Part 7

This northern battle began in a much smaller way than the original offensive, with about twenty divisions on a twenty-mile front, and it may have been its initial success that determined its prompt extension.

While it may fairly be said to have constituted a confession of failure in the earlier adventure, its development not only creates a new danger, but strengthens the German position athwart the Somme. The situation, therefore, must be looked at straightforwardly and spoken of without mincing words.

In the middle of March the German armies consisted of 4,000,000 men at the front, 1,300,000 on the lines of communication and in the interior, and others who can be added to the present effectiveness.

From the village of Hangard to Abbéville is about forty miles; from Merville to Calais is the same distance; to Boulogne a little more; from the Ypres front to Dunkirk is about thirty miles; to Nieuport a little less. These are the limits of the allied power of manoeuvre for the defense of the Channel.

Caring for Thousands of Refugees

Long processions of civilian refugees lined the roadsides in the invaded area during the days of battle--the pitiful hosts of those fleeing from the German guns and the terrors of German occupation. Many thousands of villagers and farmers whose little homes had been devastated by the first German occupation and by the battle of the Somme had been trying bravely to restore their ruined houses and cultivate the tortured soil again. With the aid of American friends hundreds of cottages had been built, heaps of shattered masonry cleared away, shops and schools opened, and French, British, and American committees had formed a nucleus around which new life was gradually growing up. No less than 5,500 acres of the devastated land evacuated by the Germans a year ago were again under cultivation--enough to feed 16,000 persons a year.

All this work of the stricken inhabitants, with their replanted fruit trees and scanty stores of new implements, had to be abandoned almost at a moment's notice. Many of the peasants, stunned by the new catastrophe, had to be aroused to flight by the friendly orders of the retreating British officers. The Red Cross workers, the Dames de France, and a group of courageous American women--the Smith College girls--aided the refugees day and night in their retreat from town to town until the German advance was checked a few miles short of Amiens.

The American Red Cross transported thousands from the towns and villages behind the British lines, working thirty automobiles night and day, and carrying 2,000 to friends in Paris in the first few days. These were mostly women, children, and aged persons who had been awakened by the Red Cross workers on the morning of the 25th, taken to the railroad in trucks, and thence transported by rail in special trains. Most of the refugees were able to save only a few of their belongings, which were wrapped up in shawls and bed sheets, or carried in baskets or handbags. One woman, 81 years old, carried only a basket of live chickens, and cried because she had been unable to save two rabbits. Another woman carried a few cooking utensils under her arm. Many women and children were crying because they had been separated from relatives and friends. Children only a month old and people who had reached the age of 90 were alike numbered among the unfortunates.

TRAGIC SCENES

"I saw the first tide of these poor people when the Germans came near to Ham and Péronne and Roye," wrote Philip Gibbs on March 29. "Some of them had been once in the hands of the Germans, and at this second menace they left their homes and their fields and their shops, and came trekking westward and southward.

"One's heart bleeds to see these refugees, and it is the most tragic aspect of these days. There are many old people among them, old women in black gowns and caps who come hobbling very slowly down the highway of war, and old men with bent backs who lean heavily on their gnarled sticks as the guns go by, and the fighting men.

"I saw one old man near Ham who was trundling along a wheelbarrow, and on this was spread a mattress, and on that was his wife. She looked 90 years of age, with her white, wrinkled face, and she was fast asleep, like a little child. Many children are on the roads, packed tight into farm carts with household furniture and bundles of clothing, and poultry and pigs and new-born lambs. The noise of the gunfire is behind them, and they move faster when it grows louder. They are very brave, these boys and girls and these old people. There is hardly any weeping or any look on their faces of grudge against this unkind turn of fate. They seem to accept it with stoical resignation, with most matter-of-fact courage, and their only answer to pity is a smile and the words, 'C'est la guerre.' Those are words I first heard in the early weeks of the war and hoped never to hear again.

