position in the neighborhood of Le Cateau, and rearguards were ordered
to be clear of the Maubeuge-Bavai-Eih Road by 5.30 A. M.
"Two cavalry brigades, with the divisional cavalry of the Second Corps,
covered the movement of the Second Corps. The remainder of the cavalry
division, with the Nineteenth Brigade, the whole under the command of
General Allenby, covered the west flank.
"The Fourth Division commenced its detrainment at Le Cateau on Sunday,
the 23d, and by the morning of the 25th eleven battalions and a brigade
of artillery with divisional staff were available for service.
"I ordered General Snow to move out to take up a position with his right
south of Solesmes, his left resting on the Cambrai-LeCateau Road south
of La Chaprie. In this position the division tendered great help to the
effective retirement of the Second and First Corps to the new position.
"Although the troops had been ordered to occupy the Cambrai-Le
Cateau-Landrecies position, and the ground had, during the 25th, been
partially prepared and intrenched, I had grave doubts, owing to the
information I had received as to the accumulating strength of the enemy
against me--as to the wisdom of standing there to fight.
"Having regard to the continued retirement of the French on my right, my
exposed left flank, the tendency of the enemy's western corps (II) to
envelop me, and, more than all, the exhausted condition of the troops, I
determined to make a great effort to continue the retreat until I could
put some substantial obstacle, such as the Somme or the Oise, between my
troops and the enemy, and afford the former some opportunity of rest and
reorganization. Orders were, therefore, sent to the corps commanders to
continue their retreat as soon as they possibly could toward the general
line Vermand-St. Quentin-Ribemont.
"The cavalry under General Allenby, were ordered to cover the
retirement.
"Throughout the 25th and far into the evening, the First Corps continued
its march on Landrecies, following the road along the eastern border of
the Foret de Mormal, and arrived at Landrecies about 10 o'clock. I had
intended that the corps should come further west so as to fill up the
gap between Le Cateau and Landrecies, but the men were exhausted and
could not get further in without rest.
"The enemy, however, would not allow them this rest, and about 9.30 P.
M. a report was received that the Fourth Guards Brigade in Landrecies
was heavily attacked by troops of the Ninth German Army Corps, who were
coming through the forest on the north of the town. This brigade fought
most gallantly, and caused the enemy to suffer tremendous loss in
issuing from the forest into the narrow streets of the town. This loss
has been estimated from reliable sources at from 700 to 1,000. At the
same time information reached me from Sir Douglas Haig that his First
Division was also heavily engaged south and east of Maroilles. I sent
urgent messages to the commander of the two French reserve divisions on
my right to come up to the assistance of the First Corps, which they
eventually did. Partly owing to this assistance, but mainly to the
skilful manner in which Sir Douglas Haig extricated his corps from an
exceptionally difficult position in the darkness of the night, they were
able at dawn to resume their march south toward Wassigny on Guise.
"By about 6 P. M. the Second Corps had got into position with their
right on Le Cateau, their left in the neighborhood of Caudry, and the
line of defense was continued thence by the Fourth Division toward
Seranvillers, the left being thrown back.
"During the fighting on the 24th and 25th the cavalry became a good deal
scattered, but by the early morning of the 26th, General Allenby had
succeeded in concentrating two brigades to the south of Cambrai.
"The Fourth Division was placed under the orders of the general officer
commanding the Second Army Corps.
"On the 24th the French Cavalry Corps, consisting of three divisions
under General Sordet, had been in billets north of Avesnes. On my way
back from Bavai, which was my 'Poste de Commandement' during the
fighting of the 23d and 24th, I visited General Sordet, and earnestly
requested his co-operation and support. He promised to obtain sanction
from his army commander to act on my left flank, but said that his
horses were too tired to move before the next day. Although he rendered
me valuable assistance later on in the course of the retirement, he was
unable, for the reasons given, to afford me any support on the most
critical day of all, viz., the 26th.
"At daybreak it became apparent that the enemy was throwing the bulk of
his strength against the left of the position occupied by the Second
Corps and the Fourth Division.
"At this time the guns of four German army corps were in position
against them, and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien reported to me that he judged
it impossible to continue his retirement at daybreak (as ordered) in
face of such an attack.
"I sent him orders to use his utmost endeavors to break off the action
and retire at the earliest possible moment, as it was impossible for me
to send him any support, the First Corps being at the moment incapable
of movement.
"The French Cavalry Corps, under General Sordet, was coming up on our
left rear early in the morning, and I sent an urgent message to him to
do his utmost to come up and support the retirement of my left flank;
but owing to the fatigue of his horses he found himself unable to
intervene in any way.
"There had been no time to intrench the position properly, but the
troops showed a magnificent front to the terrible fire which confronted
them.
"The artillery, although outmatched by at least four to one, made a
splendid fight, and inflicted heavy losses on their opponents.
"At length it became apparent that, if complete annihilation was to be
avoided, a retirement must be attempted; and the order was given to
commence it about 3.30 P. M. The movement was covered with the most
devoted intrepidity and determination by the artillery, which had itself
suffered heavily, and the fine work done by the cavalry in the further
retreat from the position assisted materially in the final completion of
this most difficult and dangerous operation.
"Fortunately the enemy had himself suffered too heavily to engage in an
energetic pursuit.
"I cannot close the brief account of this glorious stand of the British
troops without putting on record my deep appreciation of the valuable
services rendered by Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien.
"I say without hesitation that the saving of the left wing of the army
under my command on the morning of the 26th of August, could never have
been accomplished unless a commander of rare and unusual coolness,
intrepidity, and determination had been present to personally conduct
the operation.
"The retreat was continued far into the night of the 26th and through
the 27th and 28th, on which date the troops halted on the line
Noyon-Chauny-LaFere, having then thrown off the weight of the enemy's
pursuit.
"On the 27th and 28th I was much indebted to General Sordet and the
French Cavalry Division which he commands for materially assisting my
retirement and successfully driving back some of the enemy on Cambrai.
"This closes the period covering the heavy fighting which commenced at
Mons on Sunday afternoon, 23d August, and which really constituted a
four days' battle.
"It is impossible for me to speak too highly of the skill evinced by the
two general officers commanding army corps; the self-sacrificing and
devoted exertions of their staffs; the direction of the troops by
divisional, brigade, and regimental leaders; the command of the smaller
units by their officers; and the magnificent fighting spirit displayed
by non-commissioned officers and men.
"I wish particularly to bring to your Lordship's notice the admirable
work done by the Royal Flying Corps under Sir David Henderson. Their
skill, energy, and perseverance have been beyond all praise. They have
furnished me with the most complete and accurate information, which has
been of incalculable value in the conduct of the operations. Fired at
constantly both by friend and foe, and not hesitating to fly in every
kind of weather, they have remained undaunted throughout.
"Further, by actually fighting in the air, they have succeeded in
destroying five of the enemy's machines."
The combined French and British armies, including the forces that had
retreated from Alsace and Lorraine, gave way with increasing
stubbornness before von Kluck. That German general disregarding the
fortresses surrounding Paris, swung southward to make a junction with
the Army of the Crown Prince of Germany advancing through the Vosges
Mountains. General Manoury's army opposed the German advance on the
entrenched line of Paris. General Gallieni commanding the garrison of
Paris, was ready with a novel mobile transport consisting of taxicabs
and fast trucks. The total number of soldiers in the French and British
armies now outnumbered those in the German armies opposed to them.
General Joffre, in supreme command of the French, had chosen the
battleground. He had set the trap with consummate skill. The word was
given; the trap was sprung; and the first battle of the Marne came as a
crashing surprise to Germany.
CHAPTER VI
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST IN BELGIUM
Germany's onrush into heroic Belgium speedily resolved itself into a
saturnalia that drenched the land with blood and roused the civilized
world into resentful horror. As the tide of barbarity swept forward into
Northern France, stories of the horrors filtered through the close web
of German censorship. There were denials at first by German
propagandists. In the face of truth furnished by thousands of witnesses,
the denials faded away.
What caused these atrocities? Were they the spontaneous expression of
dormant brutishness in German soldiers? Were they a sudden reversion of
an entire nation to bestiality?
The answer is that the private soldier as an individual was not
responsible. The carnage, the rapine, the wholesale desolation was an
integral part of the German policy of schrecklichkeit or frightfulness.
This policy was laid down by Germany as part of its imperial war code.
In 1902 Germany issued a new war manual entitled "Kriegsbrauch im
Landkriege." In it is written this cold-blooded declaration:
All measures which conduce to the attainment of the object of war are
permissible and these may be summarized in the two ideas of violence and
cunning. What is permissible includes every means of war without which
the object of the war cannot be attained. All means which modern
invention affords, including the fullest, most dangerous, and most
massive means of destruction, may be utilized.
Brand Whitlock, United States Minister to Belgium, in a formal report to
the State Department, made this statement concerning Germany's policy in
permitting these outrages:
"All these deliberate organized massacres of civilians, all these
murders and outrages, the violation of women, the killing of children,
wanton destruction, burning, looting and pillage, and whole towns
destroyed, were acts for which no possible military necessity can be
pleaded. They were wilfully committed as part of a deliberately prepared
and scientifically organized policy of terrorism."
[Illustration: Painting]
From a Painting by F. Gueldry to illustrate an official report.
GERMAN ATROCITIES
At Senlis, Department of Oise, on September 2,1914, French captives
were made to walk in the open so as to be hit by French bullets. Many
were killed and wounded. The townsman on the left was struck in the
knee. A German officer asked to see the wound and shot him through the
shoulder. On the right a German officer is seen torturing a wounded
French soldier by beating him in the face with a stick.
[Illustration: Photographs]
Copyright Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.
THE SUPREME EXPONENTS OF GERMAN FRIGHTFULNESS
On the left, General van Bossing, military commander of Belgium. On
the right, Grand Admiral van Tirpitz, who inspired the German
submarine campaign.
THE TRAIL OF THE BEAST IN BELGIUM 91
And now, having considered these outrages as part of the German policy
of terrorism, let us turn to the facts presented by those who made
investigations at first hand in devastated Belgium and Northern France.
Let us first turn to the tragic story of the destruction of Louvain. The
first document comes in the form of a cable sent from the Belgian
Minister of Foreign Affairs under date of August 8,1914:
"On Tuesday evening a body of German troops who had been driven back
retired in disorder upon the town of Louvain. Germans who were guarding
the town thought that the retiring troops were Belgians and fired upon
them. In order to excuse this mistake the Germans, in spite of the most
energetic denials on the part of the authorities, pretended that
Belgians had fired on the Germans, although all the inhabitants,
including policemen, had been disarmed for more than a week. Without any
examination and without listening to any protest the commanding officer
announced that the town would be immediately destroyed. All inhabitants
had to leave their homes at once; some were made prisoners; women and
children were put into a train of which the destination was unknown;
soldiers with fire bombs set fire to the different quarters of the town;
the splendid Church of St. Pierre, the markets, the university and its
scientific establishments, were given to the flames, and it is probable
that the Hotel de Ville, this celebrated jewel of Gothic art, will also
have disappeared in the disaster. Several notabilities were shot at
sight. Thus a town of 40,000 inhabitants, which, since the fifteenth
century, has been the intellectual and scientific capital of the Low
Countries is a heap of ashes. Americans, many of whom have followed the
course at this illustrious alma mater and have there received such
cordial hospitality, cannot remain insensible to this outrage on the
rights of humanity and civilization which is unprecedented in history."
Minister Whitlock made the following report on the same outrage:
"A violent fusillade broke out simultaneously at various points in the
city (Louvain), notably at the Porte de Bruxelles, Porte de Tirlemont,
Rue Leopold, Rue Marie-Therese, Rue des Joyeuses Entrees. German
soldiers were firing at random in every street and in every direction.
Later fires broke out everywhere, notably in the University building,
the Library, in the old Church of St. Peter, in the Place du Peuple, in
the Rue de la Station, in the Boulevard de Tirlemont, and in the
Chaussee de Tirlemont. On the orders of their chiefs, the German
soldiers would break open the houses and set fire to them, shooting on
the inhabitants who tried to leave their dwellings. Many persons who
took refuge in their cellars were burned to death. The German soldiers
were equipped with apparatus for the purpose of firing dwellings,
incendiary pastils, machines for spraying petroleum, etc. . . .
"Major von Manteuffel (of the German forces) sent for Alderman Schmidt.
Upon the latter's arrival, the major declared that hostages were to be
held, as sedition had just broken out. He asked Father Parijs, Mr.
Schmidt, and Mgr. Coenraedts, First Vice-Rector of the University, who
was being held as a hostage, to make proclamations to the inhabitants
exhorting them to be calm and menacing them with a fine of twenty
million francs, the destruction of the city and the hanging of the
hostages, if they created disturbance. Surrounded by about thirty
soldiers and a few officers, Major Manteuffel, Father Parijs, Mr.
