The Wonder of War on Land

by Francis Rolt-Wheeler

Here, too, lies the Wonder of War, more, a thousand times more, than in any invention of a larger gun, a more deadly shell, or a more abominable method for taking life.

Now the lad found himself approaching the battling armies. Chateau-Thierry, abandoned by the Germans only two days before, had already become a supply depot for the right wing of Manoury's army, for Manoury had taken advantage of Von Kluck's defeat to cross the River Aisne and was holding the whole northern side of the river, from Compiegne to Soissons. While lunching in the little town, Horace learned of the magnificent attack which had established Manoury on the northern side of the river, ready to assault the heights the next day.

His eastward journey took him to the south of the British Army. The memory of the "human icicle" still lingered, and though Horace knew that he would not find all the English officers of the same stripe, yet he kept away, passing south of Epernay. He learned, however, that though Manoury had crossed, Sir John French had not, and the German heavy artillery forbade any attempt to force the Conde bridge. The British were, in fact, at the most impregnable point of that impregnable barrier, the ridge above the Aisne.

Still the boy pushed on, his course now being south of the Fifth Army, under d'Esperey. This army had also crossed the Aisne, but had not been able to establish a firm footing on the other side, and its position was precarious. The long afternoon had shown sights as desolate and in some cases more horrible than those he had seen in the morning and he was glad to find a little village where he might sleep, wearied and heartsick with the sights of the day.

"The only thing more sad than a great victory," Wellington said once, "is a great defeat."

Though Horace was some little distance from the front, the cannonading that night was heavier and more sonorous than any he had heard before. There was a good reason. General Von Zwehl, one of the grimmest warriors in all the German Army, had brought the great siege-guns up the heights overlooking the Aisne, after four nights and three days of continuous marching. The thirteen traction-engines couldn't move the guns, for there had been wet weather, and General Von Zwehl had tailed the infantry on with long ropes. Like the slaves of Egypt who hauled blocks of stone for the pyramids, the German soldiers slaved under blows, curses, and threats of death. During the last twenty-four hours of this march, the 18,000 troops and the guns covered 41 miles. Human nature rebelled and red mutiny showed its head for a second, but Von Zwehl had a nature as hard as the steel of his guns. Every murmurer was shot dead in his tracks. The guns crawled on.

All night long, searchlight bombs were thrown. All night long, angry streams of flame flickered like serpents' tongues on the sky and the jagged gash of explosions lit up the black smoke of burning buildings or the white puff-clouds of hungry shrapnel.

Von Zwehl knew what was going forward. He knew that it was the night set for the crossing of the Aisne. He knew that no matter what might be the fury of flame and bursting chemicals that poured down on the banks of that river, engineers would be laboring to construct bridges and bodies of troops would be trying to cross. The searchlights, like eyes white with hate, peered here and there, the discovery of a crossing party being a prelude to a tornado of lead which opened the gate of death, a gate which swings, alas! too easily on its hinges in war time.

On Monday Horace passed south of Rheims, not dreaming, as no one in the world dreamed, that it was to be shelled two days later, and that its shelling would be deliberate. That there might and there would be cruelty, butchery, massacre, that, of course, he knew, but that absolute and reckless vandalism should also be ordered, neither his nor any civilized mind would have expected. No one, save a Teuton, ever dreamed that deliberate destruction of one of the world's marvels would be sanctioned, permitted, even deliberately determined, and that for petty revenge, spite and foiled rage. The German point of view was put by Major-General Von Ditfurth: