WHEN THE DAYS OF RECKONING DAWNED
_American Troops on All Fronts--Changes Come Fast and Furious--First
Hun Cry for Peace--Virtue, Vice and Violence--Austria
Surrenders--Opens Up the Dardanelles--Closing Days of Hohenzollern
Reign--Killing of Tisza--Terms Prepared for Germany--
Armistice Signed by Germany_.
AMERICAN TROOPS ON ALL FRONTS
The collapse of Russia in 1917 had released vast bodies of German troops
for service in France, but the calamities that overtook them on the
French front were so destructive that insufficient man power was left
to take care of the southeastern fronts, so that Serbia was enabled to
institute a new offensive, and with the aid of Greece, in a few days cut
Bulgaria out of the German horde, pressed forward in Serbia, and pushed
ahead through the Balkan regions. Meanwhile American strength was
greatly augumented in the west and at the same time American troops
appeared on the Murman coast in the north and Siberia on the Pacific
east, on the Piave front in Italy, and at every other point where
hostile strength was greatest or strategic advantage was to be gained by
their presence.
Concurrently, the United States navy swept the western seas of Europe
free of German submarines. Our naval forces were combined with those of
Great Britain as the sea arm of a united command, under the joint name
of the Grand Fleet; and American troop ships landed newly trained
American soldiers in France at the average number of about 250,000 a
month--over 2,200,000 in little more than a year; at the same time
helping to reopen in safety the lanes of ocean commerce by which the
trade of our European allies was fully restored, German ports corked
tight, and Germany thereby thrown back absolutely upon her own interior
resources. Out of this vigorous and abundant American action emerged the
conditions that insured a "Peace of Justice."
These things were the quick work of the latter part of 1917 and the
campaigns of 1918. The achievement was gigantic, but it had no effect in
taking attention or diverting action from those movements that offered
at once an advantage to our common cause, while disintegrating the hoary
tyrannies of Central and Eastern Europe.
CHANGES COME FAST AND FURIOUS
Events in the field reacted with powerful effect upon autocratic
Austria. The Austrian throne was built upon the backs of vassal states,
all of which had yielded thousands of emigrants to this country; and
these transplanted peoples, having found freedom, proceeded to incite
the countries of their origin to throw off their burdens and like
Americans, be free to govern themselves.
The moment had come for Bohemia, Poland, and all Czecho-Slav and
Jugo-Slav peoples to rise. The United States Government, in full
sympathy with their yearnings, had received their representatives at
Washington, had furnished funds as well as moral support to their
provisional governments, had supported an independent Czecho-Slav army
in Russia with American reinforcements, with clothing, arms, munitions,
and supplies, and now, at exactly the right juncture, in August, 1918,
recognized the Czecho-Slav as a cobelligerent power lawfully at war
against the central empires.
FERDINAND FALLS FROM THE WAR WAGON
This was the push that brought the break. Germany still had her armies
intact on the soil of other countries, and was a consolidated force,
tired though not beaten. But the fat and filthy "Czar" Ferdinand
of Bulgaria sat in voluntary exile, eating like bread the ashes of
repentance, and mingling his drink with weeping; so that his country,
yellow at best, and frightened by the fear of being done to as it had
done by Serbia, quit abruptly, without shame, almost without firing a
shot. With that defection the last wisp of Germany's long cherished
dream of a boche Middle-Europe and a boche empire stretching from Berlin
to Bagdad, faded forever. In October, 1918, Austria consented to a
reconstituted independent Bohemian state, and with apparent readiness
granted self-government to Hungary.
Meantime, in September and October, 1918, the American and allied armies
chased the Germans from the coast and far into the interior of Belgium,
the Belgian army, financed by the United States, taking part in that
operation. Town after town, city after city in Belgium and France
fell to the American and allied forces, so that the German government
(October 27) addressed a note to the President of the United States
asking him to intercede with our allies for an armistice and a
conference for discussion of terms of peace. This led to four exchanges
of notes, in which Germany's expressions were specious, and assumed a
right to negotiate. The last of these notes was submitted by President
Wilson to the allied council at Paris; and the council answered by
referring the whole question of armistice to Marshal Foch and the allied
military chiefs.
THE "CROOKED KAMERAD"
In those same months of September and October, 1918, Austria and Turkey
made proffers of separate surrender. This was the logical sequence of a
"crooked kamerad" peace-offensive inaugurated by Germany as soon as she
found herself being rolled, helplessly, toward the Rhine. It was at once
the most vicious game that her genius for the vicious had ever prompted,
and it was put forward at the very time when the fourth liberty loan was
in course of being floated.
Our soldiers on all fronts had often suffered through a trick of false
surrender by German soldiers. It is best described by one of our boys
who was lying on a table in a base hospital, waiting his turn to be
operated upon, when he heard another who was being wheeled out from the
operating room and was muttering through the ether fumes:
"Fired at me ten feet away, he did, point blank, and then he dropped his
rifle and stuck up his hands and called me 'Kamerad'! Kamerad, the dirty
crook! Didn't I stick 'im pritty, Bill"!
It had been a common thing on the western front for a group of boches to
come running toward the American lines unarmed, with their hands in
the air, crying "Kamerad! Kamerad!" And then, when our men went out
to receive them, fall flat, to make way for a force of armed boches
immediately behind them, who opened fire--plain murder as ever was done.
So it was a crooked Kamerad cry, a peace offensive intended to sing us
to sleep, that Germany launched in September, 1918. Of a sudden, our
newspapers were filled with what appeared to be straight news dispatches
dated at Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, London, Paris, Geneva,
and even Berlin, telling tales (that were not so) of starvation and
disaffection in Germany, or broken morale in the German armies, and
riotous demonstrations demanding peace. The impression was immediate and
came near to being disastrous.
Many urgent requests were being made just then for public help from
America. The gigantic fourth loan, the needs of the Red Cross, the
thousand and one things, big and little, that had to be taken care of,
and the very earnest and pressing call for a sharper realization of
war's awful facts, were being driven with might and main, all over the
land; and all was going well.
Within three days, before even the Associated Press discovered the
fraud, these outrageous German lies had taken effect. Subscriptions to
the loan began to slacken, alarmingly. Interest in the battle news began
to fade. People were telling each other the war was over.
PRINCE MAX WRITES A NOTE
Then on October 6th, 1918, came the note of the German Chancellor, Prince
Maximilian of Baden, asking an armistice and a peace conference--in
essence, an astounding request for time to reconsolidate the German
armies and bring up fresh guns and munitions. America might have been
fooled into a frightful error if the great war-organizations had not
come forward with a roaring counterblast. The peace offensive failed.
More than that, the people resented it in a prompt and highly practical
way. They oversubscribed the six billion loan. Most of them, especially
the smaller subscribers, doubled their subscriptions in the last two
days of the time allotted for the flotation. October 7th, President
Wilson answered Prince Max's request with a refusal.
But it was a fortunate thing for the allied cause that the peace
offensive was made, for its one effect was to create a profound distrust
of all war news coming out of Amsterdam or Copenhagen. It revealed the
fact that Berlin had been closely censoring all news dispatches that
assumed to disclose the state of affairs in the central empires;
censoring them rigorously, and inventing most of them. Germany had not
yet learned that lies would not win the war; but the rest of the world
had learned that Germany, as a liar, was so supernally endowed that
her feeblest efforts in that domain would have made Ananias, Baron
Munchausen, and Joe Mulhatton look like a trio of supersaints, choking
with truth.
FIRST HUN CRY FOR PEACE
Germany's definite turn toward peace came in October, 1918, in the form
of further and very awkward notes written by Prince Maximilian of Baden,
the German Chancellor, and Doctor Solf, German Minister of foreign
affairs. While the first of these notes was coming along, the Leinster
was sunk by a German submarine on the Irish coast. The Leinster was a
passenger ship, employed in regular service on a long ferriage. She had
a full passenger list, nearly 400 people, peaceable folk all, just about
such as may be found any day aboard a Staten Island ferry boat. It was
not in any sense an act of war, but mere and open piracy, killing for
the love of killing. It was one of the most horrible acts in a long,
long list of horrors for which Germany has learned she must account in
the long reckoning she has been forced to face.
