Chapter 25

This General was de Maud'Huy, the man who with a handful of territorials stopped the Prussian Guard before Arras shortly after the battle of the Marne and who since then has never lost a single trench. His name is now scarcely known, even in France, but I venture the prophecy that when the French Army marches down the Champs Elysées after the war is over, when the vanguard passes under the Arch de Triomph, de Maud'Huy--a nervous little firebrand--will be right up in the front rank with Joffre.

While our party did all the spectacular stunts the Germans have offered the correspondents in such profusion, such as visiting the trenches, where in our case a German shell burst thirty feet from us, splattering us with mud, also where snipers sent rifle balls hissing only a few feet away, almost our greatest treats were the scientific daily discourses given by our Captain concerning the entire history of the first campaign, explaining each event leading up to the present position of the two armies. He gave the exact location of every French and allied army corps on the entire front.

On the opposite side of the line he demonstrated the efficiency of the French secret service by detailing the position and name of every German regiment, also the date and the position it now holds. Thus, we were able to know during the journey that it was the crack Prussian Guard that was stopped by de Maud'Huy's Territorials and that the English section under General French was opposed by Saxons.

Our Captain by these lectures gave us an insight into the second great German blunder after the failure to occupy Paris, which was the failure immediately to swing a line across Northern France, thus cutting off Calais and Boulogne, where they could really have leveled a pistol at England's head. He explained that it was the superiority of the French cavalry that dictated that the line should instead run straight north through the edge of Belgium to the sea. His explanations went further than this, for he refuted many military arguments to the effect that cavalry became obsolete with the advent of aeroplanes.

Cavalry formerly was used to screen the infantry advance and also for shock purposes in the charges. Now that the lines are established, it is mostly used with the infantry in the trenches; but in the great race after the Marne to turn the western flanks it was the cavalry's ability to outstrip the infantry that kept the Germans from practically all of Northern France. In other words, the French chausseurs, more brilliant than the Uhlans, kept that northern line straight until the infantry corps had time to take up position.

My introduction to the real French Army was made at the point of junction with the English troops, so I was thus able to make some comparison between the types of the Allies. I did not see the Germans except as prisoners, although on this trip I was sometimes within a few yards of their lines. With all consideration for the statement that they are the greatest fighting machine the world has ever seen, all I can say is that the greatest fighting machine I have even seen is the French Army.

To me they seem invincible from the standpoints of power, intelligence, and humanity. This latter quality specially impressed me. I do not believe any army with such high ideals can easily be beaten, and I judge not only from Generals in command, but the men in the trenches. One morning I was going through the trenches near the most important point where the line was continually under fire.

Passing from the second line to a point less than a hundred yards from the German rifles I came face to face with a General of division. He was sauntering along for the morning's stroll he chose to take in the trenches with his men rather than on the safer roads at the rear. He smoked a cigarette and seemed careless of danger. He continually patted his soldiers on the back as he passed and called them "his little braves."

I could not help wondering whether the German General opposite was setting his men the same splendid example. I inquired the French General's name; he was General Fayolle, conceded by all the armies to be the greatest artillery expert in the world. Comradeship between officers and men always is well known in the French Army, but I never before realized how the officers were so willing to accept quite the same fate.

In Paris the popular appellation for a German is "boche." Not once at the front did I hear this word used by officers or men. They deplore it, just as they deplore many things that happen in Paris. Every officer I talked to declared the Germans were a brave, strong enemy; they waste no time calling them names.

"They are wonderful, but we will beat them," was the way one officer summed up the general feeling.

Another illustration of the French officer at the front: The City of Vermelles of 10,000 inhabitants was captured from the Germans after fifty-four days' fighting. It was taken literally from house to house, the French engineers sapping and mining the Germans out of every stronghold, destroying every single house, incidentally forever upsetting my own one-time idea that the French are a frivolous people. So determined were they to retake this town that they fought in the streets with artillery at a distance of twenty-one feet, probably the shortest range artillery duel in the history of the world.

The Germans before the final evacuation buried hundreds of their own dead. Every yard in the city was filled with little crosses--the ground was so trampled that the mounds of graves were crushed down level with the ground--and on the crosses are printed the names with the number of the German regiments. At the base of every cross there rests either a crucifix or a statue of the Virgin or a wreath of artificial flowers, all looted from the French graveyard.

With the German graves are French graves made afterward. I walked through this ruined city where, aside from the soldiery, the only sign of life I saw was a gaunt, prowling cat. With me past these hundreds of graves walked half a dozen French officers. They did not pause to read inscriptions; they did not comment on the loot and pillage of the graveyard; they scarcely looked even at the graves, but they kept constantly raising their hands to their caps in salute regardless of whether the cross numbered a French or a German life destroyed.

We were driving along back of the advance lines. On the road before us was a company of territorial infantry who had been eight days in the trenches and were now to have two days of repose at the rear. Plodding along the same road was a refugee mother and several little children in a donkey cart; behind the cart, attached by a rope, trundled a baby buggy with the youngest child inside. The buggy suddenly struck a rut in the road and overturned, spilling the baby into the mud. Terrible wails arose, and the soldiers stiffened to attention. Then, seeing the accident, the entire company broke ranks and rescued the infant. They wiped the dirt from its face and restored it to its mother in the cart.

So engrossing was the spectacle our motor halted, and our Captain from Great General Headquarters in his gorgeous blue uniform climbed from the car, discussing with the mother the safety of a baby buggy riding behind a donkey cart, at the same time congratulating the soldier who rescued the child.

Our trip throughout moved with that clockwork precision usually associated only with the Germans. The schedule throughout the week never varied from the arrangements made before we left Paris. When we arrived at certain towns we were handed slips of paper bearing our names and the hotel number of our room.

Amazing meals appeared at most amazing places, all the menus carefully thought out days before. Imagine fresh trout served you with other famous French delicacies in a little house in the battle zone, where only a few hundred yards of barbed wire and a few feet more of air separated you from the German trenches. During the German advance, also after the battle of the Marne, there were many towns in the districts where it was impossible to obtain tobacco, spirits, or food staples. This condition has entirely abated, and the commissariat is now so well supplied that soldiers have sufficient tobacco even in the trenches.

It was my privilege to take a brief ride at the front in an antebellum motor bus of glorious memory--there being nothing left in Paris but the subway. Buses are now used to carry fresh meat, although they have been used in transporting troops and also ammunition. We trundled quite merrily along a little country road in Northern France, the snow-white fields on either side in strange contrast to the scenery when last I rode in that bus. I am sure I rode in the same bus before the war in my daily trips to the Paris office of THE NEW YORK TIMES. Its sides are bullet riddled now, but the soldier conductor still jingles the bell to the motorman, although he carries a revolver where he used to wear the register for fares.

Trench life was one of the most interesting surprises of the trip. Every night since the war began I have heard pitying remarks about "the boys in the trenches," especially if the nights were cold. I was, therefore, prepared to find the men standing in water to the knees, shivering, wretched, sick, and unhappy. I found just the contrary--the trenches were clean, large, and sanitary, although, of course, mud is mud. I found the bottoms of the trenches in every instance corduroy-lined with modern drains, which allowed the feet to keep perfectly dry, and also the large dugouts where the men, except those doing sentry duty, sleep comfortably on dry straw. There are special dugouts for officers and artillery observers.

I also visited a large, perfectly equipped Red Cross First Aid camp, all built underground, extending from one line of trenches to another. All trenches, communication traverses, and observatory dugouts have received names which are printed on shingles affixed to the trenches on little upright posts. For instance, we entered one section of the trenches through Boyau d'Espagne, we traversed Avenue de Bois, Avenues Wagram and Friedland, and others commemorating Napoleonic victories. The dugouts of officers and observers were all called villas--Villa Chambéry, Villa Montmorency being examples. It all seemed like cozy camp life underground except that three times the morning of our visit it was necessary to flatten ourselves against the mud sidewalls while dead men on crossed rifles were carried out, every head in that particular bit of trench being bared as the sad procession disappeared.

Although the maps show the lines of fighting to be rather wavy, one must go to the front really to appreciate the irregular zigzag, snakelike line that it really is. The particular bit of trenches we visited cover a front of twelve miles, but so irregular is the line, so intricate and vast the system of intrenchments, that they measure 200 miles on that particular twelve-mile fighting front.

When one leaves the trenches at the rear of the communication boyaux, it is astonishing how little of the war can be seen. Ten feet after we left our trenches we could not see even the entrance. We stood in a beautiful open field having our pictures taken, and a few hundred yards away our motor waited behind some trees. Suddenly we heard a "zip zip" over our heads. German snipers were taking shots at us.

In addition to the enormous force of men constantly in the trenches along the entire line there is an equal size reserve line directly behind them in case of sudden attack. The artillery is posted considerably further to the rear along with revictualing stations, aeroplane hangars, and headquarters of the Generals, but through all this enormous mass of men which we passed daily going to and from our front observation posts never once did we get the impression of parade. Three were just troops, troops, troops everywhere, every hamlet, every village filled with them, every crossroads with their sentries. All of them, hardened by Winter and turns in the trenches, are in splendid condition, and as opposed to the Germans, at least to the German prisoners I have seen, each French soldier has a clear and definite knowledge of what the war is all about. The greatest event of his day is when the Paris newspapers arrive.

What impressed me greatly was that in all the officers' quarters were copies of the French "Yellow Book," the English "White Paper" and German documents attempting to prove their innocence in causing the conflict. It is not sufficient for French Generals or officers just to go to war; they must know why they go to war, down to the last papers in the case. In six months the French privates have acquired one habit from the British Tommies--that is drinking tea. Back of every section of trenches I found huge tea canteens, where thousands of cups are served daily to the soldiers who have decided for the first time in their life they really like such stuff. There one sees more soldiers at the same time than at any other place in the fighting zone; there they sit and discuss the future calmly and confidently, there being a distinct feeling that the war is likely to be over next Summer.

No one knows what the Spring tactics of General Joffre will be. Along the section of the front I visited the officers are all satisfied that the Commander in Chief's "nibbling tactics" have forced the Germans to retire on the average of two to three miles all along the line. The very name of that great man is spoken with reverence, almost with awe, by his "children at the front."

I, therefore, from the facilities given me, can only make one assertion in summing up my opinion of the French grand army of 1915, that it is strong, courageous, scientifically intelligent, and well trained as a champion pugilist after months of preparation for the greatest struggle of his career. The French Army waits eager and ready for the gong.

Dodging Shells

[From The London Morning Post, Feb. 1, 1915.]

The Echo de Paris has published today a letter that throws a considerable amount of light upon the psychology of the French soldier, and that shows how he behaves himself when subjected to very trying fire and compelled to act on his own initiative. It is written by the man to his wife, and is as follows:

I am acting as guard to a convoy, and am comfortably installed, with no work to do, in the house of an old woman who has lent me a candle and writing materials. I shan't be suffering from the cold in the way I have done on previous nights, as I have a roof over me and a fire. What luxury! It's been freezing for several nights, and you feel the frost when you are sleeping in the open. But that is nothing to the three days we passed in the village of ----. We were stationed in the mairie. In front of us in the clock tower an artillery Captain was taking observations. On the road between the church and the mairie a Sergeant and four artillerymen were sending orders to the battery behind us. Suddenly a shell struck. We saw the artillerymen on the ground and the Sergeant alone left standing.

The fire was so thick that no one could think of going out. But suddenly one of the men moved, so I got up to find out about it, taking care to put on my knapsack. When I was among them I found that one had been hit right in the heart; two others were dying, one with his head in a pulp and the other with his thigh broken and the calf of his leg torn to a jelly. I helped the Sergeant to mend the telephone wire that had been broken by the shell, and all the time we were having shells and bits of brick breaking around us.

Then I went back to the mairie, and asked for some one who would not be frightened to come with me. Two of us went off to the village for a stretcher. I found one at the old ambulance, and was just leaving it when I heard the scream of a shell, and took cover in the chimney--just in time. A big black brute smashed half the house in. My comrade and I hurried off after the wounded man. Our pals were watching us from the mairie, wondering if we should ever get back. Old Gérome, (that's me,) they said, will get back all right, and when back at the mairie I began to give the wounded man first aid. Another shell came along, and the place shook, window panes rained upon us, and dust blinded us, but at last it cleared.

Left alone with my wounded man I went on dressing him, and when the others got back I got them to help me take him to the schoolhouse near by. I got congratulated by my comrades and the senior Sergeant, but the Colonel and Lieutenant said nothing, though later I heard they were pleased with me, but suddenly the Colonel said: "We can't stop here. Go and see if there's room in the cellars of the castle for four officers and thirty men. If there is don't come back, as we will follow you."

We got there at last, two of us, but the owner took a long time opening. Meanwhile scraps of roofs and walls were raining on us, but with our knapsacks on our heads we were a bit protected. At last our knocks were answered, and we learned that there was room for four officers, but not for thirty men! The Colonel and the men had to be warned, so my comrade started running back and I followed about fifteen yards behind.

