AMERICAN AMBULANCES ON THE ROAD TO THE FRONT
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.AMERICAN AMBULANCES ON THE ROAD TO THE FRONT.The cars of the Ambulance Field Service rush through maelstroms of shrapnel and high explosive shells to succor the wounded, and then brave the same dangers to get them to the base hospitals in time to relieve their wounds.
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
AMERICAN AMBULANCES ON THE ROAD TO THE FRONT.
The cars of the Ambulance Field Service rush through maelstroms of shrapnel and high explosive shells to succor the wounded, and then brave the same dangers to get them to the base hospitals in time to relieve their wounds.
Without warning out of the night came a battery of guns with a clatter of horses' hoofs and clamor of wheels on the pavement, and in a fewbrief moments the sky lighted up with hellish explosions, and then died down again. As the night deepened, regiments of soldiers tramped by and passed out of sight. Then from the distance came the awful roar of a fearful "strafing."
The war hospital during a battle is a fearsome place and it always smells strongly of chloroform and ether. At the door of one of them thebrancardierscarry the body of a man who has made a heroic struggle in the race against death. His head is battered fearfully and death has won the race. But then—what is death? The commonest figure that stalks around on the earth today. And, after all, it is not so terrible. A little sooner, or a little later, it comes. All must die. Death is not the dreadful thing, nor even the important thing. It is true, as the poet Cooke has said, "It's not the fact that you're dead that counts, but only how did you die."
I am not preaching in this story. I do want to say, however, that death is not important. Death is not an enemy; not on the Western front. Thousands of better men than we, yes, millions, have met this same fellow and boldly gone with him. They all go, but how did you die? That's it. Let the German answer.
Verdun is an old fort and reputed to be one of the most formidable fortifications in the world. Had it not been so it would certainly have been crushed like an eggshell before the German onslaught, for a dozen shells often exploded at the same time, blowing up many buildings, yet the fortress never weakened for an instant. If Verdun had fallen, nothing could have stood. But as Victor Hugo says of Waterloo, "God was passing by and He took charge of things." To our little minds it is all mysterious. Wonderful are the ways of His working, but through one agency or another He always thwarts the designs of evil men and has His way at last.
Verdun was most important. In every war there are certain battles which the historian calls "strategic," certain points which are pivotal, and the outcome of the engagement there is particularly vital. The history and destiny of nations hangs upon them. Such a one was Waterloo a century ago. Gettysburg in the Civil War was another one. In this present struggle the Marne and Verdun have been the outstanding pivotal battles, but they were won! Won by the French, who, as I look at it, were held up and led on by the very hand of God. I am not a military expert, and Ihave no knowledge or insight that other folk do not possess, but it is my inward judgment that from this time on the battles will be fought east of Verdun. That is to say in the main, I doubt very much if the Germans will push through much farther than they are already and I believe that little by little the Allies will crowd them back along the greater portion of the front until victorious. The world must bear in mind, however, that Germany is by no means weak and that she will not be vanquished without an awful struggle. She may also at places advance her line somewhat, but I think no one need now fear as many did in the beginning that Paris will ever be taken, or that Verdun will fall. It has stood the supreme test!
One must remember, however, that Verdun today is not a beautiful sight. The forts are still intact and from a military point of view that is all that counts. But from an artistic or aesthetic standpoint, the place is sorry indeed. When the Germans sent over their incendiary bombs setting the buildings on fire, and then their hail of shrapnel so the fire could not be put out, they accomplished sad destruction. Broken pieces of glass, bits of shell and upturned cobblestones fill the streets, and battered carts and wagons lieeverywhere. Houses are smashed to pieces and smoke-blackened brick and charred timbers, the worthless remains of burned buildings are seen on every hand. From the individual viewpoint Verdun is very sad, extremely so. Thousands of people have been driven from their homes and when they left they had to say good-bye to those homes forever. Multitudes have had loved ones killed while others have lost track of their relatives and probably will never find them. Beautiful edifices, the fulfilment of the artists' dream, have been battered and burned down, and in that city at the present moment Art is not! All this is lamentable.
Yet from the larger point of view, that of France, Verdun is a glorious triumph. From the national and even the world standpoint, Verdun means one more thwarting of the tyrant's design and one more victory for Truth and Right. When we rise above today, and look at things in the light of human progress, our value judgments alter much. The world will not care much whether this or that individual lost his house or farm, for a ruined city will rise again, but the heart of the world leaps with joy when it realizes that the despot has been checked! And even the French individual possesses such an indomitable spirit ofpatriotism that he will not mourn for his temporal losses just so the future of France is not impaired. The long sacrifice and the enduring suffering are borne by these patient people with remarkable calm. They endure today in silence, their Calvary of war, the bloody Golgotha of France.
