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diff --git a/77321-0.txt b/77321-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6bbf576 --- /dev/null +++ b/77321-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5296 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77321 *** + + + + + VIVE LA FRANCE! + + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph copyright by M. Rol._ + + “High-explosive!” + + “A geyser of earth and smoke shot high into the air. Then an explosion + which was brother to an earthquake.” +] + + + + + VIVE LA FRANCE! + + + BY + + E. ALEXANDER POWELL + + WAR CORRESPONDENT OF _THE NEW YORK WORLD_, _THE LONDON DAILY MAIL_, AND + _SCRIBNER’S MAGAZINE_, WITH THE ALLIED ARMIES + + NEW YORK + + CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS + + 1915 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY + + CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS + + Published December, 1915 + + +[Illustration: [Logo]] + + + + + TO + FRANCE + + + WHOSE COURAGE, SERENITY, AND + SACRIFICES, IN A CONFLICT WHICH SHE + DID NOTHING TO PROVOKE, HAVE WON HER + THE SYMPATHY, RESPECT AND ADMIRATION + OF THE WORLD + + + + + AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +For the assistance they have given me, and for the innumerable +kindnesses they have shown me, I welcome this opportunity of expressing +my thanks and appreciation to his Excellency Jean Adrien Antoine Jules +Jusserand, French ambassador to the United States; to Lord Northcliffe, +owner of _The Times_ and _The Daily Mail_; to Ralph Pulitzer, Esq., +president, and C. M. Lincoln, Esq., managing editor, of _The New York +World_; to Major-General Ryerson, of the Canadian Overseas Contingent; +to Captain Count Gérard de Ganay, who was my companion from end to end +of the western battle-line; to Messrs. Ponsot, Alexis Leger, and Henri +Hoppenot, of the Bureau de la Presse; to Lieutenant-Colonel Spencer +Cosby, military attaché of the American embassy in Paris; to Captain +John W. Barker, of the American Military Mission in France; to Honorable +Walter V. R. Berry; to Charles Prince, Esq., Herbert Corey, Esq., +Lincoln Eyre, Esq., and William Philip Simms, Esq., who on a score of +occasions have proved themselves my friends; and finally to James Hazen +Hyde, Esq., whose kindness I can never fully repay. To each of these +gentlemen I owe a debt of gratitude which I shall not forget. + + E. ALEXANDER POWELL. + + HÔTEL DE CRILLON, PARIS, + November, 1915. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + ACKNOWLEDGMENT vii + CHAPTER + I. IN THE FIELD WITH THE FRENCH 1 + II. ON THE BRITISH BATTLE-LINE 56 + III. CAMPAIGNING IN THE VOSGES 97 + IV. THE RETAKING OF ALSACE 120 + V. THE FIGHTING IN CHAMPAGNE 154 + VI. THE CONFLICT IN THE CLOUDS 190 + VII. THE RED BADGE OF MERCY 215 + + + + + ILLUSTRATIONS + + + “High-explosive!” │ _Frontispiece_ + + │ FACING PAGE + + French trenches in the sand-dunes of the Belgian littoral 4 + + The watch on the Aisne 5 + + The taking of Neuville St. Vaast 12 + + French infantry going into action 13 + + Dragoons going into action 14 + + The effect of shrapnel from a French “seventy-five” on a German + battery 15 + + French 155-millimetre gun shelling the German trenches on the Aisne 18 + + French artillery officers, in an observatory on the Aisne, watching + the effect of shell-fire on the German trenches 19 + + In an underground first-aid station 30 + + Zouaves carrying a German position in the Belgian sand-dunes by + storm 31 + + In the Argonne 38 + + An observing officer directing the fire of a French battery three + miles behind him 39 + + The mass before the battle 54 + + What a 38-centimetre shell, fired from a gun twenty-three miles + away, did in Dunkirk 55 + + London buses at the front 64 + + British field-kitchens on the march in Flanders 65 + + Machine-gun squad wearing masks as a protection against the + asphyxiating gas with which the Germans precede their attacks 84 + + A British battery in action 85 + + ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬─────────────── + “Bodies, long months dead, rotting amid the wire │_Group_ + entanglements” │ 86 + “Imagine what it must be like to sleep in a hole in the│ + earth, into which you have to crawl on all fours, │ „ + like an animal into its lair” │ „ + ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴─────────────── + French high-explosive shells bursting on the German trenches 87 + In a bomb-proof gun-pit 98 + French trenches on the Somme 99 + In the French trenches on the Yser 100 + Campaigning in the Vosges 101 + What the Germans did to the church at Ribécourt 106 + On the summit of the Vosges 107 + On the Lac Noir 114 + The penalty for treason 115 + Troglodyte dwellings in Alsace 124 + The straggling columns of unkempt, unshaven men were in striking + contrast to the helmeted giants on gigantic horses who guarded + them 125 + In the trenches in Alsace 136 + Convoy of German prisoners guarded by Moroccan Spahis 137 + A French smoke bomb 140 + With hand-grenades in the trenches 141 + Chevaux-de-frise and movable entanglements 150 + Taking precautions against a gas attack 151 + The battle-field of Champagne 154 + Bringing in the wounded during the battle of Champagne 155 + The battle of Champagne 166 + The battle-field of Champagne, showing the French high-explosive + shells bursting on the German trenches 167 + Fighting in a quarrel that is not his own 172 + The first-line German trenches captured by the French in Champagne 173 + This crater, seventy feet deep and twice that in diameter, was + caused by the explosion of a mine. In the terrific blast five + hundred Germans perished 174 + German officers captured during the battle of Champagne 175 + The price of victory 176 + Instruction against gas attacks 177 + “Men were at work rolling up the barbed wire in the captured German + entanglements” 180 + The thousands upon thousands of empty brass shell-cases with which + the battle-fields are strewn are collected and sent back to the + factory for reloading 181 + Mounted on the German trench walls were revolving steel turrets + containing quick-firing guns 182 + “Brown-skinned men from North Africa in turbans and burnooses” 183 + Motor-buses with wire-netting tops filled with carrier pigeons 184 + German prisoners came by, carrying on their shoulders stretchers on + which lay the stiff, stark forms of dead men 185 + Lunéville from an aeroplane 200 + French antiaircraft gun in action against a German aeroplane 201 + When the chickens come home to roost 206 + Antiaircraft guns, posted outside the towns, are ready to give a + warm reception to an aerial intruder 207 + “Two soldiers lifted him onto a stretcher and carried him between + interminable walls of brown earth to the dressing-station” 236 + Unloading wounded at a hospital in northern France 237 + Red Cross men getting wounded out of a bombarded town in Flanders 244 + Bringing in the harvest of the guns 245 + “Every house and farmyard for miles around was filled with wounded + and still they came streaming in” 250 + “The paths of glory lead——” 251 + + +_All illustrations but those specifically acknowledged were taken by the +Photographic Service of the French Armies and are here reproduced by +special permission._ + + + + + VIVE LA FRANCE! + + + + + I + IN THE FIELD WITH THE FRENCH + + +Before going to France I was told that the French were very stingy with +their war. I was told that the only fighting I would be permitted to see +would be on moving-picture screens. I was assured that war +correspondents were about as welcome as the small-pox. But I found that +I had been misinformed. So far as I am concerned they have been as +generous with their war as a Kentucky colonel is with mint-juleps. They +have, in fact, been so willing to let me get close up to where things +were happening that, on one or two occasions, it looked as though I +would never see the Statue of Liberty again. I do not wish to give the +impression, however, that these facilities for flirting with sudden +death are handed out promiscuously to all who apply for them. To obtain +me permission to see the French fighting machine in action required the +united influence of three Cabinet Ministers, a British peer, two +ambassadors, a score of newspapers—and the patience of Job. + +Unless you have attempted to pierce it, it is impossible to comprehend +the marvellous veil of secrecy which the Allied Governments have cast +over their military operations. I wonder if you, who will read this, +realize that, though the German trenches can be reached by motor-car in +ninety minutes from the Rue de la Paix, it is as impossible for an +unauthorized person to get within sound, much less within sight, of them +as it would be for a tourist to stroll into Buckingham Palace and have a +friendly chat with King George. The good old days in Belgium, when the +correspondents went flitting light-heartedly about the zone of +operations on bicycles and in taxicabs and motor-cars, have passed, +never to return. Imagine a battle in which more men were engaged and the +results of which were more momentous than Waterloo, Gettysburg, and +Sedan combined—a battle in which Europe lost more men than the North +lost in the whole of the Civil War—being fought at, let us say, New +Haven, Conn., in December, and the people of New York and Boston not +knowing the details of that battle, the names of the regiments engaged, +the losses, or, indeed, the actual result, until the following March. It +is, in fact, not the slightest exaggeration to say that the people of +Europe knew more about the wars that were fought on the South African +veldt and on the Manchurian steppes than they do about this, the +greatest of all wars, which is being fought literally at their front +doors. So that when a correspondent does succeed in penetrating the veil +of mystery, when he obtains permission to see with his own eyes +something of what is happening on that five-hundred-mile-long +slaughter-house and cesspool combined which is called “the front,” he +has every excuse for self-congratulation. + +When the Ministry of War had reluctantly issued me the little yellow +card, with my photograph pasted on it, which, so far as this war is +concerned, is the equivalent of Aladdin’s lamp and the magic carpet put +together, and I had become for the time being the guest of the nation, +my path was everywhere made smooth before me. I was ciceroned by a +staff-officer in a beautiful sky-blue uniform, and other officers were +waiting to explain things to me in the various divisions through which +we passed. We travelled by motor-car, with a pilot-car ahead and a +baggage-car behind, and we went so fast that it took two people to tell +about it, one to shout, “Here they come!” and another, “There they go!” + +[Illustration: + + French trenches in the sand-dunes of the Belgian littoral. + + Here begins that four-hundred-mile-long line of trenches which + stretches across Europe like a monstrous and deadly snake. +] + +Leaving Paris, white and beautiful in the spring sunshine, behind us, we +tore down the historic highway which still bears the title of the Route +de Flandre, down which countless thousands of other men had hastened, in +bygone centuries, to the fighting in the north. The houses of the city +thinned and disappeared, and we came to open fields across which +writhed, like monstrous yellow serpents, the zigzag lines of trenches. +The whole countryside from the Aisne straightaway to the walls of Paris +is one vast network of trenches and barbed-wire entanglements, and, even +in the improbable event of the enemy breaking through the present line, +he would be little better off than he was before. The fields between the +trenches were being ploughed by women, driving sleek white oxen, but the +furrows were scarcely ever straight, for every few yards they would turn +aside to avoid a turf-covered mound surmounted by a rude cross and a +scarlet kepi. For half a hundred miles this portion of France is one +vast cemetery, for it was here that von Kluck made his desperate attempt +to break through to Paris, and it was here that Joffre, in the greatest +battle of all time, drove the German legions back across the Marne and +ended their dream of entering the French capital. We whirled through +villages whose main streets are lined with the broken, blackened shells +of what had once been shops and dwellings. At once I felt at home, for +with this sort of thing I had grown only too familiar in Belgium during +the earlier days of the war. But here the Germans were either careless +or in a hurry, for they had left many buildings standing. In Belgium +they made a more finished job of it. Nothing better illustrates the +implicit confidence which the French people have in their army, and in +its ultimate success, than the fact that in all these towns through +which we passed the people were hard at work rebuilding their shattered +homes, though the strokes of their hammers were echoed by the sullen +boom of German cannon. To me there was something approaching the sublime +in these impoverished peasants turning with stout hearts and smiling +faces to the rebuilding of their homes and the retilling of their +fields. To these patient, toil-worn men and women I lift my hat in +respect and admiration. They, no less than their sons and husbands and +brothers in the trenches, are fighting the battles of France. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph copyright by M. Rol._ + + The watch on the Aisne. + + “On that four-hundred-mile-long slaughter-house which is called ‘the + front.’” +] + +As we approached the front the traditional brick-red trousers and kepis +still worn by the second-line men gave way to the new uniform of +silvery-blue—the color of early morning. There were soldiers everywhere. +Every town and hamlet through which we passed was alive with them. The +highways were choked with troops of all arms; cuirassiers, with their +mediæval steel helmets and breastplates linen-covered; dragoons, riding +under thickets of gleaming lances; zouaves in short blue jackets and +baggy red breeches; spahis in turbans and Senegalese in tarbooshes and +Moroccans in burnooses; _chasseurs d’Afrique_ in sky-blue and scarlet; +infantry of the line in all the shades of blue that can be produced by +dyes and by the weather; mile-long strings of motor transports; +field-batteries; pontoon trains; balloon corps; ambulances with staring +scarlet crosses painted on their canvas covers—all the nuts and bolts +and springs and screws which go to compose what has become, after months +of testing and improvements, as efficient a killing machine as the world +has ever seen. And it is, I am convinced, eventually going to do the +business. It struck me as having all, or nearly all, of the merits of +the German organization _with the human element added_. + +When only a short distance in the rear of the firing-line we left the +car and proceeded on foot down a winding country road which debouched +quite suddenly into a great, saucer-shaped valley. Its gentle slopes +were checkered with the brown squares of fresh-ploughed fields and the +green ones of sprouting grain. From beyond a near-by ridge came the +mutter of artillery, and every now and then there appeared against the +turquoise sky what looked like a patch of cotton-wool but was in reality +bursting shrapnel. The far end of the valley was filled with what +appeared at first glance to be a low-hanging cloud of gray-blue mist, +but which, as we drew nearer, resolved itself into dense masses of +troops drawn up in review formation—infantry at the right, cavalry at +the left, and guns in the centre. I had heard much of the invisible +qualities of the new field uniform of the French Army, but I had +heretofore believed it to be greatly inferior to the German greenish +gray. But I have changed my mind. At three hundred yards twenty thousand +men could scarcely be distinguished from the landscape. The only +colorful note was struck by the dragoons, who still retain their +suicidal uniform of scarlet breeches, blue tunic, and the helmet with +its horse-tail plume, though a concession has been made to practicality +by covering the latter with tan linen. The majority of the French +woollen mills being in the region held by the Germans, it has been +possible to provide only a portion of the army with the new uniform. As +a result of this shortage of cloth, thousands of soldiers have had +recourse to the loose corduroy trousers common among the peasantry, +while for the territorials almost any sort of a jacket will pass muster +provided it is of a neutral color and has the regimental numerals on the +collar. Those soldiers who can afford to provide their own uniforms +almost invariably have them made of khaki, cut after the more practical +British pattern, with cap-covers of the same material. Owing to this +latitude in the matter of clothing, the French army during the first +year of the war presented an extraordinarily variegated and nondescript +appearance, though this lack of uniformity is gradually being remedied. + +At three o’clock a rolling cloud of dust suddenly appeared on the road +from Compiègne, and out of it tore a long line of military cars, +travelling at express-train speed. All save one were in war coats of +elephant gray. The exception was a low-slung racer painted a +canary-yellow. Tearing at top speed up the valley, it came to a sudden +stop before the centre of the mile-long line of soldiery. A mile of +fighting men stiffened to attention; a mile of rifle barrels formed a +hedge of burnished steel; the drums gave the long roll and the thirteen +ruffles; the colors swept the ground; the massed bands burst into the +splendid strains of the _Marseillaise_, and a little man, +gray-mustached, gray-bearded, inclined to stoutness, but with the +unmistakable carriage of a soldier, descended from the yellow car and, +followed by a staff in uniforms of light blue, of dark blue, of tan, of +green, of scarlet, walked briskly down the motionless lines. I was +having the unique privilege of seeing a President of France reviewing a +French army almost within sight of the invader and actually within sound +of his guns. It was under almost parallel circumstances that, upward of +half a century ago, on the banks of the Rappahannock, another President +of another mighty republic reviewed another army, which was likewise +fighting the battles of civilization. + +Raymond Poincaré is by no means an easy man to describe. He is the only +French President within my memory who looks the part of ruler. In his +person are centred, as it were, the aspirations of France, for he is a +native of Lorraine. He was a captain of Alpine Chasseurs in his younger +days and shows the result of his military training in his erect and +vigorous bearing. Were you to see him apart from his official +surroundings you might well take him, with his air of energy and +authority, for a great employer or a captain of industry. Take twenty +years from the age of Andrew Carnegie, trim his beard to a point, throw +his shoulders back and his chest out, and you will have as good an idea +as I can give you of the war-time President of France. + +At the President’s right walked a thickset, black mustached man whose +rather shabby blue serge suit and broad-brimmed black slouch hat were in +strange contrast to the brilliant uniforms about him. Yet this man in +the wrinkled clothes, with the unmilitary bearing, exercised more power +than the President and all the officers who followed him; a word from +him could make or break generals, could move armies; he was Millerand, +War Minister of France. + +After passing down the lines and making a minute inspection of the +soldiers and their equipment, the President took his stand in front of +the grouped standards, and the officers and men who were to be decorated +for gallantry ranged themselves before him, some with bandaged heads, +some with their arms in slings, one hobbling painfully along on +crutches. Stepping forward, as the Minister of War read off their names +from a list, the President pinned to the tunic of each man the coveted +bit of ribbon and enamel and kissed him on either cheek, while the +troops presented arms and the massed bands played the anthem. On general +principles I should think that the President would rebel at having to +kiss so many men, even though they are heroes and have been freshly +shaved for the occasion. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurasse._ + + The taking of Neuville St. Vaast. + + French infantry engaged in house-to-house fighting. +] + +I might mention in passing that the decoration most highly prized by the +French soldier is not, as is popularly supposed, the Legion of Honor, +which, like the Iron Cross, has greatly depreciated because of its +wholesale distribution (it is the policy of the German military +authorities, I believe, to give the Iron Cross to one in every twenty +men), but the Médaille Militaire, which, like the Victoria Cross and the +Prussian decoration, Pour le Mérite, is awarded only for deeds of the +most conspicuous bravery. The Médaille Militaire, moreover, can be won +only by privates and non-commissioned officers or by generals, though +the Croix de Guerre, the little bronze cross which signifies that the +wearer has been mentioned in despatches, is awarded to all ranks and +occasionally to women, among the _décorées_ being Madame Alexis Carrel, +the wife of the famous surgeon. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph copyright by M. Rol._ + + French infantry going into action. + + “These were the famous _poilus_, the bearded ones, ... a moving cloud + of grayish blue under shifting, shimmering, slanting lines of + steel.” +] + +The picturesque business of recognizing the brave being concluded, the +review of the troops began. Topping a rise, they swept down upon us in +line of column—a moving cloud of grayish blue under shifting, +shimmering, slanting lines of steel. Company after company, regiment +after regiment, brigade after brigade, swept past, businesslike as a +locomotive, implacable as a trip-hammer, irresistible as a steam-roller, +moving with mechanical precision to the exultant strains of the march of +the _Sambre et Meuse_. These were the famous _poilus_, the bearded ones, +the men with hair on their chests. Their uniforms were not immaculate. +They were faded by wind and rain and sometimes stained with blood. On +their boots was the mud of the battle-fields along the Aisne. Fresh from +the trenches though they were, they were as pink-cheeked as athletes, +and they marched with the buoyancy of men in high spirits and in perfect +health. Here before me was a section of that wall of steel which stands +unbroken between Western Europe and the Teutonic hordes. Hard on the +heels of the infantry came the guns—the famous “75’s”—a score of +batteries, well horsed and well equipped, at a spanking trot. A little +space to let the foot and guns get out of the way, and then we heard the +wild, shrill clangor of the cavalry trumpets pealing the charge. Over +the rise they came, helmeted giants on gigantic horses. The earth shook +beneath their gallop. The scarlet breeches of the riders gleamed fiery +in the sunlight; the horsehair plumes of the helmets floated out behind; +the upraised sword-blades formed a forest of glistening steel. As they +went thundering past us in a whirlwind of dust and color they rose in +their stirrups, and high above the clank of steel and the trample of +hoofs came the deep-mouthed Gallic battle-cry: “_Vive la France! Vive la +France!_”. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Captain John W. Barker, U. S. A._ + + Dragoons going into action. + + “We heard the wild, shrill clangor of the cavalry trumpets pealing the + charge.... Over the rise they came, helmeted giants on gigantic + horses.” +] + +To have had a battery of French artillery go into action and pour a +torrent of steel-cased death upon the enemy’s trenches for one’s special +benefit is, so far as I am aware, a courtesy which the General Staff has +seen fit to extend to no other correspondent. That the guns were of the +new 105-millimetre model, which are claimed to be as much superior to +the “75’s” as the latter are to all other field artillery, made the +exhibition all the more interesting. The road which we had to take in +order to reach this particular battery leads for several miles across an +open plateau within full view of the German positions. As we approached +this danger zone the staff-officer who accompanied me spoke to our +driver, who opened up the throttle, and we took that stretch of exposed +highway as a frightened cat takes the top of a backyard fence. “Merely a +matter of precaution,” explained my companion. “Sometimes when the +Germans see a car travelling along this road they send a few shells +across in the hope of getting a general. There’s no use in taking +unnecessary chances.” Though I didn’t say so, it struck me that I was in +considerably more danger from the driving than I was from a German +shell. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph copyright by M. Rol._ + + The effect of shrapnel from a French “seventy-five” on a German + battery. +] + +Leaving the car in the shelter of the ridge on which the battery was +posted, we ascended the steep hillside on foot. I noticed that the slope +we were traversing was pitted with miniature craters, any one of which +was large enough to hold a barrel. “It might be as well to hurry across +here,” the artillery officer who was acting as our guide casually +remarked. “Last evening the Germans dropped eight hundred shells on this +field that we are crossing, and one never knows, of course, when they +will do it again.” + +Part way up the slope we entered what appeared to be a considerable +grove of young trees. Upon closer inspection, however, I discovered that +it was not a natural grove but an artificial one, hundreds of saplings +having been brought from elsewhere and set upright in the ground. Soon I +saw the reason, for in a little cleared space in the heart of this +imitation wood, mounted on what looked not unlike gigantic step-ladders, +were two field-guns with their muzzles pointing skyward. “These guns are +for use against aircraft,” explained the officer in charge. “The German +airmen are constantly trying to locate our batteries, and in order to +discourage their inquisitiveness we’ve put these guns in position.” The +guns were of the regulation _soixante-quinze_ pattern, but so elevated +that the wheels were at the height of a man’s head from the ground, the +barrels thus being inclined at such an acute angle that, by means of a +sort of turntable on which the platforms were mounted, the gunners were +able to sweep the sky. “This,” said the artillery officer, calling my +attention to a curious-looking instrument, “is the telemeter. By means +of it we are able to obtain the exact altitude of the aircraft at which +we are firing, and thus know at what elevation to set our guns. It is as +simple as it is ingenious. There are two apertures, one for each eye. In +one the aircraft is seen right side up; in the other it is inverted. By +turning this thumbscrew the images are brought together. When one is +superimposed exactly over the other the altitude is shown in metres on +this dial below. Then we open on the airman with shrapnel.” Since these +guns were placed in position the German air-scouts have found it +extremely hazardous to play peek-a-boo from the clouds. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph copyright by M. Rol._ + + French 155-millimetre gun shelling the German trenches on the Aisne. + + “The guns were so ingeniously masked that fifty feet away one could + detect nothing about that apparently innocent clump of tangled + vegetation to suggest that it concealed an amazing quantity of + potential death.” +] + +A few minutes’ walk along the ridge brought us to the battery of 105’s, +which was the real object of our visit. The guns were not posted on the +summit of the ridge, as a layman might suppose, but a quarter of a mile +behind it, so that the ridge itself, a dense forest, and the river Aisne +intervened between the battery and the German position. The guns were +sunk in pits so ingeniously masked with shrubs and branches that the +keenest-eyed airman, flying low overhead, would have seen nothing to +arouse his suspicions. Fifty feet away one could detect nothing about +that apparently innocent clump of tangled vegetation to suggest that it +concealed an amazing quantity of potential death. This battery had been +here through the winter, and the gunners had utilized the time, which +hung heavy on their hands, in making themselves comfortable and in +beautifying their surroundings. With the taste and ingenuity so +characteristic of the French, they had transformed their battery into a +sylvan grotto. The earthen walls of the gun-pits were kept in place by +deftly woven wattles, and the paths leading to them had borders of white +sand, on which were patriotic mottoes in colored pebbles. Scattered +about were ingeniously constructed rustic seats and tables. Within ten +feet of one of the great gray guns a bed of hyacinths made the air heavy +with their fragrance. The next gun-pit was banked about with yellow +crocus. Hanging from the arbor which shielded another of the steel +monsters were baskets made of moss and bark, in which were growing +violets. At a rustic table, under a sort of pergola, a soldier was +painting a picture in water-colors. It was a good picture. I saw it +afterward on exhibition in the Salon des Humoristes in Paris. A few +yards back of each gun-emplacement were cave-like shelters, dug in the +hillside, in which the men sleep, and in which they take refuge during +the periodic shell-storms which visit them. Those into which I went were +warm and dry and not at all uncomfortable. Over the entrance to one of +these troglodyte dwellings was a sign announcing that it was the Villa +des Roses. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph copyright by M. Rol._ + + French artillery officers, in an observatory on the Aisne, watching + the effect of shell-fire on the German trenches. + + “From these secret _observatoires_ the French observers keep an + unceasing watch on the movements of the enemy and, by means of + telephones, direct and control the fire of their own batteries with + incredible accuracy.” +] + +“Do the Germans know the position of these guns?” I asked the battery +commander. + +“Not exactly, though they have, of course, a pretty general idea.” + +“Then you are not troubled by German shells,” I remarked. + +“Indeed we are,” was the answer. “Though they have not been able to +locate us exactly, they know that we are somewhere at the back of this +ridge, so every now and then they attempt to clear us out by means of +progressive fire. That is, they start in at the summit, and by gradually +increasing the elevation of their guns, systematically sweep the entire +reverse slope of the ridge, so that some of their shells are almost +certain to drop in on us. Do you appreciate, however, that, though we +have now been in this same position for nearly six months, though not a +day goes by that we are not under fire, and though a number of my men +have been killed and wounded, we have never seen the target at which we +are firing and we have never seen a German soldier?” + +A ten-minute walk across the open tableland which lay in front of the +battery, and which forms the summit of the ridge, then through a dense +bit of forest, and we found ourselves at the entrance to one of those +secret _observatoires_ from which the French observers keep an unceasing +watch on the movements of the enemy, and by means of telephones, control +the fire of their own batteries with incredible accuracy. This +particular _observatoire_ occupied the mouth of a cave on the +precipitous hillside above the Aisne, being rendered invisible by a +cleverly arranged screen of bushes. Pinned to the earthen walls were +contour maps and fire-control charts; powerful telescopes mounted on +tripods brought the German trenches across the river so close to us +that, had a German soldier been incautious enough to show himself, we +could almost have seen the spike upon his helmet; and a military +telephonist with receivers clamped to his ears sat at a switchboard and +pushed buttons or pulled out pegs just as the telephone girls do in New +York hotels. The chief difference was that this operator, instead of +ordering a bellhop to take ice-water and writing-paper to Room 511, +would tell the commander of a battery, four or five or six miles away, +to send over to a German trench, which he would designate by number, a +few rounds of shrapnel or high explosive. + +An officer in a smart uniform of dark blue with the scarlet facings of +the artillery beckoned to me to come forward, and indicated a small +opening in the screen of branches. + +“Look through there,” he said, “but please be extremely careful not to +show yourself or to shake the branches. That hillside opposite us is +dotted with the enemy’s _observatoires_, just as this hillside is dotted +with ours, and they are constantly sweeping this ridge with powerful +glasses in the hope of spotting us and shelling us out. Thus far they’ve +not been able to locate us. We’ve had better luck, however. We’ve +located two of their fire-control stations, and put them out of +business.” + +As I was by no means anxious to have a storm of shrapnel bursting about +my head, I was careful not to do anything which might attract the +attention of a German with a telescope glued to his eye. Peering +cautiously through the opening in the screen of bushes, I found myself +looking down upon the winding course of the Aisne; to the southwest I +could catch a glimpse of the pottery roofs of Soissons, while from the +farther bank of the river rose the gentle slopes which formed the +opposite side of the river valley. These slopes were everywhere slashed +and scarred by zigzag lines of yellow which I knew to be the German +trenches. But, though I knew that those trenches sheltered an invading +army, not a sign of life was to be seen. Barring a few cows grazing +contentedly in a pasture, the landscape was absolutely deserted. There +was something strangely oppressive and uncanny about this great stretch +of fertile countryside, dotted here and there with white-walled cottages +and clumps of farm buildings, but with not a single human being to be +seen. On the other side of the opposite ridge I knew that the German +batteries were posted, just as the French guns were stationed out of +sight at the back of the ridge on which I stood. This artillery warfare +is, after all, only a gigantic edition of the old-fashioned game of +hide-and-seek. The chief difference being that when you catch sight of +your opponent, instead of saying politely, “I see you!” you try to kill +him with a three-inch shell. + +A soldier set a tripod in position and on it carefully adjusted a +powerful telescope. The colonel motioned me to look through it, and +suddenly the things that had looked like sinuous yellow lines became +recognizable as marvellously constructed earthworks. + +“Now,” said the colonel, “focus your glass on that trench just above the +ruined farmhouse and I will show you what our gunners can do.” After +consulting a chart with innumerable radiating blue and scarlet lines +which was pinned to a drafting-table, and making some hasty calculations +with a pencil, he gave a few curt orders to a junior officer who sat at +a telephone switchboard with receivers clamped to his ears. The young +officer spoke some cabalistic figures into the transmitter and concluded +with the order: “_Tir rapide._” + +“Now, Monsieur Powell,” called the colonel, “watch the trenches.” A +moment later, from somewhere behind the ridge at the back of us, came in +rapid succession six splitting crashes—_bang! bang! bang! bang! bang! +bang!_ A fraction of a second later I saw six puffs of black smoke +suddenly appear against one of the yellow lines on the distant hillside; +six fountains of earth shot high into the air. + +“Right into the trenches!” exclaimed the colonel, who was kneeling +beside me with his glasses glued to his eyes. “Watch once more.” Again +six splitting crashes, six distant puffs of smoke, and, floating back to +us a moment later, six muffled detonations. + +“The battery that has just fired is four miles from those trenches,” +remarked the colonel casually. “Not so bad, eh?” + +“It’s marvellous,” I answered, but all the time I was wondering how many +lives had been snuffed out for my benefit that morning on the distant +hillside, how many men with whom I have no quarrel had been maimed for +life, how many women had been left husbandless, how many children +fatherless. + +“I do not wish to hasten your departure, Monsieur Powell,” apologized +the colonel, “but if you wish to get back to your car without annoyance, +I think that you had better be starting. We’ve stirred up the Boches, +and at any moment now their guns may begin to answer.” + +He knew what he was talking about, did that colonel. In fact, we had +delayed our departure too long, for just as we reached the edge of the +wood, and started across the open plateau which crowns the summit, +something hurtled through the air above the tree-tops with a sound +between a moan and a snarl and exploded with a crash like a thousand +cannon crackers set off together a few yards in front of us. Before the +echoes of the first had time to die away came another and yet another. +They burst to the right of us, to the left of us, seemingly all around +us. We certainly had stirred up the Germans. For a few minutes we were +in a very warm corner, and I am no stranger to shell-fire, either. At +first we decided to make a dash for it across the plateau, but a shell +which burst in the undergrowth not thirty feet ahead induced us to +change our minds, and we precipitately retreated to the nearest +bomb-proof. The next half-hour we spent snugly and securely several feet +below the surface of the earth, while shrapnel whined overhead like +bloodhounds seeking their prey. Have you ever heard shrapnel by any +chance? No? Well, it sounds as much as anything else like a winter gale +howling through the branches of a pine-tree. It is a moan, a groan, a +shriek, and a wail rolled into one, and when the explosion comes it +sounds as though some one had touched off a stick of dynamite under a +grand piano. And it is not particularly cheering to know that the ones +you hear do not harm you, and that it is the ones you do not have time +to hear that send you to the cemetery. The French artillery officers +tell me that the German ammunition has noticeably deteriorated of late. +Well, perhaps. Still, I hadn’t noticed it. It was thirty minutes before +the storm of shrapnel slackened and it was safe to start for the car. We +had a mile of open field to cross with shells still occasionally +falling. I felt like a man wearing a silk hat who has just passed a gang +of boys engaged in making snowballs. In a lifetime largely made up of +interesting experiences, that exhibition of French gunnery will always +stand out as one of the most interesting things I have ever seen. But +all the way back to headquarters I kept wondering about those men in the +trenches where the shells had fallen, and about the women and children +who are waiting and watching and praying for them over there across the +Rhine. + +I had expressed a wish to visit Soissons, and, upon communicating with +division headquarters, permission was granted and the necessary orders +issued. Before we started, however, I was told quite frankly that the +military authorities accepted no responsibility for the consequences of +the proposed excursion, for, though the town was in the possession of +the French, it was under almost constant bombardment by the Germans. In +order to get the setting of the picture clearly in your mind, you must +picture two parallel ranges of hills, separated by a wonderfully fertile +valley, perhaps three miles in width, down which meanders, with many +twists and hairpin turns, the silver ribbon which is the Aisne. On its +north bank, at a gentle bend in the river, stands the quaint old town of +Soissons, so hoary with antiquity that its earlier history is lost in +the mists of tradition. Of its normal population of fifteen thousand, +when I was there only a few score remained, and those only because they +had no other place to go. + +A sandstone ridge which rises abruptly from the south bank of the river +directly opposite Soissons was held by the French, and from its shelter +their batteries spat unceasing defiance at the Germans, under General +von Heeringen, whose trenches lined the heights on the other side of the +river and immediately back of the town. From dawn to dark and often +throughout the night, the screaming messengers of death crisscrossed +above the red-tiled roofs of Soissons and served to make things +interesting for the handful of inhabitants who remained. Every now and +then the German gunners, apparently for no reason save pure deviltry, +would drop a few shells into the middle of the town. They argued, no +doubt, that it would keep the townsfolk from becoming ennuied and give +them something to occupy their minds. + +The ridge on the French side of the river is literally honeycombed with +quarries, tunnels, and caverns, many of these subterranean chambers +being as large and as curiously formed as the grottoes in the Mammoth +Cave. Being weather-proof as well as shell-proof, the French had turned +them to excellent account, utilizing them for barracks, ammunition +stores, fire-control stations, hospitals, and even stables. In fact, I +can recall few stranger sights than that of a long line of helmeted +horsemen, comprising a whole squadron of dragoons, disappearing into the +mouth of one of these caverns like a gigantic snake crawling into its +lair. + +Leaving the car three miles from the outskirts of Soissons, we made our +way through dense undergrowth up a hillside until we came quite +unexpectedly upon the yawning mouth of a tunnel, which, I surmised, +passed completely under the backbone of the ridge. Groping our way for +perhaps an eighth of a mile through inky blackness, we suddenly emerged, +amid a blinding glare of sunlight, into just such another observing +station as we had visited that morning farther up the Aisne. This +_observatoire_, being in the mouth of the tunnel, could not be seen from +above, while a screen of branches and foliage concealed it from the +German observers across the river. The officer in command at this point +was anxious to give us a demonstration of the accuracy with which his +gunners could land on the German solar plexus, but when he learned that +we were going into the town he changed his mind. + +“They’ve been quiet all day,” he explained, “and if you are going across +the river it’s just as well not to stir them up. You’ll probably get a +little excitement in any event, for the Boches usually shell the town +for an hour or so at sunset before knocking off for supper. We call it +‘The Evening Prayer.’” + +[Illustration: + + In an underground first-aid station. + + The caves and grottoes in the cliffs along the Aisne are utilized for + first-aid dressing-stations. +] + +Slipping through an opening in the screen of foliage which masked the +_observatoire_, we found ourselves at the beginning of a _boyau_, or +communication trench, which led diagonally down the face of the hillside +to the river. Down this we went, sometimes on hands and knees and always +stooping, for as long as we were on the side of the hill we were within +sight of the German positions, and to have shown our heads above the +trench would have attracted the bullets of the German sharpshooters. And +a second is long enough for a bullet to do its business. Emerging from +the _boyau_ at the foot of the hill, we crossed the river by an ancient +stone bridge and for a mile or more followed a cobble-paved highroad +which ran between rows of workmen’s cottages which had been wrecked by +shell-fire. Some had shattered roofs and the plastered walls of others +were pockmarked with bullets, for here the fighting had been desperate +and bloody. But over the garden walls strayed blossom-laden branches of +cherry, peach, and apple trees. The air was heavy with their fragrance. +Black-and-white cattle grazed contentedly knee-deep in lush green grass. +Pigeons cooed and chattered on the housetops. By an open window an old +woman with a large white cat in her lap sat knitting. As she knitted she +looked out across the blossoming hillsides to the sky-line where the +invaders lay intrenched and waiting. I wondered what she was thinking +about. She must have remembered quite distinctly when the Germans came +to Soissons for the first time, five and forty years before, and how +they shot the townsmen in the public square. A few years ago the people +of Soissons unveiled a monument to those murdered citizens. When this +war is over they will have more names to add to those already carved on +its base. + +[Illustration: + + Zouaves carrying a German position in the Belgian sand-dunes by storm. +] + +It is not a cheerful business strolling through a shell-shattered and +deserted town. You feel depressed and speak in hushed tones, as though +you were in a house that had been visited by death as, indeed, you are. +In the Place de la République we found a score or so of infantrymen on +duty, these being the only soldiers that we saw in the town. Along the +main thoroughfares nearly every shop was closed and its windows +shuttered. Some tobacconists and two or three cafés remained bravely +open, but little business was being done. I do not think that I am +exaggerating when I say that every fourth or fifth house we passed +showed evidences of the German bombardment. One shell, I remember, had +exploded in the show-window of a furniture store and had demolished a +gilt-and-red-plush parlor suite. The only thing unharmed was a sign +which read “Cheap and a bargain.” + +In the very heart of Soissons stands the huge bulk of the magnificent +twelfth-century cathedral, its massive tower rising skyward like a +finger pointing toward heaven. There are few nobler piles in France. +Repeated rappings at a door in the churchyard wall brought the _curé_, a +white-haired, kindly faced giant of a man. Under his guidance we entered +the cathedral, or rather what remains of it, for its famous Gothic +windows are now but heaps of shattered glass, the splendid nave is open +to the sky, half the roof has been torn away, the pulpit with its +exquisite carvings has been splintered by a shell, and the massive +columns have been chipped and scarred. Carvings which were the pride of +master craftsmen long centuries dead have been damaged past repair. In +the floor of the nave yawns a hole large enough to hold a horse. Around +the statues which flank the altar, and which are too large to move, have +been raised barricades of sand-bags. And this, mind you, in the house of +Him who was the Apostle of Peace! + +While the _curé_ was pointing out to us the ruined beauties of his +celebrated windows, something passed overhead with a wail like a lost +soul. A moment later came an explosion which made the walls of the +cathedral tremble. “Ah,” remarked the _curé_ unconcernedly, “they’ve +begun again. I thought it must be nearly time. They bombard the +cathedral every evening between five and seven.” + +As he finished speaking, another shell came whining over the housetops +and burst with a prodigious racket in the street outside. + +“How far away was that one?” I asked one of the officers. + +“Only about a hundred metres,” was the careless reply. + +As unmoved as though at a church supper, the _curé_ placidly continued +his recital of the cathedral’s departed glories, reeling off the names +of the saints and martyrs who lie buried beneath the floor of its nave, +his recital being punctuated at thirty-second intervals by explosions, +each a little louder than the one preceding. Finally a shell came so low +that I thought that it was going through the roof. It came so near, in +fact, that I suggested that it was getting on toward dinner time and +that we really ought to be on our way. But the _curé_ was not to be +hurried. He had had no visitors for nearly a year and he was determined +to make the most of us. He insisted on showing us that cathedral from +sacristy to belfry, and if he thought that we were missing anything he +carefully explained it all over again. + +“Why do you stay on here, father?” I asked him. “A shell is likely to +drop in on you at any moment.” + +“That is as God wills, monsieur,” was the quiet answer. “A captain does +not leave his ship in a storm. I have my people to look after, for they +are as helpless as children and look to me for advice. And the wounded +also. We have turned the sacristy, as you saw, into a dressing-station. +Yes, there is much to do. If a shell comes it will find me at my post of +duty doing what I may to serve God and France.” + +So we went away and left him standing there alone in the doorway of his +shattered cathedral, a picturesque and gallant figure, with his white +hair coming down upon his shoulders and his tall figure wrapped in the +black soutane. To such men as these the people of France owe a debt that +they can never repay. Though they wear cassocks instead of cuirasses, +though they carry Bibles instead of bayonets, they are none the less +real soldiers—soldiers of the Lord. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurisse._ + + In the Argonne. + + “Cave-like shelters in which the men take refuge during the periodic + shell-storms that visit them.” +] + +It must be borne in mind that the task of the artillery is far easier in +hilly or mountainous country, such as is found along the Aisne and in +the Vosges and Alsace, where the movements of the enemy can be observed +with comparative facility and where both observers and gunners can +usually find a certain degree of shelter, than in Artois and Flanders, +where the country is as flat as the top of a table, with nothing even +remotely resembling a hill on which the observers can be stationed or +behind which can be concealed the guns. In the flat country the guns, +which in all cases are carefully masked with branches from detection by +hostile aircraft, take position at distances varying from two thousand +to five thousand yards from the enemy’s trenches. Immediately in the +rear of each gun is a subterranean shelter, in which the gunners can +take refuge in case a German battery locates them and attempts to shell +them out. An artillery subaltern, known in the British service as the +“forward observing officer,” goes up to the infantry trenches and +chooses a position, sometimes in a tree, sometimes in a shattered +church-tower, sometimes in a sort of dug-out, from which he can obtain +an unobstructed view of his battery’s zone of fire. He is to his battery +very much what a coach is to a football team, giving his men directions +by telephone instead of through a megaphone, but, unlike the coach, he +is stationed not on the side-line but on the firing-line. Laid on the +surface of the ground, connecting him with the battery, is the +field-telephone. As wires are easily cut by bursting shells, they are +now being laid in a sort of ladder formation so that a dozen wires may +be cut without interrupting communication. When the noise is so +deafening that the voice of the observing officer cannot be heard on the +field-telephone communication is carried on in the Morse code by means +of a giant buzzer. Amid all the uproar of battle the observing officer +has to keep careful track, through his glasses, of every shell his +battery fires, and to inform his battery commander by telephone of the +effect of his fire. He can make no mistakes, for on those portions of +the battle-line where the trenches are frequently less than a hundred +yards apart the slightest miscalculation in giving the range might land +the shells among his own men. The critical moment for the observing +officer is, however, when the enemy makes a sudden rush and swarms of +helmeted, gray-clad figures, climbing out of their trenches, come +rolling forward in a steel-tipped wave, tripping in the barbed wire and +falling in ones and twos and dozens. Instantly the French trenches +crackle and roar into the full blast of magazine fire. The rattle of the +machine-guns sounds like a boy drawing a stick along the palings of a +picket fence. The air quivers to the incessant crash of bursting +shrapnel. “Infantry attack!” calls the observation officer into the +telephone receiver which is clamped to his head. “Commence firing!” and +his battery, two or three miles in the rear, begins pouring shrapnel on +the advancing Germans. But still the gray figures come on, hoarsely +cheering. “Drop twenty-five!” he orders. “Careful with your +fuse-setting ... very close to our trenches.” The French shrapnel sprays +the ground immediately in front of the French trenches as a street +cleaner sprays the pavement with a hose. The gray line checks, falters, +sways uncertainly before the blast of steel. Men begin to fall by dozens +and scores, others turn and run for their lives. With a shrill cheer the +French infantry spring from their trenches in a counter-attack. “Raise +twenty-five! ... raise fifty!” telephones the observing officer as the +blue figures of his countrymen sweep forward in the charge. And so it +goes, the guns backing up the French attacks and breaking the German +ones, shelling a house or a haystack for snipers, putting a machine-gun +out of business, dropping death into the enemy’s trenches or sending its +steel calling-cards across to a German battery whose position has been +discovered and reported by wireless by a scouting French aeroplane. And +all the time the youngster out in front, flattened to the ground, with +glasses at his eyes and a telephone at his lips, acts the part of +prompter and tells the guns when to speak their parts. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph copyright by M. Rol._ + + An observing officer directing the fire of a French battery three + miles behind him. + + “Flattened to the ground, with glasses at his eyes and a telephone at + his lips, he acts the part of prompter and tells the guns when to + speak their parts.” +] + +In reading accounts of artillery fire it should be remembered that there +are two types of shell in common use to-day—shrapnel and high +explosive—and that they are used for entirely different purposes and +produce entirely different results. Shrapnel, which is intended only for +use against infantry in the open, or when lightly intrenched, is a shell +with a very thin steel body and a small bursting charge, generally of +low-power explosive, in the base. By means of a time-fuse the projectile +is made to burst at any given moment after leaving the gun, the +explosion of the weak charge breaking the thin steel case and liberating +the bullets, which fly forward with the velocity of the shrapnel, +scattering much as do the pellets from a shot-gun. At a range of 3500 +yards the bullets of a British 18-pound shrapnel, 375 in number, cover a +space of 250 yards long and 30 yards wide—an area of more than one and a +half acres. Though terribly effective against infantry attacks or +unprotected batteries, shrapnel are wholly useless against fortified +positions, strongly built houses, or deep and well-planned +intrenchments. The difference between shrapnel and high explosive is the +difference between a shot-gun and an elephant rifle. The high-explosive +shell, which is considerably stronger than the shrapnel, contains no +bullets but a charge of high explosive—in the French service melinite, +in the British usually lyddite (which is picric acid melted with a +little vaseline), and in the German army trinitrotoluene. The effect of +the high explosive is far more concentrated than that of shrapnel, +covering only one-fifteenth of the area affected by the latter. Though +shrapnel has practically no effect on barbed-wire entanglements or on +concrete, and very little on earthworks, high-explosive shells of the +same caliber destroy everything in the vicinity, concrete, wire +entanglements, steel shields, guns, and even the trenches themselves +disappearing like a dynamited stump before the terrific blast. The men +holding the trenches are driven into their dug-outs, and may be reached +even there by high-explosive shells fired from high-angle howitzers. + +The commanding importance of the high-explosive shell in this war is due +to the peculiar nature of the conflict. Instead of fighting in the open +field, the struggle has developed into what is, to all intents and +purposes, a fortress warfare on the most gigantic scale. In this warfare +all strategic manœuvres are absent, because manœuvres are impossible on +ground where every square yard is marked and swept by artillery fire. +The opposing armies are not simply intrenched. They have protected +themselves with masses of concrete and steel armor, so that the +so-called trenches are in reality concrete forts, shielded and casemated +with armor-plate, flanked with rapid-firers and mortars, linked to one +another by marvellously concealed communicating trenches which are +protected in turn by the fire of heavy batteries, guarded by the most +ingenious entanglements, pitfalls, and other obstructions that the mind +of man has been able to devise, and defended by machine-guns, in the +enormous proportion of one to every fifty men, mounted behind steel +plates and capable of firing six hundred shots a minute. In these +subterranean works dwell the infantry, abundantly provided with +hand-grenades and appliances for throwing bombs and flaming oil, their +rifles trained, day and night, on the space over which an enemy must +advance. That is the sort of wall which one side or the other will have +to break through in order to win in this war. The only way to take such +a position is by frontal attack, and the only way to make a frontal +attack possible is by paving the way with such a torrent of high +explosive that both entanglements and earthworks are literally torn to +pieces and the infantry defending them demoralized or annihilated. No +one before the war could have imagined the vast quantity of shells +required for such an operation. In order to prepare the way for an +infantry attack on a German position near Arras, the French fired two +hundred thousand rounds of high explosive in a single day—and the scouts +came back to report that not a barbed-wire entanglement, a trench, or a +living human being remained. During the same battle the British, owing +to a shortage of high-explosive ammunition, were able to precede their +attack by only forty minutes of shell-fire. This was wholly insufficient +to clear away the entanglements and other obstructions, and, as a +result, the men were literally mowed down by the German machine-guns. +Even when the storming-parties succeed in reaching the first line of the +enemy’s trenches and bayonet or drive out the defenders, the opposing +artillery, with a literal wall of fire, effectively prevents any +reinforcements from advancing to their support. Shattered and exhausted +though they are, the attackers must instantly set to work to fortify and +consolidate the captured trenches, being subjected, meanwhile, to a much +more accurate bombardment, as the enemy knows, of course, the exact +range of his former positions and is able to drop his shells into them +with unerring accuracy. It is obvious that such offensive movements +cannot be multiplied or prolonged indefinitely, both on account of the +severe mental and physical strain on the men and the appalling losses +which they involve. Neither can such offensives be improvised. A +commanding officer cannot smash home a frontal attack on an enemy’s +position at any moment that he deems auspicious any more than a surgeon +can perform a major operation without first preparing his patient +physically. Before launching an attack the ground must be minutely +studied; the position to be attacked must be reconnoitred and +photographed by aviators; advanced trenches must be dug; reserve troops +must be moved forward and batteries brought into position without +arousing the suspicions of the enemy; and, most important of all, +enormous quantities of projectiles and other material must be gathered +in one place designated by the officer in charge of the operations. The +greatest problem presented by an offensive movement is that of +delivering to the artillery the vast supplies of shells necessary to +pave the way for a successful attack. To give some idea of what this +means, I might mention that the Germans, during the crossing of the San, +_fired seven hundred thousand shells in four hours_. + +There are no words between the covers of the dictionary which can convey +any adequate idea of what one of these great artillery actions is like. +One has to see—and hear—it. Buildings of brick and stone collapse as +though they were built of cards. Whole towns are razed to the ground as +a city of tents would be levelled by a cyclone. Trees are snapped off +like carrots. Gaping holes as large as cottage cellars suddenly appear +in the fields and in the stone-paved roads. Geysers of smoke and earth +shoot high into the air. The fields are strewn with the shocking remains +of what had once been men: bodies without heads or arms or legs; legs +and arms and heads without bodies. Dead horses, broken wagons, bent and +shattered equipment are everywhere. The noise is beyond all +description—yes, beyond all conception. It is like a close-by clap of +thunder which, instead of lasting for a fraction of a second, lasts for +hours. There is no break, no pause in the hell of sound, not even a +momentary diminution. The ground heaves and shudders beneath your feet. +You find it difficult to breathe. Your head throbs until you think that +it is about to burst. Your eyeballs ache and burn. Giant fingers seem to +be steadily pressing your ear-drums inward. The very atmosphere +palpitates to the tremendous detonations. The howl of the shell-storm +passing overhead gives you the feeling that the skies are falling. +Compared with it, the roar of the cannon at Gettysburg must have sounded +like the popping of fire-crackers. + +Inconceivably awe-inspiring and terrifying as is a modern artillery +action, one eventually becomes accustomed to it, but I have yet to meet +the person who would say with perfect truthfulness that he was +indifferent to the fire of the great German siege-cannon. I have three +times been under the fire of the German siege-guns—during the +bombardments of Antwerp, of Soissons, and of Dunkirk—and I hope with all +my heart that I shall never have the experience again. Let me put it to +you, my friends. How would _you_ feel if you were sleeping quite +peacefully in—let us say—the Waldorf-Astoria, and along about six +o’clock in the morning something dropped from the clouds, and in the +pavement of Fifth Avenue blew a hole large enough to bury a horse in? +And what would be your sensations if, still bewildered by the suddenness +of your awakening, you ran to the window to see what had happened, and +something that sounded like an express-train came hurtling through the +air from somewhere over in New Jersey, and with the crash of an +exploding powder-mill transformed Altman’s store into a heap of +pulverized stone and concrete? Well, that is precisely what happened to +me one beautiful spring morning in Dunkirk. + +To be quite frank, I didn’t like Dunkirk from the first. Its empty +streets, the shuttered windows of its shops, and the inky blackness into +which the city was plunged at night from fear of aeroplanes, combined to +give me a feeling of uneasiness and depression. The place was about as +cheerful as a country cemetery on a rainy evening. From the time I set +foot in it I had the feeling that something was going to happen. I found +that a room had been reserved for me on the upper floor of the local +hostelry, known as the Hôtel des Arcades—presumably because there are +none. I did not particularly relish the idea of sleeping on the upper +floor, with nothing save the roof to ward off a bomb from a marauding +aeroplane, for, ever since I was under the fire of Zeppelins in Antwerp, +I have made it a point to put as many floors as possible between me and +the sky. + +It must have been about six o’clock in the morning when I was awakened +by a splitting crash which made my bedroom windows rattle. A moment +later came another and then another, each louder and therefore nearer +than the one preceding. All down the corridor doors began to open, and I +heard voices excitedly inquiring what was happening. I didn’t have to +inquire. I knew from previous experience. A German _Taube_ was raining +death upon the city. Throwing open my shutters, I could see the machine +quite plainly, its armor-plated body gleaming in the morning sun like +polished silver as it swept in ever-widening circles across the sky. +Somewhere to the east a pompom began its infernal triphammer-like +clatter. An armored car, evidently British from the “R. N.” painted on +its turret, tore into the square in front of the hotel, the lean barrel +of its quick-firing gun sweeping the sky, and began to send shell after +shell at the aerial intruder. From down near the water-front came the +raucous wail of a steam-siren warning the people to get under cover. A +church-bell began to clang hastily, insistently, imperatively. It seemed +to say: “To your cellars! To your cellars! Hurry!... _Hurry!_... HURRY!” +From the belfry of the church of St. Eloi a flag with blue and white +stripes was run up as a warning to the townspeople that death was +abroad. Suddenly, above the tumult of the bells and horns and hurrying +footsteps, came a new and inconceivably terrifying sound: a low, +deep-toned roar rapidly rising into a thunderous crescendo like an +express-train approaching from far down the subway. As it passed above +our heads it sounded as though a giant in the sky were tearing mighty +strips of linen. Then an explosion which was brother to an earthquake. +The housetops seemed to rock and sway. The hotel shook to its +foundations. The pictures on the wall threatened to come down. The glass +in the windows rattled until I thought that it would break. From beyond +the housetops in the direction of the receiving hospital and the +railway-station a mushroom-shaped cloud of green-brown smoke shot +suddenly high into the air. Out in the corridor a woman screamed +hysterically: “My God! My God! They’ve begun again with the big cannon!” +I heard the clatter of footsteps on the stairs as the guests rushed for +the cellar. I began to dress. No fireman responding to a third alarm +ever dressed quicker. Just as I was struggling with my boots there came +another whistling roar and another terrific detonation. High in the air +above the quivering city still circled the German aeroplane, informing +by wireless the German gunners, more than a score of miles away across +the Belgian border, where their shells were hitting. Think of it! _Think +of bombarding a city at a range of twenty-three miles and every shot a +hit!_ That is the marvel of this modern warfare. Imagine the Grand +Central Station in New York, the Presbyterian Hospital, the Metropolitan +Life Building, and the City Hall being blown to smithereens by shells +fired from Rahway, N. J. And it was not a 42-centimetre siege-gun +either, but a 15-inch naval gun which the Germans had brought from Kiel +and mounted behind their lines in Flanders. Though French and British +aviators made repeated flights over the German lines for the purpose of +locating the gun and putting it out of business, their efforts met with +no success, as the ingenious Teutons, it seems, had dug a sort of tunnel +into which the gun was run back after each shot and there it stayed, in +perfect security, until it was fired again. Is it any wonder that the +Germans are so desperately anxious to reach Calais, with the +fort-crowned cliffs of Dover rising across the channel less than twenty +miles away? + +Descending to the cellars of the hotel, I found that there was +standing-room only. Guests, porters, cooks, waiters, chambermaids, +English Red Cross nurses, and a French colonel wearing the Legion of +Honor were shivering in the dampness amid the cobwebs and the +wine-bottles. Every time a shell exploded the wine-bottles in their bins +shook and quivered as though they, too, were alive and frightened. I lay +no claim to bravery, but in other bombarded cities I have seen what +happens to the people in the cellar when a shell strikes that particular +building, and I had no desire to end my career like a rat in a trap. +Should you ever, by any chance, find yourself in a city which is being +bombarded, take my advice, I beg of you, and go out into the middle of +the nearest open square and stay there until the bombardment is over. I +believe that far more people are killed during bombardment by falling +masonry and timbers than by the shells themselves. As I went upstairs I +heard a Frenchwoman angrily demanding of the chambermaid why she had not +brought her hot water. “But, madame,” pleaded the terrified girl, “the +city is being bombarded.” “Is that any reason why I should not wash?” +cried the irate lady. “Bring my hot water instantly.” + +At eight o’clock the general commanding the garrison hurried in. He had +invited me to lunch with him. “I am desolated that I cannot have the +pleasure of your company at _déjeuner_, Monsieur Powell,” said he, “but +it is not wise for you to remain in the city. I am responsible to the +Government for your safety, and it would make things easier for me if +you would go. I have taken the liberty of sending for your car.” You can +call it cowardice or timidity or anything you please, but I am not at +all ashamed to admit that I was never so glad to have an invitation +cancelled. I have had a somewhat extensive acquaintance with +bombardments, and I have always found that those who speak lightly of +them are those who have never seen one. + +In order to get out of range of the German shells my driver, acting +under the orders of the commandant, turned the bonnet of the car toward +Bergues, five miles to the southward. But we found that Bergues had not +been overlooked by the German gunners, having, indeed, suffered more +severely than Dunkirk. When we arrived the bombardment was just over and +the dust was still rising from the shattered houses. Twelve +38-centimetre shells had landed in the very heart of the little town, +sending a score or more of its inhabitants, men, women, and children, to +the hospital and a like number to the cemetery. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurisse._ + + The mass before the battle. + + There are said to be upward of twenty thousand priests fighting in the + armies of France. +] + +A few hours before Bergues had been as quaint and peaceful and contented +a town of five thousand people as you could have found in France. +Because of its quaint and simple charm touring motorists used to go out +of their way to see it. It is fortified in theory but not in fact, for +its moss-grown ramparts, which date from the Crusades, have about as +much military significance as the Battery in New York. But the +guide-books describe it as a fortified town, and that was all the excuse +the Germans needed to turn loose upon it sudden death. To-day that +little town is an empty, broken shell, its streets piled high with the +brick and plaster of its ruined homes. One has to see the ruin produced +by a 38-centimetre shell to believe it. If one hits a building that +building simply ceases to exist. It crumbles, disintegrates, disappears. +I do not mean to say that its roof is ripped off or that one of its +walls is blown away. I mean to say that the whole building crashes to +the ground as though flattened by the hand of God. The Germans sent only +twelve of their shells into Bergues, but the central part of the town +looked like Market Street in San Francisco after the earthquake. One of +the shells struck a hospital and exploded in a ward filled with wounded +soldiers. They are not wounded any longer. Another shell completely +demolished a three-story brick house. In the cellar of that house a man, +his wife, and their three children had taken refuge. There was no need +to dig graves for them in the local cemetery. Throughout the bombardment +a _Taube_ hung over the doomed town to observe the effect of the shots, +and to direct by wireless the distant gunners. I wonder what the German +observer, peering down through his glasses upon the wrecked hospital and +the shell-torn houses and the mangled bodies of the women and children, +thought about it all. It would be interesting to know, wouldn’t it? + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph copyright by M. Rol._ + + What a 38-centimetre shell, fired from a gun twenty-three miles away, + did in Dunkirk. + + “When one of these shells hits a building, that building simply ceases + to exist.” +] + + + + + II + ON THE BRITISH BATTLE-LINE + + +Along a road in the outskirts of that French town which is the British +headquarters a youth was running. He was of considerably less than +medium height, and fair-haired and very slender. One would have +described him as a nice-looking boy. He wore a jersey and white +running-shorts which left his knees bare, and he was bareheaded. +Shoulders back and chest well out, he jogged along at the steady +dog-trot adopted by athletes and prize-fighters who are in training. +Now, in ordinary times there is not anything particularly remarkable in +seeing a scantily clad youth dog-trotting along a country road. You +assume that he is training for a cross-country event, or for a seat in a +’varsity shell, or for the feather-weight championship, and you let it +go at that. But these are not ordinary times in France, and ordinary +young men in running-shorts are not permitted to trot along the roads as +they list in the immediate vicinity of British Headquarters. Even if you +travel, as I did, in a large gray car, with an officer of the French +General Staff for companion, you are halted every few minutes by a +sentry who turns the business end of a rifle in your direction and +demands to see your papers. But no one challenged the young man in the +running-shorts or asked to see _his_ papers. Instead, whenever a soldier +caught sight of him that soldier clicked his heels together and stood +rigidly at attention. After you had observed the curious effect which +the appearance of this young man produced on the military of all ranks +it suddenly struck you that his face was strangely familiar. Then you +all at once remembered that you had seen it hundreds of times in the +magazines and the illustrated papers. Under it was the caption, “His +Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.” That young man will some day, if he +lives, sit in an ancient chair in Westminster Abbey, and the Archbishop +of Canterbury will place a crown upon his head, and his picture will +appear on coins and postage-stamps in use over half the globe. + +Now, the future King of England—Edward VIII they will doubtless call +him—is not getting up at daybreak and reeling off half a dozen miles or +so because he particularly enjoys it. He is doing it with an end in +view. He is doing it for precisely the same reason that the +prize-fighter does it—he is training for a battle. To me there was +something wonderfully suggestive and characteristic in the sight of that +young man plugging doggedly along the country road. He seemed to +epitomize the spirit which I found to exist along the whole length of +the British battle-line. Every British soldier in France has come to +appreciate that he is engaged in a struggle without parallel in +history—a struggle in which he is confronted by formidable, ferocious, +resourceful, and utterly unscrupulous opponents, and from which he is by +no means certain to emerge a victor—and he is, therefore, methodically +and systematically preparing to win that struggle just as a pugilist +prepares himself for a battle in a prize-ring. + +The British soldier has at last come to a realization of the terrible +gravity of the situation which faces him. You don’t hear him singing +“Tipperary” any more or boasting about what he is going to do when he +gets to Berlin. He has come to have a most profound respect for the +fighting qualities of the men in the spiked helmets. He knows that he, +an amateur boxer as it were, is up against the world’s heavyweight +professional champion, and he perfectly appreciates that he has, to use +his own expression, “a hell of a job” in front of him. He has already +found out, to his cost and to his very great disgust, that his opponent +has no intention of being hampered by the rules laid down by the late +Marquis of Queensberry, having missed no opportunity to gouge or kick or +hit below the belt. But the British soldier has now become familiar with +his opponent’s tactics, and one of these days, when he gets quite ready, +he is going to give that opponent the surprise of his life by landing on +him with both feet, spikes on his shoes, and brass knuckles on his +fingers. Meanwhile, like the young Prince in the running-shorts, he has +buckled down with grim determination to the task of getting himself into +condition. + +I suppose that if I were really politic and far-sighted I would cuddle +up to the War Office and make myself solid with the General Staff by +confidently asserting that the British Army is the most efficient +killing machine in existence, and that its complete and early triumph is +as certain as that the sparks fly upward; neither of which assertions +would be true. It should be kept in mind, however, that the British did +not begin the building of their war-machine until after the outbreak of +hostilities, while the German organization is the result of upward of +half a century of unceasing thought, experiment, and endeavor. But what +the British have accomplished since the war began is one of the marvels +of military history. Lord Kitchener came to a War Office which had long +been in the hands of lawyers and politicians. Not only was he expected +to remodel an institution which had become a national joke, but at the +same time to raise a huge volunteer army. In order to raise this army he +had to have recourse to American business methods. He employed a clever +advertising specialist to cover the walls and newspapers of the United +Kingdom with all manner of striking advertisements, some pleading, some +bullying, some caustic in tone, by which he has proved that, given +patriotic impulse, advertising for people to go to war is just like +advertising for people to buy automobiles or shaving-soap or +smoking-tobacco. It was not soothing to British pride—but it got the +men. Late in the spring of 1915, after half a year or more of training, +during which they were worked as a negro teamster works a mule, those +men were marched aboard transports and sent across the Channel. So +admirably executed were the plans of the War Office and so complete the +precautions taken by the Admiralty, that this great force was landed on +the Continent without the loss of a single life from German mines or +submarines. That, in itself, is one of the greatest accomplishments of +the war. England now (December, 1915) has in France an army of +approximately a million men. But it is a new army. The bulk of it is +without experience and without experienced regiments to stiffen it and +give it confidence, for the army of British regulars which landed in +France at the outbreak of the war has ceased to exist. The old +regimental names remain, but the officers and men who composed those +regiments are, to-day, in the hospitals or the cemeteries. The losses +suffered by the British Army in Flanders are appalling. The West Kent +Regiment, for example, has been three times wiped out and three times +reconstituted. Of the Black Watch, the Rifle Brigade, the Infantry of +the Household, scarcely a vestige of the original establishments +remains. Hardly less terrible are the losses which have been suffered by +the Canadian Contingent. The Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry +landed in France 1400 strong. To-day only 140 remain. The present +colonel was a private in the ranks when the regiment sailed from Quebec. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurisse._ + + London buses at the front. + + “Far as the eye can see stretch long lines of London motor-buses in + war coats of elephant gray, crowded with sun-tanned men in khaki + hurrying toward the trenches.” +] + +The machine that the British have knocked together, though still a +trifle wabbly and somewhat creaky in its joints, is, I am convinced, +eventually going to do the business. But you cannot appreciate what it +is like or what it is accomplishing by reading about it; you have to see +it for yourself as I did. That corner of France lying between the fifty +miles of British front and the sea is, to-day, I suppose, the busiest +region in the world. It reminded me of the Canal Zone during the rush +period of the Canal’s construction. It is as busy as the lot where the +Greatest Show on Earth is getting ready for the afternoon performance. +Down the roads, far as the eye can see, stretch long lines of London +motor-buses, sombre war coats of elephant gray replacing the staring +advertisements of teas, tobaccos, whiskeys, and theatrical attractions, +crowded no longer with pale-faced clerks hurrying toward the city, but +with sun-tanned men in khaki hurrying toward the trenches. Interminable +processions of motor-lorries go lumbering past, piled high with the +supplies required to feed and clothe the army, practically all of which +are moved from the coast to the front by road, the railways being +reserved for the transport of men and ammunition; and the ambulances, +hundreds and hundreds of them, hurrying their blood-soaked cargoes to +the hospitals so that they may go back to the front for more. So crowded +are the highways behind the British front that at the cross-roads in the +country and at the street crossings in the towns are posted military +policemen with little scarlet flags who control the traffic just as do +the policemen on Fifth Avenue and Broadway. The roads are never +permitted to fall into disrepair, for on their condition depends the +rapidity with which the army can be supplied with food and ammunition. +Hence road gangs and steam-rollers and sprinkling-carts are at work +constantly. When the war is over, France will have better roads and more +of them than she ever had before. There are speed-limit signs +everywhere—heretofore practically unknown in France, where any one who +was careless enough to get run over was liable to arrest for obstructing +the traffic. At frequent intervals along the roads are blacksmith shops +and motor-car repair stations, to say nothing of the repair cars, +veritable garages on wheels, which, when news of an accident or +breakdown is received, go tearing toward the scene of trouble as a +fire-engine responds to an alarm of fire. At night all cars must run +without lights, as a result of which many camions and motor-buses have +met with disaster by running off the roads in the darkness and tipping +over in the deep ditches. To provide for this particular form of mishap +the Army Service Corps has designed a most ingenious contrivance which +yanks the huge machines out of the ditch and sets them on the road again +as easily as though they were stubborn mules. Upon the door of every +house we passed, whether château or cottage, was marked the number of +men who could be billeted upon it. There are signs indicating where +water can be obtained and fodder and pasturage and petrol. In every town +and village are to be found military interpreters, known by a +distinctive cap and _brassard_, who are always ready to straighten out a +misunderstanding between a Highlander from the north of the Tweed and a +_tirailleur_ from Tunisia, who will assist a Ghurka from the Indian hill +country in bargaining for poultry with a Flemish-speaking peasant, or +instruct a lost Senegalese how to get back to his command. An officers’ +training-school has been established at St.-Omer, which is the British +Headquarters, where those men in the ranks who possess the necessary +education are fitted to receive commissions. After this war is over the +British Army will no longer be officered by the British aristocracy. The +wholesale promotions of enlisted men made necessary by the appalling +losses among the officers will result in completely changing the +complexion of the British military establishment. Provided he has the +necessary educational qualifications, the son of a day-laborer will +hereafter stand as much chance as the son of a duke. Did you know, by +the way, that the present Chief of the Imperial General Staff began life +as a footman and entered the army as a private in the ranks? + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurisse._ + + British field-kitchens on the march in Flanders. + + “Napoleon said: ‘An army marches on its belly,’ and the Army Service + Corps is seeing to it that the belly of the British soldier is never + empty.” +] + +The wonderful thoroughness of the British is exemplified by the +bulletins which are issued every morning by the Intelligence Department +for the information of the brigade and regimental commanders. They +resemble ordinary hand-bills and contain a summary of all the +information which the Intelligence Department has been able to collect +during the preceding twenty-four hours as to what is going on behind the +German lines—movements of troops, construction of new trenches, changes +in the location of batteries, shortage of ammunition, condition of the +roads; everything, in short, which might be of any conceivable value to +the British to know. For example, the report might contain a sentence +something like this: “At five o’clock to-morrow morning the Prussian +Guard, which has been holding position No. —, to the south of Ypres, +will be relieved by the 47th Bavarian Landsturm”—which, by the way, +would probably result in the British attacking the position mentioned. +The information contained in these bulletins comes from many +sources—from spies in the pay of the Intelligence Department, from +aviators who make reconnoissance flights over the German lines, and +particularly from the inhabitants of the invaded regions, who, by +various ingenious expedients, succeed in communicating to the Allies +much important information—often at the cost of their lives. + +The great base camps which the British have established at Calais and +Havre and Boulogne and Rouen are marvels of organization, efficiency, +and cleanliness. Cities whose macadamized streets are lined with +portable houses of wood or metal which have been brought to the +Continent in sections, and which have sewers and telephone systems and +electric lights, and accommodations for a hundred thousand men apiece, +have sprung up on the sand-dunes of the French coast as though by the +wave of a magician’s wand. Here, where the fresh, healing wind blows in +from the sea, have been established hospitals, each with a thousand +beds. Huge warehouses have been built of concrete to hold the vast +quantity of stores which are being rushed across the Channel by an +endless procession of transports and cargo steamers. So efficient is the +British field-post system, which is operated by the Army Post-Office +Division of the Royal Engineers, that within forty-eight hours after a +wife or mother or sweetheart drops a letter into a post-box in England +that letter has been delivered in the trenches to the man to whom it was +addressed. + +In order to prevent military information leaking out through the letters +which are written by the soldiers to the folks at home, one in every +five is opened by the regimental censor, it being obviously out of the +question to peruse them all. If, however, the writer is able to get hold +of one of the precious green envelopes, whose color is a guarantee of +private and family matters only, he is reasonably certain that his +letter will not be read by other eyes than those for which it is +intended. Nor does the field-post confine itself to the transmission of +letters, but transmits delicacies and comforts of every sort to the boys +in the trenches, and the boys in the trenches use the same medium to +send shell fragments, German helmets, and other souvenirs to their +friends at home. I know a lady who sent her son in Flanders a box of +fresh asparagus from their Devonshire garden on a Friday, and he had it +for his Sunday dinner. And this reminds me of an interesting little +incident which is worth the telling and might as well be told here as +elsewhere. A well-known American business man, the president of one of +New York’s street-railway systems, has a son who is a second lieutenant +in the Royal Artillery. The father was called back to America at a time +when his son’s battery was stationed in a particularly hot corner to the +south of Ypres. The father was desperately anxious to see his son before +he sailed, but he knew that the chances of his being permitted to do so +were almost infinitesimal. Nevertheless, he wrote a note to Lord +Kitchener explaining the circumstances and adding that he realized that +it was probably quite impossible to grant such a request. He left the +note himself at York House. Before he had been back in his hotel an hour +he was called to the telephone. “This is the secretary of Lord Kitchener +speaking,” said a voice. “He desires me to say that you shall certainly +see your son before returning to America, and that you are to hold +yourself in readiness to go to the Continent at a moment’s notice.” A +few days later he received another message from the War Office: “Take +to-morrow morning’s boat from Folkestone to Boulogne. Your son will be +waiting for you on the quay.” The long arm of the great War Minister had +reached out across the English Channel and had picked that obscure +second lieutenant out from that little Flemish village, and had brought +him by motor-car to the coast, with a twenty-four hours’ leave of +absence in his pocket, that he might say good-by to his father. + +The maxim that “an army marches on its belly” is as true to-day as when +Napoleon uttered it, and the Army Service Corps is seeing to it that the +belly of the British soldier is never empty. Of all the fighting men in +the field, the British soldier is far and away the best fed. He is, +indeed, almost overfed, particularly as regards jams, marmalades, +puddings, and other articles containing large quantities of sugar, +which, so the army surgeons assert, is the greatest restorer of the +muscular tissues. Though the sale of spirits is strictly prohibited in +the military zone, a ration of rum is served out at daybreak each +morning to the men in the trenches. + +To Miss Jane Addams has been attributed the following assertion: “We +heard in all countries similar statements in regard to the necessity for +the use of stimulants before men would engage in bayonet charges, that +they have a regular formula in Germany, that they give them rum in +England and absinthe in France; that they all have to give them the +‘dope’ before the bayonet charge is possible.” Now, Miss Addams has +never, so far as I am aware, been in the trenches. Of the conditions +which exist there she knows only by hearsay. Miss Addams says that rum +is given to the British soldier. That is perfectly true. In pursuance of +orders issued by the Army Medical Corps, every man who has spent the +night in the trenches is given a ration (about a gill) of rum at +daybreak, not to render him reckless, as Miss Addams would have us +believe, but to counteract the effects of the mud and water in which he +has been standing for many hours. But when Miss Addams asserts that the +French soldiers are given absinthe she makes an assertion that is +without foundation of fact. Not only have I never seen a glass of +absinthe served in France since the law was passed which made its sale +illegal, but I have never seen spirits of any kind in use in the zone of +operations. More than once, coming back, chilled and weary, from the +trenches, I have attempted to obtain either whiskey or brandy only to be +told that its sale is rigidly prohibited in the zone of the armies. The +regular ration of the French soldier includes now, just as in time of +peace, a pint of _vin ordinaire_—the cheap wine of the country—this +being, I might add, considerably less than the man would drink with his +meals were he in civil life. As regards the conditions which exist in +the German armies I cannot speak with the same assurance, because I have +not been with them since the autumn of 1914. During the march across +Belgium there was, I am perfectly willing to admit, considerable +drunkenness among the German soldiers, but this was due to the men +looting the wine-cellars in the towns through which they passed and not, +as Miss Addams would have us believe, to their officers having +systematically “doped” them. I have heard it stated, on various +occasions, that German troops are given a mixture of rum and ether +before going into action. Whether this is true I cannot say. Personally, +I doubt it. If a man’s life ever depends upon a clear brain and a cool +head it is when he is going into battle. Everything considered, +therefore, I am convinced that intemperance virtually does not exist +among the armies in the field. I feel that Miss Addams has done a grave +injustice to brave and sober men and that she owes them an apology. + +The British troops are not permitted to drink unboiled or unfiltered +water, each regiment having two steel water-carts fitted with +Birkenfeldt filters from which the men fill their water-bottles. As a +result of this precaution, dysentery and diarrhœa, the curse of armies +in previous wars, have practically disappeared, while, thanks to +compulsory inoculation, typhoid is unknown. Perhaps the most important +of all the sanitary devices which have been brought into existence by +this war, and without which it would not be possible for the men to +remain in the trenches at all, is the great force-pump that is operated +at night and which throws lime and carbolic acid on the unburied dead. +It is, indeed, impossible to overpraise the work being done by the Royal +Army Medical Corps, which has, among its many other activities, so +improved and speeded up the system of getting the wounded from the +firing-line to the hospitals that, as one Tommy remarked, “You ’ears a +’ell of a noise, and then the nurse says: ‘Sit hup and tike this +broth.’” + +Though in this war the work of the cavalry is almost negligible; though +cartridges and marmalade are hurried to the front on motor-trucks and +the wounded are hurried from the front back to the hospital in +motor-ambulances; though despatch riders bestride panting motor-cycles +instead of panting steeds; though scouting is done by airmen instead of +horsemen, the day of the horse in warfare has by no means passed. +Without the horse, indeed, the guns could not go into action, for no +form of tractor has yet been devised for hauling batteries over broken +country. In fact, all of the belligerent nations are experiencing great +difficulty in providing a sufficient supply of horses, for the average +life of a war-horse is very short—ten days, assert some authorities; +sixteen, say others. For the first time in the history of warfare, +therefore, the horse is treated as a creature which must be cared for +when sick or wounded as well as when in health, and this not merely from +motives of sentiment or humanity but as a detail of military efficiency. +“For want of a nail,” runs the old ditty, “the shoe was lost; for want +of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the rider was lost; +for want of a rider the battle was lost”—and the Royal Army Veterinary +Corps is seeing to it that no battles are lost for lack of either horses +or horseshoes. The Army Veterinary Corps now has on the British sector +700 officers and 8,000 men, whose business it is to conserve the lives +of the horses. The last report that I have seen places the total number +of horses treated in the various hospital units (each of which +accommodates 1,000 animals) as approximately 81,000, of which some +47,000 had been returned to the Remount Department as again fit for +active service; 30,000 were still under treatment; the balance having +died, been destroyed, or sold. + +The horses in use by the British Army in France are the very pick of +England, the Colonies, and foreign countries; thoroughbred and +three-quarter bred hunters from the hunting counties and from Ireland; +hackneys, draft, and farm animals; Walers from Australia; wire-jumpers +from New Zealand; hardy stock from Alberta and Saskatchewan; sturdy +ponies from the hill country of India; thousands upon thousands of +animals from the American Southwest, and from the Argentine; to say +nothing of the great sixteen-hand mules from Missouri and Spain. + +Animals suffering from wounds or sickness are shipped back to the +hospital bases on the coast in herds, each being provided with a +separate covered stall, or, in case of pneumonia, with a box-stall. The +spotless buildings, with their exercise tracks and acres of green +paddocks, suggest a race-course rather than a hospital for horses +injured in war. Each hospital has its operating-sheds, its X-ray +department, its wards for special ailments, its laboratories for +preventive research work, a pharmacy, a museum which affords opportunity +for the study of the effects of sabre, shell, and bullet wounds, and a +staff of three hundred trained veterinarians. Schools have also been +established in connection with the hospitals in which the grooms and +attendants are taught the elements of anatomy, dentistry, farriery, +stabling, feeding, sanitation, and, most important of all, the care of +hoofs. All the methods and equipment employed are the best that science +can suggest and money can obtain, everything having passed the +inspection of the Duke of Portland and the Earl of Lonsdale, the two +greatest horse-breeders in England. Attached to each division of troops +in the field is a mobile veterinary section, consisting of an officer +and twenty-two men, who are equipped to render first-aid service to +wounded horses and whose duty it is to decide which animals shall be +sent to the hospitals for treatment, which are fit to return to the +front for further service, and which cases are hopeless and must be +destroyed. The enormous economic value of this system is conclusively +proved by the fact that it has reduced sickness among horses in the +British Army 50 per cent, and mortality 47 per cent. + +The question that has been asked me more frequently than any other is +why the British, with upward of a million men in the field, are holding +only about fifty miles of battle-front, as compared with seventeen miles +held by the Belgians and nearly four hundred by the French. There are +several reasons for this. It should be remembered, in the first place, +that the British Army is composed of green troops, while the French +ranks, thanks to the universal service law, are filled with men all of +whom have spent at least three years with the colors. In the second +place, the British sector is by far the most difficult portion of the +western battle-front to hold, not only because of the configuration of +the country, which offers little natural protection, but because it lies +squarely athwart the road to the Channel ports—and it is to the Channel +ports that the Germans are going if men and shells can get them there. +The fighting along the British sector is, moreover, of a more desperate +and relentless nature than elsewhere on the Allied line, because the +Germans nourish a deeper hatred for the English than for all their other +enemies put together. + +It was against the British, remember, that the Germans first used their +poison-gas. The first engagement of importance in which gas played a +part was the Second Battle of Ypres, lasting from April 22 until May 13, +which will probably take rank in history as one of the greatest battles +of all time. In it the Germans, owing to the surprise and confusion +created by their introduction of poison-gas, came within a hair’s +breadth of breaking through the Allied line, and would certainly have +done so had it not been for the gallantry and self-sacrifice of the +Canadian Division, which, at the cost of appalling losses, won +imperishable fame. The German bombardment of Ypres began on April 20 and +in forty-eight hours, so terrible was the rain of heavy projectiles +which poured down upon it, the quaint old city, with its exquisite Cloth +Hall, was but a heap of blackened, smoking ruins. That portion of the +Allied line to the north of the city was held, along a front of some +four miles, by a French division composed of Colonials, Algerians, and +Senegalese, stiffened by several line regiments. Late in the afternoon +of the 22d, peering above their trenches, they saw, rolling toward them +across the Flemish plain, an impalpable cloud of yellowish-green, which, +fanned by a brisk wind, moved forward at the speed of a trotting-horse. +It came on with the remorselessness of Fate. It blotted out what was +happening behind it as the smoke screen from a destroyer masks the +manœuvres of a Dreadnaught. The spring vegetation shrivelled up before +it as papers shrivel when thrown into a fire. It blasted everything it +touched as with a hand of death. No one knew what it was or whence it +came. Nearer it surged and nearer. It was within a hundred metres of the +French position ... fifty ... thirty ... ten ... and then the silent +horror was upon them. Men began to cough and hack and strangle. Their +eyes smarted and burned with the pungent, acrid fumes. Soldiers +staggered and fell before it in twos and fours and dozens as miners +succumb to fire-damp. Men, strained and twisted into grotesque, horrid +attitudes, were sobbing their lives out on the floors of the trenches. +The fire of rifles and machine-guns weakened, died down, ceased. The +whole line swayed, wavered, trembled on the verge of panic. Just then a +giant Algerian shouted: “The Boches have turned loose evil spirits upon +us! We can fight men, but we cannot fight _afrits_! Run, brothers! Run +for your lives!” That was all that was needed to precipitate the +disaster. The superstitious Africans, men from the West Coast where +voodooism still holds sway, men of the desert steeped in the traditions +and mysteries of Islam, broke and ran. The French white troops, carried +off their feet by the sudden rush, were swept along in the mad debacle. +And as they ran the yellow cloud pursued them remorselessly, like a +great hand reaching out for their throats. + +An eye-witness of the rout that followed told me that he never expects +to see its like this side of the gates of hell. The fields were dotted +with blue-clad figures wearing kepis, and brown-clad ones wearing +turbans and tarbooshes, who stumbled and fell and rose again and +staggered along a few paces and fell to rise no more. The highways +leading from the trenches were choked with maddened, fear-crazed white +and black and brown men who had thrown away their rifles, their +cartridge-pouches, their knapsacks, in some cases even their coats and +shirts. Some were calling on Christ and some on Allah and some on their +strange pagan gods. Their eyes were starting from their sockets, on +their foreheads stood glistening beads of sweat, they slavered at the +mouth like dogs, their cheeks and breasts were flecked with foam. “We’re +not afraid of the Boches!” screamed a giant sergeant of zouaves, on +whose breast were the ribbons of a dozen wars. “We can fight _them_ +until hell turns cold. But this we cannot fight. _Le Bon Dieu_ does not +expect us to stay and die like rats in a sewer.” Guns and gun-caissons +passed at a gallop, Turcos and _tirailleurs_ clinging to them, the +fear-crazed gunners flogging their reeking horses frantically. The +ditches bordering the roads were filled with overturned wagons and +abandoned equipment. Giant negroes, naked to the waist, tore by +shrieking that the spirits had been loosed upon them and slashing with +their bayonets at all who got in their path. Mounted officers, frantic +with anger and mortification, using their swords and pistols +indiscriminately, vainly tried to check the human stream. And through +the four-mile breach which the poison-gas had made the Germans were +pouring in their thousands. The roar of their artillery sounded like +unceasing thunder. The scarlet rays of the setting sun lighted up such a +scene as Flanders had never before beheld in all its bloody history. +Then darkness came and the sky was streaked across with the fiery trails +of rockets and the sudden splotches of bursting shrapnel. The tumult was +beyond all imagination—the crackle of musketry, the rattle of +machine-guns, the crash of high explosive, the thunder of falling walls, +the clank of harness and the rumble of wheels, the screams of the +wounded and the groans of the dying, the harsh commands of the officers, +the murmur of many voices, and the shuffle, shuffle, shuffle of +countless hurrying feet. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph copyright by M. Rol._ + + Machine-gun squad wearing masks as a protection against the + asphyxiating gas with which the Germans precede their attacks. +] + +And through the breach still poured the helmeted legions like water +bursting through a broken dam. Into that breach were thrown the +Canadians. The story of how, overwhelmed by superior numbers of both men +and guns, choked by poison-fumes, reeling from exhaustion, sometimes +without food, for it was impossible to get it to them, under such a rain +of shells as the world had never before seen, the brawny men from the +oversea Dominion fought on for a solid week, and thereby saved the army +from annihilation, needs no re-telling here. Brigade after brigade of +fresh troops, division after division, was hurled against them but still +they battled on. So closely were they pressed at times that they fought +in little groups; men from Ontario and Quebec shoulder to shoulder with +blood-stained heroes from Alberta and Saskatchewan. At last, when it +seemed as though human endurance could stand the strain no longer, up +went the cry, “Here come the guns!” and the Canadian batteries, splashed +with sweat and mud, tore into action on the run. “Action front!” +screamed the officers, and the guns whirled like polo ponies so that +their muzzles faced the oncoming wave of gray. “With shrapnel!... Load!” +The lean and polished projectiles slipped in and the breech-blocks +snapped home. “Fire at will!” and the blast of steel tore bloody avenues +in the German ranks. But fresh battalions filled the gaps—the German +reserves seemed inexhaustible—and they still came on. At one period of +the battle the Germans were so close to the guns that the order was +given, “Set your fuses at zero!” which means that a shell bursts almost +the moment it leaves the muzzle of the gun. It was not until early on +Friday morning that reinforcements reached the shattered Canadians and +enabled them to hold their ground. Later the Northumbrian +Division—Territorials arrived only three days before from the English +training-camps—were sent to aid them and proved themselves as good +soldiers as the veterans beside whom they fought. For days the fate of +the army hung in the balance, for there seemed no end to the German +reserves, who were wiped out by whole divisions only to be replaced by +more, but against the stone wall of the Canadian resistance the men in +the spiked helmets threw themselves in vain. On May 13, 1915, after +three weeks of continuous fighting, may be said to have ended the Second +Battle of Ypres, not in a terrific and decisive climax, but slowly, +sullenly, like two prize-fighters who have fought to the very limit of +their strength. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph copyright by “The Daily Mirror.”_ + A British battery in action. +] + +[Illustration: + + “Bodies, long months dead, rotting amid the wire entanglements.” +] + +[Illustration: + + _From photographs by Meurisse._ + + “Imagine what it must be like to sleep in a hole in the earth, into + which you have to crawl on all fours, like an animal into its lair.” +] + +According to the present British system, the soldiers spend three weeks +at the front and one week in the rear—if possible, out of sound of the +guns. The entire three weeks at the front is, to all intents and +purposes, spent in the trenches, though every third day the men are +given a breathing spell. _Three weeks in the trenches!_ I wonder if you +of the sheltered life have any but the haziest notion of what that +means. I wonder if _you_, Mr. Lawyer; _you_, Mr. Doctor; _you_, Mr. +Business Man, can conceive of spending your summer vacation in a ditch 4 +feet wide and 8 feet deep, sometimes with mud and water to your knees, +sometimes faint from heat and lack of air, in your nostrils the stench +of bodies long months dead, rotting amid the wire entanglements a few +yards in front of you, and over your head steel death whining angrily, +ceaselessly. I wonder if you can imagine what it must be like to +sleep—when the roar of the guns dies down sufficiently to make sleep +possible—on foul straw in a hole hollowed in the earth, into which you +have to crawl on all fours, like an animal into its lair. I wonder if +you can picture yourself as wearing a uniform so stiff with sweat and +dirt that it would stand alone, and underclothes so rotten with filth +that they would fall apart were you to take them off, your body so +crawling with vermin and so long unwashed that you are an offense to all +whom you approach—yet with no chance to bathe or to change your clothes +or sometimes even to wash your hands and face for weeks on end. I wonder +how your nerves would stand the strain if you knew that at any moment a +favorable wind might bring a gas cloud rolling down upon you to kill you +by slow strangulation, or that a shell might drop into the trench in +which you were standing in water to your knees and leave you floating +about in a bloody mess which turned that water red, or that a _Taube_ +might let loose upon you a shower of steel arrows which would pass +through you as a needle passes through a piece of cloth, or that a mine +might be exploded beneath your feet and distribute you over the +landscape in fragments too small to be worth burying, or, worse still, +to leave you alive amid a litter of heads and arms and legs which a +moment before had belonged to your comrades, the horror of it all +turning you into a maniac who alternately shrieks and gibbers and rocks +with insane mirth at the horror of it all. I am perfectly aware that +this makes anything but pleasant reading, my friends, but if men of +gentle birth, men with university educations, men who are accustomed to +the same refinements and luxuries that you are, can endure these things, +why, it seems to me that you ought to be able to endure reading about +them. + +[Illustration: + + French high-explosive shells bursting on the German trenches. +] + +The effect of some of the newer types of high-explosive shells is almost +beyond belief. For sheer horror and destruction those from the +Austrian-made Skoda howitzer, known as “Pilseners,” make the famous +42-centimetre shells seem almost kind. The Skoda shells weigh 2,800 +lbs., and their usual curve is 4½ miles high. In soft ground they +penetrate 20 feet before exploding. The explosion, which occurs two +seconds after impact, kills every living thing within 150 yards, while +scores of men who escape the flying metal are killed, lacerated, or +blinded by the mere pressure of the gas. This gas pressure is so +terrific that it breaks in the roofs and partitions of bomb-proof +shelters. Of men close by not a fragment remains. The gas gets into the +body cavities and expands, literally tearing them to pieces. +Occasionally the clothes are stripped off leaving only the boots. +Rifle-barrels near by are melted as though struck by lightning. These +mammoth shells travel comparatively slowly, however, usually giving +enough warning of their approach so that the men have time to dodge +them. Their progress is so slow, indeed, that sometimes they can be +seen. Far more terrifying is the smaller shell which, because of its +shrill, plaintive whine, has been nicknamed “Weary Willie,” or those +from the new “noiseless” field-gun recently introduced by the Germans, +which gives no intimation of its approach until it explodes with a +shattering crash above the trenches. Is it any wonder that hundreds of +officers and men are going insane from the strain that they are under, +and that hundreds more are in the hospitals suffering from neuritis and +nervous breakdown? Is it any wonder that, when their term in the +trenches is over, they have to be taken out of sight and sound of battle +and their shattered nerves restored by means of a carefully planned +routine of sports and games, as though they were children in a +kindergarten? + +The breweries, mills, and factories immediately behind the British lines +have, wherever practicable, been converted into bath-houses to which the +men are marched as soon as they leave the trenches. The soldiers strip +and, retaining nothing but their boots, which they deposit beside the +bathtub, they go in, soap in one hand and scrubbing-brush in the other, +the hot bath being followed by a cold shower. The underclothes which +they have taken off are promptly burned and fresh sets given to them, as +are also clean uniforms, the discarded ones, after passing through a +fumigating machine, being washed, pressed, and repaired by the numerous +Frenchwomen who are employed for the purpose, so as to be ready for +their owners the next time they return from the trenches. At one of +these improvised bath-houses thirteen hundred men pass through each day. + +“What do the French think of the English?” + +To every one I put that question. Summing up all opinions, I should say +that the French thoroughly appreciate the value of Britain’s sea power +and what it has meant to them for her to have control of the seas, but +they regard her lack of military preparedness and the deficiency of +technic among the British officers as inexcusable; they consider the +deep-seated opposition to conscription in England as incomprehensible; +they view the bickerings between British capital and labor as little +short of criminal; they regard the British officers who needlessly +expose themselves as being not heroic but insane. The attitude of the +British press was, in the earlier days of the war at least, calculated +to put a slight strain on the entente cordiale. Anxious, naturally +enough, to throw into high relief the exploits of the British troops in +France, the British newspapers vastly exaggerated the importance of the +British expedition, thus throwing the whole picture of the war out of +perspective. The behavior of the British officers, moreover, though +punctiliously correct, was not such as to mend matters, for they assumed +an attitude of haughty condescension which, as I happen to know, was +extremely galling to their French colleagues, most of whom had forgotten +more about the science of war than the patronizing youngsters who +officered the new armies had ever known. “To listen to you English and +to read your newspapers,” I heard a Frenchman say to an Englishman in +the Traveller’s Club in Paris not long ago, “one would think that there +was no one in France except the British Army and a few Germans.” + +I have never heard any one in France suggest that the British officer is +lacking in bravery, but I have often heard it intimated that he is +lacking in brains. The view is held that he regards the war as a +sporting affair, much as he would regard polo or big-game hunting, +rather than as a deadly serious business. When the British officers in +Flanders brought over several packs of hounds and thus attempted to +combine war and hunting, it created a more unfavorable impression among +the French than if the British had lost a battle. “The British Army,” a +distinguished Italian general remarked to me shortly before Italy joined +the Allies, “is composed of magnificent material; it is well fed and +admirably equipped—but the men look on war as sport and go into battle +as they would into a game of football.” To the Frenchman, whose soil is +under the heel of the invader, whose women have been violated by a +ruthless and brutal soldiery, whose historic monuments have been +destroyed, and whose towns have been sacked and burned, this attitude of +mind is absolutely incomprehensible, and in his heart he resents it. The +above, mind you, is written in no spirit of criticism; I am merely +attempting to show you the Englishman through French eyes. + +I have heard it said, in criticism, that the new British Army is +composed of youngsters. So it is, but for the life of me I fail to see +why this should be any objection. The ranks of both armies during our +Civil War were filled with boys still in their teens. It was one of +Wellington’s generals, if I remember rightly, who used to say that, for +really desperate work, he would always take lads in preference to +seasoned veterans because the latter were apt to be “too cunning.” +“These children,” exclaimed Marshal Ney, reviewing the beardless +conscripts of 1813, “are wonderful! I can do anything with them; they +will go anywhere!” + +But the thing that really counts, when all is said and done, is the +_spirit_ of the men. The British soldier of this new army has none of +the rollicking, devil-may-care recklessness of the traditional Tommy +Atkins. He has not joined the army from any spirit of adventure or +because he wanted to see the world. He is not an adventurer; he is a +crusader. With him it is a deadly serious business. He has not enlisted +because he wanted to, or because he had to, but because he felt he ought +to. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he has left a family, a +comfortable home, and a good job behind him. And, unlike the +stay-at-homes in England, he doesn’t make the mistake of underrating his +enemy. He knows that the headlines which appear regularly in the English +papers exultantly announcing “another British advance” are generally +buncombe. He knows that it isn’t a question of advancing but of hanging +on. He knows that he will have to fight with every ounce of fight there +is in him if he is to remain where he is now. He knows that before the +Germans can be driven out of France and Belgium, much less across the +Rhine, all England will be wearing crape. He knows that there is no +truth in the reports that the enemy is weakening. He knows it because +hasn’t he vainly thrown himself in successive waves against that +unyielding wall of steel? He knows that it is going to be a long +war—probably a very long war indeed. Every British officer or soldier +with whom I have talked has said that he expects that the spring of 1916 +will find them in virtually the same positions that they have occupied +for the past year. They will gain ground in some places, of course, and +lose ground in others, but the winter, so the men in the trenches +believe, will see no radical alteration in the present western +battle-line. All this, of course, will not make pleasant reading in +England, where the Government and certain sections of the Press have +given the people the impression that Germany is already beaten to her +knees and that it is all over bar the shouting. Out along the +battle-front, however, in the trenches, and around the camp-fires, you +do not hear the men discussing “the terms of peace we will grant +Germany,” or “What shall we do with the Kaiser?” They are not talking +much, they are not singing much, they are not boasting at all, but they +have settled down to the herculean task that lies before them with a +grim determination, a bulldog tenacity of purpose, which is eventually, +I believe, going to prove the deciding factor in the war. Nothing better +illustrates this spirit than the inscription which I saw on a cross over +a newly made grave in Flanders: + + TELL ENGLAND, YE THAT PASS THIS MONUMENT, + THAT WE WHO REST HERE DIED CONTENT. + + + + + III + CAMPAIGNING IN THE VOSGES + + +The sergeant in charge of the machine-gun, taking advantage of a lull in +the rifle-fire which had crackled and roared along the trenches since +dawn, was sprawled on his back in the gun-pit, reading a magazine. What +attracted my attention was its being an American magazine. + +“Where did you learn to read English?” I asked him curiously. + +“In America,” said he. + +“What part?” said I. + +“Schenectady,” he answered. “Was with the General Electric until the war +began.” + +“I’m from up-State myself,” I remarked. “My people live in Syracuse.” + +“The hell you say!” he exclaimed, scrambling to his feet and grasping my +hand cordially. “I took you for an Englishman. From Syracuse, eh? Why, +that makes us sort of neighbors, doesn’t it? We ought to have a drink on +it. I suppose the Boches have plenty of beer over there,” waving his +hand in the direction of the German trenches, of which I could catch a +glimpse through a loophole, “but we haven’t anything here but water. +I’ve got an idea, though! Back in the States, when they have those Old +Home Week reunions, they always fire off an anvil or the town cannon. So +what’s the matter with celebrating this reunion by letting the Boches +have a few rounds from the machine-gun?” + +Seating himself astride the bicycle saddle on the trail of the +machine-gun, he swung the lean barrel of the wicked little weapon until +it rested on the German trenches a hundred yards away. Then he slipped +the end of a cartridge-carrier into the breech. + +[Illustration: + + In a bomb-proof gun-pit. + + “_Rrr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rrrip_ went the mitrailleuse, with the noise + of a million mowing-machines. The racket in the log-roofed gun-pit + was deafening.” +] + +“Three rousing cheers for the U. S. A.!” he shouted, and pressed a +button. _Rrr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rrrip_ went the +mitrailleuse, with the noise of a million mowing-machines. Flame spurted +from its muzzle as water spurts from the nozzle of a fire-hose. The +racket in the log-roofed gun-pit was ear-shattering. The blast of +bullets spattered the German trenches, they _pinged_ metallically +against the steel plates set in the embrasures, they kicked up countless +spurts of yellow earth. The sergeant stood up, grinning, and with a +grimy handkerchief wiped from his face the powder stains and +perspiration. + +[Illustration: + + French trenches on the Somme. + + “This is the sort of wall which one side or the other will have to + break through in order to win this war.” +] + +“If you should happen to be in Schenectady you might drop in at the +General Electric plant and tell the boys—” he began, but the sentence +was never finished, for just then a shell whined low above our heads and +burst somewhere behind the trenches with the roar of an exploding +powder-mill. We had disturbed the Germans’ afternoon siesta, and their +batteries were showing their resentment. + +“I think that perhaps I’d better be moving along,” said I hastily. “It’s +getting on toward dinner time.” + +“Well, s’long,” said he regretfully. “And say,” he called after me, +“when you get back to little old New York would you mind dropping into +the Knickerbocker and having a drink for me? And be sure and give my +regards to Broadway.” + +“I certainly will,” said I. + +And that is how a Franco-American whose name I do not know, sergeant in +a French line regiment whose number I may not mention, and I held an Old +Home Week celebration of our own in the French trenches in Alsace. For +all I know there may have been some other residents of central New York +over in the German trenches. If so, they made no attempt to join our +little reunion. Had they done so they would have received a _very_ warm +reception. + + +[Illustration: + + In the French trenches on the Yser. + + To put one’s head a fraction of an inch above the parapet is to become + a corpse, so a watch is kept on the enemy through periscopes. +] + +There were several reasons why I welcomed the opportunity offered me by +the French General Staff to see the fighting in Alsace. In the first +place a veil of secrecy had been thrown over the operations in that +region, and the mysterious is always alluring. Secondly, most of the +fighting that I have seen has been either in flat or only moderately +hilly countries, and I was curious to see how warfare is conducted in a +region as mountainous and as heavily forested as the Adirondacks or +Oregon. Again, the Alsace sector is at the extreme southern end of that +great battle-line, more than four hundred miles long, which stretches +its unlovely length across Europe from the North Sea to the Alps, like +some monstrous and deadly snake. And lastly, I wanted to see the +retaking of that narrow strip of territory lying between the summit of +the Vosges and the Rhine which for more than forty years has been +mourned by France as one of her “lost provinces.” + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by E. A. Powell._ + + In the Vosges the French have built veritable underground cities. +] + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurisse._ + + A 155-millimetre gun firing at a German position eight miles away. +] + + Campaigning in the Vosges. + +This land of Alsace is, in many respects, the most beautiful that I have +ever seen. Strung along the horizon, like sentinels wrapped in mantles +of green, the peaks of the Vosges loom against the sky. On the slopes of +the ridges, massed in their black battalions, stand forests of spruce +and pine. Through peaceful valleys silver streams meander leisurely, and +in the meadows which border them cattle stand knee-deep amid the lush +green grass. The villages, their tortuous, cobble-paved streets lined on +either side by dim arcades, and the old, old houses, with their turrets +and balconies and steep-pitched pottery roofs, give you the feeling that +they are not real, but that they are scenery on a stage, and this +illusion is heightened by the men in their jaunty _bérets_ and wooden +_sabots_, and the women, whose huge black silk head-dresses accentuate +the freshness of their complexions. It is at once a region of ruggedness +and majesty and grandeur, of quaintness and simplicity and charm. As I +motored through it, it was hard to make myself believe that death was +abroad in so fair a land, and that over there, on the other side of +those near-by hills, men were engaged in the business of wholesale +slaughter. I was brought to an abrupt realization of it, however, as we +were passing through the old gray town of Gérardmer. I heard a sudden +outcry, and the streets, which a moment before had been a-bustle with +the usual market-day crowd, were all at once deserted. The people dived +into their houses as a woodchuck dives into its hole. The sentries on +duty in front of the _État-Major_ were staring upward. High in the sky, +approaching with the speed of an express-train, was what looked like a +great white seagull, but which, from the silver sheen of its +armor-plated body, I knew to be a German _Taube_. “We’re in for another +bombardment,” remarked an officer. “The German airmen have been visiting +us every day of late.” As the aircraft swooped lower and nearer, a +field-gun concealed on the wooded hillside above the town spoke sharply, +and a moment later there appeared just below the _Taube_ a sudden +splotch of white, like one of those powder-puffs that women carry. From +the opposite side of the town another antiaircraft gun began to bark +defiance, until soon the aerial intruder was ringed about by wisps of +fleecy smoke. At one time I counted as many as forty of them, looking +like white tufts on a coverlet of turquoise blue. Things were getting +too hot for the German, and with a beautiful sweep he swung about, and +went sailing down the wind, content to wait until a more favorable +opportunity should offer. + +The inhabitants of these Alsatian towns have become so accustomed to +visits from German airmen that they pay scarcely more attention to them +than they do to thunderstorms, going indoors to avoid the bombs just as +they go indoors to avoid the rain. I remarked, indeed, as I motored +through the country, that nearly every town through which we passed +showed evidences, either by shattered roofs or shrapnel-spattered walls, +of aeroplane bombardment. Thus is the war brought home to those who, +dwelling many miles from the line of battle, might naturally suppose +themselves safe from harm. In those towns which are within range of the +German guns the inhabitants are in double danger, yet the shops and +schools are open, and the townspeople go about their business apparently +wholly unmindful of the possibility that a shell may drop in on them at +any moment. In St. Dié we stopped for lunch at the Hôtel Terminus, which +is just opposite the railway-station. St. Dié is within easy range of +the German guns—or was when I was there—and when the Germans had nothing +better to do they shelled it, centring their fire, as is their custom, +upon the railway-station, so as to interfere as much as possible with +traffic and the movement of troops. The station and the adjacent +buildings looked like cardboard boxes in which with a lead-pencil +somebody had jabbed many ragged holes. The hotel, despite its upper +floor having been wrecked by shell-fire only a few days previously, was +open and doing business. Ranged upon the mantel of the dining-room was a +row of German 77-millimetre shells, polished until you could see your +face in them. “Where did you get those?” I asked the woman who kept the +hotel. “Those are some German shells that fell in the garden during the +last bombardment, and didn’t explode,” she answered carelessly. “I had +them unloaded—the man who did it made an awful fuss about it, too—and I +use them for hot-water bottles. Sometimes it gets pretty cold here at +night, and it’s very comforting to have a nice hot shell in your bed.” + +From St. Dié to Le Rudlin, where the road ends, is in the neighborhood +of thirty miles, and we did it in not much over thirty minutes. We went +so fast that the telegraph-poles looked like the palings in a picket +fence, and we took the corners on two wheels—doubtless to save rubber. +Of one thing I am quite certain: if I am killed in this war, it is not +going to be by a shell or a bullet; it is going to be in a military +motor-car. No cars save military ones are permitted on the roads in the +zone of operations, and for the military cars no speed limits exist. As +a result, the drivers tear through the country as though they were in +the Vanderbilt Cup Race. Sometimes, of course, a wheel comes off, or +they meet another vehicle when going round a corner at full speed—and +the next morning there is a military funeral. To be the driver of a +military car in the zone of operations is the joy-rider’s dream come +true. The soldier who drove my car steered with one hand because he had +to use the other to illustrate the stories of his exploits in the +trenches. Despite the fact that we were on a mountain road, one side of +which dropped away into nothingness, when he related the story of how he +captured six Germans single-handed he took both hands off the wheel to +tell about it. It would have made Barney Oldfield’s hair permanently +pompadour. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurisse._ + + What the Germans did to the church at Ribécourt. +] + +At Le Rudlin, where there is an outpost of Alpine chasseurs, we left the +car, and mounted mules for the ascent of the _Hautes Chaumes_, or High +Moors, which crown the summit of the Vosges. Along this ridge ran the +imaginary line which Bismarck made the boundary between Germany and +France. Each mule was led by a soldier, whose short blue tunic, scarlet +breeches, blue puttees, rakish blue _béret_, and rifle slung +hunter-fashion across his back, made him look uncommonly like a Spanish +brigand, while another soldier hung to the mule’s tail to keep him on +the path, which is as narrow and slippery as the path of virtue. Have +you ever ridden the trail which leads from the rim of the Grand Canyon +down to the Colorado? Yes? Well, the trail which we took up to the +_Hautes Chaumes_ was in places like that, only more so. Yet over that +and similar trails has passed an army of invasion, carrying with it, +either on the backs of mules or on the backs of men, its guns, food, and +ammunition, and sending back in like fashion its wounded. Reaching the +summit, the trail debouched from the dense pine forest onto an open, +wind-swept moor. Dotting the backbone of the ridge, far as the eye could +see, ran a line of low stone boundary posts. On one side of each post +was carved the letter F. On the other, the eastern face, was the letter +D. Is it necessary to say that F stood for France and D for Deutschland? +Squatting beside one of the posts was a French soldier busily engaged +with hammer and chisel in cutting away the D. “It will not be needed +again,” he explained, grinning. + +[Illustration: + + On the summit of the Vosges. + + Mr. Powell standing beside one of the stone posts which formerly + marked the frontier of Germany and France. +] + +Leaving the mules in the shelter of the wood, we proceeded across the +open tableland which crowns the summit of the ridge on foot, for, being +now within both sight and range of the German batteries, there seemed no +object in attracting more attention to ourselves than was absolutely +necessary. Half a mile or so beyond the boundary posts the plateau +suddenly fell away in a sheer precipice, a thin screen of bushes +bordering its brink. The topographical officer who had assumed the +direction of the expedition at Le Rudlin motioned me to come forward. +“Have a look,” said he, “but be careful not to show yourself or to shake +the bushes, or the Boches may send us a shell.” Cautiously I peered +through an opening in the branches. The mountain slope below me, almost +at the foot of the cliff on which I stood, was scarred across by two +great undulating yellow ridges. In places they were as much as a +thousand yards apart, in others barely ten. I did not need to be told +what they were. I knew. The ridge higher up the slope marked the line of +the French trenches; the lower that of the German. From them came an +incessant crackle and splutter which sounded like a forest fire. +Sometimes it would die down until only an occasional shot would +punctuate the mountain silence, and then, apparently without cause, it +would rise into a clatter which sounded like an army of carpenters +shingling a roof. In the forests on either side of us batteries were at +work steadily, methodically, and, though we could not see the guns, the +frequent fountains of earth thrown up along both lines of trenches by +bursting shells showed how heavy was the bombardment that was in +progress, and how accurate was both the French and German fire. We were +watching what the official _communiqué_ described the next day as the +fighting on the Fecht very much as one would watch a football game from +the upper row of seats in the Harvard stadium. Above the forest at our +right swayed a French observation balloon, tugging impatiently at its +rope, while the observer, glasses glued to his eyes, telephoned to the +commander of the battery in the wood below him where his shells were +hitting. Suddenly, from the French position just below me, there rose, +high above the duotone of rifle and artillery fire, the shrill clatter +of a quick-firer. _Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat_ it went, for all the world +like one of those machines which they use for riveting steel girders. +And, when you come to think about it, that is what it _was_ doing: +riveting the bonds which bind Alsace to France. + +I have heard it said that the French army has been opposed, and in many +instances betrayed, by the people whom they thought they were liberating +from the German yoke, and that consequently the feeling of the French +soldiers for the Alsatians is very bitter. This assertion is not true. I +talked with a great many people during my stay in Alsace—with the +_maires_ of towns, with shopkeepers, with peasant farmers, and with +village priests—and I found that they welcomed the French as +wholeheartedly as a citizen who hears a burglar in his house welcomes a +policeman. I saw old men and women who had dwelt in Alsace before the +Germans came, and who had given up all hope of seeing the beloved +tricolor flying again above Alsatian soil, standing at the doors of +their cottages, with tears coursing down their cheeks, while the endless +columns of soldiery in the familiar uniform tramped by. In the +schoolhouses of Alsace I saw French soldiers patiently teaching children +of French blood, who have been born under German rule and educated under +German schoolmasters, the meaning of “_Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité_,” +and that _p-a-t-r-i-e_ spells France. + +The change from Teutonic to Gallic rule is, however, by no means +welcomed by all Alsatians. The Alsatians of to-day, remember, are not +the Alsatians of 1870. It has been the consistent policy of the German +Government to encourage and, where necessary, to assist German farmers +to settle in Alsace, and as the years passed and the old hatred died +down, these newcomers intermarried with the old French stock, so that +to-day there are thousands of the younger generation in whose veins flow +both French and German blood, and who scarcely know themselves to whom +their allegiance belongs. As a result of this peculiar condition, both +the French and German military authorities have to be constantly on +their guard against treachery, for a woman bearing a French name may +well be of German birth, while a man who speaks nothing but German may, +nevertheless, be of pure French extraction. Hence spies, both French and +German, abound. If the French Intelligence Department is well served, so +is that of Germany. Peasants working in the fields, petty tradesmen in +the towns, women of social position, and other women whose virtue is as +easy as an old shoe, Germans dressed as priests, as hospital attendants, +as Red Cross nurses, sometimes in French uniforms and travelling in +motor-cars with all the necessary papers—all help to keep the German +military authorities informed of what is going on behind the French +lines. Sometimes they signal by means of lamps, or by raising and +lowering the shade of a lighted room of some lonely farmhouse; sometimes +by means of cunningly concealed telephone wires; occasionally by the +fashion in which the family washing is arranged upon a line within range +of German telescopes, innocent-looking red-flannel petticoats, +blue-linen blouses, and white undergarments being used instead of +signal-flags to spell out messages in code. A plough with a white or +gray horse has more than once indicated the position of a French battery +to the German airmen. The movements of a flock of sheep, driven by a spy +disguised as a peasant, has sometimes given similar information. On one +occasion three German officers in a motor-car managed to get right +through the British lines in Flanders. Two of them were disguised as +French officers, who were supposed to be bringing back the third as a +prisoner, he being, of course, in German uniform. So clever and daring +was their scheme that they succeeded in getting close to British +headquarters before they were detected and captured. They are no cowards +who do this sort of work. They know perfectly well what it means if they +are caught: sunrise, a wall, and a firing-party. + +[Illustration: + + The German shells drop into the lake and stun hundreds of fish, + whereupon the soldiers paddle out and gather them in. +] + +[Illustration: + + The first shot is the signal for the band to take position on the + shore of the lake and play the _Marseillaise_. +] + + On the Lac Noir. + +From the _Hautes Chaumes_ we descended by a very steep and perilous path +to the Lac Noir, where a battalion of Alpine chasseurs had built a +cantonment at which we spent the night. The Lac Noir, or Black Lake, +occupies the crater of an extinct volcano, whose rocky sides are so +smooth and steep that it looks like a gigantic washtub, in which a weary +Hercules might wash the clothing of the world. There were in the +neighborhood of a thousand chasseurs in camp on the shores of the Lac +Noir when I was there, the _chef de brigade_ having been, until the +beginning of the war, military adviser to the President of China. The +amazing democracy of the French army was illustrated by the fact that +his second in command, Lieutenant-Colonel Messimy, was, until the change +of cabinet which took place after the battle of the Marne, minister of +war. The cantonment—“Black Lake City” Colonel Messimy jokingly called +it—looked far more like a summer camp in the Adirondacks than a +soldiers’ camp in Alsace. All the buildings were of logs, their roofs +being covered with masses of green boughs to conceal them from +inquisitive aeroplanes, and at the back of each hut, hollowed from the +mountainside, was an underground shelter in which the men could take +refuge in case of bombardment. Gravelled paths, sometimes bordered with +flowers, wound amid the pine-trees; the officers’ quarters had broad +verandas, with ingeniously made rustic furniture upon them; the +mess-tables were set under leafy arbors; there was a swimming-raft and a +diving-board, and a sort of rustic pavilion known as the “Casino,” where +the men passed their spare hours in playing cards or danced to the music +of a really excellent band. Over the doorway was a sign which read: “The +music of the tambourine has been replaced by the music of the cannon.” +Though the Lac Noir was, when I was there, within the French lines, it +was within range of the German batteries, which shelled it almost daily. +The slopes of the crater on which the cantonment was built are so steep, +however, that the shells would miss the barracks altogether, dropping +harmlessly in the middle of the little lake. The ensuing explosion would +stun hundreds of fish, which would float upon the surface of the water, +whereupon the soldiers would paddle out in a rickety flatboat and gather +them in. In fact, a German bombardment came to mean that the chasseurs +would have fish for dinner. This daily bombardment, which usually began +just before sunset, the French called the “Evening Prayer.” The first +shot was the signal for the band to take position on that shore of the +lake which could not be reached by the German shells, and play the +_Marseillaise_, a bit of irony which afforded huge amusement to the +French and excessive irritation to the Germans. + +[Illustration: + + The penalty for treason. +] + +When the history of the campaign in the Vosges comes to be written, a +great many pages will have to be devoted to recounting the exploits of +the _chasseurs alpins_. The “Blue Devils,” as the Germans have dubbed +them, are the Highlanders of the French army, being recruited from the +French slopes of the Alps and the Pyrenees. Tough as rawhide, keen as +razors, hard as nails, they are the ideal troops for mountain warfare. +They wear a distinctive dark-blue uniform, and the _béret_, or cap, of +the French Alps, a flat-topped, jaunty head-dress which is brother to +the tam-o’-shanter. The frontier of Alsace, from a point opposite +Strasbourg to a point opposite Mülhausen, follows the summit of the +Vosges, and over this range, which in places is upward of four thousand +feet in height, have poured the French armies of invasion. In the van of +those armies have marched the _chasseurs alpins_, dragging their guns by +hand up the almost sheer precipices, and dragging the gun-mules after +them; advancing through forests so dense that they had to chop paths for +the line regiments which followed them; carrying by storm the apparently +impregnable positions held by the Germans; sleeping often without +blankets and with the mercury hovering near zero on the heights which +they had captured; taking their batteries into positions where it was +believed no batteries could go; raining shells from those batteries upon +the wooded slopes ahead, and, under cover of that fire, advancing, +always advancing. Think of what it meant to get a great army over such a +mountain range in the face of desperate opposition; think of the labor +involved in transporting the enormous supplies of food, clothing, and +ammunition required by that army; think of the sufferings of the wounded +who had to be taken back across those mountains, many of them in the +depths of winter, sometimes in litters, sometimes lashed to the backs of +mules. The mule, whether from the Alps, the Pyrenees, or from Missouri, +is playing a brave part in this mountain warfare, and whenever I saw one +I felt like the motorist who, after his automobile had been hauled out +of an apparently bottomless Southern bog by a negro who happened to be +passing with a mule team, said to his son: “My boy, from now on always +raise your hat to a mule.” + +Just as the crimson disk of the sun peered cautiously over the crater’s +rim, we bade good-by to our friends the _chasseurs alpins_, and turned +the noses of our mules up the mountains. As we reached the summit of the +range, the little French captain who was acting as our guide halted us +with a gesture. “Look over there,” he said, pointing to where, far +beyond the trench-scarred hillsides, a great, broad valley was swimming +in the morning mists. There were green squares which I knew for +meadow-lands, and yellow squares which were fields of ripening grain; +here and there were clusters of white-walled, red-roofed houses, with +ancient church-spires rising above them; and winding down the middle of +the plain was a broad gray ribbon which turned to silver when the sun +struck upon it. + +“Look,” said the little captain again, and there was a break in his +voice. “That is what we are fighting for. That is Alsace.” + +Then I knew that I was looking upon what is, to every man of Gallic +birth, the Promised Land; I knew that the great, dim bulk which loomed +against the distant sky-line was the Black Forest; I knew that somewhere +up that mysterious, alluring valley, Strasbourg sat on her hilltop, like +an Andromeda waiting to be freed; and that the broad, silent-flowing +river which I saw below me was none other than the Rhine. + +And as I looked I recalled another scene, on another continent and +beside another river, two years before. I was standing with a colored +cavalry sergeant of the border patrol on the banks of the Rio Grande, +and we were looking southward to where the mountains of Chihuahua rose, +purple, mysterious, forbidding, grim, against the evening sky. On the +Mexican side of the river a battle was in progress. + +“I suppose,” I remarked to my companion, “that you’ll be mighty glad +when orders come to cross the border and clean things up over there in +Mexico.” + +“Mistah,” he answered earnestly, “we ain’t nevah gwine tuh _cross_ dat +bodah, but one of these yere days wese a gwine tuh pick dat bodah up an’ +carry it right down to Panama.” + +And that is what the French are doing in Alsace. They have not crossed +the border, but they have picked the border up, and are carrying it +right down to the banks of the Rhine. + + + + + IV + THE RETAKING OF ALSACE + + +When I asked the general commanding the armies operating in Alsace for +permission to visit the fire-trenches, I did it merely as a matter of +form. I was quite prepared to be met with a polite but firm refusal, for +it is as difficult to get into the French trenches as it is to get +behind the scenes of a Broadway theatre on the first night of a big +production. This, understand, is not from any solicitude for your +safety, but because a fire-trench is usually a very busy place indeed, +and a visitor is apt to get in the way and make himself a nuisance +generally. Imagine my astonishment, then, when the general said, +“Certainly, if you wish,” just as though he were giving me permission to +visit his stables or his gardens. I might add that almost every +correspondent who has succeeded in getting to the French front has been +taken, with a vast deal of ceremony and precaution, into a trench of +some sort, thus giving him an experience to tell about all the rest of +his life, but those who have been permitted to visit the actual +fire-trenches might almost be numbered on one’s fingers. In this respect +the French have been much less accommodating than the Belgians or the +Germans. The fire, or first-line, trench, is the one nearest the enemy, +and both from it and against it there is almost constant firing. The +difference between a second-line, or reserve, trench, and a fire-trench +is the difference between sitting in a comfortable orchestra stall and +in being on the stage and a part of the show. + +Before they took me out to the trenches we lunched in Dannemarie, or, as +it used to be known under German rule, Dammerkirch. Though the town was +within easy range of the German guns, and was shelled by them on +occasion, the motto of the townsfolk seemed to be “business as usual,” +for the shops were busy and the schools were open. We had lunch at the +local inn: it began with fresh lobster, followed by _omelette au +fromage_, spring lamb, and asparagus, and ended with strawberries, and +it cost me sixty cents, wine included. From which you will gather that +the people behind the French lines are not suffering for food. + +Just outside Dannemarie the railway crosses the River Ill by three +tremendous viaducts eighty feet in height. When, early in the war, the +Germans fell back before the impetuous French advance, they effectually +stopped railway traffic by blowing up one of these viaducts behind them. +Urged by the railway company, which preferred to have the government +foot the bill, the viaduct was rebuilt by the French military +authorities, and a picture of the ceremony which marked its inauguration +by the Minister of War was published in one of the Paris illustrated +papers. The jubilation of the French was a trifle premature, however, +for a few days later the Germans moved one of their monster siege-guns +into position and, at a range of eighteen miles, sent over a shell which +again put the viaduct out of commission. That explains, perhaps, why the +censorship is so strict on pictures taken in the zone of operations. + +Dannemarie is barely ten miles from that point where the French +and German trenches, after zigzagging across more than four +hundred miles of European soil, come to an abrupt end against the +frontier of Switzerland. The Swiss, who are taking no chances of +having the violation of Belgium repeated with their own country +for the victim, have at this point massed a heavy force of +extremely businesslike-looking troops, the frontier is marked by a +line of wire entanglements, and a military zone has been +established, civilians not being permitted to approach within a +mile or more of the border. When I was in that region the French +officers gave a dinner to the officers in command of the Swiss +frontier force opposite them. That there might be no embarrassing +breaches of neutrality the table was set exactly on the +international boundary, so that the Swiss officers sat in +Switzerland, and the French officers sat in France. One of the +amusing incidents of the war was when the French “put one over” on +the Germans at the beginning of hostilities in this region. Taking +advantage of a sharp angle in the contour of the Swiss frontier, +the French posted one of their batteries in such a position, that +though it could sweep the German trenches, it was so close to the +border that whenever the German guns replied their shells fell on +Swiss soil, and an international incident was created. + +[Illustration: + + Troglodyte dwellings in Alsace. + + “Twenty feet below the surface of the earth are rooms with + sleeping-quarters for many men.” +] + +The trenches in front of Altkirch, and indeed throughout Alsace, are +flanked by patches of dense woods, and it is in these woods that the +cantonments for the men are built, and amid their leafy recesses that +the soldiers spend their time when off duty in sleeping, smoking, and +card-playing. Though the German batteries periodically rake the woods +with shell-fire, it is an almost total waste of ammunition, for the men +simply retreat to the remarkable underground cities which they have +constructed, and stay there until the shell-storm is over. The +troglodyte habitations which have come into existence along the entire +length of the western battle-front are perhaps the most curious products +of this siege warfare. In these dwellings burrowed out of the earth the +soldiers of France live as the cavemen lived before the dawn of +civilization. A dozen to twenty feet below the surface of the ground, +and so strongly roofed over with logs and earth as to render their +occupants safe from the most torrential rain of high explosive, I was +shown rooms with sleeping-quarters for a hundred men apiece, blacksmith +and carpenter shops, a recreation room where the men lounged and smoked +and read the papers and wrote to the folks at home, a telegraph station, +a telephone exchange from which one could talk with any section of the +trenches, with division headquarters, or with Paris; a bathing +establishment with hot and cold water and shower-baths; a barber +shop—all with board floors, free from dampness, and surprisingly clean. +The trenches and passageways connecting these underground dwellings were +named and marked like city streets—the Avenue Joffre, the Avenue Foch, +the Rue des Victoires—and many of them were electric-lighted. The +bedroom of an artillery officer, twenty feet underground, had its walls +and ceiling covered with flowered cretonne—heaven knows where he got +it!—and the tiny windows of the division commander’s headquarters, +though they gave only on a wall of yellow mud, were hung with dainty +muslin curtains—evidently the work of a woman’s loving fingers. In one +place a score of steps led down to a passageway whose mud walls were so +close together that I brushed one with either elbow as I passed. On this +subterranean corridor doors—real doors—opened. One of these doors led +into an officer’s sitting-room. The floor and walls were covered with +planed wood and there was even an attempt at polish. The rustic +furniture was excellently made. Beside the bed was a telephone and an +electric light, and on a rude table was a brass shell-case filled with +wild flowers. On the walls the occupant had tacked pictures of his wife +and children in a pitiful attempt to make this hole in the ground look +“homelike.” + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurisse._ + + The straggling columns of unkempt, unshaven men were in striking + contrast to the helmeted giants on gigantic horses who guarded them. +] + +But don’t get the idea, from anything that I have said, that life in the +trenches is anything more than endurable. Two words describe it: misery +and muck. War is not only fighting, as many people seem to think. +Bronchitis is more deadly than bullets. Pneumonia does more harm than +poison-gas. Shells are less dangerous than lack of sanitation. To be +attacked by strange and terrible diseases; to stand day after day, week +after week, between walls of oozy mud and amid seas of slime; to be +eaten alive by vermin; to suffer the intolerable irritation of the itch; +to be caked with mud and filth; to go for weeks and perhaps for months +with no opportunity to bathe; to be so foul of person that you are an +offense to all who come near—such are the real horrors of the trench. + +Yet, when the circumstances are taken into consideration, the French +soldier is admirably cared for. His health is carefully looked after. He +is well fed, well clothed, and, following the policy of conserving by +every possible means the lives of the men, he is afforded every +protection that human ingenuity can devise. The _képi_ has been replaced +by the trench-helmet, a light casque of blued steel, which will protect +a man’s brain-pan from shell-splinter, shrapnel, or grenade, and which +has saved many a man’s life. Rather a remarkable thing, is it not, that +the French soldier of to-day should adopt a head-dress almost identical +with the casque worn by his ancestor, the French man-at-arms of the +Middle Ages? I am convinced that it is this policy of conserving the +lives of her fighting men which is going to win the war for France. If +necessity demands that a position be taken with the bayonet, no soldiers +in the world sacrifice themselves more freely than the French, but the +military authorities have realized that men, unlike shells, cannot be +replaced. “The duration and the outcome of the war,” General de Maud’huy +remarked to me, “depends upon how fast we can kill off the Germans. +Their army has reached its maximum strength, and every day sees it +slowly but surely weakening. Our game, therefore, is to kill as many as +possible of the enemy while at the same time saving our own men. It is, +after all, a purely mathematical proposition.” + +I believe that the losses incidental to trench warfare, as it is being +conducted in Alsace, have been considerably exaggerated. The officer in +command of the French positions in front of Altkirch told me that, +during the construction of some of the trenches, the Germans rained +twelve thousand shells upon the working parties, yet not a man was +killed and only ten were wounded. The modern trench is so ingeniously +constructed that, even in the comparatively rare event of a shell +dropping squarely into it, only the soldiers in the immediate vicinity, +seldom more than half a dozen at the most, are injured, the others being +protected from the flying steel by the traverses, earthen walls which +partially intersect the trench at intervals of a few yards. In the +trench one has only to keep one’s head down, and he is nearly as safe as +though he were at home. To crouch, to move bowed, to keep always the +parapet between your head and the German riflemen, becomes an instinct, +like the lock-step which used to be the rule for the convicts at Sing +Sing. + +So cleverly have the French engineers taken advantage of the +configuration of the country in front of Altkirch, that we were able to +enter the _boyaux_, or communication trenches, without leaving the +shelter of the wood. Half an hour’s brisk walking through what would, in +times of peace, be called a ditch, perhaps three feet wide and seven +deep, its earthen walls kept in place by wattles of woven willows, and +with as many twists and turns as the maze at Hampton Court, brought us +at last into the fire-trenches. These were considerably roomier than the +_boyaux_, being in places six feet wide and having a sort of raised step +or platform of earth, on which the men stood to fire, running along the +side nearest the enemy. Each soldier was protected by a steel shield +about the size of a newspaper, and painted a lead-gray, set in the earth +of the parapet. In the centre of the shield is cut an opening slightly +larger than a playing-card, through which the soldier pokes his rifle +when he wishes to fire, and which, when not in use, is screened by a +steel shutter or a cloth curtain, so that the riflemen in the German +trench cannot see any one who may happen to pass behind it. At intervals +of five or six yards men were on watch, with their rifles laid. Their +instructions are never to take their eyes off the enemy’s trenches, a +shout from them bringing their comrades tumbling out of their dug-outs +just as firemen respond to the clang of the fire-gong. When the men come +rushing out of the shelters they have, in the earthen platform, a good +steady footing which will bring their heads level with the parapet, +where their rifles, leaning against the steel shields, await them. It is +planned to always keep a sufficient force in the fire-trenches, so that, +roughly speaking, there will be a man to every yard, which is about as +close as they can fight to advantage. Every thirty yards or so, in a +log-roofed shelter known as a gun-pit, is a machine-gun, though in the +German trenches it is not at all uncommon to find a machine-gun to every +fifteen men. + +As we passed through the trenches I noticed at intervals of a hundred +yards or so men, standing motionless as statues, who seemed to be +intently listening. And that, I found, was precisely what they were +doing. In this trench warfare men are specially told off to listen, both +above and beneath the ground, for any sapping or mining operations on +the part of the enemy. Without this precaution there would be the +constant danger of the Germans driving a tunnel under the French +trenches (or vice versa) and, by means of a mine, blowing those trenches +and the men in them into the air. Indeed, scarcely a night passes that +soldiers, armed with knives and pistols, do not crawl out on hands and +knees between the trenches in order to find out, by holding the ear to +the ground, whether the enemy is sapping. Should the listener hear the +muffled sounds which would suggest that the enemy was driving a mine, he +tells it in a whisper to his companion, who crawls back to his own +trenches with the message, whereupon the engineers immediately take +steps to start a counter-mine. + +“Look through here,” said the intelligence officer who was acting as my +guide, indicating the port-hole in one of the steel shields, “but don’t +stay too long or a German sharpshooter may spot you. A second is long +enough to get a bullet through the brain.” Cautiously applying my eye to +the opening, I saw, perhaps a hundred yards away, a long, low mound of +earth, such as would be thrown up from a sewer excavation, and dotting +it at three-foot intervals darker patches which I knew to be just such +steel shields as the one behind which I was sheltered. And I knew that +behind each one of those steel shields was standing a keen-eyed rifleman +searching for something suspicious at which to fire. Immediately in +front of the German trench, just as in front of the trench in which I +stood, a forest of stout stakes had been driven deep into the ground, +and draped between these stakes were countless strands of barbed wire, +so snarled and tangled, and interlaced and woven that a cat could not +have gotten through unscratched. Between the two lines of entanglements +stretched a field of ripening wheat, streaked here and there with +patches of scarlet poppies. There were doubtless other things besides +poppies amid that wheat, but, thank God, it was high enough to hide +them. Rising from the wheatfield, almost midway between the French and +German lines, was a solitary apple-tree. “Behind that tree,” whispered +the officer standing beside me—for some reason they always speak in +hushed tones in the trenches—“is a German outpost. He crawls out every +morning before sunrise and is relieved at dark. Though some of our men +keep their rifles constantly laid on the tree, we’ve never been able to +get him. Still, he’s not a very good life-insurance risk, eh?” And I +agreed that he certainly was not. + +I must have remained at my loophole a little too long or possibly some +movement of mine attracted the attention of a German sniper, for _pang_ +came a bullet against the shield behind which I was standing, with the +same ringing, metallic sound which a bullet makes when it hits the iron +target in a shooting-gallery. In this case, however, _I_ was the +bull’s-eye. Had that bullet been two inches nearer the centre there +would have been, in the words of the poet, “more work for the +undertaker, another little job for the casket-maker.” + +“Lucky for you that wasn’t one of the new armor-piercing bullets,” +remarked the officer as I hastily stepped down. “After the Germans +introduced the steel shields we went them one better by introducing a +jacketed bullet which will go through a sheet of armor-plate as though +it were made of cheese. We get lots of amusement from them. Sometimes +one of our men will fire a dozen rounds of ordinary ammunition at a +shield behind which he hears some Boches talking, and as the bullets +glance off harmlessly they laugh and jeer at him. Then he slips in one +of the jacketed bullets and—_whang!!!_—we hear a wounded Boche yelping +like a dog that has been run over by a motor-car. Funny thing about the +Germans. They’re brave enough—no one questions that—but they scream like +animals when they’re wounded.” + +From all that I could gather, the French did not have a particularly +high opinion of the quality of the troops opposed to them in Alsace, +most of whom, at the time I was there, were Bavarians and Saxons. An +officer in the trenches on the Hartmannswillerkopf, where the French and +German positions were in places very close together, told me that +whenever the Germans attempted an attack the French trenches burst into +so fierce a blast of rifle and machine-gun fire that the men in the +spiked helmets refused to face it. “Vorwärts! Vorwärts!” the German +officers would scream, exposing themselves recklessly. “Nein! Nein!” the +fear-maddened men would answer as they broke and ran for the shelter of +their trenches. Then the French would hear the angry bark of automatics +as the officers pistoled their men. + +When the French, in one of the bloodiest and most desperate assaults of +the war, carried the summit of the Hartmannswillerkopf by storm, they +claim to have found the German machine-gun crews chained to their guns +as galley-slaves were chained to their oars. French artillery officers +have repeatedly told me that when German infantry advances to take a +position by assault, the men are frequently urged forward by their own +batteries raking them from the rear. As the German gunners gradually +advance their fire as the infantry moves forward, it is as dangerous for +the men to retreat as to go on. Hence it is by no means uncommon, so the +French officers assert, for the German troops to arrive pell-mell at the +French trenches, breathless, terrified, hands above their heads, seeking +not a fight but a chance to surrender. + +One of the assertions that you hear repeated everywhere along the French +lines, by officers and men alike, is that the German does not fight +fair, that you cannot trust him, that he is not bound by any of the +recognized rules of the game. Innumerable instances have been related to +me of wounded Germans attempting to shoot or stab the French surgeons +and nurses who were caring for them. An American serving in the Foreign +Legion told me that on one occasion, when his regiment carried a German +position by assault, the wounded Germans lying on the ground waited +until the legionaries had passed, and then shot them in the back. Now, +when the Foreign Legion goes into action, each company is followed by +men with axes, whose business it is to see that such incidents do not +happen again. + +The reason for the French soldier’s deep-seated distrust of the German +is illustrated by a grim comedy of which I heard when I was in Alsace. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by E. A. Powell._ + + Each soldier is protected by a steel shield, in the centre of which is + cut an opening slightly larger than a playing-card. +] + +[Illustration: + + _Photo by Meurisse._ + + A “poilu” in the Vosges. +] + +[Illustration: + + _Photo by E. A. Powell._ + + A French soldier wearing a mask as a protection against gas. +] + + In the trenches in Alsace. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurisse._ + + Convoy of German prisoners guarded by Moroccan Spahis. +] + +A company of German infantry was defending a stone-walled farmstead on +the Fecht. So murderous was the fire of the French batteries that soon a +white sheet was seen waving from one of the farmhouse windows. The +French fire ceased, and through the gateway came a group of Germans, +holding their hands above their heads and shouting: “Kamerad! Kamerad!” +which has become the euphemism for “I surrender.” But when a detachment +of chasseurs went forward to take them prisoners the Germans suddenly +dropped to the ground, while from an upper window in the farmhouse a +hidden machine-gun poured a stream of lead into the unsuspecting +Frenchmen. Thereupon the French batteries proceeded to transform that +farmhouse into a sieve. In a quarter of an hour the tablecloth was again +seen waving, the French guns again ceased firing, and again the Germans +came crowding out, with their hands above their heads. But this time +they were stark naked! To prove that they had no concealed weapons they +had stripped to the skin. It is scarcely necessary to add that those +Germans were _not_ taken prisoners. + +Though the incidents I have above related were told me by officers who +claimed to have witnessed them, and whose reliability I have no reason +to doubt, I do not vouch for them, mind you; I merely repeat them for +what they are worth. + +I had, of course, heard many stories of the German ranks being filled +with boys and old men, but the large convoys of prisoners which I saw in +Alsace and in Champagne convinced me that there is but little truth in +the assertion. Some of the prisoners, it is true, looked as though they +should have been in high school, and others as though they had been +called from old soldiers’ homes, but these formed only a sprinkling of +the whole. By far the greater part of the prisoners that I saw were men +between eighteen and forty, and they all impressed me as being in the +very pink of physical condition and this despite the fact that they were +dirty and hungry and very, very tired. But they struck me as being not +at all averse to being captured. They seemed exhausted and dispirited +and crushed, as though all the fight had gone out of them. In those long +columns of weary, dirty men were represented all the Teutonic types: +arrogant, supercilious Prussians; strapping young peasants from the +Silesian farm lands; tradesmen and mechanics from the great industrial +centres; men from the mines of Würtemberg and the forests of Baden; +scowling Bavarians and smiling Saxons. Among them were some brutish +faces, accentuated, no doubt, by the close-cropped hair which makes any +man look like a convict, but the countenances of most of them were frank +and honest and open. Two things aroused my curiosity. The first was that +I did not see a helmet—a _pickelhaube_—among them. When I asked the +reason they explained that they had been captured in the fire-trenches, +and that they seldom wear their helmets there, as the little round gray +caps with the scarlet band are less conspicuous and more comfortable. +The other thing that aroused my curiosity was when I saw French +soldiers, each with a pair of scissors, going from prisoner to prisoner. + +“What on earth are you doing?” I asked. + +“We are cutting the suspenders of the Boches,” was the answer. “Their +trousers are made very large around the waist so that if their +suspenders are cut they have to hold them up with their hands, thus +making it difficult for them to run away.” + +As I looked at these unshaven, unkempt men in their soiled and tattered +uniforms, it was hard to make myself believe that they had been a part +of that immaculate, confident, and triumphant army which I had seen roll +across Belgium like a tidal wave in the late summer of 1914. + + +[Illustration: + + A French smoke bomb. + + The French are using these smoke bombs to screen the movements of + troops just as the smoke from a destroyer screens the movements of a + battleship. +] + +Though the French and German positions in Alsace are rarely less than a +hundred yards apart and usually considerably more, there is one point on +the line, known as La Fontenelle, where, owing to a peculiar rocky +formation, _the French and German trenches are within six yards of each +other_. The only reason one side does not blow up the other by means of +mines is because the vein of rock which separates them is too hard to +tunnel through. In cases where the trenches are exceptionally close +together, the men have the comfort of knowing that they are at least +safe from shell-fire, for, as the battery commanders are perfectly aware +that the slightest error in calculating the range, or the least +deterioration in the rifling of the guns, would result in their shells +landing among their own men, they generally play safe and concentrate +their fire on the enemy’s second-line trenches instead of on the +first-line. The fighting in these close-up positions has consequently +degenerated into a warfare of bombs, hand-grenades, poison-gas, burning +oil, and other methods reminiscent of the Middle Ages. As a protection +against bombs and hand-grenades, some of the trenches which I visited +had erected along their parapets ten-foot-high screens of wire netting, +like the back nets of tennis-courts. + +[Illustration: + + With hand-grenades in the trenches. + + “In this war the hand-grenade is king. Beside it the high-power rifle + is a joke.” +] + +In this war the hand-grenade is king. Compared with it the high-power +rifle is a joke. The grenadier regiments again deserve the name. For +cleaning out a trench or stopping a massed charge there is nothing like +a well-aimed volley of hand-grenades. I believe that the total failure +of the repeated German attempts to break through on the western front is +due to three causes: the overwhelming superiority of the French +artillery; the French addiction to the use of the bayonet—for the +Germans do not like cold steel; and to the remarkable proficiency of the +French in the use of hand-grenades. The grenade commonly used by the +French is of the “bracelet” type, consisting of a cast-iron ball filled +with explosive. The thrower wears on his wrist a leather loop or +bracelet which is prolonged by a piece of cord about a foot in length +with an iron hook at the end. Just before the grenade is thrown, the +hook is passed through the ring of a friction-pin inside the firing-plug +which closes the iron ball. By a sharp backward turn of the wrist when +the grenade is thrown, the ring, with the friction-pin, held back by the +hook, is torn off, the grenade itself continuing on its brief journey of +destruction. The French also use a primed grenade attached to a sort of +wooden racket, which can be quickly improvised on the spot, and which, +from its form, is popularly known as the “hair-brush.” To acquire +proficiency in the use of grenades requires considerable practise, for +the novice who attempts to throw one of these waspish-tempered missiles +is as likely to blow up his comrades as he is the enemy. So at various +points along the front the French have established bomb-throwing +schools, under competent instructors, where the soldiers are taught the +proper method of throwing grenades, just as, at the winter +training-camps, candidates for the big leagues are taught the proper +method of throwing a baseball. + +Some of the grenades are too large to be thrown by hand and so they are +hurled into the enemy’s trenches by various ingenious machines designed +for the purpose. There is, for example, the _sauterelle_, a modern +adaptation of the ancient arbalist, which can toss a bomb the size of a +nail-keg into a trench ninety feet away. Mortars which did good service +in the days of Bertrand du Guesclin have been unearthed from ancient +citadels, and in the trenches are again barking defiance at the enemies +of France. Because of their frog-like appearance, the soldiers have +dubbed them _crapouillots_, and they are used for throwing bombs of the +horned variety, which look more than anything else like snails pushing +their heads out of their shells. Still another type, known as the +_taupia_, consists merely of a German 77-millimetre shell-case with a +touch-hole bored in the base so that it can be fired by a match. This +little improvised mortar, whose name was no doubt coined from the French +word for “mole” (_taupe_) as appropriate to underground warfare, throws +a tin containing two and a quarter pounds of high explosive for a short +distance with considerable accuracy. Still another type of bomb is +hurled from a catapult, which does not differ materially from those +which were used at the siege of Troy. Doubtless the most accurate and +effective of all the bombs used in this trench warfare is the so-called +air-torpedo, a cigar-shaped shell about thirty inches long and weighing +thirty-three pounds, which is fitted with steel fins, like the feathers +on an arrow and for the same purpose. This projectile, which is fired +from a specially designed mortar, has an effective range of five hundred +yards and carries a charge of high explosive sufficient to demolish +everything within a radius of twenty feet. Tens of thousands of these +torpedoes of the air were used during the French offensive in Champagne +and created terrible havoc in the German trenches. But by far the most +imposing of these trench projectiles is the great air-mine, weighing two +hundred and thirty-six pounds and as large as a barrel, which is fired +from an 80-millimetre mountain gun with the wheels removed and mounted +on an oak platform. In the case of both the air-torpedo and the air-mine +the projectile does not enter the barrel of the gun from which it is +fired, but is attached to a tube which alone receives the propulsive +force. At first the various forms of trench mortars—_minenwerfer_, the +Germans call them—were unsatisfactory because they were not accurate and +could not be depended upon, no one being quite sure whether the +resulting explosion was going to occur in the French trenches or in the +German. They have been greatly improved, however, and though no attempt +has been made to give them velocity, they drop their bombs with +reasonable accuracy. You can see them plainly as they end-over-end +toward you, like beer-bottles or beer-kegs coming through the air. + +Nor does this by any means exhaust the list of killing devices which +have been produced by this war. There is, for example, the little, +insignificant-looking bomb with wire triggers sticking out from it in +all directions, like the prickers on a horse-chestnut burr. These bombs +are thickly strewn over the ground between the trenches. If the enemy +attempts to charge across that ground some soldier is almost certain to +step on one of those little trigger-wires. To collect that soldier’s +remains it would be necessary to use a pail and shovel. The Germans are +said to dig shallow pools outside their trenches and cement the bottoms +of those pools and fill them with acid, which is masked by boughs or +straw. Any soldiers who stumbled into those pools of acid would have +their feet burned off. This I have not seen, but I have been assured +that it is so. Along certain portions of the front the orthodox +barbed-wire entanglements are giving way to great spirals of heavy +telegraph wire, which, lying loose upon the ground, envelop and hamper +an advancing force like the tentacles of a giant cuttlefish. This wire +comes in coils about three feet in diameter, but instead of unwinding it +the coils are opened out into a sort of spiral cage, which can be rolled +over the tops of the trenches without exposing a man. A bombardment +which would wipe the ordinary barbed-wire entanglement out of existence, +does this new form of obstruction comparatively little harm, while the +wire is so tough and heavy that the soldiers with nippers who precede a +storming-party cannot cut it. Another novel contrivance is the hinged +entanglement, a sort of barbed-wire fence which, when not in use, lies +flat upon the ground, where it is but little exposed to shell-fire, but +which, by means of wires running back to the trenches, can be pulled +upright in case of an attack, so that the advancing troops suddenly find +themselves confronted by a formidable and unexpected barrier. In cases +where the lines are so close together that for men to expose themselves +would mean almost certain death, _chevaux-de-frise_ of steel and wire +are constructed in the shelter of the trenches and pushed over the +parapet with poles. The French troops now frequently advance to the +assault, carrying huge rolls of thick linoleum, which is unrolled and +thrown across the entanglements, thus forming a sort of bridge, by means +of which the attacking force is enabled to cross the river of barbed +wire in front of the German trenches. + +It is not safe to assert that anything relating to this war is untrue +merely because it is incredible. I have with my own eyes seen things +which, had I been told about them before the war began, I would have set +down as the imaginings of a disordered mind. Some one asked me if I knew +that the scene-painters of the French theatres had been mobilized and +formed into a battalion for the purpose of painting scenery to mask +gun-positions—and I laughed at the story. Since then I have seen +gun-positions so hidden. Suppose that it is found necessary to post a +battery in the open, where no cover is available. In the ordinary course +of events the German airmen would discover those guns before they had +fired a dozen rounds, and the German batteries would promptly proceed to +put them out of action. So they erect over them a sort of tent, and the +scene-painters are set to work so to paint that tent that, from a little +distance, it cannot be distinguished from the surrounding scenery. If it +is on the Belgian littoral they will paint it to look like a sand-dune. +If it is in the wooded country of Alsace or the Argonne they will so +paint it that, seen from an aeroplane, it will look like a clump of +trees. I have seen a whole row of aeroplane hangars, each of them the +size of a church, so cleverly painted that, from a thousand feet above, +they could not be seen at all. A road over which there is heavy traffic +lies within both range and sight of the enemy’s guns. Anything seen +moving along that road instantly becomes the target for a rain of +shells. So along the side of the road nearest the enemy is raised a +screen of canvas, like those which surround the side-shows at the +circus, but, instead of being decorated with lurid representations of +the Living Skeleton and the Wild Man from Borneo and the Fattest Woman +on Earth, and the Siamese Twins, it is painted to represent a row of +trees such as commonly border French highways. Behind that canvas screen +horse, foot, and guns can then be moved in safety, though the road must +be kept constantly sprinkled so that the suspicions of the German +observers shall not be aroused by a telltale cloud of dust. The +stalking-screen is a device used for approaching big game by sportsmen +the world over. Now the idea has been applied by the French to warfare, +the big game being in this case Germans. The screens are of steel plates +covered with canvas so painted that it looks like a length of trench, +the deception being heightened by sticking to the canvas tufts of grass. +Thus screened from the enemy, two or three men may secretly keep watch +at points considerably in advance of the real trenches, creeping forward +as opportunity offers, pushing their scenery before them. Both sides +have long been daubing field-guns and caissons and other bulky equipment +with all the colors of the rainbow, like a futurist landscape, so that +they assume the properties of a chameleon and become indistinguishable +from the landscape. Now they are painting the faces of the snipers, and +splashing their uniforms and rifle barrels with many colors and tying to +their heads wisps of grass and foliage. But the crowning touch was when +the French began systematically to paint their white horses with +permanganate so as to turn them into less obtrusive browns and sorrels. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurisse._ + + Chevaux-de-frise and movable entanglements. + + “Movable entanglements are constructed in the shelter of the trenches + and pushed over the parapet with poles so that the men do not have + to expose themselves.” +] + +Hollowed at frequent intervals from the earthen back walls of the +trenches are niches, in each of which is kept a bottle of hyposulphate +of soda and a pail of water. When the yellow cloud which denotes that +the Germans have turned loose their poison-gas comes rolling down upon +them, the soldiers hastily empty the hyposulphate into the water, +saturate in the solution thus formed a pad of gauze which they always +carry with them, fasten it over the mouth and nostrils by means of an +elastic, and, as an additional precaution, draw over the head a bag of +blue linen with a piece of mica set in the front and a draw-string to +pull it tight about the neck. Thus protected and looking strangely like +the hooded familiars of the Inquisition, they are able to remain at +their posts without fear of asphyxiation. But no protection has as yet +been devised against the terrible flame projector which has been +introduced on several portions of the western front by the Germans. It +is a living sheet of flame, caused by a gas believed to be oxyacetylene, +and is probably directed through a powerful air-jet. The pressure of the +air must be enormous, for the flame, which springs from the ground level +and expands into a roaring wave of fire, chars and burns everything +within thirty yards. The flame is, indeed, very like that of the common +blowpipe used by plumbers, but instead of being used upon lead pipe it +is used upon human flesh and bone. + +[Illustration: + + Taking precautions against a gas attack. + + “When the poison-gas comes rolling down upon the trenches the soldiers + fasten over the mouth and nostrils a pad of gauze saturated in a + hyposulphate solution.” +] + +But poison-gas and flame projectors are by no means the most devilish of +the devices introduced by the Germans. The soldiers of the Kaiser have +now adopted the weapon of the jealous prostitute and are throwing +vitriol. The acid is contained in fragile globes or phials which break +upon contact, scattering the liquid fire upon everything in the +immediate vicinity. I might add that I do not make this assertion except +after the fullest investigation and confirmation. I have not only talked +with officers and men who were in the trenches into which these vitriol +bombs were thrown, but American ambulance drivers both in the Vosges and +the Argonne told me that they had carried to the hospitals French +soldiers whose faces had been burned almost beyond recognition. + +“But we captured one of the vitriol-throwers,” said an officer who was +telling me about the hellish business. “He was pretty badly burned +himself.” + +“I suppose you shot him then and there,” said I. + +“Oh, no,” was the answer, “we sent him along with the other prisoners.” + +“You don’t mean to say,” I exclaimed, indignation in my voice, “that you +captured a man who had been throwing vitriol at your soldiers and let +him live?” + +“Naturally,” said the officer quietly. “There was nothing else to do. +You see, monsieur, we French are civilized.” + + + + + V + THE FIGHTING IN CHAMPAGNE + + +When the history of this war comes to be written, the great French +offensive which began on the 25th of September, 1915, midway between +Rheims and Verdun, will doubtless be known as the Battle of Champagne. +Hell holds no horrors for one who has seen that battle-field. Could +Dante have walked beside me across that dreadful place, which had been +transformed by human agency from a peaceful countryside to a garbage +heap, a cesspool, and a charnel-house combined, he would never have +written his “Inferno,” because the hell of his imagination would have +seemed colorless and tame. The difficulty in writing about it is that +people will not believe me. I shall be accused of imagination and +exaggeration, whereas the truth is that no one could imagine, much less +exaggerate, the horrors that I saw upon those rolling, chalky plains. + +[Illustration: + + The battle-field of Champagne. + + “A peaceful countryside transformed by human agency to a garbage heap, + a cesspool, and a charnel-house combined.” +] + +[Illustration: + + Bringing in the wounded during the battle of Champagne. + + This battle cost Europe more men in killed and wounded than fought at + Gettysburg. +] + +In order that you may get clearly in your mind the setting of this +titanic conflict, in which nearly a million and a half Frenchmen and +Germans were engaged and in which Europe lost more men in killed and +wounded than fought at Gettysburg, get out your atlas, and on the map of +eastern France draw a more or less irregular line from Rheims to Verdun. +This line roughly corresponds to the battle-front in Champagne. On the +south side of it were the French, on the north the Germans. About midway +between Rheims and Verdun mark off on that line a sector of some fifteen +miles. If you have a sufficiently large scale map, the hamlet of +Auberive may be taken as one end of the sector and Massiges as the +other. This, then, was the spot chosen by the French for their +sledge-hammer blow against the German wall of steel. + +There is scarcely a region in all France where a battle could have been +fought with less injury to property. Imagine, if you please, an immense +undulating plain, its surface broken by occasional low hills and ridges, +none of them much over six hundred feet in height, and wandering in and +out between those ridges the narrow stream which is the Marne. The +country hereabouts is very sparsely settled; the few villages that dot +the plain are wretchedly poor; the trees on the slopes of the ridges are +stunted and scraggly; the soil is of chalky marl, which you have only to +scratch to leave a staring scar, and the grass which tries to grow upon +it seems to wither and die of a broken heart. This was the great +manœuvre ground of Chalons, and it was good for little else, yet only a +few miles to the westward begin the vineyards which are France’s chief +source of wealth, and an hour’s journey to the eastward is the beautiful +forest of the Argonne. + +Virtually, the entire summer of 1915 was spent by the French in making +their preparations for the great offensive. These preparations were +assisted by the extension of the British front as far as the Somme, thus +releasing a large number of French troops for the operations in +Champagne; by the formation of new French units; and by the +extraordinary quantity of ammunition made available by hard and +continuous work in the factories. The volume of preparatory work was +stupendous. Artillery of every pattern and caliber, from the light +mountain guns to the monster weapons which the workers of Le Creusot and +Bourges had prophetically christened “_Les Vainqueurs_,” was gradually +assembled until nearly three thousand guns had been concentrated on a +front of only fifteen miles. Had the guns been placed side by side they +would have extended far beyond the fifteen-mile battle-front. There were +cannon everywhere. Each battery had a designated spot to fire at and a +score of captive balloons with telephonic connections directed the fire. +One battery was placed just opposite a German redoubt which, the Germans +boasted, could be held against the whole French army by two washerwomen +with machine-guns. Behind each of the French guns were stacked two +thousand shells. A network of light railways was built in order to get +this enormous supply of ammunition up to the guns. From the end of the +railway they built a macadamized highway, forty feet wide and nine miles +long, straight as a ruler across the rolling plain. Underground shelters +for the men were dug and underground stores for the arms and ammunition. +The field was dotted with subterranean first-aid stations, their +locations indicated by sign-boards with scarlet arrows and by the Red +Cross flags flying over them. That the huge masses of infantry to be +used in the attack might reach their stations without being annihilated +by German shell-fire, the French dug forty miles of reserve and +communication trenches, ten miles of which were wide enough for four men +to walk abreast. Hospitals all over France were emptied and put in +readiness for the river of wounded which would soon come flowing in. In +addition to all this, moral