Various - The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915

V >> Various >> The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915

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I decided to pass on to Vitry-en-Artois, twelve miles distant and six
kilometers from Douai, where I had heard the Allies were in force. Here
I obtained a room in a hotel.

Within a short while I saw armed cars. There came many warriors in many
cars, cars fitted with mitrailleuses, cars advancing backward, cars with
two soldiers in the back of each with their rifles rested on the back
cushions and their fingers on the triggers, and with the muzzles of
mitrailleuses pointing over their heads. Several cavalry scouts, too,
are in the streets.

Once I ventured my head a little outside of the door and was curtly
warned to eliminate myself or possibly I would get shot. I eliminated
myself for the moment.

Now with dramatic suddenness death touches Vitry with her chill fingers.
In the distance, right away beyond the bridge behind a bend in the road,
there is a clatter of hoofs. It stops. Again it goes on and stops for
about a couple of minutes, and then quite distinctly can be heard the
sound of a body of horsemen proceeding at a walk.

The cavalry scouts have vanished into big barns on either side of the
road, and around the corner of the bridge comes a small body of German
cavalry. They have passed the spot where the French scouts are hidden
and I have retreated to my bedroom window, from where I can count twelve
of the Death's Head riders.

They are riding to their fate. Right slap up in front of the cars they
come. A rifle shot rings out from where the French scouts are hidden,
then another, and that is the signal for the inferno to be loosed.

C-r-r-r-r-r-ack, and the mitrailleuse spits out a regular hail of death,
vicious, whiplike, never-ceasing cracks. Two horses are down and three
men lie prone in the road.

The Germans have not fired a shot, all their energies being concentrated
in wildly turning their horses to get back again round the bend.

It is too late. Another two are toppled over by the scouts in the barns,
and then cars are after them, still spitting out an unending hail of
lead.

It seems impossible that even a fly could live in such a stream of
bullets, yet out of the dozen three get round the bend, and, galloping
madly, make for the only spot where they can leave the road and get
across country. Even the automobile and auto-mitrailleuse men cannot
follow them there.

These fellows seem perfectly satisfied with a bag of nine, obtained
without a scratch. All are dead, one of them with over twenty wounds in
him. Two horses are stone dead, and three others have to be put out of
their misery. The other four are contentedly standing at the roadside
munching grass, one with a hind leg lifted a few inches off the ground.

The bodies of the dead Germans are laid side by side in a field to await
burial. The uniforms are stripped of everything that can be removed,
buttons and shoulder straps. The men in the cars take the water bottles,
swords, and revolvers as mementos.

I imperfectly understood the real meaning of this scrap. I had thought
it was an encounter between stray forces. A talk with the driver of an
armed car, however, enlarged my perspective. It was a meeting of the
outposts of two great opposing armies, one of which was at Douai, the
other at Cambrai. The feelers of both forces were being extended to
discover the various positions, preparatory to a big battle, which was
expected on the morrow (Oct. 1) along the line of
Cambrai-Douai-Valenciennes.

It was understood that the Germans had massed in force at Cambrai and
strong wings were thrown out on both sides, the outposts of one wing, as
we have already seen, coming into touch with the French at Vitry.

From the reports of the auto-mitrailleuse men, who cover great
distances in a day, similar skirmishing had been taking place at Etain,
(where some farmhouses were burned,) Eterpigny, Croisilles, Boisleux,
and Boyelles, these places ranging from ten to twenty kilometers from
Arras.

There was a general exodus from Vitry and I secured standing room in a
wagon of the last train leaving for Arras. It was loaded with fugitives.

Arras had changed completely on my return. Its calmness was gone. The
station was empty of civilians, there were no trains running and the
station entrance was in charge of a strong picket of soldiers, while the
road outside echoed to the tread of infantry.

I stood still in amazement, while my papers were being closely examined,
and watched regiment after regiment of foot with their transport trains
complete marching out on the road to Douai. This was part of the
preparation for the big battle which I was told was going to begin
tomorrow.

In the town itself the transformation was still more amazing--soldiers
in every street, cavalry, infantry, dragoons, lancers, and engineers in
ones and twos, and parties of twenty or thirty picturesque Moroccans. I
never saw such a medley of colors and expressions, and the whole town
was full of them--material for one army corps at least.

