The Note-Book of an Attache Part 19

I have at all times been tremendously impressed with the dominant importance in this war of artillery. My personal observations lead me to estimate that the percentage of casualties from artillery wounds has been nearly 50% of the total.

There are very distinct differences in the methods of the French and German field artilleries. The _French field artillery_ is always used in indirect fire and the positions are usually a long distance behind the infantry--from fifteen to twenty-five hundred yards. The emplacements are often in deep wooded valleys. Too close proximity to the infantry is avoided.

In contrast to this, the _German field artillery_ is nearly always very close to the infantry and is frequently in position for direct fire. In the most typical German arrangement the infantry trenches are on the front face of a hill along the "military crest" with the artillery two or three hundred yards behind over the natural crest.

One often sees German field guns in such a position that it is difficult to say whether they are in "direct" or "indirect" fire.

In battles where there are no rapid retreats and rapid advances it seems to be the custom for batteries to be silent for one or two days while the battery commander, by means of observers, aeroplanes, and spies, endeavors to locate an objective. The point to be made is that the main forces of artillery do not seem to fire very continuously.

Oftentimes in the middle of a very tense battle where heavy forces are opposed to each other there will be periods of half an hour or even longer when no firing whatsoever is to be heard. The importance of observers has become tremendous. On some occasions it seems as though the main object of an army were to get a single man into a location from which he can accurately observe the enemy's position, and as if until this is accomplished the whole battle is at a standstill. Both sides try continuously in all sorts of original ways to get information. The German tendency is toward the use of spies, while the French more often employ daring volunteer observers who sacrifice their lives in order successfully to direct fire for even five or ten minutes. Aeroplanes are used for the same purpose by all nations, but with less and less success as the war progresses, because hostile infantry and artillery are better and better hidden. It has now become almost impossible for an aeroplane to locate hostile artillery except by the flashes. Battery positions are either placed in forests, or artificial woods are built around them. It is almost axiomatic that artillery shall give no signs of life while an enemy's aeroplane is above, and as the result of this, one well-recognized method of temporarily silencing an enemy's battery is to keep an aeroplane flying over its neighborhood. Volunteer observers are frequently disguised and sent forward to hunt for a place from which they can observe the hostile trenches of artillery and thus direct and correct the fire of their own batteries. Observers who thus volunteer to go forward are virtually always decorated and made officers, if, by some fortunate chance, they both succeed and survive. The French artillery officers take advantage of every "a.s.sist"; for instance, I saw a case where a sh.e.l.l made a groove on the reverse side of a hill and glanced off. The sh.e.l.l exploded, but its fuse was recovered by the French, the setting of the fuse determined, and by means of this and the direction of the groove made in the hill the German battery was located. The French reported that they had destroyed the battery. One of their aeroplanes was sent up before firing was begun and later observed the battery's efforts to escape.

The French batteries are usually so far behind the infantry that when they have come under heavy artillery fire there is no danger of capture. The custom with the French seems to be, in a case like this, for the personnel to run and take cover during the bombardment. I saw this happen twice, and I learned of numerous other cases. Cover underground is constructed for all the personnel of the batteries. One enters these subterranean quarters through entrances which look very much like enlarged woodchuck holes. With no artillery of any nationality did I see any gun entrenchment other than a slight mound of earth coming up to the bottom of the shield. All guns that I have seen were in a line, except in cases where there was some peculiar rising of terrain. I have several times seen a "group" together in one line, at intervals of about twenty yards. In practice, the French tend to extend the intervals to about twenty-five yards, while the Germans either decrease them to about fifteen yards, or have the guns quite isolated, seventy-five or one hundred yards apart.

Telephones are the only instruments of which I have observed the use in the immediate neighborhood of French batteries. The battery commander controls the fire by word of mouth.

The French 75-mm. gun is the only field-piece which under practical field conditions does not "jump." This gives a tremendous advantage to the French artillery in such duels as frequently take place in battles where there is rapid movement. I have been on battlefields after action had finished and observed positions where two batteries had shot at each other, both being in "direct fire" position. The French pieces can fire at a rate of twenty-five shots a minute and in such duels seem to be able to fire accurately with nearly twice the rapidity of the Germans.

