The soldiers of France have learned the full range of human suffering,
so that one cannot grudge them their hours of laughter, however coarse
their mirth. There were many armies of men from Ypres to St. Mihiel who
were put to greater tasks of courage than were demanded of the human
soul in medieval torture chambers, and they passed through the ordeal
with a heroism which belongs to the splendid things of history. As yet
the history has been written only in brief bulletins stating facts
baldly, as when on a Saturday in March of 1915 it was stated that "In
Malancourt Wood, between the Argonne and the Meuse, the enemy sprayed
one of our trenches with burning liquid so that it had to be abandoned.
The occupants were badly burned." That official account does not convey
in any way the horror which overwhelmed the witnesses of the new German
method of attacking trenches by drenching them with inflammatory
liquid. A more detailed narrative of this first attack by liquid fire
was given by one of the soldiers:
"It was yesterday evening, just as night fell, that it happened. The
day had been fairly calm, with the usual quantity of bursting shells
overhead, and nothing forewarned us of a German attack. Suddenly one
of my comrades shouted, 'Hallo! what is this coming down on us? Any
one would think it was petroleum.' At that time we could not believe
the truth, but the liquid which began to spray on us was certainly
some kind of petroleum. The Germans were pumping it from hoses.
Our sub-lieutenant made us put out our pipes. But it was a useless
precaution. A few seconds later incendiary bombs began to rain down on
us and the whole trench burst into flame. It was like being in hell.
Some of the men began to scream terribly, tearing off their clothes,
trying to beat out the flames. Others were cursing and choking in the
hot vapour which stifled us. 'Oh, my Christ!' cried a comrade of mine.
'They've blinded me!' In order to complete their work those German
bandits took advantage of our disturbance by advancing on the trench
and throwing burning torches into it. None of us escaped that torrent
of fire. We had our eyebrows and eyelashes burned off, and clothes were
burned in great patches and our flesh was sizzling like roasting meat.
But some of us shot through the greasy vapour which made a cloud about
us and some of those devils had to pay for their game."
Although some of them had become harmless torches and others lay
charred to death, the trench was not abandoned until the second line
was ready to make a counter attack, which they did with fixed bayonets,
frenzied by the shrieks which still came from the burning pit where
those comrades lay, and flinging themselves with the ferocity of wild
beasts upon the enemy, who fled after leaving three hundred dead and
wounded on the ground.
Along five hundred miles of front such scenes took place week after
week, month after month, from Artois to the Argonne, not always with
inflammatory liquid, but with hand grenades, bombs, stink-shells, fire
balls, smoke balls, and a storm of shrapnel.