THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE
Paris, Monday, October 12th. In writing about the German, Austrian, and Hungarian subjects of whom we have had charge, I have spoken of them en masse. In reality there have been many cases in whom I have been personally interested and to whose safety I have given much time. Their history alone would fill a book. One of these is the case of the Countess X., member of an old and powerful Hungarian family.
The Count, her husband, was desperately ill in Paris when the war broke out and he was kept alive only through the devoted care of his wife. We arranged with the French authorities that the Countess might remain in Paris with her husband, although all other Hungarian people were, without exception, being shipped off to detention camps. Later the Countess twice received notice from the Prefecture that she was to be immediately imprisoned, and each time by enlisting the personal assistance of Ambassador Herrick I managed to have the decree delayed.
The children of the family, of whom there were seven under ten years of age, were living at a château on the French coast, at Paris-Plage, near Boulogne. When the German army began to sweep towards the coast in a seemingly irresistible flood, the Countess came to me to say how fearful she felt for the safety of her children, left in the care of servants and governesses. Yesterday, when the fall of Antwerp was confirmed and when even the official announcements went so far as to talk of fighting in the neighborhood of Arras, she came again. I went to Mr. Herrick and asked if I might be allowed to go to the coast and bring the children back to Paris. The permission was the more readily granted because there were several other errands to be done in the same direction, notably to carry communications to our Consular Agent in Amiens, who had remained in that city during the German occupation and from whom little had since been heard.
The necessary permits have been obtained and these will incidentally allow me to see something of the front on my way north. I expect to leave this evening.
Two machines will be needed to bring back the children and their attendants. There are several young Americans who have given their services and the use of their private automobiles for Embassy service. On all previous expeditions I have been conducted by Melvin Hall. He is at present assigned to other business, but I have secured the services of another volunteer chauffeur, Francis Colby. I shall travel in his touring-car and bring back in it the older children and their English governess. The second machine, a large limousine, will be driven by the French chauffeur of Countess X., and into it I shall pack the smaller children and their two nurses.
The condition of the front along which we must pass for eighty miles is as follows: the battle of the Aisne has now turned into a race for the coast; each army is trying to outflank the other, the Germans, according to present indications, getting much the better of the contest. Everyone’s attention seems to be concentrated for the moment on Calais, and the Allies evidently feel that the chief danger point is there. I notice with special concern, however, that farther south the German army is at Bethune thrusting out a wedge toward Abbeville, on the coast, only thirty-eight miles away. If they can advance these thirty-eight miles they will win not only all the triangle containing Nieuport, Calais, and Boulogne, but will cut off such of the Allied armies as are now concentrated in this area, and also radically shorten their own lines. Their front, as it now extends from Compiègne to Holland, measures nearly two hundred miles. If reorganized from Compiègne to the coast at Abbeville, it would be less than sixty-five miles. Of course the Allies fully appreciate this danger and are guarding against it as best they can, but I agree with Countess X. that the sooner we snatch her children out of the threatened area the better.
At the Front, Tuesday, October 13th. We left Paris last evening at half-past six and at first made only slow progress owing to heavy traffic, worn-out roads, and destroyed bridges. We stopped for supper in poor, wrecked Senlis. This town is no farther from the gates of Paris than Van Cortlandt Park in New York is from the Battery, and yet the German armies were in Senlis in September, battles raged in its streets, shells burst in its houses and destroyed whole blocks. Indeed, one of the fiercest fights of the war took place at night in its streets when, during the attack made by the garrison of Paris upon von Kluck’s army, troops were hurriedly rushed out of Paris in trams, wagons, and taxicabs to fall pell-mell upon the Germans who occupied Senlis. French colonial infantry played a large part in this conflict. A weird and awful sight it must have been: taxicabs and automobiles from Paris charging up the streets vomiting bullets in all directions, houses catching fire from the bursting shells, and by the light of their flames the men of both armies fighting hand to hand, chasing one another through the doors and windows of burning and collapsing houses, or making desperate stands behind dead horses, street-barricades, or wrecked taxicabs. It is said that in every such mêlée Turcos were to be seen exulting in their favorite sport, close-range fighting.
After supper we passed through Fleurines, Pont Ste. Maxence, and Blincourt to Estrées-St. Denis, where we spent the night. Along this road had recently passed a great German army, and their engineers had constructed new roads to the right and left of the original one, so that their regiments had been able to march steadily three abreast, probably no small factor in their successful retreat.
