral spirit which, with the +schipperke's, became a fighting spirit. It seemed as if the metal of +many Belgians, struck to a white heat in the furnace of war, had +cooled under German occupation to the tempered steel of a new +nationalism. + +When you travelled over Belgium after it was pacified, the logic of +German methods became clear. What was haphazard in their reign +of terror was due to the inevitable excesses of a soldiery taking the +calculated redress ordered by superiors as licence in the first red +passion of war to a war-mad nation, which was sullen because +Belgians had not given up the keys of the gate to France. + +The extent of the ruins in Belgium east of the Yser has been +exaggerated. They were the first ruins, most photographed, most +advertised; bad enough, inexcusable enough, and warrantedly +causing a spell of horror throughout the civilized world. We have +heard all about them, mind, while hearing nothing about those in +Lorraine, where the Bavarians exceeded Prussian ruthlessness in +reprisals. I mean, that to have read the newspapers in early +September, 1914, one would have thought that half the towns of +Belgium were debris while the truth is that only a small percentage +are--those in the path of the German army's advance. Two-thirds of +Louvain itself is unharmed; though the fact alone of its venerable +library being in ashes is sufficient outrage, if not another building had +been harmed. + +The German army planned destruction with all the regularity that it +billeted troops, or requisitioned supplies, or laid war indemnities. It did +not destroy by shells exclusively. It deliberately burned homes. No +matter whether the owners were innocent or not, the homes were +burned as an example. The principle applied was that of punishing +half a dozen or all the boys in the class in the hope of getting the real +culprit. + +Cold ruins mark blocks where sniping was thought to have occurred. +The Germans insist that theirs was the merciful way. Krieg ist Krieg. +When a hundred citizens of Louvain were gathered and shot +because they were the first citizens of Louvain to hand, the purpose +was the security of the mass at the expense of the individual, +according to the war-is-war machine reasoning. No doubt there was +firing on German troops by civilians. What did the Germans expect +after the way that they had invaded Belgium? If they had bothered +with trials and investigations, the conquerors say, sniping would have +kept up. They may have taken innocent lives and burned the homes +of the innocent, they admit, but their defence is that thereby they +saved many thousands of their soldiers and of Belgians, and +prevented the feud between the rulers and the ruled from becoming +more embittered. + +Sniping over, the next step in policy was to keep the population quiet +with a minimum of soldiery, which would permit a maximum at the +front. In a thickly-settled country, so easily policed, in a land with the +population inured to peace, the wisdom of keeping quiet was soon +evident to the people. What if Boers had been in the Belgians' place? +Would they have attempted guerrilla warfare? Would you or I want to +bring destruction on neighbours in a land without any rural fastnesses +as a rendezvous for operations? One could tell only if a section of our +country were invaded. + +A burned block cost less than a dead German soldier. The system +was efficacious. It was mercilessness mixed with craft. When +Prussian brusqueness was found to be unnecessarily irritating to the +population, causing rash Belgians to turn desperate, the elders of the +Saxon and Bavarian coreligionists were called in. They were amiable +fathers of families, who would obey orders without taking the law into +their own hands. The occupation was strictly military. It concerned +itself with the business of national suffocation. All the functions of +government were in German hands. But Belgian policemen guided +the street traffic, arrested culprits for ordinary misdemeanours, and +took them before Belgian judges. This concession, which also meant +a saving in soldiers, only aggravated to the Belgian the regulations +directed against his personal freedom. + +"Eat, drink, and live as usual. Go to your own police courts for +misdemeanours," was the German edict in a word; "but remember +that ours is the military power, and no act that aids the enemy, that +helps the cause of Belgium in this war, is permitted. Observe that +particular affiche about a spy, please. He was shot." + +At every opportunity Belgians were told that the British and the +French could never come to their rescue. The Allies were beaten. It +was the British who got Belgium into trouble; the British who were +responsible for the idleness, the penury, the hunger and the suffering +in Belgium. The British had used Belgium as a cat's-paw; then they +had deserted her. But Belgians remained mostly unconvinced. They +were making war with mind and spirit, if not with arms. + +"We know how to suffer in Belgium," said a Belgian jurist. "Our ability +to suffer and to hold fast to our hearths has kept us going through the +centuries. Flemish and French, we have stubbornness in common. +Now a ruffian has come into our house and taken us by the throat. He +can choke us to death, or he can slowly starve us to death, but he +cannot make us yield. No, we shall never forgive!" + +"You too hate, then?" I asked. + +"Of course I hate. For the first time in my life I know what it is to hate; +and so do my countrymen. I begin to enjoy my hate. It is one of the +privileges of our present existence. We cannot stand on chairs and +tables as they do in Berlin cafes and sing our hate, but no one can +stop our hating in secret." + +Beside the latest verboten and regulation of Belgian conduct on the +city walls were posted German official news bulletins. The Belgians +stopped to read; they paused to re-read. And these were the rare +occasions when they smiled, and they liked to have a German sentry +see that smile. + +"Pour les enfants!" they whispered, as if talking to one another about +a creche. Little ones, be good! Here is a new fairy tale! + +When a German wanted to buy something he got frigid politeness +and attention--very frigid, telling politeness--from the clerk, which said: + +"Beast! Invader! I do not ask you to buy, but as you ask, I sell; and as +I sell I hate! I hate! ! I hate! ! !" + +An officer entering a shop and seeing a picture of King Albert on the +wall, said: + +"The orders are to take that down!" + +"But don't you love your Kaiser?" asked the woman who kept the +shop. + +"Certainly!" + +"And I love my King!" was the answer. "I like to look at his picture just +as much as you like to look at your Kaiser's." + +"I had not thought of it in that way!" said the officer. + +Indeed, it is very hard for any conqueror to think of it in that way. So +the picture remained on the wall. + +How many soldiers would it take to enforce the regulation that no +Belgian was to wear the Belgian colours? Imagine thousands and +thousands of Landsturm men moving about and plucking King +Albert's face or the black, yellow and red from Belgian buttonholes! +No sooner would a buttonhole be cleared in front than the emblem +would appear in a buttonhole in the rear. The Landsturm would face +counter, flank, frontal, and rear attacks in a most amusing military +manoeuvre, which would put those middle-aged conquerors fearfully +out of breath and be rare sport for the Belgians. You could not arrest +the whole population and lead them off to jail; and if you bayoneted a +few--which really those phlegmatic, comfortable old Landsturms +would not have the heart to do for such a little thing--why, it would get +into the American Press, and the Berlin Foreign Office would say: + +"There you are, you soldiers, breaking all the crockery again!" + +In the smaller towns, where the Germans were billeted in Belgian +houses, of course the hosts had to serve their unwelcome guests. + +"Yet we managed to let them know what was in our hearts," said one +woman. "Some tried to be friendly. They said they had wives and +children at home; and we said: 'How glad your wives and children +would be to see you! Why don't you go home?'" + +When a report reached the commander in Ghent that an old man had +concealed arms, a sergeant with a guard was sent to search the +house. + +"Yes, my son has a rifle." + +"Where is it?" + +"In his hands on the Yser, if he is not dead, monsieur. You are +welcome to search, monsieur." + +Belgium was developing a new humour, a humour at the expense of +the Germans. In their homes they mimicked their rulers as freely as +they pleased. To carry mimickry into the streets meant arrest for the +elders, but not always for the children. You have heard the story, +which is true, of how some gamins put carrots in old bowler hats to +represent the spikes of German helmets, and at their leader's +command of "On to Paris!" did a goose-step backwards. There is +another which you may not have heard of a small boy who put on +grandfather's spectacles, a pillow under his coat, and a card on his +cap, 'Officer of the Landsturm.' The conquerors had enough sense +not to interfere with the battalion which was taking Paris; but the +pseudo-Landsturm officer was chased into a doorway and got a cuff +after his placard was taken away from him. + +When a united public opinion faces bayonets it is not altogether +helpless to reply. By the atmospheric force of mass it enjoys a +conquest of its own. If a German officer or soldier entered a street +car, women drew aside in a way to indicate that they did not want +their garments contaminated. People walked by the sentries in the +streets giving them room as you would give a mangy dog room, yet +as if they did not see the sentries; as if no sentries existed. + +The Germans said that they wanted to be friendly. They even +expressed surprise that the Belgians would not return their advances. +They sent out invitations to social functions in Brussels, but no one +came--not even to a ball given by the soldiers to the daughters of the +poor. Belgium stared its inhospitality, its contempt, its cynical +drolleries at the invader. + +I kept thinking of a story I heard in Alaska of a man who had shown +himself yellow by cheating his partner out of a mine. He appeared +one day hungry at a cabin occupied by half a dozen men who knew +him. They gave him food and a bunk that night; they gave him +breakfast; they even carried his blanket-roll out to his sled and +harnessed his dogs as a hint, and saw him go without one man +having spoken to him. No matter if that man believed he had done no +wrong, he would have needed a rhinoceros hide not to have felt this +silence. Such treatment the Belgians have given to the Germans, +except that they furnished the shelter and harnessed the team under +duress, as they so specifically indicate by every act. No wonder, then, +that the old Landsturm guards, used at home to saying "Wie gehts?" +and getting a cheery answer from the people they passed in the +streets, were lonely. + +Not only stubborn, but shrewd, these Belgians. Both qualities were +brought out in the officials who had to deal with the Germans, +particularly in the small towns and where destruction had been worst. +Take, for example, M. Nerincx, of Louvain, who has energy enough to +carry him buoyantly through an American political campaign, +speaking from morning to midnight. He had been in America. I +insisted that he ought to give up his professorship, get naturalized, +and run for office in America. I know that he would soon be mayor of +a town, or in Congress. + +When the war began he was professor of international law at the +ancient university whose walls alone stand, surrounding the ashes of +its priceless volumes, across from the ruined cathedral. With the +burgomaster a refugee from the horrors of that orgy, he turned man +of action on behalf of the demoralized people of the town with a +thousand homes in ruins. Very lucky the client in its lawyer. He is the +kind of man who makes the best of the situation; picks up the +fragments of the pitcher, cements them together with the first material +at hand, and goes for more milk. It was he who got a German +commander to sign an agreement not to "kill, burn, or plunder" any +more, and the signs were still up on some houses saying that "This +house is not to be burned except by official order." + +There in the Hotel de Ville, which is quite unharmed, he had his office, +within reach of the German commander. He yielded to Caesar and +protected his own people day in and day out, diplomatic, watchful, +Belgian. And he was cheerful. What other people could have retained +any vestige of cheer! Sometimes one wondered if it were not partly +due to an absence of keen nerve-sensibilities, or to some other of the +traits which are a product of the Belgian hothouse and Belgian +inheritance. + +I might tell you about M. Nerincx's currency system; how he issued +paper promises to pay when he gave employment to the idle in +repairing those houses which permitted of being repaired, and +cleaned the streets of debris, till ruined Louvain looked as shipshape +as ruined Pompeii; and how he got a little real money from Brussels +to stop depreciation when the storekeepers came to him and said +that they had stacks of his notes which no mercantile concern would +cash. + +M. Nerincx was practising in the life about all that he ever learned and +taught at the university, "which we shall rebuild!" he declared, with +cheery confidence. "You will help us in America," he said. "I'm going +to America to lecture one of these days about Louvain!" + +"You have the most famous ruins, unless it is Rheims," I assured him. +"You will get flocks of tourists"--particularly if he fenced in the ruins +of the library and burned leaves of ancient books were on sale. + +"Then you will not only have fed, but have helped to rebuild Belgium," +he added. + +A shadow of apprehension overhung his anticipation of the day of +Belgium's delivery. Many a Belgian had arms hidden from the alert +eye of German espionage, and his bitterness was solaced by the +thought; "I'll have a shot at the Germans when they go!" The lot of the +last German soldier to leave a town, unless the garrison slips away +overnight, would hardly make him a good life-insurance risk. + +My last look at a Belgian bread-line was at Liege, that town which +had had a blaze of fame in August, 1914, and was now almost +forgotten. An industrial town, its mines and works were idle. The +Germans had removed the machinery for rifle-making, which has +become the most valuable kind of machinery in the world next to that +for making guns and shells. If skilled Belgians here or elsewhere were +called upon to serve the Germans at their craft, they suddenly +became butter-fingered. So that bread-line at Liege was long, its +queue stretching the breadth of the cathedral square. + +As most of the regular German officers in Belgium were cavalrymen-- +there was nothing for cavalry to do on the Aisne line of trenches--it +was quite in keeping that the aide to the commandant of Liege, who +looked after my pass to leave the country, should be a young officer +of Hussars. He spoke English well; he was amiable and intelligent. +While I waited for the commandant to sign the pass the aide chatted +of his adventures on the pursuit of the British to the Marne. The +British fought like devils, he said. It was a question if their new army +would be so good. He showed me a photograph of himself in a British +Tommy's overcoat. + +"When we took some prisoners I was interested in their overcoats," +he explained. "I asked one of the Tommies to let me try on his. It fitted +me perfectly, so I kept it as a souvenir and had this photograph made +to show my friends." + +Perhaps a shade of surprise passed over my face. + +"You don't understand," he said. "That Tommy had to give me his +coat! He was a prisoner." + +On my way out from Liege I was to see Vise--the town of the +gateway--the first town of the war to suffer from frightfulness. I had +thought of it as entirely destroyed. A part of it had survived. + +A delightful old Bavarian Landsturmman searched me for contraband +letters when our cart stopped on the Belgian side of a barricade at +Maastricht, with Dutch soldiers on the other side. His examination +was a little perfunctory, almost apologetic, and he did want to be +friendly. You guessed that he was thinking he would like to go around +the corner and have "ein Glas Bier" rather than search me. What a +hearty "Auf wiedersehen!" he gave me when he saw that I was +inclined to be friendly, too! + +I was glad to be across that frontier, with a last stamp on my +Passierschein; glad to be out of the land of those ghostly Belgian +millions in their living death; glad not to have to answer again their +ravenously whispered "When?" When would the Allies come? + +The next time that I was in Belgium it was in the British lines of the +Ypres salient, two months later. When should I be next in Brussels? +With a victorious British army, I hoped. A long wait it was to be for a +conquered people, listening each day and trying to think that the +sound of gun-fire was nearer. + +The stubborn, passive resistance and self-sacrifice that I have +pictured was that of a moral leadership of a majority shaming the +minority; of an ostracism of all who had relations with the enemy. Of +course, it was not the spirit of the whole. The American Commission, +as charity usually must, had to overcome obstacles set in its path by +those whom it would aid. Belgian politicians, in keeping with the +weakness of their craft, could no more forego playing politics in time +of distress than some that we had in San Francisco and some we +have heard of only across the British Channel from Belgium. + +Zealous leaders exaggerated the famine of their districts in order to +get larger supplies; communities in great need without spokesmen +must be reached; powerful towns found excuses for not forwarding +food to small villages which were without influence. Natural greed got +the better of men used to turning a penny any way they could. +Rascally bakers who sifted the brown flour to get the white to sell to +patisserie shops and the well-to-do while the bread-line got the bran, +required shrewd handling, and it was found that the best punishment +was to let the public know the pariah part they had played. In fact that +soon put a stop to the practice. It meant that the baker's business +was ruined and he had lost his friends. + +A certain percentage of Belgians, as would happen in any country, +saw the invasion only as a visitation of disaster, like an earthquake. A +flat country of gardens limits one's horizon. They fell into line with the +sentiment of the mass. But as time wore on into the summer and +autumn of the second year, some of them began to think, What was +the use? German propaganda was active. All that the Allies had +cared for Belgium was to use her to check the German tide to Paris +and the Channel ports! Perfidious England had betrayed Belgium! +German business and banking influences, which had been considerable +in Belgium before the war, and the numerous German residents +who had returned, formed a busy circle of appeal to Belgian business +men, who were told that the British navy stood between them and a +return to prosperity. Germany was only too willing that they should +resume their trade with the rest of the world. + +Why should not Belgium come into the German customs union? Why +should not Belgium make the best of her unfortunate situation, as +became a practical and thrifty people? But be it a customs union or +annexation that Germany plans, the steel had entered the hearts of +all Belgians with red corpuscles; and King Albert and his +"schipperkes" were still fighting the Germans at Dixmude. A British +army appearing before Brussels would end casuistry; and pessimism +would pass, and the German residents, too, with the huzzas of all +Belgium as the gallant king once more ascended the steps of his +palace. + +Worthy of England at her best was her consent to allow the +Commission's food to pass, which she accompanied by generous +giving. She might seem slow in making ready her army--though I do +not think that she was--but give she could and give she did. It was a +grave question if her consent was in keeping with the military policy +which believes that any concession to sentiment in the grim business +of war is unwise. Certainly, the Krieg ist Krieg of Germany would not +have permitted it. + +There is the very point of the war that ought to make any neutral take +sides. If the Belgians had not received bread from the outside world, +then Germany would either have had to spare enough to keep them +from starving or faced the desperation of a people who would fight for +food with such weapons as they had. This must have brought a +holocaust of reprisals that would have made the orgy of Louvain +comparatively insignificant. However much the Germans hampered +the Commission with red tape and worse than red tape through the +activities of German residents in Belgium, Germany did not want the +Commission to withdraw. It was helping her to economize her food +supplies. And England answered a human appeal at the cost of hard- +and-fast military policy. She was still true to the ideals which have set +their stamp on half the world. + + + + +XI +Winter In Lorraine + + + +Only a winding black streak, that four hundred and fifty miles of +trenches on a flat map. It is difficult to visualize the whole as you see +it in your morning paper, or to realize the labour it represents in its +course through the mire and over mountain slopes, through villages +and thick forests and across open fields. + +Every mile of it was located by the struggle of guns and rifles and +men coming to a stalemate of effort, when both dug into the earth +and neither could budge the other. It is a line of countless battles and +broken hopes; of charges as brave as men ever made; a symbol of +skill and dogged patience and eternal vigilance of striving foe against +striving foe. + +From the first, the sector from Rheims to Flanders was most familiar +to the public. The world still thinks of the battle of the Marne as an +affair at the door of Paris, though the heaviest fighting was from Vitry- +le-Francois eastward and the fate of Paris was no less decided on the +fields of Lorraine than on the fields of Champagne. The storming of +Rheims Cathedral became the theme of thousands of words of print +to one word for the defence of the Plateau d'Amance or the struggle +around Luneville. Our knowledge of the war is from glimpses through +the curtain of military secrecy which was drawn tight over Lorraine +and the Vosges, shrouded in mountain mists. This is about Lorraine +in winter, when the war was six months old. + +But first, on our way, a word about Paris, which I had not seen since +September. At the outset of the war, Parisians who had not gone to +the front were in a trance of suspense; they were magnetized by the +tragic possibilities of the hour. The fear of disaster was in their hearts, +though they might deny it to themselves. They could think of nothing +but France. Now they realized that the best way to help France was +by going on with their work at home. Paris was trying to be normal, +but no Parisian was making the bluff that Paris was normal. The +Gallic lucidity of mind prevented such self-deception. + +Is it normal to have your sons, brothers, and husbands up to their +knees in icy water in the trenches, in danger of death every minute? +This attitude seems human; it seems logical. One liked the French for +it. One liked them for boasting so little. In their effort at normality +they had accomplished more than they realized; for one-sixth of +the wealth of France was in German hands. A line of steel made +the rest safe for those not at the front to pursue the routine of peace. + +When I had been in Paris in September there was no certainty about +railroad connections anywhere. You went to the station and took your +chances, governed by the movement of troops, not to mention other +conditions. This time I took the regular noon express to Nancy, as I +might have done to Marseilles, or Rome, or Madrid, had I chosen. +The sprinkling of quiet army officers on the train were in the new +uniform of peculiar steely grey, in place of the target blue and red. But +for them and the number of women in mourning and one other +circumstance, the train might have been bound for Berlin, with Nancy +only a stop on the way. + +The other circumstance was the presence of a soldier in the vestibule +who said: "Votre laisser-passer, monsieur, s'il vous platt!" If you had a +laisser-passer, he was most polite; but if you lacked one, he would +also have been most polite and so would the guard that took you in +charge at the next station. In other words, monsieur, you must have +something besides a railroad ticket if you are on a train that runs past +the fortress of Toul and your destination is Nancy. You must have a +military pass, which was never given to foreigners if they were +travelling alone in the zone of military operations. The pulse of the +Frenchman beats high, his imagination bounds, when he looks +eastward. To the east are the lost provinces and the frontier drawn by +the war of '70 between French Lorraine and German Lorraine. This +gave our journey interest. + +Nancy, capital of French Lorraine, is so near Metz, the great German +fortress town of German Lorraine, that excursion trains used to run to +Nancy in the opera season. "They are not running this winter," say +the wits of Nancy. "For one reason, we have no opera--and there are +other reasons." + +An aeroplane from the German lines has only to toss a bomb in the +course of an average reconnaissance on Nancy if it chooses; for +Zeppelins are within easy reach of Nancy. But here was Nancy as +brilliantly lighted at nine in the evening as any city of its size at home. +Our train, too, had run with the windows unshaded. After the +darkness of London, and after English trains with every window- +shade closely drawn, this was a surprise. + +It was a threat, an anticipation, that darkened London, while Nancy +knew fulfilment. Bombardment and bomb-dropping were nothing new +to Nancy. The spice of danger gives a fillip to business to the town +whose population heard the din of the most thunderously spectacular +action of the war echoing among the surrounding hills. Nancy saw the +enemy beaten back. Now she was so close to the front that she felt +the throb of the army's life. + +"Don't you ever worry about aerial raids?" I asked madame behind +the counter at the hotel. + +"Do the men in the trenches worry about them?" she answered. "We +have a much easier time than they. Why shouldn't we share some of +their dangers? And when a Zeppelin appears and our guns begin +firing, we all feel like soldiers under fire." + +"Are all the population here as usual?" + +"Certainly, monsieur!" she said. "The Germans can never take +Nancy. The French are going to take Metz!" + +The meal which that hotel restaurant served was as good as in peace +times. Who deserves a good meal if not the officer who comes in +from the front? And madame sees that he gets it. She is as proud of +her poulet en casserole as any commander of a soixante-quinze +battery of its practice. There was steam heat, too, in the hotel, which +gave an American a homelike feeling. + +In a score of places in the Eastern States you see landscapes with +high hills like the spurs of the Vosges around Nancy sprinkled with +snow and under a blue mist. And the air was dry; it had the life of our +air. Old Civil War men who had been in the Tennessee Mountains or +the Shenandoah Valley would feel perfectly at home in such +surroundings; only the foreground of farm land which merges into the +crests covered with trees in the distance is more finished. The people +were tilling it hundreds of years before we began tilling ours. They till +well; they make Lorraine a rich province of France. + +With guns pounding in the distance, boys in their capes were skipping +and frolicking on their way to school; housewives were going to +market, and the streets were spotlessly clean. All the men of Nancy +not in the army pursued their regular routine while the army went +about its business of throwing shells at the Germans. On the dead +walls of the buildings were M. Deschanel's speech in the Chamber of +Deputies, breathing endurance till victory, and the call for the class of +recruits of 1915, which you will find on the walls of the towns of all +France beside that of the order of mobilization in August, now +weather-stained. Nancy seemed, if anything, more French than any +interior French town. Though near the border, there is no touch of +German influence. When you walked through the old Place +Stanislaus, so expressive of the architectural taste bred for centuries +in the French, you understand the glow in the hearts of this very +French population which made them unconscious of danger while +their flag was flying over this very French city. + +No two Christian peoples we know are quite so different as the +French and the Germans. To each every national thought and habit +incarnates a patriotism which is in defiance of that on the other side of +the frontier. Over in America you may see the good in both sides, but +no Frenchman and no German can on the Lorraine frontier. If he +should, he would no longer be a Frenchman or a German in time of +war. + +At our service in front of the hotel were waiting two mortals in goatskin +coats, with scarfs around their ears and French military caps on top of +the scarfs. They were official army chauffeurs. If you have ridden +through the Alleghenies in winter in an open car, why explain that +seeing the Vosges front in a motor-car may be a joy ride to an +Eskimo, but not to your humble servant? But the roads were perfect; +as good wherever we went in this mountain country as from New +York to Poughkeepsie. I need not tell you this if you have been in +France; but you will be interested to know that Lorraine keeps her +roads in perfect repair even in war time. + +Crossing the swollen Moselle on a military bridge, twisting in and out +of valleys and speeding through villages, one saw who were guarding +the army's secrets, but little of the army itself and few signs of +transportation on a bleak, snowy day. At the outskirts of every village, +at every bridge, and at intervals along the road, Territorial sentries +stopped the car. Having an officer along was not sufficient to let you +whizz by important posts. He must show his pass. Every sentry was a +reminder of the hopelessness of being a correspondent these days +without official sanction. + +The sentries were men in the thirties. In Belgium, their German +counterpart, the Landsturm, were the monitors of a journey that I +made. No troops are more military than the first line Germans; but in +the snap and spirit of his salute the French Territorial has an elan, a +martial fervour, which the phlegmatic German in the thirties lacks. + +Occasionally we passed scattered soldiers in the village streets, or a +door opened to show a soldier figure in the doorway. The reason that +we were not seeing anything of the army was the same that keeps +the men and boys who are on the steps of the country grocery in +summer at home around the stove in winter. All these villages were +full of reservists who were indoors. They could be formed in the street +ready for the march to any part of the line where a concentrated +attack was made almost as soon after the alarm as a fire engine +starts to a fire. Now, imagine your view of a cricket match limited to +the bowler: and that is all you see in the low country of Flanders. You +have no grasp of what all the noise and struggle means, for you +cannot see over the shoulders of the crowd. But in Lorraine you have +only to ascend a hill and the moves in the chess game of war are +clear. + +A panorama unfolds as our car takes a rising grade to the village of +Ste. Genevieve. We alight and walk along a bridge, where the sentry +of a lookout is on watch. He seems quite alone, but at our approach a +dozen of his comrades come out of their "home" dug in the hillside. +Wherever you go about the frozen country of Lorraine it is a case of +flushing soldiers from their shelters. A small, semicircular table is set +up before the lookout, like his compass before a mariner. Here run +blue pencil lines of direction pointing to Pont-a-Mousson, to Chateau- +Salins, and other towns. Before us to the east rose the tree-clad +crests of the famous Grand Couronne of Nancy, and faintly in the +distance we could see Metz. + +"Those guns that I hear, are they firing across the frontier?" I asked. +For some French batteries command one of the outer forts of Metz. + +"No, they are near Pont-a-Mousson." + +To the north the little town of Pont-a-Mousson lay in the lap of the +river bottom, and across the valley, to the west, the famous Bois le +Pretre. More guns were speaking from the forest depths, which +showed great scars where the trees had been cut to give fields of fire. +This was well to the rear of our position, marking the boundaries of +the wedge that the Germans drove into the French lines, with its point +at St. Mihiel, in trying to isolate the forts of Verdun and Toul. +Doubtless you have noticed that wedge on the snake maps and have +wondered about it, as I have. It looks so narrow that the French ought +to be able to shoot across it from both sides. If so, why don't the +Germans widen it? + +Well, for one thing, a quarter of an inch on a map is a good many +miles of ground. The Germans cannot spread their wedge because +they would have to climb the walls of an alley. That was a fact as +clear to the eye as the valley of the Hudson from West Point. The +Germans occupy an alley within an alley, as it were. They have their +own natural defences for the edges of their wedge; or, where they do +not, they lie cheek by jowl with the French in such thick woods as the +Bois le Pretre. + +At our feet, looking toward Metz, an apron of cultivated land swept +down for a mile or more to a forest edge. This was cut by lines of +trenches, whose barbed-wire protection pricked a blanket of snow. + +"Our front is in those woods," explained the colonel who was in +command of the point. + +"A major when the war began and an officer of reserves," mon +capitaine, who had brought us out from Paris, explained about the +colonel. We were soon used to hearing that a colonel had been a +major or a major a captain before the Kaiser had tried to get Nancy. +There was quick death and speedy promotion at the great battle of +Lorraine, as there was at Gettysburg and Antietam. + +"They charged out of the woods, and we had a battalion of reserves-- +here are some of them--mes poilus!" + +He turned affectionately to the bearded fellows in scarfs who had +come out of the shelter. They smiled back. Now, as we all chatted +together, officer-and-man distinction disappeared. We were in a +family party. + +It was all very simple to mes poilus, that first fight. They had been told +to hold. If Ste. Genevieve were lost, the Amance plateau was in +danger, and the loss of the Amance plateau meant the fall of Nancy. +Some military martinets say that the soldiers of France think too +much. In this case thinking may have taught them responsibility. So +they held; they lay tight, these reserves, and kept on firing as the +Germans swarmed out of the woods. + +"And the Germans stopped there, monsieur. They hadn't very far to +go, had they? But the last fifty yards, monsieur, are the hardest +travelling when you are trying to take a trench." + +They knew, these poilus, these veterans. Every soldier who serves in +Lorraine knows. They themselves have tried to rush out of the edge +of a woods across an open space against intrenched Germans and +found the shoe on the other foot. + +Now the fields in the foreground down to the woods' edge were bare +of any living thing. You had to take mon capitaine's word for it that +there were any soldiers in front of us. + +"The Boches are a good distance away at this point," he said. "They +are in the next woods." + +A broad stretch of snow lay between the two clumps of woods. It was +not worth while for either side to try to get possession of the +intervening space. At the first movement by either French or +Germans the woods opposite would hum with rifle fire and echo with +cannonading. So, like rival parties of Arctic explorers waiting out the +Arctic winter, they watched each other. But if one force or the other +napped and the other caught him at it, then winter would not stay a +brigade commander's ambition. Three days later in this region the +French, by a quick movement, got a good bag of prisoners to make a +welcome item for the daily French official bulletin. + +"We wait and the Germans wait on spring for any big movement," +said the colonel. "Men can't lie out all night in the advance in weather +like this. In that direction------" He indicated a part of the line where +the two armies were facing each other across the old frontier. Back +and forth they had fought, only to arrive where they had begun. + +There was something else which the colonel wished us to see before +we left the hill of Ste. Genevieve. It appealed to his Gallic sentiment, +this quadrilateral of stone on the highest point where legend tells that +"Jovin, a Christian and very faithful, vanquished the German +barbarians 366 A.D." + +"We have to do as well in our day as Jovin in his," remarked the +colonel. + +The church of Ste. Genevieve was badly smashed by shell. So was +the church in the village on the Plateau d'Amance, as are most +churches in this district of Lorraine. Framed through a great gap in +the wall of the church of Amance was an immense Christ on the +cross without a single abrasion, and a pile of debris at its feet. After +seeing as many ruined churches as I have, one becomes almost +superstitious at how often the figures of Christ escape. But I have +also seen effigies of Christ blown to bits. + +Anyone who, from an eminence, has seen one battle fought +visualizes another readily when the positions lie at his feet. Looking +out on the field of Gettysburg from Round Top, I can always get the +same thrill that I had when, seated in a gallery above the Russian and +the Japanese armies, I saw the battle of Liao-yang. In sight of that +Plateau d'Amance, which rises like a great knuckle above the +surrounding country, a battle covering twenty times the extent of +Gettysburg raged, and one could have looked over a battle-line as far +as the eye may see from a steamer's mast. + +An icy gale swept across the white crest of the plateau on this +January day, but it was nothing to the gale of shells that descended +on it in late August and early September. Forty thousand shells, it is +estimated, fell there. One kicked up fragments of steel on the field like +peanut-shells after a circus has gone. Here were the emplacements +of a battery of French soixante-quinze within a circle of holes torn by +its adversaries' replies to its fire; a little farther along, concealed by +shrubbery, the position of another battery which the enemy had not +located. + +So that was it! The struggle on the immense landscape, where at +least a quarter of a million men were killed and wounded, became as +simple as some Brobdingnagian football match. Before the war +began the French would not move a man within five miles of the +frontier lest it be provocative; but once the issue was joined they +sprang for Alsace and Lorraine, their imagination magnetized by the +thought of the recovery of the lost provinces. Their Alpine chasseurs, +mountain men of the Alpine and the Pyrenees districts, were +concentrated for the purpose. + +I recalled a remark I had heard: "What a pitiful little offensive that +was!" It was made by one of those armchair "military experts" who +look at a map and jump at a conclusion. They appear very wise in +their wordiness when real military experts are silent for want of +knowledge. Pitiful, was it? Ask the Germans who faced it what they +think. Pitiful, that sweep over those mountain walls and through the +passes? Pitiful, perhaps, because it failed, though not until it had +taken Chateau-Salins in the north and Mulhouse in the south. Ask the +Germans if they think that it was pitiful! The Confederates also failed +at Antietam and at Gettysburg, but the Union army never thought of +their efforts as pitiful. + +The French fell back because all the weight of the German army was +thrown against France, while the Austrians were left to look after the +slowly mobilizing Russians. Two million five hundred thousand men +on their first line the Germans had, as we know now, against the +French twelve hundred thousand and Sir John French's army fighting +one against four. To make sure of saving Paris as the Germans +swung their mighty flanking column through Belgium, Joffre had to +draw in his lines. The Germans came over the hills as splendidly as +the French had gone. They struck in all directions toward Paris. In +Lorraine was their left flank, the Bavarians, meant to play the same +part to the east that von Kluck played to the west. We heard only of +von Kluck; nothing of this terrific struggle in Lorraine. + +From the Plateau d'Amance you may see how far the Germans came +and what was their object. Between the fortresses of Epinal and of +Toul lies the Trouee de Mirecourt--the Gap of Mirecourt. It is said that +the French had purposely left it open when they were thinking of +fighting the Germans on their own frontier and not on that of Belgium. +They wanted the Germans to make their trial here--and wisely, for +with all the desperate and courageous efforts of the Bavarian and +Saxon armies they never got near the gap. + +If they had forced it, however, with von Kluck swinging on the other +flank, they might have got around the French army. Such was the +dream of German strategy, whose realization was so boldly and +skilfully undertaken. The Germans counted on their immense force of +artillery, built for this war in the last two years and out-ranging the +French, to demoralize the French infantry. But the French infantry +called the big shells marmites (saucepans), and made a joke of them +and the death they spread as they tore up the fields in clouds of +earth. + +Ah, it took more than artillery to beat back the best troops of France in +a country like this--a country of rolling hills and fenceless fields cut by +many streams and set among thick woods, where infantry on a bank +or at a forest's edge with rifles and rapid-firers and guns kept their +barrels cool until the charge developed in the open. Some of these +forests are only a few acres in extent; others are hundreds of acres. +In the dark depths of one a frozen lake was seen glistening from our +viewpoint on the Plateau d'Amance. + +"Indescribable that scene which we witnessed from here," said an +officer who had been on the plateau throughout the fighting. "All the +splendid majesty of war was set on a stage before you. It was +intoxication. We could see the lines of troops in their retreat and +advance, batteries and charges shrouded in shrapnel smoke. What +hosts of guns the Germans had! They seemed to be sowing the +whole face of the earth with shells. The roar of the thing was like that +of chaos itself. It was the exhilaration of the spectacle that kept us +from dropping from fatigue. Two weeks of this business! Two weeks +with every unit of artillery and infantry always ready, if not actually +engaged!" + +The general in command was directing not one but many battles, +each with a general of its own; manoeuvring troops across streams +and open places, seeking the cover of forests, with the aeroplanes +unable to learn how many of the enemy were hidden in the forests on +his front, while he tried to keep his men out of angles and make his +movements correspond with those of the divisions on his right and +left. Skill this required; skill equivalent to German skill; the skill +which you cannot command in a month after calling for a million +volunteers, but which grows through years of organization. + +Shall I call the general in chief command General X? This is +according to the custom of anonymity. A great modern army like the +French is a machine; any man, high or low, only a unit of the +machine. In this case the real name of X is Castelnau. If it lacks the +fame which seems its due, that may be because he was too busy to +take the Press into his confidence. Fame is not the business of +French generals nowadays. It is war. What counted for France was +that he never let the Germans get near the gap at Mirecourt. + +Having failed to reach the gap, the Germans, with that stubbornness +of the offensive which characterizes them, tried to take Nancy. They +got a battery of heavy guns within range of the city. From a high hill it +is said that the Kaiser watched the bombardment. But here is a story. +As the German infantry advanced toward their new objective they +passed a French artillery officer in a tree. He was able to locate that +heavy battery and able to signal its position back to his own side. The +French concentrated sufficient fire to silence it after it had thrown forty +shells into Nancy. The same report tells how the Kaiser folded his +cloak around him and walked in silence from his eminence, where the +sun blazed on his helmet. It was not the Germans' fault that they +failed to take Nancy. It was due to the French. + +Some time a tablet will be put up to denote the high-water mark of the +German invasion of Lorraine. It will be between the edge of the forest +of Champenoux and the heights. When the Germans charged from +the cover of the forest to get possession of the road to Nancy, the +French artillery and machine-guns which had held their fire turned +loose. The rest of the story is how the French infantry, impatient at +being held back, swept down in a counter-attack, and the Germans +had to give up their campaign in Lorraine as they gave up their +campaign against Paris in the early part of September. Saddest of all +lost opportunities to the correspondent in this war is this fighting in +Lorraine. One had only to climb a hill in order to see everything! + +In half an hour, as the officer outlined the positions, we had lived +through the two weeks' fighting; and, thanks to the fairness of his +story--that of a professional soldier without illusions--we felt that we +had been hearing history while it was very fresh. + +"They are very brave and skilful, the Germans," he said. "We still +have a battery of heavy guns on the plateau. Let us go and see it." + +We went, picking our way among the snow-covered shell-pits. At one +point we crossed a communication trench, where soldiers could go +and come to the guns and the infantry positions without being +exposed to shell-fire. I noticed that it carried a telephone wire. + +"Yes," said the officer; "we had no ditch during the fight with the +Germans, and we were short of telephone wire for a while; so we had +to carry messages back and forth as in the old days. It was a pretty +warm kind of messenger service when the German marmites were +falling their thickest." + +At length he stopped before a small mound of earth not in any way +distinctive at a short distance on the uneven surface of the plateau. I +did not even notice that there were three other such mounds. He +pointed to a hole in the ground. I had been used to going through a +manhole in a battleship turret, but not through one into a field-gun +position before aeroplanes played a part in war. + +"Entrez, monsieur!" + +And I stepped down to face the breech of a gun whose muzzle +pointed out of another hole in the timbered roof covered with earth. + +"It's very cosy!" I remarked. + +"Oh, this is the shop! The living room is below--here!" + +I descended a ladder into a cellar ten feet below the gun level, where +some of the gunners were lying on a thick carpet of perfectly dry +straw. + +"You are not doing much firing these days?" I suggested. + +"Oh, we gave the Boches a couple this morning so they shouldn't get +cocky thinking they were safe It's necessary to keep your hand in +even in the winter." + +"Don't you get lonesome?" + +"No, we shift on and off. We're not here all the while. It is quite warm +in our salon, monsieur, and we have good comrades. It is war. It is for +France. What would you?" + +Four other gun-positions and four other cellars like this! Thousands of +gun-positions and thousands of cellars! Man invents new powers of +destruction and man finds a way of escaping them. + +As we left the battery we started forward, and suddenly out of the +dusk came a sharp call. A young corporal confronted us. Who were +we and what business had we prowling about on that hill? If there had +been no officer along and I had not had a laisser-passer on my +person, the American Ambassador to France would probably have +had to get another countryman out of trouble. + +The incident shows how thoroughly the army is policed and how +surely. Editors who wonder why their correspondents are not in the +front line catching bullets, please take notice. + +It was dark when we returned to the little village on the plateau where +we had left the car. The place seemed uninhabited with all the blinds +closed. But through one uncovered window I saw a room full of +chatting soldiers. We went to pay our respects to the colonel in +command, and found him and his staff around a table covered with +oilcloth in the main living-room of a villager's house. He spoke of his +men, of their loyalty and cheerfulness, as the other commanders had, +as if this were his only boast. These French officers have little "side"; +none of that toe-the-mark, strutting militarism which the Germans +think necessary to efficiency. They live very simply on campaign, +though if they do get to town for a few hours they enjoy a good meal. +If they did not, madame at the restaurant would feel that she was not +doing her duty to France. + + + + + + + +XII +Smiles Among Ruins + + + +Scorched piles of brick and mortar where a home has been ought to +make about the same impression anywhere. When you have gone +from Belgium to French Lorraine, however, you will know quite the +contrary. In Belgium I suffered all the depression which a nightmare +of war's misery can bring; in French Lorraine I found myself sharing +something of the elation of a man who looks at a bruised knuckle with +the consciousness that it broke a burglar's jaw. + +A Belgian repairing the wreck of his house was a grim, heartbreaking +picture; a Frenchman of Lorraine repairing the wreck of his house had +the light of hard-won victory, of confidence, of sacrifice made to a +great purpose, of freedom secure for future generations, in his eyes. +The difference was this: The Germans were still in Belgium; they were +out of French Lorraine for good. + +"What matters a shell-hole through my walls and my torn roof!" said a +Lorraine farmer. "Work will make my house whole. But nothing could +ever have made my heart and soul whole while the Germans +remained. I saw them go, monsieur; they left us ruins, but France is +ours!" + +I had thought it a pretty good thing to see something of the Eastern +French front; but a better thing was the happiness I found there. + +Mon capitaine had come out from the Ministry of War in Paris; but +when we set out from Nancy southward, we had a different local +guide, a major belonging to the command in charge of the region +which we were to visit. He was another example which upsets certain +popular notions of Frenchmen as gesticulating, excitable little men. +Some six feet two in height, he had an eye that looked straight into +yours, a very square chin, and a fine forehead. You had only to look +at him and size him up on points to conclude that he was all there; +that he knew his work. + +"Well, we've got good weather for it to-day, monsieur," said a voice +out of a goatskin coat, and I found we had the same chauffeur as +before. + +The sun was shining--a warm winter sun like that of a February thaw +in our Northern States--glistening on the snowy fields and slopes +among the forests and tree-clad hills of the mountainous country. +Faces ambushed in whiskers thought it was a good day for trimming +beards and washing clothes. The sentries along the roads had their +scarfs around their necks instead of over their ears. A French soldier +makes ear muffs, chest protector, nightcap, and a blanket out of the +scarf which wife or sister knits for him. If any woman who reads this +knits one to send to France she may be sure that the fellow who +received it will get every stitch's worth out of it. + +To-day, then, it was war without mittens. You did not have to sound +the bugle to get soldiers out of their burrows or their houses. Our first +stop was at our own request, in a village where groups of soldiers +were taking a sun bath. More came out of the doors as we alighted. +They were all in the late twenties or early thirties, men of a reserve +regiment. Some had been clerks, some labourers, some farmers, +some employers, when the war began. Then they were piou-pious, in +French slang; then all France prayed godspeed to its beloved piou- +pious. Then you knew the clerk by his pallor; the labourer by his hard +hands; the employer by his manner of command. Now they were +poilus--bearded, hard-eyed veterans; you could not tell the clerk from +the labourer or the employer from the peasant. + +Anyone who saw the tenderfoot pilgrimage to the Alaskan goldfield in +'97-8 and the same crowd six months later will understand what had +happened to these men. The puny had put on muscle; the city +dweller had blown his lungs; the fat man had lost some adipose; +social differences of habit had disappeared. The gentleman used to +his bath and linen sheets and the hard-living farmer or labourer--both +had had to eat the same kind of food, do the same work, run the +same risks in battle, and sleep side by side in the houses where they +were lodged and in the dug-outs of the trenches when it was their turn +to occupy them through the winter. Any "snob" had his edges +trimmed by the banter of his comrades. Their beards accentuated the +likeness of type. A cheery lot of faces and intelligent, these, which +greeted us with curious interest. + +"Perhaps President Wilson will make peace," one said. + +"When?" + +A shrug of the shoulder, a gesture to the East, and the answer was: + +"When we have Alsace-Lorraine back." + +Under a shed their dejeuner was cooking. This meal at noon is the +meal of the day to the average Frenchman who has only bread and +coffee in the morning. They say that he objects to fighting at luncheon +time. That is the hour when he wants to sit down and forget his work +and laugh and talk and enjoy his eating. The Germans found this out +and tried to take his trenches at the noon hour. Interference with his +gastronomic habits made him so angry that he dropped the knife and +fork for the bayonet and took back any lost ground in a ferocious +counter-attack. He would teach those "Boches" to leave him to eat +his dejeuner in peace. + +That appetizing stew in the kettles in the shed once more proved that +Frenchmen know how to cook. I didn't blame them for objecting to +being shot at by the Germans when they were about to eat it. The +average French soldier is better fed than at home; he gets more +meat, for a hungry soldier is usually a poor soldier. It is a very simple +problem with France's fine roads to feed that long line when it is +stationary. It is like feeding a city stretched out over a distance of four +hundred and fifty miles; a stated number of ounces each day for each +man and a known number of men to feed. From the railway head +trucks and motor-buses take the supplies up to the distributing points. +At one place I saw ten Paris motor-buses, their signs painted over in +a steel-grey to hide them from aeroplanes, and not one of them had +broken down through the war. The French take good care of their +equipment and their clothes; they waste no food. As a people is so is +their army, and the French are thrifty by nature. + +Father Joffre, as the soldiers call him, is running the next largest +boarding establishment in Europe after the Kaiser and the Tsar. And +he has a happy family. It seemed to me that life ought to have been +utterly dull for this characteristic group of poilus, living crowded +together all winter in a remote village. Civilians sequestered in this +fashion away from home are inclined to get grouchy on one another. + +One of the officers in speaking of this said that early in the autumn +the reserves were pretty homesick. They wanted to get back to their +wives and children. Nostalgia, next to hunger, is the worst thing for a +soldier. Commanders were worried. But as winter wore on the spirit +changed. The soldiers began to feel the spell of their democratic +comradeship. The fact that they had fought together and survived +together played its part; and individualism was sunk in the one +thought that they were there for France. The fellowship of a cause +taught them patience, brought them cheer. Another thing was the +increasing sense of team play, of confidence in victory, which holds a +ball team, a business enterprise, or an army together. Every day the +organization of the army was improving; every day that indescribable +and subtle element of satisfaction that the Germans were securely +held was growing. + +Every Frenchman saves something of his income; madame sees to it +that he does. He knows that if he dies he will not leave wife and +children penniless. His son, not yet old enough to fight, will come on +to take his place. Men at home of twenty-two or three years and +unmarried, men of twenty-eight or thirty years and not long married, +and men of forty with some money put by, will, in turn, understand +how their own class feels. + +In ten minutes you had entered into the hearts of this single company +in a way that made you feel that you had got into the heart of the +whole French army. When you asked them if they would like to go +home they didn't say "No!" all in a chorus, as if that were what the +colonel had told them to say. They obey the colonel, but their +thoughts are their own. Otherwise, these ruddy, healthy men, +representing the people of France and not the cafes of Paris, would +not keep France a republic. + +Yes, they did want to go home. They did want to go home. They +wanted their wives and babies; they wanted to sit down to morning +coffee at their own tables. Lumps rose in their throats at the +suggestion. But they were not going until the German peril was over +for ever. Why stop now, only to have another terrible war in thirty or +forty years? A peace that would endure must be won. They had +thought that out for themselves. They would not stick to their +determination if they had not. This is the way of democracies. Thus, +everyone was conscious that he was fighting not merely to win, but +for future generations. + +"It happened that this great struggle which we had long feared came +in our day, and to us is the duty," said one. You caught the spirit of +comradeship passing the time with jests at one another's expense. +One of the men who was not a full thirty-third-degree poilu had +compromised with the razor on a moustache as blazing red as his +shock of hair. + +"I think that the colonel gave him the tip that he would light the way for +Zeppelins!" said a comrade. + +"Envy! Sheer envy!" was the retort. "Look at him!" and he pointed at +some scraggly bunches on chin and cheeks which resembled a +young grass plat that had come up badly. + +"I don't believe in air-tight beards," was the response. When I +produced a camera, the effect was the same as it always is with +soldiers at the front. They all wanted to be in the photograph, on the +chance that the folks at home might see how the absent son or father +looked. Would I send them one? And the address was like this: +"Monsieur Benevent, Corporal of Infantry 18th Company, 5th +Battalion, 299th Regiment of Infantry, Postal Sector No. 121." by +which you will know the rural free delivery methods along the French +front. This address is the one rift in the blank wall of anonymity which +hides the individuality of the millions under Joffre. Only the army +knows the sector and the numbers of the regiment in that sector. By +the same kind of a card-index system Joffre might lay his hand on +any one of his millions, each a human being with all a human being's +individual emotions, who, to be a good soldier, must be only one of +the vast multitude of obedient chessmen. + +"We are ready to go after them when Father Joffre says the word," all +agreed. Joffre has proved himself to the democracy, which means +the enthusiastic loyalty of a democracy's intelligence. + +"If there are any homesick ones we should find them among the lot +here," said mon capitaine. + +These were the men who had not been long married. They were not +yet past the honeymoon period; they had young children at home; +perhaps they had become fathers since they went to war. The +younger men of the first line had the irresponsibility and the ardour of +youth which makes comradeship easy. + +But the older men, the Territorials as they are called, in the late +thirties and early