James Alexander Kilpatrick - Tommy Atkins at War
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James Alexander Kilpatrick >> Tommy Atkins at War
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TOMMY ATKINS AT WAR
"The English soldier is the best trained soldier in the world. The
English soldier's fire is ten thousand times worse than hell. If we
could only beat the English it would be well for us, but I am
afraid we shall never be able to beat these English devils."
_From a letter found on a German officer._
TOMMY ATKINS AT WAR
As Told in His Own Letters
by
JAMES A. KILPATRICK
New York
McBride, Nast & Company
1914
NOTE
This little book is the soldier's story of the war, with all his vivid
and intimate impressions of life on the great battlefields of Europe. It
is illustrated by passages from his letters, in which he describes not
only the grim realities, but the chivalry, humanity and exaltation of
battle. For the use of these passages the author is indebted to the
courtesy and generosity of the editors of all the leading London and
provincial newspapers, to whom he gratefully acknowledges his
obligations.
J.A.K.
CONTENTS
I OFF TO THE FRONT 9
II SENSATIONS UNDER FIRE 18
III HUMOR IN THE TRENCHES 30
IV THE MAN WITH THE BAYONET 39
V CAVALRY EXPLOITS 46
VI WITH THE HIGHLANDERS 55
VII THE INTREPID IRISH 64
VIII "A FIRST-CLASS FIGHTING MAN" 73
IX OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN 82
X BROTHERS IN ARMS 91
XI ATKINS AND THE ENEMY 100
XII THE WAR IN THE AIR 112
XIII TOMMY AND HIS RATIONS 121
TOMMY ATKINS AT WAR
I
OFF TO THE FRONT
"It is my Royal and Imperial Command that you concentrate your energies,
for the immediate present upon one single purpose, and that is that you
address all your skill and all the valor of my soldiers to exterminate
first the treacherous English and walk over General French's
contemptible little army."[A]
While this Imperial Command of the Kaiser was being written, Atkins,
innocent of the fate decreed for him, was well on his way to the front,
full of exuberant spirits, and singing as he went, "It's a long way to
Tipperary." In his pocket was the message from Lord Kitchener which
Atkins believes to be the whole duty of a soldier: "Be brave, be kind,
courteous (but nothing more than courteous) to women, and look upon
looting as a disgraceful act."
Troopship after troopship had crossed the Channel carrying Sir John
French's little army to the Continent, while the boasted German fleet,
impotent to menace the safety of our transports, lay helpless--bottled
up, to quote Mr. Asquith's phrase, "in the inglorious seclusion of their
own ports."
Never before had a British Expeditionary Force been organized, equipped
and despatched so swiftly for service in the field. The energies of the
War Office had long been applied to the creation of a small but highly
efficient striking force ready for instant action. And now the time for
action had come. The force was ready. From the harbors the troopships
steamed away, their decks crowded with cheery soldiers, their flags
waving a proud challenge to any disputant of Britain's command of the
sea.
The expedition was carried out as if by magic. For a few brief days the
nation endured with patience its self-imposed silence. In the newspapers
were no brave columns of farewell scenes, no exultant send-off
greetings, no stirring pictures of troopships passing out into the
night. All was silence, the silence of a nation preparing for the "iron
sacrifice," as Kipling calls it, of a devastating war. Then suddenly the
silence was broken, and across the Channel was flashed the news that the
troops had been safely landed, and were only waiting orders to throw
themselves upon the German brigands who had broken the sacred peace of
Europe.
And so the scene changes to France and Belgium. Tommy Atkins is on his
way to the Front. He has already begun to send home some of those
gallant letters that throb throughout the pages of this book. If he felt
the absence of the stimulating send-off, necessitated by official
caution and the exigencies of a European war, he at least had the new
joy of a welcome on foreign soil. It is difficult to find words with the
right quality in them to express the feelings aroused in our men by
their reception, or the exquisite gratitude felt by the Franco-Belgian
people. They welcomed the British troops as their deliverers.
"The first person to meet us in France," writes a British officer, "was
the pilot, and the first intimation of his presence was a huge voice in
the darkness, which roared out 'A bas Guillaume. Eep, eep, 'ooray!'" As
transport after transport sailed into Boulogne, and regiment after
regiment landed, the population went into ecstasies of delight. Through
the narrow streets of the old town the soldiers marched, singing,
whistling, and cheering, with a wave of their caps to the women and a
kiss wafted to the children (but not only to the children!) on the
route. As they swept along, their happy faces and gallant bearing struck
deep into the emotions of the spectators. "What brave fellows, to go
into battle laughing!" exclaimed one old woman, whose own sons had been
called to the army of the Republic.
It was strange to hear the pipes of the Highlanders skirl shrilly
through old Boulogne, and to catch the sound of English voices in the
clarion notes of the "Marseillaise," but, strangest of all to French
ears, to listen to that new battle-cry, "Are we down-hearted?" followed
by the unanswerable "No--o--o!" of every regiment. And then the lilt of
that new marching song to which Tommy Atkins has given immortality:--
"IT'S A LONG, LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY"[B]
Up to mighty London came an Irishman one day;
As the streets are paved with gold, sure ev'ry one was gay,
Singing songs of Piccadilly, Strand and Leicester Square,
Till Paddy got excited, then he shouted to them there:
CHORUS
It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go;
It's a long way to Tipperary,
To the sweetest girl I know!
Good-by Piccadilly,
Farewell Leicester Square.
It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart's right there!
It's a' there!
Paddy wrote a letter to his Irish Molly O',
Saying, "Should you not receive it, write and let me know!
If I make mistakes in spelling, Molly dear," said he,
"Remember it's the pen that's bad, don't lay the blame on me."
(_Chorus_)
Molly wrote a neat reply to Irish Paddy O',
Saying, "Mike Maloney wants to marry me, and so
Leave the Strand and Piccadilly, or you'll be to blame,
For love has fairly drove me silly--hoping you're the same!"
(_Chorus_)
It may seem odd that the soldier should care so little for martial
songs, or the songs that are ostensibly written for him; but that is not
the fault of Tommy Atkins. Lyric poets don't give him what he calls "the
stuff." He doesn't get it even from Kipling; Thomas Hardy's "Song of
the Soldiers" leaves him cold. He wants no epic stanzas, no heroic
periods. What he asks for is something simple and romantic, something
about a girl, and home, and the lights of London--that goes with a swing
in the march and awakens tender memories when the lilt of it is wafted
at night along the trenches.
And so "Tipperary" has gone with the troops into the great European
battlefields, and has echoed along the white roads and over the green
fields of France and Belgium.
On the way to the front the progress of our soldiers was made one long
fete: it was "roses, roses, all the way." In a letter published in _The
Times_, an artillery officer thus describes it:
"As to the reception we have met with moving across country it has been
simply wonderful and most affecting. We travel entirely by motor
transport, and it has been flowers all the way. One long procession of
acclamation. By the wayside and through the villages, men, women, and
children cheer us on with the greatest enthusiasm, and every one wants
to give us something. They strip the flower gardens, and the cars look
like carnival carriages. They pelt us with fruit, cigarettes, chocolate,
bread--anything and everything. It is simply impossible to convey an
impression of it all. Yesterday my own car had to stop in a town for
petrol. In a moment there must have been a couple of hundred people
round clamoring; autograph albums were thrust in front of me; a perfect
delirium. In another town I had to stop for an hour, and took the
opportunity to do some shopping. I wanted some motor goggles, an
eye-bath, some boracic, provisions, etc. They would not let me pay for a
single thing--and there was lunch and drinks as well. The further we go
the more enthusiastic is the greeting. What it will be like at the end
of the war one cannot attempt to guess."
Similar tributes to the kindness of the French and Belgians are given by
the men. A private in the Yorkshire Light Infantry--the first British
regiment to go into action in this war--tells of the joy of the French
people. "You ought to have seen them," he writes. "They were overcome
with delight, and didn't half cheer us! The worst of it was we could not
understand their talking. When we crossed the Franco-Belgian frontier,
there was a vast crowd of Belgians waiting for us. Our first greeting
was the big Union Jack, and on the other side was a huge canvas with the
words 'Welcome to our British Comrades.' The Belgians would have given
us anything; they even tore the sheets off their beds for us to wipe our
faces with." Another Tommy tells of the eager crowds turning out to give
our troops "cigars, cigarettes, sweets, fruits, wines, anything we
want," and the girls "linking their arms in ours, and stripping us of
our badges and buttons as souvenirs."
Then there is the other side of the picture, when the first battles had
been fought and the strategic retreat had begun. No praise could be too
high for the chivalry and humanity of our soldiers in these dark days.
They were almost worshiped by the people wherever they went.
Some of the earliest letters from the soldiers present distressing
pictures of the poor, driven refugees, fleeing from their homes at the
approach of the Germans, who carry ruin and desolation wherever they go.
"It is pitiful, pitiful," says one writer; "you simply can't hold back
your tears." Others disclose our sympathetic soldier-men sharing their
rations with the starving fugitives and carrying the children on their
shoulders so that the weary mothers may not fall by the way. "Be
invariably courteous, considerate, and kind" were Lord Kitchener's words
to the Army, and these qualities no less than valor will always be
linked with Tommy Atkins' name in the memories of the French and Belgian
people.
They will never forget the happy spick-and-span soldiers who sang as
they stepped ashore from the troopships at Boulogne and Havre, eager to
reach the fighting line. These men have fought valiantly, desperately,
since then, but their spirits are as high as ever, and their songs still
ring down the depleted ranks as the war-stained regiments swing along
from battle to battle on the dusty road to Victory.
II
SENSATIONS UNDER FIRE
It is said of Sir John French that, on his own admission, he has "never
done anything worth doing without having to screw himself up to it."
There is no hint here of practical fear, which the hardened soldier, the
fighting man, rarely experiences; but of the moral and mental conflict
which precedes the assumption of sovereign duties and high commands.
Every man who goes into battle has this need. He requires the moral
preparation of knowing why he is fighting, and what he is fighting for.
In the present war, Lord Kitchener's fine message to every soldier in
the Expeditionary Force made this screwing-up process easy. But to men
going under fire for the first time some personal preparation is also
necessary to combat the ordinary physical terror of the battlefield.
Soldiers are not accustomed to self-analysis. They are mainly men of
action, and are supposed to lack the contemplative vision. That was the
old belief. This war, however, which has shattered so many accepted
ideas, has destroyed that conviction too. Nothing is more surprising
than the revelation of their feelings disclosed in the soldiers'
letters. They are the most intimate of human documents. Here and there a
hint is given of the apprehension with which the men go into action,
unspoken fears of how they will behave under fire, the uncertainty of
complete mastery over themselves, brief doubts of their ability to stand
up to this new and sublime ordeal of death.
Rarely, however, do the men allow these apprehensions to depress or
disturb them. Throughout the earliest letters from the front the one
pervading desire was eagerness for battle--a wild impatience to get the
first great test of their courage over, to feel their feet, obtain
command of themselves.
"We were all eager for scalps," writes one of the Royal Engineers, "and
I took the cap, sword, and lance of a Uhlan I shot through the chest."
An artilleryman says a gunner in his battery was "so anxious to see the
enemy," that he jumped up to look, and got his leg shot away. Others
tell of the intense curiosity of the young soldiers to see everything
that is going on, of their reckless neglect of cover, and of the
difficulty of holding them back when they see a comrade fall. "In spite
of orders, some of my men actually charged a machine gun," an officer
related. After the first baptism of fire any lingering fear is
dispelled. "I don't think we were ever afraid at all," says another
soldier, "but we got into action so quickly that we hadn't time to think
about it." "Habit soon overcomes the first instinctive fear," writes a
third, "and then the struggle is always palpitating."
Of course, the fighting affects men in different ways. Some see the
ugliness, the horror of it all, grow sick at the sight, and suffer from
nausea. Others, seeing deeper significance in this desolation of life,
realize the wickedness and waste of it; as one Highlander expresses it:
"Being out there, and seeing what we see, makes us feel religious." But
the majority of the men have the instinct for fighting, quickly adapt
themselves to war conditions, and enter with zest into the joy of
battle. These happy warriors are the men who laugh, and sing, and jest
in the trenches. They take a strangely intimate pleasure in the danger
around them, and when they fall they die like Mr. Julian Smith of the
Intelligence Department, declaring that they "loved the fighting." All
the wounded beg the doctors and nurses to hurry up and let them return
to the front. "I was enjoying it until I was put under," writes
Lance-Corporal Leslie, R.E. "I must get back and have another go at
them," says Private J. Roe, of the Manchesters. And so on, letter after
letter expressing impatience to get into the firing line.
The artillery is what harasses the men most. They soon developed a
contempt for German rifle fire, and it became a very persistent joke in
the trenches. But nearly all agree that German artillery is "hell let
loose." That is what the enemy intended it to be, but they did not
reckon upon the terrors of Hades making so small an impression upon the
British soldier. There is an illuminating passage in an official
statement issued from the General Headquarters:
"The object of the great proportion of artillery the Germans employ is
to beat down the resistance of their enemy by a concentrated and
prolonged fire, and to shatter their nerve with high explosives before
the infantry attack is launched. They seem to have relied on doing this
with us; but they have not done so, though it has taken them several
costly experiments to discover this fact. From the statements of
prisoners, indeed, it appears that they have been greatly disappointed
by the moral effect produced by their heavy guns, which, despite the
actual losses inflicted, has not been at all commensurate with the
colossal expenditure of ammunition which has really been wasted. By this
it is not implied that their artillery fire is not good. It is more than
good; it is excellent. But the British soldier is a difficult person to
impress or depress, even by immense shells filled with high explosives
which detonate with terrific violence and form craters large enough to
act as graves for five horses. The German howitzer shells are 8 to 9
inches in caliber, and on impact they send up columns of greasy black
smoke. On account of this they are irreverently dubbed 'Coal-boxes,'
'Black Marias,' or 'Jack Johnsons' by the soldiers. Men who take things
in this spirit, are, it seems, likely to throw out the calculations
based on the loss of _moral_ so carefully framed by the German military
philosophers."
Every word of this admirable official message is borne out by the men's
own version of their experiences of artillery fire. "At first the din is
terrific, and you feel as if your ears would burst and the teeth fall
out of your head," writes one of the West Kents, "but, of course, you
can get used to anything, and our artillerymen give them a bit of hell
back, I can tell you." "The sensation of finding myself among screaming
shells was all new to me," says Corporal Butlin, Lancashire Fusiliers,
"but after the first terrible moments, which were enough to unnerve
anybody, I became used to the situation. Afterwards the din had no
effect upon me." And describing an artillery duel a gunner declares: "It
was butcher's work. We just rained shells on the Germans until we were
deaf and choking. I don't think a gun on their position could have sold
for old iron after we had finished, and the German gunners would be just
odd pieces of clothing and bits of accouterment. It seems 'swanky' to
say so, but once you get over the first shock you go on chewing biscuits
and tobacco when the shells are bursting all round. You don't seem to
mind it any more than smoking in a hailstorm."
Smoking is the great consolation of the soldiers. They smoke whenever
they can, and the soothing cigarette is their best friend in the
trenches. "We can go through anything so long as we have tobacco," is a
passage from a soldier's letter; and this is the burden of nearly all
the messages from the front. "The fight was pretty hot while it lasted,
but we were all as cool as Liffy water, and smoked cigarettes while the
shells shrieked blue murder over our heads," is an Irishman's account of
the effect of the big German guns.
The noise of battle--especially the roar of artillery--is described in
several letters. "It is like standing in a railway station with heavy
expresses constantly tearing through," is an officer's impression of it.
A wounded Gordon Highlander dismisses it as no more terrible than a bad
thunderstorm: "You get the same din and the big flashes of light in
front of you, and now and then the chance of being knocked over by a
bullet or piece of shell, just as you might be struck by lightning."
That is the real philosophy of the soldier. "After all, we are may-be as
safe here as you are in Piccadilly," says another; and when men have
come unhurt out of infinite danger they grow sublimely fatalistic and
cheerful. An officer in the Cavalry Division, for instance, writes: "I
am coming back all right, never fear. Have been in such tight corners
and under such fire that if I were meant to go I should have gone by
now, I'm sure." And it is the same with the men. "Having gone through
six battles without a scratch," says Private A. Sunderland, of Bolton,
"I thought I would never be hit." Later on, however, he was wounded.
Though the artillery fire has proved most destructive to all ranks, by
far the worst ordeal of the troops was the long retreat in the early
stages of the war. It exhausted and exasperated the men. They grew angry
and impatient. None but the best troops in the world, with a profound
belief in the judgment and valor of their officers, could have stood up
against it. A statement by a driver of the Royal Field Artillery,
published in the _Evening News_, gives a vivid impression of how the men
felt. "I have no clear notion of the order of events in the long
retreat," he says; "it was a nightmare, like being seized by a madman
after coming out of a serious illness and forced towards the edge of a
precipice." The constant marching, the want of sleep, the restless and
(as it sometimes seemed to the men) purposeless backward movement night
and day drove them into a fury. The intensity of the warfare, the fierce
pressure upon the mental and physical powers of endurance, might well
have exercised a mischievous effect upon the men. Instead, however, it
only brought out their finest qualities.
In an able article in _Blackwood's Magazine_, on "Moral Qualities in
War," Major C.A.L. Yate, of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry,
dealt with the "intensity" of the war strain, of which he himself had
acute experience. "Under such conditions," he wrote, "marksmen may
achieve no more than the most erratic shots; the smartest corps may
quickly degenerate into a rabble; the easiest tasks will often appear
impossible. An army can weather trials such as those just depicted only
if it be collectively considered in that healthy state of mind which the
term _moral_ implies." It is just that _moral_ which the British
Expeditionary Force has been proved to possess in so rich a measure, and
which must belong to all good soldiers in these days of nerve-shattering
war.
Little touches of pathos are not wanting in the scenes pictured in the
soldiers' letters, and they bring an element of humanity into the cold,
well-ordered, practical business of war. Men who will meet any personal
danger without flinching often find the mists floating across their eyes
when a comrade is struck down at their side. Private Plant, Manchester
Regiment, tells how his pal was eating a bit of bread and cheese when he
was knocked over: "Poor chap, he just managed to ask me to tell his
missus." "War is rotten when you see your best pal curl up at your
feet," comments another. "One of our chaps got hit in the face with a
shrapnel bullet," Private Sidney Smith, First Warwickshires, relates.
"'Hurt, Bill?' I said to him. 'Good luck to the old regiment,' says he.
Then he rolled over on his back." "Partings of this kind are sad
enough," says an Irish Dragoon, "but we've just got to sigh and get used
to it."
Their own injuries and sufferings don't seem to worry them much. The
sensation of getting wounded is simply told. One man, shot through the
arm, felt "only a bit of a sting, nothing particular. Just like a sharp
needle going into me. I thought it was nothing till my rifle dropped out
of my hand, and my arm fell. Rotten luck." That is the feeling of a
clean bullet wound. Shrapnel, however, hurts--"hurts pretty badly,"
Tommy says. And the lance and the bayonet make ugly gashes. In sensitive
men, however, the continuous shell-fire produces effects that are often
as serious as wounds. "Some," says Mr. Geoffrey Young, the _Daily News
and Leader_ correspondent, "suffer from a curious aphasia, some get
dazed and speechless, some deafened"; but of course their recovery is
fairly rapid, and the German "Black Marias" soon exhaust their terrors.
A man may lose his memory and have but a hazy idea of the day of the
week or the hour of the day, but Tommy still keeps his nerve, and after
his first experience of the enemy's fire, to quote his own words,
"doesn't care one d---- about the danger."
As showing the general feeling of the educated soldier, independent
altogether of his nationality, it is worth quoting two other
experiences, both Russian. Mr. Stephen Graham in the _Times_ recites the
sensations of a young Russian officer. "The feeling under fire at first
is unpleasant," he admits, "but after a while it becomes even
exhilarating. One feels an extraordinary freedom in the midst of death."
The following is a quotation from a soldier's letter sent by Mr. H.
Williams, the _Daily Chronicle_ correspondent at Petrograd: "One talks
of hell fire on the battlefield, but I assure you it makes no more
impression on me now than the tooting of motors. Habit is everything,
especially in war, where all the logic and psychology of one's actions
are the exact reverse of a civilian's.... The whole sensation of fear is
atrophied. We don't care a farthing for our lives.... We don't think of
danger. In this new frame of mind we simply go and do the perfectly
normal, natural things that you call heroism."
When the heroic things are done and there comes a lull in the fighting,
it is sweet to sink down in the trenches worn out, exhausted, unutterly
drowsy, and snatch a brief unconscious hour of sleep. Some of the men
fall asleep with the rifles still hot in their hands, their heads
resting on the barrels. Magnificently as they endure fatigue, there
comes a time when the strain is intolerable, and, "beat to the world,"
as one officer describes it, they often sink into profound sleep, like
horses, standing. At these times it seems as if nothing could wake them.
Shrapnel may thunder around them in vain; they never move a muscle. In
Mr. Stephen Crane's fine phrase, they "sleep the brave sleep of wearied
men."
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