World's War Events Volume I Part 14

On the main road from Nieuport to Furnes, which we followed a short distance, there were dozens of ambulances going to the rear and a long column of infantry going forward. Headed toward the rear there were also many wounded men on foot. They had been dressed at Nieuport, but there were not enough ambulances to take them all away. One who was walking slowly and painfully told me he had a bullet in his back.

During the afternoon the Schneiders I had seen had evidently been placed among the sand dunes, and they were now bombarding the German lines over our heads. Crossing over the sand dunes to the beach, we pa.s.sed under two batteries, though we did not see them. We could tell they were French, though, by the rapidity of the fire. The French seem to be able to fire their guns several times as fast as the Germans or the English.

A cl.u.s.ter of houses belonging to shrimp fishermen was right under these batteries, where they were sure to get some of the return fire. But we noticed there were lights in every one of the cottages. Inside were the same fishermen who were so apathetic about the fight off-sh.o.r.e.

[Sidenote: Battle of the sand dunes.]

[Sidenote: Red flas.h.i.+ng of the contact sh.e.l.ls.]

The view from the sand dunes was what the war artists on English ill.u.s.trated weeklies try so hard to show. The French batteries were using shrapnel on the German trenches, the shrapnel leaving puffs of white smoke in long, uneven lines; and the Germans were keeping up their steady pounding of contact sh.e.l.ls, with a short red flash after each explosion. The firing of the guns on both sides gave the effect of continuous summer lightning.

Into the panorama the fleet off-sh.o.r.e kept up a new attack on the German batteries in the sand dunes just beyond Nieuport-les-Bains. As it was dark now we could see where they were only by the streaks of fire from their guns. These flashes came and went like the strokes of a dagger, as if they were stabbing the dark.

[Sidenote: French soldiers.]

We went back along the beach to avoid being questioned, turning around constantly to watch the fleet. At c.o.xyde a whole company of French soldiers was standing along the edge of the water, jumping back in surprise when the little waves advanced on them. They told us they were from the centre of France and had never seen salt water before.

The sh.o.r.e there is lined with new villas made of light colored bricks.

One of these had been dynamited, because it belonged to a German and was suspected of having a concrete floor for siege guns. I had heard of cases of this kind before, but I had never had an opportunity to examine one.

[Sidenote: Concrete foundations.]

My private thought was that the villa had probably been built by a German with a pa.s.sion for solidity, but, examining it under a half-full moon, I could see the foundations were brick walls two feet thick covered with mosaic backed by reinforced concrete about a foot thick. It seemed like something more than Teutonic thoroughness.

A little later in La Panne I was shown a concrete tennis court belonging to a German which had been punched full of holes. It was in no place thick enough, however, to give cause for suspicion that its real purpose was in any way sinister.

By the time we regained La Panne I was hardly able to walk as I had been going hard all day, a good deal of the way through soft sand. But even if I had been much more tired I would have sensed the atmosphere of that town. To me the little seaside village, built for summer gayety, had more of the romance of war in it than any place I have seen.

The half dozen summer hotels and all the villas were filled with the mothers, wives, and children of the Belgian soldiers whose firing line I had just left. Their homes had been in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent. Now they were in the last little town in Belgium. To some their soldiers had already returned, and they were dining as merrily as if to-morrow did not hold out a reasonable likelihood of being killed. At the doors of the hotels and on the street were many others waiting, and, as the street had filled up with another French artillery division bivouacked for a few hours, they could not see their men folk until they were close at hand.

[Sidenote: Refugees at La Panne.]

Now and then as we pa.s.sed we could hear little gasps of happiness. For some, of course, there were disappointment and bad news. But they must have carried their sorrow to their chambers, as La Panne was all gayety.

A comment on the Belgian soldiers made at the beginning of the war occurred to me: "They shoot the enemy all day; at night they come home and kiss mother. In the morning they kiss mother again and go back to shoot some more."

They certainly showed themselves capable of shaking off the horrors of war before their women folk. To see them there in La Panne that night you might have thought it was all a sham battle if it had not been for a conviction of reality that would not shake off.

It was nearly ten o'clock, now but Belgian soldiers relieved from the firing line and off duty for the night were still coming into La Panne.

In the Hotel Des Arcades, which incidentally, has no arcades, the bar and the dining room were full of soldiers. Officers and their men were eating and drinking together in the pleasant democratic way they have in the Belgian army. Room was made for us at the long central table in the dining room, and all at the table were solicitous to see that we were at once given plenty to eat and drink. Several of the fifteen men at the table had hands or heads bandaged, but that did not seem to detract from their gayety.

[Sidenote: Spirit of the Belgian soldiers.]

A joke was being told as we sat down, and every one was taking a lively interest in it, the narrator was a bearded man of fifty, and he was telling to the delight of the others how his son had once got the better of him in Brussels before the war. There were other stories of matters equally foreign to war. The private on one side of me told me he was the manager for Belgium of an American typewriter. The lieutenant on the other side was in ordinary times an insurance agent. All the men there were in business and talked and acted like a company of young American business men.