preparation was also necessary, for it was a +question whether the preceding months of trench warfare and the +individual character it gives to actions had not affected the control of +the officers over their men. Everything was foreseen and provided for; +nothing was left to chance. The French had undertaken the biggest job in +the world, and they set about accomplishing it as systematically, as +methodically as though they had taken a contract to build a Simplon +Tunnel or to dig a Panama Canal. + +The Germans had held the line from Auberive to the Forest of the Argonne +since the battle of the Marne. For more than a year they had been +constructing fortifications and defenses of so formidable a nature that +it is scarcely to be wondered at that they considered their position as +being virtually impregnable. Their trenches, which were topped with +sand-bags and in many cases had walls of concrete, were protected by +wire entanglements, some of which were as much as sixty yards deep. The +ground in front of the entanglements was strewn with sharpened stakes +and _chevaux-de-frise_ and land mines and bombs which exploded upon +contact. The men manning the trenches fought from behind shields of +armor-plate and every fifteen yards was a machine-gun. Mounted on the +trench walls were revolving steel turrets, miniature editions of those +on battleships, all save the top of the turret and the muzzle of the +quick-firing gun within it being embedded in the ground. The trenches +formed a veritable maze, with traps and blind passageways and +cul-de-sacs down which attackers would swarm only to be wiped out by +skilfully concealed machine-guns. At some points there were five lines +of trenches, one behind the other, the ground behind them being divided +into sections and supplied with an extraordinary number of communication +trenches, protected by wire entanglements on both sides, so that, in +case the first line was compelled to give way, the assailants would find +themselves confronted by what were to all intents a series of small +forts, heavily armed and communicating one with the other, thus enabling +the defenders to rally and organize flank attacks without the slightest +delay. This elaborate system of trenches formed only the first German +line of defense, remember; behind it there was a second line, the +artillery being stationed between the two. There was, moreover, an +elaborate system of light railways, some of which came right up to the +front line, connecting with the line from Challerange to Bazancourt, +that there might be no delay in getting up ammunition and fresh troops +from the bases in the rear. No wonder that the Germans regarded their +position as an inland Gibraltar and listened with amused complacence to +the reports brought in by their aviators of the great preparations being +made behind the French lines. Not yet had they heard the roar of +France’s massed artillery or seen the heavens open and rain down death. + +On the morning of September 22 began the great bombardment—the greatest +that the world had ever known. On that morning the French commander +issued his famous general order: “I want the artillery so to bend the +trench parapets, so to plough up the dug-outs and subterranean defenses +of the enemy’s line, as to make it almost possible for my men to march +to the assault with their rifles at the shoulder.” It will be seen that +the French artillerymen had their work laid out for them. But they went +about it knowing exactly what they were doing. During the long months of +waiting the French airmen had photographed and mapped every turn and +twist in the enemy’s trenches, every entanglement, every path, every +tree, so that when all was in readiness the French were almost as +familiar with the German position as were the Germans themselves. The +first task of the French gunners was to destroy the wire entanglements, +and when they finished few entanglements remained. The next thing was to +bury the Germans in their dug-outs, and so terrific was the torrent of +high explosive that whole companies which had taken refuge in their +underground shelters were annihilated. The parapets and trenches had +also to be levelled so that the infantry could advance, and so +thoroughly was this done that the French cavalry actually charged over +the ground thus cleared. Then, while the big guns were shelling the +German cantonments, the staff headquarters, and the railways by which +reinforcements might be brought up, the field-batteries turned their +attention to the communication trenches, dropping such a hail of +projectiles that all telephone communication between the first and +second lines was interrupted, so that the second line did not know what +was happening in the first. There are no words between the covers of the +dictionary to describe what it must have been like within the German +lines under that rain of death. The air was crowded with the French +shells. No wonder that scores of the German prisoners were found to be +insane. A curtain of shell-fire made it impossible for food or water to +be brought to the men in the bombarded trenches, and made it equally +impossible for these men to retreat. Hundreds of them who had taken +refuge in their underground shelters were buried alive when the +explosion of the great French _marmites_ sent the earthen walls crashing +in upon them. Whole forests of trees were mown down by the blast of +steel from the French guns as a harvester mows down a field of grain. +The wire entanglements before the German trenches were swept away as +though by the hand of God. The steel _chevaux-de-frise_ and the shields +of armor-plate were riddled like a sheet of paper into which has been +emptied a charge of buckshot. Trenches which it had taken months of +painstaking toil to build were utterly demolished in an hour. The +sand-bags which lined the parapets were set on fire by the French high +explosive and the soldiers behind them were suffocated by the fumes. The +bursts of the big shells were like volcanoes above the German lines, +vomiting skyward huge geysers of earth and smoke which hung for a time +against the horizon and were then gradually dissipated by the wind. For +three days and two nights the bombardment never ceased nor slackened. +The French gunners, streaming with sweat and grimed with powder, worked +like the stokers on a record-breaking liner. The metallic _tang_ of the +“_soixante-quinze_” and the deep-mouthed roar of the 120’s, the 155’s, +and the 370’s, and the screech and moan of the shells passing overhead +combined to form a hurricane of sound. Conversation was impossible. To +speak to a man beside him a soldier had to shout. Though the ears of the +men were stuffed with cotton they ached and throbbed to the unending +detonation. An American aviator who flew over the lines when the +bombardment was at its height told me that the German trenches could not +be seen at all because of the shells bursting upon them. “The noise,” he +said, “was like a machine-gun made of cannon.” Imagine, then, what must +have been the terror of the Germans cowering in the trenches which they +had confidently believed were proof against anything and which they +suddenly found were no protection at all against that rain of death +which seemed to come from no human agency, but to be hellish in the +frightfulness of its effect. When the bombardment was at its height the +shells burst at the rate of twenty a second, forming one wave of black +smoke, one unbroken line of exploding shells, as far as the horizon. + +Graphic glimpses of what it must have been like in the German trenches +during that three days’ bombardment are given by the letters and diaries +found on the bodies of German soldiers—written, remember, in the very +shadow of death, some of them rendered illegible because spattered with +the blood of the men who wrote them. + +“The railway has been shelled so heavily that all trains are stopped. We +have been in the first line for three days, and during that time the +French have kept up such a fire that our trenches cannot be seen at +all.” + +“The artillery are firing almost as fast as the infantry. The whole +front is covered with smoke and we can see nothing. Men are dying like +flies.” + +“A hail of shells is falling upon us. No food can be brought to us. When +will the end come? ‘Peace!’ is what every one is saying. Little is left +of the trench. It will soon be on a level with the ground.” + +“The noise is awful. It is like a collapse of the world. Sixty men out +of a company of two hundred and fifty were killed last night. The force +of the French shells is frightful. A dug-out fifteen feet deep, with +seven feet of earth and two layers of timber on top, was smashed up like +so much matchwood.” + +[Illustration: + + The battle of Champagne. + + “When the order to fall in was given, there formed up in the advance + trenches long rows of strange fighting figures wearing steel casques + and the ‘invisible’ pale-blue uniforms.” +] + +When the reveille rang out along the French lines at five-thirty on the +morning of September 25 the whole world seemed gray; lead-colored clouds +hung low overhead, and a drizzling rain was falling. But the men refused +to be depressed. They drank their morning coffee and then, the roar of +the artillery making conversation out of the question, they sat down to +smoke and wait. Through the loopholes they could watch the effect of the +fire of the French batteries, could see the fountains of earth and smoke +thrown up by the bursting shells, could even see arms and legs flying in +the air. Each man wore between his shoulders, pinned to his coat, a +patch of white calico, in order to avoid the possibility of the French +gunners firing into their own men. Several men in each company carried +small, colored signal-flags for the same purpose. The watches of the +officers had been carefully synchronized, and at nine o’clock the order +to fall in was given, and there formed up in the advance trenches long +rows of strange fighting figures in their “invisible” pale-blue +uniforms, their grim, set faces peering from beneath steel helmets +plastered with chalk and mud. The company rolls were called. The +drummers and buglers took up their positions, for orders had been issued +that the troops were to be played into action. _Nine-five!_ The +regimental battle-flags were brought from the dug-outs, the water-proof +covers were slipped off, and the sacred colors, on whose faded silk were +embroidered “Les Pyramides,” “Wagram,” “Jena,” “Austerlitz,” “Marengo,” +were reverently unrolled. For the first time in this war French troops +were to go into action with their colors flying. _Nine-ten!_ The +officers, endeavoring to make their voices heard above the din of +cannon, told the men in a few shouted sentences what France and the +regiment expected of them. _Nine-fourteen!_ The officers, having jerked +loose their automatics, stood with their watches in their hands. The men +were like sprinters on their marks, waiting with tense nerves and +muscles for the starter’s pistol. _Nine-fifteen!_ Above the roar of the +artillery the whistles of the officers shrilled loud and clear. The +bugles pealed the charge. “_En avant, mes enfants!_” screamed the +officers, “_En avant! Vaincre ou_ _mourir!_” and over the tops of the +trenches, with a roar like an angry sea breaking on a rock-bound coast, +surged a fifteen-mile-long human wave tipped with glistening steel. As +the blue billows of men burst into the open, hoarsely cheering, the +French batteries which had been shelling the German first-line trenches +ceased firing with an abruptness that was startling. In the comparative +quiet thus suddenly created could be plainly heard the orders of the +officers and the cheering of the men, some of whom shouted “_Vive la +France!_” while others sang snatches of the _Marseillaise_ and the +_Carmagnole_. Though every foot of ground over which they were advancing +had for three days been systematically flooded with shell, though the +German trenches had been pounded until they were little more than heaps +of dirt and débris, the German artillery was still on the job, and the +ranks of the advancing French were swept by a hurricane of fire. General +Marchand, the hero of the famous incident at Fashoda, who was in command +of the Colonials, led his men to the assault, but fell wounded at the +very beginning of the engagement as, surrounded by his staff, he stood +on the crest of a trench, cane in hand, smoking his pipe and encouraging +the succeeding waves of men racing forward into battle. His two +brigade-commanders fell close beside him. Three minutes after the first +of the Colonials had scrambled over the top of their trenches they had +reached the German first line. After them came the First and Second +Regiments of the Foreign Legion and the Moroccan division. As they ran +they broke out from columns of two (advancing in twos with fifty paces +between each pair) into columns of squad (each man alone, twenty-five +paces from his neighbor) as prettily and perfectly as though on a +parade-ground. + +[Illustration: + + The battle-field of Champagne, showing the French high-explosive + shells bursting on the German trenches. +] + +Great as was the destruction wrought by the bombardment, the French +infantry had no easy task before them, for stretches of wire +entanglements still remained in front of portions of the German +trenches, while at frequent intervals the Germans had left behind them +machine-gun sections, who from their sunken positions poured in a deadly +fire, until the oncoming wave overwhelmed and blotted them out. It was +these death-traps that brought out in the French soldier those same +heroic qualities which had enabled him, under the leadership of +Napoleon, to enter as a conqueror every capital in Europe. A man who was +shot while cutting a way for his company through the wire entanglements, +turned and gave the cutters to a comrade before he fell. A wounded +soldier lying on the ground called out to an officer who was stepping +aside to avoid him: “Go on. Don’t mind stepping on me. I’m wounded. It’s +only you who are whole who matter now.” A man with his abdomen ripped +open by a shell appealed to an officer to be moved to a +dressing-station. “The first thing to move are the guns to advanced +positions, my friend,” was the answer. “That’s right,” said the man; “I +can wait.” Said a wounded soldier afterward in describing the onslaught: +“When the bugles sounded the charge and the trumpets played the +_Marseillaise_, we were no longer mere men marching to the assault. We +were a living torrent which drives all before it. The colors were flying +at our side. It was splendid. Ay, my friend, when one has seen that one +is proud to be alive.” + +In many places the attacking columns found themselves abruptly halted by +steel _chevaux-de-frise_, with German machine-guns spitting death from +behind them. The men would pelt them with hand-grenades until the +sappers came up and blew the obstructions away. Then they would sweep +forward again with the bayonet, yelling madly. The great craters caused +by the explosion of the French land mines were occupied as soon as +possible and immediately turned into defensible positions, thus +affording advanced footholds within the enemy’s line of trenches. At a +few points in the first line the Germans held out, but at others they +surrendered in large numbers, while many were shot down as they were +running back to the second line. As a matter of fact, the Germans had no +conception of what the French had in store for them, and it was not +until their trenches began to give way under the terrible hammering of +the French artillery that they realized how desperate was their +situation. It was then too late to strengthen their front, however, as +it would have been almost certain death to send men forward through the +curtain of shell-fire which the French batteries were dropping between +the first and second lines. Nor were the Germans prepared when the +infantry attack began, as was shown by the fact that a number of +officers were captured in their beds. The number of prisoners +taken—twenty-one thousand was the figure announced by the French General +Staff—showed clearly that they had had enough of it. They surrendered by +sections and by companies, hundreds at a time. Most of them had had no +food for several days, and were suffering acutely from thirst, and all +of them seemed completely unstrung and depressed by the terrible nature +of the French bombardment. + +[Illustration: + + Fighting in a quarrel that is not his own. + + A trooper from France’s African possessions on duty in the trenches. +] + +Choosing the psychological moment, when the retirement of the Germans +showed signs of turning into panic, the African troops were ordered to +go in and finish up the business with cold steel. Before these +dark-skinned, fierce-faced men from the desert, who came on brandishing +their weapons and shouting “Allah! Allah! Allah!” the Germans, already +demoralized, incontinently broke and ran. Hard on the heels of the +Africans trotted the dragoons and the _chasseurs à cheval_—the first +time since the trench warfare began that cavalry have had a chance to +fight from the saddle—sabring the fleeing Germans or driving them out of +their dug-outs with their long lances. But in the vast maze of +communication trenches and in the underground shelters Germans still +swarmed thickly, so the “trench cleaners,” as the Algerian and +Senegalese tirailleurs are called, were ordered to clear them out, a +task which they performed with neatness and despatch, revolver in one +hand and cutlass in the other. Even five days after the trenches were +taken occasional Germans were found in hiding in the labyrinth of +underground shelters. + +[Illustration: + + The first-line German trenches captured by the French in Champagne. + + The battle-field of Champagne looked as though all the garbage cans in + Europe and America had been emptied upon it. +] + +The thing of which the Champagne battle-field most reminded me was a +garbage-dump. It looked and smelled as though all the garbage cans in +Europe and America had been emptied upon it. This region, as I have +remarked before, is of a chalk formation, and wherever a trench had been +dug, or a shell had burst, or a mine had been exploded, it left on the +face of the earth a livid scar. The destruction wrought by the French +artillery fire is almost beyond imagining. Over an area as long as from +the Battery to Harlem and as wide as from the East River to the Hudson +the earth is pitted with the craters caused by bursting shells as is +pitted the face of a man who has had the small-pox. Any of these +shell-holes was large enough to hold a barrel; many of them would have +held a horse; I saw one, caused by the explosion of a mine, which we +estimated to be seventy feet deep and twice that in diameter. In the +terrific blast that caused it five hundred German soldiers perished. At +another point on what had been the German first line I saw a yawning +hole as large as the cellar of a good-sized apartment-house. It marked +the site of a German blockhouse, but the blockhouse and the men who +composed its garrison had been blown out of existence by a torrent of +370-millimetre high-explosive shells. + +[Illustration: + + This crater, seventy feet deep and twice that in diameter, was caused + by the explosion of a mine. In the terrific blast five hundred + Germans perished. +] + +The captured German trenches presented the most horrible sight that I +have ever seen or ever expect to see. This is not rhetoric; this is +fact. Along the whole front of fifteen miles the earth was littered with +torn steel shields and twisted wire, with broken wagons, bits of +harness, cartridge-pouches, dented helmets, belts, bayonets—some of them +bent double—broken rifles, field-gun shells and rifle cartridges, +hand-grenades, aerial torpedoes, knapsacks, bottles, splintered planks, +sheets of corrugated iron which had been turned into sieves by bursting +shrapnel, trench mortars, blood-soaked bandages, fatigue-caps, +intrenching tools, stoves, iron rails, furniture, pots of jam and +marmalade, note-books, water-bottles, mattresses, blankets, shreds of +clothing, and, most horrible of all, portions of what had once been +human bodies. Passing through an abandoned German trench, I stumbled +over a mass of gray rags, and they dropped apart to disclose a headless, +armless, legless torso already partially devoured by insects. I kicked a +hobnailed German boot out of my path and from it fell a rotting foot. A +hand with awful, outspread fingers thrust itself from the earth as +though appealing to the passerby to give decent burial to its dead +owner. I peered inquisitively into a dug-out only to be driven back by +an overpowering stench. A French soldier, more hardened to the business +than I, went in with a candle, and found the shell-blackened bodies of +three Germans. Clasped in the dead fingers of one of them was a +post-card dated from a little town in Bavaria. It began: “My dearest +Heinrich: You went away from us just a year ago to-day. I miss you +terribly, as do the children, and we all pray hourly for your safe +return—” The rest we could not decipher; it had been blotted out by a +horrid crimson stain. Without the war that man might have been +returning, after a day’s work in field or factory, to a neat Bavarian +cottage, with geraniums growing in the dooryard, and a wife and children +waiting for him at the gate. + +[Illustration: + + German officers captured during the battle of Champagne. +] + +Though when I visited the battle-field of Champagne the guns were still +roaring—for the Germans were attempting to retake their lost trenches in +a desperate series of counter-attacks—the field was already dotted with +thousands upon thousands of little wooden crosses planted upon new-made +mounds. Above many of the graves there had been no time to erect crosses +or headboards, so into the soft soil was thrust, neck downward, a +bottle, and in the bottle was a slip of paper giving the name and the +regiment of the soldier who lay beneath. In one place the graves had +been dug so as to form a vast rectangle, and a priest, his cassock +tucked up so that it showed his military boots and trousers, was at work +with saw and hammer building in the centre of that field of graves a +little shrine. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration: + + The price of victory. + + The battle-field was dotted with thousands upon thousands of new-made + mounds and little wooden crosses. +] + +[Illustration: + + Instruction against gas attacks. + + At various points behind the lines are schools where the men are + instructed in the use of the anti-gas respirators. +] + +Scrawled in pencil on one of the pitiful little crosses I read: “Un +brave—Emile Petit—Mort aux Champ d’Honneur—Priez pour lui.” Six feet +away was another cross which marks the spot where sleeps Gottlieb +Zimmerman, of the Würtemberg Pioneers, and underneath, in German script, +that line from the Bible which reads: “He fought the good fight.” Close +by was still another little mound under which rested, so the headboard +told me, Mohammed ben Hassen Bazazou of the Fourth Algerian Tirailleurs. +In life those men had never so much as heard of one another. Doubtless +they must often have wondered why they were fighting and what the war +was all about. Now they rest there quietly, side by side, Frenchman and +German and African, under the soil of Champagne, while somewhere in +France and in Würtemberg and in Algeria women are praying for the safety +of Emile and of Gottlieb and of Mohammed. + +During the three days that I spent upon the battle-field of Champagne +the roar of the guns never ceased and rarely slackened, yet not a sign +of any human being could I see as I gazed out over that desolate plain +on which was being fought one of the greatest battles of all time. There +were no moving troops, no belching batteries, no flaunting colors—only a +vast slag heap on which moved no living thing. Yet I knew that hidden +beneath the ground all around me, as well as over there where the German +trenches ran, men were waiting to kill or to be killed, and that behind +the trench-scarred ridges at my back, and behind the low-lying crests in +front of me, sweating men were at work loading and firing the great guns +whose screaming missiles crisscrossed like invisible express trains +overhead to burst miles away, perhaps, with the crash which scatters +death. The French guns seemed to be literally everywhere. One could not +walk a hundred yards without stumbling on a skilfully concealed battery. +In the shelter of a ridge was posted a battery of 155-millimetre +monsters painted with the markings of a giraffe in order to escape the +searching eyes of the German aviators and named respectively Alice, +Fernande, Charlotte, and Maria. From a square opening, which yawned like +a cellar window in the earth, there protruded the long, lean muzzle of +an eight-inch naval gun, the breech of which was twenty feet below the +level of the ground in a gun-pit which was capable of resisting any high +explosive that might chance to fall upon it. This marine monster was in +charge of a crew of sailors who boasted that their pet could drop two +hundred pounds of melinite on any given object thirteen miles away. But +the guns to which the French owe their success in Champagne, the guns +which may well prove the deciding factor in this war, are not the +cumbersome siege pieces or the mammoth naval cannon, but the mobile, +quick-firing, never-tiring, hard-hitting, “seventy-fives,” whose fire, +the Germans resentfully exclaim, is not deadly but murderous. + +[Illustration: + + “Men were at work rolling up the barbed wire in the captured German + entanglements.” +] + +The battle-field was almost as thickly strewn with unexploded shells, +hand-grenades, bombs, and aerial torpedoes as the ground under a +pine-tree is with cones. One was, in fact, compelled to walk with the +utmost care in order to avoid stepping upon these tubes filled with +sudden death and being blown to kingdom come. I had picked up and was +casually examining what looked like a piece of broom-handle with a tin +tomato-can on the end, when the intelligence officer who was +accompanying me noticed what I was doing. “Don’t drop that!” he +exclaimed, “put it down gently. It’s a German hand-grenade that has +failed to explode and the least jar may set it off. They’re as dangerous +to tamper with as nitroglycerine.” I put it down as carefully as though +it were a sleeping baby that I did not wish to waken. As the French +Government has no desire to lose any of its soldiers unnecessarily, men +had been set to work building around the unexploded shells and torpedoes +little fences of barbed wire, just as a gardener fences in a +particularly rare shrub or tree. Other men were at work carefully +rolling up the barbed wire in the captured German entanglements, in +collecting and sorting out the arms and equipment with which the field +was strewn, in stacking up the thousands upon thousands of empty brass +shell-cases to be shipped back to the factories for reloading, and even +in emptying the bags filled with sand which had lined the German +parapets and tying them in bundles ready to be used over again. They are +a thrifty people, are the French. There was enough junk of one sort and +another scattered over the battle-field to have stocked all the +curio-shops in Europe and America for years to come, but as everything +on a field of battle is claimed by the government nothing can be carried +away. This explains why the brass shells that are smuggled back to Paris +readily sell for ten dollars apiece, while for German helmets the curio +dealers can get almost any price that they care to ask. As a matter of +fact, it is against the law to offer any war trophies for sale or, +indeed, to have any in one’s possession. What the French intend to do +with the vast quantity of junk which they have taken from the +battle-fields, heaven only knows. It is said that they have great +storehouses filled with German helmets and similar trophies which they +are going to sell after the war to souvenir collectors, thus adding to +the national revenues. If this is so there will certainly be a glut in +the curio market and it will be a poor household indeed that will not +have on the sitting-room mantel a German _pickelhaube_. After the war is +over hordes of tourists will no doubt make excursions to these +battle-fields, just as they used to make excursions to Waterloo and +Gettysburg, and the farmers who own the fields will make their fortunes +showing the visitors through the trenches and dug-outs at five francs a +head. + +[Illustration: + + The thousands upon thousands of empty brass shell-cases with which the + battle-fields are strewn are collected and sent back to the factory + for reloading. +] + +[Illustration: + + Mounted on the German trench walls were revolving steel turrets + containing quick-firing guns. + + When the French captured the turret shown above they found inside it + three dead Germans, who, they assert, had been locked in by their + officers and left to die. +] + +The French officers who accompanied me over the battle-field +particularly called my attention to a steel turret, some six feet high +and eight or nine feet in diameter, which had been mounted on one of the +German trench walls. The turret, which had a revolving top, contained a +50-millimetre gun served by three men. The French troops who stormed the +German position found that the small steel door giving access to the +interior of the turret was fastened on the outside by a chain and +padlock. When they broke it open they found, so they told me, the bodies +of three Germans who had apparently been locked in by their officers, +and left there to fight and die with no chance of escape. I have no +reason in the world to doubt the good faith of the officers who showed +me the turret and told me the story, and yet—well, it is one of those +things which seems too improbable to be true. When I was in Alsace the +French officers told me of having found in certain of the captured +positions German soldiers chained to their machine-guns. There again the +inherent improbability of the incident leads one to question its truth. +From what I have seen of the German soldier, I should say that he was +the last man in the world who had to be chained to his gun in order to +make him fight. Yet in this war so many wildly improbable, wholly +incredible things have actually occurred that one is not justified in +denying the truth of an assertion merely because it sounds unlikely. + +[Illustration: + + “Brown-skinned men from North Africa in turbans and burnooses.” +] + +[Illustration: + + Motor-buses with wire-netting tops filled with carrier pigeons. +] + +One of the things that particularly impressed me during my visit to +Champagne was the feverish activity that prevailed behind the +firing-line. It was the busiest place that I have ever seen; busier than +Wall Street at the noon-hour; busier than the Canal Zone at the rush +period of the Canal’s construction. The roads behind the front for +twenty miles were filled with moving troops and transport-trains; long +columns of sturdy infantrymen in mud-stained coats of faded blue and +wearing steel casques which gave them a startling resemblance to their +ancestors, the men-at-arms of the Middle Ages; brown-skinned men from +North Africa in snowy turbans and voluminous burnooses, and +black-skinned men from West Africa, whose khaki uniforms were brightened +by broad red sashes and rakish red tarbooshes; sun-tanned Colonial +soldiery from Annam and Tonquin, from Somaliland and Madagascar, wearing +on their tunics the ribbons of wars fought in lands of which most people +have never so much as heard; Spahis from Morocco and the Sahara, mounted +on horses as wiry and hardy as themselves; Zouaves in jaunty fezzes and +braided jackets and enormous trousers; sailors from the fleet, brought +to handle the big naval guns, swaggering along with the roll of the sea +in their gait; cuirassiers, their steel breastplates and horse-tailed +helmets making them look astonishingly like Roman horsemen; dragoons so +picturesque that they seemed to be posing for a Detaille or a +Meissonier; field-batteries, pale blue like everything else in the +French army, rocking and swaying over the stones; cyclists with their +rifles slung across their backs hunter-fashion; leather-jacketed +despatch riders on panting motor-cycles; post-offices on wheels; +telegraph offices on wheels; butcher-shops on wheels; bake-shops on +wheels; garages on wheels; motor-busses, their tops covered with +wire-netting and filled with carrier pigeons; giant search-lights; +water-carts drawn by patient Moorish donkeys whose turbaned drivers +cursed them in shrill, harsh Arabic; troop transport cars like miniature +railway-coaches, each carrying fifty men; field-kitchens with the smoke +pouring from their stovepipes and steam rising from the soup caldrons; +long lines of drinking-water wagons, the gift of the Touring Club de +France; great herds of cattle and woolly waves of sheep, soon to be +converted into beef and mutton, for the fighting man needs meat, and +plenty of it; pontoon trains; balloon outfits; machine-guns; +pack-trains; mountain batteries; ambulances; world without end, amen. +Though the roads were jammed from ditch to ditch, there was no +confusion, no congestion. Everything was as well regulated as the +traffic on Fifth Avenue or the Strand. If the roads were crowded, so +were the fields. Here a battalion of Zouaves at bayonet practise was +being instructed in the “haymaker’s lift,” that terrible upward thrust +in which a soldier trained in the use of the bayonet can, in a single +stroke, rip his adversary open from waist to neck, and toss him over his +shoulder as he would a forkful of hay. Over there a brigade of +_chasseurs d’Afrique_ was encamped, the long lines of horses, the hooded +wagons, and the fires with the cooking-pots steaming over them, +suggesting a mammoth encampment of gypsies. In the next field a regiment +of Moroccan tirailleurs had halted for the night, and the men, kneeling +on their blankets, were praying with their faces turned toward Mecca. +Down by the horse-lines a Moorish barber was at work shaving the heads +of the soldiers, but taking care always to leave the little top-knot by +means of which the faithful, when they die, may be jerked to Paradise. A +little farther on the huge yellow bulk of an observation balloon—“_les +saucisses_,” the French call them—was slowly filling preparatory to +taking its place aloft with its fellows, which, at intervals of half a +mile, hung above the French lines, straining at their tethers like +horses that were frightened and wished to break away. In whichever +direction I looked, men were drilling or marching. Where all these +hordes of men had come from, where they were bound for, what they were +going to do, no one seemed to know or, indeed, to particularly care. +They were merely pawns which were being moved here and there upon a +mighty chess-board by a stout old man in a general’s uniform, sitting at +a map-covered table in a farmhouse many miles away. + +[Illustration: + + German prisoners came by, carrying on their shoulders stretchers on + which lay the stiff, stark forms of dead men. +] + +As we made our way slowly and laboriously toward the front across a +region so littered with scraps of metal and broken iron and twisted wire +that it looked like the ruins of a burned hardware store, we began to +meet the caravans of wounded. Lying with white, drawn faces on the +dripping stretchers were men whose bodies had been ripped open like the +carcasses that hang in front of butcher-shops; men who had been blinded +and will spend the rest of their days groping in darkness; men smashed +out of all resemblance to anything human, yet still alive; and other men +who, with no wound upon them, raved and laughed and cackled in insane +mirth at the frightful humor of the things that they had seen. Every +house and farmyard for miles around was filled with wounded, and still +they came streaming in, some hobbling, some on stretchers, some assisted +by comrades, some bareheaded, with the dried blood clotted on their +heads and faces, others with their gasmasks and their mud-plastered +helmets still on. Two soldiers came by pushing wheeled stretchers, on +which lay the stiff, stark forms of dead men. The soldiers were +whistling and singing, like men returning from a day’s work well done, +and occasionally one of them in sheer exuberance of spirits would send +his helmet spinning into the air. Coming to a little declivity, they +raced down it with their grisly burdens, like delivery boys racing with +their carts. The light vehicles bumped and jounced over the uneven +ground until one of the corpses threatened to fall off, whereupon the +soldiers stopped and, still laughing, tied the dead thing on again. Such +is the callousness begotten by war. + +Their offensive in Champagne cost the French, I have every reason to +believe, very close to 110,000 men. The German casualties, so the French +General Staff asserts, were about 140,000, of whom 21,000 were +prisoners. In addition the Germans lost 121 guns. Despite this appalling +cost in human lives, the distance gained by the French was so small that +it cannot be seen on the ordinary map. Yet to measure the effect of the +French effort by the ground gained would be a serious mistake. Just as +by the Marne victory the French stopped the invasion and ruined the +original German plan, which was first to shatter France and then turn +against Russia; and just as by the victory of the Yser they effectively +prevented the enemy from reaching the Channel ports or getting a +foothold in the Pas-de-Calais, so the offensive in Champagne, costly as +it was in human lives, fulfilled its double mission of holding large +German forces on the western front and of demoralizing and wearing down +the German army. It proved, moreover, that the Allies _can_ pierce the +Germans provided they are willing to pay the cost. + + +Darkness was falling rapidly when I turned my back on the great +battle-field, and the guns were roaring with redoubled fury in what is +known on the British front as “the Evening Hate” and on the French lines +as “the Evening Prayer.” As I emerged from the communication trench into +the highroad where my car was waiting I met a long column of infantry, +ghostly