VIRTUE, VICE AND VIOLENCE
At the same time, strangely contrasting with the virtuous attitude
assumed in the notes, towns and cities in France and Belgium were being
blown up before evacuation by the Germans, their men were being marched
away to slavery in Germany, their women and young girls assigned as
"orderlies" in the service of German officers--such "orderlies" as
Turkey buys and sells for its harems. The contrast between German
professions of virtue and German bestiality of act was ghastly. It is
hard to believe that such things could happen between earth and sky, and
they who did them still live; yet the things, hypocritical on one side
and sickeningly horrible on the other, were actually done.
RESULTS OF A FEW BUSY MONTHS
Between the day when that little group of Americans stopped the hordes
of hell at Chateau Thierry, and Germany's acceptance of the American and
allied armistice terms, these other and happier things had come to pass.
Bulgaria had been forced to quit. Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey
sued for peace. Turkey's military power was broken in Asia Minor,
Germany undertook the greatest retreat in history, and these countries
and Austria-Hungary were suffering from serious internal dissensions.
The allies took about half a million prisoners and some 4,000 cannon.
They destroyed more than 300 airplanes and 100 balloons. They recovered
more than 7,000 square miles of territory in France and Belgium, 20,
square miles in Serbia, Albania and Montenegro, and 15,000 square miles
in Asia Minor.
In France, the cities of Lille, Turcoing, Roubaix, Douai, Lens, Cambrai,
St. Quentin, Peronne, Laon, Soissons, Noyon, La Bassee, Bapaume,
St. Mihiel, Chateau Thierry, Grand Pre, Soissons, Vouziers, LaFere,
LeCateau, Juniville, Craonne, and Machault were reoccupied. Valenciennes
fell to the British. Reims and Verdun were freed, after four years'
artillery domination.
The St. Mihiel salient was wiped out by Pershing's American army, the
great St. Gobain massif recovered, the Hindenburg line and lesser
defensive systems shattered, and the Argonne massif won.
The Belgian Coast was cleared of the enemy and the Belgian cities of
Bruges, Ostend, Zeebrugge, Roulers, Courtrai, Ghent, Audenarde, and
Tournai were recaptured.
The allied advance in France was about fifty miles eastward from
Villers-Bretonneaux, near Amiens, and nearly the same distance northward
from Chateau Thierry. In Belgium, the allies had progressed about forty
miles eastward from Nieuport.
Three-fourths of Serbia, four-fifths of Albania, and a large slice of
Montenegro were repatriated.
The allied advance covered more than 200 miles northward to Negotin, on
the Danube, within twenty-two miles of Hungarian Territory.
The British in Asia Minor advanced over 350 miles and took Aleppo,
possession of which gave them the key to Constantinople from the south.
The British expedition in Mesopotamia began an operation designed to
capture Mosul and open the way to the eastern terminus of the proposed
Berlin-to-Bagdad railway, which ends at Nesibin.
In Russia the allies advanced 275 miles up the Dwina river and
penetrated about 350 miles southward from the Murman coast. They also
pushed 600 miles inland from Vladivostok.
OPENS UP THE DARDANELLES
On the very last day of October, 1918, Turkey surrendered to the
British, opening the Dardanelles and through those waters giving the
allied fleets access to the German-dominated Black Sea and the coast of
southern Russia, and putting at the mercy of the allies the only active
units of the German navy. The surrender included Palestine and the
Mesopotamian fronts. General Allenby's farther drive at Constantinople
became unnecessary, having served the purpose of hastening Turkey's
decision; and Allenby himself was assigned to the occupancy of the Turk
Capital.
The same day, October 31, 1918, the Austrian government ordered
demobilization of the Austrian armies, and the Austrian forces began a
hasty retreat from Italy. The retreat became a rout before evening of
that day, the Italians pursuing and capturing over 50,000 men and
cannon, and cutting off some 200,000 Austrians in a trap between the
Brenta and Piave rivers. General Diaz, the Italian commander, after
considerable entreaty, consented to receive General Weber of the
Austrian command, who brought a plea for armistice.
The result of their conference was an agreement for an armistice that
should go into effect at 3 o'clock in the afternoon of November 4th--an
allowance of time sufficient to get the acceptance signed at Vienna.
Meanwhile there would be no cessation of fighting.
AUSTRIA SURRENDERS
The terms were thorough and severe. They amounted to Austria's
unconditional surrender, disarmament, demobilization of armies, delivery
of the major fleet and all submarines to the United States and allies,
restoration to Italy of all the Italian provinces that Austria had
taken in older wars, free passage to American and allied forces through
Austrian territory, abandonment of land, sea and island fortifications
to the Americans and allies, immediate release (without reciprocation)
of all American and allied soldiers and sailors held prisoner in
Austria, return of all allied merchant ships held at Austrian ports,
freedom of navigation on the Danube by American and allied war and
merchant ships, internment of all German troops remaining in Austria by
November 18th, 1918, and immediate withdrawal of all Austrian troops
serving with the German armies anywhere between the Swiss border and the
North sea.
The terms were accepted in full by the Vienna government, but between
the time it was delivered by General Diaz to General Weber and 3 o'clock
of November 4th, the Austrian armies on Italian soil stampeded in a
panic so complete that the pursuing Italians had taken 200,000 of them
prisoner, making altogether nearly half a million taken since October
24th. In the same time about 7,000 guns, 12,000 auto cars and over
200,000 horses were captured, and Austrian fatalities ran into numbers
almost equal to the largest army Napoleon ever had under command in any
one of his great campaigns.
Austria had begun to yield during the last week of October, when Hungary
abandoned the empire, released its civil and military officials from
their oath of allegiance to the imperial crown, and formed arrangements
for an independent government of its own. Count Tisza, formerly premier
of Hungary, and the most reactionary of Hungarian statesmen, was
assassinated toward the close of that week.
THE KILLING OF TISZA
An Amsterdam report dated November 3d quoted from the Vossische Zeitung
of Berlin an account of that event, from which it appears that about
o'clock in the evening three soldiers invaded Count Tisza's residence
and presented themselves in the drawing room. Count Tisza, with his wife
and the Countess Almassy, advanced to meet the intruders, asking what
they wanted. "What have you in your hand?" a soldier demanded of Tisza.
Tisza replied that he held a revolver. The soldier told him to put it
away, but Tisza replied: "I shall not, because you have not laid aside
your rifles." The soldiers then requested the women to leave the room,
but they declined to do so. A soldier then addressed Tisza as follows:
"You are responsible for the destruction of millions of people, because
you caused the war." Then raising their rifles, the soldiers shouted:
"The hour of reckoning has come." The soldiers fired three shots and
Tisza fell. His last words were: "I am dying. It had to be." The
soldiers quitted the house, accompanied by gendarmes, who previously
were employed to guard the door.
It was the removal of Count Tisza that really cleared the way for the
new Hungarian state. Bohemia and the other Slavic vassal states of
Austria had already broken away. President Wilson had recognized Poland
as an independent and belligerent state. Austria's remaining dependence,
after Hungary's defection, was upon the German population of its north
and northwestern provinces, and the provinces wrenched from Italy forty
years before. Austrian armies numbering more than half a million men had
driven the Italians back from the territory they had won in 1917 under
General Cadorna, and had been brought to a stand on the river Piave,
where a deadlock somewhat resembling that in front of Verdun had been
maintained many months. These armies were affected by the movement that
was dissolving the empire, and gave way, with the result above stated.
The terms of the Austrian armistice were furnished to General Diaz
through Marshal Foch, by the American and allied council sitting at
Versailles.
During the interim between the delivery and the acceptance of the
Austrian Armistice and the surrender of Austria, the Versailles Council
prepared terms of an armistice that had been sued for by the German
government.
TERMS PREPARDED FOR GERMANY
On November 4th, 1918, Berlin was notified by the Versailles council
that Marshal Foch had in his hands the terms on which armistice would
be granted. November 8th, a German commission of five were admitted to
audience with Marshal Foch, who read and delivered the document, with
notice that it must be accepted and signed within seventy-two hours.
A request by Herr Erzberger, one of the German commissioners, that
fighting be suspended during that time, was curtly refused; and the
armistice terms were communicated by the commissioners to the German
revolutionary government, which had come into power by voluntary
transfer of the chancelorship from Prince Maximilian of Baden to
Friedrich Ebert, Vice-president of the social democratic party.
The revolution began in the German fleet at Kiel, where the sailors
mutinied and hoisted the red flag. It spread with great rapidity and
very little disorder throughout all the German states.
November 9th the Kaiser was compelled by the revolutionists to abdicate,
and the crown prince signed a renunciation of his right to the
succession. The abdication of the Kings of Bavaria and Wurtemburg
occurred at the same time. The ex-emperor and the crown prince, in an
attempt to reach the British line and surrender themselves, were headed
off by the revolutionary forces and took refuge in Holland.
ARMISTICE SIGNED BY GERMANY
November 11th, 1918, the armistice was signed by the German
commissioners, upon orders from Berlin. On the morning of that day, at
11 o'clock Paris time, fighting ceased on all fronts.
The terms of the armistice were in substance as follows. They demanded:
Evacuation within thirty-one days of Belgium, France, Alsace-Lorraine,
Luxemburg, Russia, Roumania and Turkey, all territory that had belonged
to Austria-Hungary, and all territory held by German troops on the west
bank of the Rhine.
Renunciation of the treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest.
Delivery to and occupation by American and allied troops within nineteen
days, of Mayence, Coblenz and Cologne, together with their bridgeheads.
The bridgeheads include all German territory within a radius of eighteen
miles on the east (German) bank of the Rhine, at each of these points.
The surrender of 5,000 cannon, 25,000 machine guns, 5,000 motor lorries,
8,000 flame throwers, 1,700 airplanes, 5,000 locomotives, 150,000 wagons
(railway cars) and all the railways of Alsace-Lorraine.
Establishment of a neutral strip twenty-four miles wide on the east
(German) side of the Rhine, paralleling that river from the Holland
border to the border of Switzerland.
The return within fifteen days, of all inhabitants removed from invaded
countries, including hostages and persons under trial or convicted.
Release of American and allied prisoners of war held by Germany--the
American and allied powers to retain all Germans held by them as
prisoners of war.
Surrender of half of the German fleet to America and the allies,
together with all submarines, other miscellaneous German ships, and all
American and allied merchant ships held by Germany. The other half of
the German fleet to be disarmed and dismantled.
Notification to neutral countries by Germany that they are free to trade
on the seas with America and the allied countries.
Access by way of Dantzig or the Vistula river, to all territory in the
East evacuated by Germany.
Evacuation by all German forces in East Africa within a time to be fixed
by the allies.
Restitution for all damage done by German forces.
Return of the funds taken by the Germans from the National Bank of
Belgium, and the gold taken from Russia and Roumania.
These terms, which not only constitute Germany's unconditional
surrender, but reduce Germany to a condition that absolutely prevents
her resumption of war, form the base of the final treaty of peace.
CLOSING DAYS OF HOHENZOLLERN REIGN
Into the four months preceding November 11, 1918, were crammed events
that drove the Germans back, deprived them of their allies, brought the
utter collapse of Imperial government, drove the emperor into exile,
saw a socialist republic set up with Berlin as its capital, brought the
whole of what had been the empire to a state of seething unrest and
change touched with the poison of bolshevism. November 4, a memorable
date, found Germany alone and unsupported against a world triumphant in
arms. All the laboriously built up structure of her military state was
brought to a futile struggle for life, the whole vast fabric of her
underground diplomacy, her intricate, world-penetrating spy system, her
marvelously elaborate and totally unscrupulous propaganda, crumbled away;
nothing remained of the earlier vigor but a memory--that shall be a
stench forever.
November 11, 1918, will go down in history as the memorable day in which
the last surviving medieval tyranny in Europe disappeared in blood
and smoke; for its final act was filled with characteristic hate and
brutality.
In the very last hours before armistice took effect, German batteries
poured a deluge of high explosives and poison gas on Mezieres, where
there were no allied soldiers at all, but only civilians, men, women and
children, twenty thousand of them, penned like rats in a trap, without
possibility of escape. Says one correspondent, describing that horror:
"Words cannot depict the plight of the unhappy victims of this crowning
German atrocity. Incendiary shells fired the hospital, and by the glare
of a hundred fires the wounded were carried to a shelter of cellars
where the whole population was crouching.
