Battle of the Aisne

“ On the tower of a ruined church I spent several hours in close observation of the operations. Nothing since the Battle of the Aisne had ever impressed me so deeply with the terrible shortage of artillery and ammunition as did the events of that day. As I watched the Aubers ridge, I clearly saw the great inequality of the artillery duels, and, as attack after attack failed, I could see that the absence of sufficient artillery support was doubling (p. 357) and trebling our losses in men. ”

“ The condition of the front along which we must pass for eighty miles is as follows: the battle of the Aisne has now turned into a race for the coast; each army is trying to outflank the other, the Germans, according to present indications, getting much the better of the contest. Everyone’s attention seems to be concentrated for the moment on Calais, and the Allies evidently feel that the [Pg 156] chief danger point is there. ”

“ Throughout the battle of the Aisne this advanced and commanding position was maintained, and I cannot speak too highly of the valuable services rendered by Sir Douglas Haig and the army corps under his [Pg 200] command. Day after day and night after night the enemy's infantry has been hurled against him in violent counter-attack, which has never on any one occasion succeeded, whilst the trenches all over his position have been under continuous heavy artillery fire. ”

“ There are a good many men who, like myself, were at Mons, the Marne and the Aisne, and then went into the Fight for the Coast, and I think they would all tell the same story—that that tremendous battle was fifty times worse than the Aisne.
The Aisne was very bad; but even there, though the Germans fought desperately to prevent themselves from being driven back and turned away from Paris, their efforts were not to be compared with the determination they showed in their attacks upon the troops who barred their way to Calais. ”

“ A French officer, who appeared out of the house, informed us that we were then actually within two hundred yards of the German trenches, so near, he said, that his men “knew the Germans in the opposing trenches by their first names.”
Seeing a modern battle demolishes all one’s preconceived ideas derived from descriptions of previous wars. One at least expects some sort of rapid and exciting action. In reality, as we stood [Pg 164] in the very midst of the Battle of the Aisne, there was, in our immediate neighborhood, only a dead silence. ”

“ There, for eight days, men fell, torn with shell and bullet, and over these trenches men charged in the face of certain death.
A German attack in force opened the battle on January 8. General Joffre had slightly altered his plan, as outlined to Hal and Chester, and immediately the battle began the French made a counter-attack.
The Aisne river, at this point, is one of the most strategic positions. The battlefield covered a front of approximately seven miles. On the western side is a deep valley, running northward, which is bounded on either side by turnpikes from Soissons, La Fere and Laon. ”

“ The forces already on the north side were heavily engaged. Towards nightfall the Germans attempted a counter-attack. It was beaten off after severe fighting. Three hours later, about ten o'clock at night, they again descended in force against the positions and villages held by the British troops. While the clefts and side valleys blazed with flashing fire of infantry, the valley of the Aisne was lit up for miles with the fluctuating and lurid flare from the heavy guns. Masses of German infantry tried to drive the British troops out of the villages they had seized. ”

“ And in time they become fed up on battles and to the noise and danger grow callous. On the Aisne I saw an artillery battle that stretched for fifteen miles. Both banks of the river were wrapped in smoke; from the shells villages miles away were in flames, and two hundred yards in front of us the howitzer shells were bursting in black fumes. To this the French soldiers were completely indifferent. The hills they occupied had been held that morning by the Germans, and the trenches and fields were strewn with their accoutrement. ”

“ On Sunday, the 13th of September, the Allied armies had crossed the Aisne, but were held up by the enemy line of defence which, ran along the heights from east of Compiègne to north of Rheims. There was dogged fighting, with attacks and counter-attacks, but little or no progress was made. The Germans had regained the initiative, and the British army was forced to dig itself in along the line of battle. On the 18th of September General Joffre changed his plans and began to push forces up on the Allied left in order to envelop the German right flank. ”

“ That Von Kluck, if it is still Von Kluck on the German right, is alive to its importance, [Pg 244] there is evidence in the strong reinforcements constantly thrust out towards the line Paris-Amiens, to anticipate the French movements, and in the vigour of the offensive which is pushing out to the west of Noyon. The conflicts between the patrols and our flying mitrailleuse-cars have made a distraction in the north to the unvarying character of reports from the long and terrible ding-dong battle on the Aisne and Oise. ”

“ Inhabitants may not quit their homes after eight p.m.
(4) No person may on any pretext pass through the British lines without an authorisation countersigned by a British officer.
On October 23rd six batteries of heavy howitzers asked for by Sir John French reached the front, and were at once put into action. No effort was spared by the Germans to drive the British army back across the Aisne. The quantity of heavy shells they fired was enormous, and they were probably under the impression that the effect was devastating. ”

“ But, though the British people supported the war with practical unanimity, it was found necessary to stimulate recruiting by a platform campaign. A more effective method would doubtless have been to give news from the front; but few details were given of the great battle on the Aisne, and the feats of particular corps were not mentioned for fear that the enemy should find out what troops it had to face. War correspondents, again, were not allowed at the front, and arrangements to permit them were vetoed, after long waiting, by the War Office. ”

“ The French offensive between the Oise and Aisne develops.
Aug. 19 (Mon.)
The Lys Front:—The British capture Merville.
The French advance in the Ribécourt sector towards Noyon.
Aug. 20 (Tues.)
The French continue to advance between the Oise and the Aisne and reach Lombray; they capture over 8000 prisoners.
Aug. 21 (Wed.)
The Battle of Bapaume begins (see Aug. 31) : the British 3rd Army (Byng) attacks on a ten-mile front between Albert and Arras; Beaucourt, Achiet-le-Petit, Courcelles, and Moyenville are captured. ”

“ The French and our own troops were close on his heels; but so skilfully was the retreat executed that our cavalry was unable to operate effectively, and the German western armies extricated themselves from our enveloping movement without severe defeat. They were falling back at express speed upon the position already selected along the heights behind the Aisne. On the morning after regaining Paris I ran out through Lagny to Meaux, to follow up the line of the battles.
Paris, Thursday.
Those have been grim fights round Meaux [Pg 194] the last few days. It is no single battlefield ”

“ The failure of the German centre was the gravest disaster, and threatened von Kluck with the menace of an enveloping movement by the Allied troops which might lead to his destruction, with the flower of the Imperial troops. Away back there on the Aisne were impregnable positions tempting to hard-pressed men. Leaving nothing to chance, the Germans had prepared them already in case of retreat, though it had not been dreamed of then as more than a fantastic possibility. The fortune of war itself as well as cautious judgment pointed back to the Aisne for safety. ”

“ The promenade along the exposed side of the plateau, in sight of Soissons and the bank of the Aisne, also held by the French in force, gave a rather uncanny feeling of insecurity. However, it was less dangerous than it seemed, for a slight haze rendered the group in German field gray invisible to the French artillery on the heights on the opposite side of the valley.
In the part of the field where Hal and Chester had been on the eighth day of the fighting, at the edge of the plateau, the struggle had been desperate. ”

“ As I advanced, the long lines of wagons were still pouring up with troops and munition; happier now, and confident. The cannon sounded ahead from just over the fields, where the Germans have been forced back on the Aisne. I discharged a load of troopers and guns, and waited, listening to the thunder across the hill. It is more restful work. We have them! A few prisoners drove past us, blanched with nervousness and hunger. The wounded were being carted past to the Red Cross cottages. And still the flood of French supports is coming up. ”

“ The human eye is ever longing to pierce the veil of the future, but it was perhaps as well that men could not foresee, as the Allies drove the Germans across the lower reaches of the Aisne, how long that river would be reddened with the blood of the contending forces. ”

“ From the date of the Aisne the infantry in defence gained a decided superiority over the artillery in attack and kept it for many months after the race to Calais had locked the lines in Western Europe. The enemy possessed indeed a great superiority in heavy guns, but it was not sufficient to blow out of its position a resolute corps or army. The deadlock was complete. The gunners could not destroy the trenches and the machine-gun emplacements sufficiently to allow the infantry to advance, and time was on our side. ”

“ Large detachments of enemy cavalry wedged themselves between the British and French Armies, and advancing from Noyon towards Soissons, became a formidable menace to the French retirement across the Aisne. ”

“ They were already moving about cheerfully—the French are most kindly captors—but none of them had lost the stamp of pallor imprinted by the exhaustion and strain of that prolonged fighting march. Not one but was tired of the "useless war." It is only the stay-at-homes who have not lived in a war atmosphere, for whom it retains its colour of heroics after a few weeks of its squalid realities.
I crossed the Vesle, on a pontoon bridge, and visited two of the seven bridges which the Germans destroyed as they retired before the British over the Aisne near Soissons. ”