forties, have settled down in life. Their families are +established; their careers settled; some of them, perhaps, may enjoy +a vacation from the wife; for you know madame, in France, with all +her thrift, can be a little bossy, which is not saying that this is not a +proper tonic for her lord. So the old boys seem the most content in +the fellowship of winter quarters. What they cannot stand are +repeated, long, hard marches; their legs give out under the load of +rifle and pack. But their hearts are in the war, and right there is one +very practical reason why they will fight well--and they have fought +better as they hardened with time and the old French spirit revived in +their blood. "Allons, messieurs!" said the tall major, who wanted us to +see battlefields. It required no escort to tell us where the battlefield +was. We knew it when we came to it, as you know the point reached +by high tide on the sands--this field where many Gettysburgs were +fought in one through that terrible fortnight in late August and early +September, when the future of France and the whole world hung in +the balance--as the Germans sought to reach Paris and win a +decisive victory over the French army. Where destruction ended +there the German invasion reached its limit. + +Forests and streams and ditches and railway culverts played their +part in tactical surprises, as they did at Gettysburg; and cemetery +walls, too. In all my battlefield visits in Europe I have not seen a single +cemetery wall that was not loopholed. But the fences, which +throughout the Civil War offered impediment to charges and screen +to the troops which could reach them first, were missing. The fields +lay in bold stretches, because it is the business of young boys and +girls in Lorraine to watch the cows and keep them out of the corn. + +We stopped at a cross-roads where charges met and wrestled back +and forth in and out of the ditches. Fragments of shells appeared as +steps scuffed away the thin coating of snow. I picked up an old +French cap, with a slash in the top that told how its owner came to his +end, and near by a German helmet. For there are souvenirs in plenty +lying in the young wheat which was sown after the battle was over. +Millions of little nickel bullets are ploughed in with the blood of those +who died to take the Kaiser to Paris and those who died to keep him +out in this fighting across the fields and through the forests, in a tug- +of-war of give-and-take, of men exhausted after nights and days +under fire, men with bloodshot eyes sunk deep in the sockets, dust- +laden, blood-spattered, with forty years of latent human powder +breaking forth into hell when the war was only a month old and +passion was at a white heat. + +Hasty shelter-trenches gridiron the land; such trenches as breathless +men, dropping after a charge, threw up hurriedly with the spades that +they carry on their backs to give them a little cover. And there is the +trench that stopped the Germans--the trench which they charged but +could not take. It lies among shell-holes so thick that you can step +from one to another. In places its crest is torn away, which means +that half a dozen men were killed in a group. But reserves filled their +places. They kept pouring out their stream of lead which German +courage could not endure. Thus far and no farther the invasion came +in that wheat-field which will be ever memorable. + +We went up a hill once crowned by one of those clusters of farm- +buildings of stone and mortar, where house and stables and +granaries are close together. All around were bare fields. Those farm- +buildings stood up like a mountain peak. The French had the hill and +lost it and recovered it. Whichever side had it, the other was bound to +bathe it in shells because it commanded the country around. The +value of property meant nothing. All that counted was military +advantage. Because churches are often on hill-tops, because they +are bound to be used for lookouts, is why they get torn to pieces. +When two men are fighting for life they don't bother about upsetting a +table with a vase, or notice any "Keep off the grass" signs; no, not +even if the family Bible be underfoot. + +None of the roof, none of the superstructure of these farm-buildings +was left; only the lower walls, which were eighteen inches thick and in +places penetrated by the shells. For when a Frenchman builds a +farmhouse he builds it to last a few hundred years. The farm windmill +was as twisted as a birdcage that has been rolled under a trolley car, +but a large hayrake was unharmed. Such is the luck of war. I made +up my mind that if I ever got under shell-fire I would make for the +hayrake and avoid the windmill. + +Our tall major pointed out all the fluctuating positions during the battle. +It was like hearing a chess match explained from memory by an +expert. Words to him were something precious. He made each one +count as he would the shots from his cannon. His narrative had the +lucidity of a terse judge reviewing evidence. The battlefield was +etched on his mind in every important phase of its action. + +Not once did he speak in abuse of the enemy. The staff officer who +directs steel ringing on steel is too busy thrusting and keeping guard +to indulge in diatribes. To him the enemy is a powerful impersonal +devil, who must be beaten. When I asked about the conduct of the +Germans in the towns they occupied, his lip tightened and his eyes +grew hard. + +"I'm afraid it was pretty bad!" he said; as if he felt, besides the wrong +to his own people, the shame that men who had fought so bravely +should act so ill. I think his attitude toward war was this: "We will die +for France, but calling the Germans names will not help us to win. It +only takes breath." + +"Allons, messieurs!" + +As our car ran up a gentle hill we noticed two soldiers driving a load of +manure. This seemed a pretty prosaic, even humiliating, business, in +a poetic sense, for the brave poilus, veterans of Lorraine's great +battle. But Father Joffre is a true Frenchman of his time. Why should +not the soldiers help the farmers whose sons are away at the front +and perhaps helping farmers back of some Other point of the line? + +Over the crest of the hill we came on long lines of soldiers bearing +timbers and fascines for trench-building, which explained why some +of the villages were empty. A fascine is something usually made of +woven branches which will hold dirt in position. The woven wicker +cases for shells which the German artillery uses and leaves behind +when it has to quit the field in a hurry, make excellent fascines, and a +number that I saw were of this ready-made kind. After carrying shell +for killing Frenchmen they were to protect the lives of Frenchmen. +Near by other soldiers were turning up a strip of fresh earth against +the snow, which looked like a rip in the frosting of a chocolate cake. + +"How do you like this kind of war?" we asked. It is the kind that +irrigationists and subway excavators make. + +"We've grown to be very fond of it," was the answer. "It is a cultivated +taste, which becomes a passion with experience. After you have +been shot at in the open you want all the earth you can get between +you and the bullets." + +Now we alighted from the motor-car and went forward on foot. We +passed some eight lines of trenches before we came to the one +where we were to stop. A practised military eye had gone over all that +ground; a practised military hand had laid out each trench. After the +work was done the civilian's eye could grasp the principle. If one +trench were taken, the men knew exactly how to fall back on the next, +which commanded the ground they had left. The trenches were not +continuous. There were open spaces left purposely. All that front was +literally locked, and double and triple locked, with trenches. Break +through one barred door and there is another and another +confronting you. Considering the millions of burrowing and digging +and watching soldiers, it occurred to one that if a marmite (saucepan) +came along and buried our little party, our loss would not be as much +noticed as if a piece of coping from a high building had fallen and +extinguished us on Broadway, which would be a relatively novel way +of dying. Being killed in war had long ceased to be a novelty on the +continent of Europe. + +We seemed in a dead world, except for the leisurely, hoarse, muffled +reports of a French gun in the woods on either side of the open space +where we stood. Through our glasses we could see quite clearly the +line of the German front trench, which was in the outskirts of a village +on higher ground than the French. Not a human being was visible. +Both sides were watching for any move of the other, meanwhile lying +tight under cover. By day they were marooned. All supplies and all +reliefs of men who are to take their turn in front go out by night. + +There were no men in the trench where we stood; those who would +man it in case of danger were in the adjoining woods, where they had +only to cut down saplings and make shelters to be as comfortable as +in a winter resort camp in the Adirondacks. Any minute they might +receive a call--which meant death for many. But they were used to +that, and their card games went on none the less merrily. + +"No farther?" we asked our major. + +"No farther!" he said. "This is risk enough for you. It looks very +peaceful, but the enemy could toss in some marmites if it pleased +him." Perhaps he was exaggerating the risk for the sake of a realistic +effect on the sightseers. No matter! In time one was to have risks +enough in trenches. It was on such an occasion as this, on another +part of the French line, that two correspondents slipped away from +the officers conducting them, though their word of honour was given +not to do so--which adds another reason for military suspicion of the +Press. The officers rang up the nearest telephone which connected +with the front trenches, the batteries, and regimental and brigade +headquarters, to apprehend two men of such-and-such description. +They were taken as easily as a one-eyed, one-eared man, with a +wooden leg and red hair would be in trying to get out of police +headquarters when the doormen had his Bertillon photograph and +measurements to go by. + +That battery hidden from aerial observation in the thick forest kept up +its slow firing at intervals. It was "bothering" one of the German +trenches. Fiendish the consistent regularity with which it kept on, and +so easy for the gunners. They had only to slip in a shell, swing a +breech-lock home, and pull a lanyard. The German guns did not +respond because they could not locate the French battery. They may +have known that it was somewhere in the forest, but firing at two or +three hundred acres of wood on the chance of reaching some guns +heavily protected by earth and timbering was about like tossing a pea +from the top of the Washington Monument on the chance of hitting a +four-leafed clover on the lawn below. + +Our little group remained, not standing in the trench but back of it, in +full relief for some time; for the German gunners refused to play for +realism by sending us a marmite. Probably they had seen us through +the telescope at the start and concluded we weren't worth a shot. In +the first months of the war such a target would have received a burst +of shells, for the fun of seeing us scatter, if nothing else. Then +ammunition was plentiful and the sport of shooting had not lost its +zest; but in these winter days orders were not to waste ammunition. + +The factories must manufacture a supply ahead for the summer +campaign. There must be fifteen dollars' worth of target in sight, say, +for the smallest shell costs that; and the shorter you are of shells the +more valuable the target must be. Besides, firing a cannon had +become as commonplace a function to both French and German +gunners as getting up to put another stick of wood in the stove or +going to open the door to take a letter from the postman. + +We had glimpses of other trenches; but this is not the place in this +book to write of trenches. We shall see trenches till we are weary of +them later. We are going direct to Gerbeviller which was--emphasis +on the past tense--a typical little Lorraine town of fifteen hundred +inhabitants. Look where you would now, as we drove along the road, +and you saw churches without steeples, houses with roofs standing +on sections of walls, houses smashed into bits. + +"I saw no such widespread destruction as this in Belgium!" I +exclaimed. + +"There was no such fighting in Belgium," was the answer. + +Of course not, except in the south-western corner, where the armies +still face each other. + +"Not all the damage was done by the Germans," the major explained. +"Naturally, when they were pouring in death from the cover of a +house, our guns let drive at that house," he went on. "The owners of +the houses that were hit by our shells are rather proud--proud of our +marksmanship, proud that we gave the unwelcome guest a hot pill to +swallow." + +For ten days the Bavarians had Gerbeviller. They tore it to pieces +before they got it, then burned the remains because they said the +population sniped at them. All the orgy of Louvain was repeated here, +unchronicled to our people at home. The church looks like a Swiss +cheese from shell-holes. Its steeple was bound to be an observation +post, reasoned the Germans; so they poured shells into it. But the +brewery had a tall chimney which was an even better lookout, and the +brewery is the one building unharmed in the town. The Bavarians +knew that they would need that for their commissariat. For a Bavarian +will not fight without his beer. The land was littered with barrels after +they had gone. I saw some in trenches occupied by Bavarian +reserves not far back of where their firing-line had been. + +"However, the fact that the brewery is intact and the church in ruins +does not prove that a brewery is better than a church. It only proves +which is the Lord's side in this war," said Sister Julie. But I get ahead +of my story. + +In the middle of the main street were half a dozen smoke-blackened +houses which remained standing, an oasis in the sea of destruction, +with doors and windows intact facing gaps where doors and windows +had been. We entered with a sense of awe of the chance which had +spared these buildings. + +"Sister Julie!" the major called. + +A short, sturdy nun of about sixty years answered cheerily and +appeared in the dark hall. She led us into the sitting-room, where she +spryly placed chairs for our little party. She was smiling; her eyes +were sparkling with a hospitable and kindly interest in us, while I felt, +on my part, that thrill of curiosity that one always has when he meets +some celebrated person for the first time--curiosity no less keen than +if I were to meet Barbara Frietchie. + +Through all that battle of ten days, with the cannon never silent day or +night, with shells screaming overhead and crashing into houses; +through ten days of thunder and lightning and earthquake, she and +her four sister associates remained in Gerbeviller. When the town +was fired they moved from one building to another. They nursed both +wounded French and Germans; also wounded townspeople who +could not flee with the others. + +"You were not frightened? You did not think of going away?" she was +asked. + +"Frightened?" she answered. "I had not time to think of that. Go +away? How could I when the Lord's work had come to me?" + +President Poincare went in person to give her the Legion of Honour, +the first given to a woman in this war; so rarely given to a woman, and +here bestowed with the love of a nation. Sister Marie was in the +kitchen at the time, cooking the meal for the sick for whom the sisters +are still caring. So Sister Julie took the President of France into the +kitchen to meet Sister Marie, quite as she would take you or me. A +human being is simply a human being to Sister Julie, to be treated +courteously; and great men may not cause a meal for the sick to +burn. After the complexity of French politics, President Poincare was +anything but unfavourably impressed by the incident. + +"He was such a little man, I could not believe at first that he could be +President," she said. "I thought that the President of France would be +a big man. But he was very agreeable and, I am sure, very wise. +Then there were other men with him, a Monsieur de-de-Deschanel, +who was president of something or other in Paris, and Monsieur du- +du--yes, that was it, Du Bag. He also is president of something in +Paris. They were very agreeable, too." + +"And your Legion of Honour?" + +"Oh, my medal that M. le President gave me! I keep that in a drawer. +I do not wear it every day when I am in my working-clothes." + +"Have you ever been to Paris?" + +"No, monsieur." + +"They will make a great ado over you when you go." + +"I must stay in Gerbeviller. If I stayed during the fighting and when the +Germans were here, why should I leave now? Gerbeviller is my +home. There is much to do here and there will be more to do when +the people who were driven away return." + +These nuns saw their townspeople stood up against a wall and shot; +they saw their townspeople killed by shells. The cornucopia of war's +horrors was emptied at their door. And women of a provincial town, +who had led peaceful, cloistered lives, they did not blench or falter in +the presence of ghastliness which only men are supposed to have +the stoicism to witness. + +What feature of the nightmare had held most vividly in Sister Julie's +mind? It is hard to say; but the one which she dwelt on was about the +boy and the cow. The invaders, when they came in, ordered that no +inhabitant leave his house, on pain of death. A boy of ten took his +cow to pasture in the morning as usual. He did not see anything +wrong in that. The cow ought to go to pasture. And he was shot, for +he broke a military regulation. He might have been a spy using the +cow as a blind. War does not bother to discriminate. It kills. + +Sister Julie can enjoy a joke, particularly on the Germans, and her +cheerful smile and genuine laugh are a lesson to all people who draw +long faces in time of trouble and weep over spilt milk. A buoyant +temperament and unshaken faith carried her through her ordeal. +Though her hair is white, youth's optimism and confidence in the +future and the joy of victory for France overshadowed the present. +The town and church would be rebuilt; children would play in the +streets again; there was a lot of the Lord's work to do yet. + +In every word and thought she is French--French in her liveliness of +spirit and quickness of comprehension; wholly French there on the +borderland of Germany. If we only went to the outskirts of the town, +she reminded us, we could see how the soldiers of her beloved +France fought and why she was happy to have remained in +Gerbeviller to welcome them back. + +In sight of that intact brewery and that wreck of a church is a gentle +slope of open field, cut by a road. Along the crest were many mounds +as thick as the graves of a cemetery, and by the side of the road was +a temporary monument above a big mound, surrounded by a sanded +walk and a fence. The dead had been thickest at this point, and here +they had been laid in a vast grave. The surviving comrades had +made that monument; and, in memory of what the dead had fought +for, the living said that they were not yet ready to quit fighting. + +Standing on this crest, you were a thousand yards away from the +edge of a woods. German aeroplanes had seen the French massing +for a charge under the cover of that crest; but French aeroplanes +could not see what was in the woods. Rifles and machine-guns +poured a spray of lead across the crest when the French appeared. +But the French, who were righting for Sister Julie's town, would not +stop their rush at first. They kept on, as Pickett's men did when the +Federal guns riddled their ranks with grapeshot. This accounts for +many of the mounds being well beyond the crest. The Germans +made a mistake in firing too soon. They would have made a heavier +killing if they had allowed the charge to go farther. After the French fell +back, for two days and nights their wounded lay out on that field +without water or food, between the two forces, and if their comrades +approached to give succour the machine-guns blazed more death, +because the Germans did not want to let the French dig a trench on +the crest. After two days the French forced the Germans out of the +woods by hitting them from another point. + +We went over the field of another charge half a mile away. There a +French regiment put a stream with a single bridge at their back--which +requires some nerve--and charged a German trench on rising +ground. They took it. Then they tried to take the woods beyond. +Before they were checked twenty-two officers out of a total of thirty +fell. But they did not give up the ground they had won. They burrowed +into the earth in a trench of their own, and when help came they put +the Germans out of the woods. + +The men of this regiment were not first line, but the older fellows--men +of the type we stopped to chat with in the village--hastening to the +front when the war began. Their officers were mostly reserves, too, +who left civil occupations at the call to arms. One of the eight +survivors of the thirty was with us, a stocky little man, hardly looking +the hero or the soldier. I expressed my admiration, and he answered +quietly: "It was for France!" How often I have heard that as a reason +for courage or sacrifice! The enemies of France have learned to +respect it, though they had a poor opinion of the French army before +the war began. + +"That railroad bridge yonder the Germans left intact when they +occupied it because they were certain that they would need it to +supply their troops when they took the Gap of Mirecourt and +surrounded the French army," I was told. "However, they had to go in +such a hurry that they failed to mine it. They must have fired five +hundred shells afterwards to destroy it, in vain." + +It was dusk when we entered the city of Luneville for the second time. +Whole blocks lay in ruins; others only showed where shells had +crashed into walls. It is hard to estimate just how much damage shell- +fire has done to a town, for you see the effects only where they have +struck on the street sides and not when they strike in the centre of the +block. But Luneville has certainly suffered as much as Louvain, only +we did not hear about it. Grim, sad Louvain, with its German sentries +among the ruins! Happy, triumphant Luneville, with its poilus instead +of German sentries! + +"We are going to meet the mayor," said the major. + +First we went to his office. But that was a mistake. We were invited to +his house, which was a fine, old, eighteenth-century building. If you +could transport it to New York some arms-and-ammunition millionaire +would give half a million dollars for it. The hallway was smoke- +blackened and a burnt spot showed where the enemy had tried to set +it on fire before evacuating the town. Ascending a handsome old +staircase, we were in rooms with gilded mirrors and carved mantels, +where we were introduced to His Honour, a lively man of some forty +years. + +"I have been in Amerique two months. So much English do I speak. +No more!" said the mayor merrily, and introduced us in turn to his +wife, who spoke not even "so much" English, but French as fast and +as piquantly as none but a Frenchwoman can. Her only son, who was +seventeen, was going up with the 1916 class of recruits very soon. +He was a sturdy youngster; a type of Young France who will make +the France of the future. + +"You hate to see him go?" I asked. + +"It is for France!" she answered. + +We had cakes and tea and a merrier--at least, a more heartfelt--party +than at any mayor's reception in time of peace. Everybody talked. For +the French do know how to talk, when they have not turned grim, +silent soldiers. I heard story on story of the German occupation; and +how the mayor was put in jail and held as a hostage; and what a +German general said to him when he was brought in as a prisoner to +be interrogated in his own house, which the general occupied as +headquarters. + +Among the guests was the wife of a French general in her Red Cross +cap. She might see her husband once a week by meeting him on the +road between the city and the front. He could not afford to be any +farther from his post, lest the Germans spring a surprise. The extent +of the information which he gave her was that all went well for France. +Father Joffre plays no favourites in his discipline. + +Happy, happy Lorraine in the midst of its ruins! Happy because her +adored tricolour floats over those ruins. + + + + +XIII +A Road Of War I Know + + + +Other armies go to war across the land, but the British go across the +sea. They take the Channel ferry in order to reach the front. Theirs is +the home road of war to me; the road of my affections, where men +speak my mother tongue. It begins on the platform at Victoria Station, +with the khaki of officers and men, returning from leave, relieved by +the warmer colours of women who have come to say good-bye to +those they love. In five hours from the time of starting one may be +across that ribbon of salt water, which means much in isolation and +little in distance, and in the trenches. + +That veteran regular--let us separate him from the crowd--is a type I +have often seen, a type that has become as familiar as one's +neighbours in one's own town. We will call him the tenth man. That is, +of every ten men who went to the front a year ago in his battalion, +nine are gone. All of the hardships and all of the terrors of war he has +witnessed: men dropped neatly by a bullet; men mangled by shells. + +His khaki is spotless, thanks to his wife, who has dressed in her best +for the occasion. Terrible as war itself, but new, that hat of hers, which +probably represented a good deal of looking into windows and +pricing; and her gown of the cheapest material, drooping from her +round shoulders, is the product of the poor dress-making skill of +hands which show only too well who does all the housework at home. +The children, a boy of four and a girl of seven, are in their best, too, +with faces scrubbed till they shine. + +You will see like scenes in stations at home when the father has +found work in a distant city and is going on ahead to get established +before the family follow him. Such incidents are common in civil life; +they became common at Victoria Station. What is common has no +significance, editors say. + +When the time came to go through the gate, the veteran picked the +boy up in his arms and pressed him very close and the little girl +looked on wonderingly, while the mother was not going to make it any +harder for the father by tears. "Good-bye, Tom!" she said. So his +name was Tom, this tenth man. + +I spoke with him. His battalion was full with recruits. It had been kept +full. But, considering the law of chance, what about the surviving one +out of an original ten? + +"Yes, I've had my luck with me," he said. "Probably my turn will come. +Maybe I'll never see the wife and kids again." + +The morning roar of London had begun. That station was a small +spot in the city. There were not enough officers and men taking the +train to make up a day's casualty list; for ours was only a small party +returning from leave. The transports, unseen, carried the multitudes. +Wherever one had gone in England he had seen soldiers and +wherever he went in France he was to see still more soldiers. +England had become an armed camp; and England plodded on, +"muddled" on, preparing, ever preparing, to forge in time of war the +thunderbolt for war which was undreamed of in time of peace when +other nations were forging their thunderbolts. + +Still the recruiting posters called for more soldiers and the casualty +lists appeared day after day with the regularity of want +advertisements. Imagine eight million men under arms in the United +States and you have the equivalent to what England did by the +volunteer system. The more there were the more pessimistic became +the British Press. Pessimism brought in recruits. Bad news made +England take another deep breath of energizing determination. It was +the last battle which was decisive. She had always won that. She +would win it again. + +They talk of war aboard the Pullman, after officers have waved their +hands out of the windows to their wives, quite as if they were going to +Scotland for a weekend instead of back to the firing-line. British +phlegm this is called. No, British habit, I should say, the race-bred, +individualistic quality of never parading emotions in public; the instinct +of keeping things which are one's own to one's self. Personally, I like +this way. In one form or another, as the hedges fly by the train +windows, the subject is always war. War creeps into golf, or shooting, +or investments, or politics. Only one suggestion quite frees the mind +from the omnipresent theme: Will the Channel be smooth? The +Germans have nothing to do with that. It is purely a matter of weather. +Bad sailors are more worried about the crossing than about the shell- +fire they are going to face. + +With bad sailors or good sailors, the significant thing which had +become a commonplace was that the Channel was a safely-guarded +British sea lane. In all my crossings I was never delayed. For England +had one thunderbolt ready forged when the war began. The only +submarines, or destroyers, or dirigibles that one saw were hers. +Antennae these of the great fleet waiting with the threat of stored +lightning ready to be flashed from gun-mouths; a threat as efficacious +as action, in nowise mysterious or subtle, but definite as steel and +powder, speaking the will of a people in their chosen field of power, +felt over all the seas of the world, coast of Maine and the Carolinas no +less than Labrador. Thousands of transports had come and gone, +carrying hundreds of thousands of soldiers and food for men and +guns to India; and on the high road to India, to Australia, to San +Francisco, shipping went its way undisturbed by anything that dives +or flies. + +The same white hospital ships lying in that French harbour; the same +line of grey, dusty-looking ambulances parked on the quay! +Everybody in the one-time sleepy, week-end tourist resort seems to +be in uniform; to have something to do with war. All surroundings +become those of war long before you reach the front. That knot of +civilians, waiting their turn for another examination of the same kind +as that on the other side of the Channel, have shown good reasons +for going to Paris to the French Consul in London, or they might not +proceed even this far on the road of war. They seem outcasts--a +humble lot in the variegated costumes of the civil world--outcasts +from the disciplined world in its pattern garb of khaki. Their excuse for +not being in the game is that they are too old or that they are women. +For now the war has sucked into its vortex the great majority of those +who are strong enough to fight or work. + +A traveller might be a spy; hence, all this red tape for the many to +catch the one. Even red tape seems now to have become normal. +War is normal. It would seem strange to cross the Channel in time of +peace; the harbour would not look like itself with civilians not having +to show passports, and without the white hospital ships, and the +white-bearded landing-officer at the foot of the gangway, and the +board held up with lists of names of officers who have telegrams +waiting for them. + +For the civilians a yellow card of disembarkation and for the military a +white card. The officers and soldiers walk off at once and the queue +of civilians waits. One civilian with a white card, who belongs to no +regiment, who is not even a chaplain or a nurse, puzzles the landing- +officer for a moment. But there is something to go with it--a +correspondent's licence and a letter from a general who looks after +such things. They show that you "belong"; and if you don't belong on +the road of war you will not get far. As well try to walk past the +doorman and take a seat in the United States Senate chamber during +a session. + +Most precious that magical piece of paper. I happen to be the only +American with one, unless he is in the fighting line--which is one sure +way to get to the front. The price of all the opera boxes at the +Metropolitan will not buy it; and it is the passport to the welcoming +smile from an army chauffeur, whom I almost regard as my own. But +its real value appears at the outskirts of the city. There the dead line +is drawn; there the sheep are finally separated from the goats by a +French sentry guarding the winding passageway between some +carts, which have been in the same place in the road for months. + +The car spins over the broad, hard French road, in a land where for +many miles you see no signs of war, until it turns into the grounds of a +small chateau opposite a village church. The proprietor of a drygoods +store in a neighbouring city spends his summers here; but this +summer he is in town, because the Press wanted a place to live and +he was good enough to rent us his country place. So this is home, +where the five British and one American correspondents live and +mess. The expense of our cars costs us treble all the rest of our +expenses. They take us where we want to go. We go where we +please, but we may not write what we please. We see something like +a thousand times more than we can tell. The conditions are such as +to make a news reporter throw up his hands and faint. But if he had +his unbridled way, one day he might feel the responsibility for the loss +of hundreds of British soldiers' lives. + +"It may be all right for war correspondents, but it is a devil of a poor +place for a newspaper man," as one editor said. Yet it is the only +place where you can really know anything about the war. + +We become part of the machinery of the great organization that +encloses us in its regular processes. No one in his heart envies the +press officer who holds the blue pencil over us. He has to "take it both +going and coming." He labours on our behalf and sometimes we +labour with him. The staff are willing enough to let us watch the army +at work, but they do not care whether or not we write about their war; +he wants us both to see it and to write about it. He tells us some big +piece of news, and then says: "That is for yourselves; you may not +write it." + +People do not want to read about the correspondents, of course. +They want to read what the correspondents have to tell about the +war; but the conditions of our work are interesting because we are the +link between the army and the reading public. All that it learns from +actual observation of what the army is doing comes through us. + +We may not give the names of regiments and brigades until weeks +after a fight, because that will tell the enemy what troops are +engaged; we may not give the names of officers, for that is glorifying +one when possibly another did his duty equally well. It is the +anonymity of the struggle that makes it all seem distant and unreal--till +the telegram comes from the War Office to say that the one among +the millions who is dear to you is dead or wounded. Otherwise, it is a +torment of unidentified elements behind a curtain, which is parted for +an announcement of gain or loss, or to give out a list of the fallen. + +The world wants to read that Peter Smith led the King's Own +Particular Fusiliers in a charge. It may not know Peter Smith, but his +name and that of his regiment make the information seem definite. +The statement that a well-known millionaire yesterday gave a million +dollars to charity, or that a man in a checked suit swam from the +Battery to Coney Island, is not convincing; nor is the fact that one +private unnamed held back the Germans with bombs in the traverse +of a trench for hours until help came. We at the front, however, do +know the names; we meet the officers and men. Ours is the intimacy +which we may not interpret except in general terms. + +Every article, every dispatch, every letter, passes through the +censor's hand. But we are never told what to write. The liberty of the +Press is too old an institution in England for that. Always we may +learn why an excision is made. The purpose is to keep information +from the enemy. It is not like fighting Boers or Filipinos, this war of +walls of men who can turn the smallest bit of information to +advantage. + +Intelligence officers speak of their work as piecing together the parts +of a jig-saw puzzle. What seems a most innocent fact by itself may +furnish the bit which gives the figure in the picture its face. It does not +follow because you are an officer that you know what may and what +may not be of service to the enemy. + +A former British officer who had become a well-known military critic, in +an account of a visit to the front mentioned having seen a battle from +a certain church tower. Publication of the account was followed by a +tornado of shell-fire that killed and wounded many British soldiers. +Only a staff specialist, trained in intelligence work and in constant +touch with the intelligence department, can be a safe censor. At the +same time, he is the best friend of the correspondent. He knows what +is harmless and what may not be allowed. He wants the Press to +have as much as possible. For the more the public knows about its +soldiers, the better the morale of the people, which reflects itself in the +morale of the army. + +The published casualty lists giving the names of officers and men and +their battalions is a means of causing casualties. From a prisoner +taken the enemy learns what battalions were present at a given fight; +he adds up the numbers reported killed and wounded and ascertains +what the fight cost the enemy and, in turn, the effect of the fire from +his side. But the British public demanded to see the casualty lists and +the British Press were allowed to gratify the desire. They appeared in +the newspapers, of course, days after the nearest relative of the dead +or wounded man had received official notification from the War Office. + +Officers' letters from the front, so freely published earlier in the +war, amazed experienced correspondents by their unconscious +indiscretions. The line officer who had been in a fight told all that he +saw. Twenty officers doing the same along a stretch of front and the +jig-saw experts, plus what information they had from spies, were in +clover. Editors said: "But these men are officers. They ought to know +when they are imparting military secrets." + +Alas, they do not know! It is not to be expected that they should. Their +business is to fight; the business of other experts is to safeguard +information. For a long time the British army kept correspondents +from the front on the principle that the business of a correspondent +must be to tell what ought not to be told. Yet they were to learn that +the accredited correspondent, an expert at his profession, working in +harmony with the experts of the staff, let no military secrets pass. + +At our mess we get the Berlin dailies promptly. Soon after the +Germans are reading the war correspondence from their own front +we are reading it, and laughing at jokes in their comic papers and at +cartoons which exhibit John Bull as a stricken old ogre and Britannia +who Rules the Waves with the corners of her mouth drawn down to +the bottom of her chin, as she sees the havoc that von Tirpitz is +making with submarines which do not stop us from receiving our +German jokes regularly across the Channel. + +Doubtless the German messes get their Punch and the London +illustrated weeklies regularly. In the time that it took the English daily +with the account of the action seen from the church tower to reach +Berlin and the news to be wired to the front, the German guns made +use of the information. Neutral little Holland is the telltale of both +sides; the ally and the enemy of all intelligence corps. Scores of +experts in jig-saw puzzles on both sides seize every scrap of +information and piece them together. Each time that one gets a bit +from a newspaper he is for a sharper Press censorship on his side +and a more liberal one on the other. + +We six correspondents have our insignia, as must everyone who is +free to move along the lines. By a glance you may tell everybody's +branch and rank in that complicated and disciplined world, where no +man acts for himself, but always on someone else's orders. + +"Don't you know who they are? They are the correspondents," I heard +a soldier say. "D. Chron., that's the Daily Chronicle; M. Post, that's the +Morning Post; D. Mail, that's the Daily Mail. There's one with U.S.A. +What paper is that?" + +"It ain't a paper," said another. "It's the States--he's a Yank!" + +The War Office put it on the American cousin's arm, and wherever it +goes it seems welcome. It may puzzle the gunners when the +American says, "That was a peach of a shot, right across the pan!" or +the infantry when he says, "It cuts no ice!" and there is no ice visible +in Flanders; he speaks about typhoid to the medical corps which calls +it enteric; and "fly-swatting" is a new word to the sanitarians, who are +none the less busily engaged in that noble art. Lessons for the British +in the "American language" while you wait! In return, the American is +learning what a "stout-hearted thruster" and other phrases mean in +the Simon-pure English. + +The correspondents are the spoiled spectators of the army's work; +the itinerants of the road of war. Nobody sees so much as we, +because we have nothing to do but to see. An officer looking at the +towers of Ypres Cathedral a mile away from the trench where he was, +said: "No, I've never been in Ypres. Our regiment has not been +stationed in that part of the line." + +We have sampled all the trenches; we have studied the ruins of +Ypres with an archaeologist's eye; we know the names of the +estaminets of the villages, from "The Good Farmer" to "The +Harvester's Rest" and "The Good Cousin," not to mention "The +Omnibus Stop" on the Cassel Hill. Madame who keeps the hotel in +the G.H.Q. town knows me so well that we wave hands to each other +as I pass the door; and the clerks in a certain shop have learned that +the American likes his fruit raw, instead of stewed in the English +fashion, and plenty of it, especially if it comes from the South out of +season, as it does from Florida or California to pampered human +beings at home, who, if they could see as much of this war as I have +seen, would appreciate what a fortunate lot they are to have not a +ribbon of saltwater but a broad sea full of it, and the British navy, too, +between them and the thing on the other side of the zone of death. + +G.H.Q. means General Headquarters and B.E.F., which shows the +way for your letters from England, means British Expeditionary Force. +The high leading, the brains of the army, are theoretically at G.H.Q. +That word theoretically is used advisedly in view of opinion at other +points. An officer sent from G.H.Q. to command a brigade had not +been long out before he began to talk about those confounded one- +thing-and-another fellows at G.H.Q. When he was at G.H.Q. he used +to talk about those confounded one-thing-and-another fellows who +commanded corps, divisions, and brigades at the front. The +philosophers of G.H.Q. smiled and the philosophers of the army +smiled--it was the old story of the staff and the line; of the main office +and the branches. But the line did the most smiling to see the new +brigadier getting a taste of his own medicine. + +G.H.Q. directs the whole; here every department of all that vast +concern which supplies the hundreds of thousands of men and +prepares for the other hundreds of thousands is focussed. The +symbol of its authority is a red band round the cap, which means that +you are a staff officer. No war at G.H.Q., only the driving force of war. +It seems as far removed from the front as the New York office of a +string of manufacturing plants. + +If one follows a red-banded cap into a door he sees other officers and +clerks and typewriters, and a sign which says that a department chief +has his desk in the drawing-room of a private house--where he has +had it for months. Go to one mess and you will hear talk about +garbage pails and how to kill flies; to another, about hospitals and +clearing stations for the wounded; to another, about barbed wire, +sandbags, spades, timber, and galvanized iron--the engineers; to +another, about guns, shells, rifles, bullets, mortars, bombs, bayonets, +and high explosives--the ordnance; to another, about jam, bread, +bacon, uniforms, iron rations, socks, underclothes, tinned goods, +fresh beef, and motor-trucks--the Army Service Corps; to another, +about attacks, counter-attacks, and salients, and about what the +others are doing and will have to do--the operations. + +The Chief of Staff drives the eight-horse team. He works sixteen +hours a day. So do most of the others. This is how you prove to the +line that you have a right to be at G.H.Q. When you get to know +G.H.Q. it seems like any other business institution. Many are there +who do not want to be there; but they have been found out. They are +specialists, who know how to do one thing particularly well and are +kept doing it. No use of growling that you would like a "fighting job." + +G.H.Q. is the main station on the road of war, which hears the sound +of the guns faintly. Beyond is the region of all the activities that it +commands, up to the trenches, where all roads end and all efforts +consummate. One has seen dreary flat lands of mud and leafless +trees become fair with the spring, the growing harvest reaped, and +the leaves begin to fall. Always the factory of war was in the same +place; the soldiers billeted in the same towns; the puffs of shrapnel +smoke over the same belt of landscape; the ruins of the same +villages being pounded by high explosives. Always the sound of +guns; always the wastage of life, as passing ambulances, the curtains +drawn, speed by, their part swiftly and covertly done. The enormity of +the thing holds the imagination; its sure and orderly processes of an +organized civilization working at destruction win the admiration. There +is a thrill in the courage and sacrifice and the drilled readiness of +response to orders. + +The spectator is under varying spells. To-day he seems in a fantastic +world, whose horror makes it impossible of realization. To-morrow, as +his car takes him along a pleasant by-road among wheat-fields where +peasants are working and no soldier is in sight, it is a world of peace +and one thinks that he has mistaken the roar of a train for the distant +roar of gun-fire. Again, it seems the most real of worlds, an exclusive +man's world, where nothing counts but organized material force, and +all those cleanly, well-behaved men in khaki are a part of the +permanent population. + +One sees the war as a colossal dynamo, where force is perpetual like +the energy of the sun. The war is going on for ever. The reaper cuts +the harvest, but another harvest comes. War feeds on itself, renews +itself. Live men replace the dead. There seems no end to supplies of +men. The pounding of the guns, like the roar of Niagara, becomes +eternal. Nothing can stop it. + + + + +XIV +Trenches In Winter + + + +The difference between trench warfare in winter and in summer is +that between sleeping on the lawn in March and in July. It was in the +mud and winds of March that I first saw the British front. The winds +were much like the seasonal winds at home; but the Flanders mud is +like no other mud, in the judgment of the British soldier. It is mixed +with glue. When I returned to the front in June for a longer stay, the +mud had become clouds of dust that trailed behind the motor-car. + +In March my eagerness to see a trench was that of one from the +Western prairies to get his first glimpse of the ocean. Once I might go +into a trench as often as I pleased I became "fed up" with trenches, +as the British say. They did not mean much more than an alley or a +railway cutting. One came to think of the average peaceful trench as +a ditch where some men were eating marmalade and bully beef and +looking across a field at some more men who were eating sausage +and "K.K." bread, each party taking care that the other did not see +him. + +Writers have served us trenches in every possible literary style that +censorship will permit. Whoever "tours" them is convinced that none +of the descriptions published heretofore has been adequate and +writes one of his own which will be final. All agree that it is not like +what they thought it was. But, despite all the descriptions, the public +still fails to visualize a trench. You do not see a trench with your eyes +so much as with your mind and imagination. That long line where all +the powers of destruction within man's command are in deadlock has +become a symbol for something which cannot be expressed by +words. No one has yet really described a shell-burst, or a flash of +lightning, or Niagara Falls; and no one will ever describe a trench. He +cannot put anyone else there. He can only be there himself. + +The first time that I looked over a British parapet was in the edge of a +wood. Board walks ran across the spongy earth here and there; the +doors of little shanties with earth roofs opened on to those streets, +which were called Piccadilly and the Strand. I was reminded of a +pleasant prospector's camp in Alaska. Only, everybody was in +uniform and occasionally something whished through the branches of +the trees. One looked up to see what it was and where it was going, +this stray bullet, without being any wiser. + +We passed along one of the walks until we came to a wall of +sandbags--simply white bags about three-quarters of the size of an +ordinary pillowslip, filled with earth and laid one on top of another like +bags of grain. You stood beside a man who had a rifle laid across the +top of the pile. Of course, you did not wear a white hat or wave a +handkerchief. One does not do that when he plays hide-and-seek. + +Or, if you preferred, you might look into a chip of glass, with your +head wholly screened by the wall of sandbags, which got a reflection +from another chip of glass above the parapet. This is the trench +periscope; the principle of all of them is the same. They have no more +variety than the fashion in knives, forks and spoons on the dinner +table. + +One hundred and fifty yards away across a dead field was another +wall of sandbags. The distance is important. It is always stated in all +descriptions. One hundred and fifty yards is not much. Only when you +get within forty or fifty yards have you something to brag about. Yet +three hundred yards may be more dangerous than fifteen, if an +artillery "hate" is on. + +Look for an hour, and all you see is the wall of sandbags. Not even a +rabbit runs across that dead space. The situation gets its power of +suggestion from the fact that there are Germans behind the other +wall--real, live Germans. They are trying to kill the British on our side +and we are trying to kill them; and they are as coyly unaccommodating +about putting up their heads as we are. The emotion of the situation +is in the fact that a sharpshooter might send a shot at your cap; he +might smash a periscope; a shell might come. A rifle cracks--that is +all. Nearly everyone has heard the sound, which is no different at the +front than elsewhere. And the sound is the only information you get. +It is not so interesting as shooting at a deer, for you can tell whether +you hit him or not. The man who fires from a trench is not even certain +whether he saw a German or not. He shot at some shadow or object +along the crest which might have been a German head. + +Thus, one must take the word of those present that there is any more +life behind than in front of the sandbags. However, if you are sceptical +you may have conviction by starting to crawl over the top of the +British parapet. After dark the soldiers will slip over and bring back +your body. It is this something you do not see, this something +visualized by the imagination, which convinces you that you ought to +be considerate enough of posterity to write the real description of a +trench. Look for an hour at that wall of sandbags and your +imagination sees more and more, while your eye sees only +sandbags. What does this war mean to you? There it is: only you can +describe what this war means to you. + +Many a soldier who has spent months in trenches has not seen a +German. I boast that I have seen real Germans through my glasses. +They were walking along a road back of their trenches. It was most +fascinating. All the Germans I had ever seen in Germany were not +half so interesting. I strained my eyes watching those wonderful +beings as I might strain them at the first visiting party from Mars to +earth. There must have been at least ten out of the Kaiser's millions. + +In summer that wood had become a sylvan bower, or a pastoral +paradise, or a leafy nook, as you please. The sun played through the +branches in a patchwork; flowers bloomed on the dirt roofs of the +shanties, and a swallow had a nest--famous swallow!