THE MASSACRE OF AN ARMY
"Where's the boss?" queried a strange voice, one afternoon.
The entire mechanical staff of the _Issaquena County Weather Herald_,
consisting of Fred Lang, publisher and editor-in-chief, aged fifteen,
and a general assistant with the blackest face and the whitest teeth in
the county, aged seventy, named Dan'l, turned at the question.
"Why?" asked Fred.
The stranger stepped into the office of the _Herald_.
"I'd be wishful to see the foreman," he said, with a twinkle in his eye,
"that's if he's not too busy."
Fred grinned in response.
"I guess I'm the foreman," he said.
"I'm lookin' for a job," the new-comer explained.
"What kind of a job?"
"Any kind of a job in a printin' shop," the Irishman replied. "I'm an
old-timer. There's nothin' about printin' I don't know."
"Have you seen a copy of our paper?" asked Fred.
"I have so," was the reply, "I've got it with me, right here." He pulled
from his pocket the latest number of the little four-page sheet. "'Tis
an illigant publication," he went on, "but I'm thinkin' that you're in
sore need of a printer."
"Does it look so bad?" queried the "foreman." "The worst of it is, I
don't know how to make it any better."
"I'm not saying that it's bad, but there's a deal to be learnt about
printin'," the journeyman declared. "I'm thinkin' your compositor hasn't
had overmuch experience."
"He hasn't," the boy admitted. "I'm him. Dan'l helps me all he can, but
since he can't read, it makes it bad."
"Give me the job," said the Irishman, "an' I'll make the paper look
right."
"I can't," Fred replied. "The subscriptions hardly pay for the paper and
the ink. I give Dan'l thirty cents a week for wages to run the press and
it's hard to scrape up that much, because Mr. Levin says I mustn't pay
out a cent that the _Herald_ hasn't actually earned. What wages do you
want?"
"Three dollars a day when I'm workin'," the journeyman printer replied,
"an' the good green grass to sleep on and a hunk of corn-bread to eat
when I'm not."
The young editor looked at the journeyman printer with a sudden
eagerness.
"I've got four dollars and a half saved up," he said, "that's a day and
a half's wages. Will you teach me all about printing in a day and a
half? That isn't office money, that's my own, but, you see, it's for
me."
"I'll teach ye for nothin'," said the Irishman, pleased at the boy's
pluck, "if ye'll give me a bite to eat an' a place to sleep."
Fred shook his head.
"No," he said, "Mr. Levin won't let any of us boys take something for
nothing. I'd sooner pay. It would be great if you could get out this
week's number for us, and let me see how you do it. I'd learn a heap
that way, and it would be just the stuff I want to know. Then the number
you got out we could use for something to go by. But you'll have to do
it in a day and a half, because that's all the money I've got. Can
you?"
"I can that," the printer answered, "an' I'll pay for my board out of
it, so that you won't be spending all your money."
"Can't do that either," said the boy, "because that would make it
Anton's Dad's money, not mine. If you want to pay him, all right."
The Irishman stripped off his coat and rolled up his sleeves.
"I'll be lookin' to see what fonts o' type ye have in the shop," he
declared, and examined the forms which were lying on the rough table.
"Did anny one ever show you annything about printin'?" he asked
presently.
"No," said the boy, "I got this printing-press from a chap whose brother
used to run it. The fellow who owned it was going to show me how it
worked, but he went away and hasn't come back."
"Watch me a while," the journeyman responded and began to unlock the
forms that had stood since the issue of the week before. It was a
revelation to the boy to see how the trained fingers of the printer
sorted, classified, and arranged the type. Talking steadily, in his
Irish fashion, the journeyman explained how the type should be set up,
showed that they had been using twice as much ink as necessary, warned
them against pinching the type too closely, explaining that this "put
the letters off their feet," and, by altering the arrangement of the
sheet, improved its appearance a thousandfold. These routine matters
were quickly adjusted, and then the printer asked for the copy which was
to fill the first page.
"It's just got here," the young editor answered. "I haven't looked over
it yet, but I guess it's all right. I had a wireless yesterday that one
of our chaps was sending in a corking description of a sunset, or rather
a sort of description of all the sunsets in the last month. Here it is."
He handed the pages of boyish handwriting to the journeyman, who looked
over them hastily.
"'Tis fine stuff, entirely," he said in surprise. "I'd be wishful to
take some copies of the paper for myself. Listen to this now!" And,
turning the sheets, the enthusiastic Irishman read aloud:
"'Sunsets all look different, but when you write down what you see, one
right after the other, they seem to be quite alike, that is, when the
sky is clear. When the sun begins to set, and there are not many clouds,
the lowest part of the sky is more different from the rest of it than in
daytime. In the west--at the side of the setting sun--the sky looks
white, changing to yellow. In the north and south, it is a dull yellow,
which gets yellower. In the east, it is a dirty yellow, which changes
slowly into a dull purple. All these yellows are duller at the horizon
than a little way above. The purple in the east looks gray at the
sky-line but shades into blue, higher up.'
"'Tis an illigant style the boy has," declared the journeyman, and
continued:
"'Just as soon as the sun begins to drop below the horizon, an
ash-colored plate (the shadow of the earth) begins to creep up the
eastern sky, covering part of the purple bit and making it look like a
purple rainbow. Soon the shadow covers all the purple light in the east.
"'In the west, where the sun is setting, the colors are all different.
The whitish light spreads quite a long way up into the blue, but when
the sun comes close to the horizon, this turns to yellow, lighter higher
up and darker lower down. It is sometimes reddish at the horizon line,
and the clouds are turned to pink.
"'After the sun has really gone down, the yellow gets darker, changing
into orange, sometimes, while the white spot spreads sideways and its
upper edge marks off the brighter from the darker bits of the sky.
"'In the darker part of the sky, at about quarter way up, a purple glow
suddenly appears. It grows bigger quickly, making a circle, the lower
edge of which looks as though it slipped behind the yellow strip. This
purple spot in the west comes just as the purple rainbow in the east is
dying out, and as the western purple spot grows it gets brighter, so
that there is a time, after the sun sets, when it seems brighter than it
did before.'"
"That's queer," interrupted Fred.
The printer thought for a moment.
"It's right, bedad," he said, "I've noticed it meself."
He continued reading:
"'Sometimes there are dark blue and greenish stripes running down to the
sun and these stripes shoot a long way up into the sky.
"'If there are any clouds, they seem to be generally light yellow to
begin with, changing to pink and rose, then red and dark orange. I
couldn't find any system in the color of the clouds, perhaps because
they are at different heights.
"'A few times I've seen a sort of second faint purple arch or bow in the
east, but by that time it's dark. In the west, though, the second arch
is quite clear. As the first western purple arch sinks to the horizon,
following the sun, a green stretch, ever so green, shows up, and above
it is a second arch of bright light, with a purple arch above that. When
this last one sinks, it is quite dark.'"
Mr. Levin, as was his habit on Saturday afternoon, had come over to the
League's club-house, and he had entered during the reading, followed by
his usual bevy of boys; Rex, Lassie, and four roly-poly puppies, now
able to run around on unsteady legs, bringing up the rear.
"That's a mighty accurate description of sunset colors," the Forecaster
commented; "whoever did that, deserves a lot of credit. Hello! Have you
enlarged your staff, Fred?" he continued, as he noted the printer and
realized, at a glance, that the little shed had already assumed a more
business-like look.
The editor-in-chief explained the bargain he had made and the Weather
Man nodded his head approvingly.
"That's the best way I know to spend your savings," he said, "using
them to learn something. I'm glad you're going to have this issue
properly printed, too, because that sunset article is about the best
you've had, so far. If I don't miss my guess, a good many people will
keep that number as a sort of reference for the colors of sunset. Who
wrote it?"
"I did, sir," said one of the boys who had come in with him.
"Good work," the Forecaster commented. "Do you happen to know, though,
Bert, what makes the colors of sunset? Why doesn't it just gradually get
dark as the sun goes down?"
"I don't know," the boy replied. "I tried to explain it the other day
and I found I hadn't the least idea why, myself. I asked Father, but he
didn't know either."
"Yet it's quite simple," the Weather Man answered, "and if you boys are
going to be real meteorologists, you ought to know the reasons for
things. First of all, why is the sky blue?"
There was a gasp of astonishment, followed by silence.
"Sure, 'tis the air that's blue," hazarded the printer.
"That doesn't help much," the Forecaster said, "though perhaps it does,
a little. Why is the air blue?"
The Irishman shook his head.
"Why is annything blue?" he asked.
"That's just what I'm going to tell you," the Weather Man answered, "and
you want to listen carefully, boys, because the colors of the sunset
depend a great deal on the weather. You can foretell weather from the
sunset."
