With Joffre at Verdun: A Story of the Western Front

by F. S. Brereton

"Still in Germany, I suppose," said Stuart, as he peered from underneath the tarpaulin.

"No; Belgium," declared Jules of a sudden. "Look over there—it's—it's Louvain."

There, painted above the station building near which the trucks were halted, was the word, in large letters—Louvain.

"Louvain!" said Stuart, a bitter note in his voice; "where those brutes butchered the Belgians; where they burned the town and the library, and murdered women and children. Louvain! Just fancy! Still, it's Belgium, and that's nearer to England."

"And to France!" whispered Henri, a note of excitement in his voice—"and to France, Stuart! Let's get out and see what will happen."

Dropping from the truck, they presently found themselves in the streets of Louvain, with ruined and broken remnants of houses on either side of them, with a cowed population stepping sadly through the deserted streets, and with packs of arrogant German soldiers patrolling the town. In happier days both Jules and Henri had been at this place, had admired this Belgian city of learning, had known some of its professors—now dead or scattered, many of them having found a home in England—and had never imagined in those days that such a dreadful change could have been brought about in this once famous city of learning. Yet what changes had been wrought by the war which the Kaiser and his people had sought, and which had now deluged Europe!

What a tale of treachery and suffering; what a tale of furious fighting, of gallant deeds, of death, of victory, of wounds, had been wrought by those months of war which had elapsed since that eventful day when Henri and Jules discovered themselves in Berlin, the centre of a hissing, furious crowd, and were hurried to that camp of misery at Ruhleben! He who ventures to give a full narrative of the deeds done during those months, of the varying fortunes of the combatants, of the warfare waged by land and sea and in the air, would needs have a task far, far beyond him, seeing that every day has been so full of incidents of surpassing importance to the world that a mere summary of them would be an undertaking. Yet to realize the situation, as it was at the moment when Henri and his two friends clambered from the truck in which they had escaped from the heart of Germany, and dropped to the ground in the heart of Louvain; to understand the changes which had occurred during those weary months of waiting at Ruhleben, it becomes a matter of necessity at this stage to glance, if only briefly, at the major events which had happened.

We have said already that, at the moment when Germany had thrown down the gauntlet to France and Russia, Belgium was at peace with the world, and Britain also. And the tale does not need to be repeated of how Germany, one of the Powers which had sworn to preserve the sanctity of Belgium, which had, indeed, signed a declaration to that effect and sealed it in the sight of others, now tore up that sacred treaty, and hurled her legions into Belgium. No need even to do more than remind the reader of how Belgian troops held up the advance of these treacherous foes, smote them severely, caused them terrible losses, and then, overwhelmed by numbers, were swept back, leaving the citizens in the hands of ruthless men, who murdered and butchered them, who perpetrated unmentionable horrors in the fair cities of King Albert, and burned thousands of houses and public buildings to the ground. Everyone must know, too, how that vile act of the Kaiser brought Great Britain into the conflict; how a British Expeditionary Force sailed promptly for France, and arrived in the neighbourhood of Mons only just in time to take its place beside the French armies then at death's grips with the main forces of the Kaiser's armies, who, having burst their way through Belgium, now invaded France. That historic retreat towards Paris, and the swaggering triumphal march of the Germans, were followed by a striking blow against the Teutons, who were driven back across the Marne, hurled out of central and northern France, till but a strip of the country remained to them.

Meanwhile thousands of British soldiers were flocking in, shoulder to shoulder, ready for the fray; while French forces were being mobilized. A line—thin enough in all conscience, desperately thin—was stretched from the eastern frontier of France across its northern provinces, to the very tip of Belgium at Ypres, and so across it to the sea. This line of men who burrowed their way in trenches—a force of less than one man to the yard—was yet a force of heroes. Unprepared though they were, unsupported, without a doubt because there were as yet no new armies to support them, without reliefs for the very same reason, and therefore dependent entirely upon themselves, they stemmed the German tide. Hopelessly outnumbered, they yet held their ground, and, though deluged by shells and faced by an enemy superbly equipped and prepared with the latest machinery of war, held him back, causing enormous losses in his ranks, and barring his way onward. The tale of the First Battle of Ypres is a tale of splendour, of heroic British action—the tale of how those few divisions—war-worn, hardened divisions by now—barred the road to Calais, and smashed the power of the Prussian Guards, troops hitherto considered invincible.

There is no need to recall those other battles, the almost daily exchange of shots along the trench-line, though for the information of our readers it may be just as well to enumerate some of the more important. From the sea, in the neighbourhood of Nieuport, the line of trenches ran in a southerly direction across the flats of Belgium and Flanders in front of Ypres, and down towards Arras. Thence, curling towards the east, and skirting the River Aisne and the famous city of Reims—where the vandals who had destroyed Louvain and many another city had long since wrecked the Cathedral, famous throughout the world—their line swept on over hill and dale, and hollow and furrow, across chalky plains and wooded heights and forest country to Verdun—that famous city which for centuries has been a stronghold. An ancient city, girdled at the outbreak of this gigantic war by a ring of fortresses of modern construction, in which a complete battery of guns was mounted; forts, let it be added, strategically placed, which could sweep the country in all directions. Then, turning sharply round Verdun, the line cut its way through muddy plains, through heights once more, through miles of country, till it reached the Swiss frontier. All along that line, fighting continued, here bursting out into a violent conflict, simmering down elsewhere, and at times subsiding altogether. Yet never were the trenches without a sinister line of crouching men, whether British, Belgian, or French, and ever was there another sinister, remorseless gang holding the German trenches opposite.