---

Merciless Monster of the Deep.

The murderous German submarine sighting its prey. Sinking under water it launched the fatal torpedo and its helpless victim, crowded with innocent men, women and children, was doomed.

Copyright 1915
By L. T. MYERS

[3]

INTRODUCTION

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”—Jesus of Nazareth

The sight of all Europe engaged in the most terrific conflict in the history of mankind is a heartrending spectacle. On the east, on the south and on the west the blood-lust leaders have flung their deluded millions upon unbending lines of steel, martyrs to the glorification of Mars.

We see millions of men taken from their homes, their shops and their factories; we see them equipped and organized and mobilized for the express purpose of devastating the homes of other men; we see them making wreckage of property; we see them wasting, with fire and sword, the accumulated efforts of generations in the field of things material; we see the commerce of the world brought to a standstill, all its transportation systems interrupted, and, still worse, the amenities of life so placed in jeopardy for long generations to come that the progress of the world is halted, its material and physical progress turned to retrogression.

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me!”

But this is not the worst. We see myriads of men banded together to practice open violation of the very[4] fundamental tenets of humanity; we see the worst passions of mankind, murder, theft, lust, arson, pillage—all the baser possibilities of human nature—coming to the surface. Outside of the natural killing of war, hundreds of men have been murdered, often with incidents of the most revolting brutality; children have been slaughtered; women have been outraged, killed and shamefully mutilated. And this we see among peoples who have no possible cause for personal quarrel.

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me!”

To all human beings of normal mentality it must have seemed that the destruction of the Lusitania marked the apex of horror. There is, indeed, nothing in modern history—nothing, at least, since the Black Hole of Calcutta and some of the indescribable atrocities of Kurdish fanatics—to supply the mind with a vantage ground from which to measure the causeless and profitless savagery of this black deed of murder.

To talk of “warning” having been given on the day the Lusitania sailed is puerile. So does the Black Hand send its warnings. So does Jack the Ripper write his defiant letters to the police. Nothing of this prevents us from regarding such miscreants as wild beasts, against whom society has to defend itself at all hazards.

There are many reasons but not a single excuse for the war. When a man, or a nation, wants what a rival holds and makes a violent effort to enter into possession thereof, right and conscience and duty before God and to one’s neighbor are forgotten in the struggle.[5] Man reverts to the brute. Loose rein is given to passion, and the worst appears. The fair edifice of sobriety and amity and just dealing between man and man, upreared by civilization in centuries of travail, is rent asunder, stone from stone. The inner shrine of the inalienable sense of human brotherhood is profaned. One cannot reconcile with any program for the lasting accomplishment of good and the victory of the truth, this fever of murder on a grand scale, this insensate madness of pillage and slaughter that goes from alarum and counter-alarum to overt acts of fiendish and sickening brutality, palliated because they are done by anonymous thousands instead of by one man who can be named.

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me!”

It is civilization that is being shot down by machine guns in Europe. That great German host is not made up of mercenaries, nor of the type of men that at one time composed armies. There are Ehrlichs serving as privates in the ranks and in the French corps are Rostands. A bullet does not kill a man; it destroys a generation of learning, annihilates the mentality which was about to be humanity’s instrument in unearthing another of nature’s secrets. The very vehicles of progress are the victims. It will take years to train their equals, decades perhaps to reproduce the intelligence that was ripe to do its work. The chances of the acquisition of knowledge are being sacrificed. Far more than half of the learning on which the world depends for progress is turned from laboratories[6] and workshops into the destructive arenas of battle.

It is indeed a war against civilization. The personnel of the armies makes it so. Every battle is the sacrifice of human assets that cannot be replaced. That is the real tragedy of this stupendous conflict.

Perhaps it is better that the inevitable has come so soon. The burden of preparation was beginning to stagger Europe. There may emerge from the whirlpool new dynasties, new methods, new purposes. This may be the furnace necessary to purge humanity of its brutal perspective. The French Revolution gave an impulse to democracy which it has never lost. This conflict may teach men the folly of dying for trade or avarice. But whatever it does, it is not too much to hope that the capital and energy of humanity will become again manifest in justice and moral achievement, until the place of a nation on the map becomes absolutely subordinate to the place it occupies in the uplift of humanity.

[7]

CONTENTS

The Giant Steamship “Lusitania” Torpedoed by the Germans off the Coast of Ireland.

The English Cunarder, “Lusitania,” one of the largest and fastest passenger vessels in the world, was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in a few minutes with the loss of two-thirds of her passengers and crew, among whom were more than one hundred American citizens. The vessel was entirely unarmed and a noncombatant. (Copyright by Underwood and Underwood.)

Top left: Persicope—Kiosque—Ballast—Machine—Ballast

The German Submarine and How it Works.

Upper left picture shows a section at center of the vessel. Upper right view shows the submarine at the surface with two torpedo tubes visible at the stern. The large picture illustrates how this monster attacks a vessel like the Lusitania by launching a torpedo beneath the water while securing its observation through the periscope, just above the waves.

[9]

CHAPTER I
THE SUPREME CRIME AGAINST CIVILIZATION:
THE TRAGIC DESTRUCTION OF THE LUSITANIA

AN UNPRECEDENTED CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY — THE LUSITANIA: BUILT FOR SAFETY—GERMANY’S ANNOUNCED INTENTION TO SINK THE VESSEL — LINER’S SPEED INCREASED AS DANGER NEARED — SUBMARINE’S PERISCOPE DIPS UNDER SURFACE — PASSENGERS OVERCOME BY POISONOUS FUMES — BOAT CAPSIZES WITH WOMEN AND CHILDREN — HUNDREDS JUMP INTO THE SEA — THE LUSITANIA GOES TO HER DOOM — INTERVIEW WITH CAPTAIN TURNER.

No thinking man—whether he believes or disbelieves in war—expects to have war without the horrors and atrocities which accompany it. That “war is hell” is as true now as when General Sherman so pronounced it. It seems, indeed, to be truer today. And yet we have always thought—perhaps because we hoped—that there was a limit at which even war, with all its lust of blood, with all its passion of hatred, with all its devilish zest for efficiency in the destruction of human life, would stop.

Now we know that there is no limit at which the makers of war, in their frenzy to pile horror on horror, and atrocity on atrocity, will stop. We have seen a nation despoiled and raped because it resisted an[10] invader, and we said that was war. But now out of the sun-lit waves has come a venomous instrument of destruction, and without warning, without respite for escape, has sent headlong to the bottom of the everlasting sea more than a thousand unarmed, unresisting, peace-bent men, women and children—even babes in arms. So the Lusitania was sunk. It may be war, but it is something incalculably more sobering than merely that. It is the difference between assassination and massacre. It is war’s supreme crime against civilization.

AN UNPRECEDENTED CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

The horror of the deadly assault on the Lusitania does not lessen as the first shock of the disaster recedes into the past. The world is aghast. It had not taken the German threat at full value; it did not believe that any civilized nation would be so wanton in its lust and passion of war as to count a thousand non-combatant lives a mere unfortunate incidental of the carnage.

Nothing that can be said in mitigation of the destruction of the Lusitania can alter the fact that an outrage unknown heretofore in the warfare of civilized nations has been committed. Regardless of the technicalities which may be offered as a defense in international law, there are rights which must be asserted, must be defended and maintained. If international law can be torn to shreds and converted into scrap paper to serve the necessities of war, its obstructive letter can be disregarded when it is necessary to serve the rights of humanity.

[11]

HATE
CIVILIZATION--ART--RELIGION

The Triumph of Hate.

[12]

THE LUSITANIA: BUILT FOR “SAFETY”

The irony of the situation lies in the fact that from the ghastly experience of great marine disasters the Lusitania was evolved as a vessel that was “safe.” No such calamity as the attack of a torpedo was foreseen by the builders of the giant ship, and yet, even after the outbreak of the European war, and when upon the eve of her last voyage the warning came that an attempt would be made to torpedo the Lusitania, her owners confidently assured the world that the ship was safe because her great speed would enable her to outstrip any submarine ever built.

Limitation of language makes adequate word description of this mammoth Cunarder impossible. The following figures show its immense dimensions: Length, 790 feet; breadth, 88 feet; depth, to boat deck, 80 feet; draught, fully loaded, 37 feet, 6 inches; displacement on load line, 45,000 tons; height to top of funnels, 155 feet; height to mastheads, 216 feet. The hull below draught line was divided into 175 water-tight compartments, which made it—so the owners claimed—“unsinkable.” With complete safety device equipment, including wireless telegraph, Mundy-Gray improved method of submarine signaling, and with officers and crew all trained and reliable men, the Lusitania was acclaimed as being unexcelled from a standpoint of safety, as in all other respects.

Size, however, was its least remarkable feature. The ship was propelled by four screws rotated by turbine engines of 68,000 horse-power, capable of developing a sea speed of more than twenty-five knots per hour regardless of weather conditions, and of[13] maintaining without driving a schedule with the regularity of a railroad train, and thus establishing its right to the title of “the fastest ocean greyhound.”

GERMANY’S ANNOUNCED INTENTION TO SINK THE VESSEL

On Saturday May 1, 1915, the day on which the Cunard liner Lusitania, carrying 2,000 passengers and crew, sailed from New York for Liverpool, the following advertisement, over the name of the Imperial German Embassy, was published in the leading newspapers of the United States:

The advertisement was commented upon by the passengers of the Lusitania, but it did not cause any of them to cancel their bookings. No one took the[14] matter seriously. It was not conceivable that even the German military lords could seriously plot so dastardly an attack on non-combatants.

When the attention of Captain W. T. Turner, commander of the Lusitania, was called to the warning, he laughed and said: “It doesn’t seem as if they had scared many people from going on the ship by the looks of the passenger list.”

Agents of the Cunard Line said there was no truth in reports that several prominent passengers had received anonymous telegrams warning them not to sail on the Lusitania. Charles T. Bowring, president of the St. George’s Society, who was a passenger, said that it was a silly performance for the German Embassy to do.

Charles Klein, the American playwright, said he was going to devote his time on the voyage to thinking of his new play, “Potash and Perlmutter in Society,” and would not have time to worry about trifles.

Alfred G. Vanderbilt was one of the last to go on board.

Elbert Hubbard, publisher of the Philistine, who sailed with his wife, said he believed the German Emperor had ordered the advertisement to be placed in the newspapers, and added jokingly that if he was on board the liner when she was torpedoed, he would be able to do the Kaiser justice in the Philistine.

The early days of the voyage were unmarked by incidents other than those which have interested ocean passengers on countless previous trips, and little apprehension was felt by those on the Lusitania of the fate which lay ahead of the vessel.

[15]

The ship was proceeding at a moderate speed, on Friday, May 7, when she passed Fastnet Light, off Cape Clear, the extreme southwesterly point of Ireland that is first sighted by east-bound liners. Captain Turner was on the bridge, with his staff captain and other officers, maintaining a close lookout. Fastnet left behind, the Lusitania’s course was brought closer to shore, probably within twelve miles of the rock-bound coast.

LINER’S SPEED INCREASED AS DANGER NEARED

Her speed was also increased to twenty knots or more, according to the more observant passengers, and some declare that she worked a sort of zigzag course, plainly ready to shift her helm whenever danger should appear. Captain Turner, it is known, was watching closely for any evidence of submarines.

One of the passengers, Dr. Daniel Moore, of Yankton, S. D., declared that before he went downstairs to luncheon shortly after one o’clock he and others with him noticed, through a pair of marine glasses, a curious object in the sea, possibly two miles or more away. What it was he could not determine, but he jokingly referred to it later at luncheon as a submarine.

While the first cabin passengers were chatting over their coffee cups they felt the ship give a great leap forward. Full speed ahead had suddenly been signaled from the bridge. This was a few minutes after two o’clock, and just about the time that Ellison Myers, of Stratford, Ontario, a boy on his way to join the British Navy, noticed the periscope of a submarine about a mile away to starboard. Myers and his[16] companions saw Captain Turner hurriedly give orders to the helmsman and ring for full speed to the engine room.

The Lusitania began to swerve to starboard, heading for the submarine, but before she could really answer her helm a torpedo was flashing through the water toward her at express speed. Myers and his companions, like many others of the passengers, saw the white wake of the torpedo and its metal casing gleaming in the bright sunlight. The weather was ideal, light winds and a clear sky making the surface of the ocean as calm and smooth as could be wished by any traveler.

SUBMARINE’S PERISCOPE DIPS UNDER SURFACE

The torpedo came on, aimed apparently at the bow of the ship, but nicely calculated to hit her amidships. Before its wake was seen the periscope of the submarine had vanished beneath the surface.

In far less time than it takes to tell, the torpedo had crashed into the Lusitania’s starboard side, just abaft the first funnel, and exploded with a dull boom in the forward stoke-hole.

Captain Turner at once ordered the helm put over and the prow of the ship headed for land, in the hope that she might strike shallow water while still under way. The boats were ordered out, and the signals calling the boat crews to their stations were flashed everywhere through the vessel.

Several of the life-boats were already swung out, according to some survivors, there having been a life-saving drill earlier in the day before the ship spoke Fastnet Light.

[17]

Down in the dining saloon the passengers felt the ship reel from the shock of the explosion and many were hurled from their chairs. Before they could recover themselves, another explosion occurred. There is a difference of opinion as to the number of torpedoes fired. Some say there were two; others say only one torpedo struck the vessel, and that the second explosion was internal.

PASSENGERS OVERCOME BY POISONOUS FUMES

In any event, the passengers now realized their danger. The ship, torn almost apart, was filled with fumes and smoke, the decks were covered with débris that fell from the sky, and the great Lusitania began to list quickly to starboard. Before the passengers below decks could make their way above, the decks were beginning to slant ominously, and the air was filled with the cries of terrified men and women, some of them already injured by being hurled against the sides of the saloons. Many passengers were stricken unconscious by the smoke and fumes from the exploding torpedoes.

The stewards and stewardesses, recognizing the too evident signs of a sinking ship, rushed about urging and helping the passengers to put on life-belts, of which more than 3,000 were aboard.

On the boat deck attempts were being made to lower the life-boats, but several causes combined to impede the efforts of the crew in this direction. The port side of the vessel was already so far up that the boats on that side were quite useless, and as the starboard boats were lowered the plunging vessel—she was[18] still under headway, for all efforts to reverse the engines proved useless—swung back and forth, and when they struck the water were dragged along through the sea, making it almost impossible to get them away.

BOAT CAPSIZES WITH WOMEN AND CHILDREN

The first life-boat that struck the water capsized with some sixty women and children aboard her, and all of these must have been drowned almost instantly. Ten more boats were lowered, the desperate expedient of cutting away the ropes being resorted to to prevent them from being dragged along by the now halting steamer.

The great ship was sinking by the bow, foot by foot, and in ten minutes after the first explosion she was already preparing to founder. Her stern rose high in the air, so that those in the boats that got away could see the whirring propellers, and even the boat deck was awash.

Captain Turner urged the men to be calm, to take care of the women and children, and megaphoned the passengers to seize life-belts, chairs—anything they could lay hands on to save themselves from drowning. There was never any question in the captain’s mind that the ship was about to sink, and if, as reported, some of the stewards ran about advising the passengers not to take to the boats, that there was no danger of the vessel going down till she reached shore, it was done without his orders. But many of the survivors have denied this, and declared that all the crew, officers, stewards and sailors, even the stokers, who dashed up from their flaming quarters below, showed the utmost[19] bravery and calmness in the face of the disaster, and sought in every way to aid the panic-stricken passengers to get off the ship.

HUNDREDS JUMP INTO THE SEA

When it was seen that most of the boats would be useless, hundreds of passengers donned life-belts and jumped into the sea. Others seized deck chairs, tubs, kegs, anything available, and hurled themselves into the water, clinging to these articles.

The first-cabin passengers fared worst, for the second- and third-cabin travelers had long before finished their midday meal and were on deck when the torpedo struck. But the first-cabin people on the D deck and in the balcony, at luncheon, were at a terrible disadvantage, and those who had already finished were in their staterooms resting or cleaning up preparatory to the after luncheon day.

The confusion on the stairways became terrible, and the great number of little children, more than 150 of them under two years, a great many of them infants in arms, made the plight of the women still more desperate.

LUSITANIA GOES TO HER DOOM

After the life-boats had cut adrift it was plain that a few seconds would see the end of the great ship. With a great shiver she bent her bow down below the surface, and then her stern uprose, and with a horrible sough the liner that had been the pride of the Cunard Line, plunged down in sixty fathoms of water. In the last few seconds the hundreds of women and men,[20] a great many of them carrying children in their arms, leaped overboard, but hundreds of others, delaying the jump too long, were carried down in the suction that left a huge whirlpool swirling about the spot where the last of the vessel was seen.

Among these were Elbert Hubbard and his wife, Charles Frohman, who was crippled with rheumatism and unable to move quickly; Justus Miles Forman, Charles Klein, Alfred G. Vanderbilt and many others of the best-known Americans and Englishmen aboard.

Captain Turner stayed on the bridge as the ship went down, but before the last plunge he bade his staff officer and the helmsman, who were still with him, to save themselves. The helmsman leaped into the sea and was saved, but the staff officer would not desert his superior, and went down with the ship. He did not come to the surface again.

Captain Turner, however, a strong swimmer, rose after the eddying whirlpool had calmed down, and, seizing a couple of deck chairs, kept himself afloat for three hours. The master-at-arms of the Lusitania, named Williams, who was looking for survivors in a boat after he had been picked up, saw the flash of the captain’s gold-braided uniform, and rescued him, more dead than alive.

INTERVIEW WITH CAPTAIN TURNER

Despite the doubt as to whether two torpedoes exploded, or whether the first detonation caused the big liner’s boilers to let go, Captain Turner stated that there was no doubt that at least two torpedoes reached the ship.

[21]

“I am not certain whether the two explosions—and there were two—resulted from torpedoes, or whether one was a boiler explosion. I am sure, however, that I saw the first torpedo strike the vessel on her starboard side. I also saw a second torpedo apparently headed straight for the steamship’s hull, directly below the suite occupied by Alfred G. Vanderbilt.”

When asked if the second explosion had been caused by the blowing up of ammunition stored in the liner’s hull, Captain Turner said:

“No; if ammunition had exploded that would probably have torn the ship apart and the loss of life would have been much heavier than it was.”

Captain Turner declared that, from the bridge, he saw the torpedo streaking toward the Lusitania and tried to change the ship’s course to avoid the missile, but was unable to do so in time. The only thing left for him to do was to rush the liner ashore and beach her, and she was headed for the Irish coast when she foundered.

According to Captain Turner, the German submarine did not flee at once after torpedoing the liner.

“While I was swimming about after the ship had disappeared I saw the periscope of the submarine rise amidst the débris,” said he. “Instead of offering any help the submarine immediately submerged herself and I saw nothing more of her. I did everything possible for my passengers. That was all I could do.”

[22]

CHAPTER II
THE HEROES OF THE LUSITANIA AND THEIR HEROISM

ALFRED G. VANDERBILT GAVE LIFE FOR A WOMAN — CHARLES FROHMAN DIED WITHOUT FEAR — SAVING THE BABIES — TORONTO GIRL OF FOURTEEN PROVES HEROINE — HEROISM OF CAPTAIN TURNER AND HIS CREW — WOMAN RESCUED WITH DEAD BABY AT HER BREAST — HEROIC WIRELESS OPERATORS — SAVED HIS WIFE AND HELPED IN RESCUE WORK — “SAVED ALL THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN WE COULD.”

Every great calamity produces its great heroes. Particularly is this true of marine disasters, where the opportunities of escape are limited, and where the heroism of the strong often impels them to stand back and give place to the weak. One cannot think of the Titanic disaster without remembering Major Archibald Butt, Colonel John Jacob Astor, Henry B. Harris, William T. Stead and others, nor of the sinking of the Empress of Ireland without calling to mind Dr. James F. Grant, the ship’s surgeon; Sir Henry Seton-Karr, Lawrence Irving, H. R. O’Hara of Toronto, and the rest of the noble company of heroes. So the destruction of the Lusitania brought uppermost in the breasts of many those qualities of fortitude and self-sacrifice which will forever mark them in the calendar of the world’s martyrs.

[23]

ALFRED G. VANDERBILT GAVE LIFE FOR A WOMAN

Among the Lusitania’s heroes, one of the foremost was Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, one of America’s wealthiest men. With everything to live for, Mr. Vanderbilt sacrificed his one chance for escape from the doomed Lusitania, in order that a woman might live. Details of the chivalry he displayed in those last moments when he tore off a life-belt as he was about to leap into the sea, and strapped it around a young woman, were told by three of the survivors.

Mr. Vanderbilt could not swim, and when he gave up his life-belt it was with the virtual certainty that he was surrendering his only chance for life.

Thomas Slidell, of New York, said he saw Mr. Vanderbilt on the deck as the Lusitania was sinking. He was equipped with a life-belt and was climbing over the rail, when a young woman rushed onto the deck. Mr. Vanderbilt saw her as he stood poised to leap into the sea. Without hesitating a moment he jumped back to the deck, tore off the life-belt, strapped it around the young woman and dropped her overboard.

The Lusitania plunged under the waves a few minutes later and Mr. Vanderbilt was seen to be drawn into the vortex.

Norman Ratcliffe, of Gillingham, Kent, and Wallace B. Phillips, a newspaper man, also saw Mr. Vanderbilt sink with the Lusitania. The coolness and heroism he showed were marvelous, they said.

Oliver P. Bernard, scenic artist at Covent Garden, saw Mr. Vanderbilt standing near the entrance to the grand saloon soon after the vessel was torpedoed.

“He was the personification of sportsmanlike coolness,[24]” Mr. Bernard said. “In his right hand was grasped what looked to me like a large purple leather jewel case. It may have belonged to Lady Mackworth, as Mr. Vanderbilt had been much in the company of the Thomas party during the trip and evidently had volunteered to do Lady Mackworth the service of saving her gems for her.”

Another touching incident was told of Mr. Vanderbilt by Mrs. Stanley L. B. Lines, a Canadian, who said: “Mr. Vanderbilt will in the future be remembered as the ‘children’s hero.’ I saw him standing outside the palm saloon on the starboard side, with Ronald Denit. He looked upon the scene before him, and then, turning to his valet, said:

“‘Find all the kiddies you can and bring them here.’ The servant rushed off and soon reappeared, herding a flock of little ones. Mr. Vanderbilt, catching a child under each arm, ran with them to a life-boat and dumped them in. He then threw in two more, and continued at his task until all the young ones were in the boat. Then he turned his attention to aiding the women into boats.”

CHARLES FROHMAN DIED WITHOUT FEAR

“Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life,” were the last words of Charles Frohman before he went down with the Lusitania, according to Miss Rita Jolivet, an American actress, with whom he talked calmly just before the end came.

Miss Jolivet, who was among the survivors taken to Queenstown, said she and Mr. Frohman were standing on deck as the Lusitania heeled over. They decided not to trust themselves to life-boats, although Mr. Frohman believed the ship was doomed. It was after reaching this decision that he declared he had no fear of death.

Escaping a Torpedo by Rapid Maneuvering.

This British destroyer escaped a torpedo from a hunted submarine by quick turning. This incident took place at the naval fight off the island of Heligoland, in October. (Copyright, The Sun News Service.)

A New Weapon in Warfare.

One of the Belgian armored motor cars surprising a party of Uhlans. Several of the enemy were killed by the rapid fire from swivel machine gun and rifle, but the car driven at a furious pace was wrecked on a fallen horse.

[25]

Germany’s Official Paid Advertisement Forewarning Americans Against Disaster; Map Showing Where It Took Place.

This advertisement was wired to forty American newspapers by Count von Bernstorff, German Ambassador at Washington. It was ordered inserted on the morning of the day the Lusitania sailed.

Dr. F. Warren Pearl, of New York, who was saved, with his wife and two of their four children, corroborated Miss Jolivet’s statement, saying:

“After the first shock, as I made my way to the deck, I saw Charles Frohman distributing life-belts. Mr. Frohman evidently did not expect to escape, as he[26] said to a woman passenger, ‘Why should we fear death? It is the greatest adventure man can have.’”

Sir James M. Barrie, in a tribute to Charles Frohman, published in the London Daily Mail, describes him as “the man who never broke his word.

“His companies were as children to him. He chided them as children, soothed them as children and forgave them and certainly loved them as children. He exulted in those who became great in that world, and gave them beautiful toys to play with; but great as was their devotion to him, it is not they who will miss him most, but rather the far greater number who never made a hit, but set off like all the rest, and fell by the way. He was of so sympathetic a nature; he understood so well the dismalness to them of being failures, that he saw them as children, with their knuckles to their eyes, and then he sat back cross-legged on his chair, with his knuckles, as it were, to his eyes, and life had lost its flavor for him until he invented a scheme for giving them another chance.

“Perhaps it is fitting that all those who only made for honest mirth and happiness should now go out of the world; because it is too wicked for them. It is strange to think that in America, Dernburg and Bernstorff, who we must believe were once good men, too, have an extra smile with their breakfast roll because they and theirs have drowned Charles Frohman.”

SAVING THE BABIES

The presence of so many babies on board the Lusitania was due to the influx from Canada of the English-born[27] wives of Canadians at the battle front, who were coming to England to live with their own or their husband’s parents during the war.

No more pathetic loss has been recorded than that of F. G. Webster, a Toronto contractor, who was traveling second class with his wife, their six-year-old son Frederick and year-old twin sons William and Henry. They reached the deck with others who were in the dining saloon when the torpedo struck. Webster took his son by the hand and darted away to bring life-belts. When he returned his wife and babies were not to be seen, nor have they been since.

W. Harkless, an assistant purser, busied himself helping others until the Lusitania was about to founder. Then, seeing a life-boat striking the water that was not overcrowded, he made a rush for it. The only person he encountered was little Barbara Anderson, of Bridgeport, Conn., who was standing alone, clinging to the rail. Gathering her up in his arms he leaped over the rail and into the boat, doing this without injuring the child.

Francis J. Luker, a British subject, who had worked six years in the United States as a postal clerk, and was going home to enlist, saved two babies. He found the little passengers, bereft of their mother, in the shelter of a deck-house. The Lusitania was nearing her last plunge. A life-boat was swaying to the water below. Grabbing the babies he ran to the rail and made a flying leap into the craft, and those babies did not leave his arms until they were set safely ashore hours later.

One woman, a passenger on the Lusitania, lost all[28] three of her children in the disaster, and gave the bodies of two of them to the sea herself. When the ship went down she held up the three children in the water, shrieking for help. When rescued two were dead. Their room was required and the mother was brave enough to realize it.

“Give them to me!” she shrieked. “Give them to me, my bonnie wee things. I will bury them. They are mine to bury as they were mine to keep.”

With her form shaking with sorrow she took hold of each little one from the rescuers and reverently placed it in the water again, and the people in the boat wept with her as she murmured a little sobbing prayer.

Just as the rescuers were landing her third and only remaining child died.

TORONTO GIRL OF FOURTEEN PROVES HEROINE

Even the young girls and women on the Lusitania proved themselves heroines during the last few moments and met their fate calmly or rose to emergencies which called for great bravery and presence of mind.

Fourteen-year-old Kathleen Kaye was returning from Toronto, where she had been visiting relatives. With a merry smile on her lips and with a steady patter of reassurance, she aided the stewards who were filling one of the life-boats.

Soon after the girl took her own place in the boat one of the sailors fainted under the strain of the efforts to get the boat clear of the maelstrom that marked where the liner went down. Miss Kaye took the abandoned oar and rowed until the boat was out of danger. None among the survivors bore fewer signs[29] of their terrible experiences than Miss Kaye, who spent most of her time comforting and assisting her sisters in misfortune.

HEROISM OF CAPTAIN TURNER AND HIS CREW

Ernest Cowper, a Toronto newspaper man, praised the work of the Lusitania’s crew in their efforts to get the passengers into the boats. Mr. Cowper told of having observed the ship watches keeping a strict lookout for submarines as soon as the ship began to near the coast.

“The crew proceeded to get the passengers into boats in an orderly, prompt and efficient manner. Helen Smith, a child, begged me to save her. I placed her in a boat and saw her safely away. I got into one of the last boats to leave.

“Some of the boats could not be launched, as the vessel was sinking. There was a large number of women and children in the second cabin. Forty of the children were less than a year old.”

WOMAN RESCUED WITH DEAD BABY AT HER BREAST

R. J. Timmis, of Gainesville, Tex., a cotton buyer, who was saved after he had given his life-belt to a woman steerage passenger who carried a baby, told of the loss of his friend, R. T. Moodie, also of Gainesville. Moodie could not swim, but he took off his life-belt also and put it on a woman who had a six-months-old child in her arms. Timmis tried to help Moodie, and they both clung to some wreckage for a while, but presently Moodie could hold out no longer and sank. When Timmis was dragged into a boat[30] which he helped to right—it had been overturned in the suction of the sinking vessel—one of the first persons he assisted into the boat was the steerage woman to whom he had given his belt. She still carried her baby at her breast, but it was dead from exposure.

HEROIC WIRELESS OPERATORS

Oliver P. Brainard told of the bravery of the wireless operators who stuck to their work of summoning help even after it was evident that only a few minutes could elapse before the vessel must go down. He said:

“The wireless operators were working the emergency outfit, the main installation having been put out of gear instantaneously after the torpedo exploded. They were still awaiting a reply and were sending out the S. O. S. call.

“I looked out to sea and saw a man, undressed, floating quietly on his back in the water, evidently waiting to be picked up rather than to take the chance of getting away in a boat. He gave me an idea and I took off my jacket and waistcoat, put my money in my trousers pocket, unlaced my boots and then returned to the Marconi men.

“The assistant operator said, ‘Hush! we are still hoping for an answer. We don’t know yet whether the S. O. S. calls have been picked up or not.’

“At that moment the chief operator turned around, saying, ‘They’ve got it!’

“At that very second the emergency apparatus also broke down. The operator had left the room, but he dashed back and brought out a kodak. He[31] knelt on the deck, now listing at an angle of thirty-five degrees, and took a photograph looking forward.

“The assistant, a big, cheerful chap, lugged out the operator’s swivel chair and offered it to me with a laugh, saying: ‘Take a seat and make yourself comfortable.’ He let go the chair and it careened down the deck and over into the sea.”

F. J. Gauntlet, of New York and Washington, traveling in company with A. L. Hopkins, president of the Newport News Shipbuilding Company, and S. M. Knox, president of the New York Shipbuilding Company, of Philadelphia, unconsciously told the story of his own heroism. He said:

“I was lingering in the dining saloon chatting with friends when the first explosion occurred. Some of us went to our staterooms and put on life-belts. Going on deck we were informed that there was no danger, but the bow of the vessel was gradually sinking. The work of launching the boats was done in a few minutes. Fifty or sixty people entered the first boat. As it swung from the davits it fell suddenly and I think most of the occupants perished. The other boats were launched with the greatest difficulty.

“Swinging free from one of these as it descended, I grabbed what I supposed was a piece of wreckage. I found it to be a collapsible boat, however. I had great difficulty in getting it open, finally having to rip the canvas with my knife. Soon another passenger came alongside and entered the collapsible with me. We paddled around and between us we rescued thirty people from the water.”

[32]

SAVED HIS WIFE AND HELPED IN RESCUE WORK

George A. Kessler, of New York, said:

“A list to starboard had set in as we were climbing the stairs and it had so rapidly increased by the time we reached the deck, that we were falling against the taffrail. I managed to get my wife onto the first-class deck and there three boats were being got out.

“I placed her in the third, kissed her good-by and saw the boat lowered safely. Then I turned to look for a life-belt for myself. The ship now started to go down. I fell into the water, some kind soul throwing me a life-belt at the same time. Ten minutes later I found myself beside a raft on which were some survivors, who pulled me onto it. We cruised around looking for others and managed to pick up a few, making in all perhaps sixteen or seventeen persons who were on the raft. In all directions were scattered persons struggling for their lives and the boats gave what help they could.”

“SAVED ALL THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN WE COULD”

W. G. E. Meyers, of Stratford, Ont., a lad of sixteen years, who was on his way to join the British navy as a cadet, told this story:

“I went below to get a life-belt and met a woman who was frenzied with fear. I tried to calm her and helped her into a boat. Then I saw a boat which was nearly swamped. I got into it with other men and baled it out. Then a crowd of men clambered into it and nearly swamped it.

“We had got only two hundred yards away when the Lusitania sank, bow first. Many persons sank with[33] her, drawn down by the suction. Their shrieks were appalling. We had to pull hard to get away, and, as it was, we were almost dragged down. We saved all the women and children we could, but a great many of them went down.”

H. Smethhurst, a steerage passenger, put his wife into a life-boat, and in spite of her urging refused to accompany her, saying the women and children must go first. After the boat with his wife in it had pulled away Smethhurst put on a life-belt, slipped down a rope into the water and floated until he was picked up.

[34]

CHAPTER III
SOUL-STIRRING STORIES OF SURVIVORS OF THE LUSITANIA

COULD NOT LAUNCH BOATS — SAYS SHIP SANK IN FIFTEEN MINUTES — SCREAMS INTENSIFY HORROR — ON HUNT FOR THE LIFE-BELTS — INJURED BOY SHOWS PLUCK — MANY CHILDREN DROWNED — WOMEN RUSHED FOR THE BOATS — PATERSON, N. J., GIRLS AMONG RESCUED — THREATENED SEAMEN WITH REVOLVER — RESCUED UNCONSCIOUS FROM THE WATER — LIFE-BOAT SMASHED — REASSURED BY SHIP’S OFFICER.

Among the stories of the Lusitania horror told by the survivors were a few that stand out from the rest for their clearness and vividness. One of the most interesting of these, notable for the prominence of the man who relates it as well as for its conciseness, was the description given by Samuel M. Knox, president of the New York Shipbuilding Company. Mr. Knox said:

“Shortly after two, while we were finishing luncheon in a calm sea, a heavy concussion was felt on the starboard side, throwing the vessel to port. She immediately swung back and proceeded to take on a list to starboard, which rapidly increased.

“The passengers rapidly, but in good form, left the dining room, proceeding mostly to the A or boat deck. There were preparations being made to launch the boats. Order among the passengers was well maintained, there being nothing approaching a panic.[35] Many of the passengers had gone to their staterooms and provided themselves with life-belts.

“The vessel reached an angle of about twenty-four degrees and at this point there seemed to be a cessation in the listing, the vessel maintaining this position for four or five minutes, when something apparently gave way, and the list started anew and increased rapidly until the end.

“The greater number of passengers were congregated on the high side of the ship, and when it became apparent that she was going to sink I made my way to the lower side, where there appeared to be several boats only partly filled and no passengers on that deck. At this juncture I found the outside of the boat deck practically even with the water and the ship was even farther down by the head.

COULD NOT LAUNCH BOATS

“I stepped into a boat and a sailor in charge then attempted to cast her off, but it was found that the boat-falls had fouled the boat and she could not be released in the limited time available. I went overboard at once and attempted to get clear of the ship, which was coming over slowly. I was caught by one of the smokestacks and carried down a considerable distance before being released.

“On coming to the surface I floated about for a considerable time, when I was picked up by a life-raft. This raft, with others, had floated free when the vessel sank, and had been picked up and taken charge of by Mr. Gauntlet, of Washington, and Mr. Lauriat, of Boston, who picked up thirty-two persons in all.

[36]

“It was equipped with oars, and we made our way to a fishing smack, about five miles distant, which took us on board, although it was already overloaded. We were finally taken off this boat by the Cunard tender Flying Fish and brought to Queenstown at 9.30.”

Some of the passengers, notably David A. Thomas, told of panicky conditions on board the vessel before she sank, and one of the rescued declared that the loss of life was due to some extent to the assurances spread by the stewards among the passengers that there was no danger of the Lusitania sinking. But all united in praising the courage and steadiness of the officers and crew of the ship.

SAYS SHIP SANK IN FIFTEEN MINUTES

Mr. Thomas, a Cardiff, Wales, coal magnate, who was rescued with his daughter, Lady Mackworth, said that not more than fifteen minutes elapsed between the first explosion and the sinking of the ship. Lady Mackworth had put on a life-preserver and went down with the Lusitania. When she arose to the surface, Mr. Thomas said, she was unconscious, and floated around in the tumbling sea for three and a half hours before she was picked up.

“As soon as the explosions occurred,” said Mr. Thomas, “and the officers learned what had happened, the ship’s course was directed toward the shore, with the idea of beaching her. Captain Turner remained upon the bridge until the ship went down, and he was swallowed up in the maelstrom that followed. He wore a life-belt, which kept him afloat[37] when he arose to the surface, and remained in the water for three hours before he was picked up by a life-boat.

“During the last few minutes’ life of the Lusitania she was a ship of panic and tumult. Excited men and terrified women ran shouting and screaming about the decks. Lost children cried shrilly. Officers and seamen rushed among the panic-stricken passengers, shouting orders and helping the women and children into life-boats. Women clung desperately to their husbands or knelt on the deck and prayed. Life-preservers were distributed among the passengers, who hastily donned them and flung themselves into the water.

As Others See Us.

SCREAMS INTENSIFY HORROR

“In their haste and excitement the seamen overloaded one life-boat and the davit ropes broke while it was being lowered, the occupants being thrown into the water. The screams of these terrified women[38] and men intensified the fright of those still on the ship. Altogether I counted ten life-boats launched.”

A German submarine was seen for an hour before the liner was sunk, according to Dr. Daniel Moore, of Yankton, S. D., who said:

“About 1 P.M. we noticed that the Lusitania was steering a zigzag course. Land had been in sight for three hours, distinctly visible twelve miles away. Looking through my glasses, I could see on the port side of the Lusitania, between us and land, what appeared to be a black, oblong object, with four dome-like projections. It was moving along parallel to us, more than two miles away. At times it slowed down and disappeared. But always it reappeared. All this time the Lusitania was zigzagging along. Later the Lusitania kept a more even course, and we generally agreed then that it was a friendly submarine we were watching. We had seen no other vessels except one or two fishing boats.

“At 1.40 we sat down to luncheon in the second saloon. We talked of the curious object we had seen, but nobody seemed anxious or concerned. About two o’clock a muffled, drum-like noise sounded from the forward part of the Lusitania and she shivered and trembled. Almost immediately she began to list to starboard. She had been struck on the starboard side. Unless the first submarine seen had been speedy enough to make rings around the Lusitania, this torpedo must have come from a second submarine which had been lying hidden to starboard.

“We heard no sound of explosion. There was general excitement among the passengers at luncheon,[39] but the women were soon quieted by assurances that there was no danger and that the Lusitania had merely struck a small mine. The passengers left the saloon in good order.

ON HUNT FOR THE LIFE-BELTS

“As I reached the deck above I had difficulty in walking owing to the tilt of the vessel. With most of the passengers I ran on to the promenade deck. There was no crushing. Although the deck was crowded, I looked over the side; but I could see no evidence of damage. I started to return to my cabin, but the list of the liner was so marked that I abandoned the idea and regained the deck. Looking over the starboard rail, I saw that the water was now only about twelve feet from the rail at one point. While searching for a life-belt I came upon a stewardess struggling with a pile of life-belts in a rack below deck and helped her put one on, afterward securing one for myself. I had tremendous difficulty in reaching the promenade deck again.

“The Lusitania now was on her side and sinking by the bow. I saw a woman clinging to the rail near where a boat was being lowered. I pushed her over the rail into the boat, afterward jumping down myself.

“The boat fell bodily into the sea, but kept afloat, although so heavily loaded that water was lapping in. We bailed with our hats, but could not keep pace with the water, and I realized we must soon sink.

“Seeing a keg, I threw it overboard and sprang after it. A young steward named Freeman also used the keg as a support. Looking back, I saw the[40] boat I had left swamped. We clung to the keg for about an hour and a half and then were picked up by a raft on which were twenty persons, including two women.

“We had oars and rowed toward land. At about four o’clock we were picked up by the patrol boat Brook. She took us aboard and then cruised out to where the Lusitania had gone down, picking up many survivors there, also taking aboard many from boats and rafts.

INJURED BOY SHOWS PLUCK

“A number of those picked up were injured, including a little boy, whose left thigh was broken. I improvised splints for him and set his leg. He was a plucky little chap, and was soon asking, ‘Is there a funny paper aboard?’

“At the scene of the catastrophe the surface of the water had seemed dotted with bodies. Only a few life-boats seemed to be doing good. Cries of ‘Save us! Help!’ gradually grew weaker from all sides. Finally low wailings made the heart sick. I saw many men die.

“There was no suction when the ship settled. It went down steadily. The life-boats were not in order and they were not manned. Weighing all the facts soberly convinces me that it was only through the mercy of God that any one was saved. Are there any bounds to this modern vandalism?”

L. Tonner, a County Dublin man, and a stoker on the Lusitania, who was one of the survivors landed at Kinsale, said:

“There must have been two submarines attacking the Lusitania. The liner was first torpedoed on the starboard side, and right through the engine room a few minutes afterward the Lusitania received a second torpedo on the port side. The Lusitania listed so heavily to starboard that it was impossible to lower the boats on the port side.”

Prominent American Victims of the Lusitania Horror.

Alfred G. Vanderbilt, New York Millionaire. (C. Underwood & Underwood.)

Elbert Hubbard, Editor and Lecturer. (C. Int. News Service.)

 

Charles Frohman, Theatrical Magnate. (C. Underwood & Underwood.)

Charles Klein, well-known Playwright. (C. Int. News Service.)

 

Sorrowful Burial of Some of the Lusitania Victims.

Sixty-six coffins were placed in one grave at the Queenstown graveyard. In the presence of a large crowd they were buried with full military honors. The view shows a few of the caskets in the grave. (C. Int. News Service.)

[41]

MANY CHILDREN DROWNED

G. D. Lane, a youthful but cool-headed second-cabin passenger, who was returning to Wales from New York, was in a life-boat which was capsized by the davits as the Lusitania heeled over.

“I was on the B deck,” he said, “when I saw the wake of a torpedo. I hardly realized what it meant when the big ship seemed to stagger and almost immediately listed to starboard. I rushed to get a life-belt, but stopped to help get children on the boat deck. The second cabin was a veritable nursery.

“Many youngsters must have drowned, but I had the satisfaction of seeing one boat get away filled with women and children. When the water reached the deck I saw another life-boat with a vacant seat, which I took, as no one else was in sight, but we were too late. The Lusitania reeled so suddenly our boat was swamped, but we righted it again.

“We now witnessed the most horrible scene of human futility it is possible to imagine. When the Lusitania had turned almost over she suddenly plunged bow foremost into the water, leaving her stern high in the air. People on the aft deck were fighting with wild desperation to retain a footing on the almost[42] perpendicular deck while they fell over the slippery stern like crippled flies.

