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diff --git a/40507-0.txt b/40507-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..44173a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/40507-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4165 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40507 *** + +THE CHALLENGE OF THE DEAD + + + + + _BOOKS BY STEPHEN GRAHAM_ + + A Vagabond in the Caucasus. + Undiscovered Russia. + A Tramp's Sketches. + Changing Russia. + With the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem. + With Poor Emigrants to America. + Russia and the World. + The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary. + Through Russian Central Asia. + Priest of the Ideal. + Russia in 1916. + The Quest of the Face. + A Private in the Guards. + Children of the Slaves. + The Challenge of the Dead. + + + + + The Challenge of the Dead + + A vision of the war and the life + of the common soldier in France, + seen two years afterwards between + August and November, 1920 + + + + + By + Stephen Graham + + + + + Cassell and Company, Ltd + London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne + 1921 + + + + +The Challenge of the Dead + + +The suns shines and a strong wind lifts the waves toward the land; the +blue sea, in happy commotion, throws armfuls of white spray across the +long stone breakwater which is called Zeebruges Mole. The white stone +way goes two miles out to sea, and is swept by a marine healthiness. +Upon it at intervals stand the German guns with the ends of their +barrels burst out like thistle-heads. They point o'er the sea; they have +their armoured shelter on the inner side of which on the level with the +gunner's eye stand inscribed in neat German _schrift_ the distances to +all places of importance within gunshot--greenish-yellow camouflaged +German guns with something of the tiger in their expression. On the lee +side of the Mole cling the giant sheds of hydroplanes--as it were, +hooked to the side of the great stone wall. In the quieter water on this +side of the Mole one sees jutting out of the fairway the tops of vessels +sunk there in 1918, and near by is a tablet marking the spot where the +landing-party of the _Vindictive_ made its daring raid upon the foe. + +Zeebruges! A party of school-children in "croc" are being escorted along +the way by nuns; the Smiths of Surbiton have scrawled their names on the +guns. There is a half-way house on the Mole now where one drinks beer +and buys a picture postcard, or at the base of the Mole and looking +outward toward England, one may dine alfresco at a Grand Palace Hotel. +But what of that! The whole is sun-drowned and wind-swept and bare and +open with a spaciousness and grandeur which are ample for the soul. The +breeze which blows from England slackens nothing ere it reaches those +fields where the wild flowers and the rushes bloom. + +The mind goes back to 1914 and that great October when Antwerp fell but +Ypres was held--when the last transports rolled alongside this glorious +Mole bearing the Seventh Division, soon to be called, in faith, +immortal, because half its number was destroyed before the war was very +old. + + October fifth they sailed away + Upon the salt sea's raging spray + And landed safe in Bruges bay + Upon their way to Ypres. + +They stepped up from the boats, new, ruddy, well equipped, intact--they +rolled forward, with drums beating, o'er the Belgian land. Now all who +ever will arrive in Zeebruges from o'er the sea will arrive after the +Seventh Division. The war-pilgrim, paying his due of honour to those +who came that day, cannot follow very far on their road unless he die +also. If he chooses to follow any one soldier, will he not very likely +come soon to the road's end and a grey wooden cross where his soldier's +destiny dipped into eternity? + +Follow, then, the many who ran in the great torch race of the war, where +the spent runner handed the torch from his hand to another, who in turn +ran with it blazing till he fell, thus from Zeebruges to Ypres; from +Ypres, flaming, to Neuve Chapelle; from Neuve Chapelle, flaming, to +Loos; then aflame to the defence of the Salient; then a long blaze to +the sevenfold altar of the Somme ... man to man, unit to unit, period to +period, till the November when the race was won. + +Was it not characteristic of the old war that the "Contemptibles" of the +Seventh, landing at Zeebruges, should at once be marched thirty miles in +the wrong direction and then brought back by train. Antwerp was the +beacon; Antwerp was not yet taken; the Naval Brigade was trying to save +it. It was to fall, Zeebruges was to fall, Ostende itself was to +fall--all very rapidly. When the boys got to Bruges it was rumoured that +the Germans had had a set-back; when they got to Ostende they heard that +Antwerp had been taken. When they got back to Bruges terror had seized +the city. When they got to Ghent they took the Antwerp road--and then +they came back, to Ypres. + +The cobbled way to Bruges is not marked by destruction. The trees give +shade, the houses stand, the fields are ploughed. Alice in an estaminet +says she learned French from the French prisoners kept there--her bar +used to be crowded with them. The Belfry of Bruges stands against the +sky ahead--as if lifted out of the plain up to heaven itself. + +You cross a canal which looks like a moat, and are in Bruges itself, a +perfectly whole, undamaged, serene and peaceful city. Trams, shops, +carts pulled by dogs, rows of estaminets, old gateways, old churches, +and then the Grande Place. The broad market-place is empty, but one sits +facing the great tower and listens to the ever-repeating chimes of the +bells--silver in the evening hour. It is--no, it is impossible--yes, it +is "The Rosary" which is being played by the bells. "_I ... strive ... +to kiss the Cross_," yells the steeple, and then goes plaintive and +trickles tunefully away. + + * * * * * + +"Well, here I am and here I remain," says an old man sitting behind me +with a coffee-glass which he has long since drained. "Till England +becomes sane, I stay here." + +"The cost of living is just as high in Peebles as in London," says a +woman sitting opposite him. + +"Mad everywhere," says the man. "What I'd like is a flat somewhere near +Lancaster Gate, so as I could go out into Kensington Gardens and sit +under the trees and smoke." + +There was a pause. + +Then the woman from Peebles ventured in a thin, small voice: + +"I think that Peter Pan statue in Kensington is so sweet. It was put up +in the night, wasn't it?" + +"Yes, it was; and isn't Kensington a delightful place?" says the old +man. + +They gloated in silence over Kensington. The bells of the Belfry began +selections from _Faust_. _Is there a war on?_ men used to ask +facetiously. "There never was any war," says Bruges. The sound of the +boots has long since died away, the _boots, boots, boots, boots, +marching up and down again_, away, away--this city was not delivered +unto the Angel of Death. + +It's a shady highway that goes eastward to Ostende. At the village of +St. Andrews there is a first war memorial to Belgian soldiers who gave +their lives in the war; and then you come to the open ground at +Varssenaere where the 20th Brigade did outpost duty, the first +resting-ground for many a man, if rest he could, on his first night on +the terrain of war--Varssenaere, a mean red-brick village with +estaminets and small shops. Next day 'twas Steine and then Ostende. + +October 9, 1914, they marched into Ostende station, crowded with wounded +men who had been rushed down from the stricken front. Antwerp had +fallen. The trains which brought the wounded down took the new army +back--back to Bruges, on to Ghent, and tumbled it out into that great +old city. The streets were full of refugees, but the khaki tide rolled +forward through the crowds, past the cathedral, out by the Lokeren road, +to meet the foe. + +Ghent also is an undamaged city. Our airmen spared her; our cannon could +not reach her. She was not taken by assault, but fell into the enemy's +hands. It is prosperous, all its factory chimneys are a-smoke. Cheap +plenitude fills its shop windows. Its people are at work--or, rather, +they are at work when there is not a _groodefeest_. + +It is calm on the Lokeren road. You cannot hear the battle-thunder of +that October now, the ominous and insistent and encroaching roaring of +the monster who was just spitting and flashing fire at Ghent in those +days. You can see with the mind's eye the new army with its new boots +and its sore feet and its loads of equipment. It did not carry bombs and +it did not carry gas-masks, but it carried everything else. One can see +the perplexed and anxious Staff looking at the _intelligence_ brought +in--the Germans held nowhere, the Germans in vast numbers, truly ready +and capable of sweeping the contemptibly little army into the sea, the +Germans advancing everywhere. The order comes to retire. +Retire--retreat--might not the retreat from Antwerp resemble the retreat +from Mons? It is retreat in any case. Back into Ghent; back, perhaps, to +Bruges and to Ostende. No one talks of Ypres. The army does not yet know +where Ypres is. However, they filed through Ghent, and it was once more +boots, boots, boots, boots over the cobbled roads. It was midnight, and +they traversed the whole broad metropolis--singing a song which has not +been forgotten in all the intervening years. + +But now it is midnight again, the night of the 1920 National Fête, and +the whole population has got singing drunk and then screaming drunk on +beer. Tens of thousands of men and women flock the streets. There are +fireworks, there is music, there is dancing. The fronts of the +estaminets have been taken out, and seats go from the bar to the middle +of the street; long tables on trestles, and plank seats, have been put +out; piles of shrimps litter the tables from end to end, and the yellow +beer gleams as it streams. Tired children are massed on the cathedral +steps waiting for the fireworks to begin, and past those who sit surges +a tireless crowd. + +In the Groensel Maarkt a truly Dostoieffskian scene. A soldier with one +arm, a diminutive woman with dislocated hips, and two children are +singing Flemish songs to a ring of people of varying ages. The old +soldier has a sheaf of leaflets with the words of the songs and sells +them a penny a time, a small boy plays the concertina, "mother" sings +all the while a murmuring sing-song which never rises or falls, and +keeps time with her wasp-like waist, which seems to hang from the black +hump of her hips and sways uncannily back and forth. Father with the one +arm also sings all the while he sells, the little girl sings, and the +boy playing the concertina sings also. To the tune of "Way Down in +Tennessee" they sing: + + Ik noem haar mijn everzwijn + Mijn voddenmagazijn + +They sing too, over and over again, a Flemish song about the war: + + Nog niet genoeg dat hij + Binst d'oorlog was in 't lij + Tot overmaat huns laffe daad + Der duitschers vol van haat... + +and a haunting chorus which begins: + + Hoe ... kan het bestaan + Dat men een man, die gansch zijn plicht + toch heeft gekweten + +and glasses of beer pass over the heads of the audience to the singing +family. All in a dark, empty market-place, with somebody's statue +looking down on the scene and many a tear softening human eyes. + +The rockets shoot up to the height of the cathedral spire and break in +coloured lights, the large catherine-wheels are lit, the children clap +and chase one another for firework cases. + +At two in the morning strings of men and women holding on to one another +parade the streets and kick out with their legs, attempting to dance +whilst they sing "Tipperary," "Marguerite," "Mademoiselle from +Armentières," "Hoe kan het bestaan," the new girls in knee-skirts with +spindly legs, the old wives in longer heavier ones, exposing when they +dance white baggy drawers like Canterbury bells. At four in the morning +there are still ten thousand in the streets; men and women have made +circles round trees and lamp-posts, and kick out as they try to roll +round; knots of men and girls go staggering past with howls and yells; +young Flemish fellows are squeezing girls of twenty and pressing down +their cheeks with large-mouthed kisses. At six, in the heavenly radiance +of a pure morning, pandemonium still rolls on. + +Yes, it is good beer. The first glass of it on a hot day is +refreshing--a flagon at lunch does not come amiss. But these men and +women sat for hours pouring it in with floating shrimps--glasses, +quarts, sitting on low seats with their legs apart, and visibly filling. +And this plenitude did not make them weary. _Au contraire_, beer got +into their toes and their knees and their thighs and their fat arms and +necks, and expressed itself at all points of the body. I suppose one +good reason for running in queues was that all holding on to one another +none could fall down. One of the reasons why the bacchanalia continued +long after morning-life had supervened was that many had forgotten they +had any homes and mostly did not know where they were. + +What a night! Six years ago on that other night it was different. +Anxiety and foreboding throbbed in these streets. Belgian manhood in +arms marched away. The British marched away, and by midnight the last +soldier had gone. Suspense ... and then at two in the morning the first +German, a motor-cyclist, armed, goggled, covered with dust, vigilant.... +And from the dawn German order reigned in Ghent--no bacchanalias. + +The army went out by night by many roads, making, however, for Bruges. +It fell back for the defence, perhaps, of Bruges and of Ostende. +Brussels had fallen, and Ghent--there was not much of Belgium left. The +first morning out of Ghent saw the army at Somerghem, and the second at +Thielt. So tired were the troops that at each halt in the night both +officers and men, lying down by the roadside, fell asleep. At the halts +the men bumped into one another mechanically, like the trucks of a +freight train coming to a sudden stop, and then they just tumbled down +and snored. + +Newly tarred barges loll slowly along the Bruges-Ghent canal, and there +is a vista along the straight water to the belfry of Ghent and the +cathedral. The sides of the canal are lush with verdure; health and +happiness spread out from its banks. One would say also the war never +was here. But in Somerghem the old church on the hill crowning the town +has been blown up. Its tower gave a view for leagues around, and the +Devil made good use of it when he had a chance and when he had done his +task blew it up lest others should follow his example. The Germans +evacuated the town just before the end of the war; the Belgian army +bombarded it and placed a gas concentration there. It was retaken, but +at the price of a most beautiful church. The inhabitants are all back. +They remember the Tommies and, of course, the Scots. The Gordons in +their kilts made a lasting impression. Somerghem saw much war life +before the enemy marched away, and German soldier life, with its +violently repressive military discipline and its correspondingly lax +morality, was rife. The more perfect their military obedience the less +heed there was of God. + +One sees in these parts not a few war-babies, and worse than these, for +they are innocent enough, one sees war-children in adolescence. The +numbers of depraved young girls is appalling. Perhaps there were many +before the war, but they look rather like war products. How many of them +there are in the beer-houses and backyards of the small towns! It is +difficult to avoid adventures with them. Bertha and Martha, depraved +little rascals, come running along the canal bank, one in clogs, one in +stocking soles. They talk scraps of German and scraps of French, and +make disgusting gestures and throw themselves about in hard, coarse +laughter. Martha is a strong and brazen little hussy with red face and +fat little arms. Bertha is a soft-witted, pallid slip of a girl with +full throat and weak lips. Both have long black finger-nails, both are +in cotton rags; but Bertha has a large yellow festering wound on her +ankle which she says was caused by a bit of shrapnel. Bertha is the +younger. Martha may be sixteen; Bertha would be two years younger. And +Martha would get Bertha into trouble. "Take Bertha!" she says +continually, suggestively making signs. Poor war-children! When the war +began Martha was ten and Bertha was eight. Martha was corrupted in it; +pale, sickly, weak-lipped Bertha, with the shrapnel wound, perhaps not +actually corrupted. When the wound had been examined and their nails cut +they concluded they had met a doctor. + +They scamper away at last. The dark water of the canal flows peacefully +between banks of untarnished green. Nature is unqualified loveliness. +At Somerghem, however, behind this veil there has been war, there has +been something of the curse. One begins to notice in old walls patches +of new brick where shell-holes in human habitations have been cobbled. +Re-pointing is going on. The splash where the splinters of iron rived a +whole house has been sought to be gently erased. The most virtuous work +in the world! But it splashed on to the children too, and who can +re-point the Berthas and the Marthas? + +Enfin, the fair-sized town of Thielt, would-be picturesque but +surprisingly shabby, not clean, not cleaned up, not quite like Belgium. +The dirtiest of all possible hotels, more like a billet than a hotel, +unswept floors, smashed china, supper in a kitchen which does not gleam +like housewife's honour. It is a town unlike Ghent, unlike Bruges. It +has not, however, been much shelled. British and Belgian gunners seem to +have had orders to spare friendly cities. But there is no doubt that +Thielt was in the war. Half its present inhabitants are _revenants_, as +the French call those pitiful spirits who return to the places where +they used to live. Mine host fled to Paris in 1914, and did not make a +fortune there; he talks bitterly of _Bosches_ and compensation. He is +forty-six and set. Six years ago he felt a young man, he says, but +to-day he is not ready to start anything new. + +On then towards Roulers! 'Tis in gloomier country and with poor people. +All high roads are under repair. If shells spared Thielt, they did not +spare the roads. Where British army leather beat the cobbles in that +long march back from Ghent, whistling shells touched later and blew up +the ground that had been beneath their feet. The patient Flemish farmers +hung on to their farms on each side of the shell-pitted road, and their +cattle grazed in the fields with an equanimity that was sublime. For +four years the cannon-thunder never ceased, and every night war flamed +around the heavens, but the men on the soil remained true to the soil +and drove straightly their ploughs. + +Not a few farmers were killed; they also were heroes, for they died at +their posts. But no patriotic cockade marks their humble graves. +Plentiful now are the crosses ornamented with flowers and the red, white +and blue, for those _morts pour la patrie_. Above Ardoye the +first-noticed wayside cemetery of German soldiers appears, and there +lies Franz Delmann, of Chemnitz, and many others who died in November, +1917. It is high up on a ridge beside the position of an old German +battery. How the shells used to howl from this eminence over Roulers, +over Passchendaele and leagues of destruction right into Ypres itself! +Here in old days the grubby war-worn Germans plied the guns, and here +the British guns found their prey also, and our enemies were put to +sleep in this acre of death. Now most of the crosses are down, the +cross-pieces of others have been taken away, part of the field has been +dug up with a spade. For after all the ground is appropriated Belgian +property. It was never paid for and it reverts to its owner, dead and +all. What a pathetic tragedy is that of the dead the Germans left +behind! Each cross, each dead one, refers back to some living family, +some home, some set of human circumstances. What thoughts, what +questions do not go out on the air from obscure homes to the dead who +have been left behind! The reins which go from the living to the dead! + +But enemies take little stock of one another's dead. Roulers, which is +vis-à-vis to Ypres, lay partially destroyed and now it is being builded +up again. If the dead could be made to pay for it the dead would. The +living for the living! Roulers was a fine city once. The creative eye +sees that it can be so again. The British gunners could have laid it +flat as Ypres but they did not. Ypres can never be raised. But Roulers +will be Roulers once again. As one approaches it, behold, what activity. +New houses have sprung up overnight. There are thousands of piles of +bricks. Every Belgian has learned bricklaying. Clerks, shopkeepers, +salesmen, porters, in shirt sleeves and plaster-sprinkled hats, are at +work--_without trade union rules_. Hundreds of thousands of whitish +vermilion flesh-coloured old bricks are being made fit to use again, +new bricks in tiers are apparent in improvised kilns, and all day and +every day sounds the chipping and slapping of real reconstruction. Iron +girders are being fitted into the gutted depths of old shop-fronts, and +with foundations and framework it is marvellous how speedily old houses +are built up. The city is poor. Its many factory chimneys are innocent +of smoke. Roulers for flax! It was famous for its linen industry. Two +Scotch engineers, met at a hotel, are fitting in new machinery in the +factories. Typical uncommunicative Britons, they volunteer no +information, but sit face to face over their meals, lean over their food +and chuckle to one another in private monosyllables. When asked how they +are getting on, one of them replies: + +"Och slowly, man, slowly. They Chairmans didna leave muckle when they +went awa!" + + * * * * * + +And six years ago the Army continued to fall back. Zeebruges whence it +had started, Bruges and Ostende, and Ghent which it had marched through, +became enemy country without much shedding of blood. No one stood long +for their defence. After Roulers the name of a much less famous place +than Bruges or Ghent came on to men's lips. Did they know that they were +going to stand for the defence of it? No, it is all unlikely. And as +they marched to Ypres they providentially did not know the four years' +hell of which they trod the stage. War all over by Christmas was their +thought if they thought at all as they marched o'er the ridge of +Passchendaele in October, 1914. + +The soldier, it is said, has an elementary mind which does not imagine, +does not think--a regimental mind. Others therefore must think about him +and do the thinking for him. See, the dusty khaki-clad regulars as yet +unbaptised by fire, but unknowingly on the brink of annihilation, +treading the ground where + + Few shall part where many meet... + And every turf beneath their feet + Shall be a soldier's sepulchre. + +Thus they marched into Ypres--"as pretty a town as you'd care to see +after a day's march." Oh, it's highly romantic to look back to it now. + + Banners yellow, glorious golden, + On its roof did float and flow. + This, all this, was in the olden time + Long ago. + +The business centre of Ypres was invested with a dignity which was not +merely commercial in those old days when the silver chimes rolled +regularly the quarter-hours from the Cloth Hall tower. And the Army +arrived, the army for the defence of Ypres. They will dig trenches and +throw out wire south of Ypres, looking at Kemmel without knowing its +name, walking on Hill 60 before it was numbered and named. + +A quiet and little marked country south of Roulers now gives way first +to trees not quite dead but sprouting green from black trunks, and then +to blasted trees dead to the core. After a mile or so farm-houses and +cultivation cease and one enters the terrible battle area of +Passchendaele, all pits, all tangled with corroded wire--but now as it +were in tumultuous conflict with Nature. Chiefly remarkable are the +magnificent rushes with their black tops rising from almost every +shell-hole. The stagnancy has not dried up, but festers still in black +rot below the rushes. Double shell-holes, treble shell-holes, charred +ground, great pits, bashed-in dug-outs, all overgrown with the highest +of wild flowers--pink willow-herb, burly St. John's wort in a yellow +glare, starry blue of outbreaking chicory, hundred-headed blossoming +sweet thistles growing from the hollows where fell, I doubt not, +Caledonia's sons, foxgloves flowering upward attempting to take crimson +to heaven. Ypres by the compass lies south-west. No, there is nothing on +the horizon, not a wall, not a wood, only the bare eminence of Kemmel +Hill. Before you is a vast fen. Some Flemings are at work on it in shirt +sleeves, but not a soul is traversing it. You constantly change your +direction: there is no going directly. It is impassable. You make for +what once was a wood; it afforded cover. What is it now--thrice +thrashed and riven, the abode of rats, lizards, weasels, a calamitous +and precipitous abyss covered with wreckage. Unexploded stick-bombs, +rusty grog-bottles, helmets, lie there still in plenty. Weather-beaten +ammunition baskets with shells intact lie where they fell off the +ammunition waggons or where men dropped them. There are broken rifles, +there are graves. There is all but the blood. But from the blood has +risen flowers. + +On the vast waste you come upon houses built of salvage. Duck-boards +have been gathered in, old bits of rusty corrugated iron which sheltered +trenches and kept out rain have been collected by the returned +Flemish--what a return!