Part 8

A yell of savage fury rose from the storming columns of the Russians, who had thus been stopped in their career and baulked of their objective in this most bloody and calamitous manner; and though the impact of succeeding waves of assailants soon levelled all the wire fencing with the ground, still the mass momentum of their charge had been diminished, their dogged courage had also been shaken by the busy doings of Death among their huddled ranks during their temporary check; but worst of all, before the Russians could recover the force of their forward rush, the Germans were out of their entrenchments and upon them with the bayonet.

A few moments of grim and ghastly hand-to-hand fighting then ensued—and let it never after this be said that the bayonet has been entirely supplanted by the bullet; but I had only time to observe that Gourko’s brave,—I was almost going to say indomitable,—troops were beginning to waver, to go down, to yield before the forceful push of the Teutonic pike, when suddenly again the electric lights of the Russians were turned off, and the dark curtain of night, in mercy to the vanquished, fell upon the bloody drama.

Pursuit by the Germans in such circumstances was quite impossible, but, recovering their ranks with singular precision, they sent salvo after salvo of artillery and musketry in the direction of the retreating foe, until the ‘Cease firing’ was sounded all along our victorious line as the faint and startled dawn began to blush—as if for very shame at such infernal work; and the bugle-sounds were supplemented by the shrill whistles of the company commanders, reminding me of the days when I loved to listen to the clear piping of the darting water-ousel among the rocky streams of the Grampians, amid scenes unsullied by the bloody hand of war.

When the day broke the results of the nocturnal battle revealed themselves in all their ghastly horrors; but, beyond saying that about 10,000 dead and wounded Russians lay in front of our extended lines, and nearly a third of that number of Germans in and about our own entrenchments, I will not disgust your readers with a realistic description of the ghastliness of the battlefield—the first of its kind, and one which has resulted from an endeavour to neutralise, or at least minimise, the destructive effects of the murderous magazine-rifle.

REPULSE OF THE GERMAN ARMY.

(_By Telegraph from our Special Correspondent, Mr. Charles Lowe._)

ALEXANDROVO, _May 5_, 7 P.M.

This first great victory of ours over the Russians has been somewhat damped by the news, just received, that our army of Silesia, which had begun to marshal around Czenstochau preparatory to a further push forward, has suffered a rather serious reverse at the hands of the Grand Duke Vladimir, commanding the 14th and 15th Russian Corps d’Armée, who fell upon Prince George of Saxony before he had completed his concentration, and compelled him to fall back.

On hearing, however, of Gourko’s crushing defeat by us, and his retreat towards Warsaw, the Grand Duke Vladimir, like the victorious Wellington at Quatre-Bras (who desired to effect a junction with Blücher, on the latter being worsted by the French at Ligny), resolved to forego the immediate fruits of his triumph and retire to a point that would enable him to join hands with the retreating Gourko, and thus give combined battle to the Germans. This point will probably be Skierniwiçe, the junction-point of the railway lines from Alexandrovo and Czenstochau to Warsaw, famous in modern history as the pacific meeting-place of the three Emperors and their Chancellors several years ago.

Skierniwiçe, therefore, will probably be the Waterloo of the Russo-German portion of the campaign, whoever proves its Wellington; but Skierniwiçe is very much further from Alexandrovo and Czenstochau than Quatre-Bras and Ligny were from Mont St. Jean, and some little time, therefore, must necessarily yet elapse before I shall have it in my power to chronicle the Waterloo of the present war.

EXCITEMENT IN BRUSSELS.

(_By Telegraph from our Special Correspondent._)

BRUSSELS, _May 5_.

Brussels to-day is rent by conflicting emotions. Frenzied rage, poignant anxiety, and boiling excitement are struggling not so much for mastery as for satisfactory expression. The news of the forthcoming occupation of Antwerp by a British Army Corps has not been received here with expressions of unmixed satisfaction. The very fact that the negotiations were kept wholly secret, with the result that the announcement of so important a decision first reached us through the public report of the debate in the House of Commons, has, whether justly or otherwise matters not, set a vast number of well meaning people by the ears. When the news reached Brussels yesterday it produced an extravagant sensation which grew as the night advanced. By tacit consent people refused to go to bed—clubs and cafés were kept open till morning, and all through the principal thoroughfares the noise of heated discussions might be heard in full blast round the tables outside the cafés and at every street corner. A large section of the population, in which ranked many of the better classes, were greatly incensed against the King’s Government. ‘It is not astonishing,’ they said, ‘that the measure was kept secret; otherwise the people would never have permitted so infamous a traffic!’ All the old arguments of 1859 and the half dozen succeeding years were revived, and in every group of angry disputants the name of Adelson Castiau continually recurrent, was flung passionately on the night with every varied accent of which the human voice is capable. ‘_Il l’a bien dit, Castiau._ He knew, he foresaw what must happen, and idiots that we were, we would not listen.’ This was the prevailing cry.

It must be explained that M. Adelson Castiau—who is just at present given posthumous rank as a hero and patriot—was an eminent lawyer and ex-deputy, who, from the first, vehemently opposed the fortification of Antwerp. From the day when in 1859 a committee of twenty-seven officers were appointed to discuss the subject until the completion of the immense work some six years later, M. Castiau waged war against the scheme. He spoke, wrote, organised committees, and headed deputations protesting against the plan. His argument was that, from a military point of view, the project involved in principle the abandonment of the country and a shameful flight by the army towards the ‘Polders de l’Escaut,’ where certainly no one would ever come to molest it, but would be quite content to leave it to be destroyed by marsh fevers. The fortification of Antwerp, he said later, meant the destruction of our neutrality. Antwerp offers to-day, with her forty kilometres of heavily-armed works, her citadel and her dozen attached forts, a standing invitation to invasion. It was handing over the country to the first comer, and building up one of the finest military and commercial positions in the world, only for the benefit of England, which had coveted it for over a century.

And to-day the good people of Brussels, and, I fear of Belgium generally, are regretfully recalling his words and indorsing his opinion. Hence the frenzied rage of which I have spoken leaping flame-like all the length of the Boulevards.

BRUSSELS, _May 7_, 10 A.M.

I have just heard that the British Army Corps, under Sir Evelyn Wood, has reached Antwerp, and that disembarkation is rapidly going forward. Until the transports with their escort of cruisers and torpedo boats actually steamed up the river, people here affected to believe that they would not come. Chatterers in the clubs boasted loudly that the wind of popular opinion would drive the English vessels back from the shores of the Scheldt. The obvious absurdity of this anticipation is but emphasised by the fact that the worthy Antwerpers have received the invaders, if not with enthusiasm, at any rate with a demeanour at once friendly and business-like. Telegrams in the clubs here comment rather bitterly on the fact, that instead of visiting them with haughty resentment, the townsfolk are doing a lively trade with the alien soldiers in light beers and other cheap beverages, which the troops are freely purchasing beneath the Rubens Statue in the Place Verte, where they are being rendezvoused before proceeding to their billets.

The fear has now grown into dread certainty that what we have always expected is about to happen. France intends to invade Belgium, and we have before us the prospect of another Waterloo. Why have the German troops delayed? It has been set forth again and again by strategists that Germany’s most obvious plan would be to concentrate her Army Corps of the North upon the Belgian frontier of France, that it would therefore be to her advantage either to make use of the two railway lines which, from Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle, run to Luxembourg, Thionville, and Virton—one by way of Trèves and the other by Verviers—or, and by this even more important results might be obtained, she might combine with this movement the seizure of the line of the Meuse, when, by debouching a part of her forces by Chimay into the Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse, she would be able to attack in flank the French forces engaged in preventing the Northern Army Corps forcing the passage of the Meuse between Dun and Mezières.

It was always considered as certain, therefore, that instead of violating Swiss territory to attack France, Germany would certainly, immediately on the declaration of war, throw an Army Corps into Belgium. It was supposed that a German First Army Corps could be concentrated at Aix-la-Chapelle on the eleventh day of mobilisation, and that it would be established on the Meuse and on the Sambre to the south of Namur at latest by the evening of the fifteenth day—that is to say, twenty-four hours after the Second German Army Corps had deployed before the position on the Othain.

This has no doubt been Germany’s intention. A huge army is being concentrated on the Eastern frontier. But France is likely to forestall the movement, and to reach Namur before her adversary. The extraordinary rapidity of her mobilisation may be said to be due in great measure to the perfection of her railway system on the Belgian frontier. She has established between Dunkerque and Mezières no less than seven lines of railway, of which four are double lines, which place her in direct and immediate communication with Belgium. These roads are linked and tapped by a transversal line that follows the whole length of the frontier as far as Longwy. Then she has, moreover, on this frontier four huge entrenched camps capable of serving as manœuvre pivots for her army, and as supports to her base of operations. These camps are Dunkerque (with its annexes—Bergues and Gravelines), Lille, Valenciennes (centre of a system of defence which comprises Condé, Bouchain, and Le Quesnoy), and Maubeuge. To ensure the retreat of her army in case of failure, she has created a first line of defence, formed by Valenciennes, Maubeuge, Landrecies, Hirson, and Mezières. For her second line she has the town of Reims, surrounded by forts commanding the valleys of the Aisne and the Marne, and the iron-bound triangle La Fère, Laon, and Soissons which defends the valley of the Oise, and with the support of Peronne, the valley of the Somme.

Thus encouraged by the rapidity of mobilisation—a rapidity certainly never anticipated by Germany, and probably a little unexpected by her own officers—France has decided to attack Germany by Belgium. The seven natural obstacles in her path are not in themselves formidable. She has, indeed, to cross the Meuse, the Lower Rhine, the Teutoburgerwald, the Weser, the Hartz, and the Elbe. The Teutoburgerwald checked, it is true, the Legions of Varus, but to-day the great roads pierce it in several broad cuttings, and it is, moreover, traversed by two railway lines, running from Hamm to Hanover and Magdeburg. The Hartz also is traversed by good roads and girdled by two railway lines running to Berlin, one of which is the line which places the German capital in communication with Coblentz and Metz. Thus her advance should unquestionably be more rapid than by the inter-Moselle and the Rhine. If, moreover, she can make good her footing in Belgium before the German army, she will undoubtedly find there better roads, better cantonments, and far greater resources of every kind than she would find in Lorraine and Oldenburg and the Palatinate.

With this object, we hear that the 1st and 2d French Army Corps are being concentrated at Maubeuge, the 3d and 10th at Hirson, the 4th and 9th at Givet, and it is expected that all these forces will be united in the neighbourhood of Namur in the course of the next four days—that is to say, sooner by five days than any military authorities have believed possible.

The entire interest in this country is, therefore, centred in Namur, for which place I start at once.

NAMUR, _May 8_.

The wildest excitement animates this place. Garrison and townsfolk alike are filled with generous enthusiasm for the French cause, a rapid change of feeling which may be attributed in some degree to the Antwerp episode. The most extravagant rumours are abroad. Belgian co-operation with the French forces is talked of openly, and with a grandiloquent disregard of consequences that would be almost amusing if it were not so grave. It is loudly proclaimed that Chartreuse and the old citadel of Liége are determined to resist the German advance, and here at Namur itself the populace (not the army) declare their intention of holding the ‘Key of Belgium,’ if need be, until their French allies can support them. As for Namur, its strategical position might well entitle it to be considered as one of the keys of Belgium. Till lately, however, the fortifications were in no condition to resist modern artillery. Thanks, however, to the wisdom of the Belgium Government in adopting the plans of General Briamont all this has been changed. Within the year 1892 the fortifications were so far completed as to furnish means for a strong defence. I give these rumours merely for what they are worth, and to show the temper of the populace.

