WHERE DESTINY SAID "HALT!"
"The bugler of Destiny has sounded 'Halt!'"
In these words, the hunchback summarized the news of the defeat of the
Germans at _Le Grand Couronne de Nancy_ (Hill-Crest of Nancy), the
defeat which duped the German High Command and nullified their plans
for the supreme effort on Paris.
It was evening, the evening of September 4. Horace and his fellow
fugitive, safely arrived in Paris, were sitting at the window of a tiny
room, looking at the night sky, across which the cones of searchlights
wandered.
The tightening of the French lines, the reëstablishment of regular
communications and military discipline had combined to relegate both
Croquier and Horace from the front, though they had begged to be
allowed to stay. They had been in Paris for over a week, now, the
hunchback having offered his tremendous strength for heavy work in a
munitions factory.
The "captive Kaiser" never left Croquier's sight. He took it to the
factory in the morning and carried it back at night. He slept with the
steel chain of the cage fastened to his wrist. In the quarter where
they lived, the hunchback had already become a familiar figure, and
boys tramped up the stairs in the evening with rats and mice for the
eagle's dinner. Under the agile pens of newspaper paragraphists, the
story of the "captive Kaiser" had brought merriment and superstitious
hope to hearts heavy with listening for the tramp of the ever-nearing
German feet.
Paris was silent but courageous. Fear brooded heavily over the city,
but the terrible tales of individual suffering never robbed the French
capital of a simple heroism and a fine devotion that were worthy of its
best traditions. The removal of the government to Bordeaux, two days
before, had shown the people how narrow was the margin of safety by
which Paris rested untaken. They accepted the dictum of their military
leaders that it was a measure to allow greater freedom in handling the
armies for the great action about to begin.
"Has the spring tightened at last?" asked Horace, remembering the
veteran's prophecy that the strategic diamond would be pressed back to
the reserves, and that then the counter-attack would come.
"Tightened to its last spiral," answered Croquier. "It must rebound
now, or smash. And the Germans have got a blow right between the eyes,
at Nancy!"
Horace pressed him for details. The boy was eating his heart out
from inaction. He had sent a cablegram to his father, according to
his promise to Aunt Abigail, but he did not go to see the American
minister, feeling sure that he would be sent back to America. He did
not want to go. While he had taken his fill of battle, not for worlds
would he have left Paris without seeing, as he phrased it, "the end of
the war."
Under Croquier's guidance, the boy had followed every official
bulletin and news dispatch with avid and intense excitement. His field
experience and the veteran's lessons on strategy, when with the guns
back of Givet, had given him an insight which enabled him to piece the
scraps of information together. He was thus able to grasp the real
significance of the victory at Nancy.
The defense of Le Grand Couronne was of tenfold more importance than it
seemed at the time, for it formed the starting-point of the greatest
battle of modern times, known as "The Battles of the Marne," the series
of victories which saved France. Croquier, who knew that part of the
country thoroughly, was able to give Horace an exact picture of that
first great success on the hills south of Verdun.
"They've done well, the Germans," the hunchback began, "but if they're
going to try to keep up this drive of theirs, they'll soon find
themselves in a pickle for the lack of that chief need of a modern
army--a short, strong Line of Communication. You remember how the forts
of Liége tied up everything, even after the city was taken?"
Horace nodded vigorously. He was not likely to forget Liége.
"Already, the Germans are beginning to get into difficulties. Maubeuge
is holding out, controlling the railway there, so all their supplies
are coming by Belgium. It's a long way, and wastes a lot of men to hold
it. There is, though, a good railway line from Metz, which is six times
as short as the line they're using. But to take that, they've got to
take Toul, and to take Toul, they've got to take Nancy, and to take
Nancy, they've got to take Le Grand Couronne."
[Illustration: _Courtesy of "The War of the Nations."_
ATTACK ON A STRANDED TANK.
The Germans bombed it, fired through loopholes, tried to break its
mechanism, but failed. Finally the tank grunted and moved away.]
"But why just exactly there," asked Horace, "if the position is so
strong?"
"It isn't, it's the weakest point," the hunchback answered. "As you
know, the French-German frontier is the most strongly fortified line
in the world. The forts are in four groups, Belfort and Epinal to
the south, Toul and Verdun to the north. Belfort and Epinal are in
difficult, mountainous country, further away from Paris and less
valuable for railway purposes. It would be bad strategy, too, to break
through at the southern fort and leave the northern forts unreduced,
for it would cut the attacking army in two and give the northern forts
a chance to snip the Line of Communication. Verdun is enormously
strong. That leaves nothing but an assault on the sector of Toul.
"Now," continued the hunchback, "you've got to understand the
Alsace-Lorraine campaign. On August 10, while the forts of Liége were
still holding out and Leman was peppering Von Emmich, we invaded
Germany. We had nothing but victories for nine days. It was too easy.
On August 20 one of our air scouts came back with the news that there
was a huge German army gathering at Metz. On August 21, five army corps
were hurled on our flank. We were surprised, partly surrounded and
crumpled up. The Boches got thousands of prisoners and scores of guns
and Field Marshal Von Heeringen drove us clear back out of Germany. On
August 25, the Crown Prince of Bavaria drove us back from before Nancy,
and the German Crown Prince finally burst into France through Longwy.
That was the beginning and the end of our Vosges campaign."
As the hunchback pointed out, however, while this campaign was of
little military value, it had a vast political and strategic value.
It mistakenly convinced the German High Command that France had
concentrated the larger part of her armies on the frontier in the
hope of retaking Alsace-Lorraine. This made more difficult, but also
rendered more important, a victory at Toul.
Le Grand Couronne is a series of little hills, not more than 600 feet
high at any point, lying north and a little east of Nancy. It was no
use to take the city unless the heights were captured. If, however, the
Germans took Le Grand Couronne, the French must evacuate Nancy and the
invaders could then bring their heavy siege guns into place to demolish
Toul.
