The French Gains in the Artois Region, September, 1915.
The French Gains in the Artois Region, September, 1915.
At the end of the month Haisnes, on the northern flank of the new British line, was still for the greater part in German possession; on the right flank the British were across the Lens-La Bassée road. The British had captured not only the first position of their enemy, but also a second or supporting line which ran west of Loos. They were now up against the third line. Sir John French reported having taken so far over 3,000 prisoners, twenty-one guns, and forty machine guns. The French in Artois had taken a matter of 15,000 prisoners and a number of guns. After obstinate day and night fighting they had reached Hill 140, the culminating point of the crests of Vimy, and the orchards to the south. The crown prince still plugged away on this front with heavy artillery and aerial torpedoes. Columns of flames began to issue from his trenches on September 27, 1915—the inflammable liquid appeared to be a composition of tar and petrol—and the smoke and flames, carried by the wind blowing from the German trenches, soon reached the French line and made the atmosphere intolerably hot and suffocating for the French troops. Then suddenly out of the thick fumes began to appear German infantry with fixed bayonets, sent forward to the attack. They were literally mown down by the fire from the French machine guns and rifles, but the wave of attackers seemed unending, and by dint of overwhelming numbers it poured into the French trenches. A terrible hand-to-hand fight then ensued in an atmosphere so thick that it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe. These clouds were notpoisonous, for the Germans had themselves to fight in them; they were let loose to cover the infantry charge.
The French were compelled to retire, which they did, contesting every foot of ground. Meanwhile, reenforcements had arrived and these were at once thrown into the fighting line. The French, however, were soon brought to a halt. Asphyxiating and lachrymatory bombs, which emitted bluish smoke as they exploded, began to fall in their midst. Spurred on by their leaders the men dashed on, passing through yet another of these barriers of smoke until they came to grips with the attackers, who were now coming on like a torrent, in close formation, shouting wildly. Altogether, the scene was one that vividly brings to the imagination the truth of Sherman's dictum that "war is hell." A mad potpourri of dimly visible forms, struggling like demons, shooting, stabbing, hacking and roaring in an infernal caldron of tar, poison, sulphur, tears and blood. Truly a worthy theme for another Dante and a Gustave Doré. For some time it looked as if the French would be crumpled up, but reserves were steadily streaming in, and eventually the attackers began to waver and fall back. The French 75-millimeter Creusots came into play again, and after a battle that lasted in all twenty-four hours, the Germans were driven back to their own trenches.
In the morning of October 2, 1915, the Germans made a demonstration in front of the Belgian trenches at Dixmude, consisting of a bombardment and a violent discharge of bombs. On one small section alone 400 bombs were dropped. The German infantry broke into the Belgian trenches, but were dislodged again in a few minutes.
The position which the British had captured was exceptionally strong, consisting of a double line, including some large redoubts and a network of trenches and bomb-proof shelters. Dugouts were constructed at short intervals all along the line, some of them being large caves thirty feet below the ground. The French capture of Souchez was an event of considerable importance, for the German High Command had issued orders for this section to hold on to the last, that it was to be retained at all costs. The road to the Douai plain was to be barred to the French, whohad to be held back behind the advanced works of the Artois plateau. In May, 1915, the problem was to prevent the French setting foot on the summits of Notre Dame de Lorette and of the Topart Mill. The Germans sacrificed many thousands of men with this object, but the French nevertheless made themselves masters of the heights which the Germans considered of capital importance, and dislodged them from Carency and Ablain-St. Nazaire. There remained only one stage to cover—the Souchez Valley—to reach the last crest which dominated the whole country to the east, and beyond which the ground is flat. This task had been accomplished during the last few days of September and the beginning of October. Souchez and its advanced bastion, the Château Carleul, had been made into a formidable fortification by the changing of the course of the Carency streams. The Germans had transformed the marshy ground to the southeast of this front into a perfect swamp, which was regarded as impassable. The German batteries posted at Angres were able to enfilade the valley on the north. From behind the crest of Hill 119 to Hill 140, which were covered with trenches connected by a network of communication trenches, many batteries were engaged against the French in the district of Notre Dame de Lorette, Ablain-St. Nazaire and Carency. To the north of Souchez the German trenches were still clinging to the Notre Dame de Lorette slope.
The attack of September 25, 1915, was to overcome all these obstacles. The artillery preparation, which lasted five days, was so skillfully handled that, even before it was finished, many German deserters came into the French lines declaring that they had had enough. The infantry attack was delivered at noon on September 25, 1915, and with one rush the French troops reached the objectives which had been marked out for them—the château and grounds of Carleul and the islet south of Souchez. Meanwhile, other detachments carried the cemetery and forced their way to the first slopes of Hill 119. On the left the French troops advanced down the slopes of Notre Dame de Lorette and made a dash at the Hache Wood, the western outskirts of which they reached twenty minutes after the attackbegan. The capture of the wood has already been described. The French attack on the right, being held up by machine-gun fire, could not be maintained in the cemetery, and it was decided to approach Souchez by the main road so that they might pour in their forces on the east, while, to the north, the French force that had bitten its way into the Hache Wood was to continue its advance. This maneuver decided the day. The Germans, who were in danger of being cut off in Souchez, abandoned their positions, and those who had retaken the cemetery, being in the same perilous circumstances, regained by their communication trenches their second line on the slopes of Hill 119. Thus fell Souchez to the French in two days. The allied offensive was a short and sharp affair, skillfully planned and bravely executed, but disappointing in result. At the great price of 50,000 casualties the British had overthrown the Germans on a front of five miles, and in some places to a depth of 4,000 yards, and had captured many prisoners and guns; but they had not definitely broken the German lines. At a heavy cost the Allies on the western front had captured about 160 German guns and disposed of 150,000 Germans, including some 27,000 prisoners, and the result of their efforts was to shake the Germans in the west very severely and to call back to France many troops from the eastern front. That the blow was regarded by the kaiser as a serious one was shown by an Order of the Day in which he declared that every important success obtained by the Allies on the western front "will be considered as due to the culpable negligence of the German commanders, who will lay themselves open to being punished for incompetence." But if the Allies' successes were due to hard fighting and brilliant dash, the fact that they did not break right through the enemy's lines is an eloquent testimony to the wonderful strength of the German resistance. The marvel was that any were left alive in the first line after the preliminary bombardment to face the bayonets and grenades of the attackers. In a report from German General Headquarters, dated September 29, 1915, Max Osborn, special correspondent of the "Vossische Zeitung," described how the French artillery swept the hinterland of the German positionsin Champagne and then concentrated upon these. "The violence of the fire then reached its zenith. Hitherto it had been a raging, searching fire; now it became a mad drumming, beyond all power of imagination. It is impossible to convey any idea of the savagery of this bombardment. Never has this old planet heard such an uproar. An officer who had witnessed during the summer the horrors of Arras, of Souchez, and of the Lorette Heights, told me that those were not in any way to be compared with the present, beyond all conception, appalling artillery onslaught. Day and night for fifty hours, at some points for seventy hours, the guns vomited destruction and murder against the Germans, the German trenches and against the German batteries. Strongly built trenches were covered in and ground to powder; their edges and platforms were shorn off and converted into dust heaps; men were buried, crushed, and inevitably suffocated—but the survivors stood fast." A German soldier told how, in the fierce hand-to-hand fighting which followed, a Frenchman and a German flew at each other's throat, and how they fell, both pierced by the same bullet, still locked in each other's grip. And so, too, they were buried. Courage is not the monopoly of any race or nation.[Back to Contents]
THE BATTLE OF LOOS
At 5.50 a. m. on September 25, 1915, a dense, heavy cloud arose slowly from the earth—a whitish, yellowish, all-enveloping cloud that rolled slowly toward the German trenches—a little too much to the north. Thousands of German bullets whistled through that cloud, but it passed on, unheeding. The attack began at 6.30.
