the regiments of the 5th Division (3rd Corps), one, the 81st, was
identified near Massiges, while a battalion of the 12th was at Tahure
and a battalion of the 32nd at the Trou Bricot. It was the same as
regards the 56th Division, of which the 88th and 35th Regiments were
despatched to Massiges and the 91st to Souain, while a battalion of the
79th took up a position to the west of the Butte de Tahure.
[Sidenote: Haste increased German losses.]
Ill provided with food and munitions, the reinforcements were thrown
into the engagement on an unknown terrain without indication as to the
direction they had to take and without their junction with neighbouring
units having been arranged. Through the haste with which they threw
their reserves under the fire of our artillery and of our infantry,
already in possession of the positions, the German General Staff
considerably increased the number of their losses.
[Sidenote: Soldiers brought by motor-car.]
A letter taken from a soldier of the 118th Regiment furnishes us with
proof of this: "We were put in a motor-car and proceeded at a headlong
pace to Tahure, by way of Vouziers. Two hours' rest in the open air,
with rain falling and then we had a six hours' march to take up our
positions. On our way we were greeted by the fire of the enemy shells,
so that, for instance, out of 280 men of the second company, only 224
arrived safe and sound inside the trenches. These trenches, freshly dug,
were barely from 35 to 50 centimetres deep. Continually surrounded by
mines and bursting shells, we had to remain in them and do the best we
could with them for 118 hours without getting anything hot to eat.
"Hell itself could not be more terrible. To-day, at about twelve o'clock
noon, 600 men, fresh troops, joined the regiment. In five days we have
lost as many and more."
[Sidenote: Battalions from many regiments.]
The disorder amid which the reinforcements were engaged appears clearly
from this fact, that on the only part of the front included between
Maisons de Champagne and Hill 189 there were on October 2, 1915,
thirty-two battalions belonging to twenty-one different regiments.
(4) The violence of the shock sustained, and the necessity of replacing
in the fighting line units which had almost entirely disappeared,
hampered the German military authorities. On the first day they were
unable to respond effectively even with their artillery, the fire of
which along the whole front was badly directed and as a rule poorly
sustained. The loss of numerous batteries obviously deprived them of a
portion of their resources.
[Sidenote: Enemy endeavors to stem advance.]
[Sidenote: Isolated battalion on the heights of Massiges.]
The following days the enemy seemed to have but one idea, to strengthen
their second line to stem our advance. The counter-attacks were
concentrated on a comparatively unimportant part of the battlefront in
certain places, the loss of which appeared to them to be particularly
dangerous. Therefore on the heights of Massiges the German military
authorities threw in succession isolated battalions of the 123rd, 124th,
and 120th regiments, of the 30th regular regiment and of the 2nd
regiment of Ersatz Reserve (16th Corps), which were each in turn
decimated, for these counter-attacks, hastily and crudely prepared, all
resulted in sanguinary failures. Generally speaking, the offensive
capacity of the Germans appeared to be broken. The following order of
the day of General von Ditfurth bears witness to this:
[Sidenote: General von Ditfurth's order.]
"It seemed to me that the infantry at certain points was confining its
action to a mere defensive. . . . I cannot protest too strongly against
such an idea, which necessarily results in destroying the spirit of
offensive in our own troops and in arousing and strengthening in the
mind of the enemy a feeling of his superiority.
"The enemy is left full liberty of action and our own action is
subjected to the will of the enemy."
[Sidenote: Prisoners exhausted.]
(5) In an engagement in the open the number of prisoners is an
indication of the spirit of the enemy. In Champagne the Germans
surrendered in constituted units (sections or companies), and even in
groups of several hundred men. They confessed that they were worn out.
They had been, for the most part, without supplies for several days and
had suffered more particularly from thirst. They all showed that they
had been greatly impressed by our uninterrupted artillery fire, the
feeble response of their own guns, and the extent of their losses.
Here by way of specimen is what was set down by a reserve lieutenant of
the 90th Regiment of infantry (10th Corps):
"Yesterday I had sixteen men killed by high explosive bombs. The trench
was nearly filled up. Extreme activity of the French howitzers. Our
artillery fires shrapnel, but unfortunately does not get the range.
"B . . . was also killed. The second battalion, too, has had heavy losses.
It is frightful. Those confounded high explosive shells!
[Sidenote: An officer wishes for rain.]
"The weather is becoming fine again. If only it would rain again, or fog
would come. As it is, the aviators will arrive and we shall have more
high explosive bombs and flank firing on the trenches. Abominable fine
weather! Fog, fog, come to our assistance."
[Sidenote: The enemy's lines.]
It is difficult to estimate precisely the German losses. Certain
indications however serve to indicate their extent. A _vizefeldwebel_
declares that he is the only man remaining out of his company. A soldier
of the third battalion of the 123rd Regiment engaged on the 26th, states
that his regiment was withdrawn from the front after only two days'
fighting because its losses were too great. The 118th Regiment relieved
in the trenches the 158th Regiment after it had been reduced to fifteen
or twenty men per company. Certain units disappeared completely, as for
instance the 27th Reserve Regiment and the 52nd Regular Regiment,
which, by the evening of the 25th had left in our hands, the first
thirteen officers and 933 men, the second twenty-one officers and 927
men. In order to arrive at the total of the losses certain figures may
serve as an indication.
[Sidenote: German strength in Champagne.]
[Sidenote: Ninety-three fresh battalions.]
At the beginning of September, 1915 the Germans had on the Champagne
front seventy battalions. In anticipation of our attack they brought
there, before September 25, 1915, twenty-nine battalions. This makes
ninety-nine battalions, representing, if account be taken of the
corresponding artillery and pioneer formations, 115,000 men directly
engaged. The losses due to the artillery preparation and the first
attacks were such that from September 25 to October 15, 1915, the German
General Staff was compelled to renew its effectives almost in their
entirety by sending ninety-three fresh battalions.
It may be assumed that the units engaged on September 25 and 26, 1915,
suffered losses amounting to from 60 to 80 per cent. (even more for
certain corps, which have entirely disappeared). The new units brought
into line for the counter-attacks, and subjected in connection with
these to an incessant bombardment, lost 50 per cent. of their
effectives, if not more. We think we shall be understating the case if
we set down 140,000 men as the sum of the German losses in Champagne.
Account must be taken of the fact that of this number the proportion of
slightly wounded men able to recuperate rapidly and return to the front
is, in the case of the Germans, very much below the average proportion
in connection with other engagements by reason of the fact that they
were unable to gather up their wounded, and thus left in our hands
nearly the whole of the troops entrusted with the defence of the first
position.
[Sidenote: Enthusiasm of the French.]
All those who lived through the engagements of the battle of Champagne
experienced the sensation of victory. The aspect of the battlefield, the
long columns of prisoners, the look in the eyes of our soldiers, their
animation and their enthusiasm, all this gave expression to the
importance of a success which the Generalissimo recognized in these
terms.
[Sidenote: Thanks of the commander-in-chief.]
"Grand Headquarters,
"OCTOBER 5, 1915.
"The Commander-in-Chief addresses to the troops
under his orders the expression of his profound
satisfaction at the results obtained up to the
present day by the attacks.
"Twenty-five thousand prisoners, three hundred
and fifty officers, a hundred and fifty guns, a
quantity of material which it has not yet been
possible to gauge, are the trophies of a
victory the echo of which throughout Europe
indicates its importance.
"The sacrifices willingly made have not been in
vain. All have been able to take part in the
common task. The present is a sure guarantee to
us of the future.
"The Commander-in-Chief is proud to command the
finest troops France has ever known.
"J. JOFFRE."
* * * * *
Of all the brutal atrocities perpetrated by the Germans in Belgium, none
aroused such world-wide horror and execration as the murder of Edith
Cavell, an English nurse, on the charge of aiding English and Belgian
soldiers who escaped from Belgium in order to rejoin their respective
armies.
THE TRAGEDY OF EDITH CAVELL
BRAND WHITLOCK
Copyright, Delineator, November, 1918.
[Sidenote: The first letter of inquiry not answered.]
[Sidenote: Reasons given for Miss Cavell's arrest.]
One day in August it was learned at the Legation that an English nurse,
named Edith Cavell, had been arrested by the Germans. I wrote a letter
to the Baron von der Lancken to ask if it was true that Miss Cavell had
been arrested, and saying that if it were I should request that Maitre
de Leval, the legal counselor of the Legation, be permitted to see her
and to prepare for her defense. There was no reply to this letter, and
on September tenth I wrote a second letter, repeating the questions and
the requests made in the first. On the twelfth of September I had a
reply from the Baron stating that Miss Cavell had been arrested on the
fifth of August, that she was confined in the prison of St. Gilles, that
she had admitted having hidden English and French soldiers in her home,
as well as Belgians, of an age to bear arms, all anxious to get to the
front, that she had admitted also having furnished these soldiers with
money to get to France, and had provided guides to enable them to cross
the Dutch frontier; that the defense of Miss Cavell was in the hands of
Maitre Thomas Braun, and that inasmuch as the German Government, on
principle, would not permit accused persons to have any interviews
whatever, he could not obtain permission for Maitre de Leval to visit
Miss Cavell as long as she was in solitary confinement.
[Sidenote: The German mentality.]
[Sidenote: The principle that power makes right.]
[Sidenote: The accused without rights.]
For one of our Anglo-Saxon race and legal traditions to understand
conditions in Belgium during the German occupation, it is necessary to
banish resolutely from the mind every conception of right we have
inherited from our ancestors--conceptions long since crystallized into
inimitable principles of law and confirmed in our charters of liberty.
In the German mentality these conceptions do not exist; they think in
other sequences; they act according to another principle, if it is a
principle, the conviction that there is only one right, one privilege,
and that it belongs exclusively to Germany, the right, namely, to do
whatever they have the physical force to do. These so-called courts, of
whose arbitrary and irresponsible and brutal nature I have tried to
convey some notion, were mere inquisitorial bodies, guided by no
principle save that of interest in their own bloody nature; they did as
they pleased, and would have scorned a Jeffreys as too lenient, a Lynch
as too formal, a Spanish _auto da fe_ as too technical, and a tribunal
of the French Revolution as soft and sentimental. Before them the
accused had literally no rights, not even to present a defense, and if
he was permitted to speak in his own behalf, it was only as a generous
and liberal favor.
It was before such a court that Edith Cavell was to be arraigned. I had
asked Maitre de Leval to provide for her defense, and on his advice,
inasmuch as Maitre Braun was already of counsel in the case, chosen by
certain friends of Miss Cavell, I invited him into consultation.
[Sidenote: Personality of Edith Cavell.]
[Sidenote: Miss Cavell's character and ability.]
Edith Cavell was a frail and delicate little woman about forty years of
age. She had come to Brussels some years before the war to exercise her
calling as a trained nurse. She soon became known to the leading
physicians of the capital and nursed in the homes of the leading
families. But she was ambitious, and devoted to her profession, and ere
long had entered a nursing-home in the Rue de la Clinique, where she
organized for Doctor Depage a training-school for nurses. She was a
woman of refinement and education; she knew French as she knew her own
language; she was deeply religious, with a conscience almost puritan,
and was very stern with herself in what she conceived to be her duty. In
her training-school she showed great executive ability, was firm in
matters of discipline, and brought it to a high state of efficiency. And
every one who knew her in Brussels spoke of her with that unvarying term
of respect which her noble character inspired.
[Sidenote: Mr. Whitlock engages a defender.]
Some time before the trial, Maitre Thomas Braun announced to the
Legation that for personal reasons he would be obliged to withdraw from
the case, and asked that some one else appear for Miss Cavell. We
engaged Maitre Sadi Kirschen.
[Sidenote: The court martial in the Senate chamber.]
It was the morning of Thursday, October seventh, that the case came
before the court martial in the Senate chamber, where the military
trials always took place, and Miss Cavell was arraigned with the
Princess de Croy, the Countess de Belleville, and thirty-two others. The
accused were seated in a circle facing the court, in such a way that
they could neither see nor communicate with their own counsel, who were
compelled to sit behind them. Nor could they see the witnesses, who were
also placed behind them.
The charge brought against the accused was that of having conspired to
violate the German Military Penal Code, punishing with death those who
conduct troops to the enemy.
[Sidenote: The trial secret.]
[Sidenote: Miss Cavell's attitude.]
[Sidenote: Admits aiding English soldiers.]
We have no record of that trial; we do not know all that occurred there
behind the closed doors of that Senate chamber, where for fourscore
years laws based on another and more enlightened principle of justice
had been discussed. Miss Cavell did not know, or knew only in the
vaguest manner, the offense with which she was charged. She did not deny
having received at her hospital English soldiers whom she nursed and to
whom she gave money; she did not deny that she knew they were going to
try to cross the border into Holland. She even took a patriotic pride in
the fact. She was very calm. She was interrogated in German, a language
she did not understand, but the questions and responses were translated
into French. Her mind was very alert, and she was entirely
self-possessed, and frequently rectified any inexact details and
statements that were put to her. When, in her interrogatory, she was
asked if she had not aided English soldiers left behind after the early
battles of the preceding Autumn about Mons and Charleroi, she said yes;
they were English and she was English, and she would help her own. The
answer seemed to impress the court. They asked her if she had not helped
twenty.
"Yes," she said "more than twenty; two hundred."
"English?"
"No, not all English; French and Belgians, too."
But the French and Belgians were not of her own nationality, said the
judge--and that made a serious difference. She was subjected to a
nagging interrogatory. One of the judges said that she had been foolish
to aid the English because, he said, the English are ungrateful.
"No," replied Miss Cavell, "the English are not ungrateful."
"How do you know they are not?" asked the inquisitor.
[Sidenote: Miss Cavell makes a fatal admission.]
"Because," she answered, "some of them have written to me from England
to thank me."
It was a fatal admission on the part of the tortured little woman; under
the German military law her having helped soldiers to reach Holland, a
neutral country, would have been a less serious offense, but to aid them
to reach an enemy country, and especially England, was the last offense
in the eyes of the German military court.
[Sidenote: Rumor that death sentence is asked.]
The trial was concluded on Saturday, and on Sunday one of the nurses in
Miss Cavell's school came to tell me that there was a rumor about town
that the prosecuting officer had asked the court to pronounce a sentence
of death in the cases of the Princess de Croy, the Countess de
Belleville, and of Miss Cavell, and of several others. I remember to
have said to Maitre de Leval, when he came up to my room to report the
astounding news:
"That's only the usual exaggeration of the prosecutor; they all ask for
the extreme penalty, everywhere, when they sum up their cases."
[Sidenote: Leval's opinion of German courts.]
"Yes," said Maitre de Leval, "and in German courts they always get it."
Maitre de Leval sent a note to Maitre Kirschen, asking him to come on
Monday, at eight-thirty o'clock, to the Legation or to send a word
regarding Miss Cavell. Maitre Kirschen did not send Maitre de Leval the
word he had requested, and on that Sunday, de Leval saw another lawyer
who had been on the case and could tell him what had taken place at the
trial. The lawyer thought that the court martial would not condemn Miss
Cavell to death. At any rate, no judgment had been pronounced, and the
judges themselves did not appear to be in agreement.
[Sidenote: Leval asks to see Miss Cavell.]
On Monday, the eleventh of October, at eight-thirty in the morning,
Maitre de Leval went to the _Politische Abteilung_ in the Rue
Lambermont, and found Conrad. He spoke to him of the case of Miss Cavell
and asked that, now that the trial had taken place, he and the Reverend
Mr. Gahan, the rector of the English church, be allowed to see Miss
Cavell. Conrad said he would make inquiries and inform de Leval by
telephone, and by one of the messengers of the Legation who that morning
happened to deliver some papers to the _Politische Abteilung_, Conrad
sent word that neither the Reverend Mr. Gahan nor Maitre de Leval could
see Miss Cavell at that time, but that Maitre de Leval could see her as
soon as the judgment had been pronounced.
[Sidenote: Waiting for judgment to be pronounced.]
[Sidenote: Promise to inform the Legation.]
At eleven-thirty o'clock on the Monday morning, Maitre de Leval himself
telephoned to Conrad, who repeated this statement. The judgment had not
yet been rendered, he said, and Maitre de Leval asked him to let him
know as soon as the judgment had been pronounced, so that he might go to
see Miss Cavell. Conrad promised this, but added that even then the
Reverend Mr. Gahan could not see her, because there were German
Protestant pastors at the prison, and that if Miss Cavell needed
spiritual advice or consolation she could call on them. Conrad concluded
this conversation by saying that the judgment would be rendered on the
morrow, that is, on Tuesday, or the day after, and that even when it had
been pronounced it would have to be signed by the Military Governor, and
that the Legation would be kept informed.
At twelve-ten on the Monday, not having received any news from Maitre
Kirschen, Maitre de Leval went to his house, but did not find him there,
and left his card.
[Sidenote: Leval makes repeated inquiries.]
At twelve-twenty o'clock, Maitre de Leval went to the house of the
lawyer to whom reference has already been made, and left word for him to
go to his home.
At four o'clock that afternoon the lawyer arrived at the Legation and
said that he had been to see the Germans at eleven o'clock, and that
there he had been told no judgment would be pronounced before the
following day. Before leaving the Legation to go home, Maitre de Leval
told to Gibson all that had happened, and asked him to telephone again
to Conrad before going home himself. Then at intervals all day long the
inquiry had been repeated, and the same response was made.
[Sidenote: The chancellerie was closed for the night.]
Monday evening at six-twenty o'clock, Belgian time, Topping, one of the
clerks of the Legation, with Gibson standing by, again called Conrad on
the telephone, again was told that the judgment had not been pronounced,
and that the Political Department would not fail to inform the Legation
the moment the judgment was confirmed. And the _chancellerie_ was closed
for the night.
[Sidenote: A nurse informs Leval of the death sentence.]
At nine o'clock that Monday evening, Maitre de Leval appeared suddenly
at the door of my chamber; his face was deadly pallid; he said that he
had just heard from the nurse who kept him informed, that the judgment
had been confirmed and that the sentence of death had been pronounced on
Miss Cavell at half-past four o'clock that afternoon, and that she was
to be shot at two o'clock the next morning. It seemed preposterous,
especially the immediate execution of sentence; there had always been
time at least to prepare and present a plea for mercy. To condemn a
woman in the evening and then to hurry her out to be shot before another
dawn! Impossible! It could not be!
[Sidenote: Judgment read in the afternoon.]
[Sidenote: Plea for mercy had been prepared.]
But no; Maitre de Leval was certain. That evening he had gone home and
was writing at his table when about eight o'clock two nurses were
introduced. One was Miss Wilkinson, little and nervous, all in tears;
the other, taller and more calm. Miss Wilkinson said that she had just
learned that the judgment of the court condemned Miss Cavell to death,
that the judgment had been read to her in her cell at four-thirty that
afternoon, and that the Germans were going to shoot her that night at
two o'clock. Maitre de Leval told her that it was difficult to believe
such news, since twice he had been told that the judgment had not been
rendered and that it would not be rendered before the following day, but
on her reiteration that she had this news from a source that was
absolutely certain, de Leval left at once with her and her friends and
came to the Legation. And there he stood, pale and shaken. Even then I
could not believe; it was too preposterous; surely a stay of execution
would be granted. Already in the afternoon, in some premonition, Maitre
de Leval had prepared a plea for mercy, to be submitted to the
Governor-General, and a letter of transmittal to present to the Baron
von der Lancken. I asked Maitre de Leval to bring me these documents and
I signed them, and then, at the last minute, on the letter addressed to
von der Lancken, I wrote these words:
[Sidenote: Mr. Whitlock's personal appeal.]
"MY DEAR BARON:
"I am too sick to present my request to you in
person, but I appeal to your generosity of
heart to support it, and save this unfortunate
woman from death. Have pity on her."
[Sidenote: Search for the Spanish ambassador.]
I told Maitre de Leval to send Joseph at once to hunt up Gibson to
present my plea and, if possible, to find the Marquis de Villalobar and
to ask him to support it with the Baron von der Lancken. Gibson was
dining somewhere; we did not know where Villalobar was. The _Politische
Abteilung_, in the Ministry of Industry, where Baron von der Lancken
lived, was only half a dozen blocks away. The Governor-General was in
his chateau at Trois Fontaines, ten miles away, playing bridge that
evening. Maitre de Leval went; and I waited.
The nurses from Miss Cavell's school were waiting in a lower room; other
nurses came for news; they, too, had heard, but could not believe. Then
the Reverend Mr. H. Stirling T. Gahan, the British chaplain at Brussels
and pastor of the English church, came. He had a note from some one at
the St. Gilles prison, a note written in German, saying simply: