TOLD IN GALLANT DEEDS ❧ A CHILD’S HISTORY OF THE WAR
BY
MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES
London
JAMES NISBET & CO., LTD.
22 BERNERS STREET, W.
DEDICATED TO
THE HAPPY WARRIOR
CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR
Who is the happy warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
It is the generous spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought;
Whose high endeavours are an inward light
That makes the path before him always bright:
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care;
Who, doomed to go in company with pain,
And fear and bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
· · · · ·
Whom neither shape nor danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpassed:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must go to dust without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name,
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of heaven’s applause:
This is the happy warrior; this is he
Whom every man in arms should wish to be.
WORDSWORTH.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. BELGIUM 1
II. THE WHITE ENSIGN 22
III. BRITAIN, TO ARMS! 58
IV. THE BATTLE OF MONS 86
V. THE GREAT RETREAT 109
VI. CAMBRAI, LANDRÉCIES, ST. QUENTIN 120
VII. BATTLES OF MEAUX AND THE MARNE 139
VIII. THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE 154
IX. OUR ALLY RUSSIA 175
X. OUR ALLY FRANCE 193
XI. BELGIUM ONCE MORE 219
XII. THE FAR-FLUNG BATTLE LINE 232
PREFACE
The great war will leave more than a deep mark on our country; when it
is over, there will be a different England, a different Scotland, a
different Ireland. Grown-up people will always remember vividly the old,
happy, peaceful, confiding England, as she was before her placid
contentment was rudely shattered in a night.
But what of the children? There are thousands and thousands of little
children who will look back all their lives to this war as their first
important recollection, the first impact on their minds of the great
world of realities lying outside all childish things. It will not be
possible to keep from them the knowledge of many horrors and savage
brutalities, and it is therefore the more necessary that there should be
shown to them as soon as possible the other and glorious side of the
shield. It is the more necessary that for our children, through the long
years that lie before them, the memory of the Great War should be
touched to noble issues—that it should be, first and foremost, a memory
of deeds as gallant as any that have ever been inscribed in
Christendom’s long roll of honour.
There can hardly be one British child whose little world of personal
affections and interests has not been roughly disturbed by the war. Many
have seen their fathers and brothers going off to fight, and to many
those dear fathers and brothers will never come back. Even the children
who have no kindred in the Navy or Army have friends who have gone out.
In every village familiar faces are missed, and some will never be seen
again. In every town, great and small, it is the same—this new and
disturbing sense of personal loss.
In this book the writer has endeavoured to show by force of contrast
that savagery and brutality are not of the essence of war. The Happy
Warrior is to be found in all ranks and in all armies, and it is an
inspiring thought that, for every brave deed the record of which has
leapt to light, there must be ten others of which the stirring story
will never be known.
Every intelligent child must have gradually become aware that this great
war illustrates the enormously increased havoc that may now be wrought
by various scientific engines of destruction. But it is the object of
the writer to demonstrate that the personal valour of officers and men
remains the ultimately decisive factor. Man can never devise a more
marvellous war machine than himself. All through the ages we see that
battles are really won, not by improvements in weapons of precision, but
by the unquenchable spirit of the individual soldiers and sailors who
wield them.
The writer has, wherever possible, linked on each tale of heroism to one
like it in the annals of past wars. This serves to bring out what is
perhaps the most splendid lesson of the present gigantic struggle,
namely that the soldiers and sailors of the present day are indeed the
worthy successors of the heroes of the past.
The writer has also drawn on the treasures of the older English poetry
with which some modern children are not too well acquainted. It is her
experience that children instinctively respond to the best in
literature, and also that lines which to their elders may seem hackneyed
keep all their old power to thrill and uplift the young imagination.
Moreover, Belgium and France are rich in historic and literary
associations, and the writer has ventured to refer to books such as
_Tristram Shandy_, _Vanity Fair_, and _Villette_, which children ought
to know about now, and to read when they are older.
As to the sources from which the deeds of valour and of chivalry
recounted are taken, they range from the brilliant, highly literate
accounts written by war correspondents to extracts taken from the
wonderfully vivid and picturesque narratives contained in letters
written home to mothers and wives by soldiers and sailors just after the
actions described.
To all these unknown helpers to whom the best part of her book is due,
the writer tenders her grateful thanks.
TOLD IN GALLANT DEEDS
CHAPTER I
BELGIUM
“Now tell us what ’twas all about,”
Young Peterkin, he cries.
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes;
“Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for?”
Like the children in Mr. Southey’s poem, you will want to know first of
all why we joined in with France and Russia in the great war against
Germany and Austria. Well, the answer in a word is—Belgium.
Supposing you had solemnly promised to protect a little kitten and
afterwards a big dog came and attacked the kitten, would you not keep
your promise, and do all you could to help the kitten? Of course you
would. Belgium was the kitten, and Germany was the big dog. We had
faithfully promised to protect the little country of Belgium, and the
terrible thing is that Germany had promised too, but she broke her
promise.
Germany wanted to get into France.
If you look at the map, you will see that the Germans might have tried
to go straight in without touching Belgium. Only then they would have
had to break through a very strong line of forts which the French had
built to defend their country. The Germans did not feel sure of doing
this, and they said to themselves, “The longest way round is the
shortest way in.” That meant going through Belgium.
You have probably heard grown-up people, when discussing this great war,
mention “a scrap of paper.” You may even have wondered what a scrap of
paper could have to do with the war. I will tell you. On the dread day
when our mighty country threw down the gauntlet, the German statesman
who had worked hard to keep England out of Germany’s quarrel with France
and Russia exclaimed, “You are going to war for a scrap of paper!” He
spoke truly, but on that scrap of paper or parchment was written the
solemn promise of both England and Germany to be like big brothers to
Belgium and protect her from being bullied.
At first the Germans were very nice to Belgium. They said, “Only let us
come through your country, and when we have conquered France we will
give you a splendid reward!” But France also had promised to be a big
brother to Belgium, and so Belgium said “No!”
England also said “No!” England said to Germany, “If you touch our
little friend Belgium, we will fight you.”
So that is why the British Empire went to war with Germany. If we had
chosen the easy way of breaking our promise by simply doing nothing, by
standing out and merely looking on at the awful struggle, would we now
be proud of being English? I think not.
Germany did more than break her promise to protect Belgium. When she
found that the brave little country was gamely going to fight, she sent
her great armies, hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers with fleets
of aeroplanes and terrible big guns, whose shells, as they are now
called, could kill people miles away. She thought she would easily be
able to march through Belgium right into France, and she fully expected
to capture the city of Paris—all in one month!
In fact, Germany made the worst mistake that can be made in war—the
mistake of despising her enemies. She despised the power of the French
armies, and she also very much despised the British Army. She had a good
deal of respect for the British Navy because it is big, but because the
British Army was small she thought it did not matter. Well, she was
taught a richly-deserved lesson by Sir John French and his splendid
troops, of whose gallant deeds you will read in this book.
Most of all, Germany despised the army of poor little Belgium. And yet
the game little kitten, though suffering terribly herself, contrived to
inflict some severe scratches on the big German dog. She actually held
him up for quite a long time, to his great surprise and rage, and that
delay was of the utmost benefit both to France and to England. It
enabled them to make their final preparations for serious fighting, and
it gave us time to send our Army across the Channel to join up with the
French forces.
Notice, also, that it would have been very useful to France to send her
armies through Belgium to attack Germany. What prevented her? Just “a
scrap of paper,” just her pledge and promise. She could not break her
word, because it would not have been playing fair, it would have been
taking a mean advantage—the same mean advantage that Germany did not
hesitate to take.
But you may ask, “Why did not the French at least send plenty of
soldiers to defend Belgium?” The answer is that they did offer to send
more than 200,000 men. But Belgium refused. She believed that Germany
would keep her written promise. “Can the Kaiser put his name to a lie?”
she asked.
Terribly did Belgium suffer for her trust in German honour. But once she
saw her trust was betrayed, her little army fought with splendid
courage, thousands of Germans were killed in the first battles, and
thanks to the splendid defence put up by the forts of a Belgian town
called Liège, she delayed the vast, oncoming German hosts till Britain
and France were ready to take them on.
II
I am sure all of you are now familiar with the glorious name of Liège,
but you may not know so well that of the hero whose name is now linked
for ever with that of Liège—I mean General Leman, who conducted the
splendid defence.
The flower of the German Army was hurled against the city and the forts
and thirty thousand Belgians fought like lions repulsing the enemy.
Great deeds of individual valour were done, and a special interest
attaches to them as they were the first gallant deeds of this Great War.
Here is the story of a young soldier whose name is inscribed for ever on
the Belgian roll of honour.
I must tell you that waterways, almost always very beautiful and
picturesque waterways, play a great part in the life of Belgium, and
much fierce fighting has gone on, as we shall see, on the banks of
rivers, canals, and streams. In order to cut off the enemy, it became
all important to the Belgians to cross a canal, but the bridge was up,
and the mechanism was on the side held by the Germans.
A young soldier, named Tresignies, facing certain death, dived into the
stream, and swam across under the German fire. He leapt up the bank of
the stream, got hold of the pulley, and so lowered the bridge; but as it
fell in place, he himself fell dead.
The days went on, and still Liège held out amid terrible scenes of
bloodshed and heroism. Outside the forts the Belgians were not idle.
Fiercely they fought the enemy, and the Germans on their side were full
of pluck and of determination to conquer or die.
A fort is always built on the top of a hill or huge mound. Up the slopes
of each fort the Germans advanced again and again, under a withering
fire, and it was said that eight hundred men were killed within an half
mile square. If valour could have taken the forts during those early
days of the siege, Liège would have fallen. According to an eye-witness
who has seen much of the actual fighting during the war, the enemy never
fought so well as at Liège. But the enemy had a foe worthy of its steel.
An exciting and heartening incident of the fighting round Liège was the
capture by a brave Belgian boy of a German general.
A day may come when some of you British boys and girls will understand
why grown-up people smile when they note that this boy’s name is Jean
Jacques Rousseau. For Jean Jacques Rousseau was also the name of one
who, if a great thinker and writer, was not, in a physical sense, a
brave man; indeed, so vivid was the original Jean Jacques Rousseau’s
wonderful imagination, and so poor his courage, that he would probably
have fainted with fright had he been vouchsafed a vision of his
namesake’s gallant and daring deed!
The brave Jean Jacques Rousseau is only nineteen, yet he had already
been a soldier for three years when at Zelk, close to Liège, he
succeeded in making this officer of high rank his prisoner. The German
general seems to have put up very little fight; tamely he surrendered to
his captor a satchel containing not only papers, but six thousand pounds
in notes and gold! Jean Jacques handed over the money to the Red Cross,
for its noble work of tending the wounded, but he was allowed to keep
the satchel, and the General’s silver helmet.
When the Germans found they could not take Liège by what is called a
frontal attack—that is by an attack from the front—they brought up their
huge siege guns.
Now here I must stop to tell you about these guns. They were the first
surprise of the War, for their construction was kept a profound secret
by Germany, who with their help believed herself invincible! It is
suspected by some people that these new siege guns were to be kept
hidden till the enemy wished to strike terror into the defenders of the
huge forts which guard Paris. If that be so, then the gallant defence
put up by Liège forced the German generals to alter their plan, for as
soon as they found they could not take the Belgian stronghold by
assault, they dragged up seven huge guns—it takes thirty-five pairs of
horses to drag one along—and began battering the Liège forts to pieces!
Soon the Fort of Loncin, where the brave General Leman had his
headquarters, was entirely isolated. Each man, however, went on with his
work calmly and courageously, and that even when the bombardment was so
terrible that many were made—we must hope only temporarily—stone deaf.
One afternoon, just as General Leman and his staff were hastily drinking
a cup of tea, a terrific explosion shook the whole fort, and a moment
later its concrete walls collapsed in a cloud of flame and dust. Many
were killed outright; those who survived had the anguish of seeing the
enemy rush in.
In the midst of a scene of frightful horror and confusion the Germans
sought with frantic eagerness for General Leman. Soon they found him,
but at first they thought he was dead. He was, however, breathing, and
so, still unconscious, he was placed on a stretcher and taken out of the
ruins of the fort he had defended so gloriously.
There then occurred a fine little incident, and one to the credit of the
enemy. At the end of a gallery of which the sides were still standing,
were gathered together all that was left of the garrison. Black with
powder, their faces streaked with blood, their clothes in ribbons, their
hands clasping shattered rifles, the heroic little group, some
twenty-five men, still stood to resist. Touched by such splendid
courage, the Germans, instead of attacking, flung aside their weapons
and ran to the help of the brave Belgian soldiers. Of the five hundred
men who formed the garrison of Fort Loncin three hundred and fifty were
killed and more than a hundred were seriously wounded.
Meanwhile General Leman had recovered consciousness. He had sworn never
to be taken alive, but Fate had proved too strong for him! He was
accordingly brought before General von Emmich, the Commander of the
German forces. Sadly the Defender of Liège tendered his sword; but the
German general handed it back to him, and, bowing courteously,
congratulated General Leman very warmly on the splendid way in which he
had conducted the defence.
This example of German magnanimity recalls a French incident of the kind
which happened rather more than a hundred years ago. Lord Cochrane,
commanding his little British brig, the Speedy, was captured by the huge
Desaix. Admiral Linois, who lives in history as the best of Napoleon’s
naval commanders, refused, when Cochrane had to surrender, to take his
sword. “I cannot,” he cried, “take the sword of a man so brave that he
has been doing the impossible for twelve hours!” This was an allusion to
the fact that though three huge French battleships had all attacked the
Speedy together, her commander, by brilliant seamanship, had actually
managed to elude capture for a whole day.
