Winning a Cause Part 19

BOMBING METZ

ADAPTED FROM THE ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY RAOUL LUFBERY

In January, 1916, I belonged to the Bombing Escadrille 102. One fair day a little after one o'clock, we were ordered to get ready for an expedition. Naturally, we were curious about where we were to go, but it is not usual to name the objective until ready to leave. From the amount of gasoline we were ordered to carry, we all guessed it would be the railroad station at Metz.

Forty planes were to take part in the raid, twenty from my Escadrille 102 and twenty from Escadrille 101, led by brave Commander Roisin.

At one end of the aviation field, the planes stand in a row facing the wind. The engines are carefully gone over by the machinists, the gunners examine the guns, the bombs are placed in their racks. I carry six bombs, others take eight, nine, and even ten, depending upon the size and condition of the airplane and its engine.

We stand ready and wait for the final orders. We are given maps on which the route we are to take is indicated. We all set our watches by that of the commander of the expedition. Fifty minutes after the first plane leaves, we must all be over Nichola-du-port and at an alt.i.tude of at least 6000 feet. From there, following the signals which would be given us by the commander, we were to go on; or return to the aviation field, if the weather, the wind, the clouds, or poor grouping of our machines made it necessary.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The heroic American ace, Raoul Lufbery, wearing his well-earned decorations just after an official presentation. Behind him stands a member of the French Cabinet.]

An engine at the end of the line on our left is purring. The plane starts and rolls along the ground and then takes to the air. A second follows it, and then a third. My machine is number seven. I ask my observer, Allard, if he is ready. He answers, "Yes." I start the engine, give it all the gas, like the others roll along the ground for a few seconds, and then take the air.

Just before leaving, Allard informs me that he will try to get a little sleep while I am reaching the proper elevation. He says he will be ready to study the map when we get beyond our trenches. As he can be of no service whatever to me in helping the machine rise, I see no reason to object to his going to sleep if he desires. I turn around and look at him several times while we are climbing up. His eyes are closed, but I doubt his sleeping. He surely has a perfect right to, for very soon he will need all his coolness and strength.

2:20 P.M. I am at the place named, exactly on time. I recognize the commander's machine by the little red flags at the ends of the wings.

I get the signal to go on, and I proceed with the group.

After the trenches are crossed, the faster planes make a few spirals to allow the slower ones to catch up. The group is now more compact and we go on with the shrapnel bursting now and then around us. This troubles no one of us, however, for only by luck or chance would we be injured. A few or even many holes in the fabric do little or no harm.

I watch the country as it spreads out beneath my feet. To my right is the Seille River, its banks washed away by floods so that it looks like a great necklace of ponds. To my left is the Moselle and the ca.n.a.l beside it. They look like two beautiful silver lines which disappear at the north in a cloud of mist. And now I see that that which I call a cloud of mist is only the smoke from the chimneys of Metz.

As I get nearer, I can see through this smoke the houses and churches and the long buildings with red tile roofs, which are probably the barracks. A circle of green surrounds the whole. These are the forts; from above they seem quite harmless.

In a few minutes I shall be over my objective, the small freight house.

The machines in the lead make a half turn so that those behind may overtake them. As my machine is a slow one, I make directly for my objective. I am the first to arrive.

The enemy must have expected us, for many of their machines are in the air moving around at different alt.i.tudes ready to attack us. One of them is coming to welcome me. I turn quickly to see if Allard, the observer, is wide awake. His machine gun is pointed at the enemy, his fingers are on the trigger. Good. All is ready.

At 150 yards, the boche biplane suddenly turns its right flank toward us to allow the gunner to fire. Today such a turn is not necessary, for such machines carry two guns, one fixed and one behind mounted on a pivot so as to fire in any direction. I keep my eyes on the enemy.

The black iron crosses are very plainly seen on the rudder and the fuselage. The fight begins.

The machine guns spit fire, and the boche dives, seeming to have had enough. I do not follow him, for the way ahead is clear, and I have an important duty to perform. Through the opening in the floor at my feet I see the railroad junction, some trains moving and others standing. I can also see the depots for the freight and munitions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A two-pa.s.senger tractor biplane flying near the seash.o.r.e. The oblong black speck directly under the airplane is an aerial bomb, with guiding fins like a torpedo's, which the bomber, who is sitting in the rear seat, has just released from the rack under him.