--and they have made shacks of shreds and +patches. Fierce dogs on chains bark from them; no children venture +forth--there are no children there. Heaps of the jetsam of the +battlefields are in the yards. The uncouth workers are not too pleased +to see any stranger, and look suspiciously at you. They have pistols +ready at need. For these oases in the wilderness are not unvisited by +robbers, and thieves lurk in old holes in the ground. It has needed +courage to come back to your old ten acres. Few of these Flemish are +owners; they are only tenants. Their landlords allow them now three +years rent free. From the hut made of salvage starts the regeneracy of +the land. In an irregular patch round its gates lies the first reclaimed +ground, a mere kail yard, a bean plot. There are wonderful crops of +beans, higher than beans are wont to grow, bean-stalks to climb up. +Tobacco also has been growing, for the leaves hang wilting from green to +yellow on the outside of the unpainted wooden walls. But beyond the +oasis the tall black-topped reeds, like Guardsmen of the vegetable +world, go rank beyond rank to the eyes' end. One comes to a road, and +there is what was Zonnebeke resurrected in a tail of diminutive cabins +each roofed with corrugated iron, each numbered as a claim for +reparation. Not a few of the houses are named thus:--"In den Niewen +wereld." Half of them seem to be estaminets. + +It is the same at Becelaere. The people earn a living drinking beer in +one another's estaminets. + +"I wouldn't never have come back had I known it was like this," says a +Belgian woman. "I had good job at Rouen all the war, make plenty money, +not like this." + +"How was that?" + +"Me cook in sergeants' mess, huh, plenty food, plenty money." + +"That's where you learned English?" + +"Yes." + +There were two British Tommies drinking beer at the estaminet, one an +R.E. the other an R.F. both talking knowingly about the old war. They +had a motor-lorry which was waiting outside. + +"Take a lift?" said they. + +"Where to?" + +"Polygon Wood." + +To be on one of those old blundering kindly quixotic lorries again, +pounding along a war-stricken highway! One might have thought the old +lorry had now ceased its devils' dance. But no, it still has a duty to +perform. Presently we pass a red-cross ambulance. + +"Got any to-day?" cries the R.E. to the driver of the ambulance. + +He puts up two fingers. + +"Two ..." says the soldier with an air of satisfaction. "We found a +brigadier-general yesterday," he adds. + +"How do you mean?" + +"Ex-umed 'im. He'd bin missin' since 1916. All this no-man's land bein' +dug up now," said he with a wide sweep of his hand. + +"That your job? It's pretty interesting." + +"It's jolly hard work. But it 'as its better side. Some fellers the +other day came on a dug-out with three officers in it, and they picked +up five thousand francs between 'em." + +The motor-lorry blundered forward toward a stone obelisk planted on a +man-made hillock. On one side was a swamp of green stagnant water; on +the other was a planting out of many hundred crosses of unvarnished +wood. The lorry is full of crosses each named and numbered, roped up in +scores, and these must be dumped inside the enclosure. + +The view from the Polygon monument is desolation on all sides. One +living man standing there is as it were monarch of all the dead. It is a +remarkable eminence, a pillar at Thermopylæ, one thing standing where +all else is lying flat. As it stands to-day it has no inscription. +Polygon--myriad-sided--it is one of the strangest standing places and +shrines of the war. Pause thou who livest: salute the dead! + + * * * * * + +Back thunders the empty lorry--on to the Menin road--and faces Ypres. +You see the grey contour of the tower afar, but doubt whether you are +approaching a city, so flat has all become. Yet certainly it is Ypres. +You enter by a series of new-painted wooden taverns and hotels. You walk +up a wide main street and there is Ypres---- + +A great dust storm is raging here whilst the sun shines out of a perfect +sky. Here are no rushes, no wild flowers, no moisture, but only infinite +debris and the shatterings of old masonry. There is a suggestion of the +desert. A notice says "THIS IS HOLY GROUND" and a barbed wire fence runs +round the whole centre of old Ypres. Within that enclosure lies a ruined +city. Thousands of years ago such a thing happened; all the people were +slain or taken into bondage. No one came back, the victors went away, +and the ruins remained glaring in the sands--centuries, millenniums. +That is the impression of Ypres to-day. It is grim and moving. It is +like the Pyramids. At least a hundred thousand dead lie round it--an +inner circle of the dead and an outer circle of decay. Looking on those +spacious sun-steeped, sand-blown ruins one's mind is inevitably taken to +the East, and a sense of Shelley's poem comes to one-- + + My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, + Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. + +Yet six years ago the Cloth Hall tower chimed the quarter-hours! The +road out from the Menin gate was shady. Polygon Wood was a wood, not a +monument. There was seemingly a château near a wood called Hooge. +Zandwoorde Church had a spire. Behold the army however digging itself +in. There are rudimentary lines of defence making a spider's web across +the Menin road. The Twentieth Brigade flounders from Zandwoorde to +Gheluvelt in newly upturned earth. The Germans who followed so rapidly +to Ghent and Thielt and Roulers are hot on the trail, expecting Ypres +also to be left to them without a blow. But they have not arrived. Our +men are sitting on the parapets of their trenches, singing. There have +been no casualties to mention, a few men lost sight of; three sentries +in fact left unrelieved at Ghent. There is a battalion of Guards in the +line at Klein Zillebeke, and not one has yet been killed or wounded. A +battle is coming, however, for the retirement has ceased. + +You turn out of Ypres by the left hand on a road which faces Kemmel +Hill--the Wytschaete road, and you come to a flattened-out village at +cross-roads, called Kruistraat. Where were once ploughed fields is now a +land-ocean of humps and hollows with a foam of wild flowers. Plunging +toward Voormezeele one is intoxicated by a perfume and looking to the +right you see the cause in a field of thistles as thick and close as +wheat. At what was Voormezeele there is now nothing more remarkable than +the crosses of the P.P.C.L.I. the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light +Infantry, who evidently went down in the most terrible way in 1915. Were +not these the Canadians who first tasted the devilry of gas? + +Cemeteries soon become all too frequent and unremarkable. At Klein +Zillebeke there is an Englishwoman going from grave to grave diligently +examining the aluminium ribbons on which the names are fixed to the +wooden crosses--looking perhaps for her husband's grave but with an +expression in her face and form of "They have taken away my Lord, and I +know not where they have laid Him." + +Virbranden Molen, where many encamped, is but a name now, and eastward +the wire-covered duck-boards climb across the rushes and thistles to +what was once a front line, past derelict limbers with rusty broken +wheels, past unexploded five-nines--the wildest way. Reeds have filled +the trenches, grass long and withered swarms o'er the parapets. There +are heaps of rusty Mills bombs which no one has ever come to take away +and no one will; there are ration-tins; there is all manner of army +rubbish everywhere. Pilgrims and tourists evidently collect few +souvenirs on the old Ypres front, and few Americans as yet arrive at +Ypres, which has for them a lesser fame than Château Thierry and Verdun. + +In October, 1914, the line was far in advance of what became such a +carnage-strewn battlefield. Here is the railway cutting, then in supreme +peace, and beyond it is a pale British monument inscribed with many +names, though already defaced--to the memory of a lost mining and +tunnelling company that took a sudden way to heaven before the war was +won. Beyond it is a first German grave, where lie Fleully, Beck, +Dechert, Mehlhorn, and an unknown, and helmets and old bombs strew the +place where they lie. Klein Zillebeke is now marked by a huge concrete +fort. Zandwoorde and Kruisseecke, which were scenes of hand-to-hand +fighting in 1914, soon fell into German hands and remained within the +enemy's lines throughout the war. The old church at Zandwoorde cannot +now be identified by any ruins--one has to ask where it was. Even the +bricks and the stones seem to have been swept away, but there are three +graves there, Captain Rose and Lieutenant Turnor, of the Tenth Hussars, +and a private soldier nameless and unknown, a sort of batman in death. +An estaminet has jumped up like a weed beside the ruins but it has +little trade. Zandwoorde was once a substantial little place but now +perhaps it will not grow again so readily--it is off the main road and +not served by rail. Kruisseecke will be bigger. On October 21st the +Gordons drove the Germans back from Zandwoorde at the point of the +bayonet. On that day the church tower was twice struck by shells. That +was about the beginning of the history. + +The old trenches 'twixt Zandwoorde and Gheluvelt are worn down and +perhaps were never very deep. The shell-holes are much deeper. The land +is desolate and all o'ergrown but it affords a scene of lesser +desolation. The exhumers are patiently seeking for the dead who were +left behind--the old dead of that first battle. It is ghoulish work, but +they have become as matter of fact as can be. + +"No, we don't find many Gordons. But we're picking up a lot o' Borders +just now. Yes, and some Grenadiers. Brought in about thirty Borders +yesterday. It isn't a bad job if they'd pay us more. We gets used to it. +They say as how the Americans won't have the British touch their dead +and have given the job over to the French. Fifteen thousand of them to +be boxed and stuffed--there's a lot of work in that." + +"You must dig up a fair number of Germans. What do you do with them?" + +"Leave them where they are. We notifies the authorities, that's all. Of +course Jerry buried most of his own, and I'll give him credit for that, +he gave every man his eight feet. You don't so easy come across a man +the Germans buried, but some of ours----" + +The weather-beaten Tommy, in old flannel shirt and sagging breeches, +waved his hand and grinned with mirth at our British ways. + +"'S a funny thing though--the British dead keep much longer than the +Germans. If I put a spade through something and it's soft, I know it's a +Jerry." + +"They say the body of a drunkard keeps fresh longest of all because of +the spirit in it." + +"Yes, that's true. And if buried in an oilskin it makes a heap of +difference. But it's queer what you find. We came on a fellow the other +day with a bayonet through his jaw. He'd been buried that way. No one +could get the bayonet out----" + +"Aren't the Germans doing anything to keep their dead? The Belgians +would look after them if they got a hint from Berlin that it would be +worth while." + +"Oh, we'd bury them like Christians if they'd give us another +half-crown on our wages. We ain't got nothing agin 'em--specially the +dead." + +"Do you sleep out here on this battlefield?" + +"We bin 'ere six months now." + +"No ghosts?" + +The man smiled. He saw none. He felt the presence of none. Imagination +did not pull his heart-strings. If it did, he would go mad. + + * * * * * + +Lying in an old trench behold a skull! It is clean and polished--a +soldier's head, low and broad at the brows, high at the back. There is a +frayed hole in an otherwise perfect cranium. The simplest way to pick it +up would be to put a finger in an eye-hole and lift it. You must put +both hands together and raise it fearfully if it be the first skull you +have ever found.... Friend or foe? Hm--there are no identification marks +on this. Thinking anything about it all? No, nothing--long since ceased +to think. Friends living? Probably, somewhere. The more you look at the +skull the more angry does it seem--it has an intense eternal grievance. +This one does not grin, for the mouth has been destroyed. It is just +blind and senseless for ever and ever. + +Such is the Golgotha of Zandwoorde. Gheluvelt, the other end of the +line, has now a diminutive yellow tower of new wood from an improvised +church. Kruisseecke is a rusty-roofed, ramshackle, salvage-built +settlement on the site of complete ruin. You see the yellow tower of +Gheluvelt from all around, and like a livid finger the monument at +Polygon Wood is seen far o'er the battlefields pointing to heaven. + + * * * * * + +In the whole complex story of the battle of Ypres, where so many +regiments were engaged in such diverse parts of the field, with all +their varying calamities and triumphs, it is only possible to realise +the story in glimpses and aperçus. A thousand dramas were being enacted +simultaneously in a clamour so great that no neighbour understood what +was happening to his neighbour. Tragedy was accomplished, swiftly and as +it were privately. A dreadful way of speaking was begotten afterwards, +and men said "He got _his_ at Polygon Wood," or "he got _his_ at the +Château," or "_his_ at Kruisseecke." + +Our gallant marchers, with the confetti as it were still sticking to +them, have seen a great deal of Belgium, have been greatly excited, have +reached Ypres with numbers intact, have taken their stand four feet deep +in the clay of the fields of Zandwoorde and have taken a look round. +They have been shelled. The shells have been falling irrelevantly--far +from them. The first man to perish is a colour-sergeant, who, taking a +stroll, gets shot by accident by an over-hasty sentry. The +colour-sergeant did not quite realise the war till then. Others also did +not realise the silent symbol of the fact that in fighting others you +start by killing yourselves. Next to die is a drummer-boy, killed by a +shell on the way to a hamlet called America, a kilometre beyond +Kruisseecke. With what pathos was that dead boy considered! For he was a +child of the Army. Drummer-boys are nearly always orphans, or boys +without homes, brought up in barracks, taught in the Army school, with +the Army for father and mother, the Army for God, the Army for nurse. +Little drummer-boy dead on the way to America--the first to go West! It +is a matter for pause, for a sad thought. If, however, the dead meet one +another in the other world, as so many now believe, the boy will soon be +comforted, for within the week scores of friends, hundreds of +acquaintances, will join him. See a reconnaissance at Polygon Wood and +Eskernest! Out of a whole company, only twenty-five come back. Its +commander killed. Another company half destroyed--its commander killed +also. Two captains buried side by side near a much-shelled +house--rudimentary wooden crosses put o'er their resting-place. They +were eager impetuous captains who had chafed to wait in England all +August and September. Their minds were full of what the war really +meant. But so soon are they sped! For four years the agony of Ypres +beginning in these days will roll impotently on whilst they lie there, +and the war with its gossip, its articles and speeches, its new +inventions and new bitternesses will go on. God loved them and removed +them betimes from the scene. + +Yet if they see, if they can hear and know from other realms, what a +spectacle, what an intense interest is theirs. To see the remains of +their own poor companies of soldiers march back to Zandwoorde--the "not +the six hundred," to see the ever-encroaching German and the more and +more intimate and terrible strife proceed. The grand emotions of pity +and fear thrill the air as the tumultuous battle goes on.... + +The shell-fire ceases to be irrelevant and finds its mark, turns whole +brigades out of their trenches; reinforcements move with the +acceleration of a moving ant-heap which has been kicked over. False news +comes and confounds true news. The Borders are said to have given way. +Guards and Gordons go to their support. Weak points change to strong +points, strong to weak. Columns of assault are launched by the enemy, +first on one point, then on another. A column breaks through at +Kruisseecke at nightfall. The madness of the murder-excitement enters +the trenches, and it is bayonet to bayonet; the rain streams down to +mingle with blood, it is intensely dark, many have lost their clearness +of mind and balance of nerve. But there is a counter-attack. Gallant +Major F----, leading, is shot down; there is a dreadful mêlée and then +silence. The enemy is winning his way. Nevertheless patrols in +Kruisseecke round up a large number and take them prisoner. There is a +dispute as to who is to have the merit of having taken the prisoners. +But what does that matter? Round about this village is confusion worse +confounded. Germans appear dressed up as Gordon Highlanders, then +Gordons are thought to be Germans in disguise. Strange masses roll up +through the rain looking not at all like Germans and crying "We are +French."--"We are Allies"--"Don't shoot"--"Where is Captain P----?" "We +surrender," and things of that kind. The survivors of a Staffordshire +regiment devoid of officers, officers all down and out, come pelting +through the lines having thrown their rifles away. German yells of +victory break out.... It is a terrible night, one night, one little +corner of the ground outside the city. Dawn comes, and Kruisseecke is +with the enemy. It remains with the enemy. And there for many the march +from Zeebruges ends and a personal war history is concluded. The torch +of war has been carried thus far, to the battle of Ypres. The spent +runner gives it to another who carries it in turn-- + + * * * * * + +Back then to Ypres! It is an exposed moorland way. No woods, no houses +stop the even progress of the wind. The trees are stumps no higher than +Venetian masts. Instead of crops in the fields--crosses, an enormous +harvest. Along the Menin road a steam tram rolls. At the entrance to +Ypres is the communal cemetery of the city. Here, around the pre-war +Belgian dead, lie Hussars, Lancers, Dragoon Guards, Scots Guards, all +officers, all of the 1914 fighting. There they were lowered into graves +with the flag about them--there they remain. In this acre of death the +high wooden crucifix still stands, with its riven agonised Lord looking +down. Of the hundreds of thousands of shells which fell in Ypres all +spared Him--all but one which came direct and actually hit the Cross. +That one did not explode but instead, half-buried itself in the wood and +remains stuck in the upright to this day--an accidental symbol of the +power of the Cross. + + * * * * * + +Ypres is terribly empty. Hundreds of thousands of eyes would look on it +but there are few people who come to look at it--just ones and twos who +stand diminutively in front of the great ruins and peer at them like the +conventional figures in an old print. This absence of the living +intensifies the strange atmosphere. It is said that the city will build +itself up again, but it is possible to feel some doubt on that point. +Perhaps Ypres will never be built again. At present it has some hundred +and fifty places where they sell beer to two where they sell anything +else. Its string of wooden hotels with cubicle bedrooms do not pay. The +curious come for an hour or so from Ostende but do not spend the night. +There is a sense of emptiness and tragedy which cannot be dispelled. +Some sort of unit of British troops does duty instead of police and is +posted to various guards, the sentries being however without rifles. The +soldiers in their "sixth year" impart a certain liveliness. A party of +them at night coming down the middle of the street singing + + One word of thine, + Tell the world you are mine, + And the world will be dearer to me, + +in a full-throated chorus wakens echoes from dark corners of the ruins. +There is music and dancing in favoured taverns. The returned Belgians do +not perhaps belong naturally to the atmosphere of the sublime. They love +beer and sociality. They will make their money by some means--they are +not too particular how. Civilised ethics do not rule in these places +where war has worked its will. + +Strolling along at dusk past the Cloth Hall tower a bright-eyed Belgian +wolf asks you who you are. "_C'est triste, n'est ce pas?_" says he, +pointing to the ruins. _Triste_ is what they are not. The Belgian is +from Poperinghe. It is very dull there now. _Tous les soldats sont +partis._ Also the mamzelles. Pas de jig-a-jig. + +"Like a glass of beer?" asks the Belgian. + +A spare woman of thirty serves two glasses of ale at a table outside a +hotel. She seems to speak English for preference. + +"You want someone to sleep with?" asks the man from Poperinghe. + +"No, I sleep with no man." + +"Not married?" + +"No, and plenty time yet, and I shan't marry an English when I do. The +English are all false." + +The man from Poperinghe seems taken aback. At a further table a curious +scene is being enacted. Here are sitting a pioneer corporal and a +sergeant, both wearing the 1914 ribbon. They have their beer, and +between them is an effervescent loose-mouthed Alsatian. The latter, like +the man from Poperinghe, stands treat. + +"I vill take you, one minit, I vill take you," says the Alsatian, +kissing the tips of his fingers, "just vait, not ten minits from 'ere." + +"Oh you go on, you bloomin' well shut up. I b'lieve you're agent for the +girl or something," says the sergeant. + +"No, listen, I'll tell you vot it is.... C'est de gateau, got that, +gateau; naw need to drink any coffee, just ten minits, you see for +yourself." + +The sergeant makes a mocking show of biffing him in the eye, and grins +all over his weak sun-burnt face. The shoeing corporal sips at his beer +and smirks. The Alsatian on the tips of his toes, leaning forward on +his chair which is tilted toward the table, gesticulates and slobbers-- + +"You wait till you see her, you'll felicitation yourself...." + +And the sergeant is persuaded against his will and goes with him. +Meanwhile dusk has grown to dark, and the ruined Cloth Hall tower on the +other side of the way seems more gloomy, more moody and threatening, as +if the war were not yet over. + +This Ypres is a terrible place still. There is no life when night comes +on but tavern life. Those who live and work here have lost their sense +of proportion. They are out of focus somehow. "You lookin' for dead +soldiers," says a Flemish woman to you with a glaring stare, wondering +if you are one of the exhumers. Death and the ruins completely outweigh +the living. One is tilted out of time by the huge weight on the other +end of the plank, and it would be easy to imagine someone who had no +insoluble ties killing himself here, drawn by the lodestone of death. +There is a pull from the other world, a drag on the heart and spirit. +One is ashamed to be alive. You try to sleep in a little bed in a +cubicle with tiny doll's house window. You listen to a drunken company +down below singing, "Mademoiselle, have you got any rum?" A French +couple enter the room next door, smacking one another's hips and +confounding one another with coarse violent laughter--that is the light +end of the plank. Then night ensues, the real night, breathless and +sepulchral, the night which belongs to all lost hopes and ended lives +and wearinesses. + +You lie listless, sleepless, with Ypres on the heart, and then suddenly +a grand tumult of explosion, a sound as of the tumbling of heavy +masonry. You go to the little window, behold, the whole sky is crimson +once more, and living streamers of flame ascend to the stars. An old +dump has gone up at Langhemarcq. Everyone in Ypres looks out and then +returns to sleep--without excitement. The lurid glare dies down; +stertorous night resumes her sway o'er the living and the dead. For a +moment it was as if the old war had started again. + + * * * * * + +Day dawns in a mist. A veil hides the inner reality of Ypres, and as a +visitor says--"It looks more picturesque in the mist." Ypres however is +an altar to which the nation must return. + + * * * * * + +After the great battle most of the survivors marched away. New men took +their places. Glorious captains received their D.S.O.'s, battalions +their first honours. A mere thirty thousand of the old army had stemmed +the onrush of a quarter of a million of the enemy. Ypres remained in +British hands--though badly battered, and the Germans were kept back +from the vital ground of Calais. + +At Chateau Wood near Hooge where a placard now says "THIS PLACE WAS +HOOGE" were the remains of many battalions--Grenadiers, Duke of +Wellingtons, Scots Fusiliers; along the Menin road lay Scots Guards, +Borders, Gordons; but all were withdrawn. The Scots marched then to +Dickebusch and Locre and Bailleul, and then to Sailly sur la Lys, and +were out of the battle line ten murky days at least. + +Now as you walk out from Ypres along the blighted Dickebusch road midst +the iron thorn bushes of rusty barbed wire and sheaves of old spiral +stakes you still see large notices that WASTE LENGTHENS THE WAR--what +stronger appeal could one make! Does it not still prolong it and ever +will! + +A south wind blows volumes of rain out of the clouds on Kemmel Hill, the +old mud is restored on the road, and long plashy pools of water guide +the steps. Dickebusch is getting itself dug out of the mud, and making +fair progress. Of its church amid broken monuments only two needles of +up-jutting wall remain--at altar and entrance. New La Clytte is +soldering itself to the foundations of old La Clytte. Kemmel grows +nearer to the view and all the detail of its hillside can be picked out +by the eye--the wheat field, the pasture, the farm-house. It is one's +eye-neighbour on the left as you march into Locre. Now the Locre +church, unscathed in 1914, unthreatened, is but a heap of red rubble +surmounted by eight beams pointing skyward. Men are digging among the +bricks, uncovering soiled images, figures of the Virgin, altar cloths, +banners, stools. Near by stands a rusty cast-iron church built of +salvage, a straight Protestant meeting house but for some brand-new +coloured effigies of saints set among the seats. One aspect of Locre is +of a diminutive forest of stinging nettles and low stumps of dead trees, +and beyond lie some hundreds of British dead, flanked by a disused +medical shed where the bodies used to be brought out and a burying padre +with clayey hands went through the painfully mechanical service of +throwing "dust to dust." The graves are nicely kept, and the young +Belgium of Locre grows up with this heritage of sacrifice. As you sit on +the ruins of the church looking down to the wet highway muddy +velocipedists come pelting past in a race round their native land. Their +bare thighs are caked with brown mud, and their cotton chemises are +stuck to their bare round-shouldered backs, their intent faces are +dirt-covered--on they dash, a complete and happy irrelevance beside the +old war. + +Here is the frontier 'twixt Belgium and France. A rope is drawn across +the road; there was none in the days of the war. The customs gendarmes +will examine you if you are coming into Belgium, though they will pay +little attention if you are going out. + +The landscape is one of black dead trees hanging dead arms. Old blown-up +trees lie, root and all, along the roadside. There are great numbers of +sockets of old gas-shells relating to the taking of Locre by the Germans +in April 1918, heaps also of rusty rifle grenades which seem to have +been collected and put by the side of the road. Remarkable ever are the +promiscuously piled mountains of domestic old iron which one passes. It +would be an interesting exercise for a young detective to decide what +each piece of wreckage had been before the war. Certain things you can +be sure about however--oil-drums, coal-scuttles, wash-bowls, chamber +conveniences, armchair and sofa springs, metal guts of mattresses, +perforated bowls for straining greens, coffee-pots, mangling and washing +machines, scales, canisters, salvers--a clean sweep for every farm-house +and every village. And in the new houses there is scarcely one saved +utensil carried forward. Among the new articles introduced one may +remark china casts of Charlie Chaplin in gala attire. + +The frontier land is hilly. One skirts the upland of which Mount Kemmel +on the left is the most prominent feature. It is three or four +kilometres from the rope of the frontier to the French line of douane +and its customs-gendarmes. One looks down to the first town in France, +Bailleul, and it looks like a picture which someone has drawn and then +crossed out with black lines and smudged. As one approaches, this is +found to be the residential suburb or park called L'asile, with +grandiose buildings, now an appalling wreck with not one redeeming new +patch upon it. Heaps of debris stand higher than houses, and houses +which have not fallen have as it were been pushed forward upon one +another. The frontier gendarmes examine your passport and you are free +in France. You see the first diminutive huts of the French returned +refugees, and then in the mud of the street, urchins playing bat and +ball with a slowly-expiring frog which they hold by one dangling leg, +and toss to the boy with the bat. A few steps further and it is +Bailleul. + +Bailleul too is a great wreck as remarkable as Ypres, and its progress +of recuperation is much slower. It does not cater for war pilgrims or +take the money of tourists, and so there are no prominent hotels and few +estaminets. Most of its houses are down, its ways are choked with ruin, +and in the evening nondescript squads of workmen shuffle through the +streets to their homes in barracks and cellar. + + * * * * * + +Still the old Army of 1914 marches on. When it entered Bailleul all was +calm. Its great red-brick houses stood fairly and uncracked. The people +had had a fright, but they held on. They held on through years of the +war, and though the guns kept pounding away at them they did not wholly +abandon it till 1918 when the Germans seized the town as part fruit of +their second great Spring attempt to end the war. Then it was "fort +abimée." The owners all fled, and what they left an enemy army +ransacked. + +Thousands of officers and men were snugly billeted in November 1914 at +Locre and Bailleul and Meteren. Sir John French came and chatted with +men in the billets--about the battle of Ypres. New drafts came out from +England. There had been a clearance of reservists and first volunteers. +Each stricken battalion received its half a thousand to make up. +Practically new units were organised for the winter defence of the new +lines, and when the time was come they marched three leagues nearer to +their enemy--to Sailly sur la Lys and Laventie and Neuf Berquin, +Estaires--such names of destiny! When the King came to Sailly sur la Lys +at the end of November he could not see his guardsmen because they were +already in the fighting line and it was thought it would be unsoldierly +to call them back for the King to see, to which the King agreed. + +The flowers are withered, the thistles which gave their fragrance to the +air at Ypres are white with down. Peasants everywhere are scything weeds +and burning them in smoking heaps. But the trenches beyond Sailly are +still shaggy-topped with teazle crowns and woolly nettle heads. One +wonders how many different units at what different times occupied those +1914 trenches. Here still, one picks up old blue water-bottles and faded +green straps and pouches of British uniforms. They are poor +trenches--the mere staves that lined them to keep up the mud are all +warped and good dug-outs are few. + +The Germans of course swept o'er all this in 1918. Witness the "busted" +concrete telegraph posts growing dozens of rusty iron wires from their +stumps, witness the lumpy solid cement-bags by the side of the road. But +between 1914 and 1918 what a history! A little way beyond the British +line is a cemetery called "V.C. corner." There are two hundred and +thirty crosses and on every cross is exactly the same legend--"G.R.U. +Unknown Australian soldier." There is no name in the whole of the +cemetery. Some time some band of Australians charged here and did not +come back and were not taken prisoner. Old rifles with broken rusty +bayonets have been placed against the white-washed cross-surmounted +entrance. Not many paces on one comes to the German line wrought in +impregnable concrete, a line of snug beds in which it seems one might +comfortably await the Last Day. But one concrete structure has been +mined and looks as if it had been thrown bodily into the air without +flying into bits. Now it stands poised upside down on a heap of dirt +beside a profound pit. The Germans who were there when that happened are +nearer now to the unknown Australian soldiers than we are. + +In 1914 there was none of this concrete. Both sides were equal in the +mud, and the same no-man's land lay between. Even the wire had not been +thrown out--or was of a most rudimentary kind. Friend and foe heard one +another talking from across the wet fields--even called to one another +and were without especial bitterness. On the right and towards Laventie +a nervous Indian division kept up a heavy rifle fire all night long, but +otherwise the war was mild. Frost-bite harmed more than iron. The first +night raids were planned--sporting expeditions in which the thrills were +sufficiently novel. Pleasantries were often exchanged with the enemy who +was found to be possessed of plenty of English slang, and occasionally +an English soldier who knew some German risked being thought a spy by +his comrades and replied. + +Someone however planned a sharp attack on Lille. It was really the +predecessor of the battle of Neuve Chapelle and should be called perhaps +the battle of Fromelles. But it was completely abortive and the details +were removed from public news--the first and last night attack of its +kind. The date was exactly one week before Christmas, and looking at +that narrow strip of no-man's land in which the attack spent itself one +realises afresh how ineffectual were all these little battles of the +war. Men died: that was all their effect. + +The attack was timed to start at six in the evening. Men were hoisted to +the parapets and lay flat awaiting a signal, the blowing of a whistle. +At the sound of the whistle they stood up and walked slowly and +cautiously forward not to disturb the Germans. The moment the enemy +discerned them and fired they were to rush forward as one man and enter +the German trenches. Some men walked hand in hand; some unfortunately +lost their heads and ran forward at once. The night was black as pitch +and full of the unknown. It was not long before the enemy began to fire, +and men dropped rapidly, leaving the inevitable gaps and disconnections +in the line. It is incredible to realise it: the affair lasted all night +long, and scarcely anyone knew where anyone else was. But back and forth +they ranged in that fatal width of eighty yards of no-man's land, and in +one battalion alone a hundred and eighty men were lost. As was to be +expected, the troops were highly complimented and medals were +plentifully awarded to the heroes who survived. Lille was safe as ever. +Little Fromelles, just behind the enemy lines, was safe as Lille. The +dead lay in front of the German trenches, and the foe carried some of +them to the graveyard at Fromelles and buried them. But seven days +later, on the Christmas Day armistice, many still lay green on the +green earth where they had fallen. + +A curious day in the war--that first twenty-fifth of December. It was +surely a moment of hope after great suffering and in the midst of the +great anxiety. Probably all the nations engaged felt horrified by what +they had done, and a sort of penitence ranged in men's minds, a belated +regret that a better way than war had not been found to solve Europe's +problems. By most of the private soldiers and young officers it was +fervently believed that all would be over soon. And away at home there +was such idealistic hope as that the soldiers on both sides might +unanimously refuse to fight and that thus war might die of old age and +prove that it had truly been an anachronism. Immense new armies were +drilling in England, France, Germany, Russia, but they would never be +needed. Germany would speedily be forced back to the Rhine and would +capitulate, indemnifying France and Belgium handsomely and owning +herself in the wrong. Our armies held the Germans on the West and the +enemy was short of shells. The Russian "steamroller" was at work on the +other side of Europe, and men were betting one another that Przemysl +would fall before the New Year. Germany also was short of food, and our +sea power would cause her to starve. In Germany on the other hand, a +sense of great military superiority prompted the thought that soon all +the enemies of the Fatherland would be crushed. + +Despite the details of atrocities on both sides there was not the extent +of international bitterness that existed later. There was much talk of +an armistice, and there would have been official sanction for a general +temporary peace if Germany had not been so deeply distrusted. As it was, +there was a cessation of hostilities in many parts of the line and +meetings of enemies which amounted to fraternisation. This first +Christmas was the only one on which there was innocent and bloodless +armistice. Next year men were killed; and in 1916 despite the hopes of +rank and file there were few handshakes, few interchanges of civility +and greeting. + +But the first Christmas Day was a holiday. A party of Germans came over +from Fromelles and a party of ours went over to the German trenches. +Here in this narrow no-man's land where but a week ago had been that +"clash by night," foes met as friends. The Germans agreed to bring over +those of the dead which had not been buried. This was a matter of great +solemnity. The grey German soldiers put the bodies on stretchers and +brought them to the midst of no-man's land. Graves were dug there and +then. Detachments of British and German troops formed up in line, and a +German and an English chaplain read prayers alternately in the two +languages. It must have been heart-rending for our fellows to look on +the faces of the dead they knew so well, some of whom had set out for +the attack in such high spirits. And they lay with their terrible +wounds, the silent and ghastly fruits of the war, and it seemed they had +nothing in common with Christmas and the festival of peace and goodwill. + +The arrangements for the armistice had been made in this way. On the +night of Christmas Eve the German trenches were lit up with lanterns and +there was much singing of carols and popular German music. Now and then +there would be shouting across at the British lines, Christmas wishes +and attempts to enter into conversation. Early on Christmas morning one +of our scouts went out accordingly and met a German patrol. The latter +gave him a glass of whisky and some cigars with a message that if we +didn't fire at them they wouldn't fire at us. There had been no firing +since nightfall and an armistice was agreed to. At about dawn a party of +Germans came over to our wire fence and a party of our men went out to +meet them. The meeting was most friendly, and there was a general +exchange of small souvenirs and much mirth. Out of their abundance our +men gave the Germans of their Christmas puddings which were received +with great appreciation. Cigarettes were smoked, and there was much +conversation in which Tommy made himself understood and the German +mustered all his English. They all said they were tired of the war but +were convinced Germany would soon win. One or two had lived in England, +one even had an English wife, another had had an English sweetheart in +Suffolk, and these were very eager to get back, so they said. The German +opinion about the war was that France was on her last legs; Russia had +had a tremendous defeat in Poland and would soon be ready to make peace. +England remained to be broken, but with France and Russia out of the way +it would not be difficult to come to terms. They thought the war might +come to an end in January, 1915, in the following month. They professed +to hate their officers but were evidently afraid of them. It was clear +that discipline was carried further in the German army than in ours and +that it was very much harsher. + +The German officers, without tokens of rank, seemed much less at ease +than their men and were inclined to observe a sort of official silence. +One pointed to the dead and said in French "Les braves!" indicating a +reverence for fallen foes. Another volunteered the information that the +officers who had died a week ago had been buried in the graveyard at +Fromelles. There were dignified exchanges of tokens of remembrance among +officers--not very convincing perhaps as evidence of brotherly love, but +there was no mistaking the good-humour and camaraderie of rank and file +which continued all the while. + +What a sad moment when officers saluted and the men marched back to +continue the bitterness and folly of Europe's suicide. And _feu de joie_ +at midnight and massed choruses of carol singing! Christmas 1914 how far +away wert thou from happiness and peace! + +And Fromelles church on the hill has been rased to the ground. The +English dead have been taken away--only French remain, and amidst the +great smash-up of tombstones are seven or eight wooden crosses for +Chasseurs Alpins and French dragoons. + +So 1914 passed and the new year opened with a long war penitence when in +two months a battalion in the line lost but four or five men. Both sides +were short of shells and were saving themselves for the Spring. We shall +march soon to Neuve Chapelle. Meanwhile men are practising in the use of +the jam-tin and the hair-brush bombs--for the British army went to war +without a bomb, despised bombs. It went also without helmets, without +metal hats. Men went to war in service hats. It will take some +maniac-(sic) patriot to jump from the gallery of the House of Commons +into the midst of dreaming politicians, yelling "Give them metal +helmets" ere something of the kind be furnished. There are now +proceeding rehearsals of a battle behind the lines. Neuve Chapelle is +being thoroughly rehearsed against a dummy foe. The power of shrapnel to +destroy barbed wire is being tried--the verdict being that the narrower +the front attacked the more chance of completely destroying the wire. As +the war was eventually decided on the broadest of fronts, so the new +phase of the war which started with Neuve Chapelle was begun on the +narrowest of fronts. Be it noted, a continuation of the grand strategic +movements of 1914 has already been rendered impracticable by the +organisation of trench defences. + +On March 10th was the first concentration on the enemy's line, the first +attempt to pierce it. Behold the once crowded breastworks on the road to +Aubers and Neuve Chapelle. The great shaggy earthwork is covered with +dense thistle now. There are mounds of filled sand-bags all hanging in +clots like shirt-tails of innumerable men. This was the jumping-off +point for the attack. It was bristling with tense excited soldiers that +wild March morning, but no one lives there now--only swarms of +whispering grasshoppers. The earth-wave goes on across the flat country; +it is uncontrollably wild, and the peasants who work on the fields +before and in front of it have left it alone as a work of despair to +clear. It looks like an old Roman line. + +It is pitiful and pathetic now to walk to Neuve Chapelle and +Aubers--where officers clutched their revolvers, and men with bayonets +fixed thought their last thoughts of home whilst they plunged perchance +to death. All the German defences are in concrete--the wonderful 1916 +concrete, massive, impregnable. At Aubers there are six hundred and +eighty block-houses of concrete, with walls three feet thick. There are +impudent watch-towers of it. + +The roadway, still littered with shrapnel and fragments of rifles and +bombs, crawls across disintegrated Nature to ramshackle Neuve Chapelle, +and then there is that beautiful wood beyond, so often sketched, not +dead, leafing from all its trunks. As one looks on its lacework of +loveliness set against the sky one thinks of a martyr whose faith has +been proved--rescued from fire in time to avert destruction. + +Neuve Chapelle however was no victory as also it was no defeat. =GOOD +NEWS TO-NIGHT= said the placards of the London papers, but what had +happened was merely a rehearsal with many accidents. The fighting lasted +three days. The enemy gave as much as he took. Men spent the night in +trenches waist-deep in water, and were shelled mercilessly. They got up +prematurely to attack; to face fires of execution--the serried array of +the enemy's machine gunnery. Did not a battalion of Guards lose three +officers and a hundred men whilst speeding over a mere hundred and fifty +yards? On the other hand certainly German positions were isolated and +hundreds of foemen walked demurely into captivity behind the British +lines. + +You will look in vain for the graves of thousands of heroes. The bodies +have been taken far away, but Neuve Chapelle has its cemetery of exhumés +covered with brown level-raked earth behind a fertile beanfield. Captain +Sir Edward Hulse, hero of a night raid at Fromelles, lies buried by the +wayside, and he died at Neuve Chapelle. As for German dead, there is a +strange absence of graves, but beyond Neuve Chapelle is a field of +outrageous thistles and broad-bladed rotting crosses, some down, some +standing, all with faded inscriptions, but the thistles are so thick and +high one might easily pass by without observing an old graveyard of our +dread enemy. It would be interesting to read a German account, oh, not +an official one, of this battle of Neuve Chapelle, an account by one of +the common soldiers who fraternised with his enemy on Christmas Day and +had to kill him ere Easter had arrived. + +A long black touring-car has drawn up at the side of the road at Neuve +Chapelle, and a handsome grey-haired English gentleman looks on the +ruins. Says a small boy to him, "Daddy, what did the Germans do here?" + +"I don't know, my boy," says he. "But there was a great battle here +early in the war, and we tried to win it. I don't think anybody won." + + * * * * * + +So the Army went back to its football leagues and boxing competitions +which afforded a happy subsidiary interest. True, some of the athletes +and bright particular sporting stars had fallen, but others constantly +arrived from inexhaustible old England. As regards the war a rigorous +optimism set in. Complete victory was postponed for two months. There +must be more and better rehearsals, that was all. A passion for +discipline and the shooting of cowards set in. Poor R---- was shot beside +Laventie. Sergeant-majors "came into their own." + +Now however a new peace has settled upon Laventie. Even the workmen seem +working quietly. Most of the old billets of 1914-15 lie in tumultuous +heaps of brick dust and beams, though here and there are houses with the +number of the billet marked and the number of men it would hold. Many a +tap-room where our fellows gave voice to beer and _vin blanc_ has passed +into nothingness--the heavy boots clattering under the tables, the red +faces above, the bottles and glasses, the gambling-boards, the +pale-faced non-committal French women unashamed by the filth of the +talk--where are they all? The old owners have gone, dead perhaps, or +they found better business elsewhere. Often those who served in those +taverns behind the line were not the real owners but a sort of +adventurer who came in when the real people fled in panic. Tommy was the +source of their profit, they plied him with beer and girls, and gave +shelter to gambling sharps and got France a bad name. Anyhow, the +people you see now are a sober quiet-faced folk with a real unending +gratitude and affection for the British soldier. They preserve nothing +but good memories of him, and no calculations enter into their love. + +The old tavern of the Blue Horse seems to be down, but the Grand Cheval +Blanc still stands and other taverns of the horse--Laventie was a +horse-breeding place in days gone by. To-day it has only a tiny +population--and is nothing. It perhaps will not be a notable place +again. + +The mind goes on to the rest-billets of Hinges and Busnes and to the +march to Festubert across a country less scarred by war than there, less +gassed perhaps, for gas killed more than shells. There are new plans of +battle, more auguries of complete victory. Brigadiers themselves come to +lesser commanders to explain in person the secrets of the Festubert +attack. It amounts to little more than an intensification of the +bombardment rehearsed at Neuve Chapelle, and the pouring of a greater +number of men through the neck of devastation thus made, a pitiful +suicide trap as it turned out, but a natural experiment. + +Hinges, though in 1915 far enough from shell fire to be a place of +rest-billets and the drilling of new drafts and the bringing of musketry +practice up to high regimental standards, is now a wreck, its church as +completely ruined as our Wenlock Abbey and looking not unlike it. +Hinges has a commanding position with a view far o'er the stricken _Nord +du France_. Behind its ridge of high land Bethune remained comparatively +immune, its centre alone being utterly destroyed. No doubt parts of +Bethune would have fallen into German hands in 1918 had Hinges not held. +The neighbouring village of Locon fell--a mile or so to the North-east. +Merville which is due North fell also, and shells from three sides +screamed against this little village and the Canadians defending it. + +Hinges now is quietly rebuilding itself and is a little-visited war +hamlet. A memory and shrine of the Festubert fight is the wayside +cemetery with its Gordons and Black Watch and Lancs men. Here lie two +unknown British soldiers of Lancashire regiments and on their temporary +wooden crosses have been nailed metal discs of the Lancastrians with +bright red roses and the words:--"They win or die who wear the rose of +Lancashire." Some devotee of his county has placed this disc on +thousands of the graves of the Lancastrians. + +On the evening of the 15th May 1915, 2nd and 6th Gordons, 1st +Grenadiers, 2nd Scots and Borders marched out to the junction of the +roads rue de Bois and rue de l'Epinette, then filed through trenches +held by Indian troops, and reached an allotted storming position west of +"Princes Road." An elaborate time-table had been arranged, and each +unit knew its angle relative to the "gap in the wire" which the +artillery were going to make. At midnight all the troops were in +position. At a quarter past three in the morning Scots Guards and +Borders started up to lead the assault. What a narrow-fronted +concentrated effort it was may be judged by the battalion formation, +which was in eight lines of two platoons each. + +One cannot be sure now what trenches each unit filled, but the trenches +are there and it is not difficult to imagine the crush of khaki in the +warm May night, the shrieking and thundering of the bombardment. Three +o'clock in the morning and the rum being doled out and the men poised +and ready for the race of death. + +Near the corner of rue de l'Epinette and just before the village of +Richebourg l'Avoué lie three Colonels and a Major side by side--they are +the commanders of the Grenadiers and of the 2nd Border regiment, Major +Kennet the second in command of the 1st Grenadiers, and Colonel +Alexander of a Yorkshire regiment--all four perished at Festubert. The +corner of rue de l'Epinette has now a cottage of wood and bricks with a +cast-iron roof, a bright garden of flowers and beans. Opposite stands a +new estaminet. There is a jolly field of gathered haricots hanging to +dry on ten-foot poles. Once more, iron thorn-bushes of barbed wire each +side of the way, and where the men dug themselves in by the side of the +road--water and reeds. The Indian section has become the Indian +cemetery, and the brave dusky boys of Asian hills have passed away. +Festubert is a little place where the pile of old white stone and cement +which was the village church is higher than the huts which have sprung +up around it. But where are those blossoming orchards through which our +boys charged in the dawn twilight, where are the dead who lay so long +unrecovered in that pitiful no-man's land beyond? Unrecovered then and +irrecoverable now. + +On the 27th May 1915, ten days after the battle, General Joffre +inspected the whole Seventh Division, which was drawn up in three great +columns, a brigade in each, and with the 20th Brigade and its pipers +leading, all marched past to the salute. Another day came the Divisional +Commander General Gough, and perched high up on the central pile of +straw and midden in a large farm-yard he thanked the men for +Festubert--they had done what was asked and more--"as always," he added. + +Yet the Seventh Division had been destroyed at the First battle of +Ypres, only its framework had remained; its large reinforcements had +been worked off in the night-raids and at Neuve Chapelle, and its second +reinforcements had been almost exhausted at this Festubert. The speeches +were made, not so much to the heroes as to new drafts. Kitchener's army +was however flooding into France, and despite enormous casualties we +were beginning in a way to have a national army. What was left of the +old army became the instructors of the new. The regular army gave way to +the volunteers. + +It was a time of heart-searching in England. Optimism and pessimism +began to be sharply defined. Russia had been routed. Lord Northcliffe +made his sensational effort to make an easy-going London face bitter +reality. Mr. Lloyd George at the Ministry of Munitions began to take a +larger broader view of the military aspect of the war than did most of +his colleagues. Preparations were made for the manufacture of shells for +the terrific onslaught of the Somme next year. Whilst many poor fools +still thought that 1915 would see us through the strife, plans on the +basis of a three or four years struggle were being definitely made. Then +we were beginning to manufacture poison gas and had at last invented a +handy bomb--the Mills grenade, our answer to the stick-bombs which +dangled from the belts of German soldiers. It was a time of far-reaching +military plans and dreams. All grown-up children who were not themselves +tin soldiers were playing soldiers. Flying men carried terror across the +skies, and sailors of submarines carried it under the sea. No prophet +knew the number of men who would have to be killed before the +politicians would be ready to come to Versailles to discuss the matter. +From England, France and Germany three or four million must actually +die--that fact was unknown. In the summer of 1915 the number who had +died was far from that figure. It is curious however to think of the +many who had laid themselves down in earth's earthy bed in the full +faith that their sacrifice would not be in vain--to think of the proud +Germans, the fine ones, not the base ones, who believed in their Kaiser +and that wonderful German Fatherland to which they owed their life +before they owed their death, and to think of what was to come. Germany +and her Kaiser not only defeated but humiliated and cast lower than all +nations in old Europe; to think of the loyal Russian soldiers who +perished in the first enthusiasm of the war with a bright starry faith +in Russia, her Church and her Tsar, of the Grand Duke Oleg for instance, +that young hero whose warm blood grew cold whilst the street-bred people +of Berlin knocked nails in great Hindenburg's wooden statue--to think of +these first Russians who lay dead with their weapons beside them in +1914-15, and then to think of the hideous revolution and those murders +in Ekaterinburg when all Russia fell; to think of the fine youth of +England and Scotland, of France, of Serbia, who died in the faith not +only of national victory but of a victory for humanity, the boys whose +fragment of iron destiny clove their brains or rived their hearts at the +outset of the fray, and then to think of that sordid clash of +selfishness at Versailles and of the untamed menagerie of Europe let +loose in 1920. The spiritualists quickly claimed to get special messages +from the dead. But did the dead only speak to the spiritualists? Did +they say nothing more than was said to them? Most of us alas, hear +nothing or only a "Dinna ye hear it?" a wailing of the pipes at an +infinite number of poor soldiers' funerals. + +Well, the war enters a new phase in the summer of 1915. It will be +fought in a larger more terrible way, the number of millions of deaths +will begin after a while to seem not so far off. Killing becomes the +religion of the hour. + +The first hundreds of thousands of the volunteers roll up. The old +Seventh Division which we have been following is broken up and +reconstructed. The Guards Division was formed. So Scots Guards and +Grenadiers marched away to join new comrades, to leave behind brave +Borders and Gordons and Devons and Duke of Wellingtons. The 92nd feted +the Scots, the Devons the Grenadiers; the Gordon pipers played all the +laments of the clans and "_Will ye no come back again!_" + +And they went to Wizernes to prepare for the battle of Loos--a conflict +which the gallant Highland lads were destined to enter first and the +bright polished Guards but second, yet both to shine and die. + +In June General Foch's Tenth Army launched its Artois attack against the +great ridge of "Notre Dame de Lorette" which commands the Lens country +from the South as the high ground of Loos does from the North. A hundred +thousand Frenchmen perished for Notre Dame and it is henceforth a place +of pilgrimage for France. The battle was the prelude to our battle of +Loos and whilst the great new British army in reserve drilled and +marched away to the North, it heard each night the drum-fire of the 75's +rolling from the South. Later in the war when the British took over all +the line 'twixt Lens and Arras the Canadians took Foch's victory a step +further and captured Vimy Ridge. What Foch did in the summer of '15 was +however to be eclipsed by what the combined armies should do in the +autumn. Reliance was placed chiefly on the new man-power. The earlier +battles of Neuve Chapelle and Festubert had been tests of the +relationship of gun-power and man-power. Opinion inclined to support the +theory that a superiority in numbers was the most telling factor in a +battle. This seemingly was disproved, and the next theory was that in +order to obtain victory there must be overwhelming superiority both in +guns and in men. The Somme battle proved that even these were not +enough. + +In the battle of Loos however all the interest was centred on men, men +personally. The new base was St. Omer, the picturesque ecclesiastical +town with its castellated church towers in relief against the sky--all +so thronged with khaki--henceforth till the war ends to be a great war +centre. France lies in a bower beyond, and there are squads of poplar +trees on hills, and green and happy meadows never scarred by shells or +wilted by gas. On the left on the road out to Wizernes is now a large +cemetery, and here lie French dead with the tricolour upon them, British +with an infinity of flowers and wreaths, Americans with grim and tall +white crosses--American dead who will not be exhumed perhaps. Behind the +American graves stand wedges of unpainted wood--a Chinese plot where lie +what was mortal of many unknown coolies. On the right lie Germans, on +the left _soldados_ of Portugal. This is called playfully the souvenir +cemetery--there are so many of the dead they can be thus arranged, as +children might arrange their toys. St. Omer was known as a great base +hospital to which alas, so many were called to look their last upon +their dying children, dying sons of England breathing out their last +words before their bodies were laid away. There are those who are fond +of saying that everything began at St. Omer. But for many also it was +the place where it all--_ended_. + +The cemetery past, (How it rains on it now!) you come to aerodromes all +tortured and torn, indications of Handley Page but no indications of +those who fly, the cages are all empty and there stands not a sentry. In +plain blunt English the passer-by is told that "_Trespassers will be +shot_" but in the heavy rain of a Saturday afternoon a muddy crowd of +French boys are playing a football match. Chinamen evidently worked +beside these aerodromes, for you see their scrawls on the sheds and +shelters. + +Wizernes, where the Guards Division was formed, lies in a hollow below a +long green ridge. Most of it is painted white--including _Au bon Diable_ +a tavern of some name. The people know a passing Englishman, not by the +cut of his clothes alone but by his walk and his complexion and style. +Standing at their doorways old men give military salutes to any +Englishman who happens to go by. All know bits of our tongue, of which +they are as proud as if they had wounds to show. A poor woman in a +little beer-house has eight daughters, five of whom are married and a +sixth has a child by a Canadian. Little Renée, flaxen-haired, +ruddy-cheeked, is getting on very well and the mother adores her, though +a father in the New World his progeny has forgotten. This sixth daughter +of substantial mother was in service at Havre and met the soldier +there; she is now in service at St. Omer and not at all "ruined." There +are thousands of baby tokens of the war in France. Some died no doubt, +through lack of care; lightly they came and lightly they go, but a +widespread sentimental feeling about departed Tommy shields those who +now, live from any feeling of disgrace. + +Of course the men at the base begot more infants than the men in the +line, the latter were too much used up for "love" or "lust," saw fewer +girls and had less time on their hands. But all had their opportunities. +As we know, a great number of marriages were effected, and not a few +overseas men are now living with French wives. + +That has little however to do with Wizernes, whence behold Lord Cavan's +men marching away one dull September morn. The music of the bands is +refracted from that long parallel ridge of hill which goes with the road +toward Arques--the drums, the fifes, the brilliant array; each company +compact, glittering--the new Division. Some of it is utterly new, such +as 4th Grenadiers and 1st Welsh straight from Little Sparta, others +trail already a great war history from other divisions of the old army. +But the numbers are good. Sergeants are yelling at men who will be dead +in a few weeks' time. Men are silently reviling those on whom destiny +itself will quickly take revenge. All looks very authentic and lasting. +Unchecked optimism moreover reigns supreme. These compact units in their +unhurried and ever regular quick march believe that they will win the +war. Lens will be taken by others. They will come into action at the +critical moment, somewhere near Douai. They will pierce the German belt +of defence, split the enemy army, "roll up their line," and Germany +realising that she is beaten will at once sue for peace. There may be +some delay in formalities--then home for Christmas! + +Behold in the Grand Place at Arques immaculate General Heywood +inspecting his Third Brigade with its new units. Arques has a tall +obelisk there now--_a ses cent cinquante heroiques et glorieux enfants, +mort pour la France et la liberté_. + +These inspections were as great an ordeal as the going into battle +itself. In the line at least there were no drill-sergeants and +regimental sergeant-majors. However, inspections cease and the long +march in the rain begins, and new leather beats cobbled highways for +many a long fifty minutes, and weary backs and feet find ten minutes in +the hour all too little for recuperation. A little-touched happy +agricultural country, with Calvaries here and there erected and blessed +in 1919 in token of thanks that the land was spared from invasion. By +Aire to Fontaine St. Hilaire, to the sight of the first coal pyramids +of the Lens country and to the hearing of the first mighty thunders of +the opening great battle. The Guards were told that they were intended +for a sort of anchor to the cavalry. The Division would press on, and +somewhere beyond Loos the cavalry would come up from behind, pass +through the ranks, and press on to Douai. The Division would perhaps +come into action at the Canal at Douai. So when the cavalry overtook the +Guards whilst yet on the road to Loos it was assumed that the whole +British army was in advance of its program, Douai taken, and the enemy +in disorderly retreat. But on the day when optimism reached its height a +Colonel in a motor coming back from the front gave the duller tidings +that the attack had been held up. However, the sight of the cavalry +regiments going past in all their splendour was a sort of lasting +encouragement in the simple soldier's mind. + +It is a gloomy sordid country with dirty mining villages placarded with +yellow appeals to the proletariat and "Vive la Russie!" "Vive la +revolution sociale!" and dirty homes and black-faced men in sooty coaly +shirts--miserable Sailly, miserable Vermelles. Then the road debouches +upon wide open country, the terrain and the landscape of the battle. It +is a chalky heath interlaced and inter-run with trenches and barbed +wire. The trenches were mostly dug by Scottish miners and were said to +be the admiration of the troops in 1915. But standards in trench digging +were low in the first year of the war, and one does not admire them now. +The landmarks of the horizon are peaked coal-heaps. The road which goes +to Lens is bare and hard. Loos and Hulluch are on the left, and also the +German line. Close in to the suburbs of Lens the line crosses the road. +Shells must have come thick and fast on these September days. It is not +a covetable country to march over under fire. One wonders what exactly +the first divisions accomplished here on the days before the Guards came +up. Special correspondents were given facilities at the time and one +remembers among other things Mr. Buchan's despatch with its native pride +in Highland regiments, and a sort of belief that they themselves had won +the day. One had the impression of a sort of trial charge of kilted lads +which showed what they would do later on. Indeed some of the Highlanders +must have actually got into Lens. Nothing could stop them but death. +Were the lines between Vermelles and Loos German? These were supposed to +have been captured during the first days of the attack. The Guards in +artillery formation swept across leftward to Loos, past the spent +legions--to the line, to Hill 70, the barrier to Lens city. + +It is memorable to be in Loos on the anniversary of the opening of the +battle, to walk up Hill 70 by the sharp-dug clumsy communication-trench, +to reach the lateral lines on the brow of the hill and look down toward +the shattered town. And Loos lies in disruption and dejection. It lost +every roof, now it has perhaps a score of new ones visible to the eye. +The machinery of the pit-head is all down, likewise the clangorous iron +tower which shells seemed unable to destroy. Rusty wreckage runs along +the base of the coal heap, the length of a long train. Heavy green shrub +almost covers the coal embankment. On Hill 70 itself the old rusty wire +remains, though so scanty as if much had corroded away. Shell-holes seem +to afford more cover than the pitiful scrapings in the chalk of the old +trenches. There is a burnt-out wood on the left; on the right is the +insurgent industrialism of unruined fosses; ahead are chalk-pits, +chalk-mounds, thistles, dry grass, poppies, all dazzling in a bright +September noon. Innumerable grasshoppers are whispering in the breeze, +and from all horizons one hears also the softened clatter of building. +You can even hear what is going on in Lens. + +There is little of the debris of the fight--a rotten butt-end of a +rifle, a few shreds of German bombs, an old-fashioned gas bag. One +recalls that the British first used gas at Loos. The air on Hill 70 on +that September day was pregnant with gas. Many of our fellows died of +it. The Germans on their side made much use of stick-bombs. The hill +was strewn with "buckshee" bombs. Did not a young soldier valiantly +digging drive a pick through one, and send himself and Lord Petre of the +Grenadiers to better country? The enemy manufactured vast quantities of +this bomb--it was a pet toy of his, curiously exemplifying his mind. Its +stated object was to terrify rather than to kill, and Englishmen +believing more in iron and "good shrapnel effects" always despised it. +But it was responsible for an enormous number of accidents. + +On the brow of the hill and beyond there are increasing signs of German +habitation. Near a vast white wallowing mine-crater there is a barricade +of sand-bags and wire, the point of difference 'twixt friend and foe. +After that one soon comes upon those wooden framed cellarways which +plunge from the side of the trench into the bowels of the earth. They go +down and down and are seldom explored by soldier or civilian. Some of +these have their gruesome secrets in their dark depths. Many Germans +were killed in them. Fear and industry conceived them. They were safe +enough at ordinary times, but death-traps in an attack; a man at the +bottom of a steep pit stood little chance against an enemy at the door +with a bomb. The British and French in this case understood the war +better than the Germans. A slighter cover or shelter whilst giving less +sense of security did give vigilance and alertness. Germany dug the +grave of her cause far from the ends she had in view and settled down to +a war of concrete and defence when she should have understood her lines +as the merest temporary abiding places on the way to victory. It +prolonged the settlement for years. + +How the cornflowers blossom on the German side! Did not they sow the +seeds here for their Kaiser. They sowed the seed--and now it blossoms on +the wilderness. Bright blue flowers shine in the midst of withered +nature, otherwise in September 1920 the crest of Hill 70 is so covered +with brittle yellow weeds that a match would set it aflame from end to +end. It is like a dried inland beach of the old war. The waves no longer +roll up with thunder and expire as once they did. But you can see in +imagination the young Guards officer in his Burberry, cane in hand +leading his flower of manhood--forward, forward, toward the shore of +Lens--see the expiring first line and the second line that follows +passing through and over it, the third that goes again---- They were the +waves which at last crumbled all defences. + +Not that Loos was a triumph of attack. Little justice will no doubt be +done on our side to the German defence of Lens, but it was a defence +which rivalled ours of Ypres. The enemy was driven back on both sides of +it during the later campaigns of the war (chiefly in 1917). Technically +and theoretically the Germans could be forced to yield it at any +moment. But in practice it could not be taken from them. We'd take it +were it of iron; they'd hold it were it of butter. Artillery laid the +town flat, but artillery could not destroy the cellars, and of every +cellar the German, with the reinforcement of iron and concrete, made a +machine-gun nest or post for riflemen. For the rest, we held nearly all +the Vermelles--Lens road, and the greater part of that from La Bassee to +Lens. From Hill 70 one sees geographically a wide landscape of the war. +It was a remarkable vantage-ground for beholding the doings of one's own +side. + +One aspect of the fighting on Hill 70 ought not to be forgotten, and +that was the work of the stretcher-bearers who for the sake of each +wounded comrade they brought in exposed themselves constantly to death. +The heavy bodies, the uneven and entangled way down an exposed hillside, +the shells howling and bursting, the sniper's bullet whipping through +the air--these made up the stretcher-bearers' Calvary-walk. They did +their duty and ceased to think of whether they themselves would live or +die. And Loos was nothing to the Somme--as those will tell you who came +through both. + +But the battle of Loos was not ended at Loos. All the worst of the +fighting was away to the left by Bois de Hugo and Chalk-pit wood where +Scots and Coldstream strove again and again to establish a continuous +line. The German system of trenches was entered, and Hulluch-ward, La +Bassee-ward, a strife more bloody than Loos itself continued. On the +night of the 29th September there is a relief on Hill 70--the 22nd +Londons come in. The survivors of the Guards march off to billets in +Sailly and about. But the fight continues for halves of trenches, for +corners, for turnings. German and British are living in the same +madhouse together and fighting for complete possession room by room. + +Now the new British bomb appears--the Mills grenade, the trench-clearer. +Germans are fought in the white alleys with bombs, bombs only and bombs +ever. October 1915 was the great month of bomb-mania. Its emblem should +be the man and the bomb ready to throw. The Guards were soon back in the +fray, and on the night when the bombs came up so great was the +fascination that "Jocks" and "Bill Browns" were bombing one +another--each thinking the other was the enemy. + +It is all indescribably wild now--Gun trench, Grab Alley, Big Willie, +Hohenzollern and the rest, cement-coloured, or yellow with a withered +prairie of weeds. Notices at various points indicate _chasse reservée_: +the shooting rights are now reserved. Frenchmen with shot-guns and dogs +prowl along the parapets, peppering the noisy partridges which they +rouse up in scores. Decaying rifles lie in the trenches, rusty +bayonets, and muddy shreds of belts and pouches. On the German side the +inevitable litter of unexploded but sodden bombs; undo the metal +protectors and you find the very string which caused them to explode has +rotted in its case. No tourists turn up on these wild wastes. It is too +terrible for them--and you cannot motor over innumerable pits. + +On Sunday October 3rd you can picture the survivors of Loos at "Divine +Service" at Sailly la Bourse. On the evening of the Sunday they marched +to Gun trench. The trench was so called because the enemy had a gun on +it. Fifty yards of the centre the Germans held, and the British were in +the trench both on the left and on the right of the enemy, and strove to +bomb him out of it entirely. + +The gun was worked heavily, and shell after shell landed on parapet or +parados scattering solid slag, ravaging chalk, burying men. The unburied +were engaged all night digging out lost comrades and trench-repairing. +It seems mere matter-of-fact when set down in dull print--but oh, the +physical agonies of apprehension, the shuddering, the shattering of +nerves physically under such conditions. It is easily understood how men +were glad to be hit to get away and find peace. Death must at times have +been eagerly desired and sought. It was called hell: it was hell. The +new Kitchener divisions were thus not long in getting to the reality of +war. + +In the diaries of the time you find much reference to gas fatigue. +British gas was used whenever the wind seemed favourable. Gas did not +seem however to have power to stifle many enemy defenders. Gas fatigue +was the carrying of the cylinders to the line. Emplacements were dug for +cylinders below the parapet of the trench and "riveted" with sand-bags. +Twenty or thirty cylinders would be thus ranged together at intervals of +twenty-five yards. The cylinders contained the gas in liquid form, and +ejection was worked on the syphon principle. This use of gas was seldom +justified by results, and added an infernal torture and ugliness. It was +a true diabolism. Almost always it afflicted the side which operated it +as much as it did the enemy. Protection against gas was clumsy and +inadequate. We started with the "stokers' pad" which was proved useless. +Then we had a cotton pad soaked in hypo and tied on by veiling which was +supposed to protect the eyes. And then followed cloth helmets soaked in +hypo, helmets with mica eyes, very smelly, clammy, and unreliable. +Mustard gas at a later date brought the respirator. But the protection +at Loos and Hulluch was the old hypo bag of which not a few still lie +about. + +The war was becoming quite complicated and new. A Lewis gun was first +used in the battle for Hohenzollern Redoubt, and in time each battalion, +nay, each company, will have its Lewis gunners. Steel helmets were also +issued at Hohenzollern and were considered curiosities. One battalion +received five helmets! They were supposed to be for the special use of +the bombers. But then everyone became a bomber in that battle. + +It is with awe that one looks on the silent empty Hohenzollern system +now, where trenches for many days were choked with dead. Some commanders +in those days thought double rum-rations put the necessary devil into +men to carry them through the ordeal of a fray, and it is common talk in +the Army that some of the units that went into the storming of +Hohenzollern Redoubt knew very little of what they were doing. One thing +is certain: alcohol has power to banish fear from men's minds, if fear +there happen to be. It dulls the brain to danger. But then alas, it +often dulls it to much else. Cool heads were needed to meet the German. +And the night-attack at Hohenzollern failed. The dead lay as if emptied +out of sacks into the pits, into the trenches, some head downward, some +with legs alone visible. Whilst it rained in London, and the evening +crowds glided along Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly talking of +anything and everything, happily, snugly,--away out there in the +darkness lay such a scene. It was most near, but an impenetrable black +curtain hid it from the eyes. + +War in 1915 failed. We failed; the Germans failed. The German failure +was the greater because it was not their rôle to stand and be attacked. +Germans and Allies were not unequally matched. The result was a +deadlock. Both sides came to the conclusion that no one in his wildest +dreams of preparation for war had foreseen the number of shells and guns +necessary to obtain victory. Fighting therefore slackened off in the +trenches, and the real centre of war-activity was transferred to what we +called "the home front," to the factories and war-industries of England, +France, and Germany and Austria. All the wet and gloomy winter saw the +ammunition heaping up for the myriad-fold destruction of men in 1916. +Germany prepared a mountain of death to hurl at Verdun; Britain a +mountain of death to hurl from the Somme. No serious discussion of the +campaigns of 1915 was allowed to the peoples of the countries. Gallipoli +however was evacuated and Serbia over-run, and Bulgaria came into the +war on the other side. With the military power of the Tsar lying low +Germany had fair hopes of victory. Neither Britain nor France had much +to cheer them, but they knew that their resources were mighty, and they +knew that their enemy on the Western front did not seem to want to fight +and was continually on the defensive. + +It did not stir the mind of the soldier much. The autumn leaves fell for +the Germans, and Christmas came for the British Tommy, and unfulfilled +promises in plenty. A winter of rain and mist above, and water and mud +below, and a sense of "a long long way to Tipperary and to everywhere +else" were the lot of the British soldier. The war lost its tension +after the Hulluch fighting was over. Unofficial fraternisation set in on +many fronts. This was a mutual understanding by the rank and file of +both sides. The Germans were quickest in arranging it--indeed their +alacrity in this direction suggested the belief that it was organised +from above and was intended as a way of winning the war, by undermining +discipline and worming out secrets and spying. This however was not so. +For if it undermined one side it undermined the other as much also, and +if one side learned secrets so could the other. Moreover officers on +both sides disliked it, and they for their part could not fraternise +with enemy officers. Their quarrel was more serious. Officers understood +more about the war and had more of the collective guilt of the war upon +their minds than had the rank and file. Not that a winter lull was not +to their liking. They were glad enough of the effects of these _petites +armistices_. On the French fronts more was arranged than on that held by +the British. Parties came over into one another's trenches. In Russia +unfortunately fraternisation resulted in a constant loss of Muscovite +rifles and material in exchange for _Schnapps_. Probably the British +fraternised least of all, and though one has heard of Tommy's concert +party in which "Brother 'Ans was arst ter sing the 'im of 'ate" it did +not amount to more than tacit agreements not to shoot. + +The crack regiments on both sides were however indisposed for any kind +of truce. They set the tone in discipline and were far from that Charlie +Chaplin attitude towards the war which characterised some others. What +was the astonishment of some of the Guardsmen when "taking over" at +Laventie, after Loos and Hohenzollern, to see the easy-going way of +warfare which had developed. "I saw a Jerry on top of the enemy parapet +working away in broad daylight as cool as could be," said a sergeant. +"Of course I at once got a bead on him." + +"What're you going to do? You're surely not going to fire on him?" asked +one of the men of the outgoing regiment. "You'll spoil the game." + +"How's that?" + +"Why, they'll begin shooting at you." + +"What d'you think of that?" said the sergeant. "I fired just to let them +know the Guards had come." + +Nevertheless even the Guards were mollified. Warfare dwindled to +nothing. "Jerry" was very confiding. Christmas was coming. The war +after all was not so serious and perhaps would not be renewed in the +Spring. Inactivity always seems to soften opposing rank and file toward +one another. It tends to bring them back to the natural human +relationship. By Christmas there was a widespread popular sense for a +thoroughgoing reconciliation in no-man's land. What had happened at +Christmas in 1914 was the needful precedent. It was a sort of playful +legend in the army. On Christmas Day there would be a going over and a +shaking of hands and exchange of souvenirs and drinks. Both sides looked +forward to it. + +But the authorities evidently thought it dangerous. Orders to the effect +that there should be no fraternisation were sent out, and a +staff-officer here and there spent Christmas Eve in the trenches to see +that the orders were carried out. He could not however effect very much. +At ten o'clock that night the men in all the trenches both German and +English were talking without restraint, and the dark muddy lines of +Laventie had a voice as of some great club at night when all the members +are discussing at once. Germans were shouting invitations across, +British were shouting invitations; and promises were made for next day. +At dawn therefore parties went over, and whole battalions might have +followed them had not the artillery at once set up a barrage. It was +found also that sentries on both sides had been ordered to fire. Some +obeyed, some did not. One Guards sentry was proud of having fired +fifteen rounds. But he did not hit anyone. Meanwhile the troops about +Neuve Chapelle and Aubers got across in large bodies. Even on the +Guards' front men risked their lives to shake hands. Did not one thus +lose his life that morning! + +There is a little old cemetery by the side of the road a mile or so from +Laventie, and there lie prominently side by side two corporals of the +Sixth Black Watch (Newell and Willis) and behind their graves is that of +a certain Sergeant Oliver who perished on Christmas Day. A tall rose +tree with crimson roses blooming even in the autumn is growing from the +earth where he lies. Beside him lies one who was both captain and +knight, with only a dock rising from his feet. On all graves are weeds +except on that of the man who gave his life to shake hands on Christmas +Day. + + * * * * * + +The winter life of 1915-16 was one of mud and frostbite in the line, and +taverns and songs when out. The whole corner of Northern France about +Armentières begot a sort of British character. Not that it was like any +district at home. Or that the way of life resembled anything anywhere +else at any time. Tommy in the _estaminet_, Tommy with his sing-song in +billets, Tommy on the march slogging through the mud--began as it were +to belong to France and to the war. He ceased to look like an imported +article. He was disposed to be at home, and like Mark Tapley, that most +characteristic of English types of men, to be happy even under the most +melancholy circumstances. The soldier, whatever his inward sorrows, +often so deep, so poignant, always kept a cheery face and had a +devil-may-care smile for whatever came along. Of course he had his +grousing fits. But they passed. He was most himself when singing. To +France he sang all the old songs he ever knew and more besides which he +invented. How vulgar, in London how banal were the songs--"vulgar songs +which make you cough and blow your nose" as Kipling put it, the +seemingly maudlin _Hullo my dearie I want you to-night_ sort of song. +But in France how real, how passionate! A group of men stand in the +partial shelter of a shattered building crooning together whilst it +rains, whilst it pours on the mud outside! In England the words which +they sing are sentimental drivel, they are the barrel-organ and its +handle turning, but in France they are the voice of a suppressed +yearning and suffering-- + + I ... shall meet you ... to-night, dear-- + In my beautee ... ful dream ... land. + And your eyes will be bright, dear, + With ... the love light ... that shines for me. + + +The only place where the soldier could meet her, till there came one of +those madly-coveted greedily-snatched moments of leave, when a man +dashed, with the mud of the trenches still on him, straight to +"Blighty." + +There was a curious note of self-pity in many of the sentimental songs, +and men gloated over the love of home. The love of mother became warmer +in imagination (_Lordy, lordy lordy, how I love her!_); the tenderness +of wife and sweetheart became desired in a way which could only be +expressed in songs--and in letters, those most precious of all tokens of +the war, the letters which men sent from the front to those who loved +them. The little English soldier sang his very heart out asking his +Lizzie to "keep the kettle boiling," asking anyone and everyone to + + Keep the home fires burning + Till the boys come home! + +Even so, he would not allow himself to get down-hearted or to remain for +long in a sentimental mood. The humorous inventive vein came to his +assistance. He did not possess ready-made chansonettes of the French +type. The music-hall had not provided them, but he straightway began to +invent them to satisfy the need. So sprang into being _Mademoiselle from +Armenteers_ which was reputed to have fifty thousand verses--anyone +could invent a verse at any moment. So was born _Roll on, my Three_, +that soldiers' litany and chorus, _The one-eyed Riley_, and many another +burlesque. Then every well-known hymn and popular song had its war +parody expressing the soldier's mind in lighter vein---- Some of the +parodies of popular songs improved on the originals. Thus-- + + I wore a tunic, an old khaki tunic, + But you wore civilian clothes. + Whilst we were in the trenches + You were mashing all the wenches, + What a blessing no one knows! + We fought at Loos whilst you scoffed the booze. + +on the basis of-- + + I wore a tulip, a bright yellow tulip, + But you wore a red red rose. + +was extremely diverting, as was + + I've lost my oil-bottle and pull-through, + I've lost my four by two. + +on the basis of "Love's beautiful garden." + +Endless were these songs and parodies now fast receding into limbo. +Where so much was ugly and of the burlesque there was also much that was +true and simple and direct, from the heart. Perhaps the most popular +song in some regiments was, after all, "Mary." There was no parody of +"Mary," and one was always hearing or singing-- + + The sweetest blossom on the tree + Cannot compare with Ma ... ry! + + +The men lifted the roofs of the taverns with their songs. The war which +increased life's suffering tenfold, increased life's music tenfold also. + +So the winter was sung through, a winter of rain and snow, with low +skies, with mists, mist on land and sea and in the eyes and in the mind, +the melancholy interim of 1915-16, where no one understood anything +except that there was suffering. Meanwhile however the munition-makers +on the home fronts went on manufacturing the stuff of death in +ever-increasing appalling vast quantities. + +The Germans were the first to resume the struggle. 1916 presented itself +as a year of destiny for Mittel-Europa and world-power. Russia lay low. +Serbia was ravaged even to the shores of Greece. A galvanised Turkey had +been raised from death and had driven France and Britain from the gates +of the Hellespont. There remained but one vital enemy--France. Britain +would soon compose the war if France were worsted. So now all the might +of Prussia was forged into a weapon of assault, and the weapon was +hurled in the centre. + +There commenced the terrible manslaughter of Verdun. Irresistible +Germany met immovable France, and men by the myriad were sent post-haste +to heaven. Between the petty forts of a French city Europe heaped a +great pyramid of skulls to the sky. As in Verestchagin's picture, one +saw an emblem of war without compromise and without cowardice. + +The French stubbornness before Verdun shone out like a miracle. It was +an unexpected revelation of French tenacity and corporate strength. A +Bismarckian contempt for the Frenchman had almost been the accepted +measure of the French in Europe. They were considered degenerate, +corrupt, lacking in spirit, loud to boast but quick to run away. The +rapidity with which Germany overran France in 1914 had confirmed this +opinion, despite the battle of the Marne. But Verdun revealed to Germany +a new and terrible France. The whole of the rest of the war, as it were, +paused to look on in wonder. France has raised now her memorials at +Verdun, but it needs no monument. Verdun is written in iron upon +Europe's heart. Dead called to the living there to join them. Verdun was +never taken, but it always lured the enemy on--the lodestone of the +charnel house. + +Rightly understood, the battle of the Somme was not a greater battle +than that of Verdun. It was similar; it was our Verdun battle. It also +was a "blood-bath" for both sides. It also was a spending of the +ammunition which the winter, spring, and summer preparations had brought +forth. Tens of thousands of those who sang so light-heartedly through +the winter found eternal peace, stretched like lost star-fishes in the +Somme mud. From Albert with the Virgin leaning from the church-tower, +to within sight of the miserable, hitherto uncoveted, town of Bapaume +what a progress! One of the heaviest epics in history, the slowest, most +heavy footed of charges! As if each man bore a hundredweight of lead on +his feet to keep him back when he would have rushed to gain the day! +Hundreds met their death, not through shot or shell, but by actual +drowning in mud. Hundreds were sent back to the rear partially +distraught before they got the signal to leap forth to personal attack. +The massing of the Somme artillery out-Heroded Herod--the greatest +concentration of noise and destruction that the world had known. The +greatest strain of the Somme battle was mental, and its greatest effect +was no doubt moral. The extent of territory gained was no indication of +the true result of the battle. The actual numbers of the dead might have +been a greater indication had they not generally been hidden at the +time. For the peace-quorum of death was being approached--there was a +large advance towards hate's _desirabilia_, the three and a half +millions who had to be slain. Men might have taken some comfort from +that dreadful thought had they known. But it was theirs to fight and +labour on in blindness. + +The Somme country was an extension of the British line. As our army +doubled, trebled, quadrupled, so it multiplied the extent of France +which it defended. From the flats of Flanders and Northern France we +gradually progressed to a more diversified country of long ridges and +downs, pleasanter in peace but equally terrible in war. As you approach +it now by train the cemeteries roll into view on every hand. The dead +are as it were drawn up in solid columns to greet you as you pass, as it +were one live man were monarch o'er all the dead. The Army that went to +guard the line is still there, still on duty--in Plot A, Plot B, Plot C, +Plot Z, of multitudinous war-cemeteries marked now by map-references. +The dead challenge the living in choruses of silence from broad fields +of burial. The hills remain like great mounds in the mist, the same bare +ridges of Cæsar's wars two thousand years ago, the same o'er which +perchance mankind will climb to death as many centuries hence, +antediluvian hummocks of old earth, somnolent, green, indifferent. Earth +suggests itself constantly as something mightier than man. It is not the +prostrate earth of Ypres Salient, but one which war has much less power +to sear. Man's habitations and cities topple down, forests are fired +away, but the elemental lines and contours of the hills remain unbroken +and as it were indifferent both to time and history. These rivers too, +by which men name their battles, flow on, flow away without a conscious +memory even of a yesterday. The innocence of the Somme, the virginity +of the Ancre, these have overcome all hate and blood, and lightly +forgotten them. + +The Judas trees have leafed afresh upon