Chapter 5

General Sir John French, who is a great favorite with all ranks, and spoken of with affection by every Tommy, makes frequent tours of the lines and has a cheery word for every regiment. Driver W. Cryer, Royal Field Artillery, relates in the _Manchester Guardian_ that, at St. Quentin, Sir John French visited the troops, "smiling all over his face," and explained the meaning of the repeated retirements. Up to then, says Cryer, the men had almost to be pulled away by the officers, but after the General's visit they fell in with the general scheme with great cheerfulness.

Summing up his impressions of the nerve-strain of these weary rearguard actions, a famous cavalry officer writing home, says: "We had a hell of a time.... But the men were splendid. I don't believe any other troops in the world could have stood it."

X

BROTHERS IN ARMS

There is a fine fraternity between the British and the French soldiers. They don't understand very much of each other's speech, but they "muddle through," as Atkins puts it, with "any old lingo." The French call out, "Bravo, Tommee!" and share cigarettes with him: and Atkins, not very sure of his new comrades' military Christian name, replies with a cheery "Right, Oh!" Then turning to his own fellows he shouts, "Are we downhearted?" and the clamorous "No!" always brings forth a rousing French cheer.

Having seen each other in action since they first met on the way to battle they have grown to respect each other more and more. There is not much interchange of compliments in the letters from the trenches, but such as there is clearly establishes the belief of Atkins that he is fighting side by side with a brave and generous ally.

"We always knew," writes one soldier, "that the French were swift and dangerous in attack, but we know now that they can fight on the stubbornly defensive." One of the South Lancashires is loud in his praise of their behavior under fire. "Especially the artillery," Sergeant J. Baker adds; "the French seem to like the noise, and aren't happy unless it's there."

One of _The Times_ correspondents mentions that the German guns have a heavy sound "boum," and the French a sharper one, "bing"; but neither of them is very pleasant to the ear, and it requires a cultured military taste like that of the French to enjoy the full harmony of the music when the British "bang" is added to the general cannonading. The French artillery is admitted to be fine, the deadly accuracy of the gunners being highly praised by all who have watched the havoc wrought in the German lines.

For the French soldier, however, the path of greatest glory lies in the charge. Dash and fire are what he possesses in the highest degree. His highly-strung temperament chafes under delays and disappointments. He hasn't the solid, bull-dog courage that enables the British soldier to take hard knocks, even severe punishment, and come up smiling again to renew the battle that he will only allow to end in one way, and that way victory.

In the advance, as one writer describes it, the French dash forward in spasmodic movements, making immediately for cover. After a brief breathing space they bound into the open again, and again seek any available shelter. And so they proceed till the charge is sounded, when with gleaming bayonets and a cry of "_pour la gloire_" upon their lips they sweep down upon the enemy at a tremendous pace. The whole thing is exhilarating to watch, and to the men engaged it is almost intoxicating. They see red and the only thing that can stop them is the sheer dead weight of the columns in front. To the French the exploit of the 9th Lancers, already described in this volume, is the greatest thing in the war. They would have died to have accomplished it themselves. The fine heroics of such an exploit gives them a crazy delight. Then there are the forlorn hopes, the bearing of messages across a zone of withering fire, the fights for the colors. One incident which closely resembles the exploit of the Royal Irish Fusiliers is recorded. A message had to be borne to another regiment and volunteers sprang forward eagerly to the call. The enemy's fire was particularly deadly at this point, and it seemed impossible for a messenger to get through, but no man hesitated. The first fell dead before he had traveled many yards, the second had a leg shot off, the third by amazing luck got through without a scratch. Deeds of this kind have endeared the French soldier to Tommy Atkins more than all his extravagant acts of kindness, and the sympathetic bond of valor has linked them together in the close companionship of brothers-in-arms.

Having shown what the British soldier thinks of the French as fighting men, it is pleasant to turn to our Ally's opinion of Tommy Atkins. Here the letters deal in superlatives. M. Duchene, French master at Archbishop Holgate's School, York, who was wounded with his regiment at Verdun, writes in glowing terms of his comrades' praise. "Ah, those English soldiers!" he says. "In my regiment you only hear such expressions as _'Ils sont magnifiques,' 'Ils sont superbs,' 'Quels soldats!'_ No better tribute could be given." Another Frenchman with the army of the Republic is stirred into this eulogy in a letter to a friend in England: "How fine they are, how splendidly they behave, these English soldiers! In their discipline and their respect for their officers they are magnificent, and you will never know how much we have applauded them."

