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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News also was received that a body of French cavalry had demolished part
of the railway to the north, so cutting, at least temporarily, one line
of communication which is of particular importance to the enemy.

On Saturday, the 19th, the bombardment was resumed by the Germans at an
early hour and continued intermittently under reply from our own guns.
Some of their infantry advanced from cover, apparently with the
intention of attacking, but on coming under fire they retired. Otherwise
the day was uneventful, except for the activity of the artillery, which
is a matter of normal routine rather than an event.

Another hostile aeroplane was brought down by us, and one of our
aviators succeeded in dropping several bombs over the German line, one
incendiary bomb falling with considerable effect on a transport park
near La Fere.

A buried store of the enemy's munitions of war was also found, not far
from the Aisne, ten wagon loads of live shell and two wagon loads of
cable being dug up. Traces were discovered of large quantities of stores
having been burned--all tending to show that as far back as the Aisne
the German retirement was hurried.

There was a strong wind during the day, accompanied by a driving rain.
This militated against the aerial reconnoissance.

On Sunday, the 20th, nothing of importance occurred until the afternoon,
when there was a break in the clouds and an interval of feeble sunshine,
which was hardly powerful enough to warm the soaking troops. The Germans
took advantage of this brief spell of fine weather to make several
counter-attacks against different points. These were all repulsed with
loss to the enemy, but the casualties incurred by us were by no means
light.

In one section of our firing line the occupants of the trenches were
under the impression that they heard a military band in the enemy's
lines just before the attack developed. It is now known that the German
infantry started their advance with bands playing.

The offensive against one or two points was renewed at dusk, with no
greater success. The brunt of the resistance has naturally fallen upon
the infantry. In spite of the fact that they have been drenched to the
skin for some days and their trenches have been deep in mud and water,
and in spite of the incessant night alarms and the almost continuous
bombardment to which they have been subjected, they have on every
occasion been ready for the enemy's infantry when the latter attempted
to assault, and they have beaten them back with great loss. Indeed, the
sight of the Pickelhauben [German spiked helmets] coming up has been a
positive relief after long, trying hours of inaction under shell fire.

The object of the great proportion of artillery the Germans employ is to
beat down the resistance of their enemy by concentrated and prolonged
fire, to shatter their nerves 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 statements of prisoners 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 a high explosive which detonate with terrific violence and form
craters large enough to act as graves for five horses.

The German howitzer shells are from 8 to 9 inches in calibre, 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 morale
so carefully framed by the German military philosophers.

A considerable amount of information has been gleaned from prisoners. It
has been gathered that our bombardment on the 15th produced a great
impression. The opinion is also reported that our infantry make such
good use of ground that the German companies are decimated by our rifle
fire before the British soldier can be seen.

From an official diary captured by the First Army Corps it appears that
one of the German corps contains an extraordinary mixture of units. If
the composition of the other corps is similar, it may be assumed that
the present efficiency of the enemy's forces is in no way comparable
with what it was when the war commenced.

The losses in officers are noted as having been especially severe. A
brigade is stated to be commanded by a Major; some companies of food
guards by one-year volunteers; while after the battle of Montmirail one
regiment lost fifty-five out of sixty officers. The prisoners recently
captured appreciate the fact that the march on Paris has failed and that
their forces are retreating, but state that the object of this movement
is explained by the officers as being to withdraw into closer touch
with the supports, which have stayed too far in the rear.

The officers are also endeavoring to encourage the troops by telling
them that they will be at home by Christmas. A large number of the men
believe that they are beaten. Following is an extract from one document:

"With the English troops we have great difficulties. They have a queer
way of causing losses to the enemy. They make good trenches, in which
they wait patiently; they carefully measure the ranges for their rifle
fire, and they open a truly hellish fire on the unsuspecting cavalry.
This was the reason that we had such heavy losses.

"According to our officers, the English striking forces are exhausted;
the English people really never wanted war."