--on one of the +parapets. True, it was not on the front parapet; it was on the reserve. +The swallow knew what he was about. He was taking a reasonable +amount of risk and playing reasonably secure to get a front seat, +according to the ethics of the war correspondent. The two walls of +sandbags were in the same place that they had been six months +previously. A little patching had been done after some shells had hit +the mark, though not many had come. + +For this was a quiet corner. Neither side was interested in stirring up +the hornets' nest. If a member of Parliament wished to see what +trench life was like he was brought here, because it was one of the +safest places for a few minutes' look at the sandbags which Mr. +Atkins stared at week in and week out. Some Conservatives, +however, in the case of Radical members, would have chosen a +different kind of trench to show; for example, that one which was +suggested to me by the staff officer with the twinkle in his eye on my +best day at the front. + +In want of an army pass to the front in order to write your own +description, then, put up a wall of sandbags in a vacant lot and +another one hundred and fifty yards away and fire a rifle occasionally +from your wall at the head of a man on the opposite side, who will +shoot at yours--and there you are. If you prefer the realistic to the +romantic school and wish to appreciate the nature of trench life in +winter, find a piece of wet, flat country, dig a ditch seven or eight feet +deep, stand in icy water looking across at another ditch, and sleep in +a cellar that you have dug in the wall, and you are near +understanding what Mr. Atkins has been doing for his country. The +ditch should be cut zigzag in and out, like the lines dividing the +squares of a checker-board; that makes more work and localizes the +burst of shells. + +Of course, the moist walls will be continually falling in and require +mending in a drenching, freezing rain of the kind that the Lord visits +on all who wage war underground in Flanders. Incidentally, you must +look after the pumps, lest the water rise to your neck. For all the while +you are fighting Flanders mud as well as the Germans. + +To carry realism to the limit of the Grand Guignol school, then, +arrange some bags of bullets with dynamite charges on a wire, which +will do for shrapnel; plant some dynamite in the parapet, which will do +for high explosive shells that burst on contact; sink heavier charges of +dynamite under your feet, which will do for mines, and set them off, +while you engage someone to toss grenades and bombs at you. + +Though scores of officers' letters had given their account of trench life +with the vividness of personal experience, I must mention my first +trench in Flanders in winter when, with other correspondents, I saw +the real thing under the guidance of the commanding officer of that +particular section, a slight, wiry man who wore the ribbon of the +Victoria Cross won in another war for helping to "save the guns." He +made seeing trenches in the mud seem a pleasure trip. He was the +kind who would walk up to his ball as if he knew how to play golf, +send out a clean, fair, long drive, and then use his iron as if he knew +how to use an iron, without talking about his game on the way around +or when he returned to the club-house. Men could go into danger +behind him without realizing that they were in danger; they could +share hardship without realizing that there were any hardships. Such +as he put faith and backbone into a soldier by their very manner; and +if their professional training equal their talents, when war comes they +win victories. + +We had rubber boots, electric torches, and wore British warms, those +short, thick coats which collect a modicum of mud for you to carry +besides what you are carrying on your boots. We walked along a +hard road in the dark toward an aurora borealis of German flares, +which popped into the sky like Roman candles and burst in circles of +light. They seemed to be saying: "Come on! Try to crawl up on us +and play us a trick and our eyes will find you and our marksmen will +stop you. Come on! We make the night into day, and watching never +ceases from our parapet." + +Occasional rifle-shots and a machine-gun's ter-rut were audible from +the direction of the jumping red glare, which stretched right and left as +far as the eye could see. We broke off the road into a morass of mud, +as one might cross fields when he had lost his way, and plunged on +till the commanding officer said, "We go in here!" and we descended +into a black chasm in the earth. The wonder was that any ditch could +be cut in soil which the rains had turned into syrup. Mud oozed from +the sandbags, through the wire netting, and between the wooden +supports which held the walls in place. It was just as bad over in the +German trenches. General Mud laid siege to both armies. The field of +battle where he gathered his gay knights was a slough. His tug of war +was strife against landslides, rheumatism, pneumonia, and frozen +feet. + +The soldier tries to kill his adversary; he tries to prevent his adversary +from killing him. He is as busy in safeguarding as in taking life. While +he breathes, thinks, fights mud, he blesses as well as curses mud. +Mother Earth is still unconquerable. In her bosom man still finds +security; such security that "dug in" he can defy at a hundred yards' +distance rifles that carry death three thousand yards. She it is that +has made the deadlock in the trenches and plastered their occupants +with her miry hands. + +The C.O. lifted a curtain of bagging as you might lift a hanging over +an alcove bookcase, and a young officer, rising from his blankets in +his house in the trench wall to a stooping posture, said that all was +quiet. His uniform seemed fleckless. Was it possible that he wore +some kind of cloth which shed mud spatters? He was another of the +type of Captain Q------, my host at Neuve Chapelle; a type formed on +the type of seniors such as his C.O. Unanalysable this quality, but +there is something distinguished about it and delightfully appealing. A +man who can be the same in a trench in Flanders in mid-winter as in +a drawing-room has my admiration. They never lose their manner, +these English officers. They carry it into the charge and back in the +ambulance with them to England, where they wish nothing so much +as that their friends will "cut out the hero stuff," as our own officers +say. + +In other dank cellars soldiers who were off guard were lying or sitting. +The radiance of the flares lighted the profiles of those on guard, +whose faces were half-hidden by coat-collars or ear-flaps-- +imperturbable, silent, marooned and marooning, watchful and +fearless. The thing had to be done and they were doing it; and they +were going to keep on doing it. + +There was nothing dry in that trench, unless it was the bowl of a +man's pipe. There were not even any braziers. In your nostrils was +the odour of the soil of Flanders cultivated by many generations +through many wars. As night wore on the sky was brightened by cold, +winter stars and their soft light became noticeable between the +disagreeable flashes of the flares. + +We walked on and on. It was like walking in a winding ditch; that was +all. The same kind of walls at every turn; the same kind of dim figures +in saturated, heavy army overcoats. Slipping off the board walk into +the ooze, one was thrown against the mud wall as his foot sank. Then +he held fast to his boot-straps lest the boot remain in the mud while +his foot came out. Only the CO. never slipped. He knew how to tour +trenches. Beside him the others were as clumsy as if they were trying +to walk a tight-rope. + +"Good-night!" he said to each group of men as he passed, with the +cheer of one who brings a confident spirit to vigils in the mud and with +that note of affection of the commander who has learned to love his +men by the token of ordeals when he saw them hold fast against +odds. + +"Good-night, sir!" they answered; and in their tone was something +which you liked to hear--a finer tribute to the CO. than medals which +kings can bestow. It was affection and trust. They were ready to +follow him, for they knew that he knew how to lead. I was not +surprised when I heard of his promotion, later. I shall not be surprised +when I hear of it again. For he had brain and heart and the gift of +command. + +"Shall we go on or shall we go back?" he asked when we had gone +about a mile. "Have you had enough?" + +We had, without a dissenting voice. A ditch in the mud, that was all, +no matter how much farther we went. So we passed out of the trench +into a soapy, slippery mud which had been ploughed ground in the +autumn, now become lathery with the beat of men's steps. Our party +became separated when some foundered and tried to hoist +themselves with both boot-straps at once. The CO. called out in order +to locate us in the darkness, and the voice of an officer in the +trenches cut in, "Keep still! The Germans are only a hundred yards +away!" + +"Sorry!" whispered the CO. "I ought to have known better." + +Then one of the German searchlights that had been swinging its +stream of light across the paths of the flares lay its fierce, comet eye +on us, glistening on the froth-streaked mud and showing each mud- +splashed figure in heavy coat in weird silhouette. + +"Standstill!" + +That is the order whenever the searchlights come spying in your +direction. So we stood still in the mud, looking at one another and +wondering. It was the one tense second of the night, which lifted our +thoughts out of the mud with the elation of risk. That searchlight was +the eye of death looking for a target. With the first crack of a bullet we +should have known that we were discovered and that it was no longer +good tactics to stand still. We should have dropped on all fours into +the porridge. The searchlight swept on. Perhaps Hans at the +machine-gun was nodding or perhaps he did not think us worth while. +Either supposition was equally agreeable to us. + +We kept moving our mud-poulticed feet forward, with the flares at our +backs, till we came to a road where we saw dimly a silent company of +soldiers drawn up and behind them the supplies for the trench. +Through the mud and under cover of darkness every bit of barbed +wire, every board, every ounce of food, must go up to the moles in +the ditch. The searchlights and the flares and the machine-guns +waited for the relief. They must be fooled. But in this operation most +of the casualties in the average trenches, both British and German, +occurred. Without a chance to strike back, the soldier was shot at by +an assassin in the night. + +When the men who had been serving their turn of duty in the +trenches came out, a magnet drew their weary steps--cleanliness. +They thought of nothing except soap and water. For a week they +need not fight mud or Germans or parasites, which, like General Mud, +waged war against both British and Germans. Standing on the slats +of the concrete floor of a factory, they peeled off the filthy, saturated +outer skin of clothing with its hideous, crawling inhabitants and, +naked, leapt into great steaming vats, where they scrubbed and +gurgled and gurgled and scrubbed. When they sprang out to apply +the towels, they were men with the feel of new bodies in another +world. + +Waiting for them were clean clothes, which had been boiled and +disinfected; and waiting, too, was the shelter of their billets in the +houses of French towns and villages, and rest and food and food and +rest, and newspapers and tobacco and gossip--but chiefly rest and +the joy of lethargy as tissue was rebuilt after the first long sleep, often +twelve hours at a stretch. They knew all the sensations of physical +man, man battling with nature, in contrasts of exhaustion and danger +and recuperation and security, as the pendulum swung slowly back +from fatigue to the glow of strength. + +Those who came out of the trenches quite "done up," Colonel Bate, +Irish and genial, fatherly and not lean, claimed for his own. After the +washing they lay on cots under a glass roof, and they might play +dominoes and read the papers when they were well enough to sit up. +They had the food which Colonel Bate knew was good for them, just +as he knew what was deadly for the inhabitants whom they brought +into that isolated room which every man must pass through before he +was admitted to the full radiance of the colonel's curative smile. When +they were able to return to the trenches, each was written down as +one unit more in the colonel's weekly statistical reports. In summer he +entertained al fresco in an open-air camp. + + + + +XV +In Neuve Chapelle + + + +Typical of many others, this quiet village in a flat country of rich +farming land, with a church, a school, a post-office, and stores where +the farmer could buy a pound of sugar or a spool of thread, employ a +notary, or get a pair of shoes cobbled or a horse shod, without having +to go to the neighbouring town of Bethune, Neuve Chapelle became +famous only after it had ceased to exist--unless a village remains a +village after it has been reduced to its original elements by shell-fire. + +It was the scene of one of those actions in the long siege line which +have the dignity of a battle; the losses on either side, about sixteen +thousand, were two-thirds of those at Waterloo or Gettysburg. Here +the British after the long winter's stalemate in the mud, where they +stuck when the exhausted Germans could press no farther, took the +offensive, with the sap of spring rising in their veins. + +The guns blazed the way and the infantry charged in the path of the +guns' destruction; and they kept on while the shield of shell-fire held. +When it left an opening for the German machine-guns through its +curtain and the German guns visited on the British what their guns +had been visiting on the Germans, the British stopped. A lesson was +learned; a principle established. A gain was made, if no goal were +reached. + +The human stone wall had moved. It had broken some barriers and +come to rest before others, again to become a stone wall. But it knew +that the thing could be done with guns and shells enough--and only +with enough. This means a good deal when you have been under +dog for a long time. Months were to pass waiting for enough shells +and guns, with many little actions and their steady drain of life, while +everyone looked back to Neuve Chapelle as a landmark. It was +something definite for a man to say that he had been wounded at +Neuve Chapelle and quite indefinite to say that he had been +wounded in the course of the day's work in the trenches. + +No one might see the battle in that sea of mud. He might as well have +looked at the smoke of Vesuvius with an idea of learning what was +going on inside of the crater. I make no further attempt at describing +it. My view came after the battle was over and the cauldron was still +steaming. + +Though in March, 1914, one would hardly have given Neuve +Chapelle, intact and peaceful, a passing glance from a motor-car, in +March, 1915, Neuve Chapelle in ruins was the one town in Europe +which I most wanted to see. Correspondents had not then +established themselves. The staff officer whom I asked if I might +spend a night in the new British line was a cautious man. He bade me +sign a paper freeing the British army from any responsibility. Judging +by the general attitude of the Staff, one could hardly take the request +seriously. One correspondent less ought to please any Staff; but he +said that he had an affection for the regulars and knew that there +were always plenty of recruits to take their places without resorting to +conscription. The real responsibility was with the Germans. He +suggested that I might go out to the German trenches and see if I +could obtain a paper from them. He thought if I were quick about it I +might get at least a yard in front of the British parapet in daylight. His +sense of humour I had recognized when we had met in Bulgaria. + +Any traveller is bound to meet men whom he has met before in the +travelled British army. At the brigade headquarters town, which, as +one of the officers said, proved that bricks and mortar can float in +mud, the face of the brigadier seemed familiar to me. I found that I +had met him in Shanghai in the Boxer campaign, when he had come +across a riotous China from India on one of those journeys in remote +Asia which British officers are fond of making. He was "all there," +whether dealing with a mob of Orientals or with Germans in the +trenches. I made myself at home in the parlour of the private house +occupied by himself and staff, while he went on with his work. No flag +outside the house; no sign that it was headquarters. Motor-cars +stopped only long enough for an officer to enter or alight. Brigade +headquarters is precisely the target that German aeroplanes or spies +like to locate for their guns. + +"Are you ready? Have you your rubber boots?" the brigadier asked a +few minutes later, as he put his head in at the parlour door. It would +not do to approach the trenches until after dark. Of course, I had +rubber boots. One might as well try to go to sea without a boat as to +trenches without rubber boots in winter. "I'll take my constitutional," he +added; "the trouble with this kind of war is that you get no exercise." + +He was a small man, but how he could walk! I began to understand +why the Boxers could not catch him. He turned back after we had +gone a mile or more and one of his staff went on with me to a point +where, just at dusk, I was turned over to another pilot, an aide from +battalion headquarters, and we set out across sodden fields that had +yielded beetroot in the last harvest, taking care not to step in shell- +holes. Dusk settled into darkness. No human being was in sight +except ourselves. + +"There's the first line of German trenches before the attack," said my +companion. "Our guns got fairly on them." Dimly I saw what seemed +like a huge, long, irregular furrow of earth which had been torn almost +out of the shape of a trench by British shells. "There was no living in it +when the guns began all together. The only thing to do was to get +out." + +Around us was utter silence, where the hell of thunders and +destruction by the artillery had raged during the battle. Then a spent +or ricochet bullet swept overhead, with the whistle of complaint of +spent bullets at having travelled far without hitting any object. It had +gone high over the British trenches; it had carried the full range, and +the chance of its hitting anyone was ridiculously small. But the nearer +you get to the trenches, the more likely these strays are to find a +victim. "Hit by a stray bullet!" is a very common saying at the front. + +At last we felt the solidity of a paved road under our feet, and +following this we came to a peasant's cottage. Inside, two soldiers +were sitting beside telephone and telegraph instruments, behind a +window stuffed with sandbags. On our way across the fields we had +stepped on wires laid on the ground; we had stooped to avoid wires +stretched on poles--the wires that form the web of the army's +intelligence. + +Of course, no two units of communication are dependent on one wire. +There is always a duplicate. If one is broken it is immediately +repaired. The factories spin out wire to talk over and barbed wire for +entanglements in front of trenches and weave millions of bags to be +filled with sand for breastworks to protect men from bullets. If Sir John +French wished, he could talk with Lord Kitchener in London and this +battalion headquarters at Neuve Chapelle within the same space of +time that a railroad president may speak over the Long Distance from +Chicago to New York and order dinner out in the suburbs. + +These two men at the table, their faces tanned by exposure, men in +the thirties, had the British regular of long service stamped all over +them. War was an old story to them; and an old story, too, laying +signal wires under fire. + +"We're very comfortable," said one. "No danger from stray bullets or +from shrapnel; but if one of the Jack Johnsons come in, why, there's +no more cottage and no more argument between you and me. We're +dead and maybe buried, or maybe scattered over the landscape, +along with the broken pieces of the roof." + +A soldier was on guard with bayonet fixed inside that little room, which +had passageway to the cellar past the table, among straw beds. This +seemed rather peculiar. The reason lay on one of the beds in a +private's khaki. He had come into the battalion's trenches from our +front and said that he belonged to the D------regiment and had been +out on patrol and lost his way. + +It was two miles to that regiment and two miles is a long distance to +stray between two lines of trenches so close together, when at any +point in your own line you will find friends. It was possible that this +fellow's real name was Hans Schmidt, who had learned cockney +English in childhood in London, and in a dead British private's uniform +had come into the British trenches to get information to which he was +anything but welcome. + +He was to be sent under guard to the D------regiment +for identification; and if he were found to be a Hans and not a +Tommy--well, though he had tried a very stupid dodge he must have +known what to expect when he was found out, if his officers had +properly trained him in German rules of war. + +I had a glimpse of him in the candlelight before stooping to feel my +way down three or four narrow steps to the cellar, where the farmer +ordinarily kept potatoes and vegetables. There were straw beds +around the walls here, too. The major commanding the battalion rose +from his seat at a table on which were some cutlery, a jam pot, +tobacco, pipes, a newspaper or two, and army telegraph forms and +maps. + +If the hosts of mansions could only make their hospitality as simple as +the major's, there would be less affectation in the world. He +introduced me to an officer sitting on the other side of the table and to +one lying in his blankets against the wall, who lifted his head and +blinked and said that he was very glad to see me. + +It is a small world, for China cropped up here, as it had at brigade +headquarters. The major had been in garrison at Peking when the +war began. If my shipmate on a long battleship cruise, Lt.-Col. Dion +Williams, U.S.M.C, reads this out in Peking let it tell him that the major +is just as urbane in the cellar of a second-rate farmhouse on the +outskirts of Neuve Chapelle as he would be in a corner of the Peking +Club. + +"How is it? Painful now?" asked the major of Captain P-----, on the +other side of the table. + +"Oh, no! It's quite all right," said the captain. + +"Using the sling?" + +"Part of the time. Hardly need it, though." + +Captain P-----was one of those men whose eyes are always smiling; +who seems, wherever he is, to be glad that he is not in a worse place; +who goes right on smiling at the mud in the trenches and bullets and +shells and death. They are not emotional, the British, perhaps, but +they are given to cheeriness, if not to laughter, and they have a way +of smiling at times when smiles are much needed. The smile is more +often found at the front than back at headquarters; or perhaps it is +more noticeable there. + +"You see, he got a bullet through the arm yesterday," the major +explained. "He was reported wounded, but remained on duty in the +trench." I saw that the captain would rather not have publicity given to +such an ordinary incident. He did not see why people should talk +about his arm. "You are to go with him into the trench for the night," +the major added; and I thought myself very lucky in my companion. + +"Aren't you going to have dinner with us?" the major asked him. + +"Why, I had something to eat not very long ago," said Captain P-----. +One was not sure whether he had or not. + +"There's plenty," said the major. + +"In that event, I don't see why I shouldn't eat when I have a chance," +the captain returned; which I found was a characteristic trench habit, +particularly in winter when exposure to the raw, cold air calls for plenty +of body-furnace heat. + +We had a ration soup and ration ham and ration prunes and cheese; +what Tommy Atkins gets. When we were outside the house and +starting for the trench this captain, with his wounded arm, wanted to +carry my knapsack. He seemed to think that refusal was breaking the +Hague conventions. + +Where we turned off the road, broken finger-points of brick walls in +the faint moonlight indicated the site of Neuve Chapelle; other +fragments of walls in front of us were the remains of a house; and +that broken tree-trunk showed what a big shell can do. The trunk, a +good eighteen inches in diameter, had not only been cut in two by +one of the monsters of the new British artillery, but had been carried +on for ten feet and left lying solidly in the bed of splinters of the top +of the stump. All this had been in the field of that battle of a day, +which was as fierce as the fiercest day at Gettysburg, and fought +within about the same space. Every tree, every square rod of ground, +had been paid for by shells, bullets, and human life. + +But now we were near the trenches; or, rather, the breastworks. We +are always speaking of the trenches, while not all parts of the line are +held by trenches. A trench is dug in the ground; a breastwork is +raised from the level of the ground. At some points a trench becomes +practically a breastwork, as its wall is raised to get free of the mud +and water. + +We came into the open and heard the sound of voices and saw a +spotty white wall; for some of the sandbags of the new British +breastworks still retained their original colour. On the reverse side of +this wall lines were leaning in readiness, their fixed bayonets faintly +gleaming in the moonlight. I felt of the edge of one and it was sharp, +quite prepared for business. In the surroundings of damp earth and +mud-bespattered men, this rifle seemed the cleanest thing of all, +meticulously clean, that ready weapon whose well-aimed and telling +fire, in obedient and cool hands, was the object of all the drill of the +new infantry in England; of all the drill of all infantry. Where pickets +watched in the open in the old days before armies met in pitched +battle, an occasional soldier now stands with rifle laid on the parapet, +watching. + +Across a reach of field faintly were made out the white spots of +another wall of breastworks, the German, at the edge of a stretch of +woods, the Bois du Bies. The British reached these woods in their +advance; but, their aeroplanes being unable to spot the fall of shells +in the mist, they had to fall back for want of artillery support. Along +this line where we stood outside the village they stopped; and to stop +is to set the spades going to begin the defences which, later, had +risen to a man's height, and with rifles and machine-guns had riddled +the German counter-attack. + +And the Germans had to go back to the edge of the woods, where +they, too, began digging and building their new line. So the enemies +were fixed again behind their walls of earth, facing each other across +the open, where it was death for any man to expose himself by day. + +"Will you have a shot, sir?" one of the sentries asked me. + +"At what?" + +"Why, at the top of the trench over there, or at anything you see +moving," he said. + +But I did not think that it was an invitation for a non-combatant to +accept. If the bullet went over the top of the trench it had still two +thousand yards and more to go, and it might find a target before it +died. So, in view of the law of probabilities, no bullet is quite waste. + +"Now, which is my house?" asked Captain P------. + +"I really can't find my own home in the dark." + +Behind the breastwork were many little houses three or four feet in +height, all of the same pattern, and made of boards and mud. The +mud is put on top to keep out shrapnel bullets. + +"Here you are, sir!" said a soldier. + +Asking me to wait until he made a light, the captain bent over as if +about to crawl under the top rail of a fence and his head disappeared. +After he had put a match to a candle and stuck it on a stick thrust into +the wall, I could see the interior of his habitation. A rubber sheet +spread on the moist earth served as floor, carpet, mattress, and bed. +At a squeeze there was room for two others besides himself. They +did not need any doormat, for when they lay down their feet would be +at the door. + +"Quite cosy, don't you think?" remarked the captain. He seemed to +feel that he had a royal chamber. But, then, he was the kind of man +who might sleep in a muddy field under a wagon and regard the +shelter of the wagon body as a luxury. "Leave your knapsack here," +he continued, "and we'll see what is doing along the line." + +In other words, after you had left your bag in the host's hall, he +suggested a stroll in the village or across the fields. But only to see +war would he have asked you to walk in such mud. + +"Not quite so loud!" he warned a soldier who was bringing up boards +from the rear under cover of darkness. "If the Germans hear they +may start firing." + +Two other men were piling mud on top of a section of breastwork at +an angle to the main line. + +"What is that for?" the captain asked. + +"They get an enfilade on us here, sir, and Mr.------ (the lieutenant) told +me to make this higher." + +"That's no good. A bullet will go right through," said the captain. "We'll +have to wait until we get more sandbags." + +A little farther on we came to an open space, with no protection +between us and the Germans. Half a dozen men were piling earth +against a staked chicken wire to extend the breastworks. Rather, they +were piling mud, and they were besmirched from head to foot. They +looked like reeking Neptunes rising from a slough. In the same +position in daylight, standing full height before German rifles at three +hundred yards, they would have been shot dead before they could +leap to cover. + +"How does it go?" asked the captain. + +"Very well, sir; though what we need is sandbags." + +"We'll have some up to-morrow." + +At the moment there was no firing in the vicinity. Faintly I heard the +Germans pounding stakes, at work improving their own breastworks. + +A British soldier appeared out of the darkness in front. + +"We've found two of our men out there with their heads blown off by +shells," he said. "Have we permission to go out and bury them, sir?" + +"Yes." + +They would be as safe as the fellows piling mud against the chicken +wire, unless the Germans opened fire. If they did, we could fire on +their working-party, or in the direction of the sound. For that matter, +we knew through our glasses by day the location of any weak places +in their breastworks, and they knew where ours were. A sort of "after- +you-gentlemen-if-you-fire-we-shall" understanding sometimes exists +between the foes up to a certain point. Each side understands +instinctively the limitation of that point. Too much noise in working, a +number of men going out to bury dead or making enough noise to be +heard, and the ball begins. A deep, broad ditch filled with water made +a break in our line. No doubt a German machine-gun was trained on +it. + +"A little bridging is required here," said the captain. "We'll have it done +to-morrow night. The break is no disadvantage if they attack; in fact, +we'd rather like to have them try for it. But it makes movement along +the line difficult by day." + +When we were across and once more behind the breastworks, he +called my attention to some high ground in the rear. + +"One of our officers took a short cut across there in daylight," he said. +"He was quite exposed, and they drew a bead on him from the +German trench and got him through the arm. Not a serious hit. It +wasn't cricket for anyone to go out to bring him in. He realized this, +and called out to leave him to himself, and crawled to cover." + +I was getting the commonplaces of trench life. Thus far it had been a +quiet night and was to remain so. Reddish, flickering swaths of light +were thrown across the fields between the trenches by the enemy's +Roman candle flares. One tried to estimate how many flares the +Germans must use every night from Switzerland to the North Sea. + +On our side, the only light was from our braziers. Thomas Atkins has +become a patron of braziers made by punching holes in buckets; and +so have the Germans. Punch holes in a bucket, start a fire inside, +and you have cheer and warmth and light through the long night +vigils. Two or three days before we had located a sniper between the +lines by seeing him swing his fire-pot to make a draught against the +embers. + +If you have ever sat around a camp-fire in the forest or on the plains +you need be told nothing further. One of the old, glamorous features +of war survives in these glowing braziers, spreading their genial rays +among the little houses and lighting the faces of the men who stand +or squat in encircling groups around the coals, which dry wet clothes, +slake the moisture of a section of earth, make the bayonets against +the walls glisten, and reveal the position of a machine-gun with its +tape ready for firing. + +Values are relative, and a brazier in the trenches makes the +satisfaction of a steam-heated room in winter very superficial and +artificial. You are at home there with Tommy Atkins, regular of an old +line English regiment, in his heavy khaki overcoat and solid boots and +wool puttees, a sturdy, hardened man of a terrific war. He, the +regular, the shilling-a-day policeman of the empire, was still doing the +fighting at the front. The new army, which embraces all classes, was +not yet in action. + +This man and that one were at Mons. This one and that one had +been through the whole campaign without once seeing Mother +England for whom they were fighting. The affection in which Captain +P------was held extended through his regiment, for we had left his own +company behind. At every turn he was asked about his arm. + +"You've made a mistake, sir. This isn't a hospital," as one man +expressed it. Oh, but the captain was bored with hearing about that +arm! If he is wounded again I am sure that he will try to keep the fact +a secret. + +These veterans could "grouse," as the British call it. Grousing is one +of Tommy's privileges. When they got to grousing worst on the retreat +from Mons, their officers knew that what they really wanted was to +make another stand. They were tired of falling back; they meant to +take a rest and fight a while. Their language was yours, the language +in which our own laws and schoolbooks are written. They made the +old blood call. For months they had been taking bitter medicine; very +bitter for a British soldier. The way they took it will, perhaps, remain a +greater tribute than any part they play in future victories. + +"How do they feel in the States?" I was asked. "Against us?" + +"No. By no means." + +"I don't see how they could be!" Tommy exclaimed. + +Tommy may not be much on argument as it is developed by the +controversial spirit of college professors, but he had said about all +there was to say. How can we be? Hardly, after you come to know T. +Atkins and his officers and talk English with them around their camp- +fires. + +"The Germans are always sending up flares," I remarked. "You send +up none. How about it?" + +"It cheers them. They're downhearted!" said one of the group. "You +wouldn't deny them their fireworks, would you, sir?" + +"That shows who is top dog," said another. "They're the ones that are +worried." + +I had heard of trench exhaustion, trench despair, but there was no +sign of it in a regiment that had been through all the hell and mire that +the British army had known since the war began. To no one had +Neuve Chapelle meant so much as to these common soldiers. It was +their first real victory. They were standing on soil won from the +Germans. + +"We're going to Berlin!" said a big fellow who was standing, palms +downward to the fire. "It's settled. We're going to Berlin." + +A smaller man with his back against the sandbags disagreed. There +was a trench argument. + +"No, we're going to the Rhine," he said. "The Russians are going to +Berlin." (This was in March, 1915, remember.) + +"How can they when they ain't over the Balkans yet?" + +"The Carpathians, you mean." + +"Well, they're both mountains and the Russians have got to cross +them. And there's a place called Cracow in that region. What's the +matter of a pair of mountain ranges between you and me, Bill? You're +strong on geography, but you fail to follow the campaign." + +"The Rhine, I say!" + +"It's the Rhine first, but Berlin is what you want to keep your mind on." + +Then I asked if they had ever had any doubt that they would reach +the Rhine. + +"How could we, sir?" + +"And how about the Germans. Do you hate them?" + +"Hate!" exclaimed the big man. "What good would it do to hate them? +No, we don't hate. We get our blood up when we're fighting and when +they don't play the game. But hate! Don't you think that's kind of +ridiculous, sir?" + +"How do they fight?" + +"They take a bit of beating, do the Boches!" + +"So you call them Boches!" + +"Yes. They don't like that. But sometimes we call them Allemands, +which is Germans in French. Oh, we're getting quite French +scholars!" + +"They're good soldiers. Not many tricks they're not up to. But in my +opinion they're overdoing the hate. You can't keep up to your work on +hate, sir. I should think it would be weakening to the mind, too." + +"Still, you would like the war over? You'd like to go home?" + +They certainly would. Back to the barracks, out of the trenches! They +certainly would. + +"And call it a draw?" + +"Call it a draw, now! Call it a draw, after all we've been through------" + +"Spring is coming. The ground will dry up and it will be warm." + +"And the going will be good to Berlin, as it was back from Paris in +August, we tell the Boches." + +"Good for the Russians going over the Carpathians, or the Pyrenees, +or whatever those mountains are, too. I read they're all covered with +snow in winter." + +It was good, regular soldier talk, very "homey" to me. As you will +observe, I have not elided the h's. Indeed, Tommy has a way of +prefixing his h's to the right vowels more frequently than a generation +ago. The Soldiers Three type has passed. Popular education will +have its way and induce better habits. Believing in the old remedy for +exhaustion and exposure to cold, the army served out a tot of rum +every day to the men. But many of them are teetotalers, these hardy +regulars, and not even Mulvaney will think them effeminate when they +have seen fighting which makes anything Mulvaney ever saw child's +play. So they asked for candy and chocolate, instead of rum. + +Some people have said that Tommy has no patriotism. He fights +because he is paid and it is his business. That is an insinuation. +Tommy doesn't care for the "hero stuff," or for waving flags and +speechmaking. Possibly he knows how few Germans that sort of +thing kills. His weapons are bullets. To put it cogently, he is fighting +because he doesn't want any Kaiser "in his." + +Is not that what all the speeches in Parliament are about and all the +editorials and the recruiting campaign? Is not that what England and +France are fighting for? It seems to me that Tommy's is a very +practical patriotism, free from cant; and the way that he refuses to +hate or to get excited, but sticks to it, must be very irritating to the +Germans. + +"Would you like a Boche helmet for a souvenir, sir?" asked a soldier +who appeared on the outer edge of the group. He was the small, +active type, a British soldier with the elan of the Frenchman. "There +are lots of them out among the German dead "--the unburied German +dead who fell like grass before the mower in a desperate and futile +counter-attack to recover Neuve Chapelle. "I'll have one for you on +your way back." + +There was no stopping him; he had gone. + +"Matty's a devil!" said the big man. "He'll get it, all right. He's equal +to reaching over the Boches' parapet and picking one off a Boche's +head!" + +As we proceeded on our way, officers came out of the little houses to +meet Captain P------and the stranger civilian. They had to come out, +as there was no room to take us inside; and sometimes they talked +shop together after I had answered the usual question, "Is America +against us?" There seemed to be an idea that we were, possibly +because of the prodigious advertising tactics of a minority. But any +feeling that we might be did not interfere with their simple courtesy, or +lead them to express any bitterness or break into argument. + +"How are things going on over your side?" + +"Nicely." + +"Any shelling?" + +"A little this morning. No harm done." + +"We cleaned out one bad sniper to-day." + +"Ought to have some sandbags up to-night." + +"It's a bad place there. They've got a machine-gun trained which has +quite a sweep. I asked if the artillery shouldn't put in a word, but the +general didn't think it worth while." + +"You must run across that break. Three or four shots at you every +time. We're gradually getting shipshape, though." + +Just then a couple of bullets went singing overhead. The group paid +no attention to them. If you paid attention to bullets over the parapet +you would have no time for anything else. But these bullets have a +way of picking off tall officers who are standing up among their +houses. In the course of their talk they happened to speak of such an +instance, though not with reference to the two bullets I have +mentioned. + +"Poor S------did not last long. He had been out only three weeks." + +"How is J------? Hit badly?" + +"Through the shoulder; not seriously." + +"H------is back. Recovered very quickly." + +Normal trench talk, this! A crack which signifies that the bullet has hit +--another man down. One grows accustomed to it, and one of this +group of officers might be gone to-morrow. + +"I have one, sir," said Matty, exhibiting a helmet when we returned +past his station. "Bullet went right through the head and came out the +peak!" + +It was time that Captain P------ was back to his own command. As we +came to his company's line word was just being passed from sentry +to sentry: + +"No firing. Patrols going out." + +It was midnight now. + +"We'll go in the other direction," said Captain P------ when he had +learned that there was no news. + +This brought us to an Irish regiment. The Irish naturally had +something to say. + + + + +XVI +Nearer The Germans + + + +Here not the Irish Sea lay between the broad a and the brogue, but +the space between two sentries or between two rifles with bayonets +fixed, lying against the wall of the breastworks ready for their owners' +hands when called to arms in case of an alarm. One stepped from +England into Ireland; and my prediction that the Irish would have +something to say was correct. + +The first man who made his presence felt was a good six feet in +height, with a heavy moustache and the earpieces of his cap tied +under his chin, though the night was not cold. He placed himself fairly +in front of me in the narrow path back of the breastworks and he +looked a cowled and sinister figure in the faint glow from a brazier. I +certainly did not want any physical argument with a man of his build. + +"Who are you?" he demanded, as stiffly as if I had broken in at the +veranda window with a jemmy. + +For the nearer you come to the front, the more you feel that you are +in the way. You are a stray extra piece of baggage; a dead human +weight. Everyone is doing something definite as a part of the machine +except yourself; and in your civilian clothes you feel the self- +conscious conspicuousness of appearing on a dancing-floor in a +dressing-gown. + +Captain P------was a little way back in another passage. I was alone +and in a rough tweed suit--a strange figure in that world of khaki and +rifles. + +"A German spy! That's why I am dressed this way, so as not to excite +suspicion," I was going to say, when a call from Captain P------ +identified me, and the sentry's attitude changed as suddenly as if the +inspector of police had come along and told a patrolman that I might +pass through the fire lines. + +"So it's you, is it, right from America?" he said. "I've a sister living at +Nashua, New Hampshire, U.S.A. with three brothers in the United +States army." + +Whether he had or not you can judge as well as I by the twinkle in his +eye. He might have had five, and again he might not have one. I was +a tenderfoot seeing the trenches. + +"It's mesilf that's going to America when me sarvice in the army is up +in one year and six months," he continued. "That's some time yet. I'm +going if I'm not killed by the Germans. It's a way that they have, or we +wouldn't be killing them." + +"What are you going to do in America? Enlist in the army?" + +"No. I'm looking for a better job. I'm thinking I'll be one of your +millionaires. Shure, but that would be to me taste." + +Not one Irishman was speaking really, but a dozen. They came out of +their little houses and dug-outs to gather around the brazier; and for +every remark I made I received a fusillade in reply. It was an event, +an American appearing in the trench in the small hours of the +morning. + +A trench-toughened, battle-toughened old sergeant was sitting in the +doorway of his dug-out, frying a strip of bacon over one rim of the +brazier and making tea over the other. The bacon sizzled with an +appetizing aroma and a bullet sizzled harmlessly overhead. Behind +that wall of sandbags all were perfectly safe, unless a shell came. But +who worries about shells? It is like worrying about being struck by +lightning when clouds gather in a summer sky. + +"It looks like good bacon," I remarked. + +"It is that!" said the sergeant. "And the hungrier ye are the better. It's +your nose that's telling ye so this minute. I can see that ye're hungry +yoursilf!" + +"Then you're pretty well fed?" + +"Well fed, is it? It's stuffed we are, like the geese that grow the paty- +what-do-you-call-it? Eating is our pastime. We eat when we've +nothing else to do and when we've got something to do. We get eggs +up here--a fine man is Lord Kitchener--yes, sir, eggs up here in the +trenches!" + +When they seemed to think that I was sceptical, he produced some +eggs in evidence. + +"And if ye'll not have the bacon, ye'll have a drop of tea. Mind now, +while your tongue is trying to be polite, your stomach is calling your +tongue a liar!" + +Wouldn't I have a souvenir? Out came German bullets and buckles +and officers' whistles and helmets and fragments of shells and +German diaries. + +"It's easy to get them out there where the Germans fell that thick!" I +was told. "And will ye look at this and take it home to give your pro- +German Irish in America, to show what their friends are shooting at +the Irish? I found them mesilf on a dead German." + +He passed me a clip of German bullets with the blunt ends instead of +the pointed ends out. The change is readily made, for the German +bullet is easily pulled out of the cartridge case and the pointed end +thrust against the powder. Thus fired, it goes accurately four or five +hundred yards, which is more than the average distance between +German and British trenches. When it strikes flesh the effect is that of +a dum-dum and worse; for the jacket splits into slivers, which spread +through the pulpy mass caused by the explosion. A leg or an arm +thus hit must almost invariably be amputated. I am not suggesting +that this is a regular practice with German soldiers, but it shows what +wickedness is in the power of the sinister one. + +"But ye'll take the tea," said the sergeant, "with a little rum hot in it. +'Twill take the chill out of your bones." + +"What if I haven't a chill in my bones?" + +"Maybe it's there without speaking to ye and it will be speaking before +an hour longer--or afther ye're home between the sheets with the +rheumatiz, and yell be saying, 'Why didn't I take that glass?' which +I'm holding out to ye this minute, steaming its invitation to be drunk." + +It was a memorable drink. Snatches of brogue followed me from the +brazier's glow when I insisted that I must be going. + +Now our breastworks took a turn and we were approaching closer to +the German breastworks. Both lines remained where they had "dug +in" after the counter-attacks which followed the battle had ceased. +Ground is too precious in this siege warfare to yield a foot. Soldiers +become misers of soil. Where the flood is checked there you build +your dam against another flood. + +"We are within about sixty yards of the Germans," said Captain P------ +at length, after we had gone in and out of the traverses and left the +braziers well behind. + +Between the spotty, whitish wall of German sandbags, quite distinct in +the moonlight, and our parapet were two mounds of sandbags about +twenty feet apart. Snug behind one was a German and behind the +other an Irishman, both listening. They were within easy bombing +range, but the homicidal advantage of position of either resulted in a +truce. Sixty yards! Pace it off. It is not far. In other places the enemies +have been as close as five yards--only a wall of earth between them. +Where a bombing operation ends in an attack, a German is naturally +on one side of a traverse and a Briton on the other. + +The Germans were as busy as beavers dam-building. They had a lot +of work to do before they had their new defences right. We heard +them driving stakes and spading; we heard their voices with snatches +of sentences intelligible, and occasionally the energetic, shouted, +guttural commands of their officers. All through that night I never +heard a British officer speak above a conversational tone. The orders +were definite enough, but given with a certain companionable +kindliness. I have spoken of the genuine affection which his men +showed for Captain P------, and I was beginning to appreciate that it +was not a particular instance. + +"What if you should shout at Tommy in the German fashion?" I +asked. + +"He wouldn't have it; he'd get rebellious," was the reply. "No, you +mustn't yell at Tommy. He's a little temperamental about some things +and he will not be treated as if he were just a human machine." + +Yet no one will question the discipline of the British soldier. Discipline +means that the officer knows his men, and British discipline, which +bears a retreat like that from Mons, requires that the man likes to +follow his officers, believes in his officers, loves his officers. Each +army and each people to its own ways. + +Sixty yards! And the dead between the trenches and death lurking +ready at a trigger's pull should life show itself! When daylight comes +the British sing out their "Good-morning, Germans!" and the Germans +answer, "Good-morning, British!" without adding, "We hope to kill +some of you to-day!" Ragging banter and jest and worse than jest +and grim defiance are exchanged between the trenches when they +are within such easy hearing distance of each other; but always from +a safe position behind the parapet which the adversaries squint +across through their periscopes. At the gibe business the German is, +perhaps, better than the Briton. + +Early in the evening a regiment on our right broke into a busy +fusillade at some fancied movement of the enemy. In trench talk that +is getting "jumpy." The Germans in front roared out their contempt in +a chorus of guying laughter. Toward morning, these same Germans +also became "jumpy" and began tearing the air with bullets, firing +against nothing but the blackness of night. Tommy Atkins only made +some characteristic comments; for he is a quiet fellow, except when +he is played on the music-hall stage. Possibly he feels the +inconsistency of laughter when you are killing human beings; for, as +his officers say, he is temperamental and never goes to the trouble of +analysing his emotions. A very real person and a good deal of a +philosopher is Mr. Atkins, Britain's professional fighting man, who was +the only kind of fighting man she had ready for the war. + +Any small boy who had never had enough fireworks in his life might +be given a job in the German trenches, with the privilege of firing +flares till he fell asleep from exhaustion. All night they were going, with +the regularity of clockwork. The only ones sent up from our side that +night were shot in order that I might get a better view of the German +dead. + +You know how water lies in the low places on the ground after a +heavy rain. Well, the patches of dead were like that, and dark in the +spots where they were very thick--dark as with the darkness of +deeper water. There were also irregular tongues of dead and +scattered dead, with arms outstretched or under them as they fell, +and faces white even in the reddish glare of the rockets and turned +toward you in the charge that failed under the withering blasts of +machine-guns, ripping out two or three hundred shots a minute, and +well-aimed rifle-bullets, each bullet getting its man. Threatening that +charge would have seemed to a recruit, but measured and calculated +in certainty of failure in the minds of veteran defenders, who knew +that the wheat could not stand before their mowers. Man's flesh is +soft and a bullet is hard and travels fast. + +One bit of satire which Tommy sent across the field covered with its +burden of slaughter to the Germans who are given to song, ought to +have gone home. It was: "Why don't you stop singing and bury your +dead?" But the Germans, having given no armistice in other times +when British dead lay before the trenches, asked for none here. The +dead were nearer to the British than to the Germans. The discomfort +would be in British and not German nostrils. And the dead cannot +fight; they can help no more to win victory for the Fatherland; and the +time is A.D. 1915. Two or three thousand German dead altogether, +perhaps--not many out of the Kaiser's millions. Yet they seemed a +great many to one who saw them lying there. + +We stopped to read by the light of a brazier some German soldiers' +diaries that the Irishmen had. They were cheap little books, bought for +a few cents, each one telling the dead man's story and revealing the +monotony of a soldier's existence in Europe to-day. These pawns of +war had been marched here and there, they never knew why. The +last notes were when orders came entraining them. They did not +know that they were to be sent out of those woods yonder to recover +Neuve Chapelle out of those woods in the test of all their drill and +waiting. A Bavarian officer--for these were Bavarians--actually rode in +that charge. He must have worked himself up to a strangely exalted +optimism and contempt of British fire. Or was it that he, too, did not +know what he was going against? that only the German general +knew? Neither he nor his horse lasted long; not more than a dozen +seconds. The thing was so splendidly foolhardy that in some little war +it might have become the saga of a regiment, the subject of ballads +and paintings. In this war it was an incident heralded for a day in one +command and forgotten the next. + +"Good-night!" called the Irish. + +"Good-night and good luck!" + +"Tell them in America that the Irish are still fighting!" + +"Good luck, and may your travelling be aisy; but if ye trip, may ye fall +into a gold mine!" + +We were back with the British regulars; and here, also, many of the +men remained up around the braziers. + +The hours of duty of the few on watch do not take many of the +twenty-four hours. One may sleep when he chooses in the little +houses behind the breastworks. Night melts into day and day into +night in the monotony of mud and sniping rifle-fire. By-and-by it is your +turn to go into reserve; your turn to get out of your clothes--for there +are no pyjamas for officers or men in these "crawls," as they are +sometimes called. Boots off is the only undressing; boots off and +puttees unloosed, which saves the feet. Yes, by-and-by the march +back to the rear, where there are tubs filled with hot water and an +outfit of clean clothes awaiting you, and nothing to do but rest and +sleep. + +"How soon after we leave the trenches may we cheer?" officers have +been asked in the dead of winter, when water stood deep over the +porous mud and morning found a scale of ice around the legs. + +You, nicely testing the temperature of your morning tub; you, satisfied +only with faucets of hot and cold water and a mat to stand on--you +know nothing about the joy of bathing. Your bath is a mere part of the +daily routine of existence. Try the trenches and get itchy with vermin; +then you will know that heaven consists of soap and hot water. + +No bad odour assails your nostrils wherever you may go in the British +lines. Its cleanliness, if nothing else, would make British army +comradeship enjoyable. My wonder never ceases how Tommy keeps +himself so neat; how he manages to shave every day and get a part, +at least, of the mud off his uniform. This care makes him feel more as +if he were "at home" in barracks. + +From the breastworks, Captain P------and I went for a stroll in the +Village, or the site of the village, silent except for the occasional +singing of a bullet. When we returned he lighted the candle on a stick +stuck into the wall of his earth-roofed house and suggested a nap. It +was three o'clock in the morning. Now I could see that my rubber +boots had grown so heavy because I was carrying so much of the soil +of Northern France. It looked as if I had gout in both feet--the over- +bandaged, stage type of gout--which were encased in large mud +poultices. I tried to stamp off the incubus, but it would not go. I tried +scraping one foot on the other, and what I scraped off seemed to +reattach itself as fast as I could remove it. + +"Don't try!" said the captain. "Lie down and pull your boots off in the +doorway. Perhaps you will get some sleep before daybreak." + +Sleep! Does a debutante go to sleep at her first ball? Sleep in such +good company, the company of this captain who was smiling all the +while with his eyes; smiling at his mud house, at the hardships in the +trenches, and, I hope, at having a guest who had been with armies +before! + +It was the first time that I had been in the trenches all night; the first +time, indeed, when I had not been taken into them by an escort in a +kind of promenade. On this account I was in the family. If it is the right +kind of a family, that is the way to get a good impression. There would +be plenty of time to sleep when I returned to London. + +So Captain P------ and I lay there talking. I felt the dampness of the +earth under my body and the walls exuded moisture. The average +cellar was dry by comparison. "You will get your death of cold!" any +mother would cry in alarm if her boy were found even sitting on such +cold, wet ground. For it was a clammy night of early spring. Yet, +peculiarly enough, few men get colds from this exposure. One gets +colds from draughts in overheated rooms much oftener. Luckily, it +was not raining; it had been raining most of the winter in the flat +country of Northern France and Flanders. + +"It is very horrible, this kind of warfare," said the captain. He was +thinking of the method of it, rather than of the discomforts. "All war is +very horrible, of course." Regular soldiers rarely take any other view. +They know war. + +"With your wounded arm you might be back in England on leave," I +suggested. + +"Oh, that arm is all right!" he replied. "This is what I am paid for"-- +which I had heard regulars say before. "And it is for England!" he +added, in his quiet way. "Sometimes I think we should fight better if +we officers could hate the Germans," he went on. "The German idea +is that you must hate if you are going to fight well. But we can't hate." + +Sound views he had about the war; sounder than I have heard from +the lips of Cabinet ministers. For these regular officers are specialists +in war. + +"Do you think that we shall starve the Germans out?" + +"No. We must win by fighting," he replied. This was in March, 1915. +"You know," he went on, taking another tack, "when one gets back to +England out of this muck he wants good linen and everything very +nice." + +"Yes. I've found the same after roughing it," I agreed. "One is most +particular that he has every comfort to which civilization entitles him." + +We chatted on. Much of our talk was soldier shop talk, which you will +not care to hear. Twice we were interrupted by an outburst of firing, +and the captain hurried out to ascertain the reason. Some false alarm +had started the rifles speaking from both sides. A fusillade for two or +three minutes and the firing died down to silence. + +Dawn broke and it was time for me to go; and with daylight, when +danger of a night surprise was over, the captain would have his +sleep. I was leaving him to his mud house and his bed on the wet +ground without a blanket. It was more important to have sandbags up +for the breastworks than to have blankets; and as the men had not +yet received theirs, he had none himself. + +"It's not fair to the men," he said. "I don't want anything they don't +have." + +No better food and no better house and no warmer garments! He +spoke not in any sense of stated duty, but in the affection of the +comradeship of war; the affection born of that imperturbable courage +of his soldiers who had stood a stone wall of cool resolution against +German charges when it seemed as if they must go. The glamour of +war may have departed, but not the brotherhood of hardship and +dangers shared. + +What had been a routine night to him had been a great night to me; +one of the most memorable of my life. + +"I was glad you could come," he said, as I made my adieu, quite as if +he were saying adieu to a guest at home in England. + +Some of the soldiers called their cheery good-byes; and with a +lieutenant to guide me, I set out while the light was still dusky, leaving +the comforting parapet to the rear to go into the open, four hundred +yards from the Germans. A German, though he could not have seen +us distinctly, must have noted something moving. Two of his bullets +came rather close before we passed out of his vision among some +trees. + +In a few minutes I was again entering the peasant's cottage that was +battalion headquarters; this time by daylight. Its walls were chipped by +bullets that had come over the breastworks. The major was just +getting up from his blankets in the cellar. By this time I had a real +trench appetite. Not until after breakfast did it occur to me, with some +surprise, that I had not washed my face. + +"The food was just as good, wasn't it?" remarked the major. "We get +quite used to such breaches of convention. Besides, you had been +up all night, so your breakfast might be called your after-the-theatre +supper." + +With him I went to see what the ruins of Neuve Chapelle looked like +by daylight. The destruction was not all the result of one +bombardment, for the British had been shelling Neuve Chapelle off +and on all winter. Of course, there is the old earthquake comparison. +All writers have used it. But it is quite too feeble for Neuve Chapelle. +An earthquake merely shakes down houses. The shells had done a +good deal more than that. They had crushed the remains of the +houses as under the pestle-head in a mortar; blown walls into dust; +taken bricks from the east side of the house over to the west and +thrown them back with another explosion. Neuve Chapelle had been +literally flailed with the high explosive projectiles of the new British +artillery, which the British had to make after the war began in order to +compete with what the Germans already had; for poor, lone, +wronged, bullied Germany, quite unprepared--Austria with her fifty +millions does not count--was fighting on the defensive against wicked, +aggressive enemies who were fully prepared. This explains why she +invaded France and took possession of towns like Neuve Chapelle to +defend her poor, unready people from the French, who had been +plotting and planning "the day" when they would conquer the +Germans. + +Bits of German equipment were mixed with ruins of clocks and family +pictures and household utensils. I noticed a bicycle which had been +cut in two, its parts separated by twenty feet; one wheel was twisted +into a spool of wire, the other simply smashed. + +Where was the man who had kept the shop with a few letters of his +name still visible on a splintered bit of board? Where the children who +had played in the littered square in front of the church, with its +steeples and walls piles of stone that had crushed the worshippers' +benches? Refugees somewhere back of the British lines, working on +the roads if strong enough, helping France in any way they could, not +murmuring, even smiling, and praying for victory, which would let +them return to their homes and daily duties. To their homes! + + + + + + + +XVII +With The Guns + + + +It is a war of explosions, from bombs thrown by hand within ten yards +of the enemy to shells thrown as far as twenty miles and to mines laid +under the enemy's trenches; a war of guns, from seventeen-inch +down to three-inch and machine-guns; a war of machinery, with man +still the pre-eminent machine. + +Guns mark the limit of the danger zone. Their screaming shells laugh +at the sentries at the entrances to towns and at cross-roads who +demand passes of all other travellers. Anyone who tried to keep out +of range of the guns would never get anywhere near the front. It is all +a matter of chance with long odds or short odds, according to the +neighbourhood you are in. If shells come, they come without warning +and without ceremony. Nobody is afraid of shells and everybody is--at +least, I am. + +"Gawd! Wat a 'ole!" remarks Mr. Thomas Atkins casually, at sight of +an excavation in the earth made by a thousand-pound projectile. + +It is only eighteen years since I saw, at the battle of Domoko in the +Greco-Turkish war, half a dozen Turkish batteries swing out on the +plain of Thessaly, limber up in the open, and discharge salvos with +black powder, in the good, old battle-panorama style. One battery of +modern field guns unseen would wipe out the lot in five minutes. Only +ten years ago, at the battle of Liao-yang, as I watched a cloud of +shrapnel smoke sending down steel showers over the little hill of +Manjanyama, which sent up showers of earth from shells burst by +impact on the ground, a Japanese military attache remarked: + +"There you have a prophecy of what a European war will be like!" + +He was right. He knew his business as a military attache. But the +Allies might also make guns and go on making them till they have +enough. The voices of the guns along the front seem never silent. In +some direction they are always firing. When one night the reports +from a certain quarter seemed rather heavy, I asked the reason the +next day. + +"No, not very heavy. No attack," a division staff officer explained. +"The Boches had been building a redoubt, and we turned on some +h.e.s."