This morning we got under way at half-past six. The day was hazy, threatening rain; mists rising from the ground made it impossible to see clearly for any great distance. The heavy atmosphere muffled the sound of guns so that it was difficult to judge their location even when we were fairly close upon them. The day was, however, a most advantageous one on which to move about near the front, provided one were careful to ascertain where, off in the mist, the enemy’s batteries lay.
We first reached the front at Roye-sur-Matz, which we found was occupied by a French colonial brigade. This place is about three miles from Lassigny, which is far within the German lines, and from which they have recently organized heavy attacks against the French forces. In Roye-sur-Matz the German shells were bursting, punctuated by the muffled slump of falling walls. The place had been deserted by its inhabitants, but Turcos and black Senegalese wandered about the ruined streets indifferent to the shell fire. For a week past there has been heavy fighting in the vicinity of Roye and Lassigny, probably the heaviest that has taken place in the Battle of the Aisne since the latter part of September. We drove slowly down the main street of the village looking for an officer who could tell us about the local geography. We finally met the acting brigadier, a French colonel, who informed us that it was not safe for us to continue more than a block farther in the direction in which we were going, as the far end of the village was “between the lines” and we would there come under the observation of the German sharpshooters. This officer said that the best way to follow the battle-line would be to turn back through the village and take the first road to the right.
We stayed in the village for half an hour longer, and then, faithfully following directions, went back and took the “first turn to the right,” which proved to be a narrow road whose existence the officer had forgotten and which was not at all the one he meant to recommend. We, ignorant of any mistake, went blindly on, down a little hill, across a small brook, and up a knoll opposite. In doing so we had actually passed out through the French lines and reached an elevation squarely between the two armies. The French positions were, as usual, concealed, and for the moment they were not firing, so that we remained blissfully unconscious of our dangerous position. Fortunately for us, the German lines were at this point half a mile away from the French, and owing to the mist and distance we were apparently unobserved, since we received no especial attention. As we reached the top of the knoll it began to rain, making us still less conspicuous and forcing us to stop and put up the top. We pulled up behind an isolated barn in order to be somewhat sheltered from stray shrapnel.
As we stood behind the barn, the bombarded village which we had just left lay below and behind us, and in front featureless fields sloped away toward some low wooded hills half a mile distant. Suddenly the constant rumbling of guns was interrupted by four quick, sharp explosions, and we perceived little wisps of smoke bluer than the mist trailing up through the tree tops of these hills. These explosions were French shells bursting over the German trenches, but we, naturally supposing ourselves to be within the French lines, at the moment thought it was a French battery firing a salvo.
While we were putting up the top, two French soldiers on picket duty came by and, lured by the unfailing bait of cigarettes, stopped to talk to us. Taking it for granted that we knew where we were, they did not mention our being between the lines, but told us of a great fight which had last Sunday taken place about two miles to the right of where we stood. They said that the German and French trenches there faced one another across a low field and were so near together that at night the French could hear the Germans singing. Some peculiarity in the contour of the land had led the enemy to think that here was a promising point to break through the French lines; consequently a series of violent attacks had been launched from Lassigny against this position. These attacks had repeatedly been repulsed with heavy losses and thousands of dead Germans lay in the field between the two sets of trenches.
I decided to ask permission to go over this recently contested area, and therefore turned back to Brigade headquarters in the village of Roye-sur-Matz, which we had just left. There, in a second talk with the officer who had previously directed us, I learned for the first time that we had taken the wrong road and been for a considerable time between the French and German armies, and only a few hundred yards from the German trenches. That we had there seen no signs of armies, guns, or entrenchments, indicates the curious characteristics of modern warfare, and the invisibility of all combatants even when actively engaged. The permission which I had desired to obtain to inspect the ground of the recent battle was refused as being too dangerous.
We later passed through the village of Guerbigny. Here, as at all times during our trip, the guns could be heard booming in the distance. At the farther end of the place a family of peasants, led by the grandfather, were packing their humble worldly goods into a big cart to which was hitched an exceedingly old white horse. They were very sad and explained simply, “C’est dur de partir.” They pointed across a field to a little church tower about a mile away, only dimly visible through the haze, which still hung low over the landscape, saying pathetically: “On bombarde ce hameau; c’est là les avant-postes des Français.” Our maps showed that the church tower was in the village of Erches. A straight road ran down to it from where we stood. The mist seemed to favor the possibility of our reaching this village without being too quickly observed by the Germans. We therefore promptly put on all speed and in a few seconds drew up under the lee of a battered house, which was on the advance line of the French army, and were in the midst of the battle. A French officer, who appeared out of the house, informed us that we were then actually within two hundred yards of the German trenches, so near, he said, that his men “knew the Germans in the opposing trenches by their first names.”
