Roadside glimpses of the great war

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I

I. The Lure of War

II

The next day, I was on the train for Lille, straight up to the North, straight towards the Belgian border, straight to the heart of that world-struggle from which we had seen only chance sparks. I had set out under the flush of the "glories of war," thrilled with thoughts of flags borne forward, bugles sounding charges men doing triumphs of bravery, shells, smoke, flashes filling the air in one mighty splendor.

Towards Cambrai, we saw the first of it. We were on the main line of communications both to Paris and to England. Train after train of soldiers, both French and English, rushed past. Snatches of song, the Marseillaise, Rule Britannia, or friendly greetings or jests in broken French and English floated back to us. Thousands of men, smiling and laughing, were rushing on to annihilate their fellow-men. Did one not realize the horrible business of it all, the songs and jokes might have made it appear almost a colossal game ; but as it was, the cheery faces only heightened the immutability of the forces which drove them on. Our train hitched on, siding by siding. Every mile or so we stopped, backed on to an odd track, and gave right of way to a rushing troop-train. Always we alighted to see anything that was to be seen and to enjoy the warm sunshine of a beautiful day. Just south of Marcoing, those who were first to alight shouted :

"Les canons, les canons."

The rumble of artillery came clearly to us out of the distance. Great Heavens, the Germans were well inside France ! What had happened in Belgium } How had they broken through 1 What, even now, was going on in that spot towards which we strained our eyes t Did this tragic breaking of the silence in which we had lived presage another Sedan t

For two hours we remained on that siding. Occasionally a German aeroplane was visible on the distant sky, circling around like an angry vulture seeking the prey's weak spot. Train after train rushed by us. Curiously enough, all those going out were British, all those coming back were French. Apparently the Tommies were going out to hold the Germans while the French reformed below. Little we realized it at the time, but the battle we were there hearing from a distance was that of Cateau-Cambrai, where Sir John French's valiant Expeditionary Force just escaped annihilation.

Soon came the first wounded. Englishmen huddled into common cattle-cars, having had only the most rudimentary treatment out front, and with no one to care for them on the way. Those in view were wounded in every conceivable fashion, arms, legs, and bodies, while behind closed doors lay men even then perhaps breathing their last. It had been literally a slaughter, they told us. On Sunday, 25,000 British had been entrenching near Mons when a German aeroplane spied them. Twenty minutes later 125,000 Germans were on them. The artillery fire was fearful beyond words ; whole divisions perished to a man ; the 19th Hussars who alone could charge were completely obliterated. Finally the British retreated and the Germans ran into a trap. The French cut in on their flank. What then happened Heaven knows. Not a man I saw from the front that day but felt amazement at the Germans' mighty military prowess ; with some it was a mania.

The men returning from the front had a sadness, a pathos, a bewilderment in their expressions which all too well bespoke the whirlpool into which they had been drawn. There was a blankness and a dulness in their eyes which betokened almost complete mental dismay. The reactions of many of them were too unreasonable, too out of perspective to be believed. Many, kindly and gentle in appearance, boasted to me of the most gruesome of deeds — deeds which ordinarily would have shocked them, even in the telling. That delicate something within man, call it soul, spirit, psychology, what you will, had in thousands of cases been smashed so completely that future generations will suffer far more from its effects than from all the physical injuries and disabilities put together.

One Tommie I remember who had been in a bayonet charge just before. He was leaning Hstlessly against the door of the car, his eyes fixed in unseeing gaze on an open field beyond. A sadness enshrouded his still figure which made me hesitate to intrude. As I spoke in a low, impersonal voice, he looked up indifferently, and relapsed almost at once into absorption. Then unexpectedly, in droning, mechanical fashion, he told me how his company had become trapped in the trenches by a German crossfire.

"We were going down like flies," he said, "and it would have been the end of all of us to have stayed any longer in that trap, with machine-guns squirting on us from both ends. About the only thing we could do was to make a run straight at 'em — at least we'd die standing up. God knows anything was better than crouching there till we were all cleaned out. We couldn't even fight, it was just waiting."

By now the dulness had left his eye, and a ring come into his voice.

"It's funny," he went on, "how little things count. When the order came, I jumped over the earthworks and then went sprawling over a head of cabbage. It seemed as though I'd never get to my feet again. Bullets were nipping all about me; the enemy's trenches looked like a long line of red ; seemed to me I was as big as a giant with some one catching at my feet and all those guns going at me alone.

"I don't remember much more. There was one big final crash and I leaped on the top of the trench and began to stab. Once I remember reaching out to get at someone and stepping on the face of a dead man at my feet. God knows how long it lasted — not long I fancy, for then they broke and ran.