A Scottish division had been ordered to take Loos and Hill 70. It therefore played the first rôle in the battle, since it was on Loos, of which Hill 70 is the gateway, that the efforts of allconverged from the north as well as the south. Brigade "X" of the Scottish division was to execute an enveloping movement to the north around Loos and to carry Hill 70 by storm. Brigade "Y" meanwhile was to attack the Loos front, Brigade "Z" remaining in reserve. By 7.05 a. m. the whole of the first line was captured. The second line, covering Loos, was carried with the same ease. The Germans, taken by surprise, were fleeing toward Loos, where they put up a stern rear-guard fight, and toward Lens, which was strongly fortified.
After the capture of the second line in front of Loos, "X" and "Y" Brigades separated, "Y" surrounding the village with two battalions, while the rest captured the village and cleaned it up. It was stiff street fighting, the Germans being hidden away in all sorts of corners with plenty of machine guns. The Scots made a quick job of it, not stopping for trifles. It is related that a sergeant, to whom two Germans had surrendered, pulled a few pieces of string from his pocket, tied their hands together, and passed them to the rear with the request, "Please forward." Brigade "X" had meanwhile thrown its enveloping net around Loos without meeting much resistance. The British had reached the top of Hill 70 by nine o'clock. The climb was a hard and rough accomplishment, with the right flank under mitrailleuse fire from Loos, and with the left exposed to fire from Pit 14A; but it was accomplished far too quickly. Serious disasters frequently occur in war through tardiness; in this case a possible great victory was missed through being too quick and arriving too early. When the brigadier got up to Loos he saw his men vanishing in the distance. A strong German redoubt, over the other side of the hill crest, was not even defended. The brigade crossed the Lens-La Bassée road, which runs along the height, carried the third German line on the opposite slope, and at 9.20 it was outside St. Auguste. Unfortunately for the British, the corps commander, who arrived at this moment with his staff in hot haste, was unable to get his unit in hand again. Overflowing with offensive ardor, he had thrown his men forward with a most impetuous movement, and they got out of hand. The brigade turned at right angles and got into the suburbs of Lens. Itseemed as though the gates of the northern plain were about to be smashed in. Then the great danger appeared. There was still no great converging movement from the south, where a British division and French troops were engaged. Touch was also lost to the north. The neighboring division in this direction was held up until the afternoon by wire entanglements. The left flank of the brigade was at the mercy of a German counterattack, but the Germans did not launch it, for they had not the men. What they did, however, was to concentrate on the brigade a murderous fire from Loos in the south, Lens in the east, St. Auguste in the north, and Pit 14A and two or three neighboring houses in the west. They were even seen hastily installing machine guns along the railway embankment northeast of Lens.
Shattered by fire, uncertain of its direction, shaken by the very quickness of its previous advance, the brigade hesitated, sowed the ground with its dead, and retired in good order on Hill 70, where it intrenched slightly below the redoubt abandoned by the Germans during the attack and which was now reoccupied by them. As a matter of fact, the screening gas clouds hindered rather than helped the attack. The Scottish division was exhausted, but if fresh troops had come up and a fresh attack had been delivered against the Germans, who were gathering all their men in the Douai region, the German front would undoubtedly have been pierced like cardboard. Brigade "X" had made a path, and if only reenforcements had arrived without delay the path would have become a highroad—would have become the whole of Douai plain. Not until nightfall were the reserves forthcoming. It is evident that, in this first day, advantage was not taken of the results achieved.
Though long-range fighting was incessantly kept up around Loos, nothing of importance happened till October 8, 1915, when the Germans, after an intense bombardment with shells of all calibers, launched a violent attack on Loos and made desperate efforts to recapture their lost positions. The main efforts were directed against the chalk pit north of Hill 70, and between Hulluch and the Hohenzollern redoubt. In the chalk pit attack, the Germans assembled behind some woods which lay from 300to 500 yards from the British trenches. Between these woods and the British line the attacking force was mown down by combined rifle, machine-gun and artillery fire, not a man getting within forty yards of the trenches.
Farther to the south, between Hulluch and the quarries, the attack was also repelled, the British securing a German trench west of Cité St. Elie. The Germans did succeed in penetrating the British front in the southern communication trench of the Hohenzollern redoubt, but were shortly after expelled again by British bombers.
