detail from aerial observation. New hangars had risen at the edge of
level fields, whence the swift fighting machines of an aircraft
concentration in keeping with the concentration of guns and all other
material rose to reconnaissance, or to lie in wait as a falcon to pounce
upon an invading German plane. Thus the sky was policed by flight
against prying aerial eyes. If one German plane could descend to an
altitude of a thousand feet, its photographs would reveal the location
of a hundred batteries to German gunners and show the plan of
concentration clearly enough to leave no doubt of the line of attack;
but the anti-aircraft guns, plentiful now as other British material,
would have caught it going, if not coming, provided it escaped being
jockeyed to death by half a dozen British planes with their machine guns
rattling.
To "camouflet" became a new English verb British planes tested out a
battery's visibility from the air. Landscape painters were called in to
assist in the deceit. One was set to "camouflet" the automobile van for
the pigeons which, carried in baskets on the men's backs in charges,
were released as another means of sending word of the progress of an
attack obscured in the shell-smoke. This conscientious artist
"camoufleted" the pigeon-van so successfully that the pigeons could not
find their way home.
Night was the hour of movement. At night the planes, if they went forth,
saw only a vague and shadowy earth. The sausage balloons, German and
Allied, those monitors of the sky, a line of opaque, weird question
marks against the blue, stared across at each other out of range of the
enemy's guns, "spotting" the fall of shells for their own side from
their suspended basket observation posts from early morning until they
were drawn in by their gasoline engines with the coming of dusk. Clumsy
and helpless they seemed; but in common with the rest of the army they
had learned to reach their dugouts swiftly at the first sign of shell
fire, and descended then with a ridiculous alacrity which suggested the
possession of the animal intelligence of self-preservation. Occasionally
one broke loose and, buffeted like an umbrella down the street by the
wind, started for the Rhine. And the day before the great attack the
British aviation corps sprang a surprise on the German sausages, six of
which disappeared in balls of flame.
A one-armed man of middle age from India, who offered to do his "bit,"
refused a post at home in keeping with his physical limitations. His
eyes were all right, he said, when he nominated himself as a balloon
observer, and he never suffered from sea-sickness which sausage balloons
most wickedly induce. Many a man who has ascended in one not only could
see nothing, but wanted to see nothing, and turning spinach lopping over
the basket rail prayed only that the engine would begin drawing in
immediately.
One day the one-armed pilot was up with a "joy-rider"; that is, an
officer who was not a regular aerial observer but was sight-seeing. The
balloon suddenly broke loose with the wind blowing strong toward Berlin,
which was a bit awkward, as he remarked, considering that he had an
inexperienced passenger.
"We mustn't let the Boches get us!" he said. "Look sharp and do as I
say."
First, he got the joy-rider into the parachute harness for such
emergencies and over the side, then himself, both descending safely on
the right side of the British trenches--which was rather "smart work,"
as the British would say, but all to the taste of the one-armed pilot
who was looking for adventures. I have counted thirty-three British
sausage balloons within my range of vision from a hill. The previous
year the British had not a baker's dozen.
What is lacking? Have we enough of everything? These questions were
haunting to organizers in those last days of preparation.
After dark the scene from a hill, as you rode toward the horizon of
flashes, was one of incredible grandeur. Behind you, as you looked
toward the German lines, was the blanket of night pierced and slashed by
the flashes of gun blasts; overhead the bloodcurdling, hoarse sweep of
their projectiles; and beyond the darkness had been turned into a
chaotic, uncanny day by the jumping, leaping, spreading blaze of
explosives which made all objects on the landscape stand out in
flickering silhouette. Spurts of flame from the great shells rose out of
the bowels of the earth, softening with their glow the sharp,
concentrated, vicious snaps of light from shrapnel. Little flashes
played among big flashes and flashes laid over flashes shingle fashion
in a riot of lurid competition, while along the line of the German
trenches at some places lay a haze of shimmering flame from the rapid
fire of the trench mortars.
The most resourceful of descriptive writers is warranted in saying that
the scene was indescribable. Correspondents did their best, and after
they had squeezed the rhetorical sponge of its last drop of ink
distilled to frenzy of adjectives in inadequate effort, they gaspingly
laid their copy on the table of the censor, who minded not "word
pictures" which contained no military secrets.
Vision exalted and numbed by the display, one's mind sought the meaning
and the purpose of this unprecedented bombardment, with its precision
of the devil's own particular brand of "kultur," which was to cut the
Germans' barbed wire, smash in their trenches, penetrate their dugouts,
close up their communication trenches, do unto their second line the
same as to their first line, bury their machine guns in débris, crush
each rallying strong point in that maze of warrens, burst in the roofs
of village billets over their heads, lay a barrier of death across all
roads and, in the midst of the process of killing and wounding, imprison
the men of the front line beyond relief by fresh troops and shut them
off from food and munitions. Theatric, horrible and more than
that--matter-of-fact, systematic war! There was relatively little
response from the German batteries, whose silence had a sinister
suggestion. They waited on the attack as the target of their revenge for
the losses which they were suffering.
By now they knew from the bombardment, if not from other sources, that a
British attack was coming at some point of the line. Their flares were
playing steadily over No Man's Land to reveal any movement by the
British or the French. From their trenches rose signal rockets--the only
real fireworks, leisurely and innocent, without any sting of death in
their sparks--which seemed to be saying "No movement yet" to commanders
who could not be reached by any other means through the curtains of fire
and to artillerists who wanted to turn on their own curtains of fire
instantly the charge started. Then there were other little flashes and
darts of light and flame which insisted on adding their moiety to the
garish whole. And under the German trenches at several points were vast
charges of explosives which had been patiently borne under ground
through arduously made tunnels.
So much for the machinery of material. Thus far we have mentioned only
guns and explosions, things built of steel to fire missiles of steel and
things on wheels, and little about the machine of human beings now to
come abreast of the tape for the charge, the men who had been "blooded,"
the "cannon fodder." Every shell was meant for killing men; every German
battery and machine gun was a monster frothing red at the lips in
anticipation of slaughter.
A fury of trench raids broke out from the Somme to Ypres further to
confuse the enemy as to the real front of attack. Men rushed the
trenches which they were to take and hold later, and by their brief
visit learned whether or not the barbed wire had been properly cut to
give the great charge a clear pathway and whether or not the German
trenches were properly mashed. They brought in prisoners whose
identification and questioning were invaluable to the intelligence
branch, where the big map on the wall was filled in with the location
of German divisions, thus building up the order of battle, so vital to
all plans, with its revelation of the disposition and strength of the
enemy's forces. It was known that the Germans were rapidly bringing up
new batteries north of the Ancre while low visibility postponed the day
of the attack.
The men that worked on the new roads keeping them in condition for the
passage of the heavy transport, whether columns of motor trucks, or
caissons, or the great tractors drawing guns, were no less a part of the
scheme than the daring raiders. Every soldier who was going over the
parapet in the attack must have his food and drink and bombs to throw
and cartridges to fire after he had reached his objective.
Most telling of all the innumerably suggestive features to me were the
streets of empty white tents at the casualty clearing stations, and the
empty hospital cars on the railway sidings, and the new enclosures for
prisoners--for these spoke the human note. These told that man was to be
the target.
The staff might plan, gunners might direct their fire accurately against
unseen targets by the magic of their calculations, generals might
prepare their orders, the intricate web of telephone and telegraph wires
might hum with directions, but the final test lay with him who, rifle
and bomb ready in hand, was going to cross No Man's Land and take
possession of the German trenches. A thousand pictures cloud the memory
and make a whole intense in one's mind, which holds all proudly in
admiration of human stoicism, discipline and spirit and sadly, too, with
a conscious awe in the possession as of some treasure intrusted to him
which he cheapens by his clumsy effort at expression.