"That was not enough to appease the bitter blood lust of the Germans in
defeat. Cellars may give protection from fire or melinite; but they are
worse than death traps against the heavy fumes of poisonous gas. So the
murderous order was given, and faithfully the boche gunners carried it
out. There were no gas masks for the civilians and no chemicals that
might permit them to save lives. Many succumbed."
FINAL ACT OF THE HUN AT SEA
The final act at sea was almost concurrent with this tragedy. The
16,000-ton battleship Britannia was torpedoed off the entrance to the
straits of Gibraltar, November 9, and sank in three and one-half hours.
FOLLOWING THE DAYS OF RECKONING
And so, spewing murder in its last writhing, the monster died. It had
begun by furiously ravaging Belgium in August, 1914; it ended with the
awful, wanton murder of noncombatants at Mezieres in November, 1918.
Throughout four years, three months and ten days, it had ramped and
raged over the land, under the sea and in the air, slaughtering,
poisoning, ravaging, without cessation, killing wherever it could,
robbing with colossal greed, defiling what it could neither kill nor
carry away, leaving across the pages of history a trail of blood and
filth and slime that all the tears of all the angels cannot ever wash
away.
But it left a world of nations free to work out their several destinies,
self-determining, not subject any more to the threat of causeless war at
the hands of a government steeled to barbarity. A world cemented by the
blood the monster itself had caused to be shed; by the memory of brave
sons fallen that others might live; by the tears of countless women and
children made widows and orphans; by a new understanding between all the
nations of men that dwell upon the face of the earth, because of mutual
sacrifices in a common cause; by a knowledge that the long night of
medieval tyranny had faded out and a new day had come, in which power
shall arise from and be wielded by the peoples, never again by kings or
emperors. And so our planet shall be ruled as long as man inhabits it.
Out of bitter darkness, in the splendor of this new day the spirit of
liberty has risen, with healing on its wings.
We who have lived through the struggle may say with gratitude, each of
us, "I saw the light! I saw the morning break!"
AMONG THE LAST SHOTS FIRED
While Berlin was trying to get into touch with Marshal Foch, and the end
was coming into sight, the Americans along the Meuse put forth all the
energy that was in them, in their eager desire to hand the enemy a final
series of wallops. It was here one of the most brilliant exploits of the
war occurred.
On the night of November 4, American troops, though under very heavy
artillery and machine gun fire, succeeded in building four pontoon
bridges across the Meuse, a little more than a mile east of Brieulles.
Early in the morning one of these was destroyed, but a strong force
crossed over the other three, and swept forward with such rapidity,
though in the face of superior numbers, that by noon the enemy was in
disorderly retreat northward. By nightfall the Americans on that side of
the river had captured Liny-Devant-Dun and Mille-Devant-Dun, on the east
bank of the river, while a large American and French force pushed back
the Germans on the west bank, capturing Beaumont, Pouilly and several
less important places, and taking positions on three sides of Stenay,
the pivot on which the whole German retirement had turned. American
troops the 5th and 6th of November had advanced to within five miles
of the main communication line of the Germans between Metz, Mezieres,
Hirson and the north.
After destroying the bridge connecting Stenay with Laneuville, the
Germans had opened the locks of the Ardennes canal and flooded the river
to a width of about two-thirds of a mile.
It was here the Americans undertook and accomplished the impossible.
They picked out the best of their swimmers, who crossed the stream
carrying light lines attached to heavy cables, which were drawn after
them, and by a hasty pontoon construction got the whole force across.
Then, in the face of heavy firing, they pounded their way over a mud
flat nearly a mile wide, and hit the canal, which by then, had been
drained, forming a deep ditch that would have stopped any other
soldiers. But the Americans rustled up some grappling irons and hooks,
which they tied to the ends of ropes, and throwing them to the coping,
then swarmed up and chased the disconcerted Germans out of their last
position in that sector.
On November 7th American troops entered Sedan and cut the German line of
communication between Metz and the north.
The same day, troops from Ohio, under command of General Farnsworth,
took the Ecke salient sixteen miles southwest of Ghent in Belgium, and
were advancing on the city when the Germans suddenly evacuated it,
departing in haste toward the German frontier.