--meaning high explosive shells. + +Night after night, under cover of darkness, the Germans had been +labouring on that redoubt, thinking that they were unobserved. They +had kept extremely quiet, too, slipping their spades into the earth +softly and hammering a nail ever so lightly; and, of course, the +redoubt was placed behind a screen of foliage which hid it from the +view of the British trenches. Such is the hide-and-seek character of +modern war. + +What the German builders did not know was that a British aeroplane +had been watching them day by day, and that the spot was nicely +registered on a British gunner's map. On this map it was a certain +numbered point. Press a button, as it were, and you ring the bell with +a shell at that point. And the gunners waited till the house of cards +was up before knocking it to pieces. + +Surprise is the thing with the guns. A town may go for weeks without +getting a single shell. Then it may get a score of shells in ten minutes; +or it may be shelled regularly every day for ensuing weeks. "They are +shelling X again," or, "They have been leaving Z alone for a long +time," is a part of the gossip up and down the line. Towns are proud +of having escaped altogether, and proud of the number and size of +the shells received. + +"Did you get any?" I asked the division staff officer who had told me +about the session the six-inch howitzers had enjoyed. A common +question that, at the front, "Did you get any?" (meaning Germans). A +practical question, too. It has nothing to do with the form of play or +any bit of sensational fielding; only with the score, with results, with +casualties. + +"Yes, quite a number," said the officer. "Our observer saw them lying +about." + +The guns are watching for the targets at all hours--the ever-hungry, +ever-ready, murderous, cunning, quick, scientifically-calculating, +marvellously-accurate and also the guessing, wondering, blind, +groping, helpless guns, which toss their steel messengers over +streams, woodlands, and towns, searching for unseen prey in a wide +landscape. + +Accurate and murderous they seem when you drop low behind a +trench wall or huddle in a dug-out as you hear an approaching +scream and the earth trembles and the air is wracked by a +concussion, and the cry of a man a few yards away tells of a hit. Very +accurate when still others, sent from muzzles six or seven thousand +yards distant, fall in that same line of trench! Very accurate when, +before an infantry attack, with bursts of shrapnel bullets they cut to +bits the barbed-wire entanglements in front of a trench! The power of +chaos that they seem to possess when the firing-trench and the dug- +outs and all the human warrens which protect the defenders are +beaten as flour is kneaded! + +Blind and groping they seem when a dozen shells fall harmlessly in a +field; when they send their missiles toward objects which may not be +worth shooting at; when no one sees where the shells hit and the +amount of damage they have done is all guesswork; and helpless +without the infantry to protect them, the aeroplanes and the observers +to see for them. + +One thinks of them as demons with subtle intelligence and long +reach, their gigantic fists striking here and there at will, without a +visible arm behind the blow. An army guards against the blows of an +enemy's demons with every kind of cover, every kind of deception, +with all resources of scientific ingenuity and invention; and an army +guards its own demons in their lairs as preciously as if they were +made of some delicate substance which would go up in smoke at a +glance from the enemy's eye, instead of having barrels of the +strongest steel that can be forged. + +Your personal feeling for the demons on your side is in ratio to the +amount of hell sent by the enemy's which you have tasted. After you +have been scared stiff, while pretending that you were not, by sharing +with Mr. Atkins an accurate bombardment of a trench and are +convinced that the next shell is bound to get you, you fall into the +attitude of the army. You want to pat the demon on the back and say, +"Nice old demon!" and watch him toss a shell three or four miles into +the German lines from the end of his fiery tongue. Indeed, nothing so +quickly develops interest in the British guns as having the German +gunners take too much personal interest in you. + +You must have someone to show you the way or you would not find +any guns. A man with a dog trained to hunt guns might spend a week +on the gun-position area covering ten miles of the front and not locate +half the guns. He might miss "Grandmother" and "Sister" and "Betsy" +and "Mike" and even "Mister Archibald," who is the only one who +does not altogether try to avoid publicity. + +When an attack or an artillery bombardment is on and you go to as +high ground as possible for a bird's-eye view of battle, all that you see +is the explosion of the shells; never anything of the guns which are +firing. In the distance over the German lines and in the foreground +over the British lines is a balloon, shaped like a caterpillar with folded +wings--a chrysalis of a caterpillar. + +Tugging at its moorings, it turns this way and that with the breeze. +The speck directly beneath it through the glasses becomes an +ordinary balloon basket and other specks attached to a guy rope play +the part of the tail of a kite, helping to steady the type of balloon which +has taken the place of the old spherical type for observation. Anyone +who has been up in a captive spherical balloon knows how difficult it +is to keep his glasses focussed on any object, because of the jerking +and pitching and trembling due to the envelope's response to air- +movements. The new type partly overcomes this drawback. To +shrapnel their thin envelope is as vulnerable as a paper drum-head to +a knife; but I have seen them remain up defiantly when shells were +bursting within three or four hundred yards, which their commanders +seemed to understand was the limit of the German battery's reach. + +Again, I have seen a shrapnel burst alongside within range; and five +minutes later the balloon was down and out of sight. No balloon +observer hopes to see the enemy's guns. He is watching for shell- +bursts, in order to inform the guns of his side whether they are on the +target or not. + +Riding along the roads at the front one may know that there is a +battery a stone's throw away only when a blast from a hidden gun- +muzzle warns him of its presence. It is wonderful to me that the +artillery general who took me gun-seeing knew where his own guns +were, let alone the enemy's. I imagine that he could return to a field +and locate a four-leafed clover that he had seen on a previous stroll. +His dogs of war had become foxes of war, burrowing in places which +wise old father foxes knew were safest from detection. Hereafter, I +shall not be surprised to see a muzzle poking its head out of an oven, +or from under grandfather's chair or a farm wagon, or up a tree, or in +a garret. Think of the last place in the world for emplacing a gun and +one may be there; think of the most likely place and one may be +there. You might be walking across the fields and minded to go +through a hedge, and bump into a black ring of steel with a gun's +crew grinning behind it. They would grin because you had given proof +of how well their gun was concealed. But they wouldn't grin as much +as they would if they saw the enemy plunking shells into another +hedge two hundred yards distant, where the German aeroplane +observer thought he had seen a battery and had not. + +"I'll show you a big one, first!" said the general. + +We left the car at a cottage and walked along a lane. I looked all +about the premises and could see only some artillerymen. An officer +led me up to a gun-breech; at least, I know a gun-breech when it is +one foot from my nose and a soldier has removed its covering. But I +shall not tell how that gun was concealed; the method was so +audacious that it was entirely successful. The Germans would like to +know and we don't want them to know. A little pencil-point on their +map for identification, and they would send a whirlwind of shells at +that gun. + +And then? + +Would the gun try to fire back? No. Its gunners probably would not +know the location of any of the guns of the German battery which had +concentrated on their treasure. They would desert the gun. If they did +not, they ought to be court-martialled for needlessly risking the +precious lives of trained men. They would make for the "funk-pits," as +they call the dug-outs, just as the gunners of any other Power would. + +The chances are that the gun itself would not be hit bodily by a shell. +Fragments might strike it without causing more than an abrasion; for +big guns have pretty thick cuticles. When the storm was over, the +gunners would move their treasure to another hiding-place; which +would mean a good deal of work, on account of its size. + +It is the inability of gun to see gun, and even when seen to knock out +gun, which has put an end to the so-called artillery duel of pitched- +battle days, when cannon walloped cannon to keep cannon from +walloping the infantry. Now when there is an action, though guns still +go after guns if they know where they are, most of the firing is done +against trenches and to support trenches and infantry works, or with a +view to demoralizing the infantry. Concentration of artillery fire will +demolish an enemy's trench and let your infantry take possession of +the wreckage remaining; but then the enemy's artillery concentrates +on your infantry and frequently makes their new habitation untenable. + +Noiselessly except for a little click, with chickens clucking in a field +near by, the big breech-block which held the shell fast, sending all the +power of the explosion out of the muzzle, was swung back and one +looked through the shining tube of steel, with its rifling which caught +the driving band and gave the shell its rotation and accuracy in its +long journey, which would close when, descending at the end of its +parabola, its nose struck building, earth, or pavement and it exploded. + +Wheels that lift and depress and swing the muzzle, and gadgets with +figures, and other scales which play between the map and the +gadgets, and atmospheric pressure and wind-variation, all worked out +with the same precision under a French hedge as on board a +battleship where the gun-mounting is fast to massive ribs of steel--it +seemed a matter of book-keeping and trigonometry rather than war. + +If a shell from this gun were to hit at the corner of Wall Street and +Broadway at the noon hour, it would probably kill and wound a +hundred men. If it went into the dug-out of a support trench it would +get everybody there; but if it went ten yards beyond the trench into +the open field, it would probably get nobody. "Cover!" someone +exclaimed, while we were looking at the gun; and everybody promptly +got under the branches of a tree or a shed. A German aeroplane was +cruising in our direction. If the aviator saw a group of men standing +about he might draw conclusions and pass the wireless word to send +in some shells at whatever number on the German gunners' map +was ours. + +These gunners loved their gun; loved it for the power which it could +put into a blow under their trained hands; loved it for the care and the +labour it had meant for them. It is the way of gunners to love their +gun, or they would not be good gunners. Of all the guns I saw that +day, I think that two big howitzers meant the most to their masters. +These had just arrived. They had been set up only two days. They +had not yet fired against the enemy. For many months the gunners +had drilled in England, and they had tried their "eight-inch hows" out +on the target range and brought them across the Channel and +nursed them along French roads, and finally set them up in their +hidden lair. Now they waited for observers to assist them in +registration. + +When the general approached there was a call to turn out the guard; +but the general stopped that. At the front there is an end of the +ceremoniousness of the barracks. Military formality disappears. +Discipline, as well as other things, is simpler and more real. The men +went on with their recess playing football in a near-by field. + +The officers possibly were a trifle diffident and uncertain; they had not +yet the veteran's manner. It was clear that they had done everything +required by the textbook of theory--the latest, up-to-date textbook of +experience at the front as taught in England. When they showed us +how they had stored their stock of shells to be safe from a shot by the +enemy, one remarked that the method was according to the latest +directions, though there was some difference among military experts +on the subject. When there is a difference, what is the beginner to +do? An old hand, of course, does it his way until an order makes him +do otherwise. The general had a suggestion about the application of +the method. He had little to say, the general, and all was in the spirit +of comradeship and quite to the point. Not much escaped his +observation. + +It seems fairly true that one who knows his work well in any branch of +human endeavour makes it appear easy. Once a gunner always a +gunner is characteristic of all armies. The general had spent his life +with guns. He was a specialist visiting his plant; one of the staff +specialists responsible to a corps commander for the work of the +guns on a certain section of map, for accuracy and promptness of fire +when it was required in the commander's plans. + +If the newcomers put their shells into the target on their first trial they +had qualified; and sometimes newcomers shoot quite as well as +veterans, which is a surprise to both and the best kind of news for the +general who is in charge of an expanding plant. The war will be +decided by gunners and infantry that knew nothing of guns or drill +when the war began. + +"Here are some who have been in France from the first," said the +general, when we came to a battery of field guns; of the eighteen- +pounders, the fellows you see behind the galloping horses, the "hell- +for-leather" guns, the guns which bring the gleam of affection into the +eyes of men who think of pursuits and covering retreats and the +pitched-battle conditions before armies settled down in trenches and +growled and hissed at each other day after day and brought up guns +of calibres which we associate with battleships and coast +fortifications. + +These are called "light stuff" and "whizz-bangs" now, in army +parlance. They throw only an eighteen-pound shell which carries +three hundred bullets, but so fast that they chase one another +through the air. There has been so much talk about the need of +heavy guns, you might think that eighteen-pounders were too small +for consideration. Were the German line broken, these are the ones +which could gallop on the heels of the infantry. + +They are the boys who weave the "curtain of fire" which you read +about in the official bulletins as checking an infantry charge; which +demolish the barbed-wire entanglements to let an infantry charge get +into a trench. If a general wants a shower of bullets over any part of +the German line he has only to call up the eighteen-pounders and it is +sent as promptly as the pressure of a button brings a pitcher of iced- +water to a room in a first-class hotel. A veteran eighteen-pounder +crew in action is a poem in precision and speed of movement. The +gun itself seems to possess intelligence. + +There was the finesse of gunners' craft worthy of veterans in the way +that these eighteen-pounders were concealed. The Germans had put +some shells in the neighbourhood, but without fooling the old hands. +They did not change the location of their battery and their judgment +that the shots which came near were chance shots fired at another +object was justified. Particularly I should like to mention the nature of +their "funk-pits," which kept them safe from the heaviest shells. For +the veterans knew how to take care of themselves; they had an eye +to the protection which comes of experience with German high +explosives. Their expert knowledge of all the ins and outs of the +business had been fought into them for over a year. + +Another field battery, also, I have in mind, placed in an orchard. +Which orchard of all the thousands of orchards along the British front +the German staff may guess, if they choose. If German guns fired at +all the orchards, one by one, they might locate it--and then again they +might not. Besides, this is a peculiar sort of orchard. + +It is a characteristic of gunners to be neat and to have an eye for the +comeliness of things. These men had a lawn and a garden, tables +and chairs. If you are familiar with the tidiness of a retired New +England sailor, who regards his porch as a quarter-deck and sallies +forth to remove each descending autumn leaf from the grass, then +you know how scrupulous they were about litter. + +For weeks they had been in the same position, unseen by German +aeroplanes. They had daily baths; they did their weekly laundry, +taking care not to hang it where it would be visible from the sky. Every +day they received the London papers and letters from home. When +they were needed to help in making war, all they had to do was to slip +a shell in the breech and send it with their compliments to the +Germans. They were camping out at His Majesty's expense in the +pleasant land of France in the joyous summer time; and on the roof of +sod over their guns were pots of flowers, undisturbed by blasts from +the gun-muzzles. + +It was when leaving another battery that out of the tail of my eye I +caught a lurid flash through a hedge, followed by the sharp, ear- +piercing crack that comes from being in line with a gun-muzzle when +a shot is fired. We followed a path which took us to the rear of the +report, where we stepped through undergrowth among the busy +group around the breeches of some guns of one of the larger +calibres. + +An order for some "heavy stuff" at a certain point on the map was +being filled. Sturdy men were moving in a pantomime under the +shade of a willow tree, each doing exactly his part in a process that +seemed as simple as opening a cupboard door, slipping in a package +of concentrated destruction, and closing the door. All that detail of +range-finding and mathematical adjustment of aim at the unseen +target which takes so long to explain was applied as automatically as +an adding-machine adds up a column of figures. Everybody was as +practice-perfect in his part as performers who have made hundreds +of appearances in the same act on the stage. + +All ready, the word given, a thunder peal and through the air you saw +a wingless, black object in a faint curve against the soft blue sky, +which it seemed to sweep with a sound something like the escape of +water through a break in the garden hose multiplied by ten, rising to +its zenith and then descending, till it passed out of sight behind a +green bank of foliage on the horizon. + +After the scream had been lost to the ear you heard the faint, +thudding boom of an explosion from the burst of that conical piece of +steel which you had seen slipped into the breech. This was the +gunners' part in chessboard war, where the moves are made over +signal wires, while the infantry endure the explosions in their trenches +and fight in their charges in the traverses of trenches at as close +quarters as in the days of the cave-dwellers. + +There was no stopping work when the general came, of course. It +would have been the same had Lord Kitchener been present. The +battery commander expressed his regret that he could not show me +his guns without any sense of irony; meaning that he was sorry he +was too busy to tell about his battery. In about the time that it took a +telegraph key to click after each one of those distant bursts, he knew +whether or not the shot was on the target and what variation of +degree to make in the next if it were not; or, if the word came, to shift +the point of aim a little, when you are trying to shake up the enemy +here and there along a certain length of trench. + +At another wire-end someone was spotting the bursts. Perhaps he +was in the kind of place where I found one observer, who was sitting +on a cushion looking out through a chink in a wall, with a signal corps +operator near by. It was a small chink, just large enough to allow the +lens of a pair of glasses or a telescope a range of vision; and even +then I was given certain warnings before the cover over the chink +was removed, though there could not have been any German in +uniform nearer than four thousand yards. But there may be spies +within your own lines, looking for such holes. + +From this post I could make out the British and the German trenches +in muddy white lines of sandbags running snake-like across the fields, +and the officer identified points on the map to me. Every tree and +hedge and ditch in the panorama were graven on his mind; all had +language for him. His work was engrossing. It had risk, too; there was +no telling when a shell might lift him off the cushion and provide a +hole for the burial of his remains. + +If he were shelled, the observer would go to a funk-pit, as the +gunners do, until the storm had passed; and then he would move on +with his cushion and his telegraph instrument and make a hole in +another wall, if he did not find a tree or some other eminence which +suited his purpose better. Meanwhile, he was not the only observer in +that section. There were others nearer the trenches, perhaps actually +in the trenches. The two armies, seeming chained to their trenches, +are set with veiled eyes at the end of wires; veiled eyes trying to +locate the other's eyes, the other's guns and troops and the least +movement which indicates any attempt to gain an advantage. + +"Gunnery is navigation, dead reckoning, with the spotting observer +the sun by which you correct your figures," said one of the artillery +officers. + +Firing enough one had seen--landscape bathed in smoke and dust +and reverberating with explosions; but all as a spectacle from an +orchestra seat, not too close at hand for comfort. This time I was to +see the guns fire and the results of the firing in detail. Both can rarely +be seen at the same time. It was not show firing this that we watched +from an observing station, but part of the day's work for the guns and +the general. First, the map, "Here and there," as an officer's finger +pointed; and then one looked across fields, green and brown and +golden with the summer crops. + +Item I. The Germans were fortifying a certain point on a certain farm. +We were going to put some "heavy stuff" in there and some "light +stuff," too. The burst of our shells could be located in relation to a +certain tree. + +Item II. Our planes thought that the Germans had a wireless station in +a certain building. "Heavy stuff" exclusively for this. No enemy's +wireless station ought to be enjoying serene summer weather without +interruption; and no German working-party ought to be allowed to +build redoubts within range of our guns without a break in the +monotony of their drudgery. + +Six lyddites were the order for the wireless station; six high explosives +which burst on contact and make a hole in the earth large enough for +a grave for the Kaiser and all his field marshals. Frequently, not only +the number of shells to be fired, but also the intervals between them +is given by the artillery commander, as part of his plan in his +understanding of the object to be accomplished; and it is quite clear +that the system is the same with the Germans. + +One side no sooner develops an idea than the other adopts it. By +effect of the enemy's shells you judge what the effect of yours must +be. Months of experience have done away with all theories and +practice has become much the same by either adversary. For +example, let a German or a British airman be winged by anti-aircraft +gun-fire and the guns instantly loosen up on the point over his own +lines, if he regains them, where he is seen to fall. All the soldiers in +the neighbourhood are expected to run to his assistance; and, at any +rate, you may get a trained aviator, whose life is a valuable asset on +one side of the ledger and whose death an asset on the other. There +is no sentiment left in war, you see. It is all killing and avoiding being +killed. + +By the scream of a shell the practised ear of the artilleryman can tell +whether it comes from a gun with a low trajectory or from a howitzer, +whose projectile rises higher and falls at a sharper angle which +enables it to enter the trenches; and he can even tell approximately +the calibre. + +A scream sweeping past from our rear, and we knew that this was for +the redoubt, as that was to have the first turn. A volume of dust and +smoke breaking from the earth short of the redoubt, and after the +second's delay of hearing the engine whistle after the burst of steam +in the distance on a winter day, came the sound of the burst. The +next was over. With the third the "heavy stuff" ought to be right on. + +But don't forget that there was also an order for some "Right stuff," +identified as shrapnel by its soft, nimbus-like puff which was +scattering bullets as if giving chase to that working-party as it +hastened to cover. There you had the ugly method of this modern +artillery fire: death shot downward from the air and leaping up out of +the earth. Unhappily, the third was not on, nor the fourth--not exactly +on. Exactly on is the way that British gunners like to fill an order +f.o.b., express charges prepaid, for the Germans. + +Ten years ago it would have seemed good shooting. It was not very +good in the twelfth month of the war; for war beats the target range in +developing accuracy. At five or six or seven or eight thousand yards' +range the shells were bursting thirty or forty yards away from where +they should. + +No, not very good; the general murmured as much. He did not need +to say so aloud to the artillery officer responsible for that shooting, +who was in touch with his batteries by wire. The officer knew it. He +was the high-strung, ambitious sort. You had better not become a +gunner unless you are. Any "good-enough" temperament is ruled off +wasting munitions. Red was creeping through the tan from his throat +to the roots of his hair. To have this happen in the presence of that +veteran general, after all his efforts to try to remedy the error in those +guns! + +But the general was quite human. He was not the "strafing" kind. + +"I know those guns have an error!" he said, as he put his hand on the +officer's arm. That was all; and that was a good deal to the officer. +Evidently, the general not only knew guns; he knew men. The officer +had suffered admonition enough from his own injured pride. + +Besides, what we did to the supposed wireless station ought to keep +any general from being downhearted. Neither guns, nor the powder +which sent the big shells on their errand, nor the calculations of the +gunners, nor their adjustment of the gadgets, had any error. With the +first one, a great burst of the black smoke of deadly lyddite rose from +the target. "Right on!" + +And again and again--right on! The ugly, spreading, low-hanging, +dense cloud was renewed from its heart by successive bursts in the +same place. If the aeroplane's conclusions were right, that wireless +station must be very much wireless, now. The only safe discount for +the life insurance of the operators was one hundred per cent. + +"Here, they are firing more than six!" said the general. "It's always +hard to hold these gunners down when they are on the target like +that." + +He spoke as if it would have been difficult for him to resist the +temptation himself. The wireless station got two extra shells for full +measure. Perhaps those two were waste; perhaps the first two had +been enough. Conservation of shells has become a first principle of +the artillerists' duty. The number fired by either side in the course of +the routine of an average so-called peaceful day is surprising. +Economy would be easier if it were harder to slip a shell into a gun- +breech. The men in the trenches are always calling for shells. They +want a tree or a house which is the hiding-place of a sniper knocked +down. The men at the guns would be glad to accommodate them, but +the say as to that is with commanders who know the situation. + +"The Boches will be coming back at us soon, you will see!" said one +of the officers who was at our observation post. "They always do. The +other day they chose this particular spot for their target"--which was a +good reason why they would not this time, an optimist thought. + +Let either side start a bombardment and the other responds. There is +a you-hit-me-and-I'll-hit-you character about siege warfare. Gun-fire +provokes gun-fire. Neither adversary stays quiet under a blow. It was +not long before we heard the whish of German shells passing some +distance away. + +They say sport is out of war. Perhaps, but not its enthralling and +horrible fascination. Knowing what the target is, knowing the object of +the fire, hearing the scream of the projectile on the way and watching +to see if it is to be a hit, when the British are fighting the Germans on +the soil of France, has an intensive thrill which is missing to the +spectator who looks on at the Home Sports Club shooting at clay +pigeons--which is not in justification of war. It does explain, however, +the attraction of gunnery to gunners. One forgets, for the instant, that +men are being killed and mangled. He thinks only of points scored in +a contest which requires all the wit and strength and fortitude of man +and all his cunning in the manufacture and control of material. + +You want your side to win; in this case, because it is the side of +humanity and of that kindly general and the things that he and the +army he represents stand for. The blows which the demons from the +British lairs strike are to you the blows of justice; and you are glad +when they go home. They are your blows. You have a better reason +for keeping an army's artillery secrets than for keeping secret the +signals of your Varsity football team, which anyone instinctively +keeps--the reason of a world cause. + +Yet another thing to see--an aeroplane assisting a battery by spotting +the fall of its shells, which is engrossing enough, too, and amazingly +simple. Of course this battery was proud of its method of +concealment. Each battery commander will tell you that a British +plane has flown very low, as a test, without being able to locate his +battery. If it is located, there is more work due in "make-up" to +complete the disguise. Competition among batteries is as keen as +among battleships of our North Atlantic fleet. + +Situation favoured this battery, which was Canadian. It was as nicely +at home as a first-class Adirondack camp. At any rate, no other +battery had a dug-out for a litter of eight pups, with clean straw for +their bed, right between two gun-emplacements. + +"We found the mother wild, out there in the woods," one of the men +explained. "She, too, was a victim of war; a refugee from some home +destroyed by shell-fire. At first she wouldn't let us approach her, and +we tossed her pieces of meat from a safe distance. I think those pups +will bring us luck. We'll take them along to the Rhine. Some mascots, +eh?" + +On our way back to the general's headquarters we must have passed +other batteries hidden from sight only a stone's throw away; and yet in +an illustrated paper recently I saw a drawing of some guns emplaced +on the crest of a bare hill, naked to all the batteries of the enemy, but +engaged in destroying all the enemy's batteries, according to the +account. Twelve months of war have not shaken conventional ideas +about gunnery; which is one reason for writing this chapter. + +Also, on our way back we learned the object of the German fire in +answer to our bombardment of the redoubt and the wireless station. +They had shelled a cross-roads and a certain village again. As we +passed through the village we noticed a new hole in the church tower, +and three holes in the churchyard, which had scattered clods of earth +about the pavement. A shopkeeper was engaged in repairing a +window-frame that had been broken by a shell-fragment. + +There is no flustering the French population. That very day I heard of +an old peasant who asked a British soldier if he could not get +permission for the old farmer to wear some kind of an armband which +both sides would respect, so that he could cut his field of wheat +between the trenches. Why not? Wasn't it his wheat? Didn't he need +the crop? + +And the Germans fire into villages and towns; for the women and +children there are the women and children of the enemy. But those in +the German lines belong to the ally of England. Besides, they are +women and children. So British gunners avoid towns--which is, in one +sense, a professional handicap. + + + + +XVIII +Archibald The Archer + + + +There is another kind of gun, vagrant and free lance, which deserves +a chapter by itself. It has the same bark as the eighteen-pounder field +piece; the flight of the shell makes the same kind of sound. But its +scream, instead of passing in a long parabola toward the German +lines, goes up in the heavens toward something as large as your +hand against the light blue of the summer sky--a German aeroplane. + +At a height of seven or eight thousand feet the target seems almost +stationary, when really it is going somewhere between fifty and ninety +miles an hour. It has all the heavens to itself, and to the British it is a +sinister, prying eye that wants to see if we are building any new +trenches, if we are moving bodies of troops or of transport, and where +our batteries are in hiding. That aviator three miles above the earth +has many waiting guns at his command. A few signals from his +wireless and they would let loose on the target he indicated. + +If the planes might fly as low as they pleased, they would know all that +was going on in an enemy's lines. They must keep up so high that +through the aviator's glasses a man on the road is the size of a pin- +head. To descend low is as certain death as to put your head over +the parapet of a trench when the enemy's trench is only a hundred +yards away. There are dead lines in the air, no less than on the earth. + +Archibald, the anti-aircraft gun, sets the dead line. He watches over it +as a cat watches a mouse. The trick of sneaking up under cover of a +noonday cloud and all the other man-bird tricks he knows. A couple of +seconds after that crack a tiny puff of smoke breaks about a hundred +yards behind the Taube. A soft thistledown against the blue it seems +at that altitude; but it would not if it were about your ears. Then it +would sound like a bit of dynamite on an anvil struck by a hammer +and you would hear the whizz of scores of bullets and fragments. + +The smoking brass shell-case is out of Archibald's steel throat, and +another shell-case with its charge slipped into place and started on its +way before the first puff breaks. The aviator knows what is coming. +He knows that one means many, once he is in range. + +Archibald rushes the fighting; it is the business of the Taube to side- +step. The aviator cannot hit back except through his allies, the +German batteries, on the earth. They would take care of Archibald if +they knew where he was. But all that the aviator can see is mottled +landscape. From his side Archibald flies no goal flags. He is one of +ten thousand tiny objects under the aviator's eye. + +Archibald's propensities are entirely peripatetic. He is the vagabond +of the army lines. Locate him and he is gone. His home is where night +finds him and the day's duties take him. He is the only gun that keeps +regular hours like a Christian gentleman. All the others, great and +small, raucous-voiced and shrill-voiced, fire at any hour, night or day. +Aeroplanes rarely go up at night; and when no aeroplanes are up, +Archibald has no interest in the war. But he is alert at the first flush of +dawn, on the look-out for game with the avidity of a pointer dog; for +aviators are also up early. + +Why he was named Archibald nobody knows. As his full name is +Archibald the Archer, possibly it comes from some association with +the idea of archery. If there were ten thousand anti-aircraft guns in the +British army, every one would be known as Archibald. + +When the British Expeditionary Force went to France it had none. All +the British could do was to bang away at Taubes with thousands of +rounds of rifle-bullets, which might fall in their own lines, and with the +field guns. + +It was pie in those days for the Taubes! Easy to keep out of the range +of both rifles and guns and observe well! If the Germans did not know +the progress of the British retreat from on high it was their own fault. +Now, the business of firing at Taubes is left entirely to Archibald. +When you see how hard it is for Archibald, after all his practice, to get +a Taube, you understand how foolish it was for the field guns to try to +get one. + +Archibald, who is quite the "swaggerist" of the gun tribe, has his own +private car built especially for him. Such of the cavalry's former part +as the planes do not play he plays. He keeps off the enemy's scouts. +Do you seek team-work, spirit of corps, and smartness in this theatre +of France, where all the old glamour of war is supposed to be +lacking? You will find it in the attendants of Archibald. They have +pride, elan, alertness, pepper, and all the other appetizers and +condiments. They are as neat as a private yacht's crew, and as lively +as an infield of a major league team. The Archibaldians are naturally +bound to think rather well of themselves. + +Watch them there, every man knowing his part, as they send their +shells after the Taube! There is not enough waste motion among the +lot to tip over the range-finder, or the telescopes, or the score board, +or any of the other paraphernalia assisting the man who is looking +through the sight in knowing where to aim next, as a screw answers +softly to his touch. + +Is the sport of war dead? Not for Archibald! Here you see your target +--which is so rare these days when British infantrymen have stormed +and taken trenches without ever seeing a German--and the target is a +bird, a man-bird. Puffs of smoke with bursting hearts of death are +clustered around the Taube. One follows another in quick succession, +for more than one Archibald is firing, before your entranced eye. + +You are staring like the crowd of a county fair at a parachute act. For +the next puff may get him. Who knows this better than the aviator? +He is, likely, an old hand at the game; or, if he is not, he has all the +experience of other veterans to go by. His ruse is the same as that of +the escaped prisoner who runs from the fire of a guard in a zigzag +course, and more than that. If a puff comes near on the right, he turns +to the left; if one comes near on the left, he turns to the right; if one +comes under, he rises; over, he dips. This means that the next shell +fired at the same point will be wide of the target. + +Looking through the sight, it seems easy to hit a plane. But here is +the difficulty. It takes two seconds, say, for the shell to travel to the +range of the plane. The gunner must wait for its burst before he can +spot his shot. Ninety miles an hour is a mile and a half a minute. +Divide that by thirty and you have about a hundred yards which the +plane has travelled from the time the shell left the gun-muzzle till it +burst. It becomes a matter of discounting the aviator's speed and +guessing from experience which way he will turn next. + +That ought to have got him--the burst was right under. No! He rises. +Surely that one got him! The puff is right in front, partly hiding the +Taube from view. You see the plane tremble as if struck by a violent +gust of wind. Close! Within thirty or forty yards, the telescope says. +But at that range the naked eye is easily deceived about distance. +Probably some of the bullets have cut his plane. + +But you must hit the man or the machine in a vital spot in order to +bring down your bird. The explosions must be very close to count. It is +amazing how much shell-fire an aeroplane can stand. Aviators are +accustomed to the whizz of shell-fragments and bullets, and to have +their planes punctured and ripped. Though their engines are put out +of commission, and frequently though the man be wounded, they are +able to volplane back to the cover of their own lines. + +To make a proper story we ought to have brought down this particular +bird. But it had the luck, which most planes, British or German have, +to escape antiaircraft gun-fire. It had begun edging away after the first +shot and soon was out of range. Archibald had served the purpose of +his existence. He had sent the prying aerial eye home. + +A fight between planes in the air very rarely happens, except in the +imagination. Planes do not go up to fight other planes, but for +observation. Their business is to see and learn and bring home their +news. + + + + +XIX +Trenches In Summer + + + +It was the same trench in June, still a relatively "quiet corner," which I +had seen in March; but I would never have known it if its location had +not been the same on the map. One was puzzled how a place that +had been so wet could become so dry. + +This time the approach was made in daylight through a long +communication ditch, which brought us to a shell-wrecked +farmhouse. We passed through this and stepped down at the back +door into deep traverses cut among the roots of an orchard; then +behind walls of earth high above our heads to battalion headquarters +in a neat little shanty, where I deposited the first of the cakes I had +brought on the table beside some battalion reports. A cake is the right +gift for the trenches, though less so in summer than in winter when +appetites are less keen. The adjutant tried a slice while the colonel +conferred with the general, who had accompanied me this far, and he +glanced up at a sheet of writing with a line opposite hours of the day, +pinned to a post of his dug-out. + +"I wanted to see if it were time to make another report," he said. "We +are always making reports. Everybody is, so that whoever is superior +to someone else knows what is happening in his subordinate's +department." + +Then in and out in a maze, between walls with straight faces of the +hard, dry earth, testifying to the beneficence of summer weather in +constructing fastnesses from artillery fire, until we were in the firing- +trench, where I was at home among the officers and men of a +company. General Mud was "down and out." He waited on the winter +rains to take command again. But winter would find an army prepared +against his kind of campaign. Life in the trenches in summer was not +so unpleasant but that some preferred it, with the excitement of +sniping, to the boredom of billets. + + + +"What hopes!" was the current phrase I heard among the men in +these trenches. It shared honours with strafe. You have only one life +to live and you may lose that any second--what hopes! Dig, dig, dig, +and set off a mine that sends Germans skyward in a cloud of dust-- +what hopes! Bully beef from Chicago and Argentina is no food for +babes, but better than "K.K." bread--what hopes! Mr. Thomas Atkins, +British regular, takes things as they come--and a lot of them come-- +shells, bullets, asphyxiating gas, grenades, and bombs. + +There is much to be thankful for. The King's Own Particular Fusiliers, +as we shall call this regiment, had only three men hit yesterday. On +every man's cap is a metal badge crowded with battle honours, from +the storming of Quebec to the relief of Ladysmith. Heroic its history; +but no battle honours equal that of the regiment's part in the second +battle of Ypres; and no heroes of the regiment's story, whom you +picture in imagination with haloes of glory in the wish that you might +have met them in the flesh in their scarlet coats, are the equal of +these survivors in plain khaki manning a ditch in A.D. 1915, whom +anyone may meet. + +But do not tell them that they are heroes. They will deny it on the +evidence of themselves as eyewitnesses of the action. To remark +that the K.O.P.F. are brave is like remarking that water flows down +hill. It is the business of the K.O.P.F. to be brave. Why talk about it? + +One of the three men hit was killed. Well, everybody in the war rather +expects to be killed. The other two "got tickets to England," as they +say. My lady will take the convalescents joy-riding in her car, and +afterwards seat them in easy chairs, arranging the cushions with her +own hands, and feed them slices of cold chicken in place of bully beef +and strawberries and cream in place of ration marmalade. Oh, my! +What hopes! + +Mr. Atkins does not mind being a hero for the purposes of such +treatment. Then, with never a twinkle in his eye, he will tell my lady +that he does not want to return to the front; he has had enough of it, +he has. My lady's patriotism will be a trifle shocked, as Mr. Atkins +knows it will be; and she will wonder if the "stick it" quality of the +British soldier is weakening, as Mr. Atkins knows she will. For he has +more kinks in his mental equipment than mere nobility ever guesses, +and he is having the time of his life in more respects than +strawberries and cream. What hopes! Of course, he will return and +hold on in the face of all that the Germans can give, without any +pretence to bravery. + +If you go as a stranger into the trenches on a sightseeing tour and +says, "How are you?" and, "Are you going to Berlin?" and, "Are you +comfortable?" etc., Tommy Atkins will say, "Yes, sir," and "Very well, +sir," as becomes all polite regular soldier men; and you get to know +him about as well as you know the members of a club if you are +shown the library and dine at a corner table with a friend. + +Spend the night in the trenches and you are taken into the family, into +that very human family of soldier-dom in a quiet corner; and the old, +care-free spirit of war, which some people thought had passed, is +found to be no less alive in siege warfare than on a march of regulars +on the Indian frontier or in the Philippines. Gaiety and laughter and +comradeship and "joshing" are here among men to whom wounds +and death are a part of the game. One may challenge high +explosives with a smile, no less than ancient round shot. Settle down +behind the parapet, and the little incongruities of a trench, paltry +without the intimacy of men and locality, make for humour no less +than in a shop or a factory. + +Under the parapet runs the tangle of barbed wire--barbed wire from +Switzerland to Belgium--to welcome visitors from that direction, which, +to say the least, would be an impolitic direction of approach for any +stranger. + +"All sightseers should come into the trenches from the rear," says Mr. +Atkins. "Put it down in the guidebooks." + +Beyond the barbed wire in the open field the wheat which some +farmer sowed before positions were established in this area is now in +head, rippling with the breeze, making a golden sea up to the wall of +sandbags which is the enemy's line. It was late June at its loveliest; +no signs of war except the sound of our guns some distance away +and an occasional sniper's bullet. One cracked past as I was looking +through my glasses to see if there were any evidence of life in the +German trenches. + +"Your hat, sir!" + +Another moved a sandbag slightly, but not until after the hat had +come down and the head under it, most expeditiously. Up to eight +hundred yards a bullet cracks; beyond that range it whistles, sighs, +even wheezes. An elevation gives snipers, who are always trained +shots, an angle of advantage. In winter they had to rely for cover on +buildings, which often came tumbling down with them when hit by a +shell. The foliage of summer is a boon to their craft. + +"Does it look to you like an opening in the branches of that tree--the +big one at the right?" + +In the mass of leaves a dark spot was visible. It might be natural, or it +might be a space cut away for the swing of a rifle-barrel. Perhaps +sitting up there snugly behind a bullet-proof shield fastened to the +limbs was a German sharpshooter, watching for a shot with the +patience of a hound for a rabbit to come out of its hole. + +"It's about time we gave that tree a spray good for that kind of fungus, +from a machine-gun!" + +A bullet coming from our side swept overhead. One of our own +sharpshooters had seen something to shoot at. + +"Not giving you much excitement!" said Tommy. + +"I suppose I'd get a little if I stood up on the parapet?" I asked. + +"You wouldn't get a ticket for England; you'd get a box!" + +"There's a cemetery just behind the lines if you'd prefer to stay in +France!" + +I had passed that cemetery with its fresh wooden crosses on my way +to the trench. These tenderhearted soldiers who joked with death had +placed flowers on the graves of fallen comrades and bought +elaborate French funeral wreaths with their meagre pay--which is +another side of Mr. Thomas Atkins. There is sentiment in him. Yes, +he's loaded with sentiment, but not for the "movies." + +"Keep your head down there, Eames!" called a corporal. "I don't want +to be taking an inventory of your kit." + +Eames did not even realize that his head was above the parapet. The +hardest thing to teach a soldier is not to expose himself. Officers keep +iterating warnings and then forget to practise what they preach. That +morning a soldier had been shot through the heart and arm sideways +behind the trench. He had lain down unnoticed for a nap in the sun, it +was supposed. When he awoke, presumably he sat up and yawned +and Herr Schmidt, from some platform in a tree, had a bloody reward +for his patience. + +The next morning I saw the British take their revenge. Some German +who thought that he could not be seen in the mist of dawn was +walking along the German parapet. What hopes! Four or five men +took careful aim and fired. That dim figure collapsed in a way that was +convincing. + +As I swept the line of German trenches with the glasses I saw a wisp +of flag clinging to its pole in the still air far down to the left. Flags +are as unusual above trenches as men standing up in full view of +the enemy. Then a breeze caught the folds, and I saw that it was +the tricolour of France. + +"A Boche joke!" Tommy explained. + +"Probably they are hating the French to-day?" + +"No, it's been there for some days. They want us to shoot at the flag +of our ally. They'd get a laugh out of that--a regular Boche notion of +humour." + +"If it were a German flag?" I suggested. + +"What hopes! We'd make it into a lace curtain!" + +Even the guns had ceased firing. The birds in their evensong had all +the war to themselves. It was difficult to believe that if you stood on +top of the parapet anybody would shoot at you; no, not even if you +walked down the road that ran through the wheatfield, everything was +so peaceful. One grew sceptical of there being any Germans in the +trenches opposite. + +"There are three or four sharpshooters and a fat old Boche professor +in spectacles, who moves a machine-gun up and down for a bluff," +said a soldier, and another corrected him: + +"No, the old professor's the one that walks along at night sending up +flares!" + +"Munching K.K. bread with his false teeth!" + +"And singing the hymn of hate!" + +Thus the talk ran on in the quiet of evening, till we heard a concussion +and a quarter of a mile away, behind a screen of trees, a pillar of +smoke rose to the height of two or three hundred feet. + +"A mine!" In front of the -th brigade!" + +"Ours or the Boches'?" + +"Ours, from the way the smoke went--our fuse!" + +"No, theirs!" + +Our colonel telephoned down to know if we knew whose mine it was, +which was the question we wanted to ask him. The guns from both +sides became busy under the column of smoke. Oh, yes, there were +Germans in the trenches which had appeared vacant. Their shots +and ours merged in the hissing medley of a tempest. + +"Not enough guns--not enough noise for an attack!" said experienced +Tommy, who knew what an attack was like. + +The commander of the adjoining brigade telephoned to the division +commander, who passed the word through to our colonel, who +passed it to us that the mine was German and had burst thirty yards +short of the British trench. + +"After all that digging, wasting Boche powder in that fashion! The +Kaiser won't like it!" said Mr. Atkins. "We exploded one under them +yesterday and it made them hate so hard they couldn't wait. They've +awful tempers, the Boches!" And he finished the job on which he was +engaged when interrupted, eating a large piece of ration bread +surmounted by all the ration jam it could hold; while one of the +company officers reminded me that it was about dinner time. + + + +"What do you think I am? A blooming traffic policeman?" growled the +cook to two soldiers who had found themselves in a blind alley in the +maze of streets back of the firing-trench. "My word! Is His Majesty's +army becoming illiterate? Strafe that sign at the corner! What do you +think we put it up for? To show what a beautiful hand we had at +printing?" + +The sign on a board fastened against the earth wall read, "No +thoroughfare!" The soldier-cook, with a fork in his hand, his sleeves +rolled up, his shirt open at his tanned throat, looked formidable. He +was preoccupied; he was at close quarters roasting a chicken over a +small stove. Yes, they have cook-stoves in the trenches. Why not? +The line had been in the same position for six months. + +"Little by little we improve our happy home," said the cook. + +The latest acquisition was a lace curtain for the officers' mess hall, +bought at a shop in the nearest town. + +When the cook was inside his kitchen there was no room to spill +anything on the floor. The kitchen was about three feet square, with +boarded walls, and a roof covered with tar paper and a layer of earth +set level with the trench parapet. The chicken roasted and the frying +potatoes sizzled as an occasional bullet passed overhead, even as +flies buzz about the screen door when Mary is making cakes for tea. + +The officers' mess hall, next to the kitchen and built in the same +fashion, had some boards nailed on posts sunk in the ground for a +table, which was proof against tipping when you climbed over it or +squeezed around it to your place. The chairs were rifle-ammunition +boxes, whose contents had been emptied with individual care, bullet +by bullet, at the Germans in the trench on the other side of the +wheatfield. Dinner was at nine in the evening, when it was still twilight +in the longest days of the year in this region. The hour fits in with +trench routine, when night is the time to be on guard and you sleep +by day. Breakfast comes at nine in the morning. I was invited to help +eat the chicken and to spend the night. + +Now, the general commanding the brigade who accompanied me to +the trenches had been hit twice. So had the colonel, a man about +forty. From forty, ages among the regimental officers dropped into the +twenties. + +Many of the older men who started in the war had been killed, or were +back in England wounded, or had been promoted to other commands +where their experience was more useful. To youth, life is sweet and +danger is life. The oldest of the officers of the proud old K.O.P.F. who +gathered for dinner was about twenty-five, though when he assumed +an air of authority he seemed to be forty. It was not right to ask the +youngest his age. Parenthetically, let it be said that he is trying to +start a moustache. They had come fresh from Sandhurst to swift +tuition in gruelling, incessant warfare. + +"Has anyone asked him it yet?" one inquired, referring to some +question to the guest. + +"Not yet? Then all together: When do you think that the war will be +over?" + +It was the eternal question of the trenches, the army, and the world. +We had it over with before the soldier-cook brought on the roast +chicken, which was received with a befitting chorus of approbation. + +Who would carve? Who knew how to carve? Modesty passed the +honour to her neighbour, till a brave man said: + +"I will! I will strafe the chicken!" 