The Audacious War Part 8

The most talked-of war subject in England is the German spy system. It is estimated there were between 30,000 and 40,000 German spies, and many times this number of German reservists, in England at the outbreak of the war. For years England has laughed over German theoretical discussions of how best to invade England, and German studies of English coast lines and country resources.

I heard years ago of a young Englishman who disputed in Berlin the war-office plans of his father's estate. He declared that he thought he ought to know the land where he was born and brought up as a boy, and that there were only two springs of water thereon, instead of three. The German general staff said their maps of England were correct and were not based on English authority. The young man found on his return to England that the German maps were correct and that his father's estate had three springs whence men and horses could be watered, although his family had never noted the existence of a third.

Two years ago some friends of mine were playing tennis in an English village and inquired the occupation of two young Germans, who seemed to be good tennis-players, but without family relations or settled business.

The response of the hostess was: "Oh, they are just two German spies of good education and charming manner looking over the country here, and we find them very useful in making up our tennis tournaments." It was looked upon as just a part of the German map-making plans, and England was an open book for anybody to map. Baedeker published the guide-books of the world: why should n't the Germans make all the maps of the world,--especially if German map-making were cheaper than English map-making?

A banker friend of mine found two young Germans in his village, with no other occupation than motoring the country over and making notes and sketches of cross-roads, railroad junction-points, important buildings, bridges, etc. He thought the authorities ought to know what was going on, but received a polite invitation from the local police to mind his own business. When once he lost his way on a motor-car trip, and ran across these fellows, he was very glad to get the right directions for the shortest way home. They knew more about the roads of that country than did the people who were born there.

About 20,000 German spies and reservists are in detention camps on the west coast, and on the islands. Even the German prisoners are kept away from the east coast, where it is expected the Germans may eventually struggle for their landing.

I have not the slightest confidence in any invasion of England by Germany, but I do not understand why German Zeppelins do not move in the darkness over the British Isles and drop a few bombs about the country at important places. It may be that the German Emperor is right in his calculation that such action would do very little damage, and would strengthen tremendously the enlistments and war-expansion plans of the English.

When West Hartlepool, Whitby, and Scarborough were bombarded by the German wars.h.i.+ps on the morning of December 16, the English excitement concerning it was only a small part of what an American would have expected. Not far from this bombarded coast is a summer resort town, where for many years a legend has existed that when in some future age England decayed and Germany came in, this would be the first landing-point.

An Englishman two or three years ago took it upon himself to find out how far this legend might have its base in any near invasion. He looked up the record and found that all the leading summer hotels and strategic points were in the hands of Germans. Then one day he quickly addressed his German waiter in his native tongue, demanding to know where his post was in that town in the event of hostilities. Promptly the German replied, "Down at the schoolhouse!" Further investigation showed that every reservist had his allotted place before and after the landing, and his place in the civic organization to follow. The Germans had also compiled lists of the people of property in that vicinity and exactly the character and amount of resources that could be commandeered from them.

If the Germans were free to map England, why should they not be free to map all its resources, individually as well as collectively?

I know a building in the heart of the London financial district that carries on its roof a Zeppelin-destroyer gun. A few days before I was last in this building a fine-looking fellow in khaki uniform entered in haste and asked the janitor to show him to the roof that he might quickly inspect that gun and see that everything was in order, as raids might be expected at any moment. Of course, he was taken to the roof, and his inspection quickly completed. Ten minutes later the London police were there to inquire for a man in khaki uniform.

The English officer said, "Very singular, we are ten minutes behind that fellow everywhere. He is the cleverest of all the German spies, and we are not able to catch him!"

If that spy had been caught in his English uniform inspecting English defenses, would not everything have been kept quiet in the endeavor to pick up the lines of his foreign communications?

In writing home from England, even to my family, toward the close of 1914, I thought it just as well to be brief and not too definite with any information. I had seen some of the censors.h.i.+p regulations and envelopes resealed with a paper bearing heavy black letters, "Opened by censor," with the number of the censor, showing that there are more than one hundred people engaged in this work; and also directions from the censors.h.i.+p that "responses to this inquiry must be submitted,"

etc., etc.

n.o.body could believe until this war broke out and there descended upon peaceful Belgium not only armies and demands for their shelter, maintenance and food, and drink, but also huge demands for financial indemnification--war tax levies upon cities, towns, and provinces, with individuals held as hostages for their payment--that German war plans meant the looting, not only of nations and states, but of individual fortunes and properties.

It now seems that the march to Paris through Belgium and the imposition of a huge redemption tax upon Paris and France were but the preliminaries to larger demands upon London and England.

Indeed, judged by the demands upon Belgium, the German plans contemplated the transfer of the wealth of France and the British Empire to Germany; and such enslavement of these peoples as would make Germany rich, powerful and triumphant for many generations, if not forever, over the whole habitable globe. The German minister at Was.h.i.+ngton sounded a true German note when he asked who should question the right of Germany to take Canada and the British possessions in North America. Were they not at war, and if Germany were able, should she not possess them?

It had been understood before this war that countries were invaded under ideas of national defense. But possession of countries for the absorption of their wealth and the enslavement of their people, to work thereafter for the victors, was believed a barbarism from which this world had long ago emerged in the struggle for the freedom of the individual.

CHAPTER XI

ENGLISH WAR FORCES

The Men at the Front--The Recruiting--English Losses--Horses and s.h.i.+ps--War Supplies--Barring the Germans.

I really admire the English censors.h.i.+p and the manner in which it can withhold information from the English people, and I see the usefulness of much of the withholdings. You are some days in England before you realize that there are now no weather reports--not even for Channel crossings. n.o.body really cared for them in London. Everybody there knew what the weather was, and n.o.body could tell what it was to be. If reports were printed, they would fool only the German Zeppelins; but cable reports might be quite another thing. So you can't cable your family: "Weather fine, come over."

Of course Germany should not be allowed to know the English forces, their exact number and distribution. I was told over and over again in good newspaper quarters in London that the English had only 100,000 men at the front, and did not propose to have any more until Kitchener led his army of a million men or more to the Continent next spring.

I, of course, said nothing, but I knew a great deal better, both from War-Office sources and from contact with the English officers in France.

It would not be right, although information was not given me in confidence, to attempt to name the exact number and position of troops Kitchener had on the Continent toward the close of December. But I may tell what anybody was free to pick up on French soil. I asked an English officer of good rank how many men the English had at the front and he responded promptly 220,000 at the front, and 50,000 on the lines of communication. He was right for that date in early December, but later more troops were sent over. Indeed, they were quietly going and coming all the time across the Channel, and, notwithstanding losses, the number at the front was being steadily augmented. There were also troops in training on French soil, and 550,000 in condition for s.h.i.+pment from England.

Kitchener is one of the greatest reserve-supply men in the world. He is a natural-born banker; he keeps his eye on his reserves fully as much as on his activities, and perhaps more so.

When he called for 100,000 troops the British public became weary and demanded to know how long before he would get them. This gave an impression throughout the world that English recruiting was very slow; but when forced to show down his hand, Kitchener had to admit that under the call for 100,000 men he had accepted many more and was still accepting.

Then they raised the call to a million, and in December Kitchener had more than 1,000,000 men under that call, but I was particular to ascertain that he had not made a call for a second million. It was all under the call for 1,000,000 men to arm.

But I did learn from authoritative sources that a house-to-house canva.s.s, and millions of circulars sent out, had received responses that showed the War Office where the number of recruits, or men in training, could be quickly put above 2,000,000 the moment there was need or room for them.

When England sent her first expeditionary force of 100,000 men to the Continent there was no public report of how steadily it was augmented.

The official announcement was simply that the line should not be diminished and that all losses should be made good.

An American acquaintance of mine, whom I found in France fighting in the uniform of the English, had made the declaration from his quick perception of the situation at the outset that if before January 1 the English should have sent over only another 100,000 men, they would have only 100,000 left there at the end of the year.

I found his estimate of losses correct. The English casualties at the end of 1914 were over 100,000,--killed, wounded, prisoners, and missing,--or fully the number of the first Expeditionary Force.

Yet every week and every month the forces of the English grew larger and never smaller. The filling in of the gaps and the augmentation of the English forces and their maintenance, munitions, and supplies was but the smaller part of the work of the War Office.