"Many of these people trek in family groups and gatherings of families from one village. Small boys and girls drag tired cows after them. The other day one of these cows leaned against every tree she passed and then sat down, and the girl with her looked around helplessly, not knowing what to do. This morning I saw the girl wearing a veil and dressed in an elegant way, taking the cow with her. She was quite alone on the road. It is queer and touching that most of these fugitives wear their best clothes, as though on a fête day. It is because they are clothes they want to save and can only have by wearing them in their flight.

"In one small town the fear of the German entry came at night, a bright, moonlight night into which there came many German bombing squadrons. The citizens had shut up their shops and stood about talking anxiously. Then fear and rumor spread among them, and all through the night there was an exodus of small families and solitary girls and comrades in misfortune, stealing away like shadows from homes they loved, from little fortunes or their shops, from all their normal life into the open country, where the moonlight lay white and cold on the fields. Behind them bombs were being dropped, and some of their houses were destroyed.

"C'est la guerre!"

WORK OF AMERICAN GIRLS

The heroic work of the Smith College girls was described by a correspondent at the French front under date of March 29:

"Working unceasingly under a constant shellfire, for days without sleep, the girls demonstrated admirable initiative and ability and the extreme coolness of the tried soldier. They are still in the field today, ministering to old men, women, and children. I have talked to the first persons to come in from the front, who saw them last Saturday, when shells were falling at Grecourt, the tiny Somme village where the unit has been quartered for months, aiding the folks of a dozen surrounding villages.

"When it became evident that the Germans were coming the girls worked frantically with auto trucks, gathering together all the people in their territory. In one village they went three times to try to persuade an aged woman to leave, but she refused to move unless the ancestral bedstead on which she lay could be transported with her. In final desperation the girls brought a big supply wagon and loaded the bedstead and the woman into it, leaving the village fifteen minutes before the first of the Uhlans arrived.

"The girls organized themselves into small units and each unit was charged with the evacuation of a single village. Cavalcades of refugees, generaled by the Smith girls, marched or rode from their abandoned homes to Roye, where a special train was waiting to carry them westward. Even cows, chickens, dogs, and cats helped to form the cavalcade which reached Roye on Saturday morning. Here the refugees vainly tried to crowd the animals into the train.

"The girls of the Smith College unit then proceeded to Montdidier. There, with W. B. Jackson of Washington, a former Red Cross delegate at Ham, assisted by a group of American Quakers and Red Cross workers, they organized a canteen and began giving out blankets and other comforts and making a marvelous bean soup and a special food for babies, the basis of which was condensed milk. As the refugee trains, some containing as many as 1,000 men, women, and children, poured into Montdidier the arriving refugees were fed until the supply of food was exhausted.

"Then Montdidier became too hot under the increasing shellfire and the workers were forced to split, some going to Amiens and others to Beauvais, where they continued their work. Since then practically all the Smith College girls and some other workers have gone to Amiens, where they are weathering the enemy bombardment in cellars, but carrying on their work as usual."

FLEEING IN BEST CLOTHES

An Associated Press correspondent added this further bit of eyewitness testimony under date of March 27:

"The French refugees of the better class departing from the zones of actual operations are coming out clad in all their finery, which represents the styles of four or five years ago. Then there are sturdy peasants with wooden shoes and clumsily constructed clothes, riding in vehicles drawn by horses or donkeys or in carts pushed by men, and some are even in wheelbarrows. Upon these queer transports are stacked strange assortments of personal belongings.

"There is deep pathos in all this, but none struck the correspondent more forcibly than the appearance of a tiny girl who trudged in her wooden shoes along a hard, dusty road, her eyes fastened anxiously upon a dirty rag doll perched precariously at the top of household effects which were being pushed along by an old man. This child was perhaps representative of all the refugees--she was coming away with her most cherished possession, her baby doll, and was prepared to guard it at all costs; her aching feet were as nothing, so long as the doll was safe.

"These refugees are from the towns within the Somme battlefield and adjoining it. All these villages have been emptied of their inhabitants. So far as possible everything which might be of use to the Germans has been removed. In particular, large numbers of cattle have been taken away by the owners, who patiently drive the beasts on ahead of them along the roads.

