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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tommy Atkins at War, by James Alexander
+Kilpatrick
+
+
+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: Tommy Atkins at War
+       As Told in His Own Letters
+
+
+Author: James Alexander Kilpatrick
+
+
+
+Release Date: September 8, 2005  [eBook #16675]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOMMY ATKINS AT WAR***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Irma Spehar, Stacy Brown Thellend, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) from
+page images generously made available by Internet Archive Canadian
+Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/toronto)
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive Canadian Libraries. See
+      http://www.archive.org/details/tommyatkinswar00kilpuoft
+
+
+
+
+
+TOMMY ATKINS AT WAR
+
+
+     "The English soldier is the best trained soldier in the world. The
+     English soldier's fire is ten thousand times worse than hell. If we
+     could only beat the English it would be well for us, but I am
+     afraid we shall never be able to beat these English devils."
+
+     _From a letter found on a German officer._
+
+
+
+
+TOMMY ATKINS AT WAR
+
+As Told in His Own Letters
+
+by
+
+JAMES A. KILPATRICK
+
+New York
+McBride, Nast & Company
+
+1914
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+
+This little book is the soldier's story of the war, with all his vivid
+and intimate impressions of life on the great battlefields of Europe. It
+is illustrated by passages from his letters, in which he describes not
+only the grim realities, but the chivalry, humanity and exaltation of
+battle. For the use of these passages the author is indebted to the
+courtesy and generosity of the editors of all the leading London and
+provincial newspapers, to whom he gratefully acknowledges his
+obligations.
+
+J.A.K.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+   I   OFF TO THE FRONT                   9
+
+  II   SENSATIONS UNDER FIRE             18
+
+ III   HUMOR IN THE TRENCHES             30
+
+  IV   THE MAN WITH THE BAYONET          39
+
+   V   CAVALRY EXPLOITS                  46
+
+  VI   WITH THE HIGHLANDERS              55
+
+ VII   THE INTREPID IRISH                64
+
+VIII   "A FIRST-CLASS FIGHTING MAN"      73
+
+  IX   OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN            82
+
+   X   BROTHERS IN ARMS                  91
+
+  XI   ATKINS AND THE ENEMY             100
+
+ XII   THE WAR IN THE AIR               112
+
+XIII   TOMMY AND HIS RATIONS            121
+
+
+
+
+TOMMY ATKINS AT WAR
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+OFF TO THE FRONT
+
+
+"It is my Royal and Imperial Command that you concentrate your energies,
+for the immediate present upon one single purpose, and that is that you
+address all your skill and all the valor of my soldiers to exterminate
+first the treacherous English and walk over General French's
+contemptible little army."[A]
+
+While this Imperial Command of the Kaiser was being written, Atkins,
+innocent of the fate decreed for him, was well on his way to the front,
+full of exuberant spirits, and singing as he went, "It's a long way to
+Tipperary." In his pocket was the message from Lord Kitchener which
+Atkins believes to be the whole duty of a soldier: "Be brave, be kind,
+courteous (but nothing more than courteous) to women, and look upon
+looting as a disgraceful act."
+
+Troopship after troopship had crossed the Channel carrying Sir John
+French's little army to the Continent, while the boasted German fleet,
+impotent to menace the safety of our transports, lay helpless--bottled
+up, to quote Mr. Asquith's phrase, "in the inglorious seclusion of their
+own ports."
+
+Never before had a British Expeditionary Force been organized, equipped
+and despatched so swiftly for service in the field. The energies of the
+War Office had long been applied to the creation of a small but highly
+efficient striking force ready for instant action. And now the time for
+action had come. The force was ready. From the harbors the troopships
+steamed away, their decks crowded with cheery soldiers, their flags
+waving a proud challenge to any disputant of Britain's command of the
+sea.
+
+The expedition was carried out as if by magic. For a few brief days the
+nation endured with patience its self-imposed silence. In the newspapers
+were no brave columns of farewell scenes, no exultant send-off
+greetings, no stirring pictures of troopships passing out into the
+night. All was silence, the silence of a nation preparing for the "iron
+sacrifice," as Kipling calls it, of a devastating war. Then suddenly the
+silence was broken, and across the Channel was flashed the news that the
+troops had been safely landed, and were only waiting orders to throw
+themselves upon the German brigands who had broken the sacred peace of
+Europe.
+
+And so the scene changes to France and Belgium. Tommy Atkins is on his
+way to the Front. He has already begun to send home some of those
+gallant letters that throb throughout the pages of this book. If he felt
+the absence of the stimulating send-off, necessitated by official
+caution and the exigencies of a European war, he at least had the new
+joy of a welcome on foreign soil. It is difficult to find words with the
+right quality in them to express the feelings aroused in our men by
+their reception, or the exquisite gratitude felt by the Franco-Belgian
+people. They welcomed the British troops as their deliverers.
+
+"The first person to meet us in France," writes a British officer, "was
+the pilot, and the first intimation of his presence was a huge voice in
+the darkness, which roared out 'A bas Guillaume. Eep, eep, 'ooray!'" As
+transport after transport sailed into Boulogne, and regiment after
+regiment landed, the population went into ecstasies of delight. Through
+the narrow streets of the old town the soldiers marched, singing,
+whistling, and cheering, with a wave of their caps to the women and a
+kiss wafted to the children (but not only to the children!) on the
+route. As they swept along, their happy faces and gallant bearing struck
+deep into the emotions of the spectators. "What brave fellows, to go
+into battle laughing!" exclaimed one old woman, whose own sons had been
+called to the army of the Republic.
+
+It was strange to hear the pipes of the Highlanders skirl shrilly
+through old Boulogne, and to catch the sound of English voices in the
+clarion notes of the "Marseillaise," but, strangest of all to French
+ears, to listen to that new battle-cry, "Are we down-hearted?" followed
+by the unanswerable "No--o--o!" of every regiment. And then the lilt of
+that new marching song to which Tommy Atkins has given immortality:--
+
+    "IT'S A LONG, LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY"[B]
+
+    Up to mighty London came an Irishman one day;
+    As the streets are paved with gold, sure ev'ry one was gay,
+    Singing songs of Piccadilly, Strand and Leicester Square,
+    Till Paddy got excited, then he shouted to them there:
+
+    CHORUS
+
+    It's a long way to Tipperary,
+      It's a long way to go;
+    It's a long way to Tipperary,
+      To the sweetest girl I know!
+    Good-by Piccadilly,
+      Farewell Leicester Square.
+    It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
+      But my heart's right there!
+          It's a' there!
+
+    Paddy wrote a letter to his Irish Molly O',
+    Saying, "Should you not receive it, write and let me know!
+    If I make mistakes in spelling, Molly dear," said he,
+    "Remember it's the pen that's bad, don't lay the blame on me."
+
+    (_Chorus_)
+
+    Molly wrote a neat reply to Irish Paddy O',
+    Saying, "Mike Maloney wants to marry me, and so
+    Leave the Strand and Piccadilly, or you'll be to blame,
+    For love has fairly drove me silly--hoping you're the same!"
+
+    (_Chorus_)
+
+It may seem odd that the soldier should care so little for martial
+songs, or the songs that are ostensibly written for him; but that is not
+the fault of Tommy Atkins. Lyric poets don't give him what he calls "the
+stuff." He doesn't get it even from Kipling; Thomas Hardy's "Song of
+the Soldiers" leaves him cold. He wants no epic stanzas, no heroic
+periods. What he asks for is something simple and romantic, something
+about a girl, and home, and the lights of London--that goes with a swing
+in the march and awakens tender memories when the lilt of it is wafted
+at night along the trenches.
+
+And so "Tipperary" has gone with the troops into the great European
+battlefields, and has echoed along the white roads and over the green
+fields of France and Belgium.
+
+On the way to the front the progress of our soldiers was made one long
+fête: it was "roses, roses, all the way." In a letter published in _The
+Times_, an artillery officer thus describes it:
+
+"As to the reception we have met with moving across country it has been
+simply wonderful and most affecting. We travel entirely by motor
+transport, and it has been flowers all the way. One long procession of
+acclamation. By the wayside and through the villages, men, women, and
+children cheer us on with the greatest enthusiasm, and every one wants
+to give us something. They strip the flower gardens, and the cars look
+like carnival carriages. They pelt us with fruit, cigarettes, chocolate,
+bread--anything and everything. It is simply impossible to convey an
+impression of it all. Yesterday my own car had to stop in a town for
+petrol. In a moment there must have been a couple of hundred people
+round clamoring; autograph albums were thrust in front of me; a perfect
+delirium. In another town I had to stop for an hour, and took the
+opportunity to do some shopping. I wanted some motor goggles, an
+eye-bath, some boracic, provisions, etc. They would not let me pay for a
+single thing--and there was lunch and drinks as well. The further we go
+the more enthusiastic is the greeting. What it will be like at the end
+of the war one cannot attempt to guess."
+
+Similar tributes to the kindness of the French and Belgians are given by
+the men. A private in the Yorkshire Light Infantry--the first British
+regiment to go into action in this war--tells of the joy of the French
+people. "You ought to have seen them," he writes. "They were overcome
+with delight, and didn't half cheer us! The worst of it was we could not
+understand their talking. When we crossed the Franco-Belgian frontier,
+there was a vast crowd of Belgians waiting for us. Our first greeting
+was the big Union Jack, and on the other side was a huge canvas with the
+words 'Welcome to our British Comrades.' The Belgians would have given
+us anything; they even tore the sheets off their beds for us to wipe our
+faces with." Another Tommy tells of the eager crowds turning out to give
+our troops "cigars, cigarettes, sweets, fruits, wines, anything we
+want," and the girls "linking their arms in ours, and stripping us of
+our badges and buttons as souvenirs."
+
+Then there is the other side of the picture, when the first battles had
+been fought and the strategic retreat had begun. No praise could be too
+high for the chivalry and humanity of our soldiers in these dark days.
+They were almost worshiped by the people wherever they went.
+
+Some of the earliest letters from the soldiers present distressing
+pictures of the poor, driven refugees, fleeing from their homes at the
+approach of the Germans, who carry ruin and desolation wherever they go.
+"It is pitiful, pitiful," says one writer; "you simply can't hold back
+your tears." Others disclose our sympathetic soldier-men sharing their
+rations with the starving fugitives and carrying the children on their
+shoulders so that the weary mothers may not fall by the way. "Be
+invariably courteous, considerate, and kind" were Lord Kitchener's words
+to the Army, and these qualities no less than valor will always be
+linked with Tommy Atkins' name in the memories of the French and Belgian
+people.
+
+They will never forget the happy spick-and-span soldiers who sang as
+they stepped ashore from the troopships at Boulogne and Havre, eager to
+reach the fighting line. These men have fought valiantly, desperately,
+since then, but their spirits are as high as ever, and their songs still
+ring down the depleted ranks as the war-stained regiments swing along
+from battle to battle on the dusty road to Victory.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+SENSATIONS UNDER FIRE
+
+
+It is said of Sir John French that, on his own admission, he has "never
+done anything worth doing without having to screw himself up to it."
+There is no hint here of practical fear, which the hardened soldier, the
+fighting man, rarely experiences; but of the moral and mental conflict
+which precedes the assumption of sovereign duties and high commands.
+Every man who goes into battle has this need. He requires the moral
+preparation of knowing why he is fighting, and what he is fighting for.
+In the present war, Lord Kitchener's fine message to every soldier in
+the Expeditionary Force made this screwing-up process easy. But to men
+going under fire for the first time some personal preparation is also
+necessary to combat the ordinary physical terror of the battlefield.
+
+Soldiers are not accustomed to self-analysis. They are mainly men of
+action, and are supposed to lack the contemplative vision. That was the
+old belief. This war, however, which has shattered so many accepted
+ideas, has destroyed that conviction too. Nothing is more surprising
+than the revelation of their feelings disclosed in the soldiers'
+letters. They are the most intimate of human documents. Here and there a
+hint is given of the apprehension with which the men go into action,
+unspoken fears of how they will behave under fire, the uncertainty of
+complete mastery over themselves, brief doubts of their ability to stand
+up to this new and sublime ordeal of death.
+
+Rarely, however, do the men allow these apprehensions to depress or
+disturb them. Throughout the earliest letters from the front the one
+pervading desire was eagerness for battle--a wild impatience to get the
+first great test of their courage over, to feel their feet, obtain
+command of themselves.
+
+"We were all eager for scalps," writes one of the Royal Engineers, "and
+I took the cap, sword, and lance of a Uhlan I shot through the chest."
+An artilleryman says a gunner in his battery was "so anxious to see the
+enemy," that he jumped up to look, and got his leg shot away. Others
+tell of the intense curiosity of the young soldiers to see everything
+that is going on, of their reckless neglect of cover, and of the
+difficulty of holding them back when they see a comrade fall. "In spite
+of orders, some of my men actually charged a machine gun," an officer
+related. After the first baptism of fire any lingering fear is
+dispelled. "I don't think we were ever afraid at all," says another
+soldier, "but we got into action so quickly that we hadn't time to think
+about it." "Habit soon overcomes the first instinctive fear," writes a
+third, "and then the struggle is always palpitating."
+
+Of course, the fighting affects men in different ways. Some see the
+ugliness, the horror of it all, grow sick at the sight, and suffer from
+nausea. Others, seeing deeper significance in this desolation of life,
+realize the wickedness and waste of it; as one Highlander expresses it:
+"Being out there, and seeing what we see, makes us feel religious." But
+the majority of the men have the instinct for fighting, quickly adapt
+themselves to war conditions, and enter with zest into the joy of
+battle. These happy warriors are the men who laugh, and sing, and jest
+in the trenches. They take a strangely intimate pleasure in the danger
+around them, and when they fall they die like Mr. Julian Smith of the
+Intelligence Department, declaring that they "loved the fighting." All
+the wounded beg the doctors and nurses to hurry up and let them return
+to the front. "I was enjoying it until I was put under," writes
+Lance-Corporal Leslie, R.E. "I must get back and have another go at
+them," says Private J. Roe, of the Manchesters. And so on, letter after
+letter expressing impatience to get into the firing line.
+
+The artillery is what harasses the men most. They soon developed a
+contempt for German rifle fire, and it became a very persistent joke in
+the trenches. But nearly all agree that German artillery is "hell let
+loose." That is what the enemy intended it to be, but they did not
+reckon upon the terrors of Hades making so small an impression upon the
+British soldier. There is an illuminating passage in an official
+statement issued from the General Headquarters:
+
+"The object of the great proportion of artillery the Germans employ is
+to beat down the resistance of their enemy by a concentrated and
+prolonged fire, and to shatter their nerve with high explosives before
+the infantry attack is launched. They seem to have relied on doing this
+with us; but they have not done so, though it has taken them several
+costly experiments to discover this fact. From the statements of
+prisoners, indeed, it appears that they have been greatly disappointed
+by the moral effect produced by their heavy guns, which, despite the
+actual losses inflicted, has not been at all commensurate with the
+colossal expenditure of ammunition which has really been wasted. By this
+it is not implied that their artillery fire is not good. It is more than
+good; it is excellent. But the British soldier is a difficult person to
+impress or depress, even by immense shells filled with high explosives
+which detonate with terrific violence and form craters large enough to
+act as graves for five horses. The German howitzer shells are 8 to 9
+inches in caliber, and on impact they send up columns of greasy black
+smoke. On account of this they are irreverently dubbed 'Coal-boxes,'
+'Black Marias,' or 'Jack Johnsons' by the soldiers. Men who take things
+in this spirit, are, it seems, likely to throw out the calculations
+based on the loss of _moral_ so carefully framed by the German military
+philosophers."