Yet I would not have you think that war is all battle. Not all of the hours nor even the days of the men in the war country are taken up with thoughts of horror, or in listening to the explosions of shells, or the carrying of mangled or lacerated men. The war is so gigantic in its operation and it covers so vast an area that millions of the people engaged find themselves many times occupied with the most peaceful thoughts and the most commonplace pursuits. If all of the people engaged were compelled continually to face the cannon and the barbed wire, or to listen to the moans of the dying, and feel that they themselves were apt to be taken off at any minute, they would not be the cool-headed people that they are, but instead would be a crowd of raving maniacs. The person thousands of miles away from the spectacle who only reads about it often gets a wrong impression on this point. Nations are mobilized; multitudes are under arms; thousands are engaged inassisting those who fight intermittently—and no soldier fights except intermittently, a week or so on and several days off—and, consequently, not infrequently there are hours or even days when one takes the even tenor of his way far from the battle front, much the same as he does in times of peace.
On such an evening, I found myself writing a letter, as letters to me of late had been rather scarce. I was sitting in a plain, bare hut with a kerosene lamp, and a peculiar letter it was that I wrote. I had seen some odd writing paper in a little stationery store and had paid a couple of cents for three or four sheets of it. Each sheet was arranged by the manufacturer so as to make a complete letter. If you were to take an ordinary sheet of paper and perforate it on the sewing machine on all four sides about half an inch from the edge, then put some mucilage on that half inch margin and let it dry, folding it across the middle, you would have a piece of this one-letter stationery. As it happened there was a little wording on the outside, and a square for the postage stamp. All you have to do is to write the address on the outside, open it out, pen your missive inside, fold it and wet the edges all the way round, thus sticking it, and you then have your letter so to speak, onthe inside of your envelope and the receiver simply tears off the perforated edges, opens it up, and reads.
I was writing on this odd French stationery after a day of idleness. My table consisted of two boards thrown across a couple of sawhorses—a very comfortable table by the way, but the kerosene lamp smelled badly. My thoughts were of America and home. I was in a soliloquizing mood and I also wanted the letter as a souvenir, when I returned. And so I began:
My dear sir, self: U. S. A., When you receive this epistle you will be far away from the scenes which now confront you. You may sometimes think you have it pretty hard staying out here in France away from home and loved ones, having no money, dead broke, and laboring without pay, and often getting little time to rest or sleep. But listen, son, you must realize that you are at this hour in the very midst of the biggest crisis of history. The world has never seen such a moment and if you had missed having a part in it you would have kicked yourself throughout eternity. Your own little life anyway is not an important thing to the world. A few dollars more and a position of ease doesn't make any difference, and if you learn the lesson, my boy, that giving yourself in a noble cause and living for others, is the greatest thing in life you will have found happiness and gained all things. Please take this little suggestion in the proper spirit and set it to work. Also remember that never again in your life will you ever get a reception from anyone which isso beautiful as that which the French people are giving you right at this hour....
My dear sir, self: U. S. A., When you receive this epistle you will be far away from the scenes which now confront you. You may sometimes think you have it pretty hard staying out here in France away from home and loved ones, having no money, dead broke, and laboring without pay, and often getting little time to rest or sleep. But listen, son, you must realize that you are at this hour in the very midst of the biggest crisis of history. The world has never seen such a moment and if you had missed having a part in it you would have kicked yourself throughout eternity. Your own little life anyway is not an important thing to the world. A few dollars more and a position of ease doesn't make any difference, and if you learn the lesson, my boy, that giving yourself in a noble cause and living for others, is the greatest thing in life you will have found happiness and gained all things. Please take this little suggestion in the proper spirit and set it to work. Also remember that never again in your life will you ever get a reception from anyone which isso beautiful as that which the French people are giving you right at this hour....
At this moment the door opened and a hurry call was brought in for three hundred wounded. A great battle had been fought and our boys were needed at once. I stuck the letter in my pocket and went out. In ten minutes we were on the road. Arriving in the night at the station where the men were to be brought in we were told that the train would not arrive for at least an hour and we knew that that might mean six hours, as it often did. Things were fairly quiet here, but now and then we saw the shell flashes and occasionally heard the booming of the guns. I went into a little structure nearby prepared to wait as long as need be. While sitting there I got out my odd French stationery and began finishing that letter to myself. I wrote:
And may that beautiful French hospitality always be a bright spot in your life. And when your time comes to "shuffle off this mortal coil," whether violently or peacefully, may you remember that many a better man out here has done so courageously for a heroic cause. Take this to yourself. Good-bye.Sincerely,Your Friend.