"There are few tears or hysterical outbreaks among the refugees, most of whom are of the peasant class. They know they must go, and they seem to be trusting implicitly in the British, but the misery in their eyes as they turn from all they love to a world they do not know is touching. Aged women clinging to the hands of little grandchildren, men stooped with years, youths and maidens--all fall into a picture such as only a catastrophe can produce."

Fifty members of the American Friends' unit of the Red Cross were in the region of the great battle, at Ham, Liancourt, Esmery-Hallon, Golancourt, and Gruny on the Somme and Aisne. These devoted workers, with the aid of many Red Cross trucks that were rushed to them, helped thousands of refugees to safety.

The French Government had several hundred tractor plows at work on the stricken lands. The American relief units also had a few tractor plows and other agricultural materials, all of which had to be abandoned to the enemy. All members of relief units were reported safe.

Castor Oil for Airplanes

How an important agricultural enterprise was initiated to meet one of the requirements of the Aviation Section of the American Army is disclosed in the minority report of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, presented on April 12, 1918. In the course of a description of the initial difficulties encountered in producing battle planes, the report says:

"Remember again that when these combat planes were contracted for the only known lubricating oil adapted to their delicate parts was an oil made from the castor bean. There were not enough beans in this country to make anywhere near the amount of oil required. Neither were there enough seeds with which to grow the needed quantity of beans. The Signal Corps had to search the globe for seeds, and finally secured a shipload from distant India. Then the corps had to contract for the planting of the seeds in this country, and has succeeded in having about 110,000 acres planted. It is now claimed that a form of petroleum has been developed that will answer the same purpose. This, however, is still in the experimental stage, while the oil from the castor bean is known to be entirely adequate and reliable."

Progress of the War

Recording Campaigns on All Fronts and Collateral Events From March 18, 1918, Up to and Including April 17, 1918

UNITED STATES

The German Government announced on March 18 that American property in Germany would be seized in reprisal for the seizure of German property in the United States.

Drastic restrictions were placed by the War Trade Board upon the importation of many nonessential commodities, the regulations to become effective April 15.

The terms of the Third Liberty Loan were announced by Secretary McAdoo on March 25. The bill authorizing it was completed by Congress and signed by President Wilson on April 4, and on April 6 the drive began.

Secretary Daniels, in a speech in Cleveland on April 6, disclosed the fact that a great fleet of American vessels, including battleships, was operating in the war zone.

Announcement was made in Tokio on March 28 that an agreement had been concluded under which Japan promised to turn over to the United States 450,000 tons of shipping.

President Wilson issued a proclamation on April 11, giving Secretary McAdoo control of the principal coastwise steamship lines.

Charles M. Schwab was appointed Director General of the Emergency Fleet Corporation April 16.

SUBMARINE BLOCKADE

Sir Eric Geddes gave in the House of Commons on March 19 figures of shipping losses which are given in detail elsewhere in this number of CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE, also figures made public by the British Admiralty on March 21 are given elsewhere.

The Royal Mail steamer Amazon and the Norwegian steamship Stolt-Neilson, commandeered by the British, were sunk March 19.

The steamship Conargo was torpedoed in the Irish Sea March 31, and the lifeboats were shelled.

The armed boarding steamer Tithonus was sunk March 28, and the sinking of the steamship Carlisle Castle was reported April 2.

On April 1 the Celtic was torpedoed off the Irish coast, but reached port in safety.

The American steamer Chattahoochee, formerly the German Sachsen, was sunk off the English coast on March 25.

The Spanish steamers Arpillao and Begona were sunk March 25.

The Italian steamer Alessandra was sunk off the Island of Madeira April 2.

The Ministre de Smet de Naeyer, a Belgian relief ship, was sunk in the North Sea on April 6, and twelve members of the crew were lost.

As a result of the commercial agreement between Spain and the United States, German submarines began a blockade of Spanish ports, April 11.

