THE GERMANS IN RETREAT
The Enemy Destroy Everything as They Go--Clearing Away the
Débris of the Battlefield--And Repairing the Damage Done by
the Huns--An Enormous Mine Crater--A Reception by French
Peasants--"Les Anglais! Les Anglais!" Stuck on the Road to
Bovincourt.
To keep in touch with all the happenings on that section of the front
for which I was responsible, and to obtain a comprehensive record of
events, it was necessary to keep very wide awake. Movements, definite
and indefinite, were taking place in scores of different places at the
same moment. To keep in touch with the enemy, to work with our forward
patrols, to enter upon the heels of our advance guard into the evacuated
villages--and, if possible, to get there first and film their triumphal
entry, film our advance infantry and guns taking up new positions, the
engineers at work remaking the roads, building new bridges over the
Somme, laying down new railways and repairing old ones--the hundred and
one different organisations that were working and straining every muscle
and nerve for the common cause. Only the favoured few have the remotest
idea of the enormous amount of work to be done under such conditions.
The road (which was No Man's Land yesterday morning) to the village of
Villers-Carbonel was now swarming with men clearing away the accumulated
débris of the battlefield. Tree trunks were moved off the road,
shell-holes were being filled up with bricks and branches, trenches,
which crossed the road, were being filled in, a Tank trap at the
entrance to the village, the shape of a broad, deep ditch, about thirty
by twenty feet wide by fifteen feet deep, was being loaded with tree
trunks and earth. I filmed these scenes; then hurried as fast as
possible in the direction of Brie to cover the advanced work on the
Somme, and then to cross to the other side and get in touch with our
cavalry patrols.
What an extraordinary change in the place! Yesterday a ghostly silence
reigned; now men and material and transport were swarming everywhere. I
reached the river. The engineers had thrown up light, temporary
bridges--six in all. Huge iron girders had arrived from back behind;
they had been made in readiness for "The Day." Our H.Q. had known that
the Germans in their inevitable retreat would destroy the bridges, so,
to save time, duplicates were built in sections, ready to throw across
the gap.
I managed to arrive in time to film several squadrons of the Duke of
Lancaster's cavalry hurrying forward to harass the enemy. Cyclist
patrols were making their way over. I hurried as fast as possible
through the ruins of Brie and on to the ridge beyond. In the distance I
watched our cavalry deploying in extended order and advance towards a
wood to clear it of the enemy rearguards. Motor-cyclists, with their
machine-guns, were dashing up the hill anxious to get into contact with
the flying enemy. I filmed many scenes in this section.
I looked along the road which was the main one into St. Quentin; it
stretched away as far as the eye could see. The condition is certainly
excellent, I thought. There would be a greater possibility of obtaining
exciting scenes if it were possible to proceed in my car; the only
question was whether the temporary bridges across the Somme were
capable of sustaining the weight. The possibility of getting into
villages just evacuated by the Germans spurred me on, so retracing my
steps, I reached the river again.
"Do you think the bridge will take the weight of my car?" I asked an
officer in charge of engineers.
"What is it?"
"Daimler," I replied.
"Well," he said, "there is a risk, of course, but our G.S. wagons have
been across and also the artillery, so they may take your bus--if you
don't bounce her in crossing."
"Right-o!" I said. "I will get it down." Hurrying across I had just
reached the last bridge when, with a sudden snap, one of the main beams
gave way. All traffic was, of course, stopped, and engineers quickly got
to work replacing the broken girder.
"It will be at least another hour, sir," said a sergeant in answer to my
enquiry. So there was nothing for it but to curb my impatience and wait,
and I stood my apparatus down and watched the proceedings.
At that moment a car came to a standstill alongside me.
"What's wrong?" called out one of the occupants.
"Broken bridge," I said. "I'm waiting to cross with my car to get films
of the villages and the occupants."
"That's good," said the speaker, a captain. "I am going up to them as
well. Intelligence I heard from our airmen this morning that they saw
civilians in one or two villages a few miles out--so I'm off to
investigate. Would you care to come? We shall be the first there."
"Yes, rather," I replied. "It will be a fine scoop for me to film the
first meeting of British troops in the liberated villages. I will follow
in my car."
