Fields of Victory Part 7

We drove down diagonally through the Marne salient as it was last summer after the German break-through on the Marne, to Dormans and so across the river. In the darkening afternoon we pa.s.sed over the Montagne de Rheims, and crossed the valley of the Ardre, near the spot where the 19th British Division, in the German attack of last June, put up so splendid a fight in defence of an important position commanding the valley--the Montagne de Bligny--that the General of the Fifth French Army, General de Mitry, under whose orders they were, wrote to General Haig: "They have enabled us to establish a barrier against which the hostile waves have beaten and shattered themselves.

This none of the French who witnessed it will ever forget."

For if the Montagne de Bligny had gone, the French position on the Montagne de Rheims, south-west of Rheims, and the Cathedral city itself would have been endangered, no less than by the attack on the north-east of the town, which General Gouraud a month later pinned to earth. And when we reached Dormans, on the south bank, turning west-ward to Chateau Thierry, we were on ground no less vital, where in July the American troops in General Pershing's words wrote "one of the most brilliant pages in our military annals." The story is well known. The Germans were attempting to cross the river in force between Donnans and Chateau Thierry, and then to thrust their way down the valley of the Surmelin to Montmirail and the great main road to Paris, which pa.s.ses through that town. A single regiment of the 3rd American Division held up the enemy, on the river bank to the east of Mezy, fighting at the same time east and west against German parties who had managed to get a footing at other points on the south side, and finally counter-attacking, throwing two German divisions into complete confusion, and capturing six hundred prisoners. No episode in the war is more likely to ring in the memory of after-times. "In the bend of the Marne at the mouth of the Surmelin," says Colonel Palmer, "not a German was able to land. In all twenty boats full of the enemy were sunk or sent drifting harmlessly down the stream." To the east of Mezy also, four American platoons did incredible things in defence of the Paris-Nancy railway. "They were not going to yield that track alive--that was the simple fact." And their losses were appalling. In the second platoon of the four engaged, all were killed except three who were wounded, and half of the third were down before they had driven the enemy from the embankment. The American graves lie all on the south side of the line--the German on the north. "We actually took over four hundred prisoners between the railroad and the river--the 6th German Grenadier Regiment was annihilated...." And the Germans never reached the Surmelin valley, or that Montmirail road on which they had set their hearts. "The deciding factor," says Colonel Palmer, "was the unflinching courage of our men, and their aggressive spirit."

And the action, small as were the numbers engaged, could not have been bettered. "It is a military cla.s.sic."

Over this hard-fought ground, consecrated by the graves of men who had thus bravely--thus gaily--laid down their lives for a cause of which they had no doubt, we ran on to Chateau Thierry, and that western flank of the Marne salient, where in June, while the Germans were still pressing south, and in July when Foch turned upon his trapped foe, the Americans, most of whom were for the first time in real battle, bore themselves to the astonishment and admiration of all the watching Allies. In June especially, when matters were at their worst.

The capture of Bouresches, and Belleau Wood, the capture of Vaux on July 1st, the gallant help which an American machine-gun battalion gave the French in covering the French retreat across the bridge at Chateau Thierry, before it was blown up, and foiling the German attempts to cross, and the German move towards Paris, were perhaps, writes a British military authority, "the most splendid service, from a military standpoint, the Americans rendered to the Allied Cause. It was certainly the first occasion on which they really made themselves felt, and brought home to the Germans the quality of the opposition they were likely to encounter from the American Armies."

As we approached Chateau Thierry, the fog had cleared away and the night was not dark. On our railway journey to Metz a week earlier, we had seen the picturesque old place, with Hill 204 behind it, and the ruins of Vaux to the north-west, in daylight, from the south bank of the river. Now daylight had gone, but as we neared the Marne, the high ground on the curving north bank, with its scattered lights and their twinkling reflections in the water, made still a dimly beautiful setting for the much injured but still living and busy town. We crossed the temporary bridge into the crowded streets, and then as we had come a long way, we were glad to dip for tea and a twenty minutes'

break into an inn crowded with Americans. Handsome, friendly fellows!

I wished devoutly that it were not so late, and Paris not so far away, that I might have spent a long evening in their company. But we were all too soon on the road again for Meaux and Paris, pa.s.sing slowly through the ruined streets of Vaux, with Bouresches and Belleau Wood to our right, and behind us the great main road from Soissons to Chateau Thierry, for the command of which in its northern sector, the American divisions under General Mangin, and in its southern portion those commanded by General Degoutte, had fought so stoutly last July.

Altogether seven American divisions, or close upon 200,000 men, were concerned in Foch's counter-attack, which began on July 18th; and as General Pershing notes with just pride: "The place of honour in the thrust towards Soissons on the 18th was given to our 1st and 2nd divisions, in company with chosen French divisions. These two divisions captured 7,000 prisoners and over 100 guns."

What one may call the "state entry" of America into the war had thus been made, and Germany had been given full warning of what this new element in the struggle must ultimately mean, were it given time to develop. And during all these weeks of June and July, British and American ships, carrying American soldiers, came in a never-ending succession across the Atlantic. An American Army of 5,000,000 men was in contemplation, and, "Why," said the President at Baltimore in April, "limit it to 5,000,000?" While every day the British Navy kept its grim hold on the internal life of Germany, and every day was bringing the refreshed and reorganised British Army, now at the height of its striking power, nearer to the opening on August 8th of that mighty and continuous advance which ended the war.

CHAPTER VIII

"FEATURES OF THE WAR"

_April 15th._

In these April days Sir Douglas Haig's latest Despatch, dated the 21st March, 1919--the first anniversary of those black days of last year!--has just been published in all the leading English newspapers.

It is divided into three parts: "The Advance into Germany," "Features of the War," and "My Thanks to Commanders and Staffs." It is on the second part in particular that public attention has eagerly fastened.

Nothing could well be more interesting or more important. For it contains the considered judgment of the British Commander-in-Chief on the war as a whole, so far, at least, as Great Britain is concerned.

The strong and reticent man who is responsible for it broke through the limitations of official expression on two occasions only during the war: in the spring of 1917, in that famous and much criticised interview which he gave to certain French journalists, an incident, by the way, on which this Despatch throws a good deal of light; and in the impa.s.sioned Order of last April, when, like Joffre on the Marne, he told his country: that England had her back to the wall.

But here, for the first time, the mind on which for three and a half years depended the military fortunes, and therewith the future destiny of the British Empire, reveals itself with much fullness and freedom, so far as the moment permits. The student of the war cannot read these paragraphs too closely, and we may be sure that every paragraph in them will be a text for comment and ill.u.s.tration in the history schools of the future. The Despatch, moreover, is full of new information on points of detail, and gives figures and statistics which have never yet been made public. There are not, however, many persons outside the Armies who will give themselves to the close study of a long military despatch. Let me try, then, before I wind up these letters of mine, to bring out very shortly both some of the fresh points of view and the new detail which make the Despatch so interesting. It will be seen, I think, that the general account given in my preceding letters of British conclusions on the war, when tested by the Despatch, may still hold its own.

In the first place, the Field Marshal dwells in words of which the subdued bitterness is unmistakable, on Great Britain's unpreparedness for the war. "We were deficient in both trained men and military material, and, what is more important, had no machinery ready by which either men or material could be produced in anything like the necessary quant.i.ties." It took us, therefore, "two and a half years to reach the high-water mark of our infantry strength," and by that time we had lost thousands of lives, which, had we been better prepared, need never have been lost.

And, moreover, our unpreparedness, and the fact that we were not able to take a full share in the war till the summer of 1916, terribly wasted the man-power of France. "The excessive burden," says Marshal Haig, "thrown upon the gallant Army of France during that period caused them losses the effect of which has been felt all through the war and directly influenced its length." Meanwhile, what might have been "the effect of British intervention on a larger scale, in the earlier stages of the war, is shown by what was actually achieved by our original Expeditionary Force."

