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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19074-8.txt b/19074-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3df70a --- /dev/null +++ b/19074-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5442 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Italy at War and the Allies in the West, by +E. Alexander Powell + + +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: Italy at War and the Allies in the West + + +Author: E. Alexander Powell + + + +Release Date: August 18, 2006 [eBook #19074] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALY AT WAR AND THE ALLIES IN THE +WEST*** + + +E-text prepared by Brian Sogard, Jeannie Howse, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 19074-h.htm or 19074-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/0/7/19074/19074-h/19074-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/0/7/19074/19074-h.zip) + + + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Notes: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been | + | preserved. | + | | + | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected | + | in this text. For a complete list, please see the end of | + | this document. | + | | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +The War on All Fronts, Volume IV + +ITALY AT WAR + +AND THE ALLIES IN THE WEST + +by + +E. ALEXANDER POWELL +Correspondent of the "New York World" +and Now Captain in the National Army + +Illustrated + + + + + + + + [Illustration: The King of Italy and the Prince of Wales. + When the Prince was on the Italian front, he asked permission to + visit a trench which was being heavily shelled. The King bluntly + refused. "I want no historic incidents here," he remarked dryly.] + + + + +New York +Charles Scribner's Sons +1919 +Copyright, 1917, by +Charles Scribner's Sons + + + + + +AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +For the assistance they have given me in the preparation of this book, +and for the countless kindnesses they have shown me, I am indebted to +many persons in many countries. + +His Excellency Count Macchi di Cellere, Italian Ambassador to the +United States; Signor Giuseppe Brambilla, Counsellor of Embassy; +Signor A. G. Celesia, Secretary of Embassy; his Excellency Thomas +Nelson Page, American Ambassador to Italy, and the members of his +staff; Signor Tittoni, former Italian Ambassador to France; Signor de +Martino, Chef du Cabinet of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; his +Excellency Signor Scialoje, Minister of Education; Professor Andrea +Galante, Chief of the Bureau of Propaganda; Colonel Barberiche and +Captain Pirelli of the Comando Supremo, and Signor Ugo Ojetti, in +charge of works of art in the war zone, all have my grateful thanks +for the exceptional facilities afforded me for observation on the +Italian front. + +His Excellency M. Jusserand, French Ambassador to the United States, +General Nivelle, General Gouraud, and General Dubois; Monsieur Henri +Ponsot, Chief of the Press Bureau, and Professor Georges Chinard, +Chief of the Bureau of Propaganda of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; +Commandant Bunau-Varilla and the Marquis d'Audigné all helped to make +this the most interesting and instructive of my many visits to the +French front. + +To General Jilinsky, commanding the Russian forces in France, and to +Colonel Romanoff, his Chief of Staff, I am grateful for the courtesies +extended to me while on the Russian front in Champagne. + +Lord Northcliffe, who on innumerable occasions has shown himself a +friend, Lord Robert Cecil, Minister of Blockade, and Sir Theodore +Andrea Cook, Editor of _The Field_, put themselves to much trouble in +arranging for my visit to the British front. Nor have I forgotten the +kindnesses shown me by Captain C. H. Roberts and Lieutenant C. S. +Fraser, my hosts at General Headquarters. + +For the many privileges extended to me during my visit to the Belgian +front I take this opportunity of thanking his Excellency Baron de +Broqueville, Prime Minister of Belgium; M. Emanuel Havenith, former +Belgian Minister to the United States, Lieutenant-General Jacquez, +commanding the third division of the Belgian Army; Capitaine-Commandant +Vinçotte, and Capitaine-Commandant Maurice Le Duc of the État-Major. + +To Lieutenant-Colonel Spencer Cosby, Corps of Engineers, United States +Army, I owe my thanks for much of the technical information contained +in Chapter V, as he generously placed at my disposal the extremely +valuable material which he collected during his three years of service +as American Military Attaché in Paris. + +James Hazen Hyde, Esq., who accompanied me on my visit to the Italian +front, has, by his hospitality and kindness, placed me under +obligations which I can never fully repay. I could have had no more +charming or cultured travelling companion. + +I also wish to acknowledge the information and suggestions I have +derived from Sydney Low's admirable book, "Italy in the War"; from R. +W. Seton-Watson's "The Balkans, Italy, and the Adriatic"; from V. +Gayda's "Modern Austria"; from Dr. E. J. Dillon's "From the Triple to +the Quadruple Alliance"; from Pietro Fedele's "Why Italy Is at War," +and from E. D. Ushaw's "Railways at the Front." + +And, finally, I desire to thank Howard E. Coffin, Esq., of the +Advisory Board of the Council of National Defence, for his hospitality +on his sea island of Sapeloe, where most of this book was written. + + E. ALEXANDER POWELL. + + WASHINGTON, + +April fifteenth, 1917. + + + + + TO + + THEIR EXCELLENCIES + + COUNT V. MACCHI DI CELLERE, AMBASSADOR OF ITALY, + AND JEAN JULES JUSSERAND, AMBASSADOR OF FRANCE + + IN APPRECIATION OF THE MANY + KINDNESSES THEY HAVE SHOWN + ME AND IN ADMIRATION OF THE + TACT, SINCERITY, AND ABILITY + WHICH HAVE WON FOR THEM, + AND FOR THE COUNTRIES THEY + REPRESENT, THE FRIENDSHIP AND + CONFIDENCE OF ALL AMERICANS + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + I. THE WAY TO THE WAR 3 + + II. WHY ITALY WENT TO WAR 37 + + III. FIGHTING ON THE ROOF OF EUROPE 68 + + IV. THE ROAD TO TRIESTE 105 + + V. WITH THE RUSSIANS IN CHAMPAGNE 138 + + VI. "THEY SHALL NOT PASS!" 155 + + VII. "THAT CONTEMPTIBLE LITTLE ARMY" 204 + +VIII. WITH THE BELGIANS ON THE YSER 253 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +The King of Italy and the Prince of Wales _Frontispiece_ + + FACING + PAGE +The _Teleferica_ 4 + +An Italian Position in the Carnia 5 + +The King of Italy and General Cadorna at Castelnuovo 32 + +The Peril in the Clouds 33 + +Alpini Going Into Action 68 + +On the Roof of the World 69 + +A Heavy Howitzer in the High Alps 82 + +An Outpost in the Carnia 83 + +"_Halt!_ Show Your Papers!" 160 + +A Nieuport Biplane About to Take the Air 161 + +Verdun's Mightiest Defender: a 400-mm. Gun 172 + +A Gun Painted to Escape the Observation of Enemy +Airmen 173 + +Australians on the Way to the Trenches 196 + +The Fire Trench 197 + +A British "Heavy" Mounted on a Railway-Truck +Shelling the German Lines 238 + +Buried on the Field of Honor 239 + + _These illustrations are from photographs taken by the + Photographic Sections of the Italian, French, British, and Belgian + armies and by the author._ + + + + +ITALY AT WAR + + + + +I + +THE WAY TO THE WAR + + +When I told my friends that I was going to the Italian front they +smiled disdainfully. "You will only be wasting your time," one of them +warned me. "There isn't anything doing there," said another. And when +I came back they greeted me with "You didn't see much, did you?" and +"What are the Italians doing, anyway?" + +If I had time I told them that Italy is holding a front which is +longer than the French and British and Belgian fronts combined (trace +it out on the map and you will find that it measures more than four +hundred and fifty miles); that, alone among the Allies, she is doing +most of her fighting on the enemy's soil; that she is fighting an army +which was fourth in Europe in numbers, third in quality, and probably +second in equipment; that in a single battle she lost more men than +fell on both sides at Gettysburg; that she has taken 100,000 +prisoners; that, to oppose the Austrian offensive in the Trentino, she +mobilized a new army of half a million men, completely equipped it, +and moved it to the front, all in seven days; that, were her trench +lines carefully ironed out, they would extend as far as from New York +to Salt Lake City; that, instead of digging these trenches, she has +had to blast most of them from the solid rock; that she has mounted +8-inch guns on ice-ledges nearly two miles above sea-level, in +positions to which a skilled mountaineer would find it perilous to +climb; that in places the infantry has advanced by driving iron pegs +and rings into the perpendicular walls of rock and swarming up the +dizzy ladders thus constructed; that many of the positions can be +reached only in baskets slung from sagging wires stretched across +mile-deep chasms; that many of her soldiers are living like arctic +explorers, in caverns of ice and snow; that on the sun-scorched floor +of the Carso the bodies of the dead have frequently been found +baked hard and mummified, while in the mountains they have been found +stiff, too, but stiff from cold; that in the lowlands of the Isonzo +the soldiers have fought in water to their waists, while the water for +the armies fighting in the Trentino has had to be brought up from +thousands of feet below; and, most important of all, that she has kept +engaged some forty Austrian divisions (about 750,000 men)--a force +sufficient to have turned the scale in favor of the Central Powers on +any of the other fronts. And I have usually added: "After what I have +seen over there, I feel like lifting my hat, in respect and +admiration, to the next Italian that I see." + + [Illustration: The _Teleferica_. + "Many of the Italian positions can be reached only in baskets slung + from sagging wires stretched across mile-deep chasms."] + + [Illustration: An Italian Position in the Carnia. + "Many of the Italian soldiers are living like arctic explorers, in + caverns of ice and snow."] + +It is no exaggeration to say that not one American in a thousand has +any adequate conception of what Italy is fighting for, nor any +appreciation of the splendid part she is playing in the war. This lack +of knowledge, and the consequent lack of interest, is, however, +primarily due to the Italians themselves. They are suspicious of +foreigners. They are by nature shy. More insular than the French or +English, they are only just commencing to realize the political value +of our national maxim: "It pays to advertise." Though they want +publicity they do not know how to get it. Instead of welcoming neutral +correspondents and publicists, they have, until very recently, met +them with suspicion and hinderances. What little news is permitted to +filter through is coldly official, and is altogether unsuited for +American consumption. The Italians are staging one of the most +remarkable and inspiring performances that I have seen on any front--a +performance of which they have every reason to be proud--but +diffidence and conservatism have deterred them from telling the world +about it. + +To visit Italy in these days is no longer merely a matter of buying a +ticket and boarding a train. To comply with the necessary formalities +takes the better part of a week. Should you, an American, wish to +travel from Paris to Rome, for example, you must first of all obtain +from the American consul-general a special visé for Italy, together +with a statement of the day and hour on which you intend to leave +Paris, the frontier station at which you will enter Italy, and the +cities which you propose visiting. The consul-general will require of +you three _carte-de-visite_ size photographs. Armed with your viséd +passport, you must then present yourself at the Italian Consulate +where several suave but very businesslike gentlemen will subject you +to a series of extremely searching questions. And you can be perfectly +certain that they are in possession of enough information about you to +check up your answers. Should it chance that your grandfather's name; +was Schmidt, or something equally German-sounding, it is all off. The +Italians, I repeat, are a suspicious folk, and they are taking no +chances. Moreover, unless you are able to convince them of the +imperative necessity of your visiting Italy, you do not go. Tourists +and sensation seekers are not wanted in Italy in these times; the +railways are needed for other purposes. If, however, you succeed in +satisfying the board of examiners that you are not likely to be either +a menace or a nuisance, a special passport for the journey will be +issued you. Three more photographs, please. This passport must then be +indorsed at the Prefecture of Police. (_Votre photographie s'il vous +plait._) Should you neglect to obtain the police visé you will not be +permitted to board the train. + +Upon reaching the frontier you are ushered before a board composed of +officials of the French _Service de Sûrété_ and the Italian _Questura_ +and again subjected to a searching interrogatory. Every piece of +luggage in the train is unloaded, opened, and carefully examined. It +having been discovered that spies were accustomed to conceal in their +compartments any papers which they might be carrying, and retrieving +them after the frontier was safely passed, the through trains have now +been discontinued, passengers and luggage, after the examination at +the frontier, being sent on by another train. In addition to the French +and Italian secret-service officials, there are now on duty at the +various frontier stations, and likewise in Athens, Naples, and Rome, +keen-eyed young officers of the "Hush-Hush Brigade," as the British +Intelligence Department is disrespectfully called, whose business it is +to scrutinize the thousands of British subjects--officers returning +from India, Egypt, or Salonika, or from service with the Mediterranean +fleet, King's messengers, diplomatic couriers--who are constantly +crossing Italy on their way to or from England. + +That the arm of the enemy is very long, and that it is able to strike +at astounding distances and in the most unexpected places, is brought +sharply home to one as the train pulls out of the Genoa station. From +Genoa to Pisa, a distance of a hundred miles, the railway closely hugs +the Mediterranean shore. At night all the curtains on that side of the +train must be kept closely drawn and, as an additional precaution, +the white electric-light bulbs in the corridors and compartments have +been replaced by violet ones. If you ask the reason for this you are +usually met with evasions. But, if you persist, you learn that it is +done to avoid the danger of the trains being shelled by Austrian +submarines! (Imagine, if you please, the passengers on the New +York-Boston trains being ordered to keep their windows darkened +because enemy submarines have been reported off the coast.) In this +war remoteness from the firing-line does not assure safety. Spezia, +for example, which is a naval base of the first importance, is +separated from the firing-line by the width of the Italian peninsula. +Until a few months ago its inhabitants felt as snug and safe as though +they lived in Spain. Then, one night, an Austrian airman crossed the +Alps, winged his way above the Lombard plain, and let loose on Spezia +a rain of bombs which caused many deaths and did enormous damage. + +Even the casual traveller in Italy to-day cannot fail to be struck by +the prosperity which the war has brought to the great manufacturing +cities of the north as contrasted with the commercial stagnation which +prevails in the southern provinces of the kingdom. In the munition +plants, most of which are in the north, are employed upward of half a +million workers, of whom 75,000 are women. Genoa, Milan, and Turin are +a-boom with industry. The great automobile factories have expanded +amazingly in order to meet the demand for shells, field-guns, and +motor-trucks. Turin, as an officer smilingly remarked, "now consists +of the Fiat factory and a few houses." The United States is not the +only country to produce that strange breed known as munitions +millionaires. Italy has them also--and the jewellers and champagne +agents are doing a bigger business than they have ever done before. + +As the train tears southward into Tuscany you begin to catch fleeting +glimpses of the men who are making possible this sudden +prosperity--the men who are using the motor-trucks and the shells and +the field-guns. _They_ don't look very prosperous or very happy. +Sometimes you see them drawn up on the platforms of wayside stations, +shivering beneath their scanty capes in the chill of an Italian dawn. +Usually there is a background of wet-eyed women, with shawls drawn +over their heads, and nearly always with babies in their arms. And on +nearly every siding were standing long trains of box-cars, bedded with +straw and filled with these same wiry, brown-faced little men in their +rat-gray uniforms, being hurried to the fighting in the north. It +reminded me of those long cattle-trains one sees in the Middle West, +bound for the Chicago slaughter-houses. + +Rome in war-time is about as cheerful as Coney Island in midwinter. +Empty are the enticing little shops on the Piazza di Spagna. Gone from +the marble steps are the artists' models and the flower-girls. To +visit the galleries of the Vatican is to stroll through an echoing +marble tomb. The guards and custodians no longer welcome you for the +sake of your tips, but for the sake of your company. The King, who is +with the army, visits Rome only rarely; the Queen occupies a modest +villa in the country; the Palace of the Quirinal has been turned into +a hospital. The great ballroom, the state dining-room, the +throne-room, even the Queen's sun-parlor, are now filled with white +cots, hundreds and hundreds of them, each with its bandaged occupant, +while in the famous gardens where Popes and Emperors and Kings have +strolled, convalescent soldiers now laze in the sun or on the +gravelled paths play at bowls. In giving up their home for the use of +the wounded, the King and Queen have done a very generous and noble +thing, and the Italian people are not going to forget it. + +If Rome, which is the seat of government, shows such unmistakable +signs of depression, imagine the stagnation of Florence, which has +long been as dependent upon its crop of tourists as a Dakota farmer is +upon his crop of wheat. The Cascine Gardens, in the old days one of +the gayest promenades in Europe, are as lonely as a cemetery. At those +hotels on the Lung' Arno, which remain open, the visitor can make his +own terms. The Via Tornabuoni is as quiet as a street in a country +town. The dealers in antiques, in souvenirs, in pictures, in marbles, +have most of them put up their shutters and disappeared, to return, no +doubt, in happier times. + +There is in the Via Tornabuoni, midway between Giacosa's and the +American Consulate, an excellent barber shop. The owner, who learned +his trade in the United States, is the most skilful man with scissors +and razor that I know. His customers came from half the countries of +the globe. + +"But they are all gone now," he told me sadly. "Some are fighting, +some have been killed, the others have gone back to their homes until +the war is over. Three years ago I had as nice a little business as a +man could ask for. To-day I do not make enough to pay my rent. But it +doesn't make much difference, for next month my class is called to +the colors, and in the spring my son, who will then be eighteen, will +also have to go." + +No, they're not very enthusiastic over the war in Florence. But you +can't blame them, can you? + + * * * * * + +In none of the great cities known and loved by Americans has the war +wrought such startling changes as in Venice. Because it is a naval +base of the first importance, because it is almost within sight of the +Austrian coast, and therefore within easy striking distance of +Trieste, Fiume, and Pola, and because throughout Venetia Austrian +spies abound, Venice is a closed city. It reminded me of a beautiful +playhouse which had been closed for an indefinite period: the +fire-curtain lowered, the linen covers drawn over the seats, the +carpets rolled up, the scenery stored away, the great stage empty and +desolate. Gone are the lights, the music, the merriment which made +Venice one of the happiest and most care free of cities. Because of +the frequent air raids--Venice has been attacked from the sky nearly a +hundred times since the war began--the city is put to bed promptly at +nightfall. To show a light from a door or window after dark is to +invite a domiciliary visit from the police and, quite possibly, arrest +on the charge of attempting to communicate with the enemy. The +illumination of the streets is confined to small candle-power lights +in blue or purple bulbs, the weakened rays being visible for only a +short distance. To stroll at night in the darkened streets is to risk +falling into a canal, while the use of an electric torch would almost +certainly result in arrest as a spy. The ghastly effect produced by +the purple lights, the utter blackness of the canals, the deathly +silence, broken only by the sound of water lapping the walls of the +empty palazzos, combine to give the city a peculiarly weird and +sepulchral appearance. + +Of the great hotels which line the Canale Grande, only the Danieli +remains open. Over the others fly the Red Cross flags, and in their +windows and on their terraces lounge wounded soldiers. The +smoking-room of the Danieli, where so many generations of travelling +Americans have chatted over their coffee and cigars, has been +converted into a _rifugio_, in which the guests can find shelter in +case of an air attack. A bomb-proof ceiling has been made of two +layers of steel rails, laid crosswise, and ramparts of sand-bags have +been built against the walls. On the doors of the bedrooms are posted +notices urging the guests, when hostile aircraft are reported, to make +directly for the _rifugio_, and remain there until the raid is over. +In other cities in the war zone the inhabitants take to their cellars +during aerial attacks, but in Venice there are no cellars, and the +buildings are, for the most part, too old and poorly built to afford +safety from bombs. To provide adequate protection for the population, +particularly in the poorer and more congested districts of the city, +has, therefore, proved a serious problem for the authorities. Owing to +its situation, Venice is extremely vulnerable to air attacks, for the +Austrian seaplanes, operating from Trieste or Pola, can glide across +the Adriatic under cover of darkness, and are over the city before +their presence is discovered. Before the anti-aircraft guns can get +their range, or the Italian airmen can rise and engage them, they have +dropped their bombs and fled. Although, generally speaking, the loss +of life resulting from these aerial forays is surprising small, they +are occasionally very serious affairs. During an air raid on Padua, +which occurred a few days before I was there, a bomb exploded in the +midst of a crowd of terrified townspeople who were struggling to gain +entrance to a _rifugio_. In that affair 153 men, women, and children +lost their lives. + +The admiral in command of Venice showed me a map of the city, which, +with the exception of a large rectangle, was thickly sprinkled with +small red dots. There must have been several hundred of them. + +"These dots," he explained, "indicate where Austrian bombs have +fallen." + +"This part of the city seems to have been peculiarly fortunate," I +remarked, placing my finger on the white square. + +"That," said he, "is the Arsenal. For obvious reasons we do not reveal +whether any bombs have fallen there." + +Considering the frequency with which Venice has been attacked from the +air, its churches, of which there are an extraordinary number, have +escaped with comparatively little damage. Only four, in fact, have +suffered seriously. Of these, the church of Santa Maria Formosa has +sustained the greatest damage, its magnificent interior, with the +celebrated decorations by Palma Vecchio, having been transformed +through the agency of an Austrian bomb, into a heap of stone and +plaster. Another bomb chose as its target the great dome of the church +of San Pietro di Castello, which stands on the island of San Pietro, +opposite the Arsenal. On the Grand Canal, close by the railway-station, +is the Chiesa degli Scalzi, whose ceiling by Tiepolo, one of the +master's greatest works, has suffered irreparable injury. Santi +Giovanni e Páolo, next to St. Mark's the most famous church in Venice, +has also been shattered by a bomb. + +I asked the officer in command of the aerial defenses of Venice if he +thought that the Austrian airmen intentionally bomb churches, +hospitals, and monuments, as has been so often asserted in the Allied +press. + +"It's this way," he explained. "A dozen aviators are ordered to +bombard a certain city. Three or four of them are real heroes and, at +the risk of their lives, descend low enough to make certain of their +targets before releasing their bombs. The others, however, rather than +come within range of the anti-aircraft guns, remain at a safe height, +drop their bombs at random as soon as they are over the city, and then +clear out. Is it very surprising, then, that bombs dropped from a +height of perhaps ten thousand feet, by aircraft travelling sixty +miles an hour, miss the forts and barracks for which they are +intended and hit churches and dwellings instead?" + +Intentional or not, the bombardment of the Venetian churches is a +blunder for which the Austrians will pay dearly in loss of +international good-will. A century hence these shattered churches will +be pointed out to visitors as the work of the modern Vandals, and +lovers of art and beauty throughout the world will execrate the nation +which permitted the sacrilege. They have destroyed glass and paintings +and sculptures that were a joy to the whole world, they have undone +the work of saints and heroes and masters, and they have gained no +corresponding military advantage. In every city which has been +subjected to air raids the inhabitants have been made more obstinate, +more iron-hard in their determination to keep on fighting. The sight +of shattered churches, of wrecked dwellings, of mangled women and dead +babies, does not terrify or dismay a people: it infuriates them. In +the words of Talleyrand: "It is worse than a crime; it is a mistake." + +The strangest sight in Venice to-day is St. Mark's. There is nothing +in its present appearance, inside or out, to suggest the famous +cathedral which so many millions of people have reverenced and loved. +Indeed, there is little about it to suggest a church at all. It looks +like a huge and ugly warehouse, like a car barn, like a Billy Sunday +tabernacle, for, in order to protect the wonderful mosaics and marbles +which adorn the church's western façade, it has been sheathed, from +ground to roof, with unpainted planks, and these, in turn, have been +covered with great squares of asbestos. By this use of fire-proof +material it is hoped that, even should the church be hit by a bomb, +there may be averted a fire such as did irreparable damage to the +Cathedral of Rheims. + +The famous bronze horses have been removed from their place over the +main portal of St. Mark's, and taken, I believe, to Florence. It is +not the first travelling that they have done, for from the triumphal +arch of Nero they once looked down on ancient Rome. Constantine sent +them to adorn the imperial hippodrome which he built in +Constantinople, whence the Doge Dandolo brought them as spoils of war +to Venice when the thirteenth century was still young. In 1797 +Napoleon carried them to Paris, but after the downfall of the Emperor +they were brought back to Venice by the Austrians and restored to +their ancient position. There they remained for just a hundred years, +until the menace of the Austrian aircraft necessitated their hasty +removal to a place of safety. Of them one of Napoleon's generals is +said to have remarked disparagingly: "They are too coarse in the limbs +for cavalry use, and too light for the guns." In any event, they were +the only four horses, alive or dead, in the whole city, and the +Venetians love them as though they were their children. + +If in its war dress the exterior of St. Mark's presents a strange +appearance, the transformation of the interior is positively +startling. Nothing that ingenuity can suggest has been left undone to +protect the sculptures, mosaics, glass, and marbles which, brought by +the seafaring Venetians from the four corners of the globe, make St. +Mark's the most beautiful of churches. Everything portable has been +removed to a place of safety, but the famous mosaics, the ancient +windows, and the splendid carvings it is impossible to remove, and +they are the most precious of all. The two pulpits of colored marbles +and the celebrated screen with its carven figures are now hidden +beneath pyramids of sand-bags. The spiral columns of translucent +alabaster which support the altar, are padded with excelsior and +wrapped with canvas. Swinging curtains of quilted burlap protect the +walls of the chapels and transepts from flying shell fragments. Yet +all these precautions would probably avail but little were a bomb to +strike St. Mark's. In the destruction that would almost certainly +result there would perish mosaics and sculptures which were in their +present places when Vienna was still a Swabian village, and Berlin had +yet to be founded on the plain above the Spree. + +If it has proved difficult to protect from airplane fire the massive +basilica of St. Mark's, consider the problem presented to the +authorities by the Palace of the Doges, that creation of fairylike +loveliness, whose exquisite façades, with their delicate window +tracery and fragile carvings, would be irretrievably ruined by a +well-aimed bomb. In order to avert such a disaster, it was proposed to +protect the façades of the palace by enclosing the building in +temporary walls of masonry. It was found, however, that this plan was +not feasible, as the engineers reported that the piles on which the +ancient building is poised would submerge if subjected to such an +additional weight. All that they have been able to do, therefore, is +to shore up the arches of the loggia with beams, fill up the windows +with brick and plaster, and pray to the patron saint of Venice to save +the city's most exquisite structure. + +The gilded figure of an angel, which for so many centuries has looked +down on Venice from the summit of the Campanile, has been given a +dress of battleship gray that it may not serve as a landmark for the +Austrian aviators. Over the celebrated equestrian statue of +Colleoni--of which Ruskin said: "I do not believe there is a more +glorious work of sculpture existing in the world"--has been erected a +titanic armored sentry-box, which is covered, in turn, with layer upon +layer of sand-bags. Could the spirit of that great soldier of fortune +be consulted, however, I rather fancy that he would insist upon +sitting his bronze warhorse, unprotected and unafraid, facing the +bombs of the Austrian airmen just as he used to face the bolts of the +Austrian crossbowmen. + +The commercial life of Venice is virtually at a standstill. Most of +the glass and lace manufactories have been forced to shut down. The +dealers in curios and antiques lounge idly in their doorways, deeming +themselves fortunate if they make a sale a month. All save one or two +of the great hotels which have not been taken over by the Government +for hospitals have had to close their doors. The hordes of guides and +boatmen and waiters who depended for their living upon the tourists +are--such of them as have not been called to the colors--without work +and in desperate need. In normal times a quarter of Venice's 150,000 +inhabitants are paupers, and this percentage must have enormously +increased, for, notwithstanding the relief measures which the +Government has taken, unemployment is general, the prices of food are +constantly increasing, and coal has become almost impossible to +obtain. Fishing, which was one of the city's chief industries, is now +an exceedingly hazardous employment because of submarines and floating +mines. Save for the clumsy craft of commerce, the gondolas have +largely disappeared, and with them has disappeared, only temporarily, +let us hope, the most picturesque feature of Venetian life. They have +been driven off by the slim, polished, cigar-shaped power-boats, which +tear madly up and down and crossways of the canals in the service of +the military government and of the fleet. To use a gondola, +particularly at night, is as dangerous as it would be to drive upon a +motor race-course with a horse and buggy, for, as no lights are +permitted, one is in constant peril of being run down by the +recklessly driven power craft, whose wash, by the way, is seriously +affecting the foundations of many of the palazzos. + +It is an unfamiliar, gloomy, mysterious place, is war-time Venice, but +in certain respects I liked it better than the commercialized city of +antebellum days. Gone are the droves of loud-voiced tourists, gone the +impudent boatmen, the importunate beggars, the impertinent guides, +gone the glare of lights and the blare of cheap music. No longer do +the lantern-strung barges of the musicians gather nightly off the +Molo. No longer across the waters float the strains of "_Addio di +Napoli_" and "_Ciri-Biri-Bi_"; the Canale Grande is dark and silent +now. The tourist hostelries, on whose terraces at night gleamed the +white shirt-fronts of men and the white shoulders of women, now have +as their only guests the white-bandaged wounded. In its darkness, its +mystery, its silence, it is once again the Venice of the Middle Ages, +the Venice of lovers and conspirators, of inquisitors and assassins, +the Venice of which Shakespeare sang. + +But with the coming of dawn the Venice of the twelfth century is +abruptly transformed into the Venice of the twentieth. The sun, rising +out of the Adriatic, turns into ellipsoids of silver the +aluminum-colored observation balloons which form the city's first line +of aerial defense. As the sun climbs higher it brings into bold relief +the lean barrels of the anti-aircraft guns, which, from the roofs of +the buildings to the seaward, sweep the eastern sky. Abreast the +Public Gardens the great war-ships, in their coats of elephant-gray, +swing lazily at their moorings. Near the Punta della Motta lie the +destroyers, like greyhounds held in leash. Off the Riva Schiavoni, on +the very spot, no doubt, where Dandolo's war-galleys lay, are +anchored the British submarines. And atop his granite column, a link +with the city's glorious and warlike past, still stands the winged +lion of St. Mark, snarling a perpetual challenge at his ancient +enemy--Austria. + + * * * * * + +The Comando Supremo, or Great Headquarters, of the Italian army is at +Udine, an ancient Venetian town some twenty miles from the Austrian +frontier. This is supposed to be a great secret, and must not be +mentioned in letters or newspaper despatches, it being assumed that, +were the Austrians to learn of the presence in Udine of the Comando +Supremo, their airmen would pay inconvenient visits to the town, and +from the clouds would drop their steel calling-cards on the King and +General Cadorna. So, though every one in Italy is perfectly aware that +the head of the Government and the head of the army are at Udine, the +fact is never mentioned in print. To believe that the Austrians are +ignorant of the whereabouts of the Italian high command is to +severely strain one's credulity. The Italians not only know where the +Austrian headquarters is situated, but they know in which houses the +various generals live, and the restaurants in which they eat. This +extreme reticence of the Italians seems a little irksome and overdone +after the frankness one encounters on the French and British fronts, +but it is due, no doubt, to the admonitions which are posted in +hotels, restaurants, stations, and railway carriages throughout Italy: +"It is the patriotic duty of good citizens not to question the +military about the war," and: "The military are warned not to discuss +the war with civilians. An indiscreet friend can be as dangerous as an +enemy." + +My previous acquaintance with Udine had been confined to fleeting +glimpses of it from the windows of the Vienna-Cannes express. Before +the war it was, like the other towns which dot the Venetian plain, a +quaint, sleepy, easy-going place, dwelling in the memories of its +past, but with the declaration of hostilities it suddenly became one +of the busiest and most important places in all Italy. From his desk +in the Prefecture, General Cadorna, a short, wiry, quick-moving man +in the middle sixties, with a face as hard and brown as a +hickory-nut, directs the operations of the armies along that +four-hundred-and-fifty-mile-long battle-line which stretches from the +Stelvio to the sea. The cobble-paved streets and the vaulted arcades +are gay with many uniforms, for, in addition to the hundreds of staff +and divisional officers quartered in Udine, the French, British, +Russian, and Belgian Governments maintain there military missions, +whose business it is to keep the staffs of their respective armies +constantly in touch with the Italian high command, thus securing +practical co-operation. In a modest villa, a short distance outside +the town, dwells the King, who has been on the front almost +constantly since the war began. Although, as ruler of the kingdom, he +is commander-in-chief of the Italian armies, he rarely gives advice +unless it is asked for, and never interferes with the decisions of +the Comando Supremo. Scarcely a day passes that he does not visit +some sector of the battle-line. Officers and men in some of the +lonely mountain commands told me that the only general who has +visited them is the King. Should he venture into exposed positions, +as he frequently does, he is halted by the local command. It is, of +course, tactfully done. "I am responsible for your Majesty's safety," +says the officer. "Were there to be an accident I should be blamed." +Whereupon the King promptly withdraws. If he is not permitted to take +unnecessary risks himself, neither will he permit others. When the +Prince of Wales visited the Italian front last summer, he asked +permission to enter a certain first-line trench, which was being +heavily shelled. The King bluntly refused. "I want no historic +incidents here," he remarked dryly. + + [Illustration: The King of Italy and General Cadorna at Castelnuovo. + Scarcely a day passes that the King does not visit some sector of + the battle-line, but he rarely gives advice unless it is asked for, + and never interferes with the decisions of the Comando Supremo.] + + [Illustration: The Peril in the Clouds. + The gunners of an Italian anti-aircraft battery sight an Austrian + airplane.] + +To obtain a room in Udine is as difficult as it is to obtain hotel +accommodation in New York during the Automobile Show. But, because I +was a guest of the Government, I found that a room had been reserved +for me by the Comando Supremo at the Hotel Croce di Malta. I was told +that since the war three proprietors of this hotel had made their +fortunes and retired, and after I received my bill I believed it. +There was in my room one of those inhospitable, box-shaped porcelain +stoves so common in North Italy and the Tyrol. To keep a modest +wood-fire going in that stove cost me exactly thirty lire (about six +dollars) a day. But a fire was a necessity. Luxuries came higher. Yet +the scene in the hotel's shabby restaurant at the dinner-hour was well +worth the fantastic charges, for there gathered there nightly as +interesting a company as I have not often seen under one roof: a poet +and novelist who has given to Italy the most important literary work +since the days of the great classics, and who, by his fiery and +impassioned speeches, did more than any single person to force the +nation's entrance into the war; an American dental surgeon who +abandoned an enormously lucrative practice in Rome to establish at +the front a hospital where he has performed feats approaching the +magical in rebuilding shrapnel-shattered faces; a Florentine +connoisseur, probably the greatest living authority on Italian art, +who has been commissioned with the preservation of all the works of +art in the war zone; an English countess who is in charge of an X-ray +car which operates within range of the Austrian guns; a young Roman +noble whom I had last seen, in pink, in the hunting-field; a group of +khaki-clad officers from the British mission, cold and aloof of manner +despite their being among allies; a party of Russians, their hair +clipped to the skull, their green tunics sprinkled with stars and +crosses; half a dozen French military attachés in beautifully cut +uniforms of horizon-blue; and Italian officers, animated and +gesticulative, on whose breasts were medal ribbons showing that they +had fought in forgotten wars in forgotten corners of Africa. At one +table they were discussing the probable date of some Roman remains +which had just been unearthed at Aquileia; at another an argument was +in progress over the merits of _vers libre_; one of the Russians was +explaining a new system he had evolved for breaking the bank at Monte +Carlo; the young English countess was retailing the latest jokes from +the London music-halls, but nowhere did I hear mentioned the grim and +bloody business which had brought us, of so many minds and from so +many lands, to this shabby, smoke-filled, garlic-scented room in this +little frontier town. Yet, had the door been opened, and had we +stilled our voices, we could have heard, quite plainly, the sullen +grumble of the cannon. + + + + +II + +WHY ITALY WENT TO WAR + + +To understand why Italy is at war you have only to look at the map of +Central Europe. You can hardly fail to be struck by the curious +resemblance which the outline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire bears to +a monstrous bird of prey hovering threateningly over Italy. The body +of the bird is formed by Hungary; Bohemia is the right wing, Bosnia +and Dalmatia constitute the left; the Tyrol represents the head, while +the savage beak, with its open jaws, is formed by that portion of the +Tyrol commonly known as the Trentino. And that savage beak, you will +note, is buried deep in the shoulder of Italy, holding between its +jaws, as it were, the Lake of Garda. To continue the simile, it will +be seen that the talons of the bird, formed by the Istrian Peninsula, +reach out over the Adriatic in threatening proximity to Venice and +the other Italian coast towns. It is to end the intolerable menace of +that beak and those claws that Italy is fighting. There you have it in +a nutshell. + + [Illustration: (Austria-Hungary map)] + +Just as in France, since 1870, the national watchword has been +"Alsace-Lorraine," so in Italy, for upward of half a century, the +popular cry has been "_Italia Irredenta_"--Italy Unredeemed. It was a +deep and bitter disappointment to all Italians that, upon the +formation in 1866 of the present kingdom, there should have been left +under Austrian dominion two regions which, in population, in language, +and in sentiment, were essentially Italian. These "unredeemed" +regions were generally called after their respective capital cities: +Trent and Trieste. But, though the phrase _Italia Irredenta_ was +originally interpreted as referring only to the Trentino and Trieste, +it has gradually assumed, in the course of years, a broader +significance, until now it includes all that portion of the Tyrol +lying south of the Brenner, the Carso plateau, Trieste and its +immediate hinterland, the entire Istrian Peninsula, the Hungarian port +of Fiume, and the whole of Dalmatia and Albania. In other words, the +Irredentists of to-day--and, since Italy entered the war, virtually +the entire nation has subscribed to Irredentist aims and ideals--dream +of an Italy whose northern frontier shall be formed by the main chain +of the Alps, and whose rule shall be extended over the entire eastern +shore of the Adriatic. + +In order to intelligently understand the Italian view-point, suppose +that we imagine ourselves in an analogous position. For this purpose +you must picture Canada as a highly organized military Power, its +policies directed by an aggressive, predacious and unscrupulous +government, and with a population larger than that of the United +States. You will conceive of the State of Vermont as a Canadian +province under military control: a wedge driven into the heart of +manufacturing New England, and threatening the teeming valleys of the +Connecticut and the Hudson. You must imagine this province of Vermont +as overrun by Canadian soldiery; as crisscrossed by military roads and +strategic railways; its hills and mountains abristle with forts whose +guns are turned United Statesward. The inhabitants of the province, +though American in descent, in traditions, and in ideals, are +oppressed by a harsh and tyrannical military rule. With the exception +of a single trunk-line, there are no railways crossing the frontier. +Commercial intercourse with the United States is virtually forbidden. +To teach American history in the schools of Vermont is prohibited; to +display the American flag is a felony; to sing the "Star-Spangled +Banner" is punishable by imprisonment or a fine. For the Vermonters to +communicate, no matter how innocently, with their kinsmen in the +United States, is to bring down upon them suspicion and possible +punishment. By substituting Austria-Hungary for Canada, Italy for the +United States, and the Trentino for Vermont, you will, perhaps, have a +little clearer understanding of why the liberation of the Trentino +from Austrian oppression is demanded by all Italians. + +A similar homely parallel will serve to explain the Adriatic +situation. You will imagine Seattle and the shores of Puget Sound, +with its maze of islands, in Canadian possession. Seattle, Vancouver, +and Victoria are strongly fortified bases for Canadian battle-fleets +and flotillas of destroyers which constantly menace the commercial +cities along our Pacific seaboard. The Americans dwelling in Seattle +and the towns of the Olympic Peninsula are under an even harsher rule +than their brethren in Vermont. No American may hold a Government +position. The Canadian authorities encourage and assist the +immigration of thousands of Orientals in order to get the trade of the +region out of American hands. A Canadian naval base at Honolulu +threatens our trade routes in the Pacific and our commercial interests +in Mexico and the Orient. In this analogy Seattle stands, of course, +for Trieste; the Olympic Peninsula corresponds to the Istrian +Peninsula; for Vancouver and Victoria you will read Pola and Fiume; +while Honolulu might, by a slight exercise of the imagination, be +translated into the great Austrian stronghold of Cattaro. Such is a +reasonably accurate parallel to Italy's Adriatic problem. + +For purposes of administration the Trentino, which the Austrians call +Süd-Tirol, forms one province with Tyrol. For such a union there is no +geographic, ethnologic, historic, or economic excuse. Of the 347,000 +inhabitants of the Trentino, 338,000 are Italian. The half million +inhabitants of Tyrol are, on the other hand, all Germans. The two +regions are separated by a tremendous mountain wall, whose only +gateway is the Brenner. On one side of that wall is Italy, with her +vines, her mulberry-trees, her whitewashed, red-tiled cottages, her +light-hearted, easy-going, Latin-blooded peasantry; across the +mountains is the solemn, austere German scenery, with savage peaks and +gloomy pine forests, a region inhabited by a stolid, slow-thinking +Teutonic people. The Trentino and the Tyrol have about as much in +common as Cuba and Maine. + +The possession of the Trentino by Austria is not alone a geographical +and ethnological anomaly: it is a pistol held at the head of Italy. +Glance once more at the map, if you please, and you will see what I +mean. The Trentino is, you will note, nothing but a prolongation of +the valleys of Lombardy and Venetia. Held by Austria, it is like a +great intrenched camp in the heart of northern Italy, menacing the +valley of the Po, which is one of the kingdom's most vital arteries, +and the link between her richest and most productive cities. From the +Trentino, with its ring of forts, Austria can always threaten and +invade her neighbor. She lies in the mountains, with the plains +beneath her. She can always sweep down into the plains, but the +Italians cannot seriously invade the mountains, since, even were they +able to force the strongly defended passes, they would only find a +maze of other mountains beyond. When, in the summer of 1916, the +Archduke Frederick launched his great offensive from the Trentino, +supported by a shattering artillery, he came perilously near--much +nearer, indeed, than the world was permitted to know--to cutting the +main east-and-west line of communications, which would have resulted +in isolating the Italian armies operating on the Isonzo. + +The Trentino is dominated by the army. Its administration is as +essentially military in character as that of Gibraltar. It is, to all +intents and purposes, one vast camp, commanded by thirty-five forts, +gridironed with inaccessible military highways, and overrun with +soldiery. Economic expansion has been systematically discouraged. The +waterfalls of the Trentino could, it is estimated, develop 250,000 +horse-power, but the province has not benefited by this energy, for +the regions to the north are already supplied, and the military +authorities have not permitted its transmission to the manufacturing +towns of Lombardy and Venetia, where it is needed. Neither roads nor +railways have been built save for strategic purposes, and, as a +result, the peasants have virtually no outlets for their produce. In +fact, it has been the consistent policy of the Austrian Government to +completely isolate the Trentino from Italy. In pursuance of this +policy, all telephone and telegraph communications and many sorely +needed railway connections with the other side of the frontier have +been prohibited. Though the renting of their mountain pastures had +always been the peasants' chief source of income, the military +authorities issued orders, long before this war began, that Italian +herdsmen could no longer drive their cattle across the border to +graze, the prohibition being based on the ground that the herdsmen +were really Italian army officers in disguise. In recent years the +fear of Italian spies has become with the Austrian military +authorities almost an insane obsession. Innocent tourists, engineers, +and commercial travellers were arrested by the score on the charge of +espionage. The mere fact of being an Italian was in itself ground for +suspicion. Compared with the attitude of the Austrian Government +toward its Italian subjects in the Trentino, the treatment accorded by +the Boers to the British residents of the Transvaal was considerate +and kind. Thus there arose in the Trentino, as in all Austrian +provinces inhabited by Italians, a strange, unhealthy atmosphere of +suspicion, of secrecy, and of fear. This atmosphere became so +pronounced in recent years that it was sensed even by passing +tourists, who felt as though they were in a besieged city, surrounded +by secret agents and spies. + +But, oppressive and tyrannical as are Austria's methods in the +Trentino, the final expression of her anti-Italian policy is to be +found in the Adriatic provinces. Here lie Austria's chief +interests--the sea and commerce. Here, therefore, is to be found an +even deeper fear of Italianism, and here still sterner methods are +employed to stamp it out. The government of Trieste is, in fact, +organized for that very purpose--witness the persecutions to which the +citizens of Italian descent are subjected by the police, the countless +political imprisonments, the systematic hostility to Italian schools +in contrast to the Government's generosity toward German and Slovene +institutions, and the State assistance given to Czech, Croatian, and +Slovene banks for the purpose of taking the trade of the city out of +Italian hands. Italians are excluded from all municipal employments, +from the postal service, the railways, and the State industries. Nor +does the official persecution end there. The presentation of many of +the old Italian operas is forbidden. The singing of Garibaldi's Hymn +leads to jail. Every year thousands of Italian papers are +confiscated. Until the war began hundreds of Italians were expelled +annually by the police, to be replaced (according to the official +instructions of 1912) "by more loyal and more useful elements." + +Though for more than five centuries Trieste has belonged to the House +of Hapsburg, the city is as Italian as though it had always been ruled +from Rome. There is nothing in Trieste, save only the uniforms of the +military and the _K.K._ on the doors of the Government offices, to +remind one of Austrian rule. The language, the customs, the +architecture, the names over the shop-doors, the faces of the +people--everything is characteristically Italian. Outside of Trieste +the zones of nationality are clearly divided: to the west, on the +coast, dwell the Italians; in the mountainous interior to the eastward +are the Slavs. But in Istria, that arrowhead-shaped peninsula at the +head of the Adriatic, the population is almost solidly Italian. Though +alternately bribed and bullied, cajoled and coerced, there persists, +both among the simple peasants of the Trentino and Istria and the +hard-headed business men of Trieste, a most sentimental and +inextinguishable attachment for the Italian motherland. There is, +indeed, something approaching the sublime in the fascination which +Italy exercises across the centuries on these exiled sons of hers. + +The arguments adduced by Italy for the acquisition of Dalmatia are by +no means as sound ethnographically as her claims to the Trentino and +Trieste. Though the apostles of expansion assert that ten per cent of +the population of Dalmatia is Italian, this is an exaggeration, the +most reliable authorities agreeing that the Italian element does not +exceed three or four per cent. But this is not saying that Dalmatia is +not, in spirit, in language, in traditions, Italian. Cruise along its +shores, talk to its people, view the architecture of Ragusa, of Zara, +of Spalato, and you will not need to be reminded that Dalmatia was +Venetian until, little more than a century ago, Napoleon handed it +over to Austria at the peace of Campo Formio in return for the +recognition of his two made-to-order states, the Cis-Alpine and +Ligurian Republics. + +It is safe to say that the war will produce no more delicate problem +than that of Dalmatia, which, as I have already shown, can never be +settled on purely racial lines. Those who have studied the subject +agree that to completely shut off Austria-Hungary from the sea would +be a proceeding of grave unwisdom and one which would be certain to +sow the seed for future wars. This is, I believe, the view taken by +most deep-thinking Italians. The Italianization of the Adriatic's +eastern seaboard would result, moreover, in raising a barrier against +the legitimate expansion of the Balkan Slavs and would end the Serbian +dream of an outlet to the sea. But the statesmen who are shaping +Italy's policies are, I am convinced, too sensible and too far-seeing +to commit so grave a blunder. Were I to hazard a prophecy--and +prophesying is always a poor business--I should say that, no matter +how conclusive a victory the Allies may achieve, neither +Austria-Hungary nor Serbia will be wholly cut off from the salt water. + +Events in the less remote theatres of war have prevented the Italian +occupation of Albania from attracting the attention it deserves. The +operations in that region have, moreover, been shrouded in mystery; +foreigners desiring to visit Albania have met with polite but firm +refusals; the published reports of the progress of the Albanian +expedition--which, by the way, is a much larger force than is +generally supposed--have been meagre and unsatisfying. The Italians +figure, I fancy, on making their occupation as extensive and as solid +as possible before the Albanian question comes up for international +discussion. + +If Italy's ambitions in Dalmatia bring her into collision with the +Slavs, her plans for expansion in Albania are bound to arouse the +hostility of the Greeks. The Italian troops at Argyocastro are +occupying territory which Greece looks on as distinctly within her +sphere of influence, and they menace Janina itself. Though Italy has +intimated, I believe, that her occupation of Albania is not to be +regarded as permanent, she is most certainly on the eastern shore of +the Adriatic to stay, for her commercial and political interests will +not permit her to have a Haiti or a Mexico at her front door. So I +rather fancy that, when the peacemakers deal out the cards upon the +green-topped table, Albania will become Italian in name, if not in +fact, under a control similar to that which the French exercise in +Morocco or the British in Egypt. And it will be quite natural, for +there is in the Albanians a strong streak of Italian. + +The settlement of this trans-Adriatic problem is going to require the +most cautious and delicate handling. How far will Italy be permitted +to go? How far may Serbia come? Shall Austria be cut off from the sea? +Is Hungary to become an independent kingdom? Is Montenegro to +disappear? What is Greece to get? The only one of these questions that +can be answered with any certainty is the last. Greece, as the result +of her shifty and even treacherous attitude, will get very little +consideration. On the decision of these questions hangs the future of +the Balkan peoples. Though their final settlement must, of course, be +deferred until the coming of peace, some regard will have to be paid, +after all, to actual occupancies and accomplished facts. That is why +Italy is making her position in Albania so solid that she cannot +readily be ousted. And perhaps it is well that she is. Europe will owe +a debt of gratitude to the Italians if they can bring law and order to +Albania, which has never had a speaking acquaintance with either of +them. + +Nor do Italian ambitions end with the domination of the eastern shore +of the Adriatic. With the destruction, or at least the disablement, of +the Austrian Empire, Italy dreams of bringing within her political and +commercial sphere of influence a considerable portion of the Balkan +Peninsula, from which she is separated by only forty-seven miles of +salt water. But that is only the beginning of her vision of +commercial greatness. Look at the map and you will see that with its +continuation, the island of Sicily, Italy forms a great wharf which +reaches out into the Mediterranean, nearly to the shores of Africa. +Her peculiarly fortunate geographical position enables her, therefore, +to offer the shortest route from Western and Central Europe to North +Africa, the Levant, and the Farther East. It has been rumored, though +with what truth I cannot say, that the Allies have agreed, in the +event that they are completely victorious, to a rectification of the +Tunisian and Egyptian frontiers, thus materially improving Italy's +position in Libya, as the colony of Tripolitania is now known. It is +also generally understood that, should the dismemberment of Asiatic +Turkey be decided upon, the city of Smyrna, with its splendid harbor +and profitable commerce, as well as a slice of the hinterland, will +fall to Italy's portion. With her flag thus firmly planted on the +coasts of three continents, with her most dangerous rival finally +disposed of, with the splendid industrial organization, born of the +war, speeded up to its highest efficiency, and with vast new markets +in Africa, in Asia, in the Balkans opened to her products, Italy +dreams of wresting from France and England the overlordship of the +Middle Sea. + +It would be useless to deny that an unfavorable impression was created +in the United States by the fact that Italy, in entering the war, +turned against her former allies. Her enemies have charged that she +dickered with both the Entente and the Central Powers, and only joined +the former because they made her the most tempting offer. That she did +dicker with Austria is but the unvarnished truth--and of that chapter +of Italian history the less said the better--but I am convinced that +she finally entered the war, not because she had been bribed by +promises of territorial concessions, but because the national +conscience demanded that she join the forces of civilization in their +struggle against barbarism. Suppose that I sketch for you, in brief, +bold outline, the chain of historic events which occurred during the +ten months between the presentation to Serbia of the Austrian +ultimatum and Italy's declaration of war on Austria. Then you will be +able to form your own opinion. + +On the evening of July 23, 1914, Austria handed her note to Serbia. It +demanded in overbearing and insulting terms that Serbia should place +under Austrian control her schools, her law-courts, her police, in +fact her whole internal administration. The little kingdom was given +forty-eight hours in which to consider her answer. In other words, she +was called upon, within the space of two days, to sacrifice her +national independence. At six o'clock on the evening of July 25 the +time limit allowed by the Austrian ultimatum expired. Half an hour +later the Austrian Minister and his staff left Belgrade. + +Now Article VII of the Treaty of Alliance between Italy, Austria, and +Germany provided that in the event of any change in the _status quo_ +of the Balkan Peninsula which would entail a temporary or permanent +occupation, Austria and Italy bound themselves to work in mutual +accord on the basis of reciprocal compensation for any advantage, +territorial or otherwise, obtained by either of the contracting +Powers. Here is the text of the Article. Read it for yourself: + + Austria-Hungary and Italy, who aim exclusively at the maintenance + of the _status quo_ in the East, bind themselves to employ their + influence to prevent every territorial change which may be + detrimental to one or other of the contracting Powers. They will + give each other all explanations necessary for the elucidation of + their respective intentions as well as those of the other Powers. + If, however, in the course of events the maintenance of the + _status quo_ in the Balkans and on the Ottoman coasts and in the + islands of the Adriatic and the Ægean Seas should become + impossible, and if, either in consequence of the acts of a third + Power or of other causes, Austria and Italy should be compelled to + change the _status quo_ by a temporary or permanent occupation, + such occupation shall only take place after previous agreement + between the two Powers, based on the principle of a reciprocal + arrangement for all the advantages, territorial or other, which + one of them may secure outside the _status quo_, and in such a + manner as to satisfy all the legitimate claims of both parties. + +Nothing could be plainer than that Austria-Hungary, by forcing war +upon Serbia, planned to change the _status quo_ in the Near East. Yet +she had not taken the trouble to give Italy any explanation of her +intentions, nor had she said anything about giving her ally reciprocal +compensation as provided for in the treaty. Three days after the +memorable 23d of July, therefore, Italy intimated to the Vienna +Government that her idea of adequate compensation would be the cession +of those Austrian provinces inhabited by Italians. In other words, she +insisted that, if Austria was to extend her borders below the Danube +by an occupation of Serbia, as was obviously her intention, thus +upsetting the balance of power in the Balkans, Italy expected to +receive as compensation the Trentino and Trieste, which, though under +Austrian rule, are Italian in sentiment and population. Otherwise, she +added, the Triple Alliance would be broken. On the 3d of August, +having received no satisfactory reply from Austria, Italy declared her +neutrality. In so doing, however, she made it quite clear that she in +no way admitted Austria's right to a free hand in the Adriatic or the +Balkan Peninsula--regions which Italy has long regarded as within her +own sphere of influence. + +Early in the winter of 1914 Prince von Bülow, one of the most suave +and experienced German diplomats, arrived in Rome on a special mission +from Berlin. In his first interview with the Italian Minister of +Foreign Affairs, Baron Sonnino, he frankly acknowledged Italy's right +to territorial compensation under the terms of Article VII of the +Triple Alliance. There is no doubt that Germany, recognizing the +danger of flouting Italy, brought strong pressure to bear on Austria +to surrender at least a portion of the regions in question. Austria, +however, bluntly refused to heed either Italy's demands or Germany's +suggestions. She refused even to discuss the question of ceding any +part of her Italian provinces. She attempted, indeed, to reverse the +situation by claiming compensation from Italy for the occupation of +the Dodecannesus and Vallona. The Dodecannesus was held as a pledge of +Turkish good faith, while the occupation of Vallona was indispensable +for the protection of Italian interests in Albania, where anarchy +reigned, and where much the same conditions prevailed which existed in +Mexico at the time of the American occupation of Vera Cruz. + +The discussions might well have dragged on indefinitely, but late in +March, 1915, Austria, goaded by her ally into a more conciliatory +attitude, reluctantly consented to make concrete proposals. She +offered to Italy the southern half of the Trentino, but mentioned no +definite boundaries, and added that the bargain could not be carried +into effect until peace had been concluded. In return she claimed from +Italy heavy financial contributions to the National Debt and to the +provincial and communal loans, also full indemnity for all investments +made in the ceded territory, for all ecclesiastical property and +entailed estates, and for the pensions of State officials. To assign +even an approximate value to such concessions would entail a +prolonged delay--a fact of which Austria was perfectly aware. + +Italy responded to the Austrian advances by presenting her +counter-claims, and for more than a month the negotiations pursued a +difficult and tedious course. It must be admitted that, everything +considered, Italy's claims were not particularly exorbitant. She +claimed (1) a more extended and more easily defendable frontier in the +Trentino, but she refrained from demanding the cession of the entire +region lying south of the Brenner, as she would have been justified in +doing from a strategic point of view; (2) a new boundary on the Isonzo +which would give her possession of the towns of Gradisca and Gorizia +(she has since taken them by arms); (3) the cession of certain islands +of the Curzolari group; (4) the withdrawal of Austrian pretensions in +Albania and the acknowledgement of Italy's right to occupy the +Dodecannesus and Vallona; (5) the formation of the city of Trieste, +together with the adjacent judicial districts of Priano and Capo +d'Istria, into an autonomous State, independent of both Italy and +Austria. By such an arrangement Austria would have retained nearly the +whole of the Istrian Peninsula, the cities of Pola and Fiume, the +entire Dalmatian coast, and the majority of the Dalmatian Islands. But +she refused to even consider Italy's proposed changes in the Adriatic, +or to do more than slightly increase her offer in the Trentino. Italy +therefore broke off negotiations, and on May 4, 1915, the alliance +with Austria was denounced. + +Prince von Bülow was now confronted with the complete failure of his +mission of keeping Italy yoked to Austria and Germany. No one realized +better than this suave and astute diplomatist that the bonds which +still held together the three nations were about to break. He next +endeavored, by methods verging on the unscrupulous, to create distrust +of the Italian Government among the Italian people. A member of the +Reichstag circulated stealthily among the deputies and journalists, +flattering each in turn with the assumption that he alone was the man +of the moment, and offering him, in the names of Germany and Austria, +new concessions which had not been communicated to the Italian +Cabinet. It was back-stairs diplomacy in its shadiest and most +questionable form. The concessions thus unofficially promised +consisted of the offer of a new frontier in the Trentino, and for +Trieste an administrative but not a political autonomy. The Adriatic, +it seems, was to remain as before. And these concessions were all +hedged about by impossible restrictions, or were not to come into +effect until after the war. Yet at one time these intrigues came +perilously near to accomplishing their purpose. Matters were still +further complicated by the activities and interference of a former +Foreign Minister, Signor Giolitti, whose vanity had been flattered, +and whose ambitions had been cleverly played upon by the Teutonic +emissary. To fully understand the extraordinary nature of this +proceeding, one must picture Count von Bernstorff, at the height of +the submarine crisis, negotiating not with the Government of the +United States, but with Mr. William Jennings Bryan! + +But, fortunately for the national honor, the Italian people, having +had time to reflect what the future of Italy would be after the war, +whatever its outcome, were they to be cut off from the only peoples in +Europe with which they had spiritual sympathy, took things into their +own hands. The storm of anger and indignation which swept the country +rocked the Government to its foundations. The Salandra cabinet, which +had resigned as a protest against the machinations of Giolitti, was +returned to power. Through every city, town, and hamlet from Savoy to +Sicily, thronged workmen, students, business and professional men, +even priests and monks, waving the red-white-and-green banner and +shouting the national watch-words "Italia Irredenta," and "Avanti +Savoia!" + +But there was a deeper cause underlying these great patriotic +demonstrations than mere hatred of Austria. They were expressions of +national resentment at the impotent and dependent rôle which Italy had +played so long. D'Annunzio, in one of his famous addresses in May, +1915, put this feeling into words: "We will no longer be a museum of +antiquities, a kind of hostelry, a pleasure resort, under a sky +painted over with Prussian blue, for the benefit of international +honeymooners." + +The sentiment of the people was expressed by the _Idea Nazionale_, +which on May 10 declared: + + Italy desires war: (1) In order to obtain Trent, Trieste, and + Dalmatia. The country desires it. A nation which has the + opportunity to free its land should do so as a matter of + imperative necessity.... (2) ... in order to conquer for ourselves + a good strategic frontier in the North and East.... (3) ... + because to-day, in the Adriatic, in the Balkan Peninsula, the + Mediterranean, and Asia, Italy should have all the advantages it + is possible for her to have, and without which her political, + economic, and moral power would diminish in proportion as that of + others increased.... If we would be a great Power we must accept + certain obligations: one of them is war.... + +The voice of the people was unmistakable: they wanted war. To have +refused that demand would have meant the fall of the Government if not +of the dynasty. The King did not want war. The responsible +politicians, with a very few exceptions, did not want it. The nobility +did not want it. The Church did not want it. The bankers and business +men of the nation did not want it. It was the great mass of the +Italian people, shamed and indignant at the position in which the +nation had been placed by the sordid dickering with Austria, who swept +the country into war. I was in Italy during those exciting days; I +witnessed the impressive popular demonstrations in the larger cities; +and in my mind there was left no shadow of a doubt that the Government +had to choose between war and revolution. On the 23d of May, 1915, +Italy declared war on Austria. + +For ten months Italy, in the face of sneers and jeers, threats and +reproaches, had maintained her neutrality. Be it remembered, however, +that it was from the first a neutrality benevolent to the Allies. Even +those who consider themselves well informed have apparently failed to +recognize how decisive a factor that neutrality was. Italy's action in +promptly withdrawing her forces from the French border relieved +France's fears of an Italian invasion, and left her free to use the +half million troops which had been guarding her southern frontier to +oppose the German advance on Paris. It is not overstating the facts to +assert that, had Italy's attitude toward France been less frank and +honest, had the Republic not felt safe in stripping its southern +border of troops, von Kluck would have broken through to Paris--he +came perilously near to doing so as it was--and the whole course of +the war would have been changed. It is to be hoped that, when the +diplomatic history of the war comes to be written, the attitude of +Italy during those critical days will receive the recognition which it +deserves. + + + + +III + +FIGHTING ON THE ROOF OF EUROPE + + +The sun had scarcely shown itself above the snowy rampart of the +Julian Alps when the hoarse throbbing of the big gray staff-car awoke +the echoes of the narrow street on which fronts the Hotel Croce di +Malta in Udine. Despite a leather coat, a fur-lined cap, and a great +fleecy muffler which swathed me to the eyes, I shivered in the damp +chill of the winter dawn. We adjusted our goggles and settled down +into the heavy rugs, the soldier-driver threw in his clutch, the +sergeant sitting beside him let out a vicious snarl from the horn, the +little group of curious onlookers scattered hastily, and the powerful +car leaped forward like a race-horse that feels the spur. With the +horn sounding its hoarse warning, we thundered through the narrow, +tortuous, cobble-paved streets, between rows of old, old houses +with faded frescoes on their plastered walls and with dim, echoing +arcades. And so into the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele--there is no more +charming little square in Italy--with its fountain and its two stone +giants and the pompous statue of an incredibly ugly King astride a +prancing horse and a monument to Peace set up by Napoleon to +commemorate a treaty which was the cause of many wars. At the back of +the piazza, like the back-drop on a stage, rises a towering sugar-loaf +mound, thrown up, so they say, by Attila, that from it he might +conveniently watch the siege and burning of Aquileia. Perched atop +this mound, and looking for all the world like one of Maxfield +Parrish's painted castles, is the Castello, once the residence of the +Venetian and Austrian governors, and, rising above it, a white and +slender tower. If you will take the trouble to climb to the summit of +this tower you will find that the earth you left behind is now laid +out at your feet like one of those putty maps you used to make in +school. Below you, like a vast tessellated floor, is the Friulian +plain, dotted with red-roofed villages, checkerboarded with fields of +green and brown, stretching away, away to where, beyond the blue +Isonzo, the Julian and Carnic Alps leap skyward in a mighty, curving, +mile-high wall. You have the war before you, for amid those distant +mountains snakes the Austro-Italian battle-line. Just as Attila and +his Hunnish warriors looked down from the summit of this very mound, +fourteen hundred years ago, upon the destruction of the Italian +plain-towns, so to-day, from the same vantage-point, the Italians can +see their artillery methodically pounding to pieces the defenses of +the modern Huns. A strange reversal of history, is it not? + + [Illustration: Alpini Going Into Action. + Their white uniforms make them almost indistinguishable against the + blinding expanses of snow.] + + [Illustration: On the Roof of the World. + It not infrequently happens that the outposts on the higher peaks + are cut off by a heavy fall of snow and cannot be relieved until + the spring.] + +Leaving on our right the Palazzo Civico, built two-score years before +Columbus set foot on the beach of San Salvador, we rolled through the +gateway in the ancient city wall, acknowledging the salute of the +steel-helmeted sentry just as the mail-clad knights who rode through +that same gateway to the fighting on the plain, long centuries ago, +doubtless acknowledged the salute of the steel-capped men-at-arms. +Down the straight white road we sped, between rows of cropped and +stunted willows, which line the highway on either side like soldiers +with bowed heads. It is a storied and romantic region, this Venetia, +whose fertile farm-lands, crisscrossed with watercourses, stretch +away, flat and brown as an oaken floor, to the snowy crescent of the +Alps. Scenes of past wars it still bears upon its face, in its +farm-houses clustered together for common protection, in the stout +walls and loopholed watch-towers of its towns, record of its warlike +and eventful past. One must be prosaic indeed whose imagination +remains unstirred by a journey across this historic plain, which has +been invaded by Celts, Istrians, and Romans; Huns, Goths, and +Lombards; Franks, Germans, and Austrians in turn. Over there, a dozen +miles to the southward, lie the ruins of Aquileia, once one of the +great cities of the western world, the chief outpost fortress of the +Roman Empire, visited by King Herod of Judea, and the favorite +residence of Augustus and Diocletian. These fertile lowlands were +devastated by Alaric and his Visigoths and by Attila and his Huns--the +original Huns, I mean. Down this very highroad tramped the legions of +Tiberius on their way to give battle to the Illyrians and Pannonians. +Here were waged the savage conflicts of the Guelphs, the Ghibellines, +and the Scaligers. Here fought the great adventurer, Bartolommeo +Colleoni; in the whitewashed village inn of Campo Formio, a far +greater adventurer signed a treaty whereby he gave away the whole of +this region as he would have given away a gold-piece; half a century +later Garibaldi and his ragged redshirts fought to win it back. + +For mile after mile we sped through a countryside which bore no +suggestion of the bloody business which had brought me. So far as war +was concerned, I might as well have been motoring through New England. +But, though an atmosphere of tranquillity and security prevailed down +here amid the villages and farm-steads of the plain, I knew that up +there among those snow-crowned peaks ahead of us, musketry was +crackling, cannon were belching, men were dying. But as we approached +the front--though still miles and miles behind the fighting-line--the +signs of war became increasingly apparent: base camps, remount depots, +automobile parks, aviation schools, aerodromes, hospitals, +machine-shops, ammunition-dumps, railway sidings chock-a-block with +freight-cars and railway platforms piled high with supplies of every +description. Moving closer, we came upon endless lines of motor-trucks +moving ammunition and supplies to the front and other lines of +motor-trucks and ambulances moving injured machinery and injured men +to the repair-depots and hospitals at the rear. We passed Sicilian +mule-carts, hundreds upon hundreds of them, two-wheeled, painted +bright yellow or bright red and covered with gay little paintings such +as one sees on ice cream venders' carts and hurdy-gurdies, the harness +of the mules studded with brass and hung with scarlet tassels. Then +long strings of donkeys, so heavily laden with wine-skins, with bales +of hay, with ammunition-boxes, that all that could be seen of the +animals themselves were their swinging tails and wagging ears. We met +convoys of Austrian prisoners, guarded by cavalry or territorials, on +their way to the rear. They looked tired and dirty and depressed, but +most prisoners look that. A man who has spent days or even weeks amid +the mud and blood of a trench, with no opportunity to bathe or even to +wash his hands and face, with none too much food, with many of his +comrades dead or wounded, with a shell-storm shrieking and howling +about him, and has then had to surrender, could hardly be expected to +appear high-spirited and optimistic. Yet it has long been the custom +of the Allied correspondents and observers to base their assertions +that the morale of the enemy is weakening and that the quality of his +troops is deteriorating on the demeanor of prisoners fresh from the +firing-line. Ambulances passed us, travelling toward the hospitals at +the base, and sometimes wounded men, limping along on foot. The heads +of some were swathed in blood-stained bandages, some carried their +arms in slings, others hobbled by with the aid of sticks, for the +Italian army is none too well supplied with ambulances and those who +are able to walk must do so in order that the places in the ambulances +may be taken by their more seriously wounded fellows. They were +dog-tired, dirty, caked with mud and blood, but they grinned at us +cheerfully--for were they not beating the Austrians? Indeed, one +cannot look at Italian troops without seeing that the spirit of the +men is high and that they are confident of victory. + +Now the roads became crowded, but never blocked, with troops on the +march: infantry of the line, short, sturdily built fellows wearing +short capes of greenish gray and trench-helmets of painted steel; +Alpini, hardy and active as the goats of their own mountains, their +tight-fitting breeches and their green felt hats with the slanting +eagle's feather making them look like the chorus of _Robin Hood_; +Bersaglieri, the flower of the Italian army, who have preserved the +traditions of their famous corps by still clinging to the +flat-brimmed, rakish hat with its huge bunch of drooping feathers; +engineers, laden like donkeys with intrenching, bridging, and mining +tools; motor-cycle despatch riders, leather-jacketed and +mud-bespattered, the light-horsemen of modern war; and, very +occasionally, for their hour for action has not yet come, detachments +of cavalry, usually armed with lances, their helmets and busbies +linen-covered to match the businesslike simplicity of their uniform. +About the Italian army there is not much of the pomp and circumstance +of war. It is as businesslike as a blued-steel revolver. In its total +absence of swagger and display it is characteristic of a nation whose +instincts are essentially democratic. Everything considered, the +Italian troops compare very favorably with any in Europe. The men are +for the most part shortish, very thick-set, and burned by the sun to +the color of a much-used saddle. I rather expected to see bearded, +unkempt fellows, but I found them clean-shaven and extraordinarily +neat. The Italian military authorities do not approve of the _poilu_. +Though the men are laden like pack-mules, they cover the ground at a +surprisingly smart pace, while special corps, such as the Bersaglieri +and the Alpini, are famous for the fashion in which they take even the +steepest acclivities at the double. I was told that, though the troops +recruited in the North possess the most stamina and endurance, the +Neapolitans and Sicilians have the most _élan_ and make the best +fighters, these sons of the South having again and again advanced to +the assault through storms of fire which the colder-blooded +Piedmontese refused to face. + +It is claimed for the Italian uniform that it is at once the ugliest +and the least visible of any worn in Europe. "Its wearer doesn't even +make a shadow," a friend of mine remarked. The Italian military +authorities were among the first to make a scientific study of colors +for uniforms. They did not select, for example, the "horizon blue" +adopted by the French because, while this is less visible on the roads +and plains of a flat, open, sunlit region, it would prove fatally +distinct on the tree-clad mountain slopes where the Italians are +fighting. The color is officially described as gray-green, but the +best description of it is that given by a British officer: "Take some +mud from the Blue Nile, carefully rub into it two pounds of ship-rat's +hair, paint a roan horse with the composition, and then you will +understand why the Austrians can't see the Italian soldiers in broad +daylight at fifty yards." Its quality of invisibility is, indeed, +positively uncanny. While motoring in the war zone I have repeatedly +come upon bodies of troops resting beside the road, yet, so +marvellously do their uniforms merge into the landscape that, had not +my attention been called to them, I should have passed them by +unnoticed. The uniform of the Italian officer is of precisely the +same cut and apparently of the same material as that of the men, and +as the former not infrequently dispenses with the badges of rank, it +is often difficult to distinguish an officer from a private. The +Italian officers, particularly those of the cavalry regiments, have +always been among the smartest in Europe, but the gorgeous uniforms +which, in the happy, carefree days before the war, added such +brilliant notes of color to the scenes on the Corso and in the +Cascine, have been replaced by a dress which is as simple as it is +serviceable. + +The Italian Government has a stern objection to wasteful or unnecessary +expenditure, and all the costly and superfluous trimmings so dear to +the heart of the military have been ruthlessly pruned. But economy is +not insisted upon at the expense of efficiency. Nothing is refused or +stinted that is necessary to keep the soldiers in good health or that +will add to the efficiency of the great fighting-machine. But the war +is proving a heavy financial strain for Italy and she is determined not +to waste on it a single soldo more than she can possibly help. On the +French and British fronts staff-officers are constantly dashing to and +fro in motor-cars on errands of more or less importance. But you see +nothing of that sort in the Italian war zone. The Comando Supremo can, +of course, have all the motor-cars it wants, but it discourages their +use except in cases of necessity. The officers are instructed that, +whenever they can travel by railway without detriment to the interests +of the service, they are expected to do so, for the trains are in +operation to within a few miles of the front and with astonishing +regularity, whereas tires and gasolene cost money. Returning at +nightfall from the front to Udine, we were nearly always stopped by +officers--majors, colonels, and once by a general--who would ask us to +give them a lift into town. It has long been the fashion among +foreigners to think of Italians, particularly those of the upper class, +as late-rising, easy-going, and not particularly in love with work--a +sort of _dolce far niente_ people. But the war has shown how unsafe +are such generalizations. There is no harder worker on any front than +the Italian officer. Even the highest staff-officers are at their desks +by eight and frequently by seven. Though it is easier to get from the +Italian front to Milan or Florence than it is to get from Verdun to +Paris, or from the Somme to London, one sees little of the week-end +travelling so common on the British front. Officers in the war zone are +entitled to fifteen days' leave of absence a year, and from this rule +there are no deviations. + +Through the mud we came to the Judrio, which marked the line of the +old frontier. We crossed the river by a pontoon bridge, for the +Austrians had destroyed the other in their retreat. + +"We are in Austria now, I suppose?" I remarked. "In Italia Redenta," +my companion corrected me. "This region has always been Italian in +everything but name, and now it is Italian in name also." The +occupation by the Italian troops, at the very outset of the war, of +this wedge of territory between the Judrio and the Isonzo, with +Monfalcone, Cervignano, Cormons, Gradisca--old Italian towns all--did +much to give the Italian people confidence in the efficiency of their +armies and the ability of their generals. + +Now the roads were filled with the enormous equipment of an army +advancing. Every village swarmed with gray soldiers. We passed +interminable processions of motor-lorries, mule-carts, trucks, and +wagons piled high with hay,[A] lumber, wine-casks, flour, shells, +barbed wire; boxes of ammunition; pontoon-trains, balloon outfits, +searchlights mounted on motor-trucks, wheeled blacksmith shops, +wheeled post-offices, field-kitchens; beef and mutton on the hoof; +mammoth howitzers and siege guns hauled by panting tractors; creaking, +clanking field-batteries, and bright-eyed, brown-skinned, green-caped +infantry, battalions, regiments, brigades of them plodding along +under slanting lines of steel. All the resources of Italy seemed +crowding up to make good the recent gains and to make ready for the +next push. One has to see a great army on the march to appreciate how +stupendous is the task of supplying with food the hungry men and the +hungrier guns, and how it taxes to the utmost all the industrial +resources of a nation. + + [Illustration: A Heavy Howitzer in the High Alps. + Nowadays guns "command" nothing. Instead of frowning down on the + enemy from an eminence, they stare blindly skyward from behind a + wall of mountains.] + + [Illustration: An Outpost in the Carnia. + "On no front, not on the sun-scorched plains of Mesopotamia, nor in + the Masurian marshes, nor in the blood-soaked mud of Flanders, does + the fighting man lead so arduous an existence as up here on the + roof of the world."] + +Under all this traffic the roads remained hard and smooth, for gangs +of men, with scrapers and steam-rollers were at work everywhere +repairing the wear and tear. This work is done by peasants, who are +too old for the army, middle-aged, sturdily built fellows who perform +their prosaic task with the resignation and inexhaustible patience of +the lower-class Italian. They are organized in companies of a hundred +men each, called _centurias_, and the company commanders are called +(shades of the Roman legions!) _centurions_. Italy owes much to these +gray-haired soldiers of the pick and shovel who, working in heat and +cold, in snow and rain, and frequently under Austrian fire, have made +it possible for the armies to advance and for food to be sent forward +for the men and ammunition for the guns. + +When this war is over Italy will find herself with better roads, and +more of them, than she ever had before. The hundreds of miles of +splendid highways which have been built by the army in the Trentino, +in the Carnia, and in Cadore will open up districts of extraordinary +beauty which have hitherto been inaccessible to the touring motorist. +The Italians have been fortunate in having an inexhaustible supply of +road-building material close at hand, for the mountains are solid road +metal and in the plains one has only to scratch the soil to find +gravel. The work of the road-builders on the Upper Isonzo resembles a +vast suburban development, for the smooth white highways which zigzag +in long, easy gradients up the mountain slopes are bordered on the +inside by stone-paved gutters and on the outside, where the precipice +falls sheer away, by cut stone guard-posts. So extensive and +substantial are these improvements that one instinctively looks for a +real-estate dealer's sign: "This beautiful lot can be yours for +twenty-five dollars down and ten dollars a month for a year." Climbing +higher, the roads become steeper and narrower and, because of the +heavy rains, very highly crowned, with frequent right-angle and +hair-pin turns. Here a skid or a side-slip or the failure of your +brakes is quite likely to bring your career to an abrupt and +unpleasant termination. To motor along one of these military mountain +highways when it is slippery from rain is as nerve-trying as walking +on a shingled roof with smooth-soled shoes. At one point on the Upper +Isonzo there wasn't enough room between our outer wheels and the edge +of the precipice for a starved cat to pass. + + * * * * * + +Now we were well within the danger zone. I knew it by the screens of +woven reeds and grass matting which had been erected along one side of +the road in order to protect the troops and transport using that road +from being seen by the Austrian observers and shelled by the Austrian +guns. Practically all of the roads on the Italian side of the front +are, remember, under direct observation by the Austrians. In fact, +they command everything. Everywhere they are above the Italians. From +the observatories which they have established on every peak they can +see through their powerful telescopes what is transpiring down on the +plain as readily as though they were circling above it in an airplane. +As a result of the extraordinary advantage which the Austrians enjoy +in this respect, it has been found necessary to screen certain of the +roads not only on both sides but above, so that in places the traffic +passes for miles through literal tunnels of matting. This road masking +is a simple form of the art of concealment to which the French have +given the name "_camouflage_," which has been developed to an +extraordinary degree on the Western Front. That the Italians have not +made a greater use of it is due, no doubt, to the wholly different +conditions under which they are fighting. + +Now the crowded road that we were following turned sharply into a +narrow valley, down which a small river twisted and turned on its way +to the sea. Though the Italian positions ran along the top of the hill +slope just above us, and though less than a thousand yards away were +the Austrian trenches, that valley, for many miles, was literally +crawling with men and horses and guns. Indeed it was difficult to make +myself believe that we were within easy range of the enemy and that at +any instant a shell might fall upon that teeming hillside and burst +with the crash that scatters death. + +Despite the champagne-cork popping of the rifles and the basso profundo +of the guns, it was a scene of ordered, yes, almost peaceful industry +which in no way suggested war but reminded me, rather, of the Panama +Canal at the busiest period of its construction (I have used the simile +before, but I use it again because I know none better), of the digging +of the New York subway, of the laying of a transcontinental railway, +of the building of the dam at Assuan. Trenches which had recently been +captured from the Austrians were being cleared and renovated and new +trenches were being dug, roads were being repaired, a battery of +monster howitzers was being moved into ingeniously concealed positions, +a whole system of narrow-gauge railway was being laid down, enormous +quantities of stores were being unloaded from wagons and lorries and +neatly stacked, soldiers were building great water-tanks on stilts, +like those at railway sidings, giant shells were being lowered from +trucks and flat-cars by means of cranes; to the accompaniment of saws +and hammers a city of wooden huts was springing up on the reverse slope +of the hill as though at the wave of a magician's wand. + +As I watched with fascinated eyes this scene of activity, as city +idlers watch the laborers at work in a cellar excavation, a shell +burst on the crowded hillside, perhaps five hundred yards away. There +was a crash like the explosion of a giant cannon-cracker; the ground +leaped into flame and dust. A few minutes afterward I saw an ambulance +go tearing up the road. + +"Just a chance shot," said the staff-officer who accompanied me. "This +valley is one of the few places on our front which is invisible to the +Austrian observers. That's why we have so many troops in here. The +Austrian aviators could spot what is going on here, of course, but our +fliers and our anti-aircraft batteries have been making things so hot +for them lately that they're not troubling us much. That's the great +thing in this game--to keep control of the air. If the Austrian airmen +were able to get over this valley and direct the fire of their guns we +wouldn't be able to stay here an hour." + +My companion had thought that it might be possible to follow the road +down the valley to Monfalcone and the sea, and so it would have been +had the weather continued misty and rainy. But the sun came out +brightly just as we reached the beginning of an exposed stretch of the +road; an Austrian observer, peering through a telescope set up in a +monastery on top of a mountain ten miles away, caught sight of the +hurrying gray insect which was our car; he rang up on the telephone a +certain battery and spoke a few words to the battery commander; and an +instant later on the road along which we were travelling Austrian +shells began to fall. Shells being expensive, that little episode cost +the Emperor-King several hundred kronen, we figured. As for us, it +merely interrupted a most interesting morning's ride. + +Leaving the car in the shelter of a hill, we toiled up a steep and +stony slope to a point from which I was able to get an admirable idea +of the general lay of Italy's Eastern Front. Coming toward me was the +Isonzo--a bright blue stream the width of the Thames at New +London--which, happy at escaping from its gloomy mountain defile, went +rioting over the plain in a great westward curve. Turning, I could +catch a glimpse, through a notch in the hills, of the white towers and +pink roofs of Monfalcone against the Adriatic's changeless blue. To +the east of Monfalcone rose the red heights of the Carso, the barren +limestone plateau which stretches from the Isonzo south into Istria. +And beyond the Carso I could trace the whole curve of the mountains +from in front of Trieste up past Gorizia and away to the Carnia. The +Italian front, I might add, divides itself into four sectors: the +Isonzo, the Carnia and Cadore, the Trentino, and the Alpine. + +Directly below us, not more than a kilometre away, was a village which +the Austrians were shelling. Through our glasses we could see the +effects of the bombardment as plainly as though we had been watching a +football game from the upper tier of seats in the Yale Bowl. They were +using a considerable number of guns of various calibers and the crash +of the bursting shells was almost incessant. A shell struck a rather +pretentious building, which was evidently the town hall; there was a +burst of flame, and a torrent of bricks and beams and tiles shot +skyward amid a geyser of green-brown smoke. Another projectile chose +as its target the tall white campanile, which suddenly slumped into +the street, a heap of brick and plaster. Now and again we caught +glimpses of tiny figures--Italian soldiers, most likely--scuttling for +shelter. Occasionally the Austrians would vary their rain of heavy +projectiles with a sort of shell that went _bang_ and released a +fleecy cloud of smoke overhead and then dropped a parcel of high +explosive that burst on the ground. It was curious to think that the +guns from which these shells came were cunningly hidden away in nooks +and glens on the other side of that distant range of hills, that the +men serving the guns had little if any idea what they were firing at, +and that the bombardment was being directed and controlled by an +officer seated comfortably at the small end of a telescope up there on +a mountain top among the clouds. Yet such is modern war. It used to be +one of the artillerist's tenets that his guns should be placed in a +position with a "commanding" range of view. But nowadays guns +"command" nothing. Instead they are tucked away in gullies and leafy +glens and excavated gun-pits, and their muzzles, instead of frowning +down on the enemy from an eminence, stare blindly skyward from behind +a wall of hills or mountains. The Italians evidently grew tired of +letting the Austrians have their way with the town, for presently some +batteries of heavy guns behind us came into action and their shells +screamed over our heads. Soon a brisk exchange of compliments between +the Italian and Austrian guns was going on over the shattered roofs of +the town. We did not remain overlong on our hillside and we were +warned by the artillery officer who was guiding us to keep close to +the ground and well apart, for, were the Austrians to see us in a +group, using maps and field-glasses, they probably would take us for +artillery observers and would send over a violent protest cased in +steel. + +On none of the European battle-fronts is there a more beautiful and +impressive journey than that from Udine up to the Italian positions in +the Carnia. The Carnia sector connects the Isonzo and Trentino fronts +and forms a vital link in the Italian chain of defense, for, were the +Austrians to break through, they would take in flank and rear the +great Italian armies operating on the two adjacent fronts. West of the +Carnia, in Cadore, the Italians are campaigning in one of the world's +most famous playgrounds, for, in the days before the Great War, +pleasure-seekers from every corner of Europe and America swarmed by +the tens of thousands in the country round about Cortina and in the +enchanted valleys of the Dolomites. But now great gray guns are +emplaced in the shady glens where the honeymooners used to stroll; on +the terraces of the tourist hostelries, where, on summer afternoons, +men in white flannels and women in dainty frocks chattered over their +tea, now lounge Italian officers in field uniforms of gray; the blare +of dance music and the popping of champagne corks has been replaced +by the blare of bugles and the popping of rifles. + +If you have ever gone, in a single day, from the sunlit orange groves +of Pasadena up to the snow-crowned peaks of the Coast Range, you will +have as good an idea as I can give you of the journey from the Isonzo +up to the Carnia. Down on the Carso the war is being waged under a sky +of molten brass and in summer the winds which sweep that arid plateau +are like blasts from an open furnace-door. The soldiers fighting in +the Carnia, on the other hand, not infrequently wear coats of white +fur to protect them from the cold and to render them invisible against +the expanses of snow. When I was on the Italian front they told me an +incident of this mountain warfare. There was desperate fighting for +the possession of a few yards of mountain trenches and a +half-battalion of Austrian Jaegers--nearly five hundred men--were +enfiladed by machine-gun fire and wiped out. That night there was a +heavy snowfall and the Austrian corpses sprawled upon the +mountainside were soon buried deep beneath the fleecy flakes. The long +winter wore along, the war pursued its dreary course, to five hundred +Austrian homes the Austrian War Office sent a brief message that the +husband or son or brother had been "reported missing." Then the spring +came, the snow melted from the mountainsides, and the horrified +Italians looked on the five hundred Austrians, frozen stiff, as meat +is frozen in a refrigerator, in the same attitudes in which they had +died months before. + +With countless hair-pin, hair-raising turns, our road wound upward, +bordered on one hand by the brinks of precipices, on the other by bare +walls of rock. It was a smooth road, splendidly built, but steep and +terrifyingly narrow--so narrow in places that it was nothing more than +a shelf blasted from the sheer face of the cliff. Twice, meeting +motor-lorries downward bound, we had to back along that narrow shelf, +with our outer wheels on the brink of emptiness, until we came to a +spot where there was room to pass. It was a ticklish business. + +At one point a mountain torrent leaped from the cliff into the depths +below. But the water-power was not permitted to go to waste; it had +been skilfully harnessed and was being used to run a completely +equipped machine-shop where were brought for repair everything from +motor-trucks to machine-guns. That was one of the things that +impressed me most--the mechanical ability of the Italians. The +railways, cable-ways, machine-shops, bridges, roads, reservoirs, +concrete works that they have built, more often than not in the face +of what would appear to be unsurmountable difficulties, prove them to +be a nation of engineers. + +Up to the heights toward which we were climbing so comfortably and +quickly in a motor-car there was before the war, so I was told, +nothing but a mule-path. Now there is this fine military road, so +ingeniously graded and zigzagged that two-ton motor-trucks can now go +with ease where before a donkey had difficulty in finding a footing. +When these small and handy motor-trucks come to a point where it is no +longer possible for them to find traction, their loads are transferred +to the remarkable wire-rope railways, or _telefericas_, as they are +called, which have made possible this campaign in cloudland. Similar +systems are in use, all over the world, for conveying goods up the +sides of mountains and across chasms. A wire rope running over a drum +at each side of the chasm which has to be crossed forms a double line +of overhead railway. Suspended on grooved wheels from this overhead +wire are "cars" consisting of shallow iron trays about the length and +width of coffins, one car going up as the other comes down. The floors +of the cars are perforated so as to permit the draining off of water +or blood--for men wounded in the mountain fighting are frequently +brought down to the hospitals in them--and the sides are of +latticework, and, I might add, quite unnecessarily low. Nor is the +prospective passenger reassured by being told that there have been +several cases where soldiers, suddenly overcome by vertigo, have +thrown themselves out while in mid-air. If the cars are properly +loaded, and if there is not a high wind blowing, the _teleferica_ is +about as safe as most other modes of conveyance, but should the cars +have been carelessly loaded, or should a strong wind be blowing, there +is considerable danger of their coming into collision as they pass. In +such an event there would be a very fair chance of the passenger +spattering up the rocks a thousand feet or so below. There is still +another, though a rather remote possibility: that of being shelled +while in mid-air, for certain of the _telefericas_ run within view of +the Austrian positions. And sometimes the power which winds the drum +gives out and the car and its passengers are temporarily marooned in +space. Aviation, motor-racing, mountain-climbing, big-game hunting, +all seem commonplace and tame compared with the sensation of swinging +helplessly in a shallow bathtub over half a mile of emptiness while an +Austrian battery endeavors to pot you with shrapnel, very much as a +small boy throws stones at a scared cat clinging to a limb. + +Yet over these slender wires has been transported an army, with its +vast quantities of food, stores, and ammunition, and by the same +method of transportation have been sent back the wounded. Without this +ingenious device it is doubtful if the campaign in the High Alps could +ever have been fought. But the cables, strong though they are, are yet +too weak to bear the weight of the heavy guns, some of them weighing +forty and fifty tons, which the Italians have put into action on the +highest peaks. So, by the aid of ropes and levers and pulleys and +hundreds of brawny backs and straining arms, these monster pieces have +been hauled up slopes as steep as that of the Great Pyramid, have been +hoisted up walls of rock as sheer and high as those of the Flatiron +Building. You question this? Well, there they are, great eight and +nine inch monsters, high above the highest of the wire roads, one of +them that I know of at a height of ten thousand feet above the sea. +There is no doubting it, incredible as it may seem, for they speak for +themselves--as the Austrians have found to their cost. + +The most advanced positions in the Carnia, as in the Trentino, are +amid the eternal snows. Here the guns are emplaced in ice caverns +which can be reached only through tunnels cut through the drifts; here +the men spend their days wrapped in shaggy furs, their faces smeared +with grease as a protection from the stinging blasts, and their nights +in holes burrowed in the snow, like the igloos of Esquimaux. On no +front, not on the sun-scorched plains of Mesopotamia, nor in the +frozen Mazurian marshes, nor in the blood-soaked mud of Flanders, does +the fighting man lead so arduous an existence as up here on the roof +of the world. I remember standing with an Italian officer in an +observatory in the lower mountains. The powerful telescope was +trained on the snow-covered summit of one of the higher peaks. + +"Do you see that little black speck on the snow at the very top?" the +officer asked me. + +I told him that I did. + +"That is one of our positions," he continued. "It is held by a +lieutenant and thirty Alpini. I have just received word that, as the +result of yesterday's snow-storm, our communications with them have +been cut off. We will not be able to relieve them, or get supplies to +them, much before next April." + +And it was then only the middle of December! + +In the Carnia and on the Upper Isonzo one finds the anomaly of +first-line trenches which are perfectly safe from attack. I visited +such a position. Through a loophole I got a little framed picture of +the Austrian trenches not five hundred yards away, and above them, cut +in the mountainside, the square black openings within which lurked the +Austrian guns. Yet we were as safe from anything save artillery fire +as though we were in Mars, for between the Italian trenches and the +Austrian intervened a chasm half a thousand feet deep and with walls +as steep and smooth as the side of a house. The narrow strip of valley +at the bottom of the chasm was a sort of no man's land, where forays, +skirmishes, and all manner of desperate adventures took place nightly +between patrols of Jaegers and Alpini. + +As with my field-glasses I was sweeping the turmoil of trench-scarred +mountains which lay spread, below me, like a map in bas-relief, an +Austrian battery quite suddenly set up a deafening clamor, and on a +hillside, miles away, I could see its shells bursting in clouds of +smoke shot through with flame. They looked like gigantic white peonies +breaking suddenly into bloom. The racket of the guns awoke the most +extraordinary echoes in the mountains. It was difficult to believe +that it was not thunder. Range after range caught up the echoes of +that bombardment and passed them on until it seemed as though they +must have reached Vienna. For half an hour, perhaps, the cannonade +continued, and then, from an Italian position somewhere above and +behind us, came a mighty bellow which drowned out all other sounds. It +was the angry voice of Italy bidding the Austrians be still. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] I was told by a British general that thousands of tiny steel +prongs had been discovered in baled hay brought from America. They +were evidently put there by German sympathizers in the United States +with the object of killing the Allies' horses. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE ROAD TO TRIESTE + + +In order to appraise the Italian operations on the Carso at their true +value, it is necessary to go back to May, 1916, when the Archduke +Frederick launched his great offensive from the Trentino. Now it must +be kept constantly in mind, as I have tried to emphasize in preceding +chapters, that when the war opened, the Italians had always to go up +while the Austrians needed only to come down. The latter, intrenched +high on that tremendous natural rampart formed by the Rhaetian and +Tyrolean Alps, the Dolomites, the Carnic, Julian, and Dinaric ranges, +had an immense superiority over their enemy on the plains below. The +Austrian offensive in the Trentino was dictated by four reasons: +first, to divert the Italians from their main objective, Trieste; +second, to lessen the pressure which General Cadorna was exerting +against the Austrian lines on the Isonzo; third, to smash through to +Vicenza and Verona, thus cutting off and compelling the capitulation +of the Italian armies operating in Venetia; and fourth, to so +thoroughly discourage the Italians that they would consent to a +separate peace. + +The story of how this ambitious plan was foiled is soon told. By the +first week in May the Austrians had massed upon the Trentino front a +force of very nearly 400,000 men with 2,000 guns. Included in this +tremendous accumulation of artillery were 26 batteries of 12-inch guns +and several of the German giants, the famous 42-centimetre pieces, +which brought down the pride of Antwerp and Namur. By the middle of +May everything was ready for the onset to begin, and this avalanche of +soldiery came rolling down the Asiago plateau, between the Adige and +the Brenta. Below them, basking in the sunshine, stretched the +alluring plains of Venetia, with their wealth, their women, and their +wine. Pounded by an immensely superior artillery, overwhelmed by wave +upon wave of infantry, the Italians sullenly fell back, leaving the +greater part of the Sette Communi plateau and the upper portion of the +Brenta valley in the hands of the Austrians. At the beginning of June +a cloud of despondency and gloom hung over Italy, and men went about +with sober faces, for it seemed all but certain that the enemy would +succeed in breaking through to Vicenza, and by cutting the main +east-and-west line of railway, would force the armies operating on the +Isonzo and in the Carnia to surrender. But the soldiers of the Army of +the Trentino, though outnumbered in men and guns, determined that the +Austrians should pay a staggering price for every yard of ground they +gained. They fought as must have fought their ancestors of the Roman +legions. And, thanks to their tenacity and pluck, they held their +opponents on the five-yard line. Then, just in the nick of time, the +whistle blew. The game was over. The Austrians had to hurry home. +They had staked everything on a sudden and overwhelming onslaught by +which they hoped to smash the Italian defense and demoralize the +Italian armies in time to permit at least half their eighteen +divisions and nearly all of their heavy guns being withdrawn in a few +weeks and rushed across Austria to the Galician front, where they were +desperately needed to stay the Russian advance. + +By the beginning of the last week in June the Austrian General Staff, +recognizing that its plan for the overwhelming of northern Italy had +failed disastrously, issued orders for a general retreat. The +Austrians had planned to fall back on the positions which had been +prepared in advance in the mountains and to establish themselves, with +greatly reduced numbers, on this practically impregnable line, while +the transfer of the divisions intended for the Carpathians was +effected. But General Cadorna had no intention of letting the +Austrians escape so easily. In less than a week he had collected from +the garrisons and training camps and reserve battalions an army of +500,000 men. It was one of the most remarkable achievements of the +war. From all parts of Italy he rushed those half million men to the +Trentino front by train--and despite the immense strain put upon the +Italian railways by the rapid movement of so great a body of troops, +the regular passenger service was suspended for only three days. (At +that same time the American Government was attempting to concentrate a +force of only 150,000 men on the Mexican border; a comparison of +Italian and American efficiency is instructive.) He formed that army +into brigades and divisions, each complete with staff and supply +trains and ammunition columns. He organized fresh bases of supply, +including water, of which there is none on the Asiago plateau. He +provided the stupendous quantity of stores and ammunition and +equipment and transport required by such an army. (It is related how +Cadorna's Chief of Transport wired the Fiat Company of Turin that he +must have 545 additional motor-trucks within a week, and how that +great company responded by delivering in the time specified 546--one +over for good measure.) Almost in a night he transformed the rude +mule-paths leading up onto the plateau into splendid military roads, +wide enough and hard enough to bear the tremendous traffic to which +they were suddenly subjected. And finally he rushed his troops up +those roads in motor-cars and motor-trucks, afoot and on horse-back +and astride of donkeys and flung them against the Austrians. So sudden +and savage was the Italian onset that the Austrians did not dare to +spare a man or gun for their Eastern Front--and meanwhile the +Muscovite armies were pressing on toward the Dniester. It is no +exaggeration to assert that the success of Brussiloff's offensive in +Galicia was due in no small measure to the Italian counter-offensive +in the Trentino. That adventure cost Austria at least 100,000 dead and +wounded men. + +But not for a moment did the Italians permit the Austrian offensive in +the Trentino to distract them from their real objectives: Gorizia, +the Carso, and Trieste. The "military experts," who from desks in +newspaper offices tell the public how campaigns ought to be conducted, +had announced confidently that Italy had so taxed her strength by her +efforts in the Trentino that, for many months at least, nothing need +be expected from her. But Italy showed the public that the "military +experts" didn't know what they were talking about, for in little more +than a month after the Italian guns had ceased to growl amid the +Tyrolean peaks and passes, they were raining a storm of steel upon the +Austrian positions on the Carso. + +Imagine a vast limestone plateau, varying in height from 700 to 2,500 +feet, which is as treeless and waterless as the deserts of Chihuahua, +as desolate and forbidding as the Dakota Bad Lands, with a surface as +torn and twisted and jagged as the lava beds of Utah, and with a +summer climate like that of Death Valley in July. That is the Carso. +This great table-land of rock, which begins at Gorizia, approaches +close to the shores of the Adriatic between Monfalcone and Trieste, +and runs southeastward into Istria, links the Alpine system with the +Balkan ranges. Its surface of naked, sun-flayed rock is broken here +and there with gigantic heaps of piled stone, with caves and caverns, +with sombre marshes which sometimes become gloomy and forbidding +lakes, and with peculiar crater-like depressions called _dolinas_, +formed by centuries of erosion. Such scanty vegetation as there is is +confined to these _dolinas_, which form the only oases in this barren +and thirsty land. The whole region is swept by the _Bora_, a wind +which is the enemy alike of plant and man. Save for the lizards that +bask upon its furnace-like floors, the Carso is as lifeless as it is +treeless and waterless. No bird and scarcely an insect can find +nourishment over vast spaces of this sun-scorched solitude; even the +hardy mountain grass withers and dies of a broken heart. So powerful +is the sun that eggs can be cooked without a fire. Metal objects, such +as rifles and equipment, when left exposed, quickly become too hot to +touch. The bodies of the soldiers who fall on the Carso are not +infrequently found to have been baked hard and mummified after lying +for a day or two on that oven-like floor of stone. + +The Carso is probably the strongest natural fortress in the world. +Anything in the shape of defensive works which Nature had overlooked, +the Austrians provided. For years before the war began the Austrian +engineers were at work strengthening a place that already possessed +superlative strength. The whole face of the plateau was honeycombed +with trenches and tunnels and dugouts and gun emplacements which were +blasted and drilled out of the solid rock with machinery similar to +that used in driving the Simplon and the St. Gothard tunnels. The +posts for the snipers were armored with inch-thick plates of steel +cemented into the rock. The _dolinas_ were converted into machine-gun +pits and bomb-proof shelters. In one of these curious craters I saw a +dugout--it was really a subterranean barracks--electrically lighted +and with neatly whitewashed walls which had sleeping accommodation for +a thousand men. To supply these positions, water was pumped up by +oil-engines, but the Austrians took care to destroy the pipe-lines as +they retired. + +At the northern end of the Carso, in an angle formed by the junction +of the Wippach and the Isonzo, the snowy towers and red-brown roofs of +Gorizia rise above the foliage of its famous gardens. The town, which +resembles Homburg or Baden-Baden and was a popular Austrian resort +before the war, lies in the valley of the Wippach (Vippacco, the +Italians call it), which separates the Carso from the southernmost +spurs of the Julian Alps. Down this valley runs the railway leading to +Trieste, Laibach, and Vienna. It will be seen, therefore, that Gorizia +is really the gateway to Trieste, and a place of immense strategic +importance. + +On the slopes of the Carso, four or five miles to the southwest of the +town, rises the enormously strong position of Monte San Michele, and +a few miles farther down the Isonzo, the fortified hill-town of +Sagrado. On the other side of the river, almost opposite Gorizia, are +the equally strong positions of Podgora and Monte Sabotino. Their +steep slopes were slashed with Austrian trenches and abristle with +guns which commanded the roads leading to the river, the bridge-heads, +and the town. To take Gorizia until these positions had been captured +was obviously out of the question. Here, as elsewhere, Austria held +the upper ground. In a memorandum issued by the Austrian General Staff +to its officers at the beginning of the operations before Gorizia, the +tremendous advantage of the Austrian position was made quite clear: +"We have to retain possession of a terrain fortified by Nature. In +front of us a great watercourse; behind us a ridge from which we can +shoot as from a ten-story building." + +The difficulties which the Italians had to overcome in their advance +were enormous. From their mountain nests the Austrian guns were able +to maintain a murderous fire on the Italian lines of communication, +thus preventing the bringing up of men and supplies. It therefore +became necessary for the Italians to build new roads which would not +be thus exposed to enemy fire, and in cases where this was impossible, +the existing roads were masked for miles on end with artificial hedges +and screens of grass matting. In many places it was found necessary to +screen the roads overhead as well as on the sides, so that the +Italians could move up their heavy guns without attracting the +attention of the enemy's observers stationed on the highest mountain +peaks, or of the Austrian airmen. But this was not all, or nearly all. +An army is ever a hungry monster, so slaughter-houses and bakeries and +field-kitchens, to say nothing of incredible quantities of +food-stuffs, had to be provided. Fighting being a thirsty business, it +was necessary to arrange for piping up water, for great tanks to hold +that water, and for water-carts, hundreds and hundreds of them, to +peddle it among the panting troops. A prize-fighter cannot sleep out +in the open, on the bare ground, and keep in condition for the ring, +and a soldier, who is likewise a fighting-man but from a different +motive, must be made comfortable of nights if he is to keep in +fighting-trim. So millions of feet of lumber had to be brought up, +along roads already overcrowded with traffic, and that lumber had to +be transformed into temporary huts and barrackments--a city of them. +But the preparations did not end even there. To insure the +co-ordination and co-operation of the various divisions of the army, +an elaborate system of field telegraphs and telephones had to be +installed, and, in order to provide against the lines being cut by +shell-fire and the whole complex organism paralyzed, the wires were +laid in groups of four. Then there had to be repair-stations for the +broken machinery, and other repair-stations--with Red Cross flags +flying over them--for the broken men. So in the rear of the sector +where the Italians planned to give battle on a front of thirty miles, +a series of great base hospitals were established, and, nearer the +front, a series of clearing-hospitals, and, still closer up, +field-hospitals, and in the immediate rear of the fighting-line, +hundreds of dressing-stations and first-aid posts were located in +dugouts and bomb-proof shelters. And along the roads stretched endless +caravans of gray ambulances, for it promised to be a bloody business. +In other words, it was necessary, before the battle could be fought +with any hope of success, to build what was to all intents and +purposes a great modern city, a city of half a million inhabitants, +with many miles of macadamized thoroughfares, with water and telephone +and telegraph systems, with a highly efficient sanitary service, with +railways, with huge warehouses filled with food and clothing, with +more hospitals than any city ever had before, with butcher-shops and +bakeries and machine-shops and tailors and boot-menders--in fact, with +everything necessary to meet the demands of 500,000 men. Yet Mr. +Bryan and his fellow-members of the Order of the Dove and Olive-Branch +would have us believe that all that is necessary in order to win a +modern battle is to take the trusty target-rifle from the closet under +the stairs, dump a box of cartridges into our pockets, and sally +forth, whereupon the enemy, decimated by the deadliness of our fire, +will be only too glad to surrender. + +The most formidable task which confronted the Italians was that of +constructing the vast system of trenches through which the troops +could be moved forward in comparative safety to the positions from +which would be launched the final assault. This presented no +exceptional difficulties in the rich alluvial soil on the Isonzo's +western bank, but once the Italians had crossed the river they found +themselves on the Carso, through whose solid rock the trenches could +be driven only with pneumatic drills and dynamite. All of the Italian +trenches that I saw showed a very high skill in engineering. Instead +of keeping the earthen walls from crumbling and caving by the use of +the wicker-work revetments so general on the Western Front, the +Italians use a sort of steel trellis which is easily put in place, and +is not readily damaged by shell-fire. Other trenches which I saw +(though not on the Carso, of course) were built of solid concrete with +steel shields for the riflemen cemented into the parapets. + +During these weeks of preparation the Italian aviators, observers, and +spies had been busy collecting information concerning the strength of +the Gorizia defenses and the disposition of the Austrian batteries and +troops. By means of thousands of photographs taken from airplanes, +enlarged, and then pieced together, the Italians had as accurate and +detailed a map of the Austrian lines of defense as was possessed by +the Austrian General Staff itself. Thanks to the data thus obtained, +the Italian gunners were able to locate their targets and estimate +their ranges with absolute precision. They knew which building in +Gorizia was the headquarters of the Austrian commander; they had +discovered where his telephone and telegraph stations were located; +and they had spotted his observation posts. Indeed, so highly +developed was the Italian intelligence service that the Austrians were +not able to transfer a battalion or change the position of a battery +without the knowledge of General Cadorna. + +Now the Austrians, like the newspaper experts, were convinced that the +Italians had their hands full in the Trentino without courting trouble +on the Isonzo. And if there was to be an attack along the Isonzo +front--which they doubted--they believed that it would almost +certainly develop in the Monfalcone sector, next the sea. And of this +belief the Italians took care not to disabuse them. Here again was +exemplified the vital necessity of having control of the air. If, +during the latter half of July, the Austrian fliers had been able to +get over the Italian lines, they could not have failed to observe the +enormous preparations which were in progress, and when the Italians +advanced, the Austrians would have been ready for them. But the +Italians kept control of the air (during my entire trip on the Italian +front I can recall having seen only one Austrian airplane), the +Austrians had no means of learning what was impending, and were, +therefore, quite unprepared for the attack when it came--and Gorizia +fell. + +By the 4th of August, 1916, all was ready for the Big Push. On the +morning of that day brisk fighting began on the Monfalcone sector. +Convinced that this was the danger-point, the Austrian commander +rushed his reserves southward to strengthen his threatened line. This +was precisely what the Italians wanted. They had succeeded in +distracting his attention from their real objective--Gorizia. Now the +battle of Gorizia was really not fought at Gorizia at all. What +happened was the brilliant and bloody storming of the Austrian +positions on Podgora and Monte Sabotino, a simultaneous crossing of +the Isonzo opposite Gorizia and at Sagrado, and a splendid rush up to +and across the plateau of the Carso which culminated in the taking of +Monte San Michele. Gorizia itself was not organized for defense, and +so astounded was its garrison at the capture in rapid succession of +the city's defending positions, which had been deemed impregnable, +that no serious resistance was offered. + +On the morning of August 6 a hurricane of steel suddenly broke upon +Gorizia. But the Italian gunners had received careful instructions, +and instead of blowing the city off the map, as they could easily have +done, they confined their efforts to the destruction of the enemy's +headquarters, observation posts, and telephone-stations, thus +destroying his means of communication and effectually disrupting his +entire organization. Other batteries turned their attention to the +railway-station, the railway-yards, and the roads, dropping such a +curtain of shell-fire behind the town that the Austrians were unable +to bring up reinforcements. Care was taken, however, to do as little +damage as possible to the city itself, as the Italians wanted it for +themselves. + +The most difficult, as it was the most spectacular, phase of the +attack was the storming of the Sabotino, a mountain two thousand feet +high, which, it was generally believed, could never be taken with the +bayonet. The Italians, realizing that no troops in the world could +hope to reach the summit of those steep slopes in the face of barbed +wire, rifles, and machine-guns, had, unknown to the enemy, driven a +tunnel, a mile and a quarter long, into the very heart of this +position. When the assault was ordered, therefore, the first lines of +Italian infantry suddenly appeared from out of the ground within a few +yards of the Austrian trenches. Amid a storm of _vivas_ the gray wave, +with its crest of glistening steel, surged up the few remaining yards +of glacis, topped the parapet, and overwhelmed the defenders. Monte +Sabotino, the key to the bridge-head and the city, was in the hands of +the Italians. But the Austrians intrenched on Hill 240, the highest +summit of the Podgora range, still held out, and it took several +hours of savage fighting to dislodge them. This last stronghold taken, +the gray-clad infantry suddenly debouched from the sheltering ravines +and went swarming down to the Isonzo. Almost simultaneously another +division crossed the river several miles below, at Sagrado. Into the +stream they went, their rifles held high above their heads, chanting +the splendid hymn of Garibaldi. The Austrian shrapnel churned the +river into foam, its waters turned from blue to crimson, but the +insistent bugles pealed the charge, and the lines of gray swept on. +Pausing on the eastern bank only long enough to re-form, the lines +again rolled forward. White disks carried high above the heads of the +men showed the Italian gunners how far the infantry had advanced and +enabled them to gauge their protecting curtain of fire. Though +smothered with shells, and swept by machine-guns, nothing could stop +them. "Avanti Savoia!" they roared. "Viva! Eviva Italia!" + +Meanwhile, under a heavy fire, the Italian engineers were repairing +the iron bridge which carried the railway from Milan and Udine across +the Isonzo to Gorizia and so to Trieste and Vienna. The great stone +bridge over the river had been destroyed the day before beyond the +possibility of immediate repair. In an amazingly short time the work +was done and the Italian field-batteries went tearing over the bridge +at a gallop to unlimber on the opposite bank and send a shower of +shrapnel after the retreating Austrians. Close behind the guns poured +Carabinieri, Alpini, Bersaglieri, infantry of the line and squadron +after squadron of cavalry riding under thickets of lances. A strong +force of Carabinieri were the first troops to enter the city, and not +until they had taken complete possession and had assumed the reins of +the local government, were the line troops permitted to come in. + +The fighting continued for three days, the Austrians, though +discouraged and to some extent demoralized, making a brave +resistance. In one _dolina_ which had been fortified, an officer and +a handful of men fought so pluckily against overwhelming odds that, +when at length the survivors came out and surrendered, the Italians +presented arms to them as a mark of respect and admiration. By the +evening of the 9th of August the attack, "one of the most important +and violent onslaughts on fortified positions that the European War +has yet seen," had been completely successful, and the city of +Gorizia, together with the heights that guarded it, including the +northern end of the Carso plateau, were in Italian hands. The cost to +Italy was 20,000 dead men. It was a high price but, on the other hand, +she captured 19,000 prisoners, 67 pieces of artillery, and scores of +trench mortars and machine-guns. The moral and strategic results were +of incalculable value. The first line of the Austrian defense, deemed +one of the strongest on any front, had collapsed beneath the Italian +assaults; though the crest of the Carso still remained in Austrian +hands, the gateway to Trieste had been opened; and most important of +all, the Italian people had gained the self-confidence which they had +long lacked and which comes only from military achievement. + +In order to reach Gorizia we had to motor for some miles along a road +exposed to enemy fire, for the hills dominating the city to the south +and east were still in Austrian hands. The danger was minimized as +much as possible by screening the roads in the manner I have already +described, so, as the officer who accompanied me took pains to +explain, if we happened to be hit by a shell, it would be one fired at +random. I could see no reason, however, why a random shell wouldn't +end my career just as effectually as a shell intended specially for +me. Although, thanks to the tunnels of matting, the Austrians cannot +see the traffic on the roads, they know that it must cross the +bridges, so on them they keep up a continuous rain of projectiles, and +there you have to take your chance. The Gorizia bridge-head was not a +place where I should have cared to loiter. + +It is not a simple matter to obtain permission to visit Gorizia (it is +much easier to visit Verdun), for the city is shelled with more or +less regularity, and to have visitors about under such conditions is a +nuisance. Hence, one cannot get into Gorizia unless bearing a special +pass issued by the Comando Supremo. So rigid are the precautions +against unauthorized visitors that, though accompanied by two officers +of the Staff and travelling in a staff-car, we were halted by the +Carabinieri and our papers examined seven times. To this famous force +of constabulary has been given the work of policing the occupied +regions, and indeed, the entire zone of the armies. With their huge +cocked hats, which, since the war began, have been covered with gray +linen, their rosy faces, so pink-and-white that they look as though +they had been rouged and powdered, and their little upturned waxed +mustaches, the Carabinieri always remind me of the gendarmes in comic +operas. But the only thing comic about them is their hats. They are +the sternest and most uncompromising guardians of the law that I know. +You can expostulate with a London bobbie, you can argue with a Paris +gendarme, you can on occasion reason mildly with a New York policeman, +but not with an Italian carbineer. To give them back talk is to invite +immediate and serious trouble. They are supreme in the war zone, for +they take orders from no one save their own officers and have the +authority to turn back or arrest any one, no matter what his rank. Our +chauffeur, who, being attached to the Comando Supremo, had become so +accustomed to driving generals and cabinet ministers that he blagued +the military sentries, and quite openly sneered at the orders of the +Udine police, would jam on his brakes so suddenly that we would almost +go through the wind-shield if a carbineer held up his hand. + +Gorizia is, or was before the war, a place of some 40,000 inhabitants. +It has broad streets, lined by fine white buildings and lovely +gardens, and outside the town are excellent medicinal baths. It will, +I think, prove a very popular summer resort with the Italians. Though +for many months prior to its capture it was within range of the +Italian guns, which could have blown it to smithereens, they refrained +from doing so because it was desired, if possible, to take the place +intact. That, indeed, has been the Italian policy throughout the war: +to do as little unnecessary damage as possible. Now the Austrians, who +look down on their lost city from the heights to the eastward, refrain +from destroying it, as they easily could do, because they cling to the +hope that they may get it back again. So, though the bridge-heads are +shelled constantly, and though considerable damage has been inflicted +on the suburbs, no serious harm has been done to the city itself. By +this I do not mean to imply that the Austrians never shell it, for +they do, but only in a desultory, half-hearted fashion. During the day +that I spent in Gorizia the deserted streets echoed about every five +minutes to the screech-bang of an Austrian _arrivé_ or the +bang-screech of an Italian _départ_. + +Finding that the big Hotel du Parc, which is the city's leading +hostelry, was closed, we lunched at the more modest Hotel de la Poste. +Our luncheon was served us in the kitchen, as, shortly before our +arrival, the dining-room had been wrecked by an Austrian shell. Though +this had naturally somewhat upset things, we had a really excellent +meal: _minestrone_, which, so far as I could discover, is the only +variety of soup known to the Italians, mutton, vegetables, a pudding, +fruit, the best coffee I have had in Europe since the war began, and a +bottle of fine old Austrian wine, which, like the German vintages, is +no longer procurable in the restaurants of _civilized_ Europe. While +we ate, there was a brisk exchange of compliments between the Italian +and Austrian batteries in progress above the roofs of the town. The +table at which we sat was pushed close up against one of the thick +masonry columns which supported the kitchen ceiling. It probably would +not have been much of a protection had a shell chanced to drop in on +us, but it was wonderfully comforting. + +I was accompanied on my visit to Gorizia by Signor Ugo Ojetti, the +noted Florentine connoisseur who has been charged with the +preservation of all the historical monuments and works of art in the +war zone. About this charming and cultured gentleman I was told a +characteristic story. In the outskirts of Gorizia stands the château +of an Austrian nobleman who was the possessor of a famous collection +of paintings. Now it is Signor Ojetti's business to save from injury +or destruction all works of art which are worth saving, and, after +ticketing and cataloguing them, to ship them to a place of safety to +be kept until the war is over, when they will be restored to their +respective owners. Though the château in question was within the +Italian lines, the windows of the ballroom, in which hung the best of +the pictures, were within easy range of the Austrian snipers, who, +whenever they saw any one moving about inside, would promptly open a +brisk rifle fire. Scarcely had Ojetti and his assistant set foot +within the room when _ping_ came an Austrian bullet through the +window, shattering the crystal chandelier over their heads. Then was +presented the extraordinary spectacle of the greatest art critic in +Italy crawling on hands and knees over a ballroom floor, taking care +to keep as close to that floor as possible, and pausing now and then +to make a careful scrutiny of the canvases that hung on the walls +above him. "That's probably an Allori," he would call to his +assistant. "Remember to take that down after it gets dark. The one +next to it is good too--looks like a Bordone, though I can't be +certain in this light. But don't bother about that picture over the +fire-place--it's only a copy and not worth saving. Let the Austrians +have it if they want it." And they told me that through it all he +never once lost his dignity or his monocle. + +Another interesting figure who joined our little party in Gorizia was +a monk who had served as a regimental chaplain since the beginning of +the war. He was a broad-shouldered, brown-bearded fellow and, had it +not been for the scarlet cross on the breast of his uniform, I should +have taken him for a fine type of the Italian fighting man. I rather +suspect, though, that when the bugles pealed the signal for the +attack, he quite forgot that the wearers of the Red Cross are supposed +to be non-combatants. During the Austrian offensive in the Trentino, +an Italian army chaplain was awarded the gold medal for valor, the +highest military decoration, because he rallied the men of his +regiment after all the officers had fallen and led them in the +storming of an Austrian position held by a greatly superior force. +Another chaplain who had likewise assumed command of officerless +troops was awarded the silver medal for valor. As the duties of the +army chaplains are supposed to be confined to giving the men spiritual +advice, the doubt arose as to whether they were justified in actually +fighting, thus risking the loss of their character as non-combatants. +This puzzling question was, therefore, submitted to the Pope, who +decided that chaplains assuming command of troops who had lost their +officers in battle were merely discharging their duty, as they +encouraged the men to resist in self-defense. In addition to the +regimental chaplains there are, so I was told, thousands of priests +and monks serving in the ranks of the Italian armies. Whether, after +leading the exciting and adventurous life of a soldier, these men will +be content to resume the sandals and the woollen robe, and to go back +to the sheltered and monotonous existence of the monastic orders, I +very strongly doubt. In any event, their sympathies will have been +deepened and their outlook on life immensely broadened. + +It rained in torrents during my stay in Gorizia, but, as we recrossed +the Isonzo onto the Friulian plain, the sinking sun burst through a +rift in the leaden clouds and turned into a huge block of rosy coral +the red rampart of the Carso. Beyond that wall, scarce a dozen miles +as the airplane flies, but many times that distance as the big gun +travels, lies Trieste. It will be a long road, a hard road, a bloody +road which the Italians must follow to attain their City of Desire, +and before that journey is ended the red rocks of the Carso will be +redder still. But they will finish the journey, I think. For these +iron-hard, brown-faced men, remember, are the stuff from which was +made those ever-victorious legions that built the Roman Empire--and it +is the dream of founding another Empire which is beckoning them on. + + + + +V + +WITH THE RUSSIANS IN CHAMPAGNE + + +When the French have been pestered for permission to visit the front +by some foreigner--usually an American--until their patience has been +exhausted, or when there comes to Paris a visitor to whom, for one +reason or another, they wish to show attention, they send him to +Rheims. Artists, architects, ex-ambassadors, ex-congressmen, lady +journalists, manufacturers in quest of war orders, bankers engaged in +floating loans, millionaires who have given or are likely to give +money to war-charities, editors of obscure newspapers and monthly +magazines, are packed off weekly, in personally conducted parties of a +dozen or more, on a day's excursion to the City of the Desecrated +Cathedral. They grow properly indignant over the cathedral's shattered +beauties, they visit the famous wine-cellars, they hear the +occasional crack of a rifle or the crash of a field-gun,[B] and, upon +their return, they write articles for the magazines, and give +lectures, and to their friends at home send long letters--usually +copied in the local papers--describing their experiences "on the +firing-line." "Visiting the front" has, indeed, become as popular a +pastime among Americans in Paris as was racing at Longchamps and +Auteuil before the war. Hence, no place in the entire theatre of war +has had so much advertising as Rheims. No sector of the front has been +visited by so many civilians. That is why I am not going to say +anything about Rheims--at least about its cathedral. For there is +nothing left to say. + +Five minutes of brisk walking from the cathedral brings one to the +entrance of the famous wine-cellars of Pommery et Cie, the property of +the ancient family of de Polignac. The space in this underground city +is about equally divided between champagne and civilians, for several +hundred of the townspeople, who sought refuge here in the opening +weeks of the war, still make these gloomy passages their home. As the +_caves_ have a mean temperature of fifty degrees Fahrenheit they are +comfortable enough, and, as they are fifty feet below the surface of +the earth, they are safe. So there the more timid citizens live, +rent-free, and will continue to live, no doubt, until the end of the +war. In normal times, there are shipped from these cellars each day +thirty thousand bottles of champagne, and even now, despite the +proximity of the Germans--their trenches are only a few hundred yards +away--the work of packing and shipping goes on much as usual, though, +of course, on a greatly reduced scale, averaging, so I was told, eight +thousand bottles daily. By far the greater part of this goes to +America, for nowadays Europeans do not buy champagne. + +To the red-faced, white-waistcoated, prosperous-looking gentlemen who +scan so carefully the hotel wine-lists, I feel sure that it will come +as a relief to learn that, though there was no 1916 crop of champagne, +the vintages of 1914 and 1915 were exceptionally fine--_grands vins_ +they will probably be labelled. (And they ought to be, for the vines +were watered with the bravest blood of France.) I don't suppose it +would particularly interest those same complacent gentlemen, though, +were I to add that the price of one of those gilt-topped bottles would +keep a French child from cold and hunger for a month. + +A few hours before I visited the cellars, a workman, loading cases of +champagne in front of the company's offices for export to the United +States, was blown to pieces by a German shell. They showed me the +shattered columns of the office-building, and on the cobbles of the +little square pointed out an ugly stain. So, when I returned to +America, and in a famous restaurant, where I was dining, saw +white-shirted men and white-shouldered women sipping glasses abrim +with the sparkling wine of Rheims, the picture of those blood-stained +cobbles in that French city flashed before me, and I experienced a +momentary sensation of disgust, for it seemed to me that in the amber +depths I caught a stain of crimson. But of course it was only my +imagination. Still, I was glad when it came time to leave, for the +scene was too suggestive in its contrast to be pleasant: we, in +America, eating and drinking and laughing; they, over there in Europe, +fighting and suffering and hungering. + + * * * * * + +Leaving Rheims, we took a great gray car and drove south, ever south, +until, as darkness was falling, we reached the headquarters of General +Jilinsky, commanding the Russian forces fighting in Champagne. Here +the Russians have two infantry brigades, with a total of 16,000 men; +there is a third brigade at Salonika. The last time the Russians were +in France was in 1814, and then they were there for a different +purpose. Little could Napoleon have dreamed that they, who helped to +dethrone him, would come back, a century later, as France's allies. +Yet this war has produced stranger coincidences than that. The British +armies, disembarking at Rouen, tramp through that very square where +their ancestors burned the Maid of Orleans. And at Pont des Briques, +outside Boulogne, where Napoleon waited impatiently for weeks in the +hope of being able to invade England, is now situated the greatest of +the British base camps. + +General Jilinsky reminded me of a fighting-cock. He is a little man, +much the height and build of the late General Funston, with hair +cropped close to the skull, after the Russian fashion; through a +buttonhole of his green service tunic was drawn the orange-and-black +ribbon of the Order of St. George. He can best be described as "a live +wire." His staff-officers impressed me as being as efficient and +razor-keen as their chief. The general asked me if I would like to +visit his trenches, and I assured him that it was the hope of being +permitted to do so which had brought me there. Whereupon a +staff-officer disappeared into the hall to return a moment later with +a gas-mask in a tin case and a steel helmet covered with tan linen. + +"You had better take these with you," he said. "There is nearly always +something happening on our front, and there is no sense in taking +unnecessary risks." + +I soon found that the precaution was not an idle one, for, as our car +drew up at the entrance to the _boyau_ which led by devious windings +into the first-line trenches, the group of officers and men assembled +in front of brigade headquarters were hastily donning their masks: +grotesque-looking contrivances of metal, cloth, and rubber, which in +shape resembled a pig's snout. + +"Gas," said my Russian companion briefly. "We will stay here until it +is over." + +Though we must have been nearly a mile behind the firing-line, the air +was filled with a sweetish, sickish smell which suggested both the +operating-room and the laboratory. So faint and elusive was the odor +that I hesitated to follow the example of the others and don my mask, +until I remembered having been told at Souchez, on the British front, +that a horse had been killed by gas when seven miles behind the lines. + +It is a logical development of this use of chemicals as weapons that +the horses in use on the French front are now provided with gas-masks +in precisely the same manner as the soldiers. These masks, which are +kept attached to the harness, ready for instant use, do not cover the +entire face, as do those worn by the men, but only the mouth and +nostrils. In fact they resemble the feeding-bags which cartmen and +cab-drivers put on their horses for the midday meal. Generally +speaking, the masks are provided only for artillery horses and those +employed in hauling ammunition, though it now seems likely that if the +cavalry gets a chance to go into action, masks will be worn by the +troopers and their horses alike. After a large gas attack the fumes +sometimes settle down in the valleys far behind the lines, and hours +may elapse before they are dissipated by the wind. As it not +infrequently happens that one of these gas banks settles over a road +on which it is imperative that the traffic be not interrupted, large +signs are posted notifying all drivers to put the masks on their +horses before entering the danger zone. + +There are now three different kinds of gases in general use on the +Western Front. The best known of these is a form of chlorine gas, +which is liberated from cylinders or flasks, to be carried by the wind +over the enemy's lines. Contrary to the popular impression, its use is +not as general as the newspaper accounts have led the public to +believe, for it requires elaborate preparation, can only be employed +over comparatively flat ground, and then only when the wind is of +exactly the right velocity, neither too light nor too strong. Another +form of asphyxiating gas is held in shells in liquid form, usually in +lead containers. Upon the bursting of the shell, which is fired from +an ordinary field-gun, the liquid rapidly evaporates and liberates the +gas, a few inhalations of which are sufficient to cause death. The +third type consists of lachrymal, or tear-producing, gas, which is +used in the same way as the asphyxiating, but its effects are not +fatal, merely putting a man out of action for a few hours. It is +really, however, the most efficacious of the three types, as it does +not evaporate as readily as the asphyxiating gas. As a well +distributed fire of lachrymal shells will form a screen of gas which +will last for several hours, they are often used during an attack to +prevent the enemy from bringing up reinforcements. Another use is +against artillery positions, the clouds of gas from the lachrymal +shells making it almost impossible for the men to serve the guns. I +was also told of these shells having been used with great success to +surround the headquarters of a divisional commander, disabling him +and his entire staff during an attack. + +Before a change in the wind dissipated the last odors of gas, darkness +had fallen. "Now," said my cicerone, "we will resume our trip to the +trenches." The last time that I had seen these trenches, which the +Russians are now holding, was in October, 1915, during the great +French offensive in Champagne, when I had visited them within a few +hours after their capture by the French. On that occasion they had +been so pounded by the French artillery that they were little more +than giant furrows in the chalky soil, and thickly strewn along those +furrows was all the horrid garbage of a battlefield: twisted and +tangled barbed wire, splintered planks, shattered rifles, broken +machine-guns, unexploded hand-grenades, knapsacks, water-bottles, +pieces of uniforms, bits of leather, and, most horrible of all, the +remains of what had once been human beings. But all this débris had +long since been cleared away. Under the skilful hands of the Russians +the rebuilt trenches had taken on a neat and orderly appearance. The +earthen walls had been revetted with wire chicken-netting, and instead +of tramping through ankle-deep mud, we had beneath our feet neat walks +of corduroy. We tramped for what seemed interminable miles in the +darkness, always zig-zagging. Now and then we would come upon little +fires, discreetly screened, built at the entrances to dugouts burrowed +from the trench-walls. Over these fires soldiers in flat caps and +belted greatcoats were cooking their evening meal. I had expected to +see unkempt men wearing sheepskin caps, men with flat noses and matted +beards, but instead I found clean-shaven, splendidly set-up giants, +with the pink skins that come from perfect cleanliness and perfect +health. Following the direction of the arrows on signs printed in both +French and Russian, we at last reached the fire-trench, where dim +figures looking strangely mediæval in their steel helmets, crouched +motionless, peering out along their rifle-barrels into the eerie +darkness of No Man's Land. Here there was a sporadic illumination, for +from the German trenches in front of us lights were rising and +falling. They were very beautiful: slender stems of fire arching +skyward to burst into blossoms of brilliant sparks, which illuminated +the band of shell-pocked soil between the trenches as though it were +day. Occasionally there would be a dozen of these star-shells in the +air at the same time: they reminded me of the Fourth of July fireworks +at Manhattan Beach. In the fire-trenches there is no talking save in +whispers, but every now and then the almost uncanny silence would be +punctuated by the sharp crack of a rifle, the _tut-tut-tut_ of a +mitrailleuse, or, from somewhere in the distance, the angry bark of a +field-gun. + +There was a whispered conversation between the officer in command of +the trench and my guide. The latter turned to me. + +"We have driven a sap to within thirty metres of the enemy," he said, +"and have established a listening-post out there. Would you care to +go out to it?" + +I would, and said so. + +"No talking, then, if you please," he warned me, "and as little noise +as possible." + +This time the _boyau_ was very narrow, and writhed between its earthen +walls like a dying snake. We advanced on tiptoe, as cautiously as +though stalking big game--as, indeed, we were. Ten minutes of this +slow and tortuous progress brought us to the _poste d'écoute_. In a +space the size of a hall bedroom half a score of men stood in +attitudes of strained expectancy, staring into the blackness through +the loopholes in their steel shields. There being no loophole vacant, +I took a chance and, standing on the firing step, raised my head above +the level of the parapet and made a hurried survey of the few yards of +No Man's Land which separated us from the enemy--a space so narrow +that I could have thrown a stone across, yet more impassable than the +deepest chasm. I was rewarded for the risk by getting a glimpse of a +dim maze of wire entanglements, and, just beyond, a darker bulk which +I knew for the German trench. And I knew that from that trench sharp +eyes were peering out into the darkness toward us just as we were +trying to discern them. As I stepped down from my somewhat exposed +position a soldier standing a few feet farther along the line raised +_his_ head above the parapet, as though to relieve his cramped +muscles. Just then a star-shell burst above us, turning the trench +into day. _Ping!!!_ There was a ringing metallic sound, as when a +22-caliber bullet strikes the target in a shooting-gallery, and the +big soldier who had incautiously exposed himself crumpled up in the +bottom of the trench with a bullet through his helmet and through his +brain. The young officer in command of the listening-post cursed +softly. "I'm forever warning the men not to expose themselves," he +said irritatedly, "but they forget it the next minute. They're nothing +but stupid children." He spoke in much the same tone of annoyance he +might have used if the man had been a clumsy servant who had broken a +valuable dish. Then he went into the tiny dugout where the telephone +was, and rang up the trench commander, and asked him to send out a +bearer, for the _boyau_ communicating with the listening-post was too +narrow to admit the passage of a stretcher. The bearer arrived just as +we started to return. He was a regular dray-horse of a man, with +shoulders as massive and competent as those of a Constantinople +_hamel_. Strapped to his back by a sort of harness was a contrivance +which looked like a rude armchair with the legs cut off. His comrades +hoisted the dead man onto the back of the live man, and with a rope +took a few turns about the bodies of both. As we made our slow way +back to the fire-trench, and so to the rear, there stumbled at our +heels the grunting porter with his ghastly burden. Now and then I +would glance over my shoulder and, in the fleeting glare of the +star-shells, would glimpse, above the porter's straining shoulders, +the head of the dead soldier lolling inertly from side to side, as +though very, very tired.... And I wondered if in some lonely cabin by +the Volga a woman was praying for her boy. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[B] Since this was written the Germans have bombarded Rheims so +heavily, with the evident intention of completing its destruction, +that the French military authorities have ordered the evacuation of +the civil population. + + + + +VI + +"THEY SHALL NOT PASS!" + + +General Gouraud, the one-armed hero of Gallipoli, who commands the +forces in Champagne, is the most picturesque and gallant figure in all +the armies of France. On my way south I stopped for a night in +Chalons-sur-Marne to dine with him. He was living in a comfortable but +modest house, evidently the residence of a prosperous tradesman. When +I arrived I found the small and rather barely furnished salon filled +with officers of the staff, in uniforms of the beautiful horizon blue +which is the universal dress of the French army. They were clustered +about the marble-topped centre-table, on which, I imagine, the family +Bible used to rest, but which now held the steel base of a +380-centimetre shell, which had fallen in a near-by village that +afternoon. This monster projectile, as large as the largest of those +fired by our coast-defense guns, must have weighed considerably more +than a thousand pounds and doubtless cost the Germans at least a +thousand dollars, yet all the damage it had done was to destroy a +tumble-down and uninhabited cottage, which proves that, save against +permanent fortifications, there is a point where the usefulness of +these abnormally large guns ceases. While we were discussing this +specimen of Bertha Krupp's handicraft, the door opened and General +Gouraud entered the room. Seldom have I seen a more striking figure: a +tall, slender, graceful man, with a long, brown, spade-shaped beard +which did not entirely conceal a mouth both sensitive and firm. But it +was the eyes which attracted and held one's attention: great, lustrous +eyes, as large and tender as a woman's, but which could on occasion, I +fancy, become cold as steel, or angry as lightning. One sleeve of his +tunic hung empty, and he leaned heavily on a cane, for during the +landing at Gallipoli he was terribly wounded by a Turkish shell. +Covering his breast were glittering stars and crosses, which showed +how brilliant had been his services in this and other wars. He is a +remarkable man, this soldier with the beard of a _poilu_ and the eyes +of a poet, and, unless I am greatly mistaken, he is destined to go a +long, long way. + +It was the sort of dinner that one marks with a white milestone on the +road of memory. The soldier-servants wore white-cotton gloves and +there were flowers on the table and menus with quaint little military +sketches in the corners. General Gouraud talked in his deep, melodious +voice of other wars in which he had fought, in Annam and Morocco and +Madagascar, and the white-mustached old general of artillery at my +left illustrated, with the aid of the knives and forks, a new system +of artillery fire, which, he assured me very earnestly, would make +pudding of the German trenches. While the salad was being served one +of the staff-officers was called to the telephone. When he returned +the general raised inquiring eyebrows. "_N'importe, mon général_," he +answered. "Colonel ---- telephoned that the Boches attacked in force +south of ----" and he named a certain sector, "but that we have driven +them back with heavy losses." Then he resumed his interrupted dinner +as unconcernedly as though he had been called to the telephone to be +told that the Braves had defeated the Pirates in the ninth inning. + +While we were at breakfast the next morning the windows of the hotel +dining-room suddenly began to reverberate to the _bang-bang-bang_ of +guns. Going to the door, we saw, high overhead, a great white bird, +which turned to silver when touched by the rays of the morning sun. +Though shrapnel bursts were all about it--I counted thirty of the +fleecy puffs at one time--it sailed serenely on, a thing of delicate +beauty against the cloudless blue. Though few airplanes are brought +down by artillery fire, the improvement in anti-aircraft guns has +forced the aviators to keep at a height of from 12,000 to 17,000 feet, +instead of 2,000, as they did at the beginning of the war. The French +gunners have now devised a system which, when it is successfully +executed, makes things extremely uncomfortable for the enemy aviator. +This system consists in so gauging the fire of the anti-aircraft guns +that the airman finds himself in a "box" of shrapnel; that is, one +shell is timed to burst directly in front of the machine, another +behind it, one above, one below, and one on either side. The +dimensions of this "box" of bursting shrapnel are gradually made +smaller, so that, unless the aviator recognizes his danger in time, +escape becomes impossible, and he is done for. Occasionally an +aviator, finding himself caught in such a death-trap, pretends that he +has been hit, and lets his machine flutter helplessly earthward, like +a wounded bird, until the gunners, believing themselves certain of +their prey, cease firing, whereupon the airman skilfully "catches" +himself, and, straightening the planes of his machine, goes soaring +off to safety. Navarre, one of the most daring of the French fliers, +so perfected himself in the execution of this hazardous ruse that he +would let go of the controls and permit his machine to literally fall, +sometimes from a height of a mile or more, making no attempt at +recovery until within sixty metres of the ground, when he would save +himself by a hawk-like swoop in which his wheels would actually graze +the earth. + +The organization of the French air service, with its system of +airplane and seaplane squadrons, dirigibles and observation balloons, +schools, repair-shops, and manufactories, is entirely an outgrowth of +the war. The airplanes are organized in _escadrilles_, usually +composed of ten machines each, for three distinct purposes. The +bombardment squadrons are made up of slow machines with great carrying +capacity, such as the Voisin; the pursuit or battle squadrons--the +_escadrilles de chasse_--are composed of small and very fast 'planes, +such as the Spad and Nieuport; while the general utility squadrons, +used for reconnoissance, artillery regulation, and photographing, +usually consist of medium-speed, two-passenger machines like the +Farman and the Caudron. + + [Illustration: "_Halt!_ Show Your Papers!" + On the roads in the war zone there are sentries at frequent + intervals and they are all suspicious.] + + [Illustration: A Nieuport Biplane About to Take the Air. + The pursuit or battle squadrons--the _escadrilles de chasse_--are + composed of small and very fast planes, such as the Spad and + Nieuport.] + +Until very recently the Nieuport biplane, which can attain a speed of +one hundred and ten miles an hour, has been considered the fastest and +most efficient, as it is the smallest, of the French battle-planes, +but it is now out-speeded by the new Spad[C] machine, which has +reached a speed of over one hundred and twenty miles an hour, and of +which great hopes are entertained. The Spad, like the Nieuport, is a +one-man apparatus, the machine-gun mounted on its upper plane being +fired by the pilot with one hand, while with the other hand and his +feet he operates his controls. On the "tractors," as the airplanes +having the propellers in front are called, the machine-guns are +synchronized so as to fire between the whirling blades. Garros, the +famous French flier, was the first man to perfect a device for firing +a machine-gun through a propeller. He armored the blades so that if +struck by a bullet they would not be injured. This was greatly +improved upon by the Germans in the Fokker type, the fire of the +machine-guns being automatically regulated so that it is never +discharged when a blade of the propeller is directly in front of the +muzzle. Since then various forms of this device have been adapted by +all the belligerents. Another novel development of aerial warfare is +the miniature wireless-sending apparatus with which most of the +observation and artillery regulation machines are now equipped, thus +enabling the observers to keep in constant touch with the ground. In +addition to developing the fastest possible battle-planes, the French +are making efforts to build more formidable craft for bombing +purposes. The latest of these is a Voisin triplane, which has a total +lifting capacity of two tons, carries a crew of five men, and is +driven by four propellers, each operated by a 210-horse-power +Hispana-Suiza motor. These new motors weigh only about two hundred +kilograms, or a little over two pounds per horse-power. + +During the past year the French have made most of their raids by +nights. One reason for this is that raiding craft, which are +comparatively slow machines, are so heavily laden with bombs that they +are only able to perform straight flying and hence are easily brought +down by the fast and quick-turning battle-planes. Daylight raids, +moreover, necessitate an escorting fleet of fighting craft in order to +protect the bombing machines, just as a dreadnought has to be +protected by a screen of destroyers. Though the dangers of flying are +considerably increased by darkness, the French believe this is more +than compensated for by the fact that, being comparatively safe from +attack by enemy aircraft or from the fire of anti-aircraft guns, the +raiders can fly at a much lower altitude and consequently have a much +better chance of hitting their targets. + +One of the extremely important uses to which airplanes are now put is +the destruction of the enemy's observation balloons, on which he +depends for the regulation of his artillery fire. An airplane which +is to be used for this work is specially fitted with a number of +rocket tubes which project in all directions, so that it looks like a +pipe-organ gone on a spree. The rockets, which are fired by means of a +keyboard not unlike that of a clavier, are loaded with a composition +containing a large percentage of phosphorus and are fitted with gangs +of barbed hooks. If the rocket hits the balloon these hooks catch in +the envelope and hold it there, while the phosphorus bursts into a +flame which it is impossible to extinguish. During the fighting before +Verdun, eight French aviators, driving machines thus equipped, were +ordered to attack eight German balloons. Six of the balloons were +destroyed. + +But the very last word in aeronautical development is what might be +called, for want of a better term, an aerial submarine. I refer to +seaplanes carrying in clips beneath the fuselage specially constructed +18-inch torpedoes. In the under side of this type of torpedo is an +opening. When the torpedo is dropped into the sea the water, pouring +into this opening, sets the propelling mechanism in motion and the +projectile goes tearing away on its errand of destruction precisely as +though fired from the torpedo-tube of a submarine. It may be recalled +that some months ago the papers printed an account of a Turkish +transport, loaded with soldiers, having been torpedoed in the Sea of +Marmora, the accepted explanation being that a submarine had succeeded +in making its way through the Dardanelles. As a matter of fact, that +transport was sunk by a torpedo dropped from the air! The pilot of a +Short seaplane had winged his way over the Gallipoli Peninsula, had +sighted the troop-laden transport steaming across the Marmora Sea, +and, volplaning down until he was only twenty-five feet above the +water and a few hundred yards from the doomed vessel, had jerked the +lever which released the torpedo. As it struck the water its machinery +was automatically set going, something that looked like a giant cigar +went streaking through the waves ... there was a shattering +explosion, and when the smoke cleared away the transport had +disappeared. Whereupon the airman, his mission accomplished, flew back +to his base in the Ægean. There may be stranger developments of the +war than that, but if so I have not heard of them. + +France is now (April, 1917) turning out between eight hundred and a +thousand completely equipped airplanes a month, but a considerable +proportion of these are for the use of her allies. I have asked many +persons who ought to know how many airplanes France has in commission, +and, though the replies varied considerably, I should say that she has +at present somewhere between five thousand and seven thousand machines +in or ready to take the air.[D] + + * * * * * + +Leaving Chalons in the gray dawn of a winter's morn, we fled southward +again, through Bar-le-Duc (the place, you know, where the jelly comes +from) the words "_Caves voutés_" chalked on the doors of those +buildings having vaulted cellars showing that air raids were of +frequent occurrence, and so, through steadily increasing traffic, to +Souilly, the obscure hamlet from which was directed the defense of +Verdun. In the centre of the cobble-paved Grande Place stood the +Mairie, a two-story building in the uncompromising style +characteristic of most French provincial architecture. At the foot of +the steps stood two sentries in mud-caked uniforms and dented helmets, +and through the front door flowed an endless stream of staff-officers, +orderlies, messengers, and mud-spattered despatch riders. In this +village _mairie_, a score of miles behind the firing-line, were +centred the nerve and vascular systems of an army of half a million +men; here was planned and directed the greatest battle of all time. On +the upper floor, in a large, light, scantily furnished room, a man +with a great silver star on the breast of his light-blue tunic sat at +a table, bent over a map. He had rather sparse gray hair and a gray +mustache and a little tuft of gray below the lower lip. His eyes were +sunken and tired-looking, as though from lack of sleep, and his face +and forehead were deeply lined, but he gave the impression, +nevertheless, of possessing immense vitality and energy. He was a +broad-shouldered, solidly built, four-square sort of man, with cool, +level eyes, and a quiet, almost taciturn manner. It was General Robert +Nivelle, the man who held Verdun for France. He it was who, when the +fortress was quivering beneath the Germans' sledge-hammer blows, had +quietly remarked: "They shall not pass!" _And they did not._ + +I did not remain long with General Nivelle; to have taken much of such +a man's time would have been a rank impertinence. I would go to +Verdun? he inquired. Yes, with his permission, I answered. Everything +had been arranged, he assured me. An officer who knew America +well--Commandant Bunau-Varilla, of Panama Canal fame--had been +assigned to go with me.[E] As I was leaving I attempted to express to +him the admiration which I felt for the fashion in which he had +conducted the Great Defense. But with a gesture he waved the +compliment aside. "It is the men out there in the trenches who should +be thanked," he said. "They are the ones who are holding Verdun." I +took away with me the impression of a man as stanch, as confident, as +unconquerable as the city he had so heroically defended. A few weeks +later he was to succeed Marshal Joffre to the highest field command in +the gift of the French Government. + +It is twenty miles from Souilly to Verdun, and the road has come to be +known as La Voie Sacré--the Sacred Way--because on the uninterrupted +flow of ammunition and supplies over that road depended the safety of +the fortress. Three thousand men with picks and shovels, working day +and night, kept the road in condition to bear up under the enormous +volume of traffic. The railway to Verdun was so repeatedly cut by +German shells that the French built a narrow-gauge line, which +zig-zags over the hills. Beside the road, at frequent intervals, I +noted cisterns and watering-troughs, and huge overhead water-tanks; +for an army--men, horses, and motor-cars--is incredibly thirsty. This +elaborate water system is the work of Major Bunau-Varilla, who, +fittingly enough, is the head of the _Service d'Eau des Armées_. + +Half a dozen miles out of Souilly we crossed the watershed between the +Seine and the Rhine and were in the valley of the Meuse. On the other +side of yonder hill, whence came a constant muttering of cannon, was, +I knew, the Unconquerable City. + +While yet Verdun itself was out of sight, we came, quite unexpectedly, +upon one of its mightiest defenders: a 400-millimetre gun mounted on a +railway-truck. So streaked and striped and splashed and mottled with +many colors was it that, monster though it was, it escaped my notice +until we were almost upon it. Suddenly a score or more of grimy men, +its crew, came pelting down the track, as subway laborers run for +shelter when a blast is about to be set off. A moment later came a +mighty bellow; from the up-turned nose of the monster burst a puff of +smoke pierced by a tongue of flame, and an invisible express-train +went roaring eastward in the direction of the German lines. This was +the mighty weapon of which I had heard rumors but had never seen: the +great 16-inch howitzer with which the French had so pounded Fort +Douaumont as to cause its evacuation by the Germans. + +The French artillerists were such firm believers in the superiority of +light over heavy artillery, and pinned such faith to their 75's, that +they had paid scant attention to the question of heavy mobile guns. +Hence when the German tidal wave rolled Parisward in 1914, the only +heavy artillery possessed by the French consisted of a very few +4.2-inch Creusot guns of a model adopted just prior to the war, and a +limited number of batteries of 4.8-inch and 6.1-inch guns and +howitzers; all of them, save only the 6.1-inch Rimailho howitzer of +1904, being models twenty to forty years old. These pieces were, of +course, vastly outclassed in range and smashing power by the heavy +guns of the Central Powers, such as the German 420's (the famous +"42's") and the Austrian 380's. Undismayed, however, the French set +energetically to work to make up their deficiencies. As it takes time +to manufacture guns, large numbers of naval pieces were pressed into +service, most of them being mounted on railway-trucks, thus insuring +extreme mobility. The German 42's, I might mention in passing, lack +this very essential quality, as they can be fired only from specially +built concrete bases, from which they cannot readily be moved. The two +German 42's which pounded to pieces the barrier forts of Antwerp were +mounted on concrete platforms behind a railway embankment near +Malines, where they remained throughout the siege of the city. + + [Illustration: Verdun's Mightiest Defender: a 400-mm. Gun. + This was the great 16-inch weapon with which the French so pounded + Fort Douaumont as to cause its evacuation by the Germans.] + + [Illustration: A Gun Painted to Escape the Observation of Enemy + Airmen. + "So streaked and striped and splashed and mottled with many colors + was it that, monster though it was, it escaped my notice until we + were almost upon it."] + +Some idea may be had of the variety of artillery in use on the French +front when I mention that there are at least eleven calibers of guns, +howitzers, and mortars, ranging in size from 9 inches to 20.8 inches, +in action between Switzerland and the Somme. All of these, with a very +few exceptions, are mounted on railway-trucks. In fact, the only large +calibered piece not thus mounted is the Schneider mortar, a very +efficient weapon, having a remarkably smooth recoil, which has a range +of over six miles. It is transported, with its carriage and platform, +in six loads, each weighing from four to five tons, about four hours +being required to set up the piece ready for firing. Nearly all of +these railway guns are, I understand, naval or coast-defense pieces, +some of them being long-range weapons cut down to form howitzers or +mortars, while others have been created by boring to a larger caliber +a gun whose rifling had been worn out in use. For example, the +400-millimetre, already referred to as having proved so effective +against Douaumont, was, I am told, made by cutting down and boring out +a 13.6-inch naval gun. But the master gun, the very latest product of +French brains and French foundries, is the huge 520-millimetre +(20.8-inch) howitzer which has just been completed at the Schneider +works at Creusot. This, the largest gun in existence, has a length of +16 calibers (that is, sixteen times its bore, or approximately 28 +feet), and weighs 60 tons. It fires a shell 7 feet long, weighing +nearly 3,000 pounds, and carrying a bursting charge of 660 pounds of +high explosive. Its range is 18 kilometres, or a little over eleven +miles, though this can probably be increased if desired. This is +France's answer to the German 42's, and, just as the latter shattered +the forts of Liége, Antwerp, and Namur, so these new French titans +will, it is confidently believed, humble the pride of Metz and +Strasbourg. + +So insistent has been the demand from the front for big guns, and yet +more big guns, that new batteries are being formed every day. +Generally speaking, the French plan is to assign short-range howitzers +and mortars to the division; the longer range, horse-drawn +guns--_hippomobile_ the French designate them--to the army corps; +while the tractor-drawn pieces and those mounted on railway-carriages +are placed directly under the orders of the chief of artillery of each +army. + +A new, and in many respects one of the most effective weapons produced +by the war is the trench mortar. These light and mobile weapons, of +which the French have at least four calibers, ranging from +58-millimetres to 340-millimetres, are under the direction of the +artillery, and should not be confused with the various types of +bomb-throwers, which are operated by the infantry. The latest +development in trench weapons is the Van Deuren mortar, which takes +its name from the Belgian officer who is its inventor. Its chief +peculiarity lies in the fact that its barrel consists of a solid core +instead of a hollow tube like all other guns. Attached to the base of +the shell is a hollow winged shaft which fits over the core of the +gun, the desired range being obtained by varying the length of the +powder-chamber: that is, the distance between the end of the barrel +and the base of the shell proper. The gun is fired at a fixed +elevation, and is so small and light that it can readily be moved and +set up by a couple of men in a few minutes. In no branch of the +artillery has such advancement been made as in the trench mortars, +which have now attained almost as great a degree of accuracy as the +field-gun. Such great importance is attached to the trench mortars by +the Italians that they have formed them into a distinct arm of the +service, entirely independent of the artillery, the officers of the +trench-mortar batteries, who are drawn from the cavalry, being trained +at a special school. + +The city of Verdun, or rather the blackened ruins which are all that +remain of it, stands in the centre of a great valley which is shaped +not unlike a platter. Down this valley, splitting the city in half, +meanders the River Meuse. The houses of Verdun, like those of so many +mediæval cities, are clustered about the foot of a great fortified +rock. From this rock Vauban, at the order of Louis XIV, blasted +ramparts and battlements. To meet the constantly changing conditions +of warfare, later generations of engineers gradually honeycombed the +rock with passages, tunnels, magazines, store-rooms, halls, and +casemates, a veritable labyrinth of them, thus creating the present +Citadel of Verdun. Then, because the city and its citadel lie in the +middle of a valley dominated by hills--like a lump of sugar in the +middle of a platter--upon those hills was built a chain of barrier +forts: La Chaume, Tavannes, Thiaumont, Vaux, Douaumont, and others. +But when, at Liége and Namur, at Antwerp and Maubeuge, the Germans +proved conclusively that no forts could long withstand the battering +of their heavy guns, the French took instant profit by the lesson. +They promptly left the citadel and the forts nearest to it and +established themselves in trenches on the surrounding hills, taking +with them their artillery. This trench-line ran through certain of the +small outlying forts, such as Tavannes, Thiaumont, Douaumont, and +Vaux, and that is why you have read in the papers so much of the +desperate fighting about them. Thus the much-talked-of fortress of +Verdun was no longer a fortress at all, but merely a sector in that +battle-line which extends from the Channel to the Alps. Barring its +historic associations, and the moral effect which its fall might have +in France and abroad, its capture by the Germans would have had no +more strategic importance, if as much, than if the French line had +been bent back for a few miles at Rheims, or Soissons, or Thann. The +Vauban citadel in the city became merely an advanced headquarters, a +telephone exchange, a supply station, a sort of central office, from +the safety of whose subterranean casemates General Dubois, the +commander of the city, directed the execution of the orders which he +received from General Nivelle at Souilly, twenty miles away. Though +the citadel's massive walls have resisted the terrific bombardments to +which it has been subjected, it has neither guns nor garrison: they +are far out on the trench-line beyond the encircling hills. It has, in +fact, precisely the same relation to the defense of the Verdun sector +that Governor's Island has to the defense of New York. This it is +important that you should keep in mind. It should also be remembered +that Verdun was held not for strategic but for political and +sentimental reasons. The French military chiefs, as soon as they +learned of the impending German offensive, favored the evacuation of +the city, whose defense, they argued, would necessitate the sacrifice +of thousands of lives without any corresponding strategic benefit. But +the heads of the Government in Paris looked at things from a different +point of view. They realized that, no matter how negligible was its +military value, the people of other countries, and, indeed, the French +people themselves, believed that Verdun was a great fortress; they +knew that its capture by the Germans would be interpreted by the world +as a French disaster and that the morale of the French people, and +French prestige abroad, would suffer accordingly. So, at the eleventh +hour and fifty-ninth minute, when the preparations for evacuating the +city were all but complete, imperative word was flashed from Paris +that it must be held. And it was. Costly though the defense has been, +the result has justified it. The Crown Prince lost what little +military reputation he possessed--if he had any to lose; his armies +lost 600,000 men in dead and wounded; and the world was shown that +German guns and German bayonets, no matter how overwhelming in number, +cannot break down the steel walls of France. + +It was my great good fortune, when the fate of Verdun still hung in +the balance, to visit the city and to lunch with General Dubois and +his staff in the citadel. Though the valor of the French infantry kept +the Germans from entering Verdun, nothing could prevent the entrance +of their shells. Seven hundred fell in one day. Not a single house in +a city of 40,000 inhabitants remains intact. The place looks as though +it had been visited simultaneously by the San Francisco earthquake, +the Baltimore fire, and the Johnstown flood. But once in the shelter +of the citadel and we were safe. Though German shells of large caliber +were falling in the city at frequent intervals, the casemate in which +we lunched was so far beneath the surface of the earth that the sound +of the explosions did not reach us. It was as though we were lunching +in a New York subway station: a great, vaulted, white-tiled room +aglare with electric lights. We sat with General Dubois and the +members of his immediate staff at a small table close to the huge +range on which the cooking was being done, while down the middle of +the room stretched one of the longest tables I have ever seen, at +which upward of a hundred officers--and one civilian--were eating. +This lone civilian was a _commissaire_ of police, and the sole +representative of the city's civil population. When the Tsar bestowed +the Cross of St. George on the city in recognition of its heroic +defense, it was to this policeman, the only civilian who remained, +that the Russian representative handed the badge of the famous order. + +The _déjeuner_, though simple, was as well cooked and well served as +though we were seated in a Paris restaurant instead of in a besieged +fortress. And the first course was fresh lobster! I told General +Dubois that my friends at home would raise their eyebrows +incredulously when I told them this, whereupon he took a menu--for +they had menus--and across it wrote his name and "Citadel de Verdun," +and the date. "Perhaps that will convince them," he said, passing it +to me. By this I do not mean to imply that the French commanders live +in luxury. Far from it! But, though their food is very simple, it is +always well cooked (which is very far from being the case in our own +army), and it is appetizingly served whenever circumstances permit. + +After luncheon, under the guidance of the general, I made the rounds +of the citadel. Here, so far beneath the earth as to be safe from even +the largest shells, was the telephone-room, the nerve-centre of the +whole complicated system of defense, with a switchboard larger than +those in the "central office" of many an American city. By means of +the thousands of wires focussed in that little underground room, +General Dubois was enabled to learn in an instant what was transpiring +at Douaumont or Tavannes or Vaux; he could pass on the information +thus obtained to General Nivelle at Souilly; or he could talk direct +to the Ministry of War, in Paris. I might add that one of the most +difficult problems met with in this war has been the maintenance of +communications during an attack. The telephone is the means most +generally relied upon, but in spite of multiplying the number of +lines, they are all usually put out of commission during the +preliminary bombardment, the wires connecting the citadel with Fort +Douaumont and Fort de Vaux, for example, being repeatedly destroyed. +For this reason several alternative means of communication have always +to be provided, among these being flares and light-balls, +carrier-pigeons, of which the French make considerable use, and +optical signalling apparatus, this last method having been found the +most effective. Sometimes small wireless outfits are used when the +conditions permit. On a few occasions trained dogs have been used to +send back messages, but, the pictures in the illustrated papers to the +contrary, they have not proven a success. In the final resort, the +most ancient method of all--the despatch bearer or runner--has still +very frequently to be employed, making his hazardous trips on a +motor-cycle when he can, on foot when he must. + +In the room next to the telephone bureau a dozen clerks were at work +and typewriters were clicking busily; had it not been for the uniforms +one might have taken the place for the office of a large and busy +corporation, as, in a manner of speaking, it was. On another level +were the bakeries which supplied the bread for the troops in the +trenches; enormous storerooms filled with supplies of every +description; an admirably equipped hospital with every cot occupied, +usually by a "shrapnel case"; a flag-trimmed hall used by the officers +as a club-room; and, on the upper levels, mess-halls and +sleeping-quarters for the men. Despite the terrible strain of the +long-continued bombardment, the soldiers seemed surprisingly cheerful, +going about their work in the long, gloomy passages joking and +whistling. They sleep when and where they can: on the bunks in the +fetid air of the casemates; on the steps of the steep staircases that +burrow deep into the ground; or on the concrete floors of the +innumerable galleries. But sleeping is not easy in Verdun. + +A short distance to the southwest of Verdun, on the bare face of a +hill, is Fort de la Chaume. Like the other fortifications built to +defend the city, it no longer has any military value save for purposes +of observation. Peering through a narrow slit in one of its armored +_observatoires_, I was able to view the whole field of the world's +greatest battle--a battle which lasted a year and cost a million +men--as from the gallery of a theatre one might look down upon the +stage, the boxes, and the orchestra-stalls. Below me, rising from the +meadows beside the Meuse, were the shattered roofs and fire-blackened +walls of Verdun, dominated by the stately tower of the cathedral and +by the great bulk of the citadel. The environs of the town and the +hill slopes beyond the river were constantly pricked by sudden scarlet +jets as the flame leaped from the mouths of the carefully concealed +French guns, which seemed to be literally everywhere, while countless +geyser-like irruptions of the earth, succeeded by drifting patches of +white vapor, showed where the German shells were bursting. Sweeping +the landscape with my field-glasses, a long column of motor-trucks +laden with ammunition came within my field of vision. As I looked +there suddenly appeared, squarely in the path of the foremost vehicle, +a splotch of yellow smoke shot through with red. When the smoke and +dust had cleared away, the motor-truck had disappeared. The artillery +officer who accompanied me directed my gaze across the level valley to +where, beyond the river, rose the great brown ridge known as the +Heights of the Meuse. + +"Do you appreciate," he asked, "that on three miles of that ridge a +million men--400,000 French and 600,000 Germans--have already fallen?" + +Beyond the ridge, but hidden by it, were Hill 304 and Le Mort Homme of +bloody memory, while on the horizon, looking like low, round-topped +hillocks, were Forts Douaumont and de Vaux (what a thrill those names +must give to every Frenchman!) and farther down the slope and a +little nearer me were Fleury and Tavannes. The fountains of earth and +smoke which leaped upward from each of them at the rate of half a +dozen to the minute, showed us that they were enduring a particularly +vicious hammering by the Germans. + +There are no words between the covers of the dictionary which can +bring home to one who has not witnessed them the awful violence of the +shell-storms which have desolated these hills about Verdun. In one +week's attack to the north of the city the Germans threw five million +shells, the total weight of which was forty-seven thousand tons. +Eighty thousand shells rained upon one shallow sector of a thousand +yards, and these were so marvellously placed that the crater of one +cut into that of its neighbor, pulverizing everything that lived and +turning the man-filled trenches into tombs. Hence there is no longer +any such thing as a continuous line of trenches. Indeed, there are no +longer any trenches at all, nor entanglements either, but only a +series of craters. It is these craters which the French infantry has +held with such unparalleled heroism. The men holding the craters are +kept supplied with food and ammunition from the chain of little +forts--Vaux, Douaumont, and the others--and the forts, themselves +battered almost to pieces by the torrents of steel which have been +poured upon them, have relied in turn on the citadel back in Verdun +for their reinforcements, their ammunition, and their provisions, all +of which have had to be sent out at night, the latter on the backs of +men. + +So violent and long-continued have been the hurricanes of steel which +have swept these slopes, that the surface of the earth has been +literally blasted away, leaving a treacherous and incredibly tenacious +quagmire in which horses and even soldiers have lost their lives. +General Dubois told me that, only a few days before my visit to +Verdun, one of his staff-officers, returning alone and afoot from an +errand to Vaux, had fallen into a shell-crater and had drowned in the +mud. Indeed, the whole terrain is pitted with shell-holes as is +pitted the face of a man who has had the small-pox. So terrible is the +condition of the country that it often takes a soldier an hour to +cover a mile. What was once a smiling and prosperous countryside has +been rendered, by human agency, as barren and worthless as the slopes +of Vesuvius. + +Verdun, I repeat, was held not by gun-power but by man-power. It was +not the monster guns on railway-trucks, or even the great numbers of +quick-firing, hard-hitting 75's, but the magnificent courage and +tenacity of the tired men in the mud-splashed uniforms, which held +Verdun for France. Though their forts were crumbling under the +violence of the German bombardment; though their trenches were pounded +into pudding; though the unceasing barrage made it at times impossible +to bring up food or water or reinforcements, the French hung +stubbornly on, and against the granite wall of their defense the waves +of men in gray flung themselves in vain. And when the fury of the +German assaults had in a measure spent itself, General Nivelle retook +in a few hours, on October 24, 1916, Forts Douaumont and de Vaux, +which had cost the Germans seven months of incessant efforts and a +sacrifice of human lives unparalleled in history. + +The fighting before Verdun illustrated and emphasized the revolution +in methods of attack and defense which has taken place in the French +army. At the beginning of the war the French believed in depending +largely on their light artillery both to prepare and to support an +attack, and for this purpose their 75's were admirably adapted. This +method worked well when carried out properly, and before the Germans +had time to bring up their heavy guns; it was by resorting to it that +the French won the victory of the Marne. But the Marne taught the +Germans that the surest way to break up the French system of attack +was to interpose obstacles, such as woods, wire entanglements, and +particularly trenches. To destroy these obstacles the French then had +to resort to heavy-calibered pieces, with which, as I have already +remarked, they were at first very inadequately supplied. In the spring +of 1915 in Artois, and in the autumn of the same year in Champagne, +they attempted to break through the German lines, but these attacks +were not supported by sufficient artillery and were each conducted in +a single locality over a limited front. Then, at Verdun, the Germans +tried opposite tactics, attempting to break through on a wide front +extending on both sides of the Meuse. So appalling were their losses, +however, that, as the attack progressed, they were compelled by lack +of sufficient effectives to constantly narrow their front until +finally the action was taking place along a line of only a few +kilometres. This permitted the French to concentrate both their +infantry and their artillery into dense formations, and before this +concentrated and intensive fire the German attacking columns withered +and were swept away like leaves before an autumn wind. + +The French infantry--and the same is, I believe, true of the +German--is now to all intents and purposes divided into two classes: +holding troops and attacking, or "shock" troops, as the French call +them. The latter consist of such picked elements as the Chasseur +battalions, the Zouaves, the Colonials, the First, Twentieth, and +Twenty-first Army Corps, and, of course, the Foreign Legion. All these +are recruited from the youngest and most vigorous men, due regard +being also paid to selecting recruits from those parts of France which +have always produced the best fighting stock--and among these are the +invaded districts. Shock troops are rarely sent into the trenches, but +when not actively engaged in conducting or resisting an attack, are +kept in cantonments well to the rear. Here they can get undisturbed +rest at night, but by day they are worked as a negro teamster works +his mule. As a result, they are always "on their toes," and in perfect +fighting trim. In this way mobility, cohesion, and enthusiasm, all +qualities which are seriously impaired by a long stay in the trenches, +are preserved in the attacking troops, who, when they go into battle, +are as keen and hard and well-trained as a prize-fighter who steps +into the ring to battle for the championship belt. + +The most striking feature of the new French system of attack is the +team-work of the infantry, artillery, and airplanes. The former +advance to the assault in successive waves, each made up of several +lines, the men being deployed at five-yard intervals. The first wave +advances at a slow walk behind a curtain of artillery fire, which +moves forward at the rate of fifty yards a minute, the first line of +the wave keeping a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards, or, in other +words, at a safe distance, behind this protecting fire-curtain. The +men in this first line carry no rifles, but consist exclusively of +grenadiers, automatic riflemen, and their ammunition carriers, every +eighth man being armed with the new Chauchat automatic rifle, a +recently adopted weapon which weighs only nineteen pounds, and fires +at the rate of five shots a second. Three men, carrying between them +one thousand cartridges, are assigned to each of these guns, of which +there are now more than fifty thousand in use on the French front. The +automatic riflemen fire from the hip as they advance, keeping streams +of bullets playing on the enemy just as firemen keep streams of water +playing on a fire. In the second line the men are armed with rifles, +some having bayonets and others rifle grenades, the latter being +specially designed to break up counter-attacks against captured +trenches. A third line follows, consisting of "trench cleaners," +though it must not be inferred from their name that they use mops and +brooms. The native African troops are generally used for this +trench-cleaning business, and they do it very handily with grenades, +pistols and knives. + +When the first wave reaches a point within two hundred to three +hundred yards of the enemy's trenches, a halt of five minutes is made +to re-form for the final charge. In addition to the advancing +curtain-fire immediately preceding the troops, a second screen of fire +is dropped between the enemy's first and second lines, thus preventing +the men in the first line from retreating and making it equally +impossible for the men in the second line to get reinforcements or +supplies to their comrades in the first. Still other batteries are +engaged in keeping down the fire of the hostile artillery while the +big guns, mounted on railway-trucks, shell the enemy's headquarters, +his supports, and his lines of communication. + +The attack is accompanied by and largely directed by airplanes, +certain of which are assigned to regulating the artillery fire, while +others devote themselves exclusively to giving information to the +infantry, with whom they communicate by means of dropping from one to +six fire-balls. As the aircraft used for infantry and artillery +regulation are comparatively slow machines, they are protected from +the attacks of enemy aviators by a screen of small, fast +battle-planes--the destroyers of the air--which, in several cases, +have swooped low enough to use their machine-guns on the German +trenches. If it becomes necessary to give to the infantry some special +information not provided for by the prearranged signals, the aviator +will volplane down to within a hundred feet above the infantry and +drop a written message. I was told that in one of the successful +French attacks before Verdun such a message proved extremely useful as +by means of it the troops advancing toward Douaumont, which was then +held by the Germans, were informed that the enemy was in force on +their right, but that there was practically no resistance on their +left. Acting in response to this information from the skies, they +swung forward on this flank, and took the Germans on their right in +the rear. Just as a football team is coached from the side-lines, so a +charge is nowadays directed from the clouds. + + [Illustration: Australians on the Way to the Trenches. + Despite gas, bullets, shells, rain, mud, and cold the British + soldier remains incorrigibly cheerful. He is a born optimist.] + + [Illustration: The Fire Trench. + "Figures, looking strangely mediæval in their steel helmets, + crouched motionless, peering out into No Man's Land."] + +One of the picturesque developments of the war is _camouflage_, as +the French call their system of disguising or concealing batteries, +airplane-sheds, ammunition stores, and the like, from observation and +possible destruction by enemy aviators. This work is done in the main +by a corps specially recruited for the purpose from the artists and +scene painters of France. It is considered prudent, for example, to +conceal the location of a certain "ammunition dump," as the British +term the vast accumulations of shells, cartridges, and other supplies +which are piled up at the railheads awaiting transportation to the +front by motor-lorry. Over the great mound of shells and +cartridge-boxes is spread an enormous piece of canvas, often larger by +far than the "big top" of a four-ring circus. Then the scene painters +get to work with their paints and brushes and transform that expanse +of canvas into what, when viewed from the sky, appears to be, let us +say, a group of innocent farm-buildings. The next day, perhaps, a +German airman, circling high overhead, peers earthward through his +glasses and descries, far beneath him, a cluster of red +rectangles--the tiled roofs of cottages or stables, he supposes; a +patch of green--evidently a bit of lawn; a square of gray--the +cobble-paved barnyard--and pays it no further attention. How can he +know that what he takes to be a farmstead is but a piece of painted +canvas concealing a small mountain of potential death? + +At a certain very important point on the French front there long +stood, in an exposed and commanding position, a large and solitary +tree, or rather the trunk of a tree, for it had been shorn of its +branches by shell-fire. A landmark in that flat and devastated region, +every detail of this gaunt sentinel had long since become familiar to +the keen eyed observers in the German trenches, a few hundred yards +away. Were a man to climb to its top--and live--he would be able to +command a comprehensive view of the surrounding terrain. The German +sharpshooters saw to it, however, that no one climbed it. But one day +the resourceful French took the measurements of that tree and +photographed it. These measurements and photographs were sent to +Paris. A few weeks later there arrived at the French front by railway +an imitation tree, made of steel, which was an exact duplicate in +every respect, even to the splintered branches and the bark, of the +original. Under cover of darkness the real tree was cut down and the +fake tree erected in its place, so that, when daylight came, there was +no change in the landscape to arouse the Germans' suspicions. The lone +tree-trunk to which they had grown so accustomed still reared itself +skyward. But the "tree" at which the Germans were now looking was of +hollow steel, and concealed in its interior in a sort of +conning-tower, forty feet above the ground, a French observing +officer, field-glasses at his eyes and a telephone at his lips, was +peering through a cleverly concealed peep-hole, spotting the bursts of +the French shells and regulating the fire of the French batteries. + +Nearly three years have passed since Germany tore up the Scrap of +Paper. In that time the French army has been hammered and tempered and +tested until it has become the most formidable weapon of offense and +defense in existence. I am convinced that in organization and in +efficiency it is now, after close on three years of experiments and +object-lessons, as good, if not better, than the German--and I have +marched with both and have seen both in action. Its light artillery is +admittedly the finest in the world. Though without any heavy artillery +to speak of at the beginning of the war, it has in this respect +already equalled if not surpassed the Germans. It has created an air +service which, in efficiency and in number of machines, is unequalled. +And the men, themselves, in addition to their characteristic _élan_, +possess that invaluable quality which the German soldier +lacks--initiative. + +It is worthy of note, in this connection, that the entire +reorganization of the French army has been carried out virtually +without any action on the part of the French Congress, and with merely +the formal approval of the Minister of War. The politicians in Paris +have, save in a few instances, wisely refrained from interference, and +have left military problems to be decided by military men. But, when +all is said and done, it will not be the generals who will decide this +war; it will be the soldiers. And they are truly wonderful men, these +French soldiers. It is their amazing calm, their total freedom from +nervousness or apprehension, that impresses one the most, and the +secret of this calm is confidence. They are as confident of eventual +victory as they are that the sun will rise to-morrow morning. They are +fanatics, and France is their Allah. You can't beat men like that, +because they never know when they are beaten, and keep on fighting. + +I like to think that sometimes, in that cold and dismal hour before +the dawn, when hope and courage are at their lowest ebb, there +appears among the worn and homesick soldiers in the trenches the +spirit of the Great Emperor. Cheeringly he claps each man upon the +shoulder. + +"Courage, mon brave," he whispers. "On les aura!" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[C] A nickname for the Hispana-Suiza. + +[D] Though great numbers of American-built airplanes have been +shipped to Europe, they are being used only for purposes of +instruction, as they are not considered fast enough for work on the +front. + +[E] Commandant Bunau-Varilla was really sent as a compliment to my +companion, Mr. Arthur Page, editor of _The World's Work_. + + + + +VII + +"THAT CONTEMPTIBLE LITTLE ARMY" + + +In watching the operations on the British front I have always had the +feeling that I was witnessing a gigantic engineering undertaking. The +amazing network of rails which the British have thrown over Northern +France, the endless strings of lorries, the warehouses bulging with +supplies, the cranes and derricks, the repair depots, the +machine-shops, the tens of thousands of men whose only weapons are the +shovel and the pick, all help to further this impression. And, when +you stop to think about it, it is an engineering undertaking. These +muddy men in khaki are engaged in checking and draining off an unclean +flood which, were it not for them, would soon inundate all Europe. And +so, because I love things that are clean and green and beautiful, I +am very grateful to them for their work of sanitation. + +Because most of the despatches from the British front have related to +trenches and tanks and howitzers and flying men and raiding-parties, +the attention of the American people has been diverted from the +remarkable and tremendously important work which is being played by +the army behind the army. Yet one of the most splendid achievements of +the entire war is the creation of the great organization which links +the British trenches with the British Isles. In failing to take into +account the Anglo-Saxon's genius for rapid organization and +improvization in emergencies, Germany made a fatal error. She had +spent upward of forty years in perfecting her war machine; the British +have built a better one in less than three. I said in "_Vive la +France!_" if I remember rightly, that the British machine, though +still somewhat wabbly and creaky in its joints, was, I believed, +eventually going to do the business for which it was designed. That +was a year ago. It has already shown in unmistakable fashion that it +can do the business and do it well, and it is, moreover, just entering +on the period of its greatest efficiency. + +In order to understand the workings and the ramifications of this +great machine in France (its work in England is another story) you +must begin your study of it at the base camps which the British have +established at Calais, Havre, Boulogne, and Rouen, and the +training-schools at Etaples and elsewhere. Let us take, for example, +"Cinder City," as the base camp outside Calais is called because the +ground on which it stands was made by dumping ships' cinders into a +marsh. It is in many respects one of the most remarkable cities in the +world. Its population, which fluctuates with the tide of war, +averages, I suppose, about one hundred thousand. It has many miles of +macadamized streets (as sandy locations are chosen for these base +camps, mud is almost unknown) lined with storehouses--one of them the +largest in the world--with stores, with machine-shops, churches, +restaurant, club-rooms, libraries, Y. M. C. A.'s--there are over a +thousand of them in the war zone--Salvation Army barracks, schools, +bathing establishments, theatres, motion-picture houses, hospitals for +men and hospitals for horses, and thousands upon thousands of portable +wooden huts. This city is lighted by electricity, it has highly +efficient police, fire, and street-cleaning departments, and its water +and sewage systems would make jealous many municipalities of twice its +size. Among its novel features is a school for army bakers and another +for army cooks, for good food has almost as much to do with winning +battles as good ammunition. But most significant and important of all +are the "economy shops" where are repaired or manufactured practically +everything required by an army. War, as the British have found, is a +staggeringly expensive business, and, in order that there may be a +minimum of wastage, they have organized a Salvage Corps whose +business it is to sort the litter of the battle-fields and to send +everything that can by any possibility be re-utilized to the "economy +shops" at the rear. In one of these shops I saw upward of a thousand +French and Belgian women renovating clothing that had come back from +the front, uniforms which arrived as bundles of muddy, bloody rags +being fumigated and cleaned and mended and pressed until they were +almost as good as new. Tens of thousands of boots are sent in to be +repaired; those that can stand the operation are soled and heeled by +American machines brought over for the purpose, and even the others +are not wasted, for their tops are converted into boot-laces. In one +shop the worn-out tubes and springs of guns are replaced with new +ones. (Did you know that during an intense bombardment the springs of +the guns will last only two days?) In another fragments of valuable +metal sent in from the battle-field are melted and reused. (Perhaps +you were not aware that a 5-inch shell carries a copper band weighing +a pound and a quarter. The weight of copper shot off in this way +during a single brief bombardment was four hundred tons.) The millions +of empty shells which litter the ground behind the batteries are +cleaned and classified and shipped over to England to be reloaded. +Steel rails which the retreating Germans believed they had made quite +useless are here straightened out and used over again. Shattered +rifles, bits of harness, haversacks, machine-gun belts, trench +helmets, sand-bags, barbed wire--nothing escapes the Salvage Corps. +They even collect and send in old rags, which are sold for two hundred +and fifty dollars a ton. Let us talk less hereafter of _German_ +efficiency. + +Even more significant than the base camps of the efficiency and +painstaking thoroughness of the British war-machine are the training +camps scattered behind the lines. Typical of these is the great camp +at Etaples, on the French coast, where 150,000 men can be trained at a +time. These are not schools for raw recruits, mind you--that work is +done in England--but "finishing schools," as it were, where men who +are supposed to have already learned the business of war are given +final examinations in the various subjects in which they have received +instruction before being sent up to the front. And the soldier who is +unable to pass these final tests does not go to the front until he +can. The camp at Etaples, which is built on a stretch of rolling sand +beside the sea, is five miles long and a mile wide, and on every acre +of it there are squads of soldiers drilling, drilling, drilling. Here +a gymnastic instructor from Sandhurst, lithe and active as a panther, +is teaching a class of sergeants drawn from many regiments how to +become instructors themselves. His language would have amazed and +delighted Kipling's Ortheris and Mulvaney; I could have listened to +him all day. Over there a platoon of Highlanders are practising the +taking of German trenches. At the blast of a whistle they clamber out +of a length of trench built for the purpose, and, with shrill Gaelic +yells, go swarming across a stretch of broken ground, through a tangle +of twisted wire, and over the top of the German parapet, whereupon a +row of German soldiers, stuffed with straw and automatically +controlled, spring up to meet them. If a man fails to bury his bayonet +in the "German" who opposes him, he is sent back to the awkward squad +and spends a few days lunging at a dummy swung from a beam. + +Crater fighting is taught in an ingenious reproduction of a crater, by +an officer who has had much experience with the real thing and who +explains to his pupils, whose knowledge of craters has been gained +from the pictures in the illustrated weeklies, how to capture, +fortify, and hold such a position. In order to give the men confidence +when the order "Put on gas-masks!" is passed down the line, they are +sent into a real dugout filled with real gas and the entrances closed +behind them. As soon as they find that the masks are a sure +protection, their nervousness disappears. In order to accustom them +to lachrymal shells, they are marched, this time without masks, +through an underground chamber which reeks with the tear-producing +gas--and they are a very weepy, red-eyed lot of men who emerge. They +are instructed in trench-digging, in the construction of wire +entanglements, "knife-rests," chevaux-de-frise, and every other form +of obstruction, in revetting, in the making of fascines and gabions, +in sapping and mining, in the most approved methods of dugout +construction, in trench sanitation, in the location of listening-posts +and how to conceal them; they are shown how to cut wire, they are +drilled in trench raiding and in the most effective methods of "trench +cleaning." The practical work is supplemented by lectures on +innumerable subjects. As it is extremely difficult for an officer to +make his explanations heard by a battalion of men assembled in the +open, a series of small amphitheatres have been excavated from the +sand-dunes, the tiers of seats being built up of petrol tins filled +with sand. In one of these improvised amphitheatres I saw an officer +illustrating the proper method of using the gas-mask to a class of 600 +men. + +On these imitation battle-fields, any one of which is larger than the +field of Waterloo, the men are instructed in the gentle art of +bombing, first with "dubs," which do not explode at all, then with +toy-grenades which go off harmlessly with a noise like a small +firecracker, and finally, when they have become sufficiently expert, +with the real Mills bomb, which scatters destruction in a burst of +noise and flame. To attain accuracy and distance in throwing these +destructive little ovals is by no means as easy as it sounds. The +bombing-school at Etaples will not soon forget the American baseball +player who threw a bomb seventy yards. The hand-grenade is the +unsafest and most treacherous of all weapons and even in practice +accidents and near-accidents frequently occur. The Mills bomb, which +has a scored surface to prevent slipping, is about the shape and size +of a large lemon. Protruding from one end is the small metal ring of +the firing-pin. Three seconds after this is pulled out the bomb +explodes--and the farther the thrower can remove himself from the bomb +in that time the better. Now, in line with the policy of strict +economy which has been adopted by the British military authorities, +the men receiving instruction at the bombing-schools were told not to +throw away the firing-pins, but to put them in their pockets, to be +turned in and used over again. The day after this order went into +effect a company of newly arrived recruits were being put through +their bomb-throwing tests. Man after man walked up to the protecting +earthwork, jerked loose the firing-pin, hurled the bomb, and put the +firing-pin in his pocket. At last it came the turn of a youngster who +was obviously overcome with stage fright. To the horror of his +comrades, he threw the firing-pin and put the live bomb in his pocket! +In three seconds that bomb was due to explode, but the instructor, +who had seen what had happened, made a flying leap to the befuddled +man, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out the bomb, and hurled +it. It exploded in the air. + +Near Etaples, at Paris Plage, is the largest of the British +machine-gun schools. Here the men are taught the operation not only of +all the models of machine-guns used by the Allies, but they are also +shown how to handle any which they may capture from the Germans. Set +up on the beach were a dozen different models, beginning with a +wonderfully ingenious weapon, as beautifully constructed as a watch, +which had just been brought in from a captured German airplane and of +which the British officers were loud in their admiration, and ending +with the little twenty-five-pound gun invented by Colonel Lewis, an +American. Standing on the sands, a few hundred yards away, were half a +dozen targets of the size and outline of German soldiers. "Try 'em +out," suggested the officer in command of the school. So I seated +myself behind the German gun, looked into a ground-glass finder like +that on a newspaper photographer's camera, swung the barrel of the +weapon until the intersection of the scarlet cross-hairs covered the +mirrored reflection of the distant figures, and pressed together a +pair of handles. There was a noise such as a small boy makes when he +draws a stick along the palings of a picket fence, a series of +flame-jets leaped from the muzzle of the gun, and the targets +disappeared. "You'd have broken up that charge," commented the officer +approvingly. "Try the others." So I tried them all--Maxim, Hotchkiss, +Colt, St. Etienne, Lewis--in turn. + +"Which do you consider the best gun?" I asked. + +"That one," and he pointed to Colonel Lewis's invention. "It is the +lightest, simplest, strongest, and most effective machine-gun made. It +weighs only twenty-five and a half pounds and a clip of forty-seven +rounds can be fired in four seconds. At present we have four to each +company--though the number will probably be increased shortly--and +they are so easy to handle that in an attack they go over with the +second wave." + +"But our Ordnance Department claims that they cannot fire two thousand +rounds without heating and jamming," I remarked. + +"Who ever heard of a machine-gun being called upon to fire two +thousand rounds under actual service conditions?" he asked scornfully. +"On the front we rarely exceed two hundred or three hundred rounds; +five hundred never. Long before that number can be fired the attack is +broken up or the gun is captured." + +"In any event," said I, "the American War Department, to whom Colonel +Lewis offered his patents, asserts that the gun did not make good on +the proving-grounds of Flanders." + +"Well," was the dry response, "it has made good on the proving-grounds +of Flanders." + +The pretty little casino at Paris Plage, where, in the days before the +war, the members of the summer colony used to dance or play at _petits +chevaux_, has been converted into a lecture-hall for machine-gunners. +Covering the walls are charts and cleverly painted pictures which +illustrate at a glance the important rôles played by machine-guns in +certain actions. They reminded me of those charts which they use in +Sunday-schools to explain the flight of the Israelites out of Egypt or +their wanderings in the Wilderness. Seated on the wooden benches, +which have been brought in from a school near by, are a score or more +of sun-reddened young Englishmen in khaki. + +"Here," says the alert young officer who is acting as instructor, +unrolling a chart, "is a picture of an action in a little village +south of Mons. A company of our fellows were holding the village. +There are, you see, only two roads by which the Germans could advance, +so the captain who was in command placed machine-guns so as to command +each of them. About five o'clock in the morning the Germans appeared +on this lower road. Now, the sergeant in charge of that machine-gun, +instead of taking cover behind this hedge with this brook in front of +him, had concealed his gun in this clump of trees, which, as you see, +are out in the middle of a field. No sooner had he opened upon the +Boches, therefore, than a detachment of Uhlans galloped around and cut +him off from the town. Then it was all over but the shouting. The +Germans got into the town and our fellows got it in the neck. And all +because that fool sergeant didn't use common sense in choosing a +position for his gun. They marked his grave with a nice little white +cross. And that's what you boys will get if you don't profit by these +things I'm telling you." + +There you have an example of the thorough preparation which is +necessary to wage modern war successfully. It is not merely a matter +of a man being taught how to operate a machine-gun; if he is to be of +the greatest value he must be taught how to place that gun where it is +going to do the maximum damage to the enemy. And, by means of the +graphic Sunday-school charts, and the still more graphic sentences of +the officer-teacher, those lessons are so driven home that the men +will never forget them. + +Virtually everything between England and the fighting front is under +the control of the L. C.--Lines of Communication. This vast +organization, one of the most wide-spread and complex in the world, +represents six per cent of all the British forces in France. Of the +countless forms of activity which it comprises, the railways are by +far the most important. Did you know that the British have laid and +are operating more than a thousand miles of new railway in France? As +the existing railways were wholly inadequate for the transportation of +the millions of fighting men, with the stupendous quantities of food +and equipment, new networks of steel had to be laid, single tracks had +to be converted into double ones, mammoth railway-yards, sidings, and +freight-houses had to be built, thousands of locomotives, carriages, +and trucks provided. This work was done by the Railway Companies of +the Royal Engineers, behind which was the Railway Reserve, whose +members, before the war, were employed by the great English railway +systems. Wearing the blue-and-white brassard of the L. C. are whole +battalions of engineers and firemen, bridge-builders, signal-men, +freight handlers, clerks, and navvies, all of them experts at their +particular jobs. It is impossible to overrate the services which these +railway men have performed. They build and staff the new lines which +are constantly being constructed; they repair destroyed sections of +track, restore blown-up bridges; in short, keep in order the arteries +through which courses the life-blood of the army. They are the real +organizers of victory. Without them the men in the trenches could not +fight a day. You cannot travel for a mile along the British front +without seeing an example of their rapid track-laying. They have had +to forget all the old-fashioned British notions about track +permanency, however, for their business is to get the trains over the +rails with the least possible delay; nothing else matters. Engaged in +this work are men who have learned the lessons of rough-and-ready +construction on the Mexican Central, on the Egyptian State Railways, +on the Beira and Mashonaland, and on the Canadian Pacific, and the +rate at which they cause the twin lines of steel to grow before one's +eyes would have aroused the admiration of such railroad pioneers as +Stanford and Hill and Harriman. + +The engines for use on these military railways are sent across the +Channel with fires already built and banked, water in the boilers, and +coal in the tenders. They come in ships specially constructed so that +the whole top deck can be lifted off. Giant cranes reach down into the +hold and pick the engines up and set them down on the tracks on the +quays, the crews climb aboard and shake down the fires, a +harassed-looking man, known as the M. L. O. (Military Landing Officer) +turns them over to the Railway Transport Officer, who is a very +important personage indeed, and he in turn hands the engineers their +orders, and, half an hour after they have been landed on the soil of +France, the engines go puffing off to take their places in the war +machine. + +It is not the numbers of men to be transported to the front, nor even +the astounding quantities of supplies required to feed those men, +which have been the primary cause for crisscrossing all Northern +France with this latticework of steel. It is the unappeasable appetite +of the guns. "This is a cannon war," Field-Marshal von Mackensen told +an interviewer. "The side that burns up the most ammunition is bound +to gain ground." And on that assumption the British are proceeding. +England's response to the insistent cry of "Shells, shells, shells!" +has been one of the wonders of the war. By January 1, 1917, the shell +increase for howitzers was twenty-seven times greater than in 1914-15; +in mid-caliber shells the increase was thirty-four times; and in all +the "heavies" ninety-four times. And the shell output keeps a-growing +and a-growing. Yet what avail the four thousand flaming forges which +have made all this possible, what avails the British sea-power which +has landed these amazing quantities of shells in France, and 2,000,000 +of men along with them, if the shells cannot be delivered to the guns? +And that is where the great new systems of railway have come in. + +"Be lavish with your ammunition," Napoleon urged upon his battery +commanders. "Fire incessantly." And it is that maxim which the +artillerists of all the nations at war are following to-day. The +expenditure of shells staggers the imagination. In a single day, near +Arras, the French let loose upon the German lines $1,625,000 worth of +projectiles, or almost as great a quantity as Germany used in the +entire war of 1870-71. Five million shells of all calibers were fired +by the British gunners during the first four weeks of the offensive on +the Somme. In one week's attack north of Verdun the Germans fired +2,400,000 field-gun shells and 600,000 larger ones. To transport this +mountain of potential destruction required 240 trains, each carrying +200 tons of projectiles. + +During the "Big Push" on the Somme, there were frequently eighty guns +on a front of two hundred yards. The batteries would fire a round per +gun per minute for days on end, the gunners working in shifts, two +hours on and two hours off. So thickly did the shells fall upon the +German lines that the British observing officers were frequently +unable to spot their own bursts. A field-battery of eighteen-pounders +firing at this rate will blaze away anywhere from twelve to twenty +tons of ammunition a day. As guns firing with such rapidity wear out +their tubes and their springs in a few days, it is necessary to rush +entire batteries to the repair-shops at the rear. And that provides +another burden for the railways. + +In addition to the railways of standard gauge, the British have laid +down an astonishing trackage of narrow-gauge, Décauville, and +monorail systems. These portable and easily laid field railways twist +and turn and coil like snakes among the gun positions, the miniature +engines, with their strings of toy cars, puffing their way into the +heart of the artillery zone, where the ammunition is unloaded, sorted, +and classified in calibers, and then artfully hidden from the prying +eyes of enemy aviators and from their bombs. These great collections +of gun-food the English inelegantly term "ammunition dumps." Nor do +the trains that come up loaded go back empty, for upon the miniature +trucks are loaded the combings of the battle-field to be shipped back +to the "economy shops" in the rear. Where possible, wounded men are +sent back to the hospitals in like fashion, some of the railways +having trucks specially constructed for this purpose. Where the light +railways stop the monorail systems begin, food, cartridges, and mail +being sent right up into the forward trenches in small cars or baskets +suspended from a single overhead rail and pushed by hand. They look +not unlike the old-fashioned cash-and-parcel carriers which were used +in American department stores before the present system of pneumatic +tubes came in. + +Comprising another branch of the L. C.'s multifarious activities are +the field telephones, whose lines of black-and-white poles run out +across the landscape in every direction. And it is no haphazard and +hastily improvised system either, but as good in every respect as you +will find in American cities. It has to be good. Too much depends upon +it. An indistinct message might cost a thousand lives; a break-down in +the system might mean a great military disaster. Every officer of +importance in the British zone has a telephone at hand, and as the +armies advance the telephones go with them, the wires and portable +instruments being transported by the motor-cycle despatch riders of +the Army Signal Corps, so that frequently within thirty minutes after +a battalion has captured a German position its commander will be in +telephonic communication with Advanced G. H. Q. The speed with which +the connections are made would be remarkable even in New York. I have +seen an officer at General Headquarters establish communication with +the Provost Marshal's office in Paris in three minutes, and with the +War Office in London in ten. + +I might mention in passing that nowadays the General Headquarters of +an army (G. H. Q. it is always called on the British front, Grand +Quartier-Général on the French, and Comando Supremo on the Italian) is +usually eight, ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty-five miles behind the +firing-line. Most of the commanding generals have, however, advanced +headquarters, considerably nearer the front, where they usually remain +during important actions. It is said that at Waterloo Napoleon and +Wellington watched each other through their telescopes. Compare this +with the battle for Verdun, where the headquarters of the Crown Prince +must have been at least thirty miles from those of General Nivelle at +Souilly. + +If one of the greatest triumphs of the war is the creation of the +transport system, another is the maintenance, often under heavy +shell-fire, of the highways on which that transport moves. No one can +imagine what the traffic from the Channel up to the British front is +like; one must see it to believe it. The roads are as crowded with +traffic as is Fifth Avenue on a sunny afternoon. Every fifty yards or +so are military police, mounted and afoot, who control the traffic +with small red flags as do the New York bluecoats with their +stop-and-go signs. So incredibly dense was the volume of traffic +during the Somme offensive that it is little exaggeration to say that +an active man could have started immediately back of the British front +and could have made his way to Albert, twenty miles distant, if not, +indeed, to the English Channel, by jumping from lorry to wagon, from +wagon to ambulance, from ambulance to motor-bus. In going from Albert +up to the front I passed hundreds, yes, thousands of lumbering +motor-lorries bearing every kind of supply from barbed wire to +marmalade. In order to avoid confusion, the lorries belonging to the +ammunition-train have painted on their sides a shell, while those +comprising the supply column are designated by a four-leaf clover. A +whole series of other distinctive emblems, such as stars, crescents, +pyramids, Maltese crosses, unicorns, make it possible to tell at a +glance to what division or unit a vehicle belongs. I passed six-mule +teams from Missouri and Mississippi hauling wagons made in South Bend, +Indiana, which were piled high with sides of Australian beef and +loaves of French-made bread. Converted motor-buses, which had once +borne the signs Bank-Holborn-Marble Arch, rumbled past with their +loads of boisterous men in khaki bound for the trenches or bringing +back other loads of tired men clad apparently in nothing save mud. +Endless strings of ambulances went rocking and rolling by and some of +them were dripping crimson. Tractors, big as elephants, panted and +grunted on their way, hauling long trains of wagons laden with tins +of cocoa or condensed milk, with kegs of nails, with lumber, with +fodder. Occasionally a gray staff-car like our own threaded its +tortuous and halting way through the terrific press of traffic. We +passed one that had broken down. The two officers who were its +occupants were seated on the muddy bank beside the road smoking +cigarettes while the driver was endeavoring to get his motor started +again. One of them, on the shoulder-straps of whose "British warm" +were the stars of a captain, was a slender, fair-haired, rather +delicate-looking youngster in the early twenties. It was the Prince of +Wales, but, so far as receiving any attention from the hurrying throng +was concerned, he might as well have been an unknown subaltern. For it +is an extremely democratic army, and royalty receives from it scant +consideration; Lloyd George is of far more importance than King George +to the man in khaki. + +Almost since the beginning of the war this particular stretch of road +on which I was travelling had been shelled persistently, as was shown +by the splintered tree-stumps which lined the road and the +shell-craters which pitted the fields on either side. To keep this +road passable under such wear and tear as it had been subjected to for +many months would have been a remarkable accomplishment under any +circumstances; to keep it open under heavy shell-fire is a performance +for which the labor battalions deserve the highest praise. Wearing +their steel helmets, the road-making gangs have kept at work, night +and day, along its entire length, exposed to much of the danger of the +men in the trenches, and having none of their protection. There has +been no time to obtain ordinary road metal, so they have filled up the +holes with bricks taken from the ruined villages which dot the +landscape, rolling them level when they get the chance. For nothing +must be permitted to interfere with that flow of traffic; on it +depends the food for the men and for the guns. An hour's blockade on +that road would prove infinitely more serious than would a freight +wreck which blocked all four tracks of the New York Central. No wonder +that Lord Derby, in addressing his Pioneer Battalions in Lancashire, +remarked: "In this war the pick and the shovel are as important as the +rifle." + +While I was standing on the summit of a little eminence beyond +Fricourt, looking down on that amazing scene of industry, a big German +shell burst squarely on the road. It wrecked a motor-lorry, it killed +several horses and half a dozen men, but, most serious of all, it blew +in the road a hole as large as a cottage cellar. The river of traffic +may have halted for two or three minutes, certainly not more. In +scarcely more time than it takes to tell it, the nearest military +police were on the spot. The stream of vehicles bound for the front +was swung out into the fields at the right, the stream headed for the +rear was diverted into the fields at the left. Within five minutes a +hundred men were at work with pick and shovel filling up the hole +with material piled at frequent intervals along the road for just that +purpose. Within twenty minutes a steam-roller had arrived--goodness +knows where it had materialized from!--and was at work rolling the +road into hardness. Within thirty minutes after the shell burst the +hole which it made no longer existed and the lorries, the tractors, +the wagons, the guns, the buses, the ambulances were rolling on their +way. Then they bore away the six tarpaulin-covered forms beside the +road and buried them. + +The weather is a vital factor in war. The heavy rains of a French +winter quickly transform the ground, already churned up by months of +shell-fire, into a slimy, glutinous swamp, incredibly tenacious and +unbelievably deep. Through this vast stretch of mud, pitted everywhere +with shell-holes filled with stagnant water, the infantry has to make +its way and the guns have to be moved forward to support the infantry. +On one stretch of road, only a quarter of a mile long, on the Somme, +twelve horses sank so deeply in the mud that it was impossible to +extricate them and they had to be shot. No wonder that the soldiers, +going up to the trenches, prefer to leave their overcoats and blankets +behind and face the misery of wet and cold rather than be burdened +with the additional weight while struggling through the molasses-like +mire. The only thing that they take up to the trenches which could by +any stretch of the imagination be described as a comfort is whale-oil, +carried in great jars, with which they rub their feet several times +daily in order to prevent "trench feet." If you want to get a real +idea of what the British infantryman has to endure during at least six +months of the year, I would suggest that you strap on a pack-basket +with a load of forty-two pounds, which is the weight of the British +field equipment, tramp for ten hours through a ploughed field after a +heavy rain, jump in a canal, and, without removing your clothes or +boots, spend the night on a manure-pile in a barnyard. Then you will +understand why soldiers become so heedless of gas, bullets, and +shells. But with it all the British soldier remains incorrigibly +cheerful. He is a born optimist and he shows it in his songs. Away +back in the early months of the war he went into action to the lilt of +"_Tipperary_." The gloom and depression of that first terrible winter +induced in him a more serious mood, to which he gave vent in "_Onward, +Christian Soldiers_." But now he feels that victory, though still far +off, is certain, and he puts his confidence into words: "_Pack Up Your +Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile_," "_Keep the +Home Fires Burning_," "_When Irish Eyes Are Smiling_," and +"_Hallelujah! I'm a Hobo!_" The latter very popular. Then there was +another, adapted by the Salvation Army from an old music-hall tune, +which I heard a battalion chanting lustily as it went slush-slushing +up to the firing-line. It ran something like this: + + "The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling + For you but not for me. + For me the angels sing-a-ling-a-ling, + They've got the goods for me. + O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling, + O Grave thy victoree? + The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling + For you but not for me!" + +It is almost impossible to make oneself believe that, less than two +years ago, these iron-hard, sun-bronzed, determined-looking men were +keeping books, tending shop, waiting on table, driving wagons, and +doing all the other humdrum things which make up the working lives of +most of us. Yet this citizen army is winning sensational successes +against the best trained troops in the world, occupying positions of +their own choosing, fortified and defended with every device that +human ingenuity and years of experience have been able to suggest. +These ex-shopkeepers, ex-tailors, ex-lawyers, ex-farmers, ex-cabmen +are accomplishing what most military authorities asserted was +impossible: they are driving German veterans out of trenches amply +supported by artillery--and they are doing the job cheerfully and +extremely well. + +I believe that one of the reasons why the morale of the British is so +high is because, instead of adopting the dugout life of the Germans, +they have in the main kept to the open. Trench life is anything but +pleasant, yet it is infinitely more conducive to confidence, courage, +and enthusiasm than the rat-like existence of the Germans in +foul-smelling, ill-lighted, unsanitary burrows far beneath the surface +of the ground. Few men can remain for month after month in such a +place and retain their optimism and their self-respect. One of the +German dugouts which I saw on the Somme was so deep in the earth that +it had two hundred steps. The Germans who were found in it admitted +quite frankly that after enjoying for several weeks or months the +safety which it afforded, they had no stomach for going back to the +trenches. They were only too glad to crawl into their hole when the +British barrage began and there they were trapped and surrendered. + + [Illustration: A British "Heavy" Mounted on a Railway-Truck + Shelling the German Lines. + During a big offensive the guns frequently fire a round a minute + for days on end, the gunners working in shifts, two hours on and + two hours off.] + + [Illustration: Buried on the Field of Honor. + "Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return."] + +Germany largely based her confidence of victory on the belief that, +under the strain of war, the far-flung British Empire, with its +heterogeneous elements and racial jealousies, would promptly crumble. +It was a vital error. Instead of crumbling it hardened into a unity +which is adamantine. Canada has already contributed half a million men +to the British armies, Australia three hundred thousand. South Africa, +by undertaking her own defense, released the imperial regiments +stationed there. She not only suppressed the German-fomented +rebellion, but she conquered German Southwest Africa and German East +Africa, thus adding nearly a sixth of the Dark Continent to the +Empire, and has sent ten thousand men to the battle-fields of Europe. +Indian troops are fighting in France, in Macedonia, in Mesopotamia, in +Palestine, and in Egypt. From the West Indies have come twelve +thousand men. The Malay States gave to the Empire a battleship and a +battalion. A little island in the Mediterranean raised the King's Own +Malta Regiment. Uganda and Nyassaland raised and supported the King's +African Rifles--five thousand strong. The British colonies on the +other seaboard of the continent increased the West African Field Force +to seven thousand men. The fishermen and lumbermen from Newfoundland +won imperishable glory on the Somme. From the coral atolls of the +Fijis hastened six score volunteers. The Falkland Islands, south of +South America, raised 140 men. From the Yukon, Sarawak, Wei-hai-wei, +the Seychelles, Hong-Kong, Belize, Saskatchewan, Aden, Tasmania, +British Guiana, Sierra Leone, St. Helena, the Gold Coast, poured +Europeward, at the summons of the Motherland, an endless stream of +fighting men. + +Scattered in trenches and tents, in barracks and billets over the +whole of Northern France are men hailing from the uttermost parts of +the earth. Some there are who have spent their lives searching for +gold by the light of the Aurora Borealis and others who have delved +for diamonds on the South African veldt. Some have ridden range on the +plains of Texas and others on the plains of Queensland. When, in the +recreation huts, the phonograph plays "_Home, Sweet Home_" the +thoughts of some drift to nipa-thatched huts on flaming tropic +islands, some think of tin-roofed wooden cottages in the environs of +Sydney or Melbourne, others of staid, old-fashioned, red-brick houses +in Halifax or Quebec. + +Serving as a connecting-link between the British and the French and +Belgian armies is a corps of interpreters known as the _liaison_. As +there are well over two million Englishmen in France, a very small +percentage of whom have any knowledge of French, the _liaison_ enjoys +no sinecure. To assist in the billeting of British battalions in +French villages, to conduct negotiations with the canny countryfolk +for food and fodder, to mollify angry housewives whose ménages have +been upset by boisterous Tommies billeted upon them, to translate +messages of every description, to interrogate peasants suspected of +espionage--these are only a few of the duties which the _liaison_ +officers are called upon to perform. The corps is recruited from +Englishmen who have been engaged in business in Paris, habitués of the +Riviera, students of the Latin Quarter, French hairdressers, head +waiters, and ladies' tailors who have learned English "as she is +spoke" in London's West End. The officers of the _liaison_ can be +readily distinguished by their caps, which resemble those worn by +railroad brakemen, and by the gilt sphinx on the collars of their drab +uniforms. This emblem was chosen by Napoleon as a badge for the corps +of interpreters he organized during his Egyptian campaign, but the +British unkindly assert it was selected for the _liaison_ officers +because nobody can understand them. + +The more I see of the war the more I am impressed with its utter +impersonality. It is a highly organized business, conducted by +specialists, and into it personalities and picturesqueness seldom +enter. One hears the noise and the clamor, of course; one sees the +virility, the intense activity, the feverish haste, yet at the same +time one realizes how little the human element counts; all is +machinery and mathematics. I remember that one day I was lunching in +his dugout with an officer commanding a battery of heavy howitzers. +Just as my host was serving the tinned peaches the telephone-bell +jangled. It was an observation officer, up near the firing-line, +reporting that through his telescope he had spotted a German +ammunition column passing through a certain ruined hamlet three or +four miles away. On his map the battery commander showed me a small +square, probably not more than three or four acres in extent, on +which, in order to "get" that ammunition column, his shells must fall. +Some rapid calculations on a pad of paper, and, calling in his +subordinate, he handed him the "arithmetic." A minute or two later, +from a clump of trees close by, there came in rapid succession four +splitting crashes and four invisible express-trains went screeching +toward the German lines to explode, with the roar that scatters death, +on a spot as far away and as invisible from me as Washington Square is +from Grant's Tomb. Before the echo of the guns had died away my host +was back to his tinned peaches again. Neither he, nor any of his +gunners, knew, or ever would know, or, indeed, very greatly cared, +what destruction those shells had wrought. That's what I mean by the +impersonality of modern war. + + * * * * * + +Our car stopped with startling abruptness in response to the upraised +hand of a giant in khaki whose high-crowned sombrero and the brass +letters on his shoulder-straps showed that he was a trooper of the +Alberta Horse. On his arm was a red brassard bearing the magic letters +M. P.--Military Police. + +"Better not go any farther, sir," he said, addressing the +staff-officer who was my companion. "The Boches are shelling the road +just ahead pretty heavily this morning. They got a lorry a few minutes +ago and I've had orders to stop traffic until things quiet down a +bit." + +"I'm afraid we'll have to take to the mud," said my cicerone +resignedly. "And after last night's rain it will be beastly going. + +"And don't forget your helmet and gas-mask," he called, as I stepped +from the car into a foot of oozy mire. + +"Will we need them?" I asked, for the inverted wash-basin which the +British dignify by the name of helmet is the most uncomfortable form +of headgear ever devised by man. + +"It's orders," he answered. "No one is supposed to go into the +trenches without mask and helmet. And there's never any telling when +we may need them. No use in taking chances." + +Taking off my leather coat, which was too heavy for walking, I +attempted to toss it into the car, but the wind caught it and carried +it into the mud, in which it disappeared as quickly and completely as +though I had dropped it in a lake. Leaving the comparative hardness of +the road, we started to make our way to the mouth of a communication +trench through what had evidently once been a field of sugar-beets--and +instantly sank to our knees in mire that seemed to be a mixture of +molasses, glue, and porridge. It seemed as though some subterranean +monster had seized my feet with its tentacles and was trying to drag me +down. It was perhaps half a mile to the communication trench and it +took us half an hour of the hardest walking I have ever had to reach +it. It had walls of slippery clay and a corduroyed bottom, but the +corduroy was hidden beneath the mud left by thousands of feet. +Telephone-wires, differentiated by tags of colored tape, ran down the +sides. Shortly we came upon a working party of Highlanders who were +repairing the trench-wall. The wars of the Middle Ages could have seen +no more strangely costumed fighting men. Above their half-puttees +showed the brilliantly plaided tops of their stockings. Their kilts of +green and blue tartan were protected by khaki aprons. Each man wore one +of the recently issued jerkins, a sleeveless and shapeless coat of +rough-tanned sheepskin such as was probably worn, in centuries past, by +the English bowmen. On their heads were the "tin pot" helmets such as +we were wearing, and in leather cases at their belts they carried +broad-bladed and extremely vicious-looking knives. + +For nearly an hour we slipped and stumbled through the endless +cutting. At one spot the parapet, soaked by water, had caved in. In +the breach thus made had been planted a neatly lettered sign. It was +terse and to the point: "The Hun sees you here. Go away." And we did. +The trench had gradually been growing narrower and shallower and more +tortuous until we were walking half doubled over so as not to show our +heads above the top. At last it came to an end in a sort of cellar, +perhaps six feet square, which had been burrowed from the ridge of a +hill. The entrance to the observatory, for that is what it was, had +been carefully screened by a burlap curtain; within, a telescope, +mounted on a tripod, applied its large and inquisitive eye to a small +aperture, likewise curtained, cut in the opposite wall. We were in the +advanced observation post on the slopes of Notre Dame de Lorette, less +than a thousand yards from the enemy. At the foot of the spur on which +we stood ran the British trenches and, a few hundred yards beyond +them, the German. From our vantage-point we could see the two lines, +looking like monstrous brown snakes, extending for miles across the +plain. Perhaps a mile behind the German trenches was a patch of +red-brown roofs. It was the town of Lieven, a straggling suburb of +Lens, famous as the centre of the mine-fields of Northern France. + +The only occupants of the observation post were a youthful Canadian +lieutenant and a sergeant of the "Buzzers," as they call the Signal +Corps. The officer was from Montreal and he instantly became my friend +when I spoke of golf at Dixie and rides in the woods back of Mount +Royal and a certain cocktail which they make with great perfection in +a certain club that we both knew. He adjusted the telescope and I put +my eye to it, whereupon the streets of the distant town sprang into +life before me. In front of a cottage a woman was hanging out +washing--I could even make out the colors of the garments; a gray +motor whirled into a square, stopped, a man alighted, and it went on +again; a group of men--German soldiers doubtless--strolled across my +field of vision and one of them paused for a moment as though to light +a pipe; along a street straggled a line of children, evidently coming +from school, for it must be remembered that in most of these French +towns occupied by the Germans, even those close behind the lines, the +civilian life goes on much as usual. Though the Allies could blow +these towns off the map if they wished, they do not bombard them save +for some specific object, as to do so would be to kill many of their +own people. Nor does it pay to waste ammunition on individual enemies. +But if an observation officer sees enough Germans in a group to make +the expenditure of ammunition worth while, he will telephone to one of +the batteries and a well-placed shell tells the Germans that street +gatherings are strictly _verboten_. + +"Sorry that you weren't here yesterday," the lieutenant remarked. "We +had a little entertainment of our own. Do you see that square?" and he +swung the barrel of the telescope so that it commanded a cobble-paved +_place_, with a small fountain in the centre, flanked on three sides +by rows of red-brick dwellings. + +"I see it plainly," I told him. + +"The Boches are evidently billeting their men in those houses," he +continued. "Yesterday morning an army baker's cart drove into the +square and the soldiers came piling out of the houses to get their +bread ration. There was quite a crowd of them around the cart, so I +phoned back to the gunners and they dropped a shell bang into the +square. The soldiers scattered, of course, and the horse hitched to +the cart took fright and ran away. The cart tipped over and the bread +spilled out. After a few minutes the men came out of their cellars and +began to gather up the bread, so we shelled 'em again. The next time +they sent out the women to pick up the loaves. We let them +alone--French women, you understand--until I saw the Huns beating the +women and taking the bread away from them. That made me mad and for +ten minutes we strafed that section of the town good and plenty. It +was very amusing while it lasted. And," he added wistfully, "we don't +get much amusement here." + + * * * * * + +Darkness had fallen, when cold and tired, we climbed stiffly into the +waiting car. As we tore down the long, straight road which led to +General Headquarters the purple velvet of the eastern sky was stabbed +by fiery flashes, many of them, and, borne on the night wind, came the +sullen growling of the guns. As I stared out into the flame-pricked +darkness there passed before me in imaginary review that endless +stream of dauntless and determined men--mud-caked infantrymen, +gunners, despatch riders, sappers, pioneers, motor-drivers, +road-menders, mechanics, railway-builders--who form that wall of steel +which Britain has thrown between Western Europe and the Hunnish +hordes. Unyielding and undiscouraged they have stood, for close on +three years, in winter and in summer, in heat and in cold, in snow and +in rain, holding the frontier of civilization. And I knew that it was +safe in their care. + + + + +VIII + +WITH THE BELGIANS ON THE YSER + + +I had left the Belgian army late in the autumn of 1914, just at the +close of that series of heroic actions which began at Liége and ended +on the Yser, so that my return, two years later, was in the nature of +a home-coming. But it was a home-coming deeply tinged with sadness, +for many, oh, so many of the gallant fellows with whom I had +campaigned in those stirring days before the trench robbed war of its +picturesqueness, were in German prisons or lay in unmarked and +forgotten graves before Namur and Antwerp and Termonde. The Belgians +that I had left were dirty, dog-tired, and disheartened. They were +short of food, short of ammunition, short of everything save valor. +The picturesque but impractical uniforms they wore--the green tunics +and cherry-colored breeches of the Guides, the towering bearskins of +the gendarmes, the shiny leather hats of the Carabinieri--were foul +with blood and dirt. + +As my car rolled across a canal bridge into that tiny triangle which +is all that remains of free Belgium, a trim-looking trooper in khaki +stepped from a sentry-box and, holding up an imperative hand, +demanded to see my papers. Had it not been for the rosette of +red-yellow-and-black enamel on his cap, and the colored regimental +facings on his collar, I should have taken him for a British soldier. + +"To what regiment do you belong?" I asked him. + +"The First Guides, monsieur," he replied, returning my papers and +saluting. + +The First Guides! What memories the name brought back. How well I +remembered the last time that I had seen those gallant riders, the +pick and flower of the Belgian army, their comic-opera uniforms yellow +with dust, crouching behind the hedgerows on the road to Alost, a +pitifully thin screen of them, holding off the Germans while their +weary comrades tramped northward into Flanders on the great retreat. +It was not easy to make myself believe that this smart, khaki-clad +trooper before me belonged to that homeless band of rear-guard +fighters who had marked with their dead the line of retreat from the +Meuse to the Yser. + +It was my first glimpse of the reconstituted Belgian army. In the two +years that it has been holding the line on the Yser it has been +completely reuniformed, re-equipped, reorganized. The result is a +small but complete and highly efficient organism. The Belgian army +consists to-day of six infantry and two cavalry divisions--a total of +about 120,000 men--with perhaps another 80,000 being drilled in the +various training camps at the rear. It has, of course, no great +reserves to fall back upon, for the greater part of the nation is +imprisoned, but the King and his generals, by unremitting energy, have +produced a force which is as well disciplined and as completely +equipped as can be found anywhere on the front. When the day comes, +as it surely will, when Berlin issues the orders for a general +retirement, I shouldn't care to be the Germans who are assigned to the +work of holding off the Belgians, for from the men who wear the +red-yellow-and-black rosettes they need expect no pity. + +Though the shortest of the lines held by the Allies, the Belgian front +is, in proportion to the free Belgian population, much the longest. +The northernmost sector of the Western Front, beginning at the sea and +extending through Nieuport, a distance of only three or four miles, is +held by the French; then come the twenty-three miles held by the +Belgians, another two or three miles held by the French, and then the +British. The Belgians occupy a difficult and extremely uncomfortable +position, for these Flemish lowlands were inundated in order to check +the German advance, and as a result they are in the midst of a vast +swamp, which, in the rainy season, becomes a lake. They are, in fact, +fighting under conditions not encountered on any other front save in +the Mazurian marshes. During the rainy season the gunners of certain +batteries frequently work in water up to their waists. So wet is the +soil that dugouts are out of the question, for they instantly become +cisterns, so the Belgian engineers have developed a type of +above-ground shelter which has concrete walls and a roof of steel +rails, on top of which are laid several layers of sand-bags. Though +these shelters afford their occupants protection from the fire of +small-caliber guns, they are not proof against the heavy projectiles +which the Germans periodically rain upon the Belgian trenches. As the +soil is so soft and slimy as to be useless for defensive purposes, the +trench-walls are for the most part built of sand-bags, which are, +however, usually filled with clay, for sand must be brought by +incredible exertions from the seashore. I was shown a single short +sector on the Yser, where six million bags were used. For the floors +of these shelters, as well as for innumerable other purposes, +millions of feet of lumber are required, which is taken up to the +front over the network of light railways, some of which penetrate to +the actual firing-line. If trench-building materials are scarce in +Flanders, fuel is scarcer. Every stick of wood and every piece of coal +burned on the front has to be brought from great distances and at +great expense, so economy in fuel consumption is rigidly enforced. I +remember walking through a trench with a Belgian officer one bitterly +cold and rainy day last winter. In a corner of the trench a soldier in +soaking clothes had piled together a tiny mound of twigs and roots and +over the feeble flame was trying to warm his hands, which were blue +with cold. To my surprise my companion stopped and spoke to the man +quite sharply. + +"We can't let one man have a fire all to himself," he explained as he +rejoined me. "Wood is too scarce for that. The fire that fellow had +would have warmed three or four men and I had to reprimand him for +building it." A moment later he added: "The poor devil looked pretty +cold, though, didn't he?" + + * * * * * + +I had been informed by telephone from the Belgian _État-Major_ that a +staff-officer would meet me at a certain little frontier town whose +name I have forgotten how to spell. After many inquiries and wrong +turnings, for in this corner of Belgium the Flemish peasantry +understand but little French and no English, my driver succeeded in +finding the town, but the officer who was to meet me had not arrived. +It was too cold to sit in the car with comfort, so a lieutenant of +gendarmerie, the chief of the local _Sûrété_, invited me to make +myself comfortable in his little office. After a time the conversation +languished, and, for want of something better to say, I inquired how +far it was to Ostend. I was interested in knowing, because during the +retreat of the Belgian army in October, 1914, I left two kit-bags +filled with perfectly good clothes at the American Consulate in +Ostend. They are there still, I suppose, provided the Consulate has +not been shelled to pieces by the British monitors or the bags stolen +by German soldiers. + +"Ostend?" repeated the gendarme. "It isn't over thirty kilometres from +here. From the roof of this building, if the weather was fine, you +could almost see its church-spires." + +He walked across to the window and, pressing his face against the +pane, stared out across the fog-hung lowlands. He so stood for some +minutes and when he turned I noticed that tears were glistening in his +eyes. + +"My wife and children are over there in Ostend," he explained, in a +voice which he tried pathetically hard to control. "At least, they +were there two years ago last August. They had gone there for the +summer. I was in Brussels when the Germans crossed the frontier, and I +at once joined the army. I have never heard from my family since. It +is very hard, monsieur, to be so near them--they are only thirty +kilometres away--and not be able to see them or to hear from them, or +even be able to learn whether they are well or whether they have +enough to eat." + +It is a terrible thing, this prison wall within which the Germans have +shut up the people of Belgium. How terrible it is one cannot realize +until he has known those whose dear ones are confined _incommunicado_ +within that prison. I wish I might bring home to you, my friends, just +what it means. How would _you_ feel to stand on the banks of the +Hudson and look across into New Jersey and know that, though over +there, a few miles away, were your homes and those that you hold most +dear, you could no more get word to them, or they to you, than if they +were in Mars? And how would you feel if you knew that Englewood and +Morristown and Plainfield and the Oranges, and a dozen other of the +pretty Jersey towns, were but heaps of blackened ruins, that the +larger cities were garrisoned by brutal German soldiery and ruled by +heartless-German governors, and that thousands of women and +girls--perhaps _your_ wife, _your_ daughters among them--had been +dragged from their homes and taken God knows where? How would you feel +then, Mr. American? + + * * * * * + +After an hour's wait my officer, profuse in his apologies, arrived in +a beautifully appointed limousine, beside which the British staff-car +in which I had come looked cheap and very shabby. At the very +beginning of the war the Belgian military authorities commandeered +every car they could lay their hands on, and though many have been +worn out and hundreds were lost during the retreat, they are still +rather better supplied with luxurious cars than any of the other +armies. + +"There will be a moon to-night," said my cicerone, "so before going to +La Panne, where quarters have been reserved for you, I shall take you +to Furnes. The Grande Place is pure Spanish--it was built in the Duke +of Alva's time, you know--and it is very beautiful by moonlight." + +The road to Furnes took us through what had been, a few years before, +quaint Flemish villages, but German _Kultur_, aided by the products of +Frau Bertha Krupp, had transformed the beautiful sixteenth-century +architecture into heaps of brick and stone. And nowhere did I see a +church left standing. Whether the Germans shelled the churches because +they honestly believed that their towers were used for observation +purposes, or from sheer lust for destruction, I do not know. In any +event, the churches are gone. In one little shell-torn village my +companion pointed out to me the ruins of a church, amid which a +company of infantry, going up to the trenches, had camped for the +night. Just as the men were falling in at daybreak a German shell of +large caliber exploded among them. Sixty-four--I think that was the +number--were killed outright or died of their wounds. But not even the +dead are permitted to sleep in peace. I saw several churchyards on +which German shells had rained so heavily that the corpses had been +disinterred, and whitened bones and grinning skulls littered the +ploughed-up ground. + +Darkness had fallen when we came to Furnes. In passing through the +outskirts, we stopped to call on two young women--an Irish girl and a +Canadian--who, undismayed by the periodic shell-storms which visit it, +have pluckily stayed in the town ever since the battle of the Yser, +caring for the few hundred townspeople who remain, nursing the +wounded, and even conducting a school for the children. They live in a +small bungalow which the military authorities have erected for them on +the edge of the town. A few yards from their front door is a +bomb-proof, looking exactly like a Kansas cyclone-cellar, in which +they find refuge when one of the frequent bombardments begins. We +found that the young women were not at home. I was disappointed, +because I wanted to tell them how much I admired them. + +My companion was quite right in saying that the Grande Place of Furnes +by moonlight is worth seeing. It certainly is. The exquisite +fifteenth-century buildings which face upon the square have, by some +miracle, remained almost undamaged. There were no lights, of course, +and the only person in sight was a sentry, on whose bayonet and steel +helmet the moonbeams played fitfully. The darkness, the silence, the +suggestion of mystery, the ancient buildings with their leaded windows +and their carved façades, the steel-capped soldier, all made me feel +that I had stepped back five hundred years and was in the Furnes of +Inquisition times. + +Our visit to Furnes had delayed us, so it was well into the evening +before we drew up before the hotel in La Panne, where a room had been +reserved for me by the Belgian _État-Major_. A seaside resort in +midwinter is always a peculiarly depressing place, and La Panne was no +exception. Though every hotel and villa in the place was chock-a-block +with staff-officers, with nurses, and with wounded, the street-lamps +were extinguished, not a ray of light escaped from the heavily +curtained windows, and, to add to the general sense of melancholy, a +cold, raw wind was blowing down from the North Sea and a drizzling +rain had set in. Though La Panne is within easy range of the German +batteries, which could eliminate it with neatness and despatch, it +has, singularly enough, never been bombarded, nor has it been +subjected to any serious air raids. This is the more surprising as all +the neighboring towns, as well as Dunkirk, a dozen miles beyond, have +been repeatedly shelled and bombed. The only explanation of this +phenomenon is that the Germans do not wish to kill the Queen of the +Belgians--she was Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria, remember--who lives +with the King at La Panne. It is possible that this may be the correct +explanation. I remember that when I was in Brussels during the early +days of the German occupation, there occurred a serious collision +between Prussian and Bavarian troops, the latter asserting that the +ill-mannered North German soldiery had shown some disrespect to a +portrait of "unsere Bayerische Prinzessin." Why the Germans should +have any consideration for the safety of the Queen after the fashion +in which they have treated her country and her people, only a Teutonic +intellect could understand. But the exemption which La Panne has thus +far enjoyed has not induced its inhabitants to omit any precautions. +An ample number of bomb-proofs and dugouts have been constructed, and +at night over all the windows are tacked thick black curtains. For +they know the Germans. + +La Panne is the last town on the Belgian littoral before you reach the +French frontier and the last villa in the town is occupied by the King +and Queen. It stands amid the sand-dunes, looking out across the +Channel toward England. It is just such a square, plastered, +eight-room villa as might be rented for the summer months by a family +with an income of five thousand a year. The sentries who are on duty +at its gates and the mounted gendarmes who constantly patrol its +immediate vicinity, are the only signs that it is the residence of +royalty. Almost any morning you can see the King and Queen--he tall +and soldierly, with all griefs and anxieties which the war has brought +him showing in his face; she small and trim and girlishly +slender--riding on the hard sands of the beach, or strolling, +unaccompanied, amid the dunes. What must it mean to them to know that +though over there to the eastward lies Belgium, _their_ Belgium, they +cannot ride five miles toward it before they are halted by the German +bar; to know that beyond that little river where the trenches run +their people are suffering and waiting for help, and that, after +nearly three years, they are not a yard nearer to them? + +How clearly I remembered the last time that I had seen the Queen. It +was in the Hotel St. Antoine, in Antwerp, the night before the flight +of the Government and the royal family to Ostend, and less than a week +before the fall of the city itself. For days past the grumble of the +guns had constantly been growing louder, the streams of wounded had +steadily increased; every one knew that the end was almost at hand. It +was just before the dinner-hour and the great lobby of the hotel was +crowded with officers--Belgian, French, and British--with members of +the fugitive Government and Diplomatic Corps, and a few unofficial +foreigners like myself. Then, unannounced and unaccompanied, the Queen +entered. She had come to say farewell to the invalid wife of the +Russian Minister, who was unable to go to the palace. She remained in +the Russians' apartments (during the bombardment, a few days later, +they were completely wrecked by a German shell) half an hour perhaps. +Then she came down the winding stairs, a pathetically girlish figure +in the simplest of white suits, leaning on the arm of the gallant old +diplomat. Quite automatically the throng in the lobby separated, so as +to form an aisle down which she passed. To those of us who were +nearest she put out her hand and, bending low, we kissed it. Then the +great doors were opened and she passed out into the darkness and the +rain--a Queen without a country. + + * * * * * + +No one comes away from La Panne, at least no one should, without +having visited the great hospital founded by Dr. Léon du Page, the +famous Belgian surgeon. It started in one of the big tourist hotels +facing on the sea, but it has gradually expanded until it now occupies +a whole congeries of buildings. It has upward of a thousand beds, but, +as the fighting was comparatively light at the time I was there, only +about two-thirds of them were occupied. Though the American Ambulance +at Neuilly, and some of the hospitals at the British base-camps are +larger, Dr. du Page's hospital is the most complete and self-contained +that I have seen on any front. To mend the broken men who are brought +there no device of medical science has been left untried. There are +giant magnets which are used to draw minute steel fragments from the +brains of men wounded by shrapnel; there are beds, heated by hundreds +of electric lights, for soldiers whose vitality has been dangerously +lowered by shock or exhaustion; there is a department of facial +surgery where men who have lost their noses or their jaws or even +their faces are given new ones. The hospital is, as I have said, +self-contained. The operating-tables, the beds, all the furniture, in +fact, is made on the premises. It is the only hospital I know of which +provides those patients who have lost their legs with artificial +limbs. And they are by far the best artificial limbs that I have seen +anywhere. Each one is made to order to match the man's remaining limb. +They are shaped over plaster casts, according to a system originated +by Dr. du Page, in alternate layers of glue and ordinary shavings, and +the articulation of the joints almost equals that of nature. As a +result the soldiers are sent out into the world provided with legs +which are symmetrical, almost unbreakable, amazingly light, and so +admirably constructed that the owner rarely requires the assistance of +a cane. Another detail for which Dr. du Page has made provision is the +manufacture of his own instruments. Before the war the best surgical +instruments were made in Germany. There were, so far as Dr. du Page +knew, only five first-class instrument-makers in Belgium. Three of +these were, he ascertained, in the army, so through the King he +obtained their release from military duty. Now they work in a +completely equipped shop in the rear of the hospital making the shiny, +terrifying instruments which the white-clad surgeons wield with such +magical effect. + +Should you feel like giving up the theatre this evening, or taking a +street-car instead of a taxi, or not opening that bottle of champagne, +the money would be very welcome to Dr. du Page and his wounded. Should +you feel that that is too much to give, it might be well for you to +remember that he has given something, too. He gave his wife. She was +returning from America, where she had gone to collect funds to carry +on the work of the hospital. She sailed on the _Lusitania_.... + + * * * * * + +To reach the Belgian firing-line is not easy because, the country +being as flat as a ballroom floor, the Germans see and shoot at you. +So one needs to be cautious. So dangerous is the terrain in this +respect that the ambulances and motor-lorries and ammunition-trains +could not get up to the trenches at all had not the Belgians, with +great foresight, done wholesale tree-planting. Most people do not +number nursery work among the duties of an army, but nowadays it is. +From France and England the Belgians imported many saplings, thousands +if not tens of thousands of them, and set them out along the roads +exposed to German fire, and now their foliage forms a screen behind +which troops and transport can move with comparative safety. In places +where trees would not grow the roads have been masked for miles with +screens made from branches. To have one of these screens between you +and the Germans is very comforting. + +On our way up to the front we made a détour in order that I might call +on a friend, Mrs. A. D. Winterbottom, who, before her marriage to a +British officer, was Miss Appleton of Boston. In "Fighting in +Flanders" I told about a very brave deed which I saw performed by Mrs. +Winterbottom. She was quite angry with me for mentioning it, but +because she is an American of whom her countrypeople have every reason +to be proud, I am going to tell about it again. It was during the last +days of the siege of Antwerp. The Germans had methodically pounded to +pieces with their great guns the chain of barrier forts encircling the +city. Waelhem was one of the last to fall. When at length the remnant +of the garrison evacuated the fort they brought back word that a score +of their comrades, too badly wounded to walk, remained within the +battered walls. So Mrs. Winterbottom, who had brought over from +England her big touring-car and was driving it herself, said quietly +that she was going to bring them out. The only way to reach the fort +was by a straight and narrow road, a mile long, on which German shells +were bursting with great accuracy and frequency. To me and to the +Belgian officers who were with me, it looked like a short-cut to the +cemetery. But that didn't deter Mrs. Winterbottom. She climbed into +her car and threw in the clutch and jammed her foot down on the +accelerator, and went tearing down that shell-spattered highway at top +speed. She filled her car with wounded men and brought them safely +back, and then returned and gathered up the others who were still +alive. I have seen few braver deeds. + +Mrs. Winterbottom remained with the Belgian army throughout the great +retreat into Flanders, and when it settled down into the trench life +on the Yser, she was officially attached to a division, with which she +has remained ever since, moving when her division moves. She lives in +a one-room shack which the soldiers have built her immediately in the +rear of the trenches and within range of the enemy's guns. Her only +companion is a dog, yet she is as safe as though she were on Beacon +Hill, for she is the idol of the soldiers. She has a large recreation +tent, like the side-show tent of a circus, but painted green to escape +the attention of the German airmen, and in this tent she entertains +the men during their brief periods of leave from the trenches. She +gives them coffee, cocoa, milk, and biscuits; she provides them with +writing materials--I forget how many thousand sheets of paper and +envelopes she told me that they used each week; and she keeps them +supplied with reading matter. Three times a week she gives "her boys" +a phonograph concert in the first-line trenches. You must have +experienced the misery and monotony of existence in the trenches to +understand what these "concerts" mean to the tired and homesick men. I +asked her if there was anything that the people at home could send +her, and she replied rather hesitantly (for she is personally bearing +the entire expense of this work) that she understood that some small +metal phonographs were procurable which could easily be carried about +and would not warp from dampness, for the trenches on the Yser are +very wet. She also said that she would welcome phonograph records of +any description and French books. The last I saw of her she was wading +through a sea of mud, in rubber boots and a rubber coat and a +sou'wester, to carry her "canned music" to the men on the firing-line. +They ought to be very proud of Mrs. Winterbottom back in her own home +town. + +The Belgian trenches are very much like those on other sectors of the +Western Front, except that they are made of sand-bags instead of +earth, are muddier and are nearer the enemy, being separated from the +German positions, for a considerable distance, only by the Yser, which +in places is only forty yards across. In fact, a baseball player could +easily sling a stone across the river into Dixmude, or what remains +of it, for, like most of the other Flemish towns, it is now only a +blackened skeleton. Many cities have been destroyed in the course of +this war, but none of them, unless it be Ypres, so nearly approaches +complete obliteration as Dixmude. Pompeii is a living, breathing city +compared to it. Despite all that has been printed about the +devastation in the war zone, I believe that when the war is over and +the hordes of curious Americans flock Europeward, they will be stunned +by the completeness of the desolation which the Germans have wrought +in northeastern France and Belgium. + +By far the most interesting day I spent on the Belgian front was not +in the trenches but in a long, low, wooden building well to the rear. +Over the door was a sign which read: "Section Photographique de +l'Armée Belge." Here are brought to be developed and enlarged and +scrutinized the hundreds of photographs which are taken daily by +Belgian aviators flying over the German lines. In no department of +war work has there been greater progress during recent months than in +photography by airplane. Every morning at break of dawn scores of +Belgian machines--and the same is true all down the Western +Front--rise into the air, and for hour after hour swoop and circle +over the enemy's lines, taking countless photographs of his positions +by means of specially made cameras fitted with telescopic lenses. (The +Allied fliers on the Somme took seventeen hundred photographs during a +single day.) Most of these photographs are taken at a height of eight +thousand to ten thousand feet,[F] though very much lower, of course, +when an opportunity presents itself, and always with the camera as +nearly vertical as possible. As soon as an aviator has secured a +sufficient number of pictures of the locality or object which he has +been ordered to photograph, he wings his way back to his own lines, +the plates are immediately developed at the headquarters of the +Section Photographique or in a dark room on wheels. If the first +examination of the negative reveals anything of interest, it is at +once enlarged, often to eight times the size of the original. As a +result of this remarkable system of aerial espionage, there is nothing +of importance which the Germans can long conceal from the Allies. They +cannot extend their trench lines by so much as a yard, they cannot +construct new positions, they cannot mount a machine-gun without the +fact being registered by those eyes which, from dawn to dark, peer +down at them from the clouds. At all of the divisional headquarters +are large plans of the opposing enemy trenches, which are corrected +daily by means of these airplane photographs and by the information +collected through the elaborate system of espionage which the Allies +maintain behind the German lines. To deceive the aerial observers, +each side resorts to all manner of ingenious tricks. To suggest an +impending retirement, columns of men are marched down the roads which +lead to the rear; trenches which are not intended to be used are dug; +and there are, of course, hundreds of dummy guns, some of which +actually fire. The officer in command of the Belgian Photographic +Section had heard that I was in Dunkirk in May, 1915, when it was +shelled by a German naval gun, at a range of twenty-three and one-half +miles.[G] So he gave me as a souvenir of the experience a photograph, +taken from the air, of the gun emplacement after it had been +discovered and bombed by the Allied aviators, and the gun removed to a +place of safety. I reproduce the photograph herewith. The numerous +white spots all about the emplacement are the craters caused by the +bombs which were rained upon it. + +Another of these monster guns was so ingeniously concealed in an +imitation thicket that for a fortnight or more it defied the efforts +of scores of airmen to locate it. Though hundreds of airplane +photographs of the country behind the German trenches were brought in +and minutely examined, there was nothing about them to suggest the +hiding-place of a gun of so large a caliber until some one called +attention to the deep ruts left by motor-trucks which had left the +highway at a certain point and turned into the innocent-looking patch +of woods. Why were the wheel-ruts shown on the plate so black? Because +the vehicle must have sunk deep into the soft soil. Why did it sink so +deeply? Because it was heavily laden. Laden with what? With +large-caliber shells, perhaps. But still it was only a supposition. A +few days later, however, it was noticed that at a certain point on the +westward edge of that patch of woods there seemed to be a slight +discoloration. This discoloration became more pronounced on later +photographs which were brought in. Every one in the Section +Photographique hazarded a guess as to its cause. At length some one +suggested that it looked as though the leaves of the trees had been +burned. But what burned them? There was only one answer. The fiery +blast from a big gun hidden amid those trees, of course! Acting on +that hypothesis, a score of aviators were sent out with orders to pour +upon the wood a torrent of high explosive. The next few hours must +have been very uncomfortable for the German gun-crew. In any event, +the big piece was hauled out of danger under cover of darkness and the +bombardments of the towns behind the Belgian lines abruptly ceased. + +The Allied air service does not confine its observations to the +trenches; it keeps an ever-wakeful eye on all that is in progress in +the regions for many miles behind the front. To illustrate how little +escapes the eye of the camera, the officer in charge of the +Photographic Section showed me a series of photographs which had been +taken of a village at the back of Dixmude, a few days previously, from +a height of more than a mile. The first picture showed an ordinary +Flemish village with its gridiron of streets and buildings. Cutting +diagonally across the picture was a straight white streak which I knew +to be a road leading into the country. At one point on this road were +a number of tiny squares--evidently a row of workmen's cottages. The +commandant handed me a powerful magnifying-glass. "Look very closely +on that road," he said, "and you will see three specks." I saw them. +They were about the size of pin-points. + +"Those are three men," he continued. "The man at the right lives in +the first of this row of cottages. The man in the middle lives in the +fourth house in the row. But the man at the left is a farmer, and +lives in this isolated farmhouse out here in the country." + +"A very clever guess," I remarked, scepticism showing in my tone, I +fear. + +"We do not guess in this business," he replied reprovingly. "We +_know_." And he handed me the next photograph, taken a few seconds +later. There was no doubt about it; the pin-point of a man at the +right had left his two companions and was turning in at the first of +the row of cottages. Another photograph was produced. It showed the +second man entering the gate of the fourth cottage. And the final +picture of the series showed the remaining speck plodding on alone +toward his home in the country. + +"An officer of some importance is evidently making this house his +headquarters," remarked the commandant, indicating another tiny +rectangle. "If he wasn't of some importance he wouldn't have a +telephone." + +"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "You don't mean to tell me that you can +photograph a telephone-wire from a mile in the air?" + +"Not quite," he admitted, "but sometimes, if the light happens to be +right, we can get photographs of its shadow." + +And sure enough, stretching across the ploughed fields, I could see, +through the glass, a phantom line, intersected at regular intervals by +short and somewhat thicker lines. It was the shadow of a +field-telephone and its poles! And the airplane from which that +photograph was taken was so high that it must have looked like a mere +speck to one on the ground. There's war magic for you. + +You will ask, of course, why the Germans don't maintain over the +Allied lines a similar system of aerial observation. They do--when the +Allies let them. But the Allies now have in commission on the Western +Front such an enormous number of aircraft--I think I have said +elsewhere the French alone probably have close to seven thousand +machines--and they have made such great improvements in their +anti-aircraft guns that to-day it is a comparatively rare thing to see +a German flier over territory held by the Allies. The moment that a +German flier takes the air, half a dozen Allied airmen rise to meet +and engage him, and, in the rare event of his being able to elude +them and get over the Allied lines, the "Archies," as the +anti-aircraft guns are called on the British front, get into noisy +action. (Their name, it is said, came from a London music-hall song +which was exceedingly popular at the beginning of the war. When the +shells from the German A. A. guns burst harmlessly around the British +airmen they would hum mockingly the concluding line of the song: +"Archibald, certainly not!") Unable to keep their fliers in the air, +the Germans are to all intents and purposes blind. They are unable to +regulate the fire of their artillery or to direct their infantry +attacks; they do not know what damage their shells are doing; and they +have no means of learning what is going on behind the enemy's lines. +It is obvious, therefore, that to have and keep control of the air is +a very, very important thing. + + * * * * * + +No one who has been in Europe during the past two years can have +failed to notice the unpopularity of the Belgians among the French +and English. This is regrettable but true. Also it is unjust. When I +left Belgium in the late autumn of 1914 the Belgians were looked on as +a nation of heroes. They were acclaimed as the saviors of Europe. +Nothing was too good for them. The sight of a Belgian uniform in the +streets of London or Paris was the signal for a popular ovation. When +the red-black-and-yellow banner was displayed on the stage of a +music-hall the audience rose en masse. The story of the defense of +Liége sent a thrill of admiration round the world. But in the two and +a half years that have passed since then there has become noticeable +among French and English--particularly among the English--a steadily +growing dislike for their Belgian allies; a dislike which has, in +certain quarters, grown into a thinly veiled contempt. I have +repeatedly heard it asserted that the Belgian has been spoiled by too +much charity, that he is lazy and ungrateful and complaining, that he +has become a professional pauper, that he has been greatly overrated +as a fighter, and that he has had enough of the war and is ready to +quit. + +The truth of the matter is this: The majority of the Belgians who fled +before the advancing Germans belonged to the lower classes; they were +for the most part uneducated and lacking in mental discipline. Is it +any wonder, then, that they gave way to blind panic when the stories +of the barbarities practised by the invaders reached their ears, or +that their heads were turned by the hysterical enthusiasm, the lavish +hospitality, with which they were received in England? That as a +result of being thus lionized, many of these ignorant and mercurial +people became fault-finding and overbearing, there is no denying. Nor +can it be truthfully gainsaid that, for a year or more after the war +began, there hung about the London restaurants and music-halls a +number of young Belgians who ought to have been with their army on the +firing-line. But, if my memory serves me rightly, I think that I saw +quite a number of English youths doing the same thing. Every country +has its slackers, and Belgium is no exception. But to attempt to +belittle the glorious heroism of the Belgian nation because of a few +young slackers or the ingratitude and ill-manners of some ignorant +peasants, is an unworthy and despicable thing. The assertion that the +Belgians are lacking in courage is as untruthful as it is cruel. Ask +the Germans who charged up the fire-swept slopes of Liége--those of +them left alive--if the Belgians are cowards. Ask those who saw the +fields of Aerschot and Vilvorde and Termonde and Malines strewn with +Belgian dead. Go stand for a few days--and nights--beside the Belgians +who are holding those mud-filled trenches on the Yser. And remember +that the Belgians were fighting while the English were still only +talking about it. Nor forget that, had not their heroic resistance +given France a breathing-spell in which to complete her tardy +mobilization, the Germans would now, in all probability, be in Paris. +The truth is that the civilized world owes to the Belgians a debt +which it can never repay. We of America are honored to be counted +among their Allies. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[F] In order to keep pace with the steady improvement in range and +accuracy of anti-aircraft artillery, aviators have found it necessary +to operate at constantly increasing altitudes, so that it is now not +uncommon for aerial combats to be fought at a height of 20,000 feet. +Hence, many airplanes are now equipped with oxygen-bags for use in +the rarefied atmosphere of the higher levels. The aviators operating +on the Italian front experience such intense cold during the winter +months that a system has been evolved for heating their caps, gloves, +and boots by electricity generated by the motor. + +[G] For an account of this, the longest-range bombardment in history, +see Mr. Powell's "Vive la France!" + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Typographical errors corrected in text: | + | | + | Page 133: genlteman replaced with gentleman | + | | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALY AT WAR AND THE ALLIES IN THE +WEST*** + + +******* This file should be named 19074-8.txt or 19074-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/0/7/19074 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Alexander Powell</h1> +<pre> +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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Italy at War and the Allies in the West</p> +<p>Author: E. Alexander Powell</p> +<p>Release Date: August 18, 2006 [eBook #19074]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALY AT WAR AND THE ALLIES IN THE WEST***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by Brian Sogard, Jeannie Howse,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<br /> +<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.</p> +<p class="noin">A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text.<br /> +For a complete list, please see the <a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h3>VOLUME IV</h3> + +<h2>ITALY AT WAR</h2> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<div class="img" style="width: 75%;"><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a> +<a href="images/frontis.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/frontis.jpg" width="56%" alt="The King of Italy and the Prince of Wales." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">The King of Italy and the Prince of Wales.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="noin" style="margin-top: .2em;">When the Prince was on the Italian front, he asked permission to visit +a trench which was being heavily shelled. The King bluntly refused. "I +want no historic incidents here," he remarked dryly.</p> +</div> + + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + + +<h3><i>THE WAR ON ALL FRONTS</i></h3> + +<hr style="width: 5%;" /> + +<h1>ITALY AT WAR</h1> + +<h4>AND THE ALLIES IN THE WEST</h4> + +<br /> + +<h4>BY</h4> +<h2>E. ALEXANDER POWELL</h2> +<h5>CORRESPONDENT OF THE "NEW YORK WORLD"<br /> +AND NOW CAPTAIN IN THE NATIONAL ARMY</h5> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>ILLUSTRATED</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h5>NEW YORK<br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<br /> +1919</h5> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h5><span class="sc">Copyright, 1917, by</span><br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</h5> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT</h3> + + +<p>For the assistance they have given me in the preparation of this book, +and for the countless kindnesses they have shown me, I am indebted to +many persons in many countries.</p> + +<p>His Excellency Count Macchi di Cellere, Italian Ambassador to the +United States; Signor Giuseppe Brambilla, Counsellor of Embassy; +Signor A. G. Celesia, Secretary of Embassy; his Excellency Thomas +Nelson Page, American Ambassador to Italy, and the members of his +staff; Signor Tittoni, former Italian Ambassador to France; Signor de +Martino, Chef du Cabinet of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; his +Excellency Signor Scialoje, Minister of Education; Professor Andrea +Galante, Chief of the Bureau of Propaganda; Colonel Barberiche and +Captain Pirelli of the Comando Supremo, and Signor Ugo Ojetti, in +charge of works of art in the war zone, all have my grateful thanks +for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span>exceptional facilities afforded me for observation on the +Italian front.</p> + +<p>His Excellency M. Jusserand, French Ambassador to the United States, +General Nivelle, General Gouraud, and General Dubois; Monsieur Henri +Ponsot, Chief of the Press Bureau, and Professor Georges Chinard, +Chief of the Bureau of Propaganda of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; +Commandant Bunau-Varilla and the Marquis d'Audigné all helped to make +this the most interesting and instructive of my many visits to the +French front.</p> + +<p>To General Jilinsky, commanding the Russian forces in France, and to +Colonel Romanoff, his Chief of Staff, I am grateful for the courtesies +extended to me while on the Russian front in Champagne.</p> + +<p>Lord Northcliffe, who on innumerable occasions has shown himself a +friend, Lord Robert Cecil, Minister of Blockade, and Sir Theodore +Andrea Cook, Editor of <i>The Field</i>, put themselves to much trouble in +arranging for my visit to the British front. Nor have I forgotten the +kindnesses shown me by Captain C. H. Roberts and Lieutenant <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>C. S. +Fraser, my hosts at General Headquarters.</p> + +<p>For the many privileges extended to me during my visit to the Belgian +front I take this opportunity of thanking his Excellency Baron de +Broqueville, Prime Minister of Belgium; M. Emanuel Havenith, former +Belgian Minister to the United States, Lieutenant-General Jacquez, +commanding the third division of the Belgian Army; Capitaine-Commandant +Vinçotte, and Capitaine-Commandant Maurice Le Duc of the État-Major.</p> + +<p>To Lieutenant-Colonel Spencer Cosby, Corps of Engineers, United States +Army, I owe my thanks for much of the technical information contained +in Chapter V, as he generously placed at my disposal the extremely +valuable material which he collected during his three years of service +as American Military Attaché in Paris.</p> + +<p>James Hazen Hyde, Esq., who accompanied me on my visit to the Italian +front, has, by his hospitality and kindness, placed me under +obligations which I can never fully repay. I could have had no more +charming or cultured travelling companion.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>I also wish to acknowledge the information and suggestions I have +derived from Sydney Low's admirable book, "Italy in the War"; from R. +W. Seton-Watson's "The Balkans, Italy, and the Adriatic"; from V. +Gayda's "Modern Austria"; from Dr. E. J. Dillon's "From the Triple to +the Quadruple Alliance"; from Pietro Fedele's "Why Italy Is at War," +and from E. D. Ushaw's "Railways at the Front."</p> + +<p>And, finally, I desire to thank Howard E. Coffin, Esq., of the +Advisory Board of the Council of National Defence, for his hospitality +on his sea island of Sapeloe, where most of this book was written.</p> + +<p class="right sc">E. Alexander Powell.</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Washington,</span><br /> +April fifteenth, 1917.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span><br /> + +<h4>TO</h4> + +<h3>THEIR EXCELLENCIES</h3> +<br /> +<h4>COUNT V. MACCHI DI CELLERE, AMBASSADOR OF ITALY,<br /> +AND JEAN JULES JUSSERAND, AMBASSADOR OF FRANCE</h4> +<br /> +<h5>IN APPRECIATION OF THE MANY<br /> +KINDNESSES THEY HAVE SHOWN<br /> +ME AND IN ADMIRATION OF THE<br /> +TACT, SINCERITY, AND ABILITY<br /> +WHICH HAVE WON FOR THEM,<br /> +AND FOR THE COUNTRIES THEY<br /> +REPRESENT, THE FRIENDSHIP AND<br /> +CONFIDENCE OF ALL AMERICANS</h5> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> +<br /> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td width="10%"> </td> + <td width="70%"> </td> + <td class="tdrsc" width="20%"><span style="font-size: 90%;">Page</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">I.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">The Way to the War</a></td> + <td class="tdr">3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">II.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">Why Italy Went to War</a></td> + <td class="tdr">37</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">III.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Fighting on the Roof of Europe</a></td> + <td class="tdr">68</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">IV.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">The Road to Trieste</a></td> + <td class="tdr">105</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">V.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">With the Russians in Champagne</a></td> + <td class="tdr">138</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">VI.</td> + <td class="tdlsc">"<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">They Shall Not Pass</a>!"</td> + <td class="tdr">155</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">VII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc">"<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">That Contemptible Little Army</a>"</td> + <td class="tdr">204</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">VIII.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">With the Belgians on the Yser</a></td> + <td class="tdr">253</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="toi" id="toi"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3> +<br /> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="List of Illustrations"> + <tr> + <td width="80%"><a href="#frontis">The King of Italy and the Prince of Wales</a></td> + <td class="tdc" width="20%"><i>Frontispiece</i></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdcsc" width="20%"><span style="font-size: 90%;">Facing Page</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep004">The <i>Teleferica</i></a></td> + <td class="tdc">4</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep005">An Italian Position in the Carnia</a></td> + <td class="tdc">5</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep032">The King of Italy and General Cadorna at Castelnuovo</a></td> + <td class="tdc">32</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep033">The Peril in the Clouds</a></td> + <td class="tdc">33</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep068">Alpini Going Into Action</a></td> + <td class="tdc">68</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep069">On the Roof of the World</a></td> + <td class="tdc">69</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep082">A Heavy Howitzer in the High Alps</a></td> + <td class="tdc">82</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep083">An Outpost in the Carnia</a></td> + <td class="tdc">83</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep160">"<i>Halt!</i> Show Your Papers!"</a></td> + <td class="tdc">160</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep161">A Nieuport Biplane About to Take the Air</a></td> + <td class="tdc">161</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep172">Verdun's Mightiest Defender: a 400-mm. Gun</a></td> + <td class="tdc">172</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep173">A Gun Painted to Escape the Observation of Enemy Airmen</a></td> + <td class="tdc">173</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep196">Australians on the Way to the Trenches</a></td> + <td class="tdc">196</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep197">The Fire Trench</a></td> + <td class="tdc">197</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep238">A British "Heavy" Mounted on a Railway-Truck +Shelling the German Lines</a></td> + <td class="tdc">238</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep239">Buried on the Field of Honor</a></td> + <td class="tdc">239</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl" colspan="2" style="padding-right: 3em; padding-top: 1em;"><i>These illustrations are from photographs taken by the + Photographic Sections of the Italian, French, British, and Belgian + armies and by the author.</i></td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h1>ITALY AT WAR</h1> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>I<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE WAY TO THE WAR</h4> +<br /> + +<p>When I told my friends that I was going to the Italian front they +smiled disdainfully. "You will only be wasting your time," one of them +warned me. "There isn't anything doing there," said another. And when +I came back they greeted me with "You didn't see much, did you?" and +"What are the Italians doing, anyway?"</p> + +<p>If I had time I told them that Italy is holding a front which is +longer than the French and British and Belgian fronts combined (trace +it out on the map and you will find that it measures more than four +hundred and fifty miles); that, alone among the Allies, she is doing +most of her fighting on the enemy's soil; that she is fighting an army +which was fourth in Europe in numbers, third in quality, and probably +second in equipment; that in a single battle she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>lost more men than +fell on both sides at Gettysburg; that she has taken 100,000 +prisoners; that, to oppose the Austrian offensive in the Trentino, she +mobilized a new army of half a million men, completely equipped it, +and moved it to the front, all in seven days; that, were her trench +lines carefully ironed out, they would extend as far as from New York +to Salt Lake City; that, instead of digging these trenches, she has +had to blast most of them from the solid rock; that she has mounted +8-inch guns on ice-ledges nearly two miles above sea-level, in +positions to which a skilled mountaineer would find it perilous to +climb; that in places the infantry has advanced by driving iron pegs +and rings into the perpendicular walls of rock and swarming up the +dizzy ladders thus constructed; that many of the positions can be +reached only in baskets slung from sagging wires stretched across +mile-deep chasms; that many of her soldiers are living like arctic +explorers, in caverns of ice and snow; that on the sun-scorched floor +of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>Carso the bodies of the dead have frequently been found +baked hard and mummified, while in the mountains they have been found +stiff, too, but stiff from cold; that in the lowlands of the Isonzo +the soldiers have fought in water to their waists, while the water for +the armies fighting in the Trentino has had to be brought up from +thousands of feet below; and, most important of all, that she has kept +engaged some forty Austrian divisions (about 750,000 men)—a force +sufficient to have turned the scale in favor of the Central Powers on +any of the other fronts. And I have usually added: "After what I have +seen over there, I feel like lifting my hat, in respect and +admiration, to the next Italian that I see."</p> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep004" id="imagep004"></a> +<a href="images/imagep004.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep004.jpg" width="90%" alt="The Teleferica." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">The <i>Teleferica</i>.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">"Many of the Italian positions can be reached only in baskets slung +from sagging wires stretched across mile-deep chasms."</p> +</div> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep005" id="imagep005"></a> +<a href="images/imagep005.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep005.jpg" width="90%" alt="An Italian Position in the Carnia." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">An Italian Position in the Carnia.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">"Many of the Italian soldiers are living like arctic explorers, in +caverns of ice and snow."</p> +</div> + +<p>It is no exaggeration to say that not one American in a thousand has +any adequate conception of what Italy is fighting for, nor any +appreciation of the splendid part she is playing in the war. This lack +of knowledge, and the consequent lack of interest, is, however, +primarily due to the Italians themselves. They <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>are suspicious of +foreigners. They are by nature shy. More insular than the French or +English, they are only just commencing to realize the political value +of our national maxim: "It pays to advertise." Though they want +publicity they do not know how to get it. Instead of welcoming neutral +correspondents and publicists, they have, until very recently, met +them with suspicion and hinderances. What little news is permitted to +filter through is coldly official, and is altogether unsuited for +American consumption. The Italians are staging one of the most +remarkable and inspiring performances that I have seen on any front—a +performance of which they have every reason to be proud—but +diffidence and conservatism have deterred them from telling the world +about it.</p> + +<p>To visit Italy in these days is no longer merely a matter of buying a +ticket and boarding a train. To comply with the necessary formalities +takes the better part of a week. Should you, an American, wish to +travel from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>Paris to Rome, for example, you must first of all obtain +from the American consul-general a special visé for Italy, together +with a statement of the day and hour on which you intend to leave +Paris, the frontier station at which you will enter Italy, and the +cities which you propose visiting. The consul-general will require of +you three <i>carte-de-visite</i> size photographs. Armed with your viséd +passport, you must then present yourself at the Italian Consulate +where several suave but very businesslike gentlemen will subject you +to a series of extremely searching questions. And you can be perfectly +certain that they are in possession of enough information about you to +check up your answers. Should it chance that your grandfather's name; +was Schmidt, or something equally German-sounding, it is all off. The +Italians, I repeat, are a suspicious folk, and they are taking no +chances. Moreover, unless you are able to convince them of the +imperative necessity of your visiting Italy, you do not go. Tourists +and sensation seekers are not wanted in Italy in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>these times; the +railways are needed for other purposes. If, however, you succeed in +satisfying the board of examiners that you are not likely to be either +a menace or a nuisance, a special passport for the journey will be +issued you. Three more photographs, please. This passport must then be +indorsed at the Prefecture of Police. (<i>Votre photographie s'il vous +plait.</i>) Should you neglect to obtain the police visé you will not be +permitted to board the train.</p> + +<p>Upon reaching the frontier you are ushered before a board composed of +officials of the French <i>Service de Sûrété</i> and the Italian <i>Questura</i> +and again subjected to a searching interrogatory. Every piece of +luggage in the train is unloaded, opened, and carefully examined. It +having been discovered that spies were accustomed to conceal in their +compartments any papers which they might be carrying, and retrieving +them after the frontier was safely passed, the through trains have now +been discontinued, passengers and luggage, after the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>examination at +the frontier, being sent on by another train. In addition to the French +and Italian secret-service officials, there are now on duty at the +various frontier stations, and likewise in Athens, Naples, and Rome, +keen-eyed young officers of the "Hush-Hush Brigade," as the British +Intelligence Department is disrespectfully called, whose business it is +to scrutinize the thousands of British subjects—officers returning +from India, Egypt, or Salonika, or from service with the Mediterranean +fleet, King's messengers, diplomatic couriers—who are constantly +crossing Italy on their way to or from England.</p> + +<p>That the arm of the enemy is very long, and that it is able to strike +at astounding distances and in the most unexpected places, is brought +sharply home to one as the train pulls out of the Genoa station. From +Genoa to Pisa, a distance of a hundred miles, the railway closely hugs +the Mediterranean shore. At night all the curtains on that side of the +train must be kept closely drawn and, as an additional precaution, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>the white electric-light bulbs in the corridors and compartments have +been replaced by violet ones. If you ask the reason for this you are +usually met with evasions. But, if you persist, you learn that it is +done to avoid the danger of the trains being shelled by Austrian +submarines! (Imagine, if you please, the passengers on the New +York-Boston trains being ordered to keep their windows darkened +because enemy submarines have been reported off the coast.) In this +war remoteness from the firing-line does not assure safety. Spezia, +for example, which is a naval base of the first importance, is +separated from the firing-line by the width of the Italian peninsula. +Until a few months ago its inhabitants felt as snug and safe as though +they lived in Spain. Then, one night, an Austrian airman crossed the +Alps, winged his way above the Lombard plain, and let loose on Spezia +a rain of bombs which caused many deaths and did enormous damage.</p> + +<p>Even the casual traveller in Italy to-day cannot fail to be struck by +the prosperity which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>the war has brought to the great manufacturing +cities of the north as contrasted with the commercial stagnation which +prevails in the southern provinces of the kingdom. In the munition +plants, most of which are in the north, are employed upward of half a +million workers, of whom 75,000 are women. Genoa, Milan, and Turin are +a-boom with industry. The great automobile factories have expanded +amazingly in order to meet the demand for shells, field-guns, and +motor-trucks. Turin, as an officer smilingly remarked, "now consists +of the Fiat factory and a few houses." The United States is not the +only country to produce that strange breed known as munitions +millionaires. Italy has them also—and the jewellers and champagne +agents are doing a bigger business than they have ever done before.</p> + +<p>As the train tears southward into Tuscany you begin to catch fleeting +glimpses of the men who are making possible this sudden +prosperity—the men who are using the motor-trucks <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>and the shells and +the field-guns. <i>They</i> don't look very prosperous or very happy. +Sometimes you see them drawn up on the platforms of wayside stations, +shivering beneath their scanty capes in the chill of an Italian dawn. +Usually there is a background of wet-eyed women, with shawls drawn +over their heads, and nearly always with babies in their arms. And on +nearly every siding were standing long trains of box-cars, bedded with +straw and filled with these same wiry, brown-faced little men in their +rat-gray uniforms, being hurried to the fighting in the north. It +reminded me of those long cattle-trains one sees in the Middle West, +bound for the Chicago slaughter-houses.</p> + +<p>Rome in war-time is about as cheerful as Coney Island in midwinter. +Empty are the enticing little shops on the Piazza di Spagna. Gone from +the marble steps are the artists' models and the flower-girls. To +visit the galleries of the Vatican is to stroll through an echoing +marble tomb. The guards and custodians no longer welcome you for the +sake of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>your tips, but for the sake of your company. The King, who is +with the army, visits Rome only rarely; the Queen occupies a modest +villa in the country; the Palace of the Quirinal has been turned into +a hospital. The great ballroom, the state dining-room, the +throne-room, even the Queen's sun-parlor, are now filled with white +cots, hundreds and hundreds of them, each with its bandaged occupant, +while in the famous gardens where Popes and Emperors and Kings have +strolled, convalescent soldiers now laze in the sun or on the +gravelled paths play at bowls. In giving up their home for the use of +the wounded, the King and Queen have done a very generous and noble +thing, and the Italian people are not going to forget it.</p> + +<p>If Rome, which is the seat of government, shows such unmistakable +signs of depression, imagine the stagnation of Florence, which has +long been as dependent upon its crop of tourists as a Dakota farmer is +upon his crop of wheat. The Cascine Gardens, in the old days <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>one of +the gayest promenades in Europe, are as lonely as a cemetery. At those +hotels on the Lung' Arno, which remain open, the visitor can make his +own terms. The Via Tornabuoni is as quiet as a street in a country +town. The dealers in antiques, in souvenirs, in pictures, in marbles, +have most of them put up their shutters and disappeared, to return, no +doubt, in happier times.</p> + +<p>There is in the Via Tornabuoni, midway between Giacosa's and the +American Consulate, an excellent barber shop. The owner, who learned +his trade in the United States, is the most skilful man with scissors +and razor that I know. His customers came from half the countries of +the globe.</p> + +<p>"But they are all gone now," he told me sadly. "Some are fighting, +some have been killed, the others have gone back to their homes until +the war is over. Three years ago I had as nice a little business as a +man could ask for. To-day I do not make enough to pay my rent. But it +doesn't make much difference, for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>next month my class is called to +the colors, and in the spring my son, who will then be eighteen, will +also have to go."</p> + +<p>No, they're not very enthusiastic over the war in Florence. But you +can't blame them, can you?</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>In none of the great cities known and loved by Americans has the war +wrought such startling changes as in Venice. Because it is a naval +base of the first importance, because it is almost within sight of the +Austrian coast, and therefore within easy striking distance of +Trieste, Fiume, and Pola, and because throughout Venetia Austrian +spies abound, Venice is a closed city. It reminded me of a beautiful +playhouse which had been closed for an indefinite period: the +fire-curtain lowered, the linen covers drawn over the seats, the +carpets rolled up, the scenery stored away, the great stage empty and +desolate. Gone are the lights, the music, the merriment which made +Venice one of the happiest and most care free of cities. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>Because of +the frequent air raids—Venice has been attacked from the sky nearly a +hundred times since the war began—the city is put to bed promptly at +nightfall. To show a light from a door or window after dark is to +invite a domiciliary visit from the police and, quite possibly, arrest +on the charge of attempting to communicate with the enemy. The +illumination of the streets is confined to small candle-power lights +in blue or purple bulbs, the weakened rays being visible for only a +short distance. To stroll at night in the darkened streets is to risk +falling into a canal, while the use of an electric torch would almost +certainly result in arrest as a spy. The ghastly effect produced by +the purple lights, the utter blackness of the canals, the deathly +silence, broken only by the sound of water lapping the walls of the +empty palazzos, combine to give the city a peculiarly weird and +sepulchral appearance.</p> + +<p>Of the great hotels which line the Canale Grande, only the Danieli +remains open. Over the others fly the Red Cross flags, and in their +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>windows and on their terraces lounge wounded soldiers. The +smoking-room of the Danieli, where so many generations of travelling +Americans have chatted over their coffee and cigars, has been +converted into a <i>rifugio</i>, in which the guests can find shelter in +case of an air attack. A bomb-proof ceiling has been made of two +layers of steel rails, laid crosswise, and ramparts of sand-bags have +been built against the walls. On the doors of the bedrooms are posted +notices urging the guests, when hostile aircraft are reported, to make +directly for the <i>rifugio</i>, and remain there until the raid is over. +In other cities in the war zone the inhabitants take to their cellars +during aerial attacks, but in Venice there are no cellars, and the +buildings are, for the most part, too old and poorly built to afford +safety from bombs. To provide adequate protection for the population, +particularly in the poorer and more congested districts of the city, +has, therefore, proved a serious problem for the authorities. Owing to +its situation, Venice is extremely vulnerable to air <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>attacks, for the +Austrian seaplanes, operating from Trieste or Pola, can glide across +the Adriatic under cover of darkness, and are over the city before +their presence is discovered. Before the anti-aircraft guns can get +their range, or the Italian airmen can rise and engage them, they have +dropped their bombs and fled. Although, generally speaking, the loss +of life resulting from these aerial forays is surprising small, they +are occasionally very serious affairs. During an air raid on Padua, +which occurred a few days before I was there, a bomb exploded in the +midst of a crowd of terrified townspeople who were struggling to gain +entrance to a <i>rifugio</i>. In that affair 153 men, women, and children +lost their lives.</p> + +<p>The admiral in command of Venice showed me a map of the city, which, +with the exception of a large rectangle, was thickly sprinkled with +small red dots. There must have been several hundred of them.</p> + +<p>"These dots," he explained, "indicate where Austrian bombs have +fallen."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>"This part of the city seems to have been peculiarly fortunate," I +remarked, placing my finger on the white square.</p> + +<p>"That," said he, "is the Arsenal. For obvious reasons we do not reveal +whether any bombs have fallen there."</p> + +<p>Considering the frequency with which Venice has been attacked from the +air, its churches, of which there are an extraordinary number, have +escaped with comparatively little damage. Only four, in fact, have +suffered seriously. Of these, the church of Santa Maria Formosa has +sustained the greatest damage, its magnificent interior, with the +celebrated decorations by Palma Vecchio, having been transformed +through the agency of an Austrian bomb, into a heap of stone and +plaster. Another bomb chose as its target the great dome of the church +of San Pietro di Castello, which stands on the island of San Pietro, +opposite the Arsenal. On the Grand Canal, close by the railway-station, +is the Chiesa degli Scalzi, whose ceiling by Tiepolo, one of the +master's greatest works, has <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>suffered irreparable injury. Santi +Giovanni e Páolo, next to St. Mark's the most famous church in Venice, +has also been shattered by a bomb.</p> + +<p>I asked the officer in command of the aerial defenses of Venice if he +thought that the Austrian airmen intentionally bomb churches, +hospitals, and monuments, as has been so often asserted in the Allied +press.</p> + +<p>"It's this way," he explained. "A dozen aviators are ordered to +bombard a certain city. Three or four of them are real heroes and, at +the risk of their lives, descend low enough to make certain of their +targets before releasing their bombs. The others, however, rather than +come within range of the anti-aircraft guns, remain at a safe height, +drop their bombs at random as soon as they are over the city, and then +clear out. Is it very surprising, then, that bombs dropped from a +height of perhaps ten thousand feet, by aircraft travelling sixty +miles an hour, miss the forts and barracks for which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>they are +intended and hit churches and dwellings instead?"</p> + +<p>Intentional or not, the bombardment of the Venetian churches is a +blunder for which the Austrians will pay dearly in loss of +international good-will. A century hence these shattered churches will +be pointed out to visitors as the work of the modern Vandals, and +lovers of art and beauty throughout the world will execrate the nation +which permitted the sacrilege. They have destroyed glass and paintings +and sculptures that were a joy to the whole world, they have undone +the work of saints and heroes and masters, and they have gained no +corresponding military advantage. In every city which has been +subjected to air raids the inhabitants have been made more obstinate, +more iron-hard in their determination to keep on fighting. The sight +of shattered churches, of wrecked dwellings, of mangled women and dead +babies, does not terrify or dismay a people: it infuriates them. In +the words of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>Talleyrand: "It is worse than a crime; it is a mistake."</p> + +<p>The strangest sight in Venice to-day is St. Mark's. There is nothing +in its present appearance, inside or out, to suggest the famous +cathedral which so many millions of people have reverenced and loved. +Indeed, there is little about it to suggest a church at all. It looks +like a huge and ugly warehouse, like a car barn, like a Billy Sunday +tabernacle, for, in order to protect the wonderful mosaics and marbles +which adorn the church's western façade, it has been sheathed, from +ground to roof, with unpainted planks, and these, in turn, have been +covered with great squares of asbestos. By this use of fire-proof +material it is hoped that, even should the church be hit by a bomb, +there may be averted a fire such as did irreparable damage to the +Cathedral of Rheims.</p> + +<p>The famous bronze horses have been removed from their place over the +main portal of St. Mark's, and taken, I believe, to Florence. It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>is +not the first travelling that they have done, for from the triumphal +arch of Nero they once looked down on ancient Rome. Constantine sent +them to adorn the imperial hippodrome which he built in +Constantinople, whence the Doge Dandolo brought them as spoils of war +to Venice when the thirteenth century was still young. In 1797 +Napoleon carried them to Paris, but after the downfall of the Emperor +they were brought back to Venice by the Austrians and restored to +their ancient position. There they remained for just a hundred years, +until the menace of the Austrian aircraft necessitated their hasty +removal to a place of safety. Of them one of Napoleon's generals is +said to have remarked disparagingly: "They are too coarse in the limbs +for cavalry use, and too light for the guns." In any event, they were +the only four horses, alive or dead, in the whole city, and the +Venetians love them as though they were their children.</p> + +<p>If in its war dress the exterior of St. Mark's presents a strange +appearance, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>transformation of the interior is positively +startling. Nothing that ingenuity can suggest has been left undone to +protect the sculptures, mosaics, glass, and marbles which, brought by +the seafaring Venetians from the four corners of the globe, make St. +Mark's the most beautiful of churches. Everything portable has been +removed to a place of safety, but the famous mosaics, the ancient +windows, and the splendid carvings it is impossible to remove, and +they are the most precious of all. The two pulpits of colored marbles +and the celebrated screen with its carven figures are now hidden +beneath pyramids of sand-bags. The spiral columns of translucent +alabaster which support the altar, are padded with excelsior and +wrapped with canvas. Swinging curtains of quilted burlap protect the +walls of the chapels and transepts from flying shell fragments. Yet +all these precautions would probably avail but little were a bomb to +strike St. Mark's. In the destruction that would almost certainly +result there would perish mosaics and sculptures which were in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>their +present places when Vienna was still a Swabian village, and Berlin had +yet to be founded on the plain above the Spree.</p> + +<p>If it has proved difficult to protect from airplane fire the massive +basilica of St. Mark's, consider the problem presented to the +authorities by the Palace of the Doges, that creation of fairylike +loveliness, whose exquisite façades, with their delicate window +tracery and fragile carvings, would be irretrievably ruined by a +well-aimed bomb. In order to avert such a disaster, it was proposed to +protect the façades of the palace by enclosing the building in +temporary walls of masonry. It was found, however, that this plan was +not feasible, as the engineers reported that the piles on which the +ancient building is poised would submerge if subjected to such an +additional weight. All that they have been able to do, therefore, is +to shore up the arches of the loggia with beams, fill up the windows +with brick and plaster, and pray to the patron saint of Venice to save +the city's most exquisite structure.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>The gilded figure of an angel, which for so many centuries has looked +down on Venice from the summit of the Campanile, has been given a +dress of battleship gray that it may not serve as a landmark for the +Austrian aviators. Over the celebrated equestrian statue of +Colleoni—of which Ruskin said: "I do not believe there is a more +glorious work of sculpture existing in the world"—has been erected a +titanic armored sentry-box, which is covered, in turn, with layer upon +layer of sand-bags. Could the spirit of that great soldier of fortune +be consulted, however, I rather fancy that he would insist upon +sitting his bronze warhorse, unprotected and unafraid, facing the +bombs of the Austrian airmen just as he used to face the bolts of the +Austrian crossbowmen.</p> + +<p>The commercial life of Venice is virtually at a standstill. Most of +the glass and lace manufactories have been forced to shut down. The +dealers in curios and antiques lounge idly in their doorways, deeming +themselves fortunate if they make a sale a month. All save one or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>two +of the great hotels which have not been taken over by the Government +for hospitals have had to close their doors. The hordes of guides and +boatmen and waiters who depended for their living upon the tourists +are—such of them as have not been called to the colors—without work +and in desperate need. In normal times a quarter of Venice's 150,000 +inhabitants are paupers, and this percentage must have enormously +increased, for, notwithstanding the relief measures which the +Government has taken, unemployment is general, the prices of food are +constantly increasing, and coal has become almost impossible to +obtain. Fishing, which was one of the city's chief industries, is now +an exceedingly hazardous employment because of submarines and floating +mines. Save for the clumsy craft of commerce, the gondolas have +largely disappeared, and with them has disappeared, only temporarily, +let us hope, the most picturesque feature of Venetian life. They have +been driven off by the slim, polished, cigar-shaped power-boats, which +tear madly up <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>and down and crossways of the canals in the service of +the military government and of the fleet. To use a gondola, +particularly at night, is as dangerous as it would be to drive upon a +motor race-course with a horse and buggy, for, as no lights are +permitted, one is in constant peril of being run down by the +recklessly driven power craft, whose wash, by the way, is seriously +affecting the foundations of many of the palazzos.</p> + +<p>It is an unfamiliar, gloomy, mysterious place, is war-time Venice, but +in certain respects I liked it better than the commercialized city of +antebellum days. Gone are the droves of loud-voiced tourists, gone the +impudent boatmen, the importunate beggars, the impertinent guides, +gone the glare of lights and the blare of cheap music. No longer do +the lantern-strung barges of the musicians gather nightly off the +Molo. No longer across the waters float the strains of "<i>Addio di +Napoli</i>" and "<i>Ciri-Biri-Bi</i>"; the Canale Grande is dark and silent +now. The tourist hostelries, on whose terraces <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>at night gleamed the +white shirt-fronts of men and the white shoulders of women, now have +as their only guests the white-bandaged wounded. In its darkness, its +mystery, its silence, it is once again the Venice of the Middle Ages, +the Venice of lovers and conspirators, of inquisitors and assassins, +the Venice of which Shakespeare sang.</p> + +<p>But with the coming of dawn the Venice of the twelfth century is +abruptly transformed into the Venice of the twentieth. The sun, rising +out of the Adriatic, turns into ellipsoids of silver the +aluminum-colored observation balloons which form the city's first line +of aerial defense. As the sun climbs higher it brings into bold relief +the lean barrels of the anti-aircraft guns, which, from the roofs of +the buildings to the seaward, sweep the eastern sky. Abreast the +Public Gardens the great war-ships, in their coats of elephant-gray, +swing lazily at their moorings. Near the Punta della Motta lie the +destroyers, like greyhounds held in leash. Off the Riva Schiavoni, on +the very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>spot, no doubt, where Dandolo's war-galleys lay, are +anchored the British submarines. And atop his granite column, a link +with the city's glorious and warlike past, still stands the winged +lion of St. Mark, snarling a perpetual challenge at his ancient +enemy—Austria.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>The Comando Supremo, or Great Headquarters, of the Italian army is at +Udine, an ancient Venetian town some twenty miles from the Austrian +frontier. This is supposed to be a great secret, and must not be +mentioned in letters or newspaper despatches, it being assumed that, +were the Austrians to learn of the presence in Udine of the Comando +Supremo, their airmen would pay inconvenient visits to the town, and +from the clouds would drop their steel calling-cards on the King and +General Cadorna. So, though every one in Italy is perfectly aware that +the head of the Government and the head of the army are at Udine, the +fact is never mentioned in print. To believe that the Austrians are +ignorant of the whereabouts <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>of the Italian high command is to +severely strain one's credulity. The Italians not only know where the +Austrian headquarters is situated, but they know in which houses the +various generals live, and the restaurants in which they eat. This +extreme reticence of the Italians seems a little irksome and overdone +after the frankness one encounters on the French and British fronts, +but it is due, no doubt, to the admonitions which are posted in +hotels, restaurants, stations, and railway carriages throughout Italy: +"It is the patriotic duty of good citizens not to question the +military about the war," and: "The military are warned not to discuss +the war with civilians. An indiscreet friend can be as dangerous as an +enemy."</p> + +<p>My previous acquaintance with Udine had been confined to fleeting +glimpses of it from the windows of the Vienna-Cannes express. Before +the war it was, like the other towns which dot the Venetian plain, a +quaint, sleepy, easy-going place, dwelling in the memories of its +past, but with the declaration of hostilities it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>suddenly became one +of the busiest and most important places in all Italy. From his desk +in the Prefecture, General Cadorna, a short, wiry, quick-moving man +in the middle sixties, with a face as hard and brown as a +hickory-nut, directs the operations of the armies along that +four-hundred-and-fifty-mile-long battle-line which stretches from the +Stelvio to the sea. The cobble-paved streets and the vaulted arcades +are gay with many uniforms, for, in addition to the hundreds of staff +and divisional officers quartered in Udine, the French, British, +Russian, and Belgian Governments maintain there military missions, +whose business it is to keep the staffs of their respective armies +constantly in touch with the Italian high command, thus securing +practical co-operation. In a modest villa, a short distance outside +the town, dwells the King, who has been on the front almost +constantly since the war began. Although, as ruler of the kingdom, he +is commander-in-chief of the Italian armies, he rarely gives advice +unless it is asked for, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>and never interferes with the decisions of +the Comando Supremo. Scarcely a day passes that he does not visit +some sector of the battle-line. Officers and men in some of the +lonely mountain commands told me that the only general who has +visited them is the King. Should he venture into exposed positions, +as he frequently does, he is halted by the local command. It is, of +course, tactfully done. "I am responsible for your Majesty's safety," +says the officer. "Were there to be an accident I should be blamed." +Whereupon the King promptly withdraws. If he is not permitted to take +unnecessary risks himself, neither will he permit others. When the +Prince of Wales visited the Italian front last summer, he asked +permission to enter a certain first-line trench, which was being +heavily shelled. The King bluntly refused. "I want no historic +incidents here," he remarked dryly.</p> + +<div class="img" style="width: 75%;"><a name="imagep032" id="imagep032"></a> +<a href="images/imagep032.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep032.jpg" width="60%" alt="The King of Italy and General Cadorna at Castelnuovo." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">The King of Italy and General Cadorna at Castelnuovo.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">Scarcely a day passes that the King does not visit some sector of the +battle-line, but he rarely gives advice unless it is asked for, and +never interferes with the decisions of the Comando Supremo.</p> +</div> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep033" id="imagep033"></a> +<a href="images/imagep033.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep033.jpg" width="90%" alt="The Peril in the Clouds." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">The Peril in the Clouds.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">The gunners of an Italian anti-aircraft battery sight an Austrian airplane.</p> +</div> + +<p>To obtain a room in Udine is as difficult as it is to obtain hotel +accommodation in New York during the Automobile Show. But, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>because I +was a guest of the Government, I found that a room had been reserved +for me by the Comando Supremo at the Hotel Croce di Malta. I was told +that since the war three proprietors of this hotel had made their +fortunes and retired, and after I received my bill I believed it. +There was in my room one of those inhospitable, box-shaped porcelain +stoves so common in North Italy and the Tyrol. To keep a modest +wood-fire going in that stove cost me exactly thirty lire (about six +dollars) a day. But a fire was a necessity. Luxuries came higher. Yet +the scene in the hotel's shabby restaurant at the dinner-hour was well +worth the fantastic charges, for there gathered there nightly as +interesting a company as I have not often seen under one roof: a poet +and novelist who has given to Italy the most important literary work +since the days of the great classics, and who, by his fiery and +impassioned speeches, did more than any single person to force the +nation's entrance into the war; an American dental surgeon who +abandoned an enormously <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>lucrative practice in Rome to establish at +the front a hospital where he has performed feats approaching the +magical in rebuilding shrapnel-shattered faces; a Florentine +connoisseur, probably the greatest living authority on Italian art, +who has been commissioned with the preservation of all the works of +art in the war zone; an English countess who is in charge of an X-ray +car which operates within range of the Austrian guns; a young Roman +noble whom I had last seen, in pink, in the hunting-field; a group of +khaki-clad officers from the British mission, cold and aloof of manner +despite their being among allies; a party of Russians, their hair +clipped to the skull, their green tunics sprinkled with stars and +crosses; half a dozen French military attachés in beautifully cut +uniforms of horizon-blue; and Italian officers, animated and +gesticulative, on whose breasts were medal ribbons showing that they +had fought in forgotten wars in forgotten corners of Africa. At one +table they were discussing the probable date of some Roman <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>remains +which had just been unearthed at Aquileia; at another an argument was +in progress over the merits of <i>vers libre</i>; one of the Russians was +explaining a new system he had evolved for breaking the bank at Monte +Carlo; the young English countess was retailing the latest jokes from +the London music-halls, but nowhere did I hear mentioned the grim and +bloody business which had brought us, of so many minds and from so +many lands, to this shabby, smoke-filled, garlic-scented room in this +little frontier town. Yet, had the door been opened, and had we +stilled our voices, we could have heard, quite plainly, the sullen +grumble of the cannon.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>II<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>WHY ITALY WENT TO WAR</h4> +<br /> + +<p>To understand why Italy is at war you have only to look at the map of +Central Europe. You can hardly fail to be struck by the curious +resemblance which the outline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire bears to +a monstrous bird of prey hovering threateningly over Italy. The body +of the bird is formed by Hungary; Bohemia is the right wing, Bosnia +and Dalmatia constitute the left; the Tyrol represents the head, while +the savage beak, with its open jaws, is formed by that portion of the +Tyrol commonly known as the Trentino. And that savage beak, you will +note, is buried deep in the shoulder of Italy, holding between its +jaws, as it were, the Lake of Garda. To continue the simile, it will +be seen that the talons of the bird, formed by the Istrian Peninsula, +reach out over the Adriatic in threatening proximity <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>to Venice and +the other Italian coast towns. It is to end the intolerable menace of +that beak and those claws that Italy is fighting. There you have it in +a nutshell.</p> + +<div class="img"> +<a href="images/imagep038.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep038.jpg" width="75%" alt="Map of Europe" /></a> +</div> + +<p>Just as in France, since 1870, the national watchword has been +"Alsace-Lorraine," so in Italy, for upward of half a century, the +popular cry has been "<i>Italia Irredenta</i>"—Italy Unredeemed. It was a +deep and bitter disappointment to all Italians that, upon the +formation in 1866 of the present kingdom, there should have been left +under Austrian dominion two regions which, in population, in language, +and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>in sentiment, were essentially Italian. These "unredeemed" +regions were generally called after their respective capital cities: +Trent and Trieste. But, though the phrase <i>Italia Irredenta</i> was +originally interpreted as referring only to the Trentino and Trieste, +it has gradually assumed, in the course of years, a broader +significance, until now it includes all that portion of the Tyrol +lying south of the Brenner, the Carso plateau, Trieste and its +immediate hinterland, the entire Istrian Peninsula, the Hungarian port +of Fiume, and the whole of Dalmatia and Albania. In other words, the +Irredentists of to-day—and, since Italy entered the war, virtually +the entire nation has subscribed to Irredentist aims and ideals—dream +of an Italy whose northern frontier shall be formed by the main chain +of the Alps, and whose rule shall be extended over the entire eastern +shore of the Adriatic.</p> + +<p>In order to intelligently understand the Italian view-point, suppose +that we imagine ourselves in an analogous position. For this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>purpose +you must picture Canada as a highly organized military Power, its +policies directed by an aggressive, predacious and unscrupulous +government, and with a population larger than that of the United +States. You will conceive of the State of Vermont as a Canadian +province under military control: a wedge driven into the heart of +manufacturing New England, and threatening the teeming valleys of the +Connecticut and the Hudson. You must imagine this province of Vermont +as overrun by Canadian soldiery; as crisscrossed by military roads and +strategic railways; its hills and mountains abristle with forts whose +guns are turned United Statesward. The inhabitants of the province, +though American in descent, in traditions, and in ideals, are +oppressed by a harsh and tyrannical military rule. With the exception +of a single trunk-line, there are no railways crossing the frontier. +Commercial intercourse with the United States is virtually forbidden. +To teach American history in the schools of Vermont is prohibited; to +display the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>American flag is a felony; to sing the "Star-Spangled +Banner" is punishable by imprisonment or a fine. For the Vermonters to +communicate, no matter how innocently, with their kinsmen in the +United States, is to bring down upon them suspicion and possible +punishment. By substituting Austria-Hungary for Canada, Italy for the +United States, and the Trentino for Vermont, you will, perhaps, have a +little clearer understanding of why the liberation of the Trentino +from Austrian oppression is demanded by all Italians.</p> + +<p>A similar homely parallel will serve to explain the Adriatic +situation. You will imagine Seattle and the shores of Puget Sound, +with its maze of islands, in Canadian possession. Seattle, Vancouver, +and Victoria are strongly fortified bases for Canadian battle-fleets +and flotillas of destroyers which constantly menace the commercial +cities along our Pacific seaboard. The Americans dwelling in Seattle +and the towns of the Olympic Peninsula are under an even harsher rule +than their brethren in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>Vermont. No American may hold a Government +position. The Canadian authorities encourage and assist the +immigration of thousands of Orientals in order to get the trade of the +region out of American hands. A Canadian naval base at Honolulu +threatens our trade routes in the Pacific and our commercial interests +in Mexico and the Orient. In this analogy Seattle stands, of course, +for Trieste; the Olympic Peninsula corresponds to the Istrian +Peninsula; for Vancouver and Victoria you will read Pola and Fiume; +while Honolulu might, by a slight exercise of the imagination, be +translated into the great Austrian stronghold of Cattaro. Such is a +reasonably accurate parallel to Italy's Adriatic problem.</p> + +<p>For purposes of administration the Trentino, which the Austrians call +Süd-Tirol, forms one province with Tyrol. For such a union there is no +geographic, ethnologic, historic, or economic excuse. Of the 347,000 +inhabitants of the Trentino, 338,000 are Italian. The half million +inhabitants of Tyrol are, on the other <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>hand, all Germans. The two +regions are separated by a tremendous mountain wall, whose only +gateway is the Brenner. On one side of that wall is Italy, with her +vines, her mulberry-trees, her whitewashed, red-tiled cottages, her +light-hearted, easy-going, Latin-blooded peasantry; across the +mountains is the solemn, austere German scenery, with savage peaks and +gloomy pine forests, a region inhabited by a stolid, slow-thinking +Teutonic people. The Trentino and the Tyrol have about as much in +common as Cuba and Maine.</p> + +<p>The possession of the Trentino by Austria is not alone a geographical +and ethnological anomaly: it is a pistol held at the head of Italy. +Glance once more at the map, if you please, and you will see what I +mean. The Trentino is, you will note, nothing but a prolongation of +the valleys of Lombardy and Venetia. Held by Austria, it is like a +great intrenched camp in the heart of northern Italy, menacing the +valley of the Po, which is one of the kingdom's most vital arteries, +and the link between her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>richest and most productive cities. From the +Trentino, with its ring of forts, Austria can always threaten and +invade her neighbor. She lies in the mountains, with the plains +beneath her. She can always sweep down into the plains, but the +Italians cannot seriously invade the mountains, since, even were they +able to force the strongly defended passes, they would only find a +maze of other mountains beyond. When, in the summer of 1916, the +Archduke Frederick launched his great offensive from the Trentino, +supported by a shattering artillery, he came perilously near—much +nearer, indeed, than the world was permitted to know—to cutting the +main east-and-west line of communications, which would have resulted +in isolating the Italian armies operating on the Isonzo.</p> + +<p>The Trentino is dominated by the army. Its administration is as +essentially military in character as that of Gibraltar. It is, to all +intents and purposes, one vast camp, commanded by thirty-five forts, +gridironed with inaccessible military highways, and overrun with +soldiery. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>Economic expansion has been systematically discouraged. The +waterfalls of the Trentino could, it is estimated, develop 250,000 +horse-power, but the province has not benefited by this energy, for +the regions to the north are already supplied, and the military +authorities have not permitted its transmission to the manufacturing +towns of Lombardy and Venetia, where it is needed. Neither roads nor +railways have been built save for strategic purposes, and, as a +result, the peasants have virtually no outlets for their produce. In +fact, it has been the consistent policy of the Austrian Government to +completely isolate the Trentino from Italy. In pursuance of this +policy, all telephone and telegraph communications and many sorely +needed railway connections with the other side of the frontier have +been prohibited. Though the renting of their mountain pastures had +always been the peasants' chief source of income, the military +authorities issued orders, long before this war began, that Italian +herdsmen could no longer drive their cattle across <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>the border to +graze, the prohibition being based on the ground that the herdsmen +were really Italian army officers in disguise. In recent years the +fear of Italian spies has become with the Austrian military +authorities almost an insane obsession. Innocent tourists, engineers, +and commercial travellers were arrested by the score on the charge of +espionage. The mere fact of being an Italian was in itself ground for +suspicion. Compared with the attitude of the Austrian Government +toward its Italian subjects in the Trentino, the treatment accorded by +the Boers to the British residents of the Transvaal was considerate +and kind. Thus there arose in the Trentino, as in all Austrian +provinces inhabited by Italians, a strange, unhealthy atmosphere of +suspicion, of secrecy, and of fear. This atmosphere became so +pronounced in recent years that it was sensed even by passing +tourists, who felt as though they were in a besieged city, surrounded +by secret agents and spies.</p> + +<p>But, oppressive and tyrannical as are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>Austria's methods in the +Trentino, the final expression of her anti-Italian policy is to be +found in the Adriatic provinces. Here lie Austria's chief +interests—the sea and commerce. Here, therefore, is to be found an +even deeper fear of Italianism, and here still sterner methods are +employed to stamp it out. The government of Trieste is, in fact, +organized for that very purpose—witness the persecutions to which the +citizens of Italian descent are subjected by the police, the countless +political imprisonments, the systematic hostility to Italian schools +in contrast to the Government's generosity toward German and Slovene +institutions, and the State assistance given to Czech, Croatian, and +Slovene banks for the purpose of taking the trade of the city out of +Italian hands. Italians are excluded from all municipal employments, +from the postal service, the railways, and the State industries. Nor +does the official persecution end there. The presentation of many of +the old Italian operas is forbidden. The singing of Garibaldi's Hymn +leads to jail. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>Every year thousands of Italian papers are +confiscated. Until the war began hundreds of Italians were expelled +annually by the police, to be replaced (according to the official +instructions of 1912) "by more loyal and more useful elements."</p> + +<p>Though for more than five centuries Trieste has belonged to the House +of Hapsburg, the city is as Italian as though it had always been ruled +from Rome. There is nothing in Trieste, save only the uniforms of the +military and the <i>K.K.</i> on the doors of the Government offices, to +remind one of Austrian rule. The language, the customs, the +architecture, the names over the shop-doors, the faces of the +people—everything is characteristically Italian. Outside of Trieste +the zones of nationality are clearly divided: to the west, on the +coast, dwell the Italians; in the mountainous interior to the eastward +are the Slavs. But in Istria, that arrowhead-shaped peninsula at the +head of the Adriatic, the population is almost solidly Italian. Though +alternately bribed and bullied, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>cajoled and coerced, there persists, +both among the simple peasants of the Trentino and Istria and the +hard-headed business men of Trieste, a most sentimental and +inextinguishable attachment for the Italian motherland. There is, +indeed, something approaching the sublime in the fascination which +Italy exercises across the centuries on these exiled sons of hers.</p> + +<p>The arguments adduced by Italy for the acquisition of Dalmatia are by +no means as sound ethnographically as her claims to the Trentino and +Trieste. Though the apostles of expansion assert that ten per cent of +the population of Dalmatia is Italian, this is an exaggeration, the +most reliable authorities agreeing that the Italian element does not +exceed three or four per cent. But this is not saying that Dalmatia is +not, in spirit, in language, in traditions, Italian. Cruise along its +shores, talk to its people, view the architecture of Ragusa, of Zara, +of Spalato, and you will not need to be reminded that Dalmatia was +Venetian until, little more than a century ago, Napoleon handed it +over to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>Austria at the peace of Campo Formio in return for the +recognition of his two made-to-order states, the Cis-Alpine and +Ligurian Republics.</p> + +<p>It is safe to say that the war will produce no more delicate problem +than that of Dalmatia, which, as I have already shown, can never be +settled on purely racial lines. Those who have studied the subject +agree that to completely shut off Austria-Hungary from the sea would +be a proceeding of grave unwisdom and one which would be certain to +sow the seed for future wars. This is, I believe, the view taken by +most deep-thinking Italians. The Italianization of the Adriatic's +eastern seaboard would result, moreover, in raising a barrier against +the legitimate expansion of the Balkan Slavs and would end the Serbian +dream of an outlet to the sea. But the statesmen who are shaping +Italy's policies are, I am convinced, too sensible and too far-seeing +to commit so grave a blunder. Were I to hazard a prophecy—and +prophesying is always a poor business—I should say that, no matter +how <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>conclusive a victory the Allies may achieve, neither +Austria-Hungary nor Serbia will be wholly cut off from the salt water.</p> + +<p>Events in the less remote theatres of war have prevented the Italian +occupation of Albania from attracting the attention it deserves. The +operations in that region have, moreover, been shrouded in mystery; +foreigners desiring to visit Albania have met with polite but firm +refusals; the published reports of the progress of the Albanian +expedition—which, by the way, is a much larger force than is +generally supposed—have been meagre and unsatisfying. The Italians +figure, I fancy, on making their occupation as extensive and as solid +as possible before the Albanian question comes up for international +discussion.</p> + +<p>If Italy's ambitions in Dalmatia bring her into collision with the +Slavs, her plans for expansion in Albania are bound to arouse the +hostility of the Greeks. The Italian troops at Argyocastro are +occupying territory which Greece looks on as distinctly within her +sphere <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>of influence, and they menace Janina itself. Though Italy has +intimated, I believe, that her occupation of Albania is not to be +regarded as permanent, she is most certainly on the eastern shore of +the Adriatic to stay, for her commercial and political interests will +not permit her to have a Haiti or a Mexico at her front door. So I +rather fancy that, when the peacemakers deal out the cards upon the +green-topped table, Albania will become Italian in name, if not in +fact, under a control similar to that which the French exercise in +Morocco or the British in Egypt. And it will be quite natural, for +there is in the Albanians a strong streak of Italian.</p> + +<p>The settlement of this trans-Adriatic problem is going to require the +most cautious and delicate handling. How far will Italy be permitted +to go? How far may Serbia come? Shall Austria be cut off from the sea? +Is Hungary to become an independent kingdom? Is Montenegro to +disappear? What is Greece to get? The only one of these questions that +can be answered with any certainty is the last. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>Greece, as the result +of her shifty and even treacherous attitude, will get very little +consideration. On the decision of these questions hangs the future of +the Balkan peoples. Though their final settlement must, of course, be +deferred until the coming of peace, some regard will have to be paid, +after all, to actual occupancies and accomplished facts. That is why +Italy is making her position in Albania so solid that she cannot +readily be ousted. And perhaps it is well that she is. Europe will owe +a debt of gratitude to the Italians if they can bring law and order to +Albania, which has never had a speaking acquaintance with either of +them.</p> + +<p>Nor do Italian ambitions end with the domination of the eastern shore +of the Adriatic. With the destruction, or at least the disablement, of +the Austrian Empire, Italy dreams of bringing within her political and +commercial sphere of influence a considerable portion of the Balkan +Peninsula, from which she is separated by only forty-seven miles of +salt water. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>But that is only the beginning of her vision of +commercial greatness. Look at the map and you will see that with its +continuation, the island of Sicily, Italy forms a great wharf which +reaches out into the Mediterranean, nearly to the shores of Africa. +Her peculiarly fortunate geographical position enables her, therefore, +to offer the shortest route from Western and Central Europe to North +Africa, the Levant, and the Farther East. It has been rumored, though +with what truth I cannot say, that the Allies have agreed, in the +event that they are completely victorious, to a rectification of the +Tunisian and Egyptian frontiers, thus materially improving Italy's +position in Libya, as the colony of Tripolitania is now known. It is +also generally understood that, should the dismemberment of Asiatic +Turkey be decided upon, the city of Smyrna, with its splendid harbor +and profitable commerce, as well as a slice of the hinterland, will +fall to Italy's portion. With her flag thus firmly planted on the +coasts of three continents, with her most <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>dangerous rival finally +disposed of, with the splendid industrial organization, born of the +war, speeded up to its highest efficiency, and with vast new markets +in Africa, in Asia, in the Balkans opened to her products, Italy +dreams of wresting from France and England the overlordship of the +Middle Sea.</p> + +<p>It would be useless to deny that an unfavorable impression was created +in the United States by the fact that Italy, in entering the war, +turned against her former allies. Her enemies have charged that she +dickered with both the Entente and the Central Powers, and only joined +the former because they made her the most tempting offer. That she did +dicker with Austria is but the unvarnished truth—and of that chapter +of Italian history the less said the better—but I am convinced that +she finally entered the war, not because she had been bribed by +promises of territorial concessions, but because the national +conscience demanded that she join the forces of civilization in their +struggle against barbarism. Suppose that I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>sketch for you, in brief, +bold outline, the chain of historic events which occurred during the +ten months between the presentation to Serbia of the Austrian +ultimatum and Italy's declaration of war on Austria. Then you will be +able to form your own opinion.</p> + +<p>On the evening of July 23, 1914, Austria handed her note to Serbia. It +demanded in overbearing and insulting terms that Serbia should place +under Austrian control her schools, her law-courts, her police, in +fact her whole internal administration. The little kingdom was given +forty-eight hours in which to consider her answer. In other words, she +was called upon, within the space of two days, to sacrifice her +national independence. At six o'clock on the evening of July 25 the +time limit allowed by the Austrian ultimatum expired. Half an hour +later the Austrian Minister and his staff left Belgrade.</p> + +<p>Now Article VII of the Treaty of Alliance between Italy, Austria, and +Germany provided that in the event of any change in the <i>status <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>quo</i> +of the Balkan Peninsula which would entail a temporary or permanent +occupation, Austria and Italy bound themselves to work in mutual +accord on the basis of reciprocal compensation for any advantage, +territorial or otherwise, obtained by either of the contracting +Powers. Here is the text of the Article. Read it for yourself:</p> + +<div class="block" style="font-size: 95%;"><p>Austria-Hungary and Italy, who aim exclusively at the maintenance +of the <i>status quo</i> in the East, bind themselves to employ their +influence to prevent every territorial change which may be +detrimental to one or other of the contracting Powers. They will +give each other all explanations necessary for the elucidation of +their respective intentions as well as those of the other Powers. +If, however, in the course of events the maintenance of the +<i>status quo</i> in the Balkans and on the Ottoman coasts and in the +islands of the Adriatic and the Ægean Seas should become +impossible, and if, either in consequence of the acts of a third +Power or of other causes, Austria and Italy should be compelled to +change the <i>status quo</i> by a temporary or permanent occupation, +such occupation shall only take place after previous agreement +between the two Powers, based on the principle of a reciprocal +arrangement for all the advantages, territorial or other, which +one of them may secure outside the <i>status quo</i>, and in such a +manner as to satisfy all the legitimate claims of both parties.</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>Nothing could be plainer than that Austria-Hungary, by forcing war +upon Serbia, planned to change the <i>status quo</i> in the Near East. Yet +she had not taken the trouble to give Italy any explanation of her +intentions, nor had she said anything about giving her ally reciprocal +compensation as provided for in the treaty. Three days after the +memorable 23d of July, therefore, Italy intimated to the Vienna +Government that her idea of adequate compensation would be the cession +of those Austrian provinces inhabited by Italians. In other words, she +insisted that, if Austria was to extend her borders below the Danube +by an occupation of Serbia, as was obviously her intention, thus +upsetting the balance of power in the Balkans, Italy expected to +receive as compensation the Trentino and Trieste, which, though under +Austrian rule, are Italian in sentiment and population. Otherwise, she +added, the Triple Alliance would be broken. On the 3d of August, +having received no satisfactory reply from Austria, Italy declared her +neutrality.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> In so doing, however, she made it quite clear that she in +no way admitted Austria's right to a free hand in the Adriatic or the +Balkan Peninsula—regions which Italy has long regarded as within her +own sphere of influence.</p> + +<p>Early in the winter of 1914 Prince von Bülow, one of the most suave +and experienced German diplomats, arrived in Rome on a special mission +from Berlin. In his first interview with the Italian Minister of +Foreign Affairs, Baron Sonnino, he frankly acknowledged Italy's right +to territorial compensation under the terms of Article VII of the +Triple Alliance. There is no doubt that Germany, recognizing the +danger of flouting Italy, brought strong pressure to bear on Austria +to surrender at least a portion of the regions in question. Austria, +however, bluntly refused to heed either Italy's demands or Germany's +suggestions. She refused even to discuss the question of ceding any +part of her Italian provinces. She attempted, indeed, to reverse the +situation by claiming compensation from Italy for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>occupation of +the Dodecannesus and Vallona. The Dodecannesus was held as a pledge of +Turkish good faith, while the occupation of Vallona was indispensable +for the protection of Italian interests in Albania, where anarchy +reigned, and where much the same conditions prevailed which existed in +Mexico at the time of the American occupation of Vera Cruz.</p> + +<p>The discussions might well have dragged on indefinitely, but late in +March, 1915, Austria, goaded by her ally into a more conciliatory +attitude, reluctantly consented to make concrete proposals. She +offered to Italy the southern half of the Trentino, but mentioned no +definite boundaries, and added that the bargain could not be carried +into effect until peace had been concluded. In return she claimed from +Italy heavy financial contributions to the National Debt and to the +provincial and communal loans, also full indemnity for all investments +made in the ceded territory, for all ecclesiastical property and +entailed estates, and for the pensions of State officials. To assign +even an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>approximate value to such concessions would entail a +prolonged delay—a fact of which Austria was perfectly aware.</p> + +<p>Italy responded to the Austrian advances by presenting her +counter-claims, and for more than a month the negotiations pursued a +difficult and tedious course. It must be admitted that, everything +considered, Italy's claims were not particularly exorbitant. She +claimed (1) a more extended and more easily defendable frontier in the +Trentino, but she refrained from demanding the cession of the entire +region lying south of the Brenner, as she would have been justified in +doing from a strategic point of view; (2) a new boundary on the Isonzo +which would give her possession of the towns of Gradisca and Gorizia +(she has since taken them by arms); (3) the cession of certain islands +of the Curzolari group; (4) the withdrawal of Austrian pretensions in +Albania and the acknowledgement of Italy's right to occupy the +Dodecannesus and Vallona; (5) the formation of the city of Trieste, +together with the adjacent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>judicial districts of Priano and Capo +d'Istria, into an autonomous State, independent of both Italy and +Austria. By such an arrangement Austria would have retained nearly the +whole of the Istrian Peninsula, the cities of Pola and Fiume, the +entire Dalmatian coast, and the majority of the Dalmatian Islands. But +she refused to even consider Italy's proposed changes in the Adriatic, +or to do more than slightly increase her offer in the Trentino. Italy +therefore broke off negotiations, and on May 4, 1915, the alliance +with Austria was denounced.</p> + +<p>Prince von Bülow was now confronted with the complete failure of his +mission of keeping Italy yoked to Austria and Germany. No one realized +better than this suave and astute diplomatist that the bonds which +still held together the three nations were about to break. He next +endeavored, by methods verging on the unscrupulous, to create distrust +of the Italian Government among the Italian people. A member of the +Reichstag circulated stealthily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>among the deputies and journalists, +flattering each in turn with the assumption that he alone was the man +of the moment, and offering him, in the names of Germany and Austria, +new concessions which had not been communicated to the Italian +Cabinet. It was back-stairs diplomacy in its shadiest and most +questionable form. The concessions thus unofficially promised +consisted of the offer of a new frontier in the Trentino, and for +Trieste an administrative but not a political autonomy. The Adriatic, +it seems, was to remain as before. And these concessions were all +hedged about by impossible restrictions, or were not to come into +effect until after the war. Yet at one time these intrigues came +perilously near to accomplishing their purpose. Matters were still +further complicated by the activities and interference of a former +Foreign Minister, Signor Giolitti, whose vanity had been flattered, +and whose ambitions had been cleverly played upon by the Teutonic +emissary. To fully understand the extraordinary nature of this +proceeding, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>one must picture Count von Bernstorff, at the height of +the submarine crisis, negotiating not with the Government of the +United States, but with Mr. William Jennings Bryan!</p> + +<p>But, fortunately for the national honor, the Italian people, having +had time to reflect what the future of Italy would be after the war, +whatever its outcome, were they to be cut off from the only peoples in +Europe with which they had spiritual sympathy, took things into their +own hands. The storm of anger and indignation which swept the country +rocked the Government to its foundations. The Salandra cabinet, which +had resigned as a protest against the machinations of Giolitti, was +returned to power. Through every city, town, and hamlet from Savoy to +Sicily, thronged workmen, students, business and professional men, +even priests and monks, waving the red-white-and-green banner and +shouting the national watch-words "Italia Irredenta," and "Avanti +Savoia!"</p> + +<p>But there was a deeper cause underlying <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>these great patriotic +demonstrations than mere hatred of Austria. They were expressions of +national resentment at the impotent and dependent rôle which Italy had +played so long. D'Annunzio, in one of his famous addresses in May, +1915, put this feeling into words: "We will no longer be a museum of +antiquities, a kind of hostelry, a pleasure resort, under a sky +painted over with Prussian blue, for the benefit of international +honeymooners."</p> + +<p>The sentiment of the people was expressed by the <i>Idea Nazionale</i>, +which on May 10 declared:</p> + +<div class="block" style="font-size: 95%;"><p>Italy desires war: (1) In order to obtain Trent, Trieste, and +Dalmatia. The country desires it. A nation which has the +opportunity to free its land should do so as a matter of +imperative necessity.... (2) ... in order to conquer for ourselves +a good strategic frontier in the North and East.... (3) ... +because to-day, in the Adriatic, in the Balkan Peninsula, the +Mediterranean, and Asia, Italy should have all the advantages it +is possible for her to have, and without which her political, +economic, and moral power would diminish in proportion as that of +others increased.... If we would be a great Power we must accept +certain obligations: one of them is war....</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>The voice of the people was unmistakable: they wanted war. To have +refused that demand would have meant the fall of the Government if not +of the dynasty. The King did not want war. The responsible +politicians, with a very few exceptions, did not want it. The nobility +did not want it. The Church did not want it. The bankers and business +men of the nation did not want it. It was the great mass of the +Italian people, shamed and indignant at the position in which the +nation had been placed by the sordid dickering with Austria, who swept +the country into war. I was in Italy during those exciting days; I +witnessed the impressive popular demonstrations in the larger cities; +and in my mind there was left no shadow of a doubt that the Government +had to choose between war and revolution. On the 23d of May, 1915, +Italy declared war on Austria.</p> + +<p>For ten months Italy, in the face of sneers and jeers, threats and +reproaches, had maintained her neutrality. Be it remembered, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>however, +that it was from the first a neutrality benevolent to the Allies. Even +those who consider themselves well informed have apparently failed to +recognize how decisive a factor that neutrality was. Italy's action in +promptly withdrawing her forces from the French border relieved +France's fears of an Italian invasion, and left her free to use the +half million troops which had been guarding her southern frontier to +oppose the German advance on Paris. It is not overstating the facts to +assert that, had Italy's attitude toward France been less frank and +honest, had the Republic not felt safe in stripping its southern +border of troops, von Kluck would have broken through to Paris—he +came perilously near to doing so as it was—and the whole course of +the war would have been changed. It is to be hoped that, when the +diplomatic history of the war comes to be written, the attitude of +Italy during those critical days will receive the recognition which it +deserves.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>III<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>FIGHTING ON THE ROOF OF EUROPE</h4> +<br /> + +<p>The sun had scarcely shown itself above the snowy rampart of the +Julian Alps when the hoarse throbbing of the big gray staff-car awoke +the echoes of the narrow street on which fronts the Hotel Croce di +Malta in Udine. Despite a leather coat, a fur-lined cap, and a great +fleecy muffler which swathed me to the eyes, I shivered in the damp +chill of the winter dawn. We adjusted our goggles and settled down +into the heavy rugs, the soldier-driver threw in his clutch, the +sergeant sitting beside him let out a vicious snarl from the horn, the +little group of curious onlookers scattered hastily, and the powerful +car leaped forward like a race-horse that feels the spur. With the +horn sounding its hoarse warning, we thundered through the narrow, +tortuous, cobble-paved streets, between rows of old, old houses +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>with faded frescoes on their plastered walls and with dim, echoing +arcades. And so into the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele—there is no more +charming little square in Italy—with its fountain and its two stone +giants and the pompous statue of an incredibly ugly King astride a +prancing horse and a monument to Peace set up by Napoleon to +commemorate a treaty which was the cause of many wars. At the back of +the piazza, like the back-drop on a stage, rises a towering sugar-loaf +mound, thrown up, so they say, by Attila, that from it he might +conveniently watch the siege and burning of Aquileia. Perched atop +this mound, and looking for all the world like one of Maxfield +Parrish's painted castles, is the Castello, once the residence of the +Venetian and Austrian governors, and, rising above it, a white and +slender tower. If you will take the trouble to climb to the summit of +this tower you will find that the earth you left behind is now laid +out at your feet like one of those putty maps you used to make in +school. Below you, like a vast <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>tessellated floor, is the Friulian +plain, dotted with red-roofed villages, checkerboarded with fields of +green and brown, stretching away, away to where, beyond the blue +Isonzo, the Julian and Carnic Alps leap skyward in a mighty, curving, +mile-high wall. You have the war before you, for amid those distant +mountains snakes the Austro-Italian battle-line. Just as Attila and +his Hunnish warriors looked down from the summit of this very mound, +fourteen hundred years ago, upon the destruction of the Italian +plain-towns, so to-day, from the same vantage-point, the Italians can +see their artillery methodically pounding to pieces the defenses of +the modern Huns. A strange reversal of history, is it not?</p> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep068" id="imagep068"></a> +<a href="images/imagep068.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep068.jpg" width="90%" alt="Alpini Going Into Action." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">Alpini Going Into Action.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">Their white uniforms make them almost indistinguishable against the +blinding expanses of snow.</p> +</div> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep069" id="imagep069"></a> +<a href="images/imagep069.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep069.jpg" width="90%" alt="On the Roof of the World." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">On the Roof of the World.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">It not infrequently happens that the outposts on the higher peaks are +cut off by a heavy fall of snow and cannot be relieved until the spring.</p> +</div> + +<p>Leaving on our right the Palazzo Civico, built two-score years before +Columbus set foot on the beach of San Salvador, we rolled through the +gateway in the ancient city wall, acknowledging the salute of the +steel-helmeted sentry just as the mail-clad knights who rode through +that same gateway to the fighting on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>the plain, long centuries ago, +doubtless acknowledged the salute of the steel-capped men-at-arms. +Down the straight white road we sped, between rows of cropped and +stunted willows, which line the highway on either side like soldiers +with bowed heads. It is a storied and romantic region, this Venetia, +whose fertile farm-lands, crisscrossed with watercourses, stretch +away, flat and brown as an oaken floor, to the snowy crescent of the +Alps. Scenes of past wars it still bears upon its face, in its +farm-houses clustered together for common protection, in the stout +walls and loopholed watch-towers of its towns, record of its warlike +and eventful past. One must be prosaic indeed whose imagination +remains unstirred by a journey across this historic plain, which has +been invaded by Celts, Istrians, and Romans; Huns, Goths, and +Lombards; Franks, Germans, and Austrians in turn. Over there, a dozen +miles to the southward, lie the ruins of Aquileia, once one of the +great cities of the western world, the chief outpost fortress of the +Roman Empire, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>visited by King Herod of Judea, and the favorite +residence of Augustus and Diocletian. These fertile lowlands were +devastated by Alaric and his Visigoths and by Attila and his Huns—the +original Huns, I mean. Down this very highroad tramped the legions of +Tiberius on their way to give battle to the Illyrians and Pannonians. +Here were waged the savage conflicts of the Guelphs, the Ghibellines, +and the Scaligers. Here fought the great adventurer, Bartolommeo +Colleoni; in the whitewashed village inn of Campo Formio, a far +greater adventurer signed a treaty whereby he gave away the whole of +this region as he would have given away a gold-piece; half a century +later Garibaldi and his ragged redshirts fought to win it back.</p> + +<p>For mile after mile we sped through a countryside which bore no +suggestion of the bloody business which had brought me. So far as war +was concerned, I might as well have been motoring through New England. +But, though an atmosphere of tranquillity and security <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>prevailed down +here amid the villages and farm-steads of the plain, I knew that up +there among those snow-crowned peaks ahead of us, musketry was +crackling, cannon were belching, men were dying. But as we approached +the front—though still miles and miles behind the fighting-line—the +signs of war became increasingly apparent: base camps, remount depots, +automobile parks, aviation schools, aerodromes, hospitals, +machine-shops, ammunition-dumps, railway sidings chock-a-block with +freight-cars and railway platforms piled high with supplies of every +description. Moving closer, we came upon endless lines of motor-trucks +moving ammunition and supplies to the front and other lines of +motor-trucks and ambulances moving injured machinery and injured men +to the repair-depots and hospitals at the rear. We passed Sicilian +mule-carts, hundreds upon hundreds of them, two-wheeled, painted +bright yellow or bright red and covered with gay little paintings such +as one sees on ice cream venders' carts and hurdy-gurdies, the harness +of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>mules studded with brass and hung with scarlet tassels. Then +long strings of donkeys, so heavily laden with wine-skins, with bales +of hay, with ammunition-boxes, that all that could be seen of the +animals themselves were their swinging tails and wagging ears. We met +convoys of Austrian prisoners, guarded by cavalry or territorials, on +their way to the rear. They looked tired and dirty and depressed, but +most prisoners look that. A man who has spent days or even weeks amid +the mud and blood of a trench, with no opportunity to bathe or even to +wash his hands and face, with none too much food, with many of his +comrades dead or wounded, with a shell-storm shrieking and howling +about him, and has then had to surrender, could hardly be expected to +appear high-spirited and optimistic. Yet it has long been the custom +of the Allied correspondents and observers to base their assertions +that the morale of the enemy is weakening and that the quality of his +troops is deteriorating on the demeanor of prisoners fresh from the +firing-line. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>Ambulances passed us, travelling toward the hospitals at +the base, and sometimes wounded men, limping along on foot. The heads +of some were swathed in blood-stained bandages, some carried their +arms in slings, others hobbled by with the aid of sticks, for the +Italian army is none too well supplied with ambulances and those who +are able to walk must do so in order that the places in the ambulances +may be taken by their more seriously wounded fellows. They were +dog-tired, dirty, caked with mud and blood, but they grinned at us +cheerfully—for were they not beating the Austrians? Indeed, one +cannot look at Italian troops without seeing that the spirit of the +men is high and that they are confident of victory.</p> + +<p>Now the roads became crowded, but never blocked, with troops on the +march: infantry of the line, short, sturdily built fellows wearing +short capes of greenish gray and trench-helmets of painted steel; +Alpini, hardy and active as the goats of their own mountains, their +tight-fitting breeches and their green felt hats with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>the slanting +eagle's feather making them look like the chorus of <i>Robin Hood</i>; +Bersaglieri, the flower of the Italian army, who have preserved the +traditions of their famous corps by still clinging to the +flat-brimmed, rakish hat with its huge bunch of drooping feathers; +engineers, laden like donkeys with intrenching, bridging, and mining +tools; motor-cycle despatch riders, leather-jacketed and +mud-bespattered, the light-horsemen of modern war; and, very +occasionally, for their hour for action has not yet come, detachments +of cavalry, usually armed with lances, their helmets and busbies +linen-covered to match the businesslike simplicity of their uniform. +About the Italian army there is not much of the pomp and circumstance +of war. It is as businesslike as a blued-steel revolver. In its total +absence of swagger and display it is characteristic of a nation whose +instincts are essentially democratic. Everything considered, the +Italian troops compare very favorably with any in Europe. The men are +for the most part shortish, very thick-set, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>and burned by the sun to +the color of a much-used saddle. I rather expected to see bearded, +unkempt fellows, but I found them clean-shaven and extraordinarily +neat. The Italian military authorities do not approve of the <i>poilu</i>. +Though the men are laden like pack-mules, they cover the ground at a +surprisingly smart pace, while special corps, such as the Bersaglieri +and the Alpini, are famous for the fashion in which they take even the +steepest acclivities at the double. I was told that, though the troops +recruited in the North possess the most stamina and endurance, the +Neapolitans and Sicilians have the most <i>élan</i> and make the best +fighters, these sons of the South having again and again advanced to +the assault through storms of fire which the colder-blooded +Piedmontese refused to face.</p> + +<p>It is claimed for the Italian uniform that it is at once the ugliest +and the least visible of any worn in Europe. "Its wearer doesn't even +make a shadow," a friend of mine remarked. The Italian military +authorities were among <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>the first to make a scientific study of colors +for uniforms. They did not select, for example, the "horizon blue" +adopted by the French because, while this is less visible on the roads +and plains of a flat, open, sunlit region, it would prove fatally +distinct on the tree-clad mountain slopes where the Italians are +fighting. The color is officially described as gray-green, but the +best description of it is that given by a British officer: "Take some +mud from the Blue Nile, carefully rub into it two pounds of ship-rat's +hair, paint a roan horse with the composition, and then you will +understand why the Austrians can't see the Italian soldiers in broad +daylight at fifty yards." Its quality of invisibility is, indeed, +positively uncanny. While motoring in the war zone I have repeatedly +come upon bodies of troops resting beside the road, yet, so +marvellously do their uniforms merge into the landscape that, had not +my attention been called to them, I should have passed them by +unnoticed. The uniform of the Italian officer is of precisely the +same <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>cut and apparently of the same material as that of the men, and +as the former not infrequently dispenses with the badges of rank, it +is often difficult to distinguish an officer from a private. The +Italian officers, particularly those of the cavalry regiments, have +always been among the smartest in Europe, but the gorgeous uniforms +which, in the happy, carefree days before the war, added such +brilliant notes of color to the scenes on the Corso and in the +Cascine, have been replaced by a dress which is as simple as it is +serviceable.</p> + +<p>The Italian Government has a stern objection to wasteful or unnecessary +expenditure, and all the costly and superfluous trimmings so dear to +the heart of the military have been ruthlessly pruned. But economy is +not insisted upon at the expense of efficiency. Nothing is refused or +stinted that is necessary to keep the soldiers in good health or that +will add to the efficiency of the great fighting-machine. But the war +is proving a heavy financial strain for Italy and she is determined not +to waste <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>on it a single soldo more than she can possibly help. On the +French and British fronts staff-officers are constantly dashing to and +fro in motor-cars on errands of more or less importance. But you see +nothing of that sort in the Italian war zone. The Comando Supremo can, +of course, have all the motor-cars it wants, but it discourages their +use except in cases of necessity. The officers are instructed that, +whenever they can travel by railway without detriment to the interests +of the service, they are expected to do so, for the trains are in +operation to within a few miles of the front and with astonishing +regularity, whereas tires and gasolene cost money. Returning at +nightfall from the front to Udine, we were nearly always stopped by +officers—majors, colonels, and once by a general—who would ask us to +give them a lift into town. It has long been the fashion among +foreigners to think of Italians, particularly those of the upper class, +as late-rising, easy-going, and not particularly in love with work—a +sort of <i>dolce far niente</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>people. But the war has shown how unsafe +are such generalizations. There is no harder worker on any front than +the Italian officer. Even the highest staff-officers are at their desks +by eight and frequently by seven. Though it is easier to get from the +Italian front to Milan or Florence than it is to get from Verdun to +Paris, or from the Somme to London, one sees little of the week-end +travelling so common on the British front. Officers in the war zone are +entitled to fifteen days' leave of absence a year, and from this rule +there are no deviations.</p> + +<p>Through the mud we came to the Judrio, which marked the line of the +old frontier. We crossed the river by a pontoon bridge, for the +Austrians had destroyed the other in their retreat.</p> + +<p>"We are in Austria now, I suppose?" I remarked. "In Italia Redenta," +my companion corrected me. "This region has always been Italian in +everything but name, and now it is Italian in name also." The +occupation by the Italian troops, at the very outset of the war, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>of +this wedge of territory between the Judrio and the Isonzo, with +Monfalcone, Cervignano, Cormons, Gradisca—old Italian towns all—did +much to give the Italian people confidence in the efficiency of their +armies and the ability of their generals.</p> + +<p>Now the roads were filled with the enormous equipment of an army +advancing. Every village swarmed with gray soldiers. We passed +interminable processions of motor-lorries, mule-carts, trucks, and +wagons piled high with hay,<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> lumber, wine-casks, flour, shells, +barbed wire; boxes of ammunition; pontoon-trains, balloon outfits, +searchlights mounted on motor-trucks, wheeled blacksmith shops, +wheeled post-offices, field-kitchens; beef and mutton on the hoof; +mammoth howitzers and siege guns hauled by panting tractors; creaking, +clanking field-batteries, and bright-eyed, brown-skinned, green-caped +infantry, battalions, regiments, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>brigades of them plodding along +under slanting lines of steel. All the resources of Italy seemed +crowding up to make good the recent gains and to make ready for the +next push. One has to see a great army on the march to appreciate how +stupendous is the task of supplying with food the hungry men and the +hungrier guns, and how it taxes to the utmost all the industrial +resources of a nation.</p> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep082" id="imagep082"></a> +<a href="images/imagep082.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep082.jpg" width="90%" alt="A Heavy Howitzer in the High Alps." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">A Heavy Howitzer in the High Alps.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">Nowadays guns "command" nothing. Instead of frowning down on the enemy +from an eminence, they stare blindly skyward from behind a wall of mountains.</p> +</div> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep083" id="imagep083"></a> +<a href="images/imagep083.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep083.jpg" width="90%" alt="An Outpost in the Carnia." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">An Outpost in the Carnia.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">"On no front, not on the sun-scorched plains of Mesopotamia, nor in +the Masurian marshes, nor in the blood-soaked mud of Flanders, does +the fighting man lead so arduous an existence as up here on the roof +of the world."</p> +</div> + +<p>Under all this traffic the roads remained hard and smooth, for gangs +of men, with scrapers and steam-rollers were at work everywhere +repairing the wear and tear. This work is done by peasants, who are +too old for the army, middle-aged, sturdily built fellows who perform +their prosaic task with the resignation and inexhaustible patience of +the lower-class Italian. They are organized in companies of a hundred +men each, called <i>centurias</i>, and the company commanders are called +(shades of the Roman legions!) <i>centurions</i>. Italy owes much to these +gray-haired soldiers of the pick and shovel who, working in heat and +cold, in snow and rain, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>and frequently under Austrian fire, have made +it possible for the armies to advance and for food to be sent forward +for the men and ammunition for the guns.</p> + +<p>When this war is over Italy will find herself with better roads, and +more of them, than she ever had before. The hundreds of miles of +splendid highways which have been built by the army in the Trentino, +in the Carnia, and in Cadore will open up districts of extraordinary +beauty which have hitherto been inaccessible to the touring motorist. +The Italians have been fortunate in having an inexhaustible supply of +road-building material close at hand, for the mountains are solid road +metal and in the plains one has only to scratch the soil to find +gravel. The work of the road-builders on the Upper Isonzo resembles a +vast suburban development, for the smooth white highways which zigzag +in long, easy gradients up the mountain slopes are bordered on the +inside by stone-paved gutters and on the outside, where the precipice +falls sheer away, by cut stone <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>guard-posts. So extensive and +substantial are these improvements that one instinctively looks for a +real-estate dealer's sign: "This beautiful lot can be yours for +twenty-five dollars down and ten dollars a month for a year." Climbing +higher, the roads become steeper and narrower and, because of the +heavy rains, very highly crowned, with frequent right-angle and +hair-pin turns. Here a skid or a side-slip or the failure of your +brakes is quite likely to bring your career to an abrupt and +unpleasant termination. To motor along one of these military mountain +highways when it is slippery from rain is as nerve-trying as walking +on a shingled roof with smooth-soled shoes. At one point on the Upper +Isonzo there wasn't enough room between our outer wheels and the edge +of the precipice for a starved cat to pass.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Now we were well within the danger zone. I knew it by the screens of +woven reeds and grass matting which had been erected along one side of +the road in order to protect the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>troops and transport using that road +from being seen by the Austrian observers and shelled by the Austrian +guns. Practically all of the roads on the Italian side of the front +are, remember, under direct observation by the Austrians. In fact, +they command everything. Everywhere they are above the Italians. From +the observatories which they have established on every peak they can +see through their powerful telescopes what is transpiring down on the +plain as readily as though they were circling above it in an airplane. +As a result of the extraordinary advantage which the Austrians enjoy +in this respect, it has been found necessary to screen certain of the +roads not only on both sides but above, so that in places the traffic +passes for miles through literal tunnels of matting. This road masking +is a simple form of the art of concealment to which the French have +given the name "<i>camouflage</i>," which has been developed to an +extraordinary degree on the Western Front. That the Italians have not +made a greater use of it is due, no doubt, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>to the wholly different +conditions under which they are fighting.</p> + +<p>Now the crowded road that we were following turned sharply into a +narrow valley, down which a small river twisted and turned on its way +to the sea. Though the Italian positions ran along the top of the hill +slope just above us, and though less than a thousand yards away were +the Austrian trenches, that valley, for many miles, was literally +crawling with men and horses and guns. Indeed it was difficult to make +myself believe that we were within easy range of the enemy and that at +any instant a shell might fall upon that teeming hillside and burst +with the crash that scatters death.</p> + +<p>Despite the champagne-cork popping of the rifles and the basso profundo +of the guns, it was a scene of ordered, yes, almost peaceful industry +which in no way suggested war but reminded me, rather, of the Panama +Canal at the busiest period of its construction (I have used the simile +before, but I use it again because I know none better), of the digging +of the New <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>York subway, of the laying of a transcontinental railway, +of the building of the dam at Assuan. Trenches which had recently been +captured from the Austrians were being cleared and renovated and new +trenches were being dug, roads were being repaired, a battery of +monster howitzers was being moved into ingeniously concealed positions, +a whole system of narrow-gauge railway was being laid down, enormous +quantities of stores were being unloaded from wagons and lorries and +neatly stacked, soldiers were building great water-tanks on stilts, +like those at railway sidings, giant shells were being lowered from +trucks and flat-cars by means of cranes; to the accompaniment of saws +and hammers a city of wooden huts was springing up on the reverse slope +of the hill as though at the wave of a magician's wand.</p> + +<p>As I watched with fascinated eyes this scene of activity, as city +idlers watch the laborers at work in a cellar excavation, a shell +burst on the crowded hillside, perhaps five hundred <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>yards away. There +was a crash like the explosion of a giant cannon-cracker; the ground +leaped into flame and dust. A few minutes afterward I saw an ambulance +go tearing up the road.</p> + +<p>"Just a chance shot," said the staff-officer who accompanied me. "This +valley is one of the few places on our front which is invisible to the +Austrian observers. That's why we have so many troops in here. The +Austrian aviators could spot what is going on here, of course, but our +fliers and our anti-aircraft batteries have been making things so hot +for them lately that they're not troubling us much. That's the great +thing in this game—to keep control of the air. If the Austrian airmen +were able to get over this valley and direct the fire of their guns we +wouldn't be able to stay here an hour."</p> + +<p>My companion had thought that it might be possible to follow the road +down the valley to Monfalcone and the sea, and so it would have been +had the weather continued misty and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>rainy. But the sun came out +brightly just as we reached the beginning of an exposed stretch of the +road; an Austrian observer, peering through a telescope set up in a +monastery on top of a mountain ten miles away, caught sight of the +hurrying gray insect which was our car; he rang up on the telephone a +certain battery and spoke a few words to the battery commander; and an +instant later on the road along which we were travelling Austrian +shells began to fall. Shells being expensive, that little episode cost +the Emperor-King several hundred kronen, we figured. As for us, it +merely interrupted a most interesting morning's ride.</p> + +<p>Leaving the car in the shelter of a hill, we toiled up a steep and +stony slope to a point from which I was able to get an admirable idea +of the general lay of Italy's Eastern Front. Coming toward me was the +Isonzo—a bright blue stream the width of the Thames at New +London—which, happy at escaping from its gloomy mountain defile, went +rioting over the plain in a great westward curve. Turning, I could +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>catch a glimpse, through a notch in the hills, of the white towers and +pink roofs of Monfalcone against the Adriatic's changeless blue. To +the east of Monfalcone rose the red heights of the Carso, the barren +limestone plateau which stretches from the Isonzo south into Istria. +And beyond the Carso I could trace the whole curve of the mountains +from in front of Trieste up past Gorizia and away to the Carnia. The +Italian front, I might add, divides itself into four sectors: the +Isonzo, the Carnia and Cadore, the Trentino, and the Alpine.</p> + +<p>Directly below us, not more than a kilometre away, was a village which +the Austrians were shelling. Through our glasses we could see the +effects of the bombardment as plainly as though we had been watching a +football game from the upper tier of seats in the Yale Bowl. They were +using a considerable number of guns of various calibers and the crash +of the bursting shells was almost incessant. A shell struck a rather +pretentious building, which was evidently the town hall; there was a +burst of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>flame, and a torrent of bricks and beams and tiles shot +skyward amid a geyser of green-brown smoke. Another projectile chose +as its target the tall white campanile, which suddenly slumped into +the street, a heap of brick and plaster. Now and again we caught +glimpses of tiny figures—Italian soldiers, most likely—scuttling for +shelter. Occasionally the Austrians would vary their rain of heavy +projectiles with a sort of shell that went <i>bang</i> and released a +fleecy cloud of smoke overhead and then dropped a parcel of high +explosive that burst on the ground. It was curious to think that the +guns from which these shells came were cunningly hidden away in nooks +and glens on the other side of that distant range of hills, that the +men serving the guns had little if any idea what they were firing at, +and that the bombardment was being directed and controlled by an +officer seated comfortably at the small end of a telescope up there on +a mountain top among the clouds. Yet such is modern war. It used to be +one of the artillerist's tenets that his guns <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>should be placed in a +position with a "commanding" range of view. But nowadays guns +"command" nothing. Instead they are tucked away in gullies and leafy +glens and excavated gun-pits, and their muzzles, instead of frowning +down on the enemy from an eminence, stare blindly skyward from behind +a wall of hills or mountains. The Italians evidently grew tired of +letting the Austrians have their way with the town, for presently some +batteries of heavy guns behind us came into action and their shells +screamed over our heads. Soon a brisk exchange of compliments between +the Italian and Austrian guns was going on over the shattered roofs of +the town. We did not remain overlong on our hillside and we were +warned by the artillery officer who was guiding us to keep close to +the ground and well apart, for, were the Austrians to see us in a +group, using maps and field-glasses, they probably would take us for +artillery observers and would send over a violent protest cased in +steel.</p> + +<p>On none of the European battle-fronts is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>there a more beautiful and +impressive journey than that from Udine up to the Italian positions in +the Carnia. The Carnia sector connects the Isonzo and Trentino fronts +and forms a vital link in the Italian chain of defense, for, were the +Austrians to break through, they would take in flank and rear the +great Italian armies operating on the two adjacent fronts. West of the +Carnia, in Cadore, the Italians are campaigning in one of the world's +most famous playgrounds, for, in the days before the Great War, +pleasure-seekers from every corner of Europe and America swarmed by +the tens of thousands in the country round about Cortina and in the +enchanted valleys of the Dolomites. But now great gray guns are +emplaced in the shady glens where the honeymooners used to stroll; on +the terraces of the tourist hostelries, where, on summer afternoons, +men in white flannels and women in dainty frocks chattered over their +tea, now lounge Italian officers in field uniforms of gray; the blare +of dance music and the popping of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>champagne corks has been replaced +by the blare of bugles and the popping of rifles.</p> + +<p>If you have ever gone, in a single day, from the sunlit orange groves +of Pasadena up to the snow-crowned peaks of the Coast Range, you will +have as good an idea as I can give you of the journey from the Isonzo +up to the Carnia. Down on the Carso the war is being waged under a sky +of molten brass and in summer the winds which sweep that arid plateau +are like blasts from an open furnace-door. The soldiers fighting in +the Carnia, on the other hand, not infrequently wear coats of white +fur to protect them from the cold and to render them invisible against +the expanses of snow. When I was on the Italian front they told me an +incident of this mountain warfare. There was desperate fighting for +the possession of a few yards of mountain trenches and a +half-battalion of Austrian Jaegers—nearly five hundred men—were +enfiladed by machine-gun fire and wiped out. That night there was a +heavy snowfall and the Austrian corpses sprawled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>upon the +mountainside were soon buried deep beneath the fleecy flakes. The long +winter wore along, the war pursued its dreary course, to five hundred +Austrian homes the Austrian War Office sent a brief message that the +husband or son or brother had been "reported missing." Then the spring +came, the snow melted from the mountainsides, and the horrified +Italians looked on the five hundred Austrians, frozen stiff, as meat +is frozen in a refrigerator, in the same attitudes in which they had +died months before.</p> + +<p>With countless hair-pin, hair-raising turns, our road wound upward, +bordered on one hand by the brinks of precipices, on the other by bare +walls of rock. It was a smooth road, splendidly built, but steep and +terrifyingly narrow—so narrow in places that it was nothing more than +a shelf blasted from the sheer face of the cliff. Twice, meeting +motor-lorries downward bound, we had to back along that narrow shelf, +with our outer wheels on the brink of emptiness, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>until we came to a +spot where there was room to pass. It was a ticklish business.</p> + +<p>At one point a mountain torrent leaped from the cliff into the depths +below. But the water-power was not permitted to go to waste; it had +been skilfully harnessed and was being used to run a completely +equipped machine-shop where were brought for repair everything from +motor-trucks to machine-guns. That was one of the things that +impressed me most—the mechanical ability of the Italians. The +railways, cable-ways, machine-shops, bridges, roads, reservoirs, +concrete works that they have built, more often than not in the face +of what would appear to be unsurmountable difficulties, prove them to +be a nation of engineers.</p> + +<p>Up to the heights toward which we were climbing so comfortably and +quickly in a motor-car there was before the war, so I was told, +nothing but a mule-path. Now there is this fine military road, so +ingeniously graded and zigzagged that two-ton motor-trucks can now go +with ease where before a donkey had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>difficulty in finding a footing. +When these small and handy motor-trucks come to a point where it is no +longer possible for them to find traction, their loads are transferred +to the remarkable wire-rope railways, or <i>telefericas</i>, as they are +called, which have made possible this campaign in cloudland. Similar +systems are in use, all over the world, for conveying goods up the +sides of mountains and across chasms. A wire rope running over a drum +at each side of the chasm which has to be crossed forms a double line +of overhead railway. Suspended on grooved wheels from this overhead +wire are "cars" consisting of shallow iron trays about the length and +width of coffins, one car going up as the other comes down. The floors +of the cars are perforated so as to permit the draining off of water +or blood—for men wounded in the mountain fighting are frequently +brought down to the hospitals in them—and the sides are of +latticework, and, I might add, quite unnecessarily low. Nor is the +prospective passenger reassured by being told that there have been +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>several cases where soldiers, suddenly overcome by vertigo, have +thrown themselves out while in mid-air. If the cars are properly +loaded, and if there is not a high wind blowing, the <i>teleferica</i> is +about as safe as most other modes of conveyance, but should the cars +have been carelessly loaded, or should a strong wind be blowing, there +is considerable danger of their coming into collision as they pass. In +such an event there would be a very fair chance of the passenger +spattering up the rocks a thousand feet or so below. There is still +another, though a rather remote possibility: that of being shelled +while in mid-air, for certain of the <i>telefericas</i> run within view of +the Austrian positions. And sometimes the power which winds the drum +gives out and the car and its passengers are temporarily marooned in +space. Aviation, motor-racing, mountain-climbing, big-game hunting, +all seem commonplace and tame compared with the sensation of swinging +helplessly in a shallow bathtub over half a mile of emptiness while an +Austrian battery endeavors <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>to pot you with shrapnel, very much as a +small boy throws stones at a scared cat clinging to a limb.</p> + +<p>Yet over these slender wires has been transported an army, with its +vast quantities of food, stores, and ammunition, and by the same +method of transportation have been sent back the wounded. Without this +ingenious device it is doubtful if the campaign in the High Alps could +ever have been fought. But the cables, strong though they are, are yet +too weak to bear the weight of the heavy guns, some of them weighing +forty and fifty tons, which the Italians have put into action on the +highest peaks. So, by the aid of ropes and levers and pulleys and +hundreds of brawny backs and straining arms, these monster pieces have +been hauled up slopes as steep as that of the Great Pyramid, have been +hoisted up walls of rock as sheer and high as those of the Flatiron +Building. You question this? Well, there they are, great eight and +nine inch monsters, high above the highest of the wire roads, one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>of +them that I know of at a height of ten thousand feet above the sea. +There is no doubting it, incredible as it may seem, for they speak for +themselves—as the Austrians have found to their cost.</p> + +<p>The most advanced positions in the Carnia, as in the Trentino, are +amid the eternal snows. Here the guns are emplaced in ice caverns +which can be reached only through tunnels cut through the drifts; here +the men spend their days wrapped in shaggy furs, their faces smeared +with grease as a protection from the stinging blasts, and their nights +in holes burrowed in the snow, like the igloos of Esquimaux. On no +front, not on the sun-scorched plains of Mesopotamia, nor in the +frozen Mazurian marshes, nor in the blood-soaked mud of Flanders, does +the fighting man lead so arduous an existence as up here on the roof +of the world. I remember standing with an Italian officer in an +observatory in the lower mountains. The powerful telescope was +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>trained on the snow-covered summit of one of the higher peaks.</p> + +<p>"Do you see that little black speck on the snow at the very top?" the +officer asked me.</p> + +<p>I told him that I did.</p> + +<p>"That is one of our positions," he continued. "It is held by a +lieutenant and thirty Alpini. I have just received word that, as the +result of yesterday's snow-storm, our communications with them have +been cut off. We will not be able to relieve them, or get supplies to +them, much before next April."</p> + +<p>And it was then only the middle of December!</p> + +<p>In the Carnia and on the Upper Isonzo one finds the anomaly of +first-line trenches which are perfectly safe from attack. I visited +such a position. Through a loophole I got a little framed picture of +the Austrian trenches not five hundred yards away, and above them, cut +in the mountainside, the square black openings within which lurked the +Austrian guns. Yet we were as safe from anything save artillery <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>fire +as though we were in Mars, for between the Italian trenches and the +Austrian intervened a chasm half a thousand feet deep and with walls +as steep and smooth as the side of a house. The narrow strip of valley +at the bottom of the chasm was a sort of no man's land, where forays, +skirmishes, and all manner of desperate adventures took place nightly +between patrols of Jaegers and Alpini.</p> + +<p>As with my field-glasses I was sweeping the turmoil of trench-scarred +mountains which lay spread, below me, like a map in bas-relief, an +Austrian battery quite suddenly set up a deafening clamor, and on a +hillside, miles away, I could see its shells bursting in clouds of +smoke shot through with flame. They looked like gigantic white peonies +breaking suddenly into bloom. The racket of the guns awoke the most +extraordinary echoes in the mountains. It was difficult to believe +that it was not thunder. Range after range caught up the echoes of +that bombardment and passed them on until it seemed as though they +must have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>reached Vienna. For half an hour, perhaps, the cannonade +continued, and then, from an Italian position somewhere above and +behind us, came a mighty bellow which drowned out all other sounds. It +was the angry voice of Italy bidding the Austrians be still.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<hr style='width: 15%;' /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> I was told by a British general that thousands of tiny +steel prongs had been discovered in baled hay brought from America. +They were evidently put there by German sympathizers in the United +States with the object of killing the Allies' horses.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>IV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>THE ROAD TO TRIESTE</h4> +<br /> + +<p>In order to appraise the Italian operations on the Carso at their true +value, it is necessary to go back to May, 1916, when the Archduke +Frederick launched his great offensive from the Trentino. Now it must +be kept constantly in mind, as I have tried to emphasize in preceding +chapters, that when the war opened, the Italians had always to go up +while the Austrians needed only to come down. The latter, intrenched +high on that tremendous natural rampart formed by the Rhaetian and +Tyrolean Alps, the Dolomites, the Carnic, Julian, and Dinaric ranges, +had an immense superiority over their enemy on the plains below. The +Austrian offensive in the Trentino was dictated by four reasons: +first, to divert the Italians from their main objective, Trieste; +second, to lessen the pressure which General <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>Cadorna was exerting +against the Austrian lines on the Isonzo; third, to smash through to +Vicenza and Verona, thus cutting off and compelling the capitulation +of the Italian armies operating in Venetia; and fourth, to so +thoroughly discourage the Italians that they would consent to a +separate peace.</p> + +<p>The story of how this ambitious plan was foiled is soon told. By the +first week in May the Austrians had massed upon the Trentino front a +force of very nearly 400,000 men with 2,000 guns. Included in this +tremendous accumulation of artillery were 26 batteries of 12-inch guns +and several of the German giants, the famous 42-centimetre pieces, +which brought down the pride of Antwerp and Namur. By the middle of +May everything was ready for the onset to begin, and this avalanche of +soldiery came rolling down the Asiago plateau, between the Adige and +the Brenta. Below them, basking in the sunshine, stretched the +alluring plains of Venetia, with their wealth, their women, and their +wine. Pounded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>by an immensely superior artillery, overwhelmed by wave +upon wave of infantry, the Italians sullenly fell back, leaving the +greater part of the Sette Communi plateau and the upper portion of the +Brenta valley in the hands of the Austrians. At the beginning of June +a cloud of despondency and gloom hung over Italy, and men went about +with sober faces, for it seemed all but certain that the enemy would +succeed in breaking through to Vicenza, and by cutting the main +east-and-west line of railway, would force the armies operating on the +Isonzo and in the Carnia to surrender. But the soldiers of the Army of +the Trentino, though outnumbered in men and guns, determined that the +Austrians should pay a staggering price for every yard of ground they +gained. They fought as must have fought their ancestors of the Roman +legions. And, thanks to their tenacity and pluck, they held their +opponents on the five-yard line. Then, just in the nick of time, the +whistle blew. The game was over. The Austrians had to hurry home. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>They had staked everything on a sudden and overwhelming onslaught by +which they hoped to smash the Italian defense and demoralize the +Italian armies in time to permit at least half their eighteen +divisions and nearly all of their heavy guns being withdrawn in a few +weeks and rushed across Austria to the Galician front, where they were +desperately needed to stay the Russian advance.</p> + +<p>By the beginning of the last week in June the Austrian General Staff, +recognizing that its plan for the overwhelming of northern Italy had +failed disastrously, issued orders for a general retreat. The +Austrians had planned to fall back on the positions which had been +prepared in advance in the mountains and to establish themselves, with +greatly reduced numbers, on this practically impregnable line, while +the transfer of the divisions intended for the Carpathians was +effected. But General Cadorna had no intention of letting the +Austrians escape so easily. In less than a week he had collected from +the garrisons and training camps and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>reserve battalions an army of +500,000 men. It was one of the most remarkable achievements of the +war. From all parts of Italy he rushed those half million men to the +Trentino front by train—and despite the immense strain put upon the +Italian railways by the rapid movement of so great a body of troops, +the regular passenger service was suspended for only three days. (At +that same time the American Government was attempting to concentrate a +force of only 150,000 men on the Mexican border; a comparison of +Italian and American efficiency is instructive.) He formed that army +into brigades and divisions, each complete with staff and supply +trains and ammunition columns. He organized fresh bases of supply, +including water, of which there is none on the Asiago plateau. He +provided the stupendous quantity of stores and ammunition and +equipment and transport required by such an army. (It is related how +Cadorna's Chief of Transport wired the Fiat Company of Turin that he +must have 545 additional motor-trucks within a week, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>and how that +great company responded by delivering in the time specified 546—one +over for good measure.) Almost in a night he transformed the rude +mule-paths leading up onto the plateau into splendid military roads, +wide enough and hard enough to bear the tremendous traffic to which +they were suddenly subjected. And finally he rushed his troops up +those roads in motor-cars and motor-trucks, afoot and on horse-back +and astride of donkeys and flung them against the Austrians. So sudden +and savage was the Italian onset that the Austrians did not dare to +spare a man or gun for their Eastern Front—and meanwhile the +Muscovite armies were pressing on toward the Dniester. It is no +exaggeration to assert that the success of Brussiloff's offensive in +Galicia was due in no small measure to the Italian counter-offensive +in the Trentino. That adventure cost Austria at least 100,000 dead and +wounded men.</p> + +<p>But not for a moment did the Italians permit the Austrian offensive in +the Trentino to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>distract them from their real objectives: Gorizia, +the Carso, and Trieste. The "military experts," who from desks in +newspaper offices tell the public how campaigns ought to be conducted, +had announced confidently that Italy had so taxed her strength by her +efforts in the Trentino that, for many months at least, nothing need +be expected from her. But Italy showed the public that the "military +experts" didn't know what they were talking about, for in little more +than a month after the Italian guns had ceased to growl amid the +Tyrolean peaks and passes, they were raining a storm of steel upon the +Austrian positions on the Carso.</p> + +<p>Imagine a vast limestone plateau, varying in height from 700 to 2,500 +feet, which is as treeless and waterless as the deserts of Chihuahua, +as desolate and forbidding as the Dakota Bad Lands, with a surface as +torn and twisted and jagged as the lava beds of Utah, and with a +summer climate like that of Death Valley in July. That is the Carso. +This great table-land of rock, which begins at Gorizia, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>approaches +close to the shores of the Adriatic between Monfalcone and Trieste, +and runs southeastward into Istria, links the Alpine system with the +Balkan ranges. Its surface of naked, sun-flayed rock is broken here +and there with gigantic heaps of piled stone, with caves and caverns, +with sombre marshes which sometimes become gloomy and forbidding +lakes, and with peculiar crater-like depressions called <i>dolinas</i>, +formed by centuries of erosion. Such scanty vegetation as there is is +confined to these <i>dolinas</i>, which form the only oases in this barren +and thirsty land. The whole region is swept by the <i>Bora</i>, a wind +which is the enemy alike of plant and man. Save for the lizards that +bask upon its furnace-like floors, the Carso is as lifeless as it is +treeless and waterless. No bird and scarcely an insect can find +nourishment over vast spaces of this sun-scorched solitude; even the +hardy mountain grass withers and dies of a broken heart. So powerful +is the sun that eggs can be cooked without a fire. Metal objects, such +as rifles and equipment, when left <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>exposed, quickly become too hot to +touch. The bodies of the soldiers who fall on the Carso are not +infrequently found to have been baked hard and mummified after lying +for a day or two on that oven-like floor of stone.</p> + +<p>The Carso is probably the strongest natural fortress in the world. +Anything in the shape of defensive works which Nature had overlooked, +the Austrians provided. For years before the war began the Austrian +engineers were at work strengthening a place that already possessed +superlative strength. The whole face of the plateau was honeycombed +with trenches and tunnels and dugouts and gun emplacements which were +blasted and drilled out of the solid rock with machinery similar to +that used in driving the Simplon and the St. Gothard tunnels. The +posts for the snipers were armored with inch-thick plates of steel +cemented into the rock. The <i>dolinas</i> were converted into machine-gun +pits and bomb-proof shelters. In one of these curious craters I saw a +dugout—it was really a subterranean <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>barracks—electrically lighted +and with neatly whitewashed walls which had sleeping accommodation for +a thousand men. To supply these positions, water was pumped up by +oil-engines, but the Austrians took care to destroy the pipe-lines as +they retired.</p> + +<p>At the northern end of the Carso, in an angle formed by the junction +of the Wippach and the Isonzo, the snowy towers and red-brown roofs of +Gorizia rise above the foliage of its famous gardens. The town, which +resembles Homburg or Baden-Baden and was a popular Austrian resort +before the war, lies in the valley of the Wippach (Vippacco, the +Italians call it), which separates the Carso from the southernmost +spurs of the Julian Alps. Down this valley runs the railway leading to +Trieste, Laibach, and Vienna. It will be seen, therefore, that Gorizia +is really the gateway to Trieste, and a place of immense strategic +importance.</p> + +<p>On the slopes of the Carso, four or five miles to the southwest of the +town, rises the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>enormously strong position of Monte San Michele, and +a few miles farther down the Isonzo, the fortified hill-town of +Sagrado. On the other side of the river, almost opposite Gorizia, are +the equally strong positions of Podgora and Monte Sabotino. Their +steep slopes were slashed with Austrian trenches and abristle with +guns which commanded the roads leading to the river, the bridge-heads, +and the town. To take Gorizia until these positions had been captured +was obviously out of the question. Here, as elsewhere, Austria held +the upper ground. In a memorandum issued by the Austrian General Staff +to its officers at the beginning of the operations before Gorizia, the +tremendous advantage of the Austrian position was made quite clear: +"We have to retain possession of a terrain fortified by Nature. In +front of us a great watercourse; behind us a ridge from which we can +shoot as from a ten-story building."</p> + +<p>The difficulties which the Italians had to overcome in their advance +were enormous. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>From their mountain nests the Austrian guns were able +to maintain a murderous fire on the Italian lines of communication, +thus preventing the bringing up of men and supplies. It therefore +became necessary for the Italians to build new roads which would not +be thus exposed to enemy fire, and in cases where this was impossible, +the existing roads were masked for miles on end with artificial hedges +and screens of grass matting. In many places it was found necessary to +screen the roads overhead as well as on the sides, so that the +Italians could move up their heavy guns without attracting the +attention of the enemy's observers stationed on the highest mountain +peaks, or of the Austrian airmen. But this was not all, or nearly all. +An army is ever a hungry monster, so slaughter-houses and bakeries and +field-kitchens, to say nothing of incredible quantities of +food-stuffs, had to be provided. Fighting being a thirsty business, it +was necessary to arrange for piping up water, for great tanks to hold +that water, and for water-carts, hundreds and hundreds of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>them, to +peddle it among the panting troops. A prize-fighter cannot sleep out +in the open, on the bare ground, and keep in condition for the ring, +and a soldier, who is likewise a fighting-man but from a different +motive, must be made comfortable of nights if he is to keep in +fighting-trim. So millions of feet of lumber had to be brought up, +along roads already overcrowded with traffic, and that lumber had to +be transformed into temporary huts and barrackments—a city of them. +But the preparations did not end even there. To insure the +co-ordination and co-operation of the various divisions of the army, +an elaborate system of field telegraphs and telephones had to be +installed, and, in order to provide against the lines being cut by +shell-fire and the whole complex organism paralyzed, the wires were +laid in groups of four. Then there had to be repair-stations for the +broken machinery, and other repair-stations—with Red Cross flags +flying over them—for the broken men. So in the rear of the sector +where the Italians planned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>to give battle on a front of thirty miles, +a series of great base hospitals were established, and, nearer the +front, a series of clearing-hospitals, and, still closer up, +field-hospitals, and in the immediate rear of the fighting-line, +hundreds of dressing-stations and first-aid posts were located in +dugouts and bomb-proof shelters. And along the roads stretched endless +caravans of gray ambulances, for it promised to be a bloody business. +In other words, it was necessary, before the battle could be fought +with any hope of success, to build what was to all intents and +purposes a great modern city, a city of half a million inhabitants, +with many miles of macadamized thoroughfares, with water and telephone +and telegraph systems, with a highly efficient sanitary service, with +railways, with huge warehouses filled with food and clothing, with +more hospitals than any city ever had before, with butcher-shops and +bakeries and machine-shops and tailors and boot-menders—in fact, with +everything necessary to meet the demands of 500,000 men. Yet Mr. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>Bryan and his fellow-members of the Order of the Dove and Olive-Branch +would have us believe that all that is necessary in order to win a +modern battle is to take the trusty target-rifle from the closet under +the stairs, dump a box of cartridges into our pockets, and sally +forth, whereupon the enemy, decimated by the deadliness of our fire, +will be only too glad to surrender.</p> + +<p>The most formidable task which confronted the Italians was that of +constructing the vast system of trenches through which the troops +could be moved forward in comparative safety to the positions from +which would be launched the final assault. This presented no +exceptional difficulties in the rich alluvial soil on the Isonzo's +western bank, but once the Italians had crossed the river they found +themselves on the Carso, through whose solid rock the trenches could +be driven only with pneumatic drills and dynamite. All of the Italian +trenches that I saw showed a very high skill in engineering. Instead +of keeping the earthen walls <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>from crumbling and caving by the use of +the wicker-work revetments so general on the Western Front, the +Italians use a sort of steel trellis which is easily put in place, and +is not readily damaged by shell-fire. Other trenches which I saw +(though not on the Carso, of course) were built of solid concrete with +steel shields for the riflemen cemented into the parapets.</p> + +<p>During these weeks of preparation the Italian aviators, observers, and +spies had been busy collecting information concerning the strength of +the Gorizia defenses and the disposition of the Austrian batteries and +troops. By means of thousands of photographs taken from airplanes, +enlarged, and then pieced together, the Italians had as accurate and +detailed a map of the Austrian lines of defense as was possessed by +the Austrian General Staff itself. Thanks to the data thus obtained, +the Italian gunners were able to locate their targets and estimate +their ranges with absolute precision. They knew which building in +Gorizia was the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>headquarters of the Austrian commander; they had +discovered where his telephone and telegraph stations were located; +and they had spotted his observation posts. Indeed, so highly +developed was the Italian intelligence service that the Austrians were +not able to transfer a battalion or change the position of a battery +without the knowledge of General Cadorna.</p> + +<p>Now the Austrians, like the newspaper experts, were convinced that the +Italians had their hands full in the Trentino without courting trouble +on the Isonzo. And if there was to be an attack along the Isonzo +front—which they doubted—they believed that it would almost +certainly develop in the Monfalcone sector, next the sea. And of this +belief the Italians took care not to disabuse them. Here again was +exemplified the vital necessity of having control of the air. If, +during the latter half of July, the Austrian fliers had been able to +get over the Italian lines, they could not have failed to observe the +enormous preparations which were in progress, and when the Italians +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>advanced, the Austrians would have been ready for them. But the +Italians kept control of the air (during my entire trip on the Italian +front I can recall having seen only one Austrian airplane), the +Austrians had no means of learning what was impending, and were, +therefore, quite unprepared for the attack when it came—and Gorizia +fell.</p> + +<p>By the 4th of August, 1916, all was ready for the Big Push. On the +morning of that day brisk fighting began on the Monfalcone sector. +Convinced that this was the danger-point, the Austrian commander +rushed his reserves southward to strengthen his threatened line. This +was precisely what the Italians wanted. They had succeeded in +distracting his attention from their real objective—Gorizia. Now the +battle of Gorizia was really not fought at Gorizia at all. What +happened was the brilliant and bloody storming of the Austrian +positions on Podgora and Monte Sabotino, a simultaneous crossing of +the Isonzo opposite Gorizia and at Sagrado, and a splendid rush up to +and across <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>the plateau of the Carso which culminated in the taking of +Monte San Michele. Gorizia itself was not organized for defense, and +so astounded was its garrison at the capture in rapid succession of +the city's defending positions, which had been deemed impregnable, +that no serious resistance was offered.</p> + +<p>On the morning of August 6 a hurricane of steel suddenly broke upon +Gorizia. But the Italian gunners had received careful instructions, +and instead of blowing the city off the map, as they could easily have +done, they confined their efforts to the destruction of the enemy's +headquarters, observation posts, and telephone-stations, thus +destroying his means of communication and effectually disrupting his +entire organization. Other batteries turned their attention to the +railway-station, the railway-yards, and the roads, dropping such a +curtain of shell-fire behind the town that the Austrians were unable +to bring up reinforcements. Care was taken, however, to do as little +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>damage as possible to the city itself, as the Italians wanted it for +themselves.</p> + +<p>The most difficult, as it was the most spectacular, phase of the +attack was the storming of the Sabotino, a mountain two thousand feet +high, which, it was generally believed, could never be taken with the +bayonet. The Italians, realizing that no troops in the world could +hope to reach the summit of those steep slopes in the face of barbed +wire, rifles, and machine-guns, had, unknown to the enemy, driven a +tunnel, a mile and a quarter long, into the very heart of this +position. When the assault was ordered, therefore, the first lines of +Italian infantry suddenly appeared from out of the ground within a few +yards of the Austrian trenches. Amid a storm of <i>vivas</i> the gray wave, +with its crest of glistening steel, surged up the few remaining yards +of glacis, topped the parapet, and overwhelmed the defenders. Monte +Sabotino, the key to the bridge-head and the city, was in the hands of +the Italians. But the Austrians intrenched on Hill 240, the highest +summit of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>Podgora range, still held out, and it took several +hours of savage fighting to dislodge them. This last stronghold taken, +the gray-clad infantry suddenly debouched from the sheltering ravines +and went swarming down to the Isonzo. Almost simultaneously another +division crossed the river several miles below, at Sagrado. Into the +stream they went, their rifles held high above their heads, chanting +the splendid hymn of Garibaldi. The Austrian shrapnel churned the +river into foam, its waters turned from blue to crimson, but the +insistent bugles pealed the charge, and the lines of gray swept on. +Pausing on the eastern bank only long enough to re-form, the lines +again rolled forward. White disks carried high above the heads of the +men showed the Italian gunners how far the infantry had advanced and +enabled them to gauge their protecting curtain of fire. Though +smothered with shells, and swept by machine-guns, nothing could stop +them. "Avanti Savoia!" they roared. "Viva! Eviva Italia!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>Meanwhile, under a heavy fire, the Italian engineers were repairing +the iron bridge which carried the railway from Milan and Udine across +the Isonzo to Gorizia and so to Trieste and Vienna. The great stone +bridge over the river had been destroyed the day before beyond the +possibility of immediate repair. In an amazingly short time the work +was done and the Italian field-batteries went tearing over the bridge +at a gallop to unlimber on the opposite bank and send a shower of +shrapnel after the retreating Austrians. Close behind the guns poured +Carabinieri, Alpini, Bersaglieri, infantry of the line and squadron +after squadron of cavalry riding under thickets of lances. A strong +force of Carabinieri were the first troops to enter the city, and not +until they had taken complete possession and had assumed the reins of +the local government, were the line troops permitted to come in.</p> + +<p>The fighting continued for three days, the Austrians, though +discouraged and to some extent demoralized, making a brave +resistance. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>In one <i>dolina</i> which had been fortified, an officer and +a handful of men fought so pluckily against overwhelming odds that, +when at length the survivors came out and surrendered, the Italians +presented arms to them as a mark of respect and admiration. By the +evening of the 9th of August the attack, "one of the most important +and violent onslaughts on fortified positions that the European War +has yet seen," had been completely successful, and the city of +Gorizia, together with the heights that guarded it, including the +northern end of the Carso plateau, were in Italian hands. The cost to +Italy was 20,000 dead men. It was a high price but, on the other hand, +she captured 19,000 prisoners, 67 pieces of artillery, and scores of +trench mortars and machine-guns. The moral and strategic results were +of incalculable value. The first line of the Austrian defense, deemed +one of the strongest on any front, had collapsed beneath the Italian +assaults; though the crest of the Carso still remained in Austrian +hands, the gateway <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>to Trieste had been opened; and most important of +all, the Italian people had gained the self-confidence which they had +long lacked and which comes only from military achievement.</p> + +<p>In order to reach Gorizia we had to motor for some miles along a road +exposed to enemy fire, for the hills dominating the city to the south +and east were still in Austrian hands. The danger was minimized as +much as possible by screening the roads in the manner I have already +described, so, as the officer who accompanied me took pains to +explain, if we happened to be hit by a shell, it would be one fired at +random. I could see no reason, however, why a random shell wouldn't +end my career just as effectually as a shell intended specially for +me. Although, thanks to the tunnels of matting, the Austrians cannot +see the traffic on the roads, they know that it must cross the +bridges, so on them they keep up a continuous rain of projectiles, and +there you have to take your chance. The Gorizia <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>bridge-head was not a +place where I should have cared to loiter.</p> + +<p>It is not a simple matter to obtain permission to visit Gorizia (it is +much easier to visit Verdun), for the city is shelled with more or +less regularity, and to have visitors about under such conditions is a +nuisance. Hence, one cannot get into Gorizia unless bearing a special +pass issued by the Comando Supremo. So rigid are the precautions +against unauthorized visitors that, though accompanied by two officers +of the Staff and travelling in a staff-car, we were halted by the +Carabinieri and our papers examined seven times. To this famous force +of constabulary has been given the work of policing the occupied +regions, and indeed, the entire zone of the armies. With their huge +cocked hats, which, since the war began, have been covered with gray +linen, their rosy faces, so pink-and-white that they look as though +they had been rouged and powdered, and their little upturned waxed +mustaches, the Carabinieri always remind me <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>of the gendarmes in comic +operas. But the only thing comic about them is their hats. They are +the sternest and most uncompromising guardians of the law that I know. +You can expostulate with a London bobbie, you can argue with a Paris +gendarme, you can on occasion reason mildly with a New York policeman, +but not with an Italian carbineer. To give them back talk is to invite +immediate and serious trouble. They are supreme in the war zone, for +they take orders from no one save their own officers and have the +authority to turn back or arrest any one, no matter what his rank. Our +chauffeur, who, being attached to the Comando Supremo, had become so +accustomed to driving generals and cabinet ministers that he blagued +the military sentries, and quite openly sneered at the orders of the +Udine police, would jam on his brakes so suddenly that we would almost +go through the wind-shield if a carbineer held up his hand.</p> + +<p>Gorizia is, or was before the war, a place of some 40,000 inhabitants. +It has broad streets, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>lined by fine white buildings and lovely +gardens, and outside the town are excellent medicinal baths. It will, +I think, prove a very popular summer resort with the Italians. Though +for many months prior to its capture it was within range of the +Italian guns, which could have blown it to smithereens, they refrained +from doing so because it was desired, if possible, to take the place +intact. That, indeed, has been the Italian policy throughout the war: +to do as little unnecessary damage as possible. Now the Austrians, who +look down on their lost city from the heights to the eastward, refrain +from destroying it, as they easily could do, because they cling to the +hope that they may get it back again. So, though the bridge-heads are +shelled constantly, and though considerable damage has been inflicted +on the suburbs, no serious harm has been done to the city itself. By +this I do not mean to imply that the Austrians never shell it, for +they do, but only in a desultory, half-hearted fashion. During the day +that I spent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>in Gorizia the deserted streets echoed about every five +minutes to the screech-bang of an Austrian <i>arrivé</i> or the +bang-screech of an Italian <i>départ</i>.</p> + +<p>Finding that the big Hotel du Parc, which is the city's leading +hostelry, was closed, we lunched at the more modest Hotel de la Poste. +Our luncheon was served us in the kitchen, as, shortly before our +arrival, the dining-room had been wrecked by an Austrian shell. Though +this had naturally somewhat upset things, we had a really excellent +meal: <i>minestrone</i>, which, so far as I could discover, is the only +variety of soup known to the Italians, mutton, vegetables, a pudding, +fruit, the best coffee I have had in Europe since the war began, and a +bottle of fine old Austrian wine, which, like the German vintages, is +no longer procurable in the restaurants of <i>civilized</i> Europe. While +we ate, there was a brisk exchange of compliments between the Italian +and Austrian batteries in progress above the roofs of the town. The +table at which we sat was pushed close <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>up against one of the thick +masonry columns which supported the kitchen ceiling. It probably would +not have been much of a protection had a shell chanced to drop in on +us, but it was wonderfully comforting.</p> + +<p>I was accompanied on my visit to Gorizia by Signor Ugo Ojetti, the +noted Florentine connoisseur who has been charged with the +preservation of all the historical monuments and works of art in the +war zone. About this charming and cultured gentleman I was told a +characteristic story. In the outskirts of Gorizia stands the château +of an Austrian nobleman who was the possessor of a famous collection +of paintings. Now it is Signor Ojetti's business to save from injury +or destruction all works of art which are worth saving, and, after +ticketing and cataloguing them, to ship them to a place of safety to +be kept until the war is over, when they will be restored to their +respective owners. Though the château in question was within the +Italian lines, the windows of the ballroom, in which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>hung the best of +the pictures, were within easy range of the Austrian snipers, who, +whenever they saw any one moving about inside, would promptly open a +brisk rifle fire. Scarcely had Ojetti and his assistant set foot +within the room when <i>ping</i> came an Austrian bullet through the +window, shattering the crystal chandelier over their heads. Then was +presented the extraordinary spectacle of the greatest art critic in +Italy crawling on hands and knees over a ballroom floor, taking care +to keep as close to that floor as possible, and pausing now and then +to make a careful scrutiny of the canvases that hung on the walls +above him. "That's probably an Allori," he would call to his +assistant. "Remember to take that down after it gets dark. The one +next to it is good too—looks like a Bordone, though I can't be +certain in this light. But don't bother about that picture over the +fire-place—it's only a copy and not worth saving. Let the Austrians +have it if they want it." <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>And they told me that through it all he +never once lost his dignity or his monocle.</p> + +<p>Another interesting figure who joined our little party in Gorizia was +a monk who had served as a regimental chaplain since the beginning of +the war. He was a broad-shouldered, brown-bearded fellow and, had it +not been for the scarlet cross on the breast of his uniform, I should +have taken him for a fine type of the Italian fighting man. I rather +suspect, though, that when the bugles pealed the signal for the +attack, he quite forgot that the wearers of the Red Cross are supposed +to be non-combatants. During the Austrian offensive in the Trentino, +an Italian army chaplain was awarded the gold medal for valor, the +highest military decoration, because he rallied the men of his +regiment after all the officers had fallen and led them in the +storming of an Austrian position held by a greatly superior force. +Another chaplain who had likewise assumed command of officerless +troops was awarded the silver medal for valor. As <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>the duties of the +army chaplains are supposed to be confined to giving the men spiritual +advice, the doubt arose as to whether they were justified in actually +fighting, thus risking the loss of their character as non-combatants. +This puzzling question was, therefore, submitted to the Pope, who +decided that chaplains assuming command of troops who had lost their +officers in battle were merely discharging their duty, as they +encouraged the men to resist in self-defense. In addition to the +regimental chaplains there are, so I was told, thousands of priests +and monks serving in the ranks of the Italian armies. Whether, after +leading the exciting and adventurous life of a soldier, these men will +be content to resume the sandals and the woollen robe, and to go back +to the sheltered and monotonous existence of the monastic orders, I +very strongly doubt. In any event, their sympathies will have been +deepened and their outlook on life immensely broadened.</p> + +<p>It rained in torrents during my stay in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>Gorizia, but, as we recrossed +the Isonzo onto the Friulian plain, the sinking sun burst through a +rift in the leaden clouds and turned into a huge block of rosy coral +the red rampart of the Carso. Beyond that wall, scarce a dozen miles +as the airplane flies, but many times that distance as the big gun +travels, lies Trieste. It will be a long road, a hard road, a bloody +road which the Italians must follow to attain their City of Desire, +and before that journey is ended the red rocks of the Carso will be +redder still. But they will finish the journey, I think. For these +iron-hard, brown-faced men, remember, are the stuff from which was +made those ever-victorious legions that built the Roman Empire—and it +is the dream of founding another Empire which is beckoning them on.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>V<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>WITH THE RUSSIANS IN CHAMPAGNE</h4> +<br /> + +<p>When the French have been pestered for permission to visit the front +by some foreigner—usually an American—until their patience has been +exhausted, or when there comes to Paris a visitor to whom, for one +reason or another, they wish to show attention, they send him to +Rheims. Artists, architects, ex-ambassadors, ex-congressmen, lady +journalists, manufacturers in quest of war orders, bankers engaged in +floating loans, millionaires who have given or are likely to give +money to war-charities, editors of obscure newspapers and monthly +magazines, are packed off weekly, in personally conducted parties of a +dozen or more, on a day's excursion to the City of the Desecrated +Cathedral. They grow properly indignant over the cathedral's shattered +beauties, they visit the famous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>wine-cellars, they hear the +occasional crack of a rifle or the crash of a field-gun,<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> and, upon +their return, they write articles for the magazines, and give +lectures, and to their friends at home send long letters—usually +copied in the local papers—describing their experiences "on the +firing-line." "Visiting the front" has, indeed, become as popular a +pastime among Americans in Paris as was racing at Longchamps and +Auteuil before the war. Hence, no place in the entire theatre of war +has had so much advertising as Rheims. No sector of the front has been +visited by so many civilians. That is why I am not going to say +anything about Rheims—at least about its cathedral. For there is +nothing left to say.</p> + +<p>Five minutes of brisk walking from the cathedral brings one to the +entrance of the famous wine-cellars of Pommery et Cie, the property of +the ancient family of de Polignac. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>The space in this underground city +is about equally divided between champagne and civilians, for several +hundred of the townspeople, who sought refuge here in the opening +weeks of the war, still make these gloomy passages their home. As the +<i>caves</i> have a mean temperature of fifty degrees Fahrenheit they are +comfortable enough, and, as they are fifty feet below the surface of +the earth, they are safe. So there the more timid citizens live, +rent-free, and will continue to live, no doubt, until the end of the +war. In normal times, there are shipped from these cellars each day +thirty thousand bottles of champagne, and even now, despite the +proximity of the Germans—their trenches are only a few hundred yards +away—the work of packing and shipping goes on much as usual, though, +of course, on a greatly reduced scale, averaging, so I was told, eight +thousand bottles daily. By far the greater part of this goes to +America, for nowadays Europeans do not buy champagne.</p> + +<p>To the red-faced, white-waistcoated, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>prosperous-looking gentlemen who +scan so carefully the hotel wine-lists, I feel sure that it will come +as a relief to learn that, though there was no 1916 crop of champagne, +the vintages of 1914 and 1915 were exceptionally fine—<i>grands vins</i> +they will probably be labelled. (And they ought to be, for the vines +were watered with the bravest blood of France.) I don't suppose it +would particularly interest those same complacent gentlemen, though, +were I to add that the price of one of those gilt-topped bottles would +keep a French child from cold and hunger for a month.