The Note-Book of an Attache Part 8

Today Paris had another visit from a German aeroplane which threw the usual three bombs. One of them fell in the Avenue du Trocadero near the Emba.s.sy. It just missed demolishing the Amba.s.sador and Mr. Frazier who were in an automobile on their way to inspect the buildings and grounds of the German Emba.s.sy. They had driven over the spot only two minutes before the bomb struck. I was at the same time on my way to the Emba.s.sy, having met them near the Pont d'Alma. I pa.s.sed along the avenue a minute later and had just turned the corner when the bomb fell, killing an old man and tearing a leg off a little girl. The day was very cloudy and the aviator was above the clouds; for this reason no one seems to have discovered him and he must have thrown his bomb at random.

_Monday, September 28th._ At lunch today in the Cafe Royal I overheard a Frenchman remark that although he and all his compatriots greatly esteemed Mr. Herrick, it would nevertheless have been an excellent service against the enemy had he tactfully allowed himself to be annihilated by the German bomb which missed him yesterday. Later in the afternoon I took tea with Mr. Herrick at the _Chancellerie_, and he was much amused when I recounted to him this example of a somewhat equivocal good-will.

_Tuesday, September 29th._ The damage to Rheims Cathedral was largely the result of fire. The Germans had, during the time they held the city, converted it into a hospital; they had stacked the chairs against the walls and covered the floor deep with straw upon which to lay their wounded. During the spring and summer the front facade had been undergoing repairs and was covered with heavy wooden scaffolding similar to that which has for several years disfigured St. Sulpice in Paris. The Cathedral was very famous for its choir-stalls and other wood-carving, of which there was a great quant.i.ty, and the roof which covered the vaulting was held up by a forest of great timbers many centuries old.

After the Germans had been driven out of the city they bombarded it from the hills outside, and their sh.e.l.ls lit the straw on the Cathedral floor. Over it the fire ran swiftly, ignited the chairs piled against the walls, and then spread to the great ma.s.ses of carved woodwork; finally the scaffolding and roof caught fire and the famous old Cathedral burned in one great conflagration. It has been particularly famous for three things: its woodwork, its front facade, and its stained-gla.s.s windows. The woodwork went up in smoke, the front facade was all scorched and disintegrated by the intense heat so that the surface of the stone detail is blowing off in fine dust, while the gla.s.s to the last particle was shattered by the concussions of bursting sh.e.l.ls. The Cathedral stands like a great skeleton of its former self. Its flesh, as it were, is gone although few of its bones are broken.

_Sat.u.r.day, October 3d._ This is the first war in modern times in which whole nations have gone to battle; in this conflict every man in a nation is a soldier. In Napoleon's day France had about the same population--forty millions--that she now has, but Napoleon's professional armies numbered, at most, only two hundred thousand men, while today France has put fifteen or twenty times as many in the field. In the present war, when an army sustains a 10 per cent. loss it is not merely 10 per cent. of the army, but actually of the able-bodied men of the nation.

_Wednesday, October 7th._ A German aeroplane again threw bombs on Paris today.

_Thursday, October 8th._ Another Taube came today and threw bombs in the neighborhood of the Gare du Nord. These machines in flight look very much like sparrow-hawks and have a singularly sinister appearance.

_Sunday, October 11th._ We had a record-breaking flock of Taubes today when a number came together and dropped about twenty bombs. Their combined score was twenty-two people killed and wounded; as usual, all women, children, and old men.

CHAPTER VI

THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE

_Paris, Monday, October 12th._ In writing about the German, Austrian, and Hungarian subjects of whom we have had charge, I have spoken of them _en ma.s.se_. In reality there have been many cases in whom I have been personally interested and to whose safety I have given much time.

Their history alone would fill a book. One of these is the case of the Countess X., member of an old and powerful Hungarian family.

The Count, her husband, was desperately ill in Paris when the war broke out and he was kept alive only through the devoted care of his wife. We arranged with the French authorities that the Countess might remain in Paris with her husband, although all other Hungarian people were, without exception, being shipped off to detention camps. Later the Countess twice received notice from the Prefecture that she was to be immediately imprisoned, and each time by enlisting the personal a.s.sistance of Amba.s.sador Herrick I managed to have the decree delayed.

The children of the family, of whom there were seven under ten years of age, were living at a chateau on the French coast, at Paris-Plage, near Boulogne. When the German army began to sweep towards the coast in a seemingly irresistible flood, the Countess came to me to say how fearful she felt for the safety of her children, left in the care of servants and governesses. Yesterday, when the fall of Antwerp was confirmed and when even the official announcements went so far as to talk of fighting in the neighborhood of Arras, she came again. I went to Mr. Herrick and asked if I might be allowed to go to the coast and bring the children back to Paris. The permission was the more readily granted because there were several other errands to be done in the same direction, notably to carry communications to our Consular Agent in Amiens, who had remained in that city during the German occupation and from whom little had since been heard.

The necessary permits have been obtained and these will incidentally allow me to see something of the front on my way north. I expect to leave this evening.

Two machines will be needed to bring back the children and their attendants. There are several young Americans who have given their services and the use of their private automobiles for Emba.s.sy service.

On all previous expeditions I have been conducted by Melvin Hall. He is at present a.s.signed to other business, but I have secured the services of another volunteer chauffeur, Francis Colby. I shall travel in his touring-car and bring back in it the older children and their English governess. The second machine, a large limousine, will be driven by the French chauffeur of Countess X., and into it I shall pack the smaller children and their two nurses.

The condition of the front along which we must pa.s.s for eighty miles is as follows: the battle of the Aisne has now turned into a race for the coast; each army is trying to outflank the other, the Germans, according to present indications, getting much the better of the contest. Everyone's attention seems to be concentrated for the moment on Calais, and the Allies evidently feel that the chief danger point is there. I notice with special concern, however, that farther south the German army is at Bethune thrusting out a wedge toward Abbeville, on the coast, only thirty-eight miles away. If they can advance these thirty-eight miles they will win not only all the triangle containing Nieuport, Calais, and Boulogne, but will cut off such of the Allied armies as are now concentrated in this area, and also radically shorten their own lines. Their front, as it now extends from Compiegne to Holland, measures nearly two hundred miles. If reorganized from Compiegne to the coast at Abbeville, it would be less than sixty-five miles. Of course the Allies fully appreciate this danger and are guarding against it as best they can, but I agree with Countess X.

that the sooner we s.n.a.t.c.h her children out of the threatened area the better.

_At the Front, Tuesday, October 13th._ We left Paris last evening at half-past six and at first made only slow progress owing to heavy traffic, worn-out roads, and destroyed bridges. We stopped for supper in poor, wrecked Senlis. This town is no farther from the gates of Paris than Van Cortlandt Park in New York is from the Battery, and yet the German armies were in Senlis in September, battles raged in its streets, sh.e.l.ls burst in its houses and destroyed whole blocks. Indeed, one of the fiercest fights of the war took place at night in its streets when, during the attack made by the garrison of Paris upon von Kluck's army, troops were hurriedly rushed out of Paris in trams, wagons, and taxicabs to fall pell-mell upon the Germans who occupied Senlis. French colonial infantry played a large part in this conflict. A weird and awful sight it must have been: taxicabs and automobiles from Paris charging up the streets vomiting bullets in all directions, houses catching fire from the bursting sh.e.l.ls, and by the light of their flames the men of both armies fighting hand to hand, chasing one another through the doors and windows of burning and collapsing houses, or making desperate stands behind dead horses, street-barricades, or wrecked taxicabs. It is said that in every such melee Turcos were to be seen exulting in their favorite sport, close-range fighting.

After supper we pa.s.sed through Fleurines, Pont Ste. Maxence, and Blincourt to Estrees-St. Denis, where we spent the night. Along this road had recently pa.s.sed a great German army, and their engineers had constructed new roads to the right and left of the original one, so that their regiments had been able to march steadily three abreast, probably no small factor in their successful retreat.

This morning we got under way at half-past six. The day was hazy, threatening rain; mists rising from the ground made it impossible to see clearly for any great distance. The heavy atmosphere m.u.f.fled the sound of guns so that it was difficult to judge their location even when we were fairly close upon them. The day was, however, a most advantageous one on which to move about near the front, provided one were careful to ascertain where, off in the mist, the enemy's batteries lay.

We first reached the front at Roye-sur-Matz, which we found was occupied by a French colonial brigade. This place is about three miles from La.s.signy, which is far within the German lines, and from which they have recently organized heavy attacks against the French forces.

In Roye-sur-Matz the German sh.e.l.ls were bursting, punctuated by the m.u.f.fled slump of falling walls. The place had been deserted by its inhabitants, but Turcos and black Senegalese wandered about the ruined streets indifferent to the sh.e.l.l fire. For a week past there has been heavy fighting in the vicinity of Roye and La.s.signy, probably the heaviest that has taken place in the Battle of the Aisne since the latter part of September. We drove slowly down the main street of the village looking for an officer who could tell us about the local geography. We finally met the acting brigadier, a French colonel, who informed us that it was not safe for us to continue more than a block farther in the direction in which we were going, as the far end of the village was "between the lines" and we would there come under the observation of the German sharpshooters. This officer said that the best way to follow the battle-line would be to turn back through the village and take the first road to the right.

We stayed in the village for half an hour longer, and then, faithfully following directions, went back and took the "first turn to the right," which proved to be a narrow road whose existence the officer had forgotten and which was not at all the one he meant to recommend.

We, ignorant of any mistake, went blindly on, down a little hill, across a small brook, and up a knoll opposite. In doing so we had actually pa.s.sed out through the French lines and reached an elevation squarely between the two armies. The French positions were, as usual, concealed, and for the moment they were not firing, so that we remained blissfully unconscious of our dangerous position. Fortunately for us, the German lines were at this point half a mile away from the French, and owing to the mist and distance we were apparently un.o.bserved, since we received no especial attention. As we reached the top of the knoll it began to rain, making us still less conspicuous and forcing us to stop and put up the top. We pulled up behind an isolated barn in order to be somewhat sheltered from stray shrapnel.

As we stood behind the barn, the bombarded village which we had just left lay below and behind us, and in front featureless fields sloped away toward some low wooded hills half a mile distant. Suddenly the constant rumbling of guns was interrupted by four quick, sharp explosions, and we perceived little wisps of smoke bluer than the mist trailing up through the tree tops of these hills. These explosions were French sh.e.l.ls bursting over the German trenches, but we, naturally supposing ourselves to be within the French lines, at the moment thought it was a French battery firing a salvo.

While we were putting up the top, two French soldiers on picket duty came by and, lured by the unfailing bait of cigarettes, stopped to talk to us. Taking it for granted that we knew where we were, they did not mention our being between the lines, but told us of a great fight which had last Sunday taken place about two miles to the right of where we stood. They said that the German and French trenches there faced one another across a low field and were so near together that at night the French could hear the Germans singing. Some peculiarity in the contour of the land had led the enemy to think that here was a promising point to break through the French lines; consequently a series of violent attacks had been launched from La.s.signy against this position. These attacks had repeatedly been repulsed with heavy losses and thousands of dead Germans lay in the field between the two sets of trenches.

I decided to ask permission to go over this recently contested area, and therefore turned back to Brigade headquarters in the village of Roye-sur-Matz, which we had just left. There, in a second talk with the officer who had previously directed us, I learned for the first time that we had taken the wrong road and been for a considerable time between the French and German armies, and only a few hundred yards from the German trenches. That we had there seen no signs of armies, guns, or entrenchments, indicates the curious characteristics of modern warfare, and the invisibility of all combatants even when actively engaged. The permission which I had desired to obtain to inspect the ground of the recent battle was refused as being too dangerous.

We later pa.s.sed through the village of Guerbigny. Here, as at all times during our trip, the guns could be heard booming in the distance. At the farther end of the place a family of peasants, led by the grandfather, were packing their humble worldly goods into a big cart to which was. .h.i.tched an exceedingly old white horse. They were very sad and explained simply, "C'est dur de partir." They pointed across a field to a little church tower about a mile away, only dimly visible through the haze, which still hung low over the landscape, saying pathetically: "On bombarde ce hameau; c'est la les avant-postes des Francais." Our maps showed that the church tower was in the village of Erches. A straight road ran down to it from where we stood.

The mist seemed to favor the possibility of our reaching this village without being too quickly observed by the Germans. We therefore promptly put on all speed and in a few seconds drew up under the lee of a battered house, which was on the advance line of the French army, and were in the midst of the battle. A French officer, who appeared out of the house, informed us that we were then actually within two hundred yards of the German trenches, so near, he said, that his men "knew the Germans in the opposing trenches by their first names."

Seeing a modern battle demolishes all one's preconceived ideas derived from descriptions of previous wars. One at least expects some sort of rapid and exciting action. In reality, as we stood in the very midst of the Battle of the Aisne, there was, in our immediate neighborhood, only a dead silence. At intervals an angry rumbling would break out somewhere in the distance, but in the trenches close to our elbows there was no sound or movement. No birds, no beasts, no men were anywhere to be seen. This uncanny silence would continue for twenty or thirty interminable seconds and then a shrapnel would burst close by, with a sharp, ugly, threatening bang which had no echo; then all lapsed into silence again. Each shrapnel only made the subsequent silence more intense, just as a man's footsteps crunching through the snow-crust of a winter wilderness seem like a brutal intrusion on the absolute stillness.

We looked behind us and could see no signs of French troops; we peeped around the house corner and could perceive no indications of the enemy. It was a monotonous landscape which faded away through the mist to nothingness, and its only noticeable features were a few sh.e.l.l craters and two French soldiers sitting close by in the end of a trench. These men remained motionless so long before one of them moved that we began to think they were dead. Their comrades were all hidden in a bomb-proof trench which from any angle was invisible at a distance of a few yards. Several more officers came out of the house and chatted with us, or unconcernedly read newspapers which we distributed and made not the slightest break in their conversation when a shrapnel burst directly over our heads with ear-splitting nearness.

The shrapnel arrived without any forewarning scream. This is a sign that the guns are less than two thousand yards away. For the first one or two thousand yards of its flight a 3-inch sh.e.l.l travels faster than sound, but after that distance it so rapidly loses velocity that the sound of its screech travels faster than the sh.e.l.l and arrives ahead of it.

We visited the field headquarters of a General, commanding a division of twenty thousand men, whom we had the pleasure of meeting. Under a great haystack which stood alone in the center of an open field had been excavated several rooms used as the General's Headquarters. Some yards away from the haystack a stove-pipe projected out of the sod in a foolish unrelated manner; under it was the kitchen in which was cooking the evening meal for the staff officers. A clump of trees close by might be called the General's ante-room, for here hidden among the branches were several officers receiving and sending messengers and dispatches. Several telephone wires ran to the haystack and one of them connected the trees with the General's underground office. In a neighboring wood a troop of cavalry were encamped and numerous automobiles and motor-cycles were parked, all hidden from distant outlooks or from aeroplanes overhead.

The area immediately in the rear of the battle-lines is most interesting, for it is here that one really learns how a battle is fought. One sees the reserves of men and munitions all hidden carefully from the view of aeroplanes. Occasionally one catches a glimpse of the guns, which are usually a mile or so behind the infantry and are hidden and protected in the woods and valleys. The artillery seldom sees its enemy or even its own front battle-line, but fires across woods, hills, and valleys and over the heads of its own infantry at the enemy beyond. The guns are aimed from mathematical calculations and the results are checked and corrected by observations telephoned back from the front.

We arrived in Amiens in the middle of the afternoon and I went immediately to see the American Consular Agent, M. Ta.s.sancourt, for whom I had messages. I found him in splendid shape and very glad to welcome me. I discovered later in the day that he had done exceedingly effective work during the German occupation of the city, and was at least partly responsible for the fact that there had been no friction between the German invaders and the population. When our official business was finished he took me for an inspection of the military hospitals, which occupied several hours. The city is only fifteen miles distant from the present battle-line and contains base hospitals for some forty miles of battle front.