World's War Events Volume I Part 34

But in one way or another the Italians have been doggedly fighting their way up the walls of the house. For one thing, their Alpini have brought to great perfection the use of skis in military operations on the snow-clad slopes. This is the first war in which skis have really come to the front. In France, too, the Cha.s.seurs Alpins have been able to show the Germans some astonishing things with their long wooden snow-shoes in the winter fighting among the crests of the Vosges.

A typical instance of this is the story of the capture of a German post on the Alsatian frontier in the winter of 1914-15. The Germans, holding the railroad from Ste. Marie to Ste. Croix, were expecting an attack from the French position at St. Die. This impression was deliberately strengthened by a heavy artillery fire from St. Die, while a considerable detachment of the Cha.s.seurs Alpins led a body of infantry along a winding mountain road to the village of Bonhomme. There they posted themselves just out of sight of the German lines, while the _cha.s.seurs_ scaled the snow-covered heights and crept along the flank of the German position.

When they had reached the desired position, the infantry charged along the road and the Cha.s.seurs Alpins simultaneously whizzed down the slope on their skis. The swift flank attack did the business, and the Germans were driven for some miles down the valley of the Weiss toward Colmar.

[Sidenote: Austrians capture of Mt. Lovchen.]

One of the greatest single mountain successes of the war was the Austrian capture of Mount Lovchen, the huge black ma.s.s of rock, nearly six thousand feet high, which dominates the Austrian port of Cattaro and sentinels the little kingdom of Montenegro on the west.

Ever since the war began the Austrians have from time to time made attempts to reach the summit of this mighty rock. It is only a matter of an hour or two by winding road in peace times, but the Austrians were something like eighteen months on the job; and in all this time it is doubtful if the defenders ever numbered much more than five thousand. It was not captured until the Montenegrins had practically run out of ammunition and of reasons for holding the position. The rest of their kingdom was overrun, and they were to all intents and purposes out of the war.

[Sidenote: Russians in the Carpathians.]

The Russian campaign in the Carpathians, before the great German drive of a year ago pushed the Czar's armies back into their own country, also ill.u.s.trates how the mountain warfare of to-day grew by natural tendencies from the tactics of Bourcet into the trench warfare of northern France.

In the first weeks of the war, when the great offensive movement of the Austrian army toward Lublin was crushed by the Grand Duke Nicholas, and the broken hosts of the Dual Monarchy were sent flying through Galicia and the Carpathians, a cloud of Cossack cavalry followed them and penetrated into the plains of Hungary. This last operation was merely a raid, however, and the Cossacks were soon galloping back through the mountain pa.s.ses.

Then the Russians laid siege to Przemysl, and occupied the whole of Galicia up to the line of the San. Later they pushed on westward to the Dunajec, threatening Cracow. This was their high tide. On their left flank was the ma.s.s of the Carpathians, pierced by a number of pa.s.ses.

The more important of these, from west to east, are the Tarnow, Dukla, Lupkow, and Uzsok.

[Sidenote: The Carpathian pa.s.ses.]

The Austrians were rallied after some weeks, and put up something of a fight for these "contracted places." The Russians, following the precepts of Bourcet, threatened the pa.s.sage which seemed most desirable, because of the railroad facilities, and delivered a heavy blow at the Dukla Pa.s.s, the least important of the four. Here they pushed through to Bartfeld, on the Hungarian plain. Then, however, Mackensen's fearful blow smashed the Russian line on the Dunajec and poured the German legions across Galicia in the rear of the Carpathian armies, forcing the Muscovites to abandon the pa.s.ses and scurry home.

[Sidenote: Plains more often battlegrounds.]

Mountain warfare has always had a certain romantic glamour, and it has filled many pages in the literature of fighting. As a matter of historical fact, however, it has played a comparatively small part in the world's annals. Almost all the great campaigns have been fought out in the lowlands. It is Belgium, for instance, and not Switzerland, that has been proverbially the battle-ground of Europe. Napoleon and Suwaroff marched armies through the Alps, but only as a means of striking unexpectedly at the enemy who occupied the plains beyond.

Up to the time of the present war, mountain campaigns have usually been no more than picturesque foot-notes to history, illuminated by the valor of raiding clansmen like Roderick Dhu of the Scottish Highlands, or guerrilla chiefs like Andreas Hofer, the Tyrolese patriot. Hofer's struggle against Napoleon was indeed a gallant and notable one, but it scarcely entered into the main current of history.

[Sidenote: Garibaldi's mountain campaigns.]

If, however, we include Garibaldi among the mountain fighters--and such was the characteristic bent of his remarkable military genius--we must accord him a place among the molders of modern Europe, for without his flashing sword Italy could not have been liberated and united. His two Alpine campaigns against the Austrians were successful and effective, but his most brilliant powers were shown in his memorable invasion of Sicily in 1860. Chased ash.o.r.e at Marsala by the Neapolitan war-ships, and narrowly escaping capture, he led his followers--one thousand red-shirted volunteers armed with obsolete muskets--into the Sicilian mountains, where he played such a game that within two months he compelled the surrender of a well-equipped army of nearly thirty thousand regulars. The history of warfare can show but few exploits so daring and so dramatic.

The most important military movement on the western front in the early autumn of 1915 was the great French offensive in Champagne. During the preceding months of the spring and summer, there had been hard fighting all along the 400-mile line from the North Sea to Switzerland. The military results had been small on either side and now the French resolved on a mighty offensive which should be decisive in its accomplishments. What these results actually were is told in the following narrative.

THE GREAT CHAMPAGNE OFFENSIVE OF 1915

OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF THE FRENCH HEADQUARTERS STAFF

Copyright, National Review, January, 1916.

[Sidenote: Menace of the French in Alsace.]

After the battles of May and June, 1915, in Artois, activity on the Western front became concentrated in the Vosges, where, by a series of successful engagements, we managed to secure possession of more favorable positions and to retain them in spite of incessant counter-attacks. The superiority established over the adversary, the wearing down of the latter through vain and costly counter-offensives, which absorbed in that sector his local resources; the state of uncertainty in which the Germans found themselves in view of the menace of a French division in Alsace--such were the immediate results of these engagements. From the number of the effectives engaged, and the limited front along which the attacks took place, those attacks nevertheless were no more than local.

[Sidenote: Preparing for a great offensive.]

While those operations were developing, the higher command was carefully preparing for a great offensive. The situation of the Russian armies imposed on us, as their Allies, obligations the accomplishment of which had been made possible by the results of a long course of preparation no less than by the aid of circ.u.mstances.

[Sidenote: Improved defensive organizations.]

The inaction of the adversary, engaged on the Eastern front in a series of operations of which he had not foreseen the difficulties, and thus reduced to the defensive on our front, left the initiative of the operations in our hands. The landing in France of fresh British troops enabled Marshal French to take upon himself the defence of a portion of the lines. .h.i.therto held by French troops. The improvement of our defensive organizations, which made possible certain economies in the effectives, the regrouping of units and the creation of new units, also had the effect of placing a larger number of men at the disposal of the Generalissimo. The increased output of war _materiel_ ensured him the necessary means for a complete artillery preparation.

[Sidenote: Joffre's appeal to the troops.]

Among all the elements of success which were thus united at the end of the summer of 1915, not the least was the incomparable individual worth of the French soldier. It was to the traditional warlike qualities of the race that the Generalissimo appealed when, on September 23, 1915, he addressed to the troops the following general order, which was read to the regiments by their officers:

"SOLDIERS OF THE REPUBLIC

"After months of waiting, which have enabled us to increase our forces and our resources, while the adversary has been using up his own, the hour has come to attack and conquer and to add fresh glorious pages to those of the Marne and Flanders, the Vosges and Arras.

"Behind the whirlwind of iron and fire let loose, thanks to the factories of France, where your brothers have, night and day, worked for us, you will proceed to the attack, all together, on the whole front, in close union with the armies of our Allies.

[Sidenote: The spirit of the soldier.]

"Your _elan_ will be irresistible. It will carry you at a bound up to the batteries of the adversary, beyond the fortified lines which he has placed before you.

"You will give him neither pause nor rest until victory has been achieved.

"Set to with all your might for the deliverance of the soil of la Patrie, for the triumph of justice and liberty.

"J. JOFFRE."

The description of the operations in Champagne will show under what conditions our troops acquitted themselves of the task a.s.signed to them, and also the value and significance of this success, without precedent in the war of positions in which we are at present engaged.

[Sidenote: The German line that was broken.]

The German line that was broken in Champagne is the same that was fortified by our adversaries after the victory of the Marne. It rests on the western side on the Ma.s.sif de Moronvillers; to the east it stretches as far as the Argonne. It was intended to cover the railway line from Challerange to Bazancourt, a line indispensable for the concentration movements of the German troops. The offensive front, which extended from Auberive to the east of Ville-sur-Tourbe, presents a varied aspect. From east to west may be seen:

[Sidenote: A wooded glacis.]

(1) A glacis about eight kilometres in width, the gentle slopes of which are covered by numerous little woods. The road from Saint-Hilaire to Saint-Souplet, with the Baraque de l'Epine de Vedegrange, marks approximately its axis.

[Sidenote: Valley of Souain.]

(2) The hollow, at the bottom of which is the village of Souain and of which the first German line followed the further edge. The road from Souain to Pomme-Py describes the radius of this semi-circle. The farm of Navarin, at a distance of three and a half kilometres to the north of Souain, stands on the top of the hills.

[Sidenote: Second German line.]

(3) To the north of Perthes a comparatively tranquil region of uniform aspect, forming between the wooded hills of the Trou Bricot and those of the b.u.t.te du Mesnil a pa.s.sage three kilometres wide, barred by several lines of trenches and ending at a series of heights, the b.u.t.te de Souain, Hills 195 and 201, and the b.u.t.te de Tahure, surmounted by the second German line.