"A Boche skull is thick," Croquier went on, "and even the slaughter of
Liége didn't teach them the waste of life in sending masses of troops
against artillery. They hadn't any idea, either, of the powers of our
'Soixante-Quinze.' For a week they did nothing but pile up hills of the
iron-gray dead on the slopes leading up from the River Seille. They'll
never take it now."
There Croquier was right. On that evening of September 4, where the
two were sitting, chatting, in the little attic room, Von Heeringen
knew that further attack was hopeless. Two days later, however, the
Kaiser was seen in person on the hills overlooking the battle, in
white uniform and silver helmet, waiting for his triumphal entry into
Nancy--which never happened.
It was this decisive and unexpected defeat which convinced the Germans
that the French were in great strength at this point and which caused
them to send their heaviest reënforcements on the eastern end of the
attacking line, instead of reënforcing Von Kluck and Von Buelow who
were nearest to Paris.
"It's the same old combination which smashed us at Charleroi, then,"
said Horace, "which threatens Paris."
"Yes," the hunchback agreed, "and, what's more, it's the same old
clash between German and French strategy. The diamond, now, has been
squashed nearly flat, but you can see the formation, still."
"How?" asked Horace, "it looks like a straight line to me."
"It isn't, though," Croquier answered. "I'll show you. Paris, instead
of being 'home base' is now 'third base' and the Verdun to Belfort
line is 'first base.' Then the Fourth and Fifth French armies are the
operative corner or 'third base,' while the great armies of reserve,
under General Foch, swinging into line on the south, are 'home base.'
The military point of Paris, as 'third base' is the new Sixth Army as
organized under General Manoury."
"Well, then," said Horace, "if the battlefield works out according to
French ideas, we ought to win by the rebound given by Foch's army."
"A few days will show," said the hunchback. "I only wish that I could
help in the actual fighting. But, I suppose, I'm just as useful making
shells as firing them."
"One minute," said Horace, as they were about to separate for the
night, "where are the British?"
"The Expeditionary Force is tucked away between Paris and the
Fifth Army, with more than two thirds of its men lost. However,
reënforcements are pouring over from England."
Early next morning, before Horace was awake, Croquier left the house
to pick up the first news of the day. When he returned to the frugal
breakfast the lad had prepared, however, he had very little information.
"All that I can find out," he said, "is that the Sixth Army, under
Manoury, is wheeling up to Von Kluck's west flank."
"I don't seem to know much about the Sixth Army," said Horace. "Who are
in it?"
The hunchback gave the details of the divisions as far as they were
known.
"That's a mighty weak army," commented the boy.
"It is," the hunchback agreed, "but it's only supposed to be a covering
army, so far as I can make out. It can fall back on the defenses of
Paris."
"But couldn't Von Kluck surround Paris, then?"
The hunchback shook his head.
"Impossible," he said. "Von Kluck would have to stretch his line out
on a circle ninety miles long--for that's the circumference of the
advance trenches beyond the outer fortifications of the city--and to do
that would make his line so thin that it could be broken like the paper
in a circus-rider's hoop.
"I think," he continued, "mark you, I don't know, that Manoury's army
is intended to do the same thing that Le Grand Couronne did--to make
the Germans think our line is strongest at the two ends, when, in
reality, it is strongest in the middle."
"Is Joffre doing that so as to weaken the German opposition to our
rebound?"
"It looks like it," Croquier admitted, "but that sort of thing is hard
to find out until weeks, sometimes months, afterward. A generalissimo
never lets his plans be known. To-night's news may give some clew. Now,
I'm off."
As soon as Croquier had started for the factory, Horace set out to put
into effect a resolution to which he had come during a wakeful night.
He was not going to sit at home idle when Paris was in danger!
It was still a little early, so Horace strolled out into the streets.
He was living in the northern quarter of the city, and the markets
were choked with the vast stores of supplies being hurried in for use
in the event of a siege. Enormous herds of cattle were being driven
into Paris to graze on the waste spaces kept free of buildings, not to
interfere with the fire of the inner forts.
A steady stream of people had their faces turned to the southwest,
women and children escaping from the threat of war, trekking for
distant points of safety, with their goods piled into the bullock
carts of the peasant, the pony carriages of the rich, or even in
wheelbarrows. In almost every group there were tiny children and
babies. It was for their sakes that the flight was made.
Where were the men?
None were to be seen save those who labored mightily with the supplies
being brought in a steady stream into the city.
Where were the men?
Out on the fortifications, digging trenches, putting up barbed wire
entanglements or dynamiting houses in the suburbs which would interfere
with the line of fire.
There may have been a man in Paris that Saturday morning who was
engaged in his own affairs instead of those of his country. There may
have been--but Horace did not see one.
It was not too early now, the boy thought, to carry out his plan. He
returned to the house, wheeled out his motor-cycle which he had cleaned
and oiled and put in perfect shape during his days of inaction, and
whizzed up to the headquarters of General Gallieni, Military Commandant
of Paris, and in supreme control now that the government had moved to
Bordeaux.
"Volunteering as a dispatch-rider, sir!" said the boy to the first
staff officer before whom he was brought. He showed the paper "on
special service" which had been given him at the time he had donned the
dead man's uniform, which he was still wearing.
At headquarters there was no English red tape or delay.
"Good," said the officer, "we can use you." He went into an inner room
and returned a moment later. "Take this!" he said, and gave Horace
directions and orders.
The boy shot off through the streets of Paris, thronged with refugees.
Signs of the French high-spiritedness were not lacking. On one store
window was written:
"Closed until after my visit to Berlin!"
Another, a watchmaker's, referring to the difference in time between
France and Germany, had a sign which read:
"Gone to put German watches right!"
The streets leading to the railway stations were thronged, but, as
he reached the outskirts of the houses, the streets were empty. The
Sorbonne glowered upon streets of empty shops. The workmen were on
the battlefield, the schools were closed, many of them turned into
hospitals.
Here was a gate, with a real control of traffic, but small show of
armament.
