America's War for Humanity Part 65

RUSSIAN TROOPS LAND IN FRANCE.

Between April 20 and June 1, a large flotilla of transports arriving at Ma.r.s.eilles, France, brought Russian soldiers in large numbers to the support of the French line. The transports were understood to have made the voyage of 10,250 miles from Vladivostok under convoy by the British navy.

EARL KITCHENER KILLED AT SEA.

The British armored cruiser Hamps.h.i.+re, 10,850 tons, with Earl Kitchener, the British secretary of state for war, and his staff on board, was sunk shortly after nightfall on June 5, to the west of the Orkney Islands, either by a mine or a torpedo. Heavy seas were running and Admiral Jellicoe reported that there were no survivors. The crew numbered officers and men. Earl Kitchener was on his way to Russia for a secret conference with the military authorities when the disaster occurred. His latest achievement was the creation, from England's untrained manhood, of an army approximating 5,000,000 men, of whom he was the military idol.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

BATTLES EAST AND WEST

After gallantly holding their own for many months against repeated German attacks, the Canadian troops holding that section of the western front southeast of Ypres, between Hooge and the Ypres-Menin railway, were engaged during the week ending June 3, 1916, in a battle scarcely less determined in its nature than that of St. Julien and other great encounters in which they distinguished themselves and added to Canadian military laurels earlier in the war.

On Friday, June 2, the Germans, after a concentrated bombardment with heavy artillery, pressed forward to the a.s.sault and succeeded in penetrating the British lines. During the night they pushed their attack and succeeded in cutting their way through the defenses to the depth of nearly a mile in the direction of Zillebeke. The hard-fighting Canadians then rallied and began counter-a.s.saults at 7 o'clock on the following morning. By Sunday morning, June 4, they had succeeded in gradually driving the Germans from much of the ground they had gained, but the losses to the Canadians were severe.

In the British official report of the engagement, it was stated that "the Canadians behaved with the utmost gallantry, counter-attacking successfully after a heavy and continued bombardment." The German losses were very heavy and a large number of dead were abandoned on the recaptured ground. Frederick Palmer, the noted war correspondent, said that for a thousand yards in the center of the line where the Germans secured lodgment the Canadians fired from positions in the rear and filled the ruined trenches with German dead.

It was announced by the War Office that Generals Mercer and Williams, who were inspecting the front trenches on June 2, during the German bombardment, were among the missing. Soon after it was found that General Mercer was severely wounded during the fight, and was taken to hospital at Boulogne, while General Williams, who was wounded less severely, was captured by the enemy. General Mercer was the commander of the Third Division of Canadian troops, which in this action had its first real test in hand-to-hand fighting, and came out of the trial like veterans with glory undimmed.

The two-days' fighting occurred around the famous Hill No. 60 and Sanctuary Wood, names destined to live in Canadian history. It was entirely a Canadian battle, and while the losses of the devoted troops from the Dominion probably reached the regrettable total of over 6,000, including a number of men captured by the Germans during the first day's attack, when they overran the front trenches, they doggedly bombed and bayoneted their way back to the wrecked trenches next day and regained nearly all their front. The commanding officers were especially pleased that the newer Canadian battalions had kept up the traditions of the first contingent, established in 1915 at St. Julien and elsewhere in France and Flanders, by immediately turning upon the Germans with a counter-attack which was carried out both coolly and skilfully.

The Ypres salient, thus successfully defended by the Canadians in one of the hottest of the minor battles of the war, was regarded by the British commander-in-chief as an important position which must be defended despite the heavy losses. General Gwatkin, Chief of Staff for Canada, stated that the German losses during the heavy fighting exceeded those of the Canadians.

Colonel Buller of the Princess Patricia Regiment was killed by shrapnel while leading his men at Sanctuary Wood.

The total enlistments in Canada up to June 10 exceeded 333,000 men.

GREAT DRIVE BY THE RUSSIANS.

The first week of June, 1916, saw the Russians successful in a great drive against the Austrian positions in Volhynia and Galicia, a movement that for awhile overshadowed the events on the western front. In the s.p.a.ce of five days a new Russian commander, General Brusiloff, who had succeeded General Ivanhoff as Chief of the Russian Southwestern Armies, captured 1,143 Austrian officers and 64,714 men, recovered almost, four thousand square miles of fertile Volhyman soil, and recaptured the fortified town of Lutsk. He had the advantage of a most efficient artillery preparation, which blew the Austrian entanglements, trenches and earthworks into such a chaos that the bewildered occupants surrendered in thousands when the Russian infantry charged.

German reinforcements from the trenches north of the Pripet River tried to stay the Russian rush, but in vain, and many Germans were among the prisoners taken. At several points the Russian cavalry led the attack after the artillery had done its work. A division of young Russians, by an impetuous attack, captured a bridge-head on the Styr and took 2, German and Austrian troops and much rich booty. In Galicia the Russian armies crossed the Stripa and by June 10 were once more too near Lemberg for the comfort of the Austrian garrison. At that time the total number of prisoners taken in this drive was considerably over 100,000, while the booty in guns, rifles, ammunition and supplies of all conceivable kinds was enormous. The Allies were greatly heartened by these Russian successes on the eastern front, and on June 15 Germany was preparing to meet them by troop movements from the north, where Field Marshal von Hindenburgh was in command on Russian territory. The extent and rapidity of the Russian successes up to that time were without parallel in military history.

RUSSIA COMPELS AUSTRIAN RETREAT

During the following month the Russian advance toward the Carpathians, for the second time in the war, continued steadily. It was apparent that General Brusiloff, unlike his predecessors in command, was well supplied with effective artillery and ammunition in plenty, and that the vast resources of the Russian Empire had been at last successfully mobilized for attack. Guns and ammunition, in immense quant.i.ties, had been secured from j.a.pan, among other sources, and this former enemy of Russia, now her strong and capable ally, aided materially in changing the aspect of affairs on the Eastern battle front.

On June 16, the Russian offensive had progressed to the Galician frontier, and terrific fighting marked the advance along the whole line south of Volhynia. Two German armies went to the aid of the Austrians in the region of the Stochod and Styr rivers, and German forces also made a stand before Kovel. The mortality on both sides was described as frightful, but the Russians continued to make headway and the capture of thousands of Teutonic prisoners was of almost daily occurrence, the total reaching 172,000 before June 18.

Czernowitz, the capital of Bukowina, fell into the hands of the Russians at midnight of June 17, after the bridgehead on the Pruth river had been stormed by the victorious troops of the Czar. One thousand Austrians were captured at the bridgehead, but the garrison succeeded in escaping.

The invading troops swept on, crossed the Sereth river, and soon gained control of about one-half of Roumania's western frontier. By July the Austrians were retreating into the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, hotly pressed by the Russian advance. The German army around Kovel continued to make a stubborn resistance, but could not prevent the Austrian rout, and as the Russians approached the Carpathian pa.s.ses the Austrian prisoners taken by them during the drive reached a total of 200,000 officers and men. Immense quant.i.ties of munitions of war also fell into their hands.

On July 4 Russian cavalry patrols advanced over the pa.s.ses into southern Hungary, and General Brusiloff's army neared Lemberg, which was defended by a combined Teutonic army under General von Bothmer, along the River Strypa. The losses of the Austrians and Germans, in killed and wounded up to this time, were placed at 500,000 men, the Russian offensive having lasted one month, with no evidence of slackening. General von Bothmer then began a retirement westward, while General Brusiloff advanced between the Pruth and Dniester rivers, and a concerted push toward Lemberg was begun.

"BIG PUSH" ON THE WESTERN FRONT

After many months of preparation by the British, during which "Kitchener's army" was being sedulously trained for active service, a new phase of the great war began on July 1, 1916, when a great offensive was started on the western front by the British and French simultaneously, after a seven-day bombardment of the German trenches.

In this preliminary bombardment more than one million sh.e.l.ls were fired daily, and the prolonged battle which ensued was the greatest of all time.

This offensive proved that the Allies had not been shaken from their determination to bide their time until they were thoroughly prepared and ready for the attack, and were able to co-ordinate their efforts in genuine teamwork against the powerful and strongly-entrenched enemy in the west, while the Russian offensive on the eastern front was also in progress. This long-awaited movement was no isolated attack, costly but ineffectual, like those of the English at Neuve Chapelle and Loos, but "a carefully studied and deliberately prepared campaign of severe pressure upon Germany at each of her battle fronts." It proved that the war-councils of the Allies held in Paris and London, in Petrograd and Rome, were no mere conventional affairs, but were at last to bear fruit in concerted action that might decide the issue of the war.