British flying men played an important part in the Battle of Loos and in the preparations that preceded it. Troops and guns had to be moved at night so that the German aeroplanes might not note the concentration. Hence it was decided that British aeros should warn off the German flyers by day. They probably outnumbered the German machines by eight to one. As the attack proceeded a flock of aeroplanes was cutting circles and dipping and turning over the battle field as if in an exhibition of airmanship. They appeared to be disconnected from the battle, but no participants were more busy or intent than they. All the panorama of action was beneath them; they alone could really "see" the battle if they chose. But each aviator stole only passing glimpses of the whole, for each one was intent on his part, which was to keep watch of whether the shells of the battery to which he reported were on the target or not. To distinguish whose shell-burst was whose in the midst of that cloud of dust and smoke over the German positions seemed as difficult as to separate the spout of steam of one pipe from another when a hundred were making a wall of vapor. Yet so skilled is the well-trained airman that he can tell at a glance. It is not difficult to spot shells when only a few batteries are firing, but when perhaps a hundred guns are dropping shells on a half-mile front of trench, a highly trained eye is required. Occasionally a plane was observed to sweep down like a hawk that had located a fish in the water. At all hazards that intrepid aviator was going to identify the shell-bursts of the batteries which he represented. The enemy might have him in rifle range,but they were too busy trying to hold up the British infantry to fire at him. Other aeroplanes were dropping shells on railway trains and bridges, to hinder the Germans, once they had learned where the force of the attack was to be exerted, from rushing reenforcements to the spot. For that kind of work, as for all reconnaissances, the aviators like low-lying clouds. They slip down out of these to have a look around and drop a bomb—thus killing two birds with one stone—and then rise to cover before the enemy can bring his antiaircraft guns to bear.
German infantry storming a hill in the Argonne. The men bend low for safety, though pressing eagerly forward toward the enemy's lines.
German infantry storming a hill in the Argonne. The men bend low for safety, though pressing eagerly forward toward the enemy's lines.
A German description of the Battle of Loos says that during the preliminary gas attack the British artillery was hurling gas bombs upon the Germans. The latter coughed and held their ground as long as they could, but many fell, unable to resist the fumes. In the midst of all this the Germans were preparing for the expected infantry attack. Finally the British appeared, emerging suddenly as if from nowhere, behind a cloud of gas, and wearing masks. They came on in thick lines and storming columns. The first line of the attackers were quickly shot down by the hail of rifle and machine-gun bullets that rained upon them from the shattered German trenches. The dead and wounded soon lay like a wall before the German position. The second and third lines of the British suffered the same fate. It was estimated that the number of British killed before this German division alone amounted to 8,000 to 10,000. The fourth line of attackers, however, finally succeeded in overrunning the decimated front line of Germans, who stood by their guns to the very last; those of them who had not fallen were made prisoners. Not one of them returned to tell what happened in this terrific fighting. The British are stated to have attacked in an old-fashioned, out-of-date manner that made the German staff officers stare in open-mouthed wonder. "Eight ranks of infantry, mounted artillery, cavalry in the background—that was too much! A veritable battle plan of a past age, the product of a mind in its dotage, and half a century behind the times! Splendidly, with admirable courage, the English troops came forward to the attack. They were young, wore no decorations; they carried out with blind courage what their senile commanders ordered—andthis in a period of mortars, machine guns and the telephone. Their behavior was splendid, but all the more pitiable was the breakdown of their attack."
The Battle at Loos.
The Battle at Loos.
Connected with the Battle of Loos there was one little person who deserves a chapter in history—all to herself—and that is Mlle. Émilienne Moreau, a young French girl who lived—and probably still lives—with her parents in the storm-battered village of Loos. She was seventeen years of age at the time she became famous, and was studying to be a school-teacher. She was "mentioned in dispatches" in the French Official Journal in these terms:
"On September 25, 1915, when the British troops entered the village of Loos, she organized a first-aid station in her house and worked day and night to bring in the wounded, to whom she gave all assistance, while refusing to accept any reward. Armed with a revolver she went out and succeeded in overcoming two German soldiers who, hidden in a near-by house, were firing at the first-aid station."
This, however, was not a complete list of the exploits of la petite Moreau. She shot two Germans when their bayonets were very close to her, and later, snatching some hand bombs from a British grenadier's stock, she accounted for three more who were busy at the same occupation. Furthermore, "when the British line was wavering under the most terrible cyclone of shells ever let loose upon earth, Émilienne Moreau sprang forward with a bit of tricolored bunting in her hand and the glorious words of the 'Marseillaise' on her lips, and by her fearless example averted a retreat that might have meant disaster along the whole front. Only the men who were in that fight can fully understand why Sir Douglas Haig was right in christening her the Joan of Arc of Loos."
A more mature French Amazon is Madame Louise Arnaud, the widow of an officer killed in the war. She commanded a corps of French and Belgian women who were permitted by the War Minister to don uniforms. The corps was intended for general service at the front, one-third of them being combatants, all able to ride, shoot and swim.
After the great allied offensive in the west had spent its force—or rather the force of its initial momentum—quite an interesting battle broke out, this time on paper. It consisted on the one side of an attempt to estimate the results of success and to attach to them the highest possible value. The energy of the other side was devoted to belittling these results and proclaiming the alleged futility of the venture. Thus, King George telegraphed to Sir John French on September 30, 1915:
"I heartily congratulate you and all ranks of my army under your command upon the success which has attended their gallant efforts since the commencement of the combined attack."
Lord Kitchener sent this message:
"My warmest congratulations to you and all serving under you on the substantial success you have achieved...."
In his report of October 3, 1915, General French stated that "The enemy has suffered heavy losses, particularly in the many counterattacks by which he has vainly endeavored to wrest back the captured positions, but which have all been gallantly repulsed by our troops.... I feel the utmost confidence and assurance that the same glorious spirit which has been so marked a feature throughout the first phase of this great battle will continue until our efforts are crowned by final and complete victory."
The following sentence is culled from the French official report on the fighting in Champagne:
"... Germans surrendered in groups, even though not surrounded, so tired were they of the fight, and so depressed by hunger and convinced of our determination to continue our effort to the end...."
