[Illustration: Front Cover] MY SECOND YEAROF THE WAR BYFREDERICK PALMERAuthor of "The Last Shot, " "The Old Blood, " "My Yearof the Great War, " etc. NEW YORKDODD, MEAD & COMPANY1917 COPYRIGHT, 1917 BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I BACK TO THE FRONT 1 II VERDUN AND ITS SEQUEL 18 III A CANADIAN INNOVATION 35 IV READY FOR THE BLOW 50 V THE BLOW 67 VI FIRST RESULTS OF THE SOMME 81 VII OUT OF THE HOPPER OF BATTLE 94 VIII FORWARD THE GUNS! 108 IX WHEN THE FRENCH WON 119 X ALONG THE ROAD TO VICTORY 130 XI THE BRIGADE THAT WENT THROUGH 142 XII THE STORMING OF CONTALMAISON 153 XIII A GREAT NIGHT ATTACK 167 XIV THE CAVALRY GOES IN 180 XV ENTER THE ANZACS 190 XVI THE AUSTRALIANS AND A WINDMILL 201 XVII THE HATEFUL RIDGE 213 XVIII A TRULY FRENCH AFFAIR 236 XIX ON THE AERIAL FERRY 244 XX THE EVER MIGHTY GUNS 255 XXI BY THE WAY 269 XXII THE MASTERY OF THE AIR 282 XXIII A PATENT CURTAIN OF FIRE 292 XXIV WATCHING A CHARGE 304 XXV CANADA IS STUBBORN 319 XXVI THE TANKS ARRIVE 332 XXVII THE TANKS IN ACTION 348 XXVIII CANADA IS QUICK 360 XXIX THE HARVEST OF VILLAGES 374 XXX FIVE GENERALS AND VERDUN 385 XXXI _Au Revoir_, SOMME! 400 MY SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR I BACK TO THE FRONT How America fails to realize the war--Difficulties of realization--Uncle Sam is sound at heart--In London again--A Chief of Staff who has risen from the ranks--Sir William Robertson takes time to think--At the front--Kitchener's mob the new army--A quiet headquarters--Sir Douglas Haig--His office a clearing house of ideas--His business to deal in blows--"The Spirit that quickeneth. " "I've never kept up my interest so long in anything as in this war, "said a woman who sat beside me at dinner when I was home from the frontin the winter of 1915-16. Since then I have wondered if my reply, "Admirable mental concentration!" was not ironic at the expense ofmanners and philosophy. In view of the thousands who were dying inbattle every day, her remark seemed as heartless as it was superficialand in keeping with the riotous joy of living and prosperity whichstrikes every returned American with its contrast to Europe'sself-denial, emphasized by such details gained by glimpses in the shopwindows of Fifth Avenue as the exhibit of a pair of ladies' silk hoseinset with lace, price one hundred dollars. Meanwhile, she was knitting socks or mufflers, I forget which, for theAllies. Her confusion about war news was common to the whole country, which heard the special pleading of both sides without anycross-questioning by an attorney. She remarked how the Allies' bulletinssaid that the Allies were winning and the German bulletins that theGermans were winning; but so far as she could see on the map the armiesremained in much the same positions and the wholesale killing continued. Her interest, I learned on further inquiry, was limited and partisan. When the Germans had won a victory, she refused to read about it andthrew down her paper in disgust. There was something human in her attitude, as human as the war itself. It was a reminder of how far away from the Mississippi is the Somme; howbroad is the Atlantic; how impossible it is to project yourself into thedistance even in the days of the wireless. She was moving in the orbitof her affairs, with its limitations, just as the soldiers were intheirs. Before the war luxury was as common in Paris as in New York; butwith so ghastly a struggle proceeding in Europe it seemed out of keepingthat the joy of living should endure anywhere in the world. Yet Europewas tranquilly going its way when the Southern States were sufferingpain and hardship worse than any that France and England have known. Paris and London were dining and smiling when Richmond was in flames. War can be brought home to no community until its own sons are dying andrisking death. In nothing are we so much the creatures of oursurroundings as in war. For the first few weeks when I was at home, anation going its way in an era of prosperity had an aspect of vulgarity;peace itself was vulgar by contrast with the atmosphere of heroicsacrifice in which I had lived for over a year. I asked myself if mycountry could ever rise to the state of exaltation of France andEngland. Though first thought, judging by superficial appearances alone, might have said "No, " I knew that we could if there ever came a call todefend our soil--a call that could be brought home to the valleys of theHudson and the Mississippi as a call was brought home to the valleys ofthe Somme, the Meuse and the Marne. Many Americans had returned from Europe with reports of humiliationendured as a result of their country's attitude. Shopkeepers had madeinsulting remarks, they said, and in some instances had refused to sellgoods. They had been conscious of hostility under the politeness oftheir French and English friends. A superficial confirmation of theircontention might be taken from the poster I noticed on my way fromPaddington Station to my hotel upon my arrival in England. It advertisedan article in a cheap weekly under the title of "Uncle Sham. " I took this just as seriously as I took a cartoon in a New York eveningpaper of pro-German tendencies on the day that I had sailed from NewYork, which showed John Bull standing idly by and urging France on tosacrifices in the defense of Verdun. It was as easy for an American tobe indignant at one as for an Englishman at the other, but a littleunworthy of the intelligence of either. I was too convinced that UncleSam, who does not always follow my advice, is sound at heart and arespectable member of the family of nations to be in the least disturbedin my sense of international good will. If I had been irritated I shouldhave contributed to the petty backbiting by the mischievous uninformedwhich makes bad blood between peoples. I knew, too, from experience, as I had kept repeating at home, that whenthe chosen time arrived for the British to strike, they would prove withdeeds the shamelessness of this splash of printer's ink and confound, asthey have on the Somme, the witticism of a celebrated Frenchman who hassince made his apology for saying that the British would fight on tillthe last drop of French blood was shed. Besides, on the same day that Isaw the poster I saw in a British publication a reproduction of a Germancartoon--exemplifying the same kind of vulgar facility--picturing UncleSam being led by the nose by John Bull. Thinking Englishmen and Frenchmen, when they pause in theirpreoccupation of giving life and fortune for their cause to considerthis extraneous subject, realize the widespread sympathy of the UnitedStates for the Allied cause and how a large proportion of our peoplewere prepared to go to war after the sinking of the _Lusitania_ for anobject which could bring them no territorial reward. If we will fightonly for money and aggrandizement, as the "Uncle Sham" style ofreasoners hold, we should long ago have taken Mexico and CentralAmerica. Personally, I have never had anyone say to me that I was "tooproud to fight, " though if I went about saying that I was ashamed of mycountry I might; for when I think of my country I think of no group ofpoliticians, financiers, or propagandists, no bureaucracy or particularsection of opinion, but of our people as a whole. But unquestionably wewere unpopular with the masses of Europeans. A sentence taken out of itscontext was misconstrued into a catch-phrase indicating the cravennessof a nation wedded to its flesh-pots, which pretended a moralsuperiority to others whose passionate sacrifice made themsupersensitive when they looked across the Atlantic to the UnitedStates, which they saw profiting from others' misfortunes. By living at home I had gained perspective about the war and by livingwith the war I have gained perspective about my own country. At thefront I was concerned day after day with the winning of trenches and thestorming of villages whose names meant as little in the Middle West as abitter fight for good government in a Western city meant to the men atthe front. After some months of peace upon my return to England Iresented passport regulations which had previously been a commonplace;but soon I was back in the old groove, the groove of war, with warseeming as normal in England as peace seemed in the United States. In London, recruiting posters with their hectic urgings to the manhoodof England to volunteer no longer blanketed the hoardings and the wallsof private buildings. Conscription had come. Every able-bodied man mustnow serve at the command of the government. England seemed to havegreater dignity. The war was wholly master of her proud individualism, which had stubbornly held to its faith that the man who fought best washe who chose to fight rather than he who was ordered to fight. There was a new Chief of Staff at the War Office, Sir WilliamRobertson, who had served for seven years as a private before hereceived his commission as an officer, singularly expressing in hiscareer the character of the British system, which leaves open to meritthe door at the head of a long stairway which calls for hard climbing. England believes in men and he had earned his way to the direction ofthe most enormous plant with the largest personnel which the BritishEmpire had ever created. It was somewhat difficult for the caller to comprehend the full extentof the power and responsibility of this self-made leader at his desk ina great room overlooking Whitehall Place, for he had so simplified anorganization that had been brought into being in two years that itseemed to run without any apparent effort on his part. The methods ofmen who have great authority interest us all. I had first seen SirWilliam at a desk in a little room of a house in a French town when hisbusiness was that of transport and supply for the British ExpeditionaryForce. Then he moved to a larger room in the same town, as Chief ofStaff of the army in France. Now he had a still larger one and inLondon. I had heard much of his power of application, which had enabled him tomaster languages while he was gaining promotion step by step; but Ifound that the new Chief of Staff of the British Army was not "such afool as ever to overwork, " as one of his subordinates said, and noslave to long hours of drudgery at his desk. "Besides his routine, " said another subordinate, speaking of SirWilliam's method, "he has to do a great deal of thinking. " This passingremark was most illuminating. Sir William had to think for the whole. Hehad trained others to carry out his plans, and as former head of theStaff College who had had experience in every branch, he was supposed toknow how each branch should be run. When I returned to the front, my first motor trip which took me alongthe lines of communication revealed the transformation, the moreappreciable because of my absence, which the winter had wrought. The NewArmy had come into its own. And I had seen this New Army in the making. I had seen Kitchener's first hundred thousand at work on Salisbury Plainunder old, retired drillmasters who, however eager, were hazy aboutmodern tactics. The men under them had the spirit which will endure thedrudgery of training. With time they must learn to be soldiers. More rawmaterial, month after month, went into the hopper. The urgent call ofthe recruiting posters and the press had, in the earlier stages of thewar, supplied all the volunteers which could be utilized. It took muchlonger to prepare equipment and facilities than to get men to enlist. New Army battalions which reached the front in August, 1915, had hadtheir rifles only for a month. Before rifles could be manufactured rifleplants had to be constructed. As late as December, 1915, the UnitedStates were shipping only five thousand rifles a week to the British. Soldiers fully drilled in the manual of arms were waiting for the armswith which to fight; but once the supply of munitions from the newplants was started it soon became a flood. All winter the New Army battalions had been arriving in France. Withthem had come the complicated machinery which modern war requires. Thestaggering quantity of it was better proof than figures on the shippinglist of the immense tonnage which goes to sea under the British flag. The old life at the front, as we knew it, was no more. When I first sawthe British Army in France it held seventeen miles of line. Onlyseventeen, but seventeen in the mire of Flanders, including the bulge ofthe Ypres salient. By the first of January, 1915, a large proportion of the officers andmen of the original Expeditionary Force had perished. Reservists hadcome to take the vacant places. Officers and non-commissioned officerswho survived had to direct a fighting army in the field and to train anew army at home. An offensive was out of the question. All that theforce in the trenches could do was to hold. When the world wondered whyit could not do more, those who knew the true state of affairs wonderedhow it could do so much. With flesh and blood infantry held againstdouble its own numbers supported by guns firing five times the number ofBritish shells. The British could not confess their situation withoutgiving encouragement to the Germans to press harder such attacks asthose of the first and second battle of Ypres, which came perilouslynear succeeding. This little army would not admit the truth even in its own mind. Withthat casualness by which the Englishman conceals his emotions thesurviving officers of battalions which had been battered for months inthe trenches would speak of being "top dog, now. " While the world wasthinking that the New Army would soon arrive to their assistance, theyknew as only trained soldiers can know how long it takes to make an armyout of raw material. So persistent was their pose of winning that ithypnotized them into conviction. As it had never occurred to them thatthey could be beaten, so they were not. If sometimes the logic of fact got the better of simulation, they wouldspeak of the handicap of fighting an enemy who could deliver blows withthe long reach of his guns to which they could not respond. But this didnot happen often. It was a part of the game for the German to marshalmore guns than they if he could. They accepted the situation and foughton. They, too, looked forward to "the day, " as the Germans had beforethe war; and their day was the one when the New Army should be ready tostrike its first blow. There was also a new leader in France, king of the British world there. Sir William sent him the new battalions and the guns and the food formen and guns and his business was to make them into an army. Theyarrived thinking that they were already one, as they were against anyordinary foe, though not yet in homogeneity of organization against afoe that had prepared for war for forty years and on top of this had hadtwo years' experience in actual battle. On a quiet byroad near headquarters town, where all the staff businessof General Headquarters was conducted, a wisp of a flag hung at theentrance to the grounds of a small modern chateau. There seemed no placein all France more isolated and tranquil, its size forbidding manyguests. It was such a house as some quiet, studious man might havechosen to rest in during his summer holiday. The sound of the guns neverreached it; the rumble of army transport was unheard. Should you go there to luncheon you would be received by a young aidewho, in army jargon, was known as a "crock"; that is, he had beeninvalided as the result of wounds or exposure in the trenches and, though unfit for active service, could still serve as aide to theCommander-in-Chief. At the appointed minute of the hour, in keeping withmilitary punctuality, whether of generals or of curtains of fire, a manwith iron-gray hair, clear, kindly eyes, and an unmistakably strongchin, came out of his office and welcomed the guests with simpleinformality. He seemed to have left business entirely behind when heleft his desk. You knew him at once for the type of well-preservedBritish officer who never neglects to keep himself physically fit. Itamounts to a talent with British officers to have gone through campaignsin India and South Africa and yet always to appear as fresh as if theyhad never known anything more strenuous than the leisurely life of anEnglish country gentleman. I had always heard how hard Sir Douglas Haig worked, just as I had heardhow hard Sir William Robertson worked. Sir Douglas, too, showed no signsof pressure, and naturally the masterful control of surroundings withoutany seeming effort is a part of the equipment of military leaders. Thepower of the modern general is not evident in any of the old symbols. It was really the army that chose Sir Douglas to be Commander-in-Chief. Whenever the possibility of the retirement of Sir John French wasmentioned and you asked an officer who should take his place, the answerwas always either Robertson or Haig. In any profession the membersshould be the best judges of excellence in that profession, and througheighteen months of organizing and fighting these two men had earned theuniversal praise of their comrades in arms. Robertson went to London andHaig remained in France. England looked to them for victory. Birth was kind to Sir Douglas. He came of an old Scotch family with finetraditions. Oxford followed almost as a matter of course for him andafterward he went into the army. From that day there is something incommon between his career and Sir William's, simple professional zealand industry. They set out to master their chosen calling. Long beforethe public had ever heard of either one their ability was known to theirfellow soldiers. No two officers were more averse to any form of publicadvertisement, which was contrary to their instincts no less than to theethics of soldiering. In South Africa, which was the practical schoolwhere the commanders of the British Army of to-day first learned how tocommand, their efficient staff work singled them out as coming men. Bothhad vision. They studied the continental systems of war and when thegreat war came they had the records which were the undeniablerecommendation that singled them out from their fellows. Sir John Frenchand Sir Ian Hamilton belonged to the generation ahead of them, thedifference being that between the '50s and the '60s. It was the test of command of a corps and afterward of an army inFlanders and Northern France which made Sir Douglas Commander-in-Chief, a test of more than the academic ability which directs chessmen on theboard: that of the physical capacity to endure the strain of month aftermonth of campaigning, to keep a calm perspective, never to let themastery of the force under you get out of hand and never to be burdenedwith any details except those which are vital. The subordinate who went in an uncertain mood to see either Sir Douglasor Sir William left with a sense of stalwart conviction. Both had thegift of simplifying any situation, however complex. When a certaingeneral became unstrung during the retreat from Mons, Sir Douglas seemedto consider that his first duty was to assist this man to recovercomposure, and he slipped his arm through the general's and walked himup and down until composure had returned. Again, on the retreat fromMons Sir Douglas said, "We must stay here for the present, if we all diefor it, " stating this military necessity as coolly as if it merely meantwaiting another quarter-hour for the arrival of a guest to dinner. No less than General Joffre, Sir Douglas lived by rule. He, too, insisted on sleeping well at night and rising fresh for his day's work. During the period of preparation for the offensive his routine beganwith a stroll in the garden before breakfast. Then the heads of thedifferent branches of his staff in headquarters town came in turn tomake their reports and receive instructions. At luncheon very likely hemight not talk of war. A man of his education and experience does notlack topics to take his mind off his duties. Every day at half-past twohe went for a ride and with him an escort of his own regiment ofLancers. The rest of the afternoon was given over to conferences withsubordinates whom he had summoned. On Sunday morning he always went intoheadquarters town and in a small, temporary wooden chapel listened to asermon from a Scotch dominie who did not spare its length in awe of theeminent member of his congregation. Otherwise, he left the chateau onlywhen he went to see with his own eyes some section of the front or ofthe developing organization. Of course, the room in the chateau which was his office was hung withmaps as the offices of all the great leaders are, according to report. It seems the most obvious decoration. Whether it was the latestphotograph from an aeroplane or the most recent diagram of plans ofattack, it came to him if his subordinates thought it worth while. Allrivers of information flowed to the little chateau. He and the Chief ofStaff alone might be said to know all that was going on. Talking withhim in the office, which had been the study of a French countrygentleman, one gained an idea of the things which interested him; of theprocesses by which he was building up his organization. He was theclearing house of all ideas and through them he was setting thecriterion of efficiency. He spoke of the cause for which he was fightingas if this were the great thing of all to him and to every man underhim, but without allowing his feelings to interfere with his judgment ofthe enemy. His opponent was seen without illusion, as soldier seessoldier. To him his problem was not one of sentiment, but of militarypower. He dealt in blows; and blows alone could win the war. Simplicity and directness of thought, decision and readiness to acceptresponsibility, seemed second nature to the man secluded in that littlechateau, free from any confusion of detail, who had a task--the greatestever fallen to the lot of a British commander--of making a raw army intoa force which could undertake an offensive against frontal positionsconsidered impregnable by many experts and occupied by the skilfulGerman Army. He had, in common with Sir William Robertson, "a good dealof thinking to do"; and what better place could he have chosen than thisretreat out of the sound of the guns, where through his subordinates hefelt the pulse of the whole army day by day? His favorite expression was "the spirit that quickeneth"; the spirit ofeffort, of discipline, of the fellowship of cohesion oforganization--spreading out from the personality at the desk in thisroom down through all the units to the men themselves. Though officersand soldiers rarely saw him they had felt the impulse of his spirit soonafter he had taken command. A new era had come in France. That oldorganization called the British Empire, loose and decentrated--andholding together because it was so--had taken another step forward inthe gathering of its strength into a compact force. II VERDUN AND ITS SEQUEL German grand strategy and Verdun--Why the British did not go to Verdun--What they did to help--Racial characteristics in armies--Father Joffre a miser of divisions--The Somme country--Age-old tactics--If the flank cannot be turned can the front be broken?--Theory of the Somme offensive. In order properly to set the stage for the battle of the Somme, whichwas the corollary of that of Verdun, we must, at the risk of appearingto thresh old straw, consider the German plan of campaign in 1916 whenthe German staff had turned its eyes from the East to the West. Duringthe summer of 1915 it had attempted no offensive on the Western front, but had been content to hold its solid trench lines in the confidencethat neither the British nor the French were prepared for an offensiveon a large scale. Blue days they were for us with the British Army in France during Julyand early August, while the official bulletins revealed on the map howvon Hindenburg's and von Mackensen's legions were driving throughPoland. More critical still the subsequent period when insideinformation indicated that German intrigue in Petrograd, behind theRussian lines which the German guns were pounding, might succeed inmaking a separate peace. Using her interior lines for rapid movement oftroops, enclosed by a steel ring and fighting against nations speakingdifferent languages with their capitals widely separated and theirarmies not in touch, each having its own sentimental and territorialobjects in the war, the obvious object of Germany's policy from theoutset would be to break this ring, forcing one of the Allies tocapitulate under German blows. In August, 1914, she had hoped to win a decisive battle against Francebefore she turned her legions against Russia for a decision. Now sheaimed to accomplish at Verdun what she had failed to accomplish on theMarne, confident in her information that France was exhausted. It wasvon Hindenburg's turn to hold the thin line while the Germansconcentrated on the Western front twenty-six hundred thousand men, withevery gun that they could spare and all the munitions that hadaccumulated after the Russian drive was over. The fall of Paris wasunnecessary to their purpose. Capitals, whether Paris, Brussels, orBucharest, are only the trophies of military victory. Primarily theGerman object, which naturally included the taking of Verdun, was tohammer at the heart of French defense until France, staggering under theblows, her _morale_ broken by the loss of the fortress, her supposedlymercurial nature in the depths of depression, would surrender toimpulse and ask for terms. After the German attacks began at Verdun all the world was asking whythe British, who were holding only sixty-odd miles of line at the timeand must have large reserves, did not rush to the relief of the French. The French people themselves were a little restive under what wassupposed to be British inaction. Army leaders could not reveal theirplans by giving reasons--the reasons which are now obvious--for theiraction or inaction. To some unmilitary minds the situation seemed assimple as if Jones were attacked on the street by Smith and Robinson, while Miller, Jones' friend who was a block away, would not go to hisrescue. To others, perhaps a trifle more knowing, it seemed only amatter of marching some British divisions across country or putting themon board a train. Of course the British were only too ready to assist the French. Anyother attitude would have been unintelligent; for, with the French Armybroken, the British Army would find itself having to bear unassisted theweight of German blows in the West. There were three courses which theBritish Army might take. _First. _ It could send troops to Verdun. But the mixture of unitsspeaking different languages in the intricate web of communicationsrequired for directing modern operations, and the mixture of transportin the course of heavy concentrations in the midst of a critical actionwhere absolute cohesion of all units was necessary, must result inconfusion which would make any such plan impracticable. Only thedesperate situation of the French being without reserve could havecompelled its second consideration, as it represented the extreme ofthat military inefficiency which makes wasteful use of lives andmaterial. _Second. _ The British could attack along their front as a diversion torelieve pressure on Verdun. For this the Germans were fully prepared. Itfell in exactly with their plan. Knowing that the British New Army wasas yet undeveloped as an instrument for the offensive and that it wasstill short of guns and shells, the Germans had struck in the inclementweather of February at Verdun, thinking, and wrongly to my mind, thatthe handicap to the vitality of their men of sleet, frost and cold, soaking rains would be offset by the time gained. Not only had theGermans sufficient men to carry on the Verdun offensive, but facing theBritish their numbers were the largest mile for mile since the firstbattle of Ypres. Familiar with British valor as the result of actualcontact in battle from Mons to the Marne and back to Ypres, andparticularly in the Loos offensive (which was the New Army's first"eye-opener" to the German staff), the Germans reasoned that, with whatone German called "the courage of their stupidity, or the stupidity oftheir courage, " the British, driven by public demand to the assistanceof the French, would send their fresh infantry with inadequate artillerysupport against German machine guns and curtains of fire, and pile uptheir dead until their losses would reduce the whole army to inertia forthe rest of the year. Of course, the German hypothesis--the one which cost von Falkenhayn hisplace as Chief of Staff--was based on such a state of exhaustion by theFrench that a British attack would be mandatory. The initial stage ofthe German attack was up to expectations in ground gained, but not inprisoners or material taken. The French fell back skilfully before theGerman onslaught against positions lightly held by the defenders inanticipation of the attack, and turned their curtains of fire upon theenemy in possession of captured trenches. Then France gave to theoutside world another surprise. Her spirit, ever brilliant in theoffensive, became cold steel in a stubborn and thrifty defensive. Shewas not "groggy, " as the Germans supposed. For every yard of earthgained they had to pay a ghastly price; and their own admiration ofFrench shell and valor is sufficient professional glory for eitherPétain, Nivelle, or Mangin, or the private in the ranks. _Third. _ The British could take over more trench line, thus releasingFrench forces for Verdun, which was the plan adopted at the conferenceof the French and British commands. One morning in place of a Frencharmy in Artois a British army was in occupation. The round helmets ofthe British took the place of the oblong helmets of the French along theparapet; British soldiers were in billets in place of the French in thevillages at the rear and British guns moved into French gun-emplacementswith the orderly precision which army training with its discipline alonesecures; while the French Army was on board railway trains moving atgiven intervals of headway over rails restricted to their use on theirway to Verdun where, under that simple French staff system which is theproduct of inheritance and previous training and this war's experience, they fell into place as a part of the wall of men and cannon. Outside criticism, which drew from this arrangement the conclusion thatit left the British to the methodical occupation of quiet trenches whiletheir allies were sent to the sacrifice, had its effect for a time onthe outside public and even on the French, but did not disturb theequanimity of the British staff in the course of its preparations or ofthe French staff, which knew well enough that when the time came theBritish Army would not be fastidious about paying the red cost ofvictory. Four months later when British battalions were throwingthemselves against frontal positions with an abandon that their staffhad to restrain, the same sources of outside criticism, includingsuperficial gossip in Paris, were complaining that the British were toobrave in their waste of life. It has been fashionable with some peopleto criticize the British, evidently under the impression that theBritish New Army would be better than a continental army instantly itsbattalions were landed in France. Every army's methods, every staff's way of thinking, are characteristicin the long run of the people who supply it with soldiers. The GermanArmy is what it is not through the application of any academic theory ofmilitary perfection, but through the application of organization toGerman character. Naturally phlegmatic, naturally disinclined toinitiative, the Germans before the era of modern Germany had far less ofthe martial instinct than the French. German army makers, including themaster one of all, von Moltke, set out to use German docility andobedience in the creation of a machine of singular industry and rigidityand ruthless discipline. Similar methods would mean revolt in democraticFrance and individualistic England where every man carries Magna Charta, talisman of his own "rights, " in his waistcoat pocket. The French peasant, tilling his fields within range of the guns, themarket gardener bringing his products down the Somme in the morning toAmiens, or the Parisian clerk, business man and workman--they are Franceand the French Army. But the heart-strength and character-strength ofFrance, I think, is her stubborn, conservative, smiling peasant. It isrepeating a commonplace to say that he always has a few gold pieces inhis stocking. He yields one only on a critical occasion and then alittle grumblingly, with the thrift of the bargainer who means that itshall be well spent. The Anglo-Saxon, whose inheritance is particularly evident in Americansin this respect, when he gives in a crisis turns extravagant whether ofmoney or life, as England has in this war. The sea is his and new landsare his, as they are ours. Australians with their dollar and a half aday, buying out the shops of a village when they were not in thetrenches, were astounding to the natives though not in the least tothemselves. They were acting like normal Anglo-Saxons bred in a richisland continent. Anglo-Saxons have money to spend and spend it in theconfidence that they will make more. General Joffre, grounded in the France of the people and the soil, was athrifty general. Indeed, from the lips of Frenchmen in high places theGermans might have learned that the French Army was running short ofmen. Joffre seemed never to have any more divisions to spare; yet nevercame a crisis that he did not find another division in the toe of hisstocking, which he gave up as grumblingly as the peasant parts with hisgold piece. A miser of divisions, Father Joffre. He had enough for Verdun as weknow--and more. While he was holding on the defensive there, he was ableto prepare for an offensive elsewhere. He spared the material and theguns to coöperate with the British on the Somme and later he sent toGeneral Foch, commander of the northern group of French Armies, theunsurpassed Iron Corps from Nancy and the famous Colonial Corps. It was in March, 1916, when suspense about Verdun was at its height, that Sir Douglas Haig, Commander-in-Chief of the group of BritishArmies, and Sir Henry Rawlinson, who was to be his right-hand manthrough the offensive as commander of the Fourth Army, went over theground opposite the British front on the Somme and laid the plans fortheir attack, and Sir Henry received instructions to begin the elaboratepreparations for what was to become the greatest battle of all time. Itincluded, as the first step, the building of many miles of railway andhighway for the transport of the enormous requisite quantities of gunsand materials. The Somme winds through rich alluvial lands at this point and around anumber of verdant islands in its leisurely course. Southward, along theold front line, the land is more level, where the river makes its bendin front of Péronne. Northward, generically, it rises into a region ofrolling country, with an irregularly marked ridge line which the Germansheld. No part of the British front had been so quiet in the summer of 1915 asthe region of Picardy. From the hill where later I watched the attack ofJuly 1st, on one day in August of the previous year I had such a broadview that if a shell were to explode anywhere along the front of fivemiles it would have been visible to me, and I saw not a single burst ofsmoke from high explosive or shrapnel. Apparently the Germans neverexpected to undertake any offensive here. All their energy was devotedto defensive preparations, without even an occasional attack over a fewhundred yards to keep in their hand. Tranquillity, which amounted to thesimulation of a truce, was the result. At different points you might seeGermans walking about in the open and the observer could stand exposedwithin easy range of the guns without being sniped at by artillery, ashe would have been in the Ypres salient. When the British took over this section of line, so short were they ofguns that they had to depend partly on French artillery; and theirtroops were raw New Army battalions or regulars stiffened by a smallpercentage of veterans of Mons and Ypres. The want of guns and shellsrequired correspondingly more troops to the mile, which left them stillrelying on flesh and blood rather than on machinery for defense. TheBritish Army was in that middle stage of a few highly trained troops andthe first arrival of the immense forces to come; while the Germansoccupied on the Eastern front were not of a mind to force the issue. There is a story of how one day a German battery, to vary the monotony, began shelling a British trench somewhat heavily. The British, in reply, put up a sign, "If you don't stop we will fire our only rifle grenade atyou!" to which the Germans replied in the same vein, "Sorry! We willstop"--as they did. The subsoil of the hills is chalk, which yields to the pick rathereasily and makes firm walls for trenches. Having chosen their position, which they were able to do in the operations after the Marne as the twoarmies, swaying back and forth in the battle for positions northward, came to rest, the Germans had set out, as the result of experience, tobuild impregnable works in the days when forts had become less importantand the trench had become supreme. As holding the line required littlefighting, the industrious Germans under the stiff bonds of disciplinehad plenty of time for sinking deep dugouts and connecting galleriesunder their first line and for elaborating their communication trenchesand second line, until what had once been peaceful farming land nowconsisted of irregular welts of white chalk crossing fields withouthedges or fences, whose sweep had been broken only by an occasionalgroup of farm buildings of a large proprietor, a plot of woods, or thevillage communities where the farmers lived and went to and from theirfarms which were demarked to the eye only by the crop lines. One can never make the mistake of too much simplification in thecomplicated detail of modern tactics where the difficulty is always tosee the forest for the trees. Strategy has not changed since prehistoricdays. It must always remain the same: feint and surprise. The firstprimitive man who looked at the breast of his opponent and strucksuddenly at his face was a strategist; so, too, the anthropoid at theZoo who leads another to make a leap for a trapeze and draws it out fromunder him; so, too, the thug who waits to catch his victim comingunawares out of an alley. Anybody facing more than one opponent will tryto protect his back by a wall, which is also strategy--strategy beingthe veritable instinct of self-preservation which aims at an advantagein the disposition of forces. Place two lines of fifty men facing each other in the open withoutofficers, and some fellow with initiative on the right or the left endwill instinctively give the word and lead a rush for cover somewhere onthe flank which will permit an enfilade of the enemy's ranks. Practically all of the great battles of the world have been won byturning an enemy's flank, which compelled him to retreat if it did notresult in rout or capture. The swift march of a division or a brigade from reserve to the flank atthe critical moment has often turned the fortune of a day. Allmanoeuvering has this object in view. Superior numbers facilitate theoperation, and victory has most often resolved itself into superiornumbers pressing a flank and nothing more; though subsequently hisadmiring countrymen acclaimed the victor as the inventor of a strategicplan which was old before Alexander took the field, when the victor'sgenius consisted in the use of opportunities that enabled him to strikeat the critical point with more men than his adversary. In flank of theSouthern Confederacy Sherman swung through the South; in flank theConfederates aimed to bend back the Federal line at Kulp's Hill andLittle Round Top. By the flank Grant pressed Lee back to Appomattox. Yalu, Liao Yang and Mukden were won in the Russo-Japanese war byflanking movements which forced Kuropatkin to retire, though neverdisastrously. Pickett's charge at Gettysburg remains to the American the most futileand glorious illustration of a charge against a frontal position, withits endeavor to break the center. The center may waver, but it is theflanks that go; though, of course, in all consistent operations of bigarmies a necessary incident of any effort to press back the wings issufficient pressure on the front, simultaneously delivered, to hold allthe troops there in position and keep the enemy command in apprehensionof the disaster that must follow if the center were to break badly atthe same time that his flanks were being doubled back. The foregoing isonly the repetition of principles which cannot be changed by the lengthof line and masses of troops and incredible volumes of artillery fire;which makes the European war the more confusing to the average reader ashe receives his information in technical terms. The same object that leads one line of men to try to flank another sentthe German Army through Belgium in order to strike the French Army inflank. It succeeded in this purpose, but not in turning the Frenchflank; though by this operation, in violation of the territory of aneutral nation, it made enemy territory the scene of future action. Onemay discuss until he is blue in the face what would have happened if theGermans had thrown their legions directly against the old Frenchfrontier. Personally, in keeping with the idea that I expressed in "TheLast Shot, " I think that they would never have gone through the Trouéede Miracourt or past Verdun. With a solid line of trenches from Switzerland to the North Sea, anyoffensive must "break the center, " as it were, in order to have room fora flanking operation. It must go against frontal positions, incorporating in its strategy every defensive lesson learned and thedefensive tactics and weapons developed in eighteen months of trenchwarfare. If, as was generally supposed, the precision of modern arms, with rifles and machine guns sending their bullets three thousand yardsand curtains of fire delivered from hidden guns anywhere from two tofifteen miles away, was all in favor of the defensive, then how, when inthe days of muzzle-loading rifles and smooth-bore guns frontal attackshad failed, could one possibly succeed in 1916? Again and again in our mess and in all of the messes at the front, andwherever men gathered the world over, the question, Can the line bebroken? has been discussed. As discussed it is an academic question. Thepractical answer depends upon the strength of the attacking forcecompared to that of the defending force. If the Germans could keep onlyfive hundred thousand men on the Western front they would have towithdraw from a part of the line, concentrate on chosen positions anddepend on tactics to defend their exposed flanks in pitched battle. Three million men, with ten thousand guns, could not break the lineagainst an equally skilful army of three millions with ten thousandguns; but five millions with fifteen thousand guns might break the lineheld by an equally skilful army of a million with five thousand guns. Thus, you are brought to a question of numbers, of skill and ofmaterial. If the object be attrition, then the offensive, if it cancarry on its attacks with less loss of men than the defensive, must win. With the losses about equal, the offensive must also eventually win ifit has sufficient reserves. There could be no restraining the public, with the wish father to thethought, from believing that the attack of July 1st on the Somme was aneffort at immediate decision, though the responsible staff officer wasvery careful to state that there was no expectation of breaking the lineand that the object was to gain a victory in _morale_, train the army inactual conditions for future offensives, and, when the ledger wasbalanced, to prove that, with superior gunfire, the offensive could beconducted with less loss than the defensive under modern conditions. This, I think, may best be stated now. The results we shall considerlater. One thing was certain, with the accruing strength of the British and theFrench Armies, they could not rest idle. They must attack. They musttake the initiative away from the Germans. The greater the masses ofGermans which were held on the Western front under the Allied pounding, the better the situation for the Russians and the Italians; and, accordingly, the plan for the summer of 1916 for the first timepermitted all the Allies, thanks to increased though not adequatemunitions--there never can be that--to conduct something like a commonoffensive. That of the Russians, starting earlier than the others, wasthe first to pause, which meant that the Anglo-French and the Italianoffensives were in full blast, while the Russians, for the time being, had settled into new positions. Preparation for this attack on the Somme, an operation without parallelin character and magnitude unless it be the German offensive at Verdunwhich had failed, could not be too complete. There must be a continuousflow of munitions which would allow the continuation of the battle withblow upon blow once it had begun. Adequate realization of his task wouldnot hasten a general to undertake it until he was fully ready, andmilitary preference, if other considerations had permitted, would havepostponed the offensive till the spring of 1917. III A CANADIAN INNOVATION Gathering of the clans from Australia, New Zealand and Canada--England sends Sir Douglas Haig men but not an army--Methods of converting men into an army--The trench raid a Canadian invention--Development of trench raiding--The correspondents' quarters--Getting ready for the "big push"--A well-kept secret. "Some tough!" remarked a Canadian when he saw the Australians for thefirst time marching along a French road. They and the New Zealanderswere conspicuous in France, owing to their felt hats with the brimlooped up on the side, their stalwart physique and their smooth-shaven, clean-cut faces. Those who had been in Gallipoli formed the stiffeningof veteran experience and comradeship for those fresh from home or fromcamps in Egypt. Canadian battalions, which had been training in Canada and then inEngland, increased the Canadian numbers until they had an army equal insize to that of Meade or Lee at Gettysburg. English, Scotch, Welsh, Irish, South Africans and Newfoundlanders foregathering in Picardy, Artois and Flanders left one wondering about English as "she is spoke. "On the British front I have heard every variety, including that ofdifferent parts of the United States. One day I received a letter from afellow countryman which read like this: "I'm out here in the R. F. A. With 'krumps' bursting on my cocoanut and amgoing to see it through. If you've got any American newspapers ormagazines lying loose please send them to me, as I am far fromCalifornia. " The clans kept arriving. Every day saw new battalions and new gunsdisembark. England was sending to Sir Douglas Haig men and material, butnot an army in the modern sense. He had to weld the consignments into awhole there in the field in face of the enemy. Munitions were a matterof resource and manufacturing, but the great factory of all was thefactory of men. It was not enough that the gunners should know how toshoot fairly accurately back in England, or Canada, or Australia. Theymust learn to coöperate with scores of batteries of different calibersin curtains of fire and, in turn, with the infantry, whose attacks theymust support with the finesse of scientific calculation plus theinstinctive _liaison_ which comes only with experience under trainedofficers, against the German Army which had no lack of material in itsconscript ranks for promotion to fill vacancies in the officers' lists. From seventeen miles of front to twenty-seven, and then to sixty andfinally to nearly one hundred, the British had broadened theirresponsibility, which meant only practice in the defensive, while theGermans had had two years' practice in the offensive. The two Britishoffensives at Neuve Chapelle had included a small proportion of thebattalions which were to fight on the Somme; and the third, incomparablymore ambitious, faced heavier concentration of troops and guns than itspredecessors. What had not been gained in battle practice must be approximated indrill. Every battalion commander, every staff officer and every generalwho had had any experience, must be instructor as well as director. Theymust assemble their machine and tune it up before they put it on astiffer road than had been tried before. The British Army zone in France became a school ground for the GrandOffensive; and while the people at home were thinking, "We've sent youthe men and the guns--now for action!" the time of preparation wasaltogether too short for the industrious learners. Every possible kindof curriculum which would simulate actual conditions of attack had beendevised. In moving about the rear the rattle of a machine gun ten milesback of the line told of the machine gun school; a series of explosionsdrew attention to bombers working their way through practice trenches ina field; a heavier explosion was from the academy for trench mortars; amighty cloud of smoke and earth rising two or three hundred feet was anew experiment in mining. Sir Douglas went on the theory that no soldiercan know his work too well. He meant to allow no man in his command togrow dull from idleness. Trench warfare had become systematized, and inevitably the holding ofthe same line for month after month was not favorable to the developmentof initiative. A man used to a sedentary life is not given to physicalaction. One who is always digging dugouts is loath to leave thehabitation which has cost him much labor in order to live in the open. Battalions were in position for a given number of days, varying with thecharacter of the position held, when they were relieved for a rest inbillets. While in occupation they endured an amount of shell firevarying immensely between different sectors. A few men were on the watchwith rifles and machine guns for any demonstration by the enemy, whilethe rest were idle when not digging. They sent out patrols at night intoNo Man's Land for information; exchanged rifle grenades, mortars andbombs with the enemy. Each week brought its toll of casualties, light inthe tranquil places, heavy in the wickedly hot corner of the Ypressalient, where attacks and counter-attacks never ceased and theapprehension of having your parapet smashed in by an artillery"preparation, " which might be the forerunner of an attack, wasunremittingly on the nerves. It was a commonplace that any time you desired you could take a front ofa thousand or two yards simply by concentrating your gunfire, cuttingthe enemy's barbed wire and tearing the sandbags of his parapet intoribbons, with resulting fearful casualties to him; and then a swiftcharge under cover of the artillery hurricane would gain possession ofthe débris, the enemy's wounded and those still alive in his dugouts. Losses in operations of this kind usually were much lighter in takingthe enemy's position than in the attempt to hold it, as he, in answer toyour offensive, turned the full force of his guns upon his former trenchwhich your men were trying to organize into one of their own. Later, under cover of his own guns, his charge recovered the ruins, forcing theparty of the first part who had started the "show" back to his ownformer first line trench, which left the situation as it was before withboth sides a loser of lives without gaining any ground and with theprospect of drudgery in building anew their traverses and burrows andfilling new sandbags. It was the repetition of this sort of "incident, " as reported in thedaily _communiqués_, which led the outside world to wonder at thefatuousness and the satire of the thing, without understanding that itsobject was entirely for the purpose of _morale_. An attack was made tokeep the men up to the mark; a counter-attack in order not to allow theenemy ever to develop a sense of superiority. Every soldier whoparticipated in a charge learned something in method and gainedsomething in the quality considered requisite by his commanders. He hadmet face to face in mortal hand-to-hand combat in the trench traversesthe enemy who had been some invisible force behind a gray line ofparapet sniping at him every time he showed his head. Attack and counter-attack without adding another square yard to theterritory in your possession--these had cost hundreds of thousands ofcasualties on the Western front. The next step was to obtain the_morale_ of attack without wasting lives in trying to hold new ground. Credit for the trench raid, which was developed through the winter of1915, belongs to the Canadian. His plan was as simple as that of theAmerican Indian who rushed a white settlement and fled after he wasthrough scalping; or the cowboys who shot up a town; or the Mexicaninsurgents who descend upon a village for a brief visit of killing andlooting. The Canadian proposed to enter the German trenches by surprise, remain long enough to make the most of the resulting confusion, and thento return to his own trenches without trying to hold and organize theenemy's position and thus draw upon his head while busy with the spade amurderous volume of shell fire. The first raids were in small parties over a narrow front and thetactics those of the frontiersman, who never wants in individualinitiative and groundcraft. Behind their lines the Canadians rehearsedin careful detail again and again till each man was letter perfect inthe part that he was to play in the "little surprise being planned inCanada for Brother Boche. " The time chosen for the exploit was a dark, stormy night, when the drumbeat of rain and the wind blowing in theirdirection would muffle the movements of the men as they cut pathsthrough the barbed wires for their panther-like rush. It was the kind ofexperiment whose success depends upon every single participant keepingsilence and performing the task set for him with fastidious exactitude. The Germans, confident in the integrity of their barbed wire, with allexcept the sentries whose ears and eyes failed to detect danger asleepin their dugouts, found that the men of the Maple Leaf had sprung overthe parapet and were at the door demanding surrender. It was an affairto rejoice the heart of Israel Putnam or Colonel Mosby, and its successwas a new contribution in tactics to stalemate warfare which seemed tohave exhausted every possible invention and novelty. Trench raids weremade over broader and broader fronts until they became considerableoperations, where the wire was cut by artillery which gave the same kindof support to the men that it was to give later on in the GrandOffensive. There was a new terror to trench holding and dwelling. Now the man wholay down in a dugout for the night was not only in danger of being blownheavenward by a mine, or buried by the explosion of a heavy shell, orcompelled to spring up in answer to the ring of the gong which announceda gas attack, but he might be awakened at two a. M. (a favorite hour forraids) by the outcry of sentries who had been overpowered by thestealthy rush of shadowy figures in the night, and while he got to hisfeet be killed by the burst of a bomb thrown by men whom he supposedwere also fast asleep in their own quarters two or three hundred yardsaway. Trench-raid rivalry between battalions, which commanders liked toinstil, inevitably developed. Battalions grew as proud of their trenchraids as battleships of their target practice. A battalion which had nothad a successful trench raid had something to explain. What pride forthe Bantams--the little fellows below regulation height who had enlistedin a division of their own on Lord Kitchener's suggestion--when in oneof their trench raids they brought back some hulking, big Germans and aman's size German machine gun across No Man's Land! Raiders never attempted to remain long in the enemy's trenches. Theykilled the obdurate Germans, took others prisoners and, aside from thedamage that they did, always returned with identifications of thebattalions which occupied the position, while the prisoners brought inyielded valuable information. The German, more adaptive than creative, more organizing thanpioneering, was not above learning from the British, and soon they, too, were undertaking surprise parties in the night. Although they tightenedthe discipline for the defensive of both sides, trench raids were of farmore service to the British than to the Germans; for the British stafffound in them an invaluable method of preparation for the offensive. Notonly had the artillery practice in supporting actual rather thantheoretical attacks, but when the men went over the parapet it was inface of the enemy, who might turn on his machine guns if not silenced byaccurate gunfire. They learned how to coördinate their efforts, whetherindividually or as units, both in the charge and in cleaning out theGerman dugouts. Their sense of observation, adaptability and team playwas quickened in the life-and-death contact with the foe. Through the spring months the trench raids continued in their processof "blooding" the new army for the "big push. " Meanwhile, thecorrespondents, who were there to report the operations of the army, were having as quiet a time as a country gentleman on his estate withoutany of the cares of his superintendent. Our homing place from our peregrinations about the army was not too faraway from headquarters town to be in touch with it or too near to feelthe awe of proximity to the directing authority of hundreds of thousandsof men. Trench raids had lost their novelty for the public which thecorrespondents served. A description of a visit to a trench was ascommonplace to readers as the experience itself to one of our seasonedgroup of six men. We had seen all the schools of war and theConscientious Objectors' battalion, too--those extreme pacifists whorefuse to kill their fellow man. Their opinions being respected byEnglish freedom and individualism, they were set to repairing roads andlike tasks. The war had become completely static. Unless some new way of killingdeveloped, even the English public did not care to read about its ownarmy. When my English comrades saw that a petty scandal received morespace in the London papers than their accounts of a gallant air raid, they had moments of cynical depression. Between journeys we took long walks, went birds'-nesting and chattedwith the peasants. What had we to do with war? Yet we never went afieldto trench or headquarters, to hospital or gun position, without findingsomething new and wonderful to us if not to the public in that vast hiveof military industry. "But if we ever start the push they'll read every detail, " said ourwisest man. "It's the push that is in everybody's mind. The man in thestreet is tired of hearing about rehearsals. He wants the curtain to goup. " Each of us knew that the offensive was coming and where, without everspeaking of it in our mess or being supposed to know. Nobody wassupposed to know, except a few "brass hats" in headquarters town. One ofthe prime requisites of the gold braid which denotes a general or of thered band around the cap and the red tab on the coat lapel which denotestaff is ability to keep a secret; but long association with an armymakes it a sort of second nature, even with a group of civilians. Whenyou met a Brass Hat you pretended to believe that the monotony of thoseofficial army reports about shelling a new German redoubt or a violentartillery duel, or four enemy planes brought down, which read the sameon Friday as on Thursday, was to continue forever. The Brass Hatspretended to believe the same among themselves. For all time theBritish and the French Armies were to keep on hurling explosives at theGerman Army from the same positions. Occasionally a Brass Hat did intimate that the offensive would probablycome in the spring of 1917, if not later, and you accepted theinformation as strictly confidential and indefinite, as you shouldaccept any received from a Brass Hat. It never occurred to anybody toinquire if "1917" meant June or July of 1916. This would be as bad formas to ask a man whose head was gray last year and is black this year ifhe dyed his hair. Those heavy howitzers, fresh from the foundry, drawn by big caterpillartractors, were all proceeding in one direction--toward the Somme. Villages along their route were filling with troops. The nearer thefront you went, the greater the concentration of men and material. Shells, the size of the milk cans at suburban stations, stood in closeorder on the platforms beside the sidings of new light railways; shellsof all calibers were piled at new ammunition dumps; fields were cut bythe tracks of guns moving into position; steam rollers were road-makingin the midst of the long processions of motor trucks, heavy laden whenbound toward the trenches and empty when returning; barbed-wireenclosures were ready as collecting stations for prisoners; clusters ofhospital tents at other points seemed out of proportion to the trickleof wounded from customary trench warfare. All this preparation, stretching over weeks and months, unemotional andmethodical, infinite in detail, prodigious in effort, suggested the workof engineers and contractors and subcontractors in the building of somegreat bridge or canal, with the workmen all in the same kind of uniformand with managers, superintendents and foremen each having some insigniaof rank and the Brass Hats and Red Tabs the inspectors and auditors. The officer installing a new casualty clearing station, or emplacing agun, or starting another ammunition dump, had not heard of anyoffensive. He was only doing what he was told. It was not his businessto ask why of any Red Tab, any more than it was the business of a RedTab to ask why of a Brass Hat, or his business to know that the samesort of thing was going on over a front of sixteen miles. Each one sawonly his little section of the hive. Orders strictly limited workers totheir sections at the same time that their lips were sealed. Contractorswere in no danger of strikes; employees received no extra pay forovertime. It was as evident that the offensive was to be on the Somme asthat the circus has come to town, when you see tents rising at dawn in avacant lot while the elephants are standing in line. Toward the end of June I asked the Red Tab who sat at the head of ourtable if I might go to London on leave. He was surprised, I think, butdid not appear surprised. It is one of the requisites of a Red Tab thathe should not. He said that he was uncertain if leave were being grantedat present. This was unusual, as an intimation of refusal had never beenmade