British Aeroplanes attacking the Zeppelin Factory at Friedrichshafen.

On November 21, 1914, three British aeroplanes flew from France across the mountains into Germany, a distance of 250 miles, and dropped bombs on the Zeppelin factory at Friedrichshafen, on the shores of Lake Constance. Serious damage was done, and all the pilots but one returned safely. Another daring air raid was made on Christmas Day 1914 by seven aeroplanes on German warships lying off Cuxhaven.

THE

CHILDREN'S STORY

OF THE WAR

by

SIR EDWARD PARROTT, M.A., LL.D.

AUTHOR OF "BRITAIN OVERSEAS," "THE PAGEANT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE," ETC.

From the First Battle of Ypres to the End of the Year 1914

THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, Ltd.

LONDON, EDINBURGH, PARIS, AND NEW YORK
1916

"O hearts ever youthful, like schoolboys at play, So be it with you in the thick of the fray; In the crash and the smoke and the roar of the fight, Be it yours, if it need be, to die for the Right! While deep in your heart a quick prayer shall arise To Him who looks down on the earth from the skies, For those whom you love in a faraway Home— O! shield them, our Father, whatever may come!"

I. Gregory Smith.

(By permission of "The Times.")

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

A GLANCE BACKWARDS.

When the last British soldier, with the mud of the Aisne trenches still clinging to his tunic, detrained in Artois,[1] within fifty miles of the white cliffs of Dover, seventy-seven days of anxious and fateful struggle had come to an end. Before we follow the progress of the terrible campaign which was soon to begin, let us glance backwards and recall in brief outline the leading incidents of the crowded weeks which had elapsed since Germany unsheathed the sword and flung her legions into that "battle without a morrow" which she vainly hoped would win for her the mastery of Europe and the supremacy of the world.

In our first volume we learned how the disunited states of Germany, under the leadership of Prussia, became welded together into a great empire on the ringing anvil of war. The German Empire had been created by the sword, and Germans had been taught to believe that only by the sword could it be maintained and increased. During less than half a century they had grown from poverty to riches and greatness, and this sudden rise to wealth and power had so turned their heads that they now deemed themselves entitled to world-empire. Mighty in industry and commerce, and possessed of the vastest and most highly organized weapon of war that the world has ever known, they nevertheless saw their ambitions thwarted again and again. They desired greatly a dominion beyond the seas, but colonies were hard to come by. With the failure of their attempts to expand they grew more and more embittered, until they believed that they were being robbed of their rightful due by the envy and greed of neighbouring Powers.

On their eastern border they saw the Russians daily recovering from the effects of the war against Japan, and so rapidly advancing in military strength as to be a real menace to that commanding position which they coveted. Their leaders feared that if Russia were not speedily crippled she would

"Bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus,[2] and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves."

While viewing the rise of Russia with mingled fear and contempt, they saw the British people, whom they had been taught to despise as a worn-out and wealth-corrupted race, holding dominion on every continent and in every sea, and unfurling their flag over one in four of all mankind. The spectacle was gall and wormwood to them, and they made no secret of their intention to wrest this vast empire from its present holders when the time was ripe. To this end they had built a great fleet, and their sailors drank to "The Day" when the lordship of the ocean should be theirs, and the overseas dominion of Britain the spoils of their triumph.

But the fruits of industrial strength and armed might were slow in ripening, and in 1911, when, thanks to the support of Great Britain, France became supreme in Morocco and the shadowy claims of Germany were set aside, there was bitter chagrin in the Fatherland. It was then, as we have good reason to believe, that the leaders of the German people came to the conclusion that only by war could they realize their ambitions. War must be made on France and on her ally, Russia. When France was overthrown, Germany would be absolute master of Central and Western Europe. When Russia was crippled, Germany would have a free hand in the Balkans. Then, mightily increased in territory and resources, she would proceed to the conquest of Britain.

Preparations on a vast scale were at once begun. The war lords of Germany bent all their thoughts and energies to the task. The effect of heavy artillery and high explosive shells was studied, and the great armament works were ordered to turn out huge howitzers and the necessary ammunition for them. Innumerable machine guns and motor cars were built, and nothing that made for military or naval efficiency was overlooked. The Kiel Canal was enlarged so as to accommodate the heaviest Dreadnoughts in the navy; the number of trained men in the army was increased; huge stocks of all the necessaries of war were collected. The bankers were instructed to sell their foreign stocks and shares, and to collect gold with which to purchase abroad the cotton, copper, rubber, and petrol, which are all-important in modern warfare. A deep-laid plot was hatched to hamper British bankers so that they could not lend money to France and Russia. Silently and secretly, and with wonderful foresight and zeal, everything was prepared for the great adventure.

Some idea of the wonderful completeness of the German preparations for war may be gathered from the following description of a soldier's equipment:—

"The German soldier was clothed in cloth of a colour which, on the average of European days, gave a greater degree of invisibility than khaki. This cloth was excellently woven to withstand weather and strain. Each soldier had a pocket-knife worth a week's pay of a British corporal, and carried in this pocket-knife a little equipment for mending his clothes (as also a first-aid bandage of adhesive plaster). His boots were of wonderfully strong and supple leather, such boots as only rich civilians in England can buy. His valise of cowhide, tanned with the hair on, was most ingeniously furnished with straps and removable bolts of white metal for ease of carrying and ease of packing and unpacking. Its contents, disposed in various little cupboards, gave the maximum of food-reserve and clothing-comforts for the space and weight. The order-books, the maps, the other equipment of officers and non-commissioned officers, showed the same skilful devotion to detail. During many years of preparation the German mind had evidently devoted itself with passionate industry to providing for every possible emergency of the soldier's life in the field."

A spy system of the most widespread and elaborate character had been established in all European countries. The Kaiser was assured by his spies that Great Britain would not actively join with Russia and France, because her people were sharply divided on an important political question, and because they had grown so spiritless that they would prefer to make money by providing the combatants with materials of war. France was well known to be ill-prepared for a campaign, and that great, unwieldy giant Russia would be so sluggish in making ready that months would elapse before he could become formidable. By the summer of 1914 Germany had made all her military and naval preparations; she was armed to the teeth, and she knew that the nations against whom she had secretly prepared were quite unready to meet her.

The Kaiser in the Field. Photo: Central News.

This remarkable Photograph shows the German Emperor directing the operations of his troops in Flanders.

Towards the end of June 1914, when the army was ready to the last gaiter button, an event took place which gave the Kaiser an excellent excuse for bringing about that war which was necessary for the fulfilment of his aims. The Archduke Ferdinand was murdered in Bosnia, and Serbia was charged with bringing about the crime. It was alleged that the heir to the throne of the Kaiser's ally, Austria-Hungary, had been foully done to death by miscreants in the pay of Russia's friend, Serbia. The Kaiser at once determined that Austria-Hungary's quarrel should be his; he would support Franz Josef in punishing Serbia—that is, in throwing down the gauntlet to Russia. This would be certain to bring about the war which his soul desired. A little more delay, however, was necessary. An army, as Napoleon told us long ago, marches on its stomach, and great supplies of food are required before it can take the field. For this reason the Kaiser decided to play for time until the harvest of the year had been gathered in. So for a whole month little was heard of the Archduke's murder, and the Powers of Europe were encouraged to believe that the crime would not lead to war.

Montenegrin Artillery in Action. Photo, Daily Mirror.

Montenegro is the smallest kingdom in Europe, and consists of lofty highlands of gray, broken rock. The Montenegrins are said to be the finest and strongest race in Europe. They are born warriors, and their average height is six feet. They are of kindred race to the Serbians, and in this great war they have thrown in their lot with them.

As soon, however, as the German garners were full the Austro-Hungarian Government was urged to send to Serbia a series of demands such as had never been presented to a civilized and independent power before. They were meant to provoke Russia, and to drag her into the quarrel. What were these demands? Mr. Lloyd-George has told us, in the following burning words:—

"What were the Austrian demands? Serbia sympathized with her fellow-countrymen in Bosnia. That was one of her crimes. She must do so no more. Her newspapers were saying nasty things about Austria. They must do so no longer.... Serbian newspapers must not criticize Austria.... Serbia said: 'Very well; we will give orders to the newspapers that they must not criticize Austria in future, neither Austria, nor Hungary, nor anything that is theirs.' Who can doubt the valour of Serbia when she undertook to tackle her newspaper editors? She promised not to sympathize with Bosnia, promised to write no critical articles about Austria. She would have no public meetings at which anything unkind was said about Austria. That was not enough. She must dismiss from her army officers whom Austria should subsequently name. But those officers had just emerged from a war where they were adding lustre to the Serbian arms—gallant, brave, efficient. I wonder whether it was their guilt or their efficiency that prompted Austria's action. Serbia was to undertake in advance to dismiss them from the army, the names to be sent on subsequently. Can you name a country in the world that would have stood that?"

How did Serbia face the situation thus engineered? Listen again to Mr. Lloyd-George:—

"It was a difficult situation for a small country. Here was a demand made upon her by a great military Power who could put five or six men in the field for everyone she could; and that Power supported by the greatest military Power in the world. How did Serbia behave? It is not what happens to you in life that matters; it is the way in which you face it. And Serbia faced the situation with dignity. She said to Austria: 'If any officers of mine have been guilty and are proved to be guilty, I will dismiss them.' Austria said: 'That is not good enough for me.' It was not guilt she was after, but capacity. Then came Russia's turn. Russia has a special regard for Serbia. She has a special interest in Serbia. Russians have shed their blood for Serbian independence many a time. Serbia is a member of her family, and she cannot see Serbia maltreated. Austria knew that. Germany knew that, and Germany turned round to Russia and said: 'I insist that you shall stand by with your arms folded whilst Austria is strangling your little brother to death.' What answer did the Russian Slav give? He gave the only answer that becomes a man. He turned to Austria and said: 'You lay hands on that little fellow, and I will tear your ramshackle empire limb from limb.'"

The object of the Kaiser was achieved—the quarrel between Austria and Russia was now likely to provoke a European war. Our Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, worked night and day to bring the estranged Powers to peaceful agreement, and he so far succeeded that on the 30th July Austria showed signs of drawing back. At once the Kaiser saw that all his hopes were likely to be shattered. That same evening he took steps which made war certain. He ordered Russia to cease all warlike preparations within twelve hours, and France within eighteen hours. Before France had returned an answer to this impudent demand, his Uhlans were over her border.

The Germans began the campaign absolutely certain of victory. While all the talk of peace was going on, their General Staff was poring over maps of the future battlefields. France was to be overwhelmed by a mighty rush; she was to be beaten to the ground before her armies could be marshalled in strength. Short, sharp, and sudden was to be the blow; and when France lay at her conqueror's feet, the victorious legions would be entrained for the eastern front in sufficient time to meet the slow-moving Russians, who could be easily held up by the Austrians until the main German armies were free to assail them. The Germans believed that when Russia found herself alone in the struggle some arrangement could be made with her so that thenceforth she would not stand in the way of their ambitious schemes.

Such was the plan of campaign, and it will readily be seen that any long delay in invading and subduing France would enable the Russian millions to be arrayed on the eastern frontier, and to carry war into Germany and Austria. Consequently, no time was available in which to besiege the barrier fortresses on the eastern frontier of France, and to push through the difficult country behind them. The quickest and easiest route to the heart of France had to be taken, and that lay through the Belgian plain, which was so well supplied with railways that food and munitions from the German bases could readily reach the invading armies as they pushed forward. Belgium, it was true, had been guaranteed freedom from invasion by a treaty to which Prussia was a party; but in the opinion of the German Government military necessity overrode all such engagements and reduced them to mere "scraps of paper." Belgium, it was thought, would make little or no resistance. She had but few trained soldiers, and these were ill-equipped. She had powerful fortresses on her frontier, but there were not enough men to garrison them properly, and there was a grave lack of ammunition for the guns. Even if the fortresses did resist, the Germans were prepared with a plan to deal with them.