As I write this telegram a report reaches me that French troops have crossed the frontier at Maubeuge and Valenciennes, and it is alleged that the small Belgian garrisons at Mons and Philippeville, after giving a wildly enthusiastic reception to their visitors, have valiantly offered their services to General Saussier.

THE MEETING OF THE FOUR FLEETS.

THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH IN COMMAND OF THE ENGLISH SQUADRON.

We are favoured with another letter from Admiral Colomb, who has been fortunate enough—in one way—to observe the remarkable naval transactions in the North Sea:—

‘Not knowing what would happen, or quite what to do, I lay at Colberg, as being a place less likely to be interfered with by the Russians by way of blockade than some of the other ports, and to get intelligence of what was going on. It was here I heard of the violation of the Belgian territories by France. I thought that the drawing of France into this step was equally an example of German shrewdness and of French rashness. I was not at all surprised that we should so suddenly have been brought into it, in the occupation of Antwerp, which is now being hastened on, and of course we were bound to mobilise everything we could put our hands on. I was sure we could never stop at the defence of Belgium. It seemed equally sure that we could not leave the Baltic, the Belts, and the Sound in the hands of the French and the Russians, for that would almost certainly sacrifice Germany. I had seen her hesitate to attack the Russian Fleet alone, and I was sure that against Russia and France together, she could only shut her main fleets up in her ports as she did in 1870 though she is so much more powerful now than she was then. There was a small German cruiser at Colberg; she trusted to get into shoal water if a superior Russian found her out—and her captain told me that he believed the German Government thought as I did in reference to the policy of attacking the Russian fleet; but that, beside this, they were alarmed at the crowds of small vessels with heavy guns, which, it was assumed, might be associated in any naval action in Russian waters. I only say this as I am told it,—I don’t know anything of the real facts.

‘I thought the appointment of the Duke of Edinburgh to the command in chief of the North Sea Fleet was a very natural one. His reputation as a tactician, I had always heard, was first-rate, and naval officers always seemed ready to depend on and follow him. I was told the command had been offered to Sir Geoffrey Hornby, but that his medical advisers absolutely forbid his accepting it; however, he seems to have had a good hand in the programme.

‘The German officers entirely calculated on France making such an attack on their Baltic shores as she had proposed to make in 1870. The German papers rather made light of it, and hammered away on the two points that France would find it difficult to get transport and appliances, as Cherbourg and Brest were really her nearest ports; and that England would step in and prevent a descent if it got as far as that. But the Germans were everywhere full of preparation on land, and troops were concentrating at Colberg and elsewhere. I had read in one of our papers last year that for a long time the bulk of the French Fleet had been kept at Toulon, and so I was not surprised to see it stated in an English paper that only five battle-ships had left Brest for the North Sea, with, however, a good proportion of cruisers and small craft. If, then, this were really so, it would follow that, supposing the Germans had been able to bring forward any more ships in the time, and had repaired the _Oldenburg_, they must be either _à cheval_ between the French and Russian Fleets—able to strike at each before the other could assist—or else between two fires; according to how they looked at it. I had seen them retire before the Russian Fleet on the apprehension of a French approach. Would they now, with more complete knowledge of the forces against them, reverse their policy and strike at either? Or would they remain quiescent; shut themselves up in Wilhelmshaven, and trust to their land defences to repel all attacks? There seemed almost an even chance, and I made up my mind to go on to Kiel, and to the Jahde, if I made out nothing at the first-named port.

