Part 3

In the very heart of Soissons stands the huge bulk of the magnificent twelfth-century cathedral, its massive tower rising skyward like a finger pointing toward heaven. There are few nobler piles in France. Repeated rappings at a door in the churchyard wall brought the _curé_, a white-haired, kindly faced giant of a man. Under his guidance we entered the cathedral, or rather what remains of it, for its famous Gothic windows are now but heaps of shattered glass, the splendid nave is open to the sky, half the roof has been torn away, the pulpit with its exquisite carvings has been splintered by a shell, and the massive columns have been chipped and scarred. Carvings which were the pride of master craftsmen long centuries dead have been damaged past repair. In the floor of the nave yawns a hole large enough to hold a horse. Around the statues which flank the altar, and which are too large to move, have been raised barricades of sand-bags. And this, mind you, in the house of Him who was the Apostle of Peace!

While the _curé_ was pointing out to us the ruined beauties of his celebrated windows, something passed overhead with a wail like a lost soul. A moment later came an explosion which made the walls of the cathedral tremble. “Ah,” remarked the _curé_ unconcernedly, “they’ve begun again. I thought it must be nearly time. They bombard the cathedral every evening between five and seven.”

As he finished speaking, another shell came whining over the housetops and burst with a prodigious racket in the street outside.

“How far away was that one?” I asked one of the officers.

“Only about a hundred metres,” was the careless reply.

As unmoved as though at a church supper, the _curé_ placidly continued his recital of the cathedral’s departed glories, reeling off the names of the saints and martyrs who lie buried beneath the floor of its nave, his recital being punctuated at thirty-second intervals by explosions, each a little louder than the one preceding. Finally a shell came so low that I thought that it was going through the roof. It came so near, in fact, that I suggested that it was getting on toward dinner time and that we really ought to be on our way. But the _curé_ was not to be hurried. He had had no visitors for nearly a year and he was determined to make the most of us. He insisted on showing us that cathedral from sacristy to belfry, and if he thought that we were missing anything he carefully explained it all over again.

“Why do you stay on here, father?” I asked him. “A shell is likely to drop in on you at any moment.”

“That is as God wills, monsieur,” was the quiet answer. “A captain does not leave his ship in a storm. I have my people to look after, for they are as helpless as children and look to me for advice. And the wounded also. We have turned the sacristy, as you saw, into a dressing-station. Yes, there is much to do. If a shell comes it will find me at my post of duty doing what I may to serve God and France.”

So we went away and left him standing there alone in the doorway of his shattered cathedral, a picturesque and gallant figure, with his white hair coming down upon his shoulders and his tall figure wrapped in the black soutane. To such men as these the people of France owe a debt that they can never repay. Though they wear cassocks instead of cuirasses, though they carry Bibles instead of bayonets, they are none the less real soldiers—soldiers of the Lord.

[Illustration:

_From a photograph by Meurisse._

In the Argonne.

“Cave-like shelters in which the men take refuge during the periodic shell-storms that visit them.” ]

