The Conquest of America Part 9

"The United States is where England would have been in 1914 without her fleet," said Lord Kitchener.

"Where is that?"

"If England had been invaded by a German army in 1914," replied the great organiser gravely, "she would have been wiped off the map. It was England's fleet that saved her. And, even so, we had a hard time of it.

Everything was lacking--officers, men, uniforms, ammunition, guns, horses, saddles, horse blankets, everything except our fleet."

A sudden light burned in Lord Kitchener's strange eyes, and he added earnestly: "There is something more than that. In 1914 Germany was wonderfully prepared in material things, but her greatest advantage over all other nations, except j.a.pan, lay in her dogged devotion to her own ideals. She may have been wrong, as we think, but she believed in herself. There was nothing like it in England, and there is nothing like it in America. The German ma.s.ses, to the last man, woman, and child, were inspired to give all that they had, their lives included, for the Empire.

In England there was more selfishness and self-indulgence. We had labour troubles, strike troubles, drink troubles; and finally, as you know, in 1916 we were forced to adopt conscription. It will be the same story here in America."

"Don't you think that America will ultimately win?"

Lord Kitchener hesitated.

"I don't know. Germany holds New York and Boston and is marching on Philadelphia. Think what that means! New York is the business capital of the nation. It is hard to conceive of the United States without New York."

"The Americans will get New York back, won't they?"

"How? When? It is true you have a population of eighty millions west of the Allegheny Mountains, and somehow, some day, their American spirit and their American genius ought to conquer; but it's going to be a job.

Patriotism is not enough. Money is not enough. Potential resources are not enough. It is a question of doing the essential thing before it is too late. We found that out in England in 1916. If America could have used her potential resources when the Germans landed on Long Island, she would have driven her enemies into the sea within a week; but the thing was not possible. You might as well expect a gold mine in Alaska to stop a Wall Street panic."

I found that Lord Kitchener had very definite ideas touching great social changes that must come in America following this long and exhausting war, a.s.suming that we finally came out of it victorious.

"America will be a different land after this war," he said. "You will have to reckon as never before with the lowly but enlightened millions who have done the actual fighting. The United States of the future must be regarded as a vast-co-operative estate to be managed for the benefit of all who dwell in it, not for the benefit of a privileged few. And America may well follow the example of Germany, as England has since the end of the great war in 1919, in using the full power of state to lessen her present iniquitous extremes of poverty and wealth, which weaken patriotism, and in compelling a division of the products of toil that is really fair.

"I warn you that America will escape the gravest labour trouble with the possibility of actual revolution only by admitting, as England has admitted, that from now on labour has the whip hand over capital and must be placated by immense concessions. You must either establish state control in many industries that are now privately owned and managed and establish state ownership in all public utilities or you must expect to see your whole system of government swing definitely toward a socialistic regime. The day of the multi-millionaire is over."

I found another distinguished Englishman at General Wood's headquarters, Lord Northcliffe, owner of the London _Times_, and I had the unusual experience of interviewing my own employer for his own newspaper. As usual, Lord Northcliffe took sharp issue with Lord Kitchener on several points. His hatred of the Germans was so intense that he could see no good in them.

"The idea that Germany will be able to carry this invasion of America to a successful conclusion is preposterous," he declared. "Prussian supermen! What are they? Look at their square heads with no backs to them and their outstanding ears! Gluttons of food! Guzzlers of drink! A race of bullies who treat their women like squaws and drudges and then cringe to every policeman and strutting officer who makes them goose-step before him. Bismarck called them a nation of house-servants, and knew that in racial apt.i.tude they are and always will be hopelessly inferior to Anglo-Saxons.

"Conquer America? They can no more do it than they could conquer England.

They can make you suffer, yes, as they made us suffer; they can fill you with rage and shame to find yourselves utterly unprepared in this hour of peril, eaten up with commercialism and pacifism just as we were. But conquer this great nation with its infinite resources and its splendid racial inheritance--never!

"The Germans despise America just as they despised England. John Bull was an effete old plutocrat whose sons and daughters were given up to sport and amus.e.m.e.nt. The Kaiser, in his famous Aix-la-Chapelle order, referred scornfully to our 'contemptible little army.' He was right, it was a contemptible little army, but by the end of 1917 we had five million fully equipped men in the field and in the summer of 1918 the Kaiser saw his broken armies flung back to the Rhine by these same contemptible Englishmen and their brave allies. There will be the same marvellous change here when the tortured American giant stirs from his sleep of indifference and selfishness. Then the Prussian superman will learn another lesson!"

CHAPTER XI

HEROIC ACT OF BARBARA WEBB SAVES AMERICAN ARMY AT THE BATTLE OF TRENTON

Coming now to the campaign in New Jersey, let me recall that on the evening of June 18, American scouting aeroplanes, under Squadron Commander Harry Payne Whitney, reported that a strong force of Germans, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, had occupied the heights above Bordentown, New Jersey, and were actively proceeding to build pontoons across the Delaware. It seemed clear that von Hindenburg was preparing to cross the river at the very point where Washington made his historic crossing in 1776; and General Wood proceeded to attack the enemy's position with his artillery, being a.s.sisted by four light-draught gunboats from the Philadelphia navy-yard, which lay in the deepened channel at the head of tide-water and dropped sh.e.l.ls inside the enemy's lines. The Germans replied vigorously, and a smart engagement at long range ensued, lasting until darkness fell. We fully expected that the next day would see a fierce battle fought here for the command of the river. No one dreamed that this was a trap set by von Hindenburg.

As a matter of fact, the crossing movement from above Bordentown was a feint in which not more than 8,000 Germans were engaged, their main army being gathered twenty miles to the north, near Lambertville, for the real crossing. And only the prompt heroic action of three young Americans, two boys and a girl, saved our forces from immediate disaster.

The heroine of this adventure was Barbara Webb, a beautiful girl of sixteen, who, with her brother Dominick and their widowed mother, lived in a lonely farm-house on Goat Hill, back of Lambertville. They had a boy friend, Marshall Frissell, in Brownsburg, Pennsylvania, on the other side of the river, and Marshall and Dominick had learned to wigwag signals, in boy-scout fashion, back and forth across the Delaware.

It seems that, on this memorable night, the brother and sister discovered a great force of Germans building pontoons about a mile below the wrecked Lambertville bridge. Whereupon Dominick Webb, knowing that all telegraph and telephone wires were cut, leaped upon a horse and set out to carry the news to General Wood. But he was shot through the thigh by a Prussian sentry, and, hours later, fainting from loss of blood, he returned to the farm-house and told his sister that he had failed in his effort.

Then Barbara, as day was breaking, climbed to the crest of Goat Hill, and began to signal desperately toward Brownsburg, in the hope that Marshall Frissell might see and understand. For an hour she waved, but all in vain. Marshall was asleep. Still she waved; and finally, by a miracle of faith, the boy was roused from his slumbers, drawn to his window as the sun arose, and, looking out, saw Barbara's familiar flag wigwagging frantically on the heights of Lambertville three miles away. Then he answered, and Barbara cried out in her joy.

Just then a German rifle spoke from the riverbank below, a thousand yards away, where the enemy were watching, and a bullet pierced the Stars and Stripes as the flag fluttered over that slim girlish figure silhouetted against the glory of the eastern sky. Then another bullet came, and another. The enemy had seen Barbara's manoeuvre. She was betraying an important military secret, and she must die.

Wait! With a hostile army below her, not a mile distant, this fearless American girl went on wigwagging her message--letter by letter, slowly, painstakingly, for she was imperfect in the code. As she swept the flag from side to side, signalling, a rain of bullets sang past her. Some cut her dress and some snipped her flowing hair; and finally one shattered the flag-staff in her hands. Whereupon, like Barbara Frietchie of old, this fine young Barbara caught up the banner she loved, and went on waving the news that might save her country, while a hundred German soldiers fired at her.

And presently a wonderful thing happened. The power of her devotion touched the hearts of these rough men,--for they were brave themselves,--and, lowering their guns, with one accord, they cheered this little grey-eyed, dimpled farmer's girl with her hair blowing in the breeze, until the Jersey hills rang.

And now the lad in Brownsburg rose to the situation. There were Germans on the opposite bank, a great host of them, making ready to cross the Delaware. General Wood must know this at once--he must come at once. They say that freckle-faced Marshall Frissell, fifteen years old, on a mad motorcycle, covered the twenty miles to Ft. Hill, Pa., where General Wood had his headquarters, in fifteen minutes, and that by seven o'clock troop trains and artillery trains were moving toward the north, winding along the Delaware like enormous snakes, as Leonard Wood, answering the children's call, hastened to the rescue.

I dwell upon these minor happenings because they came to my knowledge, and because the main events of the four days' battle of Trenton are familiar to all. In spite of the overwhelming superiority of the Germans in men and artillery, the American army, spread along a twelve-mile front on the hills opposite Lambertville, made good use of their defensive position, and for three days held back the enemy from crossing the river.

In fact, it was only on the evening of the third day, June 21, that von Hindenburg's engineers succeeded in completing their pontoon line to the Pennsylvania sh.o.r.e. Again and again the floating bridge was destroyed by a concentrated sh.e.l.l fire from American batteries on the ridge a mile and a half back from the river.

American aeroplanes contributed effectively to this work of resistance by dropping explosive bombs upon the pontoons; but, unfortunately, German aeroplanes outnumbered the defenders at least four to one, and soon achieved a mastery of the sky.