Stage by stage the human part had moved forward. Khaki figures were
swarming the village streets while the people watched them with a sort
of worshipful admiration of their stalwart, trained bodies and a
sympathetic appreciation of what was coming. These men with their fair
complexion and strange tongue were to strike against the Germans. Two
things the French had learned about the English: they were generous and
they were just, though phlegmatic. Now they were to prove that with
their methodical deliberation they were brave. Some would soon die in
battle--and for France.
By day they loitered in the villages waiting on the coming of darkness,
their training over--nothing to do now but wait. If they went forward it
was by platoons or companies, lest they make a visible line on the
chalky background of the road to the aviator's eye. A battalion drawn up
in a field around a battalion commander, sitting his horse sturdily as
he gave them final advice, struck home the military affection of loyalty
of officer to man and man to officer. A soldier parting at a doorway
from a French girl in whose eyes he had found favor during a brief
residence in her village struck another chord. That elderly woman with
her good-by to a youth was speaking as she would to her own son who was
at the front and unconsciously in behalf of some English mother. Up near
the trenches at dusk, in the last billet before the assembly for attack,
company officers were recalling the essentials of instructions to a line
standing at ease at one side of the street while caissons of shells had
the right of way.
With the coming of night battalions of reserves formed and set forth on
the march, going toward the flashes in the heavens which illumined the
men in their steady tramp, the warmth of their bodies and their breaths
pressing close to your car as you turned aside to let them pass. "East
Surreys," or "West Ridings," or "Manchesters" might come the answer to
inquiries. All had the emblems of their units in squares of cloth on
their shoulders, and on the backs of some of the divisions were bright
yellow or white patches to distinguish them from Germans to the gunners
in the shell-smoke.
Nothing in their action at first glance indicated the stress of their
thoughts. Officers and men, their physical movements set by the mold of
discipline, were in gesture, in voice, in manner the same as when they
were on an English road in training. This was a part of the drill, a
part of man's mastery of his emotions. None were under any illusions as
soldiers of other days had been. Few nursed the old idea of being the
lucky man who would escape. They knew the chances they were taking, the
meaning of frontal attacks and of the murderous and wholesale quickness
of machine gun methods.
Will, organized human will, was in their steps and shining out of their
eyes. It occurred to me that they might have escaped this if England had
kept out of the war at the price of something with which Englishmen
refused to part. "The day" was coming, "the day" they had foreseen, "the
day" for which their people waited.
When they were closing in with death, the clans which make up the
British Empire kept faith with their character as do all men. These
battalions sang the songs and whistled the tunes of drill grounds at
home, though in low notes lest the enemy should hear, and lapsed into
silence when they drew near the front and filed through the
communication trenches.
Quiet the English, that great body of the army which sees itself as the
skirt for the Celtic fringe, ploddingly undemonstrative with memories of
the phlegm of their history holding emotions unexpressed; the Scotch in
their kilts, deep-chested, with their trunk-like legs and broad hips,
braw of face under their mushroom helmets, seemed like mediæval men of
arms ready in spirit as well as looks for fierce hand-to-hand
encounters; the Welsh, more emotional than the English, had songs which
were pleasant to the ear if the words were unrecognizable; and the
ruddy-faced Irish, with their soft voices, had a beam in their eyes of
inward anticipation of the sort of thing to come which no Irishman ever
meets in a hesitating mood. No overseas troops were there except the
Newfoundland battalion; for only sons of the old country were to strike
on July 1st.
Returning from a tour at night I had absorbed what seemed at one moment
the unrealness and at another the stern, unyielding reality of the
scenes. The old French territorial, with wrinkled face and an effort at
a military mustache, who came out of his sentry box at a control post
squinting by the light of a lantern held close to his nose at the bit of
paper which gave the bearer freedom of the army and nodding with his
polite word of concurrence, was a type who might have stopped a traveler
in Louis XIV.'s time. All the farmers sleeping in the villages who would
be up at dawn at their work, all the people in Amiens, knew that the
hour was near. The fact was in the air no less than in men's minds.
Nobody mentioned that the greatest struggle of the war was about to
begin. We all knew that it was in hearts, souls, fiber.
There were moments when imagination gave to that army in its integrity
of organization only one heart in one body. Again, it was a million
hearts in a million bodies, deaf except to the voice of command. Most
amazing was the absence of fuss whether with the French or the British.
Everybody seemed to be doing what he was told to do and to know how to
do it. With much to be left to improvisation after the attack began,
nothing might be neglected in the course of preparation.
In other days where infantry on the march deployed and brought up
suddenly against the enemy in open conflict the anticipatory suspense
was not long and was forgotten in the brief space of conflict. Here this
suspense really had been cumulative for months. It built itself up,
little by little, as the material and preparations increased, as the
battalions assembled, until sometimes, despite the roar of the
artillery, there seemed a great silence while you waited for a string,
drawn taut, to crack.
On the night of June 30th the word was passed behind a closed door in
the hotel that seven-thirty the next morning was the hour and the
spectators should be called at five--which seemed the final word in
staff prevision.
V
THE BLOW
Plans at headquarters--A battle by inches--In the observation
post--The débris of a ruined village--"Softening" by shell fire--A
slice out of the front--The task of the infantryman--The dawn before
the attack--Five minutes more--A wave of men twenty-five miles
long--Mist and shell-smoke--Duty of the war-correspondent.
I was glad to have had glimpses of every aspect of the preparation from
battalion headquarters in the front line trenches to General
Headquarters, which had now been moved to a smaller town near the
battlefield where the intelligence branch occupied part of a
schoolhouse. In place of exercises in geography and lithographs of
natural history objects, on the schoolroom walls hung charts of the
German Order of Battle, as built up through many sources of information,
which the British had to face. There was no British Order of Battle in
sight. This, as the Germans knew it, you might find in a German
intelligence office; but the British were not going to aid the Germans
in ascertaining it by giving it any publicity.
By means of a map spread out on a table an officer explained the plan of
attack with reference to broad colored lines which denoted the
objectives. The whole was as explicit as if Bonaparte had said:
"We shall engage heavily on our left, pound the center with our
artillery, and flank on our right."
The higher you go in the command the simpler seem the plans which by
direct and comprehensive strokes conceal the detail which is delegated
down through the different units. At Gommecourt there was a salient, an
angle of the German trench line into the British which seemed to invite
"pinching," and this was to be the pivot of the British movement. The
French who were on both sides of the Somme were to swing in from their
southern flank of attack near Soyecourt in the same fashion as the
British from the northern, thus bringing the deepest objective along the
river in the direction of Péronne, which would fall when eventually the
tactical positions commanding it were gained.
Not with the first rush, for the lines of the objective were drawn well
short of it, but with later rushes the British meant to gain the
irregular ridge formation from Thiepval to Longueval, which would start
them on the way to the consummation of their siege hammering. It was to
be a battle by inches; the beginning of a long task. German _morale_ was
still high on the Western front; their numbers immense. _Morale_ could
be broken, numbers worn down, only by pounding.
Granted that the attack of July 1st should succeed all along the line,
it would gain little ground; but it would everywhere break through the
first line fortifications over a front of more than twenty-five miles,
the British for about fifteen and the French for about ten. The
soldierly informant at "Intelligence" reminded the listener, too, that
battalions which might be squeezed or might run into unexpected
obstacles would suffer fearfully as in all great battles and one must be
careful not to be over-depressed by the accounts of the survivors or
over-elated by the roseate narratives of battalions which had swept all
before them with slight loss.
The day before I saw the map of the whole I had seen the map of a part
at an Observation Post at Auchonvillers. The two were alike in a
standardized system, only one dealt with corps and the other with
battalions. A trip to Auchonvillers at any time during the previous year
or up to the end of June, 1916, had not been fraught with any particular
risk. It was on the "joy-riders'" route, as they say.
When I said that the German batteries were making relatively little
reply to the preliminary British bombardment I did not mean to imply
that they were missing any opportunities. At the dead line for
automobiles on the road the burst of a shrapnel overhead had a
suggestiveness that it would not have had at other times. Perhaps the
Germans were about to put a barrage on the road. Perhaps they were
going to start their guns in earnest. Happily, they have always been
most considerate where I was concerned and they were only throwing in a
few shells in the course of artillery routine, which happened also on
our return from the Observation Post. But they were steadily attentive
with "krumps" to a grove where some British howitzers sought the screen
of summer foliage. If they could put any batteries out of action while
they waited for the attack this was good business, as it meant fewer
guns at work in support of the British charge.
An artilleryman, perspiring and mud-spattered from shell-bursts, who
came across the fields, said: "They knocked off the corner of our
gun-pit and got two men. That's all." His eyes were shining; he was in
the elation of battle. Casualties were an incident in the preoccupation
of his work and of the thought: "At last we have the shells! At last it
is our turn!"
On our way forward we passed more batteries and wisely kept to the open
away from them, as they are dangerous companions in an artillery duel.
Then we stepped into the winding communication trench with its system of
wires fast to the walls, and kept on till we passed under a lifted
curtain into a familiar chamber roofed with heavy cement blocks and
earth.
"Safe from a direct hit by five-point-nines," said the observation
officer, a regular promoted from the ranks who had been "spotting"
shells since the war began. "A nine-inch would break the blocks, but I
don't think that it would do us in."
Even if it did "do us in," why, we were only two or three men. All this
protection was less perhaps to insure safety than to insure security of
observation for these eyes of the guns. The officer was as proud of his
O.P. as any battalion commander of his trench or a battery commander of
his gun-position, which is the same kind of human pride that a man has
in the improvements on his new country estate.
There was a bench to sit on facing the narrow observation slit, similar
to that of a battleship's conning tower, which gave a wide sweep of
vision. A commonplace enough _mise-en-scène_ on average days, now
significant because of the stretch of dead world of the trench systems
and No Man's Land which was soon to be seething with the tumult of
death.
Directly in front of us was Beaumont-Hamel. Before the war it had been
like hundreds of other villages. Since the war its ruins were like
scores of others in the front line. Parts of a few walls were standing.
It was difficult to tell where the débris of Beaumont-Hamel began and
that of the German trench ended. Dust was mixed with the black bursts
of smoke rising from the conglomerate mass of buildings and streets
thrown together by previous explosions. The effect suggested the regular
spout of geysers from a desert rock crushed by charges of dynamite.
Could anybody be alive in Beaumont-Hamel? Wasn't this bombardment
threshing straw which had long since yielded its last kernel of grain?
Wasn't it merely pounding the graves of a garrison? Other villages,
equally passive and derelict, were being submitted to the same
systematic pounding, which was like timed hammer-beats.
"We keep on softening them," said the observer.
Soldiers have a gift for apt words to describe their work, as have all
professional experts. Softening! It personified the enemy as something
hard and tough which would grow pulpy under enough well-mapped blows
striking at every vital part from dugouts to billets.
All the barbed-wire entanglements in front of the first-line trenches
appeared to be cut, mangled, twisted into balls, beaten back into the
earth and exhumed again, leaving only a welt of crater-spotted ground in
front of the chalky contour of the first-line trenches which had been
mashed and crushed out of shape.
"Yes, the Boche's first line looks rather messy," said the officer.
"We've been giving him an awful doing these last few days. Turning our
attention mostly to the second line, now. That's our lot, there," he
added, indicating a cluster of bursts over a nest of burrows farther up
on the hillside.
"Any attempts to repair their wire at night?" I asked.
"No. They have to do it under our machine gun fire. Any Boches who have
survived are lying doggo."
How many dugouts were still intact and secure refuges for the waiting
Germans? Only trench raids could ascertain. As well might the observer
with his glasses or an aeroplane looking down try to take a census of
the number of inhabitants of a prairie dog village who were all in their
holes.