Stenay was the last town to fall into American hands. It was occupied
without resistance, an hour before the armistice went into effect. While
preparations for attack were in course, paroles came in reporting that
the Germans had cleared out. The American troops at once poured in, and
established occupation at 10:45 in the forenoon, just a quarter of an
hour before word came that the armistice had taken effect.
In a few minutes flags of the allies were flying from housetops, and the
church bells were ringing out the war. It was over.
AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR
The last morning on the fighting lines was busy wherever American troops
were placed, from the Moselle to Sedan. All the batteries kept their
guns going, and the Germans replied in kind. The American heavy guns
fired their parting salvo at 11:00 o'clock, less two or three seconds.
To this final crack the Germans tossed a few over, just after 11:00.
There was a strong American infantry advance, northeast of Verdun,
in the direction of Ornes, beginning at nine o'clock, after lively
artillery preparation. The German artillery responded feebly, but the
machine gun resistance was stubborn. Nevertheless, the Americans made
progress. The Americans had received orders to hold the positions
reached by 11:00 o'clock, and at those points they began to dig in,
marking the advance positions of the American line when hostilities
ceased.
Then the individual groups unfurled the Stars and Stripes, shook hands
and cheered. Soon afterwards they were preparing for luncheon. All the
boys were hungry, as they had breakfasted early in anticipation of what
they considered the greatest day in American history.
THE ALL PULL TOGETHER SHOT
There was a regular celebration at Pepper hill, north of Verdun, where
a battery of Rhode Island artillery rigged a twenty-foot rope to the
lanyard of a .155 cannon, and every man in the company, from the captain
to the cook, laid hold of it and waited. At the tick of eleven o'clock
they gave that rope one mighty yank, all together, and the gun roared
out the last shot of the war.
--_The Last Yank of the Yanks_.
AT THE END OF THE WORLD WAR
The great drama is ended. For the first time in four years the sound
of giant cannon cannot be heard anywhere along the long line from the
channel to the Adriatic; the deadly rattle of machine guns is stilled.
No gas fumes poison the winter air. No clouds of burning cities darken
the sun. Better than all, no life blood flows; the fighting men rest in
their lines, the bayonet is sheathed, the bullet sleeps harmless in its
clip.
This at last is peace. In the great cities, the towns and hamlets of
Europe and America, a vast wave of emotion inundates the hearts of men;
in the allied lands there is exultation; in Germany there is at least
relief, and perhaps the dawning of a new hope.
We have had our day of glorification. It is now time for our best
thought, and the first of this thought will be for the men who have
given their lives for our cause and for the men more fortunate, but not
less willing to give all, who in France and Flanders have covered
our flag once more with undying glory, the soldiers of the Marne, of
Cantigny, of the great German repulse east of Reims, of Chateau Thierry,
of St. Mihiel, the Argonne, and Sedan. The graves of our men have
consecrated these immortal battlefields and our sacred dead will live on
in the memory of the republic forever. As for those who return, crowned
with victory, they shall now be first and foremost under the roof tree
of the great motherland, who sent them forth with aching yet uplifted
heart, confident that they would honor her even as they have done.
In this hour we salute our army and our navy, which have not failed us
at any point, in any test, however arduous or fiery. Under commanders
devoted, efficient, indefatigable, our regiments have met the most
famous troops of the enemy and crushed their resistance, have set new
records of sanguinary valor under punishment, and driven always and
irresistibly on to victory. They have written a page in the annals of
the republic and in the history of war which will shine down the ages
with unsurpassed magnificence.
It has been terrible, yet glorious, to live through such a time, even
for us who have not passed through the great experience of battle, who
have not watched and taken part in the heroic charge of our infantry
across death-swept meadows, or heard with our ears the thunder of the
great guns or felt the earth shake under the tread of marching legions.
We at home have had our own experiences, our deep anxieties, our doubts,
our griefs, and always we have been conscious of the might of forces in
grapple and the high issues that hung upon the fate of the armies. In
the background of all our thoughts at all times has been the solemn
consciousness that the destiny of mankind was at work in mighty throes
toward an end hidden to our knowledge if not to our faith and hope. We
have none of us passed through this experience without receiving its
mark. Life can never be altogether what it was before for any of us. New
generations will spring forth innocent of the memories which are ours
and the unexpressible lessons of our day. But for us it has been,
with all its tragedy and vast destruction, a day of illumination and
inspiration.
