THE VERDUN ATTACK--LIFE AND DEATH
Multitudes of people without doubt would like to know what an attack is
like, consequently I will try to describe one in the region of Verdun.
After serving six hours' notice on the city the Germans' big guns opened
up, with large caliber shells at short intervals. Frightened by the
fearful bombardment the civil population in multitudes swarmed out of
the town and took to the country roads. Thousands of trucks and numbers
of guns and soldiers advancing towards the enemy passed these fleeing
people. Many _camions_ slipped off the road, turned over, smashed, and
were left there, but the procession moved on and on. Horses died and
were left to rot on the roadside. Yet the procession bent on grim
business never paused. The routes of travel were jammed with soldiers
and the rumble and roar of the monster guns of the Teutons dinned into
one's ears the message that the world was locked in a death struggle.
Men and munitions are the only things that count in such an hour; and
at Verdun in those perilous times so many thousands of noble men were
wounded and cast aside that inconceivable numbers were required to take
their places and fill the ranks. Such is the wonderful spirit of France
that men always are ready to fill the gaps in the line. They go gladly
and I believe they will sacrifice thus until the very end.
Peasants were passing by in haste, dragging two-wheeled push carts
loaded with the baubles which they counted dear, but which in death are
of little value. Coming and going, coming and going, the two processions
moved through the weary hours, and still on the horizon the mouths of
Hell belched forth their smoke and fire, and across the field was heard
the awful rumbling of the guns. Many different kinds of shells were
used, producing different effects which could be distinguished by the
various colors of smoke emitted in exploding. They also filled the air
with strange and nauseating odors, and the crumbling houses sent up
enormous clouds of dust.
[Illustration: _Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._
AMERICAN AMBULANCES ON THE ROAD TO THE FRONT.
The cars of the Ambulance Field Service rush through maelstroms of
shrapnel and high explosive shells to succor the wounded, and then brave
the same dangers to get them to the base hospitals in time to relieve
their wounds.]
Without warning out of the night came a battery of guns with a clatter
of horses' hoofs and clamor of wheels on the pavement, and in a few
brief moments the sky lighted up with hellish explosions, and then died
down again. As the night deepened, regiments of soldiers tramped by and
passed out of sight. Then from the distance came the awful roar of a
fearful "strafing."
The war hospital during a battle is a fearsome place and it always
smells strongly of chloroform and ether. At the door of one of them the
_brancardiers_ carry the body of a man who has made a heroic struggle in
the race against death. His head is battered fearfully and death has won
the race. But then--what is death? The commonest figure that stalks
around on the earth today. And, after all, it is not so terrible. A
little sooner, or a little later, it comes. All must die. Death is not
the dreadful thing, nor even the important thing. It is true, as the
poet Cooke has said, "It's not the fact that you're dead that counts,
but only how did you die."
I am not preaching in this story. I do want to say, however, that death
is not important. Death is not an enemy; not on the Western front.
Thousands of better men than we, yes, millions, have met this same
fellow and boldly gone with him. They all go, but how did you die?
That's it. Let the German answer.
Verdun is an old fort and reputed to be one of the most formidable
fortifications in the world. Had it not been so it would certainly have
been crushed like an eggshell before the German onslaught, for a dozen
shells often exploded at the same time, blowing up many buildings, yet
the fortress never weakened for an instant. If Verdun had fallen,
nothing could have stood. But as Victor Hugo says of Waterloo, "God was
passing by and He took charge of things." To our little minds it is all
mysterious. Wonderful are the ways of His working, but through one
agency or another He always thwarts the designs of evil men and has His
way at last.
Verdun was most important. In every war there are certain battles which
the historian calls "strategic," certain points which are pivotal, and
the outcome of the engagement there is particularly vital. The history
and destiny of nations hangs upon them. Such a one was Waterloo a
century ago. Gettysburg in the Civil War was another one. In this
present struggle the Marne and Verdun have been the outstanding pivotal
battles, but they were won! Won by the French, who, as I look at it,
were held up and led on by the very hand of God. I am not a military
expert, and I have no knowledge or insight that other folk do not
possess, but it is my inward judgment that from this time on the battles
will be fought east of Verdun. That is to say in the main, I doubt very
much if the Germans will push through much farther than they are already
and I believe that little by little the Allies will crowd them back
along the greater portion of the front until victorious. The world must
bear in mind, however, that Germany is by no means weak and that she
will not be vanquished without an awful struggle. She may also at places
advance her line somewhat, but I think no one need now fear as many did
in the beginning that Paris will ever be taken, or that Verdun will
fall. It has stood the supreme test!
