From the Trenches: Louvain to the Aisne, the First Record of an Eye-Witness

by Geoffrey Winthrop Young

A badly-wounded north countryman, who lay beside him, with a nurse temporarily bandaging his shoulder—another shrapnel wound; they are nearly all shrapnel wounds—evidently understand the gesture, if not the lingo. "Fine chaps at a scrap, the darkies. It's funny, though, I couldn't use hands like that; sort of claws fashion. Now I could go on with a fist—this way—all day; just smash them. Some difference in education, d'you think? Or just natural?"

The nurse stopped the speculative opening. But think of it; in the surroundings! Our undefeated British soldier, tolerant of the individual, critical of the "foreign ways," ready to argue an abstraction, to fight, to make or be turned into a joke, even while every breath was a painful effort.

Thursday.

There has been a lull in the fierceness of the struggle along the Aisne, which is developing into the Battle of the Rivers. (Note: I believe this to have been the first time this name was suggested.) The lull is doubtless not unconnected with the great changes of front in progress. Some days ago I was involved in the movement of the French forces round the left wing by Clermont; later, to-day I was to learn from an airman of the even greater rapidity with which the Germans have poured their reinforcements, and their army from the Vosges, on to the line of the Oise towards Peronne. (It was the mass of these troops, and the rapidity of their swing across on the inner lines, that enabled the Germans to anticipate the Allies' move and, for a time, even push them back at certain points, at Lassigny, Chaulnes, and Peronne, as we now learn from the official communications.)

To-day was my last visit to the lines on the Aisne, the last opportunity of seeing something of the actual fighting. We reached Fismes early in the day, and, as there were rumours in Paris that the Germans had penetrated south in this region, we were relieved to find an extremely peaceful landscape. Only the usual traces in the villages and on the fields of past fighting.

Here fortune favoured us. For several weeks we had been inquiring in vain on all our excursions for a certain French regiment of the line, which contained the much-loved brother of my friend and driver. At Fismes we came by chance upon a small section of his company, who were escorting some wounded. We fraternised at once; and they told us where we should find him, engaged in the trenches across the Aisne. Not only this, but they gladly took advantage of the car to run four of them back to their advance post, or rather as far as was permitted us, under their helpful escort.

On foot we traversed the last fields to the bank of the river. The appearance of this grim border region of past battle, the burnt cottages, scarred fields, blackened trees, and the faintly-marked trenches and pyres of the buried and incinerated dead, has been already described. There is a terrible monotony in such scenes.

The Aisne was crossed on a light pontoon, for foot soldiers only. I will not specify the point nearer than to say that we were behind a notable junction of the allied armies. A low spur, rather exceptionally tree-covered, came down close to the bank on the far side. In a temporary base-camp, of shelters and enlarged trenches, under the spur, the much-sought brother greeted us, and a very cordial welcome was given us on his account. A lieutenant was in charge, who invited us to share the combined rations. The staple was a loaf of bread, hollowed out and filled with some very highly scented sort of tripe; apparently a popular and certainly a filling meal. Actually, too, hot coffee in pannikins. We contributed the usual cigarettes and journals.

The lieutenant did not see his way to letting me go forward, although the German fire on our trenches ahead had ceased for some time, and the only sound of guns came from some distance away, in the direction of Craonne. The time passed, however, unnoticed, in the interest of watching the movements of sections passing and repassing the river, in relief or support. Twice a number of wounded were carried past and over the bridge. They were still being collected, or brought down, after the desperate German assaults by night and day that preceded the lull. Three small detachments stopped in passing, moving up to the front.