“Their cries and shrieks could be heard above the hiss of escaping steam and the crash of bursting boilers. Then the water mercifully closed over them and the big liner disappeared, leaving scarcely a ripple behind her.

“Twelve life-boats were all that were left of our floating home. In time which could be measured by seconds swimmers, bodies and wreckage appeared in the space where she went down. I was almost exhausted by the work of rescue when taken aboard the trawler. It seems like a horrible dream now.”

WOMEN RUSHED FOR THE BOATS

According to another American survivor, W. H. Brooks, “there was a scene of great confusion as women and children rushed for the boats which were launched with the greatest difficulty and danger, owing to the tilting of the ship.

“I heard the captain order that no more boats be launched, so I leaped into the sea. After I reached the water there was another explosion which sent up a shower of wreckage.”

Dr. J. T. Houghton, of Troy, N. Y., said: “It was believed there was no reason to fear any danger after the first explosion, as it was said the vessel would be headed for Queenstown and beached if necessary. Meanwhile boats were being got ready for any emergency.

“Just then the liner was again struck, evidently in a more vital spot, for it began to settle rapidly.[43] Orders then came from the bridge to lower all boats. A near panic took possession of the women. People were rushed into the boats, some of which were launched successfully, others not so successfully.”

Oscar F. Grab, of New York, said: “I was able to get hold of a life-preserver and I remained on the starboard side until the water was almost at my feet. Then I slid into the sea so easily that I did not even wet my hair. I was soon picked up by a boat in which were twenty women and some children.

“We had to keep the women lying in the bottom so as to get room to pull at the oars. The ship went down, as seen by me from the water, in this fashion:

“She had settled down well forward. She then listed to starboard, and rose to a perpendicular until the stern with the propellers was sticking straight out of the water.

“An explosion then occurred as the water reached the boilers; one of the funnels was blown clean out, and in half a minute there was nothing visible of the Lusitania but a lot of wreckage mingled with a number of dead bodies.”

PATERSON, N. J., GIRLS AMONG RESCUED

The Misses Agnes and Evelyn Wilde, sisters, of Paterson, N. J., were at lunch when the torpedo struck the vessel. They rushed on deck. Miss Agnes Wilde said:

“We clung to each other, determined not to be separated, even if we went to the bottom. We were thrown into a boat, together with thirty-six others, and after several hours were picked up by a fishing[44] boat, which towed us for several hours, intending to take us to Kinsale. Before we arrived, however, a Government boat came along and took us to Queenstown.

“We were drenched to the skin, cold and penniless. We went into a shop, where they fitted us out from head to foot without charge. We are only beginning to realize what we have passed through.”

Mrs. Martha Anna Wyatt, sixty years old, of New Bedford, Mass., said: “I went down with the ship and spent four hours in a collapsible boat before being picked up. I was going to England to live.

“While the ship was sinking I found it impossible to get into any of the life-boats. There seemed no help about. I simply stood still, clinging to the rail, and went down. I seemed to go to the bottom. When I came to the surface again I was pulled into the collapsible boat which brought me to safety.”

Mrs. C. Stewart, who was traveling from Toronto to Glasgow, said:

“I was in my cabin with my eight-months-old baby, who was sleeping in the berth, when I heard the crash. I snatched my baby up and went on deck. A man yelled, ‘Come on with the baby.’ I handed him the infant and he said, ‘Now for yourself.’

“We were two and a half hours in the boat before we were picked up by a Greek steamer.”

Robert C. Wright, of Cleveland, O., gave what may be the last word of Elbert Hubbard. Mr. Wright said:

“I don’t know who was saved, but I know that Elbert Hubbard must have been drowned. He was a[45] conspicuous person on account of his long hair. I saw him and his wife start below, apparently for life-belts, but I never saw either again. I am certain they were drowned.”

THREATENED SEAMEN WITH REVOLVER

Isaac Lehmann, of New York, a first-cabin passenger, who described himself as being engaged in the Department of Government Supplies, said that after having witnessed an accident to one of the boats through the snapping of the ropes while it was being lowered, he ran into his cabin and seizing a revolver and a life-belt, returned to the deck and mounted a collapsible boat and called to some of the crew to assist in launching it. One sailor, he said, replied that the captain’s orders were that no boats were to be put out.

“I drew my revolver, which was loaded with ball cartridges,” said Mr. Lehmann, “and shouted ‘I’ll shoot the first man who refuses to assist in launching.’ The boat was then lowered. At least sixty persons were in it. Unfortunately, the Lusitania lurched so badly that the boat repeatedly struck the side of the sinking ship, and I think at least twenty of its occupants were killed or injured.

“At that instant we heard an explosion on the right up forward, and within two minutes the liner disappeared. I was thrown clear of the wreckage, and went down twice, but the life-belt that I had on brought me up. I was in the water fully four hours and a half.”

Asked as to the probable speed of the Lusitania[46] when she was struck by the torpedo, Mr. Lehmann said the boat was probably going at about sixteen or seventeen knots.

Julian de Ayala, Consul General for Cuba at Liverpool, said that he was ill in his berth when the Lusitania was torpedoed. He was thrown against the partition of his berth by the explosion and suffered an injury to his head and had flesh torn off one of his legs.

The boat Mr. de Ayala got into capsized and he was thrown into the water, but later he was picked up.

“Captain Turner,” said Mr. de Ayala, “thought he could bring the crippled vessel into Queenstown, but she rapidly began to sink by the head.

“Her stern went up so high,” Mr. de Ayala added, “that we could see all of her propellers, and she went down with a headlong plunge, volumes of steam hissing from her funnels.”

RESCUED UNCONSCIOUS FROM THE WATER

The experience of two New York girls, Miss Mary Barrett and Miss Kate MacDonald, rescued at the last minute, may be taken as typical of the experience of many others. Miss Barrett gives the following account of her experiences:

“We had gone into the second saloon and were just finishing lunch. I heard a sound something like the smashing of big dishes and then there came a second and louder crash. Miss MacDonald and I started to go upstairs, but we were thrown back by the crowd when the ship stopped. But we managed to get to the second deck, where we found sailors trying to lower boats.

[47]

“There was no panic and the ship’s officers and crew went about their work quietly and steadily. I went to get two life-belts, but a man standing by told us to remain where we were and he would fetch them for us. He brought us two belts and we put them on. By this time the ship was leaning right over to starboard and we were both thrown down. We managed to scramble to the side of the liner.

“Near us I saw a rope attached to one of the life-boats. I thought I could catch it, so we murmured a few words of prayer and then jumped into the water. I missed the rope, but floated about in the water for some time. I did not lose consciousness at first, but the water got into my eyes and mouth and I began to lose hope of ever seeing my friends again. I could not see anybody near me. Then I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing more until one of the Lusitania’s life-boats came along. The crew was pulling on board another woman, who was unconscious, and they shouted to me, ‘You hold on a little longer!’

“After a time they lifted me out of the water. Then I remembered nothing more for a time. In the meantime our boat had picked up twenty others. It was getting late in the evening when we were transferred to a trawler and taken to Queenstown.

“Miss MacDonald floated about nearly four hours in a dazed state. She had little remembrance of what had passed until a boat saved her. She remembered somebody saying, ‘Oh, the poor girl is dead!’ She had just strength to raise her hand and they returned and pulled her on board.”

[48]

Miss Conner, a cousin of Henry L. Stimson, formerly Secretary of War of the United States, was standing beside Lady Mackworth when they were flung into the water as the ship keeled over. Both women were provided with life-belts and were picked up when at the point of exhaustion.

LIFE-BOAT SMASHED

Doctor Howard Fisher of New York, who is a brother of Walter L. Fisher, formerly Secretary of the Interior of the United States, was on his way to Belgium for Red Cross duty. His story follows:

“It is not true that those on board were unconcerned over the possibility of being torpedoed. I took the big liner to save time and also because in case of a floating mine I felt she would have more chance of staying up. But like everybody else aboard, I felt sure in case of being torpedoed that we would have ample time to take to the boats.

“When I heard the crash I rushed to the port side. No officer was in sight. An effort was being made to lower the boat swinging just opposite the grand entrance. Women, children and men made a mad scramble about this boat, which was smashed against the side, throwing all the occupants into the sea.

“Then two big men, one a sailor and the other a passenger, succeeded in launching a second boat. Much to my surprise this amateur effort was successful. This boat got away and carried chiefly women and children. This boat was successfully launched on the port side.

[49]

REASSURED BY SHIP’S OFFICER

“We then saw our first glimpse of an officer, who came along the deck and spoke to Lady Mackworth, Miss Conner and myself, who were standing in a group. He said:

“‘Don’t worry, the ship will right itself.’ He had hardly moved on before the ship turned sideways and then seemed to plunge head foremost into the sea.

“I came up after what seemed to be an interminable time under water and found myself surrounded by swimmers, dead bodies and wreckage. I got on an upturned yawl, where I found thirty other people, among them Lady Allan, whose collar-bone was broken while she was in the water.

“Another passenger on the yawl, a man whose name I did not learn, had his arm hanging by the skin. His injury probably was due to the explosion which followed. His arm was amputated successfully with a butcher knife by a little Italian surgeon aboard the tramp steamer which picked me up.”

[50]

CHAPTER IV
A CANADIAN’S ACCOUNT OF THE LUSITANIA HORROR

PERCY ROGERS, OF CANADIAN NATIONAL EXHIBITION, TELLS GRAPHIC STORY — PASSENGERS WERE AGHAST — OCCUPANTS OF LIFE-BOATS THROWN INTO SEA — A HEART-BREAKING SCENE.

Percy Rogers, assistant manager and secretary of the Canadian National Exhibition, who went to England in connection with the Toronto Fair, told a graphic story of his experiences after the Lusitania was struck. He undoubtedly owed his life to the fact that he was a good swimmer.

“It had been a splendid crossing,” he said, “with a calm sea and fine weather contributing to a delightful trip. The Lusitania made nothing like her maximum pace. Her speed probably was about five hundred miles daily, which, as travelers know, is below her average.

“Early Friday morning we sighted the Irish coast. Then we entered a slight fog, and speed was reduced, but we soon came into a clear atmosphere again, and the pace of the boat increased. The morning passed and we went as usual down to lunch, although some were a little later than others in taking the meal. I should think it would be about ten minutes past two when I came from lunch. I immediately proceeded to[51] my stateroom, close to the dining-room, to get a letter which I had written. While in there I heard a tremendous thud, and I came out immediately.

PASSENGERS WERE AGHAST

“There was no panic where I was, but the people were aghast. It was realized that the boat had been struck, apparently on the side nearest the land. The passengers hastened to the boat deck above. The life-boats were hanging out, having been put into that position on the previous day. The Lusitania soon began to list badly with the result that the side on which I and several others were standing went up as the other side dropped. This seemed to cause difficulty in launching the boats, which seemed to get bound against the side of the liner.

“It was impossible, of course, for me to see what was happening in other places, but among the group where I was stationed there was no panic. The order was given, ‘Women and children first,’ and was followed implicitly. The first life-boat lowered with people at the spot where I stood smacked upon the water, and as it did so the stern of this life-boat seemed to part and the people were thrown into the sea. The other boats were lowered more successfully.

“We heard somebody say, ‘Get out of the boats; there is no danger,’ and some people actually did get out, but the direction was not generally acted upon. I entered a boat in which there were men, women and children, I should say between twenty and twenty-five. There were no other women or children standing on the liner where we were, our position, I should think,[52] being about the last boat but one from the stern of the ship.

OCCUPANTS OF LIFE-BOATS THROWN INTO SEA

“Our boat dropped into the water, and for a few minutes we were all right. Then the liner went over. We were not far from her. Whatever the cause may have been—perhaps the effect of suction—I don’t know, but we were thrown into the sea. Some of the occupants were wearing life-belts, but I was not. The only life-belts I knew about were in the cabins, and it had not appeared to me that there was time to risk going there. It must have been about 2.30 when I was thrown into the water. The watch I was wearing stopped at that time.

“What a terrible scene there was around me! It is harrowing to think about the men, women and children struggling in the water. I had the presence of mind to swim away from the boat and made towards a collapsible boat, upon which was the captain and a number of others. For this purpose I had to swim quite a distance.

“I noticed three children among the group. Our collapsible boat began rocking. Every moment it seemed we should be thrown again into the sea. The captain appealed to the people in it to be careful, but the boat continued to rock, and I came to the conclusion that it would be dangerous to remain in it if all were to have a chance. I said, ‘Good-by, Captain; I’m going to swim,’ and jumped into the water. I believe the captain did the same thing after me, although I did not see him, but I understand he was picked up.

[53]

[54]

A HEART-BREAKING SCENE

“The scene was now terrible. Particularly do I remember a young child with a life-belt around her calling, ‘Mamma!’ She was not saved. I had seen her on the liner, and her sister was on the collapsible boat, but I could not reach her. I saw a cold-storage box or cupboard. I swam towards it and clung to it. This supported me for a long time. At last I saw a boat coming towards me and shouted. I was heard and taken in. From this I was transferred to what I think was a trawler, which also picked up three or four others. Eventually I was placed upon a ferry boat known as the Flying Fish, in which, with others, I was taken to Queenstown.

“It was quite possible that some people went down while in their cabins, because after lunch it was the custom with some to go for a rest. A friend of mine on the liner has told me he saw Alfred G. Vanderbilt on deck with a life-belt and observed him give it to a lady. It seemed to me the seriousness of the situation scarcely was realized when the boat was torpedoed. It was all so sudden and so unexpected, and the recollection of it all is terrible.”

[55]

CHAPTER V
THE PLOT AGAINST THE RESCUE SHIPS

GERMAN SUBMARINES PREVENTED RESCUE OF LUSITANIA PASSENGERS — STORY OF ETONIAN’S CAPTAIN — DODGED TWO SUBMARINES — NARRAGANSETT DRIVEN OFF — TORPEDO FIRED AT NARRAGANSETT.

From the lips of Captain Turner, of the Lusitania, and from several of the survivors the world has heard the story of the sudden appearance among the débris and the dead of the sunken liner, of the German submarine that had fired the torpedo which sent almost 1,200 non-combatants, hundreds of them helpless women and children, and among them more than a hundred American citizens, to their deaths. But it remained for the captain of the steamship Etonian, arriving at Boston on May 18, to add the crowning touch to the tragedy.

Captain William F. Wood, of the Etonian, specifically charged that two German submarines deliberately prevented him from going to the rescue of the Lusitania’s passengers after he had received the liner’s wireless S. O. S. call, and when he was but forty miles or so away, and might have rendered great assistance to the hundreds of victims.

Captain Wood charged further that two other ships, both within the same distance of the Lusitania when she sank, were warned off by submarines, and that[56] when the nearest one, the Narragansett, bound for New York, persisted in the attempt to proceed to the rescue of the Lusitania’s passengers, a submarine fired a torpedo at her, which missed the Narragansett by only a few feet.

STORY OF ETONIAN’S CAPTAIN

The Etonian is a freight-carrying steamship, owned by the Wilson-Furness-Leyland lines, and under charter to the Cunard Line. She sailed from Liverpool on May 6. Captain Wood’s story, as he told it without embellishment and in the most positive terms, was as follows:

“We had left Liverpool without unusual incident, and it was two o’clock on the afternoon of Friday, May 7, that we received the S. O. S. call from the Lusitania. Her wireless operator sent this message: ‘We are ten miles south of Kinsale. Come at once.’

“I was then about forty-two miles from the position he gave me. Two other steamships were ahead of me, going in the same direction. They were the Narragansett and the City of Exeter. The Narragansett was closer to the Lusitania, and she answered the S. O. S. call.

“At 5 P.M. I observed the City of Exeter across our bow and she signaled, ‘Have you heard anything of the disaster?’

“At that very moment I saw the periscope of a submarine between the Etonian and the City of Exeter. The submarine was about a quarter of a mile directly ahead of us. She immediately dived as soon as she saw us coming for her. I distinctly saw the splash in the water caused by her submerging.

Charging Through Barbed-Wire Entanglements.

The King’s Regiment of the British Army suffered heavily while trying to penetrate the enemy’s wire entanglement at Givenchy. Three lines of a perfect thicket of barbed-wire lay between them and the enemy. Only one brave officer even managed to penetrate the wire. (Il. L. News copr.)

A Land Mine Exploded Underneath a Section of the Enemy’s Trenches.

A method which has been known to blow forty men to pieces at once. By sapping and mining the gallery was dug almost to the enemy’s trenches underground and explosives placed, which were then fired by electric wire. The explosion hurled a piece of railroad iron weighing twenty-five pounds a distance of over a mile. (Il. L. News copr.)

[57]

DODGED TWO SUBMARINES

“I signaled to the engine room for every available inch of speed, and there was a prompt response. Then we saw the submarine come up astern of us with the periscope in line afterward. I now ordered full speed ahead, and we left the submarine slowly behind. The periscope remained in sight about twenty minutes. Our speed was perhaps two miles an hour better than the submarine could do.

“No sooner had we lost sight of the submarine astern than I made out another on the starboard bow. This one was directly ahead and on the surface, not submerged. I starboarded hard away from him, he swinging as we did. About eight minutes later he submerged. I continued at top speed for four hours, and saw no more of the submarines. It was the ship’s speed that saved her. That’s all.

“Both these submarines were long craft, and the second one had wireless masts. There is no question in my mind that these two submarines were acting in concert and were so placed as to torpedo any ship that might attempt to go to the rescue of the passengers of the Lusitania.

“As a matter of fact, the Narragansett, as soon as she heard the S. O. S. call, went to the assistance of the Lusitania. One of the submarines discharged a torpedo at her and missed her by a few feet. The Narragansett then warned us not to attempt to go to the rescue of the Lusitania, and I got her wireless call while I was dodging the two submarines. You can see that three ships would have gone to the assistance of the Lusitania had it not been for the two submarines.

[58]

“These German craft were, it seems to me, deliberately stationed off Old Head of Kinsale, at a point where all ships have got to pass, for the express purpose of preventing any assistance being given to the passengers of the Lusitania.”

NARRAGANSETT DRIVEN OFF

That the British tank steamer Narragansett, one of the vessels that caught the distress signal of the Lusitania, was also driven off her rescue course by a torpedo from a submarine when she arrived within seven miles of the spot where the Lusitania went down, an hour and three-quarters after she caught the wireless call for help, was alleged by the officers of the tanker, which arrived at Bayonne, N. J., on the same day that the Etonian reached Boston.

The story told by the officers of the Narragansett corroborated the statements made by officers of the Etonian. They said that submarines were apparently scouting the sea to drive back rescue vessels when the Lusitania fell a victim to another undersea craft.

The Lusitania’s call for help was received by the Narragansett at two o’clock on the afternoon of May 7, according to wireless operator Talbot Smith, who said the message read: “Strong list. Come quick.”

When the Narragansett received the message she was thirty-five miles southeast of the Lusitania, having sailed from Liverpool the preceding afternoon at five o’clock for Bayonne. The message was delivered quickly to Captain Charles Harwood, and he ordered the vessel to put on full steam and increase her speed from eleven to fourteen knots. The Narragansett[59] changed her course and started in the direction of the sinking ship.

TORPEDO FIRED AT NARRAGANSETT

Second Officer John Letts, who was on the bridge, said he sighted the periscope of a submarine at 3.35 o’clock, and almost at the same instant he saw a torpedo shooting through the water. The torpedo, according to the second officer, was traveling at great speed.

It shot past the Narragansett, missing the stem by hardly thirty feet, and disappeared. The periscope of the submarine went out of sight at the same time, but the captain of the Narragansett decided not to take any chance, changed the course of his vessel so that the stern pointed directly toward the spot where the periscope was last sighted, and, after steering straight ahead for some distance, followed a somewhat zigzag course until he was out of the immediate submarine territories.

Captain Harwood abandoned all thought of the Lusitania’s call for help, because he thought it was a decoy message sent out to trap the Narragansett into the submarine’s path.

“My opinion,” said Second Officer Letts, “is that submarines were scattered around that territory to prevent any vessel that received the S. O. S. call of the Lusitania from going to her assistance.”

When attacked by the submarine the Narragansett had out her log, according to Second Officer Letts, and the torpedo passed under the line to which it was attached. The torpedo was fired from the submarine[60] when the undersea boat was within two hundred yards of the tanker.

The Narragansett when turned back had not sighted the wreck of the Lusitania, and her officers, who were led to believe the S. O. S. was a decoy, did not learn of the sinking of the Cunarder until the following morning at two o’clock.

The Narragansett, under charter to the Standard Oil Company, is one of the largest tank steamships afloat. She is 540 feet long, has a sixty-foot beam, and 12,500 tons displacement.

[61]

CHAPTER VI
BRITISH JURY FINDS KAISER A MURDERER

“THE CRIME OF WHOLESALE MURDER”—CAPTAIN TURNER’S TESTIMONY — SAW THE TORPEDO — DOUBLE LOOKOUTS ON LINER — NO WARNING GIVEN — OTHER TESTIMONY — CORONER HORGAN’S STATEMENT.

One of the first official acts with reference to the loss of the Lusitania was the impaneling, on May 10, of a coroner’s jury at Queenstown to fix the responsibility for the death of the passengers whose bodies were recovered and taken to that place. The inquest was conducted by Coroner John Horgan. The coroner’s proceedings were comparatively brief, and were concluded with the return of the following verdict of the jury:

“THE CRIME OF WHOLESALE MURDER”

“We find that the deceased met death from prolonged immersion and exhaustion in the sea eight miles south-southwest of Old Head of Kinsale, Friday, May 7, 1915, owing to the sinking of the Lusitania by torpedoes fired by a German submarine.

“We find that this appalling crime was committed contrary to international law and the conventions of all civilized nations.

“We also charge the officers of said submarine and[62] the Emperor and Government of Germany, under whose orders they acted, with the crime of wholesale murder before the tribunal of the civilized world.

“We desire to express sincere condolences and sympathy with the relatives of the deceased, the Cunard Company and the United States, many of whose citizens perished in this murderous attack on an unarmed liner.”

CAPTAIN TURNER’S TESTIMONY

Captain W. T. Turner, the Lusitania’s commander, was the chief witness at the inquest.

The Coroner asked the captain whether he had received a message concerning the sinking of a ship off Kinsale by a submarine. Captain Turner replied that he had not.

“Did you receive any special instructions as to the voyage?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you at liberty to tell us what they were?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you carry them out?”

“Yes, to the best of my ability.”

“You were aware threats had been made that the ship would be torpedoed?”

“We were,” the captain replied.

“Was she armed?”

“No, sir.”

“What precautions did you take?”

“We had all the boats swung when we came within the danger zone, between the passing of Fastnet and the time of the accident.”

[63]

[64]

“Tell us in your own words what happened after passing Fastnet.”

SAW THE TORPEDO

“The weather was clear,” Captain Turner answered. “We were going at a speed of eighteen knots. I was on the port side and heard Second Officer Hefford call out, ‘Here’s a torpedo.’

“I ran to the other side and saw clearly the wake of a torpedo. Smoke and steam came up between the last two funnels. There was a slight shock. Immediately after the first explosion there was another report, but that may possibly have been internal.

“I at once gave the order to lower the boats down to the rails, and I directed that women and children should get into them. I also had all the bulkheads closed.

“I also gave orders to stop the ship,” Captain Turner continued, “but we could not stop. We found that the engines were out of commission. It was not safe to lower boats until the speed was off the vessel. As a matter of fact, there was a perceptible headway on her up to the time she went down.

“When she was struck she listed to starboard. I stood on the bridge when she sank, and the Lusitania went down under me. She floated about eighteen minutes after the torpedo struck her. My watch stopped at 2.36. I was picked up from among the wreckage and afterward was brought aboard a trawler.

“No warship was convoying us. I saw no warship, and none was reported to me as having been seen. At the time I was picked up I noticed bodies floating on the surface, but saw no living persons.”

[65]

“Eighteen knots was not the normal speed of the Lusitania, was it?” he was asked.

“At ordinary times,” answered Captain Turner, “she could make twenty-five knots, but in war times her speed was reduced to twenty-one knots. My reason for going eighteen knots was that I wanted to arrive at Liverpool without stopping and within two or three hours of high water.”

DOUBLE LOOKOUTS ON LINER

“Was there a lookout kept for submarines, having regard to previous warnings?”

“Yes; we had double lookouts.”

“Were you going a zigzag course at the moment the torpedoing took place?”

“No; it was bright weather, and land was clearly visible.”

“Was it possible for a submarine to approach without being seen?”

“Oh, yes, quite possible.”

“Something has been said regarding the impossibility of launching the boats on the port side?”

“Yes,” said Captain Turner, “owing to the listing of the ship.”

“How many boats were launched safely?”

“I cannot say.”

“Were your orders promptly carried out?”

“Yes.”

“Was there any panic on board?”

“No, there was no panic at all; it was all most calm.”

By the foreman of the jury:

“In the face of the warnings at New York that the[66] Lusitania would be torpedoed, did you make any application to the Admiralty for an escort?”

“No, I left that to them. It is their business, not mine. I simply had to carry out my orders to go, and I would do it again.”

Captain Turner uttered the last words of this reply with great emphasis.

By the coroner:

“I am very glad to hear you say so, Captain.”

By a juryman:

“Did you get a wireless to steer your vessel in a northerly direction?”

“No,” replied Captain Turner.

“Was the course of the vessel altered after the torpedoes struck her?”

“I headed straight for land, but it was useless. Previous to this the water-tight bulkheads were closed. I suppose the explosion forced them open. I don’t know the exact extent to which the Lusitania was damaged.”

“There must have been serious damage done to the water-tight bulkheads.”

“There certainly was, without doubt.”

“Were the passengers supplied with life-belts?”

“Yes.”

“Were any special orders given that morning that life-belts be put on?”

“No.”

NO WARNING GIVEN

“Was any warning given you before you were torpedoed?”

[67]

“None whatever. It was suddenly done and finished.”

“If there had been a patrol boat aboard; might it have been of assistance?”

“It might, but it is one of those things one never knows.”

With regard to the threats against his ship, Captain Turner said he saw nothing except what appeared in the New York papers the day before the Lusitania sailed. He never had heard the passengers talking about the threats, he said.

“Was a warning given to the lower decks after the ship had been struck?” Captain Turner was asked.

“All the passengers must have heard the explosion,” Captain Turner replied.

Captain Turner in answer to another question said he received no report from the lookout before the torpedo struck the Lusitania.

OTHER TESTIMONY

Cornelius Horrigan, a waiter aboard the Lusitania, testified that it was impossible to launch boats on the starboard side because of the steamer’s list. He went down with the ship, but came up and was rescued. Horrigan gave a partial identification of one of the bodies, which he thought to be that of Steward Cranston.

The ship’s bugler, Vernon Livermore, gave evidence that the water-tight compartments were closed, but thought that the explosion must have opened them. No one was able to identify a man in whose pocket was found a card bearing the name of John Wanamaker of[68] New York, and in the left-hand corner “Notary Public MacQuerrie, Bureau of Information.”

CORONER HORGAN’S STATEMENT

Coroner Horgan said that the first torpedo fired by the German submarine did serious damage to the Lusitania, but that, not satisfied with this, the Germans had discharged another torpedo. The second torpedo, he said, must have been more deadly, because it went right through the ship, hastening the work of destruction.

He charged that the responsibility “lay on the German government and the whole people of Germany who collaborated in the terrible crime.

“This is a case,” he said, “in which a powerful war-like engine attacked an unarmed vessel without warning. It was simple barbarism and cold-blooded murder.

“I purpose to ask the jury to return the only verdict possible for a self-respecting jury—that the men in charge of the German submarine were guilty of willful murder.”

[69]

CHAPTER VII
THE WORLD-WIDE INDICTMENT OF GERMANY FOR THE LUSITANIA ATROCITY

VIEWS OF COLONEL ROOSEVELT, UNITED STATES SENATORS AND OTHER PROMINENT MEN—OPINIONS OF THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA — VIEWS OF PROMINENT CANADIANS.

Not even the invasion of peaceful Belgium, nor any of the other atrocities charged to the belligerent nations in the great war, stirred such universal and emphatic condemnation as the destruction of the Lusitania and over half its human freight of human lives. From all quarters of the globe the cry of amazement, indignation and outrage arose.

One of the first to express his feelings was Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who said: “This represents not merely piracy, but piracy on a vaster scale of murder than any old-time pirate ever practiced.

“This is the warfare which destroyed Louvain and Dinant and hundreds of men, women and children in Belgium carried out to innocent men, women and children on the ocean and to our own fellow countrymen and countrywomen who are among the sufferers.

“It seems inconceivable that we should refrain from taking action in this matter, for we owe it not only to humanity, but to our own national self-respect.”

[70]

Atlee Pomerene, U. S. Senator from Ohio, member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said: “To Americans the sinking of the Lusitania is the most deplorable incident of the European war. Every man with the milk of human kindness in his breast condemns any policy by any nation that leads to the slaughter without warning of babes, women and non-combatants.”

Morris Sheppard, U. S. Senator from Texas, said: “The sinking of the Lusitania is an illustration of the unspeakable horror of modern warfare, and will be a tremendous argument for general disarmament when the war closes. Let us handle the present situation with patience and calmness, trusting the President to take the proper course.”

John W. Griggs, former Governor of New Jersey and at one time Attorney-General of the United States, expressed himself emphatically on the Lusitania tragedy. He said: “The time for watchful waiting has passed. No investigating committee is needed. The facts are known. Action is demanded. A demand should be made at once without waiting by the government to get the finding of any investigations or inquests. Would you hesitate to act if a man slapped you in the face? I do not say what should be demanded. That is for the government to decide. But an explanation should be demanded of Germany at once. The German submarine violated a law that even savages would recognize. I would hold Germany to account by proclaiming her an outlaw among the nations of the world. If the German government pleads that it was justified in this crime—which it will—it is then the duty of the United States to join[71] with other neutral nations and cut her off from the rest of the world.”

“I’m Not Arguing With You, William; I’m Just Telling You!”

Jacob M. Dickinson, Secretary of War under President Taft, issued a statement in which he said: “It is not likely that Germany will disavow the purpose to destroy the Lusitania with full knowledge of the fact that this involved many American lives. In view of the result and the warning given by our government to Germany, some proper action must be taken, or the American government will incur the contempt of the world and the contempt of a vast number of its own people.”

“An act of barbarity without justification,” was the expression of Frederick R. Coudert, of New York, an authority on international law, in referring to the[72] torpedoing of the Lusitania. Mr. Coudert said: “I make that statement on the supposition that lives of citizens of the United States, a neutral nation, were destroyed by the sinking of the vessel. There is no justification, however, for ruthlessly sinking a merchant ship in the open seas when that vessel is not engaged in any manner as a belligerent vessel, and when the lives of non-combatants depend upon its safety. It would seem to be time for the government of this country to determine whether it will sit idly by and accept explanations that Americans were warned to keep off the steamer, or take a definite stand upon the rights of our citizens on the seas.”

The opinion of the nation on the sinking of the Lusitania is fairly represented by the following extracts from the editorial columns of leading newspapers throughout the United States:

THE EAST

New York Evening Post: “Germany ought not to be left in a moment’s doubt how the civilized world regards her latest display of ‘frightfulness.’ It is a deed for which a Hun would blush, a Turk be ashamed and a Barbary pirate apologize. To speak of technicalities and the rules of war, in the face of such wholesale murder on the high seas, is a waste of time. The law of nations and the law of God have been alike trampled upon. The German government must be given to understand that no plea of military necessity will now avail it before the tribunal on which sits as judge the humane conscience of the world. As was declared by Germany’s own representative at The Hague Congress, the late Marschall von Bieberstein, there are some atrocities which international law does not need to legislate against, since they fall under the instant and universal condemnation of mankind.”

Non-Combatants Honored With Their Flags.

The upper picture shows the body of an American victim of the Lusitania disaster carried through the streets of Queenstown covered with the Stars and Stripes. Below, British soldiers laying the Union Jack over the coffins of victims recovered after the sinking of the Lusitania. (C. Int. News Service.)

One American Family Lost on the Lusitania.

Wife and children of Paul Crompton. Not only hundreds of non-combatant men, but many women and children were intentionally sunk with the Lusitania.

[73]

New York Tribune: “Failing these things, no American should misunderstand the meaning of the present crisis; no American should shrink from the facts that cannot be evaded or avoided. If Germany has once and for all embarked upon a deliberate campaign of murder directed against American citizens, there can be but one consequence—the end is inescapable.”

New York World: “The main thing that concerns the American government today is not the subordinate question of reparation for the assassination of American citizens who were traveling on the Lusitania. It is the broader question of whether Germany can be brought to her senses and induced to abandon methods of warfare that are a crime against civilization and an affront to humanity.”

New York Times: “Neither in law nor in custom is there any extenuation for this act of monstrous inhumanity, no exception, no condition, can be made to shield it from the full force and condemnation it deserves and has received. And the warning advertisement published by the German Embassy here, being notice of an intent to commit a crime, is of no more avail for exculpation than a Black Hand letter of threat.”

New York Globe: “The duty of this government is sufficiently clear. In a formal and emphatic manner, not shrinking from explicit characterization, it should[74] denounce the greatest international outrage that has occurred since the Boxer savages of China, with the countenance of a treacherous government, attacked the women and children in the legations at Pekin.”

Philadelphia Public Ledger: “As it stands the horror is almost inconceivable. There has been nothing like it before. One of the consequences of this war ought to be that nothing like it can ever happen again. Unless civilization is to relapse into barbarism, helpless non-combatants must not be exposed in such a fashion to the worst calamities of war.”

Boston Transcript: “The torpedoing of the Lusitania was not battle—it was massacre. To destroy an enemy ship, an unarmed merchant vessel of great value and power, is an act of war; to sink her in such a manner as to send hundreds of her passengers, among them many neutrals, to their death, is morally murder, and no technical military plea will avail to procure any other verdict at the bar of civilized public opinion.”

Boston Post: “The sinking of the British liner Lusitania by the torpedo of a German submarine with terrible loss of life, is the worst crime against civilization and humanity that the modern world has ever known. It is a reversion to barbarism that will set the whole world, save perhaps the little world of its perpetrators, aflame with horror and indignation.”

Boston Traveler: “With the destruction of this queen of the ocean liners and the hundreds of lives of non-combatant men, women and children, also came the ruin of the last vestige of the structure of international law and humane consideration that through the centuries mankind has been striving to erect.[75] The very life and honor of the nation depend upon the manner in which this attack upon its integrity is adjudicated, even if any adjudication of a civil nature will be deemed sufficient to permit of a peaceful, to say nothing of a friendly, adjustment.”

Hartford Courant: “It is hard to find in the dictionary the words strong enough to fit such conduct, and the effect of the destruction of the ship and the loss of lives will be to turn public sentiment more than ever against the Germans.”

Providence Journal: “Scores of Americans were murdered yesterday on the high seas, by order of the German government. Men and women, citizens of the United States, traveling peaceably on a merchant steamer, have been sent to their death by the deliberately planned act of Emperor William and his advisers.”

Providence Evening Tribune: “The torpedoing of the Lusitania, in that it destroyed innocent American lives, was a capital crime committed by Germany against the United States. A capital crime is a crime punishable by death. And in the case of a nation punitive death is usually administered by the process of war.”

THE WEST

Chicago Herald: “International law contemplates the capture of merchant vessels. It contemplates their destruction under certain conditions. But it does not contemplate, provide for or justify destruction of the crews and passengers of such ships without giving them a chance for safety.”

[76]

Minneapolis Journal: “Germany intends to become the outlaw of nations. Perhaps we are yet to witness savagery carried to its ultimate perfection.”

Minneapolis Tribune: “The sinking of the Lusitania is outside the rules of civilized warfare. The President will have the loyal support of the people of this country in whatever course wise counsel may find it necessary to pursue.”

Denver Rocky Mountain News: “Mankind will hang its head in shame. It was not war. It is not England that suffers; it is not the relatives and friends of the dead that suffer only; the people of Germany will suffer for the deed of yesterday.”

THE SOUTH

Washington Post: “No warrant whatever, in law or morals, can be found for the willful destruction of an unarmed vessel, neutral or enemy, carrying passengers, without giving them an opportunity to leave the vessel. Germany stands indicted on this charge, and if it is proved the world will not exonerate that nation for the awful destruction of innocent life.”

Baltimore American: “Americans must and will resent the invasion of their rights, and in this there can be no division of American sentiment.”

Charleston News and Courier: “The destruction of the Lusitania has been accomplished, it now appears, with the most diabolically cruel deliberation. If this shall be established as a fact, there can be no question that the wrath of the American people will flame—and should flame.”

New Orleans Times-Picayune: “What is Washington[77] going to do about it? Slaughter of American citizens in contravention of all laws of warfare has placed the United States in a position that is intolerable. Our people were wantonly done to death.”

SENTIMENT OF THE CANADIAN PRESS

Even sterner was the tone of the editorial opinion of the Canadian press. In many cases the actual intervention of the United States in the war was advocated. The following excerpts are characteristic of the opinion of the newspapers of Canada:

Toronto Daily News: “This fresh display of Teutonic Kultur raises anew the question as to how long the Washington government is going to be scorned and trampled upon by the most unscrupulous and barbarous race of modern times. What effect will this deliberate destruction of hundreds of American citizens in cold blood have upon public sentiment throughout the United States? Can President Wilson forever stand aside while international law and international moral standards are cast to the winds by a brutal and infuriated people?”

Toronto Mail and Empire: “The Washington government knows why the American citizens whose names are on the passenger list of the Lusitania trusted themselves to the ship despite the warnings of the Kaiser’s agents and accomplices in New York. Those American men and women disregarded the warnings, not because they believed the Germans incapable of torpedoing a passenger vessel, but because they felt that the neutrality and puissance of their nation would be respected. The Washington government cannot let[78] these American citizens who relied on its protection go unavenged.”

Toronto Globe: “But what of the United States. Does President Wilson propose to let German submarines destroy the lives of American citizens because they choose to cross the Atlantic in a passenger ship flying the British flag? Does he still think the mad dog of Europe can be trusted at large? Is it not almost time to join in hunting down the brute?”

Toronto Daily Star: “The sinking of the Lusitania was not necessary to prove what was already abundantly demonstrated—that there is no length of vindictiveness to which Germany will not go. There is no lesson to be drawn from it except that Germany must be fought to a finish, and that all the resources of the allied countries must be marshalled for that purpose. We are engaged in no ordinary war. The very existence of civilization is at stake. The civilized world is threatened by a nation that has deliberately gone back to barbarism and given a free rein to criminal instincts. Denunciation and rebuke are of no avail in such a case. The conflict is between a powerful criminal and those who desire to live under the reign of law; and the time has come for every man who believes in law, in every nation, to fight for the life of civilization.”

VIEWS OF PROMINENT CANADIANS

That the torpedoing of the Lusitania was not an act of war in the technical sense committed by Germany as against the United States, was the view expressed by Mr. McGregor Young, professor of international[79] law in Toronto University, who said in an interview:

“Certain acts are acts of war in the technical sense—acts, that is to say, which touch the state qua state. But the torpedoing of the Lusitania does not come within that category, so far as the United States is concerned. It is not an act such as is not compatible with friendly relations between that country and Germany. The Lusitania was a British ship, and the American passengers on board her were really an incident, as it were. Whether it would be consistent with the United States’ self-respect to put up with Germany’s action is another matter. That is a question as to which a nation must judge for itself.”

Mr. E. F. B. Johnston, K.C., gave his opinion as follows:

“The Lusitania was a vessel owned by a British company, carrying on business in England. It was not under the control of the United States. Individual citizens choosing to travel by this boat would do so at their own risk, and so far as loss is concerned, the United States as a nation would not perhaps be legally affected. But if citizens of the United States are not to be protected by their own Government, a wholesale slaughter might be justified on the ground that the ship was English. It seems to me to be a question of policy. And, as such, one would say that it was the duty of the United States to protect, as far as possible, their own citizens.”

On the Sunday following the destruction of the Lusitania reference to the disaster was made by countless clergymen throughout Canada. Varying sentiments[80] were expressed in their sermons, but perhaps the keynote was sounded by the Rev. W. H. Hincks, D.D., pastor of Trinity Methodist Church, Toronto, who alluded to the subject as follows:

“Neutral nations headed by the President of the United States seven months ago entered a united diplomatic protest against the violation of the branch of The Hague Convention which has to do with the killing of civilians. The greatest thinkers in Great Britain have taken the view that the United States can do more good as a neutral by exerting her influence in the interest of humanity and in accordance with The Hague Convention than in entering unprepared into the war. Our duty is to pray for the President of the United States, that, surrounded by the wisest of his advisers, he may take action with other neutral nations to prevent the repetition of such a crime.”

[81]

CHAPTER VIII
AMERICA’S PROTEST AGAINST UNCIVILIZED WARFARE

PRESIDENT WILSON’S GREAT RESPONSIBILITY — THE NOTE TO GERMANY — ATTACKS CALLED CONTRARY TO RULES OF WARFARE — WARNING TO GERMANY RECALLED — SUBMARINE WARFARE ON COMMERCE CONDEMNED — PUBLISHED WARNING DECLARED NO EXCUSE FOR ATTACK — PROMPT, JUST ACTION BY GERMANY EXPECTED — THE WHOLE NATION BEHIND THE PRESIDENT — SOUTH AND WEST RESOUNDED WITH APPROVAL.

Rarely has a man in any office of life had laid upon his shoulders so great a responsibility as was thrust upon President Wilson by the destruction of more than a hundred American lives in the Lusitania disaster. No heart was more sorely stricken than his by the dastardly calamity, and yet it is characteristic of the man, and to his everlasting credit, that when impetuous minds were urging him to hasty action, his reply was,

“We must think first of humanity.”

A man of lesser stature, mentally and spiritually, would have required a host of counselors. In the great crisis which he faced President Wilson assumed for himself full responsibility. There was the rare spectacle of a man great enough and sure enough to determine wholly within his own mind upon the action he should[82] take. He sought no advice; he eschewed advisers. In solitude he evolved his supreme duty.

When, in the seclusion of his own soul, he had fixed upon his policy, he proceeded in the same way to put it into words. It is a thing perhaps without precedent before the administration of President Wilson that the note to the German government, which has become a historic document, was written originally by the President in shorthand. After he had set down the communication in this way he transcribed it on his own typewriter. No official or clerk of the White House had any part in the preparation of the document until after it had been presented to the members of the Cabinet. Not even Secretary Bryan saw it in advance of that time.