+
+Every word of this admirable official message is borne out by the men's
+own version of their experiences of artillery fire. "At first the din is
+terrific, and you feel as if your ears would burst and the teeth fall
+out of your head," writes one of the West Kents, "but, of course, you
+can get used to anything, and our artillerymen give them a bit of hell
+back, I can tell you." "The sensation of finding myself among screaming
+shells was all new to me," says Corporal Butlin, Lancashire Fusiliers,
+"but after the first terrible moments, which were enough to unnerve
+anybody, I became used to the situation. Afterwards the din had no
+effect upon me." And describing an artillery duel a gunner declares: "It
+was butcher's work. We just rained shells on the Germans until we were
+deaf and choking. I don't think a gun on their position could have sold
+for old iron after we had finished, and the German gunners would be just
+odd pieces of clothing and bits of accouterment. It seems 'swanky' to
+say so, but once you get over the first shock you go on chewing biscuits
+and tobacco when the shells are bursting all round. You don't seem to
+mind it any more than smoking in a hailstorm."
+
+Smoking is the great consolation of the soldiers. They smoke whenever
+they can, and the soothing cigarette is their best friend in the
+trenches. "We can go through anything so long as we have tobacco," is a
+passage from a soldier's letter; and this is the burden of nearly all
+the messages from the front. "The fight was pretty hot while it lasted,
+but we were all as cool as Liffy water, and smoked cigarettes while the
+shells shrieked blue murder over our heads," is an Irishman's account of
+the effect of the big German guns.
+
+The noise of battle--especially the roar of artillery--is described in
+several letters. "It is like standing in a railway station with heavy
+expresses constantly tearing through," is an officer's impression of it.
+A wounded Gordon Highlander dismisses it as no more terrible than a bad
+thunderstorm: "You get the same din and the big flashes of light in
+front of you, and now and then the chance of being knocked over by a
+bullet or piece of shell, just as you might be struck by lightning."
+That is the real philosophy of the soldier. "After all, we are may-be as
+safe here as you are in Piccadilly," says another; and when men have
+come unhurt out of infinite danger they grow sublimely fatalistic and
+cheerful. An officer in the Cavalry Division, for instance, writes: "I
+am coming back all right, never fear. Have been in such tight corners
+and under such fire that if I were meant to go I should have gone by
+now, I'm sure." And it is the same with the men. "Having gone through
+six battles without a scratch," says Private A. Sunderland, of Bolton,
+"I thought I would never be hit." Later on, however, he was wounded.
+
+Though the artillery fire has proved most destructive to all ranks, by
+far the worst ordeal of the troops was the long retreat in the early
+stages of the war. It exhausted and exasperated the men. They grew angry
+and impatient. None but the best troops in the world, with a profound
+belief in the judgment and valor of their officers, could have stood up
+against it. A statement by a driver of the Royal Field Artillery,
+published in the _Evening News_, gives a vivid impression of how the men
+felt. "I have no clear notion of the order of events in the long
+retreat," he says; "it was a nightmare, like being seized by a madman
+after coming out of a serious illness and forced towards the edge of a
+precipice." The constant marching, the want of sleep, the restless and
+(as it sometimes seemed to the men) purposeless backward movement night
+and day drove them into a fury. The intensity of the warfare, the fierce
+pressure upon the mental and physical powers of endurance, might well
+have exercised a mischievous effect upon the men. Instead, however, it
+only brought out their finest qualities.
+
+In an able article in _Blackwood's Magazine_, on "Moral Qualities in
+War," Major C.A.L. Yate, of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry,
+dealt with the "intensity" of the war strain, of which he himself had
+acute experience. "Under such conditions," he wrote, "marksmen may
+achieve no more than the most erratic shots; the smartest corps may
+quickly degenerate into a rabble; the easiest tasks will often appear
+impossible. An army can weather trials such as those just depicted only
+if it be collectively considered in that healthy state of mind which the
+term _moral_ implies." It is just that _moral_ which the British
+Expeditionary Force has been proved to possess in so rich a measure, and
+which must belong to all good soldiers in these days of nerve-shattering
+war.
+
+Little touches of pathos are not wanting in the scenes pictured in the
+soldiers' letters, and they bring an element of humanity into the cold,
+well-ordered, practical business of war. Men who will meet any personal
+danger without flinching often find the mists floating across their eyes
+when a comrade is struck down at their side. Private Plant, Manchester
+Regiment, tells how his pal was eating a bit of bread and cheese when he
+was knocked over: "Poor chap, he just managed to ask me to tell his
+missus." "War is rotten when you see your best pal curl up at your
+feet," comments another. "One of our chaps got hit in the face with a
+shrapnel bullet," Private Sidney Smith, First Warwickshires, relates.
+"'Hurt, Bill?' I said to him. 'Good luck to the old regiment,' says he.
+Then he rolled over on his back." "Partings of this kind are sad
+enough," says an Irish Dragoon, "but we've just got to sigh and get used
+to it."
+
+Their own injuries and sufferings don't seem to worry them much. The
+sensation of getting wounded is simply told. One man, shot through the
+arm, felt "only a bit of a sting, nothing particular. Just like a sharp
+needle going into me. I thought it was nothing till my rifle dropped out
+of my hand, and my arm fell. Rotten luck." That is the feeling of a
+clean bullet wound. Shrapnel, however, hurts--"hurts pretty badly,"
+Tommy says. And the lance and the bayonet make ugly gashes. In sensitive
+men, however, the continuous shell-fire produces effects that are often
+as serious as wounds. "Some," says Mr. Geoffrey Young, the _Daily News
+and Leader_ correspondent, "suffer from a curious aphasia, some get
+dazed and speechless, some deafened"; but of course their recovery is
+fairly rapid, and the German "Black Marias" soon exhaust their terrors.
+A man may lose his memory and have but a hazy idea of the day of the
+week or the hour of the day, but Tommy still keeps his nerve, and after
+his first experience of the enemy's fire, to quote his own words,
+"doesn't care one d---- about the danger."
+
+As showing the general feeling of the educated soldier, independent
+altogether of his nationality, it is worth quoting two other
+experiences, both Russian. Mr. Stephen Graham in the _Times_ recites the
+sensations of a young Russian officer. "The feeling under fire at first
+is unpleasant," he admits, "but after a while it becomes even
+exhilarating. One feels an extraordinary freedom in the midst of death."
+The following is a quotation from a soldier's letter sent by Mr. H.
+Williams, the _Daily Chronicle_ correspondent at Petrograd: "One talks
+of hell fire on the battlefield, but I assure you it makes no more
+impression on me now than the tooting of motors. Habit is everything,
+especially in war, where all the logic and psychology of one's actions
+are the exact reverse of a civilian's.... The whole sensation of fear is
+atrophied. We don't care a farthing for our lives.... We don't think of
+danger. In this new frame of mind we simply go and do the perfectly
+normal, natural things that you call heroism."
+
+When the heroic things are done and there comes a lull in the fighting,
+it is sweet to sink down in the trenches worn out, exhausted, unutterly
+drowsy, and snatch a brief unconscious hour of sleep. Some of the men
+fall asleep with the rifles still hot in their hands, their heads
+resting on the barrels. Magnificently as they endure fatigue, there
+comes a time when the strain is intolerable, and, "beat to the world,"
+as one officer describes it, they often sink into profound sleep, like
+horses, standing. At these times it seems as if nothing could wake them.
+Shrapnel may thunder around them in vain; they never move a muscle. In
+Mr. Stephen Crane's fine phrase, they "sleep the brave sleep of wearied
+men."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+HUMOR IN THE TRENCHES
+
+
+One of the most surprising of the many revelations of this war has been
+that of the gaiety, humor, and good nature of the British soldier. All
+the correspondents, English and French, remark upon it. A new Tommy
+Atkins has arisen, whose cheery laugh and joke and music-hall song have
+enlivened not only the long, weary, exhausting marches, but even the
+grim and unnerving hours in the trenches. Theirs was not the excitement
+of men going into battle, nervous and uncertain of their behavior under
+fire; it was rather that of light-hearted first-nighters waiting in the
+queue to witness some new and popular drama.
+
+"A party of the King's Own," writes Sapper Mugridge of the Royal
+Engineers, "went into their first action shouting 'Early doors this way!
+Early doors, ninepence!'" "The Kaiser's crush" is the description given
+by a sergeant of the Coldstream Guards as he watched a dense mass of
+Germans emerging to the attack from a wood, and prepared to meet them
+with the bayonet. When first the fierce German searchlights were turned
+on the British lines a little cockney in the Middlesex Regiment
+exclaimed to his comrade: "Lord, Bill, it's just like a play, an' us in
+the limelight"; and as the artillery fusillade passed over their heads,
+and a great ironical cheer rose from the British trenches, he added:
+"But it's the Kaiser wot's gettin' the bird."
+
+Many of the wounded who have been invalided home were asked whether this
+humor in the trenches is the real thing, or only an affected drollery to
+conceal the emotions the men feel in the face of death; but they all
+declare that it is quite spontaneous. One old soldier, well accustomed
+to being under fire, freely admitted that he had never been with such a
+cheery and courageous lot of youngsters in his life. "They take
+everything that comes to them as 'all in the game,'" he said, "and
+nothing could now damp their spirits."
+
+Songs, cards and jokes fill up the waiting hours in the trenches; under
+fire, indeed, the wit seems to become sharpest. A corporal in the Motor
+Cycle Section of the Royal Engineers writes: "At first the German
+artillery was rotten. Three batteries bombarded an entrenched British
+battalion for two hours and only seven men were killed. The noise was
+simply deafening, but so little effect had the fire that the men shouted
+with laughter and held their caps up on the end of their rifles to give
+the German gunners a bit of encouragement." The same spirit of raillery
+is spoken of by a Seaforth Highlander, who says one of the Wiltshires
+stuck out in the trenches a tin can on which was the notice "Business as
+Usual." As, however, it gave the enemy too good a target he was cheerily
+asked to "take the blooming thing in again," and in so doing he was
+wounded twice.
+
+"The liveliest Sunday I ever spent" is how Private P. Case, Liverpool
+Regiment, describes the fighting at Mons. "It was a glorious time,"
+writes Bandsman Wall, Connaught Rangers; "we had nothing to do but shoot
+the Germans as they came up, just like knocking dolls down at the fair
+ground." "A very pleasant morning in the trenches," remarks one of the
+Officers' Special Reserve; and another writer, after being in several
+engagements, says, "This is really the best summer holiday I've ever
+had."
+
+Nothing could excel the coolness of the men under fire. With a hail of
+bullets and shells raining about them they sing and jest with each
+other unconcernedly. Wiping the dust of battle from his face and loading
+up for another shot, a Highlander will break forth into one of Harry
+Lauder's songs:
+
+    "It's a wee deoch an' doruis,
+    Jist a wee drap, that's a',"
+
+and with a laugh some English Tommies will make a dash at the line "a
+braw, bricht, minlicht nicht," with ludicrous consequences to the
+pronunciation! According to "Joe," of the 2nd Royal Scots, the favorite
+songs in the trenches or round the camp-fire are "Never Mind," and "The
+Last Boat is leaving for Home." "Hitchy Koo" is another favorite, and
+was being sung in the midst of a German attack. "One man near me was
+wounded," says a comrade, "but he sang the chorus to the finish."
+
+It is remarkable how these songs and witticisms steady the soldiers
+under fire. In a letter in the _Evening News_ Sergeant J. Baker writes:
+"Some of our men have made wonderful practise with the rifle, and they
+are beginning to fancy themselves as marksmen. If they don't hit
+something every time they think they ought to see a doctor about it....
+Artillery fire, however, is the deadliest thing out, and it takes a lot
+of nerve to stand it. The Germans keep up an infernal din from morning
+till far into the night; but they don't do half as much damage as you
+would think, though it is annoying to have all that row going on when
+you're trying to write home or make up the regimental accounts."
+
+Writing home is certainly done under circumstances which are apt to have
+a disturbing effect upon the literary style. "Excuse this scrawl,"
+writes one soldier, "the German shells have interrupted me six times
+already, and I had to dash out with my bayonet before I was able to
+finish it off." Another concludes: "Well, mother, I must close now. The
+bullets are a bit too thick for letter-writing." To a young engineer the
+experience was so strange that he describes it as "like writing in a
+dream."
+
+Some of the nick-names given by Tommy Atkins to the German shells have
+already been quoted, but the most amusing is surely that in a letter
+from Private Watters. "One of our men," he relates, "has got a ripping
+cure for neuralgia, but he isn't going to take out a patent for it!
+While lying in the trenches, mad with pain in the face, a shell burst
+beside him. He wasn't hit, but the explosion rendered him unconscious
+for a time, and when he recovered, his neuralgia had gone. His name is
+Palmer, so now we call the German shells 'Palmer's Neuralgia Cure.'"
+
+The amusing story of a long march afforded some mirth in the trenches
+when it got to be known. A party of artillerymen who had been toiling
+along in the dark for hours, and were like to drop with fatigue, ran
+straight into a troop of horsemen posted near a wood. "We thought they
+were Germans," one gunner related, "for we couldn't make out the colors
+of the uniforms or anything else, until we heard some one sing out
+'Where the hell do you think you're going to?' _Then we knew we were
+with friends._"
+
+Football is the great topic of discussion in the trenches. Mr. Harold
+Ashton, of the _Daily News and Leader_, relates an amusing encounter
+with a Royal Horse Artilleryman to whom he showed a copy of the paper.
+"Where's the sporting news?" asked the artilleryman as he glanced over
+the pages. "Shot away in the war," replied Mr. Ashton. "What!" exclaimed
+Tommy, "not a line about the Arsenal? Well, I'm blowed! This _is_ a
+war!" "We are all in good spirits," writes a bombardier in the 44th
+Battery, Royal Artillery, "and mainly anxious to know how football is
+going on in Newcastle now." "I got this," said a Gordon Highlander,
+referring to his wound, "because I became excited in an argument with
+wee Geordie Ferris, of our company, about the chances of Queen's Park
+and Rangers this season."
+
+An artilleryman sends a description of the fighting written in the
+jargon of the football field. He describes the war as "the great match
+for the European Cup, which is being played before a record gate, though
+you can't perhaps see the crowd." In spite of all their swank, he adds,
+"the Germans haven't scored a goal yet, and I wouldn't give a brass
+farthing for their chances of lifting the Cup." At the battle of Mons it
+was noticed that some soldiers even went into action with a football
+attached to their knapsacks!
+
+But there is no end to the humor of Tommy Atkins. Mr. Hamilton Fyfe
+tells in the _Daily Mail_ how he stopped to sympathize with a wounded
+soldier on the roadside near Mons. Asking if his injury was very painful
+he received the remarkable reply: "Oh, it's not that. I lost my pipe in
+the last blooming charge." In a letter from the front, published in the
+_Glasgow Herald_, this passage occurs: "Our fellows have signed the
+pledge because Kitchener wants them to. But they all say, 'God help the
+Germans, when we get hold of them for making us teetotal.'"
+
+What a Frenchman describes as the "new British battle-cry" is another
+source of amusement. Whenever artillery or rifle fire sweeps over their
+trenches some facetious Tommy is sure to shout, "Are we downhearted?"
+and is met with a resounding "No!" and laughter all along the line.
+
+To those at home all this fun may seem a little thoughtless, but to
+those in the fighting line it is perfectly natural and unforced. "Our
+men lie in the trenches and play marbles with the bullets from shrapnel
+shells," writes one of the Royal Engineers; "we have been in two
+countries and hope to tour a third," says a letter from a cheery
+artilleryman; and Mr. W.L. Pook (Godalming), who is with one of the
+field post-offices, declares that things are going so badly with "our
+dear old chum Wilhelm" that "I've bet X---- a new hat that I'll be home
+by Christmas."
+
+Bets are common in the trenches. Gunners wager about the number of their
+hits, riflemen on the number of misses by the enemy. Daring spirits,
+before making an attack, have even been known to bet on the number of
+guns they would capture. "We have already picked up a good deal in the
+way of German souvenirs," says one wag; "enough, indeed, to set a
+decent-sized army up in business." The British Army, indeed, is an army
+of sportsmen. Every man must have his game, his friendly wager, his
+joke, and his song. As one officer told his men: "You are a lively lot
+of beggars. You don't seem to realize that we're at war."
+
+But they do. That is just Tommy's way. It is how he wins through. He
+always feels fit, and he enjoys himself. Corporal Graham Hodson, Royal
+Engineers, provides a typical Atkins letter with which to conclude this
+chapter. "I am feeling awfully well," he writes, "and am enjoying myself
+no end. All lights are out at eight o'clock, so we lie in our blankets
+and tell each other lies about the number of Germans we have shot and
+the hairbreadth escapes we have had. Oh, it's a great life!"
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE MAN WITH THE BAYONET
+
+
+Some military writers have declared that with the increasing range of
+rifle and artillery fire the day of the bayonet is over. Battles, they
+say, must now be fought with the combatants miles apart. Bayonets are as
+obsolete as spears and battle axes. Evidently this theory had the full
+support of the German General Staff, whose military wisdom was in some
+quarters believed to be infallible--before the war.
+
+As events have proved, however, there has been no more rude awakening
+for the German soldiery than the efficacy of the bayonet in the hands of
+Tommy Atkins. In spite of the employment of gigantic siege guns and
+their enormous superiority in strength, though not in handling, of
+artillery, the Germans have failed to keep the Allies at the theoretical
+safe distance. They have been forced to accept hand-to-hand fighting,
+and in every encounter at close quarters there has never been a moment's
+doubt as to the result. They have shriveled up in the presence of the
+bayonet, and fled in disorder at the first glimpse of naked steel. It is
+not that the Germans lack courage. "They are brave enough," our soldiers
+admit with perfect frankness, "but the bayonet terrifies them, and they
+cry out in agony at the sight of it."
+
+Admittedly, it requires more than ordinary courage to face a bayonet
+charge, just as it calls for a high order of valor to use that deadly
+weapon. Instances are given of young soldiers experiencing a sinking
+sensation, a feeling of collapse, at the order "Fix Bayonets!" their
+hands trembling violently over the task. But when the bugle sounds the
+charge, and the wild dash at the enemy's lines has begun, with the skirl
+of the pipes to stir up the blood, the nerves stiffen and the hands grip
+the rifle with grim determination. "It was his life or mine," said a
+young Highlander describing his first battle, "and I ran the bayonet
+through him." There is no time for sentiment, and there can be no
+thought of chivalry. Just get the ugly business over and done with as
+quickly as possible. One soldier tells what a sense of horror swept over
+him when his bayonet stuck in his victim, and he had to use all his
+strength to wrench it out of the body in time to tackle the next man.
+
+Many men describe the effects of the British bayonet charges and the way
+the Germans--Uhlans, Guards, and artillerymen--recoil from them. "If you
+go near them with the bayonet they squeal like pigs," "they beg for
+mercy on their knees," "the way they cringe before the bayonet is
+pitiful"--such are examples of the hundreds of references to this method
+of attack.
+
+Private Whittaker, Coldstream Guards, gives a vivid account of the
+fighting around Compiègne. "The Germans rushed at us," he writes, "like
+a crowd streaming from a Cup-tie at the Crystal Palace. You could not
+miss them. Our bullets plowed into them, but still on they came. I was
+well entrenched, and my rifle got so hot I could hardly hold it. I was
+wondering if I should have enough bullets, when a pal shouted, 'Up
+Guards and at 'em.' The next second he was rolled over with a nasty
+knock on the shoulder. When we really did get orders to get at them we
+made no mistakes, I can tell you. They cringed at the bayonets. Those on
+the left wing tried to get round us. We yelled like demons, and racing
+as hard as we could for quite 500 yards we cut up nearly every man who
+did not run away."
+
+One of the most graphic pictures of the war is that of attack in the
+night related by a sergeant of the Worcester Regiment, who was wounded
+in the fierce battle of the Aisne. He was on picket duty when the attack
+opened. "It was a little after midnight," he said "when the men ahead
+suddenly fell back to report strange sounds and movements along the
+front. The report had just been made when we heard a rustling in the
+bushes near us. We challenged and, receiving no reply, fired into the
+darkness. Immediately the enemy rushed upon us, but the sleeping camp
+had been awakened by the firing, and our men quickly stood to arms. As
+the heavy German guns began to thunder and the searchlights to play on
+our position we gathered that a whole Army corps was about to be engaged
+and, falling back upon the camp, we found our men ready. No sooner had
+we reached the trenches than there rose out of the darkness in front of
+us a long line of white faces. The Germans were upon us. 'Fire!' came
+the order, and we sent a volley into them. They wavered, and dark
+patches in their ranks showed that part of the white line had been
+blotted out. But on they came again, the gaps filled up from behind. At
+a hundred yards' range, the first line dropped to fix bayonets, the
+second opened fire, and others followed. We kept on firing and we saw
+their men go down in heaps, but finally they swarmed forward with the
+bayonet and threw all their weight of numbers upon us. We gave them one
+terrible volley, but nothing could have stopped the ferocious impetus of
+their attack. For one terrible moment our ranks bent under the dead
+weight, but the Germans, too, wavered, and in that moment we gave them
+the bayonet, and hurled them back in disorder. It was then I got a
+bayonet thrust, but as I fell I heard our boys cheering and I knew we
+had finished them for the night."
+
+This is one of the few accounts that tell of the Germans using the
+bayonet on the offensive, and their experience of the businesslike way
+in which Tommy Atkins manipulates this weapon has given them a wholesome
+dread of such encounters. Private G. Bridgeman, 4th Royal Fusiliers,
+tells of the glee with which his regiment received the order to advance
+with the bayonet. "We were being knocked over in dozens by the artillery
+and couldn't get our own back," he writes,[C] "and I can tell you we
+were like a lot of schoolboys at a treat when we got the order to fix
+bayonets, for we knew we should fix them then. We had about 200 yards to
+cover before we got near them, and then we let them have it in the neck.
+It put us in mind of tossing hay, only we had human bodies. I was
+separated from my neighbors and was on my own when I was attacked by
+three Germans. I had a lively time and was nearly done when a comrade
+came to my rescue. I had already made sure of two, but the third would
+have finished me. I already had about three inches of steel in my side
+when my chum finished him."
+
+The charge of the Coldstream Guards at Le Cateau is another bayonet
+exploit that ought to be recorded. "It was getting dark when we found
+that the Kaiser's crush was coming through the forest to cut off our
+force," a sergeant relates, "but we got them everywhere, not a single
+man getting through. About 200 of us drove them down one street, and
+didn't the devils squeal. We came upon a mass of them in the main
+thoroughfare, but they soon lost heart and we actually climbed over
+their dead and wounded which were heaped up, to get at the others."
+"What a sight it was, and how our fellows yelled!" says another
+Coldstreamer, describing the same exploit.
+
+Tommy Atkins has long been known for his accurate artillery and rifle
+fire, but the bayonet is his favorite arm in battle. Through all our
+wars it has proved a deciding, if not indeed the decisive, factor in the
+campaign. Once it has been stained in service he fondles it as, next to
+his pipe, his best friend. And it is the same with the Frenchman. He
+calls his bayonet his "little Rosalie," and lays its ruddy edges against
+his cheek with a caress.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+CAVALRY EXPLOITS
+
+
+"We have been through the Uhlans like brown paper." In this striking
+phrase Sir Philip Chetwode, commanding the 5th Cavalry Brigade,
+describes the brilliant exploits in the neighborhood of Cambrai when, in
+spite of odds of five to one, the Prussian Horse were cut to pieces. Sir
+Philip was the first man to be mentioned in despatches, and Sir John
+French does not hesitate to confirm this dashing officer's tribute to
+his men. "Our cavalry," says the official message, "do as they like with
+the enemy."
+
+There is no more brilliant page in the history of the war than that
+which has been furnished to the historian by the deeds of the British
+cavalry. They carried everything before them. In a single encounter the
+reputation of the much-vaunted Uhlans was torn to shreds.
+
+The charge of the 9th Lancers at Toulin was a fine exploit. It was
+Balaclava over again, with a gallant Four Hundred charging a battery of
+eleven German guns. But there was no blunder this time; it was a
+sacrifice to save the 5th Infantry Division and some guns, and the
+heroic Lancers dashed to their task with a resounding British cheer. "We
+rode absolutely into death," says a corporal of the regiment writing
+home, "and the colonel told us that onlookers never expected a single
+Lancer to come back. About 400 charged and 72 rallied afterwards, but
+during the week 200 more turned up wounded and otherwise. You see, the
+infantry of ours were in a fix and no guns but four could be got round,
+so the General ordered two squadrons of the 9th to charge, as a
+sacrifice, to save the position. The order was given, but not only did A
+and B gallop into line, but C squadron also wheeled and came up with a
+roar. It was magnificent, but horrible. The regiment was swept away
+before 1,000 yards was covered, and at 200 yards from the guns I was
+practically alone--myself, three privates, and an officer of our
+squadron. We wheeled to a flank on the colonel's signal and rode back. I
+was mad with rage, a feeling I cannot describe. But we had drawn their
+fire; the infantry were saved."
+
+"It was the most magnificent sight I ever saw," says Driver W. Cryer,
+R.F.A., who witnessed the Lancers go into action. "They rode at the
+guns like men inspired," declares another spectator, "and it seemed
+incredible that any could escape alive. Lyddite and melinite swept like
+hail across the thin line of intrepid horsemen." "My God! How they
+fell!" writes Captain Letorez, who, after his horse was shot under him,
+leapt on a riderless animal and came through unhurt. When the men got up
+close to the German guns they found themselves riding full tilt into
+hidden wire entanglements--seven strands of barbed wire. Horses and men
+came down in a heap, and few of the brave fellows who reached this
+barrier ever returned.
+
+The 9th Lancers covered themselves with glory, and this desperate but
+successful exploit will live as perhaps the most stirring and dramatic
+battle story of the war. The Germans were struck with amazement at the
+fearlessness of these horsemen. Yet the 9th Lancers themselves took
+their honors very modestly. "We only fooled around and saved some guns,"
+said one of the Four Hundred, after it was over. He had his horse shot
+under him and his saddle blanket drilled through.
+
+Captain F.O. Grenfell, of the 9th Lancers, was the hero of an incident
+in the saving of the guns. All the gunners had been shot down and the
+guns looked likely to fall into the enemy's hands. "Look here, boys,"
+said Grenfell, "we've got to get them back. Who'll help?" A score of men
+instantly volunteered--"our chaps would go anywhere with Grenfell," says
+the corporal who tells the story--and "with bullets and shrapnel flying
+around us, off we went. It was a hot time, but our captain was as cool
+as on parade, and kept on saying, 'It's all right; they can't hit us.'
+Well, they did manage to hit three of us before we saved the guns, and
+God knows how any of us ever escaped." Later on Captain Grenfell was
+himself wounded, but before the ambulance had been brought up to carry
+him off he sprang into a passing motor-car and dashed into the thick of
+the fighting again.
+
+The 18th Hussars and the 4th Dragoon Guards were also in these brilliant
+cavalry engagements, but did not suffer anything like so badly as the
+9th Lancers. Corporal Clarke, of the Remount Depot, which was attached
+to the 18th Hussars, thus described their "little scrap" with the German
+horsemen near Landrecies: "We received orders to form line (two ranks),
+and the charge was sounded. We then charged, and were under the fire of
+two batteries, one on each side of the cavalry. We charged straight
+through them, and on reforming we drove the Germans back towards the
+1st Lincoln Regiment, who captured those who had not been shot down. We
+had about 103 men missing, and we were about 1,900 strong. The order
+then came to retreat, and we returned in the direction of Cambrai, but
+we did not take any part in the action there."
+
+History seems to be repeating itself in amazing ways in this war. Just
+as the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava has been reproduced by
+the 9th Lancers, so the Scots Greys and 12th Lancers have reproduced the
+famous charge of the "Greys" at Waterloo. This is the fight which
+aroused the enthusiasm of Sir Philip Chetwode, for his brigade went
+through the German cavalry just as circus horses might leap through
+paper hoops. "I watched the charge of the Scots Greys and 12th Lancers,"
+writes Sergeant C. Meades, of the Berkshires. "It was grand. I could see
+some of the Germans dropping on their knees and holding up their arms.
+Then, as soon as our cavalry got through, the Germans picked up their
+rifles and started firing again. Our men turned about and charged back.
+It was no use the Germans putting up their hands a second time. Our
+cavalry cut down every one they came to. I don't think there were ten
+Germans left out of about 2,000. I can tell you they had all they
+wanted for that day." An officer of the dragoons, describing the same
+charge, says the dragoon guards were also in it, and that his lads were
+"as keen as mustard." In fact, he declares, "there was no holding them
+back. Horses and men positively flew at the Germans, cutting through
+much heavier mounts and heavier men than ours. The yelling and the dash
+of the lancers and dragoon guards was a thing never to be forgotten. We
+lost very heavily at Mons, and it is a marvel how some of our fellows
+pulled through. They positively frightened the enemy. We did terrible
+execution, and our wrists were feeling the strain of heavy riding before
+sunset. With our tunics unbuttoned, we had the full use of our right
+arms for attack and defense."
+
+Another charge of the Scots Greys is thus described: "Seeing the wounded
+getting cut at by the German officers, the Scots Greys went mad, and
+even though retreat had been sounded, with a non-commissioned officer
+leading, they turned on the Potsdam Guards and hewed their way through,
+their officers following. Having got through, the officers took command
+again, formed them up, wheeled, and came back the way they went. It was
+a sight for the gods."
+
+Another episode was the capture of the German guns by the 2nd and 5th
+Dragoons. An officer of the 5th gives an account of the exploit. "We
+were attacked at dawn, in a fog," he relates, "and it looked bad for us,
+but we turned it into a victory. Our brigade captured all the guns of
+the German cavalry division, fourteen in all; the Bays lost two-thirds
+of their horses and many men. The Gunner Battery of ours was annihilated
+(twenty left), but the guns were saved, as we held the ground at the
+end. This was only a series of actions, as we have been at it all day,
+and every day. My own squadron killed sixteen horses and nine Uhlans in
+a space of 50 ft., and many others, inhabitants told me, were lying in a
+wood close by, where they had crawled. We killed their officer, a big
+Postdam Guard, shot through the forehead. L Battery fought their guns to
+the last, 'Bradbury' himself firing a gun with his leg off at the knee;
+a shell took off his other leg. He asked me then to be carried from the
+guns so that the men could not hear or see him."
+
+One of the 2nd Dragoons, wounded in this engagement, says the Bays were
+desperately eager for the order to charge, and exultant when the bugle
+sounded. "Off they went, 'hell for leather,' at the guns," is how he
+described it. "There was no stopping them once they got on the move."
+
+"No stopping them." That sums up what every eye-witness of the British
+cavalry charges says. The coolness and dash of the men in action was
+amazing. Their voices rang out as they spurred their horses on, and when
+they crashed into the enemy, the British roar of exultation was
+terrific, and the mighty clash of arms rent the air. "Many flung away
+their tunics," writes a Yeomanry Officer with General Smith-Dorrien's
+Division, "and fought with their shirt sleeves rolled up above the
+elbow. Some of the Hussars and Lancers were almost in a horizontal
+position on the off-side of their mounts when they were cutting right
+and left with bare arms."
+
+Most intimate details of the fighting at close quarters are given by
+another officer. "I shall never forget," he says, "how one
+splendidly-made trooper with his shirt in ribbons actually stooped so
+low from his saddle as to snatch a wounded comrade from instant death at
+the hands of a powerful German. And then, having swung the man right
+round to the near side, he made him hang on to his stirrup leather
+whilst he lunged his sword clean through the German's neck and severed
+his windpipe as cleanly as ---- would do it in the operating theater."
+
+And here is another incident: "A young lancer, certainly not more than
+twenty, stripped of tunic and shirt, and fighting in his vest, charged a
+German who had fired on a wounded man, and pierced him to the heart.
+Seizing the German's horse as he fell, he exchanged it for his own which
+had got badly damaged. Then, his sword sheathed like lightning, he swung
+round and shot a German clean through the head and silenced him
+forever."
+
+The soldiers' letters throb with such stories, and the swiftness, vigor,
+and power of expression revealed in them is astonishing. Most of them
+were written under withering fire, some scribbled even when in the
+saddle, or when the writers were in a state of utter exhaustion at the
+end of a nerve-shattering day. "'Hell with the lid off' describes what
+we are going through," one of the 12th Lancers says of it. But the men
+never lose spirit. Even after eighteen or nineteen hours in the saddle
+they still have a kindly, cheering message to write home, and a jocular
+metaphor to hit off the situation. "We are going on all right,"
+concludes Corporal G.W. Cooper, 16th Lancers; "but still it isn't
+exactly what you'd call playing billiards at the club."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+WITH THE HIGHLANDERS
+
+
+The Highlanders have been great favorites in France. Their gaiety, humor
+and inexhaustible spirits under the most trying conditions have
+captivated everybody. Through the villages on their route these brawny
+fellows march with their pipers to the proud lilt of "The Barren Rocks
+of Aden" and "The Cock o' the North," fine marching tunes that in turn
+give place to the regimental voices while the pipers are recovering
+their breath. "It's a long way to Inveraray" is the Scotch variant of
+the new army song, but the Scots have not altogether abandoned their own
+marching airs, and it is a stirring thing to hear the chorus of "The
+Nut-Brown Maiden," for instance, sung in the Gaelic tongue as these
+kilted soldiers swing forward on the long white roads of France.
+
+A charming little letter published in _The Times_ tells how the
+Highlanders and their pipers turned Melun into a "little Scotland" for
+a week, and the enthusiastic writer contributes some verses for a
+suggested new reel, of which the following have a sly allusion to the
+Kaiser's order for the extermination of General French's "contemptible
+little army":
+
+    "What! Wad ye stop the pipers?
+      Nay, 'tis ower soon!
+    Dance, since ye're dancing, William,
+      Dance, ye puir loon!
+    Dance till ye're dizzy, William,
+      Dance till ye swoon!
+    Dance till ye're deid, my laddie!
+      We play the tune!"
+
+This is all quite in the spirit of the Highland soldiers. A Frenchman,
+writing to a friend in London goes into ecstasies over the behavior of
+the Scots in France, and says that at one railway station he saw two
+wounded Highlanders "dancing a Scotch reel which made the crowd fairly
+shriek with admiration." Nothing can subdue these Highlanders' spirits.
+They go into action, as has already been said, just as if it were a
+picnic, and here is a picture of life in the trenches at the time of the
+fierce battle of Mons. It is related by a corporal of the Black Watch.
+"The Germans," he states, "were just as thick as the Hielan' heather,
+and by weight of numbers (something like twenty-five to one) tried to
+force us back. But we had our orders and not a man flinched. We just
+stuck there while the shells were bursting about us, and in the very
+thick of it we kept on singing Harry Lauder's latest. It was terrible,
+but it was grand--peppering away at them to the tune of 'Roamin' in the
+Gloamin'' and 'The Lass o' Killiecrankie.' It's many a song about the
+lassies we sang in that 'smoker' wi' the Germans."
+
+According to another Highlander "those men who couldn't sing very well
+just whistled, and those who couldn't whistle talked about football and
+joked with each other. It might have been a sham fight the way the
+Gordons took it." With this memory of their undaunted gaiety it is sad
+to think how the Gordons were cut up in that encounter. Their losses
+were terrible. "God help them!" exclaims one writer. "Theirs was the
+finest regiment a man could see."
+
+But that was in the dark days of the long retreat, when the Highlanders,
+heedless of their own safety, hung on to their positions often in spite
+of the orders to retire, and avenged their own losses ten-fold by their
+punishment of the enemy. Private Smiley, of the Gordons, describing the
+German attacks, speaks of the devastating effects of the British fire.
+"Poor devils!" he writes of the German infantry. "They advanced in
+companies of quite 150 men in files five deep, and our rifle has a flat
+trajectory up to 600 yards. Guess the result. We could steady our rifles
+on the trench and take deliberate aim. The first company were mown down
+by a volley at 700 yards, and in their insane formation every bullet was
+almost sure to find two billets. The other companies kept advancing very
+slowly, using their dead comrades as cover, but they had absolutely no
+chance.... Yet what a pitiful handful we were against such a host!"
+
+The fighting went on all through the night and again next morning, and
+the British force was compelled to retreat. In the dark, Private Smiley,
+who was wounded, lost his regiment, and was picked up by a battery of
+the Royal Field Artillery who gave him a lift. But he didn't rest long,
+he says, for "I'm damned if they didn't go into action ten minutes
+afterwards with me on one of the guns."
+
+Some fine exploits are also given to the credit of the Black Watch.
+They, too, were in the thick of it at Mons--"fighting like gentlemen,"
+as one of them puts it--and the Gordons and Argyll and Sutherlands also
+suffered severely. In fact, the Highland regiments appear to have been
+singled out by the Germans as the object of their fiercest attacks, and
+all the way down to the Aisne they have borne the brunt of the
+fighting. Private Fairweather, of the Black Watch, gives this account of
+an engagement on the Aisne: "The Guards went up first and then the
+Camerons, both having to retire. Although we had watched the awful
+slaughter in these regiments, when it was our turn we went off with a
+cheer across 1,500 yards of open country. The shelling was terrific and
+the air was full of the screams of shrapnel. Only a few of us got up to
+200 yards of the Germans. Then with a yell we went at them. The air
+whistled with bullets, and it was then my shout of '42nd forever!'
+finished with a different kind of yell. Crack! I had been presented with
+a souvenir in my knee. I lay helpless and our fellows retired over me.
+Shrapnel screamed all around, and melinite shells made the earth shake.
+I bore a charmed life. A bullet went through the elbow of my jacket,
+another through my equipment, and a piece of shrapnel found a resting
+place in a tin of bully beef which was on my back. I was picked up
+eventually during the night, nearly dead from loss of blood."
+
+Perhaps the most dashing and brilliant episode of the fighting is the
+exploit of the Black Watch at the battle of St. Quentin, in which they
+went into action with their old comrades, the Scots Greys. Not content
+with the ordinary pace at which a bayonet charge can be launched against
+the enemy these impatient Highlanders clutched at the stirrup leathers
+of the Greys, and plunged into the midst of the Germans side by side
+with the galloping horsemen. The effect was startling, and those who saw
+it declare that nothing could have withstood the terrible onslaught.
+"Only a Highland regiment could have attempted such a movement," said an
+admiring English soldier who watched it, and the terrible gashes in the
+German ranks bore tragic testimony to the results of this double charge.
+The same desperate maneuver, it may be recalled, was carried out at
+Waterloo and is the subject of a striking and dramatic battle picture.
+
+Though all the letters from men in the Highland regiments speak
+contemptuously of the rifle fire of the Germans, they admit that in
+quantity, at least, it is substantial. "They just poured lead in tons
+into our trenches," writes one, "but, man, if we fired like yon they'd
+put us in jail." The German artillery, however, is described as "no
+canny." The shells shrieked and tore up the earth all around the
+Highlanders, and accounted for practically all their losses.
+
+Narrow escapes were numerous. An Argyll and Sutherland Highlander got
+his kilt pierced eight times by shrapnel, one of the Black Watch had his
+cap shot off, and while another was handling a tin of jam a bullet went
+clean into the tin. Jocular allusions were made to these incidents, and
+somebody suggested labeling the tin "Made in Germany."
+
+Even the most grim incidents of the war are lit up by some humorous or
+pathetic passage which illustrates the fine spirits and even finer
+sympathies of the Highlanders. Lance-Corporal Edmondson, of the Royal
+Irish Lancers, mentions the case of two men of the Argyll and
+Sutherlands, who were cut off from their regiment. One was badly
+wounded, but his comrade refused to leave him, and in a district overrun
+by Germans, they had to exist for four days on half-a-dozen biscuits.
+
+"But how did you manage to do it?" the unwounded man was asked, when
+they were picked up.
+
+"Oh, fine," he answered.
+
+"How about yourself, I mean?" the questioner persisted in asking.
+
+"Oh, shut up," said the Highlander.
+
+The truth is he had gone without food all the time in order that his
+comrade might not want.
+
+Then there is a story from Valenciennes of a poor scared woman who
+rushed frantically into the road as the British troops entered the
+town. She had two slight cuts on the arm, and was almost naked--the
+result of German savagery. When she saw the soldiers she shrank back in
+fear and confusion, whereupon one of the Highlanders, quick to see her
+plight, tore off his kilt, ripped it in half, and wrapped a portion
+around her. She sobbed for gratitude at this kindly thought and tried to
+thank him, but before she could do so the Scot, twisting the other half
+of the kilt about himself to the amusement of his comrades, was swinging
+far along the road with his regiment.
+
+This is not the only Scot who has lost his kilt in the war. One of the
+Royal Engineers gives a comic picture of a Highlander who appears to
+have lost nearly every article of clothing he left home in. When last
+seen by this letter writer he was resplendent in a Guardsman's tunic,
+the red breeches of a Frenchman, a pair of Belgian infantry boots, and
+his own Glengarry! "And when he wants to look particularly smart," adds
+the Engineer, "he puts on a Uhlan's cloak that he keeps handy!"
+
+As another contribution to the humor of life in the trenches and,
+incidentally, to the discussion of soldier songs, it is worth while
+quoting from a letter signed "H.L.," in _The_ _Times_, this specimen
+verse of the sort of lyric that delights Tommy Atkins. It is the work of
+a Sergeant of the Gordon Highlanders, and as the marching song in high
+favor at Aldershot, must come as a shock to the ideals of would-be army
+laureates:
+
+    "Send out the Army and Navy,
+    Send out the rank and file,
+           (Have a banana!)
+    Send out the brave Territorials,
+    They easily can run a mile.
+           (I don't think!)
+    Send out the boys' and the girls' brigade,
+    They will keep old England free:
+    Send out my mother, my sister, and my brother,
+    But for goodness sake don't send me."
+
+It is doggerel, of course, but it has a certain cleverness as a satire
+on the music-hall song of the day, and the Gordons carried it gaily with
+them to their battlefields, blending it in that odd mixture of humor and
+tragedy that makes up the soldier's life. The bravest, it is truly said,
+are always the happiest, and of the happy warriors who have fallen in
+this campaign one must be remembered here in this little book of British
+heroism. He died bravely on the hill of Jouarre, near La Ferte, and his
+comrades buried him where he fell. On a little wooden cross are
+inscribed the simple words, "T. Campbell, Seaforths."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE INTREPID IRISH
+
+
+"There's been a divil av lot av talk about Irish disunion," says Mr.
+Dooley somewhere, "but if there's foightin' to be done it's the bhoys
+that'll let nobody else thread on the Union Jack." That is the Irish
+temperament all over, and in these days when history is being written in
+lightning flashes the rally of Ireland to the old flag is inspiring, but
+not surprising.
+
+Political cynics have always said that England's difficulty would be
+Ireland's opportunity, but they did not reckon with the paradoxical
+character of the Irish people. England's difficulty has indeed been
+Ireland's opportunity--the opportunity of displaying that generous
+nature which has already contributed thousands of men to the
+Expeditionary Force, and is mustering tens of thousands more under the
+patriotic stimulus of those old political enemies, Mr. John Redmond and
+Sir Edward Carson. The civil war is "put off," as one Irish soldier
+expresses it; old enmities are laid aside and Orange and Green are
+fighting shoulder to shoulder, on old battlefields whose names are writ
+in glory upon the colors.
+
+No more cheerful regiments than the Irish are to be found in the firing
+line. Their humor in the trenches, their love of songs, and their dash
+in action are manifested in all their letters. An English soldier,
+writing home, says that even in the midst of a bayonet charge an
+Irishman can always raise a laugh. "Look at thim divils retratin' with
+their backs facin' us," was an Irish remark about the Germans that made
+his fellows roar. And when the Fusiliers heard the story of the Kaiser's
+lucky shamrock, one of them said: "Sure, an' it'll be moighty lucky for
+him if he doesn't lose it"; adding to one of three comrades, "There'll
+be a leaf apiece for us, Hinissey, when we get to Berlin."
+
+In the fighting the Irish have done big things and their dash and
+courage have filled their British and French comrades with admiration.
+Referring to the first action in which the Irish Guards took part, and
+the smart businesslike way in which they cut up the Germans, Private
+Heffernan, Royal Irish Fusiliers, says they had a great reception as
+they marched back into the lines: "Of course, we all gave them a cheer,
+but it would have done your heart good to see the Frenchmen (who had a
+good view of the fighting) standing up in their trenches and shouting
+like mad as the Guards passed by. The poor chaps didn't like the idea
+that it was their first time in action, and were shy about the fuss made
+of them: and there was many a row in camp that night over men saying
+fine things and reminding them of their brand new battle honors."[D]
+
+A fine story is told of the heroism of two Irish Dragoons by a trooper
+of that gallant regiment. "One of our men," he says, "carried a wounded
+comrade to a friendly farm-house under heavy fire, and when the retreat
+was ordered both were cut off. A patrol of a dozen Uhlans found them
+there and ordered them to surrender, but they refused, and, tackling the
+Germans from behind a barricade of furniture, killed or wounded half of
+them. The others then brought up a machine gun and threatened the
+destruction of the farm: but the two dragoons, remembering the kindness
+of the farm owners and unwilling to bring ruin and disaster upon them,
+rushed from the house in the wild hope of tackling the gun. The moment
+they crossed the doorway they fell riddled with bullets." Another story
+of the Irish Dragoons is told by Trooper P. Ryan. One of the Berkshires
+had been cut off from his regiment while lingering behind to bid a dying
+chum good-by, when he was surrounded by a patrol of Uhlans. A troop of
+the Irish Dragoons asked leave of their officer to rescue the man, and
+sweeping down on the Germans, quickly scattered them. But they were too
+late. The plucky Berkshire man had "gone under," taking three Germans
+with him. "We buried him with his chum by the wayside," adds Trooper
+Ryan. "Partings of this kind are sad, but they are everyday occurrences
+in war, and you just have to get used to them."
+
+The Dragoons also went to the assistance of a man of the Irish Rifles
+who, wounded himself, was yet kneeling beside a fallen comrade of the
+Gloucester Regiment, and gamely firing to keep the enemy off. The
+Dragoons found both men thoroughly worn out, but urgency required the
+regiment to take up another position, and the wounded men had to be left
+to the chance of being picked up by the Red Cross corps. "They knew
+that," says the trooper who relates the incident, "and weren't the men
+to expect the general safety to be risked for them. 'Never mind,' said
+the young Irishman, 'shure the sisters 'll pick us up all right, an' if
+they don't--well, we've only once to die, an' it's the grand fight we've
+had annyhow.'"
