Paris, where I hope to be privileged to have some experiences at the
front of our splendid Allies. I leave Italy with a deep feeling of
gratitude for the kindness shown to me, and of admiration for the way
in which they are playing their part in the world's fight for freedom.
They have every possible disadvantage, economic and political. But in
spite of it they have done splendidly. Three thousand square kilometres
of the enemy's country are already in their possession. They relieve to
a very great extent the pressure upon the Russians, who, in spite of
all their bravery, might have been overwhelmed last summer during the
'durchbruch' had it not been for the diversion of so many Austrian
troops. The time has come now when Russia by her advance on the Pripet
is repaying her debt. But the debt is common to all the Allies. Let
them bear it in mind. There has been mischief done by slighting
criticism and by inconsiderate words. A warm sympathetic hand-grasp of
congratulation is what Italy has deserved, and it is both justice and
policy to give it.
A GLIMPSE OF THE FRENCH LINE
I
The French soldiers are grand. They are grand. There is no other word
to express it. It is not merely their bravery. All races have shown
bravery in this war. But it is their solidity, their patience, their
nobility. I could not conceive anything finer than the bearing of their
officers. It is proud without being arrogant, stern without being
fierce, serious without being depressed. Such, too, are the men whom
they lead with such skill and devotion. Under the frightful
hammer-blows of circumstance, the national characters seem to have been
reversed. It is our British soldier who has become debonair,
light-hearted and reckless, while the Frenchman has developed a solemn
stolidity and dour patience which was once all our own. During a long
day in the French trenches, I have never once heard the sound of music
or laughter, nor have I once seen a face that was not full of the most
grim determination.
Germany set out to bleed France white. Well, she has done so. France is
full of widows and orphans from end to end. Perhaps in proportion to
her population she has suffered the most of all. But in carrying out
her hellish mission Germany has bled herself white also. Her heavy
sword has done its work, but the keen French rapier has not lost its
skill. France will stand at last, weak and tottering, with her huge
enemy dead at her feet. But it is a fearsome business to see--such a
business as the world never looked upon before. It is fearful for the
French. It is fearful for the Germans. May God's curse rest upon the
arrogant men and the unholy ambitions which let loose this horror upon
humanity! Seeing what they have done, and knowing that they have done
it, one would think that mortal brain would grow crazy under the
weight. Perhaps the central brain of all was crazy from the first. But
what sort of government is it under which one crazy brain can wreck
mankind!
If ever one wanders into the high places of mankind, the places whence
the guidance should come, it seems to me that one has to recall the
dying words of the Swedish Chancellor who declared that the folly of
those who governed was what had amazed him most in his experience of
life. Yesterday I met one of these men of power--M. Clemenceau, once
Prime Minister, now the destroyer of governments. He is by nature a
destroyer, incapable of rebuilding what he has pulled down. With his
personal force, his eloquence, his thundering voice, his bitter pen, he
could wreck any policy, but would not even trouble to suggest an
alternative. As he sat before me with his face of an old prizefighter
(he is remarkably like Jim Mace as I can remember him in his later
days), his angry grey eyes and his truculent, mischievous smile, he
seemed to me a very dangerous man. His conversation, if a squirt on one
side and Niagara on the other can be called conversation, was directed
for the moment upon the iniquity of the English rate of exchange, which
seemed to me very much like railing against the barometer. My
companion, who has forgotten more economics than ever Clemenceau knew,
was about to ask whether France was prepared to take the rouble at face
value, but the roaring voice, like a strong gramophone with a blunt
needle, submerged all argument. We have our dangerous men, but we have
no one in the same class as Clemenceau. Such men enrage the people who
know them, alarm the people who don't, set every one by the ears, act
as a healthy irritant in days of peace, and are a public danger in days
of war.
* * * * *
But this is digression. I had set out to say something of a day's
experience of the French front, though I shall write with a fuller pen
when I return from the Argonne. It was for Soissons that we made,
passing on the way a part of the scene of our own early operations,
including the battlefield of Villers Cotteret--just such a wood as I
had imagined. My companion's nephew was one of those Guards' officers
whose bodies rest now in the village cemetery, with a little British
Jack still flying above them. They lie together, and their grave is
tended with pious care. Among the trees beside the road were other
graves of soldiers, buried where they had fallen. 'So look around--and
choose your ground--and take your rest.'
Soissons is a considerable wreck, though it is very far from being an
Ypres. But the cathedral would, and will, make many a patriotic
Frenchman weep. These savages cannot keep their hands off a beautiful
church. Here, absolutely unchanged through the ages, was the spot where
St. Louis had dedicated himself to the Crusade. Every stone of it was
holy. And now the lovely old stained glass strews the floor, and the
roof lies in a huge heap across the central aisle. A dog was climbing
over it as we entered. No wonder the French fight well. Such sights
would drive the mildest man to desperation. The abbé, a good priest,
with a large humorous face, took us over his shattered domain. He was
full of reminiscences of the German occupation of the place. One of his
personal anecdotes was indeed marvellous. It was that a lady in the
local ambulance had vowed to kiss the first French soldier who
re-entered the town. She did so, and it proved to be her husband. The
abbé is a good, kind, truthful man--but he has a humorous face.
A walk down a ruined street brings one to the opening of the trenches.
There are marks upon the walls of the German occupation.
'Berlin--Paris,' with an arrow of direction, adorns one corner. At
another the 76th Regiment have commemorated the fact that they were
there in 1870 and again in 1914. If the Soissons folk are wise they
will keep these inscriptions as a reminder to the rising generation. I
can imagine, however, that their inclination will be to whitewash,
fumigate, and forget.
A sudden turn among some broken walls takes one into the communication
trench. Our guide is a Commandant of the Staff, a tall, thin man with
hard, grey eyes and a severe face. It is the more severe towards us as
I gather that he has been deluded into the belief that about one out of
six of our soldiers goes to the trenches. For the moment he is not
friends with the English. As we go along, however, we gradually get
upon better terms, we discover a twinkle in the hard, grey eyes, and
the day ends with an exchange of walking-sticks and a renewal of the
Entente. May my cane grow into a marshal's baton.
* * * * *
A charming young artillery subaltern is our guide in that maze of
trenches, and we walk and walk and walk, with a brisk exchange of
compliments between the '75's' of the French and the '77's' of the
Germans going on high over our heads. The trenches are boarded at the
sides, and have a more permanent look than those of Flanders. Presently
we meet a fine, brown-faced, upstanding boy, as keen as a razor, who
commands this particular section. A little further on a helmeted
captain of infantry, who is an expert sniper, joins our little party.
Now we are at the very front trench. I had expected to see primeval
men, bearded and shaggy. But the 'Poilus' have disappeared. The men
around me were clean and dapper to a remarkable degree. I gathered,
however, that they had their internal difficulties. On one board I read
an old inscription, 'He is a Boche, but he is the inseparable companion
of a French soldier.' Above was a rude drawing of a louse.
I am led to a cunning loop-hole, and have a glimpse through it of a
little framed picture of French countryside. There are fields, a road,
a sloping hill beyond with trees. Quite close, about thirty or forty
yards away, was a low, red-tiled house. 'They are there,' said our
guide. 'That is their outpost. We can hear them cough.' Only the guns
were coughing that morning, so we heard nothing, but it was certainly
wonderful to be so near to the enemy and yet in such peace. I suppose
wondering visitors from Berlin are brought up also to hear the French
cough. Modern warfare has certainly some extraordinary sides.
Now we are shown all the devices which a year of experience has
suggested to the quick brains of our Allies. It is ground upon which
one cannot talk with freedom. Every form of bomb, catapult, and trench
mortar was ready to hand. Every method of cross-fire had been thought
out to an exact degree. There was something, however, about their
disposition of a machine gun which disturbed the Commandant. He called
for the officer of the gun. His thin lips got thinner and his grey eyes
more austere as we waited. Presently there emerged an extraordinarily
handsome youth, dark as a Spaniard, from some rabbit hole. He faced the
Commandant bravely, and answered back with respect but firmness.
'Pourquoi?' asked the Commandant, and yet again 'Pourquoi?' Adonis had
an answer for everything. Both sides appealed to the big Captain of
Snipers, who was clearly embarrassed. He stood on one leg and scratched
his chin. Finally the Commandant turned away angrily in the midst of
one of Adonis' voluble sentences. His face showed that the matter was
not ended. War is taken very seriously in the French army, and any sort
of professional mistake is very quickly punished. I have been told how
many officers of high rank have been broken by the French during the
war. The figure was a very high one. There is no more forgiveness for
the beaten General than there was in the days of the Republic when the
delegate of the National Convention, with a patent portable guillotine,
used to drop in at headquarters to support a more vigorous offensive.
* * * * *
As I write these lines there is a burst of bugles in the street, and I
go to my open window to see the 41st of the line march down into what
may develop into a considerable battle. How I wish they could march
down the Strand even as they are. How London would rise to them! Laden
like donkeys, with a pile upon their backs and very often both hands
full as well, they still get a swing into their march which it is good
to see. They march in column of platoons, and the procession is a long
one, for a French regiment is, of course, equal to three battalions.
The men are shortish, very thick, burned brown in the sun, with never a
smile among them--have I not said that they are going down to a grim
sector?--but with faces of granite. There was a time when we talked of
stiffening the French army. I am prepared to believe that our first
expeditionary force was capable of stiffening any conscript army, for I
do not think that a finer force ever went down to battle. But to talk
about stiffening these people now would be ludicrous. You might as well
stiffen the old Guard. There may be weak regiments somewhere, but I
have never seen them.
I think that an injustice has been done to the French army by the
insistence of artists and cinema operators upon the picturesque
Colonial corps. One gets an idea that Arabs and negroes are pulling
France out of the fire. It is absolutely false. Her own brave sons are
doing the work. The Colonial element is really a very small one--so
small that I have not seen a single unit during all my French
wanderings. The Colonials are good men, but like our splendid
Highlanders they catch the eye in a way which is sometimes a little
hard upon their neighbours. When there is hard work to be done it is
the good little French piou-piou who usually has to do it. There is no
better man in Europe. If we are as good--and I believe we are--it is
something to be proud of.
* * * * *
But I have wandered far from the trenches of Soissons. It had come on
to rain heavily, and we were forced to take refuge in the dugout of the
sniper. Eight of us sat in the deep gloom huddled closely together. The
Commandant was still harping upon that ill-placed machine gun. He could
not get over it. My imperfect ear for French could not follow all his
complaints, but some defence of the offender brought forth a 'Jamais!
Jamais! Jamais!' which was rapped out as if it came from the gun
itself. There were eight of us in an underground burrow, and some were
smoking. Better a deluge than such an atmosphere as that. But if there
is a thing upon earth which the French officer shies at it is rain and
mud. The reason is that he is extraordinarily natty in his person. His
charming blue uniform, his facings, his brown gaiters, boots and belts
are always just as smart as paint. He is the Dandy of the European war.
I noticed officers in the trenches with their trousers carefully
pressed. It is all to the good, I think. Wellington said that the
dandies made his best officers. It is difficult for the men to get
rattled or despondent when they see the debonair appearance of their
leaders.
Among the many neat little marks upon the French uniforms which
indicate with precision but without obtrusion the rank and arm of the
wearer, there was one which puzzled me. It was to be found on the left
sleeve of men of all ranks, from generals to privates, and it consisted
of small gold chevrons, one, two, or more. No rule seemed to regulate
them, for the general might have none, and I have heard of the private
who wore ten. Then I solved the mystery. They are the record of wounds
received. What an admirable idea! Surely we should hasten to introduce
it among our own soldiers. It costs little and it means much. If you
can allay the smart of a wound by the knowledge that it brings lasting
honour to the man among his fellows, then surely it should be done.
Medals, too, are more freely distributed and with more public parade
than in our service. I am convinced that the effect is good.
* * * * *
The rain has now stopped, and we climb from our burrow. Again we are
led down that endless line of communication trench, again we stumble
through the ruins, again we emerge into the street where our cars are
awaiting us. Above our heads the sharp artillery duel is going merrily
forward. The French are firing three or four to one, which has been my
experience at every point I have touched upon the Allied front. Thanks
to the extraordinary zeal of the French workers, especially of the
French women, and to the clever adaptation of machinery by their
engineers, their supplies are abundant. Even now they turn out more
shells a day than we do. That, however, excludes our supply for the
Fleet. But it is one of the miracles of the war that the French, with
their coal and iron in the hands of the enemy, have been able to equal
the production of our great industrial centres. The steel, of course,
is supplied by us. To that extent we can claim credit for the result.
And so, after the ceremony of the walking-sticks, we bid adieu to the
lines of Soissons. To-morrow we start for a longer tour to the more
formidable district of the Argonne, the neighbour of Verdun, and itself
the scene of so much that is glorious and tragic.
II.
There is a couplet of Stevenson's which haunts me, 'There fell a war in
a woody place--in a land beyond the sea.' I have just come back from
spending three wonderful dream days in that woody place. It lies with
the open, bosky country of Verdun on its immediate right, and the chalk
downs of Champagne upon its left. If one could imagine the lines being
taken right through our New Forest or the American Adirondacks it would
give some idea of the terrain, save that it is a very undulating
country of abrupt hills and dales. It is this peculiarity which has
made the war on this front different to any other, more picturesque and
more secret. In front the fighting lines are half in the clay soil,
half behind the shelter of fallen trunks. Between the two the main bulk
of the soldiers live like animals of the woodlands, burrowing on the
hillsides and among the roots of the trees. It is a war by itself, and
a very wonderful one to see. At three different points I have visited
the front in this broad region, wandering from the lines of one army
corps to that of another. In all three I found the same conditions, and
in all three I found also the same pleasing fact which I had discovered
at Soissons, that the fire of the French was at least five, and very
often ten shots to one of the Boche. It used not to be so. The Germans
used to scrupulously return shot for shot. But whether they have moved
their guns to the neighbouring Verdun, or whether, as is more likely,
all the munitions are going there, it is certain that they were very
outclassed upon the three days (June 10, 11, 12) which I allude to.
There were signs that for some reason their spirits were at a low ebb.
On the evening before our arrival the French had massed all their bands
at the front, and, in honour of the Russian victory, had played the
Marseillaise and the Russian National hymn, winding up with general
shoutings and objurgations calculated to annoy. Failing to stir up the
Boche, they had ended by a salute from a hundred shotted guns. After
trailing their coats up and down the line they had finally to give up
the attempt to draw the enemy. Want of food may possibly have caused a
decline in the German spirit. There is some reason to believe that they
feed up their fighting men at the places like Verdun or Hooge, where
they need all their energy, at the expense of the men who are on the
defensive. If so, we may find it out when we attack. The French
officers assured me that the prisoners and deserters made bitter
complaints of their scale of rations. And yet it is hard to believe
that the fine efforts of our enemy at Verdun are the work of
half-starved men.
* * * * *
To return to my personal impressions, it was at Chalons that we left
the Paris train--a town which was just touched by the most forward
ripple of the first great German floodtide. A drive of some twenty
miles took us to St. Menehould, and another ten brought us to the front
in the sector of Divisional-General H. A fine soldier this, and heaven
help Germany if he and his division get within its borders, for he is,
as one can see at a glance, a man of iron who has been goaded to
fierceness by all that his beloved country has endured. He is a man of
middle size, swarthy, hawk-like, very abrupt in his movements, with two
steel grey eyes, which are the most searching that mine have ever met.
His hospitality and courtesy to us were beyond all bounds, but there is
another side to him, and it is one which it is wiser not to provoke. In
person he took us to his lines, passing through the usual shot-torn
villages behind them. Where the road dips down into the great forest
there is one particular spot which is visible to the German artillery
observers. The General mentioned it at the time, but his remark seemed
to have no personal interest. We understood it better on our return in
the evening.
Now we found ourselves in the depths of the woods, primeval woods of
oak and beech in the deep clay soil that the great oak loves. There had
been rain and the forest paths were ankle deep in mire. Everywhere, to
right and left, soldiers' faces, hard and rough from a year of open
air, gazed up at us from their burrows in the ground. Presently an
alert, blue-clad figure stood in the path to greet us. It was the
Colonel of the sector. He was ridiculously like Cyrano de Bergerac as
depicted by the late M. Coquelin, save that his nose was of more
moderate proportion. The ruddy colouring, the bristling feline
full-ended moustache, the solidity of pose, the backward tilt of the head,
the general suggestion of the bantam cock, were all there facing us as
he stood amid the leaves in the sunlight. Gauntlets and a long
rapier--nothing else was wanting. Something had amused Cyrano. His
moustache quivered with suppressed mirth, and his blue eyes were
demurely gleaming. Then the joke came out. He had spotted a German
working party, his guns had concentrated on it, and afterwards he had
seen the stretchers go forward. A grim joke, it may seem. But the
French see this war from a different angle to us. If we had the Boche
sitting on our heads for two years, and were not yet quite sure whether
we could ever get him off again, we should get Cyrano's point of view.
Those of us who have had our folk murdered by Zeppelins or tortured in
German prisons have probably got it already.
* * * * *
We passed in a little procession among the French soldiers, and viewed
their multifarious arrangements. For them we were a little break in a
monotonous life, and they formed up in lines as we passed. My own
British uniform and the civilian dresses of my two companions
interested them. As the General passed these groups, who formed
themselves up in perhaps a more familiar manner than would have been
usual in the British service, he glanced kindly at them with those
singular eyes of his, and once or twice addressed them as 'Mes
enfants.' One might conceive that all was 'go as you please' among the
French. So it is as long as you go in the right way. When you stray
from it you know it. As we passed a group of men standing on a low
ridge which overlooked us there was a sudden stop. I gazed round. The
General's face was steel and cement. The eyes were cold and yet fiery,
sunlight upon icicles. Something had happened. Cyrano had sprung to his
side. His reddish moustache had shot forward beyond his nose, and it
bristled out like that of an angry cat. Both were looking up at the
group above us. One wretched man detached himself from his comrades and
sidled down the slope. No skipper and mate of a Yankee blood boat could
have looked more ferociously at a mutineer. And yet it was all over
some minor breach of discipline which was summarily disposed of by two
days of confinement. Then in an instant the faces relaxed, there was a
general buzz of relief and we were back at 'Mes enfants' again. But
don't make any mistake as to discipline in the French army.
Trenches are trenches, and the main specialty of these in the Argonne
is that they are nearer to the enemy. In fact there are places where
they interlock, and where the advanced posts lie cheek by jowl with a
good steel plate to cover both cheek and jowl. We were brought to a
sap-head where the Germans were at the other side of a narrow forest
road. Had I leaned forward with extended hand and a Boche done the same
we could have touched. I looked across, but saw only a tangle of wire
and sticks. Even whispering was not permitted in these forward posts.
* * * * *
When we emerged from these hushed places of danger Cyrano took us all
to his dug-out, which was a tasty little cottage carved from the side
of a hill and faced with logs. He did the honours of the humble cabin
with the air of a seigneur in his château. There was little furniture,
but from some broken mansion he had extracted an iron fire-back, which
adorned his grate. It was a fine, mediaeval bit of work, with Venus, in
her traditional costume, in the centre of it. It seemed the last touch
in the picture of the gallant, virile Cyrano. I only met him this once,
nor shall I ever see him again, yet he stands a thing complete within
my memory. Even now as I write these lines he walks the leafy paths of
the Argonne, his fierce eyes ever searching for the Boche workers, his
red moustache bristling over their annihilation. He seems a figure out
of the past of France.