I installed myself in quarters at the Hotel de l'Univers, with the
intention of getting away the first thing in the morning if possible.
But it was not possible. I was informed that Arras was now under
military control, and no permits were being issued whatsoever. The
Lieutenant who told me this smiled as I shrugged my shoulders.

"You will bear witness, Monsieur, that I tried my best to get out," said
I.

"Certainly; but why go away?" he asked with a smile. "Arras est tres
belle ville, Monsieur. You have a good hotel, a good bed, and good food.
Why should you go out?"

And so I stayed at Arras.

That was Sept. 30. The next day I could hear guns. They started at about
8 o'clock in the morning, the French guns being in position about five
kilometers outside of Arras to the south, southeast, and east, sixteen
batteries of France's artillery or 75-millimeter calibre.

All day long the guns thundered and roared, and all day long I sat
outside the cafe of the Hotel des Voyageurs in the Place de la Gare. The
station building was right in front of me. I longed for a position which
would enable me to see over the tall buildings on to the battlefield
beyond. Even the roof of the station would have suited. There was a
little crowd of officials already there with their field glasses, and
they could discern what was going on, for I noticed several pointing
here and there whenever a particularly loud explosion was heard.

Two men in civilian clothes sat down beside me and gave me "good day,"
evidently curious as to my nationality. I invited them to join me in
coffee and cognac, and during the ensuing conversation we all became
very friendly, and I was given to understand that one of them was the
volunteer driver of an auto-mitrailleuse who had just come off duty.

I remarked that it would be very interesting to get a sight of what was
going on behind the station.

"Is it very near--the battle?"

"About five kilometers, Monsieur. The German guns are ten kilometers
distant. One of the German shells exploded behind the station this
morning. Would Monsieur like to walk out a little way?"

"But surely the pickets will not let me pass beyond the barrier," said
I.

My good friend of the auto-mitrailleuse smiled, rose, and buttoned up
his coat. "Come with me," he invited.

At the barrier we were stopped, but luck had not deserted me, for in the
Sergeant in charge of the pickets I recognized another cafe acquaintance
of the previous night. We shook hands, exchanged cigarettes, and
proceeded up and down numerous streets, bearing always southward in the
direction of the firing, until the open country was reached.

My companion suddenly caught hold of my arm and we both jumped up the
bank at the side of the road to let a long string of artillery drivers
trot past on their way back for more ammunition. Another cloud of dust,
and coming up behind us was a fresh lot of shells on the way out to the
firing line.

Right up in the sky ahead suddenly appeared a ball of yellow greeny
smoke, which grew bigger and bigger, and then "boom" came the sound of a
gun about three seconds afterward. A shell had burst in the air about
300 yards away. Another and another came--all about the same place. They
appeared to come from the direction of Bapaume.

"Bad, very bad," commented my companion. And so it appeared to me, for
the Germans were dropping their shells from the southeast, at least one
kilometer over range. We were standing beside a strawstack and looking
due south, watching the just discernible line of French guns, when we
heard the ominous whistling screech of an approaching shell. Down on our
faces behind the stack, down we went like lightning, and over to the
left, not 200 yards away, rose a huge column of black smoke and earth,
and just afterward a very loud boom. A big German gun had come into
action, slightly nearer this time.

Just behind a wood I could plainly see the smoke of the gun itself
rising above the trees. Two more shells from the big gun exploded within
twenty yards of each other, and then, with disconcerting suddenness, a
French battery came into action within a hundred yards of our strawstack
cover. They had evidently been there for some time, awaiting
eventualities, for we had no suspicion of their proximity, and they were
completely hidden.

My ears are still tingling and buzzing from the sound of those guns. One
after another the guns of this battery bombarded the newly taken up
position of the German big guns, which replied with one shell every
three minutes.

Presently we had the satisfaction of hearing a violent explosion in the
wood, and a column of smoke and flame rose up to a great height.

Soixante-quinze had again scored, for the German guns had been put out
of action. From out the French position came infantry, at this point
thousands of little dots over the landscape, presenting a front of, I
should think, about two miles, rapidly advancing in skirmishing order.
Every now and then the sharp crackle of rifle fire could distinctly be
heard.

The French had advanced over a mile, and the Germans had hastily
evacuated the wood. Other French batteries now came into action, and the
German fire over the whole arc was becoming decidedly fainter and less
frequent. This might, of course, be due to changing their positions on
the German front.

Wounded began to arrive, which showed that for the present at any rate,
it was safe to go out to the trenches to collect them.

Very few of them seemed badly hit, and the wounded French artillerymen
seemed to be elated in spite of their wounds. Had not their beloved
Soixante-quinze again scored? The time was 6 o'clock of a beautiful
evening and the firing, though fairly continuous, was dropping off. The
Germans had changed their positions and it was getting a little too hazy
to make observation, although a French aeroplane was seen descending in
wide circles over the German position, evidently quite regardless of the
numerous small balls of smoke, which made their appearance in the sky in
dangerous proximity to the daring pilot.

It is very interesting to watch these aeroplane shells bursting in the
air. First of all one sees a vivid little streak of bluish white light
in the sky, and then instantaneously a smoke ball, which appears to be
about the size of a football, is seen in the sky, always fairly close to
the machine. Then there is the sound of an explosion like a giant
cracker.

Occasionally several guns will fire at about the same time, and it is
weird to watch the various balls of smoke, apparently coming into being
from nowhere, all around the machine. Sometimes one of these shells,
which are filled with a species of shrapnel, bursts rather unpleasantly
near the aeroplane, and then one sees the machine turn quickly and rise
a little higher.

Two or three holes have been neatly drilled through the planes. Perhaps
one has appeared in the body of the machine, rather too near the pilot
for safety; but it is a big gamble, anyhow, and besides the pilot has
been instructed to find out where the various positions are, and he
means to do it.

So he simply rises a little higher and calmly continues his big circles
over the German position.

I take off my hat to these brave men, the aeroplane pilots. They are
willing to chance their luck. What matters it if their machine gets hit,
if the planes are riddled with holes? It will still fly, even if the
engine gets a fatal wound and stops.

The pilot, if he is high enough, can still glide to safety in his own
lines. But (and it is a big "but") should a shrapnel ball find its
billet in the pilot--well, one has only to die once, and it is a quick
and sure death to fall with one's machine.

[Illustration]

*The Battles in Belgium*

[An Associated Press Dispatch.]

LONDON, Oct. 26, 4:40 A.M.--The correspondent of The Daily News, who has
been in an armored train to the banks of the Yser, gives a good
description of the battle in the North. He says:

"The battle rages along the Yser with frightful destruction of life. Air
engines, sea engines, and land engines deathsweep this desolate country,
vertically, horizontally, and transversely. Through it the frail little
human engines crawl and dig, walk and run, skirmishing, charging, and
blundering in little individual fights and tussles, tired and puzzled,
ordered here and there, sleeping where they can, never washing, and
dying unnoticed. A friend may find himself firing on a friendly force,
and few are to blame.

"Thursday the Germans were driven back over the Yser; Friday they
secured a footing again, and Saturday they were again hurled back. Now a
bridge blown up by one side is repaired by the other; it is again blown
up by the first, or left as a death trap till the enemy is actually
crossing.

"Actions by armored trains, some of them the most reckless adventures,
are attempted daily. Each day accumulates an unwritten record of
individual daring feats, accepted as part of the daily work. Day by day
our men push out on these dangerous explorations, attacked by shell
fire, in danger of cross-fire, dynamite, and ambuscades, bringing a
priceless support to the threatened lines. As the armored train
approaches the river under shell fire the car cracks with the constant
thunder of guns aboard. It is amazing to see the angle at which the guns
can be swung.

"And overhead the airmen are busy venturing through fog and puffs of
exploding shells to get one small fact of information. We used to regard
the looping of the loop of the Germans overhead as a hare-brained piece
of impudent defiance to our infantry fire. Now we know its means early
trouble for the infantry.

"Besides us, as we crawl up snuffing the lines like dogs on a scent,
grim trainloads of wounded wait soundlessly in the sidings. Further up
the line ambulances are coming slowly back. The bullets of machine guns
begin to rattle on our armored coats. Shells we learned to disregard,
but the machine gun is the master in this war.

"Now we near the river at a flat country farm. The territory is scarred
with trenches, and it is impossible to say at first who is in them, so
incidental and separate are the fortunes of this riverside battle. The
Germans are on our bank enfilading the lines of the Allies' trenches. We
creep up and the Germans come into sight out of the trenches, rush to
the bank, and are scattered and mashed. The Allies follow with a fierce
bayonet charge.