And may that beautiful French hospitality always be a bright spot in your life. And when your time comes to "shuffle off this mortal coil," whether violently or peacefully, may you remember that many a better man out here has done so courageously for a heroic cause. Take this to yourself. Good-bye.
Sincerely,Your Friend.
I folded the top of the letter down over the bottom and wet the edges with my tongue, pressingthem together, and put it in my pocket ready to mail. I had just turned around when—rip—bang—a monstrous bomb burst right in the block where I was sitting, tearing a hole fifteen inches in diameter right through the roof, and totally enveloping everyone in blinding, choking dust. The concussion put out the candle and as I had no matches, I just sat there half dazed for several minutes coughing and sneezing and wondering what was coming next. Finally I rubbed my eyes and felt my way out of the place, only to find that one of the cars had been smashed to toothpicks by the shell as it went off.
As I met one of the boys he said, "Where were you?" I answered, "Inside writing a message to myself—but it was a more thrilling message to myself that came, in the way of that explosion."
"Well, I should think so," he replied. "Hereafter you had better not bother writing to yourself; next time I'd write to the other fellow." And I thought it was pretty good philosophy.
Half an hour later the trains came in, bearing the wounded in numbers. By working until one o'clock next day without any food, we finally got the wounded cared for and distributed, there being 400 of them instead of 300 as first reported.Providence, however, appears to have seen to it that men do not suffer when engaged in work of this kind, and I never heard any of the men complain of being hungry. Sometimes, however, at the stations, kind women provided coffee and sandwiches for the ambulance men as well as for the wounded, and when this was so they never went amiss.
Back at headquarters one day an amusing incident occurred. I had bought a beautiful French pipe sometime before which I valued greatly. It happened, however, that I had gone out one afternoon and left it lying on my bed, which consisted of a straw mattress on the floor. While I was gone a couple of French poilus had come in to chat with the other boys. One of the poilus had been imbibing a bit and was feeling pretty good, I guess. He sat down on my bed and two of our boys did the same, thinking to talk and have a little fun with him. While the Frenchman was sitting there his eye fell upon that pretty pipe of mine and he picked it up admiringly, hinting to the boys that he would like to have it. They told him it was not theirs but they felt sure that the owner would not care if he took it. So he put it in his pocket with a wink and laid his cheap, smelly onein its place. He then noticed a little yellow cap on the bed. It was a sort of skullcap affair which the boys all wore when sleeping to keep their heads warm. When Mr. Poilu saw it he expressed a desire to have it also. The boys told him the cap belonged to me but they knew I would willingly let him have it. He took the cap and presently went out.
Imagine my chagrin on returning at being told that one of the poilus had taken my treasured pipe and my nightcap! I did not care so much for the cap but I was very sorry to lose the pipe. I knew that the boys would not be able to identify this one man among all those hundreds who wore long blue coats and red trousers. But fortune was kind. Early the next morning when we were going to breakfast, we passed a large crowd of poilus, and one of our boys began to laugh. He called out, "Benson, there goes your nightcap!" And sure enough, on the head of a poilu, sticking down below his military cap, was the yellow edge of my nightcap. That identified my man, and I rushed gleefully over and smilingly said in my execrable French, "Monsieur, I believe I have your pipe," holding it up to his gaze. He took it, saying, "Yes; thank you." But he did not offer me mypipe, and there was an embarrassing pause. After a moment I said, "Perhaps, Monsieur, you have my pipe?" He smiled again and said, "Yes," and fished it out of his pocket. We both laughed, and I felt so good that I did not ask him for the cap. He's welcome to it. But as for the pipe, I now prize it more highly than before.
At this juncture let me run over the development of barrage fire as military critics look upon and explain it.
Petain, the great French general, has given expression to one of the outstanding facts of the present war. He says, "The artillery conquers, the infantry occupies." This, in a few words, is the explanation of that new method of attack by "barrage" or, as the English call it, "curtain fire."
This system of attacking the enemy is a new one and has proven most effective for the Allies. In a nutshell, it creates what might be called a danger zone, or, better still, a death zone, just in front of the advancing soldiers. As the soldiers move on ahead the barrage moves on, or it may be more proper to say that the soldiers move just as slowly as the curtain of fire moves, for if they do not, fatal consequences follow. If they should go too fast they would run into the barrage andwould be killed by their own artillery, which is in the rear of the trenches. Occasionally a soldier becomes too enthusiastic and goes too fast for the barrage, and then disaster follows. Accuracy, in time and in range, is the one thing which must be most strictly observed by the men who are conducting the barrage hundreds of yards back of the line.