The "big push," as it was popularly called in England, was started by the British and French on both sides of the River Somme, sixty miles north of Paris, at 7:30 o 'clock on the morning of July 1, and resulted on the same day in a great wedge being driven into the German lines along a front of twenty-five miles, with its sharp point penetrating nearly five miles. The French advance was made in the direction of Peronne, an important center of transportation and distribution long held by the Germans.

An eyewitness who watched the beginning of the battle from a hill said that overwhelming as was the power of the guns, yet as the gathering of human and mechanical material proceeded, "the grim and significant spectacle was the sight of detachments of infantry moving forward in field-fighting equipment, until finally the dugouts were hives of khaki ready to swarm out for battle."

As the days of the bombardment pa.s.sed, the air of expectancy was noticeable everywhere through the British army, commanded by Sir Douglas Haig. Finally the word was pa.s.sed that the infantry was to make the a.s.sault early the next morning. Then, "at 7:20 A.M. the rapid-fire trench mortars added their sh.e.l.ls to the deluge pouring upon the first-line German trenches. After ten minutes of this, promptly at 7:30 o'clock, the guns lifted their fire to the second line of German trenches, as if they were answering to the pressure of a single electric b.u.t.ton, and the men of the new British army leaped over their parapets and rushed toward the wreckage the guns and mortars had wrought. Even close at hand, they were visible for only a moment before being hidden by the smoke of the German sh.e.l.l-curtain over what remained of the trenches."

Of the deadly work beneath that pall of smoke, as steel met steel and the new soldiers of Britain fleshed their bayonets for the first time, and fell by the thousand under the murderous fire of machine-guns, history will tell the tale long after the survivors have ceased to recount the deeds of the day to their grandchildren wherever the English tongue is spoken. Each side gives credit to the other for the utmost bravery and devotion during the battle. The new English regiments fought like veterans, and fully maintained the traditions of the British army for dogged bravery, while the Germans fought with desperate tenacity, valor and resourcefulness, this last quality being displayed in the devices which had been invented and were used to prevent or delay the Allied advance. It was indeed wonderful how well the Germans had protected their machine-guns from the devastating effects of the preliminary bombardment, which tore trenches to pieces and utterly demolished barbed-wire entanglements, but failed in many cases to destroy the deep bomb-proofs in which the Teuton machine-guns were protected and concealed.

CONTINUATION OF THE GREAT BATTLE

On July 2 and 3, the battle of the Somme continued without cessation of infantry fighting, while the big guns thundered on both sides.

The British offensive took Fricourt on the 2nd, after a tremendous bombardment, and occupied several villages, while the French advanced to within three miles of Peronne. Ten thousand more prisoners fell into the hands of the Allies on these two days. On the 4th, German resistance temporarily halted the British, but the French offensive took German second-line positions south of the Somme on a six-mile front. Violent counter-attacks by the Germans on July 6 failed to wrest from the French the ground won by them during the previous five days, and the Allied troops resumed their advance, taking the German second-line trenches all along the front in the face of a heavy fire. Next day Contalmaison was won by the British, but recaptured by the Prussian Guard, who held the town for three days, when they were again driven out.

A desperate struggle for the possession of the Mametz woods marked the fighting from the 10th to the 12th, the British and the Germans alternating in its possession. Victory at this point finally lay with the British, who on July 12 gained possession of the whole locality, together with the Trones wood, which had also been the scene of a b.l.o.o.d.y straggle. By this time some 30,000 German prisoners had been taken by the Allies during the offensive, while the losses in killed and wounded on both sides, in the absence of official reports, could only be estimated in appalling numbers.

TRAGIC TALE OF A GERMAN PRISONER

A typical description of some of the horrors of the battle, as it surged around Contalmaison, was given by a German prisoner on July 12 to the war correspondent of the London Chronicle. He spoke English, having been employed in London for some years prior to the war. With his regiment, the 122nd Bavarians, he went into Contalmaison five days before his capture. Soon the rations they took with them were exhausted, and owing to the ceaseless gunfire they were unable to get fresh supplies. They suffered agonies of thirst and the numbers of their dead and wounded increased day after day.

"There was a hole in the ground," said the German prisoner, whose head was bound with a b.l.o.o.d.y bandage and who was still dazed and troubled when the correspondent talked with him. "It was a dark hole which held twenty men, all lying in a heap together, and that was the only dugout for my company, so there was not room for more than a few. It was necessary to take turns in this shelter while outside the English sh.e.l.ls were coming and bursting everywhere. Two or three men were dragged out to make room for two or three others, then those who went outside were killed or wounded.

"There was only one doctor, an unter officer,"--he pointed to a man who lay asleep on the ground face downward--"and he bandaged some of us till he had no more bandages; then last night we knew the end was coming.

Your guns began to fire altogether, the dreadful _trommelfeuer_, as we call it, and the sh.e.l.ls burst and smashed up the earth about us. "We stayed down in the hole, waiting for the end. Then we heard your soldiers shouting. Presently two of them came down into our hole. They were two boys and had their pockets full of bombs; they had bombs in their hands also, and they seemed to wonder whether they should kill us, but we were all wounded--nearly all--and we cried 'Kamerade!' and now we are prisoners."

Other prisoners said in effect that the fire was terrible in Contalmaison and at least half their men holding it were killed or wounded, so that when the British entered they walked over the bodies of the dead. The men who escaped were in a pitiful condition. "They lay on the ground utterly exhausted, most of them, and, what was strange, with their faces to the earth. Perhaps it was to blot out the vision of the things they had seen."

Meanwhile, despite the threatening character of the Allied offensive on the Somme, German a.s.saults on the Verdun front continued unabated during July, and there was little evidence of the withdrawal of German troops from that point to reinforce the army opposed to the British. But except at Verdun, Germany was at bay everywhere, and the situation was recognized in the Fatherland as serious. Never before had the Allies been able to drive at Germany from all sides at once. Only at Verdun the German Crown Prince, long halted at that point, was keeping up a slow but strong offensive pressure.

GERMAN SUBMARINE REACHES BALTIMORE

On July 9, the German merchant submarine Deutschland, in command of Capt. Koenig, slipped into port at Baltimore, after eluding British wars.h.i.+ps in the North Sea, English Channel, and Atlantic. The Deutschland carried as cargo nearly a million dollars' worth of dyestuffs, as well as important mail. The owners announced that she was the first of a regular fleet to be placed in service between German and American ports, to thwart the British blockade. She made the 4,000-mile voyage in sixteen days, including nine hours during which, according to her captain, she lay at the bottom of the Channel to escape capture. On July 25 she was preparing for her return voyage with a cargo said to consist largely of crude rubber and nickel, having been accepted by the United States Government as an innocent merchantman and granted clearance papers on that basis. Outside the Virginia capes, beyond the three-mile limit, British and French cruisers awaited her possible appearance, with the hope of effecting her capture. But it was announced in Germany that the Deutschland reached her home port safely Aug. 23.

CANADIANS STRENGTHEN THEIR FRONTS

Along the portion of the western battle front held by Canadian troops, there were frequent heavy bombardments by the enemy during the month of July, but the gallant soldiers of the Dominion consolidated their positions won in battle at Loos and elsewhere, and fully held their own.

In trench mortar fighting their batteries maintained the upper hand, often returning six sh.e.l.ls for one thrown by the Germans. The Canadian patrols were very active; every night reconnaissances were made all along the Canadian front, and numerous hostile working parties engaged in strengthening German trenches and entanglements were dispersed by Canadian rifle fire.

On July 8, in the gardens of Kensington Palace, London, Princess Louise, d.u.c.h.ess of Argyll, presented to General Steele, for the Canadian forces, a silken Union Jack and a silver s.h.i.+eld, given by the women and children of the British Isles in acknowledgment of Canada's good will and valuable co-operation. The Princess made a short address expressing high admiration and enthusiastic appreciation of the eager readiness with which the officers and men of Canada had come forward to take their share in the cause of the Empire. General Steele, in receiving the gifts, returned thanks on behalf of the Canadian troops.

NEW RUSSIAN DRIVE NEAR RIGA

On July 24, General Kuropatkin began a new Russian drive in the battle sector south of Riga. After making a preliminary breach in the German lines, Kuropatkin drove in a wedge of fresh troops which swept Marshal von Hindenburg's German forces back along a front of 30 miles, and to a depth at one point of 12 miles. The attack was preceded by a bombardment lasting four days, which battered into ruins the German defense along the coast line from the Gulf of Riga to Uxhull. The Kaiser and his chief of staff recognized the importance of General Kuropatkin's advance by hastening to the Eastern battle front on July 25.

TWO TEARS' WAR CASUALTIES