CHAPTER XIX

GENERAL WOOD SCORES ANOTHER BRILLIANT SUCCESS AGAINST THE CROWN PRINCE

On the evening of October 14, 1921, Field Marshal von Kluck awaited final news of the battle of the Susquehanna while enjoying an excellent meal with his staff in the carved and gilded dining-room of the old S. B. Chittenden mansion on Brooklyn Heights, headquarters of the army of occupation. All the earlier despatches through the afternoon had been favourable and, as the company finished their _Kartoffelsuppe_, von Kluck had risen, amidst _hochs_ of applause, and read a telegram from his Imperial master, the Crown Prince, who, with Field Marshal von Hindenburg, was directing the battle from Perryville on the Northern bank, announcing that the German army had crossed the river and driven back Leonard Wood’s forces for five miles and occupied a vast network of American trenches.

The officers lingered over their _preisselbeeren compote_ and _kaffeekuchen_ and, presently, the commander rose again, holding a telegram just delivered by a red-faced lieutenant whose cheek was slashed with scars.

“Comrades, the great moment has come--I feel it. Our victory at the Susquehanna means the end of American resistance, the capture of Baltimore, Washington and the whole Atlantic seaboard. Let us drink to the Fatherland and our place in the sun.”

Up on their feet came the fire-eating company, with lifted glasses and the gleam of conquerors in their eyes.

“_Hoch! Hoch!_” they cried and waited, fiercely joyful, while von Kluck opened the despatch. His shaggy brows contracted ominously as he scanned two yellow sheets crowded with closely written German script.

“_Gott in Himmel!_” he shouted, and threw the telegram on the table.

The blow had fallen, the incredible truth was there before them. Not only had the redoubtable von Hindenburg, idol of a nation, hero of countless Russian victories, suffered crushing defeat, but his proud battalions had been almost annihilated. In the whole history of warfare there had never been so complete a disaster to so powerful an army.

“Burned to death! Our brave soldiers! Was there ever so barbarous a crime?” raved the Field Marshal. “But the American people will pay for this, yes, ten times over. We still have two armies on their soil and a fleet ready to transport from Germany another army of half a million. We hold their greatest cities, their leading citizens at our mercy, and they shall have none. Burned in oil! _Mein Gott!_ We will show them.”

“Excellency,” questioned the others anxiously, “what of his Imperial Highness the Crown Prince?”

“Safe, thank God, and von Hindenburg is safe. They did not cross the cursed river. They stayed on the Northern bank with the artillery and three thousand men.”

I learned later that these three thousand of the German rear guard, together with seven thousand that escaped from the fire zone and were made prisoners, were all that remained alive of the 120,000 Germans that had crossed the Susquehanna that fatal morning with flying eagles.

Orders were immediately given by von Kluck that retaliatory steps be taken to strike terror into the hearts of the American people, and the wires throughout New England were kept humming that night with instructions to the commanding officers of German forces of occupation in Boston, Hartford, New Haven, Portland, Springfield, Worcester, Newport, Fall River, Stamford; also in Newark, Jersey City, Trenton and Philadelphia, calling upon them to issue proclamations that, in punishment of an act of barbarous massacre committed by General Wood and the American army, it was hereby ordered that one-half of the hostages previously taken by the Germans in each of these cities (the same to be chosen by lot) should be led forth at noon on October 15th and publicly executed.

At half-past eleven, October 15th, on the Yale University campus, there was a scene of excitement beyond words, although dumb in its tragic expression, when William Howard Taft, who was one of the hostages drawn for execution, finished his farewell address to the students.

“I call on you, my dear friends,” he cried with an inspired light in his eyes, “to follow the example of our glorious ancestors, to put aside selfishness and all base motives and rise to your supreme duty as American citizens. Defend this dear land! Save this nation! And, if it be necessary to die, let us die gladly for our country and our children, as those great patriots who fought under Washington and Lincoln were glad to die for us.”

With a noble gesture he turned to the guard of waiting German soldiers. He was ready.

Deeply moved, but helpless, the great audience of students and professors waited in a silence of rage and shame. They would fain have hurled themselves, unarmed, upon the gleaming line of soldiers that walled the quadrangle, but what would that have availed?

A Prussian colonel of infantry, with many decorations on his breast, stepped to the edge of the platform, glanced at his wrist-watch and said in a high-pitched voice: “Gentlemen of the University, I trust you have carefully read the proclamation of Field Marshal von Kluck. Be sure that any disorder during the execution of hostages that is now to take place will bring swift and terrible punishment upon the city and citizens of New Haven. Gentlemen, I salute you.”

He turned to the guard of soldiers. “_Gehen!_”

“_Fertig! Hup!_” cried a stocky little Bavarian sergeant, and the grim procession started.

At the four corners of the public green were companies of German soldiers with machine-guns trained upon dense crowds of citizens who had gathered for this gruesome ceremony, high-spirited New Englanders whose faith and courage were now to be crushed out of them, according to von Kluck, by this stern example.

Down Chapel Street with muffled drums came the unflinching group of American patriots, marching between double lines of cavalry and led by a military band. At Osborn Hall they turned to the right and moved slowly along College Street to the Battell Chapel, where they turned again and advanced diagonally across the green, the band playing Beethoven’s funeral march.

In the centre of the dense throng, at a point between Trinity Church and the old Centre Church, a firing squad of bearded Westphalians was making ready for the last swift act of vengeance, when, suddenly, in the direction of Elm Street near the Graduates’ Club, there came a tumult of shouts and voices with a violent pushing and struggling in the crowd. A messenger on a motorcycle was trying to force his way to the commanding officer.

“Stop! Stop!” he shouted. “I’ve got a telegram for the general. Let me through! I _will_ get through!”