General Leman, on being made prisoner, sent a very touching letter to
the King of the Belgians:
“Your Majesty will learn with grief that Fort Loncin was blown up
yesterday at 5.20 P.M., the greater part of the garrison being buried
under the ruins.
“That I did not lose my life in that catastrophe is due to my escort,
who drew me from a stronghold whilst I was being suffocated by gas from
the exploded powder. I was conveyed to a trench, where I fell. A German
captain gave me drink, and I was made prisoner and taken to Liège.
“In honour of our arms I have surrendered neither the fortress nor the
forts.
“Deign pardon, Sire. In Germany, where I am proceeding, my thoughts will
be, as they always have been, of Belgium and the King. I would willingly
have given my life the better to serve them, but death was not granted
to me.
“Lieutenant-General LEMAN.”
It was a happy and a graceful act on the part of the French Government
to bestow the Legion of Honour on the town of Liège, which, as was well
said in the decree setting forth the honour, “was called upon to bear
the first brunt of the German troops, and kept the invading army in
check in a struggle which was as unequal as it was heroic.”
Every soldier worthy of the name not only respects, but heartily
admires, a gallant, magnanimous foe. Had there been even a few German
commanders like General von Emmich, there would not now rest, as there
will do till the Day of Judgment, an indelible stain on Germany’s name.
It is awful to have to put on record that after the fall of Liège the
enemy, maddened by the unexpected resistance, took a fearful vengeance
on poor little Belgium.
As they marched through the lovely, peaceful villages, and charming,
storied towns, which all other invaders had spared even in the so-called
dark ages, the Germans burnt, blew up, and destroyed far and wide,
killing even women and children in their ruthlessness. Yet even so,
these unarmed Belgians performed wonderful deeds of valour.
When the enemy approached Heristal, the Belgian Woolwich, where is the
National Arms Factory, the town was defended against the German attack
by the women, for all the men were already away fighting.
These wives and mothers swore that the enemy should never take the
factory. They armed themselves with revolvers and other weapons, and
actually repulsed several charges of the Uhlans. When their ammunition
was exhausted, they barricaded themselves in various houses and poured
boiling water on the Germans. Children and old men shared in the
defence, and for two days the Belgian colours still floated over the
factory buildings.
There is scarcely a village, and there is no town, in Belgium which has
not some glorious page of history to its credit, and some precious
survival of the Middle Ages in the shape of a noble old church or town
hall. Only the glorious pages of history now remain. But these have been
added to, for as a brave Frenchwoman once finely phrased it, “Le plomb
ne tue pas l’idée,” which may be freely translated, “Bullets can only
kill the body.”
The storied monuments alas! which belonged not only to generous little
Belgium, but to the whole world, are gone. Battered, shattered, in many
cases razed to the ground, by German lead, which, though powerless to
kill the mind, has been able to destroy the sanctified beauty which the
genius of artists and of saints had created with such happy labour and
prayers.
It is a pathetic and even an awesome thing to have to say of any
place—even of a tiny village—“it was, and is no longer.” That,
unhappily, is what we now have to say of the venerable and beautiful
town of Louvain—the Oxford of Belgium. Spared by innumerable armies, by
the fighting men of a thousand years, it fell victim to one stupid
barbarian, who, I suppose, still imagines himself to be an officer and a
gentleman. His name is given as Manteuffel, and it is a curious irony of
fate that the destroyer of one of the oldest homes of learning in Europe
should bear a name honoured by all classical scholars.
This German commander, angered by a report, which seems to have been
quite false, that some of the inhabitants of the town had fired when
they saw their dread enemy approaching, ordered his soldiers to set
fire, deliberately and systematically, to the houses and public
buildings of a town which, to all lovers of the beautiful and to every
scholar in the old and the new world, had become a shrine, a place of
joyful pilgrimage.
Till this summer there actually remained at Louvain a fragment of what
had once been Cæsar’s Castle, and this survival of Roman days was of
special interest to English people, for Edward III and his queen lived
in the Castle for a winter. That great Emperor, Charles V, and his
sister also, were scholars at Louvain, their teacher there being a
priest who afterwards became Pope Adrian VI.
Heroic deeds were performed by some of the citizens of Louvain. Take the
case of Dr. Noyons, who happened at the time to be Principal of the
Medical Faculty of the University. On the very day the German Army
approached the town, he suddenly learned that a hundred wounded were to
be brought in. Beds were hurriedly got ready, and Dr. Noyons and his
wife, as well as a large staff, were in attendance. This was at mid-day,
and the wounded kept arriving all the afternoon.