Another Frenchman, acting as interpreter with a Scottish regiment, relates with amazement how the Highlanders go into action, "as if they were going to a picnic, with laughing eyes and, whenever possible, with a cigarette between their lips. Their courage is a mixture of imperturbability and tenacity. One must have seen their immovable calm, their heroic sang-froid, under the rain of bullets to do it justice." Then he goes on to describe how a handful of Scots were selected to hold back a large body of Germans in a village to enable the main body of the British to retire in good order. They took up a position in the first house they came to and fired away at the invaders, who rained bullets on the building. Some of the gallant little party fell, but the others kept up the fight. Then there came a pause in the attack, the German fire ceased, the enemy was seeking a more sheltered position. During this brief respite the sergeant in command of the Scots surveyed the building they had entered. It was a small grocer's shop, and on an upper shelf he found a few packets of chocolate. "Here, lads," he shouted, "whoever kills his man gets a bit o' this." The firing began again, and as each marksman succeeded, the imperturbable Scot shouted "Got him," and handed over the prize amid roars of laughter. "Alas," comments the narrator, "there were few prize-winners who lived to taste their reward."

The same eulogist, whose narrative was obtained by Reuter's correspondent, also speaks of the fastidious Scot's preoccupations. He has two--to be able to shave and to have tea. "No danger," the Frenchman declares, "deters them from their allegiance to the razor and the teapot. At ----, in the department of the Nord, I heard a British officer of high rank declare with delicious calm between two attacks on the town: 'Gentlemen, it was nothing. Let's go and have tea.' Meanwhile his men took advantage of the brief respite to crowd round the pump, where, producing soap and strop, they proceeded to shave minutely and conscientiously with little bits of broken glass serving as mirrors."

The same sense of order and method also struck another Frenchman, who speaks of the "amazing Englishmen," who carry everything with them, and are never in want of anything, not even of sleep!

Certainly there is much truth in these tributes to the British military organization, but that is another story and for another chapter. The opinion of an English cavalry officer, however, may be quoted as to the relative merits of the French and English horses. "The French horses," he writes, "are awful. They look after them so badly. They all say, 'What lovely horses you have,' to us, and they do look fine beside theirs, but we look after ours so well. We always dismount and feed them on all occasions with hay and wheat found on the farms and in stacks in the fields, also clover. The French never do."

As a result of these observations the French appear to have been applying themselves to the study of the British fighting force. "I know for a fact," says Trooper G. Douglas, "that French officers have been moving amongst us studying our methods. The French Tommies try to copy us a lot, and they like, when they have time, to stroll into our lines for a chat or a game; but it's precious little time there is for that now."

But it is in character and temperament that the chief differences of the allies lie. "Brigadier" Mary Murray, who went to the front with other members of the Salvation Army, records a conversation she had with a French soldier over a cup of coffee. "Ah," he said, "we lose heavily, we French. We haven't the patience of the English. They are fine and can wait: we must rush!" And yet Tommy Atkins can do a bit of rushing too. Private R. Duffy, of the Rifle Brigade, sends home a lively account of the defense of the Marne in which a mixed force of British and French was engaged. The object to be achieved was to drive back the Germans who were attempting to cross the river. "About half a mile from the banks," writes Duffy, "we came out from a wood to find a French infantry battalion going across in the same direction. We didn't want to be behind, so we put our best foot forward, and one of the most exciting races you ever saw followed. We got in first by a head, as you might say, and we were just in time to tackle a mob of Germans heading for the crossing in disorder. We went at them with the bayonet, but they didn't seem to have the least heart for fighting. Some of them flung themselves in the stream and tried to swim to safety, but they were heavily accoutered and worn out so they didn't go very far. Of about three hundred men who tried this not more than half a dozen succeeded in reaching the other bank."

In spite of all the hatreds the war has engendered--and one of the Royal Lancasters declares that the sign manual of friendship between the French and the English soldier is "a cross on the throat indicating their wish to the Kaiser"--there is still room for passages of fine sympathy and chivalry. One young French lieutenant distinguished himself by carrying a wounded Uhlan to a place of safety under a heavy German fire, English soldiers have shown equal generosity and kindness to injured captives, and the tributes to heroic and patient nurses shine forth in letters of gold upon the dark pages of this tragic history. Here is a touching letter from one of the King's Own Royal Lancasters. "In one hospital, which was a church," he writes, "there was a young French girl helping to bandage us up. How she stood it I don't know. There were some awful sights, but she never quailed--just a sad sweet smile for every one. If ever any one deserved a front seat in Heaven this young angel did. God bless her! She has the prayers and all the love the remnants of the Fourth Division can give her."

And another pretty little tribute is paid to the kindness of a French lady to four English soldiers billeted at her house. "She was wondrous kind," writes one of the grateful soldiers, "and when we left for the front Madame and her mother sobbed and wept as if we had been their own sons."

XI

ATKINS AND THE ENEMY

In one of his fine messages from the front, Sir John French, whom the _New York World_ has described as the "best of war correspondents," referred to the British soldier as "a difficult person to impress or depress." He meant, of course, that it was no use trying to terrify Tommy Atkins. Nothing will do that. His stupendous sense of humor carries him, smiling, through every emergency.