"The Germans do not wait. They rush to the bridges and are swept away by
the deadliest destroyer of all, the machine gun. The bridge is blown up,
but who can say by whom. Quickly the train runs back.

"'A brisk day,' remarks the correspondent. 'Not so bad,' replies the
officer. So the days pass."

The Telegraph's correspondent in Belgium, who, accompanied by a son of
the Belgian War Minister, M. de Broqueville, made a tour of the
battleground in the Dixmude district last Wednesday, says:

"No pen could do justice to the grandeur and horror of the scene. As far
as the eye could reach nothing could be seen but burning villages and
bursting shells. I realized for the first time how completely the motor
car had revolutionized warfare and how every other factor was now
dominated by the absence or presence of this unique means of transport.

"Every road to the front was simply packed with cars. They seemed an
ever-rolling, endless stream, going and returning to the front, while in
many villages hundreds of private cars were parked under the control of
the medical officer, waiting in readiness to carry the wounded.

"Arrived at the firing line, a terrible scene presented itself. The
shell fire from the German batteries was so terrific that Belgian
soldiers and French marines were continually being blown out of their
dugouts and sent scattering to cover. Elsewhere, also, little groups of
peasants were forced to flee because their cellars began to fall in.
These unfortunates had to make their way as best they could on foot to
the rear. They were frightened to death by the bursting shells, and the
sight of crying children among them was most pathetic.

"Dixmude was the objective of the German attack, and shells were
bursting all over it, crashing among the roofs and blowing whole streets
to pieces. From a distance of three miles we could hear them crashing
down, but the town itself was invisible, except for the flames and the
smoke and clouds rising above it. The Belgians had only a few field
batteries, so that the enemy's howitzers simply dominated the field, and
the infantry trenches around the town had to rely upon their own unaided
efforts.

"Our progress along the road was suddenly stopped by one of the most
horrible sights I have ever seen. A heavy howitzer shell had fallen and
burst right in the midst of a Belgian battery, making its way to the
front, causing terrible destruction. The mangled horses and men among
the debris presented a shocking spectacle.

"Eventually, we got into Dixmude itself, and every time a shell came
crashing among the roofs we thought our end had come. The Hotel de Ville
(town hall) was a sad sight. The roof was completely riddled by shell,
while inside was a scene of chaos. It was piled with loaves of bread,
bicycles, and dead soldiers.

"The battle redoubled in fury, and by 7 o'clock in the evening Dixmude
was a furnace, presenting a scene of terrible grandeur. The horizon was
red with burning homes.

"Our return journey was a melancholy one, owing to the constant trains
of wounded that were passing."

The Daily Mail's Rotterdam correspondent, telegraphing Sunday evening,
says:

"Slowly but surely the Germans are being beaten back on the western
wing, and old men and young lads are being hurried to the front. The
enemy were in strong force at Dixmude, where the Allies were repulsed
once, only to attack again with renewed vigor.

"Roulers resembles a shambles. It was taken and retaken four times, and
battered to ruins in the process. The German guns made the place
untenable for the Allies.

"An Oosburg message says the firing at Ostend is very heavy, and that
the British are shelling the suburbs, which are held by the Germans.
Last night and this morning large bodies of Germans left Bruges for
Ostend. It is believed the Ostend piers have been blown up."

"The position on the coast is stationary this morning," says a Daily
Mail dispatch from Flushing, Netherlands, under date of Sunday. "There
is less firing and it is more to the southward. No alteration of the
situation is reported from Ostend.

"The German losses are frightful. Three meadows near Ostend are heaped
with dead. The wounded are now installed in private houses in Bruges,
where large wooden sheds are being rushed up to receive additional
injured. Thirty-seven farm wagons containing wounded, dying, and dead
passed in one hour near Middelkerke.

"The Germans have been working at new intrenchments between Coq sur Mer
and Wenduyne to protect their road to Bruges."

Gen. von Tripp and nearly all his staff, who were killed in a church
tower at Leffinghe by the fire from the British warships, have been
buried in Ostend.

[Illustration: Flanders and Northern France--How the Battle Line Has
Changed (Up to Jan. 1, 1915) Since the War Began.]

