America's War for Humanity Part 46

OBJECT OF GERMAN ATTACKS

"The object of the great proportion of artillery the Germans employ is to beat down the resistance of their enemy by concentrated and prolonged fire--to shatter their nerve with high explosives before the infantry attack is launched. They seem to have relied on doing this with us, but they have not done so, though it has taken them several costly experiments to discover this fact.

"From statements of prisoners, it appears that they have been greatly disappointed by the moral effect produced by their heavy guns, which, despite the actual losses inflicted, has not been at all commensurate with the colossal expenditure of ammunition which has really been wasted.

"By this it is not implied that their artillery fire is not good. It is more than good--it is excellent. But the British soldier is a difficult person to impress or depress, even by immense sh.e.l.ls filled with a high explosive, which detonate with terrific violence and form craters large enough to act as graves for five horses.

"The German howitzer sh.e.l.ls are from eight to nine inches in calibre, and on impact they send up columns of greasy black smoke. On account of this they are irreverently dubbed 'coal boxes,' 'Black Marias,' or 'Jack Johnsons' by the soldiers.

"Men who take things in this spirit are, it seems, likely to throw out the calculations based on loss of morale so carefully framed by the German military philosophers.

"The German losses in officers are stated by our prisoners to have been especially severe. A brigade is stated to be commanded by a major; some companies of foot guards by one-year volunteers; while after the battle of Montmirail one regiment lost fifty-five out of sixty officers.

LETTER FOUND ON GERMAN OFFICER

"The following letter, which refers to the fighting on the Aisne and was found on a German officer of the Seventh Reserve Corps, has been printed and circulated to the troops:

"'Cerny, South of Paris, Sept 17.--My Dear Parents:--Our corps has the task of holding the heights south of Cerny in all circ.u.mstances till the Fourteenth Corps on our left flank can grip the enemy's flank. On our right are other corps. We are fighting with the English guards, Highlanders and Zouaves. The losses on both sides have been enormous.

For the most part this is due to the too-brilliant French artillery.

"'The English are marvelously trained in making use of ground. One never sees them and one is constantly under fire. The French airmen perform wonderful feats. We cannot get rid of them. As soon as an airman has flown over us, ten minutes later we get shrapnel fire in our position.

We have little artillery in our corps; without it we cannot get forward.

"'Three days ago our division took possession of these heights and dug itself in. Two days ago, early in the morning, we were attacked by immensely superior English forces--one brigade and two battalions--and were turned out of our positions. The fellows took five guns from us. It was a tremendous hand-to-hand fight.

"'How I escaped myself I am not clear. I then had to bring up support on foot. My horse was wounded and the others were too far in the rear. Then came up the Guard Jager Battalion, Fourth Jager, Sixth Regiment, Reserve Regiment Thirteen, and Landwehr Regiments Thirteen and Sixteen, and, with the help of the artillery, we drove the fellows out of the position again. Our machine-guns did excellent work; the English fell in heaps.

"'In our battalion three iron crosses have been given. Let us hope that we shall be the lucky ones the next time.

"'During the first two days of the battle I had only one piece of bread and no water. I spent the night in the rain without my greatcoat. The rest of my kit was on the horses, which have been left miles behind with the baggage and which cannot come up into the battle because as soon as you put your nose up from behind cover the bullets whistle.

"'War is terrible! We are all hoping that a decisive battle will end the war. Our troops already have got round Paris. If we beat the English the French resistance will soon be broken. Russia will be very quickly dealt with; of this there is no doubt.

"'We have received splendid help from the Austrian heavy artillery at Maubeuge. They bombarded Fort Cerfontaine in such a way that there was not ten meters of parapet which did not show enormous craters made by the sh.e.l.ls. The armored turrets were found upside down.

"'Yesterday evening about 6, in the valley in which our reserves stood, there was such a terrible cannonade that we saw nothing of the sky but a cloud of smoke. We had few casualties.'

TELEPHONE AN AID TO SPIES

"Espionage is carried on by the enemy to a considerable extent. Recently the suspicions of some of the French troops were aroused by coming across a farm from which the horses had been removed. After some search they discovered a telephone which was connected by an underground cable with the German lines, and the owner of the farm paid the penalty in the usual way in war for his treachery. "After some cases of village fighting, which occurred earlier in the war, it was reported by some of our officers that the Germans had attempted to approach to close quarters by forcing prisoners to march in front of them. The Germans have recently repeated the same trick on a larger scale against the French, as is shown by the copy of an order issued by the French officials. It is therein referred to as a ruse, but if that term can be accepted, it is a distinctly illegal ruse.

REFERS TO RHEIMS CATHEDRAL

"Full details of the actual damage done to the cathedral at Rheims will doubtless have been cabled, so that no description of it is necessary.

The Germans bombarded the cathedral twice with their heavy artillery.

"One reason it caught fire so quickly was that on one side of it was some scaffolding which had been erected for restoration work. Straw had also been laid on the floor for the reception of German wounded. It is to the credit of the French that practically all the German wounded were successfully extricated from the burning building.

"There was no justification on military grounds for this act of vandalism, which seems to have been caused by exasperation born of failure--a sign of impotence rather than of strength."

FIVE MORE DAYS OF BATTLE

On September 29 Field Marshal French's headquarters reported as follows:

"The general situation as viewed on the map remains practically the same as that described in the last letter, and the task of the army has not changed. It is to maintain itself until there is a general resumption of the offensive.

"No ground has been lost. Some has been gained, and every counter-attack has been repulsed--in certain instances with very severe losses to the enemy.

"Of recent events an actual narrative will be carried on from the 25th to 29th, inclusive. During the whole of this period the weather has remained fine.

"On Friday, the 25th, comparative quiet reigned in our sphere of action.

The only incident worthy of special mention was the pa.s.sage of a German aeroplane over the interior of our lines. It was flying high, but drew a general fusillade from below, with the result that the pilot was killed outright and the observer was wounded. The latter was captured by the French.

"That night a general attack was made against the greater part of the Allies' position, and it was renewed in the early morning of Sat.u.r.day, the 26th. The Germans were everywhere repulsed with loss. Indeed, opposite one portion of our lines, where they were caught in ma.s.s by our machine-guns and howitzers firing at different ranges, it is estimated that they left 1,000 killed or wounded.

"The mental att.i.tude of our troops may be gauged from the fact that the official report next morning from one corps, of which one division had borne the brunt of the fighting, ran thus laconically: 'The night was quiet except for a certain amount of sh.e.l.ling both from the enemy and ourselves.'

AN ALL-DAY ATTACK

"At 3:40 a.m. an attack was made on our right. At 5 a.m. there was a general attack on the right of the----th division, but no really heavy firing. Further ineffectual efforts to drive us back were made at 8 a.m.

and in the afternoon, and the artillery fire continued all day.

"The Germans came on in 'T' formation, several lines shoulder to shoulder, followed almost immediately by a column in support. After a very few minutes the men had closed up into a mob, which afforded an excellent target for our fire.

"On Sunday, the 27th, while the German heavy guns were in action, their bra.s.s bands could be heard playing hymn tunes, presumably at divine service.

"The enemy made an important advance on part of our line at 6 p.m., and renewed it in strength at one point, with, however, no better success than on the previous night. Sniping continued all day along the whole front.

"On Monday, the 28th, there was nothing more severe than a bombardment and intermittent sniping, and this inactivity continued during Tuesday, the 29th, except for a night attack against our extreme right.

A TYPICAL BATTLE INCIDENT

"An incident that occurred Sunday, the 27th, serves to ill.u.s.trate the type of fighting that has for the last two weeks been going on intermittently on various parts of our lines. It also brings out the extreme difficulty of ascertaining what is actually happening during an action apart from what seems to be happening, and points to the value of good intrenchments.

"At a certain point in our front our advance trenches were on the north of the Aisne, not far from a village on a hillside and also within a short distance of German works, being on a slope of a spur formed by a subsidiary valley running north and a main valley of the river. It was a calm, sunny afternoon, but hazy, and from our point of vantage south of the river it was difficult exactly to locate on the far bank the well-concealed trenches.

"From far and near the sullen boom of guns echoed along the valley, and at intervals in a different direction the sky was flecked with the almost motionless smoke of anti-aircraft shrapnel.

"Suddenly and without any warning, for the reports of the distant howitzers from which they were fired could not be distinguished from other distant reports, three or four heavy sh.e.l.ls fell into the village, sending up huge clouds of dust and smoke, which ascended in a brownish-gray column. To this no reply was made by our side.

"Shortly afterwards there was a quick succession of reports from a point some distance up the subsidiary valley on the side opposite our trenches and therefore rather on their flank. It was not possible either by ear or by eye to locate the guns from which the sounds proceeded. Almost simultaneously, as it seemed, there was a corresponding succession of flashes and sharp detonations in the line along the hillside along what appeared to be our trenches.

"There was then a pause and several clouds of smoke rose slowly and remained stationary, s.p.a.ced as regularly as poplars.

"Again there was a succession of reports from German quick-firers on the far side of the misty valley and like echoes of detonations of high explosives; then the row of expanding smoke clouds was prolonged by several new ones. Another pause and silence, except for the noise in the distance.

"After a few minutes there was a roar from our side of the main valley as our field guns opened one after another in a more deliberate fire upon the positions of the German guns. After six reports there was again silence save for the whirr of sh.e.l.ls as they sang up the small valley.

Then followed flashes and b.a.l.l.s of smoke--one, two, three, four, five, six--as the shrapnel burst nicely over what in the haze looked like some ruined buildings at the edge of the wood.