From another source: "The English are very brave and fight to the last
man. One of our companies has lost 130 men out of 240."

The following letter, which refers to the fighting on the Aisne, has
been printed and circulated to the troops:

LETTER FOUND ON GERMAN OFFICER OF SEVENTH RESERVE CORPS:

Cerny, South of Laon, Sept 14, 1914.

My Dear Parents: Our corps has the task of holding the heights
south of Cerny in all circumstances until the Fourteenth Corps on
our left flank can grip the enemy's flank. On our right are other
corps. We are fighting with the English Guards, Highlanders, and
Zouaves. The losses on both sides have been enormous. For the most
part this is due to the too brilliant French artillery.

The English are marvelously trained in making use of ground. One
never sees them, and one is constantly under fire. The French
airmen perform wonderful feats. We cannot get rid of them. As soon
as an airman has flown over us, ten minutes later we get their
shrapnel fire in our positions. We have little artillery in our
corps; without it we cannot get forward.

Three days ago our division took possession of these heights and
dug itself in. Two days ago, early in the morning, we were attacked
by an immensely superior English force, one brigade and two
battalions, and were turned out of our positions. The fellows took
five guns from us. It was a tremendous hand-to-hand fight.

How I escaped myself I am not clear. I then had to bring up
supports on foot. My horse was wounded, and the others were too
far in the rear. Then came up the Guards Jager Battalion, Fourth
Jager, Sixth Regiment, Reserve Regiment Thirteen, and Landwehr
Regiments Thirteen and Sixteen, and with the help of the artillery
we drove the fellows out of the position again. Our machine guns
did excellent work; the English fell in heaps.

In our battalion three Iron Crosses have been given, one to C.O.,
one to Capt. ----, and one to Surgeon ----. [Names probably
deleted.] Let us hope that we shall be the lucky ones next time.

During the first two days of the battle I had only one piece of
bread and no water. I spent the night in the rain without my
overcoat. The rest of my kit was on the horses which had been left
behind with the baggage and which cannot come up into the battle
because as soon as you put your nose up from behind cover the
bullets whistle.

War is terrible. We are all hoping that a decisive battle will end
the war, as our troops already have got round Paris. If we beat the
English the French resistance will soon be broken. Russia will be
very quickly dealt with; of this there is no doubt.

We received splendid help from the Austrian [Transcriber: original
'Austrain'] heavy artillery at Maubeuge. They bombarded Fort
Cerfontaine in such a way that there was not ten meters a parapet
which did not show enormous craters made by the shells. The armored
turrets were found upside down.

Yesterday evening, about 6, in the valley in which our reserves
stood there was such a terrible cannonade that we saw nothing of
the sky but a cloud of smoke. We had few casualties.

Recently a pilot and observer of the Royal Flying Corps were forced by a
breakage in their aeroplane to descend in the enemy's lines. The pilot
managed to pancake his machine down to earth, and the two escaped into
some thick under-growth in the woods.

The enemy came up and seized and smashed the machine, but did not search
for our men with much zeal. The latter lay hid till dark and then found
their way to the Aisne, across which they swam, reaching camp in safety,
but barefooted.

Numerous floating bridges have been thrown across the Aisne and some of
the pontoon bridges have been repaired under fire. On the 20th, Lieut.
[name deleted] of the Third Signal Corps, Royal Engineers, was
unfortunately drowned while attempting to swim across the river with a
cable in order to open up fresh telegraphic communication on the north
side.

Espionage is still carried on by the enemy to a considerable extent.
Recently the suspicions of some of the French troops were aroused by
coming across a farm from which the horses had been removed. After some
search they discovered a telephone which was connected by an underground
cable with the German lines, and the owner of the farm paid the penalty
in the usual way in war for his treachery.

After some cases of village fighting which occurred earlier in the war
it was reported by some of our officers that the Germans had attempted
to approach to close quarters by forcing prisoners to march in front of
them. The Germans have recently repeated the same trick on a larger
scale against the French, as is shown by the copy of an order printed
below. It is therein referred to as a ruse, but, if that term can be
accepted, a distinctly illegal ruse.

