The German outposts reached Charleville on Tuesday. They were allowed to ride quietly across the bridges into an apparently deserted town. Then suddenly their line of retreat was cut off, the three bridges were blown up by a contact mine, and the mitrailleuses hidden in the houses were played on the German cavalry across the streets, killing them in a frightful slaughter.
It was for a little while sheer massacre, but the Germans fought with extraordinary tenacity, regardless of the heaped bodies of comrades and utterly reckless of their own lives. They, too, had brought quick-firers across the bridges, and, taking cover behind houses, trained their guns upon the houses from which the French gunners were firing. There was no way of escape for those heroic men, who voluntarily sacrificed themselves, and it is probable every man died, because at such a time the Germans were not in the habit of giving quarter.
When the main German advance came down the valley, the French artillery on the heights raked them with a terrific fire, in which they suffered heavy losses, the forefront of the column being mowed down. But under this storm they proceeded with incredible coolness to their pontoon bridges across the river, and although hundreds of men died on the banks, they succeeded in their endeavor, while their guns searched the hills with shells and forced French gunners to retire from their positions.
The occupation of Charleville was a German victory, but was also a German graveyard. After this historic episode in what has been an unending battle the main body of French withdrew before the Germans, who were now pouring down the valley, and retired to new ground.
It was a retirement which has had one advantage in spite of its acknowledgment of the enemy's amazing pertinacity. It has enabled the allied armies to draw closer together, its firm front sweeping around in a crescent from Abbéville, around south of Amiens, and thence in an irregular line to the eastern frontier.
On the map it is at first sight a rather unhappy thing to see that practically the whole of France north of Amiens lies open to German descent from Belgium. To break up the German Army piecemeal and lure it to its own destruction it was almost necessary to manoeuvre it into precisely the position which it now occupies. The success of Gen. Pau shows that the allied army is taking the offensive again, and that as a great fighting machine it is still powerful and menacing.
I must again emphasize the difficulty of grasping the significance of a great campaign by isolated incidents, and the danger of drawing important deductions from the misfortunes in one part of the field. I do so because I have been tempted again and again during the past few days to fall into similar mistakes. Perhaps in my case it was pardonable.
It is impossible for the armchair reader to realize the psychological effect of being mixed up in the panic of a great people and the retreat from a battlefield.
The last real fighting was taking place at a village called Bapaume all day Friday. It was very heavy fighting here on the left centre of the great army commanded by Gen. Pau, and leading to a victory which has just been announced officially in France.
A few minutes before midnight Friday, when they came back along the road to Amiens, crawling back slowly in a long, dismal trail, the ambulance wagons laden with the dead and dying, hay carts piled high with saddles and accoutrements, upon which lay, immobile like men already dead, the spent and exhausted soldiers, they passed through the crowds of silent people of Amiens, who only whispered as they stared at the procession. In the darkness a cuirassier, with head bent upon his chest, stumbled forward, leading his horse, too weak and tired to bear him.