But Atkins is a keen observer, and he takes on very clear and vivid impressions of men and affairs. He hates compromises and qualifications, and just lets you have his opinion--"biff!" as one officer expresses it.

"Bill and I have been thinking it over," says one letter from the trenches, "and we've come to the conclusion that the German army system is rotten." There you have the concentrated wisdom of hundreds of soldier critics who talk of the Kaiser's great military machine as they know it from intimate contact with the fighting force it propels. They admit its mechanical perfection; it is the human factor that breaks down.

Nothing has impressed Tommy Atkins more than the lack of _morale_ in the German soldiers. "Oh, they are brave enough, poor devils; but they've got no heart in the fighting," he says. That is absolutely true. Hundreds of thousands of them have no notion of what they are fighting for. Some of the prisoners declared that when they left the garrisons they were "simply told they were going to maneuvers"; "others," says a Royal Artilleryman, "had no idea they were fighting the English"; according to a Highland officer, surrendering Germans said their fellows had been assured that "America and Japan were fighting on their side, and that another Boer war was going on"; and a final illusion was dispelled when those captured by the Royal Irish were told that the civil war in Ireland had been "put off!"

It is not only that the men lack this moral preparation for war. Their system of fighting is demoralizing. "They come on in close formation, thousands of them, just like sheep being driven to the slaughter," is the description that nine soldiers out of every ten give of the Germans going into action. "We just mow them down in heaps," says an artilleryman. "Lord, even a woman couldn't miss hitting them," is the comment from the Infantry. And as for the cavalry: "Well, we just makes holes in them," adds one of the Dragoons. At first they didn't take cover at all, but just marched into action with their drums beating and bands playing, "like a blooming parade," as Atkins puts it. After the first slaughter, however, they shrank from the attack, and there is ample evidence of eyewitnesses that the German infantry often had to be lashed into battle by their officers. "I saw a colonel striking his own men with his sword to prevent them running away," is one of the many statements. Revolvers, too, were freely used for the same purpose.

But, generally speaking, there is iron discipline in the Kaiser's army. The men obey their officers implicitly. Trooper E. Tugwell, of the Berwicks, tells this little story of a cavalry charge from which a German infantry regiment bolted--all but one company, whose officers ordered them to stand: "They faced round without attempting to fire a shot, and stood there like statues to meet the onslaught of our men. Our chaps couldn't help admiring their fine discipline, but there's not much room for sentiment in war, and we rode at them with the lance, and swept them away." "They are big fellows, and, in a way, brave," writes Private P. Case of the King's (Liverpool) Regiment, describing one of their attacks; "they must be brave, or they would not have kept advancing when they saw their dead so thick that they were practically standing up." "Their officers simply won't let them surrender," says another writer, "and so long as there's an officer about they'll stand like sheep and be slaughtered by the thousand." The essential difference between the German soldiers and our own is in the officering and training, and it is admirably expressed by Private Burrell, Northumberland Fusiliers. "_We_ are led; _they_ are driven,"[F] is Burrell's epigram.

According to other letter writers, the German soldiers are absolutely tyrannized over by their officers. They are horribly ill-used, badly fed,[G] overworked, constantly under the lash. "They hate their officers like poison, and fear them ten times more than they fear death," says Private Martin King. "Most of the prisoners that I've seen are only fit for the hospital, and many of them will never be fit for anything else this side of the grave. Their officers don't seem to have any consideration for the men at all, and we have a suspicion that the heavy losses of German officers aren't all due to our fire. There was one brought in who had certainly been hit by one of their own bullets, and in the back too." Other soldiers say the same, and add that if it weren't for dread of their officers the Germans would surrender wholesale. "Take the officers away, and their regiments fall to pieces," is the dictum of one of the Somerset Light Infantry, "and that's why we always pick off the German officers first."

There is not the slightest divergence of opinion in the British ranks as to the German infantry fire. "Their shooting is laughable," "they couldn't hit a haystack in an entry," and "asses with the rifle," are how our men dispose of it. The Germans fire recklessly with their rifles planted against their hips, while Tommy Atkins takes cool and steady aim, and lets them have it from the shoulder. "We just knocked them over like nine-pins," a Highlander explained. As to the German cavalry, one Tommy expressed the prevailing opinion to nicety. "I don't want to be nasty," he said, "but what we all pray for is just half-an-hour each way with three times our number of Uhlans."

