The Soul of the War Part 8

There were refugees who had seen the beginning of battles, taking flight before the end of them. I met some from Le Cateau, who had stared speechlessly at familiar hills over which came without warning great forces of foreign soldiers. The English had come first, in clouds of dust which powdered their uniforms and whitened their sun-baked faces. They seemed in desperate hurry and scratched up mounds of loose earth, like children building sand castles, and jumped down into wayside ditches which they used as cover, and lay on their stomachs in the beetroot fields. They were cheerful enough, and laughed as they littered the countryside with beef tins, and smoked cigarettes incessantly, as they lay scorched under the glare of the sun, with their rifles handy. Their guns were swung round with their muzzles nosing towards the rising ground from which these English soldiers had come. It seemed as though they were playing games of make believe, for the fun of the thing. The French peasants had stood round grinning at these English boys who could not understand a word of French, but chattered cheerfully all the time in their own strange language. War seemed very far away. The birds were singing in a shrill chorus. Golden flowerlets spangled the green slopes. The sun lay warm upon the hillside, and painted black shadows beneath the full foliage of the trees. It was the harvest peace which, these peasants had known all the years of their lives. Then suddenly the click of rifle bolts, a rapid change in the att.i.tude of the English soldier boys, who stared northwards where the downs rose and fell in soft billows, made the French peasants j gaze in that direction, shading their eyes from the hot sun. What was that grey shadow moving?

What were those little glints and flashes in the greyness of it? What were all those thousands of little ant-like things crawling forward over the slopes? Thousands and scores of thousands of--men, and horses and guns!

"Les Anglais? Toujours les Anglais?" An English officer laughed, in a queer way, without any mirth in his eyes.

"Les Allemands, mon vieux. Messieurs les Boches!"

"L'enemi? Non--pas possible!"

It only seemed possible that it was the enemy when from that army of ants on the hillsides there came forth little puffs of white smoke, and little stabbing flames, and when, quite soon, some of those English boys lay in a huddled way over their rifles, with their sunburned faces on the warm earth. The harvest peace was broken by the roar of guns and the rip of bullets. Into the blue of the sky rose clouds of greenish smoke. Pieces of jagged steel, like flying scythes, sliced the trees on the roadside. The beetroot fields spurted up earth, and great holes were being dug by unseen ploughs. Then, across the distant slopes behind the smoke clouds and the burst of flame came, and came, a countless army, moving down towards those British soldiers.

So the peasants had fled with a great fear.

2

There was an extraordinary quietude in some of the port towns of northern France. At first I could not understand the meaning of it when I went from Calais to Boulogne, and then to Havre. In Calais I saw small bodies of troops moving out of the town early in the morning, so that afterwards there was not a soldier to be seen about the streets. In Boulogne the same thing happened, quietly, and without any bugle calls or demonstrations. Not only had all the soldiers gone, but they were followed by the police, whom I saw marching away in battalions, each man carrying a little bundle, like the refugees who carried all their worldly goods with them, wrapped in a blanket or a pocket-handkerchief, according to the haste of their flight. Down on the quay there were no custom-house officers to inspect the baggage of the few travellers who had come across the Channel and now landed on the deserted siding, bewildered because there were no porters to clamour for their trunks and no douane to utter the familiar ritual of "Avez-vous quelque-chose a declarer?

Tabac? Cigarettes?" For the first time in living memory, perhaps in the history of the port, the Douane of Boulogne had abandoned its office. What did it all mean? Why were the streets so deserted as though the town had been stricken with the plague?

There was a look of plague in the faces of the few fishermen and harbour folk who stood in groups at the street corners. There was a haggard fear in their eyes and they talked in low voices, as though discussing some doom that had come upon them. Even the houses had a plaguy aspect, with shuttered windows and barred doors. The town, which had resounded to the tramp of British regiments and to the tune of "Tipperary," these streets through which had surged a tide of fugitives, with wave after wave of struggling crowds, had become a silent place, with only a few shadows creeping through the darkness of that evening in war, and whispering a fear.

The truth came to me as a shock. The ports of France had been abandoned. They lay open to the enemy, and if any Uhlans came riding in, or a German officer in a motorcar with three soldiers to represent an army, Calais and Boulogne would be surrendered without a shot.

Looking back upon those days the thing seems inconceivable.

Months afterwards the enemy tried to fight its way to Calais and failed after desperate attacks which cost the lives of thousands of German soldiers and a stubborn defence which, more than once, was almost pierced and broken. "The Fight for Calais" is a chapter of history which for the Germans is written in blood. It is amazing to remember that in the last days of August Calais was offered as a free gift, with Boulogne and Dieppe to follow, if they cared to come for them.

Even Havre was to be abandoned as the British base. It was only a little while since enormous stores had been dumped here for the provisioning and equipment of our Expeditionary Force. Now I saw a great packing up. "K." had issued an amazing order which made certain young gentlemen of the A.S.C. whistle between their teeth and say rather quietly: "Ye G.o.ds! things must be looking a bit blue up there." The new base was to be much further south, at St. Nazaire, to which the last tin of bully beef or Maconochie was to be consigned, without delay. Yes, things were looking very "blue," just then.

3

One may afford now to write about mistakes, even the mistakes of our French Allies, who have redeemed them all by a national heroism beyond the highest words of praise, and by a fine struggle for efficiency and organization which were lamentably lacking in the early days of the war. Knowing now the frightful blunders committed at the outset, and the hair's-breadth escape from tremendous tragedy, the miracle of the sudden awakening which enabled France to shake off her lethargy and her vanity, and to make a tiger's pounce upon an enemy which had almost brought her to her knees is one of the splendid things in the world's history which wipe out all rankling criticism.

Yet then, before the transformation, the days were full of torture for those who knew something of the truth. By what fatal microbe of folly had the French generals been tempted towards that adventure in Alsace? Sentiment, overwhelming common sense, had sent the finest troops in France to the frontiers of the "lost provinces," so that Paris might have its day of ecstasy round the statue of Quand-Meme.

While the Germans were smas.h.i.+ng their way through Belgium, checked only a little while at Liege and giving a clear warning of the road by which they would come to France, the French active army was ma.s.sed in the east from Luxembourg to Nancy and wasting the strength which should have been used to bar the northern roads, in pressing forward to Mulhouse and Altkirch. It gave Georges Scott the subject of a beautiful allegory in L'Ill.u.s.tration--that French soldier clasping the Alsatian girl rescued from the German grip. It gave Parisian journalists, gagged about all other aspects of the war zone, a chance of heroic writing, filled with the emotion of old heartaches now changed to joy. Only the indiscretion of a deputy hinted for a moment at a bad reverse at Mulhouse, when a regiment recruited from the South, broke and fled under the fire of German guns because they were unsupported by their own artillery. "Two generals have been cas.h.i.+ered." "Some of the officers have been shot." Tragic rumours leaked into Paris, spoiling the dream of an irresistible advance.

So far, however, neither Paris nor the French public as a whole had any inkling of graver things than this. They did not know--how could they know anything of this secret war?--that on all parts of the front the French armies' were falling back before the German invasion which bore down upon them in five great columns of overwhelming strength; and that on the extreme left, nearest to Paris, the French army was miserably weak, made up for the most part of old Territorials who were never meant to be in the first line of defence, and of African regiments who had never seen sh.e.l.l-fire, so that the main German attack could only be held back by a little British army which had just set foot on the soil of France.

Everywhere, from east to west, the French were yielding before the terrific onslaught of the German legions, who came on in close formation, reckless of their losses, but always advancing, over the bodies of their dead, with ma.s.ses of light artillery against which the French gunners, with all their skill and courage, could not hold ground. By a series of strange adventures, which took me into the vortex of the French retreat, into the midst of confused movements of troops rushed up to various points of menace and into the tide of wounded which came streaming back from the fighting lines, I was able to write the first account which gave any clear idea of the general situation--sharing this chance with the Philosopher and the Strategist who were my fellow travellers--and, by good luck again, the censor was kind to me in England. French officers and soldiers with bandaged heads and limbs told me their stories, while their wounds were still wet, and while their clothes still reeked of the smoke of battle. Women who had fled with empty hands from little chateaux on the hillsides of France, with empty hearts too because they had no hope for husbands still fighting in the inferno, described to me the scenes which still made them pant like wild animals caught after a chase. And with my own eyes I saw the unforgettable drama of the French army in retreat, blowing up bridges on its way, s.h.i.+fting to new lines of defence, awaiting with its guns ready for a new stage of the enemy's advance.

Out of a wild confusion of impressions, the tumult of these scenes, the inevitable contradictions and inconsistencies and imaginings of men and women drunk with the excitement of this time, I sorted out some clear threads of fact and with the aid of the Strategist, who spread out his maps on wayside banks, blotting out the wild flowers, or on the marble-topped tables outside fly-blown estaminets in village streets, tracked out the line of the German advance and saw the peril of the French.

From one of my dispatches I transcribe a narrative which records one of the most b.l.o.o.d.y battles in the first phase of the war. Written to the jolt of a troop train, in which wounded men hugged their bandaged hands, it tells how five thousand Frenchmen did their best to check a German army corps.

4

August 29

It was nearly a fortnight ago that the Germans concentrated their heaviest forces upon Namur, and began to press southwards and over the Meuse Valley. After the battle of Dinant the French army, among whom, at this point, were the 2nd and the 7th Corps, were heavily outnumbered at the time, and had to fall back gradually in order to gain time for reinforcements to come up to their support. The French artillery was up on the wooded heights above the river, and swept the German regiments with a storm of fire as they advanced.

On the right bank the French infantry was entrenched, supported by field guns and mitrailleuses, and did very deadly work before leaping from the trenches which they occupied and taking up position in new trenches further back, which they held with great tenacity. In justice to the Germans, it must be said that they were heroic in their courage.

They were reckless of their lives, and the valley of the Meuse was choked with their corpses. The river itself was strewn with dead bodies of men and horses, and literally ran red with blood. The most tremendous fighting took place for the possession of the bridges, but the French engineers blew them up one after the other as they retired southwards. No fewer than thirty-three bridges were destroyed in this way before they could be seized by the German advance guard. The fighting was extended for a considerable distance on either side of the Meuse, and many engagements took place between the French and German cavalry and regiments working away from the main armies.

There was, for instance, a memorable encounter at Merville which is one of the most heroic episodes of the war. Five thousand French soldiers of all arms, with quick-firers, engaged twenty thousand German infantry. In spite of being outnumbered in this way, the French dash and "bite," as they call it, was so splendid that they beat back the enemy from point to point in a fight lasting for twelve hours, inflicting a tremendous punishment, and suffering very few losses on their own side. A German officer captured in this engagement expressed his unbounded admiration for the valour of the French troops, which he described as "superb." It was only for fear of getting too far out of touch with the main forces that the gallant five thousand desisted from their irresistible attack, and retired, with a large number of German helmets as trophies of their victorious action.

Nevertheless, in accordance with the general plan which had been decided upon by the French generals in view of the superior numbers pressing upon them, the French troops retreated and the Germans succeeded in forcing their way steadily down the Meuse as far as Mezieres, divided by a bridge from Charleville on the other side of the river. This is in the neighbourhood of Sedan, and in the hollow or trou as it is called which led to the great disaster of 1870, when the French army was caught in a trap, and threatened with annihilation by the Germans, who had taken possession of the surrounding heights.

There was to be no repet.i.tion of that tragedy. The French were determined that this time the position would be reversed.

On Monday, August 24, the town of Charleville was evacuated, most of its civilians were sent away to join the wanderers who had had to leave their homes, and the French troops took up magnificent positions commanding the town and the three bridges dividing it from Mezieres. Mitrailleuses were hidden in the abandoned houses, and as a disagreeable shock to any German who might escape their fire was a number of the enemy's guns--no fewer than ninety-five of them--which had been captured and disabled by the French troops in the series of battles down the river from Namur. The German outposts reached Charleville on Tuesday, August 25. They were allowed to ride quietly across the bridges into the apparently deserted town. Then suddenly their line of retreat was cut off. The three bridges were blown up by contact mines, and the mitrailleuses hidden in the houses were played on to the German cavalry across the streets, killing them in a frightful slaughter. It was for a little while a sheer ma.s.sacre in that town of white houses with pretty gardens where flowers were blooming under the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne of a glorious summer day.

But the Germans fought with extraordinary tenacity, regardless of the heaped bodies of their comrades, and utterly reckless of their own lives. They, too, had brought quick-firers across the bridges and, taking cover behind some of the houses, trained their guns upon those from which the French gunners were firing their last shots.

There was no way of escape for those heroic men who voluntarily sacrificed themselves in the service of their country, and it is probable that every man died, because at such a time the Germans are not in the habit of giving quarter. When the main German advance came down the valley the French artillery on the heights raked them with a terrific fire in which they suffered heavy losses, the forefront of the column being mowed down. But under this storm of fire they proceeded with incredible coolness to their pontoon bridges across the river, and although hundreds of men died on the banks they succeeded in their endeavour while their guns searched the hills with sh.e.l.ls and forced the French gunners to retire from their positions.

The occupation of Charleville was a German victory, but it was also a German graveyard.

After this historic episode in what had been an unending battle, the main body of the French troops withdrew before the Germans, who were now pouring down the valley, and retired to new ground.

5

Meanwhile, on the western side of the battle line, the French army was holding a crescent from Abbeville, round the south of Amiens, and the situation was not a happy one in view of the rapid advance of the enemy under General Von Kluck, before whom the British troops were already in continual battle.

I shall not soon forget a dreadful night near Amiens, when I saw beaten and broken men coming back from the firing lines, and the death-carts pa.s.sing down the roads. The whole day had been exciting and unnerving. The roads along which I had pa.s.sed were filled with soldiers marching towards an enemy which was rapidly drawing close upon them, for whom they seemed but ill-prepared-- and by civilians stampeding with wild rumours that the Uhlans were close upon them.

They were not very far wrong. At Picquigny, they were less than four miles distant--a small patrol of outposts belonging to the squadrons which were sweeping out in a fan through the northern towns and villages of France.

As I pa.s.sed, French Territorials were hastily digging trenches close to the railway line. Reports came from stations further along that the line might be cut at any moment. A train crowded with French and Belgian fugitives had come to a dead halt. The children were playing on the banks--with that divine carelessness and innocence which made one's heart ache for them in this beastly business of war--and their fathers and mothers, whose worldly goods had been packed into baskets and brown paper parcels--the poor relics of all that had been theirs--wondered whether after all their sufferings and struggles they would reach the town of Amiens and find safety there.

It was obvious to me that there was a thrill of uneasiness in the military machine operating in the district. Troops were being hurried up in a north-westerly direction. A regiment of Algerians came swinging along the road. The sight of the Turcos put some heart into the fugitives. Those brown faces were laughing like children at the prospect of a fight. They waved their hands with the curious Arab gesture of salute, and shuffled along merrily with their rifles slung behind their backs. Military motor-cars carrying little parties of French officers swept down the roads, and then there were no more battalions but only stragglers, and hurrying fugitives driving along in farmers' carts, packed with household goods, in two-wheeled gigs, overburdened with women and children, riding on bicycles, with parcels tied to the saddles, or trudging wearily and anxiously along, away from the fear where the blood-red sun was setting over France.

It was pitiful to see the children clinging to the women's skirts along that road of panic, and pitiful but fine, to see the courage of those women. Then night fell and darkness came across the fields of France, and through the darkness many grim shadows of war, looming up against one's soul.

There was une affaire des patrouilles--what the British soldier calls a "sc.r.a.p"--along the road at Albert, between Amiens and Cambrai. A party of German Uhlans, spreading out from a strong force at Cambrai itself, had been engaged by the French Territorials, and after some sharp fighting had retired, leaving several dead horses in the dust and a few huddled forms from which the French soldiers had taken burnished helmets and trophies to their women folk.

That was on Friday night of August 28. The real fighting was taking place fifteen kilometres further along the road, at a place called Bapeaume. All day on Friday there was very heavy fighting here on the left centre, and a victory was announced by the French Ministry of War.

I did not see the victory. I saw only the retreat of some of the French forces engaged in the battle.

It was a few minutes before midnight on that Friday, when they came back along the road to Amiens, crawling back slowly in a long, dismal trail, with ambulance wagons laden with dead and dying, with hay- carts piled high with saddles and accoutrements upon which there lay, immobile, like men already dead, spent and exhausted soldiers.

They pa.s.sed through crowds of silent people--the citizens of Amiens-- who only whispered as they stared at this procession in the darkness.

A cuira.s.sier with his head bent upon his chest stumbled forward, leading a horse too weak and tired to bear him. There were many other men leading their poor beasts in this way; and infantry soldiers, some of them with bandaged heads, clung on to the backs of the carts and wagons, and seemed to be asleep as they shuffled by. The light from the roadside lamps gleamed upon blanched faces and glazed eyes--flashed now and then into the caverns of canvas- covered carts where twisted, bandaged men lay huddled on the straw. Not a groan came from those carts. There was no shout of "Vive la France!" from the crowd of citizens who are not silent as a rule when their soldiers pa.s.s.

Every one knew it was a retreat, and the knowledge was colder than the mist of night. The carts, carrying the quick and the dead, rumbled by in a long convoy, the drooping heads of the soldiers turned neither to the right nor to the left for any greeting with old friends; there was a hugger-mugger of uniforms on provision carts and ambulances. It was a part of the wreckage and wastage of the war, and to the onlooker, exaggerating unconsciously the importance of the things close at hand and visible, it seemed terrible in its significance, and an ominous reminder of 1870, when through Amiens there came the dismal tramp of beaten men. Really this was the inevitable part of a serious battle, and not necessarily the retreat from a great disaster.

I turned away from it, rather sick at heart. It is not a pleasant thing to see men walking like living corpses, or as though drugged with fatigue. It is heartrending to see poor beasts stumbling forward at every step at the very last gasp of their strength until they fall never to rise again.

But more pitiful even than this drift back from Bapeaume were the scenes which followed immediately as I turned back into the town.

Thousands of boys had been called out to the colours, and had been brought up from the country to be sent forward to the second lines of defence. They were the reservists of the 1914 cla.s.s, and many of them were shouting and singing, though here and there a white-faced boy tried to hide his tears as women from the crowd ran to embrace him. The Ma.r.s.eillaise, the hymn of faith, rang out a little raggedly, but bravely all the same. The lads--"poor children" they were called by a white-haired man who watched them--were keeping up the valour of their hearts by noisy demonstrations; but having seen the death-carts pa.s.s through the darkness between lines of silent and dejected onlookers, I could not bear to look into the faces of those little ones of France who were following their fathers to the guns. Once again I had to turn away to blot out the pictures of war in the velvety darkness of the night.

Early next morning there was a thrill of anxiety in Amiens itself.