</p> + +<p>A few hours before I visited the cellars, a workman, loading cases of +champagne in front of the company's offices for export to the United +States, was blown to pieces by a German shell. They showed me the +shattered columns of the office-building, and on the cobbles of the +little square pointed out an ugly stain. So, when I returned to +America, and in a famous restaurant, where I was dining, saw +white-shirted men and white-shouldered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>women sipping glasses abrim +with the sparkling wine of Rheims, the picture of those blood-stained +cobbles in that French city flashed before me, and I experienced a +momentary sensation of disgust, for it seemed to me that in the amber +depths I caught a stain of crimson. But of course it was only my +imagination. Still, I was glad when it came time to leave, for the +scene was too suggestive in its contrast to be pleasant: we, in +America, eating and drinking and laughing; they, over there in Europe, +fighting and suffering and hungering.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Leaving Rheims, we took a great gray car and drove south, ever south, +until, as darkness was falling, we reached the headquarters of General +Jilinsky, commanding the Russian forces fighting in Champagne. Here +the Russians have two infantry brigades, with a total of 16,000 men; +there is a third brigade at Salonika. The last time the Russians were +in France was in 1814, and then they were there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>for a different +purpose. Little could Napoleon have dreamed that they, who helped to +dethrone him, would come back, a century later, as France's allies. +Yet this war has produced stranger coincidences than that. The British +armies, disembarking at Rouen, tramp through that very square where +their ancestors burned the Maid of Orleans. And at Pont des Briques, +outside Boulogne, where Napoleon waited impatiently for weeks in the +hope of being able to invade England, is now situated the greatest of +the British base camps.</p> + +<p>General Jilinsky reminded me of a fighting-cock. He is a little man, +much the height and build of the late General Funston, with hair +cropped close to the skull, after the Russian fashion; through a +buttonhole of his green service tunic was drawn the orange-and-black +ribbon of the Order of St. George. He can best be described as "a live +wire." His staff-officers impressed me as being as efficient and +razor-keen as their chief. The general asked me if I would like to +visit his trenches, and I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>assured him that it was the hope of being +permitted to do so which had brought me there. Whereupon a +staff-officer disappeared into the hall to return a moment later with +a gas-mask in a tin case and a steel helmet covered with tan linen.</p> + +<p>"You had better take these with you," he said. "There is nearly always +something happening on our front, and there is no sense in taking +unnecessary risks."</p> + +<p>I soon found that the precaution was not an idle one, for, as our car +drew up at the entrance to the <i>boyau</i> which led by devious windings +into the first-line trenches, the group of officers and men assembled +in front of brigade headquarters were hastily donning their masks: +grotesque-looking contrivances of metal, cloth, and rubber, which in +shape resembled a pig's snout.</p> + +<p>"Gas," said my Russian companion briefly. "We will stay here until it +is over."</p> + +<p>Though we must have been nearly a mile behind the firing-line, the air +was filled with a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>sweetish, sickish smell which suggested both the +operating-room and the laboratory. So faint and elusive was the odor +that I hesitated to follow the example of the others and don my mask, +until I remembered having been told at Souchez, on the British front, +that a horse had been killed by gas when seven miles behind the lines.</p> + +<p>It is a logical development of this use of chemicals as weapons that +the horses in use on the French front are now provided with gas-masks +in precisely the same manner as the soldiers. These masks, which are +kept attached to the harness, ready for instant use, do not cover the +entire face, as do those worn by the men, but only the mouth and +nostrils. In fact they resemble the feeding-bags which cartmen and +cab-drivers put on their horses for the midday meal. Generally +speaking, the masks are provided only for artillery horses and those +employed in hauling ammunition, though it now seems likely that if the +cavalry gets a chance to go into action, masks will be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>worn by the +troopers and their horses alike. After a large gas attack the fumes +sometimes settle down in the valleys far behind the lines, and hours +may elapse before they are dissipated by the wind. As it not +infrequently happens that one of these gas banks settles over a road +on which it is imperative that the traffic be not interrupted, large +signs are posted notifying all drivers to put the masks on their +horses before entering the danger zone.</p> + +<p>There are now three different kinds of gases in general use on the +Western Front. The best known of these is a form of chlorine gas, +which is liberated from cylinders or flasks, to be carried by the wind +over the enemy's lines. Contrary to the popular impression, its use is +not as general as the newspaper accounts have led the public to +believe, for it requires elaborate preparation, can only be employed +over comparatively flat ground, and then only when the wind is of +exactly the right velocity, neither too light nor too strong. Another +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>form of asphyxiating gas is held in shells in liquid form, usually in +lead containers. Upon the bursting of the shell, which is fired from +an ordinary field-gun, the liquid rapidly evaporates and liberates the +gas, a few inhalations of which are sufficient to cause death. The +third type consists of lachrymal, or tear-producing, gas, which is +used in the same way as the asphyxiating, but its effects are not +fatal, merely putting a man out of action for a few hours. It is +really, however, the most efficacious of the three types, as it does +not evaporate as readily as the asphyxiating gas. As a well +distributed fire of lachrymal shells will form a screen of gas which +will last for several hours, they are often used during an attack to +prevent the enemy from bringing up reinforcements. Another use is +against artillery positions, the clouds of gas from the lachrymal +shells making it almost impossible for the men to serve the guns. I +was also told of these shells having been used with great success to +surround the headquarters of a divisional <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>commander, disabling him +and his entire staff during an attack.</p> + +<p>Before a change in the wind dissipated the last odors of gas, darkness +had fallen. "Now," said my cicerone, "we will resume our trip to the +trenches." The last time that I had seen these trenches, which the +Russians are now holding, was in October, 1915, during the great +French offensive in Champagne, when I had visited them within a few +hours after their capture by the French. On that occasion they had +been so pounded by the French artillery that they were little more +than giant furrows in the chalky soil, and thickly strewn along those +furrows was all the horrid garbage of a battlefield: twisted and +tangled barbed wire, splintered planks, shattered rifles, broken +machine-guns, unexploded hand-grenades, knapsacks, water-bottles, +pieces of uniforms, bits of leather, and, most horrible of all, the +remains of what had once been human beings. But all this débris had +long since been cleared away. Under the skilful hands of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>Russians +the rebuilt trenches had taken on a neat and orderly appearance. The +earthen walls had been revetted with wire chicken-netting, and instead +of tramping through ankle-deep mud, we had beneath our feet neat walks +of corduroy. We tramped for what seemed interminable miles in the +darkness, always zig-zagging. Now and then we would come upon little +fires, discreetly screened, built at the entrances to dugouts burrowed +from the trench-walls. Over these fires soldiers in flat caps and +belted greatcoats were cooking their evening meal. I had expected to +see unkempt men wearing sheepskin caps, men with flat noses and matted +beards, but instead I found clean-shaven, splendidly set-up giants, +with the pink skins that come from perfect cleanliness and perfect +health. Following the direction of the arrows on signs printed in both +French and Russian, we at last reached the fire-trench, where dim +figures looking strangely mediæval in their steel helmets, crouched +motionless, peering out along their rifle-barrels into the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>eerie +darkness of No Man's Land. Here there was a sporadic illumination, for +from the German trenches in front of us lights were rising and +falling. They were very beautiful: slender stems of fire arching +skyward to burst into blossoms of brilliant sparks, which illuminated +the band of shell-pocked soil between the trenches as though it were +day. Occasionally there would be a dozen of these star-shells in the +air at the same time: they reminded me of the Fourth of July fireworks +at Manhattan Beach. In the fire-trenches there is no talking save in +whispers, but every now and then the almost uncanny silence would be +punctuated by the sharp crack of a rifle, the <i>tut-tut-tut</i> of a +mitrailleuse, or, from somewhere in the distance, the angry bark of a +field-gun.</p> + +<p>There was a whispered conversation between the officer in command of +the trench and my guide. The latter turned to me.</p> + +<p>"We have driven a sap to within thirty metres of the enemy," he said, +"and have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>established a listening-post out there. Would you care to +go out to it?"</p> + +<p>I would, and said so.</p> + +<p>"No talking, then, if you please," he warned me, "and as little noise +as possible."</p> + +<p>This time the <i>boyau</i> was very narrow, and writhed between its earthen +walls like a dying snake. We advanced on tiptoe, as cautiously as +though stalking big game—as, indeed, we were. Ten minutes of this +slow and tortuous progress brought us to the <i>poste d'écoute</i>. In a +space the size of a hall bedroom half a score of men stood in +attitudes of strained expectancy, staring into the blackness through +the loopholes in their steel shields. There being no loophole vacant, +I took a chance and, standing on the firing step, raised my head above +the level of the parapet and made a hurried survey of the few yards of +No Man's Land which separated us from the enemy—a space so narrow +that I could have thrown a stone across, yet more impassable than the +deepest chasm. I was rewarded for the risk <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>by getting a glimpse of a +dim maze of wire entanglements, and, just beyond, a darker bulk which +I knew for the German trench. And I knew that from that trench sharp +eyes were peering out into the darkness toward us just as we were +trying to discern them. As I stepped down from my somewhat exposed +position a soldier standing a few feet farther along the line raised +<i>his</i> head above the parapet, as though to relieve his cramped +muscles. Just then a star-shell burst above us, turning the trench +into day. <i>Ping!!!</i> There was a ringing metallic sound, as when a +22-caliber bullet strikes the target in a shooting-gallery, and the +big soldier who had incautiously exposed himself crumpled up in the +bottom of the trench with a bullet through his helmet and through his +brain. The young officer in command of the listening-post cursed +softly. "I'm forever warning the men not to expose themselves," he +said irritatedly, "but they forget it the next minute. They're nothing +but stupid children." He spoke in much the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>same tone of annoyance he +might have used if the man had been a clumsy servant who had broken a +valuable dish. Then he went into the tiny dugout where the telephone +was, and rang up the trench commander, and asked him to send out a +bearer, for the <i>boyau</i> communicating with the listening-post was too +narrow to admit the passage of a stretcher. The bearer arrived just as +we started to return. He was a regular dray-horse of a man, with +shoulders as massive and competent as those of a Constantinople +<i>hamel</i>. Strapped to his back by a sort of harness was a contrivance +which looked like a rude armchair with the legs cut off. His comrades +hoisted the dead man onto the back of the live man, and with a rope +took a few turns about the bodies of both. As we made our slow way +back to the fire-trench, and so to the rear, there stumbled at our +heels the grunting porter with his ghastly burden. Now and then I +would glance over my shoulder and, in the fleeting glare of the +star-shells, would glimpse, above the porter's straining <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>shoulders, +the head of the dead soldier lolling inertly from side to side, as +though very, very tired.... And I wondered if in some lonely cabin by +the Volga a woman was praying for her boy.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<hr style='width: 15%;' /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Since this was written the Germans have bombarded Rheims +so heavily, with the evident intention of completing its destruction, +that the French military authorities have ordered the evacuation of +the civil population.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>VI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>"THEY SHALL NOT PASS!"</h4> +<br /> + +<p>General Gouraud, the one-armed hero of Gallipoli, who commands the +forces in Champagne, is the most picturesque and gallant figure in all +the armies of France. On my way south I stopped for a night in +Chalons-sur-Marne to dine with him. He was living in a comfortable but +modest house, evidently the residence of a prosperous tradesman. When +I arrived I found the small and rather barely furnished salon filled +with officers of the staff, in uniforms of the beautiful horizon blue +which is the universal dress of the French army. They were clustered +about the marble-topped centre-table, on which, I imagine, the family +Bible used to rest, but which now held the steel base of a +380-centimetre shell, which had fallen in a near-by village that +afternoon. This monster projectile, as large as the largest <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>of those +fired by our coast-defense guns, must have weighed considerably more +than a thousand pounds and doubtless cost the Germans at least a +thousand dollars, yet all the damage it had done was to destroy a +tumble-down and uninhabited cottage, which proves that, save against +permanent fortifications, there is a point where the usefulness of +these abnormally large guns ceases. While we were discussing this +specimen of Bertha Krupp's handicraft, the door opened and General +Gouraud entered the room. Seldom have I seen a more striking figure: a +tall, slender, graceful man, with a long, brown, spade-shaped beard +which did not entirely conceal a mouth both sensitive and firm. But it +was the eyes which attracted and held one's attention: great, lustrous +eyes, as large and tender as a woman's, but which could on occasion, I +fancy, become cold as steel, or angry as lightning. One sleeve of his +tunic hung empty, and he leaned heavily on a cane, for during the +landing at Gallipoli he was terribly wounded by a Turkish shell. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>Covering his breast were glittering stars and crosses, which showed +how brilliant had been his services in this and other wars. He is a +remarkable man, this soldier with the beard of a <i>poilu</i> and the eyes +of a poet, and, unless I am greatly mistaken, he is destined to go a +long, long way.</p> + +<p>It was the sort of dinner that one marks with a white milestone on the +road of memory. The soldier-servants wore white-cotton gloves and +there were flowers on the table and menus with quaint little military +sketches in the corners. General Gouraud talked in his deep, melodious +voice of other wars in which he had fought, in Annam and Morocco and +Madagascar, and the white-mustached old general of artillery at my +left illustrated, with the aid of the knives and forks, a new system +of artillery fire, which, he assured me very earnestly, would make +pudding of the German trenches. While the salad was being served one +of the staff-officers was called to the telephone. When he returned +the general raised inquiring <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>eyebrows. "<i>N'importe, mon général</i>," he +answered. "Colonel —— telephoned that the Boches attacked in force +south of ——" and he named a certain sector, "but that we have driven +them back with heavy losses." Then he resumed his interrupted dinner +as unconcernedly as though he had been called to the telephone to be +told that the Braves had defeated the Pirates in the ninth inning.</p> + +<p>While we were at breakfast the next morning the windows of the hotel +dining-room suddenly began to reverberate to the <i>bang-bang-bang</i> of +guns. Going to the door, we saw, high overhead, a great white bird, +which turned to silver when touched by the rays of the morning sun. +Though shrapnel bursts were all about it—I counted thirty of the +fleecy puffs at one time—it sailed serenely on, a thing of delicate +beauty against the cloudless blue. Though few airplanes are brought +down by artillery fire, the improvement in anti-aircraft guns has +forced the aviators to keep at a height of from 12,000 to 17,000 feet, +instead of 2,000, as they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>did at the beginning of the war. The French +gunners have now devised a system which, when it is successfully +executed, makes things extremely uncomfortable for the enemy aviator. +This system consists in so gauging the fire of the anti-aircraft guns +that the airman finds himself in a "box" of shrapnel; that is, one +shell is timed to burst directly in front of the machine, another +behind it, one above, one below, and one on either side. The +dimensions of this "box" of bursting shrapnel are gradually made +smaller, so that, unless the aviator recognizes his danger in time, +escape becomes impossible, and he is done for. Occasionally an +aviator, finding himself caught in such a death-trap, pretends that he +has been hit, and lets his machine flutter helplessly earthward, like +a wounded bird, until the gunners, believing themselves certain of +their prey, cease firing, whereupon the airman skilfully "catches" +himself, and, straightening the planes of his machine, goes soaring +off to safety. Navarre, one of the most daring of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>the French fliers, +so perfected himself in the execution of this hazardous ruse that he +would let go of the controls and permit his machine to literally fall, +sometimes from a height of a mile or more, making no attempt at +recovery until within sixty metres of the ground, when he would save +himself by a hawk-like swoop in which his wheels would actually graze +the earth.</p> + +<p>The organization of the French air service, with its system of +airplane and seaplane squadrons, dirigibles and observation balloons, +schools, repair-shops, and manufactories, is entirely an outgrowth of +the war. The airplanes are organized in <i>escadrilles</i>, usually +composed of ten machines each, for three distinct purposes. The +bombardment squadrons are made up of slow machines with great carrying +capacity, such as the Voisin; the pursuit or battle squadrons—the +<i>escadrilles de chasse</i>—are composed of small and very fast 'planes, +such as the Spad and Nieuport; while the general utility squadrons, +used for reconnoissance, artillery regulation, and photographing, +usually <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>consist of medium-speed, two-passenger machines like the +Farman and the Caudron.</p> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep160" id="imagep160"></a> +<a href="images/imagep160.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep160.jpg" width="90%" alt=""Halt! Show Your Papers!"" /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">"<i>Halt!</i> Show Your Papers!"<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">On the roads in the war zone there are sentries at frequent intervals +and they are all suspicious.</p> +</div> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep161" id="imagep161"></a> +<a href="images/imagep161.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep161.jpg" width="90%" alt="A Nieuport Biplane About to Take the Air." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">A Nieuport Biplane About to Take the Air.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">The pursuit or battle squadrons—the <i>escadrilles de chasse</i>—are +composed of small and very fast planes, such as the Spad and +Nieuport.</p> +</div> + +<p>Until very recently the Nieuport biplane, which can attain a speed of +one hundred and ten miles an hour, has been considered the fastest and +most efficient, as it is the smallest, of the French battle-planes, +but it is now out-speeded by the new Spad<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> machine, which has +reached a speed of over one hundred and twenty miles an hour, and of +which great hopes are entertained. The Spad, like the Nieuport, is a +one-man apparatus, the machine-gun mounted on its upper plane being +fired by the pilot with one hand, while with the other hand and his +feet he operates his controls. On the "tractors," as the airplanes +having the propellers in front are called, the machine-guns are +synchronized so as to fire between the whirling blades. Garros, the +famous French flier, was the first man to perfect a device for firing +a machine-gun through a propeller. He armored the blades so that if +struck by a bullet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>they would not be injured. This was greatly +improved upon by the Germans in the Fokker type, the fire of the +machine-guns being automatically regulated so that it is never +discharged when a blade of the propeller is directly in front of the +muzzle. Since then various forms of this device have been adapted by +all the belligerents. Another novel development of aerial warfare is +the miniature wireless-sending apparatus with which most of the +observation and artillery regulation machines are now equipped, thus +enabling the observers to keep in constant touch with the ground. In +addition to developing the fastest possible battle-planes, the French +are making efforts to build more formidable craft for bombing +purposes. The latest of these is a Voisin triplane, which has a total +lifting capacity of two tons, carries a crew of five men, and is +driven by four propellers, each operated by a 210-horse-power +Hispana-Suiza motor. These new motors weigh only about two hundred +kilograms, or a little over two pounds per horse-power.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>During the past year the French have made most of their raids by +nights. One reason for this is that raiding craft, which are +comparatively slow machines, are so heavily laden with bombs that they +are only able to perform straight flying and hence are easily brought +down by the fast and quick-turning battle-planes. Daylight raids, +moreover, necessitate an escorting fleet of fighting craft in order to +protect the bombing machines, just as a dreadnought has to be +protected by a screen of destroyers. Though the dangers of flying are +considerably increased by darkness, the French believe this is more +than compensated for by the fact that, being comparatively safe from +attack by enemy aircraft or from the fire of anti-aircraft guns, the +raiders can fly at a much lower altitude and consequently have a much +better chance of hitting their targets.</p> + +<p>One of the extremely important uses to which airplanes are now put is +the destruction of the enemy's observation balloons, on which he +depends for the regulation of his artillery <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>fire. An airplane which +is to be used for this work is specially fitted with a number of +rocket tubes which project in all directions, so that it looks like a +pipe-organ gone on a spree. The rockets, which are fired by means of a +keyboard not unlike that of a clavier, are loaded with a composition +containing a large percentage of phosphorus and are fitted with gangs +of barbed hooks. If the rocket hits the balloon these hooks catch in +the envelope and hold it there, while the phosphorus bursts into a +flame which it is impossible to extinguish. During the fighting before +Verdun, eight French aviators, driving machines thus equipped, were +ordered to attack eight German balloons. Six of the balloons were +destroyed.</p> + +<p>But the very last word in aeronautical development is what might be +called, for want of a better term, an aerial submarine. I refer to +seaplanes carrying in clips beneath the fuselage specially constructed +18-inch torpedoes. In the under side of this type of torpedo is an +opening. When the torpedo is dropped <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>into the sea the water, pouring +into this opening, sets the propelling mechanism in motion and the +projectile goes tearing away on its errand of destruction precisely as +though fired from the torpedo-tube of a submarine. It may be recalled +that some months ago the papers printed an account of a Turkish +transport, loaded with soldiers, having been torpedoed in the Sea of +Marmora, the accepted explanation being that a submarine had succeeded +in making its way through the Dardanelles. As a matter of fact, that +transport was sunk by a torpedo dropped from the air! The pilot of a +Short seaplane had winged his way over the Gallipoli Peninsula, had +sighted the troop-laden transport steaming across the Marmora Sea, +and, volplaning down until he was only twenty-five feet above the +water and a few hundred yards from the doomed vessel, had jerked the +lever which released the torpedo. As it struck the water its machinery +was automatically set going, something that looked like a giant cigar +went streaking through the waves <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>... there was a shattering +explosion, and when the smoke cleared away the transport had +disappeared. Whereupon the airman, his mission accomplished, flew back +to his base in the Ægean. There may be stranger developments of the +war than that, but if so I have not heard of them.</p> + +<p>France is now (April, 1917) turning out between eight hundred and a +thousand completely equipped airplanes a month, but a considerable +proportion of these are for the use of her allies. I have asked many +persons who ought to know how many airplanes France has in commission, +and, though the replies varied considerably, I should say that she has +at present somewhere between five thousand and seven thousand machines +in or ready to take the air.<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a></p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Leaving Chalons in the gray dawn of a winter's morn, we fled southward +again, through <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>Bar-le-Duc (the place, you know, where the jelly comes +from) the words "<i>Caves voutés</i>" chalked on the doors of those +buildings having vaulted cellars showing that air raids were of +frequent occurrence, and so, through steadily increasing traffic, to +Souilly, the obscure hamlet from which was directed the defense of +Verdun. In the centre of the cobble-paved Grande Place stood the +Mairie, a two-story building in the uncompromising style +characteristic of most French provincial architecture. At the foot of +the steps stood two sentries in mud-caked uniforms and dented helmets, +and through the front door flowed an endless stream of staff-officers, +orderlies, messengers, and mud-spattered despatch riders. In this +village <i>mairie</i>, a score of miles behind the firing-line, were +centred the nerve and vascular systems of an army of half a million +men; here was planned and directed the greatest battle of all time. On +the upper floor, in a large, light, scantily furnished room, a man +with a great silver star on the breast of his light-blue tunic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>sat at +a table, bent over a map. He had rather sparse gray hair and a gray +mustache and a little tuft of gray below the lower lip. His eyes were +sunken and tired-looking, as though from lack of sleep, and his face +and forehead were deeply lined, but he gave the impression, +nevertheless, of possessing immense vitality and energy. He was a +broad-shouldered, solidly built, four-square sort of man, with cool, +level eyes, and a quiet, almost taciturn manner. It was General Robert +Nivelle, the man who held Verdun for France. He it was who, when the +fortress was quivering beneath the Germans' sledge-hammer blows, had +quietly remarked: "They shall not pass!" <i>And they did not.</i></p> + +<p>I did not remain long with General Nivelle; to have taken much of such +a man's time would have been a rank impertinence. I would go to +Verdun? he inquired. Yes, with his permission, I answered. Everything +had been arranged, he assured me. An officer who knew America +well—Commandant Bunau-Varilla, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>of Panama Canal fame—had been +assigned to go with me.<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> As I was leaving I attempted to express to +him the admiration which I felt for the fashion in which he had +conducted the Great Defense. But with a gesture he waved the +compliment aside. "It is the men out there in the trenches who should +be thanked," he said. "They are the ones who are holding Verdun." I +took away with me the impression of a man as stanch, as confident, as +unconquerable as the city he had so heroically defended. A few weeks +later he was to succeed Marshal Joffre to the highest field command in +the gift of the French Government.</p> + +<p>It is twenty miles from Souilly to Verdun, and the road has come to be +known as La Voie Sacré—the Sacred Way—because on the uninterrupted +flow of ammunition and supplies over that road depended the safety of +the fortress. Three thousand men with picks and shovels, working day +and night, kept the road <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>in condition to bear up under the enormous +volume of traffic. The railway to Verdun was so repeatedly cut by +German shells that the French built a narrow-gauge line, which +zig-zags over the hills. Beside the road, at frequent intervals, I +noted cisterns and watering-troughs, and huge overhead water-tanks; +for an army—men, horses, and motor-cars—is incredibly thirsty. This +elaborate water system is the work of Major Bunau-Varilla, who, +fittingly enough, is the head of the <i>Service d'Eau des Armées</i>.</p> + +<p>Half a dozen miles out of Souilly we crossed the watershed between the +Seine and the Rhine and were in the valley of the Meuse. On the other +side of yonder hill, whence came a constant muttering of cannon, was, +I knew, the Unconquerable City.</p> + +<p>While yet Verdun itself was out of sight, we came, quite unexpectedly, +upon one of its mightiest defenders: a 400-millimetre gun mounted on a +railway-truck. So streaked and striped and splashed and mottled with +many <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>colors was it that, monster though it was, it escaped my notice +until we were almost upon it. Suddenly a score or more of grimy men, +its crew, came pelting down the track, as subway laborers run for +shelter when a blast is about to be set off. A moment later came a +mighty bellow; from the up-turned nose of the monster burst a puff of +smoke pierced by a tongue of flame, and an invisible express-train +went roaring eastward in the direction of the German lines. This was +the mighty weapon of which I had heard rumors but had never seen: the +great 16-inch howitzer with which the French had so pounded Fort +Douaumont as to cause its evacuation by the Germans.</p> + +<p>The French artillerists were such firm believers in the superiority of +light over heavy artillery, and pinned such faith to their 75's, that +they had paid scant attention to the question of heavy mobile guns. +Hence when the German tidal wave rolled Parisward in 1914, the only +heavy artillery possessed by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>French consisted of a very few +4.2-inch Creusot guns of a model adopted just prior to the war, and a +limited number of batteries of 4.8-inch and 6.1-inch guns and +howitzers; all of them, save only the 6.1-inch Rimailho howitzer of +1904, being models twenty to forty years old. These pieces were, of +course, vastly outclassed in range and smashing power by the heavy +guns of the Central Powers, such as the German 420's (the famous +"42's") and the Austrian 380's. Undismayed, however, the French set +energetically to work to make up their deficiencies. As it takes time +to manufacture guns, large numbers of naval pieces were pressed into +service, most of them being mounted on railway-trucks, thus insuring +extreme mobility. The German 42's, I might mention in passing, lack +this very essential quality, as they can be fired only from specially +built concrete bases, from which they cannot readily be moved. The two +German 42's which pounded to pieces the barrier forts of Antwerp were +mounted on concrete platforms <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>behind a railway embankment near +Malines, where they remained throughout the siege of the city.</p> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep172" id="imagep172"></a> +<a href="images/imagep172.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep172.jpg" width="90%" alt="Verdun's Mightiest Defender: a 400-mm. Gun." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">Verdun's Mightiest Defender: a 400-mm. Gun.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">This was the great 16-inch weapon with which the French so pounded +Fort Douaumont as to cause its evacuation by the Germans.</p> +</div> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep173" id="imagep173"></a> +<a href="images/imagep173.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep173.jpg" width="90%" alt="A Gun Painted to Escape the Observation of Enemy Airmen." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">A Gun Painted to Escape the Observation of Enemy +Airmen.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">"So streaked and striped and splashed and mottled with many colors was +it that, monster though it was, it escaped my notice until we were +almost upon it."</p> +</div> + +<p>Some idea may be had of the variety of artillery in use on the French +front when I mention that there are at least eleven calibers of guns, +howitzers, and mortars, ranging in size from 9 inches to 20.8 inches, +in action between Switzerland and the Somme. All of these, with a very +few exceptions, are mounted on railway-trucks. In fact, the only large +calibered piece not thus mounted is the Schneider mortar, a very +efficient weapon, having a remarkably smooth recoil, which has a range +of over six miles. It is transported, with its carriage and platform, +in six loads, each weighing from four to five tons, about four hours +being required to set up the piece ready for firing. Nearly all of +these railway guns are, I understand, naval or coast-defense pieces, +some of them being long-range weapons cut down to form howitzers or +mortars, while others have been created by boring to a larger caliber +a gun <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>whose rifling had been worn out in use. For example, the +400-millimetre, already referred to as having proved so effective +against Douaumont, was, I am told, made by cutting down and boring out +a 13.6-inch naval gun. But the master gun, the very latest product of +French brains and French foundries, is the huge 520-millimetre +(20.8-inch) howitzer which has just been completed at the Schneider +works at Creusot. This, the largest gun in existence, has a length of +16 calibers (that is, sixteen times its bore, or approximately 28 +feet), and weighs 60 tons. It fires a shell 7 feet long, weighing +nearly 3,000 pounds, and carrying a bursting charge of 660 pounds of +high explosive. Its range is 18 kilometres, or a little over eleven +miles, though this can probably be increased if desired. This is +France's answer to the German 42's, and, just as the latter shattered +the forts of Liége, Antwerp, and Namur, so these new French titans +will, it is confidently believed, humble the pride of Metz and +Strasbourg.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>So insistent has been the demand from the front for big guns, and yet +more big guns, that new batteries are being formed every day. +Generally speaking, the French plan is to assign short-range howitzers +and mortars to the division; the longer range, horse-drawn +guns—<i>hippomobile</i> the French designate them—to the army corps; +while the tractor-drawn pieces and those mounted on railway-carriages +are placed directly under the orders of the chief of artillery of each +army.</p> + +<p>A new, and in many respects one of the most effective weapons produced +by the war is the trench mortar. These light and mobile weapons, of +which the French have at least four calibers, ranging from +58-millimetres to 340-millimetres, are under the direction of the +artillery, and should not be confused with the various types of +bomb-throwers, which are operated by the infantry. The latest +development in trench weapons is the Van Deuren mortar, which takes +its name from the Belgian officer who is its inventor. Its chief +peculiarity lies in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>fact that its barrel consists of a solid core +instead of a hollow tube like all other guns. Attached to the base of +the shell is a hollow winged shaft which fits over the core of the +gun, the desired range being obtained by varying the length of the +powder-chamber: that is, the distance between the end of the barrel +and the base of the shell proper. The gun is fired at a fixed +elevation, and is so small and light that it can readily be moved and +set up by a couple of men in a few minutes. In no branch of the +artillery has such advancement been made as in the trench mortars, +which have now attained almost as great a degree of accuracy as the +field-gun. Such great importance is attached to the trench mortars by +the Italians that they have formed them into a distinct arm of the +service, entirely independent of the artillery, the officers of the +trench-mortar batteries, who are drawn from the cavalry, being trained +at a special school.</p> + +<p>The city of Verdun, or rather the blackened ruins which are all that +remain of it, stands in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>the centre of a great valley which is shaped +not unlike a platter. Down this valley, splitting the city in half, +meanders the River Meuse. The houses of Verdun, like those of so many +mediæval cities, are clustered about the foot of a great fortified +rock. From this rock Vauban, at the order of Louis XIV, blasted +ramparts and battlements. To meet the constantly changing conditions +of warfare, later generations of engineers gradually honeycombed the +rock with passages, tunnels, magazines, store-rooms, halls, and +casemates, a veritable labyrinth of them, thus creating the present +Citadel of Verdun. Then, because the city and its citadel lie in the +middle of a valley dominated by hills—like a lump of sugar in the +middle of a platter—upon those hills was built a chain of barrier +forts: La Chaume, Tavannes, Thiaumont, Vaux, Douaumont, and others. +But when, at Liége and Namur, at Antwerp and Maubeuge, the Germans +proved conclusively that no forts could long withstand the battering +of their heavy guns, the French <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>took instant profit by the lesson. +They promptly left the citadel and the forts nearest to it and +established themselves in trenches on the surrounding hills, taking +with them their artillery. This trench-line ran through certain of the +small outlying forts, such as Tavannes, Thiaumont, Douaumont, and +Vaux, and that is why you have read in the papers so much of the +desperate fighting about them. Thus the much-talked-of fortress of +Verdun was no longer a fortress at all, but merely a sector in that +battle-line which extends from the Channel to the Alps. Barring its +historic associations, and the moral effect which its fall might have +in France and abroad, its capture by the Germans would have had no +more strategic importance, if as much, than if the French line had +been bent back for a few miles at Rheims, or Soissons, or Thann. The +Vauban citadel in the city became merely an advanced headquarters, a +telephone exchange, a supply station, a sort of central office, from +the safety of whose subterranean casemates General <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>Dubois, the +commander of the city, directed the execution of the orders which he +received from General Nivelle at Souilly, twenty miles away. Though +the citadel's massive walls have resisted the terrific bombardments to +which it has been subjected, it has neither guns nor garrison: they +are far out on the trench-line beyond the encircling hills. It has, in +fact, precisely the same relation to the defense of the Verdun sector +that Governor's Island has to the defense of New York. This it is +important that you should keep in mind. It should also be remembered +that Verdun was held not for strategic but for political and +sentimental reasons. The French military chiefs, as soon as they +learned of the impending German offensive, favored the evacuation of +the city, whose defense, they argued, would necessitate the sacrifice +of thousands of lives without any corresponding strategic benefit. But +the heads of the Government in Paris looked at things from a different +point of view. They realized that, no matter how negligible <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>was its +military value, the people of other countries, and, indeed, the French +people themselves, believed that Verdun was a great fortress; they +knew that its capture by the Germans would be interpreted by the world +as a French disaster and that the morale of the French people, and +French prestige abroad, would suffer accordingly. So, at the eleventh +hour and fifty-ninth minute, when the preparations for evacuating the +city were all but complete, imperative word was flashed from Paris +that it must be held. And it was. Costly though the defense has been, +the result has justified it. The Crown Prince lost what little +military reputation he possessed—if he had any to lose; his armies +lost 600,000 men in dead and wounded; and the world was shown that +German guns and German bayonets, no matter how overwhelming in number, +cannot break down the steel walls of France.</p> + +<p>It was my great good fortune, when the fate of Verdun still hung in +the balance, to visit the city and to lunch with General Dubois <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>and +his staff in the citadel. Though the valor of the French infantry kept +the Germans from entering Verdun, nothing could prevent the entrance +of their shells. Seven hundred fell in one day. Not a single house in +a city of 40,000 inhabitants remains intact. The place looks as though +it had been visited simultaneously by the San Francisco earthquake, +the Baltimore fire, and the Johnstown flood. But once in the shelter +of the citadel and we were safe. Though German shells of large caliber +were falling in the city at frequent intervals, the casemate in which +we lunched was so far beneath the surface of the earth that the sound +of the explosions did not reach us. It was as though we were lunching +in a New York subway station: a great, vaulted, white-tiled room +aglare with electric lights. We sat with General Dubois and the +members of his immediate staff at a small table close to the huge +range on which the cooking was being done, while down the middle of +the room stretched one of the longest tables I have ever seen, at +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>which upward of a hundred officers—and one civilian—were eating. +This lone civilian was a <i>commissaire</i> of police, and the sole +representative of the city's civil population. When the Tsar bestowed +the Cross of St. George on the city in recognition of its heroic +defense, it was to this policeman, the only civilian who remained, +that the Russian representative handed the badge of the famous order.</p> + +<p>The <i>déjeuner</i>, though simple, was as well cooked and well served as +though we were seated in a Paris restaurant instead of in a besieged +fortress. And the first course was fresh lobster! I told General +Dubois that my friends at home would raise their eyebrows +incredulously when I told them this, whereupon he took a menu—for +they had menus—and across it wrote his name and "Citadel de Verdun," +and the date. "Perhaps that will convince them," he said, passing it +to me. By this I do not mean to imply that the French commanders live +in luxury. Far from it! But, though their food is very simple, it is +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>always well cooked (which is very far from being the case in our own +army), and it is appetizingly served whenever circumstances permit.</p> + +<p>After luncheon, under the guidance of the general, I made the rounds +of the citadel. Here, so far beneath the earth as to be safe from even +the largest shells, was the telephone-room, the nerve-centre of the +whole complicated system of defense, with a switchboard larger than +those in the "central office" of many an American city. By means of +the thousands of wires focussed in that little underground room, +General Dubois was enabled to learn in an instant what was transpiring +at Douaumont or Tavannes or Vaux; he could pass on the information +thus obtained to General Nivelle at Souilly; or he could talk direct +to the Ministry of War, in Paris. I might add that one of the most +difficult problems met with in this war has been the maintenance of +communications during an attack. The telephone is the means most +generally relied <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>upon, but in spite of multiplying the number of +lines, they are all usually put out of commission during the +preliminary bombardment, the wires connecting the citadel with Fort +Douaumont and Fort de Vaux, for example, being repeatedly destroyed. +For this reason several alternative means of communication have always +to be provided, among these being flares and light-balls, +carrier-pigeons, of which the French make considerable use, and +optical signalling apparatus, this last method having been found the +most effective. Sometimes small wireless outfits are used when the +conditions permit. On a few occasions trained dogs have been used to +send back messages, but, the pictures in the illustrated papers to the +contrary, they have not proven a success. In the final resort, the +most ancient method of all—the despatch bearer or runner—has still +very frequently to be employed, making his hazardous trips on a +motor-cycle when he can, on foot when he must.</p> + +<p>In the room next to the telephone bureau <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>a dozen clerks were at work +and typewriters were clicking busily; had it not been for the uniforms +one might have taken the place for the office of a large and busy +corporation, as, in a manner of speaking, it was. On another level +were the bakeries which supplied the bread for the troops in the +trenches; enormous storerooms filled with supplies of every +description; an admirably equipped hospital with every cot occupied, +usually by a "shrapnel case"; a flag-trimmed hall used by the officers +as a club-room; and, on the upper levels, mess-halls and +sleeping-quarters for the men. Despite the terrible strain of the +long-continued bombardment, the soldiers seemed surprisingly cheerful, +going about their work in the long, gloomy passages joking and +whistling. They sleep when and where they can: on the bunks in the +fetid air of the casemates; on the steps of the steep staircases that +burrow deep into the ground; or on the concrete floors of the +innumerable galleries. But sleeping is not easy in Verdun.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>A short distance to the southwest of Verdun, on the bare face of a +hill, is Fort de la Chaume. Like the other fortifications built to +defend the city, it no longer has any military value save for purposes +of observation. Peering through a narrow slit in one of its armored +<i>observatoires</i>, I was able to view the whole field of the world's +greatest battle—a battle which lasted a year and cost a million +men—as from the gallery of a theatre one might look down upon the +stage, the boxes, and the orchestra-stalls. Below me, rising from the +meadows beside the Meuse, were the shattered roofs and fire-blackened +walls of Verdun, dominated by the stately tower of the cathedral and +by the great bulk of the citadel. The environs of the town and the +hill slopes beyond the river were constantly pricked by sudden scarlet +jets as the flame leaped from the mouths of the carefully concealed +French guns, which seemed to be literally everywhere, while countless +geyser-like irruptions of the earth, succeeded by drifting patches of +white <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>vapor, showed where the German shells were bursting. Sweeping +the landscape with my field-glasses, a long column of motor-trucks +laden with ammunition came within my field of vision. As I looked +there suddenly appeared, squarely in the path of the foremost vehicle, +a splotch of yellow smoke shot through with red. When the smoke and +dust had cleared away, the motor-truck had disappeared. The artillery +officer who accompanied me directed my gaze across the level valley to +where, beyond the river, rose the great brown ridge known as the +Heights of the Meuse.</p> + +<p>"Do you appreciate," he asked, "that on three miles of that ridge a +million men—400,000 French and 600,000 Germans—have already fallen?"</p> + +<p>Beyond the ridge, but hidden by it, were Hill 304 and Le Mort Homme of +bloody memory, while on the horizon, looking like low, round-topped +hillocks, were Forts Douaumont and de Vaux (what a thrill those names +must give to every Frenchman!) and farther down <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>the slope and a +little nearer me were Fleury and Tavannes. The fountains of earth and +smoke which leaped upward from each of them at the rate of half a +dozen to the minute, showed us that they were enduring a particularly +vicious hammering by the Germans.</p> + +<p>There are no words between the covers of the dictionary which can +bring home to one who has not witnessed them the awful violence of the +shell-storms which have desolated these hills about Verdun. In one +week's attack to the north of the city the Germans threw five million +shells, the total weight of which was forty-seven thousand tons. +Eighty thousand shells rained upon one shallow sector of a thousand +yards, and these were so marvellously placed that the crater of one +cut into that of its neighbor, pulverizing everything that lived and +turning the man-filled trenches into tombs. Hence there is no longer +any such thing as a continuous line of trenches. Indeed, there are no +longer any trenches at all, nor entanglements either, but only a +series of craters. It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>is these craters which the French infantry has +held with such unparalleled heroism. The men holding the craters are +kept supplied with food and ammunition from the chain of little +forts—Vaux, Douaumont, and the others—and the forts, themselves +battered almost to pieces by the torrents of steel which have been +poured upon them, have relied in turn on the citadel back in Verdun +for their reinforcements, their ammunition, and their provisions, all +of which have had to be sent out at night, the latter on the backs of +men.</p> + +<p>So violent and long-continued have been the hurricanes of steel which +have swept these slopes, that the surface of the earth has been +literally blasted away, leaving a treacherous and incredibly tenacious +quagmire in which horses and even soldiers have lost their lives. +General Dubois told me that, only a few days before my visit to +Verdun, one of his staff-officers, returning alone and afoot from an +errand to Vaux, had fallen into a shell-crater and had drowned in the +mud. Indeed, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>whole terrain is pitted with shell-holes as is +pitted the face of a man who has had the small-pox. So terrible is the +condition of the country that it often takes a soldier an hour to +cover a mile. What was once a smiling and prosperous countryside has +been rendered, by human agency, as barren and worthless as the slopes +of Vesuvius.</p> + +<p>Verdun, I repeat, was held not by gun-power but by man-power. It was +not the monster guns on railway-trucks, or even the great numbers of +quick-firing, hard-hitting 75's, but the magnificent courage and +tenacity of the tired men in the mud-splashed uniforms, which held +Verdun for France. Though their forts were crumbling under the +violence of the German bombardment; though their trenches were pounded +into pudding; though the unceasing barrage made it at times impossible +to bring up food or water or reinforcements, the French hung +stubbornly on, and against the granite wall of their defense the waves +of men in gray flung themselves in vain. And <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>when the fury of the +German assaults had in a measure spent itself, General Nivelle retook +in a few hours, on October 24, 1916, Forts Douaumont and de Vaux, +which had cost the Germans seven months of incessant efforts and a +sacrifice of human lives unparalleled in history.</p> + +<p>The fighting before Verdun illustrated and emphasized the revolution +in methods of attack and defense which has taken place in the French +army. At the beginning of the war the French believed in depending +largely on their light artillery both to prepare and to support an +attack, and for this purpose their 75's were admirably adapted. This +method worked well when carried out properly, and before the Germans +had time to bring up their heavy guns; it was by resorting to it that +the French won the victory of the Marne. But the Marne taught the +Germans that the surest way to break up the French system of attack +was to interpose obstacles, such as woods, wire entanglements, and +particularly trenches. To <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>destroy these obstacles the French then had +to resort to heavy-calibered pieces, with which, as I have already +remarked, they were at first very inadequately supplied. In the spring +of 1915 in Artois, and in the autumn of the same year in Champagne, +they attempted to break through the German lines, but these attacks +were not supported by sufficient artillery and were each conducted in +a single locality over a limited front. Then, at Verdun, the Germans +tried opposite tactics, attempting to break through on a wide front +extending on both sides of the Meuse. So appalling were their losses, +however, that, as the attack progressed, they were compelled by lack +of sufficient effectives to constantly narrow their front until +finally the action was taking place along a line of only a few +kilometres. This permitted the French to concentrate both their +infantry and their artillery into dense formations, and before this +concentrated and intensive fire the German attacking columns withered +and were swept away like leaves before an autumn wind.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>The French infantry—and the same is, I believe, true of the +German—is now to all intents and purposes divided into two classes: +holding troops and attacking, or "shock" troops, as the French call +them. The latter consist of such picked elements as the Chasseur +battalions, the Zouaves, the Colonials, the First, Twentieth, and +Twenty-first Army Corps, and, of course, the Foreign Legion. All these +are recruited from the youngest and most vigorous men, due regard +being also paid to selecting recruits from those parts of France which +have always produced the best fighting stock—and among these are the +invaded districts. Shock troops are rarely sent into the trenches, but +when not actively engaged in conducting or resisting an attack, are +kept in cantonments well to the rear. Here they can get undisturbed +rest at night, but by day they are worked as a negro teamster works +his mule. As a result, they are always "on their toes," and in perfect +fighting trim. In this way mobility, cohesion, and enthusiasm, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>all +qualities which are seriously impaired by a long stay in the trenches, +are preserved in the attacking troops, who, when they go into battle, +are as keen and hard and well-trained as a prize-fighter who steps +into the ring to battle for the championship belt.</p> + +<p>The most striking feature of the new French system of attack is the +team-work of the infantry, artillery, and airplanes. The former +advance to the assault in successive waves, each made up of several +lines, the men being deployed at five-yard intervals. The first wave +advances at a slow walk behind a curtain of artillery fire, which +moves forward at the rate of fifty yards a minute, the first line of +the wave keeping a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards, or, in other +words, at a safe distance, behind this protecting fire-curtain. The +men in this first line carry no rifles, but consist exclusively of +grenadiers, automatic riflemen, and their ammunition carriers, every +eighth man being armed with the new Chauchat automatic rifle, a +recently adopted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>weapon which weighs only nineteen pounds, and fires +at the rate of five shots a second. Three men, carrying between them +one thousand cartridges, are assigned to each of these guns, of which +there are now more than fifty thousand in use on the French front. The +automatic riflemen fire from the hip as they advance, keeping streams +of bullets playing on the enemy just as firemen keep streams of water +playing on a fire. In the second line the men are armed with rifles, +some having bayonets and others rifle grenades, the latter being +specially designed to break up counter-attacks against captured +trenches. A third line follows, consisting of "trench cleaners," +though it must not be inferred from their name that they use mops and +brooms. The native African troops are generally used for this +trench-cleaning business, and they do it very handily with grenades, +pistols and knives.</p> + +<p>When the first wave reaches a point within two hundred to three +hundred yards of the enemy's trenches, a halt of five minutes is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>made +to re-form for the final charge. In addition to the advancing +curtain-fire immediately preceding the troops, a second screen of fire +is dropped between the enemy's first and second lines, thus preventing +the men in the first line from retreating and making it equally +impossible for the men in the second line to get reinforcements or +supplies to their comrades in the first. Still other batteries are +engaged in keeping down the fire of the hostile artillery while the +big guns, mounted on railway-trucks, shell the enemy's headquarters, +his supports, and his lines of communication.</p> + +<p>The attack is accompanied by and largely directed by airplanes, +certain of which are assigned to regulating the artillery fire, while +others devote themselves exclusively to giving information to the +infantry, with whom they communicate by means of dropping from one to +six fire-balls. As the aircraft used for infantry and artillery +regulation are comparatively slow machines, they are protected from +the attacks of enemy aviators by a screen of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>small, fast +battle-planes—the destroyers of the air—which, in several cases, +have swooped low enough to use their machine-guns on the German +trenches. If it becomes necessary to give to the infantry some special +information not provided for by the prearranged signals, the aviator +will volplane down to within a hundred feet above the infantry and +drop a written message. I was told that in one of the successful +French attacks before Verdun such a message proved extremely useful as +by means of it the troops advancing toward Douaumont, which was then +held by the Germans, were informed that the enemy was in force on +their right, but that there was practically no resistance on their +left. Acting in response to this information from the skies, they +swung forward on this flank, and took the Germans on their right in +the rear. Just as a football team is coached from the side-lines, so a +charge is nowadays directed from the clouds.</p> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep196" id="imagep196"></a> +<a href="images/imagep196.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep196.jpg" width="90%" alt="Australians on the Way to the Trenches." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">Australians on the Way to the Trenches.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">Despite gas, bullets, shells, rain, mud, and cold the British soldier +remains incorrigibly cheerful. He is a born optimist.</p> +</div> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep197" id="imagep197"></a> +<a href="images/imagep197.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep197.jpg" width="90%" alt="The Fire Trench." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">The Fire Trench.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">"Figures, looking strangely mediæval in their steel helmets, crouched +motionless, peering out into No Man's Land."</p> +</div> + +<p>One of the picturesque developments of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>war is <i>camouflage</i>, as +the French call their system of disguising or concealing batteries, +airplane-sheds, ammunition stores, and the like, from observation and +possible destruction by enemy aviators. This work is done in the main +by a corps specially recruited for the purpose from the artists and +scene painters of France. It is considered prudent, for example, to +conceal the location of a certain "ammunition dump," as the British +term the vast accumulations of shells, cartridges, and other supplies +which are piled up at the railheads awaiting transportation to the +front by motor-lorry. Over the great mound of shells and +cartridge-boxes is spread an enormous piece of canvas, often larger by +far than the "big top" of a four-ring circus. Then the scene painters +get to work with their paints and brushes and transform that expanse +of canvas into what, when viewed from the sky, appears to be, let us +say, a group of innocent farm-buildings. The next day, perhaps, a +German airman, circling high overhead, peers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>earthward through his +glasses and descries, far beneath him, a cluster of red +rectangles—the tiled roofs of cottages or stables, he supposes; a +patch of green—evidently a bit of lawn; a square of gray—the +cobble-paved barnyard—and pays it no further attention. How can he +know that what he takes to be a farmstead is but a piece of painted +canvas concealing a small mountain of potential death?</p> + +<p>At a certain very important point on the French front there long +stood, in an exposed and commanding position, a large and solitary +tree, or rather the trunk of a tree, for it had been shorn of its +branches by shell-fire. A landmark in that flat and devastated region, +every detail of this gaunt sentinel had long since become familiar to +the keen eyed observers in the German trenches, a few hundred yards +away. Were a man to climb to its top—and live—he would be able to +command a comprehensive view of the surrounding terrain. The German +sharpshooters saw to it, however, that no one climbed it. But one day +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>resourceful French took the measurements of that tree and +photographed it. These measurements and photographs were sent to +Paris. A few weeks later there arrived at the French front by railway +an imitation tree, made of steel, which was an exact duplicate in +every respect, even to the splintered branches and the bark, of the +original. Under cover of darkness the real tree was cut down and the +fake tree erected in its place, so that, when daylight came, there was +no change in the landscape to arouse the Germans' suspicions. The lone +tree-trunk to which they had grown so accustomed still reared itself +skyward. But the "tree" at which the Germans were now looking was of +hollow steel, and concealed in its interior in a sort of +conning-tower, forty feet above the ground, a French observing +officer, field-glasses at his eyes and a telephone at his lips, was +peering through a cleverly concealed peep-hole, spotting the bursts of +the French shells and regulating the fire of the French batteries.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>Nearly three years have passed since Germany tore up the Scrap of +Paper. In that time the French army has been hammered and tempered and +tested until it has become the most formidable weapon of offense and +defense in existence. I am convinced that in organization and in +efficiency it is now, after close on three years of experiments and +object-lessons, as good, if not better, than the German—and I have +marched with both and have seen both in action. Its light artillery is +admittedly the finest in the world. Though without any heavy artillery +to speak of at the beginning of the war, it has in this respect +already equalled if not surpassed the Germans. It has created an air +service which, in efficiency and in number of machines, is unequalled. +And the men, themselves, in addition to their characteristic <i>élan</i>, +possess that invaluable quality which the German soldier +lacks—initiative.</p> + +<p>It is worthy of note, in this connection, that the entire +reorganization of the French army <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>has been carried out virtually +without any action on the part of the French Congress, and with merely +the formal approval of the Minister of War. The politicians in Paris +have, save in a few instances, wisely refrained from interference, and +have left military problems to be decided by military men. But, when +all is said and done, it will not be the generals who will decide this +war; it will be the soldiers. And they are truly wonderful men, these +French soldiers. It is their amazing calm, their total freedom from +nervousness or apprehension, that impresses one the most, and the +secret of this calm is confidence. They are as confident of eventual +victory as they are that the sun will rise to-morrow morning. They are +fanatics, and France is their Allah. You can't beat men like that, +because they never know when they are beaten, and keep on fighting.</p> + +<p>I like to think that sometimes, in that cold and dismal hour before +the dawn, when hope and courage are at their lowest ebb, there +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>appears among the worn and homesick soldiers in the trenches the +spirit of the Great Emperor. Cheeringly he claps each man upon the +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Courage, mon brave," he whispers. "On les aura!"</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<hr style='width: 15%;' /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> A nickname for the Hispana-Suiza.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> Though great numbers of American-built airplanes have +been shipped to Europe, they are being used only for purposes of +instruction, as they are not considered fast enough for work on the +front.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> Commandant Bunau-Varilla was really sent as a compliment +to my companion, Mr. Arthur Page, editor of <i>The World's Work</i>.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>VII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>"THAT CONTEMPTIBLE LITTLE ARMY"</h4> +<br /> + +<p>In watching the operations on the British front I have always had the +feeling that I was witnessing a gigantic engineering undertaking. The +amazing network of rails which the British have thrown over Northern +France, the endless strings of lorries, the warehouses bulging with +supplies, the cranes and derricks, the repair depots, the +machine-shops, the tens of thousands of men whose only weapons are the +shovel and the pick, all help to further this impression. And, when +you stop to think about it, it is an engineering undertaking. These +muddy men in khaki are engaged in checking and draining off an unclean +flood which, were it not for them, would soon inundate all Europe. And +so, because I love things that are clean and green and beautiful, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>I +am very grateful to them for their work of sanitation.</p> + +<p>Because most of the despatches from the British front have related to +trenches and tanks and howitzers and flying men and raiding-parties, +the attention of the American people has been diverted from the +remarkable and tremendously important work which is being played by +the army behind the army. Yet one of the most splendid achievements of +the entire war is the creation of the great organization which links +the British trenches with the British Isles. In failing to take into +account the Anglo-Saxon's genius for rapid organization and +improvization in emergencies, Germany made a fatal error. She had +spent upward of forty years in perfecting her war machine; the British +have built a better one in less than three. I said in "<i>Vive la +France!</i>" if I remember rightly, that the British machine, though +still somewhat wabbly and creaky in its joints, was, I believed, +eventually going to do the business for which it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>was designed. That +was a year ago. It has already shown in unmistakable fashion that it +can do the business and do it well, and it is, moreover, just entering +on the period of its greatest efficiency.</p> + +<p>In order to understand the workings and the ramifications of this +great machine in France (its work in England is another story) you +must begin your study of it at the base camps which the British have +established at Calais, Havre, Boulogne, and Rouen, and the +training-schools at Etaples and elsewhere. Let us take, for example, +"Cinder City," as the base camp outside Calais is called because the +ground on which it stands was made by dumping ships' cinders into a +marsh. It is in many respects one of the most remarkable cities in the +world. Its population, which fluctuates with the tide of war, +averages, I suppose, about one hundred thousand. It has many miles of +macadamized streets (as sandy locations are chosen for these base +camps, mud is almost unknown) lined with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>storehouses—one of them the +largest in the world—with stores, with machine-shops, churches, +restaurant, club-rooms, libraries, Y. M. C. A.'s—there are over a +thousand of them in the war zone—Salvation Army barracks, schools, +bathing establishments, theatres, motion-picture houses, hospitals for +men and hospitals for horses, and thousands upon thousands of portable +wooden huts. This city is lighted by electricity, it has highly +efficient police, fire, and street-cleaning departments, and its water +and sewage systems would make jealous many municipalities of twice its +size. Among its novel features is a school for army bakers and another +for army cooks, for good food has almost as much to do with winning +battles as good ammunition. But most significant and important of all +are the "economy shops" where are repaired or manufactured practically +everything required by an army. War, as the British have found, is a +staggeringly expensive business, and, in order that there may be a +minimum of wastage, they have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>organized a Salvage Corps whose +business it is to sort the litter of the battle-fields and to send +everything that can by any possibility be re-utilized to the "economy +shops" at the rear. In one of these shops I saw upward of a thousand +French and Belgian women renovating clothing that had come back from +the front, uniforms which arrived as bundles of muddy, bloody rags +being fumigated and cleaned and mended and pressed until they were +almost as good as new. Tens of thousands of boots are sent in to be +repaired; those that can stand the operation are soled and heeled by +American machines brought over for the purpose, and even the others +are not wasted, for their tops are converted into boot-laces. In one +shop the worn-out tubes and springs of guns are replaced with new +ones. (Did you know that during an intense bombardment the springs of +the guns will last only two days?) In another fragments of valuable +metal sent in from the battle-field are melted and reused. (Perhaps +you were not aware that a 5-inch shell carries <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>a copper band weighing +a pound and a quarter. The weight of copper shot off in this way +during a single brief bombardment was four hundred tons.) The millions +of empty shells which litter the ground behind the batteries are +cleaned and classified and shipped over to England to be reloaded. +Steel rails which the retreating Germans believed they had made quite +useless are here straightened out and used over again. Shattered +rifles, bits of harness, haversacks, machine-gun belts, trench +helmets, sand-bags, barbed wire—nothing escapes the Salvage Corps. +They even collect and send in old rags, which are sold for two hundred +and fifty dollars a ton. Let us talk less hereafter of <i>German</i> +efficiency.</p> + +<p>Even more significant than the base camps of the efficiency and +painstaking thoroughness of the British war-machine are the training +camps scattered behind the lines. Typical of these is the great camp +at Etaples, on the French coast, where 150,000 men can be trained at a +time. These are not schools for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>raw recruits, mind you—that work is +done in England—but "finishing schools," as it were, where men who +are supposed to have already learned the business of war are given +final examinations in the various subjects in which they have received +instruction before being sent up to the front. And the soldier who is +unable to pass these final tests does not go to the front until he +can. The camp at Etaples, which is built on a stretch of rolling sand +beside the sea, is five miles long and a mile wide, and on every acre +of it there are squads of soldiers drilling, drilling, drilling. Here +a gymnastic instructor from Sandhurst, lithe and active as a panther, +is teaching a class of sergeants drawn from many regiments how to +become instructors themselves. His language would have amazed and +delighted Kipling's Ortheris and Mulvaney; I could have listened to +him all day. Over there a platoon of Highlanders are practising the +taking of German trenches. At the blast of a whistle they clamber out +of a length of trench built for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>purpose, and, with shrill Gaelic +yells, go swarming across a stretch of broken ground, through a tangle +of twisted wire, and over the top of the German parapet, whereupon a +row of German soldiers, stuffed with straw and automatically +controlled, spring up to meet them. If a man fails to bury his bayonet +in the "German" who opposes him, he is sent back to the awkward squad +and spends a few days lunging at a dummy swung from a beam.</p> + +<p>Crater fighting is taught in an ingenious reproduction of a crater, by +an officer who has had much experience with the real thing and who +explains to his pupils, whose knowledge of craters has been gained +from the pictures in the illustrated weeklies, how to capture, +fortify, and hold such a position. In order to give the men confidence +when the order "Put on gas-masks!" is passed down the line, they are +sent into a real dugout filled with real gas and the entrances closed +behind them. As soon as they find that the masks are a sure +protection, their nervousness disappears. In <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>order to accustom them +to lachrymal shells, they are marched, this time without masks, +through an underground chamber which reeks with the tear-producing +gas—and they are a very weepy, red-eyed lot of men who emerge. They +are instructed in trench-digging, in the construction of wire +entanglements, "knife-rests," chevaux-de-frise, and every other form +of obstruction, in revetting, in the making of fascines and gabions, +in sapping and mining, in the most approved methods of dugout +construction, in trench sanitation, in the location of listening-posts +and how to conceal them; they are shown how to cut wire, they are +drilled in trench raiding and in the most effective methods of "trench +cleaning." The practical work is supplemented by lectures on +innumerable subjects. As it is extremely difficult for an officer to +make his explanations heard by a battalion of men assembled in the +open, a series of small amphitheatres have been excavated from the +sand-dunes, the tiers of seats being built up of petrol tins filled +with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>sand. In one of these improvised amphitheatres I saw an officer +illustrating the proper method of using the gas-mask to a class of 600 +men.</p> + +<p>On these imitation battle-fields, any one of which is larger than the +field of Waterloo, the men are instructed in the gentle art of +bombing, first with "dubs," which do not explode at all, then with +toy-grenades which go off harmlessly with a noise like a small +firecracker, and finally, when they have become sufficiently expert, +with the real Mills bomb, which scatters destruction in a burst of +noise and flame. To attain accuracy and distance in throwing these +destructive little ovals is by no means as easy as it sounds. The +bombing-school at Etaples will not soon forget the American baseball +player who threw a bomb seventy yards. The hand-grenade is the +unsafest and most treacherous of all weapons and even in practice +accidents and near-accidents frequently occur. The Mills bomb, which +has a scored surface to prevent slipping, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>is about the shape and size +of a large lemon. Protruding from one end is the small metal ring of +the firing-pin. Three seconds after this is pulled out the bomb +explodes—and the farther the thrower can remove himself from the bomb +in that time the better. Now, in line with the policy of strict +economy which has been adopted by the British military authorities, +the men receiving instruction at the bombing-schools were told not to +throw away the firing-pins, but to put them in their pockets, to be +turned in and used over again. The day after this order went into +effect a company of newly arrived recruits were being put through +their bomb-throwing tests. Man after man walked up to the protecting +earthwork, jerked loose the firing-pin, hurled the bomb, and put the +firing-pin in his pocket. At last it came the turn of a youngster who +was obviously overcome with stage fright. To the horror of his +comrades, he threw the firing-pin and put the live bomb in his pocket! +In three seconds that bomb was due to explode, but the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>instructor, +who had seen what had happened, made a flying leap to the befuddled +man, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out the bomb, and hurled +it. It exploded in the air.</p> + +<p>Near Etaples, at Paris Plage, is the largest of the British +machine-gun schools. Here the men are taught the operation not only of +all the models of machine-guns used by the Allies, but they are also +shown how to handle any which they may capture from the Germans. Set +up on the beach were a dozen different models, beginning with a +wonderfully ingenious weapon, as beautifully constructed as a watch, +which had just been brought in from a captured German airplane and of +which the British officers were loud in their admiration, and ending +with the little twenty-five-pound gun invented by Colonel Lewis, an +American. Standing on the sands, a few hundred yards away, were half a +dozen targets of the size and outline of German soldiers. "Try 'em +out," suggested the officer in command of the school. So I seated +myself behind the German gun, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>looked into a ground-glass finder like +that on a newspaper photographer's camera, swung the barrel of the +weapon until the intersection of the scarlet cross-hairs covered the +mirrored reflection of the distant figures, and pressed together a +pair of handles. There was a noise such as a small boy makes when he +draws a stick along the palings of a picket fence, a series of +flame-jets leaped from the muzzle of the gun, and the targets +disappeared. "You'd have broken up that charge," commented the officer +approvingly. "Try the others." So I tried them all—Maxim, Hotchkiss, +Colt, St. Etienne, Lewis—in turn.</p> + +<p>"Which do you consider the best gun?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"That one," and he pointed to Colonel Lewis's invention. "It is the +lightest, simplest, strongest, and most effective machine-gun made. It +weighs only twenty-five and a half pounds and a clip of forty-seven +rounds can be fired in four seconds. At present we have four to each +company—though the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>number will probably be increased shortly—and +they are so easy to handle that in an attack they go over with the +second wave."</p> + +<p>"But our Ordnance Department claims that they cannot fire two thousand +rounds without heating and jamming," I remarked.</p> + +<p>"Who ever heard of a machine-gun being called upon to fire two +thousand rounds under actual service conditions?" he asked scornfully. +"On the front we rarely exceed two hundred or three hundred rounds; +five hundred never. Long before that number can be fired the attack is +broken up or the gun is captured."</p> + +<p>"In any event," said I, "the American War Department, to whom Colonel +Lewis offered his patents, asserts that the gun did not make good on +the proving-grounds of Flanders."</p> + +<p>"Well," was the dry response, "it has made good on the proving-grounds +of Flanders."</p> + +<p>The pretty little casino at Paris Plage, where, in the days before the +war, the members of the summer colony used to dance or play at <i>petits +chevaux</i>, has been converted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>into a lecture-hall for machine-gunners. +Covering the walls are charts and cleverly painted pictures which +illustrate at a glance the important rôles played by machine-guns in +certain actions. They reminded me of those charts which they use in +Sunday-schools to explain the flight of the Israelites out of Egypt or +their wanderings in the Wilderness. Seated on the wooden benches, +which have been brought in from a school near by, are a score or more +of sun-reddened young Englishmen in khaki.</p> + +<p>"Here," says the alert young officer who is acting as instructor, +unrolling a chart, "is a picture of an action in a little village +south of Mons. A company of our fellows were holding the village. +There are, you see, only two roads by which the Germans could advance, +so the captain who was in command placed machine-guns so as to command +each of them. About five o'clock in the morning the Germans appeared +on this lower road. Now, the sergeant in charge of that machine-gun, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>instead of taking cover behind this hedge with this brook in front of +him, had concealed his gun in this clump of trees, which, as you see, +are out in the middle of a field. No sooner had he opened upon the +Boches, therefore, than a detachment of Uhlans galloped around and cut +him off from the town. Then it was all over but the shouting. The +Germans got into the town and our fellows got it in the neck. And all +because that fool sergeant didn't use common sense in choosing a +position for his gun. They marked his grave with a nice little white +cross. And that's what you boys will get if you don't profit by these +things I'm telling you."</p> + +<p>There you have an example of the thorough preparation which is +necessary to wage modern war successfully. It is not merely a matter +of a man being taught how to operate a machine-gun; if he is to be of +the greatest value he must be taught how to place that gun where it is +going to do the maximum damage to the enemy. And, by means of the +graphic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>Sunday-school charts, and the still more graphic sentences of +the officer-teacher, those lessons are so driven home that the men +will never forget them.</p> + +<p>Virtually everything between England and the fighting front is under +the control of the L. C.—Lines of Communication. This vast +organization, one of the most wide-spread and complex in the world, +represents six per cent of all the British forces in France. Of the +countless forms of activity which it comprises, the railways are by +far the most important. Did you know that the British have laid and +are operating more than a thousand miles of new railway in France? As +the existing railways were wholly inadequate for the transportation of +the millions of fighting men, with the stupendous quantities of food +and equipment, new networks of steel had to be laid, single tracks had +to be converted into double ones, mammoth railway-yards, sidings, and +freight-houses had to be built, thousands of locomotives, carriages, +and trucks provided. This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>work was done by the Railway Companies of +the Royal Engineers, behind which was the Railway Reserve, whose +members, before the war, were employed by the great English railway +systems. Wearing the blue-and-white brassard of the L. C. are whole +battalions of engineers and firemen, bridge-builders, signal-men, +freight handlers, clerks, and navvies, all of them experts at their +particular jobs. It is impossible to overrate the services which these +railway men have performed. They build and staff the new lines which +are constantly being constructed; they repair destroyed sections of +track, restore blown-up bridges; in short, keep in order the arteries +through which courses the life-blood of the army. They are the real +organizers of victory. Without them the men in the trenches could not +fight a day. You cannot travel for a mile along the British front +without seeing an example of their rapid track-laying. They have had +to forget all the old-fashioned British notions about track +permanency, however, for their business is to get the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>trains over the +rails with the least possible delay; nothing else matters. Engaged in +this work are men who have learned the lessons of rough-and-ready +construction on the Mexican Central, on the Egyptian State Railways, +on the Beira and Mashonaland, and on the Canadian Pacific, and the +rate at which they cause the twin lines of steel to grow before one's +eyes would have aroused the admiration of such railroad pioneers as +Stanford and Hill and Harriman.</p> + +<p>The engines for use on these military railways are sent across the +Channel with fires already built and banked, water in the boilers, and +coal in the tenders. They come in ships specially constructed so that +the whole top deck can be lifted off. Giant cranes reach down into the +hold and pick the engines up and set them down on the tracks on the +quays, the crews climb aboard and shake down the fires, a +harassed-looking man, known as the M. L. O. (Military Landing Officer) +turns them over to the Railway Transport Officer, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>who is a very +important personage indeed, and he in turn hands the engineers their +orders, and, half an hour after they have been landed on the soil of +France, the engines go puffing off to take their places in the war +machine.</p> + +<p>It is not the numbers of men to be transported to the front, nor even +the astounding quantities of supplies required to feed those men, +which have been the primary cause for crisscrossing all Northern +France with this latticework of steel. It is the unappeasable appetite +of the guns. "This is a cannon war," Field-Marshal von Mackensen told +an interviewer. "The side that burns up the most ammunition is bound +to gain ground." And on that assumption the British are proceeding. +England's response to the insistent cry of "Shells, shells, shells!" +has been one of the wonders of the war. By January 1, 1917, the shell +increase for howitzers was twenty-seven times greater than in 1914-15; +in mid-caliber shells the increase was thirty-four times; and in all +the "heavies" ninety-four times. And <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>the shell output keeps a-growing +and a-growing. Yet what avail the four thousand flaming forges which +have made all this possible, what avails the British sea-power which +has landed these amazing quantities of shells in France, and 2,000,000 +of men along with them, if the shells cannot be delivered to the guns? +And that is where the great new systems of railway have come in.</p> + +<p>"Be lavish with your ammunition," Napoleon urged upon his battery +commanders. "Fire incessantly." And it is that maxim which the +artillerists of all the nations at war are following to-day. The +expenditure of shells staggers the imagination. In a single day, near +Arras, the French let loose upon the German lines $1,625,000 worth of +projectiles, or almost as great a quantity as Germany used in the +entire war of 1870-71. Five million shells of all calibers were fired +by the British gunners during the first four weeks of the offensive on +the Somme. In one week's attack north of Verdun the Germans fired +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>2,400,000 field-gun shells and 600,000 larger ones. To transport this +mountain of potential destruction required 240 trains, each carrying +200 tons of projectiles.</p> + +<p>During the "Big Push" on the Somme, there were frequently eighty guns +on a front of two hundred yards. The batteries would fire a round per +gun per minute for days on end, the gunners working in shifts, two +hours on and two hours off. So thickly did the shells fall upon the +German lines that the British observing officers were frequently +unable to spot their own bursts. A field-battery of eighteen-pounders +firing at this rate will blaze away anywhere from twelve to twenty +tons of ammunition a day. As guns firing with such rapidity wear out +their tubes and their springs in a few days, it is necessary to rush +entire batteries to the repair-shops at the rear. And that provides +another burden for the railways.</p> + +<p>In addition to the railways of standard gauge, the British have laid +down an astonishing trackage of narrow-gauge, Décauville, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>monorail systems. These portable and easily laid field railways twist +and turn and coil like snakes among the gun positions, the miniature +engines, with their strings of toy cars, puffing their way into the +heart of the artillery zone, where the ammunition is unloaded, sorted, +and classified in calibers, and then artfully hidden from the prying +eyes of enemy aviators and from their bombs. These great collections +of gun-food the English inelegantly term "ammunition dumps." Nor do +the trains that come up loaded go back empty, for upon the miniature +trucks are loaded the combings of the battle-field to be shipped back +to the "economy shops" in the rear. Where possible, wounded men are +sent back to the hospitals in like fashion, some of the railways +having trucks specially constructed for this purpose. Where the light +railways stop the monorail systems begin, food, cartridges, and mail +being sent right up into the forward trenches in small cars or baskets +suspended from a single overhead rail and pushed by hand. They look +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>not unlike the old-fashioned cash-and-parcel carriers which were used +in American department stores before the present system of pneumatic +tubes came in.</p> + +<p>Comprising another branch of the L. C.'s multifarious activities are +the field telephones, whose lines of black-and-white poles run out +across the landscape in every direction. And it is no haphazard and +hastily improvised system either, but as good in every respect as you +will find in American cities. It has to be good. Too much depends upon +it. An indistinct message might cost a thousand lives; a break-down in +the system might mean a great military disaster. Every officer of +importance in the British zone has a telephone at hand, and as the +armies advance the telephones go with them, the wires and portable +instruments being transported by the motor-cycle despatch riders of +the Army Signal Corps, so that frequently within thirty minutes after +a battalion has captured a German position its commander will be in +telephonic communication <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>with Advanced G. H. Q. The speed with which +the connections are made would be remarkable even in New York. I have +seen an officer at General Headquarters establish communication with +the Provost Marshal's office in Paris in three minutes, and with the +War Office in London in ten.</p> + +<p>I might mention in passing that nowadays the General Headquarters of +an army (G. H. Q. it is always called on the British front, Grand +Quartier-Général on the French, and Comando Supremo on the Italian) is +usually eight, ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty-five miles behind the +firing-line. Most of the commanding generals have, however, advanced +headquarters, considerably nearer the front, where they usually remain +during important actions. It is said that at Waterloo Napoleon and +Wellington watched each other through their telescopes. Compare this +with the battle for Verdun, where the headquarters of the Crown Prince +must have been at least thirty miles from those of General Nivelle at +Souilly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>If one of the greatest triumphs of the war is the creation of the +transport system, another is the maintenance, often under heavy +shell-fire, of the highways on which that transport moves. No one can +imagine what the traffic from the Channel up to the British front is +like; one must see it to believe it. The roads are as crowded with +traffic as is Fifth Avenue on a sunny afternoon. Every fifty yards or +so are military police, mounted and afoot, who control the traffic +with small red flags as do the New York bluecoats with their +stop-and-go signs. So incredibly dense was the volume of traffic +during the Somme offensive that it is little exaggeration to say that +an active man could have started immediately back of the British front +and could have made his way to Albert, twenty miles distant, if not, +indeed, to the English Channel, by jumping from lorry to wagon, from +wagon to ambulance, from ambulance to motor-bus. In going from Albert +up to the front I passed hundreds, yes, thousands of lumbering +motor-lorries bearing every <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>kind of supply from barbed wire to +marmalade. In order to avoid confusion, the lorries belonging to the +ammunition-train have painted on their sides a shell, while those +comprising the supply column are designated by a four-leaf clover. A +whole series of other distinctive emblems, such as stars, crescents, +pyramids, Maltese crosses, unicorns, make it possible to tell at a +glance to what division or unit a vehicle belongs. I passed six-mule +teams from Missouri and Mississippi hauling wagons made in South Bend, +Indiana, which were piled high with sides of Australian beef and +loaves of French-made bread. Converted motor-buses, which had once +borne the signs Bank-Holborn-Marble Arch, rumbled past with their +loads of boisterous men in khaki bound for the trenches or bringing +back other loads of tired men clad apparently in nothing save mud. +Endless strings of ambulances went rocking and rolling by and some of +them were dripping crimson. Tractors, big as elephants, panted and +grunted on their way, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>hauling long trains of wagons laden with tins +of cocoa or condensed milk, with kegs of nails, with lumber, with +fodder. Occasionally a gray staff-car like our own threaded its +tortuous and halting way through the terrific press of traffic. We +passed one that had broken down. The two officers who were its +occupants were seated on the muddy bank beside the road smoking +cigarettes while the driver was endeavoring to get his motor started +again. One of them, on the shoulder-straps of whose "British warm" +were the stars of a captain, was a slender, fair-haired, rather +delicate-looking youngster in the early twenties. It was the Prince of +Wales, but, so far as receiving any attention from the hurrying throng +was concerned, he might as well have been an unknown subaltern. For it +is an extremely democratic army, and royalty receives from it scant +consideration; Lloyd George is of far more importance than King George +to the man in khaki.</p> + +<p>Almost since the beginning of the war this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>particular stretch of road +on which I was travelling had been shelled persistently, as was shown +by the splintered tree-stumps which lined the road and the +shell-craters which pitted the fields on either side. To keep this +road passable under such wear and tear as it had been subjected to for +many months would have been a remarkable accomplishment under any +circumstances; to keep it open under heavy shell-fire is a performance +for which the labor battalions deserve the highest praise. Wearing +their steel helmets, the road-making gangs have kept at work, night +and day, along its entire length, exposed to much of the danger of the +men in the trenches, and having none of their protection. There has +been no time to obtain ordinary road metal, so they have filled up the +holes with bricks taken from the ruined villages which dot the +landscape, rolling them level when they get the chance. For nothing +must be permitted to interfere with that flow of traffic; on it +depends the food for the men and for the guns. An hour's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>blockade on +that road would prove infinitely more serious than would a freight +wreck which blocked all four tracks of the New York Central. No wonder +that Lord Derby, in addressing his Pioneer Battalions in Lancashire, +remarked: "In this war the pick and the shovel are as important as the +rifle."</p> + +<p>While I was standing on the summit of a little eminence beyond +Fricourt, looking down on that amazing scene of industry, a big German +shell burst squarely on the road. It wrecked a motor-lorry, it killed +several horses and half a dozen men, but, most serious of all, it blew +in the road a hole as large as a cottage cellar. The river of traffic +may have halted for two or three minutes, certainly not more. In +scarcely more time than it takes to tell it, the nearest military +police were on the spot. The stream of vehicles bound for the front +was swung out into the fields at the right, the stream headed for the +rear was diverted into the fields at the left. Within five minutes a +hundred men were at work with pick and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>shovel filling up the hole +with material piled at frequent intervals along the road for just that +purpose. Within twenty minutes a steam-roller had arrived—goodness +knows where it had materialized from!—and was at work rolling the +road into hardness. Within thirty minutes after the shell burst the +hole which it made no longer existed and the lorries, the tractors, +the wagons, the guns, the buses, the ambulances were rolling on their +way. Then they bore away the six tarpaulin-covered forms beside the +road and buried them.</p> + +<p>The weather is a vital factor in war. The heavy rains of a French +winter quickly transform the ground, already churned up by months of +shell-fire, into a slimy, glutinous swamp, incredibly tenacious and +unbelievably deep. Through this vast stretch of mud, pitted everywhere +with shell-holes filled with stagnant water, the infantry has to make +its way and the guns have to be moved forward to support the infantry. +On one stretch of road, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>only a quarter of a mile long, on the Somme, +twelve horses sank so deeply in the mud that it was impossible to +extricate them and they had to be shot. No wonder that the soldiers, +going up to the trenches, prefer to leave their overcoats and blankets +behind and face the misery of wet and cold rather than be burdened +with the additional weight while struggling through the molasses-like +mire. The only thing that they take up to the trenches which could by +any stretch of the imagination be described as a comfort is whale-oil, +carried in great jars, with which they rub their feet several times +daily in order to prevent "trench feet." If you want to get a real +idea of what the British infantryman has to endure during at least six +months of the year, I would suggest that you strap on a pack-basket +with a load of forty-two pounds, which is the weight of the British +field equipment, tramp for ten hours through a ploughed field after a +heavy rain, jump in a canal, and, without removing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>your clothes or +boots, spend the night on a manure-pile in a barnyard. Then you will +understand why soldiers become so heedless of gas, bullets, and +shells. But with it all the British soldier remains incorrigibly +cheerful. He is a born optimist and he shows it in his songs. Away +back in the early months of the war he went into action to the lilt of +"<i>Tipperary</i>." The gloom and depression of that first terrible winter +induced in him a more serious mood, to which he gave vent in "<i>Onward, +Christian Soldiers</i>." But now he feels that victory, though still far +off, is certain, and he puts his confidence into words: "<i>Pack Up Your +Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile</i>," "<i>Keep the +Home Fires Burning</i>," "<i>When Irish Eyes Are Smiling</i>," and +"<i>Hallelujah! I'm a Hobo!</i>" The latter very popular. Then there was +another, adapted by the Salvation Army from an old music-hall tune, +which I heard a battalion chanting lustily as it went slush-slushing +up to the firing-line. It ran something like this:</p> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For you but not for me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For me the angels sing-a-ling-a-ling,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They've got the goods for me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Grave thy victoree?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For you but not for me!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is almost impossible to make oneself believe that, less than two +years ago, these iron-hard, sun-bronzed, determined-looking men were +keeping books, tending shop, waiting on table, driving wagons, and +doing all the other humdrum things which make up the working lives of +most of us. Yet this citizen army is winning sensational successes +against the best trained troops in the world, occupying positions of +their own choosing, fortified and defended with every device that +human ingenuity and years of experience have been able to suggest. +These ex-shopkeepers, ex-tailors, ex-lawyers, ex-farmers, ex-cabmen +are accomplishing what most military authorities asserted was +impossible: they are driving <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>German veterans out of trenches amply +supported by artillery—and they are doing the job cheerfully and +extremely well.</p> + +<p>I believe that one of the reasons why the morale of the British is so +high is because, instead of adopting the dugout life of the Germans, +they have in the main kept to the open. Trench life is anything but +pleasant, yet it is infinitely more conducive to confidence, courage, +and enthusiasm than the rat-like existence of the Germans in +foul-smelling, ill-lighted, unsanitary burrows far beneath the surface +of the ground. Few men can remain for month after month in such a +place and retain their optimism and their self-respect. One of the +German dugouts which I saw on the Somme was so deep in the earth that +it had two hundred steps. The Germans who were found in it admitted +quite frankly that after enjoying for several weeks or months the +safety which it afforded, they had no stomach for going back to the +trenches. They were only too glad to crawl into their hole when the +British <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>barrage began and there they were trapped and surrendered.</p> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep238" id="imagep238"></a> +<a href="images/imagep238.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep238.jpg" width="90%" alt="A British "Heavy" Mounted on a Railway-Truck Shelling the German Lines." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">A British "Heavy" Mounted on a Railway-Truck Shelling the German Lines.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="capt">During a big offensive the guns frequently fire a round a minute for +days on end, the gunners working in shifts, two hours on and two hours off.</p> +</div> + +<div class="img"><a name="imagep239" id="imagep239"></a> +<a href="images/imagep239.jpg"> +<img border="0" src="images/imagep239.jpg" width="90%" alt="Buried on the Field of Honor." /></a><br /> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .2em;">Buried on the Field of Honor.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p> +<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">"Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return."</p> +</div> + +<p>Germany largely based her confidence of victory on the belief that, +under the strain of war, the far-flung British Empire, with its +heterogeneous elements and racial jealousies, would promptly crumble. +It was a vital error. Instead of crumbling it hardened into a unity +which is adamantine. Canada has already contributed half a million men +to the British armies, Australia three hundred thousand. South Africa, +by undertaking her own defense, released the imperial regiments +stationed there. She not only suppressed the German-fomented +rebellion, but she conquered German Southwest Africa and German East +Africa, thus adding nearly a sixth of the Dark Continent to the +Empire, and has sent ten thousand men to the battle-fields of Europe. +Indian troops are fighting in France, in Macedonia, in Mesopotamia, in +Palestine, and in Egypt. From the West Indies have come twelve +thousand men. The Malay States <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>gave to the Empire a battleship and a +battalion. A little island in the Mediterranean raised the King's Own +Malta Regiment. Uganda and Nyassaland raised and supported the King's +African Rifles—five thousand strong. The British colonies on the +other seaboard of the continent increased the West African Field Force +to seven thousand men. The fishermen and lumbermen from Newfoundland +won imperishable glory on the Somme. From the coral atolls of the +Fijis hastened six score volunteers. The Falkland Islands, south of +South America, raised 140 men. From the Yukon, Sarawak, Wei-hai-wei, +the Seychelles, Hong-Kong, Belize, Saskatchewan, Aden, Tasmania, +British Guiana, Sierra Leone, St. Helena, the Gold Coast, poured +Europeward, at the summons of the Motherland, an endless stream of +fighting men.</p> + +<p>Scattered in trenches and tents, in barracks and billets over the +whole of Northern France are men hailing from the uttermost parts of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>the earth. Some there are who have spent their lives searching for +gold by the light of the Aurora Borealis and others who have delved +for diamonds on the South African veldt. Some have ridden range on the +plains of Texas and others on the plains of Queensland. When, in the +recreation huts, the phonograph plays "<i>Home, Sweet Home</i>" the +thoughts of some drift to nipa-thatched huts on flaming tropic +islands, some think of tin-roofed wooden cottages in the environs of +Sydney or Melbourne, others of staid, old-fashioned, red-brick houses +in Halifax or Quebec.</p> + +<p>Serving as a connecting-link between the British and the French and +Belgian armies is a corps of interpreters known as the <i>liaison</i>. As +there are well over two million Englishmen in France, a very small +percentage of whom have any knowledge of French, the <i>liaison</i> enjoys +no sinecure. To assist in the billeting of British battalions in +French villages, to conduct negotiations with the canny <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>countryfolk +for food and fodder, to mollify angry housewives whose ménages have +been upset by boisterous Tommies billeted upon them, to translate +messages of every description, to interrogate peasants suspected of +espionage—these are only a few of the duties which the <i>liaison</i> +officers are called upon to perform. The corps is recruited from +Englishmen who have been engaged in business in Paris, habitués of the +Riviera, students of the Latin Quarter, French hairdressers, head +waiters, and ladies' tailors who have learned English "as she is +spoke" in London's West End. The officers of the <i>liaison</i> can be +readily distinguished by their caps, which resemble those worn by +railroad brakemen, and by the gilt sphinx on the collars of their drab +uniforms. This emblem was chosen by Napoleon as a badge for the corps +of interpreters he organized during his Egyptian campaign, but the +British unkindly assert it was selected for the <i>liaison</i> officers +because nobody can understand them.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>The more I see of the war the more I am impressed with its utter +impersonality. It is a highly organized business, conducted by +specialists, and into it personalities and picturesqueness seldom +enter. One hears the noise and the clamor, of course; one sees the +virility, the intense activity, the feverish haste, yet at the same +time one realizes how little the human element counts; all is +machinery and mathematics. I remember that one day I was lunching in +his dugout with an officer commanding a battery of heavy howitzers. +Just as my host was serving the tinned peaches the telephone-bell +jangled. It was an observation officer, up near the firing-line, +reporting that through his telescope he had spotted a German +ammunition column passing through a certain ruined hamlet three or +four miles away. On his map the battery commander showed me a small +square, probably not more than three or four acres in extent, on +which, in order to "get" that ammunition column, his shells must fall. +Some rapid calculations on a pad of paper, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>and, calling in his +subordinate, he handed him the "arithmetic." A minute or two later, +from a clump of trees close by, there came in rapid succession four +splitting crashes and four invisible express-trains went screeching +toward the German lines to explode, with the roar that scatters death, +on a spot as far away and as invisible from me as Washington Square is +from Grant's Tomb. Before the echo of the guns had died away my host +was back to his tinned peaches again. Neither he, nor any of his +gunners, knew, or ever would know, or, indeed, very greatly cared, +what destruction those shells had wrought. That's what I mean by the +impersonality of modern war.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Our car stopped with startling abruptness in response to the upraised +hand of a giant in khaki whose high-crowned sombrero and the brass +letters on his shoulder-straps showed that he was a trooper of the +Alberta Horse. On his arm was a red brassard bearing the magic letters +M. P.—Military Police.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>"Better not go any farther, sir," he said, addressing the +staff-officer who was my companion. "The Boches are shelling the road +just ahead pretty heavily this morning. They got a lorry a few minutes +ago and I've had orders to stop traffic until things quiet down a +bit."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid we'll have to take to the mud," said my cicerone +resignedly. "And after last night's rain it will be beastly going.</p> + +<p>"And don't forget your helmet and gas-mask," he called, as I stepped +from the car into a foot of oozy mire.</p> + +<p>"Will we need them?" I asked, for the inverted wash-basin which the +British dignify by the name of helmet is the most uncomfortable form +of headgear ever devised by man.</p> + +<p>"It's orders," he answered. "No one is supposed to go into the +trenches without mask and helmet. And there's never any telling when +we may need them. No use in taking chances."