When it comes to artillery, however, Atkins has nothing but praise for the enemy. Their aeroplanes flutter over the British positions and give the gunners the exact range, and then they let go. "I can only figure it out as being something worse than the mouth of hell," declares Private John Stiles, 1st Gloucesters, and it may be here left at that, as the devastating effects of artillery have already been dealt with in a previous chapter. One thing which has puzzled and sometimes baffled our men is the way the Germans conceal their guns. They display extraordinary ingenuity in this direction, hiding them inside haystacks, in leaf-covered trenches, and sometimes, unhappily, in Red Cross wagons.

Stories of German treachery are abundant, and official reports have dealt with such shameful practises as driving prisoners and refugees in front of them when attacking, abusing the protection of the White Flag, and wearing Red Cross brassards in action. The men have their own stories to tell. An Irish Guardsman records a white flag incident during the fighting on the Aisne: "Coldstreamers, Connaughts, Grenadiers, and Irish Guards were all in this affair, and the fight was going on well. Suddenly the Germans in front of us raised the white flag, and we ceased firing and went up to take our prisoners. The moment we got into the open, fierce fire from concealed artillery was turned on us, and the surrendered Germans picked up their rifles and pelted us with their fire. It was horrible. They trapped us completely, and very few escaped." The German defense of these white flag incidents was given to Trooper G. Douglas by a prisoner who declared that the men were quite innocent of intention to deceive, but that whenever their officers saw the white flag they hauled it down, and compelled them to fight.

Many British soldiers suffered from the treachery of the Germans in wearing English and French uniforms, and their letters home are full of indignation at the practises of the enemy. It was in the fighting following such a ruse at Landrecies that the Honorable Archer-Windsor-Clive, of the Coldstream Guards, met his death. "Another time," an artillery officer relates, "they ran into one of our regiments with some of their officers dressed in French uniforms. They said 'Ne tirez-pas, nous sommes Français,' and asked for the C.O. He came up, and then they calmly blew his brains out!" A similar act of treachery is recorded by Lieutenant Oswald Anne, R.A., in a letter published in the _Leeds Mercury_: "At one place where the Berkshire Regiment was on guard a German force arrived attired in French uniforms. To keep up the illusion, a German called out in French from the wire entanglements that they wanted to interview the commanding officer. A major of the Berkshires who spoke French, went forward, and was immediately shot down. This sort of thing is of daily occurrence." Lieutenant Edgcumbe, son of Sir Robert Edgcumbe, Newquay, tells of another instance of treachery in which British uniforms were used, and declares, in common with many other officers, that he "will never again respect the Germans; they have no code of honor!"

They strip the uniforms from the dead, come on in night attacks shouting "Vive, l'Angleterre!" and sound the British bugle-call "Cease fire" in the thickest of the fight. Twice in one engagement the Germans stopped the British fire by the mean device of the bugle, and twice they charged desperately upon the silent ranks. But in nearly every case their punishment for these violations of the laws of civilized warfare has been swift and terrible, and no mercy has been shown them.

Charges of barbarity are also common in letters from the battlefields. One officer, who says he "never before realized what an awful thing war is," writes: "We have with us in the trenches three girls who came to us for protection. One had no clothes on, having been outraged by the Germans. I have given her my shirt and divided my rations among them. In consequence I feel rather hungry, having had nothing for thirty-two hours, except some milk chocolate. Another poor girl has just come in, having had both her breasts cut off. Luckily I caught the Uhlan officer in the act, and with a rifle at 300 yards killed him. And now she is with us, but, poor girl, I am afraid she will die. She is very pretty and only about nineteen."[H]

Captain Roffey, Lancashire Fusiliers, tells how he was found wounded, and handed over his revolver to the Germans, whereupon his captor used it to shoot him again, and left him for dead. There is no end to the stories of this kind, and one of the wounded vehemently declared that the "devilry of the Germans cannot be exaggerated."

There are others amongst the wounded however, who have received nothing but kindness from the enemy. Lieutenant H.G.W. Irwin, South Lancashire Regiment, pays a tribute to the treatment he met with in the German lines; Captain J.B. George, Royal Irish, "could not have been better treated had he been the Crown Prince;" and one of the Officer's Special Reserve says the stories of "brutality are only exceptions, and there are exceptions in every army."

And here it is worth quoting a happy example of German chivalry. It is taken from one of Sir John French's messages. A small party of French under a non-commissioned officer was cut off and surrounded. After a desperate resistance it was decided to go on fighting to the end. Finally, the N.C.O. and one man only were left, both being wounded. The Germans came up and shouted to them to lay down their arms. The German commander, however, signed to them to keep their arms, and then asked for permission to shake hands with the wounded non-commissioned officer, who was carried off on his stretcher with his rifle by his side.

After this account of what British soldiers think of the enemy, it is interesting to read what is the German opinion of Tommy Atkins. Evidently the fighting men do not share the Kaiser's estimate of "French's contemptible little army." Three very interesting letters, written by German officers, and found in the possession of the captives, were published in an official despatch from General Headquarters. Here are extracts from each: