Edward Parrott

“ And hour after hour the rattle of musketry and the roaring swell of the great shells; the hurried entrenchments and the long, deadly vigils; or the sudden happy chance of a blow back, when the bayonet took revenge for dusty miles and crippled bodies and lost comrades. On the evening of the 4th the van of the retreat saw from the slopes above the Grand Morin a land of coppice and pasture rolling southwards to a broad valley, and far off the dusk of many trees. It was the forest of Fontainebleau [83] and the vale of the Seine. ”

“ Then the pitiless French guns begin to speak, and he sees his infantry mowed down like wheat before the reaper's sickle. He looks for victory; he sees defeat. Now the French begin to attack, and his Bavarians give way before their fierce onset. The time has come for him to seek safety in flight. A strange fatality seems to accompany him. Wherever he appears and commands in person, there you may look for disaster—whether in France or in Poland. He is a melancholy figure, flitting from East to West, feverishly inciting his armies to die for the Fatherland ”

“ As the sun rose higher and higher in the sky the cannonade grew fiercer and fiercer. Over the peaceful hills, the shining water, the stubbles, the pastures and wheat fields, delicate white balloons of bursting shrapnel were constantly seen. At a hundred different places along the far-flung battle line Allied infantry were worming their way towards the enemy, anon rising from their cover at the sound of a shrill whistle, rushing ahead, and dropping again into concealment amidst the rattle of rifles and machine guns. ”

“ In a fighting retreat there is not a moment's rest for anybody. While one part of the army is fighting, another part is marching; and no matter how weary the marching men may be, they must be ready at any moment to form a firing line, while their comrades in front scramble out of their trenches and hurry to the rear. ”

“ As the rear of the long columns passed the Algerians in the garret aimed their rifles and fired. Six loud reports were heard, followed by two shrieks of pain and two heavy thuds on the cobbled road below.
"Halt!" The Germans turn and re-enter the town. The mayor is led out and shot; parties are told off to fire the place; petrol bombs are thrown into the houses; the railway station is destroyed; fierce flames spring up, and the smoke of burning homes rises to heaven. In a mile and a half of streets only three small cottages are spared. ”

“ Every man of the Guards' Brigade who advanced in the gray of that September morning was eager to prove himself worthy of the name and fame of his regiment. "Fix bayonets!" was now the order, and away swept the British, unsupported by artillery, towards the enemy's trenches. There was fierce hand-to-hand fighting for a few minutes. Then the Germans, unable to stand the fierce onset and the thrust of cold steel, broke and fled, leaving five guns and more than three hundred prisoners in the hands of the victors. ”

“ On the 7th the Kaiser took up a position on a neighbouring hill, and watched the attack which was to overwhelm the French. He had made ready to enter Nancy in triumph that evening.
Picture him on the hill, in his long gray cloak and silver helmet, peering through his field-glasses into the valley, and confidently expecting to see his Bavarians drive the French before them. He sees the White Cuirassiers charge, and, as the brave men cheer and gallant horses thunder towards the enemy, he feels that nothing can resist them. ”

“ At all costs the Germans must defend Silesia, not only because it is the key to Germany from the south-east, but because it is the German Lancashire, a great industrial province which supplies the empire with much of its cotton, linen, woollen, and metal manufactures. Should this province be captured, Germany would suffer a blow from which she could hardly recover.
There is another but a less important reason why Silesia must be held by the Germans. Silesia is, as it were, a wedge between the Slav peoples of the east and those of Bohemia. ”

“ Our artillery now opened fire, and rifles and guns swept lanes of death through the ranks of the enemy. They wavered and retired.
Again the enemy, reinforced by machine guns and artillery, with cavalry on the flanks, bore down upon the British. At this moment our cavalry appeared, and the Guards, leaping to their feet, doubled towards the top of a neighbouring hill which the Germans were bent on seizing. The enemy reached it first, dug himself in, and brought up his guns, which immediately began a furious cannonade. Our men went to earth at once in hastily-made trenches. ”

“ I saw men trundling wheel-barrows piled high with bedding, and with their children perched upon the bedding. I saw sturdy young peasants carrying their aged parents in their arms. I saw women of fashion in fur coats and high-heeled shoes staggering along clinging to the ends of wagons. I saw white-haired men and women grasping the harness of the gun teams or the stirrup leathers of the troopers, who, themselves exhausted from many days of fighting, slept in their saddles as they rode. ”

“ The British were soon standing to arms in their position along the whole twenty-five miles of the battle-line. Hardly had they thrust the cartridges into their rifles before the terrible thunder of the German guns began. These guns were massed just outside the southern edge of the woods, behind railway embankments, roadside trees, hedgerows, and the raised towing-paths of the willow-fringed canals. The thunder of the cannonade speedily showed that the enemy was in far greater force than had been supposed. ”

“ The Guards lay on the ground across the road, and a stream of bullets flew from their rifles; while the machine guns, some on the road and others on the housetops, tore blood-red lanes through the dense masses of the advancing enemy.
The Germans were beaten back, but they rallied and came on again, while other columns tried to work round to the rear of the town through side streets. Everywhere they found their way blocked by the British, and all night long the fight raged. ”

“ Away on the left rose the dusky heights; in front the factory loomed darkly against the sky; from windows and loopholes came thin sparks of flame; all around were wooded [252] slopes wrapped in gloom. Along the British front the darkness was relieved by flashes of light from the rifles of the widely-extended infantry. From the distant trenches came the thunder of guns. All the time a light rain was falling, and a soaking mist made the darkness more obscure. ”

“ The heavy guns of the enemy fired shells of eight or nine inches in diameter, which roared through the air like an express train, and exploded with a terrific report, throwing up columns of greasy, black smoke, and tearing craters in the ground big enough to hold the bodies of five horses. The Germans fully expected that these terrifying shells would drive our men crazy with fear. ”

“ Between the trenches was a No Man's Land, strewn with wounded and the unburied bodies of the dead. The moment any attempt was made to rescue the wounded a heavy fire broke out; so the poor fellows lay on the sodden ground in torment, within a few yards of their own trenches, for days together. In some places the British and the German lines were so near that the soldiers could exchange remarks.
As a rule, each side shelled the other by day, and at night the Germans, after a fierce bombardment, were in the habit of attacking some part of our lines. ”

“ A bursting shell slew Samsonov and two of his corps commanders, while elsewhere several other Russian leaders were lying dead or wounded. The whole Russian army was smashed to ruin. Out of 200,000 men, no less than 140,000 were killed, wounded, or captured. The Germans took between 80,000 and 90,000 prisoners—about the same number which fell into their hands at Sedan. Not a Russian gun was saved, and the miserable remnants of the army crossed their own frontier as a mere rabble. Never was there a more complete and decisive victory. ”

“ If the Russians could enter Silesia and begin to lay waste its crowded industrial towns, a blow would be struck at the very heart of Germany. Berlin, too, would be in peril, for a road to the capital would be opened along the river Oder and behind the line of frontier fortresses.
The capture of Cracow by the Russians would not only imperil Germany, but it would make them complete masters of Galicia. You already know what a very important part petrol plays in modern warfare. Motor cars, aeroplanes, and submarines must have petrol, or they cannot move. ”

“ If you are a Scottish boy or girl, you will be certain to maintain that the Scots Greys are the finest cavalrymen in the world. Your English friends may not, perhaps, agree with you; but even though they may prefer the 9th Lancers or some other English regiment, they will be quite willing to give very high praise indeed to the Scots Greys. They have a glorious record, and every one remembers how famously they bore themselves at the Battle of Waterloo, where they charged down upon the French with the Gordons clinging to their stirrup-leathers, horsemen and footmen shouting, "Scotland for ever!" ”

“ In France any man who has the ability may rise to the highest posts in the army. There is a great gulf fixed between the private soldier and the officer in Germany; but in France there is a strong spirit of comradeship between all ranks, and this knits them together far better than the iron discipline of the Germans.
The army of France is inferior in numbers to that of Germany, but it easily ranks as the second of the armies of the world. Our regular army, as you know, is trained in India; France uses her North African colony of Algeria for the same purpose. ”

“ When the 5th Division was retiring to the Bavay-Maubeuge position, Major Alexander, as he was then, handled his guns so skilfully that they did great execution on the Germans; and when they were threatened with capture by overwhelming numbers of the enemy, he and three men moved them into safety by hand. The splendid stand which he made enabled the 5th Division to retire without serious loss. On a later date he rescued a wounded man under heavy fire, and on every occasion when he was engaged showed the greatest gallantry and devotion to duty. ”

“ That day our left was almost within gunshot of the eastern forts of Paris. Two days later the British army lay south of the Grand Morin, [81] a tributary of the Marne. The long retreat was over.
It is impossible to overpraise the indomitable spirit of the British army during its retirement from the Belgian frontier. Our men bore the heavy fighting, the weary marches through chilly and often wet nights, the awful strain on nerves and temper, with wonderful fortitude. All that they asked was to be allowed to stand and "go for" the enemy. ”

“ Our first line did not consist, at any time, of more than 80,000 men, and against them von Kluck hurled at least 150,000 men, without counting the masses of cavalry which were moving towards the space between our left at Condé and the town of Tournai. Though the Germans were shot down in thousands, they continued to roll on like the waves of an incoming tide. "It was like the crowd leaving a football ground on a cup-tie day," was the description of one of our soldiers. For every five men which the French and the British had in the field in the early days of the war the Germans had eight. ”

“ People at home don't realize and understand what heroes the men are—brave, suffering every hardship without a grumble, loyal, and in the highest sense true, typical Britons."
The fateful day had passed; the little British army, though its ranks were sorely thinned, was still unbroken and undefeated. Smith-Dorrien's corps had made a stand which will go down to history as a triumph of valour and endurance. It had resisted an army that outnumbered it by ten to one, and it had handled it very roughly indeed. ”

“ They listened to his words, and gave up their hidden guns. Soon afterwards sixty thousand Germans marched in, seized the mayor as a hostage, and for two days remained in the town, mingling with the people, playing with the children, and behaving themselves well.
All this time there lay hidden in the attic of a house overlooking the main street six dusky sons of Algeria, soldiers of France, who had been trapped by the coming of the Germans. Their rifles were in their hands, and there was revenge in their hearts. There they lay, waiting for a chance to strike a blow against the enemy. ”

“ A mighty nation, drunk with the lust of empire, had trampled to ruin a little, toiling people, innocent of offence in the sight of God and man. It had dared to defend itself, and for this heinous crime an overwhelming foe "slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age." The blare of trumpets and the roll of drums may stop the ears of men to every cry of agony, and deaden their hearts to every impulse of mercy ”

“ We came to the river Aisne in the early hours of the 14th, and found that, with a single exception, all the bridges had been blown up. The engineers immediately set to work with their pontoons; but the Germans from a sheltered position had the range perfectly. As quickly as one raft was got into position the poor fellows were knocked over like ninepins by the most murderous fire. When one man fell into the water another took his place, and the river was full of wounded struggling in the water. We fished out all we could. Six times our bridge was destroyed before they were able to get across. ”