"Yo' sho' can," interrupted Dan'l. "Don't yo' remember Mammy's old
rhyme:
"Evenin' red an' mornin' gray
Certain signs of a beautiful day;
Evenin' gray an' mornin' red,
Sends a nigger wet to bed."
"All those old rhymes are fakes, though, Dan'l," declared Anton, with
the importance of his newly acquired weather knowledge.
"Easy there, easy there!" warned the Forecaster. "Not so fast. A good
many of those old rhymes are mighty good weather forecasts. That one is,
for example."
"You mean, sir, that a red sunset and a gray sunrise really tell that
the weather is going to be fine?"
"Yes, to a great extent, they do."
"Why, Mr. Levin?"
"Because they show the state of the atmosphere, boys. Rain can't fall
unless there is dust. Every little drop of rain has a grain of dust in
the middle. The colors of the sunset, too, are due partly to dust. Not
only that, but colors of the sunset vary as the particles of dust which
reflect the rays of light, are enveloped by water vapor.
"A piece of dust, without an envelope of water, is smaller than one with
a little wetness around it. When more water vapor gathers around the
piece of dust, the drop becomes bigger. When the sunset is red, it is a
sign that it is shining on very small bits of dust, or that the
condensation of water vapor into rain has not advanced very far. If,
however, the sunset sky is gray, that means that the upper air is
saturated, that it has all the water it can hold, and, of course, rain
is likely to come soon."
"I should think, then," said Anton, "that gray in the morning would be a
bad sign, too."
"It's not, though," the Forecaster replied; "the proverb is right there,
as well. A gray sky in the morning means that the air is filled with
water drops which are large enough to reflect light of every color.
While this is the same as the gray of evening, the processes that led
to the forming of these drops is quite different. In the day the dust is
heated and the forming of the droplets in the afternoon is due to
cooling. In the night, the condensation is caused by loss of heat
through radiation. Radiation shows that the air above must be dry.
Therefore a gray morning means a dry air above the water drops, and this
means a fine day, for the droplets will soon be evaporated by the rising
sun. The red morning sky declares that the dust particles have been
protected from radiation by a blanket of overlying moisture, the air,
therefore, is saturated to great heights and rain is probable. So you
see, Anton, Mammy's rhyme is right."
"What fo' yo' talk to me against signs," declared Dan'l, putting out his
chest and strutting; "Ah done told yo' them signs am pow'ful good."
"But the sunset colors, sir?" the author of the article asked. "You said
they were due to dust. Just how, sir?"
"Yes, to dust, plain ordinary dust, but dust of the lightest kind," was
the reply. "If you could go up in the air a hundred miles, the sky above
you in the middle of the day would be jet black and the sun would shine
down on you like a great bright-blue ball, without any white glare
around it at all."
"Then it's a blue sun that makes a blue sky!" cried Fred.
"Don't go so fast," the Forecaster warned him. "I want you to think of
the sky, first. It's a dead black, a hundred miles up. Now, at a hundred
miles up, the air is so thin that there's little or no dust, but as you
gradually come down and the air becomes denser, it begins to be able to
buoy up some dust. Boys," he said, breaking off suddenly, "why does a
stick float in water when it falls in air?"
"Because water is denser than air?" guessed Ross.
"Exactly. And why does a bar of iron sink through water and not through
earth?"
"Because the particles of earth won't move aside as easily as the
particles of water, I suppose."
"Not quite, but something that way. So, you see, as the air gets
gradually denser it becomes gradually more able to support particles of
dust, light ones at first, then heavier and heavier, until near the
earth big pieces of dust can be carried in the air. You know how big
some of them are when you happen to get a grain in your eye! Viscosity
has a lot to do with it, too.
"The light of the sun is a bluish-white, like some of the blue stars.
White, as you remember from the rainbow, is just a mixture of all sorts
of colors and the different colors are created by waves of light, some
being shorter and others longer. A long wave, like the red, will pass
around a tiny piece of dust, but a short wave, like the blue, will be
stopped by it, and scattered, sometimes polarized, as it is called, or
turned into one plane."
"I don't think I quite see that," said Anton.
"It's a little complicated," the Weather Man answered, "but maybe I can
give you an idea of it. Suppose you were on a big steamboat in a choppy
sea. As the steamer's length would extend over several of these waves,
none of them would be big enough to make the vessel heave. If you were
on that same choppy sea in a small canoe, you would be tossed in every
direction. Now, if you think of the long red wave of light as a steamer
and the blue as a canoe, you can see that in a ripple of small particles
of dust the blue is going to be more affected than the red. In other
words, the blue will be scattered. It will be diffused all over the sky
and the light that comes through will be less blue."