The most unpleasant experience that I ever underwent occurred one day when I was directly in front of and under a French battery and it suddenly and unexpectedly fired about forty rounds in thirty seconds over my head. These discharges produced a great psychological effect and were much more disconcerting than any arrival of enemy's sh.e.l.ls.

I have never observed any "short burst," or sh.e.l.ls bursting in guns. I should judge that this accident happens very rarely, with the French, at least.

At the beginning of the war, the French carried sh.e.l.ls and shrapnel in about equal numbers. The sh.e.l.ls explode with the time-fuse exactly as do shrapnel. From several sources I was told that they were loaded with the new explosive which had been introduced only about three months before the beginning of hostilities. As the war progresses the French tend to use more and more of these explosive sh.e.l.ls, which are used against infantry in the same way as are shrapnel. The only difference seems to be that they are made to burst a little lower.

Their effect is very terrible. A heavy bursting charge is employed, and although the fragments are small they fly with such force that they make fatal wounds and even cut into the wood of rifle stocks. I observed the body of one German whose back had been pierced with about forty small particles of a sh.e.l.l which had burst close to him. These particles were as evenly spread as the charge of a shotgun. German wounded and captured Germans have told me that this French sh.e.l.l-fire was so h.e.l.lish that no man escaped except by a miracle. The French infantry have a great affection for their "75," and their confidence is always very greatly increased by its presence. Their spirits immediately rise when they hear it behind them. The French field artillery seem to have no favorite range but readily fire at any range. On the one hand a gun is sometimes taken into the trenches, and on the other hand I once observed a battery begin firing at 5300 meters and go to 5600 meters. One frequently sees French batteries of two and three guns and groups of eight or nine guns, lost guns not having been promptly replaced. I once saw a battery of two guns, the other two having been completely destroyed by direct fire the previous week. The heaviest piece that I saw at the front with the French was a 6-in. howitzer. The Germans use all sizes up to 12-in. in field operations, the latter being of Austrian construction. I have never discovered any conclusive evidence that Germany possesses 42-centimeter guns.

In my observations, when infantry charge infantry in battle movement, the majority of the casualties are caused by artillery. I have several times observed fields of dead infantrymen killed in an advance against infantry, where 90% of the dead had been killed by shrapnel. In my experience the Germans never use anything except shrapnel against infantry in the open. Shrapnel wounds are very ugly, being big ragged holes which usually become infected.

On the battlefields I have observed, very few German shrapnel have failed to burst in the air. In one field about a half mile square, where shrapnel cases were strewn about [I counted about forty or fifty], I observed only four craters. The French often say that the German shrapnel burst too high.

The German field artillery frequently place their caissons at a distance of two hundred yards behind the guns, there being no limbers or caissons with the guns. The ammunition is brought up by hand, each man carrying six sh.e.l.ls in baskets holding three each. The caissons are usually in less numbers than the guns, there being two caissons behind four guns, or one caisson behind two guns.

In examining abandoned German ammunition, I have found sh.e.l.ls bearing all dates from 1903 to 1914.

On no occasion have I seen observation ladders used by the French field artillery. This is probably due to the fact that, in general, their artillery is at so great a distance behind the scene of operations.

Sh.e.l.ls bigger than 3-in. when used in field operations seldom do any damage, but have a tremendous moral effect even on veteran troops. The disconcerting effect of heavy sh.e.l.ls exploding in the ground is very widely recognized at the front. The fire of big howitzers is, as a rule, very inaccurate. When one of these sh.e.l.ls. .h.i.ts a building or a paved street its effect is considerable; when they burst in soft ground they are not dangerous. Most of the battlefields of France are on muddy fields, in which the 6-in. sh.e.l.ls make a crater about forty feet in circ.u.mference and five or six feet deep. Their effect is chiefly upward and casualties are so rare as to be considered freaks.

Mud is, however, thrown over the whole neighborhood. The bursting of the 12-in. sh.e.l.ls is a very impressive sight--I saw two burst. (My authority for their caliber was a major of French artillery with whom I was standing at the time.) They burst at a distance of about 600 yards from us, one in an open field and the other in a small French village. The concussion was very heavy and even at 600 yards was felt in the feet. In the first case the air was filled with flying mud to a height of several hundred feet and there was a cloud of greasy black smoke about as large as a city block. The resultant crater was about one hundred feet in circ.u.mference, the ground being particularly soft.

The second sh.e.l.l produced the same sensations, made the same sort of crater, and destroyed four or five small French brick and stone houses.

The largest German howitzers which are in the field were, in my personal experience, used only to bombard towns and villages.

INFANTRY

My observations lead me to think that the most important qualifications for the infantry soldier are three, viz: to be able to dig, to be able to hide, and to be able to shoot. At the beginning of the war the French had paid very little attention to any of these things. Their men were dressed in a uniform so conspicuous that hiding was impossible. The only shooting that they had ever done was gallery shooting at a range of about forty yards and they were singularly poor even at this. Judging by practical results, they had very few theories and no practice in the matter of digging trenches. The trenches which they made in the early weeks of the war were straight grooves in the ground with the earth thrown up in a haphazard manner on either or both sides. Their early defeats were due to the unexpected invasion through Belgium, and to their unpreparedness in the three essentials mentioned above.

The German infantry also shoot poorly from an American standpoint, but do better than the French. Their uniform is the most nearly perfect of any of the armies in the war, and the Germans are virtually invisible at short range if they are not moving. Their helmet is easily the best headgear in the matter of invisibility. It sets tightly on the head, and owing to its shape virtually never casts a shadow. The Germans have been from the beginning very accomplished trench diggers and have had elaborate theories as to the construction of trenches and much practice in making them.

The British are the only troops in the war who shoot with any degree of excellence. Their shooting does not approach in accuracy that of our own army, but is so superior to the Germans that a British battalion of 1100 men usually has a firing effect equal to that of a German regiment of nearly 3000. On the gray-green backgrounds of Europe the British khaki is not conspicuous, but at the same time it is certainly visible. The British hat is the most conspicuous headgear in the war, since its rim casts a heavy black shadow, and its flat top shows white in sunlight. The heads of the British in the trenches stand out very distinctly.

In my experience the machine-gun is the most effective infantry weapon. Personally, I should interpret this not as praise for machine-guns, but as a criticism of the poor shooting of all the infantry engaged. The French have comparatively few machine-guns.

Since November, the French have had troops of all categories on the firing-line, and I should judge by this that since November, if not earlier, the French have had all their available men in service. Among my personal acquaintances in France, I know no man liable for service who has not been in the army from that date onward. The men who for physical reasons were earlier refused are now being quite generally accepted as volunteers and are put to office work or similar occupations. I have seen great numbers of wounded Territorials in France, and many Territorial prisoners in the prison camps in Germany.

When I visited the prison camp at Zossen (near Berlin) where there are said to be 20,000 French prisoners, a large percentage (perhaps as much as 50 per cent.) of the prisoners I saw were Territorials.

The Germans have very well-developed and well-organized systems of relays for their men at the front. The infantry stay in the trenches for about a month at a time and are then given a vacation, usually being sent home to their garrison town. Their cavalry serve ten days at the front and are then sent a day's march to the rear for a ten-days' rest. Their artillerymen get no vacation, their lives being considered easy enough.

I saw no evidence of any well-organized system of vacations among either the French or British and I knew many isolated cases where personal friends of mine, both officers and enlisted men, have been at the front continuously since the beginning of the war. I am fairly certain that the British enlisted man has had no vacation since the beginning of the war, other than relaying near the front.

I would mention again, in order to emphasize the statement, that all my observations have led me to believe that the essentials of military preparedness are, first of all, a rapid mobilization, without this everything else is useless. By "rapid" I mean a mobilization of at least half a million men or upward in not more than ten days. After this in importance comes the ability to hide, to dig, and to shoot. To hide is impossible when wearing a uniform as conspicuous as the French, which might be called maximum, and has, I should estimate, been the cause of from three to four hundred thousand extra casualties.