Rather contradictory in tone and substance were the German dispatches:
"The German General Staff recently invited a number of newspaper men from neutral countries—the United States, South America, Holland, and Rumania—to inspect the fighting line in the west during time of battle.... They are thus enabled to verify the reports from the German headquarters concerning this greatest and most fearful battle fought on the western front since the beginning of the war. They are, accordingly, in aposition to state that exaggerated statements are made in the reports from French headquarters, and to confirm the facts that the Germans were outnumbered several times by the French; that the French suffered terrific and unheard-of losses, in spite of several days of artillery preparation; that the French attacks failed altogether, as none of them attained the expected result, and that the encircling movement of General Joffre is without tangible result." "The world presently shall see the pompously advertised grand offensive broken by the iron will of our people in arms.... They are welcome to try it again if they like." "French and English storming columns in unbroken succession roll up against the iron wall constituted by our heroic troops. As all hostile attacks have hitherto been repulsed with gigantic losses, particularly for the English, the whole result of the enemy's attack, lasting for days, is merely a denting in of our front in two places...." Who shall decide when doctors disagree?[Back to Contents]
THE CAVELL CASE—ACCIDENT TO KING GEORGE
On October 15, 1915, the United States Ambassador in London informed the British Foreign Office that Miss Edith Cavell, lately the head of a large training school for nurses in Brussels, had been executed by the German military authorities of that city after sentence of death had been passed on her. It was understood that the charge against Miss Cavell was that she had harbored fugitive British and French soldiers and Belgians of military age, and had assisted them to escape from Belgium in order to join the colors. Miss Cavell was the daughter of a Church of England clergyman, and was trained as a nurse at the London Hospital. On the opening of the École Beige d'Infirmières Diplomées, Brussels, in 1907, she was appointed matron of the school. She went there with a view to introduce intoBelgium British methods of nursing and of training nurses. Those who knew Miss Cavell were impressed by her strength of character and unflinching devotion. She could have returned to England in September, 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the war, when seventy English nurses were able to leave Belgium through the influence of the United States Minister, but she chose to remain at her post. The "execution," which was accompanied by several unpleasant features, raised a great outcry of public indignation not only throughout the British Empire, but also in most neutral countries. That indignation rose to a still higher pitch when, on October 22, 1915, the report on the case, by Mr. Brand Whitlock, United States Minister in Belgium, was published in the press. From the report it appeared, what the world had hitherto been ignorant of, that Mr. Whitlock had made the most strenuous efforts to save the unfortunate lady from death. His humanitarian labors in that direction were strongly seconded by the Spanish Minister in Brussels.
Miss Cavell's mother, a widow, residing at Norwich, received the following letter of sympathy from the king and queen:
"Buckingham Palace,"October 23, 1915."Dear Madam:"By command of the King and Queen I write to assure you that the hearts of their Majesties go out to you in your bitter sorrow, and to express their horror at the appalling deed which has robbed you of your child. Men and women throughout the civilized world, while sympathizing with you, are moved with admiration and awe at her faith and courage in death."Believe me, dear Madam,"Yours very truly,"Stamfordham."
"Buckingham Palace,"October 23, 1915.
"Dear Madam:
"By command of the King and Queen I write to assure you that the hearts of their Majesties go out to you in your bitter sorrow, and to express their horror at the appalling deed which has robbed you of your child. Men and women throughout the civilized world, while sympathizing with you, are moved with admiration and awe at her faith and courage in death.
"Believe me, dear Madam,
"Yours very truly,"Stamfordham."
The report described how Mr. Hugh S. Gibson, the Secretary of the American Legation, sought out the German Governor, Baron von der Lancken, late at night before the execution, and, with the Spanish Minister pleaded with him and the other German officers for the Englishwoman's life. There was a referenceto an apparent lack of good faith on the part of the German authorities in failing to keep their promise to inform the American Minister fully of the trial and sentence. Mr. Whitlock's final appeal was a note sent to Von Lancken late on the night of October 11, 1915, which read as follows:
"My dear Baron: I am too sick to present my request myself, but I appeal to your generosity of heart to support it and save from death this unhappy woman. Have pity on her."Yours truly,"Brand Whitlock."
"My dear Baron: I am too sick to present my request myself, but I appeal to your generosity of heart to support it and save from death this unhappy woman. Have pity on her.
"Yours truly,"Brand Whitlock."
The next day Mr. Whitlock telegraphed to our Ambassador in London: "Miss Cavell sentenced yesterday and executed at 2 o'clock this morning, despite our best efforts, continued until the last moment." The sentence had been confirmed and the execution ordered to be carried out by General von Bissing, the German Governor General of Belgium.
The British press drew an apposite parallel between the summary execution of Miss Cavell in Belgium and the course taken in England in the case of Mrs. Louise Herbert, a German, and the wife of an English curate in Darlington. She had been sentenced to six months' imprisonment as a spy. According to English criminal law every condemned person is entitled to appeal against the sentence inflicted. Mrs. Herbert availed herself of this indisputable right, and her appeal was heard at Durham on October 20, 1915—eight days after the execution of Miss Cavell. The female spy admitted that she had sought information regarding munitions and intended to send this information to Germany. She also admitted that she had corresponded with Germany through friends in Switzerland. Here, according to military law, was a certain case for the death sentence, which would undoubtedly have been carried out in the Tower had the accused been a man. It must be borne in mind that the Court of Appeals in England has the power to increase a sentence as well as to reduce or quash it altogether. Astonished by her frank answers, the judge remarked: "This woman has a conscience—she wishes to answer truthfully and deserves credit for that. Atthe same time, she is dangerous." He then gave judgment that the sentence of six months' imprisonment should stand. No charge of espionage was preferred against Miss Cavell. She was refused the advocate Mr. Whitlock offered to provide her with, and the details of the secret trial have not been made public.
Whatever may be the right or the wrong of the case, it is reasonably safe to apply to it the famous dictum of Fouché on Napoleon's execution of the Duc d'Enghien: "It is worse than a crime; it is a blunder." It certainly had the effect of still further embittering the enemies of Germany. Perhaps no incident of the great world war will be more indelibly imprinted on the British mind than this. Many thousands of young Englishmen who had hitherto held back rushed to join the colors. "Edith Cavell Recruiting Meetings" were held all over the United Kingdom. A great national memorial service was held in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, where representatives of the king and queen, statesmen, the nobility and thousands of officers and soldiers attended. The Dowager Queen Alexandra, who is the patron of the great institution now in course of erection and known as the "Queen Alexandra Nurses' Training School," expressed the desire that her name should give place to that of Miss Cavell, and that the institution shall be called "The Edith Cavell Nurses' Training School."
Within a month of her death it had been decided to erect a statue to the memory of Miss Cavell in Trafalgar Square. Sir George Frampton, R.A., President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, undertook to execute the statue without charge.