‘I had hoped to have made Kiel in daylight, but the wind failing me, it was dark when I got off the port. I could only guess where I was, for the Bülk Light did not show, and all I could make out in the way of lights seemed to be about the works of Friedrichsort, though the regular light there was also extinguished; thereupon I lay-to. I had the usual side-lights burning, and I suppose they were seen, for we had not been there ten minutes lying-to when a ship without lights of any sort came out of the gloom, and a voice hailed us in an unknown tongue first, and receiving no response, then in French, asking what we were. I answered, and presently a boat with a Russian officer boarded us. He was very polite; told us there were no German warships in Kiel except some small craft; that a squadron of Russian cruisers was blockading the place; and that I must get out of it. So there it was, and all I could do was to make sail for the Sound.

‘Off the Jahde we found quite a strong combined French and Russian Fleet. We counted seven large French ships and six large Russians, so that it was clear that the Germans had made no attempt to interfere with the junction. There were many smaller vessels, chiefly French, and the whole fleet, except some small vessels, was at anchor.

‘We made for the vicinity of a French flagship, and were soon boarded by a boat from another ship with some sort of flag up. The officer warned us that the Jahde was blockaded, and that though, on our promise not to try to slip in, we might remain with the fleets, we should assuredly be captured or sunk if we tried to break blockade. As we only wanted to see what was going on, I readily gave a promise, and then we learnt that the Russian ships had only joined the French a few hours before we came in sight, and that no one knew what was going to be done, but it was ordered that the whole fleet must weigh before dark. The officer told us they expected transports and troops daily, but that he did not know what was intended.

‘Immediately after dark; accordingly, the whole combined fleet got under weigh. Lights were shown during the process, but then all were extinguished and the ships disappeared without our having the least idea which direction they had taken.

‘We were astonished soon after daylight next morning to see not only our friends the Russians and French steaming slowly in from the northward, but to see an apparently still greater fleet in the haze to the westward.

‘There was an evident check and hesitation in the Franco-Russian Fleet, and presently we well understood why, when we distinctly made out the English white ensign flying in the Western Fleet. Our ships came on quite slowly. We could make out that they were grouped in three great masses. I counted fifteen in the most advanced portion, all very large ships, and I soon made out that they were in three lines, with a flagship at the head of each. Soon I made out the middle one to be certainly the _Alexandra_ with an Admiral’s flag at the main. On her right I supposed was the _Camperdown_, with Vice-Admiral Seymour’s flag; and on the left the _Anson_, with that of Rear-Admiral Adeane. I had seen them both before I left England, and supposed they retained their commands. There were several small vessels near this great mass of ships, and then to the right of them was a group of seven large ships, three of them as if partly rigged, and four of them like turret-ships. Then, again, on the left of the main fleet I could make out what seemed to be a cluster of smaller vessels.

‘We had barely made out all this, when out of the cloud of mist overhanging the mouth of the Jahde there came clearly the body of the German Fleet—ten of them I counted.

‘Never was such an exciting time as this. It seemed to me that I was about to witness the greatest sea-battle that the world had ever seen, and when I noticed the Franco-Russian Fleet separating its bigger from its smaller ships, and drawing the latter into one long line, facing west, and stretching north and south, I made certain they were going to run right at the English Fleet pell-mell, in the way I had always read about.’

RETREAT OF FRENCH CRUISERS.

SINKING OF THE ‘ELAINE.’

But yet I had not heard of any declaration of war by England, and it seemed a terribly reckless thing for the French and Russians—of whom I could only count fourteen in the line they had drawn out, to run down upon what seemed to be twenty-two English ironclads, when they could be joined, in a couple of hours perhaps, by the ten Germans. The three fleets were each about ten miles from my yacht, and I was in the middle part. There was not much wind, and what there was being from the southward, left smooth water, but brought down a good deal of mist from the flat land of which one could only get indications by buildings and trees sticking up above the horizon. I could not help thinking how wise the Germans were to have their fleet here rather than at Kiel. Nature sheltered them from attack at Wilhelmshaven in a way that no sort of art could do at Kiel, and here they were quite safe behind their shoals, and yet ready to fall upon their enemies at a moment’s notice.