The bayonet has been much used in this war and I have viewed personally a number of battlefields on which the action was decided with cold steel. It is my impression that European officers have maintained their faith in the bayonet as a weapon and some of them may even have become more than ever convinced of its worth. This is very distinctly the case with the French and the Austrians. The Germans are the only people whom I have observed to show any preference for shooting as against cutting when in close action. There is no doubt that the French commander's idea is to win the ultimate decision with the bayonet. Europeans in general seem to prefer cutting and stabbing to shooting. For them, "fight" seems to mean stabbing somebody. Their psychology is directly opposed to ours, for I think most American soldiers prefer shooting to cutting. The Europeans do not seem to have the taste for shooting, or the ability or wish to shoot well. It is difficult or even impossible to teach many of them to shoot with any degree of effectiveness.

In spite of the degree to which the bayonet has been used in Europe and the number of actions which I have seen won by its use, I am strongly convinced that the bayonet is not a practical weapon, and that the only just grounds for its employment are to be found in psychological reasons. I have not actually seen bayonet combats but have studied the battlefields soon after the conflicts and have talked with troops who had taken part in them, both French wounded and German prisoners. I remember particularly the scenes of three bayonet fights on a considerable scale. The first took place near Fere Champenoise on September 8th; the second near Sezanne on September 9th; the third near La.s.signy about October 15th. In each case the men had thrown all science to the wind and fought wildly and savagely hand to hand. They were probably less effective than a Philippine boloman. Most of the casualties had been bayoneted through the neck, face, and skull, the men having lunged savagely for the face just like a boxer who has lost his temper. In the first-mentioned place I saw a Frenchman and a German lying side by side, both dead, and each transfixed by the other's bayonet, showing that they had rushed upon each other madly without the least thought of science or defense. It would seem to me that an infantryman with a short and handy rifle like our new Springfield could fill his magazine just before the enemy's charge arrived and "stop" four or five men armed with bayonets or any other edged weapon. I see no more reason for opposing bayonet with bayonet than for opposing a bolo with a bolo. The same reasoning would apply to lances and sabers, which are universally carried and certainly have been used to some extent. It is an interesting fact that in fights between cavalry patrols, every such affair which came to my personal knowledge had been decided by shooting and by nothing else, although the teaching of the men is to close in and use the lance and saber.

The Germans alone when in close action have shown a tendency to do more or less shooting. In the first mentioned of the above fights, the Germans were virtually all killed by bayonet wounds, whereas perhaps 50 per cent. of the French dead whom I examined showed gunshot wounds.

The French tactical unit is the battalion of 1000 men, divided into four companies, nominally of 250 men each but with an effective battle strength of slightly over 200. These companies are commanded by a captain with four or five lieutenants under him. Two of these lieutenants are regular officers and the other two or three are reserve officers. Each platoon is commanded by a lieutenant and a sergeant. An infantry brigade in the French army is made up of six battalions. In case of heavy casualties the number of battalions is reduced, the idea being to keep battalions as near normal strength as possible. Thus if the regiment loses 30 per cent. it is reduced from a regiment of three battalions to a regiment of two battalions, and if it loses 60 or 70 per cent. it is reduced to a regiment of one battalion.

The French, German, Russian, Austrian, and Hungarian infantry are all armed with long, heavy, and ill-balanced rifles carrying detachable bayonets. These rifles are very poorly sighted in comparison with our new Springfield. It would be very difficult or impossible to do good shooting with them, as measured from an American standpoint. In my personal experience there have been numberless cases where dispatch bearers, automobiles, scouts, pickets, and patrols were exposed at very short range to the fire of bodies of French or German troops without any casualties whatsoever occurring.

The one idea of the German infantry seems to be to shoot as much and as rapidly as possible. I have several times observed where German infantry have taken up a position in the open, and fired 120 rounds a man, more or less, as a matter of course.

I have nowhere observed the use of any semi-automatic rifles, nor of either silencers or special sights for sharpshooters.

