CHAPTER I.

HENRY RUFFIN AND ANDRÉ TUDESQ

THE

SQUARE JAW

[Illustration]

THOMAS NELSON & SONS, LTD

35 & 36 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

EDINBURGH NEW YORK PARIS

Price One Shilling

THE SQUARE JAW

BY

HENRY RUFFIN AND ANDRÉ TUDESQ.

_Translated from the French._

THOMAS NELSON & SONS,

35 AND 36, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C.

EDINBURGH. NEW YORK. PARIS.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PART I.--BATTLE OF THE ANCRE.

CHAPTER PAGE

I.--THE IMPROMPTU VICTORY 7

II.--IN FRONT OF THE MUNICH TRENCH 11

III.--THE REAL SUPERMEN 14

IV.--SURPRISES OF A MOONLIT FROSTY NIGHT 17

V.--THE BATTLE REOPENS 20

VI.--ON THE EDGE OF THE FRAY 23

EPILOGUE 24

PART II.--THE SQUARE JAWS.

I.--THE WELDING OF FRENCH AND BRITISH 31

II.--HOW THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINGENT VOTED IN

FRANCE IN FACE OF THE ENEMY 35

III.--BOELCKE'S LAND OF PROMISE 40

IV.--THE SQUARE JAW 45

V.--THE RELIEF 49

PART III.--THE ARMIES OF THE NORTH.

I.--THE PREPARATION OF THE CANADIANS 56

II.--ARRAS, THE WOUNDED TOWN 60

III.--THE GROUND OF HEROIC DEEDS 63

IV.--A DINNER OF GENERALS 66

V.--WAR IN THE BLACK COUNTRY 68

VI.--THE ART OF SAVING 71

VII.--"BROTHERS IN ARMS" 73

PART IV.--IMPRESSIONS OF "NO MAN'S LAND."

I.--AS IN A PICTURE OF EPINAL 79

II.--A HERO AFTER THE MANNER OF ROLAND 81

III.--MIDNIGHT IN THE FRONT LINE 84

IV.--THROUGH THE MINE AREA 87

V.--THE MENACE OF THE GOLDEN VIRGIN 91

VI.--"RONNY" 94

VII.--PIPING OUT THE DAY 96

VIII.--Y GULLY 98

IX.--CHRISTMAS NIGHT IN "NO MAN'S LAND" 100

PART I.

THE BATTLE OF THE ANCRE.

CHAPTER I.

THE IMPROMPTU VICTORY.

The Ancre Front, 13th November.

You read the reports. The names of the places that have been taken,

the calculations of the gains, the numbers of the prisoners, leave you

cold. Words! words! It is on the field of battle, amidst the thunder

of the guns and the magic glow of fires, that one should read the

bulletins of victory.

This evening a heady, irresistible joy took possession of the Army. The

prisoners were pouring in. The men were singing in their quarters. Upon

a front 3-1/2 miles wide and nearly 1-1/2 deep our Allies had broken

the German lines on both sides of the Ancre.

They have been giving me details of the battle. From hour to hour,

here, in the midst of the troops, I am being told the incidents of the

fighting. A risky privilege!

The despatches which come to us; the despatch riders who, at the utmost

speed of their motor-cycles, bring us reports through the ruts and mud

of the roads; the messages of the telegraph--everything has assumed a

heroic quality. A feverish joy quivers in every face. Even the bell of

the telephone follows, strangely, the measure of our heart-beats.

"We owe this victory to our quickness," a Colonel tells me. "This

battle was an _impromptu_." The word is a picture. It is absolutely

right.

At six o'clock--that is to say, in the grey light of the

morning--after a short but annihilating artillery preparation, the

divisions posted in the first line dashed forward through the fog and

drizzle. The objective was three villages--Beaumont-Hamel and Beaucourt

on the North bank of the river, and, on the South, Saint Pierre-Divion.

Let me tell you something of the country and its difficulties.

Swamps, soggy undulations formed by the trenches and the convoys, a

wet, clayey soil, into which one sinks to the waist. Mud everywhere.

Slime everywhere. One must slide down the funnels and holes that the

shells have made. Thus the waves of the assault gather for their onset.

The Germans had constructed defences formed of five lines of trenches,

each alternated with at least three rows of barbed wire entanglements.

The _chevaux de frise_ and other obstacles covered, in places, a space

over 200 yards wide.

On the one hand and on the other the banks of the Ancre ran up into

bluffs like buttresses. Since his failure of the 1st of July, the enemy

has cut among these natural protections deep trenches which wind along

parallel to the course of the river. He has also set up on the slopes

powerful machine-gun emplacements and blockhouses with mortars.

The English advance went like clockwork. The secret had been well kept;

the evening before, the troops of this sector were quite unaware that

an advance was to take place.

An absolute determination inspired both officers and men. The result

of the attack was never in doubt. The trenches were taken by storm,

together with those who manned them. It was a veritable harvest of men.

The fourth line was taken at the point of the bayonet in _eighteen

minutes_.

At eight in the morning we attacked the outskirts of the three

villages. Beaumont-Hamel was the first to be taken, with its garrison.

Before Beaucourt we were brought to a halt by machine-gun fire. Saint

Pierre-Divion was outflanked. The artillery increased its range and cut

short all counter-attacks.

[Illustration: 1. IN BEAUMONT-HAMEL.]

By nine o'clock the objective was gained with complete success. The fog

grew thicker. The fire of the heavy guns and the barrage fires followed

one another without pause.

Through twilight gloom and the mists of low-lying clouds monstrous

lightnings flicker across this spectral landscape. The smallest hill is

a Sinai. In a leap of nearly 1-1/2 miles the batteries have advanced at

the same pace as the troops, taking such cover as Heaven sends them.

All this sector smokes and roars to its farthest extremities. It is as

if there were dragons squatting everywhere by the hundred and spitting

flame. Fires break out, blushing palely through the fog. Stores of

munitions explode behind the villages. It is like the brute thunder of

the earthquake.

The fiercest fighting developed at Beaumont-Hamel, where the ground

is full of great caves that run into one another. In these there was

plenty of room for four companies.

Next, the centre of interest shifted to the South bank of the

Ancre, where Y Gully commands the passage of the river and the road

to Beaucourt. This ravine, upon which three months' work had been

spent, was a positive arsenal. Every 20 yards along it there was a

machine-gun. The Germans believed it to be impregnable. This evening

the English had their own guns in it.

Victory everywhere! Three villages taken; more than 2,000 prisoners

counted already! I have just been to see them. They are encamped along

the edge of an immense bivouac. All about them the heaviest of the

guns spit out, minute by minute, their delicate ton-weight mouthfuls.

The prisoners are identified, questioned, and searched. A dazed stupor

is all that their terrified faces declare. They have suffered very

little damage, for most of them have been surprised in their caves

and dug-outs. Many of them are still wearing their helmets. Their

officers have accepted their bad fortune, one would say, gladly. There

is nothing of bravado in their carriage. The Tommies surround this

encampment curiously. With a friendliness that is very touching they

offer, some cigarettes, others food. Generosity on the one side; a

growing astonishment on the other. The German soldiers, nearly all

Silesians, accept these things with a sort of childish gratitude.

The motor-ambulances move here, there and everywhere over the clayey

fields, where the wheels of the ammunition wagons have drawn mighty

furrows, like those that peaceful toil once made here. One hardly

sees the faces of these men. They are blanks, for their thoughts are

elsewhere, within. On the other hand, one's attention is seized by such

things as their feet, mere lumps of clay, that at times the red touch

of a swathed wound enlivens. Motor-'buses--as in London--run upon the

roads. Those who are lightly wounded crowd to the top. One of them

wears a pointed helmet, where shines the two-headed eagle. Others hang

the Iron Cross upon their caps. They are all laughing and joking like

schoolboys.

The road to Bapaume, to the north, is almost all free. From to-day

begins, on this side, the siege of that town, which the Germans have

converted into a stronghold. All over the plain the English are

lighting camp-fires: and in perfect safety, since the enemy's line has

retired about 1-1/2 miles. The skirl of bagpipes, the scream of fifes,

the choruses of the men, rise into the foggy night. It proves the truth

of the saying: "To live truly is to live perilously."

Victory! And the battle goes on.

CHAPTER II.

IN FRONT OF THE MUNICH TRENCH.

Beaumont-Hamel, 15th November.

That two-hour tramp through a few kilometres of trenches was a

heart-breaking business. We floundered through holes, we were swallowed

up in bogs, while the mud that fell from the parapets gradually spread

itself over our oilskins. A steel helmet becomes wonderfully heavy

after an hour or so, and a dizzy headache soon tormented us, from the

constant right-angled turns which we were obliged to make, like so many

slaves at a cornmill. But what a reward has been ours since our arrival!

Here we are, seated at the horizontal loophole of a quite new

observation post, in the front line, in the very trench from which, the

day before yesterday, the English launched their attack.

In front, towards the left, is Beaumont-Hamel. Out of this heap of

rubbish start up three-cornered bits of wall, which give to these ruins

the look of a dwarf village. On the hillside a mangled copse looks like

those guileless charcoal strokes which one sees in a child's drawing.

To the right--Beaucourt. Here the ruin is absolute. I have hunted in

vain for any trace of man's handiwork. Even the dust of the stones has

blown away.

A few hundred yards ahead of us the men have just rushed forward. With

rifles held high they spring from the parapet into the open. They look

like an army of ants, that now moves along in a stream, now closes

together like a vice, now marks time, now plunges into vast funnels,

and again, at racing speed, surges up the gentle slope. The barbed-wire

entanglements cover acres of ground; they are the eleventh line of

the German defences. In many places the wires are so closely bunched

together that the balls cannot pass through them.

At least a brigade is engaged. One can see the company leaders quite

plainly. The shells are bursting everywhere, throwing up furious

fountains of black smoke with which bits of earth and iron are mingled.

The rolling clouds of the shrapnel seem to frame one regiment.

Ah! Bad luck! That one was well timed which burst over there on the

right, just above the company that was lying down there. The damage

must have been serious. Men lie on the ground who will never pick

themselves up again. A cloud, the colour of absinthe, hangs sullenly

over those little khaki spots.

On the right, on the left, in front, behind, with a disquieting skill

and precision, the Germans pile barrage upon barrage. Meanwhile,

without a pause, the troops advance across this hell. I can follow,

with the naked eye, every movement of an active young officer, who

is wearing a light yellow overcoat, and who is charging at the head

of his company, with a cane under his left arm and a revolver in his

right hand as calmly as if he were strolling along Regent Street or

Piccadilly.

The human wave, breaking through the barrage, disappears suddenly in

the earth. It is as if a chasm had opened to swallow all these men

at a gulp. And now, listen! For the gunfire is punctuated with sharp

detonations. It sounds like a shrill drumming, swelled by furious

shouts and cries of agony. The Tommies have entered the enemy's

lines. After a short period of bombing, they advance, yard by yard,

with the bayonet. Round the blockhouses the machine-guns rattle. We

listen anxiously to these thousand voices of the attack. Every man has

vanished. The field of vision is empty. Only the variegated smokes of

the different shells spread themselves slowly abroad. The uncertainty

is unbearable. Half an hour later we learn from the telephone that

the attack has succeeded. The brigade has done its work. We have just

witnessed, on the north bank of the Ancre, the capture of an important

trench, or rather redoubt, nearly 450 yards away from Beaumont--the

Munich Trench.

[Illustration: 2. PRISONERS.]

Here again there has been a famous haul of prisoners. More than 300

unwounded soldiers have been compelled to surrender. In a short time

the first of them cross in front of our observation post. They are

haggard, covered with mud, and their eyes are the eyes of trapped

beasts. Two of them, converted into impromptu stretcher-bearers, are

carrying a wounded officer on a stretcher that is soaked in blood.

And now the battle increases everywhere in violence. We hear that

on this side of Beaucourt some strong reserves, collected there by

the Germans, have just been surrounded and taken prisoners. A whole

brigade staff has fallen into the hands of the English. More than 5,000

prisoners have been counted already. It will take at least two days to

count all that have been taken. A genuine victory!

The "tanks" have played an honourable part in the battle, and I have

just seen two of them at work. My impressions may be summed up in these

words: a huge amazement and satisfaction.

One of them, which has been christened _The Devil's Delight_, did

marvels at Beaucourt. This deliberate leviathan, having placed itself

boldly at the head of the advancing flood of men, took up its position

at the entrance of the ruined village. At first the Germans fled.

Then, one by one, they came back. With machine-guns, bombs, rifles and

mortars they endeavoured to pierce its double shell. Nothing availed.

Squatted on its tail, the terrific tank lorded it there like a king

on his horse. It made no objection whatever to being approached. Some

sappers tried to place bombs under it, to blow it sky high. Inside it

the crew shammed dead. The Germans took heart. Ten, twenty, thirty

men, armed with screw-jacks and mallets laboured to overthrow it.

But what could even two battalions have accomplished against this

patient mastodon, whose skin was steel and whose weight was 800 tons?

A colonel, mad with rage, fired the eight barrels of his revolver at

it, point-blank. If the tank could have laughed it must have burst with

delight. Its sense of humour is a strictly warlike one.

After a full quarter of an hour of silence the Germans, believing

that the crew had been destroyed and that the monster was helpless,

surrounded it boldly and in considerable numbers. Thereupon, unmasking

its machine-guns, and opening fire from its sides, the terrible

creature began to hack them in bits, mow them down in heaps, drill them

full of holes and slay them by the dozen.

A giant miller, grinding death!

An hour later, when the larger part of the English troops succeeded

in reaching Beaucourt, they found the Germans, dead and dying, piled

around the tank. The tank says little, but to the point.

Three cheers for Mademoiselle Devil's Delight!

CHAPTER III.

THE REAL SUPERMEN.

"_We are consolidating our positions._"

(English Communiqué, 16th November.)

Here is a story.

Some time ago, on the North bank of the Ancre, in the Beaumont-Hamel

Sector, everyone was affected with a curious boredom. Nothing happened:

very little artillery fire; not so much as a pretence at an attack.

It was a dead calm. The bombs were all asleep. Muscles grew slack.

Enthusiasm staled. Boredom, that worst misery of trench life, reigned

supreme.

One evening this slackness among the troops--and it was as bad on one

side as on the other--produced a curious result. Among the Germans,

a homesick Silesian began to sing some of the carols of his own

country. His voice rose freshly into the fresh night. At the same time

on the English side, a Highlander, stirred by the sweetness of the

autumn evening, blew a few shrill notes upon his fife. The voice of

the man and the fife supported one another, and so a concert began,

a concert of old songs, the simple happy songs of the peasant. The

English shouted to the Germans, "Give us Gott Strafe England!" and the

Germans obliged with the "Song of Hate." "Encore! Encore!" cried the

Highlander, whose fife was seeking to catch the air that the enemy was

singing. The song began again, the fife supporting it. Then it was

taken up by all the English. But to what sort of a rhythm! The "Song

of Hate," slow as plain song, had suddenly become, as it crossed the

trenches, a crazy, jerky, rollicking ragtime, a tune for the _can-can_.

The Germans supposed that they were being chaffed. By way of applause,

they let fly a shower of bombs. To this compliment the English replied

in kind. Then the night closed down upon a boredom more dreadful than

ever.

I have told you this story as a sort of commentary upon the epigram

in which a certain colonel explained this very successful two days'

battle: "Our attack, like our victory, was an impromptu."

To capture three villages and eleven lines of the enemy's defences upon

a front 3-1/2 miles wide and nearly 1-1/2 deep, is pretty good. To take

a haul of nearly 6,000 prisoners out of their dug-outs and caves and

other quarters--that is not to be sneezed at either. But to organise

the territory that has been taken and to consolidate it, working night

and day under the constant fire of the enemy--that is perhaps a less

glorious business, but it is a thing more difficult to accomplish than

any attack.

For two long hours of the night my friend Ruffin, of the _Agence

Havas_, and I, conducted by our guide, the major, tramped it through

the trenches in order to reach those which lie under Beaumont. Steel

helmet on head, first-aid equipment and gas mask under arm, we went on

between the two walls of this roundabout road, our feet sticky with mud

and our eyes continually dazzled. Rockets soared into the air to burst

and then go out like those Roman candles which blossom into sprays of

slowly moving stars. One might have thought that some unseen juggler,

over there on the blazing skyline, was manipulating huge fiery plates.

The trenches were swarming with soldiers, the reliefs who were going

back to billets, and the reserves who were taking their places; the

sappers and pioneers, with their picks and shovels, who, protected by

the machine-guns, repair the shelters wherever they have given way;

the ambulance men and the stretcher-bearers; the grave diggers; the

supplying sections, who bring up the cases of grenades, before ever

they appear with food. This crowd of dim men, ten feet underground,

moved like a silent river.

One hardly thought of talking. To-night, when they are consolidating

the conquered positions, the opposing artilleries were engaged in a

terrific duel. The barrage fires of the Germans followed one another

every quarter of an hour, each one lasting seven minutes, and each

minute an eternity, when, every second, there fell not less than 100

shells. To protect those who were at work the English artillery set up

curtain fires, which smashed every preparation for a counter-attack.

Marmites, shells, shrapnel, hurtled from either side of the single line

which had been snatched from this Inferno.

An odd scent of roasted apples catches us by the throat; our eyes

begin to stream in a detestable fashion. "Look out for the acid drops!"

cries our major. We know this bit of soldiers' slang, which means the

lachrymatory shells. We quickly put on our masks. In perfect safety,

crouched against the wall of the trench, in the company of a hundred

unknown comrades, we wait until the poisonous gust of yellow smoke has

blown away. Through the eye-pieces of our masks everything seems to be

enveloped in some fabulous steam; the pale lightning of the guns, the

ghastly discs of the English rockets, the red stars of the German. But

one sound: the clatter of the machine-guns near us, a muffled thunder

as of a rising sea.

In this muddy ditch we are like some lost gang of divers.

And in the meantime, 100 yards ahead of us, in the midst of choking

gases and the tempest of the machine-guns, soldiers--heroes--have never

ceased their work.

They hammer nails, they drive in stakes, they sink piles, they knot

together into spider nets the tangled strands of the barbed wire. All

honour to them! These are the Supermen.

CHAPTER IV.

SURPRISES OF A MOONLIT FROSTY NIGHT.

A true Walpurgis Night of heroes and warriors. It is not on the summit

of the Brocken that I have witnessed it, but, looking out over the

plain of the Ancre, from a tree. This tree, every evening, is wreathed

with the fumes of asphyxiating shells. Its woolly streamers of shrapnel

smoke are like the foliage around a heraldic crown.

As soon as twilight is come, aeroplanes cross the neighbouring lines

and attack this tree with their machine-guns. It is treated like a

combatant. Herein, perhaps, lies the secret of its clumsy strength

and beauty. It stands upon its hill, solid and straight. It holds its

ground as few men could do. It is a French ash that stands upon the

field of battle in the very middle of the British Army.

It has become an observation post. One climbs it by a straight ladder

160 feet long. In its highest fork one of the engineers has made a

wooden box, bound together with barbed wire, with a little canvas to

hide it. Field-glasses, maps, range-finders are there. All the gusts

of the autumnal breeze blow through it. Up here, too, men are pitched

about as if they were in the mizzen-top of a cruiser. Strange nest for

war eagles!

"Perfect weather for flying," the major tells me.

A clear, frosty, moonlight night broods over the black distances of the

plain. The river and its swampy edges glisten like silver coins. No

sign of life. Only the guns, all round the horizon, roar beneath their

crests of lightning.

Imagine that after blinding yourself with a very tight and thick

bandage you suddenly open your eyes. Glowing discs, will o' the wisps,

haloes, flashing rainbows, a whole ballet of lights spins upon your

retina. Up here, that is the spectacle that each night brings. The

battlefield appears to be electrified. At one moment, sharp, stabbing

flashes, cold arrows of light. It is the English guns shelling the

enemy. The next, radiances which divide, spread out fanwise, or blossom

like flowers. They are German marmites or crapouillots.

The sounds of the guns intersect one another. They are hard and dry,

when some battery, near by, opens fire; dull, soft and muffled,

according as the distance becomes greater. A stroke upon a gong,

followed by a long metallic shriek, high in the air, announces a heavy

shell. After a hoarse scream a machine-gun begins to crackle, rending

both air and men.

It is all one vast intermittent hurly-burly, lightning flashing low

down, V-shaped sheaves of red fire. And all is, each time, unexpected,

cruelly inconsequent, magnificent and devastating.

Thousands of men are there, and thousands upon thousands, all over this

plain of the Ancre. There they lie, buried in their trenches, their

nerves like stretched wire, ready to spring forward on the instant.

From here we can see one of the last sectors to be conquered.

It is land over which the offensive has passed.

And our hearts ache as we remember that down there, near this swamp,

it is not even in ill-made trenches that the English sections are

keeping their watch, but, simply, in shell-holes, where the water lies

deep, holes whose sides have been hastily shored up--veritable human

hells.

The fireworks did not keep us waiting. About ten o'clock, a certain

unwonted nervousness becoming evident among the Germans, the two

English trenches of the first line let off a bouquet of rockets.

Balls of light, red, blue or green, climbed 90 feet into the air. For

a moment they rose, hesitatingly, like toy balloons at the end of

a string, then burst into stars or sheaves, lighting up, as with a

ghastly daylight, this neutral ground, this "no man's land," which the

scattered corpses of the patrols alone inhabit. After each flight of

rockets the guns came savagely to life, and, below our watch-tower,

even in greater numbers, even more furious, other batteries, and yet

others, proclaimed their presence. "Barrage!" one of the short-lived

fire-balls demanded over to the west. The firing increased, pounding

the sector from end to end. This light from fairyland, then, was

nothing but a cry for help! In a moment the Ancre and its swamps were

blushing.

The moon began to veil herself with small round clouds. "Watch out for

the aeroplanes," our staff-major told us again. In a quarter of an hour

his warning was justified.

The snarl of engines filled the milky spaces of the sky. Two squadrons

against two. The English searchlights found the enemy for a moment,

then lost him. Then from every crest and from smallest hollow the

anti-aircraft guns began their barrage. In the sky nothing could be

seen but the commas of flame and blazing curves, which marked where the

shrapnel and the shells had burst. The machine-guns chattered like an

applauding crowd.

A few planes succeeded in crossing the barrage. It was magic--of

another kind.

One, two, five incendiary bombs were thrown by the enemy. The eye

was dazzled as by a sudden appearance of the aurora-borealis. The

night became a ghastly day. Thick columns of smoke rose into the air,

then, half-way to the clouds, swelled up like the tops of palm-trees.

And thus they remained, twenty minutes after the explosion, without

dissolving, steady against the wind, turning themselves into canopies

and domes and a preposterous hedge of giant parasols.

One might have thought that some fabulous forest had just sprung up,

filled with domed palaces of fantastic shape.

A night very fruitful of surprises--barrages, rockets, anti-aircraft

firing, a battle of aeroplanes, incendiary bombs. Truly the Great Game,

this!

I left my watch-tower tree like a man who has saved his soul from the

black powers of sorcery.

CHAPTER V.

THE BATTLE REOPENS.

18th November.

The Battle of the Ancre, which for a moment had died down, began again

this morning, at dawn, with a new violence.

The English had only paused just long enough to oil the vast machine,

which has now resumed its regular, methodic movements; and the latest

news permits us to anticipate a fresh and substantial success.

The scene of these last events has been rather different from that

which witnessed the English advance of the 12th and 13th of November.

This, one may say in passing, proves the elasticity of the British

offensive.

If the eye travels, on the map, to the right, beyond the positions in

which the last battle was fought, it follows a line almost parallel

to the valley of the Ancre. To-night, then, the English, not pursuing

this theoretically correct line, inclined their front slightly to the

South, to the centre of a line drawn between Thiepval and Le Sars. This

re-entering angle formed an obvious obstacle to the domination of the

Ancre valley upon the whole of this part of the British front. For this

reason General Sir Douglas Haig decided to abolish it.