"Then I should think the sun would look red," said Anton.
"It does," the Forecaster explained, "when there's a fog, which simply
means, when there's more obstruction in the air. Sunlight is never
white, as you know, it's yellow-white and the golden effect is due to
dust. It's the same way at sunset. Then the rays of the sun which reach
you pass through a larger amount of air, because you're looking at them
from an angle, so they have to strike more grains of dust, and more of
the blue rays are scattered. Then, too, when the sun, at sunset is, to
you, shining obliquely on the atmosphere, it is passing through several
layers of air and these bend the rays differently."
"I still don't see," said the author of the sunset-color article, "why
there should be so much pink, or rose-color, and why the clouds should
generally be pink."
"There's not much pink in a clear sky," the Forecaster answered, "and as
for the pink clouds, you've never seen them in the west when the sun was
still above the horizon, have you?"
"No--no," said the other, "I don't think so. The pink generally comes
after the sun had disappeared."
"Scientifically, of course," the Weather Man said, "the sun has gone
below the horizon at least two minutes before you see it disappear.
You're looking at a sun that isn't there at all. That's due to
refraction. The reason of the pink glow is that when you see it, the
earth and the air for several thousand feet above you are in the shadow
of the edge of the earth. The sun, therefore, is not shining on the
thicker dust of the lower part of the air, but the finer dust of the
upper part, the particles of which are small and more uniform in shape.
"The glow is of a rose-color because the particles are of the size to
diffuse the rays of this wave-length. That's why rose colors appear in
the east, before the west, and why the color lasts in the sky, which may
be reflected on dust twelve miles high, after it has disappeared from
the upper clouds, which are not more than eight miles high."
"'Tis the illigant hand ye are at explainin'," put in the Irishman, "but
I c'n remember, when I was learnin' me trade, about thirty-four years
ago, the sunsets were much finer than annything I've seen since. We
don't have such sunsets now as when I was a boy."
"They were sho' brighter," agreed Dan'l. "Ah can remember when the skies
used to look like they was all burning up. Ah thought the end of the
world was a-comin', sho'!"
"Thirty-four years," said the Forecaster thoughtfully; "that would be in
1883, wouldn't it? Why, of course, Mike," he continued; "that was during
the period of the famous Krakatoa sunsets."
"An' what's a Kraker-something sunset?" the printer asked.
"Krakatoa," the Weather Man explained, "was a volcano, near Java. In
August, 1883, one of the most violent eruptions in the history of the
world occurred. Half the island was blown up in the air, and, where a
mountain had stood, the ocean rolled a thousand feet deep.
"The vibrations in the air were so terrific as to break windows and
overturn frame houses over a hundred miles away, and the pressure wave,
like some huge blast of wind, traveled round the world three times
before it died down. The huge sea-waves caused by the eruption and the
engulfing of the island, swept across the oceans, destroying the coasts
for hundreds of leagues around. Over thirty thousand people were
drowned.
"Pumice and ashes fell over the sea so thickly that within three miles
of the island you could walk on them, and even five hundred miles away,
the ashes formed a scum on the surface of the sea. The finer dust and
the icy particles from the condensed vapor reached extreme heights in
the air. These dust particles spread all round the world, completing the
circuit in fifteen days.
"The sunsets were extraordinarily red, because, in the very thin air of
great heights, there was an unusual amount of dust which had been forced
there by the great volcanic outburst. It took three years for this dust
gradually to settle into the lower air, and this made the sunsets that
Pat speaks of. The great eruption of Mont Pelé in 1902 created unusually
beautiful sunsets in America for a couple of months afterward, but, of
course, this was not to be compared to the Krakatoa eruption.
"It's curious, though, boys," he said, "that Bert, here, should have
been writing this article on sunsets, because it happens that I've got
something here quite important to show you."
Walking to the table, he took a large home-made portfolio from under
his arm and spread it out. He untied it, threw open the cover and
stepped back to let the boys look. They crowded round.
"Oh--oh!" said one. "Isn't that bully!"
The Forecaster turned over a second picture.
This was greeted with cries of delight, and one of the lads added:
"I saw a sunset exactly like that only a week ago!"
The Forecaster bent down and looked at a pencilled note underneath the
vivid chalk drawing.
"It is dated just a week ago," he said.
"I didn't know you drew with chalks!" said Ross.
For answer, the Forecaster smiled and turned to another one. The first
few had been a little crude, but it was evident that they improved as
the series went on. All of them, in a curious way, possessed the faculty
of giving a real impression of the sunset.
"So you like them," the Weather Man said, when the whole series had been
examined.
"They're dandies," declared Ross, and Fred added:
"I wish we could use them as colored plates in the _Review_."
"Who do you suppose drew them?" the Weather Man asked.
"Didn't you?" queried several of the boys together.
The Forecaster shook his head.
"One of the boys?" asked Ross.
Again the Forecaster made a negative gesture.
"A boy drew them," he said, "but not a member of the Mississippi League
of the Weather."
"Who was it, Mr. Levin?" pleaded Anton.
"Cæsar," he answered, "down on McDowell's place."
"Cæsar!" exclaimed Fred; "it couldn't be. Why, he's--" he checked
himself just in time, remembering that Dan'l was close by.
"Yes, he's colored," the Forecaster agreed. "But don't you think he can
draw?"
"He surely can."
It was on the point of Anton's tongue to suggest that the colored artist
should be admitted to the membership of the club, but, so far, its
membership had been confined to the white boys, largely in deference to
the feelings of the older people of the neighborhood, many of whom
remembered the difficulties that followed the reconstruction period
after the Civil War.
Anton looked a little troubled.
"Do you think we ought to get mixed up in a thing like this?" he asked.
The Forecaster glanced at him.
"You mean because Cæsar is a negro?"
"Yes, sir," the crippled lad replied.
"I don't want to persuade you one way or the other," the Weather Man
replied, "but I can tell you how I feel about it. I don't see that it
matters very much what point of view a fellow has on the color question,
we're all agreed that the darkies should be given every chance. You
certainly can't harm yourself by helping any one, no matter who it is
that you help."
"Sure," Ross agreed.
"And even if the person you help is never going to be able to do you any
good, why, that's all the more reason for helping, isn't it?"
"Yes," admitted Anton.
"All right, then. Supposing some of the older people here do feel that
it's necessary to draw the color line closely; well, I don't see that it
wouldn't be a good thing for us to strike out a little. The color line
is there, and it's going to stay there. But the most unreconstructed man
in the district--even Colonel Grattan, for example--will do everything
possible to better the condition of the negroes. I think it's the
absolute duty of every American boy to help every other American boy
when he gets the chance, whether his skin is white or black."
"Yes," said the laconic Bob.
Anton brightened up, for he was anxious to help Cæsar.
"What do you suppose we can do?" he asked.
"I'd rather put it up to you boys," said the Forecaster. "This is your
affair, after all."
Anton turned to Ross.
"Haven't you some scheme?" he asked.
Ross shook his head.
"I haven't thought one out. How about it, Bob?"
"Deacon Paul," was the abrupt reply.
"Yes," said Ross, "old Paul will do pretty nearly anything for me,
because Dad was so good to his father when he was a slave. But I don't
quite see what he can do?"
"I do be thinkin'," said the Irishman, "if I might be so bold as to make
a suggestion, that there's no reason why you boys shouldn't use a
colored lad's work. He's only a contributor, annyway. When a paper takes
a story or a picture from a man, it doesn't ask who his parents were.
Why don't ye make some color plates and give them as premiums for
subscriptions?"
The Weather Forecaster laughed aloud.
"That's a good business idea, Pat," he said. "Some of the colored
planters and farmers are fairly progressive here, and a premium of a
colored lad's work might be a good scheme."
"But I can't make colored plates!" protested Fred.
"No," said Pat, "you can't, an' that's a fact. I was forgettin' that
this wasn't a regular shop."
"How could we get them made?" asked Anton. "Do you suppose the Weather
Bureau in Washington would make them for us and let us have a few
copies?"
"No," said the Forecaster decidedly, "I know the Bureau wouldn't.
They've a hard enough job doing their work on their present
appropriations, as it is, and if they were going to spend money on
sunset pictures, Anton, such would be done by some big artist, in
consultation with trained meteorologists."
"I've been wondering," began Anton, and paused.
"Go ahead," urged Ross.
"Couldn't we interest some one else to do them, just to help the thing
along?"
"One of the big negro colleges has a lithographing plant," the
Forecaster said thoughtfully; "they might be interested in it, if the
matter were put before them the right way. I don't suppose they'd give
any money, but they might make plates for you at cost and you could sell
them here at enough to cover the expense. Bob has the right idea.
