New York Times Current History The European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January Part 9

That irregular use of the protection afforded by the Geneva Convention is not uncommon is confirmed by the fact that on one occasion men in the uniform of combatant units have been captured wearing a Red Cross bra.s.sard hastily slipped over the arm. The excuse given has been that they had been detailed after the fight to look after the wounded.

It is reported by a cavalry officer that the driver of a motor car with a machine gun mounted on it, which was captured, was wearing a Red Cross.

Full details of the actual damage done to the cathedral at Rheims will doubtless have been cabled home, so that no description of it is necessary. The Germans bombarded the cathedral twice with their heavy artillery.

One reason it caught alight so quickly was that on one side of it was some scaffolding which had been erected for restoration work. Straw had also been laid on the floor for the reception of the German wounded. It is to the credit of the French that practically all the German wounded were successfully extricated from the burning building.

There was no justification on military grounds for this act of vandalism, which seems to have been caused by exasperation born of failure--a sign of impotence rather than strength. It is noteworthy that a well-known hotel not far from the cathedral, which was kept by a German, was not touched.

III.

*Two September Days.*

[Made Public Sept. 28.]

For four days there has been a comparative lull all along our front.

This has been accompanied [Transcriber: original 'acompanied'] by a spell of fine weather, though the nights have been much colder. One cannot have everything, however, and one evil result of the suns.h.i.+ne has been the release of flies, which were torpid during the wet days.

Advantage has been taken of the arrival of reinforcements to relieve by fresh troops the men who have been on the firing line for some time.

Several units, therefore, have received their baptism of fire during the week.

Since the last letter left headquarters evidence has been received which points to the fact that during the counter attacks on the night of Sept.

20 German detachments of infantry fired into each other. This was the result of an attempt to carry out the dangerous expedient of a converging advance in the dark. Opposite one portion of our position considerable ma.s.sing of hostile forces was observed before dark. Some hours later a furious fusillade [Transcriber: original 'fusilade'] was heard in front of our line, though no bullets came over our trenches.

This narrative begins with Sept. 21 and covers only two days. There was but little rain on Sept. 21 and the weather took a turn for the better, which has been maintained. The action has been practically confined to the artillery, our guns at one point sh.e.l.ling and driving the enemy, who endeavored to construct a redoubt.

The Germans expended a large number of heavy sh.e.l.ls in a long range bombardment of the village of Missy (Department of the Aisne).

Reconnoitring parties sent out during the night of Sept. 21-22 discovered some deserted trenches. In them or in the woods over 100 dead and wounded were picked up. A number of rifles, ammunition and equipment were also found. There were other signs that portions of the enemy's forces had withdrawn some distance.

The weather was also fine on Sept. 22 with less wind, and it was one of the most uneventful days we have pa.s.sed since we reached the Aisne, that is, uneventful for the British. There was less artillery work on either side, the Germans giving the village of Paissy (Aisne) a taste of the "Jack Johnsons." The spot thus honored is not far from the ridge where there has been some of the most severe close fighting in which we have taken part. All over this No Man's Land, between the lines, bodies of German infantrymen were still lying in heaps where they had fallen at different times.

Espionage plays so large a part in the conduct of the war by the Germans that it is difficult to avoid further reference to the subject. They have evidently never forgotten the saying of Frederick the Great: "When Marshall Soubise goes to war he is followed by a hundred cooks. When I take the field I am preceded by a hundred spies." Indeed until about twenty years ago there was a paragraph in their field service regulations directing that the service of protection in the field, such as outposts and advance guards, should always be supplemented by a system of espionage. Although such instructions are no longer made public the Germans, as is well known, still carry them into effect.

Apart from the more elaborate arrangements which were made in peace time for obtaining information by paid agents some of the methods which are being employed for the collection or conveyance of intelligence are as follows:

Men in plain clothes signal the German lines from points in the hands of the enemy by means of colored lights at nights and puffs of smoke from chimneys in the day time. Pseudo laborers working in the fields between the armies have been detected conveying information. Persons in plain clothes have acted as advanced scouts to the German cavalry when advancing.

German officers or soldiers in plain clothes or French or British uniforms have remained in localities evacuated by the Germans in order to furnish them with intelligence. One spy of this kind was found by our troops hidden in a church tower. His presence was only discovered through the erratic movements of the hands of the church clock, which he was using to signal his friends by an improvised semaph.o.r.e code. Had this man not been seized it is probable he would have signalled the time of arrival and the exact position of the headquarters staff of the force and a high explosive sh.e.l.l would then have mysteriously dropped on the building.

Women spies have also been caught. Secret agents have been found at rail heads observing entrainments and detrainments. It is a simple matter for spies to mix with refugees who are moving about to and from their homes, and it is difficult for our troops, who speak neither French nor German, to detect them. The French have also found it necessary to search villages and casual wayfarers on the roads and to search for carrier pigeons.

Among the precautions taken by us against spying is the following notice printed in French, posted up:

"Motor cars and bicycles other than those; carrying soldiers in uniform may not circulate on the roads. Inhabitants may not leave the localities in which they reside between 6 P.M. and 6 A.M.

Inhabitants may not quit their homes after 8 P.M. No person may on any pretext pa.s.s through the British lines without an authorization countersigned by a British officer."

Events have moved so quietly for the last two months that anything connected with the mobilization of the British expeditionary force is now ancient history. Nevertheless, the following extract from a German order is evidence of the mystification of the army and a tribute to the value of the secrecy which was so well and so loyally maintained in England at the time:

"Tenth Reserve Army Corps Headquarters,

"Mont St. Guibert, Aug. 20, 1914.

"Corps Order, Aug. 20.

"The French troops in front of the Tenth Army Corps have retreated south across the Sambre. Part of the Belgium army has been withdrawn from Antwerp. It is reported that an English army has disembarked at Calais and Boulogne, en route to Brussels."

IV.

*Fighting in the Air.*

[Made Public Sept. 29.]

Wednesday, Sept. 23, was a perfect Autumn day. It pa.s.sed without incident as regards major operations. Although the enemy concentrated their heavy artillery upon the, plateau near Pa.s.sy, nothing more than inconvenience was caused.

The welcome absence of wind gave our airmen a chance of which they took full advantage by gathering much information. Unfortunately, one of our aviators, who had been particularly active in annoying the enemy by dropping bombs, was wounded in a duel in the air.

Being alone on a single-seated monoplane, he was not able to use his rifle, and while circling above a German two-seated machine in an endeavor to get within pistol shot he was. .h.i.t by the observer of the German machine, who was armed with a rifle. He managed to fly back over our lines, and by great good luck he descended close to a motor ambulance, which at once conveyed him to a hospital.

Against this may be set off the fact that another of our flyers exploded a bomb among some led artillery horses, killing several and stampeding the others.

On Thursday, Sept. 21, the fine weather continued, as did the lull in the action, the heavy German sh.e.l.ls falling mostly near Pargnan, twelve miles south-southeast of Laon.

On both Wednesday and Thursday the weather was so fine that many flights were made by the aviators, French, British, and German. These produced a corresponding activity among the anti-aircraft guns.

So still and clear was the atmosphere toward evening on Wednesday and during the whole of Thursday that to those not especially on the lookout the presence of aeroplanes high up above them was first made known by the bursting of the projectiles aimed at them. The puffs of smoke from the detonation sh.e.l.l hung in the air for minutes on end, like b.a.l.l.s of fleece cotton, before they slowly expanded and were dissipated.

From the places mentioned as being the chief targets for the enemy's heavy howitzers, it will be seen that the Germans are not inclined to concentrate their fire systematically upon definite areas in which their aviators think they have located our guns, or upon villages where it is imagined our troops may be billeted. The result will be to give work to local builders.

The growing resemblance of this battle to siege warfare has already been pointed out. The fact that the later actions of the Russo-j.a.panese war a.s.sumed a similar character was thought by many to have been due to exceptional causes, such as the narrowness of the theatre of operations between the Chinese frontier on the west and the mountainous country of Northern Korea on the east; the lack of roads, which limited the extent of ground over which it was possible for the rival armies to manoeuvre, and the fact that both forces were tied to one line of railroad.

Such factors are not exerting any influence on the present battle.

Nevertheless, a similar situation has been produced, owing firstly to the immense power of resistance possessed by an army which is amply equipped with heavy artillery and has sufficient time to fortify itself, and, secondly, to the vast size of the forces engaged, which at the present time stretch more than half way across France.

The extent of the country covered is so great as to render slow any efforts to manoeuvre and march around to a flank in order to escape the costly expedient of a frontal attack against heavily fortified positions.

To state that the methods of attack must approximate more closely to those of siege warfare the greater the resemblance of the defenses to those of a fortress is a plat.i.tude, but it is one which will bear repet.i.tion if it in any way a.s.sists to make the present situation clear.

There is no doubt that the position on the Aisne was not hastily selected by the German Staff after the retreat had begun. From the choice of ground, and the care with which the fields of fire had been arranged to cover all possible avenues of approach, and from the amount of work already carried out, it is clear that the contingency of having to act on the defensive was not overlooked when the details of the strategically offensive campaign were arranged.