the banks of Ancre, and every +individual leaf is chattering and shivering--because, they say, two +thousand years ago the betrayer hanged himself upon an aspen bough. The +aspens give voice to the wind, and beside them the little willows are +all silent. Tangled wild flowers cling to the river banks, and limpid +water passes in bright armfuls over green sedgy tresses. On either hand +the giant reeds lift their pompous heads. Shell-pits are pits of +greenery. Deep brown of sagging rusty wire seems to be the complementary +colour of an intense and shadowy green. In the road where the sentry +stood guarding the crossing of the rail all is empty now. No +dust-covered mud-splashed lorries come blundering and tearing along the +high-road any more. There is a silence which is unearthly, as if the +composed deep sleep of the dead had conquered the ways of the living. +The little white towns and villages lie splashed in wreckage--without +the power to lift themselves again. Your Ville sur Corbie, your Meault +with its dirt-choked green strewn with pontoon boats, your Fricourt and +Carnoy--all prostrate, inert--they lie on the ground as if sewn to it. +On the left comes into view the triple blackness of the silhouette of +Notre Dame at Albert. Trees with the horror of the martyrs on their +receding withered hands seem fixed for years in the momentary awfulness +of death, menacing, aghast, uprearing. Narrow crooked trenches in +disorderly array seem to be hurrying forward, carrying their old wire +with them--as if they too had to follow the men they once held. But they +pause on the shores of dreadful pools and ponds, dead-horse and dead-men +stagnancies that ponder and are still and reflect indifferently the grey +sky above and the grey, blasted, shattered timber-bits on either hand. + +Oh Albert, what a place of death thou art now, with thy returned +children playing hide and seek around the heaps of thy homes. How is it +possible to _return_ to this place. It is not a return: no one can ever +return to the Albert of 1914. These that we see are revenants come to +look at spectral homes. For Albert is dead. There you can realise that a +human home is a living being like the woman who made it. It can prosper +or decay. It can go shabby and suffer. It can be wounded or maimed--it +can be killed. We mercifully hide our dead in Earth's great bosom--but +we leave our dead homes long when they lie, in all their horror and +terror. There stands a shrunken little house where the tiles have been +swept away, the plaster also, and the bare laths of the ceiling are all +exposed, but they look like a cap bashed down on the head of a dead man. +Yonder lies a recumbent habitation with a welter of grey laths and +beams on its burst-out side, like the sun-dried ribs of a dead +dromedary. Beyond it stands a wall that is left, and then an outraged +home with madness fixed in its visage in the moment of death-agony. Here +is a house with gutted entrails half congealed and terrible to behold. +There is a house that died simply of shock. But its neighbour +_vis-à-vis_ was hit by some striding giant with iron fist. Rows of +houses are seen cowering, as if they had had their hands up trying to +ward off the dreadful fate which stalked above them. Houses lie killed +as it were in the action of flight, veritably in the act of treading on +one another's heels in a frenzy to get away. There are houses which are +abased, houses which have fallen foremost on their faces, houses which +have fallen backwards, bottom over top into confusion and debris behind, +houses with their sides torn off as men's sides were torn off in the +war, exposing for one instant beating hearts. There are houses where +simply the life-breath has gone out--dead, blind, empty and desolate. + +One can hardly think of the existence once of rooms, the +marriage-bedrooms of sweet human honeymoons, the room where the baby +slept a baby's untroubled sleep, the children's room where one thinks of +a child's cry in the night or a child's lisped prayer before its mother +or the crucifix, the room where the home met, the table round which went +food and talk and laughter in a common innocence and ignorance of +destiny--all gone now in shapeless ruin. + +All the houses were the children of Notre Dame--the leaning Virgin who +hung out from the stricken tower of the mighty masonry of the +Cathedral-church, and yearned o'er the city. The miracle of her suspense +in air over Albert was a never-ceasing wonder, and the soldiers said the +city would never be taken as long as she remained un-shot down from the +eminence of the great church. + +Alas, Albert had its day of fate and of complete sacrifice ere the war +should end--when all should go, yea, Virgin and all, and only Golgotha +remain, Golgotha and the Roman soldiers who smote the Master with their +spears as He hung from the Cross. + +Twilight settles down upon the dead, the twilight of time and misery. +The dreadful reality of destruction becomes more intense and real. After +all, sunlight and the noonday do not always show us truth. They are in +themselves so full of life and happiness that they divert attention from +ruins and death unto themselves. Only in the grey light of afternoon and +evening, and looking with the empty eye-socket of night-darkness can one +easily apprehend what is spread out here--the last landscape of tens of +thousands who lie dead. Hamlet must go to the battlements at the time +when the ghost walks. The light of day hides the unseen world, or +cannot quite hide it. But there is one moment when the ghost of Albert +grows into vision majestically before the eyes. You go out through the +primeval jungle of dead weeds, the tripartite crowned heads of brown +teasles looking like low-lying spectral regalia of the death-kingdom, +past dug-outs and deeps and quagmire, past the prostrate ribaldry and +obscenity of war's doings with the earth--to the dark-flowing water +which nurses its forgotten secrets, flowing on, flowing on. You wait, +and whilst mist chills the marrow the ghostly moment of Albert comes +once more. Night has more than heralded itself; it is here in a +vast-fronted army and comes onward. Demon-eyes look over the ridges, +flash angrily, greedily; the roar of battle thunder bursts up; the +gas-shells cat-calling across the sky fall in showers on the mud; +field-guns are advanced to point-blank range--there comes the tide of +the war-worn German soldiery of March 1918, war-worn and yet exultant; +the English are driven out, the leaning Virgin falls, and the city is +given over to the enemy. Albert is dead; even its soul has died. English +soldiers will come back in August, recapture it, but not the city they +defended so long, not the city of the little Notre Dame leaning +passionately o'er its life and its defence. + + * * * * * + +From Albert to Bapaume, from Fricourt by Carnoy and Maricourt to +Longueval and Ginchy and Le Transloy, a pleasant day's walk now. There +is the incomparable Somme silence, a silence achieved by the tremendous +thunderous contrast in history, a silence from the stilled hearts of the +dead, a deafness and a muteness. Then when the mist disperses, and the +sun lifts his awful radiance o'er the scene, there are audible the lowly +orchestras of flies and bees. The rags of horses' skeletons lie on the +roadway, and beside a ruined direction-post a clean-picked horse's skull +has been placed on the stump of a tree. Lifting one's eyes to the view +there rolls forth to the horizon vast moors empurpled here and there and +with gashes of white on wan green wastes. An organised tour by car +whirls past upon the road raising phantom hosts of white dust. It will +do the whole Somme campaign in an hour and bring up safely at some +French hotel where hot lunch and foaming beer persuade the living that +life is still worth while. There was once a picture in _Simplicissimus_ +of a Cook's guide showing a human skull to some tourists-- + +"This, sir," said he, "was a young man." + +It was meant for irony. But surely it is good for everyone who talks of +war to go and get that thought--_this was a young man_. It does not +matter that tourists whirl past without pause in a car. Let each and +everyone come and dip a corner of a handkerchief in the blood of the +war--for remembrance. Come to the sacrament of the young man's blood +which was shed instead of yours. + +The road you traverse to the Somme altar is the road which hundreds of +thousands of young men trod, marching to moments of destiny, moments of +victory; the Manchesters to Montauban, South Africans to Delville, Royal +Scots to Guillemont, the Guards to Les Boeufs, the Durham Light Infantry +to the Butte of Warlencourt, the 47th Londons to Eaucourt l'Abbaye--and +many others; they marched from the quiet places of the homeland and the +empire, from Loos, from Laventie, from Flanders; defenders of Ypres and +defenders of Arras, marching with their drums, marching with their +bayonets, to Britain's quarrel and her mightiest enemy. Behind them were +ranged the guns, and in front of them was Prussia. Now the desolation of +Nature alone suggests what a desolation there was of men. The terrible +woods are impressionist pictures of the ruined vitals of great +regiments, and you can hold a forest in your mind as you would a skull +in your hands and say--_This was a forest._ _This was an army._ + +The generality of men and women however will not do that. The new-born +generations mask their grief, and you will see if you walk into Bernafay +Wood that a young Bernafay Wood is rising midst the dead masts of the +old--self-sown. It will grow higher every year till the old is hidden. +The masts will fall, will rot, will recede from this bright sunlight, +and relapse into the shade which the new trees will give them, and then +soon all will be forgotten. Near Bernafay too the crosses of the dead +lie spread out like rows of pins, memorial crosses where there is no +body, crosses for the unknown, more surely for the unknown British +soldier than for the known. So also it will be with them. The babies are +rising, the younger men are growing, growing to hide all and everything. +The nakedness of reality which we see to-day will be hidden in the shade +by and by. These brand-new cemeteries, looking often so fresh and rich +in their masses of brown-stained wood, will pass. They will first be +re-set-up in stone. 1921 will see them rolling out in new stone crosses, +at first startlingly pallid and virginal, but as the months go on, +getting gradually greyened and darkened, rain-washed, wind-blown, then +falling a little from the straight. Flowers will bloom as new summers +shine o'er the dead. Visitors will come. There will be a greater time of +visiting the cemeteries and the battlefields than there yet has been. +Gardeners will be conscientious, and then some less conscientious as the +years roll by and visitors become less. Most of the cemeteries in the +more obscure places will be half-forgotten and gone desolate. There must +come a time when no more visit the burial-places of the great war than +visit now the cemeteries of the Crimea. In 1914 the great cemetery +above Sevastopol, kept by a German gardener, had become from a national +point of view utterly unvisited and forgotten. A roll used to be kept +there of the visitors who came in their hundreds after the Crimean war +was over, dwindling to a score a year and then to less than ten, and +then to twos and threes and ones. The living who survived the Crimea do +not need to go to Russia now, for they have joined the dead long since. +So it will be with us; we shall join the authentic dead, and the young +ones will have forgotten whilst chattering of some other war. + +Meanwhile look reverently at the graves of the men of the 32nd A.I.F., +with little rising suns adorning the centre-posts of their crosses! See +where lies Capt. Claude with his high memorial, or Private Harry who +carried out an equal sacrifice with him. + +Rusty old cans on ten-foot poles mark the limits of the burial-ground, +and a notice says "Cemetery closed" as one might read outside a theatre +at night--"Pit full" "Gallery full" "Stalls full." On the hillside +above, sounds the laughter of men and the clatter of spades where a new +acre of God is being dug, the foundations of a new theatre being laid. +Here French Negroes, Flemings, and French peasants are at work under the +guidance of British soldiers. Occasionally a car rushes up through the +dust and a couple of British officers come forward to see how things +are going on. + +Passing on to Longueval you see the masts of Longueval Wood, but before +you come to it there stands now at the cross-roads a "café-restaurant," +an unpainted wooden hut. Here with the sun streaming full on their faces +sit two Falstaffian wights with bottles labelled Malaga between them and +glasses full. On their dewy red chins and necks there are three or four +folds of flesh; red veins run down their necks like gutters at the side +of a house. They hold hands and sing and make everyone in the tavern +laugh--then swallow--swallow--swallow, the wine rolls down their +exuberant gullets. + +Suddenly there is a note of warning in the restaurant, whisperings about +_l'officier_, to make it appear as if the men were drinking beer, the +woman comes and takes the wine-bottles and pours their contents into +metal tankards, sweeps the table clean of wine driblets, and reprimands +the topers. + +They pull themselves together and take on a sobered gait. One of them +opens a sand-bag in his possession and brings out two enormous doorsteps +of bread and butter. Silence reigns. There is a suspense. Someone +evidently is expected. Will it be a dapper, constrained, politely +inquisitive British officer? Hardly! Ah, here he is! Enter fiery British +sergeant-major with bristling moustache and bright crown on his sleeve, +stout, smart, and red. + +"Na then," says he, darting upon the Falstaffs, "play the game, play the +bloomin' game. Come on, travai in the cemetery. Officeer come, no bon +pour moy, bon pour vous, no bon pour moy. Com' on now or I'll jolly well +have to shift yer. The Belgiques and the Algerians know all about yer. +It's all over the place." + +"Ca ne fait rien." + +"Ca-ne-fait-rien pour vous but not pour moy. Officeer bocu faché avec +moy. You no catch it, I catch it, compris?" + +One of the grave-diggers offers his red wrist to be felt. + +"Yers I know," says the sergeant-major indignantly. "Moy zig-zag las' +night. But n-no zig-zag to-day." + +They offer him their glasses--apparently of beer. He sips one and then +drains it, and then drains the other one too. + +"Now com' on, com' on into cemetery and work with the others," he +continues, wiping his moustache. The Falstaffs try to rise, but fall +back into their seats laughing. Finally the sergeant-major hits one a +heavy crack on the head with his stick and pulls his red right ear out +like india-rubber to double length, tweaks the other Falstaff by the +nose, and pulls them both up, and shakes them. + +"Na then," says he. "Quick March to the cemetery!" And they go. + +How the dead would have laughed to see this scene! How living are the +living! + + * * * * * + +The way is toward Flers and toward Ginchy. In a grey haze of autumn +sunshine the battlefields stretch like a sea; green waves to the limit +of eyes' view. And there are bits of worn-down woods like those +mysterious wrecks of forest which come into view upon some shores when a +neap-tide leaves them bare. + +Ten years ago the whole land was a fair pleasaunce. Ten years hence it +will doubtless be tamed again if not so fair. The _sinistrés_ of the +Somme are doing a marvellous work already, filling in the pits, +levelling with their spades, and ploughing up the whole with their +little petrol-ploughs. The shell-splashed approaches to the line can +with industry be recovered. And the Frenchman when working for himself +has what seems a slavish love of toil. He does his real worship bending +over _la France_ and he will work on to the end. He has to do a hundred +times what he has already done--and he will do it. A hundredth part of +the battle area of the Somme has been recovered, and on the ninety-nine +parts grow all that naturally would arise if man died out upon this +fertile world. The stinging-nettles are higher than a man's head and +rise on full fleshy stalks, and they are thick like a wall. They grow +from the caked black mud, from sunken equipment and horses and men and +all the jetsam of war. They can make no-man's land strange and terrible +yet, though not so terrible if still impassable. You see gleaming above +the green main-flood of nettle a white Ionic cross shining afar and make +it your landmark. You reach it as a swimmer coming from some ship to a +white buoy on the sea, and find it to be the monument to the 47th +Londons in memory of the taking of Eaucourt. And yonder is a +conventional scribble on the moor--the ruins of Eaucourt. You come out +on to a limy plank road, listening to distant explosions from the +returned peasants making _sauter les abris_ with dynamite, and then the +eye rests on an ugly hump of weed-grown rock, a strange uprising from +the centre of a large tableland. It is the Butte of Warlencourt, for the +possession and retention of which what quantities of blood were shed, +the famous Butte which you can walk up now as you would walk upstairs. +Here stand wooden monuments to the 6th, 8th and 9th Durham Light +Infantry--to the 2nd South African Infantry, and also to Sachs Inf. +Regt. 159 who held the Butte against all comers in 1916 and recaptured +it on the 25th March 1918, and the thoughtful Germans have given their +monument a concrete base. From the top of the Butte there is a complete +circle of view, and one sees a light railway going from it towards +Eaucourt lined with dead desperate trees, one sees once more as it were +waves of the sea on leagues of no-man's land, black ruins of woods, +wrecks of villages--a wonderful standing point and vantage ground in the +great Somme scene. + +[Illustration] + +It is two miles to the entrance to Bapaume. The route nationale from +Albert runs smooth and level below the Butte, a track for +space-devouring motors. On the right of the road the luscious brownness +of the massed timber of an infinite array of new wooden crosses; on the +left, swarthy and scraggy, thistle-swallowed, the decaying memorials of +the German dead--Hier ruht Friedrich Blohm, Paul Vogel, August Dill and +the rest, till Germany comes and takes them back again or in time they +are forgotten and lost. Bapaume is just ahead, but the Army stops short +of it--like flies dragging their limbs across a little fly-paper they +tire and can go no further. There they stick for the dreadful winter of +1916-17 in the most loathsome trenches of the war, in foul and deepening +liquescence, living and dead and rats in a fiendish domesticity. Leagues +of destruction behind them; an enemy wall of flesh and bayonet in front; +rain or cloud or mist, and only occasionally a mocking sun above. A +fresh-faced new officer from the Caithness coast joined in the late +autumn of '16. He arrived at the line at night. His first duty was to +superintend a burying party--some three hundred sodden green bundles to +be disposed of--three hundred gleaned from the mud and the pits and the +verges of no-man's land. He came to the front imbued with the faith of +Donald Hankey, and the belief that under him he would find "the +everlasting arms." He could not endure the ribaldry of the mess and the +war-bred cynicism of those who believed in letting _others_ be heroic. +He brought a Kingsley-Carlylean fervour with him, and believed in +"putting his back into it," and doing even the meanest duty as if it +were infinitely worth while. He tried to know his sergeants and his men. +He was so energetic in the football field playing officers versus +sergeants that the onlookers laughed. He tried to stop bad language and +gambling, and he routed out people to go to the padre's voluntary Sunday +evening services at the back of the lines. He came in 1916; he lasted +till 1918. What was the effect on this man? This, that by 1918 he used +such bad language himself that even the N.C.O.'s were surprised. He +exhausted the conventional execrations of the mess-room, and used +expressions which would never be heard there. We carried him to his +grave at C---- and his sergeants remarked how commonly he had come to +use expressions which no officer would ordinarily employ. Withal he had +his drink and his bet, and became what is called by males, _entre eux_, +a "man's man." Poor hero--from that night of burying green bundles to +that morning when we buried him--he marched through the valley of the +shadow of death, tormented as Pilgrim was by hobgoblins and satyrs. But +when he died he shed his war body, he shed that lurid phraseology, and +became once more, no doubt, the Kingsley-Carlylean hero that he was, +with some sort of knowledge of human sorrow which those who lived in +peace knew not. So it must have been also with those who once breathed +within the sodden green bundles. They shook off something evil when they +died, but in passing through it they must somehow have understood more. +Sorrow dimmed the eyes even of the hardest swearer of the Army. And the +dead now constrain us to a new human tenderness, they empower us to +touch more delicately and to understand more deeply--to love more. Pity +for us if we do not now live differently because of the dead! + +Thus as one walks through Bapaume and sees the children of new Bapaume +playing in their innocence in the streets and the ruins, one can look +down on them more tenderly, more caressingly, for the sake of the dead, +passing on, as it were, man's forgiveness to man. And in our +relationships with the grown-ups, our neighbours, ourselves dressed +differently, we can have more patience, more compassion, more readiness +to help and to be kind. It comes from the dead, it comes from the living +who were dead. + +What that winter was before the Germans retreated! What the hours on the +Cross were before the Saviour died! In our loathing of pain we shudder +to think of it. Others bore it; we must bear it. And when the time is +passed Golgotha remains, that Golgotha which was in fact so near to the +gate of the Temple itself. In Bapaume, where all houses have been made +vaults, stand the white ruins of a church, greyish-white and spectral as +if of the material of another world. But for its pointing walls it is +one white ruin, loveliness in a heap and the baleful shadow of the hand +of the malefactor. In the ruins of the church of the leaning Virgin at +Albert the first words one reads are JESUS NATUS EST, as if the ruins +had been given tongue to say in the moment of death the supreme +Christian paradox, and at Bapaume as you reverently approach this +strange new _Pieta_ you see still unshattered the Church's Latin carved +on stone--AD MEUM SANCTUARIUM--to My sanctuary. If, like Thomas, you do +not believe, you must go forth and touch with your hands and feel with +your eyes--to My sanctuary! + +Bapaume lies more abased even than Albert. It is as if its stones had +had a soul and been afraid, vibrant with the horror of humanity. The +consternation of inanimate matter is expressed in its ruins. The Hotel +de Ville, its seat of power, was evidently built of large granite blocks +which the rising German mine of March 1917 must have scattered like hail +over the town. And amidst these mighty stones flew the tender bodies and +the spirits of the French deputés, Albert Taillandier and Raoul Briquet, +who had just said in their hearts--_The enemy hath departed_, when the +enemy was suddenly at their doors. + +The _sinistrés_ are living in cellars and wooden huts. The +railway-station is two "baby elephants" of rusty iron. Where were large +shops and as one can imagine, in the old days, shop-fronts full of +ladies' costumes and hats, windows displaying bedroom suites of +furniture, windows full of stationery and books, are now diminutive +piles of rubbish pathetically ticketed with the name of the old +establishment--Maison Betrancourt, Maison this, Maison that--_transferée +à un autre lieu_. In the Grande Place stands the much-shrapnelled base +of a monument where the stone hero has gone to join the hero he +commemorated, and the spite of a new era has even endeavoured to erase +his name. + +Where thousands lived and loved and pushed their trade and died, now but +a few hundred hold together in the midst of the wilderness. They have +assembled from all points of the compass. War whirled some to Germany, +some to Paris, some to the Pyrenees. The hopeful came back and the +faithful decided to stay. It is a picture of human triumph over +destruction, but only a pathetic triumph, not a glorious one. In the +summer, with long days and warm nights it is less unnatural to live in +this waste. Warmth and light join the _sinistrés_ to all France and +Europe, but winter with its short days and cold and great darkness folds +away the vision of a resurrection. A poky train, without lights, creeps +at night from Achiet to Bapaume through villages of fearful name. +Bapaume becomes conscious of all the dreadful places which surround it, +places whose names are full of the awe of death and of the +war--Riencourt, Bullecourt, Ervillers, Mory, Vaulx-Vraucourt, and a +hundred others, nothing in themselves but held in the cerements of the +dead. + +It is a strange walk now, to the Hindenburg line. You are traversing +ground which was four times overtrodden and overfought. The Germans took +it in 1914. We shelled it in 1916 and drove the enemy out in 1917. The +enemy swept over it in March 1918 and then let it go as he retired in +September. German, French, and British lie buried beside one another. +The Germans lost their dead and then recaptured them. It is an appalling +country, still as it were sulphurous with the war, stinking vaguely of +cordite. The dead have got a grip on it, and hold with their hands the +lap of earth which the peasants are ploughing. The air which is apt to +sparkle in autumn frost is full of the light of the eyes of the men who +once lived. And that light rests about the broken barns and billets and +churches and halls. There is an influence which is pulling one way all +the time, and that is not towards this world. + +The graveyards are many, and they have their history. It always seems a +pity that it was not allowed during the war to make mention on the cross +how and where each soldier met his death. The military mind imagined +that such details might give information to the enemy or to the Press, +and forbade anything beyond name, number, and regiment. Texts also were +prohibited, the chaplains being over-ruled. Not that texts could +entirely be kept out. In one of the cemeteries near Bapaume there stands +for the time being a large wooden cross inscribed "He is not here; he +is risen," which has an astonishing effect amidst a thousand crosses +which are dumb. + +There are many many rows of human bodies planted out near +Vaulx-Vraucourt, first a German cemetery with its old crosses torn to +bits, partly no doubt by shells; and then side by side a regular British +cemetery where lie many Australians, one of whom, Lieut. Pidgeon (aged +23) has a little figure of Christ riven from a crucifix stuck in the +earth beside his wooden cross. Here lie also many of the Leeds Rifles, +seven even in one grave, killed evidently in the terrible encounter with +the German machine-gunners in September '18. The German memorials go +more into decay each day, but a man is paid to keep the British bright +and clean and in repair, and his dog bites at the heels of the pilgrim +as he walks from the dead to the dead. Facing both are the gaunt white +ruins of the village church and the hideous smashage of the French +communal cemetery, and there the people have put artificial roses in old +rusty shell-cases in front of their stricken memorials. + +Further on, beside the light railway which runs north to Ecoust, there +are tiny cemeteries. In one of these Germans and British are mingled, +thus--Gefreiter Luckenmeyer of the German Field artillery betwixt a man +of the Londons and a man of the Devons, and a German unknown and a +British Tommy lie in a little plot together by themselves. In some +cemeteries the bodies of our foes were buried just outside those of our +own kindred, but as exhumed bodies were brought in, ever increasingly, +it has come about that we have surrounded German graves with our own, +and as it were accidentally forgiven our enemies and received them into +the midst of the family. + +Over the way at Vraucourt Copse, perched high in a sun-kissed wheatfield +lies Lieut. A. S. Robinson of the Royal Scots, with 22 private soldiers' +names inscribed on his cross. One wondered if it would be true to +say--"Here he lies where he longed to be" and did he love Stevenson and +often quote + + Under the wide and starry sky + Dig my grave and let me lie. + +These Royal Scots have the widest of all starry skies above them and the +unbarred gate of heaven in its midst. + +A little further still and you have the Australian cemetery at Noreuil +at the corner of the road, rectilinear, handsome, clean and cared-for, +neatly fenced in with wire and having a little white gate by which to +enter. But outside the cemetery and as it were falling back in every +attitude of banishment and despair, the old faded wood and broken +crosses of the Germans, overgrown with weeds, crazy-roofed crosses, +aslant, tumbled. In 1916 the enemy began to bury here. In 1917 he left +his dead behind. In 1918 he recaptured them and repaired the +crosses--and added to them. In 1918 it was a decent graveyard; one could +read the names of all the dead. But their kindred went away and forgot. +Their crosses are the monuments of the forgotten and the vague memorial +of a useless sacrifice. + +Doubtless the drama of the penultimate year 1917 did not centre in the +supra-Somme country. Its scenes of action were at Lens and Vimy, at +Pilkelm Ridge and Passchendaele. The year which ran on from the German +retirement was the strangest of the war, promising everything, +fulfilling nothing, beginning with Haig's victory interview and ending +with the failures in Flanders and the German break-through from Cambrai. +It was the year of American self-announcement, of the Russian +revolution, of the pros and contras of peace at Stockholm, of the +victory of the Bolsheviks, of the Italian debacle. Germany seemed to +grow stronger all the year, and the morale of the Allies waned. Men no +longer betted one another that it would be all over by Christmas. Lord +Grey's supposed prediction was forgotten. The whisper went abroad that +"it might last a lifetime," and then in mock cynicism, _They say the +first seven years will be the worst_. New units hitherto untried in the +war still made their appearance, whole battalions whose war-history +commences with the conflicts about Lens or the battles for +Passchendaele Ridge. The Derby drafts were reputed to come marching to +the strains of "The Church's One Foundation" singing their own +confession-- + + We are Lord Derby's Army + Just come across the sea. + We cannot march, we cannot shoot, + What bloomin' good are we? + +And the old army said "Where have you been this long while?" The +conscripts however were to follow in even more desperate case, and when +they first reached France and their tender feet struck the cobbled +roadways they sang--not a hymn, but a new version of "Auld Lang Syne"-- + + We're here because we're here, + Because we're here, because we're here, + We're here because we're here, + Because we're here, because we're here. + +"Take me back to dear old Blighty!" was the song of the whole army and +had completely displaced Tipperary. + +No doubt owing to the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line the +Allied plan of attack for the summer had been foiled. All the machinery +of assault had been arranged for a stubborn and dreadful prolongation of +the Somme battle between the horizons where winter had halted it. The +greatest concentration of guns which the war had seen had to be +liquidated. New gun-positions had to be dug and a new concentration +achieved. Telephone and telegraph had to be brought up to a new line. +Organisation work which would ordinarily have been accomplished in the +quiet winter months had to be done through the campaigning season of +Spring and Summer. Men looked less seriously on the war, though the war +was not less serious for them. Witness the sinister stare of the Lens +country which knew the 1917 army and has looked on terrible things. We +made Lens in 1917 into a narrow deep pocket full of Germans. The taking +of it was confidently anticipated. Fleet Street wanted it to serve on a +platter to Herod. But it could not be had though thousands died for it. +The enemy held it by miracle. It was impossible to hold such a position +but the impossible held. + +Grey and terrible is Vimy Ridge with its line of block-houses and the +masts of Farbus Wood. Looking outward from Vimy o'er the vast Arras +war-scape the eye is sick and returns in vision to itself as the dove +returned to the Ark when it found no other mercy of the Lord above +misery's tide. + +Praise God the enemy could not do to Arras what we did to Lens! Arras +still lives, surmounting the grandeur of her ruins. The Cathedral with +the top of its massive tower gnawn off by Fate is to be preserved for +ever as a memorial of these days. You can climb from the grass-grown +rubble below to mountains of lime and broken stone and reach a high +eminence against the pinky-grey fissured wall of the tower. It is +sunset, and you look down upon widespread recuperative Arras standing in +pink haze into which smoky air or fog is pouring. The houses are grey or +splotchy with their shrapnel marks still on them, but there are others +which are red and white, and these stand gaping with empty glassless +windows. You look on spangling new red roofs, you look on Noah's Arks, +you look on half-consumed unsupported walls, you look on shadows which +are pits where houses were. On the one hand is the lofty massiveness of +the Episcopal Palace--on the other the irrecoverable smash of poor men's +homes. From all this great city below, pious men and women used to come +to the Cathedral--but now no more shall they come. + +You step down from the height, and cross the cobbled immensity of the +Cathedral Square. Every shop all the four sides has the same façade +above, the same porticos below, and from grimy and broken windows four +hundred ruined wizened houses stare. Then night has come. God has called +away the redness and left the murk. You turn and see the mountain of +God's house. There is no tint of rose in the grey walls now, no petty +detail of ruin, but one general effect. The Cathedral tower is a great +black mass. It is suffering made supreme and dominant, the shadow of a +mediæval Christ on the Cross. It is a romantic but dreadful pointer full +of terror and power. Men creep diminutively across the vast and shoppy +square, and the great feudal shadow above them makes them smaller yet. + +All night the shadow reigns, becoming even mightier in the moonlight, +and crowning itself with starry diadem. But there come the mists of the +morning and then morn itself, and you may stand where now no longer Mass +is heard--on the East side of the Cathedral, and see the white light of +heaven streaming through gossamer and driving out pale silhouettes of +the shadows of all the bleared houses of the Square. There are pale +peaked shadows of all the façades which face the Cathedral. Over your +head sounds the rush of dove's wings. Men and women everywhere are +moving; men with their tools and women with their baskets. The life of +the city goes on, but the dream of the ruin has fallen back into the +night and limbo, and will not be recovered till the stars come again. + +The city of Arras was the pilot city of the British in 1917. All +Flanders looked to her from the left, all France from the right. And in +'18 when the tide of Fortune changed she was our bulwark of defence and +was right in the fighting line like a Coeur de Lion with battle-axe at +Acre. Our mighty city of coal and steel in England has chosen specially +to identify itself with Arras--Newcastle-on-Tyne--and Arras has many +English sons. It is no doubt natural to say that Newcastle has adopted +Arras, as we might say of a converted man that he had taken Christ to +himself, but the deeper truth is that Arras has adopted Newcastle--"Ye +have not chosen me but I have chosen you." + +The British victories at Arras and the French victories above Verdun +were of happy augury. But no victory is a victory unless followed by a +victory, and Time itself wilts laurels. Haig's dream of striking the +enemy hard and often, leaving no time to recover from a blow at one +point before calamity fell upon him at another, proved only a dream. The +German invention of mustard gas and the appearance of many hostile tanks +upon the scene were examples of the unforeseen. Very efficient tank-guns +and studied methods of attack upon tanks reduced the usefulness of our +new war-engine to comparatively low terms. In the late summer we +embarked on a new campaign in Flanders, and our best weapon was a still +boundless belief in our ability to "beat the Hun" whom, mentally, in +every possible way, the army under-rated. The Hun, so-called, suffered +nothing like so much as our fellows. He would not have stood so much. +And of all war-struggles, that which sank at last to rest in the +wilderness of Poelcapelle and Passchendaele in the November of the year +seemed the most hopeless. + +Much of the main interest of humanity was transferred from the strife at +the front to other scenes of action. 1917 was an air and water year, a +submarine year, a Gotha year. London was terrified by day by wonderful +almost invisible planes which ravaged East-end schools and caused the +exodus from Whitechapel to Brighton. Daylight raids were followed by +starlight raids, and although the papers of the time laughed at such +affairs and said we liked them, there is no need to keep up that +deception now. London suffered in mind excruciatingly. + +With the persistent bombing of London came a more systematic bombing of +the lines at night. It is more unpleasant, though really safer, to await +bombs in open fields than it is in London, but the soldier loathed the +bomb from air far more than he did the shell. The transverse movement of +the shell no doubt gives the mind more scope for judgment and calm than +does the missile falling vertically. + +The Germans were so impressed by this fear of bombs that they +endeavoured to give shelter underground to each and every one of their +soldiers when threatened from above. There must have been a regular +routine like fire-drill when our bombing planes went over, and Fritz was +marched into his enormous subterranean shelters. British and French +troops had no such organised way of escape, and they had to find what +cover they could where they were. It was always surprising what a number +of miscellaneous casualties were caused by the night-bombers. + +Expectation of the German planes' approach was intense, and men could +distinguish readily the sound of the engines of our own planes and those +of the enemy. There seemed to be something peculiarly sinister in the +sound of a "Jerry" and men were fond of imitating it in screeds of words +in the style of "Hush hush hush, here comes the bogey man!" + +A characteristic imitation given sometimes at regimental concerts used +to run in this way:-- + + _I-see-ye, I-see-ye, I-see-ye, + I-see-ye. + I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming. + Biv-eee, biv-eee, biv-eee. + Sh, sh........sh. + HAH! + I'm off, I'm off, I'm off, + I'm off!_ + +And a current French marching-song of the time imitated the promiscuous +crump of bomb-explosions thus:-- + + _Il pleut, il pleut des bombes + (Et boum! et bon! badaboum et bon!) + Il s'ecriera Guillaume + Rentrons, rentrons-- + Zon, zon._ + +But no rhyme in any language ever expressed that lurid splash on the +night-sky when a bomber was destroyed, that effusion of crimson which +caused men's eyes to dilate looking up at it, that sense of dreadfulness +and awe and satisfaction, that banishment of pity through fear's +reaction which steeped men's minds, as if on the floor of their souls an +answering red glow appeared. It was tragical to be bombed, but how much +more so to see the bomber die. They died most dreadful deaths, those +Zeppelin crews and aero-bus teams, and yet of course they merely died. +They met the common soldier's destiny---- Nevertheless you could not +lessen the sensation of watching an airman's death by reasonableness. In +the lurid spectacle in the heavens men saw not death but a +hieroglyphic--a sign. + +Men did not liken them to Lucifer cast from heaven, but their fall was +like the rebel angels' fall-- + + With hideous ruin and combustion, down + To bottomless perdition. + +Day-flying was different and affected the mind in an entirely different +way. Even the stricken night-bomber, when his charred remains were seen +by daylight, became in enemies' eyes nothing but honourable. The triumph +over him was forgotten in a sort of triumph in him. There was a +naturally chivalrous attitude towards dead airmen. That chivalry was +sometimes spoiled by human jackals--but the majority nevertheless +instinctively preserved it. + +Many of the graves of our airmen were marked by crosses which are +adorned with carven wings, and in this speaks, not only a military but a +human pride. Foot-soldiers did not see in the aeroplane a mere +mechanical contrivance but a new human victory over matter. The feats of +airmen flattered pedestrian souls, who knew thereby that they could fly +if they would, flattered us all. Because men had to enter some section +of the fighting services thousands chose to fly and fight who otherwise +would not have been tempted off the firmer elements of land and sea. +They conquered the first nausea of fear, and learned to live with danger +as with a wife. They tumbled above us and we marvelled, not taking +anywise into account the war-sting which started them, bidding neither +sit nor stand but go. One is not sorry that the guns speak no more. One +is not sorry that the night-bombers and Zeppelins have ceased to menace +us. But the emptiness of the heavens by day has its sadness now in +France, its human wanness and melancholy. One realises that the war +brought out the flier--as it were before his time, and we must wait long +ere we see in peace the state of air society which he prefigured. + +Down below the airmen trudged heavy-footed men. The airmen were +literally supermen; those below were a sort of undermen. In heavily +weighted boots, with backs bent and not straightened by war's routine, +with clumsily encumbered bodies, trudged under-humanity, through mud, +along gulleys, into holes and pits, down into subterranean chambers. The +underman enjoyed no human exaltation except occasionally at the prospect +of getting free; he had no mercurial lightness on his heels, no rapid +quicksilver of mounting imagination; instead, he was gripped downward +and held till he died or there was peace. It used to be a common saying +that from the moment you stepped off at Havre you were a slave. You +walked in the chains of the war. Men's hearts hardened. They told +themselves they wanted nothing and cared nothing. Their minds fell +victims to a dull passivity or false boisterousness. They banished the +bright ego and took up with a Cerberus, yowled the dog-language of the +army, and got selfishly irate over biscuits and slops and bully-beef. +They grew more and more dirty and came out in boils. Coarse hair grew +apace, brows grew lower, hands that had any cunning in them grew to mere +claws and clutches, eyes dullened, and the ear-gate stood ajar for the +sound of animal noises and animal confessions. The war was a Bacchanalia +for the animal in man. + +It was in 1917 that Paris leave as a supplement to the usual home leave +was common. This was understood as for the soldier's health. It would +stop the boils and ease the system. Men could draw a handsome arrear of +pay on the strength of Paris leave, and once in Paris they went deeper +than in the dug-outs of the war. Or units were withdrawn to places where +the women thronged. Men were robbed by the war of their respect unto +their living selves. And 1917 saw the entry of puritan America into the +war, the nation of vice-hunting and prohibition, and the rest. But it +did not raise the morality of rank and file. The Yanks were shipped with +a thirst. The men brought up in sheltered Western communities proved to +have no more power than we had to resist the temptations of European +vice. The virus of the army seems to have been the same in United States +training grounds as in those of England. Material conditions imposed +some restraint, but imagination fed the starved side of men's souls with +lurid pictures of what obtained in France. Uncle Sam's common soldiers, +handsome and clean as they were, and brave, yet brought with them an +expectancy which caused them to take no moral lead but on the contrary +to plunge headlong into that war-mire which we had all been making. And +disease ravaged the American ranks. Some few thousands fell dead on the +field of battle and some tens of thousands were wounded, but disease +casualties filled the hospitals. It was fortunate for America's manhood +that the war was not protracted. Their war enthusiasm was pushing them +on. They did not realise that what they called "the shooting gallery" +was a myriad-fold death-trap. Death in many shapes was ready to raven on +America. As her men were inexperienced in war's alarms, so also were +they unfitted to face the moral ordeal. Humanitarianism, materialism, +and a superimposed morality do not produce men more capable of +withstanding temptation. Purity depends too often on keeping temptation +away. The Yanks brought their own brand of bad language with them--a +language beside which lurid English was but pale. Where they had learned +such verbal frightfulness seemed puzzling. But curiously enough it +caused the American soldier to be hail-fellow well-met. He brought no +airs of moral superiority or prudishness. It became a pastime in the +British army to imitate admiringly the American type of swearing. It is +all beyond the power of the pen. But those who heard it know. If the +Yanks had kept to this extreme they would have remained enduringly +popular--but they vaunted their prowess and exaggerated their feats and +ignored the reality of the hell through which others had been, and they +started the talk of their winning the war, and so lost ground. The +Americans in France were on the whole perplexing to the average +European. Their exaggerated thirst for war's relaxations on the one +hand tended to make them one with the other armies in the field, but +their idea of superiority kept them separate. + +At Calais now the boxes are stacked on the quays with the embalmed +American dead. At great cost of time and labour the dead soldiers are +being removed from the places where they fell and packed in crates for +transport to America. In this way America's sacrifice is lessened. For +while in America this is considered to be America's own concern, it is +certain that it is deplored in Europe. The taking away of the American +dead has given the impression of a slur on the honour of lying in +France. America removes her dead because of a sweet sentiment towards +her own. She takes them from a more honourable resting-place to a less +honourable one. It is said to be due in part to the commercial +enterprise of the American undertakers, but it is more due to the +sentiment of mothers and wives and provincial pastors in America. That +the transference of the dead across the Atlantic is out of keeping with +European sentiment she ignores, or fails to understand. America feels +that she is morally superior to Europe. American soil is God's own +country and the rest is comparatively unhallowed. To be one in death +with Frenchmen, Italians, Negroes, Chinamen, Portuguese, does not suit +her frame of mind. Of course, lack of imagination, lack of knowledge of +the war and of the great mix-up of the dead is natural enough at a +distance of three thousand miles--the vain thought that the identity of +dead bodies with human beings can be retained. As it is, the inscription +on every hundredth cross in France is probably a misnomer. There never +was time for meticulous care, and the dead were not always buried by +full daylight or identified by other than the slightest of clues. Is it +remarkable if someone receives instead of soldier son the body of a +coolie from China, or if a citizen should receive what portends to be +his own corpse? By risking such accidents the majesty of the dead is +offended. If love desired its dead again, love should come and lift its +dead with its own hands and carry it home. + +Politically understood, there should be no property in the dead bodies +of this great war. There is only one totality of death and suffering. +The dead of the war are a blend. One high stone might stand at the head +of each cemetery, and on it all the names be inscribed. The little +crosses with name and numbers on each are but desperate human reminders +of individuality. But for a dreadful peace, worse than the war, America +would have been convinced, as was her war-commander Pershing, that it +was nobler to leave her sacrifices on the altar with the others. + +Had America's ideal won all had been different, but only the side she +joined won and not the ideal. France and England broke the spirit of +America's great President and ruined him as the Kaiser was ruined, +relegated him to another Amerongen, drove him to his Ekaterinburg too, +the third great monarch and leader of men to lose his crown in the war. +The American masses were left leaderless, bereft of their ideal. In +contempt for a vain France and distrust of a lip-serving inimical +England they plunged for "_America first and always and one hundred per +cent_." But had Wilson carried his great program there had been no +estrangement, no exhuming of the American dead. America would have +gloried in her European shrines. Therefore in looking upon the collapsed +heaps of coffins in the harbour and the dead glowering through riven +wood, one is really looking upon an aspect of the Treaty of Versailles. +In the second year after the war you see terrible things. Who could have +foreseen thousands of dead stacked in the holds of Atlantic vessels, +making their unmurmurous return across the ocean! + +It is night again in human history, deep night, when we dream things of +evil and look upon sights of horror which we have no power to dispel. In +the gathering gloom of the autumn of 1920 see a whole succession of +phantoms stalking. Ireland goes wailing and clanking her chains. +Exultant France struts and threatens. Ghosts of Tsar and Tsarina are +crying pitifully from Siberian dust. Red demons, mirthless and terrible, +stare at us from Russia. Italia stabs nightly fair Fiume. And all the +while maledictory shouts and cries are heard on all hands. + +Spectres and ghosts and things of evil stalk around and terrify us, and +there is only one way to lay them low, and that is by the token of the +Cross--by the token of the crosses, the hundreds of thousands of them +that run out like rows of pins in France. It is only coming from France +that the right approach can be made to new life. Let each new man faring +forth into this beset enchanted world dip his soul in the blood of the +Altar of France--or if not his very soul, let him at least dip a +kerchief or a flag there--for remembrance. With that charm he can +uncurse curses and disenchant enchantment and break through the chimeras +and fogs which cling to the base of the mountain of the world, and he +will reach the singing-bird and the water of life at the top of the +mountain, and then restore, as in the Arabian tale, the dead to life. + +Doubtless every man who was in the Army and took a chance of death and +yet escaped, must have reflected on his good fortune, the strange light +of Providence which fell upon his destiny and spared him whilst on all +hands his friends and neighbours and fellow-countrymen had fallen. As +the soldier left the Army and became civilian again he inevitably +thought to himself--"Whereas I might have been dead I am alive; whereas +I might be bond I am free." And some indeed could add "Whereas I might +have been a cripple, or blind, or lamed, or a neurasthenic or a +shell-shocked broken man I am sound and fit and have a whole life and +freedom to give to the new time which comes with the blessing of peace." + +The Frenchman came back to a glorified and magnified France; to a proved +capacity to defeat and hold in check a deadly and historical enemy. The +Englishman came back to a free England, to a nation who was queen of the +nations, to a larger and more untrammelled world-empire; the Belgian to +a justified and safeguarded Belgium; the American to an America which +had achieved for the first time in history a complete sense of +nationhood and unity. The Serbian returned to a resurrected Serbia and a +prospective future of Southern Slav greatness. Of the Italian, who +joined in the war as a bargain with the others and did not fight +primarily for our ideals, we will say nothing. But how near we all were +to being beaten, and to realising the very opposite of the present happy +potentialities. But a turn in the wheel or a hair in the scale, and the +French would have been slaves, the Englishman beaten on land if not on +sea would have returned cowering to his little island, empire falling +from his grasp and almost the whole bill of the war to defray by the +efforts of his restive working-class population; the Belgian a German +subject; the American flouted and anxious with the shadow of a terrible +new war to fight all by himself in the years to come; the Serbian a peon +of Bulgaria or shackled in the heavy rusty Austrian irons. When we are +in despair in 1920, 1921, 1922 we should all say to ourselves--"Whereas +we might have been slaves we are free; whereas we might have been dead +we are alive----" It is what the graveyards of France tell those who +look at them. The dead are all pointing mutely to themselves. Their +crosses are the direction-posts of new life. + +Our enemy came nearer to overthrowing us by the result of the Russian +Revolution than by anything else. The defection of Russia, the +liberation of the German and Austrian Eastern armies, nearly took +victory away from us, and we have God and our cause to thank for +salvation. In the late summer and autumn of 1917 the tide of victory +turned and began to roll the other way. At the battle for Passchendaele +commenced the last year of the war. In that year we experienced every +emotion of victory and defeat. The year opened inauspiciously at +Passchendaele where so many fell trying to traverse an infernal area of +wire and pits and mud, facing the reinforced machine-gunners, facing the +new gas, facing the fire of a vastly increased artillery. Many a cheery +boy with muddy uniform and bright morning face stood up for the last +time at Passchendaele, and unexpectedly--died for England. You may seek +their bodies in the Flemish earth to-day. Perhaps one of them is the +unknown soldier in the Abbey. But their spirits are far away from here. +They are watchful and radiant and celestial now--not so lovable perhaps +in their immortality, for how can mortals feel for the immortals, but +enormously more lovable in our mortal conception of them than ever they +were when alive--the dead of the last year of the war. + +Passchendaele was followed by the sudden triumph of the Austrian armies +in the Italian Alps, and the surrender of a hundred thousand Italians +and a thousand guns. Revolutionary propaganda was said to have been +ravaging the Italian soldier's mind. Others said the Italians sold the +day to the enemy. But the prime cause of Austrian victory was to be +sought in the great accession of strength due to the Russian lapse from +war. No more offensives of Brusilof; no Grand Duke Nicholas any more to +terrify Vienna; not even a Kornilof! Austria naturally rounded upon her +Southern foe with double might. Vienna bells rang forth and Berlin +floated in military joy. Wilhelmstrasse, the street of the Kaiser, +reflected deeply and sucked in the significance of the new victory. +After a desperate summer of peace-seeking suddenly a last hope of +triumph dawned like a fiery star late in the night and nigh unto +morning. The thought of coming with a white flag to the Council of +Europe was banished. Instead the stern decree of war to the uttermost +bound the German mind to the old choice of "complete victory or +downfall." Despite our opinion of the enemy conveyed in sneers at +concrete dug-outs and funk-holes and the "Kamerad" cry, the Germans +decided to come all out and win or lose on a gambler's throw. It was +perhaps more calculated and more calculable than the cast of the dice, +but if the Allies won, Germany had no second chance and would know that +she had lost. + +Teutonic preparations went ahead. The Allies took little stock of these +preparations, not believing that the enemy had much kick left in him. +Instead of organising our defence we planned a new attack upon the +Germans, and to the astonishment and chagrin of the latter the Byng Boys +carried off the laurels of the Battle of Cambrai. Fritz was taken by +surprise in late November, and we nearly went all the way to Cambrai. +Fleet Street wished to have joy-bells rung in London, but the Church +wisely bade us wait, while wrathful Germany averred that we had gone +into a trap in which we should presently be terribly caught. Then in the +break-through of Gouzeaucourt we learned the lesson that a new and more +dangerous enemy was in front of us. + +As you walk now along the Byng Boys way on a November afternoon and the +sun goes down in greyness and gloom you can feel the mystery of the +battle as if it had occurred hundreds of years ago. Reality has become +remote, remote as the last songs and shouts of the men who went through. +Sadness has covered the earth. It is all incredibly empty and desolate. +On a post on the road you discern through the evening mist ICI BOURSIES +and then after much plodding you pass the grey empty Canal du Nord with +its crumpled rusty bridges, and skirt the naked bones of Bourlon Wood. +Then by the side of the road all the dead of Anneux are lined up to see +you pass. You go on, but _they_ remain. It seems as if when you have +passed some spectral sergeant must say to all those pallid ranks "Fall +out!" and the order is broken up, and the dead mingle and commingle till +another comes past upon the broad highway. Night settles like a curtain +shutting off Cambrai from the view, and no light on any hand tells of a +return to home or of happiness restored. Suddenly the silence is broken +by three blundering lorries--old lorries of the war tearing past you +back on the road to Bapaume--ghostly lorries laden with doors, doors +only, to be dumped at some wilderness somewhere which was once a town. +They pass, and the night-silence resumes its sway, and there are no +stars but it is utter peace. Again a spectral post--ICI FONTAINE, ICI +FONTAINE NOTRE DAME, and you have reached the end of the fight, and the +bridge where life met death and both stood at last immobile, unyielding. + +A happier-looking place is the wood of Havrincourt where a Brigade of +Guards was sleeping, waiting and resting after the ordeal of Bourlon and +Fontaine. They had been relieved on the 26th November and marched back +in snow to this wood where in the umbrage of the forest and on the +carpet of withered leaves and snow they set up many tents. And whiles +they rested the enemy put into action a bold plan of encirclement which +might have caused the complete loss of Sir Julian Byng's army and guns +and of everything else in the pocket of Cambrai. One of the most +remarkable moments of the whole war occurred. Of many impressions of +what took place the story which one of the Guards' quartermasters tells +is most pictorial. He had set off early in the morning of the 30th +November for Villers au Flos to get money to pay his men. They had just +come out of action. He rode through Metz and Bertingcourt, where the +other Brigades were billeted, and no one was stirring. There was no hint +of coming trouble when he passed through Ruyaulcourt, where lay the +Divisional Headquarters Staff. On all roads were the usual road-carts, +plodding along in humdrum style. But by the time he reached Villers au +Flos, however, an alarm of some kind had evidently come, for the cashier +was busy packing up his cash and his papers, and flatly refused to pay +out any money whatever. Though not wishing to confess fright, he was +evidently extremely perturbed. + +"But I must have money for the men," cried the visiting officer. "The +coffee-bars and canteens will soon be arriving up there and opening; the +men are tired after the fighting. They have won a great victory and must +have some relaxation now, so you'll have to give me some money." + +"It isn't a victory, it's a retreat," said the cashier. "They say the +Germans have broken through." + +"Rot," said the Guardsman. "I have just come from the line and all is +quiet. You get wind up easily, you folk." + +He gained his point, and was happy to turn about his horse with a full +16,000 francs to pay out. On his return, however, the German +break-through became apparent and he realised that the cashier had been +right. He sampled all the adventures of the situation. First he saw +soldiers without rifle or equipment running intently, and he, not +suspecting the significance of their flight, thought there was a +paper-chase on, arranged by some regiment that was resting in the +neighbourhood. But at Bertingcourt, to his great astonishment, he met a +battalion of Guards in fighting order marching to action in the opposite +direction from that in which he understood the enemy to be. It was +incredible that it could have happened, but he realised that the enemy +had somehow shifted his ground. This regiment had been fighting at +Bourlon and Fontaine in the north--and now they were marching south to +fight again. South and not north--what could have happened! He "passed +the time of day" to the commander and learned that the worst was true, +the enemy had broken through at Gouzeaucourt. The further he rode along +the way to Havrincourt Wood the stranger became the sights which +confronted his eyes. The roads, which had now been cleared by order, +began to have troops going up to stem the German advance, and every now +and then a car plunging the other way. Out of Bertingcourt he met the +2nd Brigade Machine-Gun transport, saddled up and under orders. The +water in the jackets of the machine-guns was frozen and they wondered +how they'd thaw them. There were still many fugitives on the road, and +at cross-roads he overheard two of them who were contradicting one +another in the most violent language as to which was the way. He could +tell that their nerves had got the better of them by their high falsetto +tones. They were as unlike characteristic British soldiers as it is +possible to imagine. At Metz-en-Couture there was a complete jam of +traffic, which lasted all the way along the high-road towards +Gouzeaucourt. The retiring masses were greatly in excess of those going +up. They were mostly the transport of those who belonged to the +rear--railway-men, A.S.C., ambulance, canteen, Y.M.C.A. and what-not. A +pained expression was on the chauffeurs' faces, every one of whom +seemed to desire to say what a terrific speed he would make if he could +only get clear of the deadlock. He saw the ranks of the Guards broken +and made uneven by the struggle to get through. Outside Metz was a +Colonel of Grenadiers on horseback, enraged past belief at the +obstruction of his Guardsmen, and addressing the chauffeurs and +wagon-men in every imaginable blend of language. His aspect so terrified +our officer with the cash that he decided to make a detour and get to +his quarters at Havrincourt Wood by a cross-country route. But the +Germans had a high-velocity gun on Metz and shelled it methodically, and +he had not taken many steps when an exploding shell wounded his horse in +the head. He did not want anything to happen to him with 16,000 francs +on his person, so he decided to brave the presence of the justifiably +enraged Grenadier and proceed along the roadway as best he could. This +he did, but when at last he got to Havrincourt Wood his battalion was +gone and he was not able to get abreast of his men and pay them till +they came out of action some days afterwards and the Germans had been +stopped. + +The alarm had come about breakfast-time. Nothing was doing in camp; no +parades. Both officers and men were taking things easy in order to shake +off the Bourlon Wood exhaustion. Some were sleeping, some were shaving, +one Brigadier was in his bath, when the order came for the Guards to +stand-to and be in readiness, as the position east of Gouzeaucourt was +considered "obscure." + +The Headquarters of the 1st Brigade was at Metz, and a great deal was +due, no doubt, to the Brigadier who discovered that the Germans had +broken through and promptly decided to push on and occupy the high +ground east of Gouzeaucourt. The General of the 1st Brigade of Guards +was a fine figure of a soldier, with bold eyes, massive shoulders and +brows, and finely-curved smiling lips. Mounted on his white horse at the +cross-roads of Metz he was in charge of the situation. It was he who saw +the first fugitives come in, green, trembling, speechless with panic, +and as others followed breathless the same way, he deflected their +course into a great courtyard, lately the courtyard of the Army Corps +Headquarters. With that the Brigadier rode out along the Gouzeaucourt +road, and presently beyond Gouzeaucourt Wood he came into contact with +German patrols, and he rode back to Metz and called out the Guards. +Meanwhile the extraordinary stampede continued--Labour men, gunners with +breech-blocks in their hands, riflemen with or without rifles and +equipment, transport, some men half-dressed. And those who could speak +called out to those whom they met that the Germans were coming. There +were officers as well as men, and even chaplains, in the throng, and a +German aeroplane hovered overhead and followed with machine-gun fire, +methodically stirring up the panic to a higher and higher pitch. The +Guards debouched from Metz in close column and deployed in artillery +formation under cover of Gouzeaucourt Wood. As they hurried up the road +they passed the fugitive streams going the other way. The look on the +Guards' faces as they encountered the others was one of astonishment and +bewilderment. It would have been difficult to agree that the two streams +of troops belonged to the same nation. Two different conditions of +soldiery. With one there was discipline, with the others discipline had +gone. + +The road from Gouzeaucourt to Metz is a sort of gully, a deep-dug way +between high banks, and along the sides one still sees shards of old +rifles, rusty helmets, bits of equipment, and mess-tins. The peasants in +farming the ditches have unearthed not a few Mills' bombs which now +repose in piles by the side of the road. Here also reposes a dug-up +Lewis gun and various parts and bits of war's attire thrown away +possibly in the stampede, perhaps however, despite an inevitable +association of ideas, belonging to another moment of the war. For +although the Guards re-established the line once more it broke again in +the succeeding March, when once more the Germans pursued their foes +through the jetsam-covered streets of Gouzeaucourt. + +Gouzeaucourt was evidently greatly smitten by the war. It is a very +extensive village raked by the devil from end to end. It swarms now on +housetop and in yard with builders and joiners. A widespread clatter +ascends from every road so that the very sparrows cannot hear themselves +chirp. Hundreds of white barrack-like shelters have sprung into being. +But as if the villagers had not had time for small amenities, every +street and alley is strewn with brickbats. The scenery of the war still +holds, and November 30th could be played over again without loss of +reality from the scene. + +The road out to Metz is quiet enough now with carts of turnips jolting +along where three Novembers ago the lorries were fleeing. On the top of +the bank stretches the view of a war moorland becoming once more +grain-productive. To the north lies a pleasant boscage, the verdure of +Havrincourt. Along the south goes the straight line and the tree-stumps +which mark the Cambrai-Peronne road. + +Metz-en-Couture looks like a great rubbish-heap from which masses of +decaying brickwork are projecting. It is much less alive than +Gouzeaucourt. Its returned French peasants are however at work. Like all +desolated places which are off the railway it has to depend on motor +transport for the materials of reconstruction, and it is +characteristically behindhand compared with towns on the railway. And +Gouzeaucourt is well served by a railway from Cambrai. + +At Metz-en-Couture is a roadside cemetery. How good that most of the +cemeteries are actually close to the highways, and even automobilists +speeding past will see them, though it be only a blur on the +consciousness. All the crosses will fade into one another as a car +passes them. Here at Metz the Chinese and the Germans are put together +as outcasts from the pens of decency if not from God's grace. But it +will be all one to the man who passes by and does not pause to see. The +pilgrim however will find the graves of the stalwart Guardsmen, and +remember that they met their end saving the day and marching the right +way when the foe had broken through. The whole winter of 1917-18 might +have been very terrible had the Germans gained a great victory here, and +bad as it was the rout of March 1918 might have been complete. As you +walk back from Metz to Gouzeaucourt you figure again the way the enemy +was stopped and his grand potential victory robbed of its crown. In +Gouzeaucourt the Guards took back a hundred and fifty guns. Beyond +Gouzeaucourt Wood they cleared out the machine-gunners. Next day at dawn +the Grenadiers made good the line and together with the Indian cavalry +closed the gap and dug in. The Indians were most happy in their +association with the Guards in victory, and averred that henceforth +December First would always be known as Grenadiers' Day. + +Back at Metz the low-flying German airman who with his machine-gun had +been whipping up the panic of the men who had fled was shot down. He was +a young officer of the fearless angry type, terribly mortified at being +taken prisoner. He was put in a cage by himself till one of our runaways +came into the courtyard and began to strike a Charlie Chaplin pose, and +the officer in charge lost his patience and thrust him in with the +German. The German was striding up and down like a lion or tiger, and +the sudden depression of the erstwhile Charlie Chaplin gave to the +latter the gait of an Androcles thrown to a wild beast to be destroyed. + +Later in the day German prisoners began to flow along the road from +Gouzeaucourt to Metz in considerable numbers. What was the astonishment +of the "Jerries" to find when they were put into the barbed-wire +enclosures that their neighbours, also enclosed, were British and not +German, and to see the mixed crowd of Old Bills, Labour-men, +artillerymen, infantry, engineers, and even padres and officers mixed +with men. Presently however these were marched out of the cages and +lined up in miscellaneous squads derived from varying units with no +distinction of rank. Rifles were put into their hands and an attempt was +made to use them as a reserve defence in the trenches outside Metz. This +however proved impossible. The disease of panic had gripped their minds, +and at the idea of being sent to fight once more many threw their rifles +down. + +Up in the lines there were many comical scenes and disputes. The men +made themselves at home in the abandoned dug-outs which they found, and +where the dinner had been left cooking they finished it and ate it. +Drummers and pipers found superb quarters, and such original owners as +turned up were much annoyed. Disputes were settled by neutral soldiers +as a rule and went in favour of those who had not lost guns or abandoned +their posts. + +Where the railway intersects the Gouzeaucourt-Cambrai road was a +wonderful supply train, better than any golden wreck in desert-island +story. This was stacked with every imaginable kind of food. The Germans +had been through it, but had devoted their attention almost exclusively +to the letters and the despatch-bags. They had taken away a few tit-bits +but what was left sufficed the Guards for days. The transport was warned +not to send up their rations for three days but to send up limbers +instead to cart the food. At the disposal of the victors were also a +number of abandoned motor-cars. There is a lively impression of a +Sergeant-major going to and fro in a Ford car to this wonderful train. +Authorities asked afterwards who had pillaged the train--the culprits +ought to be brought to justice. But those in charge of that section of +the line felt that the action was possibly excusable under the +circumstances. Had they condemned it they had condemned themselves. The +following lines by an unknown author appeared some months after the +incident at Gouzeaucourt and men in the ranks copied it into their +notebooks and diaries. + + The Guards' Division were out to rest + They wanted it; + They'd "popped it"--"as on parade." + (What a jest!) + Then they'd held the line and had done their best + And were out. + + Twenty-four hours had scarcely passed; + They were resting. + When an orderly--bearing a message fast-- + "The Germans have broken through at last, + You're wanted." + + And wanted they were--without a doubt-- + At Gouzeaucourt. + The Huns had turned a lot of us out-- + (A lot of us, mind you--supposed to be stout) + "Help wanted!" + + Weary and footsore and stiff with cold-- + Weren't shirking, + The Guards' Division, demeanour bold, + With drummers playing (so I'm told) + Went at 'em. + + Said an A.P.M. as they marched along-- + "Stand back there!" + Get out of the way, you funking throng, + They'll put to rights what you've done wrong, + THE GUARDS DIVISION. + (And they did.) + +After Gouzeaucourt it was slowly borne in upon the military mind that +the "initiative," as it is called, had passed to the enemy, and that the +role of attack would not be ours for a while. There was a great +disparity between the forward mind and the rear mind. The forward mind +registering all the buffets and "sticking it" was getting very sick of +the war. The rear mind, making plenty of profit, playing men across the +map like chess pieces, preserved all its zest. The rear mind had great +patience and little imagination. It dreamed of a year, be it 1919 or +1920 or 1921, when America would be affording her maximum strength. +America had to be played into the war. She had started late, and it +would take years to commit her fully and make her spend according to her +means. The Tommy and the poilu would hold on till then. The Hun, as the +red hats loved to call the foe, would also play the game. 1918 was never +intended as the final year of the war--as far as the rear mind was +concerned, even though the men of fifty be called up and drilled with +youths of eighteen. Fortunately for us all, the Germans had decided to +win or lose and put all things to the test that year. Theirs had been +the supreme crime of starting the war, but let us acknowledge that they +at least had the grace at last to "hands up" when they saw their game +was lost and did not keep us at it for five years more. Germany at least +saved us at last from what may be called the blood lust of the rear. + +March 21st came with its never-to-be-forgotten bid for all or nothing, +with the Kaiser in command and all Germany on the march. The largest +numbers of men involved and the broadest front of action in the war. +"_Nach Paris_" was the cry--"Paris, Paris," the exultant yell of the +Goth bearing down upon the new Rome. + +On the 19th and 20th there were suspicions that something new was in +preparation on the German side. "From Headquarters to Headquarters," as +one officer puts it, "throbbed the order to man the battle-stations." +The night of the 20th was of intense darkness, and the watchful sentries +at their posts stared into a deep and silent curtain of fog. The vague +light that comes before dawn revealed only the mist. + +Then suddenly on a mighty breadth of line spoke the guns, came the swift +chasing shells through the sky, and the chorus of their sighs and their +cat-calls and yells and the hubbub of disruption in their explosion. +Trench mortars of all calibres and field-guns had been brought up to +closest range under cover of mist and darkness, and pounded into all +our trenches thick and warm with khaki and live flesh and blood, and +from behind the field-guns, but not far behind, in serried ranks spoke +the heavy guns, the Russian heavies, the Italian heavies, the grand +Austrian heavies, heaving death and destruction in the paths of retreat. +Accommodated with the heavies in fiendish fraternal task were the light +guns in vast numbers which flung the gas-bombs in tens of thousands to +the spots where of a certainty there must be congestion of traffic in +the British rear. It was ten minutes to five in the morning of the 21st +March--_der Tag_ had come, the hour of German fate had struck. + +Our guns replied at once in mighty salvos from accustomed points on the +horizon, but also many hitherto silent guns and batteries spoke for the +first time. A steady and perhaps unimaginative confidence was expressed +by our artillery, but it was quickly realised that we were out-gunned +and out-manned. Our battery positions were soon drenched with mustard +gas. The enemy firing was remarkably accurate and scored direct hits on +many headquarters, billets, and ammunition dumps which had never been +assailed before. The roads all received a great deal of attention and at +many vital points deep craters threatened to hold up traffic for hours. + +Daylight streamed through the mist. The guardians of the line with +strained nerves and brain stood on the alert expecting grey Fritz +momentarily to emerge from the mist with lowering brows and bayonet at +the port. Our machine-guns chattered at the unknown, and meanwhile the +enemy wire-cutters were at work clearing the way. It was not until +half-past nine that the anonymous artillery gave way to the deadly +personality of the foe. On the same lavish scale as that in which the +guns were firing, stick-bombs showered into the front lines, exploding +with their deafening and would-be-terrifying concussion of high +explosive. The enemy soldiers got rid of all the bombs they had right +away, and then very soon they were themselves to be seen. Tommy faced +forward. But Fritz, though he came steadily across no-man's land +offering an easy target, came also from the flanks and was soon to be +seen in the rear. British troops were massed here and there and posted +in clusters of defence, but the enemy with his vastly extended waves +broke through at the thin places and the empty places. The alarm went to +the flanks and the rear, but the runners found their various +headquarters and destinations full of the men in grey. Surrenders were +rapid on all hands. It was a puzzle what had happened. Brave units +fought it out against fearful odds. Some reserve battalions led by their +Colonels rushed in to counter-attack, and the Colonels fell and the +battalions fell. Other reserve battalions received orders to retire and +they retired. Others received no orders of any kind and remained where +they were and were overtaken. All day of the 21st and all night long our +lines were confusion worse confounded. On the 22nd there were Generals +in the fray encouraging the defence in person and trying to re-establish +lost contact right and left. But towards nightfall the last lines were +over-run and the enemy was through. + +The British menace was lifted from St. Quentin and Cambrai, from La Fere +and Laon. The enemy plunged for Arras, Peronne and Ham, and for the +far-flung hope of Albert, Doullens, Amiens, Compiègne. They rolled our +legions back, they set Divisions marching, fleeing; they captured +front-line men in tens of thousands, captured second-line men in tens of +thousands, captured artillerymen, captured their guns, captured the Old +Bills and Charlie Chaplins a-mending the roads, captured Red-cross men, +captured Chinamen, captured the Y.M.C.A., captured an infinite array of +stores and shells. If they were doubtful of themselves at first, their +faith soon lit up, as how could it fail to light. The banner of a +victorious end of the war and a crown of all German privations and +sufferings was raised. "I heard nothing more dreadful in the war," said +an English captain, "than the yell of the German cheers as their first +men entered Ham and they knew they had broken the line and had us +running. _Paris_, _Paris_ was the watchword, and many a Teutonic +soldier mortally wounded in the moment of victory, sank joyfully to the +rest of death in the belief that the Vaterland and the Kaiser were +winning through at last." + +And the embattled hosts swept onward toward Amiens, where at last the +onrush was stabilised. A greater victory had been won than the German +dreamed of when he planned. The offensive paused at last as it must, but +a staggering blow had been dealt at the forces of George the Fifth. The +King was down, and even if he were not counted out this time it was +doubtful if he could survive many such rounds if the German could repeat +such blows. + +What a time that was for England! The war staff tried to keep the +consternation to themselves but it could hardly be done. The whole +nation trembled with anxiety and apprehension. In France, as we now +know, screened from public view, the leaders of France and England met +in a grave mood. There was Milner and Haig and Foch and Clemenceau. +Haig, with a terribly pallid and drawn face looked as if he had not +slept for three nights. Foch was nervous and excitable, and carried in +his hand a small wooden wand on the knob of which was carved a poilu's +head. + +"I will do my best," said Haig pathetically, "to stop them before +Amiens," and it seemed he doubted whether it could be done. + +"We can always stop the Boche," said Foch, "we must stop him where he +is, not at Amiens." + +"But how?" + +"Well, I could do it," said Foch. "Seal up the centre. The Boche has +broken through the British and the French armies. His forces are pushing +against the wings of folding-doors; each door gives a little, making a +gap between, and through the gap the enemy is pouring. Seal up the gap, +seal it up!" + +There was only one way of sealing it up, and that was by uniting French +and British forces under one single commander. Lord Milner saw it. He +started up and pointed dramatically with his finger to Foch standing +there with his wooden wand, and he cried out: + +"There is the man." + +Haig, endowed by God and nature with a fine character, at once came +forward and agreed. No littleness stood in his way at that moment of +destiny. Foch was the man, let Foch take the supreme command. Foch took +it and poured French troops to our aid and stopped the tide and saved +the great city, the railway-key of Calais and of Paris. + +The great German effort had resulted first in German victory, then in a +dramatic change in the leadership of the war. Doubtless the German took +little stock of Foch. It seemed of good augury to our foe that the enemy +should have been forced to make a change in command. Changes of the +kind are seldom good in the midst of a strenuous campaign. But the sway +of Foch nevertheless gave a new faith to the whole army of the Allies. +The famous S.O.S. was sent to Wilson: _We have our backs to the wall but +send your army quickly or we perish_. And Wilson speeded up the +transport of his army in a marvellous way. He also saved us. + +Amiens, whose fate was in the balance for so many days, became baptised +as a shrine of the war as the enemy long-range guns sent to it fire and +death unintermittently. + +What new fields and cities the enemy had opened for destruction! Had the +Germans stayed before the city, the Cathedral of St. Firmin might have +become as remarkable a ruin as the shrine of St. Vaast. St. Firmin is +the patron saint of Amiens and is supposed to hold the city in his +protection, and the pious of Amiens prayed to St. Firmin and to God in +March 1918 as never before. That their prayers availed whereas other +cities had fallen despite all prayer is not a fact on which to lay much +stress. But it was just six months to the festival of St. Firmin, and +ere that happy day came round the dreadful menacing demon had fled far +from their walls. + +Two years later behold the procession of the relics of St. Firmin at +Amiens. The Church parades in praise and mediæval glory--cherubic boys +in crimson and white lace, young tonsured monks with health and life +throbbing from their close-cropped skulls, aged ecclesiastics with +Latinised faces, beautiful youths carrying emblems and banners, and then +supported on either hand by wise and reverend fathers comes the Bishop, +crowned with a gilded mitre crimson within and golden without, and +streaming with two golden streamers hanging behind. He bears his golden +crook, and before his arrested step and hand held up in blessing the +people sway like reeds when the wind which bloweth where it listeth +passes over them. From his uplifted hand and his arrested pose there +flung out mysterious power. You felt it; it was the blessing of the +Church imparted with all the consciousness of true succession even from +Peter and from Christ. + +So they bear what is left of the memory and the dust of St. Firmin, +nodding as they go, looking like an ecclesiastical picture on a vast +canvas, and singing to their measured steps--_Salve, Salve_. + +The second round of 1918 was fought on the Lys when the Germans 'twixt +Ypres on the north and Bethune in the south plunged towards Hazebrouck +and St. Omer. Bailleul and Merville fell, the eminence of Kemmel was +taken and Locre, and it seemed likely that the enemy would do with the +sanctuary of Ypres what he had done with that of Albert. + +The smashed centre of Bethune and the wilderness of its Grande Place +testifies to the violence of the onset, and Hazebrouck still bears the +marks of a great trembling and nervous shock. Hazebrouck had its three +days of anguish when all its people fled, and the town, like a victim in +a dungeon, awaited the coming of the persecutor. The cross-roads at +Vieux Berquin are almost as sinister in the after-the-war light as they +were then, and in all the waste fields which ran with destiny and khaki +that April the rusty wire still lies in tangles. Rain streams on the +choked cemeteries once but sparse with graves, now full and overflowing +with the dead and their crosses. But you seek in vain for hundreds and +thousands of defenders, names of V.C.'s, names of the brave +undecorated--all lost now in the unknown, the plenitude of unknown +soldiers. + +The German won his second round, though not too well, not shaping very +well. There were hammer-blows, but not the dreadful death-dealing weight +of the March fighting. French troops had been hurried to Belgium by +Foch, and once more they stopped the rot and possibly saved our now +rather nervy army. Certainly the enemy was now having matters his own +way. But Arras fortunately held, and that was our centre of defence. All +expected that the next attack would be upon the city, an attempt at +encirclement from the north and from the south. A wet spring wore on to +early summer and all the army waited. + +The third attack was of an entirely unexpected kind, being an almost +overwhelming blow at France and France alone--an attempt to put her +entirely out of gear and make it impossible for Foch to send more troops +to help the British army, an attempt to destroy the spirit and the +mobility of the army of France. The enemy advanced on a front broader +even than that of March 21st, and found an even thinner, weaker line of +defenders. Once more Germany was able to do even more than she dreamed, +and plunged towards Paris, making the sky drone and tremble with the +ominous thunder of her approaching guns. + +As we all know now the enemy went too far, and had not the men to man +his greatly extended lines or the labour to reorganise the new rear. He +had spent his energy too lavishly, and Foch had all that was necessary, +the one extra punch which sent the German reeling even in the moment +which should have held his greatest pride. The fourth round was won by +Foch and the Americans. The fifth by the British when they rolled the +foe back from Amiens. After that Fritz was a lost man and floundered +backward homeward, playing only for time, and only on his defensive, +with all the triumph gone, hope gone, faith gone, and only punishment +and humiliation ahead of him. In but a short while after the most +terrible defeats it could be said that the Allies had won the war. + +The land o'er which the great advance was made is quiet enough now. To +the towns and cities of the back areas the circus is coming for the +first time since the war. After the leaping from trapeze to trapeze in +mid-air, after the walking the tight rope, and the facing wild beasts in +their cages, and other feats of daring, the clowns come tumbling into +the arena. So it is also in life. There is one all in Turkey-red riding +backward on an ass, telling all and sundry how much more clever he is +than the genuine heroes they have been clapping. He gains in the long +run more applause than the tight-rope dancer. Then two funny Columbines +with air-blown bladders pretend to fight and whack at one another with +resounding boshes, clumps and raps, laying one another out, panting for +breath, exhausting themselves, almost expiring, and yet weakly hitting +out with their quaint weapons. And the populace forgets the thrill of +the spectacle of the man in the lions' cage making wild beasts jump +through hoops of fire. The clowns are to its taste. The scene-shifters +are quietly preparing the arena for the next heroic item--"A Roman +spectacle when the gladiators meet"--and the clowns divert public +attention from the carpentering of such a show until all is ready for +the heroes to come out. A fourth clown all the while strikes heroic +attitudes and mimics the after-the-war celebrities with apt +buffoonery--now he is Wilson with the fourteen points, now he is +D'Annunzio in mock heroic pose saying "J'y suis, j'y reste," now Lloyd +George making the Germans pay by letting the Germans off paying. The +malice of the buffoons provokes great mirth and takes the attention of +the crowd so well that the heroes are almost forgotten, Tom Wildwest +glowering from one of the exits and handling his rope and running noose +as if he'd like to lasso the whole bunch of clowns and pull them out of +the arena and the public gaze. + +In the summer of 1918 there was a waiting time. The enemy was held and +his utter defeat was manifest, but Time paused and the denouement +paused. The French and Americans carried on. The British reorganised. +The Germans began the knight's tour of the board with the right move +first. The British army was bored with the war and looked homeward. +Special wires conveyed the Derby result and the verdict of the +Pemberton-Billing case. Pemberton-Billing became a great hero of the +rank and file. The book of the 47,000 names of people who could be +blackmailed was a popular idea--such is the readiness to believe evil. + +At a battalion Sports near Saulty the Duke of Connaught watched the +battalion clowns arrange a race for the tiniest tots of the French +village. One clown had printed on his back "Breezy Bacchus" and the +other "One of the 47,000," which was thought a most amusing and +up-to-date cognomen. "One of the 47,000" won the obstacle race by and +by. He had won the obstacle race each annual Sports of his battalion, an +unwounded Tipperary man who had come right through, not only the hazards +of so many races, but of the great race itself. Fate however claimed him +at last when the war was nearly over, and a lone cringing gas shell +sneaking through the air came and took his leg off. The French +villagers, whose children he had guided in the baby race, shrugged their +shoulders and had nothing to say. + +The war-sun which was now setting did not sink in a grey haze or in mere +cloud, but in blood. To take the final victory-march of even one +Division, from Arras to Maubeuge--is it not marked by fresh graves all +the way? The old and the new laid down their lives prodigally. + +There is an extra sorrow for their death now because the pathos of being +so near to deliverance and yet missing it was not known then. Though the +German was beaten the war might last for years. A common gag used to +be-- + +"Heard the news?" + +"What's that? The war over?" + +"All over bar the shouting." + +But it was ironical, and there were few who saw the faint gleam of the +new hope which came with the German retreat. + +The Army did not know when it began its advance that the familiar ruins +of old villages were being left behind for good, that Berles au Bois +with its growing graveyard and ruined church was placed finally behind, +Monchy, Blairville, Hamelincourt, St. Leger, Bullecourt, Ecoust, behind +for ever, that Albert, Maricourt, Bapaume, re-conquered Peronne, were +all permanently held and soon to be left far in obscurity in the rear. +It is strange to come back over this track again and see the site of +hideous and monstrous latrines now overgrown with rankest weeds, to see +the ruined barns all re-roofed, to see the dank acre into which, wrapped +in the flag, your comrades were lowered down, to see what was left of +the village church of Berles now brought flat because as it stood it was +a menace, to see the place where but for the grace of God you might +yourself be lying with a cross above your head, to see Monchy lifting +itself with great difficulty from its sunken blocks of stone, to listen +to the stillness and deadness of old lifeless ruins, to cross the +stubble fields to Adinfer and hear the petrol plough methodically +scouring the old lines, to approach once more the dreadfulness of +Ayette. + +The villagers have come back to the craters of death. There is an +estaminet where was nothing before; there are salvage-made huts with +"baby-elephant" roofs built o'er spots where for days lay the dead in a +torture of wire. A family is in the estaminet, it was divided into five +parts by the war--five members of the family each in a different place +and none of them in touch with any other, each believing the other four +dead, two in different parts of Germany, one in Paris, one in Belgium, +one in the Pyrenees. They are poor people, touched by their suffering to +tenderness and generosity, and when there comes to them one who served +as a soldier in the war they spread their best before him and do not +want to take money for it--wonderful for France. But the people who have +suffered are the best people there as elsewhere. + +At Ablainzville the new brick cabins grow into being amid the high +seared masts of her dead trees. At sunset the hard-working peasants are +still in the fields. They have heaped old iron and wire on to the roads, +and filled up the shell-holes and burned the weeds and broken the +intractable hard moorland with tractor-drawn ploughs. They have riven +the sturdy roots of the docks and the reeds, they have driven St. John's +wort and rocket and willow-herb from the grain-field, turning up the +tramped-down battered earth in huge slabs and chunks. The league of +death which goes over the brow of the hill, that old no-man's land which +the machine-guns swept is now a great black upturned drive of ploughing +in which alight thousands of crows, all extruding from the earth and +discussing what they find, talking and grabbing, fluttering and flying. +Sodden green equipment has been ploughed into the earth and still lies +half exposed, and helmets like little coal-buckets disturb here and +there the even surface of the land. It is heavy going, and your boots +want to lift tons of mother earth, but you struggle on with eyes +furtively engaged in "spotting" here a shell and there a bomb. Next year +the corn will cover up all our sins. + +The peasants complain that the Government gives them nothing. The +Germans replaced some of the cattle they stole, but how about the French +who commandeered their horses at the beginning of the war and in +exchange gave them a merely nominal sum. In the stricken areas how few +are the horses now! The conservative peasant who does not like changing +his agricultural habits has been forced to the use of the petrol engine. +His chief motive force is the old lorry engine. But of course he does +more with that than he did with the horse, and when one has walked right +across the zone of desolation and come to the little-touched farms on +the other side one cannot but feel that the peasants working their +horses there are not getting on so quickly as the deprived ones with +their motors. + +Many of the refugees when they came back started at an absolute zero. +Their plight would have driven a less stubborn people to despair, but +they set-to and worked, and can already show a dumbfounding progress. +Theirs is a hard life without luxury and with little food, but with the +capital of their toiling hands they are making wealth for themselves and +France once more. The people of the war-lands will recover quicker than +their Governments, and whilst with every year the plight of the national +exchequer gets worse the plight of the domestic exchequer will improve. +There are too many parasites feeding on the Governments, and the latter +have too many obligations in the matter of paying interest on loan. All +France is placarded with appeals to French people to take up +State-loans--the object of such loans being to get money to pay the +interest on past loans. French people cannot be persuaded to pay onerous +taxes. The Germans, without great commercial activity, cannot make the +French deficit good, and we see the State sliding slowly but steadily +downward like a loosened avalanche toward a precipice. But in the light +of the French peasants' steady unremitting toil one need have little +fear for the nation itself. It will get rid of this type of Government +and the mountains of debt when the time comes. Long after sunset, in the +after-murk of night, sound the droning of the petrol-ploughs on the old +battlefields, and the clatter of hammer and plane in the stricken +villages.--Vive la France! + + * * * * * + +It is twenty miles to Cambrai by the seemingly Druidical remains of +Lagnicourt and the life-clusters of Queant, Pronville, Moeuvres, +Fontaine. Cambrai is resurgent. No one is in mourning except those +widows whom black suits. The merry-go-rounds and the razzle-dazzle with +all manner of toy-booths and gipsy-shows occupy the market-place on +which grandiose buildings with broken windows stare. In the town gardens +is a statue without a head, and on its base is engraved--"_Son invention +fut un bienfait pour son pays_." + +He probably made some improvement in the manufacture of silk, but an +ironical British soldier has written in English beneath--_He invented +the gun stock_. + +On the way out from Cambrai the towns of Boussieres and St. Hilaire look +as if no war had been, and the trains are all running on the road to +Solesmes. Where men stalked their foes along the railway embankment, +where men won military medals and D.C.M.s and one the V.C. all is +perfect prose. Where so many died and risked their lives a +life-insurance office has reopened. All slumbers on the road to Le +Quesnoy and Bavai. You have passed through the war area and come to the +unscarred green of innocent fields and the undesolated symmetry of +unscathed woods. Peasants lead the horses in the plough, and cows in +plenty graze in sun-steeped pastures. + +It is November 10th and the same strong highway on which two years ago +the army marched to the end of the war. At the end of a fair fine +afternoon the sun is sinking slowly but must be in eclipse ere it set. +Peasants are sitting on heaps of stones at La Longueville looking +westward. In the smoky capitals of Europe nothing will be seen, but +something is due to happen if the sky keeps clear and will be visible at +the last outposts of the war. + +From the grandeur of the setting sun pale shadows are cast of posts and +cows and houses and railings and heaps of stones. Unexpectedly they +faint away as something steals upon the splendour of the radiant disc +and stops the brightness of the rays. Myriads of wisps of cloud, like +tiny hands, assist at the eclipse, laying the sun to rest in a dreadful +bloody bath, agonising and bleeding and growing less and going down, +with evil triumphing over good. Out, brief candle! Yes, it is out--it is +night. The last day of the war is done--tomorrow Armistice. The reaper +has put up his scythe--the angel of death has gone by. A bitter wind +passes swiftly along the high-road, just touching you, just making you +aware that something invisible and unkind has passed you, having a going +and a coming which is not yours. + +So in a mood which has changed you walk the last miles of the war--to +the fortress of Maubeuge. Here is gloomy smoky Douzies, and there, yes +at that very spot, is the place where the Brigade messenger was accosted +and you read his message--_Hostilities will cease as from eleven +o'clock_. Yonder the factory sheds where you heard the first lecture on +demobilisation, where you sang "Take me back to dear old Blighty!" with +such a will, and a free issue of rum punch was made to all. There the +erstwhile deserted steel works which men said would be years before they +worked again. The great stacks smoke, belying the prophecy, and on the +night wind comes the clangour of tireless machinery working for France, +working for Peace. On the railway all the twisted rails are gone, the +lines gleam with the brightness of train-wheels and go straight to +Maubeuge. Upon the roadway lie the disjecta membra of an armoured train +marked Lot 1 and Lot 2 and likely to remain till time itself remove +them. + +You descend into the trough where the moat goes round the fortress, and +by a wooden bridge enter Maubeuge, the city of the end of the war, one +of the cities where the war ended. At Maubeuge then let us be silent +with those who are silent whilst at Westminster the Unknown is buried +and the Cenotaph unveiled and at Paris the Arc de Triomphe receives its +guest. + +November the eleventh in the morning--there is Mass in the Cathedral for +the _poilu inconnu_, the anonymous soldier of France, and about an empty +coffin swathed with the tricolour are ten high candles. The sacrifice is +sanctified with holy water and incense. The divine elements are raised +from the Altar. The throngs of the pious all cross themselves. Comes the +alarm crash of the Sanctus thrice repeated, the mumbo-jumbo of +fast-gabbled Latin, the exultant organ. You stand wedged in by a pillar, +the only Englishman there now, and as your eye ranges o'er the scene it +reads on the Cathedral wall the inscription which is nearest. _N'oublie +pas pecheur endurci que c'est pour la troisième fois que Jesus est +tombé!_ "Forget not, hardened sinner, that it is now for the third time +that Jesus has fallen," suggestive and unforgettable monition given in +the half-light of the Cathedral. + +A Te Deum which does not rend the sky nor the Cathedral roof passes +sweetly o'er our heads, and the congregation with its wreaths and flags +files out to march with bands to the cemeteries of Maubeuge. It is still +not eleven by the clock. But it will be eleven in the Place des Casernes +where the Guards were drawn up on parade that November morning. The +barrack square then! + +Behold it dirty and drab. A squad in sabots is being detailed by a +corporal for fatigue duty. They answer their names, their old tunics are +all undone, they shuffle across the square. But it is eleven. Silence +then. Let us be silent with all who are silent. + + + + +_EPILOGUE_ + + +The afternoon train speeds from Maubeuge to Paris. "Am I right for +Paris?" you ask, and a Frenchman replies facetiously "Nach Paris, nach +Paris." In a few hours you roll up the whole Western front. You traverse +infinite graveyards and scenes of desolation like an arrow of thought, +and alight where the German soldiers wished to be. The train has come +from Berlin: it has passed through Cologne and the zone held by the +occupying army. It roars forward to St. Quentin, Noyon, Compiègne, like +the symbol of the March offensive. But in all the little shattered towns +and villages joy-flags are flying and the bands are playing. It is +to-day a fête of French victory and French peace. Besides being +Armistice Day it is the Cinquantenaire of the Republic, the day of the +celebration of the first fifty years of the present Republic of France, +and Paris will be alight from end to end to-night with fairy lights. +Paris and France will render homage to the Republic which brought +victory. In 1870 under the fatal Government of Napoleon the Third the +hated German conquered France. Then the Napoleons fell and Gambetta made +possible "la revanche du Droit." It could hardly have been predicted +that within fifty years the stricken unstable France of 1870 would lay +the Prussian low. The victory over the Germans has been an enormous +confirmation of the success of the "Third Republic" and has shed a glory +on the line of Presidents from Thiers to Millerand which is perhaps not +entirely appreciated in other countries. The Republic celebrating its +fiftieth birthday on November 11th sunned itself in as much glory as the +Army or the Nation. It is true that "un soldat sans nom, representant la +foule heroique des poilus, repose dans l'Arc de Triomphe"--a nameless +soldier representing the heroic crowd who fought is buried now in the +Arc de Triomphe--but it is also true that the heart of Gambetta carried +in a chariot accompanied the hearse of the unknown soldier, and whilst +the soldier was buried in the first storey of the triumphal arch the +heart of Gambetta was placed in the Pantheon itself. All must redound to +the greatness of France and of the Republic. + +As you step from the train at Paris you realise that everyone is out for +gaiety even before the gaiety has commenced. The Parisians are holding +on to one another, humming and singing baby-song, making believe to +stumble as they walk. Gone are the care and solemnity of the weekday +Paris crowd. A heaviness has been shed, everyone feels light as if there +was quicksilver in his heels. Evening is just turning to night and all +houses are giving forth their people, and they stream to the centre in +ever increasing crowds--all gay, all light-hearted, all without a +thought of ever coming home. The city is cleverly decorated with massed +flags, arcades of flags, but without those strings of bunting which so +often look like coloured washing hanging out to dry. The illuminations +are to be most elaborate. Hundreds of thousands of francs are being +spent in coloured light effects. There will be a torchlight procession, +massed bands, and street dancing till morning. Long lines of men and +women holding on to one another plunge through the crowds, and scream, +and break, and join again. Everyone is wearing a little flag of the +Republic. Men and women are to be seen carrying little red paper +lanterns on bamboo sticks. Every restaurant and café is crammed and +jammed with people with flushed faces. The waiters, having lost control, +bring you dishes you have not ordered, but you graciously accept them +faute de mieux. Hawkers keep bellowing the last editions of the papers, +especially of _L'intransigeant_, which says that the meaning of the +festivity is that the Allies are agreed to force Germany to fulfil the +treaty to the letter. Night meanwhile has become night with no stars +above and all the stars below. + +The crowds have become immense. If you are at the Place de la Concorde +where part of the torchlight procession is forming up and men are +playing on the crowd with ghastly searchlights, then you are likely to +remain at the Place de la Concorde. It will take you two hours to +struggle to the Place de l'Opera. On the Underground railway some +stations are blocked, and no one can get either in or out--notably Hotel +de Ville. Out at the Arc de Triomphe there is a cavalry guard with drawn +sabres. The Arc very fittingly has no illumination, but its dark mass +catches the light beams from the buildings around. No one knows what is +going to happen here, all the little folk stand on tip-toe and strain +their eyes and yet see nought. Lots of girls are mounted on men's +shoulders with legs round men's necks and their ankles grasped in male +hands, and they certainly see the nothing which is to be seen. All are +laughing, all are ready to sing and to roll in gaiety. Presently some +statesmen in carriages pass out between lines of cavalrymen; big Bertha, +the great gun, follows them and then an empty Roman chariot and the +hearse on which the _poilu inconnu_ was carried. But even when these +pass the crowd remains riveted to the place where the unknown soldier +reposes--constantly expecting some marvel of the night to start from +there. + +Similar crowds hold the Place Vendome where Napoleon stands on his +column of stone, the St. Simon of Paris. This statue also commemorates a +national victory over Germany, though it elevates one soldier so high. +The design of the frieze at the foot of the column is one of +accoutrements and weapons and adornments and uniforms and guns, but +without a limb or a face anywhere, the meaning being that one man wore +all the glory. Here is exhibited not much joy in the Republic but a +whole series of advertisement for French State loans. On the whole, the +Cinquantenaire of the Republic may be a good advertisement for +Government Stock. All manner of provincials have come to Paris for this +day, and there is no doubt they are dazzled by the grandeur of France. + +At the Palais Royal there is one of the most radiant designs in coloured +lights. The whole front of the place is covered with a picture of light +which reminds one of the advertisements of the great white way between +40th and 50th Street, New York. Crimson and emerald and gold tell the +glory of the fifty years of the Republic, the numbers 1870 and 1920 +being festooned with dazzling light, and the names of all the Presidents +in one great row--Thiers, MacMahon ... to Deschanel and Millerand--given +the prominence of a dynasty. On all the sidewalks down below are trees +of naked flames, gas-pipes with branches coming up out of the pavement +and instead of leaves little jets of twinkling flame at which the crowd +lights its cigarettes. The entrances to the grand avenues are surmounted +by fantastic arches of most gorgeous illuminated colouring. In front of +all this stand men and women thoroughly epaté, hypnotised by it, with +mouths open and eyes dilated. + +"Oh but it's wonderful!" "I cannot take my eyes off it, can you?" "Look, +neighbour, just look at that, eh!" "Ah but look!" "What splendour!" +"What an effect!" And there is audible all the while a continuous +collective low murmur of approbation and satisfaction. + +You walk slowly along the Avenue de l'Opera. There are uninterrupted +rows of footlights along the bases of first and second storeys throwing +a lurid glamour on solemn and stately tricolours. So it is all the way +to the Opera House, and happy crowds, fluttering and chattering, now +breaking into an infection of expectancy when all push forward to see +some imagined interest somewhere, and then lurching back in gay +disillusion and laughter. The lofty buildings like monuments to the +goddess of Trade look down on diminutive people with bright faces and +round heads, and the stone itself of Paris seems indulgent. + +Away however in those strange fields covered with darkness at this +midnight hour, unilluminated, lie the silent ones, crosses without +end--the signs of life laid down. France will not forget them and we +shall not forget. + +So let us leave this gaiety behind and take the midnight train for +Calais, for Dover, for London, for the Cenotaph, the Abbey, for new +life. It is a full train and pulls out soberly from the gay city, and +bears onward, onward to the little channel and the waiting boat which +ere the dawn shall face the wonderful white cliffs of Albion and home. + +The most enduring moment of Armistice Day will be the silence at eleven, +the moment of communion. In America in many cities work ceased at eleven +but every one was instructed to make the utmost noise possible. Thus a +year ago at New Orleans the writer of these lines listened to an +infernal din of train whistles, factory syrens, steam horns and hooters, +clashing church-bells, roaring Klaxon-horns, hammering of anvils, +squeaking of trumpets, and shouts of people. And the thought inevitably +came--the West does not understand. It did not suffer as we did and came +into a share in it all too late. Only the end of a small war can express +itself in noise; the end of such an one as this in Europe was silence. + +And a fitting monument of silence is the Cenotaph, the empty tomb. +England is very happy in the Cenotaph, much more happy than in the Edith +Cavell statue, which leaves out the last words of the kind nurse, does +not say "_Patriotism is not enough_," but writes "Brussels Dawn" +instead, making her a kindler of anger against a foe rather than a +salver of wounds. The impersonal cenotaph, without any Cross or weeping +Christ, or rampant lions, without even the pronoun "our" which some +wished to see upon it--"Our glorious dead," instead of "The glorious +dead," can stand for all who laid down their lives baptised or +unbaptised, white or coloured, friend or foe. For even Germans had to +die that Europe might be free. + +So in leaving the fields of the dead and the beginning and the end of +the war and Paris itself, you come naturally to the Cenotaph, the stone +which gathers to itself all the experience and all that was sacred in +the war--the altar at the summit of a thousand weary steps. It stands in +the midst of England's great street of Government, 'twixt Nelson and the +Abbey, and says to all who pass--"Go and do thou likewise." To all the +selfish, "_We were not selfish_;" to the clamorous, "_We are silent, yet +we speak_;" to the strident and ambitious, to the self-seekers and the +cynical, to those who live as though there had been no sacrifice, to +those who sneer at the ideal, "_We suffered and died that you might have +your life, that all might have more life; we suffered and died for the +good of the whole!_" + +When Millerand was elected President of France his supporters insisted +always that they had found a man whose public life would be worthy of +France _and of her dead_. France's ideal is that through the sacrifice +of her sons France should become "greater yet." Our men did not die that +England might become greater, but that Europe might be saved from +tyranny and greed, and it is for us and our public men to see that their +sacrifice shall never seem to grow barren. + +It will grow barren unless we who now live are ready to continue the +sacrifice. No good comes into the world but after struggle and pain. No +new life comes but through death, no common weal is gained without +giving and serving. Our common life must have a foundation of human +hearts, ready to give, ready to live, for England and for us all. + + It hath been said: "He liveth best who is always ready to die." + + It can be put in a new way: "He liveth best who is always ready + to put all upon the Altar." + + Humanity is well served when nations are ready to sacrifice + themselves for her good. + + She is worst served by the nations who still preserve the + tribal instinct to fight and destroy their neighbours. + + She is worst served by the nations who are enslaving other + nations. + + And that nation is most alive which has most people ready to + sacrifice themselves and their estate. + + That nation liveth worst which contains the most selfish. + + Of Christ it was written: He saved others; Himself he could not + save. But the selfish man saves himself first and then thinks + of others. + + The selfish man is quarrelsome and runs easily to law; he + exacts guarantees; he counts his costs; he heavily insures; he + holds what he does not want and is afraid of another getting + it. + + That nation liveth best whose men and women are freest for an + adventure. + + But worst whose men and women are most cautious. + + He is most happy who has run to the Altar and surrendered his + _all_ there to God and then found a will and a way in which to + live. + + For most, alas! there is no altar visible, no way to an altar. + They do not know what the Altar is nor what it is for. + + Business and war and hate and selfish desire have hidden it + from men's eyes. + + Only when the cloud lifts the Altar is disclosed, and men + commonly when they see it leave all that they have and run to + it and fling themselves before it in tears. + + It is the grand altar of humanity. The altar of _all_ on which + the _one_ sacrifices himself. + + It is the altar of the sacrifice of Christ. + + The Cross. + + The quartering of humanity--an altar in the midst of the + people. + + All education and literature and religious mission should be to + one end--that the way to the Altar may be kept clear. + + It is work to clear away all the obstructions and the fogs and + mists. + + Sweet singing, pious exhortation, the reading of books, love of + the dim religious light of churches--these should not be ends + in themselves. + + Humanity has its pious part which goes to church; but it does + not need the organisation of the pious. + + Humanity has its charitable part but it does not need the + organisation of the charitable. + + Humanity has its cultures but it does not stand in need of + "schools of thought" and "cults" and "intelligentsia," + + But humanity does need sacrifice upon the one great Altar, + every day and all days. + +The Cenotaph rising in our midst may be our altar. We may leave our +flowers there, the incense-smoke of burning hearts, but the flowers +should be our lives. The Cenotaph after all is only the visible sign of +the great invisible Cenotaph of humanity which stands in the midst of +the ages, an empty tomb in memory of all those who have gone before--of +those whose sacrifice _without ours_ is not perfect. + + * * * * * + +At Westminster Abbey they have buried the dead soldier among poets and +statesmen. They have dug up from France Tom, Dick, or Harry, one of us, +unnamed, unknown, who laughed and talked and marched and fired and +suffered in the war, one of the many who are always unknown. He did +guard duty no doubt in France. He is put on sentry again. Touching as it +is to have a soldier in the dim light of the Abbey where so many can +shed invisible tears, it had been better perhaps in a stern era to have +posted him at St. Stephen's, at the entry to Parliament, that he might +challenge in his silence all who enter there to stand for England-- + +"Who goes there?" + +"Friend." + +"Advance and be recognised!" + +"Pass, friend!" + +Proceed at your peril if you cannot meet the challenge of the dead! + + + + +PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.4 +F.100.121 + + + + + +-----------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the | + | original document have been preserved. | + | | + | = sign denotes bold type | + | | + | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | + | | + | Page 99 Algeerians changed to Algerians | + +-----------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Challenge of the Dead, by Stephen Graham + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40507 *** |