"Talk it over with Deacon Paul, the colored minister; he's closely in
touch with all the progressive work among the negroes. I think you'll
find it can be arranged, because there's a right fine spirit among the
negroes. They're trying hard to improve themselves.
"I believe you could interest them, too, by showing that the study of
the weather, even in sunsets, is a patriotic duty. The negroes are
mighty loyal."
"Mr. Levin!" exclaimed one of the boys, "what has a sunset got to do
with patriotism?"
"They do look pretty far apart, don't they?" replied the Weather expert,
with a smile. "Yet one of the great tragedies of military history, one
which led to the death of hundreds of thousands of men and changed the
map of the world, was due to a failure to study the colors of a sunset."
"What was that, Mr. Levin? Won't you tell us the story?" pleaded Anton.
"Very well," the Forecaster agreed; "maybe it'll show you how important
to the world everything is that is connected with the weather.
"I was telling you about Krakatoa and its eruption and how the outburst
had caused red sunsets that lasted for three years. Now, if you think
for a moment, you'll see that any one who observed a period of unusually
red sunsets and knew the cause of them would know that there had been a
big volcanic eruption somewhere."
"Of course."
"Now, boys," said the Forecaster, "suppose that the upper air were
unusually full of dust, what effect do you suppose that would have on
the temperature?"
For a moment no one spoke, then Anton piped up:
"I've been wondering," he said, "if the dust wouldn't shut out some of
the sunlight and make the earth colder."
The Weather Forecaster gave the boy a shrewd look.
"We're going to make a real weather man out of you, Anton," he said. "As
a matter of fact, it does, though, of course, not to such a very
noticeable extent. Indeed, it's only quite recently that we've been
working out the relations between volcanic eruptions and weather.
They're striking, though, and while it may be a little too early to say
that the one causes the other, volcanic action has a big influence.
"The Krakatoa eruption, as I said, produced a dust cloud in the upper
parts of the air, which not only created red sunsets, but which kept so
permanent a haze over the sky that the sun was surrounded by a reddish
brown circle, known as 'Bishop's ring,' during most of that time. This
circle showed the existence of a dust cloud, through which the sunlight
had to pass. As a result, the amount of sunlight was diminished. When
the sunlight is less, the crops are poorer, for it needs the entire
force of the sun to ripen them, and the three years following the
eruption of Krakatoa are known to history as 'The Poverty Years.' The
still more famous 'Year without a Summer,' which was the year 1816,
followed the eruption of Tombora, the autumn before."
"That seems to cinch it, Mr. Levin," said Ross.
"It isn't sure," was the reply, "but it seems that way. Famines have a
tremendous effect on the world's history. The great French Revolution,
one of the greatest events in modern history, was brought to a head by a
famine. This was the 'Three Year Freeze' of 1784-1786."
"Did that follow a volcanic eruption, sir?" asked Anton.
"It followed the greatest eruption in the history of the world, that of
Asama, in Japan, in the year 1783. In that eruption, fifty-six thousand
people were killed and the entire atmosphere of the earth was shaken.
Like Krakatoa, you see, boys, it took three years for the dust to settle
down."
"But what has that got to do with the army, sir?" Fred asked.
"I was just coming to that," the Forecaster replied. "If Napoleon had
known as much about the weather as we do now, boys, the world's history
might have been very different. There had been some marvellous sunsets
during the years of 1810 and 1811 and the spring of 1812, but none of
the scientists of that time thought of observing them or finding any
significance in them, nor did any of them imagine that such could have
any effect on the weather. Before Napoleon started on his march for
Russia, which was begun in June, he asked the French meteorologists at
what time the Russian winter usually began. They told him that if he
could begin his return by the middle of November, his army could get
safely out of Russia before the winter set in.
"But, boys, the three years before that campaign had been three years of
eruptions. St. George, in the West Indies, erupted in 1810; Etna, the
great volcano of Sicily, had an eruption in 1811; and La Soufrière,
which broke loose again in your lifetime, boys, erupted in 1812. As a
result, the upper air was full of dust, and the middle air was even more
filled, for while these eruptions were not as powerful as Asama and
Krakatoa, there had been a continual replenishment of the stores of
volcanic dust.
"So Napoleon and his army started off. The great march into Russia began
with an army of four hundred and fifty thousand men, in torrid summer
heat. The crops were still green, for the spring had been late and the
summer most unseasonable. As a result, there was not enough food for the
horses and terrible epidemics of disease broke out among them. Napoleon
was always especially strong in cavalry, over eighty thousand of his
troops being mounted. When, to this, is added the twenty thousand horses
needed for officers and for the artillery, it is easy to see that the
lack of forage seriously handicapped the army. It is by no means easy to
feed a hundred thousand horses. Before the army had advanced more than
ten days' march, one-fourth of the horses had died.
"The Russians, thoroughly realizing that their strongest ally was
Distance, retreated, without giving battle. Napoleon's army marched on.
The Cossacks, with their well fed horses, constantly circled round the
French army and cut to pieces the small detachments in the van and in
the rear-guard. The French cavalry, with their horses dead, dying or out
of condition, could not pursue. Meanwhile the army, under the burning
heat of the short summer which had known no spring, marched on.
"Into that huge wilderness, over the marshes and plains, the army
marched. Always before it lay a land bare and dumb. The vast Russian
army could never be found. In endless succession the French crossed
plains on which the grass grew, thin and bare, splendid for the grazing
of cattle, but utterly insufficient for a hundred thousand horses, now
reduced to seventy thousand. Ahead of the soldiers, every day, the sun
rose red upon an empty land, every night it set, red, behind them, upon
a land equally bare and empty. Day after day they marched through this
land without food, unmolested by the Russians, who knew well that lack
of forage and interminable marching was defeating the great Napoleon
better than they could upon the battlefield, and without the sacrifice
of a single Russian soldier. Weather, boys, always weather, is the
greatest ally or the greatest enemy in the entire history of war.
"At last the army saw in the distance a long black line. Every effort of
Napoleon to persuade the Russians to attack him had failed, the Russian
army steadily withdrew. But when the long black line of Smolensk
appeared, hope was restored to the French army. At last they would meet
the Russians on equal terms and decide the campaign against guns and
bayonets instead of against leagues and starvation! On Napoleon marched
and at last found himself before the town of Smolensk. The French army,
now only four hundred thousand strong, was yet an unwieldy force to
handle. It took two days for the various groups to form into positions
and then they charged the town.
"The soldiers fighting them had fled. Everybody had fled. The city was
utterly deserted, sad and silent as a grave-yard. There was nothing
there to eat. The Russians had destroyed everything. There was not a
handful of oats, not a loaf of bread. The French victory had gained for
them only an empty city and an empty land. It was now the end of August,
and Moscow was a long way away.
"The march continued. Before them, the sun rose red through the volcanic
dust every morning and set red every night. Had there been a
meteorologist present able to warn Napoleon, even then, the army could
have retreated safely. But the army went on and on, into the land that
the Russians themselves had swept bare and left empty. Villages and
towns were passed, each deserted, as Smolensk had been. What the people
could not carry away they had burned. The fields were scorching and
black. Smoke filled the air. For three weeks more, well into September,
the French army toiled forward, steadily growing hungrier and leaner,
losing horses and men all along the line of march.
"At last the Russians made a stand. The desperate conditions of the
march had divided the French army into scattered portions, and when,
quite suddenly, the Russian troops confronted them, only a hundred and
twenty-eight thousand men were available, the others straggling behind.
The Russians had a hundred thousand men, but the French superiority was
not enough for them to secure a final victory. The great battle of
Borodino began before sunrise, and the setting sun, red as always, sank
too early to see its end. When night fell on the scene, thirty-eight
thousand Russians had fallen and only twenty-five thousand French, but
it acted almost as a defeat upon the French, accustomed as they were to
sweeping victories.
"The red sun next morning rose on the French army, eager to continue the
battle. But in the night the Russians had fallen back again, and, before
the French, the road to Moscow lay open. Open, indeed, but burned black
and desolate as before. Seven more days of marching, with hungry
stomachs and famished horses and then, Moscow! The goal of the French!
The army beheld the city it had come so far to conquer. The red sun of
the seventh day found the spires of the Kremlin in sight. Again the
French were sure of victory.
"Moscow was as clean swept as the smallest village on the road.
Everything had been carried off or destroyed. Moscow lies far to the
north and the days began to grow perilously short. Napoleon sought to
make terms with the Russians, but met with nothing but delays. The
Russians were waiting for the approach of their great ally, the winter.
"In all Moscow there was no food and forage. All the people had gone.
Napoleon did not dare to bring his whole army into the city. There was
nothing to eat. They camped at various distances outside, tightening
their belts for hunger. Meantime the Russians, constantly retreating and
moving the provisions back with them, were steadily growing stronger in
position and men.
