out to reform the army. There prevailed a system of spying, by which
officers were privately watched and reported for disloyalty upon the
least suspicion. Joffre destroyed this system entirely and announced
that all officers would be appointed purely on the basis of merit. He
dismissed several generals, some of them his own personal friends,
because they were incompetent. They were generals who were either too
old, or who could not act quickly and efficiently in the field, even
though they were good thinkers. This caused him some unhappy hours, but
he did it for France. He promoted men who successfully performed their
duties. He made excellent preparation in the new departments created by
modern science and inventions,--telephones, automobiles, and
aëroplanes. Altogether he put system and order into everything, aroused
a soul in his army, and created a new spirit in France.
A year before the war came, Germany had 720,000 men ready to march into
France. Joffre, with remarkable skill, raised his army in numbers to
about 600,000. Even so they were greatly outnumbered, but Joffre knew
that all depended on their ability, for the first few weeks, to
withstand the expected onrush of German troops. So he organized them
carefully, and best of all, put into their hearts the belief that
"there is something which triumphs over all hesitations, which governs
and decides the impulses of a great and noble democracy like
France,--the will to live strong and free, and to remain mistress of
our destinies." This spirit in Joffre and in the other French leaders
made France powerful in those first fateful days. It was the same
spirit which Joffre later imparted to his men on the eve of the Battle
of the Marne, the spirit which made that battle result in victory for
France. As the men on that September evening gathered about their
officers and listened to the reading of Joffre's message, Joffre's
spirit itself took possession of every one of them.
"Advance," the order read, "and when you can no longer advance, hold
at all costs what you have gained. If you can no longer hold, die on
the spot."
Joffre was careful not to make any decisions until he had thought the
question over deeply, but once made, his decisions were immediately
carried out. When he ordered a retreat, he knew the reason, and his men
trusted him and followed his orders implicitly. The people of France,
too, came to love and trust this great general of theirs.
When the German army, fairly on its way to Paris, suddenly met the
greatest defeat Germany had known since the days of Napoleon, the
villagers near Auteuil, where Joffre had his home, came and covered the
steps of his house with flowers. This was the first tribute of the
people to the man who had saved the nation, and it showed their
confidence in the future of the country as long as it should rest in
the hands of Joseph Jacques Joffre.
Thus, from the unknown man who in 1911 had been exalted to a great and
responsible position, Joffre quickly became known and loved by all the
people of France as "Our Joffre." He was later retired from active
service with the highest military rank, Marshal of France.
THE HUN TARGET--THE RED CROSS
All the civilized nations of the world have agreed to respect the Red
Cross, believing that when men are carried from the battlefield wounded
or dying, it is inhuman to war upon them further. But the agreement to
this by Germany, like all other German agreements, became only "a scrap
of paper" when the Hun leaders thought they saw an advantage in tearing
it up.
Germany is also the only nation claiming to be civilized that kills its
prisoners when it thinks best. When the Kaiser told the German soldiers
going to China to take no prisoners, he meant that they should kill
them.
Frightfulness was not a sudden afterthought on the part of the Germans,
arising in the excitement of war. It was deliberately planned and
taught to the German officers and soldiers. The manual prepared for
their use in land warfare contains the rules which are to guide them.
Among the directions are these: Endeavor to destroy all the enemies'
intellectual and material resources. The methods which kill the
greatest number at once are permitted. Force the inhabitants to
furnish information against their own armies and their own people.
Prisoners may be killed in case of necessity. Any wrong, no matter how
great, that will help to victory is allowed.
How the Germans carried out the "Rules for Land Warfare" is well shown
by the proclamation posted by General von Bülow in the streets of Namur
on August 25, 1914. It read as follows:
Before four o'clock all Belgian and French soldiers must be
turned over to us as prisoners of war. Citizens who fail to do
this will be sentenced to hard labor for life in Germany. At
four o'clock all the houses in the city will be searched. Every
soldier found will be shot. Ten hostages will be taken for each
street and held by German guards. If there is any trouble in any
street, the hostages for that street will be shot. Any crime
against the German army may bring about the destruction of the
entire city and every one in it.
Frightfulness was taught not only to officers and soldiers but to all
the German people, and especially to the children in the schools. One
of the selections read and recited, even in the primary schools of
Germany before the war, was "The Hymn of Hate" by a German poet, which
in English prose is in substance as follows:
Hate! Germany! hate! Cut the throats of your hordes of enemies.
Put on your armor and with your bayonets pierce the heart of
every one of them. Take no prisoners. Strike them dead. Change
their fertile lands into deserts. Hate! Germany! hate! Victory
will come from your rage and hate. Break the skulls of your
enemies with blows from your axes and the butts of your guns.
They are timid, cowardly beasts. They are not men. Let your
mailed fist execute the judgment of God.
A German general told Edith Cavell, when she was pleading in behalf of
some homeless Belgian women and children, "Pity is a waste of
feeling--a moral parasite injurious to the health."
The whole idea of the German War Book is given in the statement made by
a great German:
"True strategy means to hit your enemy and to hit him hard, to inflict
on the inhabitants of invaded towns the greatest possible amount of
suffering, so that they shall become tired of the struggle and cry for
peace. You must leave the people of the country through which you march
only their eyes to weep with."
And these rules and teachings came at a time when nations were seeking
to do away with war forever and were agreeing upon rules that, if war
should come, would make it less horrible and that would in particular
spare non-combatants.
A German soldier wrote to the American minister, Mr. Gerard, early in
the war while Mr. Gerard was still in Berlin:
To the American Government, Washington, U.S.A.:
Englishmen who have surrendered are shot down in small groups.
With the French one is more considerate. I ask whether men let
themselves be taken prisoner in order to be disarmed and shot
down afterwards? Is that chivalry in battle?
It is no longer a secret among the people; one hears everywhere
that few prisoners are taken; they are shot down in small
groups. They say naïvely: "We don't want any unnecessary mouths
to feed. Where there is no one to enter complaint, there is no
judge." Is there, then, no power in the world which can put an
end to these murders and rescue the victims? Where is
Christianity? Where is right? Might is right.
A Soldier and a Man Who Is No Barbarian.
On October 25, 1914, a small party of German soldiers succeeded in
entering Dixmude and capturing the commander of the French marines
defending the town, and some of his men. It was a dark night and
raining hard, and although the Germans had been able to get through the
lines into the city and to capture Commander Jeanniot and a few of his
men, they were unable to find a way back through the lines and out of
the city. They wandered about in the rain and mud for nearly four
hours, driving the captured French marines before them with the butts
of their rifles. Day was dawning and there was no chance for them to
escape in a body in the daytime. So the officers halted them behind a
hedge and directed them to scatter.
Then the question arose as to what they should do with their prisoners.
The majority voted that they should be put to death, and at a sign from
their leader, the Boches knelt and opened fire upon the prisoners, who
knew nothing of what was being planned. They were all killed, including
the commander, except one, who was hit only in the shoulder. Before the
Germans could put him to death, a party of French marines discovered
them. The whole band was taken prisoner and brought before the Admiral,
who sentenced three of the leaders to be executed. To have killed them
all when they were taken would have seemed only too good for them, but
the French are not a barbarian but a law-abiding people.
Germany believes she can win in war by making it so "frightful" that
none but Germans can be strong enough to endure it. So among other
atrocities, Germany has used the red cross on hospitals and hospital
ships as a mark to guide them in dropping bombs and in aiming
torpedoes. The Roumanian Minister of the Interior stated to the United
States government the following:
Because of the action of Germany and her allies, it has been
found advisable to remove the Red Cross conspicuously painted on
the top of the hospital buildings, because it served as a
special mark for the bombs, etc., from aeroplanes.
Germany also believes, without doubt, that killing wounded who may
otherwise recover and go back into service will reduce the man power of
her enemies, who, she thinks, are too Christianlike, too merciful, too
faithful to their agreements to do likewise. Bombing hospitals and
killing nurses and doctors will also make it likely that more wounded
will die through lack of care and treatment. She knows that every
hospital ship sunk means another must be taken to replace it from those
carrying food or troops.
There is no mistake about her intentions, although she did at first
offer lying excuses. She has dropped "flares," great burning torches,
at night to be sure that the red cross was there and then dropped her
bombs upon the hospital. She has killed many non-combatants in this
way.
Germany has torpedoed, during the first four years of the war, hospital
ships with the big red crosses painted on their sides and all lights
burning at night (to show they were hospital ships), amounting to a
total tonnage of over 200,000 tons. The torpedo that sank the _Rewa_
without warning hit the German target, the red cross, exactly. Germany
torpedoed the hospital ship _Britannic_, 50,000 tons, the largest
British ship afloat, partly, without doubt, so that she could not
compete with German ships after the war.
The first hospital ship destroyed by the Huns was the _Portugal_, sunk
by a German submarine while she was lying at anchor in the Black Sea.
One of the survivors described the sinking as follows:
The _Portugal_ was sinking at the place where she was broken in
two, her stern and stem going up higher all the time as she
settled amidships. All around me unfortunate Sisters of Mercy
were screaming for help. The deck became more down-sloping every
minute and I rolled off into the water between the two halves of
the sinking steamer. It so happened that the disturbance of the
water somewhat abated and I succeeded in swimming up again. I
glanced around. The _Portugal_ was no more. Nothing but broken
pieces of wreck, boxes which had contained medicaments,
materials for dressings, and provisions, were floating about.
Everywhere I could see the heads and arms of people battling
with the waves, and their shrieks for help were frightful. The
hospital ship _Portugal_ was painted white, with a red border
all around. The funnels were white with red crosses and a Red
Cross flag was on the mast. These distinguishing signs were
plainly visible and there can be no doubt whatever that they
could be perfectly well seen by the men in the submarine. The
conduct of the submarine proves that the men in it knew that
they had to do with a hospital ship. The fact of the submarine's
having moved so slowly shows the enemy was conscious of being
quite out of danger.
Eighty-five lives were lost, including twenty-one nuns who were serving
as nurses.
Notwithstanding the fact that, according to the Germans, God is on
their side, some power for good saved most of those on the hospital
ship _Asturias_. She did not sink when struck by the torpedo, but she
was rendered helpless by the loss of her rudder. There was no sandy
beach in sight, so the captain tried to guide her near the rocky shore
where, if she sank, perhaps some might reach land, but he found he
could not guide the ship. It was dark night, but guided by some unseen
power she dodged a reef upon which she would have gone to pieces,
rounded a headland, and beached herself upon the only piece of sandy
shore in that vicinity.
The English hospital ship _Lanfranc_ was carrying many wounded Germans
to England when she was torpedoed. An English officer gave the
following vivid description to a London daily paper:
The _Lanfranc_ was attacked by a submarine about 7:30 Tuesday
evening just as we had finished dinner. A few of us were
strolling to and fro on the deck when there was a crash which
shook the liner violently. This was followed by an explosion,
and glass and splinters of wood flew in all directions. I had a
narrow escape from being pitched overboard and only regained my
feet with difficulty. In a few minutes the engine had stopped
and the _Lanfranc_ appeared to be sinking rapidly, but to our
surprise she steadied herself and after a while remained
perfectly motionless. We had on board nearly 200 wounded
prisoners belonging to the Prussian Guard, and about twice as
many British wounded, many being very bad cases. The moment the
torpedo struck the _Lanfranc_, many of the slightly wounded
Prussians made a mad rush for the lifeboats. One of their
officers came up to a boat close to which I was standing. I
shouted to him to go back, whereupon he stood and scowled. "You
must save us," he begged. I told him to wait his turn.
Meanwhile the crew and the staff had gone to their posts. The
stretcher cases were brought on deck as quickly as possible and
the first boats were lowered without delay. Help had been
summoned, and many vessels were hurrying to our assistance. In
these moments, while wounded Tommies--many of them as helpless
as little children--lay in their cots unaided, the Prussian
morale dropped to zero. They made another crazy effort to get
into a lifeboat. They managed to crowd into one, but no sooner
had it been lowered than it toppled over. The Prussians were
thrown into the water, and they fought each other in order to
reach another boat containing a number of gravely wounded
soldiers.
The behavior of our own lads I shall never forget. Crippled as
many of them were, they tried to stand at attention while the
more serious cases were being looked after. And those who could
lend a hand hurried below to help in saving friend or enemy. I
have never seen so many individual illustrations of genuine
chivalry and comradeship. One man I saw had had a leg severed
and his head was heavily bandaged. He was lifting himself up a
staircase by the hands and was just as keen on summoning help
for Fritz as on saving himself. He whistled to a mate to come
and aid a Prussian who was unable to move owing to internal
injuries. Another Tommy limped painfully along with a Prussian
officer on his arm, and helped the latter to a boat. It is
impossible to give adequate praise to the crew and staff. They
were all heroes. They remained at their posts until the last man
had been taken off, and some of them took off articles of their
clothing and threw them into the lifeboats for the benefit of
those who were in need of warm clothing. The same spirit
manifested itself as we moved away from the scene of outrage. I
saw a sergeant take his tunic off and make a pillow of it for a
wounded German. There was a private who had his arms around an
enemy, trying hard to make the best of an uncomfortable resting
place.
In the midst of all this tragedy the element of comedy was not
wanting. A cockney lad struck up a ditty, and the boat's company
joined in the chorus of Raymond Hitchcock's "All Dressed Up and
Nowheres to Go." Then we had "Take Me Back to Blighty," and as
a French vessel came along to our rescue, the boys sang "Pack Up
Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile." The
French displayed unforgettable hospitality. As soon as they took
our wounded on board, they improvised beds and stripped
themselves almost bare that English and German alike might be
comfortable.
The destruction of the _Llandovery Castle_ was as bad or worse than
those already described. For a time the Huns ceased to sink hospital
ships running from France to England, but when they learned, through
spies, that the _Warilda_ carried no Germans, she was sunk early in
August, 1918, with a loss of one hundred and twenty-three doctors,
nurses, and wounded. After the _Llandovery Castle_, after the Warilda,
there could be no further German pretense that Germany was waging any
other than a barbarian war.
Such inhumanity seems like the work of madmen. Is the Kaiser insane?
Are the German war leaders insane? Or are the German people, all,
entirely different from the people we consider sane?
Let us remember that a Roman writer said many centuries ago, "Whom the
gods would destroy, they first make mad."
When the Huns are losing, they show themselves at their very worst.
When they were winning in the first stages of the war, they committed
deeds blacker than those of the barbarians who sacked Rome, but after
the tide turned against them, then they became even worse and began to
use the red cross as a target in bombing hospitals and torpedoing
hospital ships.
Moreover, at the Second Battle of the Marne, orders were issued to the
German soldiers, who were being driven back with great loss, that
seemed too inhuman even for the modern Huns. They were as follows:
"Henceforth the enemy is not to be allowed to recover his dead and
wounded except behind his own position, even under the Red Cross flag.
If stretcher bearers go out, a warning shot is to be fired. If no
attention is paid to the shot, the enemy must be thoroughly engaged at
once."
As the _Philadelphia Public Ledger_ says, "This is typical of Prussian
militarism. It is precisely the sort of thing that our young men have
sailed away across the Atlantic to uproot and finally destroy."
* * * * *
We do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
SHAKESPEARE.
"THEY SHALL NOT PASS"
The caves described in the Arabian Nights are not more wonderful than
the rock citadel of Verdun; in many ways they are not so marvelous. The
old citadel is now like a deserted cave, but a cave lighted by
electricity and with a passenger elevator to carry one from the lowest
floor to the top of the rock, a hundred feet above. In former wars it
was a hive of soldiers.
Blasted out of the solid rock-hill are rooms, great halls, passages,
hospitals, storerooms, and barracks. The heaviest shells of the enemy
fall harmless from the natural rock. Here, one would think, a few
soldiers could hold the town and the Meuse valley against greatly
superior numbers. And this would be true if it were not for the fact
that modern long-range guns can be placed by an enemy on the
surrounding hills, once they have won them, and prevent food,
ammunition, or supplies being brought to the citadel. Leaving these
guns with enough men to work them, the great body of the enemy could
then advance towards Paris, for the Meuse valley at Verdun is the
highway from Metz to Paris.
The French generals realized long ago that the city and the valley
could not, because of the increased power of big guns, be defended from
the citadel. So they built great forts several miles from the city upon
the hills which surrounded it, to halt the Germans when they should
advance, as France knew they would when they were ready.
For an army to get from Germany into France and to the plains east of
Paris, it was necessary to pass down the valley of the Meuse and
through Verdun, and for this reason France spent vast sums of money to
make these forts impregnable.
After the opening weeks of the World War had shown how easy it was for
the German big guns to destroy the finest modern forts, like those at
Liége, Namur, and Antwerp, the French command removed the garrisons
from the forts protecting Verdun and placed them in trenches farther
away from the city and the citadel, upon the second range of hills.
There was another way for the Germans to reach the plains of Champagne
and of Châlons, which by treaty they had agreed not to use. That way
was through Belgium. When the Huns declared this treaty only "a scrap
of paper" to be torn up whenever their plans required it, and, to the
surprise of all honorable nations, went through Belgium, they were soon
able to reach the plains east and north of Paris, and Verdun ceased to
be a key position. Verdun was about one hundred and fifty miles from
Paris, and the Germans were already less than half that distance from
the city. So when it was learned that the enemy had determined to
capture Verdun, the forts surrounding it, and the highway through the
river valley, the French command decided it was not worth holding at
the cost in lives that would be necessary. To capture it would help the
Germans very little, and to retire from it would greatly improve the
French lines.
The Germans doubtless realized that this would be the decision of the
French and that they would have an easy, an almost bloodless, victory.
They also knew that all Germans and all Frenchmen had for centuries
looked upon Verdun as a second Gibraltar and as one of the chief
defenses of Paris and northern France, one which had been made--as the
French thought--impregnable by the expenditure of vast sums of money.
For this reason the Germans believed its loss would be taken as a
terrible blow by the French people, and would be considered by the
German populace as the greatest victory of the war. They hoped it might
be the last straw, or one of the last, that would break the backbone of
the French resistance. In order to give credit for this great victory
to their future Kaiser, the armies of the Crown Prince were selected
for the easy task.
The French command, it is said, had already issued the first orders
for the retreat to stronger positions, when the French civic leaders
realized Germany's game by which she hoped to win a great moral victory
and to add to the hopes and courage of the German people; and although
General Joffre believed it was a mistake, the French decided to remain
just where they were.
The Germans were so sure of everything going as they had planned that
they had advertised their coming victory in every corner of Germany and
even in the Allied countries. When they found they were to be opposed,
they brought up larger forces and when these were not strong enough to
win, they increased them, until the Battle of Verdun, in which the
Germans lost nearly half a million men in killed, wounded, and
prisoners, became probably the greatest battle in the history of the
world. It continued for six months.
Is it not strange that this, the greatest of all battles, was not a
conflict waged to secure some territory, some river crossing, some
fort, or some city absolutely necessary to win further progress, but a
battle to add strength to the German mind and soul and to weaken the
spirit of the French? Think of these modern Huns, who believe in the
force of might and of material things, fighting for a victory over the
spirit, which is never really broken by such things and is never
_conquered_ by them, but is to be won only by justice, mercy,
friendship, love, and other spiritual forces.
And the French spirit did not flinch or weaken. The French people and
the French soldiers said, "They shall not pass," and they did not pass.
The Germans brought their big guns near enough to destroy the city, but
the citadel laughed at them. They captured Fort Douaumont and Fort
Vaux, but later had to give them up to the French.
All of Hunland rejoiced when the Brandenburgers captured Fort
Douaumont, and the disappointment of the French people made every one
realize that to have given up the city and the citadel without a fight,
even though it was wise from a military point of view, would have been
a grave mistake. But before the long battle was over, the French
soldiers made one of their most remarkable charges back of waves of
shell fire and swept the Germans from the hill upon which the fort was
built. They recaptured the fort, taking six thousand prisoners, and
sent thrills and cheers through France and the civilized world.