END OF THE BATTLE
After September 22, 1914, there was a lull in the fighting at Rheims,
and as afterward appeared, this was due mainly to another change
of plan on the part of the German Staff. But it was no part of
General Foch's intentions to leave the bombardment of the cathedral
unrevenged. He had, indeed, caused an unparalleled slaughter on the
night of September 19, 1914, as has been stated, but his troops
were avid for reprisal and the French strategist knew well how
dangerous it is to allow an army, eager for action and revenge,
to eat its heart out vainly. He was too wise to run the risk of
a countercharge, but four days later his opportunity came, and
he took advantage of it to the full.
At dawn on September 26, 1914, a detachment of 15,000 Germans,
including all that remained of the famous Prussian Guards Corps,
that same body that had fought so marvelously on many occasions,
and which had suffered the most cruelly in the affair of the marshes
of St. Gond, made a sortie from the base line at Nogent l'Abbesse to
destroy the railway line between Rheims and Verdun, this line was,
indeed, the principal link of communication to that all-important
fortress that protruded its bristling salient into the heart of
the German position. A French aviator, who had climbed into his
machine when it was yet dark, in order to do a little daybreak
scouting before the light should be sufficiently bright to make him
an easy target, saw this movement and reported it immediately to
General Foch. That commander, who knew how to use cavalry, ordered
a regiment at the gallop to occupy the village of Auberive, on
the Suippe, and there harry the advancing column sufficiently to
give him time to bring up the light artillery and to bring into
action a large body of infantry encamped at Jouchery, five miles
away.
Before six o'clock, the cavalry were in Auberive. The men worked
like fiends. The streets were rapidly barricaded, machine guns
hoisted to roofs and other points where they might command a wide
sweep of fire. Then the cavalry rode forward to meet the advancing
column. Not knowing what might be in front of him, the German commander
halted, awaiting reports from his air scouts. The halt was but
three-quarters of an hour, but that was of vast importance. The
scouts reported only a regiment of cavalry ahead, but a powerful
detachment of French artillery on the road from Jouchery. The German
leader detached 2,000 of the Death's Head Hussars, his crack cavalry,
to cut off, or at all events to delay, the French guns. He was
aware that the artillery would have no anticipation of this and,
in the surprise, the guns might be captured. Meantime, he hurried
his advance to Auberive, captured the village, though after another
hour's delay, caused by the resistance of the cavalry, who retreated
to St. Hilaire.
Meantime, at St. Hilaire, the surprise charge of the Death's Head
Hussars was launched. It was scarcely a question of minutes, it
was rather a matter of seconds. But the French artillery knew their
light fieldpieces as thoroughly as the Germans were masters of
the heavy guns. In less than two minutes the artillery teams were
unharnessed, the guns were in position and the gunners took their
places when the Hussars were so near the voices of their leaders
could be heard. Thirty seconds earlier, and the Hussars would have
been in among the guns and made a notable capture. There was just
time enough for a man to breathe twice, when the order came to
fire. The Hussars were at less than a hundred yards' range. As the
shrapnel burst, the front squadrons seemed to stumble and fall.
The ranks were so near that the change from living human beings
into mangled pieces of flesh and rags could clearly be seen. More
than one veteran gunner felt squeamish at the sight. But the rear
squadrons, though their horses' hoofs were squelching in the blood
of their comrades of a moment before, never blenched or faltered
but swept on at a thundering gallop. Again the guns spoke, and
again. That was all. Amid the vines, here and there a writhing
figure could be seen, or a wounded horse endeavoring to rise, and
here and there a straggler striving to escape. It was level open
country; twice again the guns roared, five rounds in all, and all
movement ceased. The engagement had lasted less than five minutes
and of those two thousand splendid horsemen not one escaped. The
French artillerists picked up the wounded and sent them back to
Rheims to receive nursing and care, and then hurried on to the
action whither they were bound when surprised by the Hussars.