'Gott strafe England!' Strafe has +become a noun, a verb, an adjective, a cussword, and a term of +greeting. Soldier asks soldier how he is strafing to-day. When the +Germans are not called Boches they are called Strafers. "Won't you +strafe a little for us?" Tommy sings out to the German trenches when +they are close. What hopes? That gallant youngster of the K.O.P.F. in +the midst of bantering advice succeeded in separating the meat from +the bones without landing a leg in anybody's lap or a wing in +anybody's eye. Timid spectators who had hung back where he had +dared might criticize his form, but they could not deny the efficiency of +his execution. He was appointed permanent strafer of all the fowls +that came to table. + +Everybody talked and joked about everything, from plays in London +to the Germans. There were arguments about favourite actors and +military methods. The sense of danger was as absent as if we had +been dining in a summer garden. It was the parents and relatives in +pleasant English homes in fear of a dread telegram who were +worrying, not the sons and brothers in danger. Isn't it better that way? +Would not the parents prefer it that way? Wasn't it the way of the +ancestors in the scarlet coats and the Merrie England of their day? +With the elasticity of youth my hosts adapted themselves to +circumstances. In their lightheartedness they made war seem a keen +sport. They lived war for all it was worth. If it gets on their nerves +their efficiency is spoiled. There is no room for a jumpy, excitable +man in the trenches. Youth's resources defy monotony and death +at the same time. + +An expedition had been planned for that night. A patrol the previous +night had brought in word that the Germans had been sneaking up +and piling sandbags in the wheatfield. The plan was to slip out as +soon as it was really dark with a machine-gun and a dozen men, get +behind the Germans' own sandbags, and give them a perfectly +informal reception when they returned to go on with their work. + +Before dinner, however, J------, who was to be the general of the +expedition, and his subordinates made a reconnaissance. Two or +more officers or men always go out together on any trip of this kind in +that ticklish space between the trenches, where it is almost certain +death to be seen by the enemy. If one is hit the other can help him +back. If one survives he will bring back the result of his investigations. + +J----had his own ideas about comfort in trousers in the trench in +summer. He wore shorts with his knees bare. When he had to do a +"crawl" he unwound his puttees and wound them over his knees. He +and the others slipped over the parapet without attracting the +attention of the enemy's sharpshooters. On hands and knees, like +boy scouts playing Indians, they passed through a narrow avenue in +the ugly barbed wire, and still not a shot at them. A matter of the +commonplace to the men in the trench held the spectator in +suspense. There was a fascination about the thing, too; that of the +sporting chance, without a full realization that failure in this hide-and- +seek game might mean a spray of bullets and death for these young +men. + +They entered the wheat, moving slowly like two land turtles. The grain +parted in swaths over them. Surely the Germans might see the +turtles' heads as they were raised to look around. No officer can be +too young and supple for this kind of work. Here the company officer +just out of school is in his element, with an advantage over older +officers. That pair were used to crawling. They did not keep their +heads up long. They knew just how far they might expose +themselves. They passed out of sight, and reappeared and slipped +back over the parapet again without the Germans being any the +wiser. Hard luck! It is an unaccommodating world! They found that +the patrol which had examined the bags at night had failed to discern +that they were old and must have been there for some time. + +"I'll take the machine-gun out, anyhow, if the colonel will permit it," +said J------. For the colonel puts on the brakes. Otherwise, there is no +telling what risks youth might take with machine-guns. + +We were half through dinner when a corporal came to report that a +soldier on watch thought that he had seen some Germans moving in +the wheat very near our barbed wire. Probably a false alarm; but no +one in a trench ever acts on the theory that any alarm is false. Eternal +vigilance is the price of holding a trench. Either side is cudgelling its +brains day and night to spring some new trick on the other. If one side +succeeds with a trick, the other immediately adopts it. No international +copyright in strategy is recognized. We rushed out of the mess hall +into the firing-trench, where we found the men on the alert, rifles laid +on the spot where the Germans were supposed to have been seen. + +"Who are you? Answer, or we fire!" called the ranking young +lieutenant. + +If any persons present out in front in the face of thirty rifles knew the +English language and had not lost the instinct of self-preservation, +they would certainly have become articulate in response to such an +unveiled hint. Not a sound came. Probably a rabbit running through +the wheat had been the cause of the alarm. But you take no risks. +The order was given, and the men combed the wheat with a fusillade. + +"Enough! Cease fire!" said the officer. "Nobody there. If there had +been we should have heard the groan of a wounded man or seen the +wheat stir as the Germans hugged closer to the earth for cover." + +This he knew by experience. It was not the first time he had used a +fusillade in this kind of a test. + +After dinner J------rolled his puttees up around his bare knees again, +for the colonel had not withdrawn permission for the machine-gun +expedition. J------'s knees were black and blue in spots; they were +also--well, there is not much water for washing purposes in the +trenches. Great sport that, crawling through the dew-moist wheat in +the faint moonlight, looking for a bunch of Germans in the hope of +turning a machine-gun on them before they turn one on you! + +"One man hit by a stray bullet," said J------on his return. + +"I heard the bullet go th-ip into the earth after it went through his leg," +said the other officer. + +"Blythe was a recruit and he had asked me to take him out the first +time there was anything doing. I promised that I would, and he got +about the only shot fired at us." + +"Need a stretcher?" + +"No." + +Blythe came hobbling through the traverse to the communication +trench, seeming well pleased with himself. The soft part of the leg is +not a bad place to receive a bullet if one is due to hit you. + + + +Night is always the time in the trenches when life grows more +interesting and death more likely. + +"It's dark enough, now," said one of the youngsters who was out on +another scout. "We'll go out with the patrol." + +By day, the slightest movement of the enemy is easily and instantly +detected. Light keeps the combatants to the warrens which protect +them from shell and bullet-fire. At night there is no telling what +mischief the enemy may be up to; you must depend upon the ear +rather than the eye for watching. Then the human soldier-fox comes +out of his burrow and sneaks forth on the lookout for prey; both sides +are on the prowl. + +"Trained owls would be the most valuable scouts we could have," +said the young officer. "They would be more useful than aeroplanes +in locating the enemy's gun-positions. A properly reliable owl would +come back and say that a German patrol was out in the wheatfield at +such a point and a machine-gun would wipe out that patrol." + +We turned into a side trench, an alley off the main street, leading out +of the front trench toward the Germans. + +"Anybody out?" he asked a soldier who was on guard at the end of it. + +"Yes, two." + +Climbing out of the ditch, we were in the midst of a tangle of barbed +wire protecting the trench front, which was faintly visible in the +starlight. There was a break in the tangle, a narrow cut in the hedge, +as it were, kept open for just such purposes as this. When the patrol +returned it closed the gate again. + +"Look out for that wire--just there! Do you see it? We've everything to +keep the Boches off our front lawn except 'Keep off the grass!' signs." + +It was perfectly still, a warm summer night without a cat's-paw of +breeze. Through the dark curtain of the sky in a parabola rising from +the German trenches swept the brilliant sputter of red light of a +German flare. It was coming as straight toward us as if it had been +aimed at us. It cast a searching, uncanny glare over the tall wheat in +head between the trenches. + +"Down flat!" whispered the officer. + +It seemed foolish to grovel before a piece of fireworks. There was no +firing in our neighbourhood; nothing to indicate a state of war between +the British Empire and Germany; no visual evidence of any German +army in France except that flare. However, if a guide who knows as +much about war as this one says you are to prostrate yourself when +you are out between two lines of machine-guns and rifles--between +the fighting powers of England and Germany--you take the hint. The +flare sank into earth a few yards away, after a last insulting, ugly fling +of sparks in our faces. + +"What if we had been seen?" + +"They'd have combed the wheat in this part thoroughly, and they +might have got us." + +"It's hard to believe," I said. + +So it was, he agreed. That was the exasperating thing. Always hard +to believe, perhaps, until after all the cries of wolf the wolf came; until +after nineteen harmless flares the twentieth revealed to the watching +enemy the figure of a man above the wheat, when a crackling chorus +of bullets would suddenly break the silence of night by concentrating +on a target. Keeping cover from German flares is a part of the minute, +painstaking economy of war. + +We crawled on slowly, taking care to make no noise, till we brought +up behind two soldiers hugging the earth, rifles in hand ready to fire +instantly. It was their business not only to see the enemy first, but to +shoot first, and to capture or kill any German patrol. The officer spoke +to them and they answered. It was unnecessary for them to say that +they had seen nothing. If they had we should have known it. He was +out there less to scout himself than to make sure that they were on +the job; that they knew how to watch. The visit was part of his routine. +We did not even whisper. Preferably, all whispering would be done by +any German patrol out to have a look at our barbed wire and +overheard by us. + +Silence and the starlight and the damp wheat; but, yes, there was +war. You heard gun-fire half a mile, perhaps a mile, away; and raising +your head you saw auroras from bursting shells. We heard at our +backs faintly snatches of talk from our trenches and faintly in front the +talk from theirs. It sounded rather inviting and friendly from both sides, +like that around some camp-fire on the plains. + +It seemed quite within the bounds of possibility that you might have +crawled on up to the Germans and said, "Howdy!" But by the time +you reached the edge of their barbed wire and before you could +present your visiting-card, if not sooner, you would have been full of +holes. That was just the kind of diversion from trench monotony for +which the Germans were looking. "Well, shall we go back?" asked the +officer. There seemed no particular purpose in spending the night +prone in the wheat with your ears cocked like a pointer-dog's. +Besides, he had other duties, exacting duties laid down by the colonel +as the result of trench experience in his responsibility for the +command of a company of men. + +It happened as we crawled back into the trench, that a fury of shots +broke out from a point along the line two or three hundred yards +away; sharp, vicious shots on the still night air, stabbing, merciless +death in their sound. Oh, yes, there was war in France; unrelenting, +shrewd, tireless war. A touch of suspicion anywhere and the hornets +swarmed. + + + +It was two a.m. From the dug-outs came unmistakable sounds of +slumber. Men off duty were not kept awake by cold and moisture in +summer. They had fashioned for themselves comfortable dormitories +in the hard earth walls. A cot in an officer's bedchamber was +indicated as mine. The walls had been hung with cuts from illustrated +papers and bagging spread on the floor to make it "home-like." He lay +down on the floor because he was nearer the door in case he had to +respond to an alarm; besides, he said I would soon appreciate that I +was not the object of favouritism. So I did. It was a trench-made cot, +fashioned by some private of engineers, I fancy, who had Germans +rather than the American cousin in mind. + +"The wall side of the rib that runs down the middle is the comfortable +side, I have found," said my host. "It may not appear so at first, but +you will find it works out that way." + +Nevertheless, I slept, my last recollection that of sniping shots, to be +awakened with the first streaks of day by the sound of a fusillade--the +"morning hate" or the "morning strafe" as it is called. After the vigil of +darkness it breaks the monotony to salute the dawn with a burst of +rifle-shots. Eyes strained through the mist over the wheatfield +watching for some one of the enemy who may be exposing himself, +unconscious that it is light enough for him to be visible. Objects which +are not men but look as if they might be in the hazy distance, called +for attention on the chance. For ten minutes, perhaps, the serenade +lasted, and then things settled down to the normal. The men were +yawning and stirring from their dug-outs. After the muster they would +take the places of those who had been "on the bridge" through the +night. + +"It's a case of how little water you can wash with, isn't it?" I said to +the cook, who appreciated my thoughtfulness when I made shift +with a dipperful, as I had done on desert journeys. We were in a trench +that was inundated with water in winter, and not more than two miles +from a town which had water laid on. But bringing a water supply in +pails along narrow trenches is a poor pastime, though better than +bringing it up under the rifle-sights of snipers across the fields back +of the trenches. + +"Don't expect much for breakfast," said the strafer of the chicken. But +it was eggs and bacon, the British stand-by in all weathers, at home +and abroad. + +J------was going to turn in and sleep. These youngsters could sleep at +any time; for one hour, or two hours, or five, or ten, if they had a +chance. A sudden burst of rifle-fire was the alarm clock which always +promptly awakened them. The recollection of cheery hospitality and +their fine, buoyant spirit is even clearer now than when I left the +trench. + + + + +XX +A School In Bombing + + + +It was at a bombing school on a French farm, where chosen soldiers +brought back from the trenches were being trained in the use of the +anarchists' weapon, which has now become as respectable as the +rifle. The war has steadily developed specialism. M.B. degrees for +Master Bombers are not beyond the range of possibilities. + +Present was the chief instructor, a Scottish subaltern with blue eyes, +a pleasant smile, and a Cock-o'-the-North spirit. He might have been +twenty years old, though he did not look it. On his breast was the +purple and white ribbon of the new order of the Military Cross, which +you get for doing something in this war which would have won you a +Victoria Cross in one of the other wars. + +Also present was the assistant instructor, a sergeant of regulars--and +very much of a regular--who had three ribbons which he had won in +previous campaigns. He, too, had blue eyes, bland blue eyes. These +two understood each other. + +"If you don't drop it, why, it's all right!" said the sergeant. "Of course, +if you do------" + +I did not drop it. + +"And when you throw it, sir, you must look out and not hit the man +behind you and knock the bomb out of your hand. That has +happened before to an absent-minded fellow who was about to toss +one at the Boches, and it doesn't do to be absent-minded when you +throw bombs." + +"They say that you sometimes pick up the German bombs and chuck +them back before they explode," I suggested. + +"Yes, sir, I've read things like that in some of the accounts of the +reporters who write from Somewhere in France. You don't happen to +know where that is, sir? All I can say is that if you are going to do it +you must be quick about it. I shouldn't advise delaying decision, sir, or +perhaps when you reached down to pick it up, neither your hand nor +the bomb would be there. They'd have gone off together, sir." + +"Have you ever been hurt in your handling of bombs?" I asked. + +Surprise in the bland blue eyes. "Oh, no, sir! Bombs are well behaved +if you treat them right. It's all in being thoughtful and considerate of +them!" Meanwhile, he was jerking at some kind of a patent fuse set in +a shell of high explosive. "This is a poor kind, sir. It's been discarded, +but I thought that you might like to see it. Never did like it. Always +making trouble!" + +More distance between the audience and the performer. "Now I've +got it, sir--get down, sir!" The audience carried out instructions to the +letter, as army regulations require. It got behind the protection of one +of the practice-trench traverses. He threw the discard behind another +wall of earth. There was a sharp report, a burst of smoke, and some +fragments of earth were tossed into the air. + +In a small affair of two hundred yards of trench a week before, it was +estimated that the British and the Germans together threw about five +thousand bombs in this fashion. It was enough to sadden any +Minister of Munitions. However, the British kept the trench. + +"Do the men like to become bombers?" I asked the subaltern. + +"I should say so! It puts them up in front. It gives them a chance to +throw something, and they don't get much cricket in France, you see. +We had a pupil here last week who broke the throwing record for +distance. He was as pleased as Punch with himself. A first-class +bombing detachment has a lot of pride of corps." + +To bomb soon became as common a verb with the army as to +bayonet. "We bombed them out" meant a section of trench taken by +throwing bombs. As you know, a trench is dug and built with +sandbags in zigzag traverses. In following the course of a trench it is +as if you followed the sides of the squares of a checker board up and +down and across on the same tier of squares. The square itself is a +bank of earth, with the cut on either side and in front of it. When a +bombing-party bombs its way into possession of a section of German +trench, there are Germans under cover of the traverses on either +side. They are waiting around the corner to shoot the first British head +that shows itself. + +"It is important that you and not the Boches chuck the bombs over +first," explained the subaltern. "Also, that you get them into the right +traverse, or they may be as troublesome to you as to the enemy." + +With bombs bursting in their faces, the Germans who are not put out +of action are blinded and stunned. In that moment when they are off +guard, the aggressors leap around the corner. + +"And then?" + +"Stick 'em, sir!" said the matter-of-fact sergeant. "Yes, the cold steel is +best. And do it first! As Mr. MacPherson said, it's very important to do +it first." + +It has been found that something short is handy for this kind of work. +In such cramped quarters--a ditch six feet deep and from two to three +feet broad--the rifle is an awkward length to permit of prompt and +skilful use of the bayonet. + +"Yes, sir, you can mix it up better with something handy--to think that +British soldiers would come to fighting like assassins!" said the +sergeant. "You must be spry on such occasions. It's no time for wool- +gathering." + +Not a smile from him or the subaltern all the time. They were the kind +you would like to have along in a tight corner, whether you had to fight +with knives, fists, or seventeen-inch howitzers. + +The sergeant took us into the storehouse where he kept his supply of +bombs. + +"What if a German shell should strike your storehouse?" I asked. + +"Then, sir, I expect that most of the bombs would be exploded. +Bombs are very peculiar in their habits. What do you think, sir?" + +It was no trouble to show stock, as clerks at the stores say. He +brought forth all the different kinds of bombs that British ingenuity had +invented--but no, not all invented. These would mount into the +thousands. Every British inventor who knows anything about +explosives has tried his hand at a new kind of bomb. One means all +the kinds which the British War Office has considered worth a +practice test. The spectator was allowed to handle each one as much +as he pleased. There had been occasions, that boyish Scottish +subaltern told me, when the men who were examining the products of +British ingenuity--well, the subaltern had sandy hair, too, which +heightened the effect of his blue eyes. + +There were yellow and green and blue and black and striped bombs; +egg-shaped, barrel-shaped, conical, and concave bombs; bombs that +were exploded by pulling a string and by pressing a button--all these +to be thrown by hand, without mentioning grenades and other larger +varieties to be thrown by mechanical means, which would have made +a Chinese warrior of Confucius' time or a Roman legionary feel at +home. + +"This was the first-born," the subaltern explained, "the first thing we +could lay our hands on when the close quarters' trench warfare +began." + +It was as out of date as grandfather's smooth-bore, the tin-pot bomb +that both sides used early in the winter. A wick was attached to the +high explosive, wrapped in cloth and stuck in an ordinary army jam +tin. + +"Quite home-made, as you see, sir," remarked the sergeant. "Used to +fix them up ourselves in the trenches in odd hours--saved burying the +refuse jam tins according to medical corps directions--and you threw +them at the Boches. Had to use a match to light it. Very old- +fashioned, sir. I wonder if that old fuse has got damp. No, it's going all +right"--and he threw the jam pot, which made a good explosion. Later, +when he began hammering the end of another he looked up in mild +surprise at the dignified back-stepping of the spectators. + +"Is that fuse out?" someone asked. + +"Yes, sir. Of course, sir," he replied. "It's safer. But here is the best; +we're discarding the others," he went on, as he picked up a bomb. + +It was a pleasure to throw this crowning achievement of experiments. +It fitted your hand nicely; it threw easily; it did the business; it was +fool-proof against a man in love or a war-poet. + +"We saw as soon as this style came out," said the sergeant, "that it +was bound to be popular. Everybody asks for it--except the Boches, +sir." + + + + +XXI +My Best Day At The Front + + + +It was the best day because one ran the gamut of the mechanics and +emotions of modern war within a single experience--and oh, the +twinkle in that staff officer's eye! + +It was on a Monday that I first met him in the ballroom of a large +chateau. Here another officer was talking over a telephone in an +explicit, businesslike fashion about "sending up more bombs," while +we looked at maps spread out on narrow, improvised tables, such as +are used for a buffet at a reception. Those maps showed all the +British trenches and all the German trenches--spider-weblike lines +that cunning human spiders had spun with spades--in that region; +and where our batteries were and where some of the German +batteries were, if our aeroplane observations were correct. + +To the layman they were simply blue prints, such as he sees in the +office of an engineer or an architect, or elaborate printed maps with +many blue and red pencil-lings. To the general in command they +were alive with rifle-power and gun-power and other powers +mysterious to us; the sword with which he thrust and feinted and +guarded in the ceaseless fencing of trench warfare, while higher +authorities than he kept their secrets as he kept his and bided their +day. + +That morning one of the battalions which had its pencilled place on +the map had taken a section of trench from the Germans about the +length of two city blocks. It got into the official bulletins of both sides +several times, this two hundred yards at Pilken in the everlastingly +"hot corner" north of Ypres. So it was of some importance, though not +on account of its length. To take two hundred yards of trench +because it is two hundred yards of trench is not good war, tacticians +agree. Good war is to have millions of shells and vast reserves ready +and to go in over a broad area and keep on going night and day, with +a Niagara of artillery, as fresh battalions are fed into the conflict. + +But the Germans had command of some rising ground in front of the +British line at this point. They could fire down and crosswise into our +trench. It was as if we were in the alley and they were in a first-floor +window. This meant many casualties. It was man-economy and fire- +economy to take that two hundred yards. A section of trench may +always be taken if worth while. Reduce it to dust with shells and then +dash into the breach and drive the enemy back from zigzag traverse +to traverse with bombs. But such a small action requires as careful +planning as a big operation of other days. We had taken the two +hundred yards. The thing was to hold them. That is always the +difficulty; for the enemy will concentrate his guns to give you the +same dose that you gave him. In an hour after they were in, the +British soldiers, who knew exactly what they had to do and how to do +it, after months of experience, had turned the wreck of the German +trench into a British trench which faced toward Berlin, rather than +Calais. + +In their official bulletin the Germans said that they had recovered the +trench. They did recover part of it for a few hours. It was then that the +commander on the German side must have sent in his report to catch +the late evening editions. Commanders do not like to confess the loss +of trenches. It is the sort of thing that makes headquarters ask: "What +is the matter with you over there, anyway?" There was a time when +the German bulletins about the Western front seemed rather truthful; +but of late they have been getting into bad habits. + +The British general knew what was coming; he knew that he would +start the German hornets out of their nest when he took the trench; +he knew, too, that he could rely upon his men to hold till they were +told to retire or there were none left to retire. The British are a home- +loving people, who do not like to be changing their habitations. In +succeeding days the question up and down the lines was, "Have we +still got that trench?" Only two hundred yards of ditch on the continent +of Europe! But was it still ours? Had the Germans succeeded in +"strafing" us out of it yet? They had shelled all the trenches in the +region of the lost trench and had made three determined and +unsuccessful counter-attacks when, on the fifth day, we returned to +the chateau to ask if it were practicable to visit the new trench. + +"At your own risk!" said the staff officer. If we preferred we could sit on +the veranda where there were easy chairs, on a pleasant summer +day. Very peaceful the sweep of the well-kept grounds and the shade +of the stately trees of that sequestered world of landscape. Who was +at war? Why was anyone at war? Two staff motor-cars awaiting +orders on the drive and a dust-laden dispatch rider with messages, +who went past toward the rear of the house, were the only visual +evidence of war. The staff officer served us with helmets for +protection in case we got into a gas attack. He said that we might +enter our front trenches at a certain point and then work our way as +near the new part as we could; division headquarters, four or five +miles distant, would show us the way. It was then that the twinkle in +the staff officer's eye as it looked straight into yours became manifest. +You can never tell, I have learned, just what a twinkle in a British staff +officer's eye may portend. These fellows who are promoted up from +the trenches to join the "brain-trust" in the chateau, know a great deal +more about what is going on than you can learn by standing in the +road far from the front and listening to the sound of the guns. We +encountered a twinkle in another eye at division headquarters, which +may have been telephoned ahead along with the instructions, "At +their own risk." + +There are British staff officers who would not mind pulling a +correspondent's leg on a summer day; though, perhaps, it was really +the Germans who pulled ours, in this instance. Somebody did remark +at some headquarters, I recall, that "You never know!" which shows +that staff officers do not know everything. The Germans possess half +the knowledge--and they are at great pains not to part with their half. + +We proceeded in our car along country roads, quiet, normal country +roads off the main highway. It has been written again and again, and +it cannot be written too many times, that life is going on as usual in +the rear of the army. Nothing could be more wonderful and yet +nothing more natural. All the men of fighting age were absent. White- +capped grandmothers, too old to join the rest of the family in the +fields, sat in doorways sewing. Everybody was at work and the crops +were growing. You never tire of remarking the fact. It brings you back +from the destructive orgy of war to the simple, constructive things of +life. An industrious people go on cultivating the land and the land +keeps on producing. It is pleasant to think that the crops of Northern +France were good in 1915. That is cheering news from home for the +soldiers of France at the front. + +At an indicated point we left the car to go forward on foot, and the +chauffeur was told to wait for us at another point. If the car went any +farther it might draw shell-fire. Army authorities know how far they +may take cars with reasonable safety as well as a pilot knows the +rocks and shoals at a harbour entrance. + +There was an end of white-capped grandmothers in doorways; an +end of people working in the fields. Rents in the roofless walls of +unoccupied houses stared at the passer-by. We were in a dead land. +One of two soldiers whom we met coming from the opposite direction +pointed at what looked like a small miner's cabin half covered with +earth, screened by a tree, as the next headquarters which we were +seeking in our progress. + +It was not for sightseers to take the time of the general who received +us at the door of his dug-out. German guns had concentrated on a +section of his trenches in a way that indicated that another attack was +coming. One company already had suffered heavy losses. It was an +hour of responsibility for the general, isolated in the midst of silent +fields and houses, waiting for news from a region hidden from his +view by trees and hedges in that flat country. He might not move from +headquarters, for then he would be out of communication with his +command. His men were being pounded by shells and the inexorable +law of organization kept him at the rear. Up in the trench he might +have been one helpless human being in a havoc of shells which had +cut the wires. His place was where he could be in touch with his +subordinates and his superiors. + +True, we wanted to go to the trench that the Germans had lost and +his section was the short cut. Modesty was not the only reason for not +taking it. As we started along a road parallel to the front, the head of a +soldier popped out of the earth and told us that orders were to walk in +the ditch. I judged that he was less concerned with our fate than with +the likelihood of our drawing fire, which he and the others in a +concealed trench would suffer after we had passed on. + +There were three of us, two correspondents, L------ and myself, and +R------, an officer, which is quite enough for an expedition of this kind. +Now we were finding our own way, with the help of the large scale +army map which had every house, every farm, and every group of +trees marked. The farms had been given such names as Joffre, +Kitchener, French, Botha, and others which the Germans would not +like. We cut across fields with the same confidence that, following a +diagram of city streets in a guidebook, a man turns to the left for the +public library and to the right for the museum. + +Our own guns were speaking here and there from their hiding-places; +and overhead an occasional German shrapnel burst. This seemed a +waste of the Kaiser's munitions as there was no one in sight. Yet +there was purpose in the desultory scattering of bullets from on high. +They were policing the district; they were warning the hated British in +reserve not to play cricket in those fields or march along those +deserted roads. + +The more bother in taking cover that the Germans can make the +British, the better they like it; and the British return the compliment in +kind. Anything that harasses your enemy is counted to the good. If +every shell fired had killed a man in this war, there would be no +soldiers left to fight on either side; yet never have shells been so +important in war as now. They can reach the burrowing human +beings in shelters which are bulletproof; they are the omnipresent +threat of death. The firing of shells from batteries securely hidden and +em-placed represents no cost of life to your side; only cost of +material, which ridicules the foolish conclusion that machinery and not +men count. It is because man is still the most precious machine--a +machine that money cannot reproduce--that gun-machinery is so +much in favour, and every commander wants to use shells as freely +as you use city water when you do not pay for it by meter. + +Now another headquarters and another general, also isolated in a +dug-out, holding the reins of his wires over a section of line adjoining +the section we had just left. Before we proceeded we must look over +his shelter from shell-storms. The only time that British generals +become boastful is over their dug-outs. They take all the pride in +them of the man who has bought a plot of land and built himself a +home; and, like him, they keep on making improvements and calling +attention to them. I must say that this was one of the best shelters I +have seen anywhere in the tornado belt; and whatever I am not, I am +certainly an expert in dug-outs. Of course, this general, too, said, "At +your own risk!" He was good enough to send a young officer with us +up to the trenches; then we should not make any mistakes about +direction if we wanted to reach the neighbourhood of the two hundred +yards which we had taken from the Germans. When we thanked him +and said "Good-bye!" he remarked: + +"We never say good-bye up here. It does not sound pleasant. Make it +au revoir." He, too, had a twinkle in his eye. + +By this time, one leg ought to have been so much longer than the +other that one would have walked in a circle if he had not had a +guide. + +That battery which had been near the dug-out kept on with its regular +firing, its shells sweeping overhead. We had not gone far before we +came to a board nailed to a tree, with the caution, "Keep to the right!" +If you went to the left you might be seen by the enemy, though we +were seeing nothing of him, nor of our own trenches yet. Every +square yard of this ground had been tested by actual experience, at +the cost of dead and wounded men, till safe lanes of approach had +been found. + +Next was a clearing station, where the wounded are brought in from +the trenches for transfer to ambulances. A glance at the burden on a +stretcher just arrived automatically framed the word, "Shell-fire!" The +stains over-running on tanned skin beyond the edge of the white +bandage were bright in the sunlight. A khaki blouse torn open, or a +trousers leg or a sleeve cut down the seam, revealing the white of the +first aid and a splash of red, means one man wounded; and by the +ones the thousands come. + +Fifty wounded men on the floor of a clearing station and the individual +is lost in the crowd. When you see the one borne past, if there is +nothing else to distract attention you always ask two questions: Will +he die? Has he been maimed for life? If the answers to both are no, +you feel a sense of triumph, as if you had seen a human play, built +skilfully around a life to arouse your emotions, turn out happily. + +The man has fought in an honourable cause; he has felt the touch of +death's fingers. How happy he is when he knows that he will get well! +In prospect, as his wound heals into the scar which will be the lasting +decoration of his courage, his home and all that it means to him. +What kind of a home has he, this private soldier? In the slums, with a +slattern wife, or in a cottage with a flower garden in front, only a few +minutes' walk from the green fields of the English countryside? But +we set out to tell you about the kind of inferno in which this man got +his splash of red. + +We come to the banks of a canal which has carried the traffic of the +Low Countries for many centuries; the canal where British and +French had fought many a Thermopylae in the last eight months. +Along its banks run rows of fine trees, narrowing in perspective before +the eye. Some have been cut in two by the direct hit of a heavy shell +and others splintered down, bit by bit. Others still standing have been +hit many times. There are cuts as fresh as if the chips had just flown +from the axeman's blow, and there are scars from cuts made last +autumn which nature's sap, rising as it does in the veins of wounded +men, has healed, while from the remaining branches it sent forth +leaves in answer to the call of spring. + +In this section the earth is many-mouthed with caves and cut with +passages running from cave to cave, so that the inhabitants may go +and come hidden from sight. Jawbone and Hairyman and Lowbrow, +of the Stone Age, would be at home there, squatting on their hunkers +and tearing at their raw kill with their long incisors. It does not seem a +place for men who walk erect, wear woven fabrics, enjoy a written +language, and use soap and safety razors. One would not be +surprised to see some figure swing down by a long, hairy arm from a +branch of a tree and leap on all fours into one of the caves, where he +would receive a gibbering welcome to the bosom of his family. + +Not so! Huddled in these holes in the earth are free-born men of an +old civilization, who read the daily papers and eat jam on their bread. +They do not want to be there, but they would not consider themselves +worthy of the inheritance of free-born men if they were not. Only +civilized man is capable of such stoicism as theirs. They have +reverted to the cave-dweller's protection because their civilization is +so highly developed that they can throw a piece of steel weighing +from eighteen to two thousand pounds anywhere from five to twenty +miles with merciless accuracy, and because the flesh of man is even +more tender than in the cave-dweller's time, not to mention that his +brain-case is a larger target. + +An officer calls attention to a shell-proof shelter with the civic pride of +a member of a chamber of commerce pointing out the new Union +Station. + +"Not even a high explosive"--the kind that bursts on impact after +penetration--"could get into that!" he says. "We make them for +generals and colonels and others who have precious heads on their +shoulders." + +With material and labour, the same might have been constructed for +the soldiers, which brings us back to the question of munitions in the +economic balance against a human life. It was the first shelter of this +kind which I had seen. You never go up to the trenches without +seeing something new. The defensive is tireless in its ingenuity in +saving lives and the offensive in taking them. Safeguards and +salvage compete with destruction. And what labour all that excavation +and construction represented--the cumulative labour of months and +day-by-day repairs of the damage done by shells! After a +bombardment, dig out the filled trenches and renew the smashed +dug-outs to be ready for another go! + +The walls of that communication trench were two feet above our +heads. We noticed that all the men were in their dug-outs; none were +walking about in the open. One knew the meaning of this barometer-- +stormy. The German gunners were "strafing" in a very lively way this +afternoon. + +Already we had noticed many shells bursting five or six hundred +yards away, in the direction of the new British trench; but at that +distance they do not count. Then a railroad train seemed to have +jumped the track and started to fly. Fortunately and unfortunately, +sound travels faster than big shells of low velocity; fortunately, +because it gives you time to be undignified in taking cover; +unfortunately, because it gives you a fraction of a second to reflect +whether or not that shell has your name and your number on Dug-out +Street. + +I was certain that it was a big shell, of the kind that will blow a dug-out +to pieces. Anyone who had never heard a shell before would have +"scrooched," as the small boys say, as instinctively as you draw back +when the through express tears past the station. It is the kind of +scream that makes you want to roll yourself into a package about the +size of a pea, while you feel as tall and large as a cathedral, judging +by the sensation that travels down your backbone. + +Once I was being hoisted up a cliff in a basket, when the rope on the +creaking windlass above slipped a few inches. Well, it is like that, or +like taking a false step on the edge of a precipice. Is the clock about +to strike twelve or not? Not this time! The burst was thirty yards away, +along the path we had just traversed, and the sound was like the +burst of a shell and like nothing else in the world, just as the swirling, +boring, growing scream of a shell is like no other scream in the world. +A gigantic hammer-head sweeps through the air and breaks a steel +drum-head. + +If we had come along half a minute later we should have had a better +view, and perhaps now we should have been on a bed in a hospital +worrying how we were going to pay the rent, or in the place where, +hopefully, we shall have no worries at all. Between walls of earth the +report was deadened to our ears in the same way as a revolver +report in an adjoining room; and not much earth had gone down the +backs of our necks from the concussion. + +Looking over the parapet, we saw a cloud of thick, black smoke; and +we heard the outcry of a man who had been hit. That was all. The +shell might have struck nearer without our having seen or heard any +more. Shut in by the gallery walls, one knows as little of what +happens in an adjoining cave as a clam buried in the sand knows of +what is happening to a neighbour clam. A young soldier came half- +stumbling into the nearest dug-out. He was shaking his head and +batting his ears as if he had sand in them. Evidently he was returning +to his home cave from a call on a neighbour which had brought him +close to the burst. + +"That must have been about six or seven-inch," I said to the officer, +trying to be moderate and casual in my estimate, which is the correct +form on such occasions. My actual impression was forty-inch. + +"Nine-inch, h.e.," replied the expert. + +This was gratifying. It was the first time that I had been so near to a +nine-inch-shell explosion. Its "eat 'em-alive" frightfulness was +depressing. But the experience was worth having. You want all the +experiences there are--but only "close." A delightful word that word +close, at the front! + +The Germans were generous that afternoon. Another scream +seemed aimed at my head. L------ disagreed with me; he said that it +was aimed at his. We did not argue the matter to the point of a +personal quarrel, for it might have got both our heads. It burst back of +the trench about as far away as the other shell. After all, a trench is a +pretty narrow ribbon, even on a gunner's large scale map, to hit. It is +wonderful how, firing at such long range, he is able to hit a trench at +all. + +This was all of the nine-inch variety for the time being. We got some +fours and fives as we walked along. Three bursting as near together +as the ticks of a clock made almost no smoke, as they brought some +tree limbs down and tore away a section of a trunk. Then the +thunderstorm moved on to another part of the line. Only, unlike the +thunderstorms of nature, this, which is man-made and controlled as a +fireman controls the nozzle of his hose, may sweep back again and +yet again over its path. All depends upon the decision of a German +artillery officer, just as whether or not a flower-bed shall get another +sprinkle depends upon the will of the gardener. + +We were glad to turn out of the support trench into a communication +trench leading toward the front trench; into another gallery cut deep in +the fields, with scattered shell-pits on either side. Still more soldiers, +leaning against the walls or seated with their legs stretched out +across the bottom of the ditch; more waiting soldiers, only strung out +in a line and as used to the passing of shells as people living along +the elevated railroad line to the passing of trains. They did not look up +at the screams boring the air any more than one who lives under the +trains looks up every time that one passes. Theirs was the passivity +of a queue waiting in line before the entrance to a theatre or a ball- +grounds. + +A senator or a lawyer, used to coolness in debate, or to presiding +over great meetings, or to facing crowds, who happened to visit the +trenches could have got reassurance from the faces of any one of +these private soldiers, who had been trained not to worry about death +till death came. Harrowing every one of these screams, taken by +itself. Instinctively, unnecessarily, you dodged at those which were +low--unnecessarily, because they were from British guns. No danger +from them unless there was a short fuse. To the soldiers, the low +screams brought the delight of having blows struck from their side at +the enemy, whom they themselves could not strike from their reserve +position. + +For we were under the curving sweep of both the British and the +German shells, as they passed in the air on the way to their targets. It +was like standing between two railway tracks with trains going in +opposite directions. You came to differentiate between the +multitudinous screams. "Ours!" you exclaimed, with the same delight +as when you see that your side has the ball. The spirit of battle +contest rose in you. There was an end of philosophy. These soldiers +in the trenches were your partisans. Every British shell was working +for them and for you, giving blow for blow. + +The score of the contest of battle is in men down; in killed and +wounded. For every man down on your side you want two men down +on the enemy's. Sport ceases. It is the fight against a burglar with a +revolver in his hand and a knife between his teeth; and a wounded +man brought along the trench, a visible, intimate proof of a hit by the +enemy, calls for more and harder blows. + +Looking over the parapet of the communication trench you saw fields, +lifeless except for the singing birds in the wheat, who had also the +spirit of battle. The more shells, the more they warble. It was always +so on summer days. Between the screams you hear their full-pitched +chorus, striving to make itself heard in competition with the song of +German invasion and British resistance. Mostly, the birds seemed to +take cover like mankind; but I saw one sweep up from the golden sea +of ripening grain toward the men-brothers with their wings of cloth. + +Was this real, or was it extravaganza? Painted airships and a painted +summer sky? The audacity of those British airmen! Two of them were +spotting the work of British guns by their shell-bursts and watching for +gun-flashes which would reveal concealed German battery-positions, +and whispering results by wireless to their own batteries. + +It is a great game. Seven or eight thousand feet high, directly over the +British planes, is a single Taube cruising for the same purpose. It +looks like a beetle with gossamer wings suspended from a light cloud. +The British aviators are so low that the bull's-eye identification marks +are distinctly visible to the naked eye. They are playing in and out, like +the short stop and second baseman around second, there in the very +arc of the passing shells from both sides fired at other targets. But +scores of other shells are most decidedly meant for them. In the +midst of a lacework of puffs of shrapnel-bursts, which slowly spread in +the still air, from the German anti-aircraft guns, they dip and rise and +turn in skilful dodging. At length, one retires for good; probably his +plane-cloth has become too much like a sieve from shrapnel- +fragments to remain aloft longer. + +Come down, Herr Taube, come down where we can have a shot at +you I Get in the game! You can see better at the altitude of the British +airmen! But Herr Taube always stays high--the Br'er Fox of the air. Of +course, it was not so exciting as the pictures that artists draw, but it +was real. + +Every kind of shell was being fired, low and high velocity, small and +large calibre. One-two-three-four in as quick succession as the roll of +a drum, four German shells burst in line up in the region where we +have made ourselves masters of the German trench. British shells +responded. + +"Ours again!" + +But I had already ducked before I spoke, as you might if a pellet of +steel weighing a couple of hundred pounds, going at the rate of a +thousand yards a second or more, passed within a few yards of your +head--ducked to find myself looking into the face of a soldier who was +smiling. The smile was not scornful, but it was at least amused at the +expense of the sightseer who had dodged one of our own shells. In +addition to the respirators in case of a possible gas attack, supplied +by that staff officer with a twinkle in his eye, we needed a steel rod +fastened to the back of our necks and running down our spinal +columns in order to preserve our dignity. + +We were witnessing what is called the "artillery preparation for an +infantry attack," which was to try to recover that two hundred yards of +trench from the British. Only the Germans did not limit their attention +to the lost trench. It was hottest there around the bend of our line, +from our view-point; for there they must maul the trench into formless +debris and cut the barbed wire in front of it before the charge was +made. + +"They touch up all the trenches in the neighbourhood to keep us +guessing," said the officer, "before they make their final +concentration. So it's pretty thick around this part." + +"Which might include the communication trench?" + +"Certainly. This makes a good line shot. No doubt they will spare us a +few when they think it is our turn. We do the same thing. So it goes." + +From the variety of screams of big shells and little shells and screams +harrowingly close and reassuringly high, which were indicated as +ours, one was warranted in suggesting that the British were doing +considerable artillery preparation themselves. + +"We must give them as good as they send--and better." + +Better seemed correct. + +"Those close ones you hear are doubtless meant for the front +German trench, which accounts for their low trajectory; the others for +their support trenches or any battery-positions that our planes have +located." We could not see where the British shells were striking. We +could judge only of the accuracy of some of the German fire. +Considering the storm being visited on the support trench which we +had just left, we were more than ever glad to be out of it. Artillery is +the war burglar's jemmy; but it has to batter the house into ruins and +blow up the safe and kill most of the family before the burglar can +enter. Clouds of dust rose from the explosions; limbs of trees were +lopped off by tornadoes of steel hail. + +"There! Look at that tree!" + +In front of a portion of the British support trench a few of a line of +stately shade trees were still standing. A German shell, about an +eight-inch, one judged, struck fairly in the trunk of one about the +same height from the ground as the lumberman sinks his axe in the +bark. The shimmer of hot gas spread out from the point of explosion. +Through it as through an aureole one saw that twelve inches of green +wood had been cut in two as neatly as a thistle-stem is severed by a +sharp blow from a walking-stick. The body of the tree was carried +across the splintered stump with crushing impact from the power of +its flight, plus the power of the burst of the explosive charge which +broke the shell-jacket into slashing fragments; and the towering +column of limbs, branches, and foliage laid its length on the ground +with a majestic dignity. Which shows what one shell can do, one of +three which burst not far away at the same time. In time, the shells +would get all the trees; make them into chips and splinters and +toothpicks. + +"I'd rather that it would hit a tree-trunk than my trunk," said L------. + +"But you would not have got it as badly as the tree," said the officer +reassuringly. "The substance would have been too soft for sufficient +impact for a burst. It would have gone right through!" + + + + + + + +XXII +More Best Day + + + +At battalion headquarters in the front trenches the battalion surgeon +had just amputated an arm which had been mauled by a shell. + +"Without any anaesthetic," he explained. "No chance if we sent him +back to the hospital. He would die on the way. Stood it very well. +Already chirking up." + +A family practitioner at home, the doctor, when the war began, had +left his practice to go with his Territorial battalion. He retains the +family practitioner's cheery, assuring manner. He is the kind of man +who makes you feel better immediately he comes into the sick-room; +who has already made you forget yourself when he puts his finger +on your pulse. + +"The same thing that we might have done in the Crimea," he +continued, "only we have antiseptics now. It's wonderful how little you +can work with and how excellent the results. Strong, healthy men, +these, with great recuperative power and discipline and resolution-- +very different patients from those we usually operate on." + +Tea was served inside the battalion commander's dugout. Tea is as +essential every afternoon to the British as ice to the average +American in summer. They do not think of getting on without it if they +can possibly have it, and it is part of the rations. As well take +cigarettes away from those who smoke as tea from the British soldier. + +It was very much like tea outside the trenches, so far as any signs of +perturbation about shells and casualties were concerned. In that the +battalion commander had to answer telegrams, it had the aspect of a +busy man's sandwich at his desk for luncheon. Good news to cheer +the function had just come over the network of wires which connects +up the whole army, from trenches to headquarters--good news in the +midst of the shells. + +German West Africa had fallen. Botha, who was fighting against the +British fifteen years ago, had taken it fighting for the British. A +suggestive thought that. It is British character that brings enemies like +Botha into the fold; the old, good-natured, sportsmanlike live-and-let- +live idea, which has something to do with keeping the United States +intact. A board with the news on it in German was put up over the +British trenches. Naturally, the board was shot full of holes; for it is +clear that the Germans are not yet ready to come into the British +Empire. + +"Hans and Jacob we have named them," said the colonel, referring to +two Germans who were buried back of his dug-out. "It's dull up here +when the Boches are not shelling, so we let our imaginations play. +We hold conversations with Hans and Jacob in our long watches. +Hans is fat and cheerful and trusting. He believes every thing that the +Kaiser tells him and has a cheerful disposition. But Jacob is a +professor and a fearful 'strafer.' It seems a little gruesome, doesn't it, +but not after you have been in the trenches for a while." + +A little gruesome--true! Not in the trenches--true, too! Where all is +satire, no incongruity seems out of place. Life plays in and out with +death; they intermingle; they look each other in the face and say: "I +know you. We dwell together. Let us smile when we may, at what we +may, to hide the character of our comradeship; for to-morrow------" + +Only half an hour before one of the officers had been shot through +the head by a sniper. He was a popular officer. The others had +messed with him and marched with him and known him in the +fullness of affection of comradeship in arms and dangers shared. A +heartbreak for some home in England. No one dwelt on the incident. +What was there to say? The trembling lip, trembling in spite of itself, +was the only outward sign of the depth of feeling that words could not +reflect, at tea in the dug-out. The subject was changed to something +about the living. One must carry on cheerfully; one must be on the +alert; one must play his part serenely, unflinchingly, for the sake of the +nerves around him and for his own sake. Such fortitude becomes +automatic, it would seem. Please, I must not hesitate about having a +slice of cake. They managed cake without any difficulty up there in +the trenches. And who if not men in the trenches was entitled to cake, +I should like to know? "It was here that he was hit," another officer +said, as we moved on in the trench. "He was saying that the +sandbags were a little weak and a bullet might go through and catch +a man who thought himself safely under cover as he walked along. +He had started to fix the sandbags himself when he got it. The bullet +came right through the top of one of the bags in front of him." + +A bullet makes the merciful wound; and a bullet through the head is a +simple way of going. The bad wounds come mostly from shells; but +there is something about seeing anyone hit by a sniper which is more +horrible. It is a cold-blooded kind of killing, more suggestive of +murder, this single shot from a sharpshooter waiting as patiently as a +cat for a mouse, aimed definitely to take the life of a man. + +Again we move on in that narrow cut of earth with its waiting soldiers, +which the world knows so well from reading tours of the trenches. No +one not on watch might show his head on an afternoon like this. The +men were prisoners between those walls of earth; not even +spectators of what the guns were doing; simply moles. They took it all +as a part of the day's work, with that singular, redoubtable +combination of British phlegm and cheerfulness. + +Of course, some of them were eating bread and marmalade and +making tea. Where all the marmalade goes which Mr. Atkins uses for +his personal munition in fighting the Germans puzzles the Army +Service Corps, whose business it is to see that he is never without it. +How could he sit so calmly under shell-fire without marmalade? +Never! He would get fidgety and forget his lesson, I am sure, like the +boy who had the button which he was used to fingering removed +before he went to recite. + +Any minute a shell may come. Mr. Atkins does not think of that. Time +enough to think after it has arrived. Then perhaps the burial party will +be doing your thinking for you; or if not, the doctors and the nurses +who look after you will. + +I noted certain acts of fellowship of comrades who are all in the same +boat and have learned unselfishness. When they got up to let you +pass and you smiled your thanks, you received a much pleasanter +smile in return than you will from many a well-fed gentleman who has +to stand aside to let you enter a restaurant. The manners of the +trenches are good, better than in some places where good manners +are a cult. + +There is no better place to send a spoiled, undisciplined, bumptious +youth than to a British trench. He will learn that there are other men in +the world besides himself and that a shell can kill a rich brute or a +selfish brute as readily as a poor man. Democracy there is in the +trenches; the democracy where all men are in the presence of death +and "hazing" parties need not be organized among the students. + +But there is another and a greater element in the practical psychology +of the trenches. These good-natured men, fighting the bitterest kind +of warfare without the signs of brutality which we associate with the +prize-fighter and the bully in their faces, know why they are fighting. +They consider that their duty is in that trench, and that they could not +have a title to manhood if they were not there. After the war the men +who have been in the trenches will rule England. Their spirit and their +thinking will fashion the new trend of civilization, and the men who +have not fought will bear the worst scars from the war. + +Ridiculous it is that men should be moles, perhaps; but at the same +time there is something sublime in the fellowship of their courage and +purpose, as they "sit and take it," or guard against attacks, without +the passion of battle of the old days of excited charges and quick +results, and watch the toll pass by from hour to hour. Borne by +comrades pick-a-back we saw the wounded carried along that +passage too narrow for a litter. A splash of blood, a white bandage, a +limp form! + +For the second permissible--periscopes are tempting targets--I +looked through one over the top of the parapet. Another film! A big +British lyddite shell went crashing into the German parapet. The dust +from sandbags and dug-outs merged into an immense cloud of ugly, +black smoke. As the cloud rose, one saw the figure of a German dart +out of sight; then nothing was visible but the gap which the explosion +had made. No wise German would show himself. British snipers were +watching for him. At least half a dozen, perhaps a score, of men had +been put out by this single "direct hit" of an h.e. (high explosive). Yes, +the British gunners were shooting well, too. Other periscopic glimpses +proved it. + +Through the periscope we learned also that the two lines of sandbags +of German and British trenches were drawing nearer together. +Another wounded man was brought by. + +"They're bombing up ahead. He has just been hit." As we drew aside +to make room for him to pass, once more the civilian realized his +helplessness and unimportance. One soldier was worth ten Prime +Ministers in that place. We were as conspicuously mal a propos as an +outsider at a bank directors' meeting or in a football scrimmage. The +officer politely reminded us of the necessity of elbow room in the +narrow quarters for the bombers, who were hidden from view by the +zigzag traverses, and I was not sorry, though perhaps my +companions were. If so, they did not say so, not being talkative men. +We were not going to see the two hundred yards of captured trench +that were beyond the bombing action, after all. Oh, the twinkle in that +staff officer's eye! + +"A Boche gas shell!" we were told, as we passed an informal +excavation in the communication trench on our way back. +"Asphyxiating effect. No time to put on respirators when one +explodes. Laid out half a dozen men like fish, gasping for air, but they +will recover." + +"The Boches want us to hurry!" exclaimed L------. + +They were giving the communication trench a turn at "strafing," now, +and shells were urgently dropping behind us. There was no use trying +to respond to one's natural inclination to run away from the pursuing +shower when you had to squeeze past soldiers as you went. + +"But look at what we are going into! This is like beating up grouse to +the guns, and we are the birds! I am wondering if I like it." + +We could tell what had happened in our absence in the support +trench by the litter of branches and leaves and by the excavations +made by shells. It was still happening, too. Another nine-inch, with +your only view of surroundings the wall of earth which you hugged. +Crash--and safe again! + +"Pretty!" L------ said, smiling. He was referring to the cloud of black +smoke from the burst. Pretty is a favourite word of his. I find that men +use habitual exclamations on such occasions. R------, also smiling, +had said, "A black business, this!" a favourite expression with him. + +"Yes--pretty!" R------and I exclaimed together. + +L------took a sliver off his coat and offered it to us as a souvenir. He +did not know that he had said "Pretty!" or R------ that he had said "A +black business!" several times that afternoon; nor did I know that I +had exclaimed, "For the love of Mike!" Psychologists take notice; and +golfers are reminded that their favourite expletives when they foozle +will come perfectly natural to them when the Germans are "strafing." +Then another nine-inch, when we were out of the gallery in front of +the warrens. My companions happened to be near a dug-out. They +did not go in tandem, but abreast. It was a "dead heat." All that I could +see in the way of cover was a wall of sandbags, which looked about +as comforting as tissue paper in such a crisis. + +At least, one faintly realized what it meant to be in the support +trenches, where the men were still huddled in their caves. They never +get a shot at the enemy or a chance to throw a bomb, unless they are +sent forward to assist the front trenches in resisting an attack. It is for +this purpose that they are kept within easy reach of the front +trenches. They are like the prisoner tied to a chair-back, facing a gun. + +"Yes, this was pretty heavy shell-fire," said an officer who ought to +know. "Not so bad as on the trenches which the infantry are to attack +--that is the first degree. You might call this the second." + +It was heavy enough to keep any writer from being bored. The +second degree will do. We will leave the first until another time. + +Later, when we were walking along a paved road, I heard again what +seemed the siren call of a nine-inch. + +Once, in another war, I had been on a paved road when--well, I did +not care to be on this one if a nine-inch hit it and turned fragments of +paving-stones into projectiles. An effort to "run out the bunt"--Caesar's +ghost! It was one of our own shells! Nerves! Shame! Two stretcher- +bearers with a wounded man looked up in surprise, wondering what +kind of a hide-and-seek game we were playing. They made a picture +of imperturbability of the kind that is a cure for nerves under fire. +If the other fellow is not scared it does not do for you to be scared. + +"Did you get any shells in your neighbourhood?" we asked the +chauffeur--also British and imperturbable--whom we found waiting at +a clearing station for wounded. + +"Yes, sir, I saw several, but none hit the car." + +As we came to the first cross-roads in that dead land back of the +trenches which was still being shelled by shrapnel, though not +another car was in sight, and ours had no business there (as we were +told afterwards), that chauffeur, as he slowed up before turning, held +out his hand from habit as he would have done in Piccadilly. + +Two or three days later things were normal along the front again, with +Mr. Atkins still stuffing himself with marmalade in that two hundred +yards of trench. + + + + +XXIII +Winning And Losing + + + +Seeming an immovable black line set as a frontier in peace, that +Western front on your map which you bought early in the war in +anticipation of rearranging the flags in keeping with each day's news +was, in reality, a pulsating, changing line. + +At times you thought of it as an enormous rope under the constant +pressure of soldiers on either side, who now and then, with an "all +together" of a tug-of-war at a given point, straightened or made a +bend, with the result imperceptible except as you measured it by a +tree or a house. Battles as severe as the most important in South +Africa, battles severe enough to have decided famous campaigns in +Europe in former days, when one king rode forth against another, +became landmark incidents