Chapter 15

Occasionally a real shell would come popping over from somewhere to tear a hole in the roadside to make our automobiling more difficult. In fact, we discovered that during "Joffre's offensive" days of repose mean drill, drill, and more drill, and when the men are not drilling many of them are guarding prisoners.

Along other roadsides we saw hundreds of prisoners, usually in charge of a cavalry company marching them to the rear. At one place we stopped and talked with them--several could speak French. There were many well set up, fine-looking fellows, who seemed perfectly content to do no more fighting. About a dozen under one guard were across the road in a meadow, tossing a tennis ball about, laughing and joking. Others were eating luncheon. It was just 1 o'clock. They had the same fare as their captors, the only difference in service being that the captors got theirs first.

Our officer talked to the Captain of the guard, who explained that his lot of about 400 had just been taken at Neuville Saint Vaast. Our officers then talked to the prisoners. I was surprised to note the extraordinary decency of their attitude and conversation. There was no boasting, no arrogance, no animosity. On the contrary, I heard one Captain telling the prisoners considerable they apparently did not know about the progress of the fighting in that neighborhood. He smiled as he talked, and concluded by telling the men they would be well fed and well treated.

I also noted the attitude of the prisoners. As a French officer approached the German soldier, true to his years of iron discipline, leaped to his feet and stood rigid as a poker through the talk, but never the raising of a hand to cap, never the salute to the Frenchman.

I strolled down the road and found another with whom I was able to talk. He was a non-commissioned officer, young and very intelligent. I told him I was an American, which aroused his interest. He wanted to talk about America. He had friends there. I asked him:

"How long do you think Germany can hold out against so many enemies?"

He stood very straight, looked me directly in the eye, and said: "Germany knows she is beaten, but she will fight to the last cartridge."

He spoke French. His final words, "La derniere cartouche," rang out. His eyes flashed. Several others crowded about.

Just then a company of Spahis cavalry came clattering down the road--a more ferocious-looking lot I have never seen--and disappeared in a cloud of dust. All of us turned to look, the prisoner remarking: "I'll say one thing, though: we never thought we would have to fight men like those."

Coming from the trenches at night, we waited in a little hamlet about a kilometer in the rear for our automobiles. About 1,000 soldiers were there, waiting to return to the trenches in the morning. They completely surrounded us, singling me out for observation on account of my khaki clothes. I heard one ask our Captain about me. The Captain replied that I was a correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES. Many had never seen an American before. I was conscious that I was an object of intense curiosity.

I saw one little chap pushing through the crowd. He stood before me and thrust out his hand. "Hello!" he said. I thought his "Hello!" might be French quite as easily as American, so I merely returned his handshake. He grinned, and then said in perfectly good "American": "You forget me, huh?" I admitted my shortcoming in memory; but his beard was very thick and stubby and his uniform was very dirty. I complimented his linguistic ability. He waved his arms, saying: "Huh, didn't I live eight years in little old New York?" Then he came still nearer, saying: "You don't remember me, and I have served you many a cocktail. I don't know your name; but I am sure."

After something like a jar I gasped out, "Where?"

"Five years ago, at Mouquin's," he replied, and then I did remember him, and while the others stood about marveling at their "educated" comrade who could actually converse with the American, we talked about many of the old newspaper crowd in New York who frequented that restaurant. He had sailed on Aug. 4 to rejoin his regiment.

The automobiles arrived, and I climbed aboard. He reached up his hand.

"Tell those folks back in America that we are all doing fine," he said. Then his voice sank to an impressive whisper: "And take it from me, you can say we are giving the Germans hell now."

As our automobile jerked suddenly away into the night I could hear my ex-waiter excitedly introducing American journalism, particularly THE NEW YORK TIMES, to his regiment on the battlefield.

WYTHE WILLIAMS.

THE LABYRINTH.

[Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]

_Paris, June 2._--This is a story about what, in the minds of the French military authorities, ranks as the greatest battle of the war in the western theatre of operations, excepting the battle of the Marne, which has already taken its place among the decisive battles of the world's history. This battle is still raging, although its first stages have been definitely settled in favor of the French, who are continuing their progress with less and less opposition.

So far the battle has received no name. The French official communiqués laconically refer to it as "operations in the section north of Arras."

I cannot minutely describe the conflict; no one can do that at this stage. I can, however, write about it and tell what I have seen these past few days when the Ministry of War authorized me to accompany a special mission there, to which I was the only foreigner accredited. I purpose to call this struggle the battle of the Labyrinth, for "labyrinth" is the name applied to the vast system of intrenchments all through that region, and from which the Germans are being literally blasted almost foot by foot by an extravagant use of French melinite.