Hence the movement of this morning.

The attack was elaborately prepared, and with the utmost secrecy, and

was launched at dawn.

At the moment of writing this telegram the reports that are coming in

from the scene of action show that the operation is being carried out,

within the limits assigned, very successfully. To employ an expression

coined by one of their own number, the Boche prisoners are "pouring" to

the rear.

This morning the weather, so fine during the last three days, was

extremely unfavourable to any movement of troops. There had been heavy

snow during the night, and for the first time this winter our Allies

fought in the snow. About 8 o'clock, the temperature having risen, a

thaw set in. After that it was in foul mud that they did their fighting.

In order to understand properly the British manoeuvres on the two banks

of the Ancre, we must remark that yesterday, the 17th of November, the

English had executed a movement which obviously aimed at assisting

to-day's operations.

Shortly, by outflanking the village of Beaucourt to the East, they

had carried their foremost positions, by yesterday evening, as far as

the little wood of Hollande. Now it is clear that any advance in this

direction seriously menaces Grandcourt and those positions on the north

bank of the Ancre, which the British troops attacked this morning.

A superior staff-officer remarked lately in my hearing that the German

line, throughout the recent fighting, has exhibited points of varying

strength. He attributed this circumstance to the work of the English

artillery. The resistance which the enemy had been able to offer had

varied directly with the effectiveness of the English gunfire.

It is also noticeable that the German losses in killed, prisoners and

missing are considerably greater than the corresponding losses among

the English. This result is apparently due to the fact either that the

Germans surrender more readily than the English, or that the British

artillery causes the enemy to sustain the heavier damage in dead and

wounded, or else finally that, unlike the English, the Germans do not

include their lightly wounded in the total of their losses.

Whatever the causes may be, that the issue of this battle has been

disastrous for the Germans becomes daily more evident. It appears now

that they are thinking of shortening their line where it is opposed to

the British Army between Puisieux-les-Monts and Grandcourt. Under the

increasing pressure of our Allies, the Germans, who are convinced that

Grandcourt must soon fall, are entrenching themselves with feverish

haste upon a new line, which unites Puisieux with Miraumont.

The enemy, using Puisieux as the pivot of his retiring movement, would

thus describe an angle whose depth, from Puisieux to the Ancre, is

about 2 miles, and whose width, between Grandcourt and Miraumont, is

about 1-1/4 miles.

It is possible, however, that the British offensive may to some extent

disorganise the beautiful and geometric symmetry of this new "strategic

retreat" of the Germans.

[Illustration: 3. THE ANCRE VALLEY.]

CHAPTER VI.

ON THE EDGE OF THE FRAY.

19th November.

Yesterday was a good day for the English. Our friends were successful

on nearly the whole front which they attacked. The only difficulty

which they encountered--and this was not serious--was on their left

centre; that is to say, to the South of Grandcourt. Thereabouts the

ground favoured the defence, for it is cut up into a number of deep

gorges, where the Boches had constructed redoubts and "nests" of

machine-guns.

But, on the other hand, the Canadians did wonders on the left, pushing

their patrols right up to the Western outskirts of Grandcourt.

The advance of the British troops on the North bank of the Ancre to the

East of Beaucourt has caused the fortified village of Grandcourt to be

menaced on more than one side.

They say that yesterday the German artillery made a very weak reply to

the fire of the British guns. This is certainly not due to any shortage

of material or ammunition suffered by Prince Rupert in this quarter.

It is well known, on the contrary, that he has concentrated against

the English an enormous quantity of these things. This weakness of the

German reply must be due either to the destructive precision of the

British fire, or to the formation of that line of resistance, about

which I told you yesterday, in the rear of the present front.

The German prisoners who have been taken during the day say that the

Boches suffered comparatively little damage, during the attack, from

the British fire, since they were in dug-outs of great strength and

depth. But when the infantry arrived they found themselves hemmed

helplessly in on all sides, and were forced to surrender _en masse_.

The same prisoners cannot sufficiently praise the performance of

the tanks, about which they speak with a kind of awful admiration.

They always use the same word when they describe these armour-plated

monsters: "Marvellous! Marvellous!"

They say that the German troops in the first line are well enough fed,

but that as soon as they go into reserve or are given a rest their diet

is at once restricted.

EPILOGUE.

THE CHARNEL-HOUSE.

19th November. Evening.

On this November Sabbath the belfries of Contay, Warloy, Senlis and a

dozen other villages of Picardy are sending forth through the fog their

regular summons to vespers. It is very cold, and the snow which fell

the other night has become foul mud, in which men, beasts and wagons

flounder and splash.

The Tommies in their quarters have made a rather more careful toilet

than usual, and are now gathered, in some neighbouring field or under

some shed out of which a church has been improvised, to listen to the

words of their chaplains. Peace, it would seem, reigns everywhere.

Only, alas! in appearance. For overpowering the voices of priests

and sound of bells the guns begin their booming out a few paces away.

Peace has not dwelt, this many a day, either in Englebelmer or in

Mesnil, which offer to the eyes of the passer-by the spectacle of

their desolated ruins, their silent belfries, their indescribable

sadness. Nor does Peace dwell, assuredly, on this battlefield where

you see these quagmires, these dead, bare fields that, one would say,

have been trampled by generations of men; these deserted trenches that

have fallen in here and there; these networks of barbed wire, to-day,

happily, no longer of any service; these shattered wagons, these

rusting weapons; these gun shelters which dart lightning; these parks

of munitions and materials; these strayed horses; these lines of muddy,

brooding men--in a word, all this wretchedness--and, over all, covering

everything as with a veil, this sky that seems heavy with threats, with

_hostility_.

Yet, before the war, few of the countrysides of France can have

breathed a more sweet and perfect spirit of peace. A soldier who was

here last spring, before ever men had come hither to destroy one

another, told me of the delight which he took in this pleasant corner

of Picardy. "It was," he said, "a landscape by Claude Lorraine."

We were halted at the head of a small valley which runs easily

downwards, near Mesine, towards the Ancre, and we were looking out

across the country. At our feet the river, coming from the East, turned

in a gentle curve towards the South, and was lost to sight in the

direction of Avelun and Albert. The stream, considerably swollen by the

recent rains, wound slowly between marshes and flooded fields.

The tall poplars of the valley, stripped of their leaves as much

by the bullets as by the rough weather, moved gently in the breeze.

Yesterday a dozen villages saw themselves reflected in the Ancre,

and clothed the neighbourhood of the river with a share of their

own prosperity. They were, among others, Mesnil, Hamel, Beaumont

and Miraumont on the North bank. Thiepval, Saint Pierre-Divion and

Grandcourt on the South. But the same devices of man that have

massacred the trees of the valley and stripped Thiepval of its forest,

have levelled these fortress-villages with the ground, and it is in

vain that to-day we may hope to distinguish them from the rest of

this dismal country. Even as we looked, the shells of the opposing

artilleries blotted out the last traces of Grandcourt. The guns, for

ever the guns! They are the only sign of life in all this land of Death.

The little cemetery at Hamel, which we passed on our road, was not

likely to dissipate these gloomy thoughts. In what a condition the

battle has left it! It lay, unfortunately for itself, just between the

two lines, English and German. But, indeed, it is no more and no less

sad a sight than all that surrounds it; no more, no less than Beaumont;

no more, no less than Beaucourt, to which we have now come.

A little in front of Beaucourt is a small hill, a sort of spur, lying

towards the South-west. On the morning of the 13th of November it

faced precisely in the direction whence the British attack was about

to be launched. Even in its present state one can, from the lie of the

ground and from the débris which is found scattered everywhere about,

form some faint idea of what the Boches had made out of this natural

fortress.

The British infantry, however, never hesitated a moment to storm the

place, and their impetuosity was such that in 18 minutes it was in

their hands.

If you do not know the price at which the English, like ourselves,

bought this victory, go out upon this advanced work of Beaucourt.

Take your courage in both hands and look about you. See there that

group of fallen soldiers, the glorious victors of the Ancre, who lie

still untouched, by the side of the Boches whom they have dragged

down with them to death, after hand-to-hand struggles that no words

may describe. Looking like pilgrims clothed in homespun, the English

stretcher-bearers, now grave-diggers, "tidy up" the field of battle.

Poor and dear Tommies! They have fallen with their faces to the German

trench. They fought with their heads, as do ours, for there is not a

shell-hole of which they have not taken advantage during their advance

against their enemy. They have fought, also, like lions, since they

have gained the victory.

One of them, a great, athletic-looking fellow with black hair, has

fallen head forwards into a shell-hole. His poor, shattered body is

drained of blood, but his face is a fiery red, as if his rage had risen

there as he died.

Another, of slighter, more fragile frame, lies on his back, his legs

apart, with a ball through his forehead. Close beside him are the bomb

which he was about to throw and a tiny French-English dictionary. May

we not say that he has witnessed with his blood to the friendship of

two great nations?

Beside another, who has been hideously wounded, the wind turns over the

leaves of a soldier's Bible.

But enough! My eyes can bear no more. And I hasten away from this

scene, over which, like the sound of mighty organs, the great guns

chant their huge and terrible chorus.

To free ourselves from this nightmare we went to visit the gunners in

their shelters. It was three in the afternoon, and we had only just

discovered that we had not yet lunched. A big fellow, who chattered

like a magpie and was built like a Hercules, lit two candles for us,

stirred the fire which was crackling in an earthen stove, spread a

newspaper for our table-cloth, and offered us a seat on a case of

jam-jars. Our sandwiches seemed delicious; our tea, the best in the

world; our hovel, a palace; our candles, an illumination.

A joy, hitherto unknown, in being merely alive gave a priceless quality

to the smallest pleasures of existence. We listened with the most

intense interest and an unaccustomed delight to the talkative soldier,

while he instructed us about the price of sugar in England.

Meanwhile, his battery, just beside us, went on killing Germans.

The spirit of Dickens hovered over that wretched hut.

Suddenly I noticed that my companion had fallen into a brown study, and

I fancied that he was back upon that hill by Beaucourt. "Come, come!" I

said. "What are you thinking about now?"

"I am thinking," the Englishman replied, "that we are bound to avoid

war if we can, but that when war comes we are bound to meet it like

men."

[Illustration: 4. A FRANCO BRITISH RELIEF.]

PART II.

THE SQUARE JAWS.

CHAPTER I.

THE WELDING OF FRENCH AND BRITISH.

Not all things can be welded together. There are metals which are

wholly unsympathetic, and even for those which are not we require the

services of the plumber and his solder.

It is the glory and the good fortune of the British and French Armies

that, from the first day of the war, they have shown themselves

fitted--and eager--to become one; and that they have discovered, to

this end (and continue daily to employ them), plumbers of the first

class and lead in abundance.

Let us understand one another. To say "joining," "soldering," is not

to say "fusion," and the theory of united action upon a united front

does not necessarily imply that out of two friends a single individual

is wrought. A _poilu_ might say that it is possible to be very good

comrades without sleeping in the same bed.

For Germany such fusion would have been a danger, and she has always

avoided it. Although she has carried her partnership with her allies

to the length of making them her slaves, she has been very careful to

allow nothing like a mingling of breeds in the forces which are at her

disposal. The German Army has, for instance, resisted every temptation

to admit into its ranks any of its Austrian friends. For it believes

that it is possible to be too friendly.

Germany has confined herself, where this is in question, to giving her

weakened allies no more help than can be obtained from her officers,

commissioned and non-commissioned, or from the specialised activities

of her artillery and engineers. Beyond this she has but one thought--at

any cost to insure unity of action between her forces and those of her

allies.

From this it follows that to bring about a real fusion of two or more

allied armies upon one front is a tactical achievement of the first

importance. Such a fusion--the essential condition of all united effort

that is to possess a real value--becomes, from its very nature, the

principal object of the enemy's attack. The history of this war shows,

if one may say so, nothing but a series of attempts, upon one side or

the other, to prevent or destroy the cohesion of the opposing forces.

(Mons; the first and second Battles of Ypres; the Russian-Rumanian

Armies and the Army of the East; the junction of the Italians near

Vallona with the Army of Salonika, etc.) But it is not enough that this

fusion should exist. It is also vital--as we shall presently see in the

case of the Franco-British forces--that it should be both elastic and

solid.

Since it is agreed that in war-time each month counts as a year, we

may say that it is now two months since the French and British Armies

celebrated their silver wedding. Age has weakened neither the strength

nor the love of the partners to this marriage. We can say confidently

that, since the day when "the contemptible little Army of General

French" first shook hands with our _pioupious_, the friendship has

never been interrupted. For all his passionate desire to accomplish

the destruction of the bond which the two countries have willingly

exchanged for their individual liberty, the enemy's efforts have been

fruitless.

Even during the gloomy days of the retreat from Mons and Charleroi

the union of the two Armies remained unimpaired. While one of them,

overwhelmed by numbers, found itself compelled to retire, the other,

without any proper understanding of the reason, and with no thought

for anything but the maintenance of the connection, complied at once

with the manoeuvre, though not without exacting a heavy toll from its

enemies.

A few days later the victory of the Marne was to reward these mutual

sacrifices for the common cause.

A cloud had passed. Others followed. Again and again the enemy, furious

at the perfect understanding which existed between his opponents and

dreading what the consequences of it might be to himself, determined

to make an end of it. The two battles of Ypres were the fruit of this

resolution, to shatter the unity of the French and British Armies.

For one moment they believed that they had succeeded.

This was on the 24th April, 1915, when, by the use of asphyxiating gas,

till then unknown to us, they had driven in one corner of the Ypres

salient. We know that it was the gallantry of the Canadians that saved

the day and closed the opening breach.

Since then the chain has never been weakened. Nay, in the North it has

never been so much as stretched.

This, however, has not been the case with the connection between the

British Army and the main body of the Armies of France. The continual

addition of new units to the British forces was bound to cause frequent

changes, here, in the geographical distribution of the adjoining

troops. Can France ever forget the day when she learned that silently,

without a hitch, and under the very noses of the Germans, the British

front had suddenly been extended from Loos to the Somme? A mother who

meets, after years, the son whom she has last seen as a child, must

feel a surprise not unlike that with which France discovered that

the Armies of her Allies had become so large. Who knows but that we

may soon be again delighted in the same way? I say "delighted," not

"surprised," for our Allies have taught us to forget to be astonished

by anything they may do.

And so, every time that the British front is extended, this elasticity

of the fusion of the Armies is to be observed.

It is clear that these rearrangements can in no way affect its

solidity, since it is this very fusion which has made possible not only

the terrific offensive of the 1st July last, but also its uninterrupted

prosecution.

Only a very happy combination of circumstances could have brought about

this miracle--for it is one--which to explain is to show that it must

last as long as the war shall go on.

First of all, it is due to the perfect understanding which exists

between the General Staffs of the two Allied Armies. It is, indeed,

an achievement to set men of different races, if of equal courage,

side by side. But this is not enough. Much more need is there of a

unity of command which shall see that the best use is made of all

this determination, brought together from sources so widely sundered,

so that the utmost measure of mutual support and cohesion may result

from the efforts of units which, though they work alongside of one

another, are strangers. Now it is this very thing which is evident

in the combined operations of the British and French Armies, at all

times and particularly since the opening of the offensive in Picardy.

The Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, and General Foch--whom one

may perhaps describe as the keystone of the combination--have shown

themselves, in this connection, to be as good psychologists as they are

tacticians.

The troops of neither nation--and this should be made very clear--have

in any case experienced the smallest embarrassment in following out

the commands of their leaders. Whenever either English or French have

been able to give one another any kind of support, they have done it

faithfully and readily. The "fusion" is not a thing of maps; it is not

to be found in this place or that; it is a spiritual verity.

Living side by side, dying under one another's eyes, English and

French are acquiring a mutual respect and confidence which cannot fail

to strengthen their fighting power.

[Illustration: 5. GENERAL BIRDWOOD TALKING TO A GROUP OF BIG

AUSTRALIANS.]

"After all the proofs of their resolution and intrepidity," wrote

Field-Marshal French in a report, of June, 1915, upon the gas attacks,

"which our valiant Allies have given throughout the campaign, it is

quite unnecessary for me to dwell upon this incident, and I will only

express my firm conviction that if there are any troops on earth who

could have held their trenches in the face of an attack as treacherous

as it was unforeseen, it is the French divisions that would have done

it."

Which is the more admirable--the General who speaks of his Allies in

such generous terms, or the soldiers who inspired such words?

CHAPTER II.

HOW THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINGENT VOTED IN FRANCE IN FACE OF THE ENEMY.

8th December, 1916.

What Frenchman has not met, at least once, in Paris or some other of

our large towns, one of these stout lads who wear the uniform and carry

the equipment of the British soldier, but are to be distinguished from

him by that khaki-coloured, broad-brimmed felt hat, which the Boers

have immortalised?

Of a height generally above that of the average Frenchman, with broad

shoulders, an alert glance, a free and easy air; a skin that is often

tanned; a horseman from boyhood, slow to tire, reckless in battles and

of a hot temper--such is the Australian soldier, one of the world's

foremost fighting men.

His courage, which the enemy regards with a peculiar distaste, has

earned him heavy fighting everywhere throughout the war. Let us recall,

shortly, some of his chief performances.

The first division sent by Australia to the assistance of the Mother

Country towards the end of 1914 was employed on the defences of Egypt

and the Suez Canal. These sterling horsemen did splendid work in this

field of operations, and for four months lived in the desert, exposed

to continual attack.

Next, the Australian troops, augmented by certain units of New

Zealanders, disembarked on the Gallipoli Peninsula at the left of their

English comrades. Hardly were they on shore before they began a series

of battles which never stopped for a week. They held, at very great

cost, the bit of ground which had been taken from the Turks, and during

four months two divisions of them lived, Heaven knows how, on a space

of less than a third of an acre.

Then came the Evacuation of Gallipoli. The Australians returned to

Egypt, there to rest between December, 1915, and the 1st of April,

1916, on which day they made their appearance on the Western front.

Since that time the Australians have fought on French soil.

They have to thank their splendid reputation that they are always to

be found wherever the most glory is to be won. It was they who took

Pozières, during the Somme offensive, and the farm at Mouquet, and

measured their strength, throughout those epic days, against that of

the Prussian Guard.

Such is the Army which, quite recently, has held its Elections under

the very guns of the Germans.

For this Army, whose valour is already almost legendary, is also

among the most democratic Armies of the world. No one is more jealous

of his independence than the Australian. If he loves and admires his

comrades-in-arms, the French _poilus_, it is, no doubt, because, having

long misunderstood them, after the fashion of strangers towards all

things French, he cannot to-day find words enough to do justice to

their military qualities and their unselfish courage. But it is also,

and, above all, because his heart goes out naturally to the French

people under arms, to this democracy which in so many ways resembles

his own country, Australia the Free. Like the French soldier, the

Australian loves his fun; like him, he is light-hearted, always

singing. And each of them glories in the knowledge that beneath his

soldier's uniform is a citizen and an elector of a noble country.

These reflections will help us to understand why the Australian

Government has been led to hold a referendum of its Expeditionary Force

in France.

As you know, the people of Australia were concerned with the business

of deciding for or against the introduction of compulsory military

service into their country. Mr. Hughes, the Premier of New South Wales,

who did France the honour to visit it at the beginning of this year,

was the originator of this referendum. The result, for reasons which

I will presently mention, was a majority against conscription for

Australia.

To enable the Australian contingent to vote was the simplest thing

in the world. Voting booths were prepared at Contay, a small village

between the Ancre and the Somme, close to the firing-line. As fast as

the sections left the trenches to go back into billets, each officer,

non-commissioned officer and man was given two voting papers. On one

the word "Yes" was printed; on the other, "No." The voting lasted a

month--the time between reliefs--at the end of which period about

100,000 papers had been collected in the ballot-boxes at Contay. It is

strange that the majority of the Australian contingent voted against

compulsory service for Australia.

Why?

Let no one imagine that it was because these heroes have become

opponents of the war; nor is it even because they think that their

country has done enough.

They have voted against compulsory service, first of all, for a reason

of a general nature, which applies to the whole of this body of

Australian electors--namely, because the Australians have a horror of

all moral compulsion and a burning love of liberty. These soldiers have

also been influenced by another objection: they fear lest to introduce

a professional Army into Australia may be to infect their nation with a

spirit of militarism which is not at all to their taste.

And the proof that the negative result of the referendum has in no

way weakened the determination of Australia to pursue the war to a

victorious end and in complete accord with the Mother Country, is

that, on the one hand, the Australian contingent persists, after, as

before, recording its vote, in splendidly performing its duty at the

front; and that, on the other hand, Australia continues to send to the

battlefields of Europe thousands of fresh volunteers.

Hurrah for Liberty! Down with the Boches! In this motto the quality of

the Australian troops is perfectly expressed. This quality one meets

with again in the war song, the species of _Marseillaise_, which the

Australians sing to-day when they are on the march in France.

Here are its words in full:

AUSTRALIA WILL BE THERE.

_1st Verse._

You've heard about the Emden

That was cruising all around,

Sinking British shipping

Where'er it could be found,

Till one bright Sunday morning

The Sydney came in sight--

The Emden said good night.

_Chorus._

Rally round the banner of your country,

Rally round the banner of your King.

On land or sea,

Wherever you be,

Keep your eye on Germany.

For England, home and beauty,

Have no cause to fear.

Should old acquaintance be forgot?

No, No--No, No, No.

Australia will be there,

Australia will be there.

_2nd Verse._

With Kitchener in our Army

And French in our cavalry fine,

You bet those German bandsmen

Are in for a lively time.

And there's Winston Churchill

To guide our Navy grand;

With this fine lot we'll make it hot

For the poor old Fatherland.

_Chorus._

_3rd Verse._

We don't forget South Africa

When England was at war;

Australian Light Horsemen, my boys,

Were always to the fore.

Archie Norris and Billy Cook

Have now all kissed the Book.

_Chorus._

CHAPTER III.

BOELCKE'S LAND OF PROMISE.

On the 28th of October, six Halberstadters and Aviatiks attacked two

English aviators in the neighbourhood of Pozières. During the fight six

fresh enemy machines came to the assistance of their friends. At the

end of five minutes of furious fighting two German machines collided.

Pieces of the machines fell, and one of them descended toward the East.

The fight lasted 15 minutes, at the end of which time all the enemy

machines were driven off.

It is probable that it was during this fight that Captain Boelcke was

killed. It was, in fact, at this date that the German wireless stated

that Boelcke had been killed owing to a collision in the air.

In a letter which he wrote to a friend a few days before his tragic and

still unaccountable death, Boelcke, the best-known and most successful

of the German aviators, said:

"The Somme front is a positive land of promise. The sky is filled with

English airmen."

Boelcke expressed, under the guise of a kind of sporting

self-congratulation, the astonishment of his fellows at the way in

which the British flying service had developed.

A large number of documents found upon German prisoners give evidence

of a no less striking kind upon the same point.

"Our air service," says one of them, "practically ceased to exist

during the Battle of the Somme. At times the sky seemed black with

enemy machines."

Another says:

"We are so inferior to our opponents in our air service that when

hostile machines fly over our own lines we have no recourse but to hide

ourselves in the earth. Now and then a few of our machines attempt to

go up, but it is only a drop in the bucket."

[Illustration: 6. A BRITISH AEROPLANE.]

Finally, for one must not pursue this subject too far, a General Order

has been issued to the German Army to the effect that when troops are

marching they must halt and take cover whenever a British machine

is known to be in their vicinity; for the English are in the habit

of flying sufficiently low over the invaded territory to use their

machine-guns against moving troops and convoys.

To this evidence from enemy sources I may perhaps add my own. I assert,

then, as definitely as it is possible to do it, that one of my most

agreeable surprises, during my visit to the British front, was the

discovery of the great numbers and unceasing activity of the British

aeroplanes. Whether I was in the firing-line or behind it, my attention

was being constantly drawn to the movements of the British air service.

On the 15th of September the total number of hours during which flying

was carried on upon the British front was 1,300. Reckoning that each

aviator flies, on an average, for two hours, it is possible to form an

idea of the number of machines which were in the air on that day.

During the last Battle of the Ancre the British planes of every kind,

for bombing, fighting and directing the gunfire, seemed always to be

over the German lines; and on one fairly still day I was able to count

as many as 30 of them in the air at once, and this on a comparatively

narrow sector.

Behind the lines I went to see numerous aviation camps, instruction

camps, depôts of munitions, etc. They were like so many beehives,

models of organisation, order and method. The pilots, the observers,

the mechanics, everyone, seen at close quarters, gave me an impression

of a very unusual power and intelligence, and inspired me with the same

confidence with which their own mastery of the air has so long filled

them, ever since, indeed, they wrested it from the enemy.

Perhaps it may not be labour lost if, in order to get a right

understanding of the present very satisfactory and praiseworthy

position, we review shortly the history of British military aviation

since the beginning of the war.

England had not wished for war, nor had she prepared for it, and while

aviation seemed to her a marvellous achievement of the human brain, she

was far from thinking that she was bound to make use of it in order to

injure mankind. This is why her military air service, like her whole

Army, was in no more than an embryonic condition when she found herself

faced with the grim reality of this war.

Far more than the exigencies of the campaign on the continent, it was

the repeated raids of the Zeppelins over England which caused her to

devote herself to the development of her aviation.

The undertaking bristled with difficulties. We should be wrong, were we

in France, to suppose that we are the only people the story of whose

aviation has been marked by crises. Our Allies, though their practical

nature is proverbial among us, were forced to experiment and grope

their way for a long time before they could arrive at a solution of the

many knotty problems of aerial defence.

A complete lack of any central authority, a division or responsibility

between the various staffs, nobody to decide as to how machines should

be employed or how built, waste of every kind--the English have

experienced all these troubles. But how admirably they have surmounted

them! The proof is that now the only resource of the Germans is a

servile imitation.

This spirit of imitation among the Germans has shown itself most

markedly in these last weeks, during the process of the Battle of the

Ancre. The Germans set out by collecting a large number of aeroplanes

on a very narrow front. Then they began to show some signs of taking

the initiative with a daring to which we were little accustomed.

Did they really hope to wrest the mastery of the air from the English?

I do not know. In any case their attempt began badly; for when, 40 in

number, they met 30 of the British machines, they could discover no

better way of saving themselves than by flight, after a quarter of

their number had been put out of action.

It was about this time that General von Groener, a man of energy and

resolution, called upon the German aeroplane factories to increase

their output; and that Mr. Lloyd George in England, while giving

publicity to this new effort of Germany, exhorted his fellow-countrymen

not to allow themselves to be overtaken by their enemy.

Boelcke may rest in peace. His land of promise can only grow greater

and breed birds more rapidly.

After this, what need one say more of the technical skill and the often

heroic courage of the British aviator?

The French and British airmen form, indeed, one great family of heroes,

and our men have, in King George's Army, cousins who are as like them

as brothers.

At this point I will do no more than offer for your consideration a

document and a story.

The document is a letter, sent from Germany to his friends by an

English aviator, Lieutenant Tudor-Hart, on the 25th of this July. I

should blame myself were I to alter one word of it.

"I was," he writes, "with Captain Webb at between 12,000 and 15,000

feet above the German lines, when we saw eight German machines coming

towards us from the South-west. They were higher than we were, and we

went towards them to attack them. Two of them passed about 300 yards

above our heads. I opened fire on one and they replied together.

"I signed to Webb to turn so that I might fire at the other machine,

behind us; but he made a spurt forward with the machine. I looked

round to see what had happened, but Webb pointed to his stomach and

fell forward upon the controls. I fancy he must have died almost

immediately. His last thought had been to save the machine.

"It at once began to swing in the direction of the German lines, and I

was compelled to return to my machine-gun, in order to fire on a plane

which was getting too close. The other machines never stopped firing at

us. My only hope was to make for our lines, but I could not manage to

push Webb out of the pilot's seat, and I was obliged to manoeuvre above

the hood.

"I had to fire so often that it became impossible for me to guide the

machine. At last, constantly under fire, I planed down towards a field

near by and tried to land. I saw a number of men with rifles, and I

thought that I might be killed before being able to set the machine on

fire.

"One wing having struck the earth, the machine was smashed, and I was

thrown out. I got off with one side paralysed, one ankle and one rib

broken. I was very well treated, and the German flying men behaved

towards me like sportsmen and gentlemen."

It is in this way that the paladins of this war both conduct and

express themselves.

And now for the story.

There was once in England a rich man who interested himself in Art and

Politics. His name was Lord Lucas. Life had always smiled upon him, and

he had returned her smile. Had he wished it, he might have spent his

life in slippered ease and lived from day to day without a care.

Choosing, rather, to become a soldier, he joined the Expeditionary

Forces during the South African War. He was wounded and lost a leg, but

this in no way deterred him from being of service to his country.

When the European War broke out, Lord Lucas was the Minister for

Agriculture in the Asquith Cabinet.

He felt shame to be engaged in such a vapid business as Politics now

appeared, and he resigned. Next we find him volunteering for the

British air service. In spite of his artificial leg, he went through

his training, was hurt, got cured, and returned to his work and never

rested until he had flown over the German lines. One day Lord Lucas,

millionaire, artist, ex-Cabinet Minister, and, above all, soldier,

failed to return to his squadron. The Boches alone know whether he is

dead or a prisoner.

The man who told me the story of this splendid life was the best friend

of Lord Lucas, and he was worthy to be it. I asked this soldier, a peer

himself and himself wounded, if in England, as in France, commissions

in the air service were much sought after. In reply, he pointed to two

great birds, and said: "We admire them, Monsieur, as you do, and, like

you, we envy them."

CHAPTER IV.

THE SQUARE JAW.[A]

[A] Of the two articles which follow, the first ("The Square Jaw")

was written on the 9th of December, during the crisis caused by the

successive resignations of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Asquith.

The second ("The Moral of the British Armies") was written on the 19th

of the same month, the day after Germany made her official offer of

peace.

The British soldier does not concern himself with Politics. It is not

in his character to do so; moreover, any such conduct is against the

rules of his profession. And so, since discipline "is the first weapon

of Armies," the British soldier respects it above everything else.

The Englishman has a passion and a profound respect for method.

Method requires that Politics should be the business of Ministers and

Politicians, and that war should be carried on by soldiers. Method,

says the Englishman, demands that everyone should stick to his own work

and his own place. Without this, anarchy must ensue. Now there cannot

well be anything less anarchical than the British Army.

It is their order and discipline which most powerfully and most quickly

impress the Frenchman who is permitted to live for a time among the

Armies of England. These qualities, let me hasten to add, are also the

least superficial, and thus afford the surest test of the value of

these Armies.

Observe that it is not by collecting together a body of indifferent

natures, passive temperaments and personalities more or less

irresponsible, that this order and discipline have been infused into

the British Army. The level of capacity of this Army is, moreover, by

no means a low one; for it is one of the most intelligent Armies in

Europe or in the whole world. The common soldier is not of one class,

to the exclusion of all others. He does not represent one section only

of British opinion. His corporate mind is therefore in no way a limited

one.

As a volunteer, he thronged into England, at the beginning of the war,

from every quarter of the globe, and by this voluntary act at once

proclaimed his intelligence. To-day, as a conscript, he represents,

more than ever before, the completeness of his country's will.

As for the officers, who differ from our own in their essentially

aristocratic character, in them we see the direct expression of all

those qualities of brain and heart which distinguish the leading

elements of British society.

And so, if this army does not concern itself with Politics, if it is

thoroughly disciplined, if it contents itself with "making war," it is

because it prefers to do these things.

It is, moreover, excellently informed of everything which happens

outside itself, whether in England or elsewhere, and in this respect

differs considerably from the German Army which lies beyond its

trenches. A Boche prisoner, recently taken, owned that neither the

newspapers of his country nor any letters ever reached the German

troops in the front lines. As each day comes, its history is told to

our enemies by word of mouth only; that is to say, after the fashion

which best suits their rulers.

Among the English there is very little heard or said about peace, or

about the objects for which they are fighting; but they read, and they

read continually. The soldier follows the course of events as well in

his letters as in his newspaper.

And in what does his knowledge consist? What does he know?

He knows that the Army to which he belongs owes much to that French

Army which he admires so deeply, and by whose side he is proud to fight

for the interests which their natures share. He knows that to the

British Army is secured, from now onwards, one of the chief factors of

invincible and victorious strength--numbers. He knows approximately

the number of his effectives, and he would gladly, by crying it aloud,

shake the confidence of the enemy and confirm that of his friends.

He knows also that the second factor of his strength--material--while

it is already considerable and probably equal to that which his

opponents possess--does not represent a quarter of what the coming year

will produce. He knows, from having done it again and again since July,

that not only can he resist the enemy, but defeat him; and he awaits

confidently the hour of triumph.

Hence his firm, his unshakable determination to obtain victory on

his own terms; hence, also, it follows that no thought or hope of a

premature peace ever disturbs his mind.

And if no one else remained to fight, he would go on, for--he says it

himself, and one cannot but believe him--he has "a square jaw."

It is important, in the present condition of affairs, that the French

public should make no mistake as to the opinions of the British soldier

concerning the war and its sure conclusion.

About this no one can be under any delusion. Everywhere on the British

front there is but one opinion--that the war must be carried through to

the end; that is to say, till the inevitable victory of the Allies has

come to pass; and that it would be a crime against the Homeland, the

Allies and those comrades who have fallen, to listen to proposals for

a peace which would be consistent with neither the intentions nor the

interests of England and her Allies.

During my visit of two months I have seen the larger part of the

British front from the Somme to the Yser. Everywhere I have met with

the same spirit of determination. This state of mind may be explained

in various ways; the perfect confidence which the British Army feels in

its Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, "the lucky," as the soldiers

call him; the regular growth in the numbers of the effectives, which,

though I may not disclose these figures, exceed the estimates of them

usually made in France; the tremendous development of material and in

the output of munitions; the magnificent successes gained on the Somme

and the Ancre, which have given rise to the certainty of being able to

defeat an enemy formerly said to be invincible; etc., etc.

Without doubt, the war goes slowly. Tommy admits it, but he begs you to

observe--and justly--that on every occasion when his infantry has come

to grips with the Germans it has invariably beaten them.

"Besides," he thinks, "perhaps it is not absolutely essential, in

order to win the war and place England and her Allies in a position

to dictate their own terms, that our Armies should hurl themselves

forward in one final and costly advance over the shattered lines of the

Germans." The British soldier is fond of comparing the Western battle

front to an immense boxing ring, of which the complex systems of barbed

wire which stretch from the North Sea to Belfort form the ropes. The

war, on the West, has been fought within these limits since the Marne.

It is possible that it will see no change of position up to the end.

[Illustration: 7. CANADIANS FRESH FROM THE TRENCHES.]

But, as in a boxing match, it is not necessary, in order to win,

to drive one's opponent over the ropes and out of the ring; in the

same way it may happen that the German Army is "knocked out" in the

positions where it is fighting to-day.

That, at least, is the opinion of the British soldier.

It is, indeed, no more than a paraphrase of that dictum, pronounced

not long ago by General Nogi, and as true of the ring as it is of war:

"Complete victory is to him who can last a quarter of an hour longer

than the other fellow."

Tommy has no intention--no more than has his friend the _poilu_--of

playing the part of "the other fellow."

CHAPTER V.

THE RELIEF.

The scene is an old trench of the French first line. It is midday. It

is raining. It goes on raining. It has always rained. The sector is

fairly quiet, and has been for an hour or so. Tommy sees a chance to

write a letter.

Here in his dug-out--a miserable shelter which oozes water

everywhere--squatted on the straw that becomes filth the moment it

is thrown down, he is telling his friends in Scotland all his small

sorrows and hopes; he is wishing them "A Happy New Year."

Suddenly his pen falters; the writer considers, stops writing, and,

addressing the second-lieutenant as he goes by: "Beg pardon, sir," he

asks, "may I say that they have moved out?"

"Certainly not," says the lieutenant, apparently horrified by such

a question. "It is absolutely forbidden to say anything about this

business. Do you understand, all of you?"

"But--but," someone ventures to say, "everyone in England knows

about it already. The papers ..." and they show the lieutenant some

newspapers which have come that morning. The officer takes them,

glances at them, smiles, and says: "Oh, these journalists!"

On the front page of the paper a striking photograph is exhibited,

showing an incident of the taking over by the British of the French

front. Underneath is the following description:

"Tommy takes over the French trenches. French soldiers looking on at

the arrival of British troops who are relieving them. This important

operation took place at the front, at Christmas-time, silently,

secretly and with complete success. The enemy, who was in many places

no more than a few yards distant, never had any suspicion of this

change, which has greatly extended the British lines and eased the

strain which our gallant Allies have endured upon the Western front.

"This military manoeuvre affords the best reply to the manoeuvres of

Germany in the direction of peace."

And so Tommy continues his letter in some such fashion as this:

"Now that the thing is done, I may tell you that we have left the

sector of ---- in order to come down farther South, where we have

relieved the French. It has been a fine chance to see our brave Allies

at work, and I am tremendously proud to have taken their place in the

lines.

"The thing has been done very well, although it wanted a lot of care

and was very dangerous. You can imagine that if the Boches had had any

notion of what we were at, they would not have failed to do their level

best to stop us or make it difficult for us; for it must make them

very savage to see our 'contemptible little Army' always extending its

flanks, without wearing thin anywhere, and so setting free first-rate

troops for the French to use elsewhere.

"We came among the Frenchmen on Christmas Day.

"The roads were all as busy as on the day before the offensive on the

Ancre in front of Beaumont-Hamel. We never stopped meeting French

troops and wagons, which were going back towards the railway.

"We exchanged civilities with the _poilus_ which neither they nor we

understood the least bit. But I may tell you that it was pretty clear

to me that they were not sorry to be giving up their places to us.

"On the 25th of December, after supper, we left our last camp and

marched through the night for many hours, till we came to this French

trench where I am writing to you now.

"The _poilus_ were at their posts. It'll be a long time before I forget

that sight.

"Although they were far dirtier and more tired than were we, the

French, as they themselves say, 'had the smile.' If we had been allowed

to make any noise, we should have cheered them. But we were only 38

yards from the Boche line.

"The officers and the non-commissioned officers gave the orders in

whispers. They had interpreters to help them.

"As for me, I was at once told off to do sentry in the place of a great

French chap, with a beard, who was a good 15 years older than I.

"As I understood a bit of French, I was able to make out most of what

he said to me.

"'Good evening, my lad,' says he. 'You're a good fellow to come and

let me out of this. Shake hands, won't you?'--I didn't understand

everything; French is so difficult--and he added: 'And now, young 'un,

open your eyes and keep them skinned.'

"Then he gave me a great deal of very sound advice, showing me in which

directions I must keep a good look-out, and telling me to have a care

of a blackguardly German machine-gun which never has done sweeping

their parapet.

"When he had finished with this he took his rifle out of the loophole,

and I put mine there in its place. And that's how the big relief was

carried out on Christmas night."

At this point Tommy was forced to interrupt his long letter, for the

Germans had at last got news of the relief and were attacking the

sector. In vain.

Next day Tommy finished thus:

"My _poilu_ was right. This corner can hardly be called a quiet one,

and Fritz is a bad boy, there's no doubt about it. Thanks for your

Christmas parcel. The pudding was A1. Good-bye.

"TOMMY."

PART III.

THE ARMIES OF THE NORTH.

Flat calm on both sides of the Ancre; calm--or something like it--on

the Somme. Let us take advantage of this apparent truce to get into

rather closer touch with the British Army.

By this eight-day tour (though it has seemed, while we have been making

it, a kind of intermezzo between two acts of the offensive) we had

intended, particularly, to demonstrate to ourselves, by our study of

the events and those who have enacted them, the dauntless determination

with which our Allies, not satisfied to defend the heroic heritage

which these battlefields of 1915 have bequeathed to them, now prepare

for the future.

In telling these experiences, one has to play the Censor over oneself.

And so we may say nothing of the most important things of all.

Everywhere throughout this countryside mighty Armies, in the most

perfect secrecy, are doing their business, scattering, with prodigal

hand, the seed of future victory. And the harvest will surely be

gathered. And if, at this time of heart-breaking uncertainty, our

journey enables us to do no more than declare that great things

are assuredly preparing, this alone will make it worth our having

undertaken it.

We did not set out, we three, with our permits from the General

Headquarters, to make a sentimental pilgrimage over the battlefields

that lie between Lorette and the trenches of French Flanders. No; it

was a reconnaissance that we made--into the Future. These sketches of

the British Armies are, thus, no more than a study of latent forces.

CHAPTER I.

THE PREPARATION OF THE CANADIANS.

We spent the first two days among the Canadians. Let me recall a few of

their performances. They sustained, in front of Ypres, the first great

gas attack launched by the Germans. During the offensive in Picardy,

being sent into the front line on the 15th of September or thereabouts,

they stormed Courcelette and Martinpuich, and consolidated their

forward positions on one side towards Grandcourt, on the other towards

Le Sars. The rest of them kept the enemy contained.

To sum them up--an Army full of robust qualities, an Army of young

athletes, inured by their own home-life to the physical hardships of

the trenches, regardless alike of cold, fog and mud. An Army, too, of

formidable size, since to-day its numbers are greater than those of the

whole British Expeditionary Force of 1914.

We saw them in their lines--in camp. Our guides were certain young

officers from Quebec, who spoke an archaic, melodious French, that was

most pleasant to hear. Their names also sounded oddly in our ears; more

than one of them recalled the old sailor names of Cherbourg, Saint Malo

and Lorient. They told us what joy they found in fighting for their two

Homelands--England and France.

While we were crossing a wood near A----, one of them told me, gravely:

"I have been here since our good God made the little apples to grow,

but I have known neither regret nor weariness. Rather has this life in

France this springhead of my race, made me know myself each day more

truly."

These men and their leaders, indeed, do neither their training nor

their fighting from any other motive than duty. Their fighting has a

kind of mystical quality, the passion of a young people, which makes

them, behind their battle lines, a family of brothers, and, when they

engage, an army of warriors who will lay down their lives for one

another.

A few miles from the enemy, behind a redoubt, where thousands of French

graves lie scattered, one of their divisions occupied some huts which

our engineers had built. Almost everywhere the notices were written in

French. In one immense system there were trenches of a hundred shapes

all jumbled together. We saw, here, a demonstration of a surprise

attack against a machine-gun emplacement on a redoubt of the German

pattern. This manoeuvre was no more than an illustration of theory. The

captain who had charge of it had, during the previous night, himself

led an attack against the Germans. From it he had returned with three

things--a slight wound, two prisoners and the Military Cross.

Elsewhere, at the edge of a mine-crater, we listened to a lieutenant

grounding his men in the art of trench-digging. A trench should be made

irregularly, in accordance with the natural variations of the soil. All

of which the lieutenant summed up thus: "To do this job well you must

do it badly."

A company of Canadian gunners were practising with a trench-digging

machine, invented in England, which had done well on the Somme.

Suddenly one of them, to his horror, perceived that a shell which stood

among a hundred others was smoking. By some unaccountable means its

fuse had caught fire, the match was burning, and in a few seconds,

perhaps in one, the shell would burst. Were it to do so, the whole of

this store of ammunition must go aloft, with the gunners and us and all.

And so this gallant little Canadian who has seen the danger, gives the

alarm, and while we flatten ourselves into the mud, picks up the shell

in his plucky hands and throws it with all his strength out in front of

the battery, where it bursts--and no one a penny the worse.

We could have fallen, for very joy, upon the neck of the gallant lad

who had just saved all our lives. It would have been so silly to be

killed in such a fashion, miles away from the enemy!

Farther on they were learning to handle a new trench-mortar. We were

privileged to observe a little _barrage_ fire. It made a noble shindy

in the fog and a magnificent disturbance of the soil. These guns have

been only recently introduced, but they are installing great numbers of

them along the whole British front with a view to the winter campaign,

for they have been an immense success. The Germans, in this field, at

least, of experimental operations, have acquired this information at

considerable cost to themselves.

In the same way we followed the open-air training of the machine-gun

men. More or less every man has to go through it, so that if necessary

he may be able to do this work. It is the picked gunners, who have

shown what they can do in actual fighting, who teach the beginners the

use of this terrible weapon, and it is with a most entertaining air of

"the old soldier" that they give their instruction.

We saw the periscope rifles at work, the bomb-throwing and

grenade-throwing rifles and other strange and terrible weapons of which

one may not tell. What a rare museum we will be able to make up after

the war! The collections of arms from the Middle Ages will sink into

insignificance beside it. It would appear that for inventing ways of

killing his fellows, the imagination of Man knows no bounds.

We came upon some sturdy Canadians, their hats stuck in their belts. A

stout band of leather was round their heads. Slung across his shoulders

one carried two heavy boxes loaded with shells; another, without any

effort, carried one of his comrades. These exercises were explained to

us in this way. "It is the method of the Red Indians that the Canadians

have cleverly adapted to the purposes of supplying their trenches or

carrying their wounded. With it, one has no need to be a Hercules."

With this system, strength yields to skill. They showed us a man who

can in this way walk easily with a piano on his back. "It would come in

handy for shifting a broken-down tank!" said our guide with a grin.

Here we are at the Canadian Headquarters, an 18th-century château whose

walls are hung with early Flemish masters.

"France sends us welcome guests."

The man who gives us this genial reception is none other than General

Byng, Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian detachment in France. He is a

handsome fellow, slender, solidly built. In him an immense strength is

found united to an exquisite courtesy.

Hardly have we become his guests before he is showing his confidence in

us by permitting us to share in his secrets.

He has brought us in front of a huge map representing the field of

his operations. On it he shows us, with a most worthy pride, the

dispositions of all his divisions, brigades and battalions.

While we are chatting, an officer of the Intelligence comes in. He has

an unfortunate piece of news for the general, and so for us--the fall

of Bucharest.

"At dawn this morning," he says, "the Boches began cheering in their

trenches. Then they pushed up above their parapets placards which

told us that the Rumanian capital had been taken. Also, one of our

listening-posts got a German wireless put purposely into English, which

said: 'Bucharest is taken. Hurrah!'"

For a serious moment or two we are silent.

Then someone ventures: "That's a nuisance!"

Another silence. The square jaws set a little more firmly. Then: "Carry

on!" says our host.

CHAPTER II.

ARRAS, THE WOUNDED TOWN.

While I was in the British lines I visited Arras.

Everyone knows that since February of this year this ancient town has

been included in that part of the front which is held by our Allies.

Soldier or traveller, whoever enters the ruins of Arras, is subject to

the strictest regulations, which have been imposed for the sake of the

security of individuals and the preservation of the general order. The

steel helmet is obligatory, as is the gas mask.

Numerous notices instruct us "not to move about except upon the

footpaths and hugging the walls. It is absolutely forbidden to use the

middle of the roadway." A useful precaution in a town whose outskirts

are held by the Germans.

The town is divided into districts. On notice-boards are posted various

directions such as, "Rendezvous Place No. 1." For there is no longer

any Grande Place or Petit Place or any other spots whose names are

known to the people of Arras--only Place 1, 2, 3, and so on.

I have noted, in this connection, the following, as a novel example of

organisation and forethought:

"To civilians. You are not required to concern yourselves with military

matters. If you talk about such things, you may come under suspicion."

A civilian warned is a civilian armed.

Such was Arras when I saw it in November, 1914, after the first

bombardment, and so it was, or nearly so, when I saw it yesterday.

And it was the same sorrow that I felt as I passed along those empty

streets, where not one house is to be seen that has not received

its wound, more or less mortal. The dismal impression may have been

strengthened by yesterday's wretched weather.

[Illustration: 8. ARRAS.]