on any previous occasion. When I said that it would be for only twoor three days, he thought that it could be arranged all right. What thisconsiderate Red Tab meant was that I should return "in time. " Yet he hadnot mentioned that there was to be any offensive and I had not. We hadkept the faith of military secrecy. Besides, I really did not know, unless I opened a pigeonhole in my brain. It was also my business not toknow--the only business I had with the "big push" except to look on. Over in London my friends surprised me by exclaiming, "What are youdoing here?" and, "Won't you miss the offensive which is about tobegin?" Now, what would a Brass Hat say in such an awkward emergency?Would he look wise or unwise when he said it? Trying to look unwise, Ireplied: "They have the men now and can strike any time that theyplease. It's not my place to know where or when. I asked for leave andthey gave it. " I was quite relieved and felt that I was almost worthyof a secretive Brass Hat myself, when one man remarked: "They don't letyou know much, do they?" To keep such immense preparations wholly a secret among anyEnglish-speaking people would be out of the question. Only the Japaneseare mentally equipped for security of information. With other races itis a struggling effort. Can you imagine Washington keeping a militarysecret? You could hear the confidential whispers all the way from theWar Department to the Capitol. In such a great movement as that of theSomme one weak link in a chain of tens of thousands of officers isenough to break it, not to mention a million or so of privates. IV READY FOR THE BLOW French national spirit--Our gardeners--Tuning up for the attack--Policing the sky--Sausage balloons--Matter-of-fact, systematic war--A fury of trench raids--Reserves marching forward--Organized human will--Sons of the old country ready to strike--The greatest struggle of the war about to begin. Our headquarters during my first summer at the front had been in theflat border region of the Pas de Calais, which seemed neither Flandersnor France. Our second summer required that we should be nearer themiddle of the British line, as it extended southward, in order to keepin touch with the whole. In the hilly country of Artois a lesscomfortable chateau was compensated for by the smiling companionship ofneighbors in the fields and villages of the real France. The quality of this sympathetic appeal was that of the thoroughbredracial and national spirit of a great people, in the politeness whichgave to a thickset peasant woman a certain grace, in the smiles of theland and its inhabitants, in that inbred patriotism which through thecenturies has created a distinctive civilization called French by thesame ready sacrifices for its continuity as those which were made onthe Marne and at Verdun. Flanders is not France, and France isincreasingly French as you proceed from Ypres to Amiens, the capital ofPicardy. I was glad that Picardy had been chosen as the scene of theoffensive. It made the blow seem more truly a blow for France. I was tolearn to love Picardy and its people under the test of battle. In order that we might be near the field of the Somme we were again tomove our quarters, and we had the pang of saying good-by to anothergarden and another gardener. All the gardeners of our different chateauxhad been philosophers. It was Louis who said that he would like to makeall the politicians who caused wars into a salad, accompanying histhreat with appropriate gestures; Charles who thought that once the"Boches" were properly pruned they might be acceptable second-ratemembers of international society; and Leon who wanted the Kaiser put tothe plow in a coat of corduroy as the best cure for his conceit. Thatafternoon, when _au revoirs_ were spoken and our cars wound in and outover the byroads of the remote countryside, not a soldier was visibleuntil we came to the great main road, where we had the signal thatpeaceful surroundings were finally left behind in the distant, ceaselessroar of the guns, like some gigantic drumbeat calling the armies tocombat. A giant with nerves of telephone wires and muscles of steel and a humanheart seemed to be snarling his defiance before he sprang into action. We knew the meaning of the set thunders of the preliminary bombardment. That night to the eastward the sky was an aurora borealis of flashes;and the next day we sought the source of the lightnings. Seamed and tracked and gashed were the slopes behind the British lineand densely peopled with busy men in khaki. Every separate scene wasfamiliar to us out of our experience, but every one had taken on a newmeaning. The whole exerted a majestic spell. Graded like the Britishsocial scale were the different calibers of guns. Those with the largestreach were set farthest back. Fifteen-inch howitzer dukes or nine-inchhowitzer earls, with their big, ugly mouths and their deliberate andpowerful fire, fought alone, each in his own lair, whether under a treeor in the midst of the ruins of a village. The long naval guns, thoughof smaller caliber, had a still greater reach and were sending theirshells five to ten miles beyond the German trenches. The eight-inch and six-inch howitzers were more gregarious. They workedin groups of four and sometimes a number of batteries were in line. Beyond them were those alert commoners, the field guns, rapid of firewith their eighteen-pound shells. These seemed more tractable andcompanionable, better suited for human association, less mechanicallybrutal. They were not monstrous enough to require motor tractors to drawthem at a stately gait, but behind their teams could be up and awayacross the fields on short notice, their caissons of ammunitionscreaking behind them. Along the communication trenches perspiringsoldiers carried "plum puddings" or the trench-mortar shells which wereto be fired from the front line and boxes of egg-shaped bombs whichfitted nicely in the palm of the hand for throwing. It seemed that all the guns in the world must be firing as you listenedfrom a distance, although when you came into the area where the gunswere in tiers behind the cover of a favorable slope you found that manywere silent. The men of one battery might be asleep while its neighborwas sending shells with a one-two-three deliberation. Any sleep or restthat the men got must be there in the midst of this crashing babel fromsteel throats. Again, the covers were being put over the muzzles for thenight, or, out of what had seemed blank hillside, a concealed batterywhich had not been firing before sent out its vicious puffs of smokebefore its reports reached your ears. Every battery was doing as it wastold from some nerve-center; every one had its registered target on themap--a trench, or a road, or a German battery, or where it was thoughtthat a German battery ought to be. The flow of ammunition for all came up steadily, its expenditureregulated on charts by officers who kept watch for extravagance andaimed to make every shell count. A fortune was being fired away everyhour; a sum which would send a youth for a year to college or bring up achild went into a single large shell which might not have the luck tokill one human being as excuse for its existence; an endowment for amaternity hospital was represented in a day's belch of destruction froma single acre of trodden wheat land. One trench mortar would consume inan hour plum puddings for an orphan school. For you might pause to thinkof it in this way if you chose. Thousands do at the front. Down on the banks of the Somme the blue uniforms of the French in placeof the British khaki hovered around the gun-emplacements; the_soixante-quinze_ with its virtuoso artistic precision was neighbor tothe British eighteen-pounder. Guns, guns, guns--French and English! Thesame nests of them opposite Gommecourt and at Estrées thundered acrossat one another from either bank of the Somme through summer haze overthe green spaces of the islands edged with the silver of its tranquilflow in the moonlight or its glare in the sunlight. Not the least of the calculations in this activity was to screen everydetail from aerial observation. New hangars had risen at the edge oflevel fields, whence the swift fighting machines of an aircraftconcentration in keeping with the concentration of guns and all othermaterial rose to reconnaissance, or to lie in wait as a falcon to pounceupon an invading German plane. Thus the sky was policed by flightagainst prying aerial eyes. If one German plane could descend to analtitude of a thousand feet, its photographs would reveal the locationof a hundred batteries to German gunners and show the plan ofconcentration clearly enough to leave no doubt of the line of attack;but the anti-aircraft guns, plentiful now as other British material, would have caught it going, if not coming, provided it escaped beingjockeyed to death by half a dozen British planes with their machine gunsrattling. To "camouflet" became a new English verb British planes tested out abattery's visibility from the air. Landscape painters were called in toassist in the deceit. One was set to "camouflet" the automobile van forthe pigeons which, carried in baskets on the men's backs in charges, were released as another means of sending word of the progress of anattack obscured in the shell-smoke. This conscientious artist"camoufleted" the pigeon-van so successfully that the pigeons could notfind their way home. Night was the hour of movement. At night the planes, if they went forth, saw only a vague and shadowy earth. The sausage balloons, German andAllied, those monitors of the sky, a line of opaque, weird questionmarks against the blue, stared across at each other out of range of theenemy's guns, "spotting" the fall of shells for their own side fromtheir suspended basket observation posts from early morning until theywere drawn in by their gasoline engines with the coming of dusk. Clumsyand helpless they seemed; but in common with the rest of the army theyhad learned to reach their dugouts swiftly at the first sign of shellfire, and descended then with a ridiculous alacrity which suggested thepossession of the animal intelligence of self-preservation. Occasionallyone broke loose and, buffeted like an umbrella down the street by thewind, started for the Rhine. And the day before the great attack theBritish aviation corps sprang a surprise on the German sausages, six ofwhich disappeared in balls of flame. A one-armed man of middle age from India, who offered to do his "bit, "refused a post at home in keeping with his physical limitations. Hiseyes were all right, he said, when he nominated himself as a balloonobserver, and he never suffered from sea-sickness which sausage balloonsmost wickedly induce. Many a man who has ascended in one not only couldsee nothing, but wanted to see nothing, and turning spinach lopping overthe basket rail prayed only that the engine would begin drawing inimmediately. One day the one-armed pilot was up with a "joy-rider"; that is, anofficer who was not a regular aerial observer but was sight-seeing. Theballoon suddenly broke loose with the wind blowing strong toward Berlin, which was a bit awkward, as he remarked, considering that he had aninexperienced passenger. "We mustn't let the Boches get us!" he said. "Look sharp and do as Isay. " First, he got the joy-rider into the parachute harness for suchemergencies and over the side, then himself, both descending safely onthe right side of the British trenches--which was rather "smart work, "as the British would say, but all to the taste of the one-armed pilotwho was looking for adventures. I have counted thirty-three Britishsausage balloons within my range of vision from a hill. The previousyear the British had not a baker's dozen. What is lacking? Have we enough of everything? These questions werehaunting to organizers in those last days of preparation. After dark the scene from a hill, as you rode toward the horizon offlashes, was one of incredible grandeur. Behind you, as you lookedtoward the German lines, was the blanket of night pierced and slashed bythe flashes of gun blasts; overhead the bloodcurdling, hoarse sweep oftheir projectiles; and beyond the darkness had been turned into achaotic, uncanny day by the jumping, leaping, spreading blaze ofexplosives which made all objects on the landscape stand out inflickering silhouette. Spurts of flame from the great shells rose out ofthe bowels of the earth, softening with their glow the sharp, concentrated, vicious snaps of light from shrapnel. Little flashesplayed among big flashes and flashes laid over flashes shingle fashionin a riot of lurid competition, while along the line of the Germantrenches at some places lay a haze of shimmering flame from the rapidfire of the trench mortars. The most resourceful of descriptive writers is warranted in saying thatthe scene was indescribable. Correspondents did their best, and afterthey had squeezed the rhetorical sponge of its last drop of inkdistilled to frenzy of adjectives in inadequate effort, they gaspinglylaid their copy on the table of the censor, who minded not "wordpictures" which contained no military secrets. Vision exalted and numbed by the display, one's mind sought the meaningand the purpose of this unprecedented bombardment, with its precisionof the devil's own particular brand of "kultur, " which was to cut theGermans' barbed wire, smash in their trenches, penetrate their dugouts, close up their communication trenches, do unto their second line thesame as to their first line, bury their machine guns in débris, crusheach rallying strong point in that maze of warrens, burst in the roofsof village billets over their heads, lay a barrier of death across allroads and, in the midst of the process of killing and wounding, imprisonthe men of the front line beyond relief by fresh troops and shut themoff from food and munitions. Theatric, horrible and more thanthat--matter-of-fact, systematic war! There was relatively littleresponse from the German batteries, whose silence had a sinistersuggestion. They waited on the attack as the target of their revenge forthe losses which they were suffering. By now they knew from the bombardment, if not from other sources, that aBritish attack was coming at some point of the line. Their flares wereplaying steadily over No Man's Land to reveal any movement by theBritish or the French. From their trenches rose signal rockets--the onlyreal fireworks, leisurely and innocent, without any sting of death intheir sparks--which seemed to be saying "No movement yet" to commanderswho could not be reached by any other means through the curtains of fireand to artillerists who wanted to turn on their own curtains of fireinstantly the charge started. Then there were other little flashes anddarts of light and flame which insisted on adding their moiety to thegarish whole. And under the German trenches at several points were vastcharges of explosives which had been patiently borne under groundthrough arduously made tunnels. So much for the machinery of material. Thus far we have mentioned onlyguns and explosions, things built of steel to fire missiles of steel andthings on wheels, and little about the machine of human beings now tocome abreast of the tape for the charge, the men who had been "blooded, "the "cannon fodder. " Every shell was meant for killing men; every Germanbattery and machine gun was a monster frothing red at the lips inanticipation of slaughter. A fury of trench raids broke out from the Somme to Ypres further toconfuse the enemy as to the real front of attack. Men rushed thetrenches which they were to take and hold later, and by their briefvisit learned whether or not the barbed wire had been properly cut togive the great charge a clear pathway and whether or not the Germantrenches were properly mashed. They brought in prisoners whoseidentification and questioning were invaluable to the intelligencebranch, where the big map on the wall was filled in with the locationof German divisions, thus building up the order of battle, so vital toall plans, with its revelation of the disposition and strength of theenemy's forces. It was known that the Germans were rapidly bringing upnew batteries north of the Ancre while low visibility postponed the dayof the attack. The men that worked on the new roads keeping them in condition for thepassage of the heavy transport, whether columns of motor trucks, orcaissons, or the great tractors drawing guns, were no less a part of thescheme than the daring raiders. Every soldier who was going over theparapet in the attack must have his food and drink and bombs to throwand cartridges to fire after he had reached his objective. Most telling of all the innumerably suggestive features to me were thestreets of empty white tents at the casualty clearing stations, and theempty hospital cars on the railway sidings, and the new enclosures forprisoners--for these spoke the human note. These told that man was to bethe target. The staff might plan, gunners might direct their fire accurately againstunseen targets by the magic of their calculations, generals mightprepare their orders, the intricate web of telephone and telegraph wiresmight hum with directions, but the final test lay with him who, rifleand bomb ready in hand, was going to cross No Man's Land and takepossession of the German trenches. A thousand pictures cloud the memoryand make a whole intense in one's mind, which holds all proudly inadmiration of human stoicism, discipline and spirit and sadly, too, witha conscious awe in the possession as of some treasure intrusted to himwhich he cheapens by his clumsy effort at expression. Stage by stage the human part had moved forward. Khaki figures wereswarming the village streets while the people watched them with a sortof worshipful admiration of their stalwart, trained bodies and asympathetic appreciation of what was coming. These men with their faircomplexion and strange tongue were to strike against the Germans. Twothings the French had learned about the English: they were generous andthey were just, though phlegmatic. Now they were to prove that withtheir methodical deliberation they were brave. Some would soon die inbattle--and for France. By day they loitered in the villages waiting on the coming of darkness, their training over--nothing to do now but wait. If they went forward itwas by platoons or companies, lest they make a visible line on thechalky background of the road to the aviator's eye. A battalion drawn upin a field around a battalion commander, sitting his horse sturdily ashe gave them final advice, struck home the military affection of loyaltyof officer to man and man to officer. A soldier parting at a doorwayfrom a French girl in whose eyes he had found favor during a briefresidence in her village struck another chord. That elderly woman withher good-by to a youth was speaking as she would to her own son who wasat the front and unconsciously in behalf of some English mother. Up nearthe trenches at dusk, in the last billet before the assembly for attack, company officers were recalling the essentials of instructions to a linestanding at ease at one side of the street while caissons of shells hadthe right of way. With the coming of night battalions of reserves formed and set forth onthe march, going toward the flashes in the heavens which illumined themen in their steady tramp, the warmth of their bodies and their breathspressing close to your car as you turned aside to let them pass. "EastSurreys, " or "West Ridings, " or "Manchesters" might come the answer toinquiries. All had the emblems of their units in squares of cloth ontheir shoulders, and on the backs of some of the divisions were brightyellow or white patches to distinguish them from Germans to the gunnersin the shell-smoke. Nothing in their action at first glance indicated the stress of theirthoughts. Officers and men, their physical movements set by the mold ofdiscipline, were in gesture, in voice, in manner the same as when theywere on an English road in training. This was a part of the drill, apart of man's mastery of his emotions. None were under any illusions assoldiers of other days had been. Few nursed the old idea of being thelucky man who would escape. They knew the chances they were taking, themeaning of frontal attacks and of the murderous and wholesale quicknessof machine gun methods. Will, organized human will, was in their steps and shining out of theireyes. It occurred to me that they might have escaped this if England hadkept out of the war at the price of something with which Englishmenrefused to part. "The day" was coming, "the day" they had foreseen, "theday" for which their people waited. When they were closing in with death, the clans which make up theBritish Empire kept faith with their character as do all men. Thesebattalions sang the songs and whistled the tunes of drill grounds athome, though in low notes lest the enemy should hear, and lapsed intosilence when they drew near the front and filed through thecommunication trenches. Quiet the English, that great body of the army which sees itself as theskirt for the Celtic fringe, ploddingly undemonstrative with memories ofthe phlegm of their history holding emotions unexpressed; the Scotch intheir kilts, deep-chested, with their trunk-like legs and broad hips, braw of face under their mushroom helmets, seemed like mediæval men ofarms ready in spirit as well as looks for fierce hand-to-handencounters; the Welsh, more emotional than the English, had songs whichwere pleasant to the ear if the words were unrecognizable; and theruddy-faced Irish, with their soft voices, had a beam in their eyes ofinward anticipation of the sort of thing to come which no Irishman evermeets in a hesitating mood. No overseas troops were there except theNewfoundland battalion; for only sons of the old country were to strikeon July 1st. Returning from a tour at night I had absorbed what seemed at one momentthe unrealness and at another the stern, unyielding reality of thescenes. The old French territorial, with wrinkled face and an effort ata military mustache, who came out of his sentry box at a control postsquinting by the light of a lantern held close to his nose at the bit ofpaper which gave the bearer freedom of the army and nodding with hispolite word of concurrence, was a type who might have stopped a travelerin Louis XIV. 's time. All the farmers sleeping in the villages who wouldbe up at dawn at their work, all the people in Amiens, knew that thehour was near. The fact was in the air no less than in men's minds. Nobody mentioned that the greatest struggle of the war was about tobegin. We all knew that it was in hearts, souls, fiber. There were moments when imagination gave to that army in its integrityof organization only one heart in one body. Again, it was a millionhearts in a million bodies, deaf except to the voice of command. Mostamazing was the absence of fuss whether with the French or the British. Everybody seemed to be doing what he was told to do and to know how todo it. With much to be left to improvisation after the attack began, nothing might be neglected in the course of preparation. In other days where infantry on the march deployed and brought upsuddenly against the enemy in open conflict the anticipatory suspensewas not long and was forgotten in the brief space of conflict. Here thissuspense really had been cumulative for months. It built itself up, little by little, as the material and preparations increased, as thebattalions assembled, until sometimes, despite the roar of theartillery, there seemed a great silence while you waited for a string, drawn taut, to crack. On the night of June 30th the word was passed behind a closed door inthe hotel that seven-thirty the next morning was the hour and thespectators should be called at five--which seemed the final word instaff prevision. V THE BLOW Plans at headquarters--A battle by inches--In the observation post--The débris of a ruined village--"Softening" by shell fire--A slice out of the front--The task of the infantryman--The dawn before the attack--Five minutes more--A wave of men twenty-five miles long--Mist and shell-smoke--Duty of the war-correspondent. I was glad to have had glimpses of every aspect of the preparation frombattalion headquarters in the front line trenches to GeneralHeadquarters, which had now been moved to a smaller town near thebattlefield where the intelligence branch occupied part of aschoolhouse. In place of exercises in geography and lithographs ofnatural history objects, on the schoolroom walls hung charts of theGerman Order of Battle, as built up through many sources of information, which the British had to face. There was no British Order of Battle insight. This, as the Germans knew it, you might find in a Germanintelligence office; but the British were not going to aid the Germansin ascertaining it by giving it any publicity. By means of a map spread out on a table an officer explained the plan ofattack with reference to broad colored lines which denoted theobjectives. The whole was as explicit as if Bonaparte had said: "We shall engage heavily on our left, pound the center with ourartillery, and flank on our right. " The higher you go in the command the simpler seem the plans which bydirect and comprehensive strokes conceal the detail which is delegateddown through the different units. At Gommecourt there was a salient, anangle of the German trench line into the British which seemed to invite"pinching, " and this was to be the pivot of the British movement. TheFrench who were on both sides of the Somme were to swing in from theirsouthern flank of attack near Soyecourt in the same fashion as theBritish from the northern, thus bringing the deepest objective along theriver in the direction of Péronne, which would fall when eventually thetactical positions commanding it were gained. Not with the first rush, for the lines of the objective were drawn wellshort of it, but with later rushes the British meant to gain theirregular ridge formation from Thiepval to Longueval, which would startthem on the way to the consummation of their siege hammering. It was tobe a battle by inches; the beginning of a long task. German _morale_ wasstill high on the Western front; their numbers immense. _Morale_ couldbe broken, numbers worn down, only by pounding. Granted that the attack of July 1st should succeed all along the line, it would gain little ground; but it would everywhere break through thefirst line fortifications over a front of more than twenty-five miles, the British for about fifteen and the French for about ten. Thesoldierly informant at "Intelligence" reminded the listener, too, thatbattalions which might be squeezed or might run into unexpectedobstacles would suffer fearfully as in all great battles and one must becareful not to be over-depressed by the accounts of the survivors orover-elated by the roseate narratives of battalions which had swept allbefore them with slight loss. The day before I saw the map of the whole I had seen the map of a partat an Observation Post at Auchonvillers. The two were alike in astandardized system, only one dealt with corps and the other withbattalions. A trip to Auchonvillers at any time during the previous yearor up to the end of June, 1916, had not been fraught with any particularrisk. It was on the "joy-riders'" route, as they say. When I said that the German batteries were making relatively littlereply to the preliminary British bombardment I did not mean to implythat they were missing any opportunities. At the dead line forautomobiles on the road the burst of a shrapnel overhead had asuggestiveness that it would not have had at other times. Perhaps theGermans were about to put a barrage on the road. Perhaps they weregoing to start their guns in earnest. Happily, they have always beenmost considerate where I was concerned and they were only throwing in afew shells in the course of artillery routine, which happened also onour return from the Observation Post. But they were steadily attentivewith "krumps" to a grove where some British howitzers sought the screenof summer foliage. If they could put any batteries out of action whilethey waited for the attack this was good business, as it meant fewerguns at work in support of the British charge. An artilleryman, perspiring and mud-spattered from shell-bursts, whocame across the fields, said: "They knocked off the corner of ourgun-pit and got two men. That's all. " His eyes were shining; he was inthe elation of battle. Casualties were an incident in the preoccupationof his work and of the thought: "At last we have the shells! At last itis our turn!" On our way forward we passed more batteries and wisely kept to the openaway from them, as they are dangerous companions in an artillery duel. Then we stepped into the winding communication trench with its system ofwires fast to the walls, and kept on till we passed under a liftedcurtain into a familiar chamber roofed with heavy cement blocks andearth. "Safe from a direct hit by five-point-nines, " said the observationofficer, a regular promoted from the ranks who had been "spotting"shells since the war began. "A nine-inch would break the blocks, but Idon't think that it would do us in. " Even if it did "do us in, " why, we were only two or three men. All thisprotection was less perhaps to insure safety than to insure security ofobservation for these eyes of the guns. The officer was as proud of hisO. P. As any battalion commander of his trench or a battery commander ofhis gun-position, which is the same kind of human pride that a man hasin the improvements on his new country estate. There was a bench to sit on facing the narrow observation slit, similarto that of a battleship's conning tower, which gave a wide sweep ofvision. A commonplace enough _mise-en-scène_ on average days, nowsignificant because of the stretch of dead world of the trench systemsand No Man's Land which was soon to be seething with the tumult ofdeath. Directly in front of us was Beaumont-Hamel. Before the war it had beenlike hundreds of other villages. Since the war its ruins were likescores of others in the front line. Parts of a few walls were standing. It was difficult to tell where the débris of Beaumont-Hamel began andthat of the German trench ended. Dust was mixed with the black burstsof smoke rising from the conglomerate mass of buildings and streetsthrown together by previous explosions. The effect suggested the regularspout of geysers from a desert rock crushed by charges of dynamite. Could anybody be alive in Beaumont-Hamel? Wasn't this bombardmentthreshing straw which had long since yielded its last kernel of grain?Wasn't it merely pounding the graves of a garrison? Other villages, equally passive and derelict, were being submitted to the samesystematic pounding, which was like timed hammer-beats. "We keep on softening them, " said the observer. Soldiers have a gift for apt words to describe their work, as have allprofessional experts. Softening! It personified the enemy as somethinghard and tough which would grow pulpy under enough well-mapped blowsstriking at every vital part from dugouts to billets. All the barbed-wire entanglements in front of the first-line trenchesappeared to be cut, mangled, twisted into balls, beaten back into theearth and exhumed again, leaving only a welt of crater-spotted ground infront of the chalky contour of the first-line trenches which had beenmashed and crushed out of shape. "Yes, the Boche's first line looks rather messy, " said the officer. "We've been giving him an awful doing these last few days. Turning ourattention mostly to the second line, now. That's our lot, there, " headded, indicating a cluster of bursts over a nest of burrows farther upon the hillside. "Any attempts to repair their wire at night?" I asked. "No. They have to do it under our machine gun fire. Any Boches who havesurvived are lying doggo. " How many dugouts were still intact and secure refuges for the waitingGermans? Only trench raids could ascertain. As well might the observerwith his glasses or an aeroplane looking down try to take a census ofthe number of inhabitants of a prairie dog village who were all in theirholes. The officer spread out his map marked "Secret and confidential, "delimiting the boundaries of a narrow sector. He had nothing to do withwhat lay to the right and left--other sectors, other men's business--ofthe area inclosed in the clear, heavy lines crosswise of British andGerman trenches--a slice out of the front, as it were. Speaking over thetelephone to the blind guns, he was interested only in the control ofgunfire in this sector. The charge to him was lines on the map parallelwith the trenches which would be at given points at given moments--lineswhich he must support when their soldier counterparts were invisiblethrough the shell-smoke in the nice calculation of time and range whichshould put the shells into the enemy and never into the charging man. To infantry commanders with similar maps those lines were breathinghuman lines of men whom they had trained, and the gunfire a kind ofspray which the gunners were to adjust for the protection of thebattalions when they should cross that dead space. Once the British werein the German front trenches, details which had been told off for thepurpose were to take possession of the dugouts and "breach" them ofprisoners and disarm all other Germans, lest they fire into the backs ofthose who carried the charge farther on to the final stage of theobjective. What awaited them they would know only when they climbed overthe parapet and became silhouettes of vulnerable flesh in the open. Yes, one had the system in the large and the small, by the army, the corps, the division, the brigade, the battalion, and the man, the individualinfantryman who was to suffer that hazard of marching in the open towardthe trenches which not guns, or motor trucks, or trench-mortar shellscould take, but only he could take and hold. The advantage of watching the attack from this O. P. In comparison withthat of other points was mooted; for the spectator had to choose hisseat for the panorama. This time we sought a place where we hoped tosee something of the battle as a whole. "_C'est arrivé!_" said the old porter to me at the door when I left thehotel before dawn. The great day had arrived! Amiens was in darkness, with the lightnings of the guns which had neverceased their labors through the night flashing in the heavens theirmagnetic summons to battle. When a dip into a valley shut out their roara divine hush lay over the world. On either side of the main road wasthe peace of the hour before the dawn which would send the peasants fromtheir beds to the fields. There were no lights yet in the villages. Ithad not occurred to the inhabitants to try to see the battle. They knewthat they would be in the way; sentries or gunners would halt them. The traffic was light and all vehicles, except a flying staff officer'scar, were going their methodical way. Vaguely, as an aviation stationwas passed, planes were visible being pushed out of their sheds; the humof propellers being tried out was faintly heard. The birds of battlewere testing their wings before flight and every one out of the hundredswhich would take part that day had his task set, no less than had acorps, a regiment of artillery, or the bombers in a charge. "This is the place, " was the word to the chauffeur as we swept up agrade in the misty darkness. Stretched from trunk to trunk of the trees beside the road were canvasscreens to hide the transport from enemy observation. Passing betweenthem had the effect of going through the curtains into a parterre box. Light was just breaking and we were in a field of young beets on thecrest of a rise, with no higher ground beyond us all the way toThiepval, which was in the day's objective, and to Pozières, which wasbeyond it. Ordinarily, on a clear day we should have had from here aview over five or six miles of front and through our glasses the actionshould have been visible in detail. This morning the sun was not showing his head and the early mist layopaque over all the positions, holding in place the mighty volume ofsmoke from bursting shells. As it was not seven o'clock the sun mightyet realize its duty in July and dissipate this shroud, which was sothick that it partially obscured the flashes of the guns and theshell-bursts. Seven-ten came and seven-twenty and still no more light. It was too latenow to seek another hill and, if we had sought one, we should have hadno better view. At least, we were seeing as much as the Commander of theFourth Army in his dugout near by. The artillery fire increased. Everygun was now firing, all stretching their powers to the maximum. Themist and smoke over the positions seemed to tremble with the blasts. Near-by shells, especially German, broke brilliantly against abackground so thick that it swallowed up the flashes of more distantshells in its garishly illumined density. Thousands of officers werestudying their wrist watches for the tick of "zero" as the minute-handsmoved on with merciless fatalism; and hundreds of thousands of men whohad come into position overnight were in line in the trenches looking totheir officers for the word. Our little group in the beet field was restless and silent; or if wespoke it was not of what was oppressing our minds and stilling ourheartbeats. Our glasses gave no aid; they only made the fog thicker. Hadwe been in the first-line British trenches we could hardly have seen themen who left them through this wall of smoke and mist as they enteredthe German first line and the answering German "krumps" would havedriven us to the dugouts and German curtains of fire held us prisoner. One of us called attention to a lark that had risen and was singing withall the power in his little throat. Another mentioned a squadron ofaeroplanes against the background of a soft and domeless sky, flyingwith the precision of wild geese. We knew that the German guns wereresponding now, for the final blasts of British concentration had beena sufficient signal of attack if some British prisoner taken in a trenchraid had not revealed the hour. Seven-twenty-five! someone said, but not one of us needed any reminder. Five minutes more and the great experiment would begin. Had Sir DouglasHaig made an army equal to the task? What would be the answer toskeptics who said that the London cockneys and the Manchester factoryhands and all the others without military training could not be madeinto a force skilful enough to take those trenches? Was the feat ofconquering those fortifications within the bounds of human courage, skill and resource? Not what one saw but what one felt and knew counted. A crowd isspellbound in watching a steeplejack at work, or an aviator doing a"loop-the-loop, " or an acrobat swinging from one bar to another abovethe sawdust ring, or the "leap of death" of the movies; and here we werein the presence of a multitude who were running a far greater risk in anuntried effort, with their inspiration not a breathless audience butduty. For none wanted to die. All were human in this. None had any senseof the glorious sport of war, only that of grim routine. Our group was not particularly religious, but I think that we were alluttering a prayer for England and France. At seven-thirty somethingseemed to crack in our brains. There was no visible sign that a wave ofmen twenty-five miles long, reaching from Gommecourt to Soyecourt, wherever the trenches ran across fields, through villages and alongslopes to the banks of the Somme and beyond, had left their parapets. Iknew the men who were going into that charge too well to have anyapprehension that any battalion would falter. The thing was to be doneand they were to do it. Now they were out in No Man's Land; now theywere facing the reception prepared for them. Thousands might already bedown. We could discern that the German guns, long waiting for theirprey, were seeking it in eager ferocity as they laid their curtains offire on the appointed places which they had registered. The hell of thepoets and the priests must have some emotion, some temperamentalvariation. This was sheer mechanical hell, its pulse that of the dynamoand the engine. Seven-forty-five! Helplessly we stared at the blanket. If the charge hadgone home it was already in the German trenches. For all we knew itmight have been repulsed and its remnants be struggling back through thecurtains of artillery fire and the sweep of machine gun fire. As the suncame out without clearing away the mist and shell-smoke over the fieldwe had glimpses of some reserves who had looked like a yellow patchbehind a hill deploying to go forward, suggestive of yellow-backedbeetles who were the organized servitors of a higher mind on some otherplanet. This was all we saw; and to make more of it would not be fair to otheroccasions when views of attacks were more intimate. Yet I would notchange the impression now. It has its place in the spectator's historyof the battle. VI FIRST RESULTS OF THE SOMME At the little schoolhouse--Twenty miles of German fortifications taken--Doubtful situation north of Thiepval--Prisoners and wounded--Defeat and victory--The topography of Thiepval--Sprays of bullets and blasts of artillery fire--"The day" of the New Army--The courage of civilized man--Fighting with a kind of divine stubbornness--Braver than the "Light Brigade"--Died fighting as final proof of the New Army's spirit--Crawling back through No Man's Land--Not beaten but roughly handled. In the room at the head of the narrow stairs in the schoolhouse of thequiet headquarters town we should have the answer to the question, Hasthe British attack succeeded? which was throbbing in our pulsebeats. Bythe same map on the table in the center of the room showing the plan ofattack with its lines indicating the objectives we should learn how manyof them had been gained. The officer who had outlined the plan of battlewith fine candor was equally candid about its results, so far as theywere known. Not only did he avoid mincing words, but he avoided wastingthem. From Thiepval northward the situation was obscure. The German artilleryresponse had been heavy and the action almost completely blanketed fromobservation. Some detachments must have reached their objective, astheir signals had been seen. From La Boisselle southward the British hadtaken every objective. They were in Mametz and Montauban and aroundFricourt. For the French it had been a clean sweep, without a singlerepulse. Twenty miles of those formidable German fortifications were inthe possession of the Allies. On the ledge of the schoolroom window, with the shrill voices of thechildren at recess playing in the yard below rising to my ears, I wrotemy dispatch for the press at home, less conscious then than now of thewonder of the situation. Downstairs the curé of the church next door wasstanding on the steps, an expectant look in his eyes. When I told himthe news his smile and the flash of his eye, which lacked the meeknessusually associated with the Church, were good to see. "And the French?" he asked. "All of their objectives!" "Ah!" He drew a deep breath and rubbed his hands together softly. "Andprisoners?" "A great many. " "Ah! And guns?" "Yes. " Thus he ran up the scale of happiness. I left him on the steps of thechurch with a proud, glad, abstracted look. Beyond the town peaceful fields stretched away to the battle area, wherefigures packed together inside the new prisoners' inclosures made agreen blot. Litters were thick in the streets of the casualty clearingstations which had been empty yesterday. There were no idle ambulancesnow. They had passengers in green as well as in khaki. The firsthospital trains were pulling out from the rail-head across from aclearing station. Thus promptly, as foreseen, the processes of battlehad worked themselves out. From "light" cases and from "bad" cases, from officers and men, you hadthe account of an individual's supreme experience, infinitesimalcompared to the whole but when taken together making up the whole. Thewounded in the Thiepval-Gommecourt sector spoke of having "crawled" backacross No Man's Land. South of Thiepval they had "walked" back. This, too, told the story of the difference between repulse and victory. As the fight went for each man in the fray, so the battle went to hisconception. The spectator going here and there could hear accounts atone headquarters of battalions that were beyond the first-line trenchesand at another of battalions whose survivors were back in their owntrenches. He could hear one wounded man say: "It was too stiff, sir. There was no getting through their curtains of fire against theirmachine guns, sir;" and another: "We went into their first line withouta break and right on, gathering in Boches on the way. " Victory is sweet. It writes itself. Perhaps because failure is harder towrite, though in this case it is equally glorious, we shall have thisfirst. To make the picture of that day clearer, imagine a movement ofthe whole arm, with the shoulder at Gommecourt and the fist swinging inat Montauban, crushing its way against those fortifications. It brokethrough for a distance of more than from the elbow to the fingers' endstwenty miles southward from Thiepval--a name to bear in mind. Mencrossing the open under protecting waves of shell fire had proved thatmen in dugouts with machine guns were not invincible. From a certain artillery observation post in a tree you had a good viewof Thiepval, already a blackened spot with the ruins of the chateaushowing white in its midst and pricked by the toothpick-like trunks oftrees denuded of their limbs, which were to become such a familiar sighton the battlefield. It was uphill all the way to Thiepval for theBritish. A river so-called, really a brook, the Ancre, runs at the footof the slope and turns eastward beyond Thiepval, where a ridge calledCrucifix Ridge north-east of the village takes its name from a Christwith outstretched arms visible for many miles around. Then on past thebend of the Ancre the British and the German positions continued to theGommecourt salient. Along these five miles the odds of terrain were all against the British. The high ground which they sought to gain was of supreme tactical value. Nature was an ally of soldierly industry in constructing defenses. TheGerman staff expected the brunt of the offensive in this sector andevery hour's delay in the attack was invaluable for their finalpreparations. Thiepval, Beaumont-Hamel and Gommecourt would not beyielded if there were any power of men or material at German command tokeep them. Indeed, the Germans said that Thiepval was impregnable. Theirboast was good on July 1st but not in the end, as we shall see, for, before the summer was over, Thiepval was to be taken with less loss tothe British than to the defenders. At Beaumont-Hamel and Thiepval, particularly, and in all villages housecellars had been enlarged and connected by new galleries, the débrisfrom the buildings forming a thicker roof against penetration by shells. Where there had seemed no life in Beaumont-Hamel battalions were snug intheir refuges as the earth around trembled from the explosions. Thoseshell-threshed parapets of the first-line German trenches which appearedto represent complete destruction had not filled in all the doorways ofdugouts which big shells had failed to reach. The cut and twistedfragments of barbed wire which were the remains of the maze ofentanglements fringing the parapets no longer protected them from acharge; but the garrisons depended upon another kind of defense whichsent its deadly storms against the advancing infantry. The British battalions that went over the parapet from Thiepvalnorthward were of the same mettle as those that took Montauban andMametz; their training and preparation the same. Where battalions to thesouthward swept forward according to plan and the guns' pioneering wassuccessful, those on this front in many cases started from trenchesalready battered in by German shell fire. A few steps across that deadspace and officers knew that the supporting artillery, working no lessthoroughly in its preliminary bombardment here than elsewhere, had notthe situation in hand. All the guns which the Germans had brought up during the time thatweather delayed the British attack added their weight to the artilleryconcentration. Down the valley of the Ancre at its bend they had more orless of an enfilade. Machine guns had survived in their positions in thedébris of the trenches or had been mounted overnight and others appearedfrom manholes in front of the trenches. Sprays of bullets cut crosswiseof the blasts of the German curtains of artillery fire. How any mencould go the breadth of No Man's Land and survive would have been calledmiraculous in other days; in these days we know that it was due to thelaw of chance which will wound one man a dozen times and never bark theskin of another. Any troops might have been warranted in giving up the task before theyreached the first German trench. Veterans could have retired withoutcriticism. This is the privilege of tried soldiers who have wonvictories and are secured by such an expression as, "If the Old Guardsaw that it could not be done, why, then, it could not. " But these wereNew Army men in their first offensive. Their victories were yet to bewon. This was "the day. " Each officer and each man had given himself up as a hostage to death forhis cause, his pride of battalion and his manhood when he went over theparapet. The business of the officers was to lead their men to certaingoals; that of the men was to go with the officers. All very simplereasoning, this, yet hardly reason: the second nature of training andspirit. How officers had studied the details of their objectives on themap in order to recognize them when they were reached! How like drill itwas the way that those human waves moved forward! But they were notwaves for long in some instances, only survivors still advancing as ifthey were parts of a wave, unseen by their commanders in theshell-smoke, buffeted by bursts of high explosives, with every mansimply keeping on toward the goal till he arrived or fell. Foolhardy, you say. Perhaps. It is an easy word to utter over a map after theevent. You would think of finer words if you had been at the front. Would England have wanted her New Army to act otherwise?--the firstgreat army that she had put into the field on trial on the continent ofEurope against an army which had, by virtue of its own experience, theright to consider the newcomers as amateurs? They became more skilfullater; but in war all skill is based on such courage as these men showedthat day. Those who sit in offices in times of peace and think otherwisehad better be relieved. It is the precept that the German Army itselftaught and practiced at Ypres and Verdun. On July 1st a question wasanswered for anyone who had been in the Manchurian war. He learned thatthose bred in sight of cathedrals in the civilization of the epic poemcan surpass without any inspiration of oriental fatalism or religiousfanaticism the courage of the land of Shintoism and Bushido. In most places the charge reached the German trenches. There, frequentlyoutnumbered by the garrison, the men stabbed and bombed, fought to putout machine guns that were turned on them and so stay the tide comingout of the mouths of dugouts--simply fought and kept on fighting with akind of divine stubbornness. Tennyson's "Light Brigade" seems bombast and gallery play after July1st. In that case some men on horses who had received an order rode outand rode back, and verse made ever memorable this wild gallop ofexhilaration with horses bearing the men. The battalions of July 1stwent on their own feet driven by their own will toward their goals, without turning back. Surviving officers with objectives burned in theirbrains led the surviving men past the first-line trenches if thedirections required this. "Theirs not to reason why--theirs but to doand die--cannon to right of them volleyed and thundered, "--old-fashioned, smoke-powder cannon firing round shot for the Light Brigade; for theselater-day battalions every kind of modern shell and machine guns, showersof death and sheets of death! The goal--the goal! Ten men out of a hundred reached it in a few casesand when they arrived they sent up rocket signals to say that they werethere! there! there! Two or three battalions literally disappeared intothe blue. I thought that the Germans might have taken a considerablenumber of prisoners, but not so. Those isolated lots who went on totheir objectives regardless of every other thought died fighting, asfinal proof of the New Army's spirit, against the Germans enraged bytheir heavy losses from the preliminary British bombardment. It was where gaps existed and gallantry went blindly forward, unable inthe fog of shell-smoke to see whether the units on the right or the leftwere up, that these sacrifices of heroism were made; but where commandwas held over the line and the opposition was not of a variable kindcounsel was taken of the impossible and retreat was ordered. That is, the units turned back toward their own trenches under direction. Theyhad to pass through the same curtain of shell fire in returning as incharging, and ahead of them through the blasts they drove theirprisoners. "Never mind. It's from your own side!" said one Briton to a German whohad been knocked over by a German "krump" when he picked himself up; andthe German answered that this did not make him like it any better. Scattered with British wounded taking cover in new and old shell-craterswas No Man's Land as the living passed. A Briton and his prisoner wouldtake cover together. An explosion and the prisoner might be blown tobits, or if the captor were, another Briton took charge of the prisoner. Persistently stubborn were the captors in holding on to prisoners whowere trophies out of that inferno, and when a Briton was back in thefirst-line trench with his German his delight was greater in deliveringhis man alive than in his own safety. Out in No Man's Land the woundedhugged their shell-craters until the fire slackened or night fell, whenthey crawled back. Where early in the morning it had appeared as if the attack weresucceeding reserve battalions were sent in to the support of those infront, and as unhesitatingly and steadily as at drill they entered theblanket of shell-smoke with its vivid flashes and hissing of shrapnelbullets and shell-fragments. Commanders, I found, stood in awe of thesteadfast courage of their troops. Whether officers or men, those whocame out of hell were still true to their heritage of English phlegm. Covered with chalk dust from crawling, their bandages blood-soaked, bespattered with the blood of comrades as they lay on litters or hobbleddown a communication trench, they looked blank when they mentioned thescenes that they had witnessed; but they gave no impression of despair. It did not occur to them that they had been beaten; they had beenroughly handled in one round of a many-round fight. Had a Germancounter-attack developed they would have settled down, rifle in hand, tostall through the next round. And that young officer barely twenty, smiling though weak from loss of blood from two wounds, refusingassistance as he pulled himself along among the "walking wounded, "showed a bravery in his stoicism equal to any on the field when he said, "It did not go well this time, " in a way that indicated that, of course, it would in the end. It was over one of those large scale, raised maps showing in facsimileall the elevations that a certain corps commander told the story of thewhole attack with a simplicity and frankness which was a victory ofcharacter even if he had not won a victory in battle. He rehearsed thedetails of preparation, which were the same in their elaborate care asthose of corps which had succeeded; and he did not say that luck hadbeen against him--indeed, he never once used the word--but merely thatthe German fortifications had been too strong and the gunfire too heavy. He bore himself in the same manner that he would in his house inEngland; but his eyes told of suffering and when he spoke of his men hisvoice quavered. Where the young officer had said that it had not gone well this time anda private had said, "We must try again, sir!" the general had said thatrepulse was an incident of a prolonged operation in the initial stage, which sounded more professional but was no more illuminating. All spokeof lessons learned for the future. Thus they had stood the supreme testwhich repulse alone can give. What could an observer say or do that was not banal in the eyes of menwho had been through such experiences? Only listen and look on with theawe of one who feels that he is in the presence of immortal heroism. Andan hour's motor ride away were troops in the glow of that success whichis without comparison in its physical elation--the success of arms. VII OUT OF THE HOPPER OF BATTLE An army of movement--Taking over the captured space--At Minden Post, a crossroads of battle--German prisoners--Their desire to live--Their variety--The ambulance line--The refuse from the hopper of battle--Resting in the battle line--Reminiscences of the fighters--A mighty crater--The dugouts around Fricourt--Method of taking a dugout--The litter over the field. When I went southward through that world of triumph back of Mametz andMontauban I kept thinking of a strong man who had broken free of hisbonds and was taking a deep breath before another effort. Where fromThiepval to Gommecourt the men who had expected to be organizing newtrenches were back in their old ones and the gunners who had hoped tomove their guns forward were in the same positions and all the plans forsupplying an army in advance were still on paper, to the southwardanticipation had become realization and the system devised to carry onafter success was being applied. A mighty, eager industry pervaded the rear. Here, at last, was an armyof movement. New roads must be made in order that the transport couldmove farther forward; medical corps men were establishing more advancedclearing stations; new ammunition dumps were being located; militarypolice were adapting traffic regulations to the new situation. Oldtrenches had been filled up to give trucks and guns passageway. In everyface was the shining desire which overcomes fatigue. An army longtrench-tied was stretching its limbs as it found itself in the open. Atcorps headquarters lines were drawn on the maps of positions gained andbeyond them the lines of new objectives. Could it be possible that our car was running along that road back ofthe first-line trenches where it would have been death to show your headtwo days ago? And could battalions in reserve be lying in the open onfields where forty-eight hours previously a company would have drawn thefire of half a dozen German batteries? Was it dream or reality that youwere walking about in the first-line German trenches? So long had youbeen used to stationary warfare, with your side and the other sidealways in the same places hedged in by walls of shell fire, that thetransformation seemed as amazing as if by some magic overnight lowerBroadway with all its high buildings had been moved across the NorthRiver. Among certain scenes which memory still holds dissociated from others bytheir outstanding characterization, that of Minden Post remains vividas illustrating the crossroads man-traffic of battle. A series of bigdugouts, of houses and caves with walls of sandbags, back of the firstBritish line near Carnoy was a focus of communication trenches and themagnet to the men hastening from bullet-swept, shell-swept spaces tosecurity. The hot breath of the firing-line had scorched them and castthem out and they came together in congestion at this clearing stationlike a crowd at a gate. Eyes were bloodshot and set in deep hollows fromfatigue, those of the British having the gleam of triumph and those ofthe Germans a dazed inquiry as they awaited directions. Only a half-hour before, perhaps, the Germans had been fighting with theferocity of racial hate and the method of iron discipline. Now they weresimply helpless, disheveled human beings, their short boots and greenuniforms whitened by chalk dust. Hunger had weakened the stamina of manyof them in the days when the preliminary British bombardment had shutthem off from supplies; but none looked as if he were really underfed. Inever saw a German prisoner who was except for the intervals when battlekept the food waiting at the rear away from his mouth, though some whowere under-sized and ill-proportioned looked incapable of absorbingnutrition. In order to make them fight better they had been told that the Britishgave no quarter. Out of hell, with shells no longer bursting overhead orbullets whimpering and hissing past, they were conscious only that theywere alive, and being alive, though they had risked life as if deathwere an incident, now freed of discipline and of the exhilaration ofbattle, their desire to live was very human in the way that hands shotup if a sharp word were spoken to them by an officer. They were whollylacking in military dignity as they filed by; but it returned as by amagic touch when a non-commissioned officer was bidden to take charge ofa batch and march them to an inclosure. Then, in answer to the commandshoulders squared, heels rapped together, and the instinct of longtraining put a ramrod to their backbones which stiffened mere tiredhuman beings into soldiers. Distinct gratitude was evident when theirpapers were taken for examination over the return of theiridentification books, which left them still docketed and numberedmembers of "system" and not mere lost souls as they would otherwise haveconsidered themselves. "All kinds of Boches in our exhibit!" said a British soldier. As there were, in truth: big, hulking, awkward fellows, beardlessyouths, men of forty with stoops formed in civil life, professional menwith spectacles fastened to their ears by cords and fat men with thecranial formation and physiognomy in keeping with French comic picturesof the "type Boche. " Mixed with the British wounded they came, tall and short, thin andportly, the whole a motley procession of friend and foe in a strangecompanionship which was singularly without rancor. I saw only oneincident of any harshness of captor to prisoner. A big German ranagainst the wounded arm of a Briton, who winced with pain and turned andgave the German a punch in very human fashion with his free arm. AnotherGerman with his slit trousers' leg flapping around a bandage was leaningon the arm of a Briton whose other arm was in a sling. A giant Prussianbore a spectacled comrade pickaback. Germans impressed as litter-bearersbrought in still forms in khaki. Water and tobacco, these are thebounties which no man refuses to another at such a time as this. Thegurgle of a canteen at a parched mouth on that warm July day was thefirst gift to wounded Briton or German and the next a cigarette. Every returning Briton was wounded, of course, but many of the Germanswere unwounded. Long rows of litters awaited the busy doctors' visit forfurther examination. First dressings put on by the man himself or by acomrade in the firing-line were removed and fresh dressings substituted. Ambulance after ambulance ran up, the litters of those who were "next"were slipped in behind the green curtains, and on soft springs overspinning rubber tires the burdens were sped on their way to England. Officers were bringing order out of the tide which flowed in across thefields and the communication trenches as if they were used to suchsituations, with the firing-line only two thousand yards away. Theseriously wounded were separated from the lightly wounded, who must notexpect to ride but must go farther on foot. The shell-mauled Germanborne pickaback by a comrade found himself in an ambulance across from aBriton and his bearer was to know sleep after a square meal in theprisoners' inclosure. And all this was the refuse from the hopper of battle, which has noservice for prisoners unless to carry litters and no use at all forwounded; and it was only a by-product of the proof of success comparedto a trip over the field itself--a field still fresh. Artillery caissons and ambulances and signal wire carts and otherspecially favored transport--favored by risk of being in range ofhundreds of guns--now ran along the road in the former No Man's Landwhich for nearly two years had had no life except the patrols at night. The bodies of those who fell on such nocturnal scouting expeditionscould not be recovered and their bones lay there in the midst of rottinggreen and khaki in the company of the fresh dead of the charge who wereyet to be buried. There was the battalion which took the trenches resting yonder on ahillside, while another battalion took its place in the firing-line. Themen had stripped off their coats; they were washing and making tea andsprawling in the sunshine, these victors, looking across at curtains offire where the battle was raging. Thus reserves might have waited atGettysburg or at Waterloo. "They may put some shells into you, " I suggested to their colonel. "Perhaps, " he said. The prospect did not seem to disturb him or the men. It was a possibility hazy to minds which asked only sleep or relaxationafter two sleepless nights under fire. "The Germans haven't anyaeroplanes up to enable them to see us and no sausage balloons, either. Since our planes brought down those six in flames the day before theattack the others have been very coy. " His young officers were all New Army products; he, the commander, beingthe only regular. There were still enough regulars left to provide onefor each of the New Army battalions, in some cases even two. "The men were splendid, " he said, "just as good as regulars. They wentin without any faltering and we had a stiffish bit of trench in front ofus, you know. It's jolly out here, isn't it?" He was tired and perhaps he would be killed to-morrow, but nothing couldprevent him from going some distance to show us the way to the trenchesthat his men had taken. They were heroes to him and he was one to them;and they had won. That was the thing, victory, though they regarded itas a matter of course, which gave them a glow warmer than the sunlightas they lay at ease on the grass. They had "been in;" they had seen theday for which they had long waited. A quality of mastery was in theirbearing, but their elation was tempered by the thought of the missingcomrades, the dead. "I wish as long as Bill had to go that he hadn't fallen before we got tothe trench, " said one soldier. "He had set his heart on seeing what aBoche dugout was like. " "George was beside me when a Boche got him with a bomb. I did for theBoche with a bayonet, " said another. "When the machine gun began I thought that it would get us all, but wehad to go on. " They were matter-of-fact, dwelling on the simple essentials. Men haddied; men had been wounded; men had survived. This was all according toexpectation. Mostly, they did not rehearse their experiences. Theirbrains had had emotion enough; their bodies asked for rest. They laysilently enjoying the fact of life and sunlight. Details which were lostin the haze of action would develop in the memory in later years likethe fine points of a photographic plate. The former German trench on a commanding knoll had little resemblance toa trench. Here artillerists had fulfilled infantry requirements to theletter. Areas of shell-craters lay on either side of the tumbled wallsand dugout entrances were nearly all closed. The infantry which took theposition met no fire in front, but had an enfilade at one point from amachine gun. Where the dead lay told exactly the breadth of its sweepthrough which the charge had unfalteringly passed; and this was only afirst objective. As you could see, the charge had gone on to its secondwith slight loss. A young officer after being wounded had crawled into ashell-crater, drawn his rubber sheet over him and so had diedpeacefully, the clot of his life's blood on the earth beside him. In the field of ruins around Fricourt a mighty crater of one of themines exploded on July 1st at the hour of attack was large enough tohold a battalion. Germans had gone aloft in a spatter with its vastplume of smoke and dust scooped from the bowels of the earth. Famoussince to sightseers of war were the dugouts around Fricourt which werethe last word in German provision against attack. The making of dugoutsis standardized like everything else in this war. There is the sameangle of entrance, the same flight of steps to that underground refuge, in keeping with the established pattern. Depth, capacity and comfort arethe result of local initiative and industry. There may be beds andtables and tiers of bunks. Many such chambers were as undisturbed as ifnever a shell had burst in the neighborhood. The Germans in occupationhad been told to hold on; a counter-attack would relieve them. The faithof some of them endured so well that they had to be blasted out byexplosives before they would surrender. There was reassurance in the proximity of such good dugouts whenhabitable to a correspondent if shells began to fall, as well asprotection for the British in reserve. Some whence came foul odors wereclosed by the British as the simplest form of burial for the dead withinwho had waited for bombs to be thrown before surrendering. For themethod of taking a dugout had long since become as standardized as itsconstruction. The men inside could have their choice from the Briton atthe entrance. "Either file out or take what we send, " as a soldier put it. "We can'tleave you there to come out and fire into our backs, as the Kaiser toldyou to do, when we've started on ahead. " You could follow for miles the ruins of the first line, picking your wayamong German dead in all attitudes, while a hand or a head or a footstuck out of the shell-hammered chalk mixed with flesh and fragments ofclothing, the thing growing nauseatingly horrible and your wonderincreasing as to how gunfire had accomplished the destruction and howmen had been able to conquer the remains that the shells had left. Itwas a prodigious feat, emphasizing again the importance of the months ofpreparation. And the litter over the whole field! This, in turn, expressed how variedand immense is the material required for such operations. One had inmind the cleaning up after some ghastly debauch. Shell-fragments weremixed with the earth; piles of cartridge cases lay beside pools ofblood. Trench mortars poked their half-filled muzzles out of the toppledtrench walls. Bundles of rocket flares, empty ammunition boxes, steelhelmets crushed in by shell-fragments, gasbags, eye-protectors againstlachrymatory shells, spades, water bottles, unused rifle grenades, eggbombs, long stick-handled German bombs, map cases, bits of German "K. K. "bread, rifles, the steel jackets of shells and unexploded shells of allcalibers were scattered about the field between the irregular welts ofchalky soil where shell fire had threshed them to bits. The rifles and accoutrements of the fallen were being gathered in piles, this being, too, a part of a prearranged system, as was the gathering ofthe wounded and later of the dead who had worn them. Big, bareleggedforms of the sturdy Highland regiment which would not halt for a machinegun were being brought in and laid in a German communication trenchwhich had only to be closed to make a common grave, each identificationdisk being kept as a record of where the body lay. Another communicationtrench near by was reserved for German dead who were being gathered atthe same time as the British. In life the foes had faced each otheracross No Man's Land. In death they were also separated. Up to the first-line German trenches, of course, there were only Britishdead, those who had fallen in the charge. It was this that made it seemas if the losses had been all on one side. In the German trenches theentries on the other side of the ledger appeared; and on the fields andin the communication trenches lay green figures. Over that open spacethey were scattered green dots; again, where they had run for cover to awood's edge, they lay thick as they had dropped under the fire of amachine gun which the British had brought into action. A fierce game ofhare and hounds had been played. Both German and British dead lay facingin the same direction when they were in the open, the Germans inretreat, the British in pursuit. An officer called attention to thisgrim proof that the initiative was with the British. By the number of British dead lying in No Man's Land or by the bloodclots when the bodies had been removed, it was possible to tell whatprice battalions had paid for success. Nothing could bring back thelives of comrades who had fallen in front of Thiepval to the survivorsof that action; but could they have seen the broad belts of No Man'sLand with only an occasional prostrate figure it would have had thereassurance that another time they might have easier going. Wherever theGermans had brought a machine gun into action the results of its worklay a stark warning of the necessity of silencing these automatickillers before a charge. Yet from Mametz to Montauban the losses hadbeen light, leaving no doubt that the Germans, convinced that the weightof the attack would be to the north, had been caught napping. The Allies could not conceal the fact and general location of theiroffensive, but they did conceal its plan as a whole. The small number ofshell-craters attested that no such artillery curtains of fire had beenconcentrated here as from Thiepval to Gommecourt. Probably the Germanshad not the artillery to spare or had drawn it off to the north. All branches of the winning army making themselves at home in theconquered area among the dead and the litter behind the old German firstline--this was the fringe of the action. Beyond was the battle itself, with the firing-line still advancing under curtains of shell-bursts. VIII FORWARD THE GUNS! An audacious battery--"An unusual occasion"--Guns to the front at night--Close to the firing-line--Not so dangerous for observers--The German lines near by--Advantages of even a gentle slope--Skilfully chosen German positions--A game of hide and seek with death--Business-like progress--Haze, shell-smoke and moving figures--Each figure part of the "system. " Hadn't that battery commander mistaken his directions when he emplacedhis howitzers behind a bluff in the old No Man's Land? Didn't he knowthat the German infantry was only the other side of the knoll and thattwo or three score German batteries were in range? I looked for atornado to descend forthwith upon the gunners' heads. I liked theiraudacity, but did not court their company when I could not break a habitof mind bred in the rules of trench-tied warfare where the other fellowwas on the lookout for just such fair targets as they. For the moment these "hows" were not firing and the gunners were in alittle circumscribed world of their own, dissociated from the movementaround them as they busily dug pits for their ammunition. In due coursesomeone might tell them to begin registering on a certain point or toturn loose on one which they had already registered. Meanwhile, veryworkmanlike in their shirt-sleeves, they had no concern with the trafficin the rear, except as it related to their own supply of shells, or withthe litter of the field, or the dead, or the burial parties and thescattered wounded passing back from the firing-line. Their businessrelations were exclusively with the battle area hidden by the bluff. Ithought that they were "rather fond of themselves" (as the British say)that morning, though not so much so, perhaps, as the crew of theeighteen pounders still farther forward within about a thousand yards ofthe Germans whom they were pelting with shrapnel. Ordinarily, the eighteen pounders were expected to keep a distance offour or five thousand yards; but this was "rather an unusual occasion"as an officer explained. It would never do for the eighteen pounders tobe wall-flowers; they must be on the ballroom floor. Had these men whowere mechanically slipping shells into the gun-breeches slept last nightor the previous night? Oh, yes, for two or three hours when they werenot firing. What did fatigue matter to an eighteen-pounder spirit released from theeternal grind of trench warfare and pushing across the open in the waythat eighteen pounders were meant to do? Weren't they horse artillery?What use had they had for their horses in the immovable Ypres salientexcept when they drew back their guns to the billets after their tour ofduty?--they who had drilled and drilled in evolutions in England underthe impression that field guns were a mobile arm! When orders came on the afternoon of July 1st to go ahead "right intoit" it was like a summons to a holiday for a desk-ridden man brought upin the Rockies. Out into the night with creaking wheels and caissonsfollowing with sharp words of urging from the sergeant, "Now, wheelers, as I taught you at Aldershot, " as they went across old trenches or up astiff slope and into the darkness, with transport giving them the rightof way, and on to a front that was in motion, with officers studyingtheir maps and directions by the pocket flashlight--this was somethinglike. And a young lieutenant hurried forward to where the rifles weretalking to signal back the results of the guns firing from the midst ofthe battle. Something like, indeed! The fellows training their pieces inkeeping with his instructions might be in for a sudden concentration ofblasts from the enemy, of course. Wasn't that part of the experience?Wasn't it their place to take their share of the pounding, and didn'tthey belong to the guns? These were examples close at hand, but sprinkled about the well-won areaI saw the puffs from other British batteries which, after a nocturnaljourney, morning found close to the firing-line. While I was movingabout in the neighborhood I cast glances in the direction of thatparticular battery of eighteen pounders which was still serenely firingwithout being disturbed by the German guns. There was something unrealabout it after nearly two years of the Ypres salient. But the worst shock to a trench-tied habit of mind was when I stood uponthe parapet of a German trench and saw ahead the British firing-line andthe German, too. I ducked as instinctively, according to past training, as if I had seen a large, black, murderous thing coming straight for myhead. In the stalemate days a dozen sharpshooters waiting for suchopportunities would have had a try at you; a machine gun might haveloosened up, and even batteries of artillery in their search for game toshow itself from cover did not hesitate to snipe with shells at anindividual. I must be dead; at least, I ought to be according to previous formulæ;but realizing that I was still alive and that nothing had cracked orwhistled overhead, I took another look and then remained standing. I hadbeen considering myself altogether too important a mortal. German gunsand snipers were not going to waste ammunition on a non-combatant on theskyline when they had an overwhelming number of belligerent targets. Afew shrapnel breaking remotely were all that we had to bother us, andthese were sparingly sent with the palpable message, "We'll let youfellows in the rear know what we would do to you if we were not sopreoccupied with other business. " I was near enough to see the operations; to have gone nearer would havebeen to face in the open the sweep of bullets over the heads of theBritish front line hugging the earth, which is not wise in these days ofthe machine gun. A correspondent likes to see without being shot at andhis lot is sometimes to be shot at without being able to see anythingexcept the entrance of a dugout, which on some occasions is moreinviting than the portals of a palace. In the distance was the main German second trench line on the crest ofLongueval and High Wood Ridge, which the British were later to win aftera struggle which left nothing of woods or villages or ridges exceptshell-craters. Naturally, the Germans had not restricted their originaldefenses to the ridge itself, any more than the French had theirs to thehills immediately in front of Verdun. They had placed their originalfirst-line trenches along the series of advantageous positions on theslope and turned every bit of woods and every eminence into a strongpoint on the way back to the second line, whose barbed-wireentanglements rusted by long exposure were distinct under the glasses. A German officer stood on the parapet looking out in our direction, probably trying to locate the British infantry advance which was hugginga fold in the ground and resting there for the time being. I imaginedhow beaver-like were the Germans in the second line strengthening theirdefenses. I scanned all the slopes facing us in the hope of seeing aGerman battery. There must be one under those balls of black smoke fromhigh explosives from British guns and another a half mile away under thesame kind of shower. "They withdrew most of their guns behind the ridge overnight, " said anofficer, "in order to avoid capture in case we made another rush. " On the other side of this natural wall they would be safe from anyexcept aerial observation, and the advanced British batteries, thoughall in the open, were in folds in the ground, or behind bluffs, or justbelow the skyline of a rise where they had found their assigned positionby the map. How much a few feet of depression in a field, a slightlysunken road, the grade of a gentle slope, which hid man or gun from viewcounted for I did not realize that day as I was to realize in the fiercefight for position which was to come in succeeding weeks. It was easy to understand why the Germans had made a strong point in thefirst line where I was standing, for it was a position which, inrelation to both the British and the German trenches, would instantlyappeal to the tactical eye. Here they had emplaced machine guns mannedby chosen desperate men which had given the British charge its worstexperience over a mile front. I could see all the movement over a broadarea to the rear which, however, the rise under my feet hid from theridge where the German officer stood. The advantage which the Germanshad after their retreat from the Marne was brought home afresh once youwere on conquered ground. A mile more or less of depth had nosentimental interest to them, for they were on foreign soil. They hadchosen their positions by armies, by corps, by battalions, by hundredsof miles and tens of miles and tens of yards with the view to a commandof observation and ground. This was a simple application of the formulaas old as man; but it was their numbers and preparedness that permittedits application and wherever the Allies were to undertake the offensivethey must face this military fact, which made the test of their skillagainst frontal positions all the stiffer and added tribute to success. The scene in front reminded one of a great carpet which did not lie flaton the floor but was in undulations, with the whole on an incline towardLongueval and High Wood Ridge. The Ridge I shall call it after this, for so it was in capital letters to millions of French, British andGerman soldiers in the summer of 1916. And this carpet was peopled withmen in a game of hide and seek with death among its folds. No vehicle, no horse was anywhere visible. Yet it was a poignantly liveworld where the old trench lines had been a dead world--a world alive inthe dots of men strung along the crest, in others digging new trenches, in messengers and officers on the move, in clumps of reserves behind ahillock or in a valley. Though bursting shrapnel jackets whipped out thesame kind of puffs as always from a flashing center which spread intonimbus radiant in the sunlight and the high explosives sent up the samespouts of black smoke as if a stick of dynamite had burst in a coal box, the shell fire seemed different; it had a quality of action andadventure in comparison with the monotonous exhibition which we hadwatched in stalemate warfare. Death now had some element of glory andsport. It was less like set fate in a stationary shambles. Directly ahead was a bare sweep of field of waste wild grass between theGerman communication trenches where wheat had grown before the war, andthe British firing-line seemed like heads fastened to a greenishblanket. Holding the ground that they had gained, they were waiting onsomething to happen elsewhere. Others must advance before they could gofarther. The battle was not general; it raged at certain points where the Germanshad anchored themselves after some recovery from the staggering blow ofthe first day. Beyond Fricourt the British artillery was making acrushing concentration on a clump of woods. This seemed to be thehottest place of all. I would watch it. Nothing except the blanket ofshell-smoke hanging over the trees was visible for a time, unless youcounted figures some distance away moving about in a sort of detachedpantomime. Then a line of British infantry seemed to rise out of the pile of thecarpet and I could see them moving with a drill-ground steadiness towardthe edge of the woods, only to be lost to the eye in a fold of thecarpet or in a changed background. There had been something workmanlikeand bold about their rigid, matter-of-fact progress, reflective ofman-power in battle as seen very distinctly for a space in that field ofbaffling and shimmering haze. I thought that I had glimpses of some ofthem just before they entered the woods and that they were mixing withfigures coming out of the woods. At any rate, what was undoubtedly ahalf company of German prisoners were soon coming down the slope in abody, only to disappear as if they, too, were playing their part in thehide and seek of that irregular landscape with its variation from whitechalk to dark green foliage. Khaki figures stood out against the chalk and melted into the fields orthe undergrowth, or came up to the skyline only to be swallowed into theearth probably by the German trench which they were entering. I wonderedif one group had been killed, or knocked over, or had merely taken coverin a shell-crater when a German "krump" seemed to burst right amongthem, though at a distance of even a few hundred yards nothing is sodeceiving as the location of a shell-burst in relation to objects inline with it. The black cloud drew a curtain over them. When it liftedthey were not on the stage. This was all that one could tell. What seemed only a platoon became a company for an instant underfavorable light refraction. The object of British khaki, French blue andGerman green is invisibility, but nothing can be designed that will notbe visible under certain conditions. A motley such as the "tanks" werepainted would be best, but the most utilitarian of generals has not yetdared to suggest motley as a uniform for an army. It occurred to me howdistinct the action would have been if the participants had worn theblue coats and red trousers in which the French fought their earlybattles of the war. All was confused in that mixture of haze and shell-smoke and maze oftrenches, with the appearing and disappearing soldiers living patternsof the carpet which at times itself seemed to move to one's tiring, intensified gaze. Each one was working out his part of a plan; each wasa responsive unit of the system of training for such affairs. The whole would have seemed fantastic if it had not been for the soundof the machine guns and the rifles and the deeper-throated chorus of theheavy guns, which proved that this was no mesmeric, fantastic spectaclebut a game with death, precise and ordered, with nothing that could berehearsed left to chance any more than there was in the regulation ofthe traffic which was pressing forward, column after column, to supplythe food which fed the artillery-power and man-power that should crushthrough frontal positions. IX WHEN THE FRENCH WON A big man's small quarters--General Foch--French capacity for enjoying a victory--Winning quality of French as victors--When the heart of France stood still--The bravery of the race--Germany's mistaken estimate of France--Why the French will fight this war to a finish--French and Germans as different breeds as ever lived neighbor--The democracy of the French--_Élan_--"War of movement. " The farther south the better the news. There was another world ofvictory on the other side of a certain dividing road where French andBritish transport mingled. That world I was to see next on a day ofdays--a holiday of elation. A brief note, with its permission to "circulate within the lines, "written in a bold hand in the chateau where General Foch directed theNorthern Group of French Armies, placed no limitation on freedom ofmovement for my French friend and myself. Of course, General Foch's chateau was small. All chateaux occupied bybig commanders are small, and as a matter of method I am inclined tothink. If they have limited quarters there is no room for the intrusionof anyone except their personal staff and they can live with thesimplicity which is a soldier's barrack training. Joffre, Castelnau and Foch were the three great names in the French Armywhich the public knew after the Marne, and of the three Foch has, perhaps, more of the dash which the world associates with the Frenchmilitary type. He simplified victory, which was the result of the samearduous preparation as on the British side, with a single gesture as heswept his pencil across the map from Dompierre to Flaucourt. Thus hisarmy had gone forward and that was all there was to it, which was enoughfor the French and also for the Germans on this particular front. "It went well! It goes well!" he said, with dramatic brevity. He hadmade the plans which were so definite in the bold outline to which heheld all subordinates in a coördinated execution; and I should meet themen who had carried out his plans, from artillerists who had blazed theway to infantry who had stormed the enemy trenches. There was nomistaking his happiness. It was not that of a general, but the commonhappiness of all France. Victory in France for France could never mean to an Englishman what itmeant to a Frenchman. The Englishman would have to be on his own soilbefore he could understand what was in the heart of the French aftertheir drive on the Somme. I imagined that day that I was a Frenchman. By proxy I shared their joy of winning, which in a way seemed to betaking an unfair advantage of my position, considering that I had notbeen fighting. There is no race, it seems to me, who know quite so well how to enjoyvictory as the French. They make it glow with a rare quality whichabsorbs you into their own exhilaration. I had the feeling that thepulse of every citizen in France had quickened a few beats. All thepeasant women as they walked along the road stood a little straighterand the old men and old women were renewing their youth in quiettriumph; for now they had learned the first result of the offensive andmight permit themselves to exult. Once before in this war at the Marne I had followed the French legionsin an advance. Then victory meant that France was safe. The people hadfound salvation through their sacrifice, and their relief was soprofound that to the outsider they seemed hardly like the French intheir stoic gratitude. This time they were articulate, more like theFrench of our conception. They could fondle victory and take it apartand play with it and make the most of it. If I had no more interest in the success of one European people thananother, then as a spectator I should choose that it should be to theFrench, provided that I was permitted to be present. They make victoryno raucous-voiced, fleshy woman, shrilly gloating, no superwoman, coldand efficient, who considers it her right as a superior being, but agracious person, smiling, laughing, singing in a human fashion, whethershe is greeting winning generals or privates or is looking in at thedoor of a chateau or a peasant's cottage. An old race, the French, tried out through many victories and defeatsuntil a vital, indescribable quality which may be called the art ofliving governs all emotions. Victory to the Germans could not mean halfwhat it would to the French. The Germans had expected victory and hadorganized for it for years as a definite goal in their ambitions. To theFrench it was a visitation, a reward of courage and kindly fortune andthe right to be the French in their own world and in their own way, which to man or to State is the most justifiable of all rights. Twice the heart of France had stood still in suspense, first on theMarne and then at the opening onslaught on Verdun; and between the Marneand Verdun had been sixteen months when, on the soil of their France andlooking out on the ruins of their villages, they had striven to holdwhat remained to them. They had been the great martial people of Europeand because Napoleon III. Tripped them by the fetish of the Bonapartename in '70, people thought that they were no longer martial. This putsthe world in the wrong, as it implies that success in war is the test ofgreatness. When the world expressed its surprise and admiration atFrench courage France smiled politely, which is the way of France, andin the midst of the shambles, as she strained every nerve, was a littleamused, not to say irritated, to think that Frenchmen had to prove againto the world that they were brave. Whether the son came from the little shops of Paris, from stubbornBrittany, the valley of the Meuse, or the vineyards, war made him thesame kind of Frenchman that he was in the time of Louis XIV. AndNapoleon, fighting now for France rather than for glory as he did inNapoleon's time; a man cured of the idea of conquest, advanced a stepfarther than the stage of the conqueror, and his courage, though slowerto respond to wrath, the finer. He had proven that the more highlycivilized a people, the more content and the more they had to lose bywar, the less likely they were to be drawn into war, the moreresourceful and the more stubborn in defense they mightbecome--especially that younger generation of Frenchmen with theirexemplary habits and their fondness for the open air. If France had been beaten at the Marne, notice would have been served onhumanity that thrift and refinement mean enervation. We should havebelieved in the alarmists who talk of oriental hordes and of the vigorof primitive manhood overcoming art and education. The Germans could not give up their idea that both the French and theEnglish must be dying races. The German staff had been well enoughinformed to realize that they must first destroy the French Army as thecontinental army most worthy of their steel and, at the same time, theycould not convince themselves that France was other than weak. She lovedher flesh-pots too well; her families would yield and pay rather thansacrifice only sons. At any time since October, 1914, the French could have had a separatepeace; but the answer of the Frenchman, aside from his bounden faith tothe other Allies, was that he would have no peace that was given--only apeace that was yielded. France would win by the strength of her manhoodor she would die. When the war was over a Frenchman could look a Germanin the face and say, "I have won this peace by the force of my blows;"or else the war would go on to extermination. At intervals in the long, long months of sacrifice France was verydepressed; for the French are more inclined than the English to be upand down in their emotions. They have their bad and their good days. Yet, when they were bluest over reports of the retreat from the Marne orlosses at Verdun they had no thought of making terms. Depression merelymeant that they would all have to succumb without winning. Thus, afterthe weary stalling and resistance of the blows at Verdun, never makingany real progress in driving the enemy out of France, ever dreaming ofthe day when they should see the Germans' backs, France had waited forthe movement that came on the Somme. The people were always talking of this offensive. They had heard that itwas under way. Yet, how were they to know the truth? The newspapers gavevague hints; gossip carried others, more concrete, sometimes correct butusually incorrect; and all that the women and the old men and thechildren at home could do was to keep on with the work. And this theydid; it is instinct. Then one morning news was flashed over France thatthe British and the French had taken over twenty thousand prisoners. Thetables were turned at last! France was on the march! "Do you see why we love France?" said my friend T----, who was with methat day, as with a turn of the road we had a glimpse of the valley ofthe Somme. He swung his hand toward the waving fields of grain, thevillages and plots of woods, as the train flew along the metals betweenrows of stately shade trees. "It is France. It is bred in our bones. Weare fighting for that--just what you see!" "But wouldn't you take some of Germany if you could?" I asked. "No. We want none of Germany and we want no Germans. Let them do as theyplease with what is their own. They are brave; they fight well; but wewill not let them stay in France. " Look into the faces of the French soldiers and look into the faces ofGermans and you have two breeds as different as ever lived neighbor inthe world. It would seem impossible that there could be anything but atruce between them and either preserve its own characteristics ofcivilization. The privilege of each to survive through all the centurieshas been by force of arms and, after the Marne and Verdun, the Somme putthe seal on the French privilege to survive. If there be any hope oftrue internationalism among the continental peoples I think that it canrely on the Frenchman, who only wants to make the most of his ownwithout encroaching on anybody's else property and is disinterested inhuman incubation for the purpose of overwhelming his neighbors. Trueinternationalism will spring from the provincialism that holds fast toits own home and does not interfere with the worship by other countriesof their gods. All this may seem rambling, but to a spectator of war indulging in alittle philosophy it goes to the kernel of the meaning of victory to theFrench and to my own happiness in seeing the French win. Sometimes theFrenchman seems the most soldierly of men; again, a superficial observermight wonder if the French Army had any real discipline. And there, again, you have French temperament; the old civilization that hasdefined itself in democracy. For the French are the most democratic ofall peoples, not excluding ourselves. That is not saying that they arethe freest of all peoples, because no people on earth are freer than theEnglish or the American. An Englishman is always on the lookout lest someone should interferewith his individual rights as he conceives them. He is the leastgregarious of all Europeans in one sense and the French the mostgregarious, which is a factor contributing to French democracy. It ishis gregariousness that makes the Frenchman polite and his politenesswhich permits of democracy. An officer may talk with a private soldierand the private may talk back because of French politeness and equality, which yield fellowship at one moment and the next slip back into thebonds of discipline which, by consent of public opinion, have tighteneduntil they are as strict as in Napoleon's day. Gregariousness wassupreme on this day of victory; democracy triumphant. Democracy hadproved itself again as had English freedom against Prussian system. Vitality is another French possession and this means industry. TheGerman also is industrious, but more from discipline and training thanfrom a philosophy of life. French vitality is inborn, electricallyinstalled by the sunshine of France. When a battery of French artillery moves along the road it isdemocratic, but when it swings its guns into action it is military. Thenits vitality is something that is not the product of training, somethingthat training cannot produce. A French battalion moving up to thetrenches seems not to have any particular order, but when it goes overthe parapet in an attack it has the essence of military spirit which iscoördination of action. No two French soldiers seem quite alike on themarch or when moving about a village on leave. Each seems three beings:one a Frenchman, one a soldier, a third himself. German psychology leftout the result of the combination, just as it never considered that theBritish could in two years submerge their individualism sufficiently tobecome a military nation. There is a French word, _élan_, which has been much overworked indescribing French character. Other nations have no equivalent word;other races lack the quality which it expresses, a quality which youget in the wave of a hand from a peasant girl to a passing car, in thewoman who keeps a shop, in French art, habits, literature. To-day oldMonsieur Élan was director-general of the pageant. This people of apt phrases have one for the operations before the trenchsystem was established; it is the "war of movement. " That was the word, movement, for the blue river of men and transport along the roads to thefront. We were back to the "war of movement" for the time being, at anyrate; for the French had broken through the German fortifications for adepth of four to five miles in a single day. X ALONG THE ROAD TO VICTORY A thrifty victory--Seventeen-inch guns asleep--A procession of guns that gorged the roads--French rules of the road--Absence of system conceals an excellent system--Spoils of war--The Colonial Corps--The "chocolates"--"Boches"--Dramatic victors--The German line in front of the French attack--Galloping _soixante-quinzes_. Anyone with experience of armies cannot be deceived about losses when heis close to the front. Even if he does not go over the field while thedead of both sides are still lying there, infallible signs without aword being spoken reflect the truth. It was shining in panoplies ofsmiles with the French after the attack of July 1st. Victory was sweetbecause it came at slight cost. Staff officers could congratulatethemselves on having driven a thrifty bargain. Casualty clearingstations were doing a small business; prisoners' inclosures a drivingone. "We've nothing to fire at, " said an officer of heavy artillery. "Ourtargets are out of reach. The Germans went too fast for us; they left uswithout occupation. " Where with the British I had watched the preparations for the offensivedevelop, the curtain was now raised on the French preparations, whichwere equally elaborate, after the offensive had gone home. GeneralJoffre had spared more guns from Verdun for the Somme than optimism hadsupposed possible. Those immense fellows of caliber from twelve toseventeen-inch, mounted on railway trucks, were lions asleep under theircovers on the sidings which had been built for them. Their tracks wouldhave to be carried farther forward before they roared at the Germansagain. Five miles are not far for a battalion to march, though an immensedistance to a modern army with its extensive and complicated plant. Eventhe aviators wanted to be nearer the enemy and were looking for a newpark. Sheds where artillery horses had been sheltered for more than ayear were empty; camps were being vacated; vast piles of shells mustfollow the guns which the tractors were taking forward. The nests ofspacious dugouts in a hillside nicely walled in by sandbags had servedtheir purpose. They were beyond the range of any German guns. For the first time you realized what the procession which gorged theroads would be like if the Western front were actually broken. Guns ofevery caliber from the 75's to the 120's and 240's, ammunition packtrains, ambulances horse-drawn and motor-drawn, big and little motortrucks, staff officers' cars, cycle riders and motor cycle riders, smalltwo-wheeled carts, all were mixed with the flow of infantry going andcoming and crowding the road-menders off the road. There was none of the stateliness of the columns of British motor trucksand none of the rigidity of British marching. It all seemed a greatfamily affair. When one wondered what part any item of the variegatedtransport played it was always promptly explained. Officers and men exchanged calls of greeting as they passed. Eyes wereflashing to the accompaniment of gestures. There were arguments aboutright of way in which the fellow with the two-wheeled cart held his ownwith the chauffeur of the three-ton motor truck. But the argument wasaccompanied by action. In some cases it was over, a decision made andthe block of traffic broken before a phlegmatic man could have haddiscussion fairly under way. For Frenchmen are nothing if not quick ofmind and body and whether a Frenchman is pulling or pushing or drivinghe likes to express the emotions of the moment. If a piece of transportwere stalled there would be a chorus of exclamations and runningdisputes as to the method of getting it out of the rut, with the resultthat at the juncture when an outsider might think that utter confusionwas to ensue, every Frenchman in sight had swarmed to the task under thedirection of somebody who seemed to have made the suggestion which wonthe favor of the majority. Much has been written about the grimness of the French in this war. Naturally they were grim in the early days; but what impresses me mostabout the French Army whenever I see it is that it is entirely French. Some people had the idea that when the French went to war they wouldlose their heads, run to and fro and dance about and shout. They havenot acted so in this war and they never have acted so in any other war. They still talk with eyes, hands and shoulders and fight with them, too. The tide never halted for long. It flowed on with marvelous alacrity anda seeming absence of system which soon convinced you as concealing avery excellent system. Every man really knew where he was going; hecould think for himself, French fashion. Near the front I witnessed atypical scene when an officer ran out and halted a soldier who waswalking across the fields by himself and demanded to know who he was andwhat he was doing there. "I am wounded, sir, " was the reply, as he opened his coat and showed abandage. "I am going to the casualty clearing station and this is theshortest way"--not to mention that it was a much easier way than to hugthe edge of the road in the midst of the traffic. The battalions and transport which made up this tide of an army's reartrying to catch up with its extreme front had a view, as the road dippedinto a valley, of the trophies which are the proof of victory. Here wereboth guns and prisoners. Among the guns nicely parked you might haveyour choice between the latest 77's out of Krupps' and pieces of thevintage of the '80's. One 77 had not a blemish; another had its muzzlebroken off by the burst of a shell, its spokes slashed byshell-fragments, and its armored shield, opened by a jagged hole, was ascrumpled as if made of tin. Four of the old fortress type had a history. They bore the mark of theirFrench maker. They had fired at the Germans from Maubeuge and afterhaving been taken by the Germans were set to fire at the French. Onecould imagine how the German staff had scattered such pieces along theline when in stalemate warfare any kind of gun that had a barrel andcould discharge a shell would add to the volume of gunfire. Such a ponderous piece with its heavy, old-fashioned trail and no recoilcylinder was never meant to play any part in an army of movement. Youcould picture how it had been dragged up into position back of theGerman trenches and how a crew of old Landsturm gunners had beenallowed a certain number of shells a day and told off to fire them atcertain villages and crossroads, with that systematic regularity of theGerman artillery system which often defeats its own purpose, as we onthe Allies' side well know. Very likely, as often happened, the crew fired six rounds beforebreakfast and eight at four o'clock in the afternoon, and the rest ofthe time they might sit about playing cards. Of course, retreat was outof the question with a gun of this sort. Yet through the twenty monthsthat the opposing armies had sniped at each other from the samepositions the relic had done faithful auxiliary service. The Frenchcould move it on to some other part of the line now where no offensivewas expected and some old territorials could use it as the oldLandsturmers had used it. All the guns in this park had been taken by the Colonial Corps, whichthinks itself a little better than the Nancy (or Iron) Corps, a viewwith which the Iron Corps entirely disagreed. Scattered among theColonial Corps, whether on the march or in billets, were the black men. There is no prejudice against the "chocolates, " as they are called, whoprovide variation and amusement, not to mention color. Most adaptable ofhuman beings is the negro, whom you find in all lands and engaged in allkinds of pursuits, reflecting always the character of his surroundings. If his French comrades charged he would charge and just as far; if theyfell back he would fall back and just as far. No Frenchman couldapproach the pride of the blacks over those captured guns, which broughtgrins that left only half of their ebony countenances as a backgroundfor the whites of their eyes and teeth. The tide of infantry, vehicles and horses flowing past must have been astrange world to the German prisoners brought past it to the inclosures, when they had not yet recovered from their astonishment at thesuddenness of the French whirlwind attack. The day was warm and theground dry, and those prisoners who were not munching French bread werelying sardine fashion pillowing their heads on one another, a confusedmass of arms and legs, dead to the world in sleep--a green patch ofhumanity with all the fight out of them, without weapons or power ofresistance, guarded by a single French soldier, while the belligerentenergy of war was on that road a hundred yards away. "They are good Boches, now, " said the French sentry; "we sha'n't have totake that lot again. " Boches! They are rarely called anything else at the front. With bothFrench and English this has become the universal word for the Germanswhich will last as long as the men who fought in this war survive. Though the Germans dislike it that makes no difference. They will haveto accept it even when peace comes, for it is established. One day theymay come to take a certain pride in it as a distinction which stands forGerman military efficiency and racial isolation. The professionalsoldier expressing his admiration of the way the German charges, handleshis artillery, or the desperate courage of his machine gun crews mayspeak of him as "Brother Boche" or the "old Boche" in a sort of amiablerecognition of the fact of how worthy he is of an enemy's steel if onlyhe would refrain from certain unsportsmanlike habits. At length the blue river on the way to the front divided at a crossroadand we were out on the plain which swept away to the bend of the Sommein front of Péronne. Officers returning from the front when asked howthe battle was going were never too preoccupied to reply. It wasanybody's privilege to ask a question and everybody seemed to delight toanswer it. I talked with a group of men who were washing down theirbread with draughts of red wine, their first meal after they had beenthrough two lines of trenches. Their brigade had taken more prisonersthan it had had casualties. Their dead were few and less mourned becausethey had fallen in such a glorious victory. Rattling talk gave gusto toevery mouthful. Unlike the English, these victors were articulate; they rejoiced intheir experiences and were glad to tell about them. If one had fought itout at close quarters with a German and got his man, he made theincident into a dramatic episode for your edification. It was war; hehad been in a charge; he had escaped alive; he had won. He liked thethrill of his exploit and enjoyed the telling, not allowing it to drag, perhaps, for want of a leg. Every Frenchman is more or less of ageneral, as Napoleon said, and every one knew the meaning of thisvictory. He liked to make the most of it and relive it. After having seen the trenches that the British had taken on the highground around Fricourt, I was the more interested to see those that theFrench had taken on July 1st. The British had charged uphill against thestrongest fortifications that the Germans could devise in that chalkysubsoil so admirably suited for the purpose. Those before the Frenchwere not so strong and were in alluvial soil on the plain. Many of theGerman dugouts in front of Dompierre were in relatively as goodcondition as those at Fricourt, though not so numerous or so strong;which meant that the artillery of neither army had been able completelyto destroy them. The ground on the plain permitted of no suchadvantageous tactical points for machine guns as those which hadconfronted the British, in front of whom the Germans had massed immensereserves of artillery, particularly in the Thiepval-Gommecourt sectorwhere the British attack had failed, besides having the valuable ridgeof Bapaume at their backs. In front of the French the Germans hadsmaller forces of artillery on the plain where the bend of the Somme wasat their backs. This is not detracting from the French success, which was complete andmasterful. The coördination of artillery and infantry must have beenperfect, as you could see when you went over the field where there weresurprisingly few French dead and the German dead, though more plentifulthan the French, were not very numerous. It seemed that the Frenchartillery had absolutely pinioned the Germans to their trenches andcommunication trenches in the Dompierre sector and the French appearingclose under their own shells in a swift and eager wave gathered in allthe German garrison as prisoners. The ruins of the villages might havebeen made either by French, British or German artillery. There is trueinternationalism in artillery destruction. It was something to see the way that French transport and reserves weregoing right across the plain in splendid disregard of any Germanartillery concentration. But, as usual, they knew what they were doing. No shells fell among them while I was at the front, and out on theplain where the battle still raged the _soixante-quinze_ batteries wereas busy as knitting-machines working some kind of magic which protectedthat column from tornadoes of the same kind that they themselves weresending. The German artillery, indeed, seemed a little demoralized. Krump-krump-krump, they put a number of shells into a group of treesbeside the road where they mistakenly thought that there was a battery. Swish-swish-swish came another salvo which I thought was meant for us, but it passed by and struck where there was no target. I have had glimpses of nearly every feature of war, but there was one inthis advance which was not included in my experiences. The Frenchinfantry was hardly in the first-line German trench when the ditch hadbeen filled in and the way was open for the _soixante-quinze_ to goforward. For the guns galloped into action just as they might have doneat manoeuvers. Some dead artillery horses near the old trench line toldthe story of how a German shell must have stopped one of the guns, whichwas small price to pay for so great a privilege as--let usrepeat--galloping the guns into action across the trenches in broaddaylight and keeping close to the infantry as it advanced from positionto position on the plain. Here was a surviving bit of the glory and the sport of war, whosepassing may be one of the great influences in preventing future wars;but there being war and the French having to win that war, why, thespectacle of this marvelous field gun, so beloved of its alert andskilful gunners, playing the part that was intended for it on the heelsof the enemy made a thrilling incident in the history of modern France. The French had shown on that day that they had lost none of theirinitiative of Napoleon's time, just as the British had shown that theycould be as stubborn and determined as in Wellington's. XI THE BRIGADE THAT WENT THROUGH A young brigadier--A regular soldier--No heroics--How his brigade charged--Systematically cleaning up the dugouts--"It was orders. We did it. "--The second advance--Holding on for two sleepless days and nights--Soda water and cigars--Yorkshiremen, and a stubborn lot--British phlegm--Five officers out of twenty who had "gone through"--Stereotyped phrases and inexpressible emotions. No sound of the guns was audible in this quiet French village where abrigade out of the battle line was in rest. The few soldiers movingabout were looking in the shop windows, trying their French with theinhabitants, or standing in small groups. Their faces were tired anddrawn as the only visible sign of the torment of fire that they hadundergone. They had met everything the German had to offer in the way ofprojectiles and explosives; but before we have their story we shall havethat of the young brigadier-general who had his headquarters in one ofthe houses. His was the brigade that went "through, " and he was the kindof brigadier who would send a brigade "through. " With its position in the attack of July 1st in the joint, as it were, between the northern sector where the German line was not broken andthe southern where it was, this brigade had suffered what the chargeswhich failed had suffered and it had known the triumph of those whichhad succeeded, at a cost in keeping with the experience. The brigadier was a regular soldier and nothing but a soldier from headto foot, in thought, in manner and in his decisive phrases. Nowadays, when we seem to be drawing further and further away from versatility, perhaps more than ever we like the soldier to be a soldier, the poet tobe a poet, the surgeon to be a surgeon; and I can even imagine thisbrigadier preferring that if another man was to be a pacifist he shouldbe a real out and out pacifist. You knew at a glance without asking thathe had been in India and South Africa, that he was fond of sport andprobably fond of fighting. He had rubbed up against all kinds of men, asthe British officer who has the inclination may do in the course of hiscareer, and his straight eye--an eye which you would say had never beenaccustomed to indefiniteness about anything--must have impressed the menunder his command with the confidence that he knew his business and thatthey must follow him. Yet it could twinkle on occasion with a pungenthumor as he told his story, which did not take him long but left youlong a-thinking. A writer who was as good a writer as he was a soldierif he had had the same experience could have made a book out of it; butthen he could not have been a man of action at the same time. He made it clear at once that he had not led his brigade in person overthe parapet, or helped in person to bomb the enemy's dugouts, orindulged in any other kind of gallery play. I do not think that all thedrawing-rooms in London or all the reception committees which receivegallant sons in their home towns could betray him into the faintestsimulation of the pose of a hero. He was not a hero and he did notbelieve in heroics. His occupation was commanding men and takingtrenches. Not once did he utter anything approaching a boast over a feat which hisfriends and superiors had expected of him. This would be "swank, " asthey call it, only he would characterize it by even a stronger word. Heis the kind of officer, the working, clear-thinking type, who would earnpromotion by success at arms in a long war, while the gallery-play crowdwhose promotion and favors come by political gift and academic reportsin time of peace would be swept into the dustbin. He was simply acapable fighter; and war is fighting. His men had gone over the "lid" in excellent fashion, quite on time. Hehad seen at once what they were in for, but he had no doubt that theywould keep on, for he had warned them to expect machine gun fire andtold them what to do in case it came. They applied the system in whichhe had trained them with a coolness that won his approbation as adirecting expert--his matter-of-fact approbation in the searchinganalysis of every detail, with no ecstasies about their unparalleledgallantry. He expected them to be gallant. However, I could imagine thatif you said a word against them his eyes would flash indignation. Theywere his men and he might criticize them, but no one else might except asuperior officer. The first wave reached the first-line German trench ontime, that is, half of them did; the rest, including more than half ofthe officers, were down, dead or wounded, in No Man's Land in the swiftcrossing of two hundred yards of open space. He had watched their advance from the first-line British trench. Later, when the situation demanded it, I learned that he went up to thecaptured German line and on to the final objective, but this fact wasdrawn out of him. It might lead to a misunderstanding; you might thinkthat he had been taking as much risk as his officers and men, and riskof any kind for him was an incident of the business of managing abrigade. "How about the dugouts?" I asked. This was an obvious question. The trouble on July 1st had been, as weknow, that the Germans hiding in their dugouts had rushed forth as soonas the British curtain of fire lifted and sometimes fought the Britishin the trench traverses with numbers superior. Again, they hadsurrendered, only to overpower their guards, pick up rifles and mantheir machine guns after the first wave had passed on, instead of filingback across No Man's Land in the regular fashion of prisoners. "I was looking out for that, " said the brigadier, like a lawyer who hasstated his opponent's case; but other commanders had taken the sameprecautions with less fortunate results. When he said that he was"looking out for that" it meant, in his case, that he had so thoroughlyorganized his men--and he was not the only brigadier who had, he was atype--in view of every emergency in "cleaning up" that the Germans didnot outwit them. The half which reached the German trench had thesituation fully in hand and details for the dugouts assigned before theywent on. And they did go on. This was the wonderful thing. "With your numbers so depleted, wasn't it a question whether or not itwas wise for you to attempt to carry out the full plan?" He gave me a short look of surprise. I realized that if I had been oneof the colonels and made such a suggestion I should have drawn a curtainof fire upon myself. "It was orders, " he said, and added: "We did it. " Yes, they did it--when commanding officers, majors and senior captainswere down, when companies without any officers were led by sergeants andeven by corporals who knew what to do, thanks to their training. In order to reach the final objective the survivors of the first chargewhich had gone two hundred yards to the first line must cover anotherthousand, which must have seemed a thousand miles; but that was not forthem to consider. The spirit of the resolute man who had drilled them, if not his presence, was urging them forward. They reached the pointwhere the landmarks compared with their map indicated their stoppingplace--about one-quarter of the number that had left the British trench. They had enough military sense to realize that if they tried to go backover the same ground which they had crossed there might be less thanone-quarter of the fourth remaining. They preferred to die with theirfaces rather than their backs to the enemy. No, they did not mean todie. They meant to hold on and "beat the Boche, " according to theirteaching. As things had been going none too well with the brigade on their lefttheir flank was exposed. They met this condition by fortifyingthemselves against enfilade in an old German communication trench andrushing other points of advantage to secure their position. When aGerman machine gun was able to sweep them, a corporal slipped up anothercommunication trench and bombed it out of business. Running out of bombsof their own, they began gathering German bombs which were lying aboutplentifully and threw these at the Germans. Short of rifle ammunitionthey found that there was ammunition for the German rifles which hadbeen captured. They were not choice about their methods and neither werethe Germans in that cheek-by-jowl affair with both sides so exhaustedthat a little more grit on one side struck the balance in its favor. This medley of British and Germans in a world of personal combat sharedshell fire, heat and misery. The British sent their rocket signals up tosay that they had arrived. In two or three other instances the signalshad meant that a dozen men only had reached their objective, a forceunable to hold until reinforcements could come. Not so this time. Thelittle group held; they held even when the Germans got some fresh menand attempted a counter-attack; they held until assistance came. For twosleepless days and nights under continual fire they remained in theirdearly won position until, under cover of darkness, they were relieved. In the most tranquil of villages the survivors looking in shop windowsand trying out their French might wonder how it was that they werealive, though they were certain that their brigadier thought well ofthem. Ask them or their officers what they thought of their brigadierand they were equally certain of that, too. Theirs was the bestbrigadier in the army. Think what this kind of confidence means to menin such an action when their lives are the pawns of his direction! I felt a kind of awe in the presence of one of the battalions in billetin a warehouse, more than in the presence of prime ministers orpotentates. Most of them were blinking and mind-stiff after having sleptthe clock around. They were Yorkshiremen, chiefly workers in worstedmills and a stubborn lot. "What did you most want to do when you got out of the fight?" I asked. They spoke with one voice which left no question of their desires in aone-two-three order. They wanted a wash, a shave, a good meal, and thensleep. And personal experiences? Tom called on Jim and Jim had bayonetedtwo Germans, he said; then Jim called on Bill, who had had a wonderfulexperience according to Jim, though all that Bill made of it was that hegot there first with his bombs. Told among themselves the stories mighthave been thrilling. Before a stranger they were mere official reports. It had been quick work, too quick for anything but to dodge for coverand act promptly in your effort to get the other fellow before he gotyou. Generically, they had a job to do and they did it just as they wouldhave done one in the factories at home. They were not so interested inany exhibition of courage as in an encounter which had the element ofsport. Each narrator invariably returned to the subject of soda water. The outstanding novelty of the charge to these men was the quantity ofsoda water in bottles which they had found in the German dugouts. Theywent on to their second objective with bottles of soda water in theirpockets and German light cigars in the corners of their mouths andstopped to drink soda water between bombing rushes after they hadarrived. It was a hot, thirsty day. Through the curtains of artillery fire which were continually maintainedback of their new positions supplies could not be brought up, but Bocheprovisions saved the day. In fact, I think this was one of the reasonswhy they felt almost kindly toward the Germans. They found the cannedmeat excellent, but did not care for the "K. K. " bread. Thus in the dim light of the warehouse they talked on, making their taskappear as a half-holiday of sport. It seemed to me that this was inkeeping with their training; the fashionable attitude of the Britishsoldier toward a horrible business. If this helps him to endure whatthese men had endured without flinching, with comrades being blown tobits around them by shell-bursts, why, then, it is the attitude bestsuited to develop the fighting quality of the British. They had it fromtheir officers who, in turn, perhaps, had it in part from such Britishregulars as the brigadier, though mostly I think that it was inbornracial phlegm. I met the five officers who were the survivors of the twenty in onebattalion, the five who had "carried through. " One was a barrister, another just out of Oxford, a third, as I remember, a real estate brokerin a small town. They told their stories without a gesture, quite as ifthey were giving an account of a game of golf. It might have seemedcallous, but you knew better. You knew when they said that it was "a bit stiff, " or "a bit thick, " or"it looked as if they had us, " what inexpressible emotion lay behind theaccepted army phrases. The truth was they would not permit themselves tothink of the void in their lines made by the death of their comrades. They had drawn the curtain on all incidents which had not the appeal ofaction and finality as a part of the business of "going through. " Oneofficer with a twitch of the lips remarked almost casually that newofficers and drafts were arriving and that it would seem strange to seeso many new faces in the mess. Those of their old comrades who were not dead were already in hospitalin England. When an officer who had been absent joined the group hebrought the news that one of their number who had been badly hit wouldlive. The others' quiet ejaculation of "Good!" had a thrill back of itwhich communicated its joy to me. Eight of the wounded had not beenseriously hit, which meant that these would return and that, after all, only four were dead. This was the first intimate indication I had of howthe offensive exposing the whole bodies of men in a charge against thelow-velocity shrapnel bullets and high-velocity bullets from rifles andmachine guns must result in the old ratio of only one mortal wound forevery five men hit. There was consolation in that fact. It was another advantage of the warof movement as compared with the war of shambles in trenches. And none, from the general down to the privates, had really any idea of howglorious a part they had played. They had merely "done their bit" andtaken what came their way--and they had "gone through. " XII THE STORMING OF CONTALMAISON The mighty animal of war makes ready for another effort--New charts at headquarters--The battle of the Somme the battle of woods and villages--A terrible school of war in session--Mametz--A wood not "thinned"--The Quadrangle--Marooned Scots--"Softening" a village--Light German cigars--Going after Contalmaison--Aeroplanes in the blue sky--Midsummer fruitfulness and war's destruction--Making chaos of a village--Attack under cover of a wall of smoke--A melodrama under the passing shells. If the British and the French could have gone on day after day as theyhad on July 1st they would have put the Germans out of France andBelgium by autumn. Arrival at the banks of the Rhine and even the takingof Essen would have been only a matter of calculation by a schedule oftime and distance. After the shock of the first great drive in which themighty animal of war lunged forward, it had to stretch out its steelclaws to gain further foothold and draw its bulky body into position foranother huge effort. Wherever the claws moved there were Germans, whowere too wise soldiers to fall back supinely on new lines offortifications and await the next general attack. They would parry everyattempt at footholds of approach for launching it; pound the claws asif they were the hands of an invader grasping at a window ledge. At headquarters there was a new chart with different colored patchesnumbered by the days of the month beginning July 1st, each patchindicating the ground that had been won on that day. Compare their orderwith a relief map and in one-two-three fashion you were able to graspthe natural tactical sequence; how one position was taken in order tocommand another. Sometimes, though, they represented the lines of leastresistance. Often the real generals were the battalions on the battlefront who found the weak points and asked permission to press on. Theprinciple was the same as water finding its level as it spreads from areservoir. I have often thought that a better name for the battle of the Sommewould be the battle of woods and villages. Their importance never reallydawned on the observer until after July 1st. Or, it might be called thebattle of the spade. Give a man an hour with a spade in that chalkysubsoil and a few sandbags and he will make a fortress for himself whichonly a direct hit by a shell can destroy. He ducks under the sweep ofbullets when he is not firing and with his steel helmet is fairly safefrom shrapnel while he waits in his lair until the other fellow comes. Thus the German depended on the machine gun and the rifle to stop anycharge which was not supported by artillery fire sufficient to crush inthe trenches and silence his armament. When it was, he had his ownartillery to turn a curtain of fire onto the charge in progress and tohammer the enemy if he got possession. This was obviously the rightsystem--in theory. But the theory did not always work out, as we shallsee. Its development through the four months that I watched the Sommebattle was only less interesting than the development of offensivetactics by the British and the French. Every day this terrible school ofwar was in session, with a British battalion more skilful and cunningevery time that it went into the firing-line. Rising out of the slopes toward the Ridge in green patches were threelarge woods, not to mention small ones, under a canopy of shell-smoke, Mametz, Bernafay and Trônes, with their orgies of combat hidden undertheir screens of foliage. They recall the Wilderness--a Wildernesslasting for days, with only one feature of the Wilderness lacking whichwas a conflagration, but with lachrymatory and gas shells and a fewother features that were lacking in Virginia. In the next war we mayhave still more innovations. Ours is the ingenious human race. It is Mametz with an area of something over two hundred acres thatconcerns us now. The Germans thought highly of Mametz. They werewilling to lose thousands of lives in order to keep it in theirpossession. For two years it had not been thinned according to Frenchcustom; now shells and bullets were to undertake the task which had beenneglected. So thick was the undergrowth that a man had to squeeze hisway through and an enemy was as well ambushed as a field mouse in highgrass. The Germans had run barriers of barbed wire through the undergrowth. They had their artillery registered to fringe the woods with curtains offire and machine guns nestling in unseen barricades and trenches. Through the heart of it they had a light railway for bringing upsupplies. All these details had been arranged in odd hours when theywere not working on the main first- and second-line fortifications duringtheir twenty months of preparation. I think they must have become wearyat times of so much "choring, " judging by a German general's order afterhis inspection of the second line, in which he said that the battalionsin occupation were a lazy lot who were a disgrace to the Fatherland. After the battle began they could add to the defenses improvementsadapted to the needs of the moment. Of course, large numbers of Germanswere killed and wounded by British shell fire in the process of"thinning" out the woods; but that was to be expected, as the Germanslearned during the battle of the Somme. How the British ever took Mametz Wood I do not understand; or how theytook Trônes Wood later, for that matter. A visit to the woods onlyheightened perplexity. I have seen men walk over broken bottles withbare feet, swallow swords and eat fire and knew that there was sometrick about it, as there was about the taking of Mametz. The German had not enough barbed wire to go all the way around thewoods, or, at least, British artillery would not let him string any moreand he thought that the British would attack where they ought toaccording to rule; that is, by the south. Instead, they went in by thewest, where the machine guns were not waiting and the heavy guns werenot registered, as I understand it. A piece of strategy of that kindmight have won a decisive battle in an old-time war, but I confess thatit did not occur to me to ask who planned it when I heard the story. Strategists became so common on the Somme that everybody took them asmuch for granted as that every battalion had a commander. Mametz was not taken with the first attack. The British were in thewoods once and had to come out; but they had learned that before theycould get a proper _point d'appui_ they must methodically "clean up" asmall grove, a neighboring cemetery, an intricate maze of trenchescalled the Quadrangle, and a few other outlying obstacles. In the firstrush a lot of Tyneside Scots were marooned from joining in the retreat. They fortified themselves in German dugouts and waited in siege, thesedour men of the North. When the British returned eighty of the Scotswere still full of fight if short of food and "verra well" otherwise, thank you. At times they had been under blasts of shells from bothsides, and again they had been in an oasis of peace, with neitherBritish nor German gunners certain whether they would kill friend orfoe. Going in from the west while the Germans had their curtains of fireregistered elsewhere, the British grubbed their way in one chargethrough most of Mametz and when night fell in the midst of theundergrowth, with a Briton not knowing whether it was Briton or Germanlying on the other side of a tree-trunk, they had the satisfaction ofpossessing four big guns which the Germans had been unable to withdraw, and had ascertained also that the Germans had a strong positionprotected by barbed wire at the northern end of the woods. "This will require a little thinking, " as one English officer said, "butof course we shall take it. " The purchase on Mametz and the occupation of Bailiff's Wood, theQuadrangle, La Boisselle and Ovillers-la-Boisselle brought the circleof advancing British nearer to Contalmaison, which sat up on the hillsin a sea of chalk seams. Contalmaison was being gradually "softened" bythe artillery. The chateau was not yet all down, but after each bite bya big shell less of the white walls was visible when the clouds of smokefrom the explosion lifted. Bit by bit the guns would get the chateau, just as bit by bit a stonemason chips a block down to the properdimensions to fit it into place in a foundation. A visit to La Boisselle on the way to Contalmaison justified theexpectation as to what was in store for Contalmaison. I saw theblackened and shell-whittled trunks of two trees standing in LaBoisselle. Once with many others they had given shade in the gardens ofhouses; but there were no traces of houses now except as they were mixedwith the earth. The village had been hammered into dust. Yet somedugouts still survived. Keeping at it, the British working around thesehad eventually forced the surrender of the garrison, who could not raisetheir heads to fire without being met by a bullet or a bomb-burst fromthe watchful besiegers. "Slow work, but they had to come out, " was the graphic phrase of one ofthe captors, "and they looked fed up, too. They had even run out ofcigars"--which settled it. Oh, those light German cigars! Sometimes I believe that they were thereal mainstay of the German organization. Cigars gone, spirit gone! Ihave seen an utterly weary German prisoner as he delivered his papers tohis captor bring out his last cigar and thrust it into his mouth toforestall its being taken as tribute, with his captor saying withcharacteristic British cheerfulness, "Keep it, Bochy! It smells too muchlike a disinfectant for me, but let's have your steel helmet"--theinvariable prize demanded by the victor. The British had already been in Contalmaison, but did not stay. "Toomany German machine guns and too much artillery fire and not enoughmen, " to put it with colloquial army brevity. It often happened that avillage was entered and parts of it held during a day, then evacuated atnight, leaving the British guns full play for the final "softening. "These initial efforts had the result of reconnaissances in force. Theypermitted a thorough look around the enemy's machine gun positions so asto know how to avoid their fire and "do them in, " revealed the coverthat would be available for the next advance, and brought invaluableinformation to the gunners for the accurate distribution of their fire. Always some points important for future operations were held. "We are going after Contalmaison this afternoon, " said a staff officerat headquarters, "and if you hurry you may see it. " As a result, I witnessed the most brilliant scene of battle of any onthe Somme, unless it was the taking of Combles. There was brightsunshine, with the air luminously clear and no heat waves. From myvantage point I could see clear to the neighborhood of Péronne. TheFrench also were attacking; the drumhead fire of their _soixante-quinze_made a continuous roll, and the puffs of shrapnel smoke hung in a long, gossamery cloud fringing the horizon and the canopy of the green ridges. Every aeroplane of the Allies seemed to be aloft, each one distinctagainst the blue with shimmering wings and the soft, burnished aureoleof the propellers. They were flying at all heights. Some seemed almostmotionless two or three miles above the earth, while others shot up fromtheir aerodromes. Planes circling, planes climbing, planes slipping down aerial tobogganslides with propellers still, planes going as straight as crows towardthe German line to be lost to sight in space while others developed outof space as swift messengers bound for home with news of observations, planes touring a sector of the front, swooping low over a corpsheadquarters to drop a message and returning to their duty; planes ofall types, from the monsters with vast stretch of wing and crews ofthree or more men, stately as swans, to those gulls, the saucy littleNieuports, shooting up and down and turning with incredible swiftness, their tails in the air; planes and planes in a fantastic aerial minuet, flitting around the great sausage balloons stationary in the still air. With ripening grain and sweet-smelling harvests of clover and hay in thebackground and weeds and wild grass in the foreground, the area ofvegetation in the opulence of midsummer was demarked from the area ofshell-craters, trenches and explosions. You had the majesty of battleand the desolation of war; nature's eternal seeding and fruitingalongside the most ruthless forms of destruction. In the clear air theblack bursts of the German high explosives hammering Mametz Wood, as ifin revenge for its loss, seemed uglier and more murderous than usual;the light smoke of shrapnel had a softer, more lingering quality;soldiers were visible distinctly at a great distance in their comingsand goings; the water carts carrying water up to the first line were akind of pilgrim circuit riders of that thirsty world of deadly strife; afile of infantry winding up the slope at regular intervals weresilhouettes as like as beads on a string. The whole suggested a hill ofants which had turned their habits of industry against an invader oftheir homes in the earth, and the columns of motor trucks and caissonsever flowing from all directions were as a tide, which halted at thefoot of the slope and then flowed back. There were shell-bursts wherever you looked, with your attention drawnto Contalmaison as it would be to a gathering crowd in the thick of citytraffic. All the steel throats in clumps of woods, under cover of roadembankments, in gullies and on the reverse side of slopes, werespeaking. The guns were giving to Contalmaison all they had to give andthe remaining walls of the chateau disappeared in a fog like a fishingsmack off the Grand Banks. Super-refined, man-directed hell was makingsportive chaos in the village which it hid with its steaming breath cutby columns of black smoke from the H. E. 's and crowned with flashes ofshrapnel; and under the sun's rays the gases from the powder madeprismatic splendor in flurries and billows shot with the tints of therainbow. Submerging a simple farming hamlet in this kind of a tempest was onlypart of the plan of the gunners, who cut a pattern of fire elsewhere inkeeping with the patterns of the German trenches, placing a curtain offire behind the town and another on the edge, and at other points not acurtain but steady hose-streams of fire. Answering German shellsrevealed which of the chalky scars on the slope was the Britishfirst-line trench, and from this, as steam from a locomotive runs in aflying plume along the crest of a railway cutting, rose a billowing wallof smoke which was harmless, not even asphyxiating, its only purposebeing to screen the infantry attack, with a gentle breeze sweeping it oninto the mantle over Contalmaison as the wind carries the smoke of aprairie fire. Lookout Mountain was known as the battle in the clouds, where generals could not see what their troops were doing. Now allbattles are in a cloud. From the first-line British trench the first wave of the British attackmoved under cover of the smoke-screen and directly you saw that theshells had ceased to fall in Contalmaison. Its smoke mantle slowlylifting revealed fragmentary walls of that sturdy, defiant chateau stillstanding. Another wave of British infantry was on its way. Four waves inall were to go in, each succeeding one with its set part in supportingthe one in front and in mastering the dugouts and machine gun positionsthat might have survived. With no shells falling in Contalmaison, the bomb and the bayonet had thestage to themselves, a stage more or less hemmed in by explosions andwith a sweep of projectiles from both sides passing over the heads ofthe cast in a melodrama which had "blessed little comedy relief, " as onesoldier put it. The Germans were already shelling the former Britishfirst line and their supports, while the British maintained a curtain offire on the far side of the village to protect their infantry as itworked its way through the débris, and any fire which they had to spareafter lifting it from Contalmaison they were distributing on differentstrong points, not in curtains but in a repetition of punches. It wasthe best artillery work that I had seen and its purpose seemed that of aman with a stick knocking in any head that appeared from any hole. Act III. Now. The British curtain of fire was lifted from the far edgeof the village, which meant that the infantry according to scheduleshould be in possession of all of the village. But they might not stay. They might be forced out soon after they sent up their signals. When theGermans turned on a curtain of fire succeeding the British fire this wasfurther evidence of British success sufficient to convince any skeptic. The British curtain was placed beyond it to hold off any counter-attackand prevent sniping till the new occupants of the premises had "dugthemselves in. " The Germans had not forgotten that it was their turn now to hammerContalmaison, through which they thought that British reserves and freshsupplies of bombs must come; and I saw one of the first "krumps" of thisconcentration take another bite out of the walls of the chateau. By watching the switching of the curtains of fire I had learned thatthis time Contalmaison was definitely held; and though they say that Idon't know anything about news, I beat the _communiqué_ on the fact asthe result of my observation, which ought at least to classify me as a"cub" reporter. XIII A GREAT NIGHT ATTACK Following hard blows with blows--Trônes Woods--Attack and counter-attack--A heavy price to pay--"The spirit that quickeneth" knew no faltering--Second-line German fortifications--A daringly planned attack--"Up and at them!"--An attack not according to the scientific factory system--The splendid and terrible hazard--Gun flashes in the dark numerous as fireflies--Majestic, diabolical, beautiful--A planet bombarding with aerolites--Signal flares in the distance--How far had the British gone?--Sunrise on the attack--Good news that day. Of all the wonderful nights at the front that of July 13th-14th wasdistinctive for its incomparable suspense. A great experiment was to betried; at least, so it seemed to the observer, though the staff did nottake that attitude. It never does once it has decided upon any daringenterprise. When you send fifty thousand men into a charge that may failwith a loss of half of their number or may brilliantly succeed with aloss of only five per cent. , none from the corps commanders and divisioncommanders, who await results after the plans are made, down to theprivates must have any thought except that the plan is right and that itwill go through. There is no older military maxim than to follow up any hard blow withother blows, in order that the enemy may have no time to recuperate;but in moving against a frontal line under modern conditions thecongestion of transport and ammunition which must wait on new roads andthe filling in of captured trenches makes a difficult problem inorganization. Never had there been and never were there necessary suchnumbers of men and such quantities of material as on the Somme front. The twelve days succeeding July 1st had seen the taking of minorposition after position by local concentrations of troops and artilleryfire, while the army as a whole had been preparing for another bigattack at the propitious moment when these preliminary gains shouldjustify it. Half a tactical eye could see that the woods of Mametz, Bernafay andTrônes must be held in order to allow of elbow room for a mass movementover a broad front. The German realized this and after he had lostMametz and Bernafay he held all the more desperately to Trônes, which, for the time being, was the superlative horror in woods fighting, thoughwe were yet to know that it could be surpassed by Delville and HighWoods. In Trônes the Germans met attack with counter-attack again and again. The British got through to the east side of the woods, and in reply theGermans sent in a wave forcing the British back to the west, but nofarther. Then the British, reinforced again, reached the east side. Showers of leaves and splinters descended from shell-bursts and machineguns were always rattling. The artillery of both sides hammered theapproaches of the woods to prevent reinforcements from coming up. In the cellars of Guillemont village beyond Trônes the Germans hadrefuges for concentrating their reserves to feed in more troops, whoseorders, as all the prisoners taken said, were to hold to the last man. Trônes Wood was never to be yielded to the British. Its importance wastoo vital. Grim national and racial pride and battalion pride andsoldierly pride grappled in unyielding effort and enmity. The middle ofthe woods became a neutral ground where the wounded of the differentsallies lay groaning from pain and thirst. Small groups of British haddug themselves in among the Germans and, waterless, foodless, held out, conserving their ammunition or, when it was gone, waiting for the lasteffort with the bayonet. For several days the spare British artillery had been cutting the barbedwire of the second line and smashing in the trenches; and the big gunswhich had been advanced since July 1st were sending their shells farbeyond the Ridge into villages and crossroads and other vital points, inorder to interfere with German communications. The Thiepval-Gommecourt line where the British had been repulsed onJuly 1st had reverted to something approaching stalemate conditions, with the usual exchange of artillery fire, and it was along the broaderfront where the old German first line had been broken through that themain concentrations of men and guns were being made in order to continuethe advance for the present through the opening won on July 1st. Theprice paid for the taking of the woods and for repeated attacks whereinitial attacks had failed might seem to the observer--unless he knewthat the German losses had been equally heavy if not heavier since July1st--disproportionate not only to the ground gained but also to generalresults up to this time which, and this was most important, haddemonstrated, as a promise for the future, that the British New Armycould attack unremittingly and successfully against seasoned Germantroops in positions which the Germans had considered impregnable. "The spirit that quickeneth" knew no faltering. Battle police werewithout occupation. There were no stragglers. With methodical, phlegmatic steadiness the infantry moved up to the firing-line when itsturn came. The second-line German fortifications, if not as elaborate, were evenbetter situated than the first; not on the crest of the Ridge, ofcourse, where they would be easily swept by artillery blasts, but wherethe latest experience demonstrated that they could make the most of thecommanding high ground with the least exposure. Looking through myglasses I could see the portion of the open knoll stretching fromLongueval to High Wood which was to be the object of the most extensiveeffort since July 1st. As yet, except in trench raids over narrow fronts, there had been noattempt to rush a long line under cover of darkness because of thedifficulty of the different groups keeping touch and identifying theirobjectives. The charge of July 1st had been at seven-thirty in the morning. Contalmaison had been stormed in the afternoon. Fricourt was taken atmidday. When the bold suggestion was made that over a three-mile frontthe infantry should rush the second-line trenches in the darkness, hoping to take the enemy by surprise, it was as daring a conceptionconsidering the ground and the circumstances as ever came to the mind ofa British commander and might be said to be characteristic of the dashand so-called "foolhardiness" of the British soldier, accustomed to"looking smart" and rushing his enemy from colonial experiences. Nelsonhad the "spirit that quickeneth" when he turned his blind eye to theenemy. The French, too, are for the attack. It won Marengo andAusterlitz. No general ever dared more than Frederick the Great, noteven Cæsar. Thus the great races of history have won military dominion. "Up and at them!" is still the shibboleth in which the British believe, no less than our pioneers and Grant and Stonewall Jackson believed init, and nothing throughout the Somme battle was so characteristicallyBritish as not only the stubbornness of their defense when small partieswere surrounded, but the way in which they would keep on attacking andthe difficulty which generals had not in encouraging initiative but inkeeping battalions and brigades from putting into practice theirconviction that they could take a position on their own account if theycould have a chance instead of waiting on a systematic advance. Thus, an attack on that second line on the Ridge after the Germans hadhad two weeks of further preparation was an adventure of an order, inthe days of mechanical transport, aeroplanes and indirect artillery firewhen all military science is supposed to be reduced to a factory system, worthy of the days of the sea-rovers and of Clive, of Washington'scrossing of the Delaware or of the storming of Quebec, when a boldconfidence made gamble for a mighty stake. So, at least, it seemed to the observer, though, as I said, the staffinsisted that it was a perfectly normal operation. The Japanese hadmade many successful night attacks early in the Russo-Japanese war, butthese had been against positions undefended by machine gun fire andcurtains of artillery fire. When the Japanese reached their objectivethey were not in danger of being blasted out by high explosives andincidentally they were not fighting what has been called the most highlytrained army on earth on the most concentrated front that has ever beenknown in military history. But "Up and at them!" Sir Douglas Haig, who had "all his nerve withhim, " said to go ahead. At three-thirty a. M. , a good hour before dawn, that wave of men three miles long was to rush into the night toward aninvisible objective, with the darkness so thick that they could hardlyrecognize a figure ten yards away. Yet as one English soldier said, "Youcould see the German as soon as he saw you and you ought to be able tothrow a bomb as quickly as he and a bayonet would have just as muchpenetration at three-thirty in the morning as at midday. " When I saw the battalions who were to take part in the attack marchingup I realized, as they did not, the splendid and terrible hazard ofsuccess or failure, of life or death, which was to be theirs. Along thenew roads they passed and then across the conquered ground, its unevenslopes made more uneven by continued digging and shell fire, anddisappeared, and Night dropped her curtain on the field with no oneknowing what morning would reveal. The troops were in position; all was ready; all the lessons learned fromthe attack of July 1st were to be applied. At midnight there was nomovement except of artillery caissons; gunners whose pieces two hourslater were to speak with a fury of blasts were sound asleep beside theirammunition. The absolute order in this amazing network of all kinds ofsupplies and transport contributed to the suspense. Night bombardmentswe had already seen, and I would not dwell on this except that it hadthe same splendor by night that the storming of Contalmaison had by day. The artillery observer for a fifteen-inch gun was a good-humored host. He was putting his "bit, " as the British say, into Bazentin-le-Petitvillage and the only way we knew where Bazentin was in the darkness wasthrough great flashes of light which announced the bursting of afifteen-hundred-pound shell that had gone hurtling through the air withits hoarse, ponderous scream. All the slope up to the Ridge was mergedin the blanket of night. Out of it came the regular flashes of guns fora while as the prelude to the unloosing of the tornado before theattack. Now that we saw them all firing, for the first time we had some idea ofthe number that had been advanced into the conquered territory sinceJuly 1st. The ruins and the sticks of trees of Fricourt and Mametz withtheir few remaining walls stood out spectral in the flashes of batteriesthat had found nesting places among the débris. The whole slope hadbecome a volcanic uproar. One might as well have tried to count thenumber of fireflies over a swamp as the flashes. The limitation ofreckoning had been reached. Guns ahead of us and around us and behind usas usual, in a battle of competitive crashes among themselves, and nearby we saw the figures of the gunners outlined in instants of weirdlightning glow, which might include the horses of a caisson in a flickerof distinct silhouette flashed out of the night and then lost in thenight, with the riders sitting as straight as if at drill. Every voicehad one message, "This for the Ridge!" which was crowned by hell'stempest of shell-bursts to prepare the way for the rush by the infantryat "zero. " The thing was majestic, diabolical, beautiful, absurd--anything youwished to call it. Look away from the near-by guns where the faces ofthe gunners were illumined and you could not conceive of the scene asbeing of human origin; but mixing awed humility with colossal egoism invarying compounds of imagination and fact, you might think of yourlittle group of observers as occupying a point of view in space whereone planet hidden in darkness was throwing aerolites at another hiddenin darkness striking it with mighty explosions, and the crashes andscreams were the sound of the missiles on their unlighted way. It was still dark when three-thirty came and pyrotechnics were added tothe display, which I could not think of as being in any sensepyrotechnical, when out of the blanket as signals from the planet'ssurface in the direction of some new manoeuver appeared showers ofglowing red sparks, which rose to a height of a hundred feet with abreadth of thirty or forty feet, it seemed at that distance. One showerwas in the neighborhood of Ovillers, one at La Boisselle and one thisside of Longueval. Then in the distance beyond Longueval the sky wasillumined by a great conflagration not on the fireworks program, whichmust have been a German ammunition dump exploded by British shells. It was our planet, now, and a particular portion of it in Picardy. Noimaginative translation to space could hold any longer. With the chargegoing in, the intimate human element was supreme. The thought of thoseadvancing waves of men in the darkness made the fiery display adissociated objective spectacle. On the Ridge more signal flares roseand those illumining the dark masses of foliage must be Bazentin Woodgained, and those beyond must be in the Bazentin villages, LittleBazentin and Big Bazentin, though neither of them, like most of thevillages, numbering a dozen to fifty houses could be much smaller and becalled villages. This was all the objective. Yes, but though the British had arrived, asthe signals showed, could they remain? It seemed almost too good to betrue. And that hateful Trônes Wood? Had we taken that, too, as a part ofthe tidal wave of a broad attack instead of trying to take it piecemeal? Our suspense was intensified by the thought that this action might bethe turning-point in the first stage of the great Somme battle. Westrained our eyes into the darkness studying, as a mariner studies thesky, the signs with which we had grown familiar as indicative ofresults. There was a good augury in the comparatively slight Germanshell fire in response, though we were reminded that it might at anyminute develop with sudden ferocity. Now the flashes of the guns grew dim. A transformation more wonderfulthan artillery could produce, that of night into day, was in process. Not a curtain but the sun's ball of fire, undisturbed by any efforts ofthe human beings on a few square miles of earth, was holding to hisschedule in as kindly a fashion as ever toward planets which kept at arespectful distance from his molten artillery concentration. Out of the blanket which hid the field appeared the great welts of chalkof the main line trenches, then the lesser connecting ones; the woodsbecame black patches and the remaining tree-trunks gaunt, still anddismal sentinels of the gray ruins of the villages, until finally allthe conformations of the scarred and tortured slope were distinct in thefirst fresh light of a brilliant summer's day. Where the blazes had beenwas the burst of black smoke from shells and we saw that it was stillGerman fire along the visible line of the British objective, assuring usthat the British had won the ground which they had set out to take andwere holding it. "Up and at them!" had done the trick this time, and trick it was; atrick or stratagem, to use the higher sounding word; a trick in notwaiting on the general attack for the taking of Trônes according toobvious tactics, but including Trônes in the sweep; a trick in thedaring way that the infantry was sent in ahead of the answering Germancurtain of fire. All the news was good that day. The British had swept through BazentinWood and taken the Bazentin villages. They held Trônes Wood and were inDelville and High Woods. A footing was established on the Ridge wherethe British could fight for final mastery on even terms with the enemy. "Slight losses" came the reports from corps and divisions andconfirmation of official reports was seen in the paucity of the woundedarriving at the casualty clearing stations and in the faces of officersand men everywhere. Even British phlegm yielded to exhilaration. XIV THE CAVALRY GOES IN The "dodo" band--Cavalry a luxury--Cavalry, however, may not be discarded--What ten thousand horse might do--A taste of action for the cavalry--An "incident"--Horses that had the luck to "go in"--Cavalrymen who showed signs of action--The novelty of a cavalry action--A camp group--Germans caught unawares--Horsemen and an aeroplane--Retiring in good order--Just enough casualties to give the fillip of danger to recollection. Sometimes a squadron of cavalry, British or Indian, survivors of theardent past, intruded in a mechanical world of motor trucks and tractorsdrawing guns. With outward pride these lean riders of burnished, sleekhorses, whose broad backs bore gallantly the heavy equipment, concealedtheir irritation at idleness while others fought. They broughtpicturesqueness and warm-blooded life to the scene. Such a merciless warof steel contrivances needed some ornament. An old sergeant one day, when the cavalry halted beside his battalion which was resting, in anexhibit of affectionate recollection exclaimed: "It's good to stroke a horse's muzzle again! I was in the Dragoon Guardsonce, myself. " Sometimes the cavalry facetiously referred to itself as the "Dodo"band, with a galling sense of helplessness under its humor; and othershad thought of it as being like the bison preserved in the YellowstonePark lest the species die out. A cynical general said that a small force of cavalry was a luxury whichsuch a vast army of infantry and guns might afford. In his opinion, evenif we went to the Rhine, the cavalry would melt in its first chargeunder the curtains of fire and machine gun sprays of the rearguardactions of the retreating enemy. He had never been in the cavalry, andany squadron knew well what he and all of those who shared his viewswere thinking whenever it passed over the brow of a hill that afforded aview of the welter of shell fire over a field cut with shell-craters andtrenches which are pitfalls for horses. Yet it returned gamely and withfastidious application to its practice in crossing such obstacles incase the command to "go in" should ever come. Such preparations weresuggestive to extreme skeptics of the purchase of robes and theselection of a suitable hilltop of a religious cult which has appointedthe day for ascension. Excepting a dash in Champagne, not since trench warfare began had thecavalry had any chance. The thought of action was an hypothesisdeveloped from memory of charges in the past. Aeroplanes took thecavalry's place as scouts, machine guns and rifles emplaced behind afirst-line trench which had succumbed to an attack took its place asrearguard, and aeroplane patrols its place as screen. Yet any army, be it British, French, or German, which expected to carrythrough an offensive would not turn all its cavalry into infantry. Thiswas parting with one of the old three branches of horse, foot and gunand closing the door to a possible opportunity. If the Japanese had hadcavalry ready at the critical moment after Mukden, its mobility wouldhave hampered the Russian retreat, if not turned it into a rout. Whenyou need cavalry you need it "badly, " as the cowboy said about hissix-shooter. Should the German line ever be broken and all that earth-tied, enormous, complicated organization, with guns emplaced and its array of congestedammunition dumps and supply depots, try to move on sudden demand, whatadded confusion ten thousand cavalry would bring! What rich prizes wouldawait it as it galloped through the breach and in units, separating eachto its objective according to evolutions suited to the new conditions, dismounted machine guns to cover roads and from chosen points sweeptheir bullets into wholesale targets! The prospect of those few wildhours, when any price in casualties might be paid for results, was theinspiration of dreams when hoofs stamped in camps at night or bitschamped as lances glistened in line above khaki-colored steel helmets onmorning parade. A taste, just a taste, of action the cavalry was to have, owing to thesuccess of the attack of July 14th, which manifestly took the Germans bysurprise between High and Delville Woods and left them staggering withsecond-line trenches lost and confusion ensuing, while guns andscattered battalions were being hurried up by train in an indiscriminatehaste wholly out of keeping with German methods of prevision andprecision. The breach was narrow, the field of action for horseslimited; but word came back that over the plateau which looked away toBapaume between Delville and High Woods there were few shell-craters andno German trenches or many Germans in sight as day dawned. Gunners rubbed their eyes at the vision as they saw the horsemen passand infantry stood amazed to see them crossing trenches, Briton andIndian on their way up the slope to the Ridge. How they passed the crestwithout being decimated by a curtain of fire would be a mystery if therewere any mysteries in this war, where everything seems to be worked outlike geometry or chemical formulæ. The German artillery being busywithdrawing heavy guns and the other guns preoccupied after thestartling results of an attack not down on the calendar for that daydid not have time to "get on" the cavalry when they were registered ondifferent targets--which is suggestive of what might come if the linewere cleft over a broad front. A steel band is strong until it breaks, which may be in many pieces. "Did you see the charge?" you ask. No, nor even the ride up the slope, being busy elsewhere and not knowing that the charge was going to takeplace. I could only seek out the two squadrons who participated in the"incident, " as the staff called it, after it was over. Incident is theright word for a military sense of proportion. When the public inEngland and abroad heard that the cavalry were "in" they might expect tohear next day that the Anglo-French Armies were in full pursuit of thebroken German Armies to the Rhine, when no such outcome could be in theimmediate program unless German numbers were cut in two or the Prussianturned Quaker. An incident! Yes, but something to give a gallop to the pen of thewriter after the monotony of gunfire and bombing. I was never more eagerto hear an account of any action than of this charge--a cavalry charge, a charge of cavalry, if you please, on the Western front in July, 1916. In one of the valleys back of the front out of sight of the battle therewere tired, tethered horses with a knowing look in their eyes, itseemed to me, and a kind of superior manner toward the sleek, freshhorses which had not had the luck to "go in"; and cavalrymen were lyingunder their shelters fast asleep, their clothing and accoutrementsshowing the unmistakable signs of action. We heard from their officersthe story of both the Dragoon Guards and the Deccan Horse (Indian) whohad known what it was to ride down a German in the open. The shade of Phil Sheridan might ponder on what the world was coming tothat we make much of such a small affair; but he would have felt all theglowing satisfaction of these men if he had waited as long as they forany kind of a cavalry action. The accounts of the two squadrons may gotogether. Officers were shaving and aiming for enough water to serve asa substitute for a bath. The commander with his map could give you everydetail with a fond, lingering emphasis on each one, as a battalioncommander might of a first experience in a trench raid when later thesame battalion would make an account of a charge in battle which wasrich with incidents of hand-to-hand encounters and prisoners breachedfrom dugouts into an "I-came-I-saw" narrative, and not understand whyfurther interest should be shown by the inquirer in what was theeveryday routine of the business of war. For the trite saying thateverything is relative does not forfeit any truth by repetition. The cavalry had done everything quite according to tactics, which wouldonly confuse the layman. The wonder was that any of it had come backalive. On that narrow front it had ridden out toward the Germany Armywith nothing between the cavalry and the artillery and machine gunswhich had men on horses for targets. In respect to days when to show ahead above a trench meant death the thing was stupefying, incredible. These narrators forming a camp group, with lean, black-bearded, olive-skinned Indians in attendance bringing water in horse-buckets forthe baths, and the sight of kindly horses' faces smiling at you, and theofficers themselves horsewise and with the talk and manner ofhorsemen--only they made it credible. How real it was to them! How realit became to me! There had been some Germans in hiding in the grass who were takenunawares by this rush of gallopers with lances. Every participant agreedas to the complete astonishment of the enemy. It was equivalent to afootball player coming into the field in ancient armor and the more of asurprise considering that those Germans had been sent out after amorning full of surprises to make contact with the British andreëstablish the broken line. Not dummies of straw this time for the lance's sharp point, butstartled men in green uniform--the vision which had been in mind whenevery thrust was made at the dummies! This was what cavalry was for, theobject of all the training. It rode through quite as it would haveridden fifty or a hundred years ago. A man on the ground, a man on ahorse! This feature had not changed. "You actually got some?" "Oh, yes!" "On the lances?" "Yes. " From the distance came the infernal sound of guns in their threshingcontest of explosions which made this incident more impressive than anyaccount of a man buried by shells, of isolated groups holding out indugouts, or of venturesome soldiers catching and tossing back Germanbombs at the man who threw them, because it was unique on the Somme. Both British and Indians had had the same kind of an opportunity. Afterriding through they wheeled and rode back in the accepted fashion ofcavalry. By this time some of the systematic Germans had recollected that a partof their drill was how to receive a cavalry charge, and when those whohad not run or been impaled began firing and others stood ready withtheir bayonets but with something of the manner of men who were notcertain whether they were in a trance or not, according to the account, a German machine gun began its wicked staccato as another feature ofGerman awakening to the situation. This brings us to the most picturesque incident of the "incident. " Mostenvied of all observers of the tournament was an aviator who looked downon a show bizarre even in the annals of aviation. The German planes hadbeen driven to cover, which gave the Briton a fair field. A knightlyadmiration, perhaps a sense of fellowship not to say sympathy with theold arm of scouting from the new, possessed him; or let it be that hecould not resist a part in such a rare spectacle which was so temptingto sporting instinct. He swooped toward that miserable, earth-tiedturtle of a machine gun and emptied his drum into it. He was not overthree hundred feet, all agree, above the earth, when not less than tenthousand feet was the rule. "It was jolly fine of him!" as the cavalry put it. To have a charge andthen to have that happen--well, it was not so bad to be in the cavalry. The plane drew fire by setting all the Germans to firing at it withouthitting it, and the machine gun, whether silenced or not, ceased tobother the cavalry, which brought back prisoners to complete awell-rounded adventure before withdrawing lest the German guns, alsoentering into the spirit of the situation, should blow men and horsesoff the Ridge instead of leaving them to retire in good order. Casualties: about the same number of horses as men. Riders who had losttheir horses mounted riderless horses. A percentage of one in six orseven had been hit, which was the most amazing part of it; indeed, themost joyful part, completing the likeness to the days when war still hadthe element of sport. There had been killed and wounded or it would nothave been a battle, but not enough to cast a spell of gloom; just enoughto be a part of the gambling hazard of war and give the fillip of dangerto recollection. XV ENTER THE ANZACS Newfoundland sets the pace--Australia and New Zealand lands that breed men--Australians "very proud, individual men"--Geographical isolation a cause of independence--The "Anzacs'" idea of fighting--Sir Charles Birdwood--How he taught his troops discipline--Bean and Ross--Difference between Australians and New Zealanders--The Australian uniform and physique--A dollar and a half a day--General Birdwood and his men--Australian humor. It was British troops exclusively which started the Grand Offensive ifwe except the Newfoundland battalion which alone had the honor ofrepresenting the heroism of North America on July 1st; for people inpassing the Grand Banks which makes them think of Newfoundland are wontto regard it as a part of Canada, when it is a separate colony whosefishermen and frontiersmen were attached to a British division that wentto Gallipoli with a British brigade and later shared the fate of Britishbattalions in the attack on the Thiepval-Gommecourt sector. On that famous day in Picardy the Newfoundlanders advanced into thesmoke of the curtains of fire unflinchingly and kept on charging themachine guns. Survivors and the wounded who crept back at night acrossNo Man's Land had no need to trumpet their heroism. All the army knewit. Newfoundland had set the pace for the other clans from oversea. It was British troops, too, which took Contalmaison and Mametz, Bernafayand Trônes Woods and who carried out all the attack of July 15th, withthe exception of the South African brigade which stormed Delville Woodwith the tearing enthusiasm of a rush for a new diamond mine. Whenever the troops from oversea are not mentioned you may be sure thatit is the British, the home troops, who are doing the fighting, theirnumber being about ten to one of the others with the one out of tenrepresenting double the number of those who fought on either side in anygreat pitched battle in our Civil War. After the Newfoundlanders andSouth Africans, who were few but precious, the Australians, an army ofthemselves, came to take their part in the Somme battle. I have never been in Australia or New Zealand, but this I know that whenthe war is over I am going. I want to see the land that breeds such men. They are free men if ever there were such; free whether they come fromtown or from bush. I had heard of their commonwealth ideas, theirState-owned utilities, their socialistic inclinations, which mightincline you to think that they were all of the same State-cut pattern ofmanhood; but I had heard, too, how they had restricted immigration ofOrientals and limited other immigration by method if not by law, whichwas suggestive of a tendency to keep the breed to itself, as Iunderstood from my reading. Whenever I saw an Australian I thought: "Here is a very proud, individual man, " but also an Australian, particularly an Australian. Some people thought that there was a touch of insolence in his bearingwhen he looked you straight in the eye as much as to say: "The bestthing in the world is to be an upstanding member of the human race whois ready to prove that he is as good as any other. If you don't thinkso, well--" There was no doubt about the Australian being brave. Thiswas as self-evident as that the pine is straight and the beech is hardwood. The Australians came from a great distance. This you knew withoutgeographical reference. Far away in their island continent they havebeen working out their own destiny, not caring for interference from theoutside. To put it in strong language, there is a touch of the "I don'tcare a rap for anybody who does not care a rap for me" in their extrememoments of independence. It is refreshing that a whole population mayhave an island continent to themselves and carry on in this fashion. They had had an introduction to universal service which was alsocharacteristic of their democracy and helpful in time of war. The"Anzac" had caught the sense of its idea (before other English-speakingpeople) not to let others do your fighting for you but all "join in thescrum. " Orientals might crave the broad spaces of a new land, in whichevent if they ever took Australia and New Zealand they would not bebothered by many survivors of the white population, because most of theAnzacs would be dead--this being particularly the kind of people theAnzacs are as I knew them in France, which was not a poor trial groundof their quality. When they went to Gallipoli it was said that they had no discipline; andcertainly at first discipline did irritate them as a snaffle bitirritates a high-spirited horse. "Little Kitch, " as the stalwart Anzacscalled the New Army Englishman, thought that they broke all the militarycommandments of the drill-grounds in a way that would be their undoing. I rather think that it might have been the undoing of Little Kitch, withhis stubborn, methodical, phlegmatic, "stick-it" courage; but after theAustralians had fought the Turk a while it was evident that they knewhow to fight, and their general, Sir Charles Birdwood, supplied thediscipline which is necessary if fighting power is not to be wasted inmisplaced emotion. Lucky Birdwood to command the Australians and lucky Australians to havehim as commander! It was he who in choosing a telegraph code word madeup "Anzac" for the Australian-New Zealand corps, which at once becamethe collective term for the combination. What a test he put them to andthey put him to! He had to prove himself to them before he could developthe Anzacs into a war unit worthy of their fighting quality. Such isdemocracy where man judges man by standards, set, in this case, byAustralian customs. When he understood them he knew why he was fortunate. He was one of themand at the same time a stiff disciplinarian. They objected to saluting, but he taught them to salute in a way that did not make saluting seemthe whole thing--this was what they resented--but a part of the routine. It was said that he knew every man in the corps by name, which shows howstories will grow around a commander who rises at five and retires atmidnight and has a dynamic ubiquity in keeping in touch with his men. Such a force included some "rough customers" who might mistake war for abrawler's opportunity; but Sir Charles had a way with them that workedout for their good and the good of the corps. Though they were of a free type of democracy, the Australian government, either from inherent sense or as the result of distance, as criticsmight say, or owing to General Birdwood's gift of having his way, didnot handicap the Australians as heavily as they might have beenhandicapped under the circumstances by officers who were skilful inpolitics without being skilful in war. As publicist the Australians had Bean, a trained journalist, ared-headed blade of a man who was an officer among officers and a manamong men and held the respect of all by Australian qualities. If therecould be only one chronicler allowed, then Bean's choice had theapplause of a corps, though Bean says that Australia is full of just asgood journalists who did not have his luck. The New Zealanders had Rossto play the same part for them with equal loyalty and he was as much ofa New Zealander as Bean was an Australian. For, make no mistake, though the Australians and the New Zealandersmight seem alike to the observer as they marched along a road, they arenot, as you will find if you talk with them. The New Zealanders haveislands of their own, not to mention that the Tasmanians have one, too. Besides, the New Zealanders include a Maori battalion and of allaborigines of lands where the white races have settled in permanence tobuild new nations, the Maoris have best accustomed themselves tocivilization and are the highest type--a fact which every New Zealandertakes as another contributing factor to New Zealand's excellence. Quietmen the New Zealanders, bearing themselves with the pride of Guardsmenwhose privates all belong to superior old families, and New Zealandersevery minute of every hour of the day, though you might think that civilwar was imminent if you started them on a discussion about homepolitics. Give any unit of an army some particular, readily distinguishablesymbol, be it only a feather in the cap or a different headgear, andthat lot becomes set apart from the others in a fashion that gives them_esprit de corps_. With the Scots it is the kilt and the differentplaids. All the varied uniforms of regiments of the armies of olden dayshad this object. Modern war requires neutral tones and its necessarymachinelike homogeneity may look askance at too much rivalry among unitsas tending toward each one acting by itself rather than in co-operationwith the rest. All the forces at the front except the Anzacs were in khaki and worecaps when not wearing steel helmets in the trenches or on thefiring-line. The Australians were in slate-colored uniform and theywore looped-up soft hats. The hats accentuated the manner, the heightand the sturdiness of the men whose physique was unsurpassed at theBritish front, and practically all were smooth-shaven. For generationsthey had had adequate nutrition and they had the capacity to absorb it, which generations from the slums may lack even if the food isforthcoming. There was no reason why every man in Australia should not have enough toeat and, whether bush or city dweller, he was fond of the open air wherehe might exercise the year around. He had blown his lungs; he had fedwell and came of a daring pioneer stock. When an Anzac battalion underthose hats went swinging along the road it seemed as if the men weretaking the road along with them, such was their vigorous tread. On leavein London they were equally conspicuous. Sometimes they used a littlevermilion with the generosity of men who received a dollar and a half aday as their wage. It was the first time, in many instances, that theyhad seen the "old town" and they had come far and to-morrow might goback to France for the last time. My first view of them in the trenches after they came from Gallipoli wasin the flat country near Ypres whose mushiness is so detested by allsoldiers. They had been used to digging trenches in dry hillsides, where they might excavate caves with solid walls. Here they had to fillsandbags with mud and make breastworks, which were frequently breachedby shell fire. At first, they had been poor diggers; but when democracylearns its lesson by individual experience it is incorporated in everyman and no longer is a question of orders. Now they were deepeningcommunication trenches and thickening parapet walls and weremud-plastered by their labor. Having risen at General Birdwood's hour of five to go with him oninspection I might watch his methods, and it means something to men tohave their corps commander thus early among them when a drizzly rain issoftening the morass under foot. He stopped and asked the privates howthey were in a friendly way and they answered with straight-awaycandor. Then he gave some directions about improvements with awe-are-all-working-together suggestiveness, but all the time he was thegeneral. These privates were not without their Australian sense ofhumor, which is dry; and in answer to the inquiry about how he was onesaid: "All right, except we'd like a little rum, sir. " In cold weather the distribution of a rum ration was at the dispositionof a commander, who in most instances did not give it. This stalwartAustralian evidently had not been a teetotaler. "We'll give you some rum when you have made a trench raid and taken someprisoners, " the general replied. "It might be an incentive, sir!" said the soldier very respectfully. "No Australian should need such an incentive!" answered the general, andpassed on. "Yes, sir!" was the answer of another soldier to the question if he hadbeen in Gallipoli. "Wounded?" "Yes, sir. " "How?" "I was examining a bomb, sir, to find out how it was made and it wentoff to my surprise, sir!" There was not even a twinkle of the eye accompanying the response, yet Iwas not certain that this big fellow from the bush had been wounded inthat way. I suspected him of a quiet joke. "Throw them at the Germans next time, " said the general. "Yes, sir. It's safer!" Returning after that long morning of characteristic routine, as wepassed through a village where Australians were billeted one soldierfailed to salute. When the general stopped him his hand shot up inapproved fashion as he recognized his commander and he said contritely, with the touch of respect of a man to the leader in whom he believes: "I did not see that it was you, sir!" The general had on a mackintosh with the collar turned up, whichconcealed his rank. "But you might see that it was an officer. " "Yes, sir. " "And you salute officers. " "Yes, sir. " Which he would hereafter now that it was General Birdwood's order, though this everlasting raising of your hand, as one Australian said, made you into a kind of human windmill when the world was so full ofofficers. Gradually all came to salute, and when an Australian saluteshe does it in a way that is a credit to Australia. After a period of fighting a tired division retired from the battlefront and a fresh one took the place. Thus, following the custom of thecirculation of troops by the armies of both sides, whether at Verdun oron the Somme, the day arrived when along the road toward the front camethe Australian battalions, hardened and disciplined by trench warfare, keen-edged in spirit, and ready for the bold task which awaited them atPozières. This time the New Zealanders were not along. XVI THE AUSTRALIANS AND A WINDMILL The windmill upon the hill--Pozières--Its topography--Warlike intensity of the Australians--A "stiff job"--An Australian chronicler--Incentives to Australian efficiency--German complaint that the Australians came too fast--Clockwork efficiency--Man-to-man business--Sunburned, gaunt battalions from the vortex--The fighting on the Ridge--Mouquet Farm--A contest of individuality against discipline--"Advance, Australia!"