The most permanent memorial of the death of Nurse Cavell will be a snow-clad peak in the Rocky Mountains, which the Canadian Government has decided to name "Mount Cavell." It is situated fifteen miles south of Jasper, on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, near the border of Alberta, at the junction of the Whirlpool and Athabasca Rivers, and has a height of more than 11,000 feet.
A curious sequel followed the execution of Miss Cavell. Nearly three months later, on January 6, 1916, a young Belgian was found shot dead in Schaerbeek, a suburb of Brussels. The Germanauthorities took the matter in hand for investigation, but in the meantime General von Bissing fined the city of Brussels 500,000 marks and the suburb of Schaerbeek 50,000 marks on the plea that the murder had been committed with a revolver, the Germans having ordered that all arms should be surrendered at the town hall. But there was more in this affair than an ordinary crime. The "Écho Belge," published in Amsterdam since the German occupation of Belgium, revealed that the punitive action by the German authorities was prompted by something other than an infringement of the regulations. The body found was that of a certain Niels de Rode, and he it was who denounced Miss Cavell and also betrayed several Belgians—his own countrymen—who were trying to cross the frontier to join the army. The "Écho Belge" asserted that De Rode was executed by Belgian patriots to avenge the betrayal of Miss Cavell. The anger of the German authorities was explained by the loss of their informer.
On October 22, 1915, London was officially informed that "The king is in France, where he has gone to visit his army. His majesty also hopes to see some of the allied troops." This was not the king's first visit to the battle line, and, as before, his departure from England and arrival on the Continent had been kept a secret until he had reached his destination. The king traveled by automobile from Havre to various parts of the British and French lines, "somewhere in France," inspecting troops and visiting hospitals. The royal tour was brought to a premature close on the morning of the 28th owing to an unfortunate accident. The king had just finished the second of two reviews of troops representing corps of the First Army when his horse, frightened by the cheers of the men, reared and fell, and his majesty was severely bruised. Twice the horse (a mare) reared up when the soldiers burst suddenly into cheers at only a few yards' distance. The first time the mare came down again on her forefeet, but the second time she fell over and, in falling, rolled slightly on to the king's leg. The announcement of the king's mishap came with dramatic suddenness to the assembled officers and troops. The troops of the corps which he had firstinspected could hear from where they stood the cheers of their comrades about a mile away, which told them that the second review was over, and that the king would pass down the road fronting them in a few minutes. The orders to raise their caps and cheer were shouted to the men by the company officers, and then the whole corps, with bayoneted rifles at the slope, advanced in brigade order across the huge fallow field in which they had been drawn up to within thirty yards or so of the road. In a few minutes a covered green automobile was seen tearing down the road at full speed, and as it drew up opposite the center of the corps the cheering began to spread all along the line. In the enthusiasm of the moment the majority did not notice that the car was not flying the royal standard, and even when an officer, with the pink and white brassard of an Army Corps Staff, jumped out of the car and began to shout hasty instructions few realized their mistake and his words were carried away down the tempestuous wind that raged at the time. Then the officer hurried here and there calling out that the king had met with an accident and that there was to be no cheering. A few of those in the center caught his words, but the news had not spread to more than a fraction of the whole body before the king's car drove past. A curious spectacle now presented itself. Along one portion of the front the men stood silently at attention, while their comrades on either side of them, and yet other troops farther away down the road, were raising their caps on their bayonets and cheering with true British lustiness. Some could catch a glimpse of the king as his car dashed swiftly by. He was sitting half-bent in the corner of the vehicle, and his face wore a faint smile of acknowledgment. The king's injuries proved to be worse than was at first supposed, necessitating his removal to London on a stretcher.[Back to Contents]
OPERATIONS IN CHAMPAGNE AND ARTOIS—PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER CAMPAIGN
By the middle of October operations on the western front centralized almost entirely in the Champagne and Artois districts, where the Germans, fully appreciating the menace to their lines created by the results of the allied offensive, sought by continuous violent counterattacks to recover the territory from which they had been dislodged and to prevent the Allies from consolidating and strengthening their gains. Their attacks in the Artois fell chiefly between Hulluch and Hill 70, and southeast of Givenchy, against the heights of Petit Vimy. The Germans succeeded in retaking small sections of first-line trenches, but lost some of their new trenches in return. Whereas the Allies held practically all they had gained, the Germans were considerably the losers by the transaction. The British attempted to continue their offensive by driving between Loos and Hulluch, the most important and at the same time the most dangerous section on the British front. By steadily forging ahead southeast of Loos toward Hill 70, the British were driving a wedge into the German line and creating a perilous salient around the town of Angres as the center. To obviate the danger from counterattacks against the sides of the salient, the British endeavored to flatten out the point of the wedge by capturing more ground north of Hill 70 toward Hulluch. To some extent the plan succeeded; they advanced east of the Lens-La Bassée road for about 500 yards, an apparently insignificant profit, but it had the effect of strengthening the British position.
Uninterrupted fighting in Champagne had made little difference to either side, save that the French had managed to straighten out their line somewhat, though they were by no means nearer to their desired goal—the Challerange-Bazancourt railway. If that could be taken, the Germans facing them would be cut off from the crown prince's army operating in theArgonne. Bulgaria had meanwhile entered the conflict and started the finishing campaign of Serbia with the assistance of her Teutonic allies.
Between October 19 and October 24, 1915, the Germans made eight distinct attacks in the Souchez sector in Artois, attempting to loosen the French grip on Hill 140. In this venture the First Bavarian Army Corps was practically wiped out by terrible losses. Each attack was reported to have been repulsed. Commenting on the same event, the German report said that "... enemy advances were repulsed. Detachments which penetrated our positions were immediately driven back." Both sides of the battle line now settled down to the same round of seesaw battles of the preceding midsummer; attacks and counterattacks; trenches captured and recaptured; here a hundred yards won, there a hundred yards lost. After almost every one of these events the three headquarters issued statements to the effect that "the enemy was repelled with heavy losses," or that some place or other had been "recaptured by our troops." On October 24, 1915, the French in Champagne made some important progress. In front of their (the French) position the Germans occupied a very strongly organized salient which had resisted all previous attacks. In its southwestern part, on the northern slopes of Hill 196, at a point one and a quarter miles to the north of Mesnil-les-Hurlus, this salient included a valuable strategic position called La Courtine (The Curtain), which the French took after some severe fighting. La Courtine extended for a distance of 1,200 yards with an average depth of 250 yards, and embracing three or four lines of trenches connected up with underground tunnels and the customary communication trenches, all of which had been thoroughly prepared for defense. In spite of the excellence of these works and the ferocious resistance of the German soldiers, the French succeeded in taking this position by storm after preparatory artillery fire. On the same day that this was announced, the Berlin report put it thus: "In Champagne the French attacked near Tahure and against our salient north of Le Mesnil, after a strong preparation with their artillery. Near Tahure their attack was not carried outto its completion, having been stopped by our fire. Late in the afternoon stubborn fighting was in progress on the salient north of Le Mesnil. North and east of this salient an attack was repulsed with severe French losses."
The following two interesting reports were issued on October 27, 1915:
An important event happened in France on October 28, 1915, when the Viviani Cabinet resigned, much to the general surprise of the nation. The result of the change of government was that M. Aristide Briand, one of the aggressive and militant members of the Socialist party, succeeded as Premier and Foreign Secretary, M. de Freycinet became Vice President of the Council, and General Gallieni Minister for War. It was not a "political crisis," but a union of the parties—a coalition, such as the British Government had already adopted. The change implied a distribution of responsibility among the leading men of all parties, a useful measure to stifle criticism and insure unanimity of purpose. M. Viviani reentered the new Cabinet as Minister of Justice. For the first time in the history of the French Republic a coalition ministry of all the opposing factions was formed.
Some stir and much speculation was caused when General Joffre visited London at the end of October and held another conference with Lord Kitchener. It was generally understood that some scheme for central military control was being promoted, to render quicker decisions and coordinate action possible. It was obvious that matters of vital interest had brought the French Generalissimo to London. Shortly before his departure it leaked out that the British Government had for some time contemplated the creation of a new General Staff composed of experts to supervise the prosecution of the war, and it was believed, perhaps with justification, that General Joffre had come to give his opinion on the matter. On November 17, 1915, the first meeting of the Anglo-French War Council was held in Paris. The British members in attendance were the Prime Minister, Mr. Arthur James Balfour, First Lord of the Admiralty; Mr. David Lloyd-George, Minister of Munitions, and Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The French participants were Premier Briand, General Gallieni, Admiral Lacaze, Minister of Marine, and General Joffre.
At the beginning of November a temporary lull had set in on parts of the western front, and the center of interest was for the time shifted to the Balkans. The French and British seemed unable to continue their offensive operations and were, for the most part, confined to their trenches and such territory as they had wrested from the Germans during September and early October. On October 30, 1915, the Germans had again begun a series of determined offensives in Artois and Champagne. They met with considerable success in the initial stages, for on the morning of the 31st they had gained about 1,200 yards of the French trenches near Neuville-St. Vaast and on the summit of the Butte de Tahure, capturing 1,500 French soldiers. The struggle for the Neuville trenches continued for days, during which the positions changed hands at short intervals.
In Champagne the Germans, after a fresh artillery preparation, with the employment of suffocating shells of large caliber, renewed their attacks in the region to the north of Le Mesnil. They delivered four successive assaults in the course of the day—thefirst at 6 a. m. on the extreme east of La Courtine; the second at noon against Tahure; the third at 2 p. m. to the south of the village, and the fourth at 4 p. m. against the ridges to the northeast. The French artillery, however, checked their progress and compelled them to retire to their trenches, leaving 356 unwounded prisoners with the French. Beyond occasional artillery duels in the Dixmude-Ypres district, nothing of importance happened on the Belgian front.
In the middle of November hard fighting was resumed on the Artois front in the region of the Labyrinth, north of Arras, and continued day and night, conducted chiefly with hand grenades. Artillery actions raged in the Argonne forest, near Soissons, Berry-au-Bac, and on the Belgian front. German activity in the Arras-Armentières sector was regarded as prognosticating a big attack. While the Germans collected men and munitions at one spot, the French and British, adopting worrying tactics, suddenly descended and harassed them in another. A successful little enterprise was carried out by a small party of British troops during the night of November 16-17, 1915, with a loss of one man killed and one wounded, just north of the river Douave, southwest of Messines. They forced an entrance into the German front trench after bayoneting thirty of the occupants. The party returned with twelve German prisoners. About November 19-20, 1915, the heavy artillery of the Allies battered the German trenches west of Ypres, while their warships were shelling the coast fortifications at Westende.
Between November 20 and 25, 1915, the British employed their time in bombarding the German positions in several places, destroying wire entanglements and parapets. The Germans made but little reply, contenting themselves with holding tight to their trenches. They were more active north of Loos, Ploegstreet, and east of Ypres. On the evening of the 22d the Germans made a heavy bombing attack on a mine crater held by the British south of the Bethune-La Bassée road, with apparently inconclusive results. Constant mining operations were resorted to by both sides, the British exploding one and occupying the crater on the aforesaid road, and the Germans performinga similar feat south of Cuinchy, severely damaging some British trenches. They also exploded mines near Carnoy and Givenchy. A British aeroplane squadron of twenty-three machines bombarded a German hut encampment at Achiet le Grand, northeast of Albert. A single German aero ascended to engage the attackers and deposited sundry bombs in the neighborhood of Bray. In the Argonne forest artillery activity was more pronounced, and a German ammunition depot in the Fille Morte region was destroyed.
A big fall of snow somewhat restricted operations in the Vosges, especially in the region of the Fecht and Thur Rivers. On the Belgian line a rather violent bombardment occurred in front of St. Heewege. To the north of Dixmude and the cast of St. Jacques Capelle a retaliatory fire was kept up for two days. The subjugated Belgians raised a voice of protest against the German method of raising the war levies imposed upon the country. They complained that, whereas Belgium had faithfully carried out her share of the arrangement, the German Government was indebted to the Belgians a matter of $12,000,000 for supplies that had not been paid for. Nearly $100,000,000 had been exacted in tribute by Germany from the occupied provinces of Belgium up to November 10, 1915, since which date the German Governor General had issued orders for a monthly war tax of 40,000,000 francs ($8,000,000) until further notice. Calculating that the Belgians in the occupied territory numbered 6,000,000, this fresh levy meant that every man, woman, and child would have to pay about $1.35 into the German war treasury every month. This new levy order issued by Baron von Bissing differed in some important particulars from the one issued a year previously. No limit was referred to upon the expiration of which the tax should cease; in the former order the period of a year was mentioned. Another new clause was to the effect that the German Administration should have the right to demand the payment in German money at the customary rate in Brussels of 80 marks to 100 francs. This device probably aimed at raising the rate of the mark abroad. That nine Belgian provinces had hitherto beenable regularly to pay these large monthly installments was due to the fact that the provincial authorities secured large support from the Société Générale de Belgique, which bank expressed its readiness, on certain conditions, to lend money to the provinces and make payments for them, these transactions, of course, taking place under the supervision of the German authorities. On the other hand, the Société Générale was granted by the Germans the exclusive right to issue bank notes, which had hitherto been the privilege of the Belgian National Bank.