"It was an awful mess all about. Dead and wounded all mixed up — lots of Germans and many of us. Then those bloody machine-guns opened on us again. I tried to pull one of our fellows into shelter, but my right arm was out of commission. First I thought I was wounded. Then it came to me. I'd been swinging my bayonet so hard there wasn't any strength left."

His eyes clouded again.

"My God," he went on softly, "if I could only forget. It's all a nightmare now — still I can't help wondering — maybe the blows didn't get home — maybe — "

He turned his face away.

Two hours later we started on our way again, not on towards Lille, for that road was indeed blocked, but back in a wide sweep to Amiens. Our carriage, before badly crowded, was jammed almost to suffocation by the cramming in of eighteen Belgian refugees, driven they knew not whither. Opposite me was an old lady with seared face, bright sparkling eyes, and a white ruffled bonnet tied under her chin. She was at least eighty-five years old, and, I wager, had never before left home. With her were several big scrawny men with rough farmers' shirts and finger-nails fresh from the soil, three young girls, and a various assortment of children.

Only two days before they had been wakened in the blackness of night by the screeching of German shells bombarding Charleroi. They had had only time to gather their children before fleeing pell-mell, penniless, and without food into the darkness. For a whole day they had had nothing to eat. At last at 4 o'clock we came to a station where French soldiers rushed joyously to them with bread. That scene was only one of the tiny back-eddies of war, it is true, but it went into the very depths of human emotions. Three Frenchmen in the carriage with me actually had tears in their eyes, and told the sufferers that they had only to show their colors in France to receive the bounty of a grateful nation.

At last at 10 P.M., twelve hours after we had left Paris, we ground heavily into the big station at Amiens. What a sight ! Wave upon wave of refugees wandering aimlessly under the flare of the arc lamps, French and British soldiers here and there in groups, train upon train steaming in, hitching about, and then running out into the blackness, — such was the chaos and confusion about us. Black-robed ministers and priests were stalking about to administer the last rites ; a long Red Cross train with steam up waited for the next load from the North.

The refugees, homeless and crazed with fear for loved ones left behind, walked about distractedly or sought sleep on the hard platform floors. Women lay on the few bundles which remained of all their worldly goods. Children were curled up beside large packs. Once, stepping over a prostrate sleeper I put my foot squarely into his derby hat, lying at his stomach. And when at last I arrived at the lunchroom I found there was nothing to be had but a few cakes and chocolate, not very substantial food indeed for my only meal since breakfast.

Two long hours we stayed there, waiting. Still that silent death's procession to and from the front. What was happening out there through the blackness .'* At last we got under way. Heaven knew whither, except that it was in the general direction of the battle. All night long we hitched our way northward, constantly being sided for troop-trains, and several times stopping for nearly an hour in the blackness of the open country. Somehow I dared not sleep, but preferred to stay awake while darkness faded into dawn and dawn into daylight.

At 7 o'clock our train ended its weary way almost with a groan of satisfaction. I looked out to see an odd little town of white walls and red roofs, absolutely foreign to anything French. In considerable bewilderment I turned to a French reservist who had just come back from the cotton-mills at Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

"Where in the world is this place .f"' I asked.

"Hazebrouck." ,

"Where the devil is that.?"

"Flanders."

"But what the devil is it built like.?"

"Flemish."

"But what in the name of goodness are we stopping for ?"

"It's our destination."

"Destination ! " I exclaimed. "Where's Lille ?"

"Twenty-five kilometers East."

"Aren't we going there.?"

"No, it's on another line."

"But what in the name. of Heaven are we going to do then.?"

"Wait."

"And the battle, the war — stay cooped up here.?"

And we landed at the little Flemish town of Hazebrouck, just on the edge of Belgium, twenty-five kilometers from Lille, and twenty-three hours after leaving Paris.

At once we went to the prefect of police, a small army of about twenty-five reservists and myself. Rather ominously I was held till the last. The prefect was a very self-important person with a long black beard and snapping eyes. The moment he saw Uncle Sam's big red seal, he snorted loudly, drove out the French-American who had stayed to help me, settled back in his chair, and flew at me with a volley of French which I could no more stem than I could have stemmed Niagara Falls. I stuttered out that I was an American, and then, with no idea of what the passport was, he settled his big seal on it and herded me out of the ofiice. Lille was open ; the rabbit or the snowball was safe.

But that was by no means getting there. After a horrible breakfast and an earnest attempt to remove a little of the night's grime by aid of a faucet in a dirty back yard, we went to the station. No trains would run all morning.

