EXPERIENCES ON THE FRENCH FRONT
A Dreadful Reception--Robert Donald--Clemenceau--Soissons
Cathedral--The Commandant’s Cane--The Extreme Outpost--Adonis--General
Henneque--Cyrano in the Argonne--Tir Rapide--French Canadian--Wound
Stripes.
When I got back to Paris I had a dreadful reception, for as I
dismounted from the railway car a British military policeman in his
flat red cap stepped up to me and saluted.
“This is bad news, sir,” said he.
“What is it?” I gasped.
“Lord Kitchener, sir. Drowned!”
“Good God!” I cried.
“Yes, sir.” Suddenly the machine turned for a moment into a human
being. “Too much talking in this war,” he said, and then in a moment
was his stiff formal self again, and bustled off in search of deserters.
Kitchener dead! The words were like clods falling on my heart. One
could not imagine him dead, that centre of energy and vitality. With
a heavy spirit I drove back to my old quarters at the Hotel Crillon,
fuller than ever of red-epauletted, sword-clanking Russians. I could
have cursed them, for it was in visiting their rotten, crumbling
country that our hero had met his end.
At the hotel I met by appointment Mr. Robert Donald, editor of the
“Daily Chronicle,” which paper had been publishing my articles. Donald,
a fine, solid Scot, had the advantage of talking good French and being
in thorough touch with French conditions. With him I called upon M.
Clemenceau, who had not at that time played any conspicuous part in the
war, save as a violent critic. He lived modestly in a small house which
showed that he had not used his power in the State and in journalism
to any unfair personal advantage. He entered, a swarthy, wrinkled,
white-haired man, with the face of a crabbed bulldog, and a cloth cap
upon his head. He reminded me of old “Jem” Mace the bruiser, as I
remember him in his final phase. His eyes looked angry, and he had a
truculent, mischievous smile. I was not impressed by the judgment he
showed in our conversation, if a squirt on one side and Niagara on the
other can be called conversation. He was railing loudly at the English
rate of exchange between the franc and the pound, which seemed to me
very like kicking against the barometer. Mr. Donald, who is a real
authority upon finance, asked him whether France was taking the rouble
at its face value; but the roaring voice, like a strong gramophone with
a blunt needle, submerged all argument. Against Joffre he roared his
reproaches, and intimated that he had some one else up his sleeve who
could very soon bring the war to an end. A volcano of a man, dangerous
sometimes to his friends, and sometimes to his foes. Let me acknowledge
that I did not at the time recognize that he would ever be the opposite
number to Lloyd George, and that the pair would lead us to victory.
Donald had arranged that he and I should visit the French lines in the
Argonne, which was as near as we could get to Verdun, where the battle
was at its height. There were a few days to spare, however, and in the
meantime I got a chance of going to the Soissons front, along with Leo
Maxse, editor of the “National Review,” and a M. Chevillon, who had
written an excellent book on British co-operation in the war. Maxse, a
dark little man, all nerves and ginger, might well plume himself that
he was one of those who had foreseen the war and most loudly demanded
preparation. Chevillon was a grey-bearded father-of-a-family type, and
could speak English, which promoted our closer acquaintance, as my
French is adventurous but not always successful. A captain of French
Intelligence, a small, silent man, took the fourth place in the car.
When our posterity hear that it was easy to run out from Paris to the
line, to spend a full day on the line, and to be back again in Paris
for dinner, it will make them appreciate how close a thing was the war.
We passed in the first instance the Woods of Villars Cotteret, where
the Guards had turned upon the German van on September 1, 1914. Eighty
Guardsmen were buried in the village cemetery, among them a nephew of
Maxse’s, to whose tomb we now made pious pilgrimage. Among the trees
on either side of the road I noticed other graves of soldiers, buried
where they had fallen.
Soissons proved to be a considerable wreck, though it was 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 strewed the
floor, and the roof lay in a huge heap across the central aisle. A dog
was climbing over it as we entered. No wonder the French fought 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. When I pointed out the desecration of the dog he shrugged his
shoulders and said: “What matter? It will have to be reconsecrated,
anyhow.” He connived at my gathering up some splinters of the rich old
stained-glass as souvenirs for my wife. 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 was a good, kind, truthful
man--but he had a humorous face.
A walk down a ruined street brought one to the opening of the
trenches. There were marks upon the walls of the German occupation,
“Berlin-Paris,” with an arrow of direction, adorning one corner. At
another the 76th Regiment had 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 reminders to the rising generation. I
could imagine, however, that their inclination will be to whitewash,
fumigate, and forget.
A sudden turn among some broken walls took one into the communication
trench. Our guide was a Commandant of the Staff, a tall, thin man with
hard, grey eyes and a severe face. It was the more severe towards us,
as I gathered that he had been deluded into the belief that only about
one out of six of our soldiers went to the trenches. For the moment
he was not friends with the English. As we went along, however, we
gradually got on better terms, we discovered a twinkle in the hard,
grey eyes, and the day ended with an exchange of walking-sticks between
him and me and a renewal of the Entente. May my cane grow into a
marshal’s baton!
A charming young artillery subaltern was our guide in that maze of
trenches, and we walked and walked and walked, 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 were boarded at the
sides, and had a more permanent look than those of Flanders. Presently
we met a fine, brown-faced, upstanding boy, as keen as a razor, who
commanded this particular section. A little farther on a helmeted
captain of infantry, who was an expert sniper, joined our little party.
Now we were 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 was led to a cunning loop-hole, and had a glimpse through it of a
little framed picture of French countryside. There were 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 were brought up also to hear the French
cough. Modern warfare has certainly some extraordinary sides.
Then we were shown all the devices which a year of experience
had suggested to the quick brains of our Allies. 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 the 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. Many officers of high
rank had been broken by the French during the war. There was 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 Head-quarters to support a more
vigorous offensive.
It had come on to rain heavily, and we were forced to take refuge in
the dug-out 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 was a thing upon earth which the French officer
shied at it was rain and mud. The reason is that he was extraordinarily
natty in his person. His charming blue uniform, his facings, his brown
gaiters, boots and belts were always just as smart as paint. He was
the dandy of the European War. I noticed officers in the trenches with
their trousers carefully pressed.
[Illustration: ON THE FRENCH FRONT.
_From Left_: “CYRANO”; A. CONAN DOYLE; MR. ROBERT DONALD; GENERAL
HENNEQUE.]
The rain had now stopped, and we climbed from our burrow. Again we were
led down that endless line of communication trench, again we stumbled
through the ruins, again we emerged into the street where our cars
were awaiting us. Above our heads the sharp artillery duel was going
merrily forward. The French were firing three or four to one, which had
been my experience at every point I had touched upon the Allied front.
Thanks to the extraordinary zeal of the French workers, especially of
the French women, and to the clever adoption of machinery by their
engineers, their supplies were abundant.
Our next expedition carried us to Chalons, where the Huns of old met
disaster. From Chalons we drove some twenty miles to St. Menehould,
and learned that the trenches were about ten miles north. On this
expedition there were Donald and I with an extraordinary Spaniard,
half Don Quixote, half Gipsy troubadour, flat hatted and clad in brown
corduroy, with a single arm, having, as we heard, lost the other in
some broil. As he spoke no tongue but his own we were never on terms
with him.
The front at the sector which we struck was under the control of
General Henneque of the 10th Division. A fine soldier this, and Heaven
help Germany if he and his division had invaded it, for he was, as one
could see at a glance, a man of iron who had been goaded to fierceness
by all that his beloved country had endured. He was a man of middle
size, swarthy, hawk-like, very abrupt in his movements, with two
steel-grey eyes, which were 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 were wiser not to provoke.
In person he took us to his lines, passing through the usual shot-torn
villages behind them. Where the road dipped down into the great forest
there was one particular spot which was 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.
We then 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 saw this war from a different angle to us. If we had had the
Boche sitting on our heads for two years, and were not quite sure
whether we could ever get him off again, we should get Cyrano’s point
of view.
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 was as long as you went in the right way. When you
strayed from it you knew 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.
Trenches are trenches, and the main specialty of those in the Argonne
were that they were nearer to the enemy. In fact, there were places
where they interlocked, and where the advanced posts lay 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 those 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, mediæval 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. Always in the cinema of memory he will walk the leafy paths
of the Argonne, his fierce eyes searching for the Boche workers, his
red moustache bristling over their annihilation. He seems a figure out
of the past of France.
That night we dined with yet another type of the French soldier,
General Antoine, who commanded the corps of which my friend had one
division. Each of these French generals had a striking individuality of
his own which I wish I could fix upon paper. Their only common point
was that each seemed to be a rare good soldier. The Corps General
was Athos with a touch of d’Artagnan. He was well over 6 feet high,
bluff, jovial, with huge, upcurling moustache, and a voice that would
rally a regiment. It was a grand figure, which should have been done
by Van Dyck, with lace collar, hand on sword, and arm akimbo. Jovial
and laughing was he, but a stern and hard soldier was lurking behind
the smiles. His name has appeared in history, and so has Humbert’s,
who ruled all the army of which the other corps is a unit. Humbert was
a Lord Roberts figure, small, wiry, quick-stepping, all steel and
elastic, with a short, upturned moustache, which one could imagine as
crackling with electricity in moments of excitement like a cat’s fur.
What he does or says is quick, abrupt, and to the point. He fires his
remarks like pistol shots at this man or that. Once to my horror he
fixed me with his hard little eyes and demanded; “Sherlock Holmes,
est ce qu’il est un soldat dans l’armée Anglaise?” The whole table
waited in an awful hush. “Mais, mon general,” I stammered, “il est trop
vieux pour service.” There was general laughter, and I felt that I had
scrambled out of an awkward place.
And talking of awkward places, I had forgotten about that spot upon
the road whence the Boche observer could see our motor-cars. He had
actually laid a gun upon it, the rascal, and waited all the long day
for our return. No sooner did we appear upon the slope than a shrapnel
shell burst above us, but somewhat behind me, as well as to the left.
Had it been straight the second car would have got it, and there might
have been a vacancy in one of the chief editorial chairs in London. The
General shouted to the driver to speed up, and we were soon safe from
the German gunners. One got perfectly immune to noises in these scenes,
for the guns which surrounded you made louder crashes than any shell
which burst about you. It is only when you actually saw the cloud over
you that your thoughts came back to yourself, and that you realized
that in this wonderful drama you might be a useless super, but none the
less you were on the stage and not in the stalls.
Next morning we were down in the front trenches again at another
portion of the line. Far away on our right, from a spot named the
Observatory, we could see the extreme left of the Verdun position and
shells bursting on the Fille Morte. To the north of us was a broad
expanse of sunny France, nestling villages, scattered châteaux, rustic
churches, and all as inaccessible as if it were the moon. It was a
terrible thing this German bar--a thing unthinkable to Britons. To
stand on the edge of Yorkshire and look into Lancashire feeling that
it was in other hands, that our fellow-countrymen were suffering there
and waiting, waiting for help, and that we could not, after two years,
come a yard nearer to them--would it not break our hearts? Could I
wonder that there was no smile upon the grim faces of those Frenchmen!
But when the bar was broken, when the line swept forward, when French
bayonets gleamed on those uplands and French flags broke from those
village spires--ah, what a day that was! Men died that day from the
pure delirious joy of it.
Yet another type of French General took us round this morning! He, too,
was a man apart, an unforgettable man. Conceive a man with a large,
broad, good-humoured face, and two placid, dark, seal’s eyes which
gazed gently into yours. He was young, and had pink cheeks and a soft
voice. Such was one of the most redoubtable fighters of France, this
General of Division Dupont. His former Staff officers told me something
of the man. He was a philosopher, a fatalist, impervious to fear, a
dreamer of distant dreams amid the most furious bombardment. The weight
of the French assault upon the terrible Labyrinth fell at one time
upon the brigade which he then commanded. He led them day after day
gathering up Germans with the detached air of the man of science who
is hunting for specimens. In whatever shell-hole he might chance to
lunch he had his cloth spread and decorated with wild flowers plucked
from the edge. I wrote of him at the time: “If Fate be kind to him, he
will go far.” As a matter of fact, before the end of the war he was one
of the most influential members of the General Staff, so my prophetic
power was amply vindicated.
From the Observatory we saw the destruction of a German trench. There
had been signs of work upon it, so it was decided to close it down. It
was a very visible brown streak a thousand yards away. The word was
passed back to the “75’s” in the rear. There was a “tir rapide” over
our heads. My word, the man who stands fast under a “tir rapide,” be
he Boche, French or British, is a man of mettle! The mere passage of
the shells was awe-inspiring, at first like the screaming of a wintry
wind, and then thickening into the howling of a pack of wolves. The
trench was a line of terrific explosions. Then the dust settled down
and all was still. Where were the ants who had made the nest? Were they
buried beneath it? Or had they got from under? No one could say.
There was one little gun which fascinated me, and I stood for some time
watching it. Its three gunners, enormous helmeted men, evidently loved
it, and touched it with a swift but tender touch in every movement.
When it was fired it ran up an inclined plane to take off the recoil,
rushing up and then turning and rattling down again upon the gunners
who were used to its ways. The first time it did it, I was standing
behind it, and I don’t know which jumped quickest--the gun or I.
French officers above a certain rank develop and show their own
individuality. In the lower grades the conditions of service enforce a
certain uniformity. The British officer is a British gentleman first,
and an officer afterwards. The Frenchman is an officer first, though
none the less the gentleman stands behind it. One very strange type
we met, however, in these Argonne Woods. He was a French-Canadian who
had been a French soldier, had founded a homestead in far Alberta, and
had now come back of his own will, though a naturalized Briton, to the
old flag. He spoke English of a kind, the quality and quantity being
equally extraordinary. It poured from him and was, so far as it was
intelligible, of the woolly Western variety. His views on the Germans
were the most emphatic we had met. “These Godam sons of”--well, let
us say “Canines!” he would shriek, shaking his fist at the woods to
the north of him. A good man was our compatriot, for he had a very
recent Legion of Honour pinned upon his breast. He had been put with
a few men on Hill 285, a sort of volcano stuffed with mines, and was
told to telephone when he needed relief. He refused to telephone, and
remained there for three weeks. “We sit like one rabbit in his hall,”
he explained. He had only one grievance--there were many wild boars
in the forest, but the infantry were too busy to get them. “The Godam
Artillaree he get the wild pig!” Out of his pocket he pulled a picture
of a frame house with snow round it, and a lady with two children on
the stoep. It was his homestead at Trochu, seventy miles north of
Calgary.
It was the evening of the third day that we turned our faces towards
Paris once more. It was my last view of the French. The roar of their
guns went far with me upon my way. I wrote at the time: “Soldiers of
France, farewell! In your own phrase, I salute you! Many have seen you
who had more knowledge by which to judge your manifold virtues, many
also who had more skill to draw you as you are, but never one, I am
sure, who admired you more than I. Great was the French soldier, under
Louis the Sun-King, great too under Napoleon, but never was he greater
than to-day.”
But in spite of all their bravery only two things saved France, her
field guns and the intervention of England. Surely she should have a
reckoning with her pre-war military authorities. Imagine unwarlike
Britain, protected by the sea, and yet having a high standard of
musketry, heavy guns with every division, and khaki uniforms, while
warlike France, under the very shadow of Germany, had poor musketry,
primeval uniforms and no heavy guns. As to her early views of
strategy they were lamentable. Every British critic, above all Lord
Kitchener, knew that the attack would swing round through Belgium.
France concentrated all her preparation upon the Eastern frontier. It
was clear also that the weaker power should be on the defensive and
so bring her enemy by heavier losses down to her own weight. France
attacked and broke herself in an impossible venture. There should have
been a heavy reckoning against some one. The fate of England as well as
of France was imperilled by the false estimates of the French General
Staff.
One small visible result of my journey was the establishment of wound
stripes upon the uniforms of the British. I had been struck by this
very human touch among the French, which gave a man some credit and
therefore some consolation for his sufferings. I represented the
matter when I came back. Lest I seem to claim more than is true, I
append General Robertson’s letter. The second sentence refers to that
campaign for the use of armour which I had prosecuted so long, and with
some success as regards helmets, though there the credit was mostly due
to Dr. Saleeby, among civilians. The letter runs thus:
WAR OFFICE,
_August 14, 1916_.
Many thanks for sending me a copy of your little book. I will
certainly see what can be done in regard to armour. You will remember
that I took your previous tip as regards badges for wounded men.
Yours very truly,
W. R. ROBERTSON.