The Conquest of America Part 3

As I think it over, I feel sure that if those other five submarines had been ready with the K-2, we might have had another story to tell.

Possibly the slowness of the Brooklyn Navy Yard--which is notorious, I understand--may have spoiled the one chance that America had to resist this invasion.

The next day the five tardy submarines arrived; but conditions were now less favourable, since the invaders had had time to prepare their defence against this under-water peril. As we flew over East Hampton on the following afternoon, we were surprised to see five fully inflated air-s.h.i.+ps of the nonrigid Pa.r.s.eval type floating in the blue sky, like grim sentinels guarding the German fleet. Down through the sun-lit ocean they could see the shadowy underwater craft lurking in the depths, and they carried high explosives to destroy them.

"How about our aeroplanes?" grumbled Palmer.

"Look!" I answered, pointing toward the s.h.i.+nnec.o.c.k Hills, where some tiny specks appeared like soaring eagles. "They're coming!"

The American aeroplanes, at least, were on time, and as they swept nearer we counted ten of them, and our spirits rose; for ten swift aeroplanes armed with explosive bombs can make a lot of trouble for slower and clumsier aircraft.

But alas for our hopes! The invaders were prepared also, and, before the American fliers had come within striking distance, they found themselves opposed by a score of military hydroplanes that rose presently, with a great whirring of propellers, from the decks of the German battle-s.h.i.+ps.

Had the Americans been able to concentrate here their entire force of fifty aeroplanes, the result might have been different; but the fifty had been divided along the Atlantic coast--ten aeroplanes and five submarines being a.s.signed to each harbour that was to be defended.

Now came the battle. And for hours, until night fell, we watched a strange and terrible conflict between these forces of air and water. With admirable skill and daring the American aeronauts manoeuvred for positions above the Pa.r.s.evals, whence they could drop bombs; and so swift and successful were they that two of the enemy's air-s.h.i.+ps were destroyed before the German aeroplanes really came into the action. After that it went badly for the American fliers, which were shot down, one by one, until only three of the ten remained. Then these three, seeing destruction inevitable, signalled for a last united effort, and, all together, flew at full speed straight for the great yellow gas-bag of the biggest Pa.r.s.eval and for certain death. As they tore into the flimsy air-s.h.i.+p there came a blinding flash, an explosion that shook the hills, and that brave deed was done.

There remained two Pa.r.s.evals to aid the enemy's fleet in its fight against American submarines, and I wish I might describe this fight in more detail. We saw a German transport torpedoed by the B-1; we saw two submarines sunk by rapid-fire guns of the destroyers; we saw a battle-cruiser crippled by the glancing blow of a torpedo; and we saw the K-1 blown to pieces by bombs from the air-s.h.i.+ps. Two American submarines were still fighting, and of these one, after narrowly missing a dreadnought, sent a troop-s.h.i.+p to the bottom, and was itself rammed and sunk by a destroyer, the sea being spread with oil. The last submarine took to flight, it seems, because her supply of torpedoes was exhausted.

And this left the invaders free to begin their landing operations.

During four wonderful days (the Germans were favoured by light northeast breezes) Palmer and I hovered over these East Hampton sh.o.r.es, watching the enemy construct their landing platforms of brick and timbers from dynamited houses, watching the black transports as they disgorged from lighters upon the gleaming sand dunes their swarms of soldiers, their thousands of horses, their artillery, their food supplies. There seemed no limit to what these mighty vessels could carry.

We agreed that the great 50,000-ton _Imperator_ alone brought at least fifteen thousand men with all that they needed. And I counted twenty other huge transports; so my conservative estimate, cabled to the paper by way of Canada,--for the direct cables were cut,--was that in this invading expedition Germany had successfully landed on the sh.o.r.es of Long Island one hundred and fifty thousand fully equipped fighting-men. It seemed incredible that the great United States, with its vast wealth and resources, could be thus easily invaded; and I recalled with a pang what a miserable showing England had made in 1915 from similar unpreparedness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AS THE GERMAN LANDING OPERATIONS PROCEEDED, THE NEWS OF THE INVASION SPREAD OVER THE WHOLE REGION WITH THE SPEED OF ELECTRICITY.

THE ENEMY WAS COMING! THE ENEMY WAS HERE. WHAT WAS TO BE DONE?]

As the German landing operations proceeded, the news of the invasion spread over the whole region with the speed of electricity, and in every town and village on Long Island angry and excited and terrified crowds cursed and shouted and wept in the streets.

The enemy was coming!

The enemy was here!

What was to be done?

Should they resist?

And many valorous speeches in the spirit of '76 were made by farmers and clerks and wild-eyed women. What was to be done?

In the peaceful town of East Hampton some sniping was done, and afterward bitterly repented of, the occasion being the arrival of a company of Uhlans with gleaming helmets, who galloped down the elm-lined main street with requisitions for food and supplies.

Suddenly a shot was fired from Bert Osborne's livery stable, then another from White's drug store, then several others, and one of the Uhlans reeled in his saddle, slightly wounded. Whereupon, to avenge this attack and teach Long Islanders to respect their masters, the German fleet was ordered to sh.e.l.l the village.

Half an hour later George Edwards, who was beating up the coast in his trim fis.h.i.+ng schooner, after a two weeks' absence in Barnegat Bay (he had heard nothing about the war with Germany), was astonished to see a German soldier in formidable helmet silhouetted against the sky on the eleventh tee of the Easthampton golf course, one of the three that rise above the sand dunes along the surging ocean, wigwagging signals to the wars.h.i.+ps off sh.o.r.e. And, presently, Edwards saw an ominous puff of white smoke break out from one of the dreadnoughts and heard the boom of a twelve-inch gun.

The first sh.e.l.l struck the stone tower of the Episcopal church and hurled fragments of it against the vine-covered cottage next door, which had been the home a hundred and twenty years before of John Howard Payne, the original "home sweet home."

The second sh.e.l.l struck John Drew's summer home and set it on fire; the third wrecked the Casino; the fourth destroyed Albert Herter's studio and slightly injured Edward T. c.o.c.kcroft and Peter Finley Dunne, who were playing tennis on the lawn. That night scarcely a dozen buildings in this beautiful old town remained standing. And the dead numbered more than three hundred, half of them being women and children.

CHAPTER III

GERMAN INVADERS DRIVE THE IRON INTO THE SOUL OF UNPREPARED AMERICA

The next week was one of deep humiliation for the American people. Our great fleet and our great Ca.n.a.l, which had cost so many hundreds of millions and were supposed to guarantee the safety of our coasts, had failed us in this hour of peril.

Secretary Alger, in the Spanish War, never received half the punishment that the press now heaped on the luckless officials of the War and the Navy Departments.

The New York _Tribune_, in a scathing attack upon the administration, said:

The blow has fallen and the United States is totally unprepared to meet it. Why? Because the Democratic party, during its eight years' tenure of office, has obstinately, stupidly and wickedly refused to do what was necessary to make this country safe against invasion by a foreign power.

There has been a surfeit of talking, of explaining and of promising, but of definite accomplishment very little, and to-day, in our extreme peril, we find ourselves without an army or a navy that can cope with the invaders and protect our sh.o.r.es and our homes.

Richard Harding Davis, in the _Evening Sun_, denounced unsparingly those Senators and Congressmen who, in 1916, had voted against national preparedness:

For our present helpless condition and all that results from it, let the responsibility rest upon these Senators and Congressmen, who, for their own selfish ends, have betrayed the country. They are as guilty of treason as was ever Benedict Arnold. Were some of them hanged, the sight of them with their toes dancing on air might inspire other Congressmen to consider the safety of this country rather than their own re-election.

The New York _World_ published a memorable letter written by Samuel J.

Tilden in December, 1885, to Speaker Carlisle of the Forty-ninth Congress on the subject of national defence and pointed out that Mr. Tilden was a man of far vision, intellectually the foremost democrat of his day. In this letter Mr. Tilden said:

The property exposed to destruction in the twelve seaports, Portland, Portsmouth, Boston, Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, Galveston and San Francisco, cannot be less in value than five thousand millions of dollars.... While we may afford to be deficient in the means of offence we cannot afford to be defenceless. The notoriety of the fact that we have neglected the ordinary precautions of defence invites want of consideration in our diplomacy, injustice, arrogance and insult at the hands of foreign nations.