There have been successive chapters by different writers describing and disposing of as finished--though it is not finished--still another battle which, from the English point of view, takes top rank, namely, the battle of Ypres. While a British defeat at Ypres might mean the loss of Dunkirk and possibly of Calais, a French defeat at the Labyrinth would allow the Germans to sweep clear across Northern France, cutting all communication with England.

The battle of the Labyrinth really began last October, when General de Maud-Huy stopped the Prussian Guard before Arras with his motley array of tired Territorials, whom he gathered together in a mighty rush northward after the battle of the Marne. The crack Guards regiments afterward took on the job at Ypres, while the Crown Prince of Bavaria assumed the vain task of attempting to break the more southward passage to the sea.

All the Winter de Maud-Huy worried him, not seeking to make a big advance, but contenting himself with the record of never having lost a single trench. With the return of warm weather, just after the big French advance in Champagne, this sector was chosen by Joffre as the place in which to take the heart out of his enemy by the delivery of a mighty blow.

The Germans probably thought that the French intended to concentrate in the Vosges, as next door to Champagne; so they carted all their poison gases there and to Ypres, where their ambition still maintains ascendency over their good sense. But where the Germans think Joffre is likely to strike is usually the place furthest from his thoughts. Activities in the Arras sector were begun under the personal command of the Commander in Chief, who was still personally directing operations during my visit only two days ago.

I doubt whether, until the war is over, it will be possible adequately to describe the battle, or rather, the series of battles extending along this particular front of about fifty miles. "Labyrinth" certainly is the fittest word to call it. I always had a fairly accurate sense of direction; but, standing in many places in this giant battlefield, it was impossible for me to say where were the Germans and where the French, so completely was I turned around on account of the constant zigzag of the trench lines. Sometimes, when I was positive that a furious cannonade coming from a certain position was German, it turned out to be French. At other times, when I thought I was safely going in the direction of the French, I was hauled back by officers, who told me I was heading directly into the German line of fire. I sometimes felt that the German lines were on three sides, and often I was quite correct. On the other hand, the French lines often almost completely surrounded the German positions.

One could not tell from the nearness of the artillery fire whether it was from friend or foe. Artillery makes three different noises; first, the sharp report followed by detonations like thunder, when the shell first leaves the gun; second, the rushing sound of the shell passing high overhead; third, the shrill whistle, followed by the crash when it finally explodes. In the Labyrinth the detonations which usually indicated the French fire might be from the German batteries stationed quite near us, but where they could not get the range on us, and firing at a section of the French lines some miles away. I finally determined that when a battery fired fast it was French; for the German fire is becoming more intermittent every day.

I shall attempt to give some idea of what this fighting looks like. Late one afternoon, coming out of a trench into a green meadow, I suddenly found myself planted against a mudbank made of the dirt taken from the trenches. We were just at the crest of a hill. In khaki clothes I was of the same color as the mudbank; so an officer told me I was in a fairly safe position.

Modern war becomes quite an ordinary--often even a sedate, methodical--affair after the first impressions have been rubbed off.

We flattened ourselves casually against our mudbank, carefully adjusting our glasses, turned them toward the valley before us, whence came the sound of exploding shells, and calmly watched a village developing into nothingness in the sunset. It was only about a thousand yards away--I didn't even bother to ask whether it was in French or German possession. There was a loud explosion, a roll of dense smoke, which was penetrated quickly enough by the long, horizontal rays of the descending sun to permit the sight of tumbling roofs and crumbling walls. After a few seconds' intermission there was another explosion, and what looked like a public school in the main street sagged suddenly in the centre. With no entre-acte came a succession of explosions, and the building was prone upon the ground--just a jagged pile of broken stones.

We turned our glasses on the other end of the village. A column of black smoke was rising where the church had caught fire. We watched it awhile in silence. Ruins were getting very common. I swept the glasses away from the hamlet altogether and pointed out over the distant fields to the left.

"Where are the German trenches?" I rather uninterestedly asked the Major.

"I'll show you--just a moment!" he answered, and at the same time signaling to a soldier squatting in the entrance to a trench near by, he ordered the man to convey a message to the telephone station which connected with a "seventy-five" battery at our rear. I was on the point of telling the officer not to bother about it. The words were on my lips. Then I thought "Oh, never mind! I might as well know where the trenches are, now that I have asked."

The soldier disappeared. "Watch!" said the officer. We looked intently across the field to the left. In less than a minute there were two sharp explosions behind us, two puffs of smoke out on the horizon before us, about a mile away.

"That's where they are!" the officer said. "Both shells went right in them."

"Ah! Very interesting!" I replied.

Away to the right of the village, now reduced to ruins, was another larger village; we squared around on our mud bank to look at that. This town was more important; it was Neuville-St. Vaast, which is still occupied by both French and Germans, the former slowly retaking it, house by house. We were about half a mile away. We could see little; for, strangely, in this business of house-to-house occupation, most of the fighting is in the cellars. But I could well imagine what was going on, for I had already walked through the ruins of Vermelles, another town now entirely in French possession, but taken in the same fashion after two months' dogged inch-by-inch advances.

So, when looking at Neuville-St. Vaast, I suddenly heard a tremendous explosion and saw a great mass of masonry and débris of all descriptions flying high in the air, I knew just what had happened. The French--for it is always the French who do it--had burrowed, sapped and dug themselves laboriously, patiently, slowly, by tortuous, narrow underground routes from one row of houses under the foundations, gardens, backyards, and streets to beneath the foundations of the next row of houses. There they had planted mines. The explosion I had just witnessed was of a mine. Much of the débris I saw flying through space had been German soldiers a few seconds before.

Before the smoke died away we heard a savage yell. That was the French cry of victory. Then we heard a rapid crackling of rifles. That was the sign that the French had advanced across the space between the houses to finish the work their mine had left undone. When one goes to view the work of those mines afterward all that one sees is a great, round, smooth hole in the ground--sometimes thirty feet deep, often twice that in diameter. Above it might have been either a château or a stable; unless one has an old resident for guide it is impossible to know.

It takes many days and nights to prepare these mines. It takes careful mathematical precision to determine that they are correctly placed. It takes morale, judgment, courage, and intelligence--this fighting from house to house. And yet the French are called a frivolous people!

A cry from a soldier warned us of a German aeroplane directly overhead; so we stopped gazing at Neuville-St. Vaast. A French aeroplane soon appeared, and the German made off rapidly. They usually do, as the majority of German aeronauts carry only rifles; the French now all have mitrailleuses. A fight between them is unequal, and the inequality is not easily overcome, for the German machines are too light for mitrailleuses.

Four French machines were now circling above, and the German batteries opened fire on them. It was a beautiful sight. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the sun had not yet gone. We could not hear the shells explode, but we could see little feathery white clouds suddenly appear as if some giant invisible hand had just put them there--high up in the sky. Another appeared, and another. There were several dozen little white clouds vividly outlined against the blue before the French machines, all untouched, turned back toward their own lines.

Again our thoughts and actions were rudely disturbed by the soldier with us, who suddenly threw himself face down on the ground. Before we had time to wonder why a German shell tore a hole in the field before us, less than a hundred yards away. I asked the officer if we had been seen, and if they were firing at us. He said he did not think so, but we had perhaps better move. As a matter of fact, they were hunting the battery that had so accurately shown us their trenches a short time before.

Instead of returning to the point where we had left our motors by the trench, we walked across an open field in quite another direction than I thought was the correct one. All the time we heard, high overhead, that rushing sound as of giant wings. Occasionally, when a shell struck in the neighborhood, we heard the shrill whistling sound, and half a dozen times in the course of the walk great holes were torn in our field, some times quite near. But artillery does not cause fear easily; it is rifles that accomplish that. The sharp hissing of the bullet that resembles so much the sound of a spitting cat seems so personal--as if it was intended just for you.

Artillery is entirely impersonal; you know that the gunners do not see you; that they are firing by arithmetic at a certain range; that their shell is not intended for anyone in particular. So you walk on striking idly with your stick at the daisies and buttercups that border your path. You calculate, almost indifferently, the distance between you and the bursting shell. You somehow feel that nothing will harm you. You are not afraid; and if you are lucky, as we were, you will find the automobiles waiting for you just over there beyond the brow of the hill.

The Modern Plataea

By Frederick Pollock

[From King Albert's Book.]

Nearly 2,400 years ago the Boeotian city of Plataea was one among the many lesser Greek republics. Her citizens earned immortal fame by taking part with the leading States of Athens and Sparta in the decisive battles, fought on their own territory, which delivered Greece from the fear of Persian conquest and saved the light of Greek freedom and civilization from being extinguished. To this day the name of Plataea is held in honor throughout the world; for many years that honor was unique. Belgium has now done and dared for the freedom of modern Europe as much as Plataea did of old: she has, unhappily, suffered far more. As her valor has been equal and her suffering greater her reward will be no less immortal. Belgium will be remembered with Plataea centuries after the military tyranny of the Hohenzollerns has vanished like an evil dream.