On most planes a machine gun on a swivel is mounted behind the man in the rear seat. If the plane is a single-seater, the machine gun is stationary, mounted in front of the pilot, and "synchronized," or timed, to fire so that the bullets pa.s.s between the blades of the propeller, which is making about 1600 revolutions a minute. In the lower left-hand corner can be seen the wing tip of the plane from which the photograph was taken.]

Allard touches my left shoulder and signs for me to keep straight ahead. Another touch and I know he has dropped the bombs. It is done, and I have nothing to do but to turn about and make for home.

But now the boches seem to be thick about us. We must be very careful.

But in spite of all, we are surprised and attacked by a Fokker fighting plane. He fires a volley into us and is gone before we can get a shot at him. Two or three short "spats" tell me that his aim was good and our machine has been hit.

The engine is certainly not injured for it roars on. Allard examines the gasoline tank, but it does not seem to have been struck.

The wind is blowing from the north and helps us get home quickly. In a short time, we are back above our trenches. I laugh aloud. Why, I do not know. I look around and see that Allard is also laughing. We are beaming and happy. Now that we are out of danger, we want to talk about it, but the roar of the engine drowns our voices. We have to be patient and wait until we land.

Slowing down as we descend, the plane glides sweetly over the Meurthe valley. We volplane gently toward the earth. Little by little things begin to look real. The beautiful green moss changes into forests, the black ribbons into railways, and the white ribbons into highways. What I had thought from a distance to be a huge curtain of black smoke, becomes the beautiful city of Nancy. We are only 800 feet above the field. One more spiral and we land.

I examine the machine at once. The fabric of the planes is full of bullet holes.

Many of the planes that went with us have not returned. We are told that some of them will not, for they were seen dropping into enemy territory.

But one by one, the white specks in the sky come in. At last all of our squadron have returned and the grave and worried look leaves the commander's face. He is indeed pleased and does not hide it.

But alas! It is not the same with all the squadrons. There is still time, of course, to find that we are mistaken. The missing planes may appear, but it is to be feared that this night at some of the messes, black bread will be eaten.

The British parliament recognized the brave work of the aviators in the following words:

"Far above the squalor and the mud, so high up in the firmament as to be invisible from the earth, they fight the eternal issues of right and wrong. Every fight is a romance, every report is an epic. They are the knighthood of this war. Without fear and without reproach, they have fought, for they have brought back the legendary days of chivalry, not merely by the daring of their exploits, but by the n.o.bility of their spirit."

THE UNSPEAKABLE TURK

Although the great issues of the war were decided, and victory was finally won, by the fighting on the western front, the British campaigns in Palestine and in Mesopotamia were in no small way responsible for the final result. The fighting in this theater of the war was against the Turkish allies of Germany. The Turks were originally one of the Tartar tribes, dwelling in Asia, east of the Caspian Sea. Many of these tribes pa.s.sed over into Europe, where they are now known as the Lapps, the Finns, the Bulgarians, and the Magyars or Hungarians. More of these Tartar tribes migrated to Asia Minor and adopted the Mohammedan religion. The Turks were one of these. They served first as hired soldiers, but were finally united by their leader, Seljuk, into a strong people called the Seljukian Turks. Their power grew rapidly and soon they captured the city of Jerusalem. They also invaded Europe and captured Constantinople, in 1453, where they have ever since been a menace to civilization.

Less than a year after William II became Emperor of Germany, the imperial yacht, the _Hohenzollern_, steamed through the Mediterranean into the narrow Dardanelles and, saluted by forts on both sh.o.r.es, pa.s.sed on to Constantinople, the capital of the Moslem Kalif and the Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid II.

The head of the Catholic church is called the Pope; the head of the Eastern church, the Patriarch; and the head of the Mohammedan, the Kalif. Just as Catholics, no matter of what country they are citizens, recognize the authority of the Pope in matters of religion, so Mohammedans, with few exceptions, are guided in these matters by the Kalif.

William II was accompanied by the Empress, his wife, and this was their first ceremonial visit to any of the crowned heads of Europe. Why did the German Kaiser select Abdul Hamid for this high honor?

The Germans were received with great joy. The entire city of Constantinople was decorated with the gorgeous display that only an eastern city makes. The visit was evidently greatly appreciated by the Mohammedan Kalif and the Sultan of Turkey; and his people, at his orders doubtless, made the Germans realize how proud they were at being thus honored by the Kaiser.

What attraction brought these two strange monarchs together? And why was the visit repeated nine years later in 1898? Did William II feel in 1889 that Abdul Hamid was a man after his own heart, more nearly so than any other ruler in Europe? And was he sure of it in 1898?

Certain it is, that while the greetings were cordial in 1889, they were much more so in 1898; for on this second visit, the Kaiser kissed the Kalif on both cheeks and called him "brother." Then after having made arrangements for the German building and the German control of the Berlin to Bagdad railway, William II went on to Jerusalem. There he stood in homage before the Holy Sepulcher, and afterward before the manger in Bethlehem. A few days later in Damascus, a chief Moslem city, he spoke to the Mohammedan officers then ruling the Holy Land, and in the course of his speech said, "His Majesty, the Sultan Abdul Hamid, and the three hundred million Mohammedans who reverence him as Kalif may be sure that at all times the German Kaiser will be their friend."

Abdul Hamid was a Turk, a Mohammedan, and a Sultan. As a Turk, he believed all other people were no better than animals; and that it was no more of a sin to kill a man, woman, or child of another race than it was to kill a dog or a rat. As a Mohammedan, he believed that killing a Christian gained merit in the eyes of Allah (which is the Mohammedan word for G.o.d). And as a Sultan, he remembered how he had lost Serbia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Roumania. These Balkan states together with Bosnia were formerly a part of Turkey in Europe. Most of their inhabitants were Christians and were more progressive than the Turks.

As they advanced in education and wealth, they revolted and gained their independence in 1878. As Turkey lost these, the Sultan feared he might lose Armenia, his last remaining Christian province. This was Turkey's Armenian problem. The Sultan attempted to solve it in true Turkish manner,--adopted later by the Huns in Belgium, but never carried out so relentlessly as in Armenia.

Between the two visits of Kaiser William II, Abdul Hamid had been able to put into effect some of the ideas in which he believed. First he made a plan to kill about two million of his subjects living in Armenia. Here it was that Noah is said to have landed with the ark on Mt. Ararat after the flood had partially subsided, and here was a people called Armenians and a country called Armenia long before the time of Christ. But the Turk said in the days of Abdul Hamid, "There is no such country as Armenia," and the Armenians were ordered never to use the word or to speak of their country for it had disappeared, and they now lived in a Turkish province. Abdul Hamid determined the people should also disappear.

It seems almost impossible for Americans in the twentieth century to believe that such a story can be true. They can easily believe it of a thousand years ago, but not of twenty-five years ago. Yet it is beyond doubt. Henry Morgenthau, American Amba.s.sador to Turkey during the first two years of the World War, has written the story of the attempts by the Turkish government to ma.s.sacre the Armenian Christians in 1895 and in 1915.

He writes: "Abdul Hamid apparently thought there was only one way of ridding Turkey of the Armenian problem--and that was to rid her of the Armenians. The physical destruction of two million men, women, and children by ma.s.sacres, organized and directed by the state, seemed to be the one sure way of forestalling the further disruption of the Turkish Empire. . . . Yet Abdul Hamid was not able to accomplish his full purpose. Had he had his will, he would have ma.s.sacred the whole nation in one hideous orgy."

In 1895-96 nearly two hundred thousand Armenians were put to death on one pretext or another, usually in the most horrible ways, and in many cases after the most terrible torture. The entire race would have been exterminated if Christian Europe and America had not risen in protest.

But no word of protest came from Abdul Hamid's good friend, William II.

Instead, the Kaiser visited, within two years after these terrible ma.s.sacres, the monarch who was now called throughout Europe, "Abdul the d.a.m.ned," and kissing him on both cheeks, called him brother!

Why did the Kaiser love the Sultan and Kalif so greatly? Perhaps because they were kindred spirits. It certainly could not be because of Abdul Hamid's knowledge and intellectual power, for he was very ignorant, and not at all the type of mind that would impress a German.

He was very superst.i.tious and suspicious, always fearing attempts upon his life. A lot of books on chemistry, imported by an American missionary, were seized by the Turkish customs officers because they claimed they were intended to injure the Sultan. When the missionary asked for an explanation, the officer opened one of the books and pointed to the expression H[subscript 2]O, which occurred very frequently in it. Now H[subscript 2]O is the chemical symbol for water and means that two atoms of hydrogen unite with one atom of oxygen to form one molecule of water. However, Abdul Hamid, or his officers, believed that H stood for Hamid, 2 for II, and O for nothing, and that H[subscript 2]O was a secret way of saying to the Christians in Turkey, "Abdul Hamid II is nothing."