A BIT OF HISTORY.
While Hal and Chester and their troop of British cavalry are preparing to
meet this unexpected attack, it will be well to introduce here a few
words relating to the positions of the gigantic armies battling in France
and Belgium.
The war had now been in progress for five months. From the time that the
Allies had braced and checked the Germans in their rapid advance upon
Paris, and had assumed the offensive themselves, they had progressed
consistently, if slowly.
The Germans contested every inch of the ground, and all along the great
battle line, stretching out for almost four hundred miles, the fighting
had been terrific. Day after day, week after week, month after month the
terrible struggle had raged incessantly. The losses of all four armies,
German, British, French and Belgian, had been enormous, although, up to
date, it was admitted that the Germans had suffered the worst.
The conflict raged with advantage first to one side and then to the
other. Assaults and counter-assaults were the order of the day. From
Ostend, on the North Sea, now in the hands of the Germans, to the
southern extremity of Alsace-Lorraine, the mighty hosts were locked in a
death grapple; but, in spite of the fearful execution of the weapons of
modern warfare, there had been no really decisive engagement. Neither
side had suffered a severe blow.
In the North the Allies were being given powerful aid by a strong British
fleet, which hurled its shells upon the Germans infesting that region,
thus checking at the same time the threatened advance of the Kaiser's
legions upon Nieuport and Dunkirk, which the Germans planned to use as
naval bases for air raids on England.
The mighty siege and field guns of the Germans--which had been used
with such telling effect upon Liège, Brussels, Antwerp and Ostend,
battering the fortifications there to bits in practically no time at
all--while immense in their power of destruction, were still not a
match for the longer range guns mounted by the British battleships.
Consequently, long-range artillery duels in the north had been all in
favor of British arms.
Terrific charges of the British troops, of whom there were now less than
half a million--Scotch, Irish, Canadians and Indians included--on the
continent, had driven the Germans from Dixmude, Ypres and Armentières,
captured earlier in the war. Ostend had been shelled by the British
fleet, and a show of force had been made in that vicinity, causing the
Germans to believe that the Allies would attempt to reoccupy this
important seaport.
Farther south the French also had met with some success. From
within striking distance of Paris the invaders had been driven back
to the Marne, and from the Marne to the northern and eastern shores
of the Aisne.
But here the German line held.
The fighting along the Aisne, continuing without cessation, already had
been the bloodiest in the history of wars; and here, the French on one
side of the river, and the Germans on the other, the two great armies had
proceeded to intrench, making themselves as comfortable as possible, and
constructing huts and other substantial shelters against the icy hand of
King Winter, who had come to rule over the battlefield.
The French cabinet, which had fled from Paris to Bordeaux when the German
army drew close to Paris, had returned to the former capital, and affairs
of state were being conducted as before. With several millions of
fighting men at the front, France still had an additional two million to
hurl into the thick of the fray at the psychological moment.
Recruiting in England, slow at first, was now beginning to be more
satisfactory. Lord Kitchener had in the neighborhood of a million and a
half men being trained and prepared for the rigors of war. These, also,
would be hurled into the thick of the fight when the time was ripe.
It was plainly evident, however, that the Allies were content to hold
their present lines. There was little doubt that it was their plan to let
the real fighting be held off till spring, when, by hurling an additional
three million men into the field, they believed they could settle German
militarism once and for all.
Rumors of other countries joining in the great war grew more rife daily.
Portugal already had given assurances that she would throw her army to
the support of Great Britain should she be asked to do so. A great
diplomatic _coup_--a great victory for British statesmanship--had cleared
the way for the entrance of Rumania and Greece into the war on the side
of the Allies. This _coup_ had been to gain from Bulgaria assurances that
Bulgaria would not go to the support of Germany should Rumania and
Greece take up arms.
The Italian populace, also, was clamoring for war. In Rome demonstrations
against Germany had become frequent and violent. It appeared to be only a
question of time until Italy also would hurl her millions of trained
fighting men into the field in support of the Allies.
From Ostend the great battle line extended due south to Noyen, where
it branched off to the southeast. South of Noyen French soil had
been almost cleared of the Germans. Alsace had in turn been invaded
by the French, who had penetrated to within twelve miles of
Strasbourg. The French troops also had progressed to within eight
miles of Metz, in Lorraine.
The forward move by the southern army of France had been sudden, and the
Germans had been forced to give way under the desperation and courage of
the French troops.
Once before, in the earlier days of the war, the French had reached Metz
and Strasbourg, but had been hurled back by overwhelming numbers of the
enemy and forced to retreat well into France. Then the German line in
Alsace and Lorraine had been weakened to hurl denser masses of Germans
upon the British and Belgians in the north.
The French had not been slow to take advantage of this weakening of the
southern army of the Kaiser, and, immediately bringing great pressure to
bear, had cleared French territory of the invader in the south.
But the French commander did not stop with this. Alsace and Lorraine,
French soil until after the Franco-Prussian war, when it had been awarded
to Prussia as the spoils of war, must be recaptured. The French pressed
on and the Germans gave way before them.
Meantime, in the Soissons region the French also had been making
progress; but the Kaiser, evidently becoming alarmed by the great
pressure being exercised by the French in Alsace-Lorraine--in order to
relieve the pressure--immediately made a show of strength near Soissons,
seeking thereby to cause the French to withdraw troops from
Alsace-Lorraine to reënforce the army of the Soissons to stem the new
German advance there.
Taken somewhat unawares by the suddenness of the German assault upon
their lines near Soissons, the French were forced to give back. They
braced immediately, however, and the succeeding day regained the ground
lost in the first German assault.
Then the Germans made another show of strength at Verdun, southeast of
Soissons. General Joffre immediately hurled a new force to the support of
the French army at that point.
Meanwhile, as the result of the German assaults upon Soissons and
Verdun, in an effort to lessen the pressure being brought to bear by the
French in Alsace-Lorraine, there had been a lull in the fighting in the
latter regions.
Word from the eastern theater of war brought the news that Russia had a
new big army advancing upon the Germans in Poland from the east,
threatening to outflank the army that had penetrated to within fifty
miles of Warsaw, the capital and chief city of Poland. This, it was
taken, would mean that Germany would either have to retreat within her
own borders into East Prussia, or else that troops would have to be
dispatched from the west to reënforce those in the east.
In this event there was little doubt that General French and General
Joffre would immediately order another allied advance along the
entire front.
News of the utter annihilation of three Turkish army corps in the
Caucasus by the Russians also cheered the British, French and Belgian
troops, as did news that the Russians had cleared the way for their
long-deferred invasion of Hungary, and, ultimately, of Austria.
So far, from the Allies' point of view, the one big disappointment of the
war had been the inaction of the British and French fleets. True, several
engagements of minor importance had been fought, chief of which was the
sinking of a German fleet of five ships by a British squadron in the
waters of the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Argentina.
But the fact that the German fleet, although blockaded, after five months
of the war had not been destroyed, was causing considerable adverse
criticism in England and France. Several German sea raids--by cruisers
and submarines which had successfully run the blockade--had caused
condemnation of Great Britain's naval policy.
In spite of the fact that only in one instance had such a raid resulted
in any serious damage, the British Admiralty had been roundly censured.
Germany's policy of "whittling down" the British fleet, so that the
Germans could give battle on even terms, while by no means successful
thus far, had nevertheless considerably reduced the size of the English
navy. Some of her first-class cruisers, and one formidable dreadnought
had been sunk.
The French fleet in the Adriatic and in the Mediterranean had been
equally as inactive, although a squadron of British and French ships even
now was attempting to destroy the Turkish fortifications along the
Dardanelles, that a passage of the straits might be forced. So far this,
too, had been unsuccessful.
The fighting in France and Belgium, Alsace and Lorraine had now become a
series of battles for the possession of the various trenches that had
been dug. True, long-range artillery duels raged almost incessantly, but
the mass of both armies lay in the trenches, now attacking and capturing
the enemy's trenches, now being attacked and being driven out again.
Besides the artillery duels there were, of course, occasional skirmishes
between the cavalry, some growing to the proportions of real battles. But
the results of these had never been decisive. The mighty armies were
gripped in a deadlock, and indications pointed to this deadlock being
maintained until spring, when, with the disappearance of fierce
snowstorms and the breaking up of the terrific cold, a decisive battle
might be fought.
This was the situation up to date, when Hal and Chester, with the troop
of cavalry, set out on a reconnaissance of the enemy's position on the
first day of January, 1915.