+
+One of the most stirring exploits of the war--equaled only by the
+devotion and self-sacrifice of the Royal Engineers in the fight for the
+bridge--is that of the Irish Fusiliers in saving another regiment from
+annihilation. The regiment was in a distant and exposed position, and a
+message had to be sent ordering its retirement. This could only be
+accomplished by despatching a messenger, and the fusiliers were asked
+for volunteers. Every man offered himself, though all knew what it meant
+to cross that stretch of open country raked with rifle fire. They tossed
+for the honor, and the first man to start-off with the message was an
+awkward shock-headed chap who, the narrator says, didn't impress by his
+appearance. Into the blinding hail of bullets he dashed, and cleared the
+first hundred yards without mishap. In the second lap he fell wounded,
+but struggled to his feet and rushed on till he was hit a second time
+and collapsed. One man rushed to his assistance and another to bear the
+message. The first reached the wounded man and started to carry him in,
+but when nearing the trenches and their cheering comrades, both fell
+dead. The third man had by this time got well on his way, and was almost
+within reach of the endangered regiment when he, too, was hit.
+Half-a-dozen men ran out to bring him in, and the whole lot of this
+rescuing party were shot down, but the wounded fusilier managed to crawl
+to the trenches and deliver the order. The regiment fell back into
+safety and the situation was saved, but the message arrived none too
+soon, and the gallant Irish Fusiliers certainly saved one battalion from
+extinction.
+
+In one fierce little fight the Munster Fusiliers (the "Dirty Shirts")
+had to prevent themselves from being cut off, and in a desperate effort
+to capture the whole regiment the Germans launched cavalry, infantry and
+artillery upon them. "The air was thick with noises," says one of the
+Munsters in telling the story, "men shouting, waving swords, and blazing
+away at us like blue murder. But our lads stood up to them without the
+least taste of fear, and gave them the bayonet and the bullet in fine
+style. They crowded upon us in tremendous numbers, but though it was
+hell's own work we wouldn't surrender, and they had at last to leave
+us. I got a sword thrust in the ribs, and then a bullet in me, and went
+under for a time, but when the mist cleared from my eyes I could see the
+boys cutting up the Germans entirely." The losses were heavy, and the
+comment was made in camp that the Germans had cleaned up the "Dirty
+Shirts" for once. "Well," said an indignant Fusilier, "it was a moighty
+expensive washin' for them annyway."
+
+How Private Parker of the Inniskilling Fusiliers escaped from four
+Uhlans who had taken him prisoner is an example of personal daring. His
+captors marched him off between them till they came to a narrow lane
+where the horsemen could walk only in single file--three in front of him
+and one behind. He determined to make a bid for liberty. Ducking under
+the rear horse he seized his rifle, shot the Uhlan, and disappeared in
+the darkness. For days he lay concealed, and on one occasion German
+searchers entered the room in which he was hidden, yet failed to find
+him.
+
+Private Court, 2nd Royal Scots, pays a tribute to the gallantry of the
+Connaught Rangers, and tells how they saved six guns which had been
+taken by the enemy. The sight of British guns in German hands was too
+much for the temper of the Connaughts, who came on with an irresistible
+charge, compelling the guns to be abandoned, and enabling the Royal
+Field Artillery to dash in and drag them out of danger. Another soldier
+relates that the Connaughts were trapped by a German abuse of the white
+flag and suffered badly when, all unsuspecting, they went to take over
+their prisoners; but they left their mark on the enemy on that occasion,
+and "when the Connaught blood is up," as one of the Rangers expresses
+it, "it's a nasty job to be up agin it."
+
+Stories of Irish daring might be multiplied, but these are sufficient to
+show that the old regiments are still full of the fighting spirit. "Now
+boys," one of their non-commissioned officers is reported to have said,
+"no surrender for us! Ye've got yer rifles, and yer baynits, and yer
+butts, and after that, ye divils, there's yer fists." A drummer of the
+Irish Fusiliers who had lost his regiment, met another soldier on the
+road and begged for the loan of his rifle "just to get a last pop at the
+divils." Sir John French is himself of Irish parentage--Roscommon and
+Galway claim him--and there is no more ardent or cheerful fighter in the
+British army.
+
+"It beats Banagher," says a jocular private in the Royal Irish, "how
+these Germans always disturb us at meal times. I suppose it's just the
+smell of the bacon that they're after, and Rafferty says we can't be too
+careful where we stow the mercies." From all accounts the Germans taken
+prisoner are about as ill-fed as they are ill-informed. Private Harkness
+of the same regiment, says the captives' first need is food and then
+information. One of them asked him why the Irish weren't fighting in
+their own civil war. "Faith," said he, "this is the only war we know
+about for the time being, and there's mighty little that's _civil_ about
+it with the way you're behaving yourselves." The German looked gloomy,
+and, added Harkness, "I don't think he liked a plain Irishman's way of
+putting things."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+"A FIRST-CLASS FIGHTING MAN"
+
+
+"If ever I come back, and anybody at home talks to me about the glory of
+war, I shall be d----d rude to him." That is an extract from the letter
+of an officer who has seen too much of the grim and ugly side of the
+campaign to find any romance in it. Yet out of all the horror there
+emerge incidents of conspicuous bravery that strike across the
+imagination like sunbeams, and cast a glow even in the darkest corners
+of the stricken field.
+
+Valor is neither a philosophy nor a calculation. The soldier does not
+say to himself, "Look here, Atkins,
+
+    'One crowded hour of glorious life
+    Is worth an age without a name.'"
+
+He goes into the business of war determined to get it over as quickly as
+possible,[E] and when he does something stupendous, as he does nearly
+ever day, it is just because the thing has to be done, and he is there
+to do it. Tommy Atkins doesn't stop to think whether he is doing a brave
+thing, nor does he wait for orders to do it; he just sets about it as
+part of the day's work, and looks very much abashed if anybody applauds
+him for it.
+
+For instance, there is a man in the Buffs (the story is told by a driver
+of the Royal Marine Artillery), who picked up a wounded comrade and
+carried him for more than a mile under a vicious German fire that was
+exterminating nearly everything. It was a fine act of heroism. "Yet if
+anybody were to suggest the V.C. he'd break his jaw," says the writer,
+"and as he's a man with a 4.7 punch the men of his regiment keep very
+quiet about it."
+
+Some fine exploits are recorded of the Artillery. When the Munster
+Fusiliers were surrounded in one extended engagement a driver of the
+R.F.A. named Pledge, who was shut up with them, was asked to "cut
+through" and get the assistance of the Artillery. Lance-Corporal John
+McMillan, Black Watch, thus describes what happened: "Pledge mounted a
+horse and dashed through the German lines. His horse was brought to the
+ground, and, as we afterwards discovered, he sustained severe injuries
+to his legs. Nothing daunted, he got his horse on its feet, and again
+set off at a great pace. To get to the artillery he had to pass down a
+narrow road, which was lined with German riflemen. He did not stop,
+however, but dashed through without being hit by a single bullet. He
+conveyed the message to the artillery, which tore off to the assistance
+of the Munsters, and saved the situation."
+
+The saving of the guns is always an operation that calls for
+intrepidity, and many exploits of that kind are related. Lance-Corporal
+Bignell, Royal Berks, tells how he saw two R.F.A. drivers bring a gun
+out of action at Mons. Shells had been flying round the position, and
+the gunners had been killed, whereupon the two drivers went to rescue
+the gun. "It was a good quarter of a mile away," says the witness, "yet
+they led their horses calmly through the hail of shell to where the gun
+stood. Then one man held the horses while the other limbered up. It
+seemed impossible that the men could live through the German fire, and
+from the trenches we watched them with great anxiety. But they came
+through all right, and we gave them a tremendous cheer as they brought
+the gun in."
+
+Sir John French in one of his despatches records that during the action
+at Le Cateau on August 26th the whole of the officers and men of one of
+the British batteries had been killed or wounded with the exception of
+one subaltern and two gunners. These continued to serve one gun, kept up
+a sound rate of fire, and came unhurt from the battlefield.
+
+Another daring act is described by W.E. Motley, R.F.A. "Things became
+very warm for us," he says, "when the Germans found the range. In fact
+it became so hot that an order was passed to abandon the guns
+temporarily. This is the time when our men don't obey orders, so they
+stuck to their guns. They ceased their fire for a time. The enemy,
+thinking our guns were out of action, advanced rapidly. Then was the
+time our men proved their worth. They absolutely shattered the Germans
+with their shells."
+
+Some gallant stories are told of the Royal Engineers. One especially
+thrilling, is given in the words of Darino, a lyrical artist of the
+Comédie Française, who joined the Cuirassiers, and was a spectator of
+the scene he describes. A bridge had to be blown up, and the whole place
+was an inferno of mitrailleuse and rifle fire. "Into this," he relates,
+"went your Engineers. A party of them rushed towards the bridge, and,
+though dropping one by one, were able to lay the charge before all were
+sacrificed. For a moment we waited. Then others came. Down towards the
+bridge they crept, seeking what cover they could in their eagerness to
+get near enough to light the fuse. Ah! it was then we Frenchmen
+witnessed something we shall never forget. One man dashed forward to his
+task in the open, only to fall dead. Another, and another, and another
+followed him, only to fall like his comrade, and not till the twelfth
+man had reached the fuse did the attempt succeed. As the bridge blew up
+with a mighty roar, we looked and saw that the brave twelfth man had
+also sacrificed his life."
+
+During the long retreat from Mons the Middlesex Regiment got into an
+awkward plight, and a bridge--the only one left to the Germans--had to
+be destroyed to protect them. This was done by a sergeant of the
+Engineers, but immediately afterwards his own head was blown away by a
+German shell. "The brave fellow certainly saved the position," writes
+one of the Middlesex men, "for if the Germans had got across that night
+I'm afraid there would have been very few of us left."
+
+Other daring incidents may be told briefly. One of the liveliest is
+that of seven men of the Worcesters, who were told they could "go for a
+stroll." While loitering along the road they encountered a party of
+Germans, and captured them all without firing a shot. "We just covered
+them with our rifles," writes Private Styles; "so simple!" Sir John
+French relates a similar exploit of an officer who, while proceeding
+along the road in charge of a number of led horses, received information
+that there were some of the enemy in the neighborhood. Upon seeing them
+he gave the order to charge, whereupon three German officers and 106 men
+surrendered! On another occasion a portion of a supply column was cut
+off by a detachment of German cavalry and the officer in charge was
+summoned to surrender. He refused, and starting his motors off at full
+speed dashed safely through.
+
+Hairbreadth escapes are related in hundreds of letters, and they have a
+dramatic quality that makes the ineffectual fires of imaginative fiction
+burn very low. Sergeant E.W. Turner, West Kents, writes to his
+sweetheart: "The bullet that wounded me at Mons went into one breast
+pocket and came out of the other, and in its course passed through your
+photo." Private G. Ryder vouches for this: "We were having what you
+might call a dainty afternoon tea in the trenches under shell fire. The
+mugs were passed round with the biscuits and the 'bully' as best they
+could by the mess orderlies, but it was hard work messing through
+without getting more than we wanted. My next-door neighbor, so to speak,
+got a shrapnel bullet in his tin, and another two doors off had his
+biscuit shot out of his hand." Lieutenant A.C. Johnstone, the Hants
+county cricketer, after escaping other bullets and shells which were
+dancing around him, was hit over the heart by a spent bullet, which on
+reaching hospital he found in his left-hand breast pocket. Private
+Plant, Manchester Regiment, had a cigarette shot out of his mouth, and a
+comrade got a bullet into his tin of bully beef. "It saves the trouble
+of opening it," was his facetious remark.
+
+One of the Royal Scots Fusiliers was saved by a cartridge clip. He felt
+the shock and thought he had been hit, but the bullet was diverted by
+the impact owing to a loose cartridge. Had it been struck higher up all
+the cartridges might have exploded. Another letter mentions a case where
+a man got two bullets; one struck his cartridge belt, and the other
+entered his sleeve and passed through his trousers as far as the knee,
+without even scratching him. Drummer E. O'Brien, South Lancashires, had
+his bugle and piccolo smashed, his cap carried away by a bullet, and
+another bullet through his coat before he was finally struck by a piece
+of shrapnel which injured his ankle; and another soldier records thus
+his adventures under fire: (1) Shell hit and shattered my rifle; (2) Cap
+shot off my head; (3) Bullet in muscle of right arm. "But never mind, my
+dear," he comments, "I had a good run for my money." Staff-Sergeant J.W.
+Butler, 1st Lincolns, was saved by a paper pad in his pocket book; the
+bullet embedded itself there.
+
+Sapper McKenny, Royal Engineers, records the unique experience of a
+comrade whose cap was shot off so neatly that the bullet left a groove
+in his hair just like a barber's parting! He thinks the German who fired
+the shot is probably a London hairdresser.
+
+Private J. Drury, 3rd Coldstream Guards, also had a narrow escape, being
+hit by a bullet out of a shell between the left eye and the temple. "It
+struck there," he relates, "but one of our men got it out with a safety
+pin, and now I've got it in my pocket!"
+
+The amusing escapade of "wee Hecky MacAlister," is told by Private T.
+McDougall, of the Highland Light Infantry. Hecky went into a burn for a
+swim, and suddenly found the attentions of the Germans were directed to
+him. "You know what a fine mark he is with his red head," says the
+writer to his correspondent, and so they just hailed bullets at him.
+Hecky, however, "dooked and dooked," and emerged from his bath happy but
+breathless after his submarine exploit.
+
+But while the men in the trenches applaud all the brilliant exploits of
+their fellows, and laugh and jest over the lively escapes of the lucky
+ones who, in Atkins's phraseology, "only get their hair parted," there
+are other fine deeds done in the quiet corners of hospitals and out of
+the glamour of battle that move the strongest to tears. Such is the
+incident related by a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and it is
+a fitting story with which to close this chapter. One soldier, mortally
+wounded, was being attended by the doctor when his eye fell on a dying
+comrade. "See to him first, doctor," he said faintly, "that poor bloke's
+going home; he'll be home before me."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN
+
+
+"He died doing his duty like the officer and gentleman he was." Could
+any man have a finer epitaph? It is an extract from a letter written by
+Private J. Fairclough, Yorkshire Light Infantry, to General A. Wynn, and
+refers to the death of the General's son, Lieutenant G.O. Wynn, killed
+in action at Landrecies. The letter goes on to tell of the affection in
+which the young officer was held by his men, and this story of courage
+and unselfishness in the field is the simple but faithful tribute of a
+devoted soldier.
+
+The war has brought out in a hundred ways the admirable qualities of all
+ranks in the British Expeditionary Force; but the relations of officers
+and men have never been revealed to us before with such friendly candor
+and mutual appreciation. Over and over again in these letters from the
+front the soldiers are found extolling the bravery and self-sacrifice
+of their officers. "No praise is too great for them," "our officers
+always pull us through," "they know their business to the finger-tips,"
+"as cool as cucumbers under fire," "magnificent examples," "absolutely
+fearless in the tightest corners"--these are some of the phrases in
+which the men speak proudly of those in command.
+
+One officer in the 1st Hampshire Regiment read _Marmion_ aloud in the
+trenches, under a fierce maxim fire, to keep up the spirits of his men;
+and they "play cards and sing popular songs to cheer us up," adds
+another genial soldier. Not that the men suffer much from depression. On
+the contrary, the commanders agree that their spirits have been
+splendid. "Our men are simply wonderful," writes an officer in the
+cavalry division; "they will go through anything."
+
+The most surprising thing in the soldiers' letters is that they should
+show such an extraordinary sense of the dramatic. They throb with
+emotion. Take this account of the death of Captain Berners as written by
+Corporal S. Haley, of the Brigade of Guards, in a letter published by
+the _Star_:
+
+"Captain Berners, of the Irish, was the life and soul of our lot. When
+shells were bursting over our heads he would buck us up with his humor
+about Brock's displays at the Palace. But when we got into close
+quarters it was he who was in the thick of it. And didn't he fight! I
+don't know how he got knocked over, but one of our fellows told me he
+died a game 'un. He was one of the best of officers, and there is not a
+Tommy who would not have gone under for him."
+
+Among those who fell at Cambrai was Captain Clutterbuck, of the King's
+Own (Lancaster) Regiment. He was killed while leading a bayonet charge.
+"Just like Clutterbuck," wrote a wounded sergeant, describing the
+officer's valor, and adding, "Lieutenant Steele-Perkins also died one of
+the grandest deaths a British officer could wish for. He was lifted out
+of the trenches wounded four times, but protested and crawled back again
+till he was mortally wounded."
+
+A sergeant of the Coldstream Guards, in an account given to the _Evening
+News_, speaks of the death of Captain Windsor Clive. "We were sorry to
+lose Captain Clive, who," he says, "was a real gentleman and a soldier.
+He was knocked over by the bursting of a shell, which maddened our
+fellows I can tell you." The utmost anger was also aroused in the men of
+the Lancaster Regiment by the death of Colonel Dykes. "Good-by, boys,"
+he exclaimed as he fell; and "By God, we avenged him," said one of the
+"boys" in describing the fight.
+
+Many instances are given of the devotion shown by the soldiers in saving
+their officers. Private J. Ferrie, of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, wounded
+while defending a bridge at Landrecies, tells in the _Glasgow Herald_
+how Sergeant Crop rescued Lieutenant Stephens, who had been badly hit
+and must otherwise have fallen into the enemy's hands: "The sergeant
+took the wounded lieutenant on his back, but as he could not crawl
+across the bridge so encumbered he entered the water, swam the canal,
+carried the wounded man out of line of fire, and consigned him to the
+care of four men of his own company. Of a platoon of fifty-eight which
+was set to guard the bridge only twenty-six afterwards answered to the
+roll call."
+
+On the other hand, there are many records of the tremendous risks taken
+by officers to rescue wounded men. Private J. Williams, Royal Field
+Artillery, had two horses shot under him and was badly injured "when the
+major rushed up and saved me." "I was lying wounded when an artillery
+major picked me up and took me into camp, or I would never have seen
+England again," writes Lance-Corporal J. Preston, Inniskilling
+Fusiliers. Lieutenant Sir Alfred Hickman was wounded in the shoulder
+while rescuing a wounded sergeant under heavy fire. How another disabled
+man was brought in by Lieutenant Amos, is told by Private George
+Pringle, King's Own Scottish Borderers. "Several of us volunteered to do
+it," he says, "but the lieutenant wouldn't hear of anybody else taking
+the risk." Captain McLean, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, saved one
+of his men under similar circumstances. All the letters are full of
+praise of the officers who, in the words of Private James Allan, Gordon
+Highlanders, "seem to be mainly concerned about the safety of their men,
+and indifferent to the risks they take upon themselves."
+
+Every Tommy knows he is being finely led. The officers are a constant
+source of inspiration and encouragement. Private Campbell, Irish
+Fusiliers, writes:
+
+"Lieutenant O'Donovan led us all the time, and was himself just where
+the battle was hottest. I shall never forget his heroism. I can see him
+now, revolver in one hand and sword in the other. He certainly accounted
+for six Germans on his own, and inspired us to the effort of our lives.
+He has only been six months in the service, is little more than a boy,
+but the British Army doesn't possess a more courageous officer."
+
+The Scottish Borderers speak proudly of Major Leigh, who was hit during
+a bayonet charge, and when some of his men turned to help him, shouted
+"Go on, boys; don't mind me." A lieutenant of A Company, 1st Cheshires:
+"I only know his nickname," says Private D. Schofield--though wounded in
+two places, rushed to help a man in distress, brought him in, and then
+went back to pick up his fallen sword. Captain Robert Bruce, heir of
+Lord Balfour of Burleigh, distinguished himself in the fighting at Mons.
+One of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders relates that, in spite of
+wounds, Captain Bruce took command of about thirty Highlanders who had
+been cut off, and throwing away his sword, seized a rifle from one of
+the killed, and fought side by side with his men.
+
+How the guns were saved at Soissons is told in a letter, published in
+_The Times_, from Sergeant C. Meades, of the Berkshire Regiment. "We had
+the order to abandon our guns," he writes, "but our young lieutenant
+said, 'No, boys; we'll never let the Germans take a British gun,' and
+with a cheer we fought on.... The Staffords came up and reinforced us.
+Then I got hit, and retired.... But the guns were saved. When the last
+of the six got through every one cheered like mad." One of the West
+Kents also described the daring action of an officer. In the midst of
+terrific fire, he walked calmly down the artillery line, putting our
+lost guns out of action so that they would be useless to the Germans.
+
+Even into the letters describing these gallant incidents there creep
+frequent evidences of Atkins's unconquerable spirit and sense of humor.
+Private R. Toomey, Royal Army Medical Corps, tells of an officer of the
+Royal Irish shouting at the top of his voice, "Give 'em hell, boys, give
+'em hell!" He had been wounded in the back by a lump of shrapnel, but,
+says Toomey, "it was a treat to hear him shouting."
+
+Most of these accounts refer to the weary days of the retirement from
+Mons to Compiègne, a test of endurance that brought out the splendid
+fighting qualities of officers and men alike. That retirement is
+certainly one of the most masterly achievements of a war already
+glorious for the exploits of British arms. Day after day our men had to
+fall back, tired and hungry, exhausted from want of sleep, yet fighting
+magnificently, and only impatient to begin the attack. This eagerness
+for battle is in marked contrast to the spirit of the German troops, of
+whom there is abundant evidence that the men have often to be driven
+into action by the threatening swords and revolvers of their officers.
+
+Francis Ryan, Northumberland Fusiliers, tells in the _Scotsman_ how
+young lieutenant Smith-Dorrien pleaded to be allowed to remain with his
+men in the trenches after a retirement had been ordered. The South
+Staffordshires thought they were "getting along splendidly," says one of
+the men, "until the General came and told us we must retreat or we would
+be surrounded." The officer spoke very encouragingly, and praised his
+men; but they were all so unwilling to yield ground that one of them,
+expressing impatience, made a comment he would never have thought of
+doing in peace time. The General only smiled.
+
+This impatience pervaded all arms of the service. Some of the Highland
+regiments began to grow grim and sullen, in spite of their play with the
+bayonet; and the Irish corps became "unaisy." It was then that the
+officers' fine spirit brought reassurance. This is how the King's Royal
+Rifles were cheered up, according to Private Harman: "The officers knew
+we were disappointed, because on the fifth day of retirement our
+commanding officer came round and spoke to us. 'Stick it, boys, stick
+it,' he said; 'To-morrow we shall go the other way and advance--Biff,
+biff!' The way he said 'Biff, biff,' delighted the men, and after that
+we frequently heard men shouting, 'Biff, biff!'"
+
+General Sir John French, who is a great favorite with all ranks, and
+spoken of with affection by every Tommy, makes frequent tours of the
+lines and has a cheery word for every regiment. Driver W. Cryer, Royal
+Field Artillery, relates in the _Manchester Guardian_ that, at St.
+Quentin, Sir John French visited the troops, "smiling all over his
+face," and explained the meaning of the repeated retirements. Up to
+then, says Cryer, the men had almost to be pulled away by the officers,
+but after the General's visit they fell in with the general scheme with
+great cheerfulness.
+
+Summing up his impressions of the nerve-strain of these weary rearguard
+actions, a famous cavalry officer writing home, says: "We had a hell of
+a time.... But the men were splendid. I don't believe any other troops
+in the world could have stood it."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+BROTHERS IN ARMS
+
+
+There is a fine fraternity between the British and the French soldiers.
+They don't understand very much of each other's speech, but they "muddle
+through," as Atkins puts it, with "any old lingo." The French call out,
+"Bravo, Tommee!" and share cigarettes with him: and Atkins, not very
+sure of his new comrades' military Christian name, replies with a cheery
+"Right, Oh!" Then turning to his own fellows he shouts, "Are we
+downhearted?" and the clamorous "No!" always brings forth a rousing
+French cheer.
+
+Having seen each other in action since they first met on the way to
+battle they have grown to respect each other more and more. There is not
+much interchange of compliments in the letters from the trenches, but
+such as there is clearly establishes the belief of Atkins that he is
+fighting side by side with a brave and generous ally.
+
+"We always knew," writes one soldier, "that the French were swift and
+dangerous in attack, but we know now that they can fight on the
+stubbornly defensive." One of the South Lancashires is loud in his
+praise of their behavior under fire. "Especially the artillery,"
+Sergeant J. Baker adds; "the French seem to like the noise, and aren't
+happy unless it's there."
+
+One of _The Times_ correspondents mentions that the German guns have a
+heavy sound "boum," and the French a sharper one, "bing"; but neither of
+them is very pleasant to the ear, and it requires a cultured military
+taste like that of the French to enjoy the full harmony of the music
+when the British "bang" is added to the general cannonading. The French
+artillery is admitted to be fine, the deadly accuracy of the gunners
+being highly praised by all who have watched the havoc wrought in the
+German lines.
+
+For the French soldier, however, the path of greatest glory lies in the
+charge. Dash and fire are what he possesses in the highest degree. His
+highly-strung temperament chafes under delays and disappointments. He
+hasn't the solid, bull-dog courage that enables the British soldier to
+take hard knocks, even severe punishment, and come up smiling again to
+renew the battle that he will only allow to end in one way, and that
+way victory.
+
+In the advance, as one writer describes it, the French dash forward in
+spasmodic movements, making immediately for cover. After a brief
+breathing space they bound into the open again, and again seek any
+available shelter. And so they proceed till the charge is sounded, when
+with gleaming bayonets and a cry of "_pour la gloire_" upon their lips
+they sweep down upon the enemy at a tremendous pace. The whole thing is
+exhilarating to watch, and to the men engaged it is almost intoxicating.
+They see red and the only thing that can stop them is the sheer dead
+weight of the columns in front. To the French the exploit of the 9th
+Lancers, already described in this volume, is the greatest thing in the
+war. They would have died to have accomplished it themselves. The fine
+heroics of such an exploit gives them a crazy delight. Then there are
+the forlorn hopes, the bearing of messages across a zone of withering
+fire, the fights for the colors. One incident which closely resembles
+the exploit of the Royal Irish Fusiliers is recorded. A message had to
+be borne to another regiment and volunteers sprang forward eagerly to
+the call. The enemy's fire was particularly deadly at this point, and it
+seemed impossible for a messenger to get through, but no man hesitated.
+The first fell dead before he had traveled many yards, the second had a
+leg shot off, the third by amazing luck got through without a scratch.
+Deeds of this kind have endeared the French soldier to Tommy Atkins more
+than all his extravagant acts of kindness, and the sympathetic bond of
+valor has linked them together in the close companionship of
+brothers-in-arms.
+
+Having shown what the British soldier thinks of the French as fighting
+men, it is pleasant to turn to our Ally's opinion of Tommy Atkins. Here
+the letters deal in superlatives. M. Duchene, French master at
+Archbishop Holgate's School, York, who was wounded with his regiment at
+Verdun, writes in glowing terms of his comrades' praise. "Ah, those
+English soldiers!" he says. "In my regiment you only hear such
+expressions as _'Ils sont magnifiques,' 'Ils sont superbs,' 'Quels
+soldats!'_ No better tribute could be given." Another Frenchman with the
+army of the Republic is stirred into this eulogy in a letter to a friend
+in England: "How fine they are, how splendidly they behave, these
+English soldiers! In their discipline and their respect for their
+officers they are magnificent, and you will never know how much we have
+applauded them."
+
+Another Frenchman, acting as interpreter with a Scottish regiment,
+relates with amazement how the Highlanders go into action, "as if they
+were going to a picnic, with laughing eyes and, whenever possible, with
+a cigarette between their lips. Their courage is a mixture of
+imperturbability and tenacity. One must have seen their immovable calm,
+their heroic sang-froid, under the rain of bullets to do it justice."
+Then he goes on to describe how a handful of Scots were selected to hold
+back a large body of Germans in a village to enable the main body of the
+British to retire in good order. They took up a position in the first
+house they came to and fired away at the invaders, who rained bullets on
+the building. Some of the gallant little party fell, but the others kept
+up the fight. Then there came a pause in the attack, the German fire
+ceased, the enemy was seeking a more sheltered position. During this
+brief respite the sergeant in command of the Scots surveyed the building
+they had entered. It was a small grocer's shop, and on an upper shelf he
+found a few packets of chocolate. "Here, lads," he shouted, "whoever
+kills his man gets a bit o' this." The firing began again, and as each
+marksman succeeded, the imperturbable Scot shouted "Got him," and handed
+over the prize amid roars of laughter. "Alas," comments the narrator,
+"there were few prize-winners who lived to taste their reward."
+
+The same eulogist, whose narrative was obtained by Reuter's
+correspondent, also speaks of the fastidious Scot's preoccupations. He
+has two--to be able to shave and to have tea. "No danger," the Frenchman
+declares, "deters them from their allegiance to the razor and the
+teapot. At ----, in the department of the Nord, I heard a British officer
+of high rank declare with delicious calm between two attacks on the
+town: 'Gentlemen, it was nothing. Let's go and have tea.' Meanwhile his
+men took advantage of the brief respite to crowd round the pump, where,
+producing soap and strop, they proceeded to shave minutely and
+conscientiously with little bits of broken glass serving as mirrors."
+
+The same sense of order and method also struck another Frenchman, who
+speaks of the "amazing Englishmen," who carry everything with them, and
+are never in want of anything, not even of sleep!
+
+Certainly there is much truth in these tributes to the British military
+organization, but that is another story and for another chapter. The
+opinion of an English cavalry officer, however, may be quoted as to the
+relative merits of the French and English horses. "The French horses,"
+he writes, "are awful. They look after them so badly. They all say,
+'What lovely horses you have,' to us, and they do look fine beside
+theirs, but we look after ours so well. We always dismount and feed them
+on all occasions with hay and wheat found on the farms and in stacks in
+the fields, also clover. The French never do."
+
+As a result of these observations the French appear to have been
+applying themselves to the study of the British fighting force. "I know
+for a fact," says Trooper G. Douglas, "that French officers have been
+moving amongst us studying our methods. The French Tommies try to copy
+us a lot, and they like, when they have time, to stroll into our lines
+for a chat or a game; but it's precious little time there is for that
+now."
+
+But it is in character and temperament that the chief differences of the
+allies lie. "Brigadier" Mary Murray, who went to the front with other
+members of the Salvation Army, records a conversation she had with a
+French soldier over a cup of coffee. "Ah," he said, "we lose heavily, we
+French. We haven't the patience of the English. They are fine and can
+wait: we must rush!" And yet Tommy Atkins can do a bit of rushing too.
+Private R. Duffy, of the Rifle Brigade, sends home a lively account of
+the defense of the Marne in which a mixed force of British and French
+was engaged. The object to be achieved was to drive back the Germans who
+were attempting to cross the river. "About half a mile from the banks,"
+writes Duffy, "we came out from a wood to find a French infantry
+battalion going across in the same direction. We didn't want to be
+behind, so we put our best foot forward, and one of the most exciting
+races you ever saw followed. We got in first by a head, as you might
+say, and we were just in time to tackle a mob of Germans heading for the
+crossing in disorder. We went at them with the bayonet, but they didn't
+seem to have the least heart for fighting. Some of them flung themselves
+in the stream and tried to swim to safety, but they were heavily
+accoutered and worn out so they didn't go very far. Of about three
+hundred men who tried this not more than half a dozen succeeded in
+reaching the other bank."