To add to the general indignation, it transpired that the American reserve fleet, consisting of ten predreadnoughts, was tied up in the docks of Philadelphia, unable to move for lack of officers and men to handle them. After frantic orders from Was.h.i.+ngton and the loss of precious days, some two thousand members of the newly organised naval reserve were rushed to Philadelphia; but eight thousand men were needed to move this secondary fleet, and, even if the eight thousand had been forthcoming, it would have been too late; for by this time a German dreadnought was guarding the mouth of Delaware Bay, and these inferior s.h.i.+ps would never have braved its guns. So here were seventy-five million dollars' worth of American fighting-s.h.i.+ps rendered absolutely useless and condemned to be idle during the whole war because of bad organisation.

Meantime, the Germans were marching along the Motor Parkway toward New York City with an army of a hundred and fifty thousand, against which General Wood, by incredible efforts, was able to oppose a badly organised, inharmonious force of thirty thousand, including Federals and militia that had never once drilled together in large manoeuvres. Of Federal troops there was one regiment of infantry from Governor's Island, and this was short of men. There were two infantry regiments from Forts Niagara and Porter, in New York State. Also a regiment of colored cavalry from Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont, a battalion of field artillery from Fort Myer, Virginia, a battalion of engineers from Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., a battalion of coast artillery organised as siege artillery from Fort Dupont, Delaware, a regiment of cavalry from Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, two regiments of infantry from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, one regiment of field artillery from Fort Sheridan, Illinois, one regiment of horse artillery from Fort Riley, Kansas, one regiment of infantry and one regiment of mountain guns from Fort D. A. Russell, Wyoming.

I may add that at this time the United States army, in spite of many efforts to increase its size, numbered fewer than 70,000 men; and so many of these were tied up as Coast Artillery or absent in the Philippines, Honolulu, and the Ca.n.a.l Zone, that only about 30,000 were available as mobile forces for the national defence.

As these various bodies of troops arrived in New York City and marched down Fifth Avenue with bands playing "Dixie" and colours flying, the excitement of cheering mult.i.tudes pa.s.sed all description, especially when Theodore Roosevelt, in familiar slouch hat, appeared on a big black horse at the head of a hastily recruited regiment of Rough Riders, many of them veterans who had served under him in the Spanish War.

Governor Malone reviewed the troops from the steps of the new Court House and the crowd went wild when the cadets from West Point marched past, in splendid order. At first I shared the enthusiasm of the moment; but suddenly I realised how pathetic it all was and Palmer seemed to see that side of it, too, though naturally he and I avoided all discussion of the future. In addition to such portions of the regular army as General Wood could gather together, his forces were supplemented by infantry and cavalry brigades of militia from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Ma.s.sachusetts, these troops being more or less unprepared for battle, more or less lacking in the accessories of battles, notably in field artillery and in artillery equipment of men and horses. One of the aides on General Wood's staff told me that the combined American forces went into action with only one hundred and fifty pieces of artillery against four hundred pieces that the Germans brought.

"And the wicked part of it is," he added, "that there were two hundred other pieces of artillery we might have used if we had had men and horses to operate them; but--you can't make an artillery horse overnight."

"Nor a gun crew," said I.

CHAPTER IV

INVASION OF LONG ISLAND AND THE BATTLE OF BROOKLYN

To meet this desperate situation and the enemy's greatly superior forces, General Wood decided not to advance against the Germans, but to intrench his army across the western end of Long Island, with his left flank resting on Fort Totten, near Bayside, and his nine-mile front extending through Creedmore, Rosedale, and Valley Stream, where his right flank would be guarded from sea attack by the big guns of Fort Hanc.o.c.k on Sandy Hook, which would hold the German fleet at a distance.

Any military strategist will agree that this was the only course for the American commander to pursue under the circ.u.mstances; but unfortunately popular clamour will often have its way in republics, and in this case a violent three days' gale--which arrived providentially, according to some of the newspapers--gave an appearance of reason to the general demand.

This gale interfered seriously with the German landing operations,--in fact, it wrecked one of their supply-s.h.i.+ps,--and, in consequence, such strong political pressure was brought to bear upon the President that orders came from Was.h.i.+ngton to General Wood that he advance his army against the invaders and drive them into the sea. The General made a few remarks not for publication, and obeyed. As he told me afterward, it is doubtful whether the result would have been different in any event.