of the give and take, the wrangling and +the wrestling of siege operations. + +The sensation of victory or defeat for those engaged was none the +less vivid because victory meant the gain of so little ground and +defeat the loss of so little; perhaps the more vivid in want of the +movement of pursuing or of being pursued in the shock of arms as in +past times, when an army front hardly covered that of one brigade in +the trenches. For winners and losers, returning to their billets in +French villages as other battalions took their places, had time to think +over the action. + +The offensive was mostly with the British through the summer of +1915; any thrust by the Germans was usually to retake a section of +trenches which they had lost. But our attacks did not all succeed, of +course. + +Battalions knew success and failure; and their narratives were mine +to share, just as one would share the good luck or the bad luck of his +neighbours. + +You may have a story of heartbreak or triumph an hour after you +have been chatting with playing children in a village street, as the car +speeds toward the zone where reserves are billeted and the +occasional shell is a warning that peace lies behind you. First, we +alighted near the headquarters of two battalions which have been in +an attack that failed. The colonel of the one to the left of the road was +killed. We went across the fields to the right. Among the surviving +officers resting in their shelter tents, where there is plenty of room +now, is the adjutant, tall, boyish, looking tired, but still with no +outward display of what he has gone through and what it has meant +to him. I have seen him by the hundreds, this buoyant type of English +youth. + +In army language, theirs had not been a "good show." We had heard +the account of it with that matter-of-fact prefix from G.H.Q., where +they took results with the necessarily cold eye of logic. The two +battalions were set to take a trench; that was all. In the midst of +merciless shell-fire they had waited for their own guns to draw all the +teeth out of the trench. When the given moment came they swept +forward. But our artillery had not "connected up" properly. + +The German machine-guns were not out of commission, and for +them it was like working a loom playing bullets back and forth across +the zone of a hundred yards which the British had to traverse. The +British had been told to charge and they charged. Theirs not to +reason why; that was the glory of the thing. Nothing more gallant in +warfare than their persistence, till they found that it was like trying to +swim in a cataract of lead. One officer got within fifty yards of the +German parapet before he fell. At last they realized that it could not +be done--later than they should, but they were a proud regiment, and +though they had been too brave, there was something splendid about +it. + +With a soldier's winning frankness and simplicity they told what had +happened. Even before they charged they knew the machine-guns +were in place; they knew what they had to face. One man spoke of +seeing, as they lay waiting, a German officer standing up in the midst +of the British shell-fire. + +"A stout-hearted fighter I We had to admire him!" said the adjutant. + +It was a chivalrous thought with a deep appeal, considering what he +had been through. Oh, these English! They will not hate; they cannot +be separated from their sense of sportsmanship. + +It was not the first time the guns had not "connected up" for either +side, and German charges on many occasions had met a like fate. +Calm enough, these officers, true to their birthright of phlegm. They +did not make excuses. Success is the criterion of battle. They had +failed. Their unblinking recognition of the fact was a sort of self- +punishment which cut deep into your own sensitiveness. One young +lieutenant could not keep his lip from trembling over that naked, grim +thought. Pride of regiment had been struck a whip-blow, which meant +more to the soldier than any injury to his personal pride. + +But next time! They wanted another try for that trench, these +survivors. No matter about anything else--the battalion must have +another chance. You appreciated this from a few words and more +from the stubborn resolution in the bearing of all. There was no "let- +us-at-'em-again" frightfulness. In order to end this war you must "lick" +one side or the other, and these men were not "licked." You were +sorry that you had gone to see them. It was like lacerating a wound. + +One could only assure them, in his faith in their gallantry, that they +would win next time. And oh, how you wanted them to win! They +deserved to win because they were such manly losers. + +At home in their rough wooden houses in camp we found a battalion +which had won--the same undemonstrative type as the one that had +lost; the same simplicity and kindly hospitality, which gives life at the +front a charm in the midst of its tragedy, from these men of one of the +dependable line regiments. This colonel knew the other colonel, and +he said about the other what his fellow-officers had said: it was not his +fault; he was a good man. If the guns were not "on," what happened +to him was bound to happen to anybody. They had been "on" for the +winning battalion; perfectly "on." They had buried the machine-guns +and the Germans with them. + +When a man goes into the kind of charge that either battalion made +he gives himself up for lost. The psychology is simple. You are going +to keep on until------! + +Well, as Mr. Atkins has remarked in his own terse way, a battle was a +lot of noise all around you and suddenly a big bang in your ear; and +then somebody said, "please open your mouth and take this!" and +you found yourself in a white, quiet place full of cots. + +The winning battalion was amazed how easily the thing was done. +They had "walked in." They were a little surprised to be alive--thanks +to the guns. "Here we are! Here we are again!" as the song at the +front goes. It is all a lottery. Make up your mind to draw the death +number; and if you don't, that is "velvet." Army courage these days is +highly sensitized steel in response to will. + +They had won; there was a credit mark in the regimental record. All +had won; nobody in particular, but the battalion, the lot of them. They +did not boast about it. The thing just happened. They were alive and +enjoying the sheer fact of life, writing letters home, rereading letters +from home, looking at the pictures in illustrated papers, as they +leaned back and smoked their brier-wood pipes and discussed +politics with that freedom and directness of opinion which is an +Englishman's pastime and his birthright. + +The captain who was describing the fight had retired from the army, +gone into business, and returned as a reserve officer. The guns were +to stop firing at a given moment. As the minute-hand lay over the +figure on his wrist-watch he dashed for the broken parapet, still in the +haze of dust from shell-bursts, to find not a German in sight. All were +under cover. He enacted the ridiculous scene with humorous +appreciation of how he came face to face with a German as he +turned a traverse. He was ready with his revolver and the other was +not, and the other was his prisoner. + +There was nothing gruesome about listening to a diffident soldier +explaining how he "bombed them out," and you shared his +amusement over the surprise of a German who stuck up his head +from a dug-out within a foot of the face of a British soldier who was +peeping inside to see if any more Germans were at home. You +rejoiced with this battalion. Victory is sweet. + +When on the way back to quarters you passed some of the new army +men, "the Keetcheenaires," as the French call them, you were +reminded that although the war was old the British army was young. +There was a "Watch our city grow!" atmosphere about it. Little by +little, some great force seemed steadily pushing up from the rear. It +made that business institution at G.H.Q. feel like bankers with an +enormous, increasing surplus. In this the British is like no other army. +One has watched it in the making. + + + + +XXIV +The Maple Leaf Folk + + + +These were "home folks" to the American. You might know all by their +maple-leaf symbol; but even before you saw that, with its bronze +none too prominent against the khaki, you knew those who were not +recent emigrants from England to Canada by their accent and by +certain slang phrases which pay no customs duty at the border. + +When, on a dark February night cruising in a slough of a road, I heard +out of a wall of blackness back of the trenches, "Gee! Get on to the +bus!" which referred to our car, and also, "Cut out the noise!" I was +certain that I might dispense with an interpreter. After I had remarked +that I came from New York, which is only across the street from +Montreal as distances go in our countries, the American batting about +the front at midnight was welcomed with a "glad hand" across that +imaginary line which has and ever shall have no fortresses. + +What a strange place to find Canadians--at the front in Europe! I +could never quite accommodate myself to the wonder of a man from +Winnipeg, and perhaps a "neutral" from Wyoming in his company, +fighting Germans in Flanders. A man used to a downy couch and an +easy chair by the fire and steam-heated rooms, who had ten +thousand a year in Toronto, when you found him in a chill, damp +cellar of a peasant's cottage in range of the enemy's shells was +getting something more than novel, if not more picturesque, than +dog-mushing and prospecting on the Yukon; for we are quite used to +that contrast. + +All I asked of the Canadians was to allow a little of the glory they had +won--they had such a lot--to rub off on their neighbours. If there must +be war, and no Canadian believed in it as an institution, why, to my +mind, the Canadians did a fine thing for civilization's sake. It hurt +sometimes to think that we also could not be in the fight for the good +cause, particularly after the Lusitania was sunk, when my own +feelings had lost all semblance of neutrality. + +The Canadians enlivened life at the front; for they have a little more +zip to them than the thorough-going British. Their climate spells +"hustle," and we are all the product of climate to a large degree, +whether in England, on the Mississippi flatlands, or in Manitoba. +Eager and high-strung the Canadian born, quick to see and to act. +Very restless they were when held up on Salisbury Plain, after they +had come three-four-five-six thousand miles to fight and there was +nothing to fight but mud in an English winter. + +One from the American contingent knew what ailed them; they +wanted action. They may have seemed undisciplined to a drill +sergeant; but the kind of discipline they needed was a sight of the real +thing. They wanted to know, What for? And Lord Kitchener was +kinder to them, though many were beginners, than to his own new +army; he could be, as they were ready with guns and equipment. So +he sent them over to France before it was too late in the spring to get +frozen feet from standing in icy water looking over a parapet at a +German parapet. They liked Flanders mud better than Salisbury Plain +mud, because it meant that there was "something doing." + +It was in their first trenches that I saw them, and they were "on the +job, all right," in face of scattered shell-fire and the sweep of +searchlights and flares. They had become the most ardent of pupils, +for here was that real thing which steadied them and proved their +metal. + +They refashioned their trenches and drained them with the +fastidiousness of good housekeepers who had a frontiersman's +experience for an inheritance. In a week they appeared to be old +hands at the business. + +"Their discipline is different from ours," said a British general, "but it +works out. They are splendid. I ask for no better troops." + +They may have lacked the etiquette of discipline of British regulars, +but they had the natural discipline of self-reliance and of "go to it" +when a crisis came. This trench was only an introduction, a +preparation for a thing which was about as real as ever fell to the lot +of any soldiers. It is not for me to tell here the story of their part in +the second battle of Ypres, when the gas fumes rolled in upon them. +I should like to tell it and also the story of the deeds of many British +regiments, from the time of Mons to Festubert. All Canada knows it in +detail from their own correspondents and their record officer. England +will one day know about her regiments; her stubborn regiments of the +line, her county regiments, who have won the admiration of all the +crack regiments, whether English or Scots. + +"When that gas came along," said one Canadian, who expressed the +Canadian spirit, "we knew the Boches were springing a new one on +us. You know how it is if a man is hit in the face by a cloud of smoke +when he is going into a burning building to get somebody out. He +draws back--and then he goes in. We went in. We charged--well, it +was the way we felt about it. We wanted to get at them and we were +boiling mad over such a dastardly kind of attack." + +Higher authorities than any civilian have testified to how that charge +helped, if it did not save, the situation. And then at Givenchy--straight +work into the enemy's trenches under the guns. Canada is part of the +British Empire and a precious part; but the Canadians, all imperial +politics aside, fought their way into the affection of the British army, if +they did not already possess it. They made the Rocky Mountains +seem more majestic and the Thousand Islands more lovely. + +If there are some people in the United States busy with their own +affairs who look on the Canadians as living up north somewhere +toward the Arctic Circle and not very numerous, that old criterion of +worth which discovers in the glare of battle's publicity merit which +already existed has given to the name Canadian a glory which can be +appreciated only with the perspective of time. The Civil War left us a +martial tradition; they have won theirs. Some day a few of their neutral +neighbours who fought by their side will be joining in their army +reunions and remarking, "Wasn't that mud in Flanders------" etc. + +My thanks to the Canadians for being at the front. They brought me +back to the plains and the North-West, and they showed the +Germans on some occasions what a blizzard is like when expressed +in bullets instead of in snowflakes, by men who know how to shoot. I +had continental pride in them. They had the dry, pungent philosophy +and the indomitable optimism which the air of the plains and the St. +Lawrence valley seems to develop. They were not afraid to be a little +emotional and sentimental. There is room for that sort of thing +between Vancouver and Halifax. They had been in some "tough +scraps" which they saw clear-eyed, as they would see a boxing- +match or a spill from a canoe into a Canadian rapids. + +As for the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, old soldiers of +the South African campaign almost without exception, knowing and +hardened, their veteran experience gave them an earlier opportunity +in the trenches than the first Canadian division. Brigaded with British +regulars, the Princess Pat's were a sort of corps d'elite. Colonel +Francis Farquhar, known as "Fanny," was their colonel, and he knew +his men. After he was killed his spirit remained with them. Asked if +they could stick they said, "Yes, sir!" cheerily, as he would have +wanted them to say it. + +I am going to tell the story of their fight of May 8th, not to single them +out from any other Canadian battalion, or any British battalions, but +because the story came to me and it seemed illuminative of what +other battalions had endured, this one picturesquely because of its +membership and its distance from home. + +Losses in that Ypres salient at St. Eloi the P.P.s had suffered in the +winter, dribbling, day-by-day losses, and heavier ones when they had +made attacks and repulsed attacks. They had been holding down the +lid of hell heretofore, as one said graphically, and on May 8th, to use +his simile again, they held on to the edge of the opening by the skin of +their teeth and looked down into the bowels of hell after the Germans +had blown the lid off with high explosives. + +It was in a big chateau that I heard the story--a story characteristic of +modern warfare at its highest pitch--and felt its thrill when told by the +tongues of its participants. There were twenty bedrooms in that +chateau. If I wished to stay all night I might occupy three or four. As +for the bathroom, paradise to men who have been buried in filthy mud +by high explosives, the Frenchman who planned it had the most +spacious ideas of immersion. A tub, or a shower, or a hose, as you +pleased. Some bathroom, that! + +For nothing in the British army was too good for the Princess Pat's +before May 8th; and since May 8th nothing is quite good enough. Ask +the generals in whose command they have served if you have any +doubts. There is one way to win praise at the front: by fighting. The +P.P.s knew the way. + +"Too bad Gault is not here. He's in England recovering from his +wound. Gault is six feet tall and five feet of him legs. All day in that +trench with a shell-wound in his thigh and arm. God! How he was +suffering! But not a moan, his face twitching and trying to make the +twitch into a smile, and telling us to stick. + +"Buller away, too. He was the second in command. Gault succeeded +him. Buller was hit on May 5th and missed the big show--piece of +shell in the eye." + +"And Charlie Stewart, who was shot through the stomach. How we +miss him! If ever there were a 'live-wire' it's Charlie. Up or down, he's +smiling and ready for the next adventure. Once he made thirty +thousand dollars in the Yukon and spent it on the way to Vancouver. +The first job he could get was washing dishes; but he wasn't washing +them long. Again, he started out in the North-West on an expedition +with four hundred traps, to cut into the fur business of the Hudson +Bay Company. His Indians got sick. He wouldn't desert them, and +before he was through he had a time which beat anything yet opened +up for us by the Germans in Flanders. But you have heard such +stories from the North-West before. Being shot through the stomach +the way he was, all the doctors agreed that Charlie would die. It was +like Charlie to disagree with them. He always had his own point of +view. So he is getting well. Charlie came out to the war with the +packing-case which had been used by his grandfather, who was an +officer in the Crimean War. He said that it would bring him luck." + +The 4th of May was bad enough, a ghastly forerunner for the 8th. On +the 4th the P.P.s, after having been under shell-fire throughout the +second battle of Ypres, the "gas battle," were ordered forward to a +new line to the south-east of Ypres. To the north of Ypres the British +line had been driven back by the concentration of shell-fire and the +rolling, deadly march of the clouds of asphyxiating gas. + +The Germans were still determined to take the town, which they had +showered with four million dollars' worth of shells. It would be big +news: the fall of Ypres as a prelude to the fall of Przemysl and of +Lemberg in their summer campaign of 1915. A wicked salient was +produced in the British line to the south-east by the cave-in to the +north. It seems to be the lot of the P.P.s to get into salients. On the +4th they lost twenty-eight men killed and ninety-eight wounded from a +gruelling all-day shell-fire and stone-walling. That night they got relief +and were out for two days, when they were back in the front trenches +again. The 5th and the 6th were fairly quiet; that is, what the P.P.s or +Mr. Thomas Atkins would call quiet. Average mortals wouldn't. They +would try to appear unconcerned and say they had been under pretty +heavy fire, which means shells all over the place and machine-guns +combing the parapet. Very dull, indeed. Only three men killed and +seventeen wounded. + +On the night of May 7th the P.P.s had a muster of six hundred and +thirty-five men. This was a good deal less than half of the original total +in the battalion, including recruits who had come out to fill the gaps +caused by death, wounds, and sickness. Bear in mind that before this +war a force was supposed to prepare for retreat with a loss of ten per +cent, and get under way to the rear with the loss of fifteen per cent, +and that with the loss of thirty per cent, it was supposed to have +borne all that can be expected of the best trained soldiers. + +The Germans were quiet that night, suggestively quiet. At 4.30 a.m. +the prelude began; by 5.30 the German gunners had fairly warmed to +their work. They were using every kind of shell they had in the locker. +Every signal wire the P.P.s possessed had been cut. The brigade +commander could not know what was happening to them and they +could not know his wishes; except that it may be taken for granted +that the orders of any British brigade commander are always to "stick +it." The shell-fire was as thick at the P.P.s' backs as in front of them; +they were fenced in by it. And they were infantry taking what the guns +gave in order to put them out of business so that the way would be +clear for the German infantry to charge. In theory they ought to have +been buried and mangled beyond the power of resistance by what is +called "the artillery preparation for the infantry in attack." + +Every man of the P.P.s knew what was coming. There was relief in +their hearts when they saw the Germans break from their trenches +and start down the slope of the hill in front. Now they could take it out +of the German infantry in payment for what the German guns were +doing to them. This was their only thought. Being good shots, with the +instinct of the man who is used to shooting at game, the P.P.s "shoot +to kill" and at individual targets. The light green of the German +uniform is more visible on the deep green background of spring grass +and foliage than against the tints of autumn. At two or three or four +hundred yards neither Corporal Christy, the old bear-hunter, lying on +the parapet nor other marksmen of the P.P.s could miss their marks. +They kept on knocking down Germans; they didn't know that men +around them were being hit; they did not know they were being +shelled except when a burst shook their aim or filled their eyes with +dust. In that case they wiped the dust out of their eyes and went on. +The first that many of them realized that the German attack was +broken was when they saw green blots in front of the standing +figures, which were now going in the other direction. Then the thing +was to keep as many of these as possible from returning over the hill. +After that they could dress the wounded and make the dying a little +more comfortable. For there was no taking the wounded to the rear. +They had to remain there in the trench perhaps to be wounded again, +spectators of their comrades' valour without the preoccupation of +action. + +In the official war journal where a battalion keeps its records--that +precious historical document which will be safeguarded in fireproof +vaults one of these days--you may read in cold, official language what +happened in one section of the British line on the 8th of May. Thus: + +"7 a.m. Fire trench on right blown in at several points ... 9 a.m. +Lieutenants Martin and Triggs were hit and came out of left +communicating trench with number of wounded . . . Captain Still and +Lieutenant de Bay hit also . . . 9.30 a.m. All machine-guns were +buried (by high explosive shells) but two were dug out and mounted +again. A shell killed every man in one section . . . 10.30 a.m. +Lieutenant Edwards was killed . . . Lieutenant Crawford, who was +most gallant, was severely wounded . . . Captain Adamson, who had +been handing out ammunition, was hit in the shoulder, but continued +to work with only one arm useful . . . Sergeant-Major Frazer, who was +also handing out ammunition to support trenches, was killed instantly +by a bullet in the head." + +At 10.30 only four officers remained fit for action. All were lieutenants. +The ranking one of these was Niven, in command after Gault was +wounded at 7 a.m. We have all met the Niven type anywhere from +the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Circle, the high-strung, wiry type who +moves about too fast to carry any loose flesh and accumulates none +because he does move about so fast. A little man Niven, rancher and +horseman, with a good education and a knowledge of men. He rather +fits the old saying about licking his weight in wild cats--wild cats being +nearer his size than lions or tigers. + +Eight months before he had not known any more about war than +thousands of other Canadians of his type, except that soldiers carried +rifles over their shoulders and kept step. But he had "Fanny" +Farquhar, of the British army, for his teacher; and he studied the book +of war in the midst of shells and bullets, which means that the lessons +stick in the same way as the lesson the small boy receives when he +touches the red-hot end of a poker to ascertain how it feels. + +Writing in the midst of ruined trenches rocked by the concussion of +shells, every message he sent that day, every report he made by +orderly after the wires were down was written out very explicitly; which +Farquhar had taught him was the army way. The record is there of his +coolness when the lid was blown off of hell. For all you can tell by the +firm chirography, he might have been sending a note to a ranch +foreman. + +When his communications were cut, he was not certain how much +support he had on his flanks. It looked for a time as if he had none. +After the first charge was repulsed, he made contact with the King's +Royal Rifle Corps on his right. He knew from the nature of the first +German charge that the second would be worse than the first. The +Germans had advanced some machine-guns; they would be able to +place their increased artillery fire more accurately. + +Again green figures started down that hill and again they were put +back. Then Niven was able to establish contact with the Shropshire +Light Infantry, another regiment on his left. So he knew that right and +left he was supported, and by seasoned British regulars. This was +very, very comforting, especially when German machine-gun fire was +not only coming from the front but in enfilade, which is most trying to a +soldier's steadiness. In other words, the P.P.s were shooting at +Germans in front, while bullets were whipping crosswise of their +trenches and of the regulars on their flanks, too. Some of the German +infantrymen who had not been hit or had not fallen back had dug +themselves cover and were firing at a closer range. + +The Germans had located the points in the P.P.s' trench occupied by +machine-guns. At least, they could put these hornets' nests out of +business if not all the individual riflemen. So they concentrated high +explosive shells on the guns. This did the trick; it buried them. But a +buried machine-gun may be dug out and fired again. It may be dug +out two or three times and keep on firing as long as it will work and +there is anyone to man it. + +While the machine-guns were being exhumed every man in one +sector of the trench was killed. Then the left half of the right fire +trench had three or four shells, one after another, bang into it. There +was no trench left; only macerated earth and mangled men. Those +emerging alive were told to retreat to the communication trench. +Next, the right end of the left fire trench was blown in. When the +survivors fell back to the communication trench that also was +blown in their face. + +"Oh, but we were having a merry party!" as Lieutenant Vandenberg +put it. + +Niven and his lieutenants were moving here and there to the point of +each new explosion to ascertain the amount of damage and to +decide what was to be done as the result. One soldier described +Niven's eyes as sparks emitted from two holes in his dust-caked face. + +Pappineau tells how a tree outside the trench was cut in two by a +shell and its trunk laid across the breach of the trench caused by +another shell; and lying over the trunk, limp and lifeless where he had +fallen, was a man killed by still another shell. + +"I remember how he looked because I had to step around him and +over the trunk," said Pappineau. + +Unless you did have to step around a dead or a wounded man there +was no time to observe his appearance; for by noon there were as +many dead and wounded in the P.P.s' trench as there were men fit +for action. + +Those unhurt did not have to be steadied by their superiors. Knocked +down by a concussion they sprang up with the promptness of disgust +of one thrown off a horse or tripped by a wire. When told to move +from one part of the trench to another where there was desperate +need, a word was sufficient. They understood what was wanted of +them, these veterans. They went. They seized every lull to drop the +rifle for the spade and repair the breaches. When they were not +shooting they were digging. The officers had only to keep reminding +them not to expose themselves in the breaches. For in the thick of it, +and the thicker the more so, they must try to keep some dirt between +all of their bodies except the head and arm which had to be up in +order to fire. + +At 1.30 p.m. a cheer rose from that trench. It was in greeting of a +platoon of the King's Royal Rifles which had come as a reinforcement. +Oh, but this band of Tommies did look good to the P.P.s! And the +little prize package that the very reliable Mr. Atkins had with him +--the machine-gun! You can always count on Mr. Atkins to remain +"among those present" to the last on such occasions. + +Now Niven got word by messenger to go to the nearest point where +the telephone was working and tell the brigade commander the +complete details of the situation. The brigade commander asked him +if he could stick, and he said, "Yes, sir!" which is what Colonel +"Fanny" Farquhar would have said. This trip was hardly what would +be called peaceful. The orderly whom Niven had with him both going +and coming was hit by high explosive shells. Niven is so small that it +is difficult to hit him. He is about up to Major Gault's shoulder. + +He had been worrying about his supply of rifle-cartridges. There were +not enough to take care of another German infantry charge, which +was surely coming. After repelling two charges, think of failing to repel +the third for want of ammunition! Think of Corporal Christy, the bear- +hunter, with the Germans thick in front of him and no bullets for his +rifle! But appeared again Mr. Thomas Atkins, another platoon of him, +with twenty boxes of cartridges, which was rather a risky burden to +bring through shell-fire. The relief as these were distributed was that +of having something at your throat which threatens to strangle you +removed. + +Making another tour of his trenches a little later in the afternoon, +Niven found that there was a gap of fifty yards between his left and +the right of the adjoining regiment. Fifty yards is the inch on the end of +a man's nose in trench-warfare on such an occasion. He was able to +place eight men in the gap. At least, they could keep a look out and +tell him what was going on. + +It was not cheering news to learn that the regiments on his left had +withdrawn to trenches about three hundred yards to the rear--a long +distance in trench warfare. But the P.P.s had no time to retire. They +could have gone only in the panic of men who think of nothing in their +demoralization except to flee from the danger in front, regardless of +more danger to the rear. They were held where they were under what +cover they had by the renewed blasts of shells, putting the machine- +guns out of action. + +Now the Germans were coming on again in their supreme effort. It +was as a nightmare, in which only the objective of effort is recalled +and all else is a vague struggle of every ounce of strength which one +can exert against smothering odds. No use to ask these men what +they thought. What do you think when you are climbing up a rope +whose strands are breaking over the edge of a precipice? You climb; +that is all. + +The P.P.s shot at Germans. After a night without sleep, after a day +among their dead and wounded, after torrents of shell-fire, after +breathing smoke, dust and gas, these veterans were in a state of +exaltation entirely oblivious of danger, of their surroundings, mindless +of what came next, automatically shooting to kill as they were trained +to do, even as a man pulls with all his might in the crucial test of a tug +of war. Old Corporal Christy, bear-hunter of the North-West, who +could "shoot the eye off an ant," as Niven said, leaned out over the +parapet, or what was left of it, because he could take better aim lying +down and the Germans were so thick that he could not afford any +misses. + +Corporal Dover had to give up firing his machine-gun at last. +Wounded, he had dug it out of the earth after an explosion and set it +up again. The explosion which destroyed the gun finally crushed his +leg and arm. He crawled out of the debris toward the support trench +which had become the fire trench, only to be killed by a bullet. + +The Germans got possession of a section of the P.P.s' trench where, +it is believed, no Canadians were left. But the German effort died +there. It could get no farther. This was as near to Ypres as the +Germans were to go in this direction. When the day's work was done, +there, in sight of the field scattered with German dead, the P.P.s +counted their numbers. Of the six hundred and thirty-five men who +had begun the fight at daybreak, one hundred and fifty men and four +officers, Niven, Pappineau, Clark and Vandenberg, remained fit for +duty. + +Vandenberg is a Hollander, but mostly he is Vandenberg. To him the +call of youth is the call to arms. He knows the roads of Europe and +the roads of Chihuahua. He was at home fighting with Villa at +Zacetecas and at home fighting with the P.P.s in front of Ypres. + +Darkness found all the survivors among the P.P.s in the support and +communication trenches. The fire trench had become an untenable +dust-heap. They crept out only to bring in any wounded unable to +help themselves; and wounded and rescuers were more than once +hit in the process. It was too dangerous to attempt to bury the dead +who were in the fire-trench. Most of them had already been buried by +shells. For them and for the dead in the support trenches interred by +their living comrades, Niven recited such portions as he could recall +of the Church of England service for the dead--recited them with a +tight throat. Then the P.P.s, unbeaten, marched out, leaving the +position to their relief, a battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps. +Corporal Christy, the bear-hunter, had his "luck with him." He had not +even a scratch. + +Such is the story of a hard fight by one battalion in the kind of warfare +waged in Europe these days, a story only partially told; a story to +make a book. All the praise that the P.P.s, millionaire or labourer, +scapegrace or respectable pillar of society, ask is that they are worthy +of fighting side by side with Mr. Thomas Atkins, regular. At best, one +poor, little, finite mind only observes through a rift in the black smoke +and yellow smoke of high explosives and the clouds of dust and +military secrecy something of what has happened many times in a +small section of that long line from Switzerland to the North Sea. + +Leaning against the wall in a corner of the dining-room of the French +chateau were the P.P.s colours. Major Niven took off the wrapper in +order that I might see the flag with the initials of the battalion which +Princess Patricia embroidered with her own hands. There is room, +one repeats, for a little sentiment and a little emotion, too, between +Halifax and Vancouver. + +"Of course we could not take our colours into action," said Niven. +"They would have been torn into tatters or buried in a shell-crater. But +we've always kept them up at battalion headquarters. I believe we are +the only battalion that has. We promised the Princess that we would." + +In her honour, an old custom has been renewed in France: knights +are fighting in the name of a fair lady. + + + + +XXV +Many Pictures + + + +A single incident, an impression photographic in its swiftness, a +chance remark, may be more illuminating than a day's experiences. +One does not need to go to the front for them. Sometimes they come +to the gateway of our chateau. They are pages at random out of a +library of overwhelming information. + +One of the aviation grounds is not far away. Look skyward at almost +any hour of the day and you will see a plane, its propeller a roar or a +hum according to its altitude. Sometimes it is circling in practice; +again, it is off to the front. At break of day the planes appear; in the +gloaming they return to roost. + +If an aviator has leave for two or three days in summer he starts in +the late afternoon, flashing over that streak of Channel in half an +hour, and may be at home for dinner without getting any dust on his +clothes or having to bother with military red tape at steamer +gangways or customs houses. + +The airmen are a type which one associates with certain marked +characteristics. No nervous man is wanted, and it is time for an +aviator to take a rest at the first sign of nerves. They seem rather shy, +men given to observation rather than to talking; accustomed to using +their eyes and hands. It is difficult to realize that some quiet, young +fellow who is pointed out has had so many hairbreadth escapes. +What tales, worthy of Arabian Nights' heroes who are borne away-on +magic carpets, they bring home, relating them as matter-of-factly as if +they had broken a shoelace. + +Up in their seat, a whir of the motor, and they are off on another +adventure. They have all the spirit of corps of the oldest regiments, +and, besides, a spirit peculiar to the newest branch in the service of +war. Anonymity is absolute. Everything is done by the corps for the +corps. Possibly because it is so young, because it started with +chosen men, the British Aviation Corps is unsurpassed; but partly it is +because of the British temperament, with that combination of +coolness and innate love of risk which the British manner sometimes +belies. Something of the old spirit of knighthood characterizes air +service. It is individual work; its numbers are relatively few. + +Some mornings ago I saw several young soldiers with notebooks +going about our village street. They were from the cadet school +where privates, from the trenches, take a course and return with +chocolate drops on their, sleeve-bands as commissioned officers. +This was a course in billeting. For ours is not an army in tents, but +one living in French houses and barns. The pupils were learning how +to carry out this delicate task; for delicate it is. A stranger speaking +another language becomes the guest of the host for whom he is +fighting. Mr. Atkins receives only shelter; he supplies his own meals. +His excess of marmalade one sees yellowing the cheeks of the +children in the family where he is at home. Madame objects only to +his efforts to cook in her kitchen; woman-like, she would rather handle +the pots and pans herself. + +Tommy is thoroughly instructed in his duty as guest and under a +discipline that is merciless so far as conduct toward the population +goes; so the two get on better than French and English military +authorities feared that they might. Time has taught them to +understand each other and to see that difference in race does not +mean absence of human qualities in common, though differently +expressed. Many armies I have seen, but never one better behaved +than the British army in France and Flanders in its respect for +property and the rights of the population. + +And while the fledgling officers are going on with their billeting, we +hear the t-r-r-t of a machine-gun at a machine-gun school about a +mile distant, where picked men also from the trenches receive +instruction in the use of an arm new to them. There are other schools +within sound of the guns teaching the art of war to an expanding army +in the midst of war, with the teachers bringing their experience from +the battle-line. + + + +"Their shops and their houses all have fronts of glass," wrote a Sikh +soldier home, "and even the poor are rich in this bountiful land." + +Sikhs and Ghurkas and Rajputs and Pathans and Gharwalis, the +brown-skinned tribesmen in India, have been on a strange Odyssey, +bringing picturesqueness to the khaki tone of modern war. +Aeroplanes interested them less than a trotting dog in a wheel for +drawing water. They would watch that for hours. + +Still fresh in mind is a scene when the air seemed a moist sponge +and all above the earth was dripping and all under foot a mire. I was +homesick for the flash on the windows of the New York skyscrapers +or the gleam on the Hudson of that bright sunlight in a drier air, that is +the secret of the American's nervous energy. It seemed to me that it +was enough to have to exist in Northern France at that season of the +year, let alone fighting Germans. + +Out of the drizzly, misty rain along a muddy road and turning past us +came the Indian cavalry, which, like the British cavalry, had fought on +foot in the trenches, while their horses led the leisurely life of true +equine gentry. Erect in their saddles, their martial spirit defiant of +weather, their black eyes flashing as they looked toward the +reviewing officers, troop after troop of these sons of the East passed +by, everyone seeming as fit for review as if he had cleaned his +uniform and equipment in his home barracks instead of in French +barns. + +You asked who had trained them; who had fashioned the brown clay +into resolute and loyal obedience which stood the test of a Flanders +winter? What was the force which could win them to cross the seas to +fight for England? Among the brown faces topped with turbans +appeared occasional white faces. These were the men; these the +force. + +The marvel was not that the Indians were able to fight as well as they +did in that climate, but that they fought at all. What welcome summer +brought from their gleaming black eyes! July or August could not be +too hot for them. On a plateau one afternoon I saw them in a +gymkhana. It was a treat for the King of the Belgians, who has had +few holidays, indeed, this last year, and for the French peasants who +came from the neighbourhood. Yelling, wild as they were in tribal days +before the British brought order and peace to India, the horsemen +galloped across the open space, picking up handkerchiefs from the +ground and impaling tent pegs on their lances. The French peasants +clapped their hands and the British Indian officers said, "Good!" when +the performer succeeded, or, "Too bad!" when he failed. + +If you asked the officers for the secret of the Indian Empire they said: +"We try to be fair to the natives!" which means that they are just and +even-tempered. An enormous, loose-jointed machine the British +Empire, which seems sometimes to creak a bit, yet holds together for +that very reason. Imperial weight may have interfered with British +adaptability to the kind of warfare which was the one kind that the +Germans had to train for; but certainly some Englishmen must know +how to rule. + +That church bell across the street from our chateau begins its clangor +at dawn, summoning the French women and children and the old +men to the fields in harvest time. But its peal carrying across the +farmlands is softened by distance and sweet to the tired workers in +the evening. In the morning it tells them that the day is long and they +have much to do before dark. After that thought I never complained +because it robbed me of my sleep. I felt ashamed not to be up and +doing myself, and worked with a better spirit. + +"Will they do it?" + +We asked this question as often in our mess in those August days +as, Will the Russians lose Warsaw? Would the peasants be able to +get in their crops, with all the able-bodied men away? I had inside +information from the village mayor and the blacksmith and the baker +that they would. A financial expert, the baker. Of course, he said, +France would go on fighting till the Germans were beaten, just as the +old men and the women and children said, whether the church bell +were clanging the matins or the angelus. But there was the question +of finances. It took money to fight. The Americans, he knew, had +more money than they knew what to do with--as Europeans +universally think, only, personally, I find that I was overlooked in the +distribution--and if they would lend the Allies some of their spare +billions, Germany was surely beaten. + +A busy man, the blacksmith, and brawny, if he had no spreading +chestnut tree; busy not only shoeing farmhorses, but repairing +American reapers and binders, whose owners profited exceedingly +and saved the day. But not all farmers felt that they could afford the +charge. + +These kept at their small patches with sickles. Gradually the carpets +of gold waving in the breeze became bundles lying on the stubble, +and great, conical harvest stacks rose, while children gathered the +stray stems left on the ground by the reapers till they had immense +bouquets of wheat-heads under their arms, enough to make two or +three loaves of the pain de menage that the baker sold. So the +peasants did it; they won; and this was some compensation for the +loss of Warsaw. + + + +One morning we heard troops marching past, which was not unusual. +But these were French troops in the British zone, en route from +somewhere in France to somewhere else in France. There was not a +person left in any house in that village. Everybody was out, with +affection glowing in their eyes. For these were their own--their soldiers +of France! + + + +When you see a certain big limousine flying a small British flag pass +you know that it belongs to the Commander-in-Chief; and though it +may be occupied only by one of his aides, often you will have a +glimpse of a man with a square chin and a drooping white +moustache, who is the sole one among the hundreds of thousands at +the British front who wears the wreath-circled crossed batons of a +field-marshal. + +It is erroneous to think that Sir John French or any other commander, +though that is the case in time of action, spends all his time in the +private house occupied as headquarters, designated by two wisps of +flags, studying a map and sending and receiving messages, when +the trench-line remains stationary. He goes here and there on +inspections. It is the only way that a modern leader may let his +officers and men know that he is a being of flesh and blood and not a +name signed to reports and orders. A machine-gun company I knew +had a surprise when resting in a field waiting for orders. They +suddenly recognized in a figure coming through an opening in a +hedge the supreme head of the British army in France. No need of a +call to attention. The effect was like an electric shock, which sent +every man to his place and made his backbone a steel rod. Those +crossed batons represented a dizzy altitude to that battery which had +just come out from England. Sir John walked up and down, looking +over men and guns after their nine months' drill at home, and said, +"Very good!" and was away to other inspections where he might not +necessarily say, "Very good!" + +Frequently his inspections are formal. A battalion or a brigade is +drawn up in a field, or they march past. Then he usually makes a +short speech. On one occasion the officers had arranged a platform +for the speech-making. Sir John gave it a glance and that was +enough. It was the last of such platforms erected for him. + +"Inspections! They are second nature to us!" said a new army man. +"We were inspected and inspected at home and we are inspected +and inspected out here. If there is anything wrong with us it is the +general's own fault if it isn't found out. When a general is not +inspecting, some man from the medical corps is disinfecting." + +Battalions of the new army are frequently billeted for two or three +days in our village. The barn up the road I know is capable of housing +twenty men and one officer, for this is chalked on .the door. Before +they turn in for the night the men frequently sing, and the sound of +their voices is pleasant. + +A typical inspection was one that I saw in the main street. The +battalion was drawn up in full marching equipment on the road. Of +those officers with packs on their backs one was only nineteen. This +is the limit of youth to acquire a chocolate drop on the sleeve. The +sergeant-major was an old regular, the knowing back-bone of the +battalion, who had taken the men of clay and taught them their letters +and then how to spell and to add and subtract and divide. One of +those impressive red caps arrived in a car, and the general who wore +it went slowly up and down the line, front and rear, examining rifles +and equipment, while the young officers and the old sergeant were +hoping that Jones or Smith hadn't got some dust in his rifle-barrel at +the last moment. + +Brokers and carpenters, bankers and mechanics, clerks and +labourers, the new army is like the army of France, composed of all +classes. One evening I had a chat with two young fellows in a +battalion quartered in the village, who were seated beside the road. +Both came from Buckinghamshire. One was a schoolmaster and the +other an architect. They were "bunkies," pals, chums. + +"When did you enlist?" I asked. + +"In early September, after the Marne retreat. We thought that it was +our duty, then; but we've been a long time arriving." + +"How do you like it?" + +"We are not yet masters of the language, we find," said the +schoolmaster, "though I had a pretty good book knowledge of it." + +"I'm learning the gestures fast, though," said the architect. + +"The French are glad to see us," said the schoolmaster. "They call us +the Keetcheenaires. I fancy they thought we were a long time coming. +But now we are here, I think they will find that we can keep up our +end." + +They had the fresh complexions which come from healthy, outdoor +work. There was something engaging in their boyishness and their +views. For they had a wider range of interests than that professional +soldier, Mr. Atkins, these citizens who had taken up arms. They knew +what trench-fighting meant by work in practice trenches at home. + +"Of course it will not be quite the same; theory and practice never +are," said the schoolmaster. + +"We ought to be well grounded in the principles," said the architect +thoughtfully, "and they say that in a week or two of actual experience +you will have mastered the details that could not be taught in +England. Then, too, having shells burst around you will be strange at +first. But I think our battalion will give a good account of itself, sir. +All the Bucks men have!" There crept in the pride of regiment, of +locality, which is so characteristically Anglo-Saxon. + +They change life at the front, these new army men. If a carpenter, a +lawyer, a sign-painter, an accountant, is wanted, you have only to +speak to a new army battalion commander and one is forthcoming--a +millionaire, too, for that matter, who gets his shilling a day for serving +his country. Their intelligence permitted the architect and the +schoolmaster to have no illusions about the character of the war they +had to face. The pity was that such a fine force as the new army, +which had not become trench stale, could not have a free space in +which to make a great turning movement, instead of having to go +against that solid battle front from Switzerland to the North Sea. + +We have heard enough--quite enough for most of us?--about the +German Crown Prince. But there is also a prince with the British army +in France. No lieutenant looks younger for his years than this one in +the Grenadier Guards, and he seems of the same type as the others +when you see him marching with his regiment or off for a walk +smoking a brier-wood pipe. There are some officers who would rather +not accompany him on his walks, for he can go fast and far. He +makes regular reports of his observations, and he has opportunities +for learning which other subalterns lack, for he may have both the +staff and the army as personal instructors. Otherwise, his life is that of +any other subaltern; for there is an instrument called the British +Constitution which regulates many things. A little shy, very desirous to +learn, is Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne of Great +Britain and Ireland and the Empire of India. He might be called the +willing prince. + +This was one of the shells that hit--one of the hundred that hit. The +time was summer; the place, the La Bassee region. Probably the +fighting was all the harder here because it is so largely blind. When +you cannot see what an enemy is doing you keep on pumping shells +into the area which he occupies; you take no risks with him. + +The visitor may see about as much of what is going on in the La +Bassee region as an ant can see of the surrounding landscape when +promenading in the grass. The only variation in the flatness of the +land is the overworked ditches which try to drain it. Look upward, and +rows of poplar trees along the level, and a hedge, a grove, a cottage, +or trees and shrubs around it, limit your vision. Thus, if a breeze starts +timidly in a field it is stopped before it goes far. That "hot corner" is +all the hotter for a burning July sun. The army water-carts which run +back to wells of cool water are busy filling empty canteens, while +shrapnel trims the hedges. + +A stretcher was being borne into the doorway of an estaminet which +had escaped destruction by shells, and above the door was chalked +some lettering which indicated that it was a first clearing station for the +wounded. Lying on other stretchers on the floor were some wounded +men. Of the two nearest, one had a bandage around his head and +one a bandage around his arm. They had been stunned, which was +only natural when you have been as close as they had to a shell- +burst--a shell that made a hit. The concussion was bound to have this +effect. + +A third man was the best illustration of shell-destructiveness. Bullets +make only holes. Shells make gouges, fractures, pulp. He, too, had a +bandaged head and had been hit in several places; but the worst +wound was in the leg, where an artery had been cut. He was weak, +with a sort of where-am-I look in his eyes. If the fragment which had +hit his leg had hit his head, or his neck, or his abdomen, he would +have been killed instantly. He was also an illustration of how hard it is +to kill a man even with several shell-fragments, unless some of them +strike in the right place. For he was going to live; the surgeon had +whispered the fact in his ear, that one important fact. He had beaten +the German shell, after all. + +Returning by the same road by which we came a motor-car ran swiftly +by, the only kind of car allowed on that road. We had a glimpse of the +big, painted red cross on an ambulance side, and at the rear, where +the curtains were rolled up for ventilation, of four pairs of soldier boot- +soles at the end of four stretchers, which had been slid into place at +the estaminet by the sturdy, kindly, experienced medical corps men. + +Before we reached the village where our car waited, the ambulance +passed us on the way back to the estaminet. Very soon after the +shell-burst, a telephone bell had rung down the line from the extreme +front calling for an ambulance and stating the number of men hit, so +that everybody would know what to prepare for. At the village, which +was outside the immediate danger zone, was another clearing +station. Here the stretchers were taken into a house--taken without a +jolt by men who were specialists in handling stretchers--for any re- +dressing if necessary, before another ambulance started journey, +with motor-trucks and staff motor-cars giving right of way, to a +spotless, white hospital ship which would take them home to England +the next night. + +It had been an incident of life at the front, and of the organization of +war, causing less flurry than an ambulance call to an accident in a +great city. + + + +XXVI +Finding The Grand Fleet + + + +Good fortune slipped a message across the Channel to the British +front, which became the magic carpet of transition from the life of the +burrowing army in its trenches to the life of battleships; from motors +trailing dust over French roads, to destroyers trailing foam in choppy +seas off English coasts. + +But there was more than one place to go in that wonderful week; +more than ships to see if one would know something of the intricate, +busy world of the Admiralty's work, which makes coastguards a part +of its personnel. The transition is less sudden if we begin with a ride in +an open car along the coast of Scotland. Dusk had fallen on the +purple cloudlands of heather dotted with the white spots of grazing +sheep in the Scottish Highlands under changing skies, with +headlands stretching out into the misty reaches of the North Sea, +forbidding in the chill air after the warmth of France and suggestive of +the uninviting theatre where, in approaching winter, patrols and +trawlers and mine-sweepers carried on their work to within range of +the guns of Heligoland. A people who lived in such a chill land, in +sight of such a chill sea, and who spoke of their "Bonnie Scotland +forever," were worthy to be masters of that sea. The Americans who +think of Britain as a small island forget the distance from Land's End +to John o' Groat's, which represents coast line to be guarded; and we +may find a lesson, too, we who must make our real defence by sea, +in tireless vigils which may be our own if the old Armageddon beast +ever comes threatening the far-longer coast line that we have to +defend. For you may never know what war is till war comes. Not even +the Germans knew, though they had practised with a lifelike dummy +behind the curtains for forty years. + +At intervals, just as in the military zone in France, sentries stopped us +and took the number of our car; but this time sentries who were +guarding a navy's rather than an army's secrets. With darkness we +passed the light of an occasional inn, while cottage lights made a +scattered sprinkling among the dim masses of the hills. A man might +have been puzzled as to where all the kilted Highland soldiers whom +he had seen at the front came from, if he had not known that the +canny Highlanders enlist Lowlanders in kilty regiments. + +The Frenchmen of our party--M. Stephen Pichon, former Foreign +Minister, M. Rene Bazin, of the Academie Francaise, M. Joseph +Reinach, of the Figaro, M. Pierre Mille, of Le Temps, and M. Henri +Ponsot--who had never been in Scotland before, were on the look out +for a civilian Scots in kilts and were grievously disappointed not to find +a single one. + +This night ride convinced me that however many Germans might be +moving about in England under the guise of cockney or of Lancashire +dialects in quest of information, none has any chance in Scotland. He +could never get the burr, I am sure, unless born in Scotland; and if he +were, once he had it the triumph ought to make him a Scotsman at +heart. + +The officer of the Royal Navy who was in the car with me confessed +to less faith in his symbol of authority than in the generations' bred +burr of our chauffeur to carry conviction of our genuineness; so +arguments were left to him and successfully, including two or three +with Scotch cattle, which seemed to be co-operating with the sentries +to block the road. + +After an hour's run inland, as the car rose over a ridge and +descended on a sharp grade, in the distance under the moonlight we +saw the floor of the sea again, melting into opaqueness, with curving +fringes of foam along the irregular shore cut by the indentations of the +firths. Now the sentries were more frequent and more particular. Our +single light gave dim form to the figures of sailors, soldiers, and boy +scouts on patrol. + +"They have done remarkably well, these boys!" said the officer. "Our +fears that, boy like, they would see all kinds of things which didn't +exist were quite needless. The work has taught them a sense of +responsibility which will remain with them after the war, when their +experience will be a precious memory. They realize that it isn't play, +but a serious business, and act accordingly." + +With all the houses and the countryside dark, the rays of our lamp +seemed an invading comet to the men who held up lanterns with red +twinkles of warning. + +"The patrol boats have complained about your lights, sir!" said one +obdurate sentry. + +We looked out into the black wall in the direction of the sea and could +see no sign of a patrol boat. How had it been able to inform this lone +sentry of that flying ray which disclosed the line of a coastal road to +anyone at sea? He would not accept the best argumentative burr that +our chauffeur could produce as sufficient explanation or guarantee. +Most Scottish of Scots in physiognomy and shrewd matter-of- +factness, as revealed in the glare of the lantern, he might have been +on watch in the Highland fastnesses in Prince Charlie's time. + +"Captain R------, of the Royal Navy!" explained the officer, introducing +himself. + +"I'll take your name and address!" said the sentry. + +"The Admiralty. I take the responsibility." + +"As I'll report, sir!" said the sentry, not so convinced but he burred +something further into the chauffeur's ear. + +This seems to have little to do with the navy, but it has much, indeed, +as a part of unfathomable, complicated business of guards within +guards, intelligence battling with intelligence, deceiving raiders by +land or sea, of those responsible for the safety of England and the +mastery of the seas. + +It is from the navy yard that the ships go forth to battle and to the +navy yard they must return for supplies and for the grooming beat of +hammers in the dry dock. Those who work at a navy yard keep the +navy's house; welcome home all the family, from Dreadnoughts to +trawlers, give them cheer and shelter and bind up their wounds. + +The quarter-deck of action for Admiral Lowry, commanding the great +base on the Forth, which was begun before the war and hastened to +completion since, was a substantial brick building. Adjoining his office, +where he worked with engineers' blue prints as well as with sea +charts, he had fitted up a small bedroom where he slept, to be at +hand if an emergency arose. + +Partly we walked, as he showed us over his domain of steam- +shovels, machine shops, cement factories, of building and repairs, of +coaling and docking, and partly we rode on a car that ran over +temporary rails laid for trucks loaded with rocks and dirt. Borrowing +from Peter to pay Paul, a river bottom had been filled in back of the +quays with material that had been excavated to form a vast basin with +cement walls, where squadrons of Dreadnoughts might rest and +await their turn to be warped into the great dry docks which open off it +in chasmlike galleries. + +"The largest contract in all England," said the contractor. "And here is +the man who checks up my work," he added, nodding to the lean, +Scottish naval engineer who was with us. It was clear from his looks +that only material of the best quality and work that was true would be +acceptable to this canny mentor of efficiency, "And the workers? +Have you had any strikes here?" + +"No. We have employed double the usual number of men from the +start of the war," he said. "I'm afraid that the Welsh coal troubles have +been accepted as characteristic. Our men have been reasonable and +patriotic. They have shown the right spirit. If they hadn't, how could +we have accomplished that?" + +We were looking down into the depths of a dry dock blasted out of the +rock, which had been begun and completed within the year. And we +had heard nothing of all this through those twelve months! No writer, +no photographer, chronicled this silent labour! Double lines of guards +surrounded the place day and night. Only tried patriots might enter +this world of a busy army in smudged workmen's clothes, bending to +their tasks with that ordered discipline of industrialism which wears no +uniforms, marches without beat of drums, and toils that the ships +shall want nothing to ensure victory. + + + + +XXVII +On A Destroyer + + + +Now we were on our way to the great thing--to our look behind the +curtain at the hidden hosts of sea-power. Of some eight hundred tons +burden our steed, doing eighteen knots, which was a dog-trot for one +of her speed. + +"A destroyer is like a motor-car," said the commander. "If you rush +her all the time she wears out. We give her the limit only when +necessary." + +On the bridge the zest of travel on a dolphin of steel held the bridle on +eagerness to reach the journey's end. We all like to see things well +done, and here one had his first taste of how well things are done in +the British navy, which did not have to make ready for war after the +war began. With an open eye one went, and the experience of other +navies as a balance for his observation; but one lost one's heart to +the British navy and might as well confess it now. A six months' cruise +with our own battleship fleet was a proper introduction to the +experience. + +After the arduous monotony of the trenches and after the traffic of +London, it was freedom and sport and ecstasy to be there, with the +rush of salt air on the face! Our commander was under thirty years of +age; and that destroyer responded to his will like a stringed +instrument. He seemed a part of her, her nerves welded to his. + +"Specialized in torpedo work," he said, in answer to a question. "That +is the way of the British navy: to learn one thing well before you go on +with another. If in the course of it you learn how to command, larger +responsibilities await you. If not--there's retired pay." + +Behind a shield which sheltered them from the spray on the forward +deck, significantly free of everything but that four-inch gun, its crew +was stationed. The commander had only to lean over and speak +through a tube and give a range, and the music began. For the tube +was bifurcated at the end to an ear-mask over a youngster's head; a +youngster who had real sailor's smiling blue eyes, like the +commander's own. For hours he would sit waiting in the hope that +game would be sighted. No fisherman could be more patient or more +cheerful. + +"Before he came into the navy he was a chauffeur. He likes this," said +the commander. + +"In case of a submarine you do not want to lose any time; is that it?" + +"Yes," he replied. "You never can tell when we might have a chance +to put a shot into Fritz's periscope or ram him--Fritz is our name for +submarines." + +Were all the commanders of destroyers up to his mark? How many +more had the British navy caught young and trained to such +quickness of decision and in the art of imparting it to his men? + +Three hundred revolutions! The destroyer changed speed. Five +hundred! She changed speed again. Out of the mist in the distance +flashed a white ribbon knot that seemed to be tied to a destroyer's +bow and behind it another destroyer, and still others, lean, catlike, but +running as if legless, with greased bodies sliding over the sea. We +snapped out a message to them and they answered like passing +birds on the wing, before they swept out of sight behind a headland +with uncanny ease of speed. Literal swarms of destroyers England +had running to and fro in the North Sea, keen for the chase and too +quick at dodging and too fast to be in any danger of the under-water +dagger thrust of the assassins whom they sought. There cannot be +too many. They are the eyes of the navy; they gather information and +carry a sting in their torpedo tubes. + + + +It was chilly there on the bridge, with the prospect too entrancing not +to remain even if one froze. But here stepped in naval preparedness +with thick, short coats of llama wool. + +"Served out to all the men last winter, when we were in the thick of it +patrolling," the commander explained. "You'll not get cold in that!" + +"And yourself?" was suggested to the commander. + +"Oh, it is not cold enough for that in September! We're hardened to it. +You come from the land and feel the change of air; we are at sea all +the time," he replied, He was without a great-coat; and the ease with +which he held his footing made landlubbers feel their awkwardness. + +A jumpy, uncertain tidal sea was running. Yet our destroyer slipped +over the waves, cut through them, played with them, and let them +seem to play with her, all the while laughing at them in the confident +power of her softly purring vitals. + +"Look out!" which at the front in France was a signal to jump for a +"funk pit." We ducked, as a cloud of spray passed above the heavy +canvas and clattered like hail against the smokestack. "There won't +be any more!" said the commander. He was right. He knew that +passage. One wondered if he did not know every gallon of water in +the North Sea, which he had experienced in all its moods. + +Sheltered by the smokestack down on the main deck, one of our +party, who loved not the sea for its own sake, but endured it as a +passageway to the sight of the Grand Fleet, had found warmth, if not +comfort. Not for him that invitation to come below given by the chief +engineer, who rose out of a round hole with a pleasant "How d'y' do!" +air to get a sniff of the fresh breeze, wizard of the mysterious power of +the turbines which sent the destroyer marching so noiselessly. He +was the one who transferred the commander's orders into that +symphony in mechanism. Turn a lever and you had a dozen more +knots; not with a leap or a jerk, but like a cat's sleek stretching of +muscles. Not by the slightest tremor did you realize the acceleration; +only by watching some stationary object as you flew past. + +Now a sweep of smooth water at the entrance to a harbour, and a +turn--and there it was: the sea-power of England! + + + + +XXVIII +Ships That Have Fought + + + +But was that really it--that spread of greyish blue-green dots set on a +huge greyish blue-green platter? One could not discern where ships +began and water and sky which held them suspended left off. +Invisible fleet it had been called. At first glance it seemed to be +composed of phantoms, baffling, absorbing the tone of its +background. Admiralty secrecy must be the result of a naval dislike of +publicity. + +Still as if they were rooted, these leviathans! How could such a shy, +peaceful-looking array send out broadsides of twelve and thirteen-five +and fifteen-inch shells? What a paradise for a German submarine! +Each ship seemed an inviting target. Only there were many gates +and doors to the paradise, closed to all things that travel on and +under the water without a proper identification. Submarines that had +tried to pick one of the locks were like the fish who found going good +into the trap. A submarine had about the same chance of reaching +that anchorage as a German in the uniform of the Death's Head +Hussars, with a bomb under his arm, of reaching the vaults of the +Bank of England. + +And was this all of the greatest naval force ever gathered under a +single command, these two or three lines of ships? But as the +destroyer drew nearer the question changed. How many more? Was +there no end to greyish blue-green monsters, in order as precise as +the trees of a California orchard, that appeared out of the greyish +blue-green background? First to claim attention was the Queen +Elizabeth, with her eight fifteen-inch guns on a platform which could +travel at nearly the speed of the average railroad train. + +The contrast of sea and land warfare appealed the more vividly to +one fresh from the front in France. What infinite labour for an army to +get one big gun into position! How heralded the snail-like travels of +the big German howitzer! Here was ship after ship, whose guns +seemed innumerable. One found it hard to realize the resisting power +of their armour, painted to look as liquid as the sea, and the stability +of their construction, which was able to bear the strain of firing the +great shells that travelled ten miles to their target. + +Sea-power, indeed! And world-power, too, there in the hollow of a +nation's hand, to throw in whatever direction she pleased. If an +American had a lump in his throat at the thought of what it meant, +what might it not mean to an Englishman? Probably the Englishman +would say, "I think that the fleet is all right, don't you?" + +Land-power, too! On the continent vast armies wrestled for some +square miles of earth. France has, say, three million soldiers; +Germany, five; Austria, four--and England had, perhaps, a hundred +thousand men, perhaps more, on board this fleet which defended the +English land and lands far overseas without firing a shot. A battalion +of infantry is more than sufficient in numbers to man a Dreadnought. +How precious, then, the skill of that crew! Man-power is as +concentrated as gun-power with a navy. Ride three hundred miles in +a motor-car along an army front, with glimpses of units of soldiers, +and you have seen little of a modern army. Here, moving down the +lanes that separated these grey fighters, one could compass the +whole! + +Four gold letters, spelling the word Lion, awakened the imagination to +the actual fact of the Bluecher turning her bottom skyward before she +sank off the Dogger Bank under the fire of the guns of the Lion and +the Tiger astern of her, and the Princess Royal and the New Zealand, +of the latest fashion in battle-cruiser squadrons which are known as +the "cat" squadron. This work brought them into their own; proved +how the British, who built the first Dreadnought, have kept a little +ahead of their rivals in construction. With almost the gun-power of +Dreadnoughts, better than three to two against the best battleships, +with the speed of cruisers and capable of overpowering cruisers, or of +pursuing any battleship, or getting out of range, they can run or strike, +as they please. + +Ascend that gangway, so amazingly clean, as were the decks above +and below and everything about the Lion or the Tiger, and you were +on board one of the few major ships which had been under heavy +fire. Her officers and men knew what modern naval war was like; her +guns knew the difference between the wall of cloth of a towed target +and an enemy's wall of armour. + +In the battle of Tsushima Straits, Russian and Japanese ships had +fought at three and four thousand yards and closed into much shorter +range. Since then, we had had the new method of marksmanship. +Tsushima ceased to be a criterion. The Dogger Bank multiplied the +range by five. A hundred years since England, all the while the most +powerfully armed nation at sea, had been in a naval war of the first +magnitude; and to the Lion and the Tiger had come the test. The +Germans said that they had sunk the Tiger; but the Tiger afloat +purred a contented denial. + +You could not fail to identify among the group of officers on the +quarter-deck Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty, for his victory had +impressed his features on the public's eye. Had his portrait not +appeared in the press, one would have been inclined to say that a +first lieutenant had put on a vice-admiral's coat by mistake. He was +about the age of the first lieutenant of one of our battleships. Even as +it was, one was inclined to exclaim: "There is some mistake! You are +too young!" The Who is Who book says that he is all of forty-four +years old and it must be right, though it disagrees with his +appearance by five years. + +A vice-admiral at forty-four! A man who is a rear-admiral with us at +fifty-five is very precocious. And all the men around him were young. +The British navy did not wait for war to teach again the lesson of +"youth for action!" They saved time by putting youth in charge at +once. + +Their simple uniforms, the directness, alertness, and definiteness of +these officers who had been with a fleet ready for a year to go into +battle on a minute's notice, was in keeping with their surroundings of +decks cleared for action and the absence of anything which did not +suggest that hitting a target was the business of their life. + +"I had heard that you took your admirals from the schoolroom," said +one of the Frenchmen, "but I begin to believe that it is the nursery." + +Night and day they must be on watch. No easy chairs; their shop is +their home. They must have the vitality that endures a strain. One +error in battle by any one of them might wreck the British Empire. + +It is difficult to write about any man-of-war and not be technical; for +everything about her seems technical and mechanical except the fact +that she floats. Her officers and crew are engaged in work which is +legerdemain to the civilian. + +"Was it like what you thought it would be after all your training for a +naval action?" one asked. + +"Yes, quite; pretty much as we reasoned it out," was the reply. +"Indeed, this was the most remarkable thing. It was battle practice-- +with the other fellow shooting at you!" + +The fire-control officers, who were aloft, all agreed about one +unexpected sensation, which had not occurred to any expert +scientifically predicting what action would be like. They are the only +ones who may really "see" the battle in the full sense. + +"When the shells burst against the armour," said one of these +officers, "the fragments were visible as they flew about. We had a +desire, in the midst of preoccupation with our work, to reach out and +catch them. Singular mental phenomenon, wasn't it?" + +At eight or nine thousand yards one knew that the modern battleship +could tear a target to pieces. But eighteen thousand--was accuracy +possible at that distance? + +"Did one in five German shells hit at that range?" I asked. + +"No!" + +Or in ten? No! In twenty? Still no, though less decisively. You got a +conviction, then, that the day of holding your fire until you were close +in enough for a large percentage of hits was past. Accuracy was still +vital and decisive, but generic accuracy. At eighteen thousand yards +all the factors which send a thousand or fifteen hundred or two +thousand pounds of steel that long distance cannot be so gauged +that each one will strike in exactly the same line when ten issue from +the gun-muzzles in a broadside. But if one out of twenty is on at +eighteen thousand yards, it may mean a turret out of action. Again, +four or five might hit, or none. So, no risk of waiting may be taken, in +face of the danger of a chance shot at long range. It was a chance +shot which struck the Lion's feed tank and disabled her and kept the +cat squadron from doing to the other German cruisers what they had +done to the Bluecher. + +"And the noise of it to you aloft, spotting the shots?" I suggested. "It +must have been a lonely place in such a tornado." + +"Yes. Besides the crashing blasts from our own guns we had the +screams of the shells that went over and the cataracts of water from +those short sprinkling the ship with spray. But this was what one +expected. Everything was what one expected, except that desire to +catch the fragments. Naturally, one was too busy to think much of +anything except the enemy's ships--to learn where your shells were +striking." + +"You could tell?" + +"Yes--just as well and better than at target practice; for the target was +larger and solid. It was enthralling, this watching the flight of our +shells toward their target." Where were the scars from the wounds? +One looked for them on both the Lion and the Tiger. An armour patch +on the sloping top of a turret might have escaped attention if it had not +been pointed out. A shell struck there and a fair blow, too. And what +happened inside? Was the turret gear put out of order? + +To one who has lived in a wardroom a score of questions were on the +tongue's end. The turret is the basket which holds the precious eggs. +A turret out of action means two guns out of action; a broken knuckle +for the pugilist. + +Constructors have racked their brains over the subject of turrets in +the old contest between gun-power and protection. Too much gun- +power, too little armour! Too much armour, too little gun-power! +Finally, results depend on how good is your armour, how sound your +machinery which rotates the turret. That shell did not go through +bodily, only a fragment, which killed one man and wounded another. +The turret would still rotate; the other gun kept in action and the one +under the shell-burst was soon back in action. Very satisfactory to the +naval constructors. + +Up and down the all but perpendicular steel ladders with their narrow +steps, and through the winding passages below decks in those cities +of steel, one followed his guide, receiving so much information and so +many impressions that he was confused as to details between the +two veterans, the Lion, which was hit fifteen times, and the Tiger, +which was hit eight. Wherever you went every square inch of space +and every bit of equipment seemed to serve some purpose. + +A beautiful hit, indeed, was that into a small hooded aperture where +an observer looked out from a turret. He was killed and another man +took his place. Fresh armour and no sign of where the shot had +struck. Then below, into a compartment between the side of the ship +and the armoured barbette which protects the delicate machinery for +feeding shells and powder from the magazine deep below the water +to the guns. + +"H----was killed here. Impact of the shell passing through the outer +plates burst it inside; and, of course, the fragments struck harmlessly +against the barbette." + +"Bang in the dug-out!" one exclaimed, from army habit. + +"Precisely! No harm done next door." + +Trench traverses and "funk-pit shelters" for localizing the effects of +shell-bursts are the terrestrial expression of marine construction. No +one shell happened to get many men either on the Lion or the Tiger. +But the effect of the burst was felt in the passages, for the air- +pressure is bound to be pronounced in enclosed spaces which allow +of little room for expansion of the gases. + +Then up more ladders out of the electric light into the daylight, +hugging a wall of armour whose thickness was revealed in the cut +made for the small doorway which you were bidden to enter. Now you +were in one of the brain-centres of the ship, where the action is +directed. Through slits in that massive shelter of the hardest steel one +had a narrow view. Above them on the white wall were silhouetted +diagrams of the different types of German ships, which one found in +all observing stations. They were the most popular form of mural +decoration in the British navy. + +Underneath the slits was a literal panoply of the brass fittings of +speaking-tubes and levers and push-buttons, which would have +puzzled even the "Hello, Central" girl. To look at them revealed +nothing more than the eye saw; nothing more than the face of a +watch reveals of the character of its works. There was no telling how +they ran in duplicate below the water line or under the protection of +armour to the guns and the engines. + +"We got one in here, too. It was a good one!" said the host. + +"Junk, of course," was how he expressed the result. Here, too, a man +stepped forward to take the place of the man who was killed, just as +the first lieutenant takes the place of a captain of infantry who falls. +With the whole telephone apparatus blown off the wall, as it were, +how did he communicate? + +"There!" The host pointed toward an opening at his feet. If that failed +there was still another way. In the final alternative, each turret could +go on firing by itself. So the Germans must have done on the Bluecher +and on the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst in their last ghastly +moments of bloody chaos. + +"If this is carried away and then that is, why, then, we have------" as +one had often heard officers say on board our own ships. But that +was hypothesis. Here was demonstration, which made a glimpse of +the Lion and the Tiger so interesting. The Lion had had a narrow +escape from going down after being hit in the feed tank; but once in +dry dock, all her damaged parts had been renewed. Particularly it +required imagination to realize that this tower had ever been struck; +visually more convincing was a plate elsewhere which had been left +unpainted, showing a spatter of dents from shell-fragments. + +"We thought that we ought to have something to prove that we had +been in battle," said the host. "I think I've shown all the hits. There +were not many." + +Having seen the results of German gun-fire, we were next to see the +methods of British gun-fire; something of the guns and the men who +did things to the Germans. I stooped under the overhang of the turret +armour from the barbette and climbed up through an opening which +allowed no spare room for the generously built, and out of the dim +light appeared the glint of the massive steel breech block and gun, +set in its heavy recoil mountings with roots of steel supports sunk into +the very structure of the ship. It was like other guns of the latest +improved type; but it had been in action, and you kept thinking of this +fact which gave it a sort of majestic prestige. You wished that it might +look a little different from the others, as the right of a veteran. + +As the plugman swung the breech open I had in mind a giant +plugman on the U.S.S. Connecticut whom I used to watch at drills +and target practice. Shall I ever forget the flash in his eye if there +were a fraction of a second's delay in the firing after the breech had +gone home! The way in which he made that enormous block obey his +touch in oily obsequiousness suggested the apotheosis of the whole +business of naval war. I don't know whether the plugman of H.M.S. +Lion or the plugman of the U.S.S. Connecticut was the better. It would +take a superman to improve on either. + +Like the block, it seemed as if the man knew only the movements of +the drill; as if he had been bred and his muscles formed for that. You +could conceive of him as playing diavolo with that breech. He +belonged to the finest part of all the machinery, the human element, +which made the parts of a steel machine play together in a beautiful +harmony. + +The plugman's is the most showy part; others playing equally +important parts are in the cavern below the turret; and most important +of all is that of the man who keeps the gun on the target, whose true +right eye may send twenty-five thousand tons of battleship to +perdition. No one eye of any enlisted man can be as important as the +gun-layer's. His the eye and the nerve trained as finely as the +plugman's muscles. He does nothing else, thinks of nothing else. In +common with painters and poets, gun-layers are born with a gift, and +that gift is trained and trained and trained. It seems simple to keep +right on, but it is not. Try twenty men in the most rudimentary test and +you will find that it is not; then think of the nerve it takes to keep +right on in battle, with your ship shaken by the enemy's hit. + +How long had the plugman been on his job? Six years. And the gun- +layer? Seven. Twelve years is the term of enlistment in the British +navy. Not too fast but thoroughly is the British way. The idea is to +make a plugman or a gun-layer the same kind of expert as a master +artisan in any other walk of life, by long service and selection. + +None of all the men serving these guns from the depths to the turret +saw anything of the battle, except the gun-layer. It was easier for +them than for him to be letter-perfect in the test, as he had to guard +against the exhilaration of having an enemy's ship instead of a cloth +target under his eye. Super-drilled he was to that eventuality; super- +drilled all the others through the years, till each one knew his part as +well as one knows how to turn the key of a drawer in his desk. Used +to the shock of the discharges of their own guns at battle practice, +many of the crew did not even know that their ship was hit, so +preoccupied was each with his own duty and the need of going on +with it until an order or a shell's havoc stopped him. Every mind was +closed except to the thing which had been so established by drill in +his nature that he did it instinctively. + +A few minutes later one was looking down from the upper bridge on +the top of this turret and the black-lined planking of the deck eighty- +five feet below, with the sweep of the firm lines of the sides +converging toward the bow on the background of the water. Suddenly +the ship seemed to have grown large, impressive; her structure had a +rocklike solidity. Her beauty was in her unadorned strength. One was +absorbing the majesty of a city from a cathedral tower after having +been it its thoroughfares and seen the detail of its throbbing industry. + +Beyond the Lion's bow were more ships, and port and starboard and +aft were still more ships. The compass range filled the eye with the +stately precision of the many squadrons and divisions of leviathans. +One could see all the fleet. This seemed to be the scenic climax; but +it was not, as we were to learn later when we should see the fleet go +to sea. Then we were to behold the mountains on the march. + +You glanced back at the deck and around the bridge with a sort of +relief. The infinite was making you dizzy. You wanted to be in touch +with the finite again. But it is the writer, not the practical, hardened +seaman, who is affected in this way. To the seaman, here was a +battle-cruiser with her sister battle-cruisers astern, and there around +her were Dreadnoughts of different types and pre-Dreadnoughts and +cruisers and all manner of other craft which could fight each in its +way, each representing so much speed and so much metal which +could be thrown a certain distance. + +"Homogeneity!" Another favourite word, I remember, from our own +wardrooms. Here it was applied in the large. No experimental ships +there, no freak variations of type, but each successive type as a unit +of action. Homogeneous, yes--remorselessly homogeneous. The +British do not simply build some ships; they build a navy. And of +course the experts are not satisfied with it; if they were, the British +navy would be in a bad way. But a layman was; he was overwhelmed. + +From this bridge of the Lion on the morning of the 24th of January, +1915, Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty saw appear on the horizon a +sight inexpressibly welcome to any commander who has scoured the +seas in the hope that the enemy will come out in the open and give +battle. Once that German battle-cruiser squadron had slipped across +the North Sea and, under cover of the mist which has ever been the +friend of the pirate, bombarded the women and children of +Scarborough and the Hartle-pools with shells meant to be fired at +hardened adult males sheltered behind armour; and then, thanks to +the mist, they had slipped back to Heligoland with cheering news to +the women and children of Germany. This time when they came out +they encountered a British battle-cruiser squadron of superior speed +and power, and they had to fight as they ran for home. + +Now, the place of an admiral is in his conning tower after he has +made his deployments and the firing has begun. He, too, is a part of +the machine; his position defined, no less than the plugman's and the +gun-layer's. Sir David watched the ranging shots which fell short at +first, until finally they were on, and the Germans were beginning to +reply. When his staff warned him that he ought to go below, he put +them off with a preoccupied shake of his head. He could not resist the +temptation to remain where he was, instead of being shut up looking +through the slits of a visor. + +But an admiral is as vulnerable to shell-fragments as a midshipman, +and the staff did its duty, which had been thought out beforehand like +everything else. The argument was on their side; the commander +really had none on his. It was then that Vice-Admiral Beatty sent Sir +David Beatty to the conning tower, much to the personal disgust of +Sir David, who envied the observing officers aloft their free sweep of +vision. + +Youth in Sir David's case meant suppleness of limb as well as youth's +spirit and dash. When the Lion was disabled by the shot in her feed +tank and had to fall out of line, Sir David must transfer his flag. He +signalled for his destroyer, the Attack. When she came alongside he +did not wait for a ladder, but jumped on board her from the deck of +the Lion. An aged vice-admiral with chalky bones might have broken +some of them, or at least received a shock to his presence of mind. + +Before he left the Lion Sir David had been the first to see the +periscope of a German submarine in the distance, which sighted the +wounded ship as inviting prey. Officers of the Lion dwelt more on the +cruise home than on the battle. It was a case of being towed at five +knots an hour by the Indomitable. If ever submarines had a fair +chance to show what they could do it was then against that battleship +at a snail's pace. But it is one thing to torpedo a merchant craft and +another to get a major fighting ship, bristling with torpedo defence +guns and surrounded by destroyers. The Lion reached port without +further injury. + + + + +XXIX +On The "Inflexible" + + + +What Englishman, let alone an American, knows the names of even +all the British Dreadnoughts? With a few exceptions, the units of the +Grand Fleet seem anonymous. The Warspite was quite unknown to +the fame which her sister ship the Queen Elizabeth had won. For +"Lizzie" was back in the fold from the Dardanelles; and so was the +Inflexible, heroine of the battle of the Falkland Islands. Of all the ships +which Sir John Jellicoe had sent away on special missions, the +Inflexible had had the grandest Odyssey. She, too, had been at the +Dardanelles. + +The Queen Elizabeth was disappointing so far as wounds went. She +had been so much in the public eye that one expected to find her +badly battered, and she had suffered little, indeed, for the amount of +sport she had had in tossing her fifteen-inch shells across the Gallipoli +peninsula into the Turkish batteries and the amount of risk she had +run from Turkish mines. Some of these monsters contained only +eleven thousand shrapnel bullets. A strange business for a fifteen- +inch naval gun to be firing shrapnel. A year ago no one could have +imagined that one day the most powerful British ship, built with the +single thought of overwhelming an enemy's Dreadnought, would ever +be trying to force the Dardanelles. + +The trouble was that she could not fire an army corps ashore along +with her shells to take possession of the land after she had put +batteries out of action. She had some grand target practice; she +escaped the mines; she kept out of reach of the German shells, and +returned to report to Sir John with just enough scars to give zest to +the recollection of her extraordinary adventure. All the fleet was +relieved to see her back in her proper place. It is not the business of +super-Dreadnoughts to be steaming around mine-fields, but to be +surrounded by destroyers and light cruisers and submarines +safeguarding her giant guns, which are depressed and elevated as +easily as if they were drum-sticks. One had an abrasion, a tracery of +dents. + +"That was from a Turkish shell," said an officer. "And you are standing +where a shell hit." + +I looked down to see an irregular outline of fresh planking. + +"An accident when we did not happen to be out of their reach. We +had the range of them," he added. + +"The range of them" is a great phrase. Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee +used it in speaking of the battle of the Falkland Islands. "The range of +them" seems a sure prescription for victory. Nothing in all the history +of the war appeals to me as quite so smooth a bit of tactics as the +Falkland affair. It was so smooth that it was velvety; and it is worth +telling again, as I understand it. Sir Frederick is another young +admiral. Otherwise, how could the British navy have entrusted him +with so important a task? He is a different type from Beatty, who in an +army one judges might have been in the cavalry. Along with the +peculiar charm and alertness which we associate with sailors--they +imbibe it from the salt air and from meeting all kinds of weather and +all kinds of men, I think--he has the quality of the scholar, with a +suspicion of merriness in his eye. + +He was Chief of the War Staff at the Admiralty in the early stages of +the war, which means, I take it, that he assisted in planning the +moves on the chessboard. It fell to him to act; to apply the strategy +and tactics which he planned for others at sea while he sat at a desk. +It was his wit against von Spee's, who was not deficient in this +respect. If he had been he might not have steamed into the trap. The +trouble was that von Spee had some wit, but not enough. It would +have been better for him if he had been as guileless as a parson. + +Sir Frederick is so gentle-mannered that one would never suspect +him of a "double bluff," which was what he played on von Spee. After +von Spee's victory over Cradock, Sturdee slipped across to the South +Atlantic, without anyone knowing that he had gone, with a squadron +strong enough to do unto von Spee what von Spee had done unto +Cradock. + +But before you wing your bird you must flush him. The thing was to +find von Spee and force him to give battle; for the South Atlantic is +broad and von Spee, it is supposed, was in an Emden mood and +bent on reaching harbour in German South-West Africa, whence he +could sally out to destroy British shipping on the Cape route. When +he intercepted a British wireless message--Sturdee had left off the +sender's name and location--telling the plodding old Canopus seeking +home or assistance before von Spee overtook her, that she would be +perfectly safe in the harbour at Port William, as guns had been +erected for her protection, von Spee guessed that this was a bluff, +and rightly. But it was only Bluff Number One. He steamed to the +Falklands with a view to finishing off the old Canopus on the way +across to Africa. There he fell foul of Bluff Number Two. Sturdee did +not have to seek him; he came to Sturdee. + +There was no convenient Dogger Bank fog in that latitude to cover +his flight. Sturdee had the speed of von Spee and he had to fight. It +was the one bit of strategy of the war which is like that of the story +books and worked out as strategy always does in proper story books. +Practically the twelve-inch guns of the Inflexible and the Invincible +had only to keep their distance and hang on to the Scharnhorst and +the Gneisenau in order to do the trick. Light-weights or middle- +weights have no business trafficking with heavy-weights in naval +warfare. + +"Von Spee made a brave fight," said Sir Frederick, "but we kept him +at a distance that suited us, without letting him get out of range." + +He had had the fortune to prove an established principle in action. It +was all in the course of duty, which is the way that all the officers and +all the men look at their work. Only a few ships have had a chance to +fight, and these are emblazoned on the public memory. But they did +no better and no worse, probably, than the others would have done. If +the public singles out ships, the navy does not. Whatever is done and +whoever does it, why, it is to the credit of the family, according to the +spirit of service that promotes uniformity of efficiency. Leaders and +ships which have won renown are resolved into the whole in that +harbour where the fleet is the thing; and the good opinion they most +desire is that of their fellows. If they have that they will earn the +public's when the test comes. + +Belonging to the class of the first of battle-cruisers is the Inflexible, +which received a few taps in the Falklands and a blow that was nearly +the death of her in the Dardanelles. Tribute enough for its courage-- +the tribute of a chivalrous enemy--von Spee's squadron receives +from the officers and men of the Inflexible, who saw them go down +into the sea tinged with sunset red with their colours still flying. Then +in the sunset red the British saved as many of those afloat as they +could. + +Those dripping German officers who had seen one of their battered +turrets carried away bodily into the sea by a British twelve-inch shell, +who had endured a fury of concussions and destruction, with steel +missiles cracking steel structures into fragments, came on board the +Inflexible looking for signs of some blows delivered in return for the +crushing blows that had beaten their ships into the sea and saw none +until they were invited into the wardroom, which was in chaos--and +then they smiled. + +At least, they had sent one shell home. The sight was sweet to them, +so sweet that, in respect to the feeling of the vanquished, the victors +held silence with a knightly consideration. But where had the shell +entered? There was no sign of any hole. Then they learned that the +fire of the guns of the starboard turret midships over the wardroom, +which was on the port side, had deposited a great many things on the +floor which did not belong there; and their expression changed. Even +this comfort was taken from them. + +"We had the range of you!" the British explained. The chaplain of the +Inflexible was bound to have an anecdote. I don't know why, except +that a chaplain's is not a fighting part and he may look on. His place +was down behind the armour with the doctor, waiting for wounded. He +stood in his particular steel cave listening to the tremendous blasts of +her guns which shook the Inflexible's frame, and still no wounded +arrived. Then he ran up a ladder to the deck and had a look around +and saw the little points of the German ships with the shells sweeping +toward them and the smoke of explosions which burst on board them. +It was not the British who needed his prayers that day, but the +Germans. Personally, I think the Germans are more in need of +prayers at all times because of the damnable way they act. + +Perhaps the spirit of the Inflexible's story was best given by a +midshipman with the down still on his cheek. Considering how young +the British take their officer-beginners to sea, the admirals are not +young, at least, in point of sea service. He got more out of the action +than his elders; his impressions of the long cruises and the actions +had the vividness of boyhood. Down in one of the caves, doing his +part as the shells were sent up to feed the thundering guns above, +the whispered news of the progress of battle was passed on at +intervals till, finally, the guns were silent. Then he hurried on deck in +the elation of victory, succeeded by the desire to save those whom +they had fought. It had all been so simple; so like drill. You had only to +go on shooting--that was all. + +Yes, he had been lucky. From the Falklands to the Dardanelles, +which was a more picturesque business than the battle. Any minute +off the Straits you did not know but a submarine would have a try at +you or you might bump into a mine. And the Inflexible did bump into +one. She had two thousand tons of water on board. It was fast work +to keep the remainder of the sea from coming in, too, and the same +kind of dramatic experience as the Lion's in reaching port. Yes, he +had been very lucky. It was all a lark to that boy. + +"It never occurs to midshipmen to be afraid of anything," said one of +the officers. "The more danger, the better they like it." + +In the wardroom was a piece of the mine or the torpedo, whichever it +was, that struck the Inflexible; a strange, twisted, annealed bit of +metal. Every ship which had been in action had some souvenir which +the enemy had sent on board in anger and which was preserved with +a collector's enthusiasm. + +The Inflexible seemed as good as ever she was. Such is the way of +naval warfare. Either it is to the bottom of the sea or to dry docks and +repairs. There is nothing half-way. So it is well to take care that you +have "the range of them." + + + + +XXX +On The Fleet Flagship + + + +Thus far we have skirted around the heart of things, which in a fleet is +always the Commander-in-Chief's flagship. Our handy, agile +destroyer ran alongside a battleship with as much nonchalance as +she would go alongside a pier. I should not have been surprised to +see her pirouette over the hills or take to flying. + +There was a time when those majestic and pampered ladies, the +battleships--particularly if there were a sea running as in this harbour +at the time--having in mind the pride of paint, begged all destroyers to +keep off with the superciliousness of grandes dames holding their +skirts aloof from contact with nimble, audacious street gamins, who +dodged in and out of the traffic of muddy streets. But destroyers have +learned better manners, perhaps, and battleships have been +democratized. It is the day of Russian dancers and when aeroplanes +loop the loop, and we have grown used to all kinds of marvels. + +But the sea has refused to be trained. It is the same old sea that it +was in Columbus' time, without any loss of trickiness in bumping +small craft against towering sides. The way that this destroyer slid up +to the flagship without any fuss and the way her bluejackets held her +off from the paint, as she rose on the crests and slipped back into the +trough, did not tell the whole story. A part of it was how, at the right +interval, they assisted the landlubber to step from gunwale to +gangway, making him feel perfectly safe when he would have been +perfectly helpless but for them. + +I had often watched our own bluejackets at the same thing. They did +not grin--not when you were looking at them. Nor did the British. +Bluejackets are noted for their official politeness. I should like to have +heard their remarks--they have a gift for remarks--about those +invaders of their uniformed world in Scottish caps and other kinds of +caps and the different kinds of clothes which tailors make for civilians. +Without any intention of eavesdropping, I did overhear one asking +another whence came these strange birds. + +You knew the flagship by the admirals' barges astern, as you know +the location of an army headquarters by its motor-cars. It seemed in +the centre of the fleet at anchor, if that is a nautical expression. +Where its place would be in action is one of those secrets as +important to the enemy as the location of a general's shell-proof +shelter in Flanders. Perhaps Sir John Jellicoe may be on some other +ship in battle. If there is any one foolish question which you should not +ask it is this. + +As you mounted the gangway of this mighty super-Dreadnought you +were bound to think--at least, an American was--of another flagship in +Portsmouth harbour, Nelson's Victory. Probably an Englishman would +not indulge in such a commonplace. I would like to know how many +Englishmen had ever seen the old Victory. But then, how many +Americans have been to Mount Vernon and Gettysburg? + +It was a hundred years, one repeats, since the British had fought a +first-class naval war. Nelson did his part so well that he did not leave +any fighting to be done by his successors. Maintaining herself as +mistress of the seas by the threat of superior strength--except in the +late 'fifties, when the French innovation of iron ships gave France a +temporary lead on paper--ship after ship, through all the grades of +progress in naval construction, has gone to the scrap heap without +firing a shot in anger. The Victory was one landmark, or seamark, if +you please, and this flagship was another. Between the two were +generations of officers and men, working through the change from +stagecoach to motors and aeroplanes and seaplanes, who had kept +up to a standard of efficiency in view of a test that never came. A year +of war and still the test had not come, for the old reason that England +had superior strength. Her outnumbering guns which had kept the +peace of the seas still kept it. All second nature to the Englishman +this, as the defence of the immense distances of the steppes to the +Russian or the Rocky Mountain wall and the Mississippi's flow to the +man in Kansas. But the American kept thinking about it; and he +wanted the Kansans to think about it, too. When he was about to +meet Sir John Jellicoe he envisaged the tall column in Trafalgar +Square, surmounted by the one-armed figure turned toward the +wireless skein on top of the Admiralty building. + +I first heard of Jellicoe fifteen years ago when he was Chief of Staff to +Sir Edward Seymour, then Commander-in-Chief of the Asiatic +Squadron. Indeed, you were always hearing about Jellicoe in those +days on the China coast. He was the kind of man whom people talk +about after they have met him, which means personality. It was in +China seas, you may remember, that when a few British seamen +were hard pressed in a fight that was not ours the phrase, "Blood is +thicker than water," sprang from the lips of an American commander, +who waited not on international etiquette but went to the assistance of +the British. + +Nor will anyone who was present in the summer of '98 forget how Sir +Edward Chichester stood loyally by Admiral George Dewey, when the +German squadron was empire-fishing in the waters of Manila Bay, +until our Atlantic fleet had won the battle of Santiago and Admiral +Dewey had received reinforcements and, east and west, we were +able to look after the Germans. The British bluejackets said that the +rations of frozen mutton from Australia which we sent alongside were +excellent; but the Germans were in no position to judge, doubtless +through an oversight in the detail of hospitality by one of Admiral +Dewey's staff. Let us be officially correct and say there was no mutton +to spare after the British had been supplied. + +In the gallant effort of the Allied force of sailors to relieve the +legations against some hundreds of thousands of Boxers, Captain +Bowman McCalla and his Americans worked with Admiral Seymour +and his Britons in the most trying and picturesque adventure of its +kind in modern history. McCalla, too, was always talking of Jellicoe, +who was wounded on the expedition; and Sir John's face lighted at +mention of McCalla's name. He recalled how McCalla had painted +on the superstructure of the little Newark that saying of Farragut's, +"The best protection against an enemy's fire is a well-directed fire +of your own"; which has been said in other ways and cannot be +said too often. + +"We called McCalla Mr. Lead," said Sir John; "he had been wounded +so many times and yet was able to hobble along and keep on +fighting. We corresponded regularly until his death." + +Beatty, too, was on that expedition; and he, too, was another +personality one kept hearing about. It seemed odd that two men who +had played a part in work which was a soldier's far from home should +have become so conspicuous in the Great War. If on that day when, +with ammunition exhausted, all members of the expedition had given +up hope of ever returning alive, they had not accidentally come upon +the Shi-kou arsenal, one would not be commanding the Grand Fleet +and the other its battle-cruiser squadron. + +Before the war, I am told, when Admiralty Lords and others who had +the decision to make were discussing who should command in case +of war, opinion ran something like this: "Jellicoe! He has the brains." +"Jellicoe! He has the health to endure the strain, with years enough +and not too many." "Jellicoe! He has the confidence of the service." +The choice literally made itself. When anyone is undertaking the +gravest responsibility which has been an Englishman's for a hundred +years, this kind of a recommendation helps. He had the guns; he had +supreme command; he must deliver victory--such was England's +message to him. + +When I mentioned in a dispatch that all that differentiated him from +the officers around him was the broader band of gold lace on his arm, +an English naval critic wanted to know if I expected to find him in cloth +of gold. No; nor in full dress with all his medals on, as I saw him +appear on the screen at a theatre in London. + +Any general of high command must be surrounded by more pomp +than an admiral in time of action. A headquarters cannot have the +simplicity of the quarter-deck. The force which the general commands +is not in sight; the admiral's is. You saw the commander and you saw +what it was that he commanded. Within the sweep of vision from the +quarter-deck was the terrific power which the man with the broad gold +band on his arm directed. At a signal from him it would move or it +would stand still. That command of Joshua's if given by Sir John one +thought might have been obeyed. + +One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred twelve-inch +guns and larger, which could carry two hundred tons of metal in a +single broadside for a distance of eighteen thousand yards! But do +not forget the little guns, bristling under the big guns like needles from +a cushion, which would keep off the torpedo assassins; or the light +cruisers, or the colliers, or the destroyers, or the 2,300 trawlers and +mine-layers, and what not, all under his direction. He had +submarines, too, double the number of the German. But with all the +German men-of-war in harbour, they had no targets. Where were +they? You did not ask questions which would not be answered. The +whole British fleet was waiting for the Germans to show their heads, +while cruisers were abroad scouting in the North Sea. + +At the outset of the war the German fleet might have had one chance +in ten of getting a turn of fortune in its favour by an unexpected stroke +of strategy. This was the danger against which Jellicoe had to guard. +For in one sense, the Germans had the tactical offensive by sea as +well as by land; theirs the outward thrust from the centre. They could +choose when to come out of their harbour; when to strike. The British +had to keep watch all the time and be ready whenever the enemy +should come. + +Thus, the British Grand Fleet was at sea in the early part of the war, +cruising here and there, begging for battle. Then it was that it learned +how to avoid submarines and mine-fields. Submarines had played a +greater part than expected, because Germany had chosen a guerrilla +naval warfare: to harass, to wound, to wear down. Doubtless she +hoped to reduce the number of British fighting units by attrition. + +Weak England might be in plants for making arms for an army, but +not in ship-building. Here was her true genius. She was a maritime +power; Germany a land power. Her part as an ally of France and +Russia being to command the sea, all demands of the Admiralty for +material must take precedence over demands of the War Office. At +the end of the first year she had increased her fighting power by sea +to a still higher ratio of preponderance over the Germans; in another +year she would increase it further. + +Admiral von Tirpitz wanted nothing so much as to draw the British +fleet under the guns of Heligoland or into a mine-field and submarine +trap. But Sir John Jellicoe refused the bait. When he had completed +his precautions and his organization to meet new conditions, his fleet +need not go into the open. His Dreadnoughts could rest at anchor at +a base, while his scouts kept in touch with all that was passing, and +his auxiliaries and destroyers fought the submarines. Without a British +Dreadnought having fired a shot at a German Dreadnought, nowhere +on the face of the seas might a single vessel show the German flag +except by thrusting it above the water for a few minutes. + +If von Tirpitz sent his fleet out he, too, might find himself in a trap of +mines and submarines. He was losing submarines and England was +building more. His naval force rather than Sir John's was suffering +from attrition. The blockade was complete from Iceland to the North +Sea. While the world knew of the work of the armies, the care that +this task required, the hardships endured, the enormous expenditure +of energy, were all hidden behind that veil of secrecy which obviously +must be more closely drawn over naval than over army operations. + +From the flagship the campaign was directed. One would think that +many offices and many clerks would be required. But the offices and +the clerks were at the Admiralty. Here was the execution. In a room +perhaps four feet by six was the wireless focus which received all +reports and sent all orders, with trim bluejackets at the keys. "Go!" +and "Come!" the messages were saying; they wasted no words. +Officers of the staff did their work in narrow space, yet seemed to +have plenty of room. Red tape is inflammable. There is no more place +for it on board a flagship prepared for action than for unnecessary +woodwork. + +At every turn compression and concentration of power were like the +guns and the decks, cleared for action, significant in directness of +purpose. The system was planetary in its impressive simplicity, the +more striking as nothing that man has ever made is more +complicated or includes more kinds of machinery than a battleship. +One battleship was one unit, one chessman on the naval board. + +Not all famous leaders are likeable, as every world traveller knows. +They all have the magnetism of force, which is quite another thing +from the magnetism of charm. What the public demands is that they +shall win victories, whether personally likeable or not. But if they are +likeable and simple and human and a sailor besides--well, we know +what that means. + +Perhaps Sir John Jellicoe is not a great man. It is not for a civilian +even to presume to judge. We have the word of those who ought to +know, however, that he is. I hope that he is, because I like to think +that great commanders need not necessarily appear formidable. +Nelson refused to be cast for the heavy part, and so did Farragut. It +may be a sailor characteristic. I predict that after this war is over, +whatever honours or titles they may bestow upon him, the English are +going to like Sir John Jellicoe not alone for his service to the nation, +but for himself. + +Admiral Jellicoe is one with Captain Jellicoe, whose cheeriness even +when wounded kept up the spirits of the others on the relief +expedition of Boxer days. "He could do it, too!" one thought, having in +mind Sir David Beatty's leap to the deck of a destroyer. Spare, of +medium height, ruddy, and fifty-seven--so much for the health +qualification which the Admiralty Lords dwelt upon as important. After +he had been at sea for a year he seemed a human machine, much of +the type of the destroyer as a steel machine--a thirty-knot human +machine, capable of three hundred or five hundred revolutions, +engines running smoothly, with no waste energy, slipping over the +waves and cutting through them; a quick man, quick of movement, +quick of comprehension and observation, of speech and of thought, +with a delightful self-possession--for there are many kinds--which is +instantly responsive with decision. + +A telescope under his arm, too, as he received his guests. You liked +that. He keeps watch over the fleet himself when he is on the quarter- +deck. You had a feeling that nothing could happen in all his range of +vision, stretching down the "avenues of Dreadnoughts" to the light- +cruiser squadron, and escape his attention. It hardly seems possible +that he was ever bored. Everything around interests him. Energy he +has, electric energy in this electric age, this man chosen to command +the greatest war product of modern energy. + +Fastened to the superstructure near the ladder to his quarters was a +new broom which South Africa had sent him. He was highly pleased +with the present; only the broom was Tromp's emblem, while Blake's +had been the whip. Possibly the South African Dutchmen, now +fighting on England's side, knew that he already had the whip and +they wanted him to have the Dutch broom, too. + +He had been using both, and many other devices in his campaign +against von Tirpitz's "unter See" boats, as was illustrated by one of +the maps hung in his cabin. Quite different this from maps in a +general's headquarters, with the front trenches and support and +reserve trenches and the gun-positions marked in vari-coloured +pencillings. Instantly a submarine was sighted anywhere, Sir John +had word of it, and a dot went down on the spot where it had been +seen. In places the sea looked like a pepper-box cover. Dots were +plentiful outside the harbour where we were; but well outside, like flies +around sugar which they could not reach. + +Seeing Sir John among his admirals and guests one had a glimpse of +the life of a sort of mysterious, busy brotherhood. I was still searching +for an admiral with white hair. If there were none among these +seniors, then all must be on shore. Spirit, I think, that is the word; the +spirit of youth, of corps, of service, of the sea, of a ready, buoyant +definiteness--yes, spirit was the word to characterize these leaders. +Sir John moved from one to another in his quick way, asking a +question, listening, giving a direction, his face smiling and expressive +with a sort of infectious confidence. + +"He is the man!" said an admiral. I mean, several admirals and +captains said so. They seemed to like to say it. Whenever he +approached one noted an eagerness, a tightening of nerves. Natural +leadership expresses itself in many ways; Sir John gave it a sailor's +attractiveness. But I learned that there was steel under his happy +smile; and they liked him for that, too. Watch out when he is not +smiling, and sometimes when he is smiling, they say. + +For failure is never excused in the fleet, as more than one +commander knows. It is a luxury of consideration which the British +nation cannot afford by sea in time of war. The scene which one +witnessed in the cabin of the Dreadnought flagship could not have +been unlike that of Nelson and his young captains on the Victory, in +the animation of youth governed with one thought under the one rule +that you must make good. + +Splendid as the sight of the power which Sir John directed from his +quarter-deck while the ships lay still in their plotted moorings, it paled +beside that when the anchor chains began to rumble and, column by +column, they took on life slowly and, majestically gaining speed, one +after another turned toward the harbour's entrance. + + + + +XXXI +Simply Hard Work + + + +Besides the simple word spirit, there is the simple word work. Take +the two together, mixing with them the proper quantity of intelligence, +and you have something finer than Dreadnoughts; for it builds +Dreadnoughts, or tunnels mountains, or wins victories. + +In no organization would it be so easy as in the navy to become +slack. If the public sees a naval review it knows that its ships can +steam and keep their formations; if it goes on board it knows that the +ships are clean--at least, the limited part of them which it sees; and it +knows that there are turrets and guns. + +But how does it know that the armour of the turrets is good, or that +the guns will fire accurately? Indeed, all that it sees is the shell. The +rest must be taken on trust. A navy may look all right and be quite +bad. The nation gives a certain amount of money to build ships which +are taken in charge by officers and men who, shut off from public +observation, may do about as they please. The result rests with their +industry and responsibility. If they are true to the character of the +nation by and large that is all the nation may expect; if they are better, +then the nation has reason to be grateful. Englishmen take more +interest in their navy than Americans in theirs. They give it the best +that is in them and they expect the best from it in return. Every +youngster who hopes to be an officer knows that the navy is no place +for idling; every man who enlists knows that he is in for no junket on a +pleasure yacht. The British navy, I judged, had a relatively large +percentage of the brains and application of England. + +"It is not so different from what it was for ten years preceding the +war," said one of the officers. "We did all the work we could stand +then; and whether cruising or lying in harbour, life is almost normal for +us to-day." + +The British fleet was always on a war footing. It must be. Lack +of naval preparedness is more dangerous than lack of land +preparedness. It is fatal. I know of officers who had had only a week's +leave in a year in time of peace; their pay is less than our officers'. +Patriotism kept them up to the mark. + +And another thing: once a sailor, always a sailor, is an old saying; but +it has a new application in modern navies. They become fascinated +with the very drudgery of ship existence. They like their world, which +is their house and their shop. It has the attraction of a world of +priestcraft, with them alone understanding the ritual. Their drill at the +guns becomes the preparation for the great sport of target practice, +which beats any big-game shooting when guns compete with guns, +with battle practice greater sport than target practice. Bringing a ship +into harbour well, holding her to her place in the formation, roaming +over the seas in a destroyer--all means eternal effort at the mastery +of material, with the results positively demonstrated. + +On one of the Dreadnoughts I saw a gun's crew drilling with a dummy +six-inch; weight, one hundred pounds. + +"Isn't that boy pretty young to handle that big shell?" an admiral asked +a junior officer. + +"He doesn't think so," the officer replied. "We haven't anyone who +could handle it better. It would break his heart if we changed his +position." + +Not one of fifty German prisoners whom I had seen filing by over in +France was as sturdy as this youngster. In the ranks of an infantry +company of any army he would have been above the average of +physique; but among the rest of the gun's crew he did appear slight. +Need more be said about the physical standard of the crews of the +fighting ships of the Grand Fleet? + +You had an eye to more than guns and machinery and to more than +the character of the officers. You wanted to get better acquainted with +the personnel of the men behind the guns. They formed patches of +blue on the decks, as one looked around the fleet, against the +background of the dull, painted bulwarks of steel--the human element +whose skill gave the ships life--deep-chested, vigorous men in their +prime, who had the air of men grounded in their work by long +experience. I noted when an order was given that it was obeyed +quickly by one who knew what he had to do because he had done it +thousands of times. + +There are all kinds of bluejackets, as there are all kinds of other men. +Before the war some took more than was good for them when on +shore; some took nothing stronger than tea; some enjoyed the +sailor's privilege of growling; some had to be kept up to the mark +sharply; an occasional one might get rebellious against the merciless +repetition of drills. + +The war imparted eagerness to all, the officers said. Infractions of +discipline ceased. Days pass without anyone of the crew of a +Dreadnought having to be called up as a defaulter, I am told. And +their health? At first thought, one would say that life in the steel caves +of a Dreadnought would mean pasty complexions and flabby +muscles. For a year the crews had been prisoners of that readiness +which must not lose a minute in putting to sea if von Tirpitz should +ever try the desperate gamble of battle. + +After a turn in the trenches the soldiers can at least stretch their legs +in billets. A certain number of a ship's company now and then get a +tramp on shore; not real leave, but a personally conducted outing not +far from the boats which will hurry them back to their stations on +signal. However, all that one needs to keep well is fresh air and +exercise. The blowers carry fresh air to every part of the ship; the +breezes which sweep the deck from the North Sea are fresh enough +in summer and a little too fresh in winter. There is exercise in the +regular drills, supplemented by setting-up exercises. The food is good +and no man drinks or eats what he ought not to, as he may on shore. +So there is the fact and the reason for the fact: the health of the men, +as well as their conduct, had never been so good. + +"Perhaps we are not quite so clean as we were before the war," said +an officer. "We wash decks only twice a week instead of every day. +This means that quarters are not so moist, and the men have more +freedom of movement. We want them to have as much freedom as +possible." + +Waiting, waiting, in such confinement for thirteen months; waiting for +battle! Think of the strain of it! The British temperament is well +fitted to undergo such a test, and particularly well fitted are these +sturdy seamen of mature years. An enemy may imagine them +wearing down their efficiency on the leash. They want a fight; naturally, +they want nothing quite so much. But they have the seaman's +philosophy. Old von Tirpitz may come out and he may not. It is for +him to do the worrying. They sit tight. The men's ardour is not imposed +upon. Care is taken that they should not be worked stale; for the +marksman who puts a dozen shots through the bull's-eye had better +not keep on firing, lest he begin rimming it and get into bad habits. + +Where an army officer has a change when he leaves the trench for +his billet, there is none for the naval officer, who, unlike the army +officer, is Spartan-bred to confinement. The army pays its daily toll of +casualties; it lies cramped in dug-outs, not knowing what minute +extinction may come. The Grand Fleet has its usual comforts; it is +safe from submarines in a quiet harbour. Many naval officers spoke +of this contrast with deep feeling, as if fate were playing favourites, +though I have never heard an army officer mention it. + +The army can give each day fresh proof of its courage in face of the +enemy. Courage! It takes on a new meaning with the Grand Fleet. +The individual element of gallantry merges into gallantry of the whole. +You have the very communism of courage. The thought is to keep a +cool head and do your part as a cog in the vast machine. Courage is +as much taken for granted as the breath of life. Thus, Cradock's men +fought till they went down. It was according to the programme laid out +for each turret and each gun in a turret. + +Smith, of the army, leads a bomb-throwing party from traverse to +traverse; Smith, of the navy, turns one lever at the right second. Army +gunners are improving their practice day by day against the enemy; +all the improving by navy gunners must be done before the battle. No +sieges in trenches; no attacks and counter-attacks: a decision within +a few hours--perhaps within an hour. + +This partially explains the love of the navy for its work; its cheerful +repetition of the drills which seem such a wearisome business to the +civilian. The men know the reason of their drudgery. It is an all- +convincing bull's-eye reason. Ping-ping! One heard the familiar sound +of sub-calibre practice, which seems as out of proportion in a fifteen- +inch gun as a mouse-squeak from an elephant whom you expect to +trumpet. As the result appears in sub-calibre practice, so it is +practically bound to appear in target practice; as it appears in target +practice, so it is bound to appear in battle practice. It was on the +flagship that I saw a device which Sir John referred to as the next +best thing to having the Germans come out. He took as much delight +in it as the gun-layers, who were firing at German Dreadnoughts of +the first line, as large as your thumb, which were in front of a sort of +hooded arrangement with the guns of a British Dreadnought inside-- +the rest I censor myself before the regular censor sees it. + +When we heard a report like that of a small target rifle inside the +arrangement a small red or a small white splash rose from the +metallic platter of a sea. Thus the whole German navy has been +pounded to pieces again and again. It is a great game. The gun- +layers never tire of it and they think they know the reason as well as +anybody why von Tirpitz keeps his Dreadnoughts at home. + +But elsewhere I saw some real firing; for ships must have their regular +target practice, war or no war. If those cruisers steaming across the +range had been sending six or eight-inch shrapnel, we should have +preferred not to be so near that towed square of canvas. Flashes +from turrets indistinguishable at a distance from the neutral-toned +bodies of the vessels and the shells struck, making great splashes +just beyond the target, which was where they ought to go. + +A familiar scene, but with a new meaning when the time is one of war. +So far as my observation is worth anything, it was very good +shooting, indeed. One broadside would have put a destroyer out of +business as easily as a "Jack Johnson" does for a dug-out; and it +would have made a cruiser of the same class as the one firing pretty +groggy--this not from any experience of being on a light cruiser or any +desire to be on one when it receives such a salute. But it seems to be +waiting for the Germans any time that they want it. + +Oh, that towed square of canvas! It is the symbol of the object of all +building of guns, armour, and ships, all the nursing in dry dock, all the +admiral's plans, all the parliamentary appropriations, all the striving on +board ship in man's competition with man, crew with crew, gun with +gun, and ship with ship. One had in mind some vast factory plant +where every unit was efficiently organized; but that comparison would +not do. None will. The Grand Fleet is the Grand Fleet. Ability gets its +reward, as in the competition of civil life. There is no linear promotion +indulgent to mediocrity and inferiority which are satisfied to keep step +and harassing to those whom nature and application meant to lead. +Armchairs and retirement for those whose inclinations run that way; +the captain's bridge for those who are fit to command. Officers' +records are the criterion when superiors come to making promotions. +But does not outside influence play a part? you ask. If professional +conscience is not enough to prevent this, another thing appears to +be: that the British nation lives or dies with its navy. Besides, the +British public has said to all and sundry outsiders: "Hands off the +navy!" All honour to the British public, much criticized and often most +displeased with its servants and itself, for keeping its eye on that +canvas square of cloth! The language on board was the same as on +our ships; the technical phraseology practically the same; we had +inherited British traditions. But a man from Kansas and a man from +Dorset live far apart. If they have a good deal in common they rarely +meet to learn that they have. Our seamen do meet British seamen +and share a fraternity which is more than that of the sea. Close one's +eyes to the difference in uniform, discount the difference in accent, +and one imagined that he might be with our North Atlantic fleet. + +The same sort of shop talk and banter in the wardroom, which trims +and polishes human edges; the same fellowship of a world apart. +Securely ready the British fleet waits. Enough drill and not too much; +occasional visits between ships; books and newspapers and a +lighthearted relaxation of scattered conversation in the mess. One +wardroom had a thirty-five-second record for getting past all the +pitfalls in the popular "Silver Bullet" game, if I remember correctly. + + + + +XXXII +Hunting The Submarine + + + +Seaplanes cut practice circles over the fleet and then flew away on +their errands, to be lost in the sky beyond the harbour entrance. With +their floats, they were like ducks when they came to rest on the water, +sturdy and a little clumsy looking compared to those hawks the army +planes, soaring to higher altitudes. + +The hawk had a broad, level field for its roost; the duck, bobbing with +the waves after it came down, had its wings folded as became a bird +at rest, after its engines stopped, and, a dead thing, was lifted on +board its floating home with a crane, as cargo is swung into the hold. + +On shipboard there must be shipshapeness; and that capacious, +one-time popular Atlantic liner had undergone changes to prepare it +for its mothering part, with platforms in place of the promenades +where people had lounged during the voyage and bombs in place of +deck-quoits and dining-saloons turned into workshops. Of course, +one was shown the different sizes and types of bombs. Aviators +exhibit them with the pride of a collector showing his porcelains. +Every time they seem to me to have grown larger and more +diabolical. Where will aerial progress end? Will the next war be fought +by forces that dive and fly like fishes and birds? + +"I'd like to drop that hundred-pounder on to a Zeppelin!" said one of +the aviators. All the population of London would like to see him do it. +And Fritz, the submarine, does not like to see the shadow of man's +wings above the water. + +Seaplanes and destroyers carry the imagination away from the fleet +to another sphere of activity, which I had not the fortune to see. An +aviator can see Fritz below a smooth surface; for he cannot travel +much deeper than thirty or forty feet. He leaves a characteristic ripple +and tell-tale bubbles of air and streaks of oil. When the planes have +located him they tell the hunters where to go. Sometimes it is known +that a submarine is in a certain region; he is lost sight of and seen +again; a squall may cover his track a second time, and the hunters, +keeping touch with the planes by signals, course here and there on +the look out for another glimpse. Perhaps he escapes altogether. It is +a tireless game of hide and seek, like gunnery at the front. Naval +ingenuity has invented no end of methods, and no end of +experiments have been tried. Strictest kept of naval secrets, these. +Fritz is not to be told what to avoid and what not to avoid. + +Very thin is the skin of a submarine; very fragile and complicated its +machinery. It does not take much of a shock to put it out of order or a +large charge of explosives to dent the skin beyond repair. It being in +the nature of submarines to sink, how does the hunter know when he +has struck a mortal blow? If oil and bubbles come up for some time in +one place, or if they come up with a rush, that is suggestive. Then, it +does not require a nautical mind to realize that by casting about on +the bottom with a grapnel you will learn if an object with the bulk and +size of a submarine is there. The Admiralty accept no guesswork +from the hunters about their exploits; they must bring the brush to +prove the kill. + +With Admiral Crawford I went to see the submarine defences of the +harbour. It reminded one of the days of the drawbridge to a castle, +when a friend rode freely in and an enemy might try to swim the moat +and scale the walls if he pleased. + +"Take care! There is a tide here!" the coxswain was warned, lest the +barge should get into some of the troubles meant for Fritz. "A cunning +fellow, Fritz. We must give him no openings." + +The openings appear long enough to permit British craft, whether +trawlers, or flotillas, or cruiser squadrons, to go and come. Lying as +close together as fish in a basket, I saw at one place a number of +torpedo boats home from a week at sea. + +"Here to-day and gone to-morrow," said an officer. "What a time they +had last winter! You know how cold the North Sea is--no, you cannot, +unless you have been out in a torpedo boat dancing the tango in the +teeth of that bitter wind, with the spray whipping up to the tops of the +smoke-stacks. In the dead of night they would come into this pitch- +dark harbour. How they found their way is past me. It's a trick of those +young fellows, who command." + +Stationary they seemed now as the quay itself; but let a signal speak, +an alarm come, and they would soon be as alive as leaping +porpoises. The sport is to those who scout and hunt. But do not +forget those who watch, those who keep the blockade, from the +Channel to Iceland, and the trawlers that plod over plotted sea- +squares with the regularity of mowing-machines cutting a harvest, on +their way back and forth sweeping up mines. They were fishermen +before the war and are fishermen still. Night and day they keep at it. +They come into the harbours stiff with cold, thaw out, and return to +hardships which would make many a man prefer the trenches. +Tributes to their patient courage, which came from the heart, were +heard on board the battleships. + +"It is when we think of them," said an officer, "that we are most eager +to have the German fleet come out, so that we can do our part." + + + + + + +XXXIII +The Fleet Puts To Sea + + + +There is another test besides that of gun-drills and target practice +which reflects the efficiency of individual ships, and the larger the +number of ships the more important it is. For the business of a fleet is +to go to sea. At anchor, it is in garrison rather than on campaign, an +assembly of floating forts. Navies one has seen which seemed +excellent when in harbour, but when they started to get under way the +result was hardly reassuring. Some erring sister fouled her anchor +chain; another had engine-room trouble; another lagged for some +other reason; there was fidgeting on the bridges. Then one asked, +What if a summons to battle had come? Our own officers were +authority enough that the British had no superiors in any of the tests. +But strange reports dodged in and out of the alleys of pessimism in +the company of German insistence that the Tiger and other ships +which one saw afloat had been sunk. Was the fleet really held +prisoner by fear of submarines? If it could go and come freely when it +chose, the harbour was the place for it while it waited. If not, then, +indeed, the submarine had revolutionized naval warfare. Admiral +Jellicoe might lose some of his battleships before he could get into +action against the Germans. + +"Oh, to hear the hoarse rattle of the anchor chains!" I kept thinking +while I was with the fleet. "Oh, to see all these monsters on the +move!" + +A vain wish it seemed, but it came true. A message from the +Admiralty arrived while we were on the flagship. Admiral Jellicoe +called his Flag Lieutenant and spoke a word to him, which was +passed in a twinkling from flagship to squadron and division and ship. +He made it as simple as ordering his barge alongside, this sending of +the Grand Fleet to sea. + +From the bridge of a destroyer beyond the harbour entrance we saw +it go. I shall not attempt to describe the spectacle, which convinced +me that language is the vehicle for making small things seem great +and great things seem small. If you wish words invite splendid and +magnificent and overwhelming and all the reliable old friends to come +forth in glad apparel from the dictionary. Personally, I was inarticulate +at sight of that sea-march of dull-toned, unadorned power. + +First came the outriders of majesty, the destroyers; then the graceful +light cruisers. How many destroyers has the British navy? I am only +certain that it has not as many as it seems to have, which would +mean thousands. Trying to count them is like trying to count the bees +in the garden. You cannot keep your eye on the individual bees. You +are bound to count some twice, so busy are their manoeuvres. + +"Don't you worry, great ladies!" you imagined the destroyers were +saying to the battleships. "We will clear the road. We will keep watch +against snipers and assassins." + +"And if any knocks are coming, we will take them for you, great +ladies!" said the cruisers. "If one of us went down, the loss would not +be great. Keep your big guns safe to beat other battleships into +scrap." + +For you may be sure that Fritz was on the watch in the open. He +always is, like the highwayman hiding behind a hedge and envying +people who have comfortable beds. Probably from a distance he had +a peep through his periscope at the Grand Fleet before the approach +of the policeman destroyers made him duck beneath the water; and +probably he tried to count the number of ships and identify their +classes in order to take the information home to Kiel. Besides, he +always has his fingers crossed. He hopes that some day he may get +a shot at something more warlike than a merchant steamer or an +auxiliary; only that prospect becomes poorer as life for him grows +harder. Except a miracle happened, the steaming fleet, with its +cordons of destroyers, is as safe from him as from any other kind of +fish. + +The harbour which is the fleet's home is landlocked by low hills. There +is an eclipse of the sun by the smoke from the ships getting under +way; streaming, soaring columns of smoke on the move rise above +the skyline from the funnels of the battleships before they appear +around a bend. Indefinite masses as yet they are, under their night- +black plumes. Each ship seems too immense to respond to any will +except its own. But there is something automatic in the regularity with +which, one after another, they take the bend, as if a stop watch had +been held on twenty thousand tons of steel for a second's variation. +As they approach they become more distinct and, showing less +smoke, there seems less effort. Their motive-power seems inherent, +perpetual. + +There is some sea running outside the entrance, enough to make a +destroyer roll. But the battleships disdain any notice of its existence. It +is no more to them than a ripple of dust to a motor truck. They plough +through it. + +Though you were within twenty yards of them you would feel quite +safe. An express train was in no more danger of jumping the track. +Mast in line with mast, they held the course with a majestic +steadiness. Now the leading ship makes a turn of a few points. At the +same spot, as if it were marked by the grooves of tyres in a road, the +others make it. Any variation of speed between them would have +been instantly noticeable, as one forged ahead or lagged; but the +distance between bows and sterns did not change. A line of one +length would do for each interval so far as one could discern. + +It was difficult to think that they were not attached to some taut, +moving cable under water. How could such apparently unwieldy +monsters, in such a slippery element as the sea, be made to obey +their masters with such fine precision? + +The answer again is sheer hard work! Drills as arduous in the engine- +room as at the guns; machinery kept in tune; traditions in +manoeuvring in all weathers, which is kept up with tireless practice. + +Though all seemed perfection to the lay eye, let it be repeated that +this was not so to the eyes of admirals. It never can be. Perfection is +the thing striven for. Officers dwell on faults; all are critics. Thus you +have the healthiest kind of spirit, which means that there will be no +cessation in the striving. + +"Look at that!" exclaimed an officer on the destroyer. "They ought to +try another painting on her and see if they can't do better." + +Ever changing that northern light. For an instant the sun's rays, +strained by a patch of peculiar cloud, playing on a Dreadnought's +side, made her colour appear molten, exaggerating her size till she +seemed as colossal to the eye as to the thought. + +"But look, now!" said another officer. She was out of the patch and +seemed miles farther away to the vision, a dim shape in the sea- +haze. + +"You can't have it right for every atmospheric mood of the North Sea, +I suppose!" muttered the critic. Still, it hurt his professional pride +that a battleship should show up as such a glaring target even +for a moment. + +The power of the fleet was more patent in movement than at rest; for +the sea-lion was out of his lair on the hunt. Fluttering with flags at a +review at Spithead, the battleships seemed out of their element; +giants trying for a fairy's part. Display is not for them. It ill becomes +them, as does a pink ribbon on a bulldog. + +Irresistibly ploughing their way they presented a picture of resolute +utility--guns and turrets and speed. No spot of bright colour was +visible on board. The crew was at the guns, I took it. Turn the turrets, +give the range, lay the sights on the enemy's ships, and the battle +was on. + +"There is the old Dreadnought," said an officer. The old Dreadnought +--all of ten years of age, the senile old thing! What a mystery she was +when she was building! The mystery accentuated her celebrity--and +almost forgotten now, while the Queen Elizabeth and the Warspite, +and others of their class with their fifteen-inch guns, would be in the +public eye as the latest type till a new type came. A parade of naval +types was passing. One seemed to shade into the other in +harmonious effect. But here was an outsider, whom one noted +instantly as he studied those rugged silhouettes of steel. She had +twelve twelve-inch guns, with turret piled on turret in an exotic +fashion--one of the two Turkish battleships building in England at the +time of the war and taken over by the British. + +One division, two divisions, four ships, eight Dreadnoughts--even a +squadron coming out of a harbour numbs the faculties with a sense +of its might. Sixteen--twenty--twenty-four--it was the unending +numbers of this procession of sea-power which was most impressive. +An hour passed and all were not by. One sat down for a few minutes +behind the wind-screen of the destroyer's bridge, only to look back +and see more Dreadnoughts going by. A spectator had not realized +that there were so many in the harbour. He had a suspicion that +Admiral Jellicoe was a conjuror who could take Dreadnoughts out of +a hat. + +The first was lost in the gathering darkness far out in the North Sea, +and still the cloud of smoke over the anchorage was as thick as ever; +still the black plumes kept appearing around the bend. The King +Edward VII. class with their four twelve-inch guns and other ancients +of the pre-Dreadnought era, which are still powerful antagonists, were +yet to come. One's eyes ached. Those who saw a German corps +march through Brussels said that it seemed irresistible. What if they +had seen the whole German army? Here was the counterpart of the +whole German army in sea-power and in land-power, too. + +The destroyer commander looked at his watch. + +"Time!" he said. "I'll put you on shore." + +He must take his place in the fleet at a given moment. A word to the +engine-room and the next thing we knew we were off at thirty knots +an hour, cutting straight across the bows of a Dreadnought steaming +at twenty knots, towering over us threateningly, with a bone in her +teeth. + +Imagination sped across seas where a man had cruised into +harbours that he knew and across continents that he knew. He was +trying to visualize the whole globe--all of it except the Baltic seas and +a thumb-mark in the centre of Europe. Hong-Kong, Melbourne, +Sydney, Halifax, Cape Town, Bombay--yes, and Rio and Valparaiso, +Shanghai, San Francisco, New York, Boston, these and the lands +back of them, where countless millions dwell, were all safe behind the +barrier of that fleet. + +Then back through the land where Shakespeare wrote to London, +with its glare of recruiting posters and the throbbing of that individual +freedom which is on trial in battle with the Prussian system--and as +one is going to bed the sound of guns in the heart of the city! From +the window one looked upward to see, under a searchlight's play, the +silken sheen of a cigar-shaped sort of aerial phantom which was +dropping bombs on women and children, while never a shot is fired at +those sturdy men behind armour. + +When you have travelled far; when you think of Botha and his Boers +fighting for England; when you have found justice and fair play and +open markets under the British flag; when you compare the +vociferations of von Tirpitz, glorying in the torpedoing of a Lusitania, +with the quiet manner of Sir John Jellicoe, you need only a little spark +of conscience to prefer the way that the British have used their sea- +power to the way that the men who send out Zeppelins to war on +women and children would use that power if they had it. + + + + +XXXIV +British Problems + + + +Throughout the summer of 1915 the world was asking, What about +the new British army? Why was it not attacking at the opportune +moment when Germany was throwing her weight against Russia? A +facile answer is easy; indeed, facile answers are always easy. +Unhappily, they are rarely correct. None that was given in this +instance was, to my mind. They sought to put a finger on one definite +cause; again, on an individual or a set of individuals. + +The reasons were manifold; as old as Waterloo, as fresh as the last +speech in Parliament. They were inherent in the Anglo-Saxon race. +Whoever raised a voice and said, This, or that, or you, are +responsible! should first have looked into his own mind and into the +history of his race and then into a mirror. Least of all should any +American have been puzzled by the delay. + +"Oh, we should have done better than that--we are Americans!" I +hear my countrymen say. Perhaps we should. I hope so; I believe so. +The British public thought that they were going to do better; military +men were surprised that they did as well. + +Along with laws and language we have inherited our military ideas +from England. In many qualities we are different--a distinct type; but in +nothing are we more like the British than in our attitude toward the +soldier and toward war. The character of any army reflects the +character of its people. An army is the fist; but the muscle, the +strength, of the physical organism behind the blow in the long run +belong to the people. What they have prepared for in peace they +receive in war, which decides whether they have been living in the +paradise of a fool or of a wise man. + +As a boy I was brought up to believe, as an inheritance of the +American Revolution, that one American could whip two Englishmen +and five or six of any other nationality, which made the feathers of the +eagle perched on the national escutcheon look glossy. It was a +satisfying sort of faith. Americans had never tried five or six of any +first-class fighting race; but that was not a thought which occurred to +me. As we had won victories over the English and the English had +whipped the French at Waterloo, the conclusion seemed obvious. +English boys, I understand, also had been brought up to believe that +one Englishman could whip five or six men of any other nationality, +but, I take it for granted, only two Americans. This clothed the British +lion with majesty, while the lower ratio of superiority over Americans +returned the compliment in kind from the sons of the lion to the sons +of the eagle. + +After I began to read history for myself and to think as I read, I found +that when British and Americans had met, the generals on either side +were solicitous about having superior forces, and in case of odds of +two to one they made a "strategic retreat." When either side was +beaten, the other always explained that he was overcome by superior +numbers, though perhaps the adversary had not more than ten or +fifteen per cent, advantage. Then I learned that the British had not +whipped five or six times their number on the continent of Europe. +The British Expeditionary Force made as fine an effort to do so at +Mons as was ever attempted in history, but they did not succeed. + +It was a regular army that fought at Mons. The only two first-class +nations which depend upon regulars to do their fighting are the British +and the American. This is the vital point of similarity which is the +practical manifestation of our military ideas. We have been the earth's +spoiled children, thanks to the salt seas between us and other +powerful military nations. Before any other Power could reach the +United States it must overwhelm the British navy, and then it must +overwhelm ours and bring its forces in transports. Sea-power, you +say. That is the facile word, so ready to the lips that we do not realize +the wonder of it any more than of the sun rising and setting. + +When we want soldiers our plan still is to advertise for them. The +ways of our ancestors remain ours. We think that the volunteer must +necessarily make the best soldier because he offers his services; +while the conscript--rather a term of opprobrium to us--must be +lukewarm. It hardly occurs to us that some forms of persuasion may +amount to conscription, or that the volunteer, won by oratorical +appeal to his emotions or by social pressure, may suffer a reaction +after enlistment which will make him lukewarm also, particularly as he +sees others, also young and fit, hanging back. Nor does it occur to us +that there may be virtue in that fervour of national patriotism aroused +by the command that all must serve, which, on the continent in this +war, has meant universal exaltation to sacrifice. The life of Jones +means as much to him as the life of Smith does to him; and when the +whole nation is called to arms there ought to be no favourites in life- +giving. + +For the last hundred years, if we except the American Civil War, ours +have been comparatively little wars. The British regular army has +policed an empire and sent punitive expeditions against rebellious +tribes with paucity of numbers, in a work which the British so well +understand. Our little regular army took care of the Red Indians as +our frontier advanced from the Alleghenies to the Pacific. To put it +bluntly, we have hired someone to do our fighting for us. + +Without ever seriously studying the business of soldiering, the +average Anglo-Saxon thought of himself as a potential soldier, taking +his sense of martial superiority largely from the work of the long- +service, severely drilled regular. Also, we used our fists rather than +daggers or duelling swords in personal encounters and, man to man, +unequipped with fire-arms or blades, the quality which is responsible +for our sturdy pioneering individualism gave us confidence in our +physical prowess. + +Alas! modern wars are not fought with fists. A knock-kneed man who +knows how to use a machine-gun and has one to use--which is also +quite important--could mow down all the leading heavy-weights of the +United States and England, with the latest champion leading the +charge. + +Now, this regular who won our little wars was not representative of +the people as a whole. He was the man "down on his luck," who went +to the recruiting depot. Soldiering became his profession. He was in a +class, like priests and vagabonds. When you passed him in the street +you thought of him as a strange being, but one of the necessities of +national existence. It did not interest you to be a soldier; but as there +must be soldiers, you were glad that men who would be soldiers were +forthcoming. + +When trouble broke, how you needed him! When the wires brought +news of his gallantry you accepted the deeds of this man whom you +had paid as the reflection of national courage, which thrilled you with +a sense of national superiority. To him, it was in the course of duty; +what he had been paid to do. He did not care about being called a +hero; but it pleased the public to make him one--this professional who +fights for a shilling a day in England and $17.50 a month in the United +States. + +Though when the campaign went well the public was ready to take +the credit as a personal tribute, when the campaign went badly they +sought a scapegoat, and the general who might have been a hero +was sent to the wilderness perhaps because those busy men in +Congress or Parliament thought that the army could do without that +little appropriation which was needed for some other purpose. The +army had failed to deliver the goods which it was paid to produce. +The army was to blame, when, of course, under free institutions the +public was to blame, as the public is master of the army and not the +army of the public. + +A first impression of the British army is always that of the regiment. +Pride of regiment sometimes appears almost more deep-seated than +army pride to the outsider. It has been so long a part of British martial +inheritance that it is bred in the blood. In the old days of small armies +and in the later days of small wars, while Europe was making every +man a soldier by conscription, regiment vying with regiment won the +battles of empire. The memory of the part each regiment played is the +inspiration of its present; its existence is inseparable from the +traditions of its long list of battle honours. + +The British public loves to read of its Guards' regiment and to watch +them in their brilliant uniforms at review. When a cadet comes out of +Sandhurst he names the regiment which he wishes to join, instead of +being ordered to a certain regiment, as at West Point. It rests with the +regimental commander whether or not he is accepted. Frequently the +young man of wealth or family serves in the Guards or another crack +regiment for awhile and resigns, usually to enjoy the semi-leisurely life +which is the fortune of his inheritance. + +Then there are the county line regiments, such as the Yorkshires, the +Kents, and the Durhams. In this war each county wanted to read +about its own regiments at the same time as about the Guards, just +as Kansans at home would want to read about the Kansas regiment +and Georgians about the Georgia regiment. The most trying feature +of the censorship to the British public was its refusal to allow the +exploitation of regiments. The staff was adamant on this point; for the +staff was thinking for the whole and of the interests of the whole. In +the French and the German armies, as in our regular army, regiments +are known by numbers. + +The young man who lives in the big house on the hill, the son of the +man of wealth and power in the community, as a rule does not go to +West Point. None of the youth of our self-called aristocracy which +came up the golden road in a generation past those in modest +circumstances who have generations of another sort back of them, +think of going into the First Cavalry or the First Infantry for a few years +as a part of the career of their class. A few rich men's sons enter our +army, but only enough to prove the rule by the exception. They do not +regard the army as "the thing." It does not occur to them that they +ought to do something for their country. Rather, their country ought to +do something for them. + +But sink the plummet a little deeper and these are not our aristocracy +nor our ruling class, which is too numerous and too sound of thought +and principle for them to feel at home in that company. Any boy, +however humble his origin, may go to West Point if he can pass the +competitive examination. Europe, particularly Germany, would not +approve of this; but we think it the best way. The average graduate of +the Point, whether the son of a doctor, a lawyer, or a farmer, sticks to +the army as his profession. We maintain the Academy for the strict +business purpose of teaching young men how to train our army in +time of peace and to lead and direct it in time of action. + +Our future officers enter West Point when they are two years younger +than is the average at Sandhurst; the course is four years compared +with two at Sandhurst. I should venture to say that West Point is the +harder grind; that the graduate of the Point has a more specifically +academic military training than the graduate of Sandhurst. This is not +saying that he may be any better in the performance of the simple +duties of a company officer. It is not a new criticism that we train +everybody at West Point to be a general, when many of the students +may never rise above the command of a battalion. However, it is a +significant fact that at the close of the Civil War every army +commander was a West Point man and so were most of the corps +commanders. + +The doors are open in the British army for a man to rise from the +ranks; not as wide as in our army, but open. The Chief of Staff of the +British Expeditionary Force, Sir William Robertson, was in the ranks +for ten years. No man not a West Pointer had a position equivalent in +importance to his at the close of the Civil War. His rise would have +been possible in no other European army. + +But West Point sets the stamp on the American army, and Sandhurst +and Woolwich, the engineering and artillery school, on the British +army. At the end of the four years at West Point the men who survive +the hard course may be tried by courtmartial not for conduct +unbecoming an officer, but an officer and a gentleman. They are +supposed, whatever their origin, to have absorbed certain qualities, if +they were not inborn, which are not easily described but which we all +recognize in any man. If they are absent it is not the fault of West +Point; and if a man cannot acquire them there, then nature never +meant them for him. From the time he entered the school the +government has paid his way; and he is cared for until he dies, if he +keeps step and avoids courtmartials. + +His position in life is secure. His pay, counting everything, is better +than that of the average graduate of a university or a first-class +professional school who practises a profession. Yet only three boys, I +remember, wanted to go to West Point from our congressional district +in my youth. Nothing could better illustrate the fact that we are not a +military people. From West Point they go out to the little army which is +to fight our wars; to the posts and the Philippines, and become a +world in themselves; an isolated caste in spite of themselves. I am +not at all certain that either the British or the American officer works +as hard as the German in time of peace. Neither has the practical +incentive nor the determined driver behind him. + +For it takes a soldier Secretary of War to drive a soldier; for example, +Lord Kitchener. Those British officers who applied themselves in +peace to the mastery of their profession and were not content with +the day's routine requirements, had to play chess without chessmen; +practise manoeuvres on a board rather than with brigades, divisions, +corps, and armies. They became the rallying points in the concourse +of untrained recruits. + +German and French officers had the incentive and the chessmen. +The Great War could not take them by surprise. They took the road +with a machine whose parts had been long assembled. They had +been trained for big war; their ambition and intelligence were under +the whip of a definite anticipation. + +A factor overlooked, but even more significant than training or staff +work, was that what might be called martial team-play had become +an instinct with the continental peoples through the necessity of their +situation. This the Japanese also possess. It is the right material +ready to hand for the builder. Not that it is the kind of material one +admires; but it is the right material for making a war-machine. One +had only to read the expert military criticism in the British and the +American Press at the outset of the war to realize how vague was the +truth of the continental situation to the average Englishman or +American--but not to the trained British Staff. + +So that little British Expeditionary Force, in ratio of number one to +twenty or thirty of the French army, crossed the Channel to help save +Belgium. Gallantry it had worthy of the brightest chapter in the +immortal history of its regiments from Quebec to Kandahar, from +Agincourt, Blenheim and Waterloo to South Africa, Guards and +Hussars, Highlanders and Lowlanders, kilts and breeks, Connaught +Rangers and Royal Fusiliers, Duke of Wellington's and Prince of +Wales' Own, come again to Flanders. The best blood of England was +leading Tommy Atkins. Whatever British aristocracy is or is not, it +never forgets its duty to the England of its fathers. It is never ingrate +to its fortune. The time had come to go out and die for England, if +need be, and these officers went as their ancestors had gone before +them, as they would go to lectures at Oxford, to the cricket field and +the polo field, in outward phlegm, but with a mighty passion in their +hearts. + +The Germans affected to despise this little army. It had not been +trained in the mass tactics which hurl columns of flesh forward to gain +tactical points that have been mauled by artillery fire. You do not use +mass tactics against Boers, nor against Afridis, nor Filipinos. It is +difficult to combine the two kinds of efficiency. Those who were on the +march to the relief of the Peking Legations recall how the Germans +were as ill at ease in that kind of work as the Americans and British +were at home. It made us misjudge the Germans and the Germans +misjudge us when they thought of us as trying to make war on the +continent of Europe. A small, mobile, regular army, formed to go +overseas and march long distances, was to fight in a war where +millions were engaged and a day's march would cover an immense +stretch of territory in international calculations of gain and loss. + +For its own purposes, the British Expeditionary Force was well-nigh a +perfect instrument. As quantity of ammunition was an important factor +in transport in the kind of campaign which it was prepared for, its +guns were the most accurate on a given point and its system of fire +adapted to that end; but the French system of fire, with plentiful +ammunition from near bases over fine roads, was better adapted for +a continental campaign. To the last button that little army was +prepared. Man for man and regiment for regiment, I should say it was +the best force that ever fired a shot in Europe; this without regard to +national character. As England must make every regular soldier +count, and as she depended upon the efficiency of the few rather +than on numbers, she had trained her men in musketry. No +continental army could afford to allow its soldiers to expend the +amount of ammunition on the target range that the British had +expended. Only by practice can you learn how to shoot. This gives +the soldier confidence. He stays in his trench and keeps on shooting +because he knows that he can hit those advancing figures and that +this is his best protection. The more I learn, the more I am convinced +that the Germans ought to have got the British Expeditionary Force; +and the Germans were very surprised that they did not get it. With +their surprise developed a respect for British arms, reported by all +visitors to Germany. + +Mr. Thomas Atkins, none other, is the hero of that retreat from Mons. +The first statue raised in London after the war ought to be of him. If +there had been five hundred thousand of him in Belgium at the end of +the second week in August, Brussels would now be under the Belgian +flag. Like many other good things in this world, including the French +army, there were not enough of him. Many a company on that retreat +simply got tired of retreating, though orders were to fall back. It dug a +trench and lay down and kept on firing--accurately, in the regular, +businesslike way, reinforced by the "stick it" British character--until +killed or engulfed. This held back the flood long enough for the +remainder of the army to retire. + +Not all the generalship emanated from generals. I like best that story +of the cross-roads where, with Germans pressing hard on all sides, +two columns in retreat fell in together, uncertain which way to go. With +confusion developing for want of instructions, a lone, exhausted staff +officer who happened along took charge, and standing at the junction +in the midst of shell-fire told every doubting unit what to do, with a +one-two-three alacrity of decision. His work finished, he and his red +cap disappeared, and I never could find anyone who knew who he +was. + +After the retreat and after the victory of the Marne, what was +England's position? The average Englishman had thought that +England's part in the alliance was to send a small army to France and +to take care of the German fleet. England's fleet was her first +consideration; that must be served. France's demand for rifles and +supplies must be attended to before the British demand. Serbia +needed supplies; Russia needed supplies; a rebellion threatened in +South Africa; the Turks threatened the invasion of Egypt. England +had to spread her energy out over a vast empire with an army that +had barely escaped annihilation. Every soldier who fought must be +supplied overseas. German officers put a man on a railroad train and +he detrained near the front. Every British soldier had to go on board a +train and then a ship and then disembark from the ship and go on +board another train. Every article of ordnance, engineering, medical +supply, food supply, must be handled four times, while in Germany +they need be handled but twice. Any railway traffic manager will +understand what this means. Both the British supply system and the +medical corps were marvels. + +Germany was stronger than the British public thought. Germany and +Austria could put at the front in the first six months of the war +practically double the number which the Allies could maintain. Russia +had multitudes to draw from in reserve, but the need was multitudes +at the front. There she was only as strong as the number she could +feed and equip. In the first year of the war England suffered 380,000 +casualties on land, more than three times the number of men that +she had at Mons. This wastage must be met before she could begin +to increase her forces. The length of line on the western front that she +was holding was not the criterion of her effort. The French who +shared with the British that terrible Ypres salient realized this. + +Apart from the regulars she had the Territorials, who are much the +same as our National Guard and vary in quality in the same way. +Native Indian troops were brought to France to face the diabolical +shell-fire of modern guns, and Territorials went out to India to take the +place of the British regulars who were withdrawn for France. Every +rifle that England could bring to the assistance of the French in their +heroic stand was a rifle to the good. + +Meanwhile, she was making her new army. For the first time since +Cromwell's day, all classes in England were going to war. Making an +army out of the raw is like building a factory to be manned by expert +labour which you have to train. Let us even suppose that the factory +is ready and that the proprietor must mobilize his managers, +overseers, foremen, and labour from far and near--a force individually +competent, but which had never before worked together. It would +require some time to organize team-play, wouldn't it? Particularly it +would if you were short of managers, overseers, and foremen. To +express my meaning from another angle, in talking once with an +English pottery manufacturer he said: + +"We do not train our labour in the pottery district. We breed it from +generation to generation." + +In Germany they have not only been training soldiers, but breeding +them from generation to generation. You may think that system is +wrong. It may be contrary to our ideals. But in fighting against that +system for your ideals when war is violence and killing, you must +have weapons as effective as the enemy's. You express only a part +of Germany's preparedness by saying that the men who left the +plough and the shop, the factory and the office, became trained +soldiers at the command of the staff as soon as they were in uniform +and had rifles. These men had the instinct of military co-ordination +bred in them, and so had their officers, while England had to take +men from the plough and the shop, the factory and the office, and +equip them and teach them the rudiments of soldiering before she +could consider making them into an army. + +It was one thing for the spirit of British manhood to rise to the +emergency. Another and even more important requisite went with it. If +my country ever faces such a crisis I hope that we also may have the +courage of wisdom which leaves an expert's work to an expert. +England had Lord Kitchener, who could hold the imagination and the +confidence of the nation through the long months of preparation, +when there was little to show except repetition of drills here and there +on gloomy winter days. It required a man with a big conception and +patience and authority to carry it through, and recruits with an +unflinching sense of duty. The immensity of the task of transforming a +non-military people into a great fighting force grew on one in all its +humdrum and vital details as he watched the new army forming. "Are +you learning to think in big numbers?" was Lord Kitchener's question +to his generals. + +Half of the regular officers were killed or wounded. + +Where the leaders? Where the drillmasters for the new army? Old +officers came out of retirement, where they had become used to an +easy life as a rule, to twelve hours a day of hard application. "Dug- +outs" they were called. Veteran non-commissioned officers had to drill +new ones. It was demonstrated that a good infantry soldier can be +made in six months; perhaps in three. But it takes seven months to +build a rifle-plant; many more months to make guns--and the navy +must never be stinted. Probably the English are slow; slow and +thoroughgoing. They are good at the finish, but not quick at the start. +They are used to winning the last battle, which they say is the one +that counts. The complacency of empire with a century's power was a +handicap, no doubt. We are inclined to lean forward on our oars, they +to lean back--which does not mean that they cannot lean forward in +an emergency or that they lack reserve strength. It may lead us to +misjudge them. + +Public impatience was inevitable. It could not be kept silent; that is the +English of it--the American, too. It demands to know what is being +done. It was not silent in the Civil War. From the time McClellan +started forming his new army until the Peninsular campaign was six +months, if I remember rightly. Von Moltke, who built the German staff +system, said that the Civil War was a strife between two armed mobs; +though I think if he had brought his Prussians to Virginia a year later, +in '63, which would have ended the Civil War there and then, he +would have had an interesting time before he returned to Berlin. + +The British new army was not to face another new army, but the most +thoroughly organized military machine that the world has ever known. +Not only this, but the Germans, with a good start and their system +established, were not standing still and waiting for the British to catch +up, so that the two could begin again even, but were adapting +themselves to the new features of the war. They had been the world's +arms-makers. With vast munition plants ready, their feudal socialistic +organization could make the most of their resources in men and +material. + +More than two million Englishmen went to the recruiting depots, +though no invader had set foot on their soil, and offered to serve in +France or wherever they were needed overseas. If no magic could +put rifles in their hands or summon batteries of guns to follow them on +the march, the fact of their volunteering, when they knew by watching +from day to day the drudgery that it meant and what trench warfare +was, shows at least that the race is not yet decadent. Perhaps we +should have done better. No one can know until we try it. If liberal +treatment by the government and the course set by Secretary Root +means anything, our staff ought to be better equipped for such a task +than the English were; this, too, only war can decide. + +Whatsoever of pessimism appeared in the British Press was +telegraphed to America. Pessimism was not permitted in the German +Press. Imagine Germany holding control of the cable and allowing +press dispatches from Germany to pass over it with the freedom that +England allowed. Imagine Germany having waited as long as +England before making cotton contraband. The British Press +demanded information from the government which the German Press +would never have dared to ask. I have known an American +correspondent, fed out of hand in Germany and thankful for anything +that the fearful German war-machine might vouchsafe, turning a +belligerent when he was in London for privileges which he would +never have thought of demanding in Berlin. + +If an English ship were reported sunk, he believed it must be, despite +the government's denial. Did he go to the Germans and demand that +he might publish the rumours of what had happened to the Moltke in +the Gulf of Riga, or how many submarines Germany had really lost? +Indeed, he was unconsciously paying a compliment to British free +institutions. He expected more in England; it seemed a right to him, +as it would at home. Englishmen talked frankly to him about mistakes; +he heard all the gossip; and sometimes he concluded that England +was in a bad way. In Germany such talk was not allowed. Every +German said that the government was absolutely truthful; every +German believed all of its reports. But ask this critical American how +he would like to live under German rule, and then you found how anti- +German he was at heart. Nothing succeeds like success, and +Germany was winning and telling no one if she had any setbacks. + +If there were a strike, the British Press made the most of it, for it was +big news. Pessimism is the Englishman's natural way of arousing +himself to fresh energy. It is also against habit to be demonstrative in +his effort; so it is not easy to understand how much he is doing. Then, +pessimism brought recruits; it made the Englishman say, "I've got to +put my back into it!" Muddling there was and mistakes, such as that +of the method of attack at Gallipoli; but in the midst of all this +dispiriting pessimism, no Englishman thought of anything but of +putting his back into it more and more. Lord Kitchener had said that it +was to be a long war and evidently it must be. Of course, England's +misfortune was in having the war catch her in the transition from an +old order of things to social reforms. + +But if the war shows anything it is that basically English character has +not changed. She still has unconquerable, dogged persistence, and +her defects for this kind of war are not among the least admirable of +her traits to those who desire to live their own lives in their own way, +as the English-speaking people have done for five hundred years, +without having a verboten sign on every street corner. + +It is still the law that when a company of infantry marches through +London it must be escorted by a policeman. This means a good deal: +that civil power is superior to military power. It is a symbol of what +Englishmen have fought for with spades and pitchforks, and what we +have fought Englishmen for. My own idea is that England is fighting +for it in this struggle; and starting unready against a foe which was +ready, as the free peoples always have done, she was fighting for +time and experience before she could strike her sturdiest blows. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Year of the War, by Frederick Palmer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY YEAR OF THE WAR *** + +***** This file should be named 12013.txt or 12013.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/0/1/12013/ + +Produced by A. Langley + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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