October, which is one of tangible record and not of opinion, should
absolutely eliminate the charges of bad faith on the part of Russia, for
he immediately appropriated for the support of Rumania between eight and
ten army corps, which were instantly placed in motion, regardless of the
adverse condition their absence caused on his own front. It is quite
true that these troops arrived too late to save Bucharest; but that they
came as quickly as possible, I can assert without reservation, for I was
on the various lines of communication for nearly a month and found them
blocked with these corps, which represented the cream of the Russian
army, to make good the moral obligations of Russia to Rumania. In
November I had a talk with Brussiloff, who authorized me to quote him as
follows on the Rumanian situation:
[Sidenote: Rumania feels bitterness of defeat.]
H.Q.--S.W.F.--Nov. 7.
Rumania is now feeling for the first time the
pressure of war and the bitterness of defeat;
but Rumania must realize that her defeats are
but incidents in the greater campaign; for
behind her stands great Russia, who will see to
it that her brave little ally, who has come
into the war for a just cause, does not
ultimately suffer for daring to espouse this
cause for which we are all fighting. I can
speak with authority when I state that, from
the Emperor down to the common soldier, there
is a united sentiment in Russia that Rumania
shall be protected, helped, and supported in
every way possible. Rumanians must feel faith
in Russia and the Russian people, and must also
know that in the efforts we are making to save
them sentiment is the dominant factor, and we
are not doing it merely as a question of
protecting our own selfish interest and our
left flank.
[Sidenote: No wanton breach of faith.]
It seems to me that the evidence I have submitted above clears the
Allies, including Russia, of any wanton breach of faith toward Rumania,
though the failure of their intention to relieve her certainly does not
diminish their responsibility toward her in the future.
[Sidenote: Germans on defensive in the north.]
In the final analysis the determining factor in the ruin of Rumania was
the failure of the Allies to foresee the number of troops the Germans
could send against them. Their reasoning up to a certain point was
accurate. In July, August, and for part of September it was, I believe,
almost impossible for the Germans to send troops to Transylvania, which
accounts for the rapidity of the Rumanian advance at the beginning of
their operations. The fallacy in the Allied reasoning seems to me to
have been that every one overlooked certain vital factors in the German
situation. First, that she would ultimately support any threat against
Hungary to the limit of her capacity, even if she had to evacuate
Belgium to get troops for this purpose. For with Hungary out of the war
it is a mate in five moves for the Central Empires. Second: the Allies
failed to analyze correctly the troop situation on the eastern front,
apparently failing to grasp one vital point. An army can defend itself
in winter, with the heavy cold and snows of Russia sweeping the barren
spaces, with perhaps sixty per cent of the number of troops required to
hold those identical lines in summer. It should have been obvious that,
when the cold weather set in in the north, the Germans would take
advantage of this situation, and by going on the defensive in the north
release the margin representing the difference in men required to hold
their lines in summer and in winter. Possibly the same condition applies
to the west, though I cannot speak with any authority on that subject.
Apparently this obvious action of the Germans is exactly what happened.
When their northern front had been combed, we find forces subtracted
piecemeal from the north, reaching an aggregate of thirty divisions, or
at least nearly fifteen divisions more than had been anticipated. The
doom of Rumania was sealed.
[Sidenote: Retreating armies must reach defenses.]
What happened in the Russian effort to support Rumania is exactly what
has occurred in nearly all the drives that I have been in during this
war. An army once started in retreat in the face of superior forces can
hold only when supported _en bloc_ or when it reaches a fortified line.
The Germans with all their cleverness and efficiency were not able to
stop the Russian offensive of 1916 until they had fallen back on the
fortified lines of the Stokhod in front of Kovel. In the Galician drive
against the Russians in 1915, the armies of the Tsar were not able to
hold until they reached the San River, on which they fought a series of
rear-guard actions.
[Sidenote: Russian corps on Sereth line.]
So it was in Rumania. The Russian corps arriving on the installment plan
were swept away by the momentum of the advancing enemy, who could not be
halted until the fortified line of the Sereth was reached.
[Sidenote: Rumanians played the game.]
[Sidenote: Russia in chaos.]
Whether one blames the Allies for lack of vision or not, I think one
must at least acquit Rumania of any responsibility for her own undoing.
Her case as represented by the King seems a just and sufficient reason
for her having entered the war. Her action during the war has been
straightforward and direct, and I have never heard of any reason to
believe that the King or the Rumanian High Command has ever looked back
in the furrow since they made the decision to fight on the side of the
Allies. They followed the advice given them as to their participation in
the war. They have played the game to the limit of their resources and
to-day stand in a position almost unparalleled in its pathos and
acuteness. In front of them, as they struggle with courage and
desperation for the small fragment of their kingdom that remains, are
the formations of the Turks, Bulgars, Austrians, Hungarians, and
Germans, with Mackensen striving to give them a death-blow. Behind them
is Russia in chaos. German agitators and irresponsible revolutionists
have striven in vain to destroy the morale of their army and shake their
faith in their government and their sovereign. It is estimated that
three million Rumanian refugees have taken shelter behind their lines.
Their civil population, or that portion of it which remains, will this
winter be destitute of almost every necessity of life.
[Sidenote: Obligation of Allies to Rumania.]
This, then, is the case of Rumania, and if we and the other Allies have
not a moral obligation to the King and Queen and the government of that
little country, to support them in every way possible, then surely we
have no obligation to any one.
Sentiment, however, is not the only factor in the Rumanian case. There
is also the problem of sound policy. In spite of all her distress and
her discouragements Rumania has been able to save from the wreckage, and
to reconstruct, an army which it is said can muster between three and
four hundred thousand men.
[Sidenote: Rumanian army well drilled.]
These soldiers are well drilled by French officers, filled with
enthusiasm and fighting daily, and are even now diverting enemy troops
toward Rumania which would otherwise be available for fighting British,
French, and American troops in the west.
The Rumanians are the matrix of the Russian left flank, and if, through
lack of support and the necessities of life, they go out of the war, the
solidity of the Russian left is destroyed and the capture of Odessa
probably foreordained.
A few hundred million dollars would probably keep Rumania fighting for
another year. It is a conservative estimate to state that it will take
ten times that amount, and at least six months' delay, to place the
equivalent number of trained American troops on any fighting front.
[Sidenote: Every assistance should be given.]
It is, I think, obvious that from the point of view of sound military
policy, as well as moral and ethical obligation, every American whose
heart is in this war should be behind the President of the United States
without reserve, in any effort he may make or recommend, in extending
assistance to Rumania in this the hour of her greatest peril.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Germany's treatment of prisoners of war.]
Prisoners taken by the Germans were overworked and disciplined with much
insolence and cruelty. For infractions of their iron rules the Germans
inflicted the severest penalties. The food supplied was insufficient and
of very poor quality, so that men might actually have starved had it not
been for boxes sent from home through the Red Cross. In the following
chapter, a Canadian soldier, who finally escaped after three
unsuccessful attempts, describes the life of prisoners and other workers
in the Westphalian coal mines.
SIXTEEN MONTHS A WAR PRISONER
PRIVATE "JACK" EVANS
Copyright, Forum, May 1918.
I was in Germany as prisoner of war from June, 1916, to September, 1917.
[Sidenote: Captured at third battle of Ypres.]
[Sidenote: A giant shell blows up the dugout.]
My story starts with my capture at the third battle of Ypres. The Fourth
Canadian Mounted Rifles were in the front line at Zillebeke. We had been
terribly pounded by German artillery, in fact, almost annihilated. After
a hideous night, morning, June 2, 1916, dawned beautiful and clear. At
5.30 I turned in for a little sleep with four other fellows who made up
the machine-gun crew with me. Lance Corporal Wedgewood, in charge of the
gun, remained awake to clean it. I had just got into a sound sleep when
it seemed as if the whole crust of the earth were torn asunder in one
mammoth explosion, and I found myself buried beneath sandbags and loose
earth. I escaped death only by a miracle and managed to dig my way out.
A giant shell had blown up our dugout. Two of the boys were killed.
"We're in for it," said Wedgewood. "They'll keep this up for a while and
they'll come over. We must get the gun out."
[Sidenote: German barrage almost wipes out the Fourth.]
The gun had been buried by the explosion, but we managed to get it out
and were cleaning it up again when another trench mortar shell came
over. It destroyed all but 300 rounds of ammunition. Then the
bombardment started in earnest. Shells rained on us like hailstones. The
German artillery started a barrage behind us that looked almost like a
wall of flame; so we knew that there was no hope whatever of help
reaching us.
Our men dropped off one by one. The walls of our trench were battered to
greasy sand heaps. The dead lay everywhere. Soon only Wedgewood, another
chap, and myself were left.
"They've cleaned us out now. The whole battalion's gone," he said.
As far as we could see along the line there was nothing left, not even
trenches--just churned-up earth and mutilated bodies. The gallant Fourth
had stood its ground in the face of probably the worst hell that had yet
visited the Canadian lines and had been wiped out!
It was not long before the other fellow was finished by a piece of
shrapnel. I was wounded in the back with a splinter from a shell which
broke overhead and then another got me in the knee. I bled freely, but
luckily neither wound was serious. About 1.30 we saw a star shell go up
over the German lines.
"They're coming!" cried Wedgewood, and we jumped to the gun.
[Sidenote: The two men remaining fire the machine gun.]
The Germans were about seventy-five yards off when we got the gun
trained on them. We gave them our 300 rounds and did great damage; the
oncoming troops wavered and the front line crumpled up, but the rest
came on.
[Sidenote: Captured by Germans.]
What followed does not remain very clearly in my mind. We tried to
retreat. Every move was agony for me. We did not go far, however. Some
of the Germans had got around us and we ran right into four of them. We
doubled back and found ourselves completely surrounded. A ring of steel
and fierce, pitiless eyes! I expected they would butcher us there and
then. The worst we got, however, was a series of kicks as we were
marching through the lines in the German communication trenches.
[Sidenote: The night in a stable at Menin.]
We were given quick treatment at a dressing station and escorted with
other prisoners back to Menin by Uhlans. The wounded were made to get
along as best they could. We passed through several small towns where
the Belgian people tried to give us food. The Uhlans rode along and
thrust them back with their lances in the most cold-blooded way. We
reached Menin about 10 o'clock that night and were given black bread and
coffee--or something that passed by that name. The night was spent in a
horse stable with guards all around us with fixed bayonets. The next day
we were lined up before a group of German officers, who asked us
questions about the numbers and disposition of the British forces, and
we lied extravagantly. They knew we were lying, and finally gave it up.
[Sidenote: In cattle trucks to Duelmen camp.]
During the next day and a half, traveling in cattle trucks, we had one
meal, a bowl of soup. It was weak and nauseating. We took it gratefully,
however, for we were nearly starved.
[Sidenote: Food bad and insufficient.]
Finally we arrived at Duelmen camp, where I was kept two months. The food
was bad, and very, very scanty. For breakfast we had black bread and
coffee; for dinner, soup (I still shudder at the thought of turnip
soup), and sometimes a bit of dog meat for supper, a gritty, tasteless
porridge, which we called "sand storm." We used to sit around with our
bowls of this concoction and extract a grim comfort from the hope that
some day Kaiser Bill would be in captivity and we might be allowed to
feed him on "sand storm."
[Sidenote: The American Ambassador's visit.]
While I was at Duelmen we had quite a number of visitors. One day Mr.
Gerard, the American Ambassador, appeared. He looked us over with great
concern and asked us a number of questions. "Is there anything I can do
for you?" he asked as he was leaving.
"See if you can get them to give us more food," one of us begged.
"I shall speak to the camp commander about it," promised Mr. Gerard.
I do not doubt that he did so--but there was no change in the menu and
no increase in the quantities served.
[Sidenote: Arrival at the coal mine.]
After two months at Duelmen prison camp we got word that we were to be
sent to work on a farm. We conjured up visions of open fields and fresh
air and clean straw to sleep in and perhaps even real food to eat. They
loaded fifty of us into one car and sent us off, and when we reached our
farm we found it was a coal mine!
As we tumbled off the train, stiff, weary, and disappointed, we were
regarded curiously by a small group of people who worked in the mines.