Great Heavens, marooned in a sleepy village, twenty-five kilometers from the centre of world history. The only way I could keep my temper and my wakefulness was to write all morning as I had written all night.

By lunch-time even the Frenchmen were worn out with waiting. Two set out for Lille on foot ; others hired the town's one automobile. Both twenty-five kilometers and twenty-five francs seemed big to me, but it was another long time before I ran down a messenger who was just about to drive back to Lille. An interminable ride it was,' after our sleepless night, for from 3 to 8 we jolted along in a tireless, springless wagon. My only memories are of heroic efforts not to jounce on to the road in my sleep, of interminable stops for beer at red-tiled inns dotting a magnificently rich country, and of a pretty French woman nursing a wondrous golden-haired child, who asked if we spoke English in America or had a language of our own.

At the little town of Armentieres we descended from our good wagon and waited around in the cold damp rain for a tram which by some accident was still running spasmodically. Another half hour and we were in Lille, the city to which not even a rabbit could go, the city the chances of reaching which were as good as "a snowball's in hell."

Lille had stopped completely, no work, no play, only waiting. For seven days there had been no trains, no mail, no telegraph, no government. Not a soldier remained, for the forts had been dismantled, the garrison withdrawn, the city decreed open and unfortified. No defence was possible ; the higher strategy felt it necessary to sacrifice the city to greater ends. Big flaring posters begged the citizens to be peaceful when the Germans entered.

The papers came out intermittently, always without news. The only news at all was that borne of supercharged imaginations. For all that was known France might have ceased to exist. Wild rumors, both of victory and defeat, sprang from nowhere, surcharged the air, encompassed the city. Memories of 1870 and wild stories from Belgium made all Lille quiver like a raw nerve. Suspense hung like a pall over the city. Something must happen. It was as though a giant genii had mummified all life into inactivity.

During my stay reports of a few stray Uhlans in the environs at once sent the rasped nerves of the city completely a-j angle. Crowds gesticulated on every street corner. Speculation was wild. It was the occupation at last, atrocities, indemnity, and all. There was above all fear, with a certain relief that the suspense was at last ended, and a deep grief that the city should be thus sullied.

But the Germans did not come ; they had more pressing business elsewhere. Nevertheless fear of them so haunted the city that it was finally decreed that anyone spreading sensational news would be arrested and forced to give his authority. How this could be done with all the police force gone I do not know, but doubtless it hushed many a clattering tongue into silence.

The government of the Departement du Nord, of which Lille is the capital, had fled pell-mell to Dunkerque on the sea-coast. One day during my stay they returned, and post, telegraph, and train service were resumed. The people were jubilant. The German goblins vanished like a hideous nightmare. Imagine the panic, however, when the very next day it was found that the government had fled again in the night.

It was obvious that even if the Germans entered Lille at all, it would be only with a small holding force. The main army was driving through farther east. Douai, they told me, was the centre of activities, but how to cover the forty kilometres there was a poser. At last the idea of a bicycle struck me. It would be quaint indeed thus to chase the battle-front blindly all over France. After a whole day's hunting and tremendous linguistic effort, I secured the best the city could offer, the best bicycle, I soon believed, in all France, a machine which, costing me but $23 secondhand, was destined to take me half across the country.

Then to have my passport vised. The few relics left over from the fugitive city government shunted me on from one to the other as if completely astounded at my proposal. At last I arrived before the grand factotum himself. He growled menacingly at me, and more menacingly at my passport. When he heard I wanted to go on to Cambrai, he snapped out that I was most suspiciously following the armies. So that was where they were then 1 but I hastened to tell him of two American girls I was trying to locate. It didn't go. The dates on my passport were all against me. The game was up, I thought, and quickly forgot all the French I ever knew. Here's where I go down as a spy, I was just thinking, when suddenly down came his pen on the passport, and I found myself booked for Arras. Arras t I looked it up on the map as soon as I could and found that there were more ways than one of getting there.

So I bicycled out of Lille, for Arras, via Douai. What in the world would I blunder into in those forty kilometres t French, Germans, battles ; danger or peacefulness t Inn after inn I stopped at — for it was hot work bicycling — and always it was the same story, husband, son, or brother gone, dead for all that was known these past three weeks, nothing left but misery, suspense, abject fear, and utter defencelessness. What nerves the dull-witted peasant women of Northern

France have were worn into such a frazzle that nothing was too terrible to fear of "les barbares."

At last, with considerable trepidation I entered Douai. To my amazement, however, the Germans had not yet come there. The atmosphere was even more electric than at Lille ; the slightest clatter down any side street at once magnetized a gaping crowd into activity. Trains, post, telegraph, and newspapers had ceased eight days before. Once I saw a small crowd apparently mobbing a single man, who turned out to be only a poor newspaper dealer with a few old Lille papers. Occasionally a Red Cross auto tore in from that mysterious land of the front, dashing recklessly through the streets and covered thick with dust. Crowds at once gathered in the hope of a few crumbs of news.

Only once did I see that fear-ridden crowd laugh. That was when a heavy wagon clattered down the street with three men in front carrying giant carrots cut out to represent the Kaiser. There was the helmet, the upturned moustache, the jaunty head, and all. The laugh, however, was nervous and half-hearted and soon ceased.

Still I don't suppose any other people in the world but the French would have thought of such a thing at such a time.

Again it was obvious that I was on the wrong scent. The map showed Valenciennes to be the next big city eastward and I set out without loss of time to get my passport vised onward.

"But the Germans are at Valenciennes!" exclaimed a pompous chap, and he went off at once to get another official. Out came a fat little man with staring eyes who seemed to be the big nabob.

"But, Monsieur," he protested, "there are Germans there."

"I know," I replied. "They won't hurt me."

"But," he stammered, "the Germans, the barbarians — "

"Yes, but I'm an American."

"And you want to go to Valenciennes, where all the Germans are?"

"Yes," I replied. "I'm crazy, stark crazy; nobody will harm a mad man."

He burst into a roar of laughter and went out to call the few other officials left in the building.

To them we gave a dress performance of the whole, at the end of which the Httle nabob, amid chuckles and "les Allemands," affixed his portly seal to my much-abused passport. That afternoon he met me in the square and a second time explained about the Germans. At dinner at the hotel I saw him again, still chuckling and talking about "les barbares."

Off I started the next day for Valenciennes, sure at last of meeting the Germans, uncertain of everything else. I confess, too, that I could not but absorb some of the terror about me ; I could not but wonder what they would do to a lone civilian bicycling aimlessly about. With every turn of the wheel the tenseness seemed greater. Every kilometer of the thirty-five to Valenciennes the German phantom became more life-like. All the way the stagnation and loneliness increased. Harvests were rotting ; few people were In the fields ; more were at the crossroads, waiting, waiting.

At last I came to Aniche, a dirty little town with two main cross-streets, roughly cobbled and wet with filth. Every doorstep was crowded with women and children and a few old men, all ready to turn and run, all animated by terror, sustained by curiosity. The fear was so choking that I stopped to inquire. "Les barbares" were just entering.

Crash ! they were there at the corner. Up snapped their horses' heads ; to either side the great helmeted men peered with burning intensity. Uhlans ! The whole village winced. Children ran behind their mothers ; women made ready to flee. — Mediaeval indeed, a page from the Crusades ; it could not be the twentieth century.

Suddenly two of the horses started towards where I was. The crowd ran helter-skelter in absolute terror. For a second I stood alone in the road-way like a marked man, with my suitcase strapped to my bicycle and a straw hat on my head. Believe me, I lost no time in getting to a doorway with my precious machine. Fortunately, however, it had been no more than a bolting horse. Shortly the people returned, quivering but still curious. Sadly, bitterly, they watched the division ride past, impotent to do anything, their own men way behind them to the

South, they themselves absolutely at the mercy of the big, stalwart, fearsome-looking warriors whose march was thus forever engraven on their memory. It made my soul sick when word was whispered back that "les barbares" had taken possession of the town hall and requisitioned luncheon.

Now indeed I was within the German lines, a pretty pickle indeed, I began to fear. In four days I had swung around the French and British flanks, from the French and British rear to the German rear, and was hearing the same battle which I had heard only a few days before from the exactly opposite side. What would they say when they found me 1 The die was cast ; I might as well go forward as back. Without warning a big gray automobile burst upon me with frightful speed. I thought my bicycle was gone ; but no, the machine tore on into the distance, unnoticing.

Dimly, faintly, I began to hear a dull rumble to the south, a sound like far-away thunder, grim and sullen. As I advanced, it separated into the distinct shocks of heavy artillery. By the map I could see that the line extended from Cambrai through Le Cateau to Maubeuge. Here indeed was the clash of the nations, cruel, primitive, savage, where the world's most momentous issues were being adjudicated by mere brute force.

Just at sunset I stood on a little hill looking down on the white spires of Valenciennes. It was the main German headquarters of Northern France. Should I go down } Certainly I could not put my head more completely into the noose. I had no German papers and nothing but an American passport showing how in five days I had circled up from Paris around the French and English flanks to the German rear. What would "les barbares" make of it all 1 And what good reason could I give them for being there anyway ^. A long, long time I waited. At last there appeared an educatedlooking Frenchman.

"Monsieur," I said, "I'm an American. Is it safe to go down .f"'

"Perfectly," he replied.

"But can one enter the city?"

"Certainly."

"No guards?"

"No, Monsieur."

"No sentries?"

"No, Monsieur."

"No need of passport?"

"No, Monsieur."

I could not believe it. Surely my French must be wrong. One could not enter the main German headquarters unchallenged. To win his confidence, I showed him Paris papers a week later than any he had seen and gave him news of the capital. His joy knew no bounds ; I was sure that he would not deceive me. I descended the hill; approached the city gates gingerly; entered ; passed through ; found myself unchallenged in the city of German headquarters of Northern France.

Ah, Valenciennes, you were indeed a stricken city. Helpless under the iron heel of the German military system, you were forced to house your bitterest enemies ; to give them of your best ; to see yourself made the base of a mighty blow at the heart of your country. Heaven knows how many thousands of hostile troops sullied your soil ; how many hundreds of busses, wagons, automobiles, thundered out of your gates towards the capital of France. Alas ! what a tragedy of helplessness ; the spirit willed but strength failed.

You were like a great stricken animal, comprehending all, suffering all, too weak to struggle. Your people looked on with piteous, pleading eye while Germans swarmed on you and over you like a pest of locusts. Sadness, gloom, despair, held you in firm grip, with never a smile to brighten the tragedy. For six days it had been thus. Before that the English had been here for three days, having come 25,000 strong from Dunkerque and Boulogne and rushed through to disaster at Mons. Shortly the Germans burst through Liege, swarmed on in immense droves, and flooded into Valenciennes in unestimated numbers. Hardly had the clatter of one regiment ceased than that of another began. Irresistible, inexhaustible, they swarmed on while Valenciennes choked down its straining heart.

Never will I forget the dull agony of the Place d'Armes. On one side rose the great mass of the crystal-towered Hotel de VlUe in all its Gothic beauty. High from its belfry flaunted the hated German colors. In its court and throughout its rooms stalked the dull gray of hundreds of German uniforms. In the centre of the square was a constantly changing stream of German soldiers, artillery, cavalry, and supply wagons, ready for the drive south. On the other side, a line of cafes filled with Germans and French alike. In one of them, the Cafe Fran9ais, I sought out the Mayor. He and his government had been driven from the picturesque Hotel de Ville and forced to take up their headquarters here to do what they could. A splendid picture of manhood he was too, flowing white hair, erect stature, and sparkling eyes.

"Sir," I said, "I am an American journalist just from Paris. I have newspapers telling of the new French war ministry. Would you care to see them .f"'

"Mon Dieu, yes," he exclaimed.

"But not here?" I questioned.

"Heavens, no," and he led me out of the crowded cafe into a small alley-way, up a rickety back stairs into a darkened room, where a group of what had been the city government greeted the news with boyish excitement. It was the first they had had for eight days, and it showed that France still lived.

Now for the German commandant. Obviously I could not be caught without some sort of papers. It was better to face it out voluntarily than to wait for the inevitable challenge. I passed through the German sentries patrolling the sidewalk and stepped gingerly out towards the Hotel de Ville over what seemed to be a deadline for all but German gray. A score of soldiers were lolling about in the entry way of the Hotel de Ville. My request in English for the commandant turned all eyes on me most menacingly. It was the time when hatred for England was most bitter. Fortunately, one man understood me and explained that I should go to the railroad station. I was glad indeed to go anywhere.

Men half naked, men bathing, men gorging food, men marching, men sleeping on straw, Red Cross women flitting about, horses being led outside, artillery bumping across the platform.

noise, confusion, a babel of talking and commands — such was the main station of Valenciennes on this, the first day of the opening of through communication with Germany. At last I located the commandant and hitched myself to him like a wagon to a star, careering after him through the jumble.

"What do you want?" he flared between commands.

"To go to Cambrai," I said.

"What if you do .?" he snapped.

"I suppose I need a German pass," I said. "I don't want to get shot."

"You can't get there," he exclaimed.

"Oh, yes, I have a bicycle."

"My God, you Americans, you're everywhere — always ready."

He was off like a shot out of a gun. I caught glimpses of his fat little body flitting about beside a train just in. Suddenly he dropped out of nowhere before me ; ordered me to come with him, and tore off down the platform to his office.

"Where do you come from .f"' he asked.

"Boston."

"That's a poor place."

"It's the best city in the world," I exclaimed.

"Don't talk like that to me if you want a pass."

"Well, what city do you like then.?" I asked.