full of blood, and my wrist spurting blood, so I knew an artery of some
sort must have been cut. The Germans had a shot at me when I was on
the ground to finish me off; that shot hit my sword, which I wore on my
side, and broke in half just below the hilt; this turned the bullet off
and saved my life. I afterwards found that two shots had gone through
my field glasses, which I wore on my belt, and another had gone through
my coat pocket, breaking my pipe and putting a hole through a small
collapsible tin cup, which must have turned the bullet off me. We lay
out there all night for twenty-four hours. I had fainted away from
loss of blood, and when I lost my senses I thought I should never see
anything again. Luckily I had fallen on my wounded arm, and the arm
being slightly twisted I think the weight of my body stopped the flow
of blood and saved me. At any rate, the next day civilians picked up
ten of us who were still alive, and took us to a Franciscan convent,
where we have been splendidly looked after. All this happened on August
23rd, it is now September 3rd. I am ever so much better, and can walk
about a bit now, and in a few days will be quite healed up. It is quite
a small hole in my wrist, and it is nearly healed, and my leg is much
better; the bullets escaped the bones, so that in a week I shall be
quite all right. Unfortunately the Germans are at present in possession
of this district, so that I am more or less a prisoner here. But I hope
the English will be here in a week, when I shall be ready to rejoin
them.
* * * * *
_Letter 20.--From W. Hawkins, of the 3rd Coldstream Guards:_
I have a nasty little hole through my right arm, but I am one of the
lucky ones. My word, it was hot for us. On the Tuesday night when I
got my little lot, what I saw put me in mind of a farmer’s machine
cutting grass, as the Germans fell just like it. We only lost nine poor
fellows, and the German losses amounted to 1,500 and 2,000. So you can
guess what it was like. As they were shot down others took their place,
as there were thousands of them. The best friend is your rifle with
the bayonet. But I soon had mine blown to pieces. How it happened I
don’t know.... I got a bullet through the top of my hat. I will bring
my hat home and show you. I felt it go through, but it never as much
as bruised my head. I had then no rifle, so I was obliged to keep down
my head. The bullets were whirling over me by the hundred. I stopped
until they got a bit slower, and then I got up and was trying to pull
a fellow away that had been shot through the head when I managed to
receive a bullet through my arm. When I looked in the direction of the
enemy I could see them coming by the thousand. Off I went. I bet I
should easily have won the mile that night. I got into the hospital
at Landricca amid shot and shell, which were flying by as fast as
you like. I got my arm done, and was put to bed. All that night the
enemy were trying to blow up the hospital, where they had to turn out
the lights so that the Germans could not get the correct range. Then
we were taken away in R.A.M.C. vans to Guise, where we slept on the
station platform after a nice supper which the French provided.
* * * * *
_Letter 21.--From Sergeant Griffiths, of the Welsh Regiment, to his
parents at Swansea:_
The fighting at Mons was terrible, and it was here that our 4th and
5th Divisions got badly knocked, but fought well. Our artillery played
havoc with them. About 10 o’clock on Monday we were suddenly ordered to
quit, and quick, too, and no wonder. They were ten to one. Then began
that retreat which will go down in history as one of the greatest and
most glorious retirements over done. Our boys were cursing because our
backs were towards them; but when the British did turn, my word, what
a game! The 3rd Coldstreams should be named “3rd Cold Steels,” and no
error. Their bayonet charge was a beauty.
Among numerous other such letters that have been published up and
down the country is this in which a corporal of the North Lancashire
Regiment gives a graphic little picture of his experiences to the
_Manchester City News_:
When we got near Mons the Germans were nearer than we expected.
They must have been waiting for us. We had little time to make
entrenchments, and had to do the digging lying on our stomachs. Only
about 300 of the 1,000 I was with got properly entrenched. The Germans
shelled us heavily, and I got a splinter in the leg. It is nearly right
now, and I hope soon to go back again. We lost fairly heavily, nearly
all from artillery fire. Altogether I was fighting for seventy-two
hours before I was hit. The German forces appeared to be never-ending.
They were round about us like a swarm of bees, and as fast as one man
fell, it seemed, there were dozens to take his place.
There is one in which James Scott, reservist, tells his relatives at
Jarrow that British soldiers at Mons dropped like logs. The enemy were
shot down as they came up, but it was like knocking over beehives--a
hundred came up for every one knocked down. He thought the Germans
were the worst set of men he had ever seen. Their cavalry drove women
and children in front of them in the streets of Mons so that the
British could not fire.
A wounded non-commissioned officer of the Pompadours, whose regiment
left Wembley Park a week before the fighting began, says that in the
four days’ battle commencing at Mons on the Sunday, August 23rd, and
lasting until August 26th, they were continually under fire:
We had to beat off several cavalry attacks as well as infantry, and
when the trouble seemed to be over the Germans played on us with
shrapnel just like turning on a fire hose. Several of our officers were
hit on Wednesday. Heavy German cavalry charged us with drawn sabres,
and we only had a minute’s warning “to prepare to receive cavalry.” We
left our entrenchments, and rallying in groups, emptied our magazines
into them as they drew near. Men and horses fell in confused heaps. It
was a terrible sight. Still, on they came. They brought their naked
sabres to the engage, and we could distinctly hear their words of
command made in that piercing, high tone of voice which the Germans
affect.
The enemy had a terrible death roll before their fruitless charge was
completed, a thick line of dead and wounded marking the ground over
which they had charged. We shot the wounded horses, to put them out of
their misery, whilst our ambulances set to work to render aid to the
wounded. Our Red Cross men make no distinction. Friend and foe get the
same medical treatment, that’s where we score over the Germans.
If they had been Uhlans we should not have spared them, as we owe them
a grudge for rounding up some Tommies who were bathing. They took their
clothes away, and tied the men to trees. We swore to give them a warm
time wherever we met them.
A wounded corporal writes:
It looked as if we were going to be snowed under. The mass of men that
came at us was an avalanche, and every one of us must have been simply
trodden to death and not killed by bullets or shells when our cavalry
charged into them on the left wing, not 500 yards from the trench I was
in, and cut them up. Our lads did the rest, but the shells afterwards
laid low a lot of them.
The following is an extract from a letter received by a gardener from
his son:
You complained last year of the swarms of wasps that destroyed your
fruit. Well, dad, they were certainly not larger in number than the
Germans who came for us. The Germans are cowards when they get the
bayonets at them. A young lieutenant, I don’t know his name, was
one of the coolest men I have ever seen, and didn’t he encourage our
chaps! I saw him bring down a couple of Germans who were leading half a
company.
A fact that stands out continually in these tales of eye-witnesses is
the overwhelming numbers in which the Germans were hurled upon them.
One says they seemed to be rising up endlessly out of the very ground,
and as fast as one mass was shot down another surged into its place;
the innumerable horde is compared by various correspondents to “a great
big battering-ram,” to a gigantic swarm of wasps, to a swarm of bees,
to a flock of countless thousands of sheep trying to rush out of a
field; to the unceasing pouring of peas out of a sack. It was the sheer
mass and weight of this onrush that forced the small British army back
on its systematic, triumphant retreat, and probably the most striking
little sketch of this phase of the conflict is that supplied by an
Irish soldier invalided to Belfast, which I include in the following
selection of hospital stories.
The last few weeks have been like a dream to me, says a wounded
private of the Middlesex Regiment. After we landed at Boulogne we were
magnificently treated, and everyone was in the highest spirits. Then
we set off on our marching. We were all anxious to have a slap at the
Germans. My word! If they only knew in our country how the Germans are
treating our wounded there would be the devil to pay.
It was somewhere in the neighbourhood of Mons, I believe, that we
got our first chance. We had been marching for days with hardly any
sleep. When we took up our position the Germans were nearer than we
thought, because we had only just settled down to get some rest when
there came the blinding glare of the searchlight. This went away almost
as suddenly as it appeared, and it was followed by a perfect hail of
bullets. We lost a good many in the fight, but we were all bitterly
disappointed when we got the order to retire. I got a couple of bullets
through my leg, but I hope it won’t be long before I get back again.
We never got near enough to use our bayonets. I only wish we had done.
Talk about civilized warfare! Don’t you believe it. The Germans are
perfect fiends.
IN HOSPITAL.
(1) _At Southampton._
The first batch of wounded soldiers arrived at Netley on the 28th
August, coming from Southampton Docks by the hospital train. A _Daily
Telegraph_ correspondent was one of a quiet band of people who had
waited silently for many long hours on the platform that runs
alongside the hospital for the arrival of the disabled soldiers who had
fought so heroically at Mons; and this is his account of what he saw:
Colonel Lucas and staff were all in readiness. Here were wheeling
chairs, there stretchers. The preparations for the reception of the
broken Tommies could not have been better, more elaborate, or more
humane. It was the humanity of it all--the quiet consideration that
told of complete preparedness--that made not the least moving chapter
of the story that I have to tell. And out of the train stern-faced men
began to hobble, many with their arms in a sling.