Seeing a modern battle demolishes all one’s preconceived ideas derived from descriptions of previous wars. One at least expects some sort of rapid and exciting action. In reality, as we stood in the very midst of the Battle of the Aisne, there was, in our immediate neighborhood, only a dead silence. At intervals an angry rumbling would break out somewhere in the distance, but in the trenches close to our elbows there was no sound or movement. No birds, no beasts, no men were anywhere to be seen. This uncanny silence would continue for twenty or thirty interminable seconds and then a shrapnel would burst close by, with a sharp, ugly, threatening bang which had no echo; then all lapsed into silence again. Each shrapnel only made the subsequent silence more intense, just as a man’s footsteps crunching through the snow-crust of a winter wilderness seem like a brutal intrusion on the absolute stillness.
We looked behind us and could see no signs of French troops; we peeped around the house corner and could perceive no indications of the enemy. It was a monotonous landscape which faded away through the mist to nothingness, and its only noticeable features were a few shell craters and two French soldiers sitting close by in the end of a trench. These men remained motionless so long before one of them moved that we began to think they were dead. Their comrades were all hidden in a bomb-proof trench which from any angle was invisible at a distance of a few yards. Several more officers came out of the house and chatted with us, or unconcernedly read newspapers which we distributed and made not the slightest break in their conversation when a shrapnel burst directly over our heads with ear-splitting nearness.
The shrapnel arrived without any forewarning scream. This is a sign that the guns are less than two thousand yards away. For the first one or two thousand yards of its flight a 3-inch shell travels faster than sound, but after that distance it so rapidly loses velocity that the sound of its screech travels faster than the shell and arrives ahead of it.
We visited the field headquarters of a General, commanding a division of twenty thousand men, whom we had the pleasure of meeting. Under a great haystack which stood alone in the center of an open field had been excavated several rooms used as the General’s Headquarters. Some yards away from the haystack a stove-pipe projected out of the sod in a foolish unrelated manner; under it was the kitchen in which was cooking the evening meal for the staff officers. A clump of trees close by might be called the General’s ante-room, for here hidden among the branches were several officers receiving and sending messengers and dispatches. Several telephone wires ran to the haystack and one of them connected the trees with the General’s underground office. In a neighboring wood a troop of cavalry were encamped and numerous automobiles and motor-cycles were parked, all hidden from distant outlooks or from aëroplanes overhead.
The area immediately in the rear of the battle-lines is most interesting, for it is here that one really learns how a battle is fought. One sees the reserves of men and munitions all hidden carefully from the view of aëroplanes. Occasionally one catches a glimpse of the guns, which are usually a mile or so behind the infantry and are hidden and protected in the woods and valleys. The artillery seldom sees its enemy or even its own front battle-line, but fires across woods, hills, and valleys and over the heads of its own infantry at the enemy beyond. The guns are aimed from mathematical calculations and the results are checked and corrected by observations telephoned back from the front.
We arrived in Amiens in the middle of the afternoon and I went immediately to see the American Consular Agent, M. Tassancourt, for whom I had messages. I found him in splendid shape and very glad to welcome me. I discovered later in the day that he had done exceedingly effective work during the German occupation of the city, and was at least partly responsible for the fact that there had been no friction between the German invaders and the population. When our official business was finished he took me for an inspection of the military hospitals, which occupied several hours. The city is only fifteen miles distant from the present battle-line and contains base hospitals for some forty miles of battle front.
I took special pains to learn the details of the German occupation and to search for any damage they might have done. There had been no fighting within the city and it had not been shelled by either side. The German armies had entered it unopposed and had retired from it unpursued, both as the result of decisive actions fought at distant points.
On entering the city the Germans had posted notices warning the inhabitants to refrain from hostile actions and threatening them with dire consequences if they did not obey orders. A considerable number of the leading citizens were taken as hostages for the good behavior of the populace and an exorbitant indemnity was demanded of the city. As a result of bargaining and protest this was finally cut down until the conquerors contented themselves with something like one hundred and fifty thousand francs in gold, and supplies to the value of about eight hundred thousand. All this levy was turned over within four days, after which the hostages were released, the populace having behaved in a manner satisfactory to the invaders.
