Now It Can Be Told Part 52

Once when a big sh.e.l.l burst very close I looked at Mademoiselle Suzanne behind the desk. She did not show fear by the flicker of an eyelid, though officers in the room were startled.

"Vous n'avez pas peur, meme de la mort?" ("You are not afraid, even of death?") I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Je m'en fiche de la mort!" ("I don't care a d.a.m.n for death!")

The Hotel du Sauvage was a pleasant rendezvous, but barred for a time to young gentlemen of the air force, who lingered too long there sometimes and were noisy. It was barred to all officers for certain hours of the day without special permits from the A.P.M., who made trouble in granting them. Three Scottish officers rode down into Ca.s.sel. They had ridden down from h.e.l.l-fire to sit at a table covered with a table-cloth, and drink tea in a room again. They were refused permission, and their language to me about the A.P.M. was unprintable. They desired his blood and bones. They raised their hands to heaven to send down wrath upon all skunks dwelling behind the lines in luxury and denying any kind of comfort to fighting-men. They included the P.M. in their rage, and all staff-officers from Ca.s.sel to Boulogne, and away back to Whitehall.

To cheer up the war correspondents' mess when we a.s.sembled at night after miserable days, and when in the darkness gusts of wind and rain clouted the window-panes and distant gun-fire rumbled, or bombs were falling in near villages, telling of peasant girls killed in their beds and soldiers mangled in wayside burns, we had the company sometimes of an officer (a black-eyed fellow) who told merry little tales of executions and prison happenings at which he a.s.sisted in the course of his duty.

I remember one about a young officer sentenced to death for cowardice (there were quite a number of lads like that). He was blindfolded by a gas-mask fixed on the wrong way round, and pinioned, and tied to a post. The firing-party lost their nerve and their shots were wild. The boy was only wounded, and screamed in his mask, and the A.P.M. had to shoot him twice with his revolver before he died.

That was only one of many little anecdotes told by a gentleman who seemed to like his job and to enjoy these reminiscences.

The battles of Flanders ended with the capture of Pa.s.schendaele by the Canadians, and that year's fighting on the western front cost us 800,000 casualties, and though we had dealt the enemy heavy blows from which he reeled back, the drain upon our man-power was too great for what was to happen next year, and our men were too sorely tried. For the first time the British army lost its spirit of optimism, and there was a sense of deadly depression among many officers and men with whom I came in touch. They saw no ending of the war, and nothing except continuous slaughter, such as that in Flanders.

Our men were not mythical heroes exalted by the G.o.ds above the limitations of nature. They were human beings, with wives and children, or mothers and sisters, whom they desired to see again. They hated this war. Death had no allurement for them, except now and then as an escape from intolerable life under fire. They would have been superhuman if they had not revolted in spirit, though still faithful to discipline, against the foul conditions of warfare in the swamps, where, in spite of all they had, in that four months or so of fighting, achieved the greatest effort of human courage and endurance ever done by ma.s.ses of men in obedience to command.

VII

At the end of those battles happened that surprising, audacious adventure in the Cambrai salient organized by the Third Army under General Byng, when on November 20, 1917, squadrons of tanks broke through the Hindenburg line, and infantry streamed through the breach, captured hundreds of guns, ten thousand prisoners, many villages and ridges, and gave a monstrous shock to the German High Command.

The audacity of the adventure lay in the poverty of manpower with which it was attempted and supported. The divisions engaged had all been through the grinding mill of Flanders and were tired men. The artillery was made up largely of those batteries which had been axle-deep in Flanders mud. It was clearly understood by General Byng and Gen. Louis Vaughan, his chief of staff, that Sir Douglas Haig could not afford to give them strong reserves to exploit any success they might gain by surprise or to defend the captured ground against certain counter-attacks. It was to be a surprise a.s.sault by tanks and infantry, with the hope that the cavalry corps might find its gap at last and sweep round Cambrai before the enemy could recover and reorganize. With other correspondents I saw Gen. Louis Vaughan, who expounded the scheme before it was launched. That charming man, with his professional manner, sweetness of speech, gentleness of voice and gesture, like an Oxford don a.n.a.lyzing the war correspondence of Xenophon, made no secret of the economy with which the operation would have to be made.