Because a German submarine had captured a Uruguayan military commission bound for France, the Government of Uruguay on April 11 asked Berlin, through Switzerland, whether it considered that a state of war existed with Uruguay.

CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN EUROPE

March 18--Belgians repulse German raids in the region of Nieuport, Dixmude, and Mercken.

March 19--French penetrate German line near Rheims; British carry out successful raids in the neighborhood of Villers-Guislain, La Vacquerie, and Bois Gienier.

March 20--German airplane drops balls of liquefied mustard gas on American lines northwest of Toul; Americans shell Lahayville, causing a heavy explosion and forcing the Germans to retreat; French repulse violent raids in the Souain sector of Champagne.

March 21--Germans open terrific drive on British lines on a fifty-mile front from southeast of Arras as far as La Fère; French lines bombarded north and southeast of Rheims as well as on the Champagne front; Paris bombarded by long-range guns.

March 22--Germans claim 16,000 prisoners in big drive; General Haig reports them gaining at some points and repulsed at others; American artillery fire destroys German first and second line trenches east of Lunéville; violent gun duels in the Aisne and Champagne sectors; French repulse three German raids near Souain.

March 23--Germans smash British front, win victories near Monchy, Cambrai, St. Quentin, and La Fère, and penetrate into second British positions between Fontaine les Croisilles and Moeuvres; British evacuate positions in the bend southwest of Cambrai; Germans penetrate third British position between the Omignon stream and the Somme; Paris again shelled by gun seventy-five miles away; ten persons killed and fifteen or more wounded; fierce artillery fire on the French front from the Oise River to the Vosges Mountains.

March 24--Germans capture Péronne, Chauny, and Ham, and cross the River Somme at certain points south of Péronne; assaults further north repulsed; Paris again bombarded by gun located in the Forest of St. Gobain.

March 25--Germans take Bapaume, Nesle, Guiscard, Biaches, Barleux, and Etalon; French take over sector of British battlefront south of St. Quentin and around Noyon; General Pershing announces that two regiments of American engineers are on the Somme battlefield; long-range bombardment of Paris continues; one long-range gun explodes, killing ten men; American gunners shell St. Bausant and the billets north of Boquetau.

March 26--Germans take Noyon, Roye, and Lihon, and cross the battleline of 1916 at many points; Americans in the Toul sector drive Germans out of Richecourt.

March 27--British, reinforced, beat back German attacks, capture Morlaincourt and Chipilly, north of the Somme, and to the south of the river advance their lines to the village of Proyart; Germans announce the capture of Albert and the crossing of the Ancre north and south of the city; French forced to yield ground east of Montdidier, but check assaults near Lassigny and Noyon.

March 28--British repulse all-day attacks at Arras; Germans capture Montdidier and push their lines as far as Pierrepont, and regain some ground south of the Somme which they lost in 1914; French advance at Noyon for a mile and a quarter on a six-mile front.

March 29--British line south of the Somme pushed back to a line running west of Hamel, Marcelcave, and Demuin; German drive slackens in the north; French in the Oise Valley retake Monchel; seventy-five persons killed and ninety wounded in church near Paris by shell from long-range gun.

March 30--Paris again bombarded by long-range guns; eight killed, thirty-seven wounded; Germans wrest six villages in the Montdidier sector from the French, and Demuin and Mézières from the British, but are repulsed in the Boiry-Boyelles region.

March 31--Germans lose ground near Feuchy; British advance near Serre; French recapture Ayencourt and Monchel and gain considerable ground near Orvillers; American Army starts for the battlefront; Paris again bombarded; one person killed, six injured.

April 1--French repulse German attacks against Grivesnes; Germans mass troops near Albert for renewed drive; bombardment of Paris resumed.

April 2--British carry on successful minor operations between the Avre and the Luce Rivers and in the neighborhood of Hébuterne; French repulse Germans southwest of La Fère and shell enemy concentrations east of Cantigny.

April 3--British occupy Ayette, check Germans near Moreuil; French extend their lines north of Plémont and take over another sector of the line, extending their holdings northward to Thennes; Americans heavily gassed in a sector other than Toul.

