EXPERIENCES ON THE BRITISH FRONT
Lord Newton--How I Got Out--Sir W. Robertson--The Destroyer--First
Experience of Trenches--Ceremony at Bethune--Mother--The Ypres
Salient--Ypres--The Hull Territorial--General Sir Douglas
Haig--Artillery Duel--Kingsley--Major Wood--Paris.
I had naturally wished to get out to the British front and to see
things for myself. And yet I had scruples also, for when soldiers
are doing a difficult job mere spectators and joy-riders are out of
place. I felt what a perfect nuisance they must be, and hesitated to
join them. On the other hand, I had surely more claims than most,
since I was not only compiling a history of the campaign, but was
continually writing in the press upon military subjects. I made up my
mind, therefore, that I was justified in going, but I had as yet no
opportunity.
However, it came along in a very strange way. It was in the early
summer of 1916 that I had a note from Lord Newton, saying that he
wished to see me at the Foreign Office. I could not conceive what he
wanted to see me about, but of course I went. Lord Newton seemed to
be doing general utility work which involved the interests of our
prisoners in Germany, as well as press arrangements, missions, etc. The
former alone would be enough for anyone, and he was exposed to severe
criticism for not being sufficiently zealous in the cause. “Newton, the
Teuton,” sang the prisoners, a parody on “Gilbert, the Filbert,” one of
the idiotic popular songs of pre-war days. However, I am convinced that
he really did his very best, and that his policy was wise, for if it
came to an interchange of revenge and barbarity between Germany and us,
there was only one in it. There is no use starting a game in which you
are bound to be beaten. Winston Churchill had tried it in the case of
the submarine officers, with the result that thirty of our own picked
officers had endured much in their prisons and the policy had to be
reconsidered.
Lord Newton is a wit and has a humorous face which covers a good deal
of solid capacity. He plunged instantly into the business on hand.
“It is the Italian army,” said he. “They want a bit of limelight. We
propose to send several fellows on short missions to write them up.
Your name has been mentioned and approved. Will you go?”
I never thought more quickly in my life than on that occasion. I had no
plan when I entered the room, since I was ignorant of the proposition,
but I saw my opening in a flash.
“No,” said I.
Lord Newton looked surprised.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because I should be in a false position,” I answered. “I have nothing
to compare them with. I have not even seen the British front yet. How
absurd it would be for me to approve or to condemn when they could
reasonably ask me what I knew about the matter!”
“Would you go if that were set right?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Then I don’t think there will be an insuperable difficulty.”
“Well, if you can arrange that, I am entirely at your disposal.”
“By the way,” said he, “if you go to the front, and especially to the
Italian front, a uniform will be essential. What have you a right to
wear?”
“I am a private in the Volunteers.”
He laughed.
“I think you would be shot at sight by both armies,” said he. “You
would be looked upon as a rare specimen. I don’t think that would do.”
I had a happy thought.
“I am a deputy-lieutenant of Surrey,” said I. “I have the right to wear
a uniform when with troops.”
“Excellent!” he cried. “Nothing could be better. Well, you will hear
from me presently.”
I went straight off to my tailor, who rigged me up in a wondrous khaki
garb which was something between that of a Colonel and a Brigadier,
with silver roses instead of stars or crowns upon the shoulder-straps.
As I had the right to wear several medals, including the South African,
the general effect was all right, but I always felt a mighty impostor,
though it was certainly very comfortable and convenient. I was still
a rare specimen, and quite a number of officers of three nations made
inquiry about my silver roses. A deputy-lieutenant may not be much in
England, but when translated into French--my French anyhow--it has an
awe-inspiring effect, and I was looked upon by them as an inscrutable
but very big person with a uniform all of his own.
It was in May when I had my meeting with Lord Newton, and towards the
end of the month I received a pass which would take me to the British
lines. I remember the solicitude of my family, who seemed to think that
I was going on active service. To quiet their kindly anxieties I said:
“My dears, I shall be held in the extreme rear, and I shall be lucky if
ever I see a shell burst on the far horizon.” The sequel showed that my
estimate was nearly as mistaken as theirs.
I had had some correspondence with General Robertson, and had dedicated
my History of the war to him, so much was I impressed with the splendid
work he had done behind the line in the early days, when Cowans and
he had as much strain and anxiety from their position in the wings as
any of those who were in the limelight of the stage. He was, as it
happened, going over to France, and he sent me a note to ask whether
I would like to share his private compartment on the train and then
use his destroyer instead of the ordinary steamer. Of course I was
delighted. General Robertson is a sturdy, soldierly, compact man, with
a bull-dog face and looks as if he might be obstinate and even sullen
if crossed. Such men are splendid if they keep their qualities for the
enemy, but possibly dangerous if they use them on their associates.
Certainly Robertson had a great deal of fighting to do at home as well
as abroad, and was in the latter days of the war in constant conflict
with the authorities, and with an open feud against the Prime Minister,
but it is hard to say who was right. Perhaps, if it were not for the
pressure which Robertson, Repington and others exercised, it would
have been more difficult to raise those last few hundred thousand men
who saved us in 1918. Like so many big men, his appearance was most
deceptive, and though he looked every inch the soldier, there was
nothing to show that great capacity for handling a large business,
which would surely have put him at the head of any commercial concern
in the country. There was a Cromwellian touch in him which peeped out
in occasional religious allusions. He was very engrossed in papers and
figures, and I hardly had a word with him between London and Newhaven.
We went straight on to the destroyer and she cast off her moorings
within a few minutes. The Channel crossing was a great experience for
me, and I stood on the bridge all the time looking about for traces
of war--which were not numerous. Just under the bridge stood a sturdy
seaman in pea jacket and flapped cap, an intent, crouching, formidable
figure, with his hand on the crank of a quick-firing gun. He never
relaxed, and for the whole hour, as we tore across, his head, and
occasionally his gun, was slowly traversing from right to left. The
captain, a young lieutenant whose name I have forgotten, told me what
hellish work it was in the winter, though perhaps “hellish” is not
the _mot juste_ for that bitterly cold vigil. His ship was called the
_Zulu_. Shortly afterwards it was blown up, as was its consort the
_Nubian_, but as two of the halves were still serviceable, they stuck
them together and made one very good ship, the _Zubian_. You can’t
beat the British dockyard any more than you can the British Navy which
it mothers. That evening we ran through some twenty miles of Northern
France, and wound up at the usual guesthouse, where I met several
travelling Russians. Colonel Wilson, a dark, quiet, affable man, who
had the thorny job of looking after the press, and Brig.-General
Charteris, a pleasant, breezy, fresh-complexioned soldier, head of the
British Intelligence Department, joined us at dinner. Everything was
quite comfortable, but at the same time properly plain and simple.
There is nothing more hateful than luxury behind a battle-line. Next
day I had a wonderful twelve hours in contact with the soldiers all the
time, and I will take some account of it from the notes I made at the
time, but now I can expand them and give names more freely.
The crowning impression which I carried away from that wonderful
day was the enormous imperturbable confidence of the Army and its
extraordinary efficiency in organization, administration, material, and
personnel. I met in one day a sample of many types, an army commander,
a corps commander, two divisional commanders, staff officers of many
grades, and, above all, I met repeatedly the two very great men whom
Britain has produced, the private soldier and the regimental officer.
Everywhere and on every face one read the same spirit of cheerful
bravery. Even the half-mad cranks whose absurd consciences prevented
them from barring the way to the devil seemed to me to be turning into
men under the prevailing influence. I saw a batch of them, neurotic and
largely bespectacled, but working with a will by the roadside. There
was no foolish bravado, no underrating of a dour opponent, but a quick,
alert, confident attention to the job in hand which was an inspiration
to the observer.
“Get out of the car. Don’t let it stay here. It may be hit.” These
words from a staff officer gave you the first idea that things were
going to happen. Up to then you might have been driving through the
black country in the Walsall district with the population of Aldershot
let loose upon its dingy roads. “Put on this shrapnel helmet. That hat
of yours would infuriate the Boche”--this was an unkind allusion to my
uniform. “Take this gas mask. You won’t need it, but it is a standing
order. Now come on!”
We crossed a meadow and entered a trench. Here and there it came to
the surface again where there was dead ground. At one such point an
old church stood, with an unexploded shell sticking out of the wall.
A century hence folk may journey to see that shell. Then on again
through an endless cutting. It was slippery clay below. I had no nails
in my boots, an iron pot on my head, and the sun above me. I remember
that walk. The telephone wires ran down the side. Here and there
large thistles and other plants grew from the clay walls, so immobile
had been our lines. Occasionally there were patches of untidiness.
“Shells,” said the officer laconically. There was a racket of guns
before us and behind, especially behind, but danger seemed remote with
all these Bairnsfather groups of cheerful Tommies at work around us. I
passed one group of grimy, tattered boys. A glance at their shoulders
showed me that they were of a public-school battalion, the 20th Royal
Fusiliers. “I thought you fellows were all officers now,” I remarked.
“No, sir, we like it better so.” “Well, it will be a great memory for
you. We are all in your debt.”
They saluted, and we squeezed past them. They had the fresh brown faces
of boy cricketers. But their comrades were men of a different type,
with hard, strong, rugged features, and the eyes of men who have seen
strange sights. These were veterans, men of Mons, and their young pals
of the public schools had something to live up to.
Up to this we only had two clay walls to look at. But now our
interminable and tropical walk was lightened by the sight of a British
aeroplane sailing overhead. Numerous shrapnel bursts were all around
it, but she floated on serenely, a thing of delicate beauty against the
blue background. Now another passed--and yet another. All the morning
we saw them circling and swooping, and never a sign of a Boche. They
told me it was nearly always so--that we held the air, and that the
Boche intruder, save at early morning, was a rare bird. “We have never
met a British aeroplane which was not ready to fight,” said a captured
German aviator. There was a fine, stern courtesy between the airmen on
either side, each dropping notes into the other’s aerodromes to tell
the fate of missing officers. Had the whole war been fought by the
Germans as their airmen conducted it (I do not speak, of course, of the
Zeppelin murderers), a peace would eventually have been more easily
arranged.
And now we were there--in what was surely the most wonderful spot in
the world--the front firing trench, the outer breakwater which held
back the German tide. How strange that this monstrous oscillation
of giant forces, setting in from east to west, should find their
equilibrium across this particular meadow of Flanders. “How far?” I
asked. “One hundred and eighty yards,” said my guide. “Pop!” remarked
a third person just in front. “A sniper,” said my guide; “take a look
through the periscope.” I did so. There was some rusty wire before
me, then a field sloping slightly upwards with knee-deep grass, and
ragged dock and fennel and nettles, then rusty wire again, and a red
line of broken earth. There was not a sign of movement, but sharp eyes
were always watching us, even as these crouching soldiers around me
were watching them. There were dead Germans in the grass before us.
You need not see them to know that they were there. A wounded soldier
sat in a corner nursing his leg. Here and there men popped out like
rabbits from dug-outs and mine-shafts. Others sat on the fire-step or
leaned smoking against the clay wall. Who would dream, who looked at
their bold, careless faces, that this was a front line, and that at any
moment it was possible that a grey wave might submerge them? With all
their careless bearing, I noticed that every man had his gas mask and
his rifle within easy reach.
A mile of front trenches and then we were on our way back down that
weary walk. Then I was whisked off upon a ten-mile drive. There was a
pause for lunch at Corps Head-quarters, and after it we were taken to
a medal presentation in the market square of Bethune. Generals Munro,
Haking, and Landon, famous fighting soldiers all three, were the
British representatives. Munro, with a ruddy face, all brain above, all
bulldog below; Haking, pale, distinguished, intellectual; Landon, a
pleasant genial country squire. An elderly French General stood beside
them. British infantry kept the ground. In front were about fifty
Frenchmen in civil dress of every grade of life, workmen and gentlemen,
in a double rank. They were all so wounded that they were back in civil
life, but to-day they were to have some solace for their wounds. They
leaned heavily on sticks, their bodies twisted and maimed, but their
faces were shining with pride and joy. The French General drew his
sword and addressed them. One caught words like “honneur” and “patrie.”
They leaned forward on their crutches, hanging on every syllable which
came hissing and rasping from under that heavy white moustache. Then
the medals were pinned on. One poor lad was terribly wounded and needed
two sticks. A little girl ran out with some flowers. He leaned forward
and tried to kiss her, but the crutches slipped and he nearly fell
upon her. It was a pitiful but beautiful little scene.
Next the British candidates marched up one by one for their medals,
hale, hearty men, brown and fit. There was a smart young officer of
Scottish Rifles; and then a selection of Worcesters, Welsh Fusiliers
and Scots Fusiliers, with one funny little Highlander, a tiny figure
with a soup-bowl helmet, a grinning boy’s face beneath it, and a
bedraggled uniform. “Many acts of great bravery”--such was the record
for which he was decorated. Even the French wounded smiled at his
quaint appearance, as they did at another Briton who had acquired
the chewing-gum habit, and came up for his medal as if he had been
called suddenly in the middle of his dinner, which he was still
endeavouring to bolt. Then came the end, with the National Anthem. The
British battalion formed fours and went past. To me that was the most
impressive sight of any. They were the Queen’s West Surreys, a veteran
battalion of the great Ypres battle. What grand fellows! As the order
came, “Eyes right,” and all those fierce, dark faces flashed round at
us I felt the might of the British infantry, the intense individuality
which is not incompatible with the highest discipline. Much they had
endured, but a great spirit shone from their faces. I confess that as I
looked at those brave English lads, and thought of what we owed to them
and to their like who have passed on, I felt more emotional than befits
a Briton in foreign parts. How many of them are left alive to-day!
Now the ceremony was ended, and once again we set out for the front.
It was to an artillery observation post just opposite the Loos Salient
that we were bound. In an hour I found myself, together with a
razor-keen young artillery observer and an excellent old sportsman of
a Russian prince, jammed into a very small space, and staring through
a slit at the German lines. In front of us lay a vast plain, scarred
and slashed, with bare places at intervals, such as you see where
gravel pits break a green common. Not a sign of life or movement, save
some wheeling crows. And yet down there, within a mile or so, was the
population of a city. Far away a single train was puffing at the back
of the German lines. We were here on a definite errand. Away to the
right, nearly three miles off, was a small red house, dim to the eye
but clear in the glasses, suspected as a German post. It was to go
up this afternoon. The gun was some distance away, but I heard the
telephone directions. “‘Mother’ will soon do her in,” remarked the
gunner boy cheerfully. “Mother” was the name of the gun. “Give her
five six three four,” he cried through the ’phone. “Mother” uttered
a horrible bellow from somewhere on our right. An enormous spout of
smoke rose ten seconds later from near the house. “A little short,”
said our gunner. “Two and a half minutes left,” added a little small
voice, which represented another observer at a different angle. “Raise
her seven five,” said our boy encouragingly. “Mother” roared more
angrily than ever. “How will that do?” she seemed to say. “One and a
half right,” said our invisible gossip. I wondered how the folk in the
house were feeling as the shells crept ever nearer. “Gun laid, sir,”
said the telephone. “Fire!” I was looking through my glass. A flash of
fire on the house, a huge pillar of dust and smoke--then it settled,
and an unbroken field was there. The German post had gone up. “It’s a
dear little gun,” said the officer boy. “And her shells are reliable,”
remarked a senior behind us. “They vary with different calibres, but
‘Mother’ never goes wrong.” The German line was very quiet. “Pourquoi
ne repondent ils pas?” asked the Russian prince. “Yes, they are quiet
to-day,” answered the senior. “But we get it in the neck sometimes.”
We were all led off to be introduced to “Mother,” who sat, squat and
black, amid twenty of her grimy children who waited upon her and fed
her. A dainty eater was “Mother,” and nothing served her but the best
and plenty of it. But she was important and as the war progressed it
became more and more evident that in spite of that upstart family of
quick-firers it was really the only big, heavy, well-established gun
which could flatten out a road to the Rhine.
I had the great joy that night of seeing my brother Innes, who had
been promoted to Colonel, and was acting as Assistant Adjutant-General
of the 24th Division, the Head-quarters of which were at Bailleul,
where I dined at mess and occupied a small lodging in the town, which
was about six miles from the front. One more experience wound up that
wonderful day. That night we took a car after dark and drove north, and
ever north, until at a late hour we halted and climbed a hill in the
darkness. Below was a wonderful sight. Down on the flats, in a huge
semicircle, lights were rising and falling. They were very brilliant,
going up for a few seconds and then dying down. Sometimes a dozen were
in the air at one time. There were the dull thuds of explosions and an
occasional rat-tat-tat. I have seen nothing like it, but the nearest
comparison would be an enormous ten-mile railway station in full swing
at night, with signals winking, lamps waving, engines hissing and
carriages bumping. It was a terrible place, a place which will live
as long as military history is written, for it was the Ypres Salient.
What a salient too! A huge curve, as outlined by the lights, needing
only a little more to be an encirclement. Something caught the rope as
it closed, and that something was the British soldier. But it was a
perilous place by day and by night. Never shall I forget the impression
of ceaseless, malignant activity which was borne in upon me by the
white, winking lights, the red sudden flares, and the horrible thudding
noises in that place of death beneath me.
* * * * *
In old days we had a great name as organizers. Then came a long period
when we deliberately adopted a policy of individuality and “go as you
please.” Now once again in our sore need we had called on all our power
of administration and direction. And it had not deserted us. We still
had it in a supreme degree. Even in peace time we have shown it in that
vast, well-oiled, swift-running noiseless machine called the British
Navy. But our powers had risen with the need of them. The expansion
of the Navy was a miracle, the management of the transport a greater
one, the formation of the new Army the greatest of all time. To get the
men was the least of the difficulties. To put them in the field, with
everything down to the lid of the last field saucepan in its place,
that was the marvel. The tools of the gunners and of the sappers, to
say nothing of the knowledge of how to use them, were in themselves
a huge problem. But it had all been met and mastered. So don’t let us
talk too much about the muddling of the War Office. It has become just
a little ridiculous.
I was the guest at Head-quarters of a divisional General, Capper,
brother of the heroic leader of the 7th Division, who might truly be
called one of the two fathers of the British flying force, for it
was he, with Templer, who laid the first foundations from which so
great an organization has arisen. My morning was spent in visiting
two fighting brigadiers, Mitford and Jelf, cheery weather-beaten
soldiers, respectful, as all our soldiers are, of the prowess of the
Hun, but serenely confident that we could beat him. In company with
one of them I ascended a hill, the reverse slope of which was swarming
with cheerful infantry in every stage of _déshabille_, for they were
cleaning up after the trenches. Once over the slope we advanced with
some care, and finally reached a certain spot from which we looked down
upon the German line. It was an observation post, about 1,000 yards
from the German trenches, with our own trenches between us. We could
see the two lines, sometimes only a few yards, as it seemed, apart,
extending for miles on either side. The sinister silence and solitude
were strangely dramatic. Such vast crowds of men, such intensity of
feeling, and yet only that open rolling country-side, with never a
movement in its whole expanse.
In the afternoon my brother drove me to the Square at Ypres. It was
the city of a dream, this modern Pompeii, destroyed, deserted and
desecrated, but with a sad, proud dignity which made you involuntarily
lower your voice as you passed through the ruined streets. It was
a more considerable place than I had imagined, with many traces of
ancient grandeur. No words can describe the absolute splintered wreck
that the Huns had made of it. The effect of some of the shells had been
grotesque. One boiler-plated water tower, a thing 40 or 50 feet high,
was actually standing on its head like a great metal top. There was not
a living soul in the place save a few pickets of soldiers, and a number
of cats which had become fierce and dangerous. Now and then a shell
still fell, but the Huns probably knew that the devastation was already
complete.
We stood in the lonely grass-grown Square, once the busy centre of
the town, and we marvelled at the beauty of the smashed cathedral and
the tottering Cloth Hall beside it. Surely at their best they could
not have looked more wonderful. If they were preserved even so, and
if a heaven-inspired artist were to model a statue of Belgium in
front, Belgium with one hand pointing to the treaty by which Prussia
guaranteed her safety and the other to the sacrilege behind her, it
would make the most impressive group in the world. It was an evil day
for Belgium when her frontier was violated, but it was a worse one for
Germany. I venture to prophesy that it will be regarded by history as
the greatest military as well as political error that has ever been
made. Had the great guns that destroyed Liège made their first breach
at Verdun, what chance was there for Paris? Those few weeks of warning
and preparation saved France, and left Germany, like a weary and
furious bull, tethered fast in the place of trespass and waiting for
the inevitable pole-axe.
We were glad to get out of the place, for the gloom of it lay as heavy
upon our hearts as the shrapnel helmets did upon our heads. Both were
lightened as we sped back past empty and shattered villas to where,
just behind the danger line, the normal life of rural Flanders was
carrying on as usual. A merry sight helped to cheer us, for scudding
down wind above our heads came a Boche aeroplane, with two British at
her tail barking away with their machine guns, like two swift terriers
after a cat. They shot rat-tat-tatting across the sky until we lost
sight of them in the heat haze over the German line.
The afternoon saw us on the Sharpenburg, from which many a million will
gaze in days to come, for from no other point can so much be seen. It
was a spot forbid, but a special permit took us up, and the sentry on
duty, having satisfied himself of our bona-fides, proceeded to tell us
tales of the war in a pure Hull dialect which might have been Chinese
for all that I could understand. That he was a “Terrier” and had nine
children were the only facts I could lay hold of. But I wished to be
silent and to think--even, perhaps, to pray. Here, just below my feet,
were the spots which our dear lads, three of them my own kith, had
sanctified with their blood. Here, fighting for the freedom of the
world, they cheerily gave their all. On that sloping meadow to the left
of the row of houses on the opposite ridge the London Scottish fought
to the death on that grim November morning when the Bavarians reeled
back from their shot-torn line. That plain away on the other side of
Ypres was the place where the three grand Canadian brigades, first of
all men, stood up to the damnable gases of the Hun. Down yonder was
Hill 60, that blood-soaked kopje. The ridge over the fields was held
by the cavalry against two army corps, and there where the sun struck
the red roof among the trees I could just see Gheluvelt, a name for
ever to be associated with Haig and the most vital battle of the war.
As I turned away I was faced by my Hull Territorial, who still said
incomprehensible things. I looked at him with other eyes. He had fought
on yonder plain. He had slain Huns, and he had nine children. Could any
one better epitomize the duties of a good citizen in days like these? I
could have found it in my heart to salute him had I not known that it
would have shocked him and made him unhappy.
Next day, it was June 1, I left my brother’s kindly care. I had fears
for him, for he was much overworked and worried as Adjutant-Generals of
busy divisions are likely to be. However, he was never one to admit it
or to pity himself, and he begged me to carry the cheeriest report back
to his wife. It was a great pleasure to me that so many officers took
me aside to say how efficient he was, and how popular. He would not
have wished me to say it were he alive, but I can leave it on record
now.
Yesterday had been full, but the next day was not less so, for I had
been asked (or ordered) to lunch at the General Head-quarters at
Montreuil, the funny old town on a hill which I had learned to know
well in days of peace. As we drove down a winding drive I saw two
officers walking towards us. The younger of them stooped and beat the
ground with his stick, from which we gathered that we were to go slow
and raise no dust. We rightly conjectured that so curt an order could
only come from the Chief’s own aide. We saluted as we passed and
carried away an impression of a heavy moustache and of abstracted blue
eyes.
I had a very much more definite impression when he came back presently,
and we were all shown into the dining room. I should certainly put
Douglas Haig, as I saw him that day, among the handsomest men I have
ever known. He was not tall, but he was upright and well proportioned
with every sign of strength and activity. But his face was remarkable
for beauty and power. His eyes were very full and expressive, devoid of
the fierceness of Kitchener and yet with quite as much determination.
But the long powerful jaw was the feature which spoke particularly of
that never-to-be-beaten quality which saved the army when the line was
broken in the first Ypres battle and was destined to save it again in
April, 1918, when he gave out his “back to the wall” order of the day.
He was courteous but not talkative at lunch. After lunch he took me
into a side room where he showed me the line of the divisions on the
map, saying that I could remember but should not take notes, which
was rather maddening. Then we had a long talk over the coffee, but
there were several present and nothing intimate was said. He must be
worried to death with casual visitors, but still I suppose he need not
invite all of them to Head-quarters. He had, I thought, a truly British
distrust of foreigners. “He is the worst foreigner I have met yet,” he
said, speaking of some Italian General. His kind heart was shown when I
said that my son was in the line. He gave a curt order, and then nodded
and smiled. “You’ll see him to-morrow,” said he.
I naturally heard a good deal about our Generalissimo, besides what I
actually saw. I think that he had some of the traits of Wellington,
though since the war he has concerned himself with the fortunes of
his comrades-in-arms a great deal more than the Iron Duke seems ever
to have troubled himself to do. But in other things the parallel is
close. Haig is not a game-playing man, though fond of horse exercise.
Neither was the Duke. Both were abstemious with wine and tobacco. Both
were reserved, reticent and had no magnetic connection with those under
them. Neither Haig nor the Duke were human figures to the soldiers,
nor were they often if ever seen by them, and yet in each case there
was the same confidence in their judgment. Haig was a very serious man,
he seldom joked and did not meet a joke half way, so that his mess
was the dullest in France. I have known a staff officer apply for an
exchange so weary was he of this oppressive atmosphere. All this could
equally have been said of the Duke. But these are trivialities compared
to the great main fact that each brought rare qualities to the service
of their country at critical moments of the world’s history. There was
only one other man who might have filled Haig’s place, and that man was
the conqueror of Palestine.
Extraordinary are the contrasts of war. Within three hours of leaving
the quiet atmosphere of the Head-quarters Château I was present at what
in any other war would have been looked upon as a brisk engagement.
As it was it would certainly figure in one of our desiccated reports
as an activity of the artillery. The noise as we struck the line at
this new point showed that the matter was serious, and indeed we had
chosen the spot because it had been the storm centre of the last week.
The method of approach chosen by our experienced guide was in itself
a tribute to the gravity of the affair. As one comes from the settled
order of Flanders into the actual scene of war, the first sign of it
is one of the stationary, sausage-shaped balloons, a chain of which
marks the ring in which the great wrestlers are locked. We passed under
this, ascended a hill, and found ourselves in a garden where for a
year no feet save those of wanderers like ourselves had stood. There
was a wild, confused luxuriance of growth more beautiful to my eye
than anything which the care of man can produce. One old shell-hole
of vast diameter had filled itself with forget-me-nots, and appeared
as a graceful basin of light blue flowers, held up as an atonement to
Heaven for the brutalities of man. Through the tangled bushes we crept,
then across a yard--“Please stoop and run as you pass this point”--and
finally to a small opening in a wall, whence the battle lay not so much
before as beside us. For a moment we had a front seat at the great
world-drama, God’s own problem play, working surely to its magnificent
end. One felt a sort of shame to crouch here in comfort, a useless
spectator, while brave men down yonder were facing that pelting shower
of iron.
There was a large field on our left rear, and the German gunners
had the idea that there was a concealed battery therein. They were
systematically searching for it. A great shell exploded in the top
corner, but got nothing more solid than a few tons of clay. You could
read the mind of Gunner Fritz. “Try the lower corner!” said he, and up
went the earth-cloud once again. “Perhaps it’s hid about the middle.
I’ll try.” Earth again, and nothing more. “I believe I was right the
first time after all,” said hopeful Fritz. So another shell came
into the top corner. The field was full of pits as a Gruyère cheese,
but Fritz got nothing by his perseverance. Perhaps there never was
a battery there at all. One effect he obviously did attain. He made
several other British batteries exceedingly angry. “Stop that tickling,
Fritz!” was the burden of their cry. Where they were we could no more
see than Fritz could, but their constant work was very clear along the
German line. We appeared to be using more shrapnel and the Germans more
high explosives, but that may have been just the chance of the day. The
Vimy Ridge was on our right, and before us was the old French position,
with the Labyrinth of terrible memories and the long hill of Lorette.
When, the year before last, the French, in a three weeks’ battle,
fought their way up that hill, it was an exhibition of sustained
courage which even their military annals can seldom have beaten.
[Illustration: KINGSLEY CONAN DOYLE.]
Next day we travelled through Acheux and hit the British line once
more to the east of that place. Our official chauffeur had had his
instructions, and so had other people, with the result that as we swung
into the broad main street of a village--Mailly, I think, was the
name--there was a tall young officer standing with his back turned.
He swung round at the noise of the car, and it was my boy Kingsley
with his usual jolly grin upon his weather-stained features. The long
arm of G.H.Q. had stretched out and plucked him out of a trench, and
there he was. We had an hour’s talk in a field, for there was nowhere
else to go. He was hard and well and told me that all was nearly ready
for a big push at the very part of the line where his battalion, the
1st Hampshires, was stationed. This was the first intimation of
the great Somme battle, on the first day of which every officer of
the Hampshires without exception was killed or wounded. I learned
afterwards that before the battle for ten nights running Kingsley
crept out to the German wire and stuck up crosses, where he found the
wire uncut, which were brown towards the enemy and white towards the
British, as a guide to the gunners. He lay on his face sometimes with
the machine guns firing just above him. For this service Colonel Palk
thanked him warmly and said he should certainly have a decoration, but
Palk and both majors were killed and no recommendations went forward.
Two shrapnel bullets in the neck were all Kingsley got out of the
battle, and two months on his back in a hospital. However, he was not
a medal hunter and I never heard him complain, nor would he wear his
wound badges until he was compelled.
An hour later I met another member of my household, for my Secretary,
Major Wood of the 5th Sussex Territorials, was Town Major of
Beauquesne, where I found him at the convenient hour of lunch. He had
done nearly two years of hard active service, which was pretty good for
a civilian of fifty, and had led his company at Festubert and other
engagements. He was now using his excellent powers of organization
and administration in making Beauquesne a well-ordered village, as
later he made Doullens a well-ordered town. I expect that the British
administration will remain as a wonderful legend of sanitation and
cleanliness in many of these French towns of the North-East.
After inspecting Major Wood’s work I went on to Amiens with him and he
packed me into the train to Paris, the first part of my task thoroughly
done so far as time would permit. I came away with a deep sense of the
difficult task which lay before the Army, but with an equally deep one
of the ability of those men to do all that soldiers can be called upon
to perform. But I saw no end to the war.
I had two days in Paris--a very dead and alive Paris, such a Paris
as has seldom or never been seen before, with darkened streets and
the shops nearly all closed. I stayed at the Hotel Crillon, where
were a few Russian and British officers. It was extraordinary the
difference which the public made between the two. A British officer
was disregarded, while a Russian General--I took a walk with one--was
looked upon with an adulation which was quite comic. Men came up and
made a low obeisance before him. And yet it was our Army, our purse,
our factories, above all our Navy, which were saving the situation
both for France and Russia, to whom we were bound by no alliance.
There was certainly not much sign of appreciation or gratitude. It is
a very singular thing how the whole world alternately leans upon and
depreciates the British Empire.