TRENCHES AND CONCEALMENT

In October I was in the neighborhood of La.s.signy and Roye where heavy fighting was and had been going on. There was a little village called Erches to the northwest of these places. Here were the French advance trenches. I was in this village during the height of operations and was told that we were then only 150 or 200 yards from the German trenches. Standing behind a house corner in this village of Erches, I could see nothing unusual in any direction. I could see no signs of French or German activity nor of life of any kind, although the French infantry trenches extended to our right and left and the Germans were directly in front of us. The landscape which spread away in all directions looked perfectly normal and unbroken except for a few sh.e.l.l craters. The only manifestations of activity were the distant rumbling of guns, and the shrapnel bursting over our heads. Although I stayed there for more than an hour, the only Frenchmen I saw were a few who joined me behind the house; they came from trenches hidden within it, or from an underground trench, the opening of which was behind the house. I recount this to accent the concealment of all troops in this war. Trenches are made to resemble the landscape in which they are placed. If they are in a brown mowed field, hay is scattered over all fresh earth, and if they are made in pasture land all the earth is carefully carried away or is spread out and sodded over.

CAVALRY

The Austrian cavalry unit is the division, which is accompanied by the horse artillery in considerable strength. They are not accompanied by cyclists or armored automobiles.

During the first six months of the war, at least, in the Austrian, Hungarian, British, and French armies no newspaper or war correspondents were allowed to view the actual operations on any condition whatsoever. No press representative saw any battle with the Austrian, Hungarian, British, or French armies, with one single exception which took place in France, when one day during September certain press representatives managed to see the bombardment along the Aisne. I make this statement with the full knowledge that many correspondents state they have seen battle actions. I have been able to investigate such statements on numerous occasions, and invariably found them to be fabrications, usually without even a foundation of truth. Reporters frequently left the intrenched camp at Paris, were arrested before traveling any great distance, and confined for days and weeks. They then returned to the city and told hair-raising stories of their experiences at the front.

The only war news published in France, England, Austria, and Hungary, is that of the official _communiques_, which usually suppress all essentials, minimize or omit all reverses, and convert all drawn actions or slight gains into victories.

The Austrian and Hungarian horse artillery were in such close relation with the cavalry that their support was very good. In fact, the artillery get into position as quickly as the cavalry. The chief function which cavalry have performed successfully in this war has been that of reconnoissance. The French and German armies use aeroplanes and cavalry patrols as their princ.i.p.al means of reconnoissance; the latter scout in parties of from six to fifteen men commanded by an officer. The British do the same work with two motor-cycle riders. The transmission of dispatches by cavalry has become virtually nil in France because of the extensive use for this purpose of telephones, automobiles, and motor-cycles. It is very doubtful, however, if automobiles and motor-cycles could successfully be used for dispatch-bearing and reconnoissance in any country except France. On the Russian frontier the poorness and scarcity of roads make the use of automobiles difficult and the use of wheels and motor-cycles impossible. It would, therefore, seem that for reconnoissance and dispatch-bearing, cavalry will usually be the means employed.

Cavalry have to a certain extent been used as reserves. They were thus first used by the British. In recent months I have often seen large French cavalry reserves. At such times they are, in effect, mounted infantry, so that reinforcements may be transferred a greater distance in a shorter time. My personal observations have led me to believe that aside from their uses in reconnoissance, the princ.i.p.al value of cavalry is as mounted infantry held in reserve. When fighting, cavalry must dismount. Early in the war there were occasions when cavalry fought while mounted, and whether against artillery, infantry, or other cavalry, the chief result was the killing of nearly all the horses.

In the Austrian, Hungarian, and French armies many cavalry regiments have been converted into infantry. I do not think that this is chiefly due to lack of horses but to the fact that the opportunity for fighting while mounted no longer exists.

ENGINEERING

The only work which I observed to be done entirely and solely by engineers was the construction of bridges, of which they have had to build a great number. I was impressed by the fact that many of these bridges were quite original in conception. They are nearly always intelligent makeshifts which might truly be called inventions.

At Pont-Ste.-Maxence, a bridge capable of supporting the heaviest traffic was constructed in a few hours. Big ca.n.a.l boats which were lying idle in the neighborhood were requisitioned and anch.o.r.ed side by side, touching each other. Their decks were made flush, each with the other, by the shifting of ballast, and when this had been accomplished a roadway was laid across them. This bridge was so satisfactory that it has not yet been replaced by a permanent structure. Road building was largely carried on among the French by infantry, and it was my experience that trench building was exclusively done by the infantry as it was found necessary. The positions and traces of trenches were laid out by infantry officers. This latter conclusion is, however, based on three or four observations only.