--New Zealanders--South Africans. When I think of the Australians in France I always think of a windmill. This is not implying that they were in any sense Quixotic or that theytilted at a windmill, there being nothing left of the windmill to tiltat when their capture of its ruins became the crowning labor of theirfirst tour on the Somme front. In their progress up that sector of the Ridge the windmill came afterPozières, as the ascent of the bare mountain peak comes after thereaches below the timber line. Pozières was beyond La Boisselle andOvillers-la-Boisselle, from which the battle movement swung forward atthe hinge of the point where the old first-line German fortificationshad been broken on July 1st. To think of Pozières will be to think of the Australians as long as thehistory of the Somme battle endures. I read an interview in a New Yorkpaper with the Chief of Staff of the German Army opposite the British inwhich he must have been correctly quoted, as his remarks passed thecensorship. He said that the loss of Pozières was a blunder. I liked hisfrankness in laying the blame on a subordinate who, if he also hadspoken, might have mentioned the presence of the Australians as anexcuse, which, personally, I think is an excellent one. Difficult as it now becomes to keep any sequence in the operations when, at best, chronology ceases to be illuminative of phases, it is well hereto explain that the attack of July 15th had not gained the whole Ridgeon the front ahead of the broad stretch of ruptured first line. Besides, the Ridge is not like the roof of a house, but a most illusive series ofirregular knolls with small plateaus or valleys between, a sort ofminiature broken tableland. The foothold gained on July 15th meant nobroad command of vision down the slope to the main valley on the otherside. Even a shoulder five or ten feet higher than the neighboringground meant a barrier to artillery observation which shells would notblast away; and the struggle for such positions was to go on for weeks. Pozières, then, was on the way to the Ridge and its possession wouldput the formidable defenses of Thiepval in a salient, thus enabling theBritish to strike it from the side as well as in front, which is the aimof all strategy whether it works in mobile divisions in an open field oris biting and tearing its way against field fortifications. Therefore, the Germans had good reason to hold Pozières, which protected first-linetrenches that had required twenty months of preparation. Wherever theycould keep the Briton or the Frenchman from forcing the fight into theopen which made the contest an even one in digging, they were savinglife and ammunition by nests of redoubts and dugouts. The reason that the Australians wanted to take Pozières was not sotactical as human in their minds. It was the village assigned to themand they wished to investigate it immediately and get established in theproperty that was to be theirs, once they took it, to hold in trust forthe inhabitants. I had a fondness for watching them as they marched upto the front looking unreal in their steel helmets which they wore inplace of the broad-brimmed hats. There was a sort of warlike intensityabout them which may come from the sunlight of an island continentreflecting the histrionic adaptability of appearances to the task inhand. Their first objective was to be the main street. They had a "stiff job"ahead, as everybody agreed, and so had the British troops operating ontheir right. "This objective business has a highly educated sound, which might limitmartial enthusiasm, " said one Australian. "As I understand it, that'sthe line where we stop no matter how good the going and which we mustreach no matter how hard the going. " Precisely. An Australian battalion needed a warning in the firstinstance lest it might keep on advancing, which meant that commanderswould not know where it was in the shell-smoke and it might get"squeezed" for want of support on the right and left, as I haveexplained elsewhere. Certainly, warning was unnecessary in the secondinstance about the hard going. Bean has all the details of the taking of Pozières; he knows what everybattalion did, and I was going to say what every soldier did. When theAustralians were in he was in making notes and when they were out he wasout writing up his notes. His was intimate war correspondence about thefellows who came from all the districts of his continent, his homefolks. I am only expressing the impressions of one who had glimpses ofthe Australians while the battle was raging elsewhere. Of course, skeptics had said that Gallipoli was one thing and the Sommeanother and the Australian man-to-man method might receive a shock fromPrussian system; but, then, skeptics had said that the British could notmake an army in two years. The Australians knew what was in theskeptics' minds, which was further incentive. They had a general whomthey believed in and they did not admit that any man on earth was abetter man than an Australian. And their staff? Of course, when it takesforty years to make a staff how could the Australians have one thatcould hold its own with the Germans? And this was what the Australianshad to do, staff and man: beat the Germans. When with clockwork promptness came the report that they had taken allof their objectives it showed that they were up to the standard of theirlooks and their staff signals were working well. They had a lot ofprisoners, too, who complained that the Australians came on too fast. Meanwhile, they were on one side of the street and the Germans on theother, hugging débris and sniping at one another. Now the man-to-manbusiness began to count. The Australian got across the street; he wentafter the other fellow; he made a still hunt of it. This battle hadbecome a personal matter which pleased their sense of individualism; forit is not bred into Australians to be afraid if they are out alone afterdark. Having worked beyond their first objective, when they were given astheir second the rest of the village they took it; and they were not"biffed" out of it, either. What was the use of yielding ground when youwould have to make another charge in order to regain what had been lost?They were not that kind of arithmeticians, they said. They believed inaddition not subtraction in an offensive campaign. So they stuck, though the Germans made repeated daring counter-attacksand poured in shell fire from the guns up Thiepval way and off Bapaumeway with hellish prodigality. For the German staff was evidently muchout of temper about the "blunder" and for many weeks to come were tocontinue pounding Pozières. If they could not shake the Australian outof the village they meant to make him pay heavy taxes and to try to killhis reliefs and stop his supplies. How the Australians managed to getfood and men up through the communication trenches under the unceasinginferno over that bare slope is tribute to their skill in slipping outand in between its blasts. Not only were they able to hold, but they kept on attacking. Every daywe heard that they had taken more ground and whenever we went out tohave a look the German lines were always a little farther back. One daywe were asking if the Australians were in the cemetery yet; the nextday they were and the next they had more of it as they worked their wayuphill, fighting from grave to grave; and the next day they had masteredall of it, thanks to a grim persistence which some had said would notcomport with their highstrung temperament. The windmill was a landmark crowning the Ridge; as fair a target as everartillery ranged on--a gunner's delight. After having been knocked intosplinters the splinters were spread about by high explosives whichreduced the stone base to fragments. Sunburned, gaunt battalions came out of the vortex for a turn of rest. With helmets battered by shrapnel bullets, after nights in the rain andbroiling hot days, their faces grimy and unshaven, their clothes tornand spotted, they were still Australians who looked you in the eye witha sense of having proved their birthright as free men. Sometimes the oldspirit incited by the situation got out of bonds. One night when acompany rose up to the charge the company next in line called out, "Where are you going?" and on the reply, "We've orders to take thattrench in front, " the company that had no orders to advance exclaimed, "Here, we're going to join in the scrum!" and they did, taking moretrench than the plan required. The fierce period of the battle was approaching when fighting on theRidge was to be a bloody, wrestling series of clinches. Now trenchescould not be dug on that bold, treeless summit. As soon as an aeroplanespotted a line developing out of the field of shell-craters the gunsfilled the trench and then proceeded to pound it into the fashionablestyle for farming land on the Ridge. Trenches out of the question, it became a war among shell-craters. Herea soldier ensconced himself with rifle and bombs or a machine gunnerdeepened the hole with his spade for the gun. This was "scrapping" tothe Australians' taste. It called for individual nerve and daring onthat shell-swept, pestled earth, creeping up to new positions or backfor water and food by night, lying "doggo" by day and waiting for acounter-attack by the Germans, who were always the losers in this grim, stealthy advance. In Mouquet Farm the Germans had dugouts whose elaborateness was realizedonly after they were taken. A battalion could find absolute security inthem. Long galleries ran back to entrances in areas safe from shellfire. Overhead no semblance of farm buildings was left by British andAustralian guns. When I visited the ruins later I could not tell howmany buildings there had been; and Mouquet Farm was not the only strongpoint that the Germans had to fall back on, let it be said. In theunderground tunnels and chambers the Germans gathered for theircounter-attacks, which they attempted with something of their oldprecision and courage. This was the opportunity of the machine gunners in shell-craters and thesnipers and the curtain of artillery fire. Sometimes the Australiansallowed the attack to get good headway. They even left gaps in theirlines for the game to enter the net before they began firing; and again, when a broken German charge sought flight its remnants faced animpassable curtain of fire which fenced them in and they dropped intoshell-craters and held up their hands, which was the only thing to do. Soon the Germans learned, too, how to make the most of shell-craters. The harder the Australians fought the greater the spur to German pridenot to be beaten by these supposedly undisciplined, untrained men. TheGermans called for more guns and got them. Mouquet Farm became afortress of machine guns. It was not taken by the Australians--theirsuccessors took what was left of it. The nearer they came to the crestwhich was their supreme goal the ghastlier and more concentrated grewthe shell fire, as the German guns had only to range on the skyline. Butthis equally applied to Australian gunners as the Germans were crowdedtoward the summit where the débris of the windmill remained, tillfinally they had to fall back to the other side. Then they tried sweeping over the Ridge from the cover of the reverseslope in counter-attacks, only to be whipped by machine gun fire, lashedby shrapnel and crushed by high explosives--themselves mixed with theruins of the windmill. At last they gave up the effort. It was not inGerman discipline to make any more attempts. The Australians had the windmill as much as anyone had it as, for atime, it was in No Man's Land where blasts of shells would permit of nooccupation. But the symbol for which it stood was there in readiness asa jumping-off place for the sweep-down into the valley later on when theCanadians should take the place of the Australians; and before theyretired they could look in triumph across at Thiepval and down onCourcelette and Martinpuich and past the valley to Bapaume. The development of the campaign had given the Australians work suited totheir bent when this war of machinery, attaining its supreme complexityon the Somme, left the human machine between walls of shell fire tofight it out individually against the human machine, in a contest ofwill, courage, audacity, alertness and resource, man to man. "Advance, Australia!" is the Australian motto; and the Australians advanced. The New Zealanders had their part elsewhere and played it in the NewZealand way. "They have never failed to take an objective set them, " said a generalafter the taking of Flers, "and they have always gained their positionswith slight losses. " Could there be higher praise? Success and thrift, courage and skill intaking cover! For the business of a soldier is to do his enemy themaximum of damage with the minimum to himself, as anyone may go onrepeating. Probably the remark of the New Zealanders in answer to thecommander's praise would be, "Thank you. Why not?" as if this were whatthe New Zealanders expected of themselves. They take much for grantedabout New Zealand, without being boastful. "A blooming quiet lot that keeps to themselves, " said a British soldier, "but likable when you get to know them. " You might depend upon the average New Zealand private for an interestingtalk about social organization, municipal improvements, and humanwelfare under government direction. The standard of individualintelligence and education was high and it seemed to make good fightingmen. The Australians had had to grub their way foot by foot, and the SouthAfricans on July 15th with veldt gallantry had swept into Delville Wood, which was to be a shambles for two months, and stood off with a thinline the immense forces of hastily gathered reserves which the Germansthrew at this vital point which had been lost in a surprise attack. All this on the way up to the Ridge. The New Zealanders were to play apart in the same movement as the Canadians after the Ridge was taken. They were in the big sweep down from the Ridge over a broad front. Across the open for about two miles they had to go, fair targets forshell fire; and they went, keeping their order as if on parade, workingout each evolution with soldierly precision including coöperation withthe "tanks. " They were at their final objective on schedule time, accomplishing the task with amazingly few casualties and so little fussthat it seemed a kind of skilful field-day manoeuver. All that they tookthey held and still held it when the mists of autumn obscured artilleryobservation and they were relieved from the quagmire for their turn ofrest. XVII THE HATEFUL RIDGE Grinding of courage of three powerful races--A ridge that will be famous--Germans on the defensive--Efforts to maintain their _morale_--Gas shells--Summer heat, dust and fatigue--Prussian hatred of the British--Dead bodies strapped to guns--Guillemont a granulation of bricks and mortar and earth--"We've only to keep at them, sir"--Stalking machine guns--Machine guns in craters--British cheerfulness--The war will be over when it is won--Soldiers talk shop--An incident of brutal militarism--Simple rules for surviving shell fire--A "happy home" with a shell arriving every minute--Business-like monotony of the battle--Insignificance of one man among millions--A victory of position, of will, of _morale_! Sometimes it occurred to one to consider what history might say aboutthe Ridge and also to wonder how much history, which pretends to knowall, would really know. Thus, one sought perspective of the colossalsignificance of the uninterrupted battle whose processes numbed the mindand to distinguish the meaning of different stages of the struggle. Nothing had so well reflected the character of the war or of itsprotagonists, French, British and German, as this grinding of resources, of courage, and of will of three powerful races. We are always talking of phases as the result of natural humanspeculation and tendency to set events in groups. Observers also maygratify this inclination as well as the contemporaneous military expertwriting from his maps. It is historically accepted, I think, that thefirst decisive phase was the battle of the Marne when Paris was saved. The second was Verdun, when the Germans again sought a decision on theWestern front by an offensive of sledgehammer blows against frontalpositions; and, perhaps, the third came when on the Ridge the Britishand the French kept up their grim, insistent, piecemeal attacks, holdingthe enemy week in and week out on the defensive, aiming at mastery asthe scales trembled in the new turn of the balance and initiative passedfrom one side to the other in the beginning of that new era. This scarred slope with its gentle ascent, this section of farming landwith its woods growing more ragged every day from shell fire, with itsdaily and nightly thunders, its trickling procession of wounded andprisoners down the communication trenches speaking the last word inhuman bravery, industry, determination and endurance--this might one daybe not only the monument to the positions of all the battalions that hadfought, its copses, its villages, its knolls famous to futuregenerations as is Little Round Top with us, but in its monstrous realismbe an immortal expression, unrealized by those who fought, of acommander's iron will and foresight in gaining that supremacy in arms, men and material which was the genesis of the great decision. The German had not yielded his offensive at Verdun after the attack ofJuly 1st. At least, he still showed the face of initiative there whilehe rested content that at the same time he could maintain his frontintact on the Somme. The succeeding attack of July 15th broke hisconfidence with its suggestion that the confusion in his lines would betoo dangerous if it happened over a broader front for him to consideranything but the defensive. Thus, the Allied offensive had broken hisoffensive. Now he began drawing away his divisions from the Verdun sector, bringingguns to answer the British and French fire and men whose prodigal usealone could enforce his determination to maintain _morale_ and preventany further bold strokes such as that of July 15th. His sausage balloons began to reappear in the sky as the summer wore on;he increased the number of his aeroplanes; more of his five-point-ninehowitzers were sending their compliments; he stretched out his shellfire over communication trenches and strong points; mustered greatquantities of lachrymatory shells and for the first time used gas shellswith a generosity which spoke his faith in their efficacy. Thelachrymatory shell makes your eyes smart, and the Germans apparentlyconsidered this a great auxiliary to high explosives and shrapnel. Wasit because of the success of the first gas attack at Ypres that they nowplaced such reliance in gas shells? The shell when it lands seems a"dud, " which is a shell that has failed to explode; then it blows out avolume of gas. "If one hit right under your nose, " said a soldier, "and you hadn't yourgas mask on, it might kill you. But when you see one fall you don't runto get a sniff in order to accommodate the Boche by asphyxiatingyourself. " Another soldier suggested that the Germans had a big supply on hand andwere working off the stock for want of other kinds. The British who bythis time were settled in the offensive joked about the deluge of gasshells with a gallant, amazing humor. Going up to the Ridge was going totheir regular duty. They did not shirk it or hail it with delight. Theysimply went, that was all, when it was a battalion's turn to go. July heat became August heat as the grinding proceeded. The gunnersworked in their shirts or stripped to the waist. Sweat streaks mappedthe faces of the men who came out of the trenches. Stifling clouds ofdust hung over the roads, with the trucks phantom-like as they emergedfrom the gritty mist and their drivers' eyes peered out of masks ofgray which clung to their faces. A fall of rain came as a blessing toBriton and German alike. German prisoners worn with exhaustion hadcomplexions the tint of their uniforms. If the British seemed wearysometimes, one had only to see the prisoners to realize that thedefensive was suffering more than the offensive. The fatigue of some ofthe men was of the kind that one week's sleep or a month's rest will notcure; something fixed in their beings. It was a new kind of fighting for the Germans. They smarted under it, they who had been used to the upper hand. In the early stages of the wartheir artillery had covered their well-ordered charges; they had beenkilling the enemy with gunfire. Now the Allies were returning thecompliment; the shoe was on the other foot. A striking change, indeed, from "On to Paris!" the old battle-cry of leaders who had now come tourge these men to the utmost of endurance and sacrifice by telling themthat if they did not hold against the relentless hammering of Britishand French guns what had been done to French villages would be done totheir own. Prisoners spoke of peace as having been promised as close at hand bytheir officers. In July the date had been set as Sept. 1st. Later, itwas set as Nov. 1st. The German was as a swimmer trying to reach shore, in this case peace, with the assurance of those who urged him on that afew more strokes would bring him there. Thus have armies been urged onfor years. Those fighting did not have, as had the prisoners, their eyes opened tothe vast preparations behind the British lines to carry on theoffensive. Mostly the prisoners were amiable, peculiarly unlike theproud men taken in the early days of the war when confidence in their"system" as infallible was at its height. Yet there were exceptions. Isaw an officer marching at the head of the survivors of his battalionalong the road from Montauban one day with his head up, a cigar stuck inthe corner of his mouth at an aggressive angle, his unshaven chin anddusty clothes heightening his attitude of "You go to ----, you English!" The hatred of the British was a strengthening factor in the defense. Should they, the Prussians, be beaten by New Army men? No! Die first!said Prussian officers. The German staff might be as good as ever, butamong the mixed troops--the old and the young, the hollow-chested andthe square-shouldered, mouth-breathers with spectacles and bent fathersof families, vigorous boys in their late 'teens with the down still ontheir cheeks and hardened veterans survivors of many battles east andwest--they were reverting appreciably to natural human tendenciesdespite the iron discipline. It was Skobeloff, if I recollect rightly, who said that out of everyhundred men twenty were natural fighters, sixty were average men whowould fight under impulse or when well led, and twenty were timid; andarmies were organized on the basis of the sixty average to make theminto a whole of even efficiency in action. The German staff had suppliedsupreme finesse to this end. They had an army that was a machine; yetits units were flesh and blood and the pounding of shell fire and thedogged fighting on the Ridge must have an effect. It became apparent through those two months of piecemeal advance thatthe sixty average men were not as good as they had been. The twenty"funk-sticks, " in army phrase, were given to yielding themselves if theywere without an officer, but the twenty natural fighters--well, humanpsychology does not change. They were the type that made theprofessional armies of other days, the brigands, too, and also those ofevery class of society to whom patriotic duty had become an exaltationapproaching fanaticism. More fighting made them fight harder. Such became members of the machine gun corps, which took an oath neverto surrender, and led bombing parties and posted themselves inshell-craters to face the charges while shells fell thick around them, or remained up in the trench taking their chances against curtains offire that covered an infantry charge, in the hope of being able to turnon their own bullet spray for a moment before being killed. Sometimestheir dead bodies were found strapped to their guns, more often probablyby their own request, as an insurance against deserting their posts, than by command. Shell fire was the theatricalism of the struggle, the roar of guns itsthunder; but night or day the sound of the staccato of that little archdevil of killing, the machine gun, coming from the Ridge seemed as truean expression of what was always going on there as a rattlesnake'srattle is of its character. Delville and High Woods and Guillemont andLongueval and the Switch Trench--these are symbolic names of thatattrition, of the heroism of British persistence which would not take Nofor answer. You might think that you had seen ruins until you saw those ofGuillemont after it was taken. They were the granulation of bricks andmortar and earth mixed by the blasts of shell fire which crushed solidsinto dust and splintered splinters. Guillemont lay beyond Trônes Woodacross an open space where the German guns had full play. There was astone quarry on the outskirts, and a quarry no less than a farm likeWaterlot, which was to the northward, and Falfemont, to the southwardand flanking the village, formed shelter. It was not much of a quarry, but it was a hole which would be refuge for reserves and machine guns. The two farms, clear targets for British guns, had their deep dugoutswhose roofs were reinforced by the ruins that fell upon them againstpenetration even by shells of large caliber. How the Germans fought tokeep Falfemont! Once they sent out a charge with the bayonet to meet aBritish charge between walls of shell fire and there through the mistthe steel was seen flashing and vague figures wrestling. Guillemont and the farms won and Ginchy which lay beyond won and theBritish had their flank on high ground. Twice they were in Guillemontbut could not remain, though as usual they kept some of their gains. Itwas a battle from dugout to dugout, from shelter to shelter of any kindburrowed in débris or in fields, with the British never ceasing here orelsewhere to continue their pressure. And the débris of a village hadparticular appeal; it yielded to the spade; its piles gave naturalcover. A British soldier returning from one of the attacks as he hobbledthrough Trônes Wood expressed to me the essential generalship of thebattle. He was outwardly as unemotional as if he were coming home fromhis day's work, respectful and good-humored, though he had a hole inboth arms from machine gun fire, a shrapnel wound in the heel, andseemed a trifle resentful of the added tribute of another shrapnel woundin his shoulder after he had left the firing-line and was on his way tothe casualty clearing station. Insisting that he could lift thecigarette I offered him to his lips and light it, too, he said: "We've only to keep at them, sir. They'll go. " So the British kept at them and so did the French at every point. WasDelville Wood worse than High Wood? This is too nice a distinction intorments to be drawn. Possess either of them completely and command ofthe Ridge in that section was won. The edge of a wood on the side awayfrom your enemy was the easiest part to hold. It is difficult to rangeartillery on it because of restricted vision, and the enemy's shellsaimed at it strike the trees and burst prematurely among his own men. Other easy, relatively easy, places to hold are the dead spaces ofgullies and ravines. There you were out of fire and there you were not;there you could hold and there you could not. Machine gun fire and shellfire were the arbiters of topography more dependable than maps. Why all the trees were not cut down by the continual bombardments ofboth sides was past understanding. There was one lone tree on theskyline near Longueval which I had watched for weeks. It still had alimb, yes, the luxury of a limb, the last time that I saw it, pointingwith a kind of defiance in its immunity. Of course it had been struckmany times. Bits of steel were imbedded in its trunk; but only a directhit on the trunk will bring down a tree. Trees may be slashed andwhittled and nicked and gashed and still stand; and when villages havebeen pulverized except for the timbering of the houses, a scarred shadetree will remain. Thus, trees in Delville Wood survived, naked sticks among fallen andsplintered trunks and upturned roots. How any man could have survivedwas the puzzling thing. None could if he had remained there continuouslyand exposed himself; but man is the most cunning of animals. With gasmask and eye-protectors ready, steel helmet on his head and his faithfulspade to make himself a new hole whenever he moved, he managed theincredible in self-protection. Earth piled back of a tree-trunk wouldstop bullets and protect his body from shrapnel. There he lay and therea German lay opposite him, except when attacks were being made. Not getting the northern edge of the woods the British began sapping outin trenches to the east toward Ginchy, where the map contours showed thehighest ground in that neighborhood. New lines of trenches keptappearing on the map, often with group names such as Coffee Alley, TeaLane and Beer Street, perhaps. Out in the open along the irregularplateau the shells were no more kindly, the bombing and the sapping noless diligent all the way to the windmill, where the Australians wereplaying the same kind of a game. With the actual summit gained atcertain points, these had to be held pending the taking of the whole, orof enough to permit a wave of men to move forward in a general attackwithout its line being broken by the resistance of strong points, whichmeant confusion. Before any charge the machine guns must be "killed. " No initiative ofpioneer or Indian scout surpassed that exhibited in conquering machinegun positions. When a big game hunter tells you about having stalkedtigers, ask him if he has ever stalked a machine gun to its lair. As for the nature of the lair, here is one where a Briton "dug himselfin" to be ready to repulse any counter-attack to recover ground that theBritish had just won. Some layers of sandbags are sunk level with theearth with an excavation back of them large enough for a machine gunstandard and to give the barrel swing and for the gunner, who back ofthis had dug himself a well four or five feet deep of sufficientdiameter to enable him to huddle at the bottom in "stormy weather. " Hewas general and army, too, of his little establishment. In the midst ofshells and trench mortars, with bullets whizzing around his head, he hadto keep a cool aim and make every pellet which he poured out of his gunmuzzle count against the wave of men coming toward him who were at hismercy if he could remain alive for a few minutes and keep his head. He must not reveal his position before his opportunity came. All aroundwhere this Briton had held the fort there were shell-craters like thedots of close shooting around a bull's-eye; no tell-tale blood spotsthis time, but a pile of two or three hundred cartridge cases lyingwhere they had fallen as they were emptied of their cones of lead. Luckwas with the occupant, but not with another man playing the same gamenot far away. Broken bits of gun and fragments of cloth mixed with earthexplained the fate of a German machine gunner who had emplaced his piecein the same manner. Before a charge, crawl up at night from shell-crater to shell-crater andlocate the enemy's machine guns. Then, if your own guns and the trenchmortars do not get them, go stalking with supplies of bombs and rememberto throw yours before the machine gunner, who also has a stock for suchemergencies, throws his. When a machine gun begins rattling into acompany front in a charge the men drop for cover, while officersconsider how to draw the devil's tusks. Arnold von Winkelried, whogathered the spears to his breast to make a path for his comrades, wonhis glory because the fighting forces were small in his day. But withsuch enormous forces as are now engaged and with heroism so common, wemake only an incident of the officer who went out to silence a machinegun and was found lying dead across the gun with the gunner dead besidehim. Those whose business it was to observe, the six correspondents, Robinson, Thomas, Gibbs, Philips, Russell and myself, went and camealways with a sense of incapacity and sometimes with a feeling thatwriting was a worthless business when others were fighting. The line ofadvance on the big map at our quarters extended as the brief armyreports were read into the squares every morning by the key of figuresand numerals with a detail that included every little trench, everycopse, every landmark, and then we chose where we would go that day. Atcorps headquarters there were maps with still more details and officerswould explain the previous day's work to us. Every wood and village, every viewpoint, we knew, and every casualty clearing station andprisoners' inclosure. At battalion camps within sight of the Ridge andwithin range of the guns, where their blankets helped to make shelterfrom the sun, you might talk with the men out of the fight and lunch andchat with the officers who awaited the word to go in again or perhaps tohear that their tour was over and they could go to rest in Ypres sector, which had become relatively quiet. They had their letters and packages from home before they slept and hadwritten letters in return after waking; and there was nothing to do nowexcept to relax and breathe, to renew the vitality that had beenexpended in the fierce work where shells were still threshing the earth, which rose in clouds of dust to settle back again in enduring passiveresistance. There was much talk early in the war about British cheerfulness; so muchthat officers and men began to resent it as expressing the idea thatthey took such a war as this as a kind of holiday, when it was the lastthing outside of Hades that any sane man would choose. It was a questionin my own mind at times if Hades would not have been a pleasant change. Yet the characterization is true, peculiarly true, even in the midst ofthe fighting on the Ridge. Cheerfulness takes the place of emotionalismas the armor against hardship and death; a good-humored balance betweenexhilaration and depression which meets smile with smile and creates anatmosphere superior to all vicissitudes. Why should we be downhearted?Why, indeed, when it does no good. Not "Merrie England!" War is not amerry business; but an Englishman may be cheerful for the sake of selfand comrades. Of course, these battalions, officers and men, would talk about when thewar would be over. Even the Esquimaux must have an opinion on thesubject by this time. That of the men who make the war, whose lives arethe lives risked, was worth more, perhaps, than that of people livingthousands of miles away; for it is they who are doing the fighting, whowill stop fighting. To them it would be over when it was won. The timethis would require varied with different men--one year, two years; andagain they would turn satirical and argue whether the sixth or theseventh year would be the worst. And they talked shop about the latestwrinkles in fighting; how best to avoid having men buried byshell-bursts; the value of gas and lachrymatory shells; the ratio ofhigh explosives to shrapnel; methods of "cleaning out" dugouts or "doingin" machine guns, all in a routine that had become an accepted part oflife like the details of the stock carried and methods of selling in adepartment store. Indelible the memories of these talks, which often brought outillustrations of racial temperament. One company was more horrified overhaving found a German tied to a trench _parados_ to be killed byBritish shell fire as a field punishment than by the horrors of othermen equally mashed and torn, or at having crawled over the moist bodiesof the dead, or slept among them, or been covered with spatters of bloodand flesh--for that incident struck home with a sense of brutalmilitarism which was the thing in their minds against which they werefighting. With steel helmets on and gas masks over our shoulders, we would leaveour car at the dead line and set off to "see something, " when now thefighting was all hidden in the folds of the ground, or in the woods, orlost on the horizon where the front line of either of these two greatarmies, with their immense concentration of men and material and roadsgorged with transport and thousands of belching guns, was held by a fewmen with machine guns in shell-craters, their positions sometimesinterwoven. Old hands in the Somme battle become shell-wise. They arethe ones whom the French call "varnished, " which is a way of saying thatprojectiles glance off their anatomy. They keep away from points wherethe enemy will direct his fire as a matter of habit or scientificgunnery, and always recollect that the German has not enough shells tosow them broadcast over the whole battle area. It is not an uncommon thing for one to feel quite safe within a coupleof hundred yards of an artillery concentration. That corner of avillage, that edge of a shattered grove, that turn in the highway, thatsunken road--keep away from them! Any kind of trench for shrapnel; liedown flat unless a satisfactory dugout is near for protection from highexplosives which burst in the earth. If you are at the front and acurtain of fire is put behind you, wait until it is over or go aroundit. If there is one ahead, wait until another day--provided that you area spectator. Always bear in mind how unimportant you are, how small afigure on the great field, and that if every shell fired had killed onesoldier there would not be an able-bodied man in uniform left alive onthe continent of Europe. By observing these simple rules you may see asurprising amount with a chance of surviving. One day I wanted to go into the old German dugouts under a formless pileof ruins which a British colonel had made his battalion headquarters;but I did not want to go enough to persist when I understood thesituation. Formerly, my idea of a good dugout--and I always like to bewithin striking distance of one--was a cave twenty feet deep with a roofof four or five layers of granite, rubble and timber; but now I feelmore safe if the fragments of a town hall are piled on top of this. The Germans were putting a shell every minute with clockwork regularityinto the colonel's "happy home" and at intervals four shells in a salvo. You had to make a run for it between the shells, and if you did not knowthe exact location of the dugout you might have been hunting for it sometime. Runners bearing messages took their chances both going and comingand two men were hit. The colonel was quite safe twenty feet undergroundwith the matting of débris including that of a fallen chimney overhead, but he was a most unpopular host. The next day he moved his headquartersand not having been considerate enough to inform the Germans of the factthey kept on methodically pounding the roof of the untenanted premises. After every battlefield "promenade" I was glad to step into the carwaiting at the "dead line, " where the chauffeurs frequently had hadharder luck in being shelled than we had farther forward. Yet I know ofno worse place to be in than a car when you hear the first growingscream which indicates that yours is the neighborhood selected by aGerman battery or two for expending some of its ammunition. When you arein danger you like to be on your feet and to possess every one of yourfaculties. I used to put cotton in my ears when I walked through thearea of the gun positions as some protection to the eardrums from theblasts, but always took it out once I was beyond the big calibers, asan acute hearing after some experience gave you instant warning of any"krump" or five-point-nine coming in your direction, advising you whichway to dodge and also saving you from unnecessarily running for a dugoutif the shell were passing well overhead or short. I was glad, too, when the car left the field quite behind and was overthe hills in peaceful country. But one never knew. Fifteen miles fromthe front line was not always safe. Once when a sudden outburst offifteen-inch naval shells sent the people of a town to cover andscattered fragments over the square, one cut open the back of thechauffeur's head just as we were getting into our car. "Are you going out to be strafed at?" became an inquiry in the mess onthe order of "Are you going to take an afternoon off for golf to-day?"The only time I felt that I could claim any advantage in phlegm over mycomrades was when I slept through two hours of aerial bombing withanti-aircraft guns busy in the neighborhood, which, as I explained, wasno more remarkable than sleeping in a hotel at home with flat-wheeledsurface cars and motor horns screeching under your window. A subwayemployee or a traffic policeman in New York ought never to suffer fromshell-shock if he goes to war. The account of personal risk which in other wars might make a magazinearticle or a book chapter, once you sat down to write it, melted away asyour ego was reduced to its proper place in cosmos. Individuals hadnever been so obscurely atomic. With hundreds of thousands fighting, personal experience was valuable only as it expressed that of the whole. Each story brought back to the mess was much like others, thrilling forthe narrator and repetition for the polite listener, except it was someofficer fresh from the communication trench who brought news of what wasgoing on in that day's work. Thus, the battle had become static; its incidents of a kind like theproduct of some mighty mill. The public, falsely expecting that the linewould be broken, wanted symbols of victory in fronts changing on the mapand began to weary of the accounts. It was the late Charles A. Dana whois credited with saying: "If a dog bites a man it is not news, but if aman bites a dog it is. " Let the men attack with hatchets and in evening dress and this would winall the headlines in the land because people at their breakfast tableswould say: "Here is something new in the war!" Men killing men was notnews, but a battalion of trained bloodhounds sent out to bite theGermans would have been. I used to try to hunt down some of the"novelties" which received the favor of publication, but though theywere well known abroad the man in the trenches had heard nothing aboutthem. Bullets, shells, bayonets and bombs remained the tried and practicalmethods there on the Ridge with its overpowering drama, any act of whichalmost any day was greater than Spionkop or Magersfontein which thrilleda world that was not then war-stale; and ever its supreme feature wasthat determination which was like a kind of fate in its progress ofchipping, chipping at a stone foundation that must yield. The Ridge seeped in one's very existence. You could see it as clearly inimagination as in reality, with its horizon under shell-bursts and theslope with its maze of burrows and its battered trenches. Into thosecalm army reports association could read many indications: the tellingfact that the German losses in being pressed off the Ridge were as greatif not greater than the British, their sufferings worse under a heavierdeluge of shell fire, the increased skill of the offensive and thefailure of German counter-attacks after each advance. No one doubted that the Ridge would be taken and taken it was, or all ofit that was needed for the drive that was to clean up any outstandingpoints, with its sweep down into the valley. A victory this, not to bemeasured by territory; for in one day's rush more ground was gainedthan in two months of siege. A victory of position, of will, of_morale_! Sharpening its steel and wits on enemy steel and wits in everykind of fighting, the New Army had proved itself in the supreme test ofall qualities. XVIII A TRULY FRENCH AFFAIR A French lieutenant arm-in-arm with two privates--A luncheon at the front--French regimental officers--Three and four stripes on the sleeves for the number of wounds--Over the parapet twenty-three times--Comradeship of soldiers--Monsieur Élan again--Baby _soixante-quinze_--An incident truly French. This was another French day, an ultra French day, with Monsieur Élanplayfully inciting human nature to make holiday in the sight of burstingshells. There had been many other luncheons with generals and staffs intheir chateaux which were delightful and illuminating occasions, butthis had a distinction of its own not only in its companionship but inits surroundings. _Mon lieutenant_ who invited me warned me to eat a light breakfast inorder to leave room for adequate material appreciation of thehospitality of his own battalion, in which he had fought in the ranksearning promotion and his _croix de guerre_ in a way that was moregratifying to him than the possession of a fortune, chateaux andhigh-powered cars. I have seen him in the streets of our town "hiking"along with the French marching step arm-in-arm with two Frenchprivates, though he was an officer. He introduced them as from "mybattalion!" with as much pride as if they were Generals Joffre andCastelnau. What a setting for a "swell repast, " as he jokingly called it! A tablemade of boxes with boxes for seats and plates of tin, under apple treeslooking down into a valley where the transport and blue-clad regimentswere winding their way past the eddies of men of the battalion in a restcamp, with the _soixante-quinze_ firing from the slopes beyond atintervals and a German battery trying to reach a British sausage balloonhanging lazily in the still air against the blue sky and never gettingit. A flurry of figures after some "krumps" had burst at another pointmeant that some men had been killed and wounded. As the colonel and the second in command were not present there was norestraint of seniority on the festivity, though I think that seniorityknowing what was going on might have felt lonely in its isolation. Wehad many courses, soup, fish, entrée and roast, salad and cheese whichwas cheese in a land where they eat cheese, and luscious grapes andpears; everything that the market afforded served in sight of the frontline. Why not? France thinks that nothing is too good for her fighters. If ever man ought to have the best it is when to-morrow he returns tothe firing-line and hard rations--when to-morrow he may die for France. The senior captain presided. He was a man of other wars, burned by thesuns of Morocco, with a military moustache that gave effect to hisspirited manner. When my friend, the lieutenant, joined the regiment asa private he was smooth-shaven and his colonel asked him whether he wasa priest or a bookmaker, or meant to be a soldier. Next morning heallowed nature to have her way on his upper lip, the colonel's hintbeing law in all things to those who served under him. Every officer had his _croix de guerre_ in this colonial battalion withits ranks open to all comers of all degrees and promotion for those whocould earn it in face of the machine guns where the New Army privateswere earning theirs. One officer with the chest of Hercules, who lookedequal to the fiercest Prussian or the tallest Pomeranian and at leastone additional small Teuton for good measure, mentioned that he had beenin Peking. I asked him if he knew some officer friends of mine who hadbeen there at the same time. He replied that he had been a private then, and he liked the American Y. M. C. A. His breast was a panoply of medals. Among them was the Legion of Honor, while his _croix de guerre_ had all the stars, bronze, silver and gold, and two palms, as I remember, which meant that twice some deed of hisout in the inferno had won official mention for him all the way up fromthe battalion through brigade, division and corps to the supremecommand. The American Y. M. C. A. In Peking ought to be proud of his goodopinion. The architect, tall, well built, smiling and fair-haired, with anintellectual face, sat opposite the little dealer in precious stones whohad traveled the world around in his occupation. There was an artist, too, who held an argument with the architect on art which _moncapitaine_ considered meretricious and hair-splitting, his convictionbeing that they were only airing a wordy pretentiousness and really knewlittle more of what they were talking about than he. In politics we hada Republican, a Socialist and a Royalist, who also were babbling withoutcapturing any dugouts, according to _mon capitaine_ who was simply asoldier. It was clear that the Socialist and the Royalist were bothpopular, as well as my friend, though he had been promoted to the staff. Another present was the "Admiral, " a naval officer, commanding themonstrous guns of twelve to seventeen inches mounted on railway trucks, who wrote sonnets between directing two-thousand-pound projectiles ontheir errands of mashing German dugouts. He did not like gunnery wherehe did not see his target naval fashion, but he had done so well thathe was kept at it. His latest sonnet was to an abstract girl somewherein France which the Socialist, who was a man of critical judgment ineverything and of a rollicking disposition, praised very highly and readaloud with the elocution of a Coquelin. While others had as many as three and four gold stripes on their sleevesto indicate the number of their wounds, the Socialist had been over theparapet twenty-three times in charges without being hit, which he tookas a sure sign that his was the right kind of politics, the Royalist andthe Republican disagreeing and _mon capitaine_ saying that politics werea mere matter of taste and being wounded a matter of luck. Thereupon, the Socialist undertook a brief oration rich with humor, relieving it oftoo much of the seriousness of the tribune in the Chamber of Deputies, where he will probably thunder out his periods one of these days if hecontrives to keep on going over the parapet without being hit. A man was what he was as a man and nothing more in that distinguishedcompany which had gained its distinction by extinguishing Germans. Comradeship made all differences of opinion, birth and wealth only theexcuse for banter in this variation of type from the tall architect withhis charming manner to the matter-of-fact expert in diamonds and opals, from the big private of colonial regulars who had won his shoulderstraps to the fellow with the blue blood of aristocratic France in hisveins. The architect I particularly remember, for he was killed in thenext charge, and the dealer in precious stones, for a shell-burst in theface would never allow his eyes to see the flash of a diamond again. But let youth eat, drink and be merry in the shadow of the fortunes ofwar which might claim some of them to-morrow, making vacancies forpromotion of privates down in the camp. Where Cheeriness was thehandmaiden of _morale_ with the British, Monsieur Élan was with theFrench. Everybody talked not only with his lips but with his hands andshoulders, in that absence of self-consciousness which gives grace tofree expression. They spoke of their homes at one juncture with a soberand lingering desire and a catch in the throat and they touched on theproblems after the war, which they would win or fight on forever, concluding that the men from the trenches who would have the say wouldmake a new and better France and sweep aside any interference with themarch of their numbers and patriotism. We ate until capacity was reached and loitered over the black coffee, with the private who had produced all the courses out of the dugout withthe magic of the rabbit out of a hat sharing in the conversation attimes without breaking the bonds of discipline. Finally, the cook wasbrought forth, too, to receive his meed of praise as the real magician. Then we went to pay our respects to the colonel and the second incommand. A sturdy little man the colonel, a regular from his neatfatigue cap to the soles of his polished boots, but with a human twinklethrough his eyeglasses reflecting much wisdom in the handling of men ofall kinds, which, no doubt, was why he was in command of this battalion. Afterward, we visited the men lounging in their quarters or forming asmiling group, each one ready with quick responses when spoken to, menof all kinds from Apaches of Paris to the sons of princes, perhaps, while the Washington Post March was played for the American. Later, across the road we saw the then new baby _soixante-quinze_ guns fortrench work, which were being wheeled about with a merry appreciation ofthe fact that a battery of father _soixante-quinze_ was passing by atthe time. Finally, came an incident truly French and delightful in its boyishness, as _mon capitaine_ hinted that I should ask _mon colonel_ if he wouldpermit _mon capitaine_ to go into town and have dinner with my friendand the admiral and myself, returning in my friend's car in time toproceed to the firing-line with the battalion to-morrow. Accordingly Ispoke to the colonel and the twinkle of his eye as he gave consentindicated, perhaps, that he knew who had put me up to it. _Moncapitaine_ had his dinner and a good one, too, and was back at dawnready for battle. It is not that France has changed; only that some people who ought tohave known better have changed their opinions formed about her after '70when, in the company of other foreigners, they went to see the sights ofParis. XIX ON THE AERIAL FERRY The "Ferry-Pilot's" office--Everybody is young in the Royal Flying Corps--Any kind of aeroplane to choose from--A flying machine new from the factory--"A good old 'bus"--Twenty planes a day from England to France--England seen from the clouds--An aerial guide-post--Stopping places--The channel from 4, 000 feet aloft--Out of sight in the clouds midway between England and France--Tobogganing from the clouds--France from the air--A good flight. Personal experience now intrudes in answer to the question whence comeall the aeroplanes that take the place of those lost or worn out, whichwas made clear when I was in London for a few days' change from thefighting on the Ridge through a request to a general at the War Officefor permission to fly back to the front. "Why not?" he said. "When are you going?" "Monday. " He called up another general on the telephone and in a few words thearrangements were made. "And my baggage?" I suggested. "How much of it?" "A suit case. " "The machine ought to manage that considering that it carries onehundred and fifty pounds in bombs. " On Monday morning at the appointed hour I was walking past a soldierlyline of planes flanking an aerodrome field scattered with others thathad just alighted or were about to rise and inquiring my way to the"Ferry-Pilot's" office. I found it, identified by a white-lettered signon a blackboard, down the main street of temporary buildings occupied bythe aviators as quarters. "Yes, all right, " said the young officer sitting at the desk, "but weare making no crossings this morning. There is a storm over thechannel. " Weather forecasts, which had long ago disappeared from the Englishnewspapers lest they give information to Zeppelins, had become theprivilege of those who travel by air or repulsed aerial raids. "It may clear up this afternoon, " he added. "Why not go up to the messand make yourself comfortable, and return about three? Perhaps you maygo then. " At three I was back in his office, where five or six young aviators werewaiting for their orders as jockeys might wait their turn to take outhorses. Everybody is young in the Royal Flying Corps and everybodythinks and talks in the terms of youth. "You can push off at once!" said the officer at the desk. Of course I must have a pass, which was a duplicate in mimeograph withmy name as passenger in place of "machine gunner;" or, to put it anotherway, I was one joy-rider who must be officially delivered from anaerodrome in England to an aerodrome in France. Youth laughed when Itook that view. Had I ever flown before? Oh, yes, a fact that put thesituation still more at ease. "What kind of a 'bus would you like?" asked the master pilot. "We haveall kinds going over to-day. Take your choice. " I went out into the field to choose my steed and decided upon a big"pusher, " where both aviator and passenger sit forward with thepropeller and the roar of the motor behind them. She had been flown downacross England from the factory the day before and, tried out, was readyfor the channel passage. "You'll take her over, " said the master pilot to one of the groupwaiting their turn. Then it occurred to somebody that another official detail had beenoverlooked, and I had to give my name and address and next of kin tocomplete formalities which should impress novices, while youth looked onsmilingly at forty-three which was wise if not reckless. They put me inan aviator's rig with the addition of a life-belt in case we should geta ducking in the channel and I climbed up into my position for the longrun, a roomy place in the semi-circular bow of the beast which wasordinarily occupied by a machine gun and gunner. "She's a good old 'bus, very steady. You'll like her, " said one of thegroup of youngsters looking on. There were no straps, these being quite unnecessary, but also there wasno seat. "What is _à la mode_?" I asked. "Stand up if you like!" "Or sit on the edge and let your feet hang over!" We were all laughing, for the aviation corps is never gloomy. It risesand alights and fights and dies smilingly. "I like your hospitality, but not having been trained to trapeze workI'll play the Turk, " I replied, squatting with legs crossed; and in thisposition I was able to look over the railing right and left and forward. The world was mine. Flight being no new thing in the year 1916, I shall not indulge in anyrhetoric. The pertinence of the experience was entirely in the fact thatI was taking the aerial ferry which sent twenty planes a day to Franceon an average and perhaps fifty when the weather had held up traffic theprevious day. I was to buffet the clouds instead of the waves on acrowded steamer and have a glimpse behind the curtains of militarysecrecy of the wonders of resource and organization, which are acommonplace to the wonder-workers themselves. It was to be a straight, business flight, a matter of routine, a flightwithout any loitering on the way or covering unnecessary distance toreach the destination. There would be risks enough for the plane when itcrossed into the enemy's area with its machine gun in position. Thegleam of two lines of steel of a railroad set our course. After we hadrisen to a height of three or four thousand feet an occasional dash ofrain whipped your face, and again the soft mist of a cloud. It was real English weather, overcast; and England plotted under youreye, a vast garden with its hedges, fields and quiet villages, had neverbeen so fully realized in its rich greens. We overtook trains going inour direction and passed trains going in the opposite direction undertheir trailing spouts of steam. Only an occasional encampment of tentssuggested that the land was at war. The soft light melted the differenttones of the landscape together in a dreamy whole and always theimpression was of a land loved for its hedges, its pastures and itsisland seclusion, loved as a garden. In order to hold it secure thisplane was flying and the great army in France was fighting. After forty minutes of the exhilaration of flight which never growsstale, the pilot thumped one of the wings which gave out the sound of adrumhead to attract my attention and indicated an immense white arrow ona pasture pointing toward the bank of mist that hid the channel. Thiswas the guide-post of the aerial ferry. He wheeled around it in order togive me a better view, which was his only departure from routine before, on the line of the arrow's pointing, he took his course, leaving therailroad behind, while ahead the green carpet seemed to end in avaporish horizon. Usually as they rose for the channel crossing pilots ascended to aheight of ten thousand feet, in order that they should have range incase of engine trouble for a long glide which might permit them to reachshore, or, if they must alight in the sea, to descend close to a vessel. In both England and France along the established aerial pathway arecertain way stations fit to give rubber tires a soft welcome, withgasoline in store if a fresh supply is required. It was the pride of mypilot, who had formerly been in the navy and had come from South Africato "do his bit, " that in twenty crossings he had never had to make astop. To-day the clouds kept us down to an altitude of only fourthousand feet. Hills and valleys do not exist, all landscape being flat to theaviator's eye, as we know; but against reason some mental kink made mefeel that this optical law should not apply to the chalk cliffs when wecame to the coast, where only the green sward which crowns them wasvisible and beyond this a line of gray, the beach, which had an edge ofwhite lace that was moving--the surf. Soldiers who were returning from leave in the regular way were having ajumpy passage, as one knew by the whitecaps that looked like tiny whiteflowers on a pewter cloth; only if you looked steadily at one itdisappeared and others appeared in its place. Otherwise, the channel ina heavy sea was as still as a painted ocean with painted ships which, however fast they were moving, were making no headway to us traveling assmoothly in our 'bus as a motor boat on a glassy lake. I looked at my watch as we crossed the lace edging on the English sideand again as we crossed it on the French side. The time elapsed wasseventeen and a half minutes, which is not rapid going, even for thebroader part of the channel which we chose. The fastest plane, I amtold, has made it at the narrowest point in eight and a half minutes. Not going as high as usual, the pilot did not speed his motor, as thelower the altitude the more uncomfortable might be the result of enginetrouble to his passenger. Now, however, we were rising midway of the crossing into the gray bankoverhead; one second the channel floor was there and the next it wasnot. Underneath us was mist and ahead and behind and above us only mist, soft and cool against the face. We were wholly out of sight of land andwater, above the clouds, detached from earth, lost in the sky betweenEngland and France. This was the great moment to me. I was away from the sound of the guns;from the headlines of newspapers announcing the latest officialbulletins; from prisoners' camps and casualty clearing stations; fromdugouts and trenches and the Ridge. Here was real peace, the peace ofthe infinite--and no one could ask you when you thought the war would beover. You were nobody, yet again you were the whole population of theworld, you and the aviator and the plane, perfectly helpless in onesense and in another gloriously secure. Even he seemed a part of themachine carrying you swiftly on, without any sense of speed except thedriving freshness of the air in your face. I felt that I should not mindgoing on forever. Time was unlimited. There was only space and thehumming of the motor and the faintly gleaming circle of light of thepropeller and those two rigid wings with their tracery of braces. We were not long out of sight of land and water, but long enough to makeone wish to fly over the channel again, the next time at ten thousandfeet, when it was a gleaming swath hidden at times by patches ofluminous nimbus. The engine stopped. There was the silence of the clouds, cushionedsilence, cushioned by the mist. Next, we were on a noiseless tobogganand when we came to the end of a glide of a thousand feet or more, France loomed ahead with its lacework of surf and an expanse of chalkcliffs at an angle and landscape rising out of the haze. A few minutesmore and the salt thread that kept Napoleon out of England and has keptGermany out of England was behind us. We were over the Continent ofEurope. I had never before understood the character of both England and Franceso well. England was many little gardens correlated by roads and lanes;France was one great garden. Majestic in their suggestion ofspaciousness were those broad stretches of hedgeless, fenceless fields, their crop lines sharply drawn as are all lines from a plane, fieldsbetween the plots of woodland and the villages and towns, revealing aland where all the soil is tilled. Soon we were over camps that I knew and long, straight highways that Ihad often traveled in my comings and goings. But how empty seemed theroads where you were always passing motor trucks and guns! Long, graystreaks with occasional specks which, as you rose to a greater height, were lost like scattered beads melting into a ribbon! Reserve trenchesthat I had known, too, were white tracings on a flat surface in theirstandard contour of traverses. There was the chateau where I had livedfor months. Yes, I could identify that, and there the town where we wentto market. We flew around the tower of a cathedral low enough to see the peoplemoving in the streets, and then, in a final long glide, after an hourand fifty minutes in the air, the rubber wheels touched earth, rose andtouched it again before the steady old 'bus slowed down not far fromanother plane that had arrived only a few minutes previously. When a dayof good weather follows a day of bad and the arrivals are frequent, planes are flopping about this aerodrome like so many penguins beforethey are marshaled by the busy attendants in line along the edge of thefield or under the shelter of hangars. We had had none of those thrilling experiences which are supposed tohappen to aerial joy-riders, but had made a perfectly safe, normal trip, which, I repeat, was the real point of this wonderful business of theaerial ferry. I went into the office and officially reported my arrivalat the same time that the pilot reported delivery of his plane. "Good-night, " he said. "I'm off to catch the steamer to bring overanother 'bus to-morrow. " Waiting near by was my car and soldier chauffeur, who asked, in hisquiet English way, if I had had "a good flight, sir;" and soon I wasback in the atmosphere of the army as the car sped along the road, pastcamps, villages and motor trucks, until in the moonlight, as we cameover a hill, the cathedral tower of Amiens appeared above the dark massof the town against the dim horizon. XX THE EVER MIGHTY GUNS A thousand guns at the master's call--Schoolmaster of the guns--More and more guns but never too many--The gunner's skill which has life and death at stake--"Grandmother" first of the fifteen-inch howitzers--Soldier-mechanics--War still a matter of missiles--Improvements in gunnery--Third rail of the battlefield--The game of guns checkmating guns--A Niagara of death--A giant tube of steel painted in frog patches. How reconcile that urbane gunner-general, a genius among experts youwere told, as the master of a thunderous magic which shot its deadlylightnings over the German area! Let him move a red pin on the map and atractor was towing a nine-inch gun to a new position; a black pin and abattery of eighteen pounders took the road. A thousand guns answered hiscall with a hundred thousand shells when it pleased him. I stood in aweof him, for chaos seemed to be doing his bidding at the end of apushbutton. Whirlwind curtains of fire and creeping and leaping curtains were hisfamiliar servants, and he set the latest fashion by his improvements. Had the French or the Germans something new? This he applied. Had hesomething new? He passed on the method to the French and gave theGermans the benefit of its results. Observers seated in the baskets of observation balloons, aeroplanescircling low in risk of anti-aircraft fire, men sitting in tree-tops andothers in front-line trenches spotting the fall of shells were the eyesfor the science he was working out on his map. Those nests and lines ofguns that seemed to be simply sending shells into the blue from theirhiding-places played fortissimo and pianissimo under his baton. Hecorrelated their efforts, gave them purpose and system in their roaringtraffic of projectiles. Where Sir Douglas Haig was schoolmaster of the whole, he wasschoolmaster of the guns. After the grim days of the salient, when heworked with relics from fortresses and anything that could be improvisedagainst the German artillery, came the latest word in black-throated, fiery-tongued monsters from England where the new gunners had learnedtheir ABC's and he and his assistants were to teach them solid geometryand calculus and give them a toilsome experience, which was still moreuseful. His host kept increasing as more and more guns arrived, but never toomany. There cannot be too many. Plant them as thick as trees in a forestfor a depth of six or eight miles and there would not be enough by thecriterion of the infantry, to whom the fortunes of war increasinglyrelated to the nature of the artillery support. He must have smiled withthe satisfaction of a farmer over a big harvest yield that filled thegranary as the stack of shells at an ammunition depot spread over thefield, and he could go among his guns with the pride of a landowneramong his flocks. He knew all the diseases that guns were heir to andtheir weaknesses of temperament. A gun doctor was part of theestablishment. This specialist went among the guns and felt of theirpulses and listened to accounts of their symptoms and decided whetherthey could be cared for at a field hospital or would have to go back tothe base. Temperament? An old eight-inch howitzer which has helped in a dozencurtains of fire and blown in numerous dugouts may be a virtuoso fortemperament. Many things enter into mastery of the magic of thethunders, from clear eyesight of observers who see accurately toprecision of gunner's skill, of powder, of fuse, of a hundred trifleswhich can never be too meticulously watched. The erring inspector ofmunitions far away oversea by an oversight may cost the lives of manysoldiers or change the fate of a charge. Comparable only with the surgeon's skill in the skill which has life anddeath as the stake of its result is the gunner's. The surgeon is tryingto save one life which a slip of the knife may destroy; the gunner istrying both to save and to take life. In the gunner's skill life that isyoung and sturdy, muscles that are hardened by exercise and drill, manhood in its pink, must place its trust. A little carelessness or theslightest error and monsters with their long, fiery reach may strike youin the back instead of the enemy in front, and instead of dead andwounded and capitulation among smashed dugouts and machine gun positionsyou may be received by showers of bombs. No wonder that gunners workhard! No wonder that discipline is tightened by the screw of fearfulresponsibility! At the front we had a sort of reverence for Grandmother, the first ofthe fifteen-inch howitzers to arrive as the belated answer of "preparedEngland" who "forced the war" on "unprepared Germany" to the famousforty-two centimeters that pounded Liège and Maubeuge. GentlyGrandmother with her ugly mouth and short neck and mammoth supportingribs of steel was moved and nursed; for she, too, was temperamental. Afterward, Grandfather came and Uncle and Cousin and Aunt and many grownsons and daughters, until the British could have turned the city ofLille into ruins had they chosen; but they kept their destruction forthe villages on the Somme, which represent a property loss remarkablysmall, as the average village could be rebuilt for not over two hundredthousand dollars. Other children of smaller caliber also arrived in surprising numbers. Make no mistake about that nine-inch howitzer, which appears to be onlya monstrous tube of steel firing a monstrous shell, not being adelicately adjusted piece of mechanism. The gunner, his clothesoil-soaked, who has her breech apart pays no attention to the field ofguns around him or the burst of a shell a hundred yards away, no morethan the man with a motor breakdown pays to passing traffic. Is he asoldier? Yes, by his uniform, but primarily a mechanic, this man fromBirmingham, who is polishing that heavy piece of steel which, when itlocks in the breech, holds the shell fast in place and allows all theforce of the explosion to pass through the muzzle, while the recoilcylinder takes up the shock as nicely as on a battleship, with notremble of the base set in the débris of a village. He shakes his head, this preoccupied mechanician. It may be necessary to call in the gundoctor. His "how" has been in service a long time, but is not yetshowing the signs of general debility of the eight-inch battery near by. They have fired three times their allowance and are still good forsundry purposes in the gunner-general's play of red and black pins onhis map. The life of guns has surpassed all expectations; but thesmaller calibers forward and the _soixante-quinze_ must not suffer fromgeneral debility when they lay on a curtain of fire to cover a charge. War is still a matter of projectiles, of missiles thrown by powder, whether cannon or rifle, as it was in Napoleon's time, the change beingin range, precision and destructive power. The only new departure is theaeroplane, for the gas attack is another form of the Chinese stink-potand our old mystery friend Greek fire may claim antecedence to the_Flammenwerfer_. The tank with its machine guns applied the principle ofprojectiles from guns behind armor. Steel helmets would hardly beconsidered an innovation by mediæval knights. Bombs and hand grenadesand mortars are also old forms of warfare, and close-quarter fightingwith the bayonet, as was evident to all practical observers before thewar, will endure as long as the only way to occupy a position is by thepresence of men on the spot and as long as the defenders fight to holdit in an arena free of interference by guns which must hold their firein fear of injury to your own soldiers as well as to the enemy. With all the inventive genius of Europe applied in this war, the heatray or any other revolutionary means of killing which would make gunsand rifles powerless has not been developed. It is still a question ofthrowing or shooting projectiles accurately at your opponent, only whereonce it was javelin, or spear, or arrow, now it is a matter of shellsfor anywhere from one mile to twenty miles; and the more hits that youcould make with javelins or arrows and can make with shells the morelikely it is that victory will incline to your side. Where flights ofarrows hid the sun, barrages now blanket the earth. The improvement in shell fire is revolutionary enough of itself. Steadily the power of the guns has increased. What they may accomplishis well illustrated by the account of a German battalion on the Somme. When it was ten miles from the front a fifteen-inch shell struck in itsbillets just before it was ordered forward. On the way luck was againstit at every stage of progress and it suffered in turn from nine-inch, eight-inch and six-inch shells, not to mention bombs from an aviatorflying low, and afterward from eighteen pounders. When it reached thetrenches a preliminary bombardment was the stroke of fate that led tothe prompt capitulation of some two hundred survivors to a Britishcharge. The remainder of the thousand men was practically all casualtiesfrom shell-bursts, which, granting some exaggeration in a prisoner'stale, illustrates what killing the guns may wreak if the target is undertheir projectiles. The gunnery of 1915 seems almost amateurish to that of 1916, a facthardly revealed to the public by its reading of bulletins and of such aquantity of miscellaneous information that the significance of itbecomes obscure. At the start of the war the Germans had the advantageof many mobile howitzers and immense stores of high explosive shells, while the French were dependent on their _soixante-quinze_ and shrapnel;and at this disadvantage the brilliancy of their work with thiswonderful field gun on the Marne and in Lorraine was the most importantcontributory factor in saving France next to the vital one of Frenchcourage and organization. The Allies had to follow the German suit withhowitzers and high explosive shells and the cry for more and more gunsand more and more munitions for the business of blasting your enemy andhis positions to bits became universal. The first barrage, or curtain of fire, ever used to my knowledge was afeeble German effort in the Ypres salient in the autumn of 1914, thoughthe French drum fire distributed over a certain area had, in a sense, alike effect. To make certain of clearness about fundamentals familiar tothose at the front but to the general public only a symbol for somethingnot understood, a curtain of fire is a swath of fragments and bulletsfrom bursting projectiles which may stop a charge or prevent reservesfrom coming to the support of the front line. It is a barrier of death, the third rail of the battlefield. From the sky shrapnel descend withtheir showers of bullets, while the high explosives heave up the earthunder foot. Shrapnel largely went out of fashion in the period when highexplosives smashed in trenches and dugouts; but the answer was deeperdugouts too stoutly roofed to permit of penetration and shrapnelreturned to play a leading part again, as we shall see in thedescription of a charge under an up-to-date curtain of fire in anotherchapter. Counter-battery work is another one of the gunner-general's cares, whichrequires, as it were, the assistance of the detective branch. Before youcan fight you must find the enemy's guns in their hiding-places or takea chance on the probable location of his batteries, which willordinarily seek every copse, every sunken road and every reverse slope. The interesting captured essay on British fighting methods, by Generalvon Arnim, the general in command of the Germans opposite the British onthe Somme, with its minutiæ of directions indicative of how seriously heregarded the New Army, mentioned the superior means of reportingobservations to the guns used by British aeroplanes and warned Germangunners against taking what had formerly been obvious cover, becauseBritish artillery never failed to concentrate on those spots withdisastrous results. Where aeroplanes easily detect lines, be they roads or a column ofinfantry, as I have said, a battery in the open with guns and gunnersthe tint of the landscape is not readily distinguishable at the highaltitude to which anti-aircraft gunfire restricts aviators. When aconcentration begins on a battery, either the gunners must go to theirdugouts or run beyond the range of the shells until the "strafe" isover. If A could locate all of B's guns and had two thousand guns of hisown to keep B's two thousand silenced by counter-battery work and twothousand additional to turn on B's infantry positions, it would be onlya matter of continued charges under cover of curtains of fire until thesurvivors, under the gusts of shells with no support from their ownguns, would yield against such ghastly, hopeless odds. Such is the power of the guns--and such the game of guns checkmatingguns--in their effort to stop the enemy's curtains of fire whilemaintaining their own that the genius who finds a divining rod which, from a sausage balloon, will point out the position of every enemybattery has fame awaiting him second only to that of the inventor of asystem of distilling a death-dealing heat ray from the sun. And the captured gun! It is a prize no less dear to the infantry'sheart to-day than it was a hundred years ago. Our battalion took abattery! There is a thrill for every officer and man and all the friendsat home. Muzzle cracked by a direct hit, recoil cylinder broken, wheelsin kindling wood, shield fractured--there you have a trophy which isproof of accuracy to all gunners and an everlasting memorial in the townsquare to the heroism of the men of that locality. In the gunners' branch of the corps or division staff (which may be nextdoor to the telephone exchange where "Hello!" soldiers are busy all daykeeping guns, infantry, transport, staff and units, large and small, intouch) the visitor will linger as he listens to the talk of shop bythese experts in mechanical destruction. Generic discussions about whichcaliber of gun is most efficient for this and that purpose have thefloor when the result of a recent action does not furnish a freshertopic. There are faddists and old fogies of course, as in every otherband of experts. The reports of the infantry out of its experience undershell-bursts, which should be the gospel, may vary; for the infantrythink well of the guns when the charge goes home with casualties lightand ill when the going is bad. Every day charts go up to the commanders showing the expenditure ofammunition and the stock of different calibers on hand; for the army isa most fastidious bookkeeper. Always there must be immense reserves foran emergency, and on the Somme a day's allowance when the battle wasonly "growling" was a month's a year previous. Let the general say theword and fifty thousand more shells will be fired on Thursday than onWednesday. He throws off and on the switch of a Niagara of death. Theinfantry is the Oliver Twist of incessant demand. It would like a scoreof batteries turned on one machine gun, all the batteries in the armyagainst a battalion front, and a sheet of shells in the air night andday, as you yourself would wish if you were up in the firing-line. Guardians of the precious lives of their own men and destroyers of theenemy's, the guns keep vigil. Every night the flashes on the horizon area reminder to those in the distance that the battle never ends. Theirvoices are like none other except guns; the flash from their muzzles isas suggestive as the spark from a dynamo, which says that death is therefor reaching out your hand. Something docile is in their might, like theanswering of the elephant's bulk to the mahout's command, in theirnoiseless elevation and depression, and the bigger they are the smootherappears their recoil as they settle back into place ready for anothershot. The valleys where the guns hide play tricks with acoustics. Ihave sat on a hill with a dozen batteries firing under the brow andtheir crashes were hardly audible. "Only an artillery preparation, sir!" said an artilleryman as we startedup a slope stiff with guns, as the English say, all firing. You waitedyour chance to run by after a battery had fired and were on the waytoward the next one before the one behind sent another round hurtlingoverhead. The deep-throated roar of the big calibers is not so hard on the ears asthe crack of the smaller calibers. Returning, you go in face of theblasts and then, though it rarely happens, you have in mind, if you haveever been in front of one, the awkward possibility of a premature burstof a shell in your face. Signs tell you where those black mouths whichyou might not see are hidden, lest you walk straight into one as itbelches flame. When you have seen guns firing by thousands as far as theeye can reach from a hill; when you have seen every caliber at work andyour head aches from the noise, the thing becomes overpowering andmonotonous. Yet you return again, drawn by the uncanny fascination ofartillery power. Riding home one day after hours with the guns in an attack, I saw forthe first time one of the monster railroad guns firing as I passed by onthe road. Would I get out to watch it? I hesitated. Yes, of course. Butit was only another gun, a giant tube of steel painted in frog patchesto hide it from aerial observation; only another gun, though it sent atwo-thousand-pound projectile to a target ten miles away, which a manfrom a sausage balloon said was "on. " XXI BY THE WAY The River Somme--Amiens cathedral--Sunday afternoon promenaders--Women, old men and boys--A prosperous old town--Madame of the little Restaurant des Huîtres--The old waiter at the hotel--The stork and the sea-gull--Distinguished visitors--Horses and dogs--Water carts--Gossips of battle--The donkeys. What contrasts! There was none so pleasant as that when you took theriver road homeward after an action. Leaving behind the Ridge and thescarred slope and the crowding motor trucks in their cloud of dust, youwere in a green world soothing to eyes which were painful from watchingshell-blasts. Along the banks of the Somme on a hot day you might seewhite figures of muscle-armored youth washed clean of the grime of thefiring-line in the exhilaration of minutes, seconds, glowingly livedwithout regard to the morrow, shaking drops of water free from whiteskins, under the shade of trees untouched by shell fire, after a plungein cool waters. Then from a hill where a panorama was flung free to theeye, the Somme at your feet held islands of peace in its shining net asit broke away from confining green walls and wound across the plaintoward Amiens. The Somme is kindly by nature with a desire to embrace all the countryaround, and Amiens has trained its natural bent to man's service. It gave softer springs than those of any ambulance for big motor scowsthat brought the badly wounded down from the front past the rich marketgardens that sent their produce in other boats to market. Under bridgesits current was divided and subdivided until no one could tell which wasSomme and which canal, busy itself as the peasants and the shopkeepersdoing a good turn to humankind, grinding wheat in one place and inanother farther on turning a loom to weave the rich velvets for whichAmiens is famous, and between its stages of usefulness supplying aVenetian effect where balconies leaned across one of its subdivisions, an area of old houses on crooked, short streets at their back huddledwith a kind of ancient reverence near the great cathedral. At first you might be discriminative about the exterior of Amienscathedral, having in mind only the interior as being worth while. I wentinside frequently and the call to go was strongest after seeing anaction. Standing on that stone floor where princes and warriors hadstood through eight hundred years of the history of France, I have seenlooking up at the incomparable nave with its majestic symmetry, French_poilus_ in their faded blue, helmets in hand and perhaps the white ofa bandage showing, spruce generals who had a few hours away from theircommands, dust-laden dispatch riders, boyish officers with the bit ofblue ribbon that they had won for bravery on their breasts and knots ofprivates in worn khaki. The man who had been a laborer before he put onuniform was possessed by the same awe as the one who had been favored bybirth and education. A black-robed priest passing with his soft treadcould not have differed much to the eye from one who was there when theBlack Prince was fighting in France or the soldiers of Joan or of Condécame to look at the nave. The cathedral and the Somme helped to make you whole with the world andwith time. After weeks you ceased to be discriminative about theexterior. The cathedral was simply the cathedral. Returning from thefield, I knew where on every road I should have the first glimpse of itsserene, assertive mass above the sea of roofs--always there, always thesame, immortal; while the Ridge rocked with the Allied gun-blasts thatformed the police line of fire for its protection. I liked to walk up the canal tow-path where the townspeople went onSunday afternoons for their promenade, the blue of French soldiers onleave mingling with civilian black--soldiers with wives or mothers ontheir arms, safe for the time being. One scene reappears to memory as Iwrite: A young fellow back from the trenches bearing his sturdy boy oftwo on his shoulder and the black-eyed young mother walking beside him, both having eyes for nothing in the world except the boy. The old fishermen would tell you as they waited for a bite that theGerman was _fichu_, their faith in the credit of France unimpaired asthey lived on the income of the savings of their industry before theyretired. You asked gardeners about business, which you knew was goodwith that ever-hungry and spendthrift British Army "bulling" the market. One day while taking a walk, Beach Thomas and I saw a diver preparing togo down to examine the abutment of a bridge and we sat down to look onwith a lively interest, when we might have seen hundreds of guns firing. It was a change. Nights, after dispatches were written, Gibbs and I, anything but gory-minded, would walk in the silence, having the tow-pathto ourselves, and after a mutual agreement to talk of anything but thewar would revert to the same old subject. On other days when only "nibbling" was proceeding on the Ridge you mightstrike across country over the stubble, flushing partridges from theclover. And the women, the old men and the boys got in all the crops. How I do not know, except by rising early and keeping at it until dark, which is the way that most things worth while are accomplished in thisworld. Those boys from ten to sixteen who were driving the plow for nextyear's sowing had become men in their steadiness. Amiens was happy in the memory of the frustration of what might havehappened when her citizens looked at the posters, already valuablerelics, that had been put up by von Kluck's army as it passed through onthe way to its about-face on the Marne. The old town, out of the battlearea, out of the reach of shells, had prospered exceedingly. Shopkeepers, particularly those who sold oysters, fresh fish, fruits, cheese, all delicacies whatsoever to victims of iron rations in thetrenches, could retire on their profits unless they died from exhaustionin accumulating more. They took your money so politely that parting withit was a pleasure, no matter what the prices, though they were alwayslower for fresh eggs than in New York. We came to know all with the intimacy that war develops, but for sheercharacter and energy the blue ribbon goes to Madame of the littleRestaurant des Huîtres. She needed no gallant husband to make her amarshal's wife, as in the case of Sans-Gêne, for she was a marshalherself. She should have the _croix de guerre_ with all the stars and apalm, too, for knowing how to cook. A small stove which was as busywith its sizzling pans as a bombing party stood at the foot of a crampedstairway, whose ascent revealed a few tables, with none for two andeverybody sitting elbow to elbow, as it were, in the small dining-room. There were dishes enough and clean, too, and spotless serviettes, but nodisplay of porcelain and silver was necessary, for the food was asufficient attraction. Madame was all for action. If you did not orderquickly she did so for you, taking it for granted that a wavering mindindicated a palate that called for arbitrary treatment. She had a machine gun tongue on occasion. If you did not like herrestaurant it was clear that other customers were waiting for yourplace, and generals capitulated as promptly as lieutenants. Acamaraderie developed at table under the spur of her dynamic presenceand her occasional artillery concentrations, which were brief anddecisive, for she had no time to waste. Broiled lobster and sole, oysters, filets and chops, sizzling fried potatoes, crisp salads, mountains of forest strawberries with pots of thick cream and delectablecoffee descended from her hands, with no mistake in any orders or delayin the prompt succession of courses, on the cloth before you by somelegerdemain of manipulation in the narrow quarters to the accompanimentof her repartee. It was past understanding how she accomplished suchresults in quantity and quality on that single stove with the help ofone assistant whom, apparently, she found in the way at times; for theassistant would draw back in the manner of one who had put her fingerinto an electric fan as her mistress began a manipulation of pots andpans. If Madame des Huîtres should come to New York, I wonder--yes, she wouldbe overwhelmed by people who had anything like a trench appetite. Soonshe would be capitalized, with branches des Huîtres up and down theland, while she would no longer touch a skillet, but would ride in alimousine and grow fat, and I should not like her any more. People who could not get into des Huîtres or were not in the secretwhich, I fear, was selfishly kept by those who were, had to dine at thehotel, where a certain old waiter--all young ones being at thefront--though called mad could be made the object of method if he hadnot method in madness. When he seemed about to collapse with fatigue, tell him that there had been a big haul of German prisoners on the Ridgeand the blaze of delight in his dark eyes would galvanize him. If heshould falter again, a shout of, "_Vive l'Entente cordiale! En avant!_"would send him off with coat-tails at right angles to his body as hesprang into the midst of the riot of waiters outside the kitchen door, from which he would emerge triumphantly bearing the course that wasnext in order. Nor would he allow you to skip one. You must take themall or, as the penalty of breaking up the system, you went hungry. Outside in the court where you went for coffee and might sometimes getit if you gave the head waiter good news from the front, a stork and asea-gull with clipped wings posed at the fountain. What tales of battlewere told in sight of this incongruous pair whose antics relieved thestrain of war! When the stork took a step or two the gull plodded alongafter him and when the gull moved the stork also moved, the two neverbeing more than three or four feet apart. Yet each maintained anattitude of detachment as if loath to admit the slightest affection foreach other. Foolish birds, as many said and laughed at them; and again, heroes out of the hell on the Ridge and wholly unconscious of theirheroism said that the two had the wisdom of the ages, particularly thestork, though expert artillery opinion was that the practical gullthought that only his own watchfulness kept the wisdom of the ages frombeing drowned in the fountain in an absent-minded moment, though thewater was not up to a stork's ankle-joint. More nonsense, when the callwas for reaction from the mighty drama, was woven around theseentertainers by men who could not go to plays than would be credible topeople reading official bulletins; woven by dining parties of officerswho when dusk fell went indoors and gathered around the piano beforegoing into a charge on the morrow. At intervals men in civilian clothes, soft hats, gaiters over everydaytrousers, golf suits, hunting suits, appeared at the hotel or were seenstalking about captured German trenches, their garb as odd in thatordered world of khaki as powdered wig, knee-breeches and silver bucklesstrolling up Piccadilly or Fifth Avenue. Prime ministers, Cabinetmembers, great financiers, potentates, journalists, poets, artists ofmany nationalities came to do the town. They saw the Ridge under itsblanket of shell-smoke, the mighty columns of transport, all thecomplex, enormous organization of that secret world, peeked into Germandugouts, and in common with all observers estimated the distance of thenearest shell-burst from their own persons. Many were amazed to find that generals worked in chateaux over maps, directing by telephone, instead of standing on hilltops to give theircommands, and that war was a systematic business, which made those whohad been at the front writing and writing to prove that it was wonder ifnobody read what they wrote. An American who said that he did not seewhy all the trucks and horses and wagons and men did not lose their waywas suggestive of the first vivid impressions which the "new eye"brought to the scene. Another praised my first book for the way it hadmade life at the front clear and then proceeded to state his surprise atfinding that trenches did not run straight, but in traverses, and thatsoldiers lived in houses instead of tents and gunners did not see theirtargets. Now he had seen this mighty army at work for himself. It is theonly way. I give up hope of making others see it. So grim the processes of fighting, so lacking in picturesqueness, thatone welcomed any of the old symbols of war. I regretted yet rejoicedthat the horse was still a factor. It was good to think that thegasoline engine had saved the sore backs of the pack animals of otherdays, removed the horror of dead horses beside the road and horsesdriven to exhaustion by the urgency of fierce necessity, and that ashell in the transport meant a radiator smashed instead of flesh tornand scattered. Yet the horse was still serving man at the front and thedog still flattering him. I have seen dogs lying dead on the field wherethe mascot of a battalion had run along with the men in a charge; dogswere found in German dugouts, and one dog adopted by a corps staff hadrefused to leave the side of his fallen master, a German officer, untilthe body was removed. The horse brought four-footed life into the dead world of the slope, patiently drawing his load, mindless of gun-blasts and the shriek ofshell-fragments once he was habituated to them. As he can pass overrough ground, he goes into areas where no motor vehicle except the tanksmay go. He need not wait on the road-builders before he takes theeighteen pounders to their new positions or follows them withammunition. Far out on the field I have seen groups of artillery horseswaiting in a dip in the ground while their guns were within five hundredyards of the firing-line, and winding across dead fields toward anisolated battery the caisson horses trotting along with shells burstingaround them. Upon August days when the breeze that passed overhead was onlytantalization to men in communication trenches carrying up ammunitionand bombs, when dugouts were ovens, when the sun made the steel helmet ahot skillet-lid over throbbing temples, the horse-drawn water cartswound up the slope to assuage burning thirst and back again, between thegates of hell and the piping station, making no more fuss than a countrypostman on his rounds. Practically all the water that the fighters had, aside from what was intheir canteens, must be brought up in this way, for the village wellswere filled with the remains of shell-crushed houses. Gossips of battlethe water men, they and the stretcher-bearers both non-combatants goingand coming under the shells up to the battle line, but particularly sothe water men, who passed the time of day with every branch, eachworking in its own compartment. When the weather was bad the water man'sbusiness became slack and the lot of the stretcher-bearer grew worse inthe mud. What stories the stretcher-bearers brought in of wounded blownoff litters by shells, of the necessity of choosing the man most likelyto survive when only one of two could be carried, of whispered messagesfrom the dying, and themselves keeping to their work with cheery Britishphlegm; and the water men told of new gun positions, of where the shellswere thickest, of how the fight was going. It irritated the water men, prosaic in their disregard of danger, tohave a tank hit on the way out. If it were hit on the way back when itwas empty this was of less account, for new tanks were waiting inreserve. Tragedy for them was when a horse was killed and often theyreturned with horses wounded. It did not occur to the man that he mightbe hit; it was the loss of a horse or a tank that worried him. One hadhis cart knocked over by a salvo of shells and set upright by the next, whereupon, according to the account, he said to his mare: "Come on, Mary, I always told you the Boches were bad shots!" But there are toomany stories of the water men to repeat without sifting. We must not forget the little donkeys which the French brought fromAfrica to take the place of men in carrying supplies up to the trenches. Single file they trotted along on their errand and they had their ownhospitals for wounded. It is said that when curtains of fire began aheadthey would throw forward their long ears inquiringly and hug close tothe side of the trench for cover and even edge into a dugout with themen, who made room for as much donkey as possible, or when in the openthey would seek the shelter of shell-craters. Lest their perspicacity beunderrated, French soldiers even credited the wise elders among themwith the ability to distinguish between different calibers of shells. XXII THE MASTERY OF THE AIR "Nose dives" and "crashers"--The most intense duels in history--Aviators the pride of nations--Beauchamp--The D'Artagnan of the air--Mastery of the air--The aristocrat of war, the golden youth of adventure--Nearer immortality than any other living man can be--The British are reckless aviators--Aerial influence on the soldier's psychology--Varieties of aeroplanes--Immense numbers of aeroplanes in the battles in the air. Wing tip touching wing tip two phantoms passed in the mist fifteenthousand feet above the earth and British plane and German plane whichhad grazed each other were lost in the bank of cloud. The dark masswhich an aviator sees approaching when he is over the battlefield provesto be a fifteen-inch shell at the top of its parabola which passes tenfeet over his head. A German aviator thinking he is near home circlesdownward on an overcast day toward a British aerodrome to find out hismistake too late, and steps out of his machine to be asked by hiscaptors if he won't come in and have tea. Thus, true accounts that cometo the aviators' mess make it unnecessary to carry your imagination withyou at the front. They talk of "nose dives" and "crashers, " which mean the way an enemy'splane was brought down, and although they have no pose or theatricalismthe consciousness of belonging to the wonder corps of modern war is notlacking. One returns from a flight and finds that a three-inchanti-aircraft gun-shell has gone through the body of his plane. "So that was it! Hardly felt it!" he said. If the shell had exploded? Oh, well, that is a habit of shells; and inthat case the pilot would be in the German lines unrecognizable amongthe débris of his machine after a "crasher. " Where in the old West gunmen used to put a notch on their revolverhandle for every man killed, now in each aviator's record is the numberof enemy planes which he has brought down. When a Frenchman has ten hisname goes into the official bulletin. Everything contributes to urge onthe fighting aviator to more and more victims till one day he, too, is avictim. Never were duels so detached or so intense. No clashing ofsteel, no flecks of blood, only two men with wings. While the soldierfeels his weapon go home and the bomber sees his bomb in flight, theaviator watches for his opponent to drop forward in his seat as thefirst sign that he has lost control of his plane and of victory, and hedoes not hear the passing of the bullets that answer those from his ownmachine gun. One hero comes to take the place of another who has beenlost. A smiling English youth was embarrassed when asked how he broughtdown the great Immelmann, most famous of German aviators. Nelson's "Death or Westminster Abbey" has become paraphrased to "Deathor the _communiqué_. " At twenty-one, while a general of division isunknown except in the army an aviator's name may be the boast of anation. In him is expressed the national imagination, the sense ofhero-worship which people love to personify. The British aviation corpsstuck to anonymity until the giving of a Victoria Cross one day revealedthat Lieutenant Ball had brought down his twenty-sixth German plane. Soon after the taking of Fort Douaumont when I was at Verdun, Beauchamp, blond, blue-eyed and gentle of manner, who had thrilled all France bybombing Essen, said, "Now they will expect me to go farther and dosomething greater;" and I was not surprised to learn a month later thathe had been killed. Something in the way he spoke convinced me that heforesaw death and accepted it as a matter of course; and he realized, too, the penalty of being a hero. He had flown over Essen and droppedhis bombs and seen them burst, which was all of his story. The public thrill over such exploits is the greater because of theirsimplicity. An aviator has no experiences on the road; he cannot stop totalk to anyone. There is flight; there is a lever that releases a bomb;there is a machine gun. He may not indulge in psychology, which would bewool-gathering, when every faculty is objectively occupied. He isstrangely helpless, a human being borne through space by a machine, andwhen he returns to the mess he really has little to tell except as itrelates to mechanism and technique. The Royal Flying Corps, which is the official name, never wants forvolunteers. Ever the number of pilots is in excess of the number ofmachines. Young men with embroidered wings on their breasts, which provethat they have qualified, waited on factories to turn out wings forflying. Flight itself is simple, but the initiative equal to great deedsis another thing. Here you revert to an innate gift of the individualwho, finding in danger the zest of a glorious, curiosity, theintoxication of action, clear eye, steady hand answering lightningquickness of thought, becomes the D'Artagnan of the air. There is notelling what boyish neophyte will show a steady hand in daring thesupreme hazards with light heart, or what man whom his friends thoughtwas born for aviation may lack the touch of genius. Far up in the air there is an imaginary boundary line which lies overthe battle line; and there is another which may be on your side or onthe other side of the battle line. It is the location of the second linethat tells who has the mastery of the air. A word of bare and impressivemeaning this of mastery in war, which represents force withoutqualification; that the other man is down and you are up, the otherfends and you thrust. More glorious than the swift rush of destroyer toa battleship that of the British planes whose bombs brought down sixGerman sausage balloons in flames before the Grand Offensive began. I need never have visited an aerodrome on the Somme to know whetherBriton and Frenchman or German was master of the air. The answer wasthere whenever you looked in the heavens in the absence of iron crosseson the hovering or scudding or turning plane wings and the multiplicityof bull's-eyes; in the abandoned way that both British and Frenchpickets flew over the enemy area, as if space were theirs and they daredany interference. If you saw a German plane appear you could count threeor four Allied planes appearing from different directions to surroundit. The German had to go or be caught in a cross fire, and manoeuveredto his death. Mastery of the air is another essential of superiority for anoffensive; one of the vital features in the organized whole of anattack. As you press men and guns forward enemy planes must not locateyour movements. Your planes with fighting planes as interference mustforce a passage for your observers to spot the fall of shells on newtargets, to assist in reporting the progress of charges and to playtheir proper auxiliary part in the complex system of army intelligence. Before the offensive new aerodromes began to appear along the front atthe same time that new roads were building. An army that had lacked bothplanes and guns at the start now had both. Every aviator knew that hewas expected to gain and hold the mastery; his part was set no less thanthat of the infantry. Where should "the spirit that quickeneth" dwell ifnot with the aviators? No weary legs hamper him; he does not have tocrawl over the dead or hide in shell-craters or stand up to his knees inmire. He is the pampered aristocrat of war, the golden youth ofadventure. He leaves a comfortable bed, with bath, a good breakfast, thecomradeship of a pleasant mess, the care of servants, to mount hissteed. When he returns he has only to step out of his seat. Mechanicslook after his plane and refreshment and shade in summer and warmth inwinter await alike the spoiled child of the favored, adventurous corpswho has not the gift and never quite dares the great hazards as well asthe one who dares them to his certain end. All depends on the man. Rising ten or fifteen thousand feet, slipping in and out of clouds, theaviator breathes pure ozone on a dustless roadway, the world a carpetunder him; and though death is at his elbow it is no grimy companionlike death in the trenches. He is up or he is down, and when he is upthe thrill that holds his faculties permits of no apprehensions. Thereis no halfway business of ghastly wounds which foredoom survival as acripple. Alive, he is nearer immortality than any other living man canbe; dead, his spirit leaves him while he is in the heavens. Death comessplendidly, quickly, and until the last moment he is trying to keepcontrol of his machine. It is not for him to envy the days of cavalrycharges. He does not depend upon the companionship of other men to carryhim on, but is the autocrat of his own fate, the ruler of his owndreams. All hours of daylight are the same to him. At any time he may becalled to flight and perhaps to die. The glories of sunset and sunriseare his between the sun and the earth. You expect the British to be cool aviators, but with their phlegm, as wehave seen, goes that singular love of risk, of adventure, which sendsthem to shoot tigers and climb mountains. Indeed, the Englishman'sphlegm is a sort of leash holding in check a certain recklessness whichhis seeming casualness conceals. After it had become almost a law thatno aviator should descend lower than twelve thousand feet, Britishaviators on the Somme descended to three hundred, emptied their machineguns into the enemy, and escaped the patter of rifle fire which thesurprised German soldiers had hardly begun before the plane at two milesa minute or more was out of range. When Lord Kitchener was inspecting an aerodrome in France in 1914 hesaid: "One day you will be flying and evoluting in squadrons like thenavy;" and the aviators, then feeling their way step by step, smileddoubtfully, convinced that "K" had an imagination. A few months laterthe prophecy had come true and the types of planes had increased untilthey were as numerous as the types of guns. The swift falcon waiting fifteen thousand feet up for his prey to addanother to his list in the _communiqué_ is as distinct from the one inwhich I crossed the channel as the destroyer is from the cruiser andfrom some still bigger types as is the cruiser from a battleship. Whilethe enemy was being fought down, bombs were dropped not by pounds but bytons on villages and billets, on ammunition dumps and rail-heads, addingtheir destruction to that of the shells. There was more value in mastery than in destruction or in freedom ofobservation, for it affected the enemy's _morale_. A soldier likes tosee his own planes in the air and the enemy's being driven away. Theaerial influence on his psychology is enormous, for he can watch theplanes as he lies in a shell-crater with his machine gun or stands guardin the trench; he has glimpses of passing wings overhead between thebursts of shells. To know that his guns are not replying adequately andthat every time one of his planes appears it is driven to cover takesthe edge off initiative, courage and discipline, in the resentment thathe is handicapped. German prisoners used to say on the Somme that their aviators were"funks, " though the Allied aviators knew that it was not theiropponents' lack of courage which was the principal fault, even if theyhad lost _morale_ from being the under dog and lacked British and Frenchinitiative, but numbers and material. It was resource against resourceagain; a fight in the delicate business of the manufacture of thefragile framework, of the wonderful engines with their short lives, andof the skilled battalions of workers in factories. The Germans had tobring more planes from another front in order to restore the balance. The Allies foreseeing this brought still more themselves, till thenumbers were so immense that when a battle between a score of planes oneither side took place no one dared venture the opinion that the limithad been reached--not while there was so much room in the air andvolunteers for the aviation corps were so plentiful. XXIII A PATENT CURTAIN OF FIRE Thiepval again--Director of tactics of an army corps--Graduates of Staff Colleges--Army jargon--An army director's office--"Hope you will see a good show"--"This road is shelled; closed to vehicles"--A perfect summer afternoon--The view across No Man's Land--Nests of burrowers more cunning than any rodents--men--Tranquil preliminaries to an attack--The patent curtain of fire--Registering by practice shots--Running as men will run only from death--The tall officer who collapsed--"The shower of death. " "We had a good show day before yesterday, " said Brigadier-General PhilipHowell, when I went to call on him one day. "Sorry you were not here. You could have seen it excellently. " The corps of which he was general staff officer had taken a section offirst-line trench at Thiepval with more prisoners than casualties, whichis the kind of news they like to hear at General Headquarters. Thiepvalwas always in the background of the army's mind, the symbol of ranklingmemory which irritated British stubbornness and consoled the enemy forhis defeat of July 15th and his gradual loss of the Ridge. The Germans, on the defensive, considered that the failure to take Thiepval at thebeginning of the Somme battle proved its impregnability; the British, on the offensive, considered no place impregnable. Faintly visible from the hills around Albert, distinctly from theobservation post in a high tree, the remains of the village looked likea patch of coal dust smeared in a fold of the high ground. When Britishfifteen-inch shells made it their target some of the dust rose in agreat geyser and fell back into place; but there were cellars inThiepval which even fifteen-inch shells could not penetrate. "However, we'll make the Germans there form the habit of stayingindoors, " said a gunner. Howell who had the Thiepval task in hand I had first known at Uskub inMacedonia in the days of the Macedonian revolution, when Hilmi Pasha wasjuggling with the Powers of Europe and autonomy--days which seem faraway. A lieutenant then, Howell had an assignment from _The Times_, while home on leave from India, in order to make a study of the Balkansituation. In our walks around Uskub as we discussed the politics andthe armies of the world I found that all was grist that came to his keenmind. His ideas about soldiering were explicit and practical. It wassuch hard-working, observant officers as he, most of them students atone time or another at the Staff College, who, when the crisis came, asthe result of their application in peace time, became the organizers andcommanders of the New Army. The lieutenant I had met at Uskub was now, at thirty-eight, the director of the tactics of an army corps which wassolving the problem of reducing the most redoubtable of field works. Whenever I think of the Staff College I am reminded that at the close ofthe American Civil War the commanders of all the armies and most of thecorps were graduates of West Point, which serves to prove that a man ofability with a good military education has the start of one who has not, though no laws govern geniuses; and if we should ever have to fightanother great war I look for our generals to have studied at Leavenworthand when the war ends for the leaders to be men whom the public did notknow when it began. "We shall have another show to-morrow and I think that will be a goodone, too, " said Howell. All attacks are "shows;" big shows over two or three miles or more offront, little shows over a thousand yards or so, while five hundredyards is merely "cleaning up a trench. " It may seem a flippant way ofspeaking, but it is simply the application of jargon to the everydaywork of an organization. An attack that fails is a "washout, " for notall attacks succeed. If they did, progress would be a matter ofmarching. "Zero is at four; come at two, " Howell said when I was going. At two the next afternoon I found him occupied less with final detailsthan with the routine business of one who is clearing his deskpreparatory to a week-end holiday. Against the wall of what had beenonce a bedroom in the house of the leading citizen of the town, whichwas his office, he had an improvised bookkeeper's desk and on it werethe mapped plans of the afternoon's operation, which he had worked overwith the diligence and professional earnestness of an architect over hisblue prints. He had been over the ground and studied it with the care ofa landscape gardener who is going to make improvements. "A smoke barrage screen along there, " he explained, indicating the lineof a German trench, "but a real attack along here"--which soundedfamiliar from staff officers in chateaux. Every detail of the German positions was accurately outlined, yard byyard, their machine guns definitely located. "We're uncertain about that one, " he remarked, laying his pencil on themap symbol for an M. G. Trench mortars had another symbol, deep dugouts another. It was thebusiness of somebody to get all this information without beingcommunicative about his methods. Referring to a section of a hundredyards or more he remarked that an eager company commander had thoughtthat he could take a bit of German trench there and had taken it, whichmeant that the gunners had to be informed so as to rearrange the barrageor curtain of fire with the resulting necessity of fresh observationsand fresh registry of practice shots. I judged that Howell did not wantthe men to be too eager; he wanted them just eager enough. This game being played along the whole front has, of course, beenlikened to chess, with guns and men as pieces. I had in mind the dummyactors and dummy scenery with which stage managers try out their acts, only in this instance there was never any rehearsal on the actual stagewith the actual scenery unless a first attack had failed, as the Germanswill not permit such liberties except under machine gun fire. A call ortwo came over the telephone about some minor details, the principal onesbeing already settled. "It's time to go, " he said finally. The corps commander was downstairs in the dining-room comfortablysmoking his pipe after tea. There would be nothing for him to do untilnews of the attack had been received. "I hope you will see a good show, "he remarked, by way of _au revoir_. How earnestly he hoped it there is no use of mentioning here. It istaken for granted. Carefully thought out plans backed by hundreds ofguns and the lives of men at stake--and against the Thiepvalfortifications! "Yes, we'll make it nicely, " concluded Howell, as we went down thesteps. A man used to motoring ten miles to catch the nine-thirty to towncould not have been more certain of the disposal of his time than thissoldier on the way to an attack. His car which was waiting had a rightof way up to front such as is enjoyed only by the manager of the workson his own premises. Of course he paid no attention to the sign, "Thisroad is shelled; closed to vehicles, " at the beginning of a stretch ofroad which looked unused and desolate. "A car in front of me here the other day received a direct hit from a'krump, ' and car and passengers practically disappeared before my eyes, "he remarked, without further dwelling on the incident; for the Germanswere, in turn, irritated with the insistence of these stubborn Britishthat they could take Thiepval. Three prisoners in the barbed-wire inclosure that we passed lookedlonely. They must have been picked up in a little bombing affair in asap. "I think that they will have plenty of companions this evening, " saidHowell. "How they will enjoy their dinner!" He smiled in recollectionas did I of that familiar sight of prisoners eating. Nothing exciteshunger like a battle or gives such zest to appetite as knowledge thatyou are out of danger. I know that it is true and so does everybody atthe front. As his car knew no regulations except his wishes he might take it as faras it could go without trying to cross trenches. I wonder how long itwould have taken me if I had had a map and asked no questions to find myway to the gallery seat which Howell had chosen for watching the show. After we had passed guns with only one out of ten firing leisurely butall with their covers off, the gunners near their pieces and ampleammunition at hand, we cut straight up the slope, Howell glancing at hiswrist watch and asking if he were walking too fast for me. We droppedinto a communication trench at a point which experience had proven wasthe right place to begin to take cover. "This is a good place, " he said at length, and we rubbed our helmetswith some of the chalk lumps of the parapet, which left the black spotof our field glasses the only bit of us not in harmony with ourbackground. It was a perfect afternoon in late summer, without wind or excessiveheat, the blue sky unflecked; such an afternoon as you would choose forlolling in a hammock and reading a book. The foreground was a slopedownward to a little valley where the usual limbless tree-trunks werestanding in a grove that had been thoroughly shelled. No one was insight there, and an occasional German five-point-nine shell burst on themixture of splinters and earth. On the other side of the valley was a cut in the earth, a ditch, theBritish first-line trench, which was unoccupied, so far as I could see. Beyond lay the old No Man's Land where grass and weeds had grown wildfor two seasons, hiding the numerous shell-craters and the remains ofthe dead from the British charge of July 1st which had been repulsed. Onthe other side of this was two hundred yards of desolate stretch up tothe wavy, chalky excavation from the deep cutting of the Germanfirst-line trench, as distinct as a white line on dark-brown paper. There was no sign of life here, either, or to the rear where ran thenetwork of other excavations as the result of the almost two years ofGerman digging, the whole thrown in relief on the slope up to the baretrunks of two or three trees thrust upward from the smudge of the ruinsof Thiepval. Just a knoll in rolling farm country, that was all; but it concealedburrows upon burrows of burrowers more cunning than any rodents--men. Since July 1st the Germans had not been idle. They had had time toprofit from the lesson of the attack with additions and improvements. They had deepened dugouts and joined them by galleries; they had Box andCox hiding-places; nests defensible from all sides which became known asMystery Works and Wonder Works. The message of that gashed and spadedhillside was one of mortal defiance. Occasionally a British high explosive broke in the German trench and allup and down the line as far as we could see this desultory shell firewas proceeding, giving no sign of where the next attack was coming, which was part of the plan. "It's ten to four!" said Howell. "We were here in ample time. I hope weget them at relief, " which was when a battalion that had been on dutywas relieved by a battalion that had been in rest. He laid his map on the parapet and the location and plan of the attackbecame clear as a part of the extensive operations in theThiepval-Mouquet Farm sector. The British were turning the flank ofthese Thiepval positions as they swung in from the joint of the break ofJuly 1st up to the Pozières Ridge. A squeeze here and a squeeze there;an attack on that side and then on this; one bite after another. "I hope you will like our patent barrage, " said the artillery general, as he stopped for a moment on the way to a near-by observation post. "Weare thinking rather well of it ourselves of late. " He did not even haveto touch a pushbutton to turn on the current. He had set four as zero. I am not going to speak of suspense before the attack as being in thevery air and so forth. I felt it personally, but the Germans did notfeel it or, at least, the British did not want them to feel it. Therewas no more sign of an earthly storm brewing as one looked at the fieldthan of a thunderstorm as one looked at the sky. Perfect soporifictranquillity possessed the surroundings except for shell-bursts, andtheir meagerness intensified the aspect, strangely enough, on thatbattlefield where I had never seen a quieter afternoon since the Sommeoffensive had begun. One could ask nothing better than that thetranquillity should put the Germans to sleep. To the staff expert, however, the dead world lived without the sight of men. Every square rodof ground had some message. Of course, I knew what was coming at four o'clock, but I was amazed atits power and accuracy when it did come--this improved method ofartillery preparation, this patent curtain of fire. An outburst ofscreaming shells overhead that became a continuous, roaring sweep likethat of a number of endless railroad trains in the air signified thatthe guns which had been idle were all speaking. Every one by scatteredpractice shots had registered on the German first-line trench at thepoint where its shell-bursts would form its link in the chain ofbursts. Over the wavy line of chalk for the front of the attack brokethe flashes of cracking shrapnel jackets, whose bullets were whipping upspurts of chalk like spurts of dust on a road from a hailstorm. As the gun-blasts began I saw some figures rise up back of the Germantrench. I judged that they were the relief coming up or a working partythat had been under cover. These Germans had to make a quick decision:Would they try a leap for the dugouts or a leap to the rear? Theydecided on flight. A hundred-yard sprint and they would be out of thatmurderous swath laid so accurately on a narrow belt. They ran as menwill only run from death. No goose-stepping or "after you, sir" limitedtheir eagerness. I had to smile at their precipitancy and as somedropped it was hard to realize that they had fallen from death orwounds. They seemed only manikins in a pantomime. Then a lone figure stepped up out of a communication trench just back ofthe German first line. This tall officer, who could see nothing betweenwalls of earth where he was, stood up in full view looking around as iftaking stock of the situation, deciding, perhaps, whether that smokebarrage to his right now rolling out of the British trench was on thereal line of attack or was only for deception; observing and concludingwhat his men, I judge, were never to know, for, as a man will whenstruck a hard blow behind the knees, he collapsed suddenly and the earthswallowed him up before the bursts of shrapnel smoke had become so thickover the trench that it formed a curtain. There must have been a shell a minute to the yard. Shrapnel bullets werehissing into the mouths of dugouts; death was hugging every crevice, saying to the Germans: "Keep down! Keep out of the rain! If you try to get out with a machinegun you will be killed! Our infantry is coming!" XXIV WATCHING A CHARGE The British trench comes to life--The line goes forward--A modern charge no chance for heroics--Machine-like forward movement--The most wicked sound in a battle--The first machine gun--A beautiful barrage--The dreaded "shorts"--The barrage lifts to the second line--The leap into the trenches--Figures in green with hands up--Captured from dugouts--A man who made his choice and paid the price--German answering fire--Second part of the program--Again the protecting barrage--Success--Waves of men advancing behind waves of shell fire--Prisoners in good fettle--Brigadier-General Philip Howell. Now the British trench came to life. What seemed like a row ofkhaki-colored washbasins bottom side up and fast to a taut string roseout of the cut in the earth on the other side of the valley, and afterthem came the shoulders and bodies of British soldiers who beganclimbing over the parapet just as a man would come up the cellar stairs. This was the charge. Five minutes the barrage or curtain of fire was to last and five minuteswas the allotted time for these English soldiers to go from theirs tothe German trench which they were to take. So many paces to the minutewas the calculation of their rate of progress across that dreadful NoMan's Land, where machine guns and German curtains of fire had wroughtdeath in the preceding charge of July 1st. Every detail of the men's equipment was visible as their full-lengthfigures appeared on the background of the gray-green slope. They wereentirely exposed to fire from the German trench. Any tyro with a rifleon the German parapet could have brought down a man with every shot. Yetnone fell; all were going forward. I would watch the line over a hundred yards of breadth immediately infront of me, determined not to have my attention diverted to other partsof the attack and to make the most of this unique opportunity ofobservation in the concrete. The average layman conceives of a charge as a rush. So it is on thedrill-ground, but not where its movement is timed to arrival on thesecond before a hissing storm of death, and the attackers must not bewinded when there is hot work awaiting them in close encounters aroundtraverses and at the mouths of dugouts. No one was sprinting ahead ofhis companions; no one crying, "Come on, boys!" no one swinging hissteel helmet aloft, for he needed it for protection from any suddenburst of shrapnel. All were advancing at a rapid pace, keeping line andintervals except where they had to pass around shell-craters. If this charge had none of the display of other days it had all the morethrill because of its workmanlike and regulated progress. Noget-drunk-six-days-of-the-week-and-fight-like-h--l-on-Sunday business ofthe swashbuckling age before Thiepval. Every man must do his part ascoolly as if he were walking a tight rope with no net to catch him, withdeath to be reckoned with in the course of a systematic evolution. "Very good! A trifle eager there! Excellent!" Howell sweeping the fieldwith his glasses was speaking in the expert appreciation of a footballcoach watching his team at practice. "No machine guns yet, " he said forthe second time, showing the apprehension that was in his mind. I, too, had been listening for the staccato of the machine gun, which isthe most penetrating, mechanical and wicked, to my mind, of all theinstruments of the terrible battle orchestra, as sinister as theclicking of a switch which you know will derail a passenger train. Themen were halfway to the German trench, now. Two and a half minutes ofthe allotted five had passed. In my narrow sector of vision not one manhad yet fallen. They might have been in a manoeuver and their goal adeserted ditch. Looking right and left my eye ran along the line ofsturdy, moving backs which seemed less concerned than the spectator. Notonly because you were on their side but as the reward of theirsteadiness, you wanted them to conquer that stretch of first-linefortifications. Any second you expected to see the first shell-burst ofthe answering German barrage break in the midst of them. Then came the first sharp, metallic note which there is no mistaking, audible in the midst of shell-screams and gun-crashes, off to the right, chilling your heart, quickening your observation with awful curiosityand drawing your attention away from the men in front as you looked forsigns of a machine gun's gathering of a human harvest. Rat-tat-tat-tatin quick succession, then a pause before another series instead ofcontinuous and slower cracks, and you knew that it was not a German buta British machine gun farther away than you had thought. More than ever you rejoiced in every one of the bursts of storedlightning thick as fireflies in the blanket of smoke over the Germantrench, for every one meant a shower of bullets to keep down enemymachine guns. The French say "_Belle!_" when they see such a barrage, and beautiful is the word for it to those men who were going across thefield toward this shell-made nimbus looking too soft in the brightsunlight to have darts of death. All the shell-bursts seemed to be in abreadth of twenty or thirty yards. How could guns firing at a range offrom two to five thousand yards attain such accuracy! The men were three-quarters of the distance, now. As they drew nearer tothe barrage another apprehension numbed your thought. You feared to seea "short"--one of the shells from their own guns which did not carry farenough bursting among the men--and this, as one English soldier who hadbeen knocked over by a short said, with dry humor, was "verydiscouraging, sir, though I suppose it is well meant. " A terrible thing, that, to the public, killing your own men with your own shells. It isbetter to lose a few of them in this way than many from German machineguns by lifting the barrage too soon, but fear of public indignation hadits influence in the early days of British gunnery. The better thegunnery the closer the infantry can go and the greater its confidence. Ashell that bursts fifteen or twenty yards short means only the slightestfault in length of fuse, error of elevation, or fault in registry, backwhere the muzzles are pouring out their projectiles from the other sideof the slope. And there were no shorts that day. Every shell that I sawburst was "on. " It was perfect gunnery. Now it seemed that the men were going straight into the blanket over thetrenches still cut with flashes. Some forward ones who had become eagerwere at the edge of the area of dust-spatters from shrapnel bullets inthe white chalk. Didn't they know that another twenty yards meant death?Was their methodical phlegm such that they acted entirely by rule? No, they knew their part. They stopped and stood waiting. Others were on thesecond of the five minutes' allowance as suddenly all the flashes ceasedand nothing remained over the trench but the mantle of smoke. Thebarrage had been lifted from the first to the second-line German trenchas you lift the spray of a hose from one flower bed to another. This was the moment of action for the men of the charge, not one of whomhad yet fired a shot. Each man was distinctly outlined against the whitebackground as, bayonets glistening and hands drawn back with bombs readyto throw, they sprang forward to be at the mouths of the dugouts beforethe Germans came out. Some leaped directly into the trench, others ranalong the parapet a few steps looking for a vantage point or throwing abomb as they went before they descended. It was a quick, urgent, hit-and-run sort of business and in an instant all were out of sight andthe fighting was man to man, with the guns of both sides keeping theirhands off this conflict under ground. The entranced gaze for a momentleaving that line of chalk saw a second British wave advancing in thesame way as the first from the British first-line trench. "All in along the whole line. Bombing their way forward there!" saidHowell, with matter-of-fact understanding of the progress of events. I blinked tired eyes and once more pressed them to the twelve diametersof magnification, every diameter having full play in the clear light. Isaw nothing but little bursts of smoke rising out of the black streak inthe chalk which was the trench itself, each one from an egg of highexplosive thrown at close quarters but not numerous enough to leave anydoubt of the result and very evidently against a few recalcitrants whostill held out. Next, a British soldier appeared on the parapet and his attitude wasthat of one of the military police directing traffic at a busycrossroads close to the battle front. His part in the carefully workedout system was shown when a figure in green came out of the trench withhands held up in the approved signal of surrender the world over. Thefigure was the first of a file with hands up--and very much in earnestin this attitude, too, which is the one that the British and the Frenchconsider most becoming in a German--who were started on toward thefirst-line British trench. All along the front small bands of prisonerswere appearing in the same way. There would have been somethingridiculous about it, if it had not been so real. For the most part, the prisoners had been breached from dugouts whichhad no exit through galleries after the Germans had been held fast bythe barrage. It was either a case of coming out at once or being bombedto death in their holes; so they came out. "A live prisoner would be of more use to his fatherland one day than adead one, even though he had no more chance to fight again than a rabbitheld up by the ears, " as one of the German prisoners said. "More use to yourself, too, " remarked his captor. "That had occurred to me, also, " admitted the German. During the filing out of the different bags of prisoners two incidentspassed before my eye with a realism that would have been worth a smallfortune to a motion picture man if equally dramatic ones had not beenposed. A German sprang out of the trench, evidently either of a mind toresist or else in a panic, and dropped behind one of the piles of chalkthrown up in the process of excavation. A British soldier went after himand he held up his hands and was dispatched to join one of the groups. Another who sought cover in the same way was of different temperament, or perhaps resistance was inspired by the fact that he had a bomb. Hethrew it at a British soldier who seemed to dodge it and drop on allfours, the bomb bursting behind him. Bombs then came from all directionsat the German. There was no time to parley; he had made his choice andmust pay the price. He rolled over after the smoke had risen from theexplosions and then remained a still green blot against the chalk. ABritish soldier bent over the figure in a hasty examination and thensprang into the trench, where evidently he was needed. "The Germans are very slow with their shell fire, " said Howell in thecourse of his ejaculations, as he watched the operations. Answering barrages, including a visitation to our own position which wascompletely exposed, were in order. Howell himself had been knocked overby a shell here during the last attack. One explanation given later by aGerman officer for the tardiness of the German guns was that the staffhad thought the British too stupid to attack from that direction, whichpleased Howell as showing the advantage of racial reputation as an aidto strategy. However, the German artillery was not altogether unresponsive. It wasputting some "krumps" into the neighborhood of the British first lineand one of the bands of prisoners ran into the burst of afive-point-nine. Ran is the word, for they were going as fast as theycould to get beyond their own curtain of fire, which experience toldthem would soon be due. I saw this lot submerged in the spout of smokeand dust but did not see how many if any were hit, as the sound of amachine gun drew my attention across the dead grass of the old No Man'sLand to the German--I should say the former German--first-line trenchwhere an Englishman had his machine gun on the _parados_ and wassweeping the field across to the German second-line trench. Perhaps someof the Germans who had run away from the barrage at the start had beenhiding in shell-craters or had shown signs of moving or there weretargets elsewhere. So far so good, as Howell remarked. That supposedly impregnable Germanfortification that had repulsed the first British attempt had been takenas easily as if it were a boy's snow fort, thanks to the patent curtainof fire and the skill that had been developed by battle lessons. It wasretribution for the men who had fallen in vain on July 1st. Howell wasnot thinking of that, but of the second objective in the afternoon'splan. By this time not more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed sincethe first charge had "gone over the lid. " Out of the cut in the welt ofchalk the line of helmets rose again and England started across thefield toward the German second-line trench, which was really a part ofthe main first-line fortification on the slope, in the same manner astoward the first. What about their protecting barrage? My eyes had been so intentlyoccupied that my ears had been uncommunicative and in a start of gladsurprise I realized that the same infernal sweep of shells was goingoverhead and farther up on the Ridge fireflies were flashing out of themantle of smoke that blanketed the second line. Now the backgroundbetter absorbed the khaki tint and the figures of the men became moreand more hazy until they disappeared altogether as the flashes in frontof them ceased. Howell had to translate from the signals results which Icould not visually verify. One by one items of news appeared in rocketflashes through the gathering haze which began to obscure the slopeitself. "I think we have everything that we expected to take this afternoon, "said Howell, at length. "The Germans are very slow to respond. I thinkwe rather took them by surprise. " They had not even begun shelling their old first line, which they oughtto have known was now in British possession and which they must have hadregistered, as a matter of course; or possibly their own intelligencewas poor and they had no real information of what had been proceeding onthe slope under the clouds of smoke, or their wires had been cut andtheir messengers killed by shell fire. This was certain, that theBritish in the first-line German trench had a choice lot of dugouts ingood condition for shelter, as the patent barrage does not smash in theenemy's homes, only closes the doors with curtains of death. "I hope you're improving your dugouts, " British soldiers would call outacross No Man's Land, "as that is all the better for us when we takethem!" We stayed on till Howell's expert eye had had its fill of details, withno burst of shells to interfere with our comfort; though by the rules weought to have had a good "strafing, " which was another reminder of mydebt to the German for his consideration to the American correspondentat the British front. "What do you think of our patent barrage, now?" said the artillerygeneral returning from his post of observation. "Wonderful!" was all that one could say. "A good show!" said Howell. The rejoicing of both was better expressed in their eyes than in words. Good news, too, for the corps commander smoking his pipe and waiting, and for every battalion engaged--oh, particularly for the battalions! "Congratulations!" The exclamation was passed back and forth as we metother officers on our way to brigade headquarters in a dugout on thehillside, where Howell's felicitations to the happy brigadier on the waythat his men had gone in were followed by suggestions and a discussionabout future plans, which I left to them while I had a look through thebrigadier's telescope at Thiepval Ridge under the patterns of shell fireof average days, which proved that the Germans were making no attempt ata counter-attack to recover lost ground. I imagined that the Germanstaff was dumfounded to hear that their redoubtable old first line couldpossibly have been taken with so little fireworks. It was when I came to the guns on our return that I felt an awe which Iwanted to translate into appreciation. They were firing slowly now ornot firing at all, and the idle gunners were lounging about. They hadnot seen their own curtain of fire or the infantry charge; they had beenas detached from the action as the crew of a battleship turret. It wastheir accuracy and their coördination with the infantry and theinfantry's coördination with the barrage that had expressed better thanvolumes of reports the possibilities of the offensive with waves of menadvancing behind waves of shell fire, which was applied in the taking ofDouaumont later and must be the solution of the problem of a decisionon the Western front. Above the communication trenches the steel helmets of the British andthe gray fatigue caps of German prisoners were bobbing toward the rearand at the casualty clearing station the doctor said, "Very light!" inanswer to the question about losses. The prisoners were in unusuallygood fettle even for men safe out of shell fire; many had no chalk ontheir clothes to indicate a struggle. They had been sitting in theirdugouts and walked out when an Englishman appeared at the door. Yes, they said that they had been caught just before relief, and the reliefhad been carried out in an unexpected fashion. If they must be takenthey, too, liked the patent barrage. "I'll let you know when there's to be another show, " said Howell, as weparted at corps headquarters; but none could ever surpass this one inits success or its opportunity of intimate observation. This was the last time I saw him. A few days later, on one of his toursto study the ground for an attack, he was killed by a shell. Army custompermits the mention of his name because he is dead. He was a steadfastfriend, an able soldier, an upright, kindly, high-minded gentleman; andwhen I was asked, not by the lady who had never kept up her interest solong in anything as in this war, but by another, if living at the frontis a big strain, the answer is in the word that comes that a man whomyou have just seen in the fulness of life and strength is gone. XXV CANADA IS STUBBORN What is Canada fighting for?--The Kaiser has brought Canadians together--The land of immense distances--Canada's unfaltering spirit--Canada our nearest neighbor geographically and sentimentally--Ypres salient mud--Canadians invented the trench raid--A wrestling fight in the mud--Germans "try it on" the Canadians--"The limit" in artillery fire--Maple Leaf spirit--Baseball talk on the firing line--A good sprinkling of Americans. One day the Canadians were to lift their feet out of the mire of theYpres salient and take the high, dry road to the Somme front, and anyonewith a whit of chivalry in his soul would have rejoiced to know thatthey were to have their part in the big movement of Sept. 15th. But letus consider other things and other fighting before we come to the takingof Courcelette. When I was home in the winter of 1915-16, for the first time the borderbetween the United States and Canada drew a line in sharp contrasts. Thenewspapers in Canada had their casualty lists, parents were giving theirsons and wives their husbands to go three thousand miles to endurehardship and risk death for a cause which to them had no qualificationsof a philosophic internationalism. Everything was distinct. Sacrificeand fortitude, life and death, and the simple meaning words were mastersof the vocabulary. Some people might ask why Canada should be pouring out her blood inEurope; what had Flanders to do with her? England was fighting to saveher island, France for the sanctity of her soil, but what was Canadafighting for? As I understood it, she was fighting for Canada. A blowhad been struck against her, though it was struck across the Atlantic, and across the Atlantic she was going to strike back. She had had no great formative war. Pardeburg was a kind of expeditionof brave men, like the taking of San Juan Hill. It did not sink deepinto the consciousness of the average Canadian, who knew only that someneighbor of his had been in South Africa. Our own formative war was theRevolution, not the Civil War where brother fought brother. TheRevolution made a mold which, perhaps, instead of being impressed uponsucceeding generations of immigrants may have only given a veneer tothem. A war may be necessary to make them molten for another shaping. No country wanted war less than Canada, but when war came its flame madeCanada molten with Canadian patriotism. As George III. Brought theCarolinas and Massachusetts together, so the Kaiser has brought theCanadian provinces together. The men from that cultivated, rollingcountry of Southern Ontario, from New Brunswick and the plains and thecoast and a quota from the neat farms of Quebec have met face to face, not on railroad trains, not through representatives in Parliament or inconvention, but in billets and trenches. Whatever Canada is, she is notsmall. She is particularly the land of immense distances; her breadth isgreater than that of the United States. All of the great territorialexpanse of Canada in its manhood, in the thoughts of those at home, wascentered in a few square miles of Flanders. I was in Canada when only the first division had had its trial andrecruiting was at full blast; and again when three hundred and fiftythousand had joined the colors and Canada, now feeling the full measureof loss of life, seemed unfaltering, which was the more remarkable in anew country where livelihood is easy to gain and Opportunity knocks atthe door of youth if he has only the energy to take her by the hand andgo her way. I may add that not all the youth about Toronto or any othertown who gave as their reason for not enlisting that they were Americancitizens actually were. They were not "too _proud_ to fight, " whateverother reason they had, for they had no pride; and if honest Quakers theywould not have given a lying excuse. Out in France I heard talk about this Canadian brigade being better thanthat one, and that an Eastern Canada man wanted no leading from aWestern Canada man, and that not all who were winning military crosseswere hardy frontiersmen but some were lawyers and clerks in Montreal orToronto--or should I put Toronto first, or perhaps Ottawa orWinnipeg--and more talk expressive of the rivalry which generals say isgood for spirit of corps. Moose Jaw Street was across from HalifaxAvenue and Vancouver Road from Hamilton Place in the same community. As I was not connected with any part of Canada, the Canadians, withtheir Maple Leaf emblem, were all Canadians to me; men across the borderwhich we pass in coming and going without change of language orsteam-heated cars or iced-water tanks. Some Canadians think that theUnited States with its more than a hundred millions may feel patronizingtoward their eight millions, when after Courcelette if a Canadian hadpatronized the United States I should not have felt offended. I haveeven heard some fools say that the two countries might yet go to war, which shows how absurd some men have to be in order to attractattention. All of this way of thinking on both sides should be placed ona raft in the middle of Lake Erie and supplied with bombs to fight itout among themselves under a curtain of fire; and their relatives oughtto feel a deep relief after the excursion steamers that came fromToronto, Cleveland and Buffalo to see the show had returned home. To listen to certain narrators you might think that it was the Allieswho always got the worst of it in the Ypres salient, but the German didnot like the salient any better than they. I never met anybody who didlike it. German prisoners said that German soldiers regarded it as asentence of death to be sent to the salient. There are many kinds of mudand then there is Ypres salient mud, which is all kinds together with aBelgian admixture. I sometimes thought that the hellish outbreaks byboth sides in this region were due to the reason which might have madeJob run amuck if all the temper he had stored up should have broken outin a storm. This is certain, that the Canadians took their share in the buffets inthe mud, not through any staff calculation but partly through Germanfavoritism and the workings of German psychology. Consider that thefirst volunteer troops to be put in the battle line in France weeksbefore any of Kitchener's Army was the first Canadian division, inanswer to its own request for action, which is sufficient soldierlytribute of a commander to Canadian valor! That proud first division, after it had been well mud-soaked and had its hand in, was caught inthe gas attack. It refused to yield when it was only human to yield, andstood resolute in the fumes between the Germans and success and evencounter-attacked. Moreover, it was Canadians who introduced the trenchraid. If the Canadians did not particularly love the Germans, do you see anyreason why the Germans should love the Canadians? It was unpleasant tosuffer repulse by troops from an unmilitary, new country. Besides, German psychology reasoned that if Canadians at the front were made tosuffer heavy losses the men at home would be discouraged from enlisting. Why not? What had Canada to gain by coming to fight in France? It doesnot appear an illogical hypothesis until you know the Canadians. However, it must not be understood that other battalions, brigades anddivisions, English and Scotch, did not suffer as heavily as theCanadians. They did; and do not forget that in the area which has seenthe hardest, bloodiest, meanest, nastiest, ghastliest fighting in thehistory of the world the Germans, too, have had their full share oflosses. The truth is that if any normal man was stuck in the mud of theYpres salient and another wanted his place he would say, "Take it! I'monly trying to get out! We've got equally bad morasses in the UpperYukon;" and retire to a hill and set up a machine gun. When a Canadian officer was asked if he had organized some trenches thathis battalion had taken his reply, "How can you organize pea soup?"filled a long-felt want in expression to characterize the nature oftrench-making in that kind of terrain. Yet in that sea of slimy andinfected mush men have fought for the possession of cubic feet of themixture as if it had the qualities of Balm of Gilead--which was alsological. What appears most illogical to the outsider is sometimes mostlogical in war. It was a fight for mastery, and mastery is the firststep in a war of frontal positions. Many lessons the Canadians had to learn about organization and staffwork, about details of discipline which make for homogeneity of action, and the divisions that came to join the first one learned their lessonsin the Ypres salient school, which gave hard but lasting tuition. I wasaway when at St. Eloi they were put to such tests as only the salientcan provide. The time was winter, when chill water filled theshell-craters and the soil oozed out of sandbags and the mist was acold, wet poultice. Men bred to a dry climate had to fight in a climatebetter suited to the Englishman or the German than to the Canadian. There could be no dugouts. Lift a spade of earth below the earth leveland it became a puddle. It was a wrestling fight in the mud, this, holding onto shell-craters and the soft remains of trenches. The Germanshad heard that the Canadians were highstrung, nervous, quick for theoffensive, but badly organized and poor at sticking. The Canadiansproved that they could be stubborn and that their soldiers, even if theyhad not had the directing system of an army staff that had prepared forforty years, with two years of experience could act on their own inresisting as well as in attacking. "Our men! our men!" the officerswould say. That was it: Canada's men, learning tactics in face of Germantactics and holding their own! When all was peaceable up and down the line, with the Grand Offensive amonth away, the Germans once more "tried it on" the Canadians in theHooge and Mount Sorrell sector, where the positions were all in favor ofthe Germans with room to plant two guns to one around the bulgingBritish line. For many days they had been quietly registering as theymassed their artillery for their last serious effort during the seasonof 1916 in the north. Anything done to the Canadians always came close home to me; and news ofthis attack and of its ferocity to anyone knowing the positions wasbound to carry apprehension, lasting only until we learned that theCanadians were already counter-attacking, which set your pulse tinglingand little joy-bells ringing in your head. It meant, too, that theGermans could not have developed any offensive that would be serious tothe situation as a whole at that moment, in the midst of preparationsfor the Somme. Nothing could be seen of the fight, even had one knownthat it was coming, in that flat region where everyone has to follow acommunication trench with only the sky directly overhead visible. There was an epic quality in the story of what happened as you heard itfrom the survivors. It was an average quiet morning in the first-linetrenches when the German hurricane broke from all sides; but first-linetrenches is not the right phrase, for all the protection that could bemade was layers of sandbags laboriously filled and piled to a thicknesssufficient to stop a bullet at short range. What luxury in security were the dugouts of the Somme hills compared tothe protection that could be provided here! When the first series ofbursts announced the storm you could not descend a flight of steps to acavern whose roof was impenetrable even by five-hundred-pound shells. Little houses of sandbags with corrugated tin roofs, in some instanceslevel with the earth, which any direct hit could "do in" were the bestthat generous army resources could permit. High explosive shells mustturn such breastworks into rags and heaps of earth. There was nothing toshoot at if a man tried to stick to the parapet, for fresh troops fullyequipped for their task back in the German trenches waited on demolitionof the Canadian breastworks before advancing under their own barrage. Shrapnel sent down its showers, while the trench walls were opened ingreat gaps and tossed heavenward. Officers clambered about in the midstof the spouts of dust and smoke over the piles and around the craters, trying to keep in touch with their men, when it was a case of every mantaking what cover he could. "The limit!" as the men said. "The absolute limit in an artilleryconcentration!" But they did not go--not until they had orders. This was their kind ofdiscipline under fire; they "stayed on the job. " One group charged outbeyond the swath of fire to meet the Germans in the open and therefought to the death in expression of characteristic initiative. Whenword was passed to retire, some grudgingly held on to fight theoutnumbering Germans in the midst of the débris and escaped only bypassing through the German barrage placed between the first and secondline to cover the German advance on the second. The supports themselvesunder the carefully arranged pattern of shell fire held as therallying-points of the survivors, who found the communication trenchesso badly broken that it was as well to keep in the open. Little knots ofmen with their defenses crushed held from the instinctive sense ofindividual stubbornness. To tell the whole story of that day as of many other days where a fewbattalions were engaged, giving its fair due to each group in thestruggle, is not for a correspondent who had to cover the length of thebattle line and sees the whole as an example of Maple Leaf spirit. Therest is for battalion historians, who will find themselves puzzled aboutan action where there was little range of vision and this obscured byshell-smoke and the preoccupation of each man trying to keep cover anddo his own part to the death. In the farmhouses afterward, as groups of officers tried to assembletheir experiences, I had the feeling of being in touch with the proof ofall that I had seen in Canada months previously. Losses had been heavyfor the battalions engaged though not for the Canadian corps as a whole, no heavier than British battalions or the Germans had suffered in thesalient. Canada happened to get the blow this time. The men, after a night's sleep and writing home that they were safe andhow comrades had died, might wander about the roads or make holiday asthey chose. They were not casual about the fight, but outspoken andfrank, Canadian fashion. They realized what they had been through andspoke of their luck in having survived. From the fields came the cry of, "Leave that to me!" as a fly rose from the bat, or, "Out on first!" asmen took a rest from shell-curves and high explosives with baseballcurves and hot liners between the bases, which was very homelike therein Flanders. Which of the players was American one could not tell byvoice or looks, for the climate along the border makes a type ofcomplexion and even of features with the second generation which isreadily distinguished from the English type. "What part of Canada do you come from?" asked an officer of a private. "Out west, sir!" "What part of the west?" "'Way out west, sir!" "An officer is asking you. Be definite. " "Well, the State of Washington, sir. " There was a good sprinkling of Americans in the battle, includingofficers; but on the baseball field and the battlefield they were a partof the whole, performing their task in a way that left no doubt oftheir quality. Whether the spirit of adventure or the principle at stakehad brought her battalions to Flanders, Canada had proved that she couldbe stubborn. She was to have her chance to prove that she could bequick. XXVI THE TANKS ARRIVE The New Army Irish--Irish wit--And Irish courage--Pompous Prussian Guard officer--The British Guards and their characteristics--Who invented the tank?--The great secret--Combination of an armadillo, a caterpillar, a diplodocus, a motor car and a traveling circus--Something really new on the front--Gas attacks--A tank in the road--A moving "strong point"--Making an army laugh--Suspense for the inmates of the untried tanks. The situation on the Ridge was where we left it in a previous chapterwith all except a few parts of it held, enough for a jumping-off placeat all points for the sweep down into the valley toward Bapaume. In thegrim preliminary business of piecemeal gains which should make possiblean operation over a six-mile front on Sept. 15th, which was the firstgeneral attack since July 14th, the part that the Irish battalionsplayed deserves notice, where possibly the action of the tried andsturdy English regiments on their flanks need not be mentioned, as beingcharacteristic of the work they had been doing for months. They were the New Army Irish, all volunteers, men who had enlisted tofight against Germany when their countrymen were largely disaffected, which requires more initiative than to join the colors when it is theuniversal passion of the community. Many stories were told of this Irishdivision. If there are ten Irishmen among a hundred soldiers the storieshave a way of being about the ten Irishmen. I like that one of the Connaught man who, on his first day in thetrenches, was set to digging out the dirt that had been filled into atrench by a shell-burst. Along came another shell before he was halfthrough his task; the burst of a second knocked him over and doubled thequantity of earth before him. When he picked himself up he went to thecaptain and threw down his spade, saying: "Captain, I can't finish that job without help. They're gaining on me!" Some people thought that the Sinn Fein movement which had lately brokenout in the Dublin riots would make the new Irish battalions lukewarm inany action. They would go in but without putting spirit into theirattack. Other skeptics questioned if the Irish temperament which waswell suited to dashing charges would adapt itself to the matter-of-factnecessities of the Somme fighting. Their commander, however, had nodoubts; and the army had none when the test was made. Through Guillemont, that wicked resort of machine guns, which had beenas severely hammered by shell fire after it had repulsed British attacksas any village on the Somme, the Irish swept in good order, cleaning updugouts and taking prisoners on the way with all the skill of veteransand a full relish of the exploit, and then forward, as a well-linkedpart of a successful battle line, to the sunken road which was thesecond objective. "I thought we were to take a village, Captain, " said one of the men, after they were established in the sunken road. "What are we stoppinghere for?" "We have taken it. You passed through it--that grimy patchyonder"--which was Guillemont's streets and houses mixed in ruins fivehundred yards to the rear. "You're sure, Captain?" "Quite!" "Well, then, I'd not like to be the drunken man that tried to find hiskeyhole in that town!" It was a pity, perhaps, that the Irish who assisted in the taking ofGinchy, which completed the needful mastery of the Ridge for Britishpurposes, could not have taken part in the drive that was to follow. Wehad looked forward to this drive as the reward of a down hill run afterthe patient labor of wrenching our way up hill. Even the Germans, whohad suffered appalling losses in trying to hold the Ridge, must havebeen relieved that they no longer had to fight against the inevitable. Again the clans were gathering and again there ran through the army theanticipation which came from the preparation for a great blow. TheCanadians were appearing in billets back of the front. If in no otherway, I should have known of their presence by their habit of movingabout roads and fields getting acquainted with their surroundings andfinding out if apples were ripe. For other portions of the country itwas a little unfair that these generous and well-paid spenders shouldtake the place of the opulent Australians in villages where small boysalready had hordes of pennies and shopkeepers were hastening toreplenish their stocks to be equal to their opportunities. At last the Guards, too, were to have their turn, but not to go inagainst the Prussian Guard, which those with a sense of histrionicfitness desired. When a Prussian Guard officer had been taken atContalmaison he had said, "The Prussian Guard feels that it issurrendering to a foe worthy of its steel when it yields to superiornumbers of the English Guard!" or words to that effect according toreports, only to receive the answer that his captors were Englishfactory hands and the like of the New Army, whose officers excusedthemselves, in the circumstances, for their identity as politely asthey could. Grenadiers, Coldstreams, Scottish, or Irish, the Guards were the Guards, England's crack regiments, the officers of each wearing their buttons ina distinctive way and the tall privates saluting with the distinctiveGuards' salute. In the Guards the old spirit of gaiety in face of dangersurvived. Their officers out in shell-craters under curtains of firejoked one another with an aristocratic, genial sangfroid, the slenderman who had a nine-inch crater boasting of his luck over the thicksetman who tried to accommodate himself to a five-inch, while a colonelblew his hunting-horn in the charge, which the Guards made in a mannerworthy of tradition. Though the English would have been glad to go against the Prussian Guardwith bayonet or bomb or a free-for-all, army commanders in these daysare not signaling to the enemy, "Let us have a go between your Guardsand our Guards!" but are putting crack regiments and line regiments in abattle line to a common task, where the only criterion is success. The presence of the Guards, however, yielded interest to another newarrival on the Somme front. When the plan for a style of armored motorcar which would cross shell-craters and trenches was laid before aneminent general at the War Office, what he wrote in dismissing it fromfurther consideration might have been more blasphemous if he could havespared the time to be anything but satirically brief. Such conservativesprobably have prevented many improvements from materializing, andprobably they have also saved the world from many futile creations whichwould only have wasted time and material. Happily both for geniuses and fools, who all, in the long run, let ushope, receive their just deserts, there is no downing an idea in a freecountry where continued knocking at doors and waiting in hallwayseventually secure it a trial. Then, if it succeeds, the fellow whothought that the conception was original with him finds his claimsdisputed from all points of the compass. If it fails, the poor thinggoes to a fatherless grave. I should like to say that I was the originator of the tank--one of theoriginators. In generous mood, I am willing to share honors with rivalstoo numerous to mention. Haven't I also looked across No Man's Landtoward the enemy's parapet? Whoever has must have conjectured about amachine that would take frontal positions with less loss of life than isusual and would solve the problem of breaking the solid line of theWestern front. The possibility has haunted every general, everysoldier. Some sort of armadillo or caterpillar which would resist bullet fire wasthe most obvious suggestion, but when practical construction wasconsidered, the dreamer was brought down from the empyrean, where theaeroplane is at home, to the forge and the lathe, where grimy machinistsare the pilots of a matter-of-fact world. Application was the thing. Ifound myself so poor at it that I did not even pass on my plan to thestaff, which had already considered a few thousand plans. Ericssonconceiving a gun in a revolving turret was not so great a man asEricsson making the monitor a practicable engine of war. To Lieutenant-Colonel Swinton, of the Engineers, was given the task oftransforming blue-print plans into reality. There was no certainty thathe would succeed, but the War Office, when it had need for every foundryand every skilled finger in the land, was enterprising enough to givehim a chance. He and thousands of workmen spent months at this mostsecret business. If one German spy had access to one workman, then theGermans might know what was coming. Nobody since Ericsson had a busiertime than Swinton without telling anybody what he was doing. Thewhisperers knew that some diabolical surprise was under way and theywould whisper about it. No censor regulations can reach them. Sometimesthe tribe was given false information in great confidence in order tokeep it too occupied to pass on the true. The new monster was called a tank because it was not like a tank; yet itseemed to me as much like a tank as like anything else. As a tank is areceptacle for a liquid, it was a name that ought to mask a new type ofarmored motor car as successfully as any name could. Flower pot wouldhave been too wide of the mark. A tank might carry a new kind of gas ora burning liquid to cook or frizzle the adversary. Considering the size of the beast, concealment seemed about as difficultas for a suburban cottager to keep the fact that he had an elephant onthe premises from his next-door neighbor; but the British Army hasbecome so used to slipping ships across the channel in face of submarinedanger that nobody is surprised at anything that appears at the frontunheralded. One day the curtain rose, and the finished product of all theexperiments and testing appeared at the British front. Hundreds ofthousands of soldiers were now in the secret. "Have you seen the tanks?"was the question up and down the line. All editors were inventing theirown type of tank. Though I have patted one on the shoulder in a familiarway, as I might stroke the family cat, it neither kicked nor bit me. Though I have been inside of one, I am not supposed to know at thiswriting anything about its construction. Unquestionably the tankresembles an armadillo, a caterpillar, a diplodocus, a motor car, and atraveling circus. It has more feet than a caterpillar, and they havesteel toenails which take it over the ground; its hide is more resistantthan an armadillo's, and its beauty of form would make the diplodocusjealous. No pianist was ever more temperamental; no tortoise ever morephlegmatic. In summer heat, when dust clouds hung thick on the roads behind theshell clouds of the fields, when the ceaseless battle had been going onfor two months and a half, the soldiers had their interest stimulated bya mechanical novelty just before a general attack. Two years of war hadcumulatively desensitized them to thrills. New batteries moving intoposition were only so many more guns. Fresh battalions marching to thefront were only more infantry, all of the same pattern, equipped in thesame way, moving with the same fixed step. Machine gun rattles hadbecome as commonplace as the sound of creaking caisson wheels. Gasshells, lachrymatory shells and _Flammenwerfer_ were as old-fashioned ashigh explosives and shrapnel. Bombing encounters in saps had novariation. The ruins of the village taken to-day could not be told fromthe one taken yesterday except by its location on the map. Even theaeroplanes had not lately developed any sensational departures fromhabit. One paid little more attention to them than a gondolier pays tothe pigeons of St. Mark's. Curtains of fire all looked alike. There wasno new way of being killed--nothing to break the ghastly monotony ofcharges and counter-charges. All the brains of Europe had been busy for two years inventing new formsof destruction, yet no genius had found any sinuous creature that wouldcreep into dugouts with a sting for which there was no antidote. Everybody was engaged in killing, yet nobody was able to "kill to hissatisfaction, " as the Kentucky colonel said. The reliable methods werethe same as of old and as I have mentioned elsewhere: projectilespropelled by powder, whether from long-necked naval guns at twentythousand yards, or short-necked howitzers at five thousand yards, orrifles and machine guns at twenty-five hundred yards, or trench mortarscoughing balls of explosives for one thousand yards. True, the gas attack at Ypres had been an innovation. It was not adiscovery; merely an application of ghastliness which had beenconsidered too horrible for use. As a surprise it had beensuccessful--once. The defense answered with gas masks, which made itstill more important that soldiers should not be absent-minded and leaveany of their kit out of reach. The same amount of energy put intoprojectiles would have caused more casualties. Meanwhile, no staff ofany army, making its elaborate plans in the use of proved weapons, couldbe certain that the enemy had not under way, in this age of inventionwhich has given us the wireless, some new weapon which would beirresistible. Was the tank this revolutionary wonder? Its sponsors had no such hope. England went on building guns and pouring out shells, cartridges andbombs. At best, the tanks were another application of an old, established form of killing in vogue with both Daniel Boone andNapoleon's army--bullets. The first time that I saw a tank, the way that the monster was blockinga road gorged with transport had something of the ludicrousness of, say, a pliocene monster weighing fifty tons which had nonchalantly lain downat Piccadilly Circus when the traffic was densest. Only the motor-truckdrivers and battalions which were halted some distance away minded thedelay. Those near by were sufficiently entertained by the spectaclewhich stopped them. They gathered around the tank and gaped and grinned. The tank's driver was a brown-skinned, dark-haired Englishman, with aface of oriental stolidity. Questions were shot at him, but he would noteven say whether his beast would stand without hitching or not; whetherit lived on hay, talcum powder, or the stuff that bombs are made of; orwhat was the nature of its inwards, or which was the head and which thetail, or if when it seemed to be backing it was really going forward. By the confession of some white lettering on its body, it was officiallyone of His Majesty's land ships. It no more occurred to anyone tosuggest that it move on and clear the road than to argue with a bulldogwhich confronts you on a path. I imagined that the feelings of the youngofficer who was its skipper must have been much the same as those of aman acting as his own chauffeur and having a breakdown on a holiday in asection of town where the population was as dense as it was curious inthe early days of motoring. For months he had been living a cloisteredlife to keep his friends from knowing what he was doing, as he worked tomaster the eccentricities of his untried steed, his life and the livesof his crew depending upon this mastery. Now he had stepped from behindthe curtain of military secrecy into the full blaze of staring, inquiring publicity. The tank's inclination was entirely reptilian. Its body hugged the earthin order to expose as little surface as possible to the enemy's fire; itwas mottled like a toad in patches of coloring to add to its lowvisibility, and there was no more hop in it than in the Gila monster. The reason of its being was obvious. Its hide being proof against thebullets of machine guns and rifles, it was a moving "strong point" whichcould go against the enemy's fixed strong points, where machine gunswere emplaced to mow down infantry charges, with its own machine guns. Only now it gave no sign of moving. As a mechanical product it was nomore remarkable than a steam shovel. The wonder was in the part that itwas about to play. A steam shovel is a labor-saving, and this asoldier-saving, device. For the moment it seemed a leviathan dead weight in the path of traffic. If it could not move of itself, the only way for traffic to pass was tobuild a road around it. Then there was a rumbling noise within its bodywhich sounded like some unnatural gasoline engine, and it hitched itselfaround with the ponderosity of a canal boat being warped into a dock andproceeded on its journey to take its appointed place in the battle line. Did the Germans know that the tanks were building? I think that they hadsome inkling a few weeks before the tanks' appearance that something ofthe sort was under construction. There was a report, too, of a Germantank which was not ready in time to meet the British. Some Germanprisoners said that their first intimation of this new affliction waswhen the tanks appeared out of the morning mist, bearing down on thetrenches; others said that German sausage observation balloons had seensomething resembling giant turtles moving across the fields up to theBritish lines and had given warning to the infantry to be on thelookout. Thus, something new had come into the war, deepening the thrill ofcuriosity and intensifying the suspense before an attack. The world, itsappetite for novelty fed by the press, wanted to know all about thetanks; but instead of the expected mechanical details, censorship wouldpermit only vague references to the tanks' habits and psychology, andthe tanks were really strong on psychology--subjectively andobjectively. It was the objective result in psychology that counted: theeffect on the fighting men. Human imagination immediately characterizedthem as living things; monstrous comrades of infantry in attack. Blessed is the man, machine, or incident that will make any army laughafter over two months of battle. Individuals were always laughing overincidents; but here hundreds of thousands of men were to see a new styleof animal perform elephantine tricks. The price of admission to thetheater was the risk of a charge in their company, and the prospect gaveincreased zest to battalions taking their place for next day's action. What would happen to the tanks? What would they do to the Germans? The staff, which had carefully calculated their uses and limitations, had no thought that the tanks would go to Berlin. They were simply a newauxiliary. Probably the average soldier was skeptical of theirefficiency; but his skepticism did not interfere with his curiosity. Hewanted to see the beast in action. Christopher Columbus crossing uncharted seas did not undertake a moredaring journey than the skippers of the tanks. The cavalryman whocharges the enemy's guns in an impulse knows only a few minutes ofsuspense. A torpedo destroyer bent on coming within torpedo range inface of blasts from a cruiser's guns, the aviator closing in on anenemy's plane, have the delirium of purpose excited by speed. But thetanks are not rapid. They are ponderous and relatively slow. Columbushad already been to sea in ships. The aviator and the commander of adestroyer know their steeds and have precedent to go by, while theskippers of the tanks had none. They went forth with a new kind of shipon a new kind of sea, whose waves were shell-craters, whose tempestssudden concentrations of shell fire. The Germans might have full knowledge of the ships' character and awaittheir appearance with forms of destruction adapted to the purpose. Allwas speculation and uncertainty. Officers and crew were sealed up in asteel box, the sport of destiny. For months they had been preparing forthis day, the crowning experiment and test, and all seemed of a typecarefully chosen for their part, soldiers who had turned land sailors, cool and phlegmatic like the monsters which they directed. Each onehaving given himself up to fate, the rest was easy in these days ofwar's superexaltation, which makes men appear perfectly normal whendeath hovers near. Not one would have changed places with anyinfantryman. Already they had _esprit de corps_. They belonged to anexclusive set of warriors. Lumberingly dipping in and out of shell-craters, which sometimes halfconcealed the tanks like ships in a choppy sea, rumbling and wrenching, they appeared out of the morning mist in face of the Germans who put uptheir heads and began working their machine guns after the usualartillery curtain of fire had lifted. XXVII THE TANKS IN ACTION How the tanks attacked--A tank walking up the main Street of a village--Effect on the Germans--Prussian colonel surrenders to a tank--Tanks against trees--The tank in High Wood--The famous Crème de Menthe--Demolishing a sugar factory--Germans take the tanks seriously--Differences of opinion regarding tanks--Wandering tanks--German attack on a stranded tank--Prehistoric turtles--Saving twenty-five thousand casualties. With the reverse slope of the Ridge to conceal their approach to thebattle line, the tanks squatting among the men at regular intervals overa six-mile front awaiting the cue of zero for the attack at dawn and themist still holding to cover both tanks and men, the great Somme stagewas set in a manner worthy of the début of the new monsters. A tactical system of coördinated action had been worked out for theinfantry and the untried auxiliary, which only experienced soldierscould have applied with success. According to the nature of thepositions in front, the tanks were set definite objectives or left tofind their own objectives. They might move on located machine gunpositions or answer a hurry call for help from the infantry. Ahead ofthem was a belt of open field between them and the villages whosecapture was to be the consummation of the day's work. While observerswere straining their eyes to follow the progress of the tanks and seeingbut little, corps headquarters eagerly awaited news of the mostpicturesque experiment of the war, which might prove ridiculous, or be awonderful success, or simply come up to expectations. No more thrilling message was ever brought by an aeroplane than thatwhich said that a tank was "walking" up the main street of Flerssurrounded by cheering British soldiers, who were in possession of thevillage. "Walking" was the word officially given; and very much walking, indeed, the tank must have seemed to the aviator in his swift flight. Aneagle looked down on a tortoise which had a serpent's sting. This tank, having attended to its work on the way, passed on through Flers bearinga sign: "Extra Special! Great Hun Victory!" Beyond Flers it found itselfalongside a battery of German field guns and blazed bullets into theamazed and helpless gunners. The enemy may have heard of the tanks, but meeting them was a differentmatter. After he had fought shells, bullets, bombs, grenades, mortars, bayonets and gas, the tank was the straw that broke the camel's back ofmany a German. A steel armadillo laying its bulk across a trench andsweeping it on both sides with machine guns brought the familiarcomplaint that this was not fighting according to rules in a war whichceased to have rules after the bombing of civilian populations, thesinking of the _Lusitania_, and the gas attack at Ypres. It depends onwhose ox is gored. There is a lot of difference between seeing the enemyslaughtered by some new device and being slaughtered by one yourself. Nowonder that German prisoners who had escaped alive from a trench filledwith dead, when they saw a tank on the road as they passed to the rearthrew up their hands with a guttural: "Mein Gott! There is another!There is no fighting that! This is not war; it is butchery!" Yes, it wasbutchery--and butchery is war these days. Wasn't it so always? And as aBritish officer remarked to the protestants: "The tank is entirely in keeping with Hague rules, being only armor, machinery and machine guns. " Germans surrendered to a tank in bodies after they saw the hopelessnessof turning their own machine gun and rifle fire upon that steel hide. Why not? Nothing takes the fight out of anyone like finding that hisblows go into the air and the other fellow's go home. There seemed astrange loss of dignity when a Prussian colonel delivered himself to atank, which took him on board and eventually handed him over to aninfantry guard; but the skipper of the tank enjoyed it if the coloneldid not. The surprising thing was how few casualties there were among the crewsof the tanks, who went out prepared to die and found themselves safe intheir armored shells after the day's fight was over, whether their shipshad gone across a line of German trenches, developed engine trouble, ortemporarily foundered in shell-holes. Bullets had merely madesteel-bright flecks on the tanks' paint and shrapnel had equally failedto penetrate the armor. Among the imaginary tributes paid to the tank's powers is that it "eats"trees--that is to say, it can cut its way through a wood--and that itcan knock down a stone wall. As it has no teeth it cannot masticatetimber. All that it accomplishes must be done by ramming or by liftingup its weight to crush an obstacle. A small tree or a weak wall yieldsbefore its mass. As foresters, the tanks had a stiff task in High Wood, where the Germanshad held to the upper corner with their nests of machine guns which thepreliminary bombardment of British artillery had not silenced and theybegan their murderous song immediately the British charge started. Theycommanded the front and the flanks if the men continued to advance andtherefore might make a break in the whole movement, which was preciselythe object of the desperate resistance that had preserved this strongpoint at any cost against the rushes of British bombers, trench mortarsand artillery shells for two months. Soldiers are not expected to undertake the impossible. Nobody who issane will leap into a furnace with a cup of water to put out the fire. Only a battalion commander who is a fool will refuse, in face ofconcentrated machine gun fire, to stop the charge. "Leave it to me!" was the unspoken message communicated to the infantryby the sight of that careening, dipping, clambering, steel body as itrumbled toward the miniature fortress. And the infantry, as it saw thetank's machine guns blazing, left it to the tank, and, working its wayto the right, kept in touch with the general line of attack, confidentthat no enemy would be left behind to fire into their backs. Thus, ahandful of men capable, with their bullet sprays, of holding up athousand men found the tables turned on them by another handful manninga tank. They were simply "done in, " as the tank officer put it. Safebehind his armor, he had them no less at his mercy than a submarine hasa merchant ship. Even if unarmed, a tank could take care of an isolatedmachine gun position by sitting on it. One of the most famous tanks was Crème de Menthe. She had a good pressagent and also made good. She seemed to like sugar. At least, herglorious exploit was in a sugar factory, a huge building of brick with atall brick chimney which had been brought down by shell fire. Underneaththe whole were immense dugouts still intact where German machine gunnerslay low, like Br'er Rabbit, as usual, while the shells of the artillerypreparation were falling, and came out to turn on the bullet spray asthe British infantry approached. British do the same against Germanattacks; only in the battle