+
+In spite of all the hatreds the war has engendered--and one of the Royal
+Lancasters declares that the sign manual of friendship between the
+French and the English soldier is "a cross on the throat indicating
+their wish to the Kaiser"--there is still room for passages of fine
+sympathy and chivalry. One young French lieutenant distinguished himself
+by carrying a wounded Uhlan to a place of safety under a heavy German
+fire, English soldiers have shown equal generosity and kindness to
+injured captives, and the tributes to heroic and patient nurses shine
+forth in letters of gold upon the dark pages of this tragic history.
+Here is a touching letter from one of the King's Own Royal Lancasters.
+"In one hospital, which was a church," he writes, "there was a young
+French girl helping to bandage us up. How she stood it I don't know.
+There were some awful sights, but she never quailed--just a sad sweet
+smile for every one. If ever any one deserved a front seat in Heaven
+this young angel did. God bless her! She has the prayers and all the
+love the remnants of the Fourth Division can give her."
+
+And another pretty little tribute is paid to the kindness of a French
+lady to four English soldiers billeted at her house. "She was wondrous
+kind," writes one of the grateful soldiers, "and when we left for the
+front Madame and her mother sobbed and wept as if we had been their own
+sons."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+ATKINS AND THE ENEMY
+
+
+In one of his fine messages from the front, Sir John French, whom the
+_New York World_ has described as the "best of war correspondents,"
+referred to the British soldier as "a difficult person to impress or
+depress." He meant, of course, that it was no use trying to terrify
+Tommy Atkins. Nothing will do that. His stupendous sense of humor
+carries him, smiling, through every emergency.
+
+But Atkins is a keen observer, and he takes on very clear and vivid
+impressions of men and affairs. He hates compromises and qualifications,
+and just lets you have his opinion--"biff!" as one officer expresses it.
+
+"Bill and I have been thinking it over," says one letter from the
+trenches, "and we've come to the conclusion that the German army system
+is rotten." There you have the concentrated wisdom of hundreds of
+soldier critics who talk of the Kaiser's great military machine as they
+know it from intimate contact with the fighting force it propels. They
+admit its mechanical perfection; it is the human factor that breaks
+down.
+
+Nothing has impressed Tommy Atkins more than the lack of _morale_ in the
+German soldiers. "Oh, they are brave enough, poor devils; but they've
+got no heart in the fighting," he says. That is absolutely true.
+Hundreds of thousands of them have no notion of what they are fighting
+for. Some of the prisoners declared that when they left the garrisons
+they were "simply told they were going to maneuvers"; "others," says a
+Royal Artilleryman, "had no idea they were fighting the English";
+according to a Highland officer, surrendering Germans said their fellows
+had been assured that "America and Japan were fighting on their side,
+and that another Boer war was going on"; and a final illusion was
+dispelled when those captured by the Royal Irish were told that the
+civil war in Ireland had been "put off!"
+
+It is not only that the men lack this moral preparation for war. Their
+system of fighting is demoralizing. "They come on in close formation,
+thousands of them, just like sheep being driven to the slaughter," is
+the description that nine soldiers out of every ten give of the Germans
+going into action. "We just mow them down in heaps," says an
+artilleryman. "Lord, even a woman couldn't miss hitting them," is the
+comment from the Infantry. And as for the cavalry: "Well, we just makes
+holes in them," adds one of the Dragoons. At first they didn't take
+cover at all, but just marched into action with their drums beating and
+bands playing, "like a blooming parade," as Atkins puts it. After the
+first slaughter, however, they shrank from the attack, and there is
+ample evidence of eyewitnesses that the German infantry often had to be
+lashed into battle by their officers. "I saw a colonel striking his own
+men with his sword to prevent them running away," is one of the many
+statements. Revolvers, too, were freely used for the same purpose.
+
+But, generally speaking, there is iron discipline in the Kaiser's army.
+The men obey their officers implicitly. Trooper E. Tugwell, of the
+Berwicks, tells this little story of a cavalry charge from which a
+German infantry regiment bolted--all but one company, whose officers
+ordered them to stand: "They faced round without attempting to fire a
+shot, and stood there like statues to meet the onslaught of our men. Our
+chaps couldn't help admiring their fine discipline, but there's not much
+room for sentiment in war, and we rode at them with the lance, and
+swept them away." "They are big fellows, and, in a way, brave," writes
+Private P. Case of the King's (Liverpool) Regiment, describing one of
+their attacks; "they must be brave, or they would not have kept
+advancing when they saw their dead so thick that they were practically
+standing up." "Their officers simply won't let them surrender," says
+another writer, "and so long as there's an officer about they'll stand
+like sheep and be slaughtered by the thousand." The essential difference
+between the German soldiers and our own is in the officering and
+training, and it is admirably expressed by Private Burrell,
+Northumberland Fusiliers. "_We_ are led; _they_ are driven,"[F] is
+Burrell's epigram.
+
+According to other letter writers, the German soldiers are absolutely
+tyrannized over by their officers. They are horribly ill-used, badly
+fed,[G] overworked, constantly under the lash. "They hate their officers
+like poison, and fear them ten times more than they fear death," says
+Private Martin King. "Most of the prisoners that I've seen are only fit
+for the hospital, and many of them will never be fit for anything else
+this side of the grave. Their officers don't seem to have any
+consideration for the men at all, and we have a suspicion that the heavy
+losses of German officers aren't all due to our fire. There was one
+brought in who had certainly been hit by one of their own bullets, and
+in the back too." Other soldiers say the same, and add that if it
+weren't for dread of their officers the Germans would surrender
+wholesale. "Take the officers away, and their regiments fall to pieces,"
+is the dictum of one of the Somerset Light Infantry, "and that's why we
+always pick off the German officers first."
+
+There is not the slightest divergence of opinion in the British ranks as
+to the German infantry fire. "Their shooting is laughable," "they
+couldn't hit a haystack in an entry," and "asses with the rifle," are
+how our men dispose of it. The Germans fire recklessly with their rifles
+planted against their hips, while Tommy Atkins takes cool and steady
+aim, and lets them have it from the shoulder. "We just knocked them over
+like nine-pins," a Highlander explained. As to the German cavalry, one
+Tommy expressed the prevailing opinion to nicety. "I don't want to be
+nasty," he said, "but what we all pray for is just half-an-hour each
+way with three times our number of Uhlans."
+
+When it comes to artillery, however, Atkins has nothing but praise for
+the enemy. Their aeroplanes flutter over the British positions and give
+the gunners the exact range, and then they let go. "I can only figure it
+out as being something worse than the mouth of hell," declares Private
+John Stiles, 1st Gloucesters, and it may be here left at that, as the
+devastating effects of artillery have already been dealt with in a
+previous chapter. One thing which has puzzled and sometimes baffled our
+men is the way the Germans conceal their guns. They display
+extraordinary ingenuity in this direction, hiding them inside haystacks,
+in leaf-covered trenches, and sometimes, unhappily, in Red Cross wagons.
+
+Stories of German treachery are abundant, and official reports have
+dealt with such shameful practises as driving prisoners and refugees in
+front of them when attacking, abusing the protection of the White Flag,
+and wearing Red Cross brassards in action. The men have their own
+stories to tell. An Irish Guardsman records a white flag incident during
+the fighting on the Aisne: "Coldstreamers, Connaughts, Grenadiers, and
+Irish Guards were all in this affair, and the fight was going on well.
+Suddenly the Germans in front of us raised the white flag, and we ceased
+firing and went up to take our prisoners. The moment we got into the
+open, fierce fire from concealed artillery was turned on us, and the
+surrendered Germans picked up their rifles and pelted us with their
+fire. It was horrible. They trapped us completely, and very few
+escaped." The German defense of these white flag incidents was given to
+Trooper G. Douglas by a prisoner who declared that the men were quite
+innocent of intention to deceive, but that whenever their officers saw
+the white flag they hauled it down, and compelled them to fight.
+
+Many British soldiers suffered from the treachery of the Germans
+in wearing English and French uniforms, and their letters home are
+full of indignation at the practises of the enemy. It was in the
+fighting following such a ruse at Landrecies that the Honorable
+Archer-Windsor-Clive, of the Coldstream Guards, met his death. "Another
+time," an artillery officer relates, "they ran into one of our regiments
+with some of their officers dressed in French uniforms. They said 'Ne
+tirez-pas, nous sommes Français,' and asked for the C.O. He came up, and
+then they calmly blew his brains out!" A similar act of treachery is
+recorded by Lieutenant Oswald Anne, R.A., in a letter published in the
+_Leeds Mercury_: "At one place where the Berkshire Regiment was on guard
+a German force arrived attired in French uniforms. To keep up the
+illusion, a German called out in French from the wire entanglements that
+they wanted to interview the commanding officer. A major of the
+Berkshires who spoke French, went forward, and was immediately shot
+down. This sort of thing is of daily occurrence." Lieutenant Edgcumbe,
+son of Sir Robert Edgcumbe, Newquay, tells of another instance of
+treachery in which British uniforms were used, and declares, in common
+with many other officers, that he "will never again respect the Germans;
+they have no code of honor!"
+
+They strip the uniforms from the dead, come on in night attacks shouting
+"Vive, l'Angleterre!" and sound the British bugle-call "Cease fire" in
+the thickest of the fight. Twice in one engagement the Germans stopped
+the British fire by the mean device of the bugle, and twice they charged
+desperately upon the silent ranks. But in nearly every case their
+punishment for these violations of the laws of civilized warfare has
+been swift and terrible, and no mercy has been shown them.
+
+Charges of barbarity are also common in letters from the battlefields.
+One officer, who says he "never before realized what an awful thing war
+is," writes: "We have with us in the trenches three girls who came to us
+for protection. One had no clothes on, having been outraged by the
+Germans. I have given her my shirt and divided my rations among them. In
+consequence I feel rather hungry, having had nothing for thirty-two
+hours, except some milk chocolate. Another poor girl has just come in,
+having had both her breasts cut off. Luckily I caught the Uhlan officer
+in the act, and with a rifle at 300 yards killed him. And now she is
+with us, but, poor girl, I am afraid she will die. She is very pretty
+and only about nineteen."[H]
+
+Captain Roffey, Lancashire Fusiliers, tells how he was found wounded,
+and handed over his revolver to the Germans, whereupon his captor used
+it to shoot him again, and left him for dead. There is no end to the
+stories of this kind, and one of the wounded vehemently declared that
+the "devilry of the Germans cannot be exaggerated."
+
+There are others amongst the wounded however, who have received nothing
+but kindness from the enemy. Lieutenant H.G.W. Irwin, South Lancashire
+Regiment, pays a tribute to the treatment he met with in the German
+lines; Captain J.B. George, Royal Irish, "could not have been better
+treated had he been the Crown Prince;" and one of the Officer's Special
+Reserve says the stories of "brutality are only exceptions, and there
+are exceptions in every army."
+
+And here it is worth quoting a happy example of German chivalry. It is
+taken from one of Sir John French's messages. A small party of French
+under a non-commissioned officer was cut off and surrounded. After a
+desperate resistance it was decided to go on fighting to the end.
+Finally, the N.C.O. and one man only were left, both being wounded. The
+Germans came up and shouted to them to lay down their arms. The German
+commander, however, signed to them to keep their arms, and then asked
+for permission to shake hands with the wounded non-commissioned officer,
+who was carried off on his stretcher with his rifle by his side.
+
+After this account of what British soldiers think of the enemy, it is
+interesting to read what is the German opinion of Tommy Atkins.
+Evidently the fighting men do not share the Kaiser's estimate of
+"French's contemptible little army." Three very interesting letters,
+written by German officers, and found in the possession of the
+captives, were published in an official despatch from General
+Headquarters. Here are extracts from each:
+
+     (1) "With the English troops we have great difficulties. They
+     have a queer way of causing losses to the enemy. They make good
+     trenches, in which they wait patiently. They carefully measure the
+     ranges for their rifle fire, and then they open a truly hellish
+     fire on the unsuspecting cavalry. This was the reason that we had
+     such heavy losses."
+
+     (2) "The English are very brave and fight to the last.... One of
+     our companies has lost 130 men out of 240."
+
+     (3) "We are fighting with the English Guards, Highlanders and
+     Zouaves. The losses on both sides have been enormous. The English
+     are marvelously trained in making use of the ground. One never
+     sees them, and one is constantly under fire. Two days ago, early
+     in the morning, we were attacked by immensely superior English
+     forces (one brigade and two battalions) and were turned out of
+     our positions. The fellows took five guns from us. It was a
+     tremendous hand-to-hand fight. How I escaped myself I am not
+     clear.... If we first beat the English, the French resistance will
+     soon be broken."
+
+The admissions of prisoners that the Germans were amazed at the fighting
+qualities of the British soldier, and had acquired a wholesome dread of
+meeting him at close quarters, may have been colored by a trifling
+disposition to be amiable in their captivity; but letters such as those
+just quoted are honest statements for private reading in Germany, and
+were never intended to fall into British hands.
+
+Although Tommy Atkins makes occasional jocular allusions to the enemy as
+"Sausages" there is no doubt that he considers the German army a very
+substantial fighting force. "The German is not a toy terrier, but a
+bloodhound thirsting for blood," is one description of him; "getting to
+Berlin isn't going to be a cheap excursion," says another; and, to quote
+a third, "in spite of all we say about the Teuton, he is taking his
+punishment well, and we've got a big job on our hands."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE WAR IN THE AIR
+
+
+Mr. H.G. Wells did not long anticipate the sensations of an aerial
+conflict between the nations. Six years after the publication of his
+_War in the Air_ the thing has become an accomplished fact, and for the
+first time in history the great nations are fighting for the mastery not
+only upon land but in the air and under the sea.
+
+Fine as have been the adventures of airmen in times of peace, and
+startling as spectators have found the acrobatic performance of "looping
+the loop," these tricks of the air appear feeble exploits compared with
+the new sensation of an actual battle in the clouds. Soldiers,
+scribbling their letters in the trenches, have been fascinated by the
+sudden appearance at dusk of a hostile aeroplane, and have gazed with
+pleasurable agitation as out of the dim, mysterious distance a British
+aviator shot up in pursuit.
+
+"It is thrilling and magnificent," says one officer, "and I was filled
+with rapture at the spectacle of the first fight in the clouds. The
+German maneuvered for position and prepared to attack, but our fellow
+was too quick for him, and darted into a higher plane. The German tried
+to circle round and follow, and so in short spurts they fought for
+mastery, firing at each other all the time, the machines swaying and
+oscillating violently. The British airman, however, well maintained his
+ascendency. Then suddenly there was a pause, the German machine began to
+reel, the wounded pilot had lost control, and with a dive the aeroplane
+came to earth half a mile away. Our man hovered about for a time, and
+then calmly glided away over the German lines to reconnoiter."
+
+Nothing could excel the skill and daring shown by the men of the Royal
+Flying Corps. They stop at nothing. Some of their machines have been so
+badly damaged by rifle and shell fire that on descending they have had
+to be destroyed.
+
+"Fired at constantly both by friend and foe," Sir John French writes,
+"and not hesitating to fly in every kind of weather, they have remained
+undaunted throughout." The highest praise is bestowed upon
+Brigadier-General Sir David Henderson, in command of the Corps, for the
+high state of efficiency this young branch of the service has attained.
+It has been on its trial, and has already covered itself with glory.