"Dispatches from General Gallieni!"
"Pass!"
Out through the gate to the green belt which cried aloud in strident
tones the transition from peace to war.
Here were the men of Paris!
The aged ragpicker worked with pick and shovel beside the wealthy
exquisite, as irreproachably dressed in the ditch as in his luxurious
home, necessarily so, for he had no old clothes to wear. The literary
scholar had risen from his books to tear his hands in stretching barbed
wire with the keeper of a dive for his companion. The consumptive
carpenter had brought his tools, the still vigorous blacksmith, too
old for military service, had loaded anvil, forge-frame and coal on a
wagon and was sharpening pickaxe heads.
Here, too, were the women of Paris.
Frenchwomen of noble birth worked in extemporized kitchens beside the
peasant mothers of the outer suburbs and the midinettes of Montmartre
to feed this new-sprung army of workers.
One thing Horace saw, and saw that clearly--Germany might take Paris,
but as long as one Frenchman or one Frenchwoman was left alive, the
Germans would not take France. The boy dimly felt that France was not a
territory, it was a soul.
He delivered his dispatch and waited.
A dirty, unshaved, mud-bespattered figure digging near by, spoke to him
with a cultured voice and a gay laugh.
"It is nothing, my little one," he said to Horace, "what if they come?
We shall bite their heads off. Those boches are going to put themselves
in a _guetapens_, a veritable death-trap. We shall have them at last!"
It was the same gallant French spirit which had been demonstrated a few
days before by Colonel Doury. When ordered to resist to the last gasp,
he said to the dragoon who brought the order,
"Very well, we will resist."
Then, turning to his soldiers, he said,
"We are to resist. And now, my boys, here is the password--'Smile!'"
It was the same gallant French spirit found in a soldier who, when
reënforcements reached him and asked whether a certain regiment was not
supposed to hold the village, answered,
"It holds the village!" and pointed to his lone machine-gun. He was the
only survivor.
It was the same gallant French spirit seen in the little drummer, who,
when his hand and drum were shot away, sang "Rat-tat-a-tat!" at the top
of his throat to the advancing troops until his throat was still for
ever.
Horace had seen the wonder of war in the field. Here he saw it in the
defense of Paris and felt anew the depth of the hunchback's saying that
victory lies in the spirit of men, not in its machinery. He remembered
the master's saying that the strength of a country is in proportion as
its women are strong.
In the defense of Paris, the boy felt that he had his place. However
irregular might be his position as a dispatch-rider, especially at the
front where military discipline prevailed, he was invaluable in the
voluntary work of aiding to strengthen Gallieni's defenses. Moreover,
he learned indirectly some of the tactics planned for that very
afternoon.
Le Grand Couronne had shown that the Germans could not break through at
Nancy. The German line, therefore, could not drive bodily forward to
the southwest, as apparently had been intended. It became necessary for
the invading armies to concentrate further to the east.
Von Kluck's army had been facing southwest, to attack Paris. On
receiving news of the repulse at Le Grand Couronne, he was compelled to
pivot his line on the Marne, so that it faced southeast. This maneuver,
reported by the French air-men, revealed that the German plan had
changed. They dared not try to take Paris.
Nothing remained but to endeavor to engulf the French armies. The
Germans deemed this impossible in the east, because of the supposed
heavy concentration of French troops there, because of the strength
of Verdun and because of the defeat at Nancy. The flanking movement,
therefore, must be made in the west. This could only be done by
driving a wedge down between Paris and the Fifth French Army, heavily
reënforced and now under the command of General d'Esperey. This gap was
held by the British, against whom the Germans had a special hate.
Von Kluck and Von Buelow had not reached their advanced positions
easily. They had been severely mauled in two defeats, at Le Cateau
and at Guise. In a war of less magnitude, these would have appeared
as great Allied victories, but Joffre preferred to lose the advantage
of following up these victories for the greater advantage of falling
back strategically in good order. Moreover, the forts of Maubeuge still
held. It was not until the grim old warrior Von Zwehl, with superhuman
energy, brought up the great siege-guns, that Maubeuge fell. It was
then too late for the guns to be of any service in the Battle of the
Marne.
That Saturday afternoon, learning from air scouts that Von Kluck had
massed his forces to the south, in order to attack the British on the
morrow and pierce the gap, Manoury determined to force the issue. He
launched his small and war-wearied army against the reserve which Von
Kluck had left behind to guard the crossing of the Ourcq. The western
end of the Battles of the Marne had begun.
Two important results developed immediately. One was Manoury's
discomfiting discovery that the German heavy artillery gave the
invaders a tremendous advantage when great mobility was not needed, as,
for example, in defense of the crossings of a stream. The other was
Von Kluck's discomfiting discovery that Manoury's army, attacking his
reserves, was far stronger in fighting power than he thought. Each of
these surprises counterbalanced the other.
This same Saturday afternoon, moreover, at the time that Manoury
attacked, Von Kluck, from the other wing of his army, had sent a
scouting party of cavalry to find out the location of the British Army.
It was an excellent opportunity to cut them up, but the British Field
Marshal had drawn his troops into cover of the forests and he let the
scouts go by. A courier, detached from time to time, took to Von Kluck
the welcome news that the British were nowhere to be seen and that
the hoped-for gap existed. The British chuckled with glee. Von Kluck,
surer every moment of flanking the Fifth French Army, hurried his men
southward.
Suddenly, however, that Saturday evening, Von Kluck received word of
the Manoury attack and realized that his reserves were threatened
and his own flank was in danger. His men had marched all day. A large
section of his army had to march back all night to reënforce the
reserves attacked by Manoury.
Horace, through his experience on the battle front, had learned that
a motor-cyclist's greatest usefulness is at dawn or a little before.
This is due to that fact that, when an army is on the move, telegraph
cable is laid from division to brigade headquarters and from brigade
to battalion headquarters, as soon as these positions are determined
for the night. This is done from cable wagons and the Signal Corps men
are so deft that the cable can be laid as fast as horses can canter.