April 4--Germans deliver terrific attack against the French along a front of nearly nine miles, from Grivesnes to north of the Amiens-Royes road, and occupy the villages of Mailly-Raineval and Morisel; British lose ground north of Hamel and in the direction of Vaire Wood.

April 5--French forces, by vigorous counterattacks, improve their positions in the region of Mailly-Raineval and Cantigny; Germans attack British lines from the Somme northward to a point above Bucquoy and reach the Albert-Amiens railway, but are driven back.

April 6--Germans attack at several points along the French front from the region of Montdidier eastward to the east and south of Chauny, but are repulsed everywhere except on the left bank of the Oise in the Chauny sector.

April 7--Germans push on south of the Oise and take Coucy Wood and Pierremande and Folembray; British retake Aveluy Wood and repel attacks opposite Albert and south of Hébuterne.

April 8--British lines around Bucquoy heavily shelled; Germans drive French back to the western bank of the Ailette River and take Verneuil and the heights east of Coucy-le-Château; Americans rout German patrol northwest of Toul; French airmen locate and bombard the gun that fired on Paris.

April 9--Germans force back the British-Portuguese centre on the River Lys between Estaires and Bac St. Maur, and take Richeboucq-St. Vaast and Laventie; British repulse attacks at Givenchy and Fleurbaix.

April 10--Germans cross the River Lys at several points between Armentières and Estaires; British forced back north and south of Armentières; French repulse Germans in the Hangard region; first American troops reach the British front.

April 11--Germans hurl troops at British front from La Bassée to the Ypres-Comines Canal, and force the British to give ground at some points, notably at Estaires and Steenwerck.

April 12--Germans launch heavy attacks against the French in the Hangard-en-Santerre sector, penetrate Hangard, but later lose half of the village to the French; Americans help to repel an attack in the Apremont Forest; British forced back west and northwest of Armentières to Neuve Eglise; Merville lost.

April 13--French advance northwest of Orvilles-Sorel and repulse attack near Noyon; British regain Neuve Eglise, but beat off German attacks southeast of Bailleul; Americans repulse two attacks in force in the Toul sector, winning the first all-day battle in which they have been engaged.

April 14--British hold Neuve Eglise against repeated German assaults; Germans attack near Bailleul and Merris; Americans repulse attacks north of St. Mihiel; bombardment of Paris by long-range gun continues.

April 15--Germans take Neuve Eglise, and hurl huge forces toward Bailleul and Wulverghem; British straighten out their salient around Wytschaete; definite announcement made of the appointment of General Foch as Commander in Chief of the allied armies in France, with enlarged powers.

April 16--Germans take Wytschaete and Spanbroekmolen, after forcing the British out of Bailleul; sixteen killed, forty-five wounded in long-range bombardment of Paris.

April 17--British re-enter Wytschaete and Meteren, but are forced out; Germans occupy Poelcappelle, Langemarck, and Passchendaele.

CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR

March 21--British advance in Palestine, taking Beit Rima, Kefrut, and Elowsallabeh.

March 22-23--British advance nine miles on the left bank of the Jordan; Arabs destroy Turkish camel corps company near Jedahah.

March 26--British carry Turkish main positions north of Khan-Baghdadi; entire Turkish force in the Hit area captured or destroyed.

April 1--British advance seventy-three miles beyond Anah and menace Aleppo.

April 4--Armenians recapture Erzerum from the Turks.

April 7--Turks take Ardahan from the Armenians.

April 11--British in Palestine advance their line to a depth of one and a half miles on a front of five miles, and capture the villages of El Kefr and Rafat.

April 17--Turks capture Batum.

ITALIAN CAMPAIGN

March 22--Fighting becomes more active along the entire front; Italians drive back patrols on the Trentino front and eject an Austrian detachment from an advanced post in the Frenzela Valley sector.

March 28--Artillery engagements east of Badeneoche; forty Austrian divisions transferred to the Italian front.