It must be borne in mind that the task of the artillery is far easier in hilly or mountainous country, such as is found along the Aisne and in the Vosges and Alsace, where the movements of the enemy can be observed with comparative facility and where both observers and gunners can usually find a certain degree of shelter, than in Artois and Flanders, where the country is as flat as the top of a table, with nothing even remotely resembling a hill on which the observers can be stationed or behind which can be concealed the guns. In the flat country the guns, which in all cases are carefully masked with branches from detection by hostile aircraft, take position at distances varying from two thousand to five thousand yards from the enemy’s trenches. Immediately in the rear of each gun is a subterranean shelter, in which the gunners can take refuge in case a German battery locates them and attempts to shell them out. An artillery subaltern, known in the British service as the “forward observing officer,” goes up to the infantry trenches and chooses a position, sometimes in a tree, sometimes in a shattered church-tower, sometimes in a sort of dug-out, from which he can obtain an unobstructed view of his battery’s zone of fire. He is to his battery very much what a coach is to a football team, giving his men directions by telephone instead of through a megaphone, but, unlike the coach, he is stationed not on the side-line but on the firing-line. Laid on the surface of the ground, connecting him with the battery, is the field-telephone. As wires are easily cut by bursting shells, they are now being laid in a sort of ladder formation so that a dozen wires may be cut without interrupting communication. When the noise is so deafening that the voice of the observing officer cannot be heard on the field-telephone communication is carried on in the Morse code by means of a giant buzzer. Amid all the uproar of battle the observing officer has to keep careful track, through his glasses, of every shell his battery fires, and to inform his battery commander by telephone of the effect of his fire. He can make no mistakes, for on those portions of the battle-line where the trenches are frequently less than a hundred yards apart the slightest miscalculation in giving the range might land the shells among his own men. The critical moment for the observing officer is, however, when the enemy makes a sudden rush and swarms of helmeted, gray-clad figures, climbing out of their trenches, come rolling forward in a steel-tipped wave, tripping in the barbed wire and falling in ones and twos and dozens. Instantly the French trenches crackle and roar into the full blast of magazine fire. The rattle of the machine-guns sounds like a boy drawing a stick along the palings of a picket fence. The air quivers to the incessant crash of bursting shrapnel. “Infantry attack!” calls the observation officer into the telephone receiver which is clamped to his head. “Commence firing!” and his battery, two or three miles in the rear, begins pouring shrapnel on the advancing Germans. But still the gray figures come on, hoarsely cheering. “Drop twenty-five!” he orders. “Careful with your fuse-setting ... very close to our trenches.” The French shrapnel sprays the ground immediately in front of the French trenches as a street cleaner sprays the pavement with a hose. The gray line checks, falters, sways uncertainly before the blast of steel. Men begin to fall by dozens and scores, others turn and run for their lives. With a shrill cheer the French infantry spring from their trenches in a counter-attack. “Raise twenty-five! ... raise fifty!” telephones the observing officer as the blue figures of his countrymen sweep forward in the charge. And so it goes, the guns backing up the French attacks and breaking the German ones, shelling a house or a haystack for snipers, putting a machine-gun out of business, dropping death into the enemy’s trenches or sending its steel calling-cards across to a German battery whose position has been discovered and reported by wireless by a scouting French aeroplane. And all the time the youngster out in front, flattened to the ground, with glasses at his eyes and a telephone at his lips, acts the part of prompter and tells the guns when to speak their parts.

[Illustration:

_From a photograph copyright by M. Rol._

An observing officer directing the fire of a French battery three miles behind him.

“Flattened to the ground, with glasses at his eyes and a telephone at his lips, he acts the part of prompter and tells the guns when to speak their parts.” ]

In reading accounts of artillery fire it should be remembered that there are two types of shell in common use to-day—shrapnel and high explosive—and that they are used for entirely different purposes and produce entirely different results. Shrapnel, which is intended only for use against infantry in the open, or when lightly intrenched, is a shell with a very thin steel body and a small bursting charge, generally of low-power explosive, in the base. By means of a time-fuse the projectile is made to burst at any given moment after leaving the gun, the explosion of the weak charge breaking the thin steel case and liberating the bullets, which fly forward with the velocity of the shrapnel, scattering much as do the pellets from a shot-gun. At a range of 3500 yards the bullets of a British 18-pound shrapnel, 375 in number, cover a space of 250 yards long and 30 yards wide—an area of more than one and a half acres. Though terribly effective against infantry attacks or unprotected batteries, shrapnel are wholly useless against fortified positions, strongly built houses, or deep and well-planned intrenchments. The difference between shrapnel and high explosive is the difference between a shot-gun and an elephant rifle. The high-explosive shell, which is considerably stronger than the shrapnel, contains no bullets but a charge of high explosive—in the French service melinite, in the British usually lyddite (which is picric acid melted with a little vaseline), and in the German army trinitrotoluene. The effect of the high explosive is far more concentrated than that of shrapnel, covering only one-fifteenth of the area affected by the latter. Though shrapnel has practically no effect on barbed-wire entanglements or on concrete, and very little on earthworks, high-explosive shells of the same caliber destroy everything in the vicinity, concrete, wire entanglements, steel shields, guns, and even the trenches themselves disappearing like a dynamited stump before the terrific blast. The men holding the trenches are driven into their dug-outs, and may be reached even there by high-explosive shells fired from high-angle howitzers.

The commanding importance of the high-explosive shell in this war is due to the peculiar nature of the conflict. Instead of fighting in the open field, the struggle has developed into what is, to all intents and purposes, a fortress warfare on the most gigantic scale. In this warfare all strategic manœuvres are absent, because manœuvres are impossible on ground where every square yard is marked and swept by artillery fire. The opposing armies are not simply intrenched. They have protected themselves with masses of concrete and steel armor, so that the so-called trenches are in reality concrete forts, shielded and casemated with armor-plate, flanked with rapid-firers and mortars, linked to one another by marvellously concealed communicating trenches which are protected in turn by the fire of heavy batteries, guarded by the most ingenious entanglements, pitfalls, and other obstructions that the mind of man has been able to devise, and defended by machine-guns, in the enormous proportion of one to every fifty men, mounted behind steel plates and capable of firing six hundred shots a minute. In these subterranean works dwell the infantry, abundantly provided with hand-grenades and appliances for throwing bombs and flaming oil, their rifles trained, day and night, on the space over which an enemy must advance. That is the sort of wall which one side or the other will have to break through in order to win in this war. The only way to take such a position is by frontal attack, and the only way to make a frontal attack possible is by paving the way with such a torrent of high explosive that both entanglements and earthworks are literally torn to pieces and the infantry defending them demoralized or annihilated. No one before the war could have imagined the vast quantity of shells required for such an operation. In order to prepare the way for an infantry attack on a German position near Arras, the French fired two hundred thousand rounds of high explosive in a single day—and the scouts came back to report that not a barbed-wire entanglement, a trench, or a living human being remained. During the same battle the British, owing to a shortage of high-explosive ammunition, were able to precede their attack by only forty minutes of shell-fire. This was wholly insufficient to clear away the entanglements and other obstructions, and, as a result, the men were literally mowed down by the German machine-guns. Even when the storming-parties succeed in reaching the first line of the enemy’s trenches and bayonet or drive out the defenders, the opposing artillery, with a literal wall of fire, effectively prevents any reinforcements from advancing to their support. Shattered and exhausted though they are, the attackers must instantly set to work to fortify and consolidate the captured trenches, being subjected, meanwhile, to a much more accurate bombardment, as the enemy knows, of course, the exact range of his former positions and is able to drop his shells into them with unerring accuracy. It is obvious that such offensive movements cannot be multiplied or prolonged indefinitely, both on account of the severe mental and physical strain on the men and the appalling losses which they involve. Neither can such offensives be improvised. A commanding officer cannot smash home a frontal attack on an enemy’s position at any moment that he deems auspicious any more than a surgeon can perform a major operation without first preparing his patient physically. Before launching an attack the ground must be minutely studied; the position to be attacked must be reconnoitred and photographed by aviators; advanced trenches must be dug; reserve troops must be moved forward and batteries brought into position without arousing the suspicions of the enemy; and, most important of all, enormous quantities of projectiles and other material must be gathered in one place designated by the officer in charge of the operations. The greatest problem presented by an offensive movement is that of delivering to the artillery the vast supplies of shells necessary to pave the way for a successful attack. To give some idea of what this means, I might mention that the Germans, during the crossing of the San, _fired seven hundred thousand shells in four hours_.

There are no words between the covers of the dictionary which can convey any adequate idea of what one of these great artillery actions is like. One has to see—and hear—it. Buildings of brick and stone collapse as though they were built of cards. Whole towns are razed to the ground as a city of tents would be levelled by a cyclone. Trees are snapped off like carrots. Gaping holes as large as cottage cellars suddenly appear in the fields and in the stone-paved roads. Geysers of smoke and earth shoot high into the air. The fields are strewn with the shocking remains of what had once been men: bodies without heads or arms or legs; legs and arms and heads without bodies. Dead horses, broken wagons, bent and shattered equipment are everywhere. The noise is beyond all description—yes, beyond all conception. It is like a close-by clap of thunder which, instead of lasting for a fraction of a second, lasts for hours. There is no break, no pause in the hell of sound, not even a momentary diminution. The ground heaves and shudders beneath your feet. You find it difficult to breathe. Your head throbs until you think that it is about to burst. Your eyeballs ache and burn. Giant fingers seem to be steadily pressing your ear-drums inward. The very atmosphere palpitates to the tremendous detonations. The howl of the shell-storm passing overhead gives you the feeling that the skies are falling. Compared with it, the roar of the cannon at Gettysburg must have sounded like the popping of fire-crackers.

Inconceivably awe-inspiring and terrifying as is a modern artillery action, one eventually becomes accustomed to it, but I have yet to meet the person who would say with perfect truthfulness that he was indifferent to the fire of the great German siege-cannon. I have three times been under the fire of the German siege-guns—during the bombardments of Antwerp, of Soissons, and of Dunkirk—and I hope with all my heart that I shall never have the experience again. Let me put it to you, my friends. How would _you_ feel if you were sleeping quite peacefully in—let us say—the Waldorf-Astoria, and along about six o’clock in the morning something dropped from the clouds, and in the pavement of Fifth Avenue blew a hole large enough to bury a horse in? And what would be your sensations if, still bewildered by the suddenness of your awakening, you ran to the window to see what had happened, and something that sounded like an express-train came hurtling through the air from somewhere over in New Jersey, and with the crash of an exploding powder-mill transformed Altman’s store into a heap of pulverized stone and concrete? Well, that is precisely what happened to me one beautiful spring morning in Dunkirk.