The great problem was to compa.s.s the situation as a worldwide war and summon and put into an effective fighting machine the resources of the Empire.

"Not alone the men but the machinery," said Kitchener, "must win this war."

England had to put into operation machinery, financial and diplomatic, machinery of men, guns, and transportation, belting the whole world and bringing the whole forward as a complete organization, yielding here and pressing forward there, but always firmly pressing to the one desired end--the crus.h.i.+ng, crumpling and destroying of the war machinery of Germany. At the beginning England could not turn out 10,000 rifles a week; and a rifle can shoot well for only about 1000 rounds. Yet in December a single contractor in England was turning out 40,000 a week, and every possible contractor there and elsewhere had his hands full.

Kitchener must compa.s.s every detail from the rifle to the supply base; from the seasoned wood for that rifle right down to the number of troops he must have on the Continent when it comes to a settlement; for, says Kitchener, "You cannot draw unless you hold cards."

The broad sweep of the English preparations may be indicated by this: that when war broke out England not only commandeered horses in every city, village, and highway of England, taking them from carriages and from under the saddle, but started buying them over the seas. Of English s.h.i.+pping she gathered into her war-fold such a number of boats as I do not dare to repeat. She gathered in under the admiralty flag so many steams.h.i.+ps from the mercantile marine that those which were found most expensive to operate were soon turned back into the channels of trade. With the many hundred steamers that she commandeered she set about transporting everything needed, including horses, from over the ocean.

The French bought their horses by the thousand in Texas and contracted at good prices for their s.h.i.+pment to Bordeaux. Steams.h.i.+p rates became almost prohibitive, and the horses arrived from their long journey in poor condition. England inspected the horses in America, paid for them, and then put them in charge of her own men on her own s.h.i.+ps, and landed them by the shortest routes in England and on the Continent, in prime condition.

Although Germany had been buying liberally of horses in Ireland as early as March, when the long arm of Great Britain reached out there was no failure in her mounts for the cannon and cavalry divisions. For good horses at home and abroad she did not hesitate to pay as high as $350.

Americans should not forget that this war has brought about the greatest contraction in ocean tonnage that has ever been seen. I estimate that about one fourth of the world's oversea tonnage has been commandeered, interned, or put out of service. Before the war the Germans had nearly one eighth of the world's mercantile tonnage. That is now interned, destroyed, or tied up, outside the trade on the Baltic. As much more has been taken by the Allies from the mercantile to the war marine. It must also be figured that the Baltic and other seas hold locked-in s.h.i.+ps, and the bottom of the sea likewise holds some more.

Considering the sudden demand upon the world's mercantile tonnage and its sudden curtailment, it is surprising that ocean commerce has not been more interfered with or made to pay even higher rates than the abnormal ones now existing.

Of war-tonnage, besides three superdreadnoughts purchased and four finished before the end of 1914, the British have under construction to be finished in 1915 ten battles.h.i.+ps of from 25,500 to 27,500 tons, armed with 15-inch guns. The French have finished four of 23,000 tons, with 13 1/2-inch guns, and are finis.h.i.+ng three more. The Russians are at work upon six of 23,000 tons, with 12-inch guns. The j.a.panese are building one superdreadnought of 30,000 tons, with 14-inch guns, and three battle-cruisers of 27,500 tons and 27-knot speed, with 14-inch guns.

Churchill, it will be remembered, figured that England could lose one battles.h.i.+p each month and still maintain her full strength. While the building of war-tonnage seems to be well in hand, there is no corresponding replacement of mercantile tonnage.

I have the highest authority for the statement that the world possesses no machinery at the present time to manufacture war-material at the rate at which the nations of Europe have been using it during the first hundred days of the war.

At one time the German armies were exploding 120,000 sh.e.l.ls a day in France and Belgium. The response from the French alone was 80,000 sh.e.l.ls a day, and General Joffre made a request that his supply be put up to 100,000 per day. This is for sh.e.l.ls of all sizes, and the estimate to me was of an average cost of two pounds, or ten dollars, per sh.e.l.l. Some of the big German sh.e.l.ls cost as high as $500 each.

In some kinds of shrapnel, holding 300 bullets, there are more than thirty pieces of mechanism.