GENERAL WOOD SCORES ANOTHER BRILLIANT SUCCESS AGAINST THE CROWN PRINCE
On the evening of October 14, 1921, Field Marshal von Kluck awaited final
news of the battle of the Susquehanna while enjoying an excellent meal
with his staff in the carved and gilded dining-room of the old S. B.
Chittenden mansion on Brooklyn Heights, headquarters of the army of
occupation. All the earlier despatches through the afternoon had been
favourable and, as the company finished their _Kartoffelsuppe_, von Kluck
had risen, amidst _hochs_ of applause, and read a telegram from his
Imperial master, the Crown Prince, who, with Field Marshal von
Hindenburg, was directing the battle from Perryville on the Northern
bank, announcing that the German army had crossed the river and driven
back Leonard Wood’s forces for five miles and occupied a vast network of
American trenches.
The officers lingered over their _preisselbeeren compote_ and
_kaffeekuchen_ and, presently, the commander rose again, holding a
telegram just delivered by a red-faced lieutenant whose cheek was slashed
with scars.
“Comrades, the great moment has come--I feel it. Our victory at the
Susquehanna means the end of American resistance, the capture of
Baltimore, Washington and the whole Atlantic seaboard. Let us drink to
the Fatherland and our place in the sun.”
Up on their feet came the fire-eating company, with lifted glasses and
the gleam of conquerors in their eyes.
“_Hoch! Hoch!_” they cried and waited, fiercely joyful, while von Kluck
opened the despatch. His shaggy brows contracted ominously as he scanned
two yellow sheets crowded with closely written German script.
“_Gott in Himmel!_” he shouted, and threw the telegram on the table.
The blow had fallen, the incredible truth was there before them. Not only
had the redoubtable von Hindenburg, idol of a nation, hero of countless
Russian victories, suffered crushing defeat, but his proud battalions had
been almost annihilated. In the whole history of warfare there had never
been so complete a disaster to so powerful an army.
“Burned to death! Our brave soldiers! Was there ever so barbarous a
crime?” raved the Field Marshal. “But the American people will pay for
this, yes, ten times over. We still have two armies on their soil and a
fleet ready to transport from Germany another army of half a million. We
hold their greatest cities, their leading citizens at our mercy, and they
shall have none. Burned in oil! _Mein Gott!_ We will show them.”
“Excellency,” questioned the others anxiously, “what of his Imperial
Highness the Crown Prince?”
“Safe, thank God, and von Hindenburg is safe. They did not cross the
cursed river. They stayed on the Northern bank with the artillery and
three thousand men.”
I learned later that these three thousand of the German rear guard,
together with seven thousand that escaped from the fire zone and were
made prisoners, were all that remained alive of the 120,000 Germans that
had crossed the Susquehanna that fatal morning with flying eagles.
Orders were immediately given by von Kluck that retaliatory steps be
taken to strike terror into the hearts of the American people, and the
wires throughout New England were kept humming that night with
instructions to the commanding officers of German forces of occupation in
Boston, Hartford, New Haven, Portland, Springfield, Worcester, Newport,
Fall River, Stamford; also in Newark, Jersey City, Trenton and
Philadelphia, calling upon them to issue proclamations that, in
punishment of an act of barbarous massacre committed by General Wood and
the American army, it was hereby ordered that one-half of the hostages
previously taken by the Germans in each of these cities (the same to be
chosen by lot) should be led forth at noon on October 15th and publicly
executed.
At half-past eleven, October 15th, on the Yale University campus, there
was a scene of excitement beyond words, although dumb in its tragic
expression, when William Howard Taft, who was one of the hostages drawn
for execution, finished his farewell address to the students.
“I call on you, my dear friends,” he cried with an inspired light in his
eyes, “to follow the example of our glorious ancestors, to put aside
selfishness and all base motives and rise to your supreme duty as
American citizens. Defend this dear land! Save this nation! And, if it be
necessary to die, let us die gladly for our country and our children, as
those great patriots who fought under Washington and Lincoln were glad to
die for us.”
With a noble gesture he turned to the guard of waiting German soldiers.
He was ready.
Deeply moved, but helpless, the great audience of students and professors
waited in a silence of rage and shame. They would fain have hurled
themselves, unarmed, upon the gleaming line of soldiers that walled the
quadrangle, but what would that have availed?
A Prussian colonel of infantry, with many decorations on his breast,
stepped to the edge of the platform, glanced at his wrist-watch and said
in a high-pitched voice: “Gentlemen of the University, I trust you have
carefully read the proclamation of Field Marshal von Kluck. Be sure that
any disorder during the execution of hostages that is now to take place
will bring swift and terrible punishment upon the city and citizens of
New Haven. Gentlemen, I salute you.”
He turned to the guard of soldiers. “_Gehen!_”
“_Fertig! Hup!_” cried a stocky little Bavarian sergeant, and the grim
procession started.
At the four corners of the public green were companies of German soldiers
with machine-guns trained upon dense crowds of citizens who had gathered
for this gruesome ceremony, high-spirited New Englanders whose faith and
courage were now to be crushed out of them, according to von Kluck, by
this stern example.
Down Chapel Street with muffled drums came the unflinching group of
American patriots, marching between double lines of cavalry and led by a
military band. At Osborn Hall they turned to the right and moved slowly
along College Street to the Battell Chapel, where they turned again and
advanced diagonally across the green, the band playing Beethoven’s
funeral march.
In the centre of the dense throng, at a point between Trinity Church and
the old Centre Church, a firing squad of bearded Westphalians was making
ready for the last swift act of vengeance, when, suddenly, in the
direction of Elm Street near the Graduates’ Club, there came a tumult of
shouts and voices with a violent pushing and struggling in the crowd. A
messenger on a motorcycle was trying to force his way to the commanding
officer.
“Stop! Stop!” he shouted. “I’ve got a telegram for the general. Let me
through! I _will_ get through!”
And at last, torn and breathless, the lad did get through and delivered
his message. It was a telegram from Field Marshal von Kluck, which read:
“Have just received a despatch from General Leonard Wood, stating that
his Imperial Highness the Crown Prince and Field Marshal von Hindenburg,
with their military staffs, have been made prisoners by an American army
north of the Susquehanna, and giving warning that if retaliatory measures
are taken against American citizens, his Imperial Highness will, within
twenty-four hours, be stood up before the statue of his Imperial ancestor
Frederick the Great, in the War College at Washington, and shot to death
by a firing squad from the Pennsylvania National Guard. In consequence of
this I hereby countermand all previous orders for the execution of
American hostages. (Signed) VON KLUCK.”
Like lightning this wonderful news spread through the crowd, and in the
delirious joy that followed there was much disorder which the Germans
scarcely tried to suppress. They were stunned by the catastrophe. The
Crown Prince a prisoner! Von Hindenburg a prisoner! By what miracle of
strategy had General Wood achieved this brilliant coup?
Here were the facts, as I subsequently learned. So confident of complete
success was the American commander, that by twelve o’clock on the day of
battle he had diverted half of his forces, about 30,000 men, in a rapid
movement to the north, his purpose being to cross the Susquehanna higher
up and envelop the rear guard of the enemy, with their artillery and
commanding generals, in an overwhelming night attack. Hour after hour
through the night of October 14th a flotilla of ferry-boats, cargo-boats,
tugs, lighters, river craft of all sorts, assembled days before, had
ferried the American army across the Susquehanna as George Washington
ferried his army across the Delaware a hundred and fifty years before.
All night the Americans pressed forward in a forced march, and by
daybreak the Crown Prince and his 3,000 men were caught beyond hope of
rescue, hemmed in between the Susquehanna River and the projecting arms
of Chesapeake Bay. The surprise was complete, the disaster irretrievable,
and at seven o’clock on the morning of October 15th the heir to the
German throne and six of his generals, including Field Marshal von
Hindenburg, surrendered to the Americans the last of their forces with
all their flags and artillery and an immense quantity of supplies and
ammunition.
By General Wood’s orders the mass of German prisoners were moved to
concentration camps at Gettysburg, but the Crown Prince was taken to
Washington, where he and his staff were confined with suitable honours in
the Hotel Bellevue, taken over by the government for this purpose. Here,
during the subsequent fortnight, I had the honour of seeing the
illustrious prisoner on several occasions. It seems that he remembered me
pleasantly from the New England campaign and was glad to call upon my
knowledge of American men and affairs for his own information.
[Illustration: “YOU KNOW, MARK TWAIN WAS A GREAT FRIEND OF MY FATHER’S,”
SAID THE CROWN PRINCE, “I REMEMBER HOW MY FATHER LAUGHED, ONE EVENING AT
THE PALACE IN BERLIN, WHEN MARK TWAIN TOLD US THE STORY OF ‘THE JUMPING
FROG.’”]
As to von Hindenburg’s defeat (leaving aside the question of military
ethics which he denounced scathingly) the Crown Prince said this had been
accomplished by a mere accident that could never occur again and that
could not interfere with Germany’s ultimate conquest of America.
“This will be a short-lived triumph,” declared His Imperial Highness,
when he received me in his quarters at the Bellevue, “and the American
people will pay dearly for it. The world stands aghast at the horror of
this barbarous act.”
“America is fighting for her existence,” said I.
“Let her fight with the methods of civilised warfare. Germany would scorn
to gain an advantage at the expense of her national honour.”
“If Your Imperial Highness will allow me to speak of Belgium in 1914--” I
began, but he cut me short with an impatient gesture.
“Our course in Belgium was justified by special reasons--that is the calm
verdict of history.”
I refrained from arguing this point and was patient while the prince
turned the conversation on his favourite theme, the inferiority of a
democratic to an autocratic form of government.
“I have been studying the lives of your presidents,” he said,
“and--really, how can one expect them to get good results with no
training for their work and only a few years in office? Take men like
Johnson, Tyler, Polk, Hayes, Buchanan, Pierce, Filmore, Harrison,
McKinley. Mediocre figures, are they not? What do they stand for?”
“What does the average king or emperor stand for?” I ventured, whereupon
His Imperial Highness pointed proudly to the line of Hohenzollern rulers,
and I had to admit that these were exceptional men.
“The big men of America go into commercial and industrial pursuits rather
than into politics,” I explained.
“Exactly,” agreed the prince, “and the republic loses their services.”
“No, the republic benefits by the general prosperity which they build
up,” I insisted.
With this the Imperial prisoner discussed the American Committee of
Twenty-one and I was astonished to find what full knowledge he had
touching their individual lives and achievements. He even knew the
details of Asa G. Candler’s soda water activities. And he told me several
amusing stories of Edison’s boyhood.
“By the way,” he said abruptly, “I suppose you know that Thomas A. Edison
is a prisoner in our hands?”
“So we concluded,” said I. “Also Lemuel A. Widding.”
“Also Lemuel A. Widding,” the prince admitted. “You know why we took them
prisoners? It was on account of Widding’s invention. He thinks he has
found a way to destroy our fleet and we do not want our fleet destroyed.”
“Naturally not.”
“You had a talk with Edison on the train last week. He knows all the
details of Widding’s invention?”
“Yes.”
“And he believes it will do what the inventor claims? He believes it will
destroy our fleet? Did he tell you that?”
“He certainly did. He said he wouldn’t give five cents for the German
fleet after Widding’s plan is put into operation.”
“Ah!” reflected the Crown Prince.
“Would Your Imperial Highness allow me to ask a question?” I ventured.
His eyes met mine frankly. “Why, yes--certainly.”
“I have no authority to ask this, but I suppose there might be an
exchange of prisoners. Edison and Widding are important to America
and--“.
“You mean they might be exchanged for me?” his face grew stern. “I would
not hear of it. Those two Americans alone have the secret of this Widding
invention, I am sure of that, and it is better for the Fatherland to get
along without a Crown Prince than without a fleet. No. We shall keep Mr.
Edison and Mr. Widding prisoners.”
He said this with all the dignity of his Hohenzollern ancestry; then he
rose to end the interview.