At seven o’clock the firing of the town began! By eight o’clock the
famous library was in flames!
Dr. Noyons’ own house, though it contained a number of wounded and had
the Red Cross flag on the door, was now set on fire. But all night long
the professor and his wife went on attending on the wounded, and when,
the next morning, they were informed they must leave the town, in order
that it might be razed to the ground by big guns, this noble-hearted
couple at once decided to remain with those of the wounded (many of them
Germans) who were too much injured to be moved.
Helped by a few trusted assistants, they carried their unhappy patients
into the cellars of the hospital, and then they remained waiting for two
days for a bombardment which fortunately never came. At the end of that
time, this brave steadfast pair—a hero and heroine of a rare and
splendid type—brought the wounded up again to the wards, and calmly
continued to look after them.
Quite as awful as the fate of Louvain was that of the pretty town of
Termonde. But there also splendid deeds of heroism were performed by
quite simple folk.
Four times early in the War was unhappy Termonde bombarded, and twice it
was deliberately set ablaze. But there were wounded there all through,
and the Burgomaster and his two daughters never left the town. The two
girls—the elder seventeen, and her sister a year younger—stayed at their
posts as voluntary nurses, brave and fearless, thinking of nothing but
their duty to the wounded.
The name of Termonde will now be for ever associated with the wicked and
brutal conduct of the German Army. But before this last invasion of
Belgium, Termonde was famed as having been the scene of all sorts of
romantic incidents. Louis XIV, the stateliest of the great French kings,
was very nearly drowned there, for the country round the town, like that
of Holland, can be flooded at will. When the Sun King (as Louis XIV was
nicknamed) was told that Marlborough was about to besiege Termonde, he
observed: “He will have to bring an army of ducks to take it!” But
Marlborough had the good luck to be there at a time of terrible drought,
and so the brave garrison had to surrender.
Malines, or Mechlin as we ought to call it, was also the scene of one of
the fiercest fights, and suffered greatly from the enemy. The beautiful
little town was splendidly defended by the brave Belgians, but after two
days’ battle they had to retire. Mechlin is famous, not only for its
exquisite lace, but also for its peal of bells, and this, grievous to
say, was destroyed by a German shell. Robert Browning, in a poem which I
expect many of you know by heart, “How they brought the good news from
Ghent to Aix,” wrote:
“And from Mechlin church steeple we heard the half chime.”
But, tragic as was the fate of Mechlin, its most treasured relic was
saved! This, amusing to relate, is a curious doll which bears the odd
name of Op-Signoorke. This doll is said to have been modelled from a
dwarf who was the official jester of a famous Antwerp club in the
sixteenth century. In those days, every king and many a great noble had
his dwarf, a kind of human toy who often played a considerable part in
the life of his master.
The story goes that at a time when there was a great deal of friendly
rivalry between the Flemish towns, Mechlin boasted of a wonderful dwarf
jester who could out-talk and outwit any of his rivals. One of the
Antwerp Guilds was much annoyed at this, and when the next meeting took
place, it suddenly produced a new dwarf jester named Klaasken, who beat
the Mechlin dwarf at his own game!
Soon afterwards Klaasken died, and when the next contest was held the
good folk of Antwerp produced a wonderful model of him, beautifully
carved and splendidly dressed. The Mechlin people, incensed at this
insult to their live dwarf, carried him off one dark night, when the
doll was left unguarded. Op-Signoorke, as he was then re-christened,
remained at Mechlin, and ever since, on the occasion of the annual
Kermesse, he is hung out for all to see from a window of the town hall.
Now when it was known that the Germans were close to the town, a wise
alderman put Op-Signoorke in a bomb-proof shelter, where he will repose
till poor Belgium comes into her own again.
Shakespeare’s line in _Julius Cæsar_, “Let slip the dogs of war,” has a
practical meaning in this war. Both the French and the German armies are
accompanied to the front by war dogs; _les chiens militaires_ and _die
Kriegshunde_, as they are respectively called, are trained to act as
scouts, carry despatches, and they even help, as we shall see later on,
to succour the wounded. In Belgium dogs do much of the work performed in
other countries by horses, and during some of the more recent fights the
smaller pieces of artillery were actually harnessed to dog teams.
And now we must leave brave Belgium for a while, though later in this
book you will hear of many gallant deeds and romantic happenings, as
well as much that is piteous and terrible, concerning that country which
for hundreds of years has been called “The Cockpit of Europe.”
But there is much, even as I write, that goes to show that Belgium’s day
of ordeal is drawing to a close, and to her we may say that as long as
Britain, France, and Russia endure:
“There’s not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee: thou hast great allies:
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.”