POLITICAL CRISIS IN FRANCE—AEROPLANE WARFARE—FIERCE COMBATS IN THE VOSGES—PREPARATIONS FOR ALLIED OFFENSE
It was also during the month of August, 1915, that the political horizon in France was temporarily overcast by one of those peculiar "crises" which seem to happen chiefly in countries enjoying the most liberal institutions and the greatest freedom of speech and press. On the 6th it was announced from Paris that the Government had decided to replace General H. J. E. Gouraud, Commander of the French Expeditionary Force at the Dardanelles, by General Sarrail, who had been designated Commander in Chief of the Army in the Orient. That Gouraud would have to be relieved of his command was painfully obvious, for that gallant officer had been struck by a shell while visiting a base hospital on July 8, hopelessly shattering his right arm, which had to be amputated. As, however, the French military contingent in the ill-starred Gallipoli adventure was but a small affair, the appointment of General Sarrail to the command thereof could only be regarded as the reverse of a promotion. In the first great German offensive toward Paris it was General Sarrail who had successfully defended the fortress of Verdun against the attacks of the German Crown Prince. Gradually the story came out that the general was the victim of a political intrigue—a plot to displace him as well as M. Millerand, the Minister for War. An acrimonious discussion developed in the French Chamber on August 14, 1915, in which some of the members nearly came to blows. The political truce, arranged between the conflicting parties at the beginning of the war, hung in the balance. Faithful to the old tradition that the duty of the Opposition is to oppose anything and everything, the Radical-Socialists and the Socialist party were loud in their denunciation of the conduct of the war, and desired to allocate responsibility for the military failures of the previous year. A number of high officers had already been "retired" in connection with those failures, which were serious enough. But the charge alleged against Sarrail was that he had omitted to supply his men adequately with antipoison gas masks. In one of the German attacks in which gas was used, Sarrail's front was pierced and a thousand men were forced to surrender. Some accounts gave the number as 5,000. For this the general was at first suspended, and then offered the other command, which he refused on the ground that if he was guilty he deserved punishment; if not, he was entitled to reinstatement. The real motive underlying the prosecution, however, was generally believed to have been one of a purely political nature. Sarrail, a "Republican," as opposed to a "Reactionary," which latter signifies a conservative in politics and, frequently also, a professed churchman—in short, General Sarrail had attracted the animosity of both the clerical and radical parties. When, finally, the Government promised to increase the Dardanelles force to 80,000 men, he accepted the appointment.
The first week in September, 1915, saw considerable artillery activity along the whole front. Except in the Vosges, where French and German bayonets clashed on mountain peaks and in underground tunnels, infantry action had been suspended for nearly two weeks. Heavy bombardments had been maintained by both sides—those of the Allies being especially deliberate and persistent. As a fireman would sway the nozzle of his streaming hose from side to side, so the Allies poured a continuous, sweeping torrent of shot and shell over the German positions in certain well-defined zones along the line. It began from the extreme left on the Belgian front, thence swung into the region of Souchez, then around Arras, farther on along the Aisne, particularly at the two extremities of the Aisne plateau, turned to the right in Champagne, spread to the Argonne, next in the Woevre and finally in Lorraine. Beneath the cyclone and out of sight trench mortar actions were fought, mining operations carried on, bombs and hand grenades thrown.
On September 1, 1915, four German aeroplanes had dropped bombs on the open town of Lunéville, killing many civilians. As a measure of reprisal forty French aeroplanes returned the compliment by making another air raid on Saarbrücken, where they bombarded the station, factories, and military establishments. A squadron of thirty or forty vessels of the British Fleet bombarded the whole of the Belgian coast in German possession as far as Ostend. French artillery stationed in the vicinity of Nieuport cooperated to shell the German coast batteries at Westende. In retaliation for the bombardment of the open towns of St. Dié and Gérardmer by German aeroplanes, a French aeroplane squadron assailed the railroad and military establishments of Freiburg in Breisgau. Aerial operations had by this time become a powerful auxiliary to the combatants on each side. The aeroplane attained a definite position as a weapon even in trench and field warfare. Machines hovered over the lines every day, reconnoitering and dropping bombs on positions, stores, transports, moving troops, trenches, and munition depots. Bombardment by aeroplane was, in fact, quite as serious and formidable a business as any artillery attack. The bombs carried by these machines were exactly of the same caliber as those used by heavy guns. Constant practice afforded by daily opportunities had enormously increased the skill of the aviators, many of whom could hit a small house from high altitudes without much trouble. Duels and pitched battles in the air were of daily occurrence on the western front. As soon as an "enemy flyer" hove in sight on either side of the lines, locally attached aviators rose and attacked the intruder. This, the most "modern" method of fighting, has produced a crop of thrilling incidents and stirring examples of bravery exhibited by the German, French, and British flying men. A code of what might be called "aerial chivalry" has spontaneously grown up among the flying fraternity. Two pretty incidents will suffice to demonstrate: A German aviator had been attacked and brought to earth by a French airman. The German was killed in the contest. In the dead man's pocket was found a diary of his adventures in the war, and other happenings, from day to day. It was written in conversational style addressed throughout to his wife, together with a letter to her of the same day's date. The next morning a French aeroplane flew over the German line. Descending to within a few hundred yards of the ground, despite the hail of bullets that whistled around him, the aviator dropped a neatly wrapped parcel, rose suddenly to a great height and was gone. That parcel contained all the dead German aviator's private property, his papers, medals, etc., with a note of sympathy from the victor. A few days after the death of Pégoud, who was killed in midair before he fell, a German aviator flew at great height over an Alsatian commune on the old frontier and dropped a wreath bearing the inscription: "In memory of Pégoud, who died a hero's death, from his adversary."
The French method of aerial maneuvering is interesting as well as effective. Their air squadrons operate in the following manner: ten machines rise 6,000 feet along the enemy's line; ten others rise 9,000 feet. If an enemy machine attempts to pass the Frenchmen attack simultaneously from above and below, while, if necessary, two other machines come to their aid. Thus the intruder is always at a disadvantage. On several occasions the Germans attempted to fly across the French lines in force, but always with disastrous consequences. When the French set out in squadrons to make a raid or bombard a position they pursue the same tactics and achieve very important results.
Early in September, 1915, General Joffre paid a visit to Rome, was received in audience by King Victor Emmanuel, and decorated with the highest Italian military distinction—the Grand Cross of the Military Order of Savoy—as proof of his majesty's esteem for the French army. General Joffre afterward made a tour of the Italian battle front and conferred with General Cadorna.
About September 8, 1915, the Germans recommenced to attack in the Argonne, where the German Crown Prince had failed to break the French line in June and July. After a violent artillery preparation, including the use of a large number of asphyxiating shells, two infantry divisions were flung against the French. The Germans rushed the first-line trenches at several points. Strong attacks were launched against them and prevented any further advance.
French and British airmen raided the aviation sheds at Ostend; another air squadron dropped sixty shells on the aviation ground at Saint Medard and on the railway station at Dieuze, in Lorraine, twenty-five miles northeast of Nancy. A bombardment of Zeebrugge by the British fleet caused much damage, the Germans losing forty dead and some hundred wounded. Here the submarine port, with two submersibles and two guns on the harbor wall were destroyed, while the central airship shed, containing at the time two dirigibles, was also severely damaged. The semaphore tower was shot to pieces and some sluices crippled. Perhaps the most exciting incident at this period was the great allied air raid on the Forest of Houlthulst, about halfway between Ypres and Dixmude. The forest was quite sheltered from the ravages of the allied guns, and had been converted into a regular garrison district, with comfortable barracks full of soldiers, provision stores, and large munition depots. The whole camp was brilliantly illuminated with electric light.
At ten o'clock on the night of September 9, 1915, sixty French, British and Belgian aeroplanes started out in clear moonlight. Immediately the aerial flotilla had announced its approach by the well-known buzzing of sixty industrious propellers, the whole neighborhood was plunged in sudden darkness. The moon, however, supplied the necessary light to guide the sky raiders to their goal. Besides, French flyers had already photographed the region in broad daylight, so that the situation of the main buildings was thoroughly known to all the pilots. It is stated that four tons of high explosives and incendiary bombs were scattered with deadly effect; some of the aircraft whose stock became exhausted flew back to their base, landed, refilled, and returned to the scene of action—two and three times. The greatest consternation naturally prevailed among the soldiers below, running in panic-stricken groups to escape from the blasting shower let loose over their heads. Indescribable confusion prevailed; frequent explosions were heard as some aerial missile found a piled-up accumulation of its own kind. By 11.30, an hour and a half after the squadron had set sail, the entire forest and the buildings it contained were in flames. The next morning a German aeroplane, "adorned with sixteen Iron Crosses," was forced to descend near Calais owing to engine trouble and was captured by the French.
By way of reprisals for the continued attacks on Lunéville and Compiègne by German aviators, a squadron of French aeroplanes flew over the German town of Trier (Trèves) on September 13, 1915, and deposited one hundred bombs. After returning to the base and taking on board further supplies, they set out again in the afternoon and dropped fifty-eight shells on the station of Dommary Baroncourt. Other aeros bombarded the railway stations at Donaueschingen on the Danube and at Marbach, where movements of troops had been reported. Activity grew in intensity all along the front. Artillery fighting on the Yser, the north and south of Arras, in the sectors of Neuville, Roclincourt and Mailly. To the north of the Oise the French artillery carried out a destructive fire on the German defenses and the works of Beuvraignes. Infantry attacks occurred in front of Andrechy. On the canal from the Aisne to the Marne the French bombarded the trenches, batteries and cantonments of the Germans in the environs of Sapigneul and of Neuville, near Berry-au-Bac. Grenade engagements took place near the Bethune-Arras road and north of Souchez. South of the Somme, before Fay, there were constant and stubborn mine duels, while fierce bombardments in the sectors of Armancourt (southwest of Compiègne), Beuvraignes (south of Roye), as well as on the plateau of. Quennevières (northeast of Compiègne) and Nouvron (northwest of Soissons), continued uninterruptedly. In Champagne and in the Argonne also, long range artillery fighting rent the air.