of the Somme the British had been alwaysattacking, always taking machine gun positions. Crème de Menthe, chosen comrade of the Canadians on their way to thetaking of Courcelette, was also at home among débris. The Canadians sawthat she was as she moved toward it with the glee of a sea lion toward aschool of fish. She did not go dodging warily, peering around cornerswith a view to seeing the enemy before she was seen. Whatever else atank is, it is not a crafty boy scout. It is brazenly and nonchalantlypublic in its methods, like a steam roller coming down the street into aparade without regard to the rules of the road. Externally it is nottemperamental. It does not bother to follow the driveway or mind the"Keep Off the Grass" sign when it goes up to the entrance of a dugout. And Crème de Menthe took the sugar factory and a lot of prisoners. "Whynot?" as one of the Canadians said. "Who wouldn't surrender when a beastof that kind came up to the door? It was enough to make a man who haddrunk only light Munich beer wonder if he had 'got 'em!'" Prisoners were a good deal of bother to the tanks. Perhaps future tankswill be provided with pockets for carrying prisoners. But the future oftanks is wrapped in mystery at the present. This is not taking them seriously, you may say. In that case, I am onlyreflecting the feelings of the army. Even if the tanks had taken Bapaumeor gone to the Kaiser's headquarters, the army would have laughed atthem. It was the Germans who took the tanks seriously; and the moreseriously the Germans took the tanks the more the British laughed. "Of all the double-dyed, ridiculous things, was the way that Crème deMenthe person took the sugar factory!" said a Canadian, who broke into aroar at the recollection of the monster's antics. "Good old girl, Crèmede Menthe! Ought to retire her for life and let her sit up on herhaunches in a café and sip her favorite tipple out of barrel with agarden hose for a straw--which would be about her size. " However, there was a variation of opinions among soldiers about tanksdrawn from personal experience, when life and death form opinions, ofthe way it had acted as an auxiliary to their part of the line. A tankthat conquered machine-gun positions and enfiladed trenches was anheroic comrade surrounded by a saga of glorious anecdotes. One whichbecame stalled and failed in its enterprise called for satirical commentwhich was applied to all. We did not personify machine guns, or those monstrous, gloomy, bighowitzers with their gaping maws, or other weapons; but every man in thearmy personified the tanks. Two or three tanks, I should have remarked, did start for Berlin, without waiting for the infantry. The temptationwas strong. All they had to do was to keep on moving. When Germansscuttling for cover were the only thing that the skippers could see, they realized that they were in the wrong pew, or, in strictly militarylanguage, that they had got beyond their "tactical objective. " Having left most of their ammunition where they thought that it would dothe most good in the German lines, these wanderers hitched themselvesaround and waddled back to their own people. For a tank is an auxiliary, not an army, or an army staff, or a curtain of fire, and must coöperatewith the infantry or it may be in the enemy's lines to stay. There wasone tank which found itself out of gasoline and surrounded by Germans. It could move neither way, but could still work its guns. Marooned on ahostile shore, it would have to yield when the crew ran out of food. The Germans charged the beast, and got under its guns, pounded at thedoor, tried to bomb and pry it open with bayonets and crawled over thetop looking for dents in the armor with the rage of hornets, but invain. They could not harm the crew inside and the crew could not harmthem. "A noisy lot!" said the tank's skipper. Tactical objective be--British soldiers went to the rescue of theirtank. Secure inside their shell, the commander and crew awaited theresult of the fight. After the Germans were driven away, someone wentfor a can of gasoline, which gave the beast the breath of life toretreat to its "correct tactical position. " Even if it had not been recovered at the time, the British would haveregained possession with their next advance; for the Germans had no wayof taking a tank to the rear. There are no tractors powerful enough todraw one across the shell-craters. It can be moved only by its ownpower, and with its engine out of order it becomes a fixture on thelandscape. Stranded tanks have an appearance of Brobdingnagianhelplessness. They are fair targets for revenge by a concentration ofGerman artillery fire; yet when half hidden in a gigantic shell-holewhich they could not navigate they are a small target and, their tintmelting into the earth, are hard to locate. Seen through the glasses, disregarding ordinary roads and traveledroutes, the tanks' slatey backs seemed like prehistoric turtles whosenatural habitat is shell-mauled earth. They were the last word in thebusiness of modern war, symbolic of its satire and the old strifebetween projectile and armor, offensive and defensive. If two tanks wereto meet in a duel, would they try to ram each other after ineffectuallyrapping each other with their machine guns? "I hope that it knows where it is going!" exclaimed a brigadier-general, as he watched one approach his dugout across an abandoned trench, leaning over a little as it dipped into the edge of a shell-crater somefifteen feet in diameter with its sureness of footing on a rainy daywhen a pedestrian slipped at every step. There was no indication of any guiding human intelligence, let alonehuman hand, directing it; and, so far as one could tell, it might havemistaken the general's underground quarters for a storage station whereit could assuage its thirst for gasoline or a blacksmith's shop where itcould have a bent steel claw straightened. When, finally, it stopped athis threshold, the general expressed his relief that it had not tried tocome down the steps. A door like that of a battleship turret opened, andout of the cramped interior where space for crew and machinery is sonicely calculated came the skipper, who saluted and reported that hisship awaited orders for the next cruise. Soon the sight of tanks became part of the routine of existence, andinterest in watching an advance centered on the infantry which theysupported in a charge; for only by its action could you judge whether ornot machine gun fire had developed and, later, whether or not the tankswere silencing it. The human element was still supreme, its movement andits losses in life the criterion of success and failure, with an eternalthrill that no machine can arouse. If the tanks had accomplished nothingmore than they did in the two great September attacks they would havebeen well worth while. I think that they saved twenty-five thousandcasualties, which would have been the additional cost of gaining theground won by unassisted infantry action. When machines manned by a fewmen can take the place of many battalions in this fashion they exemplifythe essential principle of doing the enemy a maximum of damage with aminimum to your own forces. XXVIII CANADA IS QUICK Canada's first offensive--The "surprise party"--Over nasty ground--Canada's hour--Germans amazed--Business of the Canadians to "get there"--Two difficult villages--Canadians make new rules--Canada's green soldiers accomplish an unheard of feat--Attacking on their nerve--The last burst--Fewer Canadians than Germans, but--"Mopping up"--Rounding up the captives--An aristocratic German and a democratic Canadian--French-Canadians--Thirteen counter-attacks beaten--Quickness and adaptability--Canada's soldiers make good. The tanks having received their theatric due, we come to other resultsof Sept. 14th when the resistance of the right was stiff and Canada hadher turn of fortune in sharing in the brilliant success on the left. It was the Canadians' first offensive. They knew that the eyes of thearmy were upon them. Not only for themselves, after parrying blowsthroughout their experience at the front, but in the name of otherbattalions that had endured the remorseless grind of the Ypres salientthey were to strike the blows of retribution. The answer as to how theywould charge was written in faces clear-cut by the same climate thatgave them their nervous alertness. On that ugly part of the Ridge where no stable trench could be madeunder the vengeful German artillery fire and small numbers were shrewdlydistributed in shell-craters and such small ditches as could bemaintained, they crept out in the darkness a few days before the attackto "take over" from the Australians and familiarize themselves with thistempest-torn farming land which still heaved under tornadoes of shells. The men from the faraway island continent had provided the jumping-offplace and the men from this side of the Pacific and the equator were todo the jumping, which meant a kind of overseas monopoly of PozièresRidge. The Germans still hated the idea of yielding all the crest that stareddown on them and hid the slope beyond which had once been theirs. Theywould try again to recover some of it, but chose a time for their effortwhich was proof enough that they did not know that a general attack wascoming. Just before dawn, with zero at dawn, when the Canadians wereforming on the reverse slope for their charge, the Germans laden withbombs made theirs and secured a footing in the thin front line among theshell-craters and, grim shadows in the night lighted by bursts of bombsand shells, struggled as they have on many similar occasions. Then came the "surprise party. " Not far away the Canadian charge waitedon the tick of the second which was to release the six-mile line ofinfantry and the tanks. "We were certainly keyed up, " as one of the men said. "It was up to usall right, now. " Breasting the tape in their readiness for the word, the dry air of NorthAmerica with its champagne exhilaration was in their lungs whippingtheir red corpuscles. They had but one thought and that was to "getthere. " No smooth drill-ground for that charge, but earth broken withshell-craters as thick as holes in a pepper-box cover! A man mightstumble into one, but he must get up and go on. One fellow who twistedhis ankle found it swollen out of all shape when the charge was over. Ifhe had given it such a turn at home he would not have attempted to movebut would have called for a cab or assistance. Under the spell of actionhe did not even know that he was hurt. It was Canada's hour; all the months of drill at home, all the dreams onboard the transport of charges to come, all the dull monotony ofbillets, all the slimy vigil of trenches, all the labor of preparationcome to a head for every individual. Such was the impulse of the tidalwave which broke over the crest upon the astounded Germans who hadgained a footing in the trench, engulfing them in as dramatic anepisode as ever occurred on the Somme front. "Give yourselves up and be quick about it! We've business elsewhere!"said the officers. Yes, they had business with the German first-line trench when theartillery curtain lifted, where few Germans were found, most of themhaving been in the charge. The survivors here put up their hands beforethey put up their heads from shelter and soon were on their way back tothe rear in the company of the others. "I guess we had the first batch of prisoners to reach an inclosure onthe morning of the 14th, " said one Canadian. "We had a start with somecoming into our own front line to be captured. " On the left Mouquet Farm, which, with its unsurpassed dugouts andwarrens surrounded by isolated machine gun posts, had repulsed previousattacks, could not resist the determined onslaught which will shareglory, when history is written, with the storming of Courcelette. Downhill beside the Bapaume Road swept the right and center, withshell-craters still thick but growing fewer as the wave came out intoopen fields in face of the ruins of the sugar factory, with the tankCrème de Menthe ready to do her part. She did not take care of all themachine guns; the infantry attended to at least one, I know. The Germanartillery turned on curtains of fire, but in one case the Canadianswere not there when the curtain was laid to bar their path. They hadbeen too rapid for the Germans. No matter what obstacle the Germans putin the way the business of the Canadians was to "get there"--and they"got there. " The line marked on their map from the Bapaume Road to theeast of the sugar factory as their objective was theirs. In front ofthem was the village of Courcelette and in front of the British linelinked up on their right was Martinpuich. Spades now! Dig as hard as you have charged in order to hold the freshlywon position, with "there" become "here" and the Ridge at your backs!The London song of "The Byng Boys are Here, " which gave the name of theByng Boys to the Canadians after General Byng took command of theircorps, had a most realistic application. With the news from the right of the six-mile front that of a continuingfierce struggle, word from the left had the definite note of success. Was General Byng pleased with his Byng Boys? Was his superior, the armycommander, pleased with the Canadians? They had done the trick and thisis the thing that counts on such occasions; but when you take trenchesand fields, however great the gain of ground, they lack the concretesymbol of victory which a village possesses. And ahead were Courcelette and Martinpuich, both only partiallydemolished by shell fire and in nowise properly softened according tothe usual requirements for capitulation, with their cellars doubtlessheavily reinforced as dugouts. Officers studying the villages throughtheir glasses believed that they could be taken. Why not try? To tryrequired nerve, when it was against all tactical experience to rush onto a new objective over such a broad front without taking time forelaborate artillery preparation. General Byng, who believed in his menand understood their initiative, their "get there" quality, was ready toadvance and so was the corps commander of the British in front ofMartinpuich. Sir Douglas Haig gave consent. "Up and at them!" then, with fresh battalions hurried up so rapidly thatthey had hardly time to deploy, but answering the order for action withthe spirit of men who have been stalled in trenches and liked the newexperience of stretching their legs. With a taste of victory, nothingcould stop these highstrung reserves, except the things that kill andwound. The first charge had succeeded and the second must succeed. German guns had done the customary thing by laying barrages back of thenew line across the field and shelling the crest of the Ridge to preventsupports from coming up. It was quite correct form for the Germancommander to consider the ceremony of the day over. The enemy had takenhis objective. Of course, he would not try for another immediately. Meanwhile, his tenure of new line must be made as costly as possible. But this time the enemy did not act according to rules. He made some newones. The reserve battalions which were to undertake the storming of thevillage had gone over the ground under the barrages and were up to thefirst objective, and when through the new line occupied by the men whomade the first charge they could begin their own charge. As barrages areintermittent, one commander had his men lie down behind one until it hadceased. Again, after waiting on another for a while he decided that hemight be late in keeping his engagement in Courcelette and gave theorder to go through, which, as one soldier said, "we did in ahundred-yard dash sprinting a double quick--good reason why!" When thefresh wave passed the fellows in the new line the winners of the firstobjective called, "Go to it!" "You'll do it!" "Hurrah for Canada!" andadded touches of characteristic dry humor which shell fire makes alittle drier, such as a request to engage seats for the theatre atCourcelette that evening. Consider that these battalions which were to take Courcelette had tomarch about two miles under shell fire, part of the way over groundthat was spongy earth cut by shell-craters, before they could begintheir charge and that they were undertaking an innovation in tactics, and you have only half an understanding of their task. Their officerswere men out of civil life in every kind of occupation, learning theirwar in the Ypres salient stalemate, and now they were to have theseverest possible test in directing their units in an advance. There had been no time to lay out pattern plans for each company'scourse in this second rush according to map details, which is soimportant against modern defenses. The officers did not know wheremachine guns were hidden; they were uncertain of the strength of theenemy who had had all day to prepare for the onslaught on his bastionsin the village. It was pitched battle conditions against set defenses. Under curtains of fire, with the concentration heavy at one point andweak at another, with machine gun or sniping fire developing in someareas, with the smoke and the noise, with trenches to cross, thebusiness of keeping a wave of men in line of attack for a longdistance--difficult enough in a manoeuver--was possible only when theinitiative and an understanding of the necessities of the situationexist in the soldiers themselves. If one part of the line was not up, ifa section was being buffeted by salvos of shells, the officers had tomeet the emergency; and officers as well as men were falling, companiesbeing left with a single officer or with only a "non-com" in charge. Unless a man was down he knew that his business was to "get there" andhis direction was straight ahead in line with the men on his right andleft. With dead and wounded scattered over the field behind them, all whocould stand on their feet, including officers and men knocked over andburied by shells and with wounds of arms and heads and even legs whichmade them hobble, reached the edge of the village on time and lay downto await the lifting of the fire of their own guns before the finalrush. After charging such a distance and paying the toll of casualties exactedthey enjoyed a breathing space, a few minutes in which to steady theirthoughts for the big thing before, "lean for the hunt, " they sprang upto be in for the fray with the burst of the last shells from their guns. They knew what to do. It had been drilled into them; they had talked itand dreamed it in billets when routine became humdrum, these men withpractical minds who understood the essentials of their task. There were fewer Canadians charging through the streets than there wereGermans in the village at that moment. The Canadians did not know it, but if they had it would have made no difference, such was their spirit. Secure in their dugouts from bombardment, the first that the Germans, intheir systematized confidence that the enemy would not try for a secondobjective that day, knew of the presence of the Canadians was when theattackers were at the door and a St. Lawrence River incisiveness wascalling on the occupants to come out as they were prisoners--whichproves the advantage of being quick. The second wave was left to "mopup" while the first wave passed on through the village to nail down theprize by digging new trenches. Thus, they had their second objective, though on the left of the line where the action had been against a partof the old first-line system of trenches progress had been slow andfighting bitter. The Canadians who had to "mop up" had the "time of their lives" and someticklish moments. What a scene! Germans in clean uniforms coming out oftheir dugouts blinking in surprise at their undoing and in disgust, resentment and suppressed rage! Canadians, dust-covered fromshell-bursts, eyes flashing, laughing, rushing about on the job in themidst of shouts of congratulation and directions to prisoners among theruins, and the German commander so angered by the loss of the villagethat he began pouring in shells on Germans and Canadians at the sametime! Two colonels were among the captured, a regimental and a battalioncommander. The senior was a baron--one cannot leave him out of anynarrative--and inclined to bear himself with patrician contempt towardthe Canadian democracy, which is a mistake for barons in his situationwith every Canadian more or less of a king that day. When he tried tostart his men into a revolt his hosts acted promptly, with the resultthat the uprising was nipped in the bud and the baron was shot throughthe leg, leaving him still "fractious and patronizing. " Then the littlecolonel of the French-Canadians said, "I think I might as well shoot youin a more vital part and have done with it!" or something equally to thepoint and suddenly the baron became quite democratic himself. One of the battalions that took Courcelette was French-Canadian. Noother Canadian battalion will deny them the glory that they won thatday, and it must have been irritating to the German baron to surrendersuperior numbers to the stocky type that we see in New England factorytowns and on their farms in Quebec, for they now formed the battalion, the frontiersmen, the _courrier de bois_, having been mostly killed inthe salient. Shall I forget that little private, forty years old if hewere a day, with a hole from shrapnel in his steel helmet and the bitof purple and white ribbon worn proudly on his breast, who, when I askedhim how he felt after he received the clout from a shell-fragment, remarked blandly that it had knocked him down and made his head ache! "You have the military cross!" I said. "Yais, sir. I'm going to win the Victoria Cross!" he replied, saluting. Talk about "the spirit that quickeneth!" Or, shall I forget the French-Canadian colonel telling his story of howhe and the battalion on his left in equal difficulties held the linebeyond Courcelette with his scattered men against thirteencounter-attacks that night; how he had to go from point to pointestablishing his posts in the dark, and his repeated "'I golly!" ofwonder at how he had managed to hold on, with its ring of naïveunrealization of the humor of being knocked over by a shell and finding, "'I golly!" that he had not been hurt! They had not enlisted freely, theFrench-Canadians, but those who had proved that if the war emotion hadtaken hold of them as it had of the rest of Canada they would not havebeen found wanting. "'I golly!" they had to fight from the very fact that there were only afew to strike for old France and for the martial honor of Quebec. Andthey held all they took as sturdily as the other Canadian battalion infront of the village when the Germans awakened to revenge for the lossof Courcelette. From start to finish of that great day it had been quickness thatcounted; quickness to realize opportunities; alertness of individualaction in "mopping up" after the village was taken; prompt adaptabilityto situations which is the gift of the men of a new country; and thatindividual confidence of the Canadian once he was not tied to a trenchand might let his initiative have full play, man to man, which is not athing of drill or training but of inheritance and environment. On theright, Martinpuich was taken by the British and also held. It was in rain and mist after the battle, while the dead still lay onthe field, that I went over the Ridge and along the path of the Canadiancharges, wondering how they had passed through the curtains of fire whenI saw shrapnel cases so thick that you could step from one to another;wondering how men could survive in the shell-craters and the poor, tumbled trenches in the soft, shell-mashed earth; wondering at the wholebusiness of their being here in France, a veteran army two years afterthe war had begun. I saw them dripping from the rains, mud-spattered, but in the joy of having made good when their turn came, and in a waythat was an exemplification of Canadian character in every detail. "Heapgood!" I suppose that big Sioux Indian, looking as natural seated in atrench in his imperturbability as if he were seated in front of histepee, would have put it. He was seeing a strange business, but highexplosives shaking the earth, aeroplanes overhead, machine guns rattlingin the war of the Pale Faces he accepted without emotion. With the second battle of Ypres, with St. Eloi, Hooge, Mount Sorrell, and Observatory Ridge, Courcelette had completed the cycle of soldierlyexperiences for those who bore the Maple Leaf in France of the_Fleur-de-lis_. Officers and men of every walk of life called to a newoccupation, a democracy out of the west submitting to discipline hadbeen inured and trained to a new life of risk and comradeship andsacrifice for a cause. It will seem strange to be out of khaki and to goto the office, or the store, or to get up to milk the cows at dawn;"but, " as one man said, "we'll manage to adapt ourselves to it withoutspending nights in a mud hole or asking the neighbors to throw any bombsover the fence in order to make the change gradual. " XXIX THE HARVEST OF VILLAGES High and low visibilities--Low Visibility a pro-German--High Visibility and his harvest smile--Thirty villages taken by the British--The 25th of September--The Road of the Entente--Twelve miles of artillery fire--Two villages taken--Combles--British and French meet in a captured village--English stubbornness--Dugouts holding a thousand men--Capture of Thiepval. Always we were talking of the two visibilities, high and low. I thoughtof them as brothers with the same meteorological parent, one a good andthe other an evil genius. Every morning we looked out of doors to seewhich had the stage. Thus, we might know whether or not the "zero" of anattack set for to-day would be postponed, as it was usually if the sungave no sign of appearing, though not always; sometimes the staff gavethose who tried to guess what was in its mind a surprise. Low Visibility, a pro-German who was in his element in the Ypres salientin midwinter, delighted in rain, mist, fog and thick summerhaze--anything that prevented observers from seeing the burst of shells, transformed shell-craters into miniature lakes and fields into mire tofounder charges, and stalled guns. High Visibility was as merry as his wicked brother was dour. He sent thesunlight streaming into your room in the morning, washed the air ofparticles enabling observers to see shell-bursts at long range, andfavored successful charges under accurate curtains of fire--the patronsaint of all modern artillery work, who would be most at home in Arizonawhere you could carry on an offensive the year around. During September his was a glad harvest smile which revealed figures onthe chalk welts a mile away as clearly as if within a stone's throwunder the glasses and limned the tree-trunks of ruined villages in sharpoutlines. He was your companion now when you might walk up the Ridgeand, standing among shell-craters still as a frozen sea where but latelyan inferno had raged, look out across the fields toward new lines ofshell fire and newly won villages on lower levels. He helped to make themonth of September when he was most needed the most successful month ofthe offensive, with its second great attack on the 25th turning thetable of losses entirely against the Germans and bringing many guests tothe prisoners' inclosures. These were days that were rich with results, days of harvest, indeed, when the ceaseless fighting on the Ridge and the iron resolution of acommander had its reward; when advances gathered in villages till theBritish had taken thirty and the French, with fresh efforts after theirown chipping away at strong points, also had jumping-off places forlonger drives as they swung in with their right on the Somme incombination with British attacks. The two armies advanced as one on the 25th. The scene recalled thesplendor of the storming of Contalmaison which, if not for its waste andhorror, might lead men to go to war for the glory of thepanorama--glorious to the observer in this instance when he thought onlyof the spectacle, in a moment of oblivion to the hard work ofpreparation and the savage work of execution. Our route to a point ofobservation for the attack which was at midday took us along the Road ofthe Entente, as I called it, where French battalions marched withBritish battalions, stately British motor trucks mixed with the lighterFrench vehicles, and Gaul sat resting on one side of the road and Britonon the other as German prisoners went by, and there was a mingling ofblue and khaki which are both of low visibility against the landscapeyet as distinct as the characters of the two races, each with its ownway of fighting true to racial bent yet accomplishing its purpose. Just under the slope where we sat the British guns linked up with theFrench. To the northward the British were visible right away past Ginchyand Guillemont to Flers and the French clear to the Somme. We werealmost midway of a twelve-mile stretch of row upon row of flashes ofmany calibers, the French more distinct at the foot of a slopefearlessly in the open like the British, a long machine-loom of gunnerywith some monsters far back sending up great clouds of black smoke fromMt. St. Quentin which hid our view of Péronne. Now it was all together for the guns in the preliminary whirlwind, with_soixante-quinzes_ ahead sparkling up and down like the flashes of anautomatic electric sign, making a great, thrumming beat of sound in thevalley, and the 120's near by doing their best, too, with their wickedcrashes, while the ridges beyond were a bobbing canopy of looming, curling smoke. The units of the two armies might have been wired to asingle switchboard with heartbeats under blue and khaki jackets timedtogether in the final expression of _entente cordiale_ become _ententefurieuse_. The sunlight had the golden kindness of September and good Brother HighVisibility seemed to make it a personal matter to-day against theKaiser. Distinct were the moving figures of the gunners and bright wasthe gleam of the empty shells dropping out of the breach of the_soixante-quinze_ as the barrel swung back in place and of the loadedshells going home; distinct were paths and trenches and all the detailof the tired, worn landscape, with the old trenches where we weresitting tumbling in and their sides fringed with wild grass and weeds, which was Nature's own little say in the affair and a warning that in afew years after the war she and the peasant will have erased war'slandmarks. The lifting of the barrage as the infantry went in was signaled to theeye when the canopy of shell-smoke began to grow thin and gossamery forwant of fresh bursts and another was forming beyond, as if the masterhand at such things had lifted a long trail of cloud from one set ofcrests to another; only, nature never does things with such mathematicalprecision. All in due order to keep its turn in the program the Germanartillery began to reply according to its system of distribution, withguns and ammunition plentiful but inferior in quantity to the French. They did not like that stretch of five hundred yards behind a slopewhere they thought that the most troublesome batteries were, and thepuffs of shrapnel smoke thickened dimming the flashes from the burstingjackets until a wall of mist hung there. A torrent of five-point-nineswas tearing up fresh craters with high explosives back of other gunpositions, and between the columns of smoke we saw the French gunnersgoing on unconcerned by this plowing of the landscape which was notdisturbing them. Far off on the plain where a British ammunition train was visible theGerman loosed more anger, whipping the fields into geysers; but thecaissons moved on as if this were a signal of all aboard for the nextstation without the Germans being aware that their target was gone. ABritish battery advancing at another point evidently was not in view ofthe Germans two thousand yards away, though good Brother High Visibilitygave our glasses the outline of the horses at five thousand yards. Thus, you watched to see what the Germans were shooting at, withsuspense at one point and at another the joy of the observer who seesthe one who is "it" in blind man's buff missing his quarry. Someshrapnel searching a road in front and a scream overhead indicated aparcel of high explosives for a village at the rear. In Morval wherehouses were still standing, their white walls visible through theglasses, there was a kind of flash which was not that of a shell butprolonged, like a windowpane flaming under the sun, which we knew meantthat the village was taken, as was also Gueudecourt we learnedafterward. Reserves were filing along a road between the tiers of guns, helmets onthe backs of heads French fashion when there is no fire, with the easymarching stride of the French and figures disappeared and reappeared onthe slope as they advanced. Wounded were coming along the winding graystreak of highway near where we sat and a convoy of prisoners passed ledby a French guard whose attitude seemed to have an eye-twinkling of "Seewho's here and see what I've got!" Not far away was a French private ata telephone. "It goes well!" he said. "Rancourt is taken and we are advancing onFrégicourt. Combles is a ripe plum. " All the while Combles had been an oasis in the shell fire, the one placethat had immunity, although it had almost as much significance in theimagination of the French people as Thiepval in that of the English. They looked forward to its storming as a set dramatic event and to itsfall as one of the turning-points in the campaign. Often a positionwhich was tactically of little importance, to our conception, wouldbecome the center of great expectations to the outside world, while theconquest of a strong point with its nests of machine guns produced noresponsive thrill. Combles was a village and a large village, its size perhaps accountingfor the importance associated with it when it had almost none in amilitary sense. Yet correspondents knew that readers at the breakfasttable would be hungry for details about Combles, where the taking of theSchwaben Redoubt or Regina Trench, which were defended savagely, had nomeaning. Its houses were very distinct, some being but little damagedand some of the shade trees still retaining their branches. This townnestling in a bowl was not worth the expenditure of much ammunition whenwhat the Germans wanted to hold and the Anglo-French troops to gain wasthe hills around it. Rancourt was the other side of Combles, whichexplains the plum simile. The picturesque thing was that the British troops were working up on oneside of Combles and the French on the other side; and the next morningafter the British had gathered in some escaping Germans who seemed tohave lost their way, the blue and the khaki met in the main streetwithout indulging in formal ceremonies and exchanged a "Good morning!"and "_Bon jour!_" and "Here we are! Voyla! Quee pawnsays-vous!" and "Çava bien! Oh, yais, I tink so!" and found big piles of shells and othermunitions which the Germans could not take away and cellars with manywounded who had been brought in from the hills--and that was all therewas to it: a march in and look around, when for glory's sake, at least, the victors ought to have delivered congratulatory addresses. But tiredsoldiers will not do that sort of thing. I shall not say that they arespoiling pictures for the Salon, for there are incidents enough to keeppainters going for a thousand years; which ought to be one reason fornot having a war for another thousand! As for Thiepval, the British staff, inconsiderate of the correspondentsthis time--they really were not conducting the war for us--did notinform us of the attack, being busy those days reaping villages andtrenches after they were over the Ridge while High Visibility had LowVisibility shut up in the guardhouse. Besides, the British were so nearThiepval as the result of their persistent advances that its taking wasonly another step forward, one of savage fighting, however, in the samekind of operations that I have described in the chapter on "Watching aCharge. " The débris beaten into dust had been so scattered that onecould not tell where the village began or ended, but the smudge was asymbol to the army no less than to the British public--a symbol of theboasted impregnability of the first-line German fortifications which hadresisted the attack of July 1st--and its capture a reward of Englishstubbornness appealing to the race which is not unconscious of thecharacteristic that has carried its tongue and dominion over the world. Point was given, too, by the enormous dugouts, surpassing previousexhibits, capable of holding a garrison of a thousand men and a hospitalwhich, under the bursts of huge shells of the months of Britishbombardment, had been safe under ground. The hospital was equipped withexcellent medical apparatus as well as anæsthetics manufactured inGermany, of which the British were somewhat short. The German battalionthat held the place had been associated with the work of preparing itsdefenses and were practically either all taken prisoner or killed, sofar as could be learned. They had sworn that they would never loseThiepval; but the deeper the dugouts the farther upstairs men insidehave to climb in order to get to the door before the enemy, who arrivesat the threshold as the whirlwind barrage lifts. As I have said, Thiepval was not on the very crest of the Ridge and onthe summit the same elaborate works had been built to hold this highground. We watched other attacks under curtains of fire as the Britishpressed on. Sometimes we could see the Germans moving out in the openfrom their dugouts at the base of the hill in St. Pierre Divion anddriven to cover as the British guns sniped at them with shrapnel. Resistlessly the British infantry under its covering barrages kept ontill the crest and all its dugouts and galleries were gained, thusbreaking back the old first-line fortifications stage by stage andforcing the German into the open, where he must dig anew on equal terms. The capture of Thiepval did not mean that its ruins were to have anyrest from shells, for the German guns had their turn. They seemed fondof sending up spouts from a little pond in the foreground, which had noeffect except to shower passing soldiers with dirty water. However muchthe pond was beaten it was still there; and I was struck by the factthat this was a costly and unsuccessful system of drainage for such anefficient people as the Germans to apply. XXX FIVE GENERALS AND VERDUN Sixty miles an hour to meet General Joffre--Joffre somewhat like Grant--Two figures which France will remember for all time--Joffre and Castelnau--Two very old friends--At Verdun--What Napoleon and Wellington might have thought--A staff whose feet and mind never dragged--The hero of Douaumont, General Nivelle--Simplicity--Men who believe in giving blows--A true soldier--A prized photograph of Joffre--The drama of Douaumont--General Mangin, corps commander at Verdun--An eye that said "Attack!"--A five-o'clock-in-the-morning corps--The old fortress town, Verdun--The effort of Colossus--Germany's high water mark--Thrifty fighters, the French--Germany good enough to win against Rumania, but not at Verdun. That spirited friend Lieutenant T. , at home in an English or a Frenchmess or walking arm-in-arm with the _poilus_ of his old battalion, required quick stepping to keep up with him when we were not in hisdevil of a motor car that carried me on a flying visit to the Frenchlines before I started for home and did not fail even when sixty milesan hour were required to keep the appointment with General Joffre--whichwe did, to the minute. Many people have told of sitting across the table in his private officefrom the victor of the Marne; and it was when he was seated and began totalk that you appreciated the power of the man, with his great head andits mass of white hair and the calm, largely-molded features, who couldgive his orders when the fate of France was at stake and then retire torest for the night knowing that his part was done for the day and therest was with the army. In common with all men when experience andresponsibility have ripened their talents, though lacking in the gift offormal speech-making, as Grant was, he could talk well, in clearsentences, whose mold was set by precise thought, which brought with itthe eloquence that gains its point. It was more than personality, inthis instance, that had appeal. He was the personification of a greatnational era. In view of changes which were to come, another glimpse that I had of himin the French headquarters town which was not by appointment ispeculiarly memorable. When I was out strolling I saw on the other sideof the street two figures which all France knew and will know for alltime. Whatever vicissitudes of politics, whatever campaigns ensue, whatever changes come in the world after the war, Joffre's victory atthe Marne and Castelnau's victory in Lorraine, which was its complementin masterly tactics, make their niches in the national Pantheon secure. The two old friends, comrades of army life long before fame came tothem one summer month, Commander-in-Chief and Chief of Staff, weretaking their regular afternoon promenade--Joffre in his familiar short, black coat which made his figure the burlier, his walk affected by therheumatism in his legs, though he certainly had no rheumatism in hishead, and Castelnau erect and slight of figure, his slimness heightenedby his long, blue overcoat--chatting as they walked slowly, and behindthem followed a sturdy guard in plain clothes at a distance of a fewpaces, carrying two cushions. Joffre stopped and turned with a"you-don't-say-so" gesture and a toss of his head at something thatCastelnau had told him. Very likely they were not talking of the war; indeed, most likely it wasabout friends in their army world, for both have a good wit, a keen andamiable understanding of human nature. At all events, they were enjoyingthemselves. So they passed on into the woods, followed by the guard whowould place their cushions on their favorite seat, and the two who hadbeen lieutenants and captains and colonels together would continue theirairing and their chat until they returned to the business of directingtheir millions of men. * * * * * It was raining in this darkened French village near Verdun and a passingbattalion went dripping by, automobiles sent out sprays of muddy waterfrom their tires, and over in the crowded inclosures the Germanprisoners taken at Douaumont stood in the mud waiting to be entrained. Occasionally a soldier or an officer came out of a doorway that sentforth a stream of light, and upstairs in the municipal building where wewent to pay our respects to the general commanding the army that had wonthe victory which had thrilled France as none had since the Marne, wefound that it was the regular hour for his staff to report. Theyreported standing in the midst of tables and maps and standing receivedtheir orders. In future, when I see the big room with its mahogany tableand fat armchairs reserved for directors' meetings I shall recallequally important conferences in the affairs of a nation that were heldunder simpler auspices. This conference seemed in keeping with the atmosphere of the place:nobody in any flurry of haste and nobody wasting time. One after anotherthe officers reported; and whatever their ages, for some would haveseemed young for great responsibilities two years before, they were mengoing about their business alert, self-possessed, reflective of thecharacter of their leader as staffs always are, men whose feet and whoseminds never dragged. When they spoke to anybody politeness was thelubricant of prompt exchange of thought, a noiseless, eight-cylinder, hundred-horse-power sort of staff. If the little Corsican could havelooked on, if he could have seen the taking of Douaumont, or ifWellington could have seen the taking of the Ridge, I think that theywould have been well satisfied--and somewhat jealous to find thatmilitary talent was so widespread. The man who came out of the staff-room would have won his marshal'sbaton in Napoleon's day, I suppose, though he was out of keeping withthose showy times. I did not then know that he was to beCommander-in-Chief; only that all France thrilled with his name, whichtime will forever associate with Douaumont. At once you felt the dynamicquality under his agreeable manner and knew that General Nivelle didthings swiftly and quietly, without wasteful expenditure of reserveforce, which he could call upon when needed by turning on the current. There was a stranger come to call; it was a rainy night; we had betternot drive back to the hotel at Bar-le-Duc, he suggested, but find abillet in town, which was hospitality not to be imposed upon when onecould see how limited quarters were in this small village. Some day Isuppose a plaque will be put up on the door of that small house, withits narrow hall and plain hat-rack and the sitting-room turned into adining-room, saying that General (perhaps it will be Marshal) Nivellelived here during the battle of Verdun. It is a fine gift, simplicity. Some great men, or those who are called great, lack it; but nothing isso attractive in any man. No sentry at the door, no servant to open it. You simply went in, hung up your cap and took off your raincoat. Hundreds of staffs were sitting down to the same kind of dinner with achoice of red or white wine and the menu was that of an average Frenchhousehold. I recall this and other staff dinners, in contrast to costlyplate and rich food in a house where a gold Croesus with diamond eyesand necklace should have been on the mantelpiece as the household god, with the thought that even war is a good thing if it centers ambition onobjects other than individual gain. Without knowing it, Joffre, Castelnau, Foch, Pétain, Nivelle and others were the richest men inFrance. A colonel when the war began, in the sifting by Father Joffre to findreal leaders by the criterion of success General Nivelle had risen tocommand an army. Wherever he was in charge he got the upper hand of theenemy. All that he and his officers said reflected one spirit--that ofthe offensive. They were men who believed in giving blows. A nationlooking for a man who could win victories said, "Here he is!" when itspeople read the _communiqué_ about Douaumont one morning. He had beengoing his way, doing the tasks in hand according to his own method, andat one of the stations fame found him. Soldiers have their philosophyand these days when it includes fame, probably fame never comes. Thistime it came to a soldier without any of the showy qualities that fameused to prefer, one who, I should say, was quite unaffected by it owingto a greater interest in his work; a man without powerful influence tourge his promotion. If you had met him before the war he would haveimpressed you with his kindly features, well-shaped head and vitality, and if you know soldiers you would have known that he was highly trainedin his profession. His staff was a family, but the kind of family whereevery member has telepathic connection with its head; I could notimagine that any officer who had not would be at home in the littledining-room. Readiness of perception and quickness of action inintelligent obedience were inherent. Over in his office in the municipal building where we went after dinnerthe general took something wrapped in tissue paper out of a drawer andfrom his manner, had he been a collector, I should have known that itwas some rare treasure. When he undid the paper I saw a photograph ofGeneral Joffre autographed with a sentiment for the occasion. "He gave it to me for Douaumont!" said General Nivelle, a touch of pridein his voice--the only sign of pride that I noticed. There spoke the soldier to whom praise from his chief was the bestpraise and more valued than any other encomium. When I spoke of Douaumont he drew out the map and showed me his order ofthe day, which had a soldierly brevity that made words keen-edged tools. The attacking force rushed up overnight and appeared as a regulatedtidal wave of men, their pace timed under cover of curtains of firewhich they hugged close, then over the German trenches and on into thefort. Six thousand prisoners and forty-five hundred French casualties!It was this dramatic, this complete and unequivocal success that hadcaptured the imagination of France, but he was not dramatic in tellingit. He made it a military evolution on a piece of paper; though when heput his pencil down on Douaumont and held it fast there for a moment, saying, "And that is all for the present!" the pencil seemed to turninto steel. All for the present! And the future? That of the army of France was tobe in his hands. He had the supreme task. He would approach it as hehad approached all other tasks. * * * * * You had only to look at General Mangin commanding the corps beforeVerdun to know that attack was not alone a system but a gospel with him. Five stripes on his arm for wounds, all won in colonial work, sun-browned, swart, with a strong, abutting chin which might have been afit point for Nivelle's pencil, an eye that said "Attack!" and couldtwinkle with the wisdom of many campaigns! "General Joffre sat in that chair two hours before the advance, " hesaid, with the same respectful awe that other generals had exhibitedtoward the Commander-in-Chief. The time had come for the old leader, grown weary, to go; for theyounger men of the school which the war has produced, with its curtainsof fire and wave attacks, to take his place. But the younger ones in theconfidence of their system could look on the old leader while he livedas the great, indomitable figure of the critical stages of the war. A man of iron, Mangin, with a breadth of chest in keeping with his chin, who could bear the strain of command which had brought down manygenerals from sheer physical incapacity. Month after month this chin hadstood out against German drives, all the while wanting to be in itsnatural element of the offensive. His resolute, outright solution ofproblems by human ratios would fit him into any age or any climate. Hewas at home leading a punitive expedition or in the complicated businessof Verdun. Whether he was using a broadsword or a curtain of fire heproposed to strike his enemy early and hard and keep on striking. In thecourse of talking with him I spoke of the contention that in some casesin modern war men could be too brave. "Rarely!" he replied, a single word which had the emphasis of both thatjaw and that shrewd, piercing eye. "What is the best time to go out to the front?" I asked the general. "Five o'clock in the morning!" The officer who escorted me did not think anything of getting up at thathour. Mangin's is a five-o'clock-in-the-morning corps. Shall I describe that town on the banks of the Meuse which has beendescribed many times? Or that citadel built by Vauban, with dynamos andelectric light in its underground chambers and passages, its hospitals, shops, stores and barrack room, so safe under its walls and roof ofmasonry that the Germans presciently did not waste their shells on itbut turned them with particular vengeance on the picturesque old housesalong the river bank, neglecting the barracks purposely in view of theirusefulness to the conquerors when Mecca was theirs. There must besomething sacred to a Frenchman in the citadel which held life secureand in the ruins which bore their share of the blows upon this oldfortress town in the lap of the hills, looking out toward hills whichhad been the real defense. Interest quickened on the way to the Verdun front as you came to theslopes covered with torn and fallen trees, where the Germans laid theirfar-reaching curtains of fire to catch the French reserves strugglingthrough mud and shell-craters on those February and March days to therelief of the front line. Only when you have known the life of an armyin action in winter in such a climate can you appreciate the will thatdrove men forward to the attack and the will of the defenders againstoutnumbering guns, having to yield, point by point, with shrewd thrift, small bands of men in exposed places making desperate resistance againsttorrents of shells. Verdun was German valor at its best and German gunnery at its mightiest, the effort of Colossus shut in a ring of steel to force a decision; andthe high-water mark of German persistence was where you stood on theedge of the area of mounds that shells had heaped and craters thatshells had scooped by the concentration of fire on Fort Souville. A fewGermans in the charge reached here, but none returned. The survivorsentered Verdun, the French will tell you with a shrug, as prisoners. Down the bare slope with its dead grass blotched by craters the eyetravels and then up another slope to a crest which you see as a cumulusof shell-tossed earth under an occasional shell-burst. That isDouaumont, whose taking cost the Germans such prolonged and bloodyeffort and aroused the Kaiser to a florid outburst of laudation of hisBrandenburgers who, by its capture, had, as Germany then thought, brought France to her death-gasp. On that hill German prestige and system reached their zenith; and theanswer eight months later was French _élan_ which, in two hours, withthe swiftness and instinctive cohesion of democracy drilled andembattled and asking no spur from an autocrat, swept the Germans off thesummit. From other charges I could visualize the precise and spiritedmovement of those blue figures under waves of shell fire in an attackwhich was the triumphant example of the latest style of offensiveagainst frontal positions. There was no Kaiser to burst into rhetoric tothank General Nivelle, who had his reward in an autographed photographfrom Father Joffre; and the men of that charge had theirs in thegratitude of a people. Fort Vaux, on another crest at the right, was still in German hands, butthat, too, was to be regained with the next rush. Yes, it was good tobe at Verdun after Douaumont had been retaken, standing where you wouldhave been in range of a German sniper a week before. Turning as on apivot, you could identify through the glasses all the positions whosenames are engraved on the French mind. Not high these circling hills, the keystone of a military arch, but taken together it was clear how, inthis as in other wars, they were nature's bastion at the edge of theplain that lay a misty line in the distance. Either in front or to the rear of Souville toward Verdun the surprisingthing was how few soldiers you saw and how little transport within rangeof German guns; which impressed you with the elastic system of theFrench, who are there and are not there. Let an attack by the Germansdevelop and soldiers would spring out of the earth and the valleys echowith the thunder of guns. A thrifty people, the French. When studying those hills that had seen the greatest German offensiveafter I had seen the offensive on the Somme, I thought of all that thesummer had meant on the Western front, beginning with Douaumont lost andending with Douaumont regained and the sweep over the conquered Ridge;and I thought of another general, Sir Douglas Haig, who had had to trainhis legions, begin with bricks and mortar to make a house under shellfire and, day by day, with his confidence in "the spirit thatquickeneth" as the great asset, had wrought with patient, far-seeingskill a force in being which had never ceased attacking and drawing inGerman divisions to hold the line that those German divisions were meantto break. Von Falkenhayn was gone from power; the Crown Prince who thirsted forwar had had his fill and said that war was an "idiocy. " It was thesentiment of the German trenches which put von Falkenhayn out; thesilent ballots of that most sensitive of all public opinion, casting itsvotes with the degree of its disposition to stand fire, which no officercan control by mere orders. With the Verdun offensive over, the German soldiers struggling on theRidge had a revelation which was translated into a feeling thatcensorship could not stifle of the failure of the campaign to crushFrance. They called for the man who had won victories and the Kaisergave them von Hindenburg, whom fortune favored when he sent armiesinspirited by his leadership against amateur soldiers in veteranconfidence, while the weather had stopped the Allied offensive in theWest. Imagine Lee's men returning from Gettysburg to be confronted byinexperienced home militia and their cry, "The Yanks have given us arough time of it, but you fellows get out of the way!" Such was thefeeling of that German Army as it went southward; not the army that itwas, but quite good enough an army to win against Rumania with thesystem that had failed at Verdun. XXXI _AU REVOIR_, SOMME! Sir Douglas Haig--Atmosphere at headquarters something of Oxford and of Scotland--Sir Henry Rawlinson--"Degumming" the inefficient--Back on the Ridge again--The last shell-burst--Good-bye to the mess--The fellow war-correspondents--_Bon voyage_. The fifth of the great attacks, which was to break in more of the oldfirst-line fortifications, taking Beaumont-Hamel and other villages, wasbeing delayed by Brother Low Visibility, who had been having his inningsin rainy October and early November, when the time came for me to saygood-byes and start homeward. Sir Douglas Haig had been as some invisible commander who wasomnipresent in his forceful control of vast forces. His disinclinationfor reviews or display was in keeping with his nature and his conceptionof his task. The army had glimpses of him going and coming in his carand observers saw him entering or leaving an army or a corpsheadquarters, his strong, calm features expressive of confidence andresolution. There were many instances of his fine sensitiveness, his quickdecisions, his Scotch phrases which could strip a situation bare ofnon-essentials. It was good that a man with his culture and charm couldhave the qualities of a great commander. In the chateau which was hisSomme headquarters where final plans were made, the final word givenwhich put each issue to the test, the atmosphere had something of Oxfordand of Scotland and of the British regular army, and everything seemeddone by a routine that ran so smoothly that the appearance of routinewas concealed. Here he had said to me early in the offensive that he wanted me to havefreedom of observation and to criticise as I chose, and he trusted menot to give military information to the enemy. When I went to take myleave and thank him for his courtesies the army that he had drilled hadreceived the schooling of battle and tasted victory. How great his taskhad been only a soldier could appreciate, and only history can dojustice to the courage that took the Ridge or the part that it hadplayed in the war. Upstairs in a small room of another chateau the Commander-in-Chief andthe Commander of the Fourth of the group of armies under SirDouglas--who had played polo together in India as subalterns, Sir HenryRawlinson being still as much of a Guardsman as Sir Douglas was aScot--had held many conferences. Sir Henry could talk sound soldierlysense about the results gained and look forward, as did the whole army, to next summer when the maximum of skill and power should be attained. In common with Nivelle, both were leaders who had earned their way inbattle, which was promoting the efficient and shelving or "degumming, "in the army phrase, the inefficient. Every week, every day, I might say, the new army organization had tightened. With steel helmet on and gas mask over the shoulder for the last time, Ihad a final promenade up to the Ridge, past the guns and Mouquet Farm, picking my way among the shell-craters and other grisly reminders of thetorment that the fighters had endured to a point where I could look outover the fields toward Bapaume. For eight and ten miles the way had beenblazed free of the enemy by successive attacks. Five hundred yards ahead"krumps" splashing the soft earth told where the front line was andaround me was the desert which such pounding had created, with no one inthe immediate neighborhood except some artillery officers hugging adepression and spotting the fall of shells from their guns just short ofBapaume and calling out the results by telephone, over one of thestrands of the spider's web of intelligence which they had unrolled froma reel when they came. I joined them for a few minutes in their retreatbelow the skyline and listened to their remarks about Brother LowVisibility, who soon was to have the world for his own in winter mists, rain and snow, limiting the army's operations by his perversity untilspring came. And so back, as the diarists say, by the grassless and blasted routeover which I had come. After I was in the car I heard one of the wickedscreams with its unpleasant premonition, which came to an end bywhipping out a ball of angry black smoke short of a near-by howitzer, which was the last shell-burst that I saw. Good-bye, too, to my English comrades in a group at the doorway: toRobinson with his poise, his mellowness, his wisdom, his well-balancedsentences, who had seen the world around from mining camps of the westto Serbian refugee camps; to "our Gibbs, " ever sweet-tempered, writinghis heart out every night in the human wonder of all he saw in burningsentences that came crowding to his pencil-point which raced on till hewas exhausted, though he always revived at dinner to undertake anycontroversy on behalf of a better future for the whole human race; toblithesome Thomas who will never grow up, making words dance a tune, quoting Horace in order to forget the shells, all himself with his coatoff and swinging a peasant's scythe; to Philips the urbane, not sayingmuch but coming to the essential point, our scout and cartographer, whoknew all the places on the map between the Somme and the Rhine and heardthe call of Pittsburgh; to Russell, that pragmatic, upstanding expert insquadrons and barrages, who saved all our faces as reporters by knowingnews when he saw it, arbiter of mess conversations, whose pungent withad a movable zero--luck to them all! May Robinson have a statelymansion on the Thames where he can study nature at leisure; Gibbs neverwant for something to write about; Thomas have six crops of hay a yearto mow and a garden with a different kind of bird nesting in every tree;Philips a new pipe every day and a private yacht sailing on an ocean ofmaps; Russell a home by the sea where he can watch the ships comein--when the war is over. It happened that High Visibility had slightly the upper hand over hisgloomy brother the day they bade me _bon voyage_. My last glimpse of thecathedral showed it clear against the sky; and ahead many miles of rich, familiar landscape of Picardy and Artois were to unfold before I tookthe cross-channel steamer. I knew that I had felt the epic touch ofgreat events. THE END