So Belgium was invaded, and this terrible breach of faith on the part of the Germans shocked all neutral nations. Great Britain had been the leading Power in neutralizing Belgium, and she could not in honour desert the little country which was ready to fight to the death for its independence. Nor dared she stand by with folded arms and see France overcome. A victorious Germany in possession of Antwerp and the Channel ports of France would be in a very favourable position to attack British shores. Should Germany become master of the west of Europe, the existence of the British Empire would be in dire peril. Britain, therefore, was compelled by dictates of honour and self-preservation to declare war on Germany.

This declaration of war was a great blow to Germany; it upset all her calculations. It brought into the struggle not only the greatest naval Power in the world, but the unrivalled riches and resources of the British Empire. The British army which could be sent overseas was so small as to seem negligible to the Germans; but they could not shut their eyes to the fact that the British Empire, with its 417 millions of inhabitants, could, in the course of time, array colossal forces against them. In the meantime the British could, by means of their navy, paralyze German sea-power, and sweep German commerce from the seas, and at the same time, out of the abundance of their riches, find plentiful sinews of war for their Allies. Our declaration of war was bitterly resented in Germany, and a flood of hate against all things British began to sweep over the country.

German Soldiers leaving Berlin for the Front.

An amateur artist is drawing a caricature of General Joffre on the side of the carriage.

On 2nd August Germany demanded a free passage through Belgium; it was refused, and two days later the enemy was swarming across the frontier. Within ten days the great barrier forts of Liége were crushed into shapeless ruin by shells of such explosive power that neither steel nor concrete could resist them. Within a fortnight the greater part of Belgium was in German hands. Brussels was entered and occupied, and two and a half million men were ready to fall like an avalanche on France.

The French Commander-in-Chief was faced by an appalling problem. With forces numbering one-half of those launched against him, he had to await the German attack on a frontier 500 miles long. He was uncertain as to where the main blow would fall. Accordingly he followed Napoleon's advice: "Engage everywhere, and then see." He engaged in Alsace; but the main forces of the enemy were not there. He engaged

in Lorraine, and in the third week of August suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of the Bavarians, though he was still able to keep the field in that province. On 23rd August, when the Battle of Nancy was raging, the avalanche fell on the line of the Sambre and Meuse, where French armies were arrayed to meet the shock. Namur, the pivot of the defending armies, fell; its forts were blown to atoms by the great howitzers which unwisely had been permitted to come within range. An unexpected army of Saxons pierced the Allied centre, and the French were forced to retreat rapidly or suffer destruction. The northern gate to Paris was now forced, and the eastern gate in Lorraine was threatened. For a moment it seemed that the Germans had won the campaign in two battles.

France had reserves, but they were far away in Alsace, in Burgundy,[3] and behind Paris. They could not be brought to the front in time to retrieve disaster, so the beaten armies had to hasten southwards towards their reserves.

The Germans pushed southwards with incredible speed. The British, on the left of the French, had been left unsupported, and overwhelming numbers of the enemy were striving might and main to envelop them. They were in grave peril, and at any moment the right flank in Lorraine might be turned, and the retreating French be caught between two fires. There was nothing for it but swift and desperate retreat, until a line could be reached on which a stand was possible. Here and there, during the rapid retirement, the French gained local successes, which might have tempted them to halt and put their fortune to the test once more. But the French Commander-in-Chief was proof against the temptation. He held firmly to his plan, and continued the long and depressing retreat.

A Hand-to-hand Fight during the Battle of the Marne. By permission of the Sphere.

The action here illustrated took place on the South bank of the Marne, where the Germans found themselves attacked by French colonial troops. The Germans were soon beaten back, after a fierce affray amidst burning houses and broken barricades.

Upon the devoted British fell the full force of the German shock. Hopelessly outnumbered, and with the enemy on three sides, they nevertheless struggled out of van Kluck's grasp, and made a fighting retreat that will go down to posterity as one of the finest feats known to the history of warfare. Terrible were their losses, as were those of the French armies on their right; but they were still unbroken, and were still capable of striking hard when the Allied line should be knitted up anew. In the early days of September this was accomplished; the whole Allied line lay extended from the southern outskirts of Paris eastwards to Verdun. It had been welded into strength by misfortune; it had taken the measure of the foe, and was eager for revenge.

To the Germans it appeared that Paris had been abandoned, and in Berlin men confidently declared that the war was over, and that only the fruits of victory remained to be reaped. Von Kluck, sweeping irresistibly towards the capital, believed that he had only wearied and broken foes before him. He had good reason for this belief, for he could not conceive that any armies could have retreated so rapidly and suffered so severely and yet remain fit to oppose him. He was full of confidence, but it was the confidence of ignorance. He was totally unaware that a new army, fresh and unwearied, was silently concentrating in the streets of Paris.

In Britain there were the worst of forebodings. The Allied armies had been driven back helter-skelter with a terrible tale of losses, and von Kluck was within gunshot of the outer forts of the French capital. The 5th of September was the darkest hour before the dawn. Everywhere the Allied armies seemed to be on the verge of disaster. Von Kluck was wheeling his right in order to envelop the 5th French Army; farther east the Würtembergers were striking hard at the French centre; the Crown Prince, to the south of Verdun, was waiting for the huge siege guns with which he hoped to batter down the defences of that great fortress; Maubeuge was at its last gasp; and at Nancy the Bavarians, under the eye of the Kaiser himself, were preparing to break through the eastern barrier. The man in the street at home could only stifle his feelings of dismay, and hope that by some miracle victory might yet be snatched from the jaws of defeat.

Motor-cyclist Dispatch Rider breaking through a Patrol of Uhlans. By permission of The Sphere.

The motor-cyclist enables communications to be kept up, and messages to be sent to and from headquarters all along the far-extended lines of the Allies. Adventures similar to that illustrated above were common in the early stages of the war.

So far the war had been one unbroken triumph for Germany. She had succeeded even beyond the expectations of her people at home. Fortress after fortress had fallen; victory after victory had been won; the capital of France was at her mercy; prisoners had been captured in huge numbers, and guns by the score. To crown all, just as Sedan Day was approaching and the fall of Paris was hourly expected, the news arrived that von Hindenburg had won an astounding victory at Tannenberg, in Eastern Prussia. The whole German nation went mad with delight. Its wildest ambitions were about to be realized.

One short week later there was a sudden and dramatic change in the aspect of affairs. The Allies had made a leap forward; von Kluck, beaten and outflanked, was being harried northward through the woods of Compiègne; von Buelow, with his famous Guards reduced to half their strength, was hurrying towards the Aisne; the Duke of Würtemberg, foiled in his attacks on the French centre, was in sullen retreat; Verdun was still intact; and in Lorraine the Kaiser had seen the White Cuirassiers of Bavaria hurled back in confusion from the French line. The avalanche had fallen, but it had failed to overwhelm the Allied armies. The Germans were now, for the first time, tasting the bitterness of forced retreat.

Back they were thrust, but not in rout, to the plateau beyond the Aisne, where, in a position of great strength, they were forced to fight, against all their traditions, on the defensive. For weeks they were besieged, but day by day their entrenchments were strengthened until they resembled fortresses. All the courage and skill and patience of the attackers could not bolt them from these burrows by means of frontal attacks. Then an attempt was made to outflank them by a northward movement of the Allied left. As this movement proceeded, a similar manoeuvre was begun by the foe. Each side attempted to outflank the other, and a feverish race set in for the North Sea, where both flanking movements must perforce end. Three French armies were strung out northwards as far as the La Bassée canal; the British army was transferred from the Aisne to fill the gap beyond; and a new army was collected and hurried to the assistance of the Belgians, who extended the line to the sea. The Allies just won the race, and the Germans found themselves besieged once more, this time on a line of trenches some 450 miles in length. For months to come they strove to break through the Allied lines; with what success future pages of this history will tell.

Such, in brief outline, is the story which has been told in our two former volumes. It is the story of the most ruthless and determined assault that has ever been made upon the liberties of mankind in the whole history of the world. We see master minds plotting and planning for long, secret years, watching and waiting for an occasion to swoop down upon unsuspecting neighbours and rob them of life and freedom and the fruits of their toil. We see them launching millions of men, armed with every death-dealing device that fiendish ingenuity can frame, against a little peaceful people that dares to stand in their way. The earth shakes with the roar of gigantic guns and the thunderclaps of bursting shells. Fortresses crumble to shapeless ruin; homesteads are given to the flames; temples of God are profaned and despoiled; monuments of art and piety are blotted out; cities are shattered; young and old, man, woman, and child, are given to the sword, and wherever the battle has raged there are ghastly heaps of dead and dying, "friend and foe in one red burial blent."

Onward sweep the conquering legions, with pillars of cloud by day and pillars of fire by night, and it would seem that nothing human could give them pause. Armies recoil before them; but strive as they may, they cannot overwhelm them. Victory sits upon their banners, when suddenly those whom they have hunted and harried across the fair fields of France spring forward with undaunted fire and vigour, and the torrent is stayed. Then it is swept back, and soon the invaders are hemmed in by a ring of steel, against which they fling themselves in baffled rage like a trapped tiger against the bars of his cage.

Such is the story of seventy-seven days of bloodshed, horror, destruction, and woe—days which can never be forgotten while the memory of man endures.

CHAPTER II.

SOME GERMAN THEORIES OF WAR.

Before I proceed with my story, let me call your attention to certain theories of war with which the German General Staff began the campaign. By a theory of war I mean some plan or scheme which, in the judgment of those making it, is likely to prove of great advantage, but which can only be proved to be so by actual practice. Some of the German theories turned out to be right, others wrong, as we shall see.

If you were to witness a field day of British troops you would notice that the infantry make their attacks in long, thin skirmishing lines. The men are widely spread out, and as they advance they offer a small target to the guns of the enemy. Their losses are thus reduced to a minimum. The Germans, on the other hand, believe in making their attacks with their men massed together in close formation.

Troops attacking in close order have certain advantages over those attacking in open order. First, they can begin their attack with the least possible delay. Suppose a hundred men are marching forward in fours, and are about to make an attack. If they are to spread out widely time will be needed for them to deploy. (See Fig. 2, p. [19].) But if they go forward packed close together as in Fig. 1, p. [18], they can attack much more quickly. You can easily understand that the quicker a blow is delivered, the more likely it is to be successful, for the defenders are given little time in which to make preparations for resisting it.

Then, again, an attack delivered in mass formation brings much more weight to bear on the part of the enemy's line against which it is directed than an attack in open order. If, for example, a hundred men are hurled against a front of a hundred yards, the force with which they can assail it is much greater than it would be if the same hundred yards of front were attacked by fifty men. Where, as often happens, troops have to advance on a narrow front, say against a bridge, a causeway, a street, or a defile, they must attack in close order if they are to succeed.

Of course, when a massed attack is made, a very good target is offered to the enemy, especially in these days of magazine rifles, machine guns, and quick-firing field guns, and large numbers of the attackers are sure to fall. In former wars it has been found that troops so punished break or are brought to a standstill, and that their attack therefore fails. The Germans, however, believe that men can be so disciplined that, though large numbers of them are shot down, the rest will push on and carry the position. They believe that this great waste of life is worth while, because the campaign will be over all the sooner, and the total losses will probably be no greater than they would be in a long-drawn-out war carried on by attacks in open order.

Fig. 1. Column advancing to the Attack in Close Order.

Now let us see how this theory bore the test of actual practice. You will remember that at the Battle of Mons and on other occasions the Germans made massed attacks on the Allied positions, and though their men were shot down in droves, they came on again and again, almost shoulder to shoulder. The theory that men can be so disciplined as to continue to advance in massed formation, even though they know that large numbers of them will certainly be killed or wounded, proved correct. Where the theory broke down was in supposing that the men who survived the slaughter would be able to carry the position. On some occasions they succeeded, but in the majority of cases a swarm of Germans advancing against inferior numbers were reduced by one-fourth, or even by one-third, in the first few minutes of the rush, and the remainder were too few to drive out the defenders. So, as far as actual results were concerned, attacks in close formation proved to be a failure. The Germans, however, persisted in them, and this led to an immense wastage of life. They flung away life like water, but, as we have seen, they did not win that speedy victory on which they had staked so much.

Fig. 2. Column deploying for Attack in Open Order.