"The rapidly shortening days meant long cold nights. The soldiers in
Moscow made camp-fires of the costly pieces of furniture that remained
in the palaces, but those who were encamped on the plains outside had no
fire at all in the long hours of darkness. Many of them, too, were from
the south of France, unaccustomed to the cold, and, besides, were
equipped for a summer campaign, not garbed in the heavy clothing of the
Russian troops. In that country which had been abandoned for purposes of
war, there was not even wood enough to light the fires for cooking. Ever
the days grew shorter and the red sunrises and the red sunsets--which
would have meant so much had any one understood--continued.
"Then into the city came Fire! In the middle of the night, at a dozen
different points, Moscow was set aflame by the Russians. A great wave of
fire started from all quarters at the same time, swept over the city,
for the Russians had waited for the moment when the wind was high and
the night was cold. Houses and palaces flared upward in the
conflagration, then sank to smoking ashes, for almost the entire city
was built of wood.
"All in a jumble--infantry, cavalry and artillery--the French got away,
the flames howling so closely after them that the backs of their necks
were singed. Suddenly they found themselves in the midst of a tremendous
rush of water and ice. On one side, to windward, the Russians had
started the fire, on the other, where there was a possible escape from
its fury, they had turned the river into the streets. The French were
caught between the two. Some of the horses, fairly maddened, turned
backward and plunged with their riders into the flames. For an instant,
horse and man would flare up like tow and then there would be a black
twisting thing that dwindled to nothing in the blaze. Out from the
burning city, in wild and utter retreat, flew the French Grand Army, out
to a land without food, without forage, without inhabitants, and the
nearest help a thousand miles away.
"Then came the snow. No longer was the red sunrise before them, but
behind them. The victorious march was a defeat. Black-gray clouds came
over the sky and obscured the sun. At first the snow was to the ankles,
then to the calves, and then to the knees. The wind was bitterly cold
and the men ill-clad. It froze the French to their marrow. Every few
minutes a soldier dropped from starvation, cold and exhaustion. The
Russians did not appear. There was no need. They had a new ally--the
wolves! No one could stop to pick up an exhausted soldier; it was all
that any man could do to keep up himself. Half the officers were on
foot. The cannons were abandoned. When a horse died, the regiment ate
him and staggered on.
"The Cossacks now began to add their terrors to those of the wolves. If
a small detachment straggled out of the blinding snow, unseen until that
time would come a rush of the furious and valiant horsemen of the
steppes, and the detachment, hungry and exhausted, would be cut to
pieces. They fought with heroic courage, but no man can fight the
Weather.
"Smolensk was reached on the return march, with the wreck of the French
army, now only fifty thousand strong. The skeletons of four hundred
thousand men lay on the Russian plains. Near a place called Krasnoi, the
Russian army suddenly appeared and a battle was fought. Napoleon
commanded with his old-time mastery and succeeded in breaking through
the Russian lines, but he had to leave Marshal Ney with six thousand men
behind him. Ney performed wonders, and with his tiny force also broke
through the Russian army, but when the French resumed their flight, Ney
had only eight hundred men. The rear-guard alone lost five thousand at
that place.
"The French Army had now reached the marshes, but the Weather was
fighting for Russia. Just at this time, a sudden and unexpected thaw set
in, making the marsh a morass. The Russians, well-provisioned, circled
around the French army, and again came in front of them at a river
called the Beresina. Waist-deep in that icy current, with masses of
floating ice being carried down by the sudden thaw, with a huge Russian
army on the opposite bank, the French soldiers fought for their homeward
way. Winter was before, winter behind, the Russians on the barrier. Yet
the French fought on and crossed the Beresina with marvellous courage,
the Russian strategy, meanwhile, sacrificing comparatively few men. The
Beresina was crossed, but when the Russians were finally swept aside and
the French passed through, less than nine thousand men answered the roll
call. Forty thousand had been lost between Smolensk and the Beresina.
"The thaw was followed by another terrible period of cold. The retreat
of the army became a fearful rout. Napoleon, himself, fell a victim to
the panic, and deserting his troops to Murat, spurred for France,
reaching Paris after a ride of three hundred and twelve hours. The
routed and disorganized French Army straggled back to Germany, to
Austria and to France. When Christmas Day that year came down over
Europe, less than five thousand men were alive of the four hundred and
fifty thousand who had started six months before to carry the eagles of
Napoleon over Russia. It was the most splendid campaign and the most
spectacular rout in history, and the foe who fought the battles that
defeated the Great Emperor was--The Weather."