One must remember, however, that Verdun today is not a beautiful sight.
The forts are still intact and from a military point of view that is all
that counts. But from an artistic or aesthetic standpoint, the place is
sorry indeed. When the Germans sent over their incendiary bombs setting
the buildings on fire, and then their hail of shrapnel so the fire could
not be put out, they accomplished sad destruction. Broken pieces of
glass, bits of shell and upturned cobblestones fill the streets, and
battered carts and wagons lie everywhere. Houses are smashed to pieces
and smoke-blackened brick and charred timbers, the worthless remains of
burned buildings are seen on every hand. From the individual viewpoint
Verdun is very sad, extremely so. Thousands of people have been driven
from their homes and when they left they had to say good-bye to those
homes forever. Multitudes have had loved ones killed while others have
lost track of their relatives and probably will never find them.
Beautiful edifices, the fulfilment of the artists' dream, have been
battered and burned down, and in that city at the present moment Art is
not! All this is lamentable.
Yet from the larger point of view, that of France, Verdun is a glorious
triumph. From the national and even the world standpoint, Verdun means
one more thwarting of the tyrant's design and one more victory for Truth
and Right. When we rise above today, and look at things in the light of
human progress, our value judgments alter much. The world will not care
much whether this or that individual lost his house or farm, for a
ruined city will rise again, but the heart of the world leaps with joy
when it realizes that the despot has been checked! And even the French
individual possesses such an indomitable spirit of patriotism that he
will not mourn for his temporal losses just so the future of France is
not impaired. The long sacrifice and the enduring suffering are borne by
these patient people with remarkable calm. They endure today in silence,
their Calvary of war, the bloody Golgotha of France.
Yet I would not have you think that war is all battle. Not all of the
hours nor even the days of the men in the war country are taken up with
thoughts of horror, or in listening to the explosions of shells, or the
carrying of mangled or lacerated men. The war is so gigantic in its
operation and it covers so vast an area that millions of the people
engaged find themselves many times occupied with the most peaceful
thoughts and the most commonplace pursuits. If all of the people engaged
were compelled continually to face the cannon and the barbed wire, or to
listen to the moans of the dying, and feel that they themselves were apt
to be taken off at any minute, they would not be the cool-headed people
that they are, but instead would be a crowd of raving maniacs. The
person thousands of miles away from the spectacle who only reads about
it often gets a wrong impression on this point. Nations are mobilized;
multitudes are under arms; thousands are engaged in assisting those who
fight intermittently--and no soldier fights except intermittently, a
week or so on and several days off--and, consequently, not infrequently
there are hours or even days when one takes the even tenor of his way
far from the battle front, much the same as he does in times of peace.
On such an evening, I found myself writing a letter, as letters to me of
late had been rather scarce. I was sitting in a plain, bare hut with a
kerosene lamp, and a peculiar letter it was that I wrote. I had seen
some odd writing paper in a little stationery store and had paid a
couple of cents for three or four sheets of it. Each sheet was arranged
by the manufacturer so as to make a complete letter. If you were to take
an ordinary sheet of paper and perforate it on the sewing machine on all
four sides about half an inch from the edge, then put some mucilage on
that half inch margin and let it dry, folding it across the middle, you
would have a piece of this one-letter stationery. As it happened there
was a little wording on the outside, and a square for the postage stamp.
All you have to do is to write the address on the outside, open it out,
pen your missive inside, fold it and wet the edges all the way round,
thus sticking it, and you then have your letter so to speak, on the
inside of your envelope and the receiver simply tears off the perforated
edges, opens it up, and reads.
I was writing on this odd French stationery after a day of idleness. My
table consisted of two boards thrown across a couple of sawhorses--a
very comfortable table by the way, but the kerosene lamp smelled badly.
My thoughts were of America and home. I was in a soliloquizing mood and
I also wanted the letter as a souvenir, when I returned. And so I began:
My dear sir, self: U. S. A., When you receive this epistle you will
be far away from the scenes which now confront you. You may
sometimes think you have it pretty hard staying out here in France
away from home and loved ones, having no money, dead broke, and
laboring without pay, and often getting little time to rest or
sleep. But listen, son, you must realize that you are at this hour
in the very midst of the biggest crisis of history. The world has
never seen such a moment and if you had missed having a part in it
you would have kicked yourself throughout eternity. Your own little
life anyway is not an important thing to the world. A few dollars
more and a position of ease doesn't make any difference, and if you
learn the lesson, my boy, that giving yourself in a noble cause and
living for others, is the greatest thing in life you will have
found happiness and gained all things. Please take this little
suggestion in the proper spirit and set it to work. Also remember
that never again in your life will you ever get a reception from
anyone which is so beautiful as that which the French people are
giving you right at this hour....