Standing on the threshold of a peace restored, we must pray that out of
the epic experience of the great conflict something more than the
stern negative of our victory shall be preserved for the time to come,
something positive of good, something of that divine light of men's
heroic sacrifice which shone out in the darkest hour, something of new
strength and understanding of life and of human potentialities.
We have before us now a tremendous task of restoration. America is in a
more fortunate situation than the nations of Europe; yet to return our
resources to the channels of peace, to free our institutions from the
hasty improvisations of war emergency, and to protect them from the
effects of forced and abnormal application, is a task which will test
the wisdom and character of our leaders and our people.
If our war experience has proved anything of America, it has been the
soundness and beneficence of American institutions and the life they
make possible. Let us realize that truth, and resolve that these
institutions shall be strengthened in peace and not weakened, and that
the life which has grown up and flowered under their influence shall be
jealously preserved for our children and our children's children, and
for the sake of our heroic dead."
THE CROWNING HUMILIATION
The Crowning Humiliation, or Before and After Seeing Foch, might be the
appropriate title for the latest story now added to the pages of world
history.
Four years and four months ago the German leadership, fully confident
of its strength, assured of its weapons, arrogant beyond anything in
recorded history, challenged the organized and unorganized forces of the
civilized world to mortal combat. They thrust the Imperial German sword
through all the covenants and commands of civilization and of justice.
Bursting out upon an unprepared and unsuspecting world, they were,
despite their incredible strength, checked by France on the battlefield
of the Marne, encircled by the British fleets, and like Napoleon after
Leipzig, condemned to ultimate defeat. At the hour when the white flag
was brought to the French lines, British armies were approaching the
field of Waterloo, American armies stood victorious in Sedan, and French
armies were sweeping forward from the Oise to the Meuse. The crowning
humiliation came with the admission of defeat. Germany sought armistice
at the hands of a Marshal of France!
FOCH--"THE GRAY MAN OF CHRIST"
In the closing days of the great war a striking contrast was drawn by
the Los Angeles Times between William Hohenzollern and Marshal Foch,
from the religious standpoint. The former German monarch coupled Gott
with himself as an equal, while Ferdinand Foch was called, with apparent
reason, "the gray man of Christ."
"This has been Christ's war," said the Times. "Christ on one side,
and all that stood opposed to Christ on the other side. And the
generalissimo, in supreme command of all the armies that fought on the
side of Christ, is Christ's man. * * * It seems to be beyond all shadow
of doubt that when the hour came in which all that Christ stood for was
to either stand or fall, Christ raised up a man to lead the hosts that
battled for him." And the Times continues:
"If you will look for Foch in some quiet church, it is there that he
will be found, humbly giving God the glory and absolutely declining to
attribute it to himself. Can that kind of a man win a war? Can a man who
is a practical soldier be also a practical Christian? And is Foch that
kind of a man? Let us see.
"A California boy, serving as a soldier in the American Expeditionary
Forces in France, wrote a letter to his parents in San Bernardino
recently, in which he gives, as well as anyone else could give, the
answer to the question we ask. This American boy, Evans by name, tells
of meeting Marshal Foch at close range in France.
"Evans had gone into an old church to have a look at it, and as he stood
there with bared head satisfying his respectful curiosity, a gray man
with the eagles of a general on the collar of his shabby uniform entered
the church. Only one orderly accompanied the quiet, gray man. No
glittering staff of officers, no entourage of gold-laced aides were with
him; nobody but just the orderly.
"Evans paid small attention at first to the gray man, but was curious
to see him kneel in the church, praying. The minutes passed until full
three-quarters of an hour had gone by before the gray man arose from his
knees.
"Then Evans followed him down the street and was surprised to see
soldiers salute this man in great excitement, and women and children
stopping in their tracks with awe-struck faces as he passed.
"It was Foch! And now Evans, of San Bernardino, counts the experience as
the greatest in his life. During that three-quarters of an hour that
the generalissimo of all the Allied armies was on his knees in humble
supplication in that quiet church, 10,000 guns were roaring at his word
on a hundred hills that rocked with death.
"Moreover, it is not a new thing with him. He has done it his whole life
long."