These men project a hail of shells over the heads of their own infantry and across a thin strip of land parallel to the enemy's trench and directed in the first place at his barbed-wire defenses. This line or belt of bursting shells must be so fierce and continuous as to make it impossible for any man to go through it, or at least so perilous and costly to life that no one in his proper senses would try the hazardous experiment. It requires a rapid firing gun for this kind of warfare, and as armies have not had such guns heretofore, of course, the barrage fire was unknown. It is one of the new things that have been evolved during this war. The Frenchsoixante-quinze, or "seventy-five millimeter," has been the marvel in gun making which has made this curtain fire possible. It is a gun which shoots very rapidly, which does not displace itself each time it shoots, andwhich is able to discharge an average of twenty-five three-inch shells every minute without greatly heating up. No gun was ever invented before which could accomplish such a feat.
The older four-inch gun of the French Army, which the seventy-five displaced, could never have shown the efficiency in this direction that thesoixante-quinzedemonstrates. In the first place its rate of shooting was much too slow, but even if it had been a great deal faster a continuous accuracy was impossible. When it was first aimed its fire could be carefully controlled, but the trouble with it was it threw itself out of place every time it shot. The recoil from such guns is very considerable and the older gun made no provision for it, consequently it had to be aimed all over again every time it was fired because the rebound caused it to dig into the earth and change its entire position. The newsoixante-quinzemakes careful provision for this factor of recoil and is fitted up like a Ford car with shock absorbers, so that it is ready for the second shot as soon as the first is fired, and for the third as soon as the second is fired. It maintains a fixed position, accelerating very greatly the speed at which it can be fired at any given target. The old four-inch gun fell downjust here. The result was that its highest rate of speed was only a quarter of that which could be attained when a field piece was invented, absorbing its recoil and thus leaving its position unchanged. The only limit to the speed of the new gun, therefore, is the rate at which it can be loaded and the degree of temperature it can stand without exploding shells prematurely, but even this latter danger is provided for in this gun, thus keeping it to the minimum. The only elements that prevent absolute accuracy today are slight differences in the shells or perhaps a change of wind, which are, however, practically negligible factors.
Formerly, in the use of the other gun there was the personal variation of the man who aimed the gun quickly, after each shot had displaced or disarranged it, and the other man who assisted him. Each new aiming and shooting of the piece required an absolutely distinct series of movements and thus for every shot there was that much more possibility of error on account of the imperfect coordinating of the two men engaged. In this connection let me say that the curtain fire, which was evolved by the modern quick firing seventy-five, was very soon discovered and quickly adopted and utilized by Germany also.
When first used the purpose of curtain fire was simply to guard or make possible the forward movement of the infantry and was kept well ahead of them, usually one or two hundred yards. It was also uniform all along the line as far as it extended; that is, if it moved ahead a hundred feet at one point it moved the same amount at every other point. It is a ticklish thing at first for men to advance upon the enemy's trenches with their own artillery booming away at their rear and shooting right over their own heads. But the trenches are seldom parallel. Often the country is rough and whereas the enemy may be dug in a hundred yards away at one point, it may be that fifty rods farther down the lines, the trenches are three hundred yards apart. In the main we speak of the lines being parallel, but as a matter of fact they very seldom are so.
During the early days of the war if one of the opponents were going to make an attack he hammered the enemy's position with heavy guns which were concealed or camouflaged perhaps five miles behind the front line trenches. The bombardment lasted until it was assumed most of the enemy's soldiers had taken refuge in the dugouts and were so disorganized that they could not effectivelyresist. Besides this his trenches would be so battered that the chances of success for the well-planned assault would be the best. The time must be accurately arranged previously. All lieutenants and captains who directed the barrage must keep exact time and have watches timed to the second. My own brother, Brenton, is now a lieutenant of artillery and I had the pleasure of presenting him with a beautiful stop-watch before he went into action.
At the given signal the barrage raised and the doughboys went over the top, hustled down the lanes which had been previously cut in their own barbed wire by the wiring party, made their way across No Man's Land, stooping low as they went, dropping flat to the ground every few yards, and trying to get to the trenches of the enemy before they could be stopped.
But the machine guns of the enemy were found to be too formidable and destructive, and as a result of this experience they learned to use the light artillery which could continue its fire even while the attacking party were moving on, advancing as they advanced. The lighter field pieces were placed within a few hundred yards in the rear of the trenches and used to blind the Germans fromprotecting themselves, as well as to cover the advancing troops until they took the trench. Then the curtain fire was thrown still farther back behind the German line.
This process plainly was a very delicate one, even in its beginning. It seemed a little nervy to order soldiers to advance while above their heads hissed and barked their own gunners' shells. Sometimes these would burst before they got to the curtain line and casualties would inevitably result. It was rather ticklish business for the men to charge forward even if they were a couple of hundred yards behind such a hail of steel.
Soon, however, another improvement was put into effect and that was to shorten the barrage to sixty yards, letting the soldiers advance with the exploding shells nearer and nearer to their own bodies. Of course, there was great advantage in this, as the closer the troops were to the curtain fire ahead, the better they were protected and the shorter was the time after the curtain was lifted until the troops occupied the trench. Cutting this time down to the minimum made it so much harder for the Germans to emerge from their hiding and resist the oncoming troops. The science of this was at last so well worked out that a gap of lessthan forty yards lay between the curtain and the troops and sometimes only thirty yards which could be covered in a couple of seconds after the barrage was lifted. Time, of course, is the chief element in the endeavor to get the bulge on the other fellow.
Finally the British worked out what they call the "creeping barrage." This takes into account the fact that the trenches are never exactly straight and parallel. But here the camera came to the aid of the Allies and it told them just how much deviation from the parallel there was. From these photographs the relative positions of the trenches at any given point were plotted out accurately, showing the irregular shape of No Man's Land and the variation of its width at all the different places. The Allies then dug identical trenches in the rear and practiced on them. This changed the method of curtain fire from "regular" to "creeping." From that time the barrage started in a line which first followed the shape of our own fire trench, but as it moved forward the configuration was altered and it swayed and wriggled like a snake gradually taking the shape of the enemy's trench. Plainly, it required much deeper skill to employ this method, but its advantageswere great. Instead of all the gunners shooting in unison at a single command, each one had a different job to perform in order to make the barrage conform with the angle which the trenches made. This is now the general method and has been brought up to a marvelous degree of accuracy as well as speed.
At practically the same time the creeping barrage was conceived, another idea which has also been extremely useful was developed. This was the second curtain of fire to be thrown in the rear of the enemy's trenches to cut off his retreat and to prevent the coming up of reinforcements. The first curtain covered your advance and hindered his resistance, and the second one beyond him kept new forces from coming to his aid with food, munitions, and information.
The method which is used almost universally in attacking today, then, is this.
Big guns "prepare" the way by hammering the trenches of the enemy and simultaneously driving him to the dugouts and bashing in the trenches which shelter him. Your doughboys then go "over the top" and advance, covered by the curtain fire, at first conforming in shape to their own trenches, and little by little wriggling into the form of theenemy's trenches as it comes nearer to them. Closely following the moving barrage is your infantry. Then another barrage in the enemy's rear is cutting him off from reinforcements and after a time the trench is captured and perhaps many prisoners taken. It is not hard to understand from this modern method of attack what the French general meant when he said, "The artillery conquers, the infantry occupies."
ALLIED TROOPS CHARGING THROUGH BARBED-WIRE ENTANGLEMENTS
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.ALLIED TROOPS CHARGING THROUGH BARBED-WIRE ENTANGLEMENTS.The fighters are under the protection of a perfect barrage. They have just gone over the top and are nearing the enemy's trenches.
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
ALLIED TROOPS CHARGING THROUGH BARBED-WIRE ENTANGLEMENTS.
The fighters are under the protection of a perfect barrage. They have just gone over the top and are nearing the enemy's trenches.
Barraging on the field today is much the same as running a great ocean liner. The man who sees is not the man who does! The lookout or observer has nothing to do with the actual control of the vessel. The battery on the field is pulled up into position by horses, then lined up for action and the horses are hurried back to a safe place. The lieutenant directs the fire and the gunners do the firing, but no one sees his target or his results. Just behind them, a telephone operator receives the messages, sitting perhaps, in a shell hole or a dugout. The battery commander is the man who really bosses the whole job from his observation post. He is well named because he really commands the battery, though from a position perhaps miles in front of the battery. The lieutenant is always listening as the telephoneoperator is getting his instructions from the commander at the front. In the first place the lieutenant learns roughly the direction in which to shoot, but soon he gets more detailed direction before firing his first shot, which is in reality an experiment. Standing a short distance behind the battery, he plainly sees every gun. Then he shouts, "Ready!" When the command to fire comes over the telephone he issues a signal. The man at the first gun raises his hand, five seconds are counted, and as he drops his hand the gun is fired. Gun number two does the same and so on down the line. The gunner cannot see and does not know anything about the result. The man at the telephone calls out, "Battery has fired."
The only man in all this operation who gives orders and sees results is the battery commander. Usually he can see the target clearly. Sometimes, however, when this is not possible the balloon and the airplane have to do it for him. The battery commander with the telephone operator in his rear knows exactly the way the guns are pointed and the distance to be covered. He can estimate quickly and figure up the necessary corrections, and this message may go back to the battery, "One hundred yards over and fifty yards to the right."The sergeants then again revolve their control wheels.
The Good Book says, "A great ship is turned about by a very small helm." And so does a great gun respond very quickly to the most delicate touch of the wheel. The gauge is very fine and accurate and a hair's difference there means rods of difference where the shell falls. If the initial shot went a hundred yards over, perhaps the second goes one hundred yards too short. The direction is correct. Again in obedience to a message from the commander the little wheels move, and the elevation of the gun is corrected. The third shell, perhaps, goes over fifty yards and the fourth fifty under. Very well, the range is somewhere between those last two shots. "Give 'em hell. Salvo!" shouts the lieutenant: salvo meaning the firing of all the guns at one time.
Sometimes it is not practical to have an observation post located so as to allow the commander of the battery to see the result and direct the shell fire. In this case he has a balloon which is fastened to the earth by a cable and sent up behind the lines and out of range of the Germans. At best it is an uncomfortable position to be in; hung up in a basket maybe four thousand feet above terrafirma, with German fliers hovering about and trying to blow you into eternity. It's not soothing to the nerves to say the least, even though you know that if the balloon takes fire, you have a parachute to drop with.
Again the enemy's battery may be situated so that the balloon man cannot find its location. In this case the airplane solves the problem, for it goes to any desired height, then scouts over the enemy's trenches and does the "spotting." Of course, communication with an airplane is not as easy as with a balloon which has wires running to it, but the airplane can send wireless messages down, which are received on the earth, and to make up for the impossibility of the aviator receiving them in return, owing to the noise of his powerful motor, the men on the ground use a system of signals like the wigwag flag method. This is done by large panels which are in distinct contrast to their background, and move according to a certain code.
The salvage from a modern battle is a thing which I suppose few people ever stop to think about. Where hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of men have been engaged in shooting iron and steel as fast as they can fire it, the amount of these metals which lies about is something almost beyond conception. And the amount too, which buries itself beneath the surface of the earth is enormous. The money value and military worth of these vast quantities of metal is also a thing which must be taken into consideration. A battle field today is little less than a great ocean of craters which oftentimes touch one another. Most people, if they thought about it at all, would take it for granted that this debris, this wastage, has gone back to earth from whence it came, there to remain until the elements in the soil and water disintegrate and metamorphose the metals from their present form back to their original state in the bowels of the earth. But this is usually not the case.
Walking over a battle ground after a severe fight you may see thousands of shells which have never been shot because the regiment to which they belonged was obliged to retreat posthaste, leaving these as well as other valuable material behind. Frequently the Germans, having been forced out of their positions, have abandoned thousands of unexploded shells and hand grenades. Bayonets lie around topsy-turvy and helmets by the hundreds are to be seen on every hand. Modern rifles dropped by hands that will never hold another and cartridges not fired because the company went forward, perhaps when the Germans beat a hasty retreat, are the commonest of sights upon almost every battle field in Europe. Certainly all of this necessary and vital material cannot be wasted. It must not be allowed to lie unused when it is so essential to the army.
Instead, it is picked up and sorted out, classified and cleaned, and prepared to be used again. Much of it is too dangerous to be left lying about and most of it is too valuable to be ignored. Therefore squads of men are organized, made up oftentimes of the older soldiers, and a few days after an engagement you can see them groping about the earth and stooping over the shell-scarred groundcarefully examining it in a most minute and painstaking manner.
In America the scavenger, the ragpicker, and the garbage man are looked upon as very low in the scale of social refinement, but these ragpickers of the battle field are honored and respected by the French Army, because they are conserving the materials which are most vital to the success of the Republic. Much risk is also encountered in this work of salvage and not infrequently these men lose their lives, for shells from the German guns often go beyond their mark.
When stores of supplies are found in good condition, of course they are used at once, if possible, but much of the material must be sent back in motor lorries to be sorted and remade. Some conception of the economic saving accomplished by this work may be formed when you consider that after one battle many tons of copper were gathered up and loaded and sent back to the rear. Thousands of tons of steel and iron were also rescued in the same locality and in addition hundreds of rifles with millions of rounds of ammunition. Of course these materials are remolded and then go back once more to Mother Earth where much of it will again be picked up. At the close of the war, theland which is now being fought over will be of little value for agricultural purposes because it has been so tortured and mangled by the digging of trenches and the gougings of the shell holes, but it will be exceedingly valuable on account of the steel and copper which are buried there.
Scientists tell us that nothing is in reality ever lost or wasted and a battle field gives a most striking illustration of this law of the indestructibility of matter. We are prone to say that war is all waste, and that the enormous quantities of iron and steel, trees and horses (and even men), which are used up become a fearful waste in nature. Yet it is literally true as a thoughtful Irishman said to me in France, "Nature protects the land." In other words, Mother Earth from which everything comes protects and perpetuates herself so that no nation or generation can destroy her. All trees which are battered to pieces and all the flesh which decays and rots, go back to earth once more to fertilize and season it so that in the next generation it will bring forth and bear plentifully. As the Good Book says: "All go to one place; all is of the dust. The body returneth to the earth as it was and the spirit returneth unto God who gave it."
There is no waste in the material universe. The only waste which comes from war materially is for the present generation in that things which were in a form which we could use have been changed to a form less useful but which will be used sometime again. The great waste of war as I look at it is the moral and spiritual waste where men become fiends and go out to conquer and steal and rape and kill, thus using up their spiritual powers and possibilities in destructive enterprises which might have been put toward constructive elevation of the race. Men lose their souls instead of saving them. And yet—the fiendishness of one country brings out the angel of the other in causing men to rouse to duty and to honor and justice, whereas without this incentive who knows but that we might sink down in self-sufficiency and retrograde, thus all of us losing our souls? It seems that all through God's universe there is struggle and strife, and that moral and spiritual fiber require these things for their best development.
The work of Christ, Christianity, prospered because it had to struggle for existence, and when a nation or an individual ceases to struggle it goes backward. This thought may be a Job's comforter to those who pay the fearful price and yetwe must look at it in this way. Men must fight to get the highest freedom, not lie back and accept their fate, else they have only the freedom of the Germans under the Hohenzollerns. There is always some remnant of salvage out of the most fearful waste. Thus earth goes in a cycle.
The system ofcamouflagewhich the French have worked out in this war, is something new also. The word has come to mean in America "dodging," "deception," "bunk," or anything that is not out in the open and above board; and that is just whatcamouflagemeans in the war in France. It is a method by which things are made to appear to be what they are not, for the purpose of fooling the enemy. It makes an artificial thing seem to be a natural thing so that it will not excite suspicion and draw his fire. When the French place a battery of guns which naturally they do not want put out of commission by the enemy's guns, they have thecamouflageartist get busy with his paint and canvas and create a whole lot of little trees or bushes just like the ones which grow in the ground and then under cover of darkness when the enemy can't see them, or when his attention is distracted, they plant the trees, place the guns behind them, and they have a concealed battery.
Snipers are also often hidden in this same kind of a manner. Thecamoufleurwith his magic art of scenery makes a dead horse. He has his head stretched way out on the ground and his legs pointing up in the air, stiff and stark. A great hole or chunk has been torn out of his body, but as it happens, it is never right through the middle part of him because this would not leave protection for the sniper. The horse "conveniently" had the shell strike him on the side. He is placed wherever he will do the most good in the night time and Mr. Sharpshooter, with his noiseless rifle and plenty of ammunition and one day's food, crawls in behind him. There he stays till daybreak. Yes, and a long while after. He must stay there all day long until darkness again draws down a curtain of safety about him, for if he attempted to move out in daylight some sniper or machine-gun artist would instantly pick him off. If he lays low till dark he may fool them and get away all right.
But the camera sometimes discovers things which the human eye would not detect, and the camera is always busy. The air flier might soar above a spot in the enemy's lines and not notice anything wrong or see that there was any object in addition to what was there the day before, butwhen he snapped the shutter of his camera and the photograph was developed, by comparing it with yesterday's photograph of the same place, he might see that there was an extra horse's carcass lying there. Now he knows there was no cavalry charge through the night, and so he becomes suspicious. Consequently the horse is watched. Perhaps in time, some one sees the man's arm protruding a little, or perhaps a man is picked off without any apparent cause.
Just for luck the enemy takes a shot at the old dead horse and suddenly a man rises and tries to run back. But he stumbles and falls. He is killed. Perhaps he has accounted for a half a dozen Boches during the day and the Frenchman dies happy. That's what he's there for, to sacrifice his life for France in weakening Germany's cruel hold upon his country.
If it was certain that they could account for such a proportion of Germans, ten thousand Frenchmen would willingly step out tomorrow and go into sure death forLa Belle Franceand Liberty! Very often theycamouflageroads with evergreen trees so as to hide the view of the motor lorries andcamionswhich are so essential in taking supplies and ammunition up to the front. Anold forlorn and battered gun maycamouflagea fine new field piece, and sometimes a weather-beaten, broken-down piece of farm machinery may be counterfeited in order to hide an observer, a listener, or a sniper. Such a man must be of a stout heart and not afraid to go over the Great Divide for it is full of hazard. If he is discovered it's all over for him.
One poor fellow whose feet were bare, attracted my attention. When I looked at him more carefully I noticed that he had no shirt and I asked him what had happened to him and what had become of his clothes. At first he did not want to tell me, but when I inquired again, with a kind of embarrassed and self-conscious look upon his face Louis related this tale to me.
His old acquaintance and fellow-townsman, Paul, was in the same company with him. Back in the little home town before the war they had been enemies. They had both been bad men, crooks and drunkards, and had at one time tried to kill each other. For years they had hated and had as little to do with each other as possible. It all started over an insignificant something, but nevertheless the dislike had grown until it had become very bitter and each was continually on the lookout to find a chance to do the other a mean turn when possible. They had cursed each other many a timewhen their paths crossed, but as far as possible they had tried to avoid meeting. But when the war came they had been placed together side by side as comrades in the battle. Their officers had told them that they were not to think of self now, because their fight was forLa Belle France. Day after day they drilled together and week after week performed the hard labor which was allotted them, side by side, until at last they outgrew their ancient antipathy, and finally became bosom friends. Then they were sent to the trenches. Together they held the line in the same fire bay, and hour after hour both looked into the muzzles of the German guns. They had on different occasions gone "over the top" together, and neither of them had been hurt at all. At last, however, early one morning when the Germans made a mighty charge, fate was against both. The bombardment had been blinding and when the Boches came tearing "over the top" these two sturdy poilus stood their ground and held the enemy back. A German was just about to make a lunge at Louis when Paul, with a spring, jumped in front of him, receiving a bayonet thrust in his lung, and also a terrible wound in his ankle. Louis had been painfully wounded in his left shoulder.His wound was not dangerous but Paul was about "done in," and was breathing hard as he had lost a large amount of blood from the hole in the lower part of his leg. Here the narrator's eyes began to fill with tears.
"I couldn't let the poor fellow bleed to death after he had saved my life. I tore up my shirt into bandages and tied them around his leg, and then so they would not come off and also to keep his feet warm I took my socks and pulled them on his feet. What else could I do? I tried to fix up his injured lung also, but—" and then the tears burst forth and he sobbed like a baby. "It didn't do any good and Paul lies over there now." I glanced over in the direction where he pointed and sure enough there was Paul, bandaged up with strips of shirt and wearing a pair of socks over the bandages. But the black angel had already come to him. He had "gone West."
I talked with the man a little more and he opened up his heart to me. At best life is a strange thing to understand. Here were two human beings who previously, by heredity or environment, or else their own devilishness, had been evil characters. They were known as such by their acquaintances and they knew each other as such.Their lives had been unenviable to say the least, and then at last through war, that fearful and awful thing, each man had been made better and the angel had come out of what before seemed a devil. Not only was Paul a bad man but he had hated the other man and yet here he was doing a noble and self-sacrificing deed and not only that, but doing it for his enemy; giving up his life for his old foe.
And here was the other man, showing a gratitude which was noble towards the man he had hated and who had tried to kill him. He gave up his own shirt and took off his own socks to try to keep warm the feet of the dying Paul and to keep the blood, which meant life, in his body. It did not accomplish the result but my narrator would not take back his socks as he said he wanted the man who died for him to have this little gift and be buried in them. Such heroism is not uncommon in the trenches.
After all there are some compensations even for war. In many instances it may bring out all the hate and the hell that is in a man's heart but I have also seen hundreds of cases where it made men much better than they had ever been before. It made them better men and better Christians;not necessarily of the shouting type but of the kind, of which One said: "He that giveth a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, shall not lose his reward," and again, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend."
But someone may think I am preaching. Well, if I am, I am preaching the gospel of service and sacrifice, which to my mind is the greatest gospel there is to preach at the present critical hour. I am trying to tell men that they can be better men wherever they are if they will it so. I have known men to go over there from various walks of life, some of them from wealthy homes and high salaried positions to engage in this or that line of work, perhaps relieving suffering without getting anything for their labor, and yet boast that they had received more than they had ever gotten in their lives before, and it was true. They developed a feeling of kinship for the suffering, and a satisfaction in assuaging their pain which was a greater compensation than anything they had ever had or could ever have expected. I have known men to go over in the very trenches themselves and there learn the lesson of self-control and humility which is in reality learning to respect therights of other people; men who formerly had been accustomed to having their own way in life.