And at last, torn and breathless, the lad did get through and delivered his message. It was a telegram from Field Marshal von Kluck, which read:

“Have just received a despatch from General Leonard Wood, stating that his Imperial Highness the Crown Prince and Field Marshal von Hindenburg, with their military staffs, have been made prisoners by an American army north of the Susquehanna, and giving warning that if retaliatory measures are taken against American citizens, his Imperial Highness will, within twenty-four hours, be stood up before the statue of his Imperial ancestor Frederick the Great, in the War College at Washington, and shot to death by a firing squad from the Pennsylvania National Guard. In consequence of this I hereby countermand all previous orders for the execution of American hostages. (Signed) VON KLUCK.”

Like lightning this wonderful news spread through the crowd, and in the delirious joy that followed there was much disorder which the Germans scarcely tried to suppress. They were stunned by the catastrophe. The Crown Prince a prisoner! Von Hindenburg a prisoner! By what miracle of strategy had General Wood achieved this brilliant coup?

Here were the facts, as I subsequently learned. So confident of complete success was the American commander, that by twelve o’clock on the day of battle he had diverted half of his forces, about 30,000 men, in a rapid movement to the north, his purpose being to cross the Susquehanna higher up and envelop the rear guard of the enemy, with their artillery and commanding generals, in an overwhelming night attack. Hour after hour through the night of October 14th a flotilla of ferry-boats, cargo-boats, tugs, lighters, river craft of all sorts, assembled days before, had ferried the American army across the Susquehanna as George Washington ferried his army across the Delaware a hundred and fifty years before.

All night the Americans pressed forward in a forced march, and by daybreak the Crown Prince and his 3,000 men were caught beyond hope of rescue, hemmed in between the Susquehanna River and the projecting arms of Chesapeake Bay. The surprise was complete, the disaster irretrievable, and at seven o’clock on the morning of October 15th the heir to the German throne and six of his generals, including Field Marshal von Hindenburg, surrendered to the Americans the last of their forces with all their flags and artillery and an immense quantity of supplies and ammunition.

By General Wood’s orders the mass of German prisoners were moved to concentration camps at Gettysburg, but the Crown Prince was taken to Washington, where he and his staff were confined with suitable honours in the Hotel Bellevue, taken over by the government for this purpose. Here, during the subsequent fortnight, I had the honour of seeing the illustrious prisoner on several occasions. It seems that he remembered me pleasantly from the New England campaign and was glad to call upon my knowledge of American men and affairs for his own information.

As to von Hindenburg’s defeat (leaving aside the question of military ethics which he denounced scathingly) the Crown Prince said this had been accomplished by a mere accident that could never occur again and that could not interfere with Germany’s ultimate conquest of America.

“This will be a short-lived triumph,” declared His Imperial Highness, when he received me in his quarters at the Bellevue, “and the American people will pay dearly for it. The world stands aghast at the horror of this barbarous act.”

“America is fighting for her existence,” said I.

“Let her fight with the methods of civilised warfare. Germany would scorn to gain an advantage at the expense of her national honour.”

“If Your Imperial Highness will allow me to speak of Belgium in 1914--” I began, but he cut me short with an impatient gesture.

“Our course in Belgium was justified by special reasons--that is the calm verdict of history.”

I refrained from arguing this point and was patient while the prince turned the conversation on his favourite theme, the inferiority of a democratic to an autocratic form of government.

“I have been studying the lives of your presidents,” he said, “and--really, how can one expect them to get good results with no training for their work and only a few years in office? Take men like Johnson, Tyler, Polk, Hayes, Buchanan, Pierce, Filmore, Harrison, McKinley. Mediocre figures, are they not? What do they stand for?”

“What does the average king or emperor stand for?” I ventured, whereupon His Imperial Highness pointed proudly to the line of Hohenzollern rulers, and I had to admit that these were exceptional men.

“The big men of America go into commercial and industrial pursuits rather than into politics,” I explained.

“Exactly,” agreed the prince, “and the republic loses their services.”

“No, the republic benefits by the general prosperity which they build up,” I insisted.

With this the Imperial prisoner discussed the American Committee of Twenty-one and I was astonished to find what full knowledge he had touching their individual lives and achievements. He even knew the details of Asa G. Candler’s soda water activities. And he told me several amusing stories of Edison’s boyhood.

“By the way,” he said abruptly, “I suppose you know that Thomas A. Edison is a prisoner in our hands?”

“So we concluded,” said I. “Also Lemuel A. Widding.”

“Also Lemuel A. Widding,” the prince admitted. “You know why we took them prisoners? It was on account of Widding’s invention. He thinks he has found a way to destroy our fleet and we do not want our fleet destroyed.”

“Naturally not.”

“You had a talk with Edison on the train last week. He knows all the details of Widding’s invention?”

“Yes.”

“And he believes it will do what the inventor claims? He believes it will destroy our fleet? Did he tell you that?”

“He certainly did. He said he wouldn’t give five cents for the German fleet after Widding’s plan is put into operation.”

“Ah!” reflected the Crown Prince.

“Would Your Imperial Highness allow me to ask a question?” I ventured.

His eyes met mine frankly. “Why, yes--certainly.”

“I have no authority to ask this, but I suppose there might be an exchange of prisoners. Edison and Widding are important to America and--“.

“You mean they might be exchanged for me?” his face grew stern. “I would not hear of it. Those two Americans alone have the secret of this Widding invention, I am sure of that, and it is better for the Fatherland to get along without a Crown Prince than without a fleet. No. We shall keep Mr. Edison and Mr. Widding prisoners.”

He said this with all the dignity of his Hohenzollern ancestry; then he rose to end the interview.