We passed a gap in the houses, with no cover, nothing but gardens. A shell came along. I dropped, while the other man hid in a doorway. The bits of it sang about our ears. I then sang out: "As you are nearly there, go on, and I'll see if there is room in the farm near by." I reached the houses and waited to see that he got through, because if he'd fallen I should have had to go back to warn the rest. As he was going two shells burst in the courtyard of the mairie, and I thought of the Colonel and the rest, but at last my comrade; reached the place and went in, and I was free to try for the farm.

On my way I met a friend and asked him to join me. At the time I was thinking of you all, and it was not till later that I got frightened. There were five horses at the gate of the farm. I shifted them and showed my friend the entrance to the cellar. It was narrow, and he lost time through his knapsack, and these are the occasions when your life depends on seconds. I heard the scream that I know only too well, and guessed where the beast would lodge, and called out to him "That's for us." I shrank back with my knapsack over my head and tried to bury myself in the corner among the coal.

I had no time, though. The shell reached, smashed down part of the house, and burst in the basement a couple of yards from me. I heard no more, but stone, plaster, and bricks fell all around me on the coal heap. I was gasping, but found myself untouched. I got up and saw the poultry struggling and the horses struck down. I ran to the cellar, with the same luck as my friend.

My knapsack caught me. A shell screamed a second time again for us, and it struck, wallop, on the gable, while the ruins fell around my head. I pulled at my knapsack so vigorously that I fell into the cellar, and some of our men who were there called "Here's a poor brute done in." Not a bit of it. I was not touched then either.... At last the bombardment stopped, and we all got out. I noticed about forty hens. Some were pulped. Others had had their heads and legs cut off. In the muddle three horses lay dead. Their saddles were in ribbons. Equipment, revolvers, swords, all that had been left above the cellar had vanished, but there were bits of them to be seen on the roof. My rifle, which had been torn from my hands, was in fragments, and I was stupefied at not having been hit. I noticed, however, that my wrappings that were rolled around my knapsack had been pierced by a splinter of shell that had stuck an it. Later in the evening when I started cutting at my bread the knife stuck. I broke the bread open and found another bit of shell in it. I don't yet know why I was not made mincemeat of that day. There were fifty chances to one against me.

The two following days I stopped in the cellar, hearing nothing but their big shells, while the farm and the buildings near it were smashed in. Now it is all over. I am all right and bored to death mounting guard over wagons ten miles from the firing line, with a crowd of countrymen who have been commandeered with their wagons.

I ought to tell you that the two shells I saw fall on the mairie when my comrade was going there unfortunately killed one and wounded five. It was a bit of luck for me, as I always used to be hanging about the courtyard. That's the sad side of it, but we have an amusing time all the same. [The writer goes on to explain how he and his friends dressed up some men of straw in uniform and induced the Germans to shoot at them, and finally to charge them, while they fired at the Germans and brought several of them down. He continues.]

But that's nothing to what they'll get, and their villages will get, and their mairies, chateaux, and farms, and cellars, when we get there. I will respect old men, women, and children, but let their fighting men look out. I don't mind sacrificing my life to do my duty, and to defend those I love and who love me, but if I've got to lose my skin I want to lose it in Boche-land. I want the joy of getting into their dirty Prussia to avenge our beautiful land. Bandits! Let them and their choucroute factories look out! If you saw the countryside we are recovering--there's nothing left but ruins. Everything burned and smashed to bits. Cattle, more dead than alive, are bolting in all directions, and as for our poor women, when I see them I would destroy everything.

Our officers say: "We'll never be able to hold our men when we get into their country." But I say that I want to go there all the same, and yet when I say that I had a German prisoner to guard at the mairie. I gave him half my bread and knocked walnuts off the trees for him. All the time I saw five or more villages in flames around. Well, it all proves that a soldier should never say what he will do tomorrow. My job is to protect the flag, and the Boches can come on. Before they get it they'll have to get me.... Vive la France!

Somali Volunteers

[From The London Times, Nov. 10, 1914.]

_We have received from a correspondent a copy of a petition signed by the principal Somali chiefs in Jubaland, praying that they may be allowed to fight for England. The terms of this interesting document are as follows:_

To His Highness the Governor, Through the Hakim of Jubaland: Salaams, yea, many salaams, with God's mercy, blessing, and peace. After salaams,

We, the Somali of Jubaland, both Herti and Ogaden, comprising all the tribes and including the Maghavbul, but not including the Tulamuya Ogaden, who live in Biskaya and Tanaland and the Marehan, desire humbly to address you.