Many of the famous deeds of antiquity have been curiously paralleled in
the war. For instance, one of the ancient feats that everybody mentions
occasionally was how the brave Horatius held the bridge across the
Tiber with two companions against the whole Etruscan army.
Now we find again and again that a bridge has been the scene of deeds
of conspicuous heroism in this war. The British were defending a
river bank and bridge against a fierce German attack. The crew of a
British Maxim gun had all been killed. Then Angus MacLeod, of the
Gordon Highlanders, rose from cover, seized the Maxim gun and all alone
carried it, under fire, to the far side of the bridge, where he played
it on the advancing Germans.
He is credited with having killed sixty Germans. Finally he fell dead
and thirty bullets were counted in his body. The delay enabled the
British to rally and repel their opponents.
An extraordinary act of heroism was reported of an unnamed French
soldier during the disastrous retreat of the French from the Belgian
frontier and the Meuse River early in the war.
This man had been taken prisoner with some companions. The Germans,
according to the report, drove their prisoners before them when
attempting to cross a strongly defended bridge, to make the French
think it was a party of their own men returning. As the French
prisoners stepped on the bridge, one of them, a big and strong-voiced
man, yelled:
"Fire, nom de Dieu, or you will be wiped out."
His own act made his death certain. He fell riddled with bullets from
both sides.
Lieutenant Leach and Sergeant Hogan of the British Army each received
the Victoria Cross for an extraordinarily daring and ingenious action.
The two men killed two Germans, took sixteen unwounded prisoners and
twenty wounded men. Leach and Hogan with ten men crawled unobserved to
a section of trench that had been captured by the Germans earlier in
the day. Leach and Hogan dropped into the trench unnoticed and the ten
men lay in wait to shoot any Germans who showed themselves.
A trench is built in zigzags so that there is only a straight section
of about twenty yards along which an enemy could shoot. The Germans in
the first section were taken by surprise and all killed or wounded.
Then the two men hurried on to the next turning. As they walked Hogan
put his cap on his rifle and held it above the trench to show their men
outside where they were.
Lieutenant Leach poked his automatic revolver round the corner of
the trench and began shooting at the Germans from cover. The German
soldiers with their big clumsy rifles could not hit the deadly hand
that was the only object to aim at. While the Lieutenant was shooting,
Hogan watched over the top of the trench to shoot any German who tried
to get out or attack them in the rear. Thus all the men in each section
were killed, wounded or captured.
How do these and the many other brave men who have been reported in
the present war compare with the heroes of antiquity? Achilles is the
foremost of Greek warriors. He personified the Greek ideal of bravery,
manly beauty and fiery enthusiasm. The "Iliad" contains pages and pages
about his deeds, his speeches, how he sulked in his tent, and his
quarrel with Agamemnon, but it does not seem after all that he did a
vast amount of harm to the enemy. Of course, he killed Hector, but that
was not amazing, and he acted with considerable brutality about it.
Achilles was undoubtedly a fine orator, but in achievement he appeared
to compare badly with modest Sergeant O'Leary.