The uninterrupted and intense activity along the front with grenades, mines and heavy guns can be only vaguely described or even understood from the brief chronicles of the official bulletins. This underground warfare, to which only dry references are occasionally made, was carried on steadily by day and by night. The mines, exploding at irregular intervals along the lines, gave place to singular incidents which rarely reached the public. Near Arras, in Artois, where sappers largely displaced infantry, was related the story of two French sappers, Mauduit and Cadoret, who were both decorated with the Military Medal. The story of how they won this distinction is worth repeating:
They had dug their way under and beyond German trenches when the explosion of a German mine between the lines cut their gallery, leaving them imprisoned in a space eight feet long. This happened at ten in the morning. They determined to dig toward the surface and encouraged each other by singing Breton songs in low tones while they worked. The air became foul and they were almost suffocated. Their candles went out and left them to burrow in absolute darkness. After hours of intense labor the appearance of a glowworm told them that they were near the surface. Then a fissure of the earth opened and admitted a welcome draft of fresh air. The miners pushed out into the clear starlight. Within arm's length they beheld the loophole of a German trench and could hear German voices. The thought seems not to have occurred to them to give themselves up, as they could easily have done. Instead, they drew back and began to dig in another direction, enduring still longer the distress which they had already undergone so long without food ordrink. After digging another day they came out in the crater of a mine. The night was again clear and it was impossible for them to show themselves without being shot by one side or the other. So they decided to hold out for another night. They lay inside the crater exposed to shells, bombs, and grenades from both sides, eating roots and drinking rain water. On the third night Mauduit crept near the edge of the crater and got near an advance sentinel, one of those pushed out at night beyond the lines to protect against surprise. Cadoret, exhausted, lost his balance and fell back into the crater. Under the German fire Mauduit went back and helped his companion out. Both crawled along the ground until they fell into the French trenches.
Attacks by French aeroplanes upon the German lines were the main features of the day's fighting for November 28, 1915. They damaged the aviation hangars near Mülhausen, in Alsace, and brought down two German machines. The Germans exploded a mine in front of the French works near the Labyrinth, north of Arras, and succeeded in occupying the crater.
Near the end of November the sleet, snow and winds abated and a dry frost accompanied by clear skies set in. Immediately a perfect epidemic of aerial activity broke out. French, German, British, and Belgian aeroplanes scoured the heavens in all directions, seeking information and adventure. Even the restless artillery seemed inspired with still greater energy. German ordnance belched its thunder around Aveling, Loos, Neuve Chapelle, Armentières, and Ypres, eliciting vigorous responses from the opposite sides. Aviators fought in the air and brought each other crashing to earth in mutilated heaps of flesh, framework and blazing machinery. No fewer than fifteen of these engagements were recorded in one day. And yet, despite all the bustle and excitement, the usually conflicting reports agreed that there was nothing particular to report. Each sector appeared to be conducting a local campaign on its own account.
The Switzerland correspondent of the since defunct London "Standard" quoted, on November 30, 1915, from a remarkable article by Dr. Heinz Pothoff, a former member of the Reichstag:
"Can any one doubt that the German General Staff will hesitateto employ extreme measures if Germany is ever on the verge of real starvation? If necessary, we must expel all the inhabitants from the territories which our armies have occupied, and drive them into the enemy's lines; if necessary, we must kill the hundreds of thousands of prisoners who are now consuming our supplies. That would be frightful, but would be inevitable if there were no other way of holding out."
On the last day of November a bill was introduced in the French Chamber of Deputies by General Gallieni calling to the colors for training the 400,000 youths of the class of 1917, who in the ordinary course of events would not have been called out for another two years. The war minister explained that it was not the intention of the Government to send the new class, composed of boys of 18 and 19, to the front at once, but to provide for their instruction and training during the winter for active service in the spring, when, "in concert with our allies, our reenforcements and our armaments will permit us to make the decisive effort." The bill was passed.
A British squadron bombarded the German fortifications on the Belgian coast, from Zeebrugge to Ostend, for two hours on November 30, 1915. The weather suddenly changed on the entire western front. Rain, mist, and thaw imposed a check on the operations, which simmered down to artillery bombardments at isolated points. For the next three months the combatants settled down to the exciting monotony of a winter campaign, making themselves as comfortable as possible, strengthening their positions, keeping a sharp eye on the enemy opposite, and generally preparing for the spring drive. Great offensive and concerted movements can only be carried out after long and deliberate preparations. The Allies had shot their bolt, with only partial success, and considerable time would have to elapse before another advance on a big scale could be undertaken. Hence the winter campaign developed into a series of desultory skirmishes and battles, as either side found an opportunity to inflict some local damage on the other. For the Allies it was part of the "war of attrition," or General Joffre's "nibbling process."
The Germans had gone through a bitter experience in Champagne; with characteristic skill and energy they set to work improving their defenses. At intervals of approximately 500 yards behind their second line they constructed underground strongholds known as "starfish defenses," which cannot be detected from the surface: About thirty feet below the ground is a dugout of generous dimensions, in which are stored machine guns, rifles, and other weapons. Leading from this underground chamber to the surface are five or six tunnels, jutting out in different directions, so that their outlets form half a dozen points in a circle with a diameter of perhaps 100 yards. In each of the tunnels was laid a narrow-gauge railway to allow the machine guns to be speedily brought to the surface. At the mouth of the tunnels were two gun platforms on either side, and the mouth itself was concealed by being covered over with earth or grass. The defenses were also mined, and the mines could be exploded from any one of the various outlets. On several occasions when the French endeavored to press home their advantage they found themselves enfiladed by machine guns raised to the surface by troops who had taken up their places in the underground strongholds at the first menace to the second line. When one of the outlets was captured, machine guns would appear at another; while, if the French troops attempted to rush the stronghold, the Germans took refuge in the other passages, and met them as they appeared.
