The Conquest of America Part 16

Here were startling happenings and the developments were even more startling, but, before following these threads of mystery (days pa.s.sed and they were still unravelled) I must set forth events that immediately succeeded the rupture of peace negotiations. I have reason to know that the Committee of Twenty-one brought pressure upon our peace commissioners, through Washington and the public press, with the result that their att.i.tude stiffened towards the enemy and presently became almost defiant, so that on October 2, 1921, all efforts towards peace were abandoned. And on October 3 it was officially announced that the United States and Germany were again at war.

CHAPTER XVIII

I WITNESS THE BATTLE OF THE SUSQUEHANNA FROM VINCENT ASTOR'S AEROPLANE

During the next week, in the performance of my newspaper duties, I visited Washington and Baltimore, both of these cities being now in imminent danger of attack, the latter from von Hindenburg's army south of Philadelphia, the former from the newly landed German expedition that was encamped on the sh.o.r.es of Chesapeake Bay near Norfolk, Virginia, which was already occupied by the enemy.

I found a striking contrast between the psychology of Washington and that of Baltimore. The national capital, abandoned by its government, awaited in dull despair the arrival of the conquerors with no thought of resistance, but Baltimore was girding up her loins to fight. Washington, burned by the British in 1812, had learned her lesson, but Baltimore had never known the ravages of an invader. Proudest of southern cities, she now made ready to stand against the Germans. Let New York and Boston and Philadelphia surrender, if they pleased, Baltimore would not surrender.

On the night of my arrival in the Monumental City, September 15, I found bonfires blazing and crowds thronging the streets. There was to be a great ma.s.s meeting at the Fifth Regiment Armoury, and I shall never forget the scene as I stood on Hoffman Street with my friend F. R. Kent, Editor of the Baltimore _Sun_, and watched the mult.i.tude press within the fortress-like walls. This huge grey building had seen excitement before, as when Wilson and Bryan triumphed here at the Democratic convention of 1912, but nothing like this.

As far as I could see down Bolton Street and Hoffman Street were dense crowds cheering frantically as troops of the Maryland National Guard marched past with crashing bands, the famous "Fighting Fourth" (how the crowd cheered them!), the "Dandy Fifth," Baltimore's particular pride, then the First Regiment, then the First Separate Company, coloured infantry and finally the crack cavalry "Troop A" on their black horses, led by Captain John C. c.o.c.key, of whom it was said that he could make his big hunter, Belvedere, climb the side of a house.

The immense auditorium, gay with flags and national emblems, was packed to its capacity of 20,000, and I felt a real thrill when, after a prayer by Cardinal Gibbons, a thousand school girls, four abreast and all in white, the little ones first, moved slowly up the three aisles to seats in front, singing "Onward Christian Soldiers," with the Fifth Regiment band leading them.

Gathered on the platform were the foremost citizens of Baltimore, the ablest men in Maryland, including Mayor J. H. Preston, Douglas Thomas, Frank A. Furst, U. S. Senator John Walter Smith, Hon. J. Charles Linthic.u.m, ex-Gov. Edwin Warfield, Col. Ral Parr, John W. Frick, John M.

Dennis, Douglas H. Gordon, John E. Hurst, Franklin P. Cator, Capt. I. E.

Emerson, Hon. Wm. Carter Page, Hon. Charles T. Crane, George C. Jenkins, C. Wilbur Miller, Howell B. Griswold, Jr., George May, Edwin J. Farber, Maurice H. Grape, Col. Washington Bowie, Jr., and Robert Garrett.

Announcement was made by General Alexander Brown that fifty thousand volunteers from Baltimore and the vicinity had already joined the colours and were in mobilisation camps at Halethrope and Pimlico and at the Glen Burnie rifle range. Also that the Bessemer Steel Company of Baltimore, the Maryland Steel Company, the great cotton mills and canneries, were working night and day, turning out shrapnel, sh.e.l.l casings, uniforms, belts, bandages and other munitions of war, all to be furnished without a cent of profit. Furthermore, the banks and trust companies of Baltimore had raised fifty million dollars for immediate needs of the defence with more to come.

"That's the kind of indemnity Baltimore offers to the Germans," cried General Brown.

Speeches attacking the plan of campaign and the competency of military leaders were made by Charles J. Bonaparte, Leigh Bonsal and Henry W.

Williams, but their words availed nothing against the prevailing wild enthusiasm.

"Baltimore has never been taken by an enemy," shouted ex-Governor Goldsborough, "and she will not be taken now. Our army is ma.s.sed and entrenched along the south bank of the Susquehanna and, mark my words, the Germans will never pa.s.s that line."

As these patriotic words rang out the thousand white-clad singers rose and lifted their voices in "The Star Spangled Banner," dearest of patriotic hymns in Baltimore because it was a Baltimore man, Francis Scott Key, who wrote it.

While the great meeting was still in session, a large German airship appeared over Baltimore's lower basin and, circling slowly at the height of half a mile, proceeded to carry out its mission of frightfulness against the helpless city. More than fifty bombs were dropped that night with terrific explosions. The n.o.ble shaft of the Washington Monument was shattered. The City Hall was destroyed, also the Custom House, the Richmond Market, the Walters Art Gallery, one of the buildings of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, with a score of killed and wounded, and the cathedral with fifty killed and wounded.

The whole country was stirred to its depths by this outrage. Angry orators appeared at every street corner, and volunteers stormed the enlisting offices. Within twenty-four hours the business men of Baltimore raised another hundred millions for the city's defence. Baltimore, never conquered yet, was going to fight harder than ever.

The great question now was how soon the Germans would begin their drive.

We knew that the Virginia expedition under General von Mackensen had advanced up the peninsula and had taken Richmond, but every day our aeroplane scouts reported General von Hindenburg's forces as still stationary south of Philadelphia. Their strategy seemed to be one of waiting until the two armies could strike simultaneously against Washington from the southeast and against Baltimore from the northeast.

On the ninth of October this moment seemed to have arrived, and we learned that von Hindenburg, with a hundred thousand men, was advancing towards the Susquehanna in a line that would take him straight to the Maryland metropolis. A two days' march beyond the river would give the enemy sight of the towers of Baltimore, and how the city had the slightest chance of successful resistance was more than I could understand.

I come now to the battle of the Susquehanna, which my lucky star allowed me to witness in spite of positive orders that war correspondents should not approach the American lines. This happened through the friendship of Vincent Astor, who once more volunteered his machine and his own services in the scouting aeroplane corps. I may add that Mr. Astor had offered his entire fortune, if needed, to equip the nation with the mightiest air force in the world; and that already four thousand craft of various types were in process of construction. With some difficulty, Mr. Astor obtained permission that I accompany him on the express condition that I publish no word touching military operations until after the battle.

On the morning of October 10th we made our first flight, rising from the aerodrome in Druid Hill Park and speeding to the northeast, skirting the sh.o.r.es of Chesapeake Bay. Within half an hour the broad Susquehanna, with its wrecked bridges, lay before us and to the left, on the heights of Port Deposit, we made out the American artillery positions with the main army encamped below. Along the southern bank of the river we saw thousands of American soldiers deepening and widening trenches that had been shallowed out by a score of trench digging machines, huge locomotive ploughs that lumbered along, leaving yellow ditches behind them. There were miles of these ditches cutting through farms and woods, past windmills and red barns and rolling wheat fields, stretching away to the northwest, parallel to the river.

"They've done a lot of work here," said I, impressed by the extent of these operations.

Astor answered with a smile that puzzled me. "They have done more than you dream of, more than any one dreams of," he said.

"You don't imagine these trenches are going to stop the Germans, do you?"

He nodded slowly. "Perhaps."

"But we had trenches like these at Trenton and you know what happened," I objected.

"I know, but--" again that mysterious smile, "those Trenton trenches were not exactly like these trenches. h.e.l.lo! They're signalling to us. They want to know who we are."

In reply to orders wig-wagged up to us from headquarters in a white farmhouse, we flung forth our identification streamers, blue, white and red arranged in code to form an aerial pa.s.sport, and received a wave of approval in reply.

As we swung to the northwest, moving parallel to the river and about four miles back of it, I studied with my binoculars the trenches that stretched along beneath us in straight lines and zigzags as far as the eye could see. I was familiar with such constructions, having studied them on various fields; here was the firing trench, here the shelter trench and there the communicating galleries that joined them, but what were those groups of men working so busily farther down the line? And those other groups swarming at many points in the wide area? They were not digging or bracing side-wall timbers. What were they doing?

I had the wheel at this moment and, in my curiosity, I turned the machine to the east, forgetting Mr. Astor's admonition that we were not allowed to pa.s.s the rear line of trenches.

"Hold on! This is forbidden!" he cried. "We'll get in trouble."

Before I could act upon his warning, there came a puff of white smoke from one of the batteries and a moment later a sh.e.l.l, bursting about two hundred yards in front of us, made its message clear.

We turned at once and, after some further manoeuvring, sailed back to Baltimore.

We dined together that night and I tried to get from Mr. Astor a key to the mystery that evidently lay behind this situation at the Susquehanna.

At first he was unwilling to speak, but, finally, in view of our friendship and his confidence in my discretion, he gave me a forecast of events to come.

"You mustn't breathe this to a soul," he said, "and, of course, you mustn't write a word of it, but the fact is, dear boy, the wonderful fact is we're going to win the battle of the Susquehanna."

I shook my head. "I'd give all I've got in the world to have that true, Mr. Astor, but von Hindenburg is marching against us with 150,000 men, first-cla.s.s fighting men."

"I know, and we have only 60,000 men, most of them raw recruits. Just the same, von Hindenburg hasn't a chance on earth." He paused and added quickly: "Except one."

"One?"

"If the enemy suspected the trap we have set for them, they could avoid it, but they won't suspect it. It's absolutely new."

"How about their aeroplane scouts? Won't they see the trap?"

"They can't see it, at least not enough to understand it. General Wood turned us back this afternoon as a precaution, but it wasn't necessary.

You might have circled over those trenches for hours and I don't believe you would have known what's going on there. Besides, the work will be finished and everything hidden in a couple of days."

I spurred my imagination, searching for agencies of destruction, and mentioned hidden mines, powerful electric currents, deadly gases, but Astor shook his head.

"It's worse than that, much worse. And it isn't one of those fantastic things from Mars that H. G. Wells would put in a novel. This will work.

It's a practical, businesslike way of destroying an army."

"What? An entire army?"

"Yes. There's an area on this side of the Susquehanna about five miles square that is ready for the Germans--plenty of room for a hundred thousand of them--and, believe me, not one man in ten will get out of that area alive."

I stared incredulously as my friend went on with increasing positiveness: "I know what I'm saying. I'll tell you how I know it in a minute. This thing has never been done before in the whole history of war and it will never be done again, but it's going to be done now."

"Why will it never be done again?"