Fighting in Flanders

by E. Alexander Powell

At that moment a burly Belgian shouldered his way through the crowd and, leaping on the running-board, levelled a revolver at the Germans cowering in the tonneau. Quick as thought Thompson knocked up the man's hand, and at the same instant I threw on the power. The big car leaped forward and the mob scattered before it. It was a close call for every one concerned, but a much closer call for Ghent; for had those German soldiers been murdered by civilians in the city streets no power on earth could have saved the city from German vengeance. General von Boehn told me so himself.

A few minutes later, as playlets follow each other in quick succession on a stage, the scene changed from near tragedy to screaming farce. As we came thundering into the little town of Sotteghem, which is the Sleepy Hollow of Belgium, we saw, rising from the middle of the town square, a pyramid, at least ten feet high, of wardrobe-trunks, steamer-trunks, bags, and suit-cases. From the summit of this extraordinary monument floated a huge American flag. As our car came to a halt there rose a chorus of exclamations in all the dialects between Maine and California, and from the door of a near-by cafe came pouring a flood of Americans. They proved to be a lost detachment of that great army of tourists which, at the beginning of hostilities, started on its mad retreat for the coast, leaving Europe strewn with their belongings. This particular detachment had been cut off in Brussels by the tide of German invasion, and, as food-supplies were running short, they determined to make a dash--perhaps crawl would be a better word--for Ostend, making the journey in two lumbering farm wagons. On reaching Sotteghem, however, the Belgian drivers, hearing that the Germans were approaching, refused to go further and unceremoniously dumped their passengers in the town square. When we arrived they had been there for a day and a night and had begun to think that it was to be their future home. It was what might be termed a mixed assemblage, including several women of wealth and fashion who had been motoring on the Continent and had had their cars taken from them, two prim schoolteachers from Brooklyn, a mine-owner from West Virginia, a Pennsylvania Quaker, and a quartet of professional tango-dancers--artists, they called themselves--who had been doing a "turn" at a Brussels music-hall when the war suddenly ended their engagement. Van Hee and I skirmished about and, after much argument, succeeded in hiring two farm-carts to transport the fugitives to Ghent. For the thirty-mile journey the thrifty peasants modestly demanded four hundred francs--and got it. When I last saw my compatriots they were perched on top of their luggage piled high on two creaking carts, rumbling down the road to Ghent with their huge flag flying above them. They were singing at the top of their voices, "We'll Never Go There Any More."

Half a mile or so out of Sotteghem our road debouched into the great highway which leads through Lille to Paris, and we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of the German army. It was a sight never to be forgotten. Far as the eye could see stretched solid columns of marching men, pressing westward, ever westward. The army was advancing in three mighty columns along three parallel roads, the dense masses of moving men in their elusive grey-green uniforms looking for all the world like three monstrous serpents crawling across the country-side.

The American flags which fluttered from our wind-shield proved a passport in themselves, and as we approached the close-locked ranks parted to let us pass, and then closed in behind us. For five solid hours, travelling always at express-train speed, we motored between walls of marching men. In time the constant shuffle of boots and the rhythmic swing of grey-clad arms and shoulders grew maddening, and I became obsessed with the fear that I would send the car ploughing into the human hedge on either side. It seemed that the interminable ranks would never end, and so far as we were concerned they never did end, for we never saw the head of that mighty column. We passed regiment after regiment, brigade after brigade of infantry; then hussars, cuirassiers, Uhlans, field batteries, more infantry, more field-guns, ambulances with staring red crosses painted on their canvas tops, then gigantic siege-guns, their grim muzzles pointing skyward, each drawn by thirty straining horses; engineers, sappers and miners with picks and spades, pontoon- wagons, carts piled high with what looked like masses of yellow silk but which proved to be balloons, bicyclists with carbines slung upon their backs hunter-fashion, aeroplane outfits, bearded and spectacled doctors of the medical corps, armoured motor-cars with curved steel rails above them as a protection against the wires which the Belgians were in the habit of stringing across the roads, battery after battery of pom-poms (as the quick-firers are descriptively called), and after them more batteries of spidery- looking, lean-barrelled machine-guns, more Uhlans--the sunlight gleaming on their lance-tips and the breeze fluttering their pennons into a black-and-white cloud above them, and then infantry in spiked and linen-covered helmets, more infantry and still more infantry--all sweeping by, irresistibly as a mighty river, with their faces turned towards France.

This was the Ninth Field Army, composed of the very flower of the German Empire, including the magnificent troops of the Imperial Guard. It was first and last a fighting army. The men were all young, and they struck me as being as keen as razors and as hard as nails. Their equipment was the acme to all appearances ordinary two-wheeled farm-carts, contained "nests" of nine machine-guns which could instantly be brought into action. The medical corps was magnificent; as businesslike, as completely equipped, and as efficient as a great city hospital--as, indeed, it should be, for no hospital ever built was called upon to treat so many emergency cases. One section of the medical corps consisted wholly of pedicurists, who examined and treated the feet of the men. If a German soldier has even a suspicion of a corn or a bunion or a chafed heel and does not instantly report to the regimental pedicurist for treatment he is subject to severe punishment. He is not permitted to neglect his feet--or for that matter his teeth, or any other portion of his body--because his feet do not belong to him but to the Kaiser, and the Kaiser expects those feet kept in condition to perform long and arduous marches and to fight his battles.

At one cross-roads I saw a soldier with a horse-clipping machine. An officer stood beside him and closely scanned the heads of the passing men. Whenever he spied a soldier whose hair was a fraction of an inch too long, that soldier was called out of the ranks, the clipper was run over his head as quickly and dexterously as an expert shearer fleeces sheep, and then the man, his hair once more too short to harbour dirt, ran to rejoin his company. They must have cut the hair of a hundred men an hour. It was a fascinating performance. Men on bicycles, with coils of insulated wire slung on reels between them, strung field-telephones from tree to tree, so that the general commanding could converse with any part of the fifty-mile-long column. The whole army never slept. When half was resting the other half was advancing. The German soldier is treated as a valuable machine, which must be speeded up to the highest possible efficiency. Therefore he is well fed, well shod, well clothed-- and worked as a negro teamster works a mule. Only men who are well cared-for can march thirty-five miles a day, week in and week out. Only once did I see a man ill-treated. A sentry on duty in front of the general headquarters failed to salute an officer with sufficient promptness, whereupon the officer lashed him again and again across the face with a riding-whip. Though welts rose at every blow, the soldier stood rigidly at attention and never quivered. It was not a pleasant thing to witness. Had it been a British or an American soldier who was thus treated there would have been an officer's funeral the next day.

As we were passing a German outpost a sentry ran into the road and signalled us to stop.

"Are you Americans?" he asked.