The infantry of the Germans and of the French were now coming to
hand grips. A battalion of Zouaves was creeping round to attack
the advancing column in the rear. The German commander at Nogent
l'Abbesse learned from his air scouts what was happening. He saw
the peril of the advancing column, that it was almost surrounded,
and, he threw further columns into the fray, to cover the retreat.
The sortie on the railway had now become impossible. General Foch
had moved too quickly. But, even so, the peril was great, for the
German force was almost cut off. It meant the loss of 15,000 men
and artillery, or it meant the sacrifice of some one corps to cover
the retreat. The latter course was chosen.
Three thousand of the Guards Corps, the flower of the Prussian
Army, were sent like a catapult at the gap in the French line,
immediately in front of Rheims. Five times they charged, and with
such heroic daring and such penetrative energy that General Foch
did not dare break from his position. As they came up for the fifth
assault, a wild cheer of admiration broke out along the French line.
But the rifles spoke steadily, none the less for that. After the
fifth assault, barely a hundred men were left, nearly all wounded.
They reversed rifles, a sign of surrender, and in all honor they
were received by General Foch, who conducted them to the hospital
in the rear. They lived up to the full the most heroic traditions
of the old Prussian corps and they saved that whole German force
from destruction. Still, with the annihilation of the Death's Head
Hussars and the remainder of the Prussian Guards Corps on the same
day, the forces under General Foch felt that in part Rheims had
been avenged.
The other section of this second phase of the Aisne consisted of
the trench warfare, which solidified from September 19 to October 6,
1914, under conditions of extreme difficulty and more than extreme
discomfort. It was practically the establishment of a trench campaign
that lasted all winter, and revived the centuries-old fortress
warfare, applying it under modern conditions to field fortifications.
The French during that winter on the Aisne never quite succeeded
in rivaling the mechanical precision of the German movements; the
Germans, on the other hand, never showed themselves to possess
the emotional fervor of the French with the bayonet.
In many places German and Allies' trenches almost touched each
other. The first two weeks at the Aisne were one continual downpour,
and the foundation of that ground is chalk. On the sides of the
plateau of Craonne, after two weeks' rain, the chalky mud seemed
bottomless. "It filled the ears and eyes and throats of our men,"
wrote John Buchan, "it plastered their clothing and mingled generously
with their diet. Their grandfathers, who had been at Sebastopol,
could have told them something about mud; but even after India and
South Africa, the mire of the Aisne seemed a grievous affliction."
The fighting was constant, the nervous strain exhausting, and the
cold and wet were even harder to bear. There had as yet been no
time to build trenches with all conveniences, such as the Germans
possessed on the crest of the ridge, and the trenches of the Allies
were a chilled inferno of woe.
A stretch of waste ground lay between the trenches, and often for
days at a time the fire was too heavy to rescue the wounded or
bring in the dead. The men in the trenches, on either side, were
compelled to hear the groans of the wounded, lying in the open day
after day, until exhaustion, cold and pain brought them a merciful
release. In letters more than one soldier declared that the hardest
thing to bear was to hear a fellow comrade shrieking or groaning
in agony a few steps away for hours--even days at a time--and to
be able to do nothing to help. The stench from the unburied bodies
was so great that officially all the tobacco for the whole battle
front was commandeered and sent to the trenches under the plateau
of Craonne and on the hill to the westward, where the British First
Army Corps was placed. Such, for the two weeks between September
22, 1914, and October 6, 1914, was the trench warfare during the
second phase of the battle of the Aisne, a condition never after
repeated in the war, for such a feat as the crossing of the Aisne
could scarcely be duplicated. It was gallant, it was magnificent,
and it was costly--the British casualty list for September 12 to
October 6, 1914, being, killed, wounded and missing, 561 officers
and 12,980 men--but it was useless, and only served to give the
Allies a temporary base whereby General Foch was successful in
checking the German attempt to capture the Rheims-Verdun railway.
It was a victory of bravery, but not a victory of result.
During all these operations the Belgian army, now at Antwerp, had
harassed the German troops by frequent sorties. The capture of the
city was at once undertaken by the German Staff, following the
stalemate created by the operations at the Aisne.
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