Here was a hairless-faced, boyish-looking fellow, with his head
enveloped in snowy-white bandages; his cheeks were red and healthy,
his eyes bright and twinkling. There was pain written across his young
face, but he walked erect and puffed away at a cigarette. One man, with
arms half clinging round the neck of two injured comrades, went limping
to the reception-room, his foot the size of three, and as he went by he
smiled and joked because he could only just manage to get along.
When the last of the soldiers able to walk found his way into the
hospital, there to be refreshed with tea or coffee or soup, before he
was sent to this or that ward, the more seriously wounded were carried
from the train. How patient, how uncomplaining were these fellows! One,
stretched out on a mattress, with his foot smashed, chatted and smoked
until his turn came to be wheeled away. And when the last of these
wounded heroes had been lifted out of the train I took myself to the
reception-room, and there heard many stories that, though related with
the simplicity of the true soldier, were wonderful.
The wounded men were of all regiments and spoke all dialects. They were
travel-stained and immensely tired. Pain had eaten deep lines into many
of their faces, but there were no really doleful looks. They were faces
that seemed to say: “Here we are; what does it all matter; it is good
to be alive; it might have been worse.”
I sat beside a private, named Cox. An old warrior he looked. His fine
square jaw was black with wire-like whiskers. His eyes shone with the
fire of the man who had suffered, so it seemed, some dreadful nightmare.
“And you want me to tell you all about it. Well, believe me, it was
just hell. I have been through the Boxer campaign; I went through the
Boer War, but I have never seen anything so terrible as that which
happened last Sunday. It all happened so sudden. We believed that the
Germans were some fifteen miles away, and all at once they opened fire
upon us with their big guns.
“Let me tell you what happened to my own regiment. When a roll-call of
my company was taken there were only three of us answered, me and two
others.” When he had stilled his emotion, he went on. “So unexpected
and so terrible was the attack of the enemy, and so overwhelming were
their numbers, that there was no withstanding it.”
Before fire was opened a German aeroplane flew over our troops, and the
deduction made by Private Cox and several of his comrades, with whom
I chatted, was that the aeroplane was used as a sort of index to the
precise locality of our soldiers, and, further, that the Germans, so
accurate was their gunnery, had been over this particular battlefield
before they struck a blow, and so had acquired an intimate knowledge
of the country. Trenches that were dug by our men served as little
protection from the fire.
Said Cox: “No man could have lived against such a murderous attack.
There was a rain of lead, a deluge of lead, and, talk about being
surprised, well, I can hardly realise that, and still less believe what
happened.”
By the side of Cox sat a lean, fair-haired, freckle-faced private.
“That’s right,” he said, by way of corroborating Cox. “They were fair
devils,” chimed in an Irishman, who later told me that he came from
Connemara. “You could do nothing with them, but I say they are no d----
good as riflemen.”
“No, they’re not, Mike,” ventured a youth. “We got within 400 yards of
them, and they couldn’t hit us.”
“But,” broke in the man of Connemara, “they are devils with the big
guns, and their aim was mighty good, too. If it had not been they
wouldn’t have damaged us as they have done.”
A few yards away was another soldier, also seated in a wheeling chair,
with a crippled leg--a big fine fellow he was. He told me his corps had
been ambushed, and that out of 120 only something like twenty survived.
On all hands I heard all too much to show that the battle of Mons was a
desperate affair. Two regiments suffered badly, but there was no marked
disposition on the part of any of the soldiers with whom I chatted to
enlarge upon the happenings of last week-end. Rather would they talk
more freely of the awful atrocities perpetrated by the Germans.
“Too awful for words,” one said. “Their treatment of women will remain
as a scandal as long as the world lasts. We shall never forget; we
shall never forgive. I wish I was back again at the front. Englishmen
have only got to realise what devilish crimes are being committed by
these Germans to want to go and take a hand in the fight. Women were
shot, and so were young girls. In fact, it did not seem to matter to
the Germans who they killed, and they seemed to take a delight in
burning houses and spreading terror everywhere.
“I have got one consolation, I helped to catch four German spies.”