"We must cut our coat according to our cloth," he said.

The whole idea was to seize only as much ground as the initial success could gain, and not to press if resistance became strong. It was a gamble, with a chance of luck. The cavalry might do nothing, or score a big triumph. All depended on the surprise of the tanks. If they were discovered before the a.s.sault the whole adventure would fail at the start.

They had been brought up secretly by night, four hundred of them, with supply-tanks for ammunition and petrol lying hidden in woods by day. So the artillery and infantry and cavalry had been concentrated also. The enemy believed himself secure in his Hindenburg line, which had been constructed behind broad hedges of barbed wire with such wide ditches that no tank could cross.

How, then, would tanks cross? Ah, that was a little trick which would surprise the Germans mightily. Each tank would advance through the early morning mists with a bridge on its nose. The bridge was really a big "fascine," or bundle of f.a.gots about a yard and a half in diameter, and controlled by a lever and chain from the interior of the tank. Having plowed through the barbed wire and reached the edge of the Hindenburg trench, the tank would drop the fascine into the center of the ditch, stretch out its long body, reach the bundle of f.a.gots, find support on it, and use it as a stepping-stone to the other side. Very simple in idea and effect!

So it happened, and the mists favored us, as I saw on the morning of the attack at a little place called Beaumont, near Villers Pluich. The enemy was completely surprised, caught at breakfast in his dugouts, rounded up in batches. The tanks went away through the breach they had made, with the infantry swarming round them, and captured Havrincourt, Hermies, Ribecourt, Gouzeaucourt, Masnieres, and Marcoing, and a wide stretch of country forming a cup or amphitheater below a series of low ridges south of Bourlon Wood, where the ground rose again.

It was a spectacular battle, such as we had never seen before, and during the following days, when our troops worked up to Bourlon Wood and through the intervening villages of Anneux, Graincourt, Containg, and Fontaine Notre Dame, I saw tanks going into action and cruising about like lands.h.i.+ps, with cavalry patrols riding over open ground, airplanes flying low over German territory, and ma.s.ses of infantry beyond all trench-lines, and streams of liberated civilians trudging through the lines from Marcoing. The enemy was demoralized the first day and made only slight resistance. The chief losses of the tanks were due to a German major of artillery who served his own guns and knocked out a baker's dozen of these monsters as they crawled over the Flesquieres Ridge. I saw them lying there with the blood and bones of their pilots and crews within their steel walls. It was a Highland soldier who checked the German major.

"You're a brave man," he said, "but you've got to dee," and ran him through the stomach with his bayonet. It was this check at the Flesquieres Ridge, followed by the breaking of a bridge at Masnieres under the weight of a tank and the holding of a trench-line called the Rumilly switch by a battalion of Germans who raced to it from Cambrai before our men could capture it, which thwarted the plans of the cavalry. Our cavalry generals were in consultation at their headquarters, too far back to take immediate advantage of the situation. They waited for the capture of the Rumilly switch, and held up ma.s.ses of cavalry whom I saw riding through the village of Ribecourt, with excitement and exaltation, because they thought that at last their chance had come. Finally orders were given to cancel all previous plans to advance. Only one squadron, belonging to the Canadian Fort Garry Horse in General Seely's division, failed to receive the order (their colonel rode after them, but his horse slipped and fell before he caught them up), and it was their day of heroic folly. They rode fast and made their way through a gap in the wire cut by the troopers, and came under rifle and machine-gun fire, which wounded the captain and several men.

