Popinot

“ It was not the monster guns on railway-trucks, or even the great numbers of quick-firing, hard-hitting 75's, but the magnificent courage and tenacity of the tired men in the mud-splashed uniforms, which held Verdun for France. Though their forts were crumbling under the violence of the German bombardment; though their trenches were pounded into pudding; though the unceasing barrage made it at times impossible to bring up food or water or reinforcements, the French hung stubbornly on, and against the granite wall of their defense the waves of men in gray flung themselves in vain. ”

“ Beginning as a penniless lieutenant of French artillery, he rose to be captain, colonel, general, commander-in-chief, consul of France, emperor of the French, master of Europe, almost conqueror of the world—and he was still only thirty-three years of age, when at the height of his glory, he invaded Russia. His army of invasion was gathered from all his subject nations—Germans, Swiss, Italians, Poles, Austrians, numbering more than half a million men, an irresistible and overwhelming force, launched like a shell into the heart of Russia. ”

“ The Italians, realizing that no troops in the world could hope to reach the summit of those steep slopes in the face of barbed wire, rifles, and machine-guns, had, unknown to the enemy, driven a tunnel, a mile and a quarter long, into the very heart of this position. When the assault was ordered, therefore, the first lines of Italian infantry suddenly appeared from out of the ground within a few yards of the Austrian trenches. Amid a storm of vivas the gray wave, with its crest of glistening steel, surged up the few remaining yards of glacis, topped the parapet, and overwhelmed the defenders. ”

“ These grim vehicles, which jeered at bullets, and were proof even against shrapnel, quickly became a nightmare to the Germans. Driven by the most reckless racing drivers in Belgium, manned by crews of dare-devil youngsters, and armed with machine-guns which poured out lead at the rate of a thousand shots a minute, these wheeled fortresses would tear at will into the German lines, cut up an outpost or wipe out a cavalry patrol, dynamite a bridge or a tunnel or a culvert, and be back in the Belgian lines again almost before the enemy realized what had happened. ”

“ France is well-armed for attack as well as defence; for attack, by means of the great armed masses which she can throw into the enemy country at the first declaration of war, in conjunction with the troops she has had stationed on her frontier during peace-time; and for defence by means of a defensive system on a vast scale, the outer line of which consists of frontier-fortresses and stop-gap forts from the Swiss to the Belgian frontier, from Belfort, over the Vosges ridge to Epinal, now a strong fortress, Toul and Verdun, on the right bank of the Meuse. ”

“ On that occasion they had been so pounded by the French artillery that they were little more than giant furrows in the chalky soil, and thickly strewn along those furrows was all the horrid garbage of a battlefield: twisted and tangled barbed wire, splintered planks, shattered rifles, broken machine-guns, unexploded hand-grenades, knapsacks, water-bottles, pieces of uniforms, bits of leather, and, most horrible of all, the remains of what had once been human beings. ”

“ The sight of the battle-field with its utter and universal desolation stretching interminably on all sides, its trenches battered out of recognition, its wilderness of shell-holes, débris, tangled wire, broken rifles, and abandoned equipment, confirms the opinion that no troops, whatever their morale or training, can stand the fire of such overwhelming and concentrated masses of artillery. With a definite and limited objective and with sufficient artillery, complete success may be reasonably guaranteed. ”

“ Catherine-Waelhem sector, against which the Germans at first focussed their attack, were impressive and awesome beyond description. Against a livid sky rose pillars of smoke from burning villages. The air was filled with shrieking shell and bursting shrapnel. The deep-mouthed roar of the guns in the forts and the angry bark of the Belgian field-batteries were answered at intervals by the shattering crash of the German high-explosive shells. When one of these big shells--the soldiers dubbed them "Antwerp expresses"--struck in a field it sent up a geyser of earth two hundred feet in height. ”

“ We reached one sky-line only to find another looking down at us. Barbed-wire entanglements and "Spanish riders" crossed the slopes in front of them—it was the sort of place that looks to a civilian as if it could hold out forever.
The difficulty in country like this is, of course, to escape flanking fire. You fortify yourself against attack from one direction only to be enfiladed by artillery from some ridge to right or left. That was what the Austrians and Germans did and, following their artillery with an infantry assault, captured one of the upper Russian trenches. ”

“ The sharp edges of conflict are stationary—sunk in the muddy trenches and nailed down to machine-gun emplacements. But while the fronts of the great war machine are thus held, they are never still. The wear and tear of conflict go on day and night, week after week, month after month. Behind the infantry in their earthy strongholds the great guns of the artillery hide, long-sighted and tireless. ”

“ All through the uproar of guns and thunder of the artillery, you can distinguish the guttural hurrahs of the Austrians, and the broken oaths of the French troopers. The trenches are piled with dead bodies, the trumpets sound the attack, the survivors, obeying an irresistible impulse, spring to the front. The ridges are crested with human masses swaying to and fro, and the first red uniform is seen in the streets of Montebello, in relief against the chalky facades bristling with Austrian guns, pouring forth their ammunition on the enemy below. ”

“ They are the boys who weave the “curtain of fire” which you read about in the French official bulletins as checking an infantry charge; which demolish the barbed-wire entanglements to let an infantry charge get into a trench. If a general wants a shower of bullets over any part of the German line he has only to call up the eighteen-pounders and it is sent as promptly as the pressure of a button brings a pitcher of iced water to a room in a first-class hotel. A veteran eighteen-pounder crew in action is a poem in precision and speed of movement. The gun itself seems to possess intelligence. ”

“ To deceive the aerial observers, each side resorts to all manner of ingenious tricks. To suggest an impending retirement, columns of men are marched down the roads which lead to the rear; trenches which are not intended to be used are dug; and there are, of course, hundreds of dummy guns, some of which actually fire. The officer in command of the Belgian Photographic Section had heard that I was in Dunkirk in May, 1915, when it was shelled by a German naval gun, at a range of twenty-three and one-half miles. ”

“ More than ever you rejoiced in every one of the bursts of stored lightning thick as fireflies in the blanket of smoke over the German trench, for every one meant a shower of bullets to keep down enemy machine 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 the field toward this shell-made nimbus looking too soft in the bright sunlight to have darts of death. ”

“ For eight hours the terrific cannonade continued. About seven in the evening, when the sky was dark and rain was falling, British aeroplanes appeared overhead and began to sweep the plain with their searchlights. In their glare our men saw to their amazement the Prussian Guards advancing towards their trenches with the high, prancing step of a Potsdam parade—the officers with their swords at the "Carry," and the lines of men as steady as a rock. On they marched, with flags flying and drums beating, but never a rifle snapped from the British trenches. ”

“ At the blast of a whistle they clamber out of a length of trench built for the [211] purpose, and, with shrill Gaelic yells, go swarming across a stretch of broken ground, through a tangle of twisted wire, and over the top of the German parapet, whereupon a row of German soldiers, stuffed with straw and automatically controlled, spring up to meet them. If a man fails to bury his bayonet in the "German" who opposes him, he is sent back to the awkward squad and spends a few days lunging at a dummy swung from a beam. ”

“ Amidst the storm of shells which the German massed guns were pouring upon that narrow front stretching from the Côte du Poivre past the Côte De Talou to the River Meuse, heads popped up from battered trenches, from shell craters, from fissures torn in the ground by high explosives, and hardy, bristly, dirty poilus, stared down the slopes through the wintry light and watched the enemy approaching. ”

“ The things of war. True, the war was a long, long ways from Paris. It was far eastward between the great Maginot Line of the French and the Siegfried Line of Adolf Hitler's Nazi legions. There it had remained for eight months, now, and people were saying that there it would remain. Hitler would never dare attack the [Pg 13] Maginot Line, and eventually the war would just peter out.
Yes, that was the talk you heard all over Paris, but the grim things were there for you to see with your own eyes just the same. The batteries of anti-aircraft guns strategically placed about the city. ”

“ Many pretend to distinguish, above the noise of the cannon of our forts and the Prussian batteries, the echoes of distant artillery, and rush off to announce to their friends that the army of succour has fallen on the besiegers from the rear. In the meantime the bombardment of the forts and villages to the east of the city is continuing, and with that passion for system in everything which distinguishes the Germans, it is being methodized. A fixed number of shells are fired off every minute, and at certain hours in the day there are long pauses. ”

“ The despatch of the excellent Blücher to Pomerania, the patriotism which animates every one,—of which the reserve battalions, the first that have been organized in months, are a proof,—all this gives me fresh hope. Some of these reserves are moving to the front, and some have already fought well. Yes, dear father, I am convinced that all will yet be well, and that we shall meet happily once more. ”

“ Shattered rifles, bits of harness, haversacks, machine-gun belts, trench helmets, sand-bags, barbed wire—nothing escapes the Salvage Corps. They even collect and send in old rags, which are sold for two hundred and fifty dollars a ton. Let us talk less hereafter of German efficiency.
Even more significant than the base camps of the efficiency and painstaking thoroughness of the British war-machine are the training camps scattered behind the lines. Typical of these is the great camp at Etaples, on the French coast, where 150,000 men can be trained at a time. ”

“ No one had ever dreamed that it would be called upon to fight, and hence, when war came, it was wholly unprepared. That it was able to offer the stubborn and heroic resistance which it did to the advance of the German legions speaks volumes for Belgian stamina and courage. Many of the troops were armed with rifles of an obsolete pattern, the supply of ammunition was insufficient, and though the artillery was on the whole of excellent quality, it was placed at a tremendous disadvantage by the superior range and calibre of the German field- guns. ”

“ At once there was a burst of applause from the German lines. They called out: "Kameraden! Kameraden!"
This was going too far. I saw two unarmed Prussians leave their trench and come forward, with their hands raised towards the two Frenchmen, so I consulted G.: "Ought we to fire? I confess it would be rather unpleasant for me to order our fellows to fire upon these unarmed men. On the other hand, can we allow the least intercourse between the barbarous nation that is still treading our soil and our good brothers-in-arms who are pouring out their blood every day to reconquer it?" ”

“ The German military authorities most advantageously employed the respites given them by the strategic errors of the Allies. Never have the broad lines of trenches, the far-flung battle frontiers, been more powerfully guarded than now. Never have the Germans had more abundant stores of munitions. Never has the network of railways covering the length and breadth of Pan-Germany been so complete. Never has the Great General Staff, making full use of its central position, been better able to concentrate on any front with lightning speed. ”

“ Late in the afternoon word was passed down the line that the German guns had been put out of action, that the enemy was retiring and that at 5.30 sharp the whole Belgian line would advance and take the town with the bayonet. Under cover of artillery fire so continuous that it sounded like thunder in the mountains, the Belgian infantry climbed out of the trenches and, throwing aside their knapsacks, formed up behind the road preparatory to the grand assault. A moment later a dozen dog batteries came trotting up and took position on the left of the infantry. ”

“ In the event of war, different Army Corps and Cavalry Divisions will be combined into Armies, but their number [Pg 35] and strength will necessarily depend on the theatre in which they are to be utilised, on the plan of campaign, and on the strength of the enemy. The resources of the Empire will not, however, come to an end with the 20 Army Corps whose strength we have just been describing. Behind the men doing their seven years of service, who compose the Active Army, come those of the 1st and 2nd Class Landwehr, and behind these again come the Ersatz Reserve and the Landsturm. ”