THE NOTE TO GERMANY

The full text of President Wilson’s note, dated May 13, and communicated over the name of Secretary of State Bryan, is as follows:

THE WHOLE NATION BEHIND THE PRESIDENT

With anxiety, even if with confidence, the American people waited the publication of this note. Then they read, and the whole country resounded with enthusiastic support. More than at almost any previous period in the history of the United States, more certainly than at the outbreak of any previous foreign war, the nation stood solidly behind the President. According to the New York Tribune he “acted with calm statesmanlike directness, deserved well of his own nation and earned the respect of the world.” The New York Sun, commenting on the note, said: “The President has spoken firmly. The country, supporting him as firmly, awaits without passion the German reply,” and the New York Herald in an editorial declared that President Wilson had “expressed the unanimous voice of the great American republic.” “Everyone trusts the President because he has shown himself worthy of trust,” was the comment of the Philadelphia Public Ledger. “The Government’s position in this case is the country’s position. It is not extreme, yet it covers the ground,” spoke the Springfield Republican, and the Christian Science Monitor went so far as to state that there was “probably no body of opinion in the United States which will be dissatisfied either with the tone or temper of the message.”

Zeppelin Device for Dropping Bombs.

An armored car is suspended by three cables from the Zeppelin airship to a distance of several thousand feet below the monster air-craft, which is concealed in the clouds above. (Sphere copr.)

Falling to Earth Like a Blazing Meteor.

This stirring picture represents a German aeroplane of the type called Aviatik, beaten in a fight high up in the air by the famous French Aviator Garros, plunging to earth in flames, turning and turning like a falling star.

[89]

SOUTH AND WEST RESOUNDED WITH APPROVAL

No less enthusiastic was the approval of the press in the South and West. “The citizenry of this country is with Wilson,” stoutly declared the Baltimore Sun, and the Louisville Post maintained: “There are no neutrals in America now. We are all earnest supporters of the President, who by patience and fortitude has established his right to lead a free people.” The note, according to the Atlanta Journal, was “the voice of the American people proclaiming in terms unmistakable their conscience and their will.”

“Whatever the fate of our relations with Germany,[90] the President undoubtedly has voiced the sentiment of the nation upon the use of the submarine and as to the rights of neutrals on the high seas,” was the comment of the Chicago Tribune. The note was described by the Cleveland News as “all that Americans could wish,” and according to the San Francisco Chronicle, it commended itself “to the common sense of people unafflicted with inflammable hatreds.” “It is probable that no document of state ever came nearer reflecting the sentiment of the American people,” commented the Denver Times, and the Indianapolis News proclaimed: “It is not simply the government, but the nation that speaks through the document. There is no one who does not hope for a peaceful adjustment of the difficulty.” The Minneapolis Journal, after analyzing the note and especially the last strong paragraph of protest, declared: “The American people will stand by these words.”

If no president of the United States ever faced so grave a crisis, certainly none ever received more unanimous support. If there were any murmurs of dissatisfaction they were too faint to be heard above the chorus of approval.

[91]

CHAPTER IX
THE GERMAN DEFENSE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE LUSITANIA

BLAMES BRITAIN FOR MISUSE OF FLAG — INVESTIGATING CASES OF CUSHING AND GULFLIGHT — DECLARES SHIP CARRIED MOUNTED CANNON — SAYS IT ACTED IN JUSTIFIED SELF-DEFENSE — FINAL DECISION ON DEMANDS DEFERRED — AMERICAN OPINION OF GERMAN EXCUSES — EVASIVE AND INSINCERE — ATTACKS ON AMERICAN VESSELS MUST CEASE — SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT.

The German defense for the destruction of the Lusitania and for other marine atrocities committed against non-combatant vessels in the famous, or infamous, war zone was contained in a note to the American government, transmitted May 31, in reply to President Wilson’s note of protest. The full text of the German note is as follows:

“The undersigned has the honor to submit to Ambassador Gerard the following answer to the communication of May 13 regarding the injury to American interests through German submarine warfare.

“The Imperial government has subjected the communication of the American government to a thorough investigation. It entertains also a keen wish to co-operate in a frank and friendly way in clearing up a possible misunderstanding which may have arisen[92] in the relations between the two governments through the events mentioned by the American government.

“Regarding, firstly, the cases of the American steamers Cushing and Gulflight. The American embassy has already been informed that the German government has no intention of submitting neutral ships in the war zone, which are guilty of no hostile acts, to attacks by a submarine or submarines or aviators. On the contrary, the German forces have repeatedly been instructed most specifically to avoid attacks on such ships.

BLAMES BRITAIN FOR MISUSE OF FLAGS

“If neutral ships in recent months have suffered through the German submarine warfare, owing to mistakes in identification, it is a question only of quite isolated and exceptional cases, which can be attributed to the British government’s abuse of flags, together with the suspicious or culpable behavior of the masters of the ships.

“The German government, in all cases in which it has been shown by its investigations that a neutral ship, not itself at fault, was damaged by German submarines or aviators, has expressed regret over the unfortunate accident and, if justified by conditions, has offered indemnification.

INVESTIGATING CASES OF CUSHING AND GULFLIGHT

“The cases of the Cushing and the Gulflight will be treated on the same principles. An investigation of both cases is in progress, the result of which will presently be communicated to the embassy. The[93] investigation can, if necessary, be supplemented by an international call on the international commission of inquiry as provided by Article III of The Hague agreement of October 18, 1907.

“When sinking the British steamer Falaba, the commander of the German submarine had the intention of allowing the passengers and crew a full opportunity for a safe escape. Only when the master did not obey the order to heave-to, but fled and summoned help by rocket signals, did the German commander order the crew and passengers by signals and megaphone to leave the ship within ten minutes. He actually allowed them twenty-three minutes time and fired the torpedo only when suspicious craft were hastening to the assistance of the Falaba.

“Regarding the loss of life by the sinking of the British passenger steamer Lusitania, the German government has already expressed to the neutral governments concerned its keen regret that citizens of their states lost their lives.

“On this occasion, the Imperial government, however, cannot escape the impression that certain important facts having a direct bearing on the sinking of the Lusitania may have escaped the attention of the American government.

“In the interest of a clear and complete understanding, which is the aim of both governments, the Imperial government considers it first necessary to convince itself that the information accessible to both governments about the facts of the case is complete and in accord.

“The government of the United States proceeds on[94] the assumption that the Lusitania could be regarded as an ordinary unarmed merchantman. The Imperial government allows itself in this connection to point out that the Lusitania was one of the largest and fastest British merchant ships, built with government funds as an auxiliary cruiser and carried expressly as such in the ‘navy list’ issued by the British admiralty.

DECLARES SHIP CARRIED MOUNTED CANNON

“It is further known to the Imperial government from trustworthy reports from its agents and neutral passengers, that for a considerable time practically all the more valuable British merchantmen have been equipped with cannon and ammunition and other weapons and manned with persons who have been specially trained in serving guns. The Lusitania, too, according to information received here, had cannon aboard, which were mounted and concealed below decks.

“The Imperial government, further, has the honor to direct the particular attention of the American government to the fact that the British admiralty in a confidential instruction issued in February, 1915, recommended its mercantile shipping not only to seek protection under neutral flags and disguising marks, but also, while thus disguised, to attack German submarines by ramming. As a special incitation to merchantmen to destroy submarines, the British government also offered high prizes and has already paid such rewards.

“The Imperial government in view of these facts indubitably known to it, is unable to regard British merchantmen in the zone of naval operations specified[95] by the admiralty staff of the German navy as ‘undefended.’ German commanders consequently are no longer able to observe the customary regulations of the prize law, which they always followed.

“Finally the Imperial government must point out particularly that the Lusitania on its last trip, as on earlier occasions, carried Canadian troops and war material, including no less than 5,400 cases of ammunition intended for the destruction of the brave German soldiers who are fulfilling their duty with self-sacrifice and devotion in the Fatherland’s service.

SAYS IT ACTED IN JUSTIFIED SELF-DEFENSE

“The German government believes that it was acting in justified self-defense in seeking with all the means of warfare at its disposition to protect the lives of its soldiers by destroying ammunition intended for the enemy.

“The British shipping company must have been aware of the danger to which the passengers aboard the Lusitania were exposed under these conditions. The company, in embarking them notwithstanding this, attempted deliberately to use the lives of American citizens as protection for the ammunition aboard, and acted against the clear provisions of the American law, which expressly prohibits the forwarding of passengers on ships carrying ammunition, and provides a penalty therefor. The company therefore is wantonly guilty of the death of so many passengers.

“There can be no doubt according to definite report of the submarine’s commander, which is further confirmed by all other information, that the quick sinking[96] of the Lusitania is primarily attributed to the explosion of the ammunition shipment caused by a torpedo. The Lusitania’s passengers would otherwise, in all human probability, have been saved.

“The Imperial government considers the above-mentioned facts important enough to recommend them to the attentive examination of the American government.

FINAL DECISION ON DEMANDS DEFERRED

“The Imperial government, while withholding its final decision on the demands advanced in connection with the sinking of the Lusitania until receipt of an answer from the American government, feels impelled in conclusion to recall here and now that it took cognizance with satisfaction of the mediatory proposals submitted by the United States government to Berlin and London as a basis for a modus vivendi for conducting the maritime warfare between Germany and Great Britain.

“The Imperial government by its readiness to enter upon a discussion of these proposals, then demonstrated its good intentions in ample fashion. The realization of these proposals was defeated, as is well known, by the declinatory attitude of the British government.

“The undersigned takes occasion, etc.

“Jagow.”

AMERICAN OPINION OF GERMAN EXCUSES

The effect of the German note on American opinion was to create a sense of angry disappointment. The newspapers were a unit in calling it evasive. It “does not meet the issue,” declared the New York World, while the New York Times viewed it as being “not responsive to our demand. It tends rather to becloud understanding.” The Albany Knickerbocker Press denounced it as “an answer which purposely does not answer. Germany evidently is playing for time.” This thought was reiterated by the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, which pointed out that “it is palpable that Germany proposes to consume time by raising points which call for further correspondence, in the meanwhile continuing in the course to which the United States has objected.”

Survivors of the Lusitania Disaster.

Mr. Cowper, a Canadian journalist, holding little Helen Smith, a six-year-old American girl, who lost both father and mother. (C. Int. News Service.)

“The Man Who Cannot Be Drowned.” This stoker was saved from the Titanic, the Empress of Ireland and, lastly, from the Lusitania.

 

Sapping and Mining the Enemy’s Trenches.

When the hostile trenches are near together an open zig-zag trench is dug to a point very close to the enemy’s line, then a covered gallery is excavated to a point almost under the hostile trench.

Gaining a Foot of Ground Per Hour.

Here a charge of explosive is placed and fired from a distance by an electric wire. At the same instant the men charge over the ground and occupy the ruined trench of the enemy. (Il. L. News copr.)

 

Larger illustration (317 kB)

Belgian Refugees Find Safety in Holland.

This photograph, made at Putte, a Holland frontier town, shows some of the three hundred thousand refugees who sought safety in Holland. (Copyright by Underwood and Underwood.)

 

[97]

[98]

The Chicago Herald more specifically pointed out the evasiveness of the German reply, claiming that it “fails wholly to meet the main points at issue, both the specific point of the slaughter of American citizens on the Lusitania and the general point of the impossibility of employing submarines in the destruction of commerce without disregarding rules of fairness, reason, justice and humanity—established principles of international law.”

EVASIVE AND INSINCERE

The Philadelphia Public Ledger also criticized it for ignoring altogether “the protest in the name of humanity against submarine warfare upon non-combatants,” and the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune laid bare the “absolute ignoring of the vital principles set forth in the Wilson letter,” adding that “there is a half contemptuous, albeit entirely courteous, suggestion of ‘Well, they are still dead; now, what do you propose to do about it?[99]’”

No Use.

The German claim that the Lusitania was in effect a warship, with mounted guns, and carried ammunition and Canadian soldiers, was emphatically denied in a public statement by Dudley Field Malone, collector of the port of New York, and the New York World vehemently answered the German claim by declaring that “the Lusitania was a warship in the same way that Belgium was an aggressor against Germany; in the same way that the University of Louvain and Rheims Cathedral were ‘fortifications’; in the same way that various seaside resorts in England, raided by Germans, were ‘defended.’”

ATTACKS ON AMERICAN VESSELS MUST CEASE

Many newspapers joined in calling for more drastic action on the part of the United States government. “We have but one thing in mind,” announced the New York Tribune, “that these crimes shall cease. Any answer, therefore, which fails to guarantee their stoppage as a condition precedent to diplomatic rectification cannot be expected to satisfy the just expectation of the United States.” The Washington Herald followed[100] this by saying: “The patience of the American people in the face of contemptuous disregard of their rights and a series of outrages against their countrymen has been sublime, but surely it has a limit. Surely a way will be found, without much longer delay, to compel Germany to cease her attacks on American vessels engaged in neutral commerce and to guarantee the safety of American lives and property.”

SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT

On the other hand there was a strong element that counseled coolness and restraint. “This is not a time,” declared the Albany Knickerbocker Press, “to suggest to President Wilson what ought to be done. It is not a time to become impatient. It is a time for restraint. Nothing can be gained now by playing upon the strings of excitable public opinion in America. The President must find his way out and every true American must support him loyally.” Echoing this sentiment, the Springfield Republican added, “but the German government may fairly be required to give definite assurances that during the period of the negotiations no more torpedo attacks on passenger ships which may be carrying American citizens will be permitted.”

[101]

CHAPTER X
SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM
By Vance Thompson

CULTURE SWEPT AWAY — BREAKING POINT OF CIVILIZATION — BARBARISM AND WOMEN — AFTER BARBARISM, WHAT?

[The following article is reproduced by the courtesy of the New York Times.]

There is in Brussels—if the Uhlans have spared it—a mad and monstrous picture. It is called “A Scene in Hell,” and hangs in the Musée Wiertz. And what you see on the canvas are the fierce and blinding flames of hell; and amid them looms the dark figure of Napoleon, and around him the wives and mothers and maids of Belgium scream and surge and clutch and curse—taking their posthumous vengeance.

And since Napoleon was a notable emperor in his time, the picture is not without significance today. Paint in another face, and let it go at that.

War is a bad thing. Even hell is the worse for it.

War is a bad thing; it is a reversal, sudden and complete, to barbarism. That is what I would get at in this article. One day there is civilization, authentic, complex, triumphant; comes war, and in a moment the entire fabric sinks down into a slime[102] of mud and blood. In a day, in an hour, a cycle of civilization is canceled. What you saw in the morning was suave and ordered life; and the sun sets on howling savagery. In the morning black-coated men lifted their hats to women. Ere nightfall they are slashing them with sabres and burning the houses over their heads. And the grave old professors who were droning platitudes of peace and progress and humanitarianism are screaming, ere today is done, shrill senile clamors for blood and ravage and rapine.

A reversal to barbarism.

Here; it is in the tea-room of the smartest hotel in Munich; war has come; high-voiced women of title chatter over their teacups; comes swaggering in the Crown Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria; he has just had his sabre sharpened and has girt his abdomen for war. His wife runs to him. And she kisses the sabre and shouts: “Bring it back to me covered with blood—that I may kiss it again!” And the other high-voiced women flock to kiss the sword.

A reversal to barbarism.

It has taken place in an hour; but yesterday these were sweet patrician ladies, who prattled of humanity and love and the fair graces of life; and now they would fain wet their mouths with blood—laughingly, as harlots wet their mouths with wine.

The unclean and vampirish spirit of war has swept them back to the habits of the cave-dwelling ages of the race. In an hour the culture so painfully acquired in slow generations has been swept away. Royalty, in the tea-room of the “Four Seasons,” is one with the blonde nude female who romped and fought in[103] the dark Teutonic forests ere Caesar came through Gaul.

Reversal to barbarism.

War is declared; and in Berlin the Emperor of Germany rides in an open motor car down Unter den Linden; he is in full uniform, sworded, erect, hieratic; and at his side sits the Empress—she the good mother, the housewife, the fond grandmother—garmented from head to foot in cloth the color of blood.

Theatricalism? No. The symbolism is more significant. The symbol bears a savage significance. It marks, as a red sunset, the going down of civilization and the coming of the dark barbarism of war.

BREAKING POINT OF CIVILIZATION

There was war; and the whole machinery of civilization stopped.

Modern civilization is the most complex machine imaginable; its infinite cogged wheels turn endlessly upon each other; and perfectly it accomplishes its multifarious purposes; but smash one wheel and it all falls apart into muddle and ruin. The declaration of war was like thrusting a mailed fist into the intricate works of a clock. There was an end of the perfected machine of civilization. Everything stopped.

That was a queer world we woke in. A world that seemed new, so old it was.

Money had ceased to exist. It seemed at that moment an appalling thing. I was on the edge and frontier of a neutral state. I had money in a bank. It ceased to be money. A thousand-franc note was paper. A hundred-mark note was rubbish. British[104] sovereigns were refused at the railway station. The Swiss shopkeeper would not change a Swiss note. What had seemed money was not money.

Values were told in terms of bread.

It was a swift and immediate return to the economic conditions of barbarism. Metals were hoarded; and where there had been trade there was barter. And it all happened in an hour, in that first fierce panic of war.

Traffic stopped with a clang as of rusty iron. The mailed fist had dislocated the complex machinery of European traffic. Frontiers which had been mere landmarks of travel became suddenly formidable and impassable barriers, guarded by harsh, hysterical men with bayonets.

War makes men brave and courageous? Rubbish! It fills them with the cruelty of hysteria and the panic of the unknown. I am not talking of battle, which is a different thing. But I say the men who guarded the German frontier—and I dare say every other frontier—in the first stress of war, were wrenched and shaken with veritable hysteria. At St. Ludwig and Constance those husky soldiers in iron-mongery, with shaved heads and beards and outstanding ears, fell into sheer savagery, not because they were bad and savage men, but simply because they were hysterical. The fact is worth noting.

It explains many a bloody and infamous deed in the tragic history of sad Alsace and of little Belgium. The war-begotten reversal to savagery brought with it all the hysteria of the savage man. The sentries at St. Ludwig struck with muskets and sabres because[105] they were hysterical with terror of the new, unknown state into which they had been plunged, not because they were not men like you and me. Surely the savage Uhlan who ravaged the cottages of Alsace was your brother and mine, as were the Magyar beyond the Danube and the Cossack at Kovna. Only they had gone back to the terrors of the man who dwelt in a cave.

Traffic stopped; and when it stopped civilization fell away from the travelers. That was strange. Take the afternoon of the day war was declared, the date being Aug. 1, in the year of our Lord 1914, and the hour 7.30 P.M., Berlin time. It was the last train that reached the frontier from Paris. Between Delle and Bicourt lies a neutral zone about three kilometers—say, nearly two and a half miles—in extent. On one side France and invasion and terror and war; on the other side of the zone the relative safety of Switzerland. Six hundred passengers poured out of the French train at noon into that neutral zone and started to walk to Swiss safety. A blazing August sun; a road of pebbles and stinging, upblown dust.

The passengers had been permitted to bring on the train only what luggage they could carry; so they were laden with bags and coats, dressing bags and jewel cases—all they had deemed most valuable. Mostly women. German ladies fleeing for refuge; Russian ladies; English, American; and a crowd of men, urgent to reach their armies, German, Swiss, Russian, Austrian, Servian, Italian; withal many of the kind of American men who go to Switzerland in August.

And the caravan started in the dust and heat of a[106] desert. A woman let fall her heavy bag and plodded on. Another threw away her coats. Men shook off their bundles. The heat was stifling. And through the clouds of dust a panic terror crept. It was the antique terror of the God Pan—the God All; it was a fear as immense as the sky.

A woman screamed and began to run, throwing away everything she had safeguarded so she might run with empty hands. A score followed her. Men began to run. They thrust the women aside, cursing; and ran. And for over two miles the road was covered thick with coats and bags, with packages and jewel cases. The greed of possession died out in the causeless fear.

These hoarse, pushing men, these sweating, shameless women had gone back 10,000 years into prehistoric savagery. Lightly they threw away all the baubles and gewgaws civilization had fashioned for adorning and disguising their raw humanity, and the habits of civilization as well.

They had touched but the outermost edge of war, and their very clothes fell off them.

BARBARISM AND WOMEN

War; and it takes eighty-four hours to make a twelve-hour journey from the Alps to Paris; the cable is dead; the telegraph is dumb; letters go only when smuggled over the frontiers by couriers; you look about you and find you are in a mediæval and mysterious world. You stand amid the melancholy ruins of canceled cycles. The mailed fist of war has smashed your world to pieces. You do not know it.

[107]

The man you thought of as a brother looks at you with eyes of passionate hatred; you have eaten bread and salt together; you have drunk together; you have been uplifted by the same books; you have been sublimed by the same music; but he is a German, and your blood was made in another land, and he looks at you with suspicion and hate—perhaps you are a spy. (The spy mania! Dear Lord, what absurd, bloody, and abominable stories I could write of this madness which has Europe by the throat, this madness which is only another form of war hysteria!) A reversal to barbarism; you and the man who was your friend have gone back to the fear and hatred of primitive savages, meeting at the corner of a dark wood. All of humanity we have acquired in the slow way of evolution sloughs off us.

We are savages once more. For science is dead. All the laboratories are shut, save those where poison is brewed and destruction is put up in packages. Education has ceased, save that fierce Nietzschean education which declares: “The weak and helpless must go to the wall; and we shall help them go.” All that made life humanly fair is hidden in the fetid clouds of war where savages (in terror and hysteria) grope for each other’s throats.

The glory of war—rot! The heroism of war—rot! The scarlet and beneficent energies of war—rot! When you look at it close what you see are hulking masses of brutes with fear behind them prodding them on, or wild and splendid savages, hysterical with hate, battling to save their hearth fires and women from the oncoming horde. Reversal to barbarism.

[108]

Think it over. Upon whom falls the stress of war? Not upon the soldier. He is killed and fattens the soil where he falls; or he is maimed and hobbles off toward a pension or beggary—both tolerable things; anyway he has drunk deep of cruelty and terror and may go his way. By rare good grace he may have been a hero. In other words, he may have been a Belgian—which is a word like a decoration, a name to make one strut like a Greek of Thermopylae—and become thus a permanent part of the world’s finest history.

******

I would like to write here the name of a friend, Charles Flamache of Brussels. He was twenty-one years old. He was an artist who had already tasted fame. He had known the love of woman. That his destiny might be fulfilled he died, the blithe, brave boy, in front of Liège. It was the right death at the right time—ere yet the massed Prussians had rolled in fire and blood over his fair small land. Wherefore, hail and farewell, young hero!

******

But upon whom falls the stress of war?

In a time of barbarism those who suffer are always the weak. War is in its essence (as said Nietzsche, the German philosopher of “world power”) an attack upon weakness. The weakest suffer most.

I saw children born on cinder heaps, and I saw them die; and the mothers die gasping like she dogs in a smother of flies.

Some day the story of what was done in Alsace will be written and the stories of Visé and Aerschot and[109] Orsmael and Louvain will seem pale and negligible; but not now—five generations to come will whisper them in the Vosges.

What I would emphasize is that in the natural state of barbarism induced by the war the woman falls back to her antique state of she animal. In thousands of years she has been made into a thing of exquisite and mysterious femininity; in a day she is thrown back to kinship with the she dog. Slashed with sabres, pricked with lances, she is a mere thing of prey.

Surely not the dear Countess and Baroness? Of course not. War is made in the palaces, but it does not attack the palaces. The worth of every nation dwells in the cottage; and it is upon the cottage that war works its worst infamy. Go to Alsace and see.

Pillage, loot, incendiarism, “indemnity”—you can read that in the records of the invasion of Belgium; that is war; it is all right if war is to be, for all this talk of chivalrous consideration for foes and regard for international law is all nonsense; necessity, as Bethmann-Hollweg said, knows no law, and necessity has always been the tyrant’s plea; it is the business of a soldier to kill and terrify; if he restricts his killing and terrifying he is a bad soldier and bad at his work of barbarism; but—

There is a more sinister side to Europe’s lapse into barbarism. The women are paying too dear. And to make them pay dear is not really the business of a soldier, not even a bad soldier. Yet the woman is paying, God knows. A tragic payment.

[110]

AFTER BARBARISM WHAT?

One morning at dawn—it was at Ambérieu—I saw the long trains go by carrying the German wounded and the German prisoners, who had been taken in the battles of the Vosges. There were 2,400 taken on toward the south. There were French nurses with the wounded. I saw water and fruit and chocolate given to the prisoners.

This was early in the war. The sheer lapse into barbarism had not yet come. Soon the German newspapers announced:

“Great concern is expressed in press and public utterances lest prisoners of war receive anything in the line of favored treatment. Newspapers have conducted an angry campaign against women who have ventured at the railway station to give coffee or food to prisoners of war passing through; commanding officers have ordered that persons ‘demeaning themselves by such unworthy conduct’ are to be immediately ejected from the stations, and in response to public clamor official announcements have been issued that such prisoners in transport receive only bread and water.”

And the French followed suit; no “coddling” of prisoners; back to barbarism, the lessons of humanity forgot and savagery come again.

Civilization in the old world is smashed. I have traversed the ruins; and my feet are still dirty with mud and blood. But I can tell you what is going to come out of that welter of ruin. There will come a sane and righteous hatred of militarism. What will be surely destroyed is Cæsarism. Prophecy? This[111] is not prophecy; I am stating an assured fact. Even at this hour of hysterical and relentless warfare there lies deep in the heart of the democracy of Europe a consuming hatred of militarism.

Drops of water (or blood) do not more naturally flow into each than did the English hatred of Cæsarism blend with the high French hatred of the evil thing; and when the palaces have done fighting, the cottages of Europe, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and from the Black Sea to the Hebrides, will proclaim its destruction.

And you will see it; you will see Cæsarism drowned in the very blood it has shed. And the German, mark you, will not be the least bitter of the foes of militarism. He will be indeed a relentless foe.

Reversal to barbarism, say you? A shuddering lapse into savagery?

Quite true; that is the state of Europe over the fairest and most highly civilized provinces. The picture of Sir John French strolling up and down the battle line smoking a cigarette does not give a fair idea of it; nor do you get it from the Kaiser on a hilltop surveying his massed war bullocks surging forth patiently to battle; all that belongs to the picture books of war.

The real thing is dirtier.

[112]

CHAPTER XI
BELGIUM’S BITTER NEED
By Sir Gilbert Parker

THE MARTYRDOM OF BELGIUM — ABYSS OF WANT AND WOE — NO WORK AND HEAVY WAR TAXES — PATIENCE OF BELGIANS — CRYING NEED OF FOOD — BELGIAN PEOPLE WARDS OF THE WORLD.

[Sir Gilbert Parker went abroad at the request of the American Committee for the Relief of Belgium, and the following graphic statement and appeal to the American people, dated December 5, 1914, appeared in the New York Times.]

Since the beginning of the war the hearts of all humane people have been tortured by the sufferings of Belgium. For myself the martyrdom of Belgium had been a nightmare since the fall of Liège. Whoever or whatever country is to blame for this war, Belgium is innocent. Her hands are free from stain. She has kept the faith. She saw it with the eyes of duty and honor. Her government is carried on in another land. Her king is in the trenches. Her army is decimated, but the last decimals fight on.

Her people wander in foreign lands, the highest and lowest looking for work and bread; they cannot look for homes. Those left behind huddle near the ruins of their shattered villages or take refuge in towns which cannot feed their own citizens.

[113]

ABYSS OF WANT AND WOE

Many cities and towns have been completely destroyed; others, reduced or shattered, struggle in vain to feed their poor and broken populations. Stones and ashes mark the places where small communities lived their peaceful lives before the invasion. The Belgian people live now in the abyss of want and woe.

All this I knew in England, but knew it from the reports of others. I did not, could not, know what the destitution, the desolation of Belgium was, what were the imperative needs of this people, until I got to Holland and to the borders of Belgian territory. Inside that territory I could not pass because I was a Britisher, but there I could see German soldiers, the Landwehr, keeping guard over what they call their new German province. Belgium a German province!

There at Maastricht I saw fugitives crossing the frontier into Holland with all their worldly goods on their shoulders or in their hands, or with nothing at all, seeking hospitality of a little land which itself feels, though it is neutral, the painful stress and cost of the war. There, on the frontier, I was standing between Dutch soldiers and German soldiers, so near the Germans that I could almost have touched them, so near three German officers that their conversation as they saluted me reached my ears.

I begin to understand what the sufferings and needs of Belgium are. They are such that the horror of it almost paralyzes expression. I met at Maastricht Belgians, representatives of municipalities, who said that they had food for only a fortnight longer. And what was the food they had? No meat, no vegetables,[114] but only one-third of a soldier’s rations of bread for each person per day. At Liège, as I write, there is food for only three days.

What is it the people of Belgium ask for? They ask for bread and salt, no more, and it is not forthcoming. They do not ask for meat; they cannot get it. They have no fires for cooking, and they do not beg for petrol. Money is of little use to them, because there is no food to be bought with money.

Belgium under ordinary circumstances imports five-sixths of the food she eats. The ordinary channels of sale and purchase are closed. They cannot buy and sell if they would. Representatives of Belgian communities told me at Maastricht that the crops were taken from their fields—the wheat and potatoes—and were sent into Germany.

NO WORK, AND HEAVY WAR TAXES

There is no work. The factories are closed because they have not raw material, coal, or petrol, because they have no markets.

And yet war taxes are falling with hideous pressure upon a people whose hands are empty, whose workshops are closed, whose fields are idle, whose cattle have been taken, or compulsorily purchased without value received.

In Belgium itself the misery of the populace is greater than the misery of the Belgian fugitives in other countries, such as Holland, where there have come since the fall of Liège one and a half million of fugitives. To gauge what that misery in Belgium is, think of what even the fugitives suffer. I have seen[115] in a room without fire, the walls damp, the floor without covering, not even straw, a family of nine women and eight children, one on an improvised bunk seriously ill. Their home in Belgium was leveled with the ground, the father killed in battle.

Their food is coffee and bread for breakfast, potatoes for dinner, with salt—and in having the salt they were lucky—bread and coffee for supper. Insufficiently clothed, there by the North Sea, they watched the bleak hours pass, with nothing to do except cling together in a vain attempt to keep warm.

Multiply this case by hundreds of thousands and you will have some hint of the people’s sufferings.

In a lighter on the River Maas at Rotterdam, without windows, without doors, with only an open hatchway from which a ladder descends, several hundred fugitives spend their nights and the best parts of their days in the iron hold, forever covered with moisture, leaky when rain comes, with the floor never dry, and pervasive with a perpetual smell like the smell of a cave which never gets the light of day. Here men, women, and children were huddled together in a promiscuous communion of misery, made infinitely more pathetic and heartrending because none complained.

At Rosendaal, at Scheveningen, Eysden, and Flushing, at a dozen other places, these ghastly things are repeated in one form or another. Holland has sheltered hundreds of thousands, but she could not in a moment organize even adequate shelter, much less comforts.

In Bergen-op-Zoom, where I write these words, there have come since the fall of Antwerp 300,000[116] hungry marchers, with no resources except what they carry with them. This little town of 15,000 people did its best to meet the terrible pressure, and its citizens went without bread themselves to feed the refugees. How can a small municipality suddenly deal with so vast a catastrophe? Yet slowly some sort of order was organized out of chaos, and when the Government was able to establish refugee camps through the military the worst conditions were moderated, and now, in tents and in vans on a fortunately situated piece of land, over 3,000 people live, so far as comforts are concerned, like Kaffirs in Karoo or aborigines in a camp in the back blocks of Australia. The tents are crammed with people, and life is reduced to its barest elements. Straw, boards, and a few blankets and dishes for rations—that constitutes the ménage.

Children are born in the hugger-mugger of such conditions, but the good Holland citizens see that the children are cared for and that the babies have milk. Devoted priests teach the children, and the value of military organization illuminates the whole panoply of misery. Yet the best of the refugee camps would seem to American citizens like the dark and dreadful life of an underworld, in which is neither work, purpose, nor opportunity. It is a sight repugnant to civilization.

PATIENCE OF BELGIANS

The saddest, most heartrending thing I have ever seen has been the patience of every Belgian, whatever his state, I have met. Among the thousands of[117] refugees I have seen in Holland, in the long stream that crossed the frontier at Maastricht and besieged the doors of the Belgian Consul while I was there, no man, no woman railed or declaimed against the horror of their situation. The pathos of lonely, staring, apathetic endurance is tragic beyond words. So grateful, so simply grateful, are they, every one, for whatever is done for them.

None begs, none asks for money, and yet on the faces of these frontier refugees I saw stark hunger, the weakness come of long weeks of famine. One man, one fortunate man from Verviers, told me he could purchase as much as 2s. 8d. worth of food for himself, his wife and child for a week.

Think of it, American citizens! Sixty-six cents’ worth of food for a man, his wife, and child for a whole week, if he were permitted to purchase that much! Sixty-six cents! That is what an average American citizen pays for his dinner in his own home. He cannot get breakfast, he can only get half a breakfast, for that at the Waldorf or the Plaza in New York.

This man was only allowed to purchase that much food if he could, because if he purchased more he would be taking from some one else, and they were living on rations for the week which would represent the food of an ordinary man for a day. A rich man can have no more than a poor man. It is a democracy of famine.

CRYING NEED OF FOOD

There is enough food wasted in the average American household in one day to keep a Belgian for a fortnight[118] in health and strength. They want in Belgium 30,000 tons of food a month. That is their normal requirement. The American Relief Committee is asking for 8,000 tons a month, one-quarter of the normal requirements, one-half of a soldier’s rations for each Belgian. The American Committee needs $5,000,000 a month until next harvest. It is a huge sum, but it must be forthcoming.

Of all the great powers of the world the United States is the only one not at war or in peril of war. Of all the foremost nations of the world the United States is the only one that can save Belgium from starvation if she will. She was the only nation that Germany would allow a foothold for humanity’s and for Christ’s sake in Belgium. Such an opportunity, such responsibility, no nation ever had before in the history of the world. Spain and Italy join with her, but the initiative and resources and organization are hers.

Around Belgium is a ring of steel. Within that ring of steel is a disappearing and forever disappearing population. Towns like Dendermonde, that were of 10,000 people, have now 4,000, and in Dendermonde 1,200 houses have fallen under the iron and fire of war. Into that vast graveyard and camp of the desolate only the United States enters with an adequate and responsible organization upon the mission of humanity.

No such opportunity was ever given to a people, no such test ever came to a Christian people in all the records of time. Will the American nation rise to the chance given to it to prove that its civilization is a real thing and that its acts measure up with its inherent and professed Christianity?

[119]

I am a profound believer in the great-heartedness of the United States, and there is not an American of German origin who ought not gladly and freely give to the relief of people who, unless the world feeds them, must be the remnant of a nation; and the world in this case is the United States. She can give most.

Bringing Up Reinforcements.

The price of one good meal a week for a family in an American home will keep a Belgian alive for a fortnight.

Probably the United States has 18,000,000 homes. How many of them will deny themselves a meal for martyred Belgium? The mass of the American people do not need to deny themselves anything to give to Belgium. The whole standard of living on the American continent, in the United States and Canada, is so much higher than the European standard that if they lowered the scale by one-tenth just for one six months the Belgian problem would be solved.

I say to the American people that they cannot[120] conceive what this strain upon the populations of Europe is at this moment, and, in the cruel grip of winter, hundreds of thousands will agonize till death or relief comes. In Australia in drought times vast flocks of sheep go traveling with shepherds looking for food and water, and no flock ever comes back as it went forth. Not in flocks guided by shepherds, but lonely, hopeless units, the Belgian people take flight, looking for food and shelter, or remain paralyzed by the tragedy fallen upon them in their own land.

BELGIAN PEOPLE WARDS OF THE WORLD

Their sufferings are majestic in simple heroism and uncomplaining endurance. So majestic in proportion ought the relief to be. The Belgian people are wards of the world. In the circumstances the Belgian people are special wards of the one great country that is secure in its peace and that by its natural instincts of human sympathy and love of freedom is best suited to do the work that should be done for Belgium. If every millionaire would give a thousand, if every man with $100 a month would give $10, the American Committee for the Relief of Belgium, with its splendid organization, its unrivaled efficiency, through which flows a tide of human sympathy, would be able to report at the end of the war that a small nation in misfortune had been saved from famine and despair by a great people far away, who had responded to the call, “Come over and help us!”

[121]

CHAPTER XII
JAMES BRYCE’S REPORT ON SYSTEMATIC MASSACRE IN BELGIUM

REPORT OF COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE GERMAN OUTRAGES — A HARROWING RECITAL — TELLS OF MASSACRES — “KILLED IN MASSES”—THE TALE OF LOUVAIN — TREATMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN — CALLS KILLING DELIBERATE — “SPIRIT OF WAR DEIFIED”—THE COMMISSION’S CONCLUSIONS.

Viscount Bryce, former British Ambassador at Washington, was appointed chairman of a special government commission to investigate and report on “outrages alleged to have been committed by German troops.” Associated with Lord Bryce on the commission were Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir Edward Clarke, Sir Alfred Hopkinson, H. A. L. Fisher, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield; Harold Cox, and Kenelm E. Digby. The commission was appointed by Premier Asquith on January 22, 1915. The document is considered as probably the most severe arraignment made of the German military sweep across Belgium, mainly because of the position of Viscount Bryce as a historian, and also because of the care with which the investigation was made, the great number of witnesses whose testimony was examined, and the mass of evidence submitted with the report of the commission.

[122]

The report makes an official document of sixty-one printed pages, or upward of 30,000 words, accompanied by maps showing the various routes of the army and the chief scenes of desolation. It states at the outset that 1,200 witnesses have been examined, the depositions being taken by examiners of legal knowledge and experience, though without authority to administer an oath. The examiners were instructed not to “lead” the witnesses, and to seek to bring out the truth by cross-examination and otherwise. The commission also submitted extracts from a number of diaries taken from the German dead, chiefly German soldiers and in some cases officers.

A HARROWING RECITAL

Taking up conditions at Liège at the outset of the war, the report gives a harrowing recital of occurrences at various points in the devastated territory. At Herve on August 4, 1914, the report says, “the murder of an innocent fugitive civilian was a prelude to the burning and pillage of the town and of other villages in the neighborhood; to the indiscriminate shooting of civilians of both sexes and to the organized military execution of batches of selected males. Thus some fifty men escaping from burning houses were seized, taken outside the town and shot. At Melen, in one household alone the father and mother (names given) were shot, the daughter died after being repeatedly attacked and the son was wounded.

“In Soumagne and Micheroux very many civilians were summarily shot. In a field belonging to a man named E——, fifty-six or fifty-seven were put to death.[123] A German officer said, ‘You have shot at us.’ One of the villagers asked to be allowed to speak, and said, ‘If you think these people fired, kill me, but let them go.’ The answer was three volleys. The survivors were bayoneted. Their corpses were seen in the field that night by another witness. One at least had been mutilated. These were not the only victims in Soumagne. The eye-witness of the massacre saw, on his way home, twenty bodies, one that of a girl of thirteen. Another witness saw nineteen corpses in a meadow.

“At Heure le Romain all the male inhabitants, including some bed-ridden old men, were imprisoned in the church. The burgomaster’s brother and the priest were bayoneted. The village of Visé was completely destroyed. Officers directed the incendiaries. Antiques and china were removed from the houses before their destruction, by officers, who guarded the plunder, revolver in hand.

TELLS OF MASSACRES

“Entries in a German diary show that on August 10 the German soldiers gave themselves up to debauchery in the streets of Liège, and on the night of the 20th a massacre took place in the streets. . . . Though the cause of the massacre is in dispute, the results are known with certainty. The Rue des Pitteurs and houses in the Place de l’Université and the Quai des Pêcheurs were systematically fired with benzine; and many inhabitants were burned alive in their houses, their efforts to escape being prevented by rifle fire. Twenty people were shot while trying to escape, before the eyes of one of the witnesses. The Liège[124] Fire Brigade turned out, but was not allowed to extinguish the fire. Its carts, however, were usefully employed in removing heaps of civilian corpses to the Town Hall.”

Taking up the Valleys of the Meuse and Sambre, the report gives lengthy details of terrible conditions described by witnesses at Andenne, and says:

“About four hundred people lost their lives in this massacre, some on the banks of the Meuse, where they were shot according to orders given, and some in the cellars of the houses where they had taken refuge. Eight men belonging to one family were murdered. Another man was placed close to a machine gun which was fired through him. His wife brought his body home on a wheelbarrow. The Germans broke into her house and ransacked it.

“A hair-dresser was murdered in his kitchen where he was sitting with a child on each knee. A paralytic was murdered in his garden. After this came the general sack of the town. Many of the inhabitants who escaped the massacre were kept as prisoners and compelled to clear the houses of corpses and bury them in trenches. These prisoners were subsequently used as a shelter and protection for a pontoon bridge which the Germans had built across the river and were so used to prevent the Belgian forts from firing upon it.

“A few days later the Germans celebrated a ‘fête nocturne’ in the square. Hot wine, located in the town, was drunk, and the women were compelled to give three cheers for the Kaiser and to sing ‘Deutschland über Alles.[125]’”

“KILLED IN MASSES”

Similar details are recited at much length in reference to the districts of Namur, Charleroi and the town of Dinant. At the latter point, the report says, “Unarmed civilians were killed in masses. We have no reason to believe that the civilian population of Dinant gave any provocation or that any other defense can be put forward to justify the treatment inflicted upon its citizens.”

The commission stated that it had received a great mass of evidence on “scenes of chronic outrage” in the territory bounded by the towns Aerschot, Malines, Vilvorde and Louvain. It stated that the total number of outrages was so great that the commission could not refer to them all.

“The commission is specially impressed by the character of the outrages committed in the smaller villages. Many of these are exceptionally shocking and cannot be regarded as contemplated or prescribed by responsible commanders of the troops by whom they were commanded. Evidence goes to show that deaths in these villages were due not to accident but to deliberate purpose. The wounds were generally stabs or cuts, and for the most part appear to have been inflicted with a bayonet.

“In Sempst the corpse of a man with his legs cut off, who was partly bound, was seen by a witness, who also saw a girl of seventeen in great distress dressed only in a chemise. She alleged that she herself and other girls had been dragged into a field, stripped naked and attacked, and that some of them had been killed with a bayonet.”

[126]

Taking up conditions at Aerschot and the surrounding district during September, the report says:

“At Haecht several children had been murdered; one of two or three years old was found nailed to the door of a farmhouse by its hands and feet, a crime which seems almost incredible, but the evidence for which we feel bound to accept. At Eppeghem the body of a child of two was seen pinned to the ground with a German lance. The same witness saw a mutilated woman alive near Weerde on the same day.”

A chapter is given to the terrible conditions at Louvain, where the report states, “massacre, fire and destruction went on. . . . Citizens were shot and others taken prisoners and compelled to go with the troops. Soldiers went through the streets saying, ‘Man hat geschossen’ (some one has fired on us).

THE TALE OF LOUVAIN

“The massacre of civilians at Louvain was not confined to its citizens. Large crowds of people were brought into Louvain from the surrounding districts, not only from Aerschot and Gelrod, but also from other places. For example, a witness describes how many women and children were taken in carts to Louvain, and there placed in a stable. Of the hundreds of people thus taken from the various villages and brought to Louvain as prisoners, some were massacred there, others were forced to march along with citizens of Louvain through various places, some being ultimately sent to the Belgian lines at Malines, others were taken in trucks to Cologne, others were released.

“Ropes were put around the necks of some and they[127] were told they would be hanged. An order then came that they were to be shot instead of hanged. A firing squad was prepared, and five or six prisoners were put up, but were not shot. . . . This taking of the inhabitants in groups and marching them to various places must evidently have been done under the direction of a higher military authority. The ill-treatment of the prisoners was under the eyes and often under the direction or sanction of officers, and officers themselves took part in it. . . .

“It is to be noticed that cases occur in the depositions in which humane acts by individual officers and soldiers are mentioned, or in which officers are said to have expressed regret at being obliged to carry out orders for cruel action against the civilians. Similarly, we find entries in diaries which reveal a genuine pity for the population and disgust at the conduct of the enemy. It appears that a German non-commissioned officer stated definitely that he ‘was acting under orders and executing them with great unwillingness.’ A commissioned officer on being asked at Louvain by a witness, a highly educated man, about the horrible acts committed by the soldiers, said he ‘was merely executing orders,’ and that he himself would be shot if he did not execute them.”

Another division of the report is on the “killing of non-combatants in France.” This is not as detailed as the case of Belgium, as the commission states that the French official report gives the most complete account as to the invaded districts in France. It adds:

“The evidence before us proves that, in the parts[128] of France referred to, murder of unoffending civilians and other acts of cruelty, including aggravated cases of felonious attack, carried out under threat of death, and sometimes actually followed by murder of the victim, were committed by some of the German troops.”

TREATMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN

A special chapter is given to the treatment of women and children. The latter, it is said, frequently received milder treatment than the men. But many instances are given of “calculated cruelty, often going the length of murder, towards the women and children.” A witness gives a story, very circumstantial in its details, of how women were publicly attacked in the market place of the city, five young German officers assisting. The report goes on: “In the evidence before us there are cases tending to show that aggravated crimes against women were sometimes severely punished. These instances are sufficient to show that the maltreatment of women was not part of the military scheme of the invaders, however much it may appear to have been the inevitable result of the system of terror deliberately adopted in certain regions.

“It is clearly shown that many offences were committed against infants and quite young children. On one occasion children were even roped together and used as a military screen against the enemy, on another three soldiers went into action carrying small children to protect themselves from flank fire. It is difficult to imagine the motives which may have prompted such acts. Whether or not Belgian civilians fired on German soldiers, young children at any rate did not fire.”

[129]

Many instances are given of the use of civilians as screens during the military operation. Cases of the Red Cross being misused for offensive military purposes, and of abuse of the white flag are also given. As to the latter the report says: “There is in our opinion sufficient evidence that these offences have been frequent, deliberate and in many cases committed by whole units under orders. All the facts mentioned are in contravention of The Hague Convention, signed by the Great Powers, including France, Germany, Great Britain and the United States, in 1907.”

A division of the report is given to diaries of German soldiers. The entry of a sergeant of the First Guards Regiment, who received the Iron Cross, says, under date of August 10: “A transport of 300 Belgians came through Duisburg in the morning. Of these, eighty, including the Oberburgomaster, were shot according to martial law.” The diary of a member of the Fourth Company of Jägers says, under date of August 23: “About 220 inhabitants and the village were burned.” Another diary, by a member of the Second Mounted Battery, First Kurhessian Field Artillery Regiment, No. 11, records an incident which happened in French territory near Lille on October 11: “We had no fight, but we caught about twenty men and shot them.” The commission says of this last diary: “By this time killing not in a fight would seem to have passed into a habit.”

The report adds that the most important entry was contained in diary No. 19. This contained no name and address, but names referred to in the diary indicate that the entries were made by an officer of the First[130] Regiment of Foot Guards. The entry made at Bermeton on August 24 says: “We took about 1,000 prisoners; at least 500 were shot. The village was burned because inhabitants had also shot. Two civilians were shot at once.”

“If a line is drawn on a map from the Belgian frontier to Liège and continued to Charleroi, and a second line drawn from Liège to Malines, a sort of figure resembling an irregular Y will be formed. It is along this ‘Y’ that most of the systematic (as opposed to isolated) outrages were committed. If the period from August 4 to August 30 is taken it will be found to cover most of these organized outrages. Termonde and Alost extend, it is true, beyond the ‘Y’ lines, and they belong to the month of September. Murder, assault, arson and pillage began from the moment when the German army crossed the frontier. For the first fortnight of the war the towns and villages near Liège were the chief sufferers. From August 19 to the end of the month outrages spread in the direction of Charleroi and Malines and reached their period of greatest intensity.

“There is a certain significance in the fact that the outrages around Liège coincide with the unexpected resistance of the Belgian army in that district, and that the slaughter which reigned from August 19 to the end of the month is contemporaneous with the period when the German army’s need for a quick passage through Belgium at all costs was deemed imperative.

“In all wars occur many shocking and outrageous acts of men of criminal instincts whose worst passions are[131] unloosed by the immunity which the conditions of warfare afford. Drunkenness, moreover, may turn even a soldier who has no criminal habits into a brute, and there is evidence that intoxication was extremely prevalent among the German army, both in Belgium and in France. Unfortunately little seems to have been done to repress this source of danger.

CALLS KILLING DELIBERATE

“In the present war, however—and this is the gravest charge against the German army—the evidence shows that the killing of non-combatants was carried out to an extent for which no previous war between nations claiming to be civilized (for such cases as the atrocities perpetrated by the Turks on the Bulgarian Christians in 1876, and on the Armenian Christians in 1895 and 1896, do not belong to that category) furnishes any precedent. That this killing was done as part of a deliberate plan is clear from the facts hereinbefore set forth regarding Louvain, Aerschot, Dinant and other towns. The killing was done under orders in each place. It began at a certain fixed date. Some of the officers who carried out the work did it reluctantly, and said they were obeying directions from their chiefs. The same remarks apply to the destruction of property. House burning was part of the program; and villages, even large parts of a city, were given to the flames as part of the terrorizing policy.

“Citizens of neutral states who visited Belgium in December and January report that the German authorities do not deny that non-combatants were systematically killed in large numbers during the[132] first weeks of the invasion, and this, so far as we know, has never been officially denied.

“The German government has, however, sought to justify these severities on the grounds of military necessity and has excused them as retaliation for cases in which civilians fired on German troops. There may have been cases in which such firing occurred, but no proof has ever been given, or, to our knowledge, attempted to be given, of such cases, nor of the stories of shocking outrages perpetrated by Belgian men and women on German soldiers. . . .

“We gladly record the instances where the evidence shows that humanity has not wholly disappeared from some members of the German army and that they realized that the responsible heads of that organization were employing them not in war but in butchery: ‘I am merely executing orders, and I should be shot if I did not execute them,’ said an officer to a witness at Louvain. At Brussels another officer said, ‘I have not done one hundredth part of what we have been ordered to do by the high German military authorities.’

“That these acts should have been perpetrated on the peaceful population of an unoffending country which was not at war with its invaders, but merely defending its own neutrality, guaranteed by the invading power, may excite amazement and even incredulity. It was with amazement and almost with incredulity that the commission first read the depositions relating to such acts. But when the evidence regarding Liège was followed by that regarding Aerschot, Louvain, Andenne, Dinant, and the other towns and villages, the cumulative effect of such a mass[133] of concurrent testimony became irresistible, and we were driven to the conclusion that the things described had really happened. The question then arose how they could have happened.

“The explanation seems to be that these excesses were committed—in some cases ordered, in others allowed—on a system and in pursuance of a set purpose. That purpose was to strike terror into the civil population and dishearten the Belgian troops, so as to crush down resistance and extinguish the very spirit of self-defense. The pretext that civilians had fired upon the invading troops was used to justify not merely the shooting of individual franc-tireurs, but the murder of large numbers of innocent civilians, an act absolutely forbidden by the rules of civilized warfare.

“SPIRIT OF WAR DEIFIED”

“In the minds of Prussian officers war seems to have become a sort of sacred mission, one of the highest functions of the omnipotent state, which is itself as much an army as a state. Ordinary morality and the ordinary sentiment of pity vanish in its presence, superseded by a new standard which justifies to the soldier every means that can conduce to success, however shocking to a natural sense of justice and humanity, however revolting to his own feelings. The spirit of war is deified. Obedience to the state and its war lord leaves no room for any other duty or feeling. Cruelty becomes legitimate when it promises victory. Proclaimed by the heads of the army, this doctrine would seem to have permeated the officers and affected even the private soldiers, leading them to[134] justify the killing of non-combatants as an act of war, and so accustoming them to slaughter that even women and children become at last the victims.

“It cannot be supposed to be a national doctrine, for it neither springs from nor reflects the mind and feelings of the German people as they have heretofore been known to other nations. It is specifically military doctrine, the outcome of a theory held by a ruling caste who have brooded and thought, written and talked and dreamed about war until they have fallen under its obsession and been hypnotized by its spirit.

“The doctrine is plainly set forth in the German official monograph on the usages of war on land, issued under the direction of the German staff. This book is pervaded throughout by the view that whatever military needs suggest becomes thereby lawful, and upon this principle, as the diaries show, the German officers acted.

“If this explanation be the true one, the mystery is solved, and that which seemed scarcely credible becomes more intelligible though not less pernicious. This is not the only case that history records in which a false theory, disguising itself as loyalty to a state or to a church, has perverted the conception of duty and become a source of danger to the world.”

THE COMMISSION’S CONCLUSIONS

The conclusions of the commission, as to the various detailed recitals, are as follows:

“We may now sum up and endeavor to explain the character and significance of the wrongful acts done by the German army in Belgium.

[135]

“It is proved, first, that there were in many parts of Belgium deliberate and systematically organized massacres of the civil population accompanied by many isolated murders and other outrages.

“Second—That in the conduct of the war generally innocent civilians, both men and women, were murdered in large numbers, women attacked and children murdered.

“Their First Success.”

“At Morfontaine, near Longwy, the Germans shot two fifteen-year-old children who had warned the French gendarmes of the enemy’s arrival.”—The Newspapers.

“Third—That looting, house burning and the wanton destruction of property were ordered and countenanced by the officers of the German army, that elaborate provision had been made for systematic incendiarism at the very outbreak of the war, and that the burning and destruction were frequently where no military necessity could be alleged, being, indeed, part of a system of general terrorization.

“Fourth—That the rules and usages of war were frequently broken, particularly by the using of civilians, including women and children, as a shield for advancing forces exposed to fire, to a less degree by killing the wounded and prisoners, and in the frequent abuse of the Red Cross and the white flag.

[136]

“Sensible as they are of the gravity of these conclusions, the commission conceive that they would be doing less than their duty if they failed to record them as fully established by the evidence. Murder, lust and pillage prevailed over many parts of Belgium on a scale unparalleled in any war between civilized nations during the last three centuries.

“Our function is ended when we have stated what the evidence establishes, but we may be permitted to express our belief that these disclosures will not have been made in vain if they touch and rouse the conscience of mankind, and we venture to hope that as soon as the present war is over, the nations of the world in council will consider what means can be provided and sanctions devised to prevent the recurrence of such horrors as our generation is now witnessing.”

The Most Beautiful City in Europe Destroyed by the Germans.

Scene of desolation in Louvain. On the right is the magnificent Town Hall, considered one of the most marvelous pieces of architecture in Europe’s which escaped almost untouched. In the center, however, the famous St. Peter’s Cathedral has only the walls standing. (Copyright by the International News Service.)

Ruins of Ypres After the Bombardment.

The old Flemish town was the center of hot fighting between the Allies and the German troops in the battles for the possession of Belgium. At the right of the picture are seen the ruins of the famous Cloth Hall, one of the most famous medieval buildings in Europe. (Copyright by the International News Service.)

[137]

CHAPTER XIII
A BELGIAN BOY’S STORY OF THE RUIN OF AERSCHOT

PITIABLE PLIGHT OF BOY OF SIXTEEN STRANDED IN ANTWERP — HIS ARREST — A TOWN IN RUINS — BURYING THE DEAD — THE LEVELED GUNS — MARCHING AMONG GERMAN CAMPS — NO MONEY AND NO WORK.

To the thousands of unhappy Belgian refugees driven from their homes by the advancing Germans and transported to England the pity of the whole world has gone out; yet even more deplorable than the condition of these was the fate of those who were left behind to suffer at the hands of a relentless enemy. The story of a delicate boy of sixteen, as told in the following letter which he himself wrote from Antwerp to his former employer, an American living at the time in England, is typical.

When this boy, fleeing from Aerschot, arrived in Antwerp, without friends, money or papers, there was no agency to help him. If he had been a smaller child somebody doubtless would have taken pity on him and carried him with them as they fled; if he had been able to preserve his legitimatization papers the Belgian authorities would have given him some support; and, of course, if he had been older, he would have been immediately enlisted in the service of his[138] country. As it was he could only drift before the foe, and suffer.

“Antwerp, Sept. 23, 1914.

“Dear Sir: As you correctly said in my testimonial when you were closing the office, the war has isolated Belgium. Really I can well say that I have been painfully struck by this scourge, and I permit myself, dear sir, to give you a little description of my Calvary.

“Your offices were closed in the beginning of August. As I did not know what to do and as the fatherland had not enough men to defend its territory I tried to get myself accepted as a volunteer.

“On Aug. 10 I went to Aerschot, my native town, to get my certificate of good conduct. Then I went to Louvain to have same signed by the commander of the place. This gentleman sent me to St. Nicholas and thence to Hemixem, where I was rejected as too young. I then decided to return to Brussels, passing through Aerschot. Here my aunt asked me to stay with her, saying that she was afraid of the Germans.

“I remained at Aerschot. This was Aug. 15. Suddenly, on the 19th, at nine o’clock in the morning, after a terrible bombardment, the Germans made their entry into Aerschot. In the first street which they passed through they broke into the houses. They brought out six men whom I knew very well and immediately shot them. Learning of this, I fled to Louvain, where I arrived on Aug. 19 at one o’clock.

HIS ARREST

“At 1.30 P.M. the Germans entered Louvain. They did not do anything to the people in the beginning.[139] On the following Saturday, Aug. 22, I started to return to Aerschot, as I had no money. (All my money was still in Brussels.) The whole distance from Louvain to Aerschot I saw nothing but German armies, always Germans. They did not say a word to me until I suddenly found myself alone with three of the “Todeshusaren” (Death’s-head Hussars), the vanguard of their regiment. They arrested me at the point of the revolver, demanded where I was going and why I had run away from Aerschot. They said that the whole of Aerschot was now on fire, because the son of the burgomaster had killed a general. Finally they searched me from head to foot, and I heard them discuss the question of my fate.

“Finally the non-commissioned officer told me that I could continue on my way; that they would certainly take care of me in Aerschot, as I had been firing at Germans, and they would shoot me when I arrived. I would have liked better to return to Louvain, but with an imperious gesture he pointed out my road to Aerschot, and I continued. On arriving within a few hundred meters of the town I was arrested once more.

“I forgot to tell you that of all the houses which I passed between Louvain and Aerschot, there were only a few left intact. Upon these the Germans had written in chalk in the German language: ‘Please spare. Good people. Do not burn.’ Lying along the road I saw many dead horses putrefying. There were also to be seen pigs, goats, and cows which had nothing to eat, and which were howling like wild[140] beasts. Not a soul was to be seen in the houses or in the streets. Everything was empty.

In Belgium.

Jean—“Do you think St. Nicholas will find us, now that we haven’t a chimney?”

“I was then arrested when a short distance from Aerschot. There were with me two or three families from Sichem, a village between Diest and Aerschot. We remained in the fields alongside the road, while the Prussian regiments with their artillery continued to pass by. When the artillery had passed we were marched at the point of the bayonet to the church in Aerschot. On arrival at the church the families of Sichem (there were at least twenty small children) were permitted to continue on their way, and the non-commissioned officer, delighted that I could speak German, permitted me to go to my aunt’s house.

A TOWN IN RUINS

“The aspect of the town was terrible. Not more than half the houses were standing. In the first three streets which the Germans traversed there was not a single house left. There was not a house in the town but had been pillaged. All doors had been burst[141] open. There was nothing, nothing left. The stench in the streets was insupportable.

“I then went home, or, rather, I should say, I went to the house where my father had always been boarding. You know, perhaps, that my mother died twelve years ago. I did not find my father, but according to what the people told me he had been arrested, and, with five other Aerschot men, taken to Germany—I do not know for what purpose.

“I got into this house without any difficulty, because the door was smashed in. I stayed there from Saturday, Aug. 22, up to Wednesday, the 26th, a little more comfortable. There was nothing to eat left in the house. I lived on what a few women who remained in Aerschot could give me. I was forced to go with the soldiers into the cellars of M. X., director of a large factory, to hunt for wine. As recompense I got a loaf. It was not much, but at this moment it meant very much for me.

BURYING THE DEAD

“On Wednesday, Aug. 26, we were all once more locked up in the church. It was then half-past four in the afternoon. We could not get out, even for our necessities. On Thursday, about nine o’clock, each of us was given a piece of bread and a glass of water. This was to last the whole day. At ten o’clock a lieutenant came in, accompanied by fifteen soldiers. He placed all the men who were left in a square, selected seventy of us and ordered us out to bury the corpses of Germans and Belgians around the town, which had been lying there since the battle of the 19th.[142] That was a week that these bodies had remained there, and it is no use to ask if there was a stench. Afterward we had to clean the streets, and then it was evening.

THE LEVELED GUNS

“They just got ready to shoot us. There were then ten of us. The guns had already been leveled at us, when suddenly a German soldier ran out shouting that we had not fired on them. A few minutes before we had heard rifle-firing and the Germans said it was the Aerschot people who were shooting, though all these had been locked up in the church and we were the only inhabitants then in the streets, cleaning them, under surveillance of Germans. It was this German who saved our lives.

“Picture to yourself what we have suffered! It is impossible to describe. On Aug. 28 we were brought to Louvain, always guarded by German soldiers. There were with us about twenty old men, over eighty years of age. These were placed in two carts, tied to one another in pairs. I and about twenty of my unfortunate compatriots had then to pull the carts all the way to Louvain. It was hard, but that could be supported all the same.

“On arriving at Louvain I saw with my own eyes a German who shot at us. The Germans who were at the station shouted ‘The civilians have been shooting,’ and commenced a fusillade against us. Many of us fell dead, others wounded, but I had the chance to run away.

[143]

MARCHING AMONG GERMAN CAMPS

“I now took the road to Tirlemont, marching all the time among German camps. Once I was arrested. Again they wanted to shoot me, insisting that I was a student of the University of Louvain. The Germans pretend it was the students who caused the population in Louvain to shoot at them. However, my youth saved me, and I was set at liberty.

NO MONEY AND NO WORK

“All my money, the twenty francs which you presented me and my salary for five weeks, as well as my little savings, are lying in Brussels, and I cannot get at them. . . I cannot work, because there is no work to be got. I cannot cross over to England, as, to do this, it is necessary that there should be a whole family. In these horrible circumstances, I respectfully take the liberty of addressing you, and I hope you will aid me as best you can. I swear to you that I shall pay you back all that you give me. I have here in Antwerp no place, no family. The town will not give me any aid, because I have no papers to prove my identity. I threw all my papers away for fear of the Germans. I count then on you with a firm hope to pay you back later.

“Please accept, dear sir, my respectful greetings.”

—— ——.

[144]

CHAPTER XIV
THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES OF “CIVILIZED” WARFARE

DISCLOSURES MADE IN FRENCH OFFICIAL REPORTS AND NOTEBOOKS OF GERMAN SOLDIERS — NOTHING SACRED — HIDEOUS FACES OF THE DEAD — WOMEN FORCED TO DIG GRAVES — GETTING HARDENED — WHOLESALE PILLAGE — MUTILATIONS OF THE DEAD AND WOUNDED — THE FRENCH REPORT.

The French official report on German atrocities contained records of such horror that the whole civilized world stood aghast. Here at last was war with all its multitudinous attendant crimes, more horrible than the actual warfare itself because so causeless and so bestial. Many stories of atrocities had been told by travelers and war correspondents abroad; the official report from France verified these earlier accounts, though there was still a vestige of doubt because it was a French report of German atrocities; and then to back up this record and remove the last shadow of disbelief, came the testimony of the Germans against themselves, through the “War Diaries” of German soldiers, many of which naturally fell into the hands of the enemy. Paragraphs selected from these notebooks follow:

“In this way we destroyed eight dwellings and their inhabitants. In one of the houses we bayoneted two men, with their wives and a young girl eighteen years[145] old. The young one almost unmanned me, her look was so innocent! But we could not master the excited troop, for at such times they are no longer men—they are beasts.”

NOTHING SACRED

“Unfortunately, I am forced to make note of a fact which should not have occurred, but there are to be found, even in our own army, creatures who are no longer men, but hogs, to whom nothing is sacred. One of these broke into a sacristy; it was locked, and there the Blessed Sacrament was kept. A Protestant, out of respect, had refused to sleep there. This man used it as a deposit for his excrements. How is it possible there should be such creatures? Last night one of the men of the landwehr, more than thirty-five years of age, married, tried to rape the daughter of the inhabitant where he had taken up his quarters—a mere girl—and when the father intervened he pressed his bayonet against his breast.”

“Langeviller, Aug. 22.—Village destroyed by the eleventh battalion of Pioneers. Three women hanged to trees; the first dead I have seen.”

HIDEOUS FACES OF THE DEAD

“The inhabitants fled through the village. It was horrible. The walls of houses are bespattered with blood and the faces of the dead are hideous to look upon. They were buried at once, some sixty of them. Among them many old women, old men, and one woman pregnant—the whole a dreadful sight. Three children huddled together—all dead. Altar and arches of the[146] church shattered. Telephone communication with the enemy was found there. This morning, Sept. 2, all the survivors were driven out; I saw four little boys carrying on two poles a cradle with a child some five or six months old. The whole makes a fearful sight. Blow upon blow! Thunderbolt on thunderbolt! Everything given over to plunder. I saw a mother with her two little ones—one of them had a great wound in the head and an eye put out.”

“At the entrance to the village lay the bodies of some fifty citizens, shot for having fired upon our troops from ambush. In the course of the night many others were shot down in like manner, so that we counted more than two hundred. Women and children, holding their lamps, were compelled to assist at this horrible spectacle. We then sat down midst the corpses to eat our rice, as we had eaten nothing since morning.”

WOMEN FORCED TO DIG GRAVES

“Aug. 25 (in Belgium).—We shot 300 of the inhabitants of the town. Those that survived the salvo were requisitioned as grave-diggers. You should have seen the women at that time! But it was impossible to do otherwise. In our march upon Wilot things went better; the inhabitants who wished to leave were allowed to do so. But whoever fired was shot. Upon our leaving Owele the rifles rang out, and with that, flames, women and all the rest.”

GETTING HARDENED

“We arrested three civilians, and a bright idea struck me. We furnished them with chairs and made them[147] seat themselves in the middle of the street. There were supplications on one part, and some blows with the stocks of our guns on the other. One, little by little, gets terribly hardened. Finally, there they were sitting in the street. How many anguished prayers they may have muttered, I cannot say, but during the whole time their hands were joined in nervous contraction. I am sorry for them, but the stratagem was of immediate effect. The enfilading directed from the houses diminished at once; we were able then to take possession of the house opposite, and thus became masters of the principal street. From that moment every one that showed his face in the street was shot. And the artillery meanwhile kept up vigorous work, so that at about seven o’clock in the evening, when the brigade advanced to rescue us, I could report ‘Saint-Dié has been emptied of all enemies.’

The Road to Yesterday.

“As I learned later, the —— regiment of reserves, which came into Saint-Dié further north, had experiences entirely similar to our own. The four civilians whom they had placed on chairs in the middle of the street were killed by French bullets. I saw them myself stretched out in the street near the hospital.”

[148]

WHOLESALE PILLAGE

“Aug. 8, 1914. Gouvy (Belgium).—There, the Belgians having fired on some German soldiers, we started at once pillaging the merchandise warehouse. Several cases—eggs, shirts, and everything that could be eaten was carried off. The safe was forced and the gold distributed among the men. As to the securities, they were torn up.”

“The enemy occupied the village of Bièvre and the edge of the wood behind it. The third company advanced in first line. We carried the village, and then pillaged and burned almost all the houses.”

“The first village we burned was Parux (Meurthe-et-Moselle). After this the dance began, throughout the villages, one after the other; over the fields and pastures we went on our bicycles up to the ditches at the edge of the road, and there sat down to eat our cherries.”

“Our first fight was at Haybes (Belgium) on the 24th of August. The second battalion entered the village, ransacked the houses, pillaged them, and burned those from which shots had been fired.”

“They do not behave as soldiers, but rather as highwaymen, bandits and brigands, and are a dishonor to our regiment and to our army.”

“No discipline, . . . the Pioneers are well nigh worthless; as to the artillery, it is a band of robbers.”

“Aug. 12, 1914, in Belgium.—One can get an idea of the fury of our soldiers in seeing the destroyed villages. Not one house left untouched. Everything eatable is requisitioned by the unofficered soldiers. Several heaps of men and women put to execution.[149] Young pigs are running about looking for their mothers.”

MUTILATIONS OF THE DEAD

“On the 22d, in the evening, I learned that in the woods, about one hundred and fifty meters north of the square formed by the intersection of the great Calonne trench with the road from Vaux-les-Palameis to Saint-Rémy, there were corpses of French soldiers shot by the Germans. I went to the spot and found the bodies of about thirty soldiers within a small space, most of them prone, but several still kneeling, and all having a precisely similar wound—a bullet through the ear. One only, seriously wounded in his lower parts, could still speak, and told me that the Germans before leaving had ordered them to lie down and that they had them shot through the head; that he, already wounded, had secured indulgence by stating that he was the father of three small children. The skulls of these unfortunates were scattered; the guns, broken at the stock, were scattered here and there; and the blood had besprinkled the bushes to such an extent that in coming out of the woods my cape was spattered with it; it was a veritable shambles.”

“Dogs chained, without food or drink. And the houses about them on fire. But the just anger of our soldiers is accompanied also by pure vandalism. In the villages, already emptied of their inhabitants, the houses are set on fire. I feel sorry for this population. If they have made use of disloyal weapons, after all, they are only defending their own country. The atrocities which these non-combatants are still committing[150] are revenged after a savage fashion. Mutilations of the wounded are the order of the day.”

This order was addressed by General Stenger, in command of the fifty-eighth German brigade, on the 26th of August, to the troops under his orders:

“From this day forward no further prisoners will be taken. All prisoners will be massacred. The wounded, whether in arms or not in arms, shall be massacred. Even the prisoners already gathered in convoys will be massacred. No living enemy must remain behind us.”

THE FRENCH REPORT

Having been instructed to investigate atrocities said to have been committed by the Germans in portions of French territory which had been occupied by them, a commission composed of four representatives of the French Government repaired to these districts in order to make a thorough investigation. The commission was composed of M. Georges Payelle, First President of the Cour des Comptes; Armand Mollard, Minister Plenipotentiary; Georges Maringer, Counselor of State, and Edmond Paillot, Counselor of the Cour de Cassation.

They started on their mission late in September, 1914, and visited the Departments of Seine-et-Marne, Marne, Meuse, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Oise, and Aisne. According to the report, they made note only of those accusations against the invaders which were backed up by reliable testimony and discarded everything that might have been occasioned by the exigencies of war.

The statement, which extends over many pages and contains over 25,000 words, is a record of the most[151] fiendish crimes imaginable. “On every side our eyes rested on ruin. Whole villages have been destroyed by bombardment or fire; towns formerly full of life are now nothing but deserts full of ruins; and, in visiting the scenes of desolation where the invader’s torch has done its work, one feels continually as though one were walking among the remains of one of those cities of antiquity which have been annihilated by the great cataclysms of nature.

“In truth it can be stated that never has a war carried on between civilized nations assumed the savage and ferocious character of the one which at this moment is being waged on our soil by an implacable adversary. Pillage, rape, arson, and murder are the common practice of our enemies; and the facts which have been revealed to us day by day at once constitute definite crimes against common rights, punished by the codes of every country with the most severe and the most dishonoring penalties, and which prove an astonishing degeneration in German habits of thought since 1870.

“Crimes against women and young girls have been of appalling frequency. We have proved a great number of them, but they only represent an infinitesimal proportion of those which we could have taken up. Owing to a sense of decency, which is deserving of every respect, the victims of these hateful acts usually refuse to disclose them. Doubtless fewer would have been committed if the leaders of an army whose discipline is most rigorous had taken any trouble to prevent them; yet, strictly speaking, they can only be considered as the individual and spontaneous acts of uncaged[152] beasts. But with regard to arson, theft, and murder the case is very different; the officers, even those of the highest station, will bear before humanity the overwhelming responsibility for these crimes.

“In the greater part of the places where we carried on our inquiry we came to the conclusion that the German Army constantly professes the most complete contempt for human life, that its soldiers, and even its officers, do not hesitate to finish off the wounded, that they kill without pity the inoffensive inhabitants of the territories which they have invaded, and they do not spare in their murderous rage women, old men, or children. The wholesale shootings at Lunéville, Gerbéviller, Nomeny, and Senlis are terrible examples of this; and in the course of this report you will read the story of scenes of carnage in which officers themselves have not been ashamed to take part.”

HORRIBLE CASES OF RAPE

Of the criminal attempts on women cited in the report two of the most horrible occurred in the Department of Seine-et-Marne.

“Frightful scenes occurred at the Château de —— in the neighborhood of La Ferté-Gaucher. There lived there an old gentleman, M. X., with his servant, Mlle. Y., 54 years old. On Sept. 5 several Germans, among whom was a non-commissioned officer, were in occupation of this property. After they had been supplied with food, the non-commissioned officer proposed to a refugee, a Mme. Z., that she should sleep with him; she refused. M. X., to save her from the designs of which she was the object, sent her to his farm, which was in the neighborhood. The German ran there to fetch her, dragged her back to the château and led her to the attic; then, having completely undressed her, he tried to violate her. At this moment M. X., wishing to protect her, fired revolver shots on the staircase and was immediately shot.

The Bombardment of the East Coast of England.

This scene, painted in Hartlepool, shows the effect of a bursting German shell in the unfortified British town. Several women and many other civilians were killed by the German raiders.

Prussian Soldier Kidnapping a Red Cross Nurse.

In spite of her prayer he seized her roughly, tied her hands together and throwing her across his saddle rode away. Fortunately, a Cossack appeared, pierced the scoundrel with his lance and rescued the woman. (Graphic copr.)

[153]

“The non-commissioned officer then made Mme. X. come out of the attic, obliged her to step over the corpse of the old man, and led her to a closet, where he again made two unsuccessful attempts upon her. Leaving her at last, he threw himself upon Mlle. Y., having first handed Mme. Z. over to two soldiers, who, after having violated her, one once and the other twice, in the dead man’s room, made her pass the night in a barn near them, where one of them twice again had sexual connection with her.

“As for Mlle. Y., she was obliged by threats of being shot, to strip herself completely naked and lie on a mattress with the non-commissioned officer, who kept her there until morning.

[154]

“At Least They Only Drown Your Women.”

“It is generally believed at Coulommiers that criminal attempts have been made on many women of that town, but only one crime of this nature has been proved for certain. A charwoman, Mme. X., was the victim. A soldier came to her house on the 6th of September, toward 9.30 in the evening, and sent away her husband to go and search for one of his comrades in the street. Then, in spite of the fact that two small children were present, he tried to rape the young woman. X., when he heard his wife’s cries, rushed back, but was driven off with blows of the butt of the man’s rifle into a neighboring room, of which the door was left open, and his wife was forced to suffer the consummation of the outrage. The rape took place almost under the eyes of the husband, who, being terrorized, did not dare to intervene, and used his efforts only to calm the terror of his children.

ARSON AND MURDER RAMPANT

“Personal liberty, like human life, is the object of complete scorn on the part of the German military authorities. Almost everywhere citizens of every age have been dragged from their homes and led into captivity, many have died or been killed on the way.

“Arson, still more than murder, forms the usual procedure of our adversaries. It is employed by them either as a means of systematic devastation or as a means of terrorism. The German Army, in order to provide for it, possesses a complete outfit, which comprises torches, grenades, rockets, petrol pumps, fuse sticks, and little bags of pastilles made of compressed powder which are very inflammable. The lust[155] for arson is manifested chiefly against churches and against monuments which have some special interest, either artistic or historical.

“Thousands of houses in the ground covered by the investigators had been completely destroyed by fire. In the Department of Marne a great many villages, as well as important country towns, were burned without any reason whatever. Without doubt these crimes were committed by order, as German detachments arrived in the neighborhood with their torches, their grenades, and their usual outfit for arson.

“At Lépine, a laborer named Caqué, in whose house two German cyclists were billeted, asked the latter if the grenades which he saw in their possession were destined for his house. They answered: ‘No. Lépine is finished with.’ At that moment nine houses in the village were burned out.

“At Marfaux nineteen private houses were burned.

“Of the commune of Glannes practically nothing remains. At Somme-Tourbe the entire village has been destroyed, with the exception of the mayoralty house, the church, and two private buildings.

“At Auve nearly the whole town has been destroyed. At Etrepy sixty-three families out of seventy are homeless. At Huiron all the houses, with the exception of five, have been burned. At Sermaize-les-Bains only about forty houses out of nine hundred remain. At Bignicourt-sur-Saultz thirty houses out of thirty-three are in ruins.

“At Suippes, the big market town which has been practically burned out, German soldiers carrying straw and cans of petrol have been seen in the streets. While[156] the mayor’s house was burning, six sentinels with fixed bayonets were under orders to forbid any one to approach and to prevent any help being given.

“All this destruction by arson, which only represents a small proportion of the acts of the same kind in the Department of Seine-et-Marne, was accomplished without the least tendency to rebellion or the smallest act of resistance being recorded against the inhabitants of the localities which are today more or less completely destroyed. In some villages the Germans, before setting fire to them, made one of their soldiers fire a shot from his rifle so as to be able to pretend afterward that the civilian population had attacked them, an allegation which is all the more absurd since at the time when the enemy arrived the only inhabitants left were old men, sick persons, or people absolutely without any means of aggression.

UNCONTROLLED SAVAGERY

“On the 6th of September at Champguyon, Mme. Louvet was present at the martyrdom of her husband. She saw him in the hands of ten or fifteen soldiers, who were beating him to death before his own house, and ran up and kissed him through the bars of the gate. She was brutally pushed back and fell, while the murderers dragged along the unhappy man covered with blood, begging them to spare his life and protesting that he had done nothing to be treated thus. He was finished off at the end of the village. When his wife found his body it was horribly disfigured. His head was beaten in, one of his eyes hung from the socket, and one of his wrists was broken.

[157]

“At Montmirail a scene of real savagery was enacted. On the 5th of September a non-commissioned officer flung himself almost naked on the widow Naudé, on whom he was billeted, and carried her into his room. This woman’s father, François Fontaine, rushed up on hearing his daughter’s cry. At once fifteen or twenty Germans broke through the door of the house, pushed the old man into the street, and shot him without mercy. Little Juliette Naudé opened the window at this moment and was struck in the stomach by a bullet, which went through her body. The poor child died after twenty-four hours of most dreadful suffering.

CONSTANT EVIDENCE OF THEFT

“We have constantly found definite evidence of theft,” states the report further, “and we do not hesitate to state that where a body of the enemy has passed it has given itself up to a systematically organized pillage, in the presence of its leaders, who have even themselves often taken part in it. Cellars have been emptied to the last bottle, safes have been gutted, considerable sums of money have been stolen or extorted; a great quantity of plate and jewelry, as well as pictures, furniture, ‘objets d’art,’ linen, bicycles, women’s dresses, sewing machines, even down to children’s toys, after having been taken away, have been loaded on vehicles to be taken toward the frontier.”

Space forbids further quotation from the harrowing document, in which one frightful tale succeeds another, until with a wave of sickening horror the reader cries out, “Can such things really be?”

[158]

GERMANY DENIES ATROCITIES

“A chain of baseless fabrications” is the phrase used by Germany to characterize the charges brought against the German armies by the French government, claiming that “German army officers have, by every means and with full success, effected the maintenance of discipline and the strict observance of all the rules of war in each and all the spheres of operation.”

The demolished villages and pitiful victims must tell their own tale of terror. Doubtless many of the crimes committed have been without the sanction of the German government or even without the authority of a superior officer, but, even allowing for the partisanship that is natural on the part of afflicted inhabitants, the testimony of the French commission together with that of former Ambassador Bryce must deeply affect the attitude of all thinking people toward warfare.

[159]

CHAPTER XV
DESTROYING THE PRICELESS MONUMENTS OF CIVILIZATION

THE INEXPIABLE GERMAN CRIME, LOUVAIN — ART TREASURES OF HISTORIC CITY — REDUCED TO A HEAP OF ASHES — PITILESS DESTRUCTION AS TOLD BY TOWN TREASURER — A MODERN POMPEII — BURNING OF CITY SYSTEMATIC — INDIGNANT PROTEST AGAINST MODERN HUNS.

All through Belgium and all through the country of the Franco-German border line are towns and cities filled with treasures of art and history—some of the richest, indeed, that centuries of civilization have amassed. Under the guns of both sides of the mighty conflict these paintings and shrines and storied buildings have been exposed to destruction, and many of them have been wantonly sacrificed, shattered beyond hope of restoration.

Under the latest Hague proposals, Article XXVIII, historic monuments are supposed to be respected even by warring nations, yet both Germany and France have accused each other of violating this convention. The whole of civilized humanity rises in protest against such sacrilege.

Among all the black crimes of the German invasion of Belgium none is blacker than the sack and burning of Louvain, the fairest city of Belgium and the intellectual metropolis of the Low Countries. According to a[160] bitter statement of Frank Jewett Mather, the well-known American art critic, “Louvain contained more beautiful works of art than the Prussian nation has produced in its entire history.”

ART TREASURES OF HISTORIC CITY

There was hardly a building within the ramparts but breathed the air of some romance of the Middle Ages or marked a stepping-stone in its stirring history. Once before war robbed it of its commercial prestige, only to permit it to rise, phœnix-like, as the center of learning during the sixteenth century. At the opening of the present war it still boasted of the largest university in Belgium, in which thousands of antique volumes and prints were stored. Its museums and its churches housed scores of paintings of the old Flemish masters.

Louvain has passed through successive periods of culture and barbarity ever since Julius Caesar established a permanent camp there during his campaigns against the Belgians and the Germans. In the eleventh century it became the residence of the long line of Dukes of Brabant, and was the capital until Brussels wrested this distinction from it during an uprising of weavers against their feudal masters. In the fourteenth century it had gained a population of between 100,000 and 150,000, and there were no fewer than 2,400 woolen manufactories. The weavers were a turbulent lot, however, and when they rose against the Duke Wencelaus he conquered them and forced thousands of them to flee to Holland and England. It was then that Brussels became the capital and[161] Louvain lost its prestige as a center of the cloth-making industry.

The Voice of the Cologne Church Speaks:

“Louvain, thou wast built on my foundations, spirit of my spirit, heart of my heart.”

Scholars began to pour into the town, however, to glean what learning they could from the old parchments and books which its castles contained. In 1423 Duke John IV of Brabant founded Louvain University. Students flocked there from all over the world. In the sixteenth century it had 4,000 students and forty-three colleges.

The library occupied a large room with fine wood panels, carved in intricate designs. It held 150,000 volumes and thousands of manuscripts, valuable beyond price. It contained a colossal group representing a scene from the Flood, sculptured by Geerts in 1839.

[162]

One block to the north of the university is the Grande Place, on which faced the Hôtel de Ville, one of the finest examples of the late Gothic style of architecture in Europe. It surpassed the town halls of Bruges, Brussels, and Ghent in elegance of detail and harmony of design. It was erected in 1448 by Mathieu de Layens, and it was from the upper windows of this building that thirteen magistrates of noble birth were hurled to their death on the spears of the populace in the streets below during the weavers’ uprising.

Across the Grande Place stood the church of St. Pierre, a magnificent type of the Gothic style built on a cruciform plan and flanked by chapels holding reliquaries of the saints, life-sized wooden figures, and priceless carvings and paintings. There might have been seen the works of Van Papenhoven, Roger van der Weyden, Dierick Bouts, and De Layens.

REDUCED TO A HEAP OF ASHES

The notification of the sacking of Louvain was contained in the notice issued by the British Press Bureau on Friday, August 28, 1914, which read as follows: “On Tuesday evening a German corps, after receiving a check, withdrew in disorder into the town of Louvain. A German guard at the entrance to the town mistook the nature of this incursion and fired on their routed fellow-countrymen, mistaking them for Belgians. In spite of all denials from the authorities the Germans, in order to cover their mistake, pretended that it was the inhabitants who had fired on them, whereas the inhabitants, including the police, had been disarmed more than a week before. Without inquiry and without[163] listening to any protests the German commander-in-chief announced that the town would be immediately destroyed. The inhabitants were ordered to leave their dwellings; a party of the men were made prisoners and the women and children put into trains, the destination of which is unknown. Soldiers furnished with bombs set fire to all parts of the town. The splendid church of St. Pierre, the University buildings, the library, and the scientific establishment were delivered to the flames. Several notable citizens were shot. A town of 45,000 inhabitants, the intellectual metropolis of the Low Countries since the fifteenth century, is now no more than a heap of ashes.”

PITILESS DESTRUCTION AS TOLD BY TOWN TREASURER

The town treasurer of Louvain, who managed to escape from the sacked city, gave in the London Times the following account of the destruction:

“At last, on Tuesday night, there took place the unspeakable crime, the shame of which can be understood only by those who followed and watched the different phases of the German occupation of Louvain.

