With the Russians forming the centre, gigantic, deep, and wide,
And the corps of France the right wing, a mass of fiery pride;
And the Sultan’s hordes of Moslems form the left, and there await
The awful pending struggle, the doom of a boding fate!
And thus they wait the adversary, Gog and Magog.
CHAPTER II.
Again I turned to the southward, thrilled by the glorious sight
Of vast battle lines advancing all beautiful and bright;
With flashing steel, like countless stars, bannered, bedight they come,
Great waves of scarlet, blue and gold, fearlessly rolling on,
Preceded by a reconnaissance of cavalry and balloons,
With deadly explosives to hurl by hot platoons.
Five million men advancing in the panoply of war,
With Albion in the centre; and prolonging the right afar
Are the Italians and Austrians facing the Moslem bands,
The followers of the crescent from far Orient lands.
Deployed to the left are the Germans, a stately array,
Once more to grapple their ancient foes, defiantly at bay.
Seven leagues! seven leagues! an awful front
Albion and her allies form!
Five battle lines advancing in parallel,
Fronting the dire impending storm,
With vast masses of brilliant cavalry
At intervals on each wing,
And supporting divisions in reserve,
They half a million sabres bring.
Intermingling are three thousand quick-fire guns,
And destructive and strange machines—
Cunning devices for the attack and defence—
Under cover of light steel screens.
And covering the front are bicycle corps,
And steel-armoured motor cars;
Swift and frightfully deadly, well befitting
The grand intrepid sons of Mars.
As a very god of vast war sits Wolseley
On his charger, unmoved, serene,
In rear of the centre, with a brilliant staff,
Intrusted with the command supreme.
And the stern Germans are with their great war lord,
The Kaiser, eager for the fray;
Believing the God of all battles will win
Them this last great decisive day.
And the Austrians and dauntless Italians
Passionate enthusiasm bring,
And are grandly, unflinchingly coming on
Under Emperor and King.
Oh, the dread majesty of that gigantic,
Glorious panoply of war!
Advancing with the awesome roar of the sea
When its deep wrath is heard afar;
Advancing upon the giant adversary
To the swift help of the Lord.
To put the proud, inveterate followers
Of Satan to the pending sword;
To free the benighted world from tyranny,
And the hard yoke and scourge of sin,
They roll on, and onward, fearing neither death
Nor hell, all eager to begin.
Now pauses the colossal, mighty advance,
When near to the gigantic foe,
Ere hurling a destroying and vast attack,
Ere delivering the first great blow.
To perfect his wonderful dispositions
Wolseley, with lightning speed,
Distributes his detail of final orders
By wire, ’cycle, and fiery steed.
The engineers along the intrepid lines
Throw up works of shelter and defence;
And wires and ’phones to every abiding corps
Waiting the issue grim, intense.
It was an awful and a trying moment.
Should heaven now, or hell, prevail?
I feared as the masterful Christian hosts
Prepared the foe to assail.