[Illustration: FILMING OUR GUNS IN ACTION DURING THE GREAT GERMAN
RETREAT TO ST. QUENTIN. MARCH, 1917]
The bridge was again complete, so, dumping my camera aboard, I followed
in the wake of the captain. Up the hill we dashed and spun along the
road at the top, passing beyond the outskirts of Brie. We were now
beyond the extreme limit of the shelling which we had subjected the
Germans to during their months of occupation.
I was now beginning to see the sights and view the atrocious system and
regularity of wilful destruction which had obviously been planned months
before by the Huns to carry out Hindenburg's orders and make the whole
land a desert. Not a tree was standing; whole orchards were hewn down;
every fruit tree and bush was destroyed; hedges were cut at the base as
if with a razor; even those surrounding cemeteries were treated in the
same way. Agricultural implements were smashed. Mons en Chaussée was the
first village we entered; every house was a blackened smoking ruin, and
where the fiends had not done their work with fire they had brought
dynamite to their aid; whole blocks of buildings had been blown into the
air; there was not sufficient cover for a dog.
The car suddenly came to a standstill; my driver jammed on his brake and
I hurried forward. There, at the middle of the village cross-roads was
another enormous mine-crater--one hundred feet across by about sixty
feet deep. It was quite impassable, but the sight which astounded me was
to see about twenty old women and children running up the road the other
side of the crater shouting and waving their arms with joy. "Les
Anglais! Les Anglais!" they yelled. I got my camera into position and
filmed the captain and his companions as they clambered round the jagged
lip of the crater and were embraced by the excited people. For the first
time since their captivity by the Germans they had seen "les Anglais."
Liberators and captives met!
Several scenes I filmed of the enormous crater and of the cut-down fruit
trees. Not a single tree, old or young, was left standing. To blow up
roads, and hew down telegraph poles was war, and such measures are
justified; but to destroy every tree or bush that could possibly bear
fruit, wilfully to smash up agricultural implements; to shoot a dog and
tie a label to its poor body written in English:
"Tommies, don't forget to put this in your next
communique--that we killed one dog.
(Signed) THE HUNS."
To crucify a cat upon a door and stick a cigar in its mouth, to blow up
and poison wells, to desecrate graves, to smash open vaults and rob the
corpses which lay there, and then to kick the bones in all directions
and use the coffins as cess-pools--these things I have seen with my own
eyes. Is this war? It is the work of savages, ghouls, fiends.
I wondered where these people had come from and where they had been as
the whole village was burnt out. I enquired and found that the Germans,
two days before, had cleared the village of its population and
distributed them in villages further back, and had then set fire to the
place, leaving nothing but a desert behind, and taking with them all the
men who could work and many girls in their teens to what fate one may
guess.
These few villagers had wandered back during the day to gaze upon the
wreckage of their homes and arrived just in time to meet us at the
crater.
"We will get along," said my companion. "I want to visit Bovincourt and
Vraignes before nightfall, though I am afraid we shall not do it. By
making a detour round these ruins I believe we shall strike the main
road further down."
I followed him through the ruins and, after bouncing over innumerable
bricks and beams, we reached the main road. We passed through
Estrées-en-Chaussée. One large barn was only standing; everything was as
quiet as the grave; columns of smoke were still rising from the ruins.
Another jamming on of brakes brought us to a standstill at a
cross-roads; another huge mine-crater was in front of us and it was most
difficult to see until we were well upon it. There was nothing to do but
to take to the fields--our road was at right angles to the one we were
traversing.
I examined the ground, it was very soft, and the newly scattered earth
and clay from the mine made it much worse.
"If we get stuck," I thought, "there is nobody about to help us out."
The captain tried and got over.
I yelled out that I would follow; they disappeared in the direction of
Bovincourt. Backing my car to get a good start I let it go over the edge
of the road into the field. It was like going through pudding. The near
wheels roared round without gripping. Then it happened! We were stuck! A
fine predicament, I thought, with prowling enemy patrols about and no
rifle.
"All shoulders to the wheel," I said. By digging, and jamming wood,
sacking and straw under the wheels we managed, after three-quarters of
an hour, to get it out. Jove! what a time it was! And so on the road
again.
"We will get into Bovincourt," I said. "Let her go; I may meet the
others."
The feeling was uncanny and my position strange, for all I knew Bosches
were all around me (and later on this proved to be the case).
Night was falling, and ere I reached the village it was quite impossible
to take any scenes.
At the entrance to the village I ran into several people who crowded
round the car, crying and laughing in their relief at seeing the British
arrive. Old men and women who could barely move hobbled forward to shake
hands, with tears in their eyes. They clambered in and around the car,
and it was only by making them understand that I would return on the
following day that they allowed the car to proceed. The sight was
wonderful and I wish I were able to describe it better.
I could not find the other car, so, assuming it had gone back, I decided
to return as far as Brie and stay the night. As I was leaving the
village a burst of machine-gun fire rang out close by followed by
violent rifle-shots.
"Let her go," I said to my chauffeur. "I am not at all anxious to get
pipped out here. My films must not fall into enemy hands."
The car shot up the road like a streak; the mine-crater was ahead and
the possibility of getting stuck again whilst crossing made me feel
anything but easy. Full tilt, I told my driver, we must trust to speed
to get across. On went the lower gear; a right-hand twist of the wheel
and we were on the field; the speed gradually grew less, the back wheels
buzzed round but still gripped a little.
"Keep her going at all costs," I yelled, "if the car sticks here it will
have to be left." To lighten her a little I jumped out and pushed up
behind for all I was worth. Mud was flying in all directions; we were
nearly across; another twenty yards. With a final roll and screech she
bounded off on to the road. I jumped aboard again and up the road we
shot towards Mons. If the Hun patrols had been anywhere near they must
have thought a battalion of Tanks were on their track, for the noise my
old "bus" made getting across that field was positively deafening. On I
went through Mons, into the ruins of its houses, still glowing red and,
in some places, flames were licking around the poor skeletons of its
once prosperous farms.
One more mine-crater to negotiate; then all would be plain sailing. It
was now quite dark. I dared not use lights, not, even side lamps, and
going was decidedly slow and risky in consequence. I sat in the bonnet
of the car and, peering ahead, called out the direction. Shortly a
lightish mass loomed up only a few yards distant.
"Stop!" I yelled.
On went the brakes, and only just in time. We came to a standstill on
the outer lip of a huge crater. Another two yards and I should have been
trying to emulate the antics of a "tank" in sliding down a crater and
crawling up the other side. In my case the sliding down would have been
all right, but coming up the other side would have been on the lap of
the gods. A hundred men with ropes and myself--well, but that's another
story.
"Back the car to give it a good run," I said, "and let us lighten it as
much as possible," and soon all was ready.
"I will go ahead and put my handkerchief over my electric light; we must
risk being seen--you head direct for the glow."
I went into the muddy fields.
"Let her go," I shouted. With a whir and a grind I could tell it had
started. I stood still. It was coming nearer. Ye gods! what a row. Then,
suddenly, the engines stopped and dead silence reigned.
"It's stuck, sir," came a voice from the darkness.
I went to the car and switched my lamp on to the near wheels. The car
was stuck right up to the axle.
"We shall never get out of this unaided," I said. "Put all the stuff
back inside and get the hood up; we shall have to sleep here to-night."
Then, to add to the discomfiture of the situation, it began to rain, and
rain like fury, and in a few minutes I was wet through to the skin. The
hood leaked badly and had convenient holes in alignment to one's body,
whether you were sitting lengthways or otherwise inside. I had resigned
myself for a dismal night out. Two hours had passed when I heard the
clatter of hoofs coming towards me in the distance and, by the direction
of the sound, I could tell they were our men. I tumbled out and ran as
fast as possible to the other side of the crater and reached there just
as the horsemen arrived.
"Hullo!" I shouted.
"Hulloa!" came the reply, "who is it?"
"I am badly stuck, or rather my car is--in the mud in the field here.
Can you hitch two or three of your horses on and help me out on to the
road?"
"Certainly, if we can, sir."
"I will guide you with my lamp--by the way, where are you going?" I
said.
"We are trying to get into touch with the Bosche."
"I have been in Bovincourt," I said, "but there are none there, though I
heard a lot of rifle-fire just outside the village."
We arrived at the car and, quickly hitching on a rope, the engine was
started up and, with a heave and a screech, it moved forward and was
eventually dragged on to the road.
"Thank Heaven," I thought. Then, thanking the men, and warning them of
the other delightful mine crater further down, I started off again,
sitting on the bonnet.
As I neared Brie I switched on my lamp as a headlight and got held up by
two sentries with their bayonets at the ready. They did not understand
why a motor-car should be coming back apparently from the German lines,
and their attitude was decidedly unfriendly till I assured them I was
not a German, but only the Official Kinematographer out for pictures.