+General Joffre, the French Commander-in-Chief, has sent a special
+message singling out the British Flying Corps "most particularly" for
+his highest eulogies. Several English airmen have already been made
+Chevaliers of the Legion of Honor.
+
+That the nervous strain of aerial warfare is severe is shown by
+expression in several airmen's letters. Not only have they to fight
+their man, but they have to manage their machines at the same time. This
+means that if an airman ascends alone he is unable to use a rifle and
+must depend for attack on revolver fire only. This is illustrated by a
+passage in one of the official reports: "Unfortunately one of our
+aviators, who has been particularly active in annoying the enemy by
+dropping bombs, was wounded in a duel in the air. Being alone on a
+single-seated monoplane, he was not able to use a rifle, and whilst
+circling above a German two-seater in an endeavor to get within pistol
+shot was hit by the observer of the latter, who was armed with a rifle.
+He managed to fly back over our lines, and by great good luck descended
+close to a motor ambulance, which at once conveyed him to hospital."
+
+This appears to be only the second instance recorded during the first
+two months of the war in which our airmen have suffered mishap, yet
+half-a-dozen German machines have been brought down and their navigators
+either killed or wounded. Private Harman, King's Royal Rifles, describes
+an exciting pursuit in which a German aeroplane was captured. The
+British aviator, who had the advantage in speed and was a good revolver
+shot, evidently greatly distressed the fugitive, for, surrendered, he
+planed down in good order, and on landing was found to be dead.
+
+According to an officer in the Royal Flying Corps the worst aerial
+experience in war is to go up as a passenger. "It is 'loathly,'" he
+says, "to sit still helplessly and be fired at." In one flight as a
+spectator his machine was "shelled and shot at about a hundred times,
+but luckily only thirteen shots went through the planes and neither of
+us was hit." An interesting account of a battle seen from the clouds is
+given in a letter published by _The Times_. "I was up with ---- for an
+evening reconnaissance over this huge battle. I bet it will ever be
+remembered as the biggest in history. It extends from Compiègne right
+away east to Belfort. Can you imagine such a sight? We flew at 5 p.m.
+over the line, and at that time the British Army guns (artillery, heavy
+and field) all opened fire together. We flew at 5,000 feet and saw a
+sight which I hope it will never be my lot to see again. The woods and
+hills were literally cut to ribbons all along the south of Laon. It was
+marvelous watching hundreds of shells bursting below one to right and
+left for miles, and then to see the Germans replying."
+
+Another officer of the Flying Corps describes his impression of the
+Battle of Mons, seen from a height of 5,000 feet. British shells were
+bursting like little bits of cotton wool over the German batteries. A
+German attack developed, and the airman likens the enemy's advance
+formation to a "large human tadpole"--a long dense column with the head
+spread out in front.
+
+Evidently the anti-aircraft guns, though rather terrifying, do very
+little damage. Airmen have had shells burst all round them for a long
+time without being hurt. Of course they are careful to fly at a high
+altitude. When struck by shrapnel, however, an aeroplane (one witness
+says) "just crumples up like a broken egg." On the other hand, bombs
+dropped from aeroplanes do great damage, if properly directed. A petrol
+bomb was dropped by an English airman at night into a German bivouac
+with alarming results, and another thrown at a cavalry column struck an
+ammunition wagon and killed fifteen men. A French airman wiped out a
+cavalry troop with a bomb, and the effect of the steel arrows used by
+French aviators is known to be damaging. The German bombs thrown by
+Zeppelins and Taube aeroplanes on Antwerp and Paris do not appear to
+have much disturbed either the property or equanimity of the
+inhabitants. So far as aerial excursions are concerned the most
+brilliant exploit is undoubtedly that of Flight-Lieutenant C.H. Collet,
+of the Naval Wing of the British Flying Corps, who, with a fleet of five
+aeroplanes swept across the German frontier and, hovering over
+Düsseldorf, dropped three bombs with unerring effect upon the Zeppelin
+sheds.
+
+Bomb-dropping, however, has not been indulged in to any great extent by
+either of the combatants, and the chief use to which air machines have
+been put is that of scouting. The Germans use them largely for range
+finding, and they seem to prove a very accurate guide to the gunners.
+"We were advancing on the German right and doing splendidly," writes
+Private Boardman (Bradford) "when we saw an aeroplane hover right over
+our heads, and by some signaling give the German artillery the range.
+The aviator had hardly gone when we were riddled with shot and shell." A
+sergeant of the 21st Lancers says the signaling is done by dropping a
+kind of silver ball or disc from the aeroplanes, and the Germans watch
+for this and locate our position to a nicety at once.
+
+As scouts--and that, meantime, is the real practical purpose of
+aeroplanes in war--the British aviators have done wonders. Their
+machines are lighter and faster than those of the Germans, and as they
+make a daily average of nine reconnaissance flights of over 100 miles
+each it will be understood that they keep the Intelligence Department
+well supplied with accurate information of the enemy's movements.
+
+French airmen are particularly daring both in reconnaissance and in
+flight, and the well-known M. Védrines, whose achievements are familiar
+to English people, has already brought down three German aeroplanes. In
+one encounter he fought in a Blériot machine carrying a mitrailleuse,
+and the enemy dropped, riddled with bullets. So completely have some of
+the aeroplanes been perforated, without mishap, says the _Daily
+Telegraph's_ war correspondent, that the pilots have found a new game.
+Each evening after their flights they count the number of bullet holes
+in their machine, marking each with a circle in red chalk, so that none
+may be included in the next day's total. The record appears to be
+thirty-seven holes in one day, and the pilot in question claims to be
+the "record man du monde."
+
+Zeppelins have not maintained their reputation in this war. One sailed
+over Sir John French's headquarters and indicated the position to the
+enemy, but they are no match for the swift and agile aeroplanes. A
+wounded dispatch carrier saw one English and two French machines attack
+a Zeppelin and bring it down instantly. A half hour's fight with another
+is recorded; among the captured passengers in this, according to a
+soldier's letter, was a boy of nine. Private Drury, Coldstream Guards,
+saw one huge German aeroplane brought to earth, three of its officers
+being killed by rifle fire and one badly injured.
+
+There is something strange, mysterious, and insubstantial about the war
+in the air that the soldiers do not yet feel or comprehend. Often the
+feverish activity of aircraft at a high altitude is known only to a very
+few practised observers. A gentle purring in the air and the scarcely
+audible ping-pong of distant revolver shots may represent a fierce duel
+in the clouds, and often the soldiers are unaware of the presence of a
+hostile airman until the projectiles aimed at them burst in the
+trenches. One evening, a graphic official message states, the atmosphere
+was so still and clear that only those specially on the lookout detected
+the enemy's aeroplanes, and when the bombs burst "the puffs of smoke
+from the detonating shell hung in the air for minutes on end like balls
+of fleecy cottonwool before they slowly expanded and were dissipated."
+
+Of course, the tactics adopted for dealing with hostile aircraft are to
+attack them instantly with one or more British machines, and as in this
+respect the British Flying Corps has established an individual
+ascendency, Sir John French proudly declares that "something in the
+direction of the mastery of the air has already been gained."
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+TOMMY AND HIS RATIONS
+
+
+A medical officer at the front declares that the British Expeditionary
+Force is, without doubt, the "best fed Army that has ever taken the
+field." That is a sweeping statement, but it is true. It is confirmed
+over and over again in the letters of Tommy Atkins. It is acknowledged
+by the French. Even the most sullen German prisoners agree with it.
+There has been universal praise for the quality and abundance of the
+food, and the general arrangements for the comfort of the British
+soldier.
+
+One French description of the feeding says that the English troops "live
+like fighting cocks," another marvels at "the stupendous pieces of meat,
+and bread heavy with butter and jam," a third speaks of the "amazing
+Tommees" who "carry everything in their pockets and forget nothing at
+all." And so on.
+
+But the most remarkable tribute of all to the perfect working of the
+transport and supply service is that given by the British officers and
+men themselves. Captain Guy Edwards, Coldstream Guards, says: "They have
+fed our troops wonderfully regularly and well up to the present; we have
+had no sickness at all, and every one is in splendid spirits." In
+another letter an officer refers to the generosity of the rations. "In
+addition to meat and bread (or biscuit)," he says, "we get 1/4lb. jam,
+1/4lb. bacon, 3oz. cheese, tea, etc., while the horses have had a good
+supply of oats and hay." During the whole of the long retreat from Mons,
+says an officer of the Berkshires, "there was only one day when we
+missed our jam rations!"
+
+And it is the same with the men. Here are some brief extracts from their
+letters:
+
+     Private ----, 20th Field Ambulance:
+
+     "Our food supply is magnificent. We have everything we want and
+     food to spare. Bacon and tomatoes is a common breakfast for us."
+
+     Driver Finch: "I am in the best of health, with the feeding and the
+     open-air life. The stars have been our covering for the last few
+     weeks."
+
+     Sergeant, Infantry Regiment: "The  arrangements are very good--no
+     worry or hitch anywhere; it is all wonderful."
+
+     Cavalryman: "We live splendidly, being even able to supplement our
+     generous rations with eggs, milk and vegetables as we go through
+     the villages."
+
+     Gunner: "Having the time of my life."
+
+Of course, the exigencies of war may not always permit of the perfect
+working of the supply machine. Already there have been many hardships to
+be endured. Incessant fighting does not give the men time for proper
+meals, sleep is either cut out altogether or reduced to an occasional
+couple of hours, heavy rains bring wet clothing and wetter resting
+places, boots wear out with prolonged marching, and men have to go for
+days and even weeks unwashed, unshaven, and without even a chance of
+getting out of their clothes for a single hour.
+
+The officers suffer just as much as the men. After a fortnight or three
+weeks at the front one cavalry officer wrote that he "had not taken his
+clothes off since he left the Curragh." "For five days," another says,
+"I never took off my boots, even to sleep, and for two days I did not
+even wash my hands or face. For three days and nights I got just four
+hours' sleep. The want of sleep was the one thing we felt." Sleep,
+indeed, is just the last thing the officers get. Brigadier-General Sir
+Philip Chetwode outlines his daily program as "work from 4 a.m. to 11
+p.m., then writing and preparations until 4 a.m. again." To make matters
+worse just at the start of the famous cavalry charge which brought Sir
+Philip such distinction, his pack-horse bolted into the German lines
+carrying all his luggage, and leaving him nothing but a toothbrush!
+
+One of the Dorsets' officers reports that "owing to the continuous
+fighting the 'evening meal' has become conspicuous by its absence," but
+in spite of having carried a 1lb. tin of compressed beef and a few
+biscuits about with them for several days they are all "most beastly fit
+on it." "No one seems any the worse, and I feel all the fitter," writes
+an officer of a Highland Regiment, "after long marches in the rain going
+to bed as wet as a Scotch mist."
+
+The men are just as cheerful as their officers. "You can't expect a
+blooming Ritz Hotel in the firing line," is how a jocular Cockney puts
+it. An artilleryman says they would fare sumptuously if it weren't for
+the German shells at meal times: "one shell, for instance, shattered our
+old porridge pot before we'd had a spoonful out of it!" Lieutenant
+Jardine, a son of Sir John Jardine, M.P., relates this same incident.
+Gunner Prince, R.F.A., has a little joke about the sleeping quarters:
+"Just going to bed. Did I say bed? I mean under the gun with an overcoat
+for a blanket." There is no sort of grumbling at all. As Lieutenant
+Stringer, of the 5th Lancers, expresses it, the A.S.C. "manage things
+very well, and our motto is 'always merry and bright.'"
+
+Occasionally, when there is a lull in the operations, the men dine
+gloriously. Stories are told of gargantuan feeds--of majestic stews that
+can be scented even in the German lines. Occasionally, too, there is the
+capture of a banquet prepared for the enemy's officers as the following
+message from the _Standard_ illustrates: "A small party of our cavalry
+were out on reconnaissance work, scouring woods and searching the
+countryside. Just about dusk a hail of bullets came upon our party from
+a small spinney of fir trees on the side of a hill. We instantly wheeled
+off as if we were retreating, but, in fact, we merely pretended to
+retire and galloped round across plowed land to the other side of the
+spinney, fired on the men, and they mounted their horses and flew like
+lightning out of their 'supper room.' They left a finely cooked repast
+of beef-steaks, onions and fried potatoes all ready and done to a turn,
+with about fifty bottles of Pilsner lager beer, which was an acceptable
+relish to our meal. Ten of our men gave chase and returned for an
+excellent feed."
+
+Another amusing capture is that of an enterprising Tommy who possessed
+himself of a German officer's bearskin, a cap, helmet, and Jaeger
+sleeping bag. He is now regarded as the "toff of the regiment." The
+luxury of a bath was indulged in by a company of Berkshires at one
+encampment. Forty wine barrels nearly full of water were discovered
+here, and the thirsty men were about to drink it when their officer
+stopped them. "Well," said one, "if it's not good enough to drink it'll
+do to wash in," and with one accord they stripped and jumped into the
+barrels! Nothing has been more notable than Tommy's desire for
+cleanliness and tidiness. It is something fine and healthy about the
+British soldier. One wounded man, driven up to a hospital, limped with
+difficulty to a barber's shop for a shave before he would enter the
+building. "I couldn't face the doctors and nurses looking like I was,"
+he told the ambulance attendant.
+
+Of all the soldiers' wants the most imperative appears to be the
+harmless necessary cigarette. All their letters clamor for tobacco in
+that form. "We can't get a decent smoke here," says one writer. An army
+airman "simply craves for cigarettes and matches." From a cavalryman
+comes the appeal that a few boxes of cigarettes and some thick chocolate
+would be luxuries. "Just fancy," to quote from another letter, "one
+cigarette among ten of us--hardly one puff a-piece."
+
+In the French hospitals the wounded men are being treated with the
+greatest kindness, and during convalescence are being loaded with
+luxuries. "Spoilt darlings," one Scottish nurse in Paris says about
+them, "but who could help spoiling them?" They are so happy and
+cheerful, so grateful for every little service, so eager to return to
+the firing line in order to "get the war over and done with." "We've
+promised to be home by Christmas," they say, "and that turkey and
+plum-pudding will be spoilt if we don't turn up."
+
+Home by Christmas! That is Tommy Atkins' idea of a "Non-stop run to
+Berlin"--the facetious notice he printed in chalk on the troop trains at
+Boulogne as, singing "It's a long way to Tipperary," he rolled away to
+the greatest battles that have ever seared the face of Europe.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: Extract from _The Times_ report of the German Emperor's
+Army Orders, dated Headquarters, Aix-la-Chapelle, August 19th, 1914.]
+
+[Footnote B: Copyright Chappell & Co., Ltd., 41 East 34th St., New
+York.]
+
+[Footnote C: _Daily Express_, Sept. 25th, 1914.]
+
+[Footnote D: The Irish Guards were created entirely on the initiative of
+Queen Victoria, and as a recognition of the fine achievements of "Her
+brave Irish" in the South African War.]
+
+[Footnote E: Gunner Batey, Royal Garrison Artillery, writes of a
+comrade, Gunner Spencer Mann: "He seems in his glory during the
+fighting. He fears nothing, and is always shouting, 'Into them, lads:
+the sooner we get through, the sooner we'll get home.'"]
+
+[Footnote F: "The German officers are a rum lot," writes Sergeant W.
+Holmes; "they lead from the rear all the time."]
+
+[Footnote G: "When they are working hardest their rations would not do
+for a tom-tit," says Sergeant J. Baker.]
+
+[Footnote H: This letter was written to the son of a London vicar, and
+published in _The Times_, Sept. 12th, 1914.]
+
+
+Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton and New York
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOMMY ATKINS AT WAR***
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