War and wounds certainly have the effect of putting the human body in its right place and of doing away with all the false shame and prudery with which we are so apt to surround it. When these thousands of men are well and strong again—or as well and strong as they can ever be—it hardly seems possible that they can ever forget the frank purity of their sweet-faced, tender-handed nurses and sisters of mercy, or the lessons of the dignity of the body and of life which they have unconsciously learnt from them.
One day I saw some of the sisters kneeling in the little chapel in the grounds of the Civil Hospital. The choir was singing some kind of a litany, the burden of which was the words “Sauvez la France,” repeated over and over again. It was one of those days when the sound of the guns, from some trick of the wind, as well as from their actual nearness, was more than usually loud, and each time that the three words of the prayer rang out through the open door of the chapel they were followed without a moment’s pause by the booming roar of the heavy shells. And of the two, the cannon that had shattered their limbs or the kneeling women who had soothed and tended them, there was not, I think, much doubt in the minds of the wounded men who were well enough to sit about in the sunny courtyard outside the chapel as to which was the finer force—and the stronger.
THE
FRENCH FRONTIER
FROM
VERDUN TO THE VOSGES.
CHAPTER VII
THE FRENCH OFFENSIVE
There is no denying the importance of the German territorial gains in Belgium and France, even with the smaller acquisitions of the French in Haut Alsace as a set-off. But the effect which they will have on the final results of the war has been much exaggerated, not only by the Germans, but by the States which call themselves neutral, the wavering small Powers in the Balkans, and our own faint-hearted pessimists at home. All of these people habitually forget or ignore that practically the whole of this advantage was gained in the first month of the war, and that since then the tide has hardly ever stopped flowing, however slowly, the other way. Once the immediate effects of the first surprise shock had spent themselves and the war had settled down into its long-distance stride, it was the Allies who, army for army, proved themselves the better men. Other things being equal—and what inequality is likely to arise in the future is in our favour—the conclusion is that little by little the enemy will inevitably be driven to his own side of the frontier which he has violated and invaded. If before that time comes there is any serious talk of peace proposals and neutral intervention, based on the relative positions of the combatants on the western front, it will be difficult for the would-be peacemakers to go on ignoring all that has happened since the first month of the war.
Looked at from this point of view, the offensive in Alsace and Lorraine, with which the campaign on the eastern frontier opened, was not the mistake which it was considered at the time by many of General Joffre’s French and English and German critics. France could not in honour invade her great neighbour to the north of Longwy, because of the neutral barriers of Luxembourg and Belgium. But to the south of that point, or at least south of the obstacle of Metz and its defences, she could and did. Along the line where the frontiers of France and Germany march there were no considerations of loyalty to treaty obligations to deter her from attacking instead of waiting to be attacked. And that was the course on which General Joffre decided. His offensive was twofold. The advance north of the barrier of the Vosges failed. But south of them, in front of the Trouée de Belfort, intersected by the Rhine-Rhone canal and the tributaries of the Doubs and the Ill, it so far succeeded that the scene of action has remained ever since in the enemy’s country. The consequent moral and strategical gains to France are enormous. The position of the Germans would have been infinitely better than it was (even without taking into account the possibility of a consequent further advance) if they had been able to dig the almost stationary line of trenches which they have occupied since the middle of September, 1914, in the soil of France instead of in the Sundgau.
After the French had mobilized their armies, their great difficulty was that they could not be sure where to expect the main attack. For many years the military experts and prophets of both countries had asserted confidently that it would come by way of Belgium; on the other hand, it was a traditional belief of the great mass of the French public that it would be made through Lorraine. Both routes were possible, both had to be taken into account, but to a certain extent, from a lingering belief in Germany’s honour as well as out of deference to the popular expectation (which, on sentimental and political grounds the French Government could hardly afford to ignore), greater provision was made for resisting the possible invasion on the eastern frontier than further north.
It came, as a matter of fact, by both routes at once, but of the two main assaults, which culminated at Charleroi and Nancy on the same day, the more important and dangerous was that delivered in Flanders, where the French had relatively the smaller defensive force.
In the north the first meeting between the French and German armies did not take place till August 15th at Dinant. In the east they were in continual contact from the first day of the war. At first, in this sector of the front, things went well for our allies. In front of the three great fortresses of Belfort, Epinal, and Toul, the vanguards of three armies began at once to strike towards the frontier, the first into Alsace, by the plain of the Sundgau, the second through the passes of the Vosges, and the third across the boundary river, the Seille, into the flat country between the Vosges and Metz.