Schmidt and Mgr. Coenraedts left in the direction of the station, and
the alderman, in French, and the priest, in Flemish, made proclamations
at the street corners.. . .
"Near the statue of Juste-Lipse, a Dr. Berghausen, a German surgeon, in
a highly excited condition, ran to meet the delegation. He shouted that
a German soldier had just been killed by a shot fired from the house of
Mr. David Fishbach. Addressing the soldiers, Dr. Berghausen said: 'The
blood of the entire population of Louvain is not worth a drop of the
blood of a German soldier!' Then one of the soldiers threw into the
interior of the house of Mr. Fishbach one of the pastils which the
German soldiers carried and immediately the house flared up. It
contained paintings of a high value. The old coachman, Joseph
Vandermosten, who had re-entered the house to try to save the life of
his master, did not return. His body was found the next day amidst the
ruins. . . .
"The Germans made the usual claim that the civil population had fired
upon them and that it was necessary to take these measures, i. e., burn
the churches, the library and other public monuments, burn and pillage
houses, driving out and murdering the inhabitants, sacking the city in
order to punish and to spread terror among the people, and General von
Luttwitz had told me that it was reported that the son of the
burgomaster had shot one of their generals. But the burgomaster of
Louvain had no son and no officer was shot at Louvain. The story of a
general shot by the son of a burgomaster was a repetition of a tragedy
that had occurred at Aerschot, on the 19th, where the fifteen-year-old
son of the burgomaster had been killed by a firing squad, not because he
had shot a general, but because an officer had been shot, probably by
Belgian soldiers retreating through the town. The story of this tragedy
is told by the boy's mother, under oath, before the Belgian Commission,
and is so simple, so touching, so convincing in its verisimilitude, that
I attach a copy of it in extenso to this report. It seems to afford an
altogether typical example of what went on all over the stricken land
during those days of terror. (In other places it was the daughter of the
burgomaster who was said to have shot a general.)
"The following facts may be noted: From the avowal of Prussian officers
themselves, there was not one single victim, among their men at the
barracks of St. Martin, Louvain, where it was claimed that the first
shot had been fired from a house situated in front of the Caserne. This
would appear to be impossible had the civilians fired upon them point
blank from across the street. It was said that when certain houses near
the barracks were burning, numerous explosions occurred, revealing the
presence of cartridges; but these houses were drinking houses much
frequented by German soldiers. It was said that Spanish students shot
from the schools in the Rue de la Station, but Father Catala, rector of
the school, affirms that the schools were empty. . . .
"If it was necessary, for whatever reason, to do what was done at Vise,
at Dinant, at Aerschot, at Louvain, and in a hundred other towns that
were sacked, pillaged and burned, where masses were shot down because
civilians had fired on German troops, and if it was necessary to do this
on a scale never before witnessed in history, one might not unreasonably
assume that the alleged firing by civilians was done on a scale, if not
so thoroughly organized, at least somewhat in proportion to the rage of
destruction that punished it. And hence it would seem to be a simple
matter to produce at least convincing evidence that civilians had fired
on the soldiers; but there is no testimony to that effect beyond that of
the soldiers who merely assert it: Man hat geschossen. If there were no
more firing on soldiers by civilians in Belgium than is proved by the
German testimony, it was not enough to justify the burning of the
smallest of the towns that was overtaken by that fate. And there is not
a scintilla of evidence of organized bands of francs-tireurs, such as
were found in the war of 1870."
Under date of September 12, 1917, Minister Whitlock, in a report to the
State Department of the United States, made the following summary: "As
one studies the evidence at hand, one is struck at the outset by the
fact so general that it must exclude the hypothesis of coincidence, and
that is that these wholesale massacres followed immediately upon some
check, some reverse, that the German army had sustained. The German army
was checked by the guns of the forts to the east of Liege, and the
horrors of Vise, Verviers, Bligny, Battice, Hervy and twenty villages
follow. When they entered Liege, they burned the houses along two
streets and killed many persons, five or six Spaniards among them.
Checked before Namur they sacked Andenne, Bouvignies, and Champignon,
and when they took Namur they burned one hundred and fifty houses.
Compelled to give battle to the French army in the Belgian Ardennes they
ravaged the beautiful valley of the Semois; the complete destruction of
the village of Rossignlo and the extermination of its entire male
population took place there. Checked again by the French on the Meuse,
the awful carnage of Dinant results. Held on the Sambre by the French,
they burn one hundred houses at Charleroi and enact the appalling
tragedy of Tamines. At Mons, the English hold them, and after that all
over the Borinage there is a systematic destruction, pillage and murder.
The Belgian army drive them back from Malines and Louvain is doomed. The
Belgian army failing back and fighting in retreat took refuge in the
forts of Antwerp, and the burning and sack of Hougaerde, Wavre,
Ottignies, Grimde, Neerlinter, Weert, St. George, Shaffen and Aerschot
follow.
[Illustration: Painting: Three soldiers in a bombed out shack, one on a
telephone.]
AN OBSERVATION POST
Watching the effect of gun fire from a sand-bagged ruin near the
German lines.
[Illustration: Photograph of King and soldiers parading on horses.]
Photo by Trans-Atlantic News Service
KING ALBERT AT THE HEAD OF THE HEROIC SOLDIERS OF BELGIUM
It is universally agreed that the Belgian monarch was no figurehead
general but a real leader of his troops. It was these men, facing
annihilation, who astonished the world by opposing the German military
machine successfully enough to allow France to get her armies into
shape and prevent the immediate taking of Paris that was planned by
Germany.
[Illustration: Painting of soldiers dragging large guns through mud;
shells are exploding in the background; in the foreground a dead
soldier lies face down in the mud.]
THE TERRIBLE FLANDERS MUD
A German battery endeavoring to escape from a British advance sinks in
the mud. The gunners are endeavoring to pull the gun out with ropes.
"The Belgian troops inflicted serious losses on the Germans in the South
of the Province of Limbourg, and the towns of Lummen, Bilsen, and
Lanaeken are partially destroyed. Antwerp held out for two months, and
all about its outer line of fortifications there was blood and fire,
numerous villages were sacked and burned and the whole town of Termonde
was destroyed. During the battles of September the village of
Boortmeerbeek near Malines, occupied by the Germans, was retaken by the
Belgians, and when the Germans entered it again they burned forty
houses. Three times occupied by the Belgians and retaken by the Germans
Boortmeerbeek was three times punished in the same way. That is to say,
everywhere the German army met with a defeat it took it out, as we say
in America, on the civil population. And that is the explanation of the
German atrocities in Belgium."
A committee of the highest honor and responsibility was appointed by the
British Government to investigate the whole subject of atrocities in
Belgium and Northern France. Its chairman was the Rt. Hon. Viscount
James Bryce, formerly British Ambassador to the United States. Its other
members were the Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick Pollock, the Rt. Hon. Sir Edward
Clark, Sir Alfred Hopkinson, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Sheffield, Mr. Harold Cox and Sir Kenelm E. Digby.
The report of the commission bears upon its face the stamp of
painstaking search for truth, substantiates every statement made by
Minister Whitlock and makes known many horrible instances of cruelty and
barbarity. It makes the following deductions as having been proved
beyond question:
1. That there were in many parts of Belgium deliberate and
systematically organized massacres of the civil population, accompanied
by many isolated murders and other outrages.
2. That in the conduct of the war generally innocent civilians, both men
and women, were murdered in large numbers, women violated, and children
murdered.
3. That looting, house burning, and the wanton destruction of property
were ordered and countenanced by the officers of the German army, that
elaborate provision had been made for systematic incendiarism at the
very outbreak of the war, and that the burnings and destruction were
frequent where no military necessity could be alleged, being, indeed,
part of a system of general terrorization.
4. That the rules and usages of war were frequently broken, particularly
by the using of civilians, including women and children, as a shield for
advancing forces exposed to fire, to a less degree by killing the
wounded and prisoners and in the frequent abuse of the Red Cross and the
white flag.
The Bryce Commission's report on the destruction of Dinant is an example of
testimony laid before them. It follows:
"A clear statement of the outrages at Dinant, which many travelers will
recall as a singularly picturesque town on the Meuse, is given by one
witness, who says that the Germans began burning houses in the Rue St.
Jacques on the 21st of August, and that every house in the street was
burned. On the following day an engagement took place between the French
and the Germans, and the witness spent the whole day in the cellar of a
bank with his wife and children. On the morning of the 23d, about 5
o'clock, firing ceased, and almost immediately afterward a party of
Germans came to the house. They rang the bell and began to batter at the
door and windows. The witness' wife went to the door and two or three
Germans came in. The family were ordered out into the street. There they
found another family, and the two families were driven with their hands
above their heads along the Rue Grande. All the houses in the street
were burning.
"The party was eventually put into a forge where there were a number of
other prisoners, about a hundred in all, and were kept there from 11 A.
M. till 2 P. M. They were then taken to the prison. There they were
assembled in a courtyard and searched. No arms were found. They were
then passed through into the prison itself and put into cells. The
witness and his wife were separated from each other. During the next
hour the witness heard rifle shots continually and noticed in the corner
of a courtyard leading off the row of cells the body of a young man with
a mantle thrown over it. He recognized the mantle as having belonged to
his wife. The witness' daughter was allowed to go out to see what had
happened to her mother, and the witness himself was allowed to go across
the courtyard half an hour afterward for the same purpose. He found his
wife lying on the floor in a room. She had bullet wounds in four places
but was alive and told her husband to return to the children and he did
so.
"About 5 o'clock in the evening, he saw the Germans bringing out all the
young and middle-aged men from the cells, and ranging their prisoners,
to the number of forty, in three rows in the middle of the courtyard.
About twenty Germans were drawn up opposite, but before anything was
done there was a tremendous fusillade from some point near the prison
and the civilians were hurried back to their cells. Half an hour later
the same forty men were brought back into the courtyard. Almost
immediately there was a second fusillade and they were driven back to
the cells again.
"About 7 o'clock the witness and other prisoners were brought out of
their cells and marched out of the prison. They went between two lines
of troops to Roche Bayard, about a kilometer away. An hour later the
women and children were separated and the prisoners were brought back to
Dinant passing the prison on their way. Just outside the prison, the
witness saw three lines of bodies which he recognized as being those of
his neighbors. They were nearly all dead, but he noticed movement in
some of them. There were about one hundred and twenty bodies. The
prisoners were then taken up to the top of a hill outside Dinant and
compelled to stay there till 8 o'clock in the morning. On the following
day they were put into cattle trucks and taken thence to Coblenz. For
three months they remained prisoners in Germany.
"Unarmed civilians were killed in masses at other places near the
prison. About ninety bodies were seen lying on the top of one another in
a grass square opposite the convent. A witness asked a German officer
why her husband had been shot, and he told her that it was because two
of her sons had been in the civil guard and had shot at the Germans. As
a matter of fact, one of her sons was at that time in Liege and the
other in Brussels. It is stated that besides the ninety corpses referred
to above, sixty corpses of civilians were recovered from a hole in the
brewery yard and that forty-eight bodies of women and children were
found in a garden. The town was systematically set on fire by hand
grenades. Another witness saw a little girl of seven, one of whose legs
was broken and the other injured by a bayonet. We have no reason to
believe that the civilian population of Dinant gave any provocation, or
that any other defense can be put forward to justify the treatment
inflicted upon its citizens."
The Bryce Commission reports the outrages in a number of Belgian
villages in this terse fashion:
"In Hofstade a number of houses had been set on fire and many corpses
were seen, some in houses, some in back yards, and some in the streets.
Two witnesses speak of having seen the body of a young man pierced by
bayonet thrusts with the wrists cut also. On a side road the corpse of a
civilian was seen on his doorstep with a bayonet wound in his stomach
and by his side the dead body of a boy of five or six with his hands
nearly severed. The corpses of a woman and boy were seen at the
blacksmith's. They had been killed with the bayonet. In a cafe, a young
man, also killed with the bayonet, was holding his hands together as if
in the attitude of supplication.
"In the garden of a house in the main street, bodies of two women were
observed, and in another house, the body of a boy of sixteen with two
bayonet wounds in the chest. In Sempst a similar condition of affairs
existed. Houses were burning and in some of them were the charred
remains of civilians. In a bicycle shop a witness saw the burned corpse
of a man. Other witnesses speak of this incident. Another civilian,
unarmed, was shot as he was running away. As will be remembered, all the
arms had been given up some time before by the order of the burgomaster.
"At Weerde four corpses of civilians were lying in the road. It was said
that these men had fired upon the German soldiers; but this is denied.
The arms had been given up long before. Two children were killed in the
village of Weerde, quite wantonly as they were standing in the road with
their mother. They were three or four years old and were killed with the
bayonet. A small barn burning close by formed a convenient means of
getting rid of bodies. They were thrown into the flames from the
bayonets. It is right to add that no commissioned officer was present at
the time. At Eppeghem, on August 25th, a pregnant woman who had been
wounded with a bayonet was discovered in the convent. She was dying. On
the road six dead bodies of laborers were seen.
"At Boortmeerbeek a German soldier was seen to fire three times at a
little girl five years old. Having failed to hit her, he subsequently
bayoneted her. He was killed with the butt end of a rifle by a Belgian
soldier who had seen him commit this murder from a distance. At Herent
the charred body of a civilian was found in a butcher's shop, and in a
handcart twenty yards away was the dead body of a laborer. Two eye
witnesses relate that a German soldier shot a civilian and stabbed him
with a bayonet as he lay. He then made one of these witnesses, a
civilian prisoner, smell the blood on the bayonet. At Haecht the bodies
of ten civilians were seen lying in a row by a brewery wall. In a
laborer's house, which had been broken up, the mutilated corpse of a
woman of thirty to thirty-five was discovered."
Concerning the treatment of women and children in general, the report
continues: "The evidence shows that the German authorities, when
carrying out a policy of systematic arson and plunder in selected
districts, usually drew some distinction between the adult male
population on the one hand and the women and children on the other. It
was a frequent practice to set apart the adult males of the condemned
district with a view to the execution of a suitable number--preferably
of the younger and more vigorous--and to reserve the women and children
for milder treatment. The depositions, however, present many instances
of calculated cruelty, often going the length of murder, toward the
women and children of the condemned area.
"At Dinant sixty women and children were confined in the cellar of a
convent from Sunday morning till the following Friday, August 28th,
sleeping on the ground, for there were no beds, with nothing to drink
during the whole period, and given no food until Wednesday, when
somebody threw into the cellar two sticks of macaroni and a carrot for
each prisoner. In other cases the women and children were marched for
long distances along roads, as, for instance, the march of the women
from Louvain to Tirlemont, August 28th, the laggards pricked on by the
attendant Uhlans. A lady complains of having been brutally kicked by
privates. Others were struck at with the butt end of rifles. At Louvain,
at Liege, at Aerschot, at Malines, at Montigny, at Andenne, and
elsewhere, there is evidence that the troops were not restrained from
drunkenness, and drunken soldiers cannot be trusted to observe the rules
or decencies of war, least of all when they are called upon to execute a
preordained plan of arson and pillage. From the very first women were
not safe. At Liege women and children were chased about the streets by
soldiers.
"Witnesses recount how a great crowd of men, women and children from
Aerschot were marched to Louvain, and then suddenly exposed to a fire
from a mitrailleuse and rifles. 'We were all placed,' recounts a
sufferer, 'in Station Street, Louvain, and the German soldiers fired on
us. I saw the corpses of some women in the street. I fell down, and a
woman who had been shot fell on top of me.' Women and children suddenly
turned out into the streets, and, compelled to witness the destruction
of their homes by fire, provided a sad spectacle to such as were sober
enough to see.
"A humane German officer, witnessing the ruin of Aerschot, exclaimed in
disgust: 'I am a father myself, and I cannot bear this. It is not war
but butchery.' Officers as well as men succumbed to the temptation of
drink, with results which may be illustrated by an incident which
occurred at Campenhout. In this village there was a certain well-to-do
merchant (name given) who had a cellar of good champagne. On the
afternoon of the 14th or 15th of August three German cavalry officers
entered the house and demanded champagne. Having drunk ten bottles and
invited five or six officers and three or four private soldiers to join
them, they continued their carouse, and then called for the master and
mistress of the house.
"'Immediately my mistress came in,' says the valet de chambre, 'one of
the officers who was sitting on the floor got up, and, putting a
revolver to my mistress' temple, shot her dead. The officer was
obviously drunk. The other officers continued to drink and sing, and
they did not pay any great attention to the killing of my mistress. The
officer who shot my mistress then told my master to dig a grave and bury
my mistress. My master and the officer went into the garden, the officer
threatening my master with a pistol. My master was then forced to dig
the grave and to bury my mistress in it. I cannot say for what reason
they killed my mistress. The officer who did it was singing all the
time.'
"In the evidence before us there are cases tending to show that
aggravated crimes against women were sometimes severely punished. One
witness reports that a young girl who was being pursued by a drunken
soldier at Louvain appealed to a German officer, and that the offender
was then and there shot. Another describes how an officer of the
Thirty-second Regiment of the Line was led out to execution for the
violation of two young girls, but reprieved at the request or with the
consent of the girls' mother. These instances are sufficient to show
that the maltreatment of women was no part of the military scheme of the
invaders, however much it may appear to have been the inevitable result
of the system of terror deliberately adopted in certain regions. Indeed,
so much is avowed. 'I asked the commander why we had been spared,' says
a lady in Louvain, who deposes to having suffered much brutal treatment
during the sack. He said: 'We will not hurt you any more. Stay in
Louvain. All is finished.' It was Saturday, August 29th, and the reign
of terror was over.
"The Germans used men, women and children of Belgium as screens for
advancing infantry, as is shown in the following: Outside Fort Fleron,
near Liege, men and children were marched in front of the Germans to
prevent the Belgian soldiers from firing. The progress of the Germans
through Mons was marked by many incidents of this character. Thus, on
August 22d, half a dozen Belgian colliers returning from work were
marching in front of some German troops who were pursuing the English,
and in the opinion of the witnesses, they must have been placed there
intentionally. An English officer describes how he caused a barricade to
be erected in a main thoroughfare leading out of Mons, when the Germans,
in order to reach a crossroad in the rear, fetched civilians out of the
houses on each side of the main road and compelled them to hold up white
flags and act as cover.
"Another British officer who saw this incident is convinced that the
Germans were acting deliberately for the purpose of protecting
themselves from the fire of the British troops. Apart from this
protection, the Germans could not have advanced, as the street was
straight and commanded by the British rifle fire at a range of 700 or
800 yards. Several British soldiers also speak of this incident, and
their story is confirmed by a Flemish witness in a side street."
The French Government also appointed a commission, headed by M. Georges
Payelle. This body made an investigation of outrages committed by German
officers and soldiers in Northern France. Its report showed conditions
that outstripped in horror the war tactics of savages. It makes the
following accusations:
"In Rebais, two English cavalrymen who were surprised and wounded in
this commune were finished off with gunshots by the Germans when they
were dismounted and when one of them had thrown up his hands, showing
thus that he was unarmed.
"In the department of the Marne, as everywhere else, the German troops
gave themselves up to general pillage, which was carried out always
under similar conditions and with the complicity of their leaders. The
Communes of Heiltz-le-Maurupt, Suippes, Marfaux, Fromentieres and
Esternay suffered especially in this way. Everything which the invader
could carry off from the houses was placed on motor lorries and
vehicles. At Suippes, in particular, they carried off in this way a
quantity of different objects, among these sewing machines and toys. A
great many villages, as well as important country towns, were burned
without any reason whatever. Without doubt, these crimes were committed
by order, as German detachments arrived in the neighborhood with their
torches, their grenades, and their usual outfit for arson.
"At Marfaux nineteen private houses were burned. Of the Commune of
Glannes practically nothing remains. At Somme-Tourbe the entire village
has been destroyed, with the exception of the Mairie, the church and two
private buildings. At Auve nearly the whole town has been destroyed. At
Etrepy sixty-three families out of seventy are homeless. At Huiron all
of the houses, with the exception of five have been burned. At
Sermaize-les-Bains only about forty houses out of 900 remain. At
Bignicourt-sur-Saultz thirty houses out of thirty-three are in ruins.
"At Suippes, the big market town which has been practically burned out,
German soldiers carrying straw and cans of petrol have been seen in the
streets. While the mayor's house was burning, six sentinels with fixed
bayonets were under orders to forbid anyone to approach and to prevent
any help being given.
"All this destruction by arson, which only represents a small proportion
of the acts of the same kind in the Department of Seine-et-Marne, was
accomplished without the least tendency to rebellion or the smallest act
of resistance being recorded against the inhabitants of the localities
which are today more or less completely destroyed. In some villages the
Germans, before setting fire to them made one of their soldiers fire a
shot from his rifle so as to be able to pretend afterward that the
civilian population had attacked them, an allegation which is all the
more absurd since at the time when the enemy arrived, the only
inhabitants left were old men, sick persons, or people absolutely
without any means of aggression.
[Illustration: Painting]
THE HORRORS OF GERMAN RULE IN FRANCE
Forcibly removing French civilians from Lille to German labor
colonies. Families were ruthlessly separated and led away into slavery
often worse than death.
[Illustration: Hand to hand combat with bayonets.]
Copyright Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.
A FIGHT IN A CLOUD OF GAS
The Germans had sent over gas and in this spot it lingered. Then the
infantry advanced and here, amid the British wire entanglements, the
foes meet. Both sides in gas masks, they struggle amid the "poisonous
vapor, and when the bayonet fails they fight, like the pair in the
foreground, to bring death by tearing away their opponent's mask.
"Numerous crimes against the person have also been committed. In the
majority of the communes hostages have been taken away; many of them
have not returned. At Sermaize-les-Bains, the Germans carried off about
one hundred and fifty people, some of whom were decked out with helmets
and coats and compelled, thus equipped, to mount guard over the bridges.
"At Bignicourt-sur-Saultz thirty men and forty-five women and children
were obliged to leave with a detachment. One of the men--a certain Emile
Pierre--has not returned nor sent any news of himself. At Corfelix, M.
Jacqet, who was carried off on the 7th of September with eleven of his
fellow-citizens, was found five hundred meters from the village with a
bullet in his head.
"At Champuis, the cure, his maid-servant, and four other inhabitants who
were taken away on the same day as the hostages of Corfelix had not
returned at the time of our visit to the place.
"At the same place an old man of seventy, named Jacquemin, was tied down
in his bed by an officer and left in this state without food for three
days. He died a little time after. At Vert-la-Gravelle a farm hand was
killed. He was struck on the head with a bottle and his chest was run
through with a lance. The garde champetre Brulefer of le Gault-la-Foret
was murdered at Maclaunay, where he had been taken by the Germans. His
body was found with his head shattered and a wound on his chest.
"At Champguyon, a commune which has been fired, a certain Verdier was
killed in his father-in-law's house. The latter was not present at the
execution, but he heard a shot and next day an officer said to him, 'Son
shot. He is under the ruins.' In spite of the search made the body has
not been found among them. It must have been consumed in the fire.
"At Sermaize, the roadmaker, Brocard, was placed among a number of
hostages. Just at the moment when he was being arrested with his son,
his wife and his daughter-in-law in a state of panic rushed to throw
themselves into the Saulx. The old man was able to free himself for a
moment and ran in all haste after them and made several attempts to save
them, but the Germans dragged him away pitilessly, leaving the two
wretched women struggling in the river. When Brocard and his son were
restored to liberty, four days afterward, and found the bodies, they
discovered that their wives had both received bullet wounds in the head.
"At Triaucourt the Germans gave themselves up to the worst excesses.
Angered doubtless by the remark which an officer had addressed to a
soldier, against whom a young girl of nineteen, Mlle. Helene Proces, had
made complaint of on account of the indecent treatment to which she had
been subjected, they burned the village and made a systematic massacre
of the inhabitants. They began by setting fire to the house of an
inoffensive householder, M. Jules Gand, and by shooting this unfortunate
man as he was leaving his house to escape the flames. Then they
dispersed among the houses in the streets, firing off their rifles on
every side. A young man, seventeen years, Georges Lecourtier, who tried
to escape, was shot. M. Alfred Lallemand suffered the same fate. He was
pursued into the kitchen of his fellow-citizen Tautelier, and murdered
there, while Tautelier received three bullets in his hand.
"Fearing, not without reason, for their lives, Mlle. Proces, her mother
and her grandmother of seventy-one and her old aunt of eighty-one, tried
to cross the trellis which separates their garden from a neighboring
property with the help of a ladder. The young girl alone was able to
reach the other side and to avoid death by hiding in the cabbages. As
for the other women, they were struck down by rifle shots. The village
cure collected the brains of the aunt on the ground on which they were
strewn and had the bodies carried into Proces' house. During the
following night, the Germans played the piano near the bodies.
"While the carnage raged, the fire rapidly spread and devoured
thirty-five houses. An old man of seventy and a child of two months
perished in the flames. M. Igier, who was trying to save his cattle, was
pursued for 300 meters by soldiers, who fired at him ceaselessly. By a
miracle this man had the good fortune not to be wounded, but five
bullets went through his clothing."
This summary merely hints at the atrocities that were perpetrated. And
these are the crimes that France and Belgium will remember after
indemnities have been paid, after borders have been re-established and
after generations shall have past. The horrors of blazing villages, of
violated womanhood, of mutilated childhood, of stark and senseless
butcheries, will flash before the minds of French and Belgian men and
women when Germany's name shall be mentioned long after the declaration
of peace.
Schrecklichkeit had its day. It took its bloody toll of the fairest and
bravest of two gallant nations. It ravaged Poland as well and wreaked
its fiendish will on wounded soldiers on the battle-fields.
But Schrecklichkeit is dead. Belgium and France have shown that murder
and rape and arson can not destroy liberty nor check the indomitable
ambitions of the free peoples of earth.
The lesson to Germany was taught at a terrible cost to humanity, but it
was taught in a fashion that nations hereafter who shall dream of
emulating the Hun will know in advance that frightfulness serves no end
except to feed the lust for destruction that exists only in the most
debased and brutish of men.
CHAPTER VII
THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE MARNE
France and civilization were saved by Joffre and Foch at the first
battle of the Marne, in September, 1914. Autocracy was destroyed by Foch
at the second battle of the Marne, in July, 1918.
This in a nutshell embraces the dramatic opening and closing episodes of
the World War on the soil of France. Bracketed between these two
glorious victories were the agonies of martyred France, the deaths and
life-long cripplings of millions of men, the up-rooting of arrogant
militarism, the liberation of captive nations.
The first battle of the Marne was wholly a French operation. The British
were close at hand, but had no share in the victory. Generals Gallieni
and Manoury, acting under instructions from Marshal Joffre, were driven
by automobile to the headquarters of the British commander, Sir John
French, in the village of Melun. They explained in detail General
Joffre's plan of attack upon the advancing German army. An urgent
request was made that the British army halt its retreat, face about, and
attack the two corps of von Kluck's army then confronting the British.
Simultaneously with this attack General Manoury's forces were to fall
upon the flank and the rear guard of von Kluck along the River Ourcq.
This operation was planned for the next day, September 5th. Sir John
French replied that he could not get his tired army in readiness for
battle within forty-eight hours. This would delay the British attack in
all probability until September 7th.
Joffre's plan of battle, however, would admit of no delay. The case was
urgent; there was grave danger of a union between the great forces
headed by the Crown Prince and those under von Kluck. He resolved to go
ahead without the British, and ordered Manoury to strike as had been
planned.
He fixed as an extreme limit for the movement of retreat, which was
still going on, the line of Bray-sur-Seine, Nogent-sur-Seine,
Arcis-sur-Aube, Vitry-le-Francois, and the region to the north of
Bar-le-Duc. This line might be reached if the troops were compelled to
go back so far. They would attack before reaching it, as soon as there
was a possibility of bringing about an offensive disposition, permitting
the co-operation of the whole of the French forces. On September 5 it
appeared that this desired situation existed.
[Illustration: Photograph]
Copyright Underwood and Underwood, N.Y.
GENERAL PERSHING AND MARSHAL JOFFRE
The Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces chatting
with the veteran Marshal of France, the hero of the first battle of
the Marne.
[Illustration: Photograph]
MARSHAL FERDINAND FOCH, GENERALISSIMO OF THE ALLIED ARMIES
No leader could command greater confidence than the brilliant
strategist to whom was mainly due the great victory of the Marne in
the first autumn of the war. He also directed the French offensive on
the Somme in 1916 and in November, 1917, he was chosen as the French
representative and subsequently chairman of the Central Military
Committee appointed to assist the Supreme Allied War Council. Marshal
Foch was formerly for five years lecturer on strategy and tactics at
the Ecole de Guerre. At the close of the war he said to the Allied
armies: "You have won the greatest battle in history and saved the
most sacred cause--the liberty of the world,"
[Illustration: Map; Paris in the lower left corner, showing various
battle lines Eastward to Luxumburg.]
THE FIRST GERMAN DASH FOR PARIS
The First German army, carrying audacity to temerity, had continued its
endeavor to envelop the French left, had crossed the Grand Morin, and
reached the region of Chauffry, to the south of Rebais and of Esternay.
It aimed then at cutting Joffre off from Paris, in order to begin the
investment of the capital.
The Second army had its head on the line Champaubert, Etoges, Bergeres,
and Vertus.
The Third and Fourth armies reached to Chalons-sur-Marne and
Bussy-le-Repos. The Fifth army was advancing on one side and the other
from the Argonne as far as Triacourt-les-Islettes and Juivecourt. The
Sixth and Seventh armies were attacking more to the east.
The French left army had been able to occupy the line Sezanne,
Villers-St. Georges and Courchamps. This was precisely the disposition
which the General-in-Chief had wished to see achieved. On the 4th he
decided to take advantage of it, and ordered all the armies to hold
themselves ready. He had taken from his right two new army corps, two
divisions of infantry, and two divisions of cavalry, which were
distributed between his left and his center.
On the evening of the 5th he addressed to all the commanders of armies a
message ordering them to attack.
"The hour has come," he wrote, "to advance at all costs, and to die
where you stand rather than give way."
If one examines the map, it will be seen that by his inflection toward
Meaux and Coulommiers General von Kluck was exposing his right to the
offensive action of the French left. This is the starting point of the
victory of the Marne.
On the evening of September 5th the French left army had reached the
front Penchard-Saint-Souflet-Ver. On the 6th and 7th it continued its
attacks vigorously with the Ourcq as objective. On the evening of the
7th it was some kilometers from the Ourcq, on the front
Chambry-Marcilly-Lisieux-Acy-en-Multien. On the 8th, the Germans, who
had in great haste reinforced their right by bringing their Second and
Fourth army corps back to the north, obtained some successes by attacks
of extreme violence. But in spite of this pressure the French held their
ground. In a brilliant action they took three standards, and being
reinforced prepared a new attack for the 10th. At the moment that this
attack was about to begin the enemy was already in retreat toward the
north. The attack became a pursuit, and on the 12th the French
established themselves on the Aisne.
Why did the German forces which were confronting the French, and on the
evening before attacking so furiously, retreat on the morning of the
10th? Because in bringing back on the 6th several army corps from the
south to the north to face the French left, the enemy had exposed his
left to the attacks of the now rested British, who had immediately faced
around toward the north, and to those of the French armies which were
prolonging the English lines to the right. This is what the French
command had sought to bring about. This is what happened on September
8th and allowed the development and rehabilitation which it was to
effect.
On the 6th the British army set out from the line Rozcy-Lagny and that
evening reached the southward bank of the Grand Morin. On the 7th and
8th it continued its march, and on the 9th had debouched to the north of
the Marne below Chauteau-Thierry--the town that was to become famous
for the American stand in 1918--taking in flank the German forces which
on that day were opposing, on the Ourcq, the French left army. Then it
was that these forces began to retreat, while the British army, going in
pursuit and capturing seven guns and many prisoners, reached the Aisne
between Soissons and Longueval.
The role of the French army, which was operating to the right of the
British army, was threefold. It had to support the British attacking on
its left. It had on its right to support the center, which, from
September 7th, had been subjected to a German attack of great violence.
Finally, its mission was to throw back the three active army corps and
the reserve corps which faced it.
On the 7th, it made a leap forward, and on the following days reached
and crossed the Marne, seizing, after desperate fighting, guns,
howitzers, mitrailleuses, and a million cartridges. On the 12th it
established itself on the north edge of the Montagne-de-Reime in contact
with the French center, which for its part had just forced the enemy to
retreat in haste.
The French center consisted of a new army created on August 29th and of
one of those which at the beginning of the campaign had been engaged in
Belgian Luxemburg. The first had retreated, on August 29th to September
5th, from the Aisne to the north of the Marne and occupied the general
front Sezanne-Mailly.
The second, more to the east, had drawn back to the south of the line
Humbauville-Chateau-Beauchamp-Bignicourt-Blesmes-Maurupt-le-Montoy.
The enemy, in view of his right being arrested and the defeat of his
enveloping movement, made a desperate effort from the 7th to the 19th to
pierce the French center to the west and to the east of
Fere-Champenoise. On the 8th he succeeded in forcing back the right of
the new French army, which retired as far as Gouragancon. On the 9th, at
6 o'clock in the morning, there was a further retreat to the south of
that village, while on the left the other army corps also had to go back
to the line Allemant-Connantre.
Despite this retreat General Foch, commanding the army of the center,
ordered a general offensive for the same day. With the Morocco division,
whose behavior was heroic, he met a furious assault of the Germans on
his left toward the marshes of Saint Gond. Then, with the divisions
which had just victoriously overcome the attacks of the enemy to the
north of Sezanne, and with the whole of his left army corps, he made a
flanking attack in the evening of the 9th upon the German forces, and
notably the guard, which had thrown back his right army corps. The
enemy, taken by surprise by this bold maneuver, did not resist, and beat
a hasty retreat. This marked Foch as the most daring and brilliant
strategist of the war.
On the 11th the French crossed the Marne between Tours-sur-Marne and
Sarry, driving the Germans in front of them in disorder. On the 12th
they were in contact with the enemy to the north of the Camp de Chalons.
The reserve army of the center, acting on the right of the one just
referred to, had been intrusted with the mission during the 7th, 8th,
and 9th of disengaging its neighbor, and it was only on the 10th that
being reinforced by an army corps from the east, it was able to make its
action effectively felt. On the 11th the Germans retired. But,
perceiving their danger, they fought desperately, with enormous
expenditure of projectiles, behind strong intrenchments. On the 12th the
result had none the less been attained, and the two French center armies
were solidly established on the ground gained.
To the right of these two armies were three others. They had orders to
cover themselves to the north and to debouch toward the west on the
flank of the enemy, which was operating to the west of the Argonne. But
a wide interval in which the Germans were in force separated them from
the French center. The attack took place, nevertheless, with very
brilliant success for the French artillery, which destroyed eleven
batteries of the Sixteenth German army corps.
On the 10th inst., the Eighth and Fifteenth German army corps
counter-attacked, but were repulsed. On the 11th French progress
continued with new successes, and on the 12th the French were able to
face round toward the north in expectation of the near and inevitable
retreat of the enemy, which, in fact, took place from the 13th.
The withdrawal of the mass of the German force involved also that of the
left. From the 12th onward the forces of the enemy operating between
Nancy and the Vosges retreated in a hurry before the two French armies
of the East, which immediately occupied the positions that the enemy had
evacuated. The offensive of the French right had thus prepared and
consolidated in the most useful way the result secured by the left and
center.
Such was this seven days' battle, in which more than two millions of men
were engaged. Each army gained ground step by step, opening the road to
its neighbor, supported at once by it, taking in flank the adversary
which the day before it had attacked in front, the efforts of one
articulating closely with those of the other, a perfect unity of
intention and method animating the supreme command.
To give this victory all its meaning it is necessary to add that it was
gained by troops which for two weeks had been retreating, and which,
when the order for the offensive was given, were found to be as ardent
as on the first day. It has also to be said that these troops had to
meet the whole Germany army. Under their pressure the German retreat at
certain times had the appearance of a rout.
In spite of the fatigue of the poilus, in spite of the power of the
German heavy artillery, the French took colors, guns, mitrailleuses,
shells, and thousands of prisoners. One German corps lost almost the
whole of its artillery.
In that great battle the spectacular rush of General Gallieni's army
defending Paris, was one of the dramatic surprises that decided the
issue. In that stroke Gallieni sent his entire force forty miles to
attack the right wing of the German army. In this gigantic maneuver
every motor car in Paris was utilized, and the flying force of Gallieni
became the "Army in Taxicabs," a name that will live as long as France
exists.
General Clergerie, Chief of Staff to Gallieni told the story for
posterity. He said:
"From August 26, 1914, the German armies had been descending upon Paris
by forced marches. On September 1st they were only three days' march
from the advanced line of the intrenched camp, which the garrison were
laboring desperately to put into condition for defense. It was necessary
to cover with trenches a circuit of 110 miles, install siege guns,
assure the coming of supplies for them over narrow-gauge railways,
assemble the food and provisions of all kinds necessary for a city of
4,000,000 inhabitants.
"But on September 3d, the intelligence service, which was working
perfectly, stated, about the middle of the day, that the German columns,
after heading straight for Paris, were swerving toward the southeast and
seemed to wish to avoid the fortified camp.
"General Gallieni and I then had one of those long conferences which
denoted grave events; they usually lasted from two to five minutes at
most. The fact is that the military government of Paris did little
talking--it acted. The conference reached this conclusion: 'If they do
not come to us, we will go to them with all the force we can muster.'
Nothing remained but to make the necessary preparations. The first thing
to do was not to give the alarm to the enemy. General Manoury's army
immediately received orders to lie low and avoid any engagement that was
not absolutely necessary." Then care was taken to reinforce it by every
means. All was ready at the designated time.
In the night of September 3d, knowing that the enemy would have to leave
only a rear guard on one bank of the Ourcq, General Gallieni and General
Clergerie decided to march against that rear guard, to drive it back
with all the weight of the Manoury army, to cut the enemy's
communications, and take full advantage of his hazardous situation.
Immediately the following order was addressed to General Manoury:
Because of the movement of the German armies, which seem to be slipping
in before our front to the southeast, I intend to send your army to
attack them in the flank, that is to say, in an easterly direction. I
will indicate your line of march as soon as I learn that of the British
army. But make your arrangements now so that your troops shall be ready
to march this afternoon and to begin a general movement east of the
intrenched camp tomorrow.
At ten in the morning a consultation was held by Generals Gallieni,
Clergerie, and Manoury, and the details of the plan of operations were
immediately decided. General Joffre gave permission to attack and
announced that he would himself take the offensive on the 6th. On the
5th, at noon, the army from Paris fired the first shot; the battle of
the Ourcq, a preface to the Marne, had begun.
General Clergerie then told what a precious purveyor of information he
had found in General von der Marwitz, cavalry commander of the German
first army, who made intemperate use of the wireless telegraph and did
not even take the trouble to put into cipher his dispatches, of which
the Eiffel Tower made a careful collection. "In the evening of September
9th," he said, "an officer of the intelligence corps brought me a
dispatch from this same Marwitz couched in something like these terms:
'Tell me exactly where you are and what you are doing. Hurry up, because
XXX.' The officer was greatly embarrassed to interpret those three X's.
Adopting the language of the poilu, I said to him, 'Translate it, "I am
going to bolt."' True enough, next day we found on the site of the
German batteries, which had been precipitately evacuated, stacks of
munitions; while by the roadside we came upon motors abandoned for the
slightest breakdown, and near Betz almost the entire outfit of a field
bakery, with a great store of flour and dough half-kneaded. Paris and
France were saved.
"Von Kluck could not get over his astonishment. He has tried to explain
it by saying he was unlucky, for out of a hundred governors not one
would have acted as Gallieni did, throwing his whole available force
nearly forty miles from his stronghold. It was downright imprudence."
CHAPTER VIII
JAPAN IN THE WAR
On August 15, 1914, the Empire of Japan issued an ultimatum to Germany.
She demanded the evacuation of Tsing-tau, the disarming of the warships
there and the handing over of the territory to Japan for ultimate
reversion to China. The time limit for her reply was set at 12 o'clock,
August 24th. To this ultimatum Germany made no reply, and at 2.30 P. M.,
August 23d, the German Ambassador was handed his passports and war was
declared.
The reason for the action of Japan was simple. She was bound by treaty
to Great Britain to come to her aid in any war in which Great Britain
might be involved. On August 4th a note was received from Great Britain
requesting Japan to safeguard British shipping in the Far East. Japan
replied that she could not guarantee the safety of British shipping so
long as Germany was in occupation of the Chinese province of Tsing-tau.
She suggested in turn that England agree to allow her to remove this
German menace. The British Government agreed, on the condition that
Tsing-tau be subsequently returned to China.
The Japanese Government in taking this stand was acting with courage and
with loyalty. Toward individual Germans she entertained no animosity.
She had the highest respect for German scholarship and German military
science. She had been sending her young men to German seats of learning,
and had based the reorganization of her army upon the German military
system. But she did not believe that a treaty was a mere "scrap of
paper," and was determined to fulfill her obligations in the treaty with
England.
It seems to have been the opinion of the highest Japanese military
authorities that Germany would win the war. Japan's statesmen, however,
believed that Germany was a menace to both China and Japan and had
lively recollections of her unfriendly attitude in connection with the
Chino-Japanese war and in the period that followed. Germany had been
playing the same game in China that she had played in the Mediterranean
and which had ultimately brought about the war.
The Chino-Japanese war had been a great Japanese triumph. One of Japan's
greatest victories had been the capture of Port Arthur, but the joy
caused in Japan had not ended before it was turned into mourning because
of German interference. Germany had then compelled Japan to quit Port
Arthur, and to hand over that great fort to Russia so that she herself
might take Kiao-chau without Russia's objection.
Japan had never forgotten or forgiven. The German seizure of Kiao-chau
had led to the Russian occupation of Port Arthur, the British occupation
of Wei-hai-wei and French occupation of Kwan-chow Bay. The vultures were
swooping down on defenseless China. This had led to the Boxer
disturbance of 1910, where again the Kaiser had interfered.
Japan, who recognized that her interests and safety were closely allied
with the preservation of the territorial integrity of China, had
proposed to the powers that she be permitted to send her troops to the
rescue of the beleaguered foreigners, but this proposition was refused
on account of German suspicion of Japan's motives. Later on, during the
Russo-Japanese war, Russia was assisted in many ways by the German
Government.
Furthermore, the popular sympathy with the Japanese was strongly with
the Allies. It was the Kaiser who started the cry of the "yellow peril,"
which had deeply hurt Japanese pride. Yet, even with this strong
feeling, it was remarkable that Japan was willing to ally herself with
Russia. She knew very well that after all the greatest danger to her
liberties lay across the Japan Sea. Russian autocracy, with its
militarism, its religious intolerance, its discriminating policy against
foreign interests in commerce and trade, was the natural opponent of
liberal Japan.
The immediate object of Japan in joining hands with England was to
destroy the German menace in the Pacific. Before she delivered her
ultimatum the Germans had been active; ignoring the rights of Japan
while she was still neutral they had captured a Russian steamer within
Japanese jurisdiction, as well as a number of British merchant vessels,
and even a few Japanese ships had been intercepted by German cruisers.
This was the disturbance to general peace in the Far East, which had
prompted England to request Japan's assistance.
Japan, when she entered the war, was at least twice as strong as when
she began the war with Russia. She had an army of one million men, and a
navy double the size of that which she had possessed when the Treaty of
Portsmouth was signed. As soon as war was declared she proceeded to act.
A portion of her fleet was directed against the German forces in the
Pacific, one squadron occupying Jaluit, the seat of government of the
Marshall Islands, on October 3d, but her main forces were directed
against the fortress of Tsing-tau.
The Germans had taken great pride in Tsing-tau, and had made every
effort to make it a model colony as well as an impregnable fortress.
They had built costly water works, fine streets and fine public
buildings. They had been making great preparations for a state of siege,
although it was not expected that they would be able to hold out for a
long time. There were hardly more than five thousand soldiers in the
fortress, and in the harbor but four small gunboats and an Austrian
cruiser, the Kaiserin Elizabeth. As Austria was not at war with Japan
the authorization of Japan was asked for the removal of the Kaiserin
Elizabeth to Shanghai, where she could be interned. The Japanese were
favorable to this proposition, but at the last moment instructions
arrived from Vienna directing the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to ask for
his passports at Tokio and the commander of the Kaiserin Elizabeth to
assist the Germans in the defense of Tsing-tau. The Germans also
received orders to defend their fortress to the very last. A portion of
the German squadron, under Admiral von Spee, had sailed away before the
Japanese attack, one of these being the famous commerce raider, the
Emden.
On the 27th of August the Japanese made their first move by taking
possession of some of the small islands at the mouth of the harbor of
Kiao-chau. From these points as bases they swept the surrounding waters
for mines, with such success that during the whole siege but one vessel
of their fleet was injured by a mine. On the 2d of September they landed
troops at the northern base of the peninsula upon which Tsing-tau was
situated, with the object of cutting off the fortress from the mainland.
The heavy rains which were customary at that season prevented much
action, but airplanes were sent which dropped bombs upon the wireless
station, electric power station and railway station of Kiao-chau, and
upon the ships in the harbor. On September 13th General Kamio captured
the railway station of Kiao-chau which stands at the head of the bay.
This placed him twenty-two miles from Tsing-tau itself. On September
27th he captured Prince Heinrich Hill giving him a gun position from
which he could attack the inner forts. On the 23d a small British force
arrived from Wei-hai-wei to co-operate with the Japanese.
[Illustration: Map of the city Tsing-Tau and Kiao-Chau Bay.]
THE GERMAN GIBRALTAR IN THE FAR EAST WHICH FELL TO THE JAPANESE
The combined forces then advanced until they were only five miles from
Tsing-tau. The German warships were bombarding the Japanese troops
fiercely, and were being replied to by the Japanese squadron in the
mouth of the harbor. The great waste of German ammunition led General
Kamio to the opinion that the Germans did not contemplate a long siege.
He then determined on a vigorous assault.
Before the attack was made he gave the non-combatants an opportunity of
leaving, and on the 15th of October a number of women and children and
Chinese were allowed to pass through the Japanese lines. On October 31st
the bombardment began, and the German forts were gradually silenced. On
November 2d the Kaiserin Elizabeth was sunk in the harbor.
The Allied armies were pushing their way steadily down, until, on
November 6th, their trenches were along the edge of the last German
redoubts. At 6 o'clock on that day white flags were floating over the
central forts and by 7.30 Admiral Waldeck, the German Governor, had
signed the terms of capitulation.
Germany's prize colony on the continent of Asia had disappeared. The
survivors, numbering about three thousand, were sent to Japan as
prisoners of war. Japanese losses were but two hundred and thirty-six
men killed. They had, however, lost one third-class cruiser, the
Takachiho, and several smaller crafts. The whole expedition was a
notable success. It had occupied much less time than either Japan or
Germany had expected, and the news was received in Germany with a
universal feeling of bitterness and chagrin.
After the Japanese capture of Kiao-chau Japan's assistance to the
Allies, while not spectacular, was extremely important, and its
importance increased during the last two years of the war. Her cruiser
squadrons did continuous patrol duty in the Pacific and in the China Sea
and even in the Indian Ocean. She occupied three groups of German
Islands in the South Sea, assisted in driving German raiders from the
Pacific, and by her efficiency permitted a withdrawal of British
warships to points where they could be useful nearer home. She patrolled
the Pacific coast of North and South America, landed marines to quell
riots at Singapore, and finally entered into active service in European
waters by sending a destroyer squadron to the assistance of the Allies
in the Mediterranean.
But while the aid of Japan's navy was important to the Allies, her
greatest assistance to the Allied cause was what she did in supplying
Russia with military supplies. The tremendous struggle carried on by
Russia's forces during the first years prevented an easy German victory,
and was only made possible through the assistance of Japan. Enormous
quantities of guns, ammunition, military stores, hospital and Red Cross
supplies, were sent into Russia, with skilled officers and experts to
accompany them.
In the last year of the war Japan once more came prominently in the
public eye in connection with the effort made by the Allies to protect
from the Russian Bolsheviki vast stores of ammunition which had been
landed in ports of Eastern Siberia. She was compelled to land troops to
do this and to preserve order in localities where her citizens were in
danger. Upon the development of the Czecho-Slovak movement in Eastern
Siberia a Japanese force, in association with troops from the United
States and Great Britain, was landed to protect the Czecho-Slovaks from
Bolsheviki treachery. These troops succeeded in their object, and
throughout the latter period of the war kept Eastern Siberia friendly to
the Allied cause. In this campaign there was but little blood shed. The
expedition was followed by the strong sympathy of the allied world which
was full of admiration for the loyalty and courage of the Czecho-Slovaks
and their heroic leaders.
CHAPTER IX
CAMPAIGN IN THE EAST
Long before the declaration of war the German military experts had made
their plans. They recognized that in case of war with Russia, France
would come to the rescue of its ally. They hoped that Italy, and felt
sure that England, would remain neutral, but, no doubt, had provided for
the possibility that these two nations would join the ranks of their
foes. They recognized that they would be compelled to fight against
greatly superior numbers, but they had this advantage, that they were
prepared to move at once, while England was unprepared, and Russia, with
enormous numbers, was so unprovided with railroad facilities that it
would take weeks before her armies would be dangerous.
Their plan of campaign, then, was obvious. Leaving in the east only such
forces as were necessary for a strong defense, they would throw the bulk
of their strength against the French. They anticipated an easy march to
Paris, and then with France at their mercy they would gather together
all their powers and deal with Russia. But they had underestimated both
the French power of resistance, and the Russian weakness, and in
particular they had not counted upon the check that they were to meet
with in gallant Belgium.
The Russian mobilization was quicker by far than had been anticipated.
Her armies were soon engaged with the comparatively small German forces,
and met with great success.
To understand the Russian campaign one must have some knowledge of the
geography of western Russia. Russian Poland projects as a great
quadrilateral into eastern Germany. It is bounded on the north by East
Prussia, on the south by Galicia, and the western part reaches deep into
Germany itself. The land is a broad, level plain, through which from
south to north runs the River Vistula. In the center lies the capital,
Warsaw, protected by a group of fortresses. The Russian army, therefore,
could not make a direct western advance until it had protected its
flanks by the conquest of East Prussia on the north, and Galicia on the
south.
By the beginning of the third week in August the first Russian armies
were ready. Her forces were arranged as follows: Facing East Prussia was
the Army of the Niemen, four corps strong; the Army of Poland,
consisting of fifteen army corps, occupied a wide front from Narev on
the north to the Bug Valley; a third army, the Army of Galicia, directed
its line of advance southward into the country between Lemberg and the
River Sareth. The fortresses protecting Warsaw, still further to the
east, were well garrisoned, and in front of them to the west were troops
intended to delay any German advance from Posen. The Russian
commander-in-chief was the Grand Duke Nicholas, uncle of the late Czar,
and one of the most admirable representatives of the Russian at his
best; a splendid soldier, honest, straightforward, and patriotic, he was
the idol of his men. He had with him a brilliant staff, but the strength
of his army lay in its experience. They had learned war in the bitter
school of the Manchurian campaign.
The German force on the frontier was not less than five hundred thousand
men, and they were arranged for defense. Austria, in Galicia, had
gathered nearly one million men under the auspices of Frederick. The
first movement of these armies took place in East Prussia. The Army of
the Niemen had completed its mobilization early in August, and was under
the command of General Rennenkampf, one of the Russian leaders in
Manchuria. In command of the German forces was General von Francois, an
officer of Huguenot descent.
The first clash of these armies took place on the German frontier near
Libau, on August 3d. Two days later, the Russians crossed the frontier,
drove in the German advance posts, and seized the railway which runs
south and east of the Masurian Lakes. The German force fell back,
burning villages and destroying roads, according to their usual plan. On
the 7th of August the main army of Rennenkampf crossed the border at
Suwalki, advancing in two main bodies: the Army of the Niemen moving
north from Suwalki, the Army of the Narev marching through the region of
the Masurian Lakes. In the lake district they advanced toward Boyen, and
then directed their march toward Insterburg.
To protect Insterburg, General van Francois made his first stand at
Gumbinnen, where, on the 16th of August, the first important battle of
this campaign took place. The result was the defeat and retirement of
the Germans, and von Francois was forced to fall back on Koenigsberg.
Meantime, the Army of the Narev, under General Samsonov, was advancing
through the country west of the Masurian Lakes. On the 20th his vanguard
came upon a German army corps, strongly entrenched at the northwest end
of the lakes. The Germans were defeated, and fled in great disorder
toward Koenigsberg, abandoning their guns and wagons. Many prisoners
were taken, and the Russians found themselves masters of all of East
Prussia except that inside the Koenigsberg line. They then marched on
Koenigsberg, and East Prussia was for a moment at the mercy of the
conqueror.
Troops were left to invest Koenigsberg, and East Prussia was overrun
with the enemy. The report as to the behavior of these troops met with
great indignation in Germany; but better information insists that they
behaved with decorum and discretion. The peasantry of East Prussia,
remembering wild tales of the Cossacks of a hundred years before, fled
in confusion with stories of burning and slaughter and outrage.
Germany became aroused. To thoroughly understand the effect of the
Russian invasion of East Prussia, one must know something of the
relations of that district with the German Empire. Historically, this
was the cradle of the Prussian aristocracy, whose dangerous policies had
alarmed Europe for so many decades. The Prussian aristocracy originated
in a mixture of certain west German and Christian knights, with a pagan
population of the eastern Baltic plain. The district was separate from
Poland and never fell under the Polish influence. It was held by the
Teutonic knights who conquered it in a sort of savage independence. The
Christian faith, which the Teutonic knights professed to inculcate, took
little root, but such civilization as Germany itself had absorbed did
filter in. The chief noble of Borussia, the governing Duke, acquired in
time the title of King, and it was here, not in Berlin, nor in
Brandenburg, that the Hohenzollern power originated.
[Illustration: Painting]
THE FURY OF A COSSACK CHARGE
Some of the most bitter fighting of the war took place on the
snow-covered heights of the Carpathians when Russia's armies struggled
with the foe. Here is illustrated a charge by Cossacks on an Austrian
battery. There is nothing in warfare quite like the furious onslaught
of the little men of the steppes on their wiry ponies.
[Illustration: Painting]
HIDE AND SEEK IN THE BALTIC
A Zeppelin flying over a British submarine in the stormy sea.
[Illustration: Map bounded by Koenigsberg on the North, Warsaw on the East,
Cracow on the South and Posen on the West.]
THE EASTERN FIGHTING ZONE
East Prussia, therefore, had a sentimental importance in the eyes of the
Prussian nobility. The Prussian Royal House, in particular, had toward
this country an especial regard. Moreover, it was regarded by the
Germans as a whole as their rampart against the Slav, a proof of the
German power to withstand the dreaded Russian. That this sacred soil
should now be in the hands of a Cossack army was not to be borne. The
Kaiser acted at once.
Large forces were detached from the west and sent to the aid of the
eastern army. A new commander was appointed. He was General von
Hindenburg, a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War who had been for some
years retired. After his retirement he devoted his time to the study of
East Prussia, especially the ground around the Masurian Lakes. He became
more familiar with its roads, its fields, its marshes, its bogs than any
of the peasants who spent their lives in the neighborhood of the lakes.
Before his retirement, in the annual maneuvers, he had often rehearsed
his defense against Russian invaders. Indeed report, perhaps unfounded,
described his retirement to the displeasure of the Emperor William at
being badly worsted in one of these mimic combats. He had prevented the
country from being cleared and the swamps from being drained, arguing
that they were worth more to Germany than a dozen fortresses. A man of
rugged strength, his face suggesting power and tenacity, he was to
become the idol of the German people.
His chance had come. His army consisted of remnants of the forces of von
Francois and large reinforcements sent him from the west. In all,
perhaps, he had with him 150,000 men, and he had behind him an admirable
system of strategic railways.
The Russian High Command was full of confidence. Rennenkampf had
advanced with the Army of the Niemen toward Koenigsberg, whose fall was
reported from time to time, without foundation. Koenigsberg was in fact
impregnable to armies no stronger than those under Rennenkampf's
command. Samsonov with the Army of the Narev, had pushed on to the
northeastern point of the lakes, and defeated the German army corps at
Frankenau. Misled by his success, he decided to continue his advance
through the lake region toward Allenstein. He marched first toward
Osterode, in the wilderness of forest, lake and marsh, between
Allenstein and the Lower Vistula. His force numbered 200,000 men, but
the swamps made it impossible to proceed in mass. His column had to be
temporarily divided, nor was he well informed as to the strength of his
enemy. On Wednesday, the 26th of August, his advance guards were
everywhere driven in. As he pushed on he discovered the enemy in great
numbers, and late in the day realized that he was facing a great army.
Von Hindenburg had taken a position astride the railway from Allenstein
to Soldau, and all access to his front was barred by lakes and swamps.
He was safe from frontal attack, and could reinforce each wing at
pleasure. From his right ran the only two good roads in the region, and
at his left was the Osterode railway. On the first day he stood on the
defensive, while the Russians, confident of victory, attacked again and
again. Some ground was won and prisoners captured, and the news of a
second victory was sent to western Europe.
The battle continued, however, until the last day of August and is known
as the battle of Tannenberg, from a village of that name near the
marshes. Having worn down his enemy, von Hindenburg counter-attacked.
His first movement was on his right. This not only deceived Samsonov and
led him to reinforce his left, but also enabled von Hindenburg to seize
the only good road that would give the Russian army a chance of retreat.
Meanwhile the German general was hurrying masses of troops northeastward
to outflank the Russian right. While the Russians were reinforcing one
flank, he was concentrating every man he could upon the other. Then his
left swept southward, driving in and enveloping the Russian right, and
Samsonov was driven into a country full of swamps and almost without
roads.
To thoroughly understand the plight of the Russian army one must have
some idea of the character of the Masurian Lake district. It was
probably molded by the work of ice in the past. Great glaciers, in their
progress toward the sea, have ground out hundreds of hollows, where are
found small pools and considerable lakes. From these glaciers have been
dropped patches of clay which hold the waters in wide extents of marsh
and bog. The country presents a monotonous picture of low, rounded
swells and flats, interspersed with stunted pine and birch woods. The
marshes and the lakes form a labyrinth, difficult to pass even to those
familiar with the country. The Masurian region is a great trap for any
commander who has not had unlimited acquaintance with the place.
Causeways, filled with great care, and railroads permit an orderly
advance, but in a confused retreat disaster at once threatens.
This was the ground that von Hindenburg knew so well. The Russians
resisted desperately, but their position could not be held. Disaster
awaited them. They found their guns sinking to the axle-trees in mire.
Whole regiments were driven into the lakes and drowned. On the last day
of battle, August 31st, Samsonov himself was killed, and his army
completely destroyed. Fifty thousand prisoners were taken with hundreds
of guns and quantities of supplies. Von Hindenburg had attained the
triumph of which he had so long dreamed.
It was an immensely successful example of that enveloping movement
characteristic of German warfare, a victory recalling the battle of
Sedan, and it was upon a scale not inferior to that battle.
The news of this great triumph reached Berlin upon the anniversary of
the battle of Sedan, and on the same day that the news came from the
west that von Kluck had reached the gates of Paris and it had a profound
effect upon the German mind. They had grown to believe that the Germans
were a sort of superman; these wonderful successes confirmed them in
this belief.
No longer did they talk of a mere defense in the east; an advance on
Warsaw was demanded and von Hindenburg was acclaimed the greatest
soldier of his day. The Emperor made him Field Marshal, and placed him
in command of the Teutonic armies in the east.
But von Hindenburg was not satisfied. The remnant of the defeated army
had fled toward Narev, and without losing a moment von Hindenburg set
off in pursuit. Rennenkampf, all this time, strange to say, had made no
move, and at the news of Samsonov's disaster he abandoned the siege of
Koenigsberg and retreated toward the Niemen. At Gumbinnen he fought a
rear-guard action with the German left, but had made up his mind that
the Niemen must be the Russian line of defense. Von Hindenburg,
following, crossed the Russian frontier and in the wide forests near
Augustovo there was much fighting.
[Illustration: Photographs]
LEADING GERMAN GENERALS
Von Hindenburg, Chief of the German General Staff; von Ludendorff,
Strategist of the General Staff; von Moltke, dismissed by the Kaiser
for incompetency; von Mackensen, Commander in the East; Crown Prince
Rupprecht of Bavaria, Army Commander in the West.
[Illustration: Photograph]
Photo by Press Illustrated Service.
THE GERMAN GENERAL STAFF
von Mackensen, von Moltke, Crown Prince Wilhelm, von Francois,
von Falkenhayn, von Beseler, von Bethmann-Hollweg, von Bulow,
Duke Albrecht, Ludendorf, von Einem, von Hindenburg, von Heeringen,
Crown Prince Rupprecht, von Kluck, von Haeseler, von Tirpitz,
Kaiser Wilhelm II, von Emmich
This action, described as the first battle of Augustovo, was only a
rear-guard action, the Russians desiring merely to delay the enemy for a
day or two. German reports, however, described it as a victory only
second in importance to Tannenberg. Von Hindenburg then occupied
Suwalki. He apparently had become over confident, and hardly realized
that Rennenkampf was continually being reinforced by the Russian
mobilization.
The Russian High Command understood the situation very well. Their aim
was to keep von Hindenburg busy on the Niemen, while their armies in the
south were overwhelming the fleeing Austrians. Von Hindenburg was
deceived, and continued his advance until he got into serious trouble.
His movement had begun on September 7th; his army consisted of the four
corps with which he had won Tannenberg, and large reinforcements from
Germany, including at least one guards battalion, and a number of Saxons
and Bavarians. The country is one vast mixture of marsh and lake and
bog. The roads are few, and advance must therefore be slow and
difficult. Rennenkampf made no attempt to delay him beyond a little
rear-guard fighting. The German army reached the Niemen on September
21st, and found behind it the Russian army in prepared positions, with
large reinforcements from Vilna.
The river at this point was wide and deep, and hard to cross. The battle
of the Niemen Crossings was an artillery duel. The Russians quietly
waited in their trenches to watch the Germans build their pontoon
bridges. Then their guns blew the bridges to pieces. Thereupon von
Hindenburg bombarded the Russian lines hoping to destroy the Russian
guns. On Friday, the 26th, his guns boomed all day; the Russians made no
reply. So on the morning of the 27th he built bridges again, and again
the Russians blew them to pieces. On the 28th he gave the order for
retreat.
He realized that the game wasn't worth the candle; he might easily be
kept fighting on the Niemen for months, while the main armies of the
Russians were crossing Austria. Von Hindenburg conducted the retreat
with a skill which came to him naturally from his knowledge of the
marshes.
Rennenkampf followed him closely, keeping up persistent attacks through
the woods and marshes. The path of the retreating army lay through the
forest of Augustovo, a country much like that around the Masurian Lakes,
and there the Germans suffered heavy losses. Von Hindenburg managed,
however, to get the bulk of his forces back across the frontier and
continued his retreat to the intrenchments on the Masurian Lakes.
The Germans lost 60,000 men in killed, wounded and prisoners, and von
Hindenburg handed over the command of the German armies in East Prussia
to General von Schubert, and hastened south to direct the movement to
relieve the Austrians at Cracow.
But quite as important as the campaign in East Prussia was the struggle
in Galicia. When the war began the Germans contemplated merely defense
in their own domain; such offense as was planned was left to the
Austrians farther south.
Galicia is a long, level country lying north of the Carpathian
Mountains, and in this country Austria-Hungary had gathered together a
force of hardly less than one million men. A quarter of these lay in
reserve near the mountains; the remaining three-quarters was divided
into two armies; the first, the northern army, being under the command
of General Dankl, the second was that of von Offenberg. The base of the
first army was Przemysl; that of the second was Lemberg.
The first army, it was planned, was to advance into Russian territory in
the direction of Lublin. The second army, stationed southeast of the
first army, was to protect it from any Russians who might strike in upon
the south. The first army, therefore, contained more picked material
than the second, which included many troops from the southern parts of
the empire, including certain disaffected contingents. The first army
made its advance as soon as possible, and entered Russian territory on
the 11th of August. It went forward with very little loss and against
very little resistance. The Russian forces which were against it were
inferior in number, and fell back towards the Bug. The Austrians
followed, turning somewhat toward the east, when their advance was
checked by news of catastrophe in their rear. On the 14th of August the
Russian army under General Ruzsky crossed the frontier, and advanced
toward the Austrian second army.
The Russian army was in far greater strength than had been expected, and
when its advance was followed by the appearance upon the right flank of
von Offenberg's command, of yet another Russian army, under Brussilov,
the Austrian second army found itself in great danger. Ruzsky advanced
steadily from August 14th until, on the 21st, it was not more than one
day's advance from the outer works of Lemberg, and the third Russian
army under Brussilov was threatening von Offenberg's right flank.
Von Offenberg, underestimating the strength of the enemy, undertook to
give battle. The first outpost actions were successful for the
Austrians, and helped them in their blunder. On the 24th of August the
two Russian armies effected a junction, and their Austrian opponents
found themselves threatened with disaster. An endeavor was made to
retreat, but the retreat turned into a rout. On the 28th Tarnopol was
captured by the Russians, and the Austrian army found itself compelled
to fall back upon defense positions to the south and east of Lemberg
itself.
The attack of the Russian armies was completely successful. The Austrian
army was driven from its positions, and on September 4th the Austrians
evacuated Lemberg and the Russian forces took possession of the town.
The Austrians fled. The population welcomed the conquerors with the
greatest enthusiasm. An immense quantity of stores of every kind were
captured by the Russians together with at least 100,000 prisoners. There
was no looting, nor any kind of outrage. The Russian policy was to make
friends of the inhabitants of Galicia.
But there was no halt after Lemberg. Brussilov divided his army, and
sent his left wing into the Carpathian passes; his center and right
moved west toward Przemysl; while Ruzsky moved northwest to reinforce
the Russian army on the Bug. Meanwhile the position of Dankl's army was
perilous in the extreme. There were two possible courses, one to fall
back and join the remnants of von Offenberg's army, the other to attack
at once, before the first Russian army could be reinforced, and if
victorious to turn on Ruzsky.
Dankl's army was now very strong. He had received reinforcements, not
only from Austria but from Germany. On the 4th of September he attacked
the Russian center; his attack was a failure, although he outnumbered
the Russians. The battle continued until the tenth.
Everywhere the Austrians were beaten, and driven off in ignominious
retreat. The whole Austrian force fled southward in great disorder; a
part directed its flight toward Przemysl, others still farther west
toward Cracow. Austria had been completely defeated. Poland was clear of
the enemy. The Russian flag flew over Lemberg, while the Russian army
was marching toward Cracow. The Russian star was in the ascendant.
But the Austrian armies had not been annihilated. An army of nearly a
million men cannot be destroyed in so short a time. The Austrian failure
was due in part to the disaffection of some of the elements of the army,
and in part to the poor Austrian generalship. They had underestimated
their foe, and ventured on a most perilous plan of campaign.
Russian generalship had been most admirable, and the Russian generals
were men of ability and experience. Brussilov had seen service in the
Turkish War of 1877. Ruzsky was a professor in the Russian War Academy.
In the Japanese war he had been chief of staff to General Kaulbars, the
commander of the Second Manchurian army. Associated with him was General
Radko Dmitrieff, an able officer with a most interesting career. General
Dmitrieff was born in Bulgaria, when it was a Turkish province. He
graduated at the Military School at Sofia, and afterwards at the War
Academy at Petrograd. On his return to Bulgaria he commanded a regiment
in the Serbian-Bulgarian war. Later he became mixed up in the conspiracy
against Prince Alexander, and was forced to leave Bulgaria. For ten
years he served in the Russian army, returning to Bulgaria on the
accession of Prince Ferdinand. Later on he became Chief of the General
Staff, and when the Balkan war broke out he commanded one of the
Bulgarian armies, won several important victories, and became a popular
hero of the war. Disgusted with the political squabbles which followed
the war, he returned to Russia as a general in the Russian army. With
men like these in command, the Russian Empire was well served.
After the decisive defeat of the Austrian army under General Dankl,
certain changes were made in the Russian High Command. General Ruzsky
was made commander of the center, which was largely reinforced. General
Ivanov was put in command of the armies operating in Galicia with
Dmitrieff and Brussilov as his chief lieutenants. Brussilov's business
was to seize the deep passes in the Carpathians and to threaten Hungary.
Dmitrieff's duty was to press the Austrian retreat, and capture the main
fortresses of central Galicia.
There are two great fortresses on the River San, Jaroslav and Przemysl,
both of them controlling important railroad routes. Jaroslav on the main
line from Lemberg to Cracow, Przemysl with a line which skirts the
Carpathians, and connects with lines going south to Hungary. Jaroslav
was fortified by a strong circle of intrenchments and was looked to by
Austria for stout resistance. The Austrians were disappointed, for
Ivanov captured it in three days, on the 23d of September. Dmitrieff
found Przemysl a harder nut to crack. It held out for many months, while
operations of greater importance were being carried on by the Russian
armies. The plans of the Russian generals in some respects were not
unlike the plan previously suggested as that of the German High Command.
At the beginning of the war they had no desire to carry on a powerful
offensive against Germany. The expedition into East Prussia was
conducted more for political than for military purposes. The real
offensive at the start was to be against Austria. The Russian movements
were cautious at first, but the easy capture of Lemberg, the fall of
Jaroslav, and the demoralization of the Austrian armies, encouraged more
daring strategy. With the Germans stopped on the north, little aid to
the Austrians could come from that source. The Grand Duke Nicholas was
eager to strike a great blow before the winter struck in, so his armies
swept to the great Polish city of Cracow. The campaign against Austria
also had a political side.
Russia had determined upon a new attitude toward Poland. On August 15th
the Grand Duke Nicholas, on behalf of the Czar, had issued a
proclamation offering self-government to Russian Poland. Home rule for
Poland had long been a favorite plan with the Czar. Now he promised, not
only to give Russian Poland home rule, but to add to it the Polish
peoples in Austria and Germany. This meant that Austria and Germany
would have to give up Galicia on the one hand, and Prussian Poland on
the other, if they should lose the war. In the old days Poland had been
one of the greatest kingdoms in Europe, with a proud nobility and high
civilization. She was one of the first of the great Slav peoples to
penetrate the west. Later she had protected Europe against Tartar
invasion, but internal differences had weakened her, and, surrounded by
enemies, she had first been plundered, and later on divided between
Austria, Russia and Prussia. Never had the Poles consented to this
destruction of their independence. Galicia had constantly struggled
against Austria; Prussian Poland was equally disturbing to the Prussian
peace, and Russia was only able to maintain the control of her Polish
province by the sword.
Of the three the Pole was probably more inclined to keep on friendly
terms with Russia, also a Slav people. The policy of the Czar encouraged
this inclination and produced disaffection among the Poles in Galicia
and in Posen. Moreover, it gave Russia the sympathy of the world which
had long regarded the partition of Poland as a political crime. It
encouraged the Czecho-Slavs and other dissatisfied portions of the
Austrian Empire.
The results were seen immediately in the demoralization of the Austrian
armies where considerable numbers of Czecho-Slovak troops deserted to
the Russian army, and later in the loyalty to Russia of the Poles, and
their refusal, even under the greatest German pressure, to give the
German Empire aid.
CHAPTER X
THE STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY ON THE SEA
Captain Mahan's thesis that in any great war the nation possessing the
greater sea power is likely to win, was splendidly illustrated during
the World War.
The great English fleets proved the insuperable obstacle to the
ambitious German plans of world dominion. The millions of soldiers
landed in France from Great Britain, and its provinces, the millions of
Americans transported in safety across the water, and the enormous
quantities of supplies put at the disposal of the Allies depended,
absolutely, upon the Allied control of the sea routes of the world. With
a superior navy a German blockade of England would have brought her to
terms in a short period, and France, left to fight alone, would have
been an easy victim. The British navy saved the world.
Germany had for many years well understood the necessity of power upon
the sea. When the war broke out it was the second greatest of the sea
powers. Its ships were mostly modern, for its navy was a creation of the
past fifteen years, and its development was obviously for the purpose of
attacking the British supremacy. The father of this new navy was a naval
officer by the name of von Tirpitz, who, in 1897, had become the German
Naval Minister. With the aid of the Emperor he had aroused among the
Germans a great enthusiasm for maritime power, and had built up a navy
in fifteen years, which was second only to the English navy.
Von Tirpitz was an interesting character. In appearance he looked like
an old sea-wolf who had passed his life on the wave, but such a thought
would be a mistake. The great admiral's work was done on land; he was an
organizer, a diplomatist, and a politician. He created nothing new; in
all its details he merely copied the English fleet. He is tall, heavily
built, with a great white beard, forked in the middle. He is a man of
much dignity, with a smile which has won him renown. He might have been
Chancellor of the Empire but he preferred to devote himself to the navy,
to prove that the future of Germany is on the seas. His glories are the
Lusitania, the fleet safely anchored at Kiel, and the long rows of
innocent victims of the submarine.
He was born in 1850 at Kustrion on the Ildor, when the German navy was
only a little group of worthless boats. In 1865 he entered the School of
Cadets, in 1869 he was gazetted lieutenant, in 1875 he was
lieutenant-commander with a reputation as an able organizer. In 1891 he
was appointed Chief of Staff at Kiel. This was his opportunity, and he
set himself at the task of creating and protecting the submarine
division of the navy. As time went on he grew in importance. In 1898 he
became Assistant Secretary of State at the Admiralty in Berlin. Two
years later he became vice-admiral. His admirers recognized his powers,
and he was called the master. In 1899 a patent of nobility was conferred
upon him. In 1902 he gained permission to build 13,000-ton war ships,
and the following year he was made admiral. In 1907 enormous
appropriations were made at his desire for the enlargement of the fleet.
In 1908 Emperor William conferred on him the Order of the Black Eagle.
In 1914 the Kiel Canal was completed under his direction, and he
informed the Emperor that the fleet was ready. It is only fair to add
that in all his plans he had the active support of his Imperial Master.
The Kaiser, too, had dreamed a dream. Von Tirpitz admired the English.
His children had been brought up in England, as was also his wife. He
imitated the English, but on the day of the declaration of war he
absolutely forbade his family to talk English, and he made a bonfire of
his fine scientific library of English books. The Kaiser treated Von
Tirpitz as his friend, asked his advice, and followed his counsel. His
son, Sub-Lieutenant Wolf Von Tirpitz, studied at Oxford, and is on the
most friendly terms with many English gentlemen of importance. He was on
board the Mainz, which was sunk off Helgoland in August, 1916. In full
uniform he swam for twenty minutes, before being picked up by one of the
boats of the cruiser Liverpool. He was a lucky prisoner of war. The
German battleships and cruisers which represent the toil of von Tirpitz
for more than half a century, lay hidden away in the shelter of the Kiel
Canal during the war to be ingloriously surrendered at its end. His name
will remain linked with that of the Lusitania.
[Illustration: Painting: Seven sailors firing a large deck gun against
a sinking ship in the background.]
DRIVING THE GERMAN COMMERCE RAIDERS OFF THE SEAS
The British light cruiser, "Highflyer," sinking the "Kaiser Wilhelm
der Grosse" off the West Coast of Africa early in the war. The
commerce-destroyer was attacking a British steamer when the cruiser
came up and sent her to the bottom. Inserts show both ships.
[Illustration: Painting: Torpedo crossing behind the path of a small ship.]
Copyright International Film Service.
ESCAPING A TORPEDO BY RAPID MANEUVERING
This destroyer escaped a torpedo from a hunted submarine by quickly
turning. Generally the torpedo travels at about fifteen feet under
water.
The German High Sea Fleet, at the beginning of the war, consisted of
forty-one battleships, seven battle cruisers, nine armored cruisers,
forty-nine light cruisers, one hundred and forty-five destroyers, eighty
torpedo boats, and thirty-eight submarines. Under the direction of Von
Tirpitz the navy had become democratic and had drawn to it many able men
of the middle class. Its training was highly specialized and the
officers were enthusiasts in their profession. The navy of
Austria-Hungary had also expanded in recent years under the inspiration
of Admiral Montecuculi. At the outbreak of the war the fleet comprised
sixteen battleships, two armored and twelve light cruisers, eighteen
destroyers, eighty-five torpedo boats and eleven submarines. The Allies
were much more powerful. The French navy had in the matter of invention
given the lead to the world, but its size had not kept pace with its
quality. At the beginning of the war France had thirty-one battleships,
twenty-four armored cruisers, eight light cruisers, eighty-seven
destroyers, one hundred and fifty-three torpedo boats and seventy-six
submarines. Russia, after the war with Japan, had begun the creation of
a powerful battle fleet, which had not been completed when war was
declared. At that time she had on the Baltic four dreadnaughts, ten
armored cruisers, two light cruisers, eighty destroyers and twenty-four
submarines, and a fleet of about half the strength in the Black Sea.
The English fleet had reached a point of efficiency which was
unprecedented in its history. The progress of the German sea power had
stimulated the spirit of the fleet, and led to a steady advance in
training and equipment. The development of armament, and of battleship
designing, the improvement in gunnery practice, the revision of the rate
of pay, the opening up of careers from the lower deck, and the provision
of a naval air service are landmarks in the advance. In the navy
estimates of March, 1914, Parliament sanctioned over 51,000,000 Pounds
for a naval defense, the largest appropriation for the purpose ever
made. The home fleet was arranged in three units, the first fleet was
divided into four battle squadrons, together with the flagship of the
commander-in-chief. The first squadron was made up of eight battleships,
the second squadron contained eight, the third eight and the fourth
four. Attached to each fleet was a battle cruiser squadron, consisting
of four ships in the first fleet, four in the second, four in the third
and five in the fourth.
The fourth also contained a light cruiser squadron, a squadron of six
gunboats for mine sweeping, and four flotillas of destroyers, each with
a flotilla cruiser attached. The second fleet was composed of two battle
squadrons, the first containing eight pre-dreadnaughts, and the second
six. Attached to this fleet were also two cruiser squadrons, a mine
layer squadron of seven vessels, four patrol flotillas, consisting of
destroyers and torpedo boats, and seven flotillas of submarines. A third
fleet contained two battle squadrons, mainly composed of old ships, with
six cruiser squadrons. The English strength, outside home waters,
consisted of the Mediterranean fleet, containing three battle cruisers,
four armored cruisers, four ordinary cruisers and a flotilla of
seventeen destroyers, together with submarines and torpedo boats. In
eastern waters there were a battleship, two cruisers, and four sloops.
In the China squadron there were one battleship, two armored cruisers,
two ordinary cruisers, and a number of gunboats, destroyers, submarines,
and torpedo boats. In New Zealand there were four cruisers. The
Australian fleet contained a battle cruiser, three ordinary cruisers,
three destroyers and two submarines. Other cruisers and gunboats were
stationed at the Cape, the west coast of Africa, and along the western
Atlantic. At the outbreak of the war two destroyers were purchased from
Chile, and two Turkish battleships, building in England, were
commandeered by the government.
It is evident that the union of France and Britain made the Allies
easily superior in the Mediterranean Sea, so that France was able to
transport her African troops in safety, and the British commerce with
India and the East could safely continue. The main field of the naval
war, therefore, was the North Sea and the Baltic, where Germany had all
her fleet, except a few naval raiders. The entrance to the Baltic was
closed to the enemy by Denmark, which, as a neutral, was bound to
prevent an enemy fleet from passing. Germany, however, by means of the
Kiel Canal, could permit the largest battle fleet to pass from the
Baltic to the North Sea. The German High Sea Fleet was weaker than the
British home fleet by more than forty per cent, and the German policy,
therefore, was to avoid a battle, until, through mine layers and
submarines, the British power should have been sufficiently weakened.
The form of the German coast made this plan easily possible. The various
bays and river mouths provided safe retreat for the German ships, and
the German fleet were made secure by the fortifications along the coast.
On July the 29th, 1914, at the conclusion of the annual maneuvers,
instead of being demobilized as would have been usual, the Grand Fleet
of Great Britain sailed from Portland along the coast into the mists,
and from that moment dominated the whole course of the war.
From the 4th of August, the date of the declaration of war, the oceans
of the world were practically rid of enemy war ships, and were closed to
enemy mercantile marine. Although diplomacy had not yet failed, the
masters of the English navy were not caught napping. The credit for this
readiness has been given to Mr. Winston Churchill, one of the first
Lords of the Admiralty, who had divined the coming danger. When the
grand fleet sailed it seemed to disappear from English view.
Occasionally some dweller along the coast might see an occasional
cruiser or destroyer sweeping by in the distance, but the great
battleships had gone. Somewhere, in some hidden harbor, lay the vigilant
fleets of England.
Sea fighting had changed since the days of Admiral Nelson. The old
wooden ship belonged to a past generation. The guns of a battleship
would have sunk the Spanish Armada with one broadside. In this modern
day the battleship was protected by aircraft, which dropped bombs from
the clouds. Unseen submarines circled about her. Beneath her might be
mines, which could destroy her at the slightest touch. Everything had
changed but the daring of the English sailor.
In command of the Home fleet was Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. He had had a
distinguished career. Beginning as a lieutenant in the Egyptian War of
1882, he had become a commander in 1891. In 1897 he became a captain,
and served in China, commanding the Naval Brigade in the Pekin
Expedition of 1900, where he was severely wounded. Later he became naval
assistant to the Controller of the Navy, Director of Naval Ordnance and
Torpedoes, Rear-Admiral in the United Fleet, Lord Commissioner of the
Admiralty and Controller of the Navy, Vice-Admiral commanding the
Atlantic fleet, Vice-Admiral commanding the second division of the Home
fleet, and second Sea Lord of the Admiralty. He had distinguished
himself in the naval maneuvers of 1913, and was one of the officers
mainly responsible for the development of the modern English navy. He
had the confidence of his colleagues, and a peculiar popularity among
the British seamen.
On the day after the declaration of war, the first shots were fired.
German mine layers, it is now believed, in disguise, had been dropping
mines during the preceding week over a wide area of the North Sea. On
the 5th of August the mine layer, Koenigen Luise, was sunk by the
destroyer Lance, and on August 6th the British light cruiser Amphion
struck one of the mines laid by the Koenigen Luise and was sunk with
great loss of life. On August 9th, German submarines attacked a cruiser
squadron without causing any damage, and one submarine was sunk.
It was in the Mediterranean, however, that the greatest interest was
felt during the first week of the war. Two German war ships, the Goeben
and the Breslau, were off the Algerian coast when war broke out. It is
probable that when these ships received their sailing orders, Germany
depended on the assistance of Italy, and had sent these ships to its
assistance. They were admirably suited for commerce destroyers. They
began by bombarding the Algerian coast towns of Bona and Phillipe, doing
little damage. They then turned toward the coast of Gibraltar, but found
before them the British fleet. Eluding the British they next appeared at
Messina. There the captains and officers made their wills and deposited
their valuables, including signed portraits of the Kaiser, with the
German consul. The decks were cleared for action, and with the bands
playing they sailed out under a blood-red sunset.
However, they seem to have been intent only on escape, and they went at
full speed eastward toward the Dardanelles, meeting in their way only
with the British cruiser Gloucester, which, though much inferior in
size, attacked them boldly but was unable to prevent their escape. On
entering Constantinople they were reported as being sold to the Turkish
Government, the Turks thus beginning the line of conduct which was
ultimately to bring them into the war.
Picturesque as this incident was it was of no importance as compared
with the great British blockade of Germany which began on the 4th of
August. German merchantmen in every country of the empire were seized,
and hundreds of ships were captured on the high seas. Those who escaped
to neutral ports were at once interned. In a week German commerce had
ceased to exist. A few German cruisers were still at large but it was
not long before they had been captured, or driven into neutral ports.
Among the most picturesque of these raiders were the Emden and the
Koenigsberg. The Emden, in particular, interested the world with her
romantic adventures. Her story is best told in the words of
Lieutenant-Captain von Mucke, and Lieutenant Gyssing, whose return to
Germany with forty-four men, four officers and one surgeon, after the
destruction of the ship, was a veritable Odyssey.
[Illustration: Painting]
A BATTLE OF FOUR ELEMENTS
British monitors shelling the German land batteries near Nieuport.
German submarines were actively engaged in trying to torpedo these
monitors and the British monoplane was useful for giving the range to
the ship and reporting the accuracy of the shots.
[Illustration: Painting]
TORPEDOING OF THE BRITISH BATTLESHIP, "ABOUKIR"
In the first few weeks of the war, when the navies of the world were
still at open warfare, during a sharp engagement off the Hook of
Holland in the North Sea the British warships "Aboukir", "Cressy" and
"Hogue" fell victims to the enemy. This sketch shows the "Aboukir"
after a German torpedo had found its mark in her hull.
"We on the Emden had no idea where we were going, as, on August 11,
1914, we separated from the cruiser squadron, escorted only by the
coaler Markomannia. Under way the Emden picked up three officers from
German steamers. That was a piece of luck, for afterward we needed many
officers for the capturing and sinking of steamers, or manning them when
we took them with us. On September 10th, the first boat came in sight.
We stopped her; she proved to be a Greek tramp returning from England.
On the next day we met the Indus, bound for Bombay, all fitted up as a
troop transport, but still without troops. That was the first one we
sunk. The crew we took aboard the Markomannia. Then we sank the Lovat,
a troop transport ship, and took the Kambinga along with us. One gets
used quickly to new forms of activity. After a few days, capturing ships
became a habit. Of the twenty-three which we captured most of them
stopped after our first signal; when they didn't, we fired a blank shot.
Then they all stopped. Only one, the Clan Matteson, waited for a real
shot across the bow before giving up its many automobiles and
locomotives to the seas.
"The officers were mostly very polite, and let down rope ladders for us.
After a few hours they would be on board with us. We ourselves never set
foot in their cabins, nor took charge of them. The officers often acted
on their own initiative, and signaled to us the nature of their cargo.
Then the commandant decided as to whether to sink the ship or take it
with us. Of the cargo we always took every thing we could use,
particularly provisions. Many of the English officers and sailors made
good use of the hours of transfer to drink up the supply of whisky
instead of sacrificing it to the waves. I heard that one captain was
lying in tears at the enforced separation from his beloved ship, but on
investigation found that he was merely dead drunk, The captain on one
ship once called out cheerily 'Thank God, I've been captured.' He had
received expense money for the trip to Australia, and was now saved half
the journey."
Parenthetically it may be remarked, that the Emden's captain, Karl von
Mueller, conducted himself at all times with chivalrous bravery,
according to the accounts of the English themselves, who in their
reports say of him, admiringly, "He played the game." Captain von
Mucke's account continues:
"We had mostly quiet weather, so that communication with captured ships
was easy. They were mostly dynamited, or else shot close to the water
line. At Calcutta we made one of our richest hauls, the Diplomat, chock
full of tea, we sunk $2,500,000 worth. On the same day the Trabbotch,
too, which steered right straight towards us, was captured. By now we
wanted to beat it out of the Bay of Bengal, because we had learned from
the papers that the Emden was being keenly searched for. By Rangoon we
encountered a Norwegian tramp, which, for a cash consideration, took
over all the rest of our prisoners of war.