To be quite frank, I didn’t like Dunkirk from the first. Its empty streets, the shuttered windows of its shops, and the inky blackness into which the city was plunged at night from fear of aeroplanes, combined to give me a feeling of uneasiness and depression. The place was about as cheerful as a country cemetery on a rainy evening. From the time I set foot in it I had the feeling that something was going to happen. I found that a room had been reserved for me on the upper floor of the local hostelry, known as the Hôtel des Arcades—presumably because there are none. I did not particularly relish the idea of sleeping on the upper floor, with nothing save the roof to ward off a bomb from a marauding aeroplane, for, ever since I was under the fire of Zeppelins in Antwerp, I have made it a point to put as many floors as possible between me and the sky.

It must have been about six o’clock in the morning when I was awakened by a splitting crash which made my bedroom windows rattle. A moment later came another and then another, each louder and therefore nearer than the one preceding. All down the corridor doors began to open, and I heard voices excitedly inquiring what was happening. I didn’t have to inquire. I knew from previous experience. A German _Taube_ was raining death upon the city. Throwing open my shutters, I could see the machine quite plainly, its armor-plated body gleaming in the morning sun like polished silver as it swept in ever-widening circles across the sky. Somewhere to the east a pompom began its infernal triphammer-like clatter. An armored car, evidently British from the “R. N.” painted on its turret, tore into the square in front of the hotel, the lean barrel of its quick-firing gun sweeping the sky, and began to send shell after shell at the aerial intruder. From down near the water-front came the raucous wail of a steam-siren warning the people to get under cover. A church-bell began to clang hastily, insistently, imperatively. It seemed to say: “To your cellars! To your cellars! Hurry!... _Hurry!_... HURRY!” From the belfry of the church of St. Eloi a flag with blue and white stripes was run up as a warning to the townspeople that death was abroad. Suddenly, above the tumult of the bells and horns and hurrying footsteps, came a new and inconceivably terrifying sound: a low, deep-toned roar rapidly rising into a thunderous crescendo like an express-train approaching from far down the subway. As it passed above our heads it sounded as though a giant in the sky were tearing mighty strips of linen. Then an explosion which was brother to an earthquake. The housetops seemed to rock and sway. The hotel shook to its foundations. The pictures on the wall threatened to come down. The glass in the windows rattled until I thought that it would break. From beyond the housetops in the direction of the receiving hospital and the railway-station a mushroom-shaped cloud of green-brown smoke shot suddenly high into the air. Out in the corridor a woman screamed hysterically: “My God! My God! They’ve begun again with the big cannon!” I heard the clatter of footsteps on the stairs as the guests rushed for the cellar. I began to dress. No fireman responding to a third alarm ever dressed quicker. Just as I was struggling with my boots there came another whistling roar and another terrific detonation. High in the air above the quivering city still circled the German aeroplane, informing by wireless the German gunners, more than a score of miles away across the Belgian border, where their shells were hitting. Think of it! _Think of bombarding a city at a range of twenty-three miles and every shot a hit!_ That is the marvel of this modern warfare. Imagine the Grand Central Station in New York, the Presbyterian Hospital, the Metropolitan Life Building, and the City Hall being blown to smithereens by shells fired from Rahway, N. J. And it was not a 42-centimetre siege-gun either, but a 15-inch naval gun which the Germans had brought from Kiel and mounted behind their lines in Flanders. Though French and British aviators made repeated flights over the German lines for the purpose of locating the gun and putting it out of business, their efforts met with no success, as the ingenious Teutons, it seems, had dug a sort of tunnel into which the gun was run back after each shot and there it stayed, in perfect security, until it was fired again. Is it any wonder that the Germans are so desperately anxious to reach Calais, with the fort-crowned cliffs of Dover rising across the channel less than twenty miles away?

Descending to the cellars of the hotel, I found that there was standing-room only. Guests, porters, cooks, waiters, chambermaids, English Red Cross nurses, and a French colonel wearing the Legion of Honor were shivering in the dampness amid the cobwebs and the wine-bottles. Every time a shell exploded the wine-bottles in their bins shook and quivered as though they, too, were alive and frightened. I lay no claim to bravery, but in other bombarded cities I have seen what happens to the people in the cellar when a shell strikes that particular building, and I had no desire to end my career like a rat in a trap. Should you ever, by any chance, find yourself in a city which is being bombarded, take my advice, I beg of you, and go out into the middle of the nearest open square and stay there until the bombardment is over. I believe that far more people are killed during bombardment by falling masonry and timbers than by the shells themselves. As I went upstairs I heard a Frenchwoman angrily demanding of the chambermaid why she had not brought her hot water. “But, madame,” pleaded the terrified girl, “the city is being bombarded.” “Is that any reason why I should not wash?” cried the irate lady. “Bring my hot water instantly.”