Another theory of the German General Staff was that no existing fortress could withstand for more than a few days the effect of high explosive shells hurled from heavy howitzers. Up to about ten years ago it was thought that fortresses mounting heavy guns, and fully supplied with men, food, and ammunition, could hold out for months against a besieging force. The fixed guns of fortresses had then a far greater range than any movable guns that could be brought against them, and they were so powerful that they could, as a rule, put out of action the artillery of the besiegers.

A German Howitzer for Siege Work. Photo, Daily Mirror.

Notice the caterpillar wheels which enable it to traverse soft roads without sinking in.

On page 200 of Volume I. you were told how a howitzer differs from an ordinary field gun. Let me repeat what I then said. The great difference between the action of an ordinary gun and that of a howitzer is the difference between a boy throwing a stone at a mark which he can see, and the same boy lobbing a stone over a wall so that it will fall on something hidden from his view. The ordinary field gun has a long, flat sweep of fire, and is therefore unable to shoot over hills, trees, or houses, or to drop shells on men lying close behind a bank or in a deep, narrow trench.

Look at this little diagram. A howitzer, A, is firing at a fort, B, from the other side of a hill. The howitzer is invisible from the fort, and the men firing the howitzer cannot see the mark at which they are aiming. But a man on or above the hill can see the fort easily, and can so direct the fire of the howitzer that it can lob its shells over the hill and drop them directly on the fort. The guns of the fort are incapable of hitting the howitzer. The shells which they throw pass right over the hill, and fall a long way behind it.

Until recently the fortress gun was master of the howitzer, for several reasons. The howitzers then in use were small, and their range was much less than that of heavy guns mounted in forts. No matter how carefully the howitzers were concealed or how frequently they were shifted about, they were sure sooner or later to be "spotted" from the fortress, and put out of action. The explosives which were then used in the howitzer shells were not sufficiently powerful to destroy the steel and concrete of the forts, and there was much difficulty in discovering, whether the aim of these high-angle guns was true.

The Austrian and the German General Staff had studied all this very carefully, and they had come to the conclusion that howitzers could be constructed of such a size that they would be more than a match for fortress guns. Former howitzers were 6 inches across at the mouth; but before the war the Austrians built howitzers of from 11 to 12-inch calibre. This doubling of the calibre meant that the new weapon was eight times as powerful as the old one. Such howitzers could throw their shells from an immense distance, and could take advantage of steep cover so far off that the fortress guns could not reach them. Though the new howitzers were so heavy, they were capable of being moved from place to place as soon as they were "spotted".

Not only was the howitzer made much bigger than formerly, but new and very powerful explosives were discovered, and huge shells were filled with them. Experiments led the German Staff to believe that these explosives would utterly destroy the forts, no matter how solidly they might be constructed. How to aim these howitzers correctly was the only remaining difficulty. Aeroplanes and balloons solved the problem. Observers could fly high enough to see the forts, note where the shots fell, and signal to the gunners so that they could find the exact range.

The Germans believed that no fortress along the line of their advance could long resist their big howitzers and high explosive shells. The French, on the other hand, thought that such ring fortresses as those at Liége, Namur, and Verdun could hold out for a considerable time. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, Port Arthur, though attacked by howitzers, held out for eleven months. The French saw no reason why their forts should not resist for several weeks at least.

From what you have read in the former volumes you know that the German theory was right, and that the French theory was wrong. Liége, Namur, Maubeuge, and Antwerp all fell before the high explosive shells of the huge howitzers in an astonishingly brief time. Verdun did not fall, it is true, but this was because the French turned it into a new type of fortress altogether. They made field works at a considerable distance from the old forts, and moved out the heavy guns to advanced trenches. Rails were laid down so that as soon as the guns were "spotted" they could be moved to new positions at short notice. Thus, as I told you on page 280 of Volume II., instead of fixed forts, each, say, mounted with ten heavy guns, these same ten guns were "dotted here and there in trenches rapidly established in one place and another, along perhaps half a mile of wooded vale, and free to operate, when they moved, over perhaps double that front." This is the German theory of fortification, and Verdun was saved because the French adopted it.

Another theory of the German Staff was that high explosive shells could be used with great effect not only against fortresses but against troops in the field. In former wars shrapnel[4] was largely used, but in the present war the Germans believed that high explosive shells would be more effective.[5] Modern armies, as you know, "dig themselves in" whenever they can, and fight from trenches. Against troops in deep trenches with good head-cover shrapnel is not very deadly. When trenches have been occupied for some time they become little fortresses, with strong parapets and entanglements of barbed wire in front of them. Before sending infantry to attack such trenches, the Germans determined to fire high explosive shells at them, so that the barbed wire would be torn away, the parapets of the trenches would be blown in, and the defensive works destroyed. In this respect, too, the German theory proved correct, and when the trench warfare began in real earnest the Allies had to follow the German example. Months passed, however, before their supply of howitzers and high explosive shells was sufficient to enable them to cope with the Germans on equal terms.

The Effect of Shrapnel on Trenches.

Some four hundred to five hundred balls and splinters spread forwards, downwards, and fan-wise when the shell bursts.
(By permission of The Sphere.)

In Volume I., page 189, I gave you some account of the machine gun which, as you will remember, discharges automatically and accurately some four hundred or five hundred shots a minute. As a rifleman can only fire about a dozen aimed shots in the same time, a machine gun is equivalent to at least thirty riflemen. It discharges its bullets in a cone-shaped stream, and is even more deadly than sustained rifle fire. Prior to the war each battalion in the British army was provided with two machine guns. The German General Staff, however, provided each unit of its infantry with a large number of machine guns,[6] which were so mounted that they could be carried rapidly over every kind of ground. The result was that the Germans had a very marked advantage over the Allies in machine firing power. Here, again, the German theory was correct, and the Allies were forced to follow suit and increase greatly their supply of machine guns.

The Germans have no faith in the waiting game. They believe that constant attack is the best form of defence. It is foreign to their ideas to wait for the enemy to attack them; everywhere and always they endeavour to strike at the foe. They believe with the American humorist:

"Thrice blessed he who hath his quarrel just, But four times he who gets his blow in fust."

In order to enable troops to strike swiftly, and, therefore, to take the enemy unawares, the Germans provided themselves with fleets of motor cars in which they conveyed their soldiers to the points where they were needed. The admirable Belgian and French roads enabled the motors to travel very quickly, and this accounts in large measure for the rapid pursuit of the Allies. The motor cars were meant to be specially useful in making those flanking movements by which German generals strive to envelop their enemies. These flanking attacks, however, were not successful, perhaps because it was impossible to transport sufficient artillery along with the men.

The Effect of High Explosive Shells on Trenches.

A breach is made in the wire entanglements and the chief force of the explosion is downwards.
(By permission of The Sphere.)

Finally, let me deal for a few moments with a theory that proved to be hopelessly wrong, so entirely mistaken that it robbed the Germans of that speedy victory which they confidently expected, and led to a long and uncertain trench war in the West. What was this theory?

The German General Staff believed that Paris would prove to be a great trap for the French. They believed that in no circumstances would the French Government permit Paris to be abandoned by the French armies. They thought that if Paris were threatened, one of two things would happen—either the French armies would be massed round the capital for its defence, or they would be divided, and some would try to hold the frontier, while others tried to hold the city. Further they felt sure that if the French Commander-in-Chief should wish to keep his armies undivided so that he could fight on the most advantageous ground, irrespective of whether Paris fell into German hands or not, the French politicians would interfere and overrule him. Then quarrels and confusion would arise; there would be no unity of purpose; divided authority would prevail, and France would go to pieces.

Whatever happened, the Germans felt confident of victory. They had more men in the field than France could possibly bring against them. If they fought pitched battles with the full strength of the French forces outside Paris, they were bound to win, because they were superior in men and guns. If the French forces were divided, their task would be still easier; and if the French politicians interfered, France would do much to destroy herself. Such was the theory; now let us see how it worked out.

From the very beginning of the struggle the French military authorities determined that they would conduct the war in their own way, and that they would not brook any interference from the politicians. They foresaw all the difficulties on which the Germans counted, and they fully realized that if they allowed their plans to be hampered by defending Paris they would fall into a trap from which there would be no escape. While, therefore, the enemy was making his great drive towards Paris, and even when he seemed to be on the point of besieging it, they did not attempt to go to its rescue, but still retreated, so that their line could be built up anew, and an advance made when the time was ripe. It is true that a new army had been mobilized in and around Paris, but it was not meant for the defence of the capital; it was intended for quite another purpose.[7]

When von Kluck was near the outer fortifications of Paris he discovered that the German theory was all wrong. He was forced to swerve in order to follow up the French and British, and in the act of swerving he was caught, and forced to retreat. Thus that rapid success in the West which was the very keynote of the German plan of campaign was rendered impossible.

CHAPTER III.

FROM ARRAS TO ARMENTIÈRES.

In Chapter XXXIII. of Volume II. you read something of the race for the sea. When I broke off the story the position of the Allies was as follows. Northwards from Compiègne to Lassigny extended the left wing of Maunoury's army. Still farther north, as far as the Somme, lay de Castelnau's army. Beyond it was the army of Maud'huy, which ultimately extended to the canal between Béthune and Lille. The British army was in process of being transferred from the Aisne to a position north of this canal. It was destined to fill the gap from the canal to the north of Ypres. The Belgians, assisted by the French, were to complete the line along the Yser to the North Sea.

Now the movements by which the various armies of the Allies swung into these positions are very difficult to follow, and you must give me all your attention if you are to have clear ideas about them. First of all, we must know something about the character of country in which the war was to be waged for many months to come. Within this region there are several important towns which are mentioned in your geography books. There are also numberless villages which are quite unimportant in themselves, but have become world-renowned because they have been the scene of great and stirring incidents. I shall mention these villages as they occur in the course of the story, but the general character of the country and the position and importance of the larger towns I must deal with now. Do not begrudge the time given to this and the following chapter. It will enable you to follow with intelligent interest the story hereafter to be told; and to picture for yourselves the scenes amidst which some of the most terrible struggles in all history have taken place.

Most of the region from the Somme to the mouth of the Yser is comprised within the two French departments of Pas-de-Calais and Nord, and the Belgian province of West Flanders. Pas-de-Calais is the French equivalent for the Strait of Dover, and the department is so called because its shores are mainly washed by that narrow neck of sea. The department of Nord lies to the north and east of Pas-de-Calais, and merges into the Belgian province of West Flanders.

Nearly the whole of it is a plain, and much of it is as flat as the Fen district of Lincolnshire. A line of low heights runs south-east from Gris Nez,[8] and forms the watershed between the rivers running to the North Sea and those which empty themselves into the English Channel. The most important river of the region is the Lys, a tributary of the Scheldt. It rises in the heights just mentioned, and winds across the country north-eastwards to join the Scheldt at Ghent. Notice very carefully the course of this river, for it crosses the country almost midway between the two most important towns in the region from the Scarpe to Nieuport—the French city of Lille, and the Flemish city of Ypres.

Bird's-eye View of the Country from Arras to the Sea.

From Arras to the sea near Ostend is a distance of over sixty miles. Nearly the whole of this stretch of country is a dead level. There is a crescent of low heights south of Ypres, but elsewhere, save at and near Cassel, about eighteen miles west of Ypres, there is not a hill worth mention. The hill of Cassel rises suddenly from the plain to a height of 515 feet, and from the summit there is a very extensive view. It is said that thirty-two towns and a hundred villages can be seen from this windmill-studded hill. What is called the Mont des Cats is about the same height as the hill of Cassel. It stands almost on the frontier, to the south-west of Ypres, and was of the greatest importance to the Allies, for it was the key to their position north of the Lys.

Brothers in Arms. Photo, Alfieri.

A British and a French soldier chatting together in Flanders.

I have already told you something of the ancient and beautiful city of Arras.[9] It is the capital of the department of Pas-de-Calais, and stands on the Scarpe, a tributary of the Scheldt. The old province of Artois, of which it was the capital, has changed hands very often during the course of its long and warlike history. It has been successively French, Burgundian, Flemish, Burgundian, German, and Spanish, and it finally came into the possession of France in 1640. You will remember that Arras, the capital, was formerly famous for the tapestry hangings known by its name. The manufacture, however, has long been extinct, and the city has now such varied industries as soap, oil, cast iron, salt, sugar refining, lace making, and the manufacture of agricultural implements. It is also one of the chief grain markets of France.

Arras, as you will observe from the map on page [28], stands in a gap in the line of hills which I have mentioned as forming the watershed. Through this gap run the river Scarpe, many roads, and the main railway from Liége by way of Namur, Mons, and Valenciennes to the Channel ports. An enemy striving to push westwards to the English Channel would naturally strive to gain possession of Arras because of its convenient road and railway communications.

Arras was formerly a beautiful little city, but it stands on the edge of perhaps the ugliest stretch of country on earth. Ten miles north of it is the town of Lens, south of which the Black Country of France begins. I have already told you that the Sambre cuts through an important coalfield. This coalfield is continued west into North France as far as the right bank of the Lys. The area of the coal-bearing region in Pas-de-Calais is about 240 square miles, and its yield is about twenty million tons per annum, which is about one-half of the total yearly output of France, but not a twelfth part of the annual production of Great Britain. You may be sure that this coal-bearing area is a busy and grimy region of pits and factories, much like the coal-mining parts of Lancashire or the West Riding of Yorkshire. There are the same straggling towns of mean houses merging into one another, the same mounds of refuse topped by the head-gear of pits, the same dirty roads, the same factory buildings, and the same criss-cross of railways and canals. The Lys, like the Irwell and the Aire, is black and foul with the grime of industry.

Béthune, which may be said to mark the western limit of the coalfield, has numerous pits in the neighbourhood, and a variety of industries such as are usually found in towns similarly situated. It stands twenty miles west-south-west of Lille, and is connected with it by an important canal which runs almost directly east to La Bassée for about seven miles. Beyond La Bassée the canal continues its eastward course for another four miles, and then unites with a canal system running north-eastward to Lille. Along both sides of the canal there are important railway lines connecting Lille with Béthune and the Channel ports.

La Bassée is a small manufacturing town of 4,800 inhabitants, with no special features to distinguish it from dozens of others in this industrial region, but owing to its military importance in the present war it will henceforth enjoy a fame which many a city of old renown might envy. You already know that the canal from Béthune to La Bassée was chosen as the dividing line between Maud'huy's army and the British forces. The point where two Allied armies join hands is always considered to be the weakest part of any defensive position. You will learn, as the story proceeds, that the Germans made the most determined efforts to break through the sally-port of La Bassée, and that the British strove with all their might to push through the German lines in the same neighbourhood, so as to cut the railway by which the enemy was able to move his troops rapidly from north to south, and vice versâ.

Another industrial town in this region which must detain us for a moment is Armentières,[10] which stands on the Lys about ten miles north of La Bassée. Before the war it was a busy and prosperous place, with a population of some 29,000. Its chief manufactures were cloth and table linen. The Belgian frontier meets the Lys near Armentières, and continues north-eastward along the left bank of the river.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM LILLE TO NIEUPORT.

By far the most important place between the Aisne and the coast of Belgium is Lille, which is less than eight miles from Armentières. In Lille we find ourselves in a city of more than 200,000 inhabitants, which was formerly the capital of French Flanders. It stands in the well-watered and very fertile plain of the Deule,[11] a navigable tributary of the Lys, and is connected with all the rivers of the district by a bewildering network of canals. Formerly it was considered to be a fortress of the first class, and its citadel was said to be the masterpiece of Vauban,[12] the great military engineer. He was a soldier of the Spanish army, who was taken prisoner by the French, and was induced by them to join the French service. His life was chiefly spent in making and besieging fortresses. He conducted no less than forty sieges, took part in more than three hundred combats, and built or helped to build one hundred and sixty fortresses.

For ages Lille has been a storm-centre of war. It has been so frequently mishandled by besiegers that the Church of St. Maurice is the only building of importance which has survived from the Middle Ages. Lille is the greatest industrial centre of North France, and its linen, woollen, and cotton factories, its oil and sugar refineries, its chemical works and great engineering and motor shops are of the utmost importance. It is a handsome place, with many fine public buildings, and its picture gallery is famous all over Europe because it contains some of the best work of the Flemish and Dutch schools.

You can now understand why Lille is a great prize of war. We shall read later that it was captured by the Germans. Its loss was a great blow to the Allies, because it not only controls seven railway lines and a great network of roads, but contains engineering and motor shops, which enabled the enemy to carry out important repairs and to manufacture many necessary implements of war within a mile or two of his front. Further, when Lille was lost, the proceeds of its manufacturing activity went to the Germans, and this rich, busy city thenceforth contributed nothing to the war expenses of France.

A little to the north-east of Lille are two other large manufacturing towns in the midst of one of the busiest industrial districts of France. Roubaix[13] is the first of these, and Tourcoing[14] is the second. In Belgium, a few miles north-west of Tourcoing, is the much smaller industrial town of Menin,[15] which stands on the Lys where the main road from Bruges crosses the river on the way to Lille.

North of the Lys we are in another world. We have left behind us the ugly pit mounds, the grimy towns, and the smoke of factories. We are now in West Flanders, in a countryside of market gardens, where every inch of ground is closely tilled, and the fields are laid out like a chessboard. There are many patches of woodland, some of them, such as the Forest of Houthulst, six or seven miles north of Ypres, being fairly large. West Flanders is not naturally fertile, but its dairy farmers and market gardeners, by dint of the greatest industry, have turned it into a rich and productive land. Six or seven hundred years ago its wealth came from a different source. Its cities were then bustling hives, in which most of the woollen cloth used in Europe was spun and woven.

The Cloth Hall at Ypres before Bombardment.

The busiest and wealthiest of these cities was Ypres, which stands about twelve miles north of Armentières. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there were some four hundred guilds of cloth manufacturers in the place, and its people numbered more than 200,000. So famous was its cloth that we find the English poet Chaucer[16] referring to it in his Canterbury Tales. His Wife of Bath, who was one of the pilgrims, was a cloth manufacturer, and Chaucer tells us that her wares "passed them of Ypres and of Gaunt" (Ghent). Before the war broke out Ypres was a little town of less than 18,000 people, and its industries were represented by its butter market and its small manufactures of lace and linen. But within it, as in the other ancient cities of Belgium, were some of the most glorious old buildings in all the world—the houses of the rich old burghers, the halls in which they met to transact their business, and the churches in which they thanked God for their prosperity. They spent their money lavishly on these buildings and filled them with treasures of art.

The glory of Ypres, prior to the war, was the Cloth Hall, the largest and finest edifice of its kind in Belgium. It was begun in 1200, and was more than a hundred years a-building. The front was 433 feet in length, and the building consisted of three stories, with a high-pitched roof broken by dormer windows. The niches of the top story were filled with statues of Flemish counts and celebrated inhabitants of the city. On the south side rose a massive belfry, with pinnacles at the angles. The east side of the hall was formed by the so-called Nieuwerk, one of the most beautiful buildings of its kind. I am obliged to describe the Cloth Hall of Ypres in the past tense, for unhappily it is now in ruins. Ypres had also a very fine cathedral, a meat hall, and a large number of old houses with carved wooden fronts. They, too, have been destroyed, more or less, by shot and shell.

In the days of its greatness Ypres, like Manchester of to-day, needed a waterway to the sea, so that it could rapidly and cheaply import wool from abroad, and export its finished cloth to distant markets. Ypres stands on a little river which is a tributary of the river Yser, a stream almost unknown to Britons before the war began, but now inscribed on the pages of history. The Yser rises to the west of Cassel, and flows in a curving course to enter the sea near Nieuport. A canal was cut from Ypres to the Yser, which was itself canalized, and thus the city provided itself with a waterway to the sea.

On the canal, twelve or thirteen miles north of Ypres, is the village of Dixmude,[17] which is also one of the "dead cities" of Belgium. Its fine Grand' Place, its noble Church of St. Nicholas, its Gothic town hall, and its heavily shuttered stone houses, show us that it was formerly a place of wealth and importance. Now, says a recent writer, "its eleven hundred inhabitants might easily stand in a corner of the Grand' Place. The passer-by—there is rarely more than one—disturbs the silence, and one hears scarcely any sounds save the chimes in the tower or the cooing of doves on the cornices." Alas! since the tide of war rolled into this part of Belgium, those inhabitants who remain have continuously been deafened by the roar of great guns, and the towers from which the chimes rang out and the cornices on which the doves cooed have been levelled with the ground.

Nieuport, the outport of Ypres, is the last of the towns in this region to which I shall call your attention. It stands about two miles from the mouth of the Yser, and, like Ypres and Dixmude, is only a relic of what it once was. About 4,000 people were dwelling in it before the war broke out, but its long, silent streets, with their massive houses, showed plainly that it was formerly a populous and busy place. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries its quays were thronged with ships discharging wool from England for the looms of Ypres, or filling their holds with the fine cloth made in the old city. Before the war, Nieuport still retained its cloth hall, town hall, and venerable Gothic church as memorials of this busy and prosperous time. When the trade of Ypres departed, Nieuport fell into decline. Prior to the war it was a small, quiet place, visited by a few ships and by occasional tourists. Everybody knows it now as the scene of battles which will change the destiny of the world. Beyond Nieuport are the great sand dunes which line the coast of Belgium, and extend as far west as Calais. From the top of the dunes we look out on the restless and shallow waters of the North Sea.

We have now traversed the region over which warfare was to rage for many months to come.

Before I close this chapter, let me remind you that the whole region between Arras and the North Sea is filled with historical memories of former warfare. This is by no means the first time that the British have fought in West Flanders and Artois. Marlborough,[18] for example, fought the greatest of his campaigns in this region, during the long struggle between Louis XIV. of France and the allied forces of England, Holland, and Austria. I am going to tell you about these campaigns in some detail, because they have features greatly resembling those of the present struggle.

Marlborough's great aim, was to recapture the valleys of the Lys and the Scheldt, which in the year 1708 were in the possession of the French. These rivers were then all-important, because they were the great lines of communication for armies fighting in Flanders and North France. It was by means of the rivers that food and munitions were brought to the soldiers and the heavy guns were moved from place to place. What railways are to modern commanders, navigable rivers were to generals in the long ages before steam.

All the fortresses on the Scheldt were in the hands of the French, except Oudenarde,[19] which you will find on the accompanying map, thirty miles to the east of Ypres. At the time when our story opens, Oudenarde was about to be attacked by the French. Marlborough made a wonderful forced march, and fell upon them as they were advancing towards the fortress. By nightfall on July 11, 1708, he had won a great victory, and the remnants of the French army had fallen back in disorder to Ghent. While Marlborough was waiting for reinforcements to come up, some of his troops seized a French position near Ypres, and his main army encamped near Menin.

Marlborough now proposed to besiege Lille, the greatest fortress on the road to Paris. He could not bring his siege train by way of the river, so it had to lumber slowly along the roads, and while doing so was in great danger of being captured by the enemy. Thanks, however, to his skilful arrangements, his heavy guns arrived safely, and then the siege began in real earnest. Lille was very strongly fortified, and was garrisoned by 15,000 men. While the siege was in progress a French army of more than 100,000 men marched to its succour; but so strongly was Marlborough posted that it did not dare to attack him. Instead of doing so it fell back behind the Scheldt, so as to cut off Marlborough's forces from Brussels. As, however, he still held Ostend, he was able to get supplies from England.

The French now tried to seize Ostend, so that Marlborough might be cut off from the sea and bottled up. He sent forces against them; but the French fell back before him and opened the sluices of the canals, thus flooding much of the country between him and the sea. A little later they succeeded in capturing Nieuport, and Marlborough was cut off from Ostend.

On 9th December Lille surrendered after the garrison had lost 8,000 men, and the besiegers not less than 14,000. Marlborough also captured Ghent, and at the end of December 1708 the French left Flanders altogether, and retired into their own territory. Thus the valleys of the Lys and Scheldt were recovered.

Map illustrating Marlborough's Campaigns in Artois and West Flanders.

Before I proceed with the story of Marlborough's campaigns, let me point out that during the race to the sea there was a similar struggle between the Allies and the Germans for the possession of the same valleys. The Allies were hastening north in order to push across the Lys and Scheldt and cut the German communications. Unhappily the Germans moved northwards so rapidly that this was impossible. Further, when Antwerp fell, a German army was released which made a great effort to outflank the Allies by way of the coast. Each side foiled the other, and the result was the long trench war which will be described in future pages.

Now let us return to our muttons. In the spring of 1709 Marlborough, who was now in possession of Lille proposed to march on Paris. The French knew that if he could seize Arras he would possess the gate to the capital. They therefore prepared to block his way by strongly entrenching themselves on a line extending from Douai,[20] which lies on the Scarpe about fourteen miles north-east of Arras, to Béthune. These trenches passed through La Bassée, where, as you know, the French and the British joined hands during the race to the sea in October 1914. Marlborough found these lines too strong to be carried by direct assault, so he turned aside and besieged Tournai, the town in which French Territorials, assisted by a British battery, made a very gallant stand on August 24, 1914.[21] Tournai surrendered after a siege of about thirty-seven days, and then Marlborough marched on Mons, the place where von Kluck, on August 23, 1914, vainly endeavoured to overwhelm the British.[22]

The Battle of Malplaquet (September 11, 1709).

(From the picture by Jan van Huchtenburgh).

While Marlborough was besieging Mons, the French, fearing that the fortress would suffer the fate of Lille and Tournai, marched an army against him. They entrenched themselves in a strong position on the edge of the broken and wooded country which fills the angle between two small rivers which unite at Mons, and were there attacked by Marlborough on September 11, 1709. After what he calls "a very murderous battle" the French were outflanked and their centre was broken through. The British encamped the following night on the French position, but they had lost so many men that they were unable to advance any further that year. You will find this victory referred to in your history books as the Battle of Malplaquet.[23]

John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough.
(Photo by Walker and Cockerell, from the painting in the National Portrait Gallery.)

In April 1710 the campaign was resumed. Douai was captured, but Arras and the road to France were found to be protected by a line of trenches which foiled even Marlborough. Béthune and other places fell into his hands; but during the winter the French extended their trenches from Namur on the east right to the coast, and the barrier seemed impregnable. In 1711, however, Marlborough carried out a series of movements which are said to be the most wonderful in the whole history of tactics. Early in August he approached the French lines as if about to attack Arras. The French massed their forces to meet him, and in order to do so had to weaken their hold on the trenches farther east. Suddenly, on the same night, Marlborough made a forced march of thirteen leagues to the left. Many of his men dropped from fatigue, but with the remainder he seized a portion of the trenches, and was behind the French lines while the French army was still awaiting his attack on Arras. He had completely outwitted the French general, though, for various reasons, he was unable to take further advantage of his success.

The French trenches of which you have just read ran, roughly, east and west, and were meant to stop an advance on Paris from the north. During the race to the sea the rival armies were moving from the south to the north. Each was trying to outflank the other. The Allies wished to strike eastwards, and the Germans westwards, and the result was that the lines of trenches in which they opposed each other ran from north to south.

CHAPTER V.

MAUD'HUY AT ARRAS, AND THE RETREAT FROM ANTWERP.

Two hundred and three years after Marlborough vainly tried to capture Arras, that little historic town became once more a prize for which rival forces strove fiercely. Marlborough coveted it because it was, as Louis XIV. styled it, the true gateway to Paris. The Germans, who were now to make a great effort to seize it, desired its possession because it would enable them to outflank Maud'huy's army and seize the Channel ports.

Arras had already been in German hands. During von Kluck's rush on Paris his troops drove out the weak French forces holding the city,[24] and occupied it up to the middle of September. When, however, the deadlock occurred on the Aisne, they withdrew from the quaint old place without doing it very much harm.

It was on the last day of September 1914 that Maud'huy began to extend his army beyond that of de Castelnau. Soon his left was at Lens, and his cavalry was scouring the country still farther north towards the Lys and the Yser. Several Territorial regiments attached to his army had already been sent to occupy Lille and Douai. You can easily understand that those weak forces would be in great danger if the Germans were to sweep round to the west. The Allied generals, however, believed that they were ahead in the race, and that they would be the first to overlap. They were quite mistaken: the Germans were ahead, and were now preparing to overlap by sending cavalry and infantry in motor buses towards the line of Béthune and Cassel.

On the afternoon of 1st October Douai had to be abandoned, and that very day the German guns began to thunder on the hills surrounding Arras. Von Buelow attacked Maud'huy in great force on the flats to the east of the city, while the Bavarians attempted to outflank him on the north. Though he received reinforcements he was obliged to retire behind the city and take up a position on the encircling hills. Before doing so he warned all the men of military age to leave the place. Then began a pitiful exodus to the coast.

For two days the Germans fiercely bombarded Arras: the beautiful sixteenth-century town hall, with its superb clock tower, was ruined, and the cathedral, as well as many of the historic houses, was badly damaged. Shells were rained on the place; but the French maintained a stubborn front, and refused to give way. The attack continued right through the month. A most determined assault was made between the 20th and the 26th, when the Prussian Guard came into action; but the enemy could not cross the ramparts. On the 31st a large German force was allowed to enter the suburbs, where a trap had been prepared. The result was that a battalion of the Guard surrendered, and a military train with one of the great siege howitzers was captured.

Maud'huy held the gate at Arras against all comers, and too great praise cannot be given to him and his brave troops. Had the Germans been able to sweep through the Arras gate the whole subsequent history of the war would have been changed.

On the 3rd of October, when the Germans were closing in on Arras, their patrols were reported on the outskirts of Lille, which they had also entered during their southward march,[25] but had subsequently abandoned. The mayor at once warned the inhabitants to keep cool, to avoid gathering in crowds, and to give no offence to the enemy should he enter the city. Next day the cracking of rifles was heard in the suburbs, and several shells fell in the streets, one of them striking the town hall. A new German force was advancing towards Lille from Belgium. During the morning an armoured train containing 300 Uhlans came dashing towards the station. A signalman promptly switched it on to a siding, and the French attacked it. The surprised Uhlans tried to take refuge in the neighbouring houses and workshops, but most of them were captured next morning.

A Battle amidst the Coal Trucks of Lens.

(From the picture by Paul Thiriat. By permission of The Sphere.)

Nor was this the only attack on Lille that day. Some 3,000 Germans tried to force their way in from the direction of Tourcoing, while others tried to cross from the Belgian to the French side of the Lys below Armentières, but both attacks were repelled. On the 6th there was fighting to the west of Lille and on the 10th a company of Uhlans dashed into the streets. They arrested the mayor and several other citizens as hostages; but in the nick of time a party of French Chasseurs arrived, set free the prisoners, and chased the Uhlans out of the city. Almost immediately the Germans began to bombard the place, and shells fell upon it at intervals until the 12th, when an infantry attack began. The Territorials did their best to resist, but they were altogether outnumbered, and were forced to withdraw. On the 13th Lille surrendered, and the Germans, with bands playing, marched in and took possession. Thus the most valuable city of North France fell into their hands.

You already know that it was of the utmost importance that Lille should be retained by the Allies. Why, then, did not General Maud'huy send a stronger force to hold it? The fact is, that he was so hard pressed at Arras that he could not spare an additional man for the defence of Lille. He had all his work cut out to save Arras and prevent the Germans from swarming through the gap towards the Channel. But even the feeble resistance of the Territorials at Lille was of advantage to the Allies. The city was held for nine days, during which large German forces were detained. By keeping these forces busy round the city the Territorials helped to conceal the Allied movements which were going on farther to the west, and also enabled the French and British troops to reach the line of the Yser just, and only just, in time to stop the Germans from bursting through.

Now we must hurry north to Antwerp and see what happened after the tragic fall of that great fortress. In the last chapter of Volume II., page 313, I told you that a British Naval Brigade, numbering about 8,000 men in all, was sent to the assistance of the beleaguered city. It arrived too late to save the fortress, but its energies were not wasted. The defence of the city was prolonged for a few priceless days while the troops from the Aisne were being hurried up to the new theatre of war.

The Belgian troops began to retreat from Antwerp on the evening of 6th October. Covered by cavalry, armoured motor cars, and cyclist corps, they moved out towards Ghent and Ostend, while a strong show of resistance was kept up by other Belgian troops and the British contingent in the trenches to the south of the city. Next day came the terrible flight of the civil population, and late that night, amidst scenes of indescribable confusion, the remainder of the Belgian troops and most of the British left the forts and trenches, cut the pontoon bridge over the Scheldt behind them, and hurried westwards, beating off attacks on their rear. Unfortunately, as you will remember, three battalions of the British Naval Brigade did not receive orders to retire until the road westwards was blocked by the enemy. Some 2,500 of them either passed into Holland, where they had to remain, or were captured by the Germans. It is said that 18,000 Belgians suffered the same fate.

The following extract from the diary of a petty officer who served with the Naval Brigade gives you some idea of the experiences of the British contingent:—

"October 8.—What a night last night! Shells coming in like one o'clock. Man on my side got a bit in his leg, but says he can shoot just as well on one leg. Belgian artilleryman reports that he and two others are all that are left of our covering fort. We seem to have nothing to do but wait for the end. These trenches would be all right against savages, but against their huge artillery, like so much dust. These shells come with a whiz like an express train, and then—crash! The spirits of our troop are top hole. No one the slightest bit excited—just smoking or yarning and dodging shells; but it's just rotten not coming alongside them. Here she comes—dip, crash! Saved again. Another 'non-stop' for Antwerp![26] When they shorten the range for us—well, cheer oh! Officer just given us the bird for laughing. 'Grin at each other, but don't speak, chapsies. In case I don't see you again, all my best love.'

"Next day.—About six last night we had a German attack on our left flank, and drove them off. As they had the range of our entrenchment, we had orders to clear out. So we did so. As I fell in outside, a shell exploded alongside. One man was left on the deck. We had to march back to Antwerp. City in places in flames. Everybody gone. Dead animals in the streets. Shells screaming overhead. Right through the city, over a bridge of boats, which were afterwards exploded, and marched until six this morning. Only one hour's sleep on the pavement of a small town. Thousands of men on the march back, thousands of refugees, Belgians, horses, cattle, and artillery, just like pictures of the retreat from Moscow and such like. We got a train at once, and it's now one o'clock, and we are still in it, bound for the coast. Part of our entrenchment was blown up as we were retreating, so if we had not gone I don't suppose any of us would have been alive. So, taking things all round, we had a pretty brisk time, and seem to have done nothing. Don't know how many miles we marched last night, but it is a picture which will always live in my memory. The conduct of our boys is simply marvellous—just as cool as seasoned veterans.

"Saturday, October 10.—Blankenberghe.[27] Arrived last night; slept at a kind of town hall. Had a meal where the refugees are staying; breakfast at hotel. Girls wearing R.N.V.R.[28] ribbons across their heads.

"Sunday, October 11.—Came aboard collier yesterday afternoon, and still aboard now. There are about 2,000 men here. Accommodation for none, so I slept between the funnel and the engine-room grating. Some even slept on the cylinders. Don't know when we shall shove off."

When Mr. Winston Churchill explained why the Naval Brigade had been sent to Antwerp, he said that it was "part of a large operation for the relief of the city which more powerful considerations prevented from being carried out." On the day after the Naval Brigade reached Antwerp (6th October), a part of the Fourth British Army Corps, under General Sir Henry Rawlinson, landed at Ostend and Zeebrugge,[29] and at once marched eastwards. The original object of this force, always supposing that Antwerp held out, was to join hands with the troops defending the city, and then advance across the Scheldt so as to cut the German lines of communication. On the evening of his arrival in Belgium Sir Henry Rawlinson visited Antwerp, and saw with his own eyes that the fortress could not be saved. His business now was to cover the retreat of the forces which had vainly tried to hold the city.

CHAPTER VI.

WITH RAWLINSON IN BELGIUM.

When Rawlinson's troops reached Ghent, on 7th October 1914, they fell in with the first body of retreating Belgians, and also with a brigade of French Marine Fusiliers, 6,000 strong, which had been hastily organized and rushed northwards that very morning. Most of them were Breton[30] reservists and recruits who had never fought on land before. Their chief was Admiral Ronarc'h,[31] a big, broad-shouldered, cool seaman, with eyes of Celtic blue. The Germans called these Bretons lads and graybeards "the girls with the red pompoms."[32] They were soon to discover that the Bretons were not playing at war, but that they were fighters of iron resolution and fiery courage.

When the troops under Rawlinson were disembarking at Ostend and Zeebrugge, fourteen transports, containing the 7th British Division, which had been assembled on the borders of the New Forest, were on the way to join him in Belgium. Just when the transports were off Ostend they received a wireless message ordering them to recross the Channel to Dover. A grain ship had just been blown up off Ostend, and it was feared that the transports would be sent to the bottom too. They were therefore ordered back to Dover to wait until the mines were swept up along the Belgian coast. On the day when the retirement from Antwerp was in full swing, the 7th Division disembarked at Zeebrugge, and marched to the outskirts of Bruges. The agony of Antwerp was then over, and all that could be done was to help to cover the retreat of the forces now marching away from the city.

Bavarian Troops leaving Antwerp for the Dash on Calais.

The Germans, as you know, strove hard to cut off the retreating defenders, and in the villages to the east and south of Ghent the British forces and the French Marine Brigade made a stand against an army which numbered about 45,000. When they had checked the enemy, they decided to retire westwards towards Bruges. That night, under a wintry moon, a long march of twenty-six miles was accomplished, the 7th Division and the French Marines acting as the rearguard.

After a brief rest the retreating forces turned south-south-east, the cavalry scouring the country in advance, and on the following evening reached Thielt,[33] where it was discovered that the pursuit had so greatly slackened that the weary men were enabled to get the first good sleep which they had enjoyed for several days. It is said that they owed this piece of good fortune to the mayor of one of the neighbouring towns, who deliberately sent the Germans off on a false scent. When the Germans discovered that they had been misdirected, the mayor was promptly shot.

On 13th October the Allies reached Thourout,[34] where they divided into two parts. Admiral Ronarc'h and his Marines, along with the Belgian forces which had been holding Ghent, moved west to the Yser, where they joined the remnants of the Belgian army which had retreated through Bruges. Here the undaunted King Albert, accompanied by his devoted wife, Queen Elizabeth, rejoined the exhausted army, and helped to reorganize it for the terrible struggles which lay before it. Meanwhile Sir Henry Rawlinson's forces pressed on southwards, and arrived at Roulers,[35] en route for Ypres, on 13th October, the day on which Lille fell into the hands of the Germans. By that time part of the German army which had been besieging Antwerp, and had been released for other operations when it fell, had swept through Bruges, and had occupied Ostend. German soldiers were seen strolling on the sands which in the early days of July had been crowded with laughing bathers and merry holiday-makers. Many of the German soldiers had never seen the sea before, and they gazed upon it with open-mouthed interest, straining their eyes in the vain attempt to see the shores of that island kingdom which was so steadfastly blocking their path to victory.

Mr. C. Underwood, an interpreter who was attached to the 7th Division, which played such an important part in the fighting retreat from Ghent, tells us[36] that it was the delay caused by sending back the transports of his division to Dover that prevented Sir Henry Rawlinson from marching to the relief of Antwerp.

"We left Roulers for Ypres," he says, "at 9.30 a.m. (October 14), and four Taubes flew over us on the road, but too high to be shot at. We arrived at Ypres at 6.30, and that evening I saw our first lot of allies, reserve dragoons dismounted in the square to receive us. The Germans had been through and stayed one night, the 7th, the day we landed at Zeebrugge. They had taken up their quarters in the famous riding school, and the first thing they had done was to break open the mess-room and cellars, and take out all the wine, after which they broke up everything and stole the mess-plate. When I saw it, a week later, the school was strewn with broken bottles—champagne, claret, port, etc., etc.—and every drawer and cupboard burst open and ransacked. They had cut all communications at the station, demanded an indemnity of 65,000 francs (£2,600), and stolen all the money they could lay hands on from the Banque National. Six thousand loaves were requisitioned in the evening to be ready next morning, failing which there was a penalty of £800 (20,000 francs). At 10.30 a.m. a Taube, with pilot and observer, had been brought down; but they were not captured till 4.30, as they concealed themselves in a wood. They were both brought in, furious with rage, as each was seized by the collar, and a revolver pointed at their heads by Belgian officers. They were driven off in a car at the rate of sixty miles an hour at least!

"Next day the whole brigade marched out to Halte on the Menin-Ypres road, dug trenches, and remained in them all night. It was pitch dark in the morning when we were ordered to attack a patrol of Germans towards Menin. About a quarter of a mile beyond Gheluvelt[37] we engaged advance party of Uhlans at 8.30 a.m. in a thick fog. A file of the Bedfords brought in a suspect, whose papers, not being in order, I escorted into Ypres. He was there detained at the town hall, and I heard no more of him. Had quite an amusing skirmish with the daughter of the proprietress of the hotel of the Three Kings. Feeling very hungry, I asked for lunch. She said she had nothing; asked for an egg, same reply; bread, the same; finally, in a fury at such disobliging conduct, I asked her whether she did not think herself most ungrateful, considering we were there to defend them against the Germans. This had the desired effect, and she asked me to come in, cooked me a splendid omelet, brought out a bottle of wine, and plenty of bread and cheese, for which she only charged me two francs."

On Sunday, the 18th, Mr. Underwood's brigade had its baptism of fire at a village a little to the north-east of Gheluvelt, where a British battery silenced the guns of the enemy. All night they waited for an attack, but the Germans left them alone until the morning. Then the fighting was continued, and thus began that series of desperate conflicts—"ten Waterloos a week"—known as the Battle of Ypres. I shall give you a full account of this gigantic struggle in a later chapter.

The enemy against whom the 7th Division was now fighting consisted of four reserve corps which had left Germany on 11th October. Three of the corps had assembled in Brussels, and without losing an hour had been sent on an eighty-mile march westwards. They largely consisted of Landwehr[38] and new volunteers, and ranged from boys of sixteen to stout gentlemen in middle life. Though quite new to the work of war, they soon showed themselves as desperate in attack as the most seasoned veterans. Mr. Underwood says: "On questioning one of the prisoners, he informed me that they were all Landwehr men, fathers of families, about the age of thirty-nine and forty, who had been called up quite recently. There was no doubt that the Germans were well equipped; all their clothes were in excellent order and brand new. They seemed relieved, and evidently overjoyed, when I told them that they would probably be sent to England. They were afraid that the report which had been made to them that we shot all prisoners was true."

CHAPTER VII.

THE LONG, THIN LINE OF STEEL AND VALOUR.

Let us look again at the sixty-mile stretch of country from Arras to the North Sea, the great danger zone during the month of October and for many months afterwards. An enemy advancing from Belgium and North France, desirous of capturing the coast of the Channel, and making himself master of the Strait of Dover, must cross this stretch of country in order to attain his object. You already know that a most determined effort was made by the Germans to push through the gap at Arras, from which the railways give access not only to the Channel ports but to Paris. As you are aware, General Maud'huy was able to say to the Germans, "No road this way."

Seventeen miles north of Arras we find the second passage by which the Channel ports may be reached by an army advancing westwards. You have already heard more than once of the town of La Bassée, which stands on the canal uniting Béthune with Lille. A great thrust through La Bassée would serve almost as well as a thrust through the Arras gap, for Béthune, which lies seven miles to the west, is the junction of two diverging railways, both of which lead to Boulogne. The more northerly of these lines has a branch which runs through the important railway centre of Hazebrouck[39] to Ypres. At Hazebrouck the St. Omer[40]-Ypres line meets the railway which comes westwards from Lille through Armentières to the coast. A little west of Hazebrouck this line subdivides: one route goes through St. Omer to Boulogne; the other runs north to Dunkirk, from which Calais and Boulogne may be reached by a line along the coast.

Examine this little railway map carefully, and you will see that if the Germans could make a thrust through the Allied lines at La Bassée they would soon be in possession of the two railway junctions of Béthune and Hazebrouck, which would give them no fewer than four lines of railway for their advance on the sea-coast. Had the Germans broken through at this point, the Allied forces to the north would have been overwhelmed. We shall soon learn that the sally-port at La Bassée was the scene of long and desperate struggles.

The third passage by which the enemy might capture the coast of North France and outflank the Allies at the same time is by way of the Yser Canal and the Ypres Canal. You have already learnt how Rawlinson's army tried to block the road to Ypres and how the Belgians withdrew to the line of the Yser in order to contest its passage. Rawlinson's force was far too small to resist the numbers which were hurled against it on and after the 18th of October, and the much-battered Belgians were far too exhausted to offer more than a feeble resistance to the forces of the enemy following hard on their heels. They were strengthened by some French Territorials, but even with this support they had to fall back behind the line of the Yser on the 16th.

Weary Belgian Soldiers resting on the Banks of the Yser River after their Retreat from Antwerp. Photo, Daily Mirror.

Now, while the gates at Arras and the Yser were thus being guarded by Allied forces too weak to do more than barely hold their own, what had happened at the middle gate of La Bassée? On 11th October, two days after the Germans made their triumphal march into Antwerp, General Smith-Dorrien and the Second Corps detrained, marched to the line of the La Bassée Canal, and took up a position along its southern bank. On their right were the French cavalry, linking them with Maud'huy's army; on the left were the brisk squadrons of Gough's cavalry, who were clearing the Germans from the wooded country to the north of the Lys. The Germans were holding the high ground south of La Bassée, where the French trenches had baffled Marlborough more than two hundred years before, and were in strong force on the road to Lille. That great industrial city had not yet fallen, so Sir John French decided to make a great effort to save it.

On the morning of the 12th, in a thick fog, the Second Corps wheeled on its right, and took up a new position facing east, its left resting on the Lys and its right on the canal north of Béthune. It then advanced eastward, finding its way much impeded by the difficult character of the ground. Our soldiers from the coal-mining districts of Great Britain found themselves in familiar country—amidst the large, straggling, connected villages, the pit-heads, refuse mounds, and factories of their own homeland. They had to advance across a flat country with a patchwork of fields and hop-gardens, hemmed in by high bedraggled hedges, and cut across by interminable ditches, with frequent canals by way of variety. The roads, which were lined by scraggy poplars, were narrow, and deep in mud owing to the heavy traffic. Through this flat, depressing country in which good gun positions were few and far between, the British marched to meet the Germans. By nightfall, however, they had made some progress amidst the slippery maze of the muddy dykes, and had driven back several counter-attacks, both by steady fire and by bayonet charges.

Next day the Second Corps began to wheel. It pivoted on the village of Givenchy,[41] which stands on the north bank of the canal, less than two miles due west of La Bassée, and endeavoured to get astride of the La Bassée-Lille road, so as to threaten the right flank and rear of the enemy's position on the high ground south of La Bassée. The enemy was found to be strongly entrenched, and supported by artillery in good positions. Before long the fighting was of the most desperate character. The British advanced across the marshy fields under a fierce and devastating fire with the utmost courage, fighting pitched battles in the villages, where every house had been loopholed and turned into a miniature fortress.

The Fighting about La Bassée.

Sketch map showing front held by the Second Corps on October 19, on night of October 22, and about mid-November 1914.

The 5th Division, on the right, bore the brunt of the deadly fray. At Pont Fixe, on the La Bassée canal near Givenchy, the Dorsets, led by their brave commander, Major Roper, fought hand-to-hand combats in the lanes between the houses, and drove the enemy headlong before them. The Germans then turned their guns on to the place, and tore it to fragments. High explosives and shrapnel were hurled on the village, until it seemed that no living thing could survive the deadly hail. When, however, the infantry attack was launched, the Dorsets were still there, but were sadly reduced in numbers. Though their leader was killed, they held on to the smoking ruins all day, and when nightfall came they were still in possession. One hundred and thirty killed and two hundred and seventy wounded was the price paid for this village on that blood-drenched day. The Bedfords, of the same brigade, fought their way to Givenchy, but were driven out again by heavy shell fire.