</p> + +<p>Taking off my leather coat, which was too <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>heavy for walking, I +attempted to toss it into the car, but the wind caught it and carried +it into the mud, in which it disappeared as quickly and completely as +though I had dropped it in a lake. Leaving the comparative hardness of +the road, we started to make our way to the mouth of a communication +trench through what had evidently once been a field of sugar-beets—and +instantly sank to our knees in mire that seemed to be a mixture of +molasses, glue, and porridge. It seemed as though some subterranean +monster had seized my feet with its tentacles and was trying to drag me +down. It was perhaps half a mile to the communication trench and it +took us half an hour of the hardest walking I have ever had to reach +it. It had walls of slippery clay and a corduroyed bottom, but the +corduroy was hidden beneath the mud left by thousands of feet. +Telephone-wires, differentiated by tags of colored tape, ran down the +sides. Shortly we came upon a working party of Highlanders who were +repairing the trench-wall. The wars of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>Middle Ages could have seen +no more strangely costumed fighting men. Above their half-puttees +showed the brilliantly plaided tops of their stockings. Their kilts of +green and blue tartan were protected by khaki aprons. Each man wore one +of the recently issued jerkins, a sleeveless and shapeless coat of +rough-tanned sheepskin such as was probably worn, in centuries past, by +the English bowmen. On their heads were the "tin pot" helmets such as +we were wearing, and in leather cases at their belts they carried +broad-bladed and extremely vicious-looking knives.</p> + +<p>For nearly an hour we slipped and stumbled through the endless +cutting. At one spot the parapet, soaked by water, had caved in. In +the breach thus made had been planted a neatly lettered sign. It was +terse and to the point: "The Hun sees you here. Go away." And we did. +The trench had gradually been growing narrower and shallower and more +tortuous until we were walking half doubled over so as not to show our +heads above the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>top. At last it came to an end in a sort of cellar, +perhaps six feet square, which had been burrowed from the ridge of a +hill. The entrance to the observatory, for that is what it was, had +been carefully screened by a burlap curtain; within, a telescope, +mounted on a tripod, applied its large and inquisitive eye to a small +aperture, likewise curtained, cut in the opposite wall. We were in the +advanced observation post on the slopes of Notre Dame de Lorette, less +than a thousand yards from the enemy. At the foot of the spur on which +we stood ran the British trenches and, a few hundred yards beyond +them, the German. From our vantage-point we could see the two lines, +looking like monstrous brown snakes, extending for miles across the +plain. Perhaps a mile behind the German trenches was a patch of +red-brown roofs. It was the town of Lieven, a straggling suburb of +Lens, famous as the centre of the mine-fields of Northern France.</p> + +<p>The only occupants of the observation post were a youthful Canadian +lieutenant and a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>sergeant of the "Buzzers," as they call the Signal +Corps. The officer was from Montreal and he instantly became my friend +when I spoke of golf at Dixie and rides in the woods back of Mount +Royal and a certain cocktail which they make with great perfection in +a certain club that we both knew. He adjusted the telescope and I put +my eye to it, whereupon the streets of the distant town sprang into +life before me. In front of a cottage a woman was hanging out +washing—I could even make out the colors of the garments; a gray +motor whirled into a square, stopped, a man alighted, and it went on +again; a group of men—German soldiers doubtless—strolled across my +field of vision and one of them paused for a moment as though to light +a pipe; along a street straggled a line of children, evidently coming +from school, for it must be remembered that in most of these French +towns occupied by the Germans, even those close behind the lines, the +civilian life goes on much as usual. Though the Allies could blow +these <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>towns off the map if they wished, they do not bombard them save +for some specific object, as to do so would be to kill many of their +own people. Nor does it pay to waste ammunition on individual enemies. +But if an observation officer sees enough Germans in a group to make +the expenditure of ammunition worth while, he will telephone to one of +the batteries and a well-placed shell tells the Germans that street +gatherings are strictly <i>verboten</i>.</p> + +<p>"Sorry that you weren't here yesterday," the lieutenant remarked. "We +had a little entertainment of our own. Do you see that square?" and he +swung the barrel of the telescope so that it commanded a cobble-paved +<i>place</i>, with a small fountain in the centre, flanked on three sides +by rows of red-brick dwellings.</p> + +<p>"I see it plainly," I told him.</p> + +<p>"The Boches are evidently billeting their men in those houses," he +continued. "Yesterday morning an army baker's cart drove into the +square and the soldiers came piling out of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>the houses to get their +bread ration. There was quite a crowd of them around the cart, so I +phoned back to the gunners and they dropped a shell bang into the +square. The soldiers scattered, of course, and the horse hitched to +the cart took fright and ran away. The cart tipped over and the bread +spilled out. After a few minutes the men came out of their cellars and +began to gather up the bread, so we shelled 'em again. The next time +they sent out the women to pick up the loaves. We let them +alone—French women, you understand—until I saw the Huns beating the +women and taking the bread away from them. That made me mad and for +ten minutes we strafed that section of the town good and plenty. It +was very amusing while it lasted. And," he added wistfully, "we don't +get much amusement here."</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>Darkness had fallen, when cold and tired, we climbed stiffly into the +waiting car. As we tore down the long, straight road which led to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>General Headquarters the purple velvet of the eastern sky was stabbed +by fiery flashes, many of them, and, borne on the night wind, came the +sullen growling of the guns. As I stared out into the flame-pricked +darkness there passed before me in imaginary review that endless +stream of dauntless and determined men—mud-caked infantrymen, +gunners, despatch riders, sappers, pioneers, motor-drivers, +road-menders, mechanics, railway-builders—who form that wall of steel +which Britain has thrown between Western Europe and the Hunnish +hordes. Unyielding and undiscouraged they have stood, for close on +three years, in winter and in summer, in heat and in cold, in snow and +in rain, holding the frontier of civilization. And I knew that it was +safe in their care.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>VIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>WITH THE BELGIANS ON THE YSER</h4> +<br /> + +<p>I had left the Belgian army late in the autumn of 1914, just at the +close of that series of heroic actions which began at Liége and ended +on the Yser, so that my return, two years later, was in the nature of +a home-coming. But it was a home-coming deeply tinged with sadness, +for many, oh, so many of the gallant fellows with whom I had +campaigned in those stirring days before the trench robbed war of its +picturesqueness, were in German prisons or lay in unmarked and +forgotten graves before Namur and Antwerp and Termonde. The Belgians +that I had left were dirty, dog-tired, and disheartened. They were +short of food, short of ammunition, short of everything save valor. +The picturesque but impractical uniforms they wore—the green tunics +and cherry-colored breeches of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>Guides, the towering bearskins of +the gendarmes, the shiny leather hats of the Carabinieri—were foul +with blood and dirt.</p> + +<p>As my car rolled across a canal bridge into that tiny triangle which +is all that remains of free Belgium, a trim-looking trooper in khaki +stepped from a sentry-box and, holding up an imperative hand, +demanded to see my papers. Had it not been for the rosette of +red-yellow-and-black enamel on his cap, and the colored regimental +facings on his collar, I should have taken him for a British soldier.</p> + +<p>"To what regiment do you belong?" I asked him.</p> + +<p>"The First Guides, monsieur," he replied, returning my papers and +saluting.</p> + +<p>The First Guides! What memories the name brought back. How well I +remembered the last time that I had seen those gallant riders, the +pick and flower of the Belgian army, their comic-opera uniforms yellow +with dust, crouching behind the hedgerows on the road to Alost, a +pitifully thin screen of them, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>holding off the Germans while their +weary comrades tramped northward into Flanders on the great retreat. +It was not easy to make myself believe that this smart, khaki-clad +trooper before me belonged to that homeless band of rear-guard +fighters who had marked with their dead the line of retreat from the +Meuse to the Yser.</p> + +<p>It was my first glimpse of the reconstituted Belgian army. In the two +years that it has been holding the line on the Yser it has been +completely reuniformed, re-equipped, reorganized. The result is a +small but complete and highly efficient organism. The Belgian army +consists to-day of six infantry and two cavalry divisions—a total of +about 120,000 men—with perhaps another 80,000 being drilled in the +various training camps at the rear. It has, of course, no great +reserves to fall back upon, for the greater part of the nation is +imprisoned, but the King and his generals, by unremitting energy, have +produced a force which is as well disciplined and as completely +equipped as can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>be found anywhere on the front. When the day comes, +as it surely will, when Berlin issues the orders for a general +retirement, I shouldn't care to be the Germans who are assigned to the +work of holding off the Belgians, for from the men who wear the +red-yellow-and-black rosettes they need expect no pity.</p> + +<p>Though the shortest of the lines held by the Allies, the Belgian front +is, in proportion to the free Belgian population, much the longest. +The northernmost sector of the Western Front, beginning at the sea and +extending through Nieuport, a distance of only three or four miles, is +held by the French; then come the twenty-three miles held by the +Belgians, another two or three miles held by the French, and then the +British. The Belgians occupy a difficult and extremely uncomfortable +position, for these Flemish lowlands were inundated in order to check +the German advance, and as a result they are in the midst of a vast +swamp, which, in the rainy season, becomes a lake. They are, in fact, +fighting under conditions <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>not encountered on any other front save in +the Mazurian marshes. During the rainy season the gunners of certain +batteries frequently work in water up to their waists. So wet is the +soil that dugouts are out of the question, for they instantly become +cisterns, so the Belgian engineers have developed a type of +above-ground shelter which has concrete walls and a roof of steel +rails, on top of which are laid several layers of sand-bags. Though +these shelters afford their occupants protection from the fire of +small-caliber guns, they are not proof against the heavy projectiles +which the Germans periodically rain upon the Belgian trenches. As the +soil is so soft and slimy as to be useless for defensive purposes, the +trench-walls are for the most part built of sand-bags, which are, +however, usually filled with clay, for sand must be brought by +incredible exertions from the seashore. I was shown a single short +sector on the Yser, where six million bags were used. For the floors +of these shelters, as well as for innumerable other <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>purposes, +millions of feet of lumber are required, which is taken up to the +front over the network of light railways, some of which penetrate to +the actual firing-line. If trench-building materials are scarce in +Flanders, fuel is scarcer. Every stick of wood and every piece of coal +burned on the front has to be brought from great distances and at +great expense, so economy in fuel consumption is rigidly enforced. I +remember walking through a trench with a Belgian officer one bitterly +cold and rainy day last winter. In a corner of the trench a soldier in +soaking clothes had piled together a tiny mound of twigs and roots and +over the feeble flame was trying to warm his hands, which were blue +with cold. To my surprise my companion stopped and spoke to the man +quite sharply.</p> + +<p>"We can't let one man have a fire all to himself," he explained as he +rejoined me. "Wood is too scarce for that. The fire that fellow had +would have warmed three or four men and I had to reprimand him for +building <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>it." A moment later he added: "The poor devil looked pretty +cold, though, didn't he?"</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>I had been informed by telephone from the Belgian <i>État-Major</i> that a +staff-officer would meet me at a certain little frontier town whose +name I have forgotten how to spell. After many inquiries and wrong +turnings, for in this corner of Belgium the Flemish peasantry +understand but little French and no English, my driver succeeded in +finding the town, but the officer who was to meet me had not arrived. +It was too cold to sit in the car with comfort, so a lieutenant of +gendarmerie, the chief of the local <i>Sûrété</i>, invited me to make +myself comfortable in his little office. After a time the conversation +languished, and, for want of something better to say, I inquired how +far it was to Ostend. I was interested in knowing, because during the +retreat of the Belgian army in October, 1914, I left two kit-bags +filled with perfectly good clothes at the American Consulate in +Ostend. They are there still, I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>suppose, provided the Consulate has +not been shelled to pieces by the British monitors or the bags stolen +by German soldiers.</p> + +<p>"Ostend?" repeated the gendarme. "It isn't over thirty kilometres from +here. From the roof of this building, if the weather was fine, you +could almost see its church-spires."</p> + +<p>He walked across to the window and, pressing his face against the +pane, stared out across the fog-hung lowlands. He so stood for some +minutes and when he turned I noticed that tears were glistening in his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"My wife and children are over there in Ostend," he explained, in a +voice which he tried pathetically hard to control. "At least, they +were there two years ago last August. They had gone there for the +summer. I was in Brussels when the Germans crossed the frontier, and I +at once joined the army. I have never heard from my family since. It +is very hard, monsieur, to be so near them—they are only thirty +kilometres away—and not be able to see them or to hear from them, or +even <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>be able to learn whether they are well or whether they have +enough to eat."</p> + +<p>It is a terrible thing, this prison wall within which the Germans have +shut up the people of Belgium. How terrible it is one cannot realize +until he has known those whose dear ones are confined <i>incommunicado</i> +within that prison. I wish I might bring home to you, my friends, just +what it means. How would <i>you</i> feel to stand on the banks of the +Hudson and look across into New Jersey and know that, though over +there, a few miles away, were your homes and those that you hold most +dear, you could no more get word to them, or they to you, than if they +were in Mars? And how would you feel if you knew that Englewood and +Morristown and Plainfield and the Oranges, and a dozen other of the +pretty Jersey towns, were but heaps of blackened ruins, that the +larger cities were garrisoned by brutal German soldiery and ruled by +heartless-German governors, and that thousands of women and +girls—perhaps <i>your</i> wife, <i>your</i> daughters <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>among them—had been +dragged from their homes and taken God knows where? How would you feel +then, Mr. American?</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>After an hour's wait my officer, profuse in his apologies, arrived in +a beautifully appointed limousine, beside which the British staff-car +in which I had come looked cheap and very shabby. At the very +beginning of the war the Belgian military authorities commandeered +every car they could lay their hands on, and though many have been +worn out and hundreds were lost during the retreat, they are still +rather better supplied with luxurious cars than any of the other +armies.</p> + +<p>"There will be a moon to-night," said my cicerone, "so before going to +La Panne, where quarters have been reserved for you, I shall take you +to Furnes. The Grande Place is pure Spanish—it was built in the Duke +of Alva's time, you know—and it is very beautiful by moonlight."</p> + +<p>The road to Furnes took us through what <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>had been, a few years before, +quaint Flemish villages, but German <i>Kultur</i>, aided by the products of +Frau Bertha Krupp, had transformed the beautiful sixteenth-century +architecture into heaps of brick and stone. And nowhere did I see a +church left standing. Whether the Germans shelled the churches because +they honestly believed that their towers were used for observation +purposes, or from sheer lust for destruction, I do not know. In any +event, the churches are gone. In one little shell-torn village my +companion pointed out to me the ruins of a church, amid which a +company of infantry, going up to the trenches, had camped for the +night. Just as the men were falling in at daybreak a German shell of +large caliber exploded among them. Sixty-four—I think that was the +number—were killed outright or died of their wounds. But not even the +dead are permitted to sleep in peace. I saw several churchyards on +which German shells had rained so heavily that the corpses had been +disinterred, and whitened <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>bones and grinning skulls littered the +ploughed-up ground.</p> + +<p>Darkness had fallen when we came to Furnes. In passing through the +outskirts, we stopped to call on two young women—an Irish girl and a +Canadian—who, undismayed by the periodic shell-storms which visit it, +have pluckily stayed in the town ever since the battle of the Yser, +caring for the few hundred townspeople who remain, nursing the +wounded, and even conducting a school for the children. They live in a +small bungalow which the military authorities have erected for them on +the edge of the town. A few yards from their front door is a +bomb-proof, looking exactly like a Kansas cyclone-cellar, in which +they find refuge when one of the frequent bombardments begins. We +found that the young women were not at home. I was disappointed, +because I wanted to tell them how much I admired them.</p> + +<p>My companion was quite right in saying that the Grande Place of Furnes +by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>moonlight is worth seeing. It certainly is. The exquisite +fifteenth-century buildings which face upon the square have, by some +miracle, remained almost undamaged. There were no lights, of course, +and the only person in sight was a sentry, on whose bayonet and steel +helmet the moonbeams played fitfully. The darkness, the silence, the +suggestion of mystery, the ancient buildings with their leaded windows +and their carved façades, the steel-capped soldier, all made me feel +that I had stepped back five hundred years and was in the Furnes of +Inquisition times.</p> + +<p>Our visit to Furnes had delayed us, so it was well into the evening +before we drew up before the hotel in La Panne, where a room had been +reserved for me by the Belgian <i>État-Major</i>. A seaside resort in +midwinter is always a peculiarly depressing place, and La Panne was no +exception. Though every hotel and villa in the place was chock-a-block +with staff-officers, with nurses, and with wounded, the street-lamps +were extinguished, not a ray <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>of light escaped from the heavily +curtained windows, and, to add to the general sense of melancholy, a +cold, raw wind was blowing down from the North Sea and a drizzling +rain had set in. Though La Panne is within easy range of the German +batteries, which could eliminate it with neatness and despatch, it +has, singularly enough, never been bombarded, nor has it been +subjected to any serious air raids. This is the more surprising as all +the neighboring towns, as well as Dunkirk, a dozen miles beyond, have +been repeatedly shelled and bombed. The only explanation of this +phenomenon is that the Germans do not wish to kill the Queen of the +Belgians—she was Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria, remember—who lives +with the King at La Panne. It is possible that this may be the correct +explanation. I remember that when I was in Brussels during the early +days of the German occupation, there occurred a serious collision +between Prussian and Bavarian troops, the latter asserting that the +ill-mannered North German <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>soldiery had shown some disrespect to a +portrait of "unsere Bayerische Prinzessin." Why the Germans should +have any consideration for the safety of the Queen after the fashion +in which they have treated her country and her people, only a Teutonic +intellect could understand. But the exemption which La Panne has thus +far enjoyed has not induced its inhabitants to omit any precautions. +An ample number of bomb-proofs and dugouts have been constructed, and +at night over all the windows are tacked thick black curtains. For +they know the Germans.</p> + +<p>La Panne is the last town on the Belgian littoral before you reach the +French frontier and the last villa in the town is occupied by the King +and Queen. It stands amid the sand-dunes, looking out across the +Channel toward England. It is just such a square, plastered, +eight-room villa as might be rented for the summer months by a family +with an income of five thousand a year. The sentries who are on duty +at its gates and the mounted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>gendarmes who constantly patrol its +immediate vicinity, are the only signs that it is the residence of +royalty. Almost any morning you can see the King and Queen—he tall +and soldierly, with all griefs and anxieties which the war has brought +him showing in his face; she small and trim and girlishly +slender—riding on the hard sands of the beach, or strolling, +unaccompanied, amid the dunes. What must it mean to them to know that +though over there to the eastward lies Belgium, <i>their</i> Belgium, they +cannot ride five miles toward it before they are halted by the German +bar; to know that beyond that little river where the trenches run +their people are suffering and waiting for help, and that, after +nearly three years, they are not a yard nearer to them?</p> + +<p>How clearly I remembered the last time that I had seen the Queen. It +was in the Hotel St. Antoine, in Antwerp, the night before the flight +of the Government and the royal family to Ostend, and less than a week +before the fall of the city itself. For days <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>past the grumble of the +guns had constantly been growing louder, the streams of wounded had +steadily increased; every one knew that the end was almost at hand. It +was just before the dinner-hour and the great lobby of the hotel was +crowded with officers—Belgian, French, and British—with members of +the fugitive Government and Diplomatic Corps, and a few unofficial +foreigners like myself. Then, unannounced and unaccompanied, the Queen +entered. She had come to say farewell to the invalid wife of the +Russian Minister, who was unable to go to the palace. She remained in +the Russians' apartments (during the bombardment, a few days later, +they were completely wrecked by a German shell) half an hour perhaps. +Then she came down the winding stairs, a pathetically girlish figure +in the simplest of white suits, leaning on the arm of the gallant old +diplomat. Quite automatically the throng in the lobby separated, so as +to form an aisle down which she passed. To those of us who were +nearest she put out her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>hand and, bending low, we kissed it. Then the +great doors were opened and she passed out into the darkness and the +rain—a Queen without a country.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>No one comes away from La Panne, at least no one should, without +having visited the great hospital founded by Dr. Léon du Page, the +famous Belgian surgeon. It started in one of the big tourist hotels +facing on the sea, but it has gradually expanded until it now occupies +a whole congeries of buildings. It has upward of a thousand beds, but, +as the fighting was comparatively light at the time I was there, only +about two-thirds of them were occupied. Though the American Ambulance +at Neuilly, and some of the hospitals at the British base-camps are +larger, Dr. du Page's hospital is the most complete and self-contained +that I have seen on any front. To mend the broken men who are brought +there no device of medical science has been left untried. There are +giant magnets which are used to draw minute <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>steel fragments from the +brains of men wounded by shrapnel; there are beds, heated by hundreds +of electric lights, for soldiers whose vitality has been dangerously +lowered by shock or exhaustion; there is a department of facial +surgery where men who have lost their noses or their jaws or even +their faces are given new ones. The hospital is, as I have said, +self-contained. The operating-tables, the beds, all the furniture, in +fact, is made on the premises. It is the only hospital I know of which +provides those patients who have lost their legs with artificial +limbs. And they are by far the best artificial limbs that I have seen +anywhere. Each one is made to order to match the man's remaining limb. +They are shaped over plaster casts, according to a system originated +by Dr. du Page, in alternate layers of glue and ordinary shavings, and +the articulation of the joints almost equals that of nature. As a +result the soldiers are sent out into the world provided with legs +which are symmetrical, almost unbreakable, amazingly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>light, and so +admirably constructed that the owner rarely requires the assistance of +a cane. Another detail for which Dr. du Page has made provision is the +manufacture of his own instruments. Before the war the best surgical +instruments were made in Germany. There were, so far as Dr. du Page +knew, only five first-class instrument-makers in Belgium. Three of +these were, he ascertained, in the army, so through the King he +obtained their release from military duty. Now they work in a +completely equipped shop in the rear of the hospital making the shiny, +terrifying instruments which the white-clad surgeons wield with such +magical effect.</p> + +<p>Should you feel like giving up the theatre this evening, or taking a +street-car instead of a taxi, or not opening that bottle of champagne, +the money would be very welcome to Dr. du Page and his wounded. Should +you feel that that is too much to give, it might be well for you to +remember that he has given something, too. He gave his wife. She was +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>returning from America, where she had gone to collect funds to carry +on the work of the hospital. She sailed on the <i>Lusitania</i>....</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>To reach the Belgian firing-line is not easy because, the country +being as flat as a ballroom floor, the Germans see and shoot at you. +So one needs to be cautious. So dangerous is the terrain in this +respect that the ambulances and motor-lorries and ammunition-trains +could not get up to the trenches at all had not the Belgians, with +great foresight, done wholesale tree-planting. Most people do not +number nursery work among the duties of an army, but nowadays it is. +From France and England the Belgians imported many saplings, thousands +if not tens of thousands of them, and set them out along the roads +exposed to German fire, and now their foliage forms a screen behind +which troops and transport can move with comparative safety. In places +where trees would not grow the roads have been masked for miles with +screens made from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>branches. To have one of these screens between you +and the Germans is very comforting.</p> + +<p>On our way up to the front we made a détour in order that I might call +on a friend, Mrs. A. D. Winterbottom, who, before her marriage to a +British officer, was Miss Appleton of Boston. In "Fighting in +Flanders" I told about a very brave deed which I saw performed by Mrs. +Winterbottom. She was quite angry with me for mentioning it, but +because she is an American of whom her countrypeople have every reason +to be proud, I am going to tell about it again. It was during the last +days of the siege of Antwerp. The Germans had methodically pounded to +pieces with their great guns the chain of barrier forts encircling the +city. Waelhem was one of the last to fall. When at length the remnant +of the garrison evacuated the fort they brought back word that a score +of their comrades, too badly wounded to walk, remained within the +battered walls. So Mrs. Winterbottom, who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>had brought over from +England her big touring-car and was driving it herself, said quietly +that she was going to bring them out. The only way to reach the fort +was by a straight and narrow road, a mile long, on which German shells +were bursting with great accuracy and frequency. To me and to the +Belgian officers who were with me, it looked like a short-cut to the +cemetery. But that didn't deter Mrs. Winterbottom. She climbed into +her car and threw in the clutch and jammed her foot down on the +accelerator, and went tearing down that shell-spattered highway at top +speed. She filled her car with wounded men and brought them safely +back, and then returned and gathered up the others who were still +alive. I have seen few braver deeds.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Winterbottom remained with the Belgian army throughout the great +retreat into Flanders, and when it settled down into the trench life +on the Yser, she was officially attached to a division, with which she +has remained ever since, moving when her division <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>moves. She lives in +a one-room shack which the soldiers have built her immediately in the +rear of the trenches and within range of the enemy's guns. Her only +companion is a dog, yet she is as safe as though she were on Beacon +Hill, for she is the idol of the soldiers. She has a large recreation +tent, like the side-show tent of a circus, but painted green to escape +the attention of the German airmen, and in this tent she entertains +the men during their brief periods of leave from the trenches. She +gives them coffee, cocoa, milk, and biscuits; she provides them with +writing materials—I forget how many thousand sheets of paper and +envelopes she told me that they used each week; and she keeps them +supplied with reading matter. Three times a week she gives "her boys" +a phonograph concert in the first-line trenches. You must have +experienced the misery and monotony of existence in the trenches to +understand what these "concerts" mean to the tired and homesick men. I +asked her if there was anything that the people at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>home could send +her, and she replied rather hesitantly (for she is personally bearing +the entire expense of this work) that she understood that some small +metal phonographs were procurable which could easily be carried about +and would not warp from dampness, for the trenches on the Yser are +very wet. She also said that she would welcome phonograph records of +any description and French books. The last I saw of her she was wading +through a sea of mud, in rubber boots and a rubber coat and a +sou'wester, to carry her "canned music" to the men on the firing-line. +They ought to be very proud of Mrs. Winterbottom back in her own home +town.</p> + +<p>The Belgian trenches are very much like those on other sectors of the +Western Front, except that they are made of sand-bags instead of +earth, are muddier and are nearer the enemy, being separated from the +German positions, for a considerable distance, only by the Yser, which +in places is only forty yards across. In fact, a baseball player could +easily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>sling a stone across the river into Dixmude, or what remains +of it, for, like most of the other Flemish towns, it is now only a +blackened skeleton. Many cities have been destroyed in the course of +this war, but none of them, unless it be Ypres, so nearly approaches +complete obliteration as Dixmude. Pompeii is a living, breathing city +compared to it. Despite all that has been printed about the +devastation in the war zone, I believe that when the war is over and +the hordes of curious Americans flock Europeward, they will be stunned +by the completeness of the desolation which the Germans have wrought +in northeastern France and Belgium.</p> + +<p>By far the most interesting day I spent on the Belgian front was not +in the trenches but in a long, low, wooden building well to the rear. +Over the door was a sign which read: "Section Photographique de +l'Armée Belge." Here are brought to be developed and enlarged and +scrutinized the hundreds of photographs which are taken daily by +Belgian <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>aviators flying over the German lines. In no department of +war work has there been greater progress during recent months than in +photography by airplane. Every morning at break of dawn scores of +Belgian machines—and the same is true all down the Western +Front—rise into the air, and for hour after hour swoop and circle +over the enemy's lines, taking countless photographs of his positions +by means of specially made cameras fitted with telescopic lenses. (The +Allied fliers on the Somme took seventeen hundred photographs during a +single day.) Most of these photographs are taken at a height of eight +thousand to ten thousand feet,<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a> though very much lower, of course, +when an opportunity presents itself, and always with the camera as +nearly vertical <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>as possible. As soon as an aviator has secured a +sufficient number of pictures of the locality or object which he has +been ordered to photograph, he wings his way back to his own lines, +the plates are immediately developed at the headquarters of the +Section Photographique or in a dark room on wheels. If the first +examination of the negative reveals anything of interest, it is at +once enlarged, often to eight times the size of the original. As a +result of this remarkable system of aerial espionage, there is nothing +of importance which the Germans can long conceal from the Allies. They +cannot extend their trench lines by so much as a yard, they cannot +construct new positions, they cannot mount a machine-gun without the +fact being registered by those eyes which, from dawn to dark, peer +down at them from the clouds. At all of the divisional headquarters +are large plans of the opposing enemy trenches, which are corrected +daily by means of these airplane photographs and by the information +collected through the elaborate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>system of espionage which the Allies +maintain behind the German lines. To deceive the aerial observers, +each side resorts to all manner of ingenious tricks. To suggest an +impending retirement, columns of men are marched down the roads which +lead to the rear; trenches which are not intended to be used are dug; +and there are, of course, hundreds of dummy guns, some of which +actually fire. The officer in command of the Belgian Photographic +Section had heard that I was in Dunkirk in May, 1915, when it was +shelled by a German naval gun, at a range of twenty-three and one-half +miles.<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a> So he gave me as a souvenir of the experience a photograph, +taken from the air, of the gun emplacement after it had been +discovered and bombed by the Allied aviators, and the gun removed to a +place of safety. I reproduce the photograph herewith. The numerous +white spots all about the emplacement are the craters caused by the +bombs which were rained upon it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>Another of these monster guns was so ingeniously concealed in an +imitation thicket that for a fortnight or more it defied the efforts +of scores of airmen to locate it. Though hundreds of airplane +photographs of the country behind the German trenches were brought in +and minutely examined, there was nothing about them to suggest the +hiding-place of a gun of so large a caliber until some one called +attention to the deep ruts left by motor-trucks which had left the +highway at a certain point and turned into the innocent-looking patch +of woods. Why were the wheel-ruts shown on the plate so black? Because +the vehicle must have sunk deep into the soft soil. Why did it sink so +deeply? Because it was heavily laden. Laden with what? With +large-caliber shells, perhaps. But still it was only a supposition. A +few days later, however, it was noticed that at a certain point on the +westward edge of that patch of woods there seemed to be a slight +discoloration. This discoloration became more pronounced on later +photographs which were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>brought in. Every one in the Section +Photographique hazarded a guess as to its cause. At length some one +suggested that it looked as though the leaves of the trees had been +burned. But what burned them? There was only one answer. The fiery +blast from a big gun hidden amid those trees, of course! Acting on +that hypothesis, a score of aviators were sent out with orders to pour +upon the wood a torrent of high explosive. The next few hours must +have been very uncomfortable for the German gun-crew. In any event, +the big piece was hauled out of danger under cover of darkness and the +bombardments of the towns behind the Belgian lines abruptly ceased.</p> + +<p>The Allied air service does not confine its observations to the +trenches; it keeps an ever-wakeful eye on all that is in progress in +the regions for many miles behind the front. To illustrate how little +escapes the eye of the camera, the officer in charge of the +Photographic Section showed me a series of photographs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>which had been +taken of a village at the back of Dixmude, a few days previously, from +a height of more than a mile. The first picture showed an ordinary +Flemish village with its gridiron of streets and buildings. Cutting +diagonally across the picture was a straight white streak which I knew +to be a road leading into the country. At one point on this road were +a number of tiny squares—evidently a row of workmen's cottages. The +commandant handed me a powerful magnifying-glass. "Look very closely +on that road," he said, "and you will see three specks." I saw them. +They were about the size of pin-points.</p> + +<p>"Those are three men," he continued. "The man at the right lives in +the first of this row of cottages. The man in the middle lives in the +fourth house in the row. But the man at the left is a farmer, and +lives in this isolated farmhouse out here in the country."</p> + +<p>"A very clever guess," I remarked, scepticism showing in my tone, I +fear.</p> + +<p>"We do not guess in this business," he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>replied reprovingly. "We +<i>know</i>." And he handed me the next photograph, taken a few seconds +later. There was no doubt about it; the pin-point of a man at the +right had left his two companions and was turning in at the first of +the row of cottages. Another photograph was produced. It showed the +second man entering the gate of the fourth cottage. And the final +picture of the series showed the remaining speck plodding on alone +toward his home in the country.</p> + +<p>"An officer of some importance is evidently making this house his +headquarters," remarked the commandant, indicating another tiny +rectangle. "If he wasn't of some importance he wouldn't have a +telephone."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "You don't mean to tell me that you can +photograph a telephone-wire from a mile in the air?"</p> + +<p>"Not quite," he admitted, "but sometimes, if the light happens to be +right, we can get photographs of its shadow."</p> + +<p>And sure enough, stretching across the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>ploughed fields, I could see, +through the glass, a phantom line, intersected at regular intervals by +short and somewhat thicker lines. It was the shadow of a +field-telephone and its poles! And the airplane from which that +photograph was taken was so high that it must have looked like a mere +speck to one on the ground. There's war magic for you.</p> + +<p>You will ask, of course, why the Germans don't maintain over the +Allied lines a similar system of aerial observation. They do—when the +Allies let them. But the Allies now have in commission on the Western +Front such an enormous number of aircraft—I think I have said +elsewhere the French alone probably have close to seven thousand +machines—and they have made such great improvements in their +anti-aircraft guns that to-day it is a comparatively rare thing to see +a German flier over territory held by the Allies. The moment that a +German flier takes the air, half a dozen Allied airmen rise to meet +and engage him, and, in the rare event of his being able to elude +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>them and get over the Allied lines, the "Archies," as the +anti-aircraft guns are called on the British front, get into noisy +action. (Their name, it is said, came from a London music-hall song +which was exceedingly popular at the beginning of the war. When the +shells from the German A. A. guns burst harmlessly around the British +airmen they would hum mockingly the concluding line of the song: +"Archibald, certainly not!") Unable to keep their fliers in the air, +the Germans are to all intents and purposes blind. They are unable to +regulate the fire of their artillery or to direct their infantry +attacks; they do not know what damage their shells are doing; and they +have no means of learning what is going on behind the enemy's lines. +It is obvious, therefore, that to have and keep control of the air is +a very, very important thing.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>No one who has been in Europe during the past two years can have +failed to notice the unpopularity of the Belgians among the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>French +and English. This is regrettable but true. Also it is unjust. When I +left Belgium in the late autumn of 1914 the Belgians were looked on as +a nation of heroes. They were acclaimed as the saviors of Europe. +Nothing was too good for them. The sight of a Belgian uniform in the +streets of London or Paris was the signal for a popular ovation. When +the red-black-and-yellow banner was displayed on the stage of a +music-hall the audience rose en masse. The story of the defense of +Liége sent a thrill of admiration round the world. But in the two and +a half years that have passed since then there has become noticeable +among French and English—particularly among the English—a steadily +growing dislike for their Belgian allies; a dislike which has, in +certain quarters, grown into a thinly veiled contempt. I have +repeatedly heard it asserted that the Belgian has been spoiled by too +much charity, that he is lazy and ungrateful and complaining, that he +has become a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>professional pauper, that he has been greatly overrated +as a fighter, and that he has had enough of the war and is ready to +quit.</p> + +<p>The truth of the matter is this: The majority of the Belgians who fled +before the advancing Germans belonged to the lower classes; they were +for the most part uneducated and lacking in mental discipline. Is it +any wonder, then, that they gave way to blind panic when the stories +of the barbarities practised by the invaders reached their ears, or +that their heads were turned by the hysterical enthusiasm, the lavish +hospitality, with which they were received in England? That as a +result of being thus lionized, many of these ignorant and mercurial +people became fault-finding and overbearing, there is no denying. Nor +can it be truthfully gainsaid that, for a year or more after the war +began, there hung about the London restaurants and music-halls a +number of young Belgians who ought to have been with their army on the +firing-line. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>But, if my memory serves me rightly, I think that I saw +quite a number of English youths doing the same thing. Every country +has its slackers, and Belgium is no exception. But to attempt to +belittle the glorious heroism of the Belgian nation because of a few +young slackers or the ingratitude and ill-manners of some ignorant +peasants, is an unworthy and despicable thing. The assertion that the +Belgians are lacking in courage is as untruthful as it is cruel. Ask +the Germans who charged up the fire-swept slopes of Liége—those of +them left alive—if the Belgians are cowards. Ask those who saw the +fields of Aerschot and Vilvorde and Termonde and Malines strewn with +Belgian dead. Go stand for a few days—and nights—beside the Belgians +who are holding those mud-filled trenches on the Yser. And remember +that the Belgians were fighting while the English were still only +talking about it. Nor forget that, had not their heroic resistance +given France a breathing-spell in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>which to complete her tardy +mobilization, the Germans would now, in all probability, be in Paris. +The truth is that the civilized world owes to the Belgians a debt +which it can never repay. We of America are honored to be counted +among their Allies.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<hr style='width: 15%;' /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> In order to keep pace with the steady improvement in +range and accuracy of anti-aircraft artillery, aviators have found it +necessary to operate at constantly increasing altitudes, so that it is +now not uncommon for aerial combats to be fought at a height of 20,000 +feet. Hence, many airplanes are now equipped with oxygen-bags for use +in the rarefied atmosphere of the higher levels. The aviators +operating on the Italian front experience such intense cold during the +winter months that a system has been evolved for heating their caps, +gloves, and boots by electricity generated by the motor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> For an account of this, the longest-range bombardment in +history, see Mr. Powell's "Vive la France!"</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p> +<br /> +Page 133: genlteman replaced with gentleman +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALY AT WAR AND THE ALLIES IN THE WEST***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 19074-h.txt or 19074-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/0/7/19074">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/0/7/19074</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Alexander Powell + + +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: Italy at War and the Allies in the West + + +Author: E. Alexander Powell + + + +Release Date: August 18, 2006 [eBook #19074] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALY AT WAR AND THE ALLIES IN THE +WEST*** + + +E-text prepared by Brian Sogard, Jeannie Howse, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 19074-h.htm or 19074-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/0/7/19074/19074-h/19074-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/0/7/19074/19074-h.zip) + + + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Notes: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been | + | preserved. | + | | + | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected | + | in this text. For a complete list, please see the end of | + | this document. | + | | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +The War on All Fronts, Volume IV + +ITALY AT WAR + +AND THE ALLIES IN THE WEST + +by + +E. ALEXANDER POWELL +Correspondent of the "New York World" +and Now Captain in the National Army + +Illustrated + + + + + + + + [Illustration: The King of Italy and the Prince of Wales. + When the Prince was on the Italian front, he asked permission to + visit a trench which was being heavily shelled. The King bluntly + refused. "I want no historic incidents here," he remarked dryly.] + + + + +New York +Charles Scribner's Sons +1919 +Copyright, 1917, by +Charles Scribner's Sons + + + + + +AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +For the assistance they have given me in the preparation of this book, +and for the countless kindnesses they have shown me, I am indebted to +many persons in many countries. + +His Excellency Count Macchi di Cellere, Italian Ambassador to the +United States; Signor Giuseppe Brambilla, Counsellor of Embassy; +Signor A. G. Celesia, Secretary of Embassy; his Excellency Thomas +Nelson Page, American Ambassador to Italy, and the members of his +staff; Signor Tittoni, former Italian Ambassador to France; Signor de +Martino, Chef du Cabinet of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; his +Excellency Signor Scialoje, Minister of Education; Professor Andrea +Galante, Chief of the Bureau of Propaganda; Colonel Barberiche and +Captain Pirelli of the Comando Supremo, and Signor Ugo Ojetti, in +charge of works of art in the war zone, all have my grateful thanks +for the exceptional facilities afforded me for observation on the +Italian front. + +His Excellency M. Jusserand, French Ambassador to the United States, +General Nivelle, General Gouraud, and General Dubois; Monsieur Henri +Ponsot, Chief of the Press Bureau, and Professor Georges Chinard, +Chief of the Bureau of Propaganda of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; +Commandant Bunau-Varilla and the Marquis d'Audigne all helped to make +this the most interesting and instructive of my many visits to the +French front. + +To General Jilinsky, commanding the Russian forces in France, and to +Colonel Romanoff, his Chief of Staff, I am grateful for the courtesies +extended to me while on the Russian front in Champagne. + +Lord Northcliffe, who on innumerable occasions has shown himself a +friend, Lord Robert Cecil, Minister of Blockade, and Sir Theodore +Andrea Cook, Editor of _The Field_, put themselves to much trouble in +arranging for my visit to the British front. Nor have I forgotten the +kindnesses shown me by Captain C. H. Roberts and Lieutenant C. S. +Fraser, my hosts at General Headquarters. + +For the many privileges extended to me during my visit to the Belgian +front I take this opportunity of thanking his Excellency Baron de +Broqueville, Prime Minister of Belgium; M. Emanuel Havenith, former +Belgian Minister to the United States, Lieutenant-General Jacquez, +commanding the third division of the Belgian Army; Capitaine-Commandant +Vincotte, and Capitaine-Commandant Maurice Le Duc of the Etat-Major. + +To Lieutenant-Colonel Spencer Cosby, Corps of Engineers, United States +Army, I owe my thanks for much of the technical information contained +in Chapter V, as he generously placed at my disposal the extremely +valuable material which he collected during his three years of service +as American Military Attache in Paris. + +James Hazen Hyde, Esq., who accompanied me on my visit to the Italian +front, has, by his hospitality and kindness, placed me under +obligations which I can never fully repay. I could have had no more +charming or cultured travelling companion. + +I also wish to acknowledge the information and suggestions I have +derived from Sydney Low's admirable book, "Italy in the War"; from R. +W. Seton-Watson's "The Balkans, Italy, and the Adriatic"; from V. +Gayda's "Modern Austria"; from Dr. E. J. Dillon's "From the Triple to +the Quadruple Alliance"; from Pietro Fedele's "Why Italy Is at War," +and from E. D. Ushaw's "Railways at the Front." + +And, finally, I desire to thank Howard E. Coffin, Esq., of the +Advisory Board of the Council of National Defence, for his hospitality +on his sea island of Sapeloe, where most of this book was written. + + E. ALEXANDER POWELL. + + WASHINGTON, + +April fifteenth, 1917. + + + + + TO + + THEIR EXCELLENCIES + + COUNT V. MACCHI DI CELLERE, AMBASSADOR OF ITALY, + AND JEAN JULES JUSSERAND, AMBASSADOR OF FRANCE + + IN APPRECIATION OF THE MANY + KINDNESSES THEY HAVE SHOWN + ME AND IN ADMIRATION OF THE + TACT, SINCERITY, AND ABILITY + WHICH HAVE WON FOR THEM, + AND FOR THE COUNTRIES THEY + REPRESENT, THE FRIENDSHIP AND + CONFIDENCE OF ALL AMERICANS + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + I. THE WAY TO THE WAR 3 + + II. WHY ITALY WENT TO WAR 37 + + III. FIGHTING ON THE ROOF OF EUROPE 68 + + IV. THE ROAD TO TRIESTE 105 + + V. WITH THE RUSSIANS IN CHAMPAGNE 138 + + VI. "THEY SHALL NOT PASS!" 155 + + VII. "THAT CONTEMPTIBLE LITTLE ARMY" 204 + +VIII. WITH THE BELGIANS ON THE YSER 253 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +The King of Italy and the Prince of Wales _Frontispiece_ + + FACING + PAGE +The _Teleferica_ 4 + +An Italian Position in the Carnia 5 + +The King of Italy and General Cadorna at Castelnuovo 32 + +The Peril in the Clouds 33 + +Alpini Going Into Action 68 + +On the Roof of the World 69 + +A Heavy Howitzer in the High Alps 82 + +An Outpost in the Carnia 83 + +"_Halt!_ Show Your Papers!" 160 + +A Nieuport Biplane About to Take the Air 161 + +Verdun's Mightiest Defender: a 400-mm. Gun 172 + +A Gun Painted to Escape the Observation of Enemy +Airmen 173 + +Australians on the Way to the Trenches 196 + +The Fire Trench 197 + +A British "Heavy" Mounted on a Railway-Truck +Shelling the German Lines 238 + +Buried on the Field of Honor 239 + + _These illustrations are from photographs taken by the + Photographic Sections of the Italian, French, British, and Belgian + armies and by the author._ + + + + +ITALY AT WAR + + + + +I + +THE WAY TO THE WAR + + +When I told my friends that I was going to the Italian front they +smiled disdainfully. "You will only be wasting your time," one of them +warned me. "There isn't anything doing there," said another. And when +I came back they greeted me with "You didn't see much, did you?" and +"What are the Italians doing, anyway?" + +If I had time I told them that Italy is holding a front which is +longer than the French and British and Belgian fronts combined (trace +it out on the map and you will find that it measures more than four +hundred and fifty miles); that, alone among the Allies, she is doing +most of her fighting on the enemy's soil; that she is fighting an army +which was fourth in Europe in numbers, third in quality, and probably +second in equipment; that in a single battle she lost more men than +fell on both sides at Gettysburg; that she has taken 100,000 +prisoners; that, to oppose the Austrian offensive in the Trentino, she +mobilized a new army of half a million men, completely equipped it, +and moved it to the front, all in seven days; that, were her trench +lines carefully ironed out, they would extend as far as from New York +to Salt Lake City; that, instead of digging these trenches, she has +had to blast most of them from the solid rock; that she has mounted +8-inch guns on ice-ledges nearly two miles above sea-level, in +positions to which a skilled mountaineer would find it perilous to +climb; that in places the infantry has advanced by driving iron pegs +and rings into the perpendicular walls of rock and swarming up the +dizzy ladders thus constructed; that many of the positions can be +reached only in baskets slung from sagging wires stretched across +mile-deep chasms; that many of her soldiers are living like arctic +explorers, in caverns of ice and snow; that on the sun-scorched floor +of the Carso the bodies of the dead have frequently been found +baked hard and mummified, while in the mountains they have been found +stiff, too, but stiff from cold; that in the lowlands of the Isonzo +the soldiers have fought in water to their waists, while the water for +the armies fighting in the Trentino has had to be brought up from +thousands of feet below; and, most important of all, that she has kept +engaged some forty Austrian divisions (about 750,000 men)--a force +sufficient to have turned the scale in favor of the Central Powers on +any of the other fronts. And I have usually added: "After what I have +seen over there, I feel like lifting my hat, in respect and +admiration, to the next Italian that I see." + + [Illustration: The _Teleferica_. + "Many of the Italian positions can be reached only in baskets slung + from sagging wires stretched across mile-deep chasms."] + + [Illustration: An Italian Position in the Carnia. + "Many of the Italian soldiers are living like arctic explorers, in + caverns of ice and snow."] + +It is no exaggeration to say that not one American in a thousand has +any adequate conception of what Italy is fighting for, nor any +appreciation of the splendid part she is playing in the war. This lack +of knowledge, and the consequent lack of interest, is, however, +primarily due to the Italians themselves. They are suspicious of +foreigners. They are by nature shy. More insular than the French or +English, they are only just commencing to realize the political value +of our national maxim: "It pays to advertise." Though they want +publicity they do not know how to get it. Instead of welcoming neutral +correspondents and publicists, they have, until very recently, met +them with suspicion and hinderances. What little news is permitted to +filter through is coldly official, and is altogether unsuited for +American consumption. The Italians are staging one of the most +remarkable and inspiring performances that I have seen on any front--a +performance of which they have every reason to be proud--but +diffidence and conservatism have deterred them from telling the world +about it. + +To visit Italy in these days is no longer merely a matter of buying a +ticket and boarding a train. To comply with the necessary formalities +takes the better part of a week. Should you, an American, wish to +travel from Paris to Rome, for example, you must first of all obtain +from the American consul-general a special vise for Italy, together +with a statement of the day and hour on which you intend to leave +Paris, the frontier station at which you will enter Italy, and the +cities which you propose visiting. The consul-general will require of +you three _carte-de-visite_ size photographs. Armed with your vised +passport, you must then present yourself at the Italian Consulate +where several suave but very businesslike gentlemen will subject you +to a series of extremely searching questions. And you can be perfectly +certain that they are in possession of enough information about you to +check up your answers. Should it chance that your grandfather's name; +was Schmidt, or something equally German-sounding, it is all off. The +Italians, I repeat, are a suspicious folk, and they are taking no +chances. Moreover, unless you are able to convince them of the +imperative necessity of your visiting Italy, you do not go. Tourists +and sensation seekers are not wanted in Italy in these times; the +railways are needed for other purposes. If, however, you succeed in +satisfying the board of examiners that you are not likely to be either +a menace or a nuisance, a special passport for the journey will be +issued you. Three more photographs, please. This passport must then be +indorsed at the Prefecture of Police. (_Votre photographie s'il vous +plait._) Should you neglect to obtain the police vise you will not be +permitted to board the train. + +Upon reaching the frontier you are ushered before a board composed of +officials of the French _Service de Surete_ and the Italian _Questura_ +and again subjected to a searching interrogatory. Every piece of +luggage in the train is unloaded, opened, and carefully examined. It +having been discovered that spies were accustomed to conceal in their +compartments any papers which they might be carrying, and retrieving +them after the frontier was safely passed, the through trains have now +been discontinued, passengers and luggage, after the examination at +the frontier, being sent on by another train. In addition to the French +and Italian secret-service officials, there are now on duty at the +various frontier stations, and likewise in Athens, Naples, and Rome, +keen-eyed young officers of the "Hush-Hush Brigade," as the British +Intelligence Department is disrespectfully called, whose business it is +to scrutinize the thousands of British subjects--officers returning +from India, Egypt, or Salonika, or from service with the Mediterranean +fleet, King's messengers, diplomatic couriers--who are constantly +crossing Italy on their way to or from England. + +That the arm of the enemy is very long, and that it is able to strike +at astounding distances and in the most unexpected places, is brought +sharply home to one as the train pulls out of the Genoa station. From +Genoa to Pisa, a distance of a hundred miles, the railway closely hugs +the Mediterranean shore. At night all the curtains on that side of the +train must be kept closely drawn and, as an additional precaution, +the white electric-light bulbs in the corridors and compartments have +been replaced by violet ones. If you ask the reason for this you are +usually met with evasions. But, if you persist, you learn that it is +done to avoid the danger of the trains being shelled by Austrian +submarines! (Imagine, if you please, the passengers on the New +York-Boston trains being ordered to keep their windows darkened +because enemy submarines have been reported off the coast.) In this +war remoteness from the firing-line does not assure safety. Spezia, +for example, which is a naval base of the first importance, is +separated from the firing-line by the width of the Italian peninsula. +Until a few months ago its inhabitants felt as snug and safe as though +they lived in Spain. Then, one night, an Austrian airman crossed the +Alps, winged his way above the Lombard plain, and let loose on Spezia +a rain of bombs which caused many deaths and did enormous damage. + +Even the casual traveller in Italy to-day cannot fail to be struck by +the prosperity which the war has brought to the great manufacturing +cities of the north as contrasted with the commercial stagnation which +prevails in the southern provinces of the kingdom. In the munition +plants, most of which are in the north, are employed upward of half a +million workers, of whom 75,000 are women. Genoa, Milan, and Turin are +a-boom with industry. The great automobile factories have expanded +amazingly in order to meet the demand for shells, field-guns, and +motor-trucks. Turin, as an officer smilingly remarked, "now consists +of the Fiat factory and a few houses." The United States is not the +only country to produce that strange breed known as munitions +millionaires. Italy has them also--and the jewellers and champagne +agents are doing a bigger business than they have ever done before. + +As the train tears southward into Tuscany you begin to catch fleeting +glimpses of the men who are making possible this sudden +prosperity--the men who are using the motor-trucks and the shells and +the field-guns. _They_ don't look very prosperous or very happy. +Sometimes you see them drawn up on the platforms of wayside stations, +shivering beneath their scanty capes in the chill of an Italian dawn. +Usually there is a background of wet-eyed women, with shawls drawn +over their heads, and nearly always with babies in their arms. And on +nearly every siding were standing long trains of box-cars, bedded with +straw and filled with these same wiry, brown-faced little men in their +rat-gray uniforms, being hurried to the fighting in the north. It +reminded me of those long cattle-trains one sees in the Middle West, +bound for the Chicago slaughter-houses. + +Rome in war-time is about as cheerful as Coney Island in midwinter. +Empty are the enticing little shops on the Piazza di Spagna. Gone from +the marble steps are the artists' models and the flower-girls. To +visit the galleries of the Vatican is to stroll through an echoing +marble tomb. The guards and custodians no longer welcome you for the +sake of your tips, but for the sake of your company. The King, who is +with the army, visits Rome only rarely; the Queen occupies a modest +villa in the country; the Palace of the Quirinal has been turned into +a hospital. The great ballroom, the state dining-room, the +throne-room, even the Queen's sun-parlor, are now filled with white +cots, hundreds and hundreds of them, each with its bandaged occupant, +while in the famous gardens where Popes and Emperors and Kings have +strolled, convalescent soldiers now laze in the sun or on the +gravelled paths play at bowls. In giving up their home for the use of +the wounded, the King and Queen have done a very generous and noble +thing, and the Italian people are not going to forget it. + +If Rome, which is the seat of government, shows such unmistakable +signs of depression, imagine the stagnation of Florence, which has +long been as dependent upon its crop of tourists as a Dakota farmer is +upon his crop of wheat. The Cascine Gardens, in the old days one of +the gayest promenades in Europe, are as lonely as a cemetery. At those +hotels on the Lung' Arno, which remain open, the visitor can make his +own terms. The Via Tornabuoni is as quiet as a street in a country +town. The dealers in antiques, in souvenirs, in pictures, in marbles, +have most of them put up their shutters and disappeared, to return, no +doubt, in happier times. + +There is in the Via Tornabuoni, midway between Giacosa's and the +American Consulate, an excellent barber shop. The owner, who learned +his trade in the United States, is the most skilful man with scissors +and razor that I know. His customers came from half the countries of +the globe. + +"But they are all gone now," he told me sadly. "Some are fighting, +some have been killed, the others have gone back to their homes until +the war is over. Three years ago I had as nice a little business as a +man could ask for. To-day I do not make enough to pay my rent. But it +doesn't make much difference, for next month my class is called to +the colors, and in the spring my son, who will then be eighteen, will +also have to go." + +No, they're not very enthusiastic over the war in Florence. But you +can't blame them, can you? + + * * * * * + +In none of the great cities known and loved by Americans has the war +wrought such startling changes as in Venice. Because it is a naval +base of the first importance, because it is almost within sight of the +Austrian coast, and therefore within easy striking distance of +Trieste, Fiume, and Pola, and because throughout Venetia Austrian +spies abound, Venice is a closed city. It reminded me of a beautiful +playhouse which had been closed for an indefinite period: the +fire-curtain lowered, the linen covers drawn over the seats, the +carpets rolled up, the scenery stored away, the great stage empty and +desolate. Gone are the lights, the music, the merriment which made +Venice one of the happiest and most care free of cities. Because of +the frequent air raids--Venice has been attacked from the sky nearly a +hundred times since the war began--the city is put to bed promptly at +nightfall. To show a light from a door or window after dark is to +invite a domiciliary visit from the police and, quite possibly, arrest +on the charge of attempting to communicate with the enemy. The +illumination of the streets is confined to small candle-power lights +in blue or purple bulbs, the weakened rays being visible for only a +short distance. To stroll at night in the darkened streets is to risk +falling into a canal, while the use of an electric torch would almost +certainly result in arrest as a spy. The ghastly effect produced by +the purple lights, the utter blackness of the canals, the deathly +silence, broken only by the sound of water lapping the walls of the +empty palazzos, combine to give the city a peculiarly weird and +sepulchral appearance. + +Of the great hotels which line the Canale Grande, only the Danieli +remains open. Over the others fly the Red Cross flags, and in their +windows and on their terraces lounge wounded soldiers. The +smoking-room of the Danieli, where so many generations of travelling +Americans have chatted over their coffee and cigars, has been +converted into a _rifugio_, in which the guests can find shelter in +case of an air attack. A bomb-proof ceiling has been made of two +layers of steel rails, laid crosswise, and ramparts of sand-bags have +been built against the walls. On the doors of the bedrooms are posted +notices urging the guests, when hostile aircraft are reported, to make +directly for the _rifugio_, and remain there until the raid is over. +In other cities in the war zone the inhabitants take to their cellars +during aerial attacks, but in Venice there are no cellars, and the +buildings are, for the most part, too old and poorly built to afford +safety from bombs. To provide adequate protection for the population, +particularly in the poorer and more congested districts of the city, +has, therefore, proved a serious problem for the authorities. Owing to +its situation, Venice is extremely vulnerable to air attacks, for the +Austrian seaplanes, operating from Trieste or Pola, can glide across +the Adriatic under cover of darkness, and are over the city before +their presence is discovered. Before the anti-aircraft guns can get +their range, or the Italian airmen can rise and engage them, they have +dropped their bombs and fled. Although, generally speaking, the loss +of life resulting from these aerial forays is surprising small, they +are occasionally very serious affairs. During an air raid on Padua, +which occurred a few days before I was there, a bomb exploded in the +midst of a crowd of terrified townspeople who were struggling to gain +entrance to a _rifugio_. In that affair 153 men, women, and children +lost their lives. + +The admiral in command of Venice showed me a map of the city, which, +with the exception of a large rectangle, was thickly sprinkled with +small red dots. There must have been several hundred of them. + +"These dots," he explained, "indicate where Austrian bombs have +fallen." + +"This part of the city seems to have been peculiarly fortunate," I +remarked, placing my finger on the white square. + +"That," said he, "is the Arsenal. For obvious reasons we do not reveal +whether any bombs have fallen there." + +Considering the frequency with which Venice has been attacked from the +air, its churches, of which there are an extraordinary number, have +escaped with comparatively little damage. Only four, in fact, have +suffered seriously. Of these, the church of Santa Maria Formosa has +sustained the greatest damage, its magnificent interior, with the +celebrated decorations by Palma Vecchio, having been transformed +through the agency of an Austrian bomb, into a heap of stone and +plaster. Another bomb chose as its target the great dome of the church +of San Pietro di Castello, which stands on the island of San Pietro, +opposite the Arsenal. On the Grand Canal, close by the railway-station, +is the Chiesa degli Scalzi, whose ceiling by Tiepolo, one of the +master's greatest works, has suffered irreparable injury. Santi +Giovanni e Paolo, next to St. Mark's the most famous church in Venice, +has also been shattered by a bomb. + +I asked the officer in command of the aerial defenses of Venice if he +thought that the Austrian airmen intentionally bomb churches, +hospitals, and monuments, as has been so often asserted in the Allied +press. + +"It's this way," he explained. "A dozen aviators are ordered to +bombard a certain city. Three or four of them are real heroes and, at +the risk of their lives, descend low enough to make certain of their +targets before releasing their bombs. The others, however, rather than +come within range of the anti-aircraft guns, remain at a safe height, +drop their bombs at random as soon as they are over the city, and then +clear out. Is it very surprising, then, that bombs dropped from a +height of perhaps ten thousand feet, by aircraft travelling sixty +miles an hour, miss the forts and barracks for which they are +intended and hit churches and dwellings instead?" + +Intentional or not, the bombardment of the Venetian churches is a +blunder for which the Austrians will pay dearly in loss of +international good-will. A century hence these shattered churches will +be pointed out to visitors as the work of the modern Vandals, and +lovers of art and beauty throughout the world will execrate the nation +which permitted the sacrilege. They have destroyed glass and paintings +and sculptures that were a joy to the whole world, they have undone +the work of saints and heroes and masters, and they have gained no +corresponding military advantage. In every city which has been +subjected to air raids the inhabitants have been made more obstinate, +more iron-hard in their determination to keep on fighting. The sight +of shattered churches, of wrecked dwellings, of mangled women and dead +babies, does not terrify or dismay a people: it infuriates them. In +the words of Talleyrand: "It is worse than a crime; it is a mistake." + +The strangest sight in Venice to-day is St. Mark's. There is nothing +in its present appearance, inside or out, to suggest the famous +cathedral which so many millions of people have reverenced and loved. +Indeed, there is little about it to suggest a church at all. It looks +like a huge and ugly warehouse, like a car barn, like a Billy Sunday +tabernacle, for, in order to protect the wonderful mosaics and marbles +which adorn the church's western facade, it has been sheathed, from +ground to roof, with unpainted planks, and these, in turn, have been +covered with great squares of asbestos. By this use of fire-proof +material it is hoped that, even should the church be hit by a bomb, +there may be averted a fire such as did irreparable damage to the +Cathedral of Rheims. + +The famous bronze horses have been removed from their place over the +main portal of St. Mark's, and taken, I believe, to Florence. It is +not the first travelling that they have done, for from the triumphal +arch of Nero they once looked down on ancient Rome. Constantine sent +them to adorn the imperial hippodrome which he built in +Constantinople, whence the Doge Dandolo brought them as spoils of war +to Venice when the thirteenth century was still young. In 1797 +Napoleon carried them to Paris, but after the downfall of the Emperor +they were brought back to Venice by the Austrians and restored to +their ancient position. There they remained for just a hundred years, +until the menace of the Austrian aircraft necessitated their hasty +removal to a place of safety. Of them one of Napoleon's generals is +said to have remarked disparagingly: "They are too coarse in the limbs +for cavalry use, and too light for the guns." In any event, they were +the only four horses, alive or dead, in the whole city, and the +Venetians love them as though they were their children. + +If in its war dress the exterior of St. Mark's presents a strange +appearance, the transformation of the interior is positively +startling. Nothing that ingenuity can suggest has been left undone to +protect the sculptures, mosaics, glass, and marbles which, brought by +the seafaring Venetians from the four corners of the globe, make St. +Mark's the most beautiful of churches. Everything portable has been +removed to a place of safety, but the famous mosaics, the ancient +windows, and the splendid carvings it is impossible to remove, and +they are the most precious of all. The two pulpits of colored marbles +and the celebrated screen with its carven figures are now hidden +beneath pyramids of sand-bags. The spiral columns of translucent +alabaster which support the altar, are padded with excelsior and +wrapped with canvas. Swinging curtains of quilted burlap protect the +walls of the chapels and transepts from flying shell fragments. Yet +all these precautions would probably avail but little were a bomb to +strike St. Mark's. In the destruction that would almost certainly +result there would perish mosaics and sculptures which were in their +present places when Vienna was still a Swabian village, and Berlin had +yet to be founded on the plain above the Spree. + +If it has proved difficult to protect from airplane fire the massive +basilica of St. Mark's, consider the problem presented to the +authorities by the Palace of the Doges, that creation of fairylike +loveliness, whose exquisite facades, with their delicate window +tracery and fragile carvings, would be irretrievably ruined by a +well-aimed bomb. In order to avert such a disaster, it was proposed to +protect the facades of the palace by enclosing the building in +temporary walls of masonry. It was found, however, that this plan was +not feasible, as the engineers reported that the piles on which the +ancient building is poised would submerge if subjected to such an +additional weight. All that they have been able to do, therefore, is +to shore up the arches of the loggia with beams, fill up the windows +with brick and plaster, and pray to the patron saint of Venice to save +the city's most exquisite structure. + +The gilded figure of an angel, which for so many centuries has looked +down on Venice from the summit of the Campanile, has been given a +dress of battleship gray that it may not serve as a landmark for the +Austrian aviators. Over the celebrated equestrian statue of +Colleoni--of which Ruskin said: "I do not believe there is a more +glorious work of sculpture existing in the world"--has been erected a +titanic armored sentry-box, which is covered, in turn, with layer upon +layer of sand-bags. Could the spirit of that great soldier of fortune +be consulted, however, I rather fancy that he would insist upon +sitting his bronze warhorse, unprotected and unafraid, facing the +bombs of the Austrian airmen just as he used to face the bolts of the +Austrian crossbowmen. + +The commercial life of Venice is virtually at a standstill. Most of +the glass and lace manufactories have been forced to shut down. The +dealers in curios and antiques lounge idly in their doorways, deeming +themselves fortunate if they make a sale a month. All save one or two +of the great hotels which have not been taken over by the Government +for hospitals have had to close their doors. The hordes of guides and +boatmen and waiters who depended for their living upon the tourists +are--such of them as have not been called to the colors--without work +and in desperate need. In normal times a quarter of Venice's 150,000 +inhabitants are paupers, and this percentage must have enormously +increased, for, notwithstanding the relief measures which the +Government has taken, unemployment is general, the prices of food are +constantly increasing, and coal has become almost impossible to +obtain. Fishing, which was one of the city's chief industries, is now +an exceedingly hazardous employment because of submarines and floating +mines. Save for the clumsy craft of commerce, the gondolas have +largely disappeared, and with them has disappeared, only temporarily, +let us hope, the most picturesque feature of Venetian life. They have +been driven off by the slim, polished, cigar-shaped power-boats, which +tear madly up and down and crossways of the canals in the service of +the military government and of the fleet. To use a gondola, +particularly at night, is as dangerous as it would be to drive upon a +motor race-course with a horse and buggy, for, as no lights are +permitted, one is in constant peril of being run down by the +recklessly driven power craft, whose wash, by the way, is seriously +affecting the foundations of many of the palazzos. + +It is an unfamiliar, gloomy, mysterious place, is war-time Venice, but +in certain respects I liked it better than the commercialized city of +antebellum days. Gone are the droves of loud-voiced tourists, gone the +impudent boatmen, the importunate beggars, the impertinent guides, +gone the glare of lights and the blare of cheap music. No longer do +the lantern-strung barges of the musicians gather nightly off the +Molo. No longer across the waters float the strains of "_Addio di +Napoli_" and "_Ciri-Biri-Bi_"; the Canale Grande is dark and silent +now. The tourist hostelries, on whose terraces at night gleamed the +white shirt-fronts of men and the white shoulders of women, now have +as their only guests the white-bandaged wounded. In its darkness, its +mystery, its silence, it is once again the Venice of the Middle Ages, +the Venice of lovers and conspirators, of inquisitors and assassins, +the Venice of which Shakespeare sang. + +But with the coming of dawn the Venice of the twelfth century is +abruptly transformed into the Venice of the twentieth. The sun, rising +out of the Adriatic, turns into ellipsoids of silver the +aluminum-colored observation balloons which form the city's first line +of aerial defense. As the sun climbs higher it brings into bold relief +the lean barrels of the anti-aircraft guns, which, from the roofs of +the buildings to the seaward, sweep the eastern sky. Abreast the +Public Gardens the great war-ships, in their coats of elephant-gray, +swing lazily at their moorings. Near the Punta della Motta lie the +destroyers, like greyhounds held in leash. Off the Riva Schiavoni, on +the very spot, no doubt, where Dandolo's war-galleys lay, are +anchored the British submarines. And atop his granite column, a link +with the city's glorious and warlike past, still stands the winged +lion of St. Mark, snarling a perpetual challenge at his ancient +enemy--Austria. + + * * * * * + +The Comando Supremo, or Great Headquarters, of the Italian army is at +Udine, an ancient Venetian town some twenty miles from the Austrian +frontier. This is supposed to be a great secret, and must not be +mentioned in letters or newspaper despatches, it being assumed that, +were the Austrians to learn of the presence in Udine of the Comando +Supremo, their airmen would pay inconvenient visits to the town, and +from the clouds would drop their steel calling-cards on the King and +General Cadorna. So, though every one in Italy is perfectly aware that +the head of the Government and the head of the army are at Udine, the +fact is never mentioned in print. To believe that the Austrians are +ignorant of the whereabouts of the Italian high command is to +severely strain one's credulity. The Italians not only know where the +Austrian headquarters is situated, but they know in which houses the +various generals live, and the restaurants in which they eat. This +extreme reticence of the Italians seems a little irksome and overdone +after the frankness one encounters on the French and British fronts, +but it is due, no doubt, to the admonitions which are posted in +hotels, restaurants, stations, and railway carriages throughout Italy: +"It is the patriotic duty of good citizens not to question the +military about the war," and: "The military are warned not to discuss +the war with civilians. An indiscreet friend can be as dangerous as an +enemy." + +My previous acquaintance with Udine had been confined to fleeting +glimpses of it from the windows of the Vienna-Cannes express. Before +the war it was, like the other towns which dot the Venetian plain, a +quaint, sleepy, easy-going place, dwelling in the memories of its +past, but with the declaration of hostilities it suddenly became one +of the busiest and most important places in all Italy. From his desk +in the Prefecture, General Cadorna, a short, wiry, quick-moving man +in the middle sixties, with a face as hard and brown as a +hickory-nut, directs the operations of the armies along that +four-hundred-and-fifty-mile-long battle-line which stretches from the +Stelvio to the sea. The cobble-paved streets and the vaulted arcades +are gay with many uniforms, for, in addition to the hundreds of staff +and divisional officers quartered in Udine, the French, British, +Russian, and Belgian Governments maintain there military missions, +whose business it is to keep the staffs of their respective armies +constantly in touch with the Italian high command, thus securing +practical co-operation. In a modest villa, a short distance outside +the town, dwells the King, who has been on the front almost +constantly since the war began. Although, as ruler of the kingdom, he +is commander-in-chief of the Italian armies, he rarely gives advice +unless it is asked for, and never interferes with the decisions of +the Comando Supremo. Scarcely a day passes that he does not visit +some sector of the battle-line. Officers and men in some of the +lonely mountain commands told me that the only general who has +visited them is the King. Should he venture into exposed positions, +as he frequently does, he is halted by the local command. It is, of +course, tactfully done. "I am responsible for your Majesty's safety," +says the officer. "Were there to be an accident I should be blamed." +Whereupon the King promptly withdraws. If he is not permitted to take +unnecessary risks himself, neither will he permit others. When the +Prince of Wales visited the Italian front last summer, he asked +permission to enter a certain first-line trench, which was being +heavily shelled. The King bluntly refused. "I want no historic +incidents here," he remarked dryly. + + [Illustration: The King of Italy and General Cadorna at Castelnuovo. + Scarcely a day passes that the King does not visit some sector of + the battle-line, but he rarely gives advice unless it is asked for, + and never interferes with the decisions of the Comando Supremo.] + + [Illustration: The Peril in the Clouds. + The gunners of an Italian anti-aircraft battery sight an Austrian + airplane.] + +To obtain a room in Udine is as difficult as it is to obtain hotel +accommodation in New York during the Automobile Show. But, because I +was a guest of the Government, I found that a room had been reserved +for me by the Comando Supremo at the Hotel Croce di Malta. I was told +that since the war three proprietors of this hotel had made their +fortunes and retired, and after I received my bill I believed it. +There was in my room one of those inhospitable, box-shaped porcelain +stoves so common in North Italy and the Tyrol. To keep a modest +wood-fire going in that stove cost me exactly thirty lire (about six +dollars) a day. But a fire was a necessity. Luxuries came higher. Yet +the scene in the hotel's shabby restaurant at the dinner-hour was well +worth the fantastic charges, for there gathered there nightly as +interesting a company as I have not often seen under one roof: a poet +and novelist who has given to Italy the most important literary work +since the days of the great classics, and who, by his fiery and +impassioned speeches, did more than any single person to force the +nation's entrance into the war; an American dental surgeon who +abandoned an enormously lucrative practice in Rome to establish at +the front a hospital where he has performed feats approaching the +magical in rebuilding shrapnel-shattered faces; a Florentine +connoisseur, probably the greatest living authority on Italian art, +who has been commissioned with the preservation of all the works of +art in the war zone; an English countess who is in charge of an X-ray +car which operates within range of the Austrian guns; a young Roman +noble whom I had last seen, in pink, in the hunting-field; a group of +khaki-clad officers from the British mission, cold and aloof of manner +despite their being among allies; a party of Russians, their hair +clipped to the skull, their green tunics sprinkled with stars and +crosses; half a dozen French military attaches in beautifully cut +uniforms of horizon-blue; and Italian officers, animated and +gesticulative, on whose breasts were medal ribbons showing that they +had fought in forgotten wars in forgotten corners of Africa. At one +table they were discussing the probable date of some Roman remains +which had just been unearthed at Aquileia; at another an argument was +in progress over the merits of _vers libre_; one of the Russians was +explaining a new system he had evolved for breaking the bank at Monte +Carlo; the young English countess was retailing the latest jokes from +the London music-halls, but nowhere did I hear mentioned the grim and +bloody business which had brought us, of so many minds and from so +many lands, to this shabby, smoke-filled, garlic-scented room in this +little frontier town. Yet, had the door been opened, and had we +stilled our voices, we could have heard, quite plainly, the sullen +grumble of the cannon. + + + + +II + +WHY ITALY WENT TO WAR + + +To understand why Italy is at war you have only to look at the map of +Central Europe. You can hardly fail to be struck by the curious +resemblance which the outline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire bears to +a monstrous bird of prey hovering threateningly over Italy. The body +of the bird is formed by Hungary; Bohemia is the right wing, Bosnia +and Dalmatia constitute the left; the Tyrol represents the head, while +the savage beak, with its open jaws, is formed by that portion of the +Tyrol commonly known as the Trentino. And that savage beak, you will +note, is buried deep in the shoulder of Italy, holding between its +jaws, as it were, the Lake of Garda. To continue the simile, it will +be seen that the talons of the bird, formed by the Istrian Peninsula, +reach out over the Adriatic in threatening proximity to Venice and +the other Italian coast towns. It is to end the intolerable menace of +that beak and those claws that Italy is fighting. There you have it in +a nutshell. + + [Illustration: (Austria-Hungary map)] + +Just as in France, since 1870, the national watchword has been +"Alsace-Lorraine," so in Italy, for upward of half a century, the +popular cry has been "_Italia Irredenta_"--Italy Unredeemed. It was a +deep and bitter disappointment to all Italians that, upon the +formation in 1866 of the present kingdom, there should have been left +under Austrian dominion two regions which, in population, in language, +and in sentiment, were essentially Italian. These "unredeemed" +regions were generally called after their respective capital cities: +Trent and Trieste. But, though the phrase _Italia Irredenta_ was +originally interpreted as referring only to the Trentino and Trieste, +it has gradually assumed, in the course of years, a broader +significance, until now it includes all that portion of the Tyrol +lying south of the Brenner, the Carso plateau, Trieste and its +immediate hinterland, the entire Istrian Peninsula, the Hungarian port +of Fiume, and the whole of Dalmatia and Albania. In other words, the +Irredentists of to-day--and, since Italy entered the war, virtually +the entire nation has subscribed to Irredentist aims and ideals--dream +of an Italy whose northern frontier shall be formed by the main chain +of the Alps, and whose rule shall be extended over the entire eastern +shore of the Adriatic. + +In order to intelligently understand the Italian view-point, suppose +that we imagine ourselves in an analogous position. For this purpose +you must picture Canada as a highly organized military Power, its +policies directed by an aggressive, predacious and unscrupulous +government, and with a population larger than that of the United +States. You will conceive of the State of Vermont as a Canadian +province under military control: a wedge driven into the heart of +manufacturing New England, and threatening the teeming valleys of the +Connecticut and the Hudson. You must imagine this province of Vermont +as overrun by Canadian soldiery; as crisscrossed by military roads and +strategic railways; its hills and mountains abristle with forts whose +guns are turned United Statesward. The inhabitants of the province, +though American in descent, in traditions, and in ideals, are +oppressed by a harsh and tyrannical military rule. With the exception +of a single trunk-line, there are no railways crossing the frontier. +Commercial intercourse with the United States is virtually forbidden. +To teach American history in the schools of Vermont is prohibited; to +display the American flag is a felony; to sing the "Star-Spangled +Banner" is punishable by imprisonment or a fine. For the Vermonters to +communicate, no matter how innocently, with their kinsmen in the +United States, is to bring down upon them suspicion and possible +punishment. By substituting Austria-Hungary for Canada, Italy for the +United States, and the Trentino for Vermont, you will, perhaps, have a +little clearer understanding of why the liberation of the Trentino +from Austrian oppression is demanded by all Italians. + +A similar homely parallel will serve to explain the Adriatic +situation. You will imagine Seattle and the shores of Puget Sound, +with its maze of islands, in Canadian possession. Seattle, Vancouver, +and Victoria are strongly fortified bases for Canadian battle-fleets +and flotillas of destroyers which constantly menace the commercial +cities along our Pacific seaboard. The Americans dwelling in Seattle +and the towns of the Olympic Peninsula are under an even harsher rule +than their brethren in Vermont. No American may hold a Government +position. The Canadian authorities encourage and assist the +immigration of thousands of Orientals in order to get the trade of the +region out of American hands. A Canadian naval base at Honolulu +threatens our trade routes in the Pacific and our commercial interests +in Mexico and the Orient. In this analogy Seattle stands, of course, +for Trieste; the Olympic Peninsula corresponds to the Istrian +Peninsula; for Vancouver and Victoria you will read Pola and Fiume; +while Honolulu might, by a slight exercise of the imagination, be +translated into the great Austrian stronghold of Cattaro. Such is a +reasonably accurate parallel to Italy's Adriatic problem. + +For purposes of administration the Trentino, which the Austrians call +Sued-Tirol, forms one province with Tyrol. For such a union there is no +geographic, ethnologic, historic, or economic excuse. Of the 347,000 +inhabitants of the Trentino, 338,000 are Italian. The half million +inhabitants of Tyrol are, on the other hand, all Germans. The two +regions are separated by a tremendous mountain wall, whose only +gateway is the Brenner. On one side of that wall is Italy, with her +vines, her mulberry-trees, her whitewashed, red-tiled cottages, her +light-hearted, easy-going, Latin-blooded peasantry; across the +mountains is the solemn, austere German scenery, with savage peaks and +gloomy pine forests, a region inhabited by a stolid, slow-thinking +Teutonic people. The Trentino and the Tyrol have about as much in +common as Cuba and Maine. + +The possession of the Trentino by Austria is not alone a geographical +and ethnological anomaly: it is a pistol held at the head of Italy. +Glance once more at the map, if you please, and you will see what I +mean. The Trentino is, you will note, nothing but a prolongation of +the valleys of Lombardy and Venetia. Held by Austria, it is like a +great intrenched camp in the heart of northern Italy, menacing the +valley of the Po, which is one of the kingdom's most vital arteries, +and the link between her richest and most productive cities. From the +Trentino, with its ring of forts, Austria can always threaten and +invade her neighbor. She lies in the mountains, with the plains +beneath her. She can always sweep down into the plains, but the +Italians cannot seriously invade the mountains, since, even were they +able to force the strongly defended passes, they would only find a +maze of other mountains beyond. When, in the summer of 1916, the +Archduke Frederick launched his great offensive from the Trentino, +supported by a shattering artillery, he came perilously near--much +nearer, indeed, than the world was permitted to know--to cutting the +main east-and-west line of communications, which would have resulted +in isolating the Italian armies operating on the Isonzo. + +The Trentino is dominated by the army. Its administration is as +essentially military in character as that of Gibraltar. It is, to all +intents and purposes, one vast camp, commanded by thirty-five forts, +gridironed with inaccessible military highways, and overrun with +soldiery. Economic expansion has been systematically discouraged. The +waterfalls of the Trentino could, it is estimated, develop 250,000 +horse-power, but the province has not benefited by this energy, for +the regions to the north are already supplied, and the military +authorities have not permitted its transmission to the manufacturing +towns of Lombardy and Venetia, where it is needed. Neither roads nor +railways have been built save for strategic purposes, and, as a +result, the peasants have virtually no outlets for their produce. In +fact, it has been the consistent policy of the Austrian Government to +completely isolate the Trentino from Italy. In pursuance of this +policy, all telephone and telegraph communications and many sorely +needed railway connections with the other side of the frontier have +been prohibited. Though the renting of their mountain pastures had +always been the peasants' chief source of income, the military +authorities issued orders, long before this war began, that Italian +herdsmen could no longer drive their cattle across the border to +graze, the prohibition being based on the ground that the herdsmen +were really Italian army officers in disguise. In recent years the +fear of Italian spies has become with the Austrian military +authorities almost an insane obsession. Innocent tourists, engineers, +and commercial travellers were arrested by the score on the charge of +espionage. The mere fact of being an Italian was in itself ground for +suspicion. Compared with the attitude of the Austrian Government +toward its Italian subjects in the Trentino, the treatment accorded by +the Boers to the British residents of the Transvaal was considerate +and kind. Thus there arose in the Trentino, as in all Austrian +provinces inhabited by Italians, a strange, unhealthy atmosphere of +suspicion, of secrecy, and of fear. This atmosphere became so +pronounced in recent years that it was sensed even by passing +tourists, who felt as though they were in a besieged city, surrounded +by secret agents and spies. + +But, oppressive and tyrannical as are Austria's methods in the +Trentino, the final expression of her anti-Italian policy is to be +found in the Adriatic provinces. Here lie Austria's chief +interests--the sea and commerce. Here, therefore, is to be found an +even deeper fear of Italianism, and here still sterner methods are +employed to stamp it out. The government of Trieste is, in fact, +organized for that very purpose--witness the persecutions to which the +citizens of Italian descent are subjected by the police, the countless +political imprisonments, the systematic hostility to Italian schools +in contrast to the Government's generosity toward German and Slovene +institutions, and the State assistance given to Czech, Croatian, and +Slovene banks for the purpose of taking the trade of the city out of +Italian hands. Italians are excluded from all municipal employments, +from the postal service, the railways, and the State industries. Nor +does the official persecution end there. The presentation of many of +the old Italian operas is forbidden. The singing of Garibaldi's Hymn +leads to jail. Every year thousands of Italian papers are +confiscated. Until the war began hundreds of Italians were expelled +annually by the police, to be replaced (according to the official +instructions of 1912) "by more loyal and more useful elements." + +Though for more than five centuries Trieste has belonged to the House +of Hapsburg, the city is as Italian as though it had always been ruled +from Rome. There is nothing in Trieste, save only the uniforms of the +military and the _K.K._ on the doors of the Government offices, to +remind one of Austrian rule. The language, the customs, the +architecture, the names over the shop-doors, the faces of the +people--everything is characteristically Italian. Outside of Trieste +the zones of nationality are clearly divided: to the west, on the +coast, dwell the Italians; in the mountainous interior to the eastward +are the Slavs. But in Istria, that arrowhead-shaped peninsula at the +head of the Adriatic, the population is almost solidly Italian. Though +alternately bribed and bullied, cajoled and coerced, there persists, +both among the simple peasants of the Trentino and Istria and the +hard-headed business men of Trieste, a most sentimental and +inextinguishable attachment for the Italian motherland. There is, +indeed, something approaching the sublime in the fascination which +Italy exercises across the centuries on these exiled sons of hers. + +The arguments adduced by Italy for the acquisition of Dalmatia are by +no means as sound ethnographically as her claims to the Trentino and +Trieste. Though the apostles of expansion assert that ten per cent of +the population of Dalmatia is Italian, this is an exaggeration, the +most reliable authorities agreeing that the Italian element does not +exceed three or four per cent. But this is not saying that Dalmatia is +not, in spirit, in language, in traditions, Italian. Cruise along its +shores, talk to its people, view the architecture of Ragusa, of Zara, +of Spalato, and you will not need to be reminded that Dalmatia was +Venetian until, little more than a century ago, Napoleon handed it +over to Austria at the peace of Campo Formio in return for the +recognition of his two made-to-order states, the Cis-Alpine and +Ligurian Republics. + +It is safe to say that the war will produce no more delicate problem +than that of Dalmatia, which, as I have already shown, can never be +settled on purely racial lines. Those who have studied the subject +agree that to completely shut off Austria-Hungary from the sea would +be a proceeding of grave unwisdom and one which would be certain to +sow the seed for future wars. This is, I believe, the view taken by +most deep-thinking Italians. The Italianization of the Adriatic's +eastern seaboard would result, moreover, in raising a barrier against +the legitimate expansion of the Balkan Slavs and would end the Serbian +dream of an outlet to the sea. But the statesmen who are shaping +Italy's policies are, I am convinced, too sensible and too far-seeing +to commit so grave a blunder. Were I to hazard a prophecy--and +prophesying is always a poor business--I should say that, no matter +how conclusive a victory the Allies may achieve, neither +Austria-Hungary nor Serbia will be wholly cut off from the salt water. + +Events in the less remote theatres of war have prevented the Italian +occupation of Albania from attracting the attention it deserves. The +operations in that region have, moreover, been shrouded in mystery; +foreigners desiring to visit Albania have met with polite but firm +refusals; the published reports of the progress of the Albanian +expedition--which, by the way, is a much larger force than is +generally supposed--have been meagre and unsatisfying. The Italians +figure, I fancy, on making their occupation as extensive and as solid +as possible before the Albanian question comes up for international +discussion. + +If Italy's ambitions in Dalmatia bring her into collision with the +Slavs, her plans for expansion in Albania are bound to arouse the +hostility of the Greeks. The Italian troops at Argyocastro are +occupying territory which Greece looks on as distinctly within her +sphere of influence, and they menace Janina itself. Though Italy has +intimated, I believe, that her occupation of Albania is not to be +regarded as permanent, she is most certainly on the eastern shore of +the Adriatic to stay, for her commercial and political interests will +not permit her to have a Haiti or a Mexico at her front door. So I +rather fancy that, when the peacemakers deal out the cards upon the +green-topped table, Albania will become Italian in name, if not in +fact, under a control similar to that which the French exercise in +Morocco or the British in Egypt. And it will be quite natural, for +there is in the Albanians a strong streak of Italian. + +The settlement of this trans-Adriatic problem is going to require the +most cautious and delicate handling. How far will Italy be permitted +to go? How far may Serbia come? Shall Austria be cut off from the sea? +Is Hungary to become an independent kingdom? Is Montenegro to +disappear? What is Greece to get? The only one of these questions that +can be answered with any certainty is the last. Greece, as the result +of her shifty and even treacherous attitude, will get very little +consideration. On the decision of these questions hangs the future of +the Balkan peoples. Though their final settlement must, of course, be +deferred until the coming of peace, some regard will have to be paid, +after all, to actual occupancies and accomplished facts. That is why +Italy is making her position in Albania so solid that she cannot +readily be ousted. And perhaps it is well that she is. Europe will owe +a debt of gratitude to the Italians if they can bring law and order to +Albania, which has never had a speaking acquaintance with either of +them. + +Nor do Italian ambitions end with the domination of the eastern shore +of the Adriatic. With the destruction, or at least the disablement, of +the Austrian Empire, Italy dreams of bringing within her political and +commercial sphere of influence a considerable portion of the Balkan +Peninsula, from which she is separated by only forty-seven miles of +salt water. But that is only the beginning of her vision of +commercial greatness. Look at the map and you will see that with its +continuation, the island of Sicily, Italy forms a great wharf which +reaches out into the Mediterranean, nearly to the shores of Africa. +Her peculiarly fortunate geographical position enables her, therefore, +to offer the shortest route from Western and Central Europe to North +Africa, the Levant, and the Farther East. It has been rumored, though +with what truth I cannot say, that the Allies have agreed, in the +event that they are completely victorious, to a rectification of the +Tunisian and Egyptian frontiers, thus materially improving Italy's +position in Libya, as the colony of Tripolitania is now known. It is +also generally understood that, should the dismemberment of Asiatic +Turkey be decided upon, the city of Smyrna, with its splendid harbor +and profitable commerce, as well as a slice of the hinterland, will +fall to Italy's portion. With her flag thus firmly planted on the +coasts of three continents, with her most dangerous rival finally +disposed of, with the splendid industrial organization, born of the +war, speeded up to its highest efficiency, and with vast new markets +in Africa, in Asia, in the Balkans opened to her products, Italy +dreams of wresting from France and England the overlordship of the +Middle Sea. + +It would be useless to deny that an unfavorable impression was created +in the United States by the fact that Italy, in entering the war, +turned against her former allies. Her enemies have charged that she +dickered with both the Entente and the Central Powers, and only joined +the former because they made her the most tempting offer. That she did +dicker with Austria is but the unvarnished truth--and of that chapter +of Italian history the less said the better--but I am convinced that +she finally entered the war, not because she had been bribed by +promises of territorial concessions, but because the national +conscience demanded that she join the forces of civilization in their +struggle against barbarism. Suppose that I sketch for you, in brief, +bold outline, the chain of historic events which occurred during the +ten months between the presentation to Serbia of the Austrian +ultimatum and Italy's declaration of war on Austria. Then you will be +able to form your own opinion. + +On the evening of July 23, 1914, Austria handed her note to Serbia. It +demanded in overbearing and insulting terms that Serbia should place +under Austrian control her schools, her law-courts, her police, in +fact her whole internal administration. The little kingdom was given +forty-eight hours in which to consider her answer. In other words, she +was called upon, within the space of two days, to sacrifice her +national independence. At six o'clock on the evening of July 25 the +time limit allowed by the Austrian ultimatum expired. Half an hour +later the Austrian Minister and his staff left Belgrade. + +Now Article VII of the Treaty of Alliance between Italy, Austria, and +Germany provided that in the event of any change in the _status quo_ +of the Balkan Peninsula which would entail a temporary or permanent +occupation, Austria and Italy bound themselves to work in mutual +accord on the basis of reciprocal compensation for any advantage, +territorial or otherwise, obtained by either of the contracting +Powers. Here is the text of the Article. Read it for yourself: + + Austria-Hungary and Italy, who aim exclusively at the maintenance + of the _status quo_ in the East, bind themselves to employ their + influence to prevent every territorial change which may be + detrimental to one or other of the contracting Powers. They will + give each other all explanations necessary for the elucidation of + their respective intentions as well as those of the other Powers. + If, however, in the course of events the maintenance of the + _status quo_ in the Balkans and on the Ottoman coasts and in the + islands of the Adriatic and the AEgean Seas should become + impossible, and if, either in consequence of the acts of a third + Power or of other causes, Austria and Italy should be compelled to + change the _status quo_ by a temporary or permanent occupation, + such occupation shall only take place after previous agreement + between the two Powers, based on the principle of a reciprocal + arrangement for all the advantages, territorial or other, which + one of them may secure outside the _status quo_, and in such a + manner as to satisfy all the legitimate claims of both parties. + +Nothing could be plainer than that Austria-Hungary, by forcing war +upon Serbia, planned to change the _status quo_ in the Near East. Yet +she had not taken the trouble to give Italy any explanation of her +intentions, nor had she said anything about giving her ally reciprocal +compensation as provided for in the treaty. Three days after the +memorable 23d of July, therefore, Italy intimated to the Vienna +Government that her idea of adequate compensation would be the cession +of those Austrian provinces inhabited by Italians. In other words, she +insisted that, if Austria was to extend her borders below the Danube +by an occupation of Serbia, as was obviously her intention, thus +upsetting the balance of power in the Balkans, Italy expected to +receive as compensation the Trentino and Trieste, which, though under +Austrian rule, are Italian in sentiment and population. Otherwise, she +added, the Triple Alliance would be broken. On the 3d of August, +having received no satisfactory reply from Austria, Italy declared her +neutrality. In so doing, however, she made it quite clear that she in +no way admitted Austria's right to a free hand in the Adriatic or the +Balkan Peninsula--regions which Italy has long regarded as within her +own sphere of influence. + +Early in the winter of 1914 Prince von Buelow, one of the most suave +and experienced German diplomats, arrived in Rome on a special mission +from Berlin. In his first interview with the Italian Minister of +Foreign Affairs, Baron Sonnino, he frankly acknowledged Italy's right +to territorial compensation under the terms of Article VII of the +Triple Alliance. There is no doubt that Germany, recognizing the +danger of flouting Italy, brought strong pressure to bear on Austria +to surrender at least a portion of the regions in question. Austria, +however, bluntly refused to heed either Italy's demands or Germany's +suggestions. She refused even to discuss the question of ceding any +part of her Italian provinces. She attempted, indeed, to reverse the +situation by claiming compensation from Italy for the occupation of +the Dodecannesus and Vallona. The Dodecannesus was held as a pledge of +Turkish good faith, while the occupation of Vallona was indispensable +for the protection of Italian interests in Albania, where anarchy +reigned, and where much the same conditions prevailed which existed in +Mexico at the time of the American occupation of Vera Cruz. + +The discussions might well have dragged on indefinitely, but late in +March, 1915, Austria, goaded by her ally into a more conciliatory +attitude, reluctantly consented to make concrete proposals. She +offered to Italy the southern half of the Trentino, but mentioned no +definite boundaries, and added that the bargain could not be carried +into effect until peace had been concluded. In return she claimed from +Italy heavy financial contributions to the National Debt and to the +provincial and communal loans, also full indemnity for all investments +made in the ceded territory, for all ecclesiastical property and +entailed estates, and for the pensions of State officials. To assign +even an approximate value to such concessions would entail a +prolonged delay--a fact of which Austria was perfectly aware. + +Italy responded to the Austrian advances by presenting her +counter-claims, and for more than a month the negotiations pursued a +difficult and tedious course. It must be admitted that, everything +considered, Italy's claims were not particularly exorbitant. She +claimed (1) a more extended and more easily defendable frontier in the +Trentino, but she refrained from demanding the cession of the entire +region lying south of the Brenner, as she would have been justified in +doing from a strategic point of view; (2) a new boundary on the Isonzo +which would give her possession of the towns of Gradisca and Gorizia +(she has since taken them by arms); (3) the cession of certain islands +of the Curzolari group; (4) the withdrawal of Austrian pretensions in +Albania and the acknowledgement of Italy's right to occupy the +Dodecannesus and Vallona; (5) the formation of the city of Trieste, +together with the adjacent judicial districts of Priano and Capo +d'Istria, into an autonomous State, independent of both Italy and +Austria. By such an arrangement Austria would have retained nearly the +whole of the Istrian Peninsula, the cities of Pola and Fiume, the +entire Dalmatian coast, and the majority of the Dalmatian Islands. But +she refused to even consider Italy's proposed changes in the Adriatic, +or to do more than slightly increase her offer in the Trentino. Italy +therefore broke off negotiations, and on May 4, 1915, the alliance +with Austria was denounced. + +Prince von Buelow was now confronted with the complete failure of his +mission of keeping Italy yoked to Austria and Germany. No one realized +better than this suave and astute diplomatist that the bonds which +still held together the three nations were about to break. He next +endeavored, by methods verging on the unscrupulous, to create distrust +of the Italian Government among the Italian people. A member of the +Reichstag circulated stealthily among the deputies and journalists, +flattering each in turn with the assumption that he alone was the man +of the moment, and offering him, in the names of Germany and Austria, +new concessions which had not been communicated to the Italian +Cabinet. It was back-stairs diplomacy in its shadiest and most +questionable form. The concessions thus unofficially promised +consisted of the offer of a new frontier in the Trentino, and for +Trieste an administrative but not a political autonomy. The Adriatic, +it seems, was to remain as before. And these concessions were all +hedged about by impossible restrictions, or were not to come into +effect until after the war. Yet at one time these intrigues came +perilously near to accomplishing their purpose. Matters were still +further complicated by the activities and interference of a former +Foreign Minister, Signor Giolitti, whose vanity had been flattered, +and whose ambitions had been cleverly played upon by the Teutonic +emissary. To fully understand the extraordinary nature of this +proceeding, one must picture Count von Bernstorff, at the height of +the submarine crisis, negotiating not with the Government of the +United States, but with Mr. William Jennings Bryan! + +But, fortunately for the national honor, the Italian people, having +had time to reflect what the future of Italy would be after the war, +whatever its outcome, were they to be cut off from the only peoples in +Europe with which they had spiritual sympathy, took things into their +own hands. The storm of anger and indignation which swept the country +rocked the Government to its foundations. The Salandra cabinet, which +had resigned as a protest against the machinations of Giolitti, was +returned to power. Through every city, town, and hamlet from Savoy to +Sicily, thronged workmen, students, business and professional men, +even priests and monks, waving the red-white-and-green banner and +shouting the national watch-words "Italia Irredenta," and "Avanti +Savoia!" + +But there was a deeper cause underlying these great patriotic +demonstrations than mere hatred of Austria. They were expressions of +national resentment at the impotent and dependent role which Italy had +played so long. D'Annunzio, in one of his famous addresses in May, +1915, put this feeling into words: "We will no longer be a museum of +antiquities, a kind of hostelry, a pleasure resort, under a sky +painted over with Prussian blue, for the benefit of international +honeymooners." + +The sentiment of the people was expressed by the _Idea Nazionale_, +which on May 10 declared: + + Italy desires war: (1) In order to obtain Trent, Trieste, and + Dalmatia. The country desires it. A nation which has the + opportunity to free its land should do so as a matter of + imperative necessity.... (2) ... in order to conquer for ourselves + a good strategic frontier in the North and East.... (3) ... + because to-day, in the Adriatic, in the Balkan Peninsula, the + Mediterranean, and Asia, Italy should have all the advantages it + is possible for her to have, and without which her political, + economic, and moral power would diminish in proportion as that of + others increased.... If we would be a great Power we must accept + certain obligations: one of them is war.... + +The voice of the people was unmistakable: they wanted war. To have +refused that demand would have meant the fall of the Government if not +of the dynasty. The King did not want war. The responsible +politicians, with a very few exceptions, did not want it. The nobility +did not want it. The Church did not want it. The bankers and business +men of the nation did not want it. It was the great mass of the +Italian people, shamed and indignant at the position in which the +nation had been placed by the sordid dickering with Austria, who swept +the country into war. I was in Italy during those exciting days; I +witnessed the impressive popular demonstrations in the larger cities; +and in my mind there was left no shadow of a doubt that the Government +had to choose between war and revolution. On the 23d of May, 1915, +Italy declared war on Austria. + +For ten months Italy, in the face of sneers and jeers, threats and +reproaches, had maintained her neutrality. Be it remembered, however, +that it was from the first a neutrality benevolent to the Allies. Even +those who consider themselves well informed have apparently failed to +recognize how decisive a factor that neutrality was. Italy's action in +promptly withdrawing her forces from the French border relieved +France's fears of an Italian invasion, and left her free to use the +half million troops which had been guarding her southern frontier to +oppose the German advance on Paris. It is not overstating the facts to +assert that, had Italy's attitude toward France been less frank and +honest, had the Republic not felt safe in stripping its southern +border of troops, von Kluck would have broken through to Paris--he +came perilously near to doing so as it was--and the whole course of +the war would have been changed. It is to be hoped that, when the +diplomatic history of the war comes to be written, the attitude of +Italy during those critical days will receive the recognition which it +deserves. + + + + +III + +FIGHTING ON THE ROOF OF EUROPE + + +The sun had scarcely shown itself above the snowy rampart of the +Julian Alps when the hoarse throbbing of the big gray staff-car awoke +the echoes of the narrow street on which fronts the Hotel Croce di +Malta in Udine. Despite a leather coat, a fur-lined cap, and a great +fleecy muffler which swathed me to the eyes, I shivered in the damp +chill of the winter dawn. We adjusted our goggles and settled down +into the heavy rugs, the soldier-driver threw in his clutch, the +sergeant sitting beside him let out a vicious snarl from the horn, the +little group of curious onlookers scattered hastily, and the powerful +car leaped forward like a race-horse that feels the spur. With the +horn sounding its hoarse warning, we thundered through the narrow, +tortuous, cobble-paved streets, between rows of old, old houses +with faded frescoes on their plastered walls and with dim, echoing +arcades. And so into the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele--there is no more +charming little square in Italy--with its fountain and its two stone +giants and the pompous statue of an incredibly ugly King astride a +prancing horse and a monument to Peace set up by Napoleon to +commemorate a treaty which was the cause of many wars. At the back of +the piazza, like the back-drop on a stage, rises a towering sugar-loaf +mound, thrown up, so they say, by Attila, that from it he might +conveniently watch the siege and burning of Aquileia. Perched atop +this mound, and looking for all the world like one of Maxfield +Parrish's painted castles, is the Castello, once the residence of the +Venetian and Austrian governors, and, rising above it, a white and +slender tower. If you will take the trouble to climb to the summit of +this tower you will find that the earth you left behind is now laid +out at your feet like one of those putty maps you used to make in +school. Below you, like a vast tessellated floor, is the Friulian +plain, dotted with red-roofed villages, checkerboarded with fields of +green and brown, stretching away, away to where, beyond the blue +Isonzo, the Julian and Carnic Alps leap skyward in a mighty, curving, +mile-high wall. You have the war before you, for amid those distant +mountains snakes the Austro-Italian battle-line. Just as Attila and +his Hunnish warriors looked down from the summit of this very mound, +fourteen hundred years ago, upon the destruction of the Italian +plain-towns, so to-day, from the same vantage-point, the Italians can +see their artillery methodically pounding to pieces the defenses of +the modern Huns. A strange reversal of history, is it not? + + [Illustration: Alpini Going Into Action. + Their white uniforms make them almost indistinguishable against the + blinding expanses of snow.] + + [Illustration: On the Roof of the World. + It not infrequently happens that the outposts on the higher peaks + are cut off by a heavy fall of snow and cannot be relieved until + the spring.] + +Leaving on our right the Palazzo Civico, built two-score years before +Columbus set foot on the beach of San Salvador, we rolled through the +gateway in the ancient city wall, acknowledging the salute of the +steel-helmeted sentry just as the mail-clad knights who rode through +that same gateway to the fighting on the plain, long centuries ago, +doubtless acknowledged the salute of the steel-capped men-at-arms. +Down the straight white road we sped, between rows of cropped and +stunted willows, which line the highway on either side like soldiers +with bowed heads. It is a storied and romantic region, this Venetia, +whose fertile farm-lands, crisscrossed with watercourses, stretch +away, flat and brown as an oaken floor, to the snowy crescent of the +Alps. Scenes of past wars it still bears upon its face, in its +farm-houses clustered together for common protection, in the stout +walls and loopholed watch-towers of its towns, record of its warlike +and eventful past. One must be prosaic indeed whose imagination +remains unstirred by a journey across this historic plain, which has +been invaded by Celts, Istrians, and Romans; Huns, Goths, and +Lombards; Franks, Germans, and Austrians in turn. Over there, a dozen +miles to the southward, lie the ruins of Aquileia, once one of the +great cities of the western world, the chief outpost fortress of the +Roman Empire, visited by King Herod of Judea, and the favorite +residence of Augustus and Diocletian. These fertile lowlands were +devastated by Alaric and his Visigoths and by Attila and his Huns--the +original Huns, I mean. Down this very highroad tramped the legions of +Tiberius on their way to give battle to the Illyrians and Pannonians. +Here were waged the savage conflicts of the Guelphs, the Ghibellines, +and the Scaligers. Here fought the great adventurer, Bartolommeo +Colleoni; in the whitewashed village inn of Campo Formio, a far +greater adventurer signed a treaty whereby he gave away the whole of +this region as he would have given away a gold-piece; half a century +later Garibaldi and his ragged redshirts fought to win it back. + +For mile after mile we sped through a countryside which bore no +suggestion of the bloody business which had brought me. So far as war +was concerned, I might as well have been motoring through New England. +But, though an atmosphere of tranquillity and security prevailed down +here amid the villages and farm-steads of the plain, I knew that up +there among those snow-crowned peaks ahead of us, musketry was +crackling, cannon were belching, men were dying. But as we approached +the front--though still miles and miles behind the fighting-line--the +signs of war became increasingly apparent: base camps, remount depots, +automobile parks, aviation schools, aerodromes, hospitals, +machine-shops, ammunition-dumps, railway sidings chock-a-block with +freight-cars and railway platforms piled high with supplies of every +description. Moving closer, we came upon endless lines of motor-trucks +moving ammunition and supplies to the front and other lines of +motor-trucks and ambulances moving injured machinery and injured men +to the repair-depots and hospitals at the rear. We passed Sicilian +mule-carts, hundreds upon hundreds of them, two-wheeled, painted +bright yellow or bright red and covered with gay little paintings such +as one sees on ice cream venders' carts and hurdy-gurdies, the harness +of the mules studded with brass and hung with scarlet tassels. Then +long strings of donkeys, so heavily laden with wine-skins, with bales +of hay, with ammunition-boxes, that all that could be seen of the +animals themselves were their swinging tails and wagging ears. We met +convoys of Austrian prisoners, guarded by cavalry or territorials, on +their way to the rear. They looked tired and dirty and depressed, but +most prisoners look that. A man who has spent days or even weeks amid +the mud and blood of a trench, with no opportunity to bathe or even to +wash his hands and face, with none too much food, with many of his +comrades dead or wounded, with a shell-storm shrieking and howling +about him, and has then had to surrender, could hardly be expected to +appear high-spirited and optimistic. Yet it has long been the custom +of the Allied correspondents and observers to base their assertions +that the morale of the enemy is weakening and that the quality of his +troops is deteriorating on the demeanor of prisoners fresh from the +firing-line. Ambulances passed us, travelling toward the hospitals at +the base, and sometimes wounded men, limping along on foot. The heads +of some were swathed in blood-stained bandages, some carried their +arms in slings, others hobbled by with the aid of sticks, for the +Italian army is none too well supplied with ambulances and those who +are able to walk must do so in order that the places in the ambulances +may be taken by their more seriously wounded fellows. They were +dog-tired, dirty, caked with mud and blood, but they grinned at us +cheerfully--for were they not beating the Austrians? Indeed, one +cannot look at Italian troops without seeing that the spirit of the +men is high and that they are confident of victory. + +Now the roads became crowded, but never blocked, with troops on the +march: infantry of the line, short, sturdily built fellows wearing +short capes of greenish gray and trench-helmets of painted steel; +Alpini, hardy and active as the goats of their own mountains, their +tight-fitting breeches and their green felt hats with the slanting +eagle's feather making them look like the chorus of _Robin Hood_; +Bersaglieri, the flower of the Italian army, who have preserved the +traditions of their famous corps by still clinging to the +flat-brimmed, rakish hat with its huge bunch of drooping feathers; +engineers, laden like donkeys with intrenching, bridging, and mining +tools; motor-cycle despatch riders, leather-jacketed and +mud-bespattered, the light-horsemen of modern war; and, very +occasionally, for their hour for action has not yet come, detachments +of cavalry, usually armed with lances, their helmets and busbies +linen-covered to match the businesslike simplicity of their uniform. +About the Italian army there is not much of the pomp and circumstance +of war. It is as businesslike as a blued-steel revolver. In its total +absence of swagger and display it is characteristic of a nation whose +instincts are essentially democratic. Everything considered, the +Italian troops compare very favorably with any in Europe. The men are +for the most part shortish, very thick-set, and burned by the sun to +the color of a much-used saddle. I rather expected to see bearded, +unkempt fellows, but I found them clean-shaven and extraordinarily +neat. The Italian military authorities do not approve of the _poilu_. +Though the men are laden like pack-mules, they cover the ground at a +surprisingly smart pace, while special corps, such as the Bersaglieri +and the Alpini, are famous for the fashion in which they take even the +steepest acclivities at the double. I was told that, though the troops +recruited in the North possess the most stamina and endurance, the +Neapolitans and Sicilians have the most _elan_ and make the best +fighters, these sons of the South having again and again advanced to +the assault through storms of fire which the colder-blooded +Piedmontese refused to face. + +It is claimed for the Italian uniform that it is at once the ugliest +and the least visible of any worn in Europe. "Its wearer doesn't even +make a shadow," a friend of mine remarked. The Italian military +authorities were among the first to make a scientific study of colors +for uniforms. They did not select, for example, the "horizon blue" +adopted by the French because, while this is less visible on the roads +and plains of a flat, open, sunlit region, it would prove fatally +distinct on the tree-clad mountain slopes where the Italians are +fighting. The color is officially described as gray-green, but the +best description of it is that given by a British officer: "Take some +mud from the Blue Nile, carefully rub into it two pounds of ship-rat's +hair, paint a roan horse with the composition, and then you will +understand why the Austrians can't see the Italian soldiers in broad +daylight at fifty yards." Its quality of invisibility is, indeed, +positively uncanny. While motoring in the war zone I have repeatedly +come upon bodies of troops resting beside the road, yet, so +marvellously do their uniforms merge into the landscape that, had not +my attention been called to them, I should have passed them by +unnoticed. The uniform of the Italian officer is of precisely the +same cut and apparently of the same material as that of the men, and +as the former not infrequently dispenses with the badges of rank, it +is often difficult to distinguish an officer from a private. The +Italian officers, particularly those of the cavalry regiments, have +always been among the smartest in Europe, but the gorgeous uniforms +which, in the happy, carefree days before the war, added such +brilliant notes of color to the scenes on the Corso and in the +Cascine, have been replaced by a dress which is as simple as it is +serviceable. + +The Italian Government has a stern objection to wasteful or unnecessary +expenditure, and all the costly and superfluous trimmings so dear to +the heart of the military have been ruthlessly pruned. But economy is +not insisted upon at the expense of efficiency. Nothing is refused or +stinted that is necessary to keep the soldiers in good health or that +will add to the efficiency of the great fighting-machine. But the war +is proving a heavy financial strain for Italy and she is determined not +to waste on it a single soldo more than she can possibly help. On the +French and British fronts staff-officers are constantly dashing to and +fro in motor-cars on errands of more or less importance. But you see +nothing of that sort in the Italian war zone. The Comando Supremo can, +of course, have all the motor-cars it wants, but it discourages their +use except in cases of necessity. The officers are instructed that, +whenever they can travel by railway without detriment to the interests +of the service, they are expected to do so, for the trains are in +operation to within a few miles of the front and with astonishing +regularity, whereas tires and gasolene cost money. Returning at +nightfall from the front to Udine, we were nearly always stopped by +officers--majors, colonels, and once by a general--who would ask us to +give them a lift into town. It has long been the fashion among +foreigners to think of Italians, particularly those of the upper class, +as late-rising, easy-going, and not particularly in love with work--a +sort of _dolce far niente_ people. But the war has shown how unsafe +are such generalizations. There is no harder worker on any front than +the Italian officer. Even the highest staff-officers are at their desks +by eight and frequently by seven. Though it is easier to get from the +Italian front to Milan or Florence than it is to get from Verdun to +Paris, or from the Somme to London, one sees little of the week-end +travelling so common on the British front. Officers in the war zone are +entitled to fifteen days' leave of absence a year, and from this rule +there are no deviations. + +Through the mud we came to the Judrio, which marked the line of the +old frontier. We crossed the river by a pontoon bridge, for the +Austrians had destroyed the other in their retreat. + +"We are in Austria now, I suppose?" I remarked. "In Italia Redenta," +my companion corrected me. "This region has always been Italian in +everything but name, and now it is Italian in name also." The +occupation by the Italian troops, at the very outset of the war, of +this wedge of territory between the Judrio and the Isonzo, with +Monfalcone, Cervignano, Cormons, Gradisca--old Italian towns all--did +much to give the Italian people confidence in the efficiency of their +armies and the ability of their generals. + +Now the roads were filled with the enormous equipment of an army +advancing. Every village swarmed with gray soldiers. We passed +interminable processions of motor-lorries, mule-carts, trucks, and +wagons piled high with hay,[A] lumber, wine-casks, flour, shells, +barbed wire; boxes of ammunition; pontoon-trains, balloon outfits, +searchlights mounted on motor-trucks, wheeled blacksmith shops, +wheeled post-offices, field-kitchens; beef and mutton on the hoof; +mammoth howitzers and siege guns hauled by panting tractors; creaking, +clanking field-batteries, and bright-eyed, brown-skinned, green-caped +infantry, battalions, regiments, brigades of them plodding along +under slanting lines of steel. All the resources of Italy seemed +crowding up to make good the recent gains and to make ready for the +next push. One has to see a great army on the march to appreciate how +stupendous is the task of supplying with food the hungry men and the +hungrier guns, and how it taxes to the utmost all the industrial +resources of a nation. + + [Illustration: A Heavy Howitzer in the High Alps. + Nowadays guns "command" nothing. Instead of frowning down on the + enemy from an eminence, they stare blindly skyward from behind a + wall of mountains.] + + [Illustration: An Outpost in the Carnia. + "On no front, not on the sun-scorched plains of Mesopotamia, nor in + the Masurian marshes, nor in the blood-soaked mud of Flanders, does + the fighting man lead so arduous an existence as up here on the + roof of the world."] + +Under all this traffic the roads remained hard and smooth, for gangs +of men, with scrapers and steam-rollers were at work everywhere +repairing the wear and tear. This work is done by peasants, who are +too old for the army, middle-aged, sturdily built fellows who perform +their prosaic task with the resignation and inexhaustible patience of +the lower-class Italian. They are organized in companies of a hundred +men each, called _centurias_, and the company commanders are called +(shades of the Roman legions!) _centurions_. Italy owes much to these +gray-haired soldiers of the pick and shovel who, working in heat and +cold, in snow and rain, and frequently under Austrian fire, have made +it possible for the armies to advance and for food to be sent forward +for the men and ammunition for the guns. + +When this war is over Italy will find herself with better roads, and +more of them, than she ever had before. The hundreds of miles of +splendid highways which have been built by the army in the Trentino, +in the Carnia, and in Cadore will open up districts of extraordinary +beauty which have hitherto been inaccessible to the touring motorist. +The Italians have been fortunate in having an inexhaustible supply of +road-building material close at hand, for the mountains are solid road +metal and in the plains one has only to scratch the soil to find +gravel. The work of the road-builders on the Upper Isonzo resembles a +vast suburban development, for the smooth white highways which zigzag +in long, easy gradients up the mountain slopes are bordered on the +inside by stone-paved gutters and on the outside, where the precipice +falls sheer away, by cut stone guard-posts. So extensive and +substantial are these improvements that one instinctively looks for a +real-estate dealer's sign: "This beautiful lot can be yours for +twenty-five dollars down and ten dollars a month for a year." Climbing +higher, the roads become steeper and narrower and, because of the +heavy rains, very highly crowned, with frequent right-angle and +hair-pin turns. Here a skid or a side-slip or the failure of your +brakes is quite likely to bring your career to an abrupt and +unpleasant termination. To motor along one of these military mountain +highways when it is slippery from rain is as nerve-trying as walking +on a shingled roof with smooth-soled shoes. At one point on the Upper +Isonzo there wasn't enough room between our outer wheels and the edge +of the precipice for a starved cat to pass. + + * * * * * + +Now we were well within the danger zone. I knew it by the screens of +woven reeds and grass matting which had been erected along one side of +the road in order to protect the troops and transport using that road +from being seen by the Austrian observers and shelled by the Austrian +guns. Practically all of the roads on the Italian side of the front +are, remember, under direct observation by the Austrians. In fact, +they command everything. Everywhere they are above the Italians. From +the observatories which they have established on every peak they can +see through their powerful telescopes what is transpiring down on the +plain as readily as though they were circling above it in an airplane. +As a result of the extraordinary advantage which the Austrians enjoy +in this respect, it has been found necessary to screen certain of the +roads not only on both sides but above, so that in places the traffic +passes for miles through literal tunnels of matting. This road masking +is a simple form of the art of concealment to which the French have +given the name "_camouflage_," which has been developed to an +extraordinary degree on the Western Front. That the Italians have not +made a greater use of it is due, no doubt, to the wholly different +conditions under which they are fighting. + +Now the crowded road that we were following turned sharply into a +narrow valley, down which a small river twisted and turned on its way +to the sea. Though the Italian positions ran along the top of the hill +slope just above us, and though less than a thousand yards away were +the Austrian trenches, that valley, for many miles, was literally +crawling with men and horses and guns. Indeed it was difficult to make +myself believe that we were within easy range of the enemy and that at +any instant a shell might fall upon that teeming hillside and burst +with the crash that scatters death. + +Despite the champagne-cork popping of the rifles and the basso profundo +of the guns, it was a scene of ordered, yes, almost peaceful industry +which in no way suggested war but reminded me, rather, of the Panama +Canal at the busiest period of its construction (I have used the simile +before, but I use it again because I know none better), of the digging +of the New York subway, of the laying of a transcontinental railway, +of the building of the dam at Assuan. Trenches which had recently been +captured from the Austrians were being cleared and renovated and new +trenches were being dug, roads were being repaired, a battery of +monster howitzers was being moved into ingeniously concealed positions, +a whole system of narrow-gauge railway was being laid down, enormous +quantities of stores were being unloaded from wagons and lorries and +neatly stacked, soldiers were building great water-tanks on stilts, +like those at railway sidings, giant shells were being lowered from +trucks and flat-cars by means of cranes; to the accompaniment of saws +and hammers a city of wooden huts was springing up on the reverse slope +of the hill as though at the wave of a magician's wand. + +As I watched with fascinated eyes this scene of activity, as city +idlers watch the laborers at work in a cellar excavation, a shell +burst on the crowded hillside, perhaps five hundred yards away. There +was a crash like the explosion of a giant cannon-cracker; the ground +leaped into flame and dust. A few minutes afterward I saw an ambulance +go tearing up the road. + +"Just a chance shot," said the staff-officer who accompanied me. "This +valley is one of the few places on our front which is invisible to the +Austrian observers. That's why we have so many troops in here. The +Austrian aviators could spot what is going on here, of course, but our +fliers and our anti-aircraft batteries have been making things so hot +for them lately that they're not troubling us much. That's the great +thing in this game--to keep control of the air. If the Austrian airmen +were able to get over this valley and direct the fire of their guns we +wouldn't be able to stay here an hour." + +My companion had thought that it might be possible to follow the road +down the valley to Monfalcone and the sea, and so it would have been +had the weather continued misty and rainy. But the sun came out +brightly just as we reached the beginning of an exposed stretch of the +road; an Austrian observer, peering through a telescope set up in a +monastery on top of a mountain ten miles away, caught sight of the +hurrying gray insect which was our car; he rang up on the telephone a +certain battery and spoke a few words to the battery commander; and an +instant later on the road along which we were travelling Austrian +shells began to fall. Shells being expensive, that little episode cost +the Emperor-King several hundred kronen, we figured. As for us, it +merely interrupted a most interesting morning's ride. + +Leaving the car in the shelter of a hill, we toiled up a steep and +stony slope to a point from which I was able to get an admirable idea +of the general lay of Italy's Eastern Front. Coming toward me was the +Isonzo--a bright blue stream the width of the Thames at New +London--which, happy at escaping from its gloomy mountain defile, went +rioting over the plain in a great westward curve. Turning, I could +catch a glimpse, through a notch in the hills, of the white towers and +pink roofs of Monfalcone against the Adriatic's changeless blue. To +the east of Monfalcone rose the red heights of the Carso, the barren +limestone plateau which stretches from the Isonzo south into Istria. +And beyond the Carso I could trace the whole curve of the mountains +from in front of Trieste up past Gorizia and away to the Carnia. The +Italian front, I might add, divides itself into four sectors: the +Isonzo, the Carnia and Cadore, the Trentino, and the Alpine. + +Directly below us, not more than a kilometre away, was a village which +the Austrians were shelling. Through our glasses we could see the +effects of the bombardment as plainly as though we had been watching a +football game from the upper tier of seats in the Yale Bowl. They were +using a considerable number of guns of various calibers and the crash +of the bursting shells was almost incessant. A shell struck a rather +pretentious building, which was evidently the town hall; there was a +burst of flame, and a torrent of bricks and beams and tiles shot +skyward amid a geyser of green-brown smoke. Another projectile chose +as its target the tall white campanile, which suddenly slumped into +the street, a heap of brick and plaster. Now and again we caught +glimpses of tiny figures--Italian soldiers, most likely--scuttling for +shelter. Occasionally the Austrians would vary their rain of heavy +projectiles with a sort of shell that went _bang_ and released a +fleecy cloud of smoke overhead and then dropped a parcel of high +explosive that burst on the ground. It was curious to think that the +guns from which these shells came were cunningly hidden away in nooks +and glens on the other side of that distant range of hills, that the +men serving the guns had little if any idea what they were firing at, +and that the bombardment was being directed and controlled by an +officer seated comfortably at the small end of a telescope up there on +a mountain top among the clouds. Yet such is modern war. It used to be +one of the artillerist's tenets that his guns should be placed in a +position with a "commanding" range of view. But nowadays guns +"command" nothing. Instead they are tucked away in gullies and leafy +glens and excavated gun-pits, and their muzzles, instead of frowning +down on the enemy from an eminence, stare blindly skyward from behind +a wall of hills or mountains. The Italians evidently grew tired of +letting the Austrians have their way with the town, for presently some +batteries of heavy guns behind us came into action and their shells +screamed over our heads. Soon a brisk exchange of compliments between +the Italian and Austrian guns was going on over the shattered roofs of +the town. We did not remain overlong on our hillside and we were +warned by the artillery officer who was guiding us to keep close to +the ground and well apart, for, were the Austrians to see us in a +group, using maps and field-glasses, they probably would take us for +artillery observers and would send over a violent protest cased in +steel. + +On none of the European battle-fronts is there a more beautiful and +impressive journey than that from Udine up to the Italian positions in +the Carnia. The Carnia sector connects the Isonzo and Trentino fronts +and forms a vital link in the Italian chain of defense, for, were the +Austrians to break through, they would take in flank and rear the +great Italian armies operating on the two adjacent fronts. West of the +Carnia, in Cadore, the Italians are campaigning in one of the world's +most famous playgrounds, for, in the days before the Great War, +pleasure-seekers from every corner of Europe and America swarmed by +the tens of thousands in the country round about Cortina and in the +enchanted valleys of the Dolomites. But now great gray guns are +emplaced in the shady glens where the honeymooners used to stroll; on +the terraces of the tourist hostelries, where, on summer afternoons, +men in white flannels and women in dainty frocks chattered over their +tea, now lounge Italian officers in field uniforms of gray; the blare +of dance music and the popping of champagne corks has been replaced +by the blare of bugles and the popping of rifles. + +If you have ever gone, in a single day, from the sunlit orange groves +of Pasadena up to the snow-crowned peaks of the Coast Range, you will +have as good an idea as I can give you of the journey from the Isonzo +up to the Carnia. Down on the Carso the war is being waged under a sky +of molten brass and in summer the winds which sweep that arid plateau +are like blasts from an open furnace-door. The soldiers fighting in +the Carnia, on the other hand, not infrequently wear coats of white +fur to protect them from the cold and to render them invisible against +the expanses of snow. When I was on the Italian front they told me an +incident of this mountain warfare. There was desperate fighting for +the possession of a few yards of mountain trenches and a +half-battalion of Austrian Jaegers--nearly five hundred men--were +enfiladed by machine-gun fire and wiped out. That night there was a +heavy snowfall and the Austrian corpses sprawled upon the +mountainside were soon buried deep beneath the fleecy flakes. The long +winter wore along, the war pursued its dreary course, to five hundred +Austrian homes the Austrian War Office sent a brief message that the +husband or son or brother had been "reported missing." Then the spring +came, the snow melted from the mountainsides, and the horrified +Italians looked on the five hundred Austrians, frozen stiff, as meat +is frozen in a refrigerator, in the same attitudes in which they had +died months before. + +With countless hair-pin, hair-raising turns, our road wound upward, +bordered on one hand by the brinks of precipices, on the other by bare +walls of rock. It was a smooth road, splendidly built, but steep and +terrifyingly narrow--so narrow in places that it was nothing more than +a shelf blasted from the sheer face of the cliff. Twice, meeting +motor-lorries downward bound, we had to back along that narrow shelf, +with our outer wheels on the brink of emptiness, until we came to a +spot where there was room to pass. It was a ticklish business. + +At one point a mountain torrent leaped from the cliff into the depths +below. But the water-power was not permitted to go to waste; it had +been skilfully harnessed and was being used to run a completely +equipped machine-shop where were brought for repair everything from +motor-trucks to machine-guns. That was one of the things that +impressed me most--the mechanical ability of the Italians. The +railways, cable-ways, machine-shops, bridges, roads, reservoirs, +concrete works that they have built, more often than not in the face +of what would appear to be unsurmountable difficulties, prove them to +be a nation of engineers. + +Up to the heights toward which we were climbing so comfortably and +quickly in a motor-car there was before the war, so I was told, +nothing but a mule-path. Now there is this fine military road, so +ingeniously graded and zigzagged that two-ton motor-trucks can now go +with ease where before a donkey had difficulty in finding a footing. +When these small and handy motor-trucks come to a point where it is no +longer possible for them to find traction, their loads are transferred +to the remarkable wire-rope railways, or _telefericas_, as they are +called, which have made possible this campaign in cloudland. Similar +systems are in use, all over the world, for conveying goods up the +sides of mountains and across chasms. A wire rope running over a drum +at each side of the chasm which has to be crossed forms a double line +of overhead railway. Suspended on grooved wheels from this overhead +wire are "cars" consisting of shallow iron trays about the length and +width of coffins, one car going up as the other comes down. The floors +of the cars are perforated so as to permit the draining off of water +or blood--for men wounded in the mountain fighting are frequently +brought down to the hospitals in them--and the sides are of +latticework, and, I might add, quite unnecessarily low. Nor is the +prospective passenger reassured by being told that there have been +several cases where soldiers, suddenly overcome by vertigo, have +thrown themselves out while in mid-air. If the cars are properly +loaded, and if there is not a high wind blowing, the _teleferica_ is +about as safe as most other modes of conveyance, but should the cars +have been carelessly loaded, or should a strong wind be blowing, there +is considerable danger of their coming into collision as they pass. In +such an event there would be a very fair chance of the passenger +spattering up the rocks a thousand feet or so below. There is still +another, though a rather remote possibility: that of being shelled +while in mid-air, for certain of the _telefericas_ run within view of +the Austrian positions. And sometimes the power which winds the drum +gives out and the car and its passengers are temporarily marooned in +space. Aviation, motor-racing, mountain-climbing, big-game hunting, +all seem commonplace and tame compared with the sensation of swinging +helplessly in a shallow bathtub over half a mile of emptiness while an +Austrian battery endeavors to pot you with shrapnel, very much as a +small boy throws stones at a scared cat clinging to a limb. + +Yet over these slender wires has been transported an army, with its +vast quantities of food, stores, and ammunition, and by the same +method of transportation have been sent back the wounded. Without this +ingenious device it is doubtful if the campaign in the High Alps could +ever have been fought. But the cables, strong though they are, are yet +too weak to bear the weight of the heavy guns, some of them weighing +forty and fifty tons, which the Italians have put into action on the +highest peaks. So, by the aid of ropes and levers and pulleys and +hundreds of brawny backs and straining arms, these monster pieces have +been hauled up slopes as steep as that of the Great Pyramid, have been +hoisted up walls of rock as sheer and high as those of the Flatiron +Building. You question this? Well, there they are, great eight and +nine inch monsters, high above the highest of the wire roads, one of +them that I know of at a height of ten thousand feet above the sea. +There is no doubting it, incredible as it may seem, for they speak for +themselves--as the Austrians have found to their cost. + +The most advanced positions in the Carnia, as in the Trentino, are +amid the eternal snows. Here the guns are emplaced in ice caverns +which can be reached only through tunnels cut through the drifts; here +the men spend their days wrapped in shaggy furs, their faces smeared +with grease as a protection from the stinging blasts, and their nights +in holes burrowed in the snow, like the igloos of Esquimaux. On no +front, not on the sun-scorched plains of Mesopotamia, nor in the +frozen Mazurian marshes, nor in the blood-soaked mud of Flanders, does +the fighting man lead so arduous an existence as up here on the roof +of the world. I remember standing with an Italian officer in an +observatory in the lower mountains. The powerful telescope was +trained on the snow-covered summit of one of the higher peaks. + +"Do you see that little black speck on the snow at the very top?" the +officer asked me. + +I told him that I did. + +"That is one of our positions," he continued. "It is held by a +lieutenant and thirty Alpini. I have just received word that, as the +result of yesterday's snow-storm, our communications with them have +been cut off. We will not be able to relieve them, or get supplies to +them, much before next April." + +And it was then only the middle of December! + +In the Carnia and on the Upper Isonzo one finds the anomaly of +first-line trenches which are perfectly safe from attack. I visited +such a position. Through a loophole I got a little framed picture of +the Austrian trenches not five hundred yards away, and above them, cut +in the mountainside, the square black openings within which lurked the +Austrian guns. Yet we were as safe from anything save artillery fire +as though we were in Mars, for between the Italian trenches and the +Austrian intervened a chasm half a thousand feet deep and with walls +as steep and smooth as the side of a house. The narrow strip of valley +at the bottom of the chasm was a sort of no man's land, where forays, +skirmishes, and all manner of desperate adventures took place nightly +between patrols of Jaegers and Alpini. + +As with my field-glasses I was sweeping the turmoil of trench-scarred +mountains which lay spread, below me, like a map in bas-relief, an +Austrian battery quite suddenly set up a deafening clamor, and on a +hillside, miles away, I could see its shells bursting in clouds of +smoke shot through with flame. They looked like gigantic white peonies +breaking suddenly into bloom. The racket of the guns awoke the most +extraordinary echoes in the mountains. It was difficult to believe +that it was not thunder. Range after range caught up the echoes of +that bombardment and passed them on until it seemed as though they +must have reached Vienna. For half an hour, perhaps, the cannonade +continued, and then, from an Italian position somewhere above and +behind us, came a mighty bellow which drowned out all other sounds. It +was the angry voice of Italy bidding the Austrians be still. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] I was told by a British general that thousands of tiny steel +prongs had been discovered in baled hay brought from America. They +were evidently put there by German sympathizers in the United States +with the object of killing the Allies' horses. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE ROAD TO TRIESTE + + +In order to appraise the Italian operations on the Carso at their true +value, it is necessary to go back to May, 1916, when the Archduke +Frederick launched his great offensive from the Trentino. Now it must +be kept constantly in mind, as I have tried to emphasize in preceding +chapters, that when the war opened, the Italians had always to go up +while the Austrians needed only to come down. The latter, intrenched +high on that tremendous natural rampart formed by the Rhaetian and +Tyrolean Alps, the Dolomites, the Carnic, Julian, and Dinaric ranges, +had an immense superiority over their enemy on the plains below. The +Austrian offensive in the Trentino was dictated by four reasons: +first, to divert the Italians from their main objective, Trieste; +second, to lessen the pressure which General Cadorna was exerting +against the Austrian lines on the Isonzo; third, to smash through to +Vicenza and Verona, thus cutting off and compelling the capitulation +of the Italian armies operating in Venetia; and fourth, to so +thoroughly discourage the Italians that they would consent to a +separate peace. + +The story of how this ambitious plan was foiled is soon told. By the +first week in May the Austrians had massed upon the Trentino front a +force of very nearly 400,000 men with 2,000 guns. Included in this +tremendous accumulation of artillery were 26 batteries of 12-inch guns +and several of the German giants, the famous 42-centimetre pieces, +which brought down the pride of Antwerp and Namur. By the middle of +May everything was ready for the onset to begin, and this avalanche of +soldiery came rolling down the Asiago plateau, between the Adige and +the Brenta. Below them, basking in the sunshine, stretched the +alluring plains of Venetia, with their wealth, their women, and their +wine. Pounded by an immensely superior artillery, overwhelmed by wave +upon wave of infantry, the Italians sullenly fell back, leaving the +greater part of the Sette Communi plateau and the upper portion of the +Brenta valley in the hands of the Austrians. At the beginning of June +a cloud of despondency and gloom hung over Italy, and men went about +with sober faces, for it seemed all but certain that the enemy would +succeed in breaking through to Vicenza, and by cutting the main +east-and-west line of railway, would force the armies operating on the +Isonzo and in the Carnia to surrender. But the soldiers of the Army of +the Trentino, though outnumbered in men and guns, determined that the +Austrians should pay a staggering price for every yard of ground they +gained. They fought as must have fought their ancestors of the Roman +legions. And, thanks to their tenacity and pluck, they held their +opponents on the five-yard line. Then, just in the nick of time, the +whistle blew. The game was over. The Austrians had to hurry home. +They had staked everything on a sudden and overwhelming onslaught by +which they hoped to smash the Italian defense and demoralize the +Italian armies in time to permit at least half their eighteen +divisions and nearly all of their heavy guns being withdrawn in a few +weeks and rushed across Austria to the Galician front, where they were +desperately needed to stay the Russian advance. + +By the beginning of the last week in June the Austrian General Staff, +recognizing that its plan for the overwhelming of northern Italy had +failed disastrously, issued orders for a general retreat. The +Austrians had planned to fall back on the positions which had been +prepared in advance in the mountains and to establish themselves, with +greatly reduced numbers, on this practically impregnable line, while +the transfer of the divisions intended for the Carpathians was +effected. But General Cadorna had no intention of letting the +Austrians escape so easily. In less than a week he had collected from +the garrisons and training camps and reserve battalions an army of +500,000 men. It was one of the most remarkable achievements of the +war. From all parts of Italy he rushed those half million men to the +Trentino front by train--and despite the immense strain put upon the +Italian railways by the rapid movement of so great a body of troops, +the regular passenger service was suspended for only three days. (At +that same time the American Government was attempting to concentrate a +force of only 150,000 men on the Mexican border; a comparison of +Italian and American efficiency is instructive.) He formed that army +into brigades and divisions, each complete with staff and supply +trains and ammunition columns. He organized fresh bases of supply, +including water, of which there is none on the Asiago plateau. He +provided the stupendous quantity of stores and ammunition and +equipment and transport required by such an army. (It is related how +Cadorna's Chief of Transport wired the Fiat Company of Turin that he +must have 545 additional motor-trucks within a week, and how that +great company responded by delivering in the time specified 546--one +over for good measure.) Almost in a night he transformed the rude +mule-paths leading up onto the plateau into splendid military roads, +wide enough and hard enough to bear the tremendous traffic to which +they were suddenly subjected. And finally he rushed his troops up +those roads in motor-cars and motor-trucks, afoot and on horse-back +and astride of donkeys and flung them against the Austrians. So sudden +and savage was the Italian onset that the Austrians did not dare to +spare a man or gun for their Eastern Front--and meanwhile the +Muscovite armies were pressing on toward the Dniester. It is no +exaggeration to assert that the success of Brussiloff's offensive in +Galicia was due in no small measure to the Italian counter-offensive +in the Trentino. That adventure cost Austria at least 100,000 dead and +wounded men. + +But not for a moment did the Italians permit the Austrian offensive in +the Trentino to distract them from their real objectives: Gorizia, +the Carso, and Trieste. The "military experts," who from desks in +newspaper offices tell the public how campaigns ought to be conducted, +had announced confidently that Italy had so taxed her strength by her +efforts in the Trentino that, for many months at least, nothing need +be expected from her. But Italy showed the public that the "military +experts" didn't know what they were talking about, for in little more +than a month after the Italian guns had ceased to growl amid the +Tyrolean peaks and passes, they were raining a storm of steel upon the +Austrian positions on the Carso. + +Imagine a vast limestone plateau, varying in height from 700 to 2,500 +feet, which is as treeless and waterless as the deserts of Chihuahua, +as desolate and forbidding as the Dakota Bad Lands, with a surface as +torn and twisted and jagged as the lava beds of Utah, and with a +summer climate like that of Death Valley in July. That is the Carso. +This great table-land of rock, which begins at Gorizia, approaches +close to the shores of the Adriatic between Monfalcone and Trieste, +and runs southeastward into Istria, links the Alpine system with the +Balkan ranges. Its surface of naked, sun-flayed rock is broken here +and there with gigantic heaps of piled stone, with caves and caverns, +with sombre marshes which sometimes become gloomy and forbidding +lakes, and with peculiar crater-like depressions called _dolinas_, +formed by centuries of erosion. Such scanty vegetation as there is is +confined to these _dolinas_, which form the only oases in this barren +and thirsty land. The whole region is swept by the _Bora_, a wind +which is the enemy alike of plant and man. Save for the lizards that +bask upon its furnace-like floors, the Carso is as lifeless as it is +treeless and waterless. No bird and scarcely an insect can find +nourishment over vast spaces of this sun-scorched solitude; even the +hardy mountain grass withers and dies of a broken heart. So powerful +is the sun that eggs can be cooked without a fire. Metal objects, such +as rifles and equipment, when left exposed, quickly become too hot to +touch. The bodies of the soldiers who fall on the Carso are not +infrequently found to have been baked hard and mummified after lying +for a day or two on that oven-like floor of stone. + +The Carso is probably the strongest natural fortress in the world. +Anything in the shape of defensive works which Nature had overlooked, +the Austrians provided. For years before the war began the Austrian +engineers were at work strengthening a place that already possessed +superlative strength. The whole face of the plateau was honeycombed +with trenches and tunnels and dugouts and gun emplacements which were +blasted and drilled out of the solid rock with machinery similar to +that used in driving the Simplon and the St. Gothard tunnels. The +posts for the snipers were armored with inch-thick plates of steel +cemented into the rock. The _dolinas_ were converted into machine-gun +pits and bomb-proof shelters. In one of these curious craters I saw a +dugout--it was really a subterranean barracks--electrically lighted +and with neatly whitewashed walls which had sleeping accommodation for +a thousand men. To supply these positions, water was pumped up by +oil-engines, but the Austrians took care to destroy the pipe-lines as +they retired. + +At the northern end of the Carso, in an angle formed by the junction +of the Wippach and the Isonzo, the snowy towers and red-brown roofs of +Gorizia rise above the foliage of its famous gardens. The town, which +resembles Homburg or Baden-Baden and was a popular Austrian resort +before the war, lies in the valley of the Wippach (Vippacco, the +Italians call it), which separates the Carso from the southernmost +spurs of the Julian Alps. Down this valley runs the railway leading to +Trieste, Laibach, and Vienna. It will be seen, therefore, that Gorizia +is really the gateway to Trieste, and a place of immense strategic +importance. + +On the slopes of the Carso, four or five miles to the southwest of the +town, rises the enormously strong position of Monte San Michele, and +a few miles farther down the Isonzo, the fortified hill-town of +Sagrado. On the other side of the river, almost opposite Gorizia, are +the equally strong positions of Podgora and Monte Sabotino. Their +steep slopes were slashed with Austrian trenches and abristle with +guns which commanded the roads leading to the river, the bridge-heads, +and the town. To take Gorizia until these positions had been captured +was obviously out of the question. Here, as elsewhere, Austria held +the upper ground. In a memorandum issued by the Austrian General Staff +to its officers at the beginning of the operations before Gorizia, the +tremendous advantage of the Austrian position was made quite clear: +"We have to retain possession of a terrain fortified by Nature. In +front of us a great watercourse; behind us a ridge from which we can +shoot as from a ten-story building." + +The difficulties which the Italians had to overcome in their advance +were enormous. From their mountain nests the Austrian guns were able +to maintain a murderous fire on the Italian lines of communication, +thus preventing the bringing up of men and supplies. It therefore +became necessary for the Italians to build new roads which would not +be thus exposed to enemy fire, and in cases where this was impossible, +the existing roads were masked for miles on end with artificial hedges +and screens of grass matting. In many places it was found necessary to +screen the roads overhead as well as on the sides, so that the +Italians could move up their heavy guns without attracting the +attention of the enemy's observers stationed on the highest mountain +peaks, or of the Austrian airmen. But this was not all, or nearly all. +An army is ever a hungry monster, so slaughter-houses and bakeries and +field-kitchens, to say nothing of incredible quantities of +food-stuffs, had to be provided. Fighting being a thirsty business, it +was necessary to arrange for piping up water, for great tanks to hold +that water, and for water-carts, hundreds and hundreds of them, to +peddle it among the panting troops. A prize-fighter cannot sleep out +in the open, on the bare ground, and keep in condition for the ring, +and a soldier, who is likewise a fighting-man but from a different +motive, must be made comfortable of nights if he is to keep in +fighting-trim. So millions of feet of lumber had to be brought up, +along roads already overcrowded with traffic, and that lumber had to +be transformed into temporary huts and barrackments--a city of them. +But the preparations did not end even there. To insure the +co-ordination and co-operation of the various divisions of the army, +an elaborate system of field telegraphs and telephones had to be +installed, and, in order to provide against the lines being cut by +shell-fire and the whole complex organism paralyzed, the wires were +laid in groups of four. Then there had to be repair-stations for the +broken machinery, and other repair-stations--with Red Cross flags +flying over them--for the broken men. So in the rear of the sector +where the Italians planned to give battle on a front of thirty miles, +a series of great base hospitals were established, and, nearer the +front, a series of clearing-hospitals, and, still closer up, +field-hospitals, and in the immediate rear of the fighting-line, +hundreds of dressing-stations and first-aid posts were located in +dugouts and bomb-proof shelters. And along the roads stretched endless +caravans of gray ambulances, for it promised to be a bloody business. +In other words, it was necessary, before the battle could be fought +with any hope of success, to build what was to all intents and +purposes a great modern city, a city of half a million inhabitants, +with many miles of macadamized thoroughfares, with water and telephone +and telegraph systems, with a highly efficient sanitary service, with +railways, with huge warehouses filled with food and clothing, with +more hospitals than any city ever had before, with butcher-shops and +bakeries and machine-shops and tailors and boot-menders--in fact, with +everything necessary to meet the demands of 500,000 men. Yet Mr. +Bryan and his fellow-members of the Order of the Dove and Olive-Branch +would have us believe that all that is necessary in order to win a +modern battle is to take the trusty target-rifle from the closet under +the stairs, dump a box of cartridges into our pockets, and sally +forth, whereupon the enemy, decimated by the deadliness of our fire, +will be only too glad to surrender. + +The most formidable task which confronted the Italians was that of +constructing the vast system of trenches through which the troops +could be moved forward in comparative safety to the positions from +which would be launched the final assault. This presented no +exceptional difficulties in the rich alluvial soil on the Isonzo's +western bank, but once the Italians had crossed the river they found +themselves on the Carso, through whose solid rock the trenches could +be driven only with pneumatic drills and dynamite. All of the Italian +trenches that I saw showed a very high skill in engineering. Instead +of keeping the earthen walls from crumbling and caving by the use of +the wicker-work revetments so general on the Western Front, the +Italians use a sort of steel trellis which is easily put in place, and +is not readily damaged by shell-fire. Other trenches which I saw +(though not on the Carso, of course) were built of solid concrete with +steel shields for the riflemen cemented into the parapets. + +During these weeks of preparation the Italian aviators, observers, and +spies had been busy collecting information concerning the strength of +the Gorizia defenses and the disposition of the Austrian batteries and +troops. By means of thousands of photographs taken from airplanes, +enlarged, and then pieced together, the Italians had as accurate and +detailed a map of the Austrian lines of defense as was possessed by +the Austrian General Staff itself. Thanks to the data thus obtained, +the Italian gunners were able to locate their targets and estimate +their ranges with absolute precision. They knew which building in +Gorizia was the headquarters of the Austrian commander; they had +discovered where his telephone and telegraph stations were located; +and they had spotted his observation posts. Indeed, so highly +developed was the Italian intelligence service that the Austrians were +not able to transfer a battalion or change the position of a battery +without the knowledge of General Cadorna. + +Now the Austrians, like the newspaper experts, were convinced that the +Italians had their hands full in the Trentino without courting trouble +on the Isonzo. And if there was to be an attack along the Isonzo +front--which they doubted--they believed that it would almost +certainly develop in the Monfalcone sector, next the sea. And of this +belief the Italians took care not to disabuse them. Here again was +exemplified the vital necessity of having control of the air. If, +during the latter half of July, the Austrian fliers had been able to +get over the Italian lines, they could not have failed to observe the +enormous preparations which were in progress, and when the Italians +advanced, the Austrians would have been ready for them. But the +Italians kept control of the air (during my entire trip on the Italian +front I can recall having seen only one Austrian airplane), the +Austrians had no means of learning what was impending, and were, +therefore, quite unprepared for the attack when it came--and Gorizia +fell. + +By the 4th of August, 1916, all was ready for the Big Push. On the +morning of that day brisk fighting began on the Monfalcone sector. +Convinced that this was the danger-point, the Austrian commander +rushed his reserves southward to strengthen his threatened line. This +was precisely what the Italians wanted. They had succeeded in +distracting his attention from their real objective--Gorizia. Now the +battle of Gorizia was really not fought at Gorizia at all. What +happened was the brilliant and bloody storming of the Austrian +positions on Podgora and Monte Sabotino, a simultaneous crossing of +the Isonzo opposite Gorizia and at Sagrado, and a splendid rush up to +and across the plateau of the Carso which culminated in the taking of +Monte San Michele. Gorizia itself was not organized for defense, and +so astounded was its garrison at the capture in rapid succession of +the city's defending positions, which had been deemed impregnable, +that no serious resistance was offered. + +On the morning of August 6 a hurricane of steel suddenly broke upon +Gorizia. But the Italian gunners had received careful instructions, +and instead of blowing the city off the map, as they could easily have +done, they confined their efforts to the destruction of the enemy's +headquarters, observation posts, and telephone-stations, thus +destroying his means of communication and effectually disrupting his +entire organization. Other batteries turned their attention to the +railway-station, the railway-yards, and the roads, dropping such a +curtain of shell-fire behind the town that the Austrians were unable +to bring up reinforcements. Care was taken, however, to do as little +damage as possible to the city itself, as the Italians wanted it for +themselves. + +The most difficult, as it was the most spectacular, phase of the +attack was the storming of the Sabotino, a mountain two thousand feet +high, which, it was generally believed, could never be taken with the +bayonet. The Italians, realizing that no troops in the world could +hope to reach the summit of those steep slopes in the face of barbed +wire, rifles, and machine-guns, had, unknown to the enemy, driven a +tunnel, a mile and a quarter long, into the very heart of this +position. When the assault was ordered, therefore, the first lines of +Italian infantry suddenly appeared from out of the ground within a few +yards of the Austrian trenches. Amid a storm of _vivas_ the gray wave, +with its crest of glistening steel, surged up the few remaining yards +of glacis, topped the parapet, and overwhelmed the defenders. Monte +Sabotino, the key to the bridge-head and the city, was in the hands of +the Italians. But the Austrians intrenched on Hill 240, the highest +summit of the Podgora range, still held out, and it took several +hours of savage fighting to dislodge them. This last stronghold taken, +the gray-clad infantry suddenly debouched from the sheltering ravines +and went swarming down to the Isonzo. Almost simultaneously another +division crossed the river several miles below, at Sagrado. Into the +stream they went, their rifles held high above their heads, chanting +the splendid hymn of Garibaldi. The Austrian shrapnel churned the +river into foam, its waters turned from blue to crimson, but the +insistent bugles pealed the charge, and the lines of gray swept on. +Pausing on the eastern bank only long enough to re-form, the lines +again rolled forward. White disks carried high above the heads of the +men showed the Italian gunners how far the infantry had advanced and +enabled them to gauge their protecting curtain of fire. Though +smothered with shells, and swept by machine-guns, nothing could stop +them. "Avanti Savoia!" they roared. "Viva! Eviva Italia!" + +Meanwhile, under a heavy fire, the Italian engineers were repairing +the iron bridge which carried the railway from Milan and Udine across +the Isonzo to Gorizia and so to Trieste and Vienna. The great stone +bridge over the river had been destroyed the day before beyond the +possibility of immediate repair. In an amazingly short time the work +was done and the Italian field-batteries went tearing over the bridge +at a gallop to unlimber on the opposite bank and send a shower of +shrapnel after the retreating Austrians. Close behind the guns poured +Carabinieri, Alpini, Bersaglieri, infantry of the line and squadron +after squadron of cavalry riding under thickets of lances. A strong +force of Carabinieri were the first troops to enter the city, and not +until they had taken complete possession and had assumed the reins of +the local government, were the line troops permitted to come in. + +The fighting continued for three days, the Austrians, though +discouraged and to some extent demoralized, making a brave +resistance. In one _dolina_ which had been fortified, an officer and +a handful of men fought so pluckily against overwhelming odds that, +when at length the survivors came out and surrendered, the Italians +presented arms to them as a mark of respect and admiration. By the +evening of the 9th of August the attack, "one of the most important +and violent onslaughts on fortified positions that the European War +has yet seen," had been completely successful, and the city of +Gorizia, together with the heights that guarded it, including the +northern end of the Carso plateau, were in Italian hands. The cost to +Italy was 20,000 dead men. It was a high price but, on the other hand, +she captured 19,000 prisoners, 67 pieces of artillery, and scores of +trench mortars and machine-guns. The moral and strategic results were +of incalculable value. The first line of the Austrian defense, deemed +one of the strongest on any front, had collapsed beneath the Italian +assaults; though the crest of the Carso still remained in Austrian +hands, the gateway to Trieste had been opened; and most important of +all, the Italian people had gained the self-confidence which they had +long lacked and which comes only from military achievement. + +In order to reach Gorizia we had to motor for some miles along a road +exposed to enemy fire, for the hills dominating the city to the south +and east were still in Austrian hands. The danger was minimized as +much as possible by screening the roads in the manner I have already +described, so, as the officer who accompanied me took pains to +explain, if we happened to be hit by a shell, it would be one fired at +random. I could see no reason, however, why a random shell wouldn't +end my career just as effectually as a shell intended specially for +me. Although, thanks to the tunnels of matting, the Austrians cannot +see the traffic on the roads, they know that it must cross the +bridges, so on them they keep up a continuous rain of projectiles, and +there you have to take your chance. The Gorizia bridge-head was not a +place where I should have cared to loiter. + +It is not a simple matter to obtain permission to visit Gorizia (it is +much easier to visit Verdun), for the city is shelled with more or +less regularity, and to have visitors about under such conditions is a +nuisance. Hence, one cannot get into Gorizia unless bearing a special +pass issued by the Comando Supremo. So rigid are the precautions +against unauthorized visitors that, though accompanied by two officers +of the Staff and travelling in a staff-car, we were halted by the +Carabinieri and our papers examined seven times. To this famous force +of constabulary has been given the work of policing the occupied +regions, and indeed, the entire zone of the armies. With their huge +cocked hats, which, since the war began, have been covered with gray +linen, their rosy faces, so pink-and-white that they look as though +they had been rouged and powdered, and their little upturned waxed +mustaches, the Carabinieri always remind me of the gendarmes in comic +operas. But the only thing comic about them is their hats. They are +the sternest and most uncompromising guardians of the law that I know. +You can expostulate with a London bobbie, you can argue with a Paris +gendarme, you can on occasion reason mildly with a New York policeman, +but not with an Italian carbineer. To give them back talk is to invite +immediate and serious trouble. They are supreme in the war zone, for +they take orders from no one save their own officers and have the +authority to turn back or arrest any one, no matter what his rank. Our +chauffeur, who, being attached to the Comando Supremo, had become so +accustomed to driving generals and cabinet ministers that he blagued +the military sentries, and quite openly sneered at the orders of the +Udine police, would jam on his brakes so suddenly that we would almost +go through the wind-shield if a carbineer held up his hand. + +Gorizia is, or was before the war, a place of some 40,000 inhabitants. +It has broad streets, lined by fine white buildings and lovely +gardens, and outside the town are excellent medicinal baths. It will, +I think, prove a very popular summer resort with the Italians. Though +for many months prior to its capture it was within range of the +Italian guns, which could have blown it to smithereens, they refrained +from doing so because it was desired, if possible, to take the place +intact. That, indeed, has been the Italian policy throughout the war: +to do as little unnecessary damage as possible. Now the Austrians, who +look down on their lost city from the heights to the eastward, refrain +from destroying it, as they easily could do, because they cling to the +hope that they may get it back again. So, though the bridge-heads are +shelled constantly, and though considerable damage has been inflicted +on the suburbs, no serious harm has been done to the city itself. By +this I do not mean to imply that the Austrians never shell it, for +they do, but only in a desultory, half-hearted fashion. During the day +that I spent in Gorizia the deserted streets echoed about every five +minutes to the screech-bang of an Austrian _arrive_ or the +bang-screech of an Italian _depart_. + +Finding that the big Hotel du Parc, which is the city's leading +hostelry, was closed, we lunched at the more modest Hotel de la Poste. +Our luncheon was served us in the kitchen, as, shortly before our +arrival, the dining-room had been wrecked by an Austrian shell. Though +this had naturally somewhat upset things, we had a really excellent +meal: _minestrone_, which, so far as I could discover, is the only +variety of soup known to the Italians, mutton, vegetables, a pudding, +fruit, the best coffee I have had in Europe since the war began, and a +bottle of fine old Austrian wine, which, like the German vintages, is +no longer procurable in the restaurants of _civilized_ Europe. While +we ate, there was a brisk exchange of compliments between the Italian +and Austrian batteries in progress above the roofs of the town. The +table at which we sat was pushed close up against one of the thick +masonry columns which supported the kitchen ceiling. It probably would +not have been much of a protection had a shell chanced to drop in on +us, but it was wonderfully comforting. + +I was accompanied on my visit to Gorizia by Signor Ugo Ojetti, the +noted Florentine connoisseur who has been charged with the +preservation of all the historical monuments and works of art in the +war zone. About this charming and cultured gentleman I was told a +characteristic story. In the outskirts of Gorizia stands the chateau +of an Austrian nobleman who was the possessor of a famous collection +of paintings. Now it is Signor Ojetti's business to save from injury +or destruction all works of art which are worth saving, and, after +ticketing and cataloguing them, to ship them to a place of safety to +be kept until the war is over, when they will be restored to their +respective owners. Though the chateau in question was within the +Italian lines, the windows of the ballroom, in which hung the best of +the pictures, were within easy range of the Austrian snipers, who, +whenever they saw any one moving about inside, would promptly open a +brisk rifle fire. Scarcely had Ojetti and his assistant set foot +within the room when _ping_ came an Austrian bullet through the +window, shattering the crystal chandelier over their heads. Then was +presented the extraordinary spectacle of the greatest art critic in +Italy crawling on hands and knees over a ballroom floor, taking care +to keep as close to that floor as possible, and pausing now and then +to make a careful scrutiny of the canvases that hung on the walls +above him. "That's probably an Allori," he would call to his +assistant. "Remember to take that down after it gets dark. The one +next to it is good too--looks like a Bordone, though I can't be +certain in this light. But don't bother about that picture over the +fire-place--it's only a copy and not worth saving. Let the Austrians +have it if they want it." And they told me that through it all he +never once lost his dignity or his monocle. + +Another interesting figure who joined our little party in Gorizia was +a monk who had served as a regimental chaplain since the beginning of +the war. He was a broad-shouldered, brown-bearded fellow and, had it +not been for the scarlet cross on the breast of his uniform, I should +have taken him for a fine type of the Italian fighting man. I rather +suspect, though, that when the bugles pealed the signal for the +attack, he quite forgot that the wearers of the Red Cross are supposed +to be non-combatants. During the Austrian offensive in the Trentino, +an Italian army chaplain was awarded the gold medal for valor, the +highest military decoration, because he rallied the men of his +regiment after all the officers had fallen and led them in the +storming of an Austrian position held by a greatly superior force. +Another chaplain who had likewise assumed command of officerless +troops was awarded the silver medal for valor. As the duties of the +army chaplains are supposed to be confined to giving the men spiritual +advice, the doubt arose as to whether they were justified in actually +fighting, thus risking the loss of their character as non-combatants. +This puzzling question was, therefore, submitted to the Pope, who +decided that chaplains assuming command of troops who had lost their +officers in battle were merely discharging their duty, as they +encouraged the men to resist in self-defense. In addition to the +regimental chaplains there are, so I was told, thousands of priests +and monks serving in the ranks of the Italian armies. Whether, after +leading the exciting and adventurous life of a soldier, these men will +be content to resume the sandals and the woollen robe, and to go back +to the sheltered and monotonous existence of the monastic orders, I +very strongly doubt. In any event, their sympathies will have been +deepened and their outlook on life immensely broadened. + +It rained in torrents during my stay in Gorizia, but, as we recrossed +the Isonzo onto the Friulian plain, the sinking sun burst through a +rift in the leaden clouds and turned into a huge block of rosy coral +the red rampart of the Carso. Beyond that wall, scarce a dozen miles +as the airplane flies, but many times that distance as the big gun +travels, lies Trieste. It will be a long road, a hard road, a bloody +road which the Italians must follow to attain their City of Desire, +and before that journey is ended the red rocks of the Carso will be +redder still. But they will finish the journey, I think. For these +iron-hard, brown-faced men, remember, are the stuff from which was +made those ever-victorious legions that built the Roman Empire--and it +is the dream of founding another Empire which is beckoning them on. + + + + +V + +WITH THE RUSSIANS IN CHAMPAGNE + + +When the French have been pestered for permission to visit the front +by some foreigner--usually an American--until their patience has been +exhausted, or when there comes to Paris a visitor to whom, for one +reason or another, they wish to show attention, they send him to +Rheims. Artists, architects, ex-ambassadors, ex-congressmen, lady +journalists, manufacturers in quest of war orders, bankers engaged in +floating loans, millionaires who have given or are likely to give +money to war-charities, editors of obscure newspapers and monthly +magazines, are packed off weekly, in personally conducted parties of a +dozen or more, on a day's excursion to the City of the Desecrated +Cathedral. They grow properly indignant over the cathedral's shattered +beauties, they visit the famous wine-cellars, they hear the +occasional crack of a rifle or the crash of a field-gun,[B] and, upon +their return, they write articles for the magazines, and give +lectures, and to their friends at home send long letters--usually +copied in the local papers--describing their experiences "on the +firing-line." "Visiting the front" has, indeed, become as popular a +pastime among Americans in Paris as was racing at Longchamps and +Auteuil before the war. Hence, no place in the entire theatre of war +has had so much advertising as Rheims. No sector of the front has been +visited by so many civilians. That is why I am not going to say +anything about Rheims--at least about its cathedral. For there is +nothing left to say. + +Five minutes of brisk walking from the cathedral brings one to the +entrance of the famous wine-cellars of Pommery et Cie, the property of +the ancient family of de Polignac. The space in this underground city +is about equally divided between champagne and civilians, for several +hundred of the townspeople, who sought refuge here in the opening +weeks of the war, still make these gloomy passages their home. As the +_caves_ have a mean temperature of fifty degrees Fahrenheit they are +comfortable enough, and, as they are fifty feet below the surface of +the earth, they are safe. So there the more timid citizens live, +rent-free, and will continue to live, no doubt, until the end of the +war. In normal times, there are shipped from these cellars each day +thirty thousand bottles of champagne, and even now, despite the +proximity of the Germans--their trenches are only a few hundred yards +away--the work of packing and shipping goes on much as usual, though, +of course, on a greatly reduced scale, averaging, so I was told, eight +thousand bottles daily. By far the greater part of this goes to +America, for nowadays Europeans do not buy champagne. + +To the red-faced, white-waistcoated, prosperous-looking gentlemen who +scan so carefully the hotel wine-lists, I feel sure that it will come +as a relief to learn that, though there was no 1916 crop of champagne, +the vintages of 1914 and 1915 were exceptionally fine--_grands vins_ +they will probably be labelled. (And they ought to be, for the vines +were watered with the bravest blood of France.) I don't suppose it +would particularly interest those same complacent gentlemen, though, +were I to add that the price of one of those gilt-topped bottles would +keep a French child from cold and hunger for a month. + +A few hours before I visited the cellars, a workman, loading cases of +champagne in front of the company's offices for export to the United +States, was blown to pieces by a German shell. They showed me the +shattered columns of the office-building, and on the cobbles of the +little square pointed out an ugly stain. So, when I returned to +America, and in a famous restaurant, where I was dining, saw +white-shirted men and white-shouldered women sipping glasses abrim +with the sparkling wine of Rheims, the picture of those blood-stained +cobbles in that French city flashed before me, and I experienced a +momentary sensation of disgust, for it seemed to me that in the amber +depths I caught a stain of crimson. But of course it was only my +imagination. Still, I was glad when it came time to leave, for the +scene was too suggestive in its contrast to be pleasant: we, in +America, eating and drinking and laughing; they, over there in Europe, +fighting and suffering and hungering. + + * * * * * + +Leaving Rheims, we took a great gray car and drove south, ever south, +until, as darkness was falling, we reached the headquarters of General +Jilinsky, commanding the Russian forces fighting in Champagne. Here +the Russians have two infantry brigades, with a total of 16,000 men; +there is a third brigade at Salonika. The last time the Russians were +in France was in 1814, and then they were there for a different +purpose. Little could Napoleon have dreamed that they, who helped to +dethrone him, would come back, a century later, as France's allies. +Yet this war has produced stranger coincidences than that. The British +armies, disembarking at Rouen, tramp through that very square where +their ancestors burned the Maid of Orleans. And at Pont des Briques, +outside Boulogne, where Napoleon waited impatiently for weeks in the +hope of being able to invade England, is now situated the greatest of +the British base camps. + +General Jilinsky reminded me of a fighting-cock. He is a little man, +much the height and build of the late General Funston, with hair +cropped close to the skull, after the Russian fashion; through a +buttonhole of his green service tunic was drawn the orange-and-black +ribbon of the Order of St. George. He can best be described as "a live +wire." His staff-officers impressed me as being as efficient and +razor-keen as their chief. The general asked me if I would like to +visit his trenches, and I assured him that it was the hope of being +permitted to do so which had brought me there. Whereupon a +staff-officer disappeared into the hall to return a moment later with +a gas-mask in a tin case and a steel helmet covered with tan linen. + +"You had better take these with you," he said. "There is nearly always +something happening on our front, and there is no sense in taking +unnecessary risks." + +I soon found that the precaution was not an idle one, for, as our car +drew up at the entrance to the _boyau_ which led by devious windings +into the first-line trenches, the group of officers and men assembled +in front of brigade headquarters were hastily donning their masks: +grotesque-looking contrivances of metal, cloth, and rubber, which in +shape resembled a pig's snout. + +"Gas," said my Russian companion briefly. "We will stay here until it +is over." + +Though we must have been nearly a mile behind the firing-line, the air +was filled with a sweetish, sickish smell which suggested both the +operating-room and the laboratory. So faint and elusive was the odor +that I hesitated to follow the example of the others and don my mask, +until I remembered having been told at Souchez, on the British front, +that a horse had been killed by gas when seven miles behind the lines. + +It is a logical development of this use of chemicals as weapons that +the horses in use on the French front are now provided with gas-masks +in precisely the same manner as the soldiers. These masks, which are +kept attached to the harness, ready for instant use, do not cover the +entire face, as do those worn by the men, but only the mouth and +nostrils. In fact they resemble the feeding-bags which cartmen and +cab-drivers put on their horses for the midday meal. Generally +speaking, the masks are provided only for artillery horses and those +employed in hauling ammunition, though it now seems likely that if the +cavalry gets a chance to go into action, masks will be worn by the +troopers and their horses alike. After a large gas attack the fumes +sometimes settle down in the valleys far behind the lines, and hours +may elapse before they are dissipated by the wind. As it not +infrequently happens that one of these gas banks settles over a road +on which it is imperative that the traffic be not interrupted, large +signs are posted notifying all drivers to put the masks on their +horses before entering the danger zone. + +There are now three different kinds of gases in general use on the +Western Front. The best known of these is a form of chlorine gas, +which is liberated from cylinders or flasks, to be carried by the wind +over the enemy's lines. Contrary to the popular impression, its use is +not as general as the newspaper accounts have led the public to +believe, for it requires elaborate preparation, can only be employed +over comparatively flat ground, and then only when the wind is of +exactly the right velocity, neither too light nor too strong. Another +form of asphyxiating gas is held in shells in liquid form, usually in +lead containers. Upon the bursting of the shell, which is fired from +an ordinary field-gun, the liquid rapidly evaporates and liberates the +gas, a few inhalations of which are sufficient to cause death. The +third type consists of lachrymal, or tear-producing, gas, which is +used in the same way as the asphyxiating, but its effects are not +fatal, merely putting a man out of action for a few hours. It is +really, however, the most efficacious of the three types, as it does +not evaporate as readily as the asphyxiating gas. As a well +distributed fire of lachrymal shells will form a screen of gas which +will last for several hours, they are often used during an attack to +prevent the enemy from bringing up reinforcements. Another use is +against artillery positions, the clouds of gas from the lachrymal +shells making it almost impossible for the men to serve the guns. I +was also told of these shells having been used with great success to +surround the headquarters of a divisional commander, disabling him +and his entire staff during an attack. + +Before a change in the wind dissipated the last odors of gas, darkness +had fallen. "Now," said my cicerone, "we will resume our trip to the +trenches." The last time that I had seen these trenches, which the +Russians are now holding, was in October, 1915, during the great +French offensive in Champagne, when I had visited them within a few +hours after their capture by the French. On that occasion they had +been so pounded by the French artillery that they were little more +than giant furrows in the chalky soil, and thickly strewn along those +furrows was all the horrid garbage of a battlefield: twisted and +tangled barbed wire, splintered planks, shattered rifles, broken +machine-guns, unexploded hand-grenades, knapsacks, water-bottles, +pieces of uniforms, bits of leather, and, most horrible of all, the +remains of what had once been human beings. But all this debris had +long since been cleared away. Under the skilful hands of the Russians +the rebuilt trenches had taken on a neat and orderly appearance. The +earthen walls had been revetted with wire chicken-netting, and instead +of tramping through ankle-deep mud, we had beneath our feet neat walks +of corduroy. We tramped for what seemed interminable miles in the +darkness, always zig-zagging. Now and then we would come upon little +fires, discreetly screened, built at the entrances to dugouts burrowed +from the trench-walls. Over these fires soldiers in flat caps and +belted greatcoats were cooking their evening meal. I had expected to +see unkempt men wearing sheepskin caps, men with flat noses and matted +beards, but instead I found clean-shaven, splendidly set-up giants, +with the pink skins that come from perfect cleanliness and perfect +health. Following the direction of the arrows on signs printed in both +French and Russian, we at last reached the fire-trench, where dim +figures looking strangely mediaeval in their steel helmets, crouched +motionless, peering out along their rifle-barrels into the eerie +darkness of No Man's Land. Here there was a sporadic illumination, for +from the German trenches in front of us lights were rising and +falling. They were very beautiful: slender stems of fire arching +skyward to burst into blossoms of brilliant sparks, which illuminated +the band of shell-pocked soil between the trenches as though it were +day. Occasionally there would be a dozen of these star-shells in the +air at the same time: they reminded me of the Fourth of July fireworks +at Manhattan Beach. In the fire-trenches there is no talking save in +whispers, but every now and then the almost uncanny silence would be +punctuated by the sharp crack of a rifle, the _tut-tut-tut_ of a +mitrailleuse, or, from somewhere in the distance, the angry bark of a +field-gun. + +There was a whispered conversation between the officer in command of +the trench and my guide. The latter turned to me. + +"We have driven a sap to within thirty metres of the enemy," he said, +"and have established a listening-post out there. Would you care to +go out to it?" + +I would, and said so. + +"No talking, then, if you please," he warned me, "and as little noise +as possible." + +This time the _boyau_ was very narrow, and writhed between its earthen +walls like a dying snake. We advanced on tiptoe, as cautiously as +though stalking big game--as, indeed, we were. Ten minutes of this +slow and tortuous progress brought us to the _poste d'ecoute_. In a +space the size of a hall bedroom half a score of men stood in +attitudes of strained expectancy, staring into the blackness through +the loopholes in their steel shields. There being no loophole vacant, +I took a chance and, standing on the firing step, raised my head above +the level of the parapet and made a hurried survey of the few yards of +No Man's Land which separated us from the enemy--a space so narrow +that I could have thrown a stone across, yet more impassable than the +deepest chasm. I was rewarded for the risk by getting a glimpse of a +dim maze of wire entanglements, and, just beyond, a darker bulk which +I knew for the German trench. And I knew that from that trench sharp +eyes were peering out into the darkness toward us just as we were +trying to discern them. As I stepped down from my somewhat exposed +position a soldier standing a few feet farther along the line raised +_his_ head above the parapet, as though to relieve his cramped +muscles. Just then a star-shell burst above us, turning the trench +into day. _Ping!!!_ There was a ringing metallic sound, as when a +22-caliber bullet strikes the target in a shooting-gallery, and the +big soldier who had incautiously exposed himself crumpled up in the +bottom of the trench with a bullet through his helmet and through his +brain. The young officer in command of the listening-post cursed +softly. "I'm forever warning the men not to expose themselves," he +said irritatedly, "but they forget it the next minute. They're nothing +but stupid children." He spoke in much the same tone of annoyance he +might have used if the man had been a clumsy servant who had broken a +valuable dish. Then he went into the tiny dugout where the telephone +was, and rang up the trench commander, and asked him to send out a +bearer, for the _boyau_ communicating with the listening-post was too +narrow to admit the passage of a stretcher. The bearer arrived just as +we started to return. He was a regular dray-horse of a man, with +shoulders as massive and competent as those of a Constantinople +_hamel_. Strapped to his back by a sort of harness was a contrivance +which looked like a rude armchair with the legs cut off. His comrades +hoisted the dead man onto the back of the live man, and with a rope +took a few turns about the bodies of both. As we made our slow way +back to the fire-trench, and so to the rear, there stumbled at our +heels the grunting porter with his ghastly burden. Now and then I +would glance over my shoulder and, in the fleeting glare of the +star-shells, would glimpse, above the porter's straining shoulders, +the head of the dead soldier lolling inertly from side to side, as +though very, very tired.... And I wondered if in some lonely cabin by +the Volga a woman was praying for her boy. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[B] Since this was written the Germans have bombarded Rheims so +heavily, with the evident intention of completing its destruction, +that the French military authorities have ordered the evacuation of +the civil population. + + + + +VI + +"THEY SHALL NOT PASS!" + + +General Gouraud, the one-armed hero of Gallipoli, who commands the +forces in Champagne, is the most picturesque and gallant figure in all +the armies of France. On my way south I stopped for a night in +Chalons-sur-Marne to dine with him. He was living in a comfortable but +modest house, evidently the residence of a prosperous tradesman. When +I arrived I found the small and rather barely furnished salon filled +with officers of the staff, in uniforms of the beautiful horizon blue +which is the universal dress of the French army. They were clustered +about the marble-topped centre-table, on which, I imagine, the family +Bible used to rest, but which now held the steel base of a +380-centimetre shell, which had fallen in a near-by village that +afternoon. This monster projectile, as large as the largest of those +fired by our coast-defense guns, must have weighed considerably more +than a thousand pounds and doubtless cost the Germans at least a +thousand dollars, yet all the damage it had done was to destroy a +tumble-down and uninhabited cottage, which proves that, save against +permanent fortifications, there is a point where the usefulness of +these abnormally large guns ceases. While we were discussing this +specimen of Bertha Krupp's handicraft, the door opened and General +Gouraud entered the room. Seldom have I seen a more striking figure: a +tall, slender, graceful man, with a long, brown, spade-shaped beard +which did not entirely conceal a mouth both sensitive and firm. But it +was the eyes which attracted and held one's attention: great, lustrous +eyes, as large and tender as a woman's, but which could on occasion, I +fancy, become cold as steel, or angry as lightning. One sleeve of his +tunic hung empty, and he leaned heavily on a cane, for during the +landing at Gallipoli he was terribly wounded by a Turkish shell. +Covering his breast were glittering stars and crosses, which showed +how brilliant had been his services in this and other wars. He is a +remarkable man, this soldier with the beard of a _poilu_ and the eyes +of a poet, and, unless I am greatly mistaken, he is destined to go a +long, long way. + +It was the sort of dinner that one marks with a white milestone on the +road of memory. The soldier-servants wore white-cotton gloves and +there were flowers on the table and menus with quaint little military +sketches in the corners. General Gouraud talked in his deep, melodious +voice of other wars in which he had fought, in Annam and Morocco and +Madagascar, and the white-mustached old general of artillery at my +left illustrated, with the aid of the knives and forks, a new system +of artillery fire, which, he assured me very earnestly, would make +pudding of the German trenches. While the salad was being served one +of the staff-officers was called to the telephone. When he returned +the general raised inquiring eyebrows. "_N'importe, mon general_," he +answered. "Colonel ---- telephoned that the Boches attacked in force +south of ----" and he named a certain sector, "but that we have driven +them back with heavy losses." Then he resumed his interrupted dinner +as unconcernedly as though he had been called to the telephone to be +told that the Braves had defeated the Pirates in the ninth inning. + +While we were at breakfast the next morning the windows of the hotel +dining-room suddenly began to reverberate to the _bang-bang-bang_ of +guns. Going to the door, we saw, high overhead, a great white bird, +which turned to silver when touched by the rays of the morning sun. +Though shrapnel bursts were all about it--I counted thirty of the +fleecy puffs at one time--it sailed serenely on, a thing of delicate +beauty against the cloudless blue. Though few airplanes are brought +down by artillery fire, the improvement in anti-aircraft guns has +forced the aviators to keep at a height of from 12,000 to 17,000 feet, +instead of 2,000, as they did at the beginning of the war. The French +gunners have now devised a system which, when it is successfully +executed, makes things extremely uncomfortable for the enemy aviator. +This system consists in so gauging the fire of the anti-aircraft guns +that the airman finds himself in a "box" of shrapnel; that is, one +shell is timed to burst directly in front of the machine, another +behind it, one above, one below, and one on either side. The +dimensions of this "box" of bursting shrapnel are gradually made +smaller, so that, unless the aviator recognizes his danger in time, +escape becomes impossible, and he is done for. Occasionally an +aviator, finding himself caught in such a death-trap, pretends that he +has been hit, and lets his machine flutter helplessly earthward, like +a wounded bird, until the gunners, believing themselves certain of +their prey, cease firing, whereupon the airman skilfully "catches" +himself, and, straightening the planes of his machine, goes soaring +off to safety. Navarre, one of the most daring of the French fliers, +so perfected himself in the execution of this hazardous ruse that he +would let go of the controls and permit his machine to literally fall, +sometimes from a height of a mile or more, making no attempt at +recovery until within sixty metres of the ground, when he would save +himself by a hawk-like swoop in which his wheels would actually graze +the earth. + +The organization of the French air service, with its system of +airplane and seaplane squadrons, dirigibles and observation balloons, +schools, repair-shops, and manufactories, is entirely an outgrowth of +the war. The airplanes are organized in _escadrilles_, usually +composed of ten machines each, for three distinct purposes. The +bombardment squadrons are made up of slow machines with great carrying +capacity, such as the Voisin; the pursuit or battle squadrons--the +_escadrilles de chasse_--are composed of small and very fast 'planes, +such as the Spad and Nieuport; while the general utility squadrons, +used for reconnoissance, artillery regulation, and photographing, +usually consist of medium-speed, two-passenger machines like the +Farman and the Caudron. + + [Illustration: "_Halt!_ Show Your Papers!" + On the roads in the war zone there are sentries at frequent + intervals and they are all suspicious.] + + [Illustration: A Nieuport Biplane About to Take the Air. + The pursuit or battle squadrons--the _escadrilles de chasse_--are + composed of small and very fast planes, such as the Spad and + Nieuport.] + +Until very recently the Nieuport biplane, which can attain a speed of +one hundred and ten miles an hour, has been considered the fastest and +most efficient, as it is the smallest, of the French battle-planes, +but it is now out-speeded by the new Spad[C] machine, which has +reached a speed of over one hundred and twenty miles an hour, and of +which great hopes are entertained. The Spad, like the Nieuport, is a +one-man apparatus, the machine-gun mounted on its upper plane being +fired by the pilot with one hand, while with the other hand and his +feet he operates his controls. On the "tractors," as the airplanes +having the propellers in front are called, the machine-guns are +synchronized so as to fire between the whirling blades. Garros, the +famous French flier, was the first man to perfect a device for firing +a machine-gun through a propeller. He armored the blades so that if +struck by a bullet they would not be injured. This was greatly +improved upon by the Germans in the Fokker type, the fire of the +machine-guns being automatically regulated so that it is never +discharged when a blade of the propeller is directly in front of the +muzzle. Since then various forms of this device have been adapted by +all the belligerents. Another novel development of aerial warfare is +the miniature wireless-sending apparatus with which most of the +observation and artillery regulation machines are now equipped, thus +enabling the observers to keep in constant touch with the ground. In +addition to developing the fastest possible battle-planes, the French +are making efforts to build more formidable craft for bombing +purposes. The latest of these is a Voisin triplane, which has a total +lifting capacity of two tons, carries a crew of five men, and is +driven by four propellers, each operated by a 210-horse-power +Hispana-Suiza motor. These new motors weigh only about two hundred +kilograms, or a little over two pounds per horse-power. + +During the past year the French have made most of their raids by +nights. One reason for this is that raiding craft, which are +comparatively slow machines, are so heavily laden with bombs that they +are only able to perform straight flying and hence are easily brought +down by the fast and quick-turning battle-planes. Daylight raids, +moreover, necessitate an escorting fleet of fighting craft in order to +protect the bombing machines, just as a dreadnought has to be +protected by a screen of destroyers. Though the dangers of flying are +considerably increased by darkness, the French believe this is more +than compensated for by the fact that, being comparatively safe from +attack by enemy aircraft or from the fire of anti-aircraft guns, the +raiders can fly at a much lower altitude and consequently have a much +better chance of hitting their targets. + +One of the extremely important uses to which airplanes are now put is +the destruction of the enemy's observation balloons, on which he +depends for the regulation of his artillery fire. An airplane which +is to be used for this work is specially fitted with a number of +rocket tubes which project in all directions, so that it looks like a +pipe-organ gone on a spree. The rockets, which are fired by means of a +keyboard not unlike that of a clavier, are loaded with a composition +containing a large percentage of phosphorus and are fitted with gangs +of barbed hooks. If the rocket hits the balloon these hooks catch in +the envelope and hold it there, while the phosphorus bursts into a +flame which it is impossible to extinguish. During the fighting before +Verdun, eight French aviators, driving machines thus equipped, were +ordered to attack eight German balloons. Six of the balloons were +destroyed. + +But the very last word in aeronautical development is what might be +called, for want of a better term, an aerial submarine. I refer to +seaplanes carrying in clips beneath the fuselage specially constructed +18-inch torpedoes. In the under side of this type of torpedo is an +opening. When the torpedo is dropped into the sea the water, pouring +into this opening, sets the propelling mechanism in motion and the +projectile goes tearing away on its errand of destruction precisely as +though fired from the torpedo-tube of a submarine. It may be recalled +that some months ago the papers printed an account of a Turkish +transport, loaded with soldiers, having been torpedoed in the Sea of +Marmora, the accepted explanation being that a submarine had succeeded +in making its way through the Dardanelles. As a matter of fact, that +transport was sunk by a torpedo dropped from the air! The pilot of a +Short seaplane had winged his way over the Gallipoli Peninsula, had +sighted the troop-laden transport steaming across the Marmora Sea, +and, volplaning down until he was only twenty-five feet above the +water and a few hundred yards from the doomed vessel, had jerked the +lever which released the torpedo. As it struck the water its machinery +was automatically set going, something that looked like a giant cigar +went streaking through the waves ... there was a shattering +explosion, and when the smoke cleared away the transport had +disappeared. Whereupon the airman, his mission accomplished, flew back +to his base in the AEgean. There may be stranger developments of the +war than that, but if so I have not heard of them. + +France is now (April, 1917) turning out between eight hundred and a +thousand completely equipped airplanes a month, but a considerable +proportion of these are for the use of her allies. I have asked many +persons who ought to know how many airplanes France has in commission, +and, though the replies varied considerably, I should say that she has +at present somewhere between five thousand and seven thousand machines +in or ready to take the air.[D] + + * * * * * + +Leaving Chalons in the gray dawn of a winter's morn, we fled southward +again, through Bar-le-Duc (the place, you know, where the jelly comes +from) the words "_Caves voutes_" chalked on the doors of those +buildings having vaulted cellars showing that air raids were of +frequent occurrence, and so, through steadily increasing traffic, to +Souilly, the obscure hamlet from which was directed the defense of +Verdun. In the centre of the cobble-paved Grande Place stood the +Mairie, a two-story building in the uncompromising style +characteristic of most French provincial architecture. At the foot of +the steps stood two sentries in mud-caked uniforms and dented helmets, +and through the front door flowed an endless stream of staff-officers, +orderlies, messengers, and mud-spattered despatch riders. In this +village _mairie_, a score of miles behind the firing-line, were +centred the nerve and vascular systems of an army of half a million +men; here was planned and directed the greatest battle of all time. On +the upper floor, in a large, light, scantily furnished room, a man +with a great silver star on the breast of his light-blue tunic sat at +a table, bent over a map. He had rather sparse gray hair and a gray +mustache and a little tuft of gray below the lower lip. His eyes were +sunken and tired-looking, as though from lack of sleep, and his face +and forehead were deeply lined, but he gave the impression, +nevertheless, of possessing immense vitality and energy. He was a +broad-shouldered, solidly built, four-square sort of man, with cool, +level eyes, and a quiet, almost taciturn manner. It was General Robert +Nivelle, the man who held Verdun for France. He it was who, when the +fortress was quivering beneath the Germans' sledge-hammer blows, had +quietly remarked: "They shall not pass!" _And they did not._ + +I did not remain long with General Nivelle; to have taken much of such +a man's time would have been a rank impertinence. I would go to +Verdun? he inquired. Yes, with his permission, I answered. Everything +had been arranged, he assured me. An officer who knew America +well--Commandant Bunau-Varilla, of Panama Canal fame--had been +assigned to go with me.[E] As I was leaving I attempted to express to +him the admiration which I felt for the fashion in which he had +conducted the Great Defense. But with a gesture he waved the +compliment aside. "It is the men out there in the trenches who should +be thanked," he said. "They are the ones who are holding Verdun." I +took away with me the impression of a man as stanch, as confident, as +unconquerable as the city he had so heroically defended. A few weeks +later he was to succeed Marshal Joffre to the highest field command in +the gift of the French Government. + +It is twenty miles from Souilly to Verdun, and the road has come to be +known as La Voie Sacre--the Sacred Way--because on the uninterrupted +flow of ammunition and supplies over that road depended the safety of +the fortress. Three thousand men with picks and shovels, working day +and night, kept the road in condition to bear up under the enormous +volume of traffic. The railway to Verdun was so repeatedly cut by +German shells that the French built a narrow-gauge line, which +zig-zags over the hills. Beside the road, at frequent intervals, I +noted cisterns and watering-troughs, and huge overhead water-tanks; +for an army--men, horses, and motor-cars--is incredibly thirsty. This +elaborate water system is the work of Major Bunau-Varilla, who, +fittingly enough, is the head of the _Service d'Eau des Armees_. + +Half a dozen miles out of Souilly we crossed the watershed between the +Seine and the Rhine and were in the valley of the Meuse. On the other +side of yonder hill, whence came a constant muttering of cannon, was, +I knew, the Unconquerable City. + +While yet Verdun itself was out of sight, we came, quite unexpectedly, +upon one of its mightiest defenders: a 400-millimetre gun mounted on a +railway-truck. So streaked and striped and splashed and mottled with +many colors was it that, monster though it was, it escaped my notice +until we were almost upon it. Suddenly a score or more of grimy men, +its crew, came pelting down the track, as subway laborers run for +shelter when a blast is about to be set off. A moment later came a +mighty bellow; from the up-turned nose of the monster burst a puff of +smoke pierced by a tongue of flame, and an invisible express-train +went roaring eastward in the direction of the German lines. This was +the mighty weapon of which I had heard rumors but had never seen: the +great 16-inch howitzer with which the French had so pounded Fort +Douaumont as to cause its evacuation by the Germans. + +The French artillerists were such firm believers in the superiority of +light over heavy artillery, and pinned such faith to their 75's, that +they had paid scant attention to the question of heavy mobile guns. +Hence when the German tidal wave rolled Parisward in 1914, the only +heavy artillery possessed by the French consisted of a very few +4.2-inch Creusot guns of a model adopted just prior to the war, and a +limited number of batteries of 4.8-inch and 6.1-inch guns and +howitzers; all of them, save only the 6.1-inch Rimailho howitzer of +1904, being models twenty to forty years old. These pieces were, of +course, vastly outclassed in range and smashing power by the heavy +guns of the Central Powers, such as the German 420's (the famous +"42's") and the Austrian 380's. Undismayed, however, the French set +energetically to work to make up their deficiencies. As it takes time +to manufacture guns, large numbers of naval pieces were pressed into +service, most of them being mounted on railway-trucks, thus insuring +extreme mobility. The German 42's, I might mention in passing, lack +this very essential quality, as they can be fired only from specially +built concrete bases, from which they cannot readily be moved. The two +German 42's which pounded to pieces the barrier forts of Antwerp were +mounted on concrete platforms behind a railway embankment near +Malines, where they remained throughout the siege of the city. + + [Illustration: Verdun's Mightiest Defender: a 400-mm. Gun. + This was the great 16-inch weapon with which the French so pounded + Fort Douaumont as to cause its evacuation by the Germans.] + + [Illustration: A Gun Painted to Escape the Observation of Enemy + Airmen. + "So streaked and striped and splashed and mottled with many colors + was it that, monster though it was, it escaped my notice until we + were almost upon it."] + +Some idea may be had of the variety of artillery in use on the French +front when I mention that there are at least eleven calibers of guns, +howitzers, and mortars, ranging in size from 9 inches to 20.8 inches, +in action between Switzerland and the Somme. All of these, with a very +few exceptions, are mounted on railway-trucks. In fact, the only large +calibered piece not thus mounted is the Schneider mortar, a very +efficient weapon, having a remarkably smooth recoil, which has a range +of over six miles. It is transported, with its carriage and platform, +in six loads, each weighing from four to five tons, about four hours +being required to set up the piece ready for firing. Nearly all of +these railway guns are, I understand, naval or coast-defense pieces, +some of them being long-range weapons cut down to form howitzers or +mortars, while others have been created by boring to a larger caliber +a gun whose rifling had been worn out in use. For example, the +400-millimetre, already referred to as having proved so effective +against Douaumont, was, I am told, made by cutting down and boring out +a 13.6-inch naval gun. But the master gun, the very latest product of +French brains and French foundries, is the huge 520-millimetre +(20.8-inch) howitzer which has just been completed at the Schneider +works at Creusot. This, the largest gun in existence, has a length of +16 calibers (that is, sixteen times its bore, or approximately 28 +feet), and weighs 60 tons. It fires a shell 7 feet long, weighing +nearly 3,000 pounds, and carrying a bursting charge of 660 pounds of +high explosive. Its range is 18 kilometres, or a little over eleven +miles, though this can probably be increased if desired. This is +France's answer to the German 42's, and, just as the latter shattered +the forts of Liege, Antwerp, and Namur, so these new French titans +will, it is confidently believed, humble the pride of Metz and +Strasbourg. + +So insistent has been the demand from the front for big guns, and yet +more big guns, that new batteries are being formed every day. +Generally speaking, the French plan is to assign short-range howitzers +and mortars to the division; the longer range, horse-drawn +guns--_hippomobile_ the French designate them--to the army corps; +while the tractor-drawn pieces and those mounted on railway-carriages +are placed directly under the orders of the chief of artillery of each +army. + +A new, and in many respects one of the most effective weapons produced +by the war is the trench mortar. These light and mobile weapons, of +which the French have at least four calibers, ranging from +58-millimetres to 340-millimetres, are under the direction of the +artillery, and should not be confused with the various types of +bomb-throwers, which are operated by the infantry. The latest +development in trench weapons is the Van Deuren mortar, which takes +its name from the Belgian officer who is its inventor. Its chief +peculiarity lies in the fact that its barrel consists of a solid core +instead of a hollow tube like all other guns. Attached to the base of +the shell is a hollow winged shaft which fits over the core of the +gun, the desired range being obtained by varying the length of the +powder-chamber: that is, the distance between the end of the barrel +and the base of the shell proper. The gun is fired at a fixed +elevation, and is so small and light that it can readily be moved and +set up by a couple of men in a few minutes. In no branch of the +artillery has such advancement been made as in the trench mortars, +which have now attained almost as great a degree of accuracy as the +field-gun. Such great importance is attached to the trench mortars by +the Italians that they have formed them into a distinct arm of the +service, entirely independent of the artillery, the officers of the +trench-mortar batteries, who are drawn from the cavalry, being trained +at a special school. + +The city of Verdun, or rather the blackened ruins which are all that +remain of it, stands in the centre of a great valley which is shaped +not unlike a platter. Down this valley, splitting the city in half, +meanders the River Meuse. The houses of Verdun, like those of so many +mediaeval cities, are clustered about the foot of a great fortified +rock. From this rock Vauban, at the order of Louis XIV, blasted +ramparts and battlements. To meet the constantly changing conditions +of warfare, later generations of engineers gradually honeycombed the +rock with passages, tunnels, magazines, store-rooms, halls, and +casemates, a veritable labyrinth of them, thus creating the present +Citadel of Verdun. Then, because the city and its citadel lie in the +middle of a valley dominated by hills--like a lump of sugar in the +middle of a platter--upon those hills was built a chain of barrier +forts: La Chaume, Tavannes, Thiaumont, Vaux, Douaumont, and others. +But when, at Liege and Namur, at Antwerp and Maubeuge, the Germans +proved conclusively that no forts could long withstand the battering +of their heavy guns, the French took instant profit by the lesson. +They promptly left the citadel and the forts nearest to it and +established themselves in trenches on the surrounding hills, taking +with them their artillery. This trench-line ran through certain of the +small outlying forts, such as Tavannes, Thiaumont, Douaumont, and +Vaux, and that is why you have read in the papers so much of the +desperate fighting about them. Thus the much-talked-of fortress of +Verdun was no longer a fortress at all, but merely a sector in that +battle-line which extends from the Channel to the Alps. Barring its +historic associations, and the moral effect which its fall might have +in France and abroad, its capture by the Germans would have had no +more strategic importance, if as much, than if the French line had +been bent back for a few miles at Rheims, or Soissons, or Thann. The +Vauban citadel in the city became merely an advanced headquarters, a +telephone exchange, a supply station, a sort of central office, from +the safety of whose subterranean casemates General Dubois, the +commander of the city, directed the execution of the orders which he +received from General Nivelle at Souilly, twenty miles away. Though +the citadel's massive walls have resisted the terrific bombardments to +which it has been subjected, it has neither guns nor garrison: they +are far out on the trench-line beyond the encircling hills. It has, in +fact, precisely the same relation to the defense of the Verdun sector +that Governor's Island has to the defense of New York. This it is +important that you should keep in mind. It should also be remembered +that Verdun was held not for strategic but for political and +sentimental reasons. The French military chiefs, as soon as they +learned of the impending German offensive, favored the evacuation of +the city, whose defense, they argued, would necessitate the sacrifice +of thousands of lives without any corresponding strategic benefit. But +the heads of the Government in Paris looked at things from a different +point of view. They realized that, no matter how negligible was its +military value, the people of other countries, and, indeed, the French +people themselves, believed that Verdun was a great fortress; they +knew that its capture by the Germans would be interpreted by the world +as a French disaster and that the morale of the French people, and +French prestige abroad, would suffer accordingly. So, at the eleventh +hour and fifty-ninth minute, when the preparations for evacuating the +city were all but complete, imperative word was flashed from Paris +that it must be held. And it was. Costly though the defense has been, +the result has justified it. The Crown Prince lost what little +military reputation he possessed--if he had any to lose; his armies +lost 600,000 men in dead and wounded; and the world was shown that +German guns and German bayonets, no matter how overwhelming in number, +cannot break down the steel walls of France. + +It was my great good fortune, when the fate of Verdun still hung in +the balance, to visit the city and to lunch with General Dubois and +his staff in the citadel. Though the valor of the French infantry kept +the Germans from entering Verdun, nothing could prevent the entrance +of their shells. Seven hundred fell in one day. Not a single house in +a city of 40,000 inhabitants remains intact. The place looks as though +it had been visited simultaneously by the San Francisco earthquake, +the Baltimore fire, and the Johnstown flood. But once in the shelter +of the citadel and we were safe. Though German shells of large caliber +were falling in the city at frequent intervals, the casemate in which +we lunched was so far beneath the surface of the earth that the sound +of the explosions did not reach us. It was as though we were lunching +in a New York subway station: a great, vaulted, white-tiled room +aglare with electric lights. We sat with General Dubois and the +members of his immediate staff at a small table close to the huge +range on which the cooking was being done, while down the middle of +the room stretched one of the longest tables I have ever seen, at +which upward of a hundred officers--and one civilian--were eating. +This lone civilian was a _commissaire_ of police, and the sole +representative of the city's civil population. When the Tsar bestowed +the Cross of St. George on the city in recognition of its heroic +defense, it was to this policeman, the only civilian who remained, +that the Russian representative handed the badge of the famous order. + +The _dejeuner_, though simple, was as well cooked and well served as +though we were seated in a Paris restaurant instead of in a besieged +fortress. And the first course was fresh lobster! I told General +Dubois that my friends at home would raise their eyebrows +incredulously when I told them this, whereupon he took a menu--for +they had menus--and across it wrote his name and "Citadel de Verdun," +and the date. "Perhaps that will convince them," he said, passing it +to me. By this I do not mean to imply that the French commanders live +in luxury. Far from it! But, though their food is very simple, it is +always well cooked (which is very far from being the case in our own +army), and it is appetizingly served whenever circumstances permit. + +After luncheon, under the guidance of the general, I made the rounds +of the citadel. Here, so far beneath the earth as to be safe from even +the largest shells, was the telephone-room, the nerve-centre of the +whole complicated system of defense, with a switchboard larger than +those in the "central office" of many an American city. By means of +the thousands of wires focussed in that little underground room, +General Dubois was enabled to learn in an instant what was transpiring +at Douaumont or Tavannes or Vaux; he could pass on the information +thus obtained to General Nivelle at Souilly; or he could talk direct +to the Ministry of War, in Paris. I might add that one of the most +difficult problems met with in this war has been the maintenance of +communications during an attack. The telephone is the means most +generally relied upon, but in spite of multiplying the number of +lines, they are all usually put out of commission during the +preliminary bombardment, the wires connecting the citadel with Fort +Douaumont and Fort de Vaux, for example, being repeatedly destroyed. +For this reason several alternative means of communication have always +to be provided, among these being flares and light-balls, +carrier-pigeons, of which the French make considerable use, and +optical signalling apparatus, this last method having been found the +most effective. Sometimes small wireless outfits are used when the +conditions permit. On a few occasions trained dogs have been used to +send back messages, but, the pictures in the illustrated papers to the +contrary, they have not proven a success. In the final resort, the +most ancient method of all--the despatch bearer or runner--has still +very frequently to be employed, making his hazardous trips on a +motor-cycle when he can, on foot when he must. + +In the room next to the telephone bureau a dozen clerks were at work +and typewriters were clicking busily; had it not been for the uniforms +one might have taken the place for the office of a large and busy +corporation, as, in a manner of speaking, it was. On another level +were the bakeries which supplied the bread for the troops in the +trenches; enormous storerooms filled with supplies of every +description; an admirably equipped hospital with every cot occupied, +usually by a "shrapnel case"; a flag-trimmed hall used by the officers +as a club-room; and, on the upper levels, mess-halls and +sleeping-quarters for the men. Despite the terrible strain of the +long-continued bombardment, the soldiers seemed surprisingly cheerful, +going about their work in the long, gloomy passages joking and +whistling. They sleep when and where they can: on the bunks in the +fetid air of the casemates; on the steps of the steep staircases that +burrow deep into the ground; or on the concrete floors of the +innumerable galleries. But sleeping is not easy in Verdun. + +A short distance to the southwest of Verdun, on the bare face of a +hill, is Fort de la Chaume. Like the other fortifications built to +defend the city, it no longer has any military value save for purposes +of observation. Peering through a narrow slit in one of its armored +_observatoires_, I was able to view the whole field of the world's +greatest battle--a battle which lasted a year and cost a million +men--as from the gallery of a theatre one might look down upon the +stage, the boxes, and the orchestra-stalls. Below me, rising from the +meadows beside the Meuse, were the shattered roofs and fire-blackened +walls of Verdun, dominated by the stately tower of the cathedral and +by the great bulk of the citadel. The environs of the town and the +hill slopes beyond the river were constantly pricked by sudden scarlet +jets as the flame leaped from the mouths of the carefully concealed +French guns, which seemed to be literally everywhere, while countless +geyser-like irruptions of the earth, succeeded by drifting patches of +white vapor, showed where the German shells were bursting. Sweeping +the landscape with my field-glasses, a long column of motor-trucks +laden with ammunition came within my field of vision. As I looked +there suddenly appeared, squarely in the path of the foremost vehicle, +a splotch of yellow smoke shot through with red. When the smoke and +dust had cleared away, the motor-truck had disappeared. The artillery +officer who accompanied me directed my gaze across the level valley to +where, beyond the river, rose the great brown ridge known as the +Heights of the Meuse. + +"Do you appreciate," he asked, "that on three miles of that ridge a +million men--400,000 French and 600,000 Germans--have already fallen?" + +Beyond the ridge, but hidden by it, were Hill 304 and Le Mort Homme of +bloody memory, while on the horizon, looking like low, round-topped +hillocks, were Forts Douaumont and de Vaux (what a thrill those names +must give to every Frenchman!) and farther down the slope and a +little nearer me were Fleury and Tavannes. The fountains of earth and +smoke which leaped upward from each of them at the rate of half a +dozen to the minute, showed us that they were enduring a particularly +vicious hammering by the Germans. + +There are no words between the covers of the dictionary which can +bring home to one who has not witnessed them the awful violence of the +shell-storms which have desolated these hills about Verdun. In one +week's attack to the north of the city the Germans threw five million +shells, the total weight of which was forty-seven thousand tons. +Eighty thousand shells rained upon one shallow sector of a thousand +yards, and these were so marvellously placed that the crater of one +cut into that of its neighbor, pulverizing everything that lived and +turning the man-filled trenches into tombs. Hence there is no longer +any such thing as a continuous line of trenches. Indeed, there are no +longer any trenches at all, nor entanglements either, but only a +series of craters. It is these craters which the French infantry has +held with such unparalleled heroism. The men holding the craters are +kept supplied with food and ammunition from the chain of little +forts--Vaux, Douaumont, and the others--and the forts, themselves +battered almost to pieces by the torrents of steel which have been +poured upon them, have relied in turn on the citadel back in Verdun +for their reinforcements, their ammunition, and their provisions, all +of which have had to be sent out at night, the latter on the backs of +men. + +So violent and long-continued have been the hurricanes of steel which +have swept these slopes, that the surface of the earth has been +literally blasted away, leaving a treacherous and incredibly tenacious +quagmire in which horses and even soldiers have lost their lives. +General Dubois told me that, only a few days before my visit to +Verdun, one of his staff-officers, returning alone and afoot from an +errand to Vaux, had fallen into a shell-crater and had drowned in the +mud. Indeed, the whole terrain is pitted with shell-holes as is +pitted the face of a man who has had the small-pox. So terrible is the +condition of the country that it often takes a soldier an hour to +cover a mile. What was once a smiling and prosperous countryside has +been rendered, by human agency, as barren and worthless as the slopes +of Vesuvius. + +Verdun, I repeat, was held not by gun-power but by man-power. It was +not the monster guns on railway-trucks, or even the great numbers of +quick-firing, hard-hitting 75's, but the magnificent courage and +tenacity of the tired men in the mud-splashed uniforms, which held +Verdun for France. Though their forts were crumbling under the +violence of the German bombardment; though their trenches were pounded +into pudding; though the unceasing barrage made it at times impossible +to bring up food or water or reinforcements, the French hung +stubbornly on, and against the granite wall of their defense the waves +of men in gray flung themselves in vain. And when the fury of the +German assaults had in a measure spent itself, General Nivelle retook +in a few hours, on October 24, 1916, Forts Douaumont and de Vaux, +which had cost the Germans seven months of incessant efforts and a +sacrifice of human lives unparalleled in history. + +The fighting before Verdun illustrated and emphasized the revolution +in methods of attack and defense which has taken place in the French +army. At the beginning of the war the French believed in depending +largely on their light artillery both to prepare and to support an +attack, and for this purpose their 75's were admirably adapted. This +method worked well when carried out properly, and before the Germans +had time to bring up their heavy guns; it was by resorting to it that +the French won the victory of the Marne. But the Marne taught the +Germans that the surest way to break up the French system of attack +was to interpose obstacles, such as woods, wire entanglements, and +particularly trenches. To destroy these obstacles the French then had +to resort to heavy-calibered pieces, with which, as I have already +remarked, they were at first very inadequately supplied. In the spring +of 1915 in Artois, and in the autumn of the same year in Champagne, +they attempted to break through the German lines, but these attacks +were not supported by sufficient artillery and were each conducted in +a single locality over a limited front. Then, at Verdun, the Germans +tried opposite tactics, attempting to break through on a wide front +extending on both sides of the Meuse. So appalling were their losses, +however, that, as the attack progressed, they were compelled by lack +of sufficient effectives to constantly narrow their front until +finally the action was taking place along a line of only a few +kilometres. This permitted the French to concentrate both their +infantry and their artillery into dense formations, and before this +concentrated and intensive fire the German attacking columns withered +and were swept away like leaves before an autumn wind. + +The French infantry--and the same is, I believe, true of the +German--is now to all intents and purposes divided into two classes: +holding troops and attacking, or "shock" troops, as the French call +them. The latter consist of such picked elements as the Chasseur +battalions, the Zouaves, the Colonials, the First, Twentieth, and +Twenty-first Army Corps, and, of course, the Foreign Legion. All these +are recruited from the youngest and most vigorous men, due regard +being also paid to selecting recruits from those parts of France which +have always produced the best fighting stock--and among these are the +invaded districts. Shock troops are rarely sent into the trenches, but +when not actively engaged in conducting or resisting an attack, are +kept in cantonments well to the rear. Here they can get undisturbed +rest at night, but by day they are worked as a negro teamster works +his mule. As a result, they are always "on their toes," and in perfect +fighting trim. In this way mobility, cohesion, and enthusiasm, all +qualities which are seriously impaired by a long stay in the trenches, +are preserved in the attacking troops, who, when they go into battle, +are as keen and hard and well-trained as a prize-fighter who steps +into the ring to battle for the championship belt. + +The most striking feature of the new French system of attack is the +team-work of the infantry, artillery, and airplanes. The former +advance to the assault in successive waves, each made up of several +lines, the men being deployed at five-yard intervals. The first wave +advances at a slow walk behind a curtain of artillery fire, which +moves forward at the rate of fifty yards a minute, the first line of +the wave keeping a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards, or, in other +words, at a safe distance, behind this protecting fire-curtain. The +men in this first line carry no rifles, but consist exclusively of +grenadiers, automatic riflemen, and their ammunition carriers, every +eighth man being armed with the new Chauchat automatic rifle, a +recently adopted weapon which weighs only nineteen pounds, and fires +at the rate of five shots a second. Three men, carrying between them +one thousand cartridges, are assigned to each of these guns, of which +there are now more than fifty thousand in use on the French front. The +automatic riflemen fire from the hip as they advance, keeping streams +of bullets playing on the enemy just as firemen keep streams of water +playing on a fire. In the second line the men are armed with rifles, +some having bayonets and others rifle grenades, the latter being +specially designed to break up counter-attacks against captured +trenches. A third line follows, consisting of "trench cleaners," +though it must not be inferred from their name that they use mops and +brooms. The native African troops are generally used for this +trench-cleaning business, and they do it very handily with grenades, +pistols and knives. + +When the first wave reaches a point within two hundred to three +hundred yards of the enemy's trenches, a halt of five minutes is made +to re-form for the final charge. In addition to the advancing +curtain-fire immediately preceding the troops, a second screen of fire +is dropped between the enemy's first and second lines, thus preventing +the men in the first line from retreating and making it equally +impossible for the men in the second line to get reinforcements or +supplies to their comrades in the first. Still other batteries are +engaged in keeping down the fire of the hostile artillery while the +big guns, mounted on railway-trucks, shell the enemy's headquarters, +his supports, and his lines of communication. + +The attack is accompanied by and largely directed by airplanes, +certain of which are assigned to regulating the artillery fire, while +others devote themselves exclusively to giving information to the +infantry, with whom they communicate by means of dropping from one to +six fire-balls. As the aircraft used for infantry and artillery +regulation are comparatively slow machines, they are protected from +the attacks of enemy aviators by a screen of small, fast +battle-planes--the destroyers of the air--which, in several cases, +have swooped low enough to use their machine-guns on the German +trenches. If it becomes necessary to give to the infantry some special +information not provided for by the prearranged signals, the aviator +will volplane down to within a hundred feet above the infantry and +drop a written message. I was told that in one of the successful +French attacks before Verdun such a message proved extremely useful as +by means of it the troops advancing toward Douaumont, which was then +held by the Germans, were informed that the enemy was in force on +their right, but that there was practically no resistance on their +left. Acting in response to this information from the skies, they +swung forward on this flank, and took the Germans on their right in +the rear. Just as a football team is coached from the side-lines, so a +charge is nowadays directed from the clouds. + + [Illustration: Australians on the Way to the Trenches. + Despite gas, bullets, shells, rain, mud, and cold the British + soldier remains incorrigibly cheerful. He is a born optimist.] + + [Illustration: The Fire Trench. + "Figures, looking strangely mediaeval in their steel helmets, + crouched motionless, peering out into No Man's Land."] + +One of the picturesque developments of the war is _camouflage_, as +the French call their system of disguising or concealing batteries, +airplane-sheds, ammunition stores, and the like, from observation and +possible destruction by enemy aviators. This work is done in the main +by a corps specially recruited for the purpose from the artists and +scene painters of France. It is considered prudent, for example, to +conceal the location of a certain "ammunition dump," as the British +term the vast accumulations of shells, cartridges, and other supplies +which are piled up at the railheads awaiting transportation to the +front by motor-lorry. Over the great mound of shells and +cartridge-boxes is spread an enormous piece of canvas, often larger by +far than the "big top" of a four-ring circus. Then the scene painters +get to work with their paints and brushes and transform that expanse +of canvas into what, when viewed from the sky, appears to be, let us +say, a group of innocent farm-buildings. The next day, perhaps, a +German airman, circling high overhead, peers earthward through his +glasses and descries, far beneath him, a cluster of red +rectangles--the tiled roofs of cottages or stables, he supposes; a +patch of green--evidently a bit of lawn; a square of gray--the +cobble-paved barnyard--and pays it no further attention. How can he +know that what he takes to be a farmstead is but a piece of painted +canvas concealing a small mountain of potential death? + +At a certain very important point on the French front there long +stood, in an exposed and commanding position, a large and solitary +tree, or rather the trunk of a tree, for it had been shorn of its +branches by shell-fire. A landmark in that flat and devastated region, +every detail of this gaunt sentinel had long since become familiar to +the keen eyed observers in the German trenches, a few hundred yards +away. Were a man to climb to its top--and live--he would be able to +command a comprehensive view of the surrounding terrain. The German +sharpshooters saw to it, however, that no one climbed it. But one day +the resourceful French took the measurements of that tree and +photographed it. These measurements and photographs were sent to +Paris. A few weeks later there arrived at the French front by railway +an imitation tree, made of steel, which was an exact duplicate in +every respect, even to the splintered branches and the bark, of the +original. Under cover of darkness the real tree was cut down and the +fake tree erected in its place, so that, when daylight came, there was +no change in the landscape to arouse the Germans' suspicions. The lone +tree-trunk to which they had grown so accustomed still reared itself +skyward. But the "tree" at which the Germans were now looking was of +hollow steel, and concealed in its interior in a sort of +conning-tower, forty feet above the ground, a French observing +officer, field-glasses at his eyes and a telephone at his lips, was +peering through a cleverly concealed peep-hole, spotting the bursts of +the French shells and regulating the fire of the French batteries. + +Nearly three years have passed since Germany tore up the Scrap of +Paper. In that time the French army has been hammered and tempered and +tested until it has become the most formidable weapon of offense and +defense in existence. I am convinced that in organization and in +efficiency it is now, after close on three years of experiments and +object-lessons, as good, if not better, than the German--and I have +marched with both and have seen both in action. Its light artillery is +admittedly the finest in the world. Though without any heavy artillery +to speak of at the beginning of the war, it has in this respect +already equalled if not surpassed the Germans. It has created an air +service which, in efficiency and in number of machines, is unequalled. +And the men, themselves, in addition to their characteristic _elan_, +possess that invaluable quality which the German soldier +lacks--initiative. + +It is worthy of note, in this connection, that the entire +reorganization of the French army has been carried out virtually +without any action on the part of the French Congress, and with merely +the formal approval of the Minister of War. The politicians in Paris +have, save in a few instances, wisely refrained from interference, and +have left military problems to be decided by military men. But, when +all is said and done, it will not be the generals who will decide this +war; it will be the soldiers. And they are truly wonderful men, these +French soldiers. It is their amazing calm, their total freedom from +nervousness or apprehension, that impresses one the most, and the +secret of this calm is confidence. They are as confident of eventual +victory as they are that the sun will rise to-morrow morning. They are +fanatics, and France is their Allah. You can't beat men like that, +because they never know when they are beaten, and keep on fighting. + +I like to think that sometimes, in that cold and dismal hour before +the dawn, when hope and courage are at their lowest ebb, there +appears among the worn and homesick soldiers in the trenches the +spirit of the Great Emperor. Cheeringly he claps each man upon the +shoulder. + +"Courage, mon brave," he whispers. "On les aura!" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[C] A nickname for the Hispana-Suiza. + +[D] Though great numbers of American-built airplanes have been +shipped to Europe, they are being used only for purposes of +instruction, as they are not considered fast enough for work on the +front. + +[E] Commandant Bunau-Varilla was really sent as a compliment to my +companion, Mr. Arthur Page, editor of _The World's Work_. + + + + +VII + +"THAT CONTEMPTIBLE LITTLE ARMY" + + +In watching the operations on the British front I have always had the +feeling that I was witnessing a gigantic engineering undertaking. The +amazing network of rails which the British have thrown over Northern +France, the endless strings of lorries, the warehouses bulging with +supplies, the cranes and derricks, the repair depots, the +machine-shops, the tens of thousands of men whose only weapons are the +shovel and the pick, all help to further this impression. And, when +you stop to think about it, it is an engineering undertaking. These +muddy men in khaki are engaged in checking and draining off an unclean +flood which, were it not for them, would soon inundate all Europe. And +so, because I love things that are clean and green and beautiful, I +am very grateful to them for their work of sanitation. + +Because most of the despatches from the British front have related to +trenches and tanks and howitzers and flying men and raiding-parties, +the attention of the American people has been diverted from the +remarkable and tremendously important work which is being played by +the army behind the army. Yet one of the most splendid achievements of +the entire war is the creation of the great organization which links +the British trenches with the British Isles. In failing to take into +account the Anglo-Saxon's genius for rapid organization and +improvization in emergencies, Germany made a fatal error. She had +spent upward of forty years in perfecting her war machine; the British +have built a better one in less than three. I said in "_Vive la +France!_" if I remember rightly, that the British machine, though +still somewhat wabbly and creaky in its joints, was, I believed, +eventually going to do the business for which it was designed. That +was a year ago. It has already shown in unmistakable fashion that it +can do the business and do it well, and it is, moreover, just entering +on the period of its greatest efficiency. + +In order to understand the workings and the ramifications of this +great machine in France (its work in England is another story) you +must begin your study of it at the base camps which the British have +established at Calais, Havre, Boulogne, and Rouen, and the +training-schools at Etaples and elsewhere. Let us take, for example, +"Cinder City," as the base camp outside Calais is called because the +ground on which it stands was made by dumping ships' cinders into a +marsh. It is in many respects one of the most remarkable cities in the +world. Its population, which fluctuates with the tide of war, +averages, I suppose, about one hundred thousand. It has many miles of +macadamized streets (as sandy locations are chosen for these base +camps, mud is almost unknown) lined with storehouses--one of them the +largest in the world--with stores, with machine-shops, churches, +restaurant, club-rooms, libraries, Y. M. C. A.'s--there are over a +thousand of them in the war zone--Salvation Army barracks, schools, +bathing establishments, theatres, motion-picture houses, hospitals for +men and hospitals for horses, and thousands upon thousands of portable +wooden huts. This city is lighted by electricity, it has highly +efficient police, fire, and street-cleaning departments, and its water +and sewage systems would make jealous many municipalities of twice its +size. Among its novel features is a school for army bakers and another +for army cooks, for good food has almost as much to do with winning +battles as good ammunition. But most significant and important of all +are the "economy shops" where are repaired or manufactured practically +everything required by an army. War, as the British have found, is a +staggeringly expensive business, and, in order that there may be a +minimum of wastage, they have organized a Salvage Corps whose +business it is to sort the litter of the battle-fields and to send +everything that can by any possibility be re-utilized to the "economy +shops" at the rear. In one of these shops I saw upward of a thousand +French and Belgian women renovating clothing that had come back from +the front, uniforms which arrived as bundles of muddy, bloody rags +being fumigated and cleaned and mended and pressed until they were +almost as good as new. Tens of thousands of boots are sent in to be +repaired; those that can stand the operation are soled and heeled by +American machines brought over for the purpose, and even the others +are not wasted, for their tops are converted into boot-laces. In one +shop the worn-out tubes and springs of guns are replaced with new +ones. (Did you know that during an intense bombardment the springs of +the guns will last only two days?) In another fragments of valuable +metal sent in from the battle-field are melted and reused. (Perhaps +you were not aware that a 5-inch shell carries a copper band weighing +a pound and a quarter. The weight of copper shot off in this way +during a single brief bombardment was four hundred tons.) The millions +of empty shells which litter the ground behind the batteries are +cleaned and classified and shipped over to England to be reloaded. +Steel rails which the retreating Germans believed they had made quite +useless are here straightened out and used over again. Shattered +rifles, bits of harness, haversacks, machine-gun belts, trench +helmets, sand-bags, barbed wire--nothing escapes the Salvage Corps. +They even collect and send in old rags, which are sold for two hundred +and fifty dollars a ton. Let us talk less hereafter of _German_ +efficiency. + +Even more significant than the base camps of the efficiency and +painstaking thoroughness of the British war-machine are the training +camps scattered behind the lines. Typical of these is the great camp +at Etaples, on the French coast, where 150,000 men can be trained at a +time. These are not schools for raw recruits, mind you--that work is +done in England--but "finishing schools," as it were, where men who +are supposed to have already learned the business of war are given +final examinations in the various subjects in which they have received +instruction before being sent up to the front. And the soldier who is +unable to pass these final tests does not go to the front until he +can. The camp at Etaples, which is built on a stretch of rolling sand +beside the sea, is five miles long and a mile wide, and on every acre +of it there are squads of soldiers drilling, drilling, drilling. Here +a gymnastic instructor from Sandhurst, lithe and active as a panther, +is teaching a class of sergeants drawn from many regiments how to +become instructors themselves. His language would have amazed and +delighted Kipling's Ortheris and Mulvaney; I could have listened to +him all day. Over there a platoon of Highlanders are practising the +taking of German trenches. At the blast of a whistle they clamber out +of a length of trench built for the purpose, and, with shrill Gaelic +yells, go swarming across a stretch of broken ground, through a tangle +of twisted wire, and over the top of the German parapet, whereupon a +row of German soldiers, stuffed with straw and automatically +controlled, spring up to meet them. If a man fails to bury his bayonet +in the "German" who opposes him, he is sent back to the awkward squad +and spends a few days lunging at a dummy swung from a beam. + +Crater fighting is taught in an ingenious reproduction of a crater, by +an officer who has had much experience with the real thing and who +explains to his pupils, whose knowledge of craters has been gained +from the pictures in the illustrated weeklies, how to capture, +fortify, and hold such a position. In order to give the men confidence +when the order "Put on gas-masks!" is passed down the line, they are +sent into a real dugout filled with real gas and the entrances closed +behind them. As soon as they find that the masks are a sure +protection, their nervousness disappears. In order to accustom them +to lachrymal shells, they are marched, this time without masks, +through an underground chamber which reeks with the tear-producing +gas--and they are a very weepy, red-eyed lot of men who emerge. They +are instructed in trench-digging, in the construction of wire +entanglements, "knife-rests," chevaux-de-frise, and every other form +of obstruction, in revetting, in the making of fascines and gabions, +in sapping and mining, in the most approved methods of dugout +construction, in trench sanitation, in the location of listening-posts +and how to conceal them; they are shown how to cut wire, they are +drilled in trench raiding and in the most effective methods of "trench +cleaning." The practical work is supplemented by lectures on +innumerable subjects. As it is extremely difficult for an officer to +make his explanations heard by a battalion of men assembled in the +open, a series of small amphitheatres have been excavated from the +sand-dunes, the tiers of seats being built up of petrol tins filled +with sand. In one of these improvised amphitheatres I saw an officer +illustrating the proper method of using the gas-mask to a class of 600 +men. + +On these imitation battle-fields, any one of which is larger than the +field of Waterloo, the men are instructed in the gentle art of +bombing, first with "dubs," which do not explode at all, then with +toy-grenades which go off harmlessly with a noise like a small +firecracker, and finally, when they have become sufficiently expert, +with the real Mills bomb, which scatters destruction in a burst of +noise and flame. To attain accuracy and distance in throwing these +destructive little ovals is by no means as easy as it sounds. The +bombing-school at Etaples will not soon forget the American baseball +player who threw a bomb seventy yards. The hand-grenade is the +unsafest and most treacherous of all weapons and even in practice +accidents and near-accidents frequently occur. The Mills bomb, which +has a scored surface to prevent slipping, is about the shape and size +of a large lemon. Protruding from one end is the small metal ring of +the firing-pin. Three seconds after this is pulled out the bomb +explodes--and the farther the thrower can remove himself from the bomb +in that time the better. Now, in line with the policy of strict +economy which has been adopted by the British military authorities, +the men receiving instruction at the bombing-schools were told not to +throw away the firing-pins, but to put them in their pockets, to be +turned in and used over again. The day after this order went into +effect a company of newly arrived recruits were being put through +their bomb-throwing tests. Man after man walked up to the protecting +earthwork, jerked loose the firing-pin, hurled the bomb, and put the +firing-pin in his pocket. At last it came the turn of a youngster who +was obviously overcome with stage fright. To the horror of his +comrades, he threw the firing-pin and put the live bomb in his pocket! +In three seconds that bomb was due to explode, but the instructor, +who had seen what had happened, made a flying leap to the befuddled +man, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out the bomb, and hurled +it. It exploded in the air. + +Near Etaples, at Paris Plage, is the largest of the British +machine-gun schools. Here the men are taught the operation not only of +all the models of machine-guns used by the Allies, but they are also +shown how to handle any which they may capture from the Germans. Set +up on the beach were a dozen different models, beginning with a +wonderfully ingenious weapon, as beautifully constructed as a watch, +which had just been brought in from a captured German airplane and of +which the British officers were loud in their admiration, and ending +with the little twenty-five-pound gun invented by Colonel Lewis, an +American. Standing on the sands, a few hundred yards away, were half a +dozen targets of the size and outline of German soldiers. "Try 'em +out," suggested the officer in command of the school. So I seated +myself behind the German gun, looked into a ground-glass finder like +that on a newspaper photographer's camera, swung the barrel of the +weapon until the intersection of the scarlet cross-hairs covered the +mirrored reflection of the distant figures, and pressed together a +pair of handles. There was a noise such as a small boy makes when he +draws a stick along the palings of a picket fence, a series of +flame-jets leaped from the muzzle of the gun, and the targets +disappeared. "You'd have broken up that charge," commented the officer +approvingly. "Try the others." So I tried them all--Maxim, Hotchkiss, +Colt, St. Etienne, Lewis--in turn. + +"Which do you consider the best gun?" I asked. + +"That one," and he pointed to Colonel Lewis's invention. "It is the +lightest, simplest, strongest, and most effective machine-gun made. It +weighs only twenty-five and a half pounds and a clip of forty-seven +rounds can be fired in four seconds. At present we have four to each +company--though the number will probably be increased shortly--and +they are so easy to handle that in an attack they go over with the +second wave." + +"But our Ordnance Department claims that they cannot fire two thousand +rounds without heating and jamming," I remarked. + +"Who ever heard of a machine-gun being called upon to fire two +thousand rounds under actual service conditions?" he asked scornfully. +"On the front we rarely exceed two hundred or three hundred rounds; +five hundred never. Long before that number can be fired the attack is +broken up or the gun is captured." + +"In any event," said I, "the American War Department, to whom Colonel +Lewis offered his patents, asserts that the gun did not make good on +the proving-grounds of Flanders." + +"Well," was the dry response, "it has made good on the proving-grounds +of Flanders." + +The pretty little casino at Paris Plage, where, in the days before the +war, the members of the summer colony used to dance or play at _petits +chevaux_, has been converted into a lecture-hall for machine-gunners. +Covering the walls are charts and cleverly painted pictures which +illustrate at a glance the important roles played by machine-guns in +certain actions. They reminded me of those charts which they use in +Sunday-schools to explain the flight of the Israelites out of Egypt or +their wanderings in the Wilderness. Seated on the wooden benches, +which have been brought in from a school near by, are a score or more +of sun-reddened young Englishmen in khaki. + +"Here," says the alert young officer who is acting as instructor, +unrolling a chart, "is a picture of an action in a little village +south of Mons. A company of our fellows were holding the village. +There are, you see, only two roads by which the Germans could advance, +so the captain who was in command placed machine-guns so as to command +each of them. About five o'clock in the morning the Germans appeared +on this lower road. Now, the sergeant in charge of that machine-gun, +instead of taking cover behind this hedge with this brook in front of +him, had concealed his gun in this clump of trees, which, as you see, +are out in the middle of a field. No sooner had he opened upon the +Boches, therefore, than a detachment of Uhlans galloped around and cut +him off from the town. Then it was all over but the shouting. The +Germans got into the town and our fellows got it in the neck. And all +because that fool sergeant didn't use common sense in choosing a +position for his gun. They marked his grave with a nice little white +cross. And that's what you boys will get if you don't profit by these +things I'm telling you." + +There you have an example of the thorough preparation which is +necessary to wage modern war successfully. It is not merely a matter +of a man being taught how to operate a machine-gun; if he is to be of +the greatest value he must be taught how to place that gun where it is +going to do the maximum damage to the enemy. And, by means of the +graphic Sunday-school charts, and the still more graphic sentences of +the officer-teacher, those lessons are so driven home that the men +will never forget them. + +Virtually everything between England and the fighting front is under +the control of the L. C.--Lines of Communication. This vast +organization, one of the most wide-spread and complex in the world, +represents six per cent of all the British forces in France. Of the +countless forms of activity which it comprises, the railways are by +far the most important. Did you know that the British have laid and +are operating more than a thousand miles of new railway in France? As +the existing railways were wholly inadequate for the transportation of +the millions of fighting men, with the stupendous quantities of food +and equipment, new networks of steel had to be laid, single tracks had +to be converted into double ones, mammoth railway-yards, sidings, and +freight-houses had to be built, thousands of locomotives, carriages, +and trucks provided. This work was done by the Railway Companies of +the Royal Engineers, behind which was the Railway Reserve, whose +members, before the war, were employed by the great English railway +systems. Wearing the blue-and-white brassard of the L. C. are whole +battalions of engineers and firemen, bridge-builders, signal-men, +freight handlers, clerks, and navvies, all of them experts at their +particular jobs. It is impossible to overrate the services which these +railway men have performed. They build and staff the new lines which +are constantly being constructed; they repair destroyed sections of +track, restore blown-up bridges; in short, keep in order the arteries +through which courses the life-blood of the army. They are the real +organizers of victory. Without them the men in the trenches could not +fight a day. You cannot travel for a mile along the British front +without seeing an example of their rapid track-laying. They have had +to forget all the old-fashioned British notions about track +permanency, however, for their business is to get the trains over the +rails with the least possible delay; nothing else matters. Engaged in +this work are men who have learned the lessons of rough-and-ready +construction on the Mexican Central, on the Egyptian State Railways, +on the Beira and Mashonaland, and on the Canadian Pacific, and the +rate at which they cause the twin lines of steel to grow before one's +eyes would have aroused the admiration of such railroad pioneers as +Stanford and Hill and Harriman. + +The engines for use on these military railways are sent across the +Channel with fires already built and banked, water in the boilers, and +coal in the tenders. They come in ships specially constructed so that +the whole top deck can be lifted off. Giant cranes reach down into the +hold and pick the engines up and set them down on the tracks on the +quays, the crews climb aboard and shake down the fires, a +harassed-looking man, known as the M. L. O. (Military Landing Officer) +turns them over to the Railway Transport Officer, who is a very +important personage indeed, and he in turn hands the engineers their +orders, and, half an hour after they have been landed on the soil of +France, the engines go puffing off to take their places in the war +machine. + +It is not the numbers of men to be transported to the front, nor even +the astounding quantities of supplies required to feed those men, +which have been the primary cause for crisscrossing all Northern +France with this latticework of steel. It is the unappeasable appetite +of the guns. "This is a cannon war," Field-Marshal von Mackensen told +an interviewer. "The side that burns up the most ammunition is bound +to gain ground." And on that assumption the British are proceeding. +England's response to the insistent cry of "Shells, shells, shells!" +has been one of the wonders of the war. By January 1, 1917, the shell +increase for howitzers was twenty-seven times greater than in 1914-15; +in mid-caliber shells the increase was thirty-four times; and in all +the "heavies" ninety-four times. And the shell output keeps a-growing +and a-growing. Yet what avail the four thousand flaming forges which +have made all this possible, what avails the British sea-power which +has landed these amazing quantities of shells in France, and 2,000,000 +of men along with them, if the shells cannot be delivered to the guns? +And that is where the great new systems of railway have come in. + +"Be lavish with your ammunition," Napoleon urged upon his battery +commanders. "Fire incessantly." And it is that maxim which the +artillerists of all the nations at war are following to-day. The +expenditure of shells staggers the imagination. In a single day, near +Arras, the French let loose upon the German lines $1,625,000 worth of +projectiles, or almost as great a quantity as Germany used in the +entire war of 1870-71. Five million shells of all calibers were fired +by the British gunners during the first four weeks of the offensive on +the Somme. In one week's attack north of Verdun the Germans fired +2,400,000 field-gun shells and 600,000 larger ones. To transport this +mountain of potential destruction required 240 trains, each carrying +200 tons of projectiles. + +During the "Big Push" on the Somme, there were frequently eighty guns +on a front of two hundred yards. The batteries would fire a round per +gun per minute for days on end, the gunners working in shifts, two +hours on and two hours off. So thickly did the shells fall upon the +German lines that the British observing officers were frequently +unable to spot their own bursts. A field-battery of eighteen-pounders +firing at this rate will blaze away anywhere from twelve to twenty +tons of ammunition a day. As guns firing with such rapidity wear out +their tubes and their springs in a few days, it is necessary to rush +entire batteries to the repair-shops at the rear. And that provides +another burden for the railways. + +In addition to the railways of standard gauge, the British have laid +down an astonishing trackage of narrow-gauge, Decauville, and +monorail systems. These portable and easily laid field railways twist +and turn and coil like snakes among the gun positions, the miniature +engines, with their strings of toy cars, puffing their way into the +heart of the artillery zone, where the ammunition is unloaded, sorted, +and classified in calibers, and then artfully hidden from the prying +eyes of enemy aviators and from their bombs. These great collections +of gun-food the English inelegantly term "ammunition dumps." Nor do +the trains that come up loaded go back empty, for upon the miniature +trucks are loaded the combings of the battle-field to be shipped back +to the "economy shops" in the rear. Where possible, wounded men are +sent back to the hospitals in like fashion, some of the railways +having trucks specially constructed for this purpose. Where the light +railways stop the monorail systems begin, food, cartridges, and mail +being sent right up into the forward trenches in small cars or baskets +suspended from a single overhead rail and pushed by hand. They look +not unlike the old-fashioned cash-and-parcel carriers which were used +in American department stores before the present system of pneumatic +tubes came in. + +Comprising another branch of the L. C.'s multifarious activities are +the field telephones, whose lines of black-and-white poles run out +across the landscape in every direction. And it is no haphazard and +hastily improvised system either, but as good in every respect as you +will find in American cities. It has to be good. Too much depends upon +it. An indistinct message might cost a thousand lives; a break-down in +the system might mean a great military disaster. Every officer of +importance in the British zone has a telephone at hand, and as the +armies advance the telephones go with them, the wires and portable +instruments being transported by the motor-cycle despatch riders of +the Army Signal Corps, so that frequently within thirty minutes after +a battalion has captured a German position its commander will be in +telephonic communication with Advanced G. H. Q. The speed with which +the connections are made would be remarkable even in New York. I have +seen an officer at General Headquarters establish communication with +the Provost Marshal's office in Paris in three minutes, and with the +War Office in London in ten. + +I might mention in passing that nowadays the General Headquarters of +an army (G. H. Q. it is always called on the British front, Grand +Quartier-General on the French, and Comando Supremo on the Italian) is +usually eight, ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty-five miles behind the +firing-line. Most of the commanding generals have, however, advanced +headquarters, considerably nearer the front, where they usually remain +during important actions. It is said that at Waterloo Napoleon and +Wellington watched each other through their telescopes. Compare this +with the battle for Verdun, where the headquarters of the Crown Prince +must have been at least thirty miles from those of General Nivelle at +Souilly. + +If one of the greatest triumphs of the war is the creation of the +transport system, another is the maintenance, often under heavy +shell-fire, of the highways on which that transport moves. No one can +imagine what the traffic from the Channel up to the British front is +like; one must see it to believe it. The roads are as crowded with +traffic as is Fifth Avenue on a sunny afternoon. Every fifty yards or +so are military police, mounted and afoot, who control the traffic +with small red flags as do the New York bluecoats with their +stop-and-go signs. So incredibly dense was the volume of traffic +during the Somme offensive that it is little exaggeration to say that +an active man could have started immediately back of the British front +and could have made his way to Albert, twenty miles distant, if not, +indeed, to the English Channel, by jumping from lorry to wagon, from +wagon to ambulance, from ambulance to motor-bus. In going from Albert +up to the front I passed hundreds, yes, thousands of lumbering +motor-lorries bearing every kind of supply from barbed wire to +marmalade. In order to avoid confusion, the lorries belonging to the +ammunition-train have painted on their sides a shell, while those +comprising the supply column are designated by a four-leaf clover. A +whole series of other distinctive emblems, such as stars, crescents, +pyramids, Maltese crosses, unicorns, make it possible to tell at a +glance to what division or unit a vehicle belongs. I passed six-mule +teams from Missouri and Mississippi hauling wagons made in South Bend, +Indiana, which were piled high with sides of Australian beef and +loaves of French-made bread. Converted motor-buses, which had once +borne the signs Bank-Holborn-Marble Arch, rumbled past with their +loads of boisterous men in khaki bound for the trenches or bringing +back other loads of tired men clad apparently in nothing save mud. +Endless strings of ambulances went rocking and rolling by and some of +them were dripping crimson. Tractors, big as elephants, panted and +grunted on their way, hauling long trains of wagons laden with tins +of cocoa or condensed milk, with kegs of nails, with lumber, with +fodder. Occasionally a gray staff-car like our own threaded its +tortuous and halting way through the terrific press of traffic. We +passed one that had broken down. The two officers who were its +occupants were seated on the muddy bank beside the road smoking +cigarettes while the driver was endeavoring to get his motor started +again. One of them, on the shoulder-straps of whose "British warm" +were the stars of a captain, was a slender, fair-haired, rather +delicate-looking youngster in the early twenties. It was the Prince of +Wales, but, so far as receiving any attention from the hurrying throng +was concerned, he might as well have been an unknown subaltern. For it +is an extremely democratic army, and royalty receives from it scant +consideration; Lloyd George is of far more importance than King George +to the man in khaki. + +Almost since the beginning of the war this particular stretch of road +on which I was travelling had been shelled persistently, as was shown +by the splintered tree-stumps which lined the road and the +shell-craters which pitted the fields on either side. To keep this +road passable under such wear and tear as it had been subjected to for +many months would have been a remarkable accomplishment under any +circumstances; to keep it open under heavy shell-fire is a performance +for which the labor battalions deserve the highest praise. Wearing +their steel helmets, the road-making gangs have kept at work, night +and day, along its entire length, exposed to much of the danger of the +men in the trenches, and having none of their protection. There has +been no time to obtain ordinary road metal, so they have filled up the +holes with bricks taken from the ruined villages which dot the +landscape, rolling them level when they get the chance. For nothing +must be permitted to interfere with that flow of traffic; on it +depends the food for the men and for the guns. An hour's blockade on +that road would prove infinitely more serious than would a freight +wreck which blocked all four tracks of the New York Central. No wonder +that Lord Derby, in addressing his Pioneer Battalions in Lancashire, +remarked: "In this war the pick and the shovel are as important as the +rifle." + +While I was standing on the summit of a little eminence beyond +Fricourt, looking down on that amazing scene of industry, a big German +shell burst squarely on the road. It wrecked a motor-lorry, it killed +several horses and half a dozen men, but, most serious of all, it blew +in the road a hole as large as a cottage cellar. The river of traffic +may have halted for two or three minutes, certainly not more. In +scarcely more time than it takes to tell it, the nearest military +police were on the spot. The stream of vehicles bound for the front +was swung out into the fields at the right, the stream headed for the +rear was diverted into the fields at the left. Within five minutes a +hundred men were at work with pick and shovel filling up the hole +with material piled at frequent intervals along the road for just that +purpose. Within twenty minutes a steam-roller had arrived--goodness +knows where it had materialized from!--and was at work rolling the +road into hardness. Within thirty minutes after the shell burst the +hole which it made no longer existed and the lorries, the tractors, +the wagons, the guns, the buses, the ambulances were rolling on their +way. Then they bore away the six tarpaulin-covered forms beside the +road and buried them. + +The weather is a vital factor in war. The heavy rains of a French +winter quickly transform the ground, already churned up by months of +shell-fire, into a slimy, glutinous swamp, incredibly tenacious and +unbelievably deep. Through this vast stretch of mud, pitted everywhere +with shell-holes filled with stagnant water, the infantry has to make +its way and the guns have to be moved forward to support the infantry. +On one stretch of road, only a quarter of a mile long, on the Somme, +twelve horses sank so deeply in the mud that it was impossible to +extricate them and they had to be shot. No wonder that the soldiers, +going up to the trenches, prefer to leave their overcoats and blankets +behind and face the misery of wet and cold rather than be burdened +with the additional weight while struggling through the molasses-like +mire. The only thing that they take up to the trenches which could by +any stretch of the imagination be described as a comfort is whale-oil, +carried in great jars, with which they rub their feet several times +daily in order to prevent "trench feet." If you want to get a real +idea of what the British infantryman has to endure during at least six +months of the year, I would suggest that you strap on a pack-basket +with a load of forty-two pounds, which is the weight of the British +field equipment, tramp for ten hours through a ploughed field after a +heavy rain, jump in a canal, and, without removing your clothes or +boots, spend the night on a manure-pile in a barnyard. Then you will +understand why soldiers become so heedless of gas, bullets, and +shells. But with it all the British soldier remains incorrigibly +cheerful. He is a born optimist and he shows it in his songs. Away +back in the early months of the war he went into action to the lilt of +"_Tipperary_." The gloom and depression of that first terrible winter +induced in him a more serious mood, to which he gave vent in "_Onward, +Christian Soldiers_." But now he feels that victory, though still far +off, is certain, and he puts his confidence into words: "_Pack Up Your +Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile_," "_Keep the +Home Fires Burning_," "_When Irish Eyes Are Smiling_," and +"_Hallelujah! I'm a Hobo!_" The latter very popular. Then there was +another, adapted by the Salvation Army from an old music-hall tune, +which I heard a battalion chanting lustily as it went slush-slushing +up to the firing-line. It ran something like this: + + "The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling + For you but not for me. + For me the angels sing-a-ling-a-ling, + They've got the goods for me. + O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling, + O Grave thy victoree? + The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling + For you but not for me!" + +It is almost impossible to make oneself believe that, less than two +years ago, these iron-hard, sun-bronzed, determined-looking men were +keeping books, tending shop, waiting on table, driving wagons, and +doing all the other humdrum things which make up the working lives of +most of us. Yet this citizen army is winning sensational successes +against the best trained troops in the world, occupying positions of +their own choosing, fortified and defended with every device that +human ingenuity and years of experience have been able to suggest. +These ex-shopkeepers, ex-tailors, ex-lawyers, ex-farmers, ex-cabmen +are accomplishing what most military authorities asserted was +impossible: they are driving German veterans out of trenches amply +supported by artillery--and they are doing the job cheerfully and +extremely well. + +I believe that one of the reasons why the morale of the British is so +high is because, instead of adopting the dugout life of the Germans, +they have in the main kept to the open. Trench life is anything but +pleasant, yet it is infinitely more conducive to confidence, courage, +and enthusiasm than the rat-like existence of the Germans in +foul-smelling, ill-lighted, unsanitary burrows far beneath the surface +of the ground. Few men can remain for month after month in such a +place and retain their optimism and their self-respect. One of the +German dugouts which I saw on the Somme was so deep in the earth that +it had two hundred steps. The Germans who were found in it admitted +quite frankly that after enjoying for several weeks or months the +safety which it afforded, they had no stomach for going back to the +trenches. They were only too glad to crawl into their hole when the +British barrage began and there they were trapped and surrendered. + + [Illustration: A British "Heavy" Mounted on a Railway-Truck + Shelling the German Lines. + During a big offensive the guns frequently fire a round a minute + for days on end, the gunners working in shifts, two hours on and + two hours off.] + + [Illustration: Buried on the Field of Honor. + "Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return."] + +Germany largely based her confidence of victory on the belief that, +under the strain of war, the far-flung British Empire, with its +heterogeneous elements and racial jealousies, would promptly crumble. +It was a vital error. Instead of crumbling it hardened into a unity +which is adamantine. Canada has already contributed half a million men +to the British armies, Australia three hundred thousand. South Africa, +by undertaking her own defense, released the imperial regiments +stationed there. She not only suppressed the German-fomented +rebellion, but she conquered German Southwest Africa and German East +Africa, thus adding nearly a sixth of the Dark Continent to the +Empire, and has sent ten thousand men to the battle-fields of Europe. +Indian troops are fighting in France, in Macedonia, in Mesopotamia, in +Palestine, and in Egypt. From the West Indies have come twelve +thousand men. The Malay States gave to the Empire a battleship and a +battalion. A little island in the Mediterranean raised the King's Own +Malta Regiment. Uganda and Nyassaland raised and supported the King's +African Rifles--five thousand strong. The British colonies on the +other seaboard of the continent increased the West African Field Force +to seven thousand men. The fishermen and lumbermen from Newfoundland +won imperishable glory on the Somme. From the coral atolls of the +Fijis hastened six score volunteers. The Falkland Islands, south of +South America, raised 140 men. From the Yukon, Sarawak, Wei-hai-wei, +the Seychelles, Hong-Kong, Belize, Saskatchewan, Aden, Tasmania, +British Guiana, Sierra Leone, St. Helena, the Gold Coast, poured +Europeward, at the summons of the Motherland, an endless stream of +fighting men. + +Scattered in trenches and tents, in barracks and billets over the +whole of Northern France are men hailing from the uttermost parts of +the earth. Some there are who have spent their lives searching for +gold by the light of the Aurora Borealis and others who have delved +for diamonds on the South African veldt. Some have ridden range on the +plains of Texas and others on the plains of Queensland. When, in the +recreation huts, the phonograph plays "_Home, Sweet Home_" the +thoughts of some drift to nipa-thatched huts on flaming tropic +islands, some think of tin-roofed wooden cottages in the environs of +Sydney or Melbourne, others of staid, old-fashioned, red-brick houses +in Halifax or Quebec. + +Serving as a connecting-link between the British and the French and +Belgian armies is a corps of interpreters known as the _liaison_. As +there are well over two million Englishmen in France, a very small +percentage of whom have any knowledge of French, the _liaison_ enjoys +no sinecure. To assist in the billeting of British battalions in +French villages, to conduct negotiations with the canny countryfolk +for food and fodder, to mollify angry housewives whose menages have +been upset by boisterous Tommies billeted upon them, to translate +messages of every description, to interrogate peasants suspected of +espionage--these are only a few of the duties which the _liaison_ +officers are called upon to perform. The corps is recruited from +Englishmen who have been engaged in business in Paris, habitues of the +Riviera, students of the Latin Quarter, French hairdressers, head +waiters, and ladies' tailors who have learned English "as she is +spoke" in London's West End. The officers of the _liaison_ can be +readily distinguished by their caps, which resemble those worn by +railroad brakemen, and by the gilt sphinx on the collars of their drab +uniforms. This emblem was chosen by Napoleon as a badge for the corps +of interpreters he organized during his Egyptian campaign, but the +British unkindly assert it was selected for the _liaison_ officers +because nobody can understand them. + +The more I see of the war the more I am impressed with its utter +impersonality. It is a highly organized business, conducted by +specialists, and into it personalities and picturesqueness seldom +enter. One hears the noise and the clamor, of course; one sees the +virility, the intense activity, the feverish haste, yet at the same +time one realizes how little the human element counts; all is +machinery and mathematics. I remember that one day I was lunching in +his dugout with an officer commanding a battery of heavy howitzers. +Just as my host was serving the tinned peaches the telephone-bell +jangled. It was an observation officer, up near the firing-line, +reporting that through his telescope he had spotted a German +ammunition column passing through a certain ruined hamlet three or +four miles away. On his map the battery commander showed me a small +square, probably not more than three or four acres in extent, on +which, in order to "get" that ammunition column, his shells must fall. +Some rapid calculations on a pad of paper, and, calling in his +subordinate, he handed him the "arithmetic." A minute or two later, +from a clump of trees close by, there came in rapid succession four +splitting crashes and four invisible express-trains went screeching +toward the German lines to explode, with the roar that scatters death, +on a spot as far away and as invisible from me as Washington Square is +from Grant's Tomb. Before the echo of the guns had died away my host +was back to his tinned peaches again. Neither he, nor any of his +gunners, knew, or ever would know, or, indeed, very greatly cared, +what destruction those shells had wrought. That's what I mean by the +impersonality of modern war. + + * * * * * + +Our car stopped with startling abruptness in response to the upraised +hand of a giant in khaki whose high-crowned sombrero and the brass +letters on his shoulder-straps showed that he was a trooper of the +Alberta Horse. On his arm was a red brassard bearing the magic letters +M. P.--Military Police. + +"Better not go any farther, sir," he said, addressing the +staff-officer who was my companion. "The Boches are shelling the road +just ahead pretty heavily this morning. They got a lorry a few minutes +ago and I've had orders to stop traffic until things quiet down a +bit." + +"I'm afraid we'll have to take to the mud," said my cicerone +resignedly. "And after last night's rain it will be beastly going. + +"And don't forget your helmet and gas-mask," he called, as I stepped +from the car into a foot of oozy mire. + +"Will we need them?" I asked, for the inverted wash-basin which the +British dignify by the name of helmet is the most uncomfortable form +of headgear ever devised by man. + +"It's orders," he answered. "No one is supposed to go into the +trenches without mask and helmet. And there's never any telling when +we may need them. No use in taking chances." + +Taking off my leather coat, which was too heavy for walking, I +attempted to toss it into the car, but the wind caught it and carried +it into the mud, in which it disappeared as quickly and completely as +though I had dropped it in a lake. Leaving the comparative hardness of +the road, we started to make our way to the mouth of a communication +trench through what had evidently once been a field of sugar-beets--and +instantly sank to our knees in mire that seemed to be a mixture of +molasses, glue, and porridge. It seemed as though some subterranean +monster had seized my feet with its tentacles and was trying to drag me +down. It was perhaps half a mile to the communication trench and it +took us half an hour of the hardest walking I have ever had to reach +it. It had walls of slippery clay and a corduroyed bottom, but the +corduroy was hidden beneath the mud left by thousands of feet. +Telephone-wires, differentiated by tags of colored tape, ran down the +sides. Shortly we came upon a working party of Highlanders who were +repairing the trench-wall. The wars of the Middle Ages could have seen +no more strangely costumed fighting men. Above their half-puttees +showed the brilliantly plaided tops of their stockings. Their kilts of +green and blue tartan were protected by khaki aprons. Each man wore one +of the recently issued jerkins, a sleeveless and shapeless coat of +rough-tanned sheepskin such as was probably worn, in centuries past, by +the English bowmen. On their heads were the "tin pot" helmets such as +we were wearing, and in leather cases at their belts they carried +broad-bladed and extremely vicious-looking knives. + +For nearly an hour we slipped and stumbled through the endless +cutting. At one spot the parapet, soaked by water, had caved in. In +the breach thus made had been planted a neatly lettered sign. It was +terse and to the point: "The Hun sees you here. Go away." And we did. +The trench had gradually been growing narrower and shallower and more +tortuous until we were walking half doubled over so as not to show our +heads above the top. At last it came to an end in a sort of cellar, +perhaps six feet square, which had been burrowed from the ridge of a +hill. The entrance to the observatory, for that is what it was, had +been carefully screened by a burlap curtain; within, a telescope, +mounted on a tripod, applied its large and inquisitive eye to a small +aperture, likewise curtained, cut in the opposite wall. We were in the +advanced observation post on the slopes of Notre Dame de Lorette, less +than a thousand yards from the enemy. At the foot of the spur on which +we stood ran the British trenches and, a few hundred yards beyond +them, the German. From our vantage-point we could see the two lines, +looking like monstrous brown snakes, extending for miles across the +plain. Perhaps a mile behind the German trenches was a patch of +red-brown roofs. It was the town of Lieven, a straggling suburb of +Lens, famous as the centre of the mine-fields of Northern France. + +The only occupants of the observation post were a youthful Canadian +lieutenant and a sergeant of the "Buzzers," as they call the Signal +Corps. The officer was from Montreal and he instantly became my friend +when I spoke of golf at Dixie and rides in the woods back of Mount +Royal and a certain cocktail which they make with great perfection in +a certain club that we both knew. He adjusted the telescope and I put +my eye to it, whereupon the streets of the distant town sprang into +life before me. In front of a cottage a woman was hanging out +washing--I could even make out the colors of the garments; a gray +motor whirled into a square, stopped, a man alighted, and it went on +again; a group of men--German soldiers doubtless--strolled across my +field of vision and one of them paused for a moment as though to light +a pipe; along a street straggled a line of children, evidently coming +from school, for it must be remembered that in most of these French +towns occupied by the Germans, even those close behind the lines, the +civilian life goes on much as usual. Though the Allies could blow +these towns off the map if they wished, they do not bombard them save +for some specific object, as to do so would be to kill many of their +own people. Nor does it pay to waste ammunition on individual enemies. +But if an observation officer sees enough Germans in a group to make +the expenditure of ammunition worth while, he will telephone to one of +the batteries and a well-placed shell tells the Germans that street +gatherings are strictly _verboten_. + +"Sorry that you weren't here yesterday," the lieutenant remarked. "We +had a little entertainment of our own. Do you see that square?" and he +swung the barrel of the telescope so that it commanded a cobble-paved +_place_, with a small fountain in the centre, flanked on three sides +by rows of red-brick dwellings. + +"I see it plainly," I told him. + +"The Boches are evidently billeting their men in those houses," he +continued. "Yesterday morning an army baker's cart drove into the +square and the soldiers came piling out of the houses to get their +bread ration. There was quite a crowd of them around the cart, so I +phoned back to the gunners and they dropped a shell bang into the +square. The soldiers scattered, of course, and the horse hitched to +the cart took fright and ran away. The cart tipped over and the bread +spilled out. After a few minutes the men came out of their cellars and +began to gather up the bread, so we shelled 'em again. The next time +they sent out the women to pick up the loaves. We let them +alone--French women, you understand--until I saw the Huns beating the +women and taking the bread away from them. That made me mad and for +ten minutes we strafed that section of the town good and plenty. It +was very amusing while it lasted. And," he added wistfully, "we don't +get much amusement here." + + * * * * * + +Darkness had fallen, when cold and tired, we climbed stiffly into the +waiting car. As we tore down the long, straight road which led to +General Headquarters the purple velvet of the eastern sky was stabbed +by fiery flashes, many of them, and, borne on the night wind, came the +sullen growling of the guns. As I stared out into the flame-pricked +darkness there passed before me in imaginary review that endless +stream of dauntless and determined men--mud-caked infantrymen, +gunners, despatch riders, sappers, pioneers, motor-drivers, +road-menders, mechanics, railway-builders--who form that wall of steel +which Britain has thrown between Western Europe and the Hunnish +hordes. Unyielding and undiscouraged they have stood, for close on +three years, in winter and in summer, in heat and in cold, in snow and +in rain, holding the frontier of civilization. And I knew that it was +safe in their care. + + + + +VIII + +WITH THE BELGIANS ON THE YSER + + +I had left the Belgian army late in the autumn of 1914, just at the +close of that series of heroic actions which began at Liege and ended +on the Yser, so that my return, two years later, was in the nature of +a home-coming. But it was a home-coming deeply tinged with sadness, +for many, oh, so many of the gallant fellows with whom I had +campaigned in those stirring days before the trench robbed war of its +picturesqueness, were in German prisons or lay in unmarked and +forgotten graves before Namur and Antwerp and Termonde. The Belgians +that I had left were dirty, dog-tired, and disheartened. They were +short of food, short of ammunition, short of everything save valor. +The picturesque but impractical uniforms they wore--the green tunics +and cherry-colored breeches of the Guides, the towering bearskins of +the gendarmes, the shiny leather hats of the Carabinieri--were foul +with blood and dirt. + +As my car rolled across a canal bridge into that tiny triangle which +is all that remains of free Belgium, a trim-looking trooper in khaki +stepped from a sentry-box and, holding up an imperative hand, +demanded to see my papers. Had it not been for the rosette of +red-yellow-and-black enamel on his cap, and the colored regimental +facings on his collar, I should have taken him for a British soldier. + +"To what regiment do you belong?" I asked him. + +"The First Guides, monsieur," he replied, returning my papers and +saluting. + +The First Guides! What memories the name brought back. How well I +remembered the last time that I had seen those gallant riders, the +pick and flower of the Belgian army, their comic-opera uniforms yellow +with dust, crouching behind the hedgerows on the road to Alost, a +pitifully thin screen of them, holding off the Germans while their +weary comrades tramped northward into Flanders on the great retreat. +It was not easy to make myself believe that this smart, khaki-clad +trooper before me belonged to that homeless band of rear-guard +fighters who had marked with their dead the line of retreat from the +Meuse to the Yser. + +It was my first glimpse of the reconstituted Belgian army. In the two +years that it has been holding the line on the Yser it has been +completely reuniformed, re-equipped, reorganized. The result is a +small but complete and highly efficient organism. The Belgian army +consists to-day of six infantry and two cavalry divisions--a total of +about 120,000 men--with perhaps another 80,000 being drilled in the +various training camps at the rear. It has, of course, no great +reserves to fall back upon, for the greater part of the nation is +imprisoned, but the King and his generals, by unremitting energy, have +produced a force which is as well disciplined and as completely +equipped as can be found anywhere on the front. When the day comes, +as it surely will, when Berlin issues the orders for a general +retirement, I shouldn't care to be the Germans who are assigned to the +work of holding off the Belgians, for from the men who wear the +red-yellow-and-black rosettes they need expect no pity. + +Though the shortest of the lines held by the Allies, the Belgian front +is, in proportion to the free Belgian population, much the longest. +The northernmost sector of the Western Front, beginning at the sea and +extending through Nieuport, a distance of only three or four miles, is +held by the French; then come the twenty-three miles held by the +Belgians, another two or three miles held by the French, and then the +British. The Belgians occupy a difficult and extremely uncomfortable +position, for these Flemish lowlands were inundated in order to check +the German advance, and as a result they are in the midst of a vast +swamp, which, in the rainy season, becomes a lake. They are, in fact, +fighting under conditions not encountered on any other front save in +the Mazurian marshes. During the rainy season the gunners of certain +batteries frequently work in water up to their waists. So wet is the +soil that dugouts are out of the question, for they instantly become +cisterns, so the Belgian engineers have developed a type of +above-ground shelter which has concrete walls and a roof of steel +rails, on top of which are laid several layers of sand-bags. Though +these shelters afford their occupants protection from the fire of +small-caliber guns, they are not proof against the heavy projectiles +which the Germans periodically rain upon the Belgian trenches. As the +soil is so soft and slimy as to be useless for defensive purposes, the +trench-walls are for the most part built of sand-bags, which are, +however, usually filled with clay, for sand must be brought by +incredible exertions from the seashore. I was shown a single short +sector on the Yser, where six million bags were used. For the floors +of these shelters, as well as for innumerable other purposes, +millions of feet of lumber are required, which is taken up to the +front over the network of light railways, some of which penetrate to +the actual firing-line. If trench-building materials are scarce in +Flanders, fuel is scarcer. Every stick of wood and every piece of coal +burned on the front has to be brought from great distances and at +great expense, so economy in fuel consumption is rigidly enforced. I +remember walking through a trench with a Belgian officer one bitterly +cold and rainy day last winter. In a corner of the trench a soldier in +soaking clothes had piled together a tiny mound of twigs and roots and +over the feeble flame was trying to warm his hands, which were blue +with cold. To my surprise my companion stopped and spoke to the man +quite sharply. + +"We can't let one man have a fire all to himself," he explained as he +rejoined me. "Wood is too scarce for that. The fire that fellow had +would have warmed three or four men and I had to reprimand him for +building it." A moment later he added: "The poor devil looked pretty +cold, though, didn't he?" + + * * * * * + +I had been informed by telephone from the Belgian _Etat-Major_ that a +staff-officer would meet me at a certain little frontier town whose +name I have forgotten how to spell. After many inquiries and wrong +turnings, for in this corner of Belgium the Flemish peasantry +understand but little French and no English, my driver succeeded in +finding the town, but the officer who was to meet me had not arrived. +It was too cold to sit in the car with comfort, so a lieutenant of +gendarmerie, the chief of the local _Surete_, invited me to make +myself comfortable in his little office. After a time the conversation +languished, and, for want of something better to say, I inquired how +far it was to Ostend. I was interested in knowing, because during the +retreat of the Belgian army in October, 1914, I left two kit-bags +filled with perfectly good clothes at the American Consulate in +Ostend. They are there still, I suppose, provided the Consulate has +not been shelled to pieces by the British monitors or the bags stolen +by German soldiers. + +"Ostend?" repeated the gendarme. "It isn't over thirty kilometres from +here. From the roof of this building, if the weather was fine, you +could almost see its church-spires." + +He walked across to the window and, pressing his face against the +pane, stared out across the fog-hung lowlands. He so stood for some +minutes and when he turned I noticed that tears were glistening in his +eyes. + +"My wife and children are over there in Ostend," he explained, in a +voice which he tried pathetically hard to control. "At least, they +were there two years ago last August. They had gone there for the +summer. I was in Brussels when the Germans crossed the frontier, and I +at once joined the army. I have never heard from my family since. It +is very hard, monsieur, to be so near them--they are only thirty +kilometres away--and not be able to see them or to hear from them, or +even be able to learn whether they are well or whether they have +enough to eat." + +It is a terrible thing, this prison wall within which the Germans have +shut up the people of Belgium. How terrible it is one cannot realize +until he has known those whose dear ones are confined _incommunicado_ +within that prison. I wish I might bring home to you, my friends, just +what it means. How would _you_ feel to stand on the banks of the +Hudson and look across into New Jersey and know that, though over +there, a few miles away, were your homes and those that you hold most +dear, you could no more get word to them, or they to you, than if they +were in Mars? And how would you feel if you knew that Englewood and +Morristown and Plainfield and the Oranges, and a dozen other of the +pretty Jersey towns, were but heaps of blackened ruins, that the +larger cities were garrisoned by brutal German soldiery and ruled by +heartless-German governors, and that thousands of women and +girls--perhaps _your_ wife, _your_ daughters among them--had been +dragged from their homes and taken God knows where? How would you feel +then, Mr. American? + + * * * * * + +After an hour's wait my officer, profuse in his apologies, arrived in +a beautifully appointed limousine, beside which the British staff-car +in which I had come looked cheap and very shabby. At the very +beginning of the war the Belgian military authorities commandeered +every car they could lay their hands on, and though many have been +worn out and hundreds were lost during the retreat, they are still +rather better supplied with luxurious cars than any of the other +armies. + +"There will be a moon to-night," said my cicerone, "so before going to +La Panne, where quarters have been reserved for you, I shall take you +to Furnes. The Grande Place is pure Spanish--it was built in the Duke +of Alva's time, you know--and it is very beautiful by moonlight." + +The road to Furnes took us through what had been, a few years before, +quaint Flemish villages, but German _Kultur_, aided by the products of +Frau Bertha Krupp, had transformed the beautiful sixteenth-century +architecture into heaps of brick and stone. And nowhere did I see a +church left standing. Whether the Germans shelled the churches because +they honestly believed that their towers were used for observation +purposes, or from sheer lust for destruction, I do not know. In any +event, the churches are gone. In one little shell-torn village my +companion pointed out to me the ruins of a church, amid which a +company of infantry, going up to the trenches, had camped for the +night. Just as the men were falling in at daybreak a German shell of +large caliber exploded among them. Sixty-four--I think that was the +number--were killed outright or died of their wounds. But not even the +dead are permitted to sleep in peace. I saw several churchyards on +which German shells had rained so heavily that the corpses had been +disinterred, and whitened bones and grinning skulls littered the +ploughed-up ground. + +Darkness had fallen when we came to Furnes. In passing through the +outskirts, we stopped to call on two young women--an Irish girl and a +Canadian--who, undismayed by the periodic shell-storms which visit it, +have pluckily stayed in the town ever since the battle of the Yser, +caring for the few hundred townspeople who remain, nursing the +wounded, and even conducting a school for the children. They live in a +small bungalow which the military authorities have erected for them on +the edge of the town. A few yards from their front door is a +bomb-proof, looking exactly like a Kansas cyclone-cellar, in which +they find refuge when one of the frequent bombardments begins. We +found that the young women were not at home. I was disappointed, +because I wanted to tell them how much I admired them. + +My companion was quite right in saying that the Grande Place of Furnes +by moonlight is worth seeing. It certainly is. The exquisite +fifteenth-century buildings which face upon the square have, by some +miracle, remained almost undamaged. There were no lights, of course, +and the only person in sight was a sentry, on whose bayonet and steel +helmet the moonbeams played fitfully. The darkness, the silence, the +suggestion of mystery, the ancient buildings with their leaded windows +and their carved facades, the steel-capped soldier, all made me feel +that I had stepped back five hundred years and was in the Furnes of +Inquisition times. + +Our visit to Furnes had delayed us, so it was well into the evening +before we drew up before the hotel in La Panne, where a room had been +reserved for me by the Belgian _Etat-Major_. A seaside resort in +midwinter is always a peculiarly depressing place, and La Panne was no +exception. Though every hotel and villa in the place was chock-a-block +with staff-officers, with nurses, and with wounded, the street-lamps +were extinguished, not a ray of light escaped from the heavily +curtained windows, and, to add to the general sense of melancholy, a +cold, raw wind was blowing down from the North Sea and a drizzling +rain had set in. Though La Panne is within easy range of the German +batteries, which could eliminate it with neatness and despatch, it +has, singularly enough, never been bombarded, nor has it been +subjected to any serious air raids. This is the more surprising as all +the neighboring towns, as well as Dunkirk, a dozen miles beyond, have +been repeatedly shelled and bombed. The only explanation of this +phenomenon is that the Germans do not wish to kill the Queen of the +Belgians--she was Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria, remember--who lives +with the King at La Panne. It is possible that this may be the correct +explanation. I remember that when I was in Brussels during the early +days of the German occupation, there occurred a serious collision +between Prussian and Bavarian troops, the latter asserting that the +ill-mannered North German soldiery had shown some disrespect to a +portrait of "unsere Bayerische Prinzessin." Why the Germans should +have any consideration for the safety of the Queen after the fashion +in which they have treated her country and her people, only a Teutonic +intellect could understand. But the exemption which La Panne has thus +far enjoyed has not induced its inhabitants to omit any precautions. +An ample number of bomb-proofs and dugouts have been constructed, and +at night over all the windows are tacked thick black curtains. For +they know the Germans. + +La Panne is the last town on the Belgian littoral before you reach the +French frontier and the last villa in the town is occupied by the King +and Queen. It stands amid the sand-dunes, looking out across the +Channel toward England. It is just such a square, plastered, +eight-room villa as might be rented for the summer months by a family +with an income of five thousand a year. The sentries who are on duty +at its gates and the mounted gendarmes who constantly patrol its +immediate vicinity, are the only signs that it is the residence of +royalty. Almost any morning you can see the King and Queen--he tall +and soldierly, with all griefs and anxieties which the war has brought +him showing in his face; she small and trim and girlishly +slender--riding on the hard sands of the beach, or strolling, +unaccompanied, amid the dunes. What must it mean to them to know that +though over there to the eastward lies Belgium, _their_ Belgium, they +cannot ride five miles toward it before they are halted by the German +bar; to know that beyond that little river where the trenches run +their people are suffering and waiting for help, and that, after +nearly three years, they are not a yard nearer to them? + +How clearly I remembered the last time that I had seen the Queen. It +was in the Hotel St. Antoine, in Antwerp, the night before the flight +of the Government and the royal family to Ostend, and less than a week +before the fall of the city itself. For days past the grumble of the +guns had constantly been growing louder, the streams of wounded had +steadily increased; every one knew that the end was almost at hand. It +was just before the dinner-hour and the great lobby of the hotel was +crowded with officers--Belgian, French, and British--with members of +the fugitive Government and Diplomatic Corps, and a few unofficial +foreigners like myself. Then, unannounced and unaccompanied, the Queen +entered. She had come to say farewell to the invalid wife of the +Russian Minister, who was unable to go to the palace. She remained in +the Russians' apartments (during the bombardment, a few days later, +they were completely wrecked by a German shell) half an hour perhaps. +Then she came down the winding stairs, a pathetically girlish figure +in the simplest of white suits, leaning on the arm of the gallant old +diplomat. Quite automatically the throng in the lobby separated, so as +to form an aisle down which she passed. To those of us who were +nearest she put out her hand and, bending low, we kissed it. Then the +great doors were opened and she passed out into the darkness and the +rain--a Queen without a country. + + * * * * * + +No one comes away from La Panne, at least no one should, without +having visited the great hospital founded by Dr. Leon du Page, the +famous Belgian surgeon. It started in one of the big tourist hotels +facing on the sea, but it has gradually expanded until it now occupies +a whole congeries of buildings. It has upward of a thousand beds, but, +as the fighting was comparatively light at the time I was there, only +about two-thirds of them were occupied. Though the American Ambulance +at Neuilly, and some of the hospitals at the British base-camps are +larger, Dr. du Page's hospital is the most complete and self-contained +that I have seen on any front. To mend the broken men who are brought +there no device of medical science has been left untried. There are +giant magnets which are used to draw minute steel fragments from the +brains of men wounded by shrapnel; there are beds, heated by hundreds +of electric lights, for soldiers whose vitality has been dangerously +lowered by shock or exhaustion; there is a department of facial +surgery where men who have lost their noses or their jaws or even +their faces are given new ones. The hospital is, as I have said, +self-contained. The operating-tables, the beds, all the furniture, in +fact, is made on the premises. It is the only hospital I know of which +provides those patients who have lost their legs with artificial +limbs. And they are by far the best artificial limbs that I have seen +anywhere. Each one is made to order to match the man's remaining limb. +They are shaped over plaster casts, according to a system originated +by Dr. du Page, in alternate layers of glue and ordinary shavings, and +the articulation of the joints almost equals that of nature. As a +result the soldiers are sent out into the world provided with legs +which are symmetrical, almost unbreakable, amazingly light, and so +admirably constructed that the owner rarely requires the assistance of +a cane. Another detail for which Dr. du Page has made provision is the +manufacture of his own instruments. Before the war the best surgical +instruments were made in Germany. There were, so far as Dr. du Page +knew, only five first-class instrument-makers in Belgium. Three of +these were, he ascertained, in the army, so through the King he +obtained their release from military duty. Now they work in a +completely equipped shop in the rear of the hospital making the shiny, +terrifying instruments which the white-clad surgeons wield with such +magical effect. + +Should you feel like giving up the theatre this evening, or taking a +street-car instead of a taxi, or not opening that bottle of champagne, +the money would be very welcome to Dr. du Page and his wounded. Should +you feel that that is too much to give, it might be well for you to +remember that he has given something, too. He gave his wife. She was +returning from America, where she had gone to collect funds to carry +on the work of the hospital. She sailed on the _Lusitania_.... + + * * * * * + +To reach the Belgian firing-line is not easy because, the country +being as flat as a ballroom floor, the Germans see and shoot at you. +So one needs to be cautious. So dangerous is the terrain in this +respect that the ambulances and motor-lorries and ammunition-trains +could not get up to the trenches at all had not the Belgians, with +great foresight, done wholesale tree-planting. Most people do not +number nursery work among the duties of an army, but nowadays it is. +From France and England the Belgians imported many saplings, thousands +if not tens of thousands of them, and set them out along the roads +exposed to German fire, and now their foliage forms a screen behind +which troops and transport can move with comparative safety. In places +where trees would not grow the roads have been masked for miles with +screens made from branches. To have one of these screens between you +and the Germans is very comforting. + +On our way up to the front we made a detour in order that I might call +on a friend, Mrs. A. D. Winterbottom, who, before her marriage to a +British officer, was Miss Appleton of Boston. In "Fighting in +Flanders" I told about a very brave deed which I saw performed by Mrs. +Winterbottom. She was quite angry with me for mentioning it, but +because she is an American of whom her countrypeople have every reason +to be proud, I am going to tell about it again. It was during the last +days of the siege of Antwerp. The Germans had methodically pounded to +pieces with their great guns the chain of barrier forts encircling the +city. Waelhem was one of the last to fall. When at length the remnant +of the garrison evacuated the fort they brought back word that a score +of their comrades, too badly wounded to walk, remained within the +battered walls. So Mrs. Winterbottom, who had brought over from +England her big touring-car and was driving it herself, said quietly +that she was going to bring them out. The only way to reach the fort +was by a straight and narrow road, a mile long, on which German shells +were bursting with great accuracy and frequency. To me and to the +Belgian officers who were with me, it looked like a short-cut to the +cemetery. But that didn't deter Mrs. Winterbottom. She climbed into +her car and threw in the clutch and jammed her foot down on the +accelerator, and went tearing down that shell-spattered highway at top +speed. She filled her car with wounded men and brought them safely +back, and then returned and gathered up the others who were still +alive. I have seen few braver deeds. + +Mrs. Winterbottom remained with the Belgian army throughout the great +retreat into Flanders, and when it settled down into the trench life +on the Yser, she was officially attached to a division, with which she +has remained ever since, moving when her division moves. She lives in +a one-room shack which the soldiers have built her immediately in the +rear of the trenches and within range of the enemy's guns. Her only +companion is a dog, yet she is as safe as though she were on Beacon +Hill, for she is the idol of the soldiers. She has a large recreation +tent, like the side-show tent of a circus, but painted green to escape +the attention of the German airmen, and in this tent she entertains +the men during their brief periods of leave from the trenches. She +gives them coffee, cocoa, milk, and biscuits; she provides them with +writing materials--I forget how many thousand sheets of paper and +envelopes she told me that they used each week; and she keeps them +supplied with reading matter. Three times a week she gives "her boys" +a phonograph concert in the first-line trenches. You must have +experienced the misery and monotony of existence in the trenches to +understand what these "concerts" mean to the tired and homesick men. I +asked her if there was anything that the people at home could send +her, and she replied rather hesitantly (for she is personally bearing +the entire expense of this work) that she understood that some small +metal phonographs were procurable which could easily be carried about +and would not warp from dampness, for the trenches on the Yser are +very wet. She also said that she would welcome phonograph records of +any description and French books. The last I saw of her she was wading +through a sea of mud, in rubber boots and a rubber coat and a +sou'wester, to carry her "canned music" to the men on the firing-line. +They ought to be very proud of Mrs. Winterbottom back in her own home +town. + +The Belgian trenches are very much like those on other sectors of the +Western Front, except that they are made of sand-bags instead of +earth, are muddier and are nearer the enemy, being separated from the +German positions, for a considerable distance, only by the Yser, which +in places is only forty yards across. In fact, a baseball player could +easily sling a stone across the river into Dixmude, or what remains +of it, for, like most of the other Flemish towns, it is now only a +blackened skeleton. Many cities have been destroyed in the course of +this war, but none of them, unless it be Ypres, so nearly approaches +complete obliteration as Dixmude. Pompeii is a living, breathing city +compared to it. Despite all that has been printed about the +devastation in the war zone, I believe that when the war is over and +the hordes of curious Americans flock Europeward, they will be stunned +by the completeness of the desolation which the Germans have wrought +in northeastern France and Belgium. + +By far the most interesting day I spent on the Belgian front was not +in the trenches but in a long, low, wooden building well to the rear. +Over the door was a sign which read: "Section Photographique de +l'Armee Belge." Here are brought to be developed and enlarged and +scrutinized the hundreds of photographs which are taken daily by +Belgian aviators flying over the German lines. In no department of +war work has there been greater progress during recent months than in +photography by airplane. Every morning at break of dawn scores of +Belgian machines--and the same is true all down the Western +Front--rise into the air, and for hour after hour swoop and circle +over the enemy's lines, taking countless photographs of his positions +by means of specially made cameras fitted with telescopic lenses. (The +Allied fliers on the Somme took seventeen hundred photographs during a +single day.) Most of these photographs are taken at a height of eight +thousand to ten thousand feet,[F] though very much lower, of course, +when an opportunity presents itself, and always with the camera as +nearly vertical as possible. As soon as an aviator has secured a +sufficient number of pictures of the locality or object which he has +been ordered to photograph, he wings his way back to his own lines, +the plates are immediately developed at the headquarters of the +Section Photographique or in a dark room on wheels. If the first +examination of the negative reveals anything of interest, it is at +once enlarged, often to eight times the size of the original. As a +result of this remarkable system of aerial espionage, there is nothing +of importance which the Germans can long conceal from the Allies. They +cannot extend their trench lines by so much as a yard, they cannot +construct new positions, they cannot mount a machine-gun without the +fact being registered by those eyes which, from dawn to dark, peer +down at them from the clouds. At all of the divisional headquarters +are large plans of the opposing enemy trenches, which are corrected +daily by means of these airplane photographs and by the information +collected through the elaborate system of espionage which the Allies +maintain behind the German lines. To deceive the aerial observers, +each side resorts to all manner of ingenious tricks. To suggest an +impending retirement, columns of men are marched down the roads which +lead to the rear; trenches which are not intended to be used are dug; +and there are, of course, hundreds of dummy guns, some of which +actually fire. The officer in command of the Belgian Photographic +Section had heard that I was in Dunkirk in May, 1915, when it was +shelled by a German naval gun, at a range of twenty-three and one-half +miles.[G] So he gave me as a souvenir of the experience a photograph, +taken from the air, of the gun emplacement after it had been +discovered and bombed by the Allied aviators, and the gun removed to a +place of safety. I reproduce the photograph herewith. The numerous +white spots all about the emplacement are the craters caused by the +bombs which were rained upon it. + +Another of these monster guns was so ingeniously concealed in an +imitation thicket that for a fortnight or more it defied the efforts +of scores of airmen to locate it. Though hundreds of airplane +photographs of the country behind the German trenches were brought in +and minutely examined, there was nothing about them to suggest the +hiding-place of a gun of so large a caliber until some one called +attention to the deep ruts left by motor-trucks which had left the +highway at a certain point and turned into the innocent-looking patch +of woods. Why were the wheel-ruts shown on the plate so black? Because +the vehicle must have sunk deep into the soft soil. Why did it sink so +deeply? Because it was heavily laden. Laden with what? With +large-caliber shells, perhaps. But still it was only a supposition. A +few days later, however, it was noticed that at a certain point on the +westward edge of that patch of woods there seemed to be a slight +discoloration. This discoloration became more pronounced on later +photographs which were brought in. Every one in the Section +Photographique hazarded a guess as to its cause. At length some one +suggested that it looked as though the leaves of the trees had been +burned. But what burned them? There was only one answer. The fiery +blast from a big gun hidden amid those trees, of course! Acting on +that hypothesis, a score of aviators were sent out with orders to pour +upon the wood a torrent of high explosive. The next few hours must +have been very uncomfortable for the German gun-crew. In any event, +the big piece was hauled out of danger under cover of darkness and the +bombardments of the towns behind the Belgian lines abruptly ceased. + +The Allied air service does not confine its observations to the +trenches; it keeps an ever-wakeful eye on all that is in progress in +the regions for many miles behind the front. To illustrate how little +escapes the eye of the camera, the officer in charge of the +Photographic Section showed me a series of photographs which had been +taken of a village at the back of Dixmude, a few days previously, from +a height of more than a mile. The first picture showed an ordinary +Flemish village with its gridiron of streets and buildings. Cutting +diagonally across the picture was a straight white streak which I knew +to be a road leading into the country. At one point on this road were +a number of tiny squares--evidently a row of workmen's cottages. The +commandant handed me a powerful magnifying-glass. "Look very closely +on that road," he said, "and you will see three specks." I saw them. +They were about the size of pin-points. + +"Those are three men," he continued. "The man at the right lives in +the first of this row of cottages. The man in the middle lives in the +fourth house in the row. But the man at the left is a farmer, and +lives in this isolated farmhouse out here in the country." + +"A very clever guess," I remarked, scepticism showing in my tone, I +fear. + +"We do not guess in this business," he replied reprovingly. "We +_know_." And he handed me the next photograph, taken a few seconds +later. There was no doubt about it; the pin-point of a man at the +right had left his two companions and was turning in at the first of +the row of cottages. Another photograph was produced. It showed the +second man entering the gate of the fourth cottage. And the final +picture of the series showed the remaining speck plodding on alone +toward his home in the country. + +"An officer of some importance is evidently making this house his +headquarters," remarked the commandant, indicating another tiny +rectangle. "If he wasn't of some importance he wouldn't have a +telephone." + +"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "You don't mean to tell me that you can +photograph a telephone-wire from a mile in the air?" + +"Not quite," he admitted, "but sometimes, if the light happens to be +right, we can get photographs of its shadow." + +And sure enough, stretching across the ploughed fields, I could see, +through the glass, a phantom line, intersected at regular intervals by +short and somewhat thicker lines. It was the shadow of a +field-telephone and its poles! And the airplane from which that +photograph was taken was so high that it must have looked like a mere +speck to one on the ground. There's war magic for you. + +You will ask, of course, why the Germans don't maintain over the +Allied lines a similar system of aerial observation. They do--when the +Allies let them. But the Allies now have in commission on the Western +Front such an enormous number of aircraft--I think I have said +elsewhere the French alone probably have close to seven thousand +machines--and they have made such great improvements in their +anti-aircraft guns that to-day it is a comparatively rare thing to see +a German flier over territory held by the Allies. The moment that a +German flier takes the air, half a dozen Allied airmen rise to meet +and engage him, and, in the rare event of his being able to elude +them and get over the Allied lines, the "Archies," as the +anti-aircraft guns are called on the British front, get into noisy +action. (Their name, it is said, came from a London music-hall song +which was exceedingly popular at the beginning of the war. When the +shells from the German A. A. guns burst harmlessly around the British +airmen they would hum mockingly the concluding line of the song: +"Archibald, certainly not!") Unable to keep their fliers in the air, +the Germans are to all intents and purposes blind. They are unable to +regulate the fire of their artillery or to direct their infantry +attacks; they do not know what damage their shells are doing; and they +have no means of learning what is going on behind the enemy's lines. +It is obvious, therefore, that to have and keep control of the air is +a very, very important thing. + + * * * * * + +No one who has been in Europe during the past two years can have +failed to notice the unpopularity of the Belgians among the French +and English. This is regrettable but true. Also it is unjust. When I +left Belgium in the late autumn of 1914 the Belgians were looked on as +a nation of heroes. They were acclaimed as the saviors of Europe. +Nothing was too good for them. The sight of a Belgian uniform in the +streets of London or Paris was the signal for a popular ovation. When +the red-black-and-yellow banner was displayed on the stage of a +music-hall the audience rose en masse. The story of the defense of +Liege sent a thrill of admiration round the world. But in the two and +a half years that have passed since then there has become noticeable +among French and English--particularly among the English--a steadily +growing dislike for their Belgian allies; a dislike which has, in +certain quarters, grown into a thinly veiled contempt. I have +repeatedly heard it asserted that the Belgian has been spoiled by too +much charity, that he is lazy and ungrateful and complaining, that he +has become a professional pauper, that he has been greatly overrated +as a fighter, and that he has had enough of the war and is ready to +quit. + +The truth of the matter is this: The majority of the Belgians who fled +before the advancing Germans belonged to the lower classes; they were +for the most part uneducated and lacking in mental discipline. Is it +any wonder, then, that they gave way to blind panic when the stories +of the barbarities practised by the invaders reached their ears, or +that their heads were turned by the hysterical enthusiasm, the lavish +hospitality, with which they were received in England? That as a +result of being thus lionized, many of these ignorant and mercurial +people became fault-finding and overbearing, there is no denying. Nor +can it be truthfully gainsaid that, for a year or more after the war +began, there hung about the London restaurants and music-halls a +number of young Belgians who ought to have been with their army on the +firing-line. But, if my memory serves me rightly, I think that I saw +quite a number of English youths doing the same thing. Every country +has its slackers, and Belgium is no exception. But to attempt to +belittle the glorious heroism of the Belgian nation because of a few +young slackers or the ingratitude and ill-manners of some ignorant +peasants, is an unworthy and despicable thing. The assertion that the +Belgians are lacking in courage is as untruthful as it is cruel. Ask +the Germans who charged up the fire-swept slopes of Liege--those of +them left alive--if the Belgians are cowards. Ask those who saw the +fields of Aerschot and Vilvorde and Termonde and Malines strewn with +Belgian dead. Go stand for a few days--and nights--beside the Belgians +who are holding those mud-filled trenches on the Yser. And remember +that the Belgians were fighting while the English were still only +talking about it. Nor forget that, had not their heroic resistance +given France a breathing-spell in which to complete her tardy +mobilization, the Germans would now, in all probability, be in Paris. +The truth is that the civilized world owes to the Belgians a debt +which it can never repay. We of America are honored to be counted +among their Allies. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[F] In order to keep pace with the steady improvement in range and +accuracy of anti-aircraft artillery, aviators have found it necessary +to operate at constantly increasing altitudes, so that it is now not +uncommon for aerial combats to be fought at a height of 20,000 feet. +Hence, many airplanes are now equipped with oxygen-bags for use in +the rarefied atmosphere of the higher levels. The aviators operating +on the Italian front experience such intense cold during the winter +months that a system has been evolved for heating their caps, gloves, +and boots by electricity generated by the motor. + +[G] For an account of this, the longest-range bombardment in history, +see Mr. Powell's "Vive la France!" + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Typographical errors corrected in text: | + | | + | Page 133: genlteman replaced with gentleman | + | | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ITALY AT WAR AND THE ALLIES IN THE +WEST*** + + +******* This file should be named 19074.txt or 19074.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/0/7/19074 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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