On the French and British side also, underground defense works were of a most scientific and elaborate character. Trench warfare has become an art. Away from the seat of war the importance of the loss or the gain of a trench is measured by yards. If you are in trenches on the plain, where the water is a few feet below the surface, and all the area has been used as a cockpit, you would wonder how any trench can be held. If, on the other hand, you were snugly installed in a deep trench on a chalk slope, you would wonder how any trench can be lost. Any real picture of what a trench is like cannot be drawn or imagined by a sensitive people. It is, of course, a graveyard—of Germans and British and French. Miners and other workers in the soildrive their tunnel or trench into inconceivable strata. They come upon populous German dugouts, corked by some explosion perhaps a year ago. They are stopped far below ground by a layer of barbed wire, proved by its superior thickness to be German. Every yard they penetrate is what gardeners call "moved soil." It is of the nature of a fresh mole heap or ants' nest, so crumbled and worked that all its original consistency has been undone. A good deal of it doubtless has been tossed fifty feet in the air on the geyser of a mine or shell explosion. It is full of little bits of burnt sacking, the débris of sandbags. Weapons and bits of weapons and pieces of human bodies are scattered through it like plums. The so-called trench may be no more than a yoked line of shell holes converted with dainty toil and loss to a more perpendicular angle. And the tangled pattern of craters is itself pocked with the smaller dents of bombs. There are three grades of holes—great mine craters that look like an earth convulsion themselves, pitted with shell holes, which in turn are dimpled by bombs. Imagine a place like the Ypres salient, a graveyard maze under the visitation of 8,000 shells falling from three widely separate angles, and some slight idea may be formed of nearly two years' life in the trenches. It is an endless struggle for some geographical feature: a hill, a mound, a river, or for a barn or a house. At Ypres, indeed, the German and British lines have passed through different sides of the same stable at the same time. The competition for a hill or bluff is such that in many cases, as at Hill 60, the desired spot, as well as the intervening houses and even woods, have been wiped out of existence before the rival forces.
On November 2, 1915, the British Premier announced in the House of Commons that there were then nearly a million British soldiers in Belgium and France; that Canada had sent 96,000 men to the front, and that the Germans had not gained any ground in the west since April of that year. He furthermore stated that the British Government was resolved to "stick at nothing" in carrying out its determination to carry the war to a successful conclusion. In addition to the troops mentioned above, the Australian Commonwealth had contributed 92,000men to date; New Zealand 25,000; South Africa, after a brilliant campaign in which the Germans in Southwest Africa were subdued, had sent 6,500; and Newfoundland, Great Britain's oldest colony, 1,600. Contingents were also sent from Ceylon, the Fiji Islands, and other outlying parts of the empire. The premier said that since the beginning of the war the admiralty had transported 2,500,000 troops, 300,000 sick and wounded, 2,500,000 tons of stores and munitions, and 800,000 horses. The loss of life in the transportation of these troops was stated to be less than one-tenth of one per cent.
On December 2, 1915, General Joffre was appointed commander in chief of all the French armies, excepting those in North Africa, including Morocco, and dependent ministry colonies. The appointment was made on the recommendation of General Gallieni, the War Minister, who, in a report to President Poincaré, said:
"By the decree of October 28, 1913, the Government, charged with the vital interests of the country, alone has the right to decide on the military policy. If the struggle extend to several frontiers, it alone must decide which is the principal adversary against whom the majority of the forces shall be directed. It consequently alone controls the means of action and resources of all kinds, and puts them at the disposal of the general commander in chief of the different theatres of operations.
"The experience gained, however, from the present operations, which are distributed over several fronts, proves that unity of direction, indispensable to the conduct of the war, can only be assured by the presence at the head of all of our armies of a single chief, responsible for the military operations proper."
General Joffre's new appointment possesses a historic interest, for it created him the first real general in chief since the days of Napoleon, independent entirely of the national ruler as well as of the minister for war and any war council.
In the beginning of December, 1915, Field Marshal Sir John French was relieved at his own instance and appointed to the command of the home forces. He was given a viscountcy in recognition of his long and brilliant service in the army.
From the landing of the British Expeditionary Force in France, Sir John French had commanded it on the Franco-Belgian frontier along a front that grew from thirty-two miles to nearly seventy in one year, while the troops under his command had grown in numbers from less than sixty thousand to well over a million. The son of a naval officer, John Denton French began his career as a midshipman in the navy, but gave that up after a three years' trial and joined the army in 1874. General French was essentially a cavalry commander, and as such he distinguished himself in the South African War of 1899-1902. His conduct in the European War has been the subject of some criticism. The time is not yet ripe to form a just estimate of his achievements and failures. Nothing succeeds like success, and nothing is easier than to criticize a military commander who fails to realize the high expectations of his countrymen. Whatever may be the verdict of history for or against General French, it will certainly acknowledge that he did great things with his "contemptible little army." The figure of Viscount French of Ypres will stand out in bold relief when the inner history of Mons, the Marne, Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, and Loos is definitively written. The present generation may not be permitted to read it, for even to-day, after a hundred years, military experts are still divided over the mistakes of the great Napoleon.
The command in chief of the British army now devolved upon General Sir Douglas Haig, who, though a "born aristocrat," had nevertheless taken his trade of soldiering very seriously. He had served with distinction in India and South Africa. During the retreat from Mons General Haig performed marvels of leadership. By skillful maneuvering he extricated his men at Le Cateau in the most critical moment of the retreat. He led in the attack on the Aisne, and is also credited with chief responsibility for the clever movement of the British army from the Aisne to Ypres. In his dispatch on the battle of Ypres Field Marshal French highly praised the valuable assistance he had derived from General Haig. It was said that during the fierce battle of Ypres, "at one time or another every corps and divisioncommander in the lot lost hope—except Haig. He was a rock all through."
On December 2, 1915. Mr. Asquith announced in the House of Commons that Great Britain's total losses in killed, wounded, and missing since the war began amounted to 510,230.
The figures for the western front were: Killed, 4,620 officers and 69,272 men; wounded, 9,754 officers and 240,283 men; missing, 1,584 officers and 54,446 men; grand total of casualties, 379,959.[Back to Contents]