[Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
_Paris, June 2._--This is a story about what, in the minds of the
French military authorities, ranks as the greatest battle of the war
in the western theatre of operations, excepting the battle of the
Marne, which has already taken its place among the decisive battles of
the world's history. This battle is still raging, although its first
stages have been definitely settled in favor of the French, who are
continuing their progress with less and less opposition.
So far the battle has received no name. The French official
communiqués laconically refer to it as "operations in the section
north of Arras."
I cannot minutely describe the conflict; no one can do that at this
stage. I can, however, write about it and tell what I have seen these
past few days when the Ministry of War authorized me to accompany a
special mission there, to which I was the only foreigner accredited. I
purpose to call this struggle the battle of the Labyrinth, for
"labyrinth" is the name applied to the vast system of intrenchments
all through that region, and from which the Germans are being
literally blasted almost foot by foot by an extravagant use of French
melinite.
There have been successive chapters by different writers describing
and disposing of as finished--though it is not finished--still another
battle which, from the English point of view, takes top rank, namely,
the battle of Ypres. While a British defeat at Ypres might mean the
loss of Dunkirk and possibly of Calais, a French defeat at the
Labyrinth would allow the Germans to sweep clear across Northern
France, cutting all communication with England.
The battle of the Labyrinth really began last October, when General de
Maud-Huy stopped the Prussian Guard before Arras with his motley array
of tired Territorials, whom he gathered together in a mighty rush
northward after the battle of the Marne. The crack Guards regiments
afterward took on the job at Ypres, while the Crown Prince of Bavaria
assumed the vain task of attempting to break the more southward
passage to the sea.
All the Winter de Maud-Huy worried him, not seeking to make a big
advance, but contenting himself with the record of never having lost a
single trench. With the return of warm weather, just after the big
French advance in Champagne, this sector was chosen by Joffre as the
place in which to take the heart out of his enemy by the delivery of a
mighty blow.
The Germans probably thought that the French intended to concentrate
in the Vosges, as next door to Champagne; so they carted all their
poison gases there and to Ypres, where their ambition still maintains
ascendency over their good sense. But where the Germans think Joffre
is likely to strike is usually the place furthest from his thoughts.
Activities in the Arras sector were begun under the personal command
of the Commander in Chief, who was still personally directing
operations during my visit only two days ago.
I doubt whether, until the war is over, it will be possible adequately
to describe the battle, or rather, the series of battles extending
along this particular front of about fifty miles. "Labyrinth"
certainly is the fittest word to call it. I always had a fairly
accurate sense of direction; but, standing in many places in this
giant battlefield, it was impossible for me to say where were the
Germans and where the French, so completely was I turned around on
account of the constant zigzag of the trench lines. Sometimes, when I
was positive that a furious cannonade coming from a certain position
was German, it turned out to be French. At other times, when I thought
I was safely going in the direction of the French, I was hauled back
by officers, who told me I was heading directly into the German line
of fire. I sometimes felt that the German lines were on three sides,
and often I was quite correct. On the other hand, the French lines
often almost completely surrounded the German positions.
One could not tell from the nearness of the artillery fire whether it
was from friend or foe. Artillery makes three different noises; first,
the sharp report followed by detonations like thunder, when the shell
first leaves the gun; second, the rushing sound of the shell passing
high overhead; third, the shrill whistle, followed by the crash when
it finally explodes. In the Labyrinth the detonations which usually
indicated the French fire might be from the German batteries stationed
quite near us, but where they could not get the range on us, and
firing at a section of the French lines some miles away. I finally
determined that when a battery fired fast it was French; for the
German fire is becoming more intermittent every day.
I shall attempt to give some idea of what this fighting looks like.
Late one afternoon, coming out of a trench into a green meadow, I
suddenly found myself planted against a mudbank made of the dirt taken
from the trenches. We were just at the crest of a hill. In khaki
clothes I was of the same color as the mudbank; so an officer told me
I was in a fairly safe position.
Modern war becomes quite an ordinary--often even a sedate,
methodical--affair after the first impressions have been rubbed off.
We flattened ourselves casually against our mudbank, carefully
adjusting our glasses, turned them toward the valley before us, whence
came the sound of exploding shells, and calmly watched a village
developing into nothingness in the sunset. It was only about a
thousand yards away--I didn't even bother to ask whether it was in
French or German possession. There was a loud explosion, a roll of
dense smoke, which was penetrated quickly enough by the long,
horizontal rays of the descending sun to permit the sight of tumbling
roofs and crumbling walls. After a few seconds' intermission there was
another explosion, and what looked like a public school in the main
street sagged suddenly in the centre. With no entre-acte came a
succession of explosions, and the building was prone upon the
ground--just a jagged pile of broken stones.
We turned our glasses on the other end of the village. A column of
black smoke was rising where the church had caught fire. We watched it
awhile in silence. Ruins were getting very common. I swept the glasses
away from the hamlet altogether and pointed out over the distant
fields to the left.
"Where are the German trenches?" I rather uninterestedly asked the
Major.
"I'll show you--just a moment!" he answered, and at the same time
signaling to a soldier squatting in the entrance to a trench near by,
he ordered the man to convey a message to the telephone station which
connected with a "seventy-five" battery at our rear. I was on the
point of telling the officer not to bother about it. The words were on
my lips. Then I thought "Oh, never mind! I might as well know where
the trenches are, now that I have asked."
The soldier disappeared. "Watch!" said the officer. We looked intently
across the field to the left. In less than a minute there were two
sharp explosions behind us, two puffs of smoke out on the horizon
before us, about a mile away.
"That's where they are!" the officer said. "Both shells went right in
them."
"Ah! Very interesting!" I replied.
Away to the right of the village, now reduced to ruins, was another
larger village; we squared around on our mud bank to look at that.
This town was more important; it was Neuville-St. Vaast, which is
still occupied by both French and Germans, the former slowly retaking
it, house by house. We were about half a mile away. We could see
little; for, strangely, in this business of house-to-house occupation,
most of the fighting is in the cellars. But I could well imagine what
was going on, for I had already walked through the ruins of Vermelles,
another town now entirely in French possession, but taken in the same
fashion after two months' dogged inch-by-inch advances.
So, when looking at Neuville-St. Vaast, I suddenly heard a tremendous
explosion and saw a great mass of masonry and débris of all
descriptions flying high in the air, I knew just what had happened.
The French--for it is always the French who do it--had burrowed,
sapped and dug themselves laboriously, patiently, slowly, by tortuous,
narrow underground routes from one row of houses under the
foundations, gardens, backyards, and streets to beneath the
foundations of the next row of houses. There they had planted mines.
The explosion I had just witnessed was of a mine. Much of the débris I
saw flying through space had been German soldiers a few seconds
before.
Before the smoke died away we heard a savage yell. That was the French
cry of victory. Then we heard a rapid crackling of rifles. That was
the sign that the French had advanced across the space between the
houses to finish the work their mine had left undone. When one goes to
view the work of those mines afterward all that one sees is a great,
round, smooth hole in the ground--sometimes thirty feet deep, often
twice that in diameter. Above it might have been either a château or a
stable; unless one has an old resident for guide it is impossible to
know.
It takes many days and nights to prepare these mines. It takes careful
mathematical precision to determine that they are correctly placed. It
takes morale, judgment, courage, and intelligence--this fighting from
house to house. And yet the French are called a frivolous people!
A cry from a soldier warned us of a German aeroplane directly
overhead; so we stopped gazing at Neuville-St. Vaast. A French
aeroplane soon appeared, and the German made off rapidly. They usually
do, as the majority of German aeronauts carry only rifles; the French
now all have mitrailleuses. A fight between them is unequal, and the
inequality is not easily overcome, for the German machines are too
light for mitrailleuses.
Four French machines were now circling above, and the German batteries
opened fire on them. It was a beautiful sight. There was not a cloud
in the sky, and the sun had not yet gone. We could not hear the shells
explode, but we could see little feathery white clouds suddenly appear
as if some giant invisible hand had just put them there--high up in
the sky. Another appeared, and another. There were several dozen
little white clouds vividly outlined against the blue before the
French machines, all untouched, turned back toward their own lines.
Again our thoughts and actions were rudely disturbed by the soldier
with us, who suddenly threw himself face down on the ground. Before we
had time to wonder why a German shell tore a hole in the field before
us, less than a hundred yards away. I asked the officer if we had been
seen, and if they were firing at us. He said he did not think so, but
we had perhaps better move. As a matter of fact, they were hunting the
battery that had so accurately shown us their trenches a short time
before.
Instead of returning to the point where we had left our motors by the
trench, we walked across an open field in quite another direction than
I thought was the correct one. All the time we heard, high overhead,
that rushing sound as of giant wings. Occasionally, when a shell
struck in the neighborhood, we heard the shrill whistling sound, and
half a dozen times in the course of the walk great holes were torn in
our field, some times quite near. But artillery does not cause fear
easily; it is rifles that accomplish that. The sharp hissing of the
bullet that resembles so much the sound of a spitting cat seems so
personal--as if it was intended just for you.
Artillery is entirely impersonal; you know that the gunners do not see
you; that they are firing by arithmetic at a certain range; that their
shell is not intended for anyone in particular. So you walk on
striking idly with your stick at the daisies and buttercups that
border your path. You calculate, almost indifferently, the distance
between you and the bursting shell. You somehow feel that nothing will
harm you. You are not afraid; and if you are lucky, as we were, you
will find the automobiles waiting for you just over there beyond the
brow of the hill.