A British Call For Recruits

* * * * *

Is Your Conscience Clear?

Ask your conscience why you are staying comfortably at home instead of doing _your_ share for your King and Country.

1. Are you too old?

The only man who is too old is the man who is over 38.

2. Are you physically fit?

The only man who can say honestly that he is not physically fit is the man who has been _told_ so by a Medical Officer.

3. Do you suggest you cannot leave your business?

In this great crisis the only man who cannot leave his business is the man who is himself actually doing work for the Government.

If your conscience is not clear on these three points your duty is plain.

ENLIST TO-DAY.

God Save the King.

* * * * *

This advertisement, occupying full pages, was recently run in the British press.

The British Army in France

Richebourg, La Quinque Rue, Festubert, and Ypres

By the Official "Eyewitness" and Sir John French

SAXONS SLAIN BY PRUSSIANS.

_Under date of May 21, 1915, an Eyewitness with the British Headquarters in France, continues and supplements his narrative of operations:_

The ground our troops were holding on Monday, May 17, projected as two salients into the enemy's territory, one south of Richebourg-L'Avoue and the other to the north of Festubert. The purpose of the operations undertaken on Monday was to connect up the space which lay between them. In this we were successful.

At about 9:30 A.M. on Monday, May 17, our forces attacked the enemy occupying this area, from north and south, and gradually drove him from all his intrenchments within it. The Germans here, pressed on three sides, subjected to a cross-fire from several directions and to continuous bombing, reached the limits of their endurance during the morning, and over 300 surrendered.

After this area had been made good by us fighting continued throughout the day, and our troops, having joined hands, pressed the enemy still further eastward, forcing them out of one post after another. As the afternoon wore on more prisoners fell into our hands, entire groups of men giving themselves up.

The centres of the hostile resistance in this quarter were the clusters of buildings which were very strongly held and surrounded by networks of trenches dotted with numerous machine gun posts, and in front of one of the nests of works near the Ferme Cour de L'Avoue, between La Quinque Rue and Richebourg-L'Avoue, a horrible scene was witnessed by our troops during the day.

Desperate fighting was going on in front of this farm when the remains of a battalion of Saxons, which, it appears, had been hastily brought down from further north and thrown into the fight, having decided to surrender en bloc, advanced toward our line. Not knowing what the movement of this mass of men implied, our infantry poured a hail of bullets into them, whereupon the survivors, some hundreds strong, halted, threw down their rifles, and held up their hands, and one of their number waved a white rag tied to a stick.

Our guns continued to fire from the rear, and whether our infantry, who, by this time, have had some experience of the treachery of the enemy, would have paid any attention to these signals is uncertain, but the matter was taken out of their hands, for as soon as the Prussian infantry on the north of this point realized what their Saxon comrades were trying to do, they opened rapid fire from the flank, enfilading the mass. It appears also that the news of what was happening must have been telephoned back to the German artillery further east--which was also probably Prussian, since its guns suddenly opened on the Saxon infantry, and under this combined fire most of the latter were very soon accounted for.

Among the many scenes of the war there has probably been no more strange spectacle than that of the masses of gray-coated soldiers standing out in the open, hands raised, amidst the dead and dying, being butchered by their own comrades before the eyes of the British infantry. The fact that the victims of this slaughter were Saxons was a source of regret to us, since the Saxons have always proved themselves more chivalrous and less brutal than either the Prussians or the Bavarians--in fact, cleaner fighters in every way.

While we were thus pressing forward gradually on the section of front between our two original points of penetration, our troops on the right in front of Festubert were making good progress southward along the German trenches. Their attack began at 11:30 A.M., and the Germans were soon cleared out of their line in this quarter up to a point a short distance south of Festubert, where they made a strong resistance and checked our further lateral progress.

The fighting here was made up of a series of isolated and desperate hand-to-hand combats with bayonet and hand grenades, and, since the Germans were, at many points, outflanked and enfiladed, their losses were very heavy, for in the narrow trenches there was often no room for escape, and the only alternative was death or surrender. In some places the trenches presented a horrible sight, being heaped with German corpses, many of whom had been blown to pieces by our bombardment carried out previous to the original attack. By about noon the total number of prisoners captured since the commencement of the attack on Sunday had increased to 550.

On the extreme right the Germans were pressed back along their communication trenches in such large numbers that they occasionally formed an excellent mark for the machine guns in our own line to the north of Givenchy, which were able to do great execution at certain points.