At this moment the door opened and a hurry call was brought in for three
hundred wounded. A great battle had been fought and our boys were needed
at once. I stuck the letter in my pocket and went out. In ten minutes we
were on the road. Arriving in the night at the station where the men
were to be brought in we were told that the train would not arrive for
at least an hour and we knew that that might mean six hours, as it often
did. Things were fairly quiet here, but now and then we saw the shell
flashes and occasionally heard the booming of the guns. I went into a
little structure nearby prepared to wait as long as need be. While
sitting there I got out my odd French stationery and began finishing
that letter to myself. I wrote:
And may that beautiful French hospitality always be a bright spot
in your life. And when your time comes to "shuffle off this mortal
coil," whether violently or peacefully, may you remember that many
a better man out here has done so courageously for a heroic cause.
Take this to yourself. Good-bye.
Sincerely,
YOUR FRIEND.
I folded the top of the letter down over the bottom and wet the edges
with my tongue, pressing them together, and put it in my pocket ready
to mail. I had just turned around when--rip--bang--a monstrous bomb
burst right in the block where I was sitting, tearing a hole fifteen
inches in diameter right through the roof, and totally enveloping
everyone in blinding, choking dust. The concussion put out the candle
and as I had no matches, I just sat there half dazed for several minutes
coughing and sneezing and wondering what was coming next. Finally I
rubbed my eyes and felt my way out of the place, only to find that one
of the cars had been smashed to toothpicks by the shell as it went off.
As I met one of the boys he said, "Where were you?" I answered, "Inside
writing a message to myself--but it was a more thrilling message to
myself that came, in the way of that explosion."
"Well, I should think so," he replied. "Hereafter you had better not
bother writing to yourself; next time I'd write to the other fellow."
And I thought it was pretty good philosophy.
Half an hour later the trains came in, bearing the wounded in numbers.
By working until one o'clock next day without any food, we finally got
the wounded cared for and distributed, there being 400 of them instead
of 300 as first reported. Providence, however, appears to have seen to
it that men do not suffer when engaged in work of this kind, and I never
heard any of the men complain of being hungry. Sometimes, however, at
the stations, kind women provided coffee and sandwiches for the
ambulance men as well as for the wounded, and when this was so they
never went amiss.
Back at headquarters one day an amusing incident occurred. I had bought
a beautiful French pipe sometime before which I valued greatly. It
happened, however, that I had gone out one afternoon and left it lying
on my bed, which consisted of a straw mattress on the floor. While I was
gone a couple of French poilus had come in to chat with the other boys.
One of the poilus had been imbibing a bit and was feeling pretty good, I
guess. He sat down on my bed and two of our boys did the same, thinking
to talk and have a little fun with him. While the Frenchman was sitting
there his eye fell upon that pretty pipe of mine and he picked it up
admiringly, hinting to the boys that he would like to have it. They told
him it was not theirs but they felt sure that the owner would not care
if he took it. So he put it in his pocket with a wink and laid his
cheap, smelly one in its place. He then noticed a little yellow cap on
the bed. It was a sort of skullcap affair which the boys all wore when
sleeping to keep their heads warm. When Mr. Poilu saw it he expressed a
desire to have it also. The boys told him the cap belonged to me but
they knew I would willingly let him have it. He took the cap and
presently went out.
Imagine my chagrin on returning at being told that one of the poilus had
taken my treasured pipe and my nightcap! I did not care so much for the
cap but I was very sorry to lose the pipe. I knew that the boys would
not be able to identify this one man among all those hundreds who wore
long blue coats and red trousers. But fortune was kind. Early the next
morning when we were going to breakfast, we passed a large crowd of
poilus, and one of our boys began to laugh. He called out, "Benson,
there goes your nightcap!" And sure enough, on the head of a poilu,
sticking down below his military cap, was the yellow edge of my
nightcap. That identified my man, and I rushed gleefully over and
smilingly said in my execrable French, "Monsieur, I believe I have your
pipe," holding it up to his gaze. He took it, saying, "Yes; thank you."
But he did not offer me my pipe, and there was an embarrassing pause.
After a moment I said, "Perhaps, Monsieur, you have my pipe?" He smiled
again and said, "Yes," and fished it out of his pocket. We both laughed,
and I felt so good that I did not ask him for the cap. He's welcome to
it. But as for the pipe, I now prize it more highly than before.