M. Mégnin, an authority on the use of dogs in warfare, says that German attacks by night on small outposts have almost completely failed since dogs have been employed to watch. The animals have a remarkably acute sense of hearing, and are able to detect the enemy at a great distance and prepare the men to receive him. Thousands of sentinels, especially in the Argonne and the Vosges, where it is difficult to see far ahead owing to the nature of the ground, have owed it to their dogs that they have not been surprised and killed or taken prisoners. In many cases they have even turned the tables on the enemy.
Captain Tolet, who is in command of the kennels of the Tenth French Army, has narrated some of the brave deeds—the word is not too strong—of dogs under his care, especially during the fighting on the Somme. On August 28th a dog called Médor, although wounded by a shrapnel shell, ran a mile and a half to carry a message from a brigade to a colonel, was again wounded in the last two hundred yards, but dragged himself to the commander's post, where he died a quarter of an hour later. Another dog, Follette, in the same month, ran nearly two miles and was wounded, but nevertheless persisted in his mission, dying five days later. In a part of the Vosges a battalion of Chasseurs which utilized a particularly intelligent animal as a sentinel did not lose a single man, while a battalion which had preceded it, and which had no dog, lost seven sentries in three days.
Another case of a dog's usefulness is recorded in the taking of a farm in the Bois Brûlé (Burnt Wood). Everyone thought Germans were hiding in the farm, and no patrol had ventured to approach it. At last a man went towards it at night with a dog on a leash twenty yards ahead of him. The animal showed no signs of uneasiness, and the farm was found to be empty. Telegraphists and others were thereupon able to instal themselves, and before morning the Germans' position was satisfactorily examined and an enemy redoubt smashed up.
Some of these gallant four-footed soldiers have received decorations just like men—and an extra bone or two as well, one hopes. Why not? The intelligence shown by these animals sometimes approaches very near to that of human beings, and one feels sure they are gratified at the attention drawn to their doings. Recently there was a special public parade at the Trocadéro in Paris, when the Société Protectrice des Animaux presented prizes to soldiers who had distinguished themselves in the training of animals. Collars of honour were also awarded to a large number of dogs exhibited by the soldiers who had trained them. Three of these animals were specially fêted on account of what they had done—Fend l'Air, belonging to Sergeant Jacqemin, whose life he had saved at Roclincourt; Loustic, specially noticed for his intelligence at the Front; and Pyrame, who saved an entire French battalion by detecting the presence of an enemy column. In other cases the War Cross has been awarded to dogs that have performed conspicuous deeds, especially in the saving of life.
It was mainly owing to a number of British dogs that the French army was able to drive the Germans out of Boesinghe Woods in one of the engagements round Ypres. Prusco, a bull-terrier, serving with French motor scouts, who carried him in a side-car, was of great value in carrying messages back to headquarters; while Lutz, a dog that distinguished himself in one of the Verdun engagements, was employed as an advance sentinel last February, and first gave warning of a German attack by repeated growls. The Red Cross Dog League, which began activities early in the war with eight dogs, now has two thousand five hundred animals in the field, and it claims that the lives of at least eight thousand wounded men have been saved by them.
III—HOW DOGS BECOME GOOD SOLDIERS
The training of intelligent animals like these is carried on in five different ways, for various uses.
1.—As Ambulance Dogs. The animal seeks for wounded men lost on the battlefield; he searches in holes, ruins, and excavations, and hunts over wooded places or coverts, where the wounded man might lie unnoticed by his comrades or the stretcher-bearer. The dog is especially useful at this work in the night-time, when he can often by his scent discover fallen men who would otherwise be passed over, for at night-time ambulance-men often have to work in the dark, as lights would attract the enemy's fire. Having found a wounded man still alive, the dog brings his master (or the ambulance-man to whom he is attached) some article belonging to the sufferer. This object tells the master, "I have found someone—search!" Usually the object brought is the fallen man's képi (or nowadays his helmet), and the trainers teach the dog to find the man's headgear, but if this is missing some other object must be brought. It is a fatiguing operation for the animal, as he has to return with closed mouth. The ambulance-man who receives the article at once puts the animal on a leash, and is immediately led to his wounded comrade. The leash is about two yards long, so that the movements of the animal shall be hindered as little as possible.
If dogs were utilized in this service long during wartime, their value would be incalculable; and their use is all the greater when fighting takes place over an extended area. The situation of the wounded man overlooked or abandoned on the battlefield is a truly horrible one; he has to wait in the forlorn hope that he will be found, for the army has gone on, and the more victorious it is the farther it will push ahead. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 more than twelve thousand men were thus lost to the French alone, while in the Russo-Japanese War the Japanese lost over five thousand in this manner, showing that the methods then used for the exploration of the battlefields were inadequate. In that war three dogs sent by a military dog society found twenty-three wounded men who had been abandoned after the battle of Cha-ho. In the Boer War the collie dogs taken out by the men, it is said, saved hundreds of wounded men who would never have been found by the ambulance-workers in the difficult country where fighting mostly took place.
2.—As Trench Dogs or Sentinels. The sentry or trench dog is trained to stay in the trench itself or in a small "listening-post" made for him, either on the edge of the trench, outside it, or at a little distance away. There he remains on the qui vive, ready to signal the least suspicion of a noise or the presence of the enemy. In this work both his eyes and his scent help him. He is kept on the leash, and he gives the signal of danger by a slight growl, without barking, which would give the alarm. The greatest difficulty in the training of dogs for this work has been to rid them of the habit of barking, but this has been overcome with care and patience. The training of dogs for this class of work can be—and has been—carried to great lengths. A man crawling on patrol work can take a dog with him, also in a crouching position, on a leash. A little tug at the leash causes the dog to rise, to retire, or to change its direction, and a properly-trained animal will answer to the leash as satisfactorily as a horse does to the reins. Such a dog is of immense help at night, when he can be taken quite close to the enemy.