My first hint that these men had been through any trying experience was the apology offered by a new-comer for being late. He entered rather gravely and said something about having to take the word to his sister of his brother-in-law's death. The whole company turned grave then and conversation from being general was carried on for a few minutes between those near together. I asked the typewriter agent, to fill an awkward pause, whether they had seen much action, and he told me their story.

[Sidenote: The fight on the road to Nieuport.]

This was a crack mitrailleuse company of Brussels. It had been in the fight from Liege back to Malines and from Antwerp back to Dixmude and Nieuport. Three days before it was told to hold a road into Nieuport. It was a road the Germans must take, if they were to advance, but the Belgians would not give way. They were too clever with their rapid-fire guns to be rushed, and the German bayonet charges only blocked the road with their dead. Again and again the gray line came on, but each time it crumpled before their fire. They were attacked every hour of the day or night, but they were always ready. Finally the Germans got their range and dropped sh.e.l.l after sh.e.l.l right among them.

"They blew us all to pieces," the story went on in a low tone at my elbow. "Those sh.e.l.ls don't leave many wounded, but they littered the place with arms and legs. They got a good many of us, but they did not seem to be able to get our guns."

I asked what their loss had been, and he looked around the table, counting, before he answered.

"Let's see, now," he said. "We lost some at Dixmude first. I think there were just seventy last Monday." This was Thursday. "We had a pretty bad time," he ended; looking down.

"How many are there now?" I asked, and he answered with a sweep of his hand around the table. "Five or six more," he said. There were eighteen of them at table now. That meant twenty-three or twenty-four--out of seventy.

"The dogs suffered, too," he added. "We've only got eight out of twenty, and I just heard the dogs around here have already been pressed into service."

[Sidenote: Courtesy of the machine gunners.]

When I went to bed four of the members of that shattered mitrailleuse company climbed three flights of stairs to see that I had a comfortable room. And these men had just come out of a trench where they had lost more than two thirds their number in three days stopping one of the main lines of the German advance.

[Sidenote: Back to the lines.]

In the twilight of early morning, when the cannonading had at last died down, I heard the movement of troops in the street and saw my friends of the night before falling into line and getting their equipment straight.

By the time I reach the sidewalk they were moving off, some of the men helping the dogs with the mitrailleuse.

"Big fight last night," said the typewriter agent smiling. "Company that relieved us got it hard. We must hurry back."

They were all very alert and soldierlike in the chill of the morning, but they were a pitifully small company as they pa.s.sed up the road and were lost in the sand dunes.

In August and September, while on the western front were being fought the great initial struggles of the Great War, Turkey, long under German political influence, was making ready to cast her lot with the Teutonic Powers. Germany had already made diplomatic and military moves which indicated that she was certain of a Turkish alliance. The strongest figures of the Ottoman Empire, Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey were strongly pro-German, although the latter endeavored for a time to conceal his real sentiments and intentions under a cloak of pretended neutrality.

The causes which induced Turkey to side with the Central Powers rather than with the Allies are explained in the narrative which follows.

WHY TURKEY ENTERED THE WAR

ROLAND G. USHER

Copyright, World's Work, January, 1915.

[Sidenote: Extreme danger of Turkey.]

Many people entirely misunderstand the significance of the declaration of war by Turkey against Russia, France, and England. Why these despairing gasps of the dying? they ask. What possible chance has this weak, moribund state to survive a clash of arms with the Triple Entente?

Has not the Turk, in fact, dug his own grave and committed suicide? In all probability the Turk is in considerable danger, but the danger does not arise from his joining Germany. In fact, the war and the present international situation provide the Turk with the best opportunity in a century to achieve the aims cherished by Turkish statesmen who have the best interests of Turkey itself at heart. For several years Turkey has been in extreme peril. It was condemned to death by the Triple Entente some time ago, and the prediction of the British Prime Minister in a recent public speech that this war would end the existence of Turkey as an independent power was only the publication of the sentence of death long since decided upon. The Sick Man was kept alive by his friends, the doctors, largely because they deemed his malady incurable. The moment he showed signs of convalescence they agreed to poison him. But for the protection of Germany the political existence of Turkey would be already a thing of the past. The Turk, therefore, will stand or fall according to the decision in this war for or against Germany. He will be excessively foolish not to do everything he can to insure a German victory.

[Sidenote: Entrance of Turkey into War.]

[Sidenote: Constantinople core of the War.]

The entrance of Turkey into the war has long been foreseen, and its vast significance has long been clear to students. Some trained observers go much further: Sir Harry Johnston, a traveler, statesman, and diplomat of repute, has declared: "Constantinople is really the core of the war." In diplomatic circles in Vienna this summer there was a general agreement that the loss of Salonika, which the Turk was forced to hand over to Greece at the end of the Balkan wars, was a vital blow to the Triple Alliance, and its recovery would be of sufficient importance to justify the risk of a European war to accomplish it. The situation in the Near East and in the Balkans is an integral part of the European war. In fact, the war is not a European war at all; it is a world war in the most literal sense of the words.