Lest We Forget Part 19

Two new diseases have been produced by the World War,--spotted typhus and trench fever; both are carried by vermin. This was proved by soldiers who volunteered to permit experiments to be made upon them. By preventing and destroying the vermin, these diseases are being conquered.

THE TORCH OF VALOR[7]

The torch of valor has been pa.s.sed from one brave hand to another down the centuries, to be held to-day by the most valiant in the long line of heroes. Deeds have been done in Europe since August, 1914, which rival the most stirring feats sung by Homer or Virgil, by the minnesingers of Germany, by the troubadours of Provence, or told in the Norse sagas or Celtic ballads. No exploit of Ajax or Achilles excels that of the Russian Cossack, wounded in eleven places and slaying as many foes. The trio that held the bridge against Lars Porsena and his cohorts have been equaled by the three men of Battery L, fighting with their single gun in the gray and deathly dawn until the enemy's battery was silenced. Private Wilson, who, single-handed, killed seven of the enemy and captured a gun, sold newspapers in private life; but he need not fear comparison with any of his ancient and radiant line. Who that cares for courage can forget that Frenchman, forced to march in front of a German battalion stealing to surprise his countrymen at the bridge of Three Grietchen, near Ypres? To speak meant death for himself, to be silent meant death for his comrades; and still the sentry gave no alarm. So he gave it himself. "Fire! For the love of G.o.d, fire!" he cried, his soul alive with sacrifice; and so died. The ancient hero of romance, who gathered to his own heart the lance heads of the foe that a gap might be made in their phalanx, did no more than that. Nelson conveniently forgot his blind eye at Copenhagen, and even in this he has his followers still. Bombardier Havelock was wounded in the thigh by fragments of sh.e.l.l. He had his wound dressed at the ambulance and was ordered to hospital. Instead of obeying, he returned to his battery, to be wounded again in the back within five minutes. Once more he was patched up by the doctor and sent to hospital, this time in charge of an orderly. He escaped from his guardian, went back to fight, and was wounded for the third time. Afraid to face the angry surgeon, he lay all day beside the gun. That night he was reprimanded by his officers--and received the V.C.! Also there are the airmen, day after day facing appalling dangers in their frail, bullet-torn craft. Was there ever a stouter heart than that of the aviator, wounded to death and still planing downwards, to be found seated in his place and grasping the controls, stone-dead? Few eyes were dry that read the almost mystic story of that son of France who, struck blind in a storm of fire, still navigated his machine, obedient to the instructions of his military companion, himself mortally wounded by shrapnel and dying even as earth was reached.

There is no need to worship the past with a too-abject devotion, whatever in the way of glory it has been to us and done for us. Chandos and Du Guesclin, Leonidas and De Bussy have worthy compeers to-day.

Beside them may stand Lance-Corporal O'Leary, the Irish peasant's son.

Of his own deed he merely says that he led some men to an important position, and took it from the Huns, "killing some of their gunners and taking a few prisoners." History will tell the tale otherwise: how this modest soldier, outstripping his eager comrades, coolly selected a machine gun for attack, and killed the five men tending it before they could slew round; how he then sped onwards alone to another barricade, which he captured, after killing three of the enemy, and making prisoners of two more. Even officialism burst its bonds for a moment as it records the deed:

Lance-Corporal O'Leary thus practically captured the enemy's position by himself, and prevented the rest of the attacking party from being fired on.

The epic of Lieutenant Leach and Sergeant Hogan, who volunteered to recapture a trench taken by the Germans, after two failures of their comrades, is reading to give one at once a gulp in the throat and a song in the heart. With consummate daring they undertook the venture; with irresistible skill they succeeded, killing eight of the enemy, wounding two, and taking sixteen prisoners. In the words of the veteran of Waterloo, "It was as good fighting as Boney himself would have made a man a gineral for."

There are isolated incidents of this kind in every war; but in a thousand different places in France and Belgium the dauntless, nonchalant valor of Irishmen, Englishmen, Scotsmen, and Welshmen has shown itself. Did ever the gay Gordons do a gayer or more gallant thing than was done on the 29th of September, 1914, on the western front?

Thirty gunners of a British field battery had just been killed or wounded. Thirty others were ordered to take their place. They knew that they were going to certain death, and they went with a cheery "Good-by, you fellows!" to their comrades of the reserve. Two minutes later every man had fallen, and another thirty stepped to the front with the same farewell, smoking their cigarettes as they went out to die--like that "very gallant gentleman," Oates, who went forth from Scott's tent into the blizzard and immortality. Englishmen can lift up their heads with pride, human nature can take heart and salute the future with hope, when the Charge of the Five Hundred at Gheluvelt is recalled. There, on the Ypres road to Calais, 2400 British soldiers, Scots Guards, South Wales Borderers, and the Welsh and Queen's Regiments held up 24,000 Germans in a position terribly exposed. On that glorious and b.l.o.o.d.y day the Worcesters, 500 strong, charged the hordes of Germans, twenty times their number, through the streets of Gheluvelt and up and beyond to the very trenches of the foe; and in the end the ravishers of Belgium, under the stress and storm of their valor, turned and fled. On that day 300 out of 500 of the Worcesters failed to answer the roll call when the fight was over, and out of 2400 only 800 lived of all the remnants of regiments engaged; but the road to Calais was blocked against the Huns; and it remains so even to this day. Who shall say that greatness of soul is not the possession of the modern world? Did men die better in the days before the Caesars?

Not any one branch of the service, not any one cla.s.s of men alone has done these deeds of valor; but in the splendid democracy of heroism, the colonel and the private, the corporal and the lieutenant--one was going to say, have thrown away, but no!--have offered up their lives on the altars of sacrifice, heedless of all save that duty must be done.

But greater than such deeds, of which there have been inspiring hundreds, is the patient endurance shown by men whose world has narrowed down to that little corner of a great war which they are fighting for their country. To fight on night and day in the trenches, under avalanches of murdering metal and storms of rending shrapnel, calls for higher qualities than those short, sharp gusts of conflict which in former days were called battles. Then men faced death in the open, weapon in hand, cheered by color and music and the personal contest, man upon man outright, greatly daring for a few sharp hours.

Now all the pageantry is gone; the fight rages without ceasing; men must eat and sleep in the line of fire; death and mutilation ravage over them even while they rest. Nerves have given way, men have gone mad under this prolonged strain, and the marvel is that any have borne it; yet they have not only borne it, they have triumphed over it. These have known the exaltation of stripping life of its impedimenta to do a thing set for them to do; giving up all for an idea. The great obsession is on them; they are swayed and possessed by something greater than themselves; they live in an atmosphere which, breathing, inflames them to the utmost of their being.

There was a corner in the British lines where men had fought for days, until the place was a shambles; where food could only rarely reach them; where they stood up to their knees in mud and water, where men endured, but where Death was the companion of their fort.i.tude. Yet after a lull in the firing there came from some point in the battered trench the new British battle-cry, "Are we downhearted?" And then, as we are told, one blood-stained specter feebly raised himself above the broken parapet, shouted "No!" and fell back dead. There spoke a spirit of high endurance, of a shining defiance, of a courage which wants no pity, which exalts as it wends its way hence.

SIR GILBERT PARKER.

Mother Earth! Are thy heroes dead?

Do they thrill the soul of the years no more?

Are the gleaming snows and the poppies red All that is left of the brave of yore?

Are there none to fight as Theseus fought, Far in the young world's misty dawn?

Or to teach as the gray-haired Nestor taught?

Mother Earth! Are the heroes gone?

Gone?--in a grander form they rise; Dead?--we may clasp their hands in ours, And catch the light of their clearer eyes, And wreathe their brows with immortal flowers.

Wherever a n.o.ble deed is done, 'Tis the pulse of a hero's heart is stirred; Wherever right has a triumph won There are the heroes' voices heard.

EDNA DEAN PROCTOR.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] FROM "THE WORLD IN THE CRUCIBLE." COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

MARSHAL FOCH

A Great German philosopher said many years ago that history was the story of the struggle of the human race for freedom. Would the Huns conquer Europe and put back human liberty for hundreds of years? This was the question that was answered at the battle of the Marne in September, 1914, and the answer depended upon what General Foch was able to do with his army. It was necessary that he should attack, and General Joffre ordered him to do so.

General Foch did not reply that he was having all he could do to hold his own and to prevent his army from being captured or destroyed, although this was really the situation. He sent back to his commanding general a message that will never be forgotten, one that was in keeping with the maxim he had always taught his students in the military school, that the best defense is an offense: "My left has been forced back; my right has been routed; I shall attack with my center."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARSHAL FERDINAND FOCH _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y._]

Foch is a man of medium height. His face is an especially striking one.

He has the forehead of a thinker, with two deep folds between the eyebrows; he has deep-set eyes, a large nose, a strong mouth slightly hidden under a gray mustache, and a chin which shows decision and force. His whole face expresses great power of thought and will.

Before the war, he was a professor of military history. He was accustomed to outline to the young officers in his cla.s.s a clear statement of a military situation, and the orders which had been followed. He would then call upon his pupils to decide what difficulties would arise and what the results would be. In this way, they learned to discover for themselves the solutions of many kinds of military problems.

Since Foch has been accustomed to this clear reasoning on all war problems, no military situation can surprise him. As a commander, he selects the goal to be reached, and the most skillful way of reaching it, and his men have confidence that he is right. This is what gives a commander the power to do things.

Marshal Joffre realized General Foch's ability and quickly advanced him.

After the First Battle of the Marne, it was necessary to appoint a commander for the French forces north of Paris, and it was very important to select one who had the initiative and the ability to check the German attempt to capture the Channel ports. The new commander must also be a man of great tact, for he would have to work with the British and the Belgians. General Foch was selected, and has proved to be the right man in the right place.

The race for the Channel ports was an exciting one. Although the Germans lost, it seemed at times as if they would win, and be able to establish submarine bases within a very short distance of England. In fact, if they had captured Calais, they could have fired with their long-range guns across the Channel and have bombarded English coast towns, and perhaps London itself.

Foch's decision and strength of purpose are well ill.u.s.trated by an incident which is told by the French officers working under his command. He had sent some cavalry to protect the British army from being outflanked and disastrously defeated. At the close of the day, the cavalry commander reported to General Foch that he had been obliged to withdraw, as the Germans had been reenforced. "Did you throw all the forces possible into the fight?" asked General Foch. "No," answered the cavalry commander. "You will at once take up your old position and hold the enemy there until you have lost every gun," directed the general.

"Then you will report to headquarters for further orders."

Foch is a leader who plans well, who knows how to command, and how to make others obey. His orders always end with the words, "Without delay!" Because the enemy has usually had larger numbers and more ammunition, time has been everything to the Allies. Foch saved time and so saved the Allies.

After his great victory at the Second Battle of the Marne, Foch was made a Marshal of France.

The Allies, in 1918, through the influence of President Wilson, it is said, decided to appoint a generalissimo, that is, one who should have direction of all the Allied forces on the west front, including those in Italy. Foch was appointed to this command, and from this time the German plans and campaigns began to go wrong. To this one man, who entered the French army in his teens, and who commanded at sixty-six the largest forces ever under one general, the successes of the Allies were due, more than to any other single individual, unless it be President Wilson.

Between July 15 and October, he had regained all the territory taken by the Germans in their great drives of 1918 and had driven the enemy out of the St. Mihiel salient which they had held since 1914. These victories were won not by hammer blows of greatly superior numbers but by generalship of the highest order and far superior to that of the German leaders.

THE MEXICAN PLOT

It is true that Germany does not know the meaning of honesty and fair play. Most Americans, in everything, want "a square deal." They demand it for themselves, and a true American feels that the harshest thing that can be said of him is that he is not fair and square in his dealings. In any American school, a pupil who is deceitful is at once shunned by all the other boys and girls as a "cheat" and a "sneak." He has no place among them, least of all in their games and sports, for not to play according to the rules of the game is to upset and spoil the sport entirely.

In playing some of our great national games, like baseball and football, where the players are divided into teams, one player, by cheating, does not suffer for it himself alone, but his whole team has to pay the penalty. Indeed, if he persisted in being unfair, he would soon lose his place in the team for all time.

The Germans would not understand this, and they would not understand that the last half of the ninth inning in a ball game is seldom played because the winners do not wish to "rub in" the defeat of their opponents. Some think that it is because German children have had few sports and games that the German nation has so little sense of honesty and fair play.

In German schools, the pupils at one time were allowed to engage in certain sports, but later these were officially forbidden.

The rulers of Germany have for years forbidden anything taught in their schools which did not praise Germany and make the children believe their Emperor to be a G.o.d. The pupils are taught in history, geography, and even in reading, only those facts about other countries which show how much inferior they are to Germany.