At about three o'clock in the morning, if headquarters are going to
move, this cable is picked up, ready for use the coming night. Enemy
assaults, however, are likely to begin at dawn and these may cause a
change in the dispositions already decided on. It is then that the
motor-cyclist dispatch-rider is especially valuable.
At three o'clock this morning of Sunday, September 6, Horace got up,
put on the dead man's uniform, trundled out his motor-cycle and whizzed
to General Gallieni's headquarters.
The place was buzzing with activity and Horace realized that grave news
must have come in on the military telegraph wires. He was hailed at
once.
"You're just what we've been looking for!"
A list of addresses was handed him.
"These are the names of taxicab companies and garages who haven't
answered their 'phones; probably shut up at night. Find some one, any
one, every one! Rout them out and tell them to rush every cab and car
they've got to those section points."
"What for?" asked Horace, already in the saddle, and moving off.
"Troop movements. Hurry!"
Through the still, night-enshrouded streets of Paris, the boy sped.
It was a dangerous ride. Round every corner and shooting along
every street, taxis and motors were speeding, driven by half-awake
chauffeurs. All night long, troops had reached Paris by train. They
were needed at Meaux, forty miles from Paris, where Manoury was
attacking. If they marched, they could hardly reach the battle that
day and would be too wearied to fight. But forty miles, to a fleet of
motor-cars, was different.
By five o'clock that Sunday morning, four thousand taxis,
motor-busses and motor-cars were speeding from Paris to Meaux. Men
rode on the front, on the back and hung on to the springs. Twelve and
fourteen men piled into and on a taxicab. The motor-busses carried
sixty and seventy, men hanging on by the straps of their rifles, jammed
into window frames. They looked like insects on a plant. Inside they
were packed like herrings in a cask. But they roared with delight at
taking a taxi to the front. By noon, Manoury's army had been reënforced
by 70,000 troops. The army was, however, lamentably weak in artillery,
for field guns cannot be loaded into taxicabs!
[Illustration: _Courtesy of "Panorama de la Guerre."_
THE MEN WHOM NO DANGER CAN DAUNT.
The voice of the High Command is in the hands of the Signal Corps:
broken telephone and telegraph wires must be repaired in spite of shot
and shell.]
Von Kluck was destined to get another surprise this Sunday morning.
Despite the report of his Uhlans that the British were nowhere to be
seen, the astute general had placed two bodies of cavalry, about 18,000
men in all, as a precaution against a flank attack when he withdrew
his men northward to meet the surprisingly strong shock of Manoury.
The unsuspecting cavalry were awaiting orders to pursue either the
Fifth or Sixth French armies, whichever one Von Kluck should decide
to smash. They were dismounted and resting, when suddenly the western
woods belched flame. The British had not fired a shot until sure of
the exact range. Shrapnel poured like the blast from a furnace, men and
horses fell dead in inextricable confusion. The German cavalry had no
time or means to reply, and, timed to the second, the English cavalry
swept down and turned the scene to a rout.
In the north, despite Von Kluck's reënforcements, Manoury's army fought
with great courage, at several places forcing the Germans back. But
they could not cross the Ourcq against the heavy artillery.
That same Sunday, Foch, in charge of the great line of reserves
officially called the Ninth French Army,[19] did not attempt an
advance, but rather, deliberately, allowed his line to sag. This was
intended as a lure to lead the Germans on, in the hope that Manoury
would be able to flank Von Kluck. But, on Sunday night, Manoury found
that Von Kluck had brought back nearly all his army, and that he was
being outflanked, in his turn.
On Monday, reënforcements came to both sides, but more heavily to Von
Kluck, who was supported by heavy masses of artillery. Manoury, lacking
artillery support, held his ground, and even advanced slightly, but
Von Kluck moved further on his flank. On Tuesday the Sixth Army was
driven back, but fighting heavily, with all its reserves in action, Von
Kluck devoting only a part of his army to the frontal attack, while
one whole army corps commenced to encircle the flank. On Wednesday the
disaster was almost complete. Even as late as that day Von Kluck had
been able to throw in more men, released two days before by the fall of
Maubeuge. Nanteuil had been taken and the army was flanked. Manoury's
army was almost horseshoe shaped, with Von Kluck gathering it in as a
bag is clutched by its drawstring.
What would the morrow bring?
The morrow brought blank astonishment.
The morrow, Thursday, September 10, saw Nanteuil abandoned by the
Germans and Von Kluck in full retreat.
What had happened?
Foch had happened!
"Find out the weak point of your enemy," Foch had said once, when
talking of strategy, "and deliver your blow there."
"But suppose," he was asked, "that the enemy has no weak point."
"Then make one!"
Joffre had made the weak point and Foch had delivered the blow. It
was not without knowledge of his marvelous tactical ability that the
generalissimo had selected Foch for the army of reserves, for the great
rebound.
In order that Foch might deliver the blow, it was necessary that
Manoury should risk annihilation. Why? That, as Horace saw long
afterward, was a part of the great strategical plan of the French High
Command under Joffre.
The four-day engagement between Manoury and Von Kluck had drained the
power of the Sixth French Army to its last gasp, but--it had taken
the whole force of Von Kluck's right wing to do it. The British were
advancing steadily (though so slowly that it imperiled the whole plan)
on Von Kluck's left wing. Manoury and the British, then, like two
leeches, were sucking Von Kluck's forces westward, at a time when the
German line was driving southeastward.
The Fifth Army, under General d'Esperey (who had taken Lanrezac's place
when the army was reënforced) was a powerful force, containing six full
army corps, three of them fresh reserves. The Germans, believing it to
be the same army they had routed at Charleroi, esteemed it lightly.
But on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, it steadily drove Von Buelow back,
crossing the Marne and holding the bridgeheads. In this it was helped
by the British heavy artillery, an arm in which the French army was
weakest. At the same time, d'Esperey's pressure enabled the British
advance. There was magnificent fighting here, for Von Buelow was in
strength with a full equipment of artillery.
The Ninth Army, under General Foch, had suffered heavily. Two German
armies opposed it: four army corps under Von Hausen, who was flushed
with victory and pursuit, and the independent command of the Prussian
Guard, consisting of one entire army corps. Foch had three army corps,
nearly all fresh troops, but he would not use them all. Von Hausen and
the Prussian Guard attacked savagely and heavily. Foch allowed his line
to sag, purposely, to thin the German line, but on Monday he was driven
back, and on Tuesday, the German drive was so vicious and powerful,
that Foch's right wing was forced back for ten miles.
On Wednesday, then, the same day that Von Kluck was encircling Manoury,
Von Hausen had all but pierced the French line at Foch's right wing.
A bad gap had been formed because Langle de Cary, on the left wing of
the Fourth Army, had held firm. There was almost a hole, therefore, ten
miles wide, running slantwise behind Langle de Cary's left rear.
The Battle of the Marne is the most important victory of modern times.
It saved France. In a measure it saved the world. As the victory
hangs on a curious battle formation which developed that afternoon of
Wednesday, September 9, its main features may be repeated. It is well
to see how the various armies stood at midday of this decisive day.
At midday, Von Kluck was encircling Manoury, having drawn his right
wing far to the north and west to do so. His left wing was in momentary
danger of attack from the British, who had crossed the Marne. This wing
was being driven north.
At midday, Von Buelow was being pushed northwards by the hammer blows
of d'Esperey, whose army was fighting in fine fettle, aided by the
British heavy artillery. This army was strong enough to lend a corps to
help Foch to sustain the central German push. Von Buelow, then, also
was being pushed north.
At midday, Foch's left wing, stiffened by the extra army corps, was
holding the right wing of the Prussian Guard, but his right wing had
been thrust ten miles out of the line by Von Hausen's drive. Von Hausen
was therefore exerting every pound of force he owned to break through
Foch's right wing, in other words, he was driving southeastward.
At midday, then, Von Buelow and Von Kluck, going northward and
westward, were being dragged away from the Prussian Guard and Von
Hausen, being dragged southward and eastward.
This thinned the German line, and it thinned it at a very dangerous
point, just where the edge of the plateau of Champagne drops suddenly
to the marshes of St. Gond.
Possibly Von Hausen was aware of this, but if so, it is evident that he
thought that the piercing of Foch's line was only a matter of hours. In
any case, Von Hausen was as certain of piercing the line next day as
Von Kluck was certain of swallowing Manoury the next day.
At midday, Foch ordered the 42nd Division, one of the crack corps of
the French Army, to fall back and rest. The order was thought to be a
blunder and the men fumed, for, they thought, they were holding the
Germans triumphantly. All through that sultry afternoon, while the
skies grew blacker and blacker and the thunder rumbled in the distance,
the 42nd Division waited with piled arms, hearing the sound of battle
only two miles away. And all through that afternoon, Von Hausen
summoned his reserves from behind the Prussian Guard, gathered every
man he could get to hurl them into the gradually opening gap.
To the German Commander, the French feet were slipping, slipping,
slipping on the brink of disaster and defeat.
At exactly four o'clock in the afternoon, when Foch's right wing was
holding back the German fury of assault by sheer valor, the 42nd
Division, rested and eager, received its long-awaited orders. It was
bidden advance through the pine woods and burst upon the Prussian
Guards, now forming a thin exposed flank to Van Hausen's army. At five
o'clock, an order ran all along the whole line for a sudden stiffening
and a French counter-offensive.
At a few minutes after five o'clock, the pine-woods suddenly became as
great green fountains of living warriors. For a moment the shouts of
advancing hosts silenced the terrific roar of the artillery. Unnumbered
batteries of the ever-potent and death-dealing "Soixante-Quinze" came
galloping. As an avalanche sweeps away saplings, so was the Prussian
Guard swept away. There was scarcely a pause as the armies joined. The
French went through with a thunderbolt's strength and vindictive power.
The wild thrill of victory ran along the line. The gap widened, broke
and shattered. The shouting lines went through.
Into the hole the Ninth Corps leaped, smashing and shivering the
eastern corps of the Guards. All semblance of battle formation was
lost, and the Guards were cut to pieces. There were no reserves behind.
The German line was broken, smashed, shattered irretrievably!
The Saxon offensive, under Von Hausen, still hoping to break through
before night fell, learned of the peril. Every moment spelt danger. The
French were sweeping in behind them. Langle de Cary was in position to
cut off their other flank. The German Drive, to which forty-five years
of military preparation had been given, weakened, halted, wavered and
went to pieces.
Now, into the battle Foch threw his reserves. Victory was in their
hands! A million men could not have stopped Foch's army now. Into the
bewildered German ranks plunged the French, each man a giant with the
intoxication of victory, each man a living vengeance for the atrocities
inflicted on France and Belgium. Death was on Von Hausen's heels and
that too close for an ordered retreat.
The German feet were slipping, slipping on the brink of disaster and
defeat.
Von Hausen fled.
The storm held off long enough to make the smash complete and then the
rain fell in torrents. Woe for the heavy artillery now! Its very power
which made it so dangerous, made it immobile, and the roads, rapidly
turning to sticky mud, forbade its passage. There was light enough for
slaughter, and the 75's, mobile and easy to handle, chased the Saxons,
unlimbered, mowed down the fleeing invaders, limbered up again, chased
forward, unlimbered and fired again. There were few wasted shells that
night! Thousands of prisoners were taken, hundreds of guns captured,
vast stores of ammunition seized.
Von Hausen had far to go. He had to get back, back, back into contact
with the German line or he would be wiped out absolutely. Von Buelow
had been driven far north by d'Esperey, Langle de Cary had stubbornly
held the Duke of Würtemberg. Von Hausen had far to go, and the French,
fevered with success, would not stop. Hour after hour through that
pouring night, the dripping trees saw a slaughter grim and great.