The command was carried on by a young lieutenant, who rode with his men until they reached the camouflaged road southeast of the village of Rumilly, where they went through in sections under the fire of the enemy hidden in the banks. Here they came up against a battery of field-guns, one of which fired point-blank at them. They charged the battery, putting the guns out of action and killing some of the gunners. Those who were not destroyed surrendered, and the prisoners were left to be sent back by the supports. The squadron then dealt with the German infantry in the neighborhood. Some of them fled, while some were killed or surrendered. All these operations were done at a gallop under fire from flanking blockhouses. The squadron then slowed down to a walk and took up a position in a sunken road one kilometer east of Rumilly. Darkness crept down upon them, and gradually they were surrounded by German infantry with machine-guns, so that they were in great danger of capture or destruction. Only five of their horses remained unhit, and the lieutenant in command decided that they must endeavor to cut their way through and get back. The horses were stampeded in the direction of the enemy in order to draw the machine-gun fire, and while these riderless horses galloped wildly out of one end of the sunken road, the officer and his surviving troopers escaped from the other end. On the way back they encountered four bodies of the enemy, whom they attacked and routed. On one occasion their escape was due to the cunning of another young lieutenant, who spoke German and held conversations with the enemy in the darkness, deceiving them as to the ident.i.ty of his force until they were able to take the German troops by surprise and hack a way through. This lieutenant was. .h.i.t in the face by a bullet, and when he arrived back in Masnieres with his men in advance of the rear-guard he was only able to make his report before falling in a state of collapse.

Other small bodies of cavalry-among them the 8th Dragoons and 5th Hussars-had wild, heroic adventures in the Cambrai salient, where they rode under blasts of machine-gun fire and rounded up prisoners in the ruined villages of Noyelles and Fontaine Notre Dame. Some of them went into the Folie Wood nearby and met seven German officers strolling about the glades, as though no war was on. They took them prisoners, but had to release some of them later, as they could not be bothered with them. Later they came across six ammunition-wagons and destroyed them. In the heart of the wood was one of the German divisional headquarters, and one of our cavalry officers dismounted and approached the cottage stealthily, and looked through the windows. Inside was a party of German officers seated at a table, with beer mugs in front of them, apparently unconscious of any danger near them. Our officer fired his revolver through the windows and then, like a schoolboy who has thrown a stone, ran away as hard as he could and joined his troop. Youthful folly of gallant hearts!

After the enemy's surprise his resistance stiffened and he held the village of Fontaine Notre Dame, and Bourlon Wood, on the hill above, with strong rear-guards. Very quickly, too, he brought new batteries into action, and things became unpleasant in fields and villages where our men, as I saw them on those days, hunted around for souvenirs in German dugouts and found field-gla.s.ses, automatic pistols, and other good booty.

It seemed to me that the plan as outlined by Gen. Louis Vaughan, not to exploit success farther than justified by the initial surprise, was abandoned for a time. A brigade of Guards was put in to attack Fontaine Notre Dame, and suffered heavily from machine-gun fire before taking it. The 62d (Yorks.h.i.+re) Division lost many good men in Bourlon Village and Bourlon Wood, into which the enemy poured gas-sh.e.l.ls and high explosives.

Then on November 30th the Germans, under the direction of General von Marwitz, came back upon us with a tiger's pounce, in a surprise attack which we ought to have antic.i.p.ated. I happened to be on the way to Gouzeaucourt early that morning, and, going through the village of Fins, next to it, I saw men straggling back in some disorder, and gun-teams wedged in a dense traffic moving in what seemed to me the wrong direction.

"I don't know what to do," said a young gunner officer. "My battery has been captured and I can't get into touch with the brigade."

"What has happened?" I asked.

He looked at me in surprise.

"Don't you know? The enemy has broken through."

"Broken through where?"

The gunner officer pointed down the road.

"At the present moment he's in Gouzeaucourt."

I went northward, and saw that places like Hermies and Havrincourt, which had been peaceful spots for a few days, were under heavy fire. Bourlon Wood beyond was a fiery furnace. h.e.l.l had broken out again and things looked bad. There was a general packing up of dumps and field hospitals and heavy batteries. In Gouzeaucourt and other places our divisional and brigade headquarters were caught napping. Officers were in their pajamas or in their baths when they heard the snap of machine-gun bullets. I saw the Guards go forward to Gouzeaucourt for a counter-attack. They came along munching apples and whistling, as though on peace maneuvers. Next day, after they had gained back Gouzeaucourt, I saw many of them wounded, lying under tarpaulins, all dirty and b.l.o.o.d.y.

The Germans had adopted our own way of attack. They had a.s.sembled ma.s.ses of troops secretly, moving them forward by night under the cover of woods, so that our air scouts saw no movement by day. Our line was weakly held along the front-the 55th Division, thinned out by losses, was holding a line of thirteen thousand yards, three times as much as any troops can hold, in safety-and the German storm-troops, after a short, terrific bombardment, broke through to a distance of five miles.