“It is a significant fact that the German wounded and sick, including their Red Cross nurses, were all removed from the hospitals. The Germans meanwhile proceeded methodically to make a last and supreme requisition, although they knew the town could not satisfy it. Toward six o’clock the bugle sounded, and officers lodging in private houses left at once with arms and luggage. At the same time thousands of additional soldiers, with numerous field pieces and cannon,[164] marched into the town to their allotted positions. The gas factory, which had been idle, had been worked through the previous night and day by Germans, so that during this premeditated outrage the people could not take advantage of darkness to escape from the town. A further fact that proves their premeditation is that the attack took place at eight o’clock, the exact time at which the population entered their homes in conformity with the German orders—consequently escape became well-nigh impossible. At 8.20 the full fusillade with the roar of the cannons came from all sides of the town at once.

“The cavalry charged through the streets sabring fugitives, while the infantry, posted on the foot-paths, had their fingers on the triggers of their guns waiting for the unfortunate people to rush from the houses or appear at the windows, the soldiers praising and complimenting each other on their marksmanship as they fired at the unhappy fugitives. Those whose houses were not yet destroyed were ordered to quit and follow the soldiers to the railway station. There the men were separated from mothers, wives, and children, and thrown, some bound, into trains leaving in the direction of Germany. They saw their carefully-collected art and other treasures being shared out by the soldiers, the officers looking on. Those who attempted to appeal to their tormentors’ better feelings were immediately shot. A few were let loose, but most of them were sent to Germany.

“On Wednesday at daybreak the remaining women and children were driven out of the town—a lamentable spectacle—with uplifted arms and under the menace of[165] bayonets and revolvers. The day was practically calm. The destruction of the most beautiful part of the town seemed momentarily to have soothed the barbarian rage of the invaders. On Thursday the remnant of the Civil Guard was called up on the pretext of extinguishing the conflagration; those who demurred were chained and sent with some wounded Germans to the Fatherland, whilst the population had to quit.”

A MODERN POMPEII

Fair Louvain is now a place of desolation and ashes. Its treasures have been madly sacrificed to the god of war. A graphic description of the ruin has been written by Professor E. Gilson, of the University of Louvain, in the form of a letter to the Belgian Minister of Justice. It says in part:

“At the ‘Seven Corners’ Louvain reveals itself to my eyes like a luminous panorama in the glade of a forest. The center of the city is a smoking heap of ruins. Houses are caved in, nothing remains but smoking ruins, and a mass of brick. It is a veritable Pompeii. But how much more tragic and vivid is the sight of this new Pompeii! An oppressive silence everywhere. Everybody has fled; at the windows of cellars I see frightened faces, and at the street corners Prussian sentinels, sordid, immovable and silent.

“In the center stand the walls of St. Pierre, now a grinning silhouette, roof and belfry gone, the walls blackened and caved in. In front stands the Hôtel de Ville, dominating everything and almost intact. Further on, the remains of Les Hales, entirely destroyed, except for the arcade of big pillars of the Salle[166] des Pas Perdus. The library and its treasures are entirely gone.

“In the Petite Rue Louis Nelsens everything is destroyed. At the foot of the statue, in a flower bed all tramped underfoot, there is an irregular hillock covered with a few dead leaves. An old woman, recognizing me, comes out of her cellar and tells me: ‘Monsieur, this is the grave of Monsieur David and his son, the best people that ever lived.’ She cries. They were killed by shrapnel fired upon them as they were leaving their house. The Capuchin brothers made temporary graves for the dead.

“Graves were found nearly everywhere. In front of the statue, near a house, I find traces of fire. ‘In this place,’ the old woman tells me, ‘the Prussians burned a body after soaking it in petroleum. Some men buried the charred remains.’ I pick up a key which must have belonged to the dead man—a memento of this monstrous incident.

“In the center of the city the sight is extraordinarily picturesque—gloomy, abominable, and more so in the evening when the full moon is shining over the mass of ruins, it is really fantastic, diabolical.

“The center of old Louvain, the old city of the Dukes of Brabant, exists no longer; a new city will have to be built in the center of the quarters spared by the torch.

BURNING OF CITY SYSTEMATIC

“A villager told me that the soldiers had two ways of setting fire to the houses: One was to break the windows of the first floor, to throw petroleum on the floor, and throw in torches of burning straw, while[167] others were engaged in shooting at the upper-story windows to prevent the inhabitants from throwing missiles on those setting fire to their homes.”

INDIGNANT PROTEST AGAINST MODERN HUNS

Indignant protest against the outrageous sacrifice of Louvain arose from every quarter of the civilized world. The London Tablet, commenting on the desolation of Belgium and the sacrifice of her temples, said:

“The irreparable crime of Louvain and the ruthless damage done to the Cathedral of Malines while Cardinal Mercier was absent in Rome have left Belgium’s cup of bitterness still unfilled. We do not understand the reason of these remorseless attacks upon venerable places of worship, and particularly upon Roman Catholic churches. We do not fully discern why even the modern Huns should be so eager to violate these peaceful sanctuaries, destroying one, bombarding another with zest, stabling their horses in a third, as they have undoubtedly done. One would almost fancy that the late Professor Cramb was right after all, that Germany regards the Christian creed as outworn, and that she dreams, when she has imposed her will upon the world (if she can), of founding a new religion, with the Kaiser as its inspired expositor. We wonder what the pious people of Bavaria and Austria-Hungary think of this persistent desecration of Catholic shrines. The meaning of the sack of Dinant is, however, sufficiently clear. Thousands of travelers know that pleasant little town, which clustered beneath the old citadel on the banks of the Meuse. They will learn with horror and distress that it has shared the fate of[168] Louvain, that it has been shelled and burned, that many of its defenseless men have been shot, and that its women are hunted and homeless. We have not yet been told, but doubtless shall hear in due course, that the splendid thirteenth-century church of Notre Dame, the most complete example of pointed Gothic architecture in Belgium, has perished amid the general destruction. The reason of this sack and pillage of town after town in Belgium, with every accompaniment of murderous barbarity—Termonde is another melancholy case in point—is becoming obvious. It is due to the resolute resistance of Antwerp. The Germans want to capture Antwerp, but can not spare enough men to invest the fortress, and in any case hope to obtain it without paying the price. They seek to terrorize Antwerp into submission by laying Belgium waste, by razing her undefended cities to the ground, and by shedding the blood of innocent Belgian citizens of both sexes. . . . The wilful devastation of Belgium will have only one definite result. It will increase the chorus of indignant denunciation of German methods of warfare which now rises from every civilized country in the world.”

Burning of the Cathedral of Rheims.

This noble building, one of the finest pieces of Gothic architecture in the world, was bombarded by German shells and set on fire. Much of the priceless statuary and the entire roof were destroyed.

The Sacking of Louvain.

According to the official report of the Commission of Inquiry into the German atrocities at Louvain and other places, men were brutally separated from their wives and children, and after having been subjected to abominable treatment by the Germans were herded out of the town. The corpses of many a civilian encumbered the streets and squares.

[169]

CHAPTER XVI
WANTON DESTRUCTION OF THE BEAUTIFUL CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS

DESECRATION OF THE SHRINES OF HUMANITY — THE “ROYAL CITY”—CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME — ART TREASURES — CATHEDRAL A TARGET — ANGER OF CROWD STILLED BY PRIESTS — “SUPREME SACRIFICE AGAINST THE SPIRIT OF MAN”—BEAUTY IRREPARABLY GONE.

If the destruction of famous buildings, shrines of humanity as well as of art and religion, were but put down to the unavoidable accidents of war, after the first poignant sense of the irreparable loss, one would rather sorrowfully accept the smoking ruins as further evidence of the horrible, if unavoidable, waste of war. But to have Louvain’s atrocities justified, to have the destruction of towns systematically brought about in a spirit of fiendish reprisal or as part of a propaganda of military terrorism, this is what revolts the world. It is this demoniacal barbarism, raised to the ultimate power for evil by modern mechanism, that staggers civilization.

The sacking of Louvain had hardly ceased to be a matter of world-wide outcry against such inexcusable barbarity when there came the official report that the Cathedral of Rheims, one of the most glorious examples of Gothic art in the world and an historic[170] monument of first rank, had fallen before the German guns in the bombardment of that historic city.

THE “ROYAL CITY”

Rheims has been a city of importance since the time of the Romans. The cathedral, wherein for nearly 1,000 years the kings of France were crowned, has been fittingly described as “the most perfect example in grandeur and grace of Gothic style in existence.”

Hincmar, a mighty archbishop of the ninth century, once declared that Rheims was “by the appointment of Heaven a royal city.”

The words are at once historical and prophetic. Here Clovis was baptized by St. Remigius, and here in the cathedral in 1429, Charles VII of France was crowned through the efforts of Joan of Arc.

According to the historians of art, Rheims is royal in another sense. In no city in Europe have the life and thought of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance found such perfect expression in architecture. From early Gothic to Romanesque, and from Romanesque to Renaissance, the buildings of Rheims reveal better than any records the city’s historical development. Of all the buildings illustrative of their various periods there were said to be no better examples than the cathedral and the church of St. Jacques, fine monuments of early Gothic; the later Gothic edifice of the archbishop’s palace, and, finally, the city hall, a handsome work of the best period of French Renaissance.

[171]

CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME

No one really knows who designed and built the cathedral. The first stones were laid in 1211, and the building, with the exception of the superb west façade, was completed in the thirteenth century. The façade, which dates from the fourteenth century, was adorned with three exquisite recessed portals containing, in a more or less good state of preservation, over five hundred statues. Of the entire structure, we read in “Cathedrals of the Isle de France”: “Nothing can exceed the majesty of its deeply recessed portals, the beauty of the rose window that surmounts them, or the elegance of the gallery that completes the façade.”

The Christian World!

ART TREASURES

The interior, which was cruciform, was 455 feet long and 99 feet wide; the distance from the middle isle to the highest point in the roof was 125 feet. Here in niches in the walls was another multitude of statues, and in the nave and transepts were preserved valuable[172] tapestry, representing biblical scenes and scenes from the history of medieval France. Here also hung a treasure of paintings, including canvases by Tintoretto, Nicolas Poussin, and others, and some fine old tapestries.

In the treasury were reliquaries, one said to contain a thorn from the Holy Crown, the skull of St. Remi and a collection of valuable vessels in gold, the most remarkable in France. The treasures included not only the coronation ornaments of various kings, but the vase of St. Ursula, the massive chalice of St. Remigius, and countless crucifixes in gold, silver and precious woods.

In the treasury was also preserved the Sainte Ampoule—the vessel in which the oil used to anoint the kings of France was preserved—a successor to the famous ampulla, which a dove was said to have brought from heaven filled with inexhaustible holy oil at the time of the baptism of Clovis, in 496. During the Revolution the sacred vessel was shattered, but a fragment was piously preserved, in which some of the oil was said still to remain.

CATHEDRAL A TARGET

The Cathedral of Notre Dame is now no more than an empty shell of charred and blackened walls. The fire started between four and five o’clock Sunday afternoon, September 20, 1914, after shells had been crashing into the town all day. Over five hundred fell between early morning and sunset.

The cathedral had been turned into a hospital for the German wounded, to secure for the building the[173] protection of the Red Cross flag. When the first shell struck the roof everyone believed it was a stray shot, but later in the day a German battery four miles away, began making the great Gothic pile its target. Shell after shell crashed its way into the old masonry and stonework that had stood the storms of centuries.

At 4.30 some scaffolding around the east end of the cathedral, where repairs were going on, caught fire and soon the whole network of poles and planks was ablaze. Then the roof of old oak timbers caught fire and soon the ceilings of the nave and transepts were a roaring furnace.

The blazing piers of carved woodwork crashed to the floor, where piles of straw had been gathered in connection with the work of the field hospital. As soon as this caught fire the paneling of the altars, the chairs and other furniture were devoured.

Twenty wounded Germans would have perished by the efforts of their own countrymen if several French army doctors, with their bearers, had not carried them one by one at their own risk out of the church by one of the side doors.

ANGER OF CROWD STILLED BY PRIESTS

There a grim scene was only prevented by the courage of the priests of the cathedral. A crowd of about two hundred citizens had come out to watch the terrible spectacle. As these Germans, in their uniforms, appeared at the transept door howls of uncontrollable passion went up from the crowd. “Kill them!” they shouted. Soldiers in the crowd leveled[174] their rifles, when Abbé Andrieux sprang forward between the wounded men and the muzzles that threatened them.

“Don’t fire,” he shouted, “you would make yourselves as guilty as they.”

The reproach was enough, and amid fierce hooting and angry cries the Germans were carried to shelter in the museum near by.

From the hills the flaming cathedral was an even more impressive sight than in the streets of the town. From the yawning roof the red glare poured up into the dark sky and its windows flickered with dancing flames. So night closed down. Not for long was its stillness undisturbed. At two o’clock German batteries opened fire again. Then from windows that looked toward Rheims across the plain one could watch the lurid sight of night bombardment.

At last daybreak came, a sad gray dawn, with cold, dispiriting rain falling. When the shadows had lifted and enough light had filtered through the low, lead-colored clouds for one to see across the plain, the ravished city, with its ruined cathedral standing stark against the background and a vast wall of smoke rising slowly from the still flaming ruins, was as desolate a thing as the sun could well have found in its journey round the world that morning.

“SUPREME SACRIFICE AGAINST THE SPIRIT OF MAN”

“Will not every artist, every writer, every lover of the beautiful, unite with us in a protestation of horror against the infamous destruction of Rheims Cathedral?” wrote Emile Hovelaque, French Inspector General[175] of Public Instruction, in a letter to the London Times. “It was the cradle of our kings, the high altar of our race, a sanctuary and shrine dear from every memory, sacred in every thought, loved as our remotest past, an ever-speaking witness to the permanence through change of the ideals, aspirations and dreams of our country.

“Can such deeds go unavenged? Will not the conscience of the whole world rise against those nameless barbarians who shelled Red Cross flags floating over that twice-sacred pile, who have committed this supreme sacrifice against the spirit of man in seven hundred years? Those gray cliffs of chiseled stone had risen above the furious tides of innumerable invasions unhurt, spared by the most savage onsets. Battered, by every storm of heaven and earth, the noblest sculpture of the West remained until German culture came.

“And then, deliberately, methodically, slowly, the princes and captains of an accursed race mangled the sacred pile until all had fallen. Fairest and most human images in all the world, a forest of gigantic columns, a vast vaulted canopy of stone, majestic walls and heaven-stained glass—it was murder in cold blood, the murder not of a life but of immortality. Forty-eight long hours the inexplicable crime dragged out. Louvain first, now Rheims. What next?”

BEAUTY IRREPARABLY GONE

The artistic beauty of the cathedral of Rheims can never be restored, in the opinion of Whitney Warren, the New York architect, who made a thorough inspection of the structure.

[176]

Mr. Warren, who is a corresponding member of the Institut de France, was given the privilege of visiting the cathedral. His investigation had no official character, but the result of his observations was communicated to Myron T. Herrick, American Ambassador to Belgium.

“That anything remains of the edifice,” said Mr. Warren, “is due to the strong construction of the walls and vaults which are of a robustness that can resist even modern implements of war.”

The building was not battered by the heavier guns, as had been feared, but it suffered most from shrapnel fire. The famous rose windows, the sculpture and other details of the façade that were ruined are, however, just the examples of art that can not be replaced.

Statues, gargoyles, and other ornaments on the exterior of the cathedral have been tumbled to the pavement and shattered, though at first glance the outer walls of the cathedral do not show the ruin that has taken place. These blackened walls yet stand as a monument to the glory of France, but still more as a grim reminder of the barbarity of German warfare.

[177]

CHAPTER XVII
THE CANADIANS’ GLORIOUS FEAT AT LANGEMARCK

THE CRUCIAL TEST OF CANADA’S MEN — WONDERFUL STORY OF HEROISM AS TOLD BY SIR MAX AITKEN — A REMARKABLE PERFORMANCE — QUIET PRECEDING STORM — SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES — LINE NEVER WAVERED — OFFICER FELL AT HEAD OF TROOPS — FORTUNES OF THIRD BRIGADE — IN DIRE PERIL — OVERWHELMING NUMBERS — PUT TO TEST — CAPTURE OF ST. JULIEN — A HERO LEADING HEROES.

The fight of the Canadians at Langemarck and St. Julien in April, 1915, makes such a battle story as has sufficed, in other nations, to inspire song and tradition for centuries. In the words of Sir John French, the Canadians, by holding their ground when it did not seem humanly possible to hold it, “saved the situation,” kept the enemy out of Ypres, kept closed the road to Calais, and made a failure of German plans that otherwise were about to be successful.

The Canadian soldiers have indeed shown that they are second to none. They were put to as supreme a test as it would be possible for any army to meet with, for they fought overwhelming numbers under conditions that seemed to ensure annihilation. They fought on, and failed neither in courage, discipline, nor tenacity, although thousands of them fell.

[178]

The story of their unflinching heroism was told by Sir Max Aitken, the record officer serving with the Canadian division in France:

“The recent fighting in Flanders, in which the Canadians played so glorious a part, cannot of course be described with precision of military detail until time has made possible the co-ordination of relevant facts, and the piecing together in a narrative both lucid and exact of much which, so near the event, is confused and blurred. But it is considered right that the mourning in Canada for husbands, sons or brothers who have given their lives for the Empire should have with as little reserve as military considerations allow the rare and precious consolation which, in the agony of bereavement, the record of the valor of their dead must bring, and indeed the mourning in Canada will be very widely spread, for the battle which raged for so many days in the neighborhood of Ypres was bloody, even as men appraise battles in this callous and life-engulfing war. But as long as brave deeds retain the power to fire the blood of Anglo-Saxons, the stand made by the Canadians in those desperate days will be told by fathers to their sons.

A REMARKABLE PERFORMANCE

“The Canadians have wrested the trenches over the bodies of the dead and earned the right to stand side by side with the superb troops who, in the first battle of Ypres, broke and drove before them the flower of the Prussian Guards. Looked at from any point the performance would be remarkable. It is amazing to soldiers when the genesis and composition of the[179] Canadian division are considered. It contained no doubt a sprinkling of South African veterans, but it consisted in the main of men who were admirable raw material, but who, at the outbreak of war, were neither disciplined nor trained as men count discipline and training in these days of scientific warfare. It was, it is true, commanded by a distinguished English general. Its staff was supplemented, without being replaced, by some brilliant British staff officers. But in its higher and regimental commands were to be found lawyers, college professors, business men and real estate agents, ready with cool self-confidence to do battle against an organization in which the study of military science is the exclusive pursuit of laborious lives.

“With what devotion, with a valor how desperate, with resourcefulness how cool and how frightful, the amateur soldier of Canada confronted overwhelming odds, may perhaps be made clear, even by a narrative so incomplete as the present.

“The salient of Ypres has become familiar to all students of the campaign in Flanders. Like all salients it was, and was known to be, a source of weakness to the forces holding it, but the reasons which have led to its retention are apparent, and need not be explained.

“On Thursday, April 22, 1915, the Canadian division held a line of roughly five thousand yards, extending in a northwesterly direction from the Ypres-Roulers railway, to the Ypres-Poekapelle road, and connecting at its terminus with the French troops. The division consisted of three infantry brigades in addition to the artillery brigades. Of the infantry brigades the first was in reserve, the second was on the right, and the third[180] established contact with the allies at the point indicated above.

QUIET PRECEDING STORM

“The day was a peaceful one, warm and sunny, and except that the previous day had witnessed a further bombardment of the stricken town of Ypres, everything seemed quiet in front of the Canadian line. At five o’clock in the afternoon a plan carefully prepared was put into execution against our French allies on the left. Asphyxiating gas of great intensity was projected into their trenches, probably by means of force pumps and pipes laid out under the parapets. The fumes, aided by a favorable wind, floated backwards, poisoning and disabling over an extended area those who fell under their effect. The result was that the French were compelled to give ground for a considerable distance. The glory which the French army has won in this war would make it impertinent to labor on the compelling nature of the poisonous discharges under which the trenches were lost. The French did, as everyone knew they would do, all that stout soldiers could do, and the Canadian division, officers and men, look forward to many occasions in the future in which they will stand side by side with the brave armies of France.

“The immediate consequence of this enforced withdrawal was, of course, extremely grave. The third brigade of the Canadian division was without any left, or, in other words, its left was in the air. It became imperatively necessary greatly to extend the Canadian lines to the left rear. It was not, of course, practicable to move the first brigade from reserve at a momen[181]t’s notice, and the line, extended from five to nine thousand yards, was not naturally the line that had been held by the allies at five o’clock, and a gap still existed on its left.

Map Illustrating the Battle of Langemarck.

Shaded Portion Indicates German Gain.

[182]

“The new line, of which our recent point of contact with the French formed the apex, ran quite roughly to the south and west. As shown above, it became necessary for Brigadier-General Turner, commanding the third brigade, to throw back his left flank southward to protect his rear. In the course of the confusion which followed upon the readjustment of position, the enemy, who had advanced rapidly after his initial successes, took four British 4.7 guns in a small wood to the west of the village of St. Julien, two miles in the rear of the original French trenches.

SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES

“The story of the second battle of Ypres is the story of how the Canadian division, enormously outnumbered, for they had in front of them at least four divisions, supported by immensely heavy artillery, with a gap still existing, though reduced, in their lines, and with dispositions made hurriedly under the stimulus of critical danger, fought through the day and through the night, and then through another day and night; fought under their officers until, as happened to so many, these perished gloriously, and then fought from the impulsion of sheer valor because they came from fighting stock.

“The enemy, of course, was aware, whether fully or not may perhaps be doubted, of the advantage his breach in the line had given him, and immediately began to push a formidable series of attacks upon the whole of the newly-formed Canadian salient.

“If it is possible to distinguish when the attack was everywhere so fierce, it developed with particular[183] intensity at this moment upon the apex of the newly-formed line running in the direction of St. Julien. It has already been stated that four British guns were taken in a wood comparatively early in the evening of the 22d. In the course of that night, and under the heaviest machine-gun fire, this wood was assaulted by the Canadian Scottish, sixteenth battalion, of the third brigade, and the tenth battalion of the second brigade, which was intercepted for this purpose on its way to a reserve trench. The battalions were respectively commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Leckie, and Lieutenant-Colonel Boyle, and after a most fierce struggle in the light of a misty moon they took the position at the point of the bayonet. At midnight the second battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel Watson and the Toronto regiment, Queen’s Own (third battalion), under Lieutenant-Colonel Rennie, both of the first brigade, brought up much-needed reinforcements, and though not actually engaged in the assault, were in reserve.

LINE NEVER WAVERED

“All through the following days and nights these battalions shared the fortunes and misfortunes of the third brigade. An officer, who took part in the attack, describes how the men about him fell under the fire of the machine guns, which, in his phrase, played upon them ‘like a watering pot.’ He added quite simply, ‘I wrote my own life off,’ but the line never wavered. When one man fell another took his place, and with a final shout the survivors of the two battalions flung themselves into the wood.

[184]

“The German garrison was completely demoralized, and the impetuous advance of the Canadians did not cease until they reached the far side of the wood and entrenched themselves there in the position so dearly gained. They had, however, the disappointment of finding that the guns had been blown up by the enemy, and later on the same night, a most formidable concentration of artillery fire, sweeping the wood as a tropical storm sweeps the leaves from a forest, made it impossible for them to hold the position for which they had sacrified so much.

“The fighting continued without intermission all through the night and to those who observed the indications that the attack was being pushed with ever-growing strength, it hardly seemed possible that the Canadians, fighting in positions so difficult to defend, and so little the subject of deliberate choice, could maintain their resistance for any long period. At 6 A.M. on Friday it became apparent that the left was becoming more and more involved and a powerful German attempt to outflank it developed rapidly. The consequences if it had been broken or outflanked need not be insisted upon. They were not merely local.

“It was therefore decided, formidable as the attempt undoubtedly was, to try and give relief by a counter-attack upon the first line of German trenches, now far, far advanced from those originally occupied by the French. This was carried out by the Ontario first and fourth battalions of the first brigade, under Brigadier-General Mercer, acting in combination with a British brigade. It is safe to say that the youngest private in the rank, as he set his teeth for the advance, knew the task in front of him, and the youngest subaltern knew all that rested upon its success.

German Abuse of the White Flag.

An incident showing how a company of British soldiers were cut down by an ambushed enemy. The front rank of Germans had been firing from behind a small ridge. In apparent surrender they stood up in a long row and held up the white flag. The British advanced to receive their guns and take them prisoners, when suddenly the entire line fell down and a second line arose from behind the ridge and immediately killed all the British company. (Sphere copr.)

Terrible Effect of a German Shell on Wounded British Soldiers.

A party of wounded Highlanders were resting in a house on the bank of the Aisne River, where a doctor was attending them. A German shell came through the window and the soldiers resting on the sofas and on the floor were nearly all killed by flying fragments of shell. (Sphere copr.)

[185]

OFFICER FELL AT HEAD OF TROOPS

“It did not seem that any human being could live in the shower of shot and shell which began to play upon the advancing troops. They suffered terrible casualties. For a short time every man seemed to fall, but the attack was pressed even closer and closer. The fourth Canadian battalion at one moment came under a particularly withering fire. For a moment, not more, it wavered. Its most gallant commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Birchall, carrying, after an old fashion, a light cane, coolly and cheerfully rallied his men, and at the very moment when his example had infected them fell dead at the head of his battalion.

“With a hoarse cry of anger they sprang forward (for, indeed, they loved him) as if to avenge his death. The astonishing attack which followed, pushed home in the face of direct frontal fire, made in broad daylight by battalions whose names should live forever in the memories of soldiers, was carried to the first line of German trenches. After a hand-to-hand struggle the last German who resisted was bayoneted, and the trench was won.

“The measure of this success may be taken when it is pointed out that this trench represented in the German advance the apex in the breach which the enemy had made in the original line of the allies, and that it was two and a half miles south of that line.[186] This charge, made by men who looked death indifferently in the face, for no man who took part in it could think that he was likely to live, saved the Canadian left. But it did more; up to the point where the assailants conquered or died, it secured and maintained during the most critical moment of all the integrity of the allied line. For the trench was not only taken, it was thereafter held against all comers, and in the teeth of every conceivable projectile, until the night of Sunday, the 25th, when all that remained of the war-broken but victorious battalions was relieved by fresh troops.

FORTUNES OF THIRD BRIGADE

“It is necessary now to return to the fortunes of the third brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Turner, which, as we have seen, at five o’clock on Thursday was holding the Canadian left and after the first attack assumed the defense of the new Canadian salient, at the same time sparing all the men it could to form an extemporized line between the wood and St. Julien. This brigade also was, at the first moment of the German offensive, made the object of an attack by the discharge of poisonous gas. The discharge was followed by two enemy assaults. Although the fumes were extremely poisonous, they were not, perhaps, having regard to the wind, so disabling as on the French lines (which ran almost east to west), and the brigade, though affected by the fumes, stoutly beat back the two German assaults.

“Encouraged by this success, it rose to the supreme effort required by the assault of the wood, which has[187] already been described. At 4 A.M. on the morning of Friday, the 23d, a fresh emission of gas was made both upon the second brigade, which held the line running northeast, and upon the third brigade, which, as has been fully explained, had continued the line up to the pivotal point, as defined above, and had then spread down in a southeasterly direction. It is perhaps worth mentioning, that two privates of the forty-eighth Highlanders, who found their way into the trenches commanded by Colonel Lipsett, ninetieth Winnipeg Rifles, eighth battalion, perished of the fumes, and it was noticed that their faces became blue immediately after dissolution.

“The Royal Highlanders of Montreal, thirteenth battalion, and the forty-eighth Highlanders, fifteenth battalion, were more especially affected by the discharge. The Royal Highlanders, though considerably shaken, remained immovable upon their ground. The forty-eighth Highlanders, who no doubt received a more poisonous discharge, were for the moment dismayed and indeed their trench, according to the testimony of very hardened soldiers, became intolerable. The battalion retired from the trench, but for a very short distance, and for an equally short time. In a few moments they were again their own. They advanced upon and occupied the trenches which they had momentarily abandoned.

IN DIRE PERIL

“In the course of the same night the third brigade, which had already displayed a resource, a gallantry, and a tenacity, for which no eulogy could be excessive,[188] was exposed (and with it the whole allied cause) to a peril still more formidable.

“It has been explained, and indeed the fundamental situation made the peril clear, that several German divisions were attempting to crush, or drive back this devoted brigade, and in any event to use their enormous numerical superiority to sweep around and overwhelm our left wing at a point in the line which cannot be precisely determined. The last attempt partially succeeded, and in the course of this critical struggle, German troops in considerable, though not in overwhelming, numbers swung past the unsupported left to the brigade and, slipping in between the wood and St. Julien, added to the torturing anxieties of the long-drawn-out struggle by the appearance, and indeed for the moment the reality, of isolation from the brigade base.

“In the exertions made by the third brigade during this supreme crisis, it is almost impossible to single out one battalion without injustice to others, but though the efforts of the Royal Highlanders of Montreal, thirteenth battalion, were only equal to those of the other battalions who did such heroic service, it so happened by chance that the fate of some of its officers attracted special attention.

“Major Norsworthy, already almost disabled by a bullet wound, was bayoneted and killed while he was rallying his men with easy cheerfulness. The case of Captain McCuaig, of the same battalion, was not less glorious, although his death can claim no witness. This most gallant officer was seriously wounded in a hurriedly constructed trench. At a moment when it[189] would have been possible to remove him to safety, he absolutely refused to move, and continued in the discharge of his duty. But the situation grew instantly worse, and peremptory orders were received for an immediate withdrawal. Those who were compelled to obey them were most insistent to carry with them, at whatever risk to their own mobility and safety, an officer to whom they were devotedly attached. But he, knowing, it may be, better than they, the exertions which still lay in front of them, and unwilling to inflict upon them the disabilities of a maimed man, very resolutely refused, and asked of them one thing only, that there should be given to him as he lay alone in the trench, two loaded Colt revolvers to add to his own, which lay in his right hand as he made his last request. And so, with three revolvers ready to his hand for use, a very brave officer waited to sell his life, wounded and racked with pain, in an abandoned trench.

“On Friday afternoon the left of the Canadian line was strengthened by important reinforcements of British troops, amounting to seven battalions. From this time forward the Canadians also continued to receive further assistance on the left from a series of French counter-attacks pushed in a northeasterly direction from the canal bank.

OVERWHELMING NUMBERS

“But the artillery fire of the enemy continually grew in intensity, and it became more and more evident that the Canadian salient could no longer be maintained against the overwhelming superiority of[190] numbers by which it was assailed. Slowly, stubbornly, and contesting every yard, the defenders gave ground until the salient gradually receded from the apex near the point where it had originally aligned with the French, and fell back upon St. John.

“Soon it became evident that even St. Julien, exposed from right and left, was no longer tenable in the face of overwhelming numerical superiority. The third brigade was therefore ordered to retreat further south, selling every yard of ground as dearly as it had done since five o’clock on Thursday. But it was found impossible, without hazarding far larger forces, to disentangle the detachment of the Royal Highlanders of Montreal, thirteenth battalion, and of the Royal Montreal Regiment, fourteenth battalion. The brigade was ordered, and not a moment too soon, to move back. It left these units with hearts as heavy as those of his comrades who had said farewell to Captain McCuaig.

“The German line rolled, indeed, over the deserted village, but for several hours after the enemy had become master of the village the sullen and persistent rifle fire which survived showed that they were not yet master of the Canadian rear guard. If they died, they died worthy of Canada. The enforced retirement of the third brigade (and to have stayed longer would have been madness) reproduced for the second brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Curry, in a singularly exact fashion the position of the third brigade itself at the moment of the withdrawal of the French.

[191]

SECOND BRIGADE PUT TO TEST

“The second brigade, it must be remembered, had retained the whole line of trenches, roughly five hundred yards, which it was holding at five o’clock on Thursday afternoon, supported by the incomparable exertions of the third brigade, and by the highly hazardous deployment in which necessity had involved that brigade. The second brigade had maintained its lines. It now devolved upon General Curry, commanding this brigade, to reproduce the tactical maneuvers by which earlier in the fight the third brigade had adapted itself to the flank movement of overwhelming numerical superiority. He flung his left flank round and his record is that in the very crisis of this immense struggle he held his line of trenches from Thursday at five o’clock until Sunday afternoon, and on Sunday afternoon he had not abandoned his trenches. There were none left. They had been obliterated by artillery. He withdrew his undefeated troops from the fragments of his field fortifications, and the hearts of his men were as completely unbroken as the parapets of his trenches were completely broken. Such a brigade!

“It is invidious to single out any battalion for special praise, but it is perhaps necessary to the story to point out that Lieutenant-Colonel Lipsett, commanding the ninetieth Winnipeg Rifles, eighth battalion, of the second brigade, held the extreme left of the brigade position at the most critical moment.

“The battalion was expelled from the trenches early on Friday morning by an emission of poisonous gas, but recovering in three-quarters of an hour, it counter-attacked, retook the trenches it had abandoned[192] and bayoneted the enemy, and after the third brigade had been forced to retire, Lieutenant-Colonel Lipsett held his position, though his left was in the air, until two British regiments filled up the gap on Saturday night.

CAPTURE OF ST. JULIEN

“The individual fortunes of those two brigades have brought us to the events of Sunday afternoon, but it is necessary, to make the story complete, to recur for a moment to the events of the morning.

“After a very formidable attack the enemy succeeded in capturing the village of St. Julien, which has so often been referred to in describing the fortunes of the Canadian left. This success opened up a new and formidable line of advance, but by this time further reinforcements had arrived. Here again it became evident that the tactical necessities of the situation dictated an offensive movement, as the surest method of arresting further progress.

“General Alderson, who was in command of the reinforcements, accordingly directed that an advance should be made by a British brigade which had been brought up in support. The attack was thrust through the Canadian left and center, and as the troops making it swept on, many of them going to certain death, they paused an instant, and with deep-throated cheers for Canada gave the first indication to the division of the warm admiration which their exertions had excited in the British army.

“The advance was indeed costly, but it could not[193] be gainsaid. The story is one of which the brigade may be proud, but it does not belong to the special account of the fortunes of the Canadian contingent. It is sufficient for our purpose to notice that the attack succeeded in its object, and the German advance along the line, which was momentarily threatened, was arrested.

“We had reached, in describing the events of the afternoon, the points at which the trenches of the second brigade had been completely destroyed. This brigade and the third brigade, and the considerable reinforcements which by this time filled the gap between the two brigades, were gradually driven, fighting every yard, upon a line running, roughly, from Fortuin, south of St. Julien, in a northeasterly direction towards Passchendale. Here the two brigades were relieved by two British brigades, after exertions as glorious, as fruitful, and, alas! as costly, as soldiers have ever been called upon to make.

“Monday morning broke bright and clear, and found the Canadians behind the firing line. This day, too, was to bring its anxieties. The attack was still pressed, and it became necessary to ask Brigadier-General Curry whether he could once more call upon his shrunken brigade.

A HERO LEADING HEROES

“‘The men are tired,’ this indomitable soldier replied, ‘but they are ready and glad to go again to the trenches.’ And so once more, a hero leading heroes, the general marched back the men of the second brigade, reduced to a quarter of its original[194] strength, to the apex of the line as it existed at that moment.

“This position he held all day Monday. On Tuesday he was still occupying reserve trenches, and on Wednesday was relieved and retired to billets in the rear.

“Such, in the most general outline, is the story of a great and glorious feat of arms. A story told so soon after the event, while tendering bare justice to units whose doings fell under the eyes of particular observers, must do less than justice to others who played their part—and all did—as gloriously as those whose special activities it is possible, even at this stage, to describe. But the friends of men who fought in other battalions may be content in the knowledge that they, too, shall learn, when time allows, the exact part which each unit played in these unforgettable days.”

[195]

CHAPTER XVIII
PITIFUL FLIGHT OF A MILLION WOMEN
By Philip Gibbs
Of the London Daily Chronicle

THE GERMAN ADVANCE UPON PARIS — THE PRIZE OF PARIS — HEROIC EFFORTS OF FRENCH SOLDIERS — GERMANS BALKED OF THEIR PRIZE — SIXTY MILES OF FUGITIVES — TERROR IN EYES — PARIS THE BEAUTIFUL.

[The following article is reproduced by the courtesy of the New York Times.]

At least a million German soldiers—that is no exaggeration of a light pen, but the sober and actual truth—were advancing steadily upon the capital of France. They were close to Beauvais when I escaped from what was then a death-trap. They were fighting our British troops at Creil when I came to that town. Upon the following days they were holding our men in the Forest of Compiègne. They had been as near to Paris as Senlis, almost within gunshot of the outer forts.

“Nothing seems to stop them,” said many soldiers with whom I spoke. “We kill them and kill them, but they come on.”

The situation seemed to me almost ready for the supreme tragedy—the capture or destruction of Paris. The northwest of France lay very open to the enemy,[196] abandoned as far south as Abbéville and Amiens, too lightly held by a mixed army corps of French and Algerian troops with their headquarters at Aumale.

Here was an easy way to Paris.

Always obsessed with the idea that the Germans must come from the east, the almost fatal error of this war, the French had girdled Paris with almost impenetrable forts on the east side, from those of Ecouen and Montmorency, by the far-flung forts of Chelles and Champigny, to those of Susy and Villeneuve, on the outer lines of the triple cordon; but on the west side, between Pontoise and Versailles, the defenses of Paris were weak. I say, “were,” because during the last days thousands of men were digging trenches and throwing up ramparts. Only the snakelike Seine, twining into a Pégoud loop, forms a natural defense to the western approach to the city, none too secure against men who have crossed many rivers in their desperate assaults.

THE PRIZE OF PARIS

This, then, was the Germans’ chance; it was for this that they had fought their way westward and southward through incessant battlefields from Mons and Charleroi to St. Quentin and Amiens and down to Creil and Compiègne, flinging away human life as though it were but rubbish for death-pits. The prize of Paris, Paris the great and beautiful, seemed to be within their grasp.

It was their intention to smash their way into it by this western entry and then to skin it alive. Holding this city at ransom, it was their idea to force France to[197] her knees under threat of making a vast and desolate ruin of all those palaces and churches and noble buildings in which the soul of French history is enshrined.

I am not saying these things from rumor and hearsay, I am writing from the evidence of my own eyes after traveling several hundreds of miles in France along the main strategical lines, grim sentinels guarding the last barriers to that approaching death which was sweeping on its way through France to the rich harvest of Paris.

There was only one thing to do to escape from the menace of this death. By all the ways open, by any way, the population of Paris emptied itself like rushing rivers of humanity along all the lines which promised anything like safety.

The Anxious Hour.

Only those stayed behind to whom life means very little away from Paris and who if death came desired to die in the city of their life.

Again I write from what I saw and to tell the honest truth from what I suffered, for the fatigue of this[198] hunting for facts behind the screen of war is exhausting to all but one’s moral strength, and even to that.

I found myself in the midst of a new and extraordinary activity of the French and English armies. Regiments were being rushed up to the center of the allied forces toward Creil, Montdidier, and Noyon.

This great movement continued for several days, putting to a severe test the French railway system, which is so wonderfully organized that it achieved this mighty transportation of troops with clockwork regularity. Working to a time-table dictated by some great brain in the headquarters of the French army, there were calculated with perfect precision the conditions of a network of lines on which troop trains might be run to a given point. It was an immense victory of organization, and a movement which heartened one observer at least to believe that the German death-blow would again be averted.

HEROIC EFFORTS OF FRENCH SOLDIERS

I saw regiment after regiment entraining. Men from the Southern Provinces, speaking the patois of the South; men from the Eastern Departments whom I had seen a month before, at the beginning of the war, at Châlons and Epernay and Nancy, and men from the southwest and center of France, in garrisons along the Loire. They were all in splendid spirits and utterly undaunted by the rapidity of the German advance.

“It is nothing, my little one,” said a dirty, unshaved gentleman with the laughing eyes of a D’Artagnan; “we shall bite their heads off. These brutal ‘bosches[199]’ are going to put themselves in a ‘guet-apens,’ a veritable death-trap. We shall have them at last.”

Many of them had fought at Longwy and along the heights of the Vosges. The youngest of them had bristling beards, their blue coats with turned-back flaps were war-worn and flanked with the dust of long marches; their red trousers were sloppy and stained, but they had not forgotten how to laugh, and the gallantry of their spirits was a joy to see.

They are very proud, these French soldiers, of fighting side by side with their old foes. The English now, after long centuries of strife, from Edward, the Black Prince, to Wellington, are their brothers-in-arms upon the battle-fields, and because I am English they offered me their cigarettes and made me one of them. But I realized even then that the individual is of no account in this inhuman business of war.

It is only masses of men that matter, moved by common obedience at the dictation of mysterious far-off powers, and I thanked Heaven that masses of men were on the move rapidly in vast numbers and in the right direction to support the French lines which had fallen back from Amiens a few hours before I left that town, and whom I had followed in their retirement, back and back, with the English always strengthening their left, but retiring with them almost to the outskirts of Paris itself.

Only this could save Paris—the rapid strengthening of the allied front by enormous reserves strong enough to hold back the arrow-shaped battering ram of the enemy’s main army.

Undoubtedly the French headquarters staff was[200] working heroically and with fine intelligence to save the situation at the very gates of Paris. The country was being swept absolutely clean of troops in all parts of France, where they had been waiting as reserves.

It was astounding to me to see, after those three days of rushing troop trains and of crowded stations not large enough to contain the regiments, how an air of profound solitude and peace had taken possession of all these routes.

In my long journey through and about France and circling round Paris I found myself wondering sometimes whether all this war had not been a dreadful illusion without reality, and a transformation had taken place, startling in its change, from military turmoil to rural peace.

Dijon was emptied of its troops. The road to Châlons was deserted by all but fugitives. The great armed camp at Châlons itself had been cleared out except for a small garrison. The troops at Tours had gone northward to the French center. All our English reserves had been rushed up to the front from Havre and Rouen.

There was only one deduction to be drawn from this great, swift movement—the French and English lines had been supported by every available battalion to save Paris from its menace of destruction, to meet the weight of the enemy’s metal by a force strong enough to resist its mighty mass.

GERMANS BALKED OF THEIR PRIZE

It was still possible that the Germans might be smashed on their left wing, hurled back to the west between Paris and the sea, and cut off from their line of communications. It was undoubtedly this impending peril which scared the enemy’s headquarters staff and upset all its calculations. They had not anticipated the rapidity of the supporting movement of the allied armies, and at the very gates of Paris they saw themselves balked of their prize, the greatest prize of the war, by the necessity of changing front.

The Great German Howitzers.

Hauling a German twenty-one centimeter Howitzer on its firing mat with a purchase on the wheels, which are fitted with caterpillar pads to prevent sinking into soft mud.

Frightful Destruction Caused by German Siege Guns.

Ruins of the Fort Loncin at Liège, Belgium, after the German army had bombarded it with their huge guns and reduced to fragments the strong concrete fortifications. (Copyright by International News Service.)

[201]

To do them justice, they realized instantly the new order of things, and with quick and marvelous decision did not hesitate to alter the direction of their main force. Instead of proceeding to the west of Paris they swung round steadily to the southeast in order to keep their armies away from the enveloping movement of the French and English and drive their famous wedge-like formation southward for the purpose of dividing the allied forces of the west from the French army of the east. The miraculous had happened, and Paris, for a little time at least, was unmolested.

After wandering along the westerly and southerly roads I started for Paris when thousands and scores of thousands were flying from it. At that time I believed, as all France believed, that in a few hours German shells would be crashing across the fortifications of the city and that Paris the beautiful would be Paris the infernal. It needed a good deal of resolution on my part to go deliberately to a city from which the population was fleeing, and I confess quite honestly that I had a nasty sensation in the neighborhood of my waistcoat buttons at the thought.

[202]

SIXTY MILES OF FUGITIVES

Along the road from Tours to Paris there were sixty unbroken miles of people—on my honor, I do not exaggerate, but write the absolute truth. They were all people who had despaired of breaking through the dense masses of their fellow-citizens camped around the railway stations, and had decided to take the roads as the only way of escape.

The vehicles were taxicabs, for which the rich paid fabulous prices; motor cars which had escaped military requisition, farmers’ carts laden with several families and piles of household goods, shop carts drawn by horses already tired to the point of death because of the weight of the people who crowded behind, pony traps and governess carts.

Many persons, well dressed and belonging obviously to well-to-do bourgeoisie, were wheeling barrows like costers, but instead of trundling cabbages were pushing forward sleeping babies and little children, who seemed on the first stage to find new amusement and excitement in the journey from home; but for the most part they trudged along bravely, carrying their babies and holding the hands of their little ones.

They were of all classes, rank and fortune being annihilated by the common tragedy. Elegant women whose beauty is known in Paris salons, whose frivolity, perhaps, in the past was the main purpose of their life, were now on a level with the peasant mothers of the French suburbs and with the “midinettes” of Montmartre, and their courage did not fail them so quickly.

I looked into many proud, brave faces of these delicate women, walking in high-heeled shoes, all too[203] frail for the hard, dusty roadways. They belonged to the same race and breed as those ladies who defied death with fine disdain upon the scaffold of the guillotine in the great Revolution.

They were leaving Paris now, not because of any fears for themselves—I believe they were fearless—but because they had decided to save the little sons and daughters of soldier fathers.

This great army in retreat was made up of every type familiar in Paris.

Here were women of the gay world, poor creatures whose painted faces had been washed with tears, and whose tight skirts and white stockings were never made for a long march down the highways of France.

Here also were thousands of those poor old ladies who live on a few francs a week in the top attics of the Paris streets which Balzac knew; they had fled from their poor sanctuaries and some of them were still carrying cats and canaries, as dear to them as their own lives.

There was one young woman who walked with a pet monkey on her shoulder while she carried a bird in a golden cage. Old men, who remembered 1870, gave their arms to old ladies to whom they had made love when the Prussians were at the gates of Paris then.

It was pitiful to see these old people now hobbling along together—pitiful, but beautiful also, because of their lasting love.

Young boy students, with ties as black as their hats and rat-tail hair, marched in small companies of comrades, singing brave songs, as though they had no fear in their hearts, and very little food, I think, in their stomachs.

[204]

Shopgirls and concierges, city clerks, old aristocrats, young boys and girls, who supported grandfathers and grandmothers and carried new-born babies and gave pick-a-back rides to little brothers and sisters, came along the way of retreat.

TERROR IN EYES

Each human being in the vast torrent of life will have an unforgettable story of adventure to tell if life remains. As a novelist I should have been glad to get their narratives along this road for a great story of suffering and strange adventure, but there was no time for that and no excuse.

When I met many of them they were almost beyond the power of words. The hot sun of this September had beaten down upon them—scorching them as in the glow of molten metal. Their tongues clave to their mouths with thirst.

Some of them had that wild look in their eyes which is the first sign of the delirium of thirst and fatigue.

Nothing to eat or drink could be found on the way from Paris. The little roadside cafés had been cleared out by the preceding hordes.

Unless these people carried their own food and drink they could have none except of the charity of their comrades in misfortune, and that charity has exceeded all other acts of heroism in this war. Women gave their last biscuit, their last little drop of wine, to poor mothers whose children were famishing with thirst and hunger; peasant women fed other women’s babies when their own were satisfied.

It was a tragic road. At every mile of it there were[205] people who had fainted on the roadside and poor old men and women who could go no farther, but sat on the banks below the hedges, weeping silently or bidding younger ones go forward and leave them to their fate. Young women who had stepped out jauntily at first were so footsore and lame that they limped along with lines of pain about their lips and eyes.

Many of the taxicabs, bought at great prices, and many of the motor cars had broken down as I passed, and had been abandoned by their owners, who had decided to walk. Farmers’ carts had bolted into ditches and lost their wheels. Wheelbarrows, too heavy to be trundled, had been tilted up, with all their household goods spilled into the roadway, and the children had been carried farther, until at last darkness came, and their only shelter was a haystack in a field under the harvest moon.

For days also I have been wedged up with fugitives in railway trains more dreadful than the open roads, stifling in their heat and heart-racking in their cargoes of misery. Poor women have wept hysterically clasping my hand, a stranger’s hand, for comfort in their wretchedness and weakness. Yet on the whole they have shown amazing courage, and, after their tears, have laughed at their own breakdown, and, always the children of France have been superb, so that again and again I have wondered at the gallantry with which they endured this horror. Young boys have revealed the heroic strain in them and have played the part of men in helping their mothers. And yet, when I came at last into Paris against all this tide of retreat, it seemed a needless fear that had driven these people away.

[206]

PARIS THE BEAUTIFUL

Then I passed long lines of beautiful little villas on the Seine side, utterly abandoned among their trees and flowers. A solitary fisherman held his line above the water as though all the world were at peace, and in a field close to the fortifications which I expected to see bursting with shells, an old peasant bent above the furrows and planted cabbages. Then, at last, I walked through the streets of Paris and found them strangely quiet and tranquil.

The people I met looked perfectly calm. There were a few children playing in the gardens of Champs Elysées and under the Arc de Triomphe symbolical of the glory of France.

I looked back upon the beauty of Paris all golden in the light of the setting sun, with its glinting spires and white gleaming palaces and rays of light flashing in front of the golden trophies of its monuments. Paris was still unbroken. No shell had come shattering into this city of splendor, and I thanked Heaven that for a little while the peril had passed.

[207]

CHAPTER XIX
FACING DEATH IN THE TRENCHES

CAVE-DWELLING THE LOT OF MODERN SOLDIERS — GERMANS HAVE LEARNED MUCH — STANDARDIZED MODEL — FRENCH STUDY OF GERMAN METHODS — “COMFORTS OF HOME”—BRITISH REFUGES IN NORTHERN FRANCE — “PICNICKING” IN THE OPEN AIR — RAVAGES OF ARTILLERY FIRE — THE COMMON ENEMY, THE WEATHER — WHY COOKS WEAR IRON CROSSES — “PUTTING ONE OVER” ON THE RUSSIANS.

“Other times, other manners” applies as accurately to the battle-field as it does elsewhere. The cavalry charge is nearly extinct, mass formation is going, hand-to-hand conflict is rarely found, and now, it appears, the old-fashioned and romantic bivouac is no more. Trench-fighting has been carried on to such an extent in France and Belgium, and Poland, that the open camp, with its rows of little tents, outposts, and sentry guard, becomes almost a forgotten picture of warfare. Doubtless the military schools of the future will make provision for special instruction in the construction of commodious caverns on the battle-field, safe, warm, and containing all the comforts of a barrack.

The modern warrior, like a mole, lives under ground and displays his greatest activity at night. With the coming of subterranean warfare, as trench-fighting[208] can be appropriately called, great armies have had to adopt unique methods. They have been compelled to build peculiar little forts—for a trench is a fort, in fact—wherever their soldiers meet the enemy. In consequence these rectangular excavations have been improved far beyond their original outline.

The first trench was nothing more nor less than a hole in the ground, deep enough to protect a man kneeling, standing, or sitting, as the case might be. Before the advent of the modern rifle and modern cannon, these defenses, with several feet of loose earth thrown up in front of them, served admirably. In those days the question of head-cover was of minor importance; today a protective roofing is the sine qua non of any well-constructed trench. Early in the European war it was discovered that the trench offered the safest haven from the bursting shells of the enemy’s field artillery. To all intents and purposes, shrapnel, or, as its inventor termed it, the man-killing projectile—is practically harmless in its effect upon entrenched troops. Unless a shell can be placed absolutely within the two-feet wide excavation it wastes its destructive powers on the inoffensive earth and air. This has led to a modification of artillery methods, which, in turn, compels the elaboration of the trench and emphasizes the importance of head-cover.

GERMANS HAVE LEARNED MUCH

“The history of the great war,” to quote from a French paper, “will show, among other things, how the Germans profited by the lessons of recent conflicts.[209] The South African, the Russo-Japanese, and the Balkan wars were studied minutely by them, and their particular preparations, their tactics, and their artifices result from the knowledge thus acquired. They learned much, especially, as regards the formation of trenches.

“After 1870 we confined ourselves to three regulation types of trenches: for men prone, kneeling, and standing. While in training, our soldiers were taught how to take shelter momentarily between advances, by digging up the soil a little and lying flat behind the smallest of mounds. They were instructed, moreover, how to protect themselves from the enemy’s fire by propping up their knapsacks in front of them. This meant insufficient protection, and an extremely dangerous visibility, since the foe, by simply counting the number of knapsacks, could know the strength opposed to him. To insure the making of such shelter, a French company was equipped with eighty picks and eighty spades; that is, 160 tools for 250 men. These tools were fixed on to the knapsacks; and it took some time to bring them into use.”

The German methods for defensive and offensive trench-making are quite different. Each man has a tool of his own, which is fixed on to the scabbard of his sword-bayonet. When occasion for fighting arises, the line conceals itself, and, as soon as it is engaged, it prepares for possible retreat, making strong positions assuring an unrelenting defensive and counter-attacks.

STANDARDIZED MODEL

It is on these sound principles that all the German fighting-lines are organized, on a more or less standardized[210] model. The fighting-lines consist generally of one, two, or three lines of shelter-trenches lying parallel, measuring twenty or twenty-five inches in width, and varying in length according to the number they hold; the trenches are joined together by zigzag approaches and by a line of reinforced trenches (armed with machine guns), which are almost completely proof against rifle, machine gun, or gun fire. The ordinary German trenches are almost invisible from 350 yards away, a distance which permits a very deadly fire. It is easy to realize that if the enemy occupies three successive lines and a line of reinforced entrenchments, the attacking line is likely, at the lowest estimate, to be decimated during an advance of 650 yards—by rifle-fire at a range of 350 yards’ distance, and by the extremely quick fire of the machine guns, which can each deliver from 300 to 600 bullets a minute with absolute precision. In the field-trench, it is obvious, a soldier enjoys far greater security than he would if merely prone behind his knapsack in an excavation barely fifteen inches deep. He has merely to stoop down a little to disappear below the level of the ground and be immune from infantry fire; moreover, his machine guns can fire without endangering him. In addition, this stooping position brings the man’s knapsack on a level with his helmet, thus forming some protection against shrapnel and shell-splinters.

At the back of the German trenches, shelters are dug for non-commissioned officers and for the commander of the unit. The latter’s shelter is connected with the communication trench; the others are not. If one adds that the bank, or, rather, the earth that is dug from the trenches and spread out in front, extends for five or six yards, and is covered with grass, or appropriate vegetation, it will be recognized that the works concealing the German lines can be seen only when a near approach is made to them.

[211]

Reinforced Trenches.

Upper view: Details of roofs, loop-holes, and the form of the excavations. Lower left-hand view: Vertical section of trenches and shelters. Lower right-hand view: A plan and section of trenches and rest-room.

Larger illustration (254 kB)

[212]

As to reinforced trenches, the drawings show clearly their conception and arrangement. They are proof against ordinary bullets and shrapnel. Only percussion-shells are able to destroy them and to decimate their defenders. The interior details of the trenches vary according to the ingenuity and spare time of the occupants and the nature of the ground.

FRENCH STUDY OF GERMAN METHODS

The whole system, that of the rest-rooms more especially, is designed to give the men the maximum of comfort and security. Doors and wooden shutters wrenched from deserted houses are used for covers, or else turf-covered branches.

Ever since the outbreak of the war, the French troops in Lorraine, after severe experiences, realized rapidly the advantages of the German trenches, and began to study those they had taken gloriously. Officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the Engineers were straightway detached in every unit to teach the infantry how to construct similar shelters. The education was quick, and very soon they had completed the work necessary for the protection of all. The tools of the enemy “casualties,” the spades and picks left behind in deserted villages, were all gladly piled on to the French soldiers’ knapsacks, to be carried willingly by the very men who used to grumble at being loaded with even the smallest regulation tool. As soon as night had set in on the occasion of a lull in the fighting, the digging of the trenches was begun. Sometimes, in[213] the darkness, the men of each fighting nation—less than 500 yards away from their enemy—would hear the noise of the workers of the foe: the sounds of picks and axes; the officers’ words of encouragement; and tacitly they would agree to an armistice during which to dig shelters from which, in the morning, they would dash out, to fight once more.

“COMFORTS OF HOME”

Commodious, indeed, are some of the present trench barracks, if we may believe the letters from the front. One French soldier writes:

“In really up-to-date entrenchments you may find kitchens, dining-rooms, bedrooms, and even stables. One regiment has first class cow-sheds. One day a whimsical ‘piou-piou,’ finding a cow wandering about in the danger zone, had the bright idea of finding shelter for it in the trenches. The example was quickly followed, and at this moment the —th Infantry possess an underground farm, in which fat kine, well cared for, give such quantities of milk that regular distributions of butter are being made—and very good butter, too.”

But this is not all. An officer writes home a tale of yet another one of the comforts of home added to the equipment of the trenches:

“We are clean people here. Thanks to the ingenuity of ——, we are able to take a warm bath every day from ten to twelve. We call this teasing the ‘bosches,’ for this bathing-establishment of the latest type is fitted up—would you believe it?—in the trenches!”

[214]

BRITISH REFUGES IN NORTHERN FRANCE

Describing trenches occupied by the British in their protracted “siege-warfare” in Northern France along and to the north of the Aisne Valley, a British officer wrote: “In the firing-line the men sleep and obtain shelter in the dugouts they have hollowed or ‘undercut’ in the side of the trenches. These refuges are slightly raised above the bottom of the trench, so as to remain dry in wet weather. The floor of the trench is also sloped for purposes of draining. Some trenches are provided with head-cover, and others with overhead cover, the latter, of course, giving protection from the weather as well as from shrapnel balls and splinters of shells. . . . At all points subject to shell-fire access to the firing-line from behind is provided by communication-trenches. These are now so good that it is possible to cross in safety the fire-swept zone to the advanced trenches from the billets in villages, the bivouacs in quarries, or the other places where the headquarters of units happen to be.”

“PICNICKING” IN THE OPEN AIR

A cavalry subaltern gave the following account of life in the trenches: “Picnicking in the open air, day and night (you never see a roof now), is the only real method of existence. There are loads of straw to bed down on, and everyone sleeps like a log, in turn, even with shrapnel bursting within fifty yards.”

RAVAGES OF ARTILLERY FIRE

One English officer described the ravages of modern artillery fire, not only upon all men, animals and[215] buildings within its zone, but upon the very face of nature itself: “In the trenches crouch lines of men, in brown or gray or blue, coated with mud, unshaven, hollow-eyed with the continual strain.”

“The fighting is now taking place over ground where both sides have for weeks past been excavating in all directions,” said another letter from the front, “until it has become a perfect labyrinth. A trench runs straight for a considerable distance, then it suddenly forks in three or four directions. One branch merely leads into a ditch full of water, used in drier weather as a means of communication; another ends abruptly in a cul-de-sac, probably an abandoned sap-head; the third winds on, leading into galleries and passages further forward.

“Sometimes where new ground is broken the spade turns up the long-buried dead, ghastly relics of former fights, and on all sides the surface of the earth is ploughed and furrowed by fragments of shell and bombs and distorted by mines. Seen from a distance, this apparently confused mass of passages, crossing and recrossing one another, resembles an irregular gridiron.

“The life led by the infantry on both sides at close quarters is a strange, cramped existence, with death always near, either by means of some missile from above or some mine explosion from beneath—a life which has one dull, monotonous background of mud and water. Even when there is but little fighting the troops are kept hard at work strengthening the existing defenses, constructing others, and improvising the shelter imperative in such weather.”

[216]

THE COMMON ENEMY, THE WEATHER

But it is not the guns or cannon of the enemy that affect the spirits of the soldiers. It is the weather. A week of alternate rain and snow, when the ill-drained dugouts are half-filled with a freezing viscid mud; when, day after day, the feet are numbed by the frost until all sensation in them is deadened; when the coarse, scanty ration is refused by the tortured stomach—then it is that the spirits of the stoutest falter. Let the enemy attack as he will, and he must fail. It is only in fighting that the men find an outlet for their rancor.

More than thirty years ago a well-known German general declared that a book on “Seasonal Tactics” might as properly be written as those on the tactics of weapons, and of geographical conditions; and in a recent issue of the Deutsche Revue an unsigned article by a veteran of the Franco-Prussian war recounts the difficulties that arise when the Frost King holds sway. “To begin with, the precious hours of daylight are much fewer, and even these may be shortened by overcast skies and heavy fogs. Soft snow and mud seriously impede marching and at times it is impossible to take cross-country cuts, even single horsemen having great difficulty in crossing the frozen ridges of plowed fields or stubble. Moreover, even regular highways may become so slippery that they endanger both man and horse, and in hilly country such conditions make it necessary to haul heavy artillery up steep ascents by man-power. Cold head-winds also greatly impede progress.

“The necessity of bringing the troops under cover enforces long marches at the end of the day’s work, and again at its beginning, and therefore makes extra demands on energy. . . . The early dark hinders the offense from carrying out its plans completely and from utilizing any advantage won by following it up energetically. Night battles become frequent. The defense seeks to regain what it has lost by day, the offense to make use of the long nights to win what it could not achieve in the daytime. Then, too, the need of getting warmed-up makes the troops more enterprising.”

Sinking of a Torpedoed Battleship.

As the British vessel “Aboukir” was sinking after being torpedoed by a German submarine, one of the sailors described the last moment as follows: “The captain sings out an order just like on any ordinary occasion, ‘If any man wishes to leave the side of the ship he can do so, every man for himself,’ then we gave a cheer and in we went.”

Rescuing Sailors After Sinking of German Battleship.

The conduct of the British fleet is well illustrated by this picture, which shows life-boats and torpedo destroyers rescuing the drowning sailors of a German battleship after the latter had been sunk. The heads and shoulders of numerous unfortunate men are seen dotted about in the water. (Photo by Underwood and Underwood.)

[217]

All sorts of constructive work—fortification building, the erection of stations for telegraphs, telephones and wireless, etc.—is naturally much more difficult in frozen ground. General von der Goltz of the German Army is said to have recommended many years ago that in view of possible winter campaigns provision should be made in quantity of warm winter clothing, materials for the building of barracks, making double tents, etc. Another important preventive of suffering and the consequent diminished efficiency is to provide plenty of good hot food for the men.

WHY COOKS WEAR IRON CROSSES

“There isn’t anything heroic about cooks,” wrote Herbert Corey in the New York Globe, “and when things go wrong one either apprehends a cook as chasing a waiter with a bread-knife or giving way to tears.” Yet the German army contains many a cook whose expansive apron is decorated with the Iron Cross. “And the Iron Cross,” Mr. Corey reminds us, “is conferred for one thing only—for 100 per cent courage.”

[218]

“‘They’ve earned it,’ said the man who had seen them. ‘They are the bravest men in the Kaiser’s four millions. I’ve seen generals salute greasy, paunchy, sour-looking army cooks.’

“The cook’s job is to feed the men of his company. Each German company is followed, or preceded, by a field-kitchen on wheels. Sometimes the fires are kept going while the device trundles along. The cook stands on the foot-board and thumps his bread. He is always the first man up in the morning and the last to sleep at night.

“When that company goes into the trenches the cook stays behind. There is no place for a field-kitchen in a four-foot trench. But these men in the trench must be fed. The Teuton insists that all soldiers must be fed—but especially the men in the trench. The others may go hungry, but these must have tight belts. Upon their staying power may depend the safety of an army.

“So, as the company can not go to the cook, the cook goes to the company. When meal-hour comes he puts a yoke on his shoulders and a cook’s cap on his head and, warning the second cook as to what will happen if he lets the fires go out, puts a bucketful of hot veal stew on either end of the yoke and goes to his men. Maybe the trench is under fire. No matter. His men are in that trench and must be fed.

“Sometimes the second cook gets his step right here. Sometimes the apprentice cook—the dish-washer—is summoned to pick up the cook’s yoke and refill the spilled buckets and tramp steadily forward to the line. Sometimes the supply of assistant cooks, even, runs[219] short. But the men in the trenches always get their food.

“‘That’s why so many cooks in the German Army have Iron Crosses dangling from their breasts,’ said the man who knows. ‘No braver men ever lived. The man in the trench can duck his head and light his pipe and be relatively safe. No fat cook yoked to two buckets of veal stew ever can be safe as he marches down the trench.’”

“PUTTING ONE OVER” ON THE RUSSIANS

Granville Fortescue, who visited the Russian trenches in Poland, related in the Illustrated London News a story of how the Germans, to use a slang phrase, “put one over” on the too-confiding Russians. “This happened,” he wrote, “at a portion of the line where the positions ran so close that the men could communicate by shouting. It was around Christmas, and the Germans invited the Russians to come over for a hot cup of new coffee just received from home. The Russians replied to this invitation, shouting: ‘Come over and try our tea. It’s a special gift from the Czar.’

“The Germans then put up the white flag, and said that they would send over fifteen men to try the tea if the Russians would send over the same number to sample their coffee. The plan was carried out. When the fifteen Germans appeared in the Russian trench, the hosts remarked to one another that if these were a sample the enemy would not hold out long. They were a sick-looking lot. Suddenly the Germans pulled down their white flag and commenced firing. Then the[220] Russians found that they had exchanged fifteen good soldiers for fifteen typhus patients.

“It is easy to believe that the Russian soldier could be imposed upon in this way. Although extremely courageous, he is very simple-minded with it all, and certainly trusting. He is a splendid physical specimen. In the trail of trench warfare this is the great desideratum. Then, the Russians of the type that are drafted into the army have all their life been accustomed to privation and exposure. For this reason they are the only troops that I have seen who can stick six days and nights on end in a trench, under constant small arms and shell fire, with the temperature below zero, and after a day’s rest be as good as ever. The Russians never grumble.”

[221]

CHAPTER XX
A VIVID PICTURE OF WAR

THE BATTLE OF NEUVE CHAPELLE — A SURPRISE PREPARED — “HELL BROKE LOOSE”—A HORRIBLE THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES — TRENCHES FILLED WITH DEAD — HOARSE SHOUTS AND THE GROANS OF THE WOUNDED — INDESCRIBABLE MASS OF RUINS RUINS — “SMEARED WITH DUST AND BLOOD.”

One of the most vivid word-pictures of what war means in all its horror was told by an eye-witness of the battle of Neuve Chapelle in which the British soldiers dislodged the Germans from an important position. He said:

“The dawn, which broke reluctantly through a veil of clouds on the morning of Wednesday, March 10, 1915, seemed as any other to the Germans behind the white and blue sandbags in their long line of trenches curving in a hemicycle about the battered village of Neuve Chapelle. For five months they had remained undisputed masters of the positions they had here wrested from the British in October. Ensconced in their comfortably-arranged trenches with but a thin outpost in their fire trenches, they had watched day succeed day and night succeed night without the least variation from the monotony of trench warfare, the intermittent bark of the machine guns—rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—and the perpetual rattle of rifle fire, with here and there a bomb, and now and then an exploded mine.

[222]

A SURPRISE PREPARED

“For weeks past the German airmen had grown strangely shy. On this Wednesday morning none were aloft to spy out the strange doings which as dawn broke might have been descried on the desolate roads behind the British lines.

“From ten o’clock of the preceding evening endless files of men marched silently down the roads leading towards the German positions through Laventie and Richebourg St. Vaast, poor shattered villages of the dead where months of incessant bombardment have driven away the last inhabitants and left roofless houses and rent roadways. . . .

“Two days before, a quiet room, where Nelson’s Prayer stands on the mantel-shelf, saw the ripening of the plans that sent these sturdy sons of Britain’s four kingdoms marching all through the night. Sir John French met the army corps commanders and unfolded to them his plans for the offensive of the British Army against the German line at Neuve Chapelle.

“The onslaught was to be a surprise. That was its essence. The Germans were to be battered with artillery, then rushed before they recovered their wits. We had thirty-six clear hours before us. Thus long, it was reckoned (with complete accuracy as afterwards appeared), must elapse before the Germans, whose line before us had been weakened, could rush up reinforcements. To ensure the enemy’s being pinned down right and left of the ‘great push,’ an attack was to be delivered north and south of the main thrust simultaneously with the assault on Neuve Chapelle.”

After describing the impatience of the British[223] soldiers as they awaited the signal to open the attack, and the actual beginning of the engagement, the narrator continues:

“There Is Nothing to Report.”

“HELL BROKE LOOSE”

“Then hell broke loose. With a mighty, hideous, screeching burst of noise, hundreds of guns spoke. The men in the front trenches were deafened by the sharp reports of the field-guns spitting out their shells at close range to cut through the Germans’ barbed wire entanglements. In some cases the trajectory of these vicious missiles was so flat that they passed only a few feet above the British trenches.

“The din was continuous. An officer who had the curious idea of putting his ear to the ground said it was as though the earth were being smitten great blows with a Titan’s hammer. After the first few shells had plunged screaming amid clouds of earth and dust into the German trenches, a dense pall of smoke hung over the German lines. The sickening fumes of[224] lyddite blew back into the British trenches. In some places the troops were smothered in earth and dust or even spattered with blood from the hideous fragments of human bodies that went hurtling through the air. At one point the upper half of a German officer, his cap crammed on his head, was blown into one of our trenches.

A HORRIBLE THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES

“Words will never convey any adequate idea of the horror of those five and thirty minutes. When the hands of officers’ watches pointed to five minutes past eight, whistles resounded along the British lines. At the same moment the shells began to burst farther ahead, for, by previous arrangement, the gunners, lengthening their fuses, were ‘lifting’ on to the village of Neuve Chapelle so as to leave the road open for our infantry to rush in and finish what the guns had begun.

“The shells were now falling thick among the houses of Neuve Chapelle, a confused mass of buildings seen reddish through the pillars of smoke and flying earth and dust. At the sound of the whistle—alas for the bugle, once the herald of victory, now banished from the fray!—our men scrambled out of the trenches and hurried higgledy-piggledy into the open. Their officers were in front. Many, wearing overcoats and carrying rifles with fixed bayonets, closely resembled their men.

TRENCHES FILLED WITH DEAD

“It was from the center of our attacking line that the assault was pressed home soonest. The guns had done their work well. The trenches were blown to[225] irrecognizable pits dotted with dead. The barbed wire had been cut like so much twine. Starting from the Rue Tilleloy the Lincolns and the Berkshires were off the mark first, with orders to swerve to right and left respectively as soon as they had captured the first line of trenches, in order to let the Royal Irish Rifles and the Rifle Brigade through to the village. The Germans left alive in the trenches, half demented with fright, surrounded by a welter of dead and dying men, mostly surrendered. The Berkshires were opposed with the utmost gallantry by two German officers who had remained alone in a trench serving a machine gun. But the lads from Berkshire made their way into that trench and bayoneted the Germans where they stood, fighting to the last. The Lincolns, against desperate resistance, eventually occupied their section of the trench and then waited for the Irishmen and the Rifle Brigade to come and take the village ahead of them. Meanwhile the second thirty-ninth Garhwalis on the right had taken their trenches with a rush and were away towards the village and the Biez Wood.

HOARSE SHOUTS AND THE GROANS OF THE WOUNDED

“Things had moved so fast that by the time the troops were ready to advance against the village the artillery had not finished its work. So, while the Lincolns and the Berks assembled the prisoners who were trooping out of the trenches in all directions, the infantry on whom devolved the honor of capturing the village, waited. One saw them standing out in the open, laughing and cracking jokes amid the terrific din made by the huge howitzer shells screeching overhead[226] and bursting in the village, the rattle of machine guns all along the line, and the popping of rifles. Over to the right where the Garhwalis had been working with the bayonet, men were shouting hoarsely and wounded were groaning as the stretcher-bearers, all heedless of bullets, moved swiftly to and fro over the shell-torn ground.

“There was bloody work in the village of Neuve Chapelle. The capture of a place at the bayonet point is generally a grim business, in which instant, unconditional surrender is the only means by which bloodshed, a deal of bloodshed, can be prevented. If there is individual resistance here and there the attacking troops cannot discriminate. They must go through, slaying as they go such as oppose them (the Germans have a monopoly of the finishing-off of wounded men), otherwise the enemy’s resistance would not be broken, and the assailants would be sniped and enfiladed from hastily prepared strongholds at half a dozen different points.

INDESCRIBABLE MASS OF RUINS

“The village was a sight that the men say they will never forget. It looked as if an earthquake had struck it. The published photographs do not give any idea of the indescribable mass of ruins to which our guns reduced it. The chaos is so utter that the very line of the streets is all but obliterated.

“It was indeed a scene of desolation into which the Rifle Brigade—the first regiment to enter the village, I believe—raced headlong. Of the church only the bare shell remained, the interior lost to view beneath[227] a gigantic mound of debris. The little churchyard was devastated, the very dead plucked from their graves, broken coffins and ancient bones scattered about amid the fresher dead, the slain of that morning—grey green forms asprawl athwart the tombs. Of all that once fair village but two things remained intact—two great crucifixes reared aloft, one in the churchyard, the other over against the château. From the cross that is the emblem of our faith the figure of Christ, yet intact though all pitted with bullet marks, looked down in mute agony on the slain in the village.

“SMEARED WITH DUST AND BLOOD”

“The din and confusion were indescribable. Through the thick pall of shell smoke Germans were seen on all sides, some emerging hall dazed from cellars and dugouts, their hands above their heads, others dodging round the shattered houses, others firing from the windows, from behind carts, even from behind the overturned tombstones. Machine guns were firing from the houses on the outskirts, rapping out their nerve-racking note above the noise of the rifles.

“Just outside the village there was a scene of tremendous enthusiasm. The Rifle Brigade, smeared with dust and blood, fell in with the Third Gurkhas with whom they had been brigaded in India. The little brown men were dirty but radiant. Kukri in hand they had very thoroughly gone through some houses at the cross-roads on the Rue du Bois and silenced a party of Germans who were making themselves a nuisance there with some machine guns. Riflemen and Gurkhas cheered themselves hoarse.”

[228]

CHAPTER XXI
HARROWING SCENES ALONG THE BATTLE LINES

DRIVING BACK THE GERMANS UNDER FIRE — ON THE FIRING LINE — AMONG MANGLED HORSES AND MEN — GERMAN LOSSES FRIGHTFUL — DIXMUDE A PLACE OF DEATH AND HORROR.

Some idea of the ruin wrought day after day as the battle raged in Flanders may be gained from the occasional reports of war correspondents who shared the fortunes of battle.

“The battle rages along the Yser with frightful destruction of life,” wrote a correspondent of the London Daily News in October. “Air engines, sea engines, and land engines death-sweep this desolate country, vertically, horizontally, and transversely. Through it the frail little human engines crawl and dig, walk and run, skirmishing, charging, and blundering in little individual fights and tussles, tired and puzzled, ordered here and there, sleeping where they can, never washing, and dying unnoticed. A friend may find himself firing on a friendly force, and few are to blame.

“Thursday the Germans were driven back over the Yser; Friday they secured a footing again, and Saturday they were again hurled back. Now a bridge blown up by one side is repaired by the other; it is again[229] blown up by the first, or left as a death trap till the enemy is actually crossing.

POVERTY—HATRED—REVENGE—STARVATION

These Always Survive.

“Actions by armored trains, some of them the most reckless adventures, are attempted daily. Each day accumulates an unwritten record of individual daring feats, accepted as part of the daily work. Day by day our men push out on these dangerous explorations, attacked by shell fire, in danger of cross-fire, dynamite, and ambuscades, bringing a priceless support to the threatened lines. As the armored train approaches the river under shell fire the car cracks with the constant thunder of guns aboard. It is amazing to see the angle at which the guns can be swung.

“And overhead the airmen are busy venturing through fog and puffs of exploding shells to get one small fact of information. We used to regard the looping of the loop of the Germans overhead as a hare-brained piece of impudent defiance to our infantry fire. Now we know it means early trouble for the infantry.

“Besides us, as we crawl up snuffing the lines like[230] dogs on a scent, grim train-loads of wounded wait soundlessly in the sidings. Further up the line ambulances are coming slowly back. The bullets of machine guns begin to rattle on our armored coats. Shells we learned to disregard, but the machine gun is the master in this war.

“Now we near the river at a flat country farm. The territory is scarred with trenches, and it is impossible to say at first who is in them, so incidental and separate are the fortunes of this riverside battle. The Germans are on our bank enfilading the lines of the Allies’ trenches. We creep up and the Germans come into sight out of the trenches, rush to the bank, and are scattered and mashed. The Allies follow with a fierce bayonet charge.

“The Germans do not wait. They rush to the bridges and are swept away by the deadliest destroyer of all, the machine gun. The bridge is blown up, but who can say by whom? Quickly the train runs back.

“‘A brisk day,’ remarks the correspondent. ‘Not so bad,’ replies the officer. So the days pass.”

ON THE FIRING LINE

Another correspondent who, accompanied by a son of the Belgian War Minister, M. de Broqueville, made a tour of the battleground in the Dixmude district wrote:

“No pen could do justice to the grandeur and horror of the scene. As far as the eye could reach nothing could be seen but burning villages and bursting shells.

“Arriving at the firing line, a terrible scene presented itself. The shell fire from the German batteries was[231] so terrific that Belgian soldiers and French marines were continually being blown out of their dugouts and sent scattering to cover. Elsewhere, also, little groups of peasants were forced to flee because their cellars began to fall in. These unfortunates had to make their way as best they could on foot to the rear. They were frightened to death by the bursting shells, and the sight of crying children among them was most pathetic.

“Dixmude was the objective of the German attack, and shells were bursting all over it, crashing among the roofs and blowing whole streets to pieces. From a distance of three miles we could hear them crashing down, but the town itself was invisible, except for the flames and the smoke and clouds rising above it. The Belgians had only a few field batteries, so that the enemy’s howitzers simply dominated the field, and the infantry trenches around the town had to rely upon their own unaided efforts.

AMONG MANGLED HORSES AND MEN

“Our progress along the road was suddenly stopped by one of the most horrible sights I have ever seen. A heavy howitzer shell had fallen and burst right in the midst of a Belgian battery which was making its way to the front, causing terrible destruction. The mangled horses and men among the debris presented a shocking spectacle.

“Eventually, we got into Dixmude itself, and every time a shell came crashing among the roofs we thought our end had come. The Hôtel de Ville (town hall) was a sad sight. The roof was completely riddled[232] by shell, while inside was a scene of chaos. It was piled with loaves of bread, bicycles, and dead soldiers.

“The battle redoubled in fury, and by seven o’clock in the evening Dixmude was a furnace, presenting a scene of terrible grandeur. The horizon was red with burning homes.

“Our return journey was a melancholy one, owing to the constant trains of wounded that were passing.”

GERMAN LOSSES FRIGHTFUL

“The German losses are frightful” wrote another correspondent. “Three meadows near Ostend are heaped with dead. The wounded are now installed in private houses in Bruges, where large wooden sheds are being rushed up to receive additional injured. Thirty-seven farm wagons containing wounded, dying, and dead passed in one hour near Middelkerke.”

DIXMUDE A PLACE OF DEATH AND HORROR

From Fumes, Belgium, members of the staff of the English hospital traveled to Dixmude to search for wounded men on the firing line. Philip Gibbs, of the London Daily Chronicle, who traveled with them in reporting his experiences, said:

“I was in one of the ambulances, and Mr. Gleeson sat behind me in the narrow space between the stretchers. Over his shoulder he talked in a quiet voice of the job that lay before us. I was glad of that quiet voice, so placid in its courage. We went forward at what seemed to me a crawl, though I think it was a fair pace, shells bursting around us now on all sides, while shrapnel bullets sprayed the earth about us. It appeared to me an odd thing that we were still alive. Then we came into Dixmude.

Destruction of the Sea-Raider “Emden.”

The Australian cruiser “Sydney” came up with the German cruiser “Emden” off the Cocos Keeling Island on November 9. After the “Sydney” had fired six hundred rounds of ammunition and covered fifty-six miles in maneuvering, she forced the “Emden” to run ashore owing to the breaking of her steering gear. The German vessel ran at a speed of nineteen knots upon the beach, the shock killing the man at the wheel. (From a direct camera picture taken on board the “Sydney.”)

Sinking of the German Cruiser “Bluecher.”

This most dramatic photograph of the Great North Sea Battle, in which the British fleet was victor, January 24, 1915, shows the death agony of the German cruiser “Bluecher” just as she turned turtle and sank. The ship is shown lying on her side, with her machinery and armament shot into masses of twisted iron and steel, great fires raging forward, amidship and aft. The officers and men can be seen ranged along the side of the vessel: many of them have slipped into the water and may be seen swimming about. (Copyright by the International News Service.)

[233]

“When I saw it for the first and last time it was a place of death and horror. The streets through which we passed were utterly deserted and wrecked from end to end, as though by an earthquake. Incessant explosions of shell fire crashed down upon the walls which still stood. Great gashes opened in the walls, which then toppled and fell. A roof came tumbling down with an appalling clatter. Like a house of cards blown by a puff of wind, a little shop suddenly collapsed into a mass of ruins. Here and there, further into the town, we saw living figures. They ran swiftly for a moment and then disappeared into dark caverns under toppling porticoes. They were Belgian soldiers. . . .

“We stood on some steps, looking down into that cellar. It was a dark hole, illumined dimly by a lantern, I think. I caught sight of a little heap of huddled bodies. Two soldiers, still unwounded, dragged three of them out and handed them up to us. The work of getting those three men into the first ambulance seemed to us interminable; it was really no more than fifteen or twenty minutes.

“I had lost consciousness of myself. Something outside myself, as it seemed, was saying that there was no way of escape; that it was monstrous to suppose that all these bursting shells would not smash the ambulance to bits and finish the agony of the wounded, and that death was very hideous. I remember thinking also how ridiculous it was for men to kill one another like this and to make such hells on earth.”

[234]

CHAPTER XXII
WHAT THE MEN IN THE TRENCHES WRITE HOME

SOBERING REALITIES OF BATTLE — “WAR IS TERRIBLE”—THE COMMON ENEMY, DEATH—“A WASTEFUL WAR”—“SAME PAIR OF BLUE EYES”—FIGHTING WITHOUT HATE.

Life at the front is not all marching and fighting by any means: there are long days and nights of waiting in which though it be

the soldiers have abundant time to reflect upon the grim fatality of war and the hideousness of the carnage. They are continually facing death, and though many of them, perhaps most of them, become inured to the sights of human slaughter, others cannot fail to be impressed by the stark, white faces of the fallen—friends and foes alike. Sights more horrible than perhaps they could have imagined are burned into their minds, never to be effaced.

Naturally some of their reflections find expression in the letters home, when the soldier is more or less off guard. There we get an “inside view” of the war which does much to offset the ruthlessness of rulers and restore one’s faith in the essential humanity of men.

[235]

“WAR IS TERRIBLE”

The following letter, which Refers to the fighting along the Aisne, was found on a German officer of the Seventh Reserve Corp:

“Cerny, South of Laon, Sept. 14, 1914.

“My dear Parents: Our corps has the task of holding the heights south of Cerny in all circumstances until the fourteenth corps on our left flank can grip the enemy’s flank. On our right are other corps. We are fighting with the English Guards, Highlanders, and Zouaves. The losses on both sides have been enormous. For the most part this is due to the too brilliant French artillery.

The Mother.

“The English are marvelously trained in making use of ground. One never sees them, and one is constantly under fire. The French airmen perform wonderful feats. We cannot get rid of them. As soon as an airman has flown over us, ten minutes later we get their shrapnel fire in our positions. We have little artillery in our corps; without it we cannot get forward.

[236]

“Three days ago our division took possession of these heights and dug itself in. Two days ago, early in the morning, we were attacked by an immensely superior English force, one brigade and two battalions, and were turned out of our positions. The fellows took five guns from us. It was a tremendous hand-to-hand fight.

“How I escaped myself I am not clear. I then had to bring up supports on foot. My horse was wounded, and the others were too far in the rear. Then came up the guards jäger battalion, fourth jäger, sixth regiment, reserve regiment thirteen, and landwehr regiments thirteen and sixteen, and with the help of the artillery we drove the fellows out of the position again. Our machine guns did excellent work; the English fell in heaps.

“In our battalion three Iron Crosses have been given, one to C. O., one to Captain ——, and one to Surgeon ——. [Names probably deleted.] Let us hope that we shall be the lucky ones next time.

“During the first two days of the battle I had only one piece of bread and no water. I spent the night in the rain without my overcoat. The rest of my kit was on the horses which had been left behind with the baggage and which cannot come up into the battle because as soon as you put your nose up from behind cover the bullets whistle.

“War is terrible. We are all hoping that a decisive battle will end the war, as our troops already have got round Paris. If we beat the English the French resistance will soon be broken. Russia will be very quickly dealt with; of this there is no doubt.

[237]

“Yesterday evening, about six, in the valley in which our reserves stood there was such a terrible cannonade that we saw nothing of the sky but a cloud of smoke. We had few casualties.”

THE COMMON ENEMY, DEATH

How foe helps foe when the last grim hour comes is revealed in the letter which a French cavalry officer sent to his fiancée in Paris:

“There are two other men lying near me, and I do not think there is much hope for them either. One is an officer of a Scottish regiment and the other a private in the Uhlans. They were struck down after me, and when I came to myself, I found them bending over me, rendering first aid.

“The Britisher was pouring water down my throat from his flask, while the German was endeavoring to stanch my wound with an antiseptic preparation served out to them by their medical corps. The Highlander had one of his legs shattered, and the German had several pieces of shrapnel buried in his side.

“In spite of their own sufferings they were trying to help me, and when I was fully conscious again the German gave us a morphia injection and took one himself. His medical corps had also provided him with the injection and the needle, together with printed instructions for its use.

“After the injection, feeling wonderfully at ease, we spoke of the lives we had lived before the war. We all spoke English, and we talked of the women we had left at home. Both the German and the Britisher had only been married a year. . . .

[238]

“I wonder, and I supposed the others did, why we had fought each other at all. I looked at the Highlander, who was falling to sleep, exhausted, and in spite of his drawn face and mud-stained uniform, he looked the embodiment of freedom. Then I thought of the Tri-color of France, and all that France had done for liberty. Then I watched the German, who had ceased to speak. He had taken a prayer book from his knapsack and was trying to read a service for soldiers wounded in battle.”

“SAME PAIR OF BLUE EYES”

Sergeant Gabriel David, of the French infantry, who saw seven months of continuous service in the trenches of the Argonne Forest, described the odd effect of peeping over the top of a trench for weeks into the same pair of German blue eyes.

“I don’t know who this man was or what he might have been,” he said, “but wherever I go I can yet see those sad-looking eyes. He and I gazed at each other for three weeks in one stretch; his watch seemed to always be the same as mine. We came to respect each other. I am sure that I would always know those blue eyes, and I would like to meet that man when the war has ended.”

FIGHTING WITHOUT HATE

There is yet to appear an authentic letter from a private or officer on either side that contains a tithe of the virulence and bitterness shown in the statements and writings of many non-combatants.

“One wonders,” runs a letter of a British officer,[239] “when one sees a German face to face, is this really one of those devils who wrought such devastation—for devastation they have surely wrought. You can hardly believe it, for he seems much the same as other soldiers. I can assure you that out here there is none of that insensate hatred that one hears about.

“Just to give you some idea of what I mean, the other night four German snipers were shot on our wire. The next night our men went out and brought one in who was near and get-at-able and buried him. They did it with just the same reverence and sadness as they do to our own dear fellows. I went to look at the grave the next morning, and one of the most uncouth-looking men in my company had placed a cross at the head of the grave, and had written on it:

“And under that, ‘got mitt uns’ (sic), that being the highest effort of all the men at German. Not bad for a bloodthirsty Briton, eh? Really that shows the spirit.”

[240]

CHAPTER XXIII
BOMBARDING UNDEFENDED CITIES

THE GERMAN RAID ON THE ENGLISH COAST — MRS. KAUFFMAN’S DESCRIPTION — CANNONADING AT WHITBY — FREAKISH EFFECT OF SHELLS — FLIGHT OF SCHOOL CHILDREN.

The Ninth Hague Convention of 1907, to which both Germany and Great Britain gave their assent upon identical conditions, expressly forbids “the bombardment by naval forces of undefended ports, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings,” and by inference requires notice to be given previous to any such operations. Neither of these stipulations was observed by the German naval raiders who on December 16, 1914, bombarded the historic English towns of Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough. Appearing in the early morning, the Germans rained deadly shells upon these coast towns, none of which was of strategic importance, and only one protected by fortifications. The immediate result was the useless slaughter of many non-combatants—men and women and children, and the ruin of buildings, churches and historic monuments, including the ancient abbey of St. Hilda at Whitby.

The raid on Scarborough was described by Ruth Kauffman, the wife of the novelist, Reginald Wright Kauffman, in an interesting communication. The[241] Kauffmans had been living for several years just outside of Cloughton, a village near Scarborough.

MRS. KAUFFMAN’S DESCRIPTION

“It’s a very curious thing to watch a bombardment from your house.

Where the War Was Brought Home to England.

“Everybody knew the Kaiser would do it. But there was a little doubt about the date, and then somehow the spy-hunting sport took up general attention. When the Kaiser did send his card it was quite as much of a surprise as most Christmas cards—from a friend forgotten.

“Eighteen people were killed in the morning between eight and eight-thirty o’clock in the streets and houses of Scarborough by German shrapnel, two hundred were wounded and more than two hundred houses were damaged or demolished.

“From our windows we could not quite make out the[242] contours of the ruined castle, which is generally plainly visible. Our attention was called to the fact that there was “practicing” going on and we could at 8.07 see quick flashes. That these flashes pointed directly at Scarborough we did not for a few moments comprehend, then the fog slowly lifting, we saw a fog that was partly smoke. The castle grew into its place in the six miles distance.

“It seemed for a moment that the eight-foot thick Norman walls tottered, but no, whatever tottered was behind the keep. Curiously enough, we could barely hear the cannonading, for the wind was keen in the opposite direction, yet we could, as the minutes crept by and the air cleared, see distinctly the flashes from the boats and the flashes in the city.

“After about fifteen minutes there was a cessation, or perhaps a hesitation, that lasted two minutes; then the flashes continued. Ten minutes more and the boats began to move again. One cruiser disappeared from sight, sailing south by east.

CANNONADING AT WHITBY

“The other two rushed like fast trains north again, close to our cliffs, and in another half hour we heard all too plainly the cannonading which had almost escaped our ears from Scarborough. We thought it was Robin Hood’s Bay, as far north of us as Scarborough is south, but afterward we learned that the boats omitted this pretty red-roofed town and concentrated their remaining energy on Whitby, fifteen miles north; the wind blowing toward us brought us the vibrating boom.

[243]

“We drove to Scarborough. We had not gone one mile of the distance when we began to meet people coming in the opposite direction. A small white-faced boy in a milk cart that early every morning makes its Scarborough rounds showed us a piece of shell he had picked up, and said it had first struck a man a few yards from him and killed the man. A woman carrying a basket told us, with trembling lips, that men and women were lying about the streets dead.

“We did not meet a deserted city when we entered. The streets were thronging. There was a Sunday hush over everything, without the accompanying Sunday clothes, but people moved about or stood at their doorways. Many of the shop fronts were boarded up and shop windows were empty of display. The main street, a narrow passage-way that clambers up from the sea and points due west, was filled with a procession that slowly marched down one side and up the other. People hardly spoke. They made room automatically for a group of silent Boy Scouts, who carried an unconscious woman past us to the hospital. There was the insistent honk of a motor-car. As it pushed its way through, all that struck me about the car was the set face of the old man rising above improvised bandages about his neck, part of the price of the Kaiser’s Christmas card.

“The damage to property did not first reach our attention. But as we walked down the main street and then up it with the procession we saw that shops and houses all along had windows smashed next to windows unhurt. At first we thought the broken windows were from concussion; but apparently very[244] few were so broken; there was not much concussion, but the shells, splintering as they exploded, had flown red hot in every direction, The smoke, we had seen, had come from fires quickly extinguished.

FREAKISH EFFECTS OF SHELLS

“We left the main business street and picked our way toward the foreshore and the South Cliff, the more fashionable part of the town as well as the school section. Here there was a great deal of havoc, and we had to climb over some of the debris. Roofs were half torn off and balancing in mid-air; shells had shot through chimneys and some chimneys tottered, while several had merely round holes through the brick work; mortar, brick and glass lay about the streets; here a third-story room was bare to the view, the wall lifted as for a child’s doll house and disclosing a single bedroom with shaving materials on the bureau still secure; there a drug-store front lay fallen into the street, and the iron railing about it was torn and twisted out of shape.

“A man and a boy had just been carried away dead. All around small pieces of iron rail and ripped asphalt lay scattered. Iron bars were driven into the woodwork of houses. There were great gaps in walls and roofs. The attack had not spent itself on any one section of the city, but had scattered itself in different wards. The freaks of the shells were as inexplicable as those of a great fire that destroys everything in a house except a piano and a mantelpiece with its bric-a-brac, or a flood that carries away a log cabin and leaves a rosebush unharmed and blooming.

[245]

“Silent pedestrians walked along and searched the ground for souvenirs, of which there were plenty. Sentries guarded houses and streets where it was dangerous to explore and park benches were used as barriers to the public. All the cabs were requisitioned to take away luggage and frightened inhabitants. During the shelling hundreds of women and children, breakfastless, their hair hanging, hatless and even penniless, except for their mere railway fares, had rushed to the station and taken tickets to the first safe town they could think of. There was no panic, these hatless, penniless women all asserted, when they arrived in York and Leeds.

FLIGHT OF SCHOOL CHILDREN

“A friend of mine hurried into Scarborough by motor to rescue her sister, who was a pupil at one of the boarding schools. But it appeared that when the windows of the school began to crash the teachers hurried from prayers, ordered the pupils to gather hats and coats and sweet chocolate that happened to be on hand as a substitute for breakfast and made them run for a mile and a half, with shells exploding about them, through the streets to the nearest out-of-Scarborough railway station. My friend, after unbelievable difficulties, finally found her sister in a private house of a village near by, the girl in tears and pleading not to be sent to London; she had been told that her family’s house was probably destroyed, as it was actually on the sea-coast.”

[246]

CHAPTER XXIV
GERMANY’S FATAL WAR ZONE

THE WARNING TO NEUTRAL NATIONS — UNITED STATES REFUSED TO RECOGNIZE WAR ZONE — A VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS — AIMED AT NEUTRAL SHIPPING — AN INHUMAN POLICY.

The German imperial decree making all of the waters surrounding the British Isles a war zone and threatening to destroy ships and crews found therein after February 18, 1915, whether they were English or neutral, raised a storm of protest in the United States. The decree read:

“The waters around Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole English Channel, are declared a war zone from and after February 18, 1915.

“Every enemy ship found in this war zone will be destroyed, even if it is impossible to avert dangers which threaten the crew and passengers.

“Also, neutral ships in the war zone are in danger, as in consequence of the misuse of neutral flags ordered by the British government on January 31 and in view of the hazards of naval warfare it cannot always be avoided that attacks meant for enemy ships shall endanger neutral ships.

“Shipping northward, around the Shetland Islands, in the eastern basin of the North Sea, and in a strip[247] of at least thirty nautical miles in breadth along the Dutch coast, is endangered in the same way.”

As plainly as words could state it, this was a warning that American and other neutral vessels might be sunk by German submarines and that Germany would repudiate responsibility for such action. The American press denounced the declaration and its intent, and the United States government made public a note to Germany, containing the following paragraph:

UNITED STATES REFUSED TO RECOGNIZE WAR ZONE

“If the commanders of German vessels of war should act upon the presumption that the flag of the United States was not being used in good faith and should destroy on the high seas an American vessel, or the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for the government of the United States to view the act in any other light than as an indefensible violation of neutral rights which it would be very hard indeed to reconcile with the friendly relations now happily subsisting between the two governments.”

Frederick R. Coudert, of New York, an authority on international law, said in discussing the war zone:

“From the beginning the United States government always maintained the right to treat the open sea as a public highway, and refused to acquiesce in one attempt after another to establish a closed sea. It refused to submit to an imposition of the Sound dues by Denmark, or to recognize the Baltic as a closed sea. It refused to pay tribute to the Barbary powers for the privilege of navigating the Mediterranean, and gave notice to Russia that it would[248] disregard the claim to make the North Pacific a closed sea.

A VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS

“No one has ever pretended to assert a claim to control the navigation of the North Sea, and Germany has no more right to plant mines in the open sea between Great Britain and Belgium and France than she would have to do so in Delaware Bay, or than a property owner, who was annoyed by automobiles, would have to plant torpedoes in a turnpike.

“The right to plant mines as a defense to a harbor, from which all vessels might lawfully be excluded, is one thing, but to destroy the use of the open sea as a highway, by sowing mines which might indeed destroy British ships, but might also destroy American ships, is an act of hostility which, if persisted in, would constitute a casus belli, and if we had Mr. Webster, or Mr. Marcey, or Mr. Evarts in Washington as Secretary of State, prompt notice would be given that for any damage done Germany would be held responsible.”

A representative quotation from the newspapers of the United States is the following:

“The imperial decree making all of the waters surrounding the British isles a ‘war zone,’ and threatening to destroy ships and crews found therein after February 18, whether they be English or neutral, is surely the maddest proposal ever put forth by a civilized nation.

AIMED AT NEUTRAL SHIPPING

“This excessively efficient method of warfare, however, is one that most concerns England and France. The interest of the United States lies in the fact that the threat is aimed emphatically at neutral shipping.

Three British Cruisers Sunk by Submarines.

The “Aboukir,” “Hogue” and “Cressy” sunk by torpedoes on September 22. The horrors of modern warfare are illustrated by the notice issued after this disaster by the British Admiralty, which reads in part, “No act of humanity, whether to friend or foe, should lead to neglect of the proper precautions and dispositions of war, and no measure can be taken to save life which prejudice the military situation.” (Copyright by the Sun News Service.)

The Loss of the “Irresistible” in the Dardanelles.

On March 18 the “Irresistible” quit the line of the French and English fleet, which was bombarding the Turkish forts in the narrows of the Dardanelles, and sank in deep water. The whole ship was lifted up in the explosion, and to increase the horror of the situation the Turks commenced bombarding the vessel with their big guns.

[249]

“Neutral nations were loath to accept the sinister meaning of the order when it was first published; but its intent was emphasized by Bismarck’s old organ, the Hamburger Nachrichten:

“‘Beginning on February 18 everybody must take the consequences. The hate and envy of the whole world concern us not at all. If neutrals do not protect their flags against England, they do not deserve Germany’s respect.’

“The misuse of the American flag is annoying to this country as well as exasperating to Germany, but no government in its senses would seriously threaten to make that an excuse for piratical operations. A merchant ship has a right to fly any flag the skipper has in his locker, particularly if thereby he can deceive an enemy and evade capture. The custom is as old as maritime warfare, and has been resorted to numberless times by every nation.

“But this issue is trifling compared to the German effort to exclude neutral shipping from an arbitrarily decreed ‘war zone.’ It is officially admitted that this does not comprise a formal blockade, but it is clear that Germany is attempting to achieve the benefits of a blockade without its heavy responsibilities.

AN INHUMAN POLICY

“It is understood that she has a perfect right to hold up and search neutral ships in her declared ‘war zone,’ and to make prizes of such as carry contraband. But it is the possession of this very right which forbids[250] the inhuman policy she proclaims. She cannot plead ignorance of a vessel’s identity, or attack it unless it refuses to stop when signaled. The burden of proof is upon the submarine, and to torpedo a vessel on suspicion merely would be unredeemed piracy and murder.

“This is distinctly a case in which the convenient doctrine of ‘military necessity’ is not to be invoked. Nor would an occasional misuse of a neutral flag by belligerent vessels, as a ruse of war, justify a mistaken act of destruction. If every British merchantman approaching England flew the American colors, that would not excuse the torpedoing of one American ship.

“These facts are stated with convincing clearness in the official protest sent from Washington to Berlin. We do not know who framed this document, although it bears distinct literary marks of revision by President Wilson. But whoever the men actually responsible for it, they produced a state paper which is a model of terseness, lucidity, dignified courtesy and force, an irrefutable presentation of the relevant principles of international law and justice. No loyal American wants trouble, but the blood of the most pacific citizen must move a little faster on reading the German decree and the restrained but perfectly straightforward reply sent by our government.”

[251]

CHAPTER XXV
MULTITUDINOUS TRAGEDIES AT SEA

TWENTY-NINE VESSELS SUNK IN ONE WEEK — EIGHTY-TWO NON-COMBATANT VESSELS DESTROYED IN GERMAN WAR ZONE — THE ATTACK ON THE GULFLIGHT.

The fact that the Lusitania was the twenty-ninth vessel to be sunk or damaged in one week in May in the war zone established by Germany around the British Isles throws into grim relief the ruthlessness of modern war. The naval battles of the past were engagements of dignity in which, when a vessel was lost, it went down with a certain tragic magnificence after a fair fight; but most of the vessels lost in the European war have been the victims of torpedoes, struck by stealthy blows in the dark. In less than three months, from February 18 to May 7, 1915, no less than eighty-two merchant vessels belonging either to the Allies or to neutral nations were torpedoed or mined in the war zone, with a loss of life estimated at 1,704 non-combatants—a terrible sacrifice to modern warfare.

Naturally the greater number of these merchant ships were British, but the fact that the war zone was proclaimed by Germany with a view to stopping neutral shipping as well is established by the figures which show that among the eighty-two non-combatant vessels[252] destroyed there were French, Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, Danish, Greek and three American vessels, the latter being the Evelyn, sunk by a mine explosion February 20; the Carib, sunk by a mine explosion February 22, and the Gulflight, torpedoed May 1.

In addition to these eighty-two cases of non-combatant vessels destroyed, there have been innumerable instances of unsuccessful attacks, of which a notable example was the double attempt to sink the American tank steamship Cushing, once by a Zeppelin which aimed three bombs at the vessel, and once by a submarine which placed a contact mine directly in the path of the ship; her bow narrowly missed the mine, and her stern struck it a glancing blow, but not with sufficient force to explode it.

THE ATTACK ON THE GULFLIGHT

It would require many hundreds of pages to recount the details of all of these crimes against non-combatant merchant ships, and to show the relentless severity with which neutral commerce has been attacked, but the organized military measures even against neutral ships are well illustrated by the case of the American ship Gulflight, as described by the second officer, Paul Bower:

“When the Gulflight left Port Arthur, Texas, on April 10, bound for Rouen, France,” said Bower, “we were followed by a warship of some description, which kept out of sight, but in touch by wireless and warned us not to disclose our position to any one.

“At noon Saturday, May 1, we were twenty-five[253] miles west of the Scilly Islands, a small group about thirty miles southwest of England. The weather was hazy, but not thick. About two and one-half miles ahead I saw a submarine.

Where Lusitania Was Torpedoed.

Kinsale, on South Coast of Ireland, close to Cork Harbor.

“Twenty-five minutes later we were struck by a torpedo on the starboard side, and there was a tremendous shock. The submarine had not reappeared on the surface before discharging the torpedo.

“Previous to this, we had been met by two patrol boats, which accompanied us on either side. The boat[254] on our starboard side was so badly shaken by the explosion that her crew imagined that she also had been torpedoed. We immediately lowered the boats and left our ship and were quickly taken on board the patrol boats. But the fog increased and we drifted about all night and did not land at Scilly until 10.30 o’clock Sunday morning.

“At midnight of Saturday, while still on board the patrol boat, Captain Gunter summoned me. I found him in bed and he said he wanted some one to roll a cigarette for him. He then tossed up his arms and fainted. From then until the time of his death, which occurred about 3.30 o’clock Sunday morning, he remained unconscious.

“Captain Gunter’s speech was thick and indistinct, but we could distinguish that he wished some one to take care of his wife. The crew had always regarded Captain Gunter as a healthy man and had never heard him complain.”

Second Assistant Engineer Crist, of the Gulflight, said:

“I was on watch in the engine room when we were torpedoed, and so terrible was the blow that the Gulflight seemed to be tumbling to pieces. She appeared to be lifted high in the air and then to descend rapidly. I told the boys to beat it as quickly as possible and shut the engines down.

“Reaching the deck, I found them launching both life-boats. We got safely into them, with the exception of wireless operator Short and a Spanish seaman, who had dived overboard when they felt the shock, and were drowned.”

[255]

CHAPTER XXVI
HOW “NEUTRAL” WATERS ARE VIOLATED

THE THREE-MILE LIMIT — BELLIGERENTS’ RIGHTS — NOTICE IN LEAVING NEUTRAL WATERS — EVASIONS OF NEUTRALITY.

“A neutral has a perilous part to sustain.” So says Louis XI to his treacherous minister, Cardinal Balue, in Scott’s famous novel. The dictum is true enough even when a strong state is in question. For Great Britain the question of neutrality is of great importance in so far as it affects her on the sea. Historically, of course, neutrality is rather a modern development. Small and weak states in the earlier ages of the world had little hope of keeping themselves free from the havoc of a great world conflict. Great naval powers, such as the Hanseatic League, Genoa, and Venice, did, during the Middle Ages, succeed at times in inspiring respect for their neutrality, but it was at best precarious, and strong states rarely paid much respect to neutral waters. Early in the reign of Charles I the Dutch destroyed a Spanish fleet in the very Downs; and though Charles was master of a strong naval power he made no attempt to resent the insult. In this case, of course, there were special reasons for England’s apathy, but the incident is significant. Roughly speaking, it may be laid down as[256] an axiom that in all the ages of history the neutrality of a state, on sea as on land, has been respected only in so far as it has possessed the power to make it so.

THE THREE-MILE LIMIT

During the Napoleonic wars, Great Britain was in constant trouble with the United States owing to the fashion in which British naval commanders exercised, and sometimes abused, the right of searching American ships for contraband of war. The British-American quarrels had the good effect that attempts were made to standardize and establish on a firm basis the laws of neutrality at sea. The naval portion of the Neutrality Conference of 1907 contains twenty-eight clauses, of which the first provides that belligerents must respect neutral waters. Where the coast borders the open sea the neutral zone extends to three miles from the shore. As this is well within the range of even small naval guns it is clear that an opportunity is afforded to an unscrupulous captain of sinking vessels which have crossed the neutral line. In the case of a power controlling the entrance to inland seas the provision becomes of enormous importance.

BELLIGERENTS’ RIGHTS

Within neutral waters belligerents may not take prizes, hold prize courts, nor establish warlike bases, nor may they obtain supplies therein. At the same time neutrality is not held to be compromised by the simple passage through neutral waters of belligerent ships and prizes. Belligerent vessels may also obtain[257] the help of pilots. The neutral state must use all its endeavor to be impartial and must expel or warn off vessels guilty of breaches of neutrality.

Except in special cases a belligerent warship may make a stay of only twenty-four hours in neutral waters. The special cases would usually be those of vessels disabled or otherwise in distress or storm-bound. When damaged a warship may remain long enough in a neutral port to effect necessary repairs, but it must not take on board extra armament, ammunition, or reinforcements of men. If out of coal it must only take on board sufficient to carry it to its nearest home port. Nor is it supposed to fill up with food stores beyond its ordinary supply in time of peace. In all these cases the neutral authorities are the judges. It must be obvious that a weak neutral state will be in a terrible quandary if the vessel be a powerful one and the country to which it belongs a powerful one.

NOTICE IN LEAVING NEUTRAL WATERS

The belligerent ship must give twenty-four hours’ notice before leaving, and must not visit the same port again until three months have elapsed. Should it break the neutrality laws the neutral state authorities may incapacitate it for immediate service and detain it, leaving on board just as many of the crew as are necessary to keep it clean and in order. The steps taken would generally be to remove the vitally necessary engine and gun fittings. Should two hostile ships enter a neutral port they must, while there, observe its neutrality, and must leave at an interval of twenty-four hours.

[258]

EVASIONS OF NEUTRALITY

It must be obvious from all this that the inviolability of neutrality will always depend very much upon the ability of the state concerned to keep it so.

It is not difficult, either, to imagine various methods by which the neutrality, which is supposed to govern within the three-mile limit, may be evaded. It is only necessary to cite the case of a war vessel unable to overtake a fast merchant-man until the latter reaches neutral waters, but successful in sinking it by long-range gun-fire from a point outside the three-mile limit.

[259]

CHAPTER XXVII
THE TERRIBLE DISTRESS OF POLAND

A LONG-TORTURED NATION AGAIN BLIGHTED BY WAR — DESOLATION AND FAMINE THROUGHOUT LAND — RICH AND POOR ALIKE DESTITUTE — PLIGHT OF RUSSIAN POLAND — NO BREAD FOR WEEKS IN LODZ — THREE TIMES A BATTLE-FIELD — UNABLE TO HELP HERSELF — NO SEED AND NO DRAFT ANIMALS.

“If you imagined all the people of New York State deprived of everything they owned, left a prey to starvation and disease, and hopelessly crushed under the iron heels of contending armies, you might form a slight idea of what the Poles are enduring at present,” declared the great pianist, Paderewski, while visiting America in 1915 in the interests of the afflicted nation. “One of the worst phases of the situation lies in the inability of the inhabitants of one-half of the country to communicate with those in the other. Compared with their lot, even that of the Belgians loses some of its horror, for my unhappy countrymen have no France, Holland, or England in which they can seek refuge.”

Girt by a ring of war, Poland in the winter and spring of 1915 was in the most terrible straits. Her cities and villages had been captured and recaptured by both Germans and Russians, her fields had been laid waste, and her inhabitants were slowly dying of starvation.

[260]

DESOLATION AND FAMINE THROUGHOUT LAND

“If figures can give any idea of the immensity of this disaster,” pleaded the great musician, “then these may convey a slight impression of what has gone on in Poland: An area equal in size to the states of Pennsylvania and New York has been laid waste. The mere money losses, due to the destruction of property and the means of agriculture and industry, are $2,500,000,000. A whole nation of 18,000,000 people, including 2,000,000 Jews, are carrying the burden of the war in the east on their backs, and their backs are breaking under the load. The great majority of the whole Polish people, about 11,000,000 men, women and children, peasants and workmen, have been driven into the open, their homes taken from them or burned, and they flee, terror-stricken, hungry and in confusion, whither they know not. In ruins, in woods or in hollows they are hiding, feeding on roots and the bark of trees. It is Christian humanity that calls for help for succumbing Poland.”

“From the banks of the Niemen to the summits of the Carpathians,” wrote the novelist, Henryk Sienkiewicz, in his plea to the American people, “fire has destroyed the towns and villages, and over the whole of this huge, desolated country the specter of famine has spread its wings; all labor and industry have been swept away; the ploughshare is rusted; the peasant has neither grain nor cattle; the artisan is idle; all works and factories have been destroyed; the tradesman cannot sell his wares; the hearth fire is extinguished, and disease and misery prevail. To such starving people, crying out for aid, listen, Christian nations.”

[261]

RICH AND POOR ALIKE DESTITUTE

The Polish Relief Committee, headed by Madame Sembrich, published this word from the great tenor, Jean de Reszké, whose home is in Paris:

The Harvest-moon in Europe.

“My poor brother was unable to get away from the war zone in time. He wrote this letter several weeks ago, and now I fear he may never survive the terrible hardships. He had plenty of money and a splendid estate, but all were swept away.”

The letter referred to shows that there is no leveler like war. It runs:

“My dear brother, whether this will ever get through the lines and reach you I do not know. I am sure no man could get through alive, with all this fighting and the continual bombardment going on on every hand.

“The war broke with such suddenness that it was impossible to escape. I was forced to remain here on my estate in Garnesk. This part of Poland has been reduced to worse than a desert. All is desolate and every one is suffering. My beautiful estate has met the common fate and been reduced to ashes. I am now living in a cellar with scanty covering. If a[262] shell should drop in it would afford no protection. So fierce has been the fighting here that there have been days when I could not venture forth. We have been between two fires. All Poland needs relief.

“I have no coal, oil, coffee, and only a handful of grain left. Through the cold and the rain I have had but poor shelter, but my lot is the same as that of my fellow countrymen here. Every one is in want; every one is suffering. Many are dead, and many more will die unless aid reaches them soon. Prince Lukouirski and his wife recently reached here and are sharing my cellar with me. Their own beautiful estate has been destroyed, and even the cellar blown to atoms by the shells.”

PLIGHT OF RUSSIAN POLAND

Mr. Herbert Corey, writing from Berlin to the New York Globe, in the spring of 1915, declared that unless something was done the world would be horrified—if the world had not lost its capacity for horror—by the sufferings of the Poles. “Soon cholera will come to Poland. Famine is there now. Scarlet fever and typhoid and smallpox and enteric and typhus are old settlers.” The million now in utter want only live at all because “humanity has a wonderful capacity for adjustment to wretchedness.

“There are 6,000,000 Poles in the portion of Russian Poland that is being fought over. Of these, according to the Red Cross men, 1,000,000 are absolutely destitute. They are without food or the means to buy food. They are living on the charity of others who are but slightly better off. That charity must come[263] to an end soon—because food is coming to an end. It is not merely that money is lacking. Flour is lacking. It must be imported or starvation follows.

“Russian Poland is a conspicuous example of Russian rule. No measure of self-government is permitted the people. All governing officials are appointed from Petrograd. Lodz, for example, a city which contains from 500,000 to 750,000 people—all statistics in Poland are mere guesses—is ruled by a mayor and four assistants, all sent out from Russia. No city may expend more than $150, American money, for its own purposes, except permission is secured from Petrograd. That permission is rarely given. Petrograd needs the taxes that Lodz pays. When permission is given it is long delayed. Therefore, Lodz, a town as large as St. Louis, has unpaved streets that are ankle-deep in mud in winter and ankle-deep in dust in summer. It has a privately owned and paid fire department that responds only to calls from its own clients. Ninety per cent of its residents live in sties on streets that are mere stenches.

“And yet Lodz is the second cotton-manufacturing town in Europe. It is excelled only by Manchester in its manufacturing totals. Isolated on the bleak plains of Poland, at a distance from a seaport, served by two railroads only, it is an anomaly in the commercial world.

NO BREAD FOR WEEKS IN LODZ

“For two weeks Lodz had no bread at all. For months it has had no meat at all—so far as the poorer classes are concerned. During those two weeks the mass of the population lived on potatoes.

[264]

“Conditions were slightly worse in Czenstochow, the second city in Russian Poland. Here 90,000 people live. It has no street-lights. It has no attempt at street-paving. It has no sewers. It has no city water. It has no publicly maintained fire department, though a few of the merchants have a department of their own. It is pre-middle-ages in everything—morals, discomfort, filth, darkness, disease, death-rate. Cholera is there all the time. Most of its people exist in reeking hovels, smoke-filled when they can afford fires, wet and cold at other times.

“As the towns grow smaller, conditions grow worse.”

THREE TIMES A BATTLE-FIELD

If the war had not come, these people would have prospered after a fashion. Potatoes were plentiful, and they had few other wants. A woman earned thirty cents a day in the mills and a man three cents more. Children worked as soon as they were old enough. Sixty-five per cent are wholly illiterate. Then—

“Russia struck at Germany. The German armies invaded Poland in retaliation. They swept almost to Warsaw—and an invading army sweeps fairly clean. There were some things left when they passed over. They were driven back, and the Russian armies covered this territory—and they gleaned what was left. Then the Russians were driven back—sacking as they went—and the Germans covered the ground once more. Three times unhappy Poland has been fought over. It had little at the beginning. It has nothing now. For months Poland has been starving, not merely going[265] hungry. That is a commonplace of war. Poles have been dying because they cannot get food.

UNABLE TO HELP HERSELF

“Poland is quite unable to help herself. Most of the mills—probably all of the mills—are owned by Russian and German and French capitalists. The banks are all branches of foreign institutions. These concerns are all conducted by resident managers. Some of the managers have—on their own responsibility—given their work people two and a half and three cents a day each for food. Some have added a trifle for the children also. But this has practically come to an end. The managers have exhausted their supply of cash. They cannot get more. There are no mails. The towns of Poland are each printing their own paper money—not by consent of the Russian bureaucrats, but in defiance of them—but this money circulates only within the town’s borders. It is highly improbable it will ever be redeemed in real money. Meanwhile the price of food commodities has risen fifty per cent in two months. By the time this reaches America the prices may have doubled.

NO SEED AND NO DRAFT ANIMALS

“Conditions are slightly better in the agricultural sections. The farmers have no seed and no draft animals, it is true. But they have fairly good supplies of potatoes. Last year’s potato-crop was an enormous one.

“There is a Jewish question in every city of Poland. Where there is a Jewish question in Russia there are[266] riots. There will be more rioting in Poland unless Providence intervenes. Russia has always confined her Jews to the pale. Being forced to make their living by trading, their naturally sharp wits have been whetted. Today they are—broadly speaking—owners of every shop in Poland. There may be Christian shopkeepers here and there. People who know Poland doubt it.

“Beggars follow the stranger in the Polish cities. Some of them are mute. They only look at the stranger through hollow eyes and hold out skinny hands. Others are vociferous. They cling to the garments of the passer-by. They cry for aid in an uncouth dialect. They run out from darkened doorways. The man who gives is pursued by a cue of them.”

[267]

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE GHASTLY HAVOC WROUGHT BY THE AIR-DEMONS

THE HORROR OF BOMB-DROPPING—ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS — KINDS OF BOMBS — STEEL DARTS — “ARROW BULLETS” AND AERIAL TORPEDOES — MACHINE GUNS IN AIRCRAFT — ACCURACY IN DROPPING BOMBS.

Ten years ago the dropping of bombs from balloons was still considered an illegitimate form of warfare, involving danger to non-combatants, and was under the ban of the Geneva Convention. At the Hague Peace Conference the Germans refused to abstain from bomb-dropping, and other nations followed suit. According to the German conception of war, civilians in the theater of operations must take their chance of being killed, but must not shoot back under pain of summary execution. The horrors which this theory has added to war have proved only too real, but, so far as bomb-dropping is concerned, the reality has so far fallen short of anticipations. The great Zeppelins, capable of carrying a ton of explosives, have practically been frightened out of the air by the new anti-aircraft guns; and, except for one instance at Antwerp, bomb-dropping has been confined to aeroplanes. Now, in the first place, an aeroplane can carry only a limited weight of bombs—say, two hundred pounds; and in the second place, it is extraordinarily difficult to hit anything with them. If the airman could hover over his target and take deliberate aim, he might be more dangerous; as it is, the German airman finds a cathedral hardly a big enough mark. The British airmen, at Düsseldorf and Lake Constance, adopted a different plan from the Germans; instead of dropping bombs from a great height, they made a steep “vol piqué” down on to the target, turned sharply up again, and dropped the bomb at the moment when the plane was checked by the elevator. This plan is more dangerous, but affords a better chance of hitting.

[268]

Types of Air-Craft Weapons.

Fig. 1.—An aeroplane bomb containing 12 lbs. of tetranitranilin, with a screw stem up which the vanes travel in flight and thus “arm” the fuse. Fig. 2.—Steel dart and boxes of darts used by Taube aeroplanes over Paris, showing how they are inverted and released. Fig. 3.—A French “arrow bullet”; very light, but able to kill a man from a height of 1,800 feet. Fig. 4.—A French aerial torpedo used by aeroplanes against Zeppelins, exploding when it has pierced an air-ship’s envelope and is suddenly arrested by the wooden cross.

[269]

KINDS OF BOMBS

Various kinds of bombs are used for dropping from aeroplanes. A simple pattern shown in Fig. 1 consists of a thin spherical shell of steel, containing twelve pounds of tetranitranilin, which is an explosive more powerful than melinite. The stem of the bomb, by which it is handled, has an external screw-thread, and carries a pair of vanes. While in the position shown, the bomb is harmless, but as it drops, the vanes screw themselves up to the top of the stem till they press against the stop. This, by means of a rod passing down the center of the stem, “arms” or prepares the fuse seen at the bottom of the bomb, so that it acts at the slightest touch, even on the wing of another aeroplane. The fuse effects the explosion of the burster by means of a primer of azide of lead, which causes the tetranitranilin to detonate with great violence. The whole bomb weighs twenty-two[270] pounds, and an aeroplane usually carries six of them.

The Italians, in their campaign in Tripoli, used similar bombs, but without the special device for rendering the fuse sensitive. These were not a success, as many of them failed to explode in the desert sand, and the Arabs used to collect them and throw them into the Italian trenches at night.

STEEL DARTS

The Taube aeroplanes, when they flew over Paris, used sometimes to drop steel darts pointed at one end and flattened and feathered at the other, as shown in Fig. 2. These were put up in boxes of a hundred, so that when the box was released from its hook, it turned over and released the darts.

“ARROW BULLETS” AND AERIAL TORPEDOES

The “arrow bullet” shown in Fig. 3 is a French device; though weighing only three-quarters of an ounce, its peculiar shape enables it to acquire a high velocity, so that it will kill a man when dropped from a height of six hundred yards. An aerial torpedo carried by French aeroplanes for the destruction of Zeppelins is shown in Fig. 4; it contains a powerful charge of explosive and a fuse, to which the suspending-wire is connected. When dropped on a Zeppelin, the needle-pointed torpedo pierces the envelope and gas-chamber, but the wooden cross is arrested and the sudden jerk on the suspending-wire sets the fuse in action, causing the certain destruction of the airship. The torpedo would be too dangerous to handle,[271] but the French have an ingenious device which renders it perfectly safe until it is dropped.

MACHINE GUNS IN AIRCRAFT

Various attempts have been made to mount machine guns on aeroplanes, but the operator, in his narrow seat, has hardly space to point a machine gun in any direction except straight to his front. The American Curtis machine gun exhibited at Olympia is the most efficient form yet produced, but at present the airman seems to prefer an automatic rifle. Even in the early days of the war, Sir John French was able to report that British airmen had disposed of no less than five of the enemy’s aircraft with this weapon.

The Zeppelins are well armed with machine guns, carrying one in each of the two cars, and one on top of the structure. Access is had to the latter by means of a shaft and ladder which passes up through the gas-chambers.

ACCURACY IN DROPPING BOMBS

The Zeppelins have elaborate bomb-dropping apparatus with which it should be theoretically possible to drop a bomb with great accuracy, but on the occasion when it was tried at Antwerp, the Germans met with no great success. The principle of the bomb-dropping device is as follows: A sort of camera, pointed vertically downwards, is used, and an observer notes the speed with which an object on the ground passes across the field, and the direction in which it appears to move. He then reads the height[272] of the airship from the barometer, which gives the time taken by the bomb to fall, say fifteen seconds for 3,500 feet. He has now to calculate, from the data given by the camera-observation, the allowance to be made for speed and leeway for fifteen seconds of fall, and to point his sighting-tube accordingly. The air-ship is steered to windward of the target, and at the moment when the target (say, the second funnel of a dreadnaught) appears on the cross wires, the nine hundred-pound bomb is dropped, and the ship goes to the bottom.

Scene of Air Raid on England.

Leigh, shown on the map, is only twenty-five miles from the British capital, and South End just five miles further on. The fleet of Zeppelins, or aeroplanes, or both, it will be seen, got uncomfortably close to the British metropolis.

[273]

CHAPTER XXIX
THE DEADLY SUBMARINE AND ITS STEALTHY DESTRUCTION

NEW COMPLICATIONS IN NAVAL ATTACK — ATTACK ON LINER DESCRIBED — OPERATION OF TORPEDOES — NETS TO TRAP SUBMARINES — HOW CRAFT SUBMERGE.

What is the value of the submarine in war? Is it so great that all our theories of naval attack and defense will have to be revised? Are the great battles of the future to be fought under water? Is a little vessel of a few hundred tons to make the dreadnaught useless? German naval tactics in the present war have made these questions interesting alike to the expert, who has his answers to them, and to the layman, who is profoundly ignorant on the whole subject.

Simon Lake, an inventor who has done much to bring the submarine to its present degree of efficiency, says that “it is the first weapon which has a potential power to destroy an invading force, and also to prevent an invading force from leaving its own harbors or roadsteads, but which is itself useless for invading purposes.” This is at once an exaltation and a limitation of its effectiveness. Yet Captain Lake believes that it will be “the most potent influence that has been conceived to bring about a permanent peace between maritime nations.”

[274]

Heavy armament would have availed the Lusitania nothing, even if the vessel had been so equipped, declared Captain Lake. Even if the Cunarder had been bristling with guns from bow to stern, she could have done no damage to the under-water craft that attacked her. She was doomed when the submarine approached her.

The submarine with its periscope three feet under water could not have been seen fifty feet distant from the liner’s side, and the chances were she was 1,000 yards distant. No shot from the vessel could have located her, though aimed by trained officers.

ATTACK ON LINER DESCRIBED

The scenes on both the vessel and the little submarine may be pictured from a theoretical description given by Captain Lake as follows: “The great ship, knowing the lurking danger, is traveling at her best speed limit, changing the course from time to time in a zigzag manner. Waiting beneath the surface of the calm sea a big submarine, now said to be capable of discharging a torpedo at a distance of five miles, rolls idly in the underground swell. Her crew is sleeping or talking in the semi-fetid atmosphere that the compressed air tanks relieve from time to time. An officer sits with his eye glued to a periscope, which constantly revolves that he may discern the rising smoke of an approaching vessel.

“On the deck of the Lusitania passengers are lolling in steamer chairs or leaning over the rails. They covertly fear attack, yet the horizon shows no sign of the impending calamity.

[275]

“Suddenly the submarine commander focuses his periscope upon a faint and hazy line on the horizon. Closely he watches it move. An electric signal is given and the submarine crew is in place. Another and the boat swings silently and slowly on its course diagonal to that of the approaching vessel. The electric engines turn without noise.

“The vessels near each other. An order is transmitted from the conning tower to the forward compartment of the submarine. The outside ports of two bow torpedo tubes are closed; compressed air drives out all water. Two inside ports are carefully opened and two one-ton torpedoes are lifted by means of chain tackle and swung carefully into the tubes. The inside ports are closed and the outside ports again opened. The air chamber between the torpedo and the breaches is filled with air compressed to nearly 1,200 pounds to the square inch—nearly the force of exploding dynamite.

“Both vessels are closing together at right angles. On the bigger one all is gayety and hope of early and safe arrival at port. On the submarine all are alert. The bow is carefully trained toward a direct line over which the ship must travel. The speed and distance are carefully gauged by trained officers.

“The submarine sinks beneath the surface and men are stationed at the firing levers on each of the forward tubes. An officer stands with a watch in his hand, counting the seconds. A little bell tinkles over the lever man on the port or starboard side of the submarine. He pulls the lever which releases the trigger, and with a rush the enormous torpedo[276] forces itself in a direct line toward the vessel. Another second elapses and the bell rings again. Similar action is observed on the submarine, which a moment later rises with its periscope above the slight ripple of the water.

“There is a deadening crash, as the shock is transmitted through the water and the resounding shell of the air-filled submarine. The officer at the submarine periscope, or conning tower, is the only living person on the submarine that sees a great vessel rise out of the water and slowly settle back. He knows that the shots have taken effect and he can offer no aid to the thousands who a moment later will be attempting to save their lives. He turns his bow homeward, or cruises for other victims of his mechanical ingenuity, as his sealed sailing orders may direct.

OPERATION OF TORPEDOES

“The course of the torpedo from the time it is released in the tube by the lever trip is interesting,” said Captain Lake. “These torpedoes are made at a cost of $5,000 each, much of which is spent in testing. With their high charge of explosive placed well forward and a little plunger on the nose, connecting with a percussion cap, their interior presents the same view as that of a large steamship. The officer is a little gyroscope, impelled by compressed air. This in turn may be set from the outside to travel straight forward or on a curve, and by a timing device to change its course after a certain distance. Usually it is set to travel straight beneath the water at a depth of about fifteen feet.

[277]

“To insure accuracy the torpedo without explosive charge must be fired many times from a fixed torpedo tube. It is finally inspected and passed. As it leaves the torpedo tube on its last journey the trip releases the compressed air which turns its turbine engine. That in turn revolves the propeller. The rudder, speed and depth of passage are actuated by the gyroscope.

“A torpedo has been fired accurately at a distance of five miles. The distance for accuracy is between fifty yards and one thousand. Owing to the concussion on the ear-drums of those in a submarine the greatest distance compatible with accuracy is sought. As the plunger on the torpedo strikes the vessel it explodes the charge almost directly against the side of the vessel.”

NETS TO TRAP SUBMARINES

The British naval authorities took measures to guard British shipping in the English Channel by stretching nets over as much of the water, particularly in the narrows, as possible. The nets are made of links of steel. These links are about six or eight inches in diameter and made of one-half inch steel. The nets are similar to those formerly used to guard battleships and large cruisers, but which have now been discarded because a torpedo will puncture the net and the second torpedo, which is fired only a second or two after the first, will go through the hole made by the first and reach the hull of the vessel.

These chain nets are moored very securely and have buoys at the upper edges to hold them in position.[278] Often they are set just as a fisherman sets his nets. When the submarine, like a fish, gets in the pound it cannot get out, and those in the vessel must either die there or take chances on reaching the surface and swimming to shore.

It takes very little to disable a submarine. The hull is of comparatively thin steel which is easily punctured and the propeller when caught is absolutely useless. Even an ordinary fisherman’s net will disable a submarine, and should one get foul of such a net the chances of getting clear are very slim.

According to the German naval press, the latest submarines are fitted with double acting Diesel oil engines of 1,000 horse power or more. These engines are as simple and run as smoothly as marine steam engines and are as easily controlled. So strongly built are these craft that they can plunge to a depth of 150 feet, at which the water pressure is enormous.

HOW CRAFT SUBMERGE

A security weight, as it is called, of about five tons is carried. This can be released from the inside of the vessel at a moment’s notice, and the effect is like that of dropping a mass of ballast from an airship. When in diving trim, that is to say, when the boat is awash, an up-to-date submarine can disappear under water in fifteen seconds and re-emerge in twenty seconds. It can remain under water for a whole day and night, or even longer.

A submarine when submerged is handled mechanically. Those in charge cannot see where the vessel is going. The officer in charge steers according to[279] the ranges he has taken when on the surface, and it is absolutely impossible to see obstructions that may be ahead. It is impossible to see another submarine unless the two are floating near the surface and in bright daylight. For this reason it is impossible for one submarine to fight another when submerged.

[280]

CHAPTER XXX
THE TERRIBLE WORK OF ARTILLERY IN WAR

SEVENTY PER CENT OF CASUALTIES DUE TO ARTILLERY FIRE — INCREASED RANGE — MODERN GUNS — RAPID FIRING — HOW A BIG GUN IS AIMED — AWFUL DESTRUCTIVENESS OF MODERN GUNS.

A full century ago, Napoleon the Great, himself an artillery officer, had developed the fighting power of artillery of his day so as to make its fire a dominant factor on the battle-field. In the present war its action is even more important, since we learn from the front that seventy per cent of the casualties are due to artillery fire. It was the gun that took Liège and Antwerp, and it is the gun which held the contending armies pent up within a semicircle of fire. Once massed formations were abandoned, the gun lost its terrors to a great extent, and did not regain its place in military estimation till the introduction of the shrapnel shell.

This is a hollow steel projectile, packed with bullets, and containing a charge of powder in the base. (See Fig. 1.) It is exploded by a time-fuse, containing a ring of slowly burning composition which can be set so as to fire the powder during the flight of the shell, when it has traveled to within fifty yards of the enemy. The head is blown off, and the bullets are projected[281] forward in a sheaf, spreading outwards as they go. The British eighteen-pounder shell covers a space of ground some three hundred yards long by thirty-five yards wide with its 365 heavy bullets.

Types of Shells

Fig. 1.—Shrapnel shell, packed with bullets that spread. Fig. 2.—A French quick-firer shell, like an enlarged rifle cartridge. Fig. 3.—The “Universal” shell, combining the action of shrapnel and high explosives. Fig. 4.—A fuse-setting machine.

INCREASED RANGE

In 1885 the British brought out the twelve-pounder high-velocity field-gun, which remained for some years the best gun in Europe. Its power was afterwards increased by giving it a fifteen-pounder shell, and, as a fifteen-pounder, it did good work in South Africa. Then came another development, the quick-firing gun[282] now being used in the war, with a steel shield to protect the detachment. The quick-firing gun is badly named; its high rate of fire is only incidental, and is rarely of use in the combat. The essential feature of the “Q.F.” gun, as it is generally styled, is that the carriage does not move on firing, so that the gunners can remain safely crouched behind the shield.

MODERN GUNS

The French gun as it was originally brought out has now been improved by the addition of a steel plate which closes the gap between the shields; and a steel shield is also provided to protect the officer standing on the upturned ammunition-wagon.

The carriage does not move, and the men remain in their positions behind the shield while the gun recoils between them. The carriage is prevented from sharing the movement of recoil by the spade at the end of the trail, which digs into the ground so as to “anchor” it.

RAPID FIRING

The gun-recoil carriage, as the new invention was called, increases the rate of fire, since there is no delay in running up. The French were quick to develop this new feature, and set to work to make the rate of fire as high as possible. Up till then the ammunition fired from a field-gun had consisted of a shell, a bag of powder, and a friction-tube introduced through the vent to fire the charge. This was called a round of ammunition, and its complexity was increased by the fuse, which was carried separately and screwed into the shell when the round was prepared for loading, and[283] afterwards set with a key to burst the shell at the required distance. The French combined the whole of these separate parts into one, so that a round of “fixed” ammunition, as now used, looks exactly like an enlarged rifle cartridge. (See Fig. 2.)

Further, they did away with the cumbrous process of setting the fuse by hand, and introduced a machine which sets fuses as fast as the shell can be put into it. One of these machines is shown in Fig. 4. It is of a later pattern than that of the French service gun, being the one used by the Servians with their new gun made by the famous firm of Schneider of Creusot. The machine is set to the range ordered by the battery commander, the shell is dropped into it, and a turn of the handle sets the fuse.

HOW A BIG GUN IS AIMED

The independent line of sight is another modern device for facilitating the service of a gun. With this the gear for giving the gun the elevation necessary to carry a shell to the required distance is kept entirely separate from that used for pointing the gun at the target. The gun-layer has merely to keep his sighting telescope on the target, while another man puts on the range-elevation ordered by the battery commander.

The result of all these improvements is that the best quick-firing guns (among which the French gun is still reckoned) are capable of firing twenty-five rounds a minute. The German field-gun is hardly capable of twenty rounds a minute, being an inferior weapon converted from the old breech-loader.

But these high rates of fire are used only on emergency,[284] as a gun firing twenty-five rounds a minute would exhaust the whole of the ammunition carried with it in the battery in three minutes.

One of the first consequences of the introduction of the shielded gun was the reappearance of the old common shell in an improved form. The common shell is almost as old as Agincourt, and consisted simply of a hollow shell filled with powder, which exploded on striking the object. When shrapnel came into use most nations abandoned the common shell. But shrapnel proved almost ineffective against the shielded gun, and the gunners were indifferent to the bullets pattering on the steel shield in front of them. The answer to this was the high-explosive shell, a steel case filled with high explosive, such as melinite, which is the same as lyddite, shimose, or picric acid. This, when detonated upon striking a gun, can be relied upon to disable it and to kill the gunners behind it.

AWFUL DESTRUCTIVENESS OF MODERN GUNS

Of late years a shell which combines the action of the shrapnel and the high-explosive shell has been introduced. This is the “Universal” shell (see Fig. 3) invented by Major van Essen, of the Dutch Artillery. It is a shrapnel with a detachable head filled with high explosive. When burst during flight it acts like an ordinary shrapnel, and the bullets fly forward and sweep the ground in front of it; at the same time the head, with its explosive burster, flies forward and acts as a small but efficient high-explosive shell. These projectiles have been introduced for howitzers and for anti-aircraft guns, and some of the nations with new[285] equipments, such as the Balkan States, have them for their field-guns. Their introduction has, however, been delayed in Western Europe, as they are less efficient as such than the ordinary shrapnel, which is considered the principal field artillery projectile.

[286]

CHAPTER XXXI
WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER BY POISONOUS GASES

CANADIAN VICTIMS — TRENCH GAS AT YPRES — AWFUL FORM OF SCIENTIFIC TORTURE — REPORT OF MEDICAL EXPERT — KIND OF GAS EMPLOYED — ALLIES FORCED TO USE SIMILAR METHODS.

Killing by noxious gases may be, as the Germans claim, no more barbarous than slaughter by shrapnel, but it has been denounced in America as a violation of all written and unwritten codes and as a backward step toward savagery. Certainly the descriptions of responsible persons who have witnessed the pernicious work of the gas only deepens the horror with which all peace-loving citizens look upon “civilized” warfare.

The following description of the effect is told by a responsible British officer who visited some Canadians who were disabled by gas:

“The whole of England and the civilized world ought to have the truth fully brought before them in vivid detail, and not wrapped up as at present. When we got to the hospital we had no difficulty in finding out in which ward the men were, as the noise of the poor devils trying to get breath was sufficient to direct us.

[287]

CANADIAN VICTIMS

“There were about twenty of the worst cases in the ward, on mattresses, all more or less in a sitting position, strapped up against the walls. Their faces, arms, and hands were of a shiny, gray-black color. With their mouths open and leaden-glazed eyes, all were swaying slightly backward and forward trying to get breath. It was a most appalling sight. All these poor black faces struggling for life, the groaning and the noise of the efforts for breath was awful.

“There was practically nothing to be done for them except to give them salt and water and try to make them sick. The effect the gas has is to fill the lungs with a watery frothy matter, which gradually increases and rises until it fills up the whole lungs and comes to the mouth—then they die. It is suffocation, slow drowning, taking in most cases one or two days. Eight died last night out of twenty I saw, and the most of the others I saw will die, while those who get over the gas invariably develop acute pneumonia.

“It is without doubt the most awful form of scientific torture. Not one of the men I saw in the hospital had a scratch or wound. The Germans have given out that it is a rapid, painless death—the liars. No torture could be worse than to give them a dose of their own gas.”

“TRENCH GAS” AT YPRES

Asphyxiating gases seem to have been first used by the Germans in the fighting around Ypres in April, 1915. The strong northeast wind, which was blowing from the German lines across the French trenches,[288] became charged with a sickening, suffocating odor which was recognized as proceeding from some form of poisonous gas. The smoke moved like a vivid green wall some four feet in height for several hundred yards, extending to within two hundred yards of the extreme left of the Allies’ lines. Gradually it rose higher and obscured the view from the level.

Soon strange cries were heard, and through the green mist, now growing thinner and patchy, there came a mass of dazed, reeling men who fell as they passed through the ranks. The greater number were unwounded, but they bore upon their faces the marks of agony.

The retiring men were among the first soldiers of the world whose sang-froid and courage have been proverbial throughout the war. All were reeling like drunken men.

AWFUL FORM OF SCIENTIFIC TORTURE

“The work of sending out the vapor was done from the advanced German trenches. Men garbed in a dress resembling the harness of a diver and armed with retorts or generators about three feet high and connected with ordinary hose-pipe turned the vapor loose toward the French lines. Some witnesses maintain that the Germans sprayed the earth before the trenches with a fluid which, being ignited, sent up the fumes. The German troops, who followed up this advantage with a direct attack, held inspirators in their mouths, these preventing them from being overcome by the fumes.

In addition to this, the Germans appear to have[289] fired ordinary explosive shells loaded with some chemical which had a paralyzing effect on all the men in the region of the explosion. Some chemical in the composition of these shells produced violent watering of the eyes, so that the men overcome by them were practically blinded for some hours.

Right-hand figure: British soldier wearing respirator with air valve on top.

Left-hand figure: German with respirator and goggles armed with burning-oil-distributor.

 

Right-hand figure: British soldier wearing respirator with air valve on top.

Left-hand figure: German with respirator and goggles armed with burning-oil-distributor.

The effect of the noxious trench-gas seems to be[290] slow in wearing away. The men come out of their violent nausea in a state of utter collapse. How many of the men left unconscious in the trenches when the French broke died from the fumes it is impossible to say, since those trenches were at once occupied by the Germans.

REPORT OF MEDICAL EXPERT

Dr. John S. Haldane, an authority on the physiology of respiration, who was sent by the British government to France to observe the effect of the gases, examined several Canadians who had been incapacitated by the gases.

“These men,” he said, “were lying struggling for breath, and blue in the face. On examining their blood with a spectroscope and by other means I ascertained that the blueness was not due to the presence of any abnormal pigment. There was nothing to account for the blueness and their struggles for air but one fact, and that was that they were suffering from acute bronchitis, such as is caused by the inhalation of an irritant gas. Their statements were to the effect that when in the trenches they had been overwhelmed by an irritant gas produced in front of the German trenches and carried toward them by a gentle breeze.

“One of the men died shortly after our arrival. A post-mortem examination showed that death was due to acute bronchitis and its secondary effect. There was no doubt that the bronchitis and accompanying slow asphyxiation was due to irritant gas.

“Captain Bertram, of the eighth Canadian battalion, who is suffering from the effects of gas and from wounds,[291] says that from a support trench about six hundred yards from the German lines he observed the gas. He saw first of all white smoke rising from the German trenches to a height of about three feet. Then in front of the white smoke appeared a green cloud which drifted along the ground to our trenches, not rising more than about seven feet from the ground.

“When it reached our first trenches, the men in these trenches were obliged to leave, and a number of them were killed by the effects of the gas. We made a counter-attack about fifteen minutes after the gas came over, and saw twenty-four men lying dead from the effects of the gas on a small stretch of road leading from the advanced trenches to the supports. He, himself, was much affected by the gas, and felt as though he could not breathe.

“These symptoms and other facts so far ascertained point to the use by the German troops of chlorine or bromide for the purpose of asphyxiation. There also are facts pointing to the use in German shells of other irritant substances. Still, the last of these agents are not of the same brutality and barbarous character as was the gas used in the attack on the Canadians.

“The effects are not those of any of the ordinary products of combustion of explosives. On this point the symptoms described left not the slightest doubt in my mind.”

KIND OF GAS EMPLOYED

Various have been the opinions of chemists as to the kind of gas employed. Sir James Dewar, President of the Royal Institution, was of the opinion that it was[292] liquid chlorine. Dr. F. A. Mason, of the Royal College of Science, considered it to have been bromine. Dr. Crocker, of the South-Western Polytechnic, said it may have been either carbon monoxide or liquid peroxide. Dr. W. J. Pope, Professor of Chemistry, Cambridge, and Sir E. Rutherford, Professor of Physics, Manchester University, agreed in thinking the gas to have been phosgene, a compound of carbon monoxide and chlorine, largely used in dye production in Germany.

“For some years,” stated Sir James Dewar, “Germany has been manufacturing chlorine in tremendous quantities. . . . The Germans undoubtedly have hundreds of tons available. If several tons of liquid are allowed to escape into the atmosphere, where it immediately evaporates and forms a yellow gas, and if the wind is blowing in a favorable direction, it is the easiest thing for the Germans to inundate the country with poison for miles ahead of them.

“The fact that the gas is three times heavier than air makes escape from its disastrous effects almost impossible, for it drifts like a thick fog-cloud along the surface of the ground, overwhelming all whom it overtakes.”

ALLIES FORCED TO USE SIMILAR METHODS

Of the German attack on the allied front near Ypres, Secretary of War, Earl Kitchener, speaking in the House of Lords on May 18, said:

“In this attack the enemy employed vast quantities of poisonous gases, and our soldiers and our French allies were utterly unprepared for this diabolical[293] method of attack, which undoubtedly had been long and carefully prepared.”

It was at this point that Earl Kitchener announced the determination of the Allies to resort to similar methods of warfare.

“The Germans,” said Earl Kitchener, “have persisted in the use of these asphyxiating gases whenever the wind favored or other opportunity occurred, and His Majesty’s government, no less than the French government, feel that our troops must be adequately protected by the employment of similar methods, so as to remove the enormous and unjustifiable disadvantage which must exist for them if we take no steps to meet on his own ground the enemy who is responsible for the introduction of this pernicious practice.”

[294]

CHAPTER XXXII
“USAGES OF WAR ON LAND”: THE OFFICIAL GERMAN MANUAL

CRIMES IN BELGIUM EXPLAINED BY INSTRUCTIONS TO GERMAN OFFICERS—UNLIMITED DESTRUCTION THE END OF WAR—RULES OF CIVILIZED WARFARE CLEARLY STATED—OTHER EXCELLENT RULES.

The black crime of Louvain, the world-lamented destruction of the cathedral of Rheims, the denudation of the fair land of Belgium, with all its horrible attendant crimes, is explained, in part at least, by “Usages of War on Land,” the official manual of instructions to military officers compiled by the general staff of the German army. It is an authoritative exposition of the rules of war as practiced by the Germans.

Two general principles bearing directly on the question of the invasion of Belgium are clearly stated in this guide:

“A war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely against the combatants of the enemy state and the positions they occupy, but it will and must in like manner seek to destroy the total intellectual and material resources of the latter. Humanitarian claims, such as the protection of men and their goods, can only be taken into consideration in so far as the nature and object of the war permit.

[295]

“The fact that such limitations of the unrestricted and reckless application of all the available means for the conduct of war, and thereby the humanization of the customary methods of pursuing war, really exist, and are actually observed by the armies of all civilized states, has in the course of the nineteenth century often led to attempts to develop, to extend, and thus to make universally binding these pre-existing usages of war; to elevate them to the level of laws binding nations and armies; in other words, to create a law of war. All these attempts have hitherto, with some few exceptions to be mentioned later, completely failed. If, therefore, in the following work the expression ‘the law of war’ is used, it must be understood that by it is meant not a written law introduced by the international agreements, but only a reciprocity of mutual agreement—a limitation of arbitrary behavior, which custom and conventionality, human friendliness and a calculating egotism have erected, but for the observance of which there exists no express sanction, but only ‘the fear of reprisals’ decides.”

UNLIMITED DESTRUCTION THE END OF WAR

Put in plain language, these passages mean that there is no law of war which may not be broken at the dictates of interest. Unlimited destruction is the end, and only fear of reprisals need limit the means. The sentimental humanitarianism and flabby emotion which prevail elsewhere have no place in the bright lexicon of the German officer. “By steeping himself in military history,” the manual clearly states, “an[296] officer will be able to guard himself against excessive humanitarian notions” and learn that “certain severities are indispensable in war,” and that “the only true humanity often lies in a ruthless application of them.” Then there is laid down this comprehensive general rule:

“All means of warfare may be used without which the purpose of war cannot be achieved. On the other hand, every act of violence and destruction which is not demanded by the purpose of war must be condemned.”

Interpreted by other passages in the volume, this implies that the end justifies the means. Barbarities may be forgiven if only they are useful. Thus “international law is in no way opposed to the exploitation of the crimes of third parties—assassination, incendiarism, robbery and the like—to the prejudice of the enemy.”

RULES OF CIVILIZED WARFARE CLEARLY STATED

It must not be assumed, of course, that the German war manual is a defense of unlimited rapine. The rules of civilized warfare are usually stated clearly enough. But there are so many exceptions to the application of them that a zealous officer might well be pardoned if he regarded them as not binding whenever it was to his interest to ignore them. Thus, after a careful statement of the right of the inhabitants of an invaded country to organize for its defense, the advantages of “terrorism” are candidly set forth as outweighing these considerations in many instances. That policy has been illustrated in Belgium[297] very significantly. The difference between precept and practice is also seen in the prohibition of the bombardment of churches and unfortified towns. Regarding the latter the manual says:

“A prohibition by international law of the bombardment of open towns and villages which are not occupied by the enemy or defended was, indeed, put into words by The Hague regulations, but appears superfluous, since modern military history knows of hardly any such case.”

Military history has been made since then, particularly by the German air raids on English seashore resorts.

OTHER EXCELLENT RULES

Several other excellent rules in the manual may be contrasted with German practice in the present war.

“No damage, not even the smallest, must be done unless it is done for military reasons.

“Contributions of war are sums of money which are levied by force from the people of an occupied country. They differ in character from requisitions in kind because they do not serve an immediate requirement of the army. Hence, requisitions in cash are only in the rarest cases justified by the necessities of war.

“The military government by the army of occupation carries with it only a temporary right to enjoy the property of others. It must, therefore, avoid every purposeless injury, it has no right to sell or dispose of the property.”

“Usages of War on Land” makes interesting reading[298] throughout, though the conclusions that the impartial reader will draw from it will not be in every case those which the German military authorities would have him draw.

[299]

CHAPTER XXXIII
THE SACRIFICE OF THE HORSE IN WARFARE

DUMB ANIMALS PRESSED INTO SERVICE — PART PLAYED BY HORSE IN WAR — AMERICAN STOCK DEPLETED.

So overwhelming has been the thought of human suffering in Europe, so anxious has the world been to relieve it, that little thought has been bestowed on the dumb sufferers. Various war photographs have shown us the novel sight of the dogs of Belgium impressed into service for dragging the smaller guns; but all contestants use horses, and when we reflect that the average life of a cavalry horse at the front is not more than a week, if that, we gain some idea of the sacrifice of animals which modern warfare demands.

One of the pleaders for the horse is John Galsworthy, the English novelist, who gives in the London Westminster Gazette this moral aspect of the use of the horse in warfare, with the attendant obligation:

“Man has only a certain capacity for feeling, and that has been strained almost to breaking-point by human needs. But now that the wants of our wounded are being seen to with hundreds of motor ambulances and hospitals fully equipped, now that the situation is more in hand, we can surely turn a little to the companions of man. They, poor things, have no option[300] in this business; they had no responsibility, however remote and indirect, for its inception; get no benefit out of it of any kind whatever; know none of the sustaining sentiments of heroism; feel no satisfaction in duty done. They do not even—as the prayer for them untruly says—‘offer their guileless lives for the well-being of their countries.’ They know nothing of countries; they do not offer themselves. Nothing so little pitiable as that. They are pressed into this service, which cuts them down before their time.”

PART PLAYED BY HORSE IN WAR

The horse still plays an important part in war, as every army service corps officer who has had anything to do with them well knows. The men love their mettlesome beasts, and much trouble and worry is pardoned and lost sight of in the comradeship which arises between man and beast. The great part played by motors and motor-driven vehicles in the present war has tended to draw attention away from the work of horses at the front, yet motor cavalry has not been evolved. While recognizing that for moving big guns along a well-made road motor power is very valuable, it is still equally true that once the roads are left it is found in practice of little use.

A remarkable feature of the European war, new, so far as we know, to military experience, has been the use upon an extensive scale of the heavy draught horse, whose stately pace admits of no hurrying, but whose great strength permits of his hauling very heavy weights where the nature of the road does not admit of the use of the motor.

[301]

AMERICAN STOCK DEPLETED

That the European war threatened to deplete the stock of horses even in the United States is emphasized by a careful computation which fixed at 185,023 the number of horses shipped to the warring nations from July 1, 1914, to March 31, 1915. The value of the animals, according to an inventory compiled from the manifests of ships transporting the horses is placed at $40,695,057. During that same period 26,976 mules, valued at $5,143,270, were sent abroad.

Buyers representing the British, French and Russian governments were reported as searching the country for more, and, according to estimates made by shippers, at least 120,000 animals were to be shipped to Europe during the summer of 1915.

Frank L. Neall, statistician, asserted that few persons realized the extent of the raid made by European buyers on the horse market. “Shipments,” he said, “have been made from New Orleans, Newport News, Portland, Boston and New York. During the month of March, 33,694 horses were shipped, representing a value of $8,088,974.”

Shippers were deeply interested when it became known for a certainty that the German government had representatives purchasing horses in the West. Wood Brothers, the largest horse dealers in Nebraska, were asked to bid on a 25,000-head shipment. Ruling prices for the grade of horses desired by foreign buyers have ranged from $175 to $200 per head.

The stockyards in New Orleans, where these animals were assembled, cover about eight acres and shed 3,500 animals. Horses were thoroughly examined as to[302] their fitness for service, both at the point of purchase and at New Orleans.

The last step before placing the horses on shipboard was to adjust special halters to them, so that, as in the case of many horses purchased by France, it was only necessary, when the animal reached the other side, to snap two straps to his head-stalls and make him instantly ready to be hitched to a gun limber or a wagon of a transport train.

[303]

CHAPTER XXXIV
SCOURGES THAT FOLLOW IN THE WAKE OF BATTLE

THE COMMON ENEMY, DISEASE — SCOURGES OF MODERN WARFARE — RAVAGES OF TYPHUS IN SERVIA — NO WORD OF COMPLAINT — AMERICA TO THE RESCUE.

In many campaigns of the past, disease has slain its thousands where bullets and shells have killed hundreds, and even the twentieth century with its marvelous science of sanitation has not defeated the direful common enemies of allies and foes. Why disease should attack masses of men in the prime of life, living in the open air, and on the whole well fed and clothed, at first sight seems strange, but when we remember that modern fighting begets an intolerable thirst, which the soldier is naturally tempted to slake as best he can and when he can, at least one reason is not hard to find.

All modern armies, since the striking experience of Japan in the Manchurian campaign, pay special attention to the drinking water, and with good results. But an irremovable source of disease remains in the typhus-carrying vermin, in the myriads of flies bred in the rotting carcases of men and horses and in the filth that inevitably collects around perpetually shifting camps and bivouacs. As everyone now knows,[304] these insects are ceaseless and tireless carriers of infection, and it is difficult to see how, under conditions of war, the plague of them can be utterly wiped out.

SCOURGES OF MODERN WARFARE

Of the diseases which assail an army in the field, a few stand out so prominently that all others may practically be neglected. These are cholera, typhus, typhoid fever, dysentery, and pneumonia; and they have this in common, that they are all caused by specific bacilli. Thus cholera is the child, so to speak, of the dreaded vibrio, and pneumonia that of the pneumococcus; while typhus, typhoid and dysentery have each their own special microbe. The modes of attack are, however, different, for the pneumococcus can enter the organism by the nose and mouth only; typhoid and dysentery through the alimentary canal; while the way in which cholera is propagated is at present unknown. All have this in common, that while the microbes causing them are probably always present—that of cholera being a doubtful exception—they seem only to assault a subject previously weakened by exposure, bad food, or intemperance.

RAVAGES OF TYPHUS IN SERVIA

The dread aftermaths of war made their first visitations upon the Servian nation. One read with dismay that Belgium was later outdone by Poland, and Poland seemed almost fortunate beside Servia. The account sent by Captain E. N. Bennett, Commissioner in Servia for the British Red Cross Society, of the conditions prevailing in Servian hospitals and prisoners[305]’ camps filled the whole world with dread. “Fires are needed to clear Servia of typhus, just as fires were needed to stop the great plague in London,” reported Sir Thomas Lipton, who spent considerable time in that country. He said:

“I met on the country roads many victims too weak to crawl to a hospital. Bullock-carts were gathering them up. Often a woman and her children were leading the bullocks, while in the car the husband and father was raving with fever. Scarcely enough people remain unstricken to dig graves for the dead, whose bodies lie exposed in the cemeteries.

“The situation is entirely beyond the control of the present force, which imperatively needs all the help it can get—tents, hospitals, doctors, nurses, modern appliances, and clothing to replace the garments full of typhus-bearing vermin.”

His picture of the hospital at Ghevgheli, where Dr. James F. Donnelly, of the American Red Cross, died, is appalling. Sir Thomas called Dr. Donnelly one of the greatest heroes of the war:

“The place is a village in a barren, uncultivated country, the hospital an old tobacco factory, formerly belonging to Abdul Hamid. In it were crowded 1,400 persons, without blankets or mattresses, or even straw—men lying in the clothes in which they had lived in the trenches for months, clothes swarming with vermin, victims of different diseases, typhus, typhoid, dysentery, and smallpox were herded together. In such a state Dr. Donnelly found the hospital, where he had a force of six American doctors, twelve American nurses, and three Servian doctors. When I visited the hospital[306] three of the American doctors, the three Servian doctors, and nine of the nurses were themselves ill.

“The patients were waited on by Austrian prisoners. The fumes of illness were unbearable. The patients objected to the windows being opened, and Dr. Donnelly was forced to break the panes. The first thing Dr. Donnelly did on his arrival was to test the water, which he found infected. He then improvised boilers of oil-drums, in which to boil water for use. The boilers saved five hundred lives, said Dr. Donnelly. He also built ovens in which to bake the clothes of the patients, but he was not provided with proper sterilizing apparatus.

NO WORD OF COMPLAINT

“No braver people exist than the Servians. They have never a word of complaint. In one ward I saw a fever patient, his magnificent voice booming songs to cheer his comrades. Some were in a delirium, calling for ‘mother.’

“One source of infection is the army black bread, which is the only ration of the troops. The patients in the hospital receive only a loaf each, which they put in their bed or under their pillow. Later the unused loaves are bought by pedlers and are resold, spreading disease among the people, who are mediæval in so far as sanitation is concerned. A Servian soldier receives a rifle, some hand-grenades, and perhaps part of a uniform, but otherwise looks after himself.

“The street-cleaning and hospital-waiting are done by Austrians, who are rapidly thinning from typhus and other diseases.

[307]

AMERICA TO THE RESCUE

“The best hospital in the Balkans is at Belgrade, under Dr. Edward W. Ryan, of the American contingent, where there are 2,900 patients. Dr. Ryan kept the hospital neutral during the Austrian occupation, and accomplished wonders diplomatically at that time. He is worshiped by the people.

“Dr. Ryan says that the greatest task is to keep the hospital free from vermin. The typhus affects men the most severely. Women come next, and children for the most part recover. The symptoms begin like those of grip. The disease lasts fifteen days, with fever and delirium.”

In the spring of 1915, a large sanitary commission was organized by the American Red Cross and the Rockefeller Foundation, each of these organizations donating $25,000 to the prosecution of the work. The commission included a group of distinguished bacteriologists and physicians, among them William C. Gorgas, surgeon-general of the U. S. A. An initial supply of 10,000 anti-cholera treatments was carried to Servia by the commission, for there was danger not only of a spread of typhus but also of an outbreak of Asiatic cholera or some other infectious disease that might sweep across all Europe. Heavy indeed is the price of warfare.

[308]

CHAPTER XXXV
WAR’S REPAIR SHOP: CARING FOR THE WOUNDED

EFFICIENCY OF THE RED CROSS SERVICE — THE BANDAGING CAMP — THE SANITATION COMPANY — THE HOSPITAL BARGE.

Amid the dreadful welter of carnage and its attendant agony which spells modern warfare one ray of brightness appears in the universal gloom in the shape of the highly organized efficiency of the Red Cross Service, which waits upon battle. Die Umschau, of Berlin, printed an admirable description of its activities from the pen of Professor Rupprecht, one of the chief organizers of the German Military Hospital Service, of which we give an abstract:

“The stretcher-bearers of the infantry—four to each company—who bear the Red Cross symbol on the arm, when a battle is on hand, gather at the end of the battalion (sixteen men with four stretchers) and then proceed to the Infantry Sanitation Car. As soon as the ‘bandaging camp’ is made ready . . . they go to the front with stretchers and knapsacks in order to be ready to give aid to the wounded as soon as possible. Musicians and others are employed as assistant stretcher-bearers. These wear a red band on the sleeve but do not come under the provisions of the Geneva Treaty.”

[309]

THE BANDAGING CAMP

Similar arrangements are made for the cavalry. The so-called “bandaging camp” is for the purpose of gathering the wounded and examining and classifying them. It should be both protected and accessible, and if possible near a water supply. At the end of a battle it is the duty of the troops to search trenches, woods, houses, etc., for the wounded, protect them against plunderers and carry them to the bandaging camp, as also to bury the dead.

Quicker and Easier Than Bandages: The “Tabloid” Adjustable Head-Dressing.

This dressing for head-wounds in the form of a cap, can be applied in a few seconds, and remains comfortably in position. It can be washed, sterilized, and used repeatedly. The diagrams show the method of adjusting and the dressing in position.

“At the bandaging camp the surgeons and their assistants must revive and examine the men and make them ready for transport. Operations are seldom practicable or necessary here. The chief concern is to bandage wounds of bones, joints, and arteries carefully. . . . Severe hemorrhages usually stop of themselves, on which account it is seldom desirable[310] to bind the limb tightly above the wound. The wound itself must never be touched, washed, or probed. After the clothing is removed or cut away it must merely be covered with the contents of the bandage package.”

Every soldier carries two of these packages in a pocket on the lower front corner of his left coat-tail. Each package contains a gauze bandage enclosed in a waterproof cover. There is sewed to this bandage a gauze compress saturated with sublimate and of a red color. It is so arranged that the bandage can be taken hold of with both hands without touching the red compress.

It is strongly impressed upon the stretcher-bearers and all assistants that cases having wounds in the abdomen are not transportable and must on no account be given food or drink; also that bleeding usually stops of itself. They are taught, too, that touching, washing, or probing the wound is injurious, and that only dry bandages must be placed on the wound—never those that are damp or impervious.

“The wounded who are capable of marching leave their ammunition, except for a few cartridges, at the bandaging camp, are provided if need be with a simple protective bandage, and march first to the nearest ‘camp for the slightly wounded,’ or to the nearest ‘resting-camp.’ The rest of the wounded are removed as soon as possible directly to the field hospitals or lazarets. If obliged to remain for a while before removal they are protected by portable tents, wind-screens, etc. . . . If it is impossible to carry the wounded along in a retreat they are left in care of the hospital staff under the protection of the Red Cross.”

[311]

THE SANITATION COMPANY

In case of a big battle a sanitation company remains near the bandaging camp. Every army corps has three of these companies, which, together with the twelve field lazarets of the corps, form a sanitation battalion.

As soon as it is apparent that the troops will remain in one locality for some length of time the smaller bandaging camps or stations are supplemented by a chief bandaging station some distance in the rear, and if possible, near a highway and near houses. At this spot there are arranged places for the entry and exit of the wagons carrying the wounded, for the unloading of the wounded, for the dying and the dead, for cooking, and a “park” for wagons and horses.

Each field lazaret is capable of caring for two hundred men, but this capacity may be extended by making use of local aid. The supplies carried are very comprehensive, including tents, straw mattresses and woolen blankets, lighting materials, clothing and linen, tools, cooking utensils, soap, writing materials, drugs and medical appliances, sterilization ovens, bandages, instruments, and an operating-table. As fast as possible the patients treated are sent home on furlough or removed to permanent military hospitals. The very perfection of this system but deepens the tragic irony that occasions it.

THE HOSPITAL BARGE

One very important development in the care for the wounded is the introduction of the hospital barge. The rivers and canals of France offer splendid opportunities[312] for conveying wounded from point to point. This new method of transport was foreshadowed in an article in the London Times, in which the writer, in describing the hospital barges, said:

“The north of France, as is well known, is exceedingly rich in waterways—rivers and canals. The four great rivers, the Oise, the Somme, the Sambre, and the Escaut (Scheldt), are connected by a network of canals—quiet and comfortable waterways at present almost free of traffic. So far as the reaching of any particular spot is concerned these waterways may be said to be ubiquitous. They extend, too, right into Belgium, and have connection with the coast at various points—for example, Ostend. Here, then, is a system of ‘roads’ for the removal of the wounded, a system which, if properly used, can be made to relieve greatly the stress of work imposed upon the ambulance motor cars and trains. Here also is the ideal method of removal.

“The Ile de France is lying at present at the Quai de Grenelle, near the Eiffel Tower. This is a Seine barge of the usual size and type, blunt-nosed, heavily and roomily built. You enter the hold by a step-ladder, which is part of the hospital equipment. This is a large chamber not much less high from floor to ceiling than an ordinary room, well lighted, and ventilated by means of skylights. The walls of the hold have been painted white; the floor has been thoroughly scrubbed out for the reception of beds, of which some forty to fifty will be accommodated.

“The forward portion of the barge can accommodate more beds, and there is no reason why a portion of it[313] should not be walled in and used as an operating room, more especially since in the bow a useful washing apparatus is fitted. The barge is heated by stoves, and a small electric plant could easily be installed. The barges are used in groups of four, and a small tug supplies the motive power. In favorable circumstances about fifty kilometers a day can be traveled.”

The barges employed are big, roomy barges one hundred and twenty feet long, sixteen feet broad, and ten feet high. Care is taken to use only fairly new and clean barges which have been used in the conveyance of timber or stone or other clean and harmless cargoes.

[314]

CHAPTER XXXVI
WHAT WILL THE HORRORS AND ATROCITIES OF THE GREAT WAR LEAD TO?

WAR, A REVERSAL TO THE PRIMITIVE BRUTE IN MAN — THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY — DECLINE OF THE WAR SPIRIT — THE DAWN OF UNIVERSAL PEACE.

In the mobilization of armies, in the appropriation of colossal funds and consequent imposition of intolerable taxes, in the disregard of the neutrality of lesser nations, in the “emergency measures” that tear apart a home to give its bread-winner to the reeking shambles—in all these phenomena original incentives quickly are forgotten, as though they had never been.

What imperial chancellery now remembers, or now cares, that a sovereign’s nephew and his morganatic wife were done to death in an obscure dependency upon the Adriatic shores? Their hands and steel are at each other’s throats on that pretext, but they improve the occasion to settle all old scores that rancorous racial antagonism in an interminable blood-feud have created. War has thrown down the barriers of social restraint; it has abolished the delimitations of political adjustment; international decorum, propriety, all that is signified in the German tongue under the untranslatable name of “Sittlichkeit” are no more; landmarks set in place with a thankful sense of achievement and a pious aspiration are obliterated.

[315]

None will deny to our heroes living, nor to those who after warfare rest in peace, the sublimity of their utmost pattern of devotion and of the sacrifice they made. But with all that selfless devotion implies and patriotism means, with all that the bugle sings or flaunting pennons inspire, with all that the sight of old and tattered battle-flags conveys, with all that the histories tell, with all the exemplary careers of conquerors that were not ruthless and armies that sang psalms and nations whose quarrel was just and kings who laid their crowns before the throne of God in prayer, and their laurels in the dust of the profoundest self-abasement—the nature of war is not changed.

With all the Te Deums that have risen in cathedrals, and hosannas that were sung for conquering Caesars when earth and sky were shaken like a carpet with their welcome at the gate; with all the splendor of shining accoutrements of guardsmen and Uhlans and cuirassiers; with all the investiture of romance that poet and painter and even the sensitive historian have been able to confer upon it—war remains what it is: an abysmal and sickening reversion to the primitive brute in man. It must still be a sight “to grieve high heaven and make the angels mourn” that men created in the image of their Maker, endowed with a diviner instinct beyond the body’s need or transient existence, could sink so far, and in the slough of primordial animality forget the very light of life and their immortal destiny for the sake of the mere fiction of power on land, sea and even in the throbbing and embattled air through which the prayers of women ascend like silent flame to God.

[316]

[317]

THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY

We are apt, in thinking of the consequences of the European war, to consider the readjustment of national boundaries as of prime importance. Such a thought betrays a wrong perspective, or a narrowness of vision, or both. Territorial definition is a small, material factor. The larger, spiritual considerations that affect all mankind are the momentous things. And probably of all the consequences that are evolved out of the horrors and atrocities of the great war, the spread of the democratic spirit must be the most momentous. Despite the fact that the ambitions of the people and the dynasties are in accord, the effect of the war upon monarchical institutions must be momentous. The spirit of democracy is abroad. It has practically abolished the British House of Lords. It has forced the establishment of a parliament in Russia. It is so active and alert in Germany that the Social Democratic party is the largest and most powerful political organization in the empire. In France it overturned the monarchy nearly half a century ago, and is now so firmly established that only the wildest dreamers ever imagine that republican institutions can be displaced. It is regnant in Portugal and nearly so in Spain. A nation in arms, as Germany now is, will not long be content to remain a nation without a ministry responsible to its Parliament. The democratization of German institutions is inevitable after the war, whatever the result. The people, even in Russia, are no longer driven serfs. They think, they reason, and a demonstration of the power of 5,000,000 men on the battle-field will not be lost on the patriots who wish also to demonstrate[318] the power of the same number of millions in deciding at first hand the causes for which they will take up arms. Whether the kings and the emperors remain on their thrones matters little. Great Britain, though it retains the fiction of a monarchy, is as democratic as the United States, and its Parliament responds with greater precision to popular sentiment than the American Congress. The war means the end of autocracy whether the kings remain or not.

DECLINE OF THE WAR SPIRIT

It is significant that the most democratic nations are likewise the most peace-loving. With the spread of democracy must come the decline of the war spirit. The teaching that war is a biological necessity for the preservation of the heroic virtues in men has met its fate in this war, for we have found men, whole regiments of them, who had only been in warlike training a few months, showing just as cool courage and just as stubborn fighting powers as men who had been trained to war from their youth. Even from the standpoint of effectiveness in war the war spirit is unnecessary.

And we have a right to insist that the bravery of the battle-line is not the highest bravery, and that the deliverance wrought by bayonet and shrapnel is not the most necessary to the welfare of humanity. The courage which is unmoved by the roar of great guns and undaunted by the gleam of advancing bayonets is good, but it is no better than the courage of the timid woman who faces death upon the operating-table without shrinking or complaint; and it is in[319] nothing superior to the courage which, in the daily life of our people, takes up patiently the burden of the day, and in the face of poverty, sorrow, and pain, and bearing also the contempt of many, goes forward without bitterness and even with cheerfulness to the end of the journey, faithful unto death.

THE DAWN OF UNIVERSAL PEACE

Finally, as the spirit of democracy rises and the spirit of war declines, the vision of universal peace begins to crystallize. While to many it may seem that this must always remain a vision, the real seers of the world do not doubt that, when the awful conflict in Europe is ended, the warring nations, viewing their dead and their devastated countries, will welcome a plan which promises an end of such disasters. The practicability and feasibility of the idea of an international tribunal is shown by the successful operation of the American Constitutional Courts of Arbitration, which have settled controversies between the states, and by the so-called general arbitration treaties to submit justiciable disputes to arbitration. And if an international arbitration court is feasible, an international police, to give force to the decrees of the tribunal, is also feasible. We have only to come to believe this and the plan itself can be formulated. All great achievement in the world has been a matter of great faith.

The hope of humanitarianism and civilization rests on the very enormity of the present calamity. The horrors and atrocities of the war are so great, its waste and devastation so enormous, its scars so deep, that[320][1] no one who is touched by it can want war again. The disaster is so overwhelming that peace when it comes must be lasting.