*Seeking Wounded on Battle Front*

By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.

FURNES, Belgium, Oct. 21.--The staff of the English hospital, to which a
mobile column has been attached for field work, has arrived here with a
convoy of ambulances and motor cars. This little party of doctors,
nurses, stretcher-bearers, and chauffeurs, under the direction of Dr.
Bevis and Dr. Munro, has done splendid work in Belgium, and many of them
were in the siege of Antwerp.

Miss Macnaughton, the novelist, was one of those who went through this
great test of courage, and Lady Dorothie Feilding, one of Lord Denbigh's
daughters, won everybody's love by her gallantry and plucky devotion to
duty in many perilous hours. She takes all risks with laughing courage.
She has been under fire in many hot skirmishes, and has helped bring
away the wounded from the fighting around Ghent when her own life might
have paid the forfeit for defiance to bursting shells.

This morning a flying column of the hospital was preparing to set out in
search of wounded men on the firing line under direction of Lieut. de
Broqueville, son of the Belgian War Minister. The Lieutenant, very cool
and debonair, was arranging the order of the day with Dr. Munro. Lady
Dorothie Feilding and the two other women in field kit stood by their
cars, waiting for the password. There were four stretcher-bearers,
including Mr. Gleeson, an American, who has worked with this party
around Ghent and Antwerp, proving himself to be a man of calm and quiet
courage at a critical moment, always ready to take great risks in order
to bring in a wounded man.

It was decided to take three ambulances and two motor cars. Lieut. de
Broqueville anticipated a heavy day's work. He invited me to accompany
the column in a car which I shared with Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett of The
London Daily Telegraph, who also volunteered for the expedition.

We set out before noon, winding our way through the streets of Furnes.
We were asked to get into Dixmude, where there were many wounded. It is
about ten miles away from Furnes. As we went along the road, nearer to
the sound of the great guns which for the last hour or two had been
firing incessantly, we passed many women and children. They were on
their way to some place further from the firing. Poor old grandmothers
in black bonnets and skirts trudged along the lines of poplars with
younger women, who clasped their babies tightly in one hand, while with
the other they carried heavy bundles of household goods.

Along the road came German prisoners, marching rapidly between mounted
guards. Many of them were wounded, and all of them had a wild, famished,
terror-stricken look.

At a turn in the road the battle lay before us, and we were in the zone
of fire. Away across the fields was a line of villages with the town of
Dixmude a little to the right of us, perhaps a mile and a quarter away.
From each little town smoke was rising in separate columns which met at
the top in a great black pall. At every moment this blackness was
brightened by puffs of electric blue, extraordinarily vivid, as shells
burst in the air. From the mass of houses in each town came jets of
flame, following explosions which sounded with terrific thudding shocks.
On a line of about nine miles there was an incessant cannonade. The
farthest villages were already on fire.

Quite close to us, only about half a mile across the fields to the left,
there were Belgian batteries at work and rifle fire from many trenches.
We were between two fires, and Belgian and German shells came screeching
over our heads. The German shells were dropping quite close to us,
plowing up the fields with great pits. We could hear them burst and
scatter and could see them burrow.

[Illustration: ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE
Commanding the British Fleets
(_Photo from Rogers._)]

[Illustration: GEN. VICTOR DANKL
The Austrian Commander in the Russian Campaign
(_Photo from Bain News Service._)]

In front of us on the road lay a dreadful barrier, which brought us to a
halt. A German shell had fallen right on top of an ammunition convoy.
Four horses had been blown to pieces and their carcasses lay strewn
across the road. The ammunition wagon had been broken into fragments and
smashed and burned to cinders by the explosion of its own shells. A
Belgian soldier lay dead, cut in half by a great fragment of steel.
Further along the road were two other dead horses in pools of blood. It
was a horrible and sickening sight, from which one turned away
shuddering with cold sweat, but we had to pass it after some of this
dead flesh had been dragged away.

Further down the road we had left two of the cars in charge of Lady
Dorothie Feilding and her two nurses. They were to wait there until we
brought back some of the wounded. Two ambulances came on with our light
car, commanded by Lieut. Broqueville and Dr. Munro. Mr. Gleeson asked me
to help him as stretcher-bearer. Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett was to work with
one of the other stretcher-bearers.

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