figures in the twilight, with huge packs on their backs and +rifles slanting on their shoulders, marching briskly in the direction of +the thundering guns. It was the night-shift going on duty at the +mills—the mills where they turn human beings into carrion. + + + + + VI + THE CONFLICT IN THE CLOUDS + + +Dawn was breaking over the Lorraine hills when the French aircraft were +wheeled from their canvas hangars and ranged in squadrilla formation +upon the level surface of the plain. In the dim light of early morning +the machines, with their silver bodies and snowy wings, bore an amazing +resemblance to a flock of great white birds which, having settled for +the night, were about to resume their flight. All through the night the +mechanicians had been busy about them, testing the motors, tightening +the guy-wires, and adjusting the planes, while the pilots had directed +the loading of the explosives, for a whisper had passed along the line +of sheds that a gigantic air-raid, on a scale not yet attempted, was to +be made on some German town. At a signal from the officer in command of +the aviation field the pilots and observers, unrecognizable in their +goggles and leather helmets and muffled to the ears in leather and fur, +climbed into their seats. In the clips beneath each aeroplane reposed +three long, lean messengers of death, the torpedoes of the sky, ready to +be sent hurtling downward by the pulling of a lever, while smaller +projectiles, to be dropped by hand, filled every square inch in the +bodies of the aeroplanes. From somewhere out on the aviation field a +smoke rocket shot suddenly into the air. It was the signal for +departure. With a deafening roar from their propellers the great +biplanes, in rapid succession, left the ground and, like a flock of wild +fowl, winged their way straight into the rising sun. As they crossed the +German lines at a height of twelve thousand feet the French observers +could see, far below, the decoy aeroplanes which had preceded them +rocking slowly from side to side above the German antiaircraft guns in +such a manner as to divert their attention from the raiders. + +On an occasion like this each man is permitted the widest latitude of +action. He is given an itinerary which he is expected to adhere to as +closely as circumstances will permit, and he is given a set point at +which to aim his bombs, but in all other respects he may use his own +discretion. The raiders flew at first almost straight toward the rising +sun, and it was not until they were well within the enemy’s lines that +they altered their course, turning southward only when they were +opposite the town which was their objective. So rapid was the pace at +which they were travelling that it was not yet six o’clock when the +commander of the squadron, peering through his glasses, saw, far below +him, the yellow gridiron which he knew to be the streets, the splotches +of green which he knew to be the parks, and the squares of red and gray +which he knew to be the buildings of Karlsruhe. The first warning that +the townspeople had was when a dynamite shell came plunging out of +nowhere and exploded with a crash that rocked the city to its +foundations. The people of Karlsruhe were being given a dose of the same +medicine which the Zeppelins had given to Antwerp, to Paris, and to +London. As the French airmen reached the town they swooped down in swift +succession out of the gray morning sky until they were close enough to +the ground to clearly distinguish through the fleecy mist the various +objectives which had been given them. For weeks they had studied maps +and bird’s-eye photographs of Karlsruhe until they knew the place as +well as though they had lived in it all their lives. One took the old +gray castle on the hill, another took the Margrave’s palace in the +valley, others headed for the railway-station, the arms factory, and the +barracks. Then hell broke loose in Karlsruhe. For nearly an hour it +rained bombs. Not incendiary bombs or shrapnel, but huge 4-inch and +6-inch shells filled with high explosive which annihilated everything +they hit. Holes as large as cellars suddenly appeared in the stone-paved +streets and squares; buildings of brick and stone and concrete crashed +to the ground as though flattened by the hand of God; fires broke out in +various quarters of the city and raged unchecked; the terrified +inhabitants cowered in their cellars or ran in blind panic for the open +country; the noise was terrific, for bombs were falling at the rate of a +dozen to the minute; beneath that rain of death Karlsruhe rocked and +reeled. The artillery was called out but it was useless; no guns could +hit the great white birds which twisted and turned and swooped and +climbed a mile or more overhead. Each aeroplane, as soon as it had +exhausted its cargo of explosives, turned its nose toward the French +lines and went skimming homeward as fast as its propellers could take it +there, but to the inhabitants of the quivering, shell-torn town it must +have seemed as though the procession of aircraft would never cease. The +return to the French lines was not as free from danger as the outward +trip had been, for the news of the raid had been flashed over the +country by wire and wireless and antiaircraft guns were on the lookout +for the raiders everywhere. The guarding aeroplanes were on the alert, +however, and themselves attracted the fire of the German batteries or +engaged the German _Taubes_ while the returning raiders sped by high +overhead. Of the four squadrillas of aeroplanes which set out for +Karlsruhe only two machines failed to return. These lost their bearings +and were surprised by the sudden rising of hawk-like _Aviatiks_ which +cut them off from home and, after fierce struggles in the air, forced +them to descend into the German lines. But it was not a heavy price to +pay for the destruction that had been wrought and the moral effect that +had been produced, for all that day the roads leading out of Karlsruhe +were choked with frantic fugitives and the stories which they told +spread over all southern Germany a cloud of despondency and gloom. Since +then the news of the Zeppelin raids on London has brought a thrill of +fear to the people of Karlsruhe. They have learned what it means to have +death drop out of the sky. + +More progress has been made in the French air service, which has been +placed under the direction of the recently created Subministry of +Aviation, than in any other branch of the Republic’s fighting machine. +Though definite information regarding the French air service is +extremely difficult to obtain, there is no doubt that on December 1, +1915, France had more than three thousand aeroplanes in commission, and +this number is being steadily increased. The French machines, though of +many makes and types, are divided into three classes, according to +whether they are to be used for reconnoissance, for fire control, or for +bombardment. The machines generally used for reconnoissance work are the +Moranes, the Maurice Farmans, and a new type of small machine known as +the “Baby” Nieuport. The last-named, which are but twenty-five feet wide +and can be built in eight days at a cost of only six thousand francs, +might well be termed the Fords of the air. They have an +eighty-horsepower motor, carry only the pilot, who operates the +machine-gun mounted over his head, and can attain the amazing speed of +one hundred and twenty miles an hour. These tiny machines can ascend at +a sharper angle than any other aeroplane made, it being claimed for +them, and with truth, that they can do things which a large bird, such +as an eagle or a hawk, could not do. The machines generally used for +directing artillery fire are either Voisins or Caudron biplanes. The +Voisin, which carries an observer as well as a pilot, is armed with a +Hotchkiss quick-firer throwing three-pound shells, being the only +machine of its size having sufficient stability to stand the recoil from +so heavy a gun. The Caudron, which likewise has a crew of two men, has +two motors, each acting independently of the other. I was shown one of +these machines which, during an observation flight over the German +lines, was struck by a shell which killed the observer and demolished +one of the motors; the other motor was not damaged, however, and with it +the pilot was able to bring the machine and his dead companion back to +the French lines. For making raids and bombardments the Voisin and +Breguet machines have generally been used, but they are now being +replaced by the giant triplane which has fittingly been called “the +Dreadnaught of the skies.” This aerial monster, the last word in +aircraft construction, has a sixty-three-foot spread of wing; its four +motors generate eight hundred horse-power; its armament consists of two +Hotchkiss quick-firing cannon and four machine-guns; it can carry twelve +men—though on a raid the crew consists of four—and twelve hundred pounds +of explosive; its cost is six hundred thousand francs. + +As a result of this extraordinary advance in aviation, France has to-day +a veritable aerial navy, formed in squadrons and divisions, with +battle-planes, cruisers, scouts, and destroyers, all heavily armored and +carrying both machine-guns and cannon firing 3-inch shells. Each +squadron, as at present formed, consists of one battle-plane, two +battle-cruisers, and six scout-planes, with a complement of upward of +fifty officers and men, which includes not only the pilots and observers +but the mechanics and the drivers of the lorries and trailers which form +part of each outfit. These raiding squadrons are constantly operating +over the enemy’s lines, bombarding his bases, railway lines, and +cantonments, hindering the transportation of troops and ammunition, and +creating general demoralization behind the firing-line. On such forays +it is the mission of the smaller and swifter machines, such as the +Nieuports, to convoy and protect the larger and slower craft exactly as +destroyers convoy and protect a battleship. + +Two types of projectiles are carried on raiding aeroplanes: aerial +torpedoes, two, three, or four in number, fitted with fins, like the +feathers on an arrow, in order to guide their course, which are held by +clips under the body of the machine and can be released when over the +point to be bombarded by merely pulling a lever; and large quantities of +smaller bombs, filled with high explosive and fitted with percussion +fuses, which are dropped by hand. It is extremely difficult to attain +any degree of accuracy in dropping bombs from moving aircraft, for it +must be borne in mind that the projectiles, on being released, do not at +once fall in a perfectly straight line to the earth, like a brick +dropped from the top of a skyscraper. When an aeroplane is travelling +forward at a speed of, let us say, sixty miles an hour, the bombs +carried on the machine are also moving through space at the same rate. +Owing to this forward movement combining with the downward gravitational +drop, the path of the bomb is really a curve, and for this curve the +aviator must learn to make allowance. Should the aircraft hover over one +spot, however, the downward flight of the bomb is, of course, +comparatively vertical. + +[Illustration: + + Lunéville from an aeroplane. + + Through a study of maps and photographs the aviators come to know the + towns they are to bombard as well as the people who live in them. + This photo was taken by an American in the French air service. +] + +The most exciting, as well as the most dangerous, work allotted to the +aviators is that of flying over the enemy’s lines and, by means of huge +cameras fitted with telephoto lens and fastened beneath the bodies of +the machines, taking photographs of the German positions. As soon as the +required exposures have been made, the machine speeds back to the French +lines, usually amid a storm of bursting shrapnel, and the plates are +quickly developed in the dark room, which is a part of every aerodrome. +From the picture thus obtained an enlargement is made, and within two or +three hours at the most the staff knows every detail of the German +position, even to the depth of the wire entanglements and the number and +location of the machine-guns. Should weather conditions or the activity +of the enemy’s antiaircraft batteries make it inadvisable to send a +machine on one of these photographic excursions, the camera is attached +to a _cerf-volant_, or war-kite. The entire equipment is carried on +three motor-cars built for the purpose, one carrying the dismounted +kite, the second the cameras and crew, while the third car is a dark +room on wheels. I can recall few more interesting sights along the +battle-front than that of one of these war-kites in operation. Taking +shelter behind a farmhouse or haystack, the staff, in scarcely more time +than it takes to tell about it, have jointed together the bamboo rods +which form the framework of the kite, the linen which forms the planes +is stretched into place, a camera with its shutter controlled by an +electric wire is slung underneath, and the great kite is sent into the +air. When it is over that section of the enemy’s trenches of which a +photograph is wanted, the officer at the end of the wire presses a +button, the shutter of the camera swinging a thousand feet above flashes +open and shut, the kite is immediately hauled down, a photographer takes +the holder containing the exposed plate and disappears with it into the +wheeled dark room to appear, five minutes later, with a picture of the +German trenches. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph copyright by M. Rol._ + + French antiaircraft gun in action against a German aeroplane. +] + +The change that aeroplanes have produced in warfare is strikingly +illustrated by the fact that in the Russo-Japanese war the Japanese +fought for weeks and sacrificed thousands of men in order to capture +203-Metre Hill, not, mind you, because of its strategic importance, but +in order that they might effectively control the fire of their siege +mortars, which were endeavoring to reach the battleships in the harbor +of Port Arthur. To-day that information would be furnished in an hour by +aeroplanes. From dawn to dark aircraft hang over the enemy’s positions, +spotting his batteries, mapping his trenches, noting the movements of +troops and trains, yet with a storm of shrapnel bursting about them +constantly. I remember seeing, in Champagne, a French aeroplane rocking +lazily over the German lines, and counting sixty shrapnel clouds +floating about it at one time. So thick were the patches of fleecy white +that they looked like the white tufts on a sky-blue coverlet. The +shooting of the German verticals (antiaircraft guns) has steadily +improved as a result of the constant practise they have had, so that +half the time there are ragged rents in the French planes caused by +fragments of exploding shells. So deafening is the racket of the motor +and propeller, however, that it is impossible to hear a shell unless it +bursts at very close range, so that the aviators, intent on their work, +are often utterly unconscious of how near they are to death. It is very +curious how close shells can explode to a machine and yet not cripple it +enough to bring it down. A pilot flying over the German lines in +Flanders had his leg smashed by a bursting shell, which, strangely +enough, did no damage to the planes or motor. The wounded man fainted +from the pain and shock and his machine, left uncontrolled, began to +plunge earthward. Recovering consciousness, the aviator, despite the +excruciating pain which he was suffering, retained sufficient strength +and presence of mind to get his machine under control and head it back +for the French lines, though shrapnel was bursting all about him. He +came quietly and gracefully to ground at his home aviation field and +then fell over his steering lever unconscious. + +No nervous man is wanted in the air service, and the moment that a flier +shows signs that his nerves are becoming affected he is given a furlough +and ordered to take a rest. So great is the mental strain, the exposure, +and the noise, however, that probably twenty-five per cent of the +aviators lose their nerve completely and have to leave the service +altogether. The great French aviation school at Buc, near Paris, turns +out pilots at the rate of one hundred and sixty a month. The first +lessons are given on a machine with clipped wings, known as “the +penguin,” which cannot rise from the ground, and from this the men are +gradually advanced, stage by stage, from machines as safe and steady and +well-mannered as riding-school horses, until they at last become +qualified pilots, capable of handling the quick-turning, +uncertain-tempered broncos of the air. Provided he has sound nerves, a +strong constitution, and average intelligence, a man who has never been +in a machine before can become a qualified pilot in thirty days. Since +the war began the French air service has attracted the reckless, the +daring, and the adventurous from the four corners of the earth as iron +filings are attracted by a magnet. Wearing on the collars of their +silver-blue uniforms the gold wings of the flying corps are +cow-punchers, polo-players, prize-fighters, professional bicycle riders, +big-game hunters, soldiers of fortune, young men who bear famous names +and other young men whose names are notorious rather than famous. In one +squadrilla on the Champagne front I found a Texan cowboy and adventurer +named Hall; Elliott Cowdin, the Long Island polo-player; and +Charpentier, the heavyweight champion of France. For youngsters who are +seeking excitement and adventure, no sport in the world can offer the +thrills of the _chasse au Taube_. To drive with one hand a machine that +travels through space at a speed double that of the fastest +express-train and with the other hand to operate a mitrailleuse that +spits death at the rate of a thousand shots a minute; to twist and turn +and loop and circle two miles above the earth in an endeavor to overcome +an adversary as quick-witted and quick-acting as yourself, knowing that +if you are victorious the victory is due to your skill and courage +alone—there you have a game which makes all other sports appear ladylike +and tame. + +When an aeroplane armed with a mitrailleuse attacks an enemy machine the +pilot immediately manœuvres so as to permit the gunner observer to bring +his gun into action. In order to make the bullets “spread” and insure +that at least some of the many shots get home, the gunner swings his +weapon up and down, with a kind of chopping motion, so that, viewed from +the front of the machine, the stream of bullets, were they visible, +would be shaped like a fan. At the same time the gunner swings his +weapon gently round, covering with a stream of lead the space through +which his enemy will have to pass. Should the enemy machine be below the +other, then to get clear he would possibly dive under his opponent in a +sweeping turn. By this manœuvre the gunner is placed in a position where +he cannot bring his weapon to bear and he will have to turn in pursuit +before his gun can be brought into action again. From this it will be +seen that an aeroplane gunner does not take deliberate aim, as would a +man armed with a rifle, but instead fills the air in the path of his +opponent with showers of bullets in the hope that some of them will find +the mark. Should both machines be armed with machine-guns, as is now +nearly always the case, victory is often a question of quick manœuvring +combined with a considerable element of luck. To win out in this aerial +warfare, a man has to combine the quickness of a fencer with the +coolness of a big-game shot. + +[Illustration: + + When the chickens come home to roost. + + It is always a hazardous performance for an aeroplane to make a + landing after nightfall, even when the ground is illumined by a + search-light. +] + +One of the greatest dangers the military aviator has to face is landing +after night has fallen. Though every machine has a small motor, worked +by the wind, which generates enough power for a small search-light, the +light is not sufficiently powerful to be of much assistance in gauging +the distance from the ground. Sunset is, therefore, always an anxious +time on the aviation fields, nor is the anxiety at an end until all the +fliers are accounted for. As the sun begins to sink into the west the +returning aviators one by one appear, black dots against the crimson +sky. One by one they come swooping down from the heavens and come to +rest upon the ground. Twilight merges into dusk and dusk turns into +darkness, but one of the flying men has not yet come. The four corners +of the aviation field are marked with great flares of kerosene, that the +late comer may be guided home, and down the middle of the field lanterns +are laid out in the form of a huge arrow with the head pointing into the +wind, while search-lights, mounted on motor-cars, alternately sweep +field and sky with their white beams. Anxiety is written plainly on the +face of every one. Have the Boches brought him down? Has he lost his +way? Or has he been forced to descend elsewhere from engine trouble or +lack of petrol? “Hark!” exclaims some one suddenly. “He’s coming!” and +in the sudden hush that ensues you hear, from somewhere in the upper +darkness, a motor’s deep, low throb. The vertical beams of the +search-lights fall and flood the level plain with yellow radiance. The +hum of the motor rises into a roar and then, when just overhead, +abruptly stops, and down through the darkness slides a great bird which +is darker than the darkness and settles silently upon the plain. The +last of the chickens has come home to roost. + +[Illustration: + + Antiaircraft guns, posted outside the towns, are ready to give a warm + reception to an aerial intruder. +] + +In addition to the aeroplanes kept upon the front for purposes of +bombardment, photography, artillery control, and scouting, several +squadrillas are kept constantly on duty in the vicinity of Paris and +certain other French cities for the purpose of driving off marauding +_Taubes_ or Zeppelins. Just as the streets of Paris are patrolled by +gendarmes, so the air-lanes above the city are patrolled, both night and +day, by guarding aeroplanes. To me there was something wonderfully +inspiring in the thought that all through the hours of darkness these +aerial watchers were sweeping in great circles above the sleeping city, +guarding it from the death that comes in the night. The people of the +United States do not fully understand the Zeppelin raid problem with +which those intrusted with the defense of Paris and of London are +confronted. The Zeppelins, it must be remembered, never come out unless +it is a very dark night, and then they pass over the lines at a height +of two miles or more, descending only when they are above the city which +they intend to attack. They slowly, silently settle down until their +officers can get a view of their target and then the bombs begin to +drop. This is usually the first warning that the townspeople have that +Zeppelins are abroad, though it occasionally happens that they have been +seen or heard crossing the lines, in which case the city is warned by +telephone, the antiaircraft guns prepare for action, and the lights in +the streets and houses are put out. Should the Zeppelins succeed in +getting above the city, the guarding aeroplanes go up after them and as +soon as the search-lights spot them the guns open fire with shrapnel. +The raiders are rarely fired on by the antiaircraft guns while they are +hovering over the city, however, as experience has shown that more +people are killed by falling shell splinters than by the enemy’s bombs. +Nor do the French aeroplanes dare to make serious attacks until the +Zeppelin is clear of the city, for it is not difficult to imagine the +destruction that would result were one of these monsters, five hundred +feet long and weighing thirty-six thousand pounds, to be destroyed and +its flaming débris to fall upon the city. The problem that faces the +French authorities, therefore, is stopping the Zeppelins before they +reach Paris, and it speaks volumes for the efficiency of the French air +service that there has been no Zeppelin raid on the French capital for +nearly a year. + +In order to detect the approach of Zeppelins the French military +authorities have recently adopted the novel expedient of establishing +microphone stations at several points in and about Paris, these +delicately attuned instruments recording with unfailing accuracy the +throb of a Zeppelin’s or an aeroplane’s propellers long before it can be +heard by the human ear. + +For the protection of London the British Government has built an aerial +navy consisting of two types of aircraft—scouts and battle-planes. +Practically the only requirement for the scouting planes is that they +must have a speed of not less than one hundred miles an hour and a fuel +capacity for at least a six-hour flight, thus giving them a cruising +radius of three hundred miles. That is, they will be able to raid many +German ports and cities and return with ease to their base in England. +Their small size—they are only thirty feet across the wings—and great +speed will make them almost impossible to hit and it is expected that +antiaircraft guns will be practically useless against them. They will +constantly circle in the higher levels, as near the Zeppelin bases as +they can get, and the minute they see the giants emerging from their +hangars they will be off to England to give the alarm. Their speed being +double that of a Zeppelin, they will have reached England long before +the raider arrives. Then the new “Canada” type, each carrying a ton of +bombs, will go out to meet the Germans. These giant biplanes, one +hundred and two feet across the wings, with two motors developing three +hundred and twenty horse-power, have a speed of more than ninety miles +an hour and can overtake a Zeppelin as a motor-cycle policeman can +overhaul a limousine. They are fitted with the new device for insuring +accuracy in bomb-dropping and, with their superior speed, will hang +above the monster dirigibles, as a hawk hangs above a hen-roost, +plumping shell after shell into the great silk sausage quivering below +them. + +Both the French and British Governments now have a considerable number +of hydroaeroplanes in commission. These amphibious craft, which are +driven by two motors of one hundred and sixty horse-power each and have +a speed of about seventy-five miles an hour, are designed primarily for +the hunting of submarines. Though a submarine cannot be seen from the +deck of a vessel, an aviator can see it, even though it is submerged +twenty feet, and a bomb dropped near it will cave its sides in by the +mere force of the explosion, particularly if that bomb is loaded with +two hundred pounds of melinite, as are the ones carried by the French +hydroaeroplanes. + +But the most novel of all the uses to which the aircraft have been put +in this war is that of dropping spies in the enemy’s territory. On +numerous occasions French and British aviators have flown across the +German lines, carrying with them an intelligence officer disguised as a +peasant or a farm-hand, and have landed him at some remote spot where +the descent of an aeroplane is scarcely likely to attract the attention +of the military authorities. As soon as the aviator has landed his +passenger he ascends again, with the understanding, however, that he +will return to the same spot a day, or two days, or a week later, to +pick up the spy and carry him back to the French lines. The exploits of +some of these secret agents thus dropped from the sky upon enemy soil +would make the wildest fiction seem probable and tame. One French +officer, thus landed behind the German front in Flanders, succeeded in +slowly working his way right across Belgium, gathering information as he +went as to the resources of the Germans and the disposition of their +troops, only to be caught just as he was crossing the frontier into +Holland. Though the Germans expressed unbounded admiration for his +coolness, courage, and daring, he was none the less a spy. He died +before the rifles of a firing-party. + +It has repeatedly been said that in this war the spirit of chivalry does +not exist, and, so far as the land forces are concerned, this is largely +true. But chivalry still exists among the fighters of the air. If, for +example, a French aviator is forced to descend in the German lines, +either because his machine has been damaged by gun fire or from engine +trouble, a German aviator will fly over the French lines, often amid a +storm of shrapnel, and drop a little cloth bag which contains a note +recording the name of the missing man, or if not his name the number of +his machine, whether he survived, and if so whether he is wounded. +Attached to the “message bag” are long pennants of colored cloth, which +flutter out and attract the attention of the men in the neighborhood, +who run out and pick up the bag when it lands. It is at once taken to +the nearest officer, who opens it and telephones the message it contains +to aviation headquarters, so that it not infrequently happens that the +fate of a flier is known to his comrades within a few hours after he has +set out from the aviation field. Perhaps the prettiest exhibition of +chivalry which the war has produced was evoked by the death of the +famous French aviator, Adolphe Pegoud, who was killed by a German +aviator whom he attacked during a reconnoissance near Petite Croix, in +Alsace. The next day a German aeroplane, flying at a great height, +appeared over Chavannes, an Alsatian village on the old frontier, where +Pegoud was buried, and dropped a wreath which bore the inscription: “To +Pegoud, who died like a hero, from his adversary.” + + + + + VII + THE RED BADGE OF MERCY + + +Corporal Emile Dupont, having finished a most unappetizing and +unsatisfying breakfast, consisting of a cup of lukewarm chicory and a +half-loaf of soggy bread, emerged on all fours from the hole in the +ground which for many months had been his home and, standing upright in +the trench, lighted a cigarette. At that instant something came +screaming out of nowhere to burst, in a cloud of acrid smoke and a +shower of steel splinters, directly over the trench in which Emile was +standing. Immediately the sky seemed to fall upon Emile and crush him. +When he returned to consciousness a few seconds later he found himself +crumpled up in an angle of the trench like an empty kit-bag that has +been hurled into a corner of a room. He felt curiously weak and +nauseated; he ached in every bone in his body; his head throbbed and +pounded until he thought that the top of his skull was coming off. +Still, he was alive, and that was something. He fumbled for the +cigarette that he had been lighting, but there was a curious sensation +of numbness in his right hand. He did not seem to be able to move it. +Very slowly, very painfully he turned his head so that his eyes +travelled out along his blue-sleeved arm until they reached the point +where his hand ought to be. But the hand wasn’t there. It had quite +disappeared. His wrist lay in a pool of something crimson and warm and +sticky which widened rapidly as he looked at it. His hand was gone, +there was no doubting that. Still, it didn’t interest him greatly; in +fact, it might have been some other man’s hand for all he cared. His +head throbbed like the devil and he was very, very tired. Rather dimly +he heard voices and, as through a haze, saw figures bending over him. He +felt some one tugging at the little first-aid packet which every soldier +carries in the breast of his tunic, he felt something being tied very +tightly around his arm above the elbow, and finally he had a vague +recollection of being dragged into a dug-out, where he lay for hours +while the shell-storm raged and howled outside. Along toward nightfall, +when the bombardment had died down, two soldiers, wearing on their arms +white _brassards_ with red crosses, lifted him onto a stretcher and +carried him between interminable walls of brown earth to another and a +larger dug-out which he recognized as a _poste de secours_. After an +hour of waiting, because there were other wounded men who had to be +attended to first, the stretcher on which Emile lay was lifted onto a +table over which hung a lantern. A bearded man, wearing the cap of a +medical officer, and with a white apron up to his neck, briskly unwound +the bandages which hid the place where Emile’s right hand should have +been. “It’ll have to be taken off a bit further up, _mon brave_,” said +the surgeon, in much the same tone that a tailor would use in discussing +the shortening of a coat. “You seem to be in pretty fair shape, though, +so we’ll just give you a new dressing, and send you along to the field +ambulance, where they have more facilities for amputating than we have +here.” Despite the pain, which had now become agonizing, Emile watched +with a sort of detached admiration the neatness and despatch with which +the surgeon wound the white bandages around the wound. It reminded him +of a British soldier putting on his puttees. “Just a moment, my friend,” +said the surgeon, when the dressing was completed, “we’ll give you a jab +of this before you go, to frighten away the tetanus,” and in the muscles +of his shoulder Emile felt the prick of a hypodermic needle. An orderly +tied to a button of his coat a pink tag on which something—he could not +see what—had been scrawled by the surgeon, and two _brancardiers_ lifted +the stretcher and carried him out into the darkness. From the swaying of +the stretcher and the muffled imprecations of the bearers, he gathered +that he was being taken across the ploughed field which separated the +trenches from the highway where the ambulances were waiting. “This +cleans ’em up for to-night,” said one of the bearers, as he slipped the +handles of the stretcher into the grooved supports of the ambulance and +pushed it smoothly home. “Thank God for that,” said the ambulance +driver, as he viciously cranked his car. “I thought I was going to be +kept here all night. It’s time we cleared out anyway. The Boches spotted +me with a rocket they sent up a while back, and they’ve been dropping +shells a little too close to be pleasant. Well, s’long. When I get this +bunch delivered I’m going to turn in and get a night’s sleep.” + +The road, being paved with cobblestones, was not as smooth as it should +have been for wounded men. Emile, who had been awakened to full +consciousness by the night air and by a drink of brandy one of the +orderlies at the _poste de secours_ had given him, felt something warm +and sticky falling ... drip ... drip ... drip ... upon his face. In the +dim light he was at first unable to discover where it came from. Then he +saw. It was dripping through the brown canvas of the stretcher that hung +above him. He tried to call to the ambulance driver, but his voice was +lost in the noise of the machine. The field-hospital was only three +miles back of the trench in which he had been wounded, but by the time +he arrived there, what with the jolting and the pain and the terrible +thirst which comes from loss of blood and that ghastly drip ... drip ... +drip in his face, Emile was in a state of both mental and physical +collapse. They took him into a large tent, dimly lighted by lanterns +which showed him many other stretchers with silent or groaning forms, +all ticketed like himself, lying upon them. After considerable delay a +young officer came around with a note-book and looked at the tag they +had tied on him at the dressing-station. On it was scrawled the word +“urgent.” That admonition didn’t prevent Emile’s having to wait two +hours before he was taken into a tent so brilliantly illuminated by an +arc-lamp that the glare hurt his eyes. When they laid him on a narrow +white table so that the light fell full upon him he felt as though he +were on the stage of a theatre and the spot-light had been turned upon +him. An orderly with a sharp knife deftly slashed away the sleeve of +Emile’s coat, leaving the arm bare to the shoulder, while another +orderly clapped over his mouth and nose a sort of funnel. + +When he returned to consciousness he found himself again in an ambulance +rocking and swaying over those agonizing _pavé_ roads. The throbbing of +his head and the pain in his arm and the pitching of the vehicle made +him nauseated. There were three other wounded men in the ambulance and +they had been nauseated too. It was not a pleasant journey. After what +seemed to Emile and his companions in misery an interminable time, the +ambulance came to a stop in front of a railway-station. At least it had +once been a railway-station, but over the door between the drooping Red +Cross flags, was the sign “Hôpital d’Évacuation No. 31.” Two +_brancardiers_ lifted out Emile’s stretcher—the same one, by the way, on +which he had been carried from the trenches twenty-four hours before—and +set it down in what had been the station waiting-room. It was still a +waiting-room, but all those who were so patiently and uncomplainingly +waiting in it were wounded. Two women, wearing white smocks and caps and +with the ever-present red cross upon their sleeves, came in carrying +trays loaded with cups of steaming soup. While an orderly supported +Emile’s head one of the women held a cup of soup to his lips. He drank +it greedily. It was the best thing he had ever tasted and he said so. +Then they gave him a glass of harsh, red wine. After that he felt much +better. After a time a doctor came in and glanced at the tags which had +been tied on him at the _poste de secours_ and at the field-hospital. +“You’ve a little fever, my lad,” said he, “but I guess you can stand the +trip to Paris. You’ll be better off there than you would be here.” If +Emile lives to be a hundred he will never forget that journey. It was +made in a box-car which had been converted to the use of the wounded by +putting in racks to hold the stretchers and cutting windows in the +sides. In the centre was a small stove on which the orderly in charge +boiled tea. In the car were fifteen other wounded men. On the journey +four of them died. The car, which was without springs, rolled like a +ship in a storm. The jolting was far worse than that in the ambulances +on the _pavé_ roads had been. Emile’s head reeled from weariness and +exhaustion; his arm felt as though it were being held in a white-hot +flame; he was attacked by the intolerable thirst which characterizes +amputation cases, and begged for water, and when it was given him +pleaded desperately for more, more, more. Most of the time he was out of +his head and babbled incoherently of foolish, inconsequential things. It +took twenty hours for the hospital train to reach Paris, for a great +movement of troops was in progress, and when well men are being rushed +to the front the wounded ones who are coming away from it must wait. +When the train finally pulled under the sooty glass roof of the Paris +station, Emile was hovering between life and death. He had a hazy, +indistinct recollection of being taken from the ill-smelling freight-car +to an ambulance—the third in which he had been in less than forty-eight +hours; of skimming pleasantly, silently over smooth pavements; of the +ambulance entering the porte-cochère of a great white building that +looked like a hotel or school. Here he was _not_ kept waiting. Nurses +with skilful fingers drew off his clothes—the filthy, blood-soaked, +mud-stained, vermin-infested, foul-smelling garments that he had not had +off for many weeks. He was lowered, ever so gently, into a tub filled +with warm water. _Bon Dieu_, but it felt good! It was the first warm +bath that he had had in more than a year. It was worth being wounded +for. Then a pair of flannel pajamas, a fresh, soft bed, such as he had +not known since the war began, and pink-cheeked nurses in crisp, white +linen slipping about noiselessly. While Emile lay back on his pillows +and puffed a cigarette a doctor came in and dressed his wound. “Don’t +worry about yourself, my man,” he said cheerily, “you’ll get along +finely. In a week or so we’ll be sending you back to your family.” +Whereupon, Corporal Emile Dupont turned on his pillow with a great sigh +of content. He wondered dimly, as he fell asleep, if it would be hard to +find work which a one-armed man could do. + + +From the imaginary but wholly typical case just given, in which we have +traced the course of a wounded man from the spot where he fell to the +final hospital, it will be seen that the system of the Service de Santé +Militaire, as the medical service of the French army is known, though +cumbersome and complicated in certain respects, nevertheless works—and +works well. In understanding the French system it is necessary to bear +in mind that the wounded man has to be shifted through two army zones, +front and rear, both of which are under the direct control of the +commander-in-chief, to the interior zone of the country, with its +countless hospitals, which is under the direction of the Ministry of +War. + +As soon as a soldier falls he drags himself, if he is able, to some +sheltered spot, or his comrades carry him there, and with the +“first-aid” packet, carried in the breast pocket of the tunic, an +endeavor is made to give the wound temporary treatment. In the British +service this “first-aid” kit consists of a small tin box, not much +larger than a cigarette-case, containing a bottle of iodine crystals and +a bottle of alcohol wrapped up in a roll of aseptic bandage gauze. +Meanwhile word has been passed along the line that the services of the +surgeon are needed, for each regiment has one and sometimes two medical +officers on duty in the trenches. It may so happen that the trench +section has its own _poste de secours_, or first-aid dressing-station, +in which case the man is at once taken there. The medical officer +dresses the man’s wound, perhaps gives him a hypodermic to lessen the +pain, and otherwise makes him as comfortable as possible under the +circumstances. His wounds temporarily dressed, if there is a dug-out at +hand, he is taken into it. If not, he is laid in such shelter as the +trench affords, and there he usually has to lie until night comes and he +can be removed in comparative safety; for, particularly in the flat +country of Artois and Flanders, it is out of the question to remove the +wounded except under the screen of darkness, and even then it is +frequently an extremely hazardous proceeding, for the German gunners +apparently do their best to drop their shells on the ambulances and +stretcher-parties. As soon as night falls a dressing-station is +established at a point as close as possible behind the trenches, the +number of surgeons, dressers, and stretcher-bearers sent out depending +upon the number of casualties as reported by telephone from the trenches +to headquarters. The wounded man is transported on a stretcher or a +wheeled litter to the dressing-station, where his wounds are examined by +the light of electric torches and, if necessary, redressed. If he has +any fractured bones they are made fast in splints or pieces of zinc or +iron wire—anything that will enable him to stand transportation. Though +the dressing-station is, wherever possible, established in a farmhouse, +in a grove, behind a wall, or such other protection as the region may +afford, it is, nevertheless, often in extreme danger. I recall one case, +in Flanders, where the flashing of the torches attracted the attention +of the German gunners, who dropped a shell squarely into a +dressing-station, killing all the surgeons and stretcher-bearers, and +putting half a dozen of the wounded out of their misery. As soon as the +wounded man has passed through the dressing-station, he is carried, +usually over very rough ground, to the point on the road where the +motor-ambulances are waiting and is whirled off to the division +ambulance, which corresponds to the field-hospital of the British and +American armies. These division ambulances (it should be borne in mind +that the term _ambulance_ in French means “_military_ hospital”) do as +complete work as can be expected so near the front. They are usually set +up only four or five miles back of the firing-line, and have a regular +medical and nursing staff, instruments, and, in some cases, X-ray +apparatus for operations. As a rule, only light emergency operations are +performed in these ambulances of the front—light skull trepanning, +removal of splintered bones, disinfection, and immobilizing of the +wounded parts. + +At the beginning of the war it was an accepted principle of the French +army surgeons not to operate at the front, but simply to dress the +wounds so as to permit of speedy transportation to the rear, for the +division ambulances, being without heat or light or sterilizing plants +of their own, had no facilities for many urgent operations or for night +work. Hence, though there was no lack of surgical aid at the front, +major operations were not possible, and thousands of men died who, could +they have been operated on immediately, might have been saved. This +grave fault in the French medical service has now been remedied, +however, by the automobile surgical formations created by Doctor +Marcille. Their purpose is to bring within a few miles of the spot where +fighting is in progress and where men are being wounded the equivalent +of a great city emergency hospital, with its own sterilization plant, +and an operating-room heated and lighted powerfully night and day. This +equipment is extremely mobile, ready to begin work even in the open +country within an hour of its arrival, and capable of moving on with the +same rapidity to any point where its services may be required. The +arrangement of these operating-rooms on wheels is as compact and +ingenious as a Pullman sleeping-car. The sterilization plant, which +works by superheated steam, is on an automobile chassis, the surgeons +taking their instruments, compresses, aprons, and blouses immediately +from one of the six iron sheets of the autoclave as they operate. Six +operations can be carried on without stopping—and during the sixth the +iron sheets are resterilized to begin again. The same boiler heats a +smaller autoclave for sterilizing rubber gloves and water, and also, by +means of a powerful radiator, heats the operating-room. This is an +impermeable tent, with a large glass skylight for day and a 200-candle +power electric light for night, the motor generating the electricity. +Another car contains the radiograph plant, while the regular ambulances +provide pharmacy and other supplies and see to the further +transportation of the wounded who have been operated on. Of seventy +operations, which would have all been impossible without these surgical +automobile units, fifty-five were successful. In cases of abdominal +wounds, which have usually been fatal in previous wars, fifty per cent +of the operations thus performed saved the lives of the wounded. + +Leaving the zone of actual operations, the wounded man now enters the +army rear zone, where, at the heads of the lines of communication, +hospital trains or hospital canal-boats are waiting for him. The +beginning of the war found France wholly unprepared as regards modernly +equipped hospital trains, of which she possessed only five, while Russia +had thirty-two, Austria thirty-three, and Germany forty. Thanks to the +energy of the great French railway companies, the number has been +somewhat increased, but France still has mainly to rely on improvised +sanitary trains for the transport of her wounded. There are in operation +about one hundred and fifty of these improvised trains, made up, when +possible, of the long baggage-cars of what were before the war the +international express trains. As these cars are well hung, are heated, +have soft Westinghouse brakes, and have corridors which permit of the +doctors going from car to car while the train is in motion, they answer +the purpose to which they have been put tolerably well. But when heavy +fighting is in progress, rolling-stock of every description has to be +utilized for the transport of the wounded. Those who can sit up without +too much discomfort are put in ordinary passenger-cars. But in addition +to these the _Service de Santé_ has been compelled to use thousands of +freight and cattle cars glassed up at the sides and with a stove in the +middle. The stretchers containing the most serious cases are, by means +of loops into which the handles of the stretchers fit, laid in two rows, +one above the other, at the ends of each car, while those who are able +to sit up are gathered in the centre. Each car is in charge of an +orderly who keeps water and soups constantly heated on the stove. Any +one who has travelled for any distance in a freight or cattle car will +readily appreciate, however, how great must be the sufferings of the +wounded men thus transported. Taking advantage of the network of canals +and rivers which covers France, the medical authorities of the army have +also utilized canal-boats for the transport of the _blessés_—a method of +transportation which, though slow, is very easy. Every few hours these +hospital trains or boats come to “infirmary stations,” established by +the Red Cross, where the wounded are given food and drink, and their +dressing is looked after, while at the very end of the army zones there +are “regulator stations,” where the “evacuation hospitals” are placed. +Here is where the sorting system comes in. There are wounded whose +condition has become so aggravated that it is out of the question for +them to stand a longer journey, and these remain. There are lightly +wounded, who, with proper attention, will be as well as ever in a few +days, and these are sent to a _dépôt des éclopés_, or, as the soldiers +term it, a “limper’s halt.” Then there are the others who, if they are +to recover, will require long and careful treatment and difficult +operations. These go on to the final hospitals of the interior zone: +military hospitals, auxiliary hospitals, civil hospitals militarized, +and “benevolent hospitals” such as the great American Ambulance at +Neuilly. + +No account of the work of caring for the wounded would be complete +without at least passing mention of the American Ambulance, which, +founded by Americans, with an American staff and an American equipment, +and maintained by American generosity, has come to be recognized as the +highest type of military hospital in existence. At the beginning of the +war, Americans in Paris, inspired by the record of the American +Ambulance in 1870, and foreseeing the needs of the enormous number of +wounded which would soon come pouring in, conceived the idea of +establishing a military hospital for the treatment of the wounded, +irrespective of nationality. The French Government placed at their +disposal a large and nearly completed school-building in the suburb of +Neuilly, just outside the walls of Paris. Before the war had been in +progress a month this building had been transformed into perhaps the +most up-to-the-minute military hospital in Europe, equipped with X-ray +apparatus, ultra violet-ray sterilizing plants, a giant magnet for +removing fragments of shell from wounds, a pathological laboratory, and +the finest department of dental surgery in the world. The feats of +surgical legerdemain performed in this latter department are, indeed, +almost beyond belief. The American dental surgeons assert—and they have +repeatedly made their assertion good—that, even though a man’s entire +face has been blown away, they can construct a new and presentable +countenance, provided the hinges of the jaw remain. + +Beginning with 170 beds, by November, 1915, the hospital had 600 beds +and in addition has organized an “advanced hospital,” with 250 beds, +known as Hospital B, at Juilly, which is maintained through the +generosity of Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney; a field-hospital, of the same +pattern as that used by the United States Army, with 108 beds; and two +convalescent hospitals at St. Cloud; the staff of this remarkable +organization comprising doctors, surgeons, graduate and auxiliary +nurses, orderlies, stretcher-bearers, ambulance drivers, cooks, and +other employees to the number of seven hundred. Perhaps the most +picturesque feature of the American hospital is its remarkable +motor-ambulance service, which consists of 130 cars and 160 drivers. The +ambulances, which are for the most part Ford cars with specially +designed bodies, have proved so extremely practical and efficient that +the type has been widely copied by the Allied armies. They serve where +they are most needed, being sent out in units (each unit consisting of a +staff car, a supply car, and five ambulances) upon the requisition of +the military authorities. The young men who drive the ambulances and +who, with a very few exceptions, not only serve without pay but even pay +their own passage from America and provide their own uniforms, represent +all that is best in American life: among them are men from the great +universities both East and West, men from the hunt clubs of Long Island +and Virginia, lawyers, novelists, polo-players, big-game hunters, +cow-punchers, while the inspector of the ambulance service is a former +assistant treasurer of the United States. American Ambulance units are +stationed at many points on the western battle-line—I have seen them at +work in Flanders, in the Argonne, and in Alsace—the risks taken by the +drivers in their work of bringing in the wounded and their coolness +under fire having won for them among the soldiers the admiring title of +“bullet biters.” + +The British system of handling the wounded is along the same general +lines as that of the French, the chief difference being in the methods +of sorting, which is the basis of all medical corps work in this war. +The British system, which, as some one has sarcastically remarked, +involves reference to “Burke’s Peerage,” “Who’s Who,” and the “Army +List,” is in itself extremely exhausting and entails much needless +suffering. The method of sorting in the French army is, on the other +hand, simplicity itself, and throughout all its stages is as rigidly +impartial as the customs examination at an American port, a wounded +officer receiving neither more nor less attention than a wounded +soldier. + +[Illustration: + + “Two soldiers lifted him onto a stretcher and carried him between + interminable walls of brown earth to the dressing-station.” +] + +Sorting, as practised by the British, starts at the very first step in +the progress of a wounded man, which is the dressing-station in or +immediately back of the trenches, where only those cases absolutely +demanding it are dressed and where only the most imperative operations +are performed. The second step is the field-hospital, where all but a +few of the slight wounds are dressed, and where operations that must be +done before the men can be passed farther back are performed. The third +step is the clearing hospital, at the head of railway communication. +Here the man receives the minimum of medical attention before being +passed on to the hospital train which conveys him to one of the great +base hospitals on the coast, where every one, whether seriously or +slightly wounded, can at last receive treatment. To the wounded Tommy, +the base hospital is the half-way house to home, where he is cared for +until he is able to stand the journey across the Channel to England. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurisse._ + + Unloading wounded at a hospital in northern France. + + “The clearing hospitals must always be ready to receive that unceasing + scarlet stream which, day and night, night and day, comes pouring + in, pouring in.” +] + +The real barometer of battle is the clearing hospital, for one can +always tell by the number of cases coming in whether there is heavy +fighting in progress. As both field and clearing hospitals move with the +armies, they must not only always get rid of their wounded at the +earliest possible moment, but they must always be prepared for quick +movements backward or forward. Either a retreat or an offensive movement +necessitates quick action on the part of the Army Medical Corps, for it +is a big job to dismantle a great hospital, pack it up, and start the +motor-transport within an hour after the order to move is received. It +would be a big job without the wounded. + +In the French lines the _hôpital d’évacuation_ is frequently established +in a freight station or warehouse in the midst of the railway yards, so +as to facilitate the loading of the hospital trains. This arrangement +has its drawbacks, however, for the hospital is liable to be bombarded +by aeroplanes or artillery without warning, as it is a principle +recognized—and practised—by all the belligerent nations that it is +perfectly legitimate to shell a station or railway base in order to +interfere with the troops, supplies, and ammunition going forward to the +armies in the field. That a hospital is quartered in the station is +unfortunate but must be disregarded. At Dunkirk, for example, which is a +fortified town and a base of the very first importance, there was +nothing unethical, from a military view-point, in the Germans shelling +the railway yards, even though a number of wounded in the hospital there +lost their lives. The British avoid this danger by establishing their +clearing hospitals in the outskirts of the rail-head towns, and as far +from the station as possible, which, however, necessitates one more +transfer for the wounded man. + +In this war the progress made in the science of healing has kept pace +with, if indeed it has not outdistanced, the progress made in the +science of destruction. There is, for example, the solution of +hypochlorite of soda, introduced by Doctor Dakin and Doctor Alexis +Carrel, which, though not a new invention, is being used with marvellous +results for the irrigation of wounds and the prevention of suppuration. +There is the spinal anæsthesia, used mainly in the difficult abdominal +cases, a minute quantity of which, injected into the spine of the +patient, causes all sensation to disappear up to the arms, so that, +provided he is prevented by a screen from seeing what is going on, an +operation below that level may be performed while the patient, wholly +unconscious of what is happening, is reading a paper or smoking a +cigarette. Owing to failure to disinfect the wounds at the front, many +of the cases reaching the hospitals in the early days of the war were +found to be badly septic, the infection being due, curiously enough, to +the nature of the soil of the country, the region of the Aisne, for +example, apparently being saturated with the tetanus germ. So the +doctors invented an antitetanus serum, with which a soldier can +inoculate himself and, as a result, the cases of tetanus have been +reduced by half. It was found that many wounded men failed to recover +because of the minute pieces of shell remaining in their bodies, so +there was introduced the giant magnet which, when connected with the +probe in the surgeon’s hand, unerringly attracts and draws out any +fragments of metal that may remain in the wound. Still another ingenious +invention produced by the war is the bell, or buzzer, which rings when +the surgeon’s probe approaches a foreign substance. + +Though before the war began European army surgeons were thoroughly +conversant with the best methods of treating shell, sabre, and bullet +wounds and the innumerable diseases peculiar to armies, the war has +produced one weapon of which they had never so much as heard before, and +the effects of which they were at first wholly unable to combat. I refer +to the asphyxiating gas. If you fail to understand what “gassing” means, +listen to this description by a British army surgeon: + +“In a typical ‘gassed’ case the idea of impending suffocation +predominates. Every muscle of respiration is called upon to do its +utmost to avert the threatened doom. The imperfect aeration of the blood +arising from obstructed respiration causes oftentimes intense blueness +and clamminess of the face, while froth and expectoration blow from the +mouth impelled by a choking cough. The poor fighting man tosses and +turns himself into every position in search of relief. But his efforts +are unavailing; he feels that his power of breathing is failing; that +asphyxiation is gradually becoming complete. The slow strangling of his +respiration, of which he is fully conscious, at last enfeebles his +strength. No longer is it possible for him to expel the profuse +expectoration; the air-tubes of his lungs become distended with it, and +with a few gasps he dies. + +“If the ‘gassed’ man survives the first stage of his agony, some sleep +may follow the gradual decline of the urgent symptoms, and after such +sleep he feels refreshed and better. But further trouble is in store for +him, for the intense irritation to which the respiratory passages have +been exposed by the inhalation of the suffocating gas is quickly +followed by the supervention of acute bronchitis. In such attacks death +may come, owing to the severity of the inflammation. In mild cases of +‘gassing,’ on the other hand, the resulting bronchitis develops in a +modified form with the result that recovery now generally follows. Time, +however, can only show to what extent permanent damage to the lungs is +inflicted. Possibly chronic bronchitis may be the lot of such ‘gassed’ +men in after life or some pulmonary trouble equally disturbing. It is +difficult to believe that they can wholly escape some evil effects.” + +As soon as it was found that the immediate cause of death in the fatal +gas cases was acute congestion of the lungs, the surgeons were able to +treat it upon special and definite lines. Means were devised for +insuring the expulsion of the excessive secretion from the lungs, thus +affording much relief and making it possible to avert asphyxiation. In +some apparently hopeless cases the lives of the men were saved by +artificial respiration. The inhalation of oxygen was also tried with +favorable results, and in cases where the restlessness of the patient +was more mental than physical, opium was successfully used. So that even +the poison-gas, perhaps the most dreadful death-dealing device which the +war has produced, neither dismayed nor defeated the men whose task it is +to save life instead of to take it. + +To the surgeons and nurses at the front the people of France and England +owe a debt of gratitude which they can never wholly repay. The soldiers +in the trenches are waging no more desperate or heroic battle than these +quiet, efficient, energetic men and women who wear the red badge of +mercy. Their courage is shown by the enormous losses they have suffered +under fire, the proportion of military doctors and hospital attendants +killed, wounded, or taken prisoner, equalling the proportion of infantry +losses. They have no sleep save such as they can snatch between the +tides of wounded or when they drop on the floor from sheerest +exhaustion. They are working under as trying conditions as doctors and +nurses were ever called upon to face. They treat daily hundreds of +cases, any one of which would cause a city physician to call a +consultation. They are in constant peril from marauding _Taubes_, for +the German airmen seem to take delight in choosing buildings flying the +Red Cross flag as targets for their bombs. In their ears, both day and +night, sounds the din of near-by battle. Their organization is a marvel +of efficiency. That of the Germans may be as good but it can be no +better. + +In order that I may bring home to you in America the realities of this +thing called war, I want to tell you what I saw one day in a little town +called Bailleul. Bailleul is only two or three miles on the French side +of the Franco-Belgian frontier, and it is so close to the firing-line +that its windows continually rattle. The noise along that portion of the +battle-front never ceases. It sounds for all the world like the clatter +of a gigantic harvester. And that is precisely what it is—the harvester +of death. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurisse._ + + Red Cross men getting wounded out of a bombarded town in Flanders. + + “The soldiers in the trenches are waging no more desperate or heroic + battle than these quiet, efficient, energetic men who wear the red + badge of mercy.” +] + +As we entered Bailleul they were bringing in the harvest. They were +bringing it in motor-cars, many, many, many of them, stretching in +endless procession down the yellow roads which lead to Lille and Neuve +Chapelle and Poperinghe and Ypres. Over the gray bodies of the +motor-cars were gray canvas hoods, and painted on the hoods were staring +scarlet crosses. The curtain at the back of each car was rolled up, and +protruding from the dim interior were four pairs of feet. Sometimes +those feet were wrapped in bandages, and on the fresh white linen were +bright-red splotches, but more often they were incased in worn and +muddied boots. I shall never forget those poor, broken, mud-incrusted +boots, for they spoke so eloquently of utter weariness and pain. There +was something about them that was the very essence of pathos. The owners +of those boots were lying on stretchers which were made to slide into +the ambulances as drawers slide into a bureau, and most of them were +suffering agony such as only a woman in childbirth knows. + +[Illustration: + + Bringing in the harvest of the guns. + + The dripping stretchers slide into the ambulances as drawers slide + into a bureau. +] + +This was the reaping of the grim harvester which was at its work of +mowing down human beings not five miles away. Sometimes, as the +ambulances went rocking by, I would catch a fleeting glimpse of some +poor fellow whose wounds would not permit of his lying down. I remember +one of these in particular—a clean-cut, fair-haired youngster who looked +to be still in his teens. He was sitting on the floor of the ambulance +leaning for support against the rail. He held his arms straight out in +front of him. Both his hands had been blown away at the wrists. The head +of another was so swathed in bandages that my first impression was that +he was wearing a huge red-and-white turban. The jolting of the car had +caused the bandages to slip. If that man lives little children will run +from him in terror, and women will turn aside when they meet him on the +street. And still that caravan of agony kept rolling by, rolling by. The +floors of the cars were sieves leaking blood. The dusty road over which +they had passed no longer needed sprinkling. + +Tearing over the rough cobbles of Bailleul, the ambulances came to a +halt before some one of the many doorways over which droop the Red Cross +flags, for every suitable building in the little town has been converted +into a hospital. The one of which I am going to tell you had been a +school until the war began. It is officially known as Clearing Hospital +Number Eight, but I shall always think of it as hell’s antechamber. In +the afternoon that I was there eight hundred wounded were brought into +that building between the hours of two and four, and this, mind you, was +but one of many hospitals in the same little town. As I entered the door +I had to stand aside to let a stretcher carried by two orderlies pass +out. Through the rough brown blanket which covered the stretcher showed +the vague outlines of a human form, but the face was covered, and it was +very still. A week or two weeks or a month later, when the casualty +lists were published, there appeared the name of the still form under +the brown blanket, and there was anguish in some English home. In the +hallway of the hospital a man was sitting upright on a bench, and two +surgeons were working over him. He was sitting there because the +operating-rooms were filled. I hope that that man is unmarried, for he +no longer has a face. What a few hours before had been the honest +countenance of an English lad was now a horrid welter of blood and +splintered bone and mangled flesh. + +The surgeon in charge took me upstairs to the ward which contained the +more serious cases. On a cot beside the door was stretched a young +Canadian. His face looked as though a giant in spiked shoes had stepped +upon it. “Look,” said the surgeon, and lifted the woollen blanket. That +man’s body was like a field which has been gone over with a disk harrow. +His feet, his legs, his abdomen, his chest, his arms, his face were +furrowed with gaping, angry wounds. “He was shot through the hand,” +explained the surgeon. “He made his way back to the dressing-station in +the reserve trenches, but just as he reached it a shell exploded at his +feet.” I patted him on the shoulder and told him that I too knew the +land of the great forests and the rolling prairies, and that before long +he was going back to it. And, though he could not speak, he turned that +poor, torn face of his and smiled at me. He must have been suffering the +torments of the damned, but he smiled at me, I tell you—_he smiled at +me_. + +In the next bed, not two feet away—for the hospitals in Bailleul are +very crowded—a great, brawny fellow from a Highland regiment was sitting +propped against his pillows. He could not lie down, the surgeon told me, +because he had been shot through the lungs. He held a tin cup in his +hand, and quite regularly, about once a minute, he would hold it to his +lips and spit out blood. Over by the window lay a boy with a face as +white as the pillow-cover. He was quite conscious, and stared at the +ceiling with wide, unseeing eyes. “Another shrapnel case,” remarked a +hospital attendant. “Both legs amputated, but he’ll recover.” I wonder +what he will do for a living when he gets back to England. Perhaps he +will sell pencils or boot-laces on the flags of Piccadilly, and hold out +his cap for coppers. A man with his head all swathed in strips of linen +lay so motionless that I asked if he was living. “A head wound,” was the +answer. “We’ve tried trepanning, and he’ll probably pull through, but +he’ll never recover his reason.” Can’t you see him in the years to come, +this splendid specimen of manhood, his mind a blank, wandering, helpless +as a little child, about some English village? + +I doubt if any four walls in all the world contain more human suffering +than those of Hospital Number Eight at Bailleul, yet of all those +shattered, broken, mangled men I heard only one utter a complaint or +groan. He was a fair-haired giant, as are so many of these English +fighting men. A bullet had splintered his spine and, with his hours +numbered, he was suffering the most awful torment that a human being can +endure. The sweat stood in beads upon his forehead. The muscles of his +neck and arms were so corded and knotted that it seemed as though they +were about to burst their way through the sun-tanned skin. His naked +breast rose and fell in great sobs of agony. “Oh God! Oh God!” he +moaned, “be merciful and take me—it hurts, it hurts—_it hurts me so_—my +wife—the kiddies—for the love of Christ, doctor, give me a hypodermic +and stop the pain—say good-by to them for me—tell them—oh, I _can’t_ +stand it any longer—I’m not afraid to die, doctor, but I just can’t +stand this pain—oh God, dear God, _won’t you please let me die_?” + +When I went out of that room the beads of sweat were standing on _my_ +forehead. + +[Illustration: + + “Every house and farmyard for miles around was filled with wounded and + still they came streaming in.” +] + +They took me down-stairs to show me what they call the “evacuation +ward.” It is a big, barn-like room, perhaps a hundred feet long by fifty +wide, and the floor was so thickly covered with blanketed forms on +stretchers that there was no room to walk about among them. These were +the men whose wounds had been treated, and who, it was believed, were +able to survive the journey by hospital train to one of the base +hospitals on the coast. It is a very grave case indeed that is permitted +to remain for even a single night in the hospitals in Bailleul, for +Bailleul is but a clearinghouse for the mangled, and its hospitals must +always be ready to receive that unceasing scarlet stream which, day and +night, night and day, comes pouring in, pouring in, pouring in. + +[Illustration: + + _From a photograph by Meurisse._ + + “The paths of glory lead——” +] + +Those of the wounded in the evacuation ward who were conscious were for +the most part cheerful—as cheerful, that is, as men can be whose bodies +have been ripped and drilled and torn by shot and shell, who have been +strangled by poisonous gases, who are aflame with fever, who are faint +with loss of blood, and who have before them a railway journey of many +hours. This railway journey to the coast is as comfortable as human +ingenuity can make it, the trains with their white enamelled interiors +and swinging berths being literally hospitals on wheels, but to these +weakened, wearied men it is a terribly trying experience, even though +they know that at the end of it clean beds and cool pillows and +soft-footed, low-voiced nurses await them. + +The men awaiting transfer still wore the clothes in which they had been +carried from the trenches, though in many cases they had been slashed +open so that the surgeons might get at the wounds. They were plastered +with mud. Many of them had had no opportunity to bathe for weeks and +were crawling with vermin. Their underclothes were in such loathsome +condition that when they were removed they fell apart. The canvas +stretchers on which they lay so patiently and uncomplainingly were +splotched with what looked like wet brown paint, and on this horrid +sticky substance were swarms of hungry flies. The air was heavy with the +mingled smells of antiseptics, perspiration, and fresh blood. In that +room was to be found every form of wound which can be inflicted by the +most hellish weapons the brain of man has been able to devise. The +wounded were covered with coarse woollen blankets, but some of the men +in their torment had kicked their coverings off, and I saw things which +I have no words to tell about and which I wish with all my heart that I +could forget. There were men whose legs had been amputated up to the +thighs; whose arms had been cut off at the shoulder; there were men who +had lost their eyesight and all their days must grope in darkness; and +there were other men who had been ripped open from waist to neck so that +they looked like the carcasses that hang in front of butcher-shops; +while most horrible of all were those who, without a wound on them, +raved and cackled with insane mirth at the horror of the things that +they had seen. + +We went out from that place of unforgettable horrors into the sunlight +and the clean fresh air again. It was late afternoon, the birds were +singing, a gentle breeze was whispering in the tree-tops; but from over +there, on the other side of that green and smiling valley, still came +the unceasing clatter of that grim harvester garnering its crop of +death. On the ground, in the shade of a spreading chestnut-tree, had +been laid a stretcher, and on it was still another of those silent, +bandaged forms. “He is badly wounded,” said the surgeon, following the +direction of my glance, “fairly shot to pieces. But he begged us to +leave him in the open air. We are sending him on by train to Boulogne +to-night, and then by hospital ship to England.” I walked over and +looked down at him. He could not have been more than eighteen—just such +a clean-limbed, open-faced lad as any girl would have been proud to call +sweetheart, any mother son. He was lying very still. About his face +there was a peculiar grayish pallor, and on his half-parted lips had +gathered many flies. I beckoned to the doctor. “He’s not going to +England,” I whispered; “he’s going to sleep in France.” The surgeon, +after a quick glance, gave an order, and two bearers came and lifted the +stretcher, and bore it to a ramshackle outhouse which they call the +mortuary, and gently set it down at the end of a long row of other +silent forms. + +As I passed out through the gateway in the wall which surrounds Hospital +Number Eight, I saw a group of children playing in the street. “Come +on,” shrilled one of them, “let’s play soldier!” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + BOOKS BY E. ALEXANDER POWELL + + PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS + + + THE LAST FRONTIER: THE WHITE MAN’S WAR FOR CIVILIZATION IN + AFRICA. Illustrated. 8vo _net_ $1.50 + + GENTLEMEN ROVERS. Illustrated. 8vo _net_ $1.50 + + THE END OF THE TRAIL. Illustrated. 8vo _net_ $3.00 + + FIGHTING IN FLANDERS. Illustrated. 12mo _net_ $1.00 + + THE ROAD TO GLORY. Illustrated. 8vo _net_ $1.50 + + VIVE LA FRANCE! Illustrated. 12mo _net_ $1.00 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77321 *** |