Not until nearly morning did the pursuers halt, and that night Foch
established his headquarters in La Fère Champenoise, twenty-five miles
in advance of his headquarters of the night before.
France was saved!
The Battles of the Marne were won!
With the conclusion of the Battle of the Marne, Horace found his
occupation gone. A victorious army is not in need of volunteer
dispatch-riders, even though they may be partly accredited. This the
boy felt himself to be by reason of having the right to wear a French
uniform under special conditions and by having been entrusted with
dispatches.
None the less, Horace was convinced that he could pass the sentries,
at least, and he could follow behind the advance. He would at least
be seeing the war for himself, and, if he were successful in making
his way to the rear of his old army, the Fourth, he might be given
something to do. Anything was better than idling his time away in
Paris, and Croquier, working over-time, was never home except to sleep.
On Sunday, September 13, just one week from the day when Gallieni
had sent his fleet of taxicabs to reënforce Manoury at Meaux, Horace
started forth once more on his motor-cycle. The sentries at the gate
knew him and he passed by with a cheery word of greeting. The uniform
of the dispatch-rider passed him by many sentries, but one, either more
careful or more curious than the rest, stopped him.
"Dispatch-rider formerly with the Fourth Army, temporarily attached
to the army defending Paris, returning to my own command," the boy
answered. The facts were true enough, though the implication was a
little forced. He thanked his stars that the sentry did not ask for
his identification disk, which, of course, he did not possess. Inquiry
might have caused him to be suspected of being a spy.
Out through the suburbs of the city, Horace rode at slow pace, enjoying
the fair weather after the rain. Beyond the suburbs he passed through
little villages, as yet untouched by war. Then, as he trended farther
north and east, he suddenly entered a region still panting with horror
and dismay.
This was Horace's first sight of a battleground that had been swept
by two armies. The retreat he had witnessed from Givet, was a retreat
from an advance-guard shock, and while the roads had been covered with
débris and flocked with refugees, it had shown little of the signs of
actual warfare. In his participation in the retreat from Mons, he had
seen a fighting retreat. The ground between the Marne and the Aisne was
not like either of these. It was a battle-swept desolation.
A land of terrible contrasts! Gardens filled with a riot of color,
where, here and there as it chanced, the flower-beds had not been
trampled down, while in the middle stared the ruined walls and eye-less
orbits of a shell-rent house. The trees were scarred with shell, the
roads littered with broken boughs. Here and there, in the fields on
either side, shallow trenches had been scraped. Hay stacks and straw
stacks had been torn down for cover.
Near and far lay stiffened figures in the German iron gray, and, in
some places, whole groups of them, yet unburied. Furrows all along the
roadside marked fresh graves. At one place, evidently, a corps of
bicyclists had been caught by a sudden storm of shell and decimated,
the twisted and broken bicycle frames having been dragged into the
ditch, so as not to interfere with traffic.
At one place, Horace had a fearful fright.
Running through a wood at low speed, he came out on a small open
stretch of garden. In one corner, near a shattered pile of brick, was a
half-overturned but still recognizable grand piano, and crouched half
behind and half on it, the sun throwing his iron-gray uniform in strong
contrast to the red wood and the light glinting on his rifle-barrel,
was a German soldier, a sniper.
It was too late to turn.
The boy jumped the cycle to high-speed, thinking thus to dodge the aim.
As he skimmed by, he cast a backward look at the soldier.
He had not moved.
The gray uniform still lay crouched behind and across the piano, and
the hands still rigidly held the rifle, but there were no eyes in the
sockets of the dead man. They had been pecked out by the crows.
Many fields in France will be haunted by ghosts when the war is over.
The road was greasy and covered with débris, requiring slow riding. It
was not wise to look too closely at the piles along the way.
Overhead the September sun shone brightly, here and there a clump of
wild-flowers which had escaped destruction waved in the wind, the
arching trees were green, for, over this battlefield mainly shrapnel
and rifle-fire had been used and no high-explosive shell with looping
trajectory had stripped the branches. On through the beech-forest to
the desolation beyond and Horace, looking down, saw the road a mere
tangle of beams, stones and scrap-iron. He got off, to lead his wheel,
and saw, under his foot--a paving stone.
This, then, was a street!
Yes, bit by bit, he could see the outlines of a tiny village. It could
not have held more than a dozen houses, but not a wall, not a fence was
standing. Here the Germans must have made a stand and the ground was
leveled flat for their pains. Over a horrid pile, a trellis-work of
roses had fallen. It made the boy think of the gardener's reply to a
recruiting sergeant, when he joined the colors:
"The only plants that France is interested in growing now are--laurels."
Few villages were as wholly devastated as this, though in many of them
the houses were piles of brick and plaster, with walls standing here
and there. Everywhere were graves, bearing thin wooden crosses, with
the soldier's kepi or a few faded flowers hanging on them. A village of
formerly a hundred houses had but one left habitable. Like most of the
places in the march of the retreating army, it had been deliberately
set on fire for revenge.
A sudden whistle made the boy duck his head.
A bullet?
No, a blackbird singing.
"In spite of all, he knows it is French soil again!" said Horace, half
aloud, and laughed at his own thought.
On through a little town where, two nights before, a squadron of
Chasseurs d'Afrique and a regiment of Zouaves in motor-cars and taxis
had surprised the Germans at dead of night and where--never mind
why!--the captured German officer had been quietly but expeditiously
shot. On through a farm-yard, marked by a shell-hole in which some
ducks were dabbling. Swift must have been the pursuit that did not
linger to seize them for the cooking-pot!
On through an almost deserted country, with scarcely any people to be
seen save little groups here and there. All these groups were engaged
in the same occupation--digging graves. It was one of these aged
villagers, who, when a German officer asked him why he troubled to dig
graves instead of burning the bodies, answered fiercely.
"From every French soldier's grave, ten soldiers will grow!"
Gutted houses, torn and charred hayricks, scraps of clothing, broken
motor-cars, scraps of shells, and fires where the bodies of scores of
horses were being burned, marked the line of the storm of war.
Ah! There is a farmhouse standing, almost untouched. The road to it is
covered with shell-splinters. There are white figures there.
Turned into a hospital, of course, with doctors, orderlies and--nurses.
So soon! So near the battlefield! Later, when the war was systematized,
the nurses were not found in such advanced positions, but at this
crisis for France, the red cross on the sleeve was but little less
eager to plunge into its work than the arm that thrust the bayonet.
Are the Germans returning? They do not know.
Will that farmhouse be shelled in the next half-hour? They cannot tell.
Nor do they greatly care. For they know that they, too, are saving
France.
Horace throbbed on, his thoughts vibrating to the tune of his
motor-cycle, and, as he thought of the Red Cross of the Battlefield,
the master's voice rang again in his ears,
"A nation's strength is in proportion as its women are strong."
Here, too, lies the Wonder of War, more, a thousand times more, than
in any invention of a larger gun, a more deadly shell, or a more
abominable method for taking life.
Now the lad found himself approaching the battling armies.
Chateau-Thierry, abandoned by the Germans only two days before, had
already become a supply depot for the right wing of Manoury's army,
for Manoury had taken advantage of Von Kluck's defeat to cross the
River Aisne and was holding the whole northern side of the river,
from Compiegne to Soissons. While lunching in the little town, Horace
learned of the magnificent attack which had established Manoury on the
northern side of the river, ready to assault the heights the next day.
His eastward journey took him to the south of the British Army. The
memory of the "human icicle" still lingered, and though Horace knew
that he would not find all the English officers of the same stripe,
yet he kept away, passing south of Epernay. He learned, however,
that though Manoury had crossed, Sir John French had not, and the
German heavy artillery forbade any attempt to force the Conde bridge.
The British were, in fact, at the most impregnable point of that
impregnable barrier, the ridge above the Aisne.
Still the boy pushed on, his course now being south of the Fifth Army,
under d'Esperey. This army had also crossed the Aisne, but had not been
able to establish a firm footing on the other side, and its position
was precarious. The long afternoon had shown sights as desolate and in
some cases more horrible than those he had seen in the morning and he
was glad to find a little village where he might sleep, wearied and
heartsick with the sights of the day.
"The only thing more sad than a great victory," Wellington said once,
"is a great defeat."
Though Horace was some little distance from the front, the cannonading
that night was heavier and more sonorous than any he had heard before.
There was a good reason. General Von Zwehl, one of the grimmest
warriors in all the German Army, had brought the great siege-guns up
the heights overlooking the Aisne, after four nights and three days of
continuous marching. The thirteen traction-engines couldn't move the
guns, for there had been wet weather, and General Von Zwehl had tailed
the infantry on with long ropes. Like the slaves of Egypt who hauled
blocks of stone for the pyramids, the German soldiers slaved under
blows, curses, and threats of death. During the last twenty-four hours
of this march, the 18,000 troops and the guns covered 41 miles. Human
nature rebelled and red mutiny showed its head for a second, but Von
Zwehl had a nature as hard as the steel of his guns. Every murmurer was
shot dead in his tracks. The guns crawled on.
All night long, searchlight bombs were thrown. All night long, angry
streams of flame flickered like serpents' tongues on the sky and the
jagged gash of explosions lit up the black smoke of burning buildings
or the white puff-clouds of hungry shrapnel.
Von Zwehl knew what was going forward. He knew that it was the night
set for the crossing of the Aisne. He knew that no matter what might be
the fury of flame and bursting chemicals that poured down on the banks
of that river, engineers would be laboring to construct bridges and
bodies of troops would be trying to cross. The searchlights, like eyes
white with hate, peered here and there, the discovery of a crossing
party being a prelude to a tornado of lead which opened the gate of
death, a gate which swings, alas! too easily on its hinges in war time.
On Monday Horace passed south of Rheims, not dreaming, as no one in
the world dreamed, that it was to be shelled two days later, and that
its shelling would be deliberate. That there might and there would
be cruelty, butchery, massacre, that, of course, he knew, but that
absolute and reckless vandalism should also be ordered, neither his nor
any civilized mind would have expected. No one, save a Teuton, ever
dreamed that deliberate destruction of one of the world's marvels would
be sanctioned, permitted, even deliberately determined, and that for
petty revenge, spite and foiled rage. The German point of view was put
by Major-General Von Ditfurth:
"It is of no consequence," he wrote, "if all the monuments ever
created, all the pictures ever painted, and all the buildings ever
erected by the great architects of the world were destroyed, if, by
their destruction, we promote Germany's victory over her enemies.
The commonest, ugliest stone placed to mark the burial place of a
German grenadier, is a more glorious and perfect monument than all the
cathedrals in Europe put together."
If it be asked why Rheims was bombarded, the answer must be given in
the terms of the Battle of the Aisne, the essential details of which,
however, are simple.
The main factor in the Aisne battlefield is contained in this sentence:
"Strategists have said that from the Ural Mountains to the Atlantic
Ocean there is no natural line so strong as the line occupied by the
Germans."
When to this natural strength was added the skill of Field Marshal von
Heeringen, sent to assume the duties of a generalissimo over Von Kluck
and Von Buelow (Von Hausen being disgraced and relegated to the rear),
the iron craft of General Von Zwehl, the extraordinary concentration
of artillery and the vast ammunition supplies, it can be seen why
the Allies were never able that winter to take the heights overlooking
the Aisne. For, from Rethel to Compiegne, are bluffs 450 feet high
overlooking the river with natural spurs jutting out from point to
point to enfilade the stream. Every place of crossing is defended by
a natural spur, and every spur mounted a terrific array of artillery.
Every road on the north bank was in German hands, every road on the
south bank was an easy and direct mark for artillery.
[Illustration: _Courtesy of "L'Illustration."_
THE ENDLESS LINE OF MOTOR CONVOYS.
Gasoline is king of that vast stretch of endless energy behind the
battle front. Movement of troops, munitions and provisions depend on
the unceasing operation of tens of thousands of trucks.]
As Horace found out that day, when his course took him south of Foch's
triumphant army, the Battle of the Aisne was governed by the old rule
of war which declares that the army which chooses the battleground has
an advantage of almost two to one. The French had chosen the Valley of
the Marne, the Germans chose the ridges commanding the Aisne.
Yet there was a great deal more than that involved. It would be gravely
unjust to German strategy to suppose that they had not considered the
possible results of a failure in their plan of attack. The German
General Staff was fully prepared with its defensive line in case Paris
did not fall. The sapping and mining corps, the engineer corps, did not
join in the advance on the Marne. For a week they had been working
with indomitable energy on the Aisne to prepare what proved to be an
invulnerable natural fortress, strong as the Rock of Gibraltar.
Months before the war began, Germany had not only laid out a basis of
battle on a favorable terrain, but she had also laid out in detail the
manner in which a defensive position was to be taken up, should this
prove necessary. She knew that if she failed at Paris, the loss of
life would have been fearful. The German system of fighting in massed
formations ensured that. It would, therefore, be all the more necessary
that the defense should be made with machinery. If the heights were to
be taken, let flesh and blood do it. The Germans had been slaughtered
in attacking Liége. Let the Allies be slaughtered in attacking the
Aisne. Every foot of land had been mapped and studied, the heaviest
artillery in the world was available, and the ammunition supply system
was in full operation. Let them come!
Germany had prepared a marvelous attack which was within an ace of
success and was prevented from the accomplishment of its final and
full aim only by three things, each, in its way, a glory to one of the
Allied Nations: the valor of the defense of the Belgians at Liége; the
dogged courage of the British in the fighting retreat from Mons; and
the superb dash of the French when they shattered the German line at
the Marne. All three were needed to save France.
The battle of the Aisne consisted simply of the efforts of the English
and French to gain those forbidding and strongly protected heights. Von
Kluck, given all the men and artillery he needed, drove back Manoury
in the space of a few hours. The British crossed by a superb frontal
attack, which ranks as one of the bravest deeds in modern warfare, and
were wiped out. D'Esperey crossed the Aisne east of Bourg, only to find
that the Craonne plateau was unassailable. By Friday, September 18,
Joffre was compelled to realize that the bluffs above the Aisne had
been turned into an impregnable open-air fortress, not to be stormed by
flesh and blood.
For Germany one thing was lacking, a strong Line of Communication.
The main railroad to Coblentz, with a branch to Metz, passed through
Rheims. If Germany were to have the vast supplies she needed, she
must take Rheims or content herself with the weeks of delay which the
Belgian route required. Rheims was imperative.
But Foch held Rheims!
The keenest strategist of them all, with no natural defenses save two
small hills at Pouillion and Verzenay, the great French general had
made his line of defense so strong that it had become practically
unassailable. Especially it bristled with battery upon battery of
"Soixante-Quinze" guns. For four successive nights, waves of men, such
as those which were hurled at Liége, drove against Foch, striving by
weight of numbers to break through.
It was in vain. The disposition of Foch's troops was deadly. The
positions had been chosen by the best strategist in Europe, who had
anticipated this very attack, knowing the importance of Rheims to the
Germans. There was not a foot of ground that was not covered as with a
web by the shrapnel and melinite shells. Only twice did those terrific
attacks break through the "Soixante-Quinze" zone into machine-gun fire
range and there they fell in heaps.
By the night of September 19, Field Marshal von Heeringen was compelled
to realize that Foch's position could not be taken save by the use
of heavy artillery. This could not be brought into position without
exposing itself to destructive fire before he would have a chance to
fire a shot. Battle was impossible. Savage revenge remained.
On Sunday morning, the German artillerists redoubled their fire on the
Cathedral--to France her most sacred building, where all her kings
had been crowned and to which Joan of Arc led the Dauphin, and to the
art-lovers of the world, a work of transcendent beauty.
The cathedral was not being used as an observation station, as the
Germans alleged. It was being used as a hospital for the German wounded
and two large Red Cross flags were flying from it. A shell struck the
scaffolding which had been erected for restoring the left tower. The
scaffolding flamed, and the fire spread to the old arched roof of oak
below the roof of stone. The molten lead from the gutters fell on the
straw within, where the wounded Germans were lying. The interior became
a mass of flames, threatening to burn the wounded men alive.
Swift to the rescue sprang the gray-haired Archbishop Landreux. The
aged prelate, together with a young priest, rushed into the flaming
fane. Within, the straw was ablaze, overhead the timbers were
crackling, glistening drops of molten metal menaced them every few
yards and shells were dropping steadily. The frail archbishop lent
his feeble strength to those who were able to stagger, and Abbé Chinot
bodily picked up the wounded and carried them out.
A revulsion of mob fury seized the people. They saw their Cathedral in
flames, they saw the shells deliberately aimed for it, they saw their
inoffensive dead in the bombarded streets and they saw a just vengeance
in allowing the German wounded to burn alive in the pyre of their own
making. The mob, hoarse with rage and growing wilder every minute,
raised its rifles to fire at the wounded men who had been carried out.
The gray-haired archbishop, a Prince of Men as well as a Prince of the
Church, stepped quietly between them.
"Very well, my children," he said, "but you will fire on me first."
The demon-shriek of the shells continued, the drumming of gunfire
continued, but in the crowd there was silence. Then, with that sudden
response to greatness which lies hid in the hearts of all men, the
crowd leaped forward as one man to save the wounded men for whom, a
moment before, they had been clamoring to see burned alive.
And, through the whole scene, the statue of Joan of Arc looked on at
the brave act of a prelate she would have delighted to honor and the
recognition of courage by the people she herself gave her own life to
save.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] By order of numbering, this was the 7th Army. Just why it was
officially designated the 9th is still unknown.