Our tired men, who had gained the first victory, fought heroic rear-guard actions back from Masnieres and Marcoing, and back from Bourlon Wood on the northern side of the salient. They made the enemy pay a high price in blood for the success of his counter-attack, but we lost many thousands of brave fellows, and the joy bells which had rung in London on November 20th became sad and ironical music in the hearts of our disappointed people.

So ended 1917, our black year; and in the spring of 1918, after all the losses of that year, our armies on the western front were threatened by the greatest menace that had ever drawn near to them, and the British Empire was in jeopardy.

VIII

In the autumn of 1917 the Italian disaster of Caporetto had happened, and Sir Herbert Plumer, with his chief of staff, Sir John Harington, and many staff-officers of the Second Army, had, as I have told, been sent to Italy with some of our best divisions, so weakening Sir Douglas Haig's command. At that very time, also, after the b.l.o.o.d.y losses in Flanders, the French government and General Headquarters brought severe pressure upon the British War Council to take over a greater length of line in France, in order to release some of the older cla.s.ses of the French army who had been under arms since 1914. We yielded to that pressure and Sir Douglas Haig extended his lines north and south of St.-Quentin, where the Fifth Army, under General Gough, was intrusted with the defense.

I went over all that new ground of ours, out from Noyon to Chaulny and Barisis and the floods of the Oise by La Fere; out from Ham to Holmon Forest and Francilly and the Epine de Dullon, and the Fort de Liez by St.-Quentin; and from Peronne to Hargicourt and Jeancourt and La Verguier. It was a pleasant country, with living trees and green fields not annihilated by sh.e.l.l-fire, though with the naked eye I could see the scarred walls of St.-Quentin cathedral, and the villages near the frontlines had been damaged in the usual way. It was dead quiet there for miles, except for short bursts of hara.s.sing fire now and then, and odd sh.e.l.ls here and there, and bursts of black shrapnel in the blue sky of mild days.

"Paradise, after Flanders!" said our men, but I knew that there was a great movement of troops westward from Russia, and wondered how long this paradise would last.

I looked about for trench systems, support lines, and did not see them, and wondered what our defense would be if the enemy attacked here in great strength. Our army seemed wonderfully thinned out. There were few men to be seen in our outpost line or in reserve. It was all strangely quiet. Alarmingly quiet.

Yet, pleasant for the time being. I had a brother commanding a battery along the railway line south of St.-Quentin. I went to see him, and we had a picnic meal on a little hill staring straight toward St.-Quentin cathedral. One of his junior officers set the gramophone going. The colonel of the artillery brigade came jogging up on his horse and called out, "Fine morning, and a pretty spot!" The infantry divisions were cheerful. "Like a rest-cure!" they said. They had sports almost within sight of the German lines. I saw a boxing-match in an Irish battalion, and while two fellows hammered each other I glanced away from them to winding, wavy lines of chalk on the opposite hillsides, and wondered what was happening behind them in that quietude.

"What do you think about this German offensive?" I asked the general of a London division (General Gorringe of the 47th) standing on a wagon and watching a tug-of-war. From that place also we could see the German positions.

"G.H.Q. has got the wind-up," he said. "It is all bluff."

General Hall, temporarily commanding the Irish Division, was of the same opinion, and took some pains to explain the folly of thinking the Germans would attack. Yet day after day, week after week, the Intelligence reports were full of evidence of immense movements of troops westward, of intensive training of German divisions in back areas, of new hospitals, ammunition-dumps, airplanes, battery positions. There was overwhelming evidence as to the enemy's intentions. Intelligence officers took me on one side and said: "England ought to know. The people ought to be prepared. All this is very serious. We shall be 'up against it.'" G.H.Q. was convinced. On February 23d the war correspondents published articles summarizing the evidence, pointing out the gravity of the menace, and they were pa.s.sed by the censors.h.i.+p. But England was not scared. Dances were in full swing in London. Little ladies laughed as usual, light-hearted. Flanders had made no difference to national optimism, though the hospitals were crowded with blind and maimed and sh.e.l.l-shocked.

"I am skeptical of the German offensive" said Mr. Bonar Law.