A brilliant air victory was gained by Jess Willard, volunteer pilot of a swift and powerful Burgess machine, over three Taubes, the latter attacking fiercely while the champion prize-fighter circled higher and higher, manoeuvring for a position of advantage. I shall never forget the thrill I felt when Willard swooped down suddenly from a height of eight thousand feet, and, by a dangerous turn, brought his machine directly over the nearest German flier, at the same time dropping a fire bomb that destroyed this aeroplane and hurled the wreck of it straight down upon the two Taubes underneath, striking one and capsizing the other with the rush of air. So the great Jess, by his daring strategy, hurled three of the enemy down to destruction, and escaped safely from the swarm of pursuers.

On the fourth day, the Germans--thanks to an advantage of three to one in artillery pieces--succeeded in crossing the Delaware; and after that the issue of the battle was never in doubt, the American forces being outnumbered and outcla.s.sed. Two-thirds of General Wood's army were either militia, insufficiently equipped and half trained, or raw recruits. There were fifteen thousand of the latter who had volunteered within a fortnight, loyal patriots ready to die for their country, but without the slightest ability to render efficient military service. These volunteers included clerks, business men, professional men from the cities of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, thousands of workmen from great factories like the Roebling wire works, thousands of villagers and farmers, all blazing with zeal, but none of them able to handle a high-power Springfield rifle or operate a range-finder or make the adjustments for the time-fuse of a sh.e.l.l.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PEOPLE KNEW THE ANSWER OF VON HINDENBURG. THEY HAD READ IT, AS HAD ALL THE WORLD FOR MILES AROUND, IN THE CATACLYSM OF THE PLUNGING TOWERS. NEW YORK MUST SURRENDER OR PERISH!]

"They shot away tons of ammunition without hitting anything," said one of the American officers to me. "They didn't know how to use wind-gauges or elevation-sights. They couldn't even pull a trigger properly."

And yet, the Germans suffered heavily in that desperate battle of the fourth day--partly because they attacked again and again in close formation and were mowed down by American machine-guns; partly because General Wood had fortified his position with miles of wire entanglements through which high-voltage electric currents were sent from the power-house of the Newtown and Trenton trolley systems in Newtown, Pennsylvania; and, finally, because the American commander, in an address to his troops, read at sunset on the eve of battle, had called upon them in inspiring words to fight for their wives and children, for the integrity of the nation, for the glory of the old flag.

And they fought until they died. When the battle was over, the Americans had lost 15,000 out of 70,000, while the Germans lost 12,000 out of 125,000. Von Hindenburg himself admitted that he had never seen such mad, hopeless, magnificent courage.

Again General Wood faced defeat and the necessity of falling back to a stronger position. For weeks thousands of labourers had been digging trenches north of Philadelphia; and now the American army, beaten but defiant, retreated rapidly and in some disorder through Jenkintown and Bristol to this new line of intrenchments that spread in fan shape from the Schuylkill to the Delaware.

It was of the most desperate importance now that word be sent to Harrisburg and to the mobilisation camp at Gettysburg and to other recruiting points in the West and South, demanding that all possible reinforcements be rushed to Philadelphia. As communication by telegraph and telephone was cut off, General Wood despatched Colonel Horace M.

Reading and Captain William E. Pedrick, officers of the National Guard, in a swift automobile, with instructions that these calls for help be flashed _without fail_ from the wireless station in the lofty granite shaft of the Trenton monument that commemorates Washington's victory over the Hessians.

Unfortunately, owing to bad roads and wrecked bridges, these officers suffered great delay, and only reached the Trenton monument as the German host, with rolling drums, was marching into the New Jersey capital along Pennington Avenue, the triumphant way that Washington had followed after his great victory.

As the invaders reached the little park where the monument stands, they saw that a wireless station was in operation there, and demanded its surrender.

Colonel Reading, wishing to gain time (for every minute counted), opened a gla.s.s door and stepped out on the little balcony at the top of the monument one hundred and fifty feet above the ground. He tried to speak, but a German officer cut him short. He must surrender instantly or they would fire.

"Fire and be d.a.m.ned!" shouted the Colonel, and turned to the white-faced wireless operator inside. "Have you got Harrisburg yet?" he asked. "For G.o.d's sake, hustle!"

"Just got 'em," answered the operator. "I need five minutes to get this message through."

Five minutes! The German officer below, red with anger, was calling out sharp orders. A six-inch gun was set up under the Carolina poplars not a hundred yards from the monument.

"We'll show them!" roared the Prussian, as the gun crew drove home a hundred-pound sh.e.l.l. "Ready!"

"Is that message gone?" gasped Reading.

"Half of it. I need two minutes."