The headquarters of the British Red Cross Field Ambulance train of the Section Beauvais-Lille were temporarily in Amiens. The Consul presented me to Mr. Fabian Ware, the Commissioner in command, who very kindly invited me to dine with him and his staff.
At the Front, Wednesday, October 14th. We spent last night in Amiens and after a day near the front returned again to Amiens in the afternoon. On the way from Pas to Amiens the machine was running rapidly down the slope of a hill toward a little village in the valley, when an old white-haired woman detached herself from a knot of peasants beside the road and suddenly threw herself in front of the wheels. By putting on the brakes the driver managed to stop just in time to prevent her being crushed. She then tried to crawl under the car and was dragged screaming away by the villagers. It seems that some twenty years ago this woman had been left a widow with one child, a boy. With endless labor she had brought him to manhood and given him more than an average education. When the war broke out her son was immediately called to the colors, while she remained caring for her tiny house, her chickens, and her cow. When the Germans came a battle took place in her village, her house was knocked down, her cow blown up by a shell, and finally her chickens disappeared down German throats. The poor old woman, refusing to leave the locality in which her life had been passed, had wandered about for days in the rain and mud, until cold, hunger, and sorrow had made her light-witted. Then while roaming aimlessly over the fields she had come upon the body of her dead son.
On this trip I have travelled along the front from Lassigny to a point near Arras, or about fifty-five miles of battle-line.
We left Amiens at six o’clock in the evening and passed through Abbeville on the coast, this being the point before mentioned from which the Germans were at the time only thirty-eight miles distant and which they might have reached in two days had they advanced as rapidly as they did at times during August, or as rapidly as they now seem to be doing farther north in Belgium. I continued up the coast some forty miles through Etaples to Paris-Plage, which I reached at ten o’clock. I went immediately to the residence of the Countess X. and found to my great satisfaction that the French chauffeur whom I had sent on ahead to prepare the family for the trip to Paris had arrived safely with the limousine the day previous and that the children and nurses were all ready to leave at daybreak tomorrow.
Before going to bed I called on the Mayor and after a long conference arranged for proper passes to get my charges out of the town the next morning.
Thursday, October 15th. We all got started this morning at half-past six. I had told the chauffeur to warn the nurses to provide milk, food, and everything the children would need for the long day’s run, as I planned to make Paris in one day and did not wish to stop except for emergencies. I put the five youngest “kids” and the two nurses inside the limousine and took the English governess and the two older children in the back seat of my own car.
Despite my papers from the Mayor of Paris-Plage, my personal passes, and a large sign across the front of the automobile reading, “In the Service of the Ambassador of the United States,” I had an exciting time getting past the gendarmes of the town and the Prefecture of Montreuil. The difficulty lay in the nationality of the children and of one of the nurses, all of whom were Hungarians and therefore officially enemies of France. As such they were not supposed to travel about, especially not behind the French battle-line. The details of my struggles are too numerous to relate, but finally we got through successfully and at good speed ran towards Paris. The day throughout proved a strenuous one with many detentions caused by suspicious sentries and over cautious prefects, together with four blow-outs and one breakdown. Each self-important petty official could see no reason why I should not spend several hours explaining things for his special benefit. It was manifestly impossible to keep the babies out over-night, and therefore I overrode objections, answered innumerable questions, and freely used the magic name of the American Ambassador.
The frequent tire trouble, which gave the rest of us much anxiety, filled the heart of little Count Paul, aged seven, with unalloyed delight, for when the machine stopped to shift tires, he could get out in the road and listen to the thrilling sound of guns booming off to the left.
In the end, what had to be done was done. We made Paris and “Mother” at eight o’clock after a fourteen-hour run—all dead tired, but no one the worse for the trip.
I obtained a very telling idea of the immensity of the Battle of the Aisne on this rapid run, for today the atmosphere had cleared and was in a sound-transmitting mood, so that all day long we could hear the cannon on our left booming, booming, without cessation—eighty miles of cannon, or fourteen hours of booming, a big measure. Our route lay through Etaples, Montreuil, Abbeville, Pont Remy, Aviames, Poix, where we stopped for luncheon, Grandvilliers, Pontoise, and through the Porte Maillot into Paris.