As the Germans advanced and the battle raged from morning to night,
it became more and more evident that we were hopelessly outnumbered.
Possessing an advantage, however, in being on high ground, it was clear
that we could hold out for a considerable length of time and make the
enemy pay dearly for every yard of ground we had to give away. When
once the greenish-grey uniforms began to appear in any considerable
number, they came on in solid masses, which we mowed down, time after
time, by rifle and machine-gun fire and by showers of shrapnel from our
"75's." But others quickly filled their places, and thus the human tide
advanced, until at last the order had to be given for the retreat. This
was on August 25th, by which date, after the enemy had been obliged to
suspend operations for twenty-four hours to collect the wounded, they
had lost over forty thousand men.
_Ah! les gredins!_ how well they deserved their fate for the shooting
down of peaceful citizens in Charleroi and the unspeakable crimes
committed in the communes on the wooded heights of Loverval, Acoz,
Montigny-le-Tilleul, and Somzée! With what satisfaction our small
detachments, hidden in the woods, let the German scouts pass on in
order to open fire at close quarters on the masses of troops which
followed! They paid, then, for the outrages perpetrated by the Uhlans.
You ask for an instance. Here is one which was related to me by my
friend of Charleroi--he who viewed the battle from his house-top, and
afterwards explored the battlefield to come face to face with this
grim picture. A typical instance of Teutonic cruelty, I give it in his
own words: "A little way out of the village of Somzée was a small farm
inhabited by a young household, including three small children. Honest,
courageous, and economical folk, they had toiled season after season
to pay by annual instalments for their property, which they had agreed
to purchase some eight years ago. The last payment had just been made;
the children were growing up; the little family was happy. But the
German monsters came. In a few minutes this hardly-earned happiness was
shattered. The Boches seized everything--the few cows, the dearly-loved
horse. They set fire to the farm, shot the farmer, and drove before
them, into the distance, the poor widow with her four weeping and
terrified children. What a sinister picture it makes! It was at the
close of a splendid August day. The little isolated farm is burning.
A few yards from the door the dead man is lying on his back. On the
side of the hill which descends to the main road are the silhouettes of
the Uhlans disappearing in the gathering darkness of night. Tongues of
flame on the horizon mark places where similar dramas had been enacted."
"Now, then, boys, let them have it hot. Pick off the gunners one by
one. Marcel, Gustave, François, do you keep an eye on the officers.
_Ah, les gredins!_ we'll teach them!"
It was the day after the battle of Charleroi, and whilst our troops
were retiring in good order, my men and I, after the fashion of many
other small detachments, were holding a German battery in check. So
near were we to the enemy that we could hear the harsh, guttural
commands of the artillery officers--so different from the tone of
_camaraderie_ we adopt towards our men in the truly democratic army of
France--and could see them, though indistinctly, urging on their men
to the attack. From our trenches on a wooded knoll on the outskirts
of Beaumont, we kept up a steady fire on those who were serving the
guns, around which the Boches, falling like flies, quickly began to
accumulate in heaps. Fresh men incessantly replaced those who had
fallen, who at last lay in such numbers that the officers, in order
to make room for the gunners, had the dead dragged away to the rear
by the feet. Company after company of men fell in this way until the
German officers, who had either been shot or had decided to withdraw,
could be heard no more. A lull occurred. Bringing my glasses to bear on
the battery, I could see no sign of life save the convulsive movements
of a few of the prostrate men around the guns.
"It looks as though they had had enough," said I, to my friend Marcel,
a private who comes from the same place as myself--Loctudy, in
Brittany. "I wonder if we could capture those guns?"
Before he had time to answer a hurricane of bullets came from a hidden
machine-gun, and one of them found its billet. My poor friend, shot
through the head, fell into my arms. We laid him gently down, thinking
of the sad news that would have to be broken to a sorrowing mother at
home, and then, anger mingling with regret in our hearts, once more
directed our attention to the invisible enemy, in whose direction we
hastened to send our compliments in the form of a stream of _prunes_.
Overhead we could hear the humming of one of our aeroplanes, and
through an opening in the tree-tops momentarily caught sight of it as
it moved over the German lines, reconnoitering. Rings of smoke from
bursting shrapnel broke far beneath it. Its mission over, it moved
swiftly back to our lines, and within ten minutes Marcel and many
other brave fellows were avenged. Our "75's" got the range of the
battery in front of us with marvellous exactitude, and for five minutes
poured upon it such a rain of shells as to make it seem impossible
that anything could live within a distance of a hundred yards. The
dead around the guns were scattered like chaff in a high wind. A great
silence followed that series of violent explosions. For five minutes,
in accordance with orders, the men were busy cutting steps with their
entrenching tools in our trench, so as to spring out of it quickly and
proceed to capture the guns. Caution prompted another five minutes'
wait, during which there was not a sign of life before us.
"Now, then, _mes gars!_ time's up," I cried, as loud as prudence would
allow. "Fix bayonets! Out of the trench as nimbly as you can. Take
cover, when in the open, as much as possible. Are you ready? Forward,
for the sake of France!"