They were a heavy looking lot--oldish men with beards, and dull, stolid
women. They regarded us with sullen hostility, but there was no fire in
their antagonism. Some of the men spat and muttered "Schweinhunds!" That
was all.
[Sidenote: The prison camp.]
We were marched off to the "Black Hole." It was a large camp with large
frame buildings, which had been erected especially for the purpose.
There was one building for the French prisoners, one for the Russians,
and one for the British and Canadian contingent. Barbed wire
entanglements surrounded the camp and there were sentries with drawn
bayonets everywhere.
[Sidenote: Heavy work and slender rations.]
We were greeted with considerable interest by the other prisoners. There
were about two hundred of our men there and all of them seemed in bad
shape. They had been subjected to the heaviest kind of work on the
slenderest rations and were pretty well worn out.
[Sidenote: A strike for safeguards.]
Some of us were selected for the mine and some were told off for coke
making, which, as we soon learned, was sheer unadulterated hell. I was
selected for the coke mine and put in three days at it--three days of
smarting eyes and burning lungs, of aching and weary muscles. Then my
chum, Billy Flanagan, was buried under an avalanche of falling coal and
killed. There were no safeguards in the mine and the same accident might
occur again at any time. So we struck.
[Sidenote: Kept at "attention" thirty-six hours.]
The officers took it as a matter of course. We were lined up and ordered
to stand rigidly at "attention." No food was served, not even a glass of
water was allowed us. We stood there for thirty-six hours. Man after man
fainted from sheer exhaustion. When one of us dropped he was dragged out
of the ranks to a corner, where a bucket of water was thrown over him,
and, as soon as consciousness returned, he was yanked to his feet and
forced to return to the line. All this time sentries marched up and down
and if one of us moved he got a jab with the butt end of the gun. Every
half hour an officer would come along and bark out at us:
"Are you for work ready now?"
Finally, when some of our fellows were on the verge of insanity, we gave
in in a body.
[Sidenote: Awakened at 4 a. m.]
[Sidenote: Turnip soup the chief article of diet.]
After that things settled down into a steady and dull routine. We were
routed out at 4 o'clock in the morning. The sentries would come in and
beat the butts of their rifles on the wooden floor and roar "Raus!" at
the top of their voices. If any sleep-sodden prisoners lingered a
second, they were roughly hauled out and kicked into active obedience.
Then a cup of black coffee was served out to us and at 5 o'clock we were
marched to the mines. There was a dressing room at the mine where we
stripped off our prisoners' garb and donned working clothes. We stayed
in the mines until 3.30 in the afternoon and the "staggers"--our pet
name for the foremen--saw to it that we had a busy time of it. Then we
changed back into our prison clothes and marched to barracks, where a
bowl of turnip soup was given us and a half pound of bread. We were
supposed to save some of the bread to eat with our coffee in the
morning. Our hunger was so great, however, that there was rarely any of
the bread left in the morning. At 7 o'clock we received another bowl of
turnip soup and were then supposed to go to bed.
If it had not been for the parcels of food that we received from friends
at home and from the Red Cross we would certainly have starved. We were
able to eke out our prison fare by carefully husbanding the food that
came from the outside.
[Sidenote: Citizen miners also complain about food.]
The citizens working in the mines when I first arrived were mostly
middle-aged. Many were quite venerable in appearance and of little
actual use. They were willing enough to work and work hard; but they
complained continually about the lack of food.
That was the burden of their conversation, always, food--bread, butter,
potatoes, schinken (ham)! They were living on meager rations and the
situation grew steadily worse. The people that I worked with were in
almost as bad a plight as we prisoners of war. In the course of a few
months I could detect sad changes in them.
[Sidenote: German miners also severely disciplined.]
The German miners were quite as much at the mercy of the officers as we
were. Discipline was rigid and they were "strafed" for any infraction of
rules; that is, they were subjected to cuts in pay. Lateness, laziness,
or insubordination were punished by the deduction of so many marks from
their weekly earnings, and all on the say-so of the "stagger" in charge
of the squad. At a certain hour each day an official would come around
and hand each civilian a slip of paper. I asked one of my companions
what it was all about.
[Sidenote: No bread tickets for those who do not work.]
"Bread tickets," he explained. "If they don't turn up for work, they
don't get their bread tickets and have to go hungry."
The same rule applied to the women who worked around the head of the
mine, pushing carts and loading the coal. If they came to work, they
received their bread tickets; if they failed to turn up, the little
mouths at home would go unfed for a day.
[Sidenote: German women at the mines.]
I often used to stop for a moment or so on my way to or from the pit
head and watch these poor women at work. Some of them went barefoot, but
the most of them wore wooden shoes. They appeared to be pretty much of
one class, uneducated, dull, and just about as ruggedly built as their
men. They seemed quite capable of handling the heavy work given them.
There were exceptions, however. Here and there among the gray-clad
groups I could pick out women of a slenderer mold. These were women of
refinement and good education who had been compelled to turn to any
class of work to feed their children. Their husbands and sons were at
the front or already killed.
The food restrictions caused bitterness among all the mine workers.
There were angry discussions whenever a group of them got together. For
several days this became very marked.
"There's going to be trouble here," my friend, the English Tommy, told
me. "These people say their families are starving. They will strike one
of these days."
The very next day, as we marched up to work in the dull gray of the
early morning, we found noisy crowds of men and women around the
buildings at the mine. A ring of sentries had been placed all around.
[Sidenote: Bread strike of the citizen miners.]
"Strike's on! There's a bread strike all through the mining country!"
was the whispered news that ran down the line of prisoners. We were
delighted, because it meant that we would have a holiday. The
authorities did not dare let us go into the mines with the civilians
out; they were afraid we might wreck it. So we were marched back to camp
and stayed there until the strike was over.
[Sidenote: The strikers win and new rules are formulated.]
The strike ended finally and the people came back to work, jubilant. The
authorities had given in for two reasons, as far as we could judge. The
first was the dire need of coal, which made any interruption of work at
the mines a calamity. The second was the fact that food riots were
occurring in many parts and it was deemed wise to placate the people.
But the triumph of the workers was not complete. The very next day we
noticed signs plastered up in conspicuous places with the familiar word
"Verboten" in bold type at the top. One of our fellows who could read
German edged up close enough to see one of the placards.
"There won't be any more strikes," he informed us. "The authorities have
made it illegal for more than four civilians to stand together at any
time or talk together. Any infringement of the rule will be jail for
them. That means no more meetings."
There was much muttering in the mine that day, but it was done in groups
of four or less. I learned afterward, when I became sufficiently
familiar with the language and with the miners themselves to talk with
them, that they bitterly resented this order.
[Sidenote: Strike leaders disappear from the mine.]
I found that the active leaders in the strike shortly afterward
disappeared from the mine. Those who could possibly be passed for
military service were drafted into the army. This was intended as an
intimation to the rest that they must "be good" in future. The fear of
being drafted for the army hung over them all like a thunder cloud. They
knew what it meant and they feared it above everything.
When I first arrived at the mine there were quite a few able-bodied men
and boys around sixteen and seventeen years of age at work there.
Gradually they were weeded out for the army. When I left none were there
but the oldest men and those who could not possibly qualify for any
branch of the service.
[Sidenote: Talks with the German miner.]
In the latter stages of my experience at the mine I was able to talk
more or less freely with my fellow workers. A few of the Germans had
picked up a little English. There was one fellow who had a son in the
United States and who knew about as much English as I knew German, and
we were able to converse. If I did not know the "Deutsch" for what I
wanted to say, he generally could understand it in English. He was
continually making terrific indictments of the German Government, yet he
hated England to such a degree that he would splutter and get purple in
the face whenever he mentioned the word. However, he could find it in
his heart to be decent to isolated specimens of Englishmen.
I first got talking with Fritz one day when the papers had announced the
repulse of a British attack on the western front.
[Sidenote: Fritz's view of British attacks.]
"It's always the same. They are always attacking us," he cursed. "Of
course, it's true that we repulse them. They are but English and they
can't break the German army. But how are we to win the war if it is
always the English who attack?"
"Do you still think Germany can win?" I asked.
"No!" He fairly spat at me. "We can't beat you now. But you can't beat
us! This war will go on until your pig-headed Lloyd George gives in."
"Or," I suggested gently, "until your pig-headed Junker Government gives
in."