We often say of some provincial town: "It is a dead-alive place." The

phrase should be changed, or else it should be used henceforth only

about such towns as Arras, Ypres or Verdun.

For two years not only the Germans but the weather also have been

active to help the work of destruction; the Germans with their

never-ceasing bombardment, the weather by destroying without hope

buildings which might, till lately, have perhaps been saved. Everything

rusts and crumbles under the rain, and in many places the wind has

finished their work for the guns. Grass sprouts among the ruins; moss

grows on stone and timber. The work of Death goes on, slowly but surely.

It is not a little astonishing to meet civilians now and then in Arras.

Here and there the white head of some old man or woman appears from a

cellar or from behind a bit of wall. There are some hundreds of such

French people, who have refused to leave their homes.

They have sent away the "_jeunesse_," as they say, so that the Boches

may have no more children to kill. They, the old folk, propose to stay

and look after their ruins.

Yesterday I saw a woman come out of the half-open door of a little

shop. She may have been 65 years old. Over the door was the sign,

"Washing done here." She was a washerwoman.

I spoke to her.

"My dear lady," I said, "are you not afraid to stay here?"

"Bah, Monsieur!" she replied. "A little sooner, a little later. What

does it matter at my age?

"I had a grandson," she went on. "He was just 20 when the Boches

came. They killed him close by here in 1914. My girl died of grief.

The father is fighting somewhere or other. And so I came back. Here

at least I can go now and then to pray for my boy. But not beside his

grave. The Boches are _there_. That's where it is, Monsieur, on the

other side of the road."

And she pointed to where the enemy lay, close by.

He is there, close by. You feel him; you hear him. For two years he has

held the suburbs of Blangy, Ronville and Saint Sauveur. You hear his

firing as if it was beside you. It is all street fighting here. In one

place, indeed, there is no more than the width of a little street, four

or five yards, between the trenches.

For the moment, however, this sector is quiet.

The chief amusement of the Boches is incendiarism. On regular days and

at regular hours of the day it pleases them to light great bonfires in

the town. This is how they manage it.

First they throw a few incendiary bombs at the prey which they have

singled out. When the fire has been started and the firemen have come

running to fight it, the Boches enliven the situation with shells, in

the hope, I suppose, of feeding the flames with some human victims.

It is vastly entertaining!

As we came back we made the acquaintance of some very noteworthy

British soldiers. They call them Bantams.

The distinguishing feature of these men is their height, which is

below the average. There was a certain number of men in England who had

been rejected for service in the ranks because of their shortness. As

they were very keen to fight, somebody thought of forming them into a

special division.

And so the Bantam Division came into being. And these little cocks

can fight to the death, like those in whose battles the villages of

Northern England used to delight; and, little though they are, they

grow, if one may say so, at once to the size of Titans.

CHAPTER III.

THE GROUND OF HEROIC DEEDS.

Last year the ground that we are treading, this cold and rainy December

day, saw played out one of the most terrible acts of this terrible war.

It shook for weeks together during May and June, 1915, to the thunder

of vast opposing artilleries. Thousands of men moved over it and

drenched it with their blood.

This ground has seen the French Army, in a transport of courage, bind

for an instant the wings of victory; it has seen our battalions burst

at racing speed over trenches that were deemed impregnable; it has seen

Petain's men storm the Vimy Ridge and win a sight of the plain, the

goal of their desires, their promised land....

It has seen that!

I own frankly that, as I write these impressions, I am in the grip of

an emotion which I do not even try to conquer. Perhaps it is because

these events of May and June, 1915, are already so distant that time

has magnified their tragic splendour till they have acquired a sort of

legendary quality.

We reached this battlefield through the wood of Bouvigny, which lies

to the North-westwards of the crest of Notre Dame de Lorette. In this

wood, which is all close thickets and has few large trees, just before

the attack of May, an entire French division succeeded in gathering

without being discovered by the enemy.

You can still see clearly, at the Southern edge of the wood, the

first French trenches, in front of which, in October, 1914, after the

evacuation of Lille, the German hosts were stopped in their march to

the West. The breaking flood has eaten deeply into the slopes, as the

sea has done along the Breton Coast.

Two years will soon have passed over this devastated spot. The grass

and the moss have begun to take possession of the abandoned trenches,

to conceal the shell-holes and the dug-outs, to cover up the vast

wreckage of the battle, the dear relics of our soldiers. Nevertheless,

we see everywhere evidence of the madness with which they fought

hereabouts in May and June, 1915. Years, centuries, I believe, must

pass before every sign of these things will be gone.

No doubt the bones that one often finds scattered here and there,

refused by the ground, will crumble away and will return little by

little to the dust from which they came; these little nameless crosses,

made out of two sticks of different lengths fastened together, will

vanish; but on the spurs of Lorette, as at Carency, or at Ablain

Saint-Nazaire, there will always be something that will speak of the

spring of 1915--the ground.

We were anxious to see the ruins of the chapel. We found them only

with great difficulty. At last at the angle of a trench we came upon

its brick foundations and a small monument, set up since 1915 by some

pious hand. In a frame of wood and corrugated iron are three plaster

figures, the Holy Family, which were formerly in the chapel, with this

inscription:

"Memorial of the Holy Family of the Santa Casa of Notre Dame de

Lorette. August, 1916. The Guides and Protectors of valiant soldiers."

This monument cannot be said to be erected--since it is buried--but it

hides itself away in that part of the spurs of Lorette whence the eye

looks out beyond over the whole district. In clear weather one sees

the whole panorama of the German and French lines. One can trace their

windings by Angres, Lievin and Lens, and good eyes can follow them

right up to Lille. It is quite common, at any rate, to see the people

of this invaded piece of France going about their business in the

streets of, for example, Lens.

Opposite, to the East, are the chalky heights of Vimy, a little higher

than the ridge of Lorette, on which we are standing. Their summits are

at present held by the enemy.

We could not fail, while we were at Ablain, to compare the effect of

the 1915 gunfire with that of 1916. This comparison can, indeed, be

made wherever fighting had taken place before the Somme offensive.

In the sector of Ablain, Carency and Souchez our artillery had

delivered a weight of shell, in May and June 1915, such as had never

been known before. The enemy had been stunned by it. Yet, what a

different effect was wrought by the artillery during the Somme

offensive. At either Ablain, Carency or Souchez it is still possible to

see that there is a village, and even to rebuild it in imagination. The

skeletons are still standing.

But in Fricourt, Mametz, Thiepval and all the other villages which

were under fire in 1916, not one stone remains upon another. In 1915

it was destruction; in 1916 annihilation. The advance made in the

construction of artillery is written in the soil in unmistakable

characters, and no one who is not an expert can conceive how the

science of levelling things with the earth might be brought to any

greater perfection. Our further advance along these lines must, one

would say, be made downwards.

It is with deep regret that we leave these immense cities of the dead,

where so many Frenchmen sleep under the sympathetic wardenship of our

Allies.

CHAPTER IV.

A DINNER OF GENERALS.

This evening on our return from the lines we found the following

invitation:

"Dear Sir,--The General in Command will be very happy if you can dine

with him at eight o'clock."

We were, to tell you the truth, in such a state of dirtiness, so

horribly muddy and so tired, that at first we wondered if it was

possible for us to accept. But an invitation from a General--a General

in Command--amounts to an order. And so we made a quick toilet and

betook ourselves to the Head Quarters.

They had been established a mile or two from the little Flemish town,

in a _château_ built in the style of the Italian Renaissance, which we

were able, unfortunately, to admire by moonlight only.

The General, who was surrounded by a brilliant company of Generals and

Colonels, received us in the drawing-room. He made us welcome in the

purest French, saluting us as the representatives of the Press of an

Ally.

General Horn, commanding the 1st British Army, is a man about 60

years old. In this command he has succeeded Sir Douglas Haig, who is

now Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces. He is a tall man with a

youthful carriage. His whole person is instinct with the force of a

great leader. His eye is cold and stern, while thick, grizzled brows

add to the severity of his glance. But he is a ready and an agreeable

talker. It is clear that this leader, who holds in his hand the lives

of 200,000 men, is, also, a splendid gentleman.

Once at table we are overwhelmed with attentions. Our hosts vie with

one another in showing kindness to the Frenchmen. Here are men whose

names are already famous throughout Great Britain; one day this war

will make them known to the whole world.

We meet again, particularly, a number of faces which we have already

encountered during our travels. General Byng, for instance, whom I

have already had the honour to introduce to you; Curry, a General

of Division, a square-set John Bull in uniform, with eyes that are

peculiarly quick and intelligent. A man of business in time of peace,

he won his General's scabbard during the first Battle of Ypres. (An

English General is to be known by the crossed scabbard and sword, in

gold, on his epaulettes.)

He said, speaking of this sector of his:

"I am proud to command my men in positions which you have made

glorious." Brave heart! He has wept for his men. Here again is

Brigadier Kitchen; 45, fair, blue eyes, well set up, a kindly face;

he looks like a younger Kitchener. He has a career behind him, for he

fought in South Africa. Full of fire, he should be a wonderful leader

of men, of the order of Gouraud or Mangin.

Yet others----

And we talk. We talk as one talks round a table, that is, a little

about everything. Our hosts listen with a lively interest to such

news--it is fresh for them--as we can give them of the changes that

have recently taken place among the military and political leaders of

France. They are careful to keep their opinions on these matters to

themselves. At the most one can see that certain names are in good

odour among them.

It is impossible also not to speak of Rumania, whose capital has just

been taken. There is no doubt that what is happening in Rumania is

vexing to our Allies, but they are not disturbed. My neighbour, without

intending to do so, comforts my heart by proving to me mathematically

that the misfortunes of Rumania cannot bring any happiness into

Germany. He speaks of these things with a confidence in which sentiment

has no part, but rather the scientific knowledge of the war--if one may

say so--which is his.

It is from him that I glean this comforting detail--that the Germans

have organised special companies to serve during the days on which the

advances are made. Their troops in the front lines have now so little

willingness and, indeed, power to fight, that it has been necessary to

form special companies which the enemy moves hither and thither to meet

any particularly strong attacks.

"Perhaps when we get to that point," said one of the Generals near us,

"we shall begin to hear them bleating for peace."

"You are very certain of your men?" one of us asked him.

"They are full of beans," said he.

CHAPTER V.

WAR IN THE BLACK COUNTRY.

Trains follow each other every quarter of an hour--endless trains, 60

truck-loads and more, all bearing the mark of five big French companies.

Some of these convoys seemed to have been borrowed from a museum of

obsolete railways. The couplings rattle, the buffers are out of joint,

and the brakes squeak. Others come from Belgium. One can easily see by

the repairs that they have undergone all the horrors of war. Others,

again, emblazoned with the arms of Essen or Alsace-Lorraine, red in

colour and cumbersome, are obviously prisoners of war.

[Illustration: 9. THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.]

A Minister has actually dared to bring about a real mobilisation of

transport. He has ordered the seizure of all trucks in good condition,

and the captured have gone to the front. All of them are overflowing

with every species of coal. Coal! When one thinks of the shortage in

Paris and the provinces of France, one can appreciate the sight of

these millions of tons being rushed back from the front. Coal is the

black bread of war. At the level crossings the British regiments going

up into the line naturally give way to the greater urgency of these

supply trains.

We have just come back from visiting, under the guidance of a

Staff-Major, the land of shafts and mines. Certainly, war is being

waged there, but in a curious way, as if it were added on to ordinary

existence. B----, N----, les M----, V---- are so many stages in our

sooty pilgrimage!

In front of V----, after having wandered in these endless streets with

houses of miners' dwellings, all exactly alike, we come upon a huge

slag heap, 800 yards high, like some black pyramid. The neighbouring

pits, with their sheds, lifts and air-shafts, are working as usual.

We pass a party of miners, solemn and resolute-looking people, their

ages varying from 16 to 40, who are going to relieve the workers in the

galleries 200 yards below soil.

These civilian workers have just decided to do another hour a day.

They, too, have behaved like heroes.

The smoking pits are not a stone's throw from the smoking cannons.

The howitzers concealed in the Black Country alternate their "boom!"

with the sharper "crack!" of trench mortars. A London motor-'bus,

ingeniously disguised, crowded with soldiers inside and out, is

carrying a whole platoon of armed men to the shelter of one of these

slag heaps which line the roads.

Here, owing to the nature of the soil, the trenches cannot be dug down.

Thousands of pumps would be wanted to dry this sector alone.

The Royal Engineers have overcome the difficulty by having recourse

to the old system of breastworks. Here redoubts, facing all ways,

strong points with sloping parapets, buttresses, bastions, half-moons,

etc., are made with sandbags--the triumph of improvisation like the

inventions of a Pacciotto or a de Vauban. But more numerous than the

Tommies are the groups of women carrying baskets of provisions for

their menfolk.

Under the guidance of the General Commanding the Artillery of the Army,

we visited some batteries of 9.2 howitzers, those magnificent weapons

of destruction. What ruses! What profligate conceits are used to hide

these monstrous treasures from the enemy aircraft! After the war we

must consecrate a whole chapter to those obscure painters, designers of

"take-in's," who, working in the open country, succeed in faking the

skyline and every aspect of the earth--nay, all Nature herself.

A forward observing officer hidden somewhere on the ridge, which used

to be called the Hohenzollern Redoubt, has just rung up to say that he

has spotted some enemy transport moving in the mist behind their lines.

The map reference is immediately verified and the range ascertained. A

junior subaltern blows his whistle. In a second N.C.O.'s and men are

in position. Then they open fire, disturbing the peaceful landscape.

Just beside the battery was a beautiful pond with two swans--the most

unwarlike thing in the world. Five minutes later we hear that the

shooting was good and the transport was scuppered.

In these miners' dwellings and allotments, where war and humdrum

life are so strangely intermingled, there are many alarms. Aeroplane

bombs, gas attacks and hostile bombardments. When the siren starts,

everyone--women, children, old men and soldiers--go quietly into the

cellars and come up again when it is all over, as if it was the most

natural thing in the world.

Such is the life in the coal country. The Tommies in the trenches,

the artillery in the fields and gardens and the workmen in the mines.

Endless strife above ground, endless labour below, each night, each

day, the same.

France should honour these miners of Artois and Flanders just as much

as her soldiers.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ART OF SAVING.

Our hosts were very anxious to show us their Base at Calais, and, the

visit being over, we fully realise their reasons. The fact is they have

achieved miracles of hard work and organisation, of which they are

justly proud.

Dare I say that we had not taken full advantage of the port previous to

the war? It is possible that in this matter, as in so many others, the

war will have taught us useful lessons.

Why should Germany have consented to make such bloody sacrifices on the

Yser if Calais had not been a prize of great value?

A complete study of a base like Calais would require days and days. We

had only a few hours, and we only saw a few things, but things of the

utmost meaning, as the reader will see.

Everyone knows that the wear and tear of an army in the field is not

merely concerned with losses in men. There is a huge combustion of

materials which is almost as important. Even when there is no actual

offensive there is considerable wastage of material, as also of men.

But just as the commanders of fighting units have taken appropriate

measures to spare the human animal, such as sending troops back to rest

for a certain time, so the heads of army administration have devised

means of saving every article of "war-soiled" material. It is this

organisation that we have seen at work in Calais. Nothing could be more

instructive.

There exists in each British division at the front a divisional salvage

company, whose duty it is to clear up a battlefield and collect

somewhere behind the lines all damaged equipment--rifles, uniforms,

bayonets, guns, empty cases, machine-guns, helmets, leather waistcoats,

boots, etc.

This poor material, dirty, rusty, even blood-stained, is sorted out

at the salvage dump and sent down to the base by train. We saw one of

these trains arrive at Calais, and we were able to see some of the

ingenious devices invented for dealing with this curious hotch-potch.

All this takes place in an old sawmill, which has been enlarged to

five times its natural size since the beginning of the war. A thousand

skilled British workers and two thousand French women are now employed

in the workshops. Most of the women are, in normal times, lacemakers in

the town.

The men, skilled labourers in uniform, work by time, not by the piece.

They earn eighteenpence a day--i.e., 6d. more than the ordinary Tommy

in the trenches.

The women, of all ages, are used for light and not very exhausting

work, and they earn on the average 3 francs a day (the trades-union

price). What miracles take place! In the "snob-shop," the ammunition

boots, glorious souvenirs of the front, which come back in a shocking

state, are examined and repaired. Twenty thousand pairs a week. The

hopeless pairs are made into laces. One woman can make 150 per day.

At the saddlery, harness and leather, covered with mud and blood,

are cleaned as good as new. At the forge, wheels and couplings of

gun-carriages are repaired. Elsewhere the essential parts of the guns

are examined and all missing sections replaced.

In another place the dixies and camp-cookers, all dented and rusty, are

cleaned and re-soldered. Old petrol tins are made into trench braziers.

Steel helmets recover their form, picks and shovels their handles, and

all the iron that cannot be made use of is sent back to the foundry to

be melted down for ammunition.

Over the door of this war factory might be inscribed the motto of

Lavoisier, with a slight addition:--

"Here nothing new is made, but nothing old is wasted."

The science that is taught and practised is the science, hitherto too

little known, of economy.

That is the reason why many men of the world (and others) should, like

us, visit this base.

CHAPTER VII

"BROTHERS IN ARMS."

_The Times_, through the medium of its distinguished representative

with the British Army, Mr. Robinson, has recently published a very

laudatory and somewhat flattering article on the attitude of the

French soldier and the civil population of France towards the British

Expeditionary Force.

"It must not be forgotten," said the great journal of the

metropolis, "that we are foreigners in France. Thus the spectacle of

good-comradeship which we witness every day is altogether honourable to

our French hosts."

We must be allowed to say in our turn that never before has it been so

easy to practise the military virtue of comradeship, for my countrymen

are fully alive to the tact and perfect courtesy of the officers and

men of King George.

There is nothing to add to what has been known from the beginning

about the relations of the soldiers of both countries. Even before

the military prowess of Great Britain had been proved on the field of

battle, her collaboration in this war was desired by our soldiers and

civilians alike. We will always remember with emotion the fateful days

of 2nd and 4th August--when we asked ourselves, "Will England fight

with us?" Then, when that foolish Emperor of Germany talked of General

French's "contemptible little Army," we had in France the presentiment

that the British Army would be able to take its revenge.

Recent events have confirmed the early promise of fine achievements;

the battle of the Marne, the two battles of Ypres, Neuve Chapelle,

Loos, the Somme, and the Ancre have sealed the friendship of the two

armies.

Equally courageous and loyal, sharing the same ideas about the original

aims of the war, enduring the same hardships, patiently bearing common

misfortunes, and jubilant alike over common victory, the Tommy and the

"Poilu" have become "chums" that will be difficult to separate.

Two sorts of "_agents de liaison_" have helped in the good work--these

are the French interpreters and the Staff officers of the French

Mission to the British Army.

The former, a goodly number, well chosen, well-bred, and well

educated, have been, each in his own unit, sowers of the good seed of

Franco-British friendship.

The latter, a very small number (the result of careful sifting), having

a consummate experience of war, most of them possessing honourable

wounds, highly educated, some writers of reputation, known all over the

world--such as the author of "_Quand on se bat_"--deserve our utmost

thanks for their work with our Allies which they have carried out so

brilliantly.

The question of the relations of the British Army with the civil

population is delicate in appearance only. As a matter of fact, a

mutual goodwill from the very start has removed all suspicion of

awkwardness and strain.

The danger was obvious. In the records of history it is impossible to

find a case of a country tolerating without a murmur the presence of

a foreign army, even an allied army. This miracle has been rendered

possible by the goodwill of the French, fully understood and recognised

by our friends, and by the tact and common sense of the British.

Far from assuming an attitude of conquerors, which would most certainly

have estranged the sympathies of the patriotic inhabitants of

North-West France, the British have rigorously respected our manners

and customs.

Our administrative organisation has been maintained. We have still

our prefects and sub-prefects, our tribunals, justices of the peace,

savings banks, postal services and schools, living in absolute

independence in the midst of the British war machine.

Better still, our own military organisation still exists. In every

part of our country occupied by the British our Army has its

representatives, such as workers on the roads, Army Service Corps

units, and military police.

All this crowd, civilians and soldiers alike, "carry on" without the

smallest hitch or quarrel with our British guests. This occupation of

our territory, carried out with so much understanding and discipline,

could not possibly cause any discontent among our peasants.

Over and above the protection of a rich district, the British Army has

developed commercially a great number of ports and inland towns, has

created industries hitherto unknown, increased the railways, put to the

utmost use the resources of the country, and, in fact, has improved

local commerce in every respect.

Those who listen to the vile insinuations of the Germans and impute

to the British the desire of remaining in France after the war, little

understand the love of every British citizen for his native soil and

his respect for our own independence.

In order to divide our two friendly nations the Germans must find

another trick. Some money, great sympathy, and, alas! many dead, are

all that will be left of our friends in France after the war.[B]

[B] From the last despatch of Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig:

"I cannot close this Despatch without alluding to the happy relations

which continue to exist between the Allied Armies and between our

troops and the civil population in France and Belgium. The unfailing

co-operation of our Allies, their splendid fighting qualities, and the

kindness and goodwill universally displayed towards us have won the

gratitude, as well as the respect and admiration, of all ranks of the

British Armies."

[Illustration: 10. THE PRINCE OF WALES.]

PART IV.

IMPRESSIONS OF "NO MAN'S LAND."

CHAPTER I.

AS IN A PICTURE OF EPINAL.

Yesterday I met the Prince of Wales in the lines. The Prince of Wales!

What does that name not say to a Frenchman!

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. A small, soaking rain

was falling over the dismal plateau where once stood so many smiling

villages and fair woods, now ruined, whose names, immortalised by

British valour, must live forever in history.

It was close on nightfall. Through the sticky, heavy mud troops and

wagons crawled towards the firing line. The men, with naked chests

that defied the bitter cold, sweated furiously under the load of their

equipment. Horses with huge, hairy feet, mounted by Australians like so

many cowboys, struggled, foaming, to drag the huge lorries through the

deep ruts of the roadway.

Men from the pioneer battalions, directed by Engineers, worked with

pick and shovel to drain away the water, to rebuild the fallen

embankments, or to fill up boggy places. So while the guns roared,

methodically and in silence the Army prepared the soil for Victory.

Suddenly, into this microcosm of the war, came a body of horsemen,

climbing towards us up the slopes of the plateau. At their head rode

a lad whose features were so refined and so delicate that I could not

choose but remark him.

I have already met in the British battle lines several faces of this

kind. They are almost feminine. They are like miniatures.

My eyes--may I be forgiven--dwelt upon this boy with a complete lack

of respect. He looked between 18 and 20 years old at the most. He

had cocked his cap a trifle over his left eye, and his fair head was

cropped close as rabbit's fur.

"Did you recognise him?" someone asked me.

"Who?"

"The Prince of Wales."

The Prince of Wales had gone by.

It was only then that I noticed the British soldiers standing to

attention and saluting the Prince with "eyes right" as he went along

amongst them. The officers, too, saluted him with more ceremony than is

usual. And he, as he rode slowly past, very charmingly acknowledged the

salutes.

I have learned only this morning that a little farther on, at the

highest part of the plateau, the Prince left his horse and--this is a

thing that he is very fond of doing--joined a relieving party for a

piece of its journey. He returned in the evening to the simple quarters

which are his.

A Staff Captain at twenty-three, the Prince, heir to the Crown of the

British Empire, is a pattern of the best soldierly qualities. He can

only live happily among the soldiers, with whom he is prodigiously

popular.

It is said that he would have liked to do still more.

One day he asked permission of Lord Kitchener, who was then Secretary

of State for War, to perform the ordinary duties of an officer with

his regiment, the Grenadier Guards. He proposed to lead his men in an

advance.

But Kitchener refused absolutely, and we can imagine the valiant

argument which ensued between Prince and Sirdar--the one all youth and

pluck, the other concerned alone with the welfare of the Empire.

The Prince ultimately was obliged to yield to reasons of State. It was

a soldier's first victory--over himself.