"During a recent night attack," the order reads, "the Germans drove a
column of French prisoners in front of them. This action is to be
brought to the notice of all our troops (1) in order to put them on
their guard against such a dastardly ruse; (2) in order that every
soldier may know how the Germans treat their prisoners. Our troops must
not forget if they allow themselves to be taken prisoners the Germans
will not fail to expose them to French bullets."

Further evidence has now been collected of the misuse of the white flag
and other signs of surrender. During an action on the 17th, owing to
this, one officer was shot. During recent fighting, also, some German
ambulance wagons advanced in order to collect the wounded. An order to
cease firing was consequently given to our guns, which were firing on
this particular section of ground. The German battery commanders at once
took advantage of the lull in the action to climb up their observation
ladders and on to a haystack to locate our guns, which soon afterward
came under a far more accurate fire than any to which they had been
subjected up to that time.

A British officer, who was captured by the Germans and has since
escaped, reports that while a prisoner he saw men who had been fighting
subsequently put on Red Cross brassards.

That irregular use of the protection afforded by the Geneva Convention
is not uncommon is confirmed by the fact that on one occasion men in the
uniform of combatant units have been captured wearing a Red Cross
brassard hastily slipped over the arm. The excuse given has been that
they had been detailed after the fight to look after the wounded.

It is reported by a cavalry officer that the driver of a motor car with
a machine gun mounted on it, which was captured, was wearing a Red
Cross.

Full details of the actual damage done to the cathedral at Rheims will
doubtless have been cabled home, so that no description of it is
necessary. The Germans bombarded the cathedral twice with their heavy
artillery.

One reason it caught alight so quickly was that on one side of it was
some scaffolding which had been erected for restoration work. Straw had
also been laid on the floor for the reception of the German wounded. It
is to the credit of the French that practically all the German wounded
were successfully extricated from the burning building.

There was no justification on military grounds for this act of
vandalism, which seems to have been caused by exasperation born of
failure--a sign of impotence rather than strength. It is noteworthy that
a well-known hotel not far from the cathedral, which was kept by a
German, was not touched.

III.

*Two September Days.*

[Made Public Sept. 28.]

For four days there has been a comparative lull all along our front.
This has been accompanied [Transcriber: original 'acompanied'] by a
spell of fine weather, though the nights have been much colder. One
cannot have everything, however, and one evil result of the sunshine
has been the release of flies, which were torpid during the wet days.

Advantage has been taken of the arrival of reinforcements to relieve by
fresh troops the men who have been on the firing line for some time.
Several units, therefore, have received their baptism of fire during the
week.

Since the last letter left headquarters evidence has been received which
points to the fact that during the counter attacks on the night of Sept.
20 German detachments of infantry fired into each other. This was the
result of an attempt to carry out the dangerous expedient of a
converging advance in the dark. Opposite one portion of our position
considerable massing of hostile forces was observed before dark. Some
hours later a furious fusillade [Transcriber: original 'fusilade'] was
heard in front of our line, though no bullets came over our trenches.

This narrative begins with Sept. 21 and covers only two days. There was
but little rain on Sept. 21 and the weather took a turn for the better,
which has been maintained. The action has been practically confined to
the artillery, our guns at one point shelling and driving the enemy, who
endeavored to construct a redoubt.

The Germans expended a large number of heavy shells in a long range
bombardment of the village of Missy (Department of the Aisne).
Reconnoitring parties sent out during the night of Sept. 21-22
discovered some deserted trenches. In them or in the woods over 100 dead
and wounded were picked up. A number of rifles, ammunition and equipment
were also found. There were other signs that portions of the enemy's
forces had withdrawn some distance.

The weather was also fine on Sept. 22 with less wind, and it was one of
the most uneventful days we have passed since we reached the Aisne, that
is, uneventful for the British. There was less artillery work on either
side, the Germans giving the village of Paissy (Aisne) a taste of the
"Jack Johnsons." The spot thus honored is not far from the ridge where
there has been some of the most severe close fighting in which we have
taken part. All over this No Man's Land, between the lines, bodies of
German infantrymen were still lying in heaps where they had fallen at
different times.

Espionage plays so large a part in the conduct of the war by the Germans
that it is difficult to avoid further reference to the subject. They
have evidently never forgotten the saying of Frederick the Great: "When
Marshall Soubise goes to war he is followed by a hundred cooks. When I
take the field I am preceded by a hundred spies." Indeed until about
twenty years ago there was a paragraph in their field service
regulations directing that the service of protection in the field, such
as outposts and advance guards, should always be supplemented by a
system of espionage. Although such instructions are no longer made
public the Germans, as is well known, still carry them into effect.

Apart from the more elaborate arrangements which were made in peace time
for obtaining information by paid agents some of the methods which are
being employed for the collection or conveyance of intelligence are as
follows:

Men in plain clothes signal the German lines from points in the hands of
the enemy by means of colored lights at nights and puffs of smoke from
chimneys in the day time. Pseudo laborers working in the fields between
the armies have been detected conveying information. Persons in plain
clothes have acted as advanced scouts to the German cavalry when
advancing.

German officers or soldiers in plain clothes or French or British
uniforms have remained in localities evacuated by the Germans in order
to furnish them with intelligence. One spy of this kind was found by our
troops hidden in a church tower. His presence was only discovered
through the erratic movements of the hands of the church clock, which he
was using to signal his friends by an improvised semaphore code. Had
this man not been seized it is probable he would have signalled the time
of arrival and the exact position of the headquarters staff of the force
and a high explosive shell would then have mysteriously dropped on the
building.

Women spies have also been caught. Secret agents have been found at rail
heads observing entrainments and detrainments. It is a simple matter for
spies to mix with refugees who are moving about to and from their homes,
and it is difficult for our troops, who speak neither French nor German,
to detect them. The French have also found it necessary to search
villages and casual wayfarers on the roads and to search for carrier
pigeons.

Among the precautions taken by us against spying is the following notice
printed in French, posted up:

"Motor cars and bicycles other than those; carrying soldiers in
uniform may not circulate on the roads. Inhabitants may not leave
the localities in which they reside between 6 P.M. and 6 A.M.
Inhabitants may not quit their homes after 8 P.M. No person may on
any pretext pass through the British lines without an authorization
countersigned by a British officer."

Events have moved so quietly for the last two months that anything
connected with the mobilization of the British expeditionary force is
now ancient history. Nevertheless, the following extract from a German
order is evidence of the mystification of the army and a tribute to the
value of the secrecy which was so well and so loyally maintained in
England at the time:

"Tenth Reserve Army Corps Headquarters,

"Mont St. Guibert, Aug. 20, 1914.

"Corps Order, Aug. 20.

"The French troops in front of the Tenth Army Corps have retreated
south across the Sambre. Part of the Belgium army has been
withdrawn from Antwerp. It is reported that an English army has
disembarked at Calais and Boulogne, en route to Brussels."

IV.

*Fighting in the Air.*

[Made Public Sept. 29.]

Wednesday, Sept. 23, was a perfect Autumn day. It passed without
incident as regards major operations. Although the enemy concentrated
their heavy artillery upon the, plateau near Passy, nothing more than
inconvenience was caused.

The welcome absence of wind gave our airmen a chance of which they took
full advantage by gathering much information. Unfortunately, one of our
aviators, who had been particularly active in annoying the enemy by
dropping bombs, was wounded in a duel in the air.

Being alone on a single-seated monoplane, he was not able to use his
rifle, and while circling above a German two-seated machine in an
endeavor to get within pistol shot he was hit by the observer of the
German machine, who was armed with a rifle. He managed to fly back over
our lines, and by great good luck he descended close to a motor
ambulance, which at once conveyed him to a hospital.

Against this may be set off the fact that another of our flyers exploded
a bomb among some led artillery horses, killing several and stampeding
the others.

On Thursday, Sept. 21, the fine weather continued, as did the lull in
the action, the heavy German shells falling mostly near Pargnan, twelve
miles south-southeast of Laon.

On both Wednesday and Thursday the weather was so fine that many flights
were made by the aviators, French, British, and German. These produced a
corresponding activity among the anti-aircraft guns.

So still and clear was the atmosphere toward evening on Wednesday and
during the whole of Thursday that to those not especially on the lookout
the presence of aeroplanes high up above them was first made known by
the bursting of the projectiles aimed at them. The puffs of smoke from
the detonation shell hung in the air for minutes on end, like balls of
fleece cotton, before they slowly expanded and were dissipated.

From the places mentioned as being the chief targets for the enemy's
heavy howitzers, it will be seen that the Germans are not inclined to
concentrate their fire systematically upon definite areas in which
their aviators think they have located our guns, or upon villages where
it is imagined our troops may be billeted. The result will be to give
work to local builders.

The growing resemblance of this battle to siege warfare has already been
pointed out. The fact that the later actions of the Russo-Japanese war
assumed a similar character was thought by many to have been due to
exceptional causes, such as the narrowness of the theatre of operations
between the Chinese frontier on the west and the mountainous country of
Northern Korea on the east; the lack of roads, which limited the extent
of ground over which it was possible for the rival armies to manoeuvre,
and the fact that both forces were tied to one line of railroad.

Such factors are not exerting any influence on the present battle.
Nevertheless, a similar situation has been produced, owing firstly to
the immense power of resistance possessed by an army which is amply
equipped with heavy artillery and has sufficient time to fortify itself,
and, secondly, to the vast size of the forces engaged, which at the
present time stretch more than half way across France.

The extent of the country covered is so great as to render slow any
efforts to manoeuvre and march around to a flank in order to escape the
costly expedient of a frontal attack against heavily fortified
positions.

To state that the methods of attack must approximate more closely to
those of siege warfare the greater the resemblance of the defenses to
those of a fortress is a platitude, but it is one which will bear
repetition if it in any way assists to make the present situation clear.

There is no doubt that the position on the Aisne was not hastily
selected by the German Staff after the retreat had begun. From the
choice of ground, and the care with which the fields of fire had been
arranged to cover all possible avenues of approach, and from the amount
of work already carried out, it is clear that the contingency of having
to act on the defensive was not overlooked when the details of the
strategically offensive campaign were arranged.

V.

*Technique of This Warfare.*

[Made Public Oct. 9.]

Wednesday, Sept. 30, merely marked another day's progress in the gradual
development of the situation, and was distinguished by no activity
beyond slight attacks by the enemy. There was also artillery fire at
intervals. One of our airmen succeeded in dropping nine bombs, some of
which fell on the enemy's rolling stock collected on the railway near
Laon. Some of the enemy's front trenches were found empty at night; but
nothing much can be deduced from this fact, for they are frequently
evacuated in this way, no doubt to prevent the men in the back lines
firing on their comrades in front of them.

Thursday, Oct. 1, was a most perfect Autumn day, and the most peaceful
that there has been since the two forces engaged on the Aisne. There was
only desultory gunfire as targets offered. During the night the enemy
made a few new trenches. A French aviator dropped one bomb on a railway
station and three bombs on troops massed near it.

The weather on Friday, the 2d, was very misty in the early hours, and it
continued hazy until the late afternoon, becoming thicker again at
night. The Germans were driven out of a mill which they had occupied as
an advanced post, their guns and machine guns which supported it being
knocked out one by one by well-directed artillery fire from a flank.
During the night they made the usual two attacks on the customary spot
in our lines, and as on previous occasions were repulsed. Two of their
trenches were captured and filled in. Our loss was six men wounded.

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