The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men Part 17

"Go ahead," urged Ross.

"Couldn't we interest some one else to do them, just to help the thing along?"

"One of the big negro colleges has a lithographing plant," the Forecaster said thoughtfully; "they might be interested in it, if the matter were put before them the right way. I don't suppose they'd give any money, but they might make plates for you at cost and you could sell them here at enough to cover the expense. Bob has the right idea.

"Talk it over with Deacon Paul, the colored minister; he's closely in touch with all the progressive work among the negroes. I think you'll find it can be arranged, because there's a right fine spirit among the negroes. They're trying hard to improve themselves.

"I believe you could interest them, too, by showing that the study of the weather, even in sunsets, is a patriotic duty. The negroes are mighty loyal."

"Mr. Levin!" exclaimed one of the boys, "what has a sunset got to do with patriotism?"

"They do look pretty far apart, don't they?" replied the Weather expert, with a smile. "Yet one of the great tragedies of military history, one which led to the death of hundreds of thousands of men and changed the map of the world, was due to a failure to study the colors of a sunset."

"What was that, Mr. Levin? Won't you tell us the story?" pleaded Anton.

"Very well," the Forecaster agreed; "maybe it'll show you how important to the world everything is that is connected with the weather.

"I was telling you about Krakatoa and its eruption and how the outburst had caused red sunsets that lasted for three years. Now, if you think for a moment, you'll see that any one who observed a period of unusually red sunsets and knew the cause of them would know that there had been a big volcanic eruption somewhere."

"Of course."

"Now, boys," said the Forecaster, "suppose that the upper air were unusually full of dust, what effect do you suppose that would have on the temperature?"

For a moment no one spoke, then Anton piped up:

"I've been wondering," he said, "if the dust wouldn't shut out some of the sunlight and make the earth colder."

The Weather Forecaster gave the boy a shrewd look.

"We're going to make a real weather man out of you, Anton," he said. "As a matter of fact, it does, though, of course, not to such a very noticeable extent. Indeed, it's only quite recently that we've been working out the relations between volcanic eruptions and weather.

They're striking, though, and while it may be a little too early to say that the one causes the other, volcanic action has a big influence.

"The Krakatoa eruption, as I said, produced a dust cloud in the upper parts of the air, which not only created red sunsets, but which kept so permanent a haze over the sky that the sun was surrounded by a reddish brown circle, known as 'Bishop's ring,' during most of that time. This circle showed the existence of a dust cloud, through which the sunlight had to pa.s.s. As a result, the amount of sunlight was diminished. When the sunlight is less, the crops are poorer, for it needs the entire force of the sun to ripen them, and the three years following the eruption of Krakatoa are known to history as 'The Poverty Years.' The still more famous 'Year without a Summer,' which was the year 1816, followed the eruption of Tombora, the autumn before."

"That seems to cinch it, Mr. Levin," said Ross.

"It isn't sure," was the reply, "but it seems that way. Famines have a tremendous effect on the world's history. The great French Revolution, one of the greatest events in modern history, was brought to a head by a famine. This was the 'Three Year Freeze' of 1784-1786."

"Did that follow a volcanic eruption, sir?" asked Anton.

"It followed the greatest eruption in the history of the world, that of Asama, in j.a.pan, in the year 1783. In that eruption, fifty-six thousand people were killed and the entire atmosphere of the earth was shaken.

Like Krakatoa, you see, boys, it took three years for the dust to settle down."

"But what has that got to do with the army, sir?" Fred asked.

"I was just coming to that," the Forecaster replied. "If Napoleon had known as much about the weather as we do now, boys, the world's history might have been very different. There had been some marvellous sunsets during the years of 1810 and 1811 and the spring of 1812, but none of the scientists of that time thought of observing them or finding any significance in them, nor did any of them imagine that such could have any effect on the weather. Before Napoleon started on his march for Russia, which was begun in June, he asked the French meteorologists at what time the Russian winter usually began. They told him that if he could begin his return by the middle of November, his army could get safely out of Russia before the winter set in.

"But, boys, the three years before that campaign had been three years of eruptions. St. George, in the West Indies, erupted in 1810; Etna, the great volcano of Sicily, had an eruption in 1811; and La Soufriere, which broke loose again in your lifetime, boys, erupted in 1812. As a result, the upper air was full of dust, and the middle air was even more filled, for while these eruptions were not as powerful as Asama and Krakatoa, there had been a continual replenishment of the stores of volcanic dust.

"So Napoleon and his army started off. The great march into Russia began with an army of four hundred and fifty thousand men, in torrid summer heat. The crops were still green, for the spring had been late and the summer most unseasonable. As a result, there was not enough food for the horses and terrible epidemics of disease broke out among them. Napoleon was always especially strong in cavalry, over eighty thousand of his troops being mounted. When, to this, is added the twenty thousand horses needed for officers and for the artillery, it is easy to see that the lack of forage seriously handicapped the army. It is by no means easy to feed a hundred thousand horses. Before the army had advanced more than ten days' march, one-fourth of the horses had died.

"The Russians, thoroughly realizing that their strongest ally was Distance, retreated, without giving battle. Napoleon's army marched on.

The Cossacks, with their well fed horses, constantly circled round the French army and cut to pieces the small detachments in the van and in the rear-guard. The French cavalry, with their horses dead, dying or out of condition, could not pursue. Meanwhile the army, under the burning heat of the short summer which had known no spring, marched on.

"Into that huge wilderness, over the marshes and plains, the army marched. Always before it lay a land bare and dumb. The vast Russian army could never be found. In endless succession the French crossed plains on which the gra.s.s grew, thin and bare, splendid for the grazing of cattle, but utterly insufficient for a hundred thousand horses, now reduced to seventy thousand. Ahead of the soldiers, every day, the sun rose red upon an empty land, every night it set, red, behind them, upon a land equally bare and empty. Day after day they marched through this land without food, unmolested by the Russians, who knew well that lack of forage and interminable marching was defeating the great Napoleon better than they could upon the battlefield, and without the sacrifice of a single Russian soldier. Weather, boys, always weather, is the greatest ally or the greatest enemy in the entire history of war.

"At last the army saw in the distance a long black line. Every effort of Napoleon to persuade the Russians to attack him had failed, the Russian army steadily withdrew. But when the long black line of Smolensk appeared, hope was restored to the French army. At last they would meet the Russians on equal terms and decide the campaign against guns and bayonets instead of against leagues and starvation! On Napoleon marched and at last found himself before the town of Smolensk. The French army, now only four hundred thousand strong, was yet an unwieldy force to handle. It took two days for the various groups to form into positions and then they charged the town.

"The soldiers fighting them had fled. Everybody had fled. The city was utterly deserted, sad and silent as a grave-yard. There was nothing there to eat. The Russians had destroyed everything. There was not a handful of oats, not a loaf of bread. The French victory had gained for them only an empty city and an empty land. It was now the end of August, and Moscow was a long way away.

"The march continued. Before them, the sun rose red through the volcanic dust every morning and set red every night. Had there been a meteorologist present able to warn Napoleon, even then, the army could have retreated safely. But the army went on and on, into the land that the Russians themselves had swept bare and left empty. Villages and towns were pa.s.sed, each deserted, as Smolensk had been. What the people could not carry away they had burned. The fields were scorching and black. Smoke filled the air. For three weeks more, well into September, the French army toiled forward, steadily growing hungrier and leaner, losing horses and men all along the line of march.

"At last the Russians made a stand. The desperate conditions of the march had divided the French army into scattered portions, and when, quite suddenly, the Russian troops confronted them, only a hundred and twenty-eight thousand men were available, the others straggling behind.

The Russians had a hundred thousand men, but the French superiority was not enough for them to secure a final victory. The great battle of Borodino began before sunrise, and the setting sun, red as always, sank too early to see its end. When night fell on the scene, thirty-eight thousand Russians had fallen and only twenty-five thousand French, but it acted almost as a defeat upon the French, accustomed as they were to sweeping victories.

"The red sun next morning rose on the French army, eager to continue the battle. But in the night the Russians had fallen back again, and, before the French, the road to Moscow lay open. Open, indeed, but burned black and desolate as before. Seven more days of marching, with hungry stomachs and famished horses and then, Moscow! The goal of the French!

The army beheld the city it had come so far to conquer. The red sun of the seventh day found the spires of the Kremlin in sight. Again the French were sure of victory.

"Moscow was as clean swept as the smallest village on the road.

Everything had been carried off or destroyed. Moscow lies far to the north and the days began to grow perilously short. Napoleon sought to make terms with the Russians, but met with nothing but delays. The Russians were waiting for the approach of their great ally, the winter.

"In all Moscow there was no food and forage. All the people had gone.

Napoleon did not dare to bring his whole army into the city. There was nothing to eat. They camped at various distances outside, tightening their belts for hunger. Meantime the Russians, constantly retreating and moving the provisions back with them, were steadily growing stronger in position and men.

"The rapidly shortening days meant long cold nights. The soldiers in Moscow made camp-fires of the costly pieces of furniture that remained in the palaces, but those who were encamped on the plains outside had no fire at all in the long hours of darkness. Many of them, too, were from the south of France, unaccustomed to the cold, and, besides, were equipped for a summer campaign, not garbed in the heavy clothing of the Russian troops. In that country which had been abandoned for purposes of war, there was not even wood enough to light the fires for cooking. Ever the days grew shorter and the red sunrises and the red sunsets--which would have meant so much had any one understood--continued.

"Then into the city came Fire! In the middle of the night, at a dozen different points, Moscow was set aflame by the Russians. A great wave of fire started from all quarters at the same time, swept over the city, for the Russians had waited for the moment when the wind was high and the night was cold. Houses and palaces flared upward in the conflagration, then sank to smoking ashes, for almost the entire city was built of wood.

"All in a jumble--infantry, cavalry and artillery--the French got away, the flames howling so closely after them that the backs of their necks were singed. Suddenly they found themselves in the midst of a tremendous rush of water and ice. On one side, to windward, the Russians had started the fire, on the other, where there was a possible escape from its fury, they had turned the river into the streets. The French were caught between the two. Some of the horses, fairly maddened, turned backward and plunged with their riders into the flames. For an instant, horse and man would flare up like tow and then there would be a black twisting thing that dwindled to nothing in the blaze. Out from the burning city, in wild and utter retreat, flew the French Grand Army, out to a land without food, without forage, without inhabitants, and the nearest help a thousand miles away.

"Then came the snow. No longer was the red sunrise before them, but behind them. The victorious march was a defeat. Black-gray clouds came over the sky and obscured the sun. At first the snow was to the ankles, then to the calves, and then to the knees. The wind was bitterly cold and the men ill-clad. It froze the French to their marrow. Every few minutes a soldier dropped from starvation, cold and exhaustion. The Russians did not appear. There was no need. They had a new ally--the wolves! No one could stop to pick up an exhausted soldier; it was all that any man could do to keep up himself. Half the officers were on foot. The cannons were abandoned. When a horse died, the regiment ate him and staggered on.

"The Cossacks now began to add their terrors to those of the wolves. If a small detachment straggled out of the blinding snow, unseen until that time would come a rush of the furious and valiant hors.e.m.e.n of the steppes, and the detachment, hungry and exhausted, would be cut to pieces. They fought with heroic courage, but no man can fight the Weather.

"Smolensk was reached on the return march, with the wreck of the French army, now only fifty thousand strong. The skeletons of four hundred thousand men lay on the Russian plains. Near a place called Krasnoi, the Russian army suddenly appeared and a battle was fought. Napoleon commanded with his old-time mastery and succeeded in breaking through the Russian lines, but he had to leave Marshal Ney with six thousand men behind him. Ney performed wonders, and with his tiny force also broke through the Russian army, but when the French resumed their flight, Ney had only eight hundred men. The rear-guard alone lost five thousand at that place.

"The French Army had now reached the marshes, but the Weather was fighting for Russia. Just at this time, a sudden and unexpected thaw set in, making the marsh a mora.s.s. The Russians, well-provisioned, circled around the French army, and again came in front of them at a river called the Beresina. Waist-deep in that icy current, with ma.s.ses of floating ice being carried down by the sudden thaw, with a huge Russian army on the opposite bank, the French soldiers fought for their homeward way. Winter was before, winter behind, the Russians on the barrier. Yet the French fought on and crossed the Beresina with marvellous courage, the Russian strategy, meanwhile, sacrificing comparatively few men. The Beresina was crossed, but when the Russians were finally swept aside and the French pa.s.sed through, less than nine thousand men answered the roll call. Forty thousand had been lost between Smolensk and the Beresina.

"The thaw was followed by another terrible period of cold. The retreat of the army became a fearful rout. Napoleon, himself, fell a victim to the panic, and deserting his troops to Murat, spurred for France, reaching Paris after a ride of three hundred and twelve hours. The routed and disorganized French Army straggled back to Germany, to Austria and to France. When Christmas Day that year came down over Europe, less than five thousand men were alive of the four hundred and fifty thousand who had started six months before to carry the eagles of Napoleon over Russia. It was the most splendid campaign and the most spectacular rout in history, and the foe who fought the battles that defeated the Great Emperor was--The Weather."

CHAPTER V

THE RUNAWAY KITE