That night news arrived that Lille had fallen and was in possession of the 14th German Corps. Though Lille was lost La Bassée might be won, and the Second Corps now devoted its energies to the task. Next day the 3rd Division suffered a heavy loss. Sir Hubert Hamilton, its commander, was struck by a shrapnel bullet while riding along his lines, and fell from his horse a dead man. He was one of the most skilful and beloved of the younger generals, and his loss was greatly deplored. An eye-witness thus describes his burial in the village graveyard:—

"Owing to the proximity of the enemy absolute silence was observed, except for the low voice of the priest, advantage being taken of a lull in the attack. Just at the moment when the priest was saying the last prayer the guns began to roar again, and projectiles whistled over the heads of the mourners. The German attack was directed from a distance of a few hundred yards. The moment was well chosen, for the volleys fired by the troops of the Allies in honour of the dead, gloriously fallen for the common cause, were at the same time volleys of vengeance. Crackling reports of rifles continued round the ruined church, but the voice of the priest, reciting the last words of the requiem, lost nothing of its calm and clearness."

Next day the 3rd Division brilliantly avenged the loss of its leader. Sir John French tells us that they "fought splendidly," crossing with planks the dykes with which this country is intersected, and driving the enemy from one entrenched position to another in loopholed villages, till at night they pushed the Germans off the road leading from Estaires,[42] on the Lys, to La Bassée. On the 16th the division advanced its left flank in front of the village of Aubers,[43] which lies behind a ridge of high ground and a stream which joins the Lys at Armentières. Aubers was captured by the 19th Brigade on the following day, and late that evening the village of Herlies,[44] about a mile and a half to the south-east, was carried at the point of the bayonet by the 1st Lincolns and the 4th Royal Fusiliers.

The Second Corps was now within four miles of La Bassée. So far it had been opposed by German cavalry; now it found itself up against the main wall of German defence. "This position of La Bassée," records Sir John French, "has throughout the battle defied all attempts at capture." Powerful counter-attacks began the next day, and continued right up to the end of the month. Against the masses of Germans now concentrated against them the Second Corps could do nothing but stand on the defence. Most resolutely they held their lines until the end of the month, and again and again repulsed very heavy attacks, in which the Germans lost heavily and left large numbers of dead and prisoners behind them.

All this heavy work was now telling on the Second Corps, and their losses had been so heavy that Smith-Dorrien on the evening of the 22nd was obliged to withdraw his forces to lines of entrenchments which had been prepared on a line running from the eastern side of Givenchy to a village on the Béthune-Armentières road, some seven miles south-west of the latter town. There they settled down into their new trenches; but their lines were very thin, and had not every soldier in them done the work of ten men, they could never have held the position against the swarming masses of the enemy. One day, it is said, General French visited these lines, and talked with a colonel who was hard pressed. "We can't hold out much longer, sir," said the colonel; "it is impossible." "I want only men who can do the impossible," said French. "Carry on."

Before I conclude this account of the very gallant but unavailing attack of the Second Corps on La Bassée, I must tell you one or two incidents which occurred during the fighting in October. On the 19th Major Daniell and his Royal Irish Regiment found the enemy in the village of Le Pilly,[45] about a mile to the north of Herlies. Every house in the place had been loopholed, and line after line of trenches had been dug, so that the position was as strong as a fortress. With loud yells the Royal Irish dashed upon the place, and, in spite of the shrapnel that was rained on them, carried it by storm. They then entrenched themselves, and prepared to defend the village. But next day the gallant battalion was cut off by German supports from Lille, and was surrounded, after suffering heavy losses.

Very early on the morning of the 24th there was a fierce German attack upon our new lines, but owing to the skilful work of the artillery it came to naught. Towards evening there was another heavy attack, which the Wiltshires and Royal West Kents repulsed. Later on the Germans drove the Gordon Highlanders out of their trenches, but they were retaken by the Middlesex Regiment, gallantly led by Lieutenant Colonel Hull.

While our men were "hanging on by their eyelids, some one, I am told, looked back from a trench and saw a solitary outpost, a turbaned, cloaked figure of the desert, very startling in the green, peaceful landscape, riding over a hill. Behind him nodded the turbans of Sikh cavalry, and the British in the trenches, who seemed past emotion, waved their rifles and cheered." It was the advance guard of the Lahore Division of the Indian army coming in the nick of time to reinforce the hard-pressed men who had fought almost continuously for nearly a fortnight. The Indians had been resting and preparing for a winter campaign near Marseilles, and had long been eager to play their part side by side with their fellow Britons. A few days before, Sir James Willcocks, their commander, had addressed them as follows:—

"You are the descendants of men who have been mighty rulers and great warriors for many centuries. You will never forget this. You will recall the glories of your race. Hindu and Mohammedan will be fighting side by side with British soldiers and our gallant French allies. You will be helping to make history. You will be the first Indian soldiers of the King-Emperor who will have the honour of showing in Europe that the sons of India have lost none of their martial instincts and are worthy of the confidence reposed in them.

"In battle, you will remember that your religions enjoin on you that to give your life doing your duty is your highest reward. . . . You will fight for your King-Emperor and your faith, so that history will record the doings of India's sons, and your children will proudly tell of the deeds of their fathers."

This timely reinforcement was at once sent off to the support of the Second Corps.

We now know how a small army of much-tried Britons barred the way through the La Bassée postern and stretched a thin line of valour and steel northwards towards the Lys. I have still to tell you how the twelve-mile gap between Armentières and Ypres was closed. While the Second Corps was forming up near Béthune, the trains carrying the Third Corps were running into St. Omer. As each unit arrived it set out for Hazebrouck, and on the 13th the whole force moved eastwards towards the line of the Armentières-Ypres road, with the object of reaching Armentières, from which it could threaten Lille. Gough's cavalry lay to the north, and French cavalry to the south.

The French cavalry had already done much hard fighting. On 9th October it was discovered that German horsemen were holding the south bank of the Lys to the west of Estaires. They had covered the river crossings with machine guns, and had set up searchlights, which at night swept their broad beams along the northern bank. The French commander assembled his men at a point on the river where the current was very swift and the water deep. The Germans believed that the river could not be forded at this spot, and had not troubled to hold it strongly. At dusk a French trooper who was a good swimmer stripped, and, carrying with him one end of a light rope, plunged into the water and swam across the river. When he arrived on the south bank his comrades on the other side fastened a heavy rope to the end of the line which he was holding, and the dripping soldier hauled it across and tied it securely to the trunk of a tree. The other end of the rope was made fast in a similar way, and during the night, assisted by the rope, men and horses crossed the stream. At daybreak, when the Germans found that the French were on their bank of the river they retired rapidly towards Armentières.

In this force of French cavalry there was a champion rider, named Lieutenant Wallon. One day, during the cavalry fighting along the Lys two squadrons of the dragoons to which he was attached advanced across the fields in a thick mist to seize a river bridge at a village where there was an important crossing. The village was held by the enemy, and the French squadrons entrenched themselves in front of a small farmhouse, and beat off an attack, during which thirty Germans were shot. After an interval, eleven men in peasants' dress, with picks and spades over their shoulders, were seen advancing towards the French lines. Supposing that they were peaceful civilians, the French refrained from firing. When, however, these "peasants" were within forty yards or so of the trenches, they suddenly dropped their implements, and, drawing concealed revolvers, opened fire. A sergeant who stood by Lieutenant Wallon laughed as a bullet whistled by, and remarked that another Boche had missed him. The lieutenant, however, had fallen. The sergeant wished to carry him to a safe place in the rear; but the dying man said, "Leave me. A wounded man is worthless. Get back to the trench; you are wanted there." The trusty non-com. could not be persuaded to abandon his leader, and dragged him to the rear, where he shortly afterwards expired. The eleven disguised Germans were captured and shot; the bridge was taken, and the village occupied.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE WORK OF THE THIRD BRITISH CORPS.

The Third British Corps, commanded by General Pulteney, first came in contact with the German outposts at a village about a mile and a half west of Bailleul.[46] It was a day of heavy rain; the thick, steamy fog prevented the aircraft from scouting, and the water-logged fields were too much enclosed for cavalry to operate. The 10th Brigade, under General J. A. L. Haldane, were the first to attack, and they made a bayonet charge in which the 2nd Seaforths distinguished themselves. By nightfall the position was carried; the Germans were driven out, and the troops were entrenched, ready to attack Bailleul next day (14th October 1914). In the morning it was discovered that the enemy had retired. Bailleul was occupied, and the signs of German pillage were to be seen everywhere. Fourteen villagers had been shot, and the inmates of the lunatic asylum had been turned out of doors. These poor creatures wandered about the countryside for days, and many of them were afterwards found dead by the roadside or in the woods. No wonder a native bitterly said, "The Germans are not soldiers so much as brigands and assassins.'"

Some very fine deeds of gallantry were done during the first day's fighting. Sergeant E. Howard, of the 1st Royal Lancaster Regiment, discovered that twelve men of his platoon who were occupying a trench had ceased firing. Amidst a very heavy fire, he crawled up to them, and found that they were all dead! Sergeant G. A. Hodges, of the 2nd Essex Regiment, led his platoon into the firing line though shot through the shoulder; while Private C. Rowley, of the 1st Royal Warwickshire Regiment, crossed and recrossed from the firing line to the support trench, a distance of 300 yards, under a perfect hail of bullets, with ammunition for his hard-pressed comrades.

On the 15th the Third Corps was ordered to carry the line of the Lys from just below Estaires to Armentières. The enemy offered no serious opposition, and by evening the work was done. Next day Armentières was entered, and on the 17th the Third Corps held a line extending from three miles north to three miles south of the town. It was now discovered that the Germans were holding in strength the right bank of the Lys from a short distance below Armentières to within a couple of miles of Menin.

British Cavalry entering Warneton.

The enemy was posted behind a high loopholed barricade, which was blown to pieces by British guns; whereupon our cavalry entered the town, but could not maintain themselves within it.

Next day an effort was made to clear the Germans out of this position. Midway between Armentières and Menin is the little town of Warneton,[47] which was seized by Allenby's corps. "Eye-witness" thus describes an incident which occurred at the capture of the place:—

"An important crossing over the Lys at Warneton was strongly held by Germans, who at the entrance to the town had constructed a high barricade, loopholed at the bottom so that men could fire through it from a lying position. This formidable obstacle was encountered by a squadron of our cavalry. Nothing daunted, they obtained help from artillery, who man-hauled a gun into position, and blew the barricade to pieces, scattering the defenders. They then advanced some three-quarters of a mile into the centre of the town, where they found themselves in a large 'place.' They had hardly reached the farther end when one of the buildings suddenly appeared to leap skywards in a sheet of flame, a shower of star shells at the same time making the place as light as day, and enabling the enemy—who were ensconced in surrounding houses—to pour in a devastating fire from rifles and machine guns. Our cavalry managed to extricate themselves from this trap with the loss of only one officer, the squadron leader wounded, and nine men killed or wounded. But determining that none of their number should fall into the enemy's hands, a party of volunteers went back, and, taking off their boots in order to make no noise on the pavement, re-entered the inferno they had just left, and succeeded in carrying off their wounded comrades."

By this time the Third Corps found itself approaching the main German position, which was far too strong for it to attack with any prospect of success. Just about the time that the Second Corps was retiring to the line stretching from the eastern side of Givenchy northwards the Third Corps came to a standstill. It then lay across the Lys with a front of a dozen miles—an impossible length of line for one corps to hold. Both the Second and the Third Corps had reached the limit of their eastern advance.

Though they could not push forward any farther, they had closed the sally-ports at La Bassée and Armentières. One more link was necessary to connect the Third Corps with Rawlinson's force holding the eastern gate to Ypres. This was provided by the 1st and 2nd Cavalry Divisions, under General Allenby. The 1st Division (Gough's), as we have seen, had cleared much of the country along the Lys, and had secured a footing on the right bank below Armentières. On the 14th it moved north to join the 2nd Division, which had pushed back invading bands in the neighbourhood of Cassel and Hazebrouck.

Thus the line was established. Half formed, weak, and insecure, it nevertheless extended from the La Bassée Canal to the sea, and though it was opposed by overwhelming odds, it barred the western road to the Germans. The weakest place in it was the bulge in front of Ypres, where Rawlinson's harassed and overstretched division was fighting for its life. Every day the enemy flung new forces against it. More and more Germans were rushed along the Belgian railroads to overwhelm it. "They seemed to rain down on us everywhere," said a spectator; "but most of all they rained on that weak point to our left."

In Chapter VI. I gave you an outline of the doings of Rawlinson's men in Belgium. You there learned how they retreated from Ghent to Roulers, and how the cavalry division reconnoitred all the country towards Ypres and Menin, while the 7th Division battled with four reserve corps of Germans, who on the 18th of October were on the line Roulers-Menin. Rawlinson had a very difficult task to perform. He had to operate on a very wide front, and to encounter very superior forces; yet Sir John French could not spare a man to reinforce him. Sir John was very eager to get possession of Menin, for he thought it a very important point of passage which would greatly help the advance of the rest of the army. He therefore ordered Rawlinson on the 18th to advance his 7th Division, and try to seize the crossing of the Lys at Menin, so as to cut the German communications between Ghent and Lille.

Rawlinson replied that large bodies of the enemy were advancing upon him from the east and north-east, and that his left flank was in danger. With his weak troops he dared not attempt such a task. Sir John tells us that Rawlinson was probably wise in not trying to capture Menin, but that the loss of it greatly helped the enemy to bring up reinforcements, and put an end to any further British advance.

You have probably been wondering where the First Corps was at this time. You last heard of it on the Aisne; so far it had not been seen in Flanders. It did not arrive at Hazebrouck until October 19. While it was detraining, Sir John had some very hard thinking to do. Should he use the First Corps to reinforce the Second and Third Corps, and thus secure the ground already won on the right, or should he send it to help Rawlinson? Between the British left and the Franco-Belgian right there was "a place where the weak spot in the bladder might bulge, and, bulging too much, break." Sir John French, "with the air," some one has said, "of a business man closing a deal," made his decision, and turned in for a little sleep. He chose to let the Second and the Third Corps continue to do the impossible. He sent the First Corps to the line about the city which has given name to this whole series of actions—Ypres. It incorporated what was left of Rawlinson's force, then prepared to dig in and hold on.

The Allied Line from La Bassée to the Sea about October 20.

CHAPTER IX.

STIRRING STORIES OF ANXIOUS DAYS.

In this chapter I am going to give you a selection of stories which illustrate the fighting from the fall of Antwerp down to the 20th of October 1914. Our first story tells how a British lady in her own yacht carried off many refugees from Ostend while the enemy was actually in the town.

Miss Jessica Borthwick steering the Grace Darling out of Ostend Harbour.

(Photo, Sport and General.)

"At nine," says a newspaper correspondent, "we interviewed the official in charge at the burgomaster's office. 'Fly,' he said tersely. 'The Germans will be here, perhaps, in ten minutes.'... I had already arranged a retreat. At ten o'clock we went on board the Grace Darling, a schooner yacht which for the past weeks has been working the British Field Hospital in Belgium. She was chartered and fitted out for the purpose by Miss Jessica Borthwick at her own expense. As will appear, the Grace Darling was by three hours the last vessel out of Ostend....

"The Germans were now half a mile away, and we were lying well down in the almost empty harbour. It became necessary to get our auxiliary engine going, and make out at least as far as the harbour mouth. At a quarter-past ten the first Germans appeared—a patrol of Uhlans—trotting across the bridge that leads into the town from the Blankenberghe road.

"At this critical moment the fact emerged that the man who had shipped as a first-class engineer to work our engine for us was not an engineer at all, but an organ-grinder! The organ-grinder's efforts to start the engine were deplorable, and we were so placed we could not get a breath of wind for the sails. The decks of the little yacht were covered with refugees—Belgian fathers, women, and children. They watched with a stricken calm a second and a third Uhlan patrol cross the bridge. Two escaped soldiers in plain clothes who had come on board dropped their uniforms into the water . . .

"Every moment we were expecting the appearance of the Germans on the pier. Soon after midday we sailed at a majestic one mile per hour out of the harbour with the British flag flying. Past the pierhead we found some wind, actually got the engine started, and ploughed away at a cheerful ten knots. A mile out we anchored, to await developments. Through our glasses we saw four Uhlans standing like statues staring out to sea. From over the horizon came racing a torpedo boat, got the news, and promptly poked her nose into the harbour to see for herself. After five minutes she backed out, and went away swiftly. Thereafter Miss Borthwick and several correspondents, including myself, decided on a scouting expedition of our own in the launch. We plunged ahead through the green and lifting waves, raising a fine spray, till we were within a few hundred yards of the digue.[48] There we saw four Germans running across a little triangle of sandy beach and up on to the pier. We hung on for a moment, anxious as to what would happen next.

"The Germans ran along the pier, the end of which was only two hundred yards from us. When we saw them taking cover among the little buildings at the end of the pier we considered it time to bolt. Promptly the Germans fired a wide shot, and signalled to us to come in, but we made for the open sea. Then they opened fire seriously. We lay as flat as we could—which was not very flat, for we were tightly packed in the tiny boat—and scooted. Two of the Germans were kneeling down with their rifles resting on the rail at the end of the pier, and two standing up.

"It was an extremely uncomfortable four minutes before we were out of range. They fired rapidly, but did not even hit the boat, though they were very close above and beside us. We regained the Grace Darling, raised anchor, and at once made for sea."

Here is a description of one of the French regiments which fought so bravely under Maud'huy against the Bavarians round about Arras:—

"They have come a long way down the straight roads between the hills, and there is dust in their eyes and throats, and they have arrived at that moment in the march when the pack weighs heaviest, when the shoulder-straps begin to rub, when the rifle seems to wear a hole in the shoulder, and when the shoe begins to pinch. The best-hearted man in the regiment knows that it is the time for a little joke. He begins to speak about his captain, who is walking a yard away from him. 'Our captain grows a little fat, I think, my little ones.' 'Yes,' says a comrade, taking up the joke; 'it is possible that he has been eating too much.' 'And he has a great thirst, I am told,' says a third man. 'It is marvellous what a thirst our captain has! Three bottles of red wine are hardly enough to wet his throat.' 'He gets too old for war;' and so the joke goes on, every word of which is heard by the captain, who finally bursts into laughter, and says, 'You are impudent rascals, all of you.' The bad moment has passed. The weight of the pack is forgotten, and presently the baritone of the regiment sings the first line of a marching song. The chorus goes lilting down the long white road between the poplar sentinels."

Few stories have appeared with reference to the fighting round La Bassée. A dispatch rider says: "There was one brigade there that had a past. It had fought at Mons[49] and Le Cateau,[50] and then plugged away cheerfully through the Retreat and the Advance. What was left of it had fought stiffly on the Aisne. Some hard marching, a train journey, more hard marching, and it was thrown into action at La Bassée. There it fought itself to a standstill. It was attacked and attacked until, shattered, it was driven back one wild night. It was rallied, and, turning on the enemy, held them. More hard fighting, a couple of days' rest, and it staggered into action at Ypres, and somehow—no one knows how—it held its bit of line. A brigade called by the same name, consisting of the same regiments, commanded by the same general, but containing scarce a man of those who had come out in August, marched very proudly away from Ypres, and went—not to rest, but to hold another bit of the line.

"And this brigade was not the Guards' Brigade. There were no picked men in the brigade. It contained just four ordinary regiments of the line—the Norfolks, the Bedfords, the Cheshires, and the Dorsets. What the 15th Brigade did other brigades have done."

You have just heard of the splendid endurance of the Dorsets. Here is another story concerning their doings. It is told by Private Cornelius O'Leary. "We encountered the Germans when they were making one of their fiercest attacks in their efforts to get through to Cálais. There were eight companies of us (1st Dorset Regiment), numbering 120 officers and men apiece, and the fight took place in a very large turnip field. The German artillery was in front of us, and the Maxim fire was on the right and left. It was impossible for us to make trenches, so we had to place our packs in front of us, and do the best we could. We were often outnumbered by ten to one, as the Germans were almost continually being reinforced. But we defeated them with heavy loss."

Armoured motor cars, equipped with machine guns, played an important part during the fighting of October. "In their employment", says "Eye-witness," "our gallant allies the Belgians, who are now fighting with us, and acquitting themselves nobly, have shown themselves to be experts. They appear to regard Uhlan-hunting as a form of sport. The crews display the utmost dash and skill in this form of warfare, often going out several miles ahead of their own advanced troops, and seldom failing to return loaded with spoils in the shape of Lancer caps, busbies, helmets, lances, rifles, and other trophies, which they distribute as souvenirs to crowds in the market places of frontier towns."

No man fought an armoured motor car more gallantly and successfully than Commander Sampson, the famous airman. "He is," says a correspondent, "the will o' the wisp of the British army, and he peppers the Germans according to his fancy, from aeroplane, armoured motor car, or armoured train." On one occasion two machine guns continually annoyed our advanced trenches. Eventually they were discovered; one was in a windmill, the other in a neighbouring cottage. Commander Sampson took out an armoured car with a three-pounder quick-firing gun, and one morning the Germans were surprised to see a low slate-coloured car come rushing out of the British lines, followed by heavy but rather wild rifle fire. The Germans naturally thought that the car was one of their own attempting to escape from the British, so they refrained from firing on it. Just as the car appeared to be about to enter the German lines it pulled up. In fifteen seconds the windmill, with its machine gun and crew, was blown to pieces by the shells from the quick-firer, and before the astonished Germans could collect themselves the gun had swung round, and more shells had crashed into the cottage, which was soon destroyed. Then the car shot back to the British lines, to be received not with rifle fire, but with a loud burst of cheering. It is said that the Kaiser was so exasperated at Commander Sampson's successful daring in this and many other adventures, that he offered a reward of £1,000 to any German soldier who could kill him.

The Arrows of Death.

It was during the month of October that we first learnt of the new weapon served out to our flying corps. It consists of an arrow-shaped missile of steel like a pointed lead pencil. A mechanical device spreads these missiles out as they fall from the aeroplane, so that they cover an area of about 200 square yards when dropped from a height of 500 yards. From this height the arrow of death will pass right through a man's body.

"Eye-witness" tells us that "an easy capture was effected by an engineer telegraph linesman. Returning in the dark after repairing some air lines which had been cut by shell fire, he was passing through a wood, when his horse shied at some figures crouching in a ditch. He called out, 'Come out of it!' whereupon to his surprise three German cavalrymen emerged and surrendered. He marched them back to his headquarters."

An action fought near a village less than a mile to the north of Armentières was brought about by a pig. The British and German trenches were so near that the soldiers talked with each other, made jokes, and even learnt the names of their opponents. One day a pig walked on to the strip of land between the trenches. British and Germans alike shot at him, and down he fell. Both sides wanted the pig, for roast pig is a pleasant change from the dull and tasteless round of ordinary rations. But how was he to be got in? To go out to fetch him meant instant death. Five daring soldiers lost their lives over that pig, and still he lay unreclaimed between the trenches.

There was a big fellow in the German trench named Hans Müller. He crept out of his trench in the night, tied a rope to the pig's leg, and crawled back to his trench unhurt. The Germans waited till morning came, so that the British might see their triumph, and then began hauling in the pig. It was a bitter moment for the British, and the Germans did not forget to rejoice loudly in their success. But the British had their revenge: two nights later they took that German trench with the bayonet. That is how they made things even.

The dispatch rider already quoted tells us that spies were very busy in and behind our lines. "I heard a certain story, which I give as an illustration and not as a fact. There was once an artillery brigade billeted in a house two miles or so behind the lines. All the inhabitants of the house had fled, for the village had been heavily bombarded. Only a girl had had the courage to remain, and to act as hostess to the British. She was fresh and charming, clever at cooking, and modest in manner. Now, it was noticed that our guns could not be moved without the Germans knowing their new position. No transports or ammunition limbers were safe from their guns. The girl was told of the trouble; she was angry and sympathetic, and swore that through her the spy would be discovered. She spoke the truth."

One night a man, who had his suspicions, saw the girl go into a cellar as if to bring up coal. He followed her, and, groping about in the dark, touched a wire. Quickly running his hand along it, he came to a telephone. The truth was now out. The Germans were receiving their information from the girl, who posed as the friend of the British. In a few hours she suffered the usual fate of spies.