the ship. Charles Frohman, a leading producer of plays, was another
prominent American lost. He has been cited as the finest example of
faith and calm strength, for, realizing that there was little hope for
him, he smilingly remarked, "Why fear death? It is the most beautiful
adventure that life gives us."
In less than twenty minutes after the torpedo struck, nothing except
floating pieces of wreckage strewn on the disturbed surface of the
water marked the place of the great calamity.
The wireless operator had sent the S.O.S. signal of distress several
times, and also had time to send the message, "Come at once, big list,
10 miles south of 'Old Head of Kinsale.'" He had received answers
before his apparatus was put out of use, and soon trawlers and pilot
boats came to the rescue and brought to shore those who had survived.
The cold ocean water, however, had made many so numb that they were
unable to help themselves enough to be lifted into the lifeboats, even
when the life preservers had kept them afloat. Of the 159 Americans on
board, 124 perished. In all, only 761 people were saved; 1198 perished.
That day the terrible news came over the cable to America,--the great
passenger steamer _Lusitania_ had been torpedoed by a German submarine;
probably a thousand lives had been lost, among them many Americans!
At the White House, the President realized the awful import of such a
message.
In a day or so, nearly two thousand telegrams poured in from all parts
of the country; and it is said that the President read them all, for he
wanted to know how the individual American felt.
The Germans offered all sorts of excuses for their cruel deed. A German
paper printed the following:
Must we not, we who may be defeated by starvation and by lack of
war materials, must we not defend ourselves from this great
danger (with which the enemy's blockade threatens us), with all
our might and with all the means that the German spirit can
invent, and which the honor of the German people recognizes as
lawful weapons? Have those, who now raise such outcries, any
right to accuse us, those who allowed their friends and
relatives to trust themselves on a ship whose destruction was
announced with perfect clearness in advance? When our enemy's
blockade method forces us to measures in self-defense, _the
death of non-combatants is a matter of no consequence_.
A blockade of an enemy's ports is, and always has been, a perfectly
fair kind of warfare. In our Civil War, the southern ports were, from
the beginning, blockaded by the northern warships. Germany was in no
danger of starving, as the events since have proved. Her excuses were,
as they have been in every case where she has played the part of the
brute, worse than no excuses and always based on falsehoods.
"The steamer carried ammunition for England," they said. But it was
bought and carried in accordance with international law. Germany had
the same right to buy and carry from a neutral country. "It was a
British ship," they said. But it was a passenger ship and carried
nearly two thousand people, many of them Americans, who, according to
all international agreements, were guaranteed safe passage even in time
of war.
All nations recognize the obligation of an enemy to visit and search
the vessel they think should be sunk, to make sure it carries
contraband of war, and if so, to give the people an opportunity to get
safely into the lifeboats. Not only did the Germans not do this, but
they did not even signal the ship that it was about to be sunk. The
newspaper warning put out by Bernstorff was no excuse for committing an
unlawful, inhuman act.
From all points of view, the Germans, in sinking the _Lusitania_,
committed a horrible crime, not only against international law, but
against humanity and civilization. In all war, armed forces meet armed
forces; never do armed forces strangle and butcher the innocent and
unprotected. There is such a thing as _legitimate_ warfare, except
among barbarians.
Here again was shown the German attitude in the "scrap of paper."
Evidently trusting to the great distance of the United States and her
well-known unpreparedness, Germany thought that a friendly relation
with this country was a matter of entire indifference to her; or, if
she hoped to draw America into the war, she little dreamed to what end
those hopes would come!
Around the world one verdict was pronounced against Germany. This
verdict was well worded in a Russian paper, the _Courier_:
The right to punish these criminals who violate the laws of
humanity belongs first and foremost to the great American
Republic. America knows well how to use this right. The sympathy
of the civilized world is guaranteed her beforehand. The world
is being suffocated by poisonous gases of inhuman cruelty spread
abroad by Germany, who, in the madness of her rage, is
committing needless, purposeless, and senseless murder, solely
from lust of blood and horrors!
The American government, upon the occurrence of the calamity, showed
great forbearance, believing that "a man of proved temper and tried
courage is not always bound to return a madman's blow." A strong
protest was sent to the Imperial German Government, which caused
Germany to abandon for a time her submarine attacks upon neutral
vessels. It was the renewal of these attacks that finally led to the
declaration of war by the United States of America upon Germany and her
allies, and it was the _Lusitania_ outrage more than any other one
event that roused the fighting spirit of America.
THE CHARGE OF THE BLACK WATCH AND THE SCOTS GREYS
Sometimes a retreat is in reality a great victory. It has been said
that it requires a greater general to direct successfully a great
retreat than it does to direct a great attack.
Some marvelous retreats have occurred in the World War, the greatest
coming at its very beginning, when the English and French fell back to
save Paris and to defeat the Germans at the Marne. This retreat was
really a series of battles, day after day, with terrible losses on both
sides.
An English private in the Black Watch, named Walter Morton, only
nineteen years of age, described for the _Scotsmen_ one of these
battles in which his regiment and the Scots Greys made a magnificent
charge. His story was as follows:
We went straight from Boulogne to Mons, being one of the first
British regiments to reach that place. Neither army seemed to
have a very good position there, but the numbers of the Germans
were far too great to give us any chance of success. We were
hard at it all day on Monday; and on Tuesday, as the French
reinforcements which we had been expecting did not arrive, the
order was given to retire.
In our retreat we marched close upon eighty miles. We passed
through Cambrai, and a halt was called at St. Quentin. The
Germans, in their mad rush to get to Paris, had seldom been far
behind us, and when we came to St. Quentin the word went through
the ranks that we were going into action. The men were quite
jubilant at the prospect. They had not been at all pleased at
their continued retirement before the enemy, and they at once
started to get things ready. The engagement opened briskly, both
our artillery and the Germans going at it for all they were
worth. We were in good skirmishing order, and under the cover of
our guns we were all the time getting nearer and nearer the
enemy. When we had come to within 100 yards of the German lines,
the commands were issued for a charge, and the Black Watch made
the charge along with the Scots Greys. Not far from us the 9th
Lancers and the Cameronians joined in the attack.
It was the finest thing I ever saw. The Scots Greys galloped
forward with us hanging on to their stirrups, and it was a sight
never to be forgotten. We were simply being dragged by the
horses as they flew forward through a perfect cloud of bullets
from the enemy's maxims. All other sounds were drowned by the
thunder of the horses' hoofs as they careered wildly on, some of
them nearly driven mad by the bullets which struck them. It was
no time for much thinking. Saddles were being emptied quickly,
as we closed on the German lines and tore past their maxims,
which were in the front ranks.
We were on the German gunners before they knew where they were,
and many of them went down, scarcely realizing that we were
amongst them. Then the fray commenced in deadly earnest. The
Black Watch and the Scots Greys went into it like men
possessed. They fought like demons. It was our bayonets against
the Germans' swords. You could see nothing but the glint of
steel, and soon even that was wanting as our boys got well into
the midst of the enemy. The swords of the Germans were no use
against our bayonets. They went down in hundreds.
Then the enemy began to waver, and soon broke and fled before
the bayonets, like rabbits before the shot of a gun.
There were about 1900 of us in that charge against 20,000
Germans, and the charge itself lasted about four hours. We took
close upon 4000 prisoners, and captured a lot of their guns. In
the course of the fighting I got a cut from a German sword--they
are very much like saws--and fell into a pool of water, where I
lay unconscious for twenty-three hours. I was picked up by one
of the 9th Lancers.
THE BATTLES OF THE MARNE
At Marathon (490 B.C.) and at Salamis (480 B.C.) the Greeks defeated
the Persians and saved Europe for western civilization. Had the
Persians won, the history of Europe and of the world would be the story
of the civilization of the East instead of that of the West.
At Tours (732 A.D.) Charles Martel defeated the forces of the
Mohammedans, who had already conquered Spain, and saved Europe for
Christianity.
At the Marne (1914 and 1918) the French, the English, and (in the
second battle) the Americans, defeated the modern Huns and saved Europe
for democracy and from the rule of merciless brute force. The First
Battle of the Marne has been called the sixteenth decisive battle of
the world.
Before the First Battle of the Marne, September 5 to 10, 1914, the
German military machine had been winning, as never an army had won
before in the entire recorded history of the world. Its path had been
one of treachery, of atrocities, of savagery, but one of tremendous and
unparalleled victory. The Germans at home called it "the great times."
Brave little Belgium had been able to hold back the German hordes but
for a short time at Liége and Namur, but, as future events proved, long
enough to make possible the decisive battles at the Marne. The Germans
had taken Brussels and Antwerp, had destroyed Louvain, had filled
themselves with outrage and murder, had drunk of blood and wine and
success until they were thoroughly intoxicated with the belief so
common to drunken brutes that no men in the world can stand against
them. The little Belgian army, "the contemptible little English army"
(as the Kaiser called it), and the magnificent French army had been
retreating day by day almost as fast as the Germans could advance. Soon
Paris and then all of France would be in German hands--and what a
glorious time they would have in the gayest and most beautiful capital
of the world. Although bodies of German cavalry raided the coast, the
German leaders, elated and intoxicated with thoughts of rich plunder
and dissipation, did not turn aside in force to follow the Belgian army
and to take the Channel ports of Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne, but
pushed on toward Paris. The French government, expecting a siege of the
city, moved to Bordeaux.
The main forces of the Germans had turned south from the coast towards
Paris with General von Kluck's army of about 200,000 men at the right
or west of the German line of advance. General von Kluck was
attempting to outflank the English army, that is, to throw part of his
forces around the extreme western end of the English army, which had to
keep retiring rapidly to avoid being encircled. The French army was
obliged to fall back to keep in touch with the British.
The English retired nearly one hundred miles without losing their
cheerfulness or their confidence. It was this turning movement on the
left that forced all the allies to retire. An English writer who was
with the army said that though the Germans constantly attacked with
reckless courage, yet the British and French retired slowly with their
faces to the foe, and showing the greatest heroism. The numbers of the
Germans were greater than those of the Allies, and the Germans gave
them no rest. Night and day they hammered away, coming on like great
waves. The gaps the English made were filled instantly. The German guns
played upon the Allies constantly. Their cavalry swept down upon them
recklessly. If the English had great losses, the Germans had greater.
The English fought with cool bravery. They never wavered an instant.
But the pressure upon them could not be resisted. Column after column,
squadron after squadron, mass after mass, the enemy came on like a
battering ram, crushing everything in its way. They swarmed on all
sides, even though shattered by shot and shell. Nothing but the
steadfast courage, the sheer pluck, the spirit, the soul of the
English soldiers saved the army from complete destruction.
"The enemy hung on to us like grim death," said a wounded soldier.
"They wanted us to retreat in a direction that would best suit their
plans. But we were not taking marching orders from them. We went our
own way at our own pace. We were retiring, not retreating."
Then on the fifth of September came General Joffre's appeal to the
defenders of civilization, and particularly to the French soldiers:
"The hour has come to hold our positions at any cost and to fight
rather than to retreat.... No longer must we look at the enemy over our
shoulders, for the time has come to put forth all our efforts in
attacking and defeating him."
A French writer has said of the retreat, which by order of General
Joffre had now come to an end, "Their bodies retreated, but never their
souls;" and he might have added of the German advance, "It was an
advance of bodies, not of souls." It was material might in men and guns
forcing back an army weaker in everything except soul and spirit. The
World War has shown over and over again, not only at the Marne but at a
hundred other places and in a hundred other ways, that soul and spirit
are the real conquerors and that God is not always, as Napoleon said,
on the side of the larger battalions.
The Germans had come on flushed with success and egotism, destroying
French property, looting, and dissipating. Their spirit was the spirit
they found in the French wine cellars, and as for soul, as civilized
people understand the word, they had none. They were an army of tired,
conquering brutes. Their morale was low because of their great success
and all that had accompanied it of feasts and slaughter. The morale of
the French was never higher. Every day and every hour they had been
compelled to retreat, giving up, giving up all that they loved even
better than life itself to these brutes, until the brain of the French
army said on the evening of September 5, 1914, "You have gone so far in
order that you may now stand successfully." And in the morning at dawn,
it was not only the bodies of the French soldiers that hurled
themselves against the invaders, but the souls of French men, the soul
of France; and all along the line from Verdun to Meaux, under the
gallant leadership of Manoury, Foch, Sarrail, Castelnau, and others,
the French armies held. If they had not held--not only held but
attacked--all of future history would be different.
General Foch, commander in chief at the Second Battle of the Marne,
inspired his troops in this first battle to supernatural bravery. He
knew they must not yield, so with his right broken, his left shattered,
he attacked with his center. It was that or retreat. His message to
the commander-in-chief, General Joffre, will never be forgotten.
"My left has been forced back, my right is routed. I shall attack with
the center."
The Germans could not put their souls into the battles as the French
soldiers did, and besides, the Germans were weakened by feasting and
dissipation. With the Huns it was the right of might; with the Allies
it was the might of right, and in the end the second always defeats the
first.
Some one has well said:
"It is the law of good to protect and to build up. It is the law of
evil to destroy. It is in the very nature of good to lead men aright.
It is in the very nature of evil to lead men astray. Goodness makes for
wisdom. Badness is continually exercising poor judgment.
"Germany and Austria have made colossal mistakes in this war because of
their colossal violation of truth and justice. In brutally wronging
Serbia, they lost the friendship and support of Italy. In perpetrating
the monstrous crime against Belgium, they brought against them the
whole might of the British Empire. In breaking international law with
their reckless submarine warfare, they caused the United States to
enter the war on the side of the Allies."
It is said that the army of the German Crown Prince retreated before
the impetuous attack of the French and, because of this retreat, all
the other German armies were obliged to do likewise. It is more
probable, however, that the general retreat was due to General Joffre's
strategy. The Germans under General von Kluck were within about twenty
miles of Paris, near Meaux on the Marne, when suddenly they were struck
in the flank and rear by about twenty thousand fresh troops brought out
unexpectedly from Paris in motor trucks, taxis, limousines, and all
kinds of pleasure cars. Now the Germans, who had caused the retreat of
the French and British armies upon Paris by continually outflanking the
British, were in their turn outflanked and compelled to retreat, and
Paris was saved.
An English writer has said that although the Germans were outflanked
only in the west, yet the blow passed from one end of the German line
to the other, from Meaux to Verdun, just as the blow from the buffer of
the engine, when it is coupled to the train, passes from one truck to
another to the very end of the train.
The Germans in the next few days retreated from the Marne to the Aisne,
where they entrenched. Paris and France and Europe and the only world
worth living in were saved. The French government moved back to Paris.
Hall Caine in "Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days" says: "The soul of
France did not fail her. It heard the second approach of that monstrous
Prussian horde, which, like a broad, irresistible tide, sweeping across
one half of Europe, came down, down, down from Mons until the thunder
of its guns could again be heard on the boulevards. And then came the
great miracle! Just as the sea itself can rise no higher when it has
reached the top of the flood, so the mighty army of Germany had to stop
its advance thirty kilometres north of Paris; and when it stirred
again, it had to go back. And back and back it went before the armies
of France, Britain, and Belgium, until it reached a point at which it
could dig itself into the earth and hide in a long, serpentine trench
stretching from the Alps to the sea.
"Only then did the spirit of France draw breath for a moment, and the
next flash as of lightning showed her offering thanks and making
supplications before the white statue of Jeanne d'Arc in the apse of
the great cathedral of Notre Dame, sacred to innumerable memories. On
the Feast of St. Michael, ten thousand of the women of Paris were
kneeling under the dark vault, and on the broad space in the front of
the majestic façade, praying for victory. It was a great and grandiose
scene, recalling the days when faith was strong and purer. Old and
young, rich and poor, every woman with some soul that was dear to her
in that inferno at the front--the Motherhood of France was there to
ask God for the triumph of the right.
"And in the spirit of that prayer the soul of France still lives."
Nearly four years later the Germans, with greatly increased forces in
France, due to the collapse of Russia, were again upon the Marne and
only about forty miles from Paris. French and English and Americans
were opposing them upon a line shaped like a great letter U, extending
south with Rheims at the top on the east, and Soissons at the top on
the west. The Marne River was at the curve at the bottom, and there
most of the Americans were stationed.
On July 15, 1918, the Germans began the offensive which was to result,
as they hoped, in the capture of Paris. They attacked on the Marne and
between the Marne and Rheims. At the end of the fourth day, they had
advanced about six miles, crossing the Marne and pushing back the
American troops. The Americans fought bravely and soon regained the
ground they had lost, although the French generals suggested that they
should not attempt to retake it. The American commander, however, sent
word to the French general, who was his superior officer, saying that
he did not feel able to follow the suggestion, for the American flag
had been compelled to retire. None of his soldiers, he said, would
understand this being allowed as long as they were able to attack. "We
are going to counter-attack," he added. They did so, and regained all
the ground lost.
It is clear now that the French generals knew the counter-attack was
unnecessary, and knew why. West of the line from Soissons to the Marne
is a great forest, and back of this General Foch, commander in chief of
all the allied armies, had been for several days gathering guns,
ammunition, tanks, and troops ready to strike the flank of the Germans,
when they should attack between Rheims and the Marne and attempt to
cross the Marne, as he knew they would in their desire to take Paris. A
terrible tempest passed over the region just before the Allied attack,
preventing the Germans from observing the advancing tanks and troops.
An English writer has said, "The storm which had covered the noise of
the final preparation of a number of tanks which led the assault, was
over. Not a sound was heard in the forest, though it was teeming with
men and horses. Then suddenly the appointed moment came when day broke.
There was a roar from all the guns, the whole front broke into activity
as men and tanks dashed forward. I suppose there has been nothing more
dramatic in the whole war than this scene on which the general looked
down from the top of a high perch in the forest on that quiet July
morning!"
The Allies struck so unexpectedly that they captured hundreds of guns
and thousands of prisoners, and obliged the Germans to fall back
across the Marne, losing all the territory they had gained and much
more. The danger to Paris was again turned aside by the military genius
of General Foch and the bravery of the troops under his command.
It was the first great battle in which the Americans took part. They
showed themselves equal to the best of the Allies, and better than the
Germans. A London paper called the American counter-attack one of the
historical incidents of the whole war. All Europe, except Hunland, rang
with praises of the American troops.
* * * * *
In the history of the World War, most of the great land battles will be
named from rivers, the Marne, the Yser, the Somme, the Aisne, the
Ailette, the Ancre, the Bug, the Dneister, the Dunajec and the Piave. A
battle of the Rhine will probably be fought before German territory can
be invaded to any great extent.
THE QUEEN'S FLOWER
On July 25, 1918, nearly every person in Washington, the capital of the
United States, was asked to buy a bunch of forget-me-nots; and nearly
every one responded, so that almost $7000 worth was sold in about an
hour. In many other cities sales were held, and for many years to come
such sales will be held all over the civilized world, for the
forget-me-not is the Queen's flower, chosen by Elizabeth, Queen of
Belgium, to be sold on her birthday, July 25, to raise money for the
children of Belgium. She is a lover of flowers as are all the people of
her country. Many parts of Belgium were before the war, like Holland,
devoted to raising flowers for bulbs and seeds. It is said that the
garden at the Belgian Royal Palace was the most beautiful garden in the
world.