IN HOSPITAL.
(2) _At Belfast._
About 120 officers and men arrived in Belfast on August 31st, direct
from the Continent. They were brought here, says the _Daily Telegraph_
local correspondent, to be near their friends, for the men had been in
Ulster for a long time before leaving for the front, being stationed in
Belfast and later in Londonderry. They sailed from this city for the
theatre of war on August 14th, to the number of 900. It was remarkable
to note how many of them were injured in the legs and feet. All were
conveyed to the hospital at the Victoria Military Barracks. The men
were glad to see Belfast again, but those to whom I spoke will be
bitterly disappointed if they do not get another opportunity for paying
off their score against the Germans.
One soldier told me a plain straightforward story, without any
embellishments. What made his tale doubly interesting was the fact
that he spoke with the experience of a veteran, having gone through the
South African War.
Where the Germans had the advantage, he said, was in the apparently
endless number of reserves. No sooner did we dispose of one regiment
than another regiment took its place. It just put me in mind of the
Niagara Falls--the terrible rush threatening to carry everything before
it.
No force on earth could have withstood that cataract, and the fact that
our men only fell back a little was the best proof of their strength.
At one stage there were, I am sure, six Germans to every one of us. Yet
we held our ground, and would still have held it but for the fact that
after we had dealt with the men before us another force came on, using
the bodies of their dead comrades as a carpet.
The South African War was a picnic compared with this, and on the way
home I now and again recoiled with horror as I thought of the awful
spectacle which was witnessed before we left the front of piled-up
bodies of the German dead. We lost heavily, but the German casualties
must have been appalling.
You must remember that for almost twenty-four hours we bore the brunt
of the attack, and the desperate fury with which the Germans fought
showed that they believed if they were only once past the British
forces the rest would be easy. Not only so, but I am sure we had the
finest troops in the German army against us.
On the way out I heard some slighting comments passed on the German
troops, and no doubt some of them are not worth much, but those thrown
at us were very fine specimens indeed. I do not think they could have
been beaten in that respect.
IN HOSPITAL.
(3) _At Birmingham._
About 120 English soldiers who had been wounded in and around Mons
arrived in Birmingham on September 1st, and were removed to the new
university buildings at Bournbrook, where facilities have been provided
for dealing with over 1,000 patients. The contingent was the first
batch to arrive. Though terribly maimed, and looking broken and tired,
the men were cheerful. About twenty had to be carried, but the majority
of them were able to walk with assistance.
In the course of conversation with a _Daily Telegraph_ reporter a
number of the men spoke of the terrible character of the fighting. The
Germans, one man said, outnumbered us by 100 to one. As we knocked
them down, they simply filled up their gaps and came on as before.
One of the Suffolk men stated that very few were injured by shot
wounds. Nearly all the mischief was done by shells. The Germans, he
said, fired six at a time, and if you missed one you got the others.
One poor fellow, whose head was so smothered in bandages that his
features could not be seen, remarked, “We could beat them with
bladder-sticks if it were not for the shells, which were appalling. The
effect could not be described.”
A private of the West Kent Regiment, who was through the Boer War, said
there was never anything like the fighting at Mons in South Africa.
That was a game of skittles by comparison.
They came at us, he said, in great masses. It was like shooting
rabbits, only as fast as you shot one lot down another lot took their
place. You couldn’t help hitting them. We had plenty of time to take
aim, and if we weren’t reaching the Bisley standard all the time, we
must have done a mighty lot of execution. As to their rifle fire, they
couldn’t hit a haystack.
A sergeant gunner of the Royal Field Artillery, who was wounded at
Tournai, owing to an injury to his jaw was unable to speak, but he
wrote on a pad:
I was on a flank with my gun and fired about sixty rounds in forty
minutes. We wanted support and could not get it. It was about 500
English trying to save a flank attack, against, honestly, I should
say, 10,000. As fast as you shot them down more came. But for their
aeroplanes they would be useless. I was firing for one hour at from
1,500 yards down to 700 yards, so you can tell what it was like.
IN HOSPITAL.
(4) _At London._
All the heroism that has been displayed by British troops in the
present war will never be known. A few individual cases may chance to
be heard of. Others will be known only to the Recording Angel. Two
instances of extraordinary bravery are mentioned by a couple of wounded
soldiers lying in the London Hospital in the course of a narrative of
their own adventures.
One of them, a splendid fellow of the Royal West Kent Regiment, told a
_Daily Telegraph_ reporter:
We were in a scrubby position just outside Mons from Saturday afternoon
till Monday morning. After four hours each of our six big guns was put
out of action. Either the gunners were killed or wounded, or the guns
themselves damaged. For the rest of the time--that is, until Monday
morning, when we retired--we had to stick the German fire without being
able to retaliate. It was bad enough to stand this incessant banging
away, but it made it worse not to be able to reply.
All day Sunday and all Sunday night the Germans continued to
shrapnel us. At night it was just hellish. We had constructed some
entrenchments, but it didn’t afford much cover and our losses were very
heavy. On Monday we received the order to retire to the south of the
town, and some hours later, when the roll-call was called, it was found
that we had 300 dead alone, including four officers.
Then an extraordinary thing happened. Me and some of my pals began to
dance. We were just dancing for joy at having escaped with our skins,
and to forget the things we’d seen a bit, when bang! and there came a
shell from the blue, which burst and got, I should think, quite twenty
of us.
That’s how some of us got wounded, as we thought we had escaped. Then
another half-dozen of us got wounded this way. Some of our boys went
down a street near by, and found a basin and some water, and were
washing their hands and faces when another shell burst above them and
laid most of them out.
What happened to us happened to the Gloucesters. Their guns, too, were
put out of action, and, like us, they had to stand the shell-fire for
hours and hours before they were told to retire. What we would have
done without our second in command I don’t know.
During the Sunday firing he got hit in the head. He had two wounds
through the cap in the front and one or two behind, and lost a lot of
blood. Two of our fellows helped to bind up his head, and offered to
carry him back, but he said, “It isn’t so bad. I’ll be all right soon.”
Despite his wounds and loss of blood, he carried on until we retired on
Monday. Then, I think, they took him off to hospital.
A stalwart chap of the Cheshires here broke in.
Our Cheshire chaps were also badly cut up. Apart from the wounded,
several men got concussion of the brain by the mere explosions. It
was awful! Under cover of their murderous artillery fire, the German
infantry advanced to within three and five hundred yards of our
position. With that we were given the order to fix bayonets, and stood
up for the charge. That did it for the German infantry! They turned
tail and ran for their lives.
Our captain cried out, “Now you’ve got ’em, men!” But we hadn’t. Their
artillery begins with that to fire more hellish than ever, and before
you could almost think what to do a fresh lots of the “sausages” came
along, and we had to beat a retreat.
During the retreat one of our sergeants was wounded and fell. With that
our captain runs back and tries to lift him. As he was doing so he was
struck in the foot, and fell over. We thought he was done for, but he
scrambles up and drags the sergeant along until a couple of us chaps
goes out to help ’em in. You should have seen his foot when he took his
boot off--I mean the captain. It wasn’t half smashed.
How a number of British troops made a dash in the night to save some
women and children from the Germans was told by Lance-corporal Tanner,
of the 2nd Oxfordshire and Bucks Light Infantry. On the Sunday the
regiment arrived at Mons.
We took up our position in the trenches, he said, and fought for some
time. In the evening the order came to retire, and we marched back to
Conde, with the intention of billeting for the night and having a rest.
Suddenly, about midnight, we were ordered out, and set off to march to
the village of Douai, some miles away, as news had reached us that the
Germans were slaughtering the natives there.
It was a thrilling march in the darkness, across the unfamiliar
country. We were liable to be attacked at any moment, of course, but
everyone was keen on saving the women and children, and hurried on. We
kept the sharpest lookout on all sides, but saw nothing of the enemy.
When we reached Douai a number of the inhabitants rushed out to meet
us. They were overjoyed to see us, and speedily told what the Germans
had done. They had killed a number of women and children. With fixed
bayonets we advanced into the village, and we saw signs all around us
of the cruelty of the enemy.
Private R. Wills, of the Highland Light Infantry, who also took part in
the march to the village, here continued the story.
We found that most of the Germans had not waited for our arrival, and
there were only a few left in the place. However, we made sure that
none remained there.
We started a house-to-house search. Our men went into all the houses,
and every now and then they found one or two of the enemy hiding in a
corner or upstairs. Many of them surrendered at once, others did not.
When we had cleared the village, some of us lay down on the pavements,
and snatched an hour’s sleep. At 3.30 we marched away again, having rid
the place of the enemy, and, getting back to camp, were glad to turn in.