Winning a Cause Part 17

HARRY LAUDER SINGS

Harry Lauder, an extremely popular Scotch singer and entertainer, gave his services to help cheer the soldiers on the western front.

The men went wild with enthusiasm and joy wherever he went. One day I was taking Harry to see the grave of his only child, Captain John Lauder of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, as fine a lad as ever wore a kilt, and as good and brave a son as ever a father had.

As we were motoring swiftly along, we turned into the town of Albert and the first sharp glance at the cathedral showed the falling Madonna and Child. While we lingered a bunch of soldiers came marching through, dusty and tired. Lauder asked the officer to halt his men for a rest and he would sing to them. I could see that they were loath to believe it was the real Lauder until he began to sing. Then the doubts vanished, and they abandoned themselves to the full enjoyment of this very unexpected pleasure. When the singing began, the audience would number about 200; at the finish of it easily more than 2000 soldiers cheered him on his way.

It was a strange send-off on the way that led to a grave--the grave of a father's fondest hopes--but so it was. A little way up the Bapaume road the car stopped, and we clambered the embankment and away over the sh.e.l.l-torn field of Courcelette. Here and there we pa.s.sed a little cross which marked the grave of some unknown hero; all that was written was "A British Soldier."

He spoke in a low voice of the hope-hungry hearts behind all those at home. Now we climbed a little ridge, and here a cemetery, and in the first row facing the battlefield was the cross on Lauder's boy's resting place.

The father leaned over the grave to read what was written there. He knelt down, indeed he lay upon the grave and clutched it, the while his body shook with the grief he felt. When the storm had spent itself he rose and prayed: "O G.o.d, that I could have but one request. It would be that I might embrace my laddie just this once and thank him for what he has done for his country and humanity."

That was all, not a word of bitterness or complaint. On the way down the hill, I suggested gently that the stress of such an hour made further song that day impossible. But Lauder's heart is big and British. Turning to me with a flash in his eye he said, "George, I must be brave; my boy is watching and all the other boys are waiting.

I will sing to them this afternoon though my heart break!" Off we went again to another division of Scottish troops.

There within the hour he sang again the sweet old songs of love and home and country, bringing all very near, and helping the men to realize the deeper what victory for the enemy would mean.

DR. GEORGE ADAMS.

Today the journey is ended, I have worked out the mandates of fate, Naked, alone, undefended, I knock at the Uttermost Gate-- Lo, the gate swings wide at my knocking; Across endless reaches I see Lost friends, with laughter, come flocking To give a glad welcome to me.

Farewell, the maze has been threaded, This is the ending of strife; Say not that death should be dreaded, 'Tis but the beginning of life.

THE THIRTEENTH REGIMENT

The World War has shown clearly that all peoples are not alike, that they do not think alike, that they do not feel in the same way about the great things of life and death, and that they do not live alike.

England felt very differently from Germany about invading a state whose neutrality both nations had guaranteed.

The difference is largely due to education in the home, the church, and the school; but it is also the result of heredity. Races seem to differ naturally in regard to these things. The Germans have always been cruel, hard, and unmerciful, while the French are tender and inclined to be too easy, even with wrongdoers. The Slav is dreamy, musical, and poetic, while the Bulgarians seek to gain their ends by deceit and brute force. In thinking of the nations and the peoples of the Balkan peninsula, we must be sure to distinguish clearly between them, for they are not at all alike.

Only at the beginning and at the end of the World War have we heard much of Serbia. At the beginning, two Serbians, who were, however, Austrian subjects, a.s.sa.s.sinated the Crown Prince of Austria, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, on June 28, 1914, at Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, an Austrian province. Whether the war had been already planned or not, this a.s.sa.s.sination was used as a reason for Austria's attack upon Serbia.

General Putnik, a great commander, was put in charge of the Serbian troops. As General Joffre did in France, he retired before the greatly superior numbers of the enemy, until he was in a position to counterattack and win a victory. Joffre was thus able to save his country from being entirely devastated and defeated, but General Putnik was not. Instead the Serbian army disappeared as a determining force, until near the end of the war when it helped to bring Bulgaria to her knees.

The Serbians sing as they go into battle, for, as has been said, they are an imaginative and a musical people. The heroes of today are blended in their visions with the Serbian heroes of ancient days, and their battle songs are of them both, or first of one and then of the other.

As they went into their last victorious battles in 1918 against the brutal and lying Bulgarians, they sang a sad but spirited song, the words of which may be translated into English as follows:--

"Colonel Batsicht, the Austrians are a thousand to one, but what does it matter? You are only one, yourself, but you are Colonel Batsicht!

Were the Austrians as many as the leaves in the forests and their rush to attack more violent than the flood of the Vardar in the spring time, you would even then be their equal, Colonel Batsicht!"

And the marvelous thing about the words of this wonderful battle song is that they are true, and that one man fighting for the right with the spirit and devotion of Colonel Batsicht is always the equal of thousands seeking to establish the wrong. In all the history of the world, nothing has proved this so fully and so clearly as the story of Belgium in the World War. Standing like one man against thousands, she saved the world and herself.

Colonel Batsicht was in command of the Thirteenth Regiment of Infantry in the Serbian army at the opening of the war in 1914. When the Austrians attacked in force, General Putnik decided upon a general retirement to save his armies.

On the evening of the 27th of November, 1914, while this retirement was being carried out, the commanding general sent the following orders to Colonel Batsicht, "If possible, hold your ground for twenty-four hours.

If necessary, sacrifice your regiment to save the Serbian army."

Colonel Batsicht sent back word to the commanding general, "I have your orders and they will be carried out." Then he set about preparing to defend the heights which his regiment was holding.

At seven o'clock the next morning, sixteen battalions of Austrian infantry, ten batteries, and four squadrons of cavalry attacked the position. At the firing of the first gun, Colonel Batsicht looked at his watch and exclaimed, "The twenty-four hours for which we must hold our ground have now begun!"

The Austrians were ten against one and the battle was a furious one.

Three times the Austrians were driven back; but from their great numbers and from reinforcements coming up, they soon reformed and renewed the attack and were finally successful in pushing back the Serbian right wing for a short distance. But Colonel Batsicht quickly rallied his forces, and they stood their ground. Then the left wing wavered and the colonel hurried to the left end of his line to reorganize it and encourage the men. He was wounded himself, but this did not stop him and his presence was enough to make his soldiers invincible. So all through the day, Colonel Batsicht directed and encouraged, and at evening the Thirteenth Regiment of Infantry of the Serbian army still held the line although most of their number had been killed and their colonel twice wounded.

The Austrians were much disturbed by the heroic resistance of the small body of Serbian soldiers and determined in the early morning of the next day to finish the matter quickly. At dawn they attacked and the Serbians gave way, first on one wing and then on the other, and at last in the center. The reserve was thrown in but could not prevent the Austrians from slowly advancing. It was six o'clock and the Serbians had held the line for twenty-three hours. The few officers that were uninjured urged Colonel Batsicht to order a retreat.

"It is no use to struggle longer," replied the colonel. "Order the men to retire."

"Come with us," said the officers.

"No," replied the colonel, "I cannot. I promised to hold this ground for twenty-four hours, and I must remain for one hour longer."

"But we cannot go without you," cried the officers.

"Obey my orders! Return to your troops and retire with them!" said the colonel sternly.

Military discipline permitted the officers to do nothing but obey.

The colonel was left with his orderly upon the top of the hill up which the Austrians were advancing. The orderly continued firing until the first platoon of the enemy were upon them, when he fell, and the colonel was left standing alone.

"Where is the Thirteenth Regiment?" asked the Austrian officer.

"I am the Thirteenth Regiment," replied the colonel with a smile.

"Then surrender," cried the officer.

"You insult me by asking me, a colonel in the Serbian army, to surrender," replied the colonel as he raised his revolver. But the Austrians were watching sharply and fired first, and the brave colonel fell mortally wounded.

He was carried back of the Austrian lines in an ambulance. When the Austrian general was told the story, he hurried to the hospital and found Colonel Batsicht still alive.

The Austrian told him that it was sad indeed to see such a brave man dying and that he was sorry the colonel had not surrendered.

"I am not sorry, General," replied the colonel.

A few hours later he died, and was buried with military honors.

The Serbian soldiers and the Serbian people will never forget him. He has now become one of their national heroes. Their imaginative and poetical natures see him now as one greater than a mere man, as a sort of superman with the attributes of a G.o.d. So they sing in the valley of the Vardar and in the meadows and mountains of Montenegro and Albania the sad but spirited song of which the words in English are:--