Who was responsible for this unpreparedness?

Sir Douglas Haig does not raise the question. But those of us who remember the political history of the years from 1906 to 1914 can hardly be in doubt as to the answer. It was the Radical and anti-militarist group of the Liberal party then in power, who every year fought the Naval and Military Estimates--especially the latter--point by point, and stubbornly hampered the most necessary military provision, on whom, little as they intended or foresaw it, a tragic responsibility for the prolongation of the war, and the prodigal loss of life it involved, must always rest. Lord Haldane, indeed during his years of office as the War Minister of the Liberal Government, made a gallant fight for the Army. To him we owe the Expeditionary Force, the Territorials, the organisation of the General Staff, the Officers' Training Corps; and without his reforms our case would have been black indeed when the storm broke. No one has repelled more indignantly the common Tory charges against Lord Haldane than Sir Douglas Haig himself. But, during his years at the War Office Lord Haldane was fighting against heavy odds, attacked on the one hand by the upholders of Lord Roberts's scheme, in which neither he nor the General Staff believed, and under perpetual sniping on the other from the extreme section of his own party. The marvel is that he was able to do what he did!

Granting, however, the unpreparedness of England, what a wonderful story it is on which Sir Douglas Haig looks back! First, the necessary opening stage of this or any war--_i.e._, a preliminary phase of manoeuvring for position, on both sides, which came to an end with "the formation of continuous trench lines from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier." Then, when British military power had developed, followed "the period of real struggle," in which the main forces of the two belligerent Armies were pitted against each other in close and costly combat--_i.e._, "the wearing-down battle" which must go on in this war, as in all wars where large and equal forces are engaged, till one or the other combatant begins to weaken. And, finally, the last stage, when the weakening combatant stakes "on a supreme effort what reserves remain to him," and must abide by the issue. Germany staked her last reserves in the "great sortie" of her beleaguered Armies, which lasted from April to July of 1918. She lost the game, and the end, which was inevitable, followed quickly.

For the British Commander-in-Chief insists that we must look upon the war as a whole. In the earlier part of the wearing-down battle which occupied its central years, we did what we could till our new armies were ready, and without us France could not have held out. Without the British Navy, in particular, the war must have collapsed in a month.

But the main brunt of the struggle on land had to be borne--and was superbly borne--by France up to the summer of 1916, when we entered on our full strength. Thenceforward the chief strain lay on the constantly developing Armies of Great Britain. From July, 1916, to the Armistice, Sir Douglas Haig bids us conceive the long succession of battles fought by the Allies in France as "one great and continuous engagement." "Violent crises of fighting" within such a conflict may appear individually as "indecisive battles." But the issue is all the time being slowly and inexorably decided. And as soon as the climax is reached, and the weakening of one side or the other begins, nothing but the entry of some new and unexpected factor can avert the inevitable end. When Russia broke down in 1917, it looked for a time as though such a new factor had appeared. It prolonged the war, and gave Germany a fresh lease of fighting strength, but it was not sufficient to secure victory. She did her utmost with it in 1918, and when she failed, the older factors that had been at work, through all the deadly progress of the preceding years of the war, were seen at last for the avengers, irresistible and final, that they truly were.

"The end of the war," says the Commander-in-Chief, "was neither sudden, nor should it have been unexpected." The rapid collapse of Germany's military powers in the latter half of 1918 was the logical outcome of the fighting of the previous two years. _Attrition_ and _blockade_ are the two words that explain the final victory. As to the cost of that victory, the incredible heart-rending cost, Sir Douglas Haig maintains that, given the vast range of the struggle, and the vital issues on which it turned--given also the unpreparedness of England, and the breakdown of Russia, the casualties of the war could not have been less. The British casualties in all theatres of war are given as 3,000,000--2,500,000 on the Western front; the French at 4,800,000; the Italians, including killed and wounded only, 1,400,000; a total of _nine million, two hundred thousand_. On the enemy side, the Field Marshal gives the German and Austro-Hungarian losses at approximately eleven millions. And to these have to be added the Russian casualties before 1917, a figure running into millions; the Serbian, Roumanian, and Turkish losses, and, lastly, the American.

Some _seven million young men_ at least have perished from this pleasant earth, which is now again renewing its spring life in beauty and joy, and millions of others will bear the physical marks of the struggle to their graves. Is there anything to console us for such a spectacle? The reply of the British Commander-in-Chief is that "the issues involved in this stupendous struggle were far greater than those concerned in any other war in recent history. Our existence as an Empire, and civilisation itself as it is understood by the free Western nations was at stake. Men fought as they had never fought before."

"Go, stranger, and tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, obedient to their will." So the Greek epitaph that all men know. In the same spirit, for country and home, for freedom and honour--at the Will of that Power by whom "the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong"--these fighters of our day laid down their ardent and obedient lives. There is but one way in which we can truly honour them. A better world, as their eternal memorial:--shame on us if we cannot build it!

_May 20th._

Since the preceding paragraphs were written, the French General Staff has published an illuminating a.n.a.lysis of those military conditions in the concluding months of the war which compelled the German Command and the German Government to sue for an Armistice. The German proclamation, when the conclusion of the Armistice allowed those armies to retreat, proclaimed them "unconquered." Our own Commander-in-Chief declares, it will be remembered, on the other hand, that the fighting along the front of the British Armies from November 1st to November 11th had "forced on the enemy a disorderly retreat.

Thereafter he was neither capable of accepting nor refusing battle.

The utter confusion of his troops, the state of his railways, congested with abandoned trains, the capture of huge quant.i.ties of rolling-stock and material--all showed that our attack had been decisive.... The strategic plan of the Allies had been realised with a completeness rarely seen in war. When the Armistice was signed, his defensive powers had already been definitely destroyed. A continuance of hostilities could only have meant disaster to the German Armies, and the armed invasion of Germany."

To this statement from the leader of those armies to whom it fell to strike the last decisive blows in the struggle may now be added the testimony of the admirably served Intelligence Department of the French General Staff, as to the precise condition of the German Armies before the Armistice. "The strategic plan of the Allies," of which Sir Douglas Haig speaks, was the supreme business of Marshal Foch, and the facts and figures now given show how closely the great Frenchman was informed and how "completely," to use Marshal Haig's word, his plans were carried out. On the 3rd of October Hindenburg had written to Prince Max of Baden, that "as a result ... of our complete inability to fill up the gaps caused by the very heavy losses inflicted on us during the recent battles, no hope is left ... of forcing the enemy to make peace." How true this was is made plain by the details just published. On September 25th--that is to say, the day before the British attack on the Hindenburg line, and the French and American attacks east and west of the Argonne--the Intelligence Department of the French General Staff reported to Marshal Foch that since July 15th, in the Marne salient, at St. Mihiel, and in the British battles of Amiens, Bapaume, and the Scarpe, the enemy had engaged 163 divisions. His reserves were reduced to 68 divisions--as against 81 in July--and of these only 21 were fresh troops. The German line had been shortened by 125 miles, but so weakened were the German Armies, that the same number of divisions had to be kept in the line as before the shortening--each division representing only some three-quarters of its former strength, and 16 divisions having been broken up to fill the ranks in those that remained.

_Following immediately on this report came the three converging attacks of the Allies._ On October 9th the German Army, under British pressure, abandoned the whole Hindenburg position, and entered upon a general retreat from the North Sea to the Meuse. At that moment 44 of the German divisions in line were not to be depended on for further serious fighting, and there were only 22 divisions available to replace them, of which 15 were of inferior quality, holding "quiet"

sectors. On October 11th the French Intelligence Bureau reported that "it is impossible for the enemy, with the forces that he has at present in line, to stop and face any considerable attack for an appreciable time."

On October 4th, the day after Hindenburg's letter to Prince Max, the German Chancellor cabled to President Wilson, asking for an Armistice.

_Already, on September 28th_, in the very midst of the British attack on the Hindenburg line, and on the morrow of General Gouraud's and General Pershing's first advances in Champagne and the Argonne, the German Command had warned the Chancellor that this step must be taken, and from October 9th onward there was no more heart left in the German Armies. The "prisoners" line in the chart,[10] brought daily up to date at the Headquarters of the British Army, shows what the demoralisation had become in the German ranks. After the British battle of the Sambre (November 4th) there were practically no reserves left, and Marshal Foch had plans in store which, had there been any further resistance, must have led to the wholesale capitulation of all that was left of the German Armies.

[10] See reproduction.

So in ignominy and shame the German onslaught on the liberties of Europe came--militarily--to its bitter end. The long-drawn agony of four and a half years was over, and the "wearing-out battle" had done its work. Now, six months later, we are in the midst of that stern Epilogue--in which a leagued Europe and America are dictating to Germany the penalties by which alone she may purge her desperate offence. A glance at the conditions of Peace published to the world on May 11th, the anniversary of the-sinking of the _Lusitania_, will form the natural conclusion to this imperfect survey of the last and most glorious stage in "England's Effort." But for the moment, let me return to the "Features of the War," and Marshal Haig's comments on them in his last Despatch. Many, many books will be written about them in the future! All I can do here is to single out a few of those that seem to be most commonly in the minds of those who are still thinking about the war.

Take, first, the value of cavalry in modern battle. In his April Despatch, Sir Douglas Haig enters on a strong defence of it--the plea of a great cavalry leader. Since the stabilisation of the trench system in the West, it has been, as we can all remember, a commonplace of the newspapers and of private conversation that cavalry were played out--a mere useless or ornamental excrescence on armies that, by the help of tanks and aeroplanes, could now excellently do without them.

"Not at all," replies Sir Douglas Haig. If the German Command had had at their disposal last March and April "even two or three well-trained cavalry divisions, a wedge might have been driven between the French and British armies." In any case, the difficulties of our task would have been greatly increased. On the other hand, our cavalry were enormously useful to us in the same battle. "So great indeed became the need for mounted men that certain units which had been dismounted were hurriedly provided with horses and did splendid service.

Frequently when it was impossible to move forward other troops in time our mounted troops were able to fill gaps in our line and restore the situation." During the long trench battle of the middle years "the absence of room for manoeuvre made the importance of cavalry less apparent." But in the last stage of the struggle, when the Germans "were falling back in disorganised ma.s.ses," the moral effect of British cavalry pressing on the heels of the enemy was "overwhelming,"

and had not the Armistice stopped the cavalry advance, it would have turned the enemy's disorganised retreat "into a rout."

This is strong testimony, and will probably be stoutly fought by the eager advocates of "mechanical contrivances." But Sir Douglas Haig stands to it that no form of mechanical contrivance can ever either make the cavalryman useless, or the infantryman, who is "the backbone of defence and the spearhead of attack," less important. He admits, indeed, fully that machine guns, tanks, aeroplanes, and motor transport "have given a greater driving power to war," and that the country which possesses most of such things has an advantage over its opponents. But he insists that their only "real function" is to a.s.sist the infantry to get to grips with their opponents, and that of themselves "they cannot possibly obtain a decision." To imagine that tanks and aeroplanes can ever take the place of infantry and cavalry is to do these marvellous tools themselves a disservice by expecting of them more than they can perform. "Only by the rifle and bayonet of the infantry can the decisive victory be won." For, as the Commander-in-Chief lays down no less strongly than this great French colleague, Marshal Foch, "this war has given no new principles." But it has greatly complicated the application of the old. Every new invention makes the problem of co-operation--of interaction between the different armies and services--more difficult and more imperative.

As to the artillery history of the war, the Field Marshal gives the most amazing figures. When in 1916, at the suggestion of Mr.

Roosevelt, and by the wish of our Government, I went through some of our leading munition districts, with a view to reporting what was being done in them to England's friends in America, the great development which started from the Munitions Act of 1915 was still only in its earlier stages. Everywhere the Government factories were rising with what seemed incredible rapidity, and the older works were doubling and trebling their output. But the output was still far behind the need. By the date of the Somme Battle, indeed--in the autumn, that is, of the same year--it had risen enormously. I may quote my own words in _England's Effort_ (October, 1916): "The total amount of heavy guns and ammunition manufactured in Great Britain in the first ten months of the war would not have kept the British bombardment on the Somme _going for a single day_."

And now?

On that first day of the Somme Battle, July, 1916, says the Despatch, "13,000 tons of ammunition were fired by us on the Western front. On the _31st of July_, 1917, in the Third Battle of Ypres, _the British Armies used_ 23,000 _tons of ammunition_." _Last year_, from August to November, 700,000 _tons of ammunition_ were expended by the British Armies on the Western front. On the days of most active fighting 20,000 _tons a day_ was a common ration. The supply never failed. In the three months' offensive of last autumn all the Army Commanders had to think of in the matter of artillery and ammunition was transport and distribution. The amount was unlimited. While in the matter of guns, the British Army, which on August 4th, 1914, possessed 486 pieces of different calibres, all told, at the tune of the Armistice was employing 6,437 guns and howitzers of all kinds, including the heaviest monsters of the battle-field.

And with this vast increase in material had gone perpetual advance in organisation. Artillery commanders were introduced into all armies and corps, with staffs acting under them. Hence a greater concentration of brain and energy on the special artillery problems--very soon justified by results. Science and experience had full play, and the continuous artillery battle begun on the Somme ended, as it deserved to end, "in the defeat of the enemy's guns." To that defeat new inventions--or the marvellous development of old ones--were perpetually tending. Take sound-ranging for instance, which, with flash-spotting and air photography, has enabled the gunner more and more certainly to locate his enemy's gun while concealing the position of his own. For "the object of a gun or howitzer is to throw a projectile to some spot the position of which is _known_." The older way of knowing was by registration--throwing round after round, and by the help of aeroplane or other observation of the results, getting nearer and nearer to the target till the range was exactly found. By this method, not only is the enemy warned, but your own position is revealed. The newer method aims at _surprise_--the supreme aim of modern war.

"The principle of the location of guns by sound," writes an artillery officer, "is simple enough. Suppose there are two observers in the British lines, one at each end of a long line. Bisect this base, and from the middle point draw a line at right angles to the base and towards the German lines. Now, if a hostile gun fires from a position on this line, the sound will reach both observers simultaneously. If the gun fires from a position to the right of the line, the sound will reach the right-hand observer first, and vice versa. Then, by measuring exactly the time-interval between the arrival of the sound at each observation post, the bearing to the gun can be calculated."

"Until quite recently the Germans used four human observers, who timed the sound intervals with stop watches. The British used six microphones of a special type, connected electrically with a photographic-recording apparatus. Instead of stop watches, therefore, we used a timing device capable of recording the most minute time-intervals with perfect precision. The whole system was immeasurably superior to the German, and at least twenty times as accurate, for the British system was absolutely automatic. It recorded the arrival of the sound at the various microphones instantaneously on a permanent record; while the German system, apart from its crude method of measuring time, was subject to the combined errors of four human 'microphones.' The British system requires only one forward observer, placed well ahead of the base, and all he has to do is to press a b.u.t.ton and start the apparatus before the sound reaches the microphones.

"The photographic record is ready for the computer in from six to ten seconds, and the gun position can be found and plotted in three or four minutes.

"Sound ranging also can be used for ranging our own guns with great accuracy. When a record has been obtained of a hostile gun, all that need be done is to record the burst of our own sh.e.l.l and give corrections to our battery until the record of our sh.e.l.